US Politics: He's Trump, he's Trump, he's Trump, he's in my head

[OldGimletEye]

1 minute ago, Kalbear said:

Honestly, the actual military planning and execution has largely been exemplary as far as the US goes. Given the scope and amount of weapons that the US uses on a regular basis, the challenges in using them in non-traditional ways and the enemies they are being used on, the US has had incredibly good military planning.

What they don't have in any meaningful way is good post-conflict planning, and the US has still not figured out a particularly good way of establishing a country after going into it with good overall results. I don't think that's on the military planning. And heck, we had a ton of planning on the Iraq war and it didn't do us all that much good. 

Maybe you are right on the tactical stuff. But, I'd say if the object of warfighting is to bring about a desirable political result, then tactical wins don't matter that much. We were often tactically successful in Vietnam and we lost.

[OldGimletEye]

46 minutes ago, Channel4s-JonSnow said:

Agree, especially as most information we are fed on these matters is rarely based on reality, and is borderline propaganda. 

Which is why I really think the public needs to be simply left out of matters such as this. We will simply never have access to the correct level of information necessary to make an informed decision on that matter. I mean look at Brexit! 

If you want my vote to send American men and women to war, where they can be killed and which will also result in civilian casualties, I think I deserve a bit of honest and realistic information. Otherwise I will feel a bit like Flounder after being told "You fucked up, you trusted us."

[Kalbear]

Just now, OldGimletEye said:

Maybe you are right on the tactical stuff. But, I'd say if the object of warfighting is to bring about a desirable political result, then tactical wins don't matter that much. We were often tactically successful in Vietnam and we lost.

The object of war might be to bring a desirable political result, but that isn't on the backs of the military on any level. 

Vietnam is a good counterexample, where the military choices caused some bad outcomes - how the war was prosecuted. But that isn't the case with, say, Iraq or Afghanistan to a large extent, and while there have been errors (like not getting OBL in 2002) they weren't particularly massive errors compared to, say, choosing to bomb Laos and Cambodia or causing massive civilian casualties that formented unrest at home.

With the 'active war zone' designation in Yemen and Somalia that may be changing quite a bit.

[OldGimletEye]

3 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

The object of war might be to bring a desirable political result, but that isn't on the backs of the military on any level. 

Vietnam is a good counterexample, where the military choices caused some bad outcomes - how the war was prosecuted. But that isn't the case with, say, Iraq or Afghanistan to a large extent, and while there have been errors (like not getting OBL in 2002) they weren't particularly massive errors compared to, say, choosing to bomb Laos and Cambodia or causing massive civilian casualties that formented unrest at home.

With the 'active war zone' designation in Yemen and Somalia that may be changing quite a bit.

I think your argument is only correct if you have some kind of Ludendorffian view that espouses total war. Other wise, I'd say political and diplomatic considerations are very much of the military planning process, particularly at the strategic level.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

54 minutes ago, OldGimletEye said:

I swear, I have gotten better thoughtfulness and better planning from my young squad leaders, who didn't even have a college degree, than some of these politician idiots who went to Ivy League schools.

It's kind of crazy to go back and look at just how little planning went into the Iraq War.....

[Kalbear]

13 minutes ago, OldGimletEye said:

I think your argument is only correct if you have some kind of Ludendorffian view that espouses total war. Other wise, I'd say political and diplomatic considerations are very much of the military planning process, particularly at the strategic level.

My concern is that if you start making generals be the ones responsible for not only the execution and planning of the war but the execution and planning of the peace, you'll get some fairly quick police states as a result. I'm fine with generals knowing about it as a rule and being able to talk to it and understand some of the salient points - Mattis is by all accounts very good at this, as an example - but I don't want that to be their responsibility without getting a better idea of what that entails. 

The Marshall plan wasn't enacted or proposed by the military, for instance. They carried out a lot of it - the logistics, the security, the counterinsurgency - but the actual plan and doctrine wasn't theirs. Do you want the military to be the ones who propose this?

There was a decent article in HuffPo from a US senator about this sort of thing in general, and where I think we need to go. I don't want the military to be thinking about how to do civic planning or how to encourage representative governments or how to encourage stability - or at least, I don't want that to be their goal. 

Quote

A strong American military is still vital to guard against conventional security threats, but the emerging threats to global stability exert influence that cannot be checked with military power alone. The world has changed. The tools that our rivals and enemies use have transformed. But our foreign affairs playbook has fallen behind.

 

[OldGimletEye]

7 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

My concern is that if you start making generals be the ones responsible for not only the execution and planning of the war but the execution and planning of the peace, you'll get some fairly quick police states as a result. I'm fine with generals knowing about it as a rule and being able to talk to it and understand some of the salient points - Mattis is by all accounts very good at this, as an example - but I don't want that to be their responsibility without getting a better idea of what that entails. 

