Weekend Data Dump

With a new focus on conventional warfare, the only tank plant in America is no longer in danger of being closed. I was unhappy with that idea even though the Army said it could do without it for 3 years.

Women pilots aren't the full solution for military pilot shortages. I once read that as a general rule, because of better reflexes, women made better pilots than men. But as jets got faster and capable of not being ripped apart in high-G maneuvers and those forces increased on pilots, men get the advantage again in fighter planes because of the upper body strength needed to train to resist the Gs so you don't pass out. Will the F-35 with its promise of fighting with the tray table down (as I put it) mean women can be a significant source of fighter pilots?

France's Pacific possession New Caledonia rejected independence. It is the source of a quarter of the world's nickel supply. Could bad feelings toward France give China an opening? It was an important bastion to maintain the line of supply between America and Australia in World War II. China might have that in mind.

The Russians are working to undermine cohesiveness in the American military via social media warfare. The cost-benefit analysis of social media seems to tilt more and more to the cost side every day.

Norway is happy to host the large NATO Trident Juncture exercise. They have a border with Russia. During NATO's Cold War nadir, Norway faced the prospect of being cut off from reinforcements as the Soviet fleet surged toward the Greenland-Iceland-UK gap to challenge the Atlantic supply lines. Today Russia is a weaker air and naval threat to Norway and is not capable of cutting off Norway from help. As a bonus, non-NATO Sweden and Finland are more openly supportive.

I recently heard the Fox and Friends morning show called the Presidential Daily Briefing. Heh. That's pretty clever, you must admit.

The Saudi-led offensive to take the major port city Hodeida drags on.

And America has stopped refueling Saudi coalition aircraft providing air support over concerns about civilian casualties in air strikes despite the fact that the Houthi are far more responsible for those casualties.  But I suspect that the Saudis will simply use contractor air refueling from a private company. We probably just stopped using enough of such contracted service to make up for our cancellation. Still, true compassion would have led the "concerned" world to back the Saudis to wage more intense combat over a shorter period of time to secure the port and reopen it for humanitarian aid quickly (and in the bigger picture to defeat the Iran-backed Houthis more quickly). But here we are, blaming the Saudis for both their conduct of the battle and war against an enemy that uses human shields, and for the impact of shutting down the port while the battle is cautiously waged. Iran's propaganda is effective.

I think these pilots struck the Penn State offense during their flyover of Michigan Stadium last week.

The last time I set a flak trap for an F-16 flyover all I got was the roar and a video of sky as I whipped around trying to follow them. I think they were lower and/or faster that time.

The US granted China, India, Italy, Greece, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and Turkey temporary exemptions on our renewed sanctions on buying Iranian oil. They are mostly allies who we need to keep strong (India, Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan) or allies who are economically vulnerable (Italy and Greece). Turkey is interesting. They aren't much of an ally under Erdogan, so I'm not sure we care much about their economic health. But did we get a quiet Turkish concession to refrain from striking Syrian Kurds east of the Euphrates River in exchange for the exemption? As for China, a concession that is simply keeping the status quo is a fairly cheap "concession" to them to keep them reasonably cooperative on North Korea.  And other sanctions are hurting Iran, so we didn't completely undermine pressure on those dangerous nutballs.

I got a couple mailings showing my voting history and the history of two neighbors whose name and address were redacted. It was very creepy and stalky. I don't know anything about the group that sent them out.

China has a full slate of UAVs in production these days.

Last Tuesday we held free elections across America, which I've been told has become a fascist dictatorship the last two years. Odd, that is, eh? Please people, very few among us are true enemies of America. Stop acting like everyone on the other side is the enemy. If we can do that, a period when the other side is in charge won't result in people panicking to join the Resistance or a militia. And let's celebrate yet another election and transfer of legislative and gubernatorial power, plus other lesser offices. Which is a good example to set for the world despite our intense political competition. I for one will contribute by not spending the next two years rioting or wailing to the sky in frustration. You're welcome.

Why air power needs land power. Because the point of air power is to control the ground and not simply destroy it? But do read it. My simplified view of air power is here. Also, here's an old essay on air power that I tried to get published during and shortly after the 1999 Allied Force campaign.

Russia has expanded sanctions on Ukrainians. Presumably for the outrage of resisting the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Add this to the quasi-blockade of Ukraine's Sea of Azov coastline.

It isn't always jihadis plotting mayhem in Europe these days.

Schrodinger's aircraft carrier. Yes, the carrier is and isn't obsolete. As I've long droned on about, it depends on the mission. We keep having fruitless apples and oranges debates.

If Britain doesn't leave the EU despite current polls which indicate a preference to remain, rule of law takes a hit. If Remain had won that referendum, the pro-EU side would have said that settles the question forever. But by making the Brexit negotiations difficult and promoting fear of alleged dire consequences, Remainers make it virtually impossible to leave the EU if the 2016 vote is to be overridden by future polling or even by a future vote.

More on how China and Iran gutted our CIA's assets (either killing them, arresting them, or forcing us to pull them out--and how many were turned?), quite likely on a worldwide basis. We screwed the pooch bigly on that one. I know I've mentioned this, but this article is truly horrifying.

Communist insurgents in the Philippines continue to lose support in their war, but linger on (since not long after World War II). Also, pirates in Southeast Asia take the lead.

Twitter was made for Russian disinformation efforts, which existed long before Twitter or the media discovered it in 2016.

Europeans are worried that with the House in Democratic hands that Trump will be more disruptive abroad? Oh good grief. Europeans were worried when all power was in Trump's hands. I'm starting to think "European" is some old Germanic word for "people who worry." Europeans worry when we lead and worry when we don't lead. Europeans worry when we are strong and worry when we aren't strong. They worry when we come to a deal with Russia lest they be left out and they worry when we walk away from a deal the Russians aren't obeying. Sheesh. Europeans are worried. Full stop.

Math error.

Acosta is a jerk. And if you ask him he'll tell you he's kind of a big deal. It is nice that they no longer hide their partisan nature and demonstrate why I don't trust them to report news without spin and haven't for several decades. The key is to know enough history and current events to have a chance at de-spinning the news we are given.

I'm so old that I remember when anti-Iraq War people said we should have knocked off the dictator and just left to allow the locals to work out their differences without our bad influence. Seven years after the dictator was killed we have chaos and jihadis who are destabilizing the region, including Europe, plus Russia mucking around in their old stomping grounds.

War and plague in the heart of darkness. I was worried that President Obama's deployment of the military to help contain the last Ebola outbreak would be fouled up. But his initiative worked. Is the forewarned world better able to respond without requiring American military assets?

The Army is returning to table top wargaming of conventional warfare.

NATO needs a contributing Germany able to pull its weight. They aren't and German industrial prowess is notably lacking in the military equipment they build. This article says that the NATO Trident Juncture exercise will help Germany assess the state of its military. But we know the German military is awful. It is the detailed granularity of its awfulness that Germany needs to know. Will Germany act to correct the shortcomings highlighted or seek to conceal them?

Ah yes,  promoting socialism means you care! Three million fleeing the country and the remainder will be multi-millionaires soon (but couldn't buy a cup of coffee with their millions). Maduro seems to have taken to heart those "buy gold in these troubling times" commercials.

French European nuance or Nazi apologist? You decide.

China's J-10 is extremely maneuverable because of thrust vectoring. Which won't matter against the F-35 if our operating theory is correct. I hope our theory is correct.

This is from a professor of American political science? So all big states are Democratic and all small states are Republican? So you are going to compare the vote total and results when there were no votes for a Senate candidate in California because their system sends the top two vote recipients to the general election (and neither was a Republican)? But hey, at least he didn't complain that the Senate boundaries were gerrymandered in favor or Republicans like one loud-mouthed idiot on TV did.

And speaking of the gerrymandering charge that says the percentage of individually elected House seats should match the national vote total (well, only when Democrats lose out), consider a hypothetical situation where there is a country with 51% Blue voters and 49% Red voters with a legislative body of 100 seats. Let us further assume that rather than self-sorting into Blue or Red enclaves, they are evenly distributed through all the legislative districts. No gerrymandering is even possible. Assuming equal voting rates, you would expect the legislative body to have every district won by a Blue candidate with 51% of the vote. But Red voters are 49% of the country! That is unfair! Right? Explain to me how democracy is better if voters in 49 districts are told that because of "fairness" that their votes will be nullified and the losing Red candidates will be seated instead. Because fairness. Or something.

My apologies for the two previous paragraphs on domestic politics. But civics shouldn't be so obscure that BS can be left uncalled.

Stupid man with a bomb. He's mad at America for what? America doesn't bomb "the Middle East" any more than we bombed "Europe" or "Asia" in World War II. And just as a lot of Europeans and Asians were happy about who we bombed back then, our campaigns to bomb and otherwise kill jihadis in the Middle East have a lot of Middle Easterners supportive of bombing the people we bomb. But hey, hate away in prison you evil dumb ass. You got the Golden Ticket and made it to America. And that's what you did with it.

