Advance To The Rear With Honor!

I hope America and our allies can provide enough support to the Afghanistan government to prevent the Taliban from winning.

Light infantry Rangers as the rear guard, able to pull out quickly on the last planes out will help screen the American (and allied) withdrawal from Afghanistan. Along with Air Force and Navy planes on overwatch:

U.S. officials said after Biden’s announcement that extra military personnel would likely be positioned in Afghanistan to facilitate the pullout of troops and equipment, and the Pentagon typically beefs up its military presence as a precaution when executing a sizeable withdrawal. When the U.S. pulled troops out of Somalia in December it kept an aircraft carrier in the region as a precaution.

Which is good because the Taliban are much more violent lately. 

American forces are already contracting their footprints to concentrate for withdrawal. Let's hope the Rangers and air power create a hard enough target to hold off the Taliban long enough to skedaddle. 

And after? Well, good luck with that remote recon and air strike idea. Not. Going. To. Happen. The script for the Taliban Dead Baby Parades writes itself. 

Expressing high confidence in the wisdom of evacuating American and coalition troops from Afghanistan, the State Department has ordered "a big drawdawn" in the Kabul embassy staff. I think the Secretary of State should be required to permanently relocate his office to Kabul. Or perhaps the vice president. Otherwise this looks like a retreat.

If Biden says we have "peace with honor," I'll puke. But on the bright side, as a landlocked country there will be no flood of escaping boat people to rescue.

UPDATE: Just feel the confidence in how well our withdrawal will work!

In the nearly two decades that the U.S. has been battling the Taliban and al-Qaeda, tens of thousands of Afghans have risked their lives supporting U.S. troops. That was dangerous enough, but many will be at even greater risk after American forces leave — if, as many expect, the Taliban sweep back into Afghan cities and target suspected collaborators.

It will be very ugly on the ground while we pull out if our local allies agree that that prediction.

Is our policy to pretend all will be well after we go to convince our local allies to stay calm while we go? Will we get that "decent interval"?

UPDATE: Confidence!

The United States will cut off foreign aid to Afghanistan should the Taliban take power in the country, American senators have said. 

I suppose I should call it a victory that the Senate is against funding a victorious enemy.

Tip to Instapundit.

UPDATE: We already have Black April. Let's not add another reminder of abandoning allies.

UPDATE: Let's not say we weren't warned:

America's "war on terror" is about to enter a new phase as President Joe Biden prepares to withdraw all US forces from Afghanistan by the 20th anniversary of 9/11, but now al Qaeda claims its war with America is far from over.

 

In an exclusive interview with CNN conducted through intermediaries, two al Qaeda operatives tell CNN that "war against the US will be continuing on all other fronts unless they are expelled from the rest of the Islamic world."

 

The "new phase" in the war on terror is retreating and giving our enemies room to recuperate and then follow us.

 

This will work out swell. 

UPDATE: This is already working out just swell.

The Price of Victory

Yes, Russia has the raw power to defeat Ukraine in a full-scale war. But the cost of that victory could be too high for Russia to pay. But would Russia logistics be able to support that war? And I wonder if Russia could afford to wreck their military to achieve that win.

Yes, Ukraine is better prepared now than in February 2014. But Russia is much bigger. So Russia has the advantage:

Russia's military, like its population, is more than triple the size of Ukraine's. But should Putin order an invasion, he would not find it as easy as in 2014, when Russian special forces and local irregular militias seized control of Crimea and much of Ukraine's border with Russia without much resistance.

Sure.

Russia had unique and fleeting advantages to seize Crimea in early 2014, and even a half year later found that seizing all of the eastern Donbas was beyond the capacity of what Russia was willing to do.

Remember, Russia didn't try to take the Donbas when Ukraine was too disorganized to resist. Was it beyond Russia's capability to do that while taking Crimea? We see Russian advanced weapons, but the reality is that thin veneer runs out fast in a large war and Russia is back to 20th century mass.

And after 7 years of Ukraine rebuilding their ability to fight, Russia would have to apply more of its limited forces to hammer Ukraine. Don't let Russia's World War II reputation obscure the fact that Russia is casualty averse now.

This author, too, questions Russian willingness to endure casualties.

Still, if Russia can scrape up a large enough force, and if Russia can sustain that force long enough, and if Russia is willing to endure the casualties to fight that long--big "ifs"--Russia can win a lengthy war against Ukraine.

Ukraine could change that over time. Smaller countries can be more effective than larger neighbors with lots of defense needs other than the small target country.

But the problem is that Ukraine is not making the effort to be far less corrupt than Russia to be more effective. As long as Ukraine is as corrupt as Russia, Ukraine will be a smaller and weaker version of Russia.

And in the short term, America isn't confident that Russian claims to move troops back to their home bases can be believed.

Do either Russia or Ukraine want to expend the effort to win?

UPDATE: I heard George Friedman explain that Russia did not intend to invade Ukraine because its troops were positioned in the wrong places. Which I did not know from media reports. But I agree with his point that Russia really can't conquer Ukraine. My discussions of Russian offensive options have agreed with that.

Nice Try

Russia can't be nice even when it tries to be nice.

So Russia denies blowing up a Czech ammunition depot in 2014? 

Czech Prime Minister Andrej Babis said in a briefing shown live on television that there was "well-grounded suspicion about the involvement of officers of the Russian intelligence service GRU... in the explosion of an ammunitions depot in the Vrbetice area."

Several explosions shook the Vrbetice depot, 330 km (205 miles) southeast of Prague, in October 2014, killing two employees of a private company that was renting the site from a state military organisation.

