There is No Future History

I remain concerned about Afghanistan. Although the evidence for eventual success stands alongside evidence for defeat, I can't say that I have a feel for the war.

Is Afghanistan losing the war?

Europeans think Afghanistan is losing control of the countryside:

"The overall trend is one of decreasing government control outside the larger towns and cities, escalating violence and more insurgent attacks," observed the European Asylum Support Office (EASO).

In its latest report, Afghanistan Security Situation , released on 13 February, EASO noted that Taliban, Hezb-e Islami Afghanistan, and other insurgent groups operating in the country are carrying out more large-scale attacks against the Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF).

There seems to be evidence for optimism and pessimism.

Unlike Iraq, where the flow of news reports--even when the press misinterpreted events--allowed me to get a feel for the ebb and flow of the effort, there is so little news out of Afghanistan that I just never have gotten that "feel" for the war.

So reports make credible cases for eventual victory and eventual defeat.

Which only makes sense, really. The future is not predetermined with only our analysis of what the future will be in doubt. We could win. Or we could lose.

Which is why I am worried about disengaging completely from Afghanistan too soon--the way we did in Iraq. The outcome is in doubt and our efforts will help determine whether we eventually win or eventually lose.

UPDATE: Secretary of Defense Carter went to Afghanistan as his first foreign trip. He said we may slow our pace of withdrawal:

The United States is considering slowing a planned withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan to ensure that "progress sticks" after more than a decade of war, new Defense Secretary Ash Carter said during an unannounced visit to Kabul on Saturday.

We're supposed to get down to 5,000 by the end of this year and then leave by next year's end. That rate may be slowed down--but not the zero state at the end of 2016.

Pardon me for being cynical, but is this just an effort to claim progress in Afghanistan and make a tiny adjustment in troop strength as if that will defend it, and so allow President Obama to escape blame for defeat after he leaves office by allowing him to say he did all he could?

By all accounts, Carter is a decent sort. So I'll count on his assessment as being honest.

That doesn't speak to why his boss agreed to consider changes in the drawdown, of course.

The Ukraine Ceasefire is Just Resting?

Europeans really do live in an odd cocoon of self-referencing pacifism. They want to revive the latest Minsk ceasefire:

Fighting raged in eastern Ukraine on Thursday despite European efforts to resurrect a still-born ceasefire, a day after pro-Russian separatists who spurned the truce forced thousands of government troops out of a strategic town.

It is an ex-ceasefire. It's been nailed to Minsk.

It is not just stunned or tired and shagged out after capturing Debaltseve. Four thousand volts wouldn't revive it.

Although it is definitely going "boom."

It's dead. It has passed on. It is no more. It is a late ceasefire. It has ceased to be. It is pushing up the daisies. It has joined the choir invisible.

I suspect it is pining for Mariupol, however.

The Europeans will never run out of ceasefires, no matter how many die.

But surely, at some point Putin will have no more territorial ambitions. Right?

And here's a thought if you don't think this is bad enough. What if Putin is the new Mussolini in a supporting role rather than the main threat?

God, Give Me Strength

We made mistakes in Iraq? Thanks Candidate Obvious:

Jeb Bush on Wednesday acknowledged that the administration of his brother, former President George W. Bush, made mistakes before and during the Iraq War.

What war doesn't have mistakes?

The "mistakes" complaint is simply stupid. What war doesn't involve mistakes in a contest of two sides shooting at each other?

World War II had Pearl Harbor, loss of Philippines, defective sub torpedo design, Kasserine Pass, unescorted daytime strategic bombing, Bari mustard gas release, surprise in Ardennes, etc., etc.

Yet we persisted and won World War II. Mistakes? War is a series of mistakes.

In what alternate world do you live in that a massive chaotic event like war, in which you try to compel by focused violence somebody else to do what you want while they are trying with equal fervor to force you through focused violence to do their bidding, can be carried out without mistakes? Often serious? Usually costly?

That type of war happens only in one alternate universe. The one where if only you spend the time to craft the perfect plan, that you can plan away friction and enemy surprises--with any deviation safely included in your appendices--and win on your timeline.

Early in the Iraq War, I judged our Baathist enemies in Iraq as having made the biggest mistake of all--allying with the jihadis in the mistaken belief that the Baathists could use the dumb fanatical hicks as their cannon fodder and then sweep them aside in victory to regain control of Iraq. That was a bad plan.

Saddam's Baathists are still at it.

Face it, we won the war in Iraq.

