Thursday, March 27, 2014
Reality Check
We're not seriously considering going through with plans to cut 10 Army combat brigades and retire the Air Force A-10 tank killers, are we?
The Federal Civil Service Has Failed
Unfortunately, too many federal civil servants are unwilling to be nonpartisan public servants. What do we do about it?
The worst thing about the IRS scandal is that the bureaucracy blatantly took sides in a political dispute. Sure, I trust that most employees are honest. I do. But dishonest employees got away with their political actions and apparently thrived.
One could almost understand if political appointees bent rules or made up bad rules to advance political agendas. Not excuse them, of course. They should be fired and punished. But you can at least understand the temptation for them.
But when the civil servants act that way, how do we restore lost trust?
I feel I have some authority to speak on this because I spent my career as a nonpartisan employee of the state legislature here in Michigan. I was not a civil servant. I was an at-will employee. My appointment, in fact, was confirmed by a committee of the legislature. (It was not advice and consent level stuff, I'll add. It was more like a fail-safe if my bosses had made a terrible error in hiring me--sorry, Brian, we'd love to keep you but the committee did not approve you. You have two hours to clean your desk out.)
What I was was a nonpartisan analyst and writer who worked for both sides of the aisle. I had fans in both parties. Indeed, I took pride in the fact that I sold figurative arms to both sides and both sides could not pin down my politics based on my interactions or product that I gave them. I worked for the institution of the legislature and it would have tarnished both my reputation and the reputation of my outfit to slant my work for one side or divulge information to the other side. That was unacceptable to me and unacceptable to my organization and unacceptable to the legislature itself. We earned their trust. If our bosses wanted information guaranteed to slant their way, they went to their partisan staff. Indeed, sometimes we had to turn down requests for work that was just too political in nature. And we could get away with that.
Indeed, I simply did not blog on domestic policies that might undermine my credibility to do my job for whoever asked me a question. Now I have that freedom, but try to stay in my lane for the most part. It's nice not to have to worry about straying outside my lane, but I still prefer not to do that.
So it is not unreasonable to have a federal workforce that sticks to doing its job and values the trust that either party can have in them to do their jobs--and no more.
The civil service system was put in place to replace the spoils system where political winners could simply clear out all the employees of the last group in power and reward their supporters with those jobs. It is no longer clear that the new system is superior to the old. At least in the old system, if people got mad enough about the behavior of the bureaucracy, they could punish the elected officials and expect at least a new crop of bums.
I think more of the mid-level management has to be outside of the civil service where it will be accountable for failures because they can be fired and held responsible for what their people do. Having a civil servant Lois Lerner at the IRS has not insulated the service from politics, it seems.
We need civil servants who do their jobs and who are trusted by both their bosses and the people to just do their jobs, without thinking of themselves as the shock troops of their favorite political party.
And of course, as always, the federal government is just too damn big.
The worst thing about the IRS scandal is that the bureaucracy blatantly took sides in a political dispute. Sure, I trust that most employees are honest. I do. But dishonest employees got away with their political actions and apparently thrived.
One could almost understand if political appointees bent rules or made up bad rules to advance political agendas. Not excuse them, of course. They should be fired and punished. But you can at least understand the temptation for them.
But when the civil servants act that way, how do we restore lost trust?
What distinguishes democracies from tinhorn dictatorships and totalitarian monstrosities are our permanent meritocratic government bureaus that remain nonpartisan and honestly report the truth.
The Benghazi, Associated Press, and National Security Agency scandals are scary, but not as disturbing as growing doubts about the honesty of permanent government itself.
It is no longer crackpot to doubt the once impeccable and nonpartisan IRS. When it assured the public that it was not making decisions about tax-exempt status based on politics, it lied. One of its top commissioners, Lois Lerner, resigned and invoked the Fifth Amendment.
A system of voluntary tax reporting rests on trust. If the IRS itself is untruthful, will it be able to expect truthful compliance from taxpayers?
I feel I have some authority to speak on this because I spent my career as a nonpartisan employee of the state legislature here in Michigan. I was not a civil servant. I was an at-will employee. My appointment, in fact, was confirmed by a committee of the legislature. (It was not advice and consent level stuff, I'll add. It was more like a fail-safe if my bosses had made a terrible error in hiring me--sorry, Brian, we'd love to keep you but the committee did not approve you. You have two hours to clean your desk out.)
What I was was a nonpartisan analyst and writer who worked for both sides of the aisle. I had fans in both parties. Indeed, I took pride in the fact that I sold figurative arms to both sides and both sides could not pin down my politics based on my interactions or product that I gave them. I worked for the institution of the legislature and it would have tarnished both my reputation and the reputation of my outfit to slant my work for one side or divulge information to the other side. That was unacceptable to me and unacceptable to my organization and unacceptable to the legislature itself. We earned their trust. If our bosses wanted information guaranteed to slant their way, they went to their partisan staff. Indeed, sometimes we had to turn down requests for work that was just too political in nature. And we could get away with that.
Indeed, I simply did not blog on domestic policies that might undermine my credibility to do my job for whoever asked me a question. Now I have that freedom, but try to stay in my lane for the most part. It's nice not to have to worry about straying outside my lane, but I still prefer not to do that.
So it is not unreasonable to have a federal workforce that sticks to doing its job and values the trust that either party can have in them to do their jobs--and no more.
The civil service system was put in place to replace the spoils system where political winners could simply clear out all the employees of the last group in power and reward their supporters with those jobs. It is no longer clear that the new system is superior to the old. At least in the old system, if people got mad enough about the behavior of the bureaucracy, they could punish the elected officials and expect at least a new crop of bums.
I think more of the mid-level management has to be outside of the civil service where it will be accountable for failures because they can be fired and held responsible for what their people do. Having a civil servant Lois Lerner at the IRS has not insulated the service from politics, it seems.
We need civil servants who do their jobs and who are trusted by both their bosses and the people to just do their jobs, without thinking of themselves as the shock troops of their favorite political party.
And of course, as always, the federal government is just too damn big.
Flash Override: Ukraine Invasion Imminent
Holy Hell, television news says the US government believes 30,000 Russian troops are poised to invade Ukraine to create a land corridor to Crimea.
UPDATE: Here's a report:
I doubted reports that the Russians could run to Transdniestria with 20,000 troops near Ukraine's eastern border.
Could it be that the pristine nature of the Crimea invasion force made it easier to use most of those for a follow-up invasion of southern Ukraine? That is, will Ukraine regret not fighting even a losing battle for Crimea because it both encourages Russia to think they can get more while they can and because Russian troops that took Crimea don't have to rest, refit, and replace casualties?
And another television reports say 80,000 Russians are now massed across from eastern Ukraine. That's a real threat.
But could the Russians pull off more than a road march that deep through Ukraine? Do the Russians think that they just need to march through Ukraine without effective resistance? Are the Russians right?
UPDATE: Could John Kerry set aside his global warming and Palestinian obsessions and actually work on the crisis at hand? Our Pakistan land lines of supply to Afghanistan should be nailed down any day now, okay?
If Russia just wants a land bridge to Crimea and Transdniestria:
Amphibious forces and airborne forces would hit Odessa while other unused forces in Crimea strike north into the mainland. Russian mechanized forces supported by airborne and airmobile troops landing ahead of the mechanized troops push into eastern Ukraine to take the biggest cities and to control the major east-west roads in the south.
Would that green east-west route north of my projected lines of advance be used, too? That would give the Russians more depth, but potentially face opposition from the Ukrainian 8th Corps in the Kiev region.
It would help to know where the purported 80,000 Russian troops are massed. The news isn't being more specific than being on Russia's border with eastern Ukraine.
Spetsnaz organize militias as they did in Crimea to give the pretense of rescuing Crimeans some apparent substance.
But this is a bigger deal than Crimea. Ukraine says they'll fight. The Russians will have to do more than a road march or landing at an airport to pull this off.
And if 80,000 are poised off of Ukraine's eastern border, if you include the troops in Crimea, that pretty much soaks up all the available decent Russian troops.
Unless some of the 80,000 are the less-ready troops being committed--which would increase the chances of mistakes if the invasion is resisted.
