CDZ Trump's foreign policy advisor is....wait for it....

[320 Years of History]

...Donald Trump! Bless his heart, but the man has clearly gotten too big for his britches. Can you imagine how anyone who seriously expects to become the U.S. President can not have a foreign policy advisor at this point in their campaign? How much hubris, how much sinful pride, does that take?

I just heard that on the news. Sitting here in my office, I broke out in an unbridled guffaw that drew several passers by to poke their heads in to find out what was so funny.

Next week, Trump is scheduled to deliver a speech before a pro-Israel organization, I think in Florida. Jewish folks are planning a protest against him. They've even gone so far as to petition the AIPAC to rescind its invitation to Trump.

Trump is windier than a sack of farts! What on Earth makes anyone think foreign leaders will do more than countenance being in the same building with the man?

 

[Bond27]

'Opposed to our Jewish values' ....

What kind of values are those? Reigning supreme over non-Jews?

 

[S.J.]

Why do you keep posting flame threads in the CDZ? And where is the "debate"? All you did was post several statements.

 

[tinydancer]

Richard Haas President of CFR has advised Trump along with other primary candidates. Both Republican and Democrat.

CFR is a non partisan resource.

Every President that is elected brings in a monumental amount of advisors, something like over 3000 if I remember correctly.

 

[320 Years of History]

Every President that is elected brings in a monumental amount of advisors, something like over 3000 if I remember correctly.

They do, and I expect them to do so. It's ridiculous to think a President can be an expert in the foreign affairs of the whole world, unless perhaps they were Sec. of State, or something equally weighty, prior to becoming President.

The shocking thing is that Trump has no foreign policy adviser at all at this point in the election cycle. Through all the debates and press conferences and so on, there's been not one soul who's an expert on foreign policy "tutoring" him on the state of things around the world. The man is "flying by the seat of his pants" as goes foreign policy!

Some folks may ask, "What's wrong with that? I do that all the time." I'll tell you what's wrong with it. What's wrong with it is that my life, fortunes, and safety depends on a President's knowing something about what they are doing when they engage with leaders from other nations. I want to see a candidate who shows they know something about foreign policy and other nations (besides which of them has the best site and most favorable body of laws for building a new golf course).

I know that understanding foreign policy making isn't something one "picks up on the fly" over the course of a year or two. There's a reason big foreign policy moves are, when possible, deferred to a President's second term. It gives them enough to become savvy on global issues and it gives them and the leaders of other nations the time to get to know, and hopefully trust and hold in high regard, one another. Trump's probably okay at building superficial business relationships (superficial in comparison to that needed for foreign policy negotiations and direction setting), but it takes more than that. It takes being an excellent listener, better at listening than at talking. Trump's a very smooth talker, but from what I can tell, not much of a good listener at all.

How can you tell when someone's a poor listener? There's no substance in what they say. They give you the "okey doke" response, which on the surface is what you want to hear, but upon closer evaluation tells you nothing of substance, has no details in it. There are other ways as well and Trump displays every one of them.

• Lousy listeners are attending to other things when you are speaking.
• Lousy listeners are planning how they will respond even while you are speaking.
• Lousy listeners steal the ball.
• Lousy listeners change the subject before you are ready to do so.
• Lousy listeners hurry you along.
• Lousy listeners have lousy nonverbal skills.
• Lousy listeners tend to see criticism or blame in the most innocent of discussions.
• Lousy listeners are quick to offer advice, even when it hasn’t been asked for.

It's no wonder he hasn't a foreign policy advisor. He's unlikely to listen to them anyway.

 

[320 Years of History]

I created a different thread about the "Confessions of a Conservative" video. Maybe you've seen it, maybe not.

When I saw it, I figured the speaker was an actor. He was, and he's still alive today. The actor's name is William "Bill" Bogert and Don Lemon interviewed him yesterday. Turns out that although he was at the time an actor, he wasn't really acting when he made the ad. I'm sure that's why the ad rang then as it does now with so much sincerity.

Mr. Lemon's interview with him is on CNN"s site here. (If you've already seen the original video, skip to 1:05 or so, maybe 1:10.) He made some poignant foreign policy points:

• Even as folks are making the comparison with the video and Goldwater and today's political landscape and Trump, respectively, the fact is that Goldwater's time was different. Back then, the only threat of note (real or perceived, depending on one's stance) was Russia/USSR. These days, we (again depending on your stance) face threats from multiple Islamic terrorist groups and that nut in North Korea.

To his point, the international political environment is palpably more complex. Unlike the 1960s, except for Kim Jong Un, our greatest potential adversaries don't own a country. For us to "bomb the be-Jesus" out of ISIS or Al Qaeda, where are we to drop the bombs?

We necessarily will find ourselves devastating the sovereign territory of a nation with whom we don't really have much of a good reason to bomb, other than they happen to find themselves in the unfortunate circumstance of being in enough of a state of disarray, politically and internal security wise, that groups like ISIS can in them take up footholds, in some cases somewhat more than that. Even Syria and Assad don't in ISIS have a friend, despite our not being "buddy buddy" with Assad.

Does anything about Trump's foreign policy remarks suggest he has the vaguest understanding about how to balance our need to end ISIS with the need to respect the sovereignty of another nation?

 

[tinynascarfan]

Many Americans believe that we could end ISIS with a few missile strikes. And I'm one of them.

Washington needs a lot of somethings to distract the American people, and ISIS is a good distraction.

 

[jwoodie]

Every President that is elected brings in a monumental amount of advisors, something like over 3000 if I remember correctly.

They do, and I expect them to do so. It's ridiculous to think a President can be an expert in the foreign affairs of the whole world, unless perhaps they were Sec. of State, or something equally weighty, prior to becoming President.

The shocking thing is that Trump has no foreign policy adviser at all at this point in the election cycle. Through all the debates and press conferences and so on, there's been not one soul who's an expert on foreign policy "tutoring" him on the state of things around the world. The man is "flying by the seat of his pants" as goes foreign policy!

Some folks may ask, "What's wrong with that? I do that all the time." I'll tell you what's wrong with it. What's wrong with it is that my life, fortunes, and safety depends on a President's knowing something about what they are doing when they engage with leaders from other nations. I want to see a candidate who shows they know something about foreign policy and other nations (besides which of them has the best site and most favorable body of laws for building a new golf course).

I know that understanding foreign policy making isn't something one "picks up on the fly" over the course of a year or two. There's a reason big foreign policy moves are, when possible, deferred to a President's second term. It gives them enough to become savvy on global issues and it gives them and the leaders of other nations the time to get to know, and hopefully trust and hold in high regard, one another. Trump's probably okay at building superficial business relationships (superficial in comparison to that needed for foreign policy negotiations and direction setting), but it takes more than that. It takes being an excellent listener, better at listening than at talking. Trump's a very smooth talker, but from what I can tell, not much of a good listener at all.

How can you tell when someone's a poor listener? There's no substance in what they say. They give you the "okey doke" response, which on the surface is what you want to hear, but upon closer evaluation tells you nothing of substance, has no details in it. There are other ways as well and Trump displays every one of them.

