On the 365th Day, Janet Rested

We've discovered a hole in our homeland security defenses. Said Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano:

“What I say to the American people is that… thousands of people are working 24/7, 364 days a year to keep the American people safe.”

WikiLeaks reports that the 365th day is actually April 13th.

Homeland Security officials requested the American people to be more vigilant on that day.

Carrots and Sticks

Iran's mullahs face a population unhappy with their rule. But the mullahs retain the support of the most religious 20-30% of the population. And the armed forces are restless, being drawn from many parts of the country's population that does not support the mullahs. Which is why the mullahs have their own military force, the Pasdaran (Revolutionary Guards) and the bully boys of the barely organized and minimally trained Basij. These forces watch the military and people to control and contain any opposition to the mullahs. Strategypage has a nice summary. If Iran blows, it will be bloody before someone wins:

The senior clerics appear willing to fight to the death, and their opponents are, more and more, willing to deal with that head on. Meanwhile, no matter how successful the government was in suppressing the demonstrations in the capital, it was a defeat for the government. More people were radicalized, and dissention in the clergy became visible. The Iranian Islamic radicals are losing. Long term, they are lost. But like any tyranny in decline, there's the danger that the clerical dictatorship will go out with a bang, not, as the Soviet Union did, with a whimper. And if it is with a bang, it could be a very loud and destructive bang if the clerics have nuclear weapons.

The mullahs, meanwhile, are making the best of Western sanctions by using it as an excuse to provide the carrots to their guys with the sticks, by focusing their more limited funds on their loyalists:

A long-awaited radical overhaul of Iran's economy that has seen the scrapping of state subsidies is being used to punish and intimidate opponents of President Mahmud Ahmadinejad, analysts say.

Individuals and families deemed politically suspect or disloyal to Ahmadinejad's government are reportedly being denied cash handouts brought in to replace the extensive subsidy regime.

The claim, based on studies partly conducted by economists in Iran, comes after Ahmadinejad announced the end of subsidies in a move that saw fuel prices soar by 400 percent overnight.

Subsidies on a wide range of products are to be replaced by monthly cash payments of $40 per head, ostensibly targeted to those deemed most in need. The government has presented the plan as necessary to save the treasury up to $100 billion a year at a time when Iran's economy is under increasing strain from international sanctions imposed in response to its nuclear program.

However, Mehrdad Emadi, an Iranian economist based in London, says the compensation payments are being closely screened by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and volunteer Basij militia.

"You can see a political screening of people and categorizing them into groups -- who are with us and groups who have not made the right level of effort to be with us," Emadi says.

This works to keep the loyalists loyal to the regime. This review by the loyalists may cow the opposition or split them, as people try to qualify for aid. Of course, the limits of government financing that led to the elimination of general subsidies mean that the mullahs can't grant many of the opposition this aid. Further, this could also just push the opposition further in the direction of radical solutions.

All our choices are ugly. Using military force is unpredictable. The so-called peaceful option of sanctions could be even bloodier by orders of magnitude. And the option of doing nothing and letting Iran's mullahs get nuclear weapons is so bad that I hope nobody really thinks that we can learn to live with the mullah bomb.

We could get lucky, and wake up one morning to find that the Iranian military has overthrown the mullah regime. But I'm not the sort who believes that gambling really pays off.

Rule of Law

The Iraqis are beginning to form a government, with Maliki barely making the deadline for submitting a cabinet. Of the 42 positions, only 29 have permanent members. And key security seats do not yet have permanent ministers. These will be filled later.

Other stories, like this one, have indicated that the Sadrists are unhappy so far.

May they continue to be unhappy. I remain worried that Moqtada al-Sadr is neither dead nor cooling his heels in an Iraqi prison awaiting charges on murder, insurrection, or treason, for his warfare against Iraq and his close relationship with Iran, which has a lot of blood on its hands inside Iraq. But Allawi's backing means that if the Sadrists choose to bolt, Maliki could still have enough support with his bloc's Shias, the Kurds, and the Sunni Arabs.

Remember, too, that the long period of negotiations surely entrenched the role of rule of law. Nobody resorted to storming the palace to resolve the standoff. Politics were the means to resolve the dispute over who governs. We may hyper-ventilate over the supposedly overly partisan environment here, but our complaints reflect just how entrenched rule of law is here. We should be so lucky that the Iraqis learn to complain about attack ads and campaign finance regulations and donor transparency.

This was a long awaited step, but it was a step forward. Let's stick around to help them not stumble.

Acceptable Losses

On several occasions since the election of President Obama, I've worried that our new foreign policy of "restoring" our reputation abroad would in practice involve throwing friends to the wolves in order to please enemies.

