So were the 9/11-era neocons when you give the recent pass a real look. See my comments in this thread about Powell's "pottery barn rule" and all the neocons who got on board with it as compared to conflicts like Panama and Kuwait where we broke things and then left. Somehow Bush senior was able to get through 2 conflicts in 4 years by avoiding the pitfalls that the Bush Jr neocons fell into via Powell's logic.
Yea but Panama and Desert Storm worked out far better than most expected. The big mistake was Bush, Sr urging the Shia and Kurds to rise up when he knew darn well we weren’t going to do a thing to help. The Iraqi Shia never forgave us for that.
Yea that part was a terrible sidebar choice in the Kuwait conflict, but we now know what it looks like when Saddam *does* get removed (a chaotic civil war on top of a power vacuum on top of an insurgency). Turning the entire Iraqi military into unemployed men with military experience paved the way for the insurgency that raged there from '04-'08 and the civil war that raged there from '06-'08, which was another terrible choice by guys like Paul Bremmer.
In the end, at least Iraq has a 30/100 on Freedom House's democracy index now--still a "not free" rating--which is better than flat out autocracy I suppose. But now Iran has a partner instead of a competitor in the region as well on the greater geopolitical side of things.
Really it goes all the way back to the Picot-Sykes agreement and the colonial period after WWI--especially in Israel, but places like Iraq are no exceptions.
Travis you have to explain to me how the same elites that were part of the administration that did Afghanistan and Iraq (eric and Eliot…cough cough) now talk about how we should do the same crazy thing in Iran. I feel like I’m losing my mind. How could you watch those disasters and then look at our citizens and say “you know what this complete clusterfuck of politics needs (rubs hands): let’s go into Iran. Americans will love that!!!!”
Iran would make Iraq look like a walk in the park. The terrain (mountains *and* urban sprawl), areal extent of the county (3 times the size of Iraq), unified larger populace (double the size of Iraq's pop and not divided), strategic partner in Iraq (Shia-led gov with western-supplied/trained military full of veterans), and much more advanced military capabilities would be insane to deal with. Good luck with that shit.
And what's the great prize at the end if we could even pull it off? A marginally-safer Israel via less funding for Hamas/Houthis/Hezbollah, and temporarily fewer drones in Russia's arsenal until they build out their own capacity? It'd be a win for Saudi Arabia more than anyone else, even if it didn't go completely sideways along the way.
All four administrations have dropped the ball. Biden is probably less than others, but his handling of Afghanistan hasn't been deft. I concur on the problems of 9/11-era neocons. I have a working theory: this is a byproduct of the All-Volunteer Force. People just don't have any concept of war anymore because they don't have skin in the game. Just my .02 cents.
All volunteer force or conscription, either way you don’t abuse your fighting men and women the way we did in Afghanistan and Iraq post 9/11. We have the best military in the world and when you go you either go big and get it done or don’t go at all.
Zero Americans wanted a nation building expedition in Afghanistan and most certainly saw right through the Iraqi WMD bullshit being dumped on them. We should have blown into Afghanistan and killed OBL right there and left.
The consequences of those wars cannot be overstated. As a Reagan Republican I am pissed beyond words at my party.
Even Reagan bailed on Lebanon after the Beirut Bombing and the civil war raged there through the rest of the 80's and into 1990. Funny how we don't count that one as a botched withdrawal that's at least up there with Somalia, if not others.
As I recall that was a UN peacekeeping mission. I think Reagan wanted nothing to do with it but got talked into it. Somalia was also a UN mission until Clinton expanded the mission, something Sr never would’ve done.
Obama/Trump/Biden all share blame in this as well--I don't mean to absolve them of any of their own mistakes, and there were many--but they were given a problem that wasn't of their making and so they don't share responsibility for the original sin, which starts with the Bush admin and the pottery barn rule in my estimation (YMMV).
And yes, I've long held the opinion that the end of the draft was going to water down our collective shared experience of war and concentrate it among a small group of peoples. Nixon basically ditched the draft as a way to stomp out the protest movement to buy himself more time in yet another conflict (Vietnam) where we decided that nation-building was in our best interests. Panama and Kuwait were contract force conflicts like the GWoT ones were, but the regime change and nation-building aspects were either not done or kept very limited, and so the conflicts were much shorter and tolerable for the American public's patience meter. Bush senior still lost reelection after deftly handling those two conflicts, which is kind of crazy in retrospect.
Bush Sr lost because the economy dipped in 1992. And if Perot hadn’t run Bush might have won. Here’s the real question—what if Gore beats W and then 9/11 happens?
I know Bush lost over issues not related to ForPol, but it's a little crazy post-GWoT that we ditched a guy who pulled that kind of thing off.
Yea I often wonder the same thing about what a post-9/11 world would have looked like with Gore in place rather than "Bush" (read: Cheney). We'll never know.
What the natsec elites never understood is that all the American people wanted was OBL’s head on a platter.
That's a big part of why the MAGA coalition lost no sleep replacing the NatSec elite leg of the GOP stool with the new conspiracy theory leg.
MAGA is clueless when it comes to national security and foreign policy.
