Wednesday, April 09, 2008
Anaconda
Your best candidate for lunchtime counterinsurgency reading: Richard Fernandez takes a hard look at General Petraeus' slides, and deconstructs the "Anaconda" strategy. Appetizer:
But imagine for a moment you were the national security adviser of Barack Obama asking yourself what the Anaconda chart implied about the global strategy against terrorism. We find that "engagement" or diplomacy has a place in Petraeus' strategy. (It is in the 12 o'clock position of the chart). So far so good. But what to do about "information operations", "kinetics", "intelligence" and "religious engagement"? In other words, where does one fit in activities like spying on the enemy, misleading them, debating them, killing them, building indigenous forces against them and criticizing -- where necessary -- their religion? How feasible is it to do this from Kuwait -- where all forces are to be withdrawn at the rate of one or two brigades per month? And how popular will such activities be with the Democratic base?
Those who believe arranging a Muslim summit with the new President or visiting hostile heads of state is the answer to winning the War on Terror will find from the Anaconda chart that engagement is part of the answer but only a part; and a small part. The rest unfortunately consists of activities that are politically incorrect, expensive or may lead to casualties.
Discuss.
[Scheduled]
3 Comments:
By 
Christopher Chambers, at
Wed Apr 09, 06:08:00 PM:
Lovely. You and Fernandez would make great "O'Briens" andheads of "Oceania."
I'm still abuzz over PM Brown's decision to show Lil Bush was class is all about and forgo the Olympics opening ceremony. As even a few of your most right wing disciples have agreed, China's a bigger threat to our way of life than a cadre of lunatic mullahs and numbskulled jihadis, but of course money talks, and we've mortgaging our nation to them...even trading in military technology. Their arrogance over Darfur...their own bizarre neo-colonial forways in the rest of Africa was just a prelude to the mess in Tibet. Our silence over Tibet (I thought we were anti-tyranny) is infuriating. Look, I haven't even heard ANYTHING about Mugabe, either, so I guess that type of tyranny is safe as well. But there's always a chorus when it comes to Iraq, or starting a war with Iran, or exaulting Israel as our 51st state, giving that blowhard Chavez the center stage he loves--oh that's all fine.
Proving yet again that there is no right and wrong. Not even gray. There's just tribes and their agendas in this country. Nothing more pristine or heroic than that.
Squawk about equally bizarre. You
By TigerHawk, at
Wed Apr 09, 07:03:00 PM:
I have not written about China in quite some time, but I admit that I am a dove on the question. While China is an immovable object in the sense that it cannot be dislodged in its sphere, in my judgment it is not a threat to the United States or the market system. There are many reasons, but first and foremost is this: Its population is falling because of the one-child policy, which means a number of things, including that it will no less willing than any Western country to take casualties.
By 
, at
Thu Apr 10, 12:36:00 AM:
Communist China was cool in the 60s when "The Man" had it in for them. "The Man" was just perpetuating his war machine with all the propaganda about the evils of Communism.
Now that "The Man" layed off, he's evil for not doing anything to stop them from oppressing the poor Tibetans. I love it. You can't win for losing.