Sure, we could have left Saddam in place. But all in all, the war made sense.

Since we left in 2011, it deteriorated enough to compel even President Obama to re-engage.

Yet even though Iraq is weak now, at least they are a weak asset in the war against jihadis rather than an enemy that supported terrorism.

Mistakes in war. Imagine that.

Killing Jihadis is Fun and Easy?

Are we killing enough jihadis? I don't know if it is enough, but Marie Harf sure enjoys the smell of napalm in the morning, or something.



"We're killing a lot of 'em. And we're going to kill more of them."

Wow. Take it easy, there, old "blood and guts" Harf.

(If the definition of a diplomat is an honorable person sent abroad to lie for their country, the person sent to lie to Americans about our diplomacy is obviously called Marie Harf. Lord, she's annoying.)

But note the glee she expresses when she says we are killing jihadis. Try to tell me with a straight face that if a Republican had smiled that way that we wouldn't be told that the person enjoyed bombing brown people.

Oh, right. The hope and change make it okay.

Sure, I have no problem killing jihadis. But I'm a knuckle dragger, right? She has those "I'm totally nuanced, let's put on pajamas, drink hot cocoa, and discuss ISIL" glasses, and everything!

And her statement deserves a foray into effective versus ineffective use of force to defeat jihadis.

Still, I suppose that after 6 years this counts as progress. It wasn't so long ago that the Obama administration ignored this long-term nature of the war and assured us that al Qaeda was on the run.

Once, the Obama administration even thought that a nice outreach speech in Cairo and a presidential biography that included eating dog meat as a child growing up in Indonesia would totally disarm the jihadi impulse against us.

I really am a "glass half full" kind of guy.

Send in the Orban!

This is unreal:

Russian President Vladimir Putin travels to Budapest on Tuesday to meet the leader some Hungarians cast as his alter ego — "Little Putin."

It's a striking moniker for Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, who rose to international prominence in the 1980s as an anti-Soviet student leader. His transformation into a populist who cozies up to the Kremlin and stifles dissent mirrors a broader eastern European narrative in which rebellion against Moscow has evolved into mixed feelings about the neighboring Russian giant. Leaders in Hungary, Serbia, Slovakia, and the Czech Republic all increasingly play a double game of courting EU riches while also flirting with Russian patronage.

Help the Ukrainians give Putin a bloody defeat in Donbas and that European flirting with Putin will end real fast.

Obviously, The Dignified Rant has the film clip of the meeting:



At 1/8 scale!

Apparently, some people just aren't ready for democracy and rule of law.

UPDATE: The Poles are not amused:

The prime minister of Poland, one of Europe's most critical voices on Russia, held what she called "honest and difficult talks" on Thursday with her Hungarian counterpart Viktor Orban, who faces sharp criticism in the West for cultivating closer ties with Russia.

That makes sense. Orban is honestly difficult.

Putin Got Away With Murder, Again

At some point, Western leaders will notice a pattern of Putin taking ground from Ukraine and then negotiating a farcical ceasefire to enable him to secure those gains, right?

The West won't have a chance to demonstrate a backbone with a Debaltseve Airlift.

No, the latest Minsk "ceasefire" was just another means to allow Putin to take territory:

Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko has said government forces were completing a "planned and organized" withdrawal from the eastern town of Debaltseve, which has been at the epicenter of fighting between Ukrainian troops and pro-Russian militants in recent weeks.

"As of now, we can say that 80 percent of our units have left," Poroshenko said, adding that two more columns were expected to pull out.

Western European leaders protested, as Putin pulled the ceasefire away yet again.

This seems so familiar ...



It's funny how some traditions--like learning from Munich--just slowly fade away.

It seems as if the European powers are only interested in convincing Ukraine to just give up so all this unpleasantness will fade from the headlines and they can go back to minding their own business and quietly cutting defense spending.

To be fair to Putin, the West may actually be the most stupid civilization alive.

UPDATE: This is kind of humorous in a dark sort of way:

A flashpoint strategic town in east Ukraine fell Wednesday to a fierce assault by pro-Russian rebels in a serious defeat for Kiev, prompting the West to accuse Moscow of cynically exploiting an internationally-backed ceasefire.

How impolite of the Russians.

Who could possibly imagine that Putin--who violated the UN Charter and Budapest Memorandum to invade Ukraine in the first place--would violate yet another ceasefire he signed?

