The Cost of Empire I-NSC-68
This is the first of a four part series that ties our current economic crisis to the thirty year buildup of defense spending since the Reagan Presidency. You can find a prologue here.
The roots of American Empire began with President Woodrow Wilson’s decision to enter World War I ”to make the world itself at last free”, which set in motion a kind of messianic foreign policy of American Exceptionalism, which echoes in the righteous speeches of President Bush today. As Henry Kissinger once observed, “It is to the drumbeat of Wilsonian idealism that American foreign policy has marched since his watershed presidency, and continues to march to this day.” Although contemporary politicians have used the shattering events of September 2001 to explain that everything has changed, their neoconservative mentors know the real story. “America did not change on September 11,” Robert Kagan wrote. “It only became more itself.” He went on to note that “over the last six decades, it is an objective fact that Americans have been expanding their power and influence in ever widening arcs.” Though historians could reach back to the British retreat from Kabul in 1882 to point to the perils of such expansive empires, the past seems to be lost to our country’s leaders. The effective result of this was a permanent militarization of American policy in a way that now puts us in peril economically and culturally.
I will argue that the real source of our problems stemmed from a document, NSC-68, which remained secret from the day it was issued by the Truman administration on April 7, 1950 up until the day that Henry Kissinger declassified it in 1975. Written by Paul Nitze for the National Security Council, it laid out in Manichean terms the coming conflict with the Soviet Union that has echoes in today’s call for a war against Islam.
The Soviet Union, unlike previous aspirants to hegemony, is animated by a new fanatic faith, anithetical to our own, and seeks to impose its absolute authority over the rest of the world…The assault on free institutions is worldwide now, and in the context of the present polarization of world power, a defeat of free institutions anywhere is a defeat everywhere.
It was one thing for President Wilson to proclaim the principles of freedom, but here in a stroke, the U.S. took upon itself the responsibility to defend “free institutions” everywhere on the globe without creating any hiearchy of American interests as to which of these “free institutions” was worth shedding our blood and treasure for. At this point in the early 50′s with troops still deployed in Germany and many more to be deployed in Korea, it was only a matter of time that the Pentagon’s desire for “global force dominance” would find the necessary funding from a fearful Congress. Almost 60 years later the result is a worldwide command structure with U.S. troops deployed on every continent.
From an economist’s point of view, having just survived a Great Depression, the notion of military spending as a boost to jobs and production was given credibility and the theory of “guns and butter” became the conventional wisdom. Especially during the boom times of the fifties the notion was that spending money on guns did not take money away from civilian infrastructure. In fact civilian infrastructure like the Interstate Highway System was justified as a civil defense system for evacuating cities in a nuclear attack. President Eisenhower, who has been called a “nuclear schizophrenic” for his role in both enabling the gigantic growth of the military industrial complex and his prescient warnings about it, knew that the notion of guns and butter was patently false as he said in his famous speech to the newspaper editors in 1953.
Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.
This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. The cost of one modern heavy bomber is this: a modern brick school in more than 30 cities. It is two electric power plants, each serving a town of 60,000 population. It is two fine, fully equipped hospitals.
It is some 50 miles of concrete highway. We pay for a single fighter with a half million bushels of wheat. We pay for a single destroyer with new homes that could have housed more than 8,000 people.
This, I repeat, is the best way of life to be found on the road the world has been taking. This is not a way of life at all, in any true sense. Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron. These plain and cruel truths define the peril and point to the hope that comes with this spring of 1953.
Even though Eisenhower ended his term by warning about the unchecked influence of the military on our democracy, it was probably too late. Military spending had come to be seen as a jobs program by every congressman and the big military contractors spread their plants into every state in order to curry influence. As we will see in the next part of this series, this could last as long as the country had a current account surplus with the rest of the world.
You go, dawg. I shall read and ponder this series with great interest.
You go, dawg. I shall read and ponder this series with great interest.
Yep…
If only the concept could shift a few degrees at a time…we’ll never see a quick 180 on all this, but some pressure in the right direction could get us onto a better path in 25 years. I’ll gladly be gone from here by then I hope. Not dead, just elsewhere on the planet.
