Shrike
6hr ago
he thinks Bush wasn't evil enough to make it work
Maybe he just thinks Bush wasn't smart enough to make it work.
If Bush had pursued something like Trump's methodology, everyone (in the West) would remember the Global War on Terror as a success, or at least not the failure it is often viewed as now. If Bush had removed Saddam in a lightning strike and then negotiated with the remaining Baathist regime to stop doing dumb stuff under pain of also being removed, tens of thousands of people of deaths would likely have been avoided, along with the rise of ISIS and decades of costly and painful US occupation. (FWIW this doesn't seem very evil to me, but YMMV I suppose.) Same deal with simply punitively bombing Afghanistan and doing SOCCOM raids to snatch AQ leaders.
This basically seems to be Trump's plan in Venezuela. I want to caveat here that THERE IS STILL A CHANCE TO SCREW IT UP and that oftentimes such plans work out in unexpected and often bad ways. Maybe Venezuela will turn out to have been a horrible idea! But supposing a counterfactual where Bush had successfully done what Trump appears to be doing now, I think Bush would be viewed much more differently.
People forget that the US has a fairly successful track record of lightning interventions (arrive, blow everything up, install a new leader if necessary, leave). This may not be ethical or moral, but it "works" from the perspective that the military interventions tend to achieve their goals and be relatively popular or at least not unpopular. The US tends to do poorly (particularly in the public square) when it gets drawn into a prolonged intervention. People are now wary of the former because of the latter, which I think is entirely understandable, but it's important to understand that not all foreign interventions are created equal.
Shrike
6hr ago
I think something that is often missed is that Greenland does not want to remain Danish. Greenland wants independence. Right now they are subsidized by Denmark which makes straight up leaving a financial problem.
I suspect that #3 is at least a large part of the reason (although obviously it's possible that it's an idea for a number of good reasons, and/or bad ones!), and the US doesn't want to gamble on Greenland finding a better partner in e.g. Russia or China or to have to worry about the status of its bases if it leaves Denmark. I could be wrong about this, but it does answer the question of "why not just station more troops under the arrangement with Denmark we already have?" - it's possible there's concern about that being a viable strategy long term. Even if Greenland doesn't declare independence, there may also be concern in the Trump administration about the long-term viability of Denmark as a partner.
It's also worth noting that apparently the Danes tried to get the US to leave Greenland after World War Two (when the US seized Greenland) and the US...didn't, although we did offer to buy it in 1946. So this is a longstanding US security concern.
I also wonder if "US owning Greenland" is a stretch goal with the idea being that by pushing for buying Greenland outright something like US-subsidized independence with a Compact of Free Association suddenly looks very tame and reasonable.
Shrike
1d ago
But even if she was, of his own safety is what he is worried about, getting out of the way is far more effective and better for all involved than standing his ground, pulling out his gun, firing at her and then stepping out of the way once she starts moving.
Perhaps, but on the other hand if you thought someone was in the process of trying to kill you with a car you might be disinclined to give them them additional opportunities to do so.
Shrike
1d ago
normally, when there's a threat, you have a duty to flee. You do not have the right to kill someone unless necessary to protect yourself from serious injury or death.
Federal law enforcement don't have any duty to flee that I am familiar with, and in many circumstances law abiding Americans at large have no duty to retreat even if they are not serving in a law enforcement capacity. Furthermore, if there's a threat then serious injury or death is what is being threatened (unless it's like cyberbullying or something).
None of the above means that the shoot in question was necessarily a good one. But starting from wrong presuppositions about this sort of thing will make judging whether or not it was a good shoot harder.
Shrike
1d ago
I think "normal" is doing a lot of heavy lifting here, and I don't think that's good. Firstly, (as discussed elsewhere) what's normal is for people who drive cars in the general direction of the police to get shot by the police if the police feel menaced by it. Secondly, what's normal has no direct bearing on what's good - if cops were normally threatened by gun-pointing escapees, that would be not resolve the question of whether or not shooting them is good or bad.
the arrest-enhancing effect of blocking the path is entirely mediated through the circumstance that now it will be legal for police to kill you if you try to escape.
This is untrue, anyone in a car with police officers blocking the way can attempt to dismount and flee on foot.
The general sentiment here seems to be that it's unfair that if you attempt to flee in a car you because could die, whereas normally you wouldn't die attempting to flee from the cops otherwise. But that's not necessarily true: if you flee from the cops on foot, and they pursue you, and you don't surrender, you could die. And in fact sometimes when this happens people get upset about the unarmed techniques that the police use to restrain people. And there's less outrage than deaths, almost certainly, because the rare Taser death or suspect-falls-off-of-a-building death aren't as much of a scissor statement.
Note that I am not arguing that the police should shoot at every car that maneuvers around them; for example, the police might be well advised, prudentially, to flee a car rather than engaging in a shootout in a crowded location, or a car could be traveling in such a way as to pose no objective threat to the car. And I agree that, generally speaking, cops should not step in front of a car that is already nearby and moving towards them to generate a pretext to shoot. But I do think asking the question "did the suspect do something that could reasonably endanger the life and safety of another person?" is a good question to start any inquiry about a law enforcement or self-defense shooting and the answer to that question is probably "yes" if you are pointing a car at someone, same as a gun.
