No Big Sudden Movements

Like coaxing a reluctant squirrel to take the yummy cracker from our hand, perhaps we should encourage our president for that first tentative step he took at a recent prayer breakfast toward condemning Islamist jihadi ideology.

Our president said:

“Humanity has been grappling with these questions throughout human history,” he told the group, speaking of the tension between the compassionate and murderous acts religion can inspire. “And lest we get on our high horse and think this is unique to some other place, remember that during the Crusades and the Inquisition, people committed terrible deeds in the name of Christ. In our home country, slavery and Jim Crow all too often was justified in the name of Christ.”

Got it. Who are we to judge savages committing atrocities right now when in our distant and far distant past, "we" did similar things?

This is progress! (Boy, I sure am a glass half-full kind of guy.) Sure, President Obama isn't all hot and heavy about fighting Islamists. But still! Why condemn the president for taking a small but real step?



He did condemn slavery in America. Which we ended 150 years ago.

And what do you know? ISIL practices slavery today!

ISIS has stepped up the use of children in its bloody campaign of terror, the United Nations says -- subjecting them to horrors that include putting price tags on them to sell as slaves.

It has to be safe to hate them for slavery!

He condemns the Crusades as religious conquest. Those kingdoms in the Levant where destroyed 700 years ago.

And what do you know? ISIL has created a caliphate in Iraq and the Levant!

And if we want to bicker and argue over who killed who, let's recall more than just that geographically limited counter-attack.

It has to be safe to condemn religious conquest--even if you have to ignore the original Islamic conquest of the Holy Land well before the Crusades took the land back.

And the president condemned Jim Crow laws which placed some people in legally sanctioned second-class status. It's been fifty years since they've been overturned.

And what do you know, Islam itself--let alone the jihadi nutballs--once had exactly that for non-Moslems!

Sure, many centuries ago this was relatively enlightened for the treatment of religious minorities. But right now ISIL is trying to revive it in their caliphate

It has to be safe to condemn Islamist discrimination against non-Moslems, right?

The president also condemned the West for persecuting non-Christian minorities in the Inquisition. Which faded away many centuries ago.

And what do you know? The jihadis are killing people for being different right now:

Since Yazidis are not a “people of the book,” “they [are] not protected in Islamic law,” Kreyenbroek pointed out. And “they [are] thought to be devil worshipers—and there is nothing as horrible and unclean as devil worshipers.”

This is why ISIS is so intent on eliminating the group—and why the international community is so concerned about a genocide against them[.]

Happening right now, folks. Okay to condemn modern jihadis for this. Right?

And for real yucks, Church intervention in rampant government heresy trials actually saved many lives!

How are you enjoying your nuance, now?

Really, after the president condemns things Christians have not done in many decades or centuries, surely it shouldn't take too much effort to coax him into fighting modern Islamist jihadis for doing the same thing now?

So our president doesn't to everything about our enemies. In only 6 years he's made tremendous progress, no?

But he's going to be just fine.

Mediterranean Base?

Is Russia about to get naval and air bases on Cyprus?

Cypriot president Nicos Anastasiades announced that the country is ready to host Russian aviation and naval bases. The official agreement on military cooperation between the two nations is expected be signed on February 25, 2015, according to Lenta.ru .

"There is an old [defense] agreement, which should be renewed as is. At the same time, some additional services will be provided in the same way as we do with other countries, such as, for example, with France and Germany," Nicos Anastasiades said. "Cyprus and Russia have traditionally had good relations, and this is not subject to change."

Recently, I noted that Greece might want to play the Russia card and offer Crete bases to Russia.

But earlier, I wrote of Russia getting bases on Cyprus for cash, too.

Given close ties between Greece and the Greek part of Cyprus, could Greece be involved in this, to get some cash for not standing in the way yet avoid a break with NATO and the EU?

Or has Russia played Cyprus against Greece in order to drive a harder bargain to get bases in Cyprus?

Cyprus would be less of a slap against NATO than a big Greece flip. And cheaper, I assume.

It would also tend to worry the Turks which Russia would like in order to mute Turkish complaints about Russia's conquest of Crimea and Russia's treatment of Tatars in Crimea (Moslem and ethnic Turks).

But it wouldn't alarm the Turks as much as a Greek flip, which might perhaps push Turkey to restore closer relations with America or even Israel.

And what does this say about Russia's view of Assad? Russia has a bare-bones facility in Syria that could be upgraded to base status if Assad can emerge from this war in a secure position.

Does Putin have a more pessimistic view of using that potential base at Tartus?

Is Russia's view that Assad cannot provide a secure environment or that it would be too provocative to Sunni Arab states after all the Russian-aided slaughter by non-Sunni Assad inside Syria for Russia to have a real base in Syria?

I don't know how credible the report is. But it certainly isn't something so outlandish that it couldn't possibly be true.

Not that a Russian squadron based in Cyprus would have anything other than a short but exciting life if it came to a war with NATO.

But Putin would surely love to stick it to NATO.

UPDATE: Perhaps the bidding war between Cyprus and Greece isn't over.

UPDATE: Greece speaks of a Plan B for financing:

Greek Defence Minister Panos Kammenos said that if Greece failed to get a new debt agreement with the euro zone, it could always look elsewhere for help. ...

"Plan B is to get funding from another source," he told Greek television show that ran in to early Tuesday. "It could the United States at best, it could be Russia, it could be China or other countries," he said.

Greece's defense minister is speaking on this issue?

PLAN B? I hadn't considered that. Given the power imbalance, maybe Russia's gets Cyprus and China gets Crete from Greece.

China did evacuate citizens from Libya back in 2011.

And China is building a new "Silk Road" across Asia to Europe.

Might they want an outpost at the far end?

Mind you, if I was a betting man, I'd say that Greece is just using Plan B threats to get leverage for a better European Union deal (Plan A).

But once the notions are planted, you never can tell where reality leads you.

UPDATE: This would also fit in with Russian ambitions to restore their position in the eastern Mediterranean Sea.

Force FPDA

Britain is prepared to send military force to the South China Sea in the case of threats to British interests:

The United Kingdom would be prepared to deploy military forces to the Asia-Pacific region should political and military tensions in the region cause a deterioration in the security situation, Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond said in Singapore on 30 January. ...

Hammond said that while the United Kingdom does not take a position on the underlying sovereignty disputes in the South and East China seas, it rejects a power-based order in Asia and that territorial disputes in the region should be resolved according to international rules.

The United Kingdom, he noted, has an important stake in Asian security given that GBP3 trillion (USD4.52 trillion) worth of trade passes through the South China Sea annually. As such, the UK remains committed to the regional multilateral security pacts known as the Five Powers Defence Arrangements (FPDA) alongside Australia, Malaysia, New Zealand, and Singapore. The FPDA, established in 1971, is still the only formal multilateral defence arrangement in South East Asia. ...

The FPDA was conceived with the intention of sending a firm message that any attack on Malaysia and Singapore would precipitate the involvement of Australia, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom in response.

Let's hope that the British don't have to borrow a French carrier to provide naval air support, eh?

I haven't been so comforted about security in the South China Sea since Force Z set sail.

This one is three letters better!

Look, I don't mean to be quite so flippant. I'm grateful that Britain would send help to Asia. Their military is shrinking to alarmingly low levels, but they are still quite good.

But let's not be confused that sending a thin red line around the world adds much heft to the balance of power out there. The Chinese could with some justification say that they'd respond to such a deployment by calling the police.

You Absolutely Know Kerry Will Fall for This

Iran is wasting no time to exploit the assessment that John Kerry is our worst secretary of state ever.

Check this Iranian gambit out:

Iran's foreign minister has warned the United States that failure to agree a nuclear deal would likely herald the political demise of pragmatist President Hassan Rouhani, Iranian officials said, raising the stakes as the decade-old stand-off nears its end-game.

Mohammad Javad Zarif pressed the concern with U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry at several meetings in recent weeks, according to three senior Iranian officials, who said Iran had also raised the issue with other Western powers. Zarif's warning has not been previously reported.

You know that Kerry will buy the notion that a deal that lets a so-called "moderate" be the one who paves the way for Iran to go nuclear rather than giving a "hardliner" the credit would be a diplomatic triumph.

Sigh. I'd say Iran has the real "smart" diplomacy here, but is it fair to judge them that highly when the degree of difficulty is so low?

