DeM Banter: If we would only listen and learn from history... ForeignPolicy.com April 5, 2013 How To Stop A Nuclear War As he ponders how to respond to the military bluster of North Korea, President Obama is learning a lesson that was driven home to John F. Kennedy during the Cuban missile crisis: When it …
Hagel Channels Eisenhower By Gordon Adams
DeM Banter: Gordon... really? Ike? Don't see it here in your article..."Strategy and planning have to follow the money, not the other way around." What is your desired end state, shouldn't that be the question? Ways, ends, and means...it is really an equation where money is a factor, but not the end state. I guess …
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More Cuts Ahead For Pentagon, Hagel Says By Craig Whitlock
DeM Banter: Do we cut and then develop a strategy/plan or do we develop a strategy and then cut to meet it? Wondering Where the Lions Are...and...that's all I am going to say about that... Washington Post April 4, 2013 Pg. 1 Defense secretary warns that military must rein in soaring costs Defense Secretary Chuck …
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Game of Drones by Victor Davis Hanson
DeM Banter: interesting piece on the history, timelines, and controversy over RPAs... For a risk-averse, budget-cutting United States, the new technology offers an ideal way forward in the fight against terrorism. The biographer Plutarch tells an anecdote that, in the fourth century B.C., the Spartan King Archidamus, at the sight of a revolutionary new catapult, …
America the Innovative? by Eamonn Fingleton
DeM Banter: Scary, but seems inevitable unless something changes sometime very soon. A professor of mine once said "America will not change until it has a death sentence." I wonder that that might look like... I also ponder...will we know when we are sentenced? I don't know...what do you think? nytimes.com / March 30th, 2013 / view original DUBLIN …
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Venus And Mars Revisited By Kenneth R. Weinstein
DeM Banter: Perhaps this IS the New World Order? It is indeed interesting... true? false? thoughts? Wall Street Journal April 2, 2013 Pg. 13 Under Obama, the vitality of 'the West' as a global security lodestar is fading. Ten years ago last month, the launch of a second U.S.-led war against Saddam Hussein exposed intra-NATO …
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Are Drone Strikes Killing Terrorists or Creating Them? By Hassan Abbas
DeM Banter: Well I think that pretty much sums it all up...we don't know, and there are a ton of issues... we are indeed living in interesting times and I can't help but ponder the next 5 to 10 years. theatlantic.com / March 31st, 2013 / view original / HASSAN ABBAS There's been a lot of chatter recently about "Out …
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Heed Ronald Reagan On Missile Defense By Rep. Doug Lamborn
DeM Banter: 30 years ago...wow, really? Good words from Rep. Doug Lamborn (R-Colo.)...might be a good thing to have...maybe? Still Wondering Where the Lions Are... Politico.com March 26, 2013 Opinion Contributor "Our only purpose -- one all people share -- is to search for ways to reduce the danger of nuclear war." With those words, …
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Caution, Curves Ahead By Thomas L. Friedman
DeM Banter: not sure this is going to go away...we will need a decision...no? Friedman's parting comment..."This is the problem from hell. Sometimes the necessary and desirable are impossible, which is why I commend the president on his caution, up to now." What more needs to be said? New York Times March 27, 2013 There …
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On The Hill, They’re Not Heeding The Lessons Of War By Walter Pincus
DeM Banter: Sometimes there are just limits to what can be done given the human condition. Pondering how this will end up... in the short term it will be akin to Libya, in the long term it will be Afghanistan after the Soviet Invasion. We can not forget Iranian and Russian ties to Assad. Further …
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