Posted on 07/15/2006 5:11:33 PM PDT by Sub-Driver
THE WEST WON'T WIN, AND HERE’S WHY Read your response to the Supreme Court Hamdan decision with interest. Unlike you I concluded some time ago that the West won’t win, and here’s why. A few years ago I did a Master’s of Military Studies at the Australian equivalent of the US War College. Our first assignment in Strategic Studies was on the elements of national power. This theory posits that each country draws its strength from a number of discrete elements that combine to create a nation’s power. The elements should combine to create a synergy where the total is greater than the sum of the parts.
The USA has five self defined elements of national power: Diplomatic, Informational, Economic, Military and Law Enforcement. So how is the USA going so far? The Diplomatic has been a failure in obtaining allies, isolating bad guys like Iran and North Korea as well as in building infrastructure. All the major multi lateral institutions the USA created and or funds, such as the UN, are anti American and are used to check US power. My score: 1 star out of 5.
Informational is a total disaster. Nearly all the soft power elements such as the media, cultural, educational and entertainment industries are actively supporting the bad guys. They use the awesome informational networks established by the US, such as the internet, to the detriment of the USA. Score 3 / 5.
Economic is equally bad. Oil payments are often called the largest transfer of wealth in history. Every time American’s fill up their tanks they fund both sides of the war on terror. The US is deep in debt but continues to give massive aid deals and concessions to countries funding the West’s enemies. Score 1 / 5.
(Excerpt) Read more at steynonline.com ...
....just in case anyone's confused.
Take a look at his early definition of having allies ~ nothing in there about treaties, trade arrangements, reciprocal basing agreements, standardization of ammunition and armaments, joint communications ~ all the things that come with "having allies".
Getting criticized by the leftwingnut media in UK and other parts of Europe doesn't really mean all that much. When necessary the Germans will know what to do.
Excellent and sobering article. Thanks.
I wonder...what does not winning mean? If we don't win what will life be like for the average American?
Thank you. Why didn't the original poster put in the author's name?
Clausewitz said War is a clash of wills. It is clear which side has the stronger will in this conflict. There is little doubt the West will lose unless something dramatic happens. Something dramatic that starts with naming the enemy and defining conditions that defines military success in the war on terror. The USA needs something as clear as in WWII, where the Axis was the enemy and their unconditional surrender the ultimate military objective. This “end state” is also the starting point for any coherent strategy development. Without knowing who the enemy is and what victory looks like you can’t have a strategy. Without a strategy you can’t integrate all the elements of national power and you can’t win the battle of public ideas. The USA lacks the will to even put together a strategy to survive let alone win. Without a strategy defeat is almost certain and I am almost certain that the USA has no strategy.
He makes some truly excellent points overall, but this one certainly sums it up. Note that he is referring to more than just military strategy, which he says in general is going well, but it's simply an operational aspect and not the fundamental objective in itself. Steyn is talking about our overall objective and our plan to attain it - or our lack thereof.
In fact, consider having the admin fix your post. Anyone would think this is Steyn's work by the title.
Who? Anton Kuruc?
You were reading a letter to Steyn from one of his readers, not Steyn himself.
Interesting article, except that it assumes "all things being equal" and all things are not equal. However, it was still an interesting article.
I read nearly all the way through and was puzzled why I had not encountered one witty thought. "Is Mark tired" I wondered? "I have not so much as smiled yet". It was quite a relief to discover that it was not Mr. Steyn.
You're right - it's on Mark Steyn's site, but it turns out that it's a letter in response to a column of his. I too assumed it was a Steyn column when I clicked through on the link.
Definitely worth a read, whoever the author is, though.
Kuruc writes, certainly, with a pen similar to Steyn's, but, yes, I don't think Steyn would share quite the pessimism.
Let's make Kuruc a FReeper. Mark, are you listening?
I'm concerned that people looking at the thread think it's Steyn as the poster did not make it clear. He/she should alert the admin.
His brain is quite different though. .....as is his grammar.
From the article: "Every time American’s fill up their tanks..."
Steyn doesn't make apostrophe errors ;)
1) The "Chinese Water Torture" of liberalism masking socialism/communism/pacifism
2) The castration of the post WW-II male in America, mostly thanks to #1
We could'nt defeat the Nazi's, we could'nt defeat the Soviets.
Steyn is dead wrong. First theArab countries have no industrial base. No formal systems of integrating society into
a powerful economic force.
Israel alone has a higher GDP than all of those sorry Arab countries combined.
Steyn argument never account for the total collapse of Saddam.
The mighty military of the east erased in two(2)
weeks.
I'll prefer to read Victor D. Hansen, "Carnage and Culture".
His book outlines why the west prevailed over the east in warfare throughout history.
Muslims today offer homicidal maniacs as their military might.
There is'nt much else to consider.here are the major Islamic victories Mr. Steyn?