The Marshall plan wasn't enacted or proposed by the military, for instance. They carried out a lot of it - the logistics, the security, the counterinsurgency - but the actual plan and doctrine wasn't theirs. Do you want the military to be the ones who propose this?

There was a decent article in HuffPo about this sort of thing in general, and where I think we need to go. I don't want the military to be thinking about how to do civic planning or how to encourage representative governments or how to encourage stability - or at least, I don't want that to be their goal. 

 

I don't think I ever asserted that Generals should be the only one responsible.

But, see here is the thing: Most wars today are fought to achieve desirable political outcomes. It's fine to say, we did great on the tactical stuff and great on the operational level. But, if you don't achieve the stated political outcome or a desirable on, then what's the point?

Your "pure" military operations have to be well integrated with your political strategy and diplomatic strategy, unless your just doing the total war thingy. 

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

Does life have any meaning without a bit of sabre-rattling?:

http://freebeacon.com/national-security/iran-russia-threaten-lethal-response-u-s-action-syria/

Well that escalated quickly. 

[DMC]

22 minutes ago, OldGimletEye said:

But, see here is the thing: Most wars today are fought to achieve desirable political outcomes. It's fine to say, we did great on the tactical stuff and great on the operational level. But, if you don't achieve the stated political outcome or a desirable on, then what's the point?

I think what Kal, or at least I, is objecting to is the military's role in nation-building.  Doesn't just go for the military, we are bad at post-conflict.  Wolfowitz and the neo-cons were obviously gravely off with Iraq, but Obama took essentially the opposite tack in Libya after ousting Gaddafi and doing so is basically his greatest regret.

I think if an administration is going to commit to a ground offensive, they owe the public to answer each and every question of the Powell doctrine.  If those questions are satisfactorily answered, it is much more likely to yield desirable post-conflict outcomes.

[Kalbear]

3 minutes ago, dmc515 said:

I think what Kal, or at least I, is objecting to is the military's role in nation-building.  Doesn't just go for the military, we are bad at post-conflict.  Wolfowitz and the neo-cons were obviously gravely off with Iraq, but Obama took essentially the opposite tack in Libya after ousting Gaddafi and doing so is basically his greatest regret.

I think if an administration is going to commit to a ground offensive, they owe the public to answer each and every question of the Powell doctrine.  If those questions are satisfactorily answered, it is much more likely to yield desirable post-conflict outcomes.

This, and that I don't blame the military for Iraq or Afghanistan's outcomes. I blame the US. We didn't fail militarily; we failed to have a comprehensive plan, an end goal, a means of achieving those goals and analysis of how things might go south. The original objection I had was that you seemed like you were saying the military didn't do a good job; I would characterize it as the US did not do a good job using the military to achieve their goals. 

As to Obama, I don't think he regrets not putting people on the ground in Libya - he regrets his allies saying that they would help out more and did not, and he regrets the Libyans saying that they didn't want any help and respecting that. If he had known that France wouldn't end up doing a single thing (unlike what they said they'd do) I doubt he'd have authorized the strikes.

[DMC]

2 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

As to Obama, I don't think he regrets not putting people on the ground in Libya - he regrets his allies saying that they would help out more and did not, and he regrets the Libyans saying that they didn't want any help and respecting that. If he had known that France wouldn't end up doing a single thing (unlike what they said they'd do) I doubt he'd have authorized the strikes.

Right - he regrets miscalculating support from his allies.  But he bares some of the responsibility as well, and he also regrets his own lack of post-intervention planning.  

[OldGimletEye]

18 minutes ago, dmc515 said:

I think what Kal, or at least I, is objecting to is the military's role in nation-building.  Doesn't just go for the military, we are bad at post-conflict.  Wolfowitz and the neo-cons were obviously gravely off with Iraq, but Obama took essentially the opposite tack in Libya after ousting Gaddafi and doing so is basically his greatest regret.

I think if an administration is going to commit to a ground offensive, they owe the public to answer each and every question of the Powell doctrine.  If those questions are satisfactorily answered, it is much more likely to yield desirable post-conflict outcomes.

And I think neither of you are really getting what I'm saying.

Again, you can be great at the tactical stuff and you can be awesome at the operational level. But, if you don't achieve a desirable political outcome, then what is the point? There isn't any.

Also, it's true when studying military conflicts a distinction is often made between 1) The tactical level, 2) the operational level, 3) strategic level, and the 4) the political level of war. Even though we have made these conceptual distinction in studying war fighting, the truth is that they often can't be cleanly separated. Tactical and strategic realities may influence what policy you come up with. And your political goals may influence your strategy and tactics.

