(A Little Bit) Back to Iraq

I'll say two positive things about the length of time it is taking Iraqi forces to eliminate the al Qaeda (ISIL or ISIS) sanctuary of Fallujah, and other places in Anbar that al Qaeda is holding.

One, after we called off the first assault on Fallujah in April 2004, we prepared for the successful operation in November 2004. So we allowed a sanctuary for a long time. So I'll cut the Iraqis some slack on that alone.

Two, Sunni Arabs are being reminded of the brutality of the jihadis. That helps them remain within Iraq's political system. Hopefully it reminds Shias and Kurds, too, that they must remain united enough to defeat this threat.

Okay, let's add a third good thing. Maybe our government and the Iraqi government will understand that our presence will help and not hurt achieving success in Iraq.

But it is taking a long time. The jihadis are reviving a weapon I haven't seen since we were fighting there--bomb houses:

At least 20 Iraqi soldiers were killed on Saturday, most of them upon entering a house rigged with explosives northwest of the capital, security officials said.

Militants last week overran the house in the town of Garma, 30 km (20 miles) northwest of Baghdad, which had previously been used as an army post, officials said.

There was another incident just outside Ramadi, in al-Bakir, when Iraqi special forces cleared a building:

They blow open the outer gate with a charge and a bomb expert goes inside. He pronounces the building safe to enter and calls on the rest of the soldiers to search it. Moments later a huge explosion collapses the building, shakes the ground and sends dust billowing in the air.

The house was booby-trapped. Four soldiers are killed and 10 are wounded.

Strategypage discusses the situation. They judge that the Iraqis are slowly winning:

[Anbar] province is too large for the government to completely control and there are still thousands of armed ISIL men hiding out in remote locations. Using cars, SUVs and trucks these Islamic terrorists can quickly move to most anywhere in the province and launch an attack. The army checkpoints control the main roads, but not the many dirt tracks found in the semi-desert province. It is still a fluid situation but the ISIL are losing. To survive the ISIL increasing turns to looting and just taking what they need. This creates anger even among Anbar residents who have long been sympathetic to the Islamic terrorists. As ISIL loses more ground in Fallujah there are more attacks on security forces in towns and villages between Fallujah and Baghdad. This is supposed to take some of the pressure off ISIL in Fallujah and it probably does. Although the security forces are far more numerous they are responsible for the entire country and the additional guard duty and patrolling in Anbar this year is working many soldiers and police hard. It’s even more of a strain on the air force, whose helicopters and fixed wing aircraft are being worn out by the intense operations.

I remain disgusted that we walked away from Iraq just as we won on the battlefield. While I don't think our administration tried hard enough to remain to both fight al Qaeda and promote rule of law and democracy, the Iraqis played a role in their belief that they didn't need us.

They know better now:

Iraq’s ambassador to the United States gently chided his host on Thursday, asserting that American fatigue with war — a consequence of the prolonged conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan — had left his country’s security more vulnerable and was contributing to Mideast instability.

The ambassador, Lukman Faily, emphasized in an interview that he was not advocating a resumed American military presence in Iraq — “no boots on the ground,” he repeated.

But Mr. Faily also said that the United States should be more generous in providing other forms of assistance to Iraq, including greater intelligence sharing about security threats; more people-to-people exchanges in fields like culture, education and health care; and expedited delivery of billions of dollars in weapons and equipment that the Iraqi government has ordered.

I would like a status of forces agreement that would allow our special forces and intelligence people back in to assist the Iraqis in hunting jihadis. The Iraqis have systems to fire Hellfire missiles, so we probably don't need armed drones. But just surveillance drones would be helpful. And other intelligence. Training of Iraqis in Jordan is a good thing that we are committed to doing. And weapons, of course.

Plus do what it takes to get politics flowing again in Iraq rather than the growing suspicions between religious sects that has grown (we can't count on jihadis to erase all friction).

I'd still send Vice President Biden there to camp out in Baghdad to help Iraqis work out political solutions.

Let's act like we care about Iraq. Belated as that gesture would be, it is not too late to build on the battlefield victory we achieved by 2008.

President Obama Respond to the Russian Invasion

President Obama actually did respond to the Russian invasion of Georgia despite claims that Bush mucked up the response to that 2008 invasion.

I've been meaning to comment on this week-and-a-half-old news, but why on Earth did President Obama spring this bit of diplomacy on the Georgians without at least talking to them first?

Obama said neither Ukraine nor Georgia are "currently on the path to NATO membership."

Apparently that was news to Georgia.

I've been annoyed that people condemned the actual Bush response to Russia's invasion of Georgia in August 2008, given the times and the fact that President Obama had 5 years to respond in contrast to Bush's 5 months.

But 5-1/2 years after the fact, President Obama finally responds by throwing Georgia under the bus?

It isn't just John Kerry who sucks at this diplomacy stuff.

How Much is Enough to Reach the Stars?

So it would take 10,000 colonists and to be safe, 40,000 colonists, to ensure the genetic viability of an attempt to colonize another planet?

This is interesting:

According to Portland State University anthropologist Cameron Smith, any such starship would have to carry a minimum of 10,000 people to secure the success of the endeavor. And a starting population of 40,000 would be even better, in case a large percentage of the population died during during the journey.

I don't know why you assume a single starship. Was the New World colonized by one huge friggin' ship crammed full of genetically diverse colonists? Couldn't waves of colony ships over years and decades provide the genetic diversity?

I don't know why, if we can't send waves of ships, you assume that you couldn't achieve genetic diversity with a large stock of fertilized eggs (assuming the use-by date is sufficiently far off) to be used on the way and once there.

I thought I remembered a relevant blog post on this subject. And I found it.

I don't know why it is that high given that Earth itself has gotten to over 7 billion with a far less promising genetic bottle neck:

Turns out, somewhere between 130,000 to 190,000 years ago, the human species was reduced to less than 1000 breeding individuals--just a few thousand people in total.

So a thousand, then? Assuming all are breeding individuals.

I suppose we could gain experience with colonies within our solar system. Or even in orbit or on the Moon. We're probably getting ahead of ourselves, no?

Of course, these are all uncertain calculations, anyway.

And it assumes the colonists don't wipe each other out at some point. We think we are unique in societal self destruction capacity, with nuclear weapons. But thousands of years ago when humanity was in city-states or small bands, hand weapons and fire could wipe out entire civilizations.

So, regardless of how many we need genetically, spread those colonists out to keep them from easily attacking each other early on (but close enough to inter-breed).

Dumb Diplomacy

One of the reasons I worry about a loss of reputation abroad is that one day a foe will make a demand that they expect us to accept. But because we are aware of our loss of reputation, we will actually be more willing to go to the brink of war to restore our reputation. Unwilling to face down Assad or Iran, we may find ourselves at war with China. That's the opposite of smart diplomacy.

We are warning China not to think of Russia's grab of Crimea as a template they can get away with:

"The net effect is to put more pressure on China to demonstrate that it remains committed to the peaceful resolution of the problems," Russel, the U.S. assistant secretary of state for East Asia, told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

Russel said the retaliatory sanctions imposed on Russia by the United States, the European Union and others should have a "chilling effect on anyone in China who might contemplate the Crimea annexation as a model."

The mere fact that Russia now controls Crimea is not relevant, apparently.

And China sees no connection between Crimea and China's perfectly justified (in their view) claims on territory in the South China Sea and East China Sea. Apples and oranges.

But the basic problem is that I believe President Obama would fight if pressed too hard; yet our warnings that we will resist the next aggression are not credible.

Let's hope Iran and not China is the first country to test our resolve and be surprised that we will fight.

Remain Calm. All is Well

I'm not even sure how to respond to an idiotic assertion like this:

Recently China issued its latest defense budget numbers revealing a 12.2% increase in funding for that nation’s armed forces. While many pundits quickly took to the pages of various blogs and op-ed pages—some of which offered some finely balanced and tight analysis—I had a different take: Who cares?

Who care? I suggest the author check with the embassies of every country whose name contains an "A".

And then ask the Philippines, too.

I've heard of putting your head in the sand to ignore unpleasant realities. But that author dove in so deep to denial that he just has the heels of his shoes visible.

Return of Forces to Europe?

The United States is considering adding a brigade back to our Army forces in Europe.

I hope this is more than an option:

Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said permanently stationing an additional U.S. Army brigade in Europe is among options to beef up security as Russian troops remain massed along Ukraine’s eastern border.

We recently went from four brigades down to just two.

