An update on that Clusterfuck with a UN seat, Yemen. Iran is, of course, involved. And Strategypage notes what I've often stated: fighting goes on intermittently until negotiations shift around who is in power. Until those not in power get tired of that arrangement and resume the fighting. Iran makes it worse by interrupting the negotiating part of the cycle. So now there is just the fighting. Oh, and polio.
American and Japanese forces practiced holding or retaking Japanese islands that China claims.
Brazil is updating ancient F-5 fighters with new advanced weapons. Honestly, if aircraft maneuverability isn't the main focus of killing the enemy but long-range detection and missiles are, unless your enemy has stealthy planes why bother buying advanced non-stealthy fighters when you can focus on advanced detection and weapons on a cheap plane?
There is speculation that Putin may need another foreign adventure to distract his people in a rattled economy. How is that possible when Russia's sphere of influence in former Soviet territory is getting shaky and when--despite efforts to paint it as all perfectly normal and good!--Russia's own regions aren't always displaying proper deference to the center? Isn't Russia already overstretched? And with problems in Russia's own backyard, will China exploit that shakiness to start pulling those areas into China's orbit?
Watching Biden prepare to be president makes me feel like I'm watching Being There: The Sequel in real life.
In order to fight peer enemies the Army wants stronger divisions, which means brigades get smaller as they become part of a division fight and lose support units that now allow them to fight as separate self-contained units. Oh, and robots, too. The National Guard is already working on this. And I've noted that the Russians have this idea of big units, too.
The Biden administration is expected to order NASA to emphasize climate change rather than reaching the moon. Well of course! Somebody has to make up for all the carbon that China will spew into the air in their drive to reach the moon! Tip to Instapundit.
A look at Taiwan's recent arms order from the United States: Reach out and kill someone.
The Boeing proposal to turn the B-1 into a close air support gunship. I still think a fighter version would be useful.
I heard that Biden has appointed very important people to a very important task force to come up with the detailed plan to fight the Xi Jinping Flu pandemic. The media won't notice that it will be 99% the same as what our country is doing already. The only difference is to mandate masks. Everywhere. Regardless of circumstances. I've always been amazed by how much Democrats value a perfect plan--no matter how late it arrives.
When you think about it, given the record votes for Biden and Trump, there was a blue wave and a red wave. But they nearly cancelled each other out. The blue wave may have given Biden the presidency--although that is in doubt since the blue wave may have mostly been in California, relying on possible fraud in blue cities. But the red wave has affected Congress and state-level races in the Republican direction. Will four years of a Biden/Harris presidency push more people red or blue? Thoughts on that effect here.
The media's memory-holing will kick into high gear now, eh?
Another reminder that the demand for racist hate exceeds the supply. Tip to Instapundit.
Russia engineered a ceasefire that locks in Azerbaijan's territorial gains against Armenia, and will man a ceasefire line with Russian troops. Armenia is unhappy about Russia locking in their territorial losses. But Russia can't afford to take on Turkey if push comes to shove. Of course, Turkey can't afford much, either.
Turkey continues to get squeezed out of northwestern Syria.
Is the mono-hull LCS design too crappy to bother trying to fix?
"Events" may well define the (for sake of argument and likely IMO) Biden presidency: "Given the U.S. focus on domestic policy, the opportunity for other countries to take advantage of this preoccupation is potentially significant. So the reality is that for the moment, the initiative shifts out of the United States."
A style guide change just in time for the Biden administration! But "addled" is still okay, right?
It's good to be the king. But a lot of Thai people don't like living under one.
This author wants a rethink of the Light Amphibious Warfare ship the Navy wants for using Marines to support the Navy's sea control fight. I want a rethink, too, but in a different direction as I wrote about in Proceedings a few years ago. My proposal has the advantage of World War II experience behind it. Which would be a good thing to have in a hedging approach to design.
Well that's one way for Germany to counter Turkey without looking too obvious. But I'd be happier if the Germans had a big naval sale to their own navy.
Let's hope that if China goes to war with Australia that Australia has a contingency plan to capture New Zealand.
United States Marines exercised with Taiwanese marines on Taiwan (via Instapundit). Hmmm.
With the updated interface on Blogger, I've noticed that formatting in older posts seems unstable when looked at. I corrected a typo on an old post and when I updated I lost paragraph formatting. I think I fixed it but it was based on my memory of having just looked at it. This is annoying. Perhaps I'll go back to classic editing--if I can--even though I've finally gotten used to the quirks of the new system.
