An online journal of commentary, analysis, and dignified rants on national security issues. Other posts on home life, annoying things, and a vast 'other' are clearly marked.
I live and blog in Ann Arbor, Michigan. University of Michigan AB and MA from Eastern Michigan University. One term in the Michigan Army National Guard. Former American history instructor and retired nonpartisan research analyst. Various military and private journals have published my occasional articles on military subjects. See "My Published Works" on the TDR web version or under the mobile version drop-down menu for citations and links.
I have finally salvaged my pre-Blogger TDR archives and added them into Blogger. They are almost totally in the form of one giant post for each month. And the formatting strayed from the originals. Sorry.
But historians everywhere can rejoice that this treasure trove of my thoughts is restored to the world.
And for your own safety, don't click on any old Geocities links or any of their similar variations in my posts. Those sites have been taken over by bad and/or dangerous sites. Hover over links first!
In 2001, Afghanistan was almost
completely under control of the Taliban, which gave al Qaeda a sanctuary
and shielded them from outsiders. So we invaded it. Today we are supporting a friendly
government that is killing jihadis every day and preventing terrorists
from having a safe sanctuary.
The idea that terror only needs sparking
via the Internet conflates individuals who kill
in ones or twos or maybe scores if lucky or particularly deadly with big
plots. September 11, 2001 saw nearly three thousand murdered. Big
difference. I'd rather face the "lone wolves" rather than deal with the terror organization that can set up the big attacks.
The second reason given that we are now really good at killing terrorists
ignores that we are killing individual terrorists who lack a sanctuary.
With a sanctuary, others more easily fill the void and the organization continues to
plot. You'll notice that despite killing Soleimani, Iran remains a
source of terrorism. And the individuals incited here at home are basically police and intelligence problems, separate from the organizations or ideas that inspire them.
Keeping enough troops in Afghanistan to convince
allies to remain in order to keep local Afghans killing jihadis,
providing intelligence on jihadi activities, and preventing a sanctuary
from being built is still needed and is absolutely 2021--and beyond--thinking.
This is good, but I hope it isn't too little, too late:
Taiwan has started building its first domestically developed submarine, with a US combat system, as it tries to boostthe self-ruled island’s defences against increasing military threats from Beijing. ...
It
will be armed with MK-48 Mod 6 Advanced Technology heavyweight
torpedoes, UGM-84L sub-launched Harpoon Block II missiles, and other
combat and digital sonar systems provided by US suppliers Lockheed
Martin and Raytheon, Taiwanese naval officials said.
Sea trials aren't expected until 2025, however. The rest of the eight planned will take longer, of course. I wish Taiwan had started this project long ago given the time it has taken just to get this far.
Pollsters did as bad in 2020 as they did in 2016 despite their pledge after 2016 to do better by understanding the voters they missed in 2016. So they didn't have ignorance as an excuse, so arguably they did worse. Of course, the question of whether pollsters failed to do better or simply joined their writing and speaking brethren in openly advocating for Democrats is the main question. But if the pollsters are sincerely interested in doing better in reaching conservatives, maybe telling Democrats to stop talking about purging and reeducating Trump supporters would be helpful.
I have never really bought the Heritage Foundation's criteria for measuring American military strength. Sure, in regard to formal objectives we fall short. Call us "marginally" capable if you want. There is some use in that measure. But I guarantee that every other country on the planet has a military far less capable of meeting their own objectives than the American military's capabilities. And on the issue of fighting two major foes at once, we never really met that standard. And given the rise of China while having to watch Russia, too, we won't. Not alone anyway.
Perhaps Trump needs to admit he lost the election battle but pursue victory in the war of ideas. I've said in the last data dump that proof of massive conspiracy--or something like it--needs to come out soon because seeking a Constitutional but rare state Congressional delegation vote without that proof will not be tolerated. And it should not be as much as I lament the apparent victory of Biden. Better to endure a poor emperor than take an extraordinary measure outside of the law that defeats that emperor in favor of a good emperor and guarantee endless battles for the purple for generations to come. I can't remember who said that in regard to the Roman empire. Better to investigate the election after Biden's inauguration and use, if necessary and justified, the provisions in the Constitution on impeachment. Democrats might well rue the day they lowered the bar for the impeachment avenue for a BS charge against Trump. But there is some time in the process before that shift has to be made.
Well, who should be first, then? What the Hell happened to Mattis? Liberals used to be outraged at his forthrightness about killing our enemies. Now he's a liberal poster boy for approved military men. It seems like Mattis is just one more person who was broken by Trump Derangement Syndrome. Tip to Instapundit.
Early in the week Trump authorized transition activities in case he loses his legal cases. I assume liberals will never lose their fear of the Trumptatorship even after Biden is sworn in. Perhaps there will be a curative Rose Garden 2-minute hate every day to ward off his possible return.
It really annoys me that liberals say Republicans need to accept that Trump lost. Results haven't even been certified yet. Democrats didn't accept that Hillary lost--ever--and tried strenuously to get rid of Trump to reverse that outcome.
When the pandemic lockdowns pass I'm going to make more efforts to get out and do things.
I find it amusing that the morons predicting Trump militias gunning down Democrats in the streets are now pretending that their Tweets prevented the slaughter and stealing of the election. We know that Twitter doesn't work against actual tyrants. If the Trumptatorship could be stopped by Tweets, it really wasn't that big of a threat. How sad is that for the self esteem of the Resistance?
Given Kerry's track record--say, how'd that Iran reset go?--America will surrender to climate change under Kerry's deft hand on the climate portfolio tiller. But at least we know he'll jet around the world as often as he has to in order to get a deal, complete with a lovely document decked out with ribbons and wax seals. The signing ceremony--and menu--in a Swiss castle will be awesome.
It would be funny if California municipalities declared themselves to be Thanksgiving and Christmas Sanctuary Cities in the face of the governor's abusive Xi Jinping Flu pandemic restrictions. Restrictions he doesn't care to follow. Actually I wouldn't be shocked if more rural areas around the country do this.
