President Trump's National Security Strategy - Realistic or Rhetorical?

Yesterday President Trump and the National Security Advisor HR McMaster articulated the new national security strategy for the USA. it is outlined in the link below:

https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing...security-strategy-advance-americas-interests/

Is this strategy new or just a rehash of past policy" Will it be a workable strategy given the changing realities of the modern world and the dire constraints placed on the American military and wider security apparatus by massive national debt, systemic recruiting difficulties for the military and a plethora of legal and political challenges to the emerging surveillance state? More importantly will it work internationally or will the world simply reject American militarism and armed diplomacy as North Korea has done to date? It argues for peace through strength, but there has been little peace outside of America since the USA has been the mono-polar superpower and the most powerful military/security state on the globe, post Cold War.

Comments and observations?

Cheers.
Evilroddy.

Evilroddy said:

Yesterday President Trump and the National Security Advisor HR McMaster articulated the new national security strategy for the USA. it is outlined in the link below:

https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing...security-strategy-advance-americas-interests/

Is this strategy new or just a rehash of past policy" Will it be a workable strategy given the changing realities of the modern world and the dire constraints placed on the American military and wider security apparatus by massive national debt, systemic recruiting difficulties for the military and a plethora of legal and political challenges to the emerging surveillance state? More importantly will it work internationally or will the world simply reject American militarism and armed diplomacy as North Korea has done to date? It argues for peace through strength, but there has been little peace outside of America since the USA has been the mono-polar superpower and the most powerful military/security state on the globe, post Cold War.

Comments and observations?

Cheers.
Evilroddy.

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It is only a summary of the state of affairs. In the 1990s there was an open and informal debate among foreign affairs professionals in this country and from others in which articles were exchanged on various topics around what to expect after the Soviet Empire had imploded. The developments were that we have seen were pretty well predicted and the dangers analysed. We are well on track.

What Trump did not explain is that the situation of competing powers and proliferation can be well simulated with game theory and that the results are those that history verified for the past and predicts for the near future. By these it is nearly impossible to believe that we could avoid a nuclear war somewhere on earth. Any nuclear war of any half way decent size will cause one or even many more billions of dead in its aftermath.

We had a window of opportunity to install a global security structure but have largely let it close. The administration's behavior now might be consistent with a strategy attempting such a global structure. It is hard to say yet.

Evilroddy said:

Yesterday President Trump and the National Security Advisor HR McMaster articulated the new national security strategy for the USA. it is outlined in the link below:

https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing...security-strategy-advance-americas-interests/

Is this strategy new or just a rehash of past policy" Will it be a workable strategy given the changing realities of the modern world and the dire constraints placed on the American military and wider security apparatus by massive national debt, systemic recruiting difficulties for the military and a plethora of legal and political challenges to the emerging surveillance state? More importantly will it work internationally or will the world simply reject American militarism and armed diplomacy as North Korea has done to date? It argues for peace through strength, but there has been little peace outside of America since the USA has been the mono-polar superpower and the most powerful military/security state on the globe, post Cold War.

Comments and observations?

Cheers.
Evilroddy.

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It reads like a mission statement, and maybe that's what it is. It's long on lofty goals, all of which most of us would agree are worthwhile and need to be pursued, but very short on practical ways of going about achieving those goals.

I found it interesting that one of the challenges listed is:

Revisionist powers, such as China and Russia, that use technology, propaganda, and coercion to shape a world antithetical to our interests and values;

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and yet the president is opposed to investigating Russia's interference in our last election, even to the point of claiming that Putin is right, our CIA and FBI are wrong, and Russia did not interfere in the election.

The troubles with the Trump-McMaster National Security Strategy are legion.

Let's look first at the principal players in the new and current NSS.

Tillerson is the only would-be negotiator in the group of supposed strategists and Tillerson is weak, inexperienced, unsupported by Potus and Tillerson's got his bags packed anyway. While I don't try to associate diplomacy with peace in our time, one does recall the line by SecDef Mattis back when he was on active duty: "Reductions in diplomacy means I need more bullets."

