Foreign-ish Affairs

[edschweppe]

Also known as "The third presidential debate, that was supposed to be all about foreign policy except when the candidates wanted to repeat their domestic agendas". Surprisingly, that wasn't that often. Also, surprisingly, both President Obama and Governor Romney kept agreeing with each other on what needs to be done overseas - isolate Iran, have stronger alliances, be tough with China on trade, more apple pie [1], etc.

The arguments were almost all about what are really domestic issues - what to do to make America stronger so it can lead even more in the world. Romney tried pulling the "Navy is the smallest since 1917" line in terms of sheer number of hulls; Obama countered by noting that we also have fewer horses and bayonets[2] now compared to 1917, and that we have these things called aircraft carriers and nuclear submarines.

Unfortunately, nobody talked about global warming. No surprise, perhaps, but unfortunate none the less. When Bob Schieffer asked each candidate what the biggest threat to national security was, Obama said terrorism and Romney said Iran. I guess flooding in Florida isn't enough of a vote grabber yet.

Overall? No big game changing surprises here, or thus sayeth I. Now to go and see what the pundits think ...

[1] Okay, I made up the bit about apple pie.
[2] And now there's a Horses and Bayonets Tumblr!

Comments

[jhetley.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure about the bayonets. Last I knew, the military still had 'em. As the overall military remains large, I suspect the number of bayonets remains high.

[johnpalmer.livejournal.com]

It would be interesting to find out. I saw one comment that said marines have bayonets as part of their basic kit, and that certain soldiers do too (I don't think it was *all* infantry, though - just those on certain assignments).

[jhetley.livejournal.com]

We'd also need an accurate 1917 count. When the US finally entered WWI, we didn't have enough rifles to equip all the troops. I suspect bayonets were also down at that time.

[edschweppe.livejournal.com]

I can't speak to the bayonets (except to note that we didn't have any on the Ustafish), but I can speak to the ship totals. According to the Naval History and Heritage Command website (http://www.history.navy.mil/branches/org9-4.htm), the Navy had 160 surface warships and 342 total active ships as of April 7, 1917; as of September 30, 2011, there were 122 surface warships (including aircraft carriers, but not including the amphibious assault ships that anybody else would call an aircraft carrier) and 285 total ships.

Of course, in December 1916, there were only 130 surface warships and 245 ships total. Governor Romney picked his date carefully.