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NATIONAL: "Cheney Says Obama Has Increased Risks," by A. G. Sulzberger, New York Times, 16 March 2009.
This will be the cry from the Right throughout the Obama administration: Bush kept us safe and Obama fails completely the minute something--really, anything--happens.
Of course, this is a silly view.
It's always a matter of balancing. If you want a zero-deductible, be prepared to pay plenty more day-in and day-out.
Bush-Cheney was willing to pay that outrageous sum in a wide variety of ways. Obama is not. He sees it as too costly and too deterministically self-destructive to America's long-term power and influence, and I agree. Having a terror-centric grand strategy is supremely inappropriate for this time in American and world history.
Do we submit ourselves to more tactical dangers? Sure. That's the philosophy of the new COIN (counterinsurgency). But the more you myopically focus on reducing tactical exposure, the more you shut yourself off from downstream strategic gains.
My goal is to win, not merely to avoid taking any direct hits.
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