ANS -- "Responsibility to Protect" in Civil War Zones

Here's Brad Hicks on when it makes sense for the US to intervene in someone else's war.  Interesting, as usual.  I've included comments. 
Find it here:  http://bradhicks.livejournal.com/457798.html?view=8902982#t8902982   
--Kim

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"Responsibility to Protect" in Civil War Zones

• Feb. 16th, 2012 at 8:34 AM

I continue to be convinced that, when it comes to anything even vaguely connected to war, military affairs, or coercive diplomacy, the most important fact of history is the ferocious bipartisan determination to prove Donald Rumsfeld right and Colin Powell wrong, no matter how often Colin Powell's predictions end up being the ones vindicated by the facts.

A quick refresher course:

While at the US Army War College, Colin Powell did a historical survey of every single war in history that any democracy fought on either side of, dividing them into two categories: wars that the democracy won, and wars that the democracy failed to win, either fought to a tie or lost. He wanted to know if he could come up with a clear military doctrine for democracies, and he found one. Unsurprisingly, it was little more than a slight improvement on previous military-science research, from Caspar Weinberger's work all the way back to Von Clausewitz: a list of 9 pre-requisites, every single one of which a democracy must meet before the first shot is fired, or else the democracy loses: do everything possible to avoid military force (#1 and #4); persuade your own voters and the voters in other democracies to want to fight (#7 and #8); and plan in advance the attack strategy, the objectives that will signify victory, and how you intend to get out (#s 2, 3, 5, and 6). And having done all that, weigh what you hope to achieve against the cost of the only military strategy that has ever worked -- if it's not worth the cost of raising taxes, mobilizing every healthy military-aged male, and taking them all into the target country for half a decade or longer, then accept that you can't win and abort (#8 and, informally, #9). TL;DR version: do what we did in World War II, the last war we unambiguously won.

On the other side is a bi-partisan agreement among politicians and pundits, almost none of whom ever fought for their country let alone studied military science, that while fighting a Powell Doctrine war works, it can't possibly be the only thing that works. Because if the Powell Doctrine is the only thing that works, then war has to be a once or twice in a lifetime affair, at most, because no democracy can afford to fight a Powell Doctrine war more often than that without wrecking their economy. Why is that such a bad thing? The reason, say the bi-partisan politicians and pundits, that that's unacceptable is that there are so many bad things out there in the world that diplomacy and economic sanctions alone can't stop. Surely, they argue, a nation that can put a man on the moon (or, at least, that used to be able to put a man on the moon) can find some way for the President of the world's last remaining super-power to project force, when diplomacy and sanctions fail, in order to get his way, without having to convert the whole country over to a war footing for years on end! And while there were ideas and trial balloons floated by Madeleine Albright and others during the Clinton administration, Colin Powell's opponents crystallized their planned alternative during George W. Bush's administration, and thus it's called the Rumsfeld Doctrine.

The Rumsfeld Doctrine hypothesized that given sufficiently advanced technology and best-of-the-best training for elite special operations forces, a superpower ought to be able to find, or else if need be recruit, disaffected elements in the targeted country, and incite them to civil war. As they will be a tiny rebel force, we can count on their government slaughtering them, and then, under the UN's "Responsibility to Protect" doctrine, we can use the fact that they're losing their civil war as diplomatic cover for providing them with satellite and computerized intel and precision drone and stealth-fighter air cover, and covert special operations force ground support. With those advantages over the national army, Rumsfeld and his fans argued, any group of rebels, no matter how small and how unpopular in their home country, ought to be able to seize and hold the capital indefinitely. With enough such special operations forces units and enough drone air strikes, the Rumsfeld Doctrine argues, we ought to be able to credibly threaten any country that doesn't bow to our diplomatic and economic sanctions, and, if that threat isn't enough, replace them with a grateful, and thus friendly, government. As cheap as those things are, we ought to be able to do those things as often as the President wants.

