Greener Grass

The first in what will hopefully be a tradition of guest editorials from people you have never heard of.

Ever.

The U.S. recently issued a stop-loss order for many of our forces in Iraq, one that affects a lot of the Guard and Reserve troops stationed there. One of the proposed solutions is the creation of a new division of regulars, and I'd like to post Julie Cochrane's views on the stop-loss order, the new division proposal, and the world as a chess board:

While it is completely true that there aren't the divisions sitting around at home to send, and that that *is* part of the reason for stop loss, remedying those problems is not an intuitively obvious endeavor.

Others have noted it takes 3 years to run up a new division.

One of the reasons, as I understand it, the administration has been saying, "We'll tell you when we need more troops, thanks," is *NOT* that they're trying to pretend things are hunky dory at the risk of military lives.

The reason is that they think they can redistribute the troops they've got, not immediately, but faster than they can run up a new division.

They'd need stop loss right now *even if* they decided we needed a bigger military. The reason is the lag time if you run up new troops.

But it looks like they're looking at some of our deployments around the world and reevaluating whether we need to keep troops there, and figuring that when they shift around the bodies they've already got, they're covered.

But there's lag time for both options.

It's been pointed out that the administration, before 9/11, was planning more cuts----well, it matters a lot *which* cuts and *where* your troops are and how much teeth you've got versus tail.

One of the things Bush ran on, which makes the pre-9/11 cuts he wanted make sense in context, was that the military was deployed in places it didn't need to be anymore, that certain kinds of missions were not serving the vital interests of the US.

Bush's problem with nation-building is not that it was an inherently bad thing, but that it was code for taking such missions willy-nilly without a strategic reason.

Look at the world like a big chess board, although the rules work differently and there are more than two players. There are a lot of hostile pieces you want to take out, but you have to worry about where all your pieces are, and what's covering your pieces, and what they're covering, and what's covering the hostile pieces.

Stick an airliner fused with a bomb on the board in Afghanistan, a whirling atom fused with a bomb on the board in Iran, an airliner fused with a bomb on the board in Saudi, a whirling atom fused with a missile on the board in North Korea, a bomb on Syria, a bomb on Libya, a bomb on Palestine, a bomb fused with an atom on Pakistan, a pack of whirling atoms fused with missiles on the board in China, chem/bio hazard logo fused with a bomb on Iraq, and a pack of whirling atoms fused with missiles in Russia and Ukraine, stick a whip fused with a pair of shackles on Sudan.

There's the major hostile pieces, as of 9/11.

Now, stick a king on Taiwan, a king on South Korea, a king on Western Europe, a king on Japan, a king on Israel, a pack of kings on CONUS, a pack of kings in the Oceans, and a king under an oil well on Saudi. Those are the major friendly strategic interests/major honor obligations.

Now, we go to what's covering what in the game.

First, stuff protecting the hostile pieces from us:

Afghanistan is covered by no major pieces.

Saudi is covered by the (neutral, can be pushed either way, but vital) oil well piece. China is covered by the same missile/atom pieces that sit as hostiles, and endangers the king on Taiwan. North Korea is covered by it's threat to the king in South Korea and by the missile/atom pieces in China---only to a tiny extent by its threat to the kings on CONUS. Iraq and Iran are covered by no major pieces. Russia/Ukraine's missile/atom pieces are mostly not in play at this time--not threatening nor threatened, but could potentially be activated by a really dumb move on our side.

Palestine, Syria, Sudan, and Libya are covered by no major pieces, but also pose minimal threats to any of the kings *but* Israel.

Now, to what friendlies are covering the hostiles:

Put a big ship piece in each ocean, and a huge pack of missile/atom pieces in CONUS. Put a dollar sign covering Russia/Ukraine, China, Israel, Pakistan, and Saudi. Put a rising sun covering Japan, and a star of David covering Israel. Put a euro and a euroGI covering Europe, and a SKGI covering South Korea. Taiwan is covered, thinly, by the ship pieces and missile/atoms in CONUS. Iran is covered by a small icon of a mob with rocks. Europe, Japan, and South Korea are also covered by USGIs. There are some "free" USGI counters in CONUS.

Saudi is covered by USGIs, but only threatened by Iraq, as is Kuwait, which has about half a king and a tiny oil well.

Pakistan is covered by a USGI counter combined with an icon for a road pointing at Afghanistan.

