Billmon is back after 5 weeks or so.
"Defeat, in other words, isn't the only alternative to failure. It could also lead to the kind of warfare that CIA counterinsurgency specialist Michael Scheuer warned about in his book Imperial Hubris:
"Progress will be measured by the pace of killing and, yes, by body counts. Not the fatuous body counts of Vietnam, but precise counts that will run to extremely large numbers. The piles of dead will include as many or more civilians as combatants because our enemies wear no uniforms . . ." MS
I don't know if I feel sorry for the people who didn't believe some things were possible...
I have to think that the idea of total war is unpopular enough even among the people who would have to bring it about that it won't happen.
3: Well, we don't really have to see it. It could be going on right now, for all we know.
I think McManus is talking about nukes or at least carpet-bombing. Someone would notice and tell us.
5:Should I qualify this, say, well, maybe not that bad just helicopter attacks and artillery, maybe like Fallujah? Or not even that bad, but thousands more civilian deaths? The major point is that Bush does have escalatory options, and strikes me as a guy who will escalate before quitting, and can't be stopped. Except maybe by the JCS.
The other poiint is that I am not willing to predict how far Bush will go, what his moral limits are. If you differ, justify the disagreement. So nukes are always a matter of probability.
Read the Pat Lang.
Or, take a look at the Dec 18th issue of the New Yorker mag. The article by George Packer on page 60 points to some saner alternatives to attempting to kill 'em all.
"McClellan in the Civil War is the example neocons always use"
Neocons? I think you mean "every historian of the Civil War."
What neocons have to do with noting that McClellan was a timid General, always wanting to delay yet longer before fighting, I dunno. Unless Lincoln is now a neocon.
Gary, you can be so full of it sometimes. My argument was something like this:
[a. McClellan was a timid general who Lincoln overruled.]
b. For this reason, neocons talk about him a lot; his example confirms their prejudices.
I didn't spell out "a", but I certainly wasn't denying "a".
The other poiint is that I am not willing to predict how far Bush will go, what his moral limits are. If you differ, justify the disagreement. So nukes are always a matter of probability
No one cares what his "moral" limits are. I'm not sure that's a useful term in violent foreign policy. He won't use nukes because use of nukes would make the entire world much more messy than it is today; the majority of his own people know that, and wouldn't let him do it. If he tried it, you'd see mass resignations (not out of honor, but out of simple self-preservation) and impeachment proceedings on simple fitness grounds.
I don't believe that the majority of Bush's people do know that.
Can't we just impeach Cheney? Then maybe he'd listen to Condi, who seems occasionally to listen to people who actually know things.
"I didn't spell out 'a', but I certainly wasn't denying 'a'."
Okay. I can only respond to what people write, rather than what they think, or mean, is all. And what you wrote was "McClellan in the Civil War is the example neocons always use," which seems entirely inexplicable, rather than "McClellan in the Civil War is the example people always use," unless you had some point in mind distinguishing how neocons characterize McClellan from the way every historian of the Civil War does.
I was just baffled trying to figure out why you wrote as if this was a point unusual to neocons. But we all write sloppily at times (certainly I do); no harm done. Thanks for clarifying.
Gary, for all I know there are non-neocons who use some other example. All I know about is neocons and their standard example.
"Gary, for all I know there are non-neocons who use some other example."
See, I don't even know what you're talking about an example of; I'm sure it's in your posts, which I've not read. I'm just responding to what LB quoted (maybe I shouldn't respond to someone else's quotes of someone), and about McClellan.
McClellan was a lousy general, who didn't want to fight when he should have. This has nothing to do with neo-conservatism, and I'm personally entirely uninterested in what "non-neocons" (um, this is defined as "everyone," right?) use as some other example of some other unexplained thing.
McClellan was a timid general. This has nothing to do with neoconservatism. That was simply my point in response to your declaration (apparently unintentional) that, somehow, neoconservatives had some special point about McClellan. They didn't.
Signed, guy who is intererested in the Civil War, and has no idea what neo-conservatives have to do with the topic.
I really don't get what you're arguing for here. Sorry, (Something to do with neocons, clearly, but I'm interested in McClellan and the Civil War, and your allegation that there was some unusual point neocons had there seems to be non-existent; I kinda thought we already agreed about that.)