The Rumsfeld Doctrine was a disaster in Iraq. It was a disaster in Afghanistan. Oh, we can pretend that both cases were victories, because the Rumsfeld Doctrine is right in one narrow regard: a tiny America-backed rebel force can topple any third-world government. What they can't do, after that, is govern the country, not without popular support at home, near-universal diplomatic support, and millions of pairs of American boots on the ground to protect that government, and to protect and provision the country, during reconstruction. The net result, in both Afghanistan and Iraq, ended up being that even worse, even more anti-American, governments end up being the ones that seize power at the end of the civil war after the old regime falls. It turned out, in Afghanistan and Iraq, that "Gideon's band" can topple a government, but they can't build a new one.

I worry that the Obama administration considers Libya to be a Rumsfeld Doctrine success. In Libya, we did do it a little differently. We made one concession to Powell and put more effort into diplomacy and coalition building before we went in. (Neo-cons will never forgive Obama for that. Having to have allies who agree to take the lead? Strikes them as an unacceptable limitation on Presidential power, it limits the US to only using military force when somebody else says we can. And a tool that can only be used when somebody else lets us use it is barely better than not having the tool at all.) Our covert troops on the ground were even more covert. Obama was very, very proud when Tripoli fell and made only unconvincing tut-tut sounds when US-backed rebels killed Qaddafi in cold blood. But has Libya been a success for the Rumsfeld doctrine? The news out of Libya in the last couple of months hasn't been any better than the news out of Iraq in 2004: sectarian and tribal militias are slaughtering each other, and elements of the old regime are massing across the border biding their time.

And, although no US newspaper or TV station will tell you this, that is why Russia and China used their UN Security Council veto power to turn down the US-backed motion that we have a "Responsibility to Protect" anti-Alawite rebels in Homs and elsewhere in Syria. I don't think they're just being cynical when they observe that, while the "Responsibility to Protect" doctrine was promulgated after a genocidal civil war in sub-Saharan Africa, somehow it only gets invoked against oil-exporting states that the US has diplomatic problems with, and the facts are clearly on their side when they argue that the death toll among civilians in Libya, after our "Responsibility to Protect" intervention on behalf of the people of Benghazi, Libya is rapidly closing in on as many people as if we'd just let Qaddafi win; it's at best a net-break-even on human life and suffering, and will certainly be a net loss by the time the resulting Libyan Civil War grinds to a halt, who knows how many years from now.

In the days immediately following 9/11, neo-cons crowed that this meant it was only a matter of time before they got the wars they wanted. Afghanistan, which actually attacked us, was never more than an unwanted distraction from the wars they really wanted: Rumsfeld-Doctrine colonial adventures to replace anti-US governments in Iraq, Iran, and Syria. And, as the US has openly said that they intend to find some way around that Security Council veto, it looks like they were right; it's only a matter of time before our Nobel Peace Prize winning President finishes George W. Bush's dream of launching at least one more colonial adventure in the Middle East.

(Oh, and have you heard? According to the New York Times, Iran is pursuing Weapons of Mass Destruction! And is in contact with Al Qaeda! If we don't act now, the smoking gun could be a mushroom cloud!)

The "Responsibility to Protect" UN doctrine was, as I said, first promulgated by then-outgoing President Bill Clinton. He counts his failure to send US troops to stop the genocidal Tutsi/Hutu civil wars in Rwanda and Burundi as the biggest mistake of his two terms in office. He, and others, argued that no matter what the UN Treaty originally said about aggressive war, there must be something the UN can do, there must be something the world's superpowers can do, there must be something the US can do, to stop genocidal slaughter of civilians - that it's happening in a sovereign country that isn't at war with anybody else can't possibly mean that the rest of us have to stand by and do nothing, he argued, and many others have agreed. I stand by what I said at the time: if you do not have the ability, you do not have the responsibility. You cannot be held morally accountable for something you were incapable of doing. And Colin Powell keeps being proven right: no, we cannot overthrow every evil government in the world, because the only kind of war that's actually capable of doing it is one that we can only afford to use the one or two times per generation that we come under attack ourselves. Even if post-Rumsfeld generals find a way to topple governments that slaughter their own people, we cannot afford the manpower and the money it would cost to reconstruct those countries afterwards, and without that reconstruction, the slaughter only ends up worse, not better.

