Wednesday, August 16, 2006

How Superpowers Become Impotent

In Lebanon and Iraq, guerrilla tactics turn clean, mean fighting machines into wimps.

By Richard K. Betts

08/14/06 "
Los Angeles Times" -- -- BEING A superpower is handy. No government in the world dares stand up to the United States on a regular battlefield. Having more than a quarter of the world's GDP and a half-trillion-dollar defense budget gets us that much — and it's a lot.

Israel is a superpower in its neighborhood too. And yet these two militarily muscular powers find themselves strategically impotent in the face of age-old guerrilla tactics married to high-tech capabilities. Continued.

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