Center for a New American Security

>the intense anti-Americanism

>the intense anti-Americanism that preclude greater cooperation with the United States.

Perhaps the intense anti-Americanism wouldn't be there if we didn't have a richly deserved reputation for stabbing our allies in the back and rewarding our enemies. Oh, and turning tail and running from a fight after declaring victory. I mean, what has an alliance with America gotten anybody in the last 20 years?

20? What do you mean, 20?

20? What do you mean, 20? Is there something wrong with your zero key?

Adm. William Leahy, FDR's ambassador to France, in his memoir _I Was There_, p. 8:

My major task was to keep the French on our side in so far as possible. This meant convincing Petain that the best interest of France lay in the defeat of the Axis - not an easy job in view of the military situation at the end of 1940. Roosevelt guessed shrewdly that the Marshal could not trust his ministers and that he did not always know what they were doing. This was true of Laval and almost equally so of Darlan. Therefore I was to tell Petain anything I learned that his ministers might be keeping from him. Roosevelt said that the old Marshal at eighty-four was beloved by the French people and pointed out that under the existing French Constitution his word was law. Petain even used the royal "we" in his decrees.

One difficult assignment was to explain clearly to the Marshal that this country would continue to give Britain all aid short of war. Roosevelt was aware of the widespread anti-British sentiment in France, but I was to show fast that the United States would try to assist _any_ nation resisting aggression.

The President wanted me to be a "watchdog" and to try to prevent France from extending any aid to Germany beyond what was required by the armistice agreement. He knew that there were persons high in the Vichy government who believed that an Axis triumph was inevitable and who for selfish reasons wanted to be on the winning side. I was to repeat to all and sundry that an Axis victory would mean the dismemberment of the French Empire and reduce France to a vassal state. (I was later to find a few Frenchmen perfectly reconciled to such an eventuality and trusting that Hitler would make France his "favorite" vassal.)

Roosevelt reviewed the numerous assurances this country had received regarding the French fleet. He and I both knew the importance of the French Navy to the defense of the Western Hemisphere. I was to seek renewed pledges that under no circumstances would the fleet fall into German hands and to stress that its preservation would be vital to the preservation of the Empire and the restoration of French autonomy.
[...]
Finally, we were interested in preserving French authority in North Africa, and I was to indicate that the United States was prepared to assist in any appropriate way in improving the economic status of these French territories.

Why, it's the very definition of foreign policy "realism."

Remember this one...?

Remember this one...? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qMniyUyqN_E ....maybe not huh Andrew.

Let see 1976. End of the Vietnam War (year after the POWS came home), Arab Oil Embargo, Ford, Bi-Centennial, and Disco remember now? Four out of 5 hopefully? None of that has to do with your report, but for some reason the Rubberband Man tune came to mind while I was reading it.

Went through the report cover-to-cover, guess security is in your company's title and in your report's conclusion.

What's in it for the US taxpayer that has to pay the bill? America gets security and controls AQ and the concentric circles get the perks (minerals, jobs, and profits)? How does this deal put money in the US treasury? We do not talk about that goal very much when the US talks about stabilizing the world. Is the tax payer and retired military people that served getting a return out of Iraq? Europe and China have done well in Iraq, has the US?

Overall, you hit on the dynamics in the region. Thing you are lacking is what is the US doing while we are suppressing AQ and securing the area? The US has a lot on its plate, that is why we have a spending problem.

MONEY. It is about the MONEY. ROI, return on investment ! You mentioned that the US is tapped out with spending, but where are the benefits from those trade deals that Obama signed in India? GE took the profits for selling Military Jet Engines to India and hid them in a billion dollar trade deal in China the next week (BTW, that GE deal was for avionics) !

Not only did US corporations off-shore jobs, they also off-shored revenue production for the US treasury (SS, Medicare, revenue taxes, health care costs, and promises to their retirees). Corporations took those reoccurring costs off their spread sheets and put them on the individual taxpayer's. Government did not respond to lost revenue of globalization, it kept on spending and still is promoting off-shore business for US corporations. Obama will gladly fuel up AF1 to haul the CEOs to India to make the deals, but the globalized benefits and tax revenue is not coming home.

