Don't extrapolate the entire 21st century from Bush

ARTICLE: U.S. diplomats returning from Iraq with post-traumatic stress disorder, By Barbara Slavin, USA TODAY, May 1, 2007

ARTICLE: Key US Army ranks begin to thin, By Gordon Lubold, Christian Science Monitor, May 2, 2007

ARTICLE: U.S.-Iran Talks Unlikely at Conference, By Robin Wright, Washington Post, May 2, 2007; Page A11

OP-ED: "The Hail Mary Pass," By Thomas L. Friedman, New York Times, May 2, 2007

The first piece shows the SysAdmin stuff, when pursued in the toughest spots (and here, under the toughest circumstances--thanks to Bush), is hard on all involved.

But remember this: It can be done well. It was done well in the former Yugoslavia (when Clinton got around to it), and it's done routinely well in resilient Florida (Remember the summer of 3 successive hurricanes a bit back? I do, because I traveled there repeatedly during that time frame and Florida did just fine). So reducing our current universe to Iraq and Katrina is bogus.

It's an oldie but a goodie: success is a poor teacher, while failure is a great one. Having said that, we need to recognize the wins as well as the losses, and stop pretending the latter defines our ceilings, when it simply marks the floor.

Those situations (as Friedman points out today WRT Iraq) are pure Bush-Cheney-isms, not particularly reflective of America.

This fish, as the old Russian proverb says, begins rotting at the head.

And that's why this upcoming Iraq summit is unlikely to yield much: these guys never admit mistakes (Friedman's dream), meaning one of our biggest difficulties with Iran is how similar our leaderships' styles truly are.

Meanwhile, Yingling's complaints seem born out by Army stats, suggesting the toll of this administration will be great indeed.

But don't extrapolate the entire 21st century from Bush. Too many self-professed strategic thinkers are doing that and it's quite silly.

Life will go on without Bush, and it will move along just fine--much better, in fact.

Comments

[Ian Rhodes]

One figure that stood out in the CSM article: The army and marine corps are spending $1 billion dollars on re-enlistment bonuses in FY2007. In the grand scheme of unexpected military spending 10x growth in retention bonuses ends up being a drop in the bucket. Tax free combat zone pay is probably similarly minuscule. Does this mean only 1-2% of the recently vetoed $100B+ supplemental spending bill goes directly to "support the troops" with the other $99B having to trickle down to the troops via KBR, defense contractors, private security firms, logistics companies, leaky Iraqi bureaucracies...?

[D Molloy]

Sir,I don't worry too much about retention/recruiting numbers year to year. The military throttles up & back through internal policies every year enough to skew what would be considered an ideal force. I do worry about instances where top leaders prefer not to be considered for top jobs in the DoD as a result of differences with the current administarion.

[farhad]

Dr barnett,i agree it is going tobe a whole lot better for theentire world when george/dickis gone.but as far as for theegypt summit,you know the real discusions are behind thecurtin,but on the surface,it seem bush might be gettingcloser to the hamilton-baker deal,but like you say it also might be the set up.your comments please.

[Tom Barnett]

This is the underlying hope I've included in most of the things I write on this subject. It's just that, after six years of making such arguments, sometimes F2F, you grow cynical.

You see lay-up after lay-up passed up for three-pointers and you can't help wondering, "Don't these guys want to win?"