The above map shows why AFRICOM is just about as busy as CENTCOM. But with a renewed American focus on resisting state actors, AFRICOM will remain low on military asset allocation. So The AFRICOM Queen may be the best option for supporting American operations (near the coasts) in the theater against the jihadi threats.
I sincerely hope that whoever searched for "apocalypse porn" as my statistics package indicated was searching for what I wrote about.
The Grunt Air Force.
I found an old analysis of the Russian war against Georgia in August 2008. The author wrote that Russia didn't really perform that well despite so many observers praising the Russian performance. I was puzzled by the praise because I just didn't see it, especially given the truncated nature of the offensive. Russia merely won what the already controlled. They won the battles, but they should have beaten far weaker Georgia. This was--after ignoring pre-war warnings--a symbol of Russia's resolve to reverse their defensive crouch and a dose of self esteem. But it was a warning to the world, too. With Russia really highlighting their weakness and paranoia. We erred in treating Russia so well after winning the Cold War, contrary to the Russian notion that we were harsh--not that we had the option of something like the post-World War II de-Nazification with the huge Soviet/Russian nuclear arsenal. And here we are belatedly taking Russian threats seriously again.
The Resistance is either stunningly stupid or knowingly lying about the fascist threat to their existence. Tip to Instapundit.
Sure, China's build up on their manufactured South China Sea islands serve to claim and defend the region and as a defended power projection platform.
Mauldin Economics discusses the EMP threat. I have no idea if an electromagnetic pulse would be a nuisance or a lethal blow. But I wouldn't mind hardening key infrastructure and stockpiling important equipment in safe places to replace destroyed equipment when that equipment takes a long time to produce.
The Marines are reviving old skills in cold weather fighting. I knew soldiers who went through cold weather training, and they were impressed by the effort needed just to survive outside in that environment. There's a reason there is a Taliban "fighting season" in Afghanistan.
Plans for expanding local defense forces continues in Afghanistan. It is called "controversial." When regular security forces are too few or too far, local defense forces are absolutely necessary to keep the Taliban and other jihadis from taking over areas. It is "controversial" in the sense that they can and often do degenerate into private gangs that move into crime to sustain themselves and threaten the state it is supposed to support. So they have to be watched closely and disbanded when no longer needed. But they are absolutely needed now.
Lack of rule of law in Mali seems to doom the country to jihadi infestation. But at least their is an alliance of local states with Western support to fight the jihadis more effectively.
We need Pakistan's cooperation to really defeat the Afghan Taliban. But I don't have to like having Pakistan as an ally under the circumstances: "[Asia Bibi, a Catholic woman,] has been living on death row in Pakistan since 2010, when she was condemned for allegedly making derogatory remarks about Islam after neighbors objected to her drinking water from their glass because she was not Muslim."
An interesting article on the focus on readiness in the new defense budget. As I noted, America has ended the 10-year rule instituted in 2009 that harmed our readiness. And as I also noted, expanding the force shouldn't take place before making sure what we have now can fight.
Is it a comfort or inconvenient that school mass shooting aren't going up? I ask because while I don't dismiss arming trained teachers if local schools want to, if our schools aren't actually getting more dangerous you have to consider the increased risk of accidental shootings from armed teachers (or teachers that go off their meds and open fire) that is supposed to be less than the reduction of deaths from outside shooters coming into our schools. If school shootings aren't really going up, then you simply add to the risk to students by arming even willing and capable teachers or staff, no?
Good enough for government work. My views waaay pre-election that Trump presidential appointments would operate separately from the president's temperament have proven true. Yep. Although I concede that the policy might not have happened without the bad temperament. Tips to Instapundit.
Strategypage has a good post on Iraq, which wants Americans to stay post-ISIL. But I'd like to quibble with the idea that Iraq resisted a status of forces agreement that would keep Americans in Iraq after 2011 yet in contrast agreed to one in 2014 to fight ISIL. The problem in 2011 was that President Obama insisted on Iraq's parliament approving the agreement. Iranian pressure and inflated Iraqi ideas of what Iraq could do on their own blocked that. In 2011 we could have gotten an executive approval in Iraq of a SOFA--what we got in 2014.