That's good news if true, right? "In other words, it appears that the only time people can infect others is when they have the virus for the first time, and only when they are symptomatic." [emphasis in original] The study was published in Nature magazine. Although I don't believe masks are unimportant given that people with symptoms will go in public despite knowing they have it, or thinking they just have a cold. But masks shouldn't be fetishized as a silver bullet solution, certainly.
The late-to-the-scene Obama people who would be the puppet masters. Wait. What? I thought that was Harris's job. Or Biden's wife's job. The struggle for the Oval Throne could get ugly. You either win that game or you go to cable news, right? Although the action of the Obama people who didn't campaign for Biden shows they are more grown up than the Republicans who refused to staff the Trump White house, eh?
Public schools in Massachusetts are losing students. Private and home schooling account for a good chunk, but what about the rest? Are they in other states or did they just fall through the cracks out of education altogether? I wonder how many are lost across the country? And I wonder what the impact of that lost cohort who fall through the cracks during the anti-science school shutdowns will be on society and crime rates over the next generation?
At this point I'm doubting that Trump can prove sufficient fraud to
change the formal election outcome. I figure there was fraud and it
might have been enough to flip key states. But this is because the
vote-by-mail system added during the pandemic panic is too vulnerable to
fraud yet impossible to detect if those who count it want to ignore
fraud and error. And there would be plenty of both as people were
motivated to vote via mail against Trump by the relentless media
propaganda over the last four years portraying Trump as orange Hitler
and falsely claiming his supporters are evil, too. Violence isn't the
answer to the injustice. The damage to America would be too great on
that route. Better to contain Biden's administration with all legal
levers of power left and work to clean up the voting system for next
time, including prosecuting anybody who can be caught. Containment will
be made easier by the factional nature of the Biden administration which
includes Biden's people, Obama's people, Harris's people, and even more
radical Red Guards competing for power. Heck, Biden's wife might have
her own faction before long. There will be opportunity in that division,
even if the Senate line does not hold. Later: And let me add that only Trump may have united all the Democratic factions. Which supports my speculation. Still, the process has time before election decisions are final.
If there was justice, there would be an amazing revelation that torpedoes Biden's apparent victory. But at best, I think, Trump will flip a state called for Biden and have to settle for a moral victory that justifies further investigation into voter fraud after Biden takes office. If that pans out, then it all hinges on Republicans controlling Congress after 2022. Whether that means impeachment or holding the line until 2024 will depend on how active Biden's people are in pen and phone antics.
This behavior should not be tolerated in a workplace. What exactly is their major malfunction? Tell those crybulllies to clear out their desks because the employer isn't there to endure their tantrums until they grow up. I'm sure plenty of people can replace them. Heck, employers should revive the Roman decimation practice and have the woke crybully employees publicly draw lots for who goes. Maybe the remainder will settle the ef down and do their jobs. The fired can enjoy the lockdown job market. Or learn to code, as blue collar workers have been advised in the past. Smells like woke spirit, eh?
Prince Charles makes me regret that America didn't counter-invade Britain in 1816 and frog march the royal family out of their palaces. We're sorry Britain.
Biden's intent to open the immigration spigot is a big FU to American blue collar workers and the unemployed, of every race and ethnicity. Isn't it kind of racist for Democrats to insist on locking down Americans yet invite brown-skinned people in to provide low-wage services to them?
Trump pardoned Flynn. Good. I'm agnostic on whether he should have been in the Trump administration. But he had honorable military service. And he should never have been prosecuted. I know, Democrats say Pence fired him for lying to him. But while lying to Pence was a firing offense it is not a criminal offense. And for political reasons the FBI entrapped Flynn on a lie to them. Yes, Flynn pled guilty but it was just to end the legal ordeal that was grinding up his family in the process. Remember, the process is the punishment when the government puts unlimited resources into a witch hunt against a mere individual who is impoverished making a legal defense. Now how does Flynn get four years of his life back?
Whether in the Obama administration or not, saying that "enhanced interrogation" is "torture" does not make it so. If something is torture, as a rule that should be followed 99.999% of the time I do not think we should torture. But there are unpleasant methods that don't reach the level of torture. I'm fine with those against our worst terrorist enemies to protect us. We need definitions we agree on before we have a debate on torture. Heck, we can even decide that options below the threshold of actual torture should be forbidden. Why do we even need to have a pointless debate on whether enhanced interrogation is torture? Is the purpose of the debate to damn Americans for doing that to protect us or to stop what is claimed to be a practice America should not do? Don't forget there are trade-offs with that decision, however. As an aside, torture does work, contrary to assertions to the contrary. It works in specific situations against people you are sure are guilty and when you have other information to corroborate answers and guide questioning. What doesn't work is mass torture of randomly grabbed suspects when you really know nothing about what you are looking for. In that case people really will tell you anything at all to get the torture to stop. And in that case torture doesn't work and is counter-productive.
The Philippines is trying to match China's subliminal warfare in the South China Sea: "In light of the American pledge of support the Philippines is organizing
CAAS (Cafgu Active Auxiliary Service), a naval militia meant confront
the existing Chinese one. CAAS will not be as large as the Chinese
militia but it will be large enough to confront and block some Chinese
militia efforts. China could escalate and use force but that would be
very risky with American naval and air forces in the vicinity."
Unrest is bubbling in North Korea. North Korea has seemingly been on the cusp of unrest for a long time and I've stopped trying to see the early warning signs of actual regime or state collapse.
Details on the F-35 sale to the UAE. In my view, the UAE doesn't need these planes to deal with Iran, their only likely foreign enemy. This is just a status symbol purchase. Which won't help dealing with a threat coming from the 80% of the population that isn't part of the citizenry of the UAE if Iran incites some portion into revolt. Although as I've noted, selling the F-35 to the UAE makes it easier for America to deploy our F-35s there and to use them with plausible deniability.