Ukraine's 6th Corps will be tested quite a bit in this scenario. Unless the Russians are bluffing. And the Russians did say they weren't going to invade. We can trust them, right?
UPDATE: I don't know how many landmines Ukraine has left, but they should be dusted off pretty darn fast.
If Ukraine survives this crisis, they need to withdraw from the treaty.
UPDATE: Could Turkey close the Turkish straits to Russian ships as a punishment for invading Ukraine? Could a NATO declaration of a threat to member states as a result of a Russian invasion of Ukraine provide added justification?
Closing the straits to Russian warships would pretty much make the Russian conquest of Crimea moot in regard to power projection ambitions.
UPDATE: Note that I speculate on a mostly southern route to avoid having to make a major river-crossing operation across the Dnieper River. Except at Dnepropetrovsk, the Russian advance mostly gets to avoid the river in order to link up with Crimea.
At some point, to reach Odessa and points west, the Russians have to cross the river in the south, but they delay that operation perhaps past the point when Ukrainian resistance collapses.
UPDATE: There is still uncertainty as to Russian troop strength. Is it 20K? 30K? 80K? 100K?
Varying numbers could be the result of counting troops exercising in the field and adding or excluding troops in normal bases nearby. But when I hear a report that says intelligence people say an invasion is "imminent"--with all the baggage that term holds these days--it seemed, well, possibly imminent.
UPDATE: We say the activity is not consistent with spring exercises, but the numbers involved don't seem to indicate a drive on all of southern Ukraine:
Thirty thousand army troops seems more in line with my pre-war speculation of what the Russians would use to take a stretch of eastern Ukraine from Kharkov to Donetz.
But they seem ready to do something.
Note that the Ukrainians aren't as badly outnumbered as it is being made out. If the Ukrainians can put three divisions in the field plus reserves, you are talking more troops than the Russians seem prepared to invade Ukraine with.
Granted, even an efficient Ukrainian army couldn't abandon the rest of Ukraine to defend the east, but Ukraine can resist. And can make the Russians pay a price for further aggression.
Put those surface-to-surface missiles within range of Sevastopol just to strike back at Russia's new naval base there.
And I wonder if intelligence warnings of an imminent invasion overcompensate for missing the Crimea invasion until shortly before it began.
UPDATE: Here's a report:
Details of a classified intelligence assessment viewed by CNN Pentagon Correspondent Barbara Starr show a "more probable" likelihood that Russia could move into eastern Ukraine. ...
Among new details about Russia's possible intentions in the report:
Russian troops on the border of eastern Ukraine — now more than 30,000 — number "significantly more" than what is needed for what Russia is calling a training exercise.
These troops include a large number of motorized units, which have the ability to deploy quickly. There also appears to be a higher level of activity among special forces, airborne, and air transport troops inside Russia.
Additional intelligence shows more Russian forces "reinforcing" the border region.
I doubted reports that the Russians could run to Transdniestria with 20,000 troops near Ukraine's eastern border.
Could it be that the pristine nature of the Crimea invasion force made it easier to use most of those for a follow-up invasion of southern Ukraine? That is, will Ukraine regret not fighting even a losing battle for Crimea because it both encourages Russia to think they can get more while they can and because Russian troops that took Crimea don't have to rest, refit, and replace casualties?
And another television reports say 80,000 Russians are now massed across from eastern Ukraine. That's a real threat.
But could the Russians pull off more than a road march that deep through Ukraine? Do the Russians think that they just need to march through Ukraine without effective resistance? Are the Russians right?
UPDATE: Could John Kerry set aside his global warming and Palestinian obsessions and actually work on the crisis at hand? Our Pakistan land lines of supply to Afghanistan should be nailed down any day now, okay?
If Russia just wants a land bridge to Crimea and Transdniestria:
Amphibious forces and airborne forces would hit Odessa while other unused forces in Crimea strike north into the mainland. Russian mechanized forces supported by airborne and airmobile troops landing ahead of the mechanized troops push into eastern Ukraine to take the biggest cities and to control the major east-west roads in the south.
Would that green east-west route north of my projected lines of advance be used, too? That would give the Russians more depth, but potentially face opposition from the Ukrainian 8th Corps in the Kiev region.
It would help to know where the purported 80,000 Russian troops are massed. The news isn't being more specific than being on Russia's border with eastern Ukraine.
Spetsnaz organize militias as they did in Crimea to give the pretense of rescuing Crimeans some apparent substance.
But this is a bigger deal than Crimea. Ukraine says they'll fight. The Russians will have to do more than a road march or landing at an airport to pull this off.
And if 80,000 are poised off of Ukraine's eastern border, if you include the troops in Crimea, that pretty much soaks up all the available decent Russian troops.
Unless some of the 80,000 are the less-ready troops being committed--which would increase the chances of mistakes if the invasion is resisted.
Ukraine's 6th Corps will be tested quite a bit in this scenario. Unless the Russians are bluffing. And the Russians did say they weren't going to invade. We can trust them, right?
UPDATE: I don't know how many landmines Ukraine has left, but they should be dusted off pretty darn fast.
If Ukraine survives this crisis, they need to withdraw from the treaty.
UPDATE: Could Turkey close the Turkish straits to Russian ships as a punishment for invading Ukraine? Could a NATO declaration of a threat to member states as a result of a Russian invasion of Ukraine provide added justification?
Closing the straits to Russian warships would pretty much make the Russian conquest of Crimea moot in regard to power projection ambitions.
UPDATE: Note that I speculate on a mostly southern route to avoid having to make a major river-crossing operation across the Dnieper River. Except at Dnepropetrovsk, the Russian advance mostly gets to avoid the river in order to link up with Crimea.
At some point, to reach Odessa and points west, the Russians have to cross the river in the south, but they delay that operation perhaps past the point when Ukrainian resistance collapses.
UPDATE: There is still uncertainty as to Russian troop strength. Is it 20K? 30K? 80K? 100K?
Varying numbers could be the result of counting troops exercising in the field and adding or excluding troops in normal bases nearby. But when I hear a report that says intelligence people say an invasion is "imminent"--with all the baggage that term holds these days--it seemed, well, possibly imminent.
UPDATE: We say the activity is not consistent with spring exercises, but the numbers involved don't seem to indicate a drive on all of southern Ukraine:
The United States sees no indications that Russian forces along the border with Ukraine are carrying out the kind of springtime military exercises that Moscow has cited as the reason for their deployment, the Pentagon said on Thursday.
Ukraine's government has put its heavily outnumbered and outgunned forces on alert for an invasion from Russia in the east following Moscow's seizure of Crimea, as the West moves to isolate Russia diplomatically and pressure it economically.
U.S. and European security agencies estimate Russia has deployed military and militia units totaling more than 30,000 people along its border with eastern Ukraine.
Thirty thousand army troops seems more in line with my pre-war speculation of what the Russians would use to take a stretch of eastern Ukraine from Kharkov to Donetz.
But they seem ready to do something.
Note that the Ukrainians aren't as badly outnumbered as it is being made out. If the Ukrainians can put three divisions in the field plus reserves, you are talking more troops than the Russians seem prepared to invade Ukraine with.
Granted, even an efficient Ukrainian army couldn't abandon the rest of Ukraine to defend the east, but Ukraine can resist. And can make the Russians pay a price for further aggression.
Put those surface-to-surface missiles within range of Sevastopol just to strike back at Russia's new naval base there.
And I wonder if intelligence warnings of an imminent invasion overcompensate for missing the Crimea invasion until shortly before it began.
A Diplomatic Gordie Howe Hat Trick
John Kerry probably honestly believes he is about to get a triple score hat trick in diplomacy with this nuanced proposal:
So Kerry proposes we let a spy go, undermining our outrage about Snowden and so losing the point that Snowden harmed our national security; release Palestinian terrorists, which will assist the Palestinians who will go back to killing civilians; and get the Palestinians to sit at a particular table until after the fall elections are safely over, putting off--but not stopping--a fight between the Israelis and Hamas until next year.
Which actually makes it a Gordie Howe hat trick.
In exchange for [convicted spy Jonathan] Pollard, Israel would agree to release 26 prisoners, among them around 20 Arab Israelis, and the Palestinians would agree to continue talks until the end of 2014, according to Army Radio.
