by Paul E Vallely
“The Dragon Lies Bleeding” - Hammerfall -
“Ride through the valley in thunder and rain.
The battle is raging, redeem this domain.
The castle of Eden lies silent above.
Darkness surrounded us, away we must go.
I look through the eyes of the world.
I see there are strangers among us.
Awaiting a sign from above to conquer the power and the glory.
Enter the battle, our will to enchain.
Bringing us forward, defeating the pain.
Into the meeting with swords made of steel.
Were standing together the secret reveals.
I look through the eyes of the world.
I know the stranger among us.
Awaiting a sign from above.
To conquer the power and glory.
Come across to the Promised Land. Close your eyes, I will take your hand.
Through the river of steel well go.
When the dragon lies bleeding.”
The enemies at home and abroad and demeanors of the United States have taken to view our country as an evil Dragon that must be bled of its power and stature. As the mythology of the dragon goes, you could not slay the dragon with one spear but that it would take many spears into the body of the dragon to slay it and “bleed it to death”. As you look as it is at the world today, our enemies both foreign and domestic are sending those spears into the body of the United States. I do not have the opportunity in this writing to discuss the various spears in detail other than to list those spears………
· Economic and Financial
· Radical Jihad
· Enablers of International Terrorism and Jihad
· The naïve Media
· Weak and misguided leadership in Congress and the White House
· Globalism and multi-culturalism
· United Nations and their subversives
· Progressive Socialists
· Rogue nations pursuing the development and use of nuclear /EMP technology and delivery systems
These are just nine of the “spears” that must be addressed by a revised US National Strategy to survive. The US has always drawn operational plans from strategic doctrine. The American people face unprecedented threats and vulnerabilities. The global “Chessboard” (see our Chessboard series of articles) is being reset daily as we observe the key players of the world cleverly moving their chess pieces. If we continue America’s near-total reliance upon the logic of deterrence and appeasement we will be doomed to be bled to death. Continued belief in classical threat-system dynamics could be problematic, even if American planners were to focus on just state sponsors and terrorist proxies (like Hezbollah). These states, like their surrogates, value particular religious or ideological preferences more highly than their own lives and freedoms.
Any updated US strategic doctrine will still have to include preemption. Inevitably, there will be new perils that may require “anticipatory self-defense.” Where rationality cannot be assumed, and where the effectiveness of missile defense would be low, the only alternative to capable and lawful forms of American preemption could be surrender and defeat.
It is not a simple world. Strategic doctrine is always a complex matter, and any improved US plan will have to be creative as well as comprehensive. In turn, the options will require enemy perceptions of persuasive American power and of an American willingness to actually use this power.
…………………..An example of one major threat and spear
Moscow markets cruise missile launched from a freight container - Russia’s Club-K Freight Container cruise missile. This relatively cheap, extra-smart, easy-to-use Club-K Container Missile System, which Moscow has put on the open market (Iran will be first acquirer), allows cruise missiles or Shehabs concealed in freight containers to be launched from a prepositioned or moving land or sea platform container ship. I have warned of this spear and threat for years now with no response from the powers-to-be. It is virtually undetectable by radar until activated. No wonder, Iran and Venezuela were keenly interested when the Club-K was put on the market at the Defense Services Asia exhibition in Malaysia for $15 million.
Western military experts are calling it a “real maritime fear for anyone with a waterfront.” The container-cum-missiles, carried by a ship, fishing vessel or truck can approach a targeted coast, highway or international railway and strike behind the target’s missile defenses without alerting radar monitors or even surveillance drones and satellites. One expert accused the Russians of proliferating ballistic missiles on an unheard-of scale.
