Heartless and Mindless

In the battle for hearts and minds in the Long War, we don't need this:

Apparently, Ann Coulter called Muslims "ragheads" at the Conservative Political Action Conference this past weekend. How stupid, pathetic, and unnecessary. Coulter can often be sharp and funny - especially when attacking certain liberal sensibilities - but these comments crossed the line.

Yesterday, in Saudi Arabia, Al Gore told a crowd at the Jeddah Economic Forum that after September 11, Arabs in America had been "indiscriminately rounded up, often on minor charges of overstaying a visa or not having a green card in proper order, and held in conditions that were just unforgivable." This strikes me as a grotesque mischaracterization of what happened in America after September 11.

Now ask yourself: between the asinine comments of Gore and Coulter, who's done more harm to the cause of the United States?

Stay focused on our actual jihadi enemies and stop trying to make the entire Islamic and Arab worlds our enemy!

But I don't believe we need to even try to decide which statement harms our cause more. Coulter tries to get Americans to believe all of the Arab Islamic world is our enemy. Vice President Gore is apparently trying to get the Islamic and Arab worlds to believe this, too. Each is immensely harmful to our war effort and each ties in nicely with the efforts by thugs and thug regimes to use the Danish cartoon incident to make the Long War a war of civilizations.

People need to get a grip.

UPDATE: Opinion Journal (via Real Clear Politics) describes this long war of winning hearts and minds quite well. The campaigns in Afghanistan and Iraq are only the most visible and kinetic part of the long war with the jihadis:

The military can't win the Long War on its own. To defeat bin Ladenism, Americans must use every institution at their disposal--including the State Department and United Nations--to put pressure on those who spread the ideology of terrorism while not being timid in making the hard decisions necessary to confront rogue regimes. Iran cannot be allowed to build nuclear bombs, because it is a terror sponsoring state. Likewise Syria must be compelled to behave like a civilized country. Hamas won the Palestinian elections, but its leaders cannot be accepted by Western countries until they renounce terrorism and their desire to wipe Israel off of the map.

The Quadrennial Defense Review points out that the U.S. now has a window of opportunity to shape the world to bolster American security. Undercutting bin Ladenism now, before it gains the strength that Nazism and communism once had, will be much easier before another superpower (presumably China) emerges. America's long-term security depends on it.

It isn't all car chases and pyrotechnics, people. We have much to do. I wrote of our multiple lines of attack in this war in the days following September 11th, though in truth I did not yet consciously foresee the revolutionary quality of the struggle that was thrust upon us that clear morning:

The war America is embarking on will be fought on several fronts. Part will be quietly carried out and some aspects will be open. All avenues must complement the others. This will be necessary because the enemy is bifurcated. One part, the main enemy, is the amorphous network of terrorists bound together by their hatred for the United States. It is incomprehensible to them that a just God would grant such material, cultural, and military power to a nation the terrorists regard as corrupt and evil. The second part is composed of the states that in one degree or another, from hosting or rhetorical support to active planning and action, support the primary enemy. Each facet of the enemy demands a different approach and the various instruments of our power must be used precisely to achieve our objectives. No mere lashing out blindly will bring us victory.

But I felt the depths of the war very strongly.

And the likes of Coulter and Gore when they spout off with idiotic comments will make the war longer and the results uncertain.

Expel Iran

Iran is going nuclear, and we are fooling ourselves to believe that somehow we can find the magic carrot that will persuade the mullahs to give up their quest for nuclear weapons.

This is just aggravating:

A day after Iran's president warned that the country might withdraw from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty if international pressure escalated, the Foreign Ministry issued an assurance today that Iran was still committed to the treaty.

"We are committed to our commitments within the N.P.T.," a Foreign Ministry spokesman, Hamid Reza Assefi, said during his weekly press conference, the IRNA news agency reported. "But we cannot accept that the treaty is used as a political instrument."

"The agency and other parties should not block roads to Islamic Republic of Iran and should solve the case in the framework of the regulations," he was quoted as saying.

Why are we engaged in a dance with Iran over whether they will remain a member of the International Atomic Energency Agency? They are clearly not in compliance and in pursuit of a nuclear weapon regardless of the precise status of their commitment to IAEA commitments.

Expel Iran from the IAEA. Be done with this pretend pull and tug that is only designed to buy time for Iran to go nuclear.

The Enemy's 'Body Count' Fallacy

I've repeatedly argued that enemy body counts are not the way to measure our success in the war in Iraq.

The New York Times reports that enemy attacks continue to rise in Iraq even after lulls.

But this focus on attacks is as misleading as a focus on enemy body counts would be. Both can be used to argue for victories even as both statistics are meaningless metrics for success. Indeed, I specifically warned against assuming that escalating violence means we are losing. Any war escalates if it goes on long enough. Winning and losing is independent of that factor as each side throws more resources into the fight.

What is important in regard to the attacks is that the attacks are failing to have any effect other than inflicting death, maiming, and misery:

True, there are peaks and valleys in the number of attacks. What is not reported when these supposed surges take place is the failure of most of the attacks. The bombings and shootings have not adversely affected operations, they have not disrupted our logistics, nor have they resulted in the enemy gaining one inch of territory. More importantly, they have not hindered the desire of the Iraqis to continue on with everyday life, despite the attempts of the terrorists to target innocent civilians. Yet, the intensity and constant reporting of every negative occurrence in Baghdad would lead one to believe that we have walked into the shadow of death from which there is no return.

Simliarly, killing lots of the enemy would be meaningless if the enemy was disrupting logistics, gaining territory, hindering progress in economic, political, and military realms even as we killed more and more of them.

Ultimately, the real metrics of victory will progress and then attacks by the enemy will decline.

Desert Two

Ahmadinejad may have fond memories of his youth taking over the American embassy in Tehran, when an ineffective rescue mission fell apart at Desert One, but the sequel is unlikely to be the same. Secretary Rice is warning Iran to behave:

Rice, speaking from Washington on ABC television's "This Week," said Iran, in particular, should be urging its citizens to remain calm — not encouraging protests against Western embassies.

"If people continue to incite it, it can spin out of control," she said of the protests. Last week, demonstrators in Iran attacked the Danish, French and Austrian embassies with stones and firebombs.

So Iranian attacks on Western embassies may will spin out of control for Iran and give us the excuse we need to overthrow the mullahs and undo our mistake of nearly thirty years ago when we failed to snuff out the mullah regime at its birth. You know, I thought we'd have to apply pressure on the Iranians to do something stupid. And they are going ahead and doing something stupid on their own, it seems.

Seize embassies once, shame on you. Seize embassies twice, and we've got all the excuse we need to destroy your regime.

Aiming High

The Marines are looking for a mid-century ability to drop a squad of highly trained killers anywhere on the planet in two hours via a quick space flight (via Strategypage):

In July 2002, the Marine Corps released a Universal Needs Statement that defined the Small Unit Space Transport and Insertion (SUSTAIN) concept that, if successful, will give the US a “…heretofore unimaginable assault support speed, range, altitude and strategic surprise” capability. SUSTAIN is an RLV that will carry a squad (13 men) into space and land it anywhere on Earth within two hours with, among other requirements, “flexible launch on demand… to any orbital inclination.”

According to the needs statement, SUSTAIN is required because the US has virtually no ability to respond rapidly to current intelligence. This means that if there are strong indicators that a major terrorist leader is hiding in a particular village, it will take anywhere between 12 to 48 hours before the US military could launch an attempt to capture or kill him. To put it another way, intelligence information can move at the speed of light but commando forces, no matter how good, can only move at the speed of a C-17 or other transport aircraft.

As I noted earlier, the Air Force should aim to be our space force rather than try to vainly compete with unmanned aircraft for current missions supporting troops. It seems that the Marines are already aiming high and unless the Air Force wants to be limited to a bunch of ballistic missiles and some base security forces, they need to aim higher than the Marines.

Why God Gave Us JDAMS: Pt. 7

Carryining water for Iran's mullahs, Axis of El Vil charter member Hugo Chavez runs interference for his masters in Tehran:

Chavez, a sharp critic of the U.S.-led war in Iraq, gave no evidence for his allegations. Chavez frequently refers to Bush as "Mr. Danger" and has accused him of being "the greatest terrorist in the world."

"He thinks of himself as the owner of the world and now they are making plans to invade Iran, and plans against Venezuela too," Chavez said in a televised speech.

Standard stuff. But was this his best shot? I mean, really, "Mr. Danger?" This doesn't even rise up to Cindy Sheehan's low standards of rhetorical quality. Did she teach him nothing when she came a callin' recently?

Hugo Chavez was told by his Iranian mullah-masters to jump, but unfortunately he failed to ask how high. That was really over the top. Are his supporters really impressed with this level of 2nd grade insulting?

But Hugo did have one pearl of wisdom, though he intended to apply to Britain's Prime Minister Blair:

"He's the madman's unconditional and subordinate ally, and now he also came out shooting against us."

What's that called? Projection?

Blunder?