I've said it before and I'll say it again: We know the outline of a nuclear deal. Iran will pretend not to have a nuclear weapon program; and we will pretend to believe them.

Have a super sparkly day.

UPDATE: And don't forget that whatever deal Kerry strikes to save Rouhani's job will have to be approved by the hard-line mullahs who want nukes:

As his foreign minister met counterparties in the talks at a conference in Munich, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said he "firmly" backed a fair nuclear deal.

"I would go along with any agreement that could be made. Of course, if it is not a bad deal. No agreement is better than an agreement which runs contrary to our nation's interests," Ayatollah Ali Khamenei told Iranian air force personnel, according to official news agencies.

Their definition of "fair" is the key, given that they say we have no right to hold them back.

This will work out just swell.

UPDATE: If we are to be saved from a bad deal with Iran, it may actually rest on the fact that Iran has so much contempt for us that they can't be bothered to try to deceive us:

Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei announced on Sunday that he now opposes the signing of a “political framework agreement” that would, according to the Obama administration, establish the basic terms of a nuclear deal with Tehran prior to the conclusion of detailed final agreement. By ruling out the framework, Khamenei is reversing a commitment made by his own negotiating team in November. ...

Khamenei’s about-face creates a problem both for President Barack Obama and for Senate Democrats who have reservations about Obama’s policy but remain hesitant to oppose a president from their own party.

For Obama, the conclusion of a framework agreement before the March 24 deadline was supposed to demonstrate that the nuclear talks were making real progress, not serve as a pretext for Iran to benefit from sanctions relief while stalling on the diplomatic front.

Once Iran goes nuclear, the agenda for what Iran will talk about will be very different.

Win Some, Lose Some, Kill Some, Change Some

The war against the "non-existential" threat from jihadis continues.

We're losing ground in Yemen:

Yemen's dominant Houthi movement dissolved parliament on Friday and said a new interim assembly and government would be formed, a move denounced by a main political faction as a coup. ...

But this was unlikely to be tolerated by Saudi Arabia and other Gulf Sunni Arab allies who eye the Shi'ite Houthis with suspicion for being close to their regional rival Iran.

These are the pro-Iran Shia flavor of jihadism.

In Nigeria, the jihadis at least suffered a setback:

The Nigerian military announced Friday that weapons stolen by Boko Haram fighters last month have been reclaimed, amid the biggest offensive against the Islamist group in its more than five-year history.

Nigeria, Cameroon, and Chad have led a massive counterinsurgency operation against Boko Haram this week. Meanwhile, militants have waged gruesome attacks on the Nigerian-Cameroonian border, killing 90 civilians and wounding 500. Militaries from the three countries have reportedly killed hundreds of Islamic fighters.

These are the Sunni flavor of jihadism.

And ISIL--another Sunni flavor of jihad that is our main terror enemy--has at least, hopefully, reached a high-water mark:

ISIL (Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant) was seemingly invincible and unstoppable in mid-2014. In July 2014 ISIL had recently taken control of Mosul (the largest city in northern Iraq) and was advancing on Baghdad, the Kurdish north and the capital of western Iraq (Anbar province). Similar gains were being made in Syria. All that has changed in the last few months. ISIL still holds the cities of Raqqa (the largest city in eastern Syria) and Mosul in Iraq. But both cities are increasingly rebellious and require a growing number of ISIL gunmen to maintain control. Now ISIL is in retreat in Iraq and Syria. Sunni tribes in Anbar and western Syria are in open revolt and subject to increasingly savage reprisals by ISIL gunmen (often foreigners, which makes the tribesmen angrier). Half the ISIL leadership has been killed by coalition (Arab, NATO and allied) warplanes since August 2014.

Although I'm not sure what to make of the statement that ISIL has as a result lost much of the territory that they gained since early 2014. Territory regained (so far) is just about at World War I Western Front levels:



While military force is absolutely necessary to contain the strains of jihadism--whether Iranian-led Shia form or the more diffuse al Qaeda-type Sunni type--away from our shores, it does remain true that Islam must control their backward-looking brethren who would turn back the clock and make us submit to them rather than join the modern world the West has built, and which can benefit anybody who embraces it (as those refugees from that world who come here and succeed demonstrate).

Objective: Mosul

The offensive to take Mosul is planned for the summer, it seems.

This article says that the march north will be with 2 divisions of Iraqis:

Under that plan, Gen. Austin said two Iraqi divisions are expected to lead the force that retakes Mosul this spring, forces that will go to U.S.-run training centers in the coming weeks to prepare for the offensive. Those forces will receive four to six weeks training by the U.S. to prepare for the fight in Mosul, according to military officials.

Remember, in addition to the training, we sent in advisors to assist three division headquarters and 9 brigade headquarters.

So the attack north from the Baghdad region will be with 2 divisions and 5 brigades, I think.

That leaves us with another division headquarters and 4 advised brigades for a thrust from the Kurdish region aimed at Mosul.

It is still unclear if we will be allowed to put forward observers with the advancing Iraqi and Kurdish units to make best use of our air power. Perhaps we'll use Canadians, other allies, CIA, and contractors so we won't officially have "boots on the ground." Ridiculous, I know.

And Iraqi forces we don't advise can follow to garrison and hold ground taken and support local anti-ISIL Sunni Arab militias.

We have to be careful with the pro-Iran Shia militias that are part of Iraq's ground forces. I'd try to burn them as shock troops and keep them away from garrison duties in Sunni Arab areas. We can't trust them or their master, Iran.

Interestingly enough, in a sign of confidence in the existing Iraqi army, we would rather use newly retrained Iraqi units for defense while we assist more experienced Iraqi units for the actual offensive:

Those forces won’t be directly involved in the attack on Mosul. Instead U.S. commanders are urging Iraqi leaders to use those newly trained units to take over defensive positions around Baghdad and elsewhere and send more battle-experienced units to Mosul.

There is no mention of a thrust into Anbar.

Since we have allies in Iraq like the Australians and British advising Iraqi units, too, I assume they will be part of an advance into Anbar where ISIL has been holding for more than a year, now.

And as I've long written about, we could sure use a Jordanian mechanized force (and special forces) advancing into Anbar from the west at the same time Iraqi forces advance into Anbar from the east.

While this article--which doesn't even bring up the option of Jordan using their conventional forces--says that Iraq doesn't trust Jordan with this job, that might be the best reason to use them to reassure Anbar Sunni Arabs that it is safe to rise up against ISIL.

Let's hope that ISIL patiently waits for the hammer to fall. But enemies are rarely that cooperative.

UPDATE: With talk of the Mosul operation centering around the summer, what does this statement mean?

John Allen, the US coordinator for the anti-IS coalition of Western and Arab countries, said Sunday that Iraqi troops would begin a major ground offensive against the jihadists "in the weeks ahead".

"When the Iraqi forces begin the ground campaign to take back Iraq, the coalition will provide major firepower associated with that," he told Jordan's official Petra news agency.

Does this mean an attack north perhaps to gain jumping off positions for the main Mosul operation later in the summer?

Or does it mean an attack into Anbar where Sunni Arab resistance to ISIL exists in order to rescue them? Sunni Arabs do seem to be in particular need of help to resist ISIL retribution.

And Iraqi garrisons still holding out in eastern Anbar could sure use help.

An attack into Anbar could also take advantage of Jordanian anger at ISIL over the burning to death of their captured pilot to pave the way for a US-backed Jordanian ground attack into western Anbar.

Such an attack would also help push ISIL away from positions close enough to Baghdad to stage suicide bombers into the capital region.

So if an Iraqi attack is coming in weeks, rather than months, I'll guess that an Anbar operation is the going to be the first operation.

UPDATE: On Tuesday, reports of "thousands" of Jordanian troops moving to the Iraq border to seal it against infiltration and as a show of force.

Yet the report says a "battalion" was sent. Which is hundreds of troops--not thousands.

Or, they are there to screen the movement of more substantial forces--perhaps thousands--that are moving up to launch what I've long wanted, a Jordanian mechanized drive into western Anbar in support of an Iraqi operation from the east.

UPDATE: I'm not sure what a "show of force" means to jihadis on a mission from God.

And I'm not sure if a small ground unit show of force for the benefit of their own people makes sense after a number of heavy air raids on ISIL in Syria.