At the Malaysian exhibition, the marketing film showed the Club-K being activated from an ordinary truck. The truck pulls up, whereupon the container roof lifts up to reveal four 3?-54?E, 3?-54?E1 and 3?-14?E cruise missiles ready to fire. The operator then pushes a button and the missiles, which have a range of 350 km, are launched without further preparation. Shoulder fired missiles also proliferate the arms market today by Russia- especially threatening are the shipments going to Chavez in Venezuela. The missile specialist Novator, which maintains a manufacturing plant in Yekaterinburg in the Ural Mountains, produces an array of missiles against air, sea and land targets, including cruise missiles launched from submarines, as well as the advanced S-300 missile interceptor, which Russia contracted to sell Iran but has so far not delivered. We now have Iran, China and Russia heavily triangulating with Chavez in Venezuela with military hardware and delivery systems to include enormous amounts of shoulder fired missiles.
Military sources warn that the sale of Club-K cruise missile systems to Iran or Syria and their transfer to Hezbollah would give them an edge substantial enough to be a game-changer into the Middle East balance of strength. They are capable of surreptitiously approaching Israeli, Iraqi and any other coastlines in the region, and send missiles flying against an American, Arab or Israeli strategic or military target before their targets know they are under attack.
How should we deter Iran, both from launching direct missile attacks, and from dispersing nuclear assets among terrorist proxies? And for Deterrence Against Nuclear Terrorism (DANT), how should he compensate for the absence of “fingerprints,” and for the limits of satellites and radars? This is significant because Ahmadinejad says that soon there will be a world without the United States and Israel. Coupled with his regular pronouncements to wipe Israel off the face of the earth, this sends nuclear alarm signals that cannot be ignored.
Threats to American cities could come from cars, trucks and ships. Ballistic missile defense would be of no use against such ground-based attacks. Could we truly convince Tehran and its surrogates that any proxy act of nuclear terrorism would elicit a massive nuclear retaliation against Iran itself? Meaningful policies can emerge only from a carefully re-conceptualized US strategic doctrine.
Enemy state proxies were once limited in the damage that they could inflict and the logic of economic, cultural and military warfare was traditionally based on reasonable expectations of victory. Today, some terror and radical jihadi groups/cells could bring greater disasters to the American homeland than could certain countries. These are the “Spears” that will bring us greater pain than was deliverable by our national enemies in World War II, Korea and Vietnam.
Paul E Vallely MG US Army (Ret) is Chairman of the Stand Up America Group
http://standupamericaus.com/
Replies
The quote, from Ronald Reagan, goes like this: "Of the four wars in my lifetime, none came about because the U.S. was too strong."
I leased a Gas Station/Garage back in the early 70's. It was being robbed about twice a month. I and everyone that worked for me at this garage carried a hand-gun. We were not robbed while I had the business. I let it go after one year and someone else took over the lease. The first Saturday this guy had it, he was robbed. After the third time he was robbed, he just shut it down. He did not believe in carrying a gun.
Steven
some times just the sight of a gun is enough to stop a crime from taking place.
IF I were elected POTUS, the very first thing I would say to the world is "If you are on our side, we love you and we thank you---But if you even halfway think you want some of me, come get it.
We are not as weak as some peole believe. We will stand when the time is right. We will drive the scum of Ialam from the world by what ever means we have at hand.
The time is close, we will drive Scumbama from the White House, start a true purge against the forces of evil, when we get rolling, the courts will try to stop us, but we will force the issues, run from the courts the queers, lesbians and traitors. We will break the necks and backs of the Unions and the Democrat Party. Once that is done, we will shake the world.
Look what happened during WW2 when the japan attacked Pearl Harbor What did the commander of that fleet say after the attack.
Went something we have woke a sleeping giant, This is what is going to happen to the people of islam, when this country finally does come to, they would have woke up a sleeping giant and then they would catch out wrath and it wont be good. in the end this country should turn our backs and just say to hell with the rest of the world.
Yamamoto said he feared all Japan had done was to "awaken a sleeping giant and fill him with a terrible resolve"; it looks to me like some of this once sleeping giant has developed some of that same terrible resolve; and the last time was when it ended with the deployment of Little Boy and then Fat Man!
That's right and I have to wonder if that might not happen again some time in the future. It is a possibility. With N.korea playing with fire and the fact that they do have the bomb and the ability to deliver one or more they can cause problems and so can other countries. We may just have to resort to the use of them. UNTHINKABLE but it could happen.