America imposed sanctions on people and entities profiting from Russia's annexation of Crimea. Russia's conquest is not forgotten.

Well of course we have "concerns," given that China claims pretty much near the whole damn sea.

China's massive effort to "reeducate" their Moslems to love Big Han Brother continues with little protest from the Moslem majority countries of the world. Yet America, which saves Moslems from tryanny, is the great Satan, or something. The world is a funny place.The post also notes how Xinjiang is basically the Beta version for a system of control that will eventually be rolled out countrywide.

Okay, Political Science 101 is called for. "Nationalism" is not the same as "white nationalism," hence the need for the "white" modifier. Personally, I'm not a nationalist (or a white nationalist, if that needs to be said). I'm patriotic. Technically "nationalism" is an ethnic thing and I believe anybody from anywhere can become an American because unlike being French or Russia, America is an idea-based country. But in America, much as I think people on the left calling themselves "socialists" really just mean "really, really liberal" (because "progressive no longer does the trick, I guess), I think people calling themselves "nationalists" mean really patriotic. With a further meaning of being anti-"internationalist" in that it puts America first over multilateral deals that restrict our freedom of action. Personally, I believe in general internationalism benefits America because we designed the international system after World War II (after--and you don't have to like Wilson to recognize this--a failed effort after World War I to do that, which showed that our absence from the world has lethal consequences).  But sure, if push comes to shove and internationalism harms us, I'm good with a nationalist approach. Just because internationalism benefits America doesn't mean all internationalist policies benefit us. Since this is really a foreign policy thing, I feel justified in addressing it despite the desire of the left to make it an issue of hate.

Our problem child Pakistan has behaved badly enough by supporting jihadis that America finally cut off all economic and military aid. China is not replacing the aid but is willing to extend poison pill loans to Pakistan. I worry that rather than behaving better that Pakistan will behave worse and cut the supply lines to our forces in landlocked Afghanistan.

China continues to try to shield North Korea from the effects of American-led sanctions. Thanks China! We want North Korea to have a sense of urgency to cut a deal before they collapse. China's backing allows North Korea to believe there is no sense of urgency in moving talks forward.

Mattis plans to stay. Good.

Professional journalists and pundits who aren't very good at reporting events really like to predict the future after each election. But their ignorance of the past isn't a good sign of their predictive powers. Journalists keep seeing the unusual in the banal. Trump will no more realign our politics than Obama, Bush 43, Clinton, Reagan/Bush 41, or Carter did (either by spoiling their own party's appeal or creating a new permanent governing coalition for their party).

One of the problems in our long war is the asymmetric nature of the sides. A nutball Isamist who rampages in Melbourne is obvious and news. A moderate Moslem in a Moslem-majority state (or in a Western state) who prefers rule of law, voting, and tolerance is ... well, unseen in the news because such people go about their lives quietly obeying the law, voting, and tolerating people of different religions or even different versions of Islam. Don't be discouraged. It is a long war. It is not an unwinnable war. And we shouldn't want the nutball Islamists to win the the Islamic Civil War over who defines Islam.

Where a president literally believes a free press is the enemy of the people (as personified by the president).

We now resume our usual programming. They have nukes and Lord knows what kind of use and safety protocols.

Russia bolstered anti-vaccine advocates with Twitter disinformation. Ah, science!

The Army wants new approaches to recruit in less promising areas it long neglected in favor of more fertile recruiting ground. I had thoughts on that subject out of my usual lanes last year in Army magazine.

That's highly ironic.

China won't need a Great Firewall of China if the rest of the world doesn't put anything objectionable online.

Macron Perhaps Shared Too Much

By saying the European Union needs a common army to protect Europe from Russia, China, and America, France's Macron was more than rude to America. Macron was revealing the true purpose of a European Union army.

Macron's justification for a European army is revealing:

"We have to protect ourselves with respect to China, Russia and even the United States of America," Macron said on French radio, according to the Wall Street Journal.

Yes, Russia is a military threat to the border areas of NATO and to the cohesion of NATO. But America is a treaty ally and no military threat (Besides, wasn't it just yesterday that America was accused of not being willing to defend Europe?) And while China is hardly a friend of Europe, it is in no position to be a military threat to Europe.

So Trump is missing the point by saying Macron was insulting America by saying we could be a threat (wow, the French being rude to Americans--what a shocking development).

Clearly, a continent-wide armed force under control of the European Union isn't being pursued for a military goal. If that was the case Macron would be urging European NATO states to contribute more to the existing and successful military alliance that has defended Europe and provided the means for Europe to wage their splendid little war over Libya in 2011.

The purpose for wanting a European army is to create a European super-state under control of the European Union, which is the first step to creating the imperial state that suppresses the sovereignty of the member states.

Remember, the basic foundation for the EU is that the proponents believe the nations of Europe are the cause of all the wars in Europe. So the nations must be stripped of military and political power. "Ever closer union," as the EU puts it, will eventually strip the member states of autonomy. For "peace." It is a pure coincidence, they think, that America has provided the most peace and democracy in European history since World War II.

A common currency didn't promote a European single identity to bolster such a proto-imperial first step. In fact the Euro has exacerbated divisions among the member states.

So now the engineers of the imperial project will emphasize building a common military that bypasses the American-dominated NATO. It will be less effective in defending Europe from military threats than NATO is, but that isn't the point.

And Macron may get that European army (read as "military") given that the appeal of a European military for each individual member state that will believe supporting the common army means somebody else can be tricked into carrying the burden of manning and maintaining that army.

And the French will of course believe that their sophisticated and nuanced grasp of politics means they will dominate that army. But don't you dare suggest France give up their nukes to the EU!

UPDATE: I've heard that the French claim to worry about Russia, China, and America was regarding cyber threats. And in my own defense the linked article did change the language from the quote I cited from an earlier version. But Macron did say he wanted a European army to avoid relying on America.

Mattis has strong feelings on what you should do if you want to defend Europe:

Asked whether he supported an EU military, Mattis told reporters: "We see NATO as the cornerstone for the protection of Europe in the security realm and we fully support nations doing more to carry the load."

Weakening NATO is bad for the defense of Europe. Period. And weakening NATO is what a European Union military would do. By design.

Meanwhile in Southeast NATO

The murder of a Bulgarian journalist doesn't get the international notoriety of a Saudi writer because nobody is highly interested in exploiting her death. But this murder is a sign of Bulgaria getting unsteady in the NATO ranks, and if not reversed we will have problems in the Black Sea and Balkans.

Now I'm really worried:

The brutal murder of journalist Viktoria Marinova as she was jogging along the Danube one sunny day in the fall of 2018 recently focused global attention on Bulgaria.

Marinova’s murder occurred right after as a regional TV station head and host she aired a report on a large-scale corruption case involving EU funds. Not unlike other inconvenient stories for Bulgaria’s ruling oligarchy, that case has been ignored by the country’s mainstream media. ...

Whichever proves to be the case, Marinova’s murder once again put Bulgaria in the international spotlight as “the poorest and most corrupt” EU member state. ...

The grave failure of Bulgaria’s principal allies and partners to notice its troubles, however, may cause serious trouble for the entire West further down the road because of the Balkan country’s geopolitical position, which lends it greater importance than its own potential does.

Brussels, Washington, and Berlin simply aren’t justified in taking Bulgaria’s Western belonging for granted.

Corruption provides openings for Russia to gain influence. We should pay attention to Bulgaria and help them get back on the path of rule of law that the country's rulers have abandoned since they qualified for NATO membership.

I'm pretty sure I linked this murder in a data dump but can't find the reference. But if I didn't, I still did worry about it (perhaps I accidentally erased it in my Dumpageddon).

The End of Spray and Pray is Nigh

Precision is reaching even untrained gunmen:

In 2017 the IDF (Israeli Defense Force) was offered a new computerized rifle scope; SMASH from an Israeli firm (Smart Shooter). The military tried it out with the infantry and special operations troops and at the end of the year approved it for use. In early 2018 SMASH was offered to foreign militaries (and police organizations). There were several major innovations in SMASH compared to the computerized sights pioneered by American firm TrackingPoint. SMASH could be mounted and used on any weapon with a M1913 Picatinny rail (that allows the sight to work with the trigger). The sight puts a visual block around potential targets the user is aiming at. When the user has the intended target in the block a button is pushed and that target is locked and a precise firing angle calculated and shot fired unless the user intervenes.

I mentioned this scope last month.

Also last month I warned about the effects of this development in a Naval Institute blog post. I called such weapons "dumb but controlled" (DBC):

The May 1972 “Battle of the Bridges” in which U.S. aircraft destroyed targets that had long resisted dumb munitions announced the arrival of a new precision method of waging war that promised “If you can see it, you can hit it. If you can hit it, you can destroy it.” That was described as the first phase of a revolutionary change in the nature of warfare.[22] That battle won with expensive but effective “remotely piloted munitions” fired from expensive planes by expensively and extensively trained air crews has filtered down to the level of rifles carried by even ill-trained individual fighters. Will U.S. Marines be prepared to win on such a battlefield of tomorrow?