Johns Hopkins researchers concluded there have been no excess deaths in 2020 despite the Xi Jinping Flu pandemic? Well that would undermine the idea that America has effed up the covid-19 response, eh? And doesn't it say that perhaps pandemic-caused deaths were exaggerated in our statistics, as I've long suspected? I'm willing to ponder the chance that our responses made this less deadly than it would have been otherwise rather than concluding that we have overreacted. But right now I do think the broad lockdowns after April were an overreaction. Whether or not past actions were an overreaction, shouldn't this help reduce overreactions going forward? I'm not willing to say this has been from evil people trying to control us, using the pandemic as an excuse. I think it is more akin to mass hysteria from well-intentioned public health people; fear of government officials that they will be blamed if they don't do what everyone else is doing, regardless of whether it is right or wrong (safety in numbers); and the natural tendency of statists in government and the media to think more state control is the solution to every problem. But I freely admit that this excess death issue is out of my lane. It might be a BS claim and I'll wait before I accept it as real. Via Instapundit.
The Electoral College contains presidential election fraud. Can you imagine what the process would look like if Trump had to prove fraud in all the states and DC because we had national vote elections instead? Let the process work and be grateful we have our system. And who knows, maybe the evidence I've long insisted is needed to prove fraud and error--and this is odd, isn't it?--will be revealed in time to affect the election outcome. It is 2020, after all.
America counts any death with Covid-19 as a Xi Jinping Flu death: "If someone dies with COVID-19, we are counting that as a COVID-19 death." And it gets worse. If you have symptoms consistent with the coronavirus, it is counted as covid-19 even without a positive test. I've been saying this for a long time. Always check the Definitions section, I say.As the article notes, there is financial incentive to report COVID-19 deaths. One day we'll find that America did not screw up the response to this pandemic any worse than anyone else. And who knows how good our 2020 response will look with consistent definitions? When does the Biden CDC change the definition to show dramatic improvement? Tip to Instapundit.
I still fear that the EU will snatch Brexit from Britain before a final deal can be made. Why more British aren't determined to escape when they have seen how vengeful Brussels has been to punish Britain for leaving is beyond me. Honestly, Scotland would have an easier time leaving the United Kingdom if it votes to do so. Or should the rest of Britain then be a bunch of a-holes and punish the Scottish until they relent and remain?
Could another Republican leader appeal to minorities on the promise of shared Americanism rather than trying to compete with Democrats by pandering and bribing, which only increases divisions? Trump did succeed in that. Although admittedly part of that success followed from the Democrats abandoning blue collar roots (of all races and ethnicities despite the surface appeals) for their woke coalition of leftist college graduates and the non-working poor. I fear a new Republican candidate will fail to build on Trump's success and will instead assume this is a new normal that doesn't need cultivating in the same way.
The Usual Suspects have condemned Israel's assassination of a top Iranians nuclear scientist. The usual suspects fear it will get in the way of restoring the Iran Reset. It's funny how nothing Iran has done could possibly get in the way of the glories of Reset (tip to Instapundit). It takes a lot of lying to cover up Iran's record of violence and deceit. So the usual suspects in and around the Biden administration will ramp up Lying 2.0 to drag the carcass of the Iran Nuclear deal back over that finish line. Maybe Trump should submit the original Iran nuclear deal to the Senate for traditional approval (2/3 required to pass) now while he is in office and the Republicans set the agenda for sure. That would establish it as an actual treaty unlike the Obama approach that flipped the process on its head, wouldn't it?
I've been getting repeated hits from Britain in recent weeks on this post about Army reorganization, which re-posts--with some of my corrections to editing problems during publication--an old article of mine in Military Review. Odd, that is.
I don't do sports commentary. I've blogged on experiencing sports. But that's different. I won't pretend to know enough to call plays or choose players. But let me address motivation and recongnition with the Michigan football team. I was in favor of giving Harbaugh's two predecessors five full years to get things going. My view did not prevail. Yet I was pleased to have Harbaugh and hoped he might stay a long time. Yet here we are in year six of the Harbaugh era and while year five saw me on the bubble, I was fine with him staying. But this year has pushed me to regime change. Harbaugh should go. We gave the win-less Penn State their first win this year! It would defy all probability to get a non-losing season this year, now. Harbaugh must go. And I say that reluctantly. The transfer of our pre-season assumed starting quarterback should have been the canary in the coal mine moment that the team is wilting, as my son--who does know enough to call plays and choose players--noted after this weekend's game. With a new coach I suggest two things to promote the team, the team, the team. One, Michigan stadium has the Big Ten flying flags around the rim. I suggest that the flags of each university be at half-staff if we lost the last game we played against them. It would be a big deal see a flag raised and a celebration to see every flag around the stadium flying full-staff, an event celebrated before each game that achievement honor held. And at each pre-game coach's press conference, the coach would need to explain what the team was doing to prepare for the team that Michigan is playing next that beat us the last time we played. Further, no more helmet stickers for individual plays of merit. That does not support the team, the team, the team. Instead, after each victory, every member of the team that played on the field that game--no matter how long--gets a helmet sticker with the other school's logo on it. Think of them as fighter plane kill flags. For the team that won and not for individual recognition. Michigan needs an actual team again and not just a bunch of players in the same uniform.
Will Trump play the ultimate card by attacking Iran's nuclear infrastructure to prevent Biden from restoring the horrible Iran nuclear deal? What flows from that threat?
Israel Defense Forces have been preparing for the possibility that the U.S. military will strike Iran during the last two months of President Trump's term, according to a report.
This comes a week after the New York Times reported that Trump asked senior advisers about his options to strike Iran's main nuclear site after international inspectors reported details about a significant increase in the Iran's stockpile of nuclear material.
There
is no intelligence that indicates an imminent U.S. strike but Israeli
officials anticipate that the coming weeks will be “a very sensitive
period," according to Axios.
Are the Saudis and Israelis really discussing how to cope with an American strike, as the article speculates?