• Lousy listeners are attending to other things when you are speaking.
• Lousy listeners are planning how they will respond even while you are speaking.
• Lousy listeners steal the ball.
• Lousy listeners change the subject before you are ready to do so.
• Lousy listeners hurry you along.
• Lousy listeners have lousy nonverbal skills.
• Lousy listeners tend to see criticism or blame in the most innocent of discussions.
• Lousy listeners are quick to offer advice, even when it hasn’t been asked for.

It's no wonder he hasn't a foreign policy advisor. He's unlikely to listen to them anyway.

Thanks for reminding me why I out you on my IGNORE list. Back you go.

 

[320 Years of History]

Every President that is elected brings in a monumental amount of advisors, something like over 3000 if I remember correctly.

They do, and I expect them to do so. It's ridiculous to think a President can be an expert in the foreign affairs of the whole world, unless perhaps they were Sec. of State, or something equally weighty, prior to becoming President.

The shocking thing is that Trump has no foreign policy adviser at all at this point in the election cycle. Through all the debates and press conferences and so on, there's been not one soul who's an expert on foreign policy "tutoring" him on the state of things around the world. The man is "flying by the seat of his pants" as goes foreign policy!

Some folks may ask, "What's wrong with that? I do that all the time." I'll tell you what's wrong with it. What's wrong with it is that my life, fortunes, and safety depends on a President's knowing something about what they are doing when they engage with leaders from other nations. I want to see a candidate who shows they know something about foreign policy and other nations (besides which of them has the best site and most favorable body of laws for building a new golf course).

I know that understanding foreign policy making isn't something one "picks up on the fly" over the course of a year or two. There's a reason big foreign policy moves are, when possible, deferred to a President's second term. It gives them enough to become savvy on global issues and it gives them and the leaders of other nations the time to get to know, and hopefully trust and hold in high regard, one another. Trump's probably okay at building superficial business relationships (superficial in comparison to that needed for foreign policy negotiations and direction setting), but it takes more than that. It takes being an excellent listener, better at listening than at talking. Trump's a very smooth talker, but from what I can tell, not much of a good listener at all.

How can you tell when someone's a poor listener? There's no substance in what they say. They give you the "okey doke" response, which on the surface is what you want to hear, but upon closer evaluation tells you nothing of substance, has no details in it. There are other ways as well and Trump displays every one of them.

• Lousy listeners are attending to other things when you are speaking.
• Lousy listeners are planning how they will respond even while you are speaking.
• Lousy listeners steal the ball.
• Lousy listeners change the subject before you are ready to do so.
• Lousy listeners hurry you along.
• Lousy listeners have lousy nonverbal skills.
• Lousy listeners tend to see criticism or blame in the most innocent of discussions.
• Lousy listeners are quick to offer advice, even when it hasn’t been asked for.

It's no wonder he hasn't a foreign policy advisor. He's unlikely to listen to them anyway.

Thanks for reminding me why I out you on my IGNORE list. Back you go.

Off topic:
If I'm on your ignore list, stop reading or responding to my posts; ignore them. I assure you my existence will not be incomplete without your remarks.

 

[320 Years of History]

Many Americans believe that we could end ISIS with a few missile strikes. And I'm one of them.

Washington needs a lot of somethings to distract the American people, and ISIS is a good distraction.

All sorts of people believe all sorts of things for which there exists little hard evidence supporting those beliefs.

 

[oldsoul]

...Donald Trump! Bless his heart, but the man has clearly gotten too big for his britches. Can you imagine how anyone who seriously expects to become the U.S. President can not have a foreign policy advisor at this point in their campaign? How much hubris, how much sinful pride, does that take?

I just heard that on the news. Sitting here in my office, I broke out in an unbridled guffaw that drew several passers by to poke their heads in to find out what was so funny.

Next week, Trump is scheduled to deliver a speech before a pro-Israel organization, I think in Florida. Jewish folks are planning a protest against him. They've even gone so far as to petition the AIPAC to rescind its invitation to Trump.

Trump is windier than a sack of farts! What on Earth makes anyone think foreign leaders will do more than countenance being in the same building with the man?

Is this a suprise? If one were to ask Donald, Mr. Tump is the leading expert on....everything. I, for one, would have been somewhat suprised to learn he had an accual expert advising him on....Anything.

 

[tinynascarfan]

Many Americans believe that we could end ISIS with a few missile strikes. And I'm one of them.

Washington needs a lot of somethings to distract the American people, and ISIS is a good distraction.

All sorts of people believe all sorts of things for which there exists little hard evidence supporting those beliefs.

That's true, but, we do have the capability of blowing away any country in the middle east, or the whole of the middle east, if we chose to do so.

I'm not wanting that, but sometimes, collateral damage is worth it. I don't have to make those decisions, that's why I vote for people I trust make them for me.

 

[320 Years of History]

Many Americans believe that we could end ISIS with a few missile strikes. And I'm one of them.

Washington needs a lot of somethings to distract the American people, and ISIS is a good distraction.

All sorts of people believe all sorts of things for which there exists little hard evidence supporting those beliefs.

That's true, but, we do have the capability of blowing away any country in the middle east, or the whole of the middle east, if we chose to do so.

I'm not wanting that, but sometimes, collateral damage is worth it. I don't have to make those decisions, that's why I vote for people I trust make them for me.

Your "in color" remarks above reflect the sort of myopic political and policy related expression that many Americans, perhaps even people in general, are prone. They are aware of one detail's verity and based on it, and it alone, make utterly ridiculous statements -- largely because, IMO, they think it sounds good and shows their boldness and bravado -- never bothering to make so much as a the slightest bit of effort to look just a little bit beyond that "oh, so obvious" truth of which they and the whole friggin' planet are aware. Devling just below the surface would reveal more details that show that matters aren't as easily resolved as their puerile statements imply.

The map above shows where ISIS, as of February 2015, had key strongholds.

My comment about what people believe has very little to do with whether the U.S. could "blow away any country in the Middle East" and what folks do or don't believe about our ability to do so. It doesn't because that is a fact. It has everything to do with the uncertainty associated with whether doing so would "end ISIS."

One need only look at some of the other facts pertaining to ISIS to see why devastating some half a dozen or more countries would not "end ISIS." Quite simply, ISIS haven't the same dependency on infrastructure, technology and so on that the U.S., or anything one can consider a nation state, does. Absolutely, a military campaign against ISIS (and/or the countries in which it has strongholds) is one that meets the definition of asymmetric warfare (see also: "Defining Asymmetric Warfare" )

Just look at those photos. What material impact is bombing places like that, or the entire country in which such camps and hubs of strength exist, going to have? It's going to create craters. That's essentially it. Yes, surely some of the ISIS members will die too, but just as Bin Laden and elements of his forces were able to survive and evade annihilation by taking advantage of the terrain, so to can and will ISIS' members. It's not as though doing so is all that difficult; they just need to dig "holes" and let the land itself protect them. And what do they need to do that? Shovels, hand axes and containers of some sort to move dirt and rubble, but in a pinch of desperation, sharp rocks and cupped hands will do.

