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However .... I can list a number of things wrong with how both Eisenhower and Nixon dealt with the enemy. Eisenhower could have really smacked the commies in Asia harder and prevented both the Vietnam War as well as the China Threat. Nixon was way too into detent and listened way too much to Henry Da K.

Disagree. Detente was a good policy in the early to mid 70s, as Johnson/McNamara/Bundy had botched Vietnam so atrociously (why weren't we at least fighting a proxy war in Laos and Cambodia to begin with circa '64-65? What was up with "teaching democracy" in the strategic hamlets?).

Nixon and Kissinger found themselves in a corner, largely caused by the actions of their predecessors. A combination of a bloated federal budget, increasing inflation (thanks Fed!), and the rise of folks like Wily Brandt in Germany meant that it was indeed time for a strategic "cooling" period both to reassess strategy, and bring things under control at home.

Nixon's two severe miscalculations were in trying to micromanage the economy (through a spineless jellyfish named Arthur Berns at the Fed, and a populist Democrat at treasury named Connolly), which only made things worse, and, of course, Watergate. On foreign policy, I believe that he did the right thing considering the cards he was dealt with.

I can list a number of things wrong with how both Eisenhower and Nixon dealt with the enemy

Yeah, the analogies don't quite hold...particularly with Kissinger who is pretty similar in many ways to Bush.

But certain defects in the Bush policies...collectively...are undermining even our capacity to pursue the more Reaganesque approach. He has been systemmatically underfunding R&D. Even less than Xlinton. He has been systematically defunding the Navy and Air Force...pretty much only band-aiding what Xlinton did to the services. We will wind up with a token F-22 force...and 35 year old F-15s. And NO F-14s at all. And a drastically overstretched Navy with a real gap in the ability to take a hit.

And especially frightening is the unrealistic smugness manifested about sending high technology abroad....and expecting it to not wind up in the Chicioms hands. As the ITT case shows...where they gave the Chicoms the crown jewels of American combat advantage...our night vision technology...

This was done on W's watch. ITT made the "outsourcing" deal with China in March 2001...and finished transferring the tech by August of that year...

CFIUS...under Bush...had to have approved the outsourcing to the phony manufacturing site in Singapore...and done so with essentially NO INVESTIGATION.