We face a harsh new reality.

[berg80]

As recently as a decade ago, it would not have been hard to unite a broad majority of Republicans and Democrats around a shared idea of what America's military power should be for.

Defense of the homeland. Deterrence of would-be aggressors. Cooperation with treaty allies and protection of kindred democracies confronting common foes. Humanitarian aid and relief. The security of the global commons: sea lanes, air corridors, undersea cables, digital networks. Upholding the laws of war.

In sum, the ability to prevent war wherever possible and win it whenever necessary — all for the sake of a safer, more open, rules-based world.

The Trump administration brings a starkly different mind-set to the issue. Out with the Department of Defense; back to the Department of War. Well-established rules of engagement have yielded to blowing up small boats on the high seas. In place of standing with Ukraine’s embattled democracy against Russia’s invasion, the administration has adopted a course of moral equivalence between the two sides while seeking profits from the war through arms sales and mineral deals.

Opinion | A Free World Needs a Strong America

Preventing a world where dictators can attack at will requires a military that has the right tools, the right tactics and the right culture.

www.nytimes.com

Before launching in to the usual personal attacks, dismissive deflections, whataboutisms, and disparagements of the source, I ask a question of those who disagree with the content of the editorial. What, IYO, did the authors get wrong?

I don't want to limit the scope of the discussion to the regime's activities in the Caribbean, but is this not true?

Well-established rules of engagement have yielded to blowing up small boats on the high seas.

 

[pknopp]

No.

First, the idea of the U.S. Being the entity that decides who leads other country is the complete opposite of freedom.

Second, we now have issues in Syria. Will Democrats support Trump in Syria like they did Obama?

 

[theHawk]

Before launching in to the usual personal attacks, dismissive deflections, whataboutisms, and disparagements of the source, I ask a question of those who disagree with the content of the editorial. What, IYO, did the authors get wrong?

Paywall.

At least copy and paste any actual points, other than they are upset were blowing up cartel boats and not wanting to go to war with Russia.

 

[kyzr]

Trump understands that the merger of international drug cartels and narco-states needs a military solution.

There is no way local law enforcement stands a chance against them.

Saving about 180,000 American lives says Trump is right.

 

[kyzr]

First, the idea of the U.S. Being the entity that decides who leads other country is the complete opposite of freedom.

Wrong. Having criminals in charge of another country is the complete opposit of freedom.

Second, we now have issues in Syria. Will Democrats support Trump in Syria like they did Obama?

Even worse than ISIS reconstituting in Syria is knowing that Biden's open borders let hundreds of ISIS members into the US.

Terror threat explodes: 18,000 refugees tied to terrorist orgs entered US under Biden admin - Lynnwood Times

Joe Kent, director of the National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC), testified Thursday, December 11, that the leading terrorist threat

lynnwoodtimes.com

"In a post on X Thursday morning, Kent wrote that NCTC is sharing intelligence with federal, state, and local law enforcement to counter potential holiday-season attacks. He cited the foiled ISIS-linked plot in Michigan around Halloween and the D.C. attack as recent examples of the risk posed by individuals admitted under Biden administration policies."

 

[Manonthestreet]

Trump understands that the merger of international drug cartels and narco-states needs a military solution.

There is no way local law enforcement stands a chance against them.

Saving about 180,000 American lives says Trump is right.

Its call the Monroe Doctrine

While the Monroe Doctrine’s message was designed to keep European powers out of the Western Hemisphere, Roosevelt would strengthen its meaning to justify sending the United States into other countries of the Western Hemisphere. As a result, U.S. Marines were sent into Santo Domingo in 1904, Nicaragua in 1911, and Haiti in 1915, ostensibly to keep the Europeans out. Other Latin American nations viewed these interventions with misgiving, and relations between the “great Colossus of the North” and its southern neighbors remained strained for many years. Monroe Doctrine (1823)

 

[pknopp]

Wrong. Having criminals in charge of another country is the complete opposit of freedom.

Well dang, we are in trouble then.

 

[berg80]

First, the idea of the U.S. Being the entity that decides who leads other country is the complete opposite of freedom.

I wonder if you could articulate that thought in a less obtuse way.

 

[pknopp]

I wonder if you could articulate that thought in a less obtuse way.

probably a waste of time.

We wasted billions and many young American lives to get rid of the Taliban in Afghanistan even though they did nothing to us and despite that, that is what the people overall wanted and nothing has changed.

 

[kyzr]

Its call the Monroe Doctrine
While the Monroe Doctrine’s message was designed to keep European powers out of the Western Hemisphere, Roosevelt would strengthen its meaning to justify sending the United States into other countries of the Western Hemisphere. As a result, U.S. Marines were sent into Santo Domingo in 1904, Nicaragua in 1911, and Haiti in 1915, ostensibly to keep the Europeans out. Other Latin American nations viewed these interventions with misgiving, and relations between the “great Colossus of the North” and its southern neighbors remained strained for many years. Monroe Doctrine (1823)

Exactly. I'm still waiting for Trump to take back the Panama Canal, and to kick China out.