I will say that as time has gone on, our president has acted more to my liking, broadly speaking. But my fears about the president early in his administration during the Zelaya Affair over the so-called Honduras coup were correct:

Lots of hypotheses have been floated to explain why the Obama administration went to such extremes last year to try to force Honduras to reinstate deposed president Manuel Zelaya.

Now the release of two WikiLeaked cables from the U.S. embassy in Tegucigalpa strengthens one of those theories: that the U.S. knew Mr. Zelaya was a threat to democratic Honduras but had decided the country should tolerate his constitutional violations in the interest of realpolitik.

Practically speaking, Hugo Chávez was the man to please. After a decade in power, the president of Venezuela's influence around the region was notable. George W. Bush had clashed with him. Barack Obama was out to prove that they could get along, as evidenced by the warm handshake at the Summit of the Americas in Port of Spain in April 2009.

Honduras offered a bonding opportunity. Mr. Zelaya was a protégé of Mr. Chávez. Standing up for him as democratically elected was a way to score points with Latin America's hard left.

 You have to break a few small countries to make an omelet, eh?

Luckily, Honduras was able to resist our efforts to throw them under the bus long enough for our foreign policy establishment to finally do the right thing despite some clueless legal analysis from the new crowd in our embassy there.

But it is handy to know what price the administration was prepared to pay in futile efforts to turn enemies into our friends.

UPDATE: Latin Americans are still waiting for the Obama administration to "restore" our reputation by coming up with a Latin American policy:

Nearly two years have passed since his inauguration, and President Obama has yet to unveil a major policy initiative for Latin America. Regional officials are hoping that Obama ends this neglect in 2011 and increases U.S. engagement.

Well, they're waiting for engagement more nuanced than tossing victims to Hugo Chavez in the hopes he'll learn to stop wanting more victims rather than whetting his appetite.

Fighting 'Them' Here

Are we at risk of becoming a police state-lite?

The Washington Post fails to support their point with their listing of means refined and used in Afghanistan and Iraq to fight insurgents and terrorists now used by our police. It misses the point because our military adopted many police means to help fight what in one sense could be thought of as gangs and organized crime, in the sense that people organized to do bad things could be observed, tracked, and predicted with police methods and tools.

The Obama administration is fine with this:

"The old view that 'if we fight the terrorists abroad, we won't have to fight them here' is just that - the old view," Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano told police and firefighters recently.

The Obama administration heralds this local approach as a much-needed evolution in the way the country confronts terrorism.

But while this trend predates the Obama administration, when you explicitly downgrade the war aspect of fighting Islamist terrorism to focus on law enforcement, that's what you get. And we can expect more untrained local Barney Fifes who shouldn't be allowed to carry a loaded weapon let alone pose as local intelligence officers, as the article highlights, to compile files on people whose threat level shouldn't rise to the level of official notice. We should be free to do what police think are "unusual" things without being seen and recorded as a threat. The part on the quality of some of the people who train locals is horrifying--they'll do more harm than good if the locals actually absorb what they are taught.

I've said it before (noting here a March 2003 post on my original site on the issue) and I'll say it again, our civil liberties depend on destroying our enemies on offense overseas (using military and non-military means) where the Islamists fight us and draw their justification and recruits. Sitting on defense, focusing on homeland defense inside our country just means our civil liberties will erode a little more every time the enemy hits us at home as we ratchet up defenses to cope with the last attack or attempted attack.

Fighting the Islamo-fascists isn't curtailing our civil liberties--failing to defeat them is doing that. I think the article is useful, at least, in pointing out what we are creating here at home as the war drags on.

The Beginnings of Something?

Unrest or fear of unrest in Tunisia, Belorus, and Iran provide early warning of the potential for more unrest in authoritarian states.

Or maybe these are just flare ups with no potential for anything more significant than signifying regimes with unhappy people.

These are, respectively, a generally pro-Western Moslem-majority state, the last rump of the Soviet Union, and a radical Shia state, so they are not any sort of trend. But it is news.

UPDATE: In the aftermath of the Belorus sham election, things will get ugly for the opposition that dared challenge the police state.

UPDATE: Something in Iran, too?

UPDATE: And something in Tunisia continues, with riots and clashes with police in Menzel Bouzayane.

Run Silent, Run North

Taiwan has secretly approached Russia about buying submarines, if this report is true (tip to The View from Taiwan, who provides broad coverage of news from the region related to Taiwan):

It was a report that sounded bizarre on its face: A secret Taiwan navy delegation visits Russia under the cover of a commercial delegation, ostensibly to buy icebreakers but actually to try to acquire diesel submarines.

The story, in the Chinese-language Next Magazine, was immediately denied by the Taiwanese military with two successive press conferences, and the odds are very long that the Russians would antagonize Beijing by selling its breakaway island province submarines or the technology to make them.