Or are the Israelis and Saudis coordinating on how to launch a joint operation to hit Iran's nuclear facilities while Trump is in office to shield them in the international community?
I will say that it annoys me that Democrats claim that the awful Iran nuclear deal prevented Iran from going nuclear and that pulling out of the deal
allows Iran to go nuclear.
Fordow can be used for enrichment research as long as it doesn't use
nuclear material. I assume Iran can learn a lot from this that is
applicable to nuclear technology. And I guess the West is supposed to
help since we commit to "international collaboration in the form of
scientific joint partnerships."
Which will be of use when all international limits and scrutiny on
Iran's nuclear program end, according to the deal.
If there is to be military action against Iran in the next two months to stop Iran's obvious nuclear weapon ambition, I'll say it will be Israeli-Saudi action and a Gulf Arab shield in the Persian Gulf to block Iranian retaliation against oil traffic; with the threat of American military action a red herring and reserve to protect oil traffic. If so, expect some American military deployments that appear to telegraph an American attack but which really increase our ability to maintain oil flows (and guard American forces in the region against Iranian attack).
The scientist, Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, was described by U.S. and Israeli
intelligence assessments as the force behind Iran’s nuclear weapons
program. News reports in Iran say he died after being attacked in a
vehicle.
Time has given Israel better weapons plus Gulf Arab cooperation and friendship based on mutual fear of Iran. A further development is plentiful global oil supplies to blunt the Iranian oil flow weapon.
UPDATE: Trump is pushing more peace in the Middle East. The Trump administration really needs to explain to the Saudis and others that if they want to cement the anti-Iran alliance and make it Biden proof, they have to get on board now and normalize relations with Israel.
Over the next four years, Euro-Atlantic relations deteriorated to an
unprecedented level as the U.S. president embraced Brexit, abandoned the
Paris climate accords and damned the European Union as a “foe.”
Europeans watched in dismay as Trump detonated the Iran deal, belittled
NATO allies, paralyzed the World Trade Organization and abandoned the
World Health Organization in the midst of a global pandemic.
He goes on with some odd blaming of sketchy Americans for dividing Europeans from each other. I won't bother with that nonsense other than saying maybe look in the mirror and east to Russia for that development.
As to his charges?
The British were right to leave the EU and America was right to support Brexit. What were we supposed to do, join the EU in trying to sabotage the views of a majority of the British people?
The Paris climate accords are worthless--as climate activists charged before America left it--and left unsaid is that America has reduced carbon emissions dramatically outside of the agreement. Europe? Not so much. And I'll note what is never noted. Europe's targets for carbon emission reductions are fixed at 1990. Why then? Because that year included heavy industries from former Warsaw Pact countries that spewed lots of carbon in the air. And those industries shut down without any climate deal because they were financially unable to continue in a free market world. So Europe gets to claim undeserved credit for losing that industry that no longer pollutes.
Paralyzing the WTO is outside of my lane but I bet we can safely call BS on this charge given that trade seems to be rolling along. The Europeans just don't like it that America has worked to balance terms of trade that historically had been tilted against America since the aftermath of World War II.
As for WHO, America withdrew because WHO had acted as the Chinese Communist Party's hand puppet during the outbreak of the Xi Jinping Flu epidemic, allowing it to become a pandemic affecting Europe and America severely, not to mention the rest of the world.
So naturally the EU apparatchiki hope Biden will "fix" trans-Atlantic relations to allow political Europe to cut deals with autocratic China and hopefully punish Britain for leaving that Heaven-on-Earth lest other vassals get similar ideas of escaping.
The Chinese Academy of Science predicts that China’s population will
peak at 1.4 billion in 2029, drop to 1.36 billion by 2050, and shrink to
as few as 1.17 billion people by 2065. Ominously, if fertility
continues to drop from its current rate of 1.6 children per woman to a
realistic 1.3, China’s population would be reduced by about 50% by the
turn of the next century. And the composition of that population will
also change in significant ways. Most significantly, the population will
continue to get older. ...
Second, and despite the night terrors of some and the fever dreams of
others, the reality is that China’s meteoric economic rise is stalling.
Rather than displacing the United States and becoming the next economic
superpower, China is instead entering into a period of economic entropy
and relative decline—with all that that implies for internal
disaffection and unrest.
The reason for this is that China now finds itself ensnared in a
classic “middle income trap.” This term refers to a situation in which
rapid growth and the equally rapid attainment of the status of
middle-income country is followed by a period of stalled growth and
failure to achieve the status of high-income country. A country falls
into this trap when it loses its competitive edge in the export of
manufactured goods because of rising wages.
Both Guam and the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands need to have such a capability to be protected, he said.
“It's an important statement for the United States … to have an
integrated air-and-missile defense capability station right there in
Guam,” he said.
Davidson noted that China earlier this year tested two new anti-ship
ballistic missiles — the DF-26 and DF-21D — against a moving vessel. The
missiles have been called “carrier-killers” by some, but Davidson
pushed back on the term.
“We've known for years that they were in pursuit of a capability that
could attack moving targets,” he said. “I don't use the term
'carrier-killer,' and I don't think others should because it indicates
that the Chinese are targeting a specific asset. Trust me, they're
targeting everything.”
Russia’s continuing financial problems are leading to a growing
number of defense-related program cancellations. Initially it was cuts
in the construction of new ships, in particular the larger, most
expensive surface ships. Then came cuts in refurbishing older surface
ships. The latest cancellations involve nuclear submarines, the one
class of warships Russia tried to protect from cuts. There have already
been some delays and project suspensions but the latest “adjustments”
are worse.
The best example this was the largely unpublicized cuts in the
program to upgrade the remaining eight Antey (Oscar II) class SSGNs
(cruise missile carrying nuclear sub) so that the 24 7-ton P700
high-speed “carrier killer” missiles would have those 24 silos replaced
with silos that can carry 72 3M54/14 (Kalibr) cruise missiles that are
smaller and weigh two tons.
