Reset
Belmont Club readers will be familiar with the themes in this Foreign Policy article: Putin’s Got America Where He Wants It. The first point it makes is that Russia has checkmated America in Syria, where the administration continues to “lead from behind”.
Let’s start with Syria, where Moscow has vetoed two attempts to pass a U.N. Security Council resolution condemning the Assad regime. In the case of the May 25 Houla massacre, where over 100 civilians were murdered in cold blood, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov claimed that “both sides evidently had a hand in the deaths of innocent people.” This injected moral equivalence where none existed, since U.N. peacekeeping chief Herve Ladsous said that pro-regime shabbiha militias were likely responsible.
The source of US weakness has been described here before. But let us hear it from Foreign Policy. America, which was the dominant power in the region, shipped all its muscle to Southwest Asia where the force can only be supplied at Putin’s sufferance. As Foreign Policy explains this rather limits the administration’s ability to play hardball with Putin.
Moscow has also served as Iran’s arms dealer — selling more than $5 billion in military equipment to Tehran in the past decade. Reset advocates declared victory in 2010 when the Kremlin cancelled its sale of S-300 anti-aircraft system to Tehran, which could be used to shoot down American or Israeli jets. By why would Putin ever would agree to sell such sophisticated missiles to the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism in the first place? Because his preferred style is to create a minor problem, then solve it and take a disproportionately long bow.
This is even true when it comes to the Northern Distribution Network (NDN) in Afghanistan. Since September 2009, NATO has been able to transport non-lethal supplies and equipment to Afghanistan through Russia. And since November 2011, when Pakistan closed the supply routes that ran through its territory — payback for a U.S. drone strike that killed 24 Pakistani soldiers that year — the NDN has grown even more crucial to the international war effort in Afghanistan.
But even Russia’s professed support for the NATO mission — a product of the Kremlin’s own self-interest — hasn’t stopped it from making life difficult for the United States. Key Central Asian states’ commitment to allowing the traffic to continue is in doubt — largely because of Russian pressure. One cause for the latest bout of Russian attacks on McFaul is that the put-upon ambassador made the mistake of telling the truth during a recent lecture: Russia, he said, had “bribed” the Kyrgyz government in an attempt to close the U.S. military base at Manas, through which critical materiel is flown into Afghanistan. Kyrgyzstan’s pro-Russian president has furthermore demanded that the United States leave Manas when its lease expires in 2014.
You would have thought the President would have thought that it was a bad idea to lead from behind in the Middle East after he stranded a huge American force in a landlocked theater where it could only be supported via Pakistani or Russian controlled territory. The defects of that conception were apparent to many readers on this site, but not alas, to those who call the shots.
This same administration which has assured Israel that there is plenty of time to deal with Iran. In this interview former IDF Chief of Staff Moshe Ya’alon explains that’s not how he sees the problem of Iran to journalist Ari Shavit.
Shavit: What the vice premier is telling me is that we are close to the moment of truth regarding Iran.
Ya’alon: “Definitely. When I was director of Military Intelligence, in the 1990s, Iran did not possess one kilogram of enriched uranium. Today it has 6,300 kilograms of uranium enriched to a level of 3.5 percent and about 150 kilograms enriched to a level of 20 percent. When I was chief of staff, in the first decade of this century, Iran had a few hundred centrifuges, most of which were substandard.
“At present there are about 10,000 centrifuges in Natanz and in Kom, which are enriching about eight kilograms of uranium a day. Since this government took office in 2009, the number of centrifuges in Iran has almost doubled and the amount of enriched uranium has increased sixfold. The meaning of these data is that Iran already today has enough enriched uranium to manufacture five atomic bombs. If Iran is not stopped, within a year it will have enough uranium for seven or eight atomic bombs.
“In addition, the Iranians apparently possess a weapons development system which they are hiding from the international supervisory apparatus. The Iranians also have 400 missiles of different types, which can reach the whole area of Israel and certain parts of Europe. Those missiles were built from the outset with the ability to carry nuclear warheads. So the picture is clear. Five years ago, even three years ago, Iran was not within the zone of the nuclear threshold. Today it is. Before our eyes Iran is becoming a nuclear-threshold power.” …
Shavit: We survived the Cold War. We also survived the nuclearization of Pakistan and North Korea. Israel is said to possess strategic capability that is able to create decisive deterrence against Iran. Would it not be right to say that just as Europe lived with the Soviet bomb, we will be able to live in the future with the Shiite bomb?
Ya’alon: “No and no and again no. The first answer to your question is that if Iran goes nuclear, four or five more countries in the Middle East are liable to go nuclear, too. Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Turkey, Jordan and other Arab states will say that if Iran has a bomb they also need a bomb. The result will be a nuclear Middle East. A nuclear Middle East will not be stable and therefore the world will not be stable. Iranian nuclearization will bring in its wake nuclear chaos.
