File it under, “What a way to run a war.” A file that should be bursting at the seams after the last several weeks of outright lunacy.
From the BBC: Nato appeals for more fighter aircraft.
Nato Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen has told a foreign ministers’ summit the alliance needs “a few more” aircraft for its mission in Libya.
Mr Rasmussen said he had received no “specific pledges or promises from this meeting” in Berlin, but he remained hopeful.
He said Nato would continue “day by day, strike by strike” to target forces loyal to Col Muammar Gaddafi.
Britain and France have been trying to persuade other Nato members to do more.
Mr Rasmussen told the meeting that Nato supreme commander Adm James Stavridis was “generally content” with his forces.
[…]“To avoid civilian casualties we need very sophisticated equipment so we need a few more precision fighter ground attack aircraft for air-to-ground missions.”
He added: “I am confident that nations will step up to the plate.”
[…]Some assessments suggest that Nato only needs about a dozen or so extra strike aircraft to maintain the tempo of operations.
It’s about maintaining the tempo of operations. No one even mentions any kind of concept vaguely related to victory. War, for this crop of leaders, has truly been reduced to a game, albeit one in which they want their fellow contestants to participate more than they do. Insert quantity of planes in slot A, to get desired result from vending slot B. Except that no one can even say what the desired result is! And of-course, you don’t actually call it a war. It’s nothing so dramatic and violent as all that. It’s merely a perfectly reasonable activity where everything is under control and proceeding in an orderly fashion.
To say that hubris is running amok here would be a significant understatement.