Anything more is a wasteful drain on Russian resources needed for ground
forces and the air power to support them to hold a very long land
border that spans a distance from the Baltic Sea to the Bering Strait.
Whether or not Russia needs a blue water fleet, the ships that provided that capability built by the USSR are at the ends of their lifespans and Russian shipbuilding industry can't replace them even if the Russian state could afford them.
And I'm beginning to wonder if Russia can afford to maintain SSBNs and the ships and submarines needed to protect bastions near Russia for the SSBNs to survive during a war and provide nuclear deterrence.
Are the Russians going to have to rely on land-based nuclear missiles? With most being short-range simpler and cheaper types capable of devastating China and Europe?
I expressed my belief that China must have
contained the Xi Jinping Flu pandemic in China because I found it hard
to believe that they could hide it this long--and news really can leak out--if it was still ravaging China the way it is in the West. What does it say about the Chinese Communist Party if that is true?
I heard somebody note
something that should have been obvious. Isn't China's failure to share
how they contained it while the rest of the world struggles to cope close to an
act of war? I asked early in November:
Could China's boasting about containing the Covid epidemic in China backfire?
Well, I can't read the article. But from my point of view China's
boasting about "containing" the Xi Jinping Flu should be undermined by
the fact that they did not contain it. China in fact unleashed it on the
world. If China was capable of containing it within China as the
Chinese Communist Party boasts, why couldn't they prevent it from
spreading to the world? Because if China was capable of containing the
virus, China's failure to contain it makes it look like biological
warfare aimed at the rest of the world.
How ruthless are the Chinese Communist Party rulers? And does that mean
the world need to monitor disease eruption and spread within China much
more intensively, whether China's rulers cooperate or not?
Lots of disease comes out of China. That has long been the norm. Lots of
people and lots of animals living very close provide many
opportunities for animal viruses to mutate and leap to people.
The Wuhan Flu makes me wonder if the Chinese Communist Party would ever
consider using this transmission route as a way to wage biological
warfare on the world if the CCP thought its grip on China was slipping?
I don't believe this virus is deliberate, to be clear. I'm just wondering whether a CCP only interested in its control of China
would sacrifice a whole lot of their own people to use them as the
means to attack rivals and enemies abroad. Human wave attacks in a
biological war, so to speak.
Or even to suppress domestic unrest. Hong Kong is certainly quieter during the Wuhan Flu.
If the CCP thought the people were rising up, a nice epidemic would nip
that in the bud. And if it spreads abroad, what enemy could exploit
the epidemic within China? The well connected and loyal CCP people
could be protected.
Just an accidental "normal" epidemic combined with CCP secrecy means we
need to monitor China much more thoroughly than we have up to now. The
chance that disease could be weaponized makes it more important, no?
Today, China is pursuing a concentric circles grand strategy, organized around four major ambitions. At the core is the eternal goal of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP)—preserving and strengthening the party’s power. A second goal is restoring national unity, by bringing wayward regions and provinces, such as Hong Kong and Taiwan, back into the fold. A third goal includes reestablishing a sphere of semi-exclusive interest in China’s geopolitical neighborhood, in which smaller countries defer to Beijing’s wishes and outside actors—namely, America—are powerless to interfere. Finally, China is seeking global influence as a means of weakening the US-led liberal order and, perhaps, constructing a Chinese-led order in its place.
What risks would "China" (that is, the CCP) take abroad to achieve their primary objective?
Still, while the article says that America's post-Cold War policy of trying to engineer a peaceful rise and transform China into a more open society has failed, all we can say is that it has failed so far.
Two things are
impeding Chinese efforts to achieve superpower status; economic
stability and a network of powerful and reliable allies. The problems
with economic stability are linked to the more serious problems with
establishing stable relationships with other countries.
Chinese tradition prevents both of these because China traditionally
recognizes only enemies and subordinate foreigners. China does not do
allies in the traditional way. Current Chinese “allies” include Russia,
North Korea, Cuba, Venezuela, Turkey, Pakistan and Iran. These are not
what most countries would consider reliable and useful allies. Turkey
and Iran are not reliable or particularly dependable and useful. The
other allies, including Russia, are more dependents than traditional
allies.
I'm really not happy with how the proposed LAW ship class is unfolding. How is it possible to think a slow and unarmed vessel can survive, let alone complete their missions? If the threat environment is low enough to do both, the Navy (and Air Force) has already won control of the seas--or it is peacetime still.
Strategic depth is vital in the very long term, and it’s importance is
burned into Russia’s memory. But it has minimal significance now. The
United States and NATO have no interest in invading Russia. While Russia
must assume the worst, its immediate problem remains its economy and
reliance on energy exports as a prime revenue source, without any
control over pricing.
Lowering the threshold for Russian use of nuclear weapons is an admission of conventional military weakness. For all the unjustified hype about Russian "hybrid warfare" Russia has weak conventional military options against any but the weakest and closest opponents.
And
the Russians are nuts to want to defend their territorial integrity
with a policy that could just lead to nuclear strikes on Russia itself
and escalate to their total destruction. The reality is that the only
way this comes up against NATO is if Russia invades a NATO country and
NATO counterattacks despite Russia claiming that their new conquest is
suddenly part of Holy Mother Russia and a red line for nuclear weapons
use.
That's rational?
Russia has too long of a border with too few troops to defend it. Worrying about strategic depth in the west is just nuts.
Britain pledged to end the “era of retreat” by announcing a major
increase in military spending, despite the coronavirus crisis pummelling
the economy, as it seeks to define its post-Brexit role on the world
stage. ...
Britain was the main battlefield ally of the United States in Iraq and
Afghanistan, and alongside France the principal military power in the
EU. But its 2016 vote to leave the European Union has made its global
role uncertain at a time when China is rising and President Donald Trump
has cast doubt on U.S. support for traditional allies.
That last paragraph was under the heading "NEW GLOBAL ROLE". So I'm drawing conclusions on thin evidence.