Shrike
1d ago
All right, supposing the police have someone cornered and his only plausible way out is to point the gun (he doesn't know movie karate that would allow him to defeat half a dozen cops unarmed). How is this different from the police having someone cornered and their only way out is to point a vehicle at a police officer? Shouldn't the duty to retreat be roughly analogous in both situations?
Shrike
1d ago
Supposing instead of any of these Rube Goldberg machines the person fleeing just decides to point a gun at the police and tell them he will shoot if they get any closer. Shouldn't the cops back off?
Shrike
1d ago
I do think there's a difference between a cop stepping in front of an already moving vehicle (this should be banned by departmental policy for officer safety if for no other reason) and a vehicle moving into a cop.
And conveniently as a general rule you can replace "cop" with "person" and the result and rules are the same.
Shrike
1d ago
Setting aside the question of the appropriate response to a fleeing suspect, this (and a lot of comments here) seem to be glossing the fact that fleeing the cops in a motor vehicle is a choice, just as much as fleeing the cops with a gun is. You can always attempt to flee on foot if you decide to flee.
Shrike
2d ago
Let's also keep in mind there's a certain utility function for the US government of having a method to backchannel "reliable" information to the "public" (rival intelligence agencies). Partially for signaling deniably, but perhaps more importantly because you can use it (once) to rugpull anyone at any time.
Shrike
5d ago
To tag-team off of this a bit, if we knocked out Venezuelan communications it seems quite possible that many Venezuelan troops did not fire or attempt to fire simply because they received no orders to. A lot of us here are military nerds so we know if we were in the Venezuelan armed forces and we looked out the window and saw an MH-47 we would be like "oh crap the Americans!" but I wonder if your average Venezuelan air defense troops, even if they were under standing orders to shoot US assets, could confidently PID the target.
is it possible they were able to observe all of the anti-air troops setting up and blow them away with air support?
I agree that it's "unlikely and impossible" if you properly distribute them but (along the lines of above) I wonder if the Venezuelans just set up static AD posts that could be mapped and then targeted pretty easily.
Whatever the case, I think your typical US plan involves assuming the enemy is competent, so either we were confident in our ability to map and strike their AD troops, we were confident in our countermeasures, or just relatively risk-tolerant. Probably a combination of all three.
Shrike
5d ago
If you keep reading,
According to the sources, Venezuela had formally fielded 12 Russian-supplied Buk-M2E surface-to-air missile systems, but only five were in operational condition.
Venezuela had no combat-ready military.
On the timeline of the Twitter source you cite, Venezuelan short-ranged air defenses (which are really the relevant threat; long range air defenses are greatly reduced in effectiveness against low-flying aircraft) were reportedly active.
I agree that the Venezuelan military isn't in great shape, and they certainly weren't ready (despite having everything but an RVSP in terms of indications), but a lot of conflict is in the prep work, which the US demonstrated. Anyway, between this and Hostomel I think we can say that kino heliborne assaults are probably with us to stay, and simply forcing enemy planners to have to consider the possibility of an airborne assault at any given point throughout a massive area is its own W.
Venezuela did not have air defenses deployed.
What term besides "deployed" would you prefer for the BukM2 the US destroyed in Caracas and the air defense systems that appeared in the area after probing by US bombers?
Shrike
6d ago
China does more overseas trade than the US.
Well, first off, I don't think this is true (by value). Secondly, we didn't have to waste trillions fighting forever wars over there to dominate trade either. Thirdly, China is actually expanding its military footprint in the Middle East, inclusive of building at least one military base there and performing anti-piracy patrols, so I think it's decidedly too soon to tell if they can avoid getting dragged into a military operation there.
Venezuela was not a threat to American martime trade.
I am not arguing that it was. I am arguing that merchant maritime republics regularly perform military actions overseas (securing maritime trade being one of the reasons said republics do that, but not the only reason). China (which, on top of the military actions I mentioned above, regularly both uses force and conducts military operations short of war in its maritime near-environs) is a good example that proves my point.
Shrike
6d ago
If the US hadn't been meddling in the middle east there wouldn't have been a GWOT to start with.
Sure, maybe. It doesn't follow from that that you can just let people blow stuff up and shrug your shoulders.
The US should focus on the US, not regime change.
The US is and has always been, at least in part, a maritime merchant republic. All such nations throughout history were inevitably getting embroiled in affairs abroad because their domestic politics rely on trade and trade relies on stable, non-hostile trading partners and open sea lanes. This is why the Monroe doctrine exists and why the US got involved in the Middle East almost instantly upon becoming a nation.
You could wish for some alternative version of the United States that was not this way, but you would be disappointed. "That is the way it was and will be. That way and not some other way."
This is by no means me endorsing or supporting any given US military action. In fact I am broadly critical of US military interventions! But the idea that a merchant maritime republic wouldn't regularly be performing military actions overseas, including regime change in extreme cases, is a fantasy.
