Sunday, July 22, 2007

Note to self: Next Time We Invade Someplace Let's Be Smarter

A well-reasoned and provocative lessons learned:

http://obsidianwings.blogs.com/obsidian_wings/2007/07/lessons-learned.html

1 comment:

  1. The referenced commentary is a good one. When any nation makes a decision to go to war, it needs to understand the geopolitical implications of such a war, scenarios that might occur, and resources that might be required so as to be in the best position to safeguard its critical interests.

    Today, the U.S. urgently needs a coherent foreign policy strategy. Such a strategy would need to identify the nation's critical interests, describe the balance of power necessary to improve security and stability and what needs to be done to achieve that balance, outline what the U.S. is seeking to accomplish with its foreign policy, set forth measures for assessing progress, identify the geopolitical linkages/relationships that could offer synergies for accomplishing foreign policy objectives, and significantly increase its foreign aid budget and gear such assistance toward strategic ends, etc. In its dealings with the world, the U.S. will need to embrace long-term and robust engagement. It will need to emphasize leadership through persuasion and credibility, partnership for achieving shared interests, strategic approaches rather than ad hoc "fire-fighting," and military policy based on the Powell Doctrine and its traditional approach to pre-emption.

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