Understanding the Statistics

Simply looking at increased Coalition casualties and increased combat statistics does not mean, as so many analysts assume, that the Taliban are "resurgent."

An American general, Brigadier General John Nicholson, explains to the Canadian press:

It has already been "a tough year" because the NATO armies in the south and, in particular, the Canadians "have been aggressively going after the insurgency," he said.

"We have had a higher level of contact and inflicted greater losses on the enemy and disrupted his operations more.

"Nobody should interpret that as a resurgent enemy. They should interpret that as aggressive and courageous behaviour on the part of our soldiers and especially of the Canadians in Kandahar. It has had an extremely disruptive effect on the enemy."

Our troop strength has been going up the last couple years and those troops are being used aggressively in areas previously neglected by our forces. Of course there is more combat. Not to put it too bluntly, but "duh."

If we pulled into our bases and the combat statistics went down sharply (for a while anyway, until the enemy pursued us to our bases), would you really believe the Taliban had evaporated?

Stop panicking about the war. We've got problems there. I'm worried about our supply lines. I'm worried about Pakistan's impact on our war effort. I'm worried our Congress is too eager to run from Afghanistan, too, and that our president doesn't have the stomach for a tough fight. Heck, I'm far from sold on the need to surge as many brigades as we are putting into Afghanistan. Not that they won't be of use, but that the price might be too high and that we can succeed without such a surge. But that's our strategy and I'd rather advocate vigorously carrying it out.

The least of my worries is the prospect of the Taliban actually defeating us.

We Should Be Ashamed

While the captain of our merchant ship showed guts by trying to escape from his captors, the world's navies are proving to be a bunch of pushovers.

How else do you explain the absolute contempt the pirates are showing toward our combined naval might?

Mohamed Samaw, a resident of the pirate stronghold in Eyl, Somalia, who claims to have a "share" in a British-owned ship hijacked Monday, said four foreign vessels held by pirates are heading toward the lifeboat. A total of 54 hostages are on two of the ships — citizens of China, Germany, Russia, Ukraine, the Philippines, Tuvalu, Indonesia and Taiwan.

"The pirates have summoned assistance — skiffs and mother ships are heading towards the area from the coast," said a Nairobi-based diplomat, who spoke on condition on anonymity because he is not authorized to talk to the media.

Samaw said two ships left Eyl on Wednesday. A third sailed from Haradhere, another pirate base in Somalia, and the fourth was a Taiwanese fishing vessel seized Monday that was already only 30 miles from the lifeboat.

He said the ships include the German cargo ship Hansa Stavanger, seized earlier this month. The ship's crew of 24 is made up of five Germans, three Russians, two Ukrainians, two Filipinos and 12 from Tuvalu.

Another man identified as a pirate by three different residents of Haradhere also said the captured German ship had been sent.

"They had asked us for reinforcement, and we have already sent a good number of well-equipped colleagues, who were holding a German cargo ship," said the man, who asked that only his first name, Badow, be used to protect him from reprisals.

Modern warships are on the scene but the pirates don't fear those soft Westerners back in our capitals who give them their orders.

Look, we want our captain back. We need to do what we need to do. But before this is over, there had best be a lot of dead pirates serving as shark chum.

Guns and nooses, people. Guns and nooses. That's how you treat pirates.

The Shores of the Horn, Inc.

I've speculated on whether private warfare might be in our future in the war on terror--especially if enough Westerners are concerned about whether the West is actually fighting that war.

Could private warfare get a boost from the piracy problem off of Somalia? With our governments unwilling to go on offense to go ashore and our inability to commit enough naval forces for passive protection, could private security fill the gap?

One author wants the US Congress to issue letters of marque:

The letters, specifically authorized in the Article 1 section 8 of the U.S. Constitution, allow private parties to attack and seize the property of other parties that have committed violations of international law. Congress has the power to grant the letters.

This Congress would never do this, of course.

Some would like to arm the crews of these ships or put armed guards on them:

Graeme Gibbon Brooks, founder of Dryad Maritime Intelligence Ltd., said his company did not provide armed guards although they were often asked by clients for advice on a firm to hire.

He noted that one of the biggest problems with carrying weapons is that ships may often be outgunned. Pirates tend to use long-range assault rifles capable of firing up to 600 rounds a minute, he said, whereas sailors or guards carrying weapons must satisfy the laws of both the ship's flag carrier and the nations where the vessel will dock. Many countries will only allow shotguns — traditionally used for bird control — with a much shorter range than the pirates' weapons.

"Essentially in that situation you're getting into a sword fight armed with a dagger," Brooks said.

Ship owners have shown little appetite for more serious weaponry. Last October, the American firm XE — then known as Blackwater — offered a ship fitted with helicopters and armed guards for escorting vessels past the lawless Somalia coast. But spokeswoman Anne Tyrrell said the company, had had no takers so far. Blackwater, which provided private security in Iraq, is under investigation for its role in the fatal shooting of 17 Iraqi civilians in 2007.

So there are real problems with arming crews who may not know how to use limited weapons.

Why not have the navies involved in patrolling and escorting ships use modern Q-ships?

Outfit slow merchant ships with hidden naval weapons and trained and armed navy crews to troll for pirates and kill them when they approach the ship. A nice vertical-launch cell plus .50 caliber machine guns would perhaps give pirates enough fear to deter attacks. Heck, maybe the shipping companies would hire XE to operate such Q-ships as a quasi-East India Company strategy of having private armed merchant ships.

All these defensive solutions wouldn't be necessary if we did what we should and mount a punitive mission on the ground.

It is outrageous that the civilized sea-going nations of this planet can't resolve to go ashore in Somalia and kill those pirates where they live and tear apart their communities and equipment. We're letting our laws hamsting our efforts to defeat men who reject laws in order to prey on the weak.

Economic Warfare

We're worried about economic warfare:

The Pentagon sponsored a first-of-its-kind war game last month focused not on bullets and bombs — but on how hostile nations might seek to cripple the U.S. economy, a scenario made all the more real by the global financial crisis.

The article says the games were planned before last September's financial crisis, so if true, the gam isn't in response to this odd speculation.

And note that China won the games as we and the Russians duked it out. And that the claim that China wouldn't dare dump their dollar holdings for fear of harming themselves isn't quite accurate.

I hope the Pentagon does this game next year and projects our national deficit and debt out a few years to see how we manage an economic war then.

Air Power

Our use of air power in Afghanistan has decreased this past year:

From 2004 to 2007, the overall tonnage of munitions dropped from planes rose from 163 tons to 1,956 tons, a 1,100% increase, Air Force data show.

However, the total tonnage dropped in 2008 fell to 1,314 tons, a 33% decrease.

In part this is a reaction to successful Taliban media campaign about so-called indiscriminate bombing that fabricates and exaggerates casualties our bombs cause (even when it is the enemy's fault for using human shields). The article goes on:

Commanders worry that airstrikes can wound or kill innocent bystanders, setting back efforts to win support from locals. Gen. David McKiernan, the top U.S. and NATO commander in Afghanistan, has said the Taliban seeks to create backlash against coalition efforts there by using civilians as "shields." In September, the Air Force tightened its rules for dropping bombs in an effort to limit civilian casualties.

It is unfair that we have to holster a useful weapon, but when it becomes counter-productive--even if only because of the press reports as news of enemy lies--we must react by restricting our air power use in the short run until we can nullify that enemy propaganda.

But in part, the reduction in bombs dropped is from the enemy reacting to our air power:

In January, USA TODAY reported that Afghan insurgents had learned to attack U.S. troops and scatter before they could be hit by airstrikes, a tactic that has limited the amount of bombs dropped.

That is quite a testament to our air power. The advantage this provides us can't be exaggerated. Even small American units out in the field gain quite a measure of protection from being overrun and wiped out by a much larger enemy force since the enemy believes they have only a short time to attack before being targetted by our air power--if they even risk massing in the first place.

And this advantage is gained by a miniscule use of bombs, as opposed to the anti-war opinion so common that we're just air raiding villages left and right:

Since 2001, the Air Force has dropped 14,049 tons of bombs in Afghanistan and 18,858 tons in Iraq. That compares with 6.7 million tons dropped during the Vietnam War.

Keep these facts in mind when you read about our air power.

Where's the Rally Effect?

Georgian opposition forces are united in rallies to intimidate President Saakashvili into resigning:

Thousands of Georgians have gathered outside parliament saying they will not disperse until the president resigns.

Protesters, numbering up to 60,000, blamed President Mikhail Saakashvili for defeat against Russia in August's war and said he had stifled democracy.

The opposition alleged that dozens of members were arrested before the rally - a claim denied by the government.