The USGIs in Europe, Japan, South Korea are largely redundant compared to the threat level.

The only cost to wiping out the airliner/bomb piece on Afghanistan is the cost of moving a USGI counter there.

The only cost to wiping out the bomb/atom counter in Iran is the cost of moving a USGI counter there, *BUT* it might waste a counter as the mob icon may spontaneously take the hostile piece out of play.

The costs of wiping out the hostile counters on China are huge, or even of reinforcing the king on Taiwan---the pieces there, hostile and friendly, are mostly forced stagnant by each other right now.

Wiping out the hostile counter on North Korea would require sacrificing the king in South Korea. Possibly a good move at some point, but not without significant cost.

Wiping out the hostile piece on Saudi would kill the king under the oil well piece, sacrifice the USGI pieces covering Kuwait, and undermine all the King pieces on CONUS and the ship pieces all over the board and the USGI pieces all over the board, ultimately.

Wiping out the hostile piece on Iraq renders the USGI pieces in Saudi redundant, removes the hostile piece from play, and stabilized the king pieces on Saudi and the half-king and tiny oil well counter on Kuwait. Surrounding Iraq are tiny road counters in Turkey, Saudi, Kuwait, and the Persian Gulf. All but the gulf take *at least* dollar counters to activate---Kuwait takes the smallest dollar counter.

Keep in mind that *any* hostile pieces can, left in play, expand and upgrade. The particular hostile piece in Iraq is in danger of upgrading, as are the hostiles in China, Libya, North Korea, and Iran.

After taking the Afghanistan hostiles out of play, Iraq is the next best hostile to take out in a risks/benefits analysis. It's not the *only* next possible play, but it's the best one even if it is a relatively small hostile piece.

Making the play also doesn't rule out taking other hostile pieces out of play at a later date----it's just the move that the friendly side chose *this* turn.

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Anyway, after all that long description of the state of the board at 9/11 and the next two friendly moves, the question at hand is why the friendly side isn't activating more "free" USGI counters in CONUS.

The answer is that not only would it take dollar counters out of play, it would also take longer than moving rather redundant and superfluous USGI counters around from other places on the board.

We've got USGI counters in places where they're not really required to effectively cover those kings. Playing a good game means we don't just leave them there and forget them. If they're not needed to cover where they are, and they can be used to take out a hostile piece, *if* you decide to start taking out hostile pieces, you use them.

BTW---prior to 9/11 the US counters were distributed, but largely out of play except by movement of dollar counters. 9/11 activated *all* the US counters, and most of the hostile ones *except* for the temporary stalemate between US and Chinese counters while each side jockeys for an opening or other ways to resolve the strategic opposition.

In "peace" the dollar counters are played, and the other counters are repositioned, jockeying for advantage, but other counters are not toppled or played.

In "war" all the counters are activated between warring parties and active allies (even unofficial ones)--other counters than dollars are additionally played and/or toppled.

Any player with an active counter can move the game from "peace" phase to "war" phase. Moving the game back to "peace" phase requires agreement of both sides to move back to mostly exclusive dollar and positioning play of counters or toppling of all of one side's active counters.

Usually, during "peace" phase, there is some small-scale war phase activity on both sides, perhaps analagous to the occasional stolen base in baseball.

The debate on the friendly side is *not* whether to use fresh USGI counters to rotate out the ones being played in Iraq.

There are *two* debates. One, whether there need to be more USGI counters there or not. Two, whether replacement or additional counters should come from dollar counters converted to new "free" USGI counters in CONUS or should come from repositioning existing counters on the board.

The non-administration side, on debate one, seems to be forgetting that putting more counters in could make the whole set of counters *less* effective because of the increased logistics needed to supply all counters over very narrow routes in through Kuwait and the Persian Gulf.

The non-administration side, on debate two, seems to be A) considering dollar counters expendable and B) forgetting how much longer it takes to make new "free" USGI counters than it does to move existing ones----by the time new "free" counters could be made, the counters already in Iraq will, by administration play plan, be mostly withdrawn with the hostile piece firmly eliminated and that spot on the board mostly stabilized as neutral--no major hostile or friendly pieces on it.

The non-administration side would have a much stronger position if they would convincingly address those three points regarding the two debates instead of giving the impression of neither noticing nor comprehending them.

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