The Russians responded with their own expulsions, I read later.

I don't remember news of that back in 2014 at all. Were the Russians concerned that old Soviet ammunition would be shipped to Ukraine under attack by Russia?

The funny thing is, Russia had been trying to make friends with the Czechs: 

Vladimir Putin may have lost one of his closest allies in Europe as politicians in the Czech Republic are finally uniting against Russia and calling for their partners to do the same.

Blowing up a ammunition depot was part of Putin's charm offensive, apparently. The Fuck-Up Fairy really does live in Russia now. 

The clock is ticking for Russia to stop alienating the West. Russia needs to try harder.

UPDATE: Huh: 

Bulgarian prosecutors said they are collecting evidence on the possible involvement of six Russians in four explosions between 2011 and 2020 at Bulgarian arms depots that were storing munitions for export to Ukraine and Georgia.

My speculation about motive was just that. But what do you know?

In that article the Russian foreign minister humorously said either the Bulgarians didn't know anything back then or they knew and kept quiet. Note the option of the Russian sabotage not happening was not offered.

UPDATE: More on Russia's revived covert operations against Europeans.

Reach Out and Touch ... Someone.

Fighting terrorists from afar is not as easy as proponents like to portray it. Without reliable intelligence we risk killing innocents by shooting and risk letting terrorists escape by not shooting.

This is not a surprise:

Since U.S. forces withdrew from Somalia earlier this year, they have been “commuting to work” via aircraft to help train Somali troops and for potential counter terror missions, but without a ground presence there is limited intelligence understanding, the head of U.S. Africa Command told lawmakers. ...

There is still a “limited footprint” of less than 100 troops remaining in Somalia with the U.S. embassy, and other forces are based at locations outside the country, such as Kenya and Djibouti. AFRICOM forces work virtually with partners from these bases, and “then we fly in to conduct training and to advise and assist our partners,” Townsend said. ...

Specifically, limited intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance, along with less interaction with Somali forces, means “our understanding of what is happening in Somalia is less now than when we were there on the ground physically located with our partners,” he said.

What did I say about this decision to bug out and fight terrorists from outside Somalia?

Yes. You may recall that I noted that both Trump's decision to pull troops out of Somalia and Biden's decision to require White House approval strikes there would harm our ability to kill jihadis. If The AFRICOM Queen was sailing off the coast, as I wrote about in Military Review, we'd be in a much stronger position.

As I wrote in that post about Trump's decision:

Without American special forces on the ground in Somalia with our local allies, our drone strikes seeking to kill jihadis could actually be counter-productive. People forget that without old fashioned meat sack sources on the ground, the high tech strike systems could just be a means to kill the wrong people for the wrong people.

It is only April and already we have a "limited intelligence understanding" of the environment.

Taiwan Needs a Sense of Urgency.

The United States is concerned that the Taiwanese don't have enough to deter a Chinese invasion.

Sometimes I read that the Taiwanese will fight tooth and nail. Other times I read that the Taiwanese have critical weaknesses that make their fighting ability less than it appears. I guess this is the latter type of thing:

U.S. officials, former Taiwanese military leaders and security experts say they believe that means Taiwan needs to do more to ensure it can inflict enough damage to discourage an invading force or hold it off until the arrival of help—possibly from the U.S. After years of increases in military spending, China now has around 100 times as many ground force personnel as Taiwan and a military budget 25 times as large, according to Pentagon data. 

As I've noted before, Taiwan needs to focus on spending more before it gets into the details of spending smarter. Virtually any increased spending anywhere will help at this point. Because Taiwan needs to fight on so many domains to have a chance at winning.

Note that the reference to "guerrilla-style" warfare in the article really means "asymmetric" means of fighting. That is you don't try to match an enemy destroyer for destroyer or fighter plane for fighter plane.

Which is a valid if mis-used concept.

And not to sound threatening rather than cautionary, but America can make up for only so many Taiwanese deficiencies.

UPDATE: The U.S. intelligence community reports the stunning insight that in the light of the Chinese crack down on democracy in Hong Kong that Taiwanese attitudes toward independence from China are strengthening. 

The Chinese communists on the mainland naturally think that is badthink and worthy of punishment or invasion.

An Army Marches On Its Stomach

Don't look for reasons to abandon allies who are out there every day killing jihadis.

Afghanistan's military will collapse without American support:

[General Frank] McKenzie, head of U.S. Central Command, said that as the U.S. pulls out all forces, “my concern is the Afghans’ ability to hold ground” and whether they will able to continue to maintain and fly their aircraft without U.S. aid and financial support. Later, at a Pentagon news conference, McKenzie said the U.S. will look for “some remote, televised way” to help the Afghan security forces perform maintenance on their aircraft without having U.S. personnel in the country.

Some will jump on this to say two decades of building an Afghan military was a waste. That is false. 

Afghan forces were built with the need for logistics support. The troops kill jihadis every day with that support. If American troops are gone, will all the logistics support we, our allies, and contractors under our protection provide remain? 

Remember that the NATO war on Libya in 2011 could not have been waged without American logistics support. Britain needed some American logistics support in the Falklands War. American combat units would collapse without American logistics support. 

Don't look for excuses to lose this long war. It would be an own-goal at this point.

Politics as Calvinball

How are we to have rational discussions when Democrats play Calvinball with the meaning of words? 

Legislation is bipartisan even if no Republican votes for it. Speech the left doesn't like is violence. Violence in service of the left is speech. There is no such thing as an "illegal alien." Court packing is "unpacking"--whatever the Hell that means. 