Come to think of it, why would ISIL infiltrate Jordan from the Iraq-Jordan border rather than the Syria-Jordan border further west?

And since reports on television say that their is 100% zero chance of the Jordanians advancing into Iraq and that Allen mis-spoke, I naturally expect an offensive into Anbar from west and east.

But I'm suspicious that way.

When the Herd Turns

While it is kind of annoying that the media and liberals are trying to portray anti-vaccine sentiment (contrary to the science and record) as a conservative thing when you could just note the location of Whole Foods Market to map lower-vaccination areas, it gives me hope.

Really, it's come to this. And those vaccine deniers can't even count on their "natural" remedies, it seems.

Perhaps there will be a tipping point on global warming when the left heads for the exits and tries to pin that hysteria on the right, too.

I really am the optimistic sort, aren't I?

50 Shades of Naivete

Let me enjoy the moment of Susan Rice, national security advisor to our very liberal president, describing the Cold War as a struggle against a foe that posed an "existential threat" to America:

“Too often, what's missing here in Washington is a sense of perspective. Yes, there is a lot going on. Still, while the dangers we face may be more numerous and varied, they are not of the existential nature we confronted during World War II or during the Cold War,” Rice said.

Because during the Cold War, our liberal brethren were more, ah, sympathetic, to our communist Soviet foe that Rice now says was an existential threat.

Rather than being a black and white struggle between good and evil, they saw grey areas of complexity in that struggle.

Some thought we'd lose to their "superior" vision.

Others figured we were no better or worse.

Others said our systems would "converge" (well, after the last 6 years, they may have had a point) .

But few on the left--only those who finally recognized the evil nature of communism--really believed the Soviet Union was a foe and saw them as an existential threat. They became the dread--from the liberal point of view--"neo-cons" (new conservatives).

Funny, Rice doesn't look Neoconish.

This is just one more case of liberals not wanting to face our current threats by pointing to another threat that conveniently doesn't require them to do anything other than what they already want to do (the real threat is climate change!) or by pretending that they supported a war already won (the Cold War!), which proves that they would vigorously oppose an enemy if it was only real or imminent enough.

Hah! Our Left is always looking for Mr. Good War:

Yes indeed, for much of the anti-war side, the war we are in is never as good as the last war we fought or the potential war against the "real" threat we aren't fighting. And that is always true, even of the last war or the next war against the now-potential threat.

Rice's statement that downplays current threats--thus justifying inaction strategic patience is just the formalization of the Obama administration's then-emerging Karma Doctrine (quoting Jonah Goldberg):

When the president tells Putin that he’s on the wrong side of history, the upshot is: “You’re winning right now and there’s nothing I can (or am willing to) do to change that fact. But you know what? In the future, people will say you were wrong.”

The phrase is utterly lacking in feck because it outsources the bulk of the punishment to an abstract future rather than the concrete here and now. But the fecklessness goes deeper than that because people like Putin and Assad either completely disagree about what the future holds or they think they can change it. And the people who try to bend the future to their benefit tend to be the sorts of people who believe they can.

As I commented:

The fact is, the administration knows that relying on the fullness of time to solve international problems at best consigns people to live under tyranny for generations longer than they might otherwise. The administration just likes an excuse for not trying to bend history to our advantage.

This recalls President Carter's claim that we suffered from an "inordinate fear of communism" (I guess he didn't get the Rice memo that the USSR was an existential threat) by vigorously opposing the Soviet Union.

Yes, he said that in the context of expressing a confidence that we'd ultimately win. But this doesn't excuse his statement as really being strong if we get the lighting right and squint.

It was a statement that we really didn't have to do anything now to win. In the fullness of time, the Soviet Union would get what they deserve without us resisting them.

It's the same thing now with this strategic patience nonsense. At least the USSR's invasion of Afghanistan was a cluebat that convinced President Carter to increase defense spending:

History teaches, perhaps, very few clear lessons. But surely one such lesson learned by the world at great cost is that aggression, unopposed, becomes a contagious disease.

Yes, it's come to this. I'm quoting President Carter to complain about our current president. But our current administration seems immune to the clarifying impact of the cluebat.

(And in bonus territory, Carter claimed that our "inordinate" fear of communism led us to support dictators who would oppose the Soviet Union--which is basically the policy our left wants for the Arab world if they will oppose jihadis! Remember, many said Saddam was useful to "contain" Iran. But now that Saddam is gone, President Obama wants Iran to be our partner.)

I just don't trust the Obama administration to defend us. They find a potential partner and think that being tied up is a sign of love. But deep down, they just believe we deserve to be hurt.

Hey, our president did promise Putin more "flexibility" after 2012, after all.

Putin Will Talk Until His Forces Win

Given that Putin is already flouting the UN charter, the 1994 Budapest Memorandum, and even a more recent ceasefire plan, by invading Ukraine, in what alternate world do we think we must test Russia's commitment to a diplomatic solution to the Ukraine War?

This is just amazing:

The leaders of France and Germany flew out of Moscow in the dead of night after five hours of talks with Vladimir Putin on Friday, with little to announce to end fighting in Ukraine beyond a promise to keep talking. ...

Afterwards, Moscow and Berlin both described a commitment to work on a "possible joint document" on restoring a collapsed peace deal signed last September in Minsk, Belarus. The document would include ideas proposed by the leaders of France, Germany, Russia and Ukraine, who would all speak in a conference call on Sunday.

From Russia's point of view, this is perfect. Their offensive continues and Putin can continue talking until his forces take the ground he wants:

Pro-Russian separatists have intensified shelling of government forces on all front lines and appear to be amassing forces for new offensives on the key railway town of Debaltseve and the coastal city of Mariupol, Ukraine's military said on Saturday.

Five Ukrainian soldiers have been killed and 26 wounded in fighting in the past 24 hours, spokesman Volodymyr Polyovy told a briefing.

Separatist gains against Kiev government forces in eastern Ukraine, particularly a rebel advance on Debaltseve to the northeast of the regional center of Donetsk, have given impetus to a Franco-German initiative to try and strike an 11th hour deal with Russia to end the Ukrainian crisis.

Come on, people! A diplomatic deal isn't required to end the offensive--the end of a victorious offensive is required to get a deal that ratifies Ukraine's defeat and Russia's victory.

Yet Western leaders continue with their delusion that this time Lucy won't snatch the football away Putin will settle the dispute short of battlefield victory and "restore" the September Minsk ceasefire!

Why not restore the Budapest Memorandum, by which the Russians pledged to defend Ukraine's territorial integrity and sovereignty in exchange for Ukraine giving up nuclear weapons?

Why not restore the UN charter that prohibits war of aggression?

Yet despite Russia's continuing aggression, we still refrain from helping Ukraine defend itself:

The top NATO commander warned Thursday that any move to provide Ukraine with lethal defensive weapons must take into account any possible angry reaction from Russia.

U.S. Air Force Gen. Philip Breedlove said that any action the U.S. or other Western nations take "could trigger a more strident reaction from Russia."

Russia could get more strident? What are we worried about? That they'll invade a country?

Look, I wouldn't go to war over Ukraine. They aren't a member of NATO or a formal ally. We should not--as a general rule--grant the benefits of alliance with us without requiring the membership dues, eh?

But we can and should provide Ukraine with the means to fight for their sovereignty and territorial integrity as we promised in 1994.

Yet forget the nonsense that military assistance is pointless:

"The problem is that I can't envision any situation in which a better-equipped Ukraine military would convince President Putin that he could lose militarily," Merkel added.

The problem is that Putin is able to carry out aggression at a price he is willing to pay. If we increase Ukraine's ability to fight, we may increase the price Putin must pay to win the war beyond the ceiling he is able to pay.

That is the logic of Western sanctions, after all. Not that we can crush Russia's economy but that we can increase the level of pain enough to stop him. The same goes for the actual war.

I grant that we must be careful not to escalate this into a NATO-Russia war. But at some point, given that Russia is the aggressor, shouldn't they be the ones who worry about triggering a more strident reaction from us?

Shouldn't Breedlove have said:

Oh, I am heartily tired of hearing about what Putin is going to do. Some of you always seem to think he is suddenly going to turn a double somersault, and land in our rear and on both of our flanks at the same time. Go back to your command, and try to think what we are going to do ourselves, instead of what Putin is going to do.