While Mattis is unquestionably in charge at the Pentagon, he's a warrior not a strategist. Mattis makes his approach clear when he says he can smile and discuss things with you but he always has a plan to kill everyone in the room. Mattis is a pugnacious puncher, not a strategist.

Kelly spent a career characterized by duties in staff positions to include also being Mattis' deputy in Iraq. Kelly finished his career as commander of U.S. Southern Command in Miami which protects against invasion by countries south of Mexico, i.e., it is the command at the bottom of the totem pole -- in everything. Kelly spent his first year in 2012 hollering unsuccessfully for resources until Pentagon finally shut him up and told him to aim his mouth south.

McMaster is presented as the strategist intellectual yet his high profile book Dereliction of Duty argued for virtually unlimited war in Vietnam. McMaster's only sensible point was that LBJ seemed so intent on his reiterated "guns and butter" policy that he got more involved in winning the War on Poverty than the War in Vietnam. The bottom line is that while LBJ paid attention to the laws of war McMaster didn't think much of 'em in his unsuccessful double barreled conceptions.

The 1992 NSS after the fall of Putin's beloved Soviet Union focused on integrating the post-USSR Russia and China into the international order as peaceful rising partners. After 9/11 came the premeptive strike policy and strategy that brought on desert disasters in Iraq where most of these guys served. This NSS by McMaster and Trump suggests a first strike of nuclear weapons, the buildup of the nuclear deterrence arsenal, and the statement that, “fear of [nuclear] escalation will not deter the United States from defending our vital interests.” So while the NSS of 1992 and post 9/11 were obvious failures we might put our energies into assuring the present NSS is itself less than fully successful, in the nuclear department in particular.

It's hard to take seriously anything that clown says.

McMaster or Trump? McMaster is all but idolizing Trump by most accounts.

Or are we talking about Kelly, the biggest and hollowest barrel of 'em all. It's telling we haven't seen or heard from General Disaster since he held forth in the WH press room. Among Kelly's unforgettable bombs was restricting the eligibility of reporters who could ask questions based exclusively on their knowing someone in the military.

Pence btw has a face pose and nose angle that suggest he's fantasizing Mt. Rushmore.

Dr. Quackenbush, Phineas T. Bluster and Otis P. Driftwood as Groucho would have 'em to the T.

Their thoughts are not about national security or stability.

They are pretty much all just sockpuppets, doing what they are told, saying what they are told, expressing the consensus of those behind the scenes.

General Mark Milley the Army chief of staff spoke to the National Press Club in July.

Gen. Milley (pron: miley) presented a grand strategic picture. He spoke for about three minutes each on Russia, China, Iran, North Korea; the long war on terrorism. He spoke of his program to remake the Army from a field army to an Army focused instead to fight in urban centers. And while Gen. Milley reiterated what everyone knows, i.e., there are no good options about North Korea, the general said a choice must be made, that there's no escaping making the choice, and that it will be ugly.

Gen. Milley presented and shot down the five myths about war. As the Press Club host said before the questions, Gen. Milley filled everyone up with content in a very short time. Indeed, the general was brisk, rapid fire and he hustled his way through the current geostrategic arrangements with efficiency and dispatch. The first few questions were about transgender, women in combat and sexual harassment. Gen. Milley likened sexual harassment to friendly fire and used the word fratricide. The general then proceeded to make the revealing remarks about the ugly choice that must be made concerning North Korea.


Must Watch: Top Army General Speaks Openly on Major Threats To America








US Army Chief of Staff Meets Top China PLA Officials at Great Hall Building



PLA has its own Hollywood unit of ceremonial troops. This group looks more frightened than ready.


(16 Aug 2016) The US Army chief of staff told Chinese officials during a visit on Tuesday that China should not feel threatened by American ally South Korea's decision to deploy a powerful US missile defence system. General Mark A. Milley met with his Chinese counterpart, General Li Zuocheng, and other senior People's Liberation Army leaders amid China's strong protests about the decision to base the US Terminal High Altitude Area Defence, or THAAD, system south of the South Korean capital, Seoul. Milley reiterated the American position that the defence system was intended to destroy potential North Korean missiles and not to track missiles inside China.

(So what that it does that too eh and good on us.)


