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Thread: We Still Need the Big Guns

  1. #101
    Council Member Ken White's Avatar
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    Default Uh. We-llll...

    Quote Originally Posted by Rank amateur View Post
    A) They've also figured out that if they mass in groups of 200-400 in certain parts of Afghanistan no one will attack them.
    Not really. I've read the thread but I disagree that such large crowds are common. Possible, yeah and they do occur -- did frequently a couple of years ago and especially early last year, the first two Canadian rotations and the first Brit rotations had a rough go. However, those large groups last year got decimated and lately they generally get waxed when they do that so they've pretty well gone to smaller groups and intimidation of locals. The few exceptions have been in the areas where MI6 tried to cut deals with the locals (and got tossed out of country by Karzai for doing so).

    Predators see all -- well, almost all. Brits, Canadians and Dutch not withstanding, even Americans, the Talibs get creamed in all force on force battles and they get creamed by a bolt out of the blue when a Raven, Hunter or Predator spots 'em and a BOne at high angels sends down a JDAM (Thanks, George, you too, John...) even with no coalition troops around...
    B) I don't know. If they have an Internet connection they might be able to figure out that Obama has promised an immediate withdrawal and there's at least a chance he'll win.
    They may believe that. If you do, I have a Bridge I can let go at a bargain price. (That's for the 'withdraw' from Iraq part, ain't gonna happen. Don't care who wins)
    If 3,500 is good why isn't 135,000 better?
    Mostly because the Russians tried that. How'd that work out for them?

    As long as we have a small footprint, we don't antagonize the Afghans too terribly much, a bigger footprint would annoy them -- and the Brits and the Russians can tell you that is not a good idea. The idea is to be just big enough but not too big...
    I'm not certain about your position on this point. If our allies withdrew, would it be good, bad or irrelevant because we're winning in Iraq.
    Iraq has little to do with it; the Dutch have mostly left Iraq and the Brits are leaving, the Canadians were never there (officially or in large numbers). I believe it's also a bit early to say we're 'winning' in Iraq; we'll see. Winning in COIN is a bad term, there generally is no win or lose, one can only hope for an acceptable outcome.

    For Afghanistan and those folks leaving, militarily it wouldn't make too much difference. However, politically it would be bad; it would send the bad guys the message that they can prevail against the west simply by manipulating public opinion -- and at base level, that's what all this is about, the manipulation by them of western opinion. That's why they've hit the Canadians hard, they figure their public is the least convinced that fighting in Afghanistan is a good idea; then the Dutch, next most uncertain, latterly the Brits and they haven't given up on us but they've realized we aren't quitting as long as Bush is there. They don't realize that the next Prez isn't going to quit either (in Afghanistan or Iraq) but they'll find out. They know they cannot win militarily, they hope that through attrition, no matter how light, the populace of the west will be dissuaded.

    Either you resist the mob when they come by to collect protection money or you pay. Carter, Reagan and Bush 41 paid -- W. decided to resist. So too have the Brits, Canadians and Dutch -- and the rest of NATO (they may not all be fighting but there are a large number of people there from all NATO nations with more on the way). If they are coerced, figuratively -- it will not and cannot be done literally -- into leaving, then the entire west takes a hit...
    I'm concerned that they'll remember that recruiting was pretty strong when they sent people to terrorist training camps in Afghanistan and they're smart enough to figure out that as long as they keep their training mobile and surrounded by 200-400 Taliban, they can train as many people as they want.
    They can't do that; they can send them to Pakistan now; not at all sure that'll be true much longer. Even today, they can have problems (LINK). If they put 'em in Afghanistan; just the Camps, they're going to got spotted and zapped without a second thought. As I said above, they've already found out that gathering in large groups is hard on their health.

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  2. #102
    Council Member zenpundit's Avatar
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    Default Thank you

    WM,

    I think I understand your position better now with the benefit of the explanation. We're not really that far apart as I do not see the U.S. military as a hammer and every foreign policy problem as a nail - just that some of our best friends have decided to stake their security on access to our toolbox and if that ever ends, they and their neighbors will reach for bigger and better hammers of their own. We're better off if they do not.

    Additionally, as you point out, unlike the period leading up to WWI, the current world does not have a "multipolarity of great powers" competing for hegemony. 21st Century states are much more differentiated and seem to recognize that their economies are much more interconnected than they were in 1900
    Great Britain erred in retreating further into "Splendid Isolation" and Imperial Preference when what they ought to have done was managed Germany's rise by locking her into a new Concert of Europe while Bismarck's influence remained. Great Britain of 1900 was not as relatively strong as the Great Britain of 1850 and once Europe settled into hostile blocs it was too late. Not all of this was the fault of British statesmen of course but it was in their long-term interest to have gone the extra mile.

    The U.S. does not face true multipolarity but the potential is there - China and India are rising, Europe is aging but it's latent strength is great.

  3. #103
    Council Member wm's Avatar
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    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by zenpundit View Post
    Great Britain erred in retreating further into "Splendid Isolation" and Imperial Preference when what they ought to have done was managed Germany's rise by locking her into a new Concert of Europe while Bismarck's influence remained. Great Britain of 1900 was not as relatively strong as the Great Britain of 1850 and once Europe settled into hostile blocs it was too late. Not all of this was the fault of British statesmen of course but it was in their long-term interest to have gone the extra mile.
    My biggest concern is that the display of hubris that seems to undergird US unilateral actions will land us in a position very much like Britain's "splendid isolation" that you mention.

    To your point about Britain's failure to manage Germany post-1866, I suspect that Victoria's Britain had become so obsessed with the "Great Game" and other third world adventures in Asia and Africa that it was really unable to be a player that any one else would take too seriously in the post-Congress of Vienna power struggles in Continental Europe. I worry that the US's heavy-handed approach to "building" coalitions to fight the GWOT will produce a similar effect.

    Much of our current international "support" is, I think, because we play armory to a large portion of the world, not because other nations share our strategic concerns. In other words, nations play along with us because we keep giving them weapons or the foreign aid that allows them to buy the weapons they want.

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