We're the side trying to uphold international law and denuclearization here, after all. Why should we be the more cautious side?

Putin's interest in diplomacy is narrowly focused on achieving and confirming his conquests. Why do we play that game?

UPDATE: Russian troops are dying and being captured inside Ukraine:

Ukraine President Petro Poroshenko Saturday brandished in front of world leaders several passports taken from Russian soldiers in what he said was proof of Moscow's "presence" in his country.

Yet this isn't called an invasion? Shouldn't we be forcing Russia to repeatedly veto UN Security Council resolutions branding them as the aggressor?

And for those searching for rational actor models of Russian actions, check out what passes for rational to Russians:

Westerners in Russia, especially those who speak and read Russian, report that state controlled Russian media has seemingly reverted to stories and attitudes right out of the Cold War. It is, in short, unreal but actually happening. Russian media is full of stories of NATO aggression against Russia and anything that is going wrong in Russia is blamed on a NATO conspiracy to destroy Russia. The Russian aggression in Ukraine is described as largely a fable created by a NATO conspiracy to take over the Ukrainian government and institute a terror campaign against the ethnic Russian minority in Ukraine, especially eastern Ukraine. There, the Russian media described ethnic Russians leading a rebellion against this NATO puppet government running Ukraine and NATO soldiers pretending to be Ukrainians doing most of the fighting. No captured NATO agents are presented which Russian media describes as proof of how clever and dangerous this NATO aggression is.

Our information warfare really needs to highlight the Russian troops dying in Ukraine so Russians will have to confront the widening gap between what their government tells them and what is happening.

Let the Panic Renew?

It's time to face the truth, 2014 was the warmest year on record had a 38% chance of being the warmest year since 1880.

The record goes back to 1880, you see.

But since we've been emerging from a little ice age since around 1850, the fact that our planet is warming should not be a shock.

What should be a shock is that despite the general warming trend and despite--since around 1950--humanity's contribution to warming the planet through use of fossil fuels, that there was a span of a few decades from the 1940s to the 1970s when temperatures declined (leading scientists to warn of a new ice age--I remember very clearly learning that in science class in middle school) and that we are in a "pause" in temperature increases that has lasted so long that my youngest child and perhaps my oldest child have never experienced a single day when the planet's temperature has been rising.

Oh, fluctuations there will be. But if man's impact is dominant on all the factors that shape our climate, why have other factors overwhelmed mankind's contributions to a warming planet twice in my lifetime? So much so that as old as I've gotten, I've only experienced a couple decades of warming of the globe.

But by all means, wreck our economy and control our lives just in case our role in the climate is the most important part.

Ah Yes, He Remembers it Well

Gosh, why would I mistrust the mainstream media?

Brian Williams said that over time he conflated an incident that happened to another helicopter crew to with his own uneventful helicopter ride.

I sympathize. Years ago (Who am I kidding? Decades ago) I used to think I was just a REMF signal corps guy. Over the years I began to confuse my past with others and started to claim I was a Delta Force operator who ate snakes and fought may way out of Mogadishu when the skinnies swarmed us.

Oh wait. I've never confused those two separate things.

Sadly, those layers of fact checkers weren't between Brian Williams and the public.

Instapundit notes this smug defense of his profession that doesn't actually defend his profession as much as it attacks the questioner and reveals his inability to see his own bias.

This was uploaded in June 2007. I don't know if this means the event was in that month. But by then we were seeing signs that the Awakening-enabled surge was working.

The question posed to Williams wasn't that the media was failing to paint a picture of a Vermont-like Iraq. The question was that by focusing on the daily violence and explosions, the media was falsely portraying a war we were losing.

But to be fair, their comrades in the government were doing the same thing.

We were winning the war despite the vicious nature of our enemies who killed civilians as a strategy and for their own glory.

And before the surge I judged we had overcome many enemies and could defeat the latest enemy surge of bloody violence.

But instead of answering that question, Williams gave a "my profession is dying out there (like he risked, which the helicopter faux incident proves!) to provide coverage" response. As if war supporters were arguing that Iraq was peaceful rather than that we were and could (and should) win the war.

Even if it is an earlier video of Williams and does not include ignoring the first impact of the surge, we did win that war, so the validity of the criticism in that question to Williams is obvious.

And the inability of Williams to even recognize there was a valid question makes it obvious why I don't trust these people to report accurately--especially on war issues.

Garbage In, Garbage Out

Yeah, well, life's a bitch:

China expressed concern about the possible deployment of an advanced US missile defense system in South Korea during talks Wednesday between their defense chiefs, Seoul military officials said.

Washington is considering whether to instal the politically sensitive THAAD (Terminal High-Altitude Area Defense) system in the South, a close US ally which hosts 29,000 American troops.

China lets their little pet attack dog go nuclear while seemingly enjoying the worry that it caused for America, South Korea, and Japan.

And when North Korea starts to develop nuclear weapons and we prepare to defend ourselves against that threat, suddenly the whole issue isn't so funny?

Hey! Missiles that protect South Korea and Japan from North Korean missiles can stop our missiles, too! No fair!

Perhaps China should have thought of this before North Korea started down this path. My sympathy for their concern is highly limited.

Let's Not Be So America-Centric

The notion that we need to put 100,000 coalition troops on the ground in Iraq and Syria to defeat ISIL is absurdly wrong and possibly only said to deter any effort to put our troops on the ground to support the Iraqis.

The statement is absurdly wrong because even if the idea that 100,000 troops are needed to defeat ISIL is accurate (and it could be low if you assume 8 million people under ISIL control and if you are looking at protecting the population of the area ISIL controls according to standard metrics of security forces at 2% of the population), why does that have to mean 100,000 American and/or other foreign troops?

Why doesn't that analyst count all the security forces?

The fact is, Iraq already has a lot of troops to reach that goal for at least the Iraq portion of the battlefield.

Mind you, as part of whatever total number of troops is needed to win, we need at least some of them to be a well-trained mobile force to provide the offensive core of that ground force.

We're training 60,000 Iraqis and Kurds in 12 brigades to add to the Iraqi special forces and whatever troops they still have that could carry out that role.

And I would like to see some allies contribute forces--I've mentioned Jordan, in particular, as I did in the link above.

But not all the needed troops need to be of the highest quality when many will just need to defend checkpoints.

Come on, people. Let's be grateful that we built a local ground force that we can support rather than have to put our own troops in as we did when Saddam was the enemy in Iraq .

Oh Please, We're On Plan B

This is kind of funny:

President Barack Obama's nominee to become the next U.S. defense secretary said on Wednesday that Russia needed to be reminded that a Cold War-era arms control agreement was a "two-way street" and that Washington could respond to any violations.

Please. Was he under oath?

Ashton Carter may be a fine man, but he does work for President Obama. Does anybody really believe we'd call out the Russians on violating arms control agreements and do anything about it?

President Obama received the Nobel Peace Prize in anticipation of his efforts to promote global nuclear disarmament. Is he going to pull a Reagan and put theater nukes into NATO Europe?

With the failure to really stand by Ukraine under the Budapest Memorandum that provided for Ukraine's nuclear disarmament in exchange for Russian, American, and British guarantees of Ukraine's territorial integrity and independence, what country that worries about either will believe it can preserve them with signed documents rather than nuclear weapons?

But no worries, President Obama still has two years to gut our own nuclear arsenal and at least promote American nuclear disarmament. Now that's a legacy to work for, eh?

Occupy Aisle 12

Occupy Wall Street policies inevitably lead to Occupy Main Street policies.

Oh those Venezuelans!

National guardsmen and state price adjusters fanned out across Venezuela Wednesday to impose a military-style occupation with an unusual goal: Making sure shoppers can buy enough sugar.

The South American country's socialist administration temporarily took over the Dia a Dia supermarket chain as part of a crackdown on the private businesses it blames for worsening shortages and long lines.

Yeah, what a shock these clowns screwed up an oil-rich economy.

Come on people, Venezuelan President Maduro suspects Vice President Joe Biden of plotting against him!

Will Putin Be the First President of the Grand Duchy of Moscow?

Remember, I've long written that Russian military power is not as great as they'd like us to believe. They can nuke an enemy and they can use special forces. But between those points of capability, Russia's military power is relatively weak (compared to us, but not to small neighbors).

