Quote Originally Posted by jmm99 View Post
Hello South Africa,

I do not believe that, usually, "quick, clean and easy (and low cost) options" exist in the military realm. I bolded "believe" because you obviously have a different belief - beliefs are not subject to argument.
You need to analyse carefully what you are up against before believing that "quick, clean and easy (and low cost) options" exist.

Grenada and Panama are probably pretty good examples from the US point of view as much as Vietnam should not have been. Vietnam was the place where the French got punished for a massive strategic error yet did the US (or anyone in the US) really think it would be a walk in the park.

Lets look at Africa. Apart from Egypt and Algeria (through quantity rather than quality) the potential for "quick, clean and easy (and low cost) options" is there for all the rest. The exercise which would taken out the Presidency and effectively neuatralise the military would take between a few hours to a weekend. Thereafter they would be running around in the bush (a lot like the Taliban were in 2001). And all this could probably be done off the back of one carrier strike group with no boots on the ground other than to extract US embassy staff and nationals.

Libya falls into that second group... would have been wrapped up in an afternoon, had there been the will.