The Backlash Arrives

The Left has long worried that Moslems in America could experience a backlash for their views. The dread backlash arrived at the University of Michigan.

Do those people who lashed out at the conservative/libertarian Moslem realize that they are apparently ratifying this behavior as appropriate punishment for Moslems who stray from accepted thoughts?

Tip to Instapundit.

UPDATE: And of course, this is another reminder that "liberal minded" is not actually the same as "open minded."

Reajustar!

Putin is smiling at our new Cuba policy. I have mentioned before that my sympathy for the president is inversely proportional to the time since I've last heard him speak on a policy issue, right?

After more than 60 years of sanctions on Cuba for their oppressive communist system and their hostility to us, President Obama announces we will end this pressure to become a decent nation that respects its people.

As we rely on sanctions to counter Russia's invasion and annexation of Ukrainian territory, President Obama has just announced that if you just endure our initial sanctions, eventually they will peter out and ultimately be cancelled--with many Americans calling you the victim of all this--without you having to change your course, at all.

The lack of self-awareness reaches levels not seen since President Obama's September 10th speech in which he announced we had to return American troops to Iraq this year after leaving in 2011 and in the same speech announced we'd withdraw all our troops from Afghanistan in two years.


I wonder if Kerry will take a Reset Readjustar button to the Castro regime?

Good grief, I really do look back on the Carter era as a time of relative foreign policy sanity compared to the idiocy we have now.

UPDATE: Here's the White House page on this.

UPDATE: It is obscene and ignorant to compare the easing of sanctions on Cuba to tearing down the Berlin Wall:

"Today another Wall has started to fall," EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini said in a statement. "These moves represent a victory of dialogue over confrontation."

Well, I've long said that "Europe" can't be our friend even though European states can be.

In twenty years, nobody will be saying "only Obama can go to Cuba."

UPDATE: Stratfor has thoughts on the impact on Venezuela.

They also note that Cuba, which turned to Venezuela for financial support when Soviet support dried up (when the Soviet Union disappeared), finds that Venezuelan financial support probably isn't that secure given Venezuela's own financial implosion.

So Cuba hopes that we can provide the financial help to save Cuba's dictatorship. Hey, we provided the help that is keeping Iran's head above water. Why not Cuba, too?

I understand that in theory we may hope that opening up Cuba will undermine their dictatorship. But Cuba clearly believes that they can maintain their dictatorship and save it with this restoration of relations.

So just who do you really believe is practicing "smart" diplomacy?

UPDATE: I imagine the president is disappointed that his action came too late (see the first update) to be considered for this year's Confucius Peace Prize.

UPDATE: Not so long ago, I noted that Cuba was screwed as they lost paying patrons, and wondered if China would be so bold as to pick up the tab.

I did not suspect that we'd bid for the honor.

Breaking Apart at the Seams?

As I've been speculating, somebody else is arguing that the Assad regime is under a great deal of stress as it begins to alienate supporters in a desperate effort to get bodies into the military which has suffered mind-boggling casualties just to try to control a core Syria of western Syria:

After three years of grueling warfare against armed opposition fighters, the Syrian regime faces a dire internal crisis not witnessed since the initial months of the conflict.

Do read it all. By the time we get to the Syria part of our anti-ISIL war, ISIL might have swept into Damascus.

In Idlib province, where jihadis took two Syrian bases recently, reports are that the Syrians lost 100 men, had 120 captured (who were abused on video), but 100 escaped south.

How long can Assad's army hold together with defeats like that? There is another Syrian base hanging on in the east that is probably one big assault from being a massacre.

Remember, during the long Iraq and Afghanistan campaigns, we never once lost a base to enemy assault.

If Assad's forces crack, could he still hold in the Alawite heartland back to the coast even as mostly jihadi rebels sweep into the rest of western Syria, leaving just our southern front to screen the Jordanian border?

UPDATE: More. Assad is struggling to keep ground troops on the line and his base of support is wavering in providing the cannon fodder:

Many Alawites and other minority groups are frustrated with their “sons going out to die at such a heavy rate,” Kozak said, adding that “at some point the population will reach a tipping point where the cost of war has been too great to bear for the community.”

This is a problem. Even when the rebels were reeling and the Assad forces were on visible offense, I doubted that his troops could endure the casualties needed to finally win the war.

Note the control map the Institute for the Study of War provides:

Note the concentration of regime-controlled areas from the coast inland. This would be the core of a final stand if Assad decides he can't afford to control the capital, Damascus, and points south and east.

