For Big Pistons Forever:
Saw a tidbit today that you may find to be of interest. Your take on the whole "strategy" thing seems to dovetail with this fellow's take.
If the current conflict in the Middle East is in large part about Iran’s influence, does Washington have the right strategy? Not so, said Stavridis: “We tend to look at Iran as this kind of annoying middle-sized power in a region that we would just as soon depart. That’s not how they see themselves. The Iranians absolutely see themselves as the inheritors of the Persian Empire. Job one in creating a strategy for Iran would be to recognize the Iranian self-view. Then you can begin to reverse-engineer and find the levers that could avoid conflict. We need a coherent plan with Iran that goes beyond the episodic interactions we tend to have with them.”
There's a whole interview that this comes from. I think he's called that right.
James Stavridis (ADM) is pretty sharp and he's operated at the higher levels of the Pol / Mil interface for some years.
(I met him back in the early 90's when he was XO of
USS Antietam. Impressive then as well).
To what end do we keep blowing stuff up?
We are reasonably good at blowing stuff up.
He seems to think that a new sight line is needed for this political target.
For ORAC
: they shot a missile into the air and where it fell they do not care.