"James Jay Carafano, a military expert at the Heritage Foundation, said he finds it refreshing that the Defense Department acknowledges that China and Russia are potential adversaries, but he said he believes the strategy is too heavy on battling extremism.
""It is overstating the case to say that extremist Islamic ideology is going to define the next 20 or 30 years," he said. "I think that's not helpful because you're sacrificing everything for this one fight. But it's a transition document. Either McCain or Obama could walk in the door and live with that document and do all kinds of things."" (WP)
Whereas, you know, losing this one fight will really bolster our strategic deterrence capability. If we can't win in Iraq and Afghanistan against insurgents who, while deadly, lack armor, air support, or any of the other support enjoyed by modern military forces, how the hell do you expect to deter Russia and China? A 40-page powerpoint briefing? I wish more of our so-called military experts would focus on winning the wars we're currently fighting, rather than future imaginary wars. To paraphrase Donald Rumsfeld, you go to war with the war you have, not the war you'd like to have.
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4 comments:
Ah, Donald Rumsfeld--how much poorer our turns-of-phrase would be without you!
Seriously, Tracy and I use that one all the time.
Me too.
The last 8 years have given us some memorable and usable phrases: "you go to war with . . ."; "known knowns, known unknowns . . ."; "axis of [whatever]"; and, of course, "You're doing a heck of a job, [whoever-ie]."
It almost makes up for all the terrible things the last eight years have also given us, right?
I guess the bright side is that we're still joking about it. It's hard to imagine the denizens of Ur joking "I espy no happy days within this reign, wocka wocka!"
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