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justalurkrNot sure why we have two monitors going at the front of the floor all day, but at least they're not tuned to Fox.
There are enough pundits to grind my gears about foreign policy, though.
1. No one like diplomacy. By definition in negotiation, no one gets everything they want and no one can tell anyone else what to do with any reasonable expectation of being obeyed.
2. No one likes sanctions because they take too long. South Africa, anybody? North Korea is still going strong, for values of strong that include starving people.
3. Drones are just an ugly (if liberal) or pussy (if conservative) way to fight a war, so no one likes them, either.
4. The military draft...whoa, WHAT? Yeah. The draft. No diplomacy, no sanctions and no remote control warfare = boots on the ground for our preferred method of prosecuting foreign policy: military intervention. The volunteer boots are pretty much all dead, maimed or PTSD'd into ineffectiveness for deployment.
Volunteers for military service are way down in the US. (How about that?)
That pretty much leaves isolationism (bit late for that, btw;) or a military draft, about which I hear nothing from our otherwise "all knowing" pundit sphere.
Something tells me that if the draft went on the table as a real option, people would like diplomacy/sanctions/remote warfare a whole lot better.
There are enough pundits to grind my gears about foreign policy, though.
1. No one like diplomacy. By definition in negotiation, no one gets everything they want and no one can tell anyone else what to do with any reasonable expectation of being obeyed.
2. No one likes sanctions because they take too long. South Africa, anybody? North Korea is still going strong, for values of strong that include starving people.
3. Drones are just an ugly (if liberal) or pussy (if conservative) way to fight a war, so no one likes them, either.
4. The military draft...whoa, WHAT? Yeah. The draft. No diplomacy, no sanctions and no remote control warfare = boots on the ground for our preferred method of prosecuting foreign policy: military intervention. The volunteer boots are pretty much all dead, maimed or PTSD'd into ineffectiveness for deployment.
Volunteers for military service are way down in the US. (How about that?)
That pretty much leaves isolationism (bit late for that, btw;) or a military draft, about which I hear nothing from our otherwise "all knowing" pundit sphere.
Something tells me that if the draft went on the table as a real option, people would like diplomacy/sanctions/remote warfare a whole lot better.
no subject
Date: 2016-08-24 12:26 am (UTC)I recall some talks in the early years after 9/11 about the possibility of a draft, but it's almost never mentioned these days. I don't know how those in charge of the "business of war" can keep it going without more recruitment, because the ones who volunteered are either dead, or unable to redeploy. I've personally dealt with a quite a few people with PTSD and I can't imagine what they'd do to themselves or others if they were forced to go back.
If it were traditional warfare, I'd say it would be like the period between WWI and WWII, which was necessitated by the countries involved losing a large portion of their population, stockpiles, etc. I've often heard that period referred to as a lull in a single war because everyone had literally run out of people and weaponry to keep the fight going.
It's not "traditional" though, and I'm not sure how it will play out if there's a draft. Many people seem "disconnected" with 15+ years of war, but parents of a barely 18 year old who's not even legal to drink but is drafted to fight with boots on the ground? People are going to start squawking to the politicians, but the question is whether or not they'll listen.
no subject
Date: 2016-08-24 03:57 pm (UTC)