He still missed a lot.
My list about necessary grand strategic corrections has eight points, one of these is a necessary rapid re-industrialization.
He still missed a lot.
My list about necessary grand strategic corrections has eight points, one of these is a necessary rapid re-industrialization.
Bacevich's examples seem quite correct to me.
I'm not american and I don't want to write about grand-strategy of another country. God knows how much we, western euorpeans citizens, need a grand strategy...
Anyway, about reindustrialization: not that simple in the context of globalized market. USA, and Europe for that matter, has no chance to be competitive in many mass production ----> the need of commercial fences ---> many markets (China and India in primis) would be unreachble. But before this China could begin an economic maneuver about american debt sinking the economy at the start of this shift.
In my opinion the risk could be much more important: the problem for the western emisphere could be cultural. Are we still able to work, study, manage our life in a better way than others? I don't mean in absoulte but in the medium sense.
I've recently read about americans reciving tips about energy saving: please turn the knob of air conditioning from 18 to 23 degrees... I started laughing. Is this in any way symptomatic? I would rather start thinking about living without air conditioning or without SUV...
The logic is ever the same: we have the right to be addicted to anything, from energy to drugs. Isn't it the first grand strategy error, the cultural one?
Graycap
Bacevich isn't the only one who presented testimony the 15th on A New US Grand Strategy:
James Dobbins, RAND
Barry R. Posen, MIT....Having served under eight presidents through seven changes of administration, I have come to view these transitions as periods of considerable danger, as new and generally less experienced people assume positions of power with mandates for change and a predisposition to denigrate the experience and ignore the advice of their predecessors. America needs a grand strategy that helps it bridge these troubled waters, one that enjoys bipartisan support and is likely to endure. One key criteria for judging any newly announced grand strategy, therefore, is whether it is likely to be embraced by successor Administrations. In this respect, Napoleon’s advice with respect to constitutions may prove apt: that they be short and vague.
Mitchell B. Reiss, William and Mary Marshall-Wythe School of LawThe United States is a powerful country. Nevertheless, it is not as powerful as the foreign policy establishment believes. Political, military, and economic costs are mounting from U.S. actions abroad. At the same time, the U.S. has paid too little attention to problems at home. Over the last decade Americans became accustomed to a standard of living that could only be financed on borrowed money. U.S. foreign policy elites have become accustomed to an activist grand strategy that they have increasingly funded on borrowed money as well. The days of easy money are over. During these years, the U.S. failed to make critical investments in infrastructure and human capital. The U.S. is destined for a period of belt tightening; it must raise taxes and cut spending. The quantities involved seem so massive that it is difficult to see how DOD can escape being at least one of the bill payers. We should seize this opportunity to re-conceptualize U.S. grand strategy from top to bottom.
As a first step, I strongly urge the Committee to hold hearings on developing a strategy for sustaining and enhancing America’s economic power. Such a strategy would include the following issues:
- Reducing the national debt, which now stands at record levels, and has placed great stress on the middle and working classes;
- Tackling the coming crisis in entitlement payments (especially health care); driven by the “bow wave” of the boomer generation, U.S. citizens 65 and over will increase by a projected 147% between now and 2050;
- Reforming immigration laws to ensure that highly skilled and motivated people can come to the United States to work, create jobs and receive an education;
- Revitalizing our industrial infrastructure; and
- Developing a new national energy strategy to reduce our dependence on foreign oil, including greater investment in alternative energy sources.
These are just a few of the hurdles that we will have to surmount in the coming years if we wish to keep America strong. Undoubtedly, there are others. None of them will be easy to accomplish. But it is important to remember that small countries do not attempt such things. Only great ones do.
Went to war for oil meme ...
I will not criticize or speak against a man who has lost a son in the war. I hope that that is a feeling I never experience. Bacevich has a right to hold any position he wants. But the one proferred here is the tired "we went to war for oil" meme, so incorrect that it doesn't warrant the time spent to refute it. Discussion threads at the SWC have graduated beyond that meme.
I'm all in favor a national energy policy, something we have never had as a country. But assuming that we have the grandest policy imaginable in the future (drill for oil off our own shores, start up another hundred nuclear reactors, electric cars, etc., etc.), it will have absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with battling militant, Islamic extremism where it exists.
As for whether we do this overseas or within the homeland, well, take your pick. Don't be surprised if you choose to wage counterinsurgency on the homeland soil and that's actually what happens. In other words, be careful what you ask for. The "evils" of imperialism have kept the battle off of the homeland soil thus far. We have enjoyed peace and stability, including Bacevich who believes it's all about oil.
I understand the dangers of imperialism. There are consequences - and unintended consequences - to both isolationism and imperialism. But the long war - as Abizaid called it - will go on until one side or the other capitulates, one way or the other, one place or the other.
The interesting thing about all those testifying and
cited here is that they were testifying truth to power in every sense.
Most of their testimony is essentially correct; one could quibble about war for oil and reindustrialization plus a few others but those cited are basically correct in their assertions. We need to fix a lot of things.
Every thing we need to fix that we can indeed actually fix can be laid directly at the feet of Congress. This or that President may have facilitated what Congress wanted but those guys only serve for four or eight years -- as all the testimony above shows, we've been headed downhill since the '60s. Only the Congress has been around that long. So congress can do the fixing. Somehow, I doubt Congress will fix itself...
Thus, we need to fix Congress.
If Iraq was rich in carrots, isntead of oil...
Well, I guess we went to war in Afghanistan because of the attacks on 9/11.Originally Posted by Danny
As to why we are at war in Iraq, it seems pretty persuasive to me that petroleum has something to do with it. If Iraq's principal economic resource was that it was rich in say, carrots, I doubt we'd be that interested in the goings on in Mesopotamia.
No signature required, my handshake is good enough.
The primary thing concerning Oil in Iraq
was that it could be invaded with minimal disturbance to world oil supply -- and we really want China and India, two large users of ME Oil, to have all the Oil they need with no interruptions. There were some other synergistic effect involving oil but they were minor and paled into insignificance alongside the no-disruption factor and Iraq's geographical centrality in the ME and its pariah status at the time.
Thus the oil issue is not Iraq's oil but that in the greater ME.
I think it may be tied more to forward basing for American troops than to oil for American automobiles. However, I suspect that Ken White's point about oil for China and India is an important piece of the whole decision. We wouldn't want either of those countries pulling a "1930's and 40's Japan plan" to get access to petroleum resources, would we?
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?
Maybe the Iranians wouldn't mind if we just took up a small enclave around Bandar-e Abbas. After all, China had no problems with such efforts by European powers in places like Hong Kong and Tsingtao in the latter 1800s, right?
Vir prudens non contra ventum mingit
The greatest educational dogma is also its greatest fallacy: the belief that what must be learned can necessarily be taught. — Sydney J. Harris
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.
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