“Gates noted that while progress in Iraq will lead to a reduction in the number of troops there, more troops are needed in Afghanistan because of the worsening violence in that conflict. He said the persistent pace of operations in the two wars over several years has meant a steady increase in the number of troops who are wounded, stressed or otherwise unable to deploy with their units.”

Many people think the Vietnam War was unwinnable, at least in the context in which it was fought. Afghanistan is arguably more difficult, with a long history of invasions which went poorly for the invaders. Now the U.S. is rapidly escalating the war there, though most Americans probably remain largely unaware.

Thus we are in danger of repeating many of the same mistakes of 1965 and 2003, rushing into an escalation of conflict in an area we don’t well understand, with goals we can’t clearly articulate.

There are certainly good reasons to be over there. It is not my intent to argue that we shouldn’t be involved in that part of the world, but that we need to have a vigorous public debate about what are our long-term goals for this war.

As in 1965, we see an escalation occurring without the public really engaged. I suspect most Americans still have the idea that as a result of the 2006 Congressional and 2008 Presidential elections, we were assured a drawdown of our military forces. While this is occurring to some extent in Iraq, Dept. of Defense figures from the end of March (pdf) show total troop deployments were down less than 7,000 (233,800 vs. 240,600) from the end of 2007 (pdf), when the surge in Iraq was beginning to wind down and the presidential primaries were about to start. And now we are seeing substantial increases in both deployments and casualties, sadly, in Afghanistan.

The danger, as in 1965, is that it’s convenient for the military if the public isn’t paying too much attention to an escalation. There’s less scrutiny or criticism in the short run. And once again we’ve got a Democrat-controlled administration and Congress that is looking at massive new social spending programs. In the long run, though, it will be our soldiers and our society that suffers if we don’t get our goals right.

Most important, our military must be given a mission in which it can succeed. 22,000 more troops for the Army will help in the short run, but what is the end game? Just gaining and holding territory in Afghanistan and Pakistan isn’t likely to work anywhere near as well as it’s (hah) worked in Iraq.

Another little detail: after nearly eight years in Afghanistan, and this new escalation, is it not yet time for a formal Congressional declaration of war? Is that too much to ask? The accompanying debate might do a lot to help clarify our goals, because it would force Washington to state clearly who precisely are our enemies.

Certainly, whatever we do in Afghanistan and/or Pakistan is going to continue to be challenging. The culture there has worked out many adaptations for dealing with invaders. Recently, an Army base was expanded into an area filled with Karez, ancient networks of tunnels used both for irrigation and secret movement. A sewer plant was planned right on top of the waterways. By the time the U.S. military realized the error, the Taliban had farmers and other locals in an uproar. How are we supposed to control an area like that?

Like Vietnam, this effort will ultimately require some sort of political and diplomatic solution worked out far from the battlefield. And I really doubt it’s an accident that this announcement has come out the same day:

“U.S. officials “firmly believe” that al-Qaida leaders who planned and carried out the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, are hiding in Pakistan near its border with Afghanistan, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said Monday.”

This is a pretty obvious indication that we shouldn’t be surprised if operations in Afghanistan are again expanded, at least to these parts of Pakistan.

It’s pointless to try to record all my thoughts here, it would go far too long. Let me just state the obvious, the Republican Party has gone terribly astray, to the point that it’s hardly recognizable as a party for true conservatives, and nowhere is this most apparent than in the recent campaign strategy of the McCain-Palin camp. True leadership brings creativity to bear on difficult problems, getting people to work together in innovative ways to solve them. I’ve written a little about the need for such creativity in the pro-life movement, for example.

Sadly, the Republican Party, at least at the national level, instead keeps retreating to worn-out slogans that stifle real discussion of the serious problems we face. This isn’t any news to liberal Democrats or even independents. Rather, the point I’m trying to make is that it’s not working with Republican voters either, yet the Republican leadership remains so frustratingly out of touch, unable to grasp that THEY are going to have to hold themselves to a higher standard, or else the Party itself is in danger of collapsing. Let me just repeat the comment I left earlier today on Carmen Van Kerckhove’s blog Racialicious, in response to “An Open Letter to White Voters“:

Hi Carmen, perhaps you will find my perspective interesting. Whites are such a huge voting block that it’s difficult to generalize, but I will say that as far as Republican demographics go, I should be right in the middle of their voter bloc. I’m a WASP from Texas who has voted a straight Republican ticket several times, & a Christian conservative.

Nevertheless, I’m very unhappy with the Republican congress, in particular, and was never very enthusiastic about voting for McCain, either. The Palin choice is kind of a wash, in my view, she has a lot of qualities I admire, but at the same time doesn’t seem ready to fill McCain’s shoes if something happened to him.