The problem is that Assad might not be able to retreat his ground forces in good order after taking a beating when he might have successfully retreated to this core Alawite Syria a couple years ago.

UPDATE: To be clear, if Assad has to shrink down his area of control to a core Alawite Syria, I imagine Homs would be the southeastern point of that kingdom, with the Damascus region and the border regions with Lebanon and Israel south of there abandoned.

So watch to see if Assad transfers the capital to the coast, or someplace near that.

Plans, Enemies, And Mutual Contact

As much as many Sunni Arabs in Iraq's Anbar province may wish to fight ISIL, they are so far too weak to resist the jihadis. We can count on their support if we lead an offensive into Anbar, but we can't count on the locals to be the offensive force that retakes Anbar.

As we slowly prepare for an Iraqi offensive in the fullness of time and Western training efforts, the proto-Awakening in Anbar is being slaughtered and intimidated:

As Sunni tribes have been forced to choose sides – pro-IS or anti-IS, with many shades of gray in between – new divisions have brought accumulating blood feuds and a scale of slaughter in Anbar Province that is tearing at Iraq’s Sunni social fabric like never before.

Local leaders say IS intimidation is undermining the ability of any tribe to fight back, by using sleeper cells and systematic cleansing of anti-IS figures within the tribe.

The result is that IS is proving much more difficult for the tribes to take on than was Al Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) , whom home-grown Sunni groups fought during the Sunni “Awakening” of 2006-2008 with support from the US.

Why yes, this is a problem:

ISIL is too powerful in the Sunni Arab regions that ISIL controls for the Iraqi Sunni Arabs to risk rising up absent powerful Iraqi government forces coming to their rescue.

Thus, the hope that Iraqi forces could sail back into their lost regions taken by ISIL on a wave of Sunni Arabs angry at ISIL cannot take place. Angry the Sunni Arabs may be at ISIL brutality. But the Sunni Arabs cannot risk rising up before liberation is at hand.

So now we have the task of mounting an offensive into ISIL-held territory to the north and west of Baghdad, with Sunni Arabs at best rising up once the frontline reaches them.

The destruction of potential Sunni Arab allies and their alienation from a Shia-led Iraqi government that fails to support them against ISIL is one motivation to rush a planned offensive into Anbar earlier than we think Iraqi troops will be ready.

Will we rigidly stick to the plan timetable that calls for retraining before moving while potential allies needed for the fight and vital for the post-fight rebuilding of Iraq are destroyed by ISIL?

Sounds of Angels Singing

I had to switch to high speed Internet from my DSL when the latter failed.

One thing that this seems to have solved is my Netflix problem on my TV.

Now Netflix turns on very rapidly and works just fine.

I still don't get why I had a problem. I know that Netflix said the problem was with my wifi signal, but why did every wireless device in my home (phone, iPod Touch, tablet, and laptop) work with Netflix just fine while only the TV could not use it--after years of the TV working just fine, too, until early this year?

Regardless, it works. And I'm happy about that.

All is forgiven. Let's not bicker and argue over where the problem was.

This label is now non-operative.

To the Shores of Lake Chad, They Ain't

The Boko Haram jihadi marine corps came up a little short this week.

This is an epic jihadi fail:

Cameroon authorities say at least 600 suspected Boko Haram fighters crossed Lake Chad and simultaneously attacked several villages and towns Friday, leading to the arrests of 25 of the insurgents and the drowning deaths of hundreds of others. ...

[Cameroon's Minister of Communication] Tchiroma said Cameroon's military arrested 25 of the attackers and killed several. Hundreds of others were swallowed by the waters of Lake Chad after their boats capsized or sank when they tried to escape.

Emulating Osama bin Laden, who we dumped at sea, I see.

Apparently, Boko Haram should stick to picking on helpless girls in the halls of Nigerian schools.

This could be a joke. Question: What do you call several hundred dead jihadis at the bottom of Lake Chad? Answer: A good start.

UPDATE: The scummy bastards in Pakistan stuck to easier targets:

At least 132 students and nine staff members were killed on Tuesday when Taliban gunmen broke into a school in the Pakistani city of Peshawar and opened fire, witnesses said, in the bloodiest massacre the country has seen for years.

Unable to defeat the Pakistani military that has gone after them lately, the Taliban decided that killing children of military personnel was more in line with their skill set.

I've long said that Pakistan can't make a deal with the Devil by refraining from taking on the jihadi scum and killing them.

