But using proxies meant that the USA and USSR had to compete for the favour of every two-bit bandit who controlled a scrap of territory, for fear that he would side with the enemy. Brutal Third World dictators, and the equally brutal rebels who opposed them, were able to play the two sides against each other for decades.

So the Cold War was a situation in which the world’s dominant powers faced exceptionally tight constraints on how they could use military power. That was particularly true for the United States, as the development of the modern news media put the government under constant and often hostile scrutiny. The use of “spoiling operations” as America’s preferred way of fighting was therefore a product of those specific historical circumstances.

The collapse of the Soviet Union has removed many of those restrictions, but it inevitably takes time for politicians, diplomats and the public to adapt to the new circumstances. People like James Baker, for example, spent their whole careers in a world in which a misjudged act of aggression could lead to the total extinction of the human race. One false move and the man in the hat visits every major city like the ultimate Bad Santa. It would be no surprise then if the legacy of the Cold War was a culture among career diplomats and strategists that sees instability as something to be avoided at all costs, and war as something to be fought in the most cautious way possible.

The only parts I’d add or change are:

1. The cold war just about undid us here in the US. The propaganda campaign that stalinist adherents have waged in the US and abroad has done us much damage and greatly undermined our ability to defend ourselves. The most aggressive and comprehensive part of that campaign domestically, was the redefinition of the 1st Amendment to include protection for enemy sympathizers, enemy propagandists and overtly enemy loyal citizens in this country. Treason has become so trendy that calling someone on it, no matter how obvious the offense, is now viewed as an offense. We may well not survive that, long term.

2. NK is often associated with PDR China most likely because both are asian and neighbors, but NK was always a Soviet sock puppet. The old Soviet may have collapsed as an organization but it is well on its way to a rebirth as an idea and a problem. Most of what we’ve been fighting since the collapse of the USSR are remainders of the filth and fungus that was allowed, by necessity, to grow in the gaps between us and the USSR.
Example: The USSR made it official policy in its “confront the west at all opportunity” strategy to formally adopt any and all “anti-western” terrorist organizations. After the arse whooping the Soviet allies in the mid east got in ‘67, the USSR made common cause with any and all arab/muslim terror organizations that wanted help. The Russian will become a predominant problem again and soon.
3. Vietnam was a loss. No question, no excuse. That loss had long term and devastating repercussions. That loss not only lead directly to the near total destruction of much of south east asia and the loss of millions of lives, it also is cited as the primary reason that the hawks in the USSR finally got the go ahead for plans to expand into central asia (Afghanistan).
There is much to be said about our military command and federal politicos screwing the pooch in RVN but the war was on the way to being won, even with those problems. What caused us that loss was a victory by enemy propagandists, their useful idiots and cowards on our domestic front.

Look at our losses:

Wars___U.S.Population___U.S. Dead____Percent
Vietnam_200,000,000____57,690_______0.0288%
Iraq/Afg_300,000,000____@3,100_______0.0010%

We captured the enemy capitals and allowed the formation of a new governments in both Afghanistan and Iraq. In Iraq we captured the enemy leader.

How are Iraq and Afghanistan considered a loss?

Only by the constant, repetitive statements that it is a loss in the media and by the Democrats.

http://www.instapundit.com/

Links to Austin Bay.

Well Glenn, it would tickle the hell out of a lot of people. Let’s help foment…hmmm, maybe we are.

When we win by knockout (Germany, Japan, Iraq) we take some/full responsibility for the post-war condition of our adversary. the US could not have afforded either the direct fight or the aftermath of warfare with the USSR (Iraq is a tiny fraction of the mess we would face if we had to directly manage reconstruction of post-war USSR terroritories).

Winning by TKO vs the USSR was our best-case scenario by far … and was achieved largely by inducing the USSR to overextend, overspend, and underdevelop with proportionately lower expenditures on our part (per our superior economic model). Everywhere they wanted to be, we made expensive for them. Every soviet “win” was a pyhrric victory. SEAsia tied up more of their attention, forces and production and by Afghanistan, we had perfected the art of the few CIA/SF people using force-multipliers to completely bog down a superpower.

Iraq war 1/GW1 was fought with the same thinking … minimally deal with the military problem then let economics and cultural internal pressure cause the regime to fail from within so we don’t end up owning the reconstruction problem. This failed because arab culture is different, tribalism and religion were involved, and Saddam was more evil, more practical, and less irrationally ideological than the USSR leadership.

The GW2/Taliban wars rationally acknowledged that imperialist tribal religious non-modern societies cannot be internally undermined by the same methods as imperialist educated modern atheist communist culture … so we went for the knockout win (having no other choice) and got stuck with the reconstruction.