Via the Weekly Standard is this piece on our mind boggling failure to examine all sites inside Iraq for WMD.

David Gaubatz, a former member of the Air Force's Office of Special Investigations, looked for WMD sites in Iraq after we toppled Saddam, and says that we ignored vast numbers of suspect sites because they were too difficult to get into:

Mr. Gaubatz's new disclosures shed doubt on the thoroughness of the Iraq Survey Group's search for the weapons of mass destruction that were one of the Bush administration's main reasons for the war. Two chief inspectors from the group, David Kay and Charles Duelfer, concluded that they could not find evidence of the promised stockpiles. Mr. Kay refused to be interviewed for this story and Mr. Duelfer did not return email. The CIA referred these questions to Mr. Duelfer.

The new information from the former investigator could also end up helping the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, which recently reopened the question of what happened to the weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Like many current and former American and Israeli officials, the chairman of the House intelligence committee, Peter Hoekstra, says is not convinced Saddam either destroyed or never had the stockpiles of illicit weapons he was said to be concealing between 1991 and 2003.

Said Mr. Gaubatz:

"Before we can say there is no WMD in Iraq, we must first look. I have no doubts WMD was and is still in Iraq."

Me too. I'm still waiting for Conventional Wisdom 5.0 on Iraq's WMD.

And if these allegations are true, they will certainly qualify as a major blunder in the conduct of the war. And one with a lot more credibility than most of the non-mistakes we've been accused of committing.

Liberty Corps Program

This story about two American deserters who fled to Canada prompted a thought. (Ok, pipe down on the sarcasm--I mean another thought and not my first. Bloggers are so rude sometimes...)

Anyway. We already have non-citizens in our military. So this isn't a problem. So shouldn't we pursue this a little harder by actively recruiting abroad?

If we can't get full commitment to fight at our side by more nations, lets get their willing citizens to join us. We already are moving toward seeing our enemies and potential enemies as sub-national entities rather than relying on the the outlook of the old Westphalian system of nation-states as the basic unit of international relations. Why not see our allies and potential allies that way, too?

Since Americans purportedly flee abroad (though our Hollywood types annoyingly remain despite promises) to live in a country more in tune with their beliefs, couldn't we host foreigners who wish to fight for our common freedoms and civilization despite their home governments' disinclination to fight?

This would also be a nice counter to the UN worship that some "citizens of the world" are prone to. Let's welcome Citizens of the West to our shores--and our military. We are in an ideological struggle and it isn't just for the hearts and minds of the Moslem world as we struggle to keep the jihadis from having the Moslem world's support. We need to struggle for the hearts and minds of Westerners so we will defend our common Western heritage.

I mean, Americans before Pearl Harbor enlisted in the Canadian and British forces to fight the Nazis when America was disinclined to fight that threat. And in the Spanish Civil War, International Brigades fought the fascists in Spain. Why couldn't we recruit abroad from people in other countries who want to contribute but whose own governments don't fight? I think we already have some type of program like this in the Philippines as a holdover from our colonial rule. Surely, there are Spanish soldiers getting out of their military who might like to actually take a turn on the ramparts fighting with us. Or other Europeans, or Asians, or Africans, or Latin Americans whose governments either provide small or no support in the field.

This beats any type of program to set up mercenary-type units like our own Gurkhas or anything like that. I once liked the idea as a temporary program but changed my mind. If we can't get sufficient citizens to join, let's get those worthy of citizenship to join. Indeed, I mentioned the idea of doing this in that long post:

We need to rely on our own resources. Sure, perhaps we should step up recruitment for Americans-at-heart abroad and bring them into our military. This would make up for having Europeans-at-heart right here at home who only get worked up over bike path issues. But we would be creating new Americans and not relying on those who fight for pay.

So lets actively recruit abroad. Set up recruiting programs in countries that don't fight with us in the field to avoid stealing from militaries that do fight with us, then expand to nations who support us minimally. First emphasis should be on recruits in countries with advanced modern societies who can be integrated into our military more easily. Call it the Liberty Corps. In the end, American citizens committed to democracy will be in our military. That should be the bottom line.

Heh

Amusing DOD dictionary of terms.

I'm sad that my favorite term "echelon above reality" seems to be obsolete now.

Pity.

Although "deja moo" is great!

Er, What About the Chinese?

So we concluded a cyber-war exercise called Cyber Storm that tested our ability to fight of cyber-attacks on our computer networks by various groups.

Bloggers were one group of attackers:

Participants confirmed parts of the worldwide simulation challenged government officials and industry executives to respond to deliberate misinformation campaigns and activist calls by Internet bloggers, online diarists whose "Web logs" include political rantings and musings about current events.

Indeed. You know, I try very hard to give "ranting" a good name. And then I get slandered and put in the same category as anti-globalization activists and underground hackers. Thanks. I feel a really tough muse coming on over this. Well at least they didn't draw cartoons of us bloggers. That would really get the musing going.

And amazingly enough, nobody in this article mentioned the Chinese who are actually busy little beavers in the cyber warfare area as opposed to bloggers who rant and muse.

But it is bad form to mention actual potential enemies. It might be interesting to read their report using a universal word change of "Chinese" for "bloggers."

Is this fake but accurate, then?

UPDATE: Strategypage notes Chinese activity, including the 2003 Titan Rain incident:

There’s a Cyber War going on between China and the rest of the world. The problem is, there’s enough proof to know that China is behind an increasing number of Internet based attacks, but not enough to call China out on it. It began about five years ago, with an increasing number of very well executed Internet attacks that appeared to be coming from China.

I guess we didn't name China in the exercise because we still can't call them out on this.

Anvils and Idiots

Iran's top nutcase (and I admit, using this term is much easier than remembering how to spell his name--but we all know who we're talking about here) is using the Danish cartoon imbroglio (hereafter referred to as the DCI) to whip up support for his nutcase regime:

Iran, a predominantly Shiite Muslim country, has seized on the caricatures as a means of rallying its people behind a government that is increasingly under fire from the West over its nuclear program that Tehran says is peaceful but the U.S. and others say is aimed at developing atomic weapons.

Really, this is quite cynical. But Ahmaniafaja;vma!pejrpadad thinks we all must pay for the Danish cartoons:

Iran's hard-line president on Saturday accused the United States and Europe of being "hostages of Zionism" and said they should pay a heavy price for the publication of caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad that have triggered worldwide protests.

What's he going to do, bleed on us? What a card. He can huff but he isn't going to derail our mission to stop his regime from getting nukes.

This is just a pretend outrage campaign by some cynical thugs using some rent-a-mobs playing to the cameras. Oh sure, Moslems will hardly like this any more than most Christians care for some avant garde depiction of some Christian symbol. But like almost all Christians, a somewhat lesser but still overwhelming majority of Moslems are moderate and don't like this awful reaction by a small minority giving all Moslems a bad name.

And don't forget that our friends the Egyptians and Saudis are taking part in fanning the flames of this DCI faux crisis, not just our enemies Syria and Iran.

Clearly, we have classic cartoon humor going on here. It isn't anvils and idiots (as Calvin of Calvin and Hobbes fame stated), but it is laughable.

Don't let the nutballs turn this into a Christian-Moslem fight. We are properly fighting a narrow sub-group of jihadi Moslems. Thugs and near-thugs who will suffer when we beat them are desperately trying to make this a civilizational war to save their bacon--so to speak. But their resort to pretend piety actually makes that an apt description.

Expanding Combat Power

Our Army needs more combat power. Some say we need to add troops. I used to agree but the Pentagon has embarked on a program to use existing troop levels to expand maneuver brigades. This effort is worthy of support before we add new troops.

This Army press conference has a lot of information in it. There is a very useful discussion of the Army and how end strength is hardly the only way to increase combat power. The Army is made up of many components and some can be squeezed or changed or substituted to add new combat units:

We have an end strength that is as follows, and again, as I like to say -- and everything in the Army is a little complicated. It's hard to answer straightforward. But let me try to give you just a second of background, and that is there's three components to the Army. There's the operational Army, which fights the wars. There's the institutional Army that generates the force, and we have this large overhead account -- when you're in neither one of the other, you're in this overhead account called the TTHS, the Transient Trainee Holding Students. It's probably the world's largest overhead account. So those three components add up in FY '04 to approximately 482,400. So that's a baseline that we established in the FY '04.

Our plan -- our strength plan is to grow the operational Army from 315,000 -- which was a subset of the 482,000 -- the 355,000 -- and this is again over the future year defense plan to FY '11 to -- through mil to civ conversion to reduce the number of soldiers in the institutional force by about 30,000 -- from -- which, 110,000 to about 80,000, and then to better manage the TTHS account for about 10,000. So if you look at the bookends, our plan is to start out with 482,400 and in FY '11, because of the dynamics of when you can add and when you can subtract and when you can convert, to end at 482,400. So in the interim years, we're going to grow above the 482,000 because we're going to do the operational Army near term, and we're going to convert the institutional Army long term. So you're going to see an increase and then a slow decrease over the future year's defense. That is the -- so we're going to grow that part of the Army that fights.