There will be blood…
Yep…
If only the concept could shift a few degrees at a time…we’ll never see a quick 180 on all this, but some pressure in the right direction could get us onto a better path in 25 years. I’ll gladly be gone from here by then I hope. Not dead, just elsewhere on the planet.
There will be blood…
” the Pentagon’s desire for “global force dominance”…”
_______
Of late, think PNAC — “No Rivals Anywhere” military force projection strategy.
” the Pentagon’s desire for “global force dominance”…”
_______
Of late, think PNAC — “No Rivals Anywhere” military force projection strategy.
I’m looking forward to more of this, Jon, but as I have said before I’m extremely pessimistic that very much can be done about changing course. As you note, the Military Industrial Complex Eisenhower warned about is now so entrenched, employing people in every electorate in the country and subsidising countless interest groups, that I’m afraid the friction involved in scaling back military investment is too great for any party to contemplate in any one electoral cycle. And while there are benefits to be had from having a big military, there are lots of people willing to find reasons the country must continue to have it.
Plus, there’s the distraction factor: domestic politics is much easier to manage in the face of external adversity. We have always been at war with Eurasia, and all that.
So I’ll be *very* interested in your solution (if you have one) to get the US past this. As you say, it’s unsustainable. Unfortunately, countries with unsustainable economic models don’t always fix them – sometimes they just become poor.
I’m looking forward to more of this, Jon, but as I have said before I’m extremely pessimistic that very much can be done about changing course. As you note, the Military Industrial Complex Eisenhower warned about is now so entrenched, employing people in every electorate in the country and subsidising countless interest groups, that I’m afraid the friction involved in scaling back military investment is too great for any party to contemplate in any one electoral cycle. And while there are benefits to be had from having a big military, there are lots of people willing to find reasons the country must continue to have it.
Plus, there’s the distraction factor: domestic politics is much easier to manage in the face of external adversity. We have always been at war with Eurasia, and all that.
So I’ll be *very* interested in your solution (if you have one) to get the US past this. As you say, it’s unsustainable. Unfortunately, countries with unsustainable economic models don’t always fix them – sometimes they just become poor.
Keep writing.
Keep writing.
Disturbing reading as it is essential. Looking forward to the whole series.
Disturbing reading as it is essential. Looking forward to the whole series.
Rachel, what might those benefits be to which you refer? It seems to me that if one is not under direct attack by a traditional enemy state, and if one is not directly engaged in the plunder of another country’s resources, that an unsustainable and unwieldy military is nothing but a sop to paranoia invented by military industrialists and a boost to mostly male ego.
Let’s get back to the idea of peacetime universal service. Lord knows that there are a lot of infrastructure and social betterment programs that could use the hands and minds of recent high school and college grads…or immediately soak up anyone who drops out of school or doesn’t attend college. We could use a few tens of thousands of hands-on right here in California to chop brush and ameliorate our now year-round fire season…and that’s just the physical stuff. How about a few thousand more teachers to help the English learners here? And a few thousand in New Orleans to finally help deal with Katrina?
Universal service…peaceful use of the labor…
CPR training for all…dare I say “safe sex” education for all?…
Rachel, what might those benefits be to which you refer? It seems to me that if one is not under direct attack by a traditional enemy state, and if one is not directly engaged in the plunder of another country’s resources, that an unsustainable and unwieldy military is nothing but a sop to paranoia invented by military industrialists and a boost to mostly male ego.
Let’s get back to the idea of peacetime universal service. Lord knows that there are a lot of infrastructure and social betterment programs that could use the hands and minds of recent high school and college grads…or immediately soak up anyone who drops out of school or doesn’t attend college. We could use a few tens of thousands of hands-on right here in California to chop brush and ameliorate our now year-round fire season…and that’s just the physical stuff. How about a few thousand more teachers to help the English learners here? And a few thousand in New Orleans to finally help deal with Katrina?