“The second answer to your question is that a nuclear umbrella will allow Iran to achieve regional hegemony. The Gulf states, finding themselves under that umbrella, will ask themselves which they prefer: distant Washington or nearby Tehran. In my view, they will opt for nearby Tehran. A nuclear Iran is liable to take control of the energy sources in the Persian Gulf and of a very large slice of the world’s oil supply. That will have far-reaching international implications. But a nuclear Iran will also challenge Israel and bring about a series of brutal conventional confrontations on our borders. That will have serious consequences for Israel.
“The third answer to your question is that one day the Iranian regime is liable to use its nuclear capability. That does not mean that the day after the Iranians acquire a bomb they will load it on a plane or a missile and drop it on a Western city. But there is a danger of the use of nuclear weapons by means of proxies. A terrorist organization could smuggle a dirty bomb into the port of New York or the port of London or the port of Haifa. I also do not rule out the possibility of the direct use of nuclear weapons by means of missiles. That risk is low, but it exists. That extreme scenario is not impossible.”
Shavit: But the Americans are with us. The Americans will rescue us. Why jump in head-first?
Ya’alon: “There is agreement between the United States and us on the goal, and agreement on intelligence and close cooperation. But we are in disagreement about the red line. For the Americans, the red line is an order by [Ayatollah] Khamenei to build a nuclear bomb. For us, the red line is Iranian ability to build a nuclear bomb.
“We do not accept the American approach for three reasons. First, because it implies that Iran can be a threshold-power which, as long as it does not manufacture nuclear weapons in practice is allowed to possess the ability to manufacture them. Second, because in our assessment there is no certainty that it will be possible to intercept in time the precious report that Khamenei finally gave the order to build a bomb . Third, there is a disparity between the sense of threat and urgency in Jerusalem and the sense of threat and urgency in Washington.”
The key difference between Ya’alon’s analysis and the administration is that the Israeli bases his threat assessment on Teheran’s capability while Washington relies on an estimate of its intent as a trigger for ation. To the administration, until the actual order to build a bomb is detected, Washington is prepared to give Iran the benefit of the doubt.
In this context the administration’s weakness vis a vis Russia in Syria becomes significant. Syria provides an opportunity to stifle Iran without resorting to bombing it.
If Obama could take down the Iranian supported Assads in Syria he would deal a huge but indirect blow to the Iranian nuclear program. But he does not have that option or has denied himself that. Instead he is allowing Syria and Iran’s superpower patron — Russia — to pull Assad off the ropes. Nor can he scowl back at Putin, because grandmaster of the Kremlin holds the NATO supply lines in the palm of his hand, having realized almost instantaneously from his map what a strategic godsend the Messiah from Chicago had handed him.
How did it come to this? Intelligence perhaps, though not of the kind that is measured on standardized tests. By those measures the administration’s strategy has been nothing but a intellectual disaster. Maybe readers of this site will someday read a Foreign Policy article repeating these points. But by then the hour will be late.
It would be the ultimate irony if the President who promised to reject all unproven missile defense systems, cut all spending on advanced combat systems and reduce America’s nuclear weapons to zero should be the ultimate cause of a nuclear armed Middle East.
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“Reset advocates declared victory in 2010 when the Kremlin cancelled its sale of S-300 anti-aircraft system to Tehran, which could be used to shoot down American or Israeli jets.” Actually, that was more of horsetrading between Moscow and Jerusalem over the Israelis pulling their advisors out of Georgia. See Michael Cecire’s piece linked to by Walter Russell Mead two weeks ago. Tblisi is in danger of reverting back to its historic Turkish name of Tiflis. Something the folks here who wanted B-2s to hit the Roki Tunnel four years ago didn’t anticipate, anymore than they anticipated Israel would’ve closed the King David Hotel for Putin or that Vladimir Vladimirovich would know just what strings to pluck by telling an Israeli man (according to the Jerusalem Post) that he prays for the Temple to be rebuilt. Well of course, a cynic would say if it were there’d be a hell of a big war and oil prices would shoot through the roof. In other words, as Spengler says, “Americans Play Monopoly, Russians Play Chess”:
Nonetheless, if the current games continue, I wonder about mirror imaging. What if some Mikhail Weisski of the Boris Yeltsin Society plans to start asking for international intervention in Mexico near the U.S. border? What if the American Council for Peace in Chechnya is matched by the Shanghai Cooperation Organization Council for Peace in the Americas? After all the body count from the Mexican drug wars remains significantly higher than that in Syria. But neocons can never imagine the tables being turned or that key allies they’ve long proclaimed to be America’s BFFs could start cutting their own deals with Eurasia…or was it Eastasia?
I always thought, even when our anger at Afghanistan was white hot, that it was wise not to go “all in” with respect to trying to “conquer” it. The need to depend on Pakistan as a “loyal” ally for resupply routes, and the fact that there never was, and never will be, a nation to be “built” dictated that.
