We could face whatever you want; there won't be any public support for an occupation.
We could face whatever you want; there won't be any public support for an occupation.
Hope is the denial of reality
Kosovo wasn't an occupation.
Originally Posted by Ominous Gamer
It was, just not by the US.
Hope is the denial of reality
A question: does Romney have to take a very different position from Obama's in the matter of defense spending? I'd have thought the "do more with less but better tech" spin would sit well with most republicans as well as the undecided.
"One day, we shall die. All the other days, we shall live."
Well, he's getting attacked now for having a defense/foreign policy too similar to Obama's...
Hope is the denial of reality
Yeah but I thought that was only because some people imagine it's a bad thing to be seen as being similar to your opponent on any issue and that it may thus jeopardise his chances of winning; he could thumb his nose at the pundits and spin it in a more positive way.
"One day, we shall die. All the other days, we shall live."
Yeah, its like saying Obama's doing a good job.... Differentiation is the key to election - what do we get by electing Romney that we don't currently get with Obama already? Romney should have come up with more ways to differentiate his policy from Obama's rather than agreeing so much.
The Rules
Copper- behave toward others to elicit treatment you would like (the manipulative rule)
Gold- treat others how you would like them to treat you (the self regard rule)
Platinum - treat others the way they would like to be treated (the PC rule)
What would he gain from doing that?
Hope is the denial of reality
Is there anyone in this country that's going to vote against Obama because of Obama's foreign policy?
Hope is the denial of reality
Not me. You?
The Rules
Copper- behave toward others to elicit treatment you would like (the manipulative rule)
Gold- treat others how you would like them to treat you (the self regard rule)
Platinum - treat others the way they would like to be treated (the PC rule)
I'm curious as to why the dodge by Obama and Romney about "getting the call that Israeli bombers are on the way to Iran..." Its a hypothetical (never fun) but what's the problem? Just say "We support Israel and if they feel like this is the only way to stop a nuclear Iran we will back them diplomatically and politically." Not seeing the big deal here.
What does it cost America to green light military activity by our allies against Iran?
All you really need is enough nukes to make anyone who attacks you seriously miserable and maybe enough of a fleet, army and air force to retake any American overseas holdings that someone might try their luck with but aren't really worth using nukes over. And a few surface ships and destroyers to protect sea lanes.Defending American soil in an era of aviation requires more then just sitting on American soil.
Not necessarily, I'm just pointing out that if you think defending America is one of the few things government should be doing, what you actually have is a military that is designed to do far, far more than that.In any event I think we likely agree that America should cut some defense spending, though you probably think it should be far more drastic.
It also makes absolutely no sense to say they dislike government spending, but being perfectly OK with a military machine capable of taking on everyone else in the world three times over.My point was that it makes absolute sense for someone to value government spending on military but dislike government spending on public transportation.
The light that once I thought compassion still casting shadows in your action
The words you shared were cold transactions that bring me to curse what you've done
When you're up there absorbed in greatness with such success you've grown complacent
I hope you scorch your many faces when you fly too close to the sun
Of course not. But what's at the root of that little exchange is Lewkowski reconciling his belief in small government with his support for defense spending by saying one of the government's roles is to defend the nation. I'm just pointing out the the military the US has is far, far bigger and more capable than it needs to be do that, so if he really wanted to be consistent he would support cutting the DoD budget by half or more.
The light that once I thought compassion still casting shadows in your action
The words you shared were cold transactions that bring me to curse what you've done
When you're up there absorbed in greatness with such success you've grown complacent
I hope you scorch your many faces when you fly too close to the sun
Again in the era of aviation defending the nation does not just mean having troops sitting on our soil. We have to be able to project power and decimate crazy countries that could get nukes.
You'd bomb Iran, huh.
"The prevailing trend in the super-bubble was also the ever-increasing use of credit and leverage; but the misconception was different. It was the belief that markets correct their own excesses. Reagan called it the “magic of the marketplace”; I call it market fundamentalism. Since it was a misconception, it gave rise to bubbles. So the super-bubble was composed of a number of smaller bubbles -- and punctuated by a series of financial crises. Each time the authorities intervened and saved the system by taking care of the failing institutions and injecting more credit when necessary. So the smaller bubbles served as successful tests of a false belief, helping the super-bubble to grow bigger by reinforcing both credit creation and market fundamentalism."