Trump's current focus is Venezuela, after Maduro leaves he said he'd focus on Columbia.

Then Mexico needs to clean up the fentanyl mess, or Trump will start bombing the cartel factories.

 

[berg80]

Paywall.

At least copy and paste any actual points, other than they are upset were blowing up cartel boats and not wanting to go to war with Russia.

As for the kind of military alliance-building that typified American foreign policy for much of the 20th century, President Trump has reverted to threats of conquest more common in the 19th. And this is to say nothing of his efforts to deploy troops to American cities, impose political loyalty tests on senior officers or hamstring reporters at the Pentagon.

Mr. Trump justifies his approach by claiming that the Pentagon needs an entirely different mentality for a new era of great-power rivalry. That’s not wrong. China’s rise and Russia’s revanchism means our security is more threatened today than it has been in decades. But so does the fact the United States has forfeited our military’s edge.

Why shouldn't they object to the illegal killings in the Caribbean?

 

[kyzr]

probably a waste of time.

We wasted billions and many young American lives to get rid of the Taliban in Afghanistan even though they did nothing to us and despite that, that is what the people overall wanted and nothing has changed.

Actually it was to get rid of AQ, not the Taliban.

 

[berg80]

Its call the Monroe Doctrine

While the Monroe Doctrine’s message was designed to keep European powers out of the Western Hemisphere, Roosevelt would strengthen its meaning to justify sending the United States into other countries of the Western Hemisphere. As a result, U.S. Marines were sent into Santo Domingo in 1904, Nicaragua in 1911, and Haiti in 1915, ostensibly to keep the Europeans out. Other Latin American nations viewed these interventions with misgiving, and relations between the “great Colossus of the North” and its southern neighbors remained strained for many years. Monroe Doctrine (1823)

The Monroe Doctrine doesn't justify extra judicial killings of humans in boats.

 

[kyzr]

As for the kind of military alliance-building that typified American foreign policy for much of the 20th century, President Trump has reverted to threats of conquest more common in the 19th. And this is to say nothing of his efforts to deploy troops to American cities, impose political loyalty tests on senior officers or hamstring reporters at the Pentagon.
Mr. Trump justifies his approach by claiming that the Pentagon needs an entirely different mentality for a new era of great-power rivalry. That’s not wrong. China’s rise and Russia’s revanchism means our security is more threatened today than it has been in decades. But so does the fact the United States has forfeited our military’s edge. Why shouldn't they object to the illegal killings in the Caribbean?

1. The US has not forfeited any military edge, duh.
2. There are no "illegal killings" in the Caribbean. We are killing drug runners to save US and EU lives.

 

[berg80]

Actually it was to get rid of AQ, not the Taliban.

The primary goals were to dismantle Al Qaeda and remove the Taliban government that harbored them.

 

[pknopp]

Actually it was to get rid of AQ, not the Taliban.

Global War on Terror | George W. Bush Library

On January 4, 2006, President George W. Bush makes remarks on the global war on terror to an audience at the Pentagon, following a Department of Defense briefing with Vice President Dick Cheney, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, General Peter Pace...

www.georgewbushlibrary.gov

remove the Taliban regime and eliminate AL Qaeda in Afghanistan

George Bush.

 

[theHawk]

The Monroe Doctrine doesn't justify extra judicial killings of humans in boats.

Keep crying about cartel thugs being blown up.

You people are nuts.

 

[berg80]

There are no "illegal killings" in the Caribbean.

Then why hasn't the regime explained their legal justification to Congress.

 

[berg80]

Paywall.

At least copy and paste any actual points, other than they are upset were blowing up cartel boats and not wanting to go to war with Russia.

Mr. Trump and his administration are grievously wrong to think the “America First” approach they’ve adopted meets the moment. America cannot adequately defend itself and its vital interests unless it recovers the strategies and instincts that served it well in its greatest triumph of the past century — not World War II, but the Cold War.

The phrase “Cold War mind-set” is usually meant as an insult, sometimes with good reason. Stretches of that long struggle were marked by political paranoia, nuclear brinkmanship and ideological Manichaeism that nobody should want to repeat. There were blunders and fiascos, none greater than the war in Vietnam.

Yet it is worth remembering that our victory in the Cold War didn’t come at a cost of more than one million American casualties, as World War II did. The architects of the Cold War understood that the country’s future security required engagement, not isolation, and that the primary purpose of military power was the prevention of war through deterrence, alliances and international legitimacy — hence the name the Department of Defense, not War.

 

[Crepitus]

No.

First, the idea of the U.S. Being the entity that decides who leads other country is the complete opposite of freedom.

Second, we now have issues in Syria. Will Democrats support Trump in Syria like they did Obama?

I did not support Obama's involvement in Syria.