Monday, December 16, 2013

Let's Make China Bleed Money For A Change

A notional air and sea battle in the West Pacific. (Courtesy Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments).

Rep. Forbes: Make China Bleed $$$; Budget Deal Stops ‘Hemorrhaging’ -- Sydney J. Freedberg Jr., Breaking Defense

WASHINGTON: Why don’t we make the bad guys bleed money for a change? That’s the strategic insight that helped us win the Cold War, and it seems especially timely today as the nation wobbles back – we hope – from the brink of yet another budget crisis.

Delayed by vote calls and overshadowed by the news that House and Senate negotiators had finally reached a budget agreement — one that might actually stabilize the situation for two years — House seapower subcommittee chairman Randy Forbes went ahead with a hearing late yesterday on China’s growing naval power. The four experts on the panel couldn’t articulate a coherent strategy for the West Pacific, Forbes told me after the hearing, but they agreed on one big thing:

“All four of those witnesses [said] we need to be sure we go back to competitive strategies,” Forbes told me. What does that mean? “Causing our potential competitors to spend money, and not in the areas they want.”

Read more ....

My Comment: There was a time when U.S. foreign policy and strategy was incredibly shrewd in bleeding it's rivals without even firing a shot. Unfortunately .... that type of long term thinking and strategy does not exist (at least publicly) in America today. It is also unfortunate that America's rivals are now aware that they can apply this very same strategy against the U.S. .... from Al Qaeda to the Taliban in Afghanistan .... America's enemies are conducting a very effective strategy in bleeding America today .... and we are letting them do it.

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