I guess, though, that the ole cowboy, George Bush, was just not as sharp as our fine leader Barack Hussein Obama, mmmm, mmmm, mmmm.
Elphinstone
Well look whose crawled back out from under their rock to taunt us from the Lubyanka. The return of our Minders is a significant Tell. This isn’t just tin foil hyperventilation on the web. The game’s afoot.
We can solve so many problems at the same time. Evacuate our army from Afghanistan by way of Beirut with stops in Tehran and Damascus. Make the trip Shermanesque. Carve a corridor 50 miles wide with nothing left intact. Perhaps we can visit Gordias across the Turkish border just to make the point clear. The Kurds should be happy to provide safe passage between Iran and Syria.
I always assumed when Candidate Obama talked up the “War of Necessity” in Afghanistan he was lying. I sure was one surprised cynic when he sent a bunch of troops in there. When he announced D-day at the same time — the Date of our Defeat when we would skedaddle — I was plum amazed. It did make political sense, though. He didn’t want Afghanistan to fall before he was reelected but he didn’t want a lot of troops in there on election day. So he settled on Thanksgiving Day, 2012 when people celebrate Turkeys and don’t watch the news.
If Israel bombs Iran before the election I think they can corner Obama into helping them. After all, if Afghanistan is about his reelection, why not taking down Iran’s nuclear program? If he stands aside he will look weak. If he stands aside and criticizes he will look weak and stupid. If he joins in Joe Biden can talk about his spine of steel. Besides, the Iranians have been dissing him forever and that’s got to grate.
could you put that in the form of a question, please?
–
The first point it makes is that Russia has checkmated America in Syria
piffle, we’ve kept hands-off Syria (afaik) while we were in Iraq, though we had excellent reasons not to. if we’re not in Syria we can hardly be checkmated there. I’m excluding the idea that we have a horse in their current “spring” uprisings, or that we have an interest in anything there on behalf of Israel. which we might. we don’t want Russia getting all in love with Syria and building them up hugely, or to the point of stationing 100,000 Russian troops there. or hey maybe we do, I *still* want to work up a US/China partnership to occupy some large areas of the Middle East, and Russia showing the way might just do it. … the real problem being that China shows no interest in the idea, not on their own, not in partnership with us, nor with Russia. they have their own little colonies in Libya and other African oil territories, but so far non-military, afaik.
but, I think Russia would not build up Syria that far, for fear of getting Turkey upset at them. I’ve played enough Risk to know how that goes! not well for Turkey, actually, but it leaves most of Asia unsettled, too.
“Because his preferred style is to create a minor problem, then solve it and take a disproportionately long bow.”
I’ve been half expecting Russia or China to invade Iran or Syria, shut down that whole regime and then seize the moral high ground from us.
Publius @1
“But neocons can never imagine the tables being turned or that key allies they’ve long proclaimed to be America’s BFFs could start cutting their own deals with Eurasia[.]”
Since you use the popularized slander ‘neocon,’ I am confused by your statement. But if I had to guess, I’d equate ‘neocon’ with America’s Jacksonian, scottish-derived war impulse, inspired usually in the name of defence of the home, or nation.
If I’m not mistaken in my translation then, we agree. Because the problem with the Jacksonian impulse is that, taken cumulatively and viewed from above, its defensive and offensive parries resemble those of a protective sheepdog. As such, the Jacksonians are strong on bark and good on bite…but not so great on self-criticism and best-practices like checking your blind spots and conserving energy.
So, I would agree that old alliances are up for grabs and we need to be savvy about how we navigate these times. I expect Germany to steadily shift to Russian energy (Gerhardt Schroeder may have been a prick, but he was no fool)- although I’m unconvinced that Russia can assert any further, meaningful influence in Western European politics (really, how much more communistic can France, Germany and Greece get?). And, yes, the notion that international “troops” may find themselves used as proxies in the US’s Southern border region is not just likely, but certain. In fact, if they’re only training with Mexican officers in any capacity (be it special ops, interpol anti-drug agents, or simple traffic stops) on the border then, well, they’re already here.
‘Lot’s going on and the sheepdogs’d better have some friends among the hawks. We’ll need a birds-eye-view to direct the dogs when they’re needed.
Putin on the Reset
3. Mrs. Davis
Yes m’aam. Theodor Fontane wrote this poem in 1857. I assume it’s about the British retreat from Kabul in 1842 in which that complete Charlie, Elphinstone was played for a fool by the Afghan goondas. As you know, the first Anglo-Afghan war (1839-1842) was an early major conflict during the Great Game, the 19th century competition for power and influence in Central Asia between the United Kingdom and Russia. Now the Great Game is between the United States and Russia.
The Tragedy of Afghanistan
Snow like powder from the sky softly falls,
When before Djelalabad a rider halts.