So Kerry proposes we let a spy go, undermining our outrage about Snowden and so losing the point that Snowden harmed our national security; release Palestinian terrorists, which will assist the Palestinians who will go back to killing civilians; and get the Palestinians to sit at a particular table until after the fall elections are safely over, putting off--but not stopping--a fight between the Israelis and Hamas until next year.
Which actually makes it a Gordie Howe hat trick.
What?
When did we get nine Stryker brigades?
Strategypage writes:
We're converting a heavy brigade of 4th Infantry Division to a Stryker brigade, so we'll keep nine.
There's more on the vehicles themselves.
I thought we had 5 or 6 with another in the National Guard. I really need to pay attention more on this.
If we are going to 32 active brigades, does that mean we'll have 9 Stryker brigades, 5 parachute brigades, 4 airmobile brigades, and 14 heavy brigades? (Plus a Ranger regiment and special forces, of course.)
Strategypage writes:
The U.S. Army is disbanding one of its nine Stryker brigades. This is part of a post-war reduction that will see ten combat brigades eliminated and army strength reduced by 80,000 personnel.
We're converting a heavy brigade of 4th Infantry Division to a Stryker brigade, so we'll keep nine.
There's more on the vehicles themselves.
I thought we had 5 or 6 with another in the National Guard. I really need to pay attention more on this.
If we are going to 32 active brigades, does that mean we'll have 9 Stryker brigades, 5 parachute brigades, 4 airmobile brigades, and 14 heavy brigades? (Plus a Ranger regiment and special forces, of course.)
Preparing Ukraine for the Next War
Ukraine's government wants to strengthen their military. What should the Ukrainians do?
Ukraine asked for help to upgrade their military:
Let's not get ahead of ourselves. Ukraine needs to be ready to fight and at least lose while inflicting heavy casualties on the Russians. That alone could deter Russia.
Ukraine's active force isn't going to get much bigger. It is essentially three good-sized divisions. So the best bet is to make what they have better, and focus on increasing the effectiveness of their reserve forces.
I initially thought that Ukraine's army should be redeployed from its Cold War-era deployment that was not suited for a forward defense against the Russians.
On second thought, don't waste the money to move 13th Corps east to cover Crimea and be in a position to reinforce either 6th corps or 8th Corps; and don't move 6th Corps to the northeast to defend the cities of Kharkov and Donetsk.
Note that those corps are really division-sized outfits.
Thirteenth Corps is the smallest, but I'd extend it's area of responsibility to cover the Crimean peninsula and defend Odessa. This would require moving a mechanized brigade from the west to the region north of Crimea. Put the marines who left Crimea in the region north of Crimea along the route that goes northeast out of Crimea to the mainland.
Sixth Corps could transfer one of its brigades to 13th Corps to help cover Odessa, and give 13th Corps an airmobile infantry brigade currently not in any corps for the same mission.
I changed my mind because if Russia ever formally takes over Belarus, all of a sudden the Ukrainians need troops in their northwest to block an advance from that direction. Who wants to rule out that Anschluss now?
But to kill two birds with one stone, the West could help build up Ukraine's logistics infrastructure to make it easier to move troops from western Ukraine to points east.
This would not only help the Ukrainians deploy forces on interior lines to fend off Russian threats around their border (or to launch attacks south into Crimea or west into Transdniestra), but would allow NATO forces to gain the ability to move through Ukraine, just in case. I'd mentioned that effectively intervening in Ukraine without logistics lines would be impossible for NATO. This would correct that deficiency.
NATO would also need to improve logistics through the new NATO states of the former Warsaw Pact and into the Baltic states, of course.
If Ukraine is better able to fight and if it is no longer impossible for NATO to intervene, Russia might back off from future attempts to rebuild the Russian empire in the west.
Ukraine asked for help to upgrade their military:
In an interview with American broadcaster PBS, Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk said Ukraine is struggling to maintain a fighting capability after it was "deliberately dismantled" under Yanukovych.
"What we need is support from the international community. We need technology and military support to overhaul the Ukrainian military and modernize -- to be ready not just to fight, but to be ready to win," Yatsenyuk said.
Let's not get ahead of ourselves. Ukraine needs to be ready to fight and at least lose while inflicting heavy casualties on the Russians. That alone could deter Russia.
Ukraine's active force isn't going to get much bigger. It is essentially three good-sized divisions. So the best bet is to make what they have better, and focus on increasing the effectiveness of their reserve forces.
I initially thought that Ukraine's army should be redeployed from its Cold War-era deployment that was not suited for a forward defense against the Russians.
On second thought, don't waste the money to move 13th Corps east to cover Crimea and be in a position to reinforce either 6th corps or 8th Corps; and don't move 6th Corps to the northeast to defend the cities of Kharkov and Donetsk.
Note that those corps are really division-sized outfits.
Thirteenth Corps is the smallest, but I'd extend it's area of responsibility to cover the Crimean peninsula and defend Odessa. This would require moving a mechanized brigade from the west to the region north of Crimea. Put the marines who left Crimea in the region north of Crimea along the route that goes northeast out of Crimea to the mainland.
Sixth Corps could transfer one of its brigades to 13th Corps to help cover Odessa, and give 13th Corps an airmobile infantry brigade currently not in any corps for the same mission.
I changed my mind because if Russia ever formally takes over Belarus, all of a sudden the Ukrainians need troops in their northwest to block an advance from that direction. Who wants to rule out that Anschluss now?
But to kill two birds with one stone, the West could help build up Ukraine's logistics infrastructure to make it easier to move troops from western Ukraine to points east.
This would not only help the Ukrainians deploy forces on interior lines to fend off Russian threats around their border (or to launch attacks south into Crimea or west into Transdniestra), but would allow NATO forces to gain the ability to move through Ukraine, just in case. I'd mentioned that effectively intervening in Ukraine without logistics lines would be impossible for NATO. This would correct that deficiency.
NATO would also need to improve logistics through the new NATO states of the former Warsaw Pact and into the Baltic states, of course.
If Ukraine is better able to fight and if it is no longer impossible for NATO to intervene, Russia might back off from future attempts to rebuild the Russian empire in the west.
More Excuses for Putin
Russia conquered Crimea. But what about their feelings?
Funny, I don't remember the left excusing any military action we embarked on after Vietnam (none of which added to our territory, I'll add) as an excusable move to throw off the cloak of defeat.
In Crimea, Russia Moved to Throw Off the Cloak of Defeat
Funny, I don't remember the left excusing any military action we embarked on after Vietnam (none of which added to our territory, I'll add) as an excusable move to throw off the cloak of defeat.
Wednesday, March 26, 2014
Trick Question
The way you hold your wine glass demonstrates what social class you are in?
Please. They're talking about how you hold a wine glass--which makes all of them effete elitists, as far as I'm concerned.
They didn't have a picture showing somebody drinking directly from the box! I feel I'm putting on airs if I drink it from a glass that used to hold jelly.
Tip to Instapundit.
UPDATE: Thanks to Stones Cry Out for the link. And yeah, what about wine helmets?
Please. They're talking about how you hold a wine glass--which makes all of them effete elitists, as far as I'm concerned.
They didn't have a picture showing somebody drinking directly from the box! I feel I'm putting on airs if I drink it from a glass that used to hold jelly.
Tip to Instapundit.
UPDATE: Thanks to Stones Cry Out for the link. And yeah, what about wine helmets?
All Our Problems Are Belong to You?
I don't assume China is destined to surpass America in power. But I'm not convinced that the collapse of China is worse than the current path that is projected to surpass us.
Is China's array of problems really a bigger problem for the rest of the world?
Strategypage writes of demographics, corruption, and popular opinion at odds with Chinese policies.
Is China too big to fail, which could happen because of the corruption-caused financial bubble?
To be fair, Strategypage isn't actually arguing that China's problems are more of a problem for the world--just that a China failure would impact the rest of the world. Fair enough. But I've read others argue that we have an interest in preventing China's problems from bursting their financial bubble.