Infrastructure means everything the government can spend money on. Riots and looting are mostly peaceful protest. Desegregation is racist and segregation empowers minorities. Kids in "cages" are war crimes but kids in "facilities" are compassion. 

Microaggressions are real and proof white people are a cancer on America--which is systemically racist even though the most allegedly racist institutions under leftist attack are controlled by Democrats. There is no migrant "crisis" on the southern border. Hating Black people is horrible but hating white people is woke virtue. 

Some minorities are minorities only if a victim of a white person but are considered white if they commit crimes. Asians are white-adjacent if successful. Men are women, and vice versa. If you aren't a leftist, you're a Nazi. Or maybe a white supremacist. 

Knife fights are as much a part of a kid's life as playing video games or hide and seek.

Invented pronouns are a subject for moral fervor. 

This is where we are at. It's madness. 

How is it possible to have rational discussions with people who hold such nonsense to be true? Why are words no longer relatively fixed? 

Hell, why can't all of us be proud of our country and what we have built here as the foundation of our debates over policies?

The Foundation of Our Navy Has Evaporated

The lack of American shipbuilding capacity worries me a lot.

China could rapidly build modern warships because they have a large shipbuilding industry. America shows the other side of that coin:

That’s why it costs so much more and takes longer for American shipyards to build warships. Worse, the decline in American commercial shipbuilding means there is a chronic shortage of skilled shipyard workers and managers for military ship construction. The U.S. currently ranks 19th in terms of ship building and most of that is smaller, coastal shipping plus specialty items like oil rigs. The U.S. has far fewer facilities for repairing its many large warships and a growing backlog in warship maintenance because of that. 

On the bright side, our aviation and vehicle production industries are robust.

Let's hope our crew and command quality remain superior. That is constant work as recent shortfalls have demonstrated.

But I worry that our senior officers have absorbed too much of woke culture to be effective in ensuring this traditional advantage.

And hopefully our allies can repair our warships and maybe build more for our Navy in a long war.

Still, will the foundation of China last long enough to pose a threat to us? Read both of those posts. And as I've said many times, if you read just one defense source, read Strategypage.

UPDATE: This seems prudent:

As the U.S. Navy grapples with outdated maintenance facilities and a fleet stretched by maintenance backlogs, a bipartisan, bicameral group of lawmakers are proposing a $25 billion cash infusion for public and private shipyards timed for Congress’ debate on a massive infrastructure package.

So that's $25 billion out of the trillions of proposed spending above an already too-large budget that is justified by need. 

UPDATE: A brief history of the Navy, and how rust appeared.

How Long Before Madness is So Widespread That Nobody Knows It is Crazy?

I thank God I did not grow up in the current age of college wokeness. 

I'm not talking about the actual college education. I'm grateful enough for missing that, mind you. I thought it was tilted to the left then. But that was nothing compared to now. Still, I'm talking about college admission criteria. 

Taking the SAT and ACT was my ticket to higher education. I grew up in Detroit. I didn't know anybody--other than teachers--with college degrees. There was nobody to guide me in the application process. I filled out the application to the University of Michigan by hand.

I had no idea the essay was important. I wrote it by hand in the space provided on the form. So it was my first draft. When I was in the dorm and people asked me what my essay was about, I honestly said I didn't remember. I was shocked that it was so important. 

When I applied I had no idea a college could turn me down. Does Ford deny you the chance to buy their cars? So I only applied to Michigan. Why pay application fees to other schools when I knew I wanted to go to Michigan? 

I didn't even know that college was a four-year program. No idea. College was an alien world. I didn't even know what I didn't know in order to ask questions. Here be dragons. 

All I knew was that a middle school teacher had told my parents I should go to Michigan. So I thought, I'll go there. 

My point is that the test scores were key to letting someone like me get into a top tier college when otherwise I knew nothing about that world let alone anything about gaming the system. It was the only factor that was even close to being an even playing field. I had no tutors. No courses. I took the practice exam at school, and that was my preparation.

But now the test scores that enabled my college path are deemed biased. They are downgraded and clearly on a path to being banned. This is horrifying. My two children had to navigate the current system. So I saw what it has become. Now there are BS aspects of applying for college that tilt the field to the wealthy who can afford classes, tutors, experiences, and charitable projects that prove you are "well rounded" and worthy of the university. The one thing that the poor or blue collar can use to get attention--a test score about aptitude for learning--is to be dropped? 

It's all just pulling up the drawbridge to prevent people from entering the castle without a special ticket that the castle dwellers create for their favored people. This is liberal social justice? I would not have gotten that ticket those many decades ago. This is madness. 

Sorry for the long and dense digression into me. But it isn't about me, really. And if I had any other point of view this would be called my "lived experience" and beyond questioning. 

Madness, I say.

Fighting Swarms With Swarms

Russia may or may not be able to exploit this drone-swarming capability more than America. But it is a threat and somebody will use it against us. America needs small fighter drone swarms to cope with the threat.

Russian drone swarms: 

Such swarms also force the adversary to expend munitions and other military resources, thus signaling positions in a way that enables further precise attacks or electronic countermeasures. The Russian military is also working on developing swarms of robotic systems in the air, on the ground, and at sea. Some of these projects are close to reality and will likely be available to directly challenge Moscow’s opponents in the near future. In short, allowing Russian forces to gain such an advantage via numerous uncrewed systems cooperating with their regular forces across multiple domains would have dramatic consequences for any military force that confronts them on the battlefield.