I had just about convinced myself to go ahead and vote for McCain-Palin before they started what’s been about a month of the most bone-headed campaigning I can remember. First they kept Palin off-limits from interviews for the most part (hardly a vote of confidence), then they started the ridiculous attacks on Obama that just seem to keep getting worse.

It’s disturbing to think that Palin may end up destroying her reputation and a promising political future. McCain should have never hired the campaign “experts” that have ruined a campaign that was really starting to connect with voters. We’ve all seen the worst of Republican rhetoric over and over in recent years, and I’m as tired of it as anyone. BTW, it really turns me off when they say “Barack *Hussein* Obama”, as if that’s supposed to imply something. THAT seems pretty racist to me, anyway.

Yes, it’s an insult to all voters to think this sort of campaigning will sway opinion. Barack Obama’s voting record is far too liberal for me to support him, but now I’m really having second thoughts about voting for McCain as well.

It’s sad to see the Republican Party basically falling apart from a lack of leadership. A true leader would never allow that kind of stuff to happen. The only slight hope Republicans have in capturing the White House is if Palin finally says enough, gives the McCain folks an earful, and strikes out on a different course. America is starving for leadership. Can’t any of these “experts” see it obviously isn’t working?!!

As long as the Republican Party sends folks to Washington who then start acting more or less like everyone else in D.C. politics-as-usual, Republicans will continue to fail at being a conservative influence. We need a Republican Party - or some replacement for it - that has an activist bent throughout the ranks and understands it’s fighting a battle and that sacrifices must be made. This is what all true leaders embody, and this is the only solution to America’s many problems: true leadership.

Now Culberson has gotten a reputation as one of the most tech-savvy Congressmen, which seems well-deserved. In May, he did a live video, using his cell phone and the Qik service, of the Mars Phoenix landing from JPL. Culberson’s enthusiasm for space, science and discovery is obvious there. He’s also very active on the fast-growing Twitter social network (@johnculberson), to the point that last week he became embroiled in a flap with Democrat congressional leaders over proposed rule changes that would severely restrict congressional internet video and blog posts.

Asking a question like “What’s wrong with NASA?” is so complex that a long answer is probably of little practical usefulness. I will say that it was a little disturbing how quickly folks who obviously knew far less about NASA than Culberson, including some politicians, turned on him as if he’d blasphemed or something. It’s also frustrating how many immediately viewed this as some sort of attack on the personal integrity of NASA employees.

As someone who once worked, long ago, both for NASA and a contractor, these sorts of arguments seem pretty much pointless. Let me just repeat what I wrote at the Chronicle page:

This has nothing to do with whether NASA has good employees or not. Of course there are many very motivated and dedicated folks at NASA and among the contractors. The real question is whether they’re being used effectively.

Rep. Culberson is right in certain respects. NASA has made great strides in many areas, but two areas, manned spaceflight and propulsion technology, are greatly lagging. We need a concerted effort in advanced propulsion because this drives everything else, and we desperately need strong leadership for a sustained manned spaceflight program.

As far as NASA taking credit for a “growing commercial space industry”, that’s ridiculous. Maybe the agency is finally seeing the light about commercial space, but it’s visionary entrepreneurs and private investors who have long been the driving force.

As to how we should invest funds to best create a vigorous manned space program, I wrote about the basic technical strategy here on my blog AeroGo. Congressmen, responsible for determining NASA’s budget and priorities, at least need to understand the root problem behind our frustrating lack of progress in manned spaceflight, which I noted in this discussion of SpaceShipOne designer Burt Rutan’s criticisms of NASA:

Because its R&D isn’t properly divided between technology development and operations, NASA remains prone to starving technology development whenever funds are tight (i.e. nearly always), which is much of the root problem. I suspect this is a lot of what is upsetting to Rutan about the program, “that you are not going to learn anything new here that is useful for you to go on to the other moons.”

The reality of NASA budgeting over the last 30 years or more has been that of operational manned space projects - Shuttle and ISS - crowding out most everything else, which leads to a very risk-averse R&D environment where breakthroughs are unlikely to occur

NASA will never be a perfectly efficient organization, but it still could accomplish a lot more if its budgeting were realigned to reflect the strategy needed to make steady progress. Manned flight operations cannot be allowed to crowd out space technology research, especially propulsion, anymore than they can be allowed to displace space probes, space science, or aeronautics research.

