Salafi Jihadism and US Grand Strategy Part II – The Grand Illusion

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Salafi Jihadism and US Grand Strategy Part II – The Grand Illusion

 

 

May 10, 2013 | Filed under Categories | Posted by DJ Drummond

 

We live in an age of morons. Unfortunately, many of them now hold high office. As an example of this foolishness at the top, consider articles like this nonsense from Foreign Policy magazine.

 

http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2013/01/09/a_new_US_grand_strategy

 

Arrogant socialists imagine that key strategic goals for US foreign policy in the coming decades will depend on impractical economic whims, chicken-little scare tactics about the environment, denial of the US role as world leader, and dependency on central government. Yet the hubris is similar to that displayed by conservatives not so very long ago, due to a similarly distorted view of the world. In the case of the conservatives, at least they were not alone in their fantasy.

 

The Soviet Union appeared poised to dominate the Eurasian continent by 1980. Europe was in upheaval, the US had somehow lost a war in Vietnam to a band of primitive thugs, the US economy was mired in both high unemployment and high inflation at the same time, and most self-proclaimed experts in the media announced the US was done. Then a lot of things changed. The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan turned into a disaster, the US revived under Reagan on all fronts, and American exceptionalism returned to favor not only in the US, but in many other nations. This reached an apogee in 1991, ironically after the US made mistakes in judging the intentions of Saddam Hussein. Hussein sent his army into Kuwait, imaging the US would not dare try to stop what he had all but completed. Instead, George HW Bush directed a masterful campaign of diplomacy, influence, and military power to destroy Iraq’s military and make clear the US’ ability to obliterate any enemy of significance. Unconfirmed reports from the intelligence community in 1991 generally relayed the same message at the Politburo:

 

“о дерьмо”

 

AirLand battle doctrine was not only superior to anything