President Saakashvili urged Georgians to show unity and "work day and night... to finally liberate Georgia".

Look, Saakashvili was a fool to fall into Russia's trap--but he didn't really start the war. Even though his resignation wouldn't result in a pro-Russian government, it would be terrible to hand Putin a victory by cutting short Saakashvili's term short with street protests. Let's defend the democratic process in Georgia despite Saakashvili and not because of him.

But I'm more interested in the rallies themselves, following the August 2008 Russian invasion of Georgia. Why haven't the opposition parties rallied to defend Saakashvili? I mean, every time the idea of attacking Iran's nuclear infrastrucutre is raised, a chorus of voices calls out that we'll just get the generally pro-American Iranian people to rally to the mullahs. I've always argued that it is wrong to assume this is true. I've argued that internal dissidents often welcome foreign help if no other help is available. I find it hard to believe Russia isn't helping the opposition somehow even if the opposition isn't actually pro-Russian. Yet having Russian approval or even funding hasn't tainted the opposition. Why is our help to government opponents uniquely tainting?

And as long as I'm on the subject of Iran and their people's view of us, if we refrain from destroying Iran's nuclear programs out of fear of making the Iranian people dislike us--if that assumption is actually true--if Iran nukes Charleston harbor with a container-delivered nuke, are we really going to be comforted by the fact that Iran's people are really, really sad their mullahs nuked us?

There are certainly arguments against striking Iran. But whether that makes the Iranian people hate us isn't one of them.

Building the Shield

I mentioned that I hoped President Bush left President Obama the tools to take down Iran's nuclear arsenal when it truly is imminent, since no other level of proof is sufficient these days:

We won't rely on the mythical ability to deter crazed religious fanatics. But we won't try to defang Iran with a preemptive aerial campaign.

We will hope for a revolution inside Iran (do I hope too much to think we are actively working on this?) and in case we don't get that lucky, prepare for the moment that Iran's mullahs show their first nuclear missiles to the world.

Then we'll strike hard using advance penetrating precision weapons with a layer of defenses backstopping our effort to kill leakers, stretching from the Iranian target site back to our assets that might be struck. We'll use modified Sidewinders and AMRAAM on fighters over the enemy target to hit missiles in their boost phase, airborne PAC-3 missiles to strike missiles in flight once we know where the enemy missiles are headed, and ground-based point defense PAC-3s and area missile defenses based on land and sea. Add in airborne lasers later. Hopefully, we nail the missiles on the ground and if not, somebody on the ballistic arc manages a hit before detonation over the Iranians' target.

Well, we're continuing to work on one portion of that shield, the air-launched PAC-3:

Launched from the air, the PAC-3 would have a longer range, and be able to knock down ballistic missiles during their launch phase (before they left the atmosphere, turned, and plummeted back to their target below.) The air launched PAC-3 would also be useful against cruise missiles. The air launched PAC-3 should be ready for service within three years.

The PAC-3s are useful in the air over the targets of the Iranians or over the Iranian launch sites to hit Iran's missiles while they are launched.

Do we have three years?

A Great Happy Event

How cute, the North Koreans trotted out their little pretend parliament and "elected" Kim Jong Il for a thrid term:

Kim Jong Il laid to rest speculation about his health with a triumphant return to parliament Thursday for his appointment to a third term as North Korea's supreme leader.

Kim, solemnly presiding over the opening session of the reclusive communist country's rubber-stamp legislature, was making his first major public appearance since reportedly suffering a stroke last August. He appeared considerably thinner and older than nine months ago.

Hopefully the recounts and court challenges won't rise to the levels of Minnesota wrangling.

If non-Western people don't value democracy, why do thug states go through the motions of Western-style democracy?

I mean, if Asian values that emphasize being ruled by your betters (whether by birth or party membership) are so cherished, why pretend to have free votes?

A Policy of Sufficiency

So our defense structure is to be based on the assumption that in the medium term nobody can challenge us in conventional warfare. This is not an unreasonable assumption to make about the state of our military relative to potential enemies. But it is still the wrong policy to carry out.

I've already mentioned that our version of the Ten Year Rule could also end up lasting far longer than the medium term we assume it is safe to take risks with out conventional warfare capabilities. When the medium term is over, will we really ramp up our defenses when our domestic spending is sky high? Or will we rationalize our decline and say it doesn't matter. Will the medium term keep being redefined to mean ten years from right now?

This policy, even if we actually mean we take risks only in the medium term starting right now, will mean more American troops will die in battle. Our conventional warfare advantages don't just bounce the rubble--they allow us to outfight and overpower enemies without lots of Americans dying in battle. It is a mistake to believe that countries won't take us on because we are stronger, so we can let our strength slip a good deal. If a country decides to take us on, we'll have less superiority to fight them as a result of this defense spending plan. And we will lose more troops to win, at best. We might even lose. That's the risk we take in the medium term.

And it gets worse, this policy of taking risks in the medium term cancels our doctrine of military dominance, that not only sought to win wars at lower costs to ourselves (and our enemies, too, by beating them fast) but aimed to be so far ahead of our enemies in conventional warfare capabilities that they don't even try to match us in defense capabilities. In domestic terms, some would call this an "investment" that pays off in the future by requiring us to spend less over time because potential enemies feel it is hopeless to catch up:

We know from history that deterrence can fail; and we know from experience that some enemies cannot be deterred. The United States must and will maintain the capability to defeat any attempt by an enemy—whether a state or non-state actor—to impose its will on the United States, our allies, or our friends. We will maintain the forces sufficient to support our obligations, and to defend freedom. Our forces will be strong enough to dissuade potential adversaries from pursuing a military build-up in hopes of surpassing, or equaling, the power of the United States.

Well, now we'll let potential enemies catch up--and tell ourselves that we'll accelerate away with additional spending should they get close.

Right.

Our new defense policy is based on sound and accurate reasons--we really are dominant in conventional warfare right now--but it relies on a bad assumption that we will end our spending holiday in time to maintain our superiority. And it lets our potential enemies know that they can indeed catch up with our military capabilities and perhaps overtake us in selected areas if they accelerate their efforts while we coast on our reputation and past spending.

We built up our current dominance with decades of efforts at designing and building weapons, and training high quality personnel to man them. We'll surrender that advantage with a medium term policy that will squander that lead under the best of circumstances and lead us to inferiority if the likely circumstances of never canceling the Medium Term Rule play out.

We're not preparing to fight the last war. We're preparing to fight no war at all--and hoping what we have will be sufficient if we do find ourselves at war.

I'm very disappointed with Secretary Gates.

Well This is Just Great

This is a strategic threat to us no less for being based not on missiles and bombs, but on computer programs:

Cyberspies have penetrated the U.S. electrical grid and left behind software programs that could be used to disrupt the system, the Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday.

The spies came from China, Russia and other countries, and were believed to be on a mission to navigate the U.S. electrical system and its controls, the newspaper said, citing current and former U.S. national security officials.

The intruders have not sought to damage the power grid or other key infrastructure but officials said they could try during a crisis or war, the paper said in a report on its website.

"The Chinese have attempted to map our infrastructure, such as the electrical grid," a senior intelligence official told the Journal. "So have the Russians."

We need the capabilityand authorization to respond in kind. But we also can't allow whoever did this to think they can wage war on us in this dimension without consequences in the non-cyber world. If we can't respond with cyber-warfare, we will need the determination to respond with missiles and bombs against whoever wages war like this on us. If the program that knocks out the power grid of the east coast originates in China, the Three Gorges Dam should be turned into rubble. If the Russians are responsible, we mine their ports. And that's just the first response, in my view.

We've had our notice. There is no excuse for falling prey to such an attack. Maybe some of the massive spending spree we're on could be used to harden our electric grid and other critical infrastructure vulnerable to cyber attacks.

The Medium Term Rule

Secretary Gates announced the broad outline of our defense purchases. At some level I worry Gates stayed on to cement the win in Iraq at the price of carrying out the Obama defense cuts with more credibility than the president can muster on the issue. But Gates has been good on Iraq even though I initially worried he was brought in at the end of 2006 to ease our defeat after the Democratic party won Congress, and he clearly cares about our troops and the sacrifices they've made to win in Iraq. So I'm loathe to really believe this bargain existed.

So let's look at the specifics of the plan as Secretary Gates set forth.

Broadly speaking, Gates outlines proposals that bolster the troops and their families to keep our all-volunteer force intact. Our personnel are what make our military outstanding--not the technology. The technology just makes our personnel all the more lethal.

Second, he outlined proposals to help win the war we are in now--Iraq, Afghanistan, and the war on terror (or whatever they're calling it now).

