Equal and exact justice to all men, of whatever state or persuasion, religious or political; peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations, entangling alliances with none.
– Thomas Jefferson’s Inaugural Address, March 4, 1801
Many people voted for Donald Trump based on his pledge of “America First.” The idea behind this partly relates to the very legitimate concern that the U.S. Empire and its military-industrial-contractor benefactors have been squandering an enormous amount of treasure and tax money on foreign adventurism, funds which could be of much greater use at home helping struggling Americans, fixing our broken economy and infrastructure. I’m starting to become increasingly concerned that rather than winding down America’s foreign adventures, Trump and his team are preparing to expand them.
The always excellent Robert Parry at Consortium News got me thinking about this with his recent post. Here are a few excerpts:
The Kagan family, America’s neoconservative aristocracy, has reemerged having recovered from the letdown over not gaining its expected influence from the election of Hillary Clinton and from its loss of official power at the start of the Trump presidency.
Back pontificating on prominent op-ed pages, the Family Kagan now is pushing for an expanded U.S. military invasion of Syria and baiting Republicans for not joining more enthusiastically in the anti-Russian witch hunt over Moscow’s alleged help in electing Donald Trump.
In a Washington Post op-ed on March 7, Robert Kagan, a co-founder of the Project for the New American Century and a key architect of the Iraq War, jabbed at Republicans for serving as “Russia’s accomplices after the fact” by not investigating more aggressively.
Then, Frederick Kagan, director of the Critical Threats Project at the neocon American Enterprise Institute, and his wife, Kimberly Kagan, president of her own think tank, Institute for the Study of War, touted the idea of a bigger U.S. invasion of Syria in a Wall Street Journal op-ed on March 15.
Yet, as much standing as the Kagans retain in Official Washington’s world of think tanks and op-ed placements, they remain mostly outside the new Trump-era power centers looking in, although they seem to have detected a door being forced open.
On Wednesday in The Wall Street Journal, Robert Kagan’s brother Frederick and his wife Kimberly dropped the other shoe, laying out the neocons’ long-held dream of a full-scale U.S. invasion of Syria, a project that was put on hold in 2004 because of U.S. military reversals in Iraq.
But the neocons have long lusted for “regime change” in Syria and were not satisfied with Obama’s arming of anti-government rebels and the limited infiltration of U.S. Special Forces into northern Syria to assist in the retaking of the Islamic State’s “capital” of Raqqa.
In the Journal op-ed, Frederick and Kimberly Kagan call for opening a new military front in southeastern Syria:
“American military forces will be necessary. But the U.S. can recruit new Sunni Arab partners by fighting alongside them in their land. The goal in the beginning must be against ISIS because it controls the last areas in Syria where the U.S. can reasonably hope to find Sunni allies not yet under the influence of al Qaeda. But the aim after evicting ISIS must be to raise a Sunni Arab army that can ultimately defeat al Qaeda and help negotiate a settlement of the war.
“The U.S. will have to pressure the Assad regime, Iran and Russia to end the conflict on terms that the Sunni Arabs will accept. That will be easier to do with the independence and leverage of a secure base inside Syria. … President Trump should break through the flawed logic and poor planning that he inherited from his predecessor. He can transform this struggle, but only by transforming America’s approach to it.”
By the last years of the Obama administration, the stage was set for the neocons and the Family Kagan to lead the next stage of the strategy of cornering Russia and instituting a “regime change” in Syria.
All that was needed was for Hillary Clinton to be elected president. But these best-laid plans surprisingly went astray. Despite his overall unfitness for the presidency, Trump defeated Clinton, a bitter disappointment for the neocons and their liberal interventionist sidekicks.
Yet, the so-called “#Resistance” to Trump’s presidency and President Obama’s unprecedented use of his intelligence agencies to paint Trump as a Russian “Manchurian candidate” gave new hope to the neocons and their agenda.
It has taken them a few months to reorganize and regroup but they now see hope in pressuring Trump so hard regarding Russia that he will have little choice but to buy into their belligerent schemes.
As often is the case, the Family Kagan has charted the course of action – batter Republicans into joining the all-out Russia-bashing and then persuade a softened Trump to launch a full-scale invasion of Syria. In this endeavor, the Kagans have Democrats and liberals as the foot soldiers.
Robert perfectly sets the stage for exactly how the neocons are attempting to push Trump into expanding these foolish imperial wars, specifically the war in Syria, which is actually just a proxy war against Russia. His warning takes on increased importance when viewed in the context of recent headlines about the Trump administration preparing to ramp up troop numbers in Syria.