“Who’s there” – “A caval’rist from Britains army
A message from Afghanistan I carry.”
Afghanistan. So weakly he’d said.
Half the town around him had met;
The British commander, Sir Robert Sale,
Helped to dismount the man who’s face was so pale.
Into a guard-house they guided him
And made him sit at the fire’s brim;
How warm was the fire, how bright was its shine,
He takes a deep breath, and begins to explain.
“Thirteen thousand men we had been,
When our outset from Kabul was seen -
Now soldiers, leaders, women and bairn
They are betrayed, and frozen and slain.
“Dispersed is the entire host,
Who is alive, in the darkness is lost.
A God to me salvation has sent -
To save the rest you may make an attempt.”
Sir Robert ascends the castle wall,
And soldiers and officers follow him all,
Sir Robert speaks “How dense the snow falls,
How hard they may seek, they’ll never see the walls.
“Like blindfold they’ll err and yet are so near,
The way to their safety, now let it them hear,
Play songs of old, of the homeland so bright;
Bugler, let thy tune carry far in the night.”
And they played and sang, and time passed by,
Song over song through the night they let fly,
The songs of their home so far and so dear,
And old Highland laments so mournful to hear.
They played all night and the following day,
They played like only love made them play;
The songs were still heard, but darkness did fall.
In vain is your watch, in vain is your call.
Those who should hear, they’ll hear nevermore,
Destroyed, dispersed is the proud host of yore;
With thirteen thousand their trail they began.
Only one man returned from Afghanistan.
________________________________________________
If the poem does refer to the retreat from Kabul, I believe that there were only about 700 soldiers from Britain. The remainder of the East India Company troops were Indian. There were about 12,000 civilians in the retreat who were also massacred.
The conclusion:
This would not be irony, it would be simply cause and effect.
“It would be the ultimate irony if the President who promised to reject all unproven missile defense systems, cut all spending on advanced combat systems and reduce America’s nuclear weapons to zero should be the ultimate cause of a nuclear armed Middle East.”
While rife with irony, it’s nothing new and thus labeling it “the ultimate irony” is perhaps questionable. Pre-WWII, Hitler, Chamberlain and Churchill’s “voice in the wilderness” are the most obvious example of prior ‘irony’.
Pacifistic appeasement in the face of Islam’s malevolent religious fanaticism is quite predictable in its consequences for the West.
“payback for a U.S. drone strike that killed 24 Pakistani soldiers that year”
My biggest problem with Foreign Affairs is they are careless with facts. It wasn’t a drone strike it was Apaches the did the deed;
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/11/27/us-pakistan-nato-idUSTRE7AP03S20111127
Reuters just has air strike, it was the later investigation that said it was gunships.
Why do all the amateurs Think the S-300 is hot stuff? The S-300 is 30+ years old. While it looks good on paper, in the real world it has poor to piss poor EW. The Missile has a range of 150KM’s but the radar only allows engagement out to 90 KM’s.The newer HARMS have a range of 120KM’s I think. Don’t know for sure because that is classified.
As a couple of Turkish flyers just found out, ALL SAM’s are dangerous if you are asleep at the switch.
Pootie is no genius. He IS smarter then the 0bumbler, which isn’t saying a lot.
Russia hasn’t checkmated America anywhere. They have given the Department of State all the rope they needed to tie themselves in knots.
This all started with Clinton and Kosovo. The Russians sent a small mech column into Kosovo to capture a key airport. They were way outside of the boundary the diplos agreed to. General Clark wanted to sic an Apache battalion on them. The British General in command refused the order. He was afraid of starting ww3. Coward. The column was formed of BTR’s. Everybody in that part of the world uses them. Blow them away and call it an accident. Blue on blue. if the rooskies whine, tell them the reason there are boundaries is to prevent this sort of thing. Pootie bluffed him out of his socks. Pootie was king of the KGB then. His boldness brought him the support of the part of the Soviet military that thought they should have gone to war against NATO. Always a fringe group, the regular Red Army guys would ask them what they had planned for the several million hostile people sitting across their supply lines.Or the thousands of modern warplanes the USA would start pumping into Europe about 6 months after the war started.
After 25 years of cold war, the Soviets had an advantage in land forces. There Navy was a joke and their air force pitiful. That is because the West concentrated on air power, that being the dominant military fact of the 20th century.
So pootie seized the moment in Kosovo and rode that into the Kremlin. Georgia was different. That was a carefully planned operation, designed to take advantage of Bush’s war weariness. DO you see a trend here? Short bold strokes designed to cut of chunks for Russia to consume at it’s leisure. I don’t see a genius, I see a sneak thief with a good grasp of when to bust a move.
Syria would be tuff. StrategyPage says 20% of the Syrian army has deserted. A good part of the rest are either locked in their barracks to prevent them from deserting or watching those locked in their barracks. That is why Assad is arming his homeboys. That is why the rebels control the countryside. Assad hasn’t enough troops. He loses more every day.