The photos above show just one thing one might have found by looking just below the surface. They show that ISIS is not heavily dependent on the infrastructure that bombs are very good at destroying. Watching the video found here will show that even outside their training camps, they have very little reliance on the things we consider essential. (I discussed this to some extent here in the section headed "Why the approach I described is the one I'd take.") Those facts alone show the relative insufficiency of bombing as a means of "ending ISIS."

This post is already longer than I wanted it to be, so I'm going to defer addressing the moral/ethical and economic folly of the statement you made about collateral damage. Neither will I here explore the absurd notion that "Washington needs to distract people and ISIS being a tool it uses for doing so." If you insist, however, I'm more than willing to do so in a later post.

 

[jwoodie]

I assure you my existence will not be incomplete without your remarks.

Descartes might disagree...

 

[FA_Q2]

Many Americans believe that we could end ISIS with a few missile strikes. And I'm one of them.

Washington needs a lot of somethings to distract the American people, and ISIS is a good distraction.

All sorts of people believe all sorts of things for which there exists little hard evidence supporting those beliefs.

That's true, but, we do have the capability of blowing away any country in the middle east, or the whole of the middle east, if we chose to do so.

I'm not wanting that, but sometimes, collateral damage is worth it. I don't have to make those decisions, that's why I vote for people I trust make them for me.

Your "in color" remarks above reflect the sort of myopic political and policy related expression that many Americans, perhaps even people in general, are prone. They are aware of one detail's verity and based on it, and it alone, make utterly ridiculous statements -- largely because, IMO, they think it sounds good and shows their boldness and bravado -- never bothering to make so much as a the slightest bit of effort to look just a little bit beyond that "oh, so obvious" truth of which they and the whole friggin' planet are aware. Devling just below the surface would reveal more details that show that matters aren't as easily resolved as their puerile statements imply.

The map above shows where ISIS, as of February 2015, had key strongholds.

My comment about what people believe has very little to do with whether the U.S. could "blow away any country in the Middle East" and what folks do or don't believe about our ability to do so. It doesn't because that is a fact. It has everything to do with the uncertainty associated with whether doing so would "end ISIS."

One need only look at some of the other facts pertaining to ISIS to see why devastating some half a dozen or more countries would not "end ISIS." Quite simply, ISIS haven't the same dependency on infrastructure, technology and so on that the U.S., or anything one can consider a nation state, does. Absolutely, a military campaign against ISIS (and/or the countries in which it has strongholds) is one that meets the definition of asymmetric warfare (see also: "Defining Asymmetric Warfare" )

Just look at those photos. What material impact is bombing places like that, or the entire country in which such camps and hubs of strength exist, going to have? It's going to create craters. That's essentially it. Yes, surely some of the ISIS members will die too, but just as Bin Laden and elements of his forces were able to survive and evade annihilation by taking advantage of the terrain, so to can and will ISIS' members. It's not as though doing so is all that difficult; they just need to dig "holes" and let the land itself protect them. And what do they need to do that? Shovels, hand axes and containers of some sort to move dirt and rubble, but in a pinch of desperation, sharp rocks and cupped hands will do.

The photos above show just one thing one might have found by looking just below the surface. They show that ISIS is not heavily dependent on the infrastructure that bombs are very good at destroying. Watching the video found here will show that even outside their training camps, they have very little reliance on the things we consider essential. (I discussed this to some extent here in the section headed "Why the approach I described is the one I'd take.") Those facts alone show the relative insufficiency of bombing as a means of "ending ISIS."

This post is already longer than I wanted it to be, so I'm going to defer addressing the moral/ethical and economic folly of the statement you made about collateral damage. Neither will I here explore the absurd notion that "Washington needs to distract people and ISIS being a tool it uses for doing so." If you insist, however, I'm more than willing to do so in a later post.

Good points. I would like to add to them the simple fact that we HAVE been bombing terrorist camps for years. Any of this tripe that we can end them with some well placed bombs ignores the stark reality that we have been dropping literally hundreds of bombs on terrorists for years non-stop and we have not ended it yet. I know - I launch those aircraft that carry those hundreds of bombs and watch them come back empty.

It is also interesting that, while we spend billions on bombs to destroy them and their infrastructure, those shovels, tents and wheelbarrows they require cost virtually nothing at all.

 

[320 Years of History]

Many Americans believe that we could end ISIS with a few missile strikes. And I'm one of them.

Washington needs a lot of somethings to distract the American people, and ISIS is a good distraction.

All sorts of people believe all sorts of things for which there exists little hard evidence supporting those beliefs.

That's true, but, we do have the capability of blowing away any country in the middle east, or the whole of the middle east, if we chose to do so.

I'm not wanting that, but sometimes, collateral damage is worth it. I don't have to make those decisions, that's why I vote for people I trust make them for me.

Your "in color" remarks above reflect the sort of myopic political and policy related expression that many Americans, perhaps even people in general, are prone. They are aware of one detail's verity and based on it, and it alone, make utterly ridiculous statements -- largely because, IMO, they think it sounds good and shows their boldness and bravado -- never bothering to make so much as a the slightest bit of effort to look just a little bit beyond that "oh, so obvious" truth of which they and the whole friggin' planet are aware. Devling just below the surface would reveal more details that show that matters aren't as easily resolved as their puerile statements imply.

The map above shows where ISIS, as of February 2015, had key strongholds.

My comment about what people believe has very little to do with whether the U.S. could "blow away any country in the Middle East" and what folks do or don't believe about our ability to do so. It doesn't because that is a fact. It has everything to do with the uncertainty associated with whether doing so would "end ISIS."

One need only look at some of the other facts pertaining to ISIS to see why devastating some half a dozen or more countries would not "end ISIS." Quite simply, ISIS haven't the same dependency on infrastructure, technology and so on that the U.S., or anything one can consider a nation state, does. Absolutely, a military campaign against ISIS (and/or the countries in which it has strongholds) is one that meets the definition of asymmetric warfare (see also: "Defining Asymmetric Warfare" )

Just look at those photos. What material impact is bombing places like that, or the entire country in which such camps and hubs of strength exist, going to have? It's going to create craters. That's essentially it. Yes, surely some of the ISIS members will die too, but just as Bin Laden and elements of his forces were able to survive and evade annihilation by taking advantage of the terrain, so to can and will ISIS' members. It's not as though doing so is all that difficult; they just need to dig "holes" and let the land itself protect them. And what do they need to do that? Shovels, hand axes and containers of some sort to move dirt and rubble, but in a pinch of desperation, sharp rocks and cupped hands will do.

The photos above show just one thing one might have found by looking just below the surface. They show that ISIS is not heavily dependent on the infrastructure that bombs are very good at destroying. Watching the video found here will show that even outside their training camps, they have very little reliance on the things we consider essential. (I discussed this to some extent here in the section headed "Why the approach I described is the one I'd take.") Those facts alone show the relative insufficiency of bombing as a means of "ending ISIS."