So when you read that Russia is emphasizing nuclear weapons, this has long been their only response to a serious conventional threat:

At a time of heightened tension with the West, Russia has not been shy about reasserting its status as a nuclear power.

President Vladimir Putin pointedly noted last August that Russia was a leading nuclear power when he advised potential enemies: "It's best not to mess with us."

A report by the U.S. Congressional Research Service last year said Russia "seems to have increased its reliance on nuclear weapons in its national security concept".

The Red Army is long gone.

The fact that Russia is still trying to grab a small corner of Ukraine's east from a rag tag collection of outnumbered and outgunned Ukrainian defenders should demonstrate why Russia needs nukes to repel an invasion (more likely from China than NATO, despite Russian claims to the contrary).

So arming Ukraine to fill in their capability gaps and helping them put their existing stockpiles into working order is not futile.

Indeed, Putin could be risking a lot if he can't settle this war sooner rather than later:

Russia has fought from the beginning to remove the government in Kiev and prevent Ukraine from acceding to the European Union and NATO. For this purpose rebel control over one-third of the province of Donetsk, with millions of impoverished people and a dysfunctional economy, is clearly insufficient.

The timing of the surge in the fighting, however, in the middle of winter and after weeks of relative calm, is a reflection of a more general situation. The Putin regime needs an end to sanctions not because they are crippling in themselves but because in combination with the growing crisis of the economy and the unpredictable trajectory of the war, they could help lead to the destabilization of Russia.

I've never assumed that Russia was done fragmenting. They lost their eastern European empire. Then lost the non-Russian provinces of the USSR itself. What might Russia lose if the war Putin began to restore Russian glory and empire actually hastens further fragmentation?

Could Putin become the first president of the Grand Duchy of Moscow? 

That would solve that land border problem they have.

The problem for us is that we've escaped nuclear disaster through two fragmentations of the Soviet Union. Can we live through a Russian fragmentation without Putin ordering the use of nukes to maintain their territorial integrity?

Will they see NATO's hand in that fragmentation and turn an internal problem of their own making into what they see as an invasion that justifies use of nuclear weapons?

How rational is Putin? Even by Russian standards, let alone ours?

And are any of the people in his inner circle capable of preventing him from acting on such an irrational belief?

In President Obama's defense, I'll never say the choices and potential outcomes of the Russia-Ukraine War are easy to make or see. I just wish we had a better president to face those decision points.

How's that for making the Iran nuclear issue look like a minor problem?

UPDATE: Holy Hell:

A study from a Pentagon think tank theorizes that Russian President Vladimir Putin has Asperger's syndrome, "an autistic disorder which affects all of his decisions," according to the 2008 report obtained by USA TODAY.

Putin's "neurological development was significantly interrupted in infancy," wrote Brenda Connors, an expert in movement pattern analysis at the U.S. Naval War College in Newport, R.I. Studies of his movement, Connors wrote, reveal "that the Russian President carries a neurological abnormality."

Well that's just effing great. It's bad enough he's paranoid in the Russian tradition. Now this?

On the bright side, maybe everyone who wants to be a leader has neurological abnormalities.

Good grief, I said that might be the "bright" side.

Why I don't drink heavily, I have no idea.

Inside the Indecision Loop

Ukraine is getting hammered by Russia's invasion; a non-governmental group floats the idea of providing arms to Ukraine to resist that aggression; the Ukrainian government asks for weapons; and the Obama administration affirms its decision not to send arms to Ukraine.

Wow! Indecision at the speed of light. Who says this administration dithers?

But you see, that very first article shows the problem with the administration's decision-making loop:

Eastern Ukraine is in a "dire" security situation, and Russia is failing "miserably" in its seriousness to negotiate an end to the crisis, a senior U.S. State Department official said Thursday.

The official, who spoke to reporters on board U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry's plane en route to Kiev, also warned of a "grave acceleration of the fighting on the ground" in Ukraine.

I'm sorry, but I missed the part of the last year that provided even a hint that Russia had any seriousness about negotiating an end to the "crisis" that preserves Ukraine's territorial integrity and independence.

Was there a Marie Harf State Department press conference on that?

Russia has invaded Ukraine. This is a war. Only Russia's military weakness has prevented them from rapidly taking eastern Ukraine. But it is a war of conquest, even though Putin is using hand puppets to thinly disguise his aggression.

Perhaps if we had started out this whole decision loop with the right premise, the end decision would have been very different.

Or maybe not. They do seem highly resistant to reality in their bubble of hope, change, and "smart" diplomacy.

UPDATE: Oh, this is special. This indecision is being elevated to a doctrine:

A person who has seen the document, and described it to Foreign Policy on condition of anonymity, said the strategy document is meant to explain and defend Obama’s reluctance to use military might for crises that are unlikely to be solved quickly or easily. In the document, the administration summarizes its worldview as one of “strategic patience,” this person said.

By this doctrine, the failure to act in Syria and Ukraine is meant to avoid making things worse.

Already, we've seen Russia continue to attack Ukraine despite our decision to withhold lethal aid to Ukraine.

And in Syria, we've seen the rise of ISIL, chemical weapons use against civilians, the survival of Assad, spillover into Iraq, and 200,000 dead.

And this was on purpose, they say. A result of strategic patience rather than dithering or failing to make the right choice.

Remember, the White House defended not providing lethal aid to Syrian rebels because they didn't want to "militarize" the conflict (I believe that was Secretary of State Clinton's turn of phrase). So I sure hope that the administration isn't now arguing that the current situation in Syria is what they had in mind with their "strategic patience."

No doubt, sometimes doing nothing and waiting to see how things develop is the right course of action. We didn't jump into World War I or World War II right away.

But we did help our allies who were fighting. The Obama administration is conflating doing something--like arming those willing to fight--with direct American intervention,

Elevating this to our general policy is ridiculous. This administration doesn't seem to realize that deciding not to act is a decision with consequences as significant as any decision to do something.

After six years, we can't excuse nonsense as the result of being new to the job. This administration simply sucks. And they're quite experienced at it.

"Strategic patience," indeed.

The Country With the Second Longest Land Border Wants a Big Navy?

Strategypage writes that the Russian surface fleet is disappearing (certainly from the seas even if they exist dockside) as Russia focuses on submarines (including nuclear missile submarines).

This article argues that to say the Russian fleet is not going to collapse as yet another article argues, saying that Russia is building subs and small vessels for coastal defense now and will build new large warships in another decade:

Is the Russian Navy about to collapse? In a recent article on War is Boring, David Axe made this argument largely based on data from my recent articles on the Russian shipbuilding program and the Russian Navy’s priorities. While the information I provided is sound, Axe’s overall interpretation is not.

The Russian Navy is investing in a time-phased recapitalization of its navy over the next 20 years.

I've argued that Russia needs to emphasize nuclear ballistic missile subs and coastal defense (including defense of SSBN bastions) with larger show-the-flag ships a small portion of their limited defense dollars that are needed for protecting their large land border.

I can't get too worked up about Russian naval plans. Whatever Russia has or will have will likely have only local significance until Western air and naval resources can be directed to deal with them.

For me, the important thing is that the Soviet fleet collapsed. It's role was to isolate Western Europe from North America so that Russia's army and air force could defeat NATO. Absent that mission, what on Earth does Putin think a new navy would do?

If Russia wants to waste money on a blue water fleet, by all means have a go at that. Enjoy!

I mean, that Putin better not dare build a navy to challenge the West and Japan at sea!

Breaking the Phalanx

Greece is playing footsie with the Russians. It could be leverage for negotiating debt issues with the European Union. Or it might make a lot of sense.

Thank goodness our relations with the world and our traditional allies has been restored since 2009:

On Tuesday, Greece's defense minister and outspoken "Eurosceptic" Panos Kammenos announced that he was invited to Moscow to meet his Russian counterpart, Sergei Shoygu in the near future.

What's interesting here is that Greece is one of the 28 members of NATO , while Russia perceives NATO as its biggest threat .

Still, Russia appears to be courting Greece's defense minister. On Tuesday, Kammenos met with both the US and Russian ambassadors to Greece.

The article notes that late last year, a Syriza member of parliament called for Greece to leave NATO and their new prime minister has also expressed opposition to NATO membership.