I just wonder if the long-term problems of a China that successfully overcomes their demographic, corruption, and popular opinion problems would really be better than the fallout from a major Chinese financial crisis that may cause problems in the West in the short run, but which prevents the long-term threats of a China that insists that their neighbors bend to China's will.
Whether we look at 2030, 2040, 2050 or 2100, I don't assume China will surpass America as the dominant global power. And even if they do, we will retain more usable power. Heck, I don't assume "China" will be a political term rather than a geographic term.
I'd be happy to have a China more powerful than America that is not a threat to neighbors. But how likely are we to get this happy middle ground between Chinese internal crisis and Chinese external aggression?
Is China's array of problems really a bigger problem for the rest of the world?
Strategypage writes of demographics, corruption, and popular opinion at odds with Chinese policies.
Is China too big to fail, which could happen because of the corruption-caused financial bubble?
The international financial community is getting nervous about the Chinese government’s ability to deal with this uniquely Chinese financial bubble. ... If the government mishandles this mess the Chinese economy could suffer widespread bankruptcies and high unemployment. It could take several years to recover and during that time there could be a popular uprising. A dip in the Chinese economy (at $8 trillion second only to the American $14 trillion) would ripple throughout the global economy. It would be 2008 all over again, but possibly worse. So it’s not just China’s problem.
To be fair, Strategypage isn't actually arguing that China's problems are more of a problem for the world--just that a China failure would impact the rest of the world. Fair enough. But I've read others argue that we have an interest in preventing China's problems from bursting their financial bubble.
I just wonder if the long-term problems of a China that successfully overcomes their demographic, corruption, and popular opinion problems would really be better than the fallout from a major Chinese financial crisis that may cause problems in the West in the short run, but which prevents the long-term threats of a China that insists that their neighbors bend to China's will.
Whether we look at 2030, 2040, 2050 or 2100, I don't assume China will surpass America as the dominant global power. And even if they do, we will retain more usable power. Heck, I don't assume "China" will be a political term rather than a geographic term.
I'd be happy to have a China more powerful than America that is not a threat to neighbors. But how likely are we to get this happy middle ground between Chinese internal crisis and Chinese external aggression?
A Regional Threat is Still a Threat if the Region is Vital
Russia, as I've said, is really a regional problem. Other than lots of nukes and memories of the Soviet Union, Russia is not a capable military power against anything but smaller foes. But the region they are a power in is important to us.
So I got a chuckle out of this remark by President Obama:
I liked that. Putin surely didn't like that dismissal of his strength. Don't inflate Putin by talking about Russia like they are a rebuilt superpower. They are not:
Yes, Russia is a smallish military threat. But that doesn't mean Russia is not a threat that has to be faced. Yes, China's growing power makes them the biggest threat for the future and most potent potential threat we might face today. And yes, jihadi terrorism is the biggest day-to-day threat we face today.
But Russia is the biggest active geopolitical foe we have. And operating in an arc that starts at the North Pole and heads south to the Baltic, goes across to the Black Sea, and continues curving through the eastern Mediterranean and across the Middle East to Afghanistan, Russia's "regional" ability to harm us is a very real threat that must be faced.
I've noted our interest in preventing the vast economic and scientific (and potential military) power of Europe from falling into the hands of a hostile power (which is why I oppose the European Union).
Remember, as I've written before, Japan in 1941 was a regional power that was much weaker than us. So too was Germany in 1914 and 1939. A mere regional power is a real threat, however, if it threatens our interests in their region.
Heck, in important ways, even the Soviet Union in 1975 was a regional power--albeit in the region from the Atlantic to the Pacifc, dipping down to the Mediterranean Sea. But their somewhat global reach was in many ways a peacetime capability that would have been shut down in war by our superior Navy (with our allied navies), leaving any Soviet forces outside of Russia and contiguous areas isolated and ripe for defeat, just as Germany lost their overseas possessions even as they approached victory within Europe.
Russia makes claims in the Arctic Circle, threatens the independence of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania; makes threats to Poland; threatens Ukraine's independence; bolsters the murderous Assad regime in Syria, provides diplomatic muscle for Iran; opposes Europe-based missile defenses; and has their grip on our northern supply lines to Afghanistan.
I don't think much of Russia's ability to harm our interests east of that arc, even though Russian territory extends to the Bering Strait at Alaska. (Although yes, Alaska is a front line state when you remember that Russia's arc of trouble making begins in the Arctic Circle.)
So base our policy toward Russia on reality and not fantasies of "reset" or visions of a soul visible in Putin's eyes. But do it quietly. There are a lot of things we can do to meet that military threat.
And once again, our Army needs to stay in Europe in reasonable strength. (See page 15. And I'll note again, I have no idea why Military Review credited me with a PhD. I never even hinted that I did. Remember, Doctor Dignified is not a doctor. He has a master's degree--in history.)
And help make Ukraine a hard target for Russian military aggression. Whether or not Ukraine joins NATO, we have an interest in making sure Ukraine can fight Russia effectively and at least make Russia pay a high price for future aggression.
Yes, Russia is a regional military threat. But don't make that assessment an excuse for doing nothing to restrain them because there are bigger threats--like terrorists with nukes, as the president said--to worry about. This is an old left-wing strategy to avoid confronting foes, remember.
UPDATE: I've heard conservatives say that President Obama calling Russia a "regional power" will just enrage Putin. Oh, please. What was the president supposed to do? Stand on stage wetting his pants begging the Russians to keep their troops in the barracks?
But that's me. I saluted President Bush 43's "bring it on" reaction to a question about the potential for a Baathist insurgency in Iraq. What was he supposed to do? Act afraid? Was the criticism that absent that comment the Baathists would have gotten used to a Shia- and Kurd-dominated government?
So as long as the president's comment wasn't the totality of our policy, I have no problem with keeping the problem in perspective: serious but not desperate.
So I got a chuckle out of this remark by President Obama:
"Russia is a regional power that is threatening some of its immediate neighbors, not out of strength but out of weakness," Obama said.
I liked that. Putin surely didn't like that dismissal of his strength. Don't inflate Putin by talking about Russia like they are a rebuilt superpower. They are not:
A failure to engage at this point would cause countries around Russia's periphery, from Estonia to Azerbaijan, to conclude that with the United States withdrawn and Europe fragmented, they must reach an accommodation with Russia. This will expand Russian power and open the door to Russian influence spreading on the European Peninsula itself. The United States has fought three wars (World War I, World War II and the Cold War) to prevent hegemonic domination of the region. Failure to engage would be a reversal of a century-old strategy.
The American dilemma is how to address the strategic context in a global setting in which it is less involved in the Middle East and is continuing to work toward a "pivot to Asia." Nor can the United States simply allow events to take their course. The United States needs a strategy that is economical and coherent militarily, politically and financially. It has two advantages. Some of the countries on Russia's periphery do not want to be dominated by her. Russia, in spite of some strengths, is inherently weak and does not require U.S. exertion on the order of the two World Wars, the Cold War or even the Middle East engagements of the past decade.
Yes, Russia is a smallish military threat. But that doesn't mean Russia is not a threat that has to be faced. Yes, China's growing power makes them the biggest threat for the future and most potent potential threat we might face today. And yes, jihadi terrorism is the biggest day-to-day threat we face today.
But Russia is the biggest active geopolitical foe we have. And operating in an arc that starts at the North Pole and heads south to the Baltic, goes across to the Black Sea, and continues curving through the eastern Mediterranean and across the Middle East to Afghanistan, Russia's "regional" ability to harm us is a very real threat that must be faced.
I've noted our interest in preventing the vast economic and scientific (and potential military) power of Europe from falling into the hands of a hostile power (which is why I oppose the European Union).
Remember, as I've written before, Japan in 1941 was a regional power that was much weaker than us. So too was Germany in 1914 and 1939. A mere regional power is a real threat, however, if it threatens our interests in their region.
Heck, in important ways, even the Soviet Union in 1975 was a regional power--albeit in the region from the Atlantic to the Pacifc, dipping down to the Mediterranean Sea. But their somewhat global reach was in many ways a peacetime capability that would have been shut down in war by our superior Navy (with our allied navies), leaving any Soviet forces outside of Russia and contiguous areas isolated and ripe for defeat, just as Germany lost their overseas possessions even as they approached victory within Europe.
