In the course of history our,military is literally incredible. We can project overwhelming power into any and every corner of the globe for good or ill. If all else fails we can reduce an area to rubble that will glow for five centuries.
Let me bore you for a bit but it's important you know this for this conversation. There are two sides to military power. There is the Tactical. We're pretty damned good at that. We do have some problems with asymmetrical warfare but our Special Forces people are getting better and better at that. One problem we face there is a failure to understand the commitment of our adversaries. If the United States were invaded we would fight to the death and we would encourage our children and grandchildren to do the same. The idea that other peoples love their country any less is just idiotic but it permeates military thinking. That limits our tactical success. The Tactical is battlefield superiority.
Then there is the Strategic. All indications are we just suck at that. The Strategic advances national goals. No member of the Armed forces from the longest serving enlisted man to the highest ranked general has ever been involved in a military campaign that has been a strategic success. That includes Clint Eastwood and Robert Duvall. John Wayne, who never served in the military, did a bang up job with WWII. But if you wanna see something laughable and illustrative watch "The Green Berets". It explains, in great detail, what was wrong with and done wrong in Vietnam. Every strategic, political and social assumption in Vietnam was just completely wrong. "The Green Berets", viewed as a farce, is interesting but in reality Vietnam is a tragedy of misapprehension worthy of Shakespeare that has never been adequately explored in drama. Maybe we would all understand it better had it been.
The idea of an epiphany is powerful and rarely seen acted out in public. President Johnson is the last and maybe the only example of a public epiphany in my life time. He was an amazing man and history treats him more kindly with each passing year, as it should. Johnson went on television and said he would not seek the nomination of his party and would not run. He took a Sherman. He announced a cessation of the bombing of the North Vietnamese and announced our planned participation in the Paris Peace Talks. It was a 180 degree reversal of policy and reversal of his personal assessment of the reality. It was an amazing rejection of 20 years of Cold War assumptions which he had tried to serve.
It's long been assumed McCarthy's victory in New Hampshire changed his mind but the political reality was he would have had the nomination if McCarthy had continued to be strong and he certainly would have beat Nixon. Humphrey proved the establishment was that strong by garnering the nomination and Johnson was a much stronger geographic candidate than Humphrey ever could have been. Bobby Kennedy would have been a different matter but that was short stopped. The people behind Nixon would have murdered him no matter.
There was never an avenue for "victory" in Vietnam. There was never an avenue for "victory" in Iraq or Afghanistan or Syria and on and on. Never having been involved would be the recipe for success. The truth is we have occupied Germany and Japan for 70 years and we sure did win those wars. I wonder what that ultimate price tag is? We've occupied Korea for 65 years. How's that working out?
The truth is the only place our goals of establishing a semi-democratic, capitalist based society have been accomplished without intensive occupation is in southeast Asia and we had to totally capitulate, isolate them from our influence and leave. It totally confirms my passive / aggressive approach to life but I digress.
What does it say that the only success has been a result of capitulation? One thing it says loud and clear is, " Asses and elbows outta the Middle East!" Let me see you sell that idea at the Pentagon. There's a sales call that would take some balls to make. Better bring a buncha complimentary steak knives. Wear your best tie.
There's something else in this vein. A lot has been made of setting arbitrary time-tables for withdrawals. It's a lousy strategic idea but all the other ideas are bad. Simply put: We can't stop you from doing stupid things but we can set a time table for you to accomplish some sort of framework for stability after you're forced to give up doing the undoable. It's never been put bluntly that way but it sure should be. Maybe hand them a couple complimentary steak knives.
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