Quote Originally Posted by Ken White View Post
Yes.Yes.Not that simple. The West has gotten conditioned to government by Committee. That will be hard to undo lacking a major trauma. Libya didn't amount to a question, much less an annoyance -- as Afghanistan and Iraq were and are -- and doesn't even approach being a trauma. Except for the poor Libyans who are arguably worse off than before. Everything that has happened was easily predicted.

It was a dumb idea in the first place. To do what you wanted early on, which made sense, would have required that someone be in charge. No one was, is or will be and that should have been realized going in in. It almost certainly was by some but the 'do-gooder' mentality overrode common sense. Western 'leadership' is in decline due to the committee-ization of government. No one is in charge. Not in the US, not in the UK, not in France, certainly not in all three together plus others...

I suspect a coalition of JMA, David and Ken would be just as unwieldy.
You saw it coming while I for a moment thought that it was all pretty straight forward and would play itself out in a short sharp intervention. My distaste for the political classes continues to grow as a result but I believe that the upper echelons of the military have to a greater or lesser extent been sucked into the political ways to the detriment of the military. I still cling to the hope someone will prove me wrong on this... but I'm not holding my breath.

Military commanders don't command by "committee" they use their service and corps reps to put together various aspects of the overall plan. I certainly hope the military planning cycle has not deteriorated into a 20 person chat shop where everyone gets to voice an opinion even if it is outside their field of expertize. That is certainly what goes on in today's WH (see what was published about the OBL matter) but not sure what happened in earlier WHs.

It just gets so infuriating when the relatively simple gets turned into a complex and often unworkable operation. With the Brits the military only seem to complain when the leave the service with pension secured. Don't hear much from the US ex servicemen ever. (correct me if I'm wrong)