Thomas Barnett: Rethinking America's military strategy

http://www.ted.com In this bracingly honest and funny talk, international security strategist Thomas P.M. Barnett outlines a post-Cold War solution for the foundering US military: Break it in two. He suggests the military re-form into two groups: a Leviathan force, a small group of young and fierce soldiers capable of swift and immediate victories; and an internationally supported network of System Administrators, an older, wiser, more diverse organization that actually has the diplomacy and power it takes to build and maintain peace.

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[Matthew Gentzel]

*too complimentary

[Matthew Gentzel]

The Kurds were killed with Chemical Weapons. What was fabricated?

Stalin did use an artillery strike on his own men to justify the Winter War. These sorts of conspiracies are likely, but not every occurrence is such a conspiracy.

I will grant that I have been to complimentary to Barnett, but nevertheless his strategy recommendations are better than the killing our country does now.

[LandDestroyerReport]

Actually, it is now admitted that the chemical weapons intel was intentionally fabricated - and before knowing this, Occam's Razor would have pointed to the thousands of years of recorded history of governments, kingdoms, and dynasties fabricating a casus belli to lure their populations into war. Mat, I've got no more time for you.

[Matthew Gentzel]

To put it generally: conspiracies are likely, however they are unlikely to be a part of every event on the news or how we imagine them. There were conspiracies with respect to 9/11: by extremists to attack and by others earlier to ignore a credible threat, but I don't think there were any additional explosives or any evidence of such: I'm saying this as a fire protection engineering major.

[Matthew Gentzel]

WMD was a creative term to use: Saddam did have Chemical Weapons with which he brought genocide upon the Kurds, but there were never nuclear weapons. Given the information they had, Occam's razor would indicate that there were no Nukes, but that there were chemical weapons.

Governments are stupid so don't forget Hanlon's razor: "Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity."

[Matthew Gentzel]

Occam's razor would endorse the conspiracy theory for any surprise birthday because such is a more simple explanation than having many individuals happen to by coincidence say "happy birthday" and bring presents to your house at the same time without any planning.

Occam's Ravor could be used in Gulf of Tonkin to indicate that the U.S. ship was not fired upon at the claimed time due to sonar inadequacies at the time.

[LandDestroyerReport]

I'll humor you-let's take "Occam's Razor" for a test drive w/corporate-whore Thomas Barnett & your hypothesis that he's benevolently trying 2bring peace to Earth. Throughout history, every preeminent geopolitical force used its power to subjugate, exploit and enslave, without exception. You propose that Barnett is part of a system that for the first time in all of human history, is preeminent & does not seek global domination. What's Occam's Razor say about that? Witless drivel, that's what.

[LandDestroyerReport]

I find people that cite "Occam's Razor" are generally weak minded and intellectual cowards. Conspiracies are real, and can be found at every level of society - a surprise birthday party is a conspiracy, so is a bank robbery, - the Gulf of Tonkin is also an admitted conspiracy. Lying about WMD's was a conspiracy - so what did the tiresome, abused "Occam's Razor" tell you about each of these examples before hand, and what does critical thinking tell you about them after?

[Matthew Gentzel]

Don't buy into Alex Jones if that was what you were referencing with the phrase "information war." The logic principle of Occam's Razor undermines most of the theories that he put's forward.

Nordic Countries lead by example, they are happy, intelligent, and helping the rest of the world. The U.S. would save millions if it implemented a similar system, so I would like such to happen. The U.S. sucks now, but if it adopts logic in education, it will be on the way to a better system.