Universal service…peaceful use of the labor…
CPR training for all…dare I say “safe sex” education for all?…
Rick, the dispersal of military programs across hundreds of providers means that every congressman has a reason why a particular military project shouldn’t be cancelled. They don’t just need a sop – they need to get reelected. And there aren’t a lot of factories involved in social betterment programs. Military equipment manufacture is one of the few forms of industrial production the US isn’t willing to outsource. There’s jobs in them there factories.
I believe we’ve discussed this particularly egregious example of military stupidity before: http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1665835-1,00.html . This plane exists not because of any particular need, but because there were a lot of Congressional and Senate votes in keeping the program afloat.
It’s not an isolated example.
Furthermore, there’s never likely to be the absence of threat scenario you envisage. Ever since World War Two, the US has had an enemy to ramp up against. If it wasn’t Iraq, it was North Korea. If not islamic fundamentalism, then China. If not China, Iran? If not Iran?
Good luck getting safe sex on the agenda in the face of fundamentalist denial and omnipresent National Security problems.
Sorry to be so down on the possibility of change – as I said, I’m *really* interested in Jon’s ideas (and yours) for turning this on its head. But I’ve always thought this speech in “Wag The Dog” was a good summation of the problem:
Conrad Brean: Would you go to war to do that?
CIA Agent : I have.
Conrad Brean: Well, I have, too. Would you do it again…? Isn’t that why you’re here? I guess so. And if you go to war again, who is it going to be against? Your “ability to fight a two-ocean war” against who? Sweden and Togo? Who you sitting here to go to war against? That time has passed. It’s passed. It’s over. The war of the future is nuclear terrorism. It is and it will be against a small group of dissidents who, unbeknownst, perhaps, to their own governments, have blah blah blah. And to go to that war, you’ve got to be prepared. You have to be alert, and the public has to be alert. Cause that is the war of the future, and if you’re not gearing up, to fight that war, eventually the axe will fall. And you’re gonna be out in the street. And you can call this a “drill,” or you can call it “job security,” or you can call it anything you like. But I got one for you: you said, “Go to war to protect your Way of Life” – well, Chuck, this is your way of life. Isn’t it? And if there ain’t no war, then you, my friend, can go home and prematurely take up golf. Because there ain’t no war but ours.
Rick, the dispersal of military programs across hundreds of providers means that every congressman has a reason why a particular military project shouldn’t be cancelled. They don’t just need a sop – they need to get reelected. And there aren’t a lot of factories involved in social betterment programs. Military equipment manufacture is one of the few forms of industrial production the US isn’t willing to outsource. There’s jobs in them there factories.
I believe we’ve discussed this particularly egregious example of military stupidity before: http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1665835-1,00.html . This plane exists not because of any particular need, but because there were a lot of Congressional and Senate votes in keeping the program afloat.
It’s not an isolated example.
Furthermore, there’s never likely to be the absence of threat scenario you envisage. Ever since World War Two, the US has had an enemy to ramp up against. If it wasn’t Iraq, it was North Korea. If not islamic fundamentalism, then China. If not China, Iran? If not Iran?
Good luck getting safe sex on the agenda in the face of fundamentalist denial and omnipresent National Security problems.
Sorry to be so down on the possibility of change – as I said, I’m *really* interested in Jon’s ideas (and yours) for turning this on its head. But I’ve always thought this speech in “Wag The Dog” was a good summation of the problem:
Conrad Brean: Would you go to war to do that?
CIA Agent : I have.
Conrad Brean: Well, I have, too. Would you do it again…? Isn’t that why you’re here? I guess so. And if you go to war again, who is it going to be against? Your “ability to fight a two-ocean war” against who? Sweden and Togo? Who you sitting here to go to war against? That time has passed. It’s passed. It’s over. The war of the future is nuclear terrorism. It is and it will be against a small group of dissidents who, unbeknownst, perhaps, to their own governments, have blah blah blah. And to go to that war, you’ve got to be prepared. You have to be alert, and the public has to be alert. Cause that is the war of the future, and if you’re not gearing up, to fight that war, eventually the axe will fall. And you’re gonna be out in the street. And you can call this a “drill,” or you can call it “job security,” or you can call it anything you like. But I got one for you: you said, “Go to war to protect your Way of Life” – well, Chuck, this is your way of life. Isn’t it? And if there ain’t no war, then you, my friend, can go home and prematurely take up golf. Because there ain’t no war but ours.