Third, he outlined proposals that keep our conventional power going, but which rely on the assumption that we face no real conventional miltiary threats to us in the medium term.

I'll skip over the first part. That won't be up for debate and is great as far as I'm concerned. We have to keep our quality people in the service and make up for the sacrifices they've made the last 7 years.

So let's look at the purchases to win the war we're in.

We'll increase intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance assets, including armed UAVs and manned platforms, including fixed-wing aircraft and bolstering our ability to field helicopters. This essentially helps recreate an Army Air Corps. I'm fine with this.

We'll increase our special forces by 5% and add money to train and equip allied forces to fight terrorists. This is our first line of defense and is fine.

We'll go forward on the expensive Littoral Combat Ship intended to fight in the green and brown waters near land and expand ships designed for in-theater support. This is intended to support ground forces ashore. I have serious concerns over putting LCS in coastal waters, as I noted in my first impression of our defense priorities.

We'll halt at least temporarily our expansion of the Army's combat brigades to 45 rather than 48 as we'd planned. This will marginally reduce our rotation base to provide extra troops to avoid stop-loss use and is intended to avoid weakening our brigades. This "hollowing" would not be a threat with sufficient funding, but if the funding isn't there, this is probably wise.

These categories all fall under the category of fighting the war we're in now, as I stated. This is our focus. This is the focus of Gates and he is keeping faith with our personnel in making sure they have the resources to win.

The problem with our funding plan comes in the category of fighting the wars we are assuming we don't need to worry about. The basic assumption is:

Lat year's national defense strategy concluded that although U.S. predominance in conventional warfare is not unchallenged, it is sustainable for the medium term, given current trends.

So, on the assumption that we can coast on past procurement with acceptable risks, we'll cut back on new weapons in the medium term.

We'll halt F-22 production at 187, accelerate F-35 production, and retire 250 older fighter aircraft. I guess I'm fine with this. I don't feel as qualified to judge pure air matters, but we are clearly dominant in the air now. We'd be hurt if an enemy attack knocked out half our F-22s at the start of any war, but barring that we're probably fine with the planned Raptor fleet as the cutting edge of our air superiority effort.

We'll stop production of the C-17 fleet and buy a replacement tanker fleet (KC-X). I'm fine with the latter but worried about the former. Our airlift assets have been highly used. And with our Afghansitan Surge taking place into a landlocked theater, I'd be more comfortable with more transport aircraft.

We'll work on our next ballistic missile submarines but delay any work on a new strategic bomber. And we'll add to our cyber-warfare capabilities. Given that we may reduce nukes with a new agreement with Russia, these decisions seem fine. The cyber-warfare capabilities are vital as we've seen lately.

We'll bolster theater missile defense and Navy Standard-3 missile defenses useful against the theater-range missiles we are most likely to face in the medium term while downgrading missile defense against intercontinental ballistic missiles, counting on what we have built already (mostly in Alaska) to be enough. I'm not sure what this means for the Europe-based force we plan. This worries me. ICBM technology is mature and our enemies can get this capability far easier than we can expand and improve the new anti-ICBM capabilities we have built. What if we time an enemy's acquisition of ICBM capability incorrectly and they put an atomic warhead on a few missiles?

We'll eventually let our carrier force slide to 10 carriers from our current 11 (which has already slid from 12 recently). We'll hold off on future (and expensive) large warships while building more of our existing class of missile destroyers. We'll hold off on additional large amphibious warfare ships. Of all our services, I'm least worried about our Navy. It rules supreme. And I think carriers--the ultimate in platform-centric naval warfare--are on a glide path to beng obsolete in the decades ahead (perhaps many decades) as potential enemies gain improved network-centric warfare capabilities.

[Oops, I skipped over the Army specifics. Gates proposes slashing the Future Combat Systems. They just don't have the passive protection that Iraq combat has shown we need. Non-vehicle technology in the program will be "spun out" to the entire Army instead of focusing on a subset of the Army as a Future Force. Also, he wants to figure out what to do with all the one-dimensional MRAPs we've bought. Designed to be resilient against IEDs, they are not ideal for other forms of combat. But we invested a lot in them and they're brand new. I mention the FCS issue in the earlier post linked above. I did say the wonder tank won't be built. And I've droned on about the armor and weight issue enough, I suppose. But we do need to put designs for replacing the M-1 and M-2 in place. Those vehicles are outstanding, can be upgraded, but are getting old. Spinning out the supporting FCS technology to the entire force is great. But I don't know why we need to use the MRAPs when they aren't appropriate just because we bought them and they survived the war. Consider them investements in keeping our troops alive in combat and be grateful we could do that.]

So on the whole, I either agree with or understand and agree with the rationale for most of the decisions. Yet I'm still uncomfortable with the whole package. For one thing, I agree that preparing for a future war cannot suck resources for the current war. If we have to make a choice, I'd choose winning the war we're in now and taking risks for the future. But with the amount of money we're spending on a faux domestic problems, lack of money for long-term defense spending is not the issue. The administration has simply decided not to spend the money for future wars. That's the basic problem.

But we've made that decision to reduce defense spending and make sure this reduction doesn't affect the current war. Given this, the reason for my worry about the long-term spending is the whole "medium term" basis for all these decisions to slight our future (medium term) defenses. We assume no enemies will match us in the medium term. This is undoubtedly correct. But this also sounds too much like we're instituting the British Ten Year Rule from 1919.

It was a perfectly reasonable rule when adopted by the British government in 1919, which stated the British would not face a war in the next ten years. The rule was formally abolished 13 years later, in 1932. But defense spending did not rebound from its post-1919 collapse, and when war broke out in 1939, the British only barely proved they'd done enough to withstand the German offensive in the opening of the war.

Certainly, we won't face such a dramatic collapse in defense spending that the British military endured in the 1920s. My worry is whether we will do any better than the British did in recognizing when our version of the ten-year rule no longer holds true. When our national debt is scheduled to skyrocket even under optimistic administration projections, will we actually ramp up our defense spending once the medium term is over in order to maintain our military superiority? Or will we just continue to act as if the medium term never ends? That's what the British did. But they had the Arsenal of Democracy to back them up when they found themselves at war without the military they needed. We don't have such a back-up source of arms.

We've just instituted the Medium Term Rule on our defense spending. The problems that will flow from this plan won't show themselves in the near term. We can coast on our past progress in building the best military in the world. But have no doubt that our military strength will erode, and this means we are accepting risks in case we have to fight a conventional war in the medium term despite our assumption that we can still win such a war.

We won't cancel the Medium Term Rule until it's too late to do any good.

Can We Preble Them Now?

Pirates based in Somalia grabbed an American ship but the crew managed to regain control of the ship:

The American crew of a hijacked U.S.-flagged ship retook control of the vessel from Somali pirates Wednesday but the captain was still being held hostage in a lifeboat hundreds of miles off the Horn of Africa, crew members said.

U.S. officials said an American warship and a half-dozen other ships were headed to the scene.

Ship operator Maersk Lines Limited confirmed that the crew had taken back the 17,000-ton Maersk Alabama and were unharmed but the captain was being held by pirates away from the cargo ship.

First of all, I'm glad the crew managed to retake the ship. That's really great. Kudos to the crew although the captain is still at risk.

But second, I know that American warships can't be everywhere. But why weren't they near an American-flagged ship. There aren't that many, after all. It shouldn't be too much to expect we'd look after our own while performing our international duties of defending freedom of the seas.

So will use this incident to go into Somalia and knock down the pirates and jihadis (as long as we're there)? It would be a good idea:

I've written for several years that I'd like to see a big effort, perhaps a multi-brigade operation in Somalia to strangle the growing jihadi presence there.

The Ethiopian foray that we supported two years ago is still clamping down in the Mogadishu area, but vast expanses of territory outside of effective control provide space for al Qaeda and their friends to regroup and plan. The impact of that intervention (backed by our special forces) is starting to wear off.

So why not get the Arab grouping to sign off on an Egyptian contingent of a marine or paratrooper brigade to go in with an American Marine brigade and an American paratrooper brigade, perhaps augmented by one or two EU infantry battalions, as the conventional hammer of an intervention force? Aircraft, ships, and special operations forces as needed would be part of this as well.

The idea wouldn't be for this force to be a permanent force but one that disperses and kills the pirates and jihadis who can--if they don't already--latch on to the piracy effort. Our going in with ground forces would be contingent on the African Union and UN scraping up a force that could then be brought in to crucial port areas to keep the weakened piracy and jihadi elements from coming back in once we leave after several months of operations.

I'm willing to go in even without a follow-up force. We have all the excuse we need for a good old fashioned punitive expedition. If we can't identify the best targets after all the effort we've spend monitoring the Horn region, I'll be upset.