Calls to increase our combat units by adding new soldiers ignores that this is not the only way to gain manpower for new units. A common number floated for the past several years is that we need 40,000 more troops.

Well, by reducing the institutional Army by 30,000 and reducing the number of troops not in units for a number of reasons (in jail, in school, in hospitals, and in between stations), we are getting the 40,000 additional troops for combat units (the operational Army) that so many have called for.

Indeed, I've long supported a larger end strength, first calling for 40,000 troops for two new divisions (six brigades); and later, calling for eight separate brigades with the same manpower addition to get the units in action faster. But then I accepted that it would be wise to let the Pentagon try to get the additional combat units through this method.

We are adding nine brigades, remember, to the active component using this method. Deployable units is the bottom line, is it not? What's the harm of first moving troops from unneeded positions or increasing the efficient use of what we've got? If this isn't sufficient, I'll go back to calling for a larger Army.

Anyway, this short description should be on the fingertips of anybody discussing why we should add to the end strength. We should be discussing adding combat power and deployable units, and that is not the same question as adding end strength. At least not yet.

Anti-Submarine Warfare

I recently mentioned that it would be nice if the US Navy built diesel-electric submarines for use in shallow coastal waters. Our nuke boats are great for deep water but in shallow littoral regions, modern diesel-electrics with all the bells and whistles are more effective.

Certainly, such non-nuclear boats are at a severe disadvantage compared to nuclear boats if you are talking about sailing from US bases in the continental United States or even Hawaii to patrol stations. But if you base the subs in distant regions and fly in the crews like the navy does with its smaller ships, you get around the transit problem for routine deployments.

Well, my Jane's email alerts gave me this tidbit:

Taiwan (Republic of China) has accused the US Navy of intentionally sabotaging the sale of eight diesel-electric submarines that the Bush administration promised it in April 2001.

So I head over to the Sub Report and sure enough, they link to a bigger portion of the Jane's report:

A US source close to the programme has confirmed Taiwanese claims and argues that the US Navy feared a revival of a domestic diesel-electric submarine programme that would challenge its traditional use of nuclear-powered submarines.

"The bottom line is that the initiation of a Taiwan submarine programme has tremendous implications for the US Navy - once it gets going, they will not be able to resist the already existing pressure to integrate diesels with AIP [air-independent propulsion] into the navy inventory for littoral warfare. So they have been artful in making it seem like they have supported the president's policy; yet purposely making it such a bitter pill to swallow - what I call 'death by bureaucracy'," stated the source.

That is unacceptable. I'm fine with a debate on the merits of submarines for Taiwan, but when the US Navy is undermining administration efforts to get Taiwan diesel-electrics because they don't want pressure down the road to adopt them, that is ridiculous. Especially when I think that some diesel-electrics for our Navy would be a good idea.

And this related article expands on how the Navy is blocking the proposal--jacking up the price so that sticker shock will motivate the Taiwanese themselves to kill the sub program. Certainly, opponents of the subs seem to focus on that. If we can get the price down, perhaps the debate can properly focus on the merits of what subs can do for Taiwanese defense needs.

Of course, this article answers my puzzled question of why we aren't building diesel-electrics.

Rumsfeld needs to knock some heads together in the Navy and get them in line.

Check Our Own Pulse

Figuring out where Iran has hidden nuclear facilities is a major stumbling block in using force to stop Iran's nuclear ambitions. Do we bomb only what we are sure about or bomb everything we suspect? And how do we get those deeply buried facilities?

In remote areas, if we can't penetrate deep enough, we can certainly crumble the entries to seal off whatever is deep in the Earth.

But in densely populated areas we can hardly crater the entire area. Especially if we aren't sure of the target. Anybody want to figure out what our press will do if the Iranians slap a "baby milk factory" sign on the rubble?

Strategypage notes one way that we can overcome those deep bunkers. Check out the EMP bomb:

Britain, which has taken the lead in developing EMP (ElectroMagnetic Pulse) devices, is testing a new EMP warhead with the United States. This weapon is intended for use in cruise missiles or UAVs, for attacks on enemy command and control centers. Some of these operations are in bunkers that are well protected from bombs. But an EMP device could at least damage some of the electronics used in those locations. An EMP warhead would also be useful when the target is surrounded by civilians, an increasingly common tactic with some governments, who know that Western governments are more reluctant to kill non-military personnel.

The Iranians look like they are working on EMP weapons. But we aren't the only nation vulnerable to such weapons. Could this make an aerial campaign more likely to succeed than I'd assumed? After all, we could afford to EMP a suspected target when throwing high explosives around just in case might seem a bit harsh and risk too much collateral damage.

So is all the talk of slow democracy promotion and Security Council resolutions designed to mask a military campaign that most people say could not work? And is the British EMP weapon one of the tools we will use to actually make an attack work?

Opportunity in Crisis

The conventional wisdom groupthink on America attacking Iran is that the Iranians unhappy with their mullah dictatorship will naturally rally around the flag and become rabidly loyal supporters of their nuke-happy jihadi rulers. Better not to attack rather than provoke them to defect.

First of all, as I've repeated before, I don't know why we should draw any consolation from the fact that 90% of the Iranian people will be really sad for us if their mullah crazies detonate a nuke in Charleston harbor. Lighting candles just won't cut it for me.

Second, I question if this conventional wisdom is even accurate (see here and here for a couple examples from earlier). Let me quote one of my posts:

Opponents of destroying the Iranian regime say any military action against the mullahs will only rally the people to the side of the mullahs.

Why do we accept this belief? Has our Left rallied to President Bush in the face of 9-11? Why must people in Iran automatically support a theocratic regime that kills children for holding hands when some Americans can't support a President who they think is a fascist theocrat in their wild rantings?

Given that opponents of military action to support the overthrow of the mullah regime in Iran oppose any military action anywhere under this president, why should we accept as a given their assertion that Iranians will rally against a foreign threat? The goal of the Left is to stop military action so their analysis is hardly objective. Indeed, it is hardly uncommon for dissidents in one state to look to foreign allies that are enemies of the government to win at home.

Edward Luttwak (via Real Clear Politics) questions this automatic assumption of loyalty, too. He notes, rightly, that Iran is an empire of various peoples ruled by Persians:

To the extent that the different nationalities each have their own identities and oppose the essentially Persian regime, they are likely to applaud external attacks on the nuclear installations rather than rally to the defense of their rulers.

After detailing the ethnic and religious groups of Iran, Luttwak concludes:

So, all in all, at least half the population is unlikely to be motivated by feelings of solidarity with their rulers. Only among the Persians are many likely to react to an attack as the axiom prescribes; others might welcome the humiliation of their oppressors. The bombing of Iran's nuclear installations may still be a bad idea for other reasons, but not because it would strengthen the hold of its rulers. One may hope that Iran's rulers are not misled by their own propaganda and will therefore accept a diplomatic solution rather than gamble all on an irrelevant axiom.

Personally, I think the Iranians aren't so much counting on a rallying effect if we attack them as they are assuming we wouldn't dare attack them.

But the basic point is that whatever we decide is the best means to prevent Iran from going nuclear (and good God, we have decided that, haven't we?), we should not rule out any option because we think the Iranian people might rally around the flag. Both because their opinion of us matters not one bit if we are looking at a new ground zero in our country and because it is a questionable assumption on which to base our safety.

And Iranian regime opponents may very well view a military attack not as a crisis, but an opportunity.

A Switch in Time?

Instapundit notes a Publius Pundit post on American and British preparations to foment a revolution inside Iran to keep the mullahs from getting nukes:

American and British officials are leaning to the view that the West must create links with Iranians who oppose the Islamic cleric-led government of President Mohammad Ahmadinejad and are receptive to democracy.

"Obviously there is increasing interest both on Capitol Hill and in the administration in seeing what actually could be done to strengthen civil society in Iran," said a British diplomat.

Goodness knows, this is how I'd prefer to go forward. But is the silence from ourside because we are being quiet to avoid telegraphing our punch or the result of inaction or failure?

And can we afford the time it would take to inspire a revolution?

Although I'd settle for a military coup with democratic overtones, I must say. The Pakistan-plus solution. Get the nuts out and worry about democracy later. But with Iran I think we'd have a better shot at democracy in the short term than with Pakistan.

Let's Be Sensitive

Once again, I have to ask why we care if jihadis die in Gitmo if they refuse to eat?

This is just amazing:

In recent weeks, the officials said, guards have begun strapping recalcitrant detainees into "restraint chairs," sometimes for hours a day, to feed them through tubes and prevent them from deliberately vomiting afterward. Detainees who refuse to eat have also been placed in isolation for extended periods in what the officials said was an effort to keep them from being encouraged by other hunger strikers.

The measures appear to have had drastic effects. The chief military spokesman at Guantánamo, Lt. Col. Jeremy M. Martin, said yesterday that the number of detainees on hunger strike had dropped to 4 from 84 at the end of December.