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Comments

( 44 comments ­ Leave a comment )

perich wrote:
Feb. 16th, 2012 02:50 pm (UTC)
The news out of Libya in the last couple of months hasn't been any better than the news out of Iraq in 2004

Hell, it hasn't been any better than the news out of Libya in the few months prior to Qaddafi's death.

Phenomenal post.
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booklegger wrote:
Feb. 16th, 2012 02:50 pm (UTC)
To me, this suggests that America will become less democratic in the future.
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drewkitty wrote:
Feb. 16th, 2012 08:13 pm (UTC)
In the future? The post-industrial war machine is the only thing keeping our economy going, to the extent that it still is. Both directly as in Iraq and Afghanistan and indirectly by protecting oil extraction and transportation worldwide.
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kimchalister wrote:
Feb. 19th, 2012 02:03 am (UTC)
something more positive
Would you like to read something a bit more positive about the future? This article is by Sarah Robinson, a futurist. It is called:
Why Going 'Back To Normal' Is No Longer An Option for the American Economy -- And Where We're Headed Now

http://www.alternet.org/story/154056/why_going_%27back_to_normal%27_is_no_longer_an_option_for_the_american_economy_--_and_where_we%27re_headed_now/
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lassiter wrote:
Feb. 16th, 2012 02:52 pm (UTC)

This doctrine (shall we now label it the Rumsfeld-Obama Doctrine?) has led to the US supporting a faction in Iran - the MEK - that is considered a terrorist group by most international law NGOs.
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perich wrote:
Feb. 16th, 2012 04:54 pm (UTC)
by most international law NGOs.

And the U.S. State Department, don't forget.
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diego001 wrote:
Feb. 16th, 2012 03:55 pm (UTC)
In the US, we've replaced the idea of republic, democracy, and international process with the idea of unlimited Presidential power. The worst part of all is that there are large swaths of our population that actually believe this.
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thakur wrote:
Feb. 17th, 2012 09:46 pm (UTC)
Unlimited presidential power?..
That sounds like a dictatorship to me.
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diego001 wrote:
Feb. 17th, 2012 09:50 pm (UTC)
Pretty much, yes.
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hugh_mannity wrote:
Feb. 16th, 2012 04:02 pm (UTC)
Excellent analysis.

I think that one of the problems with US foreign policy is that thepolicy-makers don't understand the history of the situations they try to "manage". The Tutsi/Hutu civil wars in Rwanda and Burundi weren't a one-off thing. They were the most recent flare up of a long-standing enmity between the two groups, dating back to before the colonial era in Africa. Coming in to "rescue" a group of people from their traditional enemies mostly serves to piss off the current aggressors because not only were they getting their (in their minds) justified payback for past injustices, no one came to help them when they were being massacred in the past.

Then there's the whole regime change thing. Time and time again, the US has replaced one government with another supposedly more friendly to US interests (Saddam Hussain, the Shah of Iran, Ghaddafi, Noriega, et al.) only to find the supposedly friendly new government had not-so-US-friendly ideas of its own, or was so tyrannical and corrupt (Shah Reza Pahlavi, for example) that they sparked a revolution which put a very unfriendly government in power. (This is something I expect to see happen in Saudi Arabia fairly soon unless the Al-Saud brothers can pull some pretty big rabbits of reform out of their hats.)

It seems to me that the policy makers in the US aren't learning from either history or recent events. They seem stuck in this "we are an invincible superpower" mode, leading them to make some really bad decisions as to where, when, and how to intervene in the affairs of sovereign nations. Understandable, I guess, if you've never left the US and have grown up immersed in the myth of American Exceptionalism. However, to those outside the US, the picture is quite different.
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dd_b wrote:
Feb. 16th, 2012 04:59 pm (UTC)
But, you know, the people at that level generally *have* left the US. So you can't excuse their ignorance quite that easily.
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hugh_mannity wrote:
Feb. 16th, 2012 05:09 pm (UTC)
Physically, almost certainly, but intellectually, socially, and culturally, probably not.