Good God! Okay, now I believe climate change is a crisis. Via Instapundit.
Remember when Democrats said Trump was hiding mail boxes and undermining the ability of the Post Office to deliver Democratic votes by mail? Good times. Good times.
New York Times reporter misspells "inconvenient" as "misinformation." I'm not the only one stunned at the ability of someone to think this way. Yeah, Democracy dies in ... this.
Hahaha! And yes, it is okay to laugh. Really, those are tears of laughter. I swear.
Lovely little downtown you have there. It would be a shame if anything happened to it.
Gold, God, and geography in Mali.
How did Trump get a third of the Moslem vote? I suspect that the anti-Iranian mullah foreign policy attracted a lot of Iranian Americans and Arab Americans with Gulf region heritage.
I cannot believe how angry studies like this make me. Right, you effing genius, America made Assad commit atrocities. One can complain that American intervention in the Syrian civil war was ineffective--and I have--but giving tyrants a pass on their atrocities or blaming America for war-related suffering because we didn't just let the dictator win quickly is stunningly wrong and offensive. Echelon above reality in action. To Hell with them.
An argument to move Israel to CENTCOM. It made sense to have Israel in EUCOM when Israeli aircraft would be very useful to fight Soviet naval and air forces in the Eastern Mediterranean Sea. Now the focus is on Iran in CENTCOM.
I enjoy it when people discover that communists think that everyone who isn't a communist is a "fascist." Heck, even less bloodthirsty communists get the "fascist" treatment. Just ask Trotsky.
Evil in Number 12 pink lipstick. I have no doubt that she could find plenty of perfectly adequate reeducation camp guards and administrators, too. That's one way to get communists to stop rioting and burning, eh? Tip to Instapundit.
Around Ann Arbor I occasionally see "eat the rich" signs. The rich are never enough to feed the redistribution beast for the communists, of course. They claim to be for all mankind. But we know how that works:
Six American, one French, and one Czech peacekeeper died in a MFO helicopter crash in the Sinai. It's been a while since I've discussed MFO. Correction: Five Americans died.
Democrats took 4 years trying--and failing--to prove non-existent Trump-Russia collusion. Give Republicans 4 weeks or so to prove Democratic voter fraud.
This author thinks the Russians lost big in the Armenia-Azerbaijan war. What really shocked me is that apparently some people think the ceasefire was any sort of win at all for Russia. It looked like a defeat to me. I'm just not sure of the scale.
Perhaps Space Force needs a garbage collection service.
Trump's economy was very good. Better than the experts said it could get. So no, it wasn't Obama's economy. Say goodbye to that, I fear. Oh, and I guess everyone ignores the deficit and debt now. I'm not sure about the "trade war" charge. I'm in general a free trader. But it was a good idea to renegotiate trade patterns put in place after World War II when America was dominant and when we could afford terms favorable to allies and friends.
Yes: "In recent years, universities in the Anglosphere have gone from being citadels of intellectual consideration and experimentation to being factories of woke indoctrination. From critical race theory to genderfluidity, from the view of American history as one crime after another to the myopic policing of speech – including conversational speech in the form of ‘microaggressions’ – universities have become important transmitters of the ideologies of the new elites. As a consequence, one of the great ironies of our time is that it is those who have not attended a university who seem better able to think independently and to resist the coercions of elite-decreed correct-thought." The Democratic Party abandoned blue collar voters and individual civil liberties in my lifetime. Those factors were the only things that inspired some admiration in me. Defense and foreign policy pushed me to the Republican Party at a young age. Yet I grew up in a blue collar world. So respect for Democrats remained despite the leftist fringe apparent in the Democratic ranks. Higher education took me out of that blue collar world in most ways, but I never developed contempt for it. My respect and compassion for it remains. Where is that now in the Democratic Party? Nor was I seduced by the university woke indoctrination. It wasn't as bad back then as it is now. But perhaps my blue collar background made me more resistant to it. Anyway, read the whole thing. Tip to Instapundit.
