The problem with Syria, (and this may sound unintentionally quite callous) is what is it worth?

In and for itself, perhaps little except to the Syrians, of course. The question for the Neo-Empire and also for the lesser, generally old-fashioned would-be imperialists who have taken a life and death interest, would be the value of Syria, or the cost of abandoning it, in the larger system of relations and designs.

I understand that you are aware of this fact, but the mode of questioning tends to favor the narrower view. The implication is somewhat insulting to Obama. To suggest that he would be looking mainly for a "quick win" is like suggesting his main concern was how many votes he'd win for his party by choosing to bomb vs not to bomb - the very opposite of the "statesman"'s question.

I make these observations as someone who was all along quite skeptical of the arguments being put forth by pro-interventionists, on the basis of the other problem you describe: their and the Syrian revolutionaries' inability to align their cause with American ideals, or, somewhat the same thing, to make the Syrian revolutionary cause "our cause." I think we know or knew what those ideals are (or were) in general terms, and as confirmed for our era during World War II and the Cold War.

As for the present conjuncture, we can see Syria's status as the anti-Iraq as a kind of practical experiment - "What if we try virtually nothing rather than excessively something?" - that Obama's reversal on Assad allowed us to complete. At the same time, that means "What if we try, this time, refusing to extend our sympathies to the potentially unworthy?" Otherwise, there was no "big and obvious win-win" available at any cost Obama and we were willing to pay, if at all. The unwillingness to pay such costs, or to pursue a matter sometimes for less obvious and smaller victories, while facing risks including of failure and "blowback," according to the American faith that "right makes might," would sooner or later be an unwillingness to sustain American "leadership" as we have known it.

Suspect O's unique role if any will be for scholars to draw swords over in future years. My recollection is that Bush moved drones and then weaponized drones into the field/sky/space as soon as they were available, unusually quickly for a new weapons system (war does that), and I think the incentives for O to rely on them and other "special" tools would have been as strong for any other successor of W's.

I think there's clearly some truth to the idea that we want the strategic benefits of WMD without the rather unfortunate by-products of WMD use - which by-products also make WMD virtually unusable, since, if your only response to an opposition is obliteration of large parts of the landscape and all the people and other living things in and around it, and invitation of counter-obliteration, that kinda hems you in. Even in regard to WMD themselves, greater accuracy means that the main objective (destruction of a missile silo, say) can be achieved via smaller warheads. So, the Russkis needed multi-megaton warheads to do what we could do with with sub-megaton payloads. For some purposes, warheads don't need any explosive munitions at all.

I'm just not convinced that Obama has had any unique or more than marginal role in accelerating or focusing this development. It would have provided a path of least resistance for a President McCain or President Romney, too. I think that O's vast unwillingness - which mirrors the country's unwillingness - to invest life and limb at all has produced the focus on this particular set of weapons. It's the only hammer (or one of the very few hammers) we're willing to use at this time, but it's also just the latest extension of the general radical heightening of "kill ratios." Even if a President McCain had double-down on COIN and the Neo-Con project for Iraq, he or his Pentagon would still have been refining drone and other WPD (I like that!) practices and technologies

A well-trained and -equipped force is expected to enjoy high kill ratios vs. inferior forces, 2 or 20 or 100 to 1, as we are used to seeing in Israeli-Palestinian clashes (and prisoner exchanges!) for example, or as during both Iraq wars. Drone warfare, at least in the short term, seems to offer an infinite (divide-by-zero -> error) kill ratio - but there are, as you note, perverse effects. One is to drive the enemy to develop new types of a-symmetric and indirect response - and to preserve an unintimidated and resentful, hostile population where once upon a time we might have produced relatively docile, fearful and dependent loser-survivors prepared to try something else out (Japan, Germany). The other, connected effect is to raise the question of whether drone warfare is really warfare at all. If you're not yourself risking your own life, are you really a "soldier" engaged in "combat," or are you some kind of exterminator, de-humanizing both victim and victimizer?

Obama and his "kill list" creep us out, but they make perfect sense, moral and otherwise, from another perspective, since non-state actors or terrorists operating outside of the law of war (the war conventions) aren't worthy enemies. Under old regimes of international law, going back to ancient times, those who did not agree to and operate within the conventions were not subject to their protection either. Upon encountering a pirate, brigand, insurrectionist, and others, a soldier could, and in some situations was expected to, perform summary execution. The confusion over the status and proper treatment of non-state combatants is typical and problematic for the current era in international law - and can be seen as part of the same neo-imperialist project of extending a regime of "universal" human rights all around the globe. We've looked at this problem more systematically in past discussions of drones and torture.

I'd have to dispute some of those assertions.

WMD work by "mass" destruction, but the line of development with US weaponry - a few exceptions like thermobaric bombs notwithstanding - has been toward greater precision, which serves several parallel purposes, including the intention or hope at least up through the Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts of winning the hearts and minds of non-combatant populations (at home as well as abroad, as a matter of fact). However, there's more to strategy than weaponry, and not all conflicts or axes of conflict are alike. Petraeus COIN strategy, for example, relied in part on increased "presence" of American military and civilian personnel, in a range of roles beyond "kinetic" combat. (It also turned out that we did not have the patience to execute or test the strategy as designed: It was supposed to need at least 10 years in Iraq, and we gave it a fraction of that.)

Also, the emphasis on technological advantage in warfare goes back to around the first time one of our forebears crushed someone else's skull with a rock. If the American way of war has the character now of a "hyper-technologization," that seems a product of the American age, and nothing I'd attribute specifically to Obama. Ever since the US military determined that it would be "second to none," it has sought technological advantage as a matter of course, and it has been in the position to seek not just advantage, but something close to un-challengeable superiority in key areas. The intention is to dissuade anyone else even from attempting to compete - to specifically self-reinforcing and generally stabilizing effect - although a byproduct is that the reasons why the US might for example, want or need to dominate the oceans of the world fade from public consciousness and the ability of pro-military politicians and pundits to articulate them begins to atrophy. In order to appreciate the value of a reliable, uninterrupted global resource and supply chain, we may need to experience the effects of its interruption and destabilization.

My questions regarding Joe's statements about weapon systems weren't questions about their existence. I don't make as much of an effort as I used to to keep up on this stuff in detail, but I've been aware of the various technologies and systems his links describe for quite some time. My question had to do with the conclusions he reached.

We know what he tells us, and his thinking about Syria and other matters make no reference to a military-technological arms race. I have to wonder where you're getting your information, and why you consider it credible.