Back to the future on American defense

Is it only Barack Obama’s lack of co­her­ent pol­icy that is the source of our dif­fi­culty? Is it his vac­il­la­tion and in­de­ci­sion? Or is there an­other, more fright­en­ing pos­si­bil­ity—the pos­si­biliary that this ad­min­is­tra­tion is be­ing very con­sis­tent, that it is still guided by that same old doc­trine that we have noth­ing to fear from the Radical Muslims—if we just don’t pro­voke them.

Well, World War II came about with­out provo­ca­tion. It came be­cause na­tions were weak, not strong, in the face of ag­gres­sion. Those same lessons of the past surely ap­ply to­day. Firm­ness based on a strong de­fense ca­pa­bil­ity is not provoca­tive. But weak­ness can be provoca­tive sim­ply be­cause it is tempt­ing to a na­tion whose im­pe­ri­al­ist am­bi­tions are virtu­ally un­lim­ited.

We find our­selves in­creas­ingly in a po­si­tion of dan­ger­ous iso­la­tion. Our al­lies are los­ing con­fi­dence in us, and our ad­ver­saries no longer re­spect us.

Okay, I fudged the above. It has nothing to do with President Obama. This is an excerpt from a WSJ piece October 2014. Actually it is from Re­pub­li­can pres­i­den­tial candi­date Ronald Rea­gan’s ad­dress to the Vet­er­ans of For­eign Wars Con­vention in Chicago, Aug. 18, 1980. Replace Barack Obama with Jimmy Carter and Radical Muslims with Soviets.

But you get the idea. Today we think (or more fairly thought) we can end a war simply by leaving the area and apparently we also believe we can defeat an enemy by clearly stating what we will and will not do and by outlining the limitations of our commitment. Kind of like showing the plays to an opposing coach before the game. We now face an enemy that has clearly stated it goals and demonstrated how far it will go to achieve them. We have an Administration that has done the same.

Which do you think has more resolve? One rallies the disenfranchised to its cause. The other attempts to cajole voters on November 4th.