Lots of weapons though. It is barely possible for the Russians to fly troops into Syria by going through Iran. Historically, that is just the sort of thing Pootie is known for.
If Clark had backing from Clinton he could have relieved that English General ordered in the Apaches and Pootie would be just another bureaucrat waiting to retire. If Bush had ordered the Roki Tunnel collapsed 4 years ago and trapped 30,000 Russian troops in Georgia outnumbered 10 to 1 and low on ammo, Pootie would be marking off his calendar in some Gulag. Most failed military ops are from hesitating, NOT being over aggressive.
Or, as the SAS says; “Who dares wins”.
THE VIEW FROM TEHERAN
To the East the land of Afghans
To the West lies small Kuwait
To the North and East are bases
Full of planes, at least to date
In the Gulf whose waters touch the
Shores of Teheran’s major ports
In the darkness through the water
Slips a Nemesis of sorts
US Armies on the borders
US ships upon the seas
US planes in close by bases
Waiting for the signaled squeeze
With Israeli nukes hair triggered
The stark view must drive them nuts
But Iran’s top guys are comfy
Knowing ‘Bama’s got no guts
Assad is able to play the “Mad North Korean” gambit. The proximity of his artillery w/chem to Israel is akin to the Norks WRT Seoul.
Thanks Wretchard. I knew most of these facts in isolation, but the way you put them together just sent a nice cold chill down my spine.
Ignoring the charge that I’m ‘taunting’ anybody rather than reminding of how quickly things have changed and triumphalism turns to woe (see Ferguson, Niall “Resolved, that America is, and Should Be, an Empire at AEI cerca 2003 post Saddam statue toppling, now Niall says Empires including the USA can collapse in no time). There’s also this:
http://darussophile.com/2012/06/29/was-russia-in-a-demographic-apocalypse-in-the-first-place/#comment-9721
Whereby it seems the assumption that Russia was going to get too old and sick to matter was flawed, or perhaps was another case of the think tankers telling their bosses wanted to hear. Even Nick Eberstadt had to rethink his views and have a tea summit with one of the young Russian turks who’s been his biggest critics on the West Coast.
With all due respect to the old timers, the game is now primarily economic rather than military — regardless of the wisdom of attempting an Anabasis thru the modern Middle East. And in that sense yes, Putin and the Chinese have been very opportunistic. Why shouldn’t they be? Washington’s Caligula-lite elites keep alienating friends (see the Breitbart piece on Putin in Israel, or Tim Geithner’s lecturing of the Germans about how they should print and not fear Weimar) and soon they won’t be able to bribe or bully enough to keep the game going. That’s what Wretchard means by no ‘stash’. It takes a lot of printed money to sustain the current base archipelago and a lot less to walk around it.
No bucks, no buck rogers. Worthless bucks, the only thing left to fund is the military.
Russia will not allow a nuclear armed Iran, either Theocratic or pro- Western Democratic. Nor does She wish a powerful state on Her southern flank.
Nuclear weapons proliferation is not in Her interest. Unless of course American miscalculation or obstinance, ignores Russia’s legitimate interests as a great power and leaves no other choice.
18. jgets
You touch on a very important fact. The USA is almost invulnerable to a nuclear strike.
America is more of an idea then a nation. Chief Justice Roberts has done more harm to America then a dozen nukes could. Russia, like all dictatorships, is vulnerable to a de-capitation strike. Kill POTUS, Congress, the Supreme Court and we just elect new ones.
Kill Pootie and Russia goes into civil war while they work out a replacement.
With that in mind, the best Diplomatic move for the USA is to withdraw from the NPT. Then we can legally sell nukes to Poland, Germany, Taiwan, S. Korea, Japan, etc.That would chap Pootie’s arse. If Georgia had a few nukes, Russia would not have invaded them.
What’s unclear to me is China’s role in all this. After all they get much of their oil from the Mid-east. Of the big powers they have the most to lose should things get out of hand. Fortunately, the U.S will be soon be petroleum independent.
Lastly, the Euro’s are in the same position as China but doormats don’t have much influence do they?
W: “You would have thought the President would have thought that it was a bad idea to lead from behind in the Middle East after he stranded a huge American force in a landlocked theater where it could only be supported via Pakistani or Russian controlled territory.”
Let’s stipulate that Soetero is an anti-American idiot, who either did not realize the stupidity of stranding the US military deep in hostile territory or who (even worse) did in fact realize how stupid that would be. Either way, Obumble gives the order.
The real concern is the dereliction of duty of those to whom the Big Zero gave his stupid order. There are Joint Chiefs, Generals, Colonels. All of those military leaders must have understood how stupid & dangerous Obama’s order was; yet not one resigned & went public with his disagreement. There is also the State Department, who ought to have foreseen the difficulties of resupply agreements with the likes of Pakistan & Russia/the ‘stans. They too had a duty to the citizens of the United States to resign & go public — although our expectations of Hillary’s legions of pant-suited harridans are already much lower. None of them did.