But Taiwan’s navy has long been trying to get its hands on diesel submarines, and in fact the story may not be so far-fetched, defense specialists say. Although the Bush administration in 2001 announced an arms sales package that included eight boats, procurement of the weapon of choice against trade-crippling Chinese naval blockades has proved difficult. The US ceased building diesel subs in the 1950s, and the remaining manufacturing countries have little interest in putting their lucrative relations with Beijing into jeopardy for coming to Taiwan's help.

This makes perfect sense to me, as I wrote early this year:

I'm thinking that Taiwan should pursue arms from Russia as a hedge against losing American sales. I commend the Obama administration for not caving to Chinese pressure, but the pressure is bound to have an effect. Remember, Western Europe used to sell to Taiwan but now only America does. Even if we continue to sell to Taiwan, the scope of what we sell might decrease under pressure. Taiwan could use Russian submarines, especially.

As to Russia not wanting to antagonize China? Well, that ship may have sailed and there are good reasons for Russia to arm Taiwan (and Vietnam and India, too, for that matter), as I noted in my linked post:

Russian sales would bolster another place considered by Peking to be a rebellious province, thus diverting Chinese attention from Russia's vulnerable Far East. And anything that bolsters Taiwanese defense capabilities will tend to make it easier for America and Japan to intervene to protect Taiwan and oppose China.

Remember, too, that Russia needs foreign arms sales if they are to maintain their domestic arms industry and eventually rearm after two decades of post-Soviet military rot. The Russians figured out at long last that selling to China just led China to steal the technology and make their own versions to compete with Russian models.

One last comment: the cover story for the Taiwanese mission was to buy icebreakers? Really? Or was this just to get our attention and prod America to figure out a way to provide the subs lest Taiwan move closer to Russia and away from us?

Lesson Learned

Our press corps is hopeless. They really have no clue about how poorly they cover the war.

The war in Afghanistan is the subject of just 4% of the nation's news coverage these days (and before the surge, it was just about 1%).

The danger, cost, and difficulty of reporting from isolated Afghanistan are mentioned. Also mentioned is the idea that Americans are weary of war coverage, with only a quarter following news from the war closely.

Given my views at how awful our press is on reporting or discussing military matters, I tend to think of this low percentage as good. Too little coverage by reporters without a clue to get in the way of winning; but enough coverage to keep the military from failing to confront real problems in the conduct of the war. That's my hope, anyway, notwithstanding my annoyance that much of the coverage consists of the "we're doomed!" variety.

But what really got me was this so-called lesson:

Privately, some television executives say the Afghanistan coverage is an outgrowth of the self-evaluations made by news organizations in the wake of the Iraq war, when many were faulted for not broadcasting sufficient skepticism.

At the same time, there are antiwar voices who say the news media has been “compliant” with regard to Afghanistan — the word that Joe Scarborough used on Friday on his MSNBC program, “Morning Joe.”

He asked Richard N. Haass, the president of the Council on Foreign Relations, “For years, we have had journalists wringing their hands and editorialists lashing out at the profession for not asking the tough questions leading up to Iraq. Ten years from now, won’t we be saying the same thing about Afghanistan?”

Are you kidding me? This is the lesson about their professional conduct in the war that our professional journalists have learned?

Insufficient skepticism? About the pre-Iraq War coverage? Presumably this means the questions of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction and not the vast number of other reasons our Congress set forth for war. One, on the issue of WMD, there is no question that at the very least, Saddam maintained the scientific and technical skills in place as well as critical infrastructure and raw materials to pick up again on chemical weapons production as soon as sanctions crumbled. At worst, he had them in some quantities to cover his bluff that he maintained large stocks, and he managed to smuggle them out of Iraqi into Syria (a strategy Saddam has tried to do with critical military assets in past wars) or even bury them somewhere in Iraq, both before and after the invasion.

But what would increased journalistic skepticism about our worries about Saddam's WMD programs in 2002 have gotten the media? If they had interviewed the heads of intelligence of every major intelligence outfit and had access to WikiLeaks documents about what they said internally, that increased skepticism would have shown that Saddam definitely had chemical weapons and was pursuing nuclear weapons. Even the UN's Hans Blix--famously against war--had to conclude that Iraq failed to prove they had eliminated all of their WMD programs, as the UN had required as a foundation of the Persian Gulf War ceasefire. Heck, every leading Democrat in the Senate publicly agreed that Iraq had WMD programs based on the information that they had gotten not from Bush, but from the recent Clinton administration (and President Clinton signed into law Congressional language making regime change in Iraq our official foreign policy goal because of our fear of Iraqi WMD programs).