I even featured it in a failed science fiction article on future warfare for the Army Mad Scientist initiative.

We need to shift our focus from intensive marksmanship training as our rifles will be able to do what once needed intensive training and time on the range. When enemy militias or terrorists have rifles that make them marksmen, we will need better training, leadership, tactics, and equipment to maintain our close combat edge.

Easy to use firearms that even lowly peasants could quickly learn to fire dethroned knights who relied on extensive training in blade combat and equipment others couldn't afford. How will our infantry adapt to this new technology in enemy hands?

Once More, With Feeling

Israel will face a problem in another war with Hezbollah because Hezbollah will be able to portray lawful Israeli military operations as war crimes that much of the world will eagerly condemn as war crimes by Israel. There is a solution.

This author believes Israel will have to go deep into Lebanon to fight the Iran-created proxy army that has built up a huge rocket and missile arsenal to bombard Israeli civilians. That will be an opportunity for Hezbollah:

Despite these challenges, our task force found an IDF fully committed to compliance with the LOAC, knowing full well Hezbollah seeks to exploit this very same commitment. We worry, however, that the nature of a major combined arms operation will contribute to the operational and legal misperceptions that are so adeptly exploited by enemies like Hezbollah, resulting in false condemnation of Israel from the international public, media and many states.

How this story plays out for Israel will have reverberating effects for other professional militaries, including our own. Unless the challenges of such operations become more widely understood, with more credible assessments of legality, morality and legitimacy, others will be incentivized to replicate Hezbollah’s perverse tactics.

Yes, the limits of Iron Dome will require Israel to go deep into Lebanon to own the launch sites rather than hope they can improve on their failed 2006 air campaign to knock out a far smaller number of rockets. And the willingness of much of the world to believe that lawful Israeli military operations are war crimes make going in on the ground potentially a propaganda disaster.

The way to solve that problem isn't to fight so gingerly that the world will recognize the legality of the operations--they won't know matter what. But to try to make sure the next war is the last war against Hezbollah by going in deep past the missile-launching zone with massive ground power with the intention of inflicting a lasting defeat on Hezbollah by tearing up their combat forces and rear echelon forces and support infrastructure.

The authors say that Hezbollah is combat experienced from their long and bloody role fighting for Assad in the multi-war that developed in Syria. But the casualties bled Hezbollah. And the combat experience was on the offense against other light infantry.

If the Israelis hit Hezbollah with a mechanized and airborne ground attack supported by fires from the ground and air and with cyber and psychological warfare enhancing the attack, Hezbollah will find their experience counter-productive for the duration of the Israeli invasion. Going slow will only allow more of the Hezbollah combat veterans to adapt to the new style of fighting and then make their combat experience pay off.

With some luck and work, the Lebanese government and the thus-far ineffective UN force in southern Lebanon will be able to regain control of that territory from the non-state Iranian proxy force.

Seriously, if there is no way you can win a series of wars with an enemy because your side simply won't be judged to be fighting lawfully no matter how much you hamstring your combat operations, don't fight a series of wars that are constantly portrayed as unlawful--fight one major war lawfully to achieve a substantial victory and end the series of propaganda defeats at just one.

As an aside, yes Hezbollah has not launched a new war for overs a dozen years. But is that really a result of the losses in the 2006 war? It may simply be that with the heavy Hezbollah commitment and losses in the Syrian multi-war on behalf of Iran and Assad that Hezbollah simply wasn't able to fight a two-front war. Now that the Syria war is apparently winding down with the looming defeat of the last rebels in Idlib province, Hezbollah may be dusting themselves off and looking south again.

The Euro Royalty Are Not Amused

The fact that ever closer union by the European Union on the road to a multi-ethnic imperial state is causing unrest within Europe should tell you all you need to know about whether the EU will end war in Europe.

Oh?

After the 55 million deaths caused by WWII, after centuries of nationalist and imperialist wars left Europe in ruins, the peoples and the national governments across the continent finally realized that European unity was the only way to stop this madness.

Immanuel Kant had had this vision 150 years earlier in his philosophical treatise “On Eternal Peace.” So, at long last, Europe’s leaders set out to turn it into reality. Over the next decades, the Common Market, the European Community and the European Union emerged, followed by a common currency. Dictatorships fell and democracy prevailed throughout the continent.

Those dolts actually believe the anti-democratic EU caused dictatorships to fall in favor of democracy.

If unified pan-European government is so great, maybe letting Hitler win would have established peace, no? Or maybe they should have let the Kaiser win. Or Napoleon. Heck, pity the Mongols turned back, eh? Darn the luck that NATO stopped the Soviet Union from dominating the continent. Ah, the joys of a unified and peaceful continent denied!

I find it even more amazing that these people reflect the persistent belief by European elites that the bloody peasants forced their rulers to wage bloody wars across the continent for centuries.

If only the EU can take away the power of those pesky member states, all would be well, they think.

American-led NATO has been the true source of peace and freedom in Europe.  The EU dreams of ejecting America from Europe by building an alternative pan-European defense capacity. The only mention of NATO is the article is when the authors argue that European NATO states should build a European military--which the Eurocrat apparatchiki would control, of course.

Which would mean that when Europeans go to war with each other it will be an internal civil war; allowing the Euro elites to claim they really did stop (inter-state) war! Promotions and bonuses all around!

Speaking of the reprehensible EU:

Since the president pulled out of the [Iran nuclear deal], the EU has been working feverishly behind the scenes to protect the relationship between Europe and Iran, including publicly calling for a special purpose vehicle to help businesses avoid American sanctions, and the implementation of a blocking statute also intended to protect European businesses.

European businesses aren't happy with this imperial effort, preferring to do business with America rather than Iran given the potential American sanctions on them for working with Iran.

And note again what I've pointed out: Europe is more eager to punish Britain for Brexit than they are in punishing Iran for pursuing nuclear weapons and destabilizing the Middle East.

As I've long said, we can have friends in Europe, but Europe is not our friend.

I've been clear about my opinion about the EU, I hope. Why America would support this monstrosity in the making is beyond me. The fact that the effort is being led by elites in suits promulgating ever-expanding cheese regulations rather than tanks should not confuse us.

Go East Young Slav

Russia's focus on the west has led to some territorial gains in Georgia and Ukraine at the expense of economic sanctions from the West and a rearming NATO that is gaining new members and friends. Those problems are leading Russia to pivot to the east. I'm sure that will work out just as well as the western focus.

Please do it:

With Moscow’s recent “obsession” with the turning to the Asia-Pacific region, there are still doubts if it can so at the expense of its Western partners. However, it seems that Moscow is trying to sit on two chairs. The Kremlin can’t afford to alienate Europe completely because it is Russia’s major economic partner (with over 40 percent of trade) and provider of technologies. At the same time, Russia is building and developing bridges with Asia, looking for new partners and markets that could potentially diversify its current economic activities.

If Russia truly pivots to the east, they'll take their paranoia with them and ultimately alienate potential allies and trading partners as much as they alienated the slumbering Europe and America who were content not to think much about Russia until Russia invaded Ukraine and began making nuclear threats against western nations.

And if China truly focuses inland as I've long wanted them to do, the Russians are unlikely to exploit a rising China with economic interests in Central Asia and territorial claims on Russia, when the Russians bring their focus and paranoia to bear on Central Asia, China, and the rest of Asia.

Can you imagine China's reaction if Russia pulls this kind of stunt against a Chinese plane?

Remember, too, that a Russian pivot to the east is kind of necessary because that treaty suspending Chinese claims on Russian territory expires in 2021. Russia is running out of time to gain the ability to defend that territory short of using nukes. If the treaty is not renewed, the pivot east will be a military necessity with the economic potential harmed by potential Chinese hostility.

I won't believe Russia is truly and effectively pivoting to the east until they give back territory to Japan that the USSR seized in 1945, and negotiate an actual peace treaty to formally end World War II hostility. If China has to worry that Japan would help Russia in case of a Russia-Chinese war, China will be a bit more hesitant.

And NATO will still be upset with Russia, no doubt, for at least a little while longer even if Russia manages not to ef things up royally in what should be their new strategic rear.

After alienating east and west, all the Russian rulers will have left to alienate will be their own people.

Collateral Damage

Moslem countries don't have the most enlightened attitude toward women. A generation of American female military personnel serving in the Middle East has been eye opening for a lot of people there:

American military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan since 2001 have had a tremendous impact on Moslem attitudes towards women in the military. Moslems seeing so many American women serving in the military and being competitive at it had a big impact. Some 300,000 American military women served in Iraq and Afghanistan. Over 700 were killed or wounded in action. Moslem women and men were impressed with these infidel (non-Moslem) women who were real soldiers. They wore the uniform, the body armor, carried weapons, and could fight. Despite resistance from many men, there is more pressure in Moslem countries to let women serve in the local military.