Still, I will say one thing in favor of
the British trend despite my NATO-centric judgment. That is, with the
proto-imperial European Union seemingly eager to punish Britain for
Brexit, perhaps Britain feels it is going back to its historical roots
of global trade and avoiding land commitments to the continent. See this piece that reminded me of that. Perhaps 1914 to 1989 was the historical aberration that Britain is now rejecting.
Brexit was really a first step from disengaging from a commitment to large-scale combat on the continent. Although one could say that the Western victory in the Cold War and the withdrawal and elimination of the British Army of the Rhine that stood guard in West Germany in the Cold War telegraphed this trend.
For as much as I have worried about whether Britain's commitment to its two aircraft carriers will starve the rest of the surface fleet, in this global role the carriers make sense.
The £16.5 billion investment confirms our order of 8 Type 26 and 5
Type 31 frigates, commits us to the next generation Type 32, and
supports the future solid support ships that will supply our Carrier
Strike Group....
We will restore Britain’s position as the foremost naval power in
Europe. New generations of warships will be built across the UK, from
Glasgow and Rosyth, to Belfast, Appledore and Birkenhead.
Here are some details and thoughts on the budget announcement, including the possiblity that one of Britain's carriers will be forward deployed in the Middle East or Southeast Asia. Either puts the British firmly in the Indian Ocean capable of working with India, Australia, and America.
The era of the retreat from the continent may just be a pivot to an advance on being a global power with small but advanced and well trained British expeditionary forces available for power projection missions anywhere, whether with America or alone with local allies who need that expeditionary force assistance.
I think the French would be happy if the Germans would pay for a European military that France controls. Until then, Europe relies on America for defense. But when the European Union can kill NATO and force Europe to protect itself, the proto-imperial EU will be on its way to ridding itself of the prefix.
German Defense Minister Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer doubled down
Tuesday on her assertion that Europe must continue to rely on U.S.
security guarantees, citing “sobering facts” in a response to criticism
from French President Emmanuel Macron.
Kramp-Karrenbauer had become embroiled in an unusual public spat with Macron after the latter, in an interview with Le Grand Continent published Monday, criticized her over an op-ed in POLITICO in which she had argued that “Europe still needs America.”
The French president said that he “profoundly” disagrees with
Kramp-Karrenbauer’s position and described her argument as “a historical
misinterpretation,” claiming that German Chancellor Angela Merkel
doesn’t agree either.
The Europeans are well aware that they need America for real military power and resent us for that immensely. If money for defense wasn't an issue, this debate in the halls of Brussels would be over and NATO would be on the glide path to bureaucratic starvation in Europe, with an American withdrawal from the continent not far behind.
Supporting the European Union's goal of making Europe a political term rather than a geographic term is not in America's interest, no matter how much nuance you slather on that pig.
NOTE: Sentence in second paragraph corrected for clarity.
I expect Trump to score a win in Pennsylvania, Georgia, or Wisconsin. It would not be shocking to get two wins. But can he flip all three? Seems unlikely. If there was fraud or error, I want that exposed in time to make a difference. The amount of time it is taking Trump to really publicize evidence or grounds to suspect significant fraud or (deliberately engineered) error makes me doubt he can get the hat trick. Yet the examination should still go on while we have time before the Electoral College votes and makes election night official. If there was no decisive fraud or error, I want that known, too. Both to increase Biden's legitimacy for the good of the country and to prevent fraud and error from getting worse in the next election. The media's credibility which tilted the playing field heavily to Biden is beyond saving. Sadly, we don't count that as election fraud. You have to admit it is odd that Republicans gained seats in the House and at the state level, while losing just one Senate seat (barring setbacks in Georgia runoffs) despite defending a disproportionate number of seats, yet lost the presidency. That could be the reality, as odd as it seems. But it should be a flashing red light that something might be wrong. Did we really have a blue wave for the presidency and a red wave for the rest? Or was the blue wave really a wave of fraud and (engineered?) error?
Is it a coincidence that another clusterfuck with a UN seat--Somalia--is right across the Gulf of Aden from Yemen? Take care of business Eritrea, that neighborhood is rough.
If hospitals are in danger of being overwhelmed by new cases of Xi Jinping Flu, I don't mind stricter lockdowns. But I hope they are targeted. I hope they are temporary. I hope they are balanced against the harm of lockdowns. And I hope that they aren't based on rising cases alone. That metric can be misleading if mild cased dominate or if the cases are really just positive test results which could be inaccurate.
Things can change with a persuasive revelation, but thus far the Trump campaign doesn't seem to be offering persuasive evidence of the level of fraud or error that would shift the election. Although it annoys me at some level that Democrats demand evidence from
Trump. In a fair world, Trump only needs to present credible accusations
that the responsible authorities and the media would investigate to
find evidence. I do wonder if the amount of time it is taking to resolve challenges to the election serve a purpose by getting everyone used to the ultimate result. Trump supporters will know the effort was made to see if there was fraud. And Trump opponents will have had their hair-trigger urge for vengeance diluted. My best-case hope is that the high emotions over this election will convince people that the federal government is too powerful and that states should reclaim the powers they once had. Make the federal government a smaller prize and the polarization to control it will be defused. I am an optimistic sort, aren't I? The Antifa/BLM communists (And yes, yes, of course "Black lives matter." The sentence naturally follows from our Constitution. But the organization called BLM is a garbage group of violent nuts.) are another thing altogether. We'll see if they shift to attacking Democrats, too. And how Democrats react without Trump around.
I watched the SpaceX launch last Sunday and was worried throughout hoping for success:
I watched Apollo as a child and really expected more by now. Go! You magnificent bastards! Go! Take us to space! At long last take us to space to stay!
I don't blame Trump for asking for attack options on Iran's nuclear infrastructure. Given that a Biden return to the Obama approach would protect Iran as it seeks nuclear weapons. Trump is still the president with the duty to protect America until January (assuming he has lost).
