Quote Originally Posted by J Wolfsberger View Post
... if we're overlooking something vital.

We seem to be focusing on what kind of war we should prepare for, the right mix of forces, doctrine, etc. We also discuss the likelihood of engaging in general war with a near peer adversary, the force mix necessary to prevail in that kind of conflict, etc.

What I haven't seen is a discussion of how that near peer might choose to deal with us even if he believed he had parity in conventional forces. I recognize the danger in trying to plan against projected intentions, but I also think, especially after witnessing the domestic result of Iraq and Afghanistan, that if I were planning for the near peer, I would structure a campaign of low intensity proxy wars that force the US to choose between losing something of national interest, or getting bled dry in a long series of low intensity conflicts.
American
(Sound familiar?)
One upshot of this view is that we (and AQ) are being manipulated by another country, that 9-11 was actually only a "tickler" to get the US to deploy its forces to SWA and get bled white. It is an alternative implementation of what the U.S. under Reagan did to the Soviet Union--burn out the country economically by forcing it to to devote too many resources to defense. While the conspiracy theorist lurking inside me finds this view appealing, I have a tough time accepting that the terrorists out there are so clueless as to be suckered into this prospect. And, even if the proxies are currently so clueless as to their manipuilated status, they may (in fact probably will) smarten up, turn, and "bite the hand that feeds them." This seems to be what happened to the US with its support of anti-Soviet insurgents/guerrillas/terrorists/freedom fighters in Afghanistan, not to mention its support for the Viet Minh against the Japanese and then the Chinese in the 40's and its support to the Cuban Revolution against Batista in the mid 50's.

Of course my understanding of the facts of history may be distorted or revisionist, but I submit that using proxies for one's dirty work tends to come back and haunt one in the longer term.

Perhaps a better way to proceed might be to accept the idea that power elites aggrandize power up to the point that they build "nations" so large that they collapse under their own weight. My long view of history is of an oscillation between small states and large states. We seem to be at a point where dissatisfaction with the ability of the big state to meet its responsibilities to its constituents is very high. Around the world, citizens now seem tired of the "Walmart/Big Box" approach to government and want to go back to having their local "mom and pop" stores provide for their needs. Maybe future conflict planning ought to focus on that possibility and figure out how to foster cooperation among the former constituent parts of these devolving/unraveling national conglomerates. The U.S. somehow managed to do it at least twice:
--once when we got past the Articles of Confederacy
--again when we managed to restore the union, perhaps not as successfully as one might have wished, after the War of Southern Secession/Northern Aggression (folks have at least two conflicting views about the nature of the military events of 1860-1865).
What lessons can be learned from these events?