People at that level stay at 5 star hotels or embassy residences, and other than domestic staff, rarely talk to anyone other than their opposite numbers in the country they're visiting. All of whom have agendas. They live in a bubble.
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dd_b wrote:
Feb. 16th, 2012 09:27 pm (UTC)
Now, yes, but frequently they were abroad before they reached their current level. Travel is still one of the elite privileges, and most of these people come from elite families.

We all live in bubbles; I wonder when I last interacted with somebody of IQ below 120, other than to say "yes" when asked if I wanted fries with that?
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nancylebov wrote:
Feb. 16th, 2012 04:08 pm (UTC)
It amazes me (but perhaps shouldn't), that letting in refugees is considered too expensive, but war isn't.

Some research on when terrorism works, and when it doesn't.

Short version: terrorism can work if it's limited to military targets.

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bradhicks wrote:
Feb. 16th, 2012 04:48 pm (UTC)
That's because they look at the worst-case lifetime cost of taking in refugees, and contrast that with the most optimistic estimate of what a short-term Rumsfeldian military intervention might cost if everything goes right.

Which should tell you that it's not about the cost, it's about what they've already decided to do. They couldn't put their thumb on the scale any more blatantly than they do.
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cestmama wrote:
Feb. 16th, 2012 04:24 pm (UTC)
if you do not have the ability, you do not have the responsibility. You cannot be held morally accountable for something you were incapable of doing

"The wisdom to know the difference" between the things you can change and the things you can't change is the sticking point. We're pretty arrogant about our abilities and what we have the ability to do. Before Iraq, I was party to that arrogance myself.

Iran is pursuing Weapons of Mass Destruction!

If I were Iran, I would pursue a bomb, too. It's a highly rational move on their part. They get the crap knocked out of them by Israel anytime the Israelis feel like it. They are weaker than Israel and can't do much about it. A couple of nukes would force the Israelis to think twice about doing that.

Iran is also on the "Axis of Evil" list for the USA. We have good reasons not to like them. They positioned themselves in opposition to the US in the late 70's and 80's. They held our citizens hostage for over a year. That creates a problem for Iran. People we don't like sometimes get invaded. They don't want that to happen. A nuke or two would make the price of a US invasion very high and probably too high to undertake without a very, very good reason.

We can't stop it. We just start formulating plans for promoting regional stability in light of a nuclear Iranian state.
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bradhicks wrote:
Feb. 16th, 2012 04:45 pm (UTC)
Indeed. Remember the question that cost Helen Thomas her career? The last question she was ever allowed to ask at a presidential press conference?

At Barack Obama's first ever press conference, he admitted to some trepidation before taking his first (and, history records, last) question from Helen Thomas. She referred back to his introductory remarks in which he said that a nuclear-armed Iran would ignite a nuclear arms race in the Middle East, and was thus unacceptable. And, so, she asked him: "do you know of any country in the Middle East that has nuclear weapons?"

Third. Rail.

There is no way that Israel can maintain a nuclear arsenal, one that the whole world has seen photographs of, and not have its enemies pursue their own nuclear deterrent. It's just not possible. But no, since we still have to maintain the diplomatic fiction that we don't know about Israel's nukes, when what's really going on is that yes, we do actually intend Israel to have the sole nuclear deterrent capability in the region, we're stuck having to pretend that we think that Iran will give nuclear weapons to Hezbollah or, even sillier claim, its deadly enemy al Qaeda.

Edited at 2012-02-16 04:49 pm (UTC)
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dd_b wrote:
Feb. 16th, 2012 05:01 pm (UTC)
I don't see the rational purpose to Iran building a bomb. In particular, it's what's uniting the western world against them, and hardening the support for Israel at a time when, for the first time in ages, there was some slackening.

How is that good for Iran?

If they ever *use* a bomb, the regime in power is toast within a week.
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cestmama wrote:
Feb. 16th, 2012 05:21 pm (UTC)

If they ever *use* a bomb, the regime in power is toast within a week.

I don't think they want to use a bomb. I think they want to *have* a bomb. Because if anyone invades them, they can bomb Israel, and so no one will invade them.

It's a deterrent against invasion by Israel and the US. The only players in this game that matter are Iran, the US, and Israel. Those three states will do what they want, without much hindrance from "the western world."