India surprised the US military producers by not buying American, there is going to be more of that. Andrew, you and Obama have this idea that the US is going to EXPORT to India and region. That is a dream. China and India are becoming more trained and educated. Part of those trade deals that Obama arranged are for US Universities to open shop in India. I do not think that India changed their laws, if they do that will mean that US based Universities will have research centers in India. The one thing that India has not 100% come on line with yet is Intellectual Property (IP) development. China knows what it means to do IP at home, that is why they created their 20 year technology roadmap ! The whole fucking Semiconductor Industry moved to Asia (there are some exceptions like Intel. TI is doing its sub-25nm CMOS development offshore, but recently built a 12" Analog fab in Texas ). Why will India and China import from the US in the future when they can manufacture and do IP generation at home. GE's Immelt selling military jet engines to India is the same as giving a person IP, it can be reversed engineered. RAND did a research paper titled, "Ready for Takeoff China’s Advancing Aerospace Industry". US Corporations are showing the Chinese how to do high quality aluminum alloy refining which is unique to American aerospace manufacture. Other material processing is involved in the production of aircraft. There are some heat resistance alloys that go into those jet engines. Granted the technology is dated, some of the airliners that China produces today are 1980's technology, but you have the Europeans in China showing them how to work with composite materials like the ones used in the Eurobus and Dreamliner. It is only a matter of time. What technology the US government will not let US corporations export China and India are getting from the Europeans.

Right now US CEO's are so bent on getting "a piece of the action" in China and India "they are tossing the baby out in the bath water". They are so greedy they are stupid. Obama is standing beside them so he can get what he wants, re-elected. Obama will have all his needs taken care of for the rest of his future, he has no skin in the game.

As far as Pakistan-India relations go, they sound like the unspeakable Israel-Palestinian. Just goes on forever. Past history says there will be lots and lots of military sales and other goodies that produce US jobs, not if there is IP generation off-shore. That is what you missed Andrew, how the money spend is returned to the US treasury with compounding interest. It is not an "investment" if all you are doing is spending money to make John Maynard Keynes happy.

When is the US going to learn.

What do I think? What is my suggestion for Congress in the post-Afghan era?

Start letting India, China and the country's that have benefited from the US spending over the past 50 years start footing the bill for security. Obama keeps talking about investments (AKA more spending). America has been investing now for 50 years !

When do we get a return??? US jobs went to China ! That is not a return, it is a loss.

Let China and India deal with Pakistan's nuclear habit. Pakistan will figure out that with ten times the population (China and India together) PAK nukes can not kill them people fast enough. Pakistan will have to talk, the alternative would be obvious.

How do you do that?

Create a regional group that gives guidance to the area's future. The US can sit on the group, but really the days of the US paying the budget like at the UN or NATO are over, the third world has matured. China will not stand to have its backyard turned into a nuclear waste land. India has MORE to loose than the US.

Rather than running around brokering deals for US Corporations. Obama's time could be better used determining the future US budget and figuring out how the US will raise revenue from foreign operations of US companies doing business in the US.

Frankly, if the US Companies will not hire US workers, pay for US military protection offshore, and/or manufacture in the US, I really do not want to purchase their product. They can sell it in China or where ever it was made.

One of the reasons that the US can not pay for entitlement and the military is because the jobs and the taxes they produced were shipped off shore !

There is a lot missing in your study. Like ROI, globalization effects on the US treasure (ie. who is going to pay?) , and what else the US is paying to secure.

In other words. Andrew, you are still writing policy for an America living in the past that has not woke up to its spending habit.

There's that tune again....

Prepare yourself, for the .....Rubberband Man....everything he does seems to come out right.....never heard anything like it....guaranteed to blow your mind.

Where in hell did he learn that ! How does he do it........

"it's hard to argue that the

"it's hard to argue that the French and British would have been better off without us in WW1"

Sure they would have, because Britain and France would have been forced to moderate their war aims, probably would have been forced to accept a compromise peace in 1917, and would not have been encouraged to impose a harsh peace on Germany that only ensured another war in 20 years time. If the war had ended sooner, maybe no Bolshevik Revolution and Nazi Germany, neither of which benefited Britain and France.

Here's the argument, right here. Not saying it is right, just saying it can be made and has been made:

http://www.lewrockwell.com/roberts/roberts100.html

Call Me Unaccountable: Woodrow Wilson and George Bush

by Paul Craig Roberts

The passage of time permits historians to be truthful in their assessments of presidents. Abe Lincoln, a Republican Party icon since 1865, was exposed in the 21st century as America's first tyrant by Thomas DiLorenzo. Woodrow Wilson, a Democratic icon since the early 20th century, has now been knocked off his pedestal by Jim Powell in Wilson's War: How Woodrow Wilson's Great Blunder Led to Hitler, Lenin, Stalin, and World War II (Crown Forum, 2005).

Declaring Wilson to be "the worst president in American history," Powell makes a strong case that the rise of the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany were unintended consequences of Wilson's arrogance.

Powell argues that the war, which began in 1914, was stalemated by 1917 and would have ended in a compromise peace. Wilson's entry into the war won the war for Britain and France and allowed the disastrously vindictive Versailles Treaty to be imposed on Germany. The British economist, John Maynard Keynes, knew the treaty was unrealistic, as did Count von Brockdorff-Rantzau, the leader of the German Peace Delegation.

