Echelon Above Reality

I hate it when I listen to President Obama speak and I get my hopes up only to have them dashed by the reality of his thinking.

Speaking at CENTCOM today, the president had a good opening showing good rapport with the military audience.

I do like to see that connection by our commander-in-chief.

And then, as President Obama is beginning anew the Iraq War, he commends the troops for winning in Afghanistan and states that he will soon "responsibly end" that war.

Does the president not care if his speeches match reality?

In 2011, the president "responsibly ended" the Iraq War. And less than three years later we're going back in to Iraq to fight enemies.

But the president draws no conclusions from his personal experience of his policies in Iraq that will affect his rigid plans already set down for Afghanistan.

He's the commander-in-chief sitting in the echelon above reality on the table of organization.

Echelon Above Reality

I enjoyed the fight between Jonah Goldberg and Juan Cole. It was nice to see Cole get a thrashing from his social and educational inferior, that peasant Jonah. Kind of like Braveheart sticking it to the king.

Cole was as thoroughly unprofessional as Golberg was reasonable. Cole chose to wave his engorged C.V. about to deny Jonah even had the right to engage him in debate. Sadly, all the oxygen left Cole's brain in the process.

Seriously, I have no doubt that Cole knows a great deal about Middle Eastern history. I'm sure his defense of his thesis on the evolving trade routes in semi-dried figs in upper northern Yemen (or whatever it was) is discussed in hushed tones in coffee bars wherever grad students meet.

I'll not pile on the ridiculous resort to authority that Cole relied on in the debate. If this was truly believed we'd just measure the C.V.s, declare a winner, and then follow them unto the gates of Hell.

I do wish to note the tremendous error Cole makes in assuming that knowing that mullah X is 5% less wacky than mullah Y and that they have a 98.5% overlap in Standard Hypothesized Interest Trends means that his solutions to current problems are by definition based on facts and therefore correct. If Cole was wrong about the way the world works when he was but a lad, adding a PhD to his name did not add anything to his ability to analyze. He has lots of facts and may be able to address the history of his speciality but outside of that he needs to defend his position like any mere peasant.

Sometimes it seems that once a person studies an area sufficiently, they get so bogged down in understanding the finer differences between 10th century Medina Islam and 13th century Egyptian Islam (or to be fair, knowing the differences between an M-2 and M-3 Bradley) that they think mastery of the details is the same as understanding the big picture and having solutions to our problems. Just as higher headquarters can be cut off from the reality of combat that their instructions seem to come from an echelon above reality, experts such as Cole get lost in the weeds.

I'm sure there is an internally consistent model that categorically proves, as Cole asserts, that Iran's most recent farce of an election was more democratic than Iraq's was this year.

Sadly for Cole, a command of the bleeding obvious trumps his expertise and purported command of Arabic.

Advantage: Goldberg.

From the Echelon Above Reality

I find it amazing that the prospect of Saudi Arabia fighting back against Iranian aggressive action in Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Lebanon, Gaza, Kuwait, Bahrain, and Yemen (in addition to just being a nutball nuke-seeking regime inside Iran) is met be a call for the Saudis to step back.

Oh good grief:

The United States should encourage Tehran and Riyadh to settle their differences rather than facilitate aggressive Saudi action. Otherwise, the region will be plunged into an even bigger crisis without an end in sight.

What part of Iranian aggression and destabilization is unclear? The fact is that Iran is already waging war on Saudi Arabia--including Saudi Arabia's call for the Saudis to lose their status as custodians of Mecca and Medina (and yes, Iran says, if you insist we'd step up for that honor).

How is it possible to basically think of all that Iran is and does as the steady-state "normal" that any Saudi resistance would destabilize?

What part of what Iran is doing right now isn't already a dangerous destabilizing crisis?

How is it possible to think that Iran with their record of aggression in other countries would step back from that in negotiations? "Oh, sorry. My bad. Was that wrong? We'll stop."



Sometimes experts seem to live in the echelon above reality.

What Is it With Our Academics?

I just finish complaining about professors occupying a special echelon above reality when it comes to foreign policy, when I read another charge: our pivot to the Pacific is causing Chinese aggressiveness in response!

Luckily, someone who knows our Navy is on the case.

You've pulled a nifty diplomatic hat trick when you convince your main competitor to blame himself for your bad behavior—and to consider canceling his opposition to that misbehavior to mollify you! Yet China might pull off such a feat if it protests so long and loudly against the Obama administration's "pivot" to Asia that Washington desists from supporting its allies there. And acting put-upon is a task at which Chinese officials and pundits excel. Once isolated, weaker Asian nations would find it hard if not impossible to buck China's will—which is precisely the point for Beijing.

Accordingly, incoming Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel, Secretary of State John Kerry, and the rest of the foreign-policy community should resist being taken in by a meme that's making the rounds among China-watchers. Writing in Foreign Affairs last fall, Boston College professor Robert Ross established himself as the leading spokesman for this school of thought. In a nutshell, analysts of Ross's leanings maintain that Washington's pivot is fanning paranoia in Beijing. It has goaded an increasingly fretful, increasingly jingoistic leadership into acting against weaker neighbors emboldened by U.S. diplomatic and military support.

Good grief, people, are pivot is so slow and involves such a small amount of our Navy that it is almost imperceptible to the human eye. We experence a greater increase in naval combat power every day when our sailors wake up in the morning compared to what we are getting with the pivot.

And this comes from a professor writing in Foreign Affairs--the veritable headquarters of the echelon above reality (FUBARCOM?) that at its best aspires to simple banality. So we have a two-fer of bland conventional wisdom frustrating for its determination to blame America and provide footnoted reasons to retreat from potential enemies.

God help us, this administration (even aside from the pending Hagel) will eat this meme up.

China wants it all. And if we fail to stand in their way, we just make sure they get their way. As I've often confessed, I lack a proper appreciation of nuance.

Ending the Tyranny of Experts?

Experts delende est. Sometimes you read something that just pulls together a lot of your separate thoughts. In this case, the reign of experts must be ended. Beyond the details provided by the experts in their area of expertise, there be dragons.

Oh, expertise is needed. But that expertise is narrowly focused and cannot be misconstrued as the entire universe, where unintended consequences beyond their area of expertise flourish. But we've done exactly that since World War II. And here we are with bloated statutes and regulations that stifle our freedom and economy with more and more money required to sustain the bloated organizations of experts who stray way outside their lanes, affecting vast swathes of our country outside their narrow responsibilities. It's blowback run amok.

Will America change how institutions work? 

The federal government organized itself around expertise on various subject matters. But the inherent weakness of expertise is that it is narrowly focused. It can solve a problem without grasping the broader consequences of the solution.

Yes! It's an echelon above reality. As with many things, initially the problem is that we had few experts making any of the policies or running any of the agencies. So adding experts made things better. But then the experts proliferated and expanded up the chain of command:

Embedding experts into the federal system defined a problem too narrowly and falsely. There was no one with power to step back to see the unintended consequences. There was rarely control over experts who saw only the problem they were trained to solve, rather than the consequences of a plan that needed modification.

And a lawsuit about the impact of fishing regulations has made it to the Supreme Court:

When the U.S. Congress passes a law, an expert is appointed by a senior official to manage it. Over the years, these experts’ rulings were nearly absolute, though they did not always understand the issue. A recent law required that herring fishermen must monitor various aspects of fishing and report them. An expert ruled that the fishermen also have to pay for the monitoring ordered by the expert, though the price of implementing this order would cripple the fishermen’s business.

Do read it all! The impact of the rules amounts to a punishment that only courts can impose. Will the Supreme Court see it that way?

We roam outside the boundaries of an expert's actual known expertise where we get roasted and eaten by unseen dragons. Repeatedly.

Is this the beginning of the dismantling of the tyranny of experts? Experts who in their conceit think they can account for all factors to steer a massive economy--or even "just" the herring fishing industry--with their big brains, tweaking its workings until paradise on Earth is achieved?

I don't know if the court case will start that process. But I think the author, George Friedman, may be on to the key problem that has strangled our country. And even if I don't live to see the end of this tyranny, I suspect this is the path.

[The rest of this post is mostly lot of venting as background for the top-line summary above, recounting the many strings of thought I've had that seem to fit together for appreciating the cited article before my conclusion. Proceed at your own risk.]

As I noted, this fits with a lot of things that keep crossing my mind. But since they are mostly outside of my lane, I've not given them much thought. But much reading about communism for my major area of interest incorporates the conceit of expertise for achieving paradise on Earth lets the issue drift into my lane. So the separate strands of thought remained and kept bubbling up.