UPDATE: And back in Nigeria, having learned a lesson from their Cameroon expedition, Boko Haram takes on easier foes:

Suspected Boko Haram gunmen kidnapped more than 100 women and children and killed 35 other people on Sunday during a raid on the remote northeast Nigerian village of Gumsuri, a security source and resident said on Thursday.

Jihadis: defeating the Crusaders one dead woman and child at a time. Allah must be so proud.

How a War Can Start

We may be pretty certain that if China starts a war with us right now that we'd win that war.

I suspect that China, by virtue of its geographic advantage of being far closer to the western Pacific than we are, would get in some good licks--hopefully not decisive--before we can mobilize and concentrate our globally scattered power and defeat them.

But this does not mean that China will not start a war with us.

The Chinese have to believe that if they start a war with us that they will lose the war. Otherwise, even if we do win that war as we expect, we will still have to fight that war--with all the death and costs that represents--to win the war.

Losing a war is surely worse than winning a war, but just fighting a war is not good, to state the obvious.

But it gets worse.

Not only do the Chinese have to believe that they would lose a war, but as I've noted before, that knowledge has to be shared by the Chinese military leadership and not just the political leaders.

And that's where it is still worse. After a couple decades of dramatic Chinese military improvement, China's generals are feeling their power--a bit too much:

But while the Chinese troops are much better, they are not as good as they think. This is what worries Chinese leaders because many generals and admirals are now clamoring to be turned loose on real or imagined Chinese enemies. More thoughtful political leaders realize that the Chinese generals and admirals probably overestimate their capabilities and that could lead to economic and political disaster if China suffered humiliating defeats as a result of being too aggressive in combat. The CCP leaders are having an increasingly hard time dealing with their aggressive military commanders, who are sometimes acting first and conferring with their political bosses later.

If the Chinese generals have to learn that they are not as good as they think, may it be in a war with a country that isn't us or one of our allies.

Destroying His Army to Destroy a City

Assad is still fighting in an effort to capture the northern city of Aleppo, after more than 2-1/2 years of effort. Is it worth it?

In the largely stalemated fight for control of Aleppo, land changes hands and casualties rise, but Assad still does not control the city. Lately he has made some gains:

Syria's army seized an area north of Aleppo on Sunday and killed insurgents as fierce battles raged over the strategic territory, a group monitoring the war and state media reported.

Syria's second city is at the heart of clashes between pro-government forces and a range of insurgents, including al Qaeda's Syria wing, Islamist brigades and Western-backed rebels.

This has been going on for a long time, and I have long doubted the objective is worth the effort:

I think Assad might be biting off more than he can chew. Sure, it is a big and important city with regime defenders to protect, but it is close to Turkey and adds more people to the defense perimeter of Core Syria than I think Assad has the forces to pacify.

While Assad has largely abandoned large parts of Syria to focus on a core Syria stretching from the coast down to Damascus, there is still resistance within that core Syria, making the Aleppo effort a dangerous diversion of military manpower; and Assad still tries to hold a major outpost in the east.

Meanwhile in the nearby north, jihadis inflicted a significant defeat on Assad's forces:

The Syrian army on Monday lost control of two strategic bases in the northwestern province of Idlib to coordinated assaults by Al-Qaeda and other Islamist groups, a monitoring group said.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said Al-Nusra Front, an Al-Qaeda affiliate, in coordination with Islamist rebels of Jund al-Aqsa and Ahrar al-Sham, seized Hamidiyeh and Wadi al-Deif bases, the biggest regime positions in Idlib.

Why we aren't working to support whatever acceptable rebels there are up there to keep Assad fighting in the north while denying jihadis a chance for victory should Assad fail to take the city, I have no idea.

Even if Assad takes Aleppo, can he afford to spare the troops to defend the city and keep whoever remains under control?

We're Going to Need More COEXIST Bumper Stickers

There's nobody dead yet, but at the very least an Islamist-inspired crime seems to be taking place in Australia:

Australian police locked down the center of the country's biggest city on Monday after an armed man walked into a busy downtown Sydney cafe, took hostages and forced them to display an Islamic flag, igniting fears of a jihadist attack.

Police said they knew of one armed assailant involved in the incident at the Lindt chocolate cafe in the heart of Sydney's financial district, but there could be more.

Unless this is all a deep crime, like Die Hard, with political motivation as a mere cover story.

UPDATE: News reports say that the possible terrorist is an Iranian cleric. I assumed or thought I heard that the flag flying was the black flag of Sunni Arab jihadis, but perhaps I'm mistaken.