One thing that hadn't occurred to me was the use of drone swarms as recon-by-fire. Ground forces defending themselves against drone swarm attacks reveal their positions and enable other more traditional weapons to be used against the now-spotted targets. 

All the more reason to have fighter drone swarms on combat air patrol to defeat the attacking swarms, as I discussed in Army magazine. There is no way the Air Force can extend their blue sky fighter umbrella to the "brown skies," as I termed the air space just above our troops. 

And ground-based air defenses will not only overly burden and distract ground units from primary ground combat missions. Even successfully carrying out the mission will expose them to other enemy fires.

Russia has lot of grand weapons plans. Do they have the money and skill to implement this threat?

But if Russia can't do it, China will. And others. The threat is already there:

The proliferation of small unmanned aerial systems, usually commercially available drones that can be outfitted to drop weapons, is the most “persistent and dangerous” threat to troops in the Middle East in decades.

Although to be fair, the primacy of that threat is likely due to the absence of other methods of striking routinely.

Maybe Russia will just take longer to field this threat. 

Air combat drones are the way to stop this threat, wherever it threatens American troops.

Weekend Data Dump

Ukraine and Turkey.

And because we live in an age of judgmental, deliberately stupid, douche bags, let me say again that of course Black lives matter. They must matter because of our Constitution, laws, and human decency. But Black Lives Matter is a Marxist group and I'll not have anything to do with that group of haters and racists. Perhaps I'm best called Super Anti-Racist. Because I won't have a discussion on race relations with any race haters, no matter what their race is. Nor do I have to go along with insane notions that those who support the group BLM offer.

Improving inertial navigation systems to replace space-based GPS navigation. I guess confidence in defending the constellation of GPS satellites--from jamming or direct attack--isn't high.

A hard  but needed reminder that they weren't just college students, but Army officers in training.

I don't know why there is a sub set of Westerners fanatically promoting insects as food. People inother places eat them, it is argued. I refuse to eat insects. Everybody should refuse. I mean, isn't it cultural appropriation?

The left rightly looks down on the Salem witch trials and the Spanish Inquisition. We all should. They were horrible actions by primitive and savage people. But what--in their logic if not body count--is the current woke cancel culture of identifying and purging alleged Nazis, if not a modern form of those kinds of primitive savagery? When will this fever break? And what will the price our society pays ultimately be before it ends?

Yes. It really does annoy me when I see somebody walking alone outside with a mask on. It is even more annoying when someone without a mask puts one on when I approach when I am walking alone outside. I try to remember that in Michigan our cases are high so people may be more worried than in other states. So I really shouldn't be annoyed. I don't know their health or worries. I should be more tolerant. And mind you, I'm pro-mask where appropriate! I have been even when the government was telling us masks didn't work too well (but really they were trying to save masks for health workers). I owned N-95 masks well before the Xi Jinping Flu pandemic, just in case. But still, outside and alone is pretty darn safe. And here I thought I was the anti-science denier in these parts. Tip to Instapundit.

I officially don't care if Democratic cities are torn apart in riots. Apparently the pain to Democrats isn't high enough to change policies. When Democrats want to restore order rather than make excuses for violence, I'll care again. Detroit has not even hit rock bottom after the 1967 riots no matter how many times over the decades I've read about the city's latest "comeback." This is what Democrats are doing to their own voters but on a national scale. But Democrats "care." The real monsters are well disguised.

Cheese is racist, now. If "we" want to eat "their" food, it's racist. If "we" want to eat "our" food in our own country, it's racist.

Also, I'm tired of caring about men-who-sort-of-become-women competing against women in sports. If the women don't care enough to stand up to the woke pushing this on them, who am I to care? I'm just not taking point on this fight.

I don't believe that half of Trump supporters won't get vaccinated, as one poll says. I believe half of Trump supporters told pollsters that. For spite. Because pollsters and the media in general are viewed as on the other side. With good reason, I'll add. If nearly half of the country has gotten at least one dose already, I don't believe non-Trump supporters represent 3/4 of the vaccinated.

I've mentioned this issue before. Leadership does not involve doing what gets our allies to publicly praise us. Because really, weaker powers will praise to the high heavens if America does what they want and if America never asks them to sacrifice for common goals. Many NATO allies disliked Trump. But Trump made NATO stronger.

Oops. It never occurred to me that this could be a problem. Is it? Or is it being overly sensitive to the complaints of a few? That said, I'd have no problem moving the rank insignia.

Yes, Trump jumped in at the head of the existing parade.

Rwanda blames France for "significant responsibility" for enabling and allowing Rwandans to kill 800,000 other Rwandans in the 1994 massacres. Rwandans didn't commit that genocide attempt? France should have acted like a colonial power to stop the violence? So when does Rwanda give up its UN seat and request France become a true colonial power in order to prevent a future genocide?

It looks like Putin will achieve his slow-motion assassination of dissident Navalny.

Making a blanket charge that the military is riddled with racists and in need of political commissars to root them out sounds like a good way to destroy our military's cohesion. Silly me, the Army taught me that all its soldiers are green.

Yes, if we leave Afghanistan it will require a surge of troops to pull out what we want and have combat troops leaving last to cover the rest. 

Israel will bolster Greece's air power over a 22-year period. Oddly, that story recycles the address of another story.

Rebels are trying to capture the capital of Chad. And what kind of 18th century field command is this? "Chad's President Idriss Déby has died of his injuries following clashes with rebels in the north of the country at the weekend, the army has said."

I'm not interested in transforming Afghanistan. I just don't want it to be a jihadi terrorist training haven. My goals in Afghanistan were never very high. And I consider building a government there willing and able to kill jihadis quite the achievement. One worthy of defending.