Plus, the continued bizarre focus on redebating the 2002 debate on going to war with Iraq is astounding given how badly the press got the initial Afghanistan campaign (brutal Afghan winter, the need to halt operations during Ramadan, the Dr. No underground lairs that Osama bin Laden had built); Iraq War (failing to understand the basics of counter-insurgency and repeatedly reporting that we were doomed to defeat until even our press could not ignore the signs of our victory; ignoring Iranian and Syrian involvement as a Bush fantasy just trying to get an excuse to hit them; denying al Qaeda in Iraq was al Qaeda; portraying the insurgencies as brave nationalists resisting us rather than paid Baathists, Iranian agents, and invading jihadis; calling the Sunni Arab suicide bombings versus Iranian supported Sadrist death squads as a "civil war'; reporting on the enemy as 10 feet tall and unbeatable (fighting them just creates more); the failure to report on the successes of the 2007 surge; and the infamous Charge of the Knights coverage that portrayed a sound victory over Moqtada al Sadr as a defeat for the Iraqi government, to name a few off the top of my head); and general war on terror where even naming the religious motivation of the jihadis is considered politically insensitive!

Our press corps doesn't understand how to report on and analyze war, and their major lesson they take away is that they were insufficiently skeptical of the pre-Iraq War claims about weapons of mass destruction?  Really? Are they freaking kidding me? Less poor quality war coverage is a blessing, given this record of ineptitude.

What a convenient lesson for our press corps to learn: They should be more critical of American government claims about our enemies. What a shock that a bunch of left-leaning people would conclude that they need to be a bigger road block when we want to defend ourselves from enemies.

The Mechanized Liberation Army

China continues to modernize their army and plan to reduce their ground forces to 1.1 million men. Contrary to trends in Western militaries that have us lightening up to deal with insurgencies, the Chinese are mechanizing their infantry forces for mobile, high intensity warfare:

The main combat forces consist of nine armored divisions, 25 infantry divisions (two trained for amphibious operations), and three artillery divisions. There are 33 infantry brigades, nine armored brigades 15 artillery brigades and ten helicopter regiments. All the infantry are motorized, and nearly half are mechanized (equipped with armored personnel carriers and some tanks). All infantry units are gradually being converted to mechanized units. The air force also has three airborne divisions and the navy has a the equivalent of a marine division.

The army is armed with about 7,000 tanks, 7,500 armored personnel carriers (about a third of these are more modern Infantry Fighting Vehicles like the U.S. M-2 Bradley). There are about 20,000 artillery and 400 helicopters.

The Chinese armed forces are shrinking from their current size of 2.2 million to 1.6 million troops in the next two years.

They've already shed 2 million troops in the last couple decades, as they've abandoned their strategy of fielding lots of foot-mobile infantry that would go irregular if a Soviet army drove deep into China.
 
This type of mechanized army isn't by definition an offensive force. A mobile force would be well suited to defense should China be invaded--especially since the Soviets could no longer field a massive army that no Chinese armored formations could stop in conventional warfare.
 
But a mechanized army could be used for offensive warfare. Like many things, it depends on what those at the top want to do with the tool they are creating.

Another Kind of Hollow Army

Germany's armed forces were once a major force during the Cold War that would have proviede the main ground force to repel a Soviet invasion in the early weeks of any war. In the two decades since the collapse of the Warsaw Pact and Soviet Union, the German military has become a hollow army filled with civil servants in uniform capable of sending a pitifully small force abroad to occasionally pull triggers in Afghanistan.

Germany aims to change that by ending conscription (those civil servants wearing uniforms) and creating a smaller but more professional force:

Germany is keeping its defense budget stable next year ($41.2 billion, an increase of 1.2 percent, about enough to cover inflation). More than half that goes to pay and benefits, including $300 million in bonuses for troops going overseas. The size of the defense budget may be stable, but the armed forces have been undergoing an expensive reorganization. Germany is in the midst of cutting troop strength by a quarter, to 185,000. The military is being reorganized to better deal with peacekeeping, and less with conventional warfare. More modern equipment is arriving. Currently, about 7,000 German troops are overseas in nine peacekeeping operations.

So, if the German government and public opinion will allow it, Germany will be able to deploy abroad to fight a counter-insurgency or participate in peacekeeping missions.

What is really disturbing is the notion that the German military will be less equipped, organized, and trained for conventional warfare. How much lower can those capabilities go?

Germany will have a hollow army after this is over. Sure, they could deploy far away with troops capable of fighting in a campaign like Afghanistan or Iraq. But in the core of Europe, Germany will have little capacity to send conventional forces east to support new NATO members against a resurgent Russia, should the Russians get all nostalgic about their former territories in eastern Europe. Heck, the Germans would have little capacity to defend their own country if the Russians marched west.

If we want to keep the Russians moving toward the West, we can't leave a security vacuum in eastern Europe that could temp a Russian leader to grab what he can while he can.

I hope the Germans at least put their heavy forces in the reserves so that they have some residual conventional fighting capabilities just in case. Building such a capability from scratch would be too difficult and take too long in a crisis. Otherwise, the Germans are just building a light army they'll probably never use abroad and abandoning a heavy army that they might desperately need some day.