Note: General Milley is the second Army chief of staff to derive from Rotc rather than USMA West Point. Milley’s education includes a Bachelors Degree in Political Science from Princeton University, and Master's Degrees from Columbia University (International Relations) and from the U.S. Naval War College (National Security and Strategic Studies). He is also a graduate of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Seminar XXI National Security Studies Program. The 39th Army chief of staff holds the Combat Infantryman Badge with Star (2nd Award), Expert Infantryman Badge, Master Parachutist Badge, Scuba Diver Badge, Ranger Tab, Special Forces Tab. "Special forces love 'em to death but Special Forces don't win wars. It takes a nation to win a war."


In his most breathtaking prediction of 'em all, Milley said the Red Sox will will the World Series no matter. The former college hockey star said he'd have signed with the Boston Bruins except they didn't know who he was.

Tangmo:

A very interesting video of Gen. Milley's speech. Thank you for sharing it.

Cheers.
Evilroddy.

joG said:

What Trump did not explain is that the situation of competing powers and proliferation can be well simulated with game theory and that the results are those that history verified for the past and predicts for the near future. By these it is nearly impossible to believe that we could avoid a nuclear war somewhere on earth. Any nuclear war of any half way decent size will cause one or even many more billions of dead in its aftermath.

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I myself do believe that it is impossible to prevent some nation from someday using another nuke. Especially considering the stability of some of those nations and leaders themselves.

Actually, short of the "Big Two" (Russia and the US) going at it, it would take a huge number of nukes aimed at the most populous cities on the planet (not just each other) to achieve that. Nukes are not the "ultimate doomsday" weapons that many people seem to believe. And to have "billions" of deaths, that would take a massive exchange by the US and Russia. The only one that could come close is a massive India-Pakistan exchange (simple because of the high population density of those 2 nations).

Elsewhere, it is largely impossible to reach "billions". Even if you wiped out every single person in the US and Russia, you would only have around 500 million dead.

I heave been hearing those fantasy horror stories for years, and largely tune out such nonsense.

Oozlefinch said:

I myself do believe that it is impossible to prevent some nation from someday using another nuke. Especially considering the stability of some of those nations and leaders themselves.

Actually, short of the "Big Two" (Russia and the US) going at it, it would take a huge number of nukes aimed at the most populous cities on the planet (not just each other) to achieve that. Nukes are not the "ultimate doomsday" weapons that many people seem to believe. And to have "billions" of deaths, that would take a massive exchange by the US and Russia. The only one that could come close is a massive India-Pakistan exchange (simple because of the high population density of those 2 nations).

Elsewhere, it is largely impossible to reach "billions". Even if you wiped out every single person in the US and Russia, you would only have around 500 million dead.

I heave been hearing those fantasy horror stories for years, and largely tune out such nonsense.

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While I won't quibble about 500 million dead being better than two billion, I do not think that our greatest probability of nuclear war (other than perhaps a surgical use) is by the US or Russia. It seems much more probable between new nuclear states targeting nuclear neighbours. Nuclear arsenals are expanding and though I suspect procedures to contain a spread of wars are in place, I do nit think I would want to rely on them, if Pékin or Dehli went down.

One nuclear device is a weapon of mass destruction. People counting heads at ground zero only -- as if that were fine --need to get a serious kick in the pants wakeup call:


Subsequently, researchers began to explore the possible environmental effects of nuclear war.

The basic assumption during a nuclear war is that the exploding nuclear warheads would create huge fires, resulting in smoke and soot from burning cities and forests being emitted into the troposphere in vast amounts. This would block the Sun's incoming radiation from reaching the surface of Earth, causing cooling of the surface temperatures.

The ensuing darkness and cold, combined with nuclear fallout radiation, would kill most of Earth's vegetation and animal life, which would lead to starvation and diseases for the human population surviving the nuclear war itself. At the same time, the upper troposphere temperatures would rise because the smoke would absorb sunlight and warm it up, creating a temperature inversion, which would keep smog at the lower levels.