We have seen the extreme form of openly advocating for (approved) "experts" declaring policy rather than arguing for it through the democratic process.

Krugman is an example of expertise in one narrow area of economics leading that expert to an assumption that you are expert in all areas:

Long ago I stopped paying attention to Paul Krugman because he's a joke. I'll accept he earned his Nobel Prize in some specific area of economics. But he writes on everything but that narrow subject and clearly knows nothing. Nothing has changed. Tip to Instapundit.

How many times have I complained that experts who know one very narrow area about a country pretend that is the universe of that country?  Or think their policy preferences are mandatory based on their narrow expertise? Or pretend to know that opposing an enemy is "falling into their trap"? And I don't exclude myself. Hell, I believed I knew our entire fleet had Harpoon missiles long after they were being phased out. I've been wrong. Or at least evolved to wrong. So I can change my mind. I assume I'm ignorant of most of my wrongness.

Most recently, the government-imposed lockdowns in response to Covid 19 illustrated this problem completely. Shutting down the economy was done in a failed attempt to fight the narrow issue of stopping or at least slowing the spread of the virus. 

But people's lives were wrecked even if they never caught the virus because of the lockdowns. Children lost valuable education and socialization. Criminals were released and lockdown violators jailed in a Bizarro World justice system. It got so bad that crime was ignored lest the poor criminal souls catch Covid when incarcerated. Small business owners lost their lives' work. Freedom of speech itself was attacked. Science was perverted into an idol to be worshiped. And much more. But the "experts" on disease--who didn't know what they didn't know--won the federal government game of thrones and decided how our country would be steered.

Or that "understanding" a country and its leaders too often leads to "sympathizing" with them or even "supporting" them? Even brutal jihadi murderers.

I occasionally mention an area is out of my lane. I recognize that I can offer informed views on some areas but opinions on most areas. 

And how often have I used the expression "echelon above reality" to  to describe experts too far from the real world to understand what is beyond their sight? It's a concept not just for high ranking military officers far from the front.

And how often have I complained that the federal government has too much power and that things would be better if controlling the federal government wasn't so important for policies that reach into every damn neighborhood? 

It's a fool's game for conservatives to fight hard to control the ever-expanding federal government. It's better to shrink the federal government to its unique responsibilities and let states and locals--or even the private sector--responsible for what can be done at the local level. Do young people understand why "Don't make a federal case out this" was once an expression that made sense?

Toss in regulatory capture when the employees of a regulated industry join the agency regulating the industry--because who else has as much expertise about the industry!--leading to the regulators becoming shields for the regulated. The taxpayer-funded agency becomes an arm of the industry that protects it from the government and competition. And the industry has more costs passed on to consumers who pay again.

And as a bonus, the regulatory bureaucrats become loyal political allies of the party that is committed to keeping the scam going through one more borrowing binge.

How often have I bridled at the arrogance of journalism majors pretending they are needed to explain the intricacies of issues to the dullards who need their interpretation rather than the mere news of who, what, when, where, and maybe some why if the writer has the background? Mere reporters do that. Journalists are an echelon above such plodding work. I especially let my outrage fly over military matters as I expressed my horror that news organizations let their journalists opine on military matters with subject expertise so low that no fashion reporter could get away with in their lane.

And even the issue of unknown unknowns gets in the act. The experts simply don't know that they don't know a lot even within their area of expertise. And outside of their area of expertise they pretend they know the unknowns that they can predict. When in truth they should just write "Here be dragons."

Hell, let's toss in my old but rarely mentioned on this blog sadness about the emasculation of JCAR, the Joint Committee on Administrative Rules in the Michigan State Legislature. That was one of my areas of responsibility and JCAR was a gauntlet that rules had to pass before the executive branch could enact them. It was described as "nitpickers Heaven". Rules were authorized to implement statutes, so it made sense for the legislature to scrutinize the rules. People and groups affected by the rules could take their issues to JCAR.

Opponents of JCAR said the body was pointless because on paper so few rules were rejected. But the paper trail overlooked the real impact. When a department or agency could see the hangman coming, they withdrew their rules--prior to formal rejection--and addressed the concerns brought up in JCAR. Sadly, a conservative supreme court sided with the people who argued JCAR was an unconstitutional "legislative veto" over an executive function rather than the vital oversight to keep rules consistent with the statutes that authorized their promulgation. And Republican state legislators went along because the governor and legislature were both Republican-controlled. Gosh, that could never change, right?

Mind you, George Friedman has motivation to see something like this coming to validate his theory of government--among other things--organization. So he's biased. I merely hope for something to cut the Gordian Knot that seems to tie together the problems I've felt more than thought about. My bias is not profession-based. But man I want it to be right.

Experts are tools. Use them. They are vital. But let a generalist--an elected one responsible to the people who are affected--who isn't so locked into one narrow area of knowledge make the final decision. At least then there is some hope that common sense will prevail. Or at least accountability after mistakes.

Our country is not a vehicle to be precisely steered by tinkering with isolated cogs and widgets without veering off the road into dragons. Dragons are popping up everywhere. Experts delende est.

NOTE: The image was made from DALL-E.

NOTE: TDR Winter War of 2022 coverage continues here.

NOTE: I'm adding updates on the Last Hamas War in this post.

Echelon Above Reality

Fight jihadis. Kill jihadis. Defeat the jihad.

God save us from professors in global studies:

The problem is that, as the Paris killings and the French counterattack indicate, the Islamic State is partly a totalitarian state and partly a transnational terrorist organization. As a state it can be attacked and defeated, at least temporarily. And yet, paradoxically, the more we in the West attack the state, the more its appeal as a terrorist organization will grow among those who see the West as an enemy.

Forgive me, but I'm going to use a technical term to describe her error. Her argument is "stupid."

Throughout the history of warfare, killing enemies has been job one of defeating them.

It may not be the only part of the job, but it is the start of the job.

This nonsense has permeated the Left's discomfort with the war on terror since September 11, 2001. They truly believe that fighting back against jihadis just makes more jihadis.

This is wrong. In fact, only ineffectively fighting jihadis creates more jihadis.

Bomb their tents with cruise missiles in the middle of the night? That encourages the recruitment of jihadis by demonstrating that our response is weak and the level of threat to jihadis is low.

I've argued many times that only ineffective use of force is counter-productive. Like here. Or here.

I argued that point again in August 2014 as I made this point:

Let me apply the clue bat: the Islamic State is prepared to morph into a transnational terrorist threat and only our passivity in the face of that organization's advances in Iraq and Syria will allow them to do so.

And here we are. Burying the dead from Paris, Beirut, and the Sinai--as well as in Syria, Iraq, Nigeria, and Libya--and wondering where ISIL might strike again.

Attack the jihadis, kill them, and drive them from the territory that they hold, as we did in Iraq by 2009. In 2008, our CIA could say this about our effective use of force:

While cautioning that al-Qaeda remains a serious threat, Hayden said Osama bin Laden is losing the battle for hearts and minds in the Islamic world and has largely forfeited his ability to exploit the Iraq war to recruit adherents. Two years ago, a CIA study concluded that the U.S.-led war had become a propaganda and marketing bonanza for al-Qaeda, generating cash donations and legions of volunteers.

All that has changed, Hayden said in an interview with The Washington Post this week that coincided with the start of his third year at the helm of the CIA.

"On balance, we are doing pretty well," he said, ticking down a list of accomplishments: "Near strategic defeat of al-Qaeda in Iraq. Near strategic defeat for al-Qaeda in Saudi Arabia. Significant setbacks for al-Qaeda globally -- and here I'm going to use the word 'ideologically' -- as a lot of the Islamic world pushes back on their form of Islam," he said.

After that--along with the killing of bin Laden--we get a president who boasted of our victory and that al Qaeda was on their heels and on the run:

And it’s useful to remember what we’ve done. Four years ago, I told you we’d end the war in Iraq -- and we did. (Applause.) I said that we’d end the war in Afghanistan -- and we are. I said that we’d refocus on the people who actually attacked us on 9/11 -- and today, al Qaeda is on its heels and Osama bin Laden is dead.

Sadly, after years of taking our eye off the ball, the jihad was no longer on its heels when he made that claim.

And remember that our Awakening success that helped the success of the 2007 Surge offensive in Iraq took place in the Sunni Arab communuity we targeted in the invasion of Iraq in 2003 which ended their minority-led government of privilege and oppression of the Shias and Kurds. The same people whose Sunni jihadi champions we killed wherever we found them from 2003 to 2006 when we decided to carry out the Surge that escalated the effective violence against the Sunni Arab jihadis.