This is longish but an interesting video on the subject of Dunkirk. In graduate school I was exposed to "psychohistory" which purported to explain history by psychoanalyzing leaders making decisions. It is rubbish for the most part. When the professor was handing back an exam that included that, he said "You don't think much of psychohistory, do you?" No sir, I replied, a little worried about what that meant for my grade. I think one line in an essay went along these lines: "The idea that you can explain the German halt before Dunkirk based on childhood toilet training or some such thing when there are a host of valid strategic and tactical reasons for the Germans to refrain from trying to wipe out the British army trapped there is ridiculous." So yeah, reasons. I got an A.
Wow, the impressively corrupt and unwieldy Indian military procurement system screwed gang-raped the pooch using so-called Fast Track Procurement for an emergency order of ammunition from Russia. China continues to smile.
I can't wait to find out where they have to wear masks. Via Instapundit.
The media sucks. Singing to the choir here at TDR.
Now this is what I call hope and change.
Wow! That's brilliant. It almost changed my mind. If 100 old people come in contact with 200 young people, is it really more effective to inoculate the 200 rather than the 100 when vaccines are initially limited? It's interesting, though. Doesn't it depend on what the ratio is? But regardless, I'll bet good money Holy Science won't be followed on deciding who gets inoculated first. Via Instapundit.
Oh please: "Ali Rabiei, spokesman for the Rouhani administration, said that Iran expects the United States to return to the nuclear deal without new conditions." The Iranians are still in shock from their apparent salvation from Trump's "maximum pressure" approach. Allahu Akbar, indeed. By the time Biden is inaugurated the Iranians will be demanding pallets of cash--and they'll probably get it.
American, German, and Dutch units joined the Greeks for air defense live fire exercises in Greece. Which is useful in case NATO needs to implement Plan B in the eastern Mediterranean Sea.
Does Trump's reshuffle in the Pentagon really reflect a desire by Trump to escalate confrontation with China in the South China Sea? I sincerely doubt it. But it might be a signal to deter China during the transition from escalating in the South China Sea. Which might be why American Marines exercised on Taiwan recently as I noted above in this data dump.
Target reopens Minneapolis store wrecked by looters with anti-looting shutters. Anti-looting shutters will just slow down the looters. Will the police arrive before the looters get past the barriers? That's really the key part.
Worries in Asia about a Biden commitment to opposing China.
Yeah, anybody evil enough to do that for four years over unfounded allegations would tear down our democracy. As an aside, for a long time I thought the idiocy coming from Joy Reid and Joy Behar was coming from a single person. I didn't know they were different people. Now I have to divide their perceived brain power in half.
Explain to me again how a "systemically racist" America went from race-based slavery to racial microaggressions and the first African-American president with that system? Nuance really eludes me.
Could we increase the extraction efficiency of fracking? Tip to Instapundit.
I have good news and bad news about America and minorities. The good news is that anybody can succeed here. The bad news is that if you do succeed you will be defined as "white" and therefore evil. I'm reminded of Catch 22. You could get out of the war if you were crazy. But only crazy people didn't want to get out of the war. Now, minorities can't succeed in systemically racist America. But if you succeed you must actually be white. Call it Catch 1619.
You have to admit that a widespread Democratic conspiracy to commit election fraud isn't needed if you spend four years convincing your loyalists and the history illiterate that Trump is Hitler. Then all you need to do is count on those people to individually carry out acts that collectively steal an election under the shield of believing they are saving the world from Hitler.
Twentieth century democide: "Soviet Union (61 million killed), Communist Chinese (38 million), Nazi Germany (20 million), Nationalist Chinese (10 million), Imperial Japan (six million), Cambodian communists (two million), Ottoman Turks (1.8 million), Vietnam (1.6), Polish communists (1.5 million), Pakistan (1.5 million) and Yugoslav communists (one million.)" And the pattern of violent Islamist uprisings.
Media people have just gone nuts. Maybe they need to look at the real problem.
The Marines activated a component for Space Command (not Space Force). How long before we have SMOD? Although now it is about integrating space assets for the Marines on the ground.
Will Biden actually answer questions from the media once he is president? (And barring some major challenge soon to give courts and elections outfits time to examine them, that seems likely at this point.) The media access question is moot because the relationship is so tight that the media can write pretty accurately about the next administration without any public forum at all. Heck, if Trump uses his post-presidency to start a media empire the mainstream media will be happy to continue their jihad against Trump in the private sector rather than focus on Biden. Tips to Instapundit.
Europe didn't help us much with military forces under Clinton, Bush 43, Obama, or Trump. Why would anyone think that Europe's relief at Biden's (barring a major change) victory will lead to more help rather than simple relief that they won't be loudly asked to do more?
