ILSM Updates His Dictionary

A commenter on my recent post on Littoral Combat ships stated this:

“But it is hard to see why you would object to the interest in these vessels Littoral Combat Ship], unless you are just objecting to our having a powerful/dominant navy.”

Which just puts me on the spot.

I am not sure but the commenter may imply I am less than concerned that the US wins the next fight. I am very concerned the US wins the next fight.

So concerned am I that I insist that war machine money be wisely spent.

That aside, I missed a few code words!!

Powerful: Used for someone who wants to be libertarian and cause opportunity costs to infringe on the emotional debates of our military spending. Code speak for ‘do not ask, we won’t tell’ if this “powerful” Army or Navy or Air Force is worth the taxpayers’ money or if it is more useful to lower infant mortality, care for impoverished elderly or eliminate some poverty. Code for awfully expensive, and implies it to be important. But, without looking at what weak is, powerful is merely stating it is a good profit generator.

Dominant: Powerful on steroids. We always need to fight an asymmetrical war. The US needs to define tactics and equipment for those. New ways of war are progress and profit. Maybe, someone out there will be dumb enough to tilt against the US conveniently in ways we define. Just in case we find a stupid enemy we need all this stuff. Asymmetric warfare is always good unless we lose. It would be better if we had strategies to win than made up ways to fight. It is very desirable to fight cavemen with star wars. Code for awfully expensive and implies we need to go into every possible engagement with utterly asymmetric forces. Let no engagement be too cheap. Dominant means shock and awe. Dominant opens the door for long war, occupation and the slide to fascism.

Both, attempt to put the opponent on the defensive.

I certainly do not want to send our military into a place they won’t win.

That is why we need to get out of Iraq. Our military is not dominant and is not winning.

Iraq puts the lie to the efficacy of a “powerful/dominant”..

What is the sense of tying power and dominance up in a quagmire that is not encouraging to any end game we thought we were fighting for?

What is power and dominance without strategy? What is strategy if they keep changing the goals?