But if so, isn't it a wonderful example of ecumenical outreach by a Shia Persian to Sunni Arabs?

News also says that the police don't assume this is terrorism.

UPDATE: Australians just stormed the building, so check your news.

UPDATE: The hostage situation is over. No word about the "self-styled sheikh"--not a mullah--whose criminal background may be an example of jihad being the last refuge of a scoundrel.

UPDATE: Streaming news from Australian television. One hostage appears to be dead as well as the terrorist/hostage-taker.

They hate everybody. Stop worrying about why they hate us.

UPDATE: Oh my God. My title was prescient:

Australians have used social media to show their support for Muslims after an Iranian gunman seized a Sydney café, fanning fears of an potential anti-Islam backlash.

The hashtag #IllRideWithYou took off Monday local time in Australia and quickly trended worldwide, generating 40,000 tweets in just two hours and more than 170,000 overall.

Obviously, all Moslems are not guilty for the acts of some (thank goodness that Sydney guy wasn't in a college fraternity, however, eh? #IllPledgeWithYou?).

Yet a nutball Moslem strikes Sydney and the first impulse of some in Australia is to worry about the dread "backlash."

UPDATE: Late news that the whole "I'll ride with you" incident was made up--slacktivism (existing in the virtual world only) at it's best.

An imaginary "Islamophobic" backlash was met with an imaginary act of liberal outreach.

The Baltic Front

The Poles have noted increased Russian military activity around the Baltic Sea:

Poland's defense minister on Thursday complained of "unprecedented" activity by Russia's navy and air force in the Baltic Sea region in recent days.

Tomasz Siemoniak said the majority of the incidents involved Russian operations in international waters, and that Sweden was the country most affected.

The Swedes are also taking notice of Russia's leaning forward:

Following this week's decision, the Swedish armed forces can oblige 7,500 Swedes -- who received military training between 2004 and 2011 -- to participate in training exercises from the end of 2015.

The measure is a sign that traditionally pacifist and unaligned Sweden, which marks two centuries of continuous peace this year, is weighing new options.

"It's fully possible that Sweden becomes a NATO member and that we reintroduce conscription and build up our defence," said Hedlund.

Well, it was a nice two-century run, you have to admit.

And what is it with Russian hostility to civilian airliners?

For the second time this year, a Russian military aircraft turned off its transponders to avoid commercial radar and nearly collided with a passenger jet over Sweden, officials said Saturday.

Others are feeling the bear's breath, too:

Russia's meddling in Ukraine has delivered a wake-up call on defence spending to small Baltic states which spent half a century under Soviet occupation and now fear the Kremlin's territorial ambitions.

Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania are on heightened alert as Russian military planes and warships skirt their airspace and sea borders on a daily basis in what they call "unprecedented" Russian activity.

And let's not leave out the Finns:

“The past few days have seen unusually intense Russian air activity over the Gulf of Finland and the Baltic Sea. Air activity intensified on December 6 and has continued during the first days of the week. No violations of Finnish airspace have been observed,” said the Finnish military in a post on Dec. 12.

They've released photos of their encounters.

Were I God of NATO, I'd have Sweden and Finland in the alliance to hold the northern shore of the Baltic Sea;

Hopefully, Sweden, Finland, and Norway can also keep Russian attention distracted and pinned in place from Leningrad to Petsamo on the Barents Sea;

I'd have Estonia and Latvia build up the equivalent of armored cavalry to attrite and slow down, but retreat before a Russian heavy force invasion;

I'd have Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania train with US and other Western special forces to have stay-behind irregulars to lead resistance to Russian control;

I'd have a US Marine Corps prepositioned stock in Riga, Latvia, to create a stronghold to defend Tobruk-like (or Sevastopol-like, if you prefer, although some of the language in that entry sound like Putin defenders did a little editing ... )--and where Estonian and Latvian conventional forces could retreat to--even as Russian mechanized forces push south;

I'd have a Lithuanian army designed to hold the shoulder long enough to get NATO troops there to hold the main line of resistance there and prepare for a counter-offensive north;

I'd have the first NATO offensive mission be to seize Russia's Kaliningrad enclave to secure our flank and to serve as a bargaining chip;

I'd move in prepositioned stocks for American, British, and German heavy forces in Poland so they can more rapidly counter-attack into the Baltic States. Say, what's that about three "ghost" airports at Lodz, Rzeszow, and Lublin in Poland with hardly any traffic? Let's start with a brigade set at each airport;

And I'd have NATO forces prepared to push naval and amphibious forces into the Baltic to threaten the flanks of Russian forces battling in Lithuania at the main line of resistance while supporting the Riga enclave and supporting irregulars battling inside Estonia and Latvia.