Sympathy from the Russians or the French is very nice, but neither one of them is going to stop the US from invading.
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lassiter wrote:
Feb. 17th, 2012 04:29 am (UTC)
What cestmama wrote. Horrible as it seems, I think the fact that the US and Soviet Bloc had "mutually assured destruction" as a doctrine did help avert the use of nuclear weapons. Having Israel as the sole possessor of nukes in the region is itself a major source of instability. Many neocons and supporters of Israel here in the US have already suggested, apparently in all seriousness, that Israel should preemptively nuke Teheran! So Iran having a nuclear deterrent will potentially serve to prevent such an occurrence.

Edited at 2012-02-17 04:29 am (UTC)
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dd_b wrote:
Feb. 17th, 2012 04:47 pm (UTC)
I do think you're right about US/USSR history.

I'm not sure the levels of nukes that Israel and eventually Iran have really rise to "MAD" levels, though. Of course those countries are smaller and more concentrated, so maybe they do.

Iran coming close to having a nuclear deterrant is of course exerting huge pressure for Israel to act preemptively.
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naath wrote:
Feb. 16th, 2012 04:36 pm (UTC)
Thinking...

This problem of "we killed the king, what next" exists for entirely internal revolutions as well as externally existed ones. One possible answer is clearly "take over, and rule with an iron fist" but I don't think we get to count that as a "win" for "democracy"; it's just replacing one king with a different king (who might or might not be better). Applying more troups, guns, tech, intel., money, etc etc to the problem might help you take over and rule with an iron fist; but I'm not sure it helps you achieve an Orderly and Peaceful Transition to Democracy like you (as a Good Democracy) probably wanted.

Post-WWII West Germany worked well; but I'm struggling to think of other cases.
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brynndragon wrote:
Feb. 16th, 2012 05:20 pm (UTC)
Geez, if that's the case, how did anyone ever develop a democracy? I guess England did it via relatively gradual degradation of the ruler's power, but America definitely had a revolution, as did France. Is it necessary for democracy to be home-grown rather than imported? (Man, we would *hate* that, we're made of impatience.)
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etherial wrote:
Feb. 16th, 2012 06:27 pm (UTC)
The French Revolution was immediately followed by a self-crowned Emperor attempting to conquer the world.
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brynndragon wrote:
Feb. 16th, 2012 06:55 pm (UTC)
You assume I meant the first revolution.
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simulated_knave wrote:
Feb. 16th, 2012 06:57 pm (UTC)
Since that's the point when France first developed democracy, assuming you meant something else would be the strange course of action...
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brynndragon wrote:
Feb. 16th, 2012 07:21 pm (UTC)
*sigh* Let me clarify this. The origin of the conversation was Libya, which was ruled by a self-appointed non-royal ruler. France found themselves in a rather similar situation. Somehow they got from deposition of said ruler to what we would consider a democracy (as vs. what we don't consider a democracy even if it used the trappings thereof, e.g. how the French Empires and Libya were run), although it took them another round to really get it done.

Now, how did that happen, if democracies don't result from getting rid of despots? Was it because the change of government was an internal matter rather than imposed from the outside? Was it because the despot got captured when he left home to fight a war, implying that getting the despot to leave or surrender rather than fight to the death on their home turf is a key component?

(In other words, can we actually discuss this question rather than get side-tracked by having to be right on the internet?)
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subnumine wrote:
Feb. 16th, 2012 08:33 pm (UTC)
The deposition of the ruler was after the first democracy in France, and was one of the reasons it fell apart.

The first French democracy was the Constitution of 1791 (with much the same caveats as calling New York or Virginia a democracy in 1791); it was a constitutional monarchy, and it even elected a legislature - once.

They went to war with Austria for (mostly) the traditional French reasons for going to war; in the middle of this war, the King lent aid and comfort to the enemy, and tried (and failed) to defect.

They duly tried the King for treason, and executed him; thereafter, however, a number of different groups each tried to protect the Republic from paid agents of the enemy (i.e., each other); we call one of these episodes the Terror.
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naath wrote:
Feb. 17th, 2012 09:48 am (UTC)
The Rulers With Iron Fists have to relax their fists.