At the very least, we need to teach the pirates that they should stick to non-American targets. We need to hurt them badly. And if any jihadis die, too, we're in bonus territory.

Access of Evil

Because the Europeans are just no good at talking, we'll be joining them to finally persuade those wacky guys in Tehran to give up their nuclear weapons ambitions:

The Obama administration said Wednesday it will participate directly in group talks with Iran over its suspect nuclear program, another significant shift from President George W. Bush's policy toward a nation he labeled part of an axis of evil.

The State Department said the United States would be at the table "from now on" when senior diplomats from the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council and Germany meet with Iranian officials to discuss the nuclear issue. The Bush administration had generally shunned such meetings, although it attended one last year.

Where once we recognized the mullahs as a charter member of the Axis of Evil, who we were determined to defeat, now we allow the same mullahs to speak with our diplomats openly--now it's the access of evil.

This will work out just swell, I'm sure.

UPDATE: The Iranians seem particularly immune to our president's charms (Tip to Gateway Pundit):

Head of the Presidential Strategic Studies Center Ali Reza Zaker Isfahani said on Wednesday that enemies of Iran have given in to the Islamic Republic and accepted the country's nuclear realities.

"Fortunately, revolutionary steps of the Iranian people pave the ground for the enemies' failure as well as acceptance of Iran's nuclear realities," Zaker Isfahani stated.

He underlined that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's government could break the dominating international order by following the Late Imam Khomeini's path, adding, "This has led to the acceptance of Iran's nuclear energy right by the new US president, Barack Obama."

Meantime, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad announced on Wednesday that his country views the nuclear issue as a "closed case".

Yeah, this will work out just swell.

The Ultimate Deterrent

It strikes me that North Korea is on a pointless quest for nuclear missiles if their intent is to deter an American invasion or attack.

Even if you discount the lack of an invasion or attack for the last five decades while North Korea lacked nuclear weapons to deter us as proof the Pillsbury Nuke Boy is la-la land loony, North Korea has developed the ultimate deterrent.

In a way, this deterrent is partly a result of their single-minded determination to get nuclear weapons. By spending every cent they got on nukes, missiles, conventional arms, and the usual luxuries for the party loyalists, North Korea has created this:

http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/dprk/dprk-dark.htm

Amidst the prosperity of South Korea, Japan, China, and even Russia as indicated by their lights, there lies the black hole of North Korean poverty and failure.

Nobody wants North Korea. Certainly not the South Koreans who'd rather the unpleasant images of North Korea stay in the dark as far as they're concerned. The North Korean leaders can get over themselves. Really. Seoul is just not that into them. And nobody else is pining for them, either.
Who wants that cesspool and the price tag of lighting up their night sky image?

It's the ultimate deterrent. They are truly worthless.

Space for Rent

The Russians already lost their cosmodrome in Kazakhstan (though Russia still rents it) with the breakup of the Soviet Union. With a new one within Russian territory planned for the Far East, the Russians had best tend to their defenses out that way lest they suffer a repeat loss.

Unless Russia wants to continue their rental pattern.

Still Expecting Disaster

President Obama travelled to Iraq. Good for him. But would it kill his hope and change buzz to credit George Bush for winning the war that he can now "responsibly end"?

I mean, really, this just sounds like only he is standing between Iraqis and terrorists with pitch forks:

"Moving the ship of state takes time," he told a group of students in Istanbul. He noted his long-standing opposition to the war, yet said, "Now that we're there," the U.S. troop withdrawal has to be done "in a careful enough way that we don't see a collapse into violence."

But the press won't notice this bias. The press has always reported on the same assumption that Iraq is on the verge of disaster. Now they can't say that there is much evidence of that imminent disaster, but the assumption remains:

While U.S. casualties are down sharply from the war's height, there were constant reminders of violence. A half-dozen bombs rocked Shiite neighborhoods on Monday, killing 37 people.

See, the apparent calm is contradicted by the Monday violence, indicating that there really isn't calm and it could all go to Hell in a second. Honestly, would it have been too much to recast this reporting a bit?

While a half-dozen bombs rocked Shiite neighborhoods on Monday, killing 37 people, the statistics of violence are a constant reminder of the victory over the terrorsits. U.S. casualties are down sharply from the war's height.

See? In this case the Monday incident is place in the context of generally lower violence levels from the height of the war.

It all depends on whether you expect (and have rooted for) defeat in the war.

I worry when people don't seem to have much invested in our victory.

Perhaps There is Hope Amidst the No Change

Stratfor emails that while President Obama was unable to move Europe with his words to actually agree with us on anything of substance, the trip perhaps is laying the groundwork for leveraging European resolve to get their help in a common foreign policy that knocks back Russia.

The image the press is presenting to us with a not shocking lack of journalistic curiosity is of success as Europe bathes in the attention of the non-Bush. But substance took a back seat to image:

Overall, the G-20 and the NATO meetings did not produce significant breakthroughs. Rather than pushing hard on issues or trading concessions — such as accepting Germany’s unwillingness to increase its stimulus package in return for more troops in Afghanistan — the United States failed to press or bargain. It preferred to appear as part of a consensus rather than appear isolated. The United States systematically avoided any appearance of disagreement.

The reason there was no bargaining was fairly simple: The Germans were not prepared to bargain. They came to the meetings with prepared positions, and the United States had no levers with which to move them. The only option was to withhold funding for the IMF, and that would have been a political disaster (not to mention economically rather unwise). The United States would have been seen as unwilling to participate in multilateral solutions rather than Germany being seen as trying to foist its economic problems on others. Obama has positioned himself as a multilateralist and can’t afford the political consequences of deviating from this perception. Contributing to the IMF, in these days of trillion-dollar bailouts, was the lower-cost alternative. Thus, the Germans have the U.S. boxed in.

The political aspect of this should not be underestimated. George W. Bush had extremely bad relations with the Europeans (in large part because he was prepared to confront them). This was Obama’s first major international foray, and he could not let it end in acrimony or wind up being seen as unable to move the Europeans after running a campaign based on his ability to manage the Western coalition. It was important that he come home having reached consensus with the Europeans. Backing off on key economic and military demands gave him that “consensus.”

So the high profile portion of the trip didn't move Europe. But the trip to Turkey holds the promise of reclaiming Western Europe's cojones from their lock box:

From the American point of view, Europe is a lost cause since internally it cannot find a common position and its heavyweights are bound by their relationship with Russia. It cannot agree on economic policy, nor do its economic interests coincide with those of the United States, at least insofar as Germany is concerned. As far as Russia is concerned, Germany and Europe are locked in by their dependence on Russian natural gas. The U.S.-European relationship thus is torn apart not by personalities, but by fundamental economic and military realities. No amount of talking will solve that problem.

The key to sustaining the U.S.-German alliance is reducing Germany’s dependence on Russian natural gas and putting Russia on the defensive rather than the offensive. The key to that now is Turkey, since it is one of the only routes energy from new sources can cross to get to Europe from the Middle East, Central Asia or the Caucasus. If Turkey — which has deep influence in the Caucasus, Central Asia, Ukraine, the Middle East and the Balkans — is prepared to ally with the United States, Russia is on the defensive and a long-term solution to Germany’s energy problem can be found. On the other hand, if Turkey decides to take a defensive position and moves to cooperate with Russia instead, Russia retains the initiative and Germany is locked into Russian-controlled energy for a generation.

Therefore, having sat through fruitless meetings with the Europeans, Obama chose not to cause a pointless confrontation with a Europe that is out of options. Instead, Obama completed his trip by going to Turkey to discuss what the treaty with Armenia means and to try to convince the Turks to play for high stakes by challenging Russia in the Caucasus, rather than playing Russia’s junior partner. "

I assure you, despite my general funk about our foreign policy in this new age, I'll eagerly give President Obama the credit for this bit of ju jitsu if he can pull it off--or even lay the groundwork for the next president to exploit.

Probe

Even if the Canadian pilot who was escorted though our air space by our F-16s isn't deliberatley probing our northern exposure, he effectively probed our defenses and the jihadis can take note of lessons learned:

A man suspected of stealing a plane in Canada and flying erratically across three states was trying to commit suicide, hoping he would be shot down by military fighter planes, a state trooper said Tuesday.

And what if we'd shot the plane down? Would the news of the man's supposed suicidal intent work to tighten our rules of engagement enough to let a real terrorist threat through? Or would it have caused enough guilt in the pilot to effectively discourage pilots in future encounters from pulling the trigger in time?

The man is depressed? Give him more to be depressed about--lock him up for a long time.