I would make it clear that we did not intend to take and keep Russian territory and that the return of Kaliningrad to Russia on the basis of the territorial status quo ante is our military objective.

I'd also bomb and mine the Russian base at Sevastopol and wage an air campaign against their Black Sea Fleet.

I would try to keep the Pacific quiet and not expand the war beyond Europe if at all possible. Russia has nukes, remember. Let's try to keep their paranoia at a dull roar, eh?

If I was God of NATO planning, of course. Which I'm not.

UPDATE: I didn't really mention naval and air operations, but I assume NATO can defeat Russia's Baltic Fleet to allow support for the Riga enclave and that NATO air operations will gain air superiority over the Baltic region, given time.

Defend It Now Because You'll Miss it When it is Gone

Taiwan can learn a lesson from China's suppression of the Hong Kong democracy protesters:

Staring into the mirror of Hong Kong, Taiwanese, who enjoy a vibrant democracy and a press ranked within the top 50 freest in the world, see a worrying future.

Yes, I mentioned that:

The Taiwanese would do well to remember that it is better to have freedom and the ability to defend it rather than rely on your ability to convince the communist elites to grant freedom to you.

And it gets worse.

If the Taiwanese think that somehow the Chinese people would recoil from seeing the Peking rulers crush Taiwanese democracy, guess again:

Champions of democracy everywhere take note - the aspirations of the young protesters of Hong Kong did not immediately resonate with their counterparts on the mainland.

Despite being beneficiaries of globalisation and despite having ever greater contact with the West through university education and holidays abroad, many young Chinese are suspicious of idealistic political messages.

Since childhood, they have been exposed to a historical narrative which dwells on China's humiliation at the hands of foreigners.

Many now echo their government's suspicion of street protests, social chaos and foreign ideas peddled by people whose hidden agenda may be to divide China and keep it down.

Taiwanese who rejected the party of closer ties to China in recent local elections, which could be a foretaste of the 2016 presidential poll, should consider that it is far easier to defend democracy and freedom that you have than it is to win it back from the Chinese Communist Party.

If China takes Taiwan, don't think you can count on the Chinese people feeling sympathy for Taiwanese when the crackdown comes.

Gosh, Why Would Syria's Non-Jihadi Rebels Feel Abandoned?

We aren't trying to help Syria's non-jihadi rebels defeat Assad as much as we are angling to get Secretary Kerry a Nobel Peace Prize, and they have noticed.

Syrian rebels think we have abandoned them?

Leaders of the Free Syrian Army and representatives of the Syrian National Coalition tell me they have now been almost completely cut off from what they saw as already meager support from the Western coalition led by the U.S. Over the last month, the flow of weapons and ammunition to FSA groups in the north has stopped, these leaders say. Three FSA-linked groups are still receiving limited financial assistance, but that’s it. “The Americans are saying they are not cutting us off, that the Saudis and Qataris are cutting us off," a senior FSA official in the northern Syria, who asked to be cited anonymously for security reasons, told me. "But we know the Americans are in charge.”

We say we aren't abandoning them--just focusing on the southern front.

The only bright spot is the southern front where we support rebels from our position in Jordan:

Rebels in southern Syria say they have taken a step toward unity that may attract more support from their Western and Arab backers, forging a joint defense pact to help shield them from government forces and Islamic State.

The south is the last major stronghold of the mainstream opposition to President Bashar al-Assad following the expansion of Islamic State in the east and north and gains by the al Qaeda-affiliated Nusra Front in the northwest.

But even these guys are on a short leash that does nothing to fire up morale:

Rebels in the south say they hope the new push will be just enough to pressure Assad to negotiate a peaceful solution to the conflict.

Jbawi said the international support for the assault "is not enough to let the rebels win the battle militarily. They are backing (us) to pressure Bashar Assad's regime to bring him to the negotiating table."

This approach is insanity. But it is nothing new in our era of "smart" diplomacy.

And why shouldn't the non-jihadi rebels feel even more abandoned as Assad and ISIL appear to focus on them?

Syria's military and ISIS may be sworn enemies but instead of wiping each other off the battlefield they have been delicately dancing around each other, according to new data exclusively obtained by NBC News.

Both sides in the bloody conflict appear to be eliminating smaller rivals ahead of a possible final showdown.

