re: "Civilizational War 10 Years After 9-11: Can the West Recover?"

Glen Tschirgi at Captain's Journal ("dedicated to the dissemination of conservative views, based on a solidly and consistently conservative world view, on matters political and military") put things into historical context.

(Not enough of this going around, IMHO.)

Money quote(s):


"I would differ with Rubin that Al Qaeda did not succeed in becoming the leader in worldwide jihad. Clearly, in the immediate aftermath of 9-11, Al Qaeda was easily the most visible terror group and most heralded in the Islamist world. The fact that Al Qaeda has suffered a disproportionate number of decapitation operations by the U.S. does not mean that it did not accomplish its goal of jihadi leadership. In fact, it could be argued that Al Qaeda has succeeded brilliantly in this regard to the extent that the U.S. has been distracted from fighting other no-less dangerous groups which share the wider goals of Islamist domination of the West." (Bold typeface added for emphasis. - CAA.)

In some cases, not only do we not fight them, we actively negotiate with and reward them. Smart diplomacy? Mebbe; but more like lack of clarity with the whole aims/goals part of Grand Strategy.

(Oh, and an inability to talk about or name ones self-proclaimed enemies.)

"While it is true that Al Qaeda carried out the attacks of September 11, 2001, those attacks were merely a manifestation of what has been a perpetual civilizational conflict between Islam and the West since the militant spread of Islam after 632 A.D. The militant strain of Islam has always sought to expand and dominate non-muslim peoples and it always will."

It's not a bug (in the Koran and in Sharia), it's a feature. The whole expansionist scheme constitutes an interlocking and reinforcing web of a reality-tunnel.

"We seem to be making a fundamental mistake in the West when we fail to see the broader context of the struggle. September 11, 2001 was not a “tragedy” but an act of war. A tactical strike by militant Islam at the financial, military and (it was hoped) political heart of the West. And it was not the first such strike. Militant Islam has been on the march in modern times since at least 1979 with the founding of the theocratic state of Iran."

The Iranian Revolution marked definitively the turning point from a century or so of Islamist decline; I suppose you could mark that as having, definitively, begun with Napoleon invading Egypt, but both those points are semi-arbitrary.

"(T)he muslim world is quickly turning (or, more exactly, re-turning) to militant Islam as a means of forcing an expansion of power, in the Middle East in the short term and in Europe and even North America in the long term. This is not some new phenomenon to any student of history but a continuation of a struggle between two civilizations: one based upon Greek and Roman thoughts of law and liberty with Christian overlays (Western democracy) and one based upon the all-encompassing rule of the Koran which sublimates the individual in every aspect of life. The two cultures are thoroughly incompatible and the history of the world has shown that peace has only, ever reigned between the two when Islam was too weak to force its will upon the West.

This, then, should be the take-away from 9-11: we are in a desperate struggle for civilizational survival that is being fought on the battlefield, certainly, but also in the courtroom, in the media, in politically correct driven government policy and think tanks, and in the very essence of our culture— how we view our basic freedoms and the means we are willing to employ to cherish and defend them."

Fortunately, our civilization's strategic thinkers do have an understanding that national power, and warfare, is multidimensional, even if our media and our politicians often do not. Do you suppose there's some way to get these people to talk to one another?

"It is too frightening. The risk of being called xenophobic, or Islamophobic or chauvinistic is too intimidating. So we will fight where we find it convenient to fight. Drone attacks that take out an Al Qaeda leader but leave in peace Iranian leaders who have killed far more Americans than Al Qaeda or the Taliban. We will look for the first opportunity to declare victory, as when Osama Bin Laden was killed, but ignore the mortal threats to peace and economic security posed by a nuclear Iran or a growing Hezbollah or Hamas. We will sacrifice precious blood and treasure gaining great victories in Iraq and Afghanistan only to throw it away in hasty withdrawals under the smokescreen of “transition.” "

Fighting where it's convenient isn't always a bad thing. Picking your battles is often a good thing. Still, declarations that victory has been won should be as quickly ridiculed as those which declared "Mission Accomplished!"

9/11

re: "Preparing for Defense Budget Cuts"

Herschel Smith at The Captain's Journal ("dedicated to the dissemination of conservative views, based on a solidly and consistently conservative world view, on matters political and military") ponders defense spending and America's geo-strategery.