Well, we flew a helicopter on Mars for the first time. FOB Mars now has initial operating capability.

Woe, Canada. No wonder liberals didn't flee to Canada during the Trump years. I like Canada. But I only visit and don't have to endure living there.

So another thing I'm supposed to worry about? Question: Do children actually eat their gloriously healthy cafeteria food ration? Or does the study just measure what was put on their trays?

Iraq is under pressure to battle corruption, which destabilizes Iraq and provides inroads for Iran to infiltrate the country. Sanctions on Iran reduced the ability of Iran to exploit that weakness. The end of sanctions will be a threat to Iraq. The battle against corruption will take time to reform the culture. I've long been concerned about that problem.

The Air Force got its first updated F-15--8 F-15EX models. Continental air defense, non-stealth missions against less capable enemies, and flying magazines for stealth fighters make the planes worth the price.

Well, most Biden voters cast their ballot because he was not Trump. A Ham Sandwich (D) would have gotten their votes. The four years of relentless media propaganda was effective in that regard. Now that isn't enough. And his voters are finding that Biden is not Biden, either. Not any more. Instead he is a shifting kaleidoscope of left-wing factions that put pieces of paper in front of him to sign.

Please elevate you pucker factor now: "The four U.S. Air Force F-16 fighter jets that recently flew a mission over the highly contested South China Sea were photographed landing at Yokota Air Base in Japan, en route to their home base at Misawa. The images confirm that these jets were armed for counter-air operations with a heavy load of live air-to-air missiles." We must really worry that China is leaning forward on attacking Taiwan. Or Biden doesn't want to appear to be vulnerable to Chinese pressure from past business dealings. I really have no idea which is closer to the truth.

The sad truth is that 13-year old Adam Toledo was killed years before he was out at 2:30 a.m.--armed--with a known gang member, and was pursued by police, one of whom shot  him. If Toledo didn't die that night, he would have died another night soon enough. Perhaps by a gang member. If that had happened, we wouldn't know his name. He'd just be a statistic as one of very many young dead males in that lifestyle and career path. Who do we blame for that? 

Hard target: "USAF F-15s, F-16s, and C-130s are training in Poland in an agile combat employment exercise that comes as Russia executes a massive buildup on the border with neighboring Ukraine, though U.S. officials say the exercise was long-planned."

My memory of Obama's "bitter clinger" remarks is that Obama was referring to 2008 Democratic primary voters in Pennsylvania who seemed to be more comfortable with white Hillary Clinton over him. Is it progress that Democrats went on to attack Republicans in 2016 and now all of America to the beginning of time for racism?

The most disturbing aspect of the January 6th Capitol Building riot--the apparent killing of a police officer by Trump supporters--did not happen. So a few hours of trespass and some theft. Portland and Seattle should be so lucky to have just endured that at the hands of communist street thugs tolerated by leftist local politicians.

Renewed civil war in Somalia? Why we don't admit that Somalia isn't a country and simply allow the pieces to declare independence and negotiate or fight inter-state wars over borders is beyond me. Well, sure, the African Union--itself a term based on hope rather than reality--doesn't want to set that kind of precedent for all of Africa. But still. An exception was made for South Sudan. Hasn't defending the concept of Somalia done enough damage for another exception?

More on Turkey's dual drone carrier/amphibious warfare ship. We have that flexibility. I suggested something similar for the Ford hull. But the problems with the Ford and the disaggregation of the Marines in an anti-ship role in support of the Navy tends to make that notion obsolete.

In practice, Russia and China are testing America. So is Iran. And so is North Korea. But is this an intentional effort because Biden is president? Or is this business as usual for hostile states that we're noticing more because we have a new president?

I'm so old I remember when limiting travel between America and other countries was racist. Tip to The Morning Briefing.

I pulled two long non-defense paragraphs from here and made them Landfill posts. I guess I'm in a somewhat foul mood. I may be optimistic about the long run. But we have to live during this short run. You've been warned. Avoid them if you prefer my national security efforts rather than forays outside my lanes.

It hadn't occurred to me that the creation of Space Force would have this effect: "U.S. Army leaders have signed off on plans to explore the use of satellites in low Earth orbit to give soldiers dedicated surveillance, navigation and imaging capabilities." The Army has a theoretical deal with the Air Force on the air space over Army units and what the Army can fly. With elbow throwing over the decades, naturally, over application. And now the "tactical space layer" opens the discussions with the Space Force on the same basic issue. That should have been blindingly obvious to me from the beginning.

I mentioned that America would build military facilities in Norway, if approved by Norway's parliament. The intent is to support NATO anti-submarine assets. Make sure some NATO fighter aircraft are available, of course.

I've been in a foul mood about a company which hosts some of my photos on the cloud for free. I liked them because I frequently used their printing services. It used to be unlimited free but I reduced my holdings there by over 90% to meet their new limit, made when they split off from the printing business. Since then they've been occasionally bugging me about hosting photos with links from other sites. I don't do that and never have. To add injury to insult, 80% of my photos on their site disappeared. In my correspondence I denied hosting and brought up the loss of photos. The company actually found and restored those photos. So I'll give credit where credit is due. We'll see if they stop prodding me to pay for their service by making vague accusations of hosting. Just in case I copied all the photos to a thumb drive. And since I can't easily use photos there for the similarly named but now separate printing company, my incentive to use the printing service is lower.