This CEPA paper discusses, among other things, moving our Stryker brigade from Germany to Poland:

The stationing of a U.S. ground unit in Poland – for example, by relocating elements from the 2nd Stryker Cavalry Regiment from their current billets in Vilseck, Germany – would be a good start. The unit’s antiarmor troop would hold particularly high symbolic value. Larger deployments may be necessary in the future depending on Russian behavior.

That sounds like a good idea. Strykers are light enough not to be an offensive threat. I think we could live without a brigade in Poland as long as the ability to deploy forces to Poland is improved, but this move would provide real reassurance to our allies.

Then we could move a new heavy brigade into Vilseck, Germany, putting our total maneuver brigades back to three (Stryker in Poland, parachute in Italy, and heavy in Germany).

My next priority would be to put equipment sets for two heavy brigades into southern Poland.

Eventually, I'd want a couple more brigades plus 18th Airborne Corps headquarters in Europe. (Starting at pg. 15. And once again I'll note that I have no idea why Military Review editors credited me with a PhD--I have a MA in history.)

In my opinion, anything less than a corps headquarters, with the ability to build up to 9+ maneuver brigades around the forward deployed units, is not a real warfighting force. That is a real deterrent rather than a mere tripwire deterrent that simply requires a potential enemy to decide to kill Americans as they roll to their objective.

And I'd like a Marine brigade's equipment moved to Latvia from Norway. It would probably be good to have a Marine battalion rotated through the site for security to prevent the loss of equipment to a Spetsnaz mission should Russia target the Baltic states.

We are apparently going to increase our forces in Romania where we currently rotate troops through for exercises.

I have some other suggestions here.

And if this seems provocative? Well, Russia changed the rules we've been operating under. Despite Russian outrage over our reaction to Russia's seizure of Crimea from Ukraine, let me quote that CEPA piece again:

The pledge to avoid placing military assets on new-member territory was made in exchange for Russia eschewing territorial aggression. Now that Moscow has become militarily aggressive, NATO should respond by changing its stance. Today’s NATO is still the product of an era when the major threats were to West Germany, not to eastern Poland or the Baltic States. As a result, risk is unevenly and unsustainably distributed between insulated Western and exposed Eastern members. The need to rectify this is not new. But Crimea has made it an existential imperative.

And while I think the immediate crisis is over, the Russians are still mucking about in eastern Ukraine:

Ukraine's state security service said on Saturday it had detained 15 people suspected of planning to overthrow the authorities in a mostly Russian-speaking eastern region and had confiscated hundreds of rifles, grenades and petrol bombs.

Yes. We kept our pledge to refrain from building real NATO military capabilities in new NATO states in the east. Russia voided the pledge by using force to change a border that Russia itself has recognized. So we must act accordingly to protect ourselves.

UPDATE: More from our Russian friends:

Around 100 pro-Russian protesters stormed the regional government building in the eastern Ukrainian city of Donetsk on Sunday and hung up a Russian flag in defiance of Kiev's pro-European government.

Dozens of protesters also stormed the offices of the state security service in nearby Luhansk and three people were injured, two protesters and a police officer, a Ukrainian television channel reported. Police declined to comment.

Yes, there are lots of ethnic Russians in the region and many have good feelings for Russia. But that doesn't mean they are in favor of being absorbed by Russia.

But that's the impression that Russia would like the world to have. So there will be events like these.

So It Will Be the Bush Policy?

Remember when Democrats slammed President Bush for not pushing for a peace deal between Israel and the Palestinians? Remember when they boasted that real leadership could get a deal if only we busted a gut to push for such a deal? Yeah, I do.

And now John Effing Kerry is getting to his feet after being struck with the clue bat:

A visibly downbeat Kerry, who has spent the better part of his 14-month tenure as America's top diplomat trying to cajole the parties into talks, stopped short of declaring the peace process dead. But in his most pessimistic assessment of the situation since talks began last summer with an end-of-April target for a deal, Kerry made clear his patience was near exhausted. He said it was time for a 'reality check."

Yeah, reality sucks. I'd like to say that John Kerry is not the man to provide real leadership on this issue, but until the Palestinians reconcile themselves to the idea of not aspiring to kill Jews, any peace deal we might force on the Palestinians is unlikely to be worth the paper it is printed on.

On the bright side, Kerry will have time to work on that global warming thing.

Worst. Secretary of State. Ever

Krauthammer comments on John Kerry's impressive stumbling around the world stage, with special scorn for his Pollard gambit. Which I judge a diplomatic Gordie Howe hat trick.

I reaffirm my apology to Madeleine Albright.

Send Lavrov a Map of Crimea

The Russians certainly have a sense of humor.

Wow. Just ... wow:

Russia expects explanations from NATO of its decision to deploy additional troops in East European states, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said.

'Russia-NATO relations are based on certain rules, particularly the Rome Declaration, under which no country has a right to deploy additional troops in East European states,' Lavrov said after talks with Kazakhstani counterpart Yerlan Idrisov on Thursday.

Russia takes Crimea from Ukraine, in violation of both the United Nations charter and the 1994 Budapest Memorandum, in which Russia specifically pledged to respect Ukrainian territorial integrity, and Russia is outraged that NATO is discussing moving troops east in response, despite earlier promises that NATO would not do that.

Surely, the Russians understand that the premise of our 1997 promise has been shattered by the Spetsnaz-led subliminal invasion of Crimea. If Russia has decided that post-Cold War borders are up for grabs, the premise of the 1997 promise is dead.

We're having none of this:

[NATO Secretary General Fogh] Rasmussen said what NATO was doing was in line with the 1997 agreement with Russia in which NATO agreed to defend eastern European members through reinforcements rather than by permanently basing substantial additional combat forces there.

"In the same document, Russia pledged to respect territorial integrity, sovereignty and political independence of other states and refrain from the threat or use of force, and that is exactly what Russia is not doing," he said.

So if Russia is waiting for a further explanation from NATO, I suggest NATO send the Russians a map of Crimea.

On the Too Delicate for Prison List?

I'm sure this was a fair plea deal.

Besides, prison is for the little people.

Tip to Instapundit.

The Companies We Keep

Strategypage answered one of my questions about our heavy brigades. But confused me about our tank companies.

I wondered if our new (and smaller) force structure would result in just 14 heavy brigades in the active Army. Strategypage says that we will have 10 heavy brigades in the active component and 7 in the National Guard:

There are no more tank battalions. Instead there are Combined Arms battalions in Heavy Brigades. Each of these battalions have two tank companies (and two infantry companies). Meanwhile the army is continuing its downsizing, going from 16 armored brigades (64 M1 companies) to ten (40 companies). The Army National Guard still has seven armored brigades (28 M1 companies). The reduction will remove 24 M1 companies leaving 952 M1 tanks in service.

So that's useful information. When I wondered if we were going to have 14 active heavy brigades, I clearly forgot that 10th Mountain would be a light infantry unit with four brigades. I'd been thinking in terms of heavy, Stryker, and airborne categories, only. I don't know why I forgot 10th Mountain.

So it will be 10 heavy brigades, 5 parachute brigades, 4 air assault brigades, 4 light infantry brigades, and 9 Stryker brigades?

But Strategypage confused me, too. How can we be planning to go to 40 Abrams tank companies when the Army is adding a third battalion to 47 of 60 active and National Guard brigade combat teams? Since Stryker brigades already have three battalions, I assumed that the remaining 23 active brigades would get a third battalion.

That would mean we'd have 6 tank companies per brigade combat team, and so 60 companies of 14 tanks each, and so 840 tanks in just the active component.

I guess I can't guess what will happen with the Guard heavy brigades. If they get a third battalion, they add 42 tank companies with 588 tanks for a total of 1,428 in the force structure. If they retain just two battalions, the Guard brigades will add only 392 tanks in 28 companies, for a total of 1,232 tanks.

I await clarification.

I'll add that I think we should have separate tank companies (some might be balanced "teams" of a tank platoon and a mechanized infantry platoon, and toss in a scout platoon to round it out--plus headquarters element, of course) in order to augment our non-heavy brigade combat team battalions for missions in a more high intensity environment. Or do we assume we can organize new companies quickly from our stocks of tanks that aren't in the force structure?

The Success is a Fluke?

The Obama administration is crowing over signing up over 7 million people for health insurance coverage through Obamacare portals. Given Republican challenges that set this number as a marker of failure, this is a tactical victory even if we find that up to 20% haven't--and may never--made a payment on their plan. But consider the objective.

