United States To Deploy Troops Against Lord's Resistance Army

Intervention is bad. Definitely bad. That is, if there's a Democrat in the White House and the objective of said intervention is to kill poor innocent Christians who are defending themselves against evil Muslims.

Let's see. The ICC indicted Kony in 2002 for war crimes. A mere 8 years later the U.S. House and Senate passed the Lord's Resistance Army Disarmament and Northern Uganda Recovery Act. Scarcely 18 months after that, Obama rushed troops to the scene.

As usual in sub-Saharan Africa matters, the west is lightning quick in recognizing the urgency of humanitarian crises there.

That depends on how you define "armed intervention" and "Africa" I suppose.

Does sending non-combat advisers really count as an armed intervention?

Not on their own.

But it's interesting to note that after the French withdrew from Vietnam, the US's role started with a couple hundred non-combat advisers, and quickly escalated. It's funny now, but one of JFK's original plans was to send US troops disguised as disaster relief workers. The disguise plan was abandoned, but JFK still sent the initial transition force that bridged gap between the non-combat and combat troops. Not that Uganda is anything like Vietnam, but the situation in Somalia draws some parallels. Remember, the original personnel deployed to Somalia were unarmed advisers/aid workers. However, security of the aid shipments were quickly compromised, so armed troops were also sent in. What's never noted in all the depictions of the Somali mission (ie "Black Hawk Down," etc..) is that the first US casualty in Somalia didn't come from the military, it was a CIA intelligence operative.

It all just depends on what goals the administration wants to achieve. The current force of couple hundred US Special Forces advisers aren't really going to be able to directly impact the conflict. (The LRA is supposed to have anywhere from couple hundred to thousands of militants) They will be able to represent the turning point of a larger conflict. If US troops are attacked, it would probably result in a wider deployment. If US troops observe and document more atrocities that occur, its going to fall back on either the administration or the UNSC on what move to do next. But if it's violence that occurs between only African nationals vs African nationals, the international response is most likely to wag fingers at it, but not do much of anything else.

I'm undecided about this.

The LRA are a source of violence and instability in Africa, but we can't get too involved in yet another region's troubles. We got involved in the Muslim World, and we still have three big problems in that region: Pakistan, Iran, and Syria (as well as terrorist cells in Saudi Arabia and negotiating peace for Israel/Palestine). We are now directly invested in this region. We shouldn't shift focus to another region before we're completely out of that one.

If this doesn't mean a new region to focus on, and we're just sending these advisors in for a quick job (help locate and cripple the leadership of the LRA, then leave) then I approve. But we can't allow ourselves to get tangled in sub-Saharan politics too.

Once we have a more friendly and stable Muslim world, and we no longer have to focus on that region, I think our new foreign policy focus should be renewing and strengthening ties with Latin America, India, and Indonesia. Particularly healing our rifts with Cuba and Venezuela, and helping to restore stability in Mexico. We need to focus more on our own backyard. Africa is still such a mess, and I'm just worried about getting too involved there.

I am unabashedly happy about this. The Lord's Resistance Army has be one of the most repugnant groups on the planet; they make the Taliban look like girl scouts.

I don't think this will turn into a drag out fight though. Simply put, the LRA has nowhere near the training, equipment, or popular support that Al Qadia and the Vietcong had. Executive Options, a mercenary company, managed to easily defeat a similar group in a manner of months (well, almost. They had the rebels on the point of surrendering when a UN mandate made EO leave, and war dragged on in Sierra Leon for a while afterwards, if I remember correctly).

Time to fight the good fight again. I approve.

Are they actually going so far as to use airstrikes against the LRA? I thought this was going to be mostly a ground operation.

Hmm, is it really necessary to use airpower though? I can see why it might be a useful tool, but to the world the sight of airplanes dropping bombs could represent a serious escalation in a way that soldiers using guns wouldn't.

I agree that the Arab Spring is not a threat to the United States (unlike what some Republicans think...), but I still see Syria-Iran-Pakistan as the biggest remaining "problem-countries" for the United States in the Muslim world (which here I basically mean the Arab world, plus Iran and Afghanistan and Pakistan, minus North Africa).
*Iran for its negative influence on the region, particularly Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Lebanon, and Israel.
*Syria for being the main ally of Iran, and now for massacring its own people and setting off a potential regional crisis.
*As for Pakistan, it's obvious why that's a "problem-country," despite nominally being a US ally.

Once those situations are resolved, along with negotiated peace between Israel/Palestine as well as a greater respect for human rights and economic fairness in Saudi Arabia, we will finally be able to withdraw our focus from that messy region. (And just wanted to note, the West Bank is not controlled by an extemist minority).

The region will still be unstable, but once those 5 situations are resolved we'll have come a long way. The region will no longer require our military's attention and overall foreign policy's attention as much as it has since 9/11 (at least). Isn't it great to have a number for the big problems in the Muslim world, and for that number to be as low as 5?



So, what will we do, where will we refocus, as the number of problems requiring our attention in the Muslim World continues to gradually decrease?


*Pacific Region (East Asia, Australia, Indonesia, Oceania)... this is an optimistic region to focus on, a focus that will not bring wars but treaties and alliances and free trade zones. There's a small possibility of China becoming a threat, but it's unlikely, there's just some concern about competition in the South China Sea, and I have faith that China will be humbled and begin a transition to democracy. There is only one "problem-country" in this region, North Korea, but it's sufficiently isolated and contained, and we could counter the North Koreans if the war ever reignited. There's progress on Burma/Myanmar. We're becoming closer with Vietnam. Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, the Phillipines aren't perfect but there's not big foreign policy concerns there. Japan and South Korea are still close allies, so are Australia and New Zealand, and we have numerous allies scattered across the Pacific Islands. It would be so refreshing to have our foreign policy refocused on the Pacific region.