Guys, I’d like to suggest that perhaps you are over-blowing this military, no military thing.
To someone who questions the escalation of the state since 1913, it seems a bit funny that you even for a second imagine, that if we somehow stopped our military spending, that our citizens would suddenly want to spend the “new” money on the programs you suggest. People understand paying for security and people like strength, we generally like living in the country with world’s strongest military… winning wars for noble causes, moving the entire world forward defines our our history. So many gladly pay for it. It’s patriotic. I don’t know that many would expect to pay as much if no one they knew was in the military. You’d be surprised I think.
Putting aside this glaring silly assumption, let me offer some calmer assumptions about the military.
The beginning and the end of the Iraq war went incredibly well. The middle was shit. Do you really think we can’t do better next time. McCain or Obama has full intention of testing the new lessons we’ve learned in Afghanistan.
Let’s just suppose McCain/Obama begins to move troops from Iraq to Afghanistan (maybe gets tough with Pakistan). And let’s say that goes as well as our past 16 months in Iraq. WTF then?
Jesus, we will have a President, Democrat or Republican that has finally routed the bad guys who attacked us.
Why do you think we don’t simply go back to Clinton era military spending? Why not just say, as history most likely will: We got attacked, we armed up, we chased the bastards down, killed all of them, and remade the Middle East in the process.
Chalk it up as a win, nothing like the Vietnam of our parents. Obama is playing politics when he says “victory” – it isn’t “call it a victory so we can go home” – it means “we won, wish we won quicker, but we won.”
Guys, I’d like to suggest that perhaps you are over-blowing this military, no military thing.
To someone who questions the escalation of the state since 1913, it seems a bit funny that you even for a second imagine, that if we somehow stopped our military spending, that our citizens would suddenly want to spend the “new” money on the programs you suggest. People understand paying for security and people like strength, we generally like living in the country with world’s strongest military… winning wars for noble causes, moving the entire world forward defines our our history. So many gladly pay for it. It’s patriotic. I don’t know that many would expect to pay as much if no one they knew was in the military. You’d be surprised I think.
Putting aside this glaring silly assumption, let me offer some calmer assumptions about the military.
The beginning and the end of the Iraq war went incredibly well. The middle was shit. Do you really think we can’t do better next time. McCain or Obama has full intention of testing the new lessons we’ve learned in Afghanistan.
Let’s just suppose McCain/Obama begins to move troops from Iraq to Afghanistan (maybe gets tough with Pakistan). And let’s say that goes as well as our past 16 months in Iraq. WTF then?
Jesus, we will have a President, Democrat or Republican that has finally routed the bad guys who attacked us.
Why do you think we don’t simply go back to Clinton era military spending? Why not just say, as history most likely will: We got attacked, we armed up, we chased the bastards down, killed all of them, and remade the Middle East in the process.
Chalk it up as a win, nothing like the Vietnam of our parents. Obama is playing politics when he says “victory” – it isn’t “call it a victory so we can go home” – it means “we won, wish we won quicker, but we won.”
I also would have accepted “What Cost Empire” as the title.
I also would have accepted “What Cost Empire” as the title.
Rachel,
In the early ’90s, the Air Force was searching for a mission for the (somewhere near $1Bn per copy) B-2 stealth bomber. They finally hit upon the slow-moving manned bomber as the ideal weapon system to find dispersed and camouflaged Soviet ICBMs in the endless taiga of Siberia. In fact, Tom Clancy, the potboiler novel king at the time, wrote an op-ed essay that appeared in numerous newspapers, including the Albuquerque Journal, espousing the B-2 as the ideal platform for searching out the hidden missiles. (Tom Clancy signed himself as a “military analyst” in this letter). This idea was adopted as one of the missions for the aircraft. Just after the first Gulf War, when the Air Force could not find Saddam’s clumsy, virtually useless, Scud missiles in the middle of a desert.
