1 Attachment(s)
GEN McCaffrey on Strategic Challenges
Attached is an overview of GEN McCaffrey's analysis of Strategic Challenges facing the Obama Administration.
Nine insights:
•Homeland Security (Secretary Janet Napolitano) is enormously improved since 9-11. Zero US strikes. Huge losses UK, Saudi Arabia, Indonesia, Spain.
•The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have been bitter (40,199 US killed and wounded).
•The forty-four international terrorist organizations threatening the US are badly damaged, penetrated, losing international stature.
•Continuing proliferation of WMD nation states and technology arethe principle threat to the American people and regional stability. (Iran, North Korea, Pakistan, India –possible Venezuela, Saudi Arabia, etc.)
•The war in Iraq has taken a dramatic turn for the better. We will largely withdraw in the coming 36 months. (50,000 troops by the summer of 2010). Violence is down from 1,250 attacks/week in 2003 to 100 attacks/week in 2009. The civil war will be decided 2010-2012.
•The war in Afghanistan will go to high-order violence in 2009-2011. Our NATO allies are essential –and weak. The Afghan Government is both a modern miracle –and astonishingly corrupt and ineffective. The Afghan Army is the “schwerpunkt”of the 25 year campaign.
•The extremely capable and experienced Obama Administration national security team (Secretary Bob Gates, Secretary Hillary Clinton, General Dave Petraeus, General Ray Odierno, General Stan McChrystal, NSC Advisor Jim Jones, Special Envoy Dick Holbrook, Ambassador Karl Eikenberry, Ambassador Ann Patterson) must create a foreign policy that takes into account a failing US economy, disenchantment with the Bush/Rumsfeld misjudgments, and enormous animosity to perceived US arrogance and unilateralism.
•Mexico (our second largest global economic partner) is facing severe economic failure and an internal violent struggle with a 100,000 person narco-criminal force. This struggle is central to both Mexican and US Security.
•US Military forces are grievously over tasked, too small, and under resourced for the former Bush international security strategy. Domestic security institutions (Customs and Border Protection, Public Health Service, US Coast Guard, USMarshall Service, DEA, FBI) are an order-of-magnitude too anemic for the dangerous challenge at hand
v/r
Mike
Tight shot group in the bulls-eye...
Quote:
Originally Posted by
MikeF
Attached is an overview of GEN McCaffrey's analysis of Strategic Challenges facing the Obama Administration.
•The extremely capable and experienced Obama Administration national security team (Secretary Bob Gates, Secretary Hillary Clinton, General Dave Petraeus, General Ray Odierno, General Stan McChrystal, NSC Advisor Jim Jones, Special Envoy Dick Holbrook, Ambassador Karl Eikenberry, Ambassador Ann Patterson) must create a foreign policy that takes into account a failing US economy, disenchantment with the .... misjudgments, and enormous animosity to perceived US arrogance and unilateralism.
•
Mexico (our second largest global economic partner) is facing severe economic failure and an internal violent struggle with a 100,000 person narco-criminal force. This struggle is central to both Mexican and US Security.
•US Military forces are grievously over tasked, too small, and under resourced for the former Bush international security strategy. Domestic security institutions (Customs and Border Protection, Public Health Service, US Coast Guard, US Marshall Service, DEA, FBI) are an order-of-magnitude too anemic for the dangerous challenge at hand
One would hope that figuring out how to fund all of these non-negotiable requirements would be something that our financial community could come together on and put ahead of their own "needs"...
From Financial Crisis to Debt Crisis? by Kenneth Rogoff
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As governments pile up war-level debt burdens, when will the problem explode? One again we just don’t know. Our theoretical models tell us that even a massively leveraged economy can plod along for years, if not decades, before crashing and burning. It all boils down to confidence. It is precisely when investors are most sure that governments will eventually dig their way out of huge debt holes that politicians dig their way deeper and deeper into debt. Economics theory tells us a lot about which countries are most vulnerable, but specifying exactly where and when crises will erupt is far more difficult.
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We are constantly reassured that governments will not default on their debts. In fact, governments all over the world default with startling regularity, either outright or through inflation. Even the US, for example, significantly inflated down its debt in the 1970’s, and debased the gold value of the dollar from $21 per ounce to $35 in the 1930’s.
A Phantom Recovery? by Nouriel Roubini
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A second reason to fear a double-dip recession concerns the fact that oil, energy, and food prices may be rising faster than economic fundamentals warrant, and could be driven higher by the wall of liquidity chasing assets, as well as by speculative demand. Last year, oil at $145 a barrel was a tipping point for the global economy, as it created a major income shock for the US, Europe, Japan, China, India, and other oil-importing economies. The global economy, barely rising from its knees, could not withstand the contractionary shock if similar speculative forces were to drive oil rapidly towards $100 a barrel.
Stimulate or Die by Joseph E. Stiglitz
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Some worry about America’s increasing national debt. But if a new stimulus is well designed, with much of the money spent on assets, the fiscal position and future growth can actually be made stronger.
It is a mistake to look only at a country’s liabilities, and ignore its assets. Of course, that is an argument against badly designed bank bailouts, like the one in America, which has cost US taxpayer hundreds of billions of dollars, much of it never to be recovered. The national debt has increased, with no offsetting asset placed on the government’s balance sheet. But one should not confuse corporate welfare with a Keynesian stimulus.