RE: Rand Paul Wants To Go After Isis
September 4, 2014 at 1:11 am
(This post was last modified: September 4, 2014 at 1:43 am by Anomalocaris.)
I think ISIS looked at the American debacle in Afghanistan and Iraq, found the same pattern and underlying cause, and concluded the following:
1. Being defeated on the battlefield by the US military is no big deal for a non-industrialized player because the US does not have the political will to reinstitute or maintain the draft, so the US would never have enough troops to actually hold and control large territory it won through victory in battle using its own resources. The US would always end up in isolated bastions, only coming out from time to time to disrupt local people's lives rather than be able to go to ground, turn native, live with native, and blanket the area.
2. The US is unusually thick, naive and wish thinking in accessing people and politics of a different culture, so wily local croaks can always play American occupiers like a violin, swindle them, cheat them and set themselves up as appearent US puppets while playing both sides. Consequently US can never identify and set up the right local people to rule over the territory it won through battlefield victory, and will not really win the hearts and minds of the majority who do not think like westerners.
3. The US has no tolerance for normal level of casualty to be expected from any lengthy determined counterinsurgency campaign. The American endurance will never exceed 2 administrations because the administration that comes in after the war started will inevitably come in on a platform of ending the war. So the US can be counted on to declare victory within 8-10 years at most while having really won nothing lasting, and then hightail it out of there.
4. A determined local insurgency can out last the US because 1, 2 and 3.
5. To get out, the US would need the appearance of having left the place better than when it went in. This requires the US to persuade an insurgency it can't crush to be quiet for a while in order for the US to save face as it leaves.
6. This means the US must make concession to the insurgency, and also pressure it's double dealing puppets to do the same before leaving.
7. This means the insurgence would always end up in a more secure and entrenched international position with wider recognition when the US leaves, then when the US first went in.
Ergo, ISIS might conclude so long as the side the US wishes to crush is non-industrialized, and enjoy widespread, if diffuse, support, as ISIS does from the world wide network of jihadists, it is always a blessing in disguise for the side the US wishes to crush to be invaded by the US.
Considering these factors, it seems clear America's apparently awesome arsenal, and it's vast defense budget with practically equal the defense spending of the rest of the world combined, really convey a false sense of power. Structural weaknesses of American political culture and population outlook reduces America's ability to leverage its military power to shape the world with its hard power as it wishes to a much higher degree than commonly recognized. There is a serious disconnect between our superficial military power, and our real long term national power to semi-permanently shape events.
Jingoists and militarists are always mesmerized by superficial military power, and would press for the US to use its military power to even further overreach our real long term ability to shape events, and thus further damaging the American standing in the world through unnecessary own goals and other long term failures.
1. Being defeated on the battlefield by the US military is no big deal for a non-industrialized player because the US does not have the political will to reinstitute or maintain the draft, so the US would never have enough troops to actually hold and control large territory it won through victory in battle using its own resources. The US would always end up in isolated bastions, only coming out from time to time to disrupt local people's lives rather than be able to go to ground, turn native, live with native, and blanket the area.
2. The US is unusually thick, naive and wish thinking in accessing people and politics of a different culture, so wily local croaks can always play American occupiers like a violin, swindle them, cheat them and set themselves up as appearent US puppets while playing both sides. Consequently US can never identify and set up the right local people to rule over the territory it won through battlefield victory, and will not really win the hearts and minds of the majority who do not think like westerners.
3. The US has no tolerance for normal level of casualty to be expected from any lengthy determined counterinsurgency campaign. The American endurance will never exceed 2 administrations because the administration that comes in after the war started will inevitably come in on a platform of ending the war. So the US can be counted on to declare victory within 8-10 years at most while having really won nothing lasting, and then hightail it out of there.
4. A determined local insurgency can out last the US because 1, 2 and 3.
5. To get out, the US would need the appearance of having left the place better than when it went in. This requires the US to persuade an insurgency it can't crush to be quiet for a while in order for the US to save face as it leaves.
6. This means the US must make concession to the insurgency, and also pressure it's double dealing puppets to do the same before leaving.
7. This means the insurgence would always end up in a more secure and entrenched international position with wider recognition when the US leaves, then when the US first went in.
Ergo, ISIS might conclude so long as the side the US wishes to crush is non-industrialized, and enjoy widespread, if diffuse, support, as ISIS does from the world wide network of jihadists, it is always a blessing in disguise for the side the US wishes to crush to be invaded by the US.
Considering these factors, it seems clear America's apparently awesome arsenal, and it's vast defense budget with practically equal the defense spending of the rest of the world combined, really convey a false sense of power. Structural weaknesses of American political culture and population outlook reduces America's ability to leverage its military power to shape the world with its hard power as it wishes to a much higher degree than commonly recognized. There is a serious disconnect between our superficial military power, and our real long term national power to semi-permanently shape events.
Jingoists and militarists are always mesmerized by superficial military power, and would press for the US to use its military power to even further overreach our real long term ability to shape events, and thus further damaging the American standing in the world through unnecessary own goals and other long term failures.