According to different scenarios, depending on the number of nuclear explosions, their spatial distribution, targets, and many other factors, this cloud of soot and dust could remain for many months, reducing sunlight almost entirely, and decrease average temperatures to well below freezing. What all scenarios and models forecast is that a nuclear war would have a significant effect on the atmosphere and climate of Earth, and consequently, would drastically and negatively affect many aspects of life such as food production and energy consumption.

Read more: Nuclear Winter - War, Effects, Earth, and Soot - JRank Articles Nuclear Winter - War, Effects, Earth, and Soot - JRank Articles


Trump is another idiot complaining loudly that we got 'em so why not use 'em. Trump the numbnuts doesn't like climate change so he says it doesn't exist. Nuclear winter isn't a factor to him either. First use post 1945 of a nuclear weapon will be condemned in history by whomever might be left to write some.

Look on the bright side: Anthropologists tell us that the human race was down to about a thousand breeding pairs when climate change wiped out a large share of the population some 70,000 years ago. Should an all out nuclear war wipe out 99.9% of the human race, there would still be about 7 million left. Should the fallout, nuclear winter, and famine kill off another 99.9%, there would still be about 7 thousand, way more than there were at one time. Given another 70 thousand years, just an eye blink in time on the evolutionary scale, we could rebuild our population and rediscover civilization.

Moreover, the speculation is that those 1,000 remaining were the most intelligent and adaptable, so the human race took a big evolutionary leap forward at that time.

Now, should we be nearly wiped out once again, the most intelligent and adaptable just might be able to build a civilization that wouldn't be quite so bloodthirsty, one that might not wipe itself out in the future.

See? I'm a real optimist!

Dittohead not! said:

Look on the bright side: Anthropologists tell us that the human race was down to about a thousand breeding pairs when climate change wiped out a large share of the population some 70,000 years ago. Should an all out nuclear war wipe out 99.9% of the human race, there would still be about 7 million left. Should the fallout, nuclear winter, and famine kill off another 99.9%, there would still be about 7 thousand, way more than there were at one time. Given another 70 thousand years, just an eye blink in time on the evolutionary scale, we could rebuild our population and rediscover civilization.

Moreover, the speculation is that those 1,000 remaining were the most intelligent and adaptable, so the human race took a big evolutionary leap forward at that time.

Now, should we be nearly wiped out once again, the most intelligent and adaptable just might be able to build a civilization that wouldn't be quite so bloodthirsty, one that might not wipe itself out in the future.

See? I'm a real optimist!

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Actually, it was not "climate change". It was the explosion of the Toba Supervolcano, which appears to be the second largest eruption in the history of the planet. And while the numbers of those who survived the decade long cooling and ash falls, DNA evidence points to no more than 10,000 breeding pairs who survived into the modern era. And those numbers tend to play out across most animal species.

However, it also has to be remember that at that point, humans also were little more than hunter-gatherers. They had no ability to adapt to changing conditions, and had no kind of storage or transportation for food. So literally it was eat what is in the area, or die.

And while there are many fantastical claims to the results of a "nuclear winter", it would be nothing like that.

The amount of material blasted out by Toba was roughly 1,700 cubic miles. To put that in perspective, the last Yellowstone eruption was around 600 cubic miles ejected. Mount Tambora was 75 miles, and Mount St. Helens was .7 cubic miles.

And those also eject huge amounts of gas for years or decades also, in addition to continuing ejections of ash and material. A nuclear exchange would have none of that, and conditions would return within 1-3 years.

Oozlefinch said:

Actually, it was not "climate change". It was the explosion of the Toba Supervolcano, which appears to be the second largest eruption in the history of the planet. And while the numbers of those who survived the decade long cooling and ash falls, DNA evidence points to no more than 10,000 breeding pairs who survived into the modern era. And those numbers tend to play out across most animal species.

However, it also has to be remember that at that point, humans also were little more than hunter-gatherers. They had no ability to adapt to changing conditions, and had no kind of storage or transportation for food. So literally it was eat what is in the area, or die.

And while there are many fantastical claims to the results of a "nuclear winter", it would be nothing like that.

The amount of material blasted out by Toba was roughly 1,700 cubic miles. To put that in perspective, the last Yellowstone eruption was around 600 cubic miles ejected. Mount Tambora was 75 miles, and Mount St. Helens was .7 cubic miles.