This post is already longer than I wanted it to be, so I'm going to defer addressing the moral/ethical and economic folly of the statement you made about collateral damage. Neither will I here explore the absurd notion that "Washington needs to distract people and ISIS being a tool it uses for doing so." If you insist, however, I'm more than willing to do so in a later post.

Good points. I would like to add to them the simple fact that we HAVE been bombing terrorist camps for years. Any of this tripe that we can end them with some well placed bombs ignores the stark reality that we have been dropping literally hundreds of bombs on terrorists for years non-stop and we have not ended it yet. I know - I launch those aircraft that carry those hundreds of bombs and watch them come back empty.

It is also interesting that, while we spend billions on bombs to destroy them and their infrastructure, those shovels, tents and wheelbarrows they require cost virtually nothing at all.

Red:
Insanity is doing the same thing, over and over again, but expecting different results.
― Narcotics Anonymous


Blue:
It seems to me that ISIS have examined the way 1980s military spending forced the USSR to allocate disproportionate sums of its resources to maintaining parity with the U.S. and in so doing, exacerbating the already decrepit qualities of life the majority of its citizens faced, not because the USSR was inherently a poor nation, but as a result of that plus the remainder of their nation's other ill advised fiscal choices. ISIS has modified that general stratagem to their circumstances and those of the Western nations which it hopes to incite into engaging in warfare on ISIS' terms by attacking them in their "home base," thus giving ISIS the beginnings of legitimacy as a nation rather than as a group.

As one can observe by aggregating the verity of JimBowie1958's remarks in his thread about taxes and corporate subsidies with the U.S. electorate's general dissatisfaction with the nation's focus on pretty much anything other than the wellbeing of the average citizen, that it is a matter of when, not whether, the U.S. will suffer a similar outcome as did the USSR.

I doubt the U.S. will collapse as totally as did the Soviet Union, but then ISIS don't need that extent of a collapse. ISIS need only persist in its efforts to the extent that it motivates the U.S. and its Western allies to cease and desist in its efforts to thwart ISIS achieving its primary goal: the creation of Islamic State. What is more likely is that the U.S. arrives at a policy stance focused on containment rather than eradication of ISIS and its designs to achieve nationhood.

You and others will have surely by now have noticed that ISIS does not launch terrorist attacks in China, or places that China thinks are part of China, yet China has as many so-called infidels as there are Muslims on the whole planet. Quite simply, China is not a nation of monotheists, let alone Muslim monotheists. Go to Xinjiang and check out the remote border area shared by China and Afghanistan. If ISIS terrorists wanted to get into the PRC to terrorize people there, it could, particularly insofar as many of the ostensibly Chinese people in that region, Uyghurs, relate as much to being Chinese as they do to be Caucasus Muslims. Indeed, quite often Uyghurs relate more to their Afghani neighbors than they do to the Han Chinese who comprise some 90%+ of the rest of the Chinese population who are overwhelmingly Buddhist or atheist.

You've surely noted too that China has largely kept quiet re: ISIS. There's a reason for that: China has little to gain by bother with ISIS. One analyst wrote a short essay in which he detailed the gains that might accrue to the PRC by taking a more active role in the battle against ISIS. While those things may indeed be benefits, from what I can tell, not one of them is a benefit that won't accrue to China eventually anyway. If there's one thing China is not and that Western nations are, it's "in a hurry." It's population size necessarily means it's rise to global dominance is another "when" not an "if," provided the other nations of the world don't find a way to unify in a more substantive way then they are today so as to create another nation that matches the PRC in terms of population size.

So, for the time being, ISIS need only leave China alone and exploit the domestic schisms extant within and among Western nations to the point that the West has little choice but to use nuclear weapons or concede to an uneasy "peace" whereby Islamic State does indeed become a nation.

 

[JimBowie1958]

Many Americans believe that we could end ISIS with a few missile strikes. And I'm one of them.

Washington needs a lot of somethings to distract the American people, and ISIS is a good distraction.

All sorts of people believe all sorts of things for which there exists little hard evidence supporting those beliefs.

That's true, but, we do have the capability of blowing away any country in the middle east, or the whole of the middle east, if we chose to do so.

I'm not wanting that, but sometimes, collateral damage is worth it. I don't have to make those decisions, that's why I vote for people I trust make them for me.

Your "in color" remarks above reflect the sort of myopic political and policy related expression that many Americans, perhaps even people in general, are prone. They are aware of one detail's verity and based on it, and it alone, make utterly ridiculous statements -- largely because, IMO, they think it sounds good and shows their boldness and bravado -- never bothering to make so much as a the slightest bit of effort to look just a little bit beyond that "oh, so obvious" truth of which they and the whole friggin' planet are aware. Devling just below the surface would reveal more details that show that matters aren't as easily resolved as their puerile statements imply.

The map above shows where ISIS, as of February 2015, had key strongholds.

My comment about what people believe has very little to do with whether the U.S. could "blow away any country in the Middle East" and what folks do or don't believe about our ability to do so. It doesn't because that is a fact. It has everything to do with the uncertainty associated with whether doing so would "end ISIS."

One need only look at some of the other facts pertaining to ISIS to see why devastating some half a dozen or more countries would not "end ISIS." Quite simply, ISIS haven't the same dependency on infrastructure, technology and so on that the U.S., or anything one can consider a nation state, does. Absolutely, a military campaign against ISIS (and/or the countries in which it has strongholds) is one that meets the definition of asymmetric warfare (see also: "Defining Asymmetric Warfare" )

Just look at those photos. What material impact is bombing places like that, or the entire country in which such camps and hubs of strength exist, going to have? It's going to create craters. That's essentially it. Yes, surely some of the ISIS members will die too, but just as Bin Laden and elements of his forces were able to survive and evade annihilation by taking advantage of the terrain, so to can and will ISIS' members. It's not as though doing so is all that difficult; they just need to dig "holes" and let the land itself protect them. And what do they need to do that? Shovels, hand axes and containers of some sort to move dirt and rubble, but in a pinch of desperation, sharp rocks and cupped hands will do.

The photos above show just one thing one might have found by looking just below the surface. They show that ISIS is not heavily dependent on the infrastructure that bombs are very good at destroying. Watching the video found here will show that even outside their training camps, they have very little reliance on the things we consider essential. (I discussed this to some extent here in the section headed "Why the approach I described is the one I'd take.") Those facts alone show the relative insufficiency of bombing as a means of "ending ISIS."

This post is already longer than I wanted it to be, so I'm going to defer addressing the moral/ethical and economic folly of the statement you made about collateral damage. Neither will I here explore the absurd notion that "Washington needs to distract people and ISIS being a tool it uses for doing so." If you insist, however, I'm more than willing to do so in a later post.