Remember, we were told more than four years ago that 40 million people either couldn't buy insurance because of pre-existing conditions or that they couldn't afford to buy insurance that they wanted.

And Obamacare was sold as denying insurance companies the ability to turn down those with pre-existing conditions and making insurance more affordable.

We'll gloss over the fact that the law made signing up for insurance supposedly denied to them mandatory under threat of sicking the IRS on you.

So why is even 7 million after four years of preparing and a six-month sign-up window a real victory? Especially when some amount of those enrolled were detoured into Medicaid? Which is something they qualified for without Obamacare.

I know, some amount of people will have signed up for Obamacare approved policies outside of the website, but why isn't the number of people now uninsured approaching zero? Is this law and the results we see really worth the cost? Is it really solving the problem?

I mean, good grief, is this law ultimately being considered a success because Sandra Fluke now qualifies for free birth control?

UPDATE: Ah, let me clarify that those sent to Medicaid are counted separately, as I just read, so those people won't subtract from the victory count.

UPDATE: More of substance here and here. On the latter, I'm kind of amazed that researchers had to rely on surveys rather than actual government data. WTF?

Achilles Heel

I wondered why Ukraine's troops in Crimea were so ineffective. Now I know why.

This is an interesting piece of news:

Ukraine's impoverished army allowed contract soldiers to serve near their homes, meaning that a great many of the Ukrainian soldiers in those bases were actually local Crimean lads, says Valery Ryabkikh, an expert with Defense Express, a Kiev-based security consultancy.

"Our army was chronically underfunded and pacifist moods were widespread. Unfortunately, as a money-saving measure [the army] recruited from the local population, meaning that many of the troops on the ground there had local connections," he says.

Some reports suggest as many as two-thirds of the Ukrainian servicemen stationed in Crimea may have opted to remain and switch their allegiances to Russia rather than return to mainland Ukraine.

Other than the Ukrainian marines who held out at Feodosiya, who have been redeployed northwest of Crimea, the Ukrainian units in Crimea surely lacked the cohesiveness to resist the Russian stealth invasion because too many were either pro-Russian or anti-dying for Ukraine.

That failing greatly reduced Ukraine's options for fighting for Crimea or even passively resisting for long using troops in Crimea.

Enough

Japan has apparently had enough of North Korea's threatening missile tests.

Huh:

Japan has ordered a destroyer in the Sea of Japan to strike any ballistic missiles that may be launched by North Korea in the coming weeks after Pyongyang fired a Rodong medium-range missile over the sea, a government source said on Saturday.

This is good. Although will North Korea get used to the idea that their threats aren't the trump card they once were?

For those who champion "leading from behind," this may not be ideal. It shows that when an ally isn't sure of our reliability, they will act on their own to defend their interests.

I've no problem with Japan doing this, but there will be times when our allies interests don't necessarily match ours at that moment.

Mercifully Normal

Voting in Afghanistan was not disrupted by the Taliban despite their threats.

This is good. Other than a single roadside bomb in the south that killed two police, Afghans were able to vote in their national election:

There were no reports of more serious attacks on an election that Taliban insurgents had vowed to derail, branding it a U.S.-backed sham, and many voters said they were determined to make their voices heard despite the threats.

Afghanistan is a long way from being a modern state--or even a single state at all--but they don't want to go back to Taliban rule.

UPDATE: Let's not panic about the Afghans being able to defeat the Taliban:

A bigger-than-expected turnout in Afghanistan's presidential election and the Taliban's failure to significantly disrupt the vote has raised questions about the capacity of the insurgents to tip the country back into chaos as foreign troops head home.

The Taliban claimed that they staged more than 1,000 attacks and killed dozens during Saturday's election, which they have branded a U.S.-backed deception of the Afghan people, though security officials said it was a gross exaggeration.

There were dozens of minor roadside bombs, and attacks on polling stations, police and voters during the day. But the overall level of violence was much lower than the Taliban had threatened to unleash on the country.

And, despite the dangers they faced at polling stations, nearly 60 percent of the 12 million people eligible to vote turned out, a measure of the determination for a say in their country's first-ever democratic transfer of power, as President Hamid Karzai prepares to stand down after 12 years in power.

The Taliban conducted a virtual offensive by press release simply claiming they ravaged the countryside.

And the fact that Afghans need some US and NATO help going forward isn't a slam on Afghans or an excuse to bug out too early on the theory that Afghans are doomed to lose to the Taliban.

Maintaining a state and security forces is way more difficult than running around the hills with rifles and planting bombs. Remember, European NATO states needed a lot of our help to take on Libya in 2011.

Crimea and Punishment

I'd hope that the Russians aren't shocked about this Ukrainian retaliation after Russia seized Crimea and raised the price of energy exported to Ukraine:

Deputy Prime Minister Vitaliy Yarema told reporters in Kyiv today that Ukraine cannot make military products for Russia that may later be used against his country. According to Yarema, the decision was made by Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk. Many facilities in Ukraine which are producing military equipment and machinery export their products to Russia.

I mentioned this vulnerability before (quoting the article that the post above mentions).

I guess the West won't sell Russia the rope that they'll use to hang us.

We Have Met the Enemy, and He is Us

Chavez and Maduro have done more damage to Venezuela than any plan the most cruel CIA operative could ever come up with. But that message won't work on the Upper West Side.

The question isn't whether Venezuela's Mini-Me Maduro is lying in his recent op-ed in the New York Times, but whether Americans who read the New York Times will believe the lies.

The notion that HugoCare and HugoEducation are triumphs of Bolivarian Socialism (which apparently means effing up an oil-rich economy while wearing a red beret) is only the biggest portion of nonsense in a piece full of nonsense:

In one respect, Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro's op-ed in Wednesday's New York Times is old news—the same litany of worn-out propaganda lines that gets repeated every day on Venezuelan state media. What's new is the context. Venezuelans have grown used to the tsunami of spin, obfuscation, half-truths, and outright lies that dominate our large and growing state propaganda system. The Times' readers are likely less prepared for it.

Oh, as opposed to a sizable number of Venezuelans, those readers are well prepared for that message. Indeed, they are eager to believe that message.

What, they believe, is a little loss of freedom (for other people) if they get health care and education?

It's surely our fault, anyway. That's why Maduro chose the New York Times.

They're So Screwed

South Korea rescued three North Korean sailors whose iron ore ship listed and sank at sea:

Rescuers recovered the bodies of two North Korean sailors, pulled three survivors and were searching for 11 others missing after their cargo ship sank off South Korea's coast early Friday, the coast guard said.

The Mongolian-flagged ship was carrying 16 North Korean crew members when it sent a distress signal in international waters about 130 kilometers (80 miles) south of the southern port city of Yeosu, South Korea's coast guard said in a statement.

The North Koreans lost their ship and cargo.

The North Koreans survived, denying their government the chance to claim some heroic story for their loss.

The North Koreans had the bad luck to be rescued by South Koreans who occupy land and sea territory that North Korea claims (and recently bombarded the seas in that area).

(As an aside, will any North Korean naval unit be punished for failing to rescue their sailors before South Korea did?)

The North Koreans had the misfortune to receive high quality medical care in modern facilities, which is supposed to be a North Korean monopoly.

The final blow will be that South Korea will return the North Koreans to the north unless the sailors ask to stay in the south.

I imagine anyone allowed to leave North Korea's shores have family members back home who can (and will) be punished if the sailors fail to return home. So there's another bit of bad luck that makes it unlikely that the sailors will ask to stay.

Those survivors are so screwed.

Between Crimea and Armageddon

Putin is boasting of his military's rebirth by pointing to his near-bloodless conquest of Crimea. This is wrong. Russia's conventional military is weak.

I read two stories today that claim Russia's conquest of Crimea demonstrates the capabilities of Russia's military. I think Russia is casting a giant shadow.

Here's one:

The last time the Russian military machine was on public display in Europe, its performance did not impress. But this is no longer the force that NATO observed blundering its way through a brief but messy war with its tiny neighbor, Georgia, back in 2008.

A new, leaner and meaner Russian Army has been on display in Crimea and war-gaming on the Ukrainian border over the past month or so. Its vanguard is now made up of just a few elite divisions of highly-motivated, well trained, and fully equipped volunteer soldiers, capable of deploying swiftly anywhere in the former Soviet Union on the Kremlin's command.

And that fact is raising alarms about the potential for wider Kremlin aggression that haven't been heard in the West since the end of the cold war.