I'm not suggesting here that generals run the country. I have not done that. Actually, what is needed is close integration between military professionals and political leaders, in the cases where military conflict may be necessary.

Also, war planning requires ethical considerations to be factored in as well.

It would seem that our political leaders have been very bad at achieving desirable political outcomes when deciding to invoke military force. They have been very bad at coming up with realistic military/political outcomes where interventionism is concerned. And the fact that we are often successful at the tactical and operational level doesn't change matters much.

Also, I'll add, that I'm not a great fan of the concept of nation building. That requires a great deal of military/political coordination that we just don't seem proficient at. Plus the cost just seem to high.

[DMC]

14 minutes ago, OldGimletEye said:

I'm not suggesting here that generals run the country. I have not done that. Actually, what is needed is close integration between military professionals and political leaders, in the cases where military conflict may be necessary.

Also, war planning requires ethical considerations to be factored in as well.

It would seem that our political leaders have been very bad at achieving desirable political outcomes when deciding to invoke military force. They have been very bad at coming up with realistic military/political outcomes where interventionism is concerned. And the fact that we are often successful at the tactical and operational level doesn't change matters much.

I think we're all in agreement on this.  And like I said, I think the best way to rectify this is to abide by the Powell/Weinberger Doctrine. 

[James Arryn]

One of the problems re: integration of political vs. military (CvC is screaming in his grave) is that IMO the US learned a lot of the wrong lessons from Vietnam and has been recycling them ever since.

The U.S. in general learned that questioning wars is 'failing to support the troops', and so we see the kind of initial nearly universal kowtowing at the onset of wars ever since. I think the US's greatest period of self-doubt was the post-Nam to Carter phase, and RR's greatest tool was reinvigorating exceptionalism with the understanding that military might/bravado went hand in hand. This article sums up where I think this loop is heading under Trump:

http://www.gq.com/story/donald-trump-syria-feedback-loop

On an operational level the US military kind of invented their own 'stabbed in the back' mythology with regards to Nam, essentially concluding that they won on paper but lost in the papers/tv/media, and this was often perpetuated by right wing spin docs. As such actual on the ground policy hasn't changed all that much...I mean, not much more than technology would naturally afford...but there has been an almost complete 180 on media access and perception control. The thinking being that the military will do it's thing and win on the ground and the media will be prevented from losing on the Homefront. And in a small, sharp coordinated war with lots of international cooperation/consensus like the Gulf War this played out well.

But with less discrete wars, with regime change rather than withdrawl and with mission creep almost inevitable to sustained 'intervention' you get a lot of loose threads, and with the introduction of things like phone cameras and alternate access the information control has significantly lessened and therefore you get a lot of blowback. Think of Abu Ghraib...reports and severe Amnesty a International/UN complaints had been in the wind for months and yet the US public largely didn't know or didn't care until someone managed to get ahold of pictures. Without those it might never have been stopped let alone uncovered. So, as a consequence the idea that the media/information leaks are the primary antagonist to political reconstruction/control continues, and not much real progress is made in other areas of integration because they still largely think that the political wars are won or lost in the media.

[Kalbear]

The US also hasn't done a regime change since, well, WW2. Replacing the entire political system in a country is a bit different than beating an army, and it's a bit different than fighting an insurgency.

That said, I think the US has largely learned quite well  the lessons of Vietnam in at least covering their own asses. The ROE doctrines, the understanding at all levels of what is and isn't acceptable force and use of force, the smarter munitions - all have made things significantly better than the unrestricted bombing missions of Vietnam. That isn't to say things are ideal or fine, but they're far better. 

A separate argument could be made to ask whether or not making it better matters all that much, and whether Total War or nothing is better than limited engagements. 

[Manhole Eunuchsbane]

Lulz. Can the WH get a fucking proofreader? 

[Prince of the North]

What's the over/under on how fast Spicer "walks that back" by saying he meant that Hitler didn't gas people with chemical weapons the exact same way Assad did?

[Kalbear]

8 minutes ago, Prince of the North said:

What's the over/under on how fast Spicer "walks that back" by saying he meant that Hitler didn't gas people with chemical weapons the exact same way Assad did?

Like minutes?

 

[Trebla]

10 minutes ago, Prince of the North said:

What's the over/under on how fast Spicer "walks that back" by saying he meant that Hitler didn't gas people with chemical weapons the exact same way Assad did?

Yes.

"Holocaust centers". 

[Swordfish]

Just now, Trebla said:

Yes.

"Holocaust centers". 

*speechless*