Good points. I would like to add to them the simple fact that we HAVE been bombing terrorist camps for years. Any of this tripe that we can end them with some well placed bombs ignores the stark reality that we have been dropping literally hundreds of bombs on terrorists for years non-stop and we have not ended it yet. I know - I launch those aircraft that carry those hundreds of bombs and watch them come back empty.

It is also interesting that, while we spend billions on bombs to destroy them and their infrastructure, those shovels, tents and wheelbarrows they require cost virtually nothing at all.

Red:
Insanity is doing the same thing, over and over again, but expecting different results.
― Narcotics Anonymous


Blue:
It seems to me that ISIS have examined the way 1980s military spending forced the USSR to allocate disproportionate sums of its resources to maintaining parity with the U.S. and in so doing, exacerbating the already decrepit qualities of life the majority of its citizens faced, not because the USSR was inherently a poor nation, but as a result of that plus the remainder of their nation's other ill advised fiscal choices. ISIS has modified that general stratagem to their circumstances and those of the Western nations which it hopes to incite into engaging in warfare on ISIS' terms by attacking them in their "home base," thus giving ISIS the beginnings of legitimacy as a nation rather than as a group.

As one can observe by aggregating the verity of JimBowie1958's remarks in his thread about taxes and corporate subsidies with the U.S. electorate's general dissatisfaction with the nation's focus on pretty much anything other than the wellbeing of the average citizen, that it is a matter of when, not whether, the U.S. will suffer a similar outcome as did the USSR.

I doubt the U.S. will collapse as totally as did the Soviet Union, but then ISIS don't need that extent of a collapse. ISIS need only persist in its efforts to the extent that it motivates the U.S. and its Western allies to cease and desist in its efforts to thwart ISIS achieving its primary goal: the creation of Islamic State. What is more likely is that the U.S. arrives at a policy stance focused on containment rather than eradication of ISIS and its designs to achieve nationhood.

You and others will have surely by now have noticed that ISIS does not launch terrorist attacks in China, or places that China thinks are part of China, yet China has as many so-called infidels as there are Muslims on the whole planet. Quite simply, China is not a nation of monotheists, let alone Muslim monotheists. Go to Xinjiang and check out the remote border area shared by China and Afghanistan. If ISIS terrorists wanted to get into the PRC to terrorize people there, it could, particularly insofar as many of the ostensibly Chinese people in that region, Uyghurs, relate as much to being Chinese as they do to be Caucasus Muslims. Indeed, quite often Uyghurs relate more to their Afghani neighbors than they do to the Han Chinese who comprise some 90%+ of the rest of the Chinese population who are overwhelmingly Buddhist or atheist.

You've surely noted too that China has largely kept quiet re: ISIS. There's a reason for that: China has little to gain by bother with ISIS. One analyst wrote a short essay in which he detailed the gains that might accrue to the PRC by taking a more active role in the battle against ISIS. While those things may indeed be benefits, from what I can tell, not one of them is a benefit that won't accrue to China eventually anyway. If there's one thing China is not and that Western nations are, it's "in a hurry." It's population size necessarily means it's rise to global dominance is another "when" not an "if," provided the other nations of the world don't find a way to unify in a more substantive way then they are today so as to create another nation that matches the PRC in terms of population size.

So, for the time being, ISIS need only leave China alone and exploit the domestic schisms extant within and among Western nations to the point that the West has little choice but to use nuclear weapons or concede to an uneasy "peace" whereby Islamic State does indeed become a nation.

Great series of posts, which is why i love coming to this site; every once in a while the partisanship subsides and rationality breaks out.

Just a note; the Chinese have a problem with their Muslim province of Sinkiang, or Xingjiang, which is native Muslim Turks, Kazakhs, Kirghiz and Uygurs. The Chicoms suppress these populations ruthlessly.... and they dont use hugs to do it.

 

[FA_Q2]

Many Americans believe that we could end ISIS with a few missile strikes. And I'm one of them.

Washington needs a lot of somethings to distract the American people, and ISIS is a good distraction.

All sorts of people believe all sorts of things for which there exists little hard evidence supporting those beliefs.

That's true, but, we do have the capability of blowing away any country in the middle east, or the whole of the middle east, if we chose to do so.

I'm not wanting that, but sometimes, collateral damage is worth it. I don't have to make those decisions, that's why I vote for people I trust make them for me.

Your "in color" remarks above reflect the sort of myopic political and policy related expression that many Americans, perhaps even people in general, are prone. They are aware of one detail's verity and based on it, and it alone, make utterly ridiculous statements -- largely because, IMO, they think it sounds good and shows their boldness and bravado -- never bothering to make so much as a the slightest bit of effort to look just a little bit beyond that "oh, so obvious" truth of which they and the whole friggin' planet are aware. Devling just below the surface would reveal more details that show that matters aren't as easily resolved as their puerile statements imply.

The map above shows where ISIS, as of February 2015, had key strongholds.

My comment about what people believe has very little to do with whether the U.S. could "blow away any country in the Middle East" and what folks do or don't believe about our ability to do so. It doesn't because that is a fact. It has everything to do with the uncertainty associated with whether doing so would "end ISIS."

One need only look at some of the other facts pertaining to ISIS to see why devastating some half a dozen or more countries would not "end ISIS." Quite simply, ISIS haven't the same dependency on infrastructure, technology and so on that the U.S., or anything one can consider a nation state, does. Absolutely, a military campaign against ISIS (and/or the countries in which it has strongholds) is one that meets the definition of asymmetric warfare (see also: "Defining Asymmetric Warfare" )

Just look at those photos. What material impact is bombing places like that, or the entire country in which such camps and hubs of strength exist, going to have? It's going to create craters. That's essentially it. Yes, surely some of the ISIS members will die too, but just as Bin Laden and elements of his forces were able to survive and evade annihilation by taking advantage of the terrain, so to can and will ISIS' members. It's not as though doing so is all that difficult; they just need to dig "holes" and let the land itself protect them. And what do they need to do that? Shovels, hand axes and containers of some sort to move dirt and rubble, but in a pinch of desperation, sharp rocks and cupped hands will do.

The photos above show just one thing one might have found by looking just below the surface. They show that ISIS is not heavily dependent on the infrastructure that bombs are very good at destroying. Watching the video found here will show that even outside their training camps, they have very little reliance on the things we consider essential. (I discussed this to some extent here in the section headed "Why the approach I described is the one I'd take.") Those facts alone show the relative insufficiency of bombing as a means of "ending ISIS."

This post is already longer than I wanted it to be, so I'm going to defer addressing the moral/ethical and economic folly of the statement you made about collateral damage. Neither will I here explore the absurd notion that "Washington needs to distract people and ISIS being a tool it uses for doing so." If you insist, however, I'm more than willing to do so in a later post.

Good points. I would like to add to them the simple fact that we HAVE been bombing terrorist camps for years. Any of this tripe that we can end them with some well placed bombs ignores the stark reality that we have been dropping literally hundreds of bombs on terrorists for years non-stop and we have not ended it yet. I know - I launch those aircraft that carry those hundreds of bombs and watch them come back empty.

