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originally posted in:Sapphire
1/23/2014 4:10:32 AM
16
TED Talk - Thomas Barnett: Let's rethink America's military strategy - how to start winning hearts and minds
So in recent wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, one of the biggest issues has been that the US / Coalition goes in, kicks ass, but then promptly makes everyone hate them, due to their heavy handed tactics.
What Thomas Barnett suggests, is to split the current US military into 2 forces:
The "Leviathan" force would resemble the current military, capable of toppling dictatorships in days by using the best and most lethal weaponry available. They train for war, they don't train for peacekeeping. They crush the enemy.
Following right behind them would then be the "Sys Admin" force, which would carry out the years of peacekeeping, pulling the damaged nation back onto its feet. They rebuild infrastructure, negotiate treaties between tribes, help out the locals, etc. They win the hearts and minds.
Opinion on the video / idea?
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6 RepliesI think that's fine and dandy. But I think that we need a third force separate from the "Leviathan" specifically to fight our current enemies. Our real current enemies are no longer countries and dictators but smaller decentralized groups operating in these nations. A conventional army against them is completely ineffective. We need a much larger intel gathering/Special Forces group to handle them. And we need to shrink the current standing army as a result. Not build them more tanks.
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Edited by Mags: 1/24/2014 12:06:44 AMIt's definitely an interesting idea. That's essentially what a comprehensive counterterrorism/insurgency strategy needs to consist of.
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1 ReplyEdited by IchEsseKinder: 1/23/2014 4:17:01 AMOr we can send in U.N peacekeepers, Red Cross, Habitat for Humanity, and other groups to be responsible for the non-combat parts?
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1 ReplyEdited by Noot Noot Buddy: 1/23/2014 10:02:36 AMA bit off-topic: A few TED talks have been posted. I love TED, this video being one of my favourites. One of my teachers last year showed us a lot of TED talks, most of them were good, most of the more popular ones are, but there was the occasional one, that was too fluffy and optimistic, hippyish.
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the US could have avoided this by rebuilding the country for 3 billion in 1980. "charlie wilson's war" is a true story.
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8 RepliesThey're not heavy-handed enough as of right now, considering we wasted several years and billions of dollars making no progress.
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TEDx Drexel University
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Sounds good to me.
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8 Replieswe need more boats
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1 Reply[spoiler]I don't really like the idea. [/spoiler]
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1 ReplyInteresting idea, but the military is already a combination of the "Leviathan" and "Sys Admin". "War is a failure of out foreign policy." America's military objective is deterrence. We do not want to engage anybody, because we know we will win, and we want to prevent it from happening in the first place. The problem with his strategy is that it assumes that America takes central control of a country it's waging war in...we did NOT want to take over Afghanistan, Iraq, Korea, Kuwait, or Vietnam. It does no good to decapitate a country's leadership, then assume that role to rebuild everything. We saw this with Iraq; we rebuilt shit, we did combat ops with their army, and we nannied them for years, and then when we leave, they are almost immediately invaded by the forces that we had just run out. Not to mention that our strategy has changed since 2005 when this was recorded. Smart ideas, but it's largely extraneous.
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Too bad anything resembling backing down on military power will be seen as "Obama is gutting America's defense of freedom"
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Hm, it's definitely an interesting idea, I'll give it that. Definitely something that would have to be proven true in a real situation though.
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It fits our modern military well.
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Interesting.