The Arab Spring, despite its "failure" to change attitudes and societies overnight when it erupted in 2011, is a long process and simply seeing so many women doing their jobs with no particular big deal can't help but inspire women there to claim their equality; and can't fail to encourage men who need half their population to really be allowed to contribute to their countries change their attitudes.

Cultural traditions can take a long time to steer to a better course, though some in the region will fight tooth and nail to resist this "collateral damage" of our military campaigns.

It's kind of funny. I've long said our military campaign is the holding action while the real fight takes place in the Islamic Civil War to define Islam. But unseen (to me) our military campaign--because of its length--has had an effect on the real fight.

Protect the Carriers from Early Destruction

American carriers aren't forward-deployed like they used to be. Good.

There is a reason our carriers aren't forward as often as in the past:

U.S. aircraft carrier deployments this year have been at a 25-year low, and there were 22 days in 2018 when no carriers were deployed at all. Some pundits might speculate what the Navy is up to, but overall there is good news and some key takeaways.

First, dynamic force employment (DFE) is an innovative Department of Defense (DoD) strategy to keep U.S. adversaries guessing. Historically, when U.S. carrier strike groups operate on the doorsteps of America's adversaries, they have been a powerful force to curb unwanted behaviors. Unfortunately, over the past three decades, the DoD got too predictable with how, when, and where it was deploying its forces, making it easy for adversaries to know how the United States would respond to aggression.

I'm fine with keeping the carriers back in favor of developing multiple-carrier surge capacity. Really, dangling these big targets near potential enemies just gives them an incentive to start a war to take out the assets within reach.

And I still don't know why we can't deploy a carrier air wing forward when carriers aren't forward, if Navy air rather than Air Force air is important to have.

The War to End All Wars?

The rebels in Syria are no longer a threat to Assad's rule, but Assad has not reasserted control over even his core Syria in the west:

There is general agreement that the rebels have lost the seven year civil war but the fighting is far from over and several major unresolved issues remain. In the [northwest] there are the remaining non-ISIL (Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant) Islamic terror groups (over 20,000 fighters) that are currently surrounded in Idlib province. ...

In the southeast there a few thousand armed ISIL members fighting to the death. ...

In the [northeast] there are the Syrian Kurds, who are seeking an autonomy deal from the Assads. That is violently opposed by Turkey, which is risking its NATO membership as it tries to force out two thousand American troops who advise and assist the Syrian Kurds and then eliminate armed Kurds in the area.

In the south there are the Iranians, seeking to build bases and establish pro-Iran forces on the Israeli border. Iran and Israel are actually at war and Iran has been losing. ...

The Assads also have lots of problem restoring law and order to Syria. The war killed over half a million people (most of them Syrian civilians) and drove a third of the population into exile. There are dozens of pro-Assad Syrian militias that have to be demobilized. Since many of these militias exist mainly to protect a specific part of Syria (where the militia members and their families come from) there will be reluctance to demobilize until it is safe. Then there is the economy, which is a mess. GDP is about half what it was in 2011 and limping along because of economic aid from Iran.

Does restoring law and order in even the areas of western Syria that Assad nominally controls (where militias, Hezbollah, or Iranians actually rule) include suppressing rebel insurgents and terrorists who no longer control territory as they did in the civil war and multi-war phases of the war?

Assad will have problems holding on to power now that his supporters aren't held together even as the death toll and destruction skyrocketed out of fear of a jihadi victory. Assad probably likes having foreign powers like Iran, Turkey, Russia, and America all vying for influence to allow him to balance between them to stay behind the big desk.

Iran is Losing Everything But the Propaganda War in Yemen

A reminder that the strange Western conclusion that Yemen is a human rights disaster at the top of the scales is enabled by an Iranian media campaign that twists what is happening to damn the Saudi coalition fighting the Iran-backed Houthis:

One very under-reported Iranian contribution to the Shia rebel effort is an effective media manipulation effort. Not as massive or well-equipped as the ones created by China and Russia (the main practitioners of this) but the Iranians do pretty well spinning news of events in Yemen to favor, as much as possible, the Shia rebels. The Iranians know what appeals to mass media, especially in the West, and what does not. Thus anytime a coalition airstrike kills civilians (or rebels who can be described as such) the Iranians see that pictures and stories are supplied to news media worldwide. Coverage of the nasty things the Shia rebels do to hostile civilians in areas they control is not reported because no journalists are allowed in rebel areas. ...

The Iranians will also send out stories of rebel controlled civilians going hungry when that can be blamed on the coalition, the Yemeni government or the West.

You'll recall earlier this year that I expressed puzzlement over the claims.

Although it is now true because the war drags on that lack of food is going to cause a catastrophe if not addressed quickly. Which would unfairly validate the past claims of ongoing catastrophe.

Saudi efforts to win without enduring casualties lengthens the war and makes sure more of somebody else dies. Yemen is false compassion in action.

The Soothing Comfort of American Military Power

Our military is necessary to keep Asian allies on our side. We used to think economic progress would moderate Chinese foreign policy and soften their dictatorship. I never bought that, and now we don't operate on those assumptions.

Bay discusses China's preparations for war (whether that means they want that military for war or coercion is another matter), and notes this important factor about China's coastal missile arsenal that falls under the term anti-access/area denial (A2/AD) designed to keep our fleet away from China:

A2/AD has a coercive political goal: Seeding doubts in Asia that the mighty U.S. will come to the rescue should China decide to launch an offensive to grab more territory -- like the Strait of Malacca, which connects the Indian and Pacific Oceans. Doubting U.S. resolve makes Asian countries susceptible to diplomatic intimidation.

I've mentioned that we need to match China lest our allies go wobbly.

And if we don't want to match China's military close to China, a distant blockade of China as the alternative leaves many allies on the wrong side of the distant blockade line--which will erode our alliances that allow us to face an increasingly powerful China.

Bay notes that our trade disputes with China could be a salvo in a struggle to deny China the resources to build up their military power.

China has long benefited from the American belief that prosperity would fuel democracy and peace rather than autocracy and aggression. Trump's apparent dumping of that long-held belief has taken China by surprise. America is now working to disengage from trade with China on terms that greatly benefit China out of proportion to what America gains. If China won't amend those trade terms, America will try to trade elsewhere.

Will this weaken the aggressive and autocratic China that trade-based prosperity has created?

Help Them Enact Good Laws

Bad laws enable tyranny. Good laws protect democracy.

Venezuela's decent into chaos as socialism reaches its logical end point could threaten the success of Colombia after a long fight against communist and drug gang insurgents.

This article was just going to be part of a data dump, but this part is so important that I want to highlight it:

In 1821, Gen. Francisco de Paula Santander told a congress full of statesmen, “Guns will give you your independence, but laws will help you keep it.” Santander was addressing representatives of Gran Colombia, the political state that once covered most of northern South America, including what is today Colombia and Venezuela.

That is an excellent quote for what I've droned on about forever on this blog when discussing Iraq. Even before the surge offensive I called for help in governance and the judiciary to build rule of law in Iraq. It is why I was heartbroken we left in 2011, why I kept urging us to get back in before things went wrong, and continue to call for a continuing American military presence to support a broader effort to build rule of law in Iraq.

The "criminalization" of Venezuela's state institutions and mass migration to Colombia could threaten the government of Colombia's efforts to make ballots and not bombs the means of settling disputes in Colombia, before the long civil war can even be put safely in the rear view mirror.

Colombia should not face this problem alone. But American help is problematic given the touchy nature of even a justified humanitarian intervention. Besides, we have bigger military problems to prepare for without extending our portfolio to SOUTHCOM.

It would be nice if Brazil could lead a regional effort to deal with Venezuela to provide humanitarian support to prevent the outflow of people from Venezuela from destabilizing Colombia and other states; and ultimately to put an end to the Maduro regime which is a danger to the entire region.

Get Out of Woke Jail Free Card

Lileks has a post on Halloween. Yes killjoys are wrecking it and I still think of it as a children's holiday that I have no interest in joining. But with the Halloween Wars past us for a year, this aside with an angle on our international reputation does get me:

Pancho Villa belongs to that peculiar American hemisphere group of people who somehow stopped being colonialists and conquerors and became, well, you know, the people who live down there. It was a neat trick, one of the more interesting sleight-of-hands I’ve seen. You rarely hear people talk about how Mexico was stolen from the Indians.

Yeah, how did Mexico--and ever other Latin American country--escape the guilt trip of colonialism that is saddled on America (and to a far lesser extent this guilt is applied to Canada) by the world and by our leftist brethren here?

And it is broader than that. Every territory on Earth is populated by the people who destroyed or pushed out the people who used to live there, and that includes the Native Americans who existed at the time of Columbus. Yet only America is vigorously damned.*

I admit I'm jealous.

*Well, Israel might get that treatment more energetically, I admit.

The China Century?

Based on population, Asia was the center of the global economic map a couple thousand years ago. That ended with industrialization in Western Europe and the rise of America and Canada. The center is shifting back to Asia as China and India gain economic shares at the expense of (mostly) Europe. Does this mark a China Century beginning?