People are catching up with Russia's poor performance in 2008. But tone established in this beginning is misleading.

The article even notes that Russia's better trained troops are few in number. No more than 100,000, according to Strategypage. The article quotes someone as putting the total at 50,000 to 80,000.

And exercising within Russia's borders shouldn't be the sign of an elite military.

As for the Crimea operation, while it was impressive it was not a military operation. It consisted of flying in or driving in 20,000 troops to Crimea over several weeks while Spetsnaz special forces simulated a popular revolt by leading 10,000 local militias (and in future years I'll be curious to know how many were actually imported from Russia). Without kinetics, it isn't warfighting that was on display. Impressive, yes. Evidence for a reborn army? Hardly.

To the author's credit, despite the rattling of NATO and the first three paragraphs of the story (and the title) lauding Russian military improvements, the article ultimately notes that Russia's military really isn't a threat to march very far west.

The other article lacks that saving grace, and reports facts that don't fit with the conclusion drawn that Russia's military is back:

Across Crimea in the past several weeks, a sleek new vanguard of the Russian military has been on display, with forces whose mobility, equipment and behavior were sharply different from those of the Russian forces seen in the brief war in Georgia in 2008 or throughout the North Caucasus over nearly two decades of conflict with Muslim separatists.

Past Russian military actions have often showcased an army suffering from a poor state of discipline and supply, its ranks filled mostly with the conscripts who had not managed to buy deferments or otherwise evade military service. Public drunkenness was common, as were tactical indecisiveness and soldiers who often looked as if they could not run a mile, much less swiftly.

Not so in Crimea. After a Kremlin campaign to overhaul the military, including improvements in training and equipment and, notably, large increases in pay, the results could be seen in the field. They were evident not only in the demeanor of the Russian soldiers but also in the speed with which they overwhelmed Crimea with minimal violence.

Comparing past military campaigns of conscripts with the Crimea Spetsnaz-led takeover is nonsense. Russia's Spetsnaz have long been good troops. When the Soviet Union fought in Afghanistan in the 1980s, I read that the only troops the rebels respected were the Spetsnaz.

So the ability of Russia's elite says nothing about the majority of the Russian army--or even the relatively small portion that is counted on for war--or its ability to carry out major combat operations as opposed to moving about within Russia itself.

They both rely for their positive spin on Russia's military on talking to the same independent military analyst in Moscow, Alexander Golts, so maybe that explains the evidence-conclusion haziness or disconnect that bolsters Putin's boast.

I won't say that Golts isn't trustworthy. I'm not familiar with his work. I will say that during the Cold War the Soviets planted authors here to write "insider" accounts of the Russian military that could either inflate Soviet military strength or portray it as a hollow force. I wish I still had those books. It always struck me as just an effort to muddy the waters and confuse our analysis. I would be shocked if Russia didn't continue this tradition.

As I've noted many times, Russia can carry out a small war--or use their military to backstop what was essentially a coup in Crimea. Russia has the advantage of having small powers along their western border like Norway, Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Belarus, Ukraine, and Georgia, where Russia can quickly mass power before the target nation can respond or before NATO could react in time to stop a quick grab of territory.

Or they can nuke us. They can't do much in between without suffering heavy losses and significant embarrassment in extended conventional combat. Speaking of nukes:

As the United States condemned a referendum on the future of the Crimean peninsula staged by pro-Russian separatists on Sunday, one of Russia’s most influential television hosts appeared on the evening news in Moscow, before a huge mushroom cloud graphic, to remind viewers that Russia is still “the only country in the world capable of turning the U.S.A. into radioactive dust.”

That was a couple weeks ago.

But I will say that either I'm right and Russia's military is not back and Crimea does not prove it is back--or Golts is right in essentially backing Putin's position.

I'll go with me. Not that an aggressive Russia with nukes and sufficient conventional power to conduct short, sharp conquests isn't a threat to us. But Russia has a long way to go on a path I'm not so sure Putin can maintain before it can be called "back."

Grab Them By Their Balls and Hearts and Minds Will Follow

Russia doesn't put a high priority on that hearts and minds stuff when opposing an insurgency. Putin has stepped up arms shipments to Assad.

I was never in the "take the gloves off" camp during the Iraq War. It wouldn't have worked since we could never be that brutal (notwithstanding left-wing criticism of our fight) and I wouldn't want to put our troops in the position of being that brutal.

If we could have been that brutal, we wouldn't have won a war as much as we'd have beaten down enemies into sullen passivity until they regained their capacity to fight.

But if you are brutal enough and don't care if you turn your troops into brutes, you can beat down your enemies into sullen passivity if you kill enough and inflict enough pain. Russia managed that in Chechnya. Chechen hatred still burns (with terrorism that reached even to our Boston Marathon bombing last year) and eventually they'll relaunch large-scale resistance.

Russia is so eager for a victory abroad that they are supplying Assad's killing spree that has killed more people in 3 years than have died in Iraq in 11 years:

Dr Assad's army, seeking to end a three-year civil war that has killed 150,000 people and displaced 9 million, started using longer-range Russian Smerch and Uragan rockets for the first time in February, according to Jane's Defence Weekly and Stratfor, a US geopolitical research company.

"Russia is now doing everything to ensure that Assad wins convincingly," Alexei Malashenko, a Middle East analyst at the Moscow Carnegie Center, said by phone. "If Russia can show it's capable of carrying out its own foreign policy, regardless of America's wishes, it will be a major achievement for Putin."

The only thing to be said in favor of the strategy of grabbing them by their balls and counting on their hearts and minds to follow is that if you face enemies absolutely committed to resisting you, hearts and minds are unlikely to be receptive as the first line of approach.

We got the hearts and minds of most Shias and most of the Kurds in Iraq, but it took al Qaeda as a Sunni Arab ally in Iraq to get the Iraqi Sunni Arabs to commit their hearts and minds to our side. I worried that Iraq's new government would have to use the alternative strategy to pound down the Sunni Arabs if the Sunni Arabs didn't get a grip on reality and come to terms.

I thought Assad might have a shot at winning hearts and minds by exploiting the al Qaeda presence in Syria. But with too few troops to secure the population of Syria, the Syrians are just going to try to kill their way to victory.

And Putin is happy to supply Assad the means to kill lots of Arabs. You'd think our information operations could contrast our efforts to save Moslems in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Kuwait in recent years with Russia's support of Assad for killing Moslems.

The Great White North

A Canadian author contrasts Norway's military presence in their own far north with Canada's meager presence in Canada's north.

If Canada is on the new front line given Russia's interest in claiming Arctic Sea areas, Canada is not prepared.

Perhaps there is a good reason related to reliability in the extreme cold that Canada's part-time (and poorly trained) "Rangers" are equipped with ancient Lee-Enfield rifles (ah, a quick check confirms my guess), but Canada has less control of their north than Ukraine had of Crimea prior to March.

Canada may be turning their backs on peacekeeping abroad in favor of combat-ready troops, but Canada can't fight for their own north at this point.

Next Stop: Baalbek

Hezbollah seems to be bending to their Iranian masters to target Israel. This will not end well for Hezbollah.

It isn't enough to make Hezbollah fight and bleed for Assad, Iran also wants Israel back in the target mix:

Last week the Israeli Air Force bombed Syrian military and security positions in retaliation for an operation on the Syrian-Israeli border in the Golan Heights. Four Israeli soldiers were wounded when Hezbollah attacked their Jeep. Hezbollah it seems was looking to kidnap them. This time they failed, but, said Hezbollah sources, “We are sure we will succeed in the near future.”

Maybe. If so, it is sure to resonate throughout the Middle East. The last time Hezbollah kidnapped Israeli soldiers it touched off a monthlong conflict in the summer of 2006. After the devastation Hezbollah suffered, hundreds of its elite troops dead and billions of dollars’ worth of damage done, the party’s general secretary, Hassan Nasrallah, said that had he known how the Israelis would respond, he never would have taken their soldiers in the first place.

I noted the incident, but then it looked like an attempt to kill Israelis rather than kidnap.

I still think Israel screwed up their military operations in 2006 and that Hezbollah won that clash by enduring the blunt pounding that Israel inflicted on Lebanon as a whole and for preventing the Israelis from achieving anything looking like a battlefield victory.

But nonetheless the leaders of Hezbollah are not eager to pay that price any time soon to win another such victory, lest it ruin them. Iran has other ideas.