Some officials said the new actions reflected concern at Guantánamo and the Pentagon that the protests were becoming difficult to control and that the death of one or more prisoners could intensify international criticism of the detention center. Colonel Martin said force-feeding was carried out "in a humane and compassionate manner" and only when necessary to keep the prisoners alive. He said in a statement that "a restraint system to aid detainee feeding" was being used but refused to answer questions about the restraint chairs.

Lawyers who have visited clients in recent weeks criticized the latest measures, particularly the use of the restraint chair, as abusive.

"It is clear that the government has ended the hunger strike through the use of force and through the most brutal and inhumane types of treatment," said Thomas B. Wilner, a lawyer at Shearman & Sterling in Washington, who last week visited the six Kuwaiti detainees he represents. "It is a disgrace."

Like I've written before, given that these gentlemen would love to go to Paradise if only they can take out one or a million of us in the process, why should we care one bit if they want to off themselves without harming anybody else? I consider that tremendous progress in saving innocent lives.

Truly, it is abusive to keep them alive when they don't want to live.

And it is a disgrace to care this much about them.

Another Last Refuge

The outrage over this incident is over the top:

First Lt. William "Eddie" Rebrook IV, 25, of Charleston had to leave the Army because of his injuries. But before he could be discharged last week, he had to scrounge up cash from his buddies to pay for the body armor or face not being discharged for months — all because a supply officer failed to document that the vest had been destroyed more than a year ago as a biohazard.

Yes, it is stupid. But it is a bureaucratic thing and not an evil. It will be corrected. Some supply sergeant has to sign off on this lieutenant's equipment and a piece is not documented.

The same thing happened to me when I was leaving basic training. A couple crappy pieces of equipment I'd been issued when I arrived at Leonard Wood were suddenly deemed worn out when I was turning in my TA-50 (is that the right term?) at the end, though they were in basically the same condition as when I got them. So, I could stay in sunny Little Korea for a little longer to fight this outrage or walk across to the PX and buy two more of those little doodads. And then watch as the supply guy examined two brand spanking new thingies as if they might not be good enough.

And when I left the Guard for good, I received a bill for a piece of clothing I had lost in the field but had not documented. I received a very harshly worded letter from some supply officer somewhere demanding payment. So I sent a check.

This is more money and involves a wounded soldier, so it looks far worse, but it is the same thing. Lieutenant Rebrook, who has sacrificed a hell of a lot in service to our country, will not have to pay for this armor, I dare say. Nor should he have to. It is just an oversight and will be corrected. Senators Byrd and Rockefeller may work up a good speech but this is just an innocent oversight caused by the paperwork god's demand for gifts.

So lets not feel too superior about the Moslem cartoon outrage. People over here are perfectly capable of ginning up fake outrage for their own purposes, too.

Sometimes I Impress Even Myself

In a past post entitled "You May Fire When You Are Ready, Gridley," I wrote about the coming war with Iran and that we should work to put Iran in the position of responding irrationally to our pressure and then hit them full tilt to destroy their regime:

And once Iran commits an act of war, we should respond not with escorts alone as we did in 1987-1988 during the Tanker War, but with immediate offensive action that sinks the Iranian fleet and destroys their air and missile forces. No proportionality, here. Hammer them until they have nothing left that sails or flies through the air.

And as long as we're in their air space, their nuclear facilities, too.

Well, by coincidence, the Navy is about to christen the USS Gridley:

The newest Arleigh Burke class guided-missile destroyer, Gridley, will be christened on Saturday, Feb. 11 during an 11a.m., EST ceremony at Bath Iron Works in Bath, Maine.


The new destroyer honors Capt. Charles V. Gridley, U.S. Navy, (1844-1898), who commanded the protected cruiser USS Olympia (C 6) from 1895-1922. USS Olympia was the flagship of the Asiatic Squadron at the Battle of Manila Bay, which took place on May 1, 1898 during the Spanish-American War.


Despite being terminally ill, Gridley insisted on retaining command of USS Olympia as war loomed with Spain. Then-Commodore George Dewey’s simple phrase permitting him to open fire at Manila Bay was, “You may fire when you are ready, Gridley.” This phrase remains a famous moment in American naval history. Gridley died in Kobe, Japan, soon after the victory at Manila Bay.

If you are into reading the entrails of chickens, this is pretty interesting. Truly, you may fire when you are ready, Gridley.

Last Refuge

The cartoon controversy violence is disturbing in how it resonates with much of the Moslem public. But don't make too much of this. There are a lot of "rent-Allah-crowds" out there incited by people who have no use for Islamic piety except as a tool to finally incite a clash of civilizations between Islam and Christianity.

So far, the "long war" has been the West against the jihadis with the Moslems slowly losing patience with the jihadis. We are slowly winning this battle. The jihadies and the corrupt thug-states that are trying to save themsleves by igniting religious war must not be allowed to succeed in widening this war. Don't fall for their desperate ploy.

Our administration recognizes this reality:

In Washington, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice accused Iran and Syria of instigating protests in their countries, and President Bush called upon governments to stop the violence and protect the lives of diplomats overseas.

The United States and other countries were looking into whether extremist groups may be inciting protesters to riot, said Yonts, the U.S. spokesman in Afghanistan.

Zahor Afghan, editor for Erada, Afghanistan's most respected newspaper, said the riots in his country have surprised him.

"No media in Afghanistan has published or broadcast pictures of these cartoons. The radio has been reporting on it, but there are definitely people using this to incite violence against the presence of foreigners in Afghanistan," he said.

And for a longer look at this, see (via Instapundit) Amir Taheri's piece:

The "rage machine" was set in motion when the Muslim Brotherhood--a political, not a religious, organization--called on sympathizers in the Middle East and Europe to take the field. A fatwa was issued by Yussuf al-Qaradawi, a Brotherhood sheikh with his own program on al-Jazeera. Not to be left behind, the Brotherhood's rivals, Hizb al-Tahrir al-Islami (Islamic Liberation Party) and the Movement of the Exiles (Ghuraba), joined the fray. Believing that there might be something in it for themselves, the Syrian Baathist leaders abandoned their party's 60-year-old secular pretensions and organized attacks on the Danish and Norwegian embassies in Damascus and Beirut.

Truly, false Islamic piety is the last refuge of scoundrels and scoundrel regimes.

Stay focused, people. Kill and destroy our enemies. Ignore the fools worked up into a frenzy by our enemies.

To Their Death

I still don't understand why some think we should negotiate with our enemies.

Our enemy just isn't interested in negotiating. Killing Jews is really just the beginning of the madness. They harbor grudges about losing Spain and the Crusades, and manage to blame America for all of it. And their god wills every bit of it:

This sense of God-given entitlement does present some serious problems when it comes to counter-terrorism. What it comes down to is that the people that are most dangerous to you, do not even acknowledge your right to exist. Moreover, this is a position that has divine approval. No argument is possible. What to do? Military commanders who are closest to this, especially in Iraq, take advantage of another Islamic radical favorite; dying for the cause and going straight to paradise. Thus U.S. Marines advertise themselves as the “Jehadi Travel Agency,” and capable of quickly dispatching holy warriors to paradise. While this might seem crude, it is perfectly in line with what Islamic radicals believe and preach. To these fanatics, it’s a fight to the death, and no quarter is given, or expected. That said, the Islamic radicals also advise their followers to take advantage of enemy weaknesses. Thus if the infidels try to “understand you,” use that to assist Islamic holy warriors in destroying, or
taking advantage of, the clueless unbeliever.

So get a clue, people. This is a battle to the death. Let's make sure it is to their death. And if it makes you feel better, our enemies really want to go on to a better life in paradise. In the end, we are being culturally sensitive to dispatch them to their after-life.

Rising from the Ashes

After two world wars, Europe has recoiled from its violent history. Our protection encouraged this reaction.

But events in the world and in Europe itself may be causing Europe to reconsider this retreat.

Victor Hanson notes that Europe may be restarting history:

So is Europe now finally at the front or will they retreat Madrid-like in the face of the inevitable second round of terrorist bombings and threats to come?

Americans are not confident, but we should remember at least one simple fact: Europe is the embryo of the entire Western military tradition. The new European Union encompasses a population greater than the United States and spans a continent larger than our own territory. It has a greater gross domestic product than that of America and could, in theory, field military forces as disciplined and as well equipped as our own.

It is not the capability but the will power of the Europeans that has been missing in this war so far. But while pundits argue over whether the European demographic crisis, lack of faith, stalled economy, or multiculturalism are at the root of the continent’s impotence, we should never forget that if aroused and pushed, a rearmed and powerful Europe could still be at the side of the United States in joint efforts against the jihadists. And should we ever see a true alliance of such Western powers, the war against the fascists of the Middle East would be simply over in short order.

I have never counted Europe out. Indeed, while I hope they will become a useful ally on our side, I don't actually rule out that a rising Europe could one day be a threat to our freedom has it was for most of our history:

I don't think that the long bloody history of Europe has been put safely into the past. Democracy is a thin veneer over a deep current of tyranny, war, and a killer instinct. The European Union, I fear, is the start of a new dictatorship that will create a potential enemy in fifty years.

