Being this early in our President’s second term has me worried. We have forgone the ability to handle two major conflicts at once. We see what can happen with China moving over off East Asia while all of the focus is on a piece of paper with Iran (once again, we’ll figure out what it says later).
Unfortunately, the realities will be fogged when the Right Wing produces hawks who don’t truly know what is happening and become fodder in whatever debate.

This is what is sad. It is almost like our Ariel surveillance isn’t truly being monitored.

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Our human intelligence on Russian capabilities and tendencies is virtually non-existent.

We have gone all in on technology — NSA, et al — and have lost the earthy necessity of wandering through the train yards counting how many tanks have been loaded.

One does not move 900 tanks using Fed X.

BRC
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There was a charming little piece of US foreign policy known as the Monroe Doctrine from 1823 (check the date, memory at work here) which we have effectively disavowed to our own peril.

The Russians are reassembling their former “Union” while casting their shadow far afield.
Not only do they seek to use Venezuela as a forward base, they are also using Cuba while vigorously reinvigorating Cold War coastal flights along the US eastern seaboard.

They recently slipped a Boomer into the Gulf of Mexico undetected for over a week. Count that as 144 nuclear warheads off the surf at Galveston and capable of destroying 144 American cities.

In response to this, we consider contracting our military capabilities, taking on more debt and expanding social programs.

In any conflict, it is vitally important to remember that the enemy always gets a vote. We may think the Cold War is over but we have not yet fully considered Mr Putin’s ballot.

BRC
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In my post, I show agreement per the oil thing.
What JLM is leaving out is your responsibility as President to anticipate probabilities and take steps to be somewhat ahead of your foe. Now Russia has Crimea (unfolding in their Parliament today) and Europe has basically surrendered the Ukraine so there will be no disruption in the flow of oil. Your statement regarding our being at the Invasion of Poland is right on.

Just doing the “plot made for a movie” bit, a Russian warship was (is?) docked in Cuba about 2 weeks back, possibly doing stopover on way to Venezuela. Wouldn’t it have been cool if that were the case, a convoy of our ships pulls up alongside. Our statement to the world would be our not knowing the possible hostile intent of that Russian vessel. At the same time, send something more than one vessel (planned way back) into the Black Sea.

Doing something like surrounding that Russian ship that IS on our side of the world could have allowed the control of exchange of words.

We played financial chicken with them and we barely won. Since then they’ve ditched that communism thing and become a huge oil exporter. Do we want to play the financial chicken game again? Can we afford to?

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Good source and I stand corrected.

Those are, however, marginal tax rates meaning those rates applied to only the income within that slice. Therefore total rates were much lower.

The military build up is what broke the Russians and destroyed the USSR. They went broke.

BRC
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No it wasn’t

1981 70%
1982 50%
1983 50%
1984 50%
1985 50%
1986 50%
1987 38.5%
1988 28%

Average of 48.3%

http://taxfoundation.org/sites/taxfoundation.org/files/docs/fed_individual_rate_history_nominal.pdf

These tax cuts along with the big military build up caused the national debt to triple.

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I am no apologist for Iraq though I disagree as to the implications as it relates to credibility. The credibility at issue here is that born of “red lines” and other oddities.

On the other hand, the decision to attack Iraq lent credibility to America’s threats.

The top tax rate for Reagan after 1981 was 28%.

BRC
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