UPDATE: Meanwhile, Putin remilitarizes the Rhineland slowly absorbs Georgian territory:

Georgia condemned on Thursday the signing of a border agreement between its breakaway region of South Ossetia and Russia, accusing Moscow of moving closer to annexing a territory it supported in a five-day conflict in 2008.

If Putin had the military power to do so, he'd take territory far more quickly.

A lot of Europeans (and Europeans-at-heart here) would prefer such quick actions so they can get back to business as usual faster without all those lingering questions about "what are we going to do?"

Virtual Squads

Strategypage discusses reach-back capabilities in relation to intelligence operations. This is itself interesting, but could reach-back be used for ground combat capabilities to improve force protection for infantry?

One method to reduce the squad in the vehicle is to have virtual gunners manning remote weapon stations on the vehicle. See "Reachback for the Squad" in Infantry magazine.

NOTE: I used this post as inspiration for the article and so deleted it. This article published in 2017 replaces the post.

We Have Met the Enemy, And They is Us

I'm thoroughly disgusted by the people who say that naturally Russia has to have Ukraine as a buffer zone.

Pray tell, who will invade Russia from the West?

Who will have the troops to occupy and pacify a conquered Russia?

Where, pray tell, is the buffer zone's limit when Moscow looks west at a vast plain extending to the Rhine River? Do you really think Donbas and Crimea are enough buffer with this type of thinking?

And if the threat is not military, but ideological, threatening Russia's autocracy with democracy (God forbid the long-suffering Russian people should be condemned to that!), what good does a territorial buffer provide? Did a territorial buffer help the Soviet Union when their system and empire collapsed from 1989-1991?

Doesn't Russia see that Ukraine was (and still is) a barely armed state with its armed forces still deployed as if it was the Cold War (thus poised to lunge west)? And now Ukraine sees Russia as a military threat?

Doesn't Russia see that NATO was barely able to operate in the new NATO states let alone invade Russia, and that Russia's actions are prompting NATO to make tentative steps to defend the new NATO line further east?

Is Russia so blind that they can't see that there is no threat from the West while China is a gathering storm in their rear? And that China's help is a trojan horse to undermine Russia more?

This Chinese aid comes with strings, mainly in terms of Russia agreeing to sell more military tech (design and manufacturing methods) to China.

Many Russians are nervous about this because of Chinese claims on much of eastern Russia and increasing Chinese economic domination in the Russian Far East. At the moment Russian leaders are more concerned with the imaginary threat from the West rather than the very real one from the east.

A growing number of Russians are becoming vocal about the Chinese threat and the fact that current Russian policy is driving away the only effective allies (the West) Russia could have to deal with a Chinese move on the Russian Far East. ...

Westerners in Russia, especially those who speak and read Russian, report that state controlled Russian media has seemingly reverted to stories and attitudes right out of the Cold War. It is, in short, unreal but actually happening. Russian media is full of stories of NATO aggression against Russia and anything that is going wrong in Russia is blamed on a NATO conspiracy to destroy Russia.

What fantasy world does Putin inhabit? Why are Russians going along with his Viking funeral ride?

Face it, Russia is being led by freaking idiots. Aggressive and dangerous idiots, but idiots nonetheless.

Are the Dutch Too Busy Watching Putin?

As long as I'm wondering if Britain should be on guard in the Falklands, given President Kirchner's difficulties; I suppose it would be a good idea to again warn the Dutch about Maduro, given Venezuela's difficulties.

You never can tell when a charter member of the Axis of El Vil will try to make the jump from clown status to real evil.

When You Start to Go to War, Go to War

Congress should simply pass an AUMF that authorizes the president to lead our forces in a war to destroy jihadi terrorists and their enablers.

If it would make people feel better, there can be a clause that specifies ISIL and even Iraq, without limiting the authorization to use military force to that current threat.

I mean really, are you a racist or something to urge an unprecedented limitation on President Obama's war powers in an AUMF that you'd never consider slapping on a white president?

And on a practical level, in what alternate universe is President Obama at risk for going overboard on defeating our enemies?

Not that I think a new AUMF is necessary. But lets stop the wordsmithing and get on with killing jihadis.

UPDATE: Max Boot rightly notes that we don't really need a Congressional resolution to fight ISIL (since we've been doing it for half a year that should be obvious).

But that doesn't mean an AUMF isn't useful as a sign of support to finish the job.

Which means that if Congress passes one for this fight that it should not include limiting language that implies we are starting the fight with less than a resolve for victory.

Seriously, in what alternate universe has this administration earned a reputation for fighting to the last man?