Why didn't that history of fighting Sunni Arab jihadis (and Baathists) create more Sunni Arab jihadis? Why did it convince Sunni Arabs in Anbar to stop fighting us and actually join us in fighting jihadis?

It's almost as if defeating jihadis has a depressing effect on potential jihadi recruits by denying them the ability to think the jihad is the strong horse in the struggle.

Heck, let me cite President Obama on this issue:

Obama noted at his press conference that when ISIS racks up victories on the battlefield, it attracts foreign fighters looking to join the clear path to paradise. When it loses ground, the recruits decline. This is why the military dimension of this fight is important: to make ISIS a less appealing receptacle for radical jihadis’ dreams of glory or martyrdom.

Even fanatics prefer to fight for the strong horse. Following the weak--or dead--horse just isn't as appealing.

Mind you, the author has a point. It's lost in the stupidity of the notion that fighting back is counter-productive. But it is a point: We don't want to respond to jihadi attacks who claim to speak for Islam by persecuting or killing those Moslems who aren't jihadis or their active supporters.

If we simply kill them all and let Allah sort them out, then yes, absent a near-genocidal level of killing, we will create enough jihadis to replace those we kill. Indeed, it is a form of ineffective use of force. But fighting back with focused violence isn't the same as killing civilians indiscriminately.

Fight them? We're barely back to that stage after a good start during the Bush administration. I dream of effectively fighting them. According to this professor's side of the debate, we can't even screen refugees for them.

Face it, discrediting their ideology of hatred starts with crushing the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria--and any other sanctuary they create (like in Libya).

Fight and defeat the jihadis. And ignore the stupid notions in the left-wing university echelon above reality that values safe spaces for pampered college snowflakes but doesn't think that we need defended safe spaces against jihadi terrorists.

The war will be long enough if we make no mistakes. Let's not make it longer by listening to fools who couldn't pour water out of a boot if the instructions were written on the heel.

Balancing the Army

The Army is restoring conventional warfare capabilities lost as it rotated nearly every available brigade through Iraq and Afghanistan to fight insurgents and terrorists:

Nearly 200 M1A2 SEP V2 Abrams Tanks and M2A3 Bradley Fighting Vehicles were delivered to the Soldiers of the Big Red One's 2nd Heavy Brigade Combat Team earlier this month. The new equipment features the Army's latest round of updates that allow operators better situational awareness and superior optics over previous versions.

"The greatest thing about the new vehicles is that the entire brigade will have the newest equipment the Army has to offer," said Lt. Col. John Cross, commander, 1st Combined Arms Battalion, 18th Infantry Regiment, 2nd HBCT. "With our new fleet, the 'Dagger' Brigade will be equipped to be the most lethal maneuver brigade in the U.S. Army."

The brigade will continue training in this new (as in updated) equipment.

Twenty thousand other armored vehicles designed for surviving large IEDs and mines in the Iraq and Afghanistan counter-insurgency campaigns--Mine Resistant Ambush Protected, or MRAPs--are being sorted out:

Approximately 11,000 MRAPs will be put into these brigade combat team contingency sets prepositioned around the world, comprising 59 percent of the entire fleet. Another 7,000 MRAPs “will go into [pre-deployment] Army units like transportation companies and echelon above brigade medical,” he wrote. About 2,000 of those 7,000 will be placed in training sets around the world while the last 800 or so “will be used for Army war reserve sustainment stocks and contingency replacement stocks.”

MRAPs were great for their specialized mission but are less than ideal for a rebalanced Army that isn't fighting a counter-insurgency or routine peacetime training and missions. I don't mind the $50 billion spent on them. We saved a lot of lives--dead and injured--with that expenditure. But we won't just junk them. The contingency sets will allow a unit equipped for conventional warfare that is being sent to a counter-insurgency environment to draw a set of MRAPs and carry out the new mission with appropriate equipment. Some will go to units that would heavily use roads and be expected to encounter roadside bombs as the primary threat. Route clearance and engineer units would use them, as well as the medical units noted above. Some will be used for training and some will be replacements for losses. Apparently, only a small number won't be retained in one way or another.

Which is fine. If our Army retains the knowledge of fighting insurgents in doctrine that our officer corps can implement, well-trained troops can adapt quickly from conventional operations to counter-insurgency operations.

But our ability to flip has a lot of momentum behind it from recent war experience. Will this capability last more than a generation as the left-over MRAPs wear out and as the officers with direct experience in fighting insurgents leave the surface? Hopefully, we do institutionalize this knowledge even as we rebalance to fight conventional enemies in the field.

Guidance from the top may tell our Army that it won't have to fight something like Iraq again, but reality has a way of dictating who we have to fight rather than guidance from above reality.

Echelon Above Reality

What is it with some people who insist on ignoring the obvious value of hard military power in settling disputes as they look for any other measure of power to credit with the ability to shape events?

This guy--a professor at Princeton--is pulling my leg, right?

Although more foreign policy spending is always welcome, Europe already assumes more than its fair share of the regional security burden. It invests not only in its military but also in crucial geo-economic and institutional instruments that the United States does not possess — but needs. In this respect, the United States freerides on European power.

Consider the facts. The U.S. military commitment to European defense is surprisingly small. After the Cold War, almost 90 percent of American soldiers departed. Today only about 5 percent of total U.S. active-duty personnel and a few hundred among thousands of U.S. nuclear weapons are deployed there.

The primary purpose of this military presence is in any case not to defend Europe. It is to promote vital interests elsewhere. Without naval ports, air force bases, hospitals and command centers in Italy, Spain, Germany and Turkey, U.S. military operations in the Middle East, South Asia, the Mediterranean, Africa and the Arctic would be nearly impossible. ...

Trump singles out resistance to Russia as a prime example of U.S. leadership. “Nobody else,” he said, “is fighting for the Ukraine.” Yet the slice of the United States’ $600 billion defense budget directed to supporting Ukraine or deterring Russia in Europe is tiny. One-time allocations of $800 million this year and $3.4 billion next year are earmarked for NATO “reassurance measures” in Eastern Europe. Less than a billion more goes for military aid to Ukraine, where key Western governments have ruled out a direct military response. By contrast, Poland alone spends nearly $10 billion annually on its military, and NATO Europe as a whole more than $250 billion. [emphasis added]

Must. Restrain. Fist. of. Death.

You will first note that as the new NATO states in the east have faced the prospect of Russian pressure and aggression, they have not been clamoring for the EU to deploy "geo-economic and institutional instruments" to their territories to keep the Russians at bay. Odd, isn't it? No. Those simpletons want heavy armor and air power.

And yes, let's consider the facts. In the later stages of the Cold War we probably had 5 division equivalents in Europe. They were backed by 11 more in the United States (one more in South Korea was tied there) and 16 National Guard divisions in reserve (I'm going by memory here, but the rough numbers will do). So 5 of 33 division equivalents, before reinforcements are added in, or 15%.

Today we have 2 brigades with a commitment to add a heavy brigade to Europe. So let's call it 3. That's out of about 32 brigades in the active force (with one tied to South Korea) and 28 in the Guard (again, from memory and this is a moving number as we go along). So 3 of 60 brigades. That's 5%.

Yes, that is much less than the Cold War. We did have a peace dividend for a while. But this is not as bad of a decline in commitment as the 90% reduction "fact" implies.

Nor does that address how our reduction in military capability is nowhere near as bad as Europe's, which has virtually no deployable military power these days.

As for the usefulness of Europe's geography to help us project power? Well, yeah, I've mentioned that (and once again, I don't know why they credited me with a PhD. TDR has an MA, in history).

And that should give the good professor some food for thought about the value of American military power to defend Europe even though our military power is based in America.

Follow closely in case this gets complicated. If America has the ability to deploy and sustain significant military power through Europe on its way to points east in the greater Middle East region, South Asia, the Mediterranean, Africa, and the Arctic, then America has the ability to deploy and sustain significant military power in Europe itself by simply shortening the power projection distance.

Oh wait, that wasn't complicated at all.

Which brings me to the last fact category designed to prove how we are a freerider on European spending.

The author really wants to argue that little of our defense spending would apply to the defense of Europe while European defense spending is almost entirely for the defense of Europe.

Oh Good God, the stupid burns.

The notion that the only American defense spending that counts are the money going to help Ukraine and the money intended to reassure our new NATO members in the east is pure nonsense.