Maybe next time the jerk will just overdose, leave a note, and spare us the grief.

Funny, They Don't Look French

This article says that Iraqis greeted President Obama--the man who wanted to lose the Iraq War--much more warmly (to say the least) than President Bush--the man who led the liberation of Iraq and the long war to defend them against al Qaeda and Iranian aggression after Saddam was overthrown:

The last time an American president showed up in Iraq he was greeted with boos and shoes. That, as they say, was then.

On Tuesday, Iraqis expressed warmth for a visiting Barack Obama. And in another sign the country is eager to cast aside the legacy of the former administration, a court reduced the jail term for the journalist who hurled his shoes at George W. Bush. ...

Obama isn't Bush, and for many Iraqis that's good enough for now.

"The Iraqi people welcome the new American president in good faith, not like the former President Bush, who is rejected by all Iraqi people from the north to the south," Baghdad resident Rasheed al-Jumaili said.

Few Iraqis caught a glimpse of the president, and government television aired his appearance with Iraq's prime minister only after Air Force One took off for Washington.

Still, many Iraqis find Obama's style, including his openness to the Muslim world, a refreshing change from the previous administration, even though the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan continue.

"We expect positive relations with the Americans," said Alia Kamil, a senior at the University of Baghdad. "We will see positive developments in Iraqi-American relations because it sounds like Obama's ideas for Iraq will be good." "

Well, good ideas other than the one he had about abandoning the Iraqis to al Qaeda and Iranian-sponsored Sadrist death squads during the height of the war.

Who knew that when we liberated the Iraqi people from Saddam's reign of terror that we'd find out that the Iraqis are really French?

Still, there is hope for them yet:

Privately, a number of Iraqi leaders feel gratitude toward Bush for ousting Saddam Hussein, even if they don't express those feelings in public because of widespread outrage over the turmoil and bloodshed that followed the March 2003 invasion.

I'm not sure you could get many French leaders to privately admit to anything like that. Luckily, President Bush did what was both just and in our national interests, and won't be bothered by the unfairness of the situation. If he'd wanted fairness he could have gone into community organizing, or something.

Why focus your anger on al Qaeda, the Baathists, and Iranians who actually did the killing, when you can just blame the American President who fought for you and accepted such blame as the price of being our president during a time of war?

Place Your Bets

I am fully on board the concept of winning the wars we are in now rather than slighting the current wars to fund future systems for wars that may or may not take place.

But in an era when domestic spending is skyrocketing, it is disturbing that defense spending for future scenarios is taking such a hit:

Production of the F-22 fighter jet, which cost $140 million apiece, would be halted at 187. Plans to build a new helicopter for the president and a helicopter to rescue downed pilots would be canceled. A new communications satellite would be scrapped and the program for a new Air Force transport plane would be ended.

Some of the Pentagon's most expensive programs would also be scaled back. The Army's $160 billion Future Combat Systems modernization program would lose its armored vehicles. Plans to build a shield to defend against missile attacks by rogue states would also be scaled back.

Yet some programs would grow. Gates proposed speeding up production of the F-35 fighter jet, which could end up costing $1 trillion to manufacture and maintain 2,443 planes. The military would buy more speedy ships that can operate close in to land. And more money would be spent outfitting special forces troops that can hunt down insurgents.

"It is important to remember that every defense dollar spent to over-ensure against a remote or diminishing risk — or in effect to run up the score in a capability where the United States is already dominant — is a dollar not available to take care of our people, reset the force, win the wars we are in and improve capabilities in areas where we are underinvested and potentially vulnerable," Gates said.

I'm actually fine with capping the F-22 given our aerial superiority, although I wouldn't have minded a two-wing force with sufficient extra craft for training and loss replacement. The F-35 fights in such a novel manner that I worry about the plane a bit in the air-to-air role. I hope current transport models are sufficient if purchased in adequate numbers.

The FCS asked for this by trying to cram an Abrams-capable system into a 30 ton hull (and originally a 19-ton hull). So now we must live with the aging--but updated--Abrams as our main battle tank for decades to come. Which isn't all bad in the near term, but it is an aging platform. How long can we update it and remain competitive? And does getting rid of all armored systems mean the new self-propelled artillery system is cancelled?

Downgrading missile defenses is just bizarre in this day and age.

Ships for close-to-shore operations makes little sense to me. Small craft can be risked there, but don't send expensive ships like the LCS to coastal waters where they are vulnerable to small craft and land-based threats like artillery, aircraft, missiles, and armed drones. Carriers aren't mentioned but I've heard we'll drop 2 and go with 9 carriers. I have mixed views here. Heavy carriers are on the way out, I think, and as long as we have sufficient carriers until carriers are obsolete, this is no problem in theory. We have lots of missile-armed ships and subs and we also have quite the stealth carrier fleet. I want numbers for the Navy in order to contest the blue waters and not stick our necks out in the littorals with expensive ships.

Money for special forces is fine, but don't over-expand them at the expense of quality.

I guess we're placing our bets on not needing to face heavy armor, ballistic missiles, or quality enemy air power. I hope we aren't establishing a new ten-year rule.

So Shall it be Written, So Shall it be Done

Thank goodness President Obama has clarified that we are not at war with Islam:

"Let me say this as clearly as I can," Obama said. "The United States is not and never will be at war with Islam. In fact, our partnership with the Muslim world is critical ... in rolling back a fringe ideology that people of all faiths reject."

The U.S. president is trying to mend fences with a Muslim world that felt it had been blamed by America for the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

Although if indeed we are not "at war" with anyone, according to his administration, what's the point of specifying we're not at war with Islam? Or maybe we're in an overseas contingency operation against all of Islam? It's so confusing.

But I digress. I'm glad that finally we'll be making up for our post-9/11 rage where we rounded up Moslems in America, bombed Mecca and Medina into dust, destroyed Moslem-led governments and installed Christian dictators to rule their people (putting Ann Coulter in charge of Saudi Arabia did have humor value, you have to admit) to prevent them from attacking us again, and got the United Nations to make the practice of Islam illegal, all on the assumpiton that we are at war with Islam.

Huh? We didn't do any of that? We attacked the dictatorial regimes of Afghanistan and Iraq and have been helping the people of those countries ever since? We've worked with Moslem rulers to quietly undermine the appeal of radical Islam? Mecca and Medina still stand? Ann Coulter is still just an opinion author?!

Go on! You can't possibly be telling me that our new and improved administration is just doing what we've done since 9/11? Do you lack the nuance gene, or something? Do you think I'm blind to reality?

Next you'll be telling me that George W. Bush repeatedly called Islam the "religion of peace"!

Thank you, President Obama, for putting us on the right course of action, at last.

The Six-Party Hospice

The six-party talks haven't stopped North Korea from attempting to detonate a nuke (which fizzled) or launch ballistic missiles that could carry those nukes (if North Korea can weaponize their nukes to fit on a missile).

The North Koreans went and lit off a long-range missile that landed in the Pacific after flying over Japanese air space. No debris appears to have fallen on Japan and no attempts were made to shoot the missile down:

North Korea fired a rocket over Japan on Sunday, defying Washington, Tokyo and others who suspect the launch was cover for a test of its long-range missile technology. President Barack Obama said the move threatens the security of nations "near and far."

Liftoff took place at 11:30 a.m. (0230 GMT) from the coastal Musudan-ri launch pad in northeastern North Korea, the South Korean and U.S. governments said. The multistage rocket hurtled toward the Pacific, reaching Japanese airspace within seven minutes, but no debris appeared to hit its territory, officials in Tokyo said.

Pyongyang claims they successfully launched a satellite. We announced no object entered orbit.

And North Korea continues to hold two American reporters hostage just in case anybody thinks of getting fancy in response.

But although lots of countries are upset, and the UN Security Council will meet, they will just talk. And possibly there will be more sanctions. There will be nothing dramatic.

Which is fine by me. I've always been happy with a strategy that talks and talks while stringing North Korea along to its death bed without provoking it to lash out in a death spasm with its declining strength:

Personally, I simply want the talks to drag on while North Korea implodes. Every month the talks go on, the more North Korea's military machine deteriorates. Each month, North Koreans head toward the point when fear is outweighed by desperation.

Yet the talks keep the North Koreans hoping for a respite to their woes if we hand them the big check again. This hope keeps them from launching a desperate war while they can do some damage and hopefully get a frightenend West to agree to shovel money at them. The West has capitulated before and Pyongyang expects us to break again.

So keep talking and let North Korea walk if they get upset about us bringing up other issues. Every month they have a weaker option of going to war. And if they go to war, all bets are off on regime change. Nobody's stopping at the DMZ this time if the North launches a war.