I, for one, welcome our new
China is smartly investing in intelligence collection ships. That's a serious effort to prepare for war. Not that I'm saying they are preparing to initiate war--that would be immensely useful if China is attacked. Although that would obviously be useful if they do plan to start a war.
A commitment to rule of law would have given this woman prison time.
This is bouncing the rubble I've already contributed to, but once again we are reminded of the sorry state of the German military. The quote from the defense minister is just astounding in its ignorance.
So was there a mailed chemical attack on one of our military bases in northern Virginia?
In fairness to China, China's planes were in international air space and not South Korean territorial air space. Although making the complaint might be South Korea's point for complaining in light of China's excessive claims beyond legal territorial air and sea space.
The Israeli air force says that they lost a plane to Syrian massed missile fire because of pilot error. I had heard equipment failure that led pilot to be unable to execute standard evasive maneuvers.
Also, the fog of the February Israel-Syria clash continues to be lifted. I was unsure of whether there was one or two waves of Israeli attacks. This description says two--and speculates about a third wave. Also, Russia called Israel to get them to halt. Although I have no idea if that was even necessary. But Russia can tell Assad it was absolutely necessary, of course.
Sweden is buying Patriot air defense missiles. Which will help Sweden be a defended rear area of a NATO campaign to protect the Baltic states from Russian aggression.
I'm not sure how you examine a lot of data and conclude that "U.S. troop presence does not appear to reduce the risk of intrastate conflict or affect the level of state repression. U.S. military assistance is not associated with changes in interstate conflict behavior. However, provision of U.S. military assistance may be associated with increased state repression and incidence of civil war. These findings have implications for near-term decisionmaking on U.S. forward troop presence in Europe and Asia." Does it occur to anybody that the American military may be deployed in areas that have particularly large security problems that might make the situation intrinsically worse than areas America doesn't bother to deploy troops to? I think it is astonishing to conclude that the presence of American troops may make conditions worse.
I guess South Africa would like to follow the trail that Zimbabwe blazed to their distinction of being a sh*thole state. South Africa has promise to lead the development of the region. This will likely end that promise.
If you loved being misled by an idiot in order to undermine American national security, you'll love this!
I know the resistance thinks Trump virtually invented racist and anti-Semitic hatred, but that view had friends in high places long before Trump allegedly validated it. Tip to Instapundit.
That's interesting. Equally interesting is that people apparently don't just dump garbage on top of the new grass planted in the vacant lots. But while the headline implies that, the story only claims a 30% drop in illegal dumping. So the garbage accumulation just slowed. I have to believe something is missing from the story. Was there a routine government presence as the grass was watered and maintained--and the garbage still being dumped at 70% of the former rate was removed--that could account for the crime drop? So I count that as an interesting if true article. Tip to Instapundit.
Strategypage looks at Chinese inroads in the Maldive Islands and in other areas around India. With bonus Transparency International Corruption Perception Index information.
Actual oppression of Moslems.
As a rule, I strongly oppose punitive tariffs. I'm hoping this is the opening bid in negotiations.
Trump and Russia? That's not collusion with foreigners. That's collusion with foreigners.
The US is pressuring the Gulf Arab states to settle their differences with Qatar. Qatar is a bit of a problem in regard to working with Islamists and Iran, although it is an ally too. But that problem applies to the other side of this divide as well, truth be told. Let's work on those problems without expelling one part of an anti-Iran coalition.
I hope you notice that President Trump did not respond in kind to Putin's nuclear sabre rattling that came complete with a video of Russia nuking Florida. I know a lot of people seemed seriously worried when Trump replied in kind to Kim Jong-Un's bellicose nuclear statements that a nuclear war would result. I hope this difference reassures people that North Korea is not really a threat for full-blown nuclear war as Russia is--and that Trump isn't risking nuclear war by trying to show North Korea that they don't intimidate us (not yet anyway).
I believe I mentioned in a recent data dump that Iran was avoiding the bad optics of arresting hijab protesters. Apparently they think Western media attention has wandered enough to crack down hard. I keep hearing about a "war on women" but nobody ever seems to look where it is actually happening.
If China thought they could leverage an advantage over Taiwan in exchange for doing something about North Korea--scoring a twofer given that dealing with North Korea is in China's interests at this point--Trump is signaling that Taiwan won't be thrown under the bus by signing legislation to tighten relations with Taiwan.
