Stupidity

So Obamacare was written in a complicated manner to take advantage of the "stupidity of the American voter?"



Since the act had to be rammed through Congress without proper oversight and given that Americans have never liked Obamacare (or the ACA, if you insist--although note that our president embraced the term at one time), apparently we aren't that stupid.

(And no, saying that individual pieces are popular does not mean the whole is popular. To state what should be the bloody obvious, I like gasoline. I like ice cream. I do not like gasoline ice cream.)

Still, the Obamacare architect Gruber does have a point about the stupidity of American voters when it comes to Obamacare:

#Whoislookingstupidnow.

Just sayin'.

Leading Indicator?

Is Jordan's humanitarian interest in western Anbar telegraphing their intent to intervene in Iraq against ISIL?

This is interesting:

Jordan has flown humanitarian aid to Iraq's western Anbar province, where jihadists from the Islamic State group have seized ground and sown fear among the population, the royal court said Monday.

"A Royal Air Force aircraft laden with huge quantities of humanitarian aid and other supplies to the Iraqi people... landed at the Ain al-Assad airport" in Anbar, a statement said.

Recall that prior to our current bombing campaigns in Iraq and Syria, we initially just provided humanitarian aid.

And even when we first started bombing jihadis, the justification we used was that it assisted the humanitarian missions.

Only later did we just say we are bombing to defeat ISIL separately from any humanitarian justification.

So is Jordan following this route to intervention? The same article says that Jordan's king met with Iraq's vice president to discuss coordinating efforts against ISIL.

I have written that the Jordanians could play a valuable role by providing a ground force advancing from the west to complement an Iraqi offensive from Baghdad going west into Anbar.

Jordan is showing an active interest in Anbar. Will Jordanian boots follow in the spring?

Assad Might Literally Be the Last Alawite Standing

Syria's ground forces have serious problems trying to stay in the field. This is not sustainable.

Manpower shortages plague the Syrian military:

Cracks, meanwhile, are also showing on the regime side, which is attempting to boost its ranks with conscripts and reservists. Some 1,300 men were forcibly conscripted to the army in Hama alone in a wave of arrests and raids in October, according to activists there. The regime is said to be increasingly reliant on irregular force. “It all comes together to paint a picture of regime manpower shortages,” says Theodore Bell of the Institute for the Study of War.

I've been writing that Assad's casualties could be what breaks his regime. The cracks are more visible lately.

Let the Flag Follow Trade

Getting China to split their defense interests between land warfare and naval warfare should be a diplomatic priority for America.

China continues to look inland:

China will contribute $40 billion (25.20 billion pounds) to set up a Silk Road infrastructure fund to boost connectivity across Asia, President Xi Jinping announced on Saturday, the latest Chinese project to spread the largesse of its own economic growth.

China has dangled financial and trade incentives before, mostly to Central Asia but also to countries in South Asia, backing efforts to resurrect the old Silk Road trading route that once carried treasures between China and the Mediterranean.

The fund will be for investing in infrastructure, resources and industrial and financial cooperation, among other projects, Xi said, according to Xinhua.

I'm all on board this Chinese development effort. Where trade goes, an interest to defend it with military power follows. That's been their reason for expanding their navy, after all. So I'm good with a new front.

Given our problems with Chinese expansionist attitudes in the western Pacific, this is a potentially valuable distraction from the sea focus China has had.

Go west, young Han.

The Lesson Never Learned

A description of Soviet tactics planned for dealing with our aircraft carriers is relevant for the sea control portion of a carrier debate.

Our forward deployed carriers would have been in the fight of their lives at the onset of a war with the Soviet Union during the Cold War:

The article is written by former Soviet naval officer Maksim Tokarev, and contains a depth of detail about Soviet military operations that I have never seen before. So there's plenty of red meat for the military wonks, including the fact that the Soviets planned to send a fleet of 100 bombers armed with anti-ship missiles against a US aircraft-carrier battle group, fully expecting to lose half of them to enemy action.

We tend to assume our carriers are unsinkable when we plan their use. Which is an easy trap to fall into given their cost, God-like status in our fleet, and lack of real world experience since World War II to teach us that carriers can sink. We simply haven't faced an enemy prepared to send a hundred planes--and lose half--to sink one carrier.

That Naval War College paper (which I didn't read--just the article with the quote relevant to me) should be a must read for anyone in the carrier debate as a reminder that the two sides (pro- and anti-big carrier) tend to argue past each other by forgetting that the carrier debate is really two debates about their roles in a power projection mission and in a sea control mission.

I'm relieved we never learned that lesson during the Cold War--since that would mean it went dangerously Hot, of course. But we do need to learn that lesson. I'd prefer to learn it in our peacetime debates before we learn it at sea when at war.

Target: Donetsk Airport

While it is unclear how much of the Donbas region Putin wants when he annexes it, getting the Donetsk airport currently held by Ukrainian government forces is certainly the minimum conquest he wants.

It seems the Russians are getting ready to attack the Donetsk airport:

On the ground in Ukraine, intense weekend shelling around Donetsk and more armoured columns seen heading to the city ratcheted up concerns the rebels could be gearing up for an offensive after weeks of localised skirmishes.

An AFP journalist saw a total of 28 trucks, six tanks and 14 howitzer cannons driving through rebel territory around Donetsk on Monday.

The White House followed Europe by expressing grave concern at reports of Russian military reinforcements, warning that any separatist efforts to seize more territory would be a "blatant violation" of a September ceasefire agreement that had halted full-scale fighting but failed to stop shelling at key flashpoints.

In retrospect, there never was a ceasefire--just a pause to give the secessionists a chance to recover from the defeats they endured prior to Russian direct intervention.

So the Russian invasion continues, with only the scope of conquest in question.

My next question is why does Ukraine fight on Russia's terms? Why is the front limited to the east given that Russia also took Crimea?

Not that Ukraine could push into Crimea through the narrow isthmus that Russia defends.

But Ukraine has planes and surface-to-surface missiles. Perhaps a slow bombardment of the Sevastopol naval base would be in order.

Post Election Course Correction

I see our president has abandoned "don't do stupid shit" as the cornerstone of his foreign policy.

As I've long said, the broad outline of a nuclear agreement has long been apparent: Iran will pretend to halt their nuclear program; and we will pretend to believe them.

Seriously, Whip Out the Tiny Violins

I want my daughter to have every opportunity to succeed, with no discrimination against her based on her gender. If that is how you define "feminism," I'm one of them.

Sadly, rather than being advocates of gender equality, feminists have simply become the Women's Auxiliary of the Democratic Party--and that's when they're not just being stupid.

Is it any wonder that the label "feminist" is unpopular even with women? Because, you know, this is what a feminist looks like does.

Tip to Instapundit for both.

Spearhead

As I've noted before, we will enable the Iraqis to spearhead a ground offensive that we will support with air power gathered from our forces and allies.

This article discusses the expansion of our Iraq effort:

The Iraqi military has been active in recent weeks, but these operations have taken a toll on its forces. United States officials say that the initial force they are planning to advise consists of only nine Iraqi brigades and three similar Kurdish pesh merga units — roughly 24,000 troops.

The counterattack plan calls for at least doubling that force by adding three divisions, each of which could range from 8,000 to 12,000 troops.

The United States is relying on allies to augment American trainers. Australia, Canada and Norway have committed several hundred special forces to one or more of the training or advisory missions, a senior United States military official said.

This will be achieved by doubling our troop commitment to Iraq to about 3,000. Which is still less than the 5,000 that Strategypage once reported as the likely end-of-year total.

And the news does answer a question I had of whether our plans to advise 3 divisions (3 division headquarters and 9 brigades under their command) would be augmented by advisors from our allies. Apparently, that is the case.

I assume when we first intervened our initial focus was on an advance in the north supported by the Kurds, but since then the plight of Anbar Sunni Arabs has led us to expand the scope of our efforts to exploit regional anger against ISIL before ISIL terror can crush resistance, hobbling any effort to eject ISIL from the west.

