Subject: Re: Is NATO figuring it out?
No, just pointing out the inconsistency of your position. If the europeans don't have much naval strength, as you suggest, and Trump is insisting that this is something the Europeans could (or should) do, then it's clearly something that we could do ourselves - even while conducting offensive operations.

There's no inconsistency whatsoever. If anything, it's *yours*. You're the one who has been telling me - insisting, even - that the europeans are ready and able to defend themselves and their interests.

So why aren't they responding to attacks on neutral shipping in international waters, something that Hitler did?

Because we already blew nearly everything up the last time we were there.

Oh, really? I seem to recall you lamenting that the last set of strikes didn't accomplish anything and that air power alone doesn't do jack squat.

So which is it? Did we degrade or eliminate their nuclear and other capabilities or have we not?
And if we did last time, why are we not (in your view) going to accomplish anything this time around?

Unless there isn't a scenario where attacking them can prevent them from having a nuke, at any cost you're willing to accept. If you're not going to do an Iraq-style invasion, and anything short of that won't prevent them from getting a nuke if they want one, then what you would call strategic inaction may be the only option.

You literally just got through saying
Because we already blew nearly everything up the last time we were there. And the DNI's office confirmed that they didn't rebuild any of the stuff we blew up last time.

Again, which is it?

If you can't stop them from getting a nuke by bombing them, and if your country is unwilling to invade with ground troops, then "strategic inaction" may be all that's left. I mean, there's always diplomacy, but you have to believe that would work for that to be an alternative. There's always the option of bribing them not to go for a nuke, which is what we were doing for a while....but if you're going to reject that, you're foreclosing a lot of the potential action space.

I'm sure this very conversation was held at 10 Downing St. in March of 1936. How did it work out for the world? Or the version of this conversation that happened either in Foggy Bottom or the White House Situation Room in the late 1990s?