Barnett really nails a thought I've been thinking, which is what Democrats think the Pentagon is all about:
To be honest, I don’t hope for a Democrat win in terms of our military’s evolution, because I expect it to suffer under any Democrat. Yes, they’ll be all sorts of tough talk, but once in power, the deference begins. No Dem wants to look soft on defense, so they give the military what they want, and across Clinton’s eight years, that meant lots of stuff that doesn’t work particularly well in the world we live in, because, left to their own devices, the military will focus solely on the war and avoid the postwar as much as possible. A tough Dem who comes in now is likely to let the military “heal” after Iraq, or buy lots of stuff it wants to buy and avoid making the changes it needs to do the next one, which will come inevitably. That stance will be cast as “tough realism,” but it will really be escapism of the worst sort, simply delaying solutions instead of dealing with problems. We’ll be told we’re getting ready to win America’s “real” wars, but kicking ass during war nowadays, as we’ve proven in Iraq and Afghanistan, really doesn’t add up to much. You either master the postwar or schedule the next drive-by regime change for seven years hence. I honestly think Kristol’s got it right: the winner will combine the “change” quotient with an acceptance that we’re at war and need to improve our military on the basis of the wars we’re stuck with, not the fantastic conventional ones we’d rather wage. To me, the person who most likely delivers that package is Giuliani.
I started loving Christopher Hitchens when he started talking about Empire. I thought we were, and I think I've been proven right on this, a half-assed empire. Some of that was because GW Bush was entirely unprepared for and campaigned against nation-building. Some of that was because Americans themselves have no interest in fighting for territory and sending young military families and associated Second World functionaries into another country for advanced missionary work. We used to have a Peace Corps, but not any longer.
But as Barnett says, the impending failure in Iraq is inevitable if the Democrat vision of America at war prevails. That is a vision that simply doesn't include a permanent American military presence to guarantee the stability of fledgling nations in the American stake in the global economy. Part of the American stake is that the global economy itself flourishes, which requires some democratic reform and suppression of dictatorial regimes. But that has to mean more than no-fly zones. It means, in the case of Iraq, an integrated occupation. It means the ability of the US Armed Forces to move and work in the contexts of civil wars, genocides, factional wardlord struggles and similar low intensity conflict and terror. Always. That is the kind of war, in strategic areas, we will have to engage, meaning we will have to strategically plan to be there.
I believe no Democrat has such strategic plans in mind, and when it comes down to it, they are driven to provide pork in traditional areas and put lipstick on that lazy pig calling it 'support for the troops' or 'strong on defense'.
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