We are not a European state, and so most of our military power is deployed across the Atlantic here in North America. Money we spend to maintain military forces here and the ability to deploy that military force overseas is absolutely necessary to defend Europe and of course counts.

As does our nuclear deterrent which costs a lot of money.

As for European spending, I'll grant Poland's total should count. They are on the front line and they are scared witless of the Russians carving them up again.

But saying European defense spending is in its totality spending to defend Europe ignores that European "defense" spending is mostly for a uniformed civil service with little military capability.

Further, the idea that spending on even effective military capabilities anywhere in Europe means the Europeans spend to defend everywhere in Europe is nonsense. Just as we must project military power to eastern Europe, the Spanish and French must deploy military power to eastern Europe to be relevant. Norway must deploy to Italy, or the reverse. Britain must deploy overseas, too, of course, for anywhere in Europe to help an ally, despite being in Europe.

Most of European defense spending is a jobs program. And most of the real military power Europeans have is essentially the ability to defend in place should the Russians come across the continent to reach them.

Actual deployable European military power that could go abroad or even to the perimeter of Europe is small. Please, just note how little military power Europe deployed to take on a small military power wracked by civil war in 2011. That war in Libya took half a year to "win" and the aftermath has not been a happy one.

Europe is militarily weak. They are just lucky that Russia's military power is not sufficient to drive all the way to the Rhine River--or even to the Oder.

But the Russians can take the Baltic NATO states now. Or Belarus (which isn't in NATO).

Amazingly, the author doesn't even rely on farcical notions that Europe really has military power to argue we are the freerider. No, Europe is the superpower, the professor says, because of their soft power:

Yet in world politics, nonmilitary instruments are often more effective. And Europe is the world’s preeminent civilian superpower.

Europe is the world’s largest trading bloc, provides two-thirds of the world’s economic aid and dominates most international organizations. It has invested heavily in the European Union, which spreads peace and market economics across the continent, and permits Europeans to negotiate as a bloc.

The man has a limited point. Military power isn't the only means of exercising power.

But once shooting starts, those aspects become irrelevant until the results of the shooting are known.

Just what will Europe's foreign aid do for defending the Suwalki Gap if Russia makes a grab for the Baltic States to link up with their Kaliningrad enclave? Will Gabon react in gratitude for European foreign aid by dispatching an expeditionary force?

Will EU bureaucrats tie up invading Russians in red tape to slow and halt the advance?

And good God, the EU had nothing to do with spreading peace throughout Europe since World War II--America-led NATO did that--unless you truly believe that Europe's history of warfare is the fault of the warmongering people who pushed their reluctant princes to war again and again.

Nor does the political EU have anything to do with prosperity. A common market with reduced national resistance to trade has that effect without empowering a proto-empire run from Brussels.

The idea that Europe is pulling its weight to defend Europe is nonsense that only the echelon above reality in charge of FUBARCOM could possibly believe.

There really are a bunch of people who think this way.

Echelon Above Reality Strikes From Over the Horizon

How stupid does NSC spokesman John Kirby think we are? Jihadis are not a problem we can pretend are fully under control.

In what alternate reality does this make any sense?

National Security Council spokesman John Kirby has argued that the Taliban killing of the Islamic State group leader believed responsible for the August 2021 attack on Abbey Gate that killed 13 U.S. service members helps to vindicate President Joe Biden’s decision to withdraw all American troops from the country.

“Having him gone is a good thing and it does part and parcel reflect the president’s decision to leave Afghanistan,” Kirby told reporters on Wednesday. “It does, in fact, prove, that you don’t need boots on the ground, you don’t need to remain in a particular field of battle, to be able to go after terrorists.”

Kirby stressed that the United States has “Over-the-Horizon capabilities” to monitor and strike terrorist groups in Afghanistan and elsewhere. Moreover, those capabilities have improved since the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan in August 2021, noting that a July 2022 U.S. drone strike in Kabul killed al-Qaida’s top leader Ayman al-Zawahiri. [emphasis added]

The Taliban killed a jihadi we want dead and that proves over-the-horizon counter-terrorism works?

Really? The Taliban weren't over the horizon! Not by any twisting of reality known to modern science and administration spokescritters.

Further, he said the killing proves that you don't need boots on the ground to conduct counter-terrorism?

Is Kirby serious? Doesn't this look like obvious BS? Am I taking crazy pills? The Taliban killed the ISIL jihadi. The Taliban had boots on the ground! In Afghanistan! Where they killed the jihadi who they disliked--not because we wanted him dead.

Isn't the correct lesson that having Afghan allies--who we needlessly allowed to be defeated--provided better boots on the ground to kill jihadis?

Oh, and a final defense of the Skedaddle Debacle clusterfuck is that America's "over-the-horizon" capabilities--improved since August 2021 (but on-the-ground capabilities that are obviously much lower are excluded)--have carried out three drone strikes in over a year and a half since leaving! With the most notable being one from ten months ago. 

Bravo. 

But pace yourself, boys! We wouldn't want to deplete our resources or be hasty about giving kill orders.

Why is Kirby insulting our intelligence and synaptic connections between our eyes and brain? How can Kirby even look at himself in the mirror without feeling intense professional shame?

It was always obvious that over-the-horizon counter-terrorism only presents a huge threat to empty tents. 

Kirby at least admits that rather than ignores jihadis--who still hate us and dream of killing more of us--that they need killing. So that's something.

We lost the war in Afghanistan. However inconvenient that is for Kirby to admit, that is the truth.

UPDATE: Some admit the truth:

The Biden administration's bungled withdrawal from Afghanistan decimated the U.S. military's capability to gather key intelligence and information on terrorist activities, a U.S. intelligence official confirmed to Congress on Thursday. 

Under oath.

NOTE: TDR Winter War of 2022 coverage continues here.

Weekend Data Dump

The Obama administration turned away from being "flexible" for "reset" Russia when Putin turned against Hillary Clinton? No. That pivot happened when Hillary lost the election. The Claudia Rossett interview at the first link is good.

America pulled out of a group negotiating a "voluntary" migration pact. If the people for the migration pact can't even agree among themselves whether the trend is a "positive story" or "hugely destabilizing" why would America want to voluntarily participate when cooperation will surely mean accepting some of those people--on top of what we already do--on the move? People seem confused by thinking that we have to accept as many people as want to come here.

A rally to help ensure the Alabama election of Roy Moore to the United States Senate was held in Detroit, Michigan earlier in the week.

When racist rally members in Charlottesville were confronted by communist/anarchist antifa thugs, the local police actively decided to let them fight, leading to the death of a young woman minding her own business at the protest. Not that this is a defense of the man accused of driving the car into the crowd and killing the woman. But the police should have been trying to prevent violence rather than planning to exploit violence.

She is a meat head, ironically enough. From the Journal of Feminist Geography, which refuses to study Florida.

The Saudis might have missed a missile launched in November from Yemen by Iran-backed forces. Which isn't a shock. No weapon is perfect (and some very far from it) and so a Patriot missing is hardly impossible. And let's not forget that the Yemen faction was aiming at a civilian target. But that's not a story, apparently.

In an effort to build on the buzz of Bitcoin, Maduro plans a crypto-currency to be called the Shitcoin Petro backed by Venezuela's natural resources. It won't work and should be backed by Maduro's good looks and personal charm for all this will achieve. Although it might have promise in the complementary digital crypto-food that his people will be able to buy with the new money. Mmmm, virtual rabbit.

Flynn copped a plea for lying to the FBI notwithstanding no underlying crime. Give the man a break, lying to the FBI is apparently a very new law.

I have little respect for Foreign Policy magazine. Regularly getting their email links doesn't help. This does not improve my view of their judgment. They aren't good enough to be in the echelon above reality. They're in the echelon in defiance of reality.

Russia says they are ready to exert their influence on North Korea over the nuclear issue. Given Russia's "help" to preserve Syria's chemical arsenal with a chemical weapons deal and given their "help" to enable Iran's drive to get nuclear weapons with the farcical nuclear deal, I'm thinking we should keep Russia out of this nuclear crisis to prevent more "help."

Egypt may allow Russian planes use Egyptian air space and air bases. Not that this is a one-way proposed deal! If Egypt ever wants to bomb Finland, Russia is granting Egypt the right to use Russian air space and air bases. We have a way to go in restoring our reputation in the Middle East if long-time ally Egypt is willing to work with Russia just in case. Unless Egypt is just negotiating with America by using the Russians to get a better deal.