The Army has been “trying to close” the High Energy Laser Systems Test Facility at White Sands Missile Range for a decade. The New Mexico Senators (Domenici and Bingaman) and the 2nd Congressional District Rep have fought like enraged wildebeests to keep it open. Neither the Army nor the congresspersons were ever serious, and the facility stays open to support tests of Israeli laser systems (which could just as easily be tested in the Israeli’s own damned desert).
No matter. There will always be an excuse for one more weapon system, one more incredibly expensive white elephant, to keep the Generals and Admirals happily supplied with toys, and Congressmen happily supplied with military posts and weapons builders in their districts.
Rachel,
In the early ’90s, the Air Force was searching for a mission for the (somewhere near $1Bn per copy) B-2 stealth bomber. They finally hit upon the slow-moving manned bomber as the ideal weapon system to find dispersed and camouflaged Soviet ICBMs in the endless taiga of Siberia. In fact, Tom Clancy, the potboiler novel king at the time, wrote an op-ed essay that appeared in numerous newspapers, including the Albuquerque Journal, espousing the B-2 as the ideal platform for searching out the hidden missiles. (Tom Clancy signed himself as a “military analyst” in this letter). This idea was adopted as one of the missions for the aircraft. Just after the first Gulf War, when the Air Force could not find Saddam’s clumsy, virtually useless, Scud missiles in the middle of a desert.
The Army has been “trying to close” the High Energy Laser Systems Test Facility at White Sands Missile Range for a decade. The New Mexico Senators (Domenici and Bingaman) and the 2nd Congressional District Rep have fought like enraged wildebeests to keep it open. Neither the Army nor the congresspersons were ever serious, and the facility stays open to support tests of Israeli laser systems (which could just as easily be tested in the Israeli’s own damned desert).
No matter. There will always be an excuse for one more weapon system, one more incredibly expensive white elephant, to keep the Generals and Admirals happily supplied with toys, and Congressmen happily supplied with military posts and weapons builders in their districts.
Morgan,
There is so much wrong with your post that I hardly know where to start. But you seem to tacitly accept the premise that the US invasion of Iraq was a right/good/useful thing to do. Right there is where your whole argument goes south.
As for the rest, it appears that you were not really paying attention. Jon’s argument is not that if we did not have a bloated military we could have a chicken in every pot. But we could certainly better afford chickens. And we might avoid a complete economic meltdown by buying chickens instead of B-2s and napalm. I think that is an argument that many Americans could understand, if presented to them without the fear-mongering that has accompanied every issue over the past seven years.
Morgan,
There is so much wrong with your post that I hardly know where to start. But you seem to tacitly accept the premise that the US invasion of Iraq was a right/good/useful thing to do. Right there is where your whole argument goes south.
As for the rest, it appears that you were not really paying attention. Jon’s argument is not that if we did not have a bloated military we could have a chicken in every pot. But we could certainly better afford chickens. And we might avoid a complete economic meltdown by buying chickens instead of B-2s and napalm. I think that is an argument that many Americans could understand, if presented to them without the fear-mongering that has accompanied every issue over the past seven years.
Morgan,
Do you honestly believe that Iraq had anything to do with 9/11, and that these were, as you say ‘the bad guys who attacked us?’
Just asking…
Morgan,
Do you honestly believe that Iraq had anything to do with 9/11, and that these were, as you say ‘the bad guys who attacked us?’
Just asking…
Morgan has just outed himself as not having a clue re. how to retaliate for 9/11. 16 out of 19 were Saudis. None were Iraqis. The big boss man is hiding in the mountains of Afghanistan or Pakistan, take your pick, and you’d have to go through Iran to get there if you were in Iraq.
With 1/5 of the current military budget, you could do a hell of a job on alternative energy over five years, and the price of oil would stabilize or sink like a rock. For that matter, how about joint ventures with India and China on the whole issue? We all need energy, so lets’ work together on it. The rising tide raises all boats, and all that.