Of course, I think Israel has other ideas, too. If it comes to another round of fighting, I think Israel has absorbed lessons of 2006 and will mount a ground invasion deep into Lebanon that goes all the way to Baalbek to tear up Hezbollah's infrastructure.

This won't be a conquest, but a large raid or punitive mission that puts troops on the ground to rip things up before withdrawing rather than counting on the ability to do the damage from the air alone.

Enjoying the Omelet

Sometimes I'm horrified at the way people think.

Really?

In the buzz-generating (at least on the left) new book Capital in the Twenty-First Century, économiste célèbre Thomas Piketty, of the Paris School of Economics, argues that two world wars and a depression did have one upside: Those systemic shocks momentarily reversed capitalism’s inherent drive toward increasing inequality in Western economies, including the United States. Physical capital was destroyed, businesses nationalized, and taxes raised to previously unheard-of levels.

In short, the wealthy and the near-wealthy really took it on the chin. The top 10 percent in the U.S. went from grabbing 45–50 percent of national income in the 1910s and 1920s to 30–35 percent by the end of the 1940s. And the share of national income claimed by owners of capital (including property, machinery, financial assets, and patents) versus labor fell to historically low levels.

Really, let's look at the bright side of death and destruction on a global scale? At least income (and asset) inequality fell?

Not since a writer spoke of Mary Jo Kopechne's death by saying she'd draw comfort from her own death if only she knew what the man who left her to die had achieved have I read anything so reprehensible:

“If she had lived, Mary Jo Kopechne would be 62 years old. Through his tireless work as a legislator, Edward Kennedy would have brought comfort to her in her old age,” wrote the Globe’s Charles Pierce.

But one death is a tragedy (even if not punished as a crime) and millions are a statistic that shows good things. Piketty wants globally enacted wealth taxes to reduce that looming inequality that he predicts is building because of our regrettable lack of wars and global depression that leveled the playing field.

We'll see who goes first and risks wrecking their economy.

But if not that tax, maybe Piketty and his fans will get lucky and some damn fool thing in Ukraine, the Himalayas, or the East China Sea will trigger another round of bloody wars and economic dislocation that break lots of eggs income redistribution and save us all from the horrible fate we've endured since World War II ended.

Some monsters are very well educated, it seems.

UPDATE: Thanks to Pseudo-Polymath for the link.

Like Our Sailors Carry Smart Phones! Pshaw.

So malware can be pre-programmed into phones built in China? That could shorten the kill chain against our carriers considerably.

Huh Malware has been pre-installed on Android devices made in China:

"We're like, yeah, this isn't the real Netflix," Jevans said "You've got one that has been tampered with and is sending passwords and credit card information to Russia." ...

With the fake Netflix application, the organization told Marble Security the app was pre-installed when it bought the device. Marble Security then looked at devices from its other customers and found the problem was widespread. They found a fake version of Netflix on phones and tablets from at least four different manufacturers, Jevans said.

"We suspect for most of them, it is preinstalled," Jevans said.

Marc Rogers, principal security researcher with Lookout Mobile Security, said his company has seen instances of malware show up on new phones. Lookout found a variant of a family of Chinese malware on new devices imported on the gray market from China.

I've long wondered whether our work to break the kill chain for China's DF-21 anti-ship ballistic missiles to defend our expensive aircraft carriers could founder on a very simple bypass for that notional kill chain:

Let me offer a non-Manhattan Project-style and unconventional solution to China's targeting problem. What if Chinese agents placed a signalling device on the keel of an American aircraft carrier while in port? Or a homing device in the galley's coffee machine before it is installed? Or buried in the storage bins of some bulk product? What if the Chinese maneuvering ballistic missiles were designed to home in on the signal of such a device and the Chinese had a means to turn on the device when needed?

Or the Chinese could infect any of the computer chips installed on the many electronic devices on a carrier or escort.

But I was too limited in my thinking. Who says the Chinese have to carry out a James Bond operation to slip such a device in? Maybe the sailors bring them on?

Could the Chinese slip something into our carrier systems that would function as a homing beacon for a missile attack, eliminating the need to deploy surveillance and targeting systems for tracking our carriers at sea? What if a compromised chip could make a silent-running carrier emit in every frequency by just turning equipment on? The Chinese would only need to know the general area of a carrier and shoot blind, counting on the carrier itself to bring the missiles home. Shoot, just infect every iPod sold to make sure sailors take them on board a carrier and put emitters in them.

Could any infected Android phone with its own GPS-enabled navigation app be the means to locate and target a carrier?

Recyclers of the World! Unite!

I went on a field trip with Lamb recently which explored water issues. It was interesting.

A lot of the trip was interesting. I saw a local dam, our water treatment plant, part of a creek that goes right by my home before it gets to the place we went, and the local landfill and recycling plant.

I helped keep an eye on the kids on the trip. Except for the latter thing, it was all rather cool since I saw things I've never been to despite living here for so long.

I kept my mouth shut to ask the earnest guide if any of their recycling efforts turn a profit or whether they rely on outside money to keep operating. Nor did I ask in what alternate universe are we about to run out of land for landfills.

I'm skeptical of the worth of recycling.

But what struck me about the recycling plant we toured was the nature of the grubby, industrial-style work that it requires. Mind you, I'm grateful that we don't have multiple recycling bins in many colors dotting our streets.

But recycling is not the hippie-style communing with nature that you'd think with all the "green" propaganda that tells you that you are a good person if you buy products with that little "recycled content" logo. So jet off to ski in Colorado guilt-free!

Watching the score or so of people I could see manning the conveyor belts and heavy machinery in the large sorting plant reminded me not of happy hippies, but the auto factory assembly line tours I went on in grade school seemingly every year.

But instead of slowly growing cars moving down the line, loose garbage rolled down the line as workers picked out the pieces they were supposed to identify and deposit into their bins.

I bet these workers ski in Vail with clear consviences, eh?

And the belts zoomed by way faster than anything Lucy and Ethel had to cope with.



Then the isolated types of recyclables were fed into a machine and turned into large secured cubes that could be sold and shipped off to somebody to make something with them--including paper, which I thought was a renewable resource actually farmed to make paper.

It was a long field trip that required many stops with the bus, but it was fun to be on a field trip with my daughter and was more interesting than a lot of others I've been on.

But the recycling plant really got me. Karl Marx would have based his political theories on uniting these workers had he lived today.

Uh Oh. Look Who Needs Rescuing Now

I hate to be the one to point this out, but given that 3 of the 6 crew members now on the International Space Station are from Russia, doesn't that mean that the population is half ethnic Russian?

Yeah, that Swanson character looks like a fascist who is probably oppressing the Russians. Putin will be ordering a rescue mission in short order.

How soon before Russia holds a referendum to annex ISS while the Japanese astronaut is making a space walk?

The Deal is Moot

Russia is ending their supply of discounted natural gas in exchange for their base in Sevastopol because Russia just took the base and the peninsula it lies in. Ukraine needs to send their own bill to Moscow.

Well, the deal is off:

Gazprom says Russia's natural-gas price for Ukraine will rise by $100 to $485 per 1,000 cubic meters as of April.

The announcement was made at a meeting between Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev and Gazprom chief Aleksei Miller on April 3.

Medvedev told Miller that Ukraine was freed from paying duty on its gas imports from Russia under the terms of the 2010 Kharkiv Agreement that also provided for Russia's Black Sea Fleet to remain in Crimea.

"Considering the decreasing international legal grounds for the existence of the agreement and the denunciation of the agreement itself," Medvedev said, he was rescinding the agreement, effective April 1.

Yeah, the legal grounds of Ukraine possessing Crimea are over.

I think Ukraine should tally up the rental costs for Sevastopol and all of Ukraine, and send a bill every month to Moscow.

Russia won't pay it, of course. But it will establish both Ukraine's refusal to accept the loss of their territory and also build up assets that can be used to negate Ukraine's debt to Russia.

What the heck, tack on a security deposit in case of damages and to steam clean the carpet when the Russians leave.

One day, of course, if Ukraine will bust a gut to seek alternative energy sources.

Resisting the Pre-Invasion

Are Taiwanese starting to worry about their future, free of Chinese dominance?

A lot of Taiwanese are upset with their government's plans to implement a new trade pact with China that opens up Taiwan to Chinese investment:

Hundreds of thousands of protesters took to the streets of Taipei on Sunday in a bid to pressure embattled President Ma Ying-jeou to retract the service trade pact and introduce a law to monitor all agreements with China.

