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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Nadine Carroll who wrote (90366)	4/5/2003 9:30:21 PM
From: Jacob Snyder	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 281500

re Dove Blueprint For Victory: <got any practical suggestions? - say for dealing with Saudi Arabia - the author of all those jihad-teaching madrassahs you want to shut down?> The time to make a detailed Exit Plan, is before the soldiers are sent in. If you can't come up with an exit plan, a plan that covers all likely contingencies, then don't commit the soldiers. This was Israel's mistake in Lebanon. All Israel ended up doing, was replacing the PLO with Hezbollah, as the de facto ruler of S. Lebanon. None of Israel's objectives were achieved, because they went in with vague objectives (a 40-km-deep invasion, which morphed into Regime Change for the whole country), and had no exit plan (other than leave when the casualties got too high). As far as Saudi Arabia: 1. Energy Independance. Doing this, even threatening to do this, even a partially successful attempt at doing this, changes the whole balance of power, and will deeply scare the Saudis. This is a pre-condition for other efforts to succeed. 2. Strict Reciprocity: if they won't let us carry out a HeartsAndMinds campaign in their country (like alternatives to Jihad-preaching madrassahs) then we shut down their propaganda efforts in our country. 3. Preaching the violent overthrow of America's government, is a reason to lose citizenship. IMO, citizenship should be a priviledge (not an absolute birthright), and it carries certain obligations. Some people should be stripped of their citizenship and deported to Saudi Arabia. We should also encourage the French, German, British, Russians (and, yes, Israelis too) to take the same attitude. 4. Treat them as a tactical ally, not a strategic ally. Hold them at arm's length. Construct a series of specific rewards and punishments, to change their behavior. No more visits to the White House, and photo sessions, till they quit undermining us. Use weapons sales as a lever. 5. construct sea-going Very-Large vessels, that can act as combination floating bases, command centers, army base. These can be placed off any shore, and allow us independance of any need for shore-based assets in Saudi Arabia, Quatar, or Kuwait. <the perception that Arab regimes were backed by the West> Is it merely perception that the U.S. backs a failed regime such as Egypt's? The U.S. sends Egypt billions in aid every year, sells them all their weaponry, holds joint military exercises with them on their territory, regularly meets with their leaders at every governmental level including the highest. There is a lot of history, a lot of facts, that back up the perception. This is not just a PR problem. When I advocate a HeartsAndMinds campaign, it cannot be just a whitewash, a facade. In many ways, the problem for the U.S., is that we are stuck with a Legacy System of allies, a collection of obsolete ineffective allies among Muslim governments, that make it impossible to truly champion the principles of our Constitution in Muslim countries. I guess, once all those governments have gone the way of the Shah of Iran, we can begin again with a clean slate. That's the usual fate of Legacy Systems. It's going to be a long war.

To: Nadine Carroll who wrote (90366)	4/5/2003 11:26:39 PM
From: SirRealist	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

e) the perception (fostered by 20 years of weak responses) that America was a paper tiger, seemingly strong but with a glass jaw, unable to take casualties, which led to f) the perception that AQ et. al. were strong and on the rise. Doesn't the 20 years of weak responses justify the perception or make the perception correct? I don't refer to now, but during that 20 years, were we, in our choices, a paper tiger? I'm amused by a couple of things about 'responses'. In the past tense, I regularly hear 'Black Hawk Down' and 'Mogadishu' mentioned by Righties as the cause of that perception. Yet the two biggest walkaways in the past 20 years were the abrupt pullout from the last Gulf War and the Marines pulling out of Lebanon. In the future tense, it's largely a given that superpowers can get weaker nations intimidated by shows of strength. But a country that subsequently chafes at economic disadvantages that arises from the hands of the same superpower still has options: - negotiate from a position of weakness - kiss ass and deal with it - build strength covertly to improve its negotiating power And within those weaker ntions, or within the superpower, if it becomes evident to marginalized groups and individuals that they cannot compete with multimillion dollar lobbying efforts or campaign contributions, and they cannot compete militarily, the choices often boil down to: - kiss ass and deal with it - snipe, via acts of terrorism Whether dealing with nations, groups or individuals, the show of force doesn't eliminate WMD development nor terrorism. And especially with groups and individuals, if sufficiently marginalized with few prospects to overcome that, history suggests most will choose one of the two unhealthiest responses: despair to the point of unproductive passivity or terrorism to the point of suicide. I see no evidence that shows of power have ever caused a decline in terrorism. If we achieve that, great. But there's cause for skepticism.