Morgan has just outed himself as not having a clue re. how to retaliate for 9/11. 16 out of 19 were Saudis. None were Iraqis. The big boss man is hiding in the mountains of Afghanistan or Pakistan, take your pick, and you’d have to go through Iran to get there if you were in Iraq.
With 1/5 of the current military budget, you could do a hell of a job on alternative energy over five years, and the price of oil would stabilize or sink like a rock. For that matter, how about joint ventures with India and China on the whole issue? We all need energy, so lets’ work together on it. The rising tide raises all boats, and all that.
Guys, if you have not read anything I’ve posted here before about 9/11… yes, it was Saudis. I repeat – it was Saudis.
And I know you disagree with, don’t like this line of thinking, but it is a real one: we went first to lash out for 9/11 (and we couldn’t attack SA), second we went to secure Iraq’s oil, third to knock down a destabilizing bad guy who we ALL actually thought had bad weapons, fourth… for the oil.
But none of that matters. Whether you are for or against the war on philosophical or policy grounds, is no matter as to military execution, you have to agree – the beginning and the end of the war went exceedingly well – and the middle was shit, right?
And now, Obama is now saying VICTORY and he means it the same way McCain does. Infact none of you are really responding to my specific point:
We are now about to go after Afghanistan, having learned our lessons about what not to do (see the middle of the Iraq War), what if it to goes exceedingly well?
What if in July of 2010, we have seen Afghanistan make as much progress as Iraq has in the past 18 months? You don’t think that McCain/Obama will run as successful war time Presidents? You think they will gut the military?
Is that what you REALLY think?
Guys, if you have not read anything I’ve posted here before about 9/11… yes, it was Saudis. I repeat – it was Saudis.
And I know you disagree with, don’t like this line of thinking, but it is a real one: we went first to lash out for 9/11 (and we couldn’t attack SA), second we went to secure Iraq’s oil, third to knock down a destabilizing bad guy who we ALL actually thought had bad weapons, fourth… for the oil.
But none of that matters. Whether you are for or against the war on philosophical or policy grounds, is no matter as to military execution, you have to agree – the beginning and the end of the war went exceedingly well – and the middle was shit, right?
And now, Obama is now saying VICTORY and he means it the same way McCain does. Infact none of you are really responding to my specific point:
We are now about to go after Afghanistan, having learned our lessons about what not to do (see the middle of the Iraq War), what if it to goes exceedingly well?
What if in July of 2010, we have seen Afghanistan make as much progress as Iraq has in the past 18 months? You don’t think that McCain/Obama will run as successful war time Presidents? You think they will gut the military?
Is that what you REALLY think?
Those are depressing tales, Patrick, but I can definitely see a pattern.
Morgan, you have, unwittingly, made my point for me: by your argument, Americans would rather send their country down the toilet than give up a military they don’t actually need, but which they can be easily convinced they want. In the earlier thread on this Ken Ballweg invoked Jared Diamond’s book Collapse, and I fear he was all too correct: for cultural reasons, the US is likely to continue to behave in a manner it can’t afford. And there’s no politician to chart a saner path and tell the people the unpleasant truths.
I note the New York Times today has a story entitled Given a Shovel, Americans Dig Deeper Into Debt. Depressing.
Those are depressing tales, Patrick, but I can definitely see a pattern.
Morgan, you have, unwittingly, made my point for me: by your argument, Americans would rather send their country down the toilet than give up a military they don’t actually need, but which they can be easily convinced they want. In the earlier thread on this Ken Ballweg invoked Jared Diamond’s book Collapse, and I fear he was all too correct: for cultural reasons, the US is likely to continue to behave in a manner it can’t afford. And there’s no politician to chart a saner path and tell the people the unpleasant truths.
I note the New York Times today has a story entitled Given a Shovel, Americans Dig Deeper Into Debt. Depressing.
