Trump's Next War

 

By David K. Shipler 

            The Shipler Report has obtained a confidential memo from the Republican National Committee to all senior officials, excluding President Trump, recommending a war plan for future major military assaults. Here is the text: 

PRIVILEGED AND CONFIDENTIAL

EYES ONLY, EXPOTUS 

            To: VP, SecWar, SecState, DNI, DNSA, DDIA, DCIA, JCOS, DNSC, COS--EXPOTUS

            From: RNC Working Group on Imagery (WGI)

            Re: MAD (Mutually Assured Deception) 

Under no circumstances is this memorandum to be shown to the greatest president in the 250-year history of the United States of America. He must be an innocent and unwitting collaborator in this project. 

1.      In consultation with numerous MAGA activists, RNC-contracted pollsters, and voter focus groups, the ongoing WGI project on MAD has developed a war plan for the next military “expedition” that will eliminate risk and maximize (appeared) victory.

2.      In light of the steep costs of the Iran war and the President’s mercurial shifts in rhetorical goals, empty threats, and unrealistic objectives, we suggest a method to be known as Paired Fantasies (PF).

3.      The purpose of PF in the next so-called war is to balance the President’s fantasies about victory, as against Iran, with equally potent fantasies about a war itself.

4.      To wit: Rather than actually sending the US military into combat, the President would simply announce that attacks were being done. Stock video and AI-generated battle and bombing scenes would be distributed to the patriotic news organizations compliant enough to be allowed to cover the Pentagon.

5.      To give this PF scenario verisimilitude, the President should truly think that the war is happening, that he is actually commanding a military venture, thereby fooling himself and the gullible segment of the American public. (We know who they are.)

6.      There would be little chance of the President’s discovering the fictional nature of his “war,” even if the professional military and intelligence leaders let it slip. Since he gets most of his information from Fox, which would be fed the videos, and tends to doze off during briefings, the occasional truthful remark is likely to pass right by him—and if not, he would filter it out to hold his confirmation bias.

7.      In contrast to the war in Iran, this “war” would not result in a single American casualty, of course, and would stir no international outrage or demand for war reparations.

8.      The PF plan coincides with the Iran war at the conclusion, when the President declares a false victory. However, we strongly recommend departing from the Iran case by having the President end his fictitious war with a fictitious peace agreement that awards the U.S. substantial fictitious benefits. We do not want him to pretend, or to do what he usually does, to pretend that he is not pretending. 

Please contact the Republican National Committee’s Working Group on Imagery’s project on Mutually Assured Deception, with any questions or comments. 

This is satire. It’s all made up, a disclosure made necessary by the absurdity of current reality, which prevents lots of people from telling the difference between truth and fiction.

Iran and Ukraine: The Illusions of Military Power

 

By David K. Shipler 

            The major wars raging in the Middle East and Europe are teaching a lesson, which will probably go unlearned. Two of the world’s strongest military forces are unable to defeat smaller countries that use asymmetrical warfare—that is, weapons and tactics less advanced than the arsenals they face. The United States and Russia are bogged down by Iran and Ukraine, respectively, whose governments’ continued existence is tantamount to a loss for Washington and Moscow.

            This is an interim assessment to be sure, for wars are judged by their outcomes, which are rarely visible in the short term. Today’s still photograph doesn’t necessarily predict the future. But so far, in failing to realize their ambitions, both Russia and the United States have displayed surprising vulnerabilities. Their armed forces seemed most formidable before they fired the first shot. Once the wars began, their destructive power turned out to be inadequate. The Iranian and Ukrainian governments, facing obliteration, had everything to lose unless they found inventive ways to fight back and survive, which they have done.

The parallel is not a moral one, obviously, for the world would be better without the Iranian regime and worse without a free Ukraine. But war is rarely virtuous, no matter the righteous pleadings of the perpetrators. Nor is the worthiness of a cause a guarantee of success.

            The current cases are especially instructive, because they are the product of two main errors made by both Russia and the US: unrealistic objectives and autocratic decision-making.

The ambitious goal for Vladimir Putin of Russia was to annihilate Ukraine’s national independence and distinctive culture. He spelled out his rationale in a long essay in July 2021, seven months before he invaded, when he wrote that Russia and Ukraine were not separate but occupied “one historical and spiritual space.” As a dictator, he had insulated himself from dissent by creating a bubble of sycophants in the Kremlin. Nor did he consult his citizens about going to war.

The ambitious goal for Donald Trump (and his Israeli partners) was to demolish Iran’s military and replace its Islamic government with one amenable to foregoing nuclear weapons. Among his shifting demands, after the war grew frustrating, came his threat of genocide as he declared last April that unless Iran capitulated, “a whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again.” As an aspiring dictator, he had also insulated himself from dissent by creating a bubble of sycophants—in the White House. Nor did he consult his citizens—or even Congress, as the Constitution requires—about going to war.