The Andrew Bacevich collection

[Fuchs]

So, if I'm right, how does the latest from Iraq on troop withdrawal timetables fit into the way ahead? Where else do we go to replace all those kasernes and POMCUS sites in Germany?
Diego Garcia isn't big enough; Romania is too far from the -stans; Afghanistan is too inaccessible. Do we retrench back into Kuwait or try to work a deal in
Oman?

Turkey is ideal.

Ukraine and Georgia, two countries that are still in between NATO and Russia, are in range.
Iran, Syria, Iraq are very close as well.
The Suez channel is in strike range.

Turkey is getting alienated by Europeans because we don't want them to join the EU (actually, our politicians want it much more than the population).
They have no history of being colonialised, so they might not object bases as fiercely as many other nations.

Turkey would be the crown jewel of all forward deployments. There's no other country in the world that can offer so much for forward deployed forces.
Two shipping lane bottleneck, proximity to buffer region with Russia, proximity to Near East, immensely large and still capable indigenous forces that ensure the safety of the bases, easily accessible by sea, close to many other important allies.

[SethB]

I would question the necessity for forward based troops in the Middle East if oil were not a consideration. Oil is a strategic commodity because we need it, and it benefits them because they don't really have much else to offer.

In fact, oil has been an incessant source of conflict, and where it is not the source it seems to provide a disproportionate amount of funding.

Or as James Woolsey pointed out in a video I posted in another thread, this is the first war (I would point out the Barbary Wars) in which the United States has funded both sides.

[wm]

Turkey is ideal.

. . . there's that little sticking point known as Cyprus, which is also a problem for EU admission. The Turks' official positions wrt Kurds and Armenians are also concerns. And, we've already had trouble getting cooperation from Turkey--remember the 4ID debacle in 2003?

[Fuchs]

. . . there's that little sticking point known as Cyprus, which is also a problem for EU admission. The Turks' official positions wrt Kurds and Armenians are also concerns. And, we've already had trouble getting cooperation from Turkey--remember the 4ID debacle in 2003?

If Kuwait only had made as much trouble as well in 2003...it would have been a great friend.

[davidbfpo]

For all manner of reasons I suggest any "forward basing" should be on the islands available, for a moment ignoring politics: Cyprus, Crete, Malta, Sicily, Corsica and Sardinia.

If access from the Indian Ocean is required, yes no islands - unless Yemen allows use of Socotra (no facilities) - so Oman seems to be the only option.

davidbfpo

[bourbon]

Part two of the hearings:

Thursday, July 31, 2008 – 10:00 am – 2212 Rayburn – Open
The Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee will meet to hear testimony on A New U.S. Grand Strategy (Part 2).
* Subcommittee Chairman Snyder’s Opening Statement
Witnesses:

Admiral Dennis C. Blair, USN (Ret.) (pdf)
John M. Shalikashvili Chair
National Bureau of Asian Research

Ambassador Robert Hunter (pdf)
Senior Advisor, RAND Corporation
U.S. Ambassador to NATO, 1993-98

Major General Robert H. Scales Jr., USA (Ret.) (pdf)
President, COLGEN, LP
Former Commandant, Army War College

Dr. Philip D. Zelikow (pdf)
White Burkett Miller Professor of History, University of Virginia
Former Counselor, Department of State

[bourbon]

Bill Moyers Interviews Andrew J. Bacevich, PBS, August 15, 2008. (Transcript and Video)

BILL MOYERS: And you use this metaphor that is intriguing. American policy makers, quote, "have been engaged in a de facto Ponzi scheme, intended to extend indefinitely, the American line of credit." What's going on that resembles a Ponzi scheme?

ANDREW BACEVICH: This continuing tendency to borrow and to assume that the bills are never going to come due. I testified before a House committee six weeks ago now, on the future of U.S grand strategy. I was struck by the questions coming from members that showed an awareness, a sensitivity, and a deep concern, about some of the issues that I tried to raise in the book.

"How are we gonna pay the bills? How are we gonna pay for the commitment of entitlements that is going to increase year by year for the next couple of decades, especially as baby boomers retire?" Nobody has answers to those questions. So, I was pleased that these members of Congress understood the problem. I was absolutely taken aback when they said, "Professor, what can we do about this?" And their candid admission that they didn't have any answers, that they were perplexed, that this problem of learning to live within our means seemed to have no politically plausible solution.

Worth watching.

[Cavguy]

I apparently am in the minority, but think Prof Bacevich is spot on in his whole interview. I also sympathize with his diagnosis of how our foreign policy should be re-toolded.

Here's my favorite quote, which I have stated here before:

BILL MOYERS: You say, and this is another one of my highlighted sentences, that "Anyone with a conscience sending soldiers back to Iraq or Afghanistan for multiple combat tours, while the rest of the country chills out, can hardly be seen as an acceptable arrangement. It is unfair. Unjust. And morally corrosive." And, yet, that's what we're doing.

.......

ANDREW BACEVICH: Yeah. Well, my son was killed in Iraq. And I don't want to talk about that, because it's very personal. But it has long stuck in my craw, this posturing of supporting the troops. I don't want to insult people.

There are many people who say they support the troops, and they really mean it. But when it comes, really, down to understanding what does it mean to support the troops? It needs to mean more than putting a sticker on the back of your car.

I don't think we actually support the troops. We the people. What we the people do is we contract out the business of national security to approximately 0.5 percent of the population. About a million and a half people that are on active duty.

And then we really turn away. We don't want to look when they go back for two or three or four or five combat tours. That's not supporting the troops. That's an abdication of civic responsibility. And I do think it - there's something fundamentally immoral about that.

Again, as I tried to say, I think the global war on terror, as a framework of thinking about policy, is deeply defective. But if one believes in the global war on terror, then why isn't the country actually supporting it? In a meaningful substantive sense?

Where is the country?

[Granite_State]

Bill Moyers Interviews Andrew J. Bacevich, PBS, August 15, 2008. (Transcript and Video)

Worth watching.

Read this a couple weeks ago, motivated me to order his The New American Militarism on Amazon. I'm about 50 pages in, highly recommend it so far.