Yet we didn't have enough advisors to support enough troops for a major effort from the Baghdad region going north and a major effort advancing west.

So now we'll have 18 Iraqi brigades and 3 Kurdish brigades to launch the offensive in the spring.

I'll guess 3 Iraqi divisions advance north to support the Kurdish force spearheading an advance southwest with a focus on Mosul; while 3 Iraqi divisions advance west into Anbar where a Sunni Re-Awakening is ready to break out after nearly a year of getting what they wished--"liberation" by ISIL.

That leaves 6 or so decent Iraqi brigades in reserve and a couple dozen that are good for static security roles only because of poor and/or sectarian leadership.

I assume some of the Shia militias will be shock troops for the offensive while most will be static security forces.

Other security duties will be taken on by new regional defense forces (from that first link):

A parallel effort calls for establishing new national guard brigades in each of Iraq’s 18 provinces — units that would report to the local governors and have the primary responsibility for securing those areas after the Iraqi Army has mounted its counteroffensive.

Hopefully, this provides a framework to arm Sunni Arabs for that Re-Awakening and to restrain Shia militias from being pawns of Iran.

This planning rests on holding the front where we need jumping off points to begin offensives.

The Iraqis do seem to have stabilized the front at the borders of Sunni Arab ethnic areas, and even clawed back some ground:

Today, roughly a third of Iraq is dotted by active battle fronts, with intense fighting and occasional Islamic State victories. But analysts also say the days of easy and rapid gains for the jihadists may be coming to a close in Iraq, as the group’s momentum appears to be stalling.

Yet if reporting that there is a spring offensive coming is right, the new training won't have 9 Iraqi brigades and three Kurdish brigades ready in time, since just the training of the brigades will take 6-7 months:

Well, you now, between eight and 10 months, you know, total, depending on, again, how long it takes to get the sites prepared and the curriculum set and trainers in place. And it's going to, you know, it's going to take us a little bit of time to get the personnel inside Iraq. I mean, we can move quickly, but it is, you know, it's going to take some weeks to get them all there.

So will it be a phased offensive? Perhaps changed priorities mean it will kick off first in Anbar province in spring 2015 since the Kurdish units won't be online to spearhead that front for perhaps 10 months? And then we'll focus on the north later in 2015 when the new training program is finished?

I know that with all this training, it is common to say that Iraq's army can't fight, so this is why we have to intervene. But it is more that we failed to maintain what we build. The skill and training of the Iraqi army probably peaked in December 2011, the month we left. Iraq historically has not had an army that anyone would really boast about. The best that could be said is that against Iran in 1988 it (barely) got the job done.

I'll note that in the 1980s Iran-Iraq War, the Iraqis found that most of their army was largely incapable of offensive warfare after many years of holding fortifications along the front to hold off the Iranian attacks (a similar thing happened on the Western Front in World War I, so I'm not just picking on the Iraqi army which had to get good at holding those fortifications, at the expense of other capabilities).

In response, the Iraqis expanded the small Republican Guard force from being the most loyal troops designed to protect the regime against an army coup to a 6-division force designed to be the offensive spearhead of the Iraqi army.

And now we will re-train (not create from scratch as the article implies) three more Iraqi divisions out of the half of the Iraqi army we judged salvageable in the near term from corruption and sectarian influences that have crippled the Iraqi army to such a visible result in the first half of 2014.

I think this could work--if we remain focused.

And assuming that ISIL patiently waits for our spring offensive to begin rather than seize the initiative (again) to preempt our offensive. Remember that France's offensive in Mali had to take place nearly a year ahead of their plan when the jihadis launched an offensive south.

UPDATE: North of Baghdad, Iraqi forces seem to be clawing back territory around a critical refinery the Iraqis held as the front line after the initial ISIL offensive:

Iraqi military forces reached the center of the northern city of Baiji on Sunday in an effort to break an Islamic State siege of the country's biggest refinery, triggering fierce clashes with the militants, according to an army colonel and a witness.

There hasn't been a lightning counter-attack, but just pushing the jihadis back tarnishes the image of the jihadis and renews Iraqi confidence.

UPDATE: General Dempsey, visiting Iraq, concurs:

Dempsey said it had been crucial to show Islamic State was not an unstoppable, 10-foot-tall force and instead "a bunch of midgets running around with a really radical ideology".

Jihadis are dangerous because they don't fear death. That can cause terror and panic in their foes.

But once soldiers are steady enough not to run from the jihadis, that downright eagerness of jihadis to die is their weak point.

UPDATE: One more late update. Iraqi forces have clawed back territory around the besieged garrison at Baiji:

Iraqi forces broke the Islamic State group's months-long siege of the country's largest oil refinery Saturday as America's top officer flew in to discuss the expanding war against the jihadists.

Completely expelling IS fighters from the area around the refinery would be another significant achievement for Baghdad, a day after pro-government forces retook the nearby town of Baiji.

This is good. Iraq needs better ground forces to make liberating their territory a more rapid process.

Brave New World

Austin Bay has thoughts on the 25th anniversary of the destruction of the Berlin Wall. It was the first step in the world we've lived in since then, and which seems to be ending with Russia's military revival and aggression, China's new assertiveness, and the battle for the soul of Islam raging in the greater Middle East region.

We see the Cold War as a victory for the American-led West, but don't forget, as Bay states, that at the time there was more relief than celebration in the West:

NATO nations whose troops for some four decades defended Western Europe from Communist Russian attack will also commemorate the Wall's demise, as a moment of joy and immense relief more than victory.

It was a defeat for Soviet communism and a victory for the West, have no doubt:

The Wall's fall mattered for everyone who understood the Cold War's stakes and risks. The stakes were freedom versus tyranny.

That wall kept Russia's subject people in their empire from escaping to the West. It was not a defensive wall.

Yet it did not really feel like a victory at the time.

I believe it took our victory in Desert Storm (aka the Persian Gulf War) in 1991 to really make it seem like a victory over the Soviet Union:

The Persian Gulf War was more than the liberation of Kuwait. We learned we beat a second-rate military power, but by smashing a scaled down replica of the Red Army, America really beat the USSR by proxy. The Gulf War was the military victory that confirmed the end of the Cold War as a decisive Western victory. With the obvious domination of American ground and air power culminating in the 100-hour ground war, no revivalist Russian nationalist can argue that the West did not really beat the Soviet Union.

Victory also reassured Americans that we won the Cold War--we did not merely falter last in an exhausting struggle between two teetering systems. Victory made America a "hyper power" feared or envied. Without the military victory of the Persian Gulf War, we may have viewed ourselves as lucky survivors of that struggle rather than the victors who dominate the globe. Remember that the fall of the Berlin Wall took place scant years after the argument was made by Professor Paul Kennedy that America was a declining power burdened by "imperial overstretch."

And don't forget that by the end of that year of battlefield victory, the Soviet Union itself disappeared as the imperial provinces declared independence and the Russians refused to use force to retain them (well, until 2008 with Georgia and 2014 with Ukraine, of course).

So I believe that the sequence of fall of the Berlin Wall, the Persian Gulf War victory, and the dissolution of the Soviet Union were necessary to deliver the appearance of a real victory over our Soviet enemy.

Perhaps when Ukraine builds a real wall--for defense--along the Crimean isthmus, we will declare the transitional post-Cold War era that never really got a name of its own over.

That's in the works:

The defensive structures will include ditches, test-track lanes, vehicle-barrier trenches and optical surveillance towers to detect troop and vehicle movement from the Russian side, the government says.

And then we can figure out what kind of world we have now. Win that world. And then name it.

Let's see if we are brave enough to win this new world, which still has creatures intent on achieving evil ends in it.

As Bay notes (and as I have), the Western  useful idiots who defended the Soviets are still around in Putin's service.

