PNAC - A Decade Later. Thoughts?

[Upchurch]

Well, 9 years. Close enough.

It may be too soon to judge, but given that the Project for the New American Century (http://www.newamericancentury.org/index.html) (more here (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pnac)) appears to be the guiding principle of US foreign policy, my question is, how do you think we've done by following it?

[The Central Scrutinizer]

I'm better of than I was 9 years ago, so I would say, "pretty well"!

[Upchurch]

I did not realize you could post to the thread before the poll was finished. live and learn.

[Rob Lister]

I didn't know it existed.

I read it...but have no opinion.

[daredelvis]

I didn't know it existed.

I read it...but have no opinion.
I find it interesting, but not surprising, that you would have no knowledge of or opinion on the organization that is the basis for many of the policies that you spend much of your time on this board supporting.

Daredelvis

[Upchurch]

I find it interesting, but not surprising, that you would have no knowledge of or opinion on the organization that is the basis for many of the policies that you spend much of your time on this board supporting.I wasn't going to say anything, but yeah.

Rebuilding America's Defenses (http://www.newamericancentury.org/RebuildingAmericasDefenses.pdf) (pdf warning)

Take some time and really read this document.

[egslim]

Reading that document now. It states among others two goals: "To deter the rise of a competing superpower." and "To preserve worldpeace."

Those two are almost mutually exclusive, because a consistently peaceful world will produce new economic powers. And for an economic superpower the step to becoming a millitary one as well is small - as the US demonstrated between '38 - '45.

[Rob Lister]

I find it interesting, but not surprising, that you would have no knowledge of or opinion on the organization that is the basis for many of the policies that you spend much of your time on this board supporting.

Daredelvis

Well, you'd be surprised at the number of organizations that support one or more of the policies I support but I still have no knowledge of. I generally don't join political organizations of any form or fashion. I may support certain policies they also support, but that doesn't mean:

All truck driver drive trucks
I like trucks
ergo, I both know and like all all truck drivers.

IOW, get a logical clue.

[daredelvis]

Well, you'd be surprised at the number of organizations that support one or more of the policies I support but I still have no knowledge of. I generally don't join political organizations of any form or fashion. I may support certain policies they also support, but that doesn't mean:

All truck driver drive trucks
I like trucks
ergo, I both know and like all all truck drivers.

IOW, get a logical clue.

I did not suggest you were a member. I truly am amazed that people do not know about PANC, and the role it has played in shaping the current administration. Note, I did not say it simply has values in common with the current administration.

Did you look at the names on the Statement of Principles?

IOW, you have no idea what you are talking about... Read on, the irony may sink in. I don’t blame you for not knowing about the connection, I blame this blasted liberal media.

Daredelvis

PNAC
Elliott Abrams, Gary Bauer, William J. Bennett, Jeb Bush,

Dick Cheney, Eliot A. Cohen, Midge Decter, Paula Dobriansky, Steve Forbes,

Aaron Friedberg, Francis Fukuyama, Frank Gaffney, Fred C. Ikle,

Donald Kagan, Zalmay Khalilzad, I. Lewis Libby, Norman Podhoretz,

Dan Quayle Peter W. Rodman Stephen P. Rosen Henry S. Rowen

Donald Rumsfeld Vin Weber George Weigel Paul Wolfowitz

[Rob Lister]

IOW, you have no idea what you are talking about...

Rendering no opinion because I have no knowledge of that upon which I am supposed to opine cannot be reasonably construed as not knowing what I'm talking about. In fact, not rendering an opinion is the best possible logical course of action.

IOW, get a logcial clue.

[peptoabysmal]

I agree with the core idea of PNAC. I don't believe that it has been implemented and that is why we have so much trouble maintaining order in just two small theaters. We are a super power that has become a super marshmallow.

I can't addrress your question "how do you think we've done by following it?" because I don't think we have followed it.

[Upchurch]

I agree with the core idea of PNAC. I don't believe that it has been implemented and that is why we have so much trouble maintaining order in just two small theaters. We are a super power that has become a super marshmallow.

I can't addrress your question "how do you think we've done by following it?" because I don't think we have followed it.
I'll allow that the stated desired outcome hasn't come to pass, but what leads you to think we haven't attempted to follow it?

The four core missions of PNAC from "Rebuilding America's Defenses" are:
defend the American homeland;
fight and decisively win multiple, simultaneous major theater wars;
perform the “constabulary” duties associated with shaping the security environment in critical regions;
transform U.S. forces to exploit the “revolution in military affairs;”
The Bush administration brought us the Department of Homeland Security (check off number 1), multiple middle east theaters of war, including Afghanistan, Iraq and potentially Iran and North Korea with some success (partial check off of number 2), and has enforced resolutions for the UN (check off number 3).

I honestly have very little idea what number 4 means, so I can't really say if they've done anything towards that or not.

[egslim]

I think they intend point 4) to be: "Take advantage of the IT revolution to achieve 'information dominance' on the battlefield." In short, add computers and communication links to every weaponsystem, upto the soldiers' backpacks.

Check off that one too - at least its a work in progress.

[corplinx]

I thought of making a similar thread about the war on terror neocon style and its results. Basically mapping out the world and marking where we have made progress and where things are worse to form some sort of empirical metric.

[a_unique_person]

I agree with the core idea of PNAC. I don't believe that it has been implemented and that is why we have so much trouble maintaining order in just two small theaters. We are a super power that has become a super marshmallow.


Do you mean there just aren't enough dead people yet? I don't see any evidence of going soft at the moment.

[WildCat]

Do you mean there just aren't enough dead people yet? I don't see any evidence of going soft at the moment.
We're definitely doing the soft approach. We could pacify the country in a few days by adopting the Saddam approach, for instance immediately kill all male residents over the age of 13 of of the city closest to a roadside bomb. Obviously, that isn't going to happen.