The Klinger Effect

The Don't Ask, Don't Tell law (I was always annoyed that liberals condemned the military for following the law as passed by Congress and signed by President Clinton, and wrongly called it a military policy) will be repealed:

Repeal means that for the first time in U.S. history, gays will be openly accepted by the military and can acknowledge their sexual orientation without fear of being discharged. More than 13,500 service members have been dismissed under the 1993 law. Before that, they had been explicitly barred from military service since World War I.

The change won't take immediate effect, however. The legislation says the president and his top military advisers must certify that lifting the ban won't hurt troops' fighting ability. After that, there's a 60-day waiting period for the military.

As I mentioned recently, this was inevitable; although I am not confident that now is the time. Of course, under the new law, now is not quite the time. Ending the practice of discharging open homosexual troops will require a finding that this won't harm the military (that will be provided).

Still, I am suspicious of the practical effects on gay Americans of lifting the ban. I've never bought the numbers thrown about of gays expelled from the miltiary under the law. Really, playing the gay card to get out of the military was one way to escape service that otherwise you are required to complete even if you discover you've made a horrible mistake. Say you're gay, and you'll be back on the block in no time. Given trends in society that make it likely that ending the ban would one day take place, getting out that way has less stigma than it once would have had.

But the new law is the law, as much as the old law was the law. The military will comply and make the best of it; trying to win our wars while they do so.

UPDATE: As I said, the continued reports of high discharges as if the military was actively rooting out gay troops are misleading:

Certainly there have been some unjustified separations under the policy which came to known as “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” (the case of the highly qualified Air Force pilot named Mike Almy, who was discharged after e-mails to his boyfriend were discovered on a work-related e-mail account, comes to mind). But a few years ago, Charles Moskos, the late military sociologist who drafted the DADT language, went back to study discharges under the policy. He found that about 80 percent were voluntary, meaning they had been initiated by the soldier.

In other words, a guy or girl had gone to his or her CO and said something to the effect of, “You know, I’m gay.” This earned the serviceperson an honorable discharge — and maybe a relatively painless end to what might have been an inconvenient service contract.

In a study a few months ago, the Pentagon affirmed Moskos’s research, finding that “approximately 85% of discharges for homosexual conduct have been made on the basis of statements by the Service member.” It also noted that “approximately one quarter of these discharges have occurred in the first four months of a Service member’s service,” which would seem to back up the notion that DADT was widely used as way to get out of contracts.

And the “tellers” weren’t necessarily gay. As one Col. Om Prakash put it in a 2009 report for the U.S. War College, one possible explanation for the rise of discharges for homosexuality observed after DADT was that “given the recent reduction in stigma associated with homosexuality in society at large, simply declaring one is homosexual, whether true or not, is the fastest way to avoid further military commitment and receive an honorable discharge.”

And for this, our elite universities punished the military that defends us all by keeping out ROTC based on what Congress did close to two decades ago. I'd have had more respect for the so-called courage of these universities if they'd declined all federal financial support appropriated by Congress to punish them for the law.

Are We Doomed?

Given the opportunities we have as the result of our military victory in Iraq, I think the New York Times is a little overwrought:

The protracted political turmoil that saw the resurgence of a fiercely anti-American political bloc here is casting new doubt on establishing any enduring American military role in Iraq after the last of nearly 50,000 troops are scheduled to withdraw in the next 12 months, military and administration officials say. ...

Even as contingency planning for any lasting American mission has quietly continued in Baghdad and at the Pentagon, however, the shifting political landscape in both countries has made it increasingly possible that the 2011 withdrawal could truly be total, the officials said. Both Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki of Iraq and Mr. Obama, struggling to retain the support of their political bases, have repeated their public vows to adhere to the deadline.

Yes, both sides continue to insist that we will be out at the end of 2011. But in my mind, since we have an agreement right now that says that, what are both sides supposed to say? But given the weaknesses in Iraq's depth of military capabilities (having been rebuilt as a counter-insurgency force after 2003), it makes sense that we will have a new agreement that preserves American logistics, intelligence, special forces, training, aerial, and conventional capabilities to help the Iraqis fill in the military capability gaps, deter foreign threats, and try to snuff out the reduced terrorism threat.
 
Our presence will also help keep political differences in the political arena and give parties the confidence that they can remain in the political arena when fighting over political issues.

Yes, the presence of Sadr's pro-Iranian thugs in the government will complicate things. This is a problem. But this is not insurmountable, I think. The clear majority of Shias fear Iran and understand they need our military's presence. The Kurds want us to stay, given their history with the Arab majority. The Sunni Arabs desperately want us to stay to keep the Shia's from seeking revenge over their complicity in Saddam's reign of terror.

