Mohammed Ali beat George Forman by his “rope a dope” strategy. He let Forman pound him and pound him until Forman ran out of energy. Then Ali went in for the kill and knocked him out.
The Islamic fundamentalist jihhadists have been using the same strategy with the U.S. It is like the U.S. is thinking like George Forman, not recognizing the strategy and falling into the rope a dope strategy.
In World War II part of the strategy of both the Axis and the Allies was not only to destroy the military capacity of the other, but to weaken, and even destroy, its economic capacity. The economic capacity of a country is the basic foundation of its military might.
This principle can be clearly seen in Reagan’s toppling of the USSR. After almost a hundred years of an arms race, where, at times, we almost destroyed the world, President Reagan was victorious over the USSR without firing a shot or killing one person!! He did this economically. Reagan and Premier Gorbachov were playing poker. Reagan raised the stakes so high that Gorbachov had to fold! The US had more chips on the table. That is, it had a stronger economy.
The US and the USSR were in a dead heat of an arms race. Then Reagan planned to build an missle defense system in outer space. There was no way the USSR economy could meet this new challenge and they gave up.
When one looks at the situation with the Jihaddists and the 9/11 attacks it is almost pathetic how we responded to the situation. We tried to kill a fly with a sledgehammer. We responded to a few thousand Jihaddists with the might of our whole military machinery of one million men, begginning with the expensive “shock and awe” debecacle in Iraq. The 9/11 attacks caused the US over $1 trillion and so far the war in Iraq, and Afiganistan is costing over another $1 trillion. This is basically bankrupting the country!! And the few thousand men are beating us to a stalemate. They are laying a few IEDs and having small shoot outs here and there, and we are responding by trying to build a free-enterprise, democratic system in two countries. In both counries, it is quesitonable whether or not the citizens actually want such a society — and not a theocracy of some sort — and whether such a system is possible in these countries. Finally it is very questionable that establishing such systems in these countries, even if successful beyond our wildest dreams, would deter the Jihadist movement!!
It is politifcally taboo to even think of such a subject, but one must look into the profit and self-interest motives of people involved in these wars. Over $100 billion a year is being spent on these wars. Someone is getting this money. And this financial self-interest is certainly affecting our policies.
What is bizarre is that not only is the US ignoring George Forman’s lesson, but is is also ignoring the lesson we learned in the American Revolution. The British military machine was inappropriate for the war in America. The English were fighting a conventional war and the Americans were fighting an unconventional war. In the same way, the US military machine is inappropriate for the Muslim Jihad movement. We must devise a new strategy for fighting El Quida.
One possible strategy is to use the same military methods that the Muslim Jihadists are using. Everything is under cover, secretive, and inexpensive. It may be the best policy to return to the old CIA strategies, which is similar to the current Israeli Mussad strategies of fighting Arab enemies.