comically promiscuous

The HJS website is truly a thing of awe and wonder. Overall, I was reminded of this:

Liberal hawks joined neoconservatives in taking advantage of the public’s post–September 11 engagement with the world to unveil a comically promiscuous military agenda. The New Republic first argued that the Bush administration should have deployed more troops to Afghanistan, then proceeded to argue in favor of the war in Iraq, then criticized the administration for failing to send more of America’s already overstretched forces to interventions in Liberia and Haiti, then urged action to halt genocide in Sudan, and now takes the view that the problem with Iraq is that hundreds of thousands of additional troops should have been sent there from the beginning.

Now the HJS folks take care to note that war isn’t the only option. At the same time, they’re insistent that it should always be an option. They also call for a strong American military presence in Europe and elsewhere, while demanding that the EU “modernize” it’s forces within NATO. That can mean anything and nothing. I presume it has something to do with greater inter-operability with US forces in terms of guns and general military kit. It may also mean increasing their size. After all, presumably the jacksnoauts don’t want the Yanks to do it all.

But there’s no detail here. If we’re supposed to take on greater and more extensive military tasks, then by how much should the British army increase in size? How should procurement policy reflect this? Would southern Iraq have turned out better if we’d had two divisions there, rather than two brigades? How are we going to get all these new recruits? Do we raise taxes for a bigger army, or cut services? And if so, which ones?

I’m not fond of a group whose policy is permanent conflict, if not permanent war, on general principles. But ends aside, without any genuine consideration of means then the jacksonauts can’t be taken seriously except as political cover for any war the US decides to fight, for whatever reason.

Comments

[dsquared]

it's Henry "Scoop" Jackson, Stephen "Muck" Pollard and Dennis "Dizzy" McShane, all waiting for Bob the (Nation) Builder to come along, innit?

[Alex]

I wouldn't think anyone believes Europe needs to increase the size of its armed forces. Taken in the round we've already got too much cannon fodder in the form of Continental conscript armies incapable of deploying except to resist a Soviet invasion.

[Chris Williams]

Over the last 5 years, Europe's out-of-area amphibous warfare capability has doubled, or thereabouts. The Jacksonauts are in fact liberal figleaf cheerleaders for a military-strategic development which is already well underway.

The ships have been launched, the crews are training, the doctrine is developing . . . cue the useful idiots, stage left.

[dan]

I think you should cut the HJS people a little slack at this stage - after all, they're new to the UK scene, and they're still learning to cycle with the training wheels on. I'm sure that given time, funding and lots of training and TLC, those wheels will come off and they will be able to function as a fully independent think tank that agrees with everything the Heritage Foundation or AEI says.