Shrike
6d ago
Did the bombing of teh Iranian nuclear facilities start a general war? Trump has ordered a fair few military actions, but none of them so far have lead to a wider conflict.
Yeah, this is the thing, I don't like everything Trump has ever done, but particularly in foreign affairs I judge him compared to the other option, and he's been remarkable at only doing limited military stuff. (And pretty much every US President ever has done at least dabbled in military action). I actually think that he dodged (at least so far) the scheduled all-out war with Iran, which I think is good.
(And I do mean scheduled, the Littoral Combat Ship seems, at least to me, to have been basically purpose-built for derping around in the Gulf shooting up Iranian speedboats and what have you.)
Shrike
6d ago
Yes, I agree - the US (or at least the Bush administration) needed a quick win. But there were lower-level guys we could have snatched, and even a punitive Just Cause-style expedition against, say, Pakistan Afghanistan would have been a politically acceptable show of US wrath, I think.
Shrike
6d ago
Imperialist war projects end up causing chaos.
All war projects end up causing chaos; war is chaos. Look, your original argument was that removing a leader was meaningless. I don't think that's correct. If the US had committed to merely removing AQ leadership during the GWOT there would have been less chaos. But by your telling that would have been meaningless. Which justifies the massive war project that was the Global War on Terror, since merely removing UBL and other AQ leaders wouldn't have accomplished anything. But now (in your telling) we're Kafka-trapped, since a massive war project to hunt down and eliminate terrorists would have created more chaos instead of stability. So the proper response to hostile, violent, or illegal acts against your nation-state or populace, apparently, is to do nothing.
The war to bring feminism to Afghanistan 10x the world's heroin production.
Forgive me for wondering if you didn't get it exactly backwards. You'll notice that Afghanistan was moved on about 3 seconds after the Taliban banned heroin; heroin production massively soared under Coalition occupation, and then after the US finally left Afghanistan heroin suddenly dried up in North America and subsequently was banned (again) by the Taliban, cratering production. Very mysterious - it's almost as if between 2001 and 2021 whoever was interested in keeping the heroin supply going developed a superior alternative.
Shrike
6d ago
So we will soon have regular flights to the US to bring cocaine.
I think that's bad but that's not a failure of the military operation if the military operation's goals are more modest than "end all cocaine flights for all time." By which sorts of standards no policies, wars, or other human endeavors are successful.
Neocon wars always end up with drugs and refugees.
Are we defining "neocon war" here as a war that ends up with drugs and refugees or what.
Just removing one person won't do much, the regime can easily continue even if one person disappears.
Correct. But also, the regime can easily not continue if even one person disappears. It depends a lot on the regime and the person!
Shrike
6d ago
Quite possibly.
I actually think the longer-ranged air defense elements (like the S-300s) just wouldn't be able to target low-flying helicopters (doubly so if jammed) so the real question to me is where the short-ranged stuff was at.
Seeing as how Trump was toying with Venezuela like a cat with a mouse I think someone deciding to Maduro offer up as a sacrifice makes total sense, particularly if there are bitcoins in it for you.
Shrike
6d ago
If this is what the Taiwanese security guarantor is doing, do you think Taiwan has much confidence in its security
Generally speaking, having your security patron secure a W makes people feel more confident in the prowess of their security patron.
especially as China is quickly moving towards total dominance in the South China Sea?
If you look closely, this may have demonstrated the insecurity of Chinese SCS holdings in a broader war scenario to air assault. (I've been thinking about this for years, interesting to see something like a proof of concept). Pretty interesting stuff!
Shrike
6d ago
Either way, bringing in rotary assets unmolested into Caracas is fucking ballsy and signals total degradation of any Venezuelan air control, especially given the lack of even preliminary SEAD/DEAD.
I wonder if we trust our countermeasures against their MANPADS or we have guys on the ground passively or actively making that a non-issue for us or both. Really seems like it should not be hard to have a few squads of dudes with Iglas or something wherever you go.
On the other hand, for all I know at this point the helicopters we saw were the extraction forces and the ingress was by covert assets on foot. Will be interesting to see how much we can learn about what exactly happened.
Shrike
6d ago
If you want to understand what is going on, you need to start seeing the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Iranian water riots, China firing missiles and practicing live fire drills while surrounding Taiwan, and the US capture of Maduro as all different angles of the same problem.
One of the other things this entire adventure has demonstrated is that the US can suddenly and rapidly flow forces to a previously abandoned airstrip and rapidly project power to that location.
In every "Eagle v. Dragon" wargame, China pummels the heck out of US airbases in Guam and Japan with ballistic missiles, destroying large portions of US air power on the ground. If the US can, at short notice, transform any of the dozens or hundreds of little airports in the AO into operating bases and start reconstituting old World War-vintage airstrips to platforms for tactical aircraft, the target set for Chinese ballistic missiles expands dramatically.
And of course this is not a surprising US capability. But it's one thing to know we can do it in theory and another thing to see the US actually execute on it so briskly. A successful snap air assault against a prepared enemy is icing on the cake.
Interesting idea!
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