Yemen's Iran-backed rebels have fractured and the Saudi coalition may have gained a vital advantage to press forward.  I never bought the notion that the Saudis were losing this war. Yes, it was stalemated because Saudi Arabia was unable to get enough locals on the ground for their air power to support. This may change that ground problem. I'm sure eventually talks will rearrange the name plates around the big table in the Yemen capital and this clusterfuck of a state, as this story about Saleh's history shows, will resume its usual programming of poverty, corruption, and the production of Islamists.

Will Democrats stop turning the dial to 11? This time people will die with festering boils because of the Republican tax cut bill. In the past when taxes went up the deficit went up; and when taxes went down, the deficit went up. While I'd like the deficit reduced, that isn't going to happen in the current political environment. So I'd rather have the deficit go up with the taxes lower, at this point.

Bike lanes are killing the planet. Who knew reserving disproportionate road space for a little-used vehicle would be environmentally counter-productive? Tip to Instapundit.

How is it possible that Britain is having more problems leaving the European Union than Eastern Europe had in escaping Soviet control in 1989??!!

The Fulani tribe are a problem in Nigeria as well as other places in the region. That's quite the rap sheet they have there. How Nigeria survives as a state with their problems is kind of amazing.

The FBI has pretty much wrecked the trust they built up by their wildly different treatment of Hillary Clinton and Trump. I realize most agents are honorable and this problem is based on the politics of relatively few. All the more reason the many should be the most outraged. The reaction to Trump is proving far more destructive to our country than Trump could ever be. Solid trusted institutions can check excesses. But if the institutions are corrupted in their partisan zeal, the ability to check anything truly dangerous in the future is crippled. This trend pre-dates the Trump-Clinton race, of course, as the whole IRS politicization makes clear. A lot of federal employees need to lose their jobs and face the criminal justice system as a warning to the rest that this is unacceptable. I have never been big into the "deep state" view (as opposed to bureaucratic interests and inertia) but the opposition is tipping into territory that makes that view more plausible to argue, I think. Our pride used to be peaceful transfer of power. Do we still have that fully?

As I've long said, the federal government has grown too big a prize because of its increasing power over so many areas of our lives to be healthy for our country. It is clearly the center of gravity for our entire nation. It obviously draws too much political attention. In regard to the chart in the article above showing the extreme tilt in favor of Democrats as demonstrated by federal employees by department, is it really that bad? Is this the top level of civil servants only? That's bad enough but wouldn't reflect the bulk of people in the organizations. Although I don't know why civil servants are allowed to make political donations or have political opinions in public. Or are the donations from the top levels that are appointed and so in 2016 obviously Obama appointed?  I just don't know what the significance of this is. But for me, given I was diligently nonpartisan in my career in the state legislative branch, the possibility of bias as extreme as that chart shows is extremely disturbing. The civil service system may have failed completely and been corrupted by the political competition that has grown so extreme to control the federal government.

So you want to know why I have long (for decades) mistrusted our press corps? As the media constantly looks for Republican scandals--real or imagined--it has downplayed Democratic scandals (opting instead to focus on Republican "overreach" in response). And worse, the media ignored the sexual abuse scandal that they all knew about in their own industry. They all knew. And they said--and published--nothing. In what way have they earned my trust? Yes, I rely on them. And they often do good work. And practically speaking, they're the only game in town for news. But treat them as suspect until proven otherwise is always a safe approach.

Nancy Pelosi promotes ethnic cleansing. She really is a deplorable character.

Good Lord. Moore and Franken look better by contrast every day. They keep saying "icon." I don't think that word means what they think it means.

I see the Remain camp has gained some new recruits to oppose Brexit. I hope May doesn't really believe Trump's tweets are the biggest British problem.

When I heard of Libyan slave markets, it didn't even occur to me to blame President Obama. Yes, I think the Libya War was a mistake. I figured that if the issue was so important to Europe, they could have dealt with it. And if Europe couldn't handle rebellion-wracked Libya, they should be ashamed. France didn't help in Iraq, after all, so have a ball. But we took part. So I wanted America to win. You certainly couldn't claim the war to overthrow a dictator was immoral. And I thought Europe should take the lead for post-war work. Europe didn't. And here we are. But the fact is that the slave trade is the fault of slave sellers and slave buyers--not Obama or America or Europe or the West. The sad fact is that slavery was not invented by America and continues to exist in parts of the sainted Third World.

The persecution of Lindsay Shepherd demonstrates how oppression is perfectly compatible with a reputation for politeness. Here is her recording of her inquisition. Listen to those whiny proto-Red Guards grind her beneath their Birkenstocks. If they could send her into the countryside to toil her way to proper thinking, they would. (Nobody expects the Canadian Inquisition. But you should. Fascism is always descending on America; but it always seems to land elsewhere.) You wonder where the Gestapo  or the Soviets got their camp guards? From people like these petty tyrants.

Wealthy liberals can use their wealth to live a carbon-spewing lifestyle and then buy "carbon credits" with their wealth so they can feel ecologically and morally superior to a young working man driving to work in an old car that lost its emission control systems long ago. So Lena Dunham's rage against Republicans is kind of like a feminist carbon credit to "make up" for (in her mind?)  her unwillingness to go public with what she knew about the abuse by liberal Weinstein of women in her own industry.

A preview of the newest American anti-ship missile, the LRASM.

Europeans basically despise Israel and--if they believed in God--granted sainthood to whatever terrorist is speaking for the Palestinians, yet still jihadis slaughter them in their cities. So don't expect ritual denunciations of Trump's Jerusalem (sort-of) decision to shield Europe from religious violence.

Perhaps I'm unclear about crypto-currency, but isn't hacking them and stealing them supposed to be impossible, which is the appeal of the concept?

If Iran won the first round over Lebanon in the Hariri crisis, the Saudi-Israel coalition still has a trump card to play to cripple Hezbollah and reduce Iran's influence in Lebanon. And with the U.S. secretary of state meeting with Hariri to encourage him to stand up to Iran, are we sounding him out on his abilities if the balance of forces inside Lebanon suddenly tilts against Hezbollah? And is America taking precautions to make sure Hezbollah survivors from Lebanon don't make it to the Western Hemisphere to seek revenge for Iran?

The first time I taught a class my mouth got so dry that I could barely pronounce words. I'm surprised it happened to Trump but when I watched his Jerusalem announcement I assumed that the high stakes of this move caused unusual nervousness and a resulting dry mouth. But question Hillary's health last year?

Senator Franken announced his intention to resign from the U.S. Senate over sexual harassment-related conduct.  The day after the American embassy opens in Jerusalem? Or will that plan be put off if Moore wins? The apology was more "I'm sorry this horrible thing happened to me," but who's perfect? Regarding Moore, I suspect if he is elected he will be ejected for some reason or another to let Alabama have a redo with an actual Republican rather than electing a Democrat by punishing Moore in the special election. Moore is a piece of work without his girl fixation. Don't we have enough Democrats in Congress with views like that without adding Republicans to the ranks?

I generally watch Fox with a large component of CNN thrown in. But MSNBC is never on my TV given that they are so unclear on the concept that their idea of an expert on terrorism is a terror apologist and outright liar. WTF, people. Has MSNBC decided to compete with al Jazeera for market share?

It's kind of funny to see China experiencing the joy of Pakistan as a frenemy: "China on Friday warned its nationals in Pakistan of plans for a series of imminent 'terrorist attacks' on Chinese targets there, an unusual alert as it pours funds into infrastructure projects into a country plagued by militancy." It's so odd. How can any Moslems be mad at China when China didn't invade Iraq or recognize Jerusalem as Israel's capital! I thought those were the approved reasons for being a terrorist! Given this Islamist threat, the Chinese are going to be aghast when they find out that terrorists will use the road link China is building between Pakistan to the sea at one end and China's restive Xinjiang province at the other. Also, Pakistan is "plagued by militancy"? That's like saying I'm plagued by beer on game night. Just who did that to me and why can't I stop them?

It's starting to seem like the intensive "obstruction of justice" investigation of Trump's team over an issue of "collusion" that isn't even a crime and doesn't seem to have happened is just an exercise of "the best defense is a good offense." Doesn't it? Tips to Instapundit.

"The Resistance" is just silly in its worry about Trump trying to impose fascism on America. It's not happening. But when Trump leaves office and our checks and balances are intact, I have no doubt that the Left will proudly boast that their tactic of turning everything to 11 to stop fascism worked great!

I still have no idea if the Cuba "sonic attack" issue is even real or who did it. It should go without saying that communist Cuba can't be trusted to provide answers.

You have to admit, if the email actually had been sent 10 days earlier, it might actually have been a story! Not even close to being an apple, CNN. The orange blinded you.

