Efficacy of punitive strikes?

[CPT Holzbach]

Launching a punitive expedition where there is no one who can effect changes desired may or may not make strategic or tactical sense.

Good point. Yes, I was thinking more along the lines of nations. You cant exactly do this against Al Qaeda. What you CAN do this hammer any nation that harbors them, a la Afghanistan.

I meant to ask can you expand on your theory?

This isnt a very well developed theory, more of an idea. An idea based on the fact that I have never heard a rational argument for nation building. I assume such an argument would change from situation to situation, but every lame attempt at one Ive heard couldnt be called rational. Most were emotion based pleas for justice and responsibility and helping the hardworking, indigenous peoples of...where ever. There may be good reasons for it sometimes, but I dont think we're honest with ourselves or the rest of the world about why we do it. Are we rebuilding Iraq in our image in the hope of cheap oil? Or because we "owe it to them"? The only thing our government "owes" anyone is to spend American tax dollars for the benefit of Americans. Crushing another country and rebuilding it differently JUST to get cheap oil probably isnt morally right. But neither is spending American lives and money to make non-Americans' lives better. If Im going to lose my life in a war, it had better be to make American's lives better. Dying to help Iraqis is dramatic, and touching, and noble, and makes for a nice sound bite at my memorial service. But I want us to win there because I already spent a year of my life and lost a soldier there. And maybe, just maybe, it'll make my gas cheaper. Wow, if there's one thing I DONT care about, it's Iraqi's quality of life. Am I wrong?

Americans are dying in Iraq. What are we going to get for it? We need to be coldly rational when it comes to war. It's fashionable to say war must be a last resort, etc etc, and it should be. But when it serves American interests, we shouldnt even blink in using it. There is a considerable gray area here. We've all been brought up to believe that "might is right" is not the way to go through life. Still, Ive never heard a rational argument against it. It doesnt feel right to me either, but "feelings" arent the best thing to base decisions to go to war on. So, Ive been chewing on the idea of punitive expeditions as a way of securing America's interests without ultimatly defeating ourselves with casualty producing, pussyfooted attempts at nation building.

A related article:http://www.victorhanson.com/articles/hanson060206.html

A riskier proposition is to employ American ground troops to change the political situation — that is, to flip a hostile government on the theory the people are desirous of freedom and would welcome liberation...And once America enters such a risky landscape, the clock ticks. The question of victory or quagmire is decided by whether we can defeat the insurgents and set up a local government before the enemy can erode U.S. public opinion — either by killing enough Americans on the evening news to make us doubt the cost is worth the gambit, or by suggesting that the vaunted values of Western bourgeois society have become sullied in the conflict at places like My Lai or Abu Ghraib.

He is skipping over my point. He seems to be assuming that you must stay and rebuild. At other points he only equates punitive attacks with bombing.