I assume Democrats are eager for Trump to concede and leave because they know how much damage Obama did between Trump's election and inauguration.
Hahahahaha! "Brian Stelter — two parts potato, one part experimental estrogen replacement therapy gone tragically wrong... ." That's all I really want to highlight from that post. But seriously, when jihadis killed nearly 3,000 of us on September 11, 2001, many liberals lamented "why do they hate us?" as if America did something to deserve the terrorism. Will nobody at CNN ask "why Republicans hate them?"? Of course not. You hater.
I have no idea if Trump's charge of voting system software problems are any more valid than the charges the Kerry camp alleged in 2004. But this will be settled when the Electoral College votes in December. Either evidence will be presented or it won't. Just calm down.
Biden has claimed a mask mandate will save 100K+ lives in the next few months. But I've heard that the study this claim is based on assumes a far lower mask-wearing rate than actually exists. I don't want mask police and would rather leave this up to people to figure out. If a business requires it to enter their property and you don't want to wear a mask, don't go in. Same with your friends' standards in their homes. I think masks are a good idea. I think a state capable of enforcing masks is a very bad idea. Not with this pandemic, anyway.
There should definitely be red lines on a number of issues for Senate confirmation of Biden appointees. Democrats set the standard for obstruction the last four years. Efforts should be made to get appropriate nominees confirmed for national security positions, of course. No need to match the Democrats on that score. But the Senate needs to dust off the "advice" portion of advice and consent. Not that we should go down the path of parliamentary system practice of requiring executive-legislative matching. And we sure don't want the system that provides that.
I'm basically for trade. But I was on board revising deals that were tilted against America. So I was not alarmed by Trump's "trade wars" even though I am against actual trade wars. That said, America does need some type of trade deal in the Indo-Pacific region. I'm sure there would have been one in a second Trump term (assuming Biden officially wins). There will be one whoever wins the next four years.
Boko Haram has risen from near defeat some years ago. Nigeria has responded by pulling troops into larger bases to avoid being overrun by the jihadis. This would normally let the terrorists run free in large parts of the region away from bases. But Nigeria is also using local defense forces that seem to be working, plus more responsive air power for strikes and recon.
I mentioned (but a quick search failed to find it) the Chinese kidnapping operation inside America that grabs Chinese dissidents and takes them back to China. Strategypage goes into it. How long before the Chinese go the assassination route which Russia uses in Europe?
Hahahaha! "A study has found a strong connection between believing Russia rigged
the 2016 election and now suddenly believing elections are entirely
foolproof, trustworthy, and unhackable."
I really don't think we need a new 1st Fleet wedged between 7th Fleet in the Pacific and 5th Fleet in the Gulf region. If Middle East issues truly are receding, why not simply shift the center of gravity of 5th Fleet east? Why add more command and control when we need actual shooters so much? Work on shipbuilding quality control and surface fleet training in a larger fleet before we add another fleet headquarters.
If Biden cancels the college loan debt of people from well off families who went to elite schools for bullshit degrees while I worked my way through college with little debt--7-1/2 years for my double-major AB from the University of Michigan--and when I put away money for both my children to help them avoid borrowing money (plus grants and working, for my son so far), I will join the ranks of the chumps--people who played by the rules and were responsible, who saw other connected people avoid those rules and prosper. I could have spent the money I saved for my kids' college and just went wild. Save me oh great federal government! I have no money! Don't be so heartless about my plight! What about the children? But I guess I was raised better than that. And now I find that people who were irresponsible will get my tax money? To Hell with these people. Who do they think they are? People who borrowed money to go to college should pay their student loans. Period. I certainly did. Why aren't more people outraged at this subsidy for irresponsibility? Student loan forgiveness is simply a taxpayer-funded gift for wealthy Democrats. Seriously, it is a bad idea all around.
Do ten percent of people who catch the Xi Jinping Flu experience long-term health problems? Well, we can't know long-term, of course, because this is a new virus. But we do know that some people continue to experience problems after the virus is gone. So I am not trying to minimize this by stating the obvious. Do the examples--horrifying, really--represent a large portion of that 10% or the worst case that is very small? Fatigue is called the largest long-term problem. It seems to affect mostly women 20-40. Hasn't mystery fatigue ailment long been a problem? As bad as it is for those suffering from any of this it would be good if the worst was a rare event. Better not to get the virus and risk this, of course. Stay careful.
Republicans won at least 160 state legislature seats across the country. It's an odd blue wave that only pushed Biden over the finish line. Odd things happen, of course. Perhaps that is all that happened. After all, the Obama era saw massive losses at the state legislature level for Democrats. Still, it is worth tightening up our election process to increase confidence in the honesty of elections. That isn't the only odd thing, after all. Tips to Instapundit.
After many years of trying to avoid confronting their pilot "officer and a gentlemen" bias while fighting a pilot shortage, the Air Force will open pilot training paths to enlisted personnel. But this isn't doing what would make sense--letting enlisted personnel become pilots. The enlisted personnel on this path must ultimately become officers in order to be a pilot. The Air Force was unable to take the step of just letting enlisted personnel fly. How many officer pilots will this really produce? Still. Baby steps, I guess. It's a big bias that has to be overcome. Until artificial intelligence that eliminates pilots altogether. Perhaps they'll be commissioned, too.
Trump screwed up America's response to the Xi Jinping Flu so badly that The Atlantic judges that the end of the pandemic is now in sight. When this covisd-19 virus starts to dissipate next year, nobody in the press will credit Trump's policies that accelerated vaccines. It will be fully credited to President Harris. Hell, in the article there is no mention of Trump or Operation Warp Speed. Fancy that. Although Stalin would understand.