I believe that we have at least 5.5 other conflicts brewing now …
* alQaeda … we are playing whack-a-mole
* Iran … we are using military provocation as both direct containment and to induce overspending (there is much internal unrest over military / nuclear spending while basic services go unfulfilled and there’s a looming gasoline shortage and infrastructure crisis) while using multiple parallel internal cultural destabilizations while top people go missing and planes/helicopters crash.
* China … they’re wasting lots of money trying to catch up to the 1990s US military (i.e. what we’ve chosen to make public) … so they can retake Taiwan (China’s Afghanistan … a money-drain almost-conflict with no direct gain (now) minus anybody actually dying in combat) … and meanwhile western media and internet culture is destroying communist culture, creating economic interdependance and making their people capitalist instead of militarist.
* China -> NKorea … the NK sock-puppet for China seems to have lost its value for China once NK tried to declare political/policy quasi-independance from China by having and detonating their own nukes. Dudding their nuke test is NK’s worst-case scenario … and China hates when rogue territories/puppets declare independance, however circumspectly.
* Venezuela … The socialist economic miracle is on its usual predictable path … nationalization, no infrastructure investment, inflation, paranoia, cronyism, corruption, central planning, etc leading to economic meltdown. Maybe China will leap to Venezuela’s assistance in return for oil and opportunities to send more construction workers/colonizers. Our best case is that Chavez gets to create the socialist paradise he desires as quickly as possible.
* Africa’s failed/corrupt/Islamizing states … insufficient international outrage to overcome oil-driven opposition by China/France/EU … so we’ve just barely started to pay attention and we’ve borrowed the Ethopian army as proxies. (Note that our restraint comes from “once we engage, how / where do we stop” … how do you intervene in A and not B … Sudan and not Zimbabwe? … and how do you do any of it while China is pseudo-colonizing africa with PLA construction and oil workers and blocking us at the UN? (special forces + the Ethopian army and the USNavy as air-cover))

So … WW2 and GW2 were fights-to-the-finish, NK, VN, GW1, Iran-Iraq@80s, Israel/Arabs, Nicaragua, misc-terrorism, CIA/KGB coups, etc were all spoiling actions … the US and USSR each interfering in the others back-yard while the US won the domestic-cultural+economic-confidence game the USSR did not know it was fighting. Had we _ever_ played to win any of those conflicts, they would have stopped bleeding the USSR and burdened the US/West instead … outright winning would have been directly counterproductive.

Iran and NK nuke programs have been Russian and Chinese sock puppets to manipulate and distract the US military and diplomacy that got out of hand. China pulled the plug on NK (food, fuel and diplomatic support) and Russia just pulled the plug on Iran (nuclear fuel rods … after getting every dollar they could from the Iranians).

Post WWII US Foreign Policy has been anchored in either containing or eliminating regimes that created or displayed Irrational Fear.

The cold war ended because the Soviet Union concluded there was little to fear from NATO, and even less to fear from a “Resurgent Unified Germany”.

The US invaded Iraq not because it was an immenent threat to the United States, it was an imminent threat to its neighbors.

Whether GWB believed Saddam had WMD is fairly irrelavant…every other regime in the neighborhood believed he did…therefore every other regime in the neighborhood would have to acquire WMD as well.

A dozen nucleared armed unstable countries all afraid of each other , all with their fingers on the nuclear button,doesn’t present a pretty picture if one cares about “Peace”.

“…the Cold War, MAD strategy combined with our politico-economic model.“

I recall an old saying, “The shortest distance to victory is the long way around.” Sometimes you can’t directly attack the enemy (e.g., Hitler in WWII). Sometimes, all you can do is strike at a weak spot and retreat, and then strike again another weak spot, attempting to wear your enemy down, while holding him at bay (e.g., the Cold War, MAD strategy combined with ).

I think that there may be little practical difference, though, if people don’t have the patience and steadiness necessary to wage a prolong campaign (e.g., the American Dhimmicrats). US mIlitary planners likely take this weakness of ours into account (Sun Tzu remains required reading to this day), even back in 2001.

Freidman has a point, but I don’t think it’s unsentimental. It looks more like a fatalisic view.

Wars end when one side gives up, usually because they no longer believe they can win. The problem with the current war is that jihadists are motivated by religious ideology and show every sign of being able to maintain indefinitely the fervent belief the Communists had lost by the 1980s. Fortunately, their appeal is relatively limited, and their philosophy tends to degrade the economic/military power of any region they gain influence over.

The great strength of American policy is that our politico-economic model works. Thus stalemate is sometimes all we need to win, because over time people gravitate toward freedom and prosperity. For instance, Korea was a stalemate in its time, but given the trajectories of the North and South since then, it’s pretty certain that can go in the “win” column now, not least as an object example of the contrast between the power and beauty of freedom and the brutal futility of totalitarianism. Similar logic applies in Germany… and might have in Vietnam as well, had we salvaged a stalemate there.