The Israeli Option in Strategy

[Penta]

Maybe this is my depressive nature manifesting itself, but...

Why bother?

In my young life, it's basically been a constant that:

1. The world hates us. (Us being America, Americans, so forth) This is unlikely to ever change, because even if we did accede to some demands, what is being demanded is, in a lot of cases, changes to the way the American people think and believe - seemingly to be imposed from Washington. (One sees this in the way Europeans deal with the US, in the way Middle Easterners deal with the US...In the way everybody deals with the US.)

2. The world would like nothing better than for us to pull back. Except that when we do, they freak out.

3. We're damned if we do, damned if we don't. In all cases.

So, maybe it's just me, maybe it's a generational thing, but...Why bother?

Europeans or Arabs think we're some bullying superpower?

Hell, they hardly know what one looks like. If we're going to be prejudged, may as well actually be the bully.

Y'think we're in a war to (destroy your religion/steal your resources/steal your markets/dominate the planet/impose Christian fundamentalism everywhere)?

No, we're not...But if you insist, we can certainly do that.

Way I see it, we're screwed already, so what have we got to lose in making the world be careful what they wish for?
--

And after that venting, I will note: I don't believe that. Not completely.

I'd be saddened to see the US actually follow that path, of "You have absolutely no idea what fear is".

But when I put a finger to the pulse of American opinion, I do sense that sort of hopelessness, of "Oh, screw it".

And I've not seen anybody here address that - that we're feeling even more hopeless and gloomy than even an Israeli strategy, hopeless and gloomy enough to have a strategy of "To hell with the world, you can all go FOAD."

Maybe it's the weather lately...But I see no point in even a hint of optimism.

Yeah, the world hates us. Yeah, they want us to go away.

But we're assailed if we actually ponder doing so.

And we're screwed no matter what we do, so why care anymore?

John
Sitting off in the corner, hugging himself and rocking, wishing he was as blissfully ignorant as his peers.

[tequila]

Penta - My recommendation: stop watching Fox News, and actually visit some foreign countries. Really, it's not that bad out there.

Norfolk - Both economic and population statistics even for the late Empire (especially the former) are far too unreliable to really make those kind of sweeping judgments as to what caused the decline of the Western Empire. I notice that there is no discussion of the role of political breakdown amongst the Roman political elite in your thesis, or the general inability of a preindustrial bureaucracy to efficiently manage such a farflung and infrastructurally challenged empire. Also, really, where's the evidence for imminent or even approaching civilizational collapse, unless you're one of those modern T. Lothrop Stoddard types?

[SteveMetz]

Penta - My recommendation...actually visit some foreign countries.

Except not France. That would simply reinforce the attitude described.

[Norfolk]

Penta - My recommendation: stop watching Fox News, and actually visit some foreign countries. Really, it's not that bad out there.

Norfolk - Both economic and population statistics even for the late Empire (especially the former) are far too unreliable to really make those kind of sweeping judgments as to what caused the decline of the Western Empire. I notice that there is no discussion of the role of political breakdown amongst the Roman political elite in your thesis, or the general inability of a preindustrial bureaucracy to efficiently manage such a farflung and infrastructurally challenged empire. Also, really, where's the evidence for imminent or even approaching civilizational collapse, unless you're one of those modern T. Lothrop Stoddard types?

Some good points Tequila, but I was not intending to present a comprehensive thesis for the decline and fall of the Roman Empire (at least its Western portion). I was limiting myself to alternative strategic approaches and the causes that many historians have identified as contributing to the disintegration of Roman military power over the course of the 3rd to 6th centuries AD. You are quite right that economic and population statistics are unreliable, but we have nothing better in their place. We have to work with what we have.

As to the role of political breakdown, political breakdown had occurred during the 3rd century, resulting in the Empire's collapse in 284 AD and subsequent reconstruction by Diocletian. But the failure of his constitutional mechanism, the Tetrarchy, and the rise of Constantine, civil wars that occurred in the late 4th century, Theodosius' reign as the last sole Emperor, and the splitting of the Roman polity into factions allied with particular barbarians (such as the party that opened one of the gates to Rome to Alaric's Visigoth Army in 410), were not necessarily all that much worse than the factionalization of the Roman elite both before, and in the decades shortly after, Augustus. Those factions opened the gates, figuratively speaking, to competing Roman generals and their armies.

The events of the 3rd century stand out because of the nearly century-long state of an-and off civil war and the rise of the Gallic Empire for a time as a rival in the West, in addition to the deflation of the buying power of the currency (denarrii), and what appears to be a noticeable decline in the birth rate. What occurred during the civil wars leading up to the accession of Augustus, and the civil wars that occurred only a few decades afterwards in the time leading up to the accession of the Flavians and the "Five Good Emperors", was not greatly less dangerous than what occurred in the late 4th and early 5th centuries until 410.

A major difference between the 1st Centuries BC and AD on the one hand, and the 4th and 5th on the other, as any number of historians tell us (I prefer Palmer and Toynbee, amongst others), tell us, was the apparent drop in birth rate, and the weakening of the economy (leading to Diocletian's system of compelling the son to follow in his father's occupation, and binding most people to the locality in which they lived and no longer permitting most people to move about within the Empire). The late years of the Republic and the early years of the Empire did not appear to face these limitations, and indeed resorted to the use of client-states and kingdoms, such as Commogene, Palestine, and Armenia in the East, and certain "kingdoms" and tribes in what later became the province of Germania. Once these had been disposed of, Rome had to bear the burden alone for both defending them from external threats, and from internal rebellion and disorder.

I was not intending to suggest anything like "imminent civilizational collapse"; that is taking my points much too far. My object was to point out that our strategic options, like those of the Romans, become increasingly limited in time by such factors as economic weakness or unsound fundamentals and low birth-rates. The Israeli Option is vulnerable to those factors.

[Penta]

Penta - My recommendation: stop watching Fox News, and actually visit some foreign countries. Really, it's not that bad out there.

Amusingly, I don't even watch Fox News. Ever.

[Rank amateur]

Actually, I see the world moving to a form of détente. Cheap, effective, easily imitated asymmetric tactics like IEDs make it difficult and expensive for us to invade other countries. Our conventional superiority makes it cheap and easy for us to break stuff they need: bridges, parliament buildings, generating stations, airports, the leader's family, etc.

The two main problems are that some of the bad guys have no interest in self preservation and a lot of people on our side want destruction instead of being content with containment.