Yeah, When You Say it Out Loud it Does Sound Rather Stupid

The Air Force determination to kill the A-10 close support aircraft has just about descended to the level of "let us kill the A-10 or we'll shoot this puppy."

(With all credit to National Lampoon, of course)

The F-35 is the Air Force's most important project right now, and they claim that just keeping a small force of A-10s in their inventory could delay fielding that plane!

The Air Force’s logic, if that is what you want to call it, is interesting—the F-35 program must have the A-10’s maintenance personnel. If the F-35 force does not get them, the “initial operational capability” for a single 12-plane squadron of the 99 F-35As delivered to the Air Force will have to be delayed to past the December 2016 date the Air Force promised to Congress last year.

Therefore, the Air Force has started to argue, at least 72 A-10s must be retired in 2015, with all the rest being retired immediately thereafter. To avoid the F-35 IOC slippage, the Air Force insists it must have 800 maintenance personnel who can only come from the A-10 force.

I know. This is standard budgetary dishonestly. A cut in State Department funding's rate of growth means that money for Benghazi security was not available. Curse you, stingy appropriators!

Yet nobody will point out that somehow money for drapes and new furniture for the Paris embassy was plentiful.

Or reduce funding for the Library of Congress, and the only way to cope is to cut public hours open by 50% (as if the patrons are just a reason to have employees rather than the other way around).

Aside from that nonsense, I think the Air Force is making a mistake in assuming that Congress views the F-35 at the same level of importance. The same goes for the White House.

With budget difficulties, politicians could easily view the huge pile of money required to field the F-35 as the only game in town when it comes to saving money for other priorities. If the Air Force can't spend money to field the F-35 because of the A-10, perhaps that F-35 money will go elsewhere.

Some politicians might simply resent such a transparent ploy (that only they are allowed to use!) to pressure Congress and call the Air Force bluff, saying, "Fine, your schedule slips. We'll keep the issue of F-35 funding active--and see how well that goes next year."

This level of nonsense to kill an effective plane that is the Air Force's only plane specifically designed to provide ground support to the Army makes me wonder if the Air Force puts any priority at all on supporting the Army on anything but Air Force terms.

The Air Force can say the words about supporting jointness, but the money says otherwise.

Keep It Simple, Stupid

Has our intervention against ISIL in Syria helped Assad?

Oh good grief:

But regional analysts say the reality is more complex, and the question of whether or not Assad has truly benefited is far murkier.

Come on! Is this line of reasoning serious? Of course our aerial intervention against one of his strongest enemies has aided Assad!

You can say that Assad has not been able to exploit this help to exceed the other problems he has in winning the war, but that is a separate question.

Yes, our air effort is a positive for Assad. The fact that multiple negatives in other areas mean a net losing situation for Assad on the ground is a relief but not a defense of our policy.

And when you ponder that Assad probably sees our involvement as a means of a negotiated settlement that helps him survive, you add another aspect of our benefit to Assad.

Remember, Assad already got our help with that faux chemical weapons "disarmament" deal that Russia's Lavrov swindled from our very own Inspector Clouseau of Foggy Bottom (Kerry: Do you have a license for that underground facility? Assad: It is not my chemical weapons facility!) in order to keep us from intervening against Assad more than a year ago.

With our forces now bombing ISIL targets in Syria, just what might our president so evidently eager to "responsibly end" another war give to Assad to get that short-term boast in place?

Good God, people, of course our intervention so far is helping Assad. I'm hoping we actually get more French in our policy or that at least our help for Assad won't matter enough to save him.

Just Like Any Other War Front

When I read that we had rotated a battalion into South Korea, I thought we were reinforcing our small Army presence there. But that was just a practice for replacing our combat brigade permanently stationed there with a brigade rotated into South Korea from the United States.

Our troop presence in South Korea will be achieved in a new way now:

After almost 50 years in South Korea, the Army is deactivating the 2nd Infantry Division’s 1st Armored Brigade Combat Team, officials announced Thursday.

Iron Brigade, which has its headquarters at Camp Hovey, South Korea, will be replaced by a rotational brigade combat team from the United States, according to information from 8th Army. ...

The Army plans to start rotating a BCT into South Korea in late summer 2015.

The first brigade to go is 2nd BCT, 1st Cavalry Division, of Fort Hood, Texas. About 4,600 soldiers from the unit will deploy in June, the Defense Department announced Thursday.

The plan is to rotate one BCT at a time into South Korea “like we’ve done in Iraq and Afghanistan for the last 13 years,” Army Chief of Staff Gen. Ray Odierno has said. “There’ll always be a brigade in Korea, but they’ll rotate from the United States.”

The article also notes that by the end of fiscal year 2015 (September 30, 2015), the Army will be down to 490,000 troops and 32 maneuver brigades--which is the same number of brigades compared to pre-9/11 but more troops (and not including mobilized reservists in support).

By rotating a brigade in to South Korea, the unit will be more combat ready in contrast to having a brigade always there with a churning manpower status as soldiers arrive and leave during a year.

The downside is that a garrison brigade simply focused on the theater, building up institutional knowledge of the enemy and our allies.

By Volley, Fire

In commenting on a RAND simulation of an air battle between heavily outnumbered American F-22s against Chinese fighters that had us losing despite assuming every F-22 missile hit a target and every Chinese missile aimed at our F-22s missed, this article wonders if drone "missile trucks" could be the answer:

The RAND study emphasized that improvements in forward basing infrastructure were necessary for U.S. airpower to achieve its objective effectively.

But in a new report from CNAS, “Robotics on the Battlefield Part II: The Coming Swarm,” Scharre offers another solution to mitigate China’s numerical advantage – an unmanned “missile truck” fighter:

An uninhabited “missile truck” that brought additional air-to-air missiles to the fight to supplement human-inhabited F-22s could tip the scales back in the United States’ favor.

I tend to discount anything from the Center for No American Security, but that's my bias.

But I did bring up the idea of an air gunship to help Taiwan hold off China's aerial horde in light of problems getting new fighters:

It occurred to me that we have gunships that turn large transport planes into ground support aircraft. They work very well. Couldn't Taiwan use the same concept for air defense?

Taiwan has AWACS-type planes to watch the Taiwan Strait and Chinese air bases near their coast.

Would it be possible for Taiwan to pair up air missile-planes consisting of a large transport plane carrying lots of long-range radar-guided missiles?

If Taiwan's E-2s spot a Chinese air armada heading across the strait, the "air gunship" could fire off volleys of air-to-air missiles even as Taiwanese fighters were scrambling. Given that the Chinese aircraft would be closing with Taiwan at high speeds, the air gunships could fire while well out of range of Chinese missiles, counting on the Chinese aircraft to close within the missile range even if the missiles are fired while the Chinese planes are out of range.

If air-to-air volleys and then anti-aircraft missiles fired from the ground disrupted the Chinese air armada before it reaches Taiwan, Taiwan's outnumbered planes would have a far better chance of inflicting damage and surviving to continue the fight.

If the air-to-air missiles have a long enough range, they could inflict losses on the Chinese before they get to our F-22s, meaning the F-22s could screen the withdrawal of the missile ships. Then we don't need the added complexity of drone aircraft.

Yet when you think about "missile trucks" or "gunships" you have to remember what the RAND scenario was. It wasn't so much that China overwhelmed our aircraft but that China knocked out so much on the ground (from my summary of the study in this post):

Let me just say that the study relied on the Chinese striking our air bases (on Okinawa, I believe) and knocking out all but 6 F-22s that proceeded to shoot down 48 non-stealthy Su-27s only to see the Chinese survivors fly on and shoot down tankers and other soft targets. That's not a condemnation of our planes but of geography and ground defenses.*

Whatever I read, I was a bit off on the set up but not the air combat scenario. This slide show indicates that the assumption is that because of Chinese ability to attack our Okinawa air base, we are forced to rely on the ability to put just 6 F-22s flying from the more distant Guam over Taiwan.