It is also interesting that, while we spend billions on bombs to destroy them and their infrastructure, those shovels, tents and wheelbarrows they require cost virtually nothing at all.

Red:
Insanity is doing the same thing, over and over again, but expecting different results.
― Narcotics Anonymous


Blue:
It seems to me that ISIS have examined the way 1980s military spending forced the USSR to allocate disproportionate sums of its resources to maintaining parity with the U.S. and in so doing, exacerbating the already decrepit qualities of life the majority of its citizens faced, not because the USSR was inherently a poor nation, but as a result of that plus the remainder of their nation's other ill advised fiscal choices. ISIS has modified that general stratagem to their circumstances and those of the Western nations which it hopes to incite into engaging in warfare on ISIS' terms by attacking them in their "home base," thus giving ISIS the beginnings of legitimacy as a nation rather than as a group.

As one can observe by aggregating the verity of JimBowie1958's remarks in his thread about taxes and corporate subsidies with the U.S. electorate's general dissatisfaction with the nation's focus on pretty much anything other than the wellbeing of the average citizen, that it is a matter of when, not whether, the U.S. will suffer a similar outcome as did the USSR.

I doubt the U.S. will collapse as totally as did the Soviet Union, but then ISIS don't need that extent of a collapse. ISIS need only persist in its efforts to the extent that it motivates the U.S. and its Western allies to cease and desist in its efforts to thwart ISIS achieving its primary goal: the creation of Islamic State. What is more likely is that the U.S. arrives at a policy stance focused on containment rather than eradication of ISIS and its designs to achieve nationhood.

You and others will have surely by now have noticed that ISIS does not launch terrorist attacks in China, or places that China thinks are part of China, yet China has as many so-called infidels as there are Muslims on the whole planet. Quite simply, China is not a nation of monotheists, let alone Muslim monotheists. Go to Xinjiang and check out the remote border area shared by China and Afghanistan. If ISIS terrorists wanted to get into the PRC to terrorize people there, it could, particularly insofar as many of the ostensibly Chinese people in that region, Uyghurs, relate as much to being Chinese as they do to be Caucasus Muslims. Indeed, quite often Uyghurs relate more to their Afghani neighbors than they do to the Han Chinese who comprise some 90%+ of the rest of the Chinese population who are overwhelmingly Buddhist or atheist.

You've surely noted too that China has largely kept quiet re: ISIS. There's a reason for that: China has little to gain by bother with ISIS. One analyst wrote a short essay in which he detailed the gains that might accrue to the PRC by taking a more active role in the battle against ISIS. While those things may indeed be benefits, from what I can tell, not one of them is a benefit that won't accrue to China eventually anyway. If there's one thing China is not and that Western nations are, it's "in a hurry." It's population size necessarily means it's rise to global dominance is another "when" not an "if," provided the other nations of the world don't find a way to unify in a more substantive way then they are today so as to create another nation that matches the PRC in terms of population size.

So, for the time being, ISIS need only leave China alone and exploit the domestic schisms extant within and among Western nations to the point that the West has little choice but to use nuclear weapons or concede to an uneasy "peace" whereby Islamic State does indeed become a nation.

Quite possible. I think that the formation of an Islamic State is but the first goal with them though. I don't think that the crazy that ISIS represents would cease once they have a little corner of hell to call their own. They are based around the need for an enemy and that enemy is the west.

 

[320 Years of History]

All sorts of people believe all sorts of things for which there exists little hard evidence supporting those beliefs.

That's true, but, we do have the capability of blowing away any country in the middle east, or the whole of the middle east, if we chose to do so.

I'm not wanting that, but sometimes, collateral damage is worth it. I don't have to make those decisions, that's why I vote for people I trust make them for me.

Your "in color" remarks above reflect the sort of myopic political and policy related expression that many Americans, perhaps even people in general, are prone. They are aware of one detail's verity and based on it, and it alone, make utterly ridiculous statements -- largely because, IMO, they think it sounds good and shows their boldness and bravado -- never bothering to make so much as a the slightest bit of effort to look just a little bit beyond that "oh, so obvious" truth of which they and the whole friggin' planet are aware. Devling just below the surface would reveal more details that show that matters aren't as easily resolved as their puerile statements imply.

The map above shows where ISIS, as of February 2015, had key strongholds.

My comment about what people believe has very little to do with whether the U.S. could "blow away any country in the Middle East" and what folks do or don't believe about our ability to do so. It doesn't because that is a fact. It has everything to do with the uncertainty associated with whether doing so would "end ISIS."

One need only look at some of the other facts pertaining to ISIS to see why devastating some half a dozen or more countries would not "end ISIS." Quite simply, ISIS haven't the same dependency on infrastructure, technology and so on that the U.S., or anything one can consider a nation state, does. Absolutely, a military campaign against ISIS (and/or the countries in which it has strongholds) is one that meets the definition of asymmetric warfare (see also: "Defining Asymmetric Warfare" )

Just look at those photos. What material impact is bombing places like that, or the entire country in which such camps and hubs of strength exist, going to have? It's going to create craters. That's essentially it. Yes, surely some of the ISIS members will die too, but just as Bin Laden and elements of his forces were able to survive and evade annihilation by taking advantage of the terrain, so to can and will ISIS' members. It's not as though doing so is all that difficult; they just need to dig "holes" and let the land itself protect them. And what do they need to do that? Shovels, hand axes and containers of some sort to move dirt and rubble, but in a pinch of desperation, sharp rocks and cupped hands will do.

The photos above show just one thing one might have found by looking just below the surface. They show that ISIS is not heavily dependent on the infrastructure that bombs are very good at destroying. Watching the video found here will show that even outside their training camps, they have very little reliance on the things we consider essential. (I discussed this to some extent here in the section headed "Why the approach I described is the one I'd take.") Those facts alone show the relative insufficiency of bombing as a means of "ending ISIS."

This post is already longer than I wanted it to be, so I'm going to defer addressing the moral/ethical and economic folly of the statement you made about collateral damage. Neither will I here explore the absurd notion that "Washington needs to distract people and ISIS being a tool it uses for doing so." If you insist, however, I'm more than willing to do so in a later post.

Good points. I would like to add to them the simple fact that we HAVE been bombing terrorist camps for years. Any of this tripe that we can end them with some well placed bombs ignores the stark reality that we have been dropping literally hundreds of bombs on terrorists for years non-stop and we have not ended it yet. I know - I launch those aircraft that carry those hundreds of bombs and watch them come back empty.

It is also interesting that, while we spend billions on bombs to destroy them and their infrastructure, those shovels, tents and wheelbarrows they require cost virtually nothing at all.

Red:
Insanity is doing the same thing, over and over again, but expecting different results.
― Narcotics Anonymous


Blue:
It seems to me that ISIS have examined the way 1980s military spending forced the USSR to allocate disproportionate sums of its resources to maintaining parity with the U.S. and in so doing, exacerbating the already decrepit qualities of life the majority of its citizens faced, not because the USSR was inherently a poor nation, but as a result of that plus the remainder of their nation's other ill advised fiscal choices. ISIS has modified that general stratagem to their circumstances and those of the Western nations which it hopes to incite into engaging in warfare on ISIS' terms by attacking them in their "home base," thus giving ISIS the beginnings of legitimacy as a nation rather than as a group.