Russia makes claims in the Arctic Circle, threatens the independence of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania; makes threats to Poland; threatens Ukraine's independence; bolsters the murderous Assad regime in Syria, provides diplomatic muscle for Iran; opposes Europe-based missile defenses; and has their grip on our northern supply lines to Afghanistan.
I don't think much of Russia's ability to harm our interests east of that arc, even though Russian territory extends to the Bering Strait at Alaska. (Although yes, Alaska is a front line state when you remember that Russia's arc of trouble making begins in the Arctic Circle.)
So base our policy toward Russia on reality and not fantasies of "reset" or visions of a soul visible in Putin's eyes. But do it quietly. There are a lot of things we can do to meet that military threat.
And once again, our Army needs to stay in Europe in reasonable strength. (See page 15. And I'll note again, I have no idea why Military Review credited me with a PhD. I never even hinted that I did. Remember, Doctor Dignified is not a doctor. He has a master's degree--in history.)
And help make Ukraine a hard target for Russian military aggression. Whether or not Ukraine joins NATO, we have an interest in making sure Ukraine can fight Russia effectively and at least make Russia pay a high price for future aggression.
Yes, Russia is a regional military threat. But don't make that assessment an excuse for doing nothing to restrain them because there are bigger threats--like terrorists with nukes, as the president said--to worry about. This is an old left-wing strategy to avoid confronting foes, remember.
UPDATE: I've heard conservatives say that President Obama calling Russia a "regional power" will just enrage Putin. Oh, please. What was the president supposed to do? Stand on stage wetting his pants begging the Russians to keep their troops in the barracks?
But that's me. I saluted President Bush 43's "bring it on" reaction to a question about the potential for a Baathist insurgency in Iraq. What was he supposed to do? Act afraid? Was the criticism that absent that comment the Baathists would have gotten used to a Shia- and Kurd-dominated government?
So as long as the president's comment wasn't the totality of our policy, I have no problem with keeping the problem in perspective: serious but not desperate.
Ouch
I ran for the first time this month.
My ongoing endless-winter debate of whether to be homicidal or suicidal finally got to me, and I just didn't feel like running. Plus I was glued to Ukraine events. And the usual family duties that popped up just when I thought I would run.
I hit rock bottom on Sunday when I did my taxes instead of running. That was a cry for help if ever I heard one.
So the good news is that I ran 2 miles today. Oh, and I didn't have a heart attack while doing so--which at my age is a big victory.
But my time topped 20 minutes. I haven't been over 16 minutes in months. So now I have to climb that mountain again.
I comfort myself that this is the first winter I've run through the winter. In past springs, I haven't even been able to run a mile first time out. And I'd spend at least a couple months working up to 2 miles. So I'm better than past years.
Hopefully next winter I'll manage to go year-round.
Hopefully, I run two more times this week to get back in the groove as soon as possible.
My ongoing endless-winter debate of whether to be homicidal or suicidal finally got to me, and I just didn't feel like running. Plus I was glued to Ukraine events. And the usual family duties that popped up just when I thought I would run.
I hit rock bottom on Sunday when I did my taxes instead of running. That was a cry for help if ever I heard one.
So the good news is that I ran 2 miles today. Oh, and I didn't have a heart attack while doing so--which at my age is a big victory.
But my time topped 20 minutes. I haven't been over 16 minutes in months. So now I have to climb that mountain again.
I comfort myself that this is the first winter I've run through the winter. In past springs, I haven't even been able to run a mile first time out. And I'd spend at least a couple months working up to 2 miles. So I'm better than past years.
Hopefully next winter I'll manage to go year-round.
Hopefully, I run two more times this week to get back in the groove as soon as possible.
Norks, Nukes, and Dorks
The haircut of evil is born:
You thought North Korean nuclear weapons were bad?
There are limits to The Un's authoritay, of course. Given North Korea's poverty and problems with malnutrition and looming starvation, there is no way that Kim can order his subjects to maintain the same weight as him.
Evil is revealed in many ways, big and small.
Tip to National Review Online.
UPDATE: The BBC story was apparently false. An unnamed source cited an unwritten directive. Radio Free Asia went with it and it was picked up.
So Kim Jong-un did not add insult to injury to his male subjects. But the ongoing injury that his rule represents remains.
Men in North Korea are now required to get the same haircut as their leader Kim Jong-un, it is reported.
The state-sanctioned guidelines were introduced in the capital Pyongyang about two weeks ago, media reports say. It is now being rolled out across the country - although some people have reservations about getting the look.
You thought North Korean nuclear weapons were bad?
There are limits to The Un's authoritay, of course. Given North Korea's poverty and problems with malnutrition and looming starvation, there is no way that Kim can order his subjects to maintain the same weight as him.
Evil is revealed in many ways, big and small.
Tip to National Review Online.
UPDATE: The BBC story was apparently false. An unnamed source cited an unwritten directive. Radio Free Asia went with it and it was picked up.
So Kim Jong-un did not add insult to injury to his male subjects. But the ongoing injury that his rule represents remains.
Do Not Become Confused, Of Course We Won the Cold War
The notion that we and the Soviet Union jointly ended the Cold War and that we have spoiled the party with a victory dance is so many flavors of stupid that I can't even begin to grasp how a man with a functioning brain stem can set forth this notion.
Behold!
Sit down, now. I know this is hard to believe. But that author thinks the Crimea Crisis is our fault:
Wow. That's a whole lot of confused in one article.
Look. We won the Cold War. The Soviet Union lost it. That was a good thing.
That we decided not to rub Moscow's nose in their defeat after they lost the Warsaw Pact was a kindness to make sure that the loss of empire by a nuclear-armed nutball state went smoothly.
And while the end of the Cold War could be put at 1989, I put it at 1991. Despite the loss of their Eastern European provinces, if the Soviet Union had endured the shaky period after, the Communists might have resumed the Cold War as they regained strength.
Again, not wanting the break-up of the Soviet Union was a product of not wanting a nuclear-armed defeated power to lash out with that power to destroy the world. Are Western caution and soft words to be twisted into the notion that the Soviet Union voluntarily ended the Cold War?
Further, stripping the Soviet Union of the Baltic States was a breakup of the Soviet Union. Does the author really think that the Russians wouldn't treat our support for Baltic state independence as the breakup of the Soviet Union if Moscow had held the rest of their continental empire?
And the Soviet Union (and even just post-USSR Russia) was an empire even if it didn't look like the overseas empires of Britain and France. Being contiguous by land did not negate the conquest of foreign peoples. Why was decolonization by everyone in Europe but Russia a good thing, eh?
Yet while Gorbachev was right that the defeat of Soviet communism was our common victory, the Russians changed their mind about that common enemy--or at least Putin did and bent opinion to his opinion.
Russia had the opportunity to rid themselves of their Communist legacy, cement that joint victory, and join the West.
But they did not--and we could not confront and defeat their evil past for them--and now the Russians pine for Soviet glories. Putin is on record as saying the demise of the Soviet Union “was the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the century.”
That path is Russia's fault and not our fault. We honestly didn't give much of a damn about them after the USSR went belly up and their military eroded. Did they not notice that we were busy with Islamist nutballs after September 11, 2001? We just didn't give a rip about them. Did they not notice that NATO Europe pretty much disarmed after the Berlin Wall crashed down? They just didn't think of Russia as a threat. Yet the Russians continued to be effing nutball bastards, going off about NATO plots to defeat them, until we had to notice.
So now Russia is getting their deepest wish--we take them seriously again. Russia treated us as their main enemy even when we hardly noticed them, and now that they've hit Ukraine after their drive by on Georgia, we have to treat them as a threat to peace again.
Way to go, Putin. Winning!
The problem isn't that we treated the Russians as the losers. Who can doubt the obvious fact that the Soviets lost? The Russians could have been winners by embracing the defeat of the Soviet losers rather than regretting that defeat.
The problem is that we didn't treat them as defeated. There was no de-Communization after 1991 as there was de-Nazification after 1945. And as the years went by, the Russians convinced themselves that they'd been stabbed in the back by their "co-winners," the United States. And writers like Jack Matlock, Jr., buy into the foolish fantasy and basically excuse Putin's aggression as understandable if not admirable. If only we'd been nicer to them, they say. Good grief.
