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| The Trump Doctrine: Deterrence without Intervention? |
| 2019-11-10 |
| [VictorHanson] Donald Trump's 2016 campaign sought to overturn 75 years of bipartisan foreign policy orthodoxy, especially as it applied to the Middle East. From 1946 to 1989, the Cold War logic was to use both surrogates and U.S. expeditionary forces to stop the spread of Communist insurrections and coups ‐ without confronting the nuclear-armed USSR directly unless it became a matter of perceived Western survival, as it did with the Berlin airlift and the Cuban missile crises. That logic led to major conflicts like Vietnam and Korea, limited wars in the Middle East and Balkans, interventions in Latin America and the Caribbean, and occasional nation-building in conquered lands. Tens of thousands of Americans died, trillions of dollars were spent, and the Soviet Union and most of its satellites vanished. "We won the Cold War" was more or less true. |
| Posted by:746 |
| #12 This is why the next country that attacks us....let's say Syria...we should reduce to the stone age, destroy every piece of modern infrastructure in the nation. Mine every road, destroy every bridge, power station, water treatment plant, etc. It should come immediately, hard and without mercy or compassion. This will provide a real example of deterrence and hopefully inspire real terror in any thought of attacking the US. If we need eyes on the ground for this fine, but they go in and out and don't stay. Eliminate every aspect of modern life in the country. Will many die? Yes. But I believe in protecting my nation, and that of our allies. Everyone else, be nice and we will be nice, be mean and suffer fire and death raining from the sky until you're reduced to banging rocks together to make fire if we haven't helpfully napalmed something near you. And as the stunned and doomed survivors come out of the wreckage, tell the world, "If this happens again, we're gonna be angry and we won't be so nice next time." |
| Posted by: Silentbrick 2019-11-10 22:56 |
| #11 A US with troops deployed all over the place is less of a deterrence than one that has troops ready, willing, and able to go anywhere at a moments notice. |
| Posted by: ruprecht 2019-11-10 17:23 |
| #10 Deterrence is the art of producing in the mind of the enemy the fear to attack." Dr. Strangelove The net effect of the West's display of zero civilisational confidence and extreme masochism after 9/11 is to assuage any enemy's fear to attack. Which is why IMO the military engagement in Afghanistan is eroding Western deterrence whether it is "successful" or not. It is a lose/lose proposition expensive in blood and money. |
| Posted by: Elmerert Hupens2660 2019-11-10 12:20 |
| #9 In fact the enemy has produced in many governments around the world the fear to attack. The reasoning given is 'Herbish'. If you kill their kind, the remnant shall wage war on you. You will never sleep safely in your beds again. The prescription by this logic ? 'Brush their excesses against your kind away as isolated incidents and try to forget. You're still a better economy, you have... pizza pie and fast cars, hollywood. The poor sasquatch is in a shithole, a hell of his own making. Take comfort in this and live.' |
| Posted by: Dron66046 2019-11-10 12:08 |
| #8 "Deterrence is the art of producing in the mind of the enemy the fear to attack." Dr. Strangelove |
| Posted by: M. Murcek 2019-11-10 11:53 |
| #7 I'm fine with punitive expeditions. Also targeted hits, special ops etc. But not generation-long land wars in Asia. |
| Posted by: Lex 2019-11-10 11:41 |
| #6 Sorry, but I'm with Elmerert on this one. Of course, one should know for sure exactly where to hit back. But without mercy, or humanist hesitation hit back one must. This alone is deterrence. The west has long lost the opportunity for 'deterrence'. Today, it's a question of holding the ramparts. But the top dawg position to wield deterrence can be brought back. You need another mushroom cloud though. |
| Posted by: Dron66046 2019-11-10 11:36 |
| #5 Priorities #1, 2, and 3 = halting China's rise. After that, a trade deal with the U.K. post-Brexit, a rapprochement with Russia and a full-court press against Mexican/Central American immigration and chaos. |
| Posted by: Lex 2019-11-10 09:50 |
| #4 It's called realpolitik. Pursuing our interests without globalist gobble-gabble. Playing the long game, setting clear priorities, applying self-restraint. |
| Posted by: Lex 2019-11-10 09:47 |
| #3 Talk loudly and carry a bigger stick? |
| Posted by: Mercutio 2019-11-10 08:48 |
| #2 Deterrence can't be decreed. A rational party will assess the credibility of deterrence in light of past reactions to aggression. The 9/11 war was a test that showed the world that the US' reaction to even an attack on the scale of Pearl Harbor will be calculable and therapeutic instead of adversarial in nature. |
| Posted by: Elmerert Hupens2660 2019-11-10 08:24 |
| #1 Without "nation building" at least. |
| Posted by: g(r)omgoru 2019-11-10 08:03 |