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Saturday, June 14, 2008

Pick Your Battles (Part 31874)

war,Pick Your Battles (Part 31873 ) - 6/13/2008 had a punch line: when using might to make right, 'conventional wisdom' goes out the window. The reality is that as troop levels go up, the probability of succeeding goes down.

Does this mean that it was a stroke of genius for Bush/Rumsfeld/Cheney to move troops from Afghanistan to Iraq? Hardly.

When the big switch happened, we were

• successfully not hunting terrorists in Afghanistan
  
• only slightly more successful at Kabuling Together (bad pun for 'cobbling together') the Karziad government (supposedly the new national government) in tiny corner of Afghanistan
  
• struggling against insurgents after the damned fool said "BRING THEM ON" (July 2, 2003)
  

What are the odds?
Propping up a foreign regime? 2:5

Routing insurgents to bring democracy? 1:4

In the parlance of games of chance, that is more stupid than than raising the bets while hoping to improve a 3-flush into into a straight flush on the next card.

Labels: afghanistan, bush, cheney, civil war, dumb idea, iraq, rumsfeld, stupid idea, war

posted by Recovering Republican® © ™  # 1:41 AM 0 Comments

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Friday, June 13, 2008

Pick Your Battles (Part 31873)

Is this the hill for which you want to die?

Soldiers have the good sense to wonder (privately). Even the generals sometimes contemplate that question. It's too bad that the politicians don't stop to think.

Professor Patricia Sullivan (U of Ga) studied the topic. She Investigated 122 military 'interventions' involving the world's big guys: USA, UK, France, USSR/Russia, China - between 1945 and 2003. Using factors such as

• troop levels
• alliances
• troop levels
• length of conflict

she developed a method for determining the probability that the intervening country will achieve its goals. Hint: Vegas gives much better odds.

1. Intervention as a means of getting compliance by another nation? 1:6 (that one is a sucker bet).
   
2. Propping up a foreign regime? 2:5 (stick to roulette or keno)
3. US vs North Vietnam & friends? Less than 1 in 4 (put your money into Ponzi schemes - late in the Ponzi racket - or penny stocks)
4. Overthrow Saddam? 2:3 (duh!)
5. Routing insurgents to bring democracy? 1:4 (and the damned fool said to go on)

The Big Kuhuna of using force to achieve political goals: as troop levels go up, the probability of succeeding goes down.

Labels: insurgents, intervention, odds, saddam, vietnam, war

posted by Recovering Republican® © ™  # 1:16 AM 0 Comments

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