September 2, 2008
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This one got me.
But, in recognition of Republican week, I don’t have a problem with having the infamous George III smirk atop this post.
I might have a problem with the thesis, but it’s worth exposing, since it represents a point of view that had never occurred to yr (justifiably) humble svt.
A Truman for our times
The received wisdom is that President Bush has been a foreign policy disaster, and that America is threatened by the rise of Asia. Both claims are wrong—Bush has successfully rolled back jihadism, and the US will benefit from Asian growth
That George W Bush’s foreign policy has been a total failure is now taken for granted by so many people that one usually hears it stated as a simple truth that need not be argued at all.
It has happened before. When President Harry S Truman said in March 1952 that he would not seek re-election, most Americans could agree on one thing: that his foreign policy had been a catastrophic failure. In Korea his indecision had invited aggression, and then his incompetence had cost the lives of some 54,000 Americans and millions of Korean civilians in just two years of fighting—on both counts more than ten times the number of casualties in Iraq. Right-wingers reviled Truman for having lost China to communism and for his dismissal of the great General Douglas MacArthur, who had wanted to win it back, with nukes if necessary. Liberals despised Truman because he was the failed shopkeeper who had usurped the patrician Franklin Roosevelt’s White House—liberals always were the snobs of US politics.
Abroad, Truman was widely hated too. The communist accusation that he had waged “bacteriological warfare” to kill Korean children and destroy Chinese crops was believed by many, and was fully endorsed by a 669-page report issued by a commission chaired by the eminent British biochemist Joseph Needham. Even more people believed that Truman was guilty of having started the cold war by trying to intimidate our brave Soviet ally, or at least that he and Stalin were equally to blame.
How did this same Harry Truman come to be universally viewed as a great president, especially for his foreign policy? It is all a question of time perspectives: the Korean war is half forgotten, while everyone now knows that Truman’s strategy of containment was successful and finally ended with the almost peaceful disintegration of the Soviet empire.
For Bush to be recognised as a great president in the Truman mould, the Iraq war too must become half forgotten. The swift removal of the murderous Saddam Hussein was followed by years of expensive violence instead of the instant democracy that had been promised. To confuse the imam-ridden Iraqis with Danes or Norwegians under German occupation, ready to return to democracy as soon as they were liberated, was not a forgivable error: before invading a country, a US president is supposed to know if it is in the middle east or Scandinavia.
Yet the costly Iraq war must also be recognised as a sideshow in the Bush global counteroffensive against Islamist militancy, just as the far more costly Korean war was a sideshow to global cold war containment. For the Bush response to 9/11 was precisely that—a global attack against the ideology of Islamic militancy. While anti-terrorist operations have been successful here and there in a patchy way, and the fate of Afghanistan remains in doubt, the far more important ideological war has ended with a spectacular global victory for President Bush.
First thing you have to do when confronting an essay such as this is to consider the source.
Edward Luttwak is one controversial bloke. Even Luttwak’s biography in Wikipedia is controversial.
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Posted by mudge
August 14, 2008
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MUDGE’s Musings
In case current events in the nation of Georgia haven’t made the fact crystal clear, yr (justifiably) humble svt is unhappy to inform you that the U.S. military hasn’t exactly covered itself in glory over the past nearly 20 years since the end of the Cold War.
And the diplomatic corps has similarly shown itself to be overstressed and undermanned.
Nicholas Kristof made the point this past weekend: the U.S. has more musicians in its military bands than it has diplomats!
And what Kristof’s story omits, due to rapidly breaking events, is the failure of both U.S. diplomacy and U.S. military strength during the Russian invasion of Georgia this past week.
Military strength? Well, we can’t simultaneously put sufficient boots on the ground to meet our objectives in Iraq and Afghanistan, much less come to the aid of a strategically critical ally, Georgia.
Diplomacy? A strong diplomatic corps might have foreseen (yes, hindsight is always 20:20) that Georgia was simultaneously taking U.S. and NATO support as more than words, while underestimating Vladimir Putin’s urge for regained empire, and warned Mikheil Saakashvili away from his adventuristic invasion of South Ossettia.
Or a diplomatic arm with some heft might have been able to forestall, or at least mitigate, Russia’s response. Putin may now be emboldened to exercise his brand of “diplomacy” over other, West-leaning, former states of the old Soviet empire, and the U.S. will be hard pressed to protect them, diplomatically or militarily, if it even figures out that this would be a useful strategy.
But George III is a happy warrior, as befits a civilian who took giant steps to avoid substantive military service, and diplomacy apparently doesn’t mean much to him, or it appears, to Congress.
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Posted by mudge
July 31, 2008
![dreamstime_4341351_thumb[1]](https://mudge.files.wordpress.com/2008/07/dreamstime-4341351-thumb1-thumb.jpg?w=398&h=267)
© Michaeljung | Dreamstime.com
MUDGE’s Musings
We observe the first anniversary of the tragic collapse of the I-35W bridge in Minneapolis (August 1, 2007) with some sadness, and furious anger.
