Tomorrow belongs, tomorrow belongs, tomorrow belongs to ME!

[fpb]

The morality, responsibility and consistency of those who voted for the winner may be gauged by the statement - which I have already encountered three or four times - that they "hope" that those of us who warned them against him were wrong.

Hope.

They have elected a politician to the most powerful post in the West based on what they hope he will prove.

Such appalling insouciance and irresponsibility is certain to be punished. God may delay His punishment for sin - often to the next world - but He never intermits anything to the punishment for stupidity, which is always paid, and paid strictly and with plenty of interest, here on Earth.

Comments

[jordan179.livejournal.com]

Cutting missile defense would be elminating the one class of recently-developed system we would most need in a showdown versus a small nuclear power. In fact, it would make outright atomic war far more likely in such a situation, since it would put us in a situation where we had to choose between launching a pre-emptive strike and accepting damage from nuclear weapons.

Obama has stated that he wants to force Pakistan to stop sheltering Al Qaeda and the Taliban. But if that's what he intends to do, we're very likely to be in a showdown with a small nuclear power in the very near future. Thus, his proposed policy makes no strategic sense.

In fact, the only kind of sense it makes is if one assumes that ballistic missile defense is a bad idea because the Republicans proposed it, and that hence getting rid of it would be delivering a "gotcha" to the Republicans. This is an irresponsible mode of determining defense priorities, to say the least!

[goreism.livejournal.com]

Fine, you think cutting missile defense is unwise and/or dangerous (though note that Obama supports a missile defense system against Iran; he doesn't want to eliminate missile defense spending). But if that's your basis for accusing Obama of making contradictory promises, it seems like an awfully thin reed. By those lights, every candidate would be inconsistent in the eyes of their opponents, since they all promise a strengthened economy, a safer America, and ponies for all, and their opponents don't think their policies will actually achieve that.

Now, this is making contradictory promises.

[jordan179.livejournal.com]

Proposing a possible war against Pakistan and defense cuts, especially missile defense cuts, is contradictory in such a fundamental strategic sense that the implication is that either Obama knows nothing about strategy, or assumes that his audience doesn't. And it's a promise that he's going to have to break -- or suffer possible military disaster.

[fpb.livejournal.com]

Especially since a war against Pakistan would almost immediately turn into a two-front war against Iran and Pakistan, fought against two nuclear powers with very large armed forces from an inland position with no easy supply routes, hostile great powers in the back - both China and Russia, for different reasons, would love to see American armed forces humiliated - and based on a country which is itself unsubdued. America sweated blood to hold Iraq and Afghanistan in a situation where it had no open war-fighting needs against any real army; it is impossible to see how an open war against Pakistan could not result into the worst disaster in American history.

[jordan179.livejournal.com]

America sweated blood to hold Iraq and Afghanistan in a situation where it had no open war-fighting needs against any real army; it is impossible to see how an open war against Pakistan could not result into the worst disaster in American history.

I don't think that it would have to end in disaster -- America is strong enough to overcome both Iran and Pakistan in open warfare. OTOH, if we got involved without appreciating the scale of the task and without BUILDING UP OUR FORCES first, I think that matters would pretty much go as you describe. Part of the problem I have with Obama on foreign policy is that he casually talked about forcing Pakistan to do things without seemingly grasping that this could mean war if Pakistan didn't yield, and without any apparent comprehension of just how tough a war it might be. One factor that would certainly work to our advantage is our possession of high-tech ABM systems which could greatly neutralize the advantage to Iran and Pakistan of their nuclear weapons -- which is why I see Obama's stated willingness to cut our ABM programs while risking this sort of war as worrisome, and contradictory.

[fpb.livejournal.com]

You have to remember that to sustain war-fighting in the area, you would need either an air bridge of Berlin proportions - and where are the resources for that, let alone the ability to defend them from any enemy attack? - or a seaborne landing to open a bridgehead from the south and build up a force large enough to open a new front that would swiftly become the main front, while at the same time still preserving the surrounded forces in Afghanistan from destruction. It would take forces of World War Two proportions. Also, in order to distract Pakistani and Iranian forces from Afghanistan and the beachhead, the Americans would have to engage in serious strategic bombing against the enemy, which would cause publicity so bad it would make Abu Ghraib look like a Disney movie. If Obama ever starts a war in these conditions, he will count as the worst military leader since Pietro Badoglio if not Ambrose Burnside.

[jordan179.livejournal.com]

Yes, fighting that two-front war would require a World War II level of committment. That's why I said that Obama's proposed policies are either contradictory or very naive. I think he assumes that everyone will cooperate with his ends simply because he isn't Bush.