Is this Sunflower Movement an indication that Taiwanese will not go along with China's insistence that progress be made on integrating Taiwan into China politically?

The Communist Party's subjugation of its own citizens and overreach in Hong Kong is feeding the movement. Young Taiwanese have watched as China has backtracked on pledges to allow Hong Kongers to elect their own leaders. Beijing's attempts to impose vaguely written anti-sedition laws and patriotic education, and to clamp down on the city's freewheeling press, are equally unnerving. China should be learning from Hong Kong's civil liberties and first-world financial system, not the other way around.

Taiwanese have to wonder what Beijing might try if Ma got his way and effectively merged the two economies. Trade pacts with China can involve political control as much as economics: Just as oil gives Russia undue influence over Ukraine, China's trade brawn gives it vast leverage from Indonesia to Nigeria. If it's displeased by events in Taipei, Xi could just cut off the flow of business to Taiwan.

It could be. If so, Taiwan is in a difficult position because China insists that the status quo cannot remain, so refusing to move closer to China is dangerous as Chinese power increases.

Not that going down China's approved path isn't deadly for Taiwan's freedom. But Taiwan can force China to decide on a different path.

Of course, having China invest in service industries would allow China to build up a shadow logistics network inside Taiwan, for use by Chinese special forces infiltrating Taiwan before an invasion, posing as tourists.

I touched on this issue in my still relevant Chinese invasion scenario here:

The actual invasion will have started before the shooting starts. Special forces and intelligence officers will infiltrate Taiwan, placing navigation aids to guide parachutists and missiles, and preparing for direct attacks on Taiwanese strategic assets. They might even stock warehouses with consumable supplies and vehicles to be used by the invaders.

Just what types of companies are included in this pact? And how easily can the list be expanded to things like construction companies? Such Chinese controlled assets could rip up roads and bridges needed by Taiwan's army to respond to an invasion, no?

I've long worried about this ability to begin an invasion. China will surely study Crimea for how Russia led off an invasion with Spetsnaz special forces.

If China can own and operate trucking companies, warehouse outfits, or telecommunications companies, or all sorts of businesses on Taiwan that could be used to equip invading troops with 4-wheel drive vehicles, communications gear, "camping" gear, food and water, and other non-weapons equipment, an invasion becomes much easier to carry out.

I know, China lacks traditional means of amphibious warfare. But as I explain in that invasion scenario post, that's not an insurmountable obstacle. Our approach is fairly unique, actually.

Say, here's China adding to their stealth amphibious capability.

The Taiwanese need to reform their military so that military service is a valued choice of young adults. It's great that young people are marching against a pact that they worry will undermine their democracy. But young people need to be willing to point the pointy end of the stick if the Chinese decide to just take Taiwan.

Increasing defense spending to pay volunteers and buy needed weapons is way overdue. And if Japan is now going to export weapons, I say the Taiwanese look into these fine submarine models as their first purchase.

I'm encouraged, actually. The desire to protect what they hold dear is the first step to defending it, no?

Can Russia Make the Point Spread on Ukraine?

What are Russia's military options for Ukraine?

Our top general in Europe says Russia retains options to push into Ukraine:

The entire suite that would be required to successfully have an incursion into Ukraine should the decision be made," Breedlove said. "We think it is ready to go and we think it could accomplish its objectives in between 3 and 5 days if directed to make the actions."

He said Russia could have several potential objectives, including an incursion into southern Ukraine to establish a land corridor to Crimea, pushing beyond Crimea to Ukraine's Black Sea port of Odessa or even threatening to connect to Transdniestria, the mainly Russian-speaking, separatist region of Moldova that lies to the west of Ukraine.

I have to believe that a 3-5 day time frame is for occupying eastern Ukraine from Kharkov to Donetsk.

And I have my doubts that Russia could really pull off either a seizure of a land bridge to Crimea or a drive all the way to Transdniestria.

But I've read nothing about actual Ukrainian deployments, although I've read the Ukrainians have reinforced the east.

I can believe that Russia could move into their objectives in eastern Ukraine in under a week. But could they hold them if the Ukrainians continue to fight?

Yes, the Russian seizure of Crimea was very impressive:

This whirlwind campaign seems to herald a new sophistication in how Russian commanders conduct military operations. The most distinctive feature of the Russian operation was its emphasis on economy of effort.

About that economy of effort. It was effective but did not rise to a demonstration of Russian war-making prowess. I hate to point out the obvious, but that requires combat (UPDATE: Or at least combat operations against even feeble opposition--Germany's occupation of Denmark in 1940 was a combat operation, I'd say. Crimea didn't rise to that level.).

I'm not sure what Russia is capable of doing in Ukraine. Russia's troop strength gives Russia an advantage on the ground over Ukraine's entire army and paramilitaries, but I don't think it is decisive. I suspect Russia isn't as capable of rapid, decisive operations as Putin would like the world to believe.

Which makes me wonder if Breedlove is talking up Russian capabilities to deter them by making the reality of any action fall well below expectations.

Playing With Fire

Putin seems eager for a confrontation with the West rather than restricting the competition to Europe.

Putin sells advanced air defense missiles to China--complicating the defense of Taiwan and otherwise putting an umbrella over China's coast:

The S-400 has implications not just for Taiwan, but also for India, Japan and the US.

Recognizing that future wars will be missile-centric, China’s potential acquisition of S-400 SAMs would represent an important move because these systems allow for ballistic-missile defense capabilities that it lacks, Easton said. “For this reason, it could lead to an arms race with India, which relies upon ballistic missiles to deter China.”

The S-400 also will cover the Japanese-controlled Senkaku Islands, which China also claims as the Diaoyu Islands.

On the bright side, this will provoke Japan and India to increase efforts to match China.

And it will be a few years at least before delivery.

And in the Middle East, Russia undermines our remaining economic pressure on Iran:

Iran and Russia have made progress toward an oil-for-goods deal that sources said could be worth up to $20 billion and enable Tehran to boost vital energy exports in defiance of Western sanctions, people familiar with the negotiations told Reuters.

Russia would be happy to have Iran go nuclear, make money in the process, and count on us or Israel actually stopping Iran from going nuclear.

Russia seems eager to pressure us away from Europe rather than accept confrontation in Europe while we cooperate elsewhere.

Why Russia thinks more dangerous China and Iran are acceptable to Russian interests is beyond me. We may be the newest threats each looks at, but Russia has loomed over both for far longer. Russia could regret these actions before we do.

Sometimes You Write Long Enough to See Realism Emerge

The Marines seem to accept that two cheaper vehicles to carry out movement to shore and movement inland is superior to trying to build one very expensive vehicle to do both.

I've been meaning to comment on the Marine Corps abandonment of the advanced Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle (EFV) and the decision to build a wheeled armored personnel carrier (MPC) for work inland:

The marines now have two replacement vehicle projects going. The MPC (Marine Personnel Carrier) is a $4.5 million wheeled, amphibious armored vehicle. This would be similar to the Stryker but a bit larger and modified for amphibious operations. This project is proceeding because it is low-risk (in the technology department) and the marines need some kind of armored vehicle to replace AAV7s that are dying of old age. The $12 million ACV is the EFV without most of the expensive stuff that didn't work. In effect, the ACV will be a 21st century version of the AAV7, optimized to pass all its development tests and get into service as quickly as possible. The marines do not want to be reminded of the EFV.

The EFV was designed to allow Marines to get ashore fast from farther away from the shore to protect the Navy ships that carry them from shore-based precision weapons and to get through the kill zone of other precision weapons targeting the Marine amphibious carriers moving Marines ashore.

Once ashore, the EFV was supposed to function as an infantry fighting vehicle since the last decades of war have seen Marines used as co-Army forces in non-amphibious warfare.

But in the inland role, the old AAV vehicle was and the new EFV would have been too vulnerable.

And I had my doubts that a shore-based threat too great to allow the big amphibs to get closer to shore would be low enough for EFVs to cross and safely reach the shore without heavy attrition.

Good idea in theory, but it was too costly even if my operational objections could be resolved.

I figured two vehicles were the solution to the competing needs of the Marines to be amphibious and the Army's most significant "allied" ground contingent in our land wars since World War II ended.

I've argued this 2-vehicle solution for 11 years, actually--and the mission focus (see page 38) to justify such "inland" vehicles for longer than this blog has been around.

It's nice to see that realism can emerge when all other solutions are exhausted. And nice to see that a blogger so far inland could grasp that reality early on.