Sadness due to the thirteen lives lost, and 100+ injured.
Anger because the danger embodied in this country’s aging and dilapidated bridges, highways, levees and schools is criminally no closer to alleviation than 366 days ago.
Meanwhile, the economy is faltering: banks are failing, foreclosures are at record highs (three million empty houses!), the ranks of under- and unemployed growing apace.
What is it going to take to repair this country’s infrastructure osteoporosis?
What is it going to take to kick start the economy, to get people working and once again able to meet their mortgage obligations, perhaps even afford that $4.299/gallon gasoline?
It’s going to take a liberal quantity of bold.
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Posted by mudge
July 21, 2008
MUDGE’s Musings
Frank Rich of the NYTimes eviscerated John McCain over both his supposed area of expertise, military affairs, as well as Sen. McCain’s admitted area of weakness, matters economic. It wasn’t pretty.
It’s the Economic Stupidity, Stupid
Op-Ed Columnist | By FRANK RICH | Published: July 20, 2008
THE best thing to happen to John McCain was for the three network anchors to leave him in the dust this week while they chase Barack Obama on his global Lollapalooza tour. Were voters forced to actually focus on Mr. McCain’s response to our spiraling economic crisis at home, the prospect of his ascension to the Oval Office could set off a panic that would make the IndyMac Bank bust in Pasadena look as merry as the Rose Bowl.
“In a time of war,” Mr. McCain said last week, “the commander in chief doesn’t get a learning curve.” Fair enough, but he imparted this wisdom in a speech that was almost a year behind Mr. Obama in recognizing Afghanistan as the central front in the war against Al Qaeda. Given that it took the deadliest Taliban suicide bombing in Kabul since 9/11 to get Mr. McCain’s attention, you have to wonder if even General Custer’s learning curve was faster than his.
Mr. McCain still doesn’t understand that we can’t send troops to Afghanistan unless they’re shifted from Iraq. But simple math, to put it charitably, has never been his forte. When it comes to the central front of American anxiety — the economy — his learning curve has flat-lined.
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Posted by mudge
July 13, 2008
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MUDGE’S Musings
Those looking for the smoking guns on torture and the mishandled war on terrorism within the Bush administration seem to have found them.
Frank Rich has a must read column in today’s NYTimes, reviewing “The Dark Side” by Jane Mayer, to be published July 15.
Seems like the book is going to be a must read, also.
The Real-Life ‘24’ of Summer 2008
Op-Ed Columnist | By FRANK RICH | Published: July 13, 2008
WE know what a criminal White House looks like from “The Final Days,” Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein’s classic account of Richard Nixon’s unraveling. The cauldron of lies, paranoia and illegal surveillance boiled over, until it was finally every man for himself as desperate courtiers scrambled to save their reputations and, in a few patriotic instances, their country.
“The Final Days” was published in 1976, two years after Nixon abdicated in disgrace. With the Bush presidency, no journalist (or turncoat White House memoirist) is waiting for the corpse to be carted away. The latest and perhaps most chilling example arrives this week from Jane Mayer of The New Yorker, long a relentless journalist on the war-on-terror torture beat. Her book “The Dark Side” connects the dots of her own past reporting and that of her top-tier colleagues (including James Risen and Scott Shane of The New York Times) to portray a White House that, like its prototype, savaged its enemies within almost as ferociously as it did the Constitution….
In the name of defending against terrorism, the Bush administration has systematically violated the law, and the evidence is finally exposed to the light of day.
Nixon parallels take us only so far, however. “The Dark Side” is scarier than “The Final Days” because these final days aren’t over yet and because the stakes are much higher. Watergate was all about a paranoid president’s narcissistic determination to cling to power at any cost. In Ms. Mayer’s portrayal of the Bush White House, the president is a secondary, even passive, figure, and the motives invoked by Mr. Cheney to restore Nixon-style executive powers are theoretically selfless. Possessed by the ticking-bomb scenarios of television’s “24,” all they want to do is protect America from further terrorist strikes.
So what if they cut corners, the administration’s last defenders argue. While prissy lawyers insist on habeas corpus and court-issued wiretap warrants, the rest of us are being kept safe by the Cheney posse.
But are we safe? As Al Qaeda and the Taliban surge this summer, that single question is even more urgent than the moral and legal issues attending torture.
Thus the illustration at the top of this post. In fact, some top administration officials, past or present, have been warned publicly not to travel outside the U.S., due to international war crimes court exposure!
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Posted by mudge
June 2, 2008
MUDGE’s Musings
We have devoted a number of posts in this space to topics military. And why not? We are fighting wars in two far-away nations simultaneously, and have done so for nearly seven years.
That’s quite expensive, and it has been downright draining of our expensively trained manpower.
But, beyond the cost of prosecuting the “global war on terror,” we have been spending overwhelmingly on defense programs that, while lucrative to the home states of the military contractors and their congressional representatives, are impossible for a rational thinker to justify based on the nature of current and future threats.