And reading the comments in that piece is just amazing. We defeat a bloody, evil regime, yet somehow we're the bully responsible for the fact that Russia is trying to resurrect the Soviet empire?
Did I wake up today in Bizarro World?
It makes me wish I still had my old t-shirt that I wore around Ann Arbor in the early 1980s. It had a red map of the Soviet Union with a missile plunging in to Moscow, titled "Support First Strike." I didn't really want to wage nuclear war. But I was tired of people pretending that the Soviets weren't an evil empire. I was tired of the moral equivalence arguments that asserted we were just as bad as the Soviets. Now we know Putin has decided he wants to restore the evil empire. He has a weak hand, but now we know his intent.
Although right now I'm more angry with the West's best and brightest who can blame America for the gulag with a UN seat that the Soviet Union was and which Russia is becoming under Putin.
We have to play this smart. I don't think Russia is worthy of a full-blown Cold War as our response. They're too weak for us to have to focus on them as the core of our foreign policy. And they don't have an ideological component that makes them a global problem.
But let's not be confused over who the good guys are and who the bad guys are. Putin is a bad guy. Period.
Behold!
At the December 1989 Malta summit, Mikhail Gorbachev and President George H.W. Bush confirmed that the ideological basis for the war was gone, stating that the two nations no longer regarded each other as enemies. ...
Because the collapse of the Soviet Union happened so soon afterward, people often confuse it with the end of the Cold War. But they were separate events, and the former was not an inevitable outcome of the latter.
Moreover, the breakup of the U.S.S.R. into 15 separate countries was not something the United States caused or wanted. We hoped that Gorbachev would forge a voluntary union of Soviet republics, minus the three Baltic countries. ...
Even after the U.S.S.R. ceased to exist, Gorbachev maintained that “the end of the Cold War is our common victory.” Yet the United States insisted on treating Russia as the loser.
Sit down, now. I know this is hard to believe. But that author thinks the Crimea Crisis is our fault:
The sad fact is that the cycle of dismissive actions by the United States met by overreactions by Russia has so poisoned the relationship that the sort of quiet diplomacy used to end the Cold War was impossible when the crisis in Ukraine burst upon the world’s consciousness. It’s why 43 percent of Russians are ready to believe that Western actions are behind the crisis and that Russia is under siege.
Wow. That's a whole lot of confused in one article.
Look. We won the Cold War. The Soviet Union lost it. That was a good thing.
That we decided not to rub Moscow's nose in their defeat after they lost the Warsaw Pact was a kindness to make sure that the loss of empire by a nuclear-armed nutball state went smoothly.
And while the end of the Cold War could be put at 1989, I put it at 1991. Despite the loss of their Eastern European provinces, if the Soviet Union had endured the shaky period after, the Communists might have resumed the Cold War as they regained strength.
Again, not wanting the break-up of the Soviet Union was a product of not wanting a nuclear-armed defeated power to lash out with that power to destroy the world. Are Western caution and soft words to be twisted into the notion that the Soviet Union voluntarily ended the Cold War?
Further, stripping the Soviet Union of the Baltic States was a breakup of the Soviet Union. Does the author really think that the Russians wouldn't treat our support for Baltic state independence as the breakup of the Soviet Union if Moscow had held the rest of their continental empire?
And the Soviet Union (and even just post-USSR Russia) was an empire even if it didn't look like the overseas empires of Britain and France. Being contiguous by land did not negate the conquest of foreign peoples. Why was decolonization by everyone in Europe but Russia a good thing, eh?
Yet while Gorbachev was right that the defeat of Soviet communism was our common victory, the Russians changed their mind about that common enemy--or at least Putin did and bent opinion to his opinion.
Russia had the opportunity to rid themselves of their Communist legacy, cement that joint victory, and join the West.
But they did not--and we could not confront and defeat their evil past for them--and now the Russians pine for Soviet glories. Putin is on record as saying the demise of the Soviet Union “was the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the century.”
That path is Russia's fault and not our fault. We honestly didn't give much of a damn about them after the USSR went belly up and their military eroded. Did they not notice that we were busy with Islamist nutballs after September 11, 2001? We just didn't give a rip about them. Did they not notice that NATO Europe pretty much disarmed after the Berlin Wall crashed down? They just didn't think of Russia as a threat. Yet the Russians continued to be effing nutball bastards, going off about NATO plots to defeat them, until we had to notice.
So now Russia is getting their deepest wish--we take them seriously again. Russia treated us as their main enemy even when we hardly noticed them, and now that they've hit Ukraine after their drive by on Georgia, we have to treat them as a threat to peace again.
Way to go, Putin. Winning!
The problem isn't that we treated the Russians as the losers. Who can doubt the obvious fact that the Soviets lost? The Russians could have been winners by embracing the defeat of the Soviet losers rather than regretting that defeat.
The problem is that we didn't treat them as defeated. There was no de-Communization after 1991 as there was de-Nazification after 1945. And as the years went by, the Russians convinced themselves that they'd been stabbed in the back by their "co-winners," the United States. And writers like Jack Matlock, Jr., buy into the foolish fantasy and basically excuse Putin's aggression as understandable if not admirable. If only we'd been nicer to them, they say. Good grief.
And reading the comments in that piece is just amazing. We defeat a bloody, evil regime, yet somehow we're the bully responsible for the fact that Russia is trying to resurrect the Soviet empire?
Did I wake up today in Bizarro World?
It makes me wish I still had my old t-shirt that I wore around Ann Arbor in the early 1980s. It had a red map of the Soviet Union with a missile plunging in to Moscow, titled "Support First Strike." I didn't really want to wage nuclear war. But I was tired of people pretending that the Soviets weren't an evil empire. I was tired of the moral equivalence arguments that asserted we were just as bad as the Soviets. Now we know Putin has decided he wants to restore the evil empire. He has a weak hand, but now we know his intent.
Although right now I'm more angry with the West's best and brightest who can blame America for the gulag with a UN seat that the Soviet Union was and which Russia is becoming under Putin.
We have to play this smart. I don't think Russia is worthy of a full-blown Cold War as our response. They're too weak for us to have to focus on them as the core of our foreign policy. And they don't have an ideological component that makes them a global problem.
But let's not be confused over who the good guys are and who the bad guys are. Putin is a bad guy. Period.
Justified
Russia says Ukraine isn't letting Russian flight crews off of their planes in Kiev's airport:
See? Both sides have acted a little inappropriately. Russia invades and seizes a province. Ukraine keeps flight crews on their planes. We're all guilty of something, eh? So let's just call it even.
It's the most amazing bit of moral equivalence nonsense I've seen in quite a while.
As an aside, if Russian propaganda is saying that Ukraine is threatening ethnic Russians, why is Russia flying in new potential victims into the very heart of the beast?
"Russia insists on an unconditional cessation of these irresponsible practices by Ukraine which endanger the safety of civil aviation flights," the [Russian foreign] ministry said in a statement.
See? Both sides have acted a little inappropriately. Russia invades and seizes a province. Ukraine keeps flight crews on their planes. We're all guilty of something, eh? So let's just call it even.
It's the most amazing bit of moral equivalence nonsense I've seen in quite a while.
As an aside, if Russian propaganda is saying that Ukraine is threatening ethnic Russians, why is Russia flying in new potential victims into the very heart of the beast?
The Limits of Nukes
Nukes wouldn't have saved Crimea. But they could save Kiev.
This was so close to being a good article. But then the author went and killed my gleeful building buzz:
Oh! So close.
The author goes on to justify the latter part of that statement by going over cases of non-nuclear powers fighting nuclear powers and concluding that nukes don't deter military aggression against the holder of nukes.
It is true that if Ukraine had possessed nuclear weapons that Russia would not have been deterred from taking Crimea.
But this does not prove the latter statement that nukes would generally be useless for Ukraine. Indeed, the examples of Israel and Britain simply prove the first correct statement.
As I've written before about Russia's military power, Moscow's massive nuclear arsenal does not protect them from invasion:
So yeah, if Ukraine had owned nukes, Crimea would still have been invaded and Ukrainian threats to use nukes against Russia to save Crimea would not have been credible.