I'm not sure how the candidate who was ahead in the pre-election polls actually winning indicates voter fraud in Honduras. Although running for reelection does seem illegal. But abroad I'm not ashamed if a pro-American candidate wins in a shady manner when foes of America have been winning in a shady manner in the region. I'm not proud of this "hypocrisy." But I'm not happy with the anti-American winners, and those types seem to end up way worse in how they treat their own people.

Go Army! Beat Navy! Two in a row. Never forget that those players are officers going to war. 

The Deep Roots Feed Chinese Autocracy

The idea that China has a long history of democracy impulses with "deep roots" when you have to ignore a couple millennia of Chinese autocratic imperial history to rely on the previous century of near-non-existent democracy in China is nonsense:

Still, some historical perspective is in order—not because Mr. Xi shows any signs of relenting in his oppressive agenda but because it would be a mistake to confuse the present reality with permanence. Democratic ideals have deep roots in modern Chinese history and have surfaced again and again over the past century. This legacy should serve to remind us that not all Chinese, even in the worst of times, have been resigned to a politics of one-party rule.

Seriously, "Historical perspective" about China and democracy requires us to ignore the vast history of China to just note the failed impulses for democracy that even over the last century of focused "perspective" are nearly non-existent?

And in that past century representing but a sliver of Chinese history, the only real democracy has been built away from mainland China in Taiwan--with a partial nod to Hong Kong that got it late from the British before being handed to the Chinese who do not take their so-called deep roots of democracy seriously enough to allow democracy in Hong Kong.

At best China had their own Han Spring that was crushed by the weight of Chinese tanks in 1989 at Tiananmen Square. Those first green sprigs of democracy never had a chance to put down any roots at all.

God save us from experts who sometimes seem to live in the echelon above reality.

Run Away!!

The history of American retreats from the Middle East is no record to support withdrawing American troops from eastern Syria and Iraq. But the university-based echelon above reality never tires of urging retreat from enemies, reassuring us that all will be well.

Let's dig into this self-defeating nonsense, shall we?

The regional reverberations of the Israel-Gaza war demonstrate why the White House should scrap, not reinforce, America’s outdated and unnecessarily provocative troop presence in Syria and Iraq.

President Joe Biden should redeploy these forces to a safer position offshore and leave it to self-interested Syrians and Iraqis to prevent ISIS from reemerging. As Biden’s own policy on Afghanistan demonstrated — and as I observed on the ground earlier this fall — withdrawing U.S. soldiers and Marines can bolster American security by turning the fight against Islamic State over to well-motivated local belligerents while freeing up U.S. personnel to serve in more vital areas.

Likewise, pivoting out of Syria and Iraq will not make Americans any less safe, but it will deny local militias, and their presumptive patrons in Iran, the chance to use unneeded outposts for leverage over our national strategy.

The author basically argues we aren't keeping the peace with our presence.

Well, duh. The issue isn't whether we are keeping the peace when brutal enemies still roam the region. The issue is whether we can help local allies defeat local enemies and have hope things can be maneuvered into a better state while preventing the situation from getting worse.

Let me just focus on the excerpts quoted above that set the stage for his confidence that unicorns will frolic without the poisonous effects of America's small military presence on the ground.

There is no causal link given between the war in Gaza and withdrawing American troops. Is Iran supporting Hamas and local enemies in Syria and Iraq? Yes. That seems more of a reason to stay, no?

Contrary to the author's breezy confidence, self-interested Syrians need help to keep ISIL reasonably suppressed as the ISIL rising in 2014 demonstrated notwithstanding their self-interest. Also, Syria and Iran have motivation to support ISIL against the America-backed Iraqi government. How would basing our troops offshore help? What region is more important than the one we've fought three wars in to battle jihadis? 

How does the author explain how the collapse of Iraq and the rise of ISIL across the Syria-Iraq border area following America's total withdrawal from Iraq in 2011 happen? How does the author explain why President Obama committed ground forces and embarked on Iraq War 2.0 and the Syrian expedition to back the Kurds and other self-interested locals getting slaughtered by ISIL? Where was the bolstered American security to convince the president not to re-enter the fight, eh? What on Earth did the author "observe" with that self-inflicted debacle?

And how would that mythical other region benefit from the small number of troops that would be freed up? More basically, how are our troops even freed up if they are supposed to be deployed to "safer positions offshore". Do we have a aquatic jihadi problem that ground troops must combat? Army troops? On Navy ships? Good grief, at least pretend that the brain synapses make occasional contact.

Using Afghanistan as a positive example for the great results of withdrawing is head-up-your-butt level of oblivious nonsense. Are the Taliban the "well-motivated local belligerents" who will combat other jihadis?  Really? That's your story and you're sticking to it?

As to our well-armed and trained troops being hostage to Iran-supported local militias? Good God, our enemies should fear what we will do to them! Enduring attacks is a choice we are making--not a necessity.

Mind you, I worry that Americans wouldn't support casualties to maintain our positions in eastern Syria. Despite its role in shielding Iraq from Iranian-supported jihadi infiltration from Syria. Remember the suicide bomber "rat lines" during the Iraq War? When blocked inside Iraq with the Awakening the jihadis turned against Assad. We shouldn't want to open up the route and relieve the pressure on Assad and his Iranian and Russian friends.

But Congress at least has validated our presence:

The Senate on Thursday overwhelmingly voted down a bill 13-84 that would have required President Joe Biden to withdraw the roughly 900 troops stationed in Syria.

So nobody can claim this was some kind of stealth deployment. But if we are staying, stay to defeat our enemies. Great power competition rightly attracts our attention, but the Global Troubles of keeping jihadis at bay must continue. Syria and Iraq are one front. Although it is complicated by also being a front in the struggle with Iran.

Lord, I'm woozy from the overdose of Stupid that clings to me like a fog that somehow rolled out from my computer screen.

Back in 1991 with my MA in history still giving off that new-car smell, I saw first-hand how far to the left academic history had fallen when I went to the American History Association's national convention. I dropped my membership shortly thereafter. How much farther has academia fallen since then if that author is an example of its prowess? 

Forgive me. I like to have a higher ratio of dignified to rant. But I'm only human.

NOTE: TDR Winter War of 2022 coverage continues here.

NOTE: I'm adding updates on the Last Hamas War in this post.

It's Come to This

Let's not worry about North Korea's nuclear threat, according to a friggin' sports historian:

U.S. policy against North Korea has not helped ease tensions on the peninsula and the 2018 Pyeongchang Winter Olympics is an opportunity for change, a South Korean sports historian said Thursday.

Gwang Ok, a professor of physical education at Chungbuk National University who has researched the impact of Japanese colonialism on sports development, told UPI that South Koreans are welcoming détente because other measures have only strained relations.

I don't mean to appear pedantic, but tensions exist on the Korean peninsula because North Korea has repeatedly pledged to conquer South Korea, destroy Seoul, and is now building nuclear weapons capable of turning Seoul into a "sea of fire" as they've threatened.

America is actually standing shoulder-to-shoulder with South Korea--as America has since bleeding to preserve South Korean independence--to prevent North Korea from carrying out those threats against a free and prosperous South Korea.

But no, really, America is causing tensions that wouldn't exist if we would just quietly accept North Korean nuclear weapons without raising a fuss and just let the kids skate toward peace.

A change in North Korea's "sports history" trajectory is the key factor to consider. Good Lord.

Perhaps the trajectory of North Koreans executed by the regime is to eliminate those pockets of anti-sports trajectory badthink.

South Korea had been pretty solid in belatedly confronting North Korea's nuclear ambitions. But South Koreans have suddenly gotten stupid:

[Kim Jong-Un] recognizes that the Winter Olympic games in South Korea provides him with a perfect stage, a rare opportunity to promote his own propaganda and shape world opinion about him and his regime, at little cost to him. To make his strategy work, he needs a willing and foolish partner, and he quickly found one in South Korea’s President Moon Jae In.

I did worry about Moon. But he had been working with us. Now? Maybe he knows that we will attack if North Korea doesn't back down and Moon is getting desperate to stop the coming war to prevent North Korea from threatening America with long-range missiles.

It's somewhat comforting that the echelon above reality exists in South Korean academia, too. Why should America bear the sole burden of such stupidity?

Garbage In-Happiness Out

Americans aren't happy only if you assume that liberal assumptions about what factors indicate happiness.

We're unhappy? Even after 6 years of Hope and Change and all that? Say it ain't so!

