Greatnate

We still won't send ground troops. If anything we'll send Kurds, maybe the Iraqi Army if they can pull it together. Whatever regional ground forces that can be trained and sent in will be, but there is no political will for another American ground campaign.

150!

I think that this is probably the best solution. Reinforcement by the idea that you must be a donor in order to receive a donation may or may not improve results. Either way, defaulting to the option more useful to society is clearly the optimal solution.

Nationalism is both useful and disgusting. In situations like Yugoslavia and Iraq, nationalism is the only available solution to centuries of racial and religious divides. In a nation like Germany, it is well beyond the point of utility and only exists to disrupt Germany's total incorporation into the European union, which is Europe's only hope to future relevancy. European continentalism is the only likely solution to the current state of European irrelevance. By combining and negating nationalism, Europe can at least hope to one of the future 8 great powers. Essentially nationalism has come of age and is well past its prime, now must be the age of internationalism or the age of decline, we can only decide between the two.

I would honestly have a lot more sympathy for a Baathist group than ISIS. The USA has made fundamental Islam their very explicit enemy and as much I respect the rights of third world countries to self determine, theocracy is an unacceptable solution to the puzzle. If a government of the Kurds, Sunnis, and Shi'ites could agree that the US should butt out, then that would be an obvious solution. From a realist point of view, no western nation will tolerate on the ground loses to ISIS, so we are restricted to an air campaign. This will be less effective, but at least we will protect those precious citizen lives. This will mostly likely not result in the anti-fundamentalist results that we hope for, but we are pretty clearly unwilling to commit more resources than an air campaign. Edited to fix the spelling of Shi'ites.

147

Eindhoven

Because, no nation has won a war through air power alone1, and very few, if any, conflicts have been resolved by naval battles. Without land forces to occupy territory, what can you expect to gain from a conflict?

Albania

Yosemite

Also, since the forum doesn't want to display this excellent picture.

Yeah, definately look at some pictures of this stick in the mud:

It certainly seems like he's spent the last two years learning about historic steam engines. And it is awesome that the author of 41 of my favorite books has both the time and mental facalties to spend researching awesome trains. Especially since he has a serious case of alzheimer's. You should certainly read some of his books if only to spite your ex.

Rajasthan

Nation Name: Dacia Nation Link: http://politicsandwar.com/nation/id=6976

I just finished reading Raising Steam by Terry Pratchett and plan on reading either Stardust or The Ocean at the End of the Lane next.

New Zealand

CXLIII