Europe is very much from Mars, as I've noted. We need to make sure that a Europe that rediscovers its talent for violence fights our common enemies. Don't under-estimate them just because they are on an extended August holiday from reality.

Remember the threats we've faced down from Europe since before our independence to today: France, Britain, Spain, Germany (twice), and the Soviet Union.

Some Damn Fool Thing in the Balkans

Strategypage writes about several things the Chinese leadership really believes despite public pronouncements:

1. India is not perceived as a major rival, unlike Japan or the U.S.

2. They believe the experience in Bosnia and Kosovo indicate America understands “political warfare” much better than China does.

3. They don’t seem to think we’re “bogged down” in Iraq so much as that we’re gaining valuable combat experience (maybe a million “seasoned” troops by the time it’s over) as well as learning all sorts of new tricks in how to fight insurgencies, and how to use new military technologies.

4. They don’t believe war with the US is likely, unless we mess with Taiwan.

Strategypage concludes:

The problem is that the Chinese leadership, in self-defense, have been using nationalism, and “big-bad-America” to distract the people from the corruption and other failings of the government. Don’t confuse the propaganda and hype with what the leadership really believe, and talk about among themselves.

These are not necessarily comforting.

The first point about India is comforting, for India appears to be lining up with us and given that the Chinese worry about the U.S. Navy cutting off their trade, India could do the same to the critical energy sea lines of communication to the Middle East and Africa running through the Indian Ocean. If China doesn't worry about India, they won't spend much effort trying to stop their rise and alliance with us. Score one for our side.

Second, the Chinese think we are not blindly technology focused and are good at the political aspects of military force.

Third, the Chinese worry about our combat experience should lay to rest the complaints that Iraq is breaking our military. First of all, our Navy and Air Force are not stressed overall by the war. Air transport is very busy, but otherwise these services are clear. And these would be the major players in any war with China. Second, while our Army and Marines are under stress due to the war, so far the combat experience is far outweighing the stress. If we can manage the stress or end it, our ground forces will emerge as the most battle-hardened, well-equipped, and skilled force on the planet. We will reap benefits for a generation as combat-proven soldiers and Marines advance up in rank.

So far you're thinking, so why isn't this comforting? These look pretty good for us.

Well, the fourth point that China "only" sees Taiwan as a potential trigger for conflict with America is the problem.

There is no "only" here. We could say "only" if the Chinese only foresaw conflict over Mischief Reef or something. The issue of Taiwan is a big deal since we are committed to defending this democracy against a totalitarian state. The fact that this is the only issue the Chinese are willing to fight us over should tell us just how important this issue is to China. They want Taiwan and Peking is willing to fight America to get it even when they can't foresee fighting America over any other issue. And they feel this way despite their respect for our military prowess.

And I don't think that you can seriously argue that simply throwing Taiwan to the wolves would end all sources of potential conflict. If Taiwan was absorbed, I guarantee that some other issue will become paramount and the nationalism used to stoke public opinion against America over the Taiwan issue will be transferred to another issue. The nationalism stoking is the goal--not necessarily the issue used as the pretext. And don't think that capturing Taiwan wouldn't be seen as a victory over us. It would whet their appetite for more such victories.

Indeed, if China became convinced that Taiwan could not be bullied or conquered, I bet China would decide something else is most important. For the nationalism-stoking business is of no use if the pretext to stir it up is invulnerable, right? Better to target something else within reach. Like Korea or Vietnam. I'm sure the Chinese can come up with centuries-old maps showing either region partly within China's sphere at some point.

So this nationalism is the main reason I worry about China. A regime insecure enough to stoke fear and anger to maintain support will find it is riding a tiger it cannot get off. Nationalism cannot be fine-tuned, and if the people demand military action because they are whipped up in a nationalistic frenzy, the leadership will not be able to resist the pressure to act--even against a militarily superior enemy. For if the leadership will not act, somebody else in the elites may decide that a popular war is the lever to pry the leadership out and to seize power themselves.

So the fact that Chinese leadership believes something completely different than what they say will not prevent them from acting on those statements in a crisis. And it could be over Taiwan. Or something else entirely if Taiwan ceases to be so important.

I would rather work on directing Chinese attention inland and away from the Pacific.

If the Chinese keep looking to the east and the sea, there could very well be a general war over some damn fool thing in East Asia.

Take Away Their Belts and Laces

This (via NRO) is fascinating:

The son of former President Jimmy Carter is running in Nevada for a U.S. Senate seat.

Because when our country is facing a crisis with Islamofascists in Iran, you naturally think of Carter.

Rove is a genius. The alternative is to conclude that the opposition party should be on suicide watch.

UPDATE: Jonah Goldberg expands on this theme. And he does it with some seriousness. It is not a new theme, but the Democratic Party has sold its soul to the Left and must constantly stifle any trace of reasonableness to appease their source of money and volunteers. I do not celebrate this. Their failure to believe in anything but the evilness of the president denies them the opportunity to make inroads based on Republican failures and mistakes.

I want two national parties that see threats to our nation from abroad rather than threats from the White House. It doesn't matter if those parties disagree on how to face that threat, as long as they have the same goal. We managed the Cold War even with a Democratic Party that had great differences over how to approach Moscow. But few in power voiced opinions that we deserved to lose or shouldn't resist Soviet communism at some level.

But at the national level, only one party as an institution is really serious about defending our country today. This is wrong, unhealthy for our nation if it continues too long, and will damage our ability to protect ourselves and win this Long War.

And I don't know what can be done about it. Nor do I wish to comment on it beyond this. This issue has an impact on our foreign policy, which is why I write here about it; but I don't want to veer out of my lane, either. But it is depressing.

The Navy Flies, Too

So how do you cope with sending ships around the globe for continuous duty?

You keep the ships in place and fly in the crews:

The U.S. Navy is continuing to expand use of its “Sea Swap” program, by assigning several crews to each of their new Littoral Combat Ships (LCS). The original idea behind Sea Swap was to eliminate the transit time, which can be up to a month, as the warship makes its way out to a far away area (like the Persian Gulf), for a six month tour. With Sea Swap, the ship stays out there for 18-24 months, while the crews do their usual six months at sea before flying home.

I don't know why we don't build modern diesels for use in the Western Pacific and fly in the crews to boats based out of Singapore, Australia, or Japan.

Still Winning

This article notes that enemy attacks in Iraq have increased substantially in 2005 over 2004.

The number of attacks against coalition troops, Iraqi security forces and civilians increased 29% last year, and insurgents are increasingly targeting Iraqis, the U.S. military says.

Insurgents launched 34,131 attacks last year, up from 26,496 the year before, according to U.S. military figures released Sunday.

Insurgents are widening their attacks to include the expanding Iraqi forces engaged in the fighting, said Brig. Gen. Donald Alston, a coalition spokesman.

He added, "It tells me the coalition and the Iraqi forces have been very aggressive in taking the fight to the enemy."

The number of trained and equipped Iraqi security forces has grown to 227,000. They outnumber U.S. forces in Iraq. They are often more exposed and are taking a more visible role in fighting the insurgency.

"They're easier targets," said Andrew Krepinevich, a counterinsurgency expert at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, a Washington-based defense think tank.

In 2005, 2,713 Iraqi police and military were killed, according to the Brookings Institute, a Washington-based think tank. Similar numbers for 2004 were not available, and Iraq's government has not released comprehensive casualty numbers for Iraqi security forces.

Thousands of Iraqi civilians have also been killed, but no precise tally is available.

U.S. forces have become more effective at protecting against attacks. In 2004, 714 U.S. troops were killed in action and 673 last year, despite the increase in attacks. The number of wounded dropped 26%, from 7,990 to 5,939 during the same period.

Strategypage provides necessary context, including emphasizing and not minimizing the fact that our total casualties are down a great deal.

Here's how Saddam's followers lost a second time. In 2004, American troops suffered 8,837 casualties in Iraq (ten percent fatal). In 2005, casualties declined by 23 percent, to 6,785 (12 percent fatal). That didn't make the news because the number of American dead remained about the same. That's too bad, because there were some more interesting patterns. For example, the number of attacks (mostly by Sunni Arab Iraqis) in 2005 was 34,131, an increase of 29 percent from 2004. That's attacks on foreign and Iraqi troops, and Iraqi civilians. But how can American casualties go down if the number of attacks are going up? Simple, there are a lot more Iraqi soldiers and police for the terrorists to attack, and they are getting hit. There have been a lot more Iraqi casualties. By the end of the year, about three times as many as the Americans were taking.

And as I've written, escalation does not mean we are losing. Our relative power is increasing over the enemy and they will eventually break.

And when the enemy finally breaks, it will be the Iraqi security forces themselves that will break them with our forces in a supporting role.

Really, I've noticed that I have rarely commented on Iraqi events lately. Despite hand wringing, it is just much more evident that we are winning and unless something unexpected happens, we (the Iraqis, ourselves, and the Coalition allies) are on a clear path to defeating the enemy insurgents and terrorists.