Did Trump really ruin the Republican brand when Republicans made gains in Congress and at the state level, while avoiding a bloodbath in the Senate and setting a record for Republican voters for the president? Because all I've hear the last four years is that Trump was wrecking the party. The supposed point of the Lincoln Project was that they had to destroy the party in order to save it. To me it seemed insane to throw an election now in order to supposedly guarantee an election win the next time. Who on Earth could promise that sort of thing? I wasn't worried about Trump wrecking the party and I don't think it happened. Trump made the left--including their media operatives--more blatantly and intensely anti-Republican. Scarily so. But that's a different issue altogether.
Burkina Faso will arm militias to resist jihadis, which this article calls a "gamble." Setting up local defense forces is also standard operating procedure in counter-terror or counter-insurgency. The gamble is that the government will fail to disband the militias when the jihadi threat is defeated and on the decline, and allow the militias to evolve into private armies and criminal gangs. But it is a gamble to think you can win without local defense forces providing the first line of defense that the armed forces can maneuver around, reinforce, and count on for better ground intelligence to defeat the jihadis. What are you going to do? Risk losing now out of fear of post-victory problems? One thing at a time.
The Trump lawyers' press conference on voter fraud/error to elect Biden didn't impress me. It certainly gave reason to wonder about the results in key states that were decisive in putting Biden over the top unofficially in the Electoral Count battle. But Trump is running out of time to prove fraud and/or error of sufficient magnitude and across enough states to win. I have no doubt there is fraud in Democratic cities. But you have to prove it existed at a scale to switch the results. Could the presented evidence convince enough governors and/or state legislatures to exercise their power to refuse to certify and seat Electors even if courts don't do that? The proof had best be more clear than what we've been shown to justify that step. It is a legitimate step in our system that the Constitution provides. But it has been a long time since we've used it and we'd damn well be right about it before pulling that trigger. Maybe next election Republicans should get courts involved to make sure there is enough oversight to reduce the election-day corruption before the votes are cast.
South Korea needs armored rear-area security vehicles when you consider that the North Koreans rely on infiltrating light infantry into South Korea's rear areas via the sea, small low-flying aircraft, and tunnels under the DMZ. Whether North Korea could pull that off is another question. As is the question of whether North Korea's rotting armored forces could exploit any disruptions that the rear-area operations might achieve.
Are resupply quadcopters really worth the price to resupply Army units in contact rather than the GPS-directed parachute gliders used in Afghanistan? Unless the idea is to provide resupply to troops in the middle of a firefight, the simpler parachute glider seems more affordable. But I'm just asking.
The F-117 is only semi-retired. It appears that some of the 51 "retired" planes are used as a stand-in for enemy stealth aircraft in training; to put them up against potential foes' radar systems, and for recon missions in dangerous areas. The latter is interesting because it denies potential enemies experience trying to track our best stealth planes. And really, the F-117 should be called the A-117, because it is a light bomber and not an actual fighter aircraft.
Honestly, while I think Trump deserves reelection, he has not proven enough fraud or error to flip the results. That could change, I suppose, but he is running out of time. The election process will go on to inauguration day, and while I have urged patience as the process goes on, the process must go on. And it will go on despite Tyranny Porn that Democrats are still producing and consuming. The alliance between the media, significant segments of the federal bureaucracy, and Democrats was too strong and painted a highly misleading portrait of the president that did too much damage to him. And despite all that I still think Trump would have won but for the Black Swan event of the Xi Jinping Flu pandemic. It sucks that we elected a cognitively damaged president who is just a cardboard cutout waiting for Harris to take over. But we will go on. Luckily the Democrats set the standard for what is allowable in resisting a new president's policies. Work the problems. Prepare for the next elections on process integrity and on issues. It is possible (via Instapundit).
Fifth Corps forward is officially activated in Poland. As an aside, contrary to the article Poland does in fact border on Russia--their Kaliningrad exclave. But their point about not being near the main Russian western frontier at the border of Belarus is taken.
Remember that in this point in 2000 Al Gore was still three weeks away from conceding his defeat to George W. Bush. And it was his second concession--because he rescinded his first one.
Huh: "U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Sunday defended his tour of Gulf
Arab states and the Trump administration's continued efforts to squeeze
Iran, even as a new U.S. administration led by Joe Biden prepares to
enter the White House in January." Pompeo, the actual secretary of state, has to "defend' doing his job which continues until January (presumably)? That's a big change from four years ago when it was deemed a crime for incoming Trump appointees to reach out to foreign counterparts when there were existing American officials still doing their jobs.
If it turns out that Trump was right about decisive voter fraud putting Bidenharris in the White House, the only option will be impeachment and/or resignation of Biden and Harris under pressure. Which would then be the central issue of the 2022 Congressional election. Because the Speaker of the House would become president if both were impeached to correct that crime.
Yeah, I didn't bite on the vote machine rigging charges. Something big will have to drop to make me believe that. I think the charge will fade like the 2004 Diebold claims of a similar nature from Democrats. Still, I'd rather have paper ballots counted by hand. How much longer would that really take compared to the computerized system that invites challenges to the black box nature of the output?
Yes, Lee Harvey Oswald was a communist. Thirty years ago I discovered that the history profession was too leftist to endure. I discovered that fact at a convention of the American Historical Association. I let my membership lapse and never regretted it.
Womenfrei zones in France. Faster, please. Since I've been blogging I have been puzzled by the failure of feminists to be the most hard core supporters of the war on terror. Don't they know that in the Victims Olympics, women will never outscore Islamists? While Americans may perhaps be forgiven for not realizing we have the Statue of Liberty and not the Statue of Unrestricted Immigration, the French gave us the statue without the poem that we added later, and so should know better.
While I have not seen evidence of decisive election fraud--and it doesn't have to be widespread to be effective, just targeted in the right locations (Detroit, Philadelphia, Atlanta, for example), I get annoyed when the media says that they see no evidence because they--unlike me--have the resources to look into the question but refuse to. If you don't look, of course you won't see it. Tip to Instapundit.
Let's at least celebrate that Trump didn't steal mailboxes and otherwise prevent mail ballots from getting through the system, as Democrats hyperventilated about before the election.
