re: "Cut The Defense Budget..And Get Others To Do More"

Christopher A. Preble at Big Peace questioned some basic strategic assumptions.

Money quote(s):

"The debt crisis is likely to force a reckoning between these two diametrically opposed positions. How it is resolved remains an open question.

Cutting military spending without changing our foreign policies will put additional burdens on a force strained by a decade of war. Sticking with the status quo will translate into heavier burdens on U.S. taxpayers. If the powers-that-be inside the Beltway decide that we should continue to discourage wealthy allies from defending themselves, then they should explain that to the American people.

So far, they have been unwilling to do that. Politicians claim that U.S. security requires us to act as the linchpin of the international order, that U.S. global economic interests require the U.S. military to be deployed to the four corners of the globe. Some believe that Americans are obligated to spread the blessings of liberty to others denied basic human rights.

These are ambitious goals. Achieving them costs a lot of money. The average American spends two and a half times more than the British or the French on national security, five times more than Germans, and seven and a half times as much as the average Japanese." (Bold typeface added for emphasis. - CAA.)

CAA happens to agree heartily with the bold portion of the passage quoted above.

America is not only a continental power, it is also a maritime power whose prosperity depends greatly upon open sealanes and international trade.

"(M)many Americans ask why they should accept cuts in domestic spending, and be saddled with more military spending, so that our allies can continue to spend on their domestic priorities, and, in many cases, cut defense spending."

Some of our allies are rather grudging about our overseas basing, other less so; except, of course, when they need their Libyan sources of petroleum and natural gas secured for them.

"(M)most Americans are fed up with building other people’s countries and fighting other people’s wars. Americans want security, but they doubt that we have to pay for everyone else’s to achieve our own.

Those who simply assume that others would not do more to defend themselves and their interests often ignore the extent to which U.S. actions have discouraged them from doing so. Just as some welfare recipients are often disinclined to look for work, foreign countries on the generous American security dole do not see a need to obtain military power. Our great power, and our willingness to use it, even when our own interests are not at stake, has allowed others to ignore possible threats, always confident that the United States will be there to rescue them."

CAA harbors grave doubts about our more outlandish ambitions with regards to some of our current nation-building assumptions. What is, for instance, the end state desired for all our development aid in Afghanistan? Do we expect Switzerland to come out of all this?

Similarly, CAA has noted with approval certain writers who've inserted the "free-rider" issue into their works of popular fiction.

"The National Security Strategy, published in May 2010, declares “There should be no doubt: the United States of America will continue to underwrite global security.” Taking their cue, U.S. allies have proved understandably disinterested in military spending.

If we are serious about sharing the burdens of global security with other countries, we must change course. Washington should be more reticent to send our troops into harm’s way when our own vital interests are not at stake. And we should shape our military to reflect the fact that we expect to be less involved militarily over the next two decades than we have been in the last two. A leaner, more focused U.S. military can no longer be in the business of defending other countries that can and should defend themselves." (Bold typeface added for emphasis. - CAA.)

The U.S. should not be sending our troops into harm's way unless our own vital interests are at stake.

Clearly and realistically identifying those vital interests is what a "National Security Strategy" is supposed to be doing. Instead we get open-ended twaddle like:

"There should be no doubt: the United States of America will continue to underwrite global security."

10/4

re: "Obama says 'War on Terror is over' while resurrecting LOST Treaty"

Crush at Blackfive doesn't think much of the new National Security Strategy.

Money quote(s):

"(W)ar as we know it is over. Through soft power, the United States has reinvented conflict into a feel good, region-building contingency operation where soldiers become ambassadors rather than warriors - seeking to win over our enemies rather than defeat them."

Winning hearts and minds (as the saying goes) is a perfectly reasonable way to defeat an enemy, for some values of defeat. After all, any way you make someone no longer an enemy, means he's no longer your enemy. But that's just a couple of arrows in the national quiver, not the whole of our national security toolbox. Or we'll be a very vulnerable one-trick pony.

"(O)ne can't declare war on terrorism (calculated use of unlawful violence or threat of unlawful violence to inculcate fear, intended to coerce or intimidate governments or societies ... [to attain] political, religious, or ideological goals) any more than you can declare war on L-shaped ambushes. I concede that the Global War on Terror is not the best name for our current conflict. But the same argument could be made about World War II. Ultimately, what the war is called is pointless. The important thing is that it is brought to a quick, decisive, and favorable end, and as of yet there is no light at the end of the tunnel."

"This is clearly not a war against Islam. The fact that our leaders continue to bring this up is an insult to everyone's intelligence, and pandering to our enemies. Members of the Islamic religion - the jihadists - are at war with us, whether we acknowledge it or not. But if one were to read the Qur'an, one would find that jihad is a pillar of Islam, not something that was taken out of context by misunderstanders of the so-called "religion of peace" or created by George Bush and Dick Cheney in order to justify their diabolical scheme."

If this was a "war against Islam," it's surely the most incompetently-run war against Islam since the Children's Crusade. Not getting a lot of traction against Islam when we seem to be propping it up more often than not.

&

"The puss-nut diplomats and think tankers that came up with this s--t should be called pirates and turned in to the Russians. Since before Moses was a corporal, civilizations protected themselves by instilling "fear" among those who seek to subjugate or eliminate their culture - as jihadists do today."