Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:
US sent 300 paratroopers to Poland to serve as a trip-wire against Russian aggression. Washington Post explains the reasoning.
It’s a dumb idea.
The trip-wire concept is simple: if the Russians attack and kill our 300 guys, the American public will be so outraged that Congress will Declare War as young people run to the recruiting offices and the sleeping American giant will roar to life to crush the Russians in a savage but fully justified act of revenge.
Never happen. Not in modern America. Democrats won’t declare war, Code Pinkers won’t support war, Millennials won’t go to war. Instead, the public consensus will be “Those paratroopers volunteered to serve in the armed forces so they assumed the risk of being killed. We’re not going to suffer for their bad career choice.”
Now, here’s the scary part: are SITD readers the only people who understand this? Does the US military command know those troops are twisting in the wind but they’re sending them anyway because the WaPo foreign policy wallahs want it? Seems like a major breach of faith to me.
Worse, do the Russians know it’s a bluff? Are they already planning how to invade around our people, knowing there only risk is a scolding from the Teleprompter in Chief or his lurching Secretary of State?
It was bad enough when the President’s idiotic foreign policy got our Ambassador killed. We don’t need another 300 bodies to confirm his error.
Joe Doakes
Reading history, it’s hard to avoid a key fact; most wars are backed into.
The US has no need or reason to send troops there. Our recent wars made a mess out of Iraq and chaos in the whole Afghan region. Now we need to add to the mayhem of Ukraine? I sure hope that we do not.
Russia would never retaliate if we annexed Serbia, would they?
Trip Wire = Cannon Fodder
The ones that advocate this tactic would probably think differently about this tactic if they were forced to have “theirs” as the sacrificial lambs.
“We need a cohort of volunteers named “Forrest” and “Bubba” for a very secret mission.
Remember the Maine!
“Now, here’s the scary part: are SITD readers the only people who understand this?”
Scarier still (at least to me) is that a good, all-out bloody, “God is on our side” war is just what it would take to prop up declining popularity stats, a faltering economy, on-going investigations, and an ever-increasing public disdain for the crown jewel of an administration’s legacy.
Good thing there’s nothing like that going on in the U.S. right now.
Is anyone up for a rewrite of Country Joe’s Fish Cheer/ I-Feel-Like-I’M-Fixin’-to-Die Rag? Perhaps our current administration could make hay with it, using a different four-letter “F” word.
“What’s that spell?” “FAIR” “What’s that spell?” “FAIR” – repeat as much as necessary to calm the populace and get more advance support for a new unpopular war, but this time with a real cut-throat adversary.
Joe: We fight wars to establish fairness. Or, something. Right?
TBS: Exactly. Similar the “R” word, which is the bell that cannot be un-rung, particularly when applied by a member of that particular “R”.
“Fairness,” can be applied by anyone (although usually more so by certain groups) and be attributed to any action, and it is automatically unassailable. Particularly when applied by the group that is supposedly most negatively impacted by whatever the point of contention is …
Unfortunately, this once again, highlights the amateur, in-way-over-their-head, academic approach, these whacks take to foreign policy. The ‘trip wire’ is a Foreign Policy 101 option undoubtledly presented by some beltway think-tank as a way to ratchet up pressure on the Russians. I guarantee Putin has read that book and is laughing at our fumblers as he plans 3 steps ahead of them. We are playing a dangerous game without the proper perspective. Obama will defer to his international experts and opinion barometers (hand wringers one and all) when now would be a good time for Chicago-like ruthlessness, but on a much larger stage.
and…. Don’t count on much from NATO.