This reminds me a lot of the concern over Interstate 69, particularly the part where the right of way parallels "The Big Inch".
Sorry: I listen to Steyn on Hugh Hewitt more than I read him. Apostrophical errors are a pet peeve of mine: I know college grads who apostrophize every plural (!). Language is knowledge. Chomsky may have had something right, there (gag!).
Have a great weekend. Not much of the Israeli war on TV, thus far, so I'm listening to a baseball game.
It's not Steyn. Where did the original poster go? Post and run?
This person is a typical glass in half-empty type of guy.
If he gives the U.S. economy gets a 1 star out of 5, what would the economies of our enemies like the Islamic countries or North Korea get?
He's judging the West from the standard of how far it is from where it could be, instead of comparing it against the opponents of the West. Fortunately for us, the West (Or US in particular), does not have to beat his model of perfection, all it has to do is beat its enemies.
The only way to win is to make some other B******D die for HIS country!
Unless those guys want to claim the Mongolians as "Westerners", or maybe "Honorary Aryans) ~ the way the Germans did the Japanese during their alliance ~ ..... gad!
I do apologize and stand corrected.
This did seem odd for a Steyn article.
Thanks for the correction!
Mike Tyson with a machine gun can lose to a 100 pound guy with an ice pick if Tyson is asleep and the other guy is awake.
If you don't have the world's reserve currency, it's best to use your own oil and receive payment from funny little foreign guys with lots of dollars.
Venice was in this position for many centuries.
You don't need to apologise. But the poster needs to have the title changed. A lot of people, myself included, have been making the same mistake.
Ultimately war has not changed from the time that the first tribe to get the notion in their head of attacking their neighbours.
Since the enemy will not reveal himself, the answer may come to decimating the population where he hides.
I think the American Military campaign to study for our efforts in this war may be Andrew Jackson's "Red Sticks" campaign in Creek territory during the War of 1812. I also think someone has already studied it after observing tactics.
The "standard" is academically-defined "FAAAAAAAAAAIRNESS", silly!
Relativism is for the birds, unless the worms object...
He is absolutely right. If we REFUSE to wake up and fight these little muslim flies, what chance do we have against a REAL threat, like the Chinese dragon?
Later.
I wish I could figure out the 3 last words.
There are too many "reasonable" sounding screeds that expect the USA to go bankrupt, self-immolate and otherwise lie down and die. Pay no attention to the men behind the curtain of disinformation......All we have to fear is fear itself.
He's a self-created Piece Of Work (for want of a more appropriate noun), for certain.
The field of Linguistics is, absent of ideology, fertile ground for anyone willing to dive deep into the amorphous mud. It's just too bad Excuse Makers dominate the Social Sciences instead of tenured folks doing research getting a fair fight from the Unwashed Masses.
What good, for instance, is knowing a daisy is white with a yellow center if you cannot communicate that very absolutist notion to someone else with consensus?
Baffling how some equate sad reality as something of a wish or (for whatever stange motive) a "parroting" of our political adversaries.
One must guess that when a doctor reports bad news to these folks, that they explode on the poor M.D. and accuse the whole office of liberalism.
Read and comprehend folks. The very first line says "A selection of letters in RESPONSE to Mark's article.
Clausewitz said War is a clash of wills. It is clear which side has the stronger will in this conflict. There is little doubt the West will lose unless something dramatic happens
I have been predicting that we will lose for a long time. And all our enemies know it.
We need to change and get tough as a country.
and still we let in muslims in large quantities
The judiciary is one vote from the right rulings. We've had some bad rulings but they weren't actively bad, only in principle. The Gitmo guys aren't going anywhere and neither are any other captured terrorists.
The cost of oil obviously doesn't hurt us, we're buying more LOL! Our payments go mostly to friendly regimes- which are getting more friendly and more dependent on us every day.
We're winning the informational war- we've got exponentially better intelligence than before. We will outlast the propaganda.
Diplomatically we've got the nations that matter- Jordan, Kuwait, Saudi, egypt, Israel, even NATO is in Afghanistan with us. The UN has never been of any use to anyone.
What a clueless maroon.
Anton Kuruc?
Would his sister by any chance be Kay T. Kuruc?
I liked the article because he also detailed why our will is so weak: it's the fault of our domestic, internal enemies.
I am convinced that everything in Iraq would have been different and about 1/10th the bloodshed and turbulence if our internal enemies had kept their mouths shut and supported the project. But they gave out a message of disunity and weakness and it encouraged the evil ones to feel that if they just tried a little harder, wreaked a little more havoc, we'd collapse.
National debt is a relative matter. Against the size of our economy (both domestic and abroad) the national debt is chumpchange.
Win? Keeping the savages in line is just a cost of doing business.
This is just the latest "education and discipline" phase. ;-)
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