This is interesting:



As Asia industrializes and improves their per capita GDP their population advantage pulls the economic center of gravity back to Asia where it was until the industrial revolution in Europe. Note that the center was pulled toward China from 0 AD to 1600 before heading west.

But does this shift back east mean a Chinese century is underway? Other countries in Asia such as Japan, South Korea, and Australia are part of the pull east and south, too. And India could yet combat corruption and begin to rival China.

Remember that the shifting center of gravity doesn't mean America becomes weak. Or does the center of gravity lying in Russia mean Russia is the true center of gravity now and in the near future?

And you have to consider that the "West" has expanded to include advanced Asian democracies in Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan, in addition to Australia and New Zealand. Even India is a democracy despite its problems, and it increasingly sides with the West.

In regard to China in particular I've noted, China may pass America by in global economic weight. But that advantage could reverse. I don't think that caution about trends continuing indefinitely is any less true.

The Ongoing Battle for Iraq

During the Iran-Iraq War, when the Iranians largely ejected the Iraqis from Iran the Iranians justified the offensives into Iraq as a way of getting at Israel. Iran is still trying to do that.

The fight for Iraq continues:

Iranian efforts to dominate Iraq have fallen way short of expectations. For the moment Iran is still trying to halt Iraqi political or military decisions that weaken Iranian ability to do what they want in Iraq. This Iranian interference slowed down the formation of a new Iraqi government and continuing efforts to defeat the remaining Islamic terror groups in Iraq. Iran has political and military goals that clash with what most Iraqis want. Pro-Iran Iraqi politicians want to provide Iran with more access and influence over Iraqi government decisions. When it comes to the Iraqi security forces Iran wants its PMF units to maintain their independence from army control. That enables Iran to use Iraq for operations in Syria and against the Sunni states of Arabia (especially Saudi Arabia). Most Iraqis don’t want to be involved with the Iranian military goals in Syria (attacking Israel) or Arabia (fighting Saudi Arabia over oil and control of Islamic holy places.)

One thing that helps is that America and our allies remains in Iraq, unlike in 2011 when we withdrew our military and let jihadis and Iran gain strength.

A dangerous problem is that pro-Iran PMF (Popular Mobilization Forces, mostly Shia militias mobilized in 2014 after Iraqi security forces collapsed in the north) units in Anbar are causing problems for Sunni Arabs. The Sunni Arabs fueled the insurgency in the Iraq War until the Awakening; and they fueled the rise of ISIL. Iran would love to provoke the Sunni Arabs into revolt again to justify Iran's role in Iraq into the future.

In the surge offensive in the Iraq War, American and Iraqi forces took down the pro-Iran Shia militias in Sadr City and Basra. The creation of the PMF reversed that success.

One thing the American position in eastern Syria does is serve as a buffer to prevent the region from being used as a sanctuary for Sunni jihadis destabilizing Iraq as it was under Assad in the Iraq War and as it was as part of the Islamic State under ISIL.

On the bright side, the lengthy wars against jihadis has driven home an important point:

Opinion surveys show nearly all young Iraqis see no future in Islamic radicalism and terrorism, which has, for most of their young lives been more of a threat than a source of salvation. Down in Basra the ongoing riots and demonstrations are about basics, like clean water and regular electricity supplies. The Basra unrest has been going on since July (triggered by polluted drinking water) and at least 40 protestors have been killed and many more wounded or arrested. Dozens have disappeared and feared dead. The protestors note that Iran backed militias are also involved in attacking the demonstrators. This, for many young Iraqis, confirms suspicions that Iran is not their friend.

Iraq can yet stand as a beacon of democracy and, in time, rule of law in the heart of the Middle East. We want young Moslem men to see democracy and peace as the way to a better future rather than autocrats or mullah rulers who have screwed up the Middle East since the end of the colonial eras (under the Ottomans and then under Europeans) after World War II. South Korea was poorer than Arab states back then, remember.

Multi-Domain Air Defense

Could a single F-35 defend any location from air and missile attack on its own?

It strikes me that the ability of the F-35 to essentially fire ground-based weapons could extend to long-range air defense missiles, too.

An F-35 with this ability flying over a location in a combat air patrol could have the ability to fire every air defense missile on the ground or afloat within range and every long-range air-to-air missile carried on some missile "truck" flying deeper in friendly air space in addition to the F-35s own payload.

For a lot of the targets the F-35 wouldn't need to expose its own location firing organic missiles and keep them for self defense if spotted.

Really, this gives the Air Force a reason to have its own long-range air defense systems to provide a remote payload to the F-35A for the air superiority mission.

Now that's multi-domain synergy I can get behind.

Dearth from Above

The 82nd Airborne Division is getting back its light armor. And there was much rejoicing:

On Friday the Army reactivated A Company, 4th Battalion, 68th Armor Regiment, which means the 82nd will once again have a light-armored parachute infantry — only this time, they’ll be rolling in Marine Corps-made light armored vehicles.

The “Airborne Thunder” unit has the LAV-25A2 in its arsenal, most still emblazoned with a “USMC” stencil on their side, according to the Fayetteville Observer. The Army chose that vehicle over its Stryker combat vehicles since they were smaller and lighter, allowing more of them to be loaded on an Air Force transport.

Although Russian paratroopers who recognize that arriving on the battlefield through the air is not the usual mission are getting heavy tanks. Which will punch through the thin armor of the LAV using their 125mm cannons with no problem at all and shrug off the 25mm rounds that the new vehicle fires.

The LAV is simply not enough except for rare scenarios. So there's that to consider when the division practices with the LAV before getting their newly designed light tank.

Maybe the Army could issue some Abrams to the 4-68 to practice with just in case.

Controlling the Cyber Choke Points?

This Chinese activity seems significant:

A Chinese state-owned telecommunications company has been "hijacking the vital internet backbone of western countries," according to an academic paper published this week by researchers from the US Naval War College and Tel Aviv University.

The culprit is China Telecom, the country's third-largest telco and internet service provider (ISP), which has had a presence inside North American networks since the early 2000s when it created its first point-of-presence (PoP).

PoPs are data centers that do nothing more than re-route traffic between all the smaller networks that make up the larger internet.

Are we really cool with this? It seems like a prime avenue for Chinese intelligence gathering and actual sabotage. The article notes that because China's internet is walled off from the world, it needs outposts in the West to really operate "BGP hijacks" effectively in the West that redirect traffic for whatever purpose they want them in their domain for a while. The paper states:

The prevalence of and demonstrated the ease with which one can simply redirect and copy data by controlling key transit nodes buried in a nation's infrastructure requires an urgent policy response.

In the past I wondered if the Internet could be physically attacked. But if you can physically control it, why would you attack it?

Where Will NATO Hold the Line in the South?

Italy's defenses will be reduced:

Italy will cut €450 million (U.S. $512.3 million) from its planned defense spending in 2019 by suspending helicopter and missile purchases and canceling an office move by the defense ministry to help shore up social welfare and tax cuts, a defense source has told Defense News. ...

To free up funds to cover spending, Rome has made its cut to the defense budget, just as most European states are increasing their military outlay.

Given Russian efforts to outflank NATO in the Mediterranean Sea, that is highly unfortunate.

The Russian threat can be countered and defeated in case of war, but there has to be something to counter and defeat the Russians.

If We Have to Choose Between Saudi Arabia and Iran, the Choice is Clear

Those who insist America isolate and delegitimize Saudi Arabia over the Khashoggi Affair have to answer this clear statement by Secretary of Defense Mattis of American interests in stopping Iran, which Saudi Arabia is a key ally in enabling:

I reiterate the United States stands against Iran's proliferation of advanced conventional weapons and its provision of financial and technical assistance to lethal militants amid proxy terrorists and others across the region they support. Their impact being on display in Yemen, in Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, and even here in the Kingdom of Bahrain.

In Yemen, Iran continues to export missiles rockets and unmanned aerial systems to Houthi militants in violation of United Nations strictures. Over the past 18 months, Houthis have launched more than 100 missiles at Saudi Arabia including civilian targets like the King Khalid International Airport.

Iran support, prolongs, and expands the conflict in Yemen, adds to humanitarian suffering, threatens critical waterways, and disrupts efforts for sustainable peace. In addition, al-Qaeda leadership's use of Iran as a safe haven widely acknowledged amongst extremists is unacceptable to the international community and senseless in terms of what is in the best interest of the unfortunate Iranian people saddled with the regime focused on creating pandemonium and violence beyond its borders.

We stand against Iran's unsafe even reckless behavior in the maritime domain like the July attacks on international shipping by Iranian-supplied Houthis in the Bab el-Mandeb. These behaviors flout freedom of navigation and disrupt maritime security and global trade. We stand against Iran's conducting destructive and costly cyber attacks against sovereign nations and corporations.

We stand against its testing and proliferation of missile systems in contravention of international mandates irresponsibly spreading these threats to Syria, Lebanon, Yemen and elsewhere. The fact they operate through proxy forces does not lessen the Iranian regime's culpability nor will it lessen their accountability by the international community.