As one can observe by aggregating the verity of JimBowie1958's remarks in his thread about taxes and corporate subsidies with the U.S. electorate's general dissatisfaction with the nation's focus on pretty much anything other than the wellbeing of the average citizen, that it is a matter of when, not whether, the U.S. will suffer a similar outcome as did the USSR.

I doubt the U.S. will collapse as totally as did the Soviet Union, but then ISIS don't need that extent of a collapse. ISIS need only persist in its efforts to the extent that it motivates the U.S. and its Western allies to cease and desist in its efforts to thwart ISIS achieving its primary goal: the creation of Islamic State. What is more likely is that the U.S. arrives at a policy stance focused on containment rather than eradication of ISIS and its designs to achieve nationhood.

You and others will have surely by now have noticed that ISIS does not launch terrorist attacks in China, or places that China thinks are part of China, yet China has as many so-called infidels as there are Muslims on the whole planet. Quite simply, China is not a nation of monotheists, let alone Muslim monotheists. Go to Xinjiang and check out the remote border area shared by China and Afghanistan. If ISIS terrorists wanted to get into the PRC to terrorize people there, it could, particularly insofar as many of the ostensibly Chinese people in that region, Uyghurs, relate as much to being Chinese as they do to be Caucasus Muslims. Indeed, quite often Uyghurs relate more to their Afghani neighbors than they do to the Han Chinese who comprise some 90%+ of the rest of the Chinese population who are overwhelmingly Buddhist or atheist.

You've surely noted too that China has largely kept quiet re: ISIS. There's a reason for that: China has little to gain by bother with ISIS. One analyst wrote a short essay in which he detailed the gains that might accrue to the PRC by taking a more active role in the battle against ISIS. While those things may indeed be benefits, from what I can tell, not one of them is a benefit that won't accrue to China eventually anyway. If there's one thing China is not and that Western nations are, it's "in a hurry." It's population size necessarily means it's rise to global dominance is another "when" not an "if," provided the other nations of the world don't find a way to unify in a more substantive way then they are today so as to create another nation that matches the PRC in terms of population size.

So, for the time being, ISIS need only leave China alone and exploit the domestic schisms extant within and among Western nations to the point that the West has little choice but to use nuclear weapons or concede to an uneasy "peace" whereby Islamic State does indeed become a nation.

Quite possible. I think that the formation of an Islamic State is but the first goal with them though. I don't think that the crazy that ISIS represents would cease once they have a little corner of hell to call their own. They are based around the need for an enemy and that enemy is the west.

Red:
Agreed. That is why I think we need to ignore all morals and ethics that constrain our approach to eradicating ISIS and just do what it takes to get the job done. Might that mean we lose American lives trying to do so? It most certainly does, but getting it done and over with sooner will cost fewer lives than waiting until later to do it.

At some point, one must face facts and the facts I see are one or a few ISIS operatives end the lives of triple or more other individuals whom they blow up with their random attacks here and there, attacks on people who contribute in ways great or small to ISIS' opposition's efforts. All the while, the core source(s) of ISIS doctrine and action remain unscathed.

In my mind, that means "boots on the ground." I shared that idea a few weeks back with some D.C. political types and the response I got was, "Well, would you send your sons to be among those boots?" My response was, "Yes." My reason was simple: my sons could just as easily die in one of ISIS' random bombings. Better that they die contributing to ending the problem than that die trying to chat up a girl in a bar and thus have their lives,by some ISIS fanatic, made nothing but a waste of their past 20 years, a waste my past 20 years raising them, and wastes of the efforts of everyone who has contributed to making them into the young men whom they are today. And for what? Because wanted to "get their freak on" at the wrong place and time? BS!!

P.S./Edit:
You may wonder why I can be like that. Well, look at where the attacks in Brussels happened. It was an attack designed to take out at least some of the best and brightest minds in the areas of politics, international relations, military strategy and planning. It wasn't an attack targeted down to the individual level, but that's the sort of folks who were bound to be killed or injured by the attacks that took place.

My kids, all three of them, are part of the crop of young folks who will in some way be among the U.S. leaders 20 years from now. I have no idea how, but I know that they and their peers are among the folks who will be exactly that in one way or another. That puts them in the "random" line of fire ISIS uses when staging/planning where to attack. Top that with my family living roughly in D.C.'s Embassy Row section of the city and socializing in the "chic" places around town, and they are all the more likely to be exposed to some random bombing attack.

Could I and they opt to live more often elsewhere, or with their mother out in the 'burbs? Sure, they could, but that's now where they want to live. Those are places we go to to amuse ourselves; they are not where we call home.

My situation may be somewhat different from a lot of folks who don't live in D.C. or NYC, but make no mistake, the "cool" places in any large metropolitan area are no less susceptible to the same risk(s) and there are plenty of "soft" targets in every one of the U.S.' major cities where folks of the same general societal category as were the folks who died in the recent city and airport bombings.

 

[JimBowie1958]

That's true, but, we do have the capability of blowing away any country in the middle east, or the whole of the middle east, if we chose to do so.

I'm not wanting that, but sometimes, collateral damage is worth it. I don't have to make those decisions, that's why I vote for people I trust make them for me.

Your "in color" remarks above reflect the sort of myopic political and policy related expression that many Americans, perhaps even people in general, are prone. They are aware of one detail's verity and based on it, and it alone, make utterly ridiculous statements -- largely because, IMO, they think it sounds good and shows their boldness and bravado -- never bothering to make so much as a the slightest bit of effort to look just a little bit beyond that "oh, so obvious" truth of which they and the whole friggin' planet are aware. Devling just below the surface would reveal more details that show that matters aren't as easily resolved as their puerile statements imply.

The map above shows where ISIS, as of February 2015, had key strongholds.

My comment about what people believe has very little to do with whether the U.S. could "blow away any country in the Middle East" and what folks do or don't believe about our ability to do so. It doesn't because that is a fact. It has everything to do with the uncertainty associated with whether doing so would "end ISIS."

One need only look at some of the other facts pertaining to ISIS to see why devastating some half a dozen or more countries would not "end ISIS." Quite simply, ISIS haven't the same dependency on infrastructure, technology and so on that the U.S., or anything one can consider a nation state, does. Absolutely, a military campaign against ISIS (and/or the countries in which it has strongholds) is one that meets the definition of asymmetric warfare (see also: "Defining Asymmetric Warfare" )

Just look at those photos. What material impact is bombing places like that, or the entire country in which such camps and hubs of strength exist, going to have? It's going to create craters. That's essentially it. Yes, surely some of the ISIS members will die too, but just as Bin Laden and elements of his forces were able to survive and evade annihilation by taking advantage of the terrain, so to can and will ISIS' members. It's not as though doing so is all that difficult; they just need to dig "holes" and let the land itself protect them. And what do they need to do that? Shovels, hand axes and containers of some sort to move dirt and rubble, but in a pinch of desperation, sharp rocks and cupped hands will do.