Not Waiting Their Turn

Romania is taking steps to avoid being next on Putin's dance card.

Once part of Romania, Moldova is warily taking help from Romania in order to keep the Russian-supported enclave of Transdniestria from being the staging area for more Russian aggression.

The latest help is a Romanian ambulance service inside Moldova:

Wary of Russian intentions after Ukraine lost control of Crimea and much of its east to Russian-backed forces last year, Romania is trying to bring Moldova toward the European Union.

Its sweeteners, the ambulances, as well as offers of cheaper gas supplies and closer trade ties, have been warmly welcomed by impoverished Moldova's two-month-old pro-European government.

Some locals are wary of Romania's intentions, but many are grateful in this corner of Moldova, where villagers trudge along muddy, unpaved roads and western cars like the red, Volkswagen ambulances are novel enough to win salutes from their children.

That won't stop Russia from pretending that locals are eagerly hoping for salvation if Putin decides to move on Moldova. But it will help make it obviously a sham.

People of the World - Look at Debaltseve!

As Putin continues his aggression against Ukraine by attempting to squeeze Ukrainian defenders out of Debaltseve, perhaps we need to contemplate whether we could supply the city's defenders by air.

Putin's forces are pushing hard to take Debaltseve despite (another) ceasefire:

Pro-Russian rebels pounded encircled Ukrainian government forces on Monday and Kiev said it would not pull back heavy guns while a truce was being violated, leaving a European-brokered peace deal on the verge of collapse a day after it took effect.

Putin's hand puppets are offering to let Ukraine's defenders safely leave the city:

Pro-Russian rebels said on Monday they would open a safe corridor for Ukrainian troops out of the encircled town of Debaltseve in east Ukraine on condition they surrender the territory, an offer the Kiev military promptly rejected.

Ah, peace! A Putin peace, of course. Which means he gets to attack and his enemy just gets to adjust the pace of losing.

We should counter that offer with a pledge to help Ukraine keep the defenders of Debaltseve supplied even if isolated. In support of the ceasefire Putin signed, of course.

There is no airport there, so it couldn't be an airlift.

And the secessionists have shown they have the capability to shoot down civilian airliners filled with people, so hitting transport planes would not be tough to imagine.

But we do have an alternative. We could use GPS-guided parachute systems (I know I have a post on this, but can't find it):

Known as Joint Precision Air Drop System (JPADS), the program is pursuing cargo systems in weight classes, including the "Extra Light" (JPADS XL, 700 – 2,200 lbs / 0.3 – 1 ton) and "Light" (JPADS L 5,000 – 10,000 lbs / 2.2 – 4.5 ton) classes, slated for fielding within the near term (around 2008). All systems will be required to hit a pre-planned GPS ground target within 50 meters, cleared for high altitude drop from 24,500 feet mean sea level, and capable of being deployed from at least eight kilometers horizontal offset from the ground target. Using a portable mission-planning tool and wireless communications loadmasters will be able to update the mission plans uploaded to the rigged JPADS before the flight with last minute changes of drop-zone location, threats etc.

Before the war, there were just 25,000 civilians there. I don't know how many remain. I assume most have fled.

I've seen it mentioned that there are 8,000 Ukrainian defenders there. That seems rather high.

Still, this should be doable. If you assume 10,000 troops and civilians, and assume 100 tons of supplies per day would be needed to keep them alive and fighting (I went to my old How to Make War book for that), you'd need at least 100 of those smallest GPS-guided parachutes each day.

How we'd recycle those could be the real problem. Could we keep dropping them for months on end with just new ones? Could production gear up for that level of effort?

The article does say that the ability to drop a load of 27 tons in order to get armored vehicles into place was envisioned.

We might not even need to put our planes in action. We could provide the pallets and GPS system, plus help keep Ukraine's planes flying. I believe Ukraine has nearly 50 transport planes., including 20 Il-76, which can carry at least 42 tons of supplies each. The remainder are An-24 and An-26 for the most part which have much smaller payloads (5-6 tons, I think), but this seems more than sufficient to do the job.

The biggest issue would be evacuating casualties who can't be treated on the ground. Could helicopters with Red Cross markings do that job without Putin's forces shooting them down?

Russia illegally pushed ground supply trucks into Ukraine to support their people. So we have precedent provided by Putin.