Chairman Greenspan also believed that markets were self-correcting, as part of the Randian ideology of self-interests in making money (greed). There probably was a Super Bubble forming, going back to the 1970's when wages started flattening out, and credit was used to keep up. Monetizing all that credit/debt made billions for banking and financial industries, but when the bubble burst it was average consumers who suffered.
People forget that credit cards weren't commonly used just a couple of decades ago. Tourists used Traveler's Checks, personal checks weren't honored everywhere, people still used the Bank to get cash, etc. Credit card interest used to be tax-deductible as an incentive to use credit, using debt as a way to build credit became the norm, and credit scores became the way to extend more credit. Creating all those CDOs and home equity loans based on mortgages and debt, was like a super bubble filled with kool-aid.
The problem of credit is that credit creates an excess of demand in the credit markets that need to have an equivalent in other markets, like inflation in the market of goods, or changes in interest rates, or variations in money exchange, or many other prices in several markets. Also, if total credit is higher than GDP, debt is unpayable, so there are two ways, either default or hyperinflation. Nowadays US looks more like China during WWII, with citizens in crisis, a government entering wars and unable to afford people's development and jobs.
If you replace houses with stocks, you move from 2008 to 1929, as the same scenario was present. First unpayable debts, then financial crisis, then economic crisis and unemployment. Same crisis, different year.
Some people who may be ignorant of history may think the way out is war. Problem is war will increase debt and may lead to a hyperinflation, and there is no war where spending can be subject to austerity. Nowadays the industrial power is China, not US.
Japan in 1945 had almost 100 years of engaging in many military adventures with no harm. No wonder why in 1941 they were acting so carelessly towards US.
Freedom - When people learn to embrace criticism about politicians, since politicians are just employees like you and me.
Projecting power abroad makes you more likely to become a target of crazies with nukes, not less. Crazies without nukes have a history of suddenly becoming very, very sober when they get them and they figure out just what that means. Here is a quote for your edification about dictators and nukes from someone who was 'in the business'
Aha, I hear you say what about the mad dictator? Its interesting to note that mad, homicidal aggressive dictators tend to get very tame sane cautious ones as soon as they split atoms. Whatever their motivations and intents, the mechanics of how nuclear weapons work dictate that mad dictators become sane dictators very quickly. After all its not much fun dictating if one's country is a radioactive trash pile and you're one of the ashes. China, India and Pakistan are good examples. One of the best examples of this process at work is Mao Tse Tung. Throughout the 1950s he was extraordinarily bellicose and repeatedly tried to bully, cajole or trick Khruschev and his successors into initiating a nuclear exchange with the US on the grounds that world communism would rise from the ashes. Thats what Quemoy and Matsu were all about in the late 1950s. Then China got nuclear weapons. Have you noticed how reticent they are with them? Its sunk in. They can be totally destroyed; will be totally destroyed; in the event of an exchange. A Chinese Officer here once on exchange (billed as a "look what we can do" session it was really a "look what we can do to you" exercise) produced the standard line about how the Chinese could lose 500 million people in a nuclear war and keep going with the survivors. So his hosts got out a demographic map (one that shows population densities rather than topographical data) and got to work with pie-cutters using a few classified tricks - and got virtually the entire population of China using only a small proportion of the US arsenal. The guest stared at the map for a couple of minutes then went and tossed his cookies into the toilet bowl. The only people who mouth off about using nuclear weapons and threaten others with them are those that do not have keys hanging around their necks. The moment they get keys and realize what they've let themselves in for, they get to be very quiet and very cautious indeed. Another great - and very recent example - look how circumspect the Indians and Pakistani Governments were in the recent confrontation - lots of words but little or no action to back them and both sides worked very hard not to do anything that could be misunderstood. (When the Pakistani's did a missile test they actually invited the Indians over to watch in order to ensure there was no ground for misunderstanding. The test itself was another message from both countries to the rest of the world - basically it read "Don't sweat it, we know the rules")
One anayst from The Business was asked what Saddam Hussein would have done if Iraq had possessed nuclear weapons in 1990. He replied that he didn't know what he would have done but he did know what he would not have done - he would not have invaded Kuwait.