The photos above show just one thing one might have found by looking just below the surface. They show that ISIS is not heavily dependent on the infrastructure that bombs are very good at destroying. Watching the video found here will show that even outside their training camps, they have very little reliance on the things we consider essential. (I discussed this to some extent here in the section headed "Why the approach I described is the one I'd take.") Those facts alone show the relative insufficiency of bombing as a means of "ending ISIS."

This post is already longer than I wanted it to be, so I'm going to defer addressing the moral/ethical and economic folly of the statement you made about collateral damage. Neither will I here explore the absurd notion that "Washington needs to distract people and ISIS being a tool it uses for doing so." If you insist, however, I'm more than willing to do so in a later post.

Good points. I would like to add to them the simple fact that we HAVE been bombing terrorist camps for years. Any of this tripe that we can end them with some well placed bombs ignores the stark reality that we have been dropping literally hundreds of bombs on terrorists for years non-stop and we have not ended it yet. I know - I launch those aircraft that carry those hundreds of bombs and watch them come back empty.

It is also interesting that, while we spend billions on bombs to destroy them and their infrastructure, those shovels, tents and wheelbarrows they require cost virtually nothing at all.

Red:
Insanity is doing the same thing, over and over again, but expecting different results.
― Narcotics Anonymous


Blue:
It seems to me that ISIS have examined the way 1980s military spending forced the USSR to allocate disproportionate sums of its resources to maintaining parity with the U.S. and in so doing, exacerbating the already decrepit qualities of life the majority of its citizens faced, not because the USSR was inherently a poor nation, but as a result of that plus the remainder of their nation's other ill advised fiscal choices. ISIS has modified that general stratagem to their circumstances and those of the Western nations which it hopes to incite into engaging in warfare on ISIS' terms by attacking them in their "home base," thus giving ISIS the beginnings of legitimacy as a nation rather than as a group.

As one can observe by aggregating the verity of JimBowie1958's remarks in his thread about taxes and corporate subsidies with the U.S. electorate's general dissatisfaction with the nation's focus on pretty much anything other than the wellbeing of the average citizen, that it is a matter of when, not whether, the U.S. will suffer a similar outcome as did the USSR.

I doubt the U.S. will collapse as totally as did the Soviet Union, but then ISIS don't need that extent of a collapse. ISIS need only persist in its efforts to the extent that it motivates the U.S. and its Western allies to cease and desist in its efforts to thwart ISIS achieving its primary goal: the creation of Islamic State. What is more likely is that the U.S. arrives at a policy stance focused on containment rather than eradication of ISIS and its designs to achieve nationhood.

You and others will have surely by now have noticed that ISIS does not launch terrorist attacks in China, or places that China thinks are part of China, yet China has as many so-called infidels as there are Muslims on the whole planet. Quite simply, China is not a nation of monotheists, let alone Muslim monotheists. Go to Xinjiang and check out the remote border area shared by China and Afghanistan. If ISIS terrorists wanted to get into the PRC to terrorize people there, it could, particularly insofar as many of the ostensibly Chinese people in that region, Uyghurs, relate as much to being Chinese as they do to be Caucasus Muslims. Indeed, quite often Uyghurs relate more to their Afghani neighbors than they do to the Han Chinese who comprise some 90%+ of the rest of the Chinese population who are overwhelmingly Buddhist or atheist.

You've surely noted too that China has largely kept quiet re: ISIS. There's a reason for that: China has little to gain by bother with ISIS. One analyst wrote a short essay in which he detailed the gains that might accrue to the PRC by taking a more active role in the battle against ISIS. While those things may indeed be benefits, from what I can tell, not one of them is a benefit that won't accrue to China eventually anyway. If there's one thing China is not and that Western nations are, it's "in a hurry." It's population size necessarily means it's rise to global dominance is another "when" not an "if," provided the other nations of the world don't find a way to unify in a more substantive way then they are today so as to create another nation that matches the PRC in terms of population size.

So, for the time being, ISIS need only leave China alone and exploit the domestic schisms extant within and among Western nations to the point that the West has little choice but to use nuclear weapons or concede to an uneasy "peace" whereby Islamic State does indeed become a nation.

Quite possible. I think that the formation of an Islamic State is but the first goal with them though. I don't think that the crazy that ISIS represents would cease once they have a little corner of hell to call their own. They are based around the need for an enemy and that enemy is the west.

Red:
Agreed. That is why I think we need to ignore all morals and ethics that constrain our approach to eradicating ISIS and just do what it takes to get the job done. Might that mean we lose American lives trying to do so? It most certainly does, but getting it done and over with sooner will cost fewer lives than waiting until later to do it.

At some point, one must face facts and the facts I see are one or a few ISIS operatives end the lives of triple or more other individuals whom they blow up with their random attacks here and there, attacks on people who contribute in ways great or small to ISIS' opposition's efforts. All the while, the core source(s) of ISIS doctrine and action remain unscathed.

In my mind, that means "boots on the ground." I shared that idea a few weeks back with some D.C. political types and the response I got was, "Well, would you send your sons to be among those boots?" My response was, "Yes." My reason was simple: my sons could just as easily die in one of ISIS' random bombings. Better that they die contributing to ending the problem than that die trying to chat up a girl in a bar and thus have their lives,by some ISIS fanatic, made nothing but a waste of their past 20 years, a waste my past 20 years raising them, and wastes of the efforts of everyone who has contributed to making them into the young men whom they are today. And for what? Because wanted to "get their freak on" at the wrong place and time? BS!!

P.S./Edit:
You may wonder why I can be like that. Well, look at where the attacks in Brussels happened. It was an attack designed to take out at least some of the best and brightest minds in the areas of politics, international relations, military strategy and planning. It wasn't an attack targeted down to the individual level, but that's the sort of folks who were bound to be killed or injured by the attacks that took place.

My kids, all three of them, are part of the crop of young folks who will in some way be among the U.S. leaders 20 years from now. I have no idea how, but I know that they and their peers are among the folks who will be exactly that in one way or another. That puts them in the "random" line of fire ISIS uses when staging/planning where to attack. Top that with my family living roughly in D.C.'s Embassy Row section of the city and socializing in the "chic" places around town, and they are all the more likely to be exposed to some random bombing attack.

Could I and they opt to live more often elsewhere, or with their mother out in the 'burbs? Sure, they could, but that's now where they want to live. Those are places we go to to amuse ourselves; they are not where we call home.

My situation may be somewhat different from a lot of folks who don't live in D.C. or NYC, but make no mistake, the "cool" places in any large metropolitan area are no less susceptible to the same risk(s) and there are plenty of "soft" targets in every one of the U.S.' major cities where folks of the same general societal category as were the folks who died in the recent city and airport bombings.

ISIS is not alive because they are too strong, it is alive because we are too corrupt and confused to do what we need to do.