I found this curious article and another similar article while reading the news today.
Everyone is worried about the economy, and justifiably so, but even if our economy dissolves, it will be the military and our advanced technology that maintain peace for our nation in a time of future crisis. As long as we possess nuclear weapons and the potential to throw them anywhere in the world, people will respect our borders. Obviously, nuking people is not the best strategy when it comes to war; but when all other options expire, we need to possess the ability to annihilate our opponents.
But there are other technologies that other countries desire, and therefore, are willing to barter for. These technologies offer us some leverage in negotiating with friends and allies, as well as the power to subdue overt enemies. This type of negotiating is exceedingly powerful and effective, because other countries see how we utilize the weapons at our disposal to prosecute those who seek to do harm to our country. However, we need to exercise restraint in how we use this method though. The stipulation is that we must be cognizant of is who our friends in the world are and who our enemies are.
In the world of international politics, friends are few and far between, while people who will be friendly as long as it benefits them are many. Friends on the international stage arise out of several different avenues. Friends who share a similar heritage, religion, and values as we do are the first and most stable and reliable allies because they understand us and we understand them, and this mutual understanding brings greater trust. The other manner of friends are the enemies of our enemies. Any nation that has both of those, will be a very close and trusted ally. Among the nations, there are various blocs that fall into one category or the other, but I believe that only the nation of Israel falls into both categories.
The Israelis are a mixed group of people who share a very similar base religion, the primary foundational religion of the US being an extension of Judaism. They share similar national values and objectives, and they possess very resolute enemies, who also happen to hate the United States very much as well. The Israelis are our friends, and nothing will change that in the near future. We are running short of friends on the world stage, and we need to be aware of this and deal specially with nations who are friends to us.
That said, what do we do when our friends violate our view of national moral ethics? We need to deal carefully and lovingly with them. With friends, we can afford to offer greater benefits for negotiation because we are assured that they will not be ultimately turned back upon us. This is why I am pleased to hear that the Obama administration is offering "to sell Israel 20 stealth fighter jets". (1) We can use this negotiating to try and get Israel to truly compromise with the Palestinians, while simultaneously ensuring that our friends have the ability to defend themselves effectively.
In similar fashion, we must know who are true enemies are. We have two primary types of enemies as well. The first type are nationalistic enemies, who are enemies simply of consequence of policy decisions driven by the underlying philosophies of each nation. These types of enemies are easily negotiable and could end up being friends, depending on how world events unfold. Enemies in this camp include Russia, China, North Korea, and the like. The second type of enemies are those who are fundamentally and ideologically opposed to us. These type of enemies hate us with all of their hearts and souls and will not be negotiable in the end. You cannot negotiate with idealists who are religiously founded, for they view us as enemies regardless of our actions towards them. Enemies that fall into this category are countries like Iran, Palestine, and any nation with ties to Muslim terrorists. These people have no intention of negotiating honestly and will take any chance that we give them to destroy us.
What should be our stance towards countries of the second type? Being an honorable nation, we must follow the high road in dealing with these nations. When faced with this kind of opposition, we must follow an extension of the policy of the Monroe Doctrine which was so simply put in the words of President Theodore Roosevelt, "speak softly, and carry a big stick." We must deal gently with them, and yet be ready to destroy them if they attack us or our closest allies. We cannot play into the hands of pacifists, and say all warfare is evil. If we do, the United States of America will cease to exist. As J.R.R. Tolkien once said, "War must be, while we defend our lives against a destroyer who would devour all; but I do not love the bright sword for its sharpness, nor the arrow for its swiftness, nor the warrior for his glory. I love only that which they defend."
We must maintain the power to destroy our enemies and be restrained in using it but for national defense of ourselves and allies. We need to use it sparingly and with great trepidation, for the power to destroy cannot be used lightly. What about laws of war though?
"The 'laws of war' may sound like an antiquated concept in this age of robo-weapons." (2) Yet, laws of war are necessary for any nation to be considered to be truly honorable. However, we cannot reveal all of these laws to our enemies. Our enemies will use our own rules against us if we let them have full access to our laws of war. We hold strategic laws and tactical laws that apply on different scales of warfare.
The strategic laws will be revealed by necessity, for diplomacy to occur with integrity. These laws should define, among other things, what we consider to be aggressive offenses and what we consider to negotiable offenses. We must to be ready to backup our policy with military power, if the necessity arises. When a nation violates the aggressive offense list, it should be no surprise when we respond in force.
The tactical laws need to be maintained in secrecy and distributed to each of our military fighters as applies to them. The tactical laws will define how our soldiers will make decisions on the fly in combat and need to be memorized by every combatant. These laws need to be derived from our strategic policy and will enable our soldiers to make tactical decisions based on strategic policy without having to ask questions of their superiors in combat.
The end of all of war is not diplomacy, but diplomacy backed up with the threat of force. Often times, that threat alone is enough to deter aggression and trouble. When all else fails though, we must have the sword at the ready.
May God bless America.
1. "Israel to decide on US-proposed settlement freeze" - Amy Teibel, Associated Press, 14 Nov 2010
2. "Dazzling new weapons require new rules for war" - David Ignatius, Washington Post, 11 Nov 2010
Here is another new article related to arms and national defense: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20101119/ap_on_re_eu/eu_russia_us
ReplyDelete"This is not about politics," he (Obama) said. "It's about national security."
And not having nuclear weapons is much more important than any political arguments, our national existence depend on possessing them.
"The nuclear arms deal signed in April by Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev would reduce strategic warheads to 1,550 for each country from the current ceiling of 2,200 and restore onsite inspections and other verification measures that ceased when the previous START treaty expired nearly a year ago."
1,550 is a good number. I would not want to see this number drop below 1,000 though. We need to lead the world in openness on our nuclear inventories. We have 1,000 nuclear bombs, and if you do X, Y, or Z, you will be the recipient of a few of them!