Personally, I find the ins and outs of McClellan fascinating, which is without doubt my problem here; I guess you aren't even talking about him, despite, you know, talking about him. (But why bring him up, then?)
I'd be happy to rumble on about McClellan for tens of thousands of words; I just don't know what neoconservatism has to interestingly say about him. But I'm prepared to learn from my ignorance.
(It would be nice to have a friendly discussion, though, rather than immediately telling me I'm "full of it," whatever "it" is.)
I probably should read the posts LB linked. It's probably unfair of me to respond to someone else's excerpts, which likely make your points incoherent. Clearly LizardBreath is at fault here. ;-)
I am full of it, sometimes, by the way, but here I was mostly just wondering about the Civil War argument. You seemed to be denying a universally held view, but I'm prepared to believe you made more sense when not taken out of context.
Okay, I've now read John's post.
"McClellan in the Civil War is the example neocons always use -- but WII Germany on the Russian Front is more apropos today. "
The fact that the first is entirely true and the second is entirely not (of "times when generals have been accused of fighting too timidly") would seem to be worth noting.
That's pretty much why it's irrelevant that "neocons" cite the first. Because, you know, it's true.
And the second is the sort of defensive lie the neocons engage in. That's the Dolchstosslegende
These would seem to me to be wildly important differences.
It seems to me that distinguishing between a Dolchstosslegende, and a complete truth, is pretty darn important when reading history. But maybe that's just me.
Anyway. Now we've got them straight.
And I've figured out why I was so bothered by John citing one as if it was remotely the other. It's the difference between a truth, and a complete lie.
Against my better wisdom:
Gary, here's how I interpreted JE in the excerpt in question:
a) There are lots of examples of timid generals out there in the history of the world.
b) McClellan in the Civil War is the example, out of all those examples, that the neocons always use.
As for the Russian Front part, I assume by "WII" JE means "WWII". I don't know if the Dolchstosselegende has been much applied to WWII, or specifically to the Russian Front in WWII, but my impression is that it hasn't been much. My impression is that Hitler often accused his commanders on the Russian Front of being too timid, when in fact they were doing the best they could, and so JE is saying that this more closely mirrors the situation today in Iraq, with the neocons accusing military leaders of being too timid, and blaming our failures in Iraq on that.
"Against my better wisdom"
I dunno why. Your response was perfectly sensible.
My response to sensible responses tend to turn out "wow, that makes sense!"
Weird, I know.
What we're arguing about, Gary: you made a criticism of my post which didn't make much sense to me. Another time I might have let it pass, but this time I didn't.
I was sayng that the neocon analogy here would be McClellan and Lincoln (timid general / civilian leader who canned him). I was granting that McClellan was a timid general, which, as I am indeed aware, is a standard judgement of Civil War history.
I was saying that WWII Germany on the Russian front would be a better analogy, since Hitler frequently interfered with the conduct of the war, often in the direction of asking his generals to be bolder and more aggressive than they wanted to be, and in addition to being a madman in otherwise, also screwed up German military strategy. I was under the impression that this was a standard judgement of WWII military History.
I think that it was fairly clear that that is what I meant. Perhaps your first reading was justified by somewhat unclear writing on my part, but my explanation at 12:57 should have cleared it up. I wasn't trying to say anything about McClellan at all, I was trying to say something about neocons. Likewise, I wasn't trying to make a point about the Russian front, I was just referencing the idea that Hitler was a civilian commander who screwed up his generals.
I was sayng that the neocon analogy here would be McClellan and Lincoln (timid general / civilian leader who canned him). I was granting that McClellan was a timid general, which, as I am indeed aware, is a standard judgement of Civil War history.
The neocon judgement is to always attack. The theory here is that McClellan would have won the war, if he had attacked sooner or more harshly. (FYI, the issue is more that he was perfectionistic, and overly trusting of his intelligence. His real problem was that he politicked too much, instead of minding what was in front. His ego was much larger than his talents.) Anyways, the neocon attack theory goes hand in fist with the idea that if Hitler had been attacked in 1936 (by whom, exactly?) that there never would have been a WWII. And so.
