Going long on dollars and bullets

Recent rumors from Saudi Arabia, while very much overstating the militant-AQ split, are emblematic of the uncomfortable choices Americans may be forced to make in the future. If the United States is concerned about more than a manhunt, then we must accept some previously politically unacceptable things. Unfortunately, those American politicians who might otherwise support "talking to our enemies" are more concerned with the manhunt than winning the war. Going, guns blazing, into "where Osama lives" will, at best, severely undermine our ability to effectively deal with the Pashtun tribes, and at worst, start a war of truly catastrophic proportions.

More bad news for "the long war" - Congress seems set to choose pork-laden weapons systems over manpower expansion. Despite the fact that the military is already overworked and will be facing personnel strains in the near future, there's simply little politico-economic incentive to support military expansion when fighter planes with parts made in 48 out of 50 states might have to be chopped. One of John McCain's few good points during the last debate was that the government has to curtail wasteful defense spending. Given the economic constraints facing the next President (well, let's be frank -Obama), he will need to take on Congress if he wants a military ready for a future of counterinsurgency. Or we can just keep laying down firepower from standoff positions, aircraft and provincial capitals until OBL dies or we get tired of dealing with Afghanistan. I guess the realistic question is - which comes first?

On the subject of catastrophe, the American bailout has not done much to shore up confidence in the European economy. The inability of European governments to effectively cooperate to deal with bank failures that individual member states can no longer handle. As previously noted, European banks are often more ponderous than their American counterparts, at least proportional to the countries they reside in. Like the Georgia crisis, the coming weeks may be another test and indicator of the strength and cohesiveness of the EU.

Of course, things are going pretty poorly in the US too. As for the debate - expectations are low. The economic issues are too complex for reasonable political discourse and perhaps too global for a single government to effectively cope. Anyone who claims the next four years are going to be great is probably lying, at least as far as the economy is concerned. But what we should really all be worried about, with the "American" crisis clearly taking a global dimension, are the consequences of globalization "failing" - if history is any lesson, they will not be easy to ignore.

Global chaos aside, we can at least comfortably predict the outcome of the election (and so I invite the world to prove me wrong).