Those 6 planes were not enough to protect the supporting planes from the Chinese Su-27s that race through our F-22s even if all our missiles hit Chinese planes and all the Chinese shots at our F-22s miss.

If the idea is based on the notion that China can swamp 6 planes, well, duh. We'd be better off working on getting more than six planes into the fight, I'd say.

But I won't dismiss the CNAS thought. Although I'll always suspect it will be paired with a proposal to greatly reduce the rest of the Air Force fighter inventory to buy those missile trucks.

And I still think Taiwan could use the weapon.

*I must have mis-linked because I can't find the study from that post. I linked to a related study but not the one I wanted. I'm glad I at least summarized the scenario.

Two-Edged Sword

China's communist rulers have turned to nationalism to whip up popular support for Communist Party rule as the legitimacy provided by communist economics was abandoned. Unfortunately for the party rulers, that turn to nationalism seems to have infected the military, too.

This is interesting:

Anyone calling for China's People's Liberation Army to be loyal to the state rather than the Communist party has a "very black heart", military media said Monday, after President Xi Jinping stressed: "The party commands the gun".

It is tough to whip up xenophobic nationalism in the public while insulating the military from the same result.

One can see the Chinese leadership's interest in making sure their enforcers (who did the dirty work at Tienanmen Square in 1989) stay loyal.

Worse, China's rulers see every threat to their rule as a continuum of threats ranging from domestic to foreign.

If every threat is just a different form of threat to party rule, we can't really say that a response to repel that threat can be viewed in our template of a "domestic" or a "foreign" policy. Mass riots in some internal city might very well lead to a Chinese response in the East China Sea against Japan since all threats and all responses are just different ways to defend the Chinese Communist Party.

From our point of view, we also have to worry about just who can order the PLA to war?

As Chinese military power increases, China's options on the "foreign" side of protecting the party increase, too.

Preparing for Annexation

It looks like the Russians are preparing--post-faux election--to formally take control of the territory in Ukraine's east that Putin's hand puppets control.

On the heels of recent developments, it looks like the Russians are getting close to making a move against Ukraine:

A column of 32 tanks, 16 howitzer artillery systems and trucks carrying ammunition and fighters has crossed into eastern Ukraine from Russia, the Kiev military said on Friday.

"The deployment continues of military equipment and Russian mercenaries to the front lines," spokesman Andriy Lysenko said in a televised briefing referring to Thursday's cross-border incursion.

I guess the question is when Russia formally adds the region to Mother Russia.

And how much land the Russians will attempt to add to their currently held territory.

Have no doubt, the Russians are coming.

UPDATE: Secessionist forces are on the move after apparent Russian supplies and reinforcements arrived:

Associated Press reporters saw more than 80 unmarked military vehicles on the move Saturday in rebel-controlled areas of eastern Ukraine, indicating that intensified hostilities may lie ahead.

Three separate columns were seen — one near the main separatist stronghold of Donetsk and two outside the town of Snizhne, 80 kilometers (50 miles) further east.

The Russians really want the Donetsk airport. Can they take it and what else do they want before actually ceasing fire?

While the casualty count of this report is likely exaggerated, it does indicate the secessionists are massing:

The press center of Kyiv's "Antiterrorist Operation" (ATO) said on its Facebook page on November 7 that "militants who were firing at Ukrainian military positions on the grounds of Donetsk airport on November 6 were eliminated by artillery units of the ATO forces."

It said "verified information" indicates the artillery fire "killed up to 200 militants" and destroyed or damaged four tanks and several other pieces of military equipment.

The Russians deny knowledge of Russian involvement, jokingly citing the inability of our State Department to confirm it as evidence:

During a meeting with Kerry in Beijing, where the two gathered for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit, Lavrov deflected a reporter’s question about Ukrainian allegations it had sent soldiers and weaponry into rebel-controlled areas of the country.

“Even Jen Psaki said that the State Department doesn’t have the information about this,” Lavrov said, referring to the State Department’s spokeswoman. “If Psaki doesn’t have it, I don’t.”

Kerry stood clasping his hands in front of him and began to smile as a reporter pressed Lavrov on Russia’s involvement in Ukraine. Psaki said yesterday the troop movements, if confirmed, would violate a cease-fire pact agreed in September.

I, of course, remain jealous that Russia has a chief diplomat who attempts to advance his country's interests.

Kerry then translated Lavrov's jape into French, demonstrating his abilities.

UPDATE: The Russians and their proxies are massed at Donetsk in order to capture the government-held airport:

Artillery fire rocked east Ukraine's rebel stronghold of Donetsk on Sunday as separatists appeared to be reinforcing frontline flashpoints and fears grew of a return to all-out fighting.

Ukraine is shooting rather than just waiting for the blow to hit at Putin's leisure.

Let's Use the Big-Boy Terms

While I appreciate the direction we are going in Europe to reverse the drawdown of our ground troops, boasting of "activity sets" sounds like we have been to the toy store to deal with Putin.

Okay, I winced a little when I was reading this reaction to Putin's Ukraine adventures:

“Because of the increased pressure that we feel in Eastern Europe now, and because of the assurance measures that we are taking in the Baltics, in Poland and in Romania, we require additional rotational presence,” Gen. Philip Breedlove, NATO’s supreme allied commander Europe, said at a Pentagon briefing Monday morning.

He isn't looking to add units. That's unfortunate but realistic in today's budget environment. He just wants US troops to rotate into Europe from the continental United States and use equipment stored there for exercises. This is the part that made me wince:

He said he has been “having discussions with the service chiefs about the possibility of forward-based equipment and supplies — as the Army calls, them ‘activity sets’ — in order to give us a more responsive capability if we were to need it in the future,” he said.

"Activity sets" sound like toys to play at war. In the face of Russian aggressive intent, these battalion-sized equipment sets are no replacement for multiple unit sets to equip full brigades of heavy forces by flying in troops to draw the equipment and deploy.

After the Goons of August War in 2008, I called for putting unit sets in Poland just in case the Russo-Georgia War was an early warning sign of Russia's new aggressiveness.

The need is greater now. Let's defend our gains of 1989, shall we?

And Another Thing ...

In Fall 2013, the Obama administration waved an agreement in triumph that they said would eliminate Syria's chemical weapons capabilities by summer 2014. That triumph continues.

Huh:

The demolition of a dozen remaining chemical weapons production facilities in Syria is scheduled to begin later this month while work will continue on the verification of the government's declarations, Australia's U.N. envoy said on Wednesday. ...

"The destruction is scheduled to commence later this month and likely to be completed ... around the summer of next year," he added, citing information from Kaag.

So, summer 2015.

Assuming nothing else is discovered.

And forgetting that Assad is still using chemical weapons (chlorine gas) not covered by that agreement.

And until we are satisfied that Assad doesn't have anything else to declare, our options to act against Assad are constrained because as long as Assad still has chemical weapons capabilities--no matter how much we destroy under the agreement--Assad can gas away and eliminate this diplomatic triumph from the annual reports of our State Department.

So there you go.

What's Sustainable?

Afghan security forces have suffered over 4,000 dead over the last two years, which is a rate that our military thinks is unsustainable for the Afghan security forces to endure. What does that say about Assad's security forces?

While Afghan troops are holding their own with diminished American support, the price has been high:

Yeah, the data -- the data I gave you, it was -- it was killed in action, 4,350 for 2013 and 4,634 for 2014. Those are -- those are killed in action. No, this is not sustainable.

I worry about what it will be when Afghanistan is providing their own air support without us:

Remember in 2015, the ANSF has full responsibility. So as they keep working their MI-17 program, their MI-35 program, the MD-530s, the A-29s, all the things that they're trying to complement, supplement, air weapons teams, that will be their version of close air support.

While we will have air assets available, it will be mostly for our force protection and only in unusual cases in support of Afghan forces. I don't know how Afghanistan sustains the air element of their force.

