mikey

http://www.afsouth.nato.int/factsheets/DeliberateForceFactSheet.htm

This is true. The Clinton administration was able to use NATO in the Balkans. But right or wrong, it was in support of an American political agenda. And I don’t remember it clearly, I’ll have to look it up, but I THINK the UN was not terribly excited about an intervention in Bosnia…

mikey

Huh? That’s a pretty seriously inaccurate depiction of the Iraq invasion.

I THINK your point is that the invasion forces used air and artillery excessively to reduce casualties, and a case can certainly be made that is the case.

But the Iraq invasion was a classic armored force invasion. Tanks and APCs under air and mobile artillery support. Except for the shock & awe portion of the program, which was mostly before the invasion, very few missiles other than AT4s were used.

Baghdad was taken in a bold armored assault on 4/5 that came to be known as the “Thunder Run” and in follow-on armored assault by the 3d Infantry Division. They did have lots of air support, heavy weapons and some arty, but no missiles or “distant targeting strategies”, which is a bit of a vague phrase that I assume means stand-off weapons. Almost all indirect fire in Iraq after the invasion started was used in direct support of troops on the ground….

mikey

Absolutely.

And of course, you cannot have an international body make that decision and then deploy the forces of a single nation. That is entirely unworkable.

NATO is the proxy body for the US and was used in Serbia.

And of course, you cannot have an international body make that decision and then deploy the forces of a single nation. That is entirely unworkable.

If the world wants to commit to the retention of an option to intervene militarily in humanitarian crises, it will need to create and maintain a force for doing so. The UN has talked about an international military force for years, but there is no will to accomplish it. As a result, intervention on strictly humanitarian basis is unlikely ever to be an available option…

mikey

Had you considered that this is precisely why the Iraq invasion was so badly undermanned and fought using mostly missiles and distant-targeting strategies?

I realize you’re speaking to large-scale war but…

There will still be countries with crazy aims like the extermination of X population. Neither rationality nor profit makes much of a difference there. There should be people available to step into the breach, and the ideal for American pols is that America should supply that force so that other countries don’t bother acquiring the muscle to do it.

Didn’t help Rwanda much, neither does it help the situation in Darfur.

If my premise is correct, they won’t. They will develop both economic and political leverage and achieve their goals in other ways.

The waste of capital and resources involved in taking large chunks of land by force and then trying to control, administer and rebuild them is no longer viable.

My whole point is that this change happens CONSCIOUSLY, not through some kind of evolution. It is a recognition of the futility and inefficiency of warfare, and that the same net results can be achieved PROFITABLY by merely understanding the world as it works today…

mikey

Sheer logistics won’t halt the large-scale external projection of US military might – but the impending strangulation of its resource funnel sure as hell will. History does not grant anyone the use of a “pause” button, & entropy is a bitch. Armies march on their stomachs – & their fuel depots. The world will have to shift over to heavy “sour” oil soon, & at that point, large-scale wars will become VERY tricky propositions at best. Wars aren’t just pricy & dangerous as hell – they’re fuel-pigs extrordinaire. Like today’s SUV owners failing to resell their chrome-plated stegosaurs, the Pentagon is going to be up Shit’s Creek without an Evinrude – unless it can radically adapt both its structure & its objectives. The social & economic pressure to scrap big armies will be intense, as will the dire need for international co-operation to deal with the wide & frightening array of new problems the transition away from cheaper “sweet” oil will create.

Pentagon wonks are nobody’s fools, & for them, preparing contingency plans is a major priority – I imagine they’ve already done a lot of research & modelling on just how to convert their juggernaut to fit in with a more politically psychosis-challenged paradigm.

If the US is smart, it’ll get off the fetish with sending its Armed Forces abroad as a killing-tool … & start figuring out how to mine its abundance of materiel like a coal-seam, while gleaning the manifold benefits of its members’ skills & energy.

There’s gold in them thar AFBs.

I take a different meaning from it.

I take the meaning that Europe and Asia have all BEEN victimized by past empires and learned the ultimate failure of that kind of ambition, but that the world is far from post-imperial, because some other dick like China will give it a go at the drop of a tiara.

Wrod.

I guess the Serbian situation is supposed to be held up as some “correct” application of American power in a conflict that had little to do with American adventures.

Should there be a global cop?

More ^_^ please!

Funny – that’s exactly what Hillary Clinton probably thought the day he threw his hat into the ring to lead the Dems. She’s got more brains in her toenails than you seem to have anywhere above the neckline – & SHE got pwned. Now she’s lending her brains to his campaign, making him that much more powerful.

A Senator who’s a Magnum Cum Laude law grad is “completely unelectable”?

This is starting to look like Mohammed Ali versus Pee-Wee Herman.
If you really think Mr. Bottom-Of-His-Class & Mrs. Beauty-Pageant-Runner-Up can beat him & Joe Biden, save me the roach from whatever you’re smoking. That shit must be mucho primo.