So we'll talk. Sure, North Korea may think that the keys to the American check book are in their hands with a new administration they think they can roll, but can they? We're already spending like drunken sailors on shore leave. Would our public really care to bail out the Pillsbury Nuke Boy? But counting on a new American government to save them by handing out goodies is probably North Korea's only hope, given that their military is rusting away and their regime rotting from within, as their people lose some fear of the regime as starvation and death stalk the land. North Korea has lost the opportunity to credibly threaten to invade South Korea.

Besides, even if we wanted to open the aid spigot, our allies are in less of a mood to coddle the thugs up north. Japan is in no mood to be under threat by North Korean nuclear missiles. And the South Koreans aren't so committed to detente any more.

So the end result will be more sanctions that will squeeze North Korea just a little more, but nothing dramatic. North Korea will probably make some money selling the now-proven missile (which may have been the real purpose of the test, rather than testing America) to Iran (they observed the launch), but it will be offset by sanctions from the rest of the world.

And we'll talk some more. Which the North Koreans may see as a victory. Which is fine by me. North Korea is getting closer to collapse, it seems.

Five parties will sit close by saying soothing words and bringing little gifts from the lobby shop, while the sixth party fades away, occasionally spitting out angry words. We just have to watch out for a spasm that could hurt one of us even as that signals their final death.

UPDATE: Well, the Iranians won't like the test drive, which this article headlines a "fizzle":

U.S. and South Korean officials claim the entire rocket, including whatever payload it carried, ended up in the ocean after Sunday's launch, but many world leaders fear the launch indicates the capacity to fire a long-range missile.

No satellite reached orbit. So the Iranians may not be in the market to buy the missile. Which means North Korea could be in worse shape than before the missile launch if sanctions are tightened even a bit as a result of this launch.

UPDATE: To be clear, this wasn't a total failure given that it did reach greater ranges than prior tests.

But the basic point remains is that we shouldn't diverge from the general strategy that is weakening North Korea every day. The ultimate objective should be the collapse of the North Korean government. Keep squeezing them and they shall slowly die as their military rots away and makes war no option to reverse their slow death. The war option for North Korea is quickly becoming just the fast death option.

UPDATE: General Cartwright doesn't think the Iranians will be in the market for this year's model:

There's two things that we look at on the North Korean missile. One is their ability to develop an intercontinental ballistic missile capable of carrying a weapon of mass destruction, and the second is their desire to potentially proliferate that and sell it around the world.

On the first, the technology they were seeking after the first two failures was the ability to stage; in other words, transition from one stage of boost to the next. They failed. On the idea of proliferation, would you buy from somebody that had failed three times in a row and never been successful?

North Korea didn't do itself any favors with this display. Let's focus on letting them continue to die.

We've Got Our Handbasket

We can get on that road to Hell.

When such opinions as Ward Churchill holds and has expressed are a matter for a court trial, let alone a matter for the courts to defend, I think we can say our society is sick.

Perhaps too sick to defend our way of life if this trend continues. Sometimes I worry that Mark Steyn is right about our inability to defend ourselves in the long run.

And the really disgusting part of this is that our dying society will congratulate itself on how tolerant, brave, and nuanced we are to let it happen to us.

People like Ward Churchill should be shunned and ostracized. But our sophisticated class will have none of that simplistic nonsense!

Nuanced thinking will be the death of us yet.

A Quality All Their Own

The Taliban haven in Pakistan has challenged Afghansitan's security the last few years. The threat formerly didn't require too many Western troops, didn't require us to use them that much, and allowed us to avoid the risk of a rapid increase in Afghan force numbers in order to train them properly and slowly. Defeating al Qaeda in Iraq by the fall of 2007 has also led jihadis to look to Afghanistan and Pakistan instead. So now we need more troops to handle the enemy in Afghanistan.

We shouldn't commit too many troops to Afghanistan given the fragility of our supply lines. Our allies won't or can't commit many troops to Afghanistan. And Afghanistan's central government can't afford to support enough troops to pacify the country on its own.

This program is absolutely critical in creating enough Afghan security forces to hold off the Taliban an al Qaeda:

After three weeks of training, the newest U.S.-funded experiment in protecting the countryside from Taliban insurgents was on display this week for this village in central Afghanistan's Wardak province. Dozens of American and French military officers mingled with hundreds of Afghans who came to watch.

Among the 243 security guards was Zekeria, a tall, skinny man with a scraggly salt-and-pepper beard who has only one finger on his right hand — the trigger finger. For the job he has signed up to do, that might be enough.

Zekeria and his fellow guards wear olive-green uniforms and are called the Afghan Public Protection Force. Their members come almost exclusively from the Jalrez Valley — a known haunt of insurgents.

Local defense forces are critical in defeating insurgencies. It doesn't matter that they have little training. They are static self-defense capabilties that can hold off small groups of the enemy out to indimidate Afghan villages. And they are eyes and ears to call in for help if the enemy takes the time and effort to mass enough force to overwhelm APPF elements. Our special forces will be nearby to help, too.

The criticism that these units have little training misses the point that quantity has a quality all its own, and this program aims for quantity. Quality comes from police, Afghan army, Coalition regulars, and special forces in ascending order. Plus air power, of course. These units should be on call to help the APPF.

That criticism also misses the point that the enemy usually gets less training than what the APPF members will get. And ideally, experience and further training will make APPF forces better in their narrow band of responsibilities.

The APPF cannot--and is not intended to--replace the army or even police. But they are crucial to defeating the enemy.

We're Right Behind You!

We've long wanted more European help in Afghanistan, but President Bush had been unable to get actual help from more than the usual allies willing to help.

President Obama, and many of his supporters (well, the supporters who haven't already turned their sights on losing the "good" war), assumed that if only an anti-Bush could make the request with language skills not burdened by a Texas background, the Europeans would swoon and sign up for war.

So close:

France and Germany fully endorsed President Barack Obama's new Afghan war strategy but continued to firmly resist U.S. demands for more combat troops on Saturday in a rift that overshadowed symbols of unity at NATO's 60th-anniversary summit. ...

"We trust him," Sarkozy said. "We were expecting and waiting for the words we heard."

However, both Merkel and Sarkozy stressed the need for Afghanistan's government and security forces to shoulder an increasing share of the burden. They gave no sign they were prepared to send more troops. Both countries believe civilian aid and training for police are what is needed to stabilize Afghanistan.

The words they liked, I guess. The Europeans "fully endorsed" America continuing to fight in Afghansitan. But they won't do more to help. And that talk of needing more Afghan security forces is true but beside the point. Right now we need more NATO troops to fight while we build up appropriate and affordable Afghan security forces.

I mean, ultimately, it would have been better to have enough French troops to liberate France in 1944--but they didn't have them, and so others stepped in. And it would have been better to have more German troops to defend West Germany from the Soviets during the Cold War--but they didn't have them, so others stepped in. We (and others) didn't shrug our shoulders and lecture the French and Germans on the need to shoulder more of the burden.

The Europeans are right behind us, in other words. As usual.

Look, at one level I appreciate the point our allies are making. We do need to make the Afghans capable of doing the job. I am very uncomfortable about sending too many more troops into Afghanistan at the end of our shaky supply lines.

But the point is, President Obama endorsed an open-ended surge into Afghanistan to fight the enemy until our Afghan allies can stand up. The point is that President Obama asked our European friends to help during this time. The point is, many of our president's fans told us the mere fact that President Obama and not President Bush made the request would alter the answer. And the point is, the Europeans are not responding as we were promised.

And the point is that I want to win even if I don't quite agree with our approach.

UPDATE MINUTES LATER: NATO says they will send 5,000 personnel. We are heralding our "success":

About 3,000 of the personnel will be on short-term deployments, sent in to provide security before the pivotal elections this summer, said White House press secretary Robert Gibbs. Another 1,400 to 2,000 will provide training for Afghanistan's national army.

"If we don't get the security around the elections right, a lot of the other things we want to do won't matter," Gibbs said.

NATO leaders also agreed to create a $100 million trust fund to assist Afghanistan's army, with $57 million of it coming from Germany.

So a micro-surge of polling station guards for a short time and some more trainers who will no doubt all serve in safer areas. And some cash.

That this is called a great success saddens me more than anything. Sure, I'm glad the Europeans will do something. But let's not get carried away. The Europeans have scribbled some crayon marks on a napkin and we're doting on them like they created a Rembrandt.

Meanwhile, our real allies who actually fight with us--mostly the British and Canadians, but also the Dutch and Australians on smaller scales--quietly do their job without a presidential spokesman patting them on the back. Our actual fighting allies might wonder why they fight and die when they could get more praise from our administration by teaching the new Afghan staff officers how to shake the toner cartridge to get more miles out of the office photocopier or writing a check.