But what I really want to note is that about 4,500 deaths per year is seen as too high for the Afghan security forces (about half army and half police) to endure for long.

Assad's army has suffered 40,000 soldier dead in the last 3 years of war, and add 27,000 militia dead--so 23,000 per year--from a far smaller population base.

If Afghan forces can't sustain their losses, how can Assad's forces keep going long enough to win?

Even aside from the wrongness of supporting Assad against ISIL, I get the feeling that even if backing Assad as a lesser of multiple evils was the right thing to do, we'd only back Assad just to see him lose anyway and alienate the majority of Syrians who resist Assad now.

Good News and Bad News

North Korea likely has mastered the technology of miniaturizing and making robust a nuclear warhead that will fit on a ballistic missile. There's good news and bad news about this.

This isn't breaking news, but I haven't really seen North Korea's nuclear advancement discussed:

American and South Korea defense officials admit that North Korea may have mastered the technology to build a nuclear weapon that will work on a ballistic missile.

It isn't good that a nutball regime like North Korea will have nuclear weapons. But it isn't the same as Iran getting them. North Korea is a despotic state but there aren't legions of true believers around the world eager to use such weapons against the West.

And North Korea wants nukes for reasons that are easier to contain--survival (against foreign invasion) and blackmail (for goodies from South Korea, Japan, and others to keep their nukes on the ground).

So even with a nuclear North Korea, I figure containment is the best strategy. Keep talking, keep help to the minimum, and wait for the regime or state to collapse. Talk, talk. Die, die, I've argued.

With anti-missile defenses and a plan to move north to seize nukes in case North Korea collapses, this is as good as it can get.

But then there is Iran. Iran and North Korea cooperate on nuclear missile technology. I think that Iran has probably outsourced much of their nuclear warhead work to North Korea, which doesn't act as a JDAM magnet for America or Israel.

Think about how much we discuss the finer details of just how much enriched Uranium Iran must have to be a "break out" threat to race to nuclear warheads.

Why on Earth would Iran play such a risky game when there is a better alternative to betting on the West (and Israel) miscalculating our ability to detect an Iranian race to building their own bomb?

Why wouldn't Iran buy North Korean nukes to shield their final efforts to openly possess nuclear weapons construction capability? I asked this question 5 years ago

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?

It may be that selling nukes to Iran is an alternative for North Korea to blackmailing aid from increasingly uncooperative South Korea and Japan.

Have a super sparkly day.

We Can't Walk and Chew Gum at the Same Time?

After years of liberals saying we should have a foreign policy more like France's, I finally agree with my leftist brethren.

France is unhappy that our intervention in Syria isn't also targeting Assad:

France is calling for the U.S.-led coalition against Islamic State to expand its fight to prevent the fall of Aleppo, Syria’s largest city and a rebel bastion under attack by both government forces and Islamic extremists.

Coming from a key ally, the push for increased military support for Syria’s embattled civilians and rebels is a public challenge to President Barack Obama’s policy, which limits military action in Syria to attacking Islamic State fighters while avoiding direct confrontation with forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad.

That's been my main complaint of our Iraq and Syria strategy at the big picture level.

Stop whining about the weakness of the moderate opposition that we refuse to support robustly. If we give them real support, they'll become the strong horse in the fight against Assad.

So Our Navy Will Get a Third Ground Force?

What the Hell? The Army wants the coastal defense mission to be considered relevant in the developing Air-Sea Battle concept to defeat Chinese power close to China? Just be the friggin' Army!

Oh good grief:

Secretary Hagel recently made waves in Army circles by suggesting that the Army leverage its missile forces to resume the old mission of coastal defense.

In this brief, CSBA Research Fellow Eric Lindsey argues that Army missiles forces can do far more than defend coastlines. By enhancing its land-based anti-air, anti-ship, and surface-to-surface strike capabilities, he says, the Army could field a forward-deployed anti-access/area-denial force that would deny adversaries sanctuary and freedom of action and help the Army deter and prevail in a wider spectrum of conflict.

The Army has trouble enough getting the Air Force to provide fire support, so the Army wants to divert its fire support assets to help the Navy?

I know, defense budgets are tight and Air-Sea Battle is the key to appropriations victories--don't forget your anti-access/area denial lingo! This type of problem is nothing new for the Army.

But even though our casualty averse leaders don't want to admit it, the Army has plenty of traditional core mission possibilities in Asia if the worst happens and relations with China hit the fan:

[The] idea that the Army and Marine Corps have no missions in the Pacific is nonsense. Saying South Korea can handle North Korea, so we don't need troops there; and then saying we won't be marching on Peking, so there is no mission at all, is nonsense.

Since I recently submitted a paper on this issue, I won't go into it too much. But I've already noted that the South China Sea is a perfect mission for those Australia-based Marines. Alcohol-poisoning, indeed. A very clever line, but useless for strategy.

And I can think of more than a handful of missions for a 5-division ground force from Russia in the north to India at the other end of that arc. Keep going west from there and you get to CENTCOM, of course. I'd never argue we have no potential ground missions there.

Yes, we aren't going to march on China's capital. But there are plenty of missions for small and medium-sized armies on and near the continent of Asia.

And including ground forces in our Pacific pivot has nothing to do about trendiness. I want enemies to worry about our excellent and victorious Army and Marine Corps showing up to deal with them. And I want our friends to have the warm feeling of protection when pondering that Army and Marine units could deploy or fight at their side.

These land missions in Asia fit into the Army's mission:

The Army’s mission is to fight and win our Nation’s wars by providing prompt, sustained land dominance across the full range of military operations and spectrum of conflict in support of combatant commanders. ...

And naval warfare is not inherently low casualty, as I note in this unrelated post. We only think it is because we haven't faced a real navy in combat since World War II:

We don't like to admit it and rarely practice what we do if a carrier goes down, but they can be sunk. They can be sunk by relatively cheap missiles. They can be sunk by relatively cheap missiles guided by relatively cheap surveillance assets.

We like to think of land warfare as casualty intensive and air and naval warfare as cheap in lives. But lose one carrier battle group in the middle of the ocean and we could lose more sailors in one day than we lost in the entire Iraq War on the ground over years.

I do like the idea of ground-based anti-ship assets--missile, rocket, or tube artillery. And if the Army can provide some without too much cost, I'm not against it.

But why doesn't the Marine Corps provide this capability if the Navy needs it so badly?

And if the Marine Corps can't be persuaded to carry out this mission because they are too busy focusing on their core missions, why can't the Navy's ground force take care of the mission?

Yes, the Navy has its own "army," reborn in Iraq (quoting Strategypage here):

The new U.S. Navy has, in two years built a new ground combat force, staffed by 40,000 sailors. This is NECC (Navy Expeditionary Combat Command), which is capable of operating along the coast and up rivers, as well as further inland.

If we aren't going to commit ground forces to war anytime soon, NECC riverine warfare units will not be sent into combat. I dare say that the Navy could use some of their 40,000 "army" to equip coastal defense units with those missiles, rockets, and artillery that the Army or Marines could provide.

Perhaps if the frigate-class alternative to the Littoral Combat Ship (LCS) is modular (and the LCS itself with its own modularity), a ground unit-package would allow our small ships to deposit Navy coastal defense units on small islands in the East China Sea, South China Sea, or on the shore of major allies.

As an aside, I'm fully on board the critique of the LCS which emphasizes speed over survivability and lethality:

I find it amusing that one defense is that survivability is also not getting hit rather than just construction design. With physical survivability so low for the LCS, just what helps them avoid getting hit? Their speed? Get real. Going fast increases the likelihood of being spotted by some sensor or another. And the LCS isn't going to be faster than aircraft, missiles, or helicopters.

And deployed in green or--God forbid even more--brown waters, the LCS will face lots of land-based threats like aircraft, helicopters, missiles, mines, shore-based artillery, tanks with cannons far bigger than the LCS carries, plus small submarines and numerous armed small craft. It is insane to send the LCS into that environment.