Making this point most eloquently in an opinion piece in the LATimes was Robert Scheer, of truthdig.com.
Indefensible spending
America’s massive military budget is irrational, costly and dangerous. Why isn’t it a campaign issue?
By Robert Scheer |June 1, 2008
What should be the most important issue in this election is one that is rarely, if ever, addressed: Why is U.S. military spending at the highest point, in inflation-adjusted dollars, than at any time since the end of World War II? Why, without a sophisticated military opponent in sight, is the United States spending trillions of dollars on the development of high-tech weapons systems that lost their purpose with the collapse of the Soviet Union two decades ago?
You wouldn’t know it from the most-exhausting-ever presidential primary campaigns, but the 2009 defense budget commits the United States to spending more (again, in real dollars) to defeat a ragtag band of terrorists than it spent at the height of the Cold War fighting the Soviet superpower and what we alleged were its surrogates in the Korean and Vietnam wars.
The Pentagon’s budget for fiscal year 2008 set a post-World War II record at $625 billion, and that does not include more than $100 billion in other federal budget expenditures for homeland security, nuclear weapons and so-called black budget — or covert — operations.
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Posted by mudge
May 6, 2008
MUDGE’s Musings
Well, most of our robotic forces are air forces these days, but we keep learning about “spiders” and the like that are meant to assist ground troops.
It’s not just about protecting precious lives, although heaven knows that should be a sufficient rationale for investing in this sci-fi like technology.
It’s about substituting for Army and Marine ground troops that simply aren’t available.
Fred Kaplan, who writes most cogently on military affairs for Slate.com, has an intriguing analysis.
The Army’s Math Problem
We don’t have any more soldiers to send to Afghanistan unless we take some out of Iraq.
By Fred Kaplan | Posted Monday, May 5, 2008, at 4:56 PM ET
Secretary of Defense Robert Gates wants to send 7,000 more U.S. troops—about two brigades—to Afghanistan, according to the May 3 New York Times. But there’s a problem, which the story underplays: We don’t have any more troops to send. The Army is in a zero-sum state: No more soldiers can be sent to Afghanistan without a one-for-one reduction of soldiers in Iraq.
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3 Comments | "War on Terrorism", Afghanistan, Air Force, Army, Geopolitics, Iraq occupation, Marines, Military affairs, Technology, War | Tagged: Afghanistan, Bush-Cheney-Rumsfeld, Fred Kaplan, Iraq, Kurdistan, Slate.com, troop shortage, war on drugs | Permalink
Posted by mudge
March 23, 2008
MUDGE’s Musings
This nanocorner of the ‘Sphere© is always intrigued when one of its obsessions interests pops up as news.
Danger Room is a military affairs blog (part of Wired.com) we don’t check into sufficiently often, but today we were rewarded with a new Predator tale.
The changing face of military aviation
ninth in an occasional series
The series so far…
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4 Comments | Afghanistan, Air Force, Aviation, Iraq occupation, Military affairs, Technology, War | Tagged: Afghanistan, asymmetric warfare, Bush, Cheney, chickenhawk, General Atomics, Iraq, MQ-1, MQ-9, Predator, Reaper, Rumsfeld, U.S. Air Force, UAV | Permalink
Posted by mudge
March 11, 2008
MUDGE’s Musings
A good one gets away, while sleazy politics and politicians linger.
Unaccustomed as I am to following the news moment by moment, I did find myself cruising CNN.com more than usual (i.e., usual = never! exception? election night) awaiting the axe to fall on Eliot Spitzer’s governorship.
Life happened while waiting for something else: Admiral William F. Fallon, head of U.S. Central Command, resigned today.
It took an IM from my ex-naval officer son to open my eyes to the tragic implications. He directed me to a profile of Fallon that appeared last week in Esquire, which was hurriedly updated this afternoon.
The Man Between War and Peace
By Thomas P.M. Barnett | March 11, 2008, 3:10 PM
The Bush Administration wanted a war with Iran. The head of U.S. Central Command, Admiral William “Fox” Fallon, disagreed. And now, as of March 11, Fallon has resigned.
That’s the update: here’s the story. Read about an amazingly accomplished diplomat in uniform.
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Posted by mudge
February 17, 2008
MUDGE’S Musings
Mark Benjamin, writing in Salon.com, opened our eyes this weekend with an exclusive look inside the U.S. Air Force’s operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.
And the illuminating article allows this nanocorner of the ‘Sphere© to return to an abiding interest, what’s going on up there in the sky?
The changing face of military aviation
eighth in an occasional series
The series so far…
The videogame theme has struck yr (justifiably) humble svt before. Take a look.
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3 Comments | Afghanistan, Air Force, Aviation, Iraq occupation, Technology, War | Tagged: Afghanistan, China, Iraq, Mark Benjamin, military aviation, modern warfare, Predator, Salon, Staples, The Law of Armed Conflict, U.S. Air Force, UAV, unmanned aerial vehicle, videogames, World of Warcraft | Permalink
Posted by mudge
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Left-handed Complement 