So were the 9/11-era neocons when you give the recent pass a real look. See my comments in this thread about Powell's "pottery barn rule" and all the neocons who got on board with it as compared to conflicts like Panama and Kuwait where we broke things and then left. Somehow Bush senior was able to get through 2 conflicts in 4 years by avoiding the pitfalls that the Bush Jr neocons fell into via Powell's logic.
Yea but Panama and Desert Storm worked out far better than most expected. The big mistake was Bush, Sr urging the Shia and Kurds to rise up when he knew darn well we weren’t going to do a thing to help. The Iraqi Shia never forgave us for that.
Yea that part was a terrible sidebar choice in the Kuwait conflict, but we now know what it looks like when Saddam *does* get removed (a chaotic civil war on top of a power vacuum on top of an insurgency). Turning the entire Iraqi military into unemployed men with military experience paved the way for the insurgency that raged there from '04-'08 and the civil war that raged there from '06-'08, which was another terrible choice by guys like Paul Bremmer.
In the end, at least Iraq has a 30/100 on Freedom House's democracy index now--still a "not free" rating--which is better than flat out autocracy I suppose. But now Iran has a partner instead of a competitor in the region as well on the greater geopolitical side of things.
Exactly. The state of affairs in the Middle East is a direct consequence of the destabilization caused by our invasion of Iraq.
Really it goes all the way back to the Picot-Sykes agreement and the colonial period after WWI--especially in Israel, but places like Iraq are no exceptions.
Yup.
This….this times 10.
Travis you have to explain to me how the same elites that were part of the administration that did Afghanistan and Iraq (eric and Eliot…cough cough) now talk about how we should do the same crazy thing in Iran. I feel like I’m losing my mind. How could you watch those disasters and then look at our citizens and say “you know what this complete clusterfuck of politics needs (rubs hands): let’s go into Iran. Americans will love that!!!!”
Iran would make Iraq look like a walk in the park. The terrain (mountains *and* urban sprawl), areal extent of the county (3 times the size of Iraq), unified larger populace (double the size of Iraq's pop and not divided), strategic partner in Iraq (Shia-led gov with western-supplied/trained military full of veterans), and much more advanced military capabilities would be insane to deal with. Good luck with that shit.
And what's the great prize at the end if we could even pull it off? A marginally-safer Israel via less funding for Hamas/Houthis/Hezbollah, and temporarily fewer drones in Russia's arsenal until they build out their own capacity? It'd be a win for Saudi Arabia more than anyone else, even if it didn't go completely sideways along the way.
Oh it would go sideways and stay sideways for a very long time.
All four administrations have dropped the ball. Biden is probably less than others, but his handling of Afghanistan hasn't been deft. I concur on the problems of 9/11-era neocons. I have a working theory: this is a byproduct of the All-Volunteer Force. People just don't have any concept of war anymore because they don't have skin in the game. Just my .02 cents.
I agree. Could this also contribute to a La k of common purpose? On the other hand, a national military draft has issues.
Would a massive influx of short term (1-2 years) involuntary troops really serve the needs of a modern military?
lack of common purpose. Apologies for the typo
All volunteer force or conscription, either way you don’t abuse your fighting men and women the way we did in Afghanistan and Iraq post 9/11. We have the best military in the world and when you go you either go big and get it done or don’t go at all.
Zero Americans wanted a nation building expedition in Afghanistan and most certainly saw right through the Iraqi WMD bullshit being dumped on them. We should have blown into Afghanistan and killed OBL right there and left.
The consequences of those wars cannot be overstated. As a Reagan Republican I am pissed beyond words at my party.
Even Reagan bailed on Lebanon after the Beirut Bombing and the civil war raged there through the rest of the 80's and into 1990. Funny how we don't count that one as a botched withdrawal that's at least up there with Somalia, if not others.
As I recall that was a UN peacekeeping mission. I think Reagan wanted nothing to do with it but got talked into it. Somalia was also a UN mission until Clinton expanded the mission, something Sr never would’ve done.
Obama/Trump/Biden all share blame in this as well--I don't mean to absolve them of any of their own mistakes, and there were many--but they were given a problem that wasn't of their making and so they don't share responsibility for the original sin, which starts with the Bush admin and the pottery barn rule in my estimation (YMMV).
And yes, I've long held the opinion that the end of the draft was going to water down our collective shared experience of war and concentrate it among a small group of peoples. Nixon basically ditched the draft as a way to stomp out the protest movement to buy himself more time in yet another conflict (Vietnam) where we decided that nation-building was in our best interests. Panama and Kuwait were contract force conflicts like the GWoT ones were, but the regime change and nation-building aspects were either not done or kept very limited, and so the conflicts were much shorter and tolerable for the American public's patience meter. Bush senior still lost reelection after deftly handling those two conflicts, which is kind of crazy in retrospect.
Bush Sr lost because the economy dipped in 1992. And if Perot hadn’t run Bush might have won. Here’s the real question—what if Gore beats W and then 9/11 happens?
I know Bush lost over issues not related to ForPol, but it's a little crazy post-GWoT that we ditched a guy who pulled that kind of thing off.
Yea I often wonder the same thing about what a post-9/11 world would have looked like with Gore in place rather than "Bush" (read: Cheney). We'll never know.