Quote Originally Posted by Dayuhan View Post
I apologize insincerely for having caused you discomfort.
No discomfort... just mild annoyance.

They have as much military leverage as they think they need. They may or may not be correct, but that's for them to determine, and not anyone else's business. If they see their military purely as a device to protect the homeland, so be it. Their call.
... but what they think they need does not translate into any military deterent whatsoever.

We agree on something, unusual. I also think the politicians should stay out of it, once they've laid down the basic guidelines... including, in this case, the specific provisions that the UK and France should lead to the greatest possible extent, no US ground forces should be committed, and US force should not remove MG. Those are all policy decisions, made for good reasons.
Progress

little snip

Seems to me that the default choice when it comes to interfering in messy affairs in faraway countries should be exactly what Fuchs suggests: don't. That default would reasonably be overridden if there's a sufficiently compelling interest, but it would need to be very compelling indeed to be sufficient, IMO.
OK so you and Fuchs may agree on this. I disagree.

"when it comes to interfering in messy affairs in faraway countries" it should be done properly. You can't take the military option off the table because the political direction and the military execution have been poor. Fix the problem.

MacArthur and Patton type personalities should certainly never be allowed to make policy... if that's "management", then it's called for. MacArthur was able to make policy for a very short while in the country where I live, and made a serious hash of it.
Yes keep them focussed on the war and don't let their egotism run wild.

Agreed.
More progress