First, let’s take a look at an article published March 9th in The New York Times titled, U.S. Is Sending 400 More Troops to Syria:
WASHINGTON — The United States is sending an additional 400 troops to Syria to help prepare for the looming fight for Raqqa, the capital of the Islamic State’s self-proclaimed caliphate, American officials said on Thursday.
The increase, which includes a team of Army Rangers and a Marine artillery unit that have already arrived in Syria, represents a near-doubling of the number of American troops there.
The United States military has declined to say how many troops it has deployed in Syria. The formal troop cap is 503, but commanders have the authority to temporarily exceed that limit.
“The exact numbers and locations of these forces are sensitive in order to protect our forces, but there will be approximately an additional 400 enabling forces deployed for a temporary period to enable our Syrian partnered forces to defeat ISIS in Raqqa,” Colonel Dorrian added.
Now, Marine artillery is being added, along with logistical support and training and protection in dealing with improvised explosive devises.
Gen. Joseph L. Votel, the head of the United States Central Command, told reporters on Thursday that he was open to asking for more conventional military units if they are needed.
Turning to other regions, General Votel said he agreed the Afghan conflict was stalemated and supported the appeal from the American commander in Afghanistan for additional troops.
Now here’s where it gets a little weird. Less than a week after that article was published, the number of possible additional troops suddenly has surged to 1,000.
The U.S. military has drawn up early plans that would deploy up to 1,000 more troops into northern Syria in the coming weeks, expanding the American presence in the country ahead of the offensive on the Islamic State’s de facto capital of Raqqa, according to U.S. defense officials familiar with the matter.
The deployment, if approved by Defense Secretary Jim Mattis and President Trump, would potentially double the number of U.S. forces in Syria and increase the potential for direct U.S. combat involvement in a conflict that has been characterized by confusion and competing priorities among disparate forces.
Makes you wonder what the troop levels will be in a week, a month or a year from now. What the heck is going on here and where is the U.S. Congress in all of this? When did we declare war on Syria?
The whole thing stinks of neocon foreign policy infiltration into the Trump administration, and it makes me wonder whether America’s imperial wars will be expanded aggressively under Trump, contrary to what many had voted for.
Let’s hope not, but as we learned under Obama, hope is not a strategy.
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Michael Krieger
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Lighten up, Mike. They’re just keeping us safe.
It’s all about the money. In order to get the money for endless war, one needs a boogyman, something I posted in http://beyondrealtime.blogspot.com/2017/03/you-gotta-have-boogyman.html
referencing how Goebbels channeled Bernays in enabling Hitler to conquer europe. Excellent post as The Donald caved to the Deep State and trolls like the Kagans and Kristol, the man who is never right but will sent your kid to die for something that is never right because these bastards have never served and don’t have any skin in the game save for the scraps they get from the enormous monies garnered by the Deep State to perpetuate endless war.
“the neocons are attempting to push Trump into expanding these foolish imperial wars,” This is one possibilty.
The other is that Trump works for 1%s like himself and starting yet another war is Good Business – no push necessary.
The DoD is one of Wall Street’s biggest customer. Besides the obvious military hardware purchases, the DoD consumes literally $Billions in fuel annually. Taking a look at the 2018 Budget Proposal tells you all you need to know about where Trump’s priorities are. Why would an Isolationist need to make the the most powerful military in the history of the world (by a factor of at least 2) even larger?
Of course, we know where this will go. The DoD and CIA will want to avoid bad publicity (ie, American coffins) so expect a ramp up in drone strikes. Trump is already looking to relax the restrictions on drone attacks (http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Military/2017/0315/Trump-to-ramp-up-drone-warfare.-Will-more-civilians-die), so expect even more civilians to die.
Second- and third-order effects are important, but Trump doesn’t seem like a deep thinker – his State Department cuts and treatment of American Muslims illustrates that. His math will say that 10 innocent Muslim civilan deaths is acceptable if we kill 2 ISIS bad guys; he won’t be thinking about the 4 new ISIS recruits he just created because the US killed their families.
Trump is a con man, just like Obama. The only positive in him winning the election was that Hillary lost. The deep state hates him not because he is unwilling to do their bidding, but because he is not an “acceptable” face for the empire. Hillary would have does the exact same things in Syria, the only difference is that liberals would be happily going along with the program as they did the past 8 years instead of marching in the streets.
