Saturday, March 11, 2017

Fabius Maximus — America has the victory disease. It won’t end well for us.

In Patterns of Conflict, slide 139 the late American strategist Col. John Boyd (USAF) said that a grand strategy focused our nation’s actions — political, economic, and military — so as to: 
  • Increase our solidarity, our internal cohesion.
  • Weaken our opponents’ resolve and internal cohesion.
  • Strengthen our allies’ relationships to us.
  • Attract uncommitted states to our cause.
  • End conflicts on favorable terms, without sowing the seeds for future conflicts.
We are doing the exact opposite of what Boyd recommended. It is quite mad, an accelerating race to ever-larger conflicts. Only a nation deep into the Victory Disease could believe that this is a rational strategy, worth the risks and likely to end well for us.
I am getting the same sense as during the Vietnam period. It didn't end well then, and it likely won't end well this time around either. Trump ran in part to put an end this, but it is looking like he is being stymied by TPTB. Moreover, neither he nor his advisers seem to be up to the job. The US in not careening forward as it would have been had HRC prevailed, but the course has not changed substantially, only the pace.

Fabius Maximus
America has the victory disease. It won’t end well for us.
Editor

4 comments:

lastgreek said...

Moreover, neither he nor his advisers seem to be up to the job.

Speaking of Trump advisers, Tom, I'd like to ask you if you consider the latest Flynn story a scandal. I do, but probably not for the reasons stated in the mainstream press -- that either Flynn had not registered as a foreign agent, or that he told the WH that he was a paid lobbyist for a foreign government and it was not a problem for the WH. I'll wait to read what you have to say, if you have the time of course, and I'll elaborate later. Thanks. (remember: if you only have the time, or if you feel like it:) )

Tom Hickey said...

No time. Non interest. t's a non-issue now that Flynn is gone.

IIRC, it was already known that Flynn was a lobbyist for Turkey. I was not surprised at the news.

lastgreek said...

No problem, sorry for the bother.

Reason I brought it up is that Flynn last summer is on record, in one of the speeches he gave in the states, of praising the attempted coup against Erdogan and calling his government an Islamist government. He obviously changed his tune when he got paid by the Islamist government. Personally think it's scandalous for a man so easily capable of taking bribes would find himself as NSA -- you know, in an administration who can't get enough of scaring the American people of ... Islamists. Thanks anyway, Tom :)

Tom Hickey said...

If this were exceptional it would be newsworthy. But lobbying is central to the American way.

Turns out that John Podesta brother is a lobbyist for a big Russian bank.