(Let's leave aside the very touchy issue of whether Ukrainian use of nukes on their own territory--that is, in Crimea--against Russian invading forces would risk Russian nuclear escalation against Ukrainian cities--which would then lead Ukraine to strike Russian cities inside Russia.)
But the reasons Argentina's attack on the Falklands and Egypt's and Syria's attacks across the Suez Canal and into the Golan Heights, respectively, did not lead to nuclear responses was because the threats were not threats to Britain's or Israel's national existence.
A Russian attack that goes all the way to Kiev pretty much erases Ukraine, and that level of threat could justify use of nuclear weapons.
And keep in mind that Israel was readying nukes just as the Syrian attack on Golan was reaching its high water mark. Had the Syrians pushed just a little farther, we might have an example of how nukes are used when national survival is at stake.
And I don't understand why the author starts out the article by saying nukes wouldn't save Kiev when he very clearly understands that there is a threshold of threats below which nuclear weapons are not a credible response--and therefore a level above which that deterrence value changes.
Indeed, his example of Russia falling back after pushing close to Tblisi in the Russo-Georgia War of 2008 bolsters this concept. Obviously, Georgia had no nukes and we weren't offering a nuclear umbrella. But Russia pulled back.
I say that Russian military failures in the advance deterred them from risking a fight for the capital. This shows that nuclear weapons are no substitute for conventional power.
As an aside, I find the author's claim that Ukraine gave up their inherited Russian nukes to prove they are a Western country is just ridiculous given that America, Britain, France, and even Israel retain nuclear weapons. In what world was/is possession of nukes something that keeps you out of the Western club?
And no matter what the difficulty Ukraine would have maintaining nuclear weapons, Russia could never be sure that all of them would not work.
On the bright side, the author notes that conventional deterrence against Russian invasion requires the type of reputation that Finland earned in the Winter War of 1939-1940.
So yeah, Ukraine needs a conventional military force to deter the Russians from invading and grabbing territory where the stakes are less than national survival.
But Kiev having nukes makes the Russians calculate how far they can push Ukraine without triggering the national survival instinct that makes use of nuclear weapons against Russia seem justified.
Really, this was so close to being a really excellent article on an important subject, marred fatally by the statement that Ukrainian nukes couldn't save Kiev, which is contradicted by much of what the author lays out as his case for that point.
This was so close to being a good article. But then the author went and killed my gleeful building buzz:
The reality is that nuclear weapons wouldn't have saved Crimea and can't protect Kiev from Moscow.
Oh! So close.
The author goes on to justify the latter part of that statement by going over cases of non-nuclear powers fighting nuclear powers and concluding that nukes don't deter military aggression against the holder of nukes.
It is true that if Ukraine had possessed nuclear weapons that Russia would not have been deterred from taking Crimea.
But this does not prove the latter statement that nukes would generally be useless for Ukraine. Indeed, the examples of Israel and Britain simply prove the first correct statement.
As I've written before about Russia's military power, Moscow's massive nuclear arsenal does not protect them from invasion:
[The] threat of nuclear retaliation is really only credible when national survival is at stake. Would Russia really nuke China, for example, if China merely took Vladivostok and limited border regions in the Far East?
If Russia lobbed nukes at China for that, China would then nuke European Russia, possibly including Moscow. Is the threat really credible when you consider that? Remember, the threat of nuclear retaliation is to preserve your nation. But using nukes when it prompts a nuclear response that devastates your nation is rather missing the point, isn't it? ...
In theory, you can say that a country will use nukes if national existence is threatened. And you can say with good confidence that a country won't use nukes in response to a terror attack or cyber-attack or in a border skirmish where a few hundred square yards of territory changes hand. But between those extremes, where is the dividing line?
So yeah, if Ukraine had owned nukes, Crimea would still have been invaded and Ukrainian threats to use nukes against Russia to save Crimea would not have been credible.
(Let's leave aside the very touchy issue of whether Ukrainian use of nukes on their own territory--that is, in Crimea--against Russian invading forces would risk Russian nuclear escalation against Ukrainian cities--which would then lead Ukraine to strike Russian cities inside Russia.)
But the reasons Argentina's attack on the Falklands and Egypt's and Syria's attacks across the Suez Canal and into the Golan Heights, respectively, did not lead to nuclear responses was because the threats were not threats to Britain's or Israel's national existence.
A Russian attack that goes all the way to Kiev pretty much erases Ukraine, and that level of threat could justify use of nuclear weapons.
And keep in mind that Israel was readying nukes just as the Syrian attack on Golan was reaching its high water mark. Had the Syrians pushed just a little farther, we might have an example of how nukes are used when national survival is at stake.
And I don't understand why the author starts out the article by saying nukes wouldn't save Kiev when he very clearly understands that there is a threshold of threats below which nuclear weapons are not a credible response--and therefore a level above which that deterrence value changes.
Indeed, his example of Russia falling back after pushing close to Tblisi in the Russo-Georgia War of 2008 bolsters this concept. Obviously, Georgia had no nukes and we weren't offering a nuclear umbrella. But Russia pulled back.
I say that Russian military failures in the advance deterred them from risking a fight for the capital. This shows that nuclear weapons are no substitute for conventional power.
As an aside, I find the author's claim that Ukraine gave up their inherited Russian nukes to prove they are a Western country is just ridiculous given that America, Britain, France, and even Israel retain nuclear weapons. In what world was/is possession of nukes something that keeps you out of the Western club?
And no matter what the difficulty Ukraine would have maintaining nuclear weapons, Russia could never be sure that all of them would not work.
On the bright side, the author notes that conventional deterrence against Russian invasion requires the type of reputation that Finland earned in the Winter War of 1939-1940.
So yeah, Ukraine needs a conventional military force to deter the Russians from invading and grabbing territory where the stakes are less than national survival.
But Kiev having nukes makes the Russians calculate how far they can push Ukraine without triggering the national survival instinct that makes use of nuclear weapons against Russia seem justified.
Really, this was so close to being a really excellent article on an important subject, marred fatally by the statement that Ukrainian nukes couldn't save Kiev, which is contradicted by much of what the author lays out as his case for that point.
Tuesday, March 25, 2014
If Not Evil, Close Enough for Government Work
Just another renewable energy resource in Britain:
How many other efficiencies to save money are made at the expense of compassion and care?
But that's Britain. It's not like they are just decades ahead of us in bureaucratizing health care. That could never happen here.
Tip to National Review Online
The bodies of thousands of aborted and miscarried babies were incinerated as clinical waste, with some even used to heat hospitals, an investigation has found.
How many other efficiencies to save money are made at the expense of compassion and care?
But that's Britain. It's not like they are just decades ahead of us in bureaucratizing health care. That could never happen here.
Tip to National Review Online
Not Too Shabby
My Red Force analysis on Crimea wasn't too bad.
Strategypage writes about the Russian conquest of Crimea:
This tracks my pre-war description of a Kharkov Storm pretty closely:
I didn't specifically mention Spetsnaz, but I tend to think in terms of maneuver units. But the raising of local militias was a special forces job, as far as I was concerned.
But the Russians sent in 22,000 troops, although it was weighted more to Kerch than I thought.
I expected a concurrent invasion of eastern Ukraine. But I assumed Yanukovich could be installed as a figurehead leader. Strategypage writes that Yanukovich was poison by that time. So perhaps the Russians didn't think they could manage the pretext without a leader.
Or perhaps it was because the Russians wanted a quiet takeover and they didn't believe that was possible in eastern Ukraine. I assumed Ukrainian resistance in Crimea and so it would be war just there, so why wouldn't Russia grab eastern Ukraine while they could?
Perhaps the Russians didn't have the number of troops I assumed were ready to operate in eastern Ukraine at the same time as the Crimea operation.
Anyway, not too shabby for sitting in my figurative basement.
UPDATE: I will say that I assumed the airlifted forces would be the spearhead with the Spetsnaz-raised militias the supporting force. I remain shocked that the Spetsnaz were allowed to lead the take over. I simply did not imagine that the Ukrainians would not fight enough to require the paratroopers to roll out of Sevastopol.