So they aren't doing anything that surprising, really.

Germany may be trying to gain leverage, too, with this opening move:

Germany wants Greece's new left-wing government to go back on anti-austerity promises made in its first days in office and revert to economic policies its predecessors' agreed with international lenders, a document showed on Wednesday.

But with the Greeks already pre-pissed off at the Germans, will Syriza just shrug that off and look for common ground?

At some point, the Syriza-led government will notice that they could combine business with pleasure by exiting NATO, ditching their debts to the EU, sticking it to America and the Germans, gaining Russian money in exchange for letting Russia use NATO bases on Crete after kicking us out, and getting Russian military and diplomatic support from Russia against Turkey to exploit energy resources off of Cyprus for even more cash.

I mentioned the latter in this post from 2012 speculating about a Greek flip. Bonus: the link to the energy article there is still good!

And I still think Russia would like revenge for Egypt's big flip from the USSR to America during the Cold War, as well as a host of other hurts in their serious injury list since we won the Cold War.

So even if it doesn't make financial sense for Russia to make such a commitment, I bet the temptation to stick it to America and NATO (in their mind at least) will be too great to resist.

About That Nobel Peace Prize

I haven't brought this up recently, but it should be noted that as the anniversary of Russia's invasion of Ukraine is coming up at the end of this month, we should remember the damage President Obama's legacy has taken.

We are thinking about supplying more lethal arms to Ukraine as Russia's aggression shows no sign of abating despite an oil price drop and sanctions.

But remember that Russia invaded Ukraine despite the guarantees that Russia, America, and Britain gave to Ukraine in order to get Ukraine to give up their nuclear weapons inherited from the Soviet Union when that empire collapsed.

Without nuclear weapons, Ukraine relied on the 1994 Budapest Memorandum as well as the UN charter to protect their territorial integrity.

Remember, too, that President Obama received the Nobel Peace Prize early in his first term as a sign of confidence in his potential to further nuclear disarmament.

If Russia gets away with ripping apart Ukraine, who will want to give up their nuclear weapons (or nuclear weapons ambitions) in exchange for American guarantees that they don't need them?

Of course, if the hope is that America will engage in unilateral nuclear disarmament, that hope is still alive, I suppose.

The Russians Really are Coming

If Russia is so involved in Donbas, shouldn't we be showing more evidence of it?

Russia is fighting in Donbas, but I've figured they are using their regulars in heavy weapons and support while limiting their troops on the front to Spetsnaz as much as possible.

Yet Strategypage (in a post mostly about the Cossacks fighting in Donbas) writes that the local secessionists actually have lousy morale:

In eastern Ukraine (Donbas) most of the Russian backed rebels are actually disorganized, discouraged and not all that effective. Interrogations of captured rebels indicate that there are many different factions, some of them not even from Ukraine. ...

Russia, which sponsored and encouraged the rebels from the start soon found that the only way they could take territory was to send in Russian troops and heavy weapons (tanks, artillery, rocket launchers, missiles). The special operations units (Spetsnaz) were the best for this because these guys knew how to pretend (that they were Ukrainian rebels) and were very effective fighters. But there not enough of them available and regular Russian troops (which are mainly conscripts) had to be sent in as well, especially for support (transport and supply) functions. Soon it was Russian troops leading in any offensives with the local rebels and other volunteers (like the Cossacks and such from Russia) handling occupation of newly conquered territory.

Certainly, the recent secessionist leader boast that he'd mobilize 100,000 men to fight wasn't met with the cries of "huzzah" that you might expect from high-morale rebels:

While some met the call-to-arms -- which the pro-Russian rebels said was voluntary -- with jingoistic fervour, others who spoke to AFP dismissed the plan as fantastical or said they had no intention of signing up.

But if Russia has a more direct and expansive role than I expected that the territorial losses of Ukraine indicated to me, shouldn't we be seeing this evidence?

We need to do a better job of exposing Russia's involvement in order to give Ukraine the cover to fight back more effectively in a war against Russian invaders, don't we?

Perhaps that question answers itself, and the White House doesn't want Ukraine to do anything but quietly give up the fight and let this unpleasantness go away.

UPDATE: Seriously, the Russians are fully capable of trotting out evidence even if they are lying through their teeth (and how can you tell if they are lying? Their lips are moving). Shouldn't we be able to do a little better than this, considering Russia really is invading Ukraine?

UPDATE: This is better:

The U.S. ambassador to NATO said on Wednesday that Russian soldiers were present in eastern Ukraine in a command role and to operate advanced military equipment, but that another large-scale Russian intervention did not appear imminent.

And it seems to back my impression that no formed Russian infantry units are involved in this phase.

But it would be nice to have lots of images and intercepts to demonstrate what Russia is doing. Why don't we have daily press briefings showing what Russia is doing?

This is How an Iranian Partner is Expected to Act

This is all sorts of horrifying interesting:

The draft of an arrest warrant for Argentine President Cristina Fernández was found at the home of a prosecutor who was investigating the 1994 bombing of a Jewish center in Buenos Aires, the New York Times reported on Tuesday, citing the lead investigator.

The prosecutor, Alberto Nisman, died from a gunshot that was or was not a suicide (President Fernandez said Nisman was killed to discredit her) the day before he was to present findings on the bombing to their Congress regarding the president's role in shielding Iran from being fingered in that terror bombing.

Sadly, President Obama seems committed to a partner of equal commitment to Iran. I'm convinced that if we reach a deal, it will involve Iran pretending not to have a nuclear weapons program; and we'll pretend to believe them.

Have a super sparkly day.

UPDATE: Related?

Victory is the Best Retaliation

ISIL savages burned that Jordanian pilot alive. Perhaps Jordan will join the war against ISIL in a real way.

These are barbarians we are dealing with:

Islamic State militants released a video on Tuesday appearing to show a captured Jordanian pilot being burnt alive, and Jordan vowed to avenge his death with an "earth-shaking" response.

The Jordanians will execute several Islamist prisoners.

The best way for Jordan to execute an earth-shattering response would be to do what I've wanted them to do from the start of the mid-summer ISIL crisis: provide the mechanized force to strike into Anbar from the west in coordination with an Iraqi offensive from the east into Anbar.

And I don't want to hear one more Goddamn word about Guantanamo Bay.

The Hope and Change Make It Better!

We're bombing ISIL in Syria because we want to kill jihadis. Nobody here on the left seems to complain too loudly about that, even though it effectively helps a bloody dictator, Assad.

Yet during the Bush 43 administration when Assad was funneling jihadis into Iraq to kill American troops, Coalition troops, Iraqi forces, and Iraqi civilians, our left side of the aisle was apoplectic at even the thought of bombing jihadis inside Syria.

Syria protested such a notion back then. Now they want a formal deal for the same thing.

Life is funny.

UPDATE: The hope and change make it okay to arm odious thug states, too!

Gosh, it feels so good to restore our reputation abroad!

All the Cool Jihadis Want a Caliphate

Boko Haram is trying to keep up with the al Joneses of ISIL.

On the heels of previous successes, Boko Haram is trying to take a Nigerian state capital:

Boko Haram fighters on Sunday launched a fresh attempt to take over the strategically crucial northeastern Nigerian city of Maiduguri, a brazen attack on a state capital just two weeks before national elections.

Take that and Bokko Haram has their own caliphate capital.

So far, Nigerian forces are holding. But just being in the position of defending a state capital from Boko Haram capture is a defeat for Nigeria.

This is what happens when you fail to atomize your insurgent/terrorist enemy and they are able to mass forces.

And the city--swelled to 2 million people with refugees from earlier losses to Boko Haram--must be held just to avoid a humanitarian disaster.

If Boko Haram has the reputation of being the "strong horse" there, how much more will Nigeria lose in the north?

Bad Partner

While I think our strategy for dealing with ISIL in Iraq is basically sound--if our enemy gives us the time to set up the killing blow--Iran could yet undermine any battlefield victory we achieve. It's well past time the Obama administration recognized that Iran is no partner.

The massacre of Sunni Arabs by Shia militias at Diyala is what we can expect Iran to encourage in order to alienate the Sunni Arabs of Iraq and the wider Arab world from Iraq's Shia-dominated government.

Indeed, even before our surge offensive, I worried that the pro-Iran Shias were the biggest long-term problem we had to face in Iraq. Iran was (and is) an enemy that wants to win in Iraq.

