War Making Ability News Today

Important is diplomacy right now when you think about an administration that really seems to want to boost up the kind of war-making ability and decrease the investment in diplomacy? >> well, i mean, the military or r t are the first people to tell us that is a mistake from a military angle. secretary mattis said "if you defund the state department you have to buy me more bullets" even then we cant win wars militarily so its hurtful. its destructive from a military point of view but much more im...

About sort of how you think about international relations and diplomat any this age, in this very networked age in which theres a sort of non-hierarchical institutions and categories all over the police and, you know, how important is state and how important is diplomacy right now when you think about an administration that really seems to want to boost up the kind of war-making ability and decrease the investment in diplomacy? >> well, i mean, the military or are the first people to tell us tha...

Second point is the one that sticks with me. even if we decided this is the right thing to do, what if it goes wrong? where is plan b? president obama has said a number of times his goal in attacking syria would be to deter assad using chemical weapons again, degrade his war-making ability and finally to send a message to the world. all thats fine if plan a works. what if plan a doesnt work? what if as saud says next day, im not deterred. that pinprick wont stop me. what if he doesnt degrade for...