Should We Fight ISIS? (2)

If we do go to war with ISIS, a large national commitment would have to be made in assets, both economic and military, to accomplish the task. Given both our historically low rate of economic growth and our high national debt (see here and here), such a commitment would be painful at best, and could be fatal at worst. We should then be  very careful in planning how we meet the ISIS threat.

How could our conflict with ISIS and the way we meet it be fatal for the United States? ISIS is not the only foreign threat to our country. Both Russia and China have adopted aggressive, and in some cases expansionary policies toward their neighbors. For evidence of this, see here and here and here for the Russian threat; and here and here and here and here and here for the Chinese threat. In addition, we now seem to be faced with the relatively imminent threat of a nuclear Iran. Rather than making Iran’s acquirement  of nuclear weapons less likely, our current negotiations with them make a nuclear-armed Iran all but certain (see here and here and here and here). Recent indications are that the negotiations are in trouble because the Western nations are not willing to give enough to satisfy the Iranians. We should be so lucky. The current Obama administration seems to be so desperate for an Iranian deal, any deal, that they have continually caved to the demands of Iran (see here and here and here and here). These developments become even more unsettling when you consider that Iran considers us “the Great Satan” to Israel’s “little satan”.

In the mean time our armed forces are shrinking, while the threats against us are most certainly increasing (see here and here and here).  If we then commit a large fraction of our forces to fighting ISIS, we could quickly find our forces in a configuration that Russia or China or Iran could exploit in striking against us, either directly or against our allies in Europe, the Middle East, or in the region of the South China Sea. Yet our low economic growth rate and the growing problem of the national debt would seem to mean that the increasing of our military capability could only be done over a long period of time. Do we have the time? I just hope someone a lot smarter than I can apply that most desperate of the principles of war, economy of force, to meet the multiple threats.

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