Of course, there was plenty of that kind of thinking going on during the beginning of WWI which is part of why the battles were so wasteful of lives.
The quote from Hitler was roughly, 'Before I can to office I expected the general staff to be a mastiff which I would have to perpetually leash, and instead I found a poodle.' or something along those lines.
Of course, Hitler at first wanted to launch the attack on the Soviet Union in August 1940. This turned out to be...unfeasible. (He said, with a straight face.)
Anyways, neocons and Hitler agree: always attack.
m, they're special like that
Other post:
LB: I hate feeling as if I have to worry what side the military leadership is on politically -- I don't like it whichever side they're taking.
All beauracracies pick sides. Why would you expect them to be different. 'Because they have guns!' So do the security services.
But they should be technical advisors, not leaders of a politically influential faction, and they're getting treated in the media as the latter rather than the former.
What we're really talking about is the serious lack of politicians with balls. But then, historically, when you have an Imperial policy and a lack of politicians with balls, you get...a coup of some sort. See Roman history.
Emerson: The whole idea of "civilian control of the military" has been somewhat discredited by Bush.
I dunno, it seems just as easy to say that the idea of having a Congress has been discredited. Or perhaps most accurately, the idea of a Imperial President. The entire idea behind creating DoD and a joint Chiefs of Staff was to constrict the power of future imperial presidencies (Roosevelt having been the bad example there). That transferred power away from the President, but kept it inside the executive branch, so it worked out to mean...nothing. Except that the military can put up much stronger resistance to budget changes than previously. Ditto with the security services, poet-Watergate.
I see the whole thing as one long game of musical chairs. Congress has lost its chair when this music stopped this time, so that leaves the Supremes, the military, the Federal Reserve and the Presidency. And the Supremes will lose their seat when the music stops this time. And then two of the others will gang up on the third, wipe them out, and then it's down to whomever wins the resulting brawl with the last two turn on each other. The winner acquires ultimate power.
Apo: The Turkish military (IIRC) took control of the government three times in the 20th century, made the adjustments they felt were needed, then handed control back over to civilians.
Pournelle says that everytime the Turks Islamiscists, the Army comes out and hangs the politicians. He says it should be called a timorcracy (in the same sense as Sparta was a timocracy). The only other choice I can see is stratocracy, unless you want to identify the Army as (in essence) a monarchy.
Whatever: we're saddled with a malarchy.
Emerson: My guess is either that a.) the Bush people are buying time to allow them to set up the "stabbed in the back" accusation, b.) they have a bunker mentality and are completely irrational or c.) as many have said before, they're so committed to spin, misinformation, and politics over policy that they're doing the only thing that they know how to do (something that has worked for them very well for a decade or more).
True enough. Remember however, about how everybody was freaking out about an October Surprise? Well, that carrier is still there, and the other two carriers are on station nearby, so they only need two more carriers.
Adding 20-30,000 troops would be just the kind of reinforcements you need to attack Iran. And funnily enough, two people in my class got surprised mobilized, the last week of November. All they need now are some more planes.
Does the army collapse first, or does Bush get the attack off? This race should be entertaining. Remember, remember, the fifth of March...well fuck, that doesn't rhyme. Also, the fourth of March is the full moon.
m, you don't think this is actually going to be stopped, do you?
"What we're arguing about, Gary: you made a criticism of my post which didn't make much sense to me. Another time I might have let it pass, but this time I didn't."
Me, too. Having made my point, you have the last word.
Well, that carrier is still there, and the other two carriers are on station nearby, so they only need two more carriers.
Adding 20-30,000 troops would be just the kind of reinforcements you need to attack Iran. And funnily enough, two people in my class got surprised mobilized, the last week of November. All they need now are some more planes.
Not even wrong. 1) That carrier is still there. Yes. She will be for a total of six months, because they have a six month deployment cycle. There are not "two other carriers" on station "nearby". 2) Two more? Are you kidding? That would be half the total fleet, which just isn't possible given the deployment cycle.
3) 20,000 troops would be just the kind of reinforcements you need to secure the base for the 300,000 more troops you need to attack Iran.
Carrier movements can be found here.
Here's one I made earlier, and here's a little post on civilian control, that touches on some of these issues.
That's some great stuff you linked to, Alex.