No ship can be fast enough to evade the weapons launched against them.

And I'd be remiss in self promotion if I didn't note that anything that gets more modules out there could support rapid expansion of the fleet by making Modularized Auxiliary Cruisers cheaper to outfit.

But I digress (as I can!) .

Come on. It's bad enough that the Army has aspired to be a second Marine Corps to preserve their budget. Now the Army is to be a second Navy, too? Look out Coast Guard, is all I'm saying.

If our Army is so eager to be anything but our nation's army, just who wins our wars ashore?

That's How China Rolls

China insists that Japan's interception of Chinese aircraft sent to crowd Japan's air space must stop. Of course China says that. That's how China rolls.

Japan's response rather than China's actions must stop, according to Peking:

China called on Japan on Thursday to stop scrambling its jets against Chinese aircraft following a rise in the number of such operations, saying it was source of flying safety concerns.

China also insists that missile defense radars are "destabilizing".

Sadly, some in the West have internalized China's logic and believe Japanese efforts to defend their territory risk tensions.

Because that's how China rolls.

And how they expect others to submit. Like China expects India to submit under pressure:

Much of the global attention paid to China’s territorial assertiveness has focused on maritime conflicts in the East China Sea and the South China Sea that have stoked tensions with Japan, the U.S. and some Southeast Asian nations.

But China is also making a less-noticed push in the west to enforce claims along its 2,200-mile (3,400-kilometer) frontier with India. India says the number of what it describes as Chinese “transgressions” across the two countries’ ill-defined boundary has climbed sharply—to more than 400 last year from 213 in 2011.

China's territorial claims seem to match their military capabilities to enforce claims.

Russia could take note. Or does Putin think Russia is an exception?

A Cold Day in Hell

China and Russia don't want to protect Antarctica:

Russia and China have prevented an international attempt to create the world's largest ocean sanctuary in waters off of Antarctica.

No doubt.

China will designate the waters a "core interest" next year prior to declaring it one of their cities.

And Russia is busy organizing a secession vote by local ethnic Russians.

Becoming Irrelevant is the Whole Idea

We remain the most powerful country in the world. That doesn't mean we don't face limits to our power either in achieving military objectives or in trying to achieve non-military objectives with military power. But military power is often necessary for us to achieve the latter category of objectives.

I find value in reading Stratfor's analysis ,but this is kind of funny:

The United States may have committed one blunder after another in Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan, yet through all of these misbegotten wars the United States remains by a yawning margin the greatest military power on earth[.] ...

But one thing American power cannot accomplish, as a decade in Iraq and Afghanistan showed, is to rebuild complex Islamic societies from within. And rebuilding societies from within will be the fundamental challenge faced by the Arab world for at least the next half-decade. Thus, America, in spite of its latest military intervention, becomes less relevant to the region even as the region itself no longer represents quite the primary interest to America that it used to. We should keep this in mind now that the war against the Islamic State threatens to distract us from other theaters. [emphasis added]

Well, yeah, ultimate victory requires Islamic societies to reform themselves. That's why it is the Long War.

But the notion that our military power hasn't had a role in setting the stage to allow Islamic societies to reform themselves by destroying or fighting the Islamist pro-jihadi elements within those societies that resist reform is nonsense.

So yeah, because of--not despite--our military interventions over the last decade, we and our military power are less relevant to the region. That was the bloody point of fighting. We don't want our military--or our increasingly intrusive homeland security--to be the only thing standing between ourselves and jihadi murderers.

The notion that our military interventions in Iraq and Afghanistan were pointless--misbegotten, even--in the arrival at the stage where we can say the Middle East has to reform itself is to ignore the role of our military interventions to allow those internal forces to have any hope at all of reforming Islamic societies:

Yes, ultimately it will be up to Arabs themselves to build free societies. We can't do it for them. But in the face of ruthless jihadi killers who will bomb and behead any who oppose the Islamo-fascist dream of a caliphate of the submissive, the protection of the homeless tempest-tost by our armed forces and our allies while they build the strength to fight the terrorists and despots is critical to success.

Military force is a blunt force and could never reform the Islamic world, but just as in counter-insurgency, while military force isn't the entire solution compared to non-military means of defeating insurgents, whatever percent of the solution that military force's provision of physical security is, it has to be the first part of the solution.

The Vietnam War itself should be seen as part of this notion. Despite losing the Vietnam War in 1975 (despite winning it militarily by the time we left in 1973), losing the war in 1965 would have had far greater repercussions throughout Asia.

Communism in Asia was far stronger in 1965, and a refusal to intervene in South Vietnam could have encouraged communists from India to Japan. The Vietnam War was a firewall limiting the spread of communism.

Indeed, the historian John Keegan argued that Western Europe--where "Eurocommunism" thrived--itself was strengthened by Russia seeing us willing to lose tens of thousands of troops in a Third World war. If we'd sacrifice there, what more would we sacrifice in a Third World War to defend Western Europe from the Soviet Union?

And if you put aside the misery of South Vietnam's conquest by North Vietnam, in time Vietnam has moved toward us to resist China. So even that Vietnam War loss may be reversed in time, hopefully to the benefit of those we abandoned in the south.

The struggle for Islamic societies continues. But you can't just look at the Islamic world in 2001 and 2014 and ignore the time between as having nothing to do with the changes.

The terms of struggle have moved beyond autocracy or Islamist rule by mullahs. If this Long War is won, we can surely be called a father of what is born because of our military efforts at the beginning of the process mad our military power irrelevant to the struggle that moved to internal reforms that defeat the forces of jihad.

Become the Strong Horse

Instead of whining about the difficulty of finding acceptable rebels in Syria, we can create more non-Islamist rebels in Syria if we'd just start seriously arming and supporting them.

Moderate rebels continue to lose ground to the ISIL and al Qaeda types in Syria:

The Obama administration’s Syria strategy suffered a major setback Sunday after fighters linked to al-Qaeda routed U.S.-backed rebels from their main northern strongholds, capturing significant quantities of weaponry, triggering widespread defections and ending hopes that Washington will readily find Syrian partners in its war against the Islamic State.

Moderate rebels who had been armed and trained by the United States either surrendered or defected to the extremists as the Jabhat al-Nusra group, affiliated with al-Qaeda, swept through the towns and villages the moderates controlled in the northern province of Idlib, in what appeared to be a concerted push to vanquish the moderate Free Syrian Army, according to rebel commanders, activists and analysts.

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

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

While Britain stood alone with only their Commonwealth and empire with them, Churchill once said that if Hitler invaded Hell, that he'd at least make a positive mention of the Devil in Parliament. Do we really expect Syrian rebels to reject the Islamists when they are the only ones who seem to have a chance of defeating Assad? Losing the rebellion means that Assad's goons will hunt them down long after the rebellion is defeated.

Pound the jihadis in Syria and support the non-jihadi rebels enough to make them look like the strong horse, and the jihadi ranks will shrink as the jihadis-of-the-moment defect from the jihadis.

We are not--or should not be--hand-wringing observers in this issue.

Policy Versus Ratings Versus Ideology

This otherwise fine talk on Russia and Ukraine was marred by a pointless attack on Fox News.



The pointless attack by Professor Snyder was in saying that Russia Today does in postmodern relativism what Fox News does--only much better.

It is pointless because it is wrong on a number of practical levels despite having a good measure of narrow truth.

Sure, he has a certain point that the Fox News opinion shows use a variety of competing opinions to argue with each other in an attempt at postmodern tactics to deny there is an objective truth and so the conservative truth is as valid as you like.

Fox does have lots of arguing talking heads. They do. So do other stations. PBS does it (The McLaughlin Group, anyone?):



60 Minutes did it enough to make it an SNL skit! With this ultimate retort:



That's the news, and goodnight.