But that is what the United Nations Sustainable Development Solutions Network's The 2015 World Happiness Report says:

Once again the US failed to make it into the top ten “happiest” countries in the report. For the first time, Switzerland ranked number one, followed by Iceland, Denmark, Norway, and Canada, respectively.

Oh no! You'd have expected this under the Bushtatorship. But now? When Unicorn herds frolic at Camp David?

I assume they did things like measure willingness to laugh, friendliness to strangers, actual surveys of self-reported happiness, suicide and divorce rates. Stuff like that.

But no, they have other indicators of happiness:

The report looks at a variety of factors polled by Gallup International to report on a country’s happiness, including economic standing, social support, healthy life expectancy, freedom to make decisions, perception of corruption, and generosity.

Actually, at the link to the study, it is just these 6--nothing else as the story implies. If I may be so bold, these are not measures of happiness.

A number of them are measures of governmental power and assume having stuff is the measure of happiness. You can't be happy if you are poor and you can't escape poverty without a powerful state raising you up (at the expense of others).

The "freedom to make decisions" part stands apart, apparently. Is this a condemnation of heavy regulations? What freedom and what decisions are they including?

One, in the body of the report they actually call it "freedom to make life choices." Hmm. I bet it isn't a measure of freedom of speech or lack of red tape.

And indeed, they write about "freedom to live the type of life people choose." This is not classical freedom from control by others stuff.

So I assume government funding for those who would rather write cowboy poetry than work the night shift in a gas station would increase that index.


Indeed, if you go to page 161 for the "Towards a New Era of Investment in Social Capital" you see just an amazing list of left-wing notions of what kind of government intervention will improve happiness.

They call this study a "subjective well-being" (SWB) measurement. So if it is subjective why not just ask people if they are happy? Why pretend that indirect quantitative measures asserted to be measurements of a subjective state of mind work better?

Why? Because the growth of the state might not be supported.

But we've seen this type of bias before.

What a massive effort to support SBS (subjective bullshit).

UPDATE: Actually, this seems like the perfect example of elites thinking people are too stupid to take care of themselves.

I mean, as if people actually know if they are happy! Better to have lots of metrics that those in the echelon above reality believe indicate happiness than to just ask those ignorant rubes too dumb to know they are actually unhappy!

Let the Net Fairies Win for Us!

John Arquilla is offering advice on winning wars "cheaper, smaller, and smarter." My, this should be an entertaining read. Sometimes you need a PhD to really enter the echelon above reality.

I have little respect for Dr. Arquilla's analytical abilities. He drones on about "netwar" but it is clear he is--military-wise--a netwit. The article is craptasticly awful. By all means, skip the rant that will follow and just read his piece. It is such a clusterfuck of cluelessness that I'm confident you won't need my criticisms. Indeed, if you read my earliest posts regarding Arquilla (here, most on topic, but also another here) you'll get the point.

And even if you read what follows here, do go and read the source material and see if I am going overboard. If you can still say, "Hey, Brian. Bad day to give up sniffing glue, eh?" after reading this post and Arquilla's article, I will personally update this post with your objections and full name so you can take credit for correcting my obvious personal vendetta against the finest strategic thinker to put ink to paper since Thomas Friedman or Fareed Zakaria sneezed out a think piece.

I will say that Arquilla takes some common sense observations about naval warfare--that carriers are vulnerable to precision missiles and that littoral combat ships should never be put in littoral waters to face small boats and shore-based missiles and artillery--and mistakenly applies those partially correct ideas to land warfare and air warfare. But as the links show, I've mentioned those issues myself and like to think that I'm not a friggin' idiot. So I'll give the man some credit and be thankful that his day job is teaching naval officers. But the article is, absent those nuggets, some of the dumbest army organization thinking I have read since his last piece (or anything by Lawrence Korb). So I'm in that frame of mind, so you know.

So you are warned.  I'm just going to go stream of consciousness here and not do the traditional quote and fisk. I printed the article and made notes of things that offended common sense. Here goes.

The man slams our military for failing to adapt enough to our last decade of war, seemingly oblivious to the fact that we've won in the Philippines, won in Iraq, and are doing just fine in Afghanistan despite it being a holding action until last year. He seems easily distracted by any rebel with a web page and email, calling them nimble fourth generation fighters.

His criticisms extend to our performance in World War II where he claims we didn't outfight the Germans, but "gang-tackled" them. I strongly disagree and point to our campaigns in North Africa, Italy, and the European campaign through the Battle of the Bulge. By the end of the European campaign, the British were breaking up infantry divisions for replacements and we had no strategic reserve of troops at all. Sure, by 1945 we were in the position to pound the Germans who lost much of their strength, but our troops performed well during periods when it could not be said we had overwhelming advantages over the Germans. But I digress. I'll skip over the rest of his attacks on American military thought and practice in history.

But when Arquilla swoons over al Qaeda's netwar nimbleness and says they've dodged our massive force, I have to call bullshit. Has he not noticed that we've decimated them? Has he missed our rather restrained use of firepower in going after them since 2001? Where exactly is the "massive applications of force" that he speaks of? And how can he speak of al Qaeda proving how easy it is for so-called networked warriors to defeat us?

He even claims that the purported cost of the Iraq War, which he cites as $3 trillion based on research by Stiglitz and Bilmes, will bankrupt us. Again, bullshit. Even if the cost is as high as he asserts, it is still a bargain considering the size of our economy.

As for the wars breaking our troops, again, bullshit. Our ground forces were strained by repeat deployments--which obviously are only possible when troops survive their first tour, indicating that our troops aren't being decimated on the battlefield--but rather than breaking are now the best we've ever had, in my judgment. Our troops are battle tested and our training is refined based on combat experience.

So the idea that we've come close to punching ourselves out, as he claims, is ridiculous.

Funny enough, he slams the concept of the Future Combat Systems--now abandoned as a big project. While I had issues with the idea of light vehicles, the funny thing is that Arquilla slams the FCS concept for relying on a battlefield internet sharing massive amounts of data! He ignores that in many ways our battlefield internet is working now, in combat! I guess a snazzy web site and email is all our military needs to be netwarishly awesome.

Arquilla also slams the Air Force for wanting expensive fighters and being devoted to "massive bombing" (it's well known, he says!). Look, the Gods of War did not bestow upon our military perpetual air supremacy. We have it because we work at it. And dropping bombs on insurgents and terrorists isn't the Air Force's only job. We need to be able to fight for air superiority if we face an enemy with an air force capable of contesting us. Are we really to assume that will never happen? Truly, Arquilla seems committed to a new Ten Year Rule that assumes we won't have to fight a bigger foe with an air force that can contest our control of the air in the near future so why bother preparing for such a fight?

As for the massive bombing charge, has Arquilla not noticed that we often have a single heavy bomber for support in the air, dropping single precision bombs here and there? There simply is no massive bombing going on in the war. Even in the initial months of Iraq and Afghanistan, it was precision- and not carpet-bombing.

But now we get into the real idiocy. I simply must quote:

These developments suggest that the United States is spending huge amounts of money in ways that are actually making Americans less secure, not only against irregular insurgents, but also against smart countries building different sorts of militaries. And the problem goes well beyond weapons and other high-tech items. What's missing most of all from the U.S. military's arsenal is a deep understanding of networking, the loose but lively interconnection between people that creates and brings a new kind of collective intelligence, power, and purpose to bear -- for good and ill.

You've got to be freaking kidding me. We risk being Facebooked into submission? I'm sorry, but you can't Twitter a king to death. This faith in the power of networking as anything more than a useful tool is astounding.

American troops, including those in irrelevant tanks, expensive aircraft, and large ships, brought down the Taliban regime and Saddam's reign of terror. We didn't flame war them into submission, or de-friend them into humiliating surrender. And his claim that al Qaeda exists "cohesively in more than 60 countries" because of the Internet ignores that al Qaeda does not operate cohesively! Where is the evidence of this? Locals seek the cachet of brand Osama but other than a shared hatred of the West and a willingness to kill innocents in the name of Islam, where is the evidence of cohesion?

I'm only a third of the way in, but thankfully the heart of the article is upon us. You see, Arquilla has three simple rules to win in a modern networked environment that will save untold amounts of blood and treasure--notwithstanding the facts that the costs have been relatively small and our casualties historically low with the disastrous approach Arquilla claims we've had.

So let the Ultra Bullshit begin. Rule 1:

"Many and Small" Beats "Few and Large."

I can hardly wait to read this stuff! Check it out:

The demands of large-scale conflicts have led to reliance on a few big units rather than on a lot of little ones. For example, the Marines have only three active-duty divisions, the U.S. Army only ten. The Navy has just 11 carrier strike groups, and the Air Force about three dozen attack aircraft "wings."