Now we see Chief Justice Roberts turn his name into a laughingstock for all eternity — just to protect Obambi. If Roberts lacked the courage to do the right thing, he could have resigned instead of making himself into a fool over a mandate by any other name. Yet he stayed, and diminished himself irreparably.
Where is the backbone in our senior public servants? They are the ones who should be the line of defence against the likes of a Barry Hussein Soetero.
On one level, there has to be a major suspicion that goes back to the Clintons’ unprosecuted seizure of FBI files on the Washington Establishment. Are all our senior public servants so compromised by hidden incidents in their pasts that they can be manipulated by the Evil Obama?
On another level, there is a hint that the US may be developing into an echo of the history of Scotland — the nation which so many of the ancestors of Founding Fathers had left. A fine people, with weak & venal leaders for the most part. Can Romney become the American version of William Wallace, the exception to that sorry rule? And if he tries, will he end up drawn & quartered by the evil Washington Establishment?
Assad’s a bad guy. Kill ‘em. Russia’s helping Assad. Kill ‘em all. Easy enough to say.
I’m gonna’ tell ya’ first that there is something sticking in the craw of my throat that I cannot spit out. Serbia. I know. I know. Milosevic was a punk and a Commie to boot. Mladic and other Serbian generals were almost certainly guilty of war crimes. But, here’s the rest of the story…
The Bosnian Muslims weren’t good guys either. Most of the KLA fighters were jihadis who made their bones in Afghanistan. Some of them ended up a few years later at the business end of sniper rifles with U.S. troops in the crosshairs.
How did we solve that one? By bombing Serbian cities and purely economic infrastructure for 2 1/2 months, killing thousands of civilians and impoverishing the rest. For the cherry on top we ripped away a 1,000 year old province from Serbia and declared it an independent Muslim country.
Looking back over the last few decades of American foreign policy I see only one country where hostilities were extended beyond military infrastructure, and only one country where political geography was changed under gunpoint.
Is it mere coincidence that the one country was Christian? That the beneficiaries of US military power of the last few decades have all been Muslim? That’s the craw in my throat. And I can’t spit it out.
#21 Kinuachdrach – This is why I roll my eyes when conservatives bluster about the army being on their side and fantasizing about the military rising up to restore the Constitution and driving the corruption out of Washington at the point of a bayonet. It’ll never happen. The Colonels (to use a Greek expression, which seems more and more appropriate these days) will all march in lockstep to protect their masters in the big old buildings in Washington. They’ll never turn their fancy weaponry against the crooks in charge, no matter what. No, not even if the order goes out to shoot their own citizens. Americans can snort and laugh at those fractious Europeans, but they have some history of turning around and knocking down rulers who get too highhanded. The docile, pampered Americans will just keep crooning to themselves about “civilian control of the armed forces” and congratulating themselves over how “measured” they are, until it’s too late to do anything. And all those precious boxes of “ammo” they’ve been hoarding will still be sitting on the shelf with the plastic wrap undisturbed.
21. Kinuachdrach
On another level, there is a hint that the US may be developing into an echo of the history of Scotland — the nation which so many of the ancestors of Founding Fathers had left. A fine people, with weak & venal leaders for the most part. Can Romney become the American version of William Wallace, the exception to that sorry rule? And if he tries, will he end up drawn & quartered by the evil Washington Establishment?
Alas, there’s not a trace of Wallace’s courageous DNA in Romney nor any of his clan. Here’s a clue – in 150 years of their history in America not one single Romney male has ever given military service to this country.
If you’re looking for a Scottish historical parallel to Romney, a better example would be John Balliol – a life of consuming ambition for power, characterized by endless overt political maneuvering and deal-making and covert back-stabbing and betrayal.
We are not leading from behind in Syria, we making opposition to Assad possible. There is no chance USA and other allies are not behind the Syrian uprising. The purpose of all this is precisely to destroy the previously Soviet infrastructure of the Middle Eastern Bloc comprising Iraq, Syria, Libya, and the various Palestinian groups. Nation building is a public cover for rubes. Do you think those actually involved in “nation building” in Afghanistan really are blinded by the illusions that we here at our computers accuse them of? We are subverting their societies to the extent possible, shaping and co-opting their elites to the extent possible, and above all getting to know precisely who these people are. Besides, these people are not really the captives of some idiot isolated culture of some Islamo-South Asian variety that other idiots dignify them with: they really are just a bunch of f-ing a-holes for which our own useful idiot “sociologists” make excuses in order to make a snake-oil living. Russia is simply doing what momentum and inherent nature demands: maintain their terror assets, create new ones, while denying their permanent Leninist-Stalinist nature and objecting that “Russia is a good partner struggling along the difficult path to modern liberal democracy, something it has never had units thousand years of history.”. Believe what you want, but we are suppying them arms and leading their sorties; we have co-opted the officers of the rebellion. There is no such thing as “neocons” or “Paleocons” or “realpolitik” or whatever such terms.
