Opinion of "Clash of Civilizations"

[phk]

Rumsfeld's strategy, military strategy is he wants to keep a lean and mean force.

Whereas the neo-conservative folks at PNAC want a massive increase in troop levels and they want a long-planned occupation, in hopes of somehow building a model to bring a region of the world still-mired in the dark ages, into the light of the Western World.

You can't conduct nation-building operations with a lean military force, which is designed for fighting foreign armies but isn't quite suitable to occupy a country. (Notes in the margin: Iraq; perhaps Rumsfeld is 'against' nation-building which is why he prefers that 'lean-mean' force).

My suspicion is that Rumsfeld opposes the idea of sending more troops a lot, and that he's been the prime obstacle (other than the fact that there ain't that many more troops to send) to putting more boots on the ground in Iraq. He wants a small, quick, efficient military because it's an efficient killing machine.

Now we see these two strategies collide, and we see friction between Rumsfeld and the neo-cons, which is why Kristol (prominent neo-con) wrote that nasty bit on him in the Washington Post.

You can generally get a pretty good sense of the internal politics of Republican Washington by looking at who the neocons are attacking. Richard Clarke, Colin Powell and now Rumsfeld have all been the target of the neocon hit machine. Because they threatened to undermine support within and without the administration for the neocon project.

Rumsfeld wants out of Iraq, and the neocons are scared to death that he'll succeed