Oh Hell: "Indonesia's navy is searching for a submarine that went missing north of the resort island of Bali with 53 people on board, the military said Wednesday." Australia, India, Malaysia, Singapore and the United States are helping with the search. Saturday morning a watched a report that the sub sank in waters much deeper than its hull can withstand and that the air would have run out by now. Crap.

It's funny how much despots like the legitimacy of the illusion of Western democracy: "President Bashar Assad formally announced Wednesday he will run for reelection in war-torn Syria, and was expected to win a fourth seven-year term in the largely symbolic May 26 vote." Western activists keep saying we shouldn't "impose" Western democracy on Third World countries. But those countries sure do love to pretend they have Western-style democracy.

Putin sees that Biden won't defend the American border. Why would Putin think Biden would help Ukraine defend its border? 

There seems to something wrong with our bloody elites today. James Lindsay isn't the first to make this observation, but he's right about our credentialed class in universities: "I don't think a lot of people realize how much resentment gets boiled up in people who are smart but too impractical to know how to make money, especially when they see 'dumb' people making more money. Overproducing these bourgeois types is very dangerous to any society." There is more in the thread. I guess I'm weird. I'm educated. I think I'm smart. (And I'm handsome, witty, and charming, to boot, as long as I'm on a roll.) But I don't resent anyone who makes more money than I do. Nor do I think I'm inferior as a person because I don't make more money than other people. I just don't get the resentment.

Disinformation.Tip to Insanity Wrap.

I wasn't on the Chauvin trial jury over the death of George Floyd. Did the jury give their verdict so fast because the officer's guilt was so obvious? Or because his innocence was so obvious that they knew they could convict--and so save themselves from the mob--and count on appeal to provide justice?  On the bright side, given time I think we'll know.

China's naval base in Djibouti (where America and France also have bases) will be able to handle an aircraft carrier.

It's about time that the FBI infiltrated the communist scum who continue to riot and started arresting them.

The Department of Defense and National Guard are getting tired of being extras in the Democrats' Insurrection Porn theater production in Washington, D.C.

A friend of China. Well, Four Eyes is still pretty good.

Race strife activists loved this police response. It could have ended with a police officer shooting a young African-American girl or with a police officer letting a young African-American girl get stabbed. With any "luck," both could have been injured or killed. How could the activists lose with that set-up?

A refusal to see a hate crime. 

Up to 80 Polish troops were assigned to Turkey for NATO missions over the eastern Mediterranean Sea and Black Sea. Hopefully the Byrza plane in use has the anti-submarine equipment.

Did Iran attempt to retaliate for Israel's successful sabotage of their Natanz nuclear enrichment facility by firing a missile from Syria at Israel's Dimona nuclear reactor. If so, Iran shows they are willing to fight Israel to the last dead Arab. But the Israelis say it was a SAM gone astray. Was it? The Israelis retaliated just in case, apparently.

The F-104 still flies.

Trust in the FBI is another thing Democrats have wrecked. No wonder the agency hid this.

Ukraine is asking Western countries to deter Russia from renewing its invasion of Ukraine. Putin says the massing of troops he ordered is over and that the troops will return to their home bases. Is that true? And was Western reaction key to this, if true?

BLM is an awful Marxist, racist group that has succeeded in dividing America over race. 

Outrage!!! Never mind.

Not that the Russians aren't big enough bastards to do such a thing, but I'm skeptical. Getting "flu-like symptoms" in the Middle East is what happens any given afternoon to those who didn't grow up in that environment. And my best guess for past events--if the reports of harm are accurate--is some type of surveillance system in use against us with harmful side effects.

George Floyd should not have died while in police control. Let me be clear about that. Passing a counterfeit $20 bill and using illegal drugs are not death penalty offenses. His police record does not change that fact. And it was difficult to watch the videos. You know what will happen and you see nothing done to stop that from happening. But leftists make criminals like George Floyd saint-like martyrs. Yet on the other hand, a single flaw from other people makes them left-wing cancel culture candidates--including Abraham Lincoln. Who freed the slaves and waged a bloody war to achieve that. How do we reconcile these divergent impulses from the left? Or is it as simple as hatred of America and a determination to harm America regardless of the issue?

Apparently the Biden administration isn't sure we'll be allowed to celebrate Independence Day:

Well that's going to be interesting. Perhaps moving the American embassy to Jerusalem with so little trouble despite predictions of doom has provided a false sense of reassurance. And maybe it provides cover for not mentioning the Chinese Communist Party's ongoing genocide against Uighurs.

The U.S. certified that Italy's carrier can operate F-35Bs.

Why not give the Post Office an Orwellian task? It's not like they aren't already mistrusted and in danger of going broke trying to carry out their core task of delivering mail.

India is being hammered by the Xi Jinping Flu, including an India variant. Different countries have their own trajectories, making it difficult to compare country efforts until this thing is over.

Xi's gotta have them. 

Shocking news from the world of cause and effect. Tip to Instapundit.

"News." As the Soviets understood it. If I didn't know better I'd think NBC wants riots in our cities. Tip to Instapundit.

Forty years of actual data shows that the climate panic porn displayed in the Senate on June 23, 1988 was not data. I missed that event. I was busy. Look, the climate has warmed since the 1970s. Before that it cooled. And before that it warmed. And all this variability within a general rise in temperature since the end of the Little Ice Age. Sure, people have an effect on the climate. We do produce CO2, which has a warming effect. But we don't know the relative effect. And we should know that socialist policies aren't the solution to any problem that does develop.

This is an assault on the very foundation of our country. Tip to Instapundit.