Money quote(s):

"I have always been a proponent of wise defense spending, and cutting where there is no reasonably feasible return on investment"

Congressional pork-barrelling notwithstanding, defense spending really isn't about spending money in everyone's district, or shouldn't have been (but is).

"Defense Secretary Leon Panetta has indeed warned against sweeping defense cuts"

Note the caveats with which Mr. Hershel follows that statement.

"(I)f we fail to stop Iran’s increased hegemony in the Middle East, if we fail to prevent Iran from going nuclear, if our military power and resolve isn’t sufficient to prevent Russia from invading Georgia again, if we relinquish the Pacific to growing Chinese Naval provocations, if we fail to deal a decisive blow to the Taliban and al-Qaeda aligned fighters in the AfPak region, there will be war. Israel cannot allow Iran to develop a nuclear weapon. Eastern Europe is looking to the U.S. for direction, and our abandonment of a missile defense shield was indication that we aren’t serious about their security, much less entry into NATO. Russia is back up to their dirty tricks, and is poised to conduct yet another assault into Ossetia, and the Chinese still want Formosa."

That paragraph is a good a brief statement of America's current strategic challenges as any I have seen and is arguably better than some of the multipage national strategic papers with which the defense and intelligence communities have saddled themselves with.

"America has benefited from the defense doctrine of fighting our battles away from the homeland rather than allowing the threat to land on our own shores before we confront it. Troops are currently deployed in more than 100 countries, and while it may be a tantalizing prospect to withdraw from the entire world and focus inward, we should be careful what we advocate. It will be much more difficult to recreate that military presence and deterrent that it was to dismantle it, regardless of how much money we throw at the problems once they have become obvious.

Cuts are coming. That which cannot continue, won’t. That which cannot be sustained will fall by the wayside. The question is whether America will address the growing entitlement state, however painful, or retreat from the world, also painful, just in a completely different ways, and perhaps permanently."

Writers of speculative fiction such as John Birmingham have already started to make oodles of cash by considering just what a world without America, as a metaphor for American engagement in the world, would be like. Entertaining reading, but quite ghastly in long stretches.

re: "Israel, Petraeus and Iran"

Herschel Smith at The Captain's Journal ("dedicated to the dissemination of conservative views, based on a solidly and consistently conservative world view, on matters political and military") presents some optimistic analysis.

Money quote(s):

"We must remove the radical Mullahs or support those who would in order to avoid a regional conflagration in the near term. Everyone in the State Department already knows this, or if they don’t, they aren’t qualified to be in the employ of the government. I’m not quite sure which group is larger. One year and four months ago I forecasted that “the State Department will begin the administration will high hopes, excitement and grand ambitions for the role of diplomacy, negotiations and multi-lateral talks. By the end of the administration, a general malaise and confusion will have descended upon the entire State Department, and yet there will still be sparse and shallow understanding of why negotiations have so miserably failed to prevent or ameliorate the various calamities for which they were targeted.”"

re: "Contractors Tied to Effort to Track and Kill Militants"

Herschel Smith at The Captain's Journal ("dedicated to the dissemination of conservative views, based on a solidly and consistently conservative world view, on matters political and military") cuts to the heart of this: money.

Money quote(s):

"So the story line is that Jordan and his cohorts were hired to build and maintain a web site similar to Iraq Slogger, except for Afghanistan. I don’t believe that charging for content on Iraq Slogger worked out very well, and they apparently worked a deal with the DoD to fund this new web site with tax dollars. Some of “their” money got diverted to use in actually developing real intelligence and killing the enemy, and they went to The New York Times, complaining and moaning about lost revenue.

Since I have gone on record demanding a covert campaign to foment an insurgency inside of Iran (as well as advocated targeted assassinations of certain figures such as Moqtada al Sadr and others), it should come as no surprise that I have no problem with dollars being spent wherever they are best utilized. It’s amusing that a government official said “no legitimate intelligence operations got screwed up.” No, to the contrary, these dollars redounded to success. There is a lesson in this."

&

"(T)here is the moralistic element to this account. It’s an outrage: his information was “being used to kill people,” intoned the flabbergasted Pelton. This is the same preening, holier than thou, sanctimonious crap that we heard from the anthropologists who weighed in against the use of human terrain teams – as if war isn’t a legitimate application for anthropology. Every enlisted man and officer in war practices anthropology every day."