I find your faith in the fighting spirit of the average Iraqi Army soldier to be admirable, and largely misplaced. If they don’t need American assistance in retaking Mosul, how, do you suppose, did they ever lose control of it in the first place?
…one has to wonder how Iraq managed to loose Mosul in the first place. The road to the 2014 takeover of Mosul by ISIS was paved by the incompetence of the United States of America. From the initial invasion that was justified by twisted intelligence, to an occupation mired by stupid decisions, naivety and corruption, contributing to the retaking of Mosul is the very least that the United States should be doing.
There is no easy solution that is going to work tomorrow. And any solution that makes you feel good that you’re kicking ass is only going to make things worse.
The only way is to make hard decisions to do things the hard way—build bridges, make friends, help people, sanction people, sometimes use force when necessary, and it’s about accepting occasional setbacks and humiliations, and sometimes keeping your mouth shut when the other guy is saying stuff that hurts your feelings.
. But it’s never going to feel very satisfying and it’s not going to work fast. That’s how a grown up civilization makes decisions. It’s not about doing shit that makes you feel like a badass.
You’re not wrong, but it wasn’t only American incompetence. The Iraqi government did plenty of harm too.
…the “Iraqi government” was a result of American meddling. If they did “plenty of harm” it was a direct result of of the decision of the United States to both invade, and their inability to properly handle the occupation. You can’t look at Mosul in isolation. The Americans fucked up. Don’t expect credit when they are doing the very least they could do to help out here. Iraqis are fighting and dying in the streets to take back their country and to drive out ISIS. Instead of “patting yourself on the back” you should be thanking them for their sacrifice. Yes: they probably “couldn’t do it without you.” But they shouldn’t be having to do it in the first place.
This is in fact an illustration of your not at all understanding the concept of the soft power or its use, and a weak understanding of the Korean situation.
the situation with the North Korea is in fact the perfect illustration of the power of the Soft Power.
The North Korean regime works mightily to seal off its population from all of the contact with any of the Soft Power influences from the South Koreans, the Japanese and the Americans
They in fact undertake the self-crippling policies to try to exclude and
That is how fearful they are of the Soft Power of the democratic capitalist countries and the potential to cause the complete regime collapse, and they work mightily to also internally promote the pure Hard Power idea of the threat of the Americans.
The example you chose shows inadvertantly not only you do not understand the concept but also the very power of the Soft Power in these situations.
Of course to avoid the strawman misrepresentation, the hard power defensive role in protecting the South Korea from the North Korean hard power (of course they are so laughably bad you can not say North Korea has any soft power at all) is important.
But what does the North Korean in their actual policies - self-crippling in the economics - show great fear of? It is the Soft Power.
I have no particular faith at all and this is of course the complete misrepresentation of what I said.
The entire debacle of the DAESH arose from the corruption of the regime that the Americans installed and its huge incompetence in generate the huge resentment among large portions of the population, the Sunni, the Kurdish sunni as well.
However, since then - with the extensive on the ground training help of the Iranians and yes the American (and other NATO allies) air power, and the drawing on both the Kurdish and the Shia motivated militias they - on the ground fighting - have won back.
The loss of the control, it was again the disaster of the failed political demarche, the failure to have a soft power policy that then generated the need for the airbag of the hard power.
And the original sin as you Christians think of it, it was the complete incompetence and failure of the American invasion in its post military phase, its post hard power phase.
The classic error of The King of Epirus approach.
I don’t know where either you or Ramira got the idea I’m trying to ‘claim credit’ for the retaking of Mosul. I brought up Mosul as an example of a time and place where hard power is necessary. I wasn’t trying to steal the valor of the Iraqis who have done almost all of the messy urban fighting and dying in the liberation of Mosul.
In post #115 you said that soft power “is the avoidance of the crisis to begin with” and again in post #119 you said “soft power is the avoidance of the future crisis”. Do you think that South Korean soft power has done a good job of avoiding crisis in the Korean Peninsula?
This is a very strange question to pose. It shows you still are incapable of understanding the concept of the soft power except in the idea of crisis, which is a criplled, child-like understanding. Like the again the drunk driver wondering about the real effectiveness of the defensive driving after again crashing…
But indeed the soft power of the democratic capitalist network in the Asian area has been extremely powerful.
It has pulled in the PRC, which as it has become more and more engaged in the democratic capitalist frameworks of the rules orietned trade and the free markets, has beocme more and more moderated, and itself is a leash on the North Korean regime that so much depends on it.
Then there is indeed the other 'Communist’regimes liek the vietnam where your American bullying hard power failed completely but the soft power of the attraction has essentially hollowed out the Communism and made it a mere façade - and of course the Vietnamd distrusts the PRC more than the Western powers now.
For the Korean peninsula, indeed the soft power - the sheer influence and attraction of the South Korean and the Japanese models has the North Korean regime in a self-crippling isolation, imposing the death camp sentences for the persons merely found having the DVDs, the comic books from the South Koreans, that is how afraid the regime is of the attraction. This reduces their own capacity and keeps them huddled down. A regime less afraid of losing its control over its population could be more aggressive, but this regime is clearly terrified of its population have the real contact and turning against them - and it knows too the power of the South, the Japan, and even the China, Communist in name only so far surpasses it, it can only be defensive.
So indeed the soft power of the collective democratic - capitalist model has indeed placed these powers in a position of omi-dominence over the North Korean regime, that remains in a fearful huddle, without the power to influence the neighbors or export its model.
Of course since you are taking a myopic, childlike view like my small son who does not understand the planning and the effects and causes more than a short time period ahead, you will continue to ask these silly misformed questions.
Well, how about the time we crushed the mighty military machine of the Cuban bulldozer-driving commandos? A proud moment for the most powerful military force in human history! Grenada! Even today the very word rings of courage and glory!
By the way, how’s that Grenada Memorial coming along?