03-03-2017, 12:20 PM
Quote:They didn't have to change anything other than a few minds. The easiest change: get marginal voters disgusted so they stay home. I think that was their target, but they actually got more bang than they expected.
Speculative, and beside the point. It isn't what I asked you.
Quote:This is just modern PSYOPS.
One, the technical name for that now is MISO. Two, before they changed it to MISO, it was PSYOP, with no goddamn "S". PSYchological OPerations.
Sorry, I was PSYOP for a couple of years, pet peeve. It's like "deeply respected" outlets reporting the regimental affiliation of units when embedded with them in Iraq or Afghanistan, as if that meant anything to anybody not in that particular brigade.
Quote:FDR wanted the US in WW-II, but it took a direct attack at Pearl Harbor to actually turn the public in favor of war. War with Russia is at least as serious as that, considering the nuclear status of both countries. More to the point, the Russians are not about to throw enough weight around in the West that the Chinese start seeing the East as ripe fruit for the picking.
For an alternate perspective, look at WWI. An excess of sabre-rattling, bombastic statements for political consumption (both at home and abroad) , and belief that any war would necessarily be limited in scope and duration turned into a conflagration that shattered the Continent. Look at the role of the "yellow press" in backing us into the Spanish-American War. Look at the spiral of rhetoric involved in the lead-up to the Civil War. Neither side was seriously expecting a multi-year total war.
WWII is not the be-all, end-all of historical references.
Quote:So to your point that rabblerousing radicals in the US can actually overcome natural resistance and stoke the fires of war: I don't see it. Picking a fight with a weak opponent just to beat our national chest is about as far as we are likely to go. After Iraq and Afghanistan, even that seems a remote possibility, John McCain to the contrary.
*yawn*
My Dad thought that the lead-up to the Iraq War was just sabre-rattling, too. So did Saddam (whose mustache and haircut was very similar to my Dad's. Coincidence?)
With Hillary (whose relevance, I know, is much diminished) or any traditional Republican candidate, my concern was less a premediated Operation Barbarossa 2.0 than it was arming the Ukrainians, trying to impose a no-fly zone over Syria, or some other limited step with the possibility of killing Russians troops and sparking a response, which sparks a countervailing response on our end, and so on and so forth.