One of the most entertaining things about Republicans is their defense for the military, and yet they know nothing of military strategy. Sun Tzu and Clausewitz would have laughed at them. Machiavelli would have included them among his examples of human idiocy in politics. Republicans do everything wrong when it comes to military strategy, and taken to a larger level, political strategy.

Granted, Karl Rove is a genius at divide and conquer, but beyond that their strategy about everything else is lacking and short-sighted. Waging a prolonged war, and occupying two countries with a military designed to be small, highly mobile, and effective, is stupid.

America's military is not designed like the armies of Imperial and World War II Europe. Back then, nations would field armies numbering in the tens of millions. This, added with the fact that other nations were less developed, allowed them to control global empires. In the case of the US, our combat forces today are much smaller. Our military is small, professional, mobile, and highly equipped and supported. Hell, most of our military personnel do not even have combat jobs. They are supporting the troops on the ground with logistics and information etc. With a military like that, occupying countries is politically unsound because it ties your forces down and thus limits your options, and with limited options your enemies can fill a power vacuum (Chavez and Iran). Secondly, though our forces are invincible in a conventional war, given the small but elite design of our military, terrorists are wise to use hit/run or suicide attacks. It gives them the initiative by taking advantage of an ability to inflict high damage at low cost thanks to the high mobility and inexpensive nature of their hit/run and suicide attacks. All the while, we are paying an expensive price to occupy them with our highly equipped professional combat forces. If you ask me, the terrorists have the strategic initiative. In fact, I think Osama bin Laden intended Bush to react this way to 9-11 so he could do just that. It after all makes sense. The resulting outcome is a US that is tied down with fewer options, pays a high cost for a war, and is losing diplomatic credibility. At home, our prolonged war demoralizes the country and causes it to go deeper in to debt at an alarming rate.

In order to regain the strategic initiative, we need to become more mobile than the terrorists, and able to fight them more cheaply. The military principles of speed, maneuverability, and terror are timeless and highly effective and efficient. Ghenghis Khan was a master implementer of them, and they have never failed. Where strength dominates, these principles have overcome them. America has the ability to do just that. We have tools at our disposal to be very effective in political strategy, but the Republicans have failed to use them wisely. In fact, we have the ability to be fast, maneuverable, and strike terror in our enemies at a level unheard of in the past. We should use our forces to strike hard and get out, our air force can be very good at this, and not give a crap about killing innocent people. With an America that can strike anywhere, any time, and cause great damage, no state leader will dare to oppose us if he knows he's dead meat. At the same time, we need to remember that coercion alone is insufficient to acquire our goals. Coercion and diplomacy need to be used strategically, in a way that is most adaptable to the circumstances. When coercion is simply ineffective and expensive, then don't do it when diplomacy is a just as an effective but less expensive option. We can't be afraid to assassinate state leaders, blow up their homes, and whipe out their military bases when state leaders oppose us like Hugo Chavez. In fact, if we have to kill a few innocent people then who cares. Whatever we do, however, we must keep our options open. To do that we must not tie ourselves down somewhere, rather we can use our military more effectively by striking and exiting quickly. Lastly, we need to remember that dictators who serve our interests and fear us at the same time are among our best friends.

Another thing Bush has done that confounds me is alienating Russia. Alienating Russia is dumb, because it compels Russia and China to cooperate against us. Who cares if Russia is messing with Eastern European countries? That is less of a concern than China and Russia cooperating. The two countries have very real tensions, and it is more strategically sound to concede Eastern Europe to the influence of Russia in order to get on with exploiting those tensions in order to undermine China's expanding power and demand for oil.