There might be some brief mild entertainment, but Congress will continue to do what it has been doing… nothing.
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Hard Power and Soft Power
- Thread starter taxi1
- Start date
There might be some brief mild entertainment, but Congress will continue to do what it has been doing… nothing.
Yup, 119th has been in GOP control for almost 2 months now and they’ve gotten only one piece of legislation signed.
I doubt it will be pretty.
This is sad…but true.
Well said. No argument here.
This, right here, more than any other reason, is a likely cause of our accelerating slide toward dictatorship.
Just last week they fired a missile at a US fighter. Don't know all the details, but the obviously missed their target. I'm sure that was mostly for internal propaganda... scaring away the dreaded US menace, or some such blah blah blah.
There is evidence that the tik tok campaign for Călin Georgescu was actually a plan conceived and paid for by the center right Romanian National Liberal Party.
The plan obviously didn’t work.
At any rate, it looks like the Romanian Supreme Court will invalidate the election.
Report ties Romanian liberals to TikTok campaign that fueled pro-Russia candidate
A campaign from a governing center-right party may have been hijacked to benefit far-right candidate Călin Georgescu, snoop.ro report shows.
www.politico.eu
Wonder if there will be any impact on Mihail Kogalniceanu Air Base near Constanta? (Did a port call there back in the day.)
Good article in The New Yorker interviewing a former USAID leader. I recognized the USAID person because he was the doctor who wrote a popular book on bringing aviation style checklists into medicine, following an article in The New Yorker. Pretty fascinating if you care about safety.
The Checklist
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2007/12/10/the-checklist
Here’s the interview about his most recent job.
Hundreds of Thousands Will Die
https://www.newyorker.com/podcast/t...gawande-on-elon-musks-surgery-with-a-chainsaw
What you’re describing is both human compassion and, a phrase you used earlier in our conversation, “soft power.” Describe what that is. Why is it so important to the United States and to the world? What will squandering it—what will destroying it—mean?
The tools of foreign policy, as I’ve learned, are defense, diplomacy, and development. And the development part is the soft power. We’re not sending troops into Asia and Africa and Latin America. We’re sending hundreds of thousands of civilians without uniforms, who are there to represent the United States, and to pursue common goals together—whether it’s stemming the tide of fentanyl coming across the border, addressing climate disasters, protecting the world from disease. And that soft power is a reflection of our values, what we stand for—our strong belief in freedom, self-determination, and advancement of people’s economies; bringing more stability and peace to the world. That is the fundamental nature of soft power: that we are not—what Trump is currently trying to create—a world of simply “Might makes right, and you do what we tell you,” because that does not create stability. It creates chaos and destruction.
The Checklist
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2007/12/10/the-checklist
Here’s the interview about his most recent job.
Hundreds of Thousands Will Die
https://www.newyorker.com/podcast/t...gawande-on-elon-musks-surgery-with-a-chainsaw
What you’re describing is both human compassion and, a phrase you used earlier in our conversation, “soft power.” Describe what that is. Why is it so important to the United States and to the world? What will squandering it—what will destroying it—mean?
The tools of foreign policy, as I’ve learned, are defense, diplomacy, and development. And the development part is the soft power. We’re not sending troops into Asia and Africa and Latin America. We’re sending hundreds of thousands of civilians without uniforms, who are there to represent the United States, and to pursue common goals together—whether it’s stemming the tide of fentanyl coming across the border, addressing climate disasters, protecting the world from disease. And that soft power is a reflection of our values, what we stand for—our strong belief in freedom, self-determination, and advancement of people’s economies; bringing more stability and peace to the world. That is the fundamental nature of soft power: that we are not—what Trump is currently trying to create—a world of simply “Might makes right, and you do what we tell you,” because that does not create stability. It creates chaos and destruction.
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This morning Rubio was on TV talking about the shift in operations against the Houthis. He noted that we were departing from the tit-for-tat strikes to something more aggressive. Thoughts? I know the standard outlines any aware American should know, but is this a dramatic operational shift?
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I think we have taken way too much shit from the Houthis for way too long. As much as I have intense dislike for the current administration, I generally agree with an effort to hit the Houthis hard, as long as it is part of a broader strategy of deterrence and cutting off their supply lines. However, it may not be fair to characterize prior strikes as “tit for tat”.
Spekkio
He bowls overhand.
Apparently, they've grown to the point where they are a legitimate governing body inside of Yemen.
And they're backed by Russia...
Defeating the Houthis Will Require More Than Killing Their Chief - War on the Rocks
Edmund Fitton-Brown, the former British ambassador to Yemen, recounted a chilling 2016 discussion with Houthi negotiators: Houthi officials claimed that
warontherocks.com
And they're backed by Russia...
Russian Roulette on the Red Sea - War on the Rocks
The Kremlin’s preoccupation with prevailing in Ukraine is pushing it to contemplate geostrategic risks and adopt a more proactive approach in regions like
warontherocks.com
They’ve been the governing body for a not insignificant amount of time. While I support all efforts in bitch slapping them, I’m not optimistic that anything short of regime change will stop their bad behavior in the long run. The Saudis bombed the fuck out of them and blockaded them for awhile with no effect, only massive suffering by the gen pop. And considering our recent track record of Middle East regime change, again, not optimistic.
Tit for tat results in forever wars. The whole problem with the US Fighting Wars in Vietnam and since the Gulf War is that the military objectives and political objectives never lined up. If you ask the military to end a conflict, they will end it, but they're almost never given the latitude to get it done.
So if you're a defense contractor who likes the steady stream of money coming in, your best option is to tie the military's hands behind their back so they can't finish the job quickly and as a result, creates the impression that the military needs better tools, which you as a defense contractor are more than happy to accept orders for.
In the long term this might help the development side of the defense industry by looking forward towards new types of warfare, but in the short term, it's expensive and makes us look incompetent for not being able to solve seemingly small issues quickly.
In the long term it also creates doctrine and attitudes that makes commanders more cautious about being aggressive towards opponents where an aggressive posture is clearly warranted.
So if you're a defense contractor who likes the steady stream of money coming in, your best option is to tie the military's hands behind their back so they can't finish the job quickly and as a result, creates the impression that the military needs better tools, which you as a defense contractor are more than happy to accept orders for.
In the long term this might help the development side of the defense industry by looking forward towards new types of warfare, but in the short term, it's expensive and makes us look incompetent for not being able to solve seemingly small issues quickly.
In the long term it also creates doctrine and attitudes that makes commanders more cautious about being aggressive towards opponents where an aggressive posture is clearly warranted.