So you have to admit that our news stations in general do it rather than portraying Fox as uniquely doing it. In a narrow sense, given Fox ratings success, you actually can say that Fox is very good at this genre compared to their cable competition.

Further, you have to disregard that to the extent that Fox has more of this competing talking heads format, it is because other stations spend more of their time on a single point of view format--the liberal side of the argument. Sometimes that one-sided format is just opinion, but often it tries to call itself the objective truth. Why is that better than what Fox does in its opinion format?

Indeed, I tend not to watch the Fox opinion shows and when I do it is more for news-focused entertainment and not for news consumption. I don't watch the other stations' opinion shows because their bias is not entertaining to me.

Further, to claim that other stations' news shows are standards of the pursuit of objective truth more than Fox is nonsense. I say this as someone who has consumed multiple stations and newspapers as a news junkie all my life. As I've noted before, over the years I tuned out the partisan news stations of CBS, ABC, NBC in the 1980s, and then CNN and even MSNBC (yes, I watched it) in 2004 as the leftward bias during wartime became too annoying to put up with. I've recently resumed watching CNN news as the Iraq War-levels of idiocy and bias fade into history.

But even conceding the narrow point that Fox uses what can be called a postmodern type of argumentative style in its opinion shows (but it isn't uniquely Fox), it is a mistake to equate it with the state propaganda arm that Russia Today is.

Fox News is attempting to get better ratings. Russia Today and related media in Russia are trying to support an aggressive Russian foreign policy that justified conquering portions of a sovereign state (Ukraine) by portraying Russia as the victim of foreign plots.

That's too big of a difference to justify taking a cheap shot at Fox News. It was completely unnecessary.

But that annoying quibble aside, the talk itself is worth your time.

Big Fish in a Small Pond

Assad has survived in a battered realm by shrinking his area of control dramatically. Winning Syria is another matter altogether.

Syria, as defined by what Assad controls, is much smaller than it was three years ago:

Government-controlled Syria is truncated in size, battered and impoverished. But it carries on, underscoring how Syrian President Bashar Assad's government has clung to power, despite an armed rebellion to uproot him, now well into its fourth year. ...

After years of brutal back and forth, the government rules over Damascus and a sweep of territory west to the Mediterranean coastal region that includes Syria's biggest cities, along with some parts south of the capital. Rebels hold some suburbs in the countryside around Damascus and parts of the northwest. The extremist Islamic State group has imposed its rule over territory encompassing a third of both Syria and neighboring Iraq.

In January 2012, I wrote that Assad had too few troops to hold Syria and had to shrink down to a core Syria to survive.

Yet Assad, given the enormous casualties his forces have endured to achieve this limited and tenuous hold, is still losing this war.

I don't see how Assad gets a whole new war to recover given his problems.

Unless we remain stupid.

So call it 50-50 for Assad.

And the jihadis rather than better rebels have the bulk of the remaining chance of victory because of our idiocy.

Hope Amidst the Ruins

The idea that overthrowing Saddam just threw Iraq into Iran's hands ignores that Iran's proxies don't represent Shias generally. Iran's successes have been enabled by our refusal to support the anti-Iran factions of Iraq to resist Iranian pressure.

This warning to new Iraqi militias is good to hear:

Iraq's leading Shiite cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, on Friday urged those fighting the Islamic State jihadist group to protect civilians in Sunni battlezones.

The aging Sistani has long been a force for healing and resisting Iranian influence. So this is good.

And it should be a lesson that it is not futile to help Iraq succeed as a democracy. There are forces in Iraq resisting sectarian division and violence. How much stronger would they be if we had remained in Iraq after 2011 and helped to nurture them?

But to the extent that the newly absorbed militias look to Iran for guidance, this urging will have a limited effect.

As we revive Iraq's ground forces with our re-intervention in Iraq, we should push Iraq to disband the problematic militias or push them to security in Shia areas where they can do less harm to efforts to re-Awaken Iraq's Sunni Arabs against the jihadis.

If we would resist Iran even as we fight ISIL in Iraq, we'd be better off. And Iraq would be better off, too.

UPDATE: Strategypage discusses the Iraqi militia issue and recent history:

When ISIL (Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant) suddenly became a major threat last June, by capturing Mosul and much of northwestern Iraq, the Shia dominated government did what they always said they would not do and allowed the Shia militias to reform, or at least be public about the fact that many never completely disbanded. Some of these Shia militia have since been accused of going back to their use of death squads against Sunni civilians. There has been some of that, but not as much as in 2006-8. That round of sectarian murders was only ended by the forcible disbanding of the Shia militias.

And luckily for Iraq, ISIL continues to be far more brutal to Sunni Arabs than the Shia militias have been so far:

Islamic State militants have killed 322 members of an Iraqi tribe in western Anbar province, including dozens of women and children whose bodies were dumped in a well, the government said in the first official confirmation of the scale of the massacre.

The systematic killings, which one tribal leader said were continuing on Sunday, marked some of the worst bloodshed in Iraq since the Sunni militants swept through the north in June with the aim of establishing medieval caliphate there and in Syria.

We continue to face enemies with comic book levels of obvious evil. Why we can't unite against these monsters rather than make excuses for them is beyond me.

Uh Oh, the Russians are Coming

Is the part of eastern Ukraine--plus whatever can be grabbed around Donetsk in the next week or so--held by Russian forces about to join Crimea as new Russian territory?

This sounds ominous given the voting today by Russia's hand puppets in Ukraine's east:

"There is intensive deployment of military equipment and personnel of the enemy from the territory of the Russian Federation onto territory temporarily controlled by insurgents," Ukrainian military spokesman Andriy Lysenko told a briefing in Kiev.

Perhaps recent Russian military activity around their periphery was not just a spasm of paranoid stupidity, but was meant as a warning to neighbors to back off and foreshadowed this pre-H Hour act of Russian aggression in Ukraine's east.

UPDATE: The vote is in!

Pro-Russian rebels elected a separatist leadership in eastern Ukraine on Sunday in a vote President Petro Poroshenko called "a farce".

Russia, but not America or the EU, recognize the vote.

But with Russian troops moving into the region, that recognition is likely to be the decisive one.

UPDATE: Ukraine is preparing the unwelcome wagon:

Ukraine's President Petro Poroshenko has ordered army reinforcements to key southern and eastern cities in case of a new rebel offensive.

Mr Poroshenko said the units were to protect Mariupol, Berdyansk, Kharkiv and the north of Luhansk region.

Russia can surely deploy enough power to defeat Ukraine's military in the east.

But does Russia want to pay the price in dead Russian soldiers, further bad relations with the West, and more worries by former Soviet states that they are some place on Putin's list?

UPDATE: The Russians are still coming:

Russia's Foreign Ministry announced Monday that it will "respect the will" of separatist voters in eastern Ukraine who elected leaders for their proclaimed independent republics in defiance of international warnings that their actions were illegal..

Moscow's swift show of support for the separatists it is accused of arming and instigating drew new warnings from Germany and other European Union states that further sanctions may be imposed on Russia if the 7-month-old war with Ukrainian government forces intensifies.

As long as the will of those in charge of the Russian-controlled east is the same as Putin's, Russia will no doubt respect their permitted expression of will.

I think it is really past time we voted Putin off of the island.

UPDATE: The Russians will be coming as soon as their pretext is made, so Putin's hand puppets claim Ukraine is violating the ceasefire that the secessionists have never obeyed.

Our Syria Problem is Our Objective and Command and Control

I'm generally on board with our strategy against ISIL. My main concerns are whether we have the will to keep going long enough to win, and whether the end point also envisions defeating Syria's Assad.

I'm on board--broadly speaking--with our strategy against ISIL in Iraq and Syria that makes Iraq the main front, since I largely outlined what I'd do before it became clear what we are planning to do.

