President Obama said this yesterday with respect to ISIS:
“We don't have a strategy yet. ... We need to make sure we have clear plans and we're developing them. At that point, I will consult with Congress and make sure their voices are heard. But there is no point in me asking for action on the part of Congress before I know exactly what it is that will be required for us to get the job done.”
This is wrong is so many ways. First, here is what Barbara Starr of CNN said:
“Let's be very clear. ISIS heard all of this. …
ISIS fighters, ISIS leadership will hear this statement that the U.S. right now has no strategy to deal with them. I don't think anybody thought a military strategy was the whole answer, but no strategy? A little odd perhaps.”
Why sound so weak and indecisive. It only encourages the enemy (and I think we can safely say that ISIS is an enemy).
Second, a strategy is not a detailed set of plans. Abraham Lincoln didn’t tell Ulysses S. Grant how to beat Robert E. Lee. Franklin Delano Roosevelt didn’t tell Dwight Eisenhower how to invade Europe. A president sets the goals and the results to be accomplished, and then, as long as he has good people (and it took Lincoln a while to find a good general), he lets them get on with the job.
With respect to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, President Obama said this in his press conference yesterday:
“I think it is very important to recognize that a military solution to this problem is not going to be forthcoming.”
This is just not true. As I have said before, there can be military solutions to problems. There was a military solution to World War II. There was a military solution to the Civil War. There was a military solution to the genocide in Rwanda. President Obama may not think there is a military solution to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, but if Vladimir Putin thinks there is, then there might be.
Sometimes the most dangerous presidents are those who don’t know what strategy is and/or who tell the other side, ahead of time, what they will and won’t be doing.
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