The present-day U.S. military qualifies by any measure as highly professional, much more so than its Cold War predecessor. Yet the purpose of today’s professionals is not to preserve peace but to fight unending wars in distant places. Intoxicated by a post-Cold War belief in its own omnipotence, the United States allowed itself to be drawn into a long series of armed conflicts, almost all of them yielding unintended consequences and imposing greater than anticipated costs. Since the end of the Cold War, U.S. forces have destroyed many targets and killed many people. Only rarely, however, have they succeeded in accomplishing their assigned political purposes. . . . [F]rom our present vantage point, it becomes apparent that the “Revolution of ‘89” did not initiate a new era of history. At most, the events of that year fostered various unhelpful illusions that impeded our capacity to recognize and respond to the forces of change that actually matter.

Andrew Bacevich


Friday, December 18, 2015

Update for Friday, December 18, 2015


I delayed posting today, waiting for greater clarity on what appear to have been some friendly fire casualties of Iraqi forces resulting from U.S. close air support. Earlier reports claimed much larger numbers of casualties. We'll see how this sorts out.

Some reports have spun this as indicating strength on the part of IS, but in fact it appears that a wide-front assault on peshmerga territory near Mosul failed badly. The story I've linked to emphasizes the role of Canadian forces in the battle, which clearly places them as ground combatants. However, air strikes appear to have accounted for 180 IS dead, along with an unknown number killed by peshmerga fighters. The Kurds claim to have killed 42 IS fighters near Khazar. The attack on the Turkish base appears to have been the first volley in this attempted IS offensive. It appears that IS has no hope of prevailing in an open battlefield operation such as this given allied air power.

The Pentagon will give more arms and equipment to the peshmerga. I'm not sure about the politics of this as peshmerga forces have already advanced well beyond the borders of the KRG and it is obvious the Baghdad is getting nervous about the U.S.-Kurdish alliance which is independent of the Baghdad government.




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