The Andrew Bacevich collection

[skiguy]

stop politicizing the war, and stop blaming the press and protesters for our woes.

The only ones politicizing this war, IMO, is the Left. They are still stuck on "the reasons for going" and, unfortunately, that is what has led the way and continues to lead the opposition.

There's dissent...and dissent is Patriotic blah blah blah, but then there's just plain wrong. I don't know how many political forums you guys read, but there's still discussion on a daily basis about Joe Wilson, Plame, WMD's, Saddam had no ties to AlQ, etc. Will they ever move on? (pun intended). There is virtually no discussion about victory, the only discussion is "get out of Iraq now" or "Bush lied"

I disagree that the press and protesters are blameless. Yes, they all have the freedom and liberty to protest or speak out. But they have to take responsibilty for the consequences of their actions. They are the reason public support has wained.

[jcustis]

But empirical evidence does not need to be quantitative. There is plenty of evidence that the French lost Algeria when the French public lost faith in both Algerie Francaise and the French Army. There is also a lot of evidence that opposition to the Vietnam War aided the VC/NVA in their cause by influencing US policy and actual support to the RVN. The survey data do correlate with policy.

Finally, this issue is all part of the war for legitimacy which is fought in the country where the war takes place, the countries that support the "host government," and the "court of world opinion." (Sorry about the shorthand.)

To frame my question a bit differently, is opposition to a war necessarily bad? Furthermore, can opposition and dissent be in fact patriotic? There's a book out there about the liberal left reclaiming the patriotic high ground, and I believe that there are folks who have responsible and mature viewpoints about our global power and its repercussions.

And I do firmly believe that the road to war matters even more as we move along the timeline, because the venture of war will always take a toll in "precious treasure". We need to focus on moving to an endstate, for sure, but it doesn't mean we stop dissecting how we took that path in the first place.

[Granite_State]

Testimony before the House Armed Services Committee on Oversight and Investigations Tuesday. I'm inclined to agree with him.

Yet there is a second way to approach questions of grand strategy. This alternative approach – which I will employ in my very brief prepared remarks – is one that emphasizes internal conditions as much as external threats.
Here is my bottom line: the strategic imperative that we confront in our time demands first of all that we put our own house in order. Fixing our own problems should take precedence over fixing the world’s problems.
....
Since the 1970s, Americans have talked endlessly of the need to address this problem. Talk has not produced effective action.

Instead, by tolerating this growing dependence on foreign oil we have allowed ourselves to be drawn ever more deeply into the Persian Gulf, a tendency that culminated in the ongoing Iraq War. That war, now in its sixth year, is costing us an estimated $3 billion per week – a figure that is effectively a surtax added to the oil bill.

Surely, this is a matter that future historians will find baffling: how a great power could recognize the danger posed by energy dependence and then do so little to avert that danger.

Example number two of our domestic dysfunction is fiscal. Again, you are familiar with the essential problem, namely our persistent refusal to live within our means.

When President Bush took office in 2001, the national debt stood at less than $6 trillion. Since then it has increased by more than 50% to $9.5 trillion. When Ronald Reagan became president back in 1981, total debt equaled 31% of GDP. Today, the debt is closing in on 70% of GDP.
....
In fact, the Long War represents an impediment to sound grand strategy. To persist in the Long War will be to exacerbate the existing trends toward ever greater debt and dependency and it will do so while placing at risk America’s overstretched armed forces.

To imagine that a reliance on military power can reverse these trends toward ever increasing debt and dependency would be the height of folly. This is the central lesson that we should take away from period since September 11, 2001.
....
In the end, how we manage – or mismanage – our affairs here at home will prove to be far more decisive than our efforts to manage events beyond our shores, whether in the Persian Gulf or East Asia or elsewhere.

http://www.amconmag.com/blog/2008/07...tegy/#more-758

[Fuchs]

He still missed a lot.

My list about necessary grand strategic corrections has eight points, one of these is a necessary rapid re-industrialization.

[Graycap]

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

[Jedburgh]

Bacevich isn't the only one who presented testimony the 15th on A New US Grand Strategy:

James Dobbins, RAND

....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.

Barry R. Posen, MIT

The 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.

Mitchell B. Reiss, William and Mary Marshall-Wythe School of Law

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.

[Danny]

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.

[Fuchs]

http://ericpalmer.wordpress.com/2009...evich-usa-ret/

I agree 95%.

I do not tend to publicly agree with others often, so this is quite exceptional.

(The only thing that irritated me was the supposed theft of California by Mexicans, maybe I just misunderstood something - it doesn't fit into his speech.)

[SWJ Blog]

Andrew J. Bacevich: The Revisionist Imperative

Entry Excerpt:



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[davidbfpo]

This thread was called 'Warrior Politics--Andrew Bacevich' and has been renamed (similar title to David Kilcullen's thread, although with fewer reads).

I have also merged several smaller threads into this one.

[davidbfpo]

A WaPo review of 'Breach of Trust : How Americans Failed Their Soldiers and Their Country’ by Andrew J. Bacevich:http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinio...cd6_story.html

I do like this phrase for describing (US) All Volunteer Forces:

....a civil-military relationship founded on the principle that a few fight while the rest watch.

The reviewer's best passage:

Evading civic responsibility is the order of the day, replaced by a politics of insult, enmity and evasion. The men and women we so blithely send off to fight wars in places we’ve never heard of deserve better than that, but there’s no reason to believe we’re going to give it to them.

Whilst I appreciate the book is about the USA, the principles have an application in Western Europe, where conscription has dwindled, but I cannot recall any public debate about an all volunteer military except on the far left.