For God's sake will morons with the memories of cocaine-addled hamsters stop saying Trump will deny a Xi Jinping Flu vaccine to New York? Governor Cuomo has politicized the issue by saying he won't trust "Trump's" vaccine. Trump was striking back by essentially saying that since you, the governor, don't trust the vaccine, I won't send it to New York unless you ask for it.
Biden will attempt to reverse Trump's education reforms. I wonder if the public school teacher unions in their unjustified refusal to go back to school to teach our children did so much collateral damage by forcing parents to seek alternatives to the already-broken public school system that Biden can't restore the old system. And I wonder if remote learning in higher education will expose the system that padded luxury amenities and useless administrators onto actual teaching, which made tuition skyrocket. Will customers now forced to pay for all that padding while only getting the education part online want to resume paying for the whole mess when students go back to campus? Of course, the only real objective is to keep a loyal Democratic voting/donating/volunteering constituency employed with public funds--students be damned.
On the other hand, given that Democrats claim Trump coddles the Russians, how will Biden ramp up already robust American efforts in NATO to block the Russians? Will Democratic rage against Russia preclude an effort to pry Russia away from China?
Happy birthday to the Marines on their 245th.
I assume our governor will issue new lockdown orders in time to cripple Thanksgiving. We'll see. [UPDATE Monday morning: Yes indeed.]
The Electoral College timeline.
The public's trust in scientists should take a hit when scientists enter politics. Look, I worked in a nonpartisan job. It was not difficult for me to stay out of politics and keep in my lane. That's why we were trusted.
No! Way! Just a shadow government masquerading as a network.
Trump supporters aren't going anywhere. They can't afford to disperse. The Left and their media allies may have figuratively killed the general, but Trump's supporters have reason to believe the Left will go around the battlefield killing the wounded and sending the rest to reeducation camps. Tip to Instapundit.
So Baby Yoda has provoked "genuine social media wrath?" Which means, what? Five people who you wouldn't associate with had a meltdown on Twitter? Tip to Instapundit.
That orbital habitat idea is interesting. Could some be turned into mobile rescue modules to house astronauts who mus flee a space station suffering a bad accident until rescue missions can be launched from Earth? Just musing. Via Instapundit.
The strident calls from Democrats to accept election results as counted without letting the process play out over time demonstrates the need to tighten up voting so election day counts are trusted. Relying on patience to discover fraud and error after the election in a system engineered by Democrats for fraud and error is clearly non-existent--when Democrats win, of course. Trump needs to fight now for the next election even if his own fortunes aren't high.
Feel the love and tolerance from the left and Neo-Lib Lincoln Project. Even if the news is incorrect about the law firm being intimidated into silence, the threat is the real story. The Lincoln Project of ex-Republicans masquerading as pure Republicans in Biden's service should remember that defectors are only really useful as cannon fodder to their new ruthless allies, who know they really can't trust you.
CSI: 2020 Campaign. Tip to Instapundit.
Measuring how much Biden cares about cancer. Tell me you are shocked. Tip to Instapundit.
Strategypage looks at the near-nuclear Taigei attack submarine class that will be coming into their fleet this decade. I first noted them a year ago in this data dump and again last month.
Yeah, where on Earth would we get the idea that Democrats love socialism?
Isn't it funny that despite apparently losing the election that Trump hasn't called out the military or legions of street thugs to nullify the election and kill or round up Biden supporters? I mean, it's been a 24/7 scream of rage the last four years asserting that Trump was signalling by dog whistles that any minute he'd be a tyrant. Instead he is using our courts to challenge the results pursuant to our system's rules.
Democrat and media insistence that Trump has to say the word "concede" right now kept reminding me of something. Then it came to me. And it makes sense:
Democracy dies in darkness. I feared the worst when nothing was released in October. I guess Durham is going to wipe it clean, like with a cloth. So there will be no accountability for the Obama administration and it's allies within the Trump administration for their coup under color of law. They got away with it. Via Instapundit.
Antifa is initiating violence despite the failure of Trump to win the initial and tentative count.
If Trump has evidence of serious fraud and error in his election battle with Biden, he needs to push it into the open soon to have time to resolve the charges. The election process will continue and confirm Biden if Trump does nothing to reverse the apparent electoral count win.
