Posted on 11/01/2008 7:42:46 PM PDT by AmericanVictory
THE WILL TO WIN THE WAR INCLUDES THE ECONOMY
“It is,” he would say, “the answer to all our problems.” When we would discuss the inventors and their inventions that had strategic importance, particularly for taking the oil weapon away from the other side in this war that was then looming and then came upon us when we finally were forced to respond to the attacks, Admiral Tom Moorer would inevitably make this point.
It reflected his own experience in high command and as one who was a young naval officer and pilot during the great depression and through World War II and beyond. We seem to forget that Franklin Roosevelt was elected on hope and change but that his initial measures from centralized government command did not really do the job that he and the country hoped for. It was the approaching war and then our involvement in it that pulled us out and afterwards productivity that had been engendered by the war mobilization continued to increase until, in the early 1950’s, the markets finally returned to the level from which they had fallen. See Oil, war and productivity.
Surely Tom Moorer’s fostering the development of the sidewinder while in high command, to cite an example from later in his career, was one of the most successful in-house weapons development programs that the United States government has ever succeeded with. Like Churchill with the tank, he took a brilliant idea from a bright inventor type which superiors in the normal course likely would have suppressed and gave the man the small group that he needed and built the weapon that, among other things, through its descendant the stinger, drove the Soviet evil empire out of Afghanistan and into collapse. To do so he completely avoided the McNamara procurement system that has often done harm to our nation and its security. It does this by the game of endless subsidies. It often delays better weapons endlessly while so many seek funds upon funds when we should be rushing the weapons into completion in time to win the war in the same manner that during World War II such ideas as the doors on the Higgins boats were developed in the heat of the necessity of a war that everyone wanted to win.
He was no economist but he understood that winning a war that we are in and boosting our economy are inextricably interlinked, that seeking to lose the struggle that we are in is the way to ensure continuing depression of the economy. He understood, long before two Chinese communist Colonels wrote a book about it, that warfare is unrestricted and entails strategic thinking far beyond what is called by that name in the halls of convention in Washington. Ronald Reagan was no economist but he came to Washington and never faltered from his conviction that he could lead us to defeat the Soviet evil empire with economic strategy and that the building of military superiority was the way to implement that strategy. Then as now there were those in Congress and elsewhere who did not want the other side defeated. Remember Senator George McGovern talking about how he would crawl to Moscow on his hands and knees? Does it remind you of those today who constantly prate that that evil George Bush’s seeking to win this war is the most misguided foreign policy that we have ever had? If we try to win against the terrorists, the Ayatollahs and the Wahabbi will not hate us and seek to destroy us any more than they already do. To believe that being subservient to their present dominance of Islam though oil wealth will cause us to be loved in the Islamic world is not only naïve it is cowardly and dangerous. They are fanatically devoted to destroying us and our world and believe that Allah gave them oil to do it with.
Admiral Moorer and our group were talking and writing about the reality of this necessity to win the war by taking away the oil weapon. (See Oil’s not well in the Gulf ) before the nation had to begin the development of the need to face the reality of it, a process which only began for the general public on September 11, 2001. Now, seven years later, we as a nation are being forced to face the reality of the war we are in, or at least some of us are; isn’t it time to go all the way, to truly seek to win and to demand real leadership in doing so? Isn’t winning the economic battle part of winning the war?
John McCain was far from being the brightest in his class at Annapolis. He particularly struggled in math and science courses although he constantly read in history and literature. He had troubles in flight school and as a young pilot in the navy even before he was shot down. All his life he has struggled with impulsiveness and a temper. But then George Washington struggled with his temper all his life. John McCain was put in charge of what was then the largest flight squadron in the Navy and he handled the appointment because he had the right subordinates who knew how to run it and he let them do so. He has overcome his temper to become a successful senator. He has shown integrity. For example, when media types call him a hero he honestly says he was not and defers to Admiral Stockdale and those who were more heroic.
We cannot win this war unless we take away the oil weapon and do so swiftly, decisively and dramatically. The truth is we don’t need a 600 million dollar battery incentive or a massive Manhattan Project at the cost of billions. Such ideas have a McNamara quality, not a Moorer and Churchill quality. To begin with, as we have pointed out, clean gasoline that would be far cheaper to make and gives far higher mileage exists and is patented. See An option for victory not on the table . We could put it in our cars tomorrow if were willing to buck lobbies and the natural obstructionism of a handful of large companies that dominate with what they have and don’t wish to be disrupted. We could produce the surface deposits and, with some additional engineering, the two-thirds of the oil that we leave in the ground, at least in the shallower formations. We can do this cleanly and two to three times as efficiently as the present oil mining in Canada and on a dispersed, decentralized basis that is clean and does not require such huge formations.. Will we? Or will powerful lobbies continue to subsidize and prevent it from happening by hogging the attention of our political officeholders and demanding subsidy after subsidy? We need a Churchill or a Moorer but such men are rare. We must persuade those whom we do have to cease being unwilling to see.
Only someone who really wants to win the war will be able to wake up and go around these powerful lobbies. Further, it must be someone who has a history of being willing to buck powerful lobbies. Of the two which one is more likely to do this? John McCain hit a public nerve by changing his mind on drilling in areas forbidden by those who go overboard in worshipping the earth and the prices are coming down with the drive for drilling combining with falling markets. This is something we should have been doing twenty years ago, of course. But if we have the leadership now to keep the oil prices down and drive them lower further we can win the war and “surge” the economy. We can wrest its fate from hostile hands. We have written how this can be done, if we combine it with the additional conventional pumping and drilling that we need. Our leadership so far has schlepped through the situation and failed to lead us to victory. Whom should we choose under these circumstances, someone who wants to win the war, has shown some proclivity for heading in that direction or someone who has shown a proclivity to lose a war for short-term political gain? Who is more likely, finally, to win both the war and the economy? See New York Times’ strategy for defeat .
Members of USD-AV. are devoted to filling the blind spots in our strategic thinking, particularly as those blind spots were addressed by two Chinese Communist Colonels, Qiao Lang and Wang Xiangsui, in their 1999 book “Unrestricted Warfare,” which was widely read in the West but, as illustrated in this column, has not, members of USD-AV believe, yet been properly responded to in our strategic thinking. The failure of over thirty-five years for Western Hemisphere countries to deal fully with the strategic implications of the oil weapon being wielded against the free countries since the 1973 OPEC embargo is among their primary concerns at this time.
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