#23
“No, not even if the order goes out to shoot their own citizens.”
The memory is there from a distant time of a young 82nd Airborne lieutenant waiting locked and loaded at Washington National for the command to “restore order” in Georgetown. Or that same lieutenant in full battle gear at Pope/Ft. Bragg waiting to load the aircraft and asking the men in his platoon that if the shit started to fly in Detroit were they going to be green or black.
If we’re real lucky the best we’ll get will be a few veterans speaking out that things like self-discipline and honor really do mean something.
23. Dr. Mabuse
The Army has a varied history as I have posted before. The only time they came out big against the establishment was in 1860. The rest, as they say, is history.
Doc, civil wars come in all shapes and sizes. 1860 was a revolution that failed. That is because the revolutionaries took up arms. Since the bulk of the Officers of the federal army went with the south, it was conducted by the military honor standards of that time.
The ongoing revolution in Egypt is an alternative path of civil war. So far the revolutionaries are winning, without firing a shot. SO FAR. Libya and Syria are taking the blood path. In Libya, they won. If the new government of Libya is better or worse then the old government is besides the point. It IS the new government.
The 2nd American civil war will be different from any of the recent examples. America and Americans are different. It WILL NOT be like 1860.
IIRC Giffords was the only Congress Critter gunned down lately. Expect that to change. The establishment is both the strongest and weakest of the 4 sides that will be involved.
Strongest because they control most of the kinetic energy delivery systems. Weakest because there isn’t that many of them. The major weapons of the revolutionaries will be food and assassination. That 30-06 round will blow the tire of a tractor trailer full of food heading to Chicago or Boston. The US Army hasn’t got the troops to secure Americas highways. That means a few hundred riflemen can starve out the blue cities.
The biggest reason the North won the first civil war was the south could not get weapons from Europe, while the north manufactured their own.
This go around it will be different. Within a year, those boxes of rifle rounds will remain sealed because everybody has a AK-47. An RPG and all the Claymores they need.
When it comes to IED’s, I suspect Americans will win the gold. Think Pootie or Chevez won’t bust a nut to arm the revolution?
No, this won’t be your great great grandfather’s war.
there are no good guys in Syria or anywhere else in the Middle East where diapers are worn on the head and the first rule of war is never interfere when your enemies are killing each other unless it is to prolong the fighting.
I believe that Putin’ has decided that Islam is the enemy but if he can get them to direct their energies against Israel, each other, or the USA they will have much less time to make trouble for him in Chechnya or Moscow and since good relations with the USA are not high on his list of priorities…
putin’s day is almost done anyway. If I were president or Sec State I would long ago been launching massive public relations campaign in Russia. I would run it almost like a political campaign – kiss babies, vacation, become a hockey fan, fish, hunt, you name it, The average Russian wouldn’t be able to turn his TV on without seeing some American coddling up to them. By the time I was through America would be more popular than Vodka. It may not be much of one but it is still more or less a democracy and we can work the levers of public perception and should do so vigorously.
27. stoicheionThe 2nd American civil war will be different from any of the recent examples. America and Americans are different. It WILL NOT be like 1860…IIRC Giffords was the only Congress Critter gunned down lately. Expect that to change… That 30-06 round will blow the tire of a tractor trailer full of food heading to Chicago or Boston. The US Army hasn’t got the troops to secure Americas highways. That means a few hundred riflemen can starve out the blue cities.
Red cities, blue cities, you’re really talking about opening fire on Old Glory, about using the Constitution as toilet paper. Expect to find veterans like me staring you down on the other side of the wire.
jh @ 28: +1
Agree with all your points. But this president, this secretary – and for that matter, this state department?
And for that matter I don’t wonder that the same would be possible even in Iran, and even in Afghanistan.
Where are the American politicians who can even begin to think in these terms? All the liberals think they can and they are – but they’re not. On the conservative side you get a Newt, but … not quite. Ryan, Cantor, …. not quite. Rubio … not after his Dream Act shenanigans. There are just too many filters on those who enter the field and get elected, to get a first-class mind in place. Or even second-class. Or even a third-class mind who might hire in a first-class mind as secretary, which is the only hope anyone could possibly put on the likes of Romney. Right now we have a dingbat president with dingbat advisors and dingbat party leaders in Congress. We have weaker leaders than ever before in our history, at a time when the world is more complex than ever. That’s my bottom-line diagnosis for a lot of stuff going on. If I only had a workable prescription.
“Expect to find veterans like me staring you down on the other side of the wire.”
Exactly. When they send you to round up your mother, what’ch gonna do?