By all means, make plans that assume we will be out at the end of 2011. This will keep those inclined to oppose our continued presence from getting ammunition right now to scuttle negotiations that will take place after the Iraqi government is in place. Will the Sadrists really try to bring down the government by pulling out of the governing coalition? And risk their positions in the government when a new coalition might be formed without them?

But let's not get too far from reality. The Iraqis will ask us to negotiate a new agreement. Out troop numbers will be lower. But by putting some capabilities outside of Iraq, making more use of civilian contractors, and shaving our 6 combat brigades down to 4, we could halve our presence to 25,000, I should think. If we have to, we could have longer overlap time as units rotate to effectively put our on-the-ground strength up by several thousand above any limit set in an agreement.

But above all, remember that we must remain involved in Iraq to cement the victory we bought on the battlefield. An imperfect democracy is better than what we destroyed. And given time, an imperfect democracy can be improved. In the Middle East, a thriving Arab Moslem democracy could be revolutionary.

Drawing a Northern Limit Line in the Sea

South Korea will carry out live-fire exercises off their western coast when the weather clears, despite North Korean threats of further violence:

"The live-fire drill off Yeonpyeong Island will take place on Dec. 20 or 21, as previously announced, depending on weather conditions," an unnamed official told Seoul's Yonhap News Service.

A Joint Chiefs of Staff official, who also did not give his name, told the news service that South Korea was not in any way considering the north's objections in making its decision to carry out the drills.

"The planned firing drill is part of the usual exercises conducted by our troops based on Yeonpyeong Island. The drill will occur within our territorial waters," the official said. "We won't take into consideration North Korean threats and diplomatic situations before holding the live-fire drill."

The South Koreans really do seem like they've reached the limit of what they will just sit and take from North Korea. We'll find out if the North Koreans appreciate this apparent change.

UPDATE: South Korea carried out their drill in the same location, firing in the same direction that North Korea said provoked their last attack. But this time the North Koreans did not open fire:

North Korea called Monday's drills a "reckless military provocation" but said after they ended that it was holding its fire because Seoul had changed its firing zones. ...

The North on Monday, however, kept its rhetoric heated, saying it will use its powerful military to blow up South Korean and U.S. bases.

Perhaps the South Koreans did fire to targets further south to give the North a face-saving excuse; but if that is what happened, it is a weak excuse and both sides know it.

Apparently, the North Koreans do indeed understand that they are weaker than South Korea, and don't believe Seoul's determination is fragile.
On the other hand, North Korea may just plan to strike again in another place at another time in a different way when South Korea's guard is down and anger has cooled in South Korea.

Of course, having succeeded in facing off against the nutballs up north, South Korea may be far more ready to immediately strike back hard if attacked. When the Cheonan was sunk, South Korea did nothing. When their island was shelled, South Korea replied with their own artillery fire but that was deemed insufficient. Will South Korea use their air force the next time?

DON'T CALL ME AGGRESSIVE!

Japan is shifting their military's focus from fighting the Russians over Hokkaido Island to preparing for contingencies involving China and to guard against North Korean ballistic missiles.

China protests Japan's concerns about China's military build up:

China has responded saying it is a force for peace and development in Asia and threatens no-one.

See? It's the People's Liberation Army of Peace. Nothing to worry about.

If only the Chinese had stopped right there.

But they did not. They continued:

China's Foreign Ministry said no country had the right to make irresponsible comments on China's development.

Golly! No right? Irresponsible comments?

China's view is that they are a force for good--and you barbarians have no right to say anything to contradict that! Now shut the F up and mind your own dang business! We'll do what we freaking want--and you'll bloody well like it!

Doesn't Japan feel silly, now? I know I do!

The Dog That Did Not Bark

China and India signed huge trade deals in a Chinese visit to India. But this does not settle the differences between the two countries.

India isn't happy that China claims parts of India and that Chinese troops have crossed the border.

So India didn't say anything about two issues important to China:

The dispute intensified during Chinese premier Wen Jiabao's visit to New Delhi earlier this week, when a joint communiqué omitted India's traditional support for the 'One China' policy – the claim that China and Taiwan are a single country. The communiqué also made no reference to India's past acceptance that Tibet is a part of China

Indian officials had hoped Mr Wen's visit would help reduce the trade imbalance between the Asian rivals and soften Beijing's increasing assertiveness over disputed territories along their frontiers in Kashmir and Tawang district in India's eastern state of Arunachal Pradesh.

China has angered the Indian government by insisting that all visitors from Kashmir have their visa stamped on a separate sheet – indicating it does not recognise Indian sovereignty – and launching strong attacks on the Dalai Lama and Manmohan Singh, Indian prime minister, for visiting Arunachal Pradesh during last year's election campaign.