And giving Iraq the security to reject Iranian influence was a main reason I wanted to keep 25,000 US troops in Iraq after 2011.

Remember that Saudi Arabia only recently decided to open an embassy in Iraq. This reflects the bias of the Sunni Arab world against Shias and their suspicion that Iraq's rulers are more Shia than Arab. So just a little bit of killing can alienate the Sunni Arab world and make Iran the only alternative Iraq has for local allies. We must resist that.

But how can we wage this war when our president sees Iran as a potential partner (on nuclear issues, of all things!) rather than the enemy it is?

Indeed, how can our president defeat enemies when he doesn't seem to really believe we are a nation at war?

As I have from the beginning, I will support our president to win our wars. Yet even after 6 years of being the president while our troops are at war, our president is still not a war president.

For Iraq, our diplomacy should focus on making Iraq expel Iranian advisors and tame those militias to make them true self defense forces and not Iran's proto-Hezbollah.

If we can't do that, even if we execute our Iraq strategy and achieve a victory over ISIL in Iraq, we'll be winning in Iraq for Iran.

That would certainly be smart diplomacy, I'll admit. Iran's smart diplomacy.

Fortunately, now that Democrats are expressing opposition to the president's foreign policy, such dissent is no longer racist as we've long been lectured. So we have that going for us.

UPDATE: Yes:

"Quite frankly, we need to see in Iraq political outreach that addresses the fact that some 20 million Sunnis are disenfranchised with their government," Lieutenant General William Mayville told a hearing on global threats facing the United States.

One, WTF? Really, general? There aren't 20 million Sunni Arabs in Iraq. Maybe 6 million.

And having a US general say there are 20 million feeds into the Iraqi Sunni Arab fantasy that they actually are the majority and so deserve to rule Iraq as they did when Saddam was around. Good grief.

Two, getting rid of Iran's presence in Iraq should be the first objective in trying to get the Sunni Arabs and Shias working together against ISIL and after.

UPDATE: Related. Letting Shia militias hopped up on Iranian ideology advance into Sunni Arab areas occupied by ISIL will just risk changing the Sunni-Shia fight rather than end it.

UPDATE: While I have no problem using these guys--in this case the pro-Iran Badr Brigade militia--as shock troops to defeat ISIL in Iraq (kill two birds with one stone, eh?) once ISIL is driven out of any particular area, these guys need to be kept away from the people they liberate and there needs to be a plan to disarm them when no longer needed.

If Putin Wants War, Help Ukraine Wage It

Russia's hand puppets are pushing the Ukrainians back and threatening an important road and rail hub. We seem on the verge of moving beyond camping gear to help Ukraine.

Russia's forces are advancing enough in the Donbas region to start a flow of civilian refugees:

Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk said that around 1,000 of Debaltseve's residents have been evacuated in the past days. Many end up at a government-owned holiday camp in the resort town of Svyatohirsk, where the sound of artillery fire is replaced with an uneasy quiet. ...

Fighting has been most intense in the last week around the government-held town, a strategically valuable railway hub that has been almost entirely encircled by rebel forces. Only one road remains open for escape, and that has been targeted by artillery fire.

While this rebel boast is empty, it does highlight the decisive role of Russia in creating and running this separatist force:

Separatists battling government troops in east Ukraine plan a general mobilization and aim to boost their fighting force to 100,000 men, one of their main leaders said on Monday.

Ukraine's active force--all their services--is barely much more than that. The idea that a small sliver of Ukraine could field that size of a force without massive Russian aid is ridiculous. So just boasting of it speaks to the secessionist frame of reference.

Putin's continued offensive against Ukraine has finally gotten our attention. The New York Times reported that we are open to sending arms to Ukraine. A first step would be a semi-official assessment of Ukrainian needs:

The Times said eight former senior U.S. officials would issue an independent report on Monday urging Washington to send $3 billion in defensive arms and equipment to Ukraine, including anti-armor missiles and reconnaissance drones.

Small arms aren't necessary. Ukraine has lots of decent infantry weapons. I hope Ukraine has used their time to move their massive stockpile at Slovyansk in Donbas.

And Ukraine has a massive stockpile of tanks, infantry fighting vehicles, and artillery.

Ukraine doesn't need more of those, although they could use help putting them into service and modernizing them. Perhaps our new NATO allies could trade on a 1:1 basis excess (because they are switching to Western weapons) modernized and operational Russian-designed weapons with Ukraine and get non-operational weapons that could be upgraded--and sent on to Ukraine again.

As I wrote in that post on the size of Ukraine's heavy weapons stockpile, Ukraine's defense needs are more in the area of filling gaps:

We don't need to ship major weapons to Ukraine. That would take too long to re-equip and re-train the Ukrainian army. And they have plenty of existing stuff that is adequate to face the Russians.

Ukraine needs to repair and upgrade what they have, which our new NATO members who are shedding old Soviet equipment can help upgrade and maintain.

Our help should be in training, command and control, logistics, intelligence, and recon capabilities.

Weapons should be limited to filling capability gaps--like anti-ship missiles, naval mines, and more longer-range precision surface-to-surface missiles (like the SCUD-B--which given Ukraine's armaments industry in this field they should be able to build on their own, right?) than Ukraine possesses to threaten Sevastopol naval base--and equipment (which could include personal and crew-served weapons) to make their special forces, infantry, and paramilitary infantry more capable.

Since landmines seem to be out of fashion, we should make sure that Ukrainian combat engineering capabilities are good to build obstacles to slow a mechanized advance.

It will be interesting to see what that independent report's list consists of.

Remember, Russia wanted a short and glorious war. Crimea was perfect. Let's make sure that Ukraine can impose a price on Putin for seeking an easy victory in Donbas.

UPDATE: Ah, here's a story on the assessment:

The group's final report, titled, “Preserving Ukraine’s Independence, Resisting Russian Aggression: What the United States and NATO Must Do,” contends that Ukraine cannot defend itself unless it gets more advanced weaponry, and that arming Ukraine is key to deterring Putin. It argues that the West needs to "bolster deterrence in Ukraine by raising the risks and costs to Russia of any renewed major offensive.”

The $3 billion military aid package would pay for counter-battery radars, unmanned aerial vehicles, electronic counter-measures for use against opposing UAVs, secure communications systems, armored Humvees and medical support equipment. Ukrainian forces also need light anti-armor missiles, given the large numbers of armored vehicles that the Russians have deployed in Donetsk and Luhansk and the abysmal condition of the Ukrainian military’s light anti-armor weapons, the report says. It suggests other NATO members besides the United States should provide military assistance to the Ukrainian military, particularly those whose forces operate former Soviet equipment that is compatible with the arms currently in the Ukrainian inventory.

This fits what I've been saying.

And there is this:

The group concluded that one of Putin’s vulnerabilities is that the majority of Russians do not want their country fighting a war in Ukraine and will not tolerate heavy casualties. If Ukrainian forces were better armed, Wald said, the pressure would shift to Putin to de-escalate the conflict to avoid risking additional losses and losing support at home.

Yes. Put more crudely, more Russian soldiers have to die. It might not win this war. But it might deter the next one.

So far, the Russians want to keep going:

Ukrainian troops battled Monday to repel waves of Russian-backed separatists trying to surround a strategic railway hub in eastern Ukraine, while in an ominous sign for peace efforts, the rebels announced plans to boost the size of their armed forces.

Unless the Ukrainians can manage a better counter-attack than the one they put together at Donetsk airport, Ukraine will suffer another battlefield defeat.

Will American military aid be too little and too late?

UPDATE: Here's the report. Fine recommendations, although I'd add anti-tank mines, engineering capabilities to create obstacles, and anti-ship missiles to defend Ukraine's long coast.

And I'd like to see Ukraine create the ability to bombard the Sevastopol naval base in occupied Crimea. But I think Ukraine has the rocket industry to do that.

An Energy Industry Actually is Influencing the Green Debate

It takes a (Russian) village to raise a useful idiot.

Which makes it pretty funny that Greens often claim that the skeptics of alternative energy are on big oil's payroll.

A Song of Beer and Babes

If George R. R. Martin was a sportswriter:

Arizona (Raven Press) -- When you play the game of end zones, you either win or you die.

