Why would you think pointing a gun in your face is “sending a message”?
The United States’ largest naval exercise in decades, involving the deployment around the globe of seven of the Navy’s 12 carrier battle groups, is not designed to send political signals to potential enemies, a senior Navy officer said Thursday.
“If others on the other side of a curtain will want to take lessons from that, I think that’s advantageous,” he said.
Translation: We are sending a message. Unfortunately, the We-Have-the-Mightiest-Penis message so favored by the neo-cons, a) isn’t appreciated by those who might be allies and, b) doesn’t work. As Vietnam and Iraq demonstrate, being examples of what that US military calls asymmetric warfare, smaller size is not neccesarily a disadvantage.