That and a Buck

President Obama hopes to unite Old Europe with America with a shared hatred of George W. Bush:

Welcomed with thunderous cheers, President Barack Obama pledged on Friday to repair damaged relations with Europe, saying the world came together following the 2001 terrorist attacks but then "we got sidetracked by Iraq."

"We must be honest with ourselves," Obama said. "In recent years, we've allowed our alliance to drift."

The new U.S. president said that despite the bitter feelings that were generated by Iraq, the United States and its allies must stand together because "al-Qaida is still a threat."

Yeah, sorry we drifted away from sophisticated European thought and liberated 25 million Iraqis by removing a bloodthirsty and aggressive tyrant who hoped to dominate the region to our detriment. Oh, and we turned back an al Qaeda's offensive in Iraq, which at one time al Qaeda considered their central front in their jihad against us.

But despite that thunderous applause for our president, those cheering Europeans aren't going to sign up for his Afghan surge any more readily than they signed up for George Bush's Iraq (and that includes either Bush for either 1991 or 2003). Their cheers and a buck will get you a small coffee.

God love him, but President Obama really seems to believe that the Europeans are one good speech away (if he can get that speech on their iPods) from developing that Gordon Brown puppy dog look and signing up for the good war in droves, like some sort of Children's Crusade. (Although I'll admit the Brits have been stand-up allies in Iraq and Afghanistan, had Blair acted this way toward Bush, the "poodle" cry would have been out in full force. That insult and "chicken hawk" have been retired for the duration of the Obama presidency.)

I mean, as long as we're being honest with ourselves.

The Northeast Asia Turkey Shoot

The North Koreans are making threats that they can't back up with action:

North Korea, which has issued numerous threats concerning the launch, used some of its strongest language in its latest rhetorical blast.

"If Japan recklessly 'intercepts' the DPRK's (North Korea's) satellite for peaceful purposes, the Korean People's Army will mercilessly deal deadly blows not only at the already deployed intercepting means but at major targets," a military spokesman was quoted as saying by the North's KCNA news agency.

North Korea has deployed the newest jet fighters in its aging air force to an air field near the Musudan-ri launch site to prepare for any contingencies, South Korea's biggest daily Chosun Ilbo quoted government sources as saying.

If Japan shoots down the missile, and North Korea tries to use their ramshackle air force to attack Japan, it will be an aerial slaughter of North Korea's pilots. Japanese and American fighters will make short work of the North's junk.

The problem for North Korea is that South Korea will take no part in this air battle. If North Korea tries to make up for their losses with a vain attempt to use the only real military power they have--their large but rusting army--that makes sure South Korea gets involved. And that involvement might mean South Korea carves a no-launch zone north of the DMZ to push North Korean artillery and rockets out of range of Seoul. I'm not sure that Kim's regime could survive that.

And if North Korea wisely refrains from provoking a land war by restricting itself to air and missile strikes on Japan (American and Japanese targets), we get to play to our strengths by waging an air war against North Korean air force targets and strategic assets like nuclear and missile facilities and special forces bases. We could also hold open the option of going after their leadership.

I find it hard to believe North Korea would be stupid enough to respond to a Japanese interception of their missile launch. But they might do it anyway.

Another 'Huh' Moment

I thought the mere existence of President Obama was supposed to get lambs lying down with lions, and all that. I mean, if it doesn't do that, it's almost like hope and change are mere slogans!

Chavez pokes the president:

When asked about Obama's recent overtures to Iran for improved relations, Chavez said he will wait and see how the new administration takes shape but that he isn't optimistic.

"I don't have much hope, because behind him is an empire. He's the president of an empire. ... Now, I think it's fair to give him some time. ... Seeing is believing," Chavez said. "I hope President Obama is the last president of the Yankee empire, and the first president of a truly democratic republic, the United States."

He made these remarks in Iran, to really make sure we noticed him.

The soothimg balms of hope and change just aren't penetrating Hugo's thick, sloped forehead.

And even though Hugo is pushing buttons by traveling to Iran, as long as he doesn't step over the line into Axis of Evil territory from his current Axis of El Vil status, we should ignore him and work to quietly help civic society in Venezuela resist his creeping dictatorship.

Should Hugo cross that line, we should take him down hard.

I won't cry at his funeral. I might even grin.

Staying Awake With Carrots and Sticks

Despite their losing the war, Iraq's Sunni Arabs still think they should run Iraq. So problems with them do risk reigniting a war even if the Sunni Arabs would lose big in round two.

The Awakening movement was essentially the Sunni Arabs (or most of them, anyway) surrendering. It is good that the Iraqi government is making an effort to keep these armed men happy while watching for efforts to plot a coup:

In his television interview, al-Maliki, who is a Shiite, said the U.S. military and the Iraqis had been discussing the crackdown for the past six months.

U.S. authorities were initially skeptical of the allegations until "documents were presented in the joint (U.S.-Iraqi security) committee" showing that the Fadhil leadership was involved in crime and underground Baath party activities.

"The issue was not for political or media purposes," al-Maliki said.

He said the operation sends a message "to those who are following the same path taken by the gang in Fadhil that their fate will be the same."

The crackdown followed widespread complaints by Awakening Councils, which the U.S. calls Sons of Iraq, that the government had stopped paying their salaries despite a promise to the U.S. to do so.

U.S. and Iraqi officials said the pay delays were due to bureaucratic red tape and would resume shortly.

On Thursday, the Iraqi military spokesman for Baghdad told The Associated Press that council members in the capital would receive their pay this week, including those in Fadhil who handed in their weapons last Sunday.

Give them every reason to stay surrendered. And reason to worry about consequences if the don't.

UPDATE: Hopefully, this show of force keeps any hopes of rekindling their war suppressed:

The U.S. military on Friday said its planes had fired on four armed men seen planting a roadside bomb late on Thursday in the north Baghdad district of Taji, killing one of the men and wounding two others.

Initial investigations showed that at least one of the men was listed among the U.S.-backed Sunni fighters, who call themselves Awakening Councils -- "Majalis al-Sahwa" in Arabic -- but which the U.S. military calls "Sons of Iraq."

"Hostile acts will be engaged. While we value our Sons of Iraq brothers, these men had broken faith with their fellow Sons of Iraq, the Iraqi people and us," U.S. Major-General Daniel Bolger said in a statement.

Carrots and sticks are necessary, as appropriate. Pay those who cooperate. Kill those who try to fight us. And watch them all to nip any of the latter behavior in the bud and encourage the former behavior.

The Sunni Arabs wised up to surrender while we were in Iraq in strength so that their defeat didn't turn into slaughter or exile as is the traditional fate of losing sides in this part of the world. Let's hope that a couple years of not being hunted down isn't giving Sunni Arabs in Iraq delusions of running the show again.

Afghan War, Huh, Yeah. What is it 'Good' For? Absolutely Nothing, Uh-Huh

For being the "good war," people sure are getting nervous about how much our allies are willing to help us there and what it means for the future of NATO:

"NATO's credibility is on the line," said Sandy Berger, who served as national security advisor during the Clinton administration. "NATO needs to succeed in Afghanistan," Berger added in an interview. "If it doesn't, it really does undermine the vitality of the alliance."

Or as John Bolton put it, "Ironically, the risk here is that Afghanistan looked like the future of NATO. It could become its graveyard." A former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations for George W. Bush, Bolton added that, "It's in our interest to keep NATO viable. But it's not in our interest to keep NATO viable at any cost."

I simply must lack the nuance gene--curse you, parents!--because I just don't get how our European NATO allies can refuse to enthusiastically respond to our new Europeanized president's request that they do more in the "good war."

Sheesh, what's the Europeans' problem? It's not like Bush asking for help in Iraq, right? Heck, Bush probably can't even pronounce 'Pakistan' with the right sensitive inflection!

How can the Europeans keep acting like George W. Bush is still president?

Jihadis in the Sun

Al Qaeda sees opportunity in Somalia:

Now that Ethiopian troops have departed, Islamic terrorists have felt more confident about relocating to Somalia. While last year there were about a hundred foreign Islamic terrorists in the country, now there are nearly 500. Osama bin Laden has issued audio messages calling for Islamic radicals to come to Somalia and install an Islamic religious dictatorship, so the country can be used as a base for Islamic terrorists. This has angered many Somali Islamic conservatives, who now control the government (such as it is). One thing Somalis can agree on is opposition to foreign domination.

I can only assume we are watching them with our Djibouti-based forces and naval forces in the area.

