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


Wednesday, November 29, 2017

Update for Wednesday, November 29, 2017

New U.S. strategy in Iraq will have 1,000 U.S. troops conducting combat operations against Taliban and IS. This has happened with essentially no public discussion in the U.S. and no debate in congress.

U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson will go to Europe to try to convince NATO allies to put more troops into Afghanistan but will face resistance:

“The allies can do more,” said Shashank Joshi, a security analyst at the Royal United Services Institute in London. “The issue is they don’t want to do more. They have a much more cynical, pessimistic view of the country. For all those reasons, I don’t think you will see European allies pile in with the expectation that a final push is going to turn things around.”
British PM May visits forces in Iraq, and discusses security cooperation with PM Abadi.

U.S. forces deploy to a base in Kirkuk but they are not expected to intervene in ongoing ethnic conflicts in the area. The reason for the move is unclear.

Shiite militias are said to continue to attack Kurdish civilians in Tuz Khurmatu.

U.S.-led coalition (probably meaning the U.S.) attacks targets in Anbar, claims to have killed "a number" of militants and destroyed a weapons cache.

DynCorp workers plead guilty to engaging in a corrupt scheme with an Iraqi general. So what else is new?

Pentagon report puts the number of U.S. troops in Iraq and Syria higher than previously stated. There are nearly 9,000 in Iraq and 1,720 in Syria, according to the report. "Pentagon spokesman Rob Manning said on Monday that security concerns and political sensitivities prohibited full disclosure for the time being, but he pledged to be "as transparent as" possible." Again, this is happening with no public discussion in the U.S. and no debate in congress. Note that the source is the BBC -- I have not seen this reported by major U.S. media.






Posted by Cervantes at 10:52 AM

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