We will not stand idly by any attempt by the Iranian regime to pursue a nuclear weapon. As President Trump has made clear, the United States recognizes the Iranian regime does not speak for the Iranian people, who have a right to live and prosper in a safe, secure, and peaceful region.

We need to act against Saudi Arabia to punish those who murdered Khashoggi (and discourage the Saudis from doing that sort of thing again), as Mattis also clearly stated, but people who claim to grasp nuance need to consider out interests in stopping Iran and how Iran could benefit from weakening Saudi Arabia.

Sweet, Glorious, Bloody Defeat

The effort by Hamas to attack the Israeli border since March is backfiring (what a shock for the most self-destructive people on the face of the Earth).

Instead of trying to build a prosperous state in Gaza, Hamas and their Islamist compatriots continue to define success in dead Israeli Jews:

This time Hamas thought they could win via a media war campaign by encouraging civilians (via free food, publicity and cash payments for those injured or killed) to try and physically force their way through the security fence and into Israel. It didn’t work and so far over 200 Palestinians have died. One Israeli has been killed, by a Hamas sniper using a long range 12.7mm Iranian sniper rifle. Hamas lost dozens of members, many of the promising young leaders. So did Islamic Jihad. These men were in the crowds to urge the largely male (and teenage) force to keep going in the face of tear gas, rubber bullets and real bullets for the few who made it through the fence. This was all captured on video, from both sides, and it did not reflect well on Hamas, which lost more support from its few remaining Arab allies (and donors). This included Egypt, which also closed its border to Gaza as well as increasing efforts to find and destroy Hamas smuggling tunnels into Egypt.

As long as idiots continue to funnel aid to Hamas that the rulers skim to make their own lives comfortable, Hamas feels no need to end their war against Israel--just try different ways to kill Jews and gain sympathy.

The latter is still possible as too many people in the West don't (or refuse to) understand that the Palestinian border assaults are not protests.

Weekend Data Dump

I don't get why it was particularly scary that American military and White House people started contingency plans for using tactical nuclear weapons in Vietnam in early 1968 without the president's awareness. There is no hint that the military was planning to use them without presidential authorization--and information that the military would ask for permission. Contingency planning without the president's awareness is common and use of tactical nukes should a large number of American troops be vulnerable to annihilation--as was feared at Khe Sahn--would be at the top of the list of reasons to use them. I worried a lot about our supply lines to landlocked Afghanistan. Especially while we surged troops there. And if we had to pull back US and NATO forces into defended fortress air bases while the country went belly up, awaiting an airlift out, I have no doubt we'd consider using tactical nukes to save those troops from being overrun and slaughtered or held prisoner.

Countering Russian theater nuclear weapons does not preclude dealing with Russian anti-access/area denial (AA/AD) weapons that would impede NATO reinforcements flowing into eastern NATO regions. I think we could deal with Russian missiles given that I doubt Russia could sustain an interdiction effort in the face of aggressive NATO countermeasures. And taking Kaliningrad should be high on the wartime list of things to do.

We are experiencing "life." Stay calm and work the problems.

After (tip to Instapundit) rejecting refuge in Mexico in an effort to get to someplace nicer, I imagine the mostly Central American members of the caravan heading for the American border just forfeited claims to be "refugees" in need of help in America. I'm relieved that after 2 years of hysterical Democratic claims that America is rapidly becoming a Nazi tyranny where brown people are put in concentration camps, that people from Central America don't believe that charge one bit.  Actually it would be funny if Trump resettled the refugees in upper income liberal neighborhoods. I'm joking, of course.

While Iranian small boats don't apparently "harass" American warships in the Persian Gulf, they do continue to annoy them while monitoring our ships. Is this a mere change in definitions rather than a change of behavior? I don't think so but I raise the possibility given my surprise that the Obama administration was not in fact carrying out true freedom of navigation operations in the South China Sea despite our claims (they were mere innocent passage, which does not challenge territorial claims).

Hamas apparently got tired of relying on their futile ground border assaults protests and launched a salvo of rockets at Israeli civilian targets. Israel responded in force. Let me note my rule that a response is not "disproportionate" if it doesn't deter the enemy from continuing what they do.

Jihadis remain a problem in Iraq, in Syria, and in Nigeria--on top of persistent Moslem-Christian clashes that killed 55 over several recent days. It's a long war. I hope the moderates win the Islamic civil war over who defines Islam.

A feature and not a bug. Whatever good it does, it is a figurative accelerant to spread the flames of division and conflict.

Thanks Russia!

Cyber Command has gone on offense against potential Russian interference in our November election.

This is pretty funny. I can say that because a couple months ago I belatedly got my first colonoscopy. The process of purging your intestinal tract is as unpleasant as you might imagine. The actual process nothing. And it was good to know I am free of cancer.

The definition of "climate" has been redefined to mean the average of the last 15 years plus assumptions for the next 15 years. That's odd. They are assuming the last 15-year trend continues for the next 15 years. Isn't it supposed to be getting hotter? Do they have so little confidence in their models that they don't want to use them to predict the future 15 years? I wonder if the organization making the change assume that temperatures will drop over the future period and so want to lock in the relatively flat higher prior 15 year plateau in place to "hide the decline" (but in a different context)? Certainly, any drop from natural factors overpowering human factors could be temporary. So I'd bet that when that possible dip ends that the definition will be altered back to actual temperatures at some point so the reduced temperature pig in the python doesn't depress the average. Always check the definitions section, as I like to say.

The Pittsburgh synagogue slaughter is horrifying. While not an Islamist terror act, Islamist terrorists surely salute it for the choice of target. Not all terrorists are Islamists, of course, even in these times. While the unity on display is comforting (especially this), I can't forget that we were once all "Charlie." That didn't last. We now resume our usual programming.

Yeah, nobody who escaped Russian rule should forget how the Russians behaved when they ruled them. Belarus in particular has great importance for NATO.

Thousands of US troops will be sent to the Mexico border in response to migrant caravans moving north through Mexico. Who knows if the caravans will reach the border intact, but knowing troops are waiting may discourage them earlier and end their misery and danger sooner. That's better than a confrontation on the border. I also read that Military Police would be part of the mission. Which is good. That isn't a sign of a potential bloodbath, it is a sign of preventing one. If thousands of migrants do reach the border, the only way to hold the border with small numbers of border police (or troops) is with live ammunition. If many hundreds of MPs are there bolstered by engineer-provided obstacles and barriers, nonlethal force can be used to hold the line.

South Sudan remains a horrible reminder that altering colonial-era borders does not end the sources of violence.

Is China outsourcing their military research to Western universities? We seem to be figuratively shooting ourselves in the foot. Tip to Instapundit.

The Iraqis embrace 70mm precision rockets.

I don't think Xi's exhortation to "prepare for war" means China is preparing to initiate war any more than urging our troops to be ready to "fight tonight" means anything other than motivation to be ready just in case. But Xi's appearance does show that the Southern Theater Command is a priority front.

A retired American admiral defending the need for the Trident Juncture exercise (while saying more than military exercises are needed to keep the peace) says that Kaliningrad is perhaps the most strategic slice of territory in western Europe. Perhaps that formulation is accurate. But I think that despite the importance of controlling Kaliningrad should--God forbid--the balloon go up, Belarus may be the most important territory in Europe today.

Jordan's stability has long been fragile--when it exists. Is the fragile stability fraying?

As a rule I support granting citizenship to people born here regardless of immigration status. The alternative is to have those people born here and descendants of those born here considered aliens even though they speak only English yet have not legal basis to be here and so don't become American in habit of thought. But that birth citizenship rule requires controlling illegal immigration to a dull roar to avoid encouraging women to come here to give birth. So as long as illegal immigration is unchecked there is an argument to end birth citizenship for those here illegally. But it should be done by Congress to have a debate on the pros and cons, and not by executive order. On the bright side, it would be nice to establish the precedent that changing the meaning of statutes or the Constitution requires amending the statutes or Constitution.

The Danes stopped an Iranian plot to kill an opposition activist. I did say (almost at the end) that I found it hard to believe that the massive police operation was for a mere crime.

Facebook gives propaganda and news the same status, essentially. Like mixing even a little feces with ice cream, you destroy the value of everything. I don't know why I didn't exit Facebook sooner than I did. It is just toxic and we can go back to sharing pictures of our pets and children the old fashioned way, no?

This is an interesting article on maneuvering over territorial control in the Arctic. But I had trouble wrapping my ahead around the argument that it is urgent to do something because the Arctic might be ice free by 2040. And it is a shame that America has no icebreakers while Russia has a lot and even China is going to field a fleet of them. Huh?

Russia won their intervention in Syria (Assad stands and Russia has bases in the west). And America should help Russia consolidate their victory? I really don't get nuance. Simple me, I'd rather increase the costs Russia has to pay for any actions they take against our interests. We certainly wouldn't relax sanctions.