Spot on! The ‘good’ side of Trump is he’s waking people up as to just how screwed up the govt is, though, the #Resistance is doing a feeble job of responding (so far). The focus has to be to greatly trim down the MIC, which even leftists seem to be hesitant to do and instead focus on corollary issues.
Karl’s spot on.
As the old French saying goes: The more things change the more they remain the same.
Invasion and destruction of Syria was decided a long time ago, before 911 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9RC1Mepk_Sw – 2:12 min This eventuality will not be so much a proxy war against Russia as it will be a war for Israel. The reality is that Trump is owned by Wall Street and the Israeli lobby. Nobody gets to be president without absolute devotion to these two interests. Robert and Fred Kagan are both dual US/Israeli citizens and their pro-zionist interest is what fuels their efforts. Nothing of importance will change under Trump because, as this author said before, Trump will go after symptoms, not the root causes of this county’s problems. Requesting an increase in the Defense Dept budget of over $50 bil, which is almost as much as Russia spends in a year on defense, was nauseating, at a time when many millions of Americans are having real trouble just accessing health care.
Relax; Trump has a 2 part plan and it doesn’t involve imperialism.
1. Destroy radical Islam as any kind of force so that it can never be used as a tool of imperial policy again.
2. Restructure the empire to make it affordable. Japan and Britain are in. The EU is out. Look at a map. It makes sense and fits with what he campaigned on.
More money for a military –which has never passed a federal audit and has lost $15 Trillion via unsupported budget “adjustments” since 1998. Just like the lottery, you have to play to lose!
Jay rocks. Talk about incompetence! The defense department invented it. Unreal.
You can bet your sweet bippy that the neo cons and their humanitarian bomber co conspirators have all read the Trump psychological profile and are using Delphi mind control techniques on this President who is wandering aimlessly in the halls of power. A man should know the limits of his knowledge and capabilities but apparently Trump’s personality gets in the way of his knowing his own limitations. This will end very badly.
As for the Perry article the only mention of the American public, which was said in passing by one of the neo con Kagans, was as cannon fodder in a large scale invasion of Syria. This would be pitting the sons and daughters of the American public against the resistance bloc of Russia, Iran, Syria. Hezbollah and possibly China and others in what could easily escalate into a WW III between nuclear weapon armed adversaries. This is not what most people had planned in their future as they blindly follow along. Edward Bernays might even venture to say were he alive that this whole propaganda shtick was not meant to include the total destruction of human civilization as a by product of manufactured consensus. If we are not careful the ‘crazies in the basement’ will kill every last one of us.
BRF’s comment is so apt and scary. Absolutely correct in all ways without question.
Does trump have a choice ? the deep state will kill him.
i think mike after so many years of articles about liberty and the deep state, it’s time to emphasize that we are beyond a democracy where any leader appointed by the public has a public mandate.
all there is is the appearance of a mandate and a cia sponsored media that enforces the appearance of this mandate and it’s acceptabiility.
liberty is not able to be provided by democratic elections of a president.
perhaps it’s time to emphasize that rather than trumps power to decide to expand war. he has the power to do as he is told to do. that is all.
perhaps that’s ok. perhaps it’s not. but i think you gotta start emphasizing that point more.
Pretty simple, if you look at Rand Corp between 2008-2010, they assessed wars with small conventional forces Iraq, Afghanistan, and etc up to and including Libya and Yemen does not produce the war multiplier on deficit to debt spending World War II did, and it actually advocates picking a fight with Russia and/or China.
There’s several problems here that may be a shocker:
1). The US military focus is unconventional warfare (occupational operations) that is dependent on establishing aerial supremacy as a no-fly zone against small conventional warfare forces as Libya, Afghanistan, Iraq, and etc. This does not apply with Russia or China.
2). The US military spending is predominantly waste predominantly trying to make counter-insurgency, guerrilla, militia, and etc forms of unconventional warfare technologically sophisticated.
It is not the largest ground or air power, and China surpassed the navy in 2011.
3). Russia and China are the largest ground and air forces in the world possessing a manufacturing-production infrastructure focused on Conventional Warfare incorporating elements of unconventional warfare as asymmetric warfare.
Note the budgets, if you study the focuses, the US spends more on sophistication at the expense of replenishment rates before globalization is taken into account. Russia and China don’t have that problem.
4). Russia and China Conventional Warfare focus means any war with either will rapidly expand beyond more than one region and thus denies the US of a decisive battle victory.