The French revolution produced a series of dictatorial non-royal rulers before it produced a democracy. The American revolution appears to have transitioned into democracy much faster.

I'm sure people with better knowledge might be better able to pick out what you need to make this transition work; I'm just not seeing how "apply more troops" helps with the part where you want to get to a democracy rather than simply installing the dictator you wanted.
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kimchalister wrote:
Feb. 19th, 2012 02:24 am (UTC)
The American revolution had a strange and lucky confluence of a set of great men (and women?) who were brilliant, enlightened, adventurous, idealistic and not power-mad. It was "the enlightenment", after all.
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kimchalister wrote:
Feb. 19th, 2012 02:35 am (UTC)
The American revolution had a strange and lucky confluence of a set of great men (and women?) who were brilliant, enlightened, adventurous, idealistic and not power-mad. It was "the enlightenment", after all.
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kimchalister wrote:
Feb. 19th, 2012 02:17 am (UTC)
my worthless opinion....
Yes, it is necessary for democracy to arise from within, and it takes a fairly educated populace and a free press. That's one of the reasons we've lost most of our democracy: we aren't all that educated anymore and our press is no longer free. (Okay, I don't know enough history to have an opinion on this, really, but here it is anyway....)
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seferin wrote:
Feb. 16th, 2012 05:17 pm (UTC)
I can find no flaws in your logic, but on some level, I keep returning to "All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing". If I am reading what you wrote correctly, under the Powell Doctrine, until the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, we should not have entered WWII, and further, had the Nazis not declared was on us, we should have stayed out of Europe and allowed them to continue the mass slaughter of millions.

By that logic, what is the argument against a doctrine of "If you commit crimes against humanity, either against your own people or segments thereof, committing intentional genocide, we will assassinate you, and whomever follows you, until they cease slaughtering their own people."

Provided it can be down without leaving evidence we did it, and the loss of American life is minimal, what prevents this from being a viable philosophy, under the heading of numbers used and dollars spent per above?

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amblinwiseass wrote:
Feb. 16th, 2012 06:08 pm (UTC)
Provided it can be down [sic] without leaving evidence we did it

Now there's a courageous stand on principle -- a sort of covert Pax Americana, which strikes me as a curious thing indeed. One might, I suppose, secretly say "Be at peace, or we will kill you"; one doubts, however, that such a statement, made where there's no one to hear, is all that likely to have an effect.
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seferin wrote:
Feb. 16th, 2012 06:17 pm (UTC)
If the argument is purely about the numbers of American lives at risk, then a targeted assassination does the same thing, except it bypasses the army on the ground and avoids the initial losses. I don't say that as an advocate of the policy, I'm asking the question because I see a flaw in the outcome. I don't see a flaw in his logic, but can't agree with his premise, namely "You cannot be held morally accountable for something you were incapable of doing." It reads to me as "We can't do THIS, ergo we can't do ANYTHING."

If the caveat is to not bring it back to our shores, but to stop the behavior, this might do it. The issue is that those who commit these type of acts have enough money and human shields to generally get away with it. Hussein and Gaddafi have been recent exceptions to the rule.
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amblinwiseass wrote:
Feb. 16th, 2012 07:31 pm (UTC)
To what argument are you responding?

You seem to be saying that, if one can't do something which has a reasonable chance of success, then one should do something nonetheless and despite the good chance of it failing, because to do so is somehow more moral than doing nothing -- even if the "something", upon failing, produces an even worse result than what motivated the intervention in the first place.

Boiled down to a cliché it seems as though you're saying, in a moral sense, it isn't whether you win or lose but rather that you're involved -- to which I'd respond with a cliché of my own on the subject of good intentions and where they may lead. Have I misunderstood what you're saying? If not, I look forward to hearing how, given a choice between 'do nothing' and 'make things worse', you find the latter option preferable.
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seferin wrote:
Feb. 16th, 2012 07:37 pm (UTC)
My response was based on incorrect interpretation of his statement "I stand by what I said at the time: if you do not have the ability, you do not have the responsibility. You cannot be held morally accountable for something you were incapable of doing."