Let's recall Barack Obama's words at the Berlin Victory Column on July 24, 2008, when he was a candidate for president, praising the Berlin Airlift:

The size of our forces was no match for the much larger Soviet Army. And yet retreat would have allowed Communism to march across Europe. Where the last war had ended, another World War could have easily begun. All that stood in the way was Berlin.

And that’s when the airlift began – when the largest and most unlikely rescue in history brought food and hope to the people of this city.

The odds were stacked against success. In the winter, a heavy fog filled the sky above, and many planes were forced to turn back without dropping off the needed supplies. The streets where we stand were filled with hungry families who had no comfort from the cold.

But in the darkest hours, the people of Berlin kept the flame of hope burning. The people of Berlin refused to give up. And on one fall day, hundreds of thousands of Berliners came here, to the Tiergarten, and heard the city’s mayor implore the world not to give up on freedom. “There is only one possibility,” he said. “For us to stand together united until this battle is won…The people of Berlin have spoken. We have done our duty, and we will keep on doing our duty. People of the world: now do your duty…People of the world, look at Berlin!”

People of the world – look at Berlin!

Funny enough, President Obama mentioned Ukraine in that speech, remarking on the changes in the world since the Berlin Wall was pulled down and the West won the Cold War:

From Kiev to Cape Town, prison camps were closed, and the doors of democracy were opened. Markets opened too, and the spread of information and technology reduced barriers to opportunity and prosperity.

Putin will rebuild the prison camps and close the doors of democracy wherever his power reaches.

So look at Debaltseve, where Ukrainian troops are under siege, ceasefire be damned. Putin wants those defenders dead. We should want them to live--and win. So Ukraine can finally get the chance to struggle for the opportunity and prosperity that freedom and sovereignty can provide.

President Obama wants a legacy? Maybe the Debaltseve Airlift could be what he is remembered for.

Even if no American Air Force planes are needed, could we help Ukraine's air force bolstered by contract planes supply the city's defenders by air?

UPDATE: The Russians continue to be just--well, lying bastards:

Russian President Vladimir Putin told Kiev to let its soldiers surrender to pro-Russian rebels, who spurned a ceasefire in eastern Ukraine and fought their way on Tuesday into the town of Debaltseve, encircling thousands of government troops.

I don't know how else to describe them. One day, China will hit Russia hard. Perhaps like Japan signaled their rise to great power status by pounding on Russia in the Russo-Japanese War over a century ago, China will do the same.

Russia might ask us for help. I'll say, screw them.

There is no reason to trust the Russians on anything, any time.

Psychopaths with nukes, people. That's what they are under Putin.

Jihadis Will Be Resisted

ISIL isn't the only side recruiting from abroad. The Kurds have attracted recruits from the West, too:

A regular trickle of westerners, including Britons, have travelled out to the Middle East to join the YPG, the Syrian Kurdish militia that has shot to worldwide fame for its defence and ultimate victory in the border town of Kobane.

Few, if any, have ended up in Kobane itself. Most have been sent to the north-east of Syria, defending the self-styled Kurdish enclave of Rojava, a patch of territory squeezed between the deserts of eastern Syria, the far east of Turkey and Iraqi Kurdistan.

As our efforts to fight ISIL ramp up, we probably will see this decline if it hurts ISIL in Syria enough.

But it should be no shock that Westerners will step up as individuals if they believe our governments aren't doing enough to fight jihadis.

I predicted it. And that it could get organized, too, if it went on long enough.

Which was easy, actually, given that Americans went to China and Britain before we fought in World War II and that Westerners volunteered to fight the Soviets in Finland and to fight Nazis and Fascists in Spain when Western governments stayed out.

I even said we should exploit this urge to defend the West for our own recruiting.

It is wrong to think that if Western governments don't fight jihadis that there will be no warfare between the jihadis and the West.

Just as vigilante justice rises to fill the vacuum when government fails to provide it, if we try to responsibly end the war on terror while our jihadi terrorist enemies keep trying to kill us, we will find that our government doesn't have the final say on whether war is waged.

It will just be a different, definitely longer, and likely more brutal affair with worse side effects if waged by sub- and trans-national entities on both sides.

UPDATE: Christian militias inside Iraq are drawing some Westerners, too.

The Jerk

Oh my God, they hate the random people!

On the heels of Jews in France inexplicably being caught in the randomness of Islamist terrorists, Denmark stands too close to the random people:

Danish police shot dead a gunman in Copenhagen on Sunday they believe was responsible for killing two civilians and wounding five police in separate attacks on a synagogue and an event promoting freedom of speech.

Motivations remain unclear, the article says.