Huh? Even Arquilla backtracks a little bit on noting the move to Army brigade combat teams. But let's not let him get away with this foolishness. One, the Marines routinely fight with regimental combat teams and Marine expeditionary units (battalion-based). The Army has 45 brigade combat teams in the active force. It is silly to speak of fighting with big divisions as if 10 to 20 thousand troops line up shoulder to shoulder on a battlefield. In counter-insurgencies, our units routinely break down into companies and platoons operating fairly independently, sending out sub-units like squads (10 men or so) on missions.

The Navy has 11 carrier strike groups but when every ship and sub has missiles to attack ships, subs, planes, and land targets, it is highly misleading to imply that this is our only offensive punch. Further, for the small wars we are in now, carriers are actually very valuable since they don't face the risk of being lost to enemy anti-ship assets and can project a wing of war planes into any fight anywhere on the planet.

As for the Air Force having only three dozen attack wings, is Arquilla stoned? [Sentence deleted since I misread it as "three" and not "three dozen". But the rest still applies notwithstanding my error. three dozen wings is quite a bit, actually.] Is he really implying that somehow ground forces have been denied air support? Everything from gunships through fighters and heavy bombers drop bombs and missiles very effectively in support of ground operations. I'm stunned at this idiocy.

The Vietnam War was lost from the same attitude he says, when massive numbers of AK-47 fighters beat our B-52s. Um, one problem. We beat our enemy in Vietnam and then Congress lost it after we withdrew with a sovereign South Vietnam intact and the Viet Cong defeated. North Vietnamese tanks and heavy artillery organized in those inconvenient big units conquered South Vietnam. It's amazing how this type of myth about Vietnam can entrench itself.

In a ridiculous attempt to link his failed Vietnam analysis with his silly notions, he notes that we used B-52 bombers in both. Funny, it seems like only moments ago that he was complaining about new, expensive F-22s and F-35s. Now it is bad to use old weapons that still work?

Arquilla goes on to discuss the novel approach of putting platoon-sized elements--as opposed to our big divisions--among the population--saying it allowed us to facilitate "social networking" with the Iraqi tribes. One problem is that this misses the point that the surge approach was simply classic counter-insurgency as has been practiced for centuries. And it over-states the concept of going from big to small. We had small before the surge to hold, but we relied on Iraqis to do the holding to "social network" with Iraqis. The surge put US forces in the role since the Iraqi security forces couldn't handle the still too strong enemy.

Arquilla correctly hints at the worry among many in the Army that training and organizing for COIN will make us less able to fight big conventional enemies. This is a correct concern notwithstanding Arquilla's completely misleading analogy with Roman legions organized in maniples. Arquilla says that they could beat organized big armies or loose bands of tribal fighters. This is certainly true, but when battling scattered tribes the legion would be dispersed. When fighting big armies, the legion would be concentrated. How is that different from our big units which are still organized into platoons whether fighting big or small? I'm at a loss to understand the point he's trying to make.

On Iraq, Arquilla claims we faced only a handful of firefights and that the Iraqi army outsmarted us by melting away and waiting to fight as insurgents. This ignores the many and hard battles we fought against the Republican Guards, Saddam's Fedayeen, and Baath Party militias on the march up. Are we to be penalized for winning those many small battles decisively? Yes, the Iraqi regular army dissolved--as we wanted it to do so we didn't have to be slowed down by taking care of several hundred thousand POWs--but the regular Iraqi army was so feeble that it was basically an internal security force only capable of beating down civilians despite being called "ther army."

Then we get to the apparent explanation for why Arquilla finds our COIN campaign so novel--he doesn't understand that insurgency is old. That is how the weak fight the strong until the weak can get stronger and weaken the strong. He says of the Iraq insurgency, that it was "a new type of irregular warfare in which a series of small attacks no longer signaled buildup toward a major battle." What?! Is he kidding? We faced a conventional type of irregular warfare/terrorism in Iraq (novel in that it relied so much on IEDs rather than direct and indirect fire) and did so well that we prevented the enemy from going up the escalation ladder from terror and small-scale units to fight in larger units to eventually be capable of fighting a major battle against our side.

He also expresses some wonder that we worked with local Iraqis ("a social network of tribal fighters") during the surge--the classic local defense force of a successful counter-insurgency. You can label something new, as Arquilla does, but that doesn't make it so.

And while Arquilla gives the spread out US platoons who worked with Iraqi local defense forces (and Iraqi forces) credit for exposing the enemy to attacks by a small majority of our troops, he strongly implies (by calling them "the small percentage of coaltion forces actually waging the campaign against them") that all those forces creating the net that snared the enemy don't count as being part of the campaign to defeat them. That is ridiculous. And as he jumps to advocating a "small networked corps of 'finders'" to fight insurgents, he makes the jump officially stupid.

Arquilla moves on to extolling the brilliance of the new form of "swarming" that the enemy has "pioneered" to attack government forces and targets. One, there is no pioneering going on--this is the stuff of traditional insurgencies. And two, the "wave attacks" that swarm by attacking multiple targets at the same time is nothing new or amazing. Has he never heard the expression, "synchronize your watches"?

He also calls the Russian August 2008 attack on Georgia an example of swarming. Hah! The Russians performed poorly in the invasion, yet Arquilla calls that brief massing of old weapons used by second-rate troops against a COIN-focused and poorly deployed inferior enemy an artistry of "omnidirectional attack"? That is netwar? Just because Russia waged a cyber-war on Georgian web sites while they sledgehammered their way to an incomplete battlefield victory?

Arquilla then makes the stunning leap that since swarms of insurgents stymie our massed armies (which they did not do in Iraq or Vietnam; and it is an error to think we were massed in either war) we should face massed enemy armies with swarms of our small units that overwhelm them by striking at many points. Wow. That is idiotic.

Again, Arquilla takes a valid point about naval warfare in a network centric world (something I agree with) and tries to apply it to ground warfare. Arquilla goes on to extoll the forward thinking of Marine LTG Riper who abandoned the rules in Millennium Challenge 2002 to inflict heavy damage on US aircraft carriers in the exercise. Arquilla misses the point that the exercise was to train officers in doing their jobs in a large-scale operation and not to explore all strategy options when doing so would end the exercise and deny the officers the training opportunity. This was not a case of swarming or netwar that our dumb military wouldn't see--it was a grandstanding officer who wrecked the training opportunity bolstered by analysts who couldn't find their butts with both hands in an omnidirectional search. There is a place for thinking outside the box. And in that context, Riper's approach would be valuable.

After not explaining how we'd use large numbers of small units to disable a conventional enemy army, Arquilla then says we could have that army of small units by slashing out the apparently useless armor, signal, artillery, MP, infantry, and assorted logistics units that a modern army needs to take the field. Yet somehow, we'd have to rotate those units in the face of a big enemy army. Just how do we do that when the enemy would control the ground? It is simply foolishness to extrapolate from a valid observation about carriers versus large numbers of smaller, networked missile-armed ships. And arguing that his reduction in forces could be done just as big reductions were made after 1945, 1975, and 1991 ignores that the earlier reductions did not eliminate the army and replace it with vast numbers of fire teams that apparently have no higher organization.

Arquilla states that China (navy) and Russia (army) are already going in the direction of swarming. Which is bull. Both China and Russia have stated they want carriers. And Russia's army is devolving from division-centric to brigade-centric forces--based on our experience! But otherwise, Russia's army is rotting away--not becoming networked.

Amazingly, Arquilla also extols the example of networked Hezbollah beating nation Israel in defense of his notions. Again, this is BS. Israel screwed the pooch in Lebanon, relying on air power and failing to use their army effectively against an enemy that fought from prepared positions as light infantry; but less than three years later in Gaza, showed they learned their lessons. Hezbollah did not swarm in 2006 unless you elevate their rocket barrage to that level--in which case Israel swarmed, too, with their aerial assault.

Arquilla takes a valid point about the survivability of big carriers in a networked age where missiles and surveillance in a network can overwhelm a carrier's defensive systems, and thinks he can apply the lesson to the Army by saying tanks are just an obsolete, too-heavy system. Yeah, that view was popular after 1991 and lasted until the Iraqi insurgency demonstrated the value of heavy systems even in COIN. So, he writes, cut the Army combat forces to special forces teams (ignoring that we can't have many more special forces without dramatically reducing quality) capable of fighting divisions or terrorists, and we're good to go.

This, dear readers, is effing idiocy.