We've been searching for a champion who looks like they'll defeat both Assad and the jihadis, and complaining that we can't find any, not appreciating our role in that failure

We're shooting ourselves in the foot by failing to pick a group and support them until they win:

All the talk of the futility of arming moderate Syrian rebels fails to consider that many of the so-called jihadis have joined the al Qaeda and ISIL groups because the jihadis are so strong. The jihadis get recruits not only from true believers but from those who want to join the rebels that prove they can fight Assad or from those who fear being killed by the jihadis if they don't join.

When we are half-hearted in our aid to moderate rebels, and make it clear that we aren't even trying to help them defeat Assad, what the Hell do we expect Syrian's opposed to Assad to do?

Let's act like a great power that can change the course of events rather than trying to jump to the head of the parade to look like we're leading.

Maybe that's what we are doing with the southern front. But I doubt it.

Our president once said elections have consequences. If you win, you can do things and your foes cannot.

Not trying to win has consequences, too--especially for those you expect to die for Kerry's Nobel Peace Prize in a grand international conference that ends with a lovely document festooned with bright ribbons and official wax seals, and signed under the approving gaze of the television cameras.

That it will also result in Assad's people staying in power with any rebels thrown under the bus will be irrelevant in Oslo when they make their peace prize decisions.

Heck, the Chinese might honor Kerry, too.

UPDATE: Here is an example of our bizarre thinking that elevates chatting with jihadis over killing and defeating them:

The United States and the UN are trying to persuade Egypt, the UAE (United Arab Emirates) and Qatar to drop their support for more secular (and non-terrorist) factions fighting in Libya. The UN is sponsoring peace talks in Libya but Egypt sees this as futile and counterproductive because the Islamic terrorist factions really have no interest in compromising.

What, pray tell, do we expect the jihadis to negotiate on? Limits on how many of our diplomats they are allowed to kill annually? Rules on how to rape local girls or behead Infidels?

Now we aren't even interested in leading war from behind. Now we hinder defeating jihadis from behind.

Lucky Thirteen, Right?

Go Army! Beat Navy!

UPDATE: Well. A great start with a blocked punt run back for a touchdown, with a good early performance by Army defense.

And then it fell apart. Arguably on a Navy time-out that was allowed but called after a successful fourth-down conversion began (but which on the redo failed), but a better team could have shrugged that off as the fog of football intervening. No plan survives contact with the refs, after all.

So congratulations, Navy. Next year, for sure.

No Good Will Come of This

Three strikes and you're out still in the Iraq mayhem game.

That three-time insurrectionist and all-around breathing piece of human garbage, Moqtada al Sadr, is back in the violence business:

Iraq's powerful Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr has put his militia on alert to battle Islamic State militants for the city of Samarra, home to a Shi'ite mosque whose destruction eight years ago plunged the country into sectarian war.

Sadr's office said the announcement was a response to the "exceptional conditions and imminent danger to the sacred city of Samarra from the legions of terrorists," a reference to the Sunni Muslim Islamic State fighters who surround Samarra.

First ISIL, then any random Sunni Arab, and then Shias who oppose him are on Sadr's list. No good can come of allowing Sadr to openly arm up and pose as a defender of Iraq's Shias.

The China Problem

China's economy is now larger than our economy--if you use purchasing power parity (in China, a loaf of bread is far cheaper than it is here, so effectively they have more money than it seems) rather than raw GDP which we still dominate.

This article speculates that rather than worrying about the rise of Chinese power causing war, we should worry about China's decline:

What will be the geopolitical implications for China, its neighbors and the United States if the Chinese economy tanks? Would China be taken off of its supposed collision course, or would conflict remain unavoidable? ...

Which brings us to our second theory—one that I believe is more likely to materialize. This theory posits that an economic downturn in China will cause a crisis in legitimacy for the Chinese Communist Party, who will in turn point to external threats to bolster its internal legitimacy. China’s leaders, in other words, will play the nationalism card, perhaps provoking an international conflagration in one or more of the aforementioned flashpoints.

Indeed. While China's economic growth has been substantial, I don't think it can be sustained.

In the long run, we may be just fine compared to China's now-predicted rise to dominance.

I don't get too worked up over the PPP comparison since it is essentially a scoring handicap for Third World economies compared to advanced economies. Raw GDP is still the way one has weight in the international community which doesn't really care that someone in China pays less for a cup of coffee at their corner shop than we do. This measuring stick has uses, of course, as does per-capita comparisons.