The light that once I thought compassion still casting shadows in your action
The words you shared were cold transactions that bring me to curse what you've done
When you're up there absorbed in greatness with such success you've grown complacent
I hope you scorch your many faces when you fly too close to the sun
You sure it didn't start in 1776 with the popularization of capitalism?
Hope is the denial of reality
I'd agree with 1776 but imagine most would with that date think of a certain declaration on American soil rather than a book on British one that I'd credit.You sure it didn't start in 1776 with the popularization of capitalism?
I should note that this line of reasoning has also been generally discredited in IR. There's no logical reason why having nukes would moderate you (and it certainly hasn't moderated the behavior of Pakistan, North Korea, and Israel, nor that of the US, UK, France, and USSR/Russia for that matter).
Hope is the denial of reality
Sorry, you mean my line of reasoning or Lewkowski's?
The light that once I thought compassion still casting shadows in your action
The words you shared were cold transactions that bring me to curse what you've done
When you're up there absorbed in greatness with such success you've grown complacent
I hope you scorch your many faces when you fly too close to the sun
Well, both. The flaw in Lewk's logic is that countries wouldn't randomly decide to nuke the US, especially if the US wasn't involved in their affairs (why would they?). The flaw in the quote you cited is that there's no inherent reason why having nukes would make more you more moderate. It's not at all clear why having nukes would make Hussein less willing to invade Kuwait. If anything, having nukes would more or less guarantee that no one would take the risk of getting nuked to liberate Kuwait.
Seriously, I can all but guarantee that no other country would attack the US if the US completely withdrew militarily and economically (in terms of providing aid) from the rest of the world. Even if someone is unwilling to buy that guarantee, having a hundred nukes in secret locations and submarines, along with a force of perhaps 100k troops would make an attack against the US incredibly unattractive to any country on the planet.
Hope is the denial of reality
The point is that once a nation possesses nuclear weapons, it has how to consider how any use of its conventional forces might lead to a chain of events where a nuclear device gets used. Once that happens, that nation is well on it's way to becoming a pile of rubble. Consider how Soviet threats to intervene on the side of the Egyptians in the Suez Crisis directly resulted in the US reining in France, the UK and Israel. The Soviets didn't threaten to nuke us if we didn't back off, but they did suggest that they would intervene conventionally. A conventional conflict between nuclear powers always has the risk of going nuclear, and if it goes nuclear it draws the US in as well so they had to send the message 'cut it out'.It's not at all clear why having nukes would make Hussein less willing to invade Kuwait. If anything, having nukes would more or less guarantee that no one would take the risk of getting nuked to liberate Kuwait.
The light that once I thought compassion still casting shadows in your action
The words you shared were cold transactions that bring me to curse what you've done
When you're up there absorbed in greatness with such success you've grown complacent
I hope you scorch your many faces when you fly too close to the sun
A) Why should it assume that it would get nuked just because it has nukes? There's an implicit assumption here that countries with nukes are only willing to use them against other countries with nukes.
B) The chain in logic you mention is based on far too many uncertainties to be viable. Ultimately, the US would not be able to credibly threaten to start a nuclear war over Kuwait. Iraq would know that and the US would know that (as would Kuwait).
C) There are many instances where a country would have started a war but chose not to do so because the other country had nuclear weapons. It was why Stalin didn't push things in Korea, why the US didn't do anything to help the Hungarians in '56, why the US didn't invade Cuba after the Missile Crisis, why India hasn't attempted a full-out invasion of Pakistan after numerous Pakistan-sponsored attacks, etc. In each of those instances, the country with nukes acted in a highly provocative manner knowing that there wouldn't be a nuclear war over the issue in question.
D) The Soviet intervention was effective because the Soviet Union had nukes, not because you did. The threat would have been no less credible if you didn't have nukes (there's also the fact that the Soviet Union didn't adopt the "no first use" doctrine).
I should also note that we're assuming that the country with nukes is both stable and rational. Those might or might not be good assumptions in a general model, but we know that in practice, many countries don't meet one or both criteria.