Strategypage writes about the Russian conquest of Crimea:
Apparently several hundred members of the GRU 45th Spersnaz Regiment were then sent in, disguised as civilians, to create a “popular uprising” that would enable Russia to annex Crimea. Some of the uniformed men who then took control of Crimea were apparently hired, pro-Russia, locals, but the core of this “local militia” are men with obvious military training and who have been using those skills recently. ...
The 11,000 Russian troops normally stationed in Crimea are mostly support personnel for the naval bases of the Black Sea Fleet. The exception was 2,000 marines. These were reinforced by another 7,000 troops, mostly infantry and special operations forces flown in or arrived by ship by early March. These were followed by 15,000 more ferried across the 4.5 kilometer wide Kerch Strait that separates Crimea from southern Russia. By late March Russia had over 30,000 troops in Crimea, including over a thousand spetsnaz.
This tracks my pre-war description of a Kharkov Storm pretty closely:
I'd also annex the Crimea, claiming that the transfer to Ukraine in the Soviet period was premised on Ukraine remaining part of Russia and so is not valid. It doesn't matter if that stands up legally as a good argument. That's my story and I'm sticking to it. And with the Crimea being majority ethnic Russian, who will complain? Especially with lots of local militias springing up? ...
Crimea would be secured with 25,000 new forces.
Fifteen thousand paratroopers would be airlifted to Crimea and ten thousand paramilitary forces would cross the Kerch Strait to reinforce the Russian naval infantry regiment and other troops based in Crimea.
I didn't specifically mention Spetsnaz, but I tend to think in terms of maneuver units. But the raising of local militias was a special forces job, as far as I was concerned.
But the Russians sent in 22,000 troops, although it was weighted more to Kerch than I thought.
I expected a concurrent invasion of eastern Ukraine. But I assumed Yanukovich could be installed as a figurehead leader. Strategypage writes that Yanukovich was poison by that time. So perhaps the Russians didn't think they could manage the pretext without a leader.
Or perhaps it was because the Russians wanted a quiet takeover and they didn't believe that was possible in eastern Ukraine. I assumed Ukrainian resistance in Crimea and so it would be war just there, so why wouldn't Russia grab eastern Ukraine while they could?
Perhaps the Russians didn't have the number of troops I assumed were ready to operate in eastern Ukraine at the same time as the Crimea operation.
Anyway, not too shabby for sitting in my figurative basement.
UPDATE: I will say that I assumed the airlifted forces would be the spearhead with the Spetsnaz-raised militias the supporting force. I remain shocked that the Spetsnaz were allowed to lead the take over. I simply did not imagine that the Ukrainians would not fight enough to require the paratroopers to roll out of Sevastopol.
The Georgia Precedent
It seems to me that Russia's strongest precedent for taking Crimea is Georgia's escalation to retake South Ossetia in 2008.
Russia says that Crimea was a region essentially stolen from them and that Russia's conquest was therefore justified as a rescue mission.
While it is ridiculous to assert that Georgia is responsible for the 2008 Russo-Georgia War, Georgia did in fact start the overt fighting after falling into the Russian trap of escalating in response to Russian efforts to destabilize the region and provoke Georgia.
But given Russias conquest of Crimea, wasn't Georgia fully justified in trying to retake a region stolen from them and protect ethnic Georgians trapped in South Ossetia?
Russia's justification for their subliminal invasion and conquest of Crimea actually justifies Georgia's effort in 2008 to restore Georgian control of South Ossetia. Can we at least end the polite fiction that led the West to overlook Russia's 2008 aggression?
Russia says that Crimea was a region essentially stolen from them and that Russia's conquest was therefore justified as a rescue mission.
While it is ridiculous to assert that Georgia is responsible for the 2008 Russo-Georgia War, Georgia did in fact start the overt fighting after falling into the Russian trap of escalating in response to Russian efforts to destabilize the region and provoke Georgia.
But given Russias conquest of Crimea, wasn't Georgia fully justified in trying to retake a region stolen from them and protect ethnic Georgians trapped in South Ossetia?
Russia's justification for their subliminal invasion and conquest of Crimea actually justifies Georgia's effort in 2008 to restore Georgian control of South Ossetia. Can we at least end the polite fiction that led the West to overlook Russia's 2008 aggression?
Be Careful What You Wish For
So Crimea's ethnic Russian population succeeded in breaking into the prison of Putin's Russia by citing their history of being part of Russia. Congratulations. Good job! Winners! Perhaps the Crimeans should ponder their future in light of that past.
Did nobody in Crimea bother to read the transcript of Putin's justification for seizing Crimea in recounting the history of Crimea in Russia?
Yeah, you Crimeans are special! Putin went to subliminal war for you! Sure, the Tatars suffered horribly and were expelled from Crimea. But you have to remember the context of that bloody and dark history--the Russians killed and repressed everyone, including Russians! See?
Wait. What? Putin's defense is that the Russians repressed everyone? Oops.
Say, isn't my post title supposed to be a Chinese curse? I wonder what the Chinese think of the history of lost territory in other parts of the world?
Yeah, look east, Putin:
The East might look back. And China is not the perfect enemy.
Did nobody in Crimea bother to read the transcript of Putin's justification for seizing Crimea in recounting the history of Crimea in Russia?
It's not always a pretty history, though. For example, the entire Crimean Tatar population was deported from Crimea during World War II, and a huge number are believed to have died. Putin touched on this in his speech, admitting that the Crimean Tatars were "treated unfairly" but adding that "millions of people of various ethnicities suffered during those repressions, and primarily Russians."
Yeah, you Crimeans are special! Putin went to subliminal war for you! Sure, the Tatars suffered horribly and were expelled from Crimea. But you have to remember the context of that bloody and dark history--the Russians killed and repressed everyone, including Russians! See?
Wait. What? Putin's defense is that the Russians repressed everyone? Oops.
Say, isn't my post title supposed to be a Chinese curse? I wonder what the Chinese think of the history of lost territory in other parts of the world?
Yeah, look east, Putin:
The underlying message from the head of Russia's biggest oil company, Rosneft, was clear: If Europe and the United States isolate Russia, Moscow will look East for new business, energy deals, military contracts and political alliances.
The East might look back. And China is not the perfect enemy.
GPS Location, GPS Location, GPS Location
Israel is following us in going to precision firepower. This will greatly aid a fight in Lebanon against Hezbollah by reducing civilian casualties.
I noted changes in Israeli ground force policies for armor and artillery that seem appropriate for a focus on defeating Hezbollah in Lebanon by increasing the amount of precision fire support for Israeli army units.
Strategypage writes about Israel's change in fire support focus:
So there you go. If Israel drives all the way to Baalbek, Hezbollah will take a beating and lose the consolation prize of heavy Lebanese casualties that lack of precision weapons (and training and organizations to exploit them) would guarantee.
I noted changes in Israeli ground force policies for armor and artillery that seem appropriate for a focus on defeating Hezbollah in Lebanon by increasing the amount of precision fire support for Israeli army units.
Strategypage writes about Israel's change in fire support focus:
Israel accepted that the American use of GPS guidance in rockets, while more expensive, was more effective than the cheaper (but less accurate) Israeli developed rocket guidance system and even cheaper unguided artillery shells.
Israel has gone ahead and developed its own GPS guided rockets [and] Israel has also developed a GPS guided 155mm artillery shell and 120mm mortar shell. Each tank battalion has some of these 120mm mortars and using GPS guided shells does not require using a lot of ammo to get the job done. In effect, Israel has all but eliminated the use of the traditional artillery barrage, reducing ammo use by over 90 percent. This meant many artillery units were disbanded.
This radical shift in artillery weapons has been coming since the 2006 war with Hezbollah, when the Israelis found that they did little damage to Hezbollah bunkers, even though over 120,000 unguided 155mm shells were fired at them. Meanwhile, they noted that the U.S. 227mm MLRS rockets with GPS guidance was excellent at taking out similar targets in Iraq and Afghanistan.
So there you go. If Israel drives all the way to Baalbek, Hezbollah will take a beating and lose the consolation prize of heavy Lebanese casualties that lack of precision weapons (and training and organizations to exploit them) would guarantee.
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