We really don't know what a hero is if we can't agree that the Columbus cop who saved a girl from being stabbed is one. A lot of decisions by a lot of people over years led to that moment in time. That officer couldn't go back in time to make sure past decisions were better. All he could do was make the least bad decision. He'll have to live what he needed to do to save someone. Yet somehow a lot of woke people sleep well at night after turning our cities into riot-filled crime scenes. Perhaps something will come out that makes me change my mind. I do that when more information comes out. But right now that cop should get a medal. And out thanks. Or at least our silence if we can't manage that.

Let's get off this planet that we seem too eager to wreck with our circular firing squad politics.

I was settling in the other night to watch TV. As I set the remote on the lamp base to keep it from getting wet if I spill a drink sitting on that table, I knocked over a tall 16-ounce drink. This was the first time I'd spilled anything on my new carpet since I got it two years ago. On the bright side, I spilled 16 ounces of soda water with a splash of lime juice. Which is pretty much what you'd put on a carpet to clean an actual spill, if I'm not mistaken. My life really does work out for me. Not in "hit the lottery" ways. But in enough to make it remarkably good. Oh, and the remote emerged dry as a bone.

China isn't good at making friends. Thankfully we just have to be less bad than China.

I grew up in Detroit. I never saw a child knife fight. Friendly or otherwise. 

Duh: "The top general of U.S. Africa Command told a Senate panel on Thursday that the Trump administration’s decision to reposition troops outside of Somalia has created fresh challenges in the fight against al-Shabab terrorists." I mentioned that when Trump ordered it and I've mentioned it as Biden has ratified it.

Each of those moron students could simply declare they will never call 911 when they need police help if they want to cut ties between the university and police. Also, they should proclaim they have no firearms. And that they do not lock their doors or windows. Because guns and walls are bad.

I don't believe I've ever said AOC is "dumb." If I did I was both wrong and unkind. What I've said is that she shows no evidence of benefiting from a college education. I believe that is true.

I recently heard someone say that every time a new camera is added to the world, we think the world is a worse place. I think that is fundamentally true and is a broader application of something Jean-Paul Sartre said that I've noted about war: "A victory described in detail is indistinguishable from defeat." A normal world has all kinds of bad things happening all the time that before cameras we didn't see if they didn't happen near us. And since only bad news is news, we see only good things near us but see increasing amounts of bad things all over the world. That kind of ratio has to have an effect on a lot of people. Not me, mind you. Thank God. But a lot of people. 

Heavy use to support ground troops has worn out the swing-wing B-1 bomber. Could we turn the plane into a long-range fighter support aircraft that functions as an aerial battery for other sensors to fire? The long range would surely help in the western Pacific. And by scaling back usage to training, could the platform's life be extended for decades?

Pro-Iranian armed groups continue to target Americans in Iraq. American commanders don't anticipate withdrawing prematurely from Iraq as we did once in 2011 and as we seem prepared to do in Afghanistan. But I don't believe there are really up to 10,000 ISIL fighters in Iraq and Syria now. Unless you count part-timers and family members of full-time fighters. Honestly, if there are a thousand full-timers I wouldn't be too surprised. Although even that seems high given the lack of enemy action. You'd think a thousand terrorists could generate more attacks per day than I see reported in our media sporadically.

That's fine, I suppose. I know the Navy needs help and the Army needs help defending budget share: "The Army, primarily a land force, is looking to optimize its forthcoming electronic warfare equipment to operate in the Indo-Pacific theater against maritime targets, according to an Army official." But make sure that EW equipment has a robust "secondary" role against ground forces if the Army is sent ashore in force.

It's nice that the Philippines has protested China's actions in the South China Sea that threaten Manila's control of land and sea territory. But at some point the Philippines has to act to stop China. Bases need to be established, reinforced, and expanded. And by protecting such actions, the Philippines may need to dare China to fight a significant battle to get Peking's way.

People think that other people are more partisan and hostile than they are. I assume this study doesn't apply to the minority of Twitter users who dominate that platform with partisan hostility. 

The internal refugee flow begins? It can take half a century for hundreds of thousands to flee the effects of urban violence, as Detroit has demonstrated. But the people will flee.

The most polite dictatorial thought police the world has ever seen? Tip to Instapundit.

If morons in America don't try to replicate China's centralized top-down bureaucracy to "compete" with them we'll be fine in the long run.

American drones to India. 

Well, yes. Trump's effort to contain North Korea's nuclear weapons ambitions failed. As did Obama's, Bush 43's, and Clinton's. As did South Korea's past efforts to bribe North Korea. The problem seems to be that North Korea wants nukes. Talk, talk, die, die is the best option--while building up missile defenses and rapid strike capabilities.

I'm skeptical that the sickness of American troops in Syria is the result of a Russian directed-energy weapon. On the other hand, the Russians are bastards.

This is silly. And dangerous. Of course a land-based nuclear deterrent in America makes sense. Without them enemies have a simpler dilemma to disarm us. Air defenses in theory can tackle aircraft. Few submarines are at sea at any one time, meaning it makes sense to make a bigger effort to take them out. We need land-based nukes. Consider that with them an enemy that wants to try to launch a disarming first strike has to consider that it will be sending thousands of nukes at our homeland. No president is going to think, oh well, it's just our nukes under attack. Without ICBMs in America, enemies can attack our SSBNs at sea with conventional weapons and dare our president to fire nukes in retaliation for conventional attacks. All while the enemy holds our cities hostage with the threat of nuclear attack. Don't make our enemies' dilemmas easier.

