{"id":28894,"date":"2017-04-25T05:45:51","date_gmt":"2017-04-25T13:45:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/?p=28894"},"modified":"2017-04-25T05:45:51","modified_gmt":"2017-04-25T13:45:51","slug":"spin-it-to-win-it-the-high-cost-of-trumps-military-strategy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/2017\/04\/25\/spin-it-to-win-it-the-high-cost-of-trumps-military-strategy\/","title":{"rendered":"Spin It To Win It: The High Cost of Trump’s Military ‘Strategy’"},"content":{"rendered":"

As the end of Trump\u2019s first 100 days in office approaches, we can already see the novice commander-in-chief\u2019s approach to military action. The approach is to empower \u201chis<\/a>\u201d generals. And the results? A triumph of image over substance. \u201cSpin it to win it\u201d is the byword for Trump\u2019s military \u201cstrategy.\u201d<\/p>\n

A few examples:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. The disastrous<\/a> raid on Yemen that led to the death of a Navy SEAL as well as many civilians, including children, was spun by the Trump administration as a great success<\/a>. At the same time, Trump pinned the death of the SEAL on his generals, saying \u201cthey<\/a>\u201d lost him.<\/li>\n
  2. The launch of 59 expensive cruise missiles against a Syrian airfield did little to change the actions of the Assad government. Nor did it knockout the airfield. Yet it was spun by Trump as a remarkable victory. In his words<\/a>, \u201cWe’ve just fired 59 missiles, all of which hit, by the way, unbelievable, from, you know, hundreds of miles away, all of which hit, amazing. It’s so incredible. It’s brilliant. It’s genius. Our technology, our equipment, is better than anybody by a factor of five. I mean look, we have, in terms of technology, nobody can even come close to competing.\u201d
    <\/li>\n
  3. The use of the \u201cmother of all bombs\u201d (MOAB) in Afghanistan was seized upon by Trump as an example<\/a> of his toughness and decisiveness vis-\u00e0-vis the Obama administration\u2019s use of force. Yet Trump didn\u2019t even know about the bomb until after it was used. Nevertheless, he boasted<\/a> \u201cIf you look at what\u2019s happened over the last eight weeks [of my administration] and compare that really to what\u2019s happened over the past eight years, you\u2019ll see there\u2019s a tremendous difference, tremendous difference.\u201d Dropping MOAB, Trump claimed on scant evidence, \u201cwas another very, very successful mission.\u201d<\/li>\n
  4. The Trump administration lost track of an aircraft carrier battle group, saying it was on its way as a show of force against North Korea even as it was headed in the opposite direction. This blunder was chalked up to a miscommunication<\/a> between the White House and Pentagon, even as allies such as South Korea and Japan expressed concern about the credibility of U.S. support at a time of rising tensions.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    As Tom Engelhardt notes in his latest must-read piece<\/a> at TomDispatch.com:<\/p>\n

    President Trump did one thing decisively. He empowered a set of generals or retired generals \u2013 James \u201cMad Dog\u201d Mattis as secretary of defense, H.R. McMaster as national security adviser, and John Kelly as secretary of homeland security \u2013 men already deeply implicated in America\u2019s failing wars<\/a> across the Greater Middle East. Not being a details guy himself, he\u2019s then left them to do their damnedest. \u201cWhat I do is I authorize my military,\u201d he told<\/a> reporters recently. \u201cWe have given them total authorization and that\u2019s what they\u2019re doing and, frankly, that\u2019s why they\u2019ve been so successful lately.\u201d<\/i><\/p>\n

    \"\"<\/a>

    Is this the face of \u201csuccess\u201d in Yemen? A little girl dead?<\/i><\/p><\/div>\n

    Have the generals really been \u201cso successful lately,\u201d President Trump? The facts suggest otherwise. Meanwhile, Trump has not yet learned that generals always want more \u2013 they believe they can win if they just get more troops, more money, more weaponry. They\u2019ll support Trump as long as he keeps funneling more of everything their way \u2013 and as long as he keeps spinning their blunders and missteps as victories.<\/p>\n

    For the moment, Trump\u2019s generals may love him for his \u201cspin it to win it\u201d boosterism and his blank checks of support. But beware, men wearing stars. Trump has already shown he prefers to delegate responsibility as well as authority when things go bad (recall the failed raid on Yemen and the dead SEAL).<\/p>\n

    Trump may not be a micro-manager, but that\u2019s because he doesn\u2019t know anything. He just wants to spin military action as a win \u2013 for Trump. If the generals keep losing, Trump will turn on them. The question is, will they turn on him?<\/p>\n

    More disturbing still: When failed military actions are spun as alt-fact \u201cvictories,\u201d the violence isn\u2019t done simply to facts: it\u2019s done to innocent people around the world. It\u2019s no game when innocent children die in the false name of \u201cwinning.\u201d<\/p>\n

    William J. Astore is a retired lieutenant colonel (USAF). He taught history for fifteen years at military and civilian schools and blogs at Bracing Views<\/a>. He can be reached at wastore@pct.edu<\/a>. Reprinted from Bracing Views<\/a> with the author’s permission.<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    As the end of Trump\u2019s first 100 days in office approaches, we can already see the novice commander-in-chief\u2019s approach to military action. The approach is to empower \u201chis\u201d generals. And the results? A triumph of image over substance. \u201cSpin it to win it\u201d is the byword for Trump\u2019s military \u201cstrategy.\u201d A few examples: The disastrous […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":290,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-28894","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"meta_box":{"disable_donate_message":"","custom_donate_message":"","subtitle":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28894","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/290"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28894"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28894\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28898,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28894\/revisions\/28898"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28894"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28894"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28894"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=28894"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}