Posted on 05/04/2010 7:33:12 AM PDT by K-oneTexas
“The Dragon Lies Bleeding” – Hammerfall
“Ride through the valley in thunder and rain. The battle is raging, redeem this domain. The castle of Eden lies silent above. Darkness surrounded us, away we must go. I look through the eyes of the world. I see there are strangers among us. Awaiting a sign from above. To conquer the power and the glory.
Enter the battle, our will to enchain. Bringing us forward, defeating the pain. Into the meeting with swords made of steel. Were standing together the secret reveals. I look through the eyes of the world. I know the stranger among us. Awaiting a sign from above. To conquer the power and glory. Come across to the promised land. Close your eyes, I will take your hand. Through the river of steel well go. When the dragon lies bleeding.”
The enemies and demeanors of the United States have taken to view our country as a Dragon that must be bled of its power and stature. As the mythology of the dragon goes, you could not slay the dragon with one spear, but it would take many spears into the body of the dragon to slay it and “bleed it to death.” As you look at the world today, our enemies, both foreign and domestic, are sending those spears into the body of the United States. I do not have the opportunity in this writing to discuss the various spears in detail other than to list them:
* Economic and Financial * Radical Jihad * Enablers of International Terrorism * The Media * Weak and misguided leadership in Congress and the White House * Globalism and multiculturalism * United Nations and their subversives * Progressive Socialists * Rogue nations pursuing the development and use of nuclear (EMP technology), chemical and biological weapons
These are just nine of the “spears” that must be addressed by a revised U.S. National Strategy to survive. The U.S. has always drawn operational plans from strategic doctrine. The White House faces unprecedented threats and vulnerabilities. Should they continue America’s near-total reliance upon the logic of deterrence and appeasement, we will be doomed to be bled to death. Continued belief in classical threat-system dynamics could be problematic, even if American planners were to focus on just state sponsors and terrorist proxies (like Hezbollah). These states, like their surrogates, value particular religious or ideological preferences more highly than their own lives and freedoms.
At the start of the nuclear age, there was “massive retaliation” and “mutual assured destruction” (MAD). This gave way to “flexible response” and “nuclear utilization theory” (NUT). Interpenetrating these strategic doctrines, first conceived with reference to the USSR, were fierce debates over nuclear targeting options. The Obama administration will need to examine both “counter value” (counter-city) and “counter force” doctrines, but this time with regard to state and non-state proxies, and to rational and non-rational ones. These very sensitive examinations will be divisive, but the pertinent issues concern America’s physical survival.
Any updated U.S. strategic doctrine will still have to include preemption. Inevitably, there will be new perils that may require “anticipatory self-defense.” Where rationality cannot be assumed, and where the effectiveness of ballistic missile defense would be low, the only alternative to capable and lawful forms of American preemption could be surrender and defeat.
It is not a simple world. Strategic doctrine is always a complex matter, and any improved U.S. plan will have to be creative as well as comprehensive. If, for any reason, Iran is permitted to “go nuclear,” our re-fashioned doctrine will have to identify viable options for coexistence with that country. In turn, these options will require enemy perceptions of persuasive American power and of an American willingness to actually use this power.
An example of one major threat and spear just released this week:
Moscow markets cruise missile launched from a freight container – Russia's Club-K Freight Container cruise missile. This relatively cheap, extra-smart, easy-to-use Club-K Container Missile System, which Moscow has put on the open market (Iran will be first acquirer), allows cruise missiles or Shehabs concealed in freight containers to be launched from a prepositioned or moving land or sea platform container ship. I have warned of this spear and threat for over a year now with no response from the powers-to-be. It is virtually undetectable by radar until activated. No wonder, Iran and Venezuela were keenly interested when the Club-K was put on the market at the Defense Services Asia exhibition in Malaysia this week for $15 million.
Western military experts are calling it a "real maritime fear for anyone with a waterfront." The container-cum-missiles, carried by a ship, fishing vessel or truck can approach a targeted coast, highway or international railway and strike behind the target's missile defenses without alerting radar monitors or even surveillance drones and satellites.
In Iranian hands, it would make the targeting of its nuclear facilities very difficult. Able to wipe out an aircraft carrier up to 400 kilometers away, the system's manufacturer, Novator, is directing its marketing tactics at anyone under threat of military action from the United States. One expert accused the Russians of proliferating ballistic missiles on an unheard-of scale.
At the Malaysian exhibition, the marketing film showed the Club-K being activated from an ordinary truck. The truck pulls up, whereupon the container roof lifts up to reveal four 3-54E, 3-54E1 and 3-14E cruise missiles ready to fire. The operator then pushes a button and the missiles, which have a range of 350 km, are launched without further preparation.
Military sources warn that the sale of Club-K cruise missile systems to Iran or Syria and their transfer to Hezbollah would give them an edge substantial enough to be a game-changer into the Middle East balance of strength. They are capable of surreptitiously approaching Israeli, Iraqi and any other coastlines in the region, and send missiles flying against an American, Arab or Israeli strategic or military target before their targets know they are under attack.
The missile specialist Novator, which maintains a manufacturing plant in Yekaterinburg in the Ural Mountains, produces an array of missiles against air, sea and land targets, including cruise missiles launched from submarines, as well as the advanced S-300 missile interceptor, which Russia contracted to sell Iran but has so far not delivered.
How should we deter a nuclear Iran, both from launching direct missile attacks, and from dispersing nuclear assets among terrorist proxies? Should our president do more to aid and empower the Iranian opposition? And for Deterrence Against Nuclear Terrorism (DANT), how should he compensate for the absence of “fingerprints,” and for the limits of satellites and radars? This is significant because Ahmadinejad says that soon there will be a world without the United States and Israel. Coupled with his regular pronouncements to wipe Israel off the face of the earth, this sends nuclear alarm signals that cannot be ignored.
Threats to American cities could come from cars, trucks and ships. Ballistic missile defense would be of no use against such ground-based attacks. Could we truly convince Tehran and its surrogates that any proxy act of nuclear terrorism would elicit a massive nuclear retaliation against Iran itself? We must, but meaningful policies can emerge only from a carefully re-conceptualized US strategic doctrine.
Enemy state proxies were once limited in the damage that they could inflict, and the logic of economic, cultural and military warfare was traditionally based on reasonable expectations of victory. Today, some terror and radical jihadi groups/cells could bring greater disasters to the American homeland than could certain countries. These are the “Spears” that will bring us greater pain than was deliverable by our national enemies in World War II, Korea and Vietnam.
Something is coming. There’s a very ominous haze on the horizon of this country. I’ve been saying for a time that this country is on very unsure footing, and I believe it’s going to take something massive and unexpected to tilt us into complete anarchy. I pray I’m wrong, but we must remain ever vigilant. There are forces at work in the world who want to see us dead and buried as a nation and a society.
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Sorry. I thought I added that link.
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