Stay away from the cans!

Granted, not every murder committed by a Moslem against a non-Moslem or somebody who "insults" Mohammed is necessarily religion-based (and the reverse is true, too). People kill people all the time for big and small reasons, sadly enough.

And sometimes false sectarianism can be the last refuge of a scoundrel, who attempts to cloak their thuggery and evil in the garb of a higher (as they define it) religious purpose.

But too often, when the targets are Jews and those who defend freedom of speech in the face of attempts to define it as blasphemy, that's the way you should bet.

You can deny that basic math for awhile. But that doesn't affect what is happening.

And you'd be a jerk.

The cans are not defective, people.

UPDATE: Mark Steyn has more:

The dead of Valentine's Day in Copenhagen have now been named:

Dan Uzan was a 37-year-old Jew - sorry, I mean "member of the random community" - and he died outside the synagogue serving as a "security guard" for a Bat Mitzvah.

That's part of the problem - long before anybody starts killing the security guards. In Europe in the 21st century, a young girl's Bat Mitzvah can only take place behind a security perimeter. What a sewer the EU elites have made of their Eutopia. The state church - the Church of Denmark - does not require security guards, nor elsewhere on the Continent do Catholic churches. But Jewish religious and social life in Copenhagen and across Europe is now possible only behind a barrier of security.

Perhaps here in America, the Random-American community should be made a protected class under our statutes. Then at least it might be considered a hate crime to kill them us.

Congress should get right on that.

Now We Lose to France, Too

While the Russians are pushing to make gains in the eastern Mediterranean region, at least the French are carving out some of our losses that otherwise might go to Russia.

Russia has sympathizers in Hungary; Greece (in NATO) and Cyprus who'd like money from Russia with easier terms than the EU will grant; conquered Crimea; ratified their influence in Donbas, Ukraine; a tighter grip on their territory stolen from Georgia; an Assad who might cling to his corner of Syria; a NATO Turkey that could deal with Russia more on nuclear technology; and an Egypt looking for alternatives to American support that doesn't seem quite as solid or useful any more.

But at least we lost one round to the French instead of to Putin:

France and Egypt have agreed a deal worth more than 5 billion euros ($5.7 billion) for the sale of Dassault Aviation-built Rafale fighter jets, a naval frigate and missiles, a French source close to the matter said on Thursday.

The deal would make Egypt, which has been looking to upgrade its military hardware over fears the crisis in neighboring Libya could spill over, the first export customer for the French warplane.

It's come to this. "Smart" diplomacy is now defined as losing influence to one of our (more-or-less) allies rather than losing influence to Russia.

And to remind you, Russia is actually fairly weak and weakening--and is certainly much weaker than we are (as I've long written, their military outside of nukes and special forces is actually limited).

Although I'll quibble that using force is a sign of weakness. It may be in the context of Russia  trying to make a gains before their economic power and population decline to levels that deny them the ability to support significant military power; but I reject it as a general rule.

We're losing to a Russia that is "resurgent" only because they are pushing into a relative vacuum caused by our  reputation for weakness.

Strategic impotence joined to strategic patience will work our just swell.

Too Educated to Be Outraged

Truly, I'm sorry that Putin hasn't invaded that notional state of Utopialand so that graduate students in foreign affairs can't agonize over whether it is morally right to side with Ukraine in the current war.

I've had to use technical terms a lot lately, it seems. But this is "stupid." The author argues that Ukraine doesn't really deserve to be defended.

Ukraine is far from perfect and I've written that corruption has to be tackled for it to become truly part of the West (and to afford a military that can hope to resist Russia).

A member state of the United Nations is under attack by another member, which has already annexed Crimea and which is pushing to do the same in Donbas--and has claimed far more.

This doesn't deserve world support?

The Russians indignantly deny even being involved in the aggression, including their role in shooting down a Malaysian airliner over secessionist territory.

This doesn't deserve the world's anger?

Russia has attacked--and denied their very right to exist--a founding member of the United Nations that gave up nuclear weapons in exchange for Russian guarantees for their sovereignty and territorial integrity.

This assault on solemn obligations and nuclear disarmament incentives doesn't deserve our resistance?

Russia itself is becoming a new aggressive autocracy that even Belarus--itself a small autocracy sometimes called the last communist state in Europe--is getting nervous about?

This doesn't deserve our worry?

The notion that Ukraine as it is doesn't deserve to be defended against Russia under Putin is nonsense. Nonsense with ample footnotes, but nonsense nonetheless.