The Germans were aghast at "the victorious violence of our enemies." The Count told French President Georges Clemenceau that "the exactions of this treaty are more than the German people can bear." The treaty required massive losses of German territory: Part of East Prussia ("amputated from the body of the State, condemned to a lingering death, and robbed of its northern portion, including Memel") and most of West Prussia, Danzig, Pomerania, Upper Silesia, the Saar, the overseas German colonies, plus occupation of Rhenish territory for 15 years.

On top of the dissolution of the German state was added confiscation of all German assets abroad, the German merchant fleet, and reparation payments that would condemn the German people "to perpetual slave labor."

Powell shows how this insane treaty brought Hitler to power and how Wilson's bribe to the Russian government to continue in the war produced the Bolshevik Revolution, Stalin, and the Cold War. One hundred million deaths resulted from Wilson's decision to turn the stalemated European conflict into World War I.

Ah, Gian, why would you

Ah, Gian, why would you expect either a general or a captain to come up with a "strategy"? Indeed, they say up front this is NOT a strategy -- "It is neither an exhaustive treatment of an extraordinarily complex and diverse region nor a comprehensive plan for policymakers."

A naive student of military history might think that "strategy" is the means to achieve the desired end (victory). More sophisticated analysts, for example those who are graduates of the Command and General Staff College and Army War College, disdain to speak of anything so crude and vulgar as "victory". Rather, they speak only of the "key priorities" involved in managing defeat gracefully (or in their euphemism, "negotiating an end to the conflict with elements of the Taliban").

"sometimes good strategy also

"sometimes good strategy also discerns that a war is not worth being fought the way it currently is"

In which case, the obligation of the strategist is to propose a different way to fight such that the war can be won. To say, "it ain't worth it, we should quit" is not a strategy, it is the abdication of strategy. If you want to quit as your "strategy" then you really shouldn't have any quarrels with the authors here (other than perhaps they want more of a decent interval between "we quit" and "we lose" than you do).

"If that was the case with Vietnam we would still be there today, but in the process would have destroyed the country to save it."

Vietnam is a bad example because a military strategy to achieve victory was possible, was tried, and actually did succeed... until the politicians threw it away.

South Korea was effectively destroyed in 1953. Yet the fact that we saved it from Communist domination was the basis for the future freedom and prosperity enjoyed in South Korea but not North Korea. So yes, sometimes "destroying it to save it" is necessary and in the long-term interest of the nation being saved.

South Korea? You mean Owen

South Korea? You mean Owen "The thing to do is to let South Korea fall, but not to let it look as if we pushed it" Lattimore's South Korea? Dean "The defensive perimeter runs from the Ryukyus to the Philippines" Acheson's South Korea? South "tethered goat" Korea?

If South Korea had a good time as an American ally, Lara Logan had a good time in Cairo. Remember, until 1900 or so, Korea basically didn't care that the rest of the world existed. But then they sure found out it did.

If Britain and France had been defeated in WW1, they might be real countries to this day. Until 1940 it was universally assumed in these countries that the loss of their respective empires would be the ultimate in national disaster and humiliation. Not even Hitler wanted to confiscate the British and French Empires, let alone the Kaiser. Hitler? Hitler loved an empire. No, it was their good friend and ally, America, who cut their national balls off.

Okay, sure, I'll give you Thailand. Probably as a result of the fact that Thailand was never colonialized, Foggy Bottom could never find a way to stab it in the back and eat its liver. Lucky Thailand! But still, it's the exception that proves the rule.

A Giant UBL has emerged from

A Giant UBL has emerged from the ocean to ravage the east coast. Looks like you're right, the important thing is not to piss our enemies off.

http://www.theonion.com/articles/update-giant-bin-laden-destroys-new-yor...

I am baffled by the visitor

I am baffled by the visitor comments at 10:46 and 1:45 and am surprised Gentile allowed him to get away with this appalling comment on strategy:

"the obligation of the strategist is to propose a different way to fight such that the war can be won. To say, "it ain't worth it, we should quit" is not a strategy, it is the abdication of strategy. If you want to quit as your "strategy" then you really shouldn't have any quarrels with the authors here (other than perhaps they want more of a decent interval between "we quit" and "we lose" than you do)."

Seriously? Please go back to Clausewitz for a reminder on first principles. We need to understand the war we are in - which most certainly has evolved over time. I'll avoid going down the path of debating this war - though I am profoundly skeptical of its merits but will quarrel with your characterization of strategy. The above does not accord with the work of the primary sources we were all assigned to read in grad school (and/or at the various war colleges) nor does it meet the standard of contemporary writers either.