America and European states are increasingly worried about Russia. It isn't that Russia is very powerful. It's that Russia is more powerful than weaker neighbors, that Russia would determine when the war begins, and that NATO power is far away from the eastern frontiers despite Russian claims that NATO is a threat to Russia. Russia has five years to restore relations with NATO. Unless Russia is going to accept its vassal status under China forever.

I noted this before. It bears noting again. The FBI has forfeited the trust for professionalism it built over many decades. If it isn't just the secret police for the left now, explain the difference to me. Tip to Instapundit.

The only person in the world who isn't cancelled by the woke left for one "problematic" act in his past:

I laughed pretty hard at this one. Which might be a bad sign for my dating life:

For all the talk of a "forever war" against jihadi terrorists, you'd think that we were still losing 100 troops per month fighting them in pitched campaigns. The fact is, after two decades of fighting we have allies on the ground who kill jihadis and endure the casualties. Our fight is limited and mostly one of supporting those willing to fight and die against our common enemy. We didn't have these allies when we started the campaigns. We have them now. These allies just need our support to back them up. And as far as no end being in sight for that fight, that's hardly America's fault. That is the fault of sick Islamist ideology that has inspired fanatics to kill for their god. We can hardly stop fighting that and expect good results.It's a sad day when conservatives believe that rot about war needing "two sides to fight." From the jihadi point of view, it's great if we think we can tap out. They won't. I think we need to shift our outlook that sees a "forever war" and recognize we are in the "global troubles" of a lower level but no less persistent struggle against killers who would kill more if we let up the pressure.

Unless I read otherwise, I'm going to assume that burning tanker off of Syria was struck by Israel. The subliminal Iran-Israel War sometimes is more visible.

Worries about the survivability of small, unarmed Light Amphibious Warships. I'm not impressed with the concept as it stands.

If Congress guts the F-35 program it will be the most amazing anti-aircraft weapon that Russia or China will ever deploy against American air power. If Congress wants to have a role, mend the program--and there are problems to fix--don't end the program.

Palestinians are ready for another round against Israel, it seems. Iran is perfectly willing to fight Israel to the last Arab, after all.

Europe needs to admit that Russia is waging war. That's been my complaint. Too many still go along with the Russian fiction that "separatists" hold parts of Ukraine's Donbas when we should have the decency and respect for reality to proclaim that land is "Russian-occupied Donbas."

Biden pulled the trigger on recognizing the Armenian genocide. I can't say it is unjust. But Turkey is at least a technical NATO ally while Armenia is an ally of Russia. We'll see how Erdogan reacts.

Paul Krugman apparently believes that if a city wasn't burned down in its entirety (and the earth salted?) then it did not in fact suffer large-scale rioting, arson, and looting over the last year because of BLM and Antifa. Well, can we say there has been an "epidemic" of violence, killing, arson, and looting over the last year in cities across the country? What about that word?

Pakistan effed itself. But on the bright side it has an imaginary enemy intent on destroying it. Although as I've mentioned before, if our Iran policy could get us an Iran as good as our "black sheep" ally Pakistan has been, it would be a fantastic success.

Let's not be hasty in dismissing Mayor Wheeler's declaration that he will defeat the rioting BLM/Antifa scum in his city. Perhaps a year of being whacked by the clue bat finally had an effect.

Well that's not suspicious virus-research activity by the Chinese Communist Party at all.

How is this not straight-up racism?!

No! Way!

After decades of assuming air supremacy over its units, the Army has an armored low-level air defense vehicle again. It's funny. The Air Force doesn't object when the Army recognizes that enemy air power makes timely air superiority--let alone supremacy--much harder.So now comment on Army air defense. But when the Army recognizes that the Air Force can't provide timely ground support while fighting to control the air, the Air Force goes all "mean girls".

Under cover of a pandemic it unleashed on the world, the Chinese Communist Party is crushing democracy activists in Hong Kong: "Legal experts and government critics say the arduous proceedings are part of a campaign to crush Hong Kong’s democracy movement after the protests in 2019, which shook the city and presented China’s Communist Party rulers with the most serious popular challenge since the Tiananmen uprising in 1989." The world has moved on. I had to search for Hong Kong news. But hey, even genocide of the Uighurs by the CCP gets much attention these days.

Wait. What? "Sir Isaac Newton has been labelled as a potential beneficiary of 'colonial-era activity' in draft plans to 'decolonise' the engineering curriculum at Sheffield University." Is Sheffield University saying that racism helped promote our understanding of the "three laws of motion, the core of modern physics"? Is that what the university is saying? Sounds pretty racist-adjacent of the university administrators to me. No engineer with a degree from that school should ever get a job as an engineer. Tip to Instapundit.

The UN seat with a clusterfuck attached continues to be all clustery. We seriously need to break it up and sell it for parts.

ALERT! Charlie Brown is lining up for the big kick as Lucy holds the football. The only question is how much stuff will South Korea give North Korea before North Korea stops pretending it will do anything for it. I didn't think Trump's efforts were likely to bear fruit. South Korea's have less of a chance.

Could a lengthened Burke hull provide the basis for a replacement major surface combatant? 

Taiwan wargamed  a Chinese invasion attempt. I just don't see how story details about how China could be ready to invade in 6-7 years fits with this assessment: "It is widely believed that without outside help, Taiwan could only withstand a full attack for days not weeks." Why would China wait 6 years if it could win within days? The war would be over before our ships raised anchors to intervene. Regardless, Taiwan should triple its defense spending. It clearly spends too little.

FOB Mars continues to deploy its air power. Tip to Instapundit.

And Now For Something Completely Different

The memes keep coming.