Republic of Fear

Are the South Koreans simply too afraid of what North Korea might do to be an effective ally of ours?

Look, I understand that the South Koreans may have an understandable desire to avoid paying the price for American and Japanese policies that try to crumble North Korea. Seoul is close to the border and vulnerable to non-nuclear weapons. They can reasonably ask why North Korea with nuclear missiles capable of reaching Japan or America is any more threatening to them than the current situation?

But by the same token, we have an understandable desire to keep North Korea from targetting our cities. Just because Seoul is already targetted doesn't mean we want Tokyo or Seattle to be targets of the Pillsbury Nuke Boy.

This divergence may very well threaten the basis for our alliance with South Korea if Seoul's fear of North Korea prevents South Korea from effectively resisting North Korean pressure and threats:

I've come to the conclusion that our South Korean alliance is in peril in the long run. I'd thought it was based on cold calculations over differing American/Japanese goals and South Korean goals. That is, Japan and America worry about nukes since this is a new threat to us. South Korea doesn't worry about nukes since the ability to nuke Seoul is a destruction not too different from the destruction that an invasion could have inflicted the last fifty years. South Korea would rather risk Tokyo or Seattle (or Guam) than risk even a conventional invasion by the North Koreans in order to eliminate the North Korean nuclear arsenal. As disturbing as this divergence is, I figured we could probably reconcile our goals. At the worst, North Korean insanity would eventually provide a common--or at least overlapping--threat perception.

But it may be worse than mere tactics and vulnerabilities. I have little faith that the North and South can unite in a happy kumbaya celebration of Korean-ness. And if the South doesn't take the threat seriously, reunification may be on Pyongyang's terms after all. You need the will to fight and not just the weapons. Will the South fight their "brothers" in the North if the balloon goes up?

North Korea is already world-class nutty. The South Koreans might have gone completely bonkers as well. Our North Korean problem might well become a Korean problem, and I don't know what we can do about it.

Well, via Instapundit, a sign of South Korea going completely bonkers:

So it has come to this: it is no longer legal to criticize the human rights record of North Korea in Seoul, South Korea.

Stark raving bonkers, I tell you. Our State Department needs to do some serious work to shore up our South Korean alliance.

No Zombies

The perils of treating the war on terror as a law enforcement issue--especially with European ideas of law enforcement--is readily apparent here:

A man convicted of masterminding the attack on the American destroyer Cole in 2000 escaped a Yemeni jail through a tunnel with 22 other prisoners, the international police organization, Interpol, said today.

The prisoner, Jamal Ahmed Badawi, was sentenced to death in 2004 by a court in Yemen for his role in the attack on the warship that killed 17 American sailors and provided an early glimpse of the workings of Osama bin Laden's Al Qaeda global terror network. The Interpol statement said that 12 of the prisoners who escaped through the tunnel with Mr. Badawi were convicted members of Al Qaeda.

Yemeni officials also confirmed to Interpol that a man responsible for the attack on the French tanker Limburg in 2002, Fawaz al-Rabeei, was among those who escaped.

Let me note very simply that dead men do not tunnel their way to freedom. Or kill again.

On the way home, the NPR story got this notion quite wrong when the reporter stated that if you look at the war against terror as a score card of al Qaeda leaders killed or captured, an escape is setback.

Um, no--not quite. Unless the reporter has some news of dead terrorists escaping from Hell.

Watch Ghana

I haven't read much about Ghana in the news lately and a quick search didn't find anything of note. But when I see that somebody in Ghana hit this site with the following search, I have to wonder:

2005/2006 email contact addresses of lethal weapon dealers in north korea

When somebody is looking to North Korea for weapons, I have to believe they are really interested in weapons unencumbered by any notions of seller pressure to use them responsbily and in accordance with international norms.

I'm going to watch for news about Ghana.

Not Helpless

Ok, I'm recreating this post from Friday night. The site was all buggy on me and though it was posted at one time, it is now gone. (I checked my drive--I actually saved it in Word just in case)


The Pentagon has put out the 2006 Quadrennial Defense Review. The Iran angle is interesting:

Surge – wage two nearly simultaneous conventional campaigns (or one conventional campaign if already engaged in a large-scale, long-duration irregular campaign), while selectively reinforcing deterrence against opportunistic acts of aggression. Be prepared in one of the two campaigns to remove a hostile regime, destroy its military capacity and set conditions for the transition to, or for the restoration of, civil society.

So the Pentagon doesn't seem to think we are helpless to generate land power even while fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan. I noted earlier that we could surge significant ground power to deal with Iran as long as we are willing to fully mobilize.

And when you add to this framework som recent real world developments, we have our case for war pretty fleshed out.

One, the IAEA is admitting that Iran is pursuing nuclear weapons:

The U.N. nuclear watchdog Saturday reported Iran to the U.N. Security Council in a resolution expressing concern that Tehran's nuclear program may not be "exclusively for peaceful purposes." Iran retaliated immediately, saying it would resume uranium enrichment at its main plant instead of in Russia.

As a bonus, the Iranians aren't pretending to cooperate and are instead defying the IAEA. We also have Secretary Rumsfeld noting Iran's ties to terrorism and their nuclear ambitions while in Europe to talk to our allies:

"The Iranian regime is today the world's leading state sponsor of terrorism," he said in prepared remarks. "The world does not want, and must work together to prevent, a nuclear Iran."

A lot of people are talking about March as the time when Iran will be better prepared to defend its nuclear facilities, so we'd best strike before then. Me, I don't think that Iran can possibly withstand a full aerial campaign even with those extras. We'll take them apart if we attack before or after March. So I guess that despite reports that Israel considers March an important time, I don't. Maybe for a one-strike attack those new SAMs are important, but not for the type of campaign we'd conduct.

So the real question is whether we think Iran is at a point of no return on their nuclear infrastructure. We could be weeks or months away, it seems.

I will say that the spring gives us the same advantage that the fall gives us--temperatures moderate enough not to require energy for heating or cooling. And outside the summer driving season. Combined with a full Strategic Petroleum Reserve, we'd be in a better position to ride out a temporary gap in Iranian oil exports. Assuming we could take down the mullahs, quickly, of course; or that Iran would resume exports after losing their nuclear card.

I still think a siege is most likely. An aerial attack risky. And a revolution the preferred method. It all depends on what is going on inside Iran, what we think is going on inside Iran, the state of the our allies' thinking, and what we've been doing inside Iran to support our planned actions.

Oh, and let me add links to other QDR stuff.

Guard Brigades

The Army is defending its decisions to change the Guard:

The Pentagon will ask Congress next month to reduce the authorized strength of the Guard from 350,000 soldiers to 333,000, to transform six Guard combat brigades into support units and to decrease the planned number of active-duty Army and Guard combat brigades from 77 to 70.

Some members of Congress oppose the changes, but honestly, I can't take them seriously. I was in the Guard. I like the Guard. But the Guard is politically connected and local concerns can trump national security here:

Senate Republican leader Bill Frist of Tennessee told Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld in a letter last week that he was concerned about any reduction of combat force, "especially during time of war."

"We will oppose ... cuts to the National Guard in order to ensure the Guard maintains a robust capability needed to respond to crises at home [and] fight and win the war on terror abroad," Sens. Christopher S. Bond, a Missouri Republican, and Patrick J. Leahy, a Vermont Democrat, wrote in a separate letter to Rumsfeld. Bond and Leahy are co-chairmen of the Senate's National Guard Caucus.

The National Governors Association also opposes the Army plan because of fears that reductions in Guard strength would imperil national security and hamper the ability of states to respond to natural disasters. Governors control Guard units in their states unless the units are called to federal duty by the president.

The Guard is needed to augment the active forces so I have little sympathy for the desire to keep the Guard tied to home. If state governors are so concerned about local needs they can fund state defense forces and the federal government won't stop them. These are citizen-soldiers, remember.

The idea to change Guard combat brigades to support units actually predates 9-11, so is nothing new. There are some misconceptions about whether the Guard is being cut or increased. This Army press conference provides some explanation. But it needs explaining itself.

The information on the Guard brigades changes:

Now in regards to the Guard specifically, if you look at the current baseline plan -- let's take the baseline plan of 2005. The baseline plan for 2005 called for a total of 106 brigades for the National Guard, a mixture of brigade combat teams which do the war fighting and complemented by a number of multifunctional and functional support brigades. The number in the baseline plan was 106. The number today is 106. There is no change in the number of National Guard brigades.


Now what we did was in both as a result of the QDR and the continuing thinking about the challenges of the 21st century, we decided that we would rebalance the mix of those brigades so that in keeping in mind that the Guard's mission is twofold. They have an overseas operational mission, which, by the way, they performed extremely well in 2005, and they have the homeland defense mission. So they need a capability that's somewhat different than the active component, which is more fighting either conventional or nonconventional, nontraditional, irregular warfare. So we decided that it's appropriate to adjust the number of brigade combat teams. The baseline plan had 34. We decided that we would make that 28, which, by the way, is an increase from the number of enhanced brigades they had in the Guard, which was 15, and we would increase the number of so-called combat support brigades, and these are brigades that have MPs, engineers, chemical, air defense, civil affairs, very appropriate for homeland defense missions.


