Originally Posted by
Big Pistons Forever
Lonewolf
Please explain to this dumb Canuck how the national security interests of the US, today , are demonstrably furthered by Op Prosperity Guardian.
I don't do short attention span theater. You are free to tell Mr Biden that you disagree. I give less than a **** if you do. Like I said, mail your valid suggestions to Foggy Bottom. I am sure that your amateur input will be given top shelf consideration.
Note that the EU is now joining into the scrum.
EU naval mission in Red Sea
See ORAC's posts a bit further up.
At the moment, the "must be seen to be doing something" bit is underway. (The 90's were filled with crap like that, in part because Bill Clinton could not tell Christiana Amanpour to shut the **** up and piss off).
In (x amount of time) that imperative, to be seen as doing something, will be overtaken by ... something else by the policy makers.
You have foolishly attempted to apply what we learned in staff college to actual politicians. (As regards a campaign plan, aims, and concrete objectives, all of which we in the armed services insist on being clearly spelled out. In Real Life it's never that clear. Politicians like wiggle room, no matter how much it makes our jobs difficult).(Lord, I am so glad I'm not in that business anymore, it's gotten worse, not better).
Politicians have never held themselves to that standard, no matter how much we military sorts wish that they would listen. I remind you, again, to answer the question of "How Many years did the Kuwait tanker reflagging bit go on?" Think in time frames of that order of magnitude, not "a month here and there".
You have fallen for the having a short attention span problem.
Don't feel bad, you are not alone.
I want to point out that I agree with your accurate critique that the whack a mole game doesn't end things quickly.
No ****, Sherlock. But what it does do, in the short term, is to sate the political demand that "something be done about this!"
But here's the rub: the Houthis are noise, not signal.
Been reading a bit about the latest rhetoric from Mr Netanyahu. In the past few days, he appears to be going
all in on the "river to the sea" rhetoric.
He is drawing a line in the sand as to the West Bank and is talking about the utter rejection of a Two State solution.
That development, which everyone in the Mid East (heck anyone in the UN) is hearing is ~ I suspect ~ about to blow up in his face.
That particular position is a hell of a lot of a bigger risk for the region than the whack a mole game with the Houthis.
Nothing any of the US military services does can mitigate that.
A response has to be offered from The White House, and IMO, the answer needs to be something like "no, we don't support that."
If
that response doesn't come, (Blinken has been making noises about the two state solution) the whole thing turns darker. Not good news, at all.
And Iran, who is the topic of this thread, will have more ammo for their next salvo in the Information War.