Regretting the Cold War

The odious folks of The Nation know exactly who is to blame for rising tensions with Russia following Russia's conquest of Ukraine's Crimea in violation of international law and the Budapest Memorandum that denuclearized Ukraine.

Wait for it. It's America's fault:

Beginning with the Clinton administration, and supported by every subsequent Republican and Democratic president and Congress, the US-led West has unrelentingly moved its military, political and economic power ever closer to post-Soviet Russia. Spearheaded by NATO’s eastward expansion, already encamped in the three former Soviet Baltic republics on Russia’s border—and now augmented by missile defense installations in neighboring states—this bipartisan, winner-take-all approach has come in various forms.

This has got to be one of the best "it's our fault" arguments, in its total condemnation of Western policy.

I don't even know what the author means when he says we moved our military, political, and economic power closer to post-Soviet Russia.

We have very little military power close to Russia--that's why speaking of military intervention in Ukraine is pointless. This is also why talk of actually moving NATO military forces into the new NATO countries is taking place:

Since 1999, when it began admitting former members of the Soviet-led Warsaw Pact, NATO has had a self-imposed restriction on permanently basing alliance forces in eastern Europe. However, Poland and Romania have agreed to host parts of the U.S. anti-ballistic missile shield and NATO air forces take turns to provide air cover over the Baltic states.

A senior NATO diplomat said the Crimean crisis would probably lead to the issue of permanent bases being discussed. "I think that these are the sorts of things that ministers are likely to talk about in the next couple of days," he said.

Remember, moving a handful of American planes into Poland and the Baltic States air patrols was a major increase in our capabilities there.

And let's not even go into how there are no logistics to support major NATO deployments into the former Soviet sphere.

Yes, our political power is there--because former vassal states of the Soviet Union wanted to switch teams. And newly Westernized states have made more economic progress than those that did not move West like Belarus and Ukraine. What of it?

The author seems to have internalized the Brezhnev Doctrine that stated once you go Soviet-controlled, you never go back. The Nation holds this is an inviolable law even after the communist state that established the rule of perpetual control ceased to exist. There is no freedom to associate once you are embraced by the Soviets or their Russian successors. That's amazing.

The Nation is eager to blame America. Of course they are. I'd expect no less of those loons.

But at least they are a little more sophisticated than the Russians in explaining why Western influence must be opposed in Ukraine:

Since the beginning of the Ukrainian revolution last fall, Russian television has strayed rather far from the truth. At first, the demonstrations in favor of Ukraine’s European course were ignored, and then presented as a matter of hundreds or thousands of people—instead of hundreds of thousands. When the fact and the size of the protests could no longer be denied, Ukrainian protesters were slandered as fascists, while the leaders of the three major opposition parties were labeled gay.

Geopolitical analysis, that isn't.

But the reason Russia is opposing the West can't be laid to rest on any of our policies between 1989 and 2014. Forget Kosovo. Forget Georgia. Forget NATO expansion. No, Putin himself said exactly why he must move west and oppose the West if we resist:

Russian President Vladimir Putin told the nation Monday that the collapse of the Soviet empire “was the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the century” and had fostered separatist movements inside Russia.

In his annual state of the nation address to parliament and the country’s top political leaders, Putin said the Soviet collapse also was a tragedy for Russians.

“First and foremost it is worth acknowledging that the demise of the Soviet Union was the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the century,” Putin said. “As for the Russian people, it became a genuine tragedy. Tens of millions of our fellow citizens and countrymen found themselves beyond the fringes of Russian territory.

“The epidemic of collapse has spilled over to Russia itself,” he said, referring to separatist movements such as those in Chechnya.

It is wrong to say that anything we did between 1992 and 2014 has caused Russia to become our foe around the world, from arming China, Venezuela, Iran, and Syria to threatening Europe with nuclear weapons, claiming the Arctic, running interference for Iran's nuclear efforts, and attacking Georgia and Ukraine.

No, the "fault" for Russia's aggressiveness now that they are regaining a small amount of the power that the former Soviet Union had was the span from 1989 to 1991--from the loss of Moscow's eastern European empire (the Warsaw Pact) to the collapse of the Russian empire itself when the non-Russian pieces took their opportunity to escape.

Putin never believed in the end of history. He believed Russia (in the guise of the USSR) lost the Cold War and Putin is doing whatever he can to reverse that loss and restore Russian glory and status by regaining that ground.

Yes, Russians are in those new nations. But does anybody ask why? The reason is that the Soviet Union sent colonists from Russia and attempted to Russify the locals in order to make sure that mere communism wasn't the way to bind the contiguous colonies to Mother Russia. These Russian minorities are the demographic echoes of past aggression and not the justification for humanitarian rescue.

Ultimately, I'm pretty sure that The Nation staff pretty much agrees with Putin's assessment. Today's problems with Putin are our fault for daring to defeat the Soviet Union in the Cold War and end the quest for Heaven on Earth that Soviet Communism promised the world.

The Soviets may have lost everything in Europe after 1991, including Russia itself. But the Soviets still hold The Nation. Brezhnev would be so proud.

Wishin' Accomplished

President Obama got so worked up over signing up 7 million people for Obamacare that he slipped into that annoying tone of voice that indicates, "please believe me even though nobody is believing anything I say right now." (Except those in his chosen audience of course.]

The president hopes that there won't be any more resistance and that only Koch deadenders will resist Obamacare now:

"This law is doing what it's supposed to do. It's working," Obama said, with Vice President Joe Biden standing at his side. "The debate over repealing this law is over. The Affordable Care Act is here to stay."

What? No banner?

Remember, this is a program they said was designed to allow people previously denied the ability to get insurance the chance to buy insurance--by compelling these people to buy insurance. Supporters said 40 million people were desperate for Obamacare to get insured. And they got 7 million in the sign up period after 4 years of preparation. This is really what victory looks like?

We'll see how many of the success stories in this statistic are people who already had insurance but lost their policies because of Obamacare, rather than newly insured people.

And we'll see if Obama's Insurance Freedom campaign is really over, with voters greeting Democrats with flowers in November. Democrats sure wish this will be true.

The Customer is Always Right

North Korea will blow another nuke, soon, it seems. Is the design finally acceptable to Iran?

North Korea threatened on Sunday to carry out a “new form” of nuclear test, a year after its third nuclear test raised military tensions on the divided Korean Peninsula and prompted the United Nations to tighten sanctions against the North.

The North’s Foreign Ministry did not clarify what it meant by a “new form” in its statement, carried by the North’s official Korean Central News Agency. But Washington and its allies have long suspected the country of trying to make nuclear devices small and sophisticated enough to be delivered by intercontinental ballistic missiles it was also developing.

Just what is that "new form?" As I've understood the situation, North Korea has blown nuclear devices. These could be used against us if we would roll a division over the test site and wait patiently until the thousands of technicians can detonate the device.

That's less than useful technology unless the North Koreans build a large wooden badger and leave it at the DMZ.



Assuming that this means a warhead that can fit on a missile, this is a bad thing for Japan.

North Korea will still lack a missile with the range to nuke a major American city.

And Seoul is already subject to destruction by chemical bombardment or even just high explosive bombardment from lots of North Korean artillery within range of their capital city. So a nuke is bouncing the rubble in Seoul, really.

Ultimately, if North Korea can nuke Seoul or Tokyo (getting past missile defenses) we are still free to respond with nukes against North Korea without fear of being targeted ourselves. So our deterrent is not in question, thus far.

We still have time to isolate North Korea and work for their collapse before they gain the ability to target our cities.

The immediate problem of this nuke test is that it gets Iran closer to the day when it can buy a North Korean nuclear warhead and designs for more. That has long been a worry of mine:

Iran has a couple routes to bomb-making materials coming on line.

The problem from Iran's point of view is that they can't know if crossing one of these lines could trigger an American or Israeli preemptive strike out of fear that further delay in attacking would be too late to prevent Iran from getting nuclear weapons. And if I was an Iranian nutball, I wouldn't assume the Americans and Israelis couldn't knock out my infrastructure.

Were I an Iranian nutball, under those circumstances, I'd want at least a few atomic warhead on hand before I announce capabilities to produce atomic weapons-grade material. Which would mean I'd have had to have bought some from either North Korea or Pakistan--or possibly even from some broke custodian of Russia's arsenal.

If Iran can announce both the ability to make nuclear bomb material and the possession of actual nuclear weapons--perhaps by detonating one in a test on their own territory--Tehran would quite possibly deter an attack on Iran's nuclear infrastructure.