Beijing's aggressive approach has been marked by a number of minor incursions by Chinese troops across the MacMahon Line, the imprecise border mapped by British officials during the colonial era

Two logical things that India could do if China persists in pushing on the Kashmir and Arunachal Pradesh issues would be to support Tibetan independence or autonomy and pursue military cooperation with Taiwan.

Taiwan might want to open the door to military cooperation by reaching out to India to share technology to build a new fighter plane. Taiwan needs them and India wants to build them. It seems to me that there is room for mutual assistance on this issue.

UPDATE: Thank you to The View from Taiwan for the link.

Hugo's Retirement Plan?

Truly, the Fuck Up Fairy has paid a visit to Venezuela:

Venezuelan lawmakers granted President Hugo Chavez broad powers Friday to enact laws by decree, undermining the clout of a new congress that takes office next month with a bigger opposition bloc. ...

He taunted his opponents in a televised speech Friday night, saying now that he has decree powers they won't be able to block his laws.

"You won't be able to make a single law, 'pitiyanquis,'" Chavez said, using one of his favorite insults, which refers to U.S. collaborators and translates as "little Yankees." "We're going to see how you make laws now."

Hugo Chavez undermines the pathetic, tattered, remnants of democracy that are left in Venezuela? Let me show you my shocked face:



As bad as this is for Venezuelans in the short run, in the long run the fact that Hugo will just issue decrees based on his bizarre theories about how militaries and economies work will just hasten the decline of Venezuela and hopefully lead someone to end his reign of error before he fully graduates from the Axis of El Vil to the Axis of Evil, under the guidance of Ahmadinejad.

The odds of his decrees actually working to benefit Venezuelans are lower than the odds of being mauled by a polar bear and a regular bear in the same day. Yes, let's see how he makes laws now.

Chavez is evil, no doubt. But he is such a buffoon that I find it hard to imagine that he won't ultimately fail in his plot to rule the world. Good grief, Hugo Chavez is a real-world Plankton!

It's funny, really. If our CIA tried to foist his programs on Venezuela, it would be called an evil Yankee plot.

But Hugo is doing it to himself. How cool is that?

UPDATE: And now he is frothing over President Obama's choice of ambassador to Venezuela. Funny how Hugo once thought the new administration would be a great pal--although it was a close run thing over Honduras--and now hates the President's choice for ambassador.

But hey, even I've noted that the president has been much better on foreign policy than I feared he would be. Not nearly as good as I'd like, mind you, but still much better than I thought he'd be.

A Big Freaking Deal?

I am very uncomfortable with how President Obama is arguing for the new START treaty:

"Without a new treaty, we'll risk turning back the progress we've made in our relationship with Russia, which is essential to enforce strong sanctions against Iran, secure vulnerable nuclear materials from terrorists and resupply our troops in Afghanistan," Obama said.

So rather than being topics of mutual interest, halting Iran's pursuit of nuclear weapons, securing nuclear material, and winning the war against jihadis in Afghanistan are favors Russia granted us?

And these favors clearly hinge on START ratfication since the implication is that without START, the Russians will reduce or halt our common efforts to stop Iran, keep nuclear bomb material out of jihadi hands, and defeat jihadis in Afghanistan.

So if there is a clear bargain here, just what did we give Russia in the START treaty that led them to cooperate with us on Iran, nuclear material, and Afghanistan in the first place?

When the administration argues on merits outside of the actual treaty, I get suspicous. Maybe it is a good idea to give something away in START if it gets Russia to move toward friendship with the West. Strategypage does say they are moving that way recently:

In the last few months, it has become clear that senior officials have decided to switch from criticizing the West, to cooperation. This includes participating in building an anti-missile system (to protect from Iranian, or other Middle Eastern, attacks) and discussing joining NATO. This switch had long been debated within Russia, with many politicians and officials arguing that it was more in Russia's interest to align with the West, against long time foes like Iran and China. Wikileaks revelations also pointed out how attempts to battle the West, diplomatically and economically, have not gone too well.

This is good. I want Russia to think of themselves as part of the West. But if we are making a deal to push this along, I want to know what is being exchanged. When the currency is nuclear weapons, this is--to borrow from Vice President Biden--a big freaking deal.

Of course, this information indicates that Russia's decision to move toward the West is completely separate from the START treaty and hinged on worry about Iran and China as well as few results from their efforts to rally the Rest against the West. So how would failure to delay START until questions about its provisions are answered derail better relations?

For example, I want changes on isues related to national missile defense that make it clear that we are not hobbled if we want defenses beyond whatever the Obama administration plans. The Russians seem to think they have a veto and Obama administration protests that the treaty doesn't hinder our current plans does not impress me because I'm not sure that the administration's plans are sufficient.

I am also not impressed with the limits on launchers because in practice only we have to eliminate missiles. Russia can't afford to maintain their missiles and their numbers of intercontinental missiles will drop quite a lot with or without a treaty.