If I was a betting man, I'd guess the author also believes that Saddam was justly defending his kite-flying paradise against American aggression in 2003. But I'm cynical that way.

So often, it seems that graduate students have learned so many things, yet know nothing.

Of Course They Do

Putin's hand puppet secessionists say they won't obey the ceasefire around Debaltseve.

Is this really suprising?

Ukraine's rebels disavowed a new truce on Sunday hours after it took effect, saying it did not apply to the town where most fighting has taken place in recent weeks.

Guns fell abruptly silent at midnight across much of eastern Ukraine in line with the ceasefire agreement, but the pro-Russian rebels announced that they would not observe the truce at Debaltseve, where Ukraine army forces have been encircled.

And even as Putin stood on stage with the Europeans for the photo ops and hand shakes for the latest truce, Putin's army was taking a direct hand in the fighting:

Washington says Russia's regular military, armed with tanks and missile launchers, carried out an operation in the days before the truce to encircle Debaltseve.

Reuters journalists have seen armored columns of troops without insignia arriving in the area in recent days.

Putin's armed forces are the key to secessionist capabilities. Without the Russians, the actual local secessionists would collapse, as they were doing back in August.

Yet the Europeans pretend that we can negotiate with Putin over this.

Good God, people, do you realize that Putin is trying to portray himself as the good cop in a "good cop/bad cop" routine with those hand puppets?

The only thing that is going to get Putin to stop attacking Ukraine is a Russian soldier body count so high that he can't hide it any more from his own people.

We should be providing whatever information we can to the Ukrainians so they can target the Russians more effectively.

UPDATE: Shocking, no?

Rebels in eastern Ukraine refused to allow monitors from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe to reach the encircled town of Debaltseve after a ceasefire took effect on Sunday, the head of the OSCE mission said.

"Rebels" refused? We can see Putin's lips moving! Don't pretend that the so-called rebels are preventing peace for our time from breaking out.

Blood for Oil

If I was in charge of Britain, I'd raise the alert level of forces in the Falklands.

Pardon me for seeming paranoid, but when President Kirchner has difficulties, I wouldn't take chances when those difficulties are getting serious:

An Argentine prosecutor has formally accused the country's president in a cover up involving one of Argentina's worst terrorist attack.

Opening another dramatic chapter in what's already an international tale of intrigue and possibly murder, prosecutor Gerardo Pollicita said President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, Foreign Minister Héctor Marcos Timmerman and other top officials tried to cut a deal for oil with Iran in exchange for not punishing two Iranians implicated in the 1994 bombing of the Argentine-Israeli Mutual Association, which left 85 people dead.

Two years ago, Kirchner rattled sabres over the islands when her popularity plummeted. What might she do now when prison is possible?

I'd also get a nuclear attack submarine in the area pronto, too. And alert fighter aircraft and paratroopers for an airlift. Just in case.

UPDATE: Oh, and one more thing. Britain might want to put down a security deposit on France's aircraft carrier if the British want naval air support available in the South Atlantic.

Good luck with that.

Yemen Continues to Be Yemen-Like

It's bad enough that our proto-partner (yeah, the "reality-based community" runs our foreign policy) Iran is popping the champagne that their Houthi allies have taken over Yemen's government, but now al Qaeda has taken a Yemen army base.

Wonderful:

Al Qaeda-linked fighters seized a large army base in a dawn attack in southern Yemen on Thursday, militants and residents said, hours after the United Nations warned that the country was on the brink of civil war.

So now we have pro-Iran Shias on the rise in Yemen, but al Qaeda, too.

What? No aging Nazis coming out of hiding with the Ark of the Covenant?

Not that I particularly blame the Obama administration for this mess in Yemen. Chaos is its default setting. And the Shias really do have real grievances.

But the president should have known better than to boast of Yemen back in September as a model for our proposed operations in Iraq.

And the notion that this couldn't be seen coming over the last several months is ludicrous.

It is the Iran angle more than al Qaeda (as bad as that is) that makes Yemen particularly disturbing to me.

Strategypage has more:

Iran officially has nothing to do with all this, but Arabs know that the “victory” in Yemen is being celebrated in the streets of Iran (at least in conversation) and increasingly in Iranian media as well. This is humiliating for the GCC members and Sunnis in general. Iran has not directly intervened (but is suspected of supplying the Yemen Shia with cash and advice).

Read the rest for the highlights of this mess.