What I really think is that if we declare victory and leave Iraq, you’ll just see another bloodbath as various factions…Sunni, Shia, and Kurds for three…Al Quaida and Iran to name two more…roll in to divvy up the countryside and claim the oil. So we’re fooked if we do, and fooked if we don’t, and Cheney and his pals at Halliburton will be laughing their ways to their various off-shore banks. I really think irreparable damage has been done to our economy, our prestige in the world, and to our moral standing in the universe.
What I really think is that if we declare victory and leave Iraq, you’ll just see another bloodbath as various factions…Sunni, Shia, and Kurds for three…Al Quaida and Iran to name two more…roll in to divvy up the countryside and claim the oil. So we’re fooked if we do, and fooked if we don’t, and Cheney and his pals at Halliburton will be laughing their ways to their various off-shore banks. I really think irreparable damage has been done to our economy, our prestige in the world, and to our moral standing in the universe.
[...] Comment Posting Standards ← The Cost of Empire I-NSC-68 [...]
[...] Comment Posting Standards ← The Cost of Empire I-NSC-68 [...]
Morgan- You make no more sense on war than you did five months ago. You are like a kid who insists on playing baseball by his own bizarre rules, that only he knows. I’ve heard of turning lemons into to lemonade, but this is comical. I expect better from you.
Ultimately your reasoning leads to exactly the result that Rachel points out. Diamond’s collapse.
Morgan- You make no more sense on war than you did five months ago. You are like a kid who insists on playing baseball by his own bizarre rules, that only he knows. I’ve heard of turning lemons into to lemonade, but this is comical. I expect better from you.
Ultimately your reasoning leads to exactly the result that Rachel points out. Diamond’s collapse.
Jon, just answer the point. Jesus. All those words, just answer the point.
McCain / Obama is going to go after Afghanistan. Maybe even Pakistan.
Do you argue with this?
If is goes as well as Iraq in past 16-18 months, what is the lesson of our war effort in the Middle East?
You think we won’t have seriously effected that region?
How do you think the next President would sell that?
Jon, just answer the point. Jesus. All those words, just answer the point.
McCain / Obama is going to go after Afghanistan. Maybe even Pakistan.
Do you argue with this?
If is goes as well as Iraq in past 16-18 months, what is the lesson of our war effort in the Middle East?
You think we won’t have seriously effected that region?
How do you think the next President would sell that?
To be fair to Morgan, I believe he was talking about Afghanistan when he was referring to retaliation for 9/11. I don’t agree with him, but he’s not quite that silly.
To be fair to Morgan, I believe he was talking about Afghanistan when he was referring to retaliation for 9/11. I don’t agree with him, but he’s not quite that silly.
Pete, to be fair to Jon, he was talking about the cost of a huge military, and Morgan’s response was “9/11″ and “Isn’t our military great” (I’m paraphrasing, obvs). The question was not whether or not the military is good at what they do, but whether it’s necessary to spend as much on them. I didn’t see Morgan come close to addressing the actual issue at hand.
Pete, to be fair to Jon, he was talking about the cost of a huge military, and Morgan’s response was “9/11″ and “Isn’t our military great” (I’m paraphrasing, obvs). The question was not whether or not the military is good at what they do, but whether it’s necessary to spend as much on them. I didn’t see Morgan come close to addressing the actual issue at hand.
Morgan points out that folks on this blog “disagree with / don’t like this line of thinking” and proceeds to lay out an Empire Building viewpoint fairly succinctly. The key features are:
1. The ‘shoot first, aim later’ attitude that believes the projection of power is more important than the actual target.
2. ‘Secure’ (translation – take) resources for ourselves (the traditional rational for nearly all empire building).
3. Preemptive strikes against perceived enemies (so much for the ‘we won’t throw the first punch, but we will throw the last’ outlook that defined our role in WW2).
4. A repeat of point 2 – take their stuff.
For once, I think Morgan is entirely correct: people here are highly suspicious of this thinking. And with good reason.