He clarified in his response to my example, which was admittedly exaggerated, because it's easier to provide an example I knew was incorrect, and see why it was wrong under his interpretation.
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bradhicks wrote:
Feb. 16th, 2012 07:01 pm (UTC)
Assassination is like poison gas: states foreswear it because it's too easy, and because it's a tactic that doesn't favor either side. John F. Kennedy thought that assassinating Castro was a great idea. Look how well that worked out for him.

No, as Nancy alluded to above, my position is that if it is morally necessary that we intervene to protect foreign nationals from their own government (and I don't generally agree that it is), then it is more effective, more moral, and safer both for us and for them if we pressure their government to let them evacuate, as we did with the anti-Jewish pogroms in the Soviet Union back in the '80s. Even Reagan knew that invading the Soviet Union to free Jews from genocide was not a viable option; we would have failed to save them, and just gotten ourselves nuked. So we used diplomatic means to get the USSR to let them emigrate; half of them went to Israel, the other half came here to the US. Everybody benefited.
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seferin wrote:
Feb. 16th, 2012 07:12 pm (UTC)
Thank you for clarifying.
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bugsybanana wrote:
Feb. 16th, 2012 08:16 pm (UTC)
Excellent post, but I gotta jump on this:

Afghanistan, which actually attacked us...

Uh, I don't think so. Even if you take as given that the Taliban were involved in the 9/11 attacks (which I don't), no way did Afghanistan, as a nation, present a reason for us to be involved the way we became.

And the humanitarian issue is one I wrestle with, but I think humanitarian intervention is fraught with too much opportunity for mission creep to be justifiable. Better have Americans as private citizens jump in to help out, Abraham Lincoln Brigade-style. Better "prematurely anti-[fill in the blank]" than not at all.
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tcpip wrote:
Feb. 16th, 2012 08:43 pm (UTC)
The news out of Libya in the last couple of months hasn't been any better than the news out of Iraq in 2004:

Actually it has been a lot better.
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(Anonymous) wrote:
Feb. 17th, 2012 04:53 am (UTC)
The Rumsfeld doctrine is also similar to the doctrine that Sparta used to fight it's wars.
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subnumine wrote:
Feb. 18th, 2012 01:04 am (UTC)
Which doctrine was that?

Actual Spartan practice seems to have been "Stay out of wars if at all possible; the Helots might get restless (and anyway our politicians are too stupid to hide their bribes)."

See the Spartan absence from Marathon, their reluctance to join the Peloponnesian War, and the fates (well-deserved) of Pausanias and Lysander.
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subnumine wrote:
Feb. 18th, 2012 01:18 am (UTC)
Well taken.

But you may be omitting, in thinking of the Iranian, Syrian, and Georgian Wars that our politicians are so eager for, the third category of truly limited wars: wars that are intended to get some lesser power to change its policy, not its government.

The United States has been fairly successful at these, and doesn't need to occupy the conquered for years; we can leave it to the same people who annoyed us in the first place.

Examples:
*The Barbary Wars of Jefferson's time. It was not our aim to have a new Sultan in Tripoli; the old one would do fine, if he would accept the old tribute, and keep the pirates in check.
*The Mexican War. Unlike France, we didn't try to conquer Mexico; we walked off with the northern provinces, and left Santa Anna to survive if he could.
*The Spanish-American War; we never tried to conquer or rule Spain; we just stole what was left of the Spanish Empire outside Africa.
*The Serbian War of 1994. Didn't take Belgrade, jsut removed Kosovo.

Now all these are rare circumstances; there are few empires (other than our own) left to dismember. And there is a risk in McKinleyesque war: you may misjudge whether the demands are less than regime change to the other side.

Vietnam combined two forms of this mistake: The other side is *really* the Soviet Union, and we are just depriving them of a province; or, for those with a clue, that the Hanoi government would regard a partition on American terms as less than a change of regime.
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pingback_bot wrote:
Feb. 18th, 2012 06:18 pm (UTC)
We who linkspam salute you - 12-18 February 02012
User silveradept referenced to your post from We who linkspam salute you - 12-18 February 02012 saying: [...] to war...and why he's up against just about everyone in politics determined to prove him wrong [...]
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bradhicks

J. Brad Hicks

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