Because manned spaceflight is so expensive, however, the reality is that it will end up crowding out the others unless Congress imposes budgetary guidelines to protect these other areas that provide so much technological return on investment. Rep. Culberson is right in calling for an overhaul of NASA, but the budgeting process is key. Even without multi-year appropriations, a lot can be accomplished just by making sure NASA isn’t eating its own seed corn, particularly in the area of space technology R&D.

It occurred to me that they need a little perspective on this. I grew up in the 1970s, and for those of us Americans who went through this period when the U.S. was in a severe technophobic angst, and there were constant pronouncements about all the terrible things that were going to happen, I suppose we’re just not so quick to be convinced the world is coming to an end every time scientists start preaching doom and gloom.

This was a very long list of crises that 1960s-70s experts insisted were soon to befall us, most of which I’ve probably (thankfully) forgotten, but which included such calamities as pollution, endangered species, population, overcrowded skies, the San Andreas and yes, even a looming ice age. I guess being terrified of nuclear armageddon just wasn’t enough anymore. The funny thing was, very few of these scientists were talking about an energy crisis.

Of course, even the “energy crisis” didn’t last long, once investors started pouring hundreds of billions into oil, which was $35 when I got out of high school but less than $10 when I got out of college. Jessica titled her post “Scared of Global Warming? Bring in the entrepreneurs!” and so yes, I think she’s right that entrepreneurs and the free market are a lot of the answer to global warming.

In general, though, I think we ought to stop and notice something. It sure seems to me that scientists can get into a negative funk about stuff, and end up focussing too much on the problems rather than the solutions. In fact, I can’t help wondering if it’s sort of the same dynamic as with investment newsletters - negativity and fear apparently sell a lot more newsletters, and a crisis may, sadly, be the only thing that will finally garner a research project any funding.

Now, this is certainly not all the scientists’ fault, nor is the business world off the hook. Just look at the American car industry, one of the most pitiful examples of research budgeting in modern history. Perhaps GM, Ford and Chrysler may be excused for being caught unprepared on fuel economy in the early 70s, since they were already struggling with new emissions restrictions. On the other hand, here we are again thirty years later and, sadly, it seems that only the recent combination of high oil prices, a dropping dollar, and concerns over carbon emissions was finally enough to get them serious again about improving fuel economy.

Amidst all the prognostications, it’s still not clear how global warming is going to play out. Besides the many questions of specific effects in specific places, there’s at least three basic questions involved. First is the question of how fast temperatures will go up. Second, how much will they rise long-term (or is it a runaway increase with no end in sight)? Third, if temperatures can be stabilized, will (can?) they then head back down?

We hear virtually nothing of potentially beneficial effects, but clearly there’s going to be some winners among the many losers from effects of global warming. Interestingly, so far the Russians seem to be the only ones thinking ahead about any positive outcomes from it. As Jessica suggests, entrepreneurs ought to be also. Again, though, we must keep a proper perspective - a long-term perspective.

While there’s a lot we don’t know, we can say that at least for practical purposes, whatever we can do will take place over decades. Realistically, it’s far too late to do anything about changes that may take place within the next decade or so. In other words, whatever research and changes - technological or political - that are to be made must be done consistently over a decades-long time frame.

This is, for example, why I strongly disagree with the basic Kyoto (Treaty) framework. Already China is producing as much carbon emissions as the U.S., and will likely continue to increase. Kyoto might be effective in reducing the emissions of Western industrialized nations, but given these reductions and the continued growth of China, India and other large industrializing countries, within a few years this extremely costly plan will prove ineffective in reducing the bulk of emissions.

We’ve heard from the scientists on global warming, but have yet to hear from the engineers, who are going to be the folks who have to make reductions in carbon emissions actually happen. We need to think about cost/benefit ratios. We also need to think about sustaining research investments over decades, which as the history of NASA indicates, is awfully difficult to do when you start out with crash-program type overbudgeting.

I think it’s a good bet that a lot of these new technologies are going to come from both big American businesses (such as Boeing with its new 787) and American entrepreneurs. This realization may not play well overseas, but any approach such as Kyoto that hobbles the American economy is going to be counterproductive.

Like it or not, the U.S. is still a (if not the) major innovation engine in the world. Companies in Silicon Valley (1, 2, 3) and elsewhere in the U.S. are working on hundreds of different technologies, everything from emission controls to cheap solar to electric cars to wind power and so on. Here in Texas, it’s become common to see the giant parts of wind turbines rolling down the highway on their way west, where hundreds are being put up.

We must remember that innovation, not political decrees, is the only way to solve the problems from global warming, and while we’re at it, let’s not forget to also think about taking advantage of the benefits.