If you don't want to struggle through On War or the The Art of War try some of the newer work. There's been some very nice writing on the topic in the last two or three years by Colin Gray (he's made a career of it actually- http://www.strategicstudiesinstitute.army.mil/pubs/display.cfm?pubID=947), the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Analysis (http://www.csbaonline.org/publications/2009/09/regaining-strategic-compe...), Walter McDougal (http://www.fpri.org/telegram/201004.mcdougall.usgrandstrategy.html) and especially Dr. Richard Kohn (http://www.fpri.org/enotes/201101.owens.civilmilitaryrelations.html). Ok, the latter's not really about strategy but civ-mil relations but it does have implications for the former.

Bottom line - doubling down in Astan defies basic principles that require a prioritization of goals, a treatment of risk, consideration of available resources and a plan that is in consonance with the war/circumstances we actually face not as we want it or, in the case of actors, them to be (think Pakistan). A grand strategy will consider Afghanistan in light of all the other interests and challenges we face and make choices accordingly.

Mike Urena, I am baffled and

Mike Urena,

I am baffled and appalled by these overpromoted War College graduates who think that "pick up your skirts and run" is a strategy. War College, tchah. The Cowardly College of Cringing Capitulationism is more like it. Are you one of them, too?

I agree with you that we do not understand the war we are in -- and have not, for quite a while if ever. That does not, however, mean that the war we are in (or any counter-insurgency) is unwinnable and should be abandoned without further ado. That is, as I said, the antithesis and the abdication of strategy. Application of Clausewitz or Sun Tzu does not lead one to this conclusion, and the leap from "we need to understand the war we are in" to "we must cut and run" is logically untenable.

"Bottom line - doubling down in Astan defies basic principles that require a prioritization of goals, a treatment of risk, consideration of available resources and a plan that is in consonance with the war/circumstances we actually face not as we want it or, in the case of actors, them to be (think Pakistan). A grand strategy will consider Afghanistan in light of all the other interests and challenges we face and make choices accordingly."

Who said anything about doubling down? The point is to use EXISTING resources more effectively.

Another point worth mentioning is that we are not in August 2001 or February 2003. The time to conclude these wars were a poor application of resources was BEFORE we went in. Today, we have committed thousands of lives and trillions of dollars to these wars, and it is NOT in our national interest to be defeated in either conflict. In other words, a "circumstance we actually face" now is that we have invested a great deal of national treasure, and defeat means the return on these investments will be zero. I do not believe there is no strategy that will permit us to win rather than just "throwing good money after bad". Whether the current US military and US government is capable of conceiving and executing such a strategy is another matter. Judging from the quality of the "strategic thought" displayed on this blog, I'd say probably not.

Thank you for your patronizing references to Clausewitz, Sun Tzu, Colin Gray, and others. I am familiar with them, and they don't say what you think they do. Gray, for example, does not say that our current conflicts are currently unwinnable, only that our current strategy and the "American way of war" is poorly suited to mastering the challenges of irregular warfare.* Gray notes that in irregular warfare, like regular warfare, "fighting should be guided by a theory of victory" -- precisely what I say. On the other hand, you, Gentile, and the CNAS crew do not merely not have a theory of victory, you deny that a theory of victory is possible, and in the CNAS case refuse even to discuss it! A 'persistent strategy deficit", indeed.

* http://www.strategicstudiesinstitute.army.mil/pdffiles/pub650.pdf

Visitor on May 30, 2011 -

Visitor on May 30, 2011 - 11:01am

I agree with everything that your saying in all previous parts of the above string. I am a believer.

Thing is, you miss the point.

Point is, if American had done its job, we would not be talking about strategy in the middle of a war, we would have one already. America needs to get is priorities straight when starting wars.

Libya is an opportunity to get it right before it gets too deep. I do not think Obama has a strategy. He is bluffing one.

I saw many websites but

I saw many websites but www.cnas.org is best ever

[url=http://www.facebook.com/pages/Tabletki-na-odchudzanie/216862285003816]tabletki na odchudzanie[/url]

www.cnas.org is cool

www.cnas.org is cool !!
[url=http://www.facebook.com/pages/Sportingbetcom/230985290247684]sportingbet.com[/url]

www.cnas.org is my top 1 site

www.cnas.org is my top 1 site now!
[url=http://www.facebook.com/pages/Best-betting-sites/169754086422766]best betting sites[/url]

The origins of the ugg boots

The origins of the ugg boots style are disputed, with both Australia and New Zealand claiming to have been the origin of the footwear. uggs bootsSheepskin boots were known in rural Australia during the 1920s. While it is not clear when manufacturing started, by 1933 ugg boot were being manufactured by Blue Mountains Ugg Boots,and Mortels Sheepskin Factory was making the boots from the late 1950s.

Hello. And Bye.

Hello. And Bye.