On February 1, 2015, House New England met the forces of House Seattle on the field of battle to decide who would be King of the NFL.

House New England, whose sigil is a solemn man with a long hat, was led in battle by Lord Brady, who was named King of the East.

Their house motto is "I’m just telling you what I know."

Brady was clad in armor of snow white and a silver helm, and accompanied by Lady Gisele.

Lord Brady and his bannermen have the symbol of their god, Nike, emblazoned on their armor in a sign of piety to The Official Sponsor.

Lord Brady relied on Ser Gronkowski, his squire elevated from a mere hedge knight and called "the Mountain that Catches," and now seeking the privileges of a great house, with endorsements for him and his heirs.

Maester Belichick, dressed in the loose traditional hoodie of his order, advised Lord Brady. Known for dabbling in the black arts, Belichick has been rumored to be a warg, able to take the form of an eagle to spy on opponents as they prepared for battle. He is said to be able to master ball air pressure from a distance.

Their foes, House Seattle, whose sigil is a sea bird, was led by Lord Wilson, styled both King of the West and King of the NFL by past conquest.

Their motto is "I'm just here so I won't get fined."

House Seattle's knights were clad in armor of deep sea blue, matching helms, and bright green shoes.

Fielding a "Legion of Doom," House Seattle had hopes of defeating the alleged sorcery of Maester Belichick with these bannermen.

House Seattle, too, wears the symbol of Nike, the Swoosh, with equal fervor, so they will not be fined by the League.

Lord Wilson had the counsel of Maester Carroll, bedecked in a blue body suit. He chewed the gum of the juicy fruit to calm his nerves.

Lord Brady and Lord Wilson, with their bannermen in attendance, met for the ritual toss of the coin in mid-battlefield.  Such a toss has had a fifty percent prediction rate for the eventual victors of battle.

Supervised by NFL septons dressed in their order's black and white as a sign of their faith in absolute outcomes, the Lombardi coin--minted of the finest Valyrian Steel--was won by House Seattle.

After thirty minutes of heavy battle, the contest hung in the balance with neither side gaining an advantage as the smallfolk watched from the sides, as Silent Sisters ministered to the morale of the knights and their smallfolk supporters with dance and bending.

Indeed, a traveling bard by the name of Katyperry--wearing her hair plastered to her head in a somewhat successful effort to conceal her sex--entertained those watching the battle while each army victualed and sought the coaching services of their maesters.

Yet after the resting period when wounds were dressed, battlefield preparations were made, and (allegedly) air pressure was altered in game balls, the battle was finally decided.

Although the lines of battle ebbed and flowed, Lord Brady finally bested Lord Wilson, who slashed his foot with his own sword.

King Brady won the pigskin throne.

And then Maester Belichick was ritually drowned in celebration.

Oddly, nobody died during the battle, somewhat depriving the audience of a sense of wonder at the whims of the gods who watch over us.

Although it is rumored that an offensive coordinator's head shall be dipped in tar and displayed on a spike on the walls of the losing team's castle for the remainder of the off-season.

Because when you play the game of end zones, you either win or you lose. Valar morghulis.

Goto and Yukawa Alive or ISIL Dead?

ISIL butchers have killed their last Japanese hostage:

Japan and other nations condemned with outrage and horror on Sunday the beheading purportedly by the Islamic State group of Kenji Goto, a journalist who sought through his coverage of Syria to convey the plight of refugees, children and other victims of war.

A Japanese effort to rescue Goto was possible in theory, although planning such a raid takes time that Japan did not have.

How will Japan react? Will the death of two of their people (Haruna Yukawa was killed earlier) in such a cruel manner motivate Japan to retaliate even if they cannot conduct a rescue?

UPDATE: The reaction is certainly different:

When Islamic State militants posted a video over the weekend showing the grisly killing of a Japanese journalist, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe reacted with outrage, promising “to make the terrorists pay the price.” ...

“This is 9/11 for Japan,” said Kunihiko Miyake, a former high-ranking Japanese diplomat who has advised Mr. Abe on foreign affairs. “It is time for Japan to stop daydreaming that its good will and noble intentions would be enough to shield it from the dangerous world out there. Americans have faced this harsh reality, the French have faced it, and now we are, too.”

The crisis also comes at a crucial moment in Japan’s modern history. Since taking office two years ago, Mr. Abe, a strong-willed conservative, has tried to push his nation into shedding the passive brand of pacifism that it repentantly embraced after defeat in World War II, and playing a more active role in world events. Analysts and former diplomats say the stark savagery of the killings will be an important test of how ready Japan really is to step onto the global stage.

But will this new reaction remain long enough to change policy? Or will it be back to business as usual and hoping that the jihadis will leave them alone?

Peak China

Even as we try to calculate whether China's economy has grown larger than ours (including whether GDP or PPP handicapping is the appropriate metric), the trajectory of their decline is already visible.

China has visible problems already:

Time is not on China’s side. There are numerous examples of this. One of the more obvious is the shrinking Chinese work force. While overall population increased 7.1 million in 2014 (to 1.37 billion) but the working age population declined 3.7 million (to 915 million). The number of Chinese over 60 increased 10 million to 212 million. All this began in 2014 and will continue for decades. The biggest problem, though, is the growing shortage of workers. As the population ages, all those one child families means there will be more elderly than the economy (and the shrinking workforce) can effectively support. Currently there are 11 working age Chinese for every retiree. By 2050, there will only be two for each retiree. At that point, retirees will comprise 30 percent of the population (versus 13 percent now.) Traditionally, children cared for their parents in multi-generation households. That model is dying out, and China is faced with huge pension cost increases at the same time they expect their economy to be the mightiest on the planet. But at that point, the largest single government expense will be the care of the elderly, and this will impose crushing taxes on those of working age. Many working age Chinese are worried about this, for there is no easy solution in sight. China tried (in 2013) to relax the one-child policy but the newly affluent Chinese are less eager than earlier generations to have a lot of kids. To make matters worse there is not much in the way of pensions or health care for most of the elderly to begin with. The government recognizes this is a real problem but does not, and will not have the cash to deal with it.

I've noted that even if China continues to gain ground on us, even passing us by, by 2050 we may reach peak China and see fifty years of America clawing back lost ground.

We have problems. But I wouldn't trade our cards for any other nation's hand.

When Danger Rears It's Ugly Head

I know that this is going to come as a shock to you, but Ted Galen Carpenter has seen a foreign policy problem and is arguing we can solve all by retreating.

Behold! The North Korea problem can be solved by agreeing to a common goal that thug-state Russia and North Korea-enabling China can agree on, and by welcoming North Korea into the community of nations by offering concessions!

An entirely new approach is needed. Instead of trying to increase pressure, especially unilateral pressure, on Pyongyang, Washington should make a concerted effort to reduce tensions with Kim Jong-un’s regime. The Obama administration also should endeavor to create a united front with China and Russia regarding policy toward North Korea. Taking such steps, however, would require a willingness on Washington’s part to make major concessions.

What is entirely new about Carpenter's proposal?

It doesn't matter what the foreign policy threat is. Carpenter's solution is always that we should back off and let our enemies run free, confident that they will fail on their own or that someone else will solve the problem for us.



Any common position on North Korea that must include Russia and China will inevitably mean a nuclear North Korea--Carpenter is already on record as being fine with that--under the rule of murderous rulers who are loyal to China and at least hostile to Japan and America.

And concessions are unlikely to get North Korea to halt their propaganda that America has been cunningly clever in lulling the world through sixty years of not invading or attacking North Korea into believing that America isn't about to invade North Korea at any moment!

Why would concessions work now when they haven't in the past?

Reducing our troop strength in South Korea and even pulling most of our troops off of the DMZ are just the most clever of our ruses to conceal our steadily improved capacity to invade!

Our policy has not changed North Korea's goals or regime.

But at least we've slowed them down.

At least we've made China pay for North Korea rather than having us subsidize them.

At least South Korea has grown relatively stronger militarily, to North Korea.

And at least we haven't ratified the legitimacy of a gulag with a UN seat that North Korea is.

I'll repeat my policy preference: talk, talk; die, die.

I should be a natural fan of the Cato Institute. But Carpenter's presence there makes me wary of anything they put out on other subjects.

Yeah, that's enough music for now, lads.

UPDATE: Strategypage provides an overview of North Korea.