So we increased those number -- kept the number the same, at 106. So there's no cut in force structure of the Guard at all.

Let's be clear here. One, we are converting six Guard combat brigades to other units like MPs and engineers for example. So we will have 28 combat brigades instead of 34 in the Guard. The 34 number is already a reduction from the 42 that we had not too long ago. Those units were also converted to support units. So this is a long-standing trend following the Cold War.

Second, in the recent past, only the 15 enhanced separate brigades were considered as a source of combat units. The remainder weren't really even part of our war plans. They were a deep bench as a strategic reserve. Now, all 28 Guard brigades will be at the "enhanced" status and made ready for rapid mobilization.

So in a way our Guard brigade strength is going up when you consider the units we can realistically expect to be ready for war in short order is going from 15 to 28.

But our overall combat strength is going down from 42 total combat brigades not long ago, to 34 today, to 28 in the near future.

Plus, our total Army brigades will be at 70 (42 active and 28 Guard), which is largely unchanged from the 33 active and 42 reserve (75 total) we used to have not many years ago. While a slight decrease overall, we are going from 33 active and 15 Guard brigades quickly deployable (48) to 42 active and 28 Guard brigades quickly deployable (70).

And since total strength will stay roughly the same, the governors will still have the same number of troops on hand for disaster mobilization.

So is the Guard combat capability shrinking or expanding? I guess it all depends on what you want to emphasize. But these citizen-soldiers will be more closely intertwined with the active component as real team members.

A Symmetrical War

I wasn't worried about Palestinians getting their own state and I'm not worried about Hamas controlling it. Strategypage puts it well:

The next round of fighting between Israel and Hamas will be against a Palestinian government, not just a terrorist organization. As a government, Hamas has a lot more targets for the Israelis to go after. Hamas is a bigger target now, and a more vulnerable one.

And as I said when asked right after the election, it provides clarity. When Fatah could tolerate Hamas killing Israelis yet be largely immune to counter-attack because Fatah could argue that the Isrealies shouldnt hit them unless they want Hamas to win power, Israel was constained in what it could do. Europeans could more easily pretend that the PA was just a reasonable negotiating partner, too, and blame Israel for not agreeing to Fatah's logic.

Now the facade is ripped away. The terrorists are in charge and if they try to continue terror attacks, Israel will be able to smash up PA assets with more freedom of action.

So don't panic. The Palestinian people may not like what Hamas brings down on them. And as long as we work to ensure there will be future elections, democracy may yet bring peace to that region.

Ok, let's see if this will finally post. Stuff has been buggy last couple days.

Warning Shots

If we are preparing to attack Iran, we will need our Gulf friends to pump as much oil as they can to compensate for the loss of Iranian oil on the market. And we'll need the cooperation of our allies and others in at least a passive fashion.

So is this part of the President's state of the union address a type of warning to the Saudis to work with us lest we turn our attention to making their only export obsolete? And reduce our incentive to defend their governments in the process, I might add.

America is addicted to oil, which is often imported from unstable parts of the world. The best way to break this addiction is through technology. Since 2001, we have spent nearly $10 billion to develop cleaner, cheaper, and more reliable alternative energy sources -- and we are on the threshold of incredible advances.

So tonight, I announce the Advanced Energy Initiative -- a 22-percent increase in clean-energy research -- at the Department of Energy, to push for breakthroughs in two vital areas. To change how we power our homes and offices, we will invest more in zero-emission coal-fired plants, revolutionary solar and wind technologies, and clean, safe nuclear energy. (Applause.)

We must also change how we power our automobiles. We will increase our research in better batteries for hybrid and electric cars, and in pollution-free cars that run on hydrogen. We'll also fund additional research in cutting-edge methods of producing ethanol, not just from corn, but from wood chips and stalks, or switch grass. Our goal is to make this new kind of ethanol practical and competitive within six years. (Applause.)

Breakthroughs on this and other new technologies will help us reach another great goal: to replace more than 75 percent of our oil imports from the Middle East by 2025. (Applause.) By applying the talent and technology of America, this country can dramatically improve our environment, move beyond a petroleum-based economy, and make our dependence on Middle Eastern oil a thing of the past. (Applause.)

And have we put sanctions on foreign countries as a shot at others to keep quiet until we deal with Iran? (from Jane's email alerts)

The US government has imposed sanctions on nine separate EU, Indian and Chinese companies alleged to have sold military equipment to Iran. * Six Chinese and two Indian companies have been banned from doing business with the US, along with Austrian small-arms manufacturer, Steyr-Mannlicher.

I'm just assuming our government has been quietly setting the stage for action, having learned our lesson in our long-telegraphed war against Saddam.

No Bake Sales Here

I've been perplexed by the repeated accusations by some that our military is poorly equipped and that this is one of the many so-called blunders of how we've waged war in Iraq. This is so contrary to reality that it boggled my mind. Our military is the best-equipped force on the planet and nobody comes close.

Strategypage reminds me of what is probably a good reason for this line of attack--the press discovered that troops buy equipment and then assumed that this must be some new development caused by the failure of this administration to actually equip the troops. But this is silly:

Last year, the media discovered that troops spend their own money on military equipment. Actually, the troops have been doing that forever, but once the news reached Congress, a law was passed requiring the government to reimburse troops for gear they bought. All this got lots of publicity. Oddly enough, few of the troops bothered to apply for the payments. So far, about 70 troops have applied, and about $30,000 has been paid out. Most of the requests came from the navy (34), but total payments were only some $5,000. The army had about 30 requests, mostly for body armor purchases, which totaled about $22,000. The marines had four requests, and the air force had none.

The press heard about this for the first time and assumed it was new. On the bright side, with talk of what soldiers were buying getting out, the military has speeded up procurement of items similiar to what that soldiers were buying so they can be issued instead.

Still, you'd think all those people who used to sport "What if the Pentagon had to hold bake sales to buy weapons?" bumper stickers would be overjoyed instead of using the incorrect fact as a club to hit the administration.

Just What Do They Want? Part Two

I am continually amazed by those who think that we must have done something to provoke the wrath of peaceful Moslems and compel some of them to become whackjob jihadis committed to our deaths. Surely, if only we would change our behavior, they would stop hating us and attacking us.

Interesting thought. Yet there is this:

Armed militants angered by a cartoon drawing of the Prophet Muhammad published in European newspapers surrounded EU offices in Gaza on Thursday and threatened to kidnap foreigners as outrage over the caricatures spread across the Islamic world.

More than 300 students demonstrated in Pakistan, chanting "Death to France!" and "Death to Denmark!" — two of the countries where newspapers published the drawings. Other protests were held in Syria and Lebanon, while officials in Afghanistan, Iran and Indonesia condemned the publication. In Paris, the daily France Soir fired its managing editor after it ran the caricatures Wednesday.

A Jordanian newspaper took the bold step of running some of the drawings, saying it wanted to show its readers how offensive the cartoons were, although its editor also said he did not want "to promote such blasphemy." In an editorial, it also urged the world's Muslims to "be reasonable."

I know, I know, going to war against the jihadis will just enrage average Moslems to fight us, so we should just pull home. Act like France has and they'll love us. Oh wait, what were the jihadi-lovers chanting in Pakistan? Ah yes, "Death to France!" Well there goes that response.

And "Death to Denmark" doesn't exactly conjur up images of violent Western imperialism. You know, other than the oppressed colony of Greenland. Really, "Death to Denmark" makes about as much sense as "Death to Hello Kitty!" as an inspirational chant to inspire the faithful to hate and kill. Well, on the latter I'll defer to Mad Minerva.

Makes me wonder if we could ever appease them. Doesn't it? It's almost like they hate us for who we are and not what we do!

UPDATE: Mark Steyn is amazed that we can't seem to work up an outrage over the nutter response to some cartoons that some deem our offensive to Moslems. Sure, they can be crazy enough to be outraged, but why do we have to go along with it? Can't we defend our society and culture in the face of murderous outrage over badly drawn cartoons? As Steyn writes, "As a famously sensitive Dane once put it, 'To be or not to be, that is the question.'"

Echo of Greatness

Well this is heartening news:

[Canadian] Brig.-Gen. David Fraser is taking 2,200 [Canadian] troops into the perilous south of Afghanistan later this month. He says they are well-trained and equipped and are ready to hunt down insurgents and Taliban holdouts if necessary. He says the Canadians will work closely with the Afghan army to provide security in the region.

A proud military tradition is not dead. The Taliban will learn the hard way that they are up against a tough bunch.

Good hunting. And please, Ottawa, worry more about how to fight this war than tracking down American submarines in Arctic waters. Show some priorities.

What Do They Want?

This is an excellent overview (via Instapundit) of the war in Iraq and various misconceptions.