And those also eject huge amounts of gas for years or decades also, in addition to continuing ejections of ash and material. A nuclear exchange would have none of that, and conditions would return within 1-3 years.

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So, maybe less than 99.9% of survivors would die in the nuclear winter, and civilization could rebuild in even less time than 70,000 years. Good news! Of course, the volcano didn't create any radioactive areas, so that could be a factor as well.

I'd heard that the cause was climate change, but that could be wrong, or maybe it was climate change caused by the volcano.

Tangmo said:

The troubles with the Trump-McMaster National Security Strategy are legion.

Let's look first at the principal players in the new and current NSS.

Tillerson is the only would-be negotiator in the group of supposed strategists and Tillerson is weak, inexperienced, unsupported by Potus and Tillerson's got his bags packed anyway. While I don't try to associate diplomacy with peace in our time, one does recall the line by SecDef Mattis back when he was on active duty: "Reductions in diplomacy means I need more bullets."

While Mattis is unquestionably in charge at the Pentagon, he's a warrior not a strategist. Mattis makes his approach clear when he says he can smile and discuss things with you but he always has a plan to kill everyone in the room. Mattis is a pugnacious puncher, not a strategist.....

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Who were the premier negotiators for peace with Germany in 1939? Who were the best negotiators for peace with Japan in 1941?

Diplomacy is not appeasement, it is in the setting of the limits of tolerance and doing so credibly, before the swords are pulled. As long as both sides fully understand where that point lies, then either peace will be maintained or war commenced and in either case the diplomacy must be considered successful.

Dittohead not! said:

So, maybe less than 99.9% of survivors would die in the nuclear winter, and civilization could rebuild in even less time than 70,000 years. Good news! Of course, the volcano didn't create any radioactive areas, so that could be a factor as well.

I'd heard that the cause was climate change, but that could be wrong, or maybe it was climate change caused by the volcano.

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The terror of nuclear weapons does not lie in "climate change" nor in wide radiation poisoning, but lies mainly in the kinetic destructive power of the weapons themselves. One Ohio class sub can easily wipe out more than 90% of the infrastructure of the USA besides killing untold millions. The survivors would not know the stone age survival skills required to live in such a world With 288 US cities wiped out (average of 5.76 per state) whats left wont be worth fighting for.

SirGareth said:

The terror of nuclear weapons does not lie in "climate change" nor in wide radiation poisoning, but lies mainly in the kinetic destructive power of the weapons themselves. One Ohio class sub can easily wipe out more than 90% of the infrastructure of the USA besides killing untold millions. The survivors would not know the stone age survival skills required to live in such a world With 288 US cities wiped out (average of 5.76 per state) whats left wont be worth fighting for.

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You don't think that large areas of land rendered uninhabitable due to radiation would be a problem?

Dittohead not! said:

You don't think that large areas of land rendered uninhabitable due to radiation would be a problem?

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No, since there would be few left to worry about it.

The radiation fear is overstated. To incinerate a city with a 500 Kt thermonuclear weapon you want a relatively high altitude detonation. This leaves little fallout.

You are projecting the fallout issues associated with the huge Bikini atoll tests such as Castle Bravo and Ivy Mike (15 to 20 Megatons) both detonated at ground level and fallout from these tests was created by blasting many thousands of tons of irradiated sand and coral high into the atmosphere.

Dittohead not! said:

So, maybe less than 99.9% of survivors would die in the nuclear winter, and civilization could rebuild in even less time than 70,000 years. Good news! Of course, the volcano didn't create any radioactive areas, so that could be a factor as well.

I'd heard that the cause was climate change, but that could be wrong, or maybe it was climate change caused by the volcano.

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No, more like at most (not those killed in the initial explosions) maybe 10%, and that is really pushing the upper end.

And the climate change was caused by the volcano, with the huge amounts of gas and ash thrown into the upper atmosphere. With more added in over years and even decades afterwards.

You have to remember, it is only fairly recently in history that humans stopped being nomadic hunter-gatherers and started to do things like farm plants, domesticate animals, and build buildings. For the vast majority of our history all we took with us was what we could carry on our backs.