For example, defense spending comparisons greatly under-estimate China's spending by failing to consider how much cheaper it is to field and equip a Chinese solder by PPP measures (in addition to the other personnel costs that we endure plus spending categories involved with projecting power globally that other countries don't have).

But notwithstanding the real achievement of this milestone, if China's economic problems are really bad enough to threaten the growth that got China to this point, the chance of China's rulers using a foreign flashpoint to bolster their rule is under-estimated by using a Western model of internal versus external policies.

For China's Communist rulers, all problems anywhere are part of a continuum of threats to their rule.  So all responses are part of a continuum, too, with no Western break between domestic and foreign actions. There is no particular gap to leap by using an "international conflagration" to stoke nationalistic support for Chinese Communist Party rule in the face of economic difficulties.

Remember, China already says that "foreign" (from our view) territorial disputes with Japan, Taiwan, claimants to South China Sea islands, and India are all actually internal issues of Chinese land that foreigners have no business even talking about.

Of course, if China really does face internal problems serious enough to lead to war, will this shake out as a response by China the country or China the continent?

If conflict really is unavoidable whether China rises of declines as the article says theory predicts, perhaps we will be saved by that internal/exterior model when the Chinese Communist Party finds itself fighting newly external foes that were once internal problems in our thinking.

That may not matter to the party itself with its view of all threats to its rule, but it will matter a great deal to us if the fighting is mostly inside China's current borders.

A Pre-Existing Condition

Let's hope Obamacare covers memory loss.

Status Report

Whoa! Where has the time gone?

Post-Thanksgiving, Lamb and I decorated the tree. Even she says the tree looks small now when so few years ago it seemed to tower over her.

Mister leaned over from checking his fantasy football team progress (he's in the playoffs) to put a couple ornaments on the tree within his span of reach. Tis the Season.

This was a birthday hit--a flying disc that is not a guided drone--do wear a hat if your hair is long enough to catch in the blades (and we learned that lesson with the harmless tangling of a pom pom that the flyer struck):

I even managed to repair the flimsy Styrofoam body when the blade nicked it into an imbalanced state by filling the gaps with tape, which balanced it again nicely to return it to flight status.

And we discovered that the control unit has a kill switch that sadly requires line of sight to shut down the flying disk. Luckily it missed the toilet.

More sedate and stately is the radio-control helium-filled fish that also remains popular.

And we've had Academic Society nights and concerts and all the events of school and life, like Halloween (Lamb's last?) and baking and Thanksgiving and college application and a disappointing Michigan football season--but fine days at the stadium, regardless, in what could be the last season I go to games with Mister, depending on college and life and all the rest.

I got into The Walking Dead, swore off The 100 as just too stupid to survive either on Earth or on my TV list, reached violence saturation with The Following, continued to watch Brooklyn 99 which is really good, let New Girl fade despite my undying attraction to Zooey Deschanel (in a completely non-stalky sort of way), stuck with Supernatural, and wonder where the heck is The Americans? (Ah! Back in January!)

And I've discovered Game of Thrones, which I am reading and then watching. I'm on book three and season 2.

Now that you mention it, I did give up on dating this year. Why do you ask?

Ah well. One prospect didn't work out, alas. I rather liked her. So I sat out a season. Once more into the breach this spring, I think.

Life, however, is good. It just goes by so darned fast.

Like We Don't Have Enough Headaches

I'm not sure why Putin is so dead set against Ukraine joining NATO. It's not like being in NATO is any particular bar to being friendly to Russia.

Apparently, 1956 is too dim a memory for Hungary's leader:

Prime Minister Viktor Orban, who has vowed to remake Hungary into a "non-liberal" state, now wants mandatory drug testing for journalists and politicians.

He's been hostile to rule of law, he's been making happy noises about Putin, and now this.

Mandatory therapy is more like it.

UPDATE: There are Hungarians upset that Orban wants to destroy the gains of 1989:

Buoyed by pressure from the United States, throngs of ordinary Hungarians are fighting back against Prime Minister Viktor Orban's drive to consolidate power through a perceived crackdown on civil liberties.

Let's hope they can defend freedom where we thought it was already won.

Gruber, Move Over

And you wonder why people with advanced degrees often have a bad reputation among Americans?

The man suffered a minor wrong, and by God he's going to fight the good fight for all of us, he seems to think.

I'm sure his clients for his business consultancy company, where he where he "advises clients like Microsoft, the NFL, the New York Times, and Universal Music," can only hope that the good professor brings that kind of branding excellence to their own products and services.

