Hello Steve, Do not fret so. It is still possible that:
(a) The WOT is not forever
(b) The WAT is confined
(c) The whatnot is winnable
... at least, more on topic, for that is what the financial market still believes.
You may be right that when some suspect that Bush is a lightweight or weak, it is not that the suspicion is the military he controls cannot fight, it is more do with his intellect, thinking process, and ability to achieve against the odds. Winning elections these days, sadly, may not always count as much of any achievement.
Whatever may have been the reasons for going to the latest war, whether lightly decided, mistakenly ‘quagmired’ into, or wisely planned and brilliantly implemented, pulling out now may not be a pleasant and viable option.
Not reacting to 9.11 in accordance with the wishes of the democratic electorates was not an option.
The discussion of reasons is late, as that discussion should have taken place in an atmosphere of calm deliberation, with CNN on mute, before the decision to accomplish clearly defined missions and achievable hidden strategies, and before one finds one lonesome self in a situation that does not involve flowers on the sidewalks and dancing in the streets.
For all we know, the powers that be on both sides may in fact had calmly deliberated, defined, planned and meant to accomplish some mission and other vision.
One and/or the other side may have just fcuked up.
Or, this current situation is exactly what both sides wanted.
I mean, the Bush powers on one side of the equation certainly wanted to steer events one way, and the Osama energy on the other side of the same equation probably wanted to steer events differently. Who got what they wanted is still an open question.
Geopolitically speaking, I am guessing that war can be like a bullet lodged inside a victim's skull, now luck dependent, and extraction can only prove complicated, until there is no other choice, in which case it would be really bad, as opposed to just horrible.
Militarily speaking, the asymmetric warfare that has been fought has held few surprises, going according to the script of all asymmetric warfare, except that in the current episode, there seems to be more attention paid to truck drivers. This attention is interesting, but may not be decisive, as we all know, less the truck drivers, the conventional army can fall back on airlifts, though at great cost, and worse comes to worst, fall back to the coast and rely on sealifts, although also at great cost.
Politically speaking, all wars have aims, and these aims may not involve winning per se, as Ron the Hawk pointed out (lightening rod effect). However, the stated aims of nation-building and democracy-incubating require control of population centers, and these aims may be harder to realize if the conventional army has to continuously depend on airlifted supplies for toiletries or retreat to coastal regions so as to chow.
Economically speaking, all wars must be financed. The financing typically comes from taxation (including borrowing, inflating, looting) or spending of savings. The trouble with battles against desert tribes is that not only is the fight asymmetrical, the financing requirement is also lopsided. However, I suppose if one was really determined, the WOT-WAT-whatnot can be financed for a long time, in some fashion and by some way, even if not forever.
Historically speaking, the Iraq equation, unlike Vietnam / Korea / Afghanistan I (the Russian experience), does not (yet) involve large nuclear-armed continental nations standing behind the asymmetric combatants. This is a plus.
The Iraq situation, like Vietnam, does have the very real potential of spreading, uncontrollably, although perhaps not to Cambodia and Laos. This is a minus.
The Iraq conundrum, like Afghanistan I, and Chechnya Now, and Israel/Palestine since the beginning of time, is forever for one side, and until exhaustion for the other. This is a conundrum.
The ultimate worst-case scenario may be that troubles spread, like flaming grease on water, and the Saudi royal family gets toppled ‘people power fashion’ by very religious folks ala Iran way back when. This is not good.
The penultimate worst-case script may be that Coalition-of-the-Willing troops march on Tehran, and set off Operation Iranian Freedom, and recreate / duplicate another asymmetric and unending battle, that in turn can spread, to Turkey, Ex-Soviet Central Asia, Egypt, Morocco, Sudan, Nigeria, … Indonesia, Philippines, and parts of Europe, Australia, and eventually, Korea, Taiwan, Japan, China. This is also not good.
There are other possible outcomes, and realistically, and really, only one good for most of us on SI, namely nation built, electorates ruled in accordance to Ron the Hawk’s wishes, and all is well under the heavens.
Now we must calculate the odds.
I suspect that, in the bitter end, the people will determine the outcome of the war, as the Chairman of the Long March fame quipped, and not by Echelon, smart munitions, or improvised explosives. The late Chairman was a farm boy from Hunan, and this observation of the truth is so very obvious to all but the most naïve.
A pro-American red capitalist from China recently observed that the some Americans (perhaps he had Ron Hawkmoon in mind) fancy themselves to be like the Romans, without realizing America no longer has what it would take to be like Rome during its peak.
The Roman solution to the current situation in Iraq can only be imagined, hardly practiced on a wide scale in full view of CNN, and, in any case, even in the case of the Romans and outer province barbarians, the ultimate outcome was never really in doubt … it went something like so (click on each coin for the underlying script) forumancientcoins.com until the money diluted to just bronze bits.
Have you calculated the odds yet? Does your asset allocation match the requirements dictated by your calculation?
Chugs, Jay |