Two years ago I wondered if we were going to just let the situation there deteriorate. Then we helped the Ethiopians stomp the jihadis. We bought a couple years.

Will we stomp jihadis with the excuse of nailing pirates ashore?

It Takes a Potemkin Village

America and Russia will seek new nuclear arms reductions after President Obama met Medvedev on his European trip:

They set a nominal July deadline for a substitute treaty for START, a date that coincides with Obama's first presidential visit to Russia. That conceivably would leave time to get the new treaty approved in the U.S. Senate by the December expiration of the current agreement. But arms control experts say December is not a hard deadline so long as there is progress.

We'd rather have no nukes in the world given our conventional military dominance. But we can never give them up in case somebody else cheats. Still, if Russia's missile strength goes down, we could afford to cut quite a bit without compromising our nuclear deterrence.

But is Russia really ready to build down? And do this without America making concessions on our missile defense plan for Eastern Europe? The Russians claim our planned missile defenses make it too difficult for them to cut their nuclear missiles strength. On the surface it almost seems to make sense to put off missile defense to get Russia's nuclear arsenal down if they really won't talk if we go forward with missile defense.

We should call their bluff.

Russia's nuclear arsenal will go down over the next decade regardless of any agreement simply because of aging weapons and lack of money to replace them all. Their loud press releases about spending a lot more money on their nukes hide the fact that they need to spend lots of money just to slow down the decline.

So our planned ballistic missile defense in Poland and the Czech Republic that is aimed at Iran, and not sufficient to stop a Russian attack even from their future shrunken missile force, should not be sacrificed to get a treaty that pretty much ratifies what will happen in Russia anyway.

I fear we'll be hoodwinked by the Russians. Not because they are particularly clever, but because our administration wants to be hoodwinked in this fashion.

They Didn't See That One Coming

I hinted at Japan's more hard line stance over the North Korean missile test planned in less than a week. The Rising Sun of Japan is visible for the first time in more than 60 years.

Austin Bay spells it out:

North Korea's dramatic bullies expect Japan to kvetch then roll over, but -- the uncomfortable point -- suddenly Japan has its own script, one with dark historical echoes for East Asia.

In the first decades of the 20th century, the Japanese empire controlled Korea and swaths of contemporary China. Imperial Japanese forces, organized for offensive strikes, attacked Pearl Harbor and threatened Australia.

Japan's post-World War II constitution forswore offensive capacities but permitted self-defense forces. This century, Japan's Self-Defense Forces, however, have become a potent, high-tech military. The tech includes Aegis destroyers armed with U.S.-made Standard 3 antiballistic missiles (ABMs) and ground-based Patriot PAC-3 ABMs. Two months ago. Japan's Maritime Self-Defense Forces announced that it was authorized to intercept North Korean missiles threatening Japanese land and sea territory.

A defensive action? Yes, but indicative of subtle change. The Japanese are tired of North Korea's nuclear threats and worry that U.S. security promises are no longer rock solid. Barack Obama's opposition to ABMs increases their insecurity. The United States has Aegis ships near Japan and says it would intercept an "aberrant missile." This is measured language, carefully hedged -- but it doesn't fully reassure frightened Japanese.

Japan is slowly acquiring offensive capabilities. Japan doesn't have aircraft carriers, but it has deployed a new "helicopter destroyer" that looks like a lot like a "jump jet" carrier capable of offensive operations. Political support for offensive forces is building. When Pyongyang threw a nuclear tantrum in 2006, many Japanese clamored for "strike" weaponry to destroy North Korean missile sites.

China (and Russia, too, for that matter) kind of enjoyed having a North Korean loose cannon rolling about giving America, Japan, and South Korea fits. For a country of communist/Confucius rulers who supposedly see the long view, you'd think that this reaction would have been obvious.

Ah, Love!

I think that The Nation editor Katrina vanden Heuvel is sweet on ol' Vladimir Putin, who's struttin' around the world shirtless and all. The woman is a piece of work:

In setting up the crony capitalist system following the fall of the Soviet Union, Yeltsin looted state coffers, says vanden Heuvel. When challenged by host Joe Scaraborough, who says Putin has done much the same to Russia, she is dismissive ("No, no. No, no"). When it is suggested that the Kremlin was involved in the assassination of journalists, including Putin critic Anna Politskaya, she shakes her head and tell Scarborough that the "rot started in Chechnya." One reporter for Novoya Gazeta, a paper vanden Heuvel recently visited while in Moscow and holds up as an example of Russia's free press, told Reuters that "prosecutors had tried to solve the case and were ordered to back off when the trail led to someone 'quite high up in the ruling hierarchy.'" But when the deaths of journalist Anastasia Baburova and lawyer Stanislav Markelov are discussed, vanden Heuvel quickly assigns blame to "neo-Nazis," though no arrests have been made in the case and many at Novoya Gazeta, where Baburova worked, suspect government involvement.

Clearly Putin reminds her of her first girlhood crush--the Soviet Union.

The Great White Hope?

I've wondered how long Medvedev would accept his role as eye candy at the receptionist desk while Putin did the real work of running Russia.

It seems that Medvedev has tired of the trappings of power alone:

Medvedev, a lawyer by training and instinct, offers perhaps the only realistic hope of turning Russia around, but he can't operate freely while Putin is still effectively in charge. Seemingly aware of this, Medvedev has, in recent weeks, taken steps to distance himself from his mentor and might be setting the stage to force him out of government.

It is too soon to say that Medvedev represents a white knight to reform Russia. When will we learn to stop counting on a single man to rescue Russia?

But against Putin's Reds, Medvedev could be leader of the new Whites. If Medvedev is out to oust Putin, this could get ugly.

Where the Boys Are

As we increase our troops in Afghanistan and look to expand the Afghan army and police, remember that Afghanistan is too poor to pay for a force of perhaps 600,000 security personnel in these organizations to police their 30 million people (using the 2% rule of forces compared to people).

This article gives us the numbers we are working with:

62,000 ISAF (including 29,000 American forces).

10,000 American troops in OEF.

21,000 more American troops to reinforce the fight this year.

86,000 Afghan army (expanding to 134,000 in a few years)

81,000 Afghan national police.

That's 239,000 troops right now (expanding to 308,000). This is not enough for a conventional pacification campaign according to the rule of thumb that calls for twice that.

And eventually, our troops will come home along with ISAF allies. Afghanistan can't pay for enough troops for a conventional pacification campaign. And we won't pay for them. Not for long anyway.

So where do we get the troops? From the Afghan Public Protection Force, a local defense force we are setting up. We will need several hundred thousand of these to defend villages from small Taliban and al Qaeda war bands and agents, and to act as eyes and ears to call for police or army forces to handle anything too big for the APPF. These low-cost, static forces are not high quality but they can be numerous. And they are indispensable for winning.

One of the problems I had all through the Iraq campaign was the tendency of critics of our force size to claim we had too few troops to defeat the insurgencies and terrorists. These critics only counted American troops and concluded we had too little to win. I counted all security forces and concluded we had enough to defeat our enemies. We defeated our enemies in Iraq without 500,000 American troops. We had enough American troops, at only a third of that force at the peak. It was frustrating to keep coming back to the troop strength debate again and again.

Let's see if we can discuss the Afghan campaign using all the forces on our side to judge whether we have enough to win.

Getting Closer

North Korea is clearly getting closer to having nuclear weapons:

North Korea is believed to have several nuclear warheads that could be mounted on a missile, an international security expert said Tuesday ahead of a rocket launch that regional powers suspect will test weapon delivery technology.

But Daniel Pinkston, a Seoul-based North Korea expert for the International Crisis Group, stressed it is unclear if the communist nation has mastered the technology necessary to miniaturize the warheads and put them on Rodong missiles, which have a range of 620 to 930 miles (1,000 to 1,500 kilometers). The North is believed to have five to eight warheads, he said.

We've talked and talked, and still they get closer to having nuclear weapons. On the bright side, we've squeezed North Korea so much that they are weakening daily. They might implode before they get nuclear missiles.

Actually, North Korea's nuclear programs could push South Korea closer to America and Japan and align our goals. Up until now, America and Japan have been the real targets of North Kroean nukes since South Korea was already under threat by the North Korean army. Really, as long as Seoul could be devastated by a conventional North Korean invasion, South Korea had no interest in provoking Pyongyang by helping America and Japan avoid coming within range of North Korean nuclear missiles.

But as North Korea's conventional military has rotted, making it increasingly likely that South Korea could push into North Korea should it come to war, the nukes that were once only a real threat to Japan and America become a threat to Seoul, as well.

It might now be in Seoul's interest to pressure North Korea and risk a North Korean collapse in order to stop North Korea from getting nuclear weapons.