Further, what about Russia's advanatage in shorter range missiles that can't threaten the continental United States but can sure as heck reach our allies who we have pledged to defend with the deterrence of our long-range missiles?

I also read early on that the issue of telemetry from Russian missile tests is inadequate to protect our interests. I've read nothing further on this issue in the so-called debate we've had, and searching for "telemetric" in the public treaty documents didn't clarify the issue for me. I know far too little on this subject to know from reading the documents (here and here) what the passages really mean in practice.

What I do think I know is that the failure to discuss this issue in favor of extolling on-site inspections is a red herring. On-site inspections didn't work in Iraq in the 1990s. How much better do we expect them to work in the practically infinitely larger Russia?

The START treaty may be the best thing since sliced bread, either for nuclear issues or for our overall foreign policy. But I don't have nearly enough information to conclude that. I suspect it has numerous flaws that make it a bad deal. And I don't believe that Russia will be naughty or nice contingent on the passage of this treaty.

The Senate should not rubber-stamp this treaty. Advice and consent should be done properly when nukes are involved. If it is a bad freaking deal, we need to know.

SikiLeak

Michael Moore disgusts me. He is a propagandist who seeks to undermine America. Given Moore's donation of money to that swine Assange, who is trying to wage war on America online (however ineffective he has been, his intent is to harm us, remember), it is funny that WikiLeaks has shown Moore's film "Sicko" to be nothing but a Leftist's fantasy of what state-run health care is (Tip to Outside the Beltway):

Cuba banned Michael Moore's 2007 documentary, Sicko, because it painted such a "mythically" favourable picture of Cuba's healthcare system that the authorities feared it could lead to a "popular backlash", according to US diplomats in Havana.

The revelation, contained in a confidential US embassy cable released by WikiLeaks , is surprising, given that the film attempted to discredit the US healthcare system by highlighting what it claimed was the excellence of the Cuban system.

But the memo reveals that when the film was shown to a group of Cuban doctors, some became so "disturbed at the blatant misrepresentation of healthcare in Cuba that they left the room".

Castro's government apparently went on to ban the film because, the leaked cable claims, it "knows the film is a myth and does not want to risk a popular backlash by showing to Cubans facilities that are clearly not available to the vast majority of them."

Moore took a tour of a Potemkin Hospital, and believed that he was seeing the reality of Cuba's health care system.

It's easy to fool people when you show them what they want to see. Which is why Moore will continue to make tons of money--he has legions of people who will pay to be shown what they want to see about how awful America is.

Stay the Course

The Obama adminstration has a simple message regarding the fight in Afghanistan: stay the course:

This week we completed a review of the implementation of our strategy in Afghanistan and Pakistan, as articulated by the president at West Point last December. The core goal of U.S. strategy in the theater remains unchanged: to disrupt, dismantle and eventually defeat al-Qaida, and to prevent its return to Afghanistan and Pakistan.

The review found that while challenges remain, there is real progress that we can build on.

And while there are improvements to be made, we do not anticipate any major shifts in our strategy going forward.

There will be no major shifts in strategy. When we're on the right path, staying the course despite the impatience of the professional panicking class is the right thing to do.

Not a Reason--An Excuse

Part of the recent defeatism permeating the discussion of the impact of the surge on the Afghanistan campaign seems to center on the role of Pakistan in sustaining the Taliban:

A major threat to the success of President Barack Obama's Afghan war strategy is the clandestine traffic that snakes along the rough roads of the country's East and South, providing insurgents with weapons and other supplies from neighboring Pakistan.

When insurgents have a sanctuary in a neighboring state, the job for the counter-insurgents is certainly harder. But that just means we have to do things differently to win and not just lament the lack of full Pakistan support:

As our strategy evolves we must avoid becoming so focused on problems we cannot readily solve, such as Pakistan's policies, that we lose sight of the tools we can use in Afghanistan to change the overall situation to our advantage.

The current plan of bolstering Afghan forces and government institutions so they can withstand insurgents that come in from Pakistan will work if we have enough time. If the locals don't support the insurgency, Pakistan-based insurgents become alien invaders rather than reinforcements for local insurgents.

Remember that for all the problems we have with getting Pakistan's full support to attack Taliban forces on their side of the border, we do get some help. That includes support for our drone strikes in many parts of the border.

How much help did we get from Syria and Iran in defeating the Iraq insurgencies? The answer is none, of course, with those countries actively supporting al Qaeda in Iraq and the Sadrists. Yet we won in Iraq notwithstanding the enemy lines of supply to Syria and Iran.

Too many people are seizing on the Pakistan question as an excuse to justify their calls for retreat from the former "good" war in Afghanistan. Recognize this argument for what it is--an excuse to run away. That's our Left's natural reflex and that is what they are doing today.

Work the problems. Fight the enemy. Pursue victory.