The Navy continues to rebuild its anti-ship capabilities for its surface ships. When the Soviet fleet collapsed we allowed our Navy's anti-ship missile capability (in both subs and surface ships) to erode, assuming aircraft carrier air wings could handle the rare surface ship threat. That era ended with the rise of the Chinese fleet.

An interesting article on warship classification. I'm somewhat unhappy given that changes in ship building mean we no longer have surface warfare capital ships, leading to essentially a top-heavy navy except in names. Note that I eventually soured on the LCS as it stopped being cheap but remained poorly armed.

Articles with titles like this are really all about the author saying "I travel to exotic and important locations. Do you, peasant?"

China's birth rate continues to decline--after an initial bump--for reasons in addition to past official limits. Which I've noted. America's rate has not recovered with economic recovery but the big picture advantage may lift the American economy above China's in the long run, if China passes us by.

Just what would be the point of a Russian base in Cuba, which Russia can't afford and which is only useful to intercept Europe-bound convoys from American Gulf ports? Somebody needs to stage an intervention with Putin. #WhyRussiaCan'tHaveNiceThings

I don't like this. Or do we want our diplomatic facilities to be on Osama bin Laden Boulevard or Death to America Parkway? Or even just EmbassyMcEmbassy Street?

That's been a problem for our State Department? Sigh. If you hear the dog whistle, just maybe you are the dog.

This article discusses Army vehicle programs and notes the effort to reduce convoy casualties by taking troops out of the convoys with 1 soldier-operated vehicle leading 9 robotic supply vehicles. That's nice, but doesn't it make it easier to stop the whole convoy by taking out the leader vehicle? Isn't the actual mission--delivering much-needed supplies--taking a back seat to force protection?

This article discusses British efforts to budget for the pig-in-the-python effect of buying new attack and ballistic missile submarines.

Socialism kills.

Bastards.

A reminder that Iran has exploited the Afghanistan wars (since the Soviet invasion) by recruiting 20,000 Afghan refugees living in Iran to fight as part of the Iranian Shia foreign legion that has spearheaded Assad's war in Syria. Squeezing Iranian finances would help reduce this means of waging war by mercenaries.

I don't understand why Pakistan needs at-sea replenishment ships given that their navy has no business going too far from the Pakistani coast. Unless Pakistan wants to avoid returning ships to port for resupply when that could just allow them to be hit by Indian ballistic missiles.

China continues to increase their land-based bomber capabilities.

The U.S. government has named Venezuela, Cuba, and Nicaragua a "Troika of Tyranny" that will be opposed via sanctions. I prefer my old term "the Axis of El Vil" (the vile ones"). Honestly, without a superpower patron they aren't much of a threat to anyone but their own people. And we have bigger worries for our military power. But by all means, sanction them. They are vile.

They didn't snap back, but we are rebuilding sanctions against Iran.

There is no way that potential refugees throwing rocks will be considered firearms use under rules of engagement for Army troops at the border with Mexico. It is hyperbole intended to send a message of seriousness about border defense to deter the caravan--and future caravans--from continuing to the border. Is Trump playing politics? In part, sure. Just as opponents of border controls are using the caravan for politics. But Trump at least is acting in defense of the border as his job requires.

The burning sensation means it's working! 

For God's sake, whoever wins the Senate, House, and governors battles should act like they've been there before and avoid spiking the ball, doing an end zone dance, or otherwise taunting the opposition. It would be nice to dial back the perpetual outrage from 11, okay?

When You Start to Leave the EU, Leave the EU

Yes, if a final Brexit deal with the continent gets foggy, Britain should have the confidence to say that the continent is cut off from Britain:

The referendum result was perhaps the biggest-ever vote of confidence in the United Kingdom, its past and its future. But the British establishment doesn’t seem to share that confidence and instead looks desperate to cut a deal, even if that means staying under the rule of Brussels. Looking at this from abroad, it’s baffling: the country that did the most to bring democracy into the modern world might yet throw away the chance to take charge of its own destiny. ...

The EU’s palpable desire to punish Britain for leaving vindicates the Brexit project. Its position, now, is that there’s only one ‘deal’ on offer, whereby the UK retains all of the burdens of EU membership but with no say in setting the rules. The EU seems to think that Britain will go along with this because it’s terrified of no deal. Or, to put it another way, terrified of the prospect of its own independence.

Mind you, even a bad deal is better than extending the Brexit deadline. Getting out of the proto-imperial European Union is the important thing right now and any details can be amended in the future.

But I don't understand the British fear of leaving even without a deal. All you have to do is look at the eagerness European governments express in having trade deals with rogue Iran. Do the British really think European states couldn't be picked off one by one to get trade deals with the far larger Britain, with the fifth largest economy, which is also critical to the continent's defense capacity?

If the European apparatchiki won't come to an agreement with Britain about leaving the EU, may I suggest a rough draft for the British to issue unilaterally, beginning "When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth ..."

That approach doesn't work too badly at all.

Even European NATO Can Handle Russia's Fleet

I've said that Russian naval threats in Europe can be met with European NATO navies without major American naval support. Our top admiral in Europe agrees:

Foggo: U.S. Navy Forces in Europe Sufficient to Handle Threats — But Only With Strong Collaboration With Allies

Russia is a regional land power but stretches across the planet to be a regional power in a global span. And they have a lot of nukes.

We must take the Russians seriously for specific conventional threat scenarios but they aren't a major threat to NATO's collective naval and air power.

Heck, even Finland is planning to bolster their naval power.

Expand the Way We Protect Mechanized Infantry

I don't think engaging in a protection versus weapon race is the best way to protect our mounted infantry.

The Army wants the next infantry fighting vehicle to be simply awesome:

The Army is vigorously pursuing a new combat vehicle able to launch attack drones, carry next-generation missiles, fire a 50mm cannon and operate “optionally-manned” technology, according to initial Next-Generation Combat Vehicle requirements outlined by service weapons developers.

The service is surging forward with ambitious plans to engineer a mobile infantry carrier able to deploy quickly, traverse rough terrain, keep pace with maneuvering infantry and yet also operate with sufficient protection necessary to thwart the most advanced enemy attacks.

I half expect the vehicle prototype to have a single horn mounted on the center of the glacis plate.

I hope the Army doesn't make the same mistake of vigorously surging toward a wonder tank the way it did a generation ago (see pages 28-33).

I don't know how we make an IFV safe for internal infantry when even our massive tanks can be knocked out and build enough IFVs to equip our forces.

Yes, the tanks need protection from enemy infantry by having accompanying infantry. But when on the move, dropping the rear slab of the IFVs moving with the tanks so they can dismount the infantry stops the tanks in their tracks.

I think the Army should consider protecting the infantry by taking the infantry out of the IFV when the infantry are just passengers moving to contact.

Perhaps God Hasn't Abandoned Russia, After All

Did God just save Russia from wasting money on their broken down red sports car aircraft carrier?

Russia's only aircraft carrier was damaged and a giant floating dock sank after a crane crashed onto the vessel as it was undergoing repairs near the Arctic city of Murmansk on Tuesday. ...

"We are assessing the extent of the damage. A crane fell onto the deck from a height of about 15 metres (45 feet)," the head of Russia's United Shipbuilding Corporation Alexei Rakhmanov told the TASS news agency.

"It is clear there is damage to the hull and the deck. Fortunately, it happened on those parts that are not vital" to the work of the ship.

Yes, 'tis but a scratch to Admiral Kuznetsov.



Will Russia waste even more money to fix this smoking tenement with a flight deck despite God reaching out his hand against that POS white elephant?

God, I hope so! Fixing that ship is such a waste of resources that I can't believe Russians bother with the ship.

But they might. The Admiral Kuznetsov always triumphs!



Keep fixing Kuznetsov! It has huge ... tracts of flight deck!

Just to show us!

UPDATE: More on the incident. The carrier may have survived but the floating dry dock needed to repair the carrier did not.

From the Hulls of MPF to the Shores of AA/AD

An old idea of mine has been raised to protect Marine afloat prepositioned equipment and supplies.

Well yes, afloat forward deployed equipment depots are designed for a safer threat environment:

Top Marine Corps leaders say that the current way the force keeps its wartime inventory positioned forward won’t work in a battle with China and needs major changes to remain relevant.

For nearly 40 years the Marine Corps has relied on the Maritime Prepositioning Force program to have a brigade’s worth of gear at the ready in key theaters. That program has been reconfigured over the years but essentially uses squadrons of densely packed commercial ships that hold everything from tanks to trucks to radios to spare parts.

But three generals who spoke at the annual National Defense Industrial Association Expeditionary Warfare Conference said the program at best needs changing and could need an entire overhaul.