I may quibble on small points, but the big point that we are winning and doing well is spot on accurate.

This part about how journalists and academics are pessimistic about Iraq while officers are optimistic is particularly interesting:

In September and October 2005, Princeton Survey Research asked various American leadership groups whether they believe the U.S. will succeed or fail in establishing a stable democratic government in Iraq. Most academics agree with Howard Dean: only a quarter say we will “succeed.” Most journalists agree with Dean: Only one third answer “succeed.” Among military officers, however, two thirds say the U.S. will succeed in Iraq.

I suppose you could say that the desire of our officers to win the war they are fighting and sacrificing for colors their judgment. Certainly, more than cold calculating logic goes into any opinion.

But then, what does this say about our journalists and professors who think we will lose in Iraq? Just what motivation is coloring their analysis?

Debate amongst yourselves.

H-Hour Minus 12

Moqtada al Sadr is a threat to democracy in Iraq and to our troops.

Strategypage has this interesting post:

Iraqi Shiite cleric Moqtada Sadr announced that he would come to the defense of Iran if Iran were attacked. This makes it pretty clear that Sadr is Iran's creation, and the recipient of much financial and other aid.

Besides raising the question I've asked repeatedly since 2003 of why this man is still alive, it raises the possibility that Iran could indeed make mischief in Iraq if we attack Iran. Sadr will do his masters' bidding when the time comes.

Of course, we know this already. And if we are planning to attack Iran it would actually make sense to leave Sadr and his people in place, compile lists of people and arms caches at his disposal, and then wait until the eve of action to then kill or arrest them all at once. This would disrupt Iran's ability to raise the ante in Iraq and prevent the Iranians from building a new network that we don't know about to replace Sadr.

So I'll be keeping an eye on any news about official actions against the Idiot Sadr and his minions (man, I want minions of my own...).

Divisions in the Rank

Strategypage notes that the Iranian regime is divided. Some would like to loudly proclaim their intention to incinerate us. Other moderates would prefer to proceed toward that goal quietly lest the dhimmi get alarmed and wise up:

There appears to be a serious rift in the cabinet of president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Some of his supporters are urging a hard-line against the US and adventurism abroad, while others believes that war with the US is not inevitable and that Iran can benefit from maintaining a low profile.

And the Iranian public is caught in the middle:

[M]any Iranians are getting nervous, because Ahmadinejad is talking war and not getting anything done for the poor and oppressed (by the corrupt clergy who control the government and much of the mismanaged economy). Iranian Internet chatter is full of such misgivings. But Ahmadinejad's playing of the nationalism card makes open demonstrations of opposition dangerous.

This is really the important part. Our pressure now is making the opposition worry about what kind of trouble their regime might get them into. But conventional wisdom has it that if we attack Iran, the opposition will rally to the regime. Perhaps. I have my doubts about the ability of the government to rally Iranians who normally hate the regime.

But just in case, perhaps we really should calibrate our actions to navigate the gray area of nervousness and nationalism. I am coming around to more firmly concluding that some type of siege against the regime to overthrow the mullahs is superior to a full aerial/special forces campaign against Iran's nuclear, military, and leadership targets (although either choice is superior to doing nothing, I think).

There is just too much I don't know to really come down on a solid course of action. An internal revolution would be ideal, but I don't think we're that lucky. An attack the length and breadth of Iran to defang them is risky. An invasion is out of the question. A full siege while occupying Khuzestan may risk provoking nationalism. And a blockade that lays siege to Iran without securing Khuzestan risks long-term oil shortages even if we overthrow the mullahs successfully as a result.

In this light, a siege that does not include an invasion of Khuzestan but instead blockades Iran with ground forces occupying Kharg and islands in the Strait of Hormuz and Gulf makes more sense. Still, this leaves the oil fields open to destruction by the mullahs and risks a long drawn out confrontation that could escalate at the choice of our enemies.

Kicking Ass and Taking Names

Our military is really good. So good that it stuns even our own generals. Despite the anguish over our casualties, we've lost at historically low rates even as we win.

During the 1991 Gulf War there were 12 American casualties a day per division. By comparison, during World War II the daily losses per American division were usually over a hundred a day. On the Russian front, it was often several hundred casualties a day for German and Russian divisions. The spectacular six week German conquest of France in 1940, saw their combat divisions taking 30 casualties (on average) per day. But during another spectacular military victory, the 1967 Six Day War, Israeli casualties the were 110 per division per day, and that actually went down to 90 a day during the less spectacular 1973 war. So by any measure, American troops have learned how to avoid getting hit. That continued after 2003. When the Iraqi Sunni Arabs began their terror campaign in late 2003, and the media was full of stories of American casualties, but no one pointed out that the losses were again at a historical low. In 2004, there were 4.5 casualties per division per day, while in 2005, that went down to about 3.5. All this time, the troops were heavily engaged.

In the Iraq War invasion?

While the media didn’t notice it, the people in the Pentagon, and military historians, were shocked at the low casualty rate of U.S. troops during the 2003 invasion of Iraq. The casualties (killed, wounded missing) per division per day were about SEVEN. That’s a historical low.

I would argue that this is too high. While Strategypage doesn't give the base figures, since it is commonly said we invaded Iraq with three divisions (3rd ID, 101st AB, and 1st Marine Division), I bet this is the division number.

But as I've argued many times, we did not invade with just three divisions. Our invasion seemed like the test for the concept of our current move to brigades fighting as independent units with few support units backing them on the ground and instead relying on air power. I counted (or rather, Global Security counted them) sixty American maneuver battalions in the invasion (and 10 British), which is the frontline equivalent of six American divisions (ten battalions per division). So we should halve the rate given for the invasion, and call it 3.5 troops per division, per day. This is amazing.

Mourn our losses, to be sure. Every casualty is painful to read about. But celebrate what they've accomplished. And celebrate the skill with which they've done it.

Our enemies like to believe that we can't endure heavy casualties to beat them. That is debatable. But what is not is that we don't actually need to endure heavy casualties to rip apart our enemies.

Eye on the Prize

The election of Hamas to lead the Palestinian Authority was no cause for celebration, but it is hardly the end of the world.

I argued that as long as we can apply pressure on the PA to continue to have honest elections and make sure losers pack their bags, in time, the Palestinians may elect rational leaders:

So let's cut off aid to the PA but funnel it to NGOs that build democratic institutions and civic organizations. Our goal should be to promote democracy. So rather than trying to nullify this election result, we should make sure that there will more elections, and that those results will be honored by even a Hamas government that loses.

We can't make them elect good men. But we can insist they keep holding elections until they decide to elect good men.

Secretary Rice appears to agree:

"What is the alternative to believing in democracy so that people can express themselves?" Rice replied. "The alternative is to say that they shouldn't have the right to express themselves. The alternative is to say that it is better that the people of the Middle East continue to have no say in who will govern them, continue to have no say in how their interests are going to be represented."

She added this caveat: "... those who win elections have an obligation to govern democratically, and I hope the people who elected -- who elect governments will hold them to the obligation to govern democratically. That means that the same people who have used the open political system to come to power have to keep the system open to opposition to their views and to their ideas."

As many people point out, an election alone does not create democracy. By the same token, an election result that we don't like doesn't mean democracy has died. We need to keep working on them until they elect good men. And as long as we can pressure the Palestinian government to keep holding elections, I'm an optimist enough to believe that eventually they will.

UPDATE: Victor Hanson writes in a simliar vein that we should support the process and not the people:

Past realist failures at propping up dictators are postfacto reinvented as sobriety, while the messy and belated democratic correction is derided as foolery. Even the election of Hamas and the honesty it brings are welcome news: Support the process, not always the result, while stopping the subsidy and dialogue if such terrorists come to power. Let them stew in their own juice, not ours.

Democracy is a process and not an event. And in any case, how can we possibly say democracy is bad if the results aren't to our liking? As I wrote, accepting the results of democracy without approving of the winners or helping them gives our democracy call credibility and undermines attacks that our promotion of democracy is just a means to put puppets in charge.

Crimean War

Keep an eye on the situation between Russia and Ukraine. The flash point is the Crimea:

After Russia moved to raise the price of the natural gas it supplies, Ukraine warned that it may revise the contract regulating rent paid by the Russian government for the Black Sea Fleet bases in the Crimea. The Russian defense minister, Sergei Ivanov, responded with a thinly disguised threat to take the Crimea away from Ukraine. A revision of the rent contract, he said, might lead to renunciation of the 1997 agreement by which Russia recognized the 1954 borders of Ukraine.

Several Russian legislators chimed in, but unlike the defense minister, they were quite explicit. "Sooner or later the Crimea will be reclaimed," one Russian Duma deputy said. "To make the Crimea again part of Russia will be an absolutely right decision," said another.

Like other areas of the "near abroad" there are ethnic Russians stuck on the other side of the border who could provide an excuse for Russia to intervene. Add in the Russian view that we engineered the Orange Revolution that brought in a pro-Western government and we could have new European crises in the next decade.

I imagine Ukraine would like to speed up talks to join NATO.