There’s always going to be that 4th to 5th Russian or Chinese division, and the US is simply not geared for that kind of fight.
5). The War College war-game scenarios citing US unconventional warfare focus as a lose-lose proposition against Russia, against China, or a Russo-Sino pact.
6). Abroad analysts of the collapse of the Soviet Union assess it fell because the advantage of time was determined by the world’s reserve currency status, and the Soviets failed to directly challenge the US citing it backing down in the Cuban Missile Crisis.
7). Historically, shifts in balance of power are decisively determined by major conflict.
The US-NATO stretching from the Baltic to South Korea is stretched way too thin. The reason McCain and other Progressive Republicans want to expand NATO membership is to get more bodies to fill the gaps, and we’re talking major gaps.
As it is, Russia and China have the US flanked, and the ‘resistance’ and so-called Russian interference-influence US elections leaves one option to check Russian and Chinese positioning and maintaining its stretched too thin positioning. It is full employment by military-civilian draft.
What generally happens when you corner anything that is becoming increasingly desperate? It tends to become ruthlessly aggressive be it animal or human.
This leaves me with viewing Trump as either a Trojan horse or incompetent.
Seen2013,
Those aren’t shockers, they are…hmm…. let’s say “alternate facts.”
Navy
The US has 10x 100ton Nimitz aircraft carriers, vs Russia’s *single* 55t Admiral Flota Sovetskovo Soyuza Kuznetsov and China’s *single* 55t Liaoning.
You can look at curisers/destroyers (check out the Zumwalt) and attack subs and probably come up with simialr comparisons.
Army
The US has ~8000 Abrams tanks, China has <7000 tanks, and maybe 1/3 have a chance against an Abrams. They do have a HUGE number of soldiers. Russia has as many as 20,000 tanks, but only 150 of the latest genration (T-90), and 450 T-80, the rest being T-72s and older. Look up "Grozny" to see how their traiing and tactics faired in urban combat against a lesser-equipped foe. The US has piles of MRAPS.
Air Force
I'm guessing similar to above, but don't feel like checking it out.
You may also want to check out a map of military bases located outside the home country for another eye-opener.
After additional thought.
In short, the US political-financial led political ideology conducting political maneuvering for political expediency is not unique to the US, and Unconventional Warfare focus states the Baltic-Ukraine alone is a region too far let alone the threat of Baltic and Syria with Ukraine shift failed or so on to South Korea positioning. The gaps here alone will require a military-civilian draft in addition to NATO membership expansion, and containment maintaining unconventional warfare focus is a defacto fail.
Now, this should tell you that the US then should acknowledge and recognize buffer zones as Ukraine, Syria, Iran, Pakistan, and up to North Korea that compels reshuffling positioning of military assets.
The Monroe Doctrine is ideal, and I know full well Libertarians will attack it ignoring historically the Monroe Doctrine enabled preventing sacrificing rights for security to pursue open border policies that is historically catalyzed by conquest, guilty until proven, or otherwise compelling other regions/nations to join a nation like per say NATO.
The economy is based on an Agricultural-Consumerist-Service economy that is propped up by governmental fiefdoms and public-private partnerships that means capital structure is severely neglected creating scarce capital creation pricing most out of capital accumulation markets in an economy by its very nature is a capital exchange economy predominantly towards the top.
When Russia or China convinces Saudi Arabia to drop the US Dollar in denominated trade as the chair of OPEC utilized in leveraging US Foreign Policy in the Middle East by the Arabian Alliance (many OPEC members) for dominance of the Middle East becomes useless leverage the days of the US Dollar’s world’s reserve currency status are DOA. Historically, this requires dropping Federal agencies to basics or pursuing either War and Rationing as Rand Corp advocates or instituting Severe Austerity on the populace.
The choices are very simple acknowledge and recognize the shift in balance of power and adjust accordingly, or you’re looking at attempting to strike the balance back in your favor. Trump appears geared towards the latter after promoting pursuing the former.
“Seen2013,
Those aren’t shockers, they are…hmm…. let’s say “alternate facts.””
Your counter focuses into into narrowing the field as if Ground Forces is entirely based on Armor Divisions, or the navy is entirely based on Aircraft Carriers. Look at the overall number, examine their focus of specialization (sophistication), and then get back to me.
At the moment, which of us is conducting ‘alternative facts’.
You should also search the War College war-game scenarios while you’re at it.