Back in 2000 (but actually published in 2001) I proposed sailing such equipment ships with defended Navy-Marine task forces in a larger version of an amphibious ready group--Marine Expeditionary Battle Forces (see the article starting on page 38)--to put a full brigade on the ground quickly. I noted the survivability problem of forward shore-based prepositioned sets:

One answer is steaming prepositioning ships. Taking the concept one step further, sailing with an amphibious ready group (ARG) will protect prepositioning squadrons. As ARGs rotate to homeports, prepositioning ships could unload weapons and vehicles for maintenance before sailing again. Such squadrons travelling with ARGs will allow the Marines to reinforce landings rapidly. Two battalions plus brigade assets either in the United States or on Okinawa could be combined with LAV variants and heavy equipment to support an embarked expeditionary unit. One battalion and brigade assets could be on immediate deployment notice while a reserve battalion would have longer to prepare for movement.

I noted that the equipment ships would be protected by sailing with the ARG. But since JFQ stripped out some of my supporting figures that I relied on to keep my essay under the contest world limits, the clear call for adding a Navy surface action group (SAG) for that protection and fire support was lost.* In fairness the essay wasn't primarily about the MEBF, which was one element about integrating the Marine battle role with the Army war role. I mentioned this a year ago and grabbed the relevant figure from the now-dead zombie site of the old Geocities site of mine where I had included those figures:

SPS stands for "steaming prepositioning ships" (although on Geocities I mistakenly called them "sailing prepositioning ships," but that might be better actually!) which would hold the equipment and supplies that flown-in Marines from the U.S. or Okinawa could use in a seaborne REFORGER concept.

Which sounds like the novel idea that a retired lieutenant colonel suggested in that initial article:

He offered an idea where the ships could be attached to the Amphibious Readiness Groups, moving alongside them but at protected distances.

Huh. Good idea.

*That happened in another article, too, and I learned my lesson.

Lovely Little World Order Ya Got There

So what are the Iranians implying?

U.S. sanctions against Iran will have "severe consequences" for the world order, the Islamic republic said on Tuesday, days before new sanctions on Tehran's oil exports take effect.

Washington reintroduced sanctions against Iran's currency trade, metals and auto sectors in August after it pulled out of a multinational 2015 deal that lifted sanctions in return for limits on Iran's nuclear program.

What consequences is Iran planning? And for "world order," too.

I've said it before and I'll say it again. In general sanctions don't work to change behavior because they just aren't harsh enough.

And when sanctions do get harsh enough, the target may believe the "peaceful" sanctions inflict damage equivalent to wartime attacks? If that is the case, the target may believe responding to harsh sanctions with violence is fully justified.

So again, what are the Iranians implying they might do?

As an aside, the article says Iran has abided by the 2015 nuclear agreement and that the IAEA has confirmed it. Both statements are misleading. The agreement is horrible and limited, making it worthless for stopping Iran from going nuclear; and the IAEA has such limited means to enforce the deal that their verification of Iranian compliance is meaningless.

And of course, even if the deal worked and the IAEA was enforcing it, it expires and leaves Iran free to pursue nuclear weapons without international scrutiny.

UPDATE: Israel continues cyber warfare against Iran while renewed American sanctions start to bite. The war is on and if Iran can't respond with cyber or evade the sanctions, they'll fight with whatever weapons they have--proxies and terrorism--if they suffer from the cyber and sanctions too much.

And while the Iranians are generally level-headed enough not to do something too stupid like directly attack America, in the Iran-Iraq War the Iranians eventually screwed up under the pressure of Iraqi attacks on Iranian oil exports and pulled America into in the Tanker War resulting in the cream of the Iranian navy being sent to the bottom of the Persian Gulf by U.S. forces. Could Iran have a moment of stupid and attack one of our warships transiting the Strait of Hormuz? Or try to block the strait?

UPDATE: Having decided to defeat Iran rather than enable their regional drive for nuclear-backed hegemony, we are backtracking on sanctions (tip to Instapundit?

The Trump administration is poised to offer a series of major concessions to Iran that will let it escape key economic sanctions that the administration once vowed would kick back into force in the next several days, according to multiple U.S. officials and administration insiders familiar with the state of play.

Unless this is directed at American allies who may believe America will carry the load of resisting Iran without doing much heavy lifting, this makes no sense.

If that is the case, as America gets those allies back into the fight, the escape key will be turned back to the fully locked position.

Its Not Even a Choice at This Point

President Trump is a jerk. Seriously. But Democrats offer no alternative.

My disdain for Trump is longstanding, intensified by his long life in Democratic party circles. I've voted Republican at the national level exclusively yet didn't vote for Trump in 2016. I could read the polls and had every reason to believe my vote would have zero effect on the outcome. I would have voted for him if I felt it would matter, but why get Hillary and know I voted for him?

But Trump had the advantage of not being the thoroughly corrupt and painfully untalented Hillary in 2016. So I was absolutely thrilled when he won. And even though Trump is a crude jerk, Obama was a condescending jerk. So even that factor was not as big a change in demeanor in my opinion.

And by the time 2017 ended it became clear that his policies were generally acceptable or good. I never feared his presidency--because I trusted our institutions to shape his policies--but he exceeded my expectations for good policies.

And watching Democrats wink at the anarchist and communist mobs that raged in the streets against Trump was a horrible glimpse at a possible future when our institutions were under threat.

And what did 2018 bring? More good policies. And more importantly, clear evidence that the Democratic Party and their allies in the media, academia, and Hollywood have descended into far left insanity constantly turned to 11 with ridiculous charges about dictatorship, Nazis, Confederates, white supremacists, and whatever other bat guano crazy charge-of-the-moment they had; and developed a sudden dangerous hatred of American institutions they don't control.

Silly me. I thought that Trump in the White House could get conservatives and liberals to rally around the idea of reducing the power and reach of the federal government once liberals saw what kind of power they handed to Trump--who the left sees as the personification of evil.

But alas, no. Democratic leaders have decided the political institutions that served them--and our country--so well in the past are now the enemy, too.

All because in their minds--and in their minds alone--America is becoming a fascist state. That is insane. And they will destroy American institutions to "save" America.

Democrats didn't even try to make their party a choice for people like me who don't like Trump personally. Despite Trump's personal baggage, the alternative Democrats have made themselves look far worse than Trump! That was quite the achievement. Bravo. I honestly didn't think that was possible.

I won't trust Democrats for any level of government until they recover from their insanity.

Make Kaliningrad a Baltic Kill Sack

Russia is adding missiles to their Kaliningrad Baltic Sea coastal exclave (basically the old East Prussia that the USSR took in World War II) that is separated from the rest of Russia by NATO Poland plus neutral Belarus and by NATO Lithuania. The land link was severed with the collapse of the Soviet Union. While this is threat to NATO the position is vulnerable. Let's focus on what we can do to them rather than being paralyzed by what we fear they might do to us.

It is true that Russian surface-to-air, anti-ship, and surface-to-surface missiles in Kaliningrad pose a threat to NATO reinforcements flowing into and through Poland or in the nearby Baltic Sea:

There are significant military bases for air and ground operations and for surface-to-surface cruise missiles. Kaliningrad is also important from a naval perspective, as it is Russia's only year-round ice-free port on the Baltic.

The level of new military construction activity in Kaliningrad was recently exposed at the unclassified level, with reporting that included significant analysis of commercially available overhead imagery. Russia is increasing its overall storage capability at the major depot for tactical nuclear weapons. At Primorsk, the key naval base, it has constructed 40 new weapons bunkers. And at Chkalovsk, the main air base, major aviation and weapons-storage improvements have been made, including to the storage sites of Russia's highly sophisticated (and highly controversial) Iskander short-range missiles, operated by the 152nd Missile Brigade.

But Russia defends this exclave with just 3 army brigades and a contingent of marines. Russian brigades are significantly weaker than American-style brigades. Until Russia wants to risk a lot more troops to hold the exclave and commit to a major offensive through Belarus and other Lithuania to hit the Polish Suwalki Gap, the exclave is vulnerable to running out of weapons and ammo if cut off and attacked with fires (it is small enough that NATO ground fires could knock out air defenses, clearing the way for adding air strikes to destroy the other missiles); and vulnerable to a NATO ground offensive to take the territory.

That NATO offensive should be a primary early mission if Russia starts a war over the Baltic NATO states. That would eliminate the missile threat, eliminate a potential anvil at the western side of the Suwalki Gap for a Russian hammer striking from the east, and provide NATO with a bargaining chip to regain and Baltic territory still in Russian hands when a ceasefire is declared.

Remember that NATO held the far smaller West Berlin in the Cold War with three strong brigades from America, Britain, and France. Yet there was no hope that those forces would be a threat to Soviet forces--just a speed bump that could hopefully occupy the attention of Soviet bloc forces and interfere with the line of supply for as long as possible while the main fight took place in West Germany.

Yes, if Putin puts nukes in Kaliningrad there is a risk that Moscow might believe they should use them or lose them. Although they would be a small portion of Russia's nuclear arsenal so it wouldn't make sense--but with nukes logic may go out the window.

So a NATO ground offensive that avoids taking that precise location of the nuclear warheads and instead drives the Russian defenders into a small perimeter that eliminates their anti-access/area denial (AA/AD) threat to the region around them would be sufficient to secure the NATO flank.