Posted on 09/09/2010 10:26:45 AM PDT by arthurus
It has now been nine years since al Qaeda attacked the United States. It has been nine years in which the primary focus of the United States has been on the Islamic world. In addition to a massive investment in homeland security, the United States has engaged in two multi-year, multi-divisional wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, inserted forces in other countries in smaller operations and conducted a global covert campaign against al Qaeda and other radical jihadist groups.
In order to understand the last nine years you must understand the first 24 hours of the war
Read more: 9/11 and the 9-Year War | STRATFOR
(Excerpt) Read more at stratfor.com ...
Kind of vague about what the “grand strategy” should be.
Yep...pontification with no conclusion
It is pretty plain. Return to global “balance of power.” We are not doing anything useful vis-a-vis the Islamic War by diddling around in Afghanistan. We are trying to set up a stable government in a place where that is impossible and we are tying down forces there. We have to stay in Iraq so long as we are unwilling to destroy Iran’s capabilities. Iraq is the strategic containment of Iran. In the meantime Russia and China are having their ways in the world at our expense. Russia is rebuilding its Empire and China is fencing off the world’s natural resources for its exclusive use.
Americans have no patience..I figured this to be at least a 20 year war with parts of it having no end.
OK, more details on global "balance of power". How is that going to be accomplished? Iraq and Afghanistan were not just about those two places - they also involved lots of the former "stans" that were once part of the Soviet empire so I could make the argument that we HAVE been doing this all along too. By the way I agree with you in some ways as I always thought Iraq was more important than Afghanistan. However, Afghanistan is really Pakistan and there needs to be some balance of power maintained there too, no? So more details about global balance of power would have been helpful in this article unless the only point of the article to just to rationalize cutting and running from Afghanistan?
Killing two generations of jihadis could easily take 40 years.
Balance of Power is the Strategy. How it is to be worked out depends on the constellation of powers in a given era. That is not my field or yours.Strategy is the major goal, not day to day tactics. England did it for centuries. When I say it is a strategy of life to eat three meals a day I don’t have to detail the ratio of meat to vegetables on a given plate on some given day in the future. To demand that is ignorance.
Actualiy it is a war that will end when we stop paying for the Jihad against us or rather will go on hiatus when we no longer pay for it. It will end when all men are Moslem or none are. This war has been a background to history for 13 centuries.
yes sir...Im just not ready to lose my neighbors son over it. we need him on the border. Only thing feeding jihad is profits ...take the profits out. killing is how they make a living .
You explain strategic versus tactical to justify a lack of details in a platitude? Please. I maintain we’ve been doing Balance of Power since World War II. If anything we neglected Balance of Power when we tried to ignore the Middle East or treat the place like it didn’t rise to the level of “Balance of Power” management. The Russians and Chinese certainly haven’t ignored the Middle East. Further, refusing to sweat the details and calling that ignorance is like accepting a platitude such as “Hope and Change” and calling that a strategy... but don’t worry about the tactics, that’s day to day and less important just repeat after me... yes we can. Sorry, I tire of calling a platitudes a strategy. Yeah, balance of power is important. Who ever said it wasn’t? But it’s how you get there or realize that platitude that makes all the difference.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.