Hope is the denial of reality
They would be nuked because they have nukes in order to stop them using those nukes. We know they will use those nukes because they know that we'll nuke their nukes, therefore they have to be used at the first opportunity so they aren't lost in a pre-emptive strike.
It's not about anyone threatening nuclear war, it's about the situation escalating to a point where on side or the other feels it has no option but to use it's weapons. Don't think about the U.S here, in this scenario it's still to overwhelmingly powerful to be threated by Hussein. Think, instead about Israel. And what point does Israel decide that Saddam's expansionism places it in mortal peril? At what point does it decide Saddam's weapons have to be taken out in a pre-emptive strike? At what point does Saddam - fully aware of how Israel will be thinking - decide that Israel is about to do a pre-emptive strike and do one of his own? Who blinks first? How does the US decide to react to this situation?B) The chain in logic you mention is based on far too many uncertainties to be viable. Ultimately, the US would not be able to credibly threaten to start a nuclear war over Kuwait. Iraq would know that and the US would know that (as would Kuwait).
You can provoke only to the point where someone decides you're too much of a danger to leave unchecked.C) There are many instances where a country would have started a war but chose not to do so because the other country had nuclear weapons. It was why Stalin didn't push things in Korea, why the US didn't do anything to help the Hungarians in '56, why the US didn't invade Cuba after the Missile Crisis, why India hasn't attempted a full-out invasion of Pakistan after numerous Pakistan-sponsored attacks, etc. In each of those instances, the country with nukes acted in a highly provocative manner knowing that there wouldn't be a nuclear war over the issue in question.
The Soviet Union's threat was never to use nukes, it was to intervene conventionally on the side of the Egyptians. It was the nukes possessed by the UK, the France, Israel and (since you were bound to come to the aid of the UK and France through NATO) yourselves that made that prospect so toe-curling - the theory is that any conflict between nuclear powers will inevitability escalate to a full exchange. Had NATO not existed or if the UK, France and Israel not been nuclear powers the outcome of the conflict would have either been a soviet victory or an allied victory and that would have been the end of it - the defeated side goes home, licks it's wounds but continues much as before. It's only when both sides possess nukes that the logic of MAD says a conflict between them leads to nuclear war.D) The Soviet intervention was effective because the Soviet Union had nukes, not because you did. The threat would have been no less credible if you didn't have nukes (there's also the fact that the Soviet Union didn't adopt the "no first use" doctrine).
North Korea seems to have managed so far.I should also note that we're assuming that the country with nukes is both stable and rational. Those might or might not be good assumptions in a general model, but we know that in practice, many countries don't meet one or both criteria.
The light that once I thought compassion still casting shadows in your action
The words you shared were cold transactions that bring me to curse what you've done
When you're up there absorbed in greatness with such success you've grown complacent
I hope you scorch your many faces when you fly too close to the sun
All this nuke stuff is pointless. The reason why no one used nukes is that politicians do not want to die. They have no alternate planet to escape to. During the Cuba crisis if they wanted to nuke, we all would have died, but politicians do not plan to die. So this is why we will never have a nuke war, only strong words and media show off.
Freedom - When people learn to embrace criticism about politicians, since politicians are just employees like you and me.
This is why Tehran is so dangerous.*
*: Funny thing though-- they (and most of the Middle East) were always a good economic foothold that had virtually no military and could be rolled over in Civ2's WWII scenario. Spain was next in line, after Africa.
I think you have this backwards. I believe it is the US that does (did...) not have a "no first use" doctrine and the Soviets had pledged only to retaliate with nukes...
The Rules
Copper- behave toward others to elicit treatment you would like (the manipulative rule)
Gold- treat others how you would like them to treat you (the self regard rule)
Platinum - treat others the way they would like to be treated (the PC rule)
I think you might be right on this one.
Hope is the denial of reality
I don't think it matters to whatever point you were making, though. Also, reading on wikipedia, it appears we have a no first use policy against non-nuclear states, but not nuclear ones.
The Rules
Copper- behave toward others to elicit treatment you would like (the manipulative rule)
Gold- treat others how you would like them to treat you (the self regard rule)
Platinum - treat others the way they would like to be treated (the PC rule)
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