Word: luttwak
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...Edward N. Luttwak...
Given the weakness of South Viet Nam, the determination of the North and the extent of the aid it could count on from the Soviet Union and neighboring China, even some hawks concede that Hanoi's victory might have been inevitable. Says Military Analyst Luttwak: "Some wars simply cannot be won, and Viet Nam may have been one of them." Nonetheless, the main lesson they would draw from the war is that the U.S. threw away whatever chance for victory it may have had through blunders that must not be repeated...
Edward N. Luttwak, a senior fellow at the Georgetown University Center for Strategic and International Studies, argues that every President becomes fully sensitized to the awesome power at his command through the military budget process. Virtually all spending calculations, explains Luttwak, are based on a weapon's destructive effects: how many millions would be killed, cities destroyed, regions contaminated. There is no way a President could succumb to reflexive nuclear revenge, even if he is surrounded by old cronies who, after a couple of bourbons, suggest it is time to "nuke 'em." From the man who carries...
...specialist "for the Library of Congress. The defense guidance report produced by the Pentagon often seems to be a web of rationales for buying all possible wonder weapons. "It does little to set meaningful priorities," says General David Jones, former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. As Edward Luttwak, a conservative analyst, writes: "In lieu of strategy at all levels, we have only budgeting, programming and politics...
...increasingly vehement voice of the military reform movement, a loose coalition of military officers, civilian defense consultants, and some Senators and Congressmen who span the political spectrum from right-wing Republican to liberal Democrat. The reformers do not question the need for more spending. Says Edward N. Luttwak, of Georgetown University, one of the most hawkish members of the movement: "We have underfunded defense so much so long that it would be almost impossible now to spend more and not do some good...