Which, upon reflection, may explain Windows 8, the name of the Washington, D.C. football team, Tom Friedman, and the popularity of illegal free music downloading.

The good professor at least belatedly realized how deep he'd dug and put his shovel away.

In light of our new immigration debate that our president has imposed on us, I hereby suggest that we adopt legislation to expel idiot American citizens and grant each citizenship slot freed up to a random illegal alien.

I'm thinking the first candidate for that exchange won't be hard to come by.

Well, the first two won't be hard, in any case.

Oh, who am I kidding? Our elite higher education institutes are churning out more candidates for the trade (Dreamers for Nightmares?) every day.

Behold the commitment of the true believers over our modern Left! Where once activists would welcome being arrested for the cause--whatever that might be on that particular day--now they can't even risk the chance of a lower GPA.

Tip to Mad Minerva on the story.

UPDATE: I haven't linked to the original article in a Boston paper because there is doubt about whether the emails reproduced in the article are accurate. But if the man settled the complaint, as the linked article says, there was something to apologize for.

UPDATE: It's hard not to think that the professor's actions to get more than his $4 from the restaurant--justified as a battle for all those overcharged--are little different in spirit than looters who grab what they can in the midst of a "social justice" riot.

UPDATE: Good God, one of our best and brightest has defended the sad attempt to pose as social justice warriors:

Where some commentators see weakness or sensitivity, perhaps they should instead see strength—the strength to know when our cups of endurance have run over and when the time for patience has ended. Perhaps they should instead see courage—the courage to look our peers in the eyes and uncomfortably ask them to bear these burdens of racism and classism that we have together inherited from generations past. We have taken many exams before, but never have we done this. We are scared, but no longer will we be spectators to injustice.

One author's response?

“Cups of endurance?” Good lord. Do they runneth over into your “saucer of fortitude?” Mayhaps a few of those errant droplets are captured by your “doily of grit.”

I laughed so hard at that response that I nearly peed my pants of justice!

Our proto-elites have seen injustice and are retiring to their fainting couches rather than getting on with their exams.

Good grief, you can pretty much imagine them putting on pajamas, sipping hot cocoa, and discussing grand juries.

And again, when once those who fought injustice risked arrest and jail time, these fragile flowers won't risk their GPA to fight this battle--no, they must have their exams postponed.

And when the exams are not postponed, will these courageous lads and lassies look into their peers' eyes and march off to battle racism and classism or will they meekly trot off to the library to study and be a spectator to injustice?

Seriously, anyone who skips their exams should have their place taken by an illegal immigrant who will at least appreciate a chance to work and succeed rather than a chance to beclown themselves.

Lord, they make me sick.

Tip to Instapundit.

UPDATE: One last comment. Really. That man says he represents students whose cups of endurance  have run over and they can't possibly take exams.

You know what the last step that the Army teaches the non-Harvard bound when they are hit by chemical weapons? After protecting themselves, reporting up the chain of command, and decontaminating?

"Continue the mission."

Not whine about how the mission is now too much to even think about considering your unfair burdens.

Continue the mission. That takes courage.

UPDATE: I guess I missed the false charge of a racist email purportedly sent by the professor. While I was unaware of that aspect, to be fair to the professor I thought I'd note the story over how that bit of journalism went online.

Off They Go Into the Wild Blue Yonder

The Air Force still wants to retire the A-10 and the defenders of that decision don't think much of A-10 defenders:

The Air Force's 2015 budget proposal to retire the A-10 Warthog—famed for its fearsome 30 mm gun and rugged survivability—elicited a firestorm of protest from A-10 fans and some ground troop supporters—many of whom seem unwilling to accept any other USAF platform for delivering close air support.

Oh, so close! But that charge against A-10 "fans" falls outside the circular error probable (CEP).

Closer to the mark is that those who support keeping the A-10 are unwilling to accept any other USAF platform for delivering close air support that the Air Force actually has or will have in the near future.

A subtle difference, I know.

I'm not even fully on board the notion that the F-35 can handle the sir superiority mission.

But I'm not even as confident as that for the close air support mission. Supporters of retiring the A-10 are resorting to sheer nonsense to defend that bad decision.

The Air Force says the words, but their spending decisions demonstrate how little they think of close air support.

Sorry, I get a little emotional about the subject.

Heck, there's even a crappy Internet video that is inciting A-10 defenders.

Meanwhile, the A-10 has been ordered to support the renewed Iraq War.