I’m 70. No wire for Sammy. I would not survive incarceration. My plan is to go down shooting, at least I will die an American. I see that as better then living as another socialist drone in the ruins of America.
Remember the D.C. sniper from about 10 years ago? 2 guys, one rifle. They tied up D.C for about a month. Imagine if there had been 8 of them. 300 million+ people live in America. I figure about 10% will help in one way or another. 1% will take up arms. That is 3 million people. America has 800,000 police. Another million or so soldiers will support the establishment. If those 3 million Americans take one with them, we will win. The Socialists will have to commit wholesale slaughter to change the odds. That will add to the 3 million. It will not add to the 1.8 million.
You’re a veteran, I’m a veteran. America is full of veterans. SO WHAT?
When the Free Syrian Army started they had few vets. Now they have many.
You see, stoicheion? It’s hopeless. Long before people like you ever get organized to do any damage, The Tyrant (Obama or his successor) will be out in public squalling hymns to Old Glory, and as we can see, there are plenty of fools who will fall for it. It’s the Stalin method – starve and destroy your people as much as you like, then wrap yourself in the flag and bring them to tears with appeals to their patriotism, and then turn them loose on the enemy. It’ll work, too. And one thing the U.S. government IS good at is snooping and finding out secrets. No one will ever be able to successfully organize a violent opposition to the lords and masters in Washington.
#27 & 31 are very reasonable, I think you could see major (deadly) civilian unrest if the right incidents were to happen, there is enough unhappiness with DC leeches to get the ball rolling. Me I don’t think it going to happen any time soon, not really anyone sane with the balls…
“And one thing the U.S. government IS good at is snooping and finding out secrets. No one will ever be able to successfully organize a violent opposition to the lords and masters in Washington.”
Yet in one of the most repressive regimes and a certified lunatic dictator in charge the Libyan people figured out how to do it. What did they get for their troubles? A vastly more insane and deadly country. How did they not see the outcome? Blinded by the light of freedom? No, blinded by the hatred.
Are we so stupid as to see violence as the only way to our goal? Lord, let it not be so. But it is wise to be prepared. There are many ways to prepare.
I worked with some people who had a version of the Lord’s prayer. “Yay, tho I walk through the valley of death. I fear no evil. Because I am the meanest, baddest, MF’r in the valley.” They did their jobs even when scared to the bone. Men and women like that are the fruit of Americans. We shall not come to civil war because the lords and masters in Washington know deep down, that path ends with their destruction.
CharlesWhite @ 33: “I think you could see major (deadly) civilian unrest if the right incidents were to happen, there is enough unhappiness with DC leeches to get the ball rolling.”
Change “if the right incidents were to happen” to “when the right incidents do happen”, because there are all kinds of incidents lining up to happen. “Events, dear boy. Events”. This is essentially Richard’s long-standing point about the Design Margin having been used up. The world is currently in an unstable state, just waiting for the right incident to start the avalanche. Consider how little it took to start the recent outbreak of good olde English rioting, looting, & arson in an upscale part of nominally-civilized London.
What presently passes for leadership just can’t win in this kind of world. Arm-twist the weak Chief Justice to get the ruling you want on Obamacare, and suddenly you have to deal with massive tax increases & a bigger deficit. Dis Mubarak, and suddenly you find yourself the biggest funder of the Muslim Brotherhood. As someone once observed, what can’t go on, won’t.
Maybe Walt would like to try his hand at a rewrite of Tennyson’s Charge of the Light Brigade – a suicidal British attack on Russian forces in 1854. For some reason, coming under fire from all sides makes me think of the situation facing Obambi & the Institutionals.
“Cannon to right of them,
Cannon to left of them,
Cannon in front of them
Volley’d & thunder’d;
Storm’d at with shot and shell,
Boldly they rode and well,
Into the jaws of Death,
Into the mouth of Hell
Rode the six hundred.”
“Are we so stupid as to see violence as the only way to our goal?” Sometimes it is the only way, unless you want to change your goal. If you prefer to “Keep very tight ahold of Nurse, For fear of finding something worse” it seems to me you’re living in the right country. There’s no American version of the Muslim Brotherhood sending excited mobs out into the streets; there are lonely desperados like stoicheion who are shushed and belittled and threatened to get back in line.
Your governors are lawless and reckless, and their supporters are arrogant bullies. The recent SWATting phenomenon has led to lots of conservative hand-wringing that very soon THEY are going to escalate to the point of killing some of US. I’m convinced the killing will start on the Right. Why should the Left resort to killing? They’re getting everything they want right now – government, media, culture and now the courts are in their pocket. It’s the disenfranchised who become desperate enough to lash out in violence. America is one big Louisiana under Huey Long. He had it all – nothing and no one strong enough to stand up to him. But one of the little bugs he’d carelessly crushed pulled out a gun and put an end to his tyranny. It’s bound to happen, and your Founders would say it’s the proper thing to do.