We're not dealing with idiots. If the Iranian mullahs believe there are red lines that trigger Israeli or American action, why wouldn't they take counter-actions rather than just blindly cross those lines and provide a pretext for military action against them?

I worry that the "new form" might indicate something that ties the nuclear test to Iran. Could we see Iranian technicians filmed at the facility pressing the actual button?

And Iran is half way through the negotiating period with us that the Iranians know means we won't strike Iran's nuclear facilities. If Iran can get a warhead or two installed on missiles, they gain an instant deterrent and can afford to tell the West to take our interim talks and shove them, expecting us to just run away.

Iran will then believe they are free to pursue enrichment to whatever levels they want, without adjusting their stockpile of enriched Uranium to make it appear that they are far from having the raw materials to build an atomic bomb.

Have a super sparkly day.

Act Before It's Another Funeral Trip

Apparently, hope and change haven't enabled our diplomats to wield smart diplomacy with such skill that we can convince other nations to observe basic rules of decency and freedom.

Venezuela continues its descent into Zimbabwe levels of dysfunction:

VENEZUELANS DESPAIR at the lack of international interest in the political crisis that is rocking their country. Since anti-government protests began early last month, at least 34 people have been killed, most of them opposition supporters gunned down by security forces or government-backed gangs. Some 1,600 people have been arrested, and many say they were beaten or tortured. One of the opposition’s top leaders has been jailed for more than a month.

Yet when another senior opposition figure, National Assembly member María Corina Machado, attempted to address an Organization of American States meeting in Washington on March 21, the OAS permanent council first voted to close the meeting to the media, then to prohibit her report. The shameful stifling — which was entirely at odds with the organization’s Democratic Charter — was enabled by some 15 Caribbean countries that depend on heavily subsidized Venezuelan oil, but it was also supported by regional powerhouse Brazil.

Vice President Biden should host Ms. Machado to allow her to deliver her report to the assembled media here in Washington, D.C.

Down Payment Savings Accounts?

Could we encourage home ownership more effectively than the mortgage interest deduction by allowing tax-free down payment savings accounts?

The mortgage interest tax deduction is a point of contention given that it may have encouraged people to buy houses too big for their budgets, making defaults more likely after the economy tanked in 2008. And it might provide more aid to the wealthy even though it surely helps the middle class. But eliminating it would hurt existing people who relied on it to afford a home.

I'm just tossing this out. But until somebody points out all the obvious flaws, couldn't we phase out the mortgage interest deduction over time by gradually reducing the allowable amount of the deduction, while replacing it with a plan that allows people to contribute pre-tax money to down payment savings accounts?

This would encourage larger down payments if using the accounts and retaining the tax-free status requires you to make a 20% down payment on the home that will be your primary residence.

If you could also put money from the sale of an existing primary residence into the accounts, you'd encourage resale, too.

And cap the amount you can expend tax free. Base it on regional home prices, if you like, so expensive areas aren't disadvantaged. Or base the cap on regional income averages.

By putting the tax advantages into the down payment, you'd also avoid the tendency to factor in the mortgage interest deduction into calculating how much of a monthly housing payment you could afford.

The 2009 stimulus first-time home buyers credit always seemed rather unfair to me by benefiting taxpayers who happened to be in the market at the time for their first home while leaving out taxpayers who had already bought a first home or who just weren't ready to buy their first home when the program was in effect. Unfair, no?

So why not have a general program for all? I'm sure the math can be worked out to make this revenue neutral, if it is really so horrible to cut taxes overall when it is set up.

Further, it might deter people from taking out loans on their homes for things like vacations--which can put homes under water if housing values drop--because they'd lose a lot of cash by selling a home with more debt and lose the ability to roll over a tax-free down payment to buy a new home.

Anyway, this is just my first impression and is admittedly outside my lane--even my old lane of domestic policy. So take it for what it's worth.

Warthogs East

If our Air Force is determined to shed the excellent tank killing A-10 ground support aircraft, perhaps we could provide 30 or so of the planes to Ukraine cheap, and train pilots and ground crews to operate the aircraft.

Perhaps President Obama can start with this expense as a NATO-wide initiative to build a credible deterrent to Russian aggression, given his concern:

At a news conference in Belgium, President Obama said he is concerned not all NATO members are "chipping in" toward the cost of a collective defense and deterrent against Russia.

A start, of course.

The Kurds Need to Step Up

The Kurds of Syria seem happy enough to defend their own territory and hope for the best. But if they want to be left alone in the long run, they need to help defeat Assad and defeat the jihadis. Neither of those forces are their friends, and the Kurds could earn points and develop muscle by becoming the rebel mobile strike force that they lack.

The Kurds of Syria are sitting out the Syria Rebellion:

Back in January the Kurds declared an autonomous provincial government in the northeast. With the help of the autonomous Kurdish government of northern Iraq and the many Kurds in Turkey, the Syrian Kurds are keeping most of the war out of their territory. The Syrian Army considers the Kurds more trouble than they are worth at the moment and something that can be tended to once the other rebels are crushed. Many rebel groups get along with the Kurds and respect their desire to concentrate on protecting their own. Since the northeast is geographically out of the way the Kurds can do that. The Kurds do allow free passage for rebel groups they trust. The Kurds are 15 percent of the Syrian population, moderate and democratic Moslems, concentrated in the northeast. They have long opposed the Assads and are hated by the largely Iraqi ISIL (which has always hated the Iraqi Kurds, especially for their role in the overthrow of Sunni champion Saddam Hussein). Allied with the Kurds are the Christians who are about ten percent of the population. Together the two groups have over 12,000 armed men available (mainly for self-defense).

The Kurdish ability to sit out the Syria Rebellion rests solely on the fact that the jihadis and Assad are too busy to deal with the Kurds.

It's good that we opened up a southern front by beginning to arm and train rebels that aren't tainted by being close to jihadis. But I still think we need to deal with Assad's outposts still holding out in the east away from Core Syria that Assad is fighting for. I noted this back in the fall:

If there was a rebel high command and I was in charge, I'd try to reduce the eastern outposts as a priority.

Assad's major advantage is that he has a mobile force that can be switched between fronts while the rebels are largely strategically immobile. The vast majority of rebels are tied to defending their own home areas--as the Kurds are now. The rebels need their own mobile force:

In addition to building up a southern front of reliably non-jihadi rebels who could march on Damascus if there is a regime collapse, or which might eventually be strong enough to fight its way in, we should try to build up mobile rebel brigades that could wipe out those pockets of Assad forces in the east. Lack of rebels who can be moved around the country to reinforce success, counter regime offensives, or exploit regime weaknesses is a major impediment to pushing Assad over.

The rebels are enduring the Assad offensives, post Kerry-Lavrov chemical deal, but the rebels could use some territorial gains that more clearly show rebel momentum.

The rebels need tangible victories to invigorate their resolve to win and counter the dread of facing Assad's killers who will wipe out villages to win and the reality that Assad will try to starve out anybody who isn't his supporter. Those outposts are hanging out there waiting to be propaganda stories that can erase the advantage that Assad's grinding brutality provides him in demoralizing opposition.

The Kurds can provide that mobile force. If we can get the Kurds to organize a force of several thousand light infantry with heavy weapons support to move around the east and spearhead local rebels in assaults on those Assad outposts, the Kurds could gain victories and possibly interrupt both supply lines for Assad across Iraq and interfere with al Qaeda's ability to go back and forth across the Syria-Iraq border.

The Kurds could make deals with Sunnis in the east to come to their aid to defeat Assad's forces and jihadis out there. And deals with the main rebel factions to grant the Kurds some real autonomy within Syria when the war is over. And deal with the Turks, too, pledging not to seek union with the Iraqi Kurds.

The Kurds would also gain combat experience with this role to be able to defend their right to be left alone if gratitude isn't enough once the war, one day, is over.

The Kurds in Iraq were some of the most effective and reliable government forces that the Shia-dominated Iraqi government fielded. So far, Iraqi Kurdish military strength and that role have enabled the Kurds of Iraq to be left alone from both Saddam's Sunni Arab government after 1991 and from the new Iraqi government after 2003 dominated by the Shia majority.

Heck, the Iraqi Kurds would no doubt help their Syrian brethren in organizing and training such a force.

The Iraqi rebels need a mobile force to eliminate pockets of Assad's forces in the east. The Kurds are the best bet to create this mobile force.