1914 (WWI) vs. 2014 (WW3?)

Only if so done listens to that asshat John McCain who now advocates stationing US troops in Eastern Europe, Syrai, Iraq Afganistan. I'm sure he has also advocated invading North Korea,Iran and Pakistan.

 

Honest to god, I think McCain's secret wish is to see armageddon before he dies. Is there anyone he doesn't want to go to war with these days? Anywhere he doesn't wanna send troops? Thank god he torpedoed his presidential campaign.

 

I'd like to torpedo who torpedoed his campaign. And Tina Fey too. Maybe a threesome.

Excuse me, I feel faint.

 

So where Cheney told a group of banking types that the original plan and what he advocated for was an invasion of Iraq and Iran. Simultaneously. This while American forces were already in Afghanistan.

I'm beginning to think that some political types really do want Armageddon. Or at least constant war.

 

LOL. Based on one report from the same reporter who falsely claimed to have found the founder of Bitcoin.

She says he said it in 2007. She says she wasn't in the room, but was told of it. No one has backed her up.

Great job.

 

You gotta admit, a constant state of war means land-office business for the type of industries Cheney is cozy with. Whether it be no-bid gov't contracts or spiking petroleum prices.

 

The United States spends more on defense than the next six (maybe more) nations combined. The current US military is probably the strongest, most dominant power on the face of the earth and maybe in the history of the world - the only thing which might come close would have been Great Britain in the late 19th and early 20th century because of their naval power, but that pales in comparison when you consider the Air Force.

That doesn't mean every US military action will be successful because a flawed strategy negates power. The US is too powerful to take on head-to-head for something like 1914 to be repeated 100 years later. However, there are limits to military power such as cost and having soldiers stay away from the US for so long.

 

Having lived through the closest we ever came to WWIII, the Cuban missile crisis, I can only say that people who think today's various crises are anything close are being alarmed for its own sake. Deplorable regional conflicts do not equal global confrontation between Great Powers.

 

Or, as we've found out in Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan, a populace that isn't very enthused about us being there. We didn't lose very many straight-up conventional battles in any of those places. Whenever insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan tried to form up and challenge us head-on, they got creamed. Even Vietnam was similar -- militarily, the Tet Offensive was a disaster for the North Vietnamese that by all rights should have broken their back.

Where the U.S. loses is the slow drip-drip-drip of resources caused by these small but determined pockets of lingering resistance. As you pointed out, that leads to a spiraling cost to keep troops there, the troops being away from home for a long time, and general war fatigue all across the home front. It's a macro version of what often happens in individual campaigns, when an invading force outruns its supply lines.
No country can take more than about 10 years of that. We're at that point or past it right now, and that is what makes this a more dangerous time than it otherwise might be. The U.S. needs to step back a bit to regroup. If we do that, though, we run the very real risk of having a truly malevolent power like Russia or China step in to fill the power vacuum, even more than they already are. It's a Catch-22 for us.

 

Maybe we should become China, do whatever we want

 

Ants. Or a plague of locusts. Maybe it rains frogs.

We're doomed. Game over, man.

 

A huge flood won't be fun either. Especially when the global-warming deniers join the debate.