And, in answer to Morgan’s question, no, the beginning and end did not go ‘exceedingly well’. The beginning, after all, is what led directly to the terrible middle, which hardly recommends the people who ‘planned’ it. And the end is far from certain. What we do know is that Iran has become stronger and more belligerent than ever been, while we’re $1.86 trillion in the whole, and bin Laden is still free.
Heckava job, empire builders. Now, how are you going to pay for it?
Morgan points out that folks on this blog “disagree with / don’t like this line of thinking” and proceeds to lay out an Empire Building viewpoint fairly succinctly. The key features are:
1. The ‘shoot first, aim later’ attitude that believes the projection of power is more important than the actual target.
2. ‘Secure’ (translation – take) resources for ourselves (the traditional rational for nearly all empire building).
3. Preemptive strikes against perceived enemies (so much for the ‘we won’t throw the first punch, but we will throw the last’ outlook that defined our role in WW2).
4. A repeat of point 2 – take their stuff.
For once, I think Morgan is entirely correct: people here are highly suspicious of this thinking. And with good reason.
And, in answer to Morgan’s question, no, the beginning and end did not go ‘exceedingly well’. The beginning, after all, is what led directly to the terrible middle, which hardly recommends the people who ‘planned’ it. And the end is far from certain. What we do know is that Iran has become stronger and more belligerent than ever been, while we’re $1.86 trillion in the whole, and bin Laden is still free.
Heckava job, empire builders. Now, how are you going to pay for it?
Sorry, ‘hole’, not ‘whole’, which we are very far from.
Of course, things could be worse. We haven’t lost electricity, water, control over disease, functioning systems of justice, our entire economy while seeing 1/5th or our population (give of take) turned into cripples, refugees or both by a preventable civil war.
But, according to Morgan, none of this matters. In fact, things are just terrific, and are continuing to go exceedingly well. A real victory for freedom and apple pie. Also, people who disagree are unpatriotic cowards who can’t handle the truth, or something along those lines.
It’s like this blog has it’s own private connection to Fox News, which is something else to consider when we’re discussing the effect of Empire; the need for completely scurrilous defenders.
Sorry, ‘hole’, not ‘whole’, which we are very far from.
Of course, things could be worse. We haven’t lost electricity, water, control over disease, functioning systems of justice, our entire economy while seeing 1/5th or our population (give of take) turned into cripples, refugees or both by a preventable civil war.
But, according to Morgan, none of this matters. In fact, things are just terrific, and are continuing to go exceedingly well. A real victory for freedom and apple pie. Also, people who disagree are unpatriotic cowards who can’t handle the truth, or something along those lines.
It’s like this blog has it’s own private connection to Fox News, which is something else to consider when we’re discussing the effect of Empire; the need for completely scurrilous defenders.
[...] year buildup of defense spending since the Reagan Presidency. The earlier parts can be found here, here and [...]
[...] year buildup of defense spending since the Reagan Presidency. The earlier parts can be found here, here and [...]
And NONE of you have the nads to answer the point:
McCain or Obama is going to go after Afghanistan. So, even if we cut military we aren’t going to massively cut it. Think Clinton levels. BUT, we are still going to have to MASSIVELY cut our budget.
Stop dancing and say, “We’re soon going to cut Medicare, like Clinton cut Welfare.”
That’s a good start, from there you look realistic.
And NONE of you have the nads to answer the point:
McCain or Obama is going to go after Afghanistan. So, even if we cut military we aren’t going to massively cut it. Think Clinton levels. BUT, we are still going to have to MASSIVELY cut our budget.
Stop dancing and say, “We’re soon going to cut Medicare, like Clinton cut Welfare.”
That’s a good start, from there you look realistic.
Physics is like sex. Sure, it may give some practical results, but that’s not why we do it.Dr.RichardP.FeynmanDr. Richard P. Feynman, American physicist
Physics is like sex. Sure, it may give some practical results, but that’s not why we do it.Dr.RichardP.FeynmanDr. Richard P. Feynman, American physicist
I’d like to see posters vetted for who they say they are. Trolls not welcome…
I’d like to see posters vetted for who they say they are. Trolls not welcome…