The Assad part remains heavily in doubt since the later defeat of ISIL in Syria could leave Assad in power. And our approach to using rebels in Syria to fight ISIL is kind of a mess that could fall apart without having a focus on defeating Assad, too:

Pentagon chief Chuck Hagel has castigated the US strategy in Syria in a memo to the White House, saying Washington must explain its intentions toward President Bashar al-Assad's regime. ...

Hagel warned that the Syria policy was "in danger of unraveling" due to confusion over the US stance toward Assad, the paper wrote.

Secretary of Defense Hagel seems to be evolving since his role as gutter of the Pentagon has been sidelined by actual wars that can't be "ended" via presidential speech.

His memo needs an answer under the circumstances:

The United States does not expect Syrian rebels it plans to train to fight Islamic State militants to also take on President Bashar al-Assad's forces, but sees them as a crucial part of a political solution to end the war, the Asharq al-Awsat newspaper quoted a senior U.S. official as saying.

Asking Syrian rebels to die for a negotiated settlement with Assad is folly. If we don't back rebel efforts to defeat Assad, there may be no acceptable rebels left by the time we get to the Syria part of our ISIL problem.

I've been confused about our assumption that we could get Syrian rebels to die for a deal with Assad, even before the ISIL explosion in northern Iraq:

I find it astounding that we think we can calibrate this military support to pressure Assad rather than to defeat Assad.

The rebels will take the support we give them, but they surely aren't willing to die for a power-sharing agreement in Geneva. They want to win.

And then there's the way we are waging the war:

Top military leaders in the Pentagon and in the field are growing increasingly frustrated by the tight constraints the White House has placed on the plans to fight ISIS and train a new Syrian rebel army.

As the American-led battle against ISIS stretches into its fourth month, the generals and Pentagon officials leading the air campaign and preparing to train Syrian rebels are working under strict White House orders to keep the war contained within policy limits. The National Security Council has given precise instructions on which rebels can be engaged, who can be trained, and what exactly those fighters will do when they return to Syria. Most of the rebels to be trained by the U.S. will never be sent to fight against ISIS.

Making matters worse, military officers and civilian Pentagon leaders tell The Daily Beast, is the ISIS war’s decision-making process, run by National Security Advisor Susan Rice. It’s been manic and obsessed with the tiniest of details.

Aside from the confusion of where Assad fits in and the folly of trying to be squad leaders on the West Wing of the White House, ponder the difference between the fight in Afghanistan under President Obama and this fight against ISIL.

In the former, the president couldn't seem to care less despite his campaign pledge to focus on the "real" war, as he escalated our presence and then turned to domestic issues content to have appeared to do something to win the war.

But now, when this is his war, he apparently believes he--or his close delegates--is also the best strategist, tactician, and forward observer in his administration.

The notion that Assad is someone we can do business with is an old notion that dies hard. Perhaps harder than Assad himself, unfortunately.

The words are there from the White House spokesman:

"The policy that we have for Assad is really clear: We believe that he's lost the legitimacy to lead," Earnest said in an interview on CNN.

But as the Pentagon concerns indicate, the actions are not there.

We need to be clear in words and actions that Assad is just another enemy in Syria who has to go--and we mean it.

And then let the Pentagon do what it does best--fight and win our nation's wars.

How Stupid are Men Assumed to Be?

I know, P.T. Barnum is said to have asserted that nobody went broke under-estimating the intelligence of the consumer, but am I to believe that a constellation of women all named Adriana are hot for me?

Because that's what my spam folder tells me.

There's Adriana Deane. She just called me "hun." Like I'll respond to anything that sedate. Or insulting? Am I really some hulking barbarian?

And Adriana Booker (3 times!) In aggregate, she's a sexy slave who wants to party with me. She's really hot for me!

And Adriana Logan. She just said "its me!" Grammar counts, hon.

And Adriana Carter. She has new red panties, she said. Along with an interesting misspelling in her invitation.

And Adriana Jones. She just wants me to call. She should take hints from the Carter version.

And Adriana Gerber. Just "Hi".

All in the last week, or so.

All are 21, with blue eyes, blonde hair, and 5'6" tall.

And all apparently really horny for me.

No doubt. Women thirty plus years my junior routinely fall for me. It's a curse, really.

What I really object to is the sheer laziness of  changing only the subject header and last name in an effort to get me to respond.

Of course, perhaps I'm missing out ...



Of course, if I start getting emails from "Stella," I'm totally hosed.

About That Rule of Law You Want

Ukraine needs to greatly reduce corruption to join the West (well, that and a military strong enough to deter Russian conquest). The irregulars who fought Putin's legions in eastern Ukraine are a little confused about the whole rule of law thing.

If you want to move Ukraine to the West and get rid of corruption, you have to promote rule of law rather than threaten it.

This is not rule of law:

Vitaliy Feshchenko, one of thousands of Ukrainian volunteers fighting pro-Russian rebels, has this message for government leaders back in the capital Kiev: his battle-hardened men might come for them next.

The bearded fighter's warning illustrates the lack of trust Ukraine's young revolutionaries have in President Petro Poroshenko and other politicians promising to drag their country from a corrupt, post-Soviet past into a European future. ...

A peaceful, pro-democracy protest in 2004 on Kiev's Maidan Square toppled Russian-backed president Viktor Yanukovych, but led only to bitter disappointment and Yanukovych's return. So this February, huge crowds once more braved the cold and riot police on Maidan to topple the government and demand reform -- and now their greatest fear is being let down yet again.

Democracy is not a big vote, a party, and iPads for everyone! And "reform" doesn't consist of a system where outside coup leaders set deadlines.

It's a process that allows--over time--the will of the people to be translated into government policy. Winners operate within rules that all agreed to, and losers know that they will continue to have the freedom to make their case to voters that their path is better.

So this "coup" talk by those who fought against Russian domination of Ukraine is just a version of Putin's Russia.

And if the game in Ukraine is a game of thrones among autocrats, Russia can play that game better than anyone.

We need people in Ukraine to help Ukraine understand what democracy means in practice and get these hot heads to focus their ire on creating rule of law and working within that democratic system.

When Customer Service Matters

European submarine builders seem put off by Australia's obvious preference for some version of Japan's Soryu-class boats. Please see Taiwan for an explanation.

Australia is looking to Japan to replace their Collins boats that seem to spend more time in port than on patrol:

European companies lobbying to build Australia's next generation of conventionally powered submarines are facing a complex situation that may lack clarity but is awash with speculation.

At stake is a multibillion dollar contract under Project Sea 1000 to construct a yet-to-be determined design and unknown number of replacements for the Royal Australian Navy's (RAN's) six 3,400-tonne Collins-class boats amid what is understood to be a politically driven preference for a Japanese solution. ...

Although Australian officials are adamant the government is still considering its options, informed sources say Abbott is pressing for an early decision on the Soryu class, driven by his close relationship with Abe and a desire to deepen strategic and trade relations with Tokyo.

There is some worry about having a foreign power in control of their submarines rather than building their own.

But Australia first needs the actual submarines--which the home-built Collins do not provide.

If Australia is going to buy foreign subs, the Europeans should be ruled out completely because if Australia is going to put a foreign power in control of their submarine supply, Europeans are the last place Australia should go.

Just look at Taiwan's submarine saga. Taiwan has finally given up on going through America to get a sub and will build their own. We don't build conventional subs and Chinese pressure on European suppliers has led Europe to basically cut Taiwan off from major weapons systems.

Why would Australia buy from a place that has proven it will cave to Chinese pressure? Better to go with Japan which is high on China's hate list already and willing to work with Australia to block China.

Here's related news on this front:

India will soon be supplying naval vessels to Vietnam, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said on Tuesday, the first significant military transfer to Hanoi at a time when it is embroiled in a territorial dispute with China.

Buy from people your potential enemies hate as much as you so they don't roll your supplier in the future.

And while I'm at it, Taiwan should look at Australia's record of building their own subs to avoid as many problems as possible in their own plans.