re: "National Debate on the Legions"

Dr. Jerry Pournelle at Chaos Manor ("The Original Blog") frames the discussion.

Money quote(s):

"It is time for a national debate on the military: how big do we need it? What are our military objectives and goals? Do we go abroad seeking monsters to slay, or are we the friends of liberty everywhere but guardians only of our own? If guardians of our own, what are the treats we must guard against? Who are our potential enemies and how stable are they? Where abroad do our national interests lie?

These are not trivial questions. They are not politically easy, either, since the needs of the services are different. It is much easier to build a large Army from cadre than greatly to expand a professional Navy. (The Caine Mutiny had some revelations about that.) The Air Force has to decide just what its role is now that SAC no longer exists, and we are not faced with 26,000 launchable nuclear warheads. The Army can’t be reduced simply to cadre. What is the proper size and role of the Marine Corps? These are not just political questions although they will be answered by politicians.

One problem is that we don’t have many who can debate these questions. As Kagan said long ago in his comments on the Peloponnesian War, if you seek peace you must keep that peace. Or as Appius Claudius put it, if you would have peace, be thou then prepared for war. Of course most of those who will be debating these matters will not have heard of Appius Claudius, or Plutarch, or Thucydides, and if they vaguely remember that people with those names existed they will not have read about them, much less have read them."

There's little I can add to Dr. Pournelle's remarks. These decisions will be made by politicians, in and out of uniform, and be made for political reasons, when what the Republic needs are statesmen.

"We expected our Senators to be familiar with keeping the peace, and what a Pyrrhic victory was. Indeed we expected anyone who put himself up as a candidate for Congress to have some familiarity with the basic documents and ideas in the development of Western Civilization. Now – well, not so much"

It would be much easier, if it were possible at all, to come up with a list of politicians who do have that kind of basic familiarity. The list of those who do not is much, much longer, and includes some whose professional training would have caused you to suppose quite the opposite, at least in a less-imperfect world.

"We can’t afford to take a meat axe to the Legions, either. If we are to remain a Republic we must discuss these issues, which means that the debates must start, and those who do know some history will have to spoon feed it to the many who don’t – and worse, to those who have been persuaded that they know things they do not know. We have far too many who seem to have majored in self-esteem while in fact learning little that is estimable."

Not too long ago, CAA had the opportunity to share some classroom time with junior military folks in an environment where they were being exposed to some of the Western military history one would once have expected them to have learned long ago in their schoolroom days. They were, frankly, lapping it up, eager and wondering aloud why they'd never been taught any of this stuff before.

re: "On Military Intervention, the National Interest and the American Left"

DiploMad at DiploMad 2.0 ("Wracked with angst over the fate of our beloved Republic, now in the hands of Morons who (mis)govern it, the DiploMad has returned to do battle on the world wide web, swearing death to political correctness, and pulling no punches.") explains why inconsequential military interventions have consequences.

Money quote(s):

"(O)nce the United States, the world's preeminent military power, intervenes in a military crisis, even if there were no U.S. interests before that intervention, U. S. national interests get created by the intervention. Yes, once we intervene, committing our people, treasure, and prestige, we have a national interest in obtaining success. We now have to win, and the other side has to lose, or our enemies around the world will be emboldened to act against us."

To put it less professionally (or rather in the terms of a different set of professions), once you've got skin in the game, you've got skin in the game.

re: "Military Intervention In Libya Is A Bad Idea"

streiff (Profile) at Redstate ("We’re happy warriors and we’re glad to have you in the fight.") does not favor U.S. intervention in Libya.

Money quote(s):

"One of the immutable laws of politics is that the Democrat party will refuse to use military intervention in any location where the US has strategic geopolitical or trade interests. The corollary to that law is that there is no Third World craphole (see Somalia, Darfur, Haiti) to which the Democrats will not offer to send US troops so long as it is high risk and with no real purpose.

One must understand both these rules to comprehend the calls coming from the left demanding US intervention in Libya."

The above would be hilarious if it didn't ring so historically true. Why it is that the U.S. must always act in its disinterest remains an intellectual leap beyond my poor powers.

"(I)t all boils down to the same thing: they are considering sending young men and women to death and injury for no purpose larger than feeling good about themselves and they are doing it with the same callous insouciance with which they cheerfully supported John Murtha’s (D-Ninth Circle) slow bleed strategy in Iraq."

It's an easy thing to do, when you don't have any skin in the game. Having said that, active duty aviation colleagues of mine seem to feel pretty can-do about being able to handle the job of a no-fly-zone.

Naturally, if Italy, for example, invokes the NATO charter in the face of a sea-borne invasion from Libya, the U.S. would be honor-bound to assist, I'm sure.

"Libya is the anti-Iraq. Where Iraq occupied key real estate and had the underpinnings of being a significant regional power, Libya has nothing and virtually is nothing.

If we’ve learned anything in the past 20 years is should be that we cannot let US foreign policy be driven by media coverage. We intervened in Haiti’s internal strife in 1994, again to make a certain class of intellectual feel good about “doing something” and withdrew having done nothing but show the world we did nothing. More tragically, we became embroiled in Somalia for the same reason, to “do something” without any observable strategic purpose, and our subsequent pell-mell retreat convinced bin Laden that he could replicate the effect.

Truth be told, what happens in Libya doesn’t matter to us so long as it stays confined to Libya. If anyone should be concerned it is the Euros who, no matter which way the situation turns out, will be on the receiving end of a stream of political refugees. If the EU does become involved it is hard to see exactly what value-added US forces will represent given the relative proximity of the EU to Libya."

The U.S. was already suckered into doing the heavy lifting in the Balkans, which at least had the excuse of not actually being contiguous with any actual NATO countries. And yet, I seem to remember it was the same NATO partner which faced the Former Yugoslavia across the Adriatic Sea as is directly north of Tunisia. Hmmm. I'm trying to recall whether Italy sent anything to Iraq except Communist journalists and spooks to pay their ransoms. Maybe they were more involved in Afghanistan.

"Let’s not fool ourselves. If we intervene in Libya we do so for no strategic or humanitarian purpose and without any real consideration of what may follow."

A strategy for which an intervention operation would be an integral part would be such a nice thing to have.