*Latin America and Canada... this is a region that has been severely overlooked, almost taken for granted that we have a largely peaceful and stable neighborhood. It w

I don't see an issue with us getting "dragged in", personally; I mean, Obama has done nothing but widen the war on terror despite troop draw-downs, mainly through asymmetric means like Special Operations forces and the CIA, and it's garnered very little public attention. I don't think most Americans are aware that we even have an Africa Command.

Yeah, I've heard reports that we were getting more involved all over Africa. Not only Libya, Somalia, and fighting the LRA in Uganda. That's what I'm a bit worried about. I know Bush established a presence in the Sahara states, but Obama really seems to have expanded the covert operations there.

Also, I feel that our title of 'leader of the free world' isn't just something cute or that we're just owed just because, like the Republican Party seems to think; "leader", to my mind, doesn't mean getting involved solely when it's in our best interest. That was my rationale for staying in Iraq-if you're supposed to be a country that leads, you can't just stop and leave people to suffer just because it's not fun or beneficial for your country-and I think that selfless action is about the best thing the United States can do today.

I agree, that's why I supported intervention in Libya and now support intervention in Syria (although I think Syria is definitely in our interest).

But there is the concern that we might literally overstretch and overspend ourselves, and the even greater threat of popular backlash and the lack of will to get involved in so many messy conflicts.

Africa and the Pacific Rim are my two main focuses right now; there's a reason that China has garbage relations with most of its neighbors, and that's because those neighbors do not trust them. China has been nothing but antagonistic to the majority of the Pacific Rim, and has generally played a less-than-admirable role elsewhere-helping Pakistan build nuclear weapons and so on. Theirs has not been a peaceful rise to eminence, like Japan was; it's been almost inherently militaristic and aggressive, and that's a major cause for concern. I don't think a war with them is especially likely either because the main reasons for China to go to war (hint: not Taiwan) would almost certainly drag in Russia and Europe, but keeping China on the track to be an economic superpower like Japan seems like the best course of action for everyone involved.

It's not been as peaceful as Japan's in the latter 20th century (I assume you're not talking about Japan in the 30's and 40's here ), but it doesn't seem to overtly aggressive. With the big exception being the South China Sea. But you're right that their neighbors absolutely do not trust the Chinese, as Obama's recent Pacific trip showed.

Are you talking about Central Asia and the Caspian? Or Eastern Siberia?

North Korea, to my mind, is irrelevant; yes they have nukes, but they don't have any ability to actually deliver those weapons. And South Korea outspends them 3 to 1 on defense anyway, and is vastly more technologically advanced and far better trained.

Mexico-I think that's mainly a hype issue and one that should be left largely to Mexico-in terms of the military aspect anyway. Any sort of major American military operation in Northern Mexico would probably dredge up alot of ugly feelings. Economic aid should be our main priority there.

Agreed on North Korea. I still label it as a "problem-country," someone to watch out for due to their occassional hostility, instablity, and oppression, but they are very isolated and only a major threat to South Korea (and potentially China, if there's a refugee crisis).

I don't think Mexico's drug violence is a huge problem either, but it is a problem that we should help them solve, working with their government by not only coordinating action to take down the cartels but also helping their economic development. I don't think we'll be able to spend too much on Mexico until our own economy recover

Japan pretty much became a world power after the victory in the Russo-Japanese 1904-05 war. In the Second World War it was as much a World Power as Germany was. Just look at how great an area the Japanese military forces operated in during the war.

China is trying to claim the supposed rich resources in the South China Sea, in the Spratly Islands. They are much clamoured about, but nothing has really emerged after decades of claims about what the seabed holds there. Does it really matter to US who gets that collection of atolls and reefs, as even if they all would go to China, it probably wouldn't have any economical difference to US at all even if there would be untold riches there?

I don't think it's US' business overall to oppose China's rise, as that story can end only unhappily, especially for US. And what, in the end, can US do? Tajikistan's government signed off a sizable chunk of it's eastern border region to China in exchange of increased Chinese investment to it's economy, and what can US actually do from stopping these kind of deals, where China gets 1000 square kilometers of land in the Pamir mountains? Nothing that wouldn't quickly hurt the US economy.

The best US might do could be to come up with an orderly hand-over of regional hegemonic power to China in the western Pacific. Accept the inevitable instead of fighting against it.

I wouldn't say that Japan is a world power now, not even economically anymore. The Japanese certainly could fight an extended war, as they fought eight years continuously from 1937 onwards. Claiming that they weren't a World Power is like claiming that the US wasn't one because of it's isolationism between the wars and deliberately limiting it's empire building then in the close regions of Caribbean and Central America.

US has done zilch to guarantee peace in the area. First it killed and helped to kill millions, afterwards it hasn't stopped a single war, just at worst poured more gasoline in the flames like when it supported the Khmer Rouge in the 1980s. When Cambodia and Thailand have been fighting over the strategically placed border temples, mainly as a result of internal Thai politics, what has US done? Piously asked for constraint on both sides and that's it.

Yeah, but China wants to be a political power too and that's what US really can't seem to be able to accept. Yet political and economic power tend to usually go hand in hand. You can't really expect China, especially in the atmosphere of rising Han Chinese nationalism, to accept to be politically and militarily castrated, to be another Japan and play a second role to a weakening US in the area.

China hasn't conquered a neighbour since Tibet in 1950 (if we accept, like I do, that Tibet was an independent nation before that) and is extremely unlikely to do so in anytime in the future. The closer it's neighbours become to China economically, the greater havoc any military action against them would cause for China's own economy. China's rulers, in the end, are after stable growth, and if China would be fighting it's neighbours militarily, then that stability and growth that lead to internal peace and continuation of the current rule would go out of the window.