For a culture like that, even a small change is catastrophic. An unusually dry or wet winter could kill a decent sized segment of the population in a region (normally the young and old). But if it continued on, then you had migrations, and inevitably warfare between competing groups for food.

Today, that is not so much of a problem. We can move food from one area of the globe to another as easily as we can from one sode of the country to the other.

And outside of the blast area and immediately downwind radiation is not as big of a factor as most people tend to believe. The majority of fallout actually has a half-life that is measured in days or at most weeks, not years or even decades. That is because the vast majority of fallout is actually irradiated dirt and building material that is not in itself radioactive. So the radiation only lasts so long as the particles it is contaminated with need to decay.

Plus bombs today are much smaller than they were in the 1960's. That means there is less fissile material needed to cause the explosions, so less of the really long-life material like Plutonium in the fallout.

SirGareth said:

No, since there would be few left to worry about it.

The radiation fear is overstated. To incinerate a city with a 500 Kt thermonuclear weapon you want a relatively high altitude detonation. This leaves little fallout.

You are projecting the fallout issues associated with the huge Bikini atoll tests such as Castle Bravo and Ivy Mike (15 to 20 Megatons) both detonated at ground level and fallout from these tests was created by blasting many thousands of tons of irradiated sand and coral high into the atmosphere.

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Most of our warheads today are in the 375 kt range. This is a far cry from the 1.2 mt missiles of 40 years ago. And as you stated, there is a huge difference between an air burst, and the ground bursts that was the cause of most fallout in the first place.

Dittohead not! said:

Look on the bright side: Anthropologists tell us that the human race was down to about a thousand breeding pairs when climate change wiped out a large share of the population some 70,000 years ago. Should an all out nuclear war wipe out 99.9% of the human race, there would still be about 7 million left. Should the fallout, nuclear winter, and famine kill off another 99.9%, there would still be about 7 thousand, way more than there were at one time. Given another 70 thousand years, just an eye blink in time on the evolutionary scale, we could rebuild our population and rediscover civilization.

Moreover, the speculation is that those 1,000 remaining were the most intelligent and adaptable, so the human race took a big evolutionary leap forward at that time.

Now, should we be nearly wiped out once again, the most intelligent and adaptable just might be able to build a civilization that wouldn't be quite so bloodthirsty, one that might not wipe itself out in the future.

See? I'm a real optimist!

Click to expand...

Cool.
Who would have thought that nuclear apocalypse could be a viable option? Hell, it might be the most attractive alternative!

It's pretty unrealistic.

SirGareth said:

No, since there would be few left to worry about it.

The radiation fear is overstated. To incinerate a city with a 500 Kt thermonuclear weapon you want a relatively high altitude detonation. This leaves little fallout.

You are projecting the fallout issues associated with the huge Bikini atoll tests such as Castle Bravo and Ivy Mike (15 to 20 Megatons) both detonated at ground level and fallout from these tests was created by blasting many thousands of tons of irradiated sand and coral high into the atmosphere.

Click to expand...

It's good to have someone who knows what they're talking about.

The expectation that man could survive all out nuclear war is almost as terrifying as the war itself

Dittohead not! said:

Look on the bright side: Anthropologists tell us that the human race was down to about a thousand breeding pairs when climate change wiped out a large share of the population some 70,000 years ago. Should an all out nuclear war wipe out 99.9% of the human race, there would still be about 7 million left. Should the fallout, nuclear winter, and famine kill off another 99.9%, there would still be about 7 thousand, way more than there were at one time. Given another 70 thousand years, just an eye blink in time on the evolutionary scale, we could rebuild our population and rediscover civilization.

Moreover, the speculation is that those 1,000 remaining were the most intelligent and adaptable, so the human race took a big evolutionary leap forward at that time.

Now, should we be nearly wiped out once again, the most intelligent and adaptable just might be able to build a civilization that wouldn't be quite so bloodthirsty, one that might not wipe itself out in the future.

See? I'm a real optimist!

Click to expand...

Those who survive will be the ones who caused it. They're the only ones with secret bunkers.

I don't want to even think about a society which has been in part bread from Donald Trump.