As Arab gulf states try to bypass the Hormuz choke point for their oil exports that Iran could attempt to shut down, Iran's ability to interfere in the Red Sea becomes more important.

Guess where Yemen sits?

So this Iranian victory is something that the Obama administration has to answer for, given their fantasy of a grand reset of relations with Iran to make them our partner.

If President Obama has cherished a long-held notion (that college-educated fools share) that he'll be remembered for his own "Nixon goes to China" triumph with Iran, he needs to re-think that analogy.

And in bonus "are you effing kidding me?" territory, President Nixon had Kissinger. President Obama has Kerry.

Yemen remains Yemen. And President Obama remains President Obama.

Have a super sparkly "smart" diplomacy day.

UPDATE: The losing side isn't done yet, naturally:

Forces loyal to Yemen's former president seized government buildings in the southern city of Aden on Monday after a five-hour battle, sources said, escalating a civil conflict that threatens to split the country in two.

Unrest in Yemen is something to deal with and adapt to, while killing jihadis. Absent Iranian involvement, I wouldn't much care about day-to-day score cards of who is up and who is down.

But giving Iran a victory is a bad idea. Hopefully, we're working the problem.

The Quasi-War With ISIL

As the president seeks new legislation to authorize our fight with ISIL in Iraq and Syria, the war goes on.

In Syria, Assad's forces are making gains at the expense of our Southern Front rebels:

Bolstered by the Lebanese Shiite militant group Hezbollah and its patrons in Tehran, the Syrian Army continued its rapid advance into southern Syria today, inching closer to the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.

"Regime troops and their Hezbollah-led allies are advancing in the area linking Daraa, Quneitra and Damascus provinces," close to the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

That's interesting. Assad has moved his scarce shock troops--Hezbollah--a long way from their usual deployment areas.

We'll see if Assad suffers any losses in other areas as he plays whack-a-mole down south.

In Iraq, ISIL has taken action near a base in Anbar where our Marines are training Iraqi forces:

Islamic State insurgents took control on Thursday of large parts of the western Iraqi town of al-Baghdadi, threatening an air base where U.S. Marines are training Iraqi troops, officials said.

Al-Baghdadi, about 85 km (50 miles) northwest of Ramadi in Anbar province, has been besieged for months by the radical Sunni Islamist militants who captured vast swathes of northern and western Iraq last year.

In the north, Kurdish forces have pushed closer to Mosul but will not fight for the city:

While the Iraqi government talks about retaking Mosul Kurdish forces have managed to surround the city on three sides and taken control of several key roads and bridges. At the moment the Kurds say they do not intend to try and capture the city itself.

The Kurds don't want to suffer the casualties to take that large city from fanatical ISIL defenders and doubts they'd be rewarded by Baghdad for taking the city.

So the Kurds are the anvil against which the Iraq summer offensive hammer will strike ISIL to retake the city:

Meanwhile foreign military trainers and advisors are working hard to prepare the Iraqi security forces for the effort to liberate Mosul. This would be a major campaign and the current plan is to get it started around June. By then The Kurds will nearly have the city cut off from the surrounding countryside. The Arab Iraqi advance from the south would complete the siege and trigger a major response from ISIL. Iran, Western nations and Arab allies of Iraq have all agreed that the Battle of Mosul must be fought, at least on the ground, by Iraqi troops alone. So success depends on how well Iraq can shape up their ground forces in the next few months.

Which is the reverse of what I'd do if this was a paper exercise. I'd want the Kurds who are better and more reliable to take Mosul which would cut off ISIL further south and make an Iraqi advance from the Baghdad region north easier.

But in reality, the Kurds are willing to play a supporting role only, it seems.

And the Kurds have made more gains than I thought.

Unmentioned is what we might do in Anbar--which I suspect will receive our attention first, hopefully with Jordan leading the advance from the west.

ISIL has attracted a lot of recruits (odd how they did that when we aren't in Syria and had left Iraq, isn't it?):

Foreign fighters are streaming into Syria and Iraq in unprecedented numbers to join the Islamic State or other extremist groups, including at least 3,400 from Western nations among 20,000 from around the world, U.S. intelligence officials say in an updated estimate of a top terrorism concern.

Not that these are enough to really control increasingly hostile locals in the face of a real offensive by sufficiently competent ground forces.

So the war goes on. I suspect all eyes are on Mosul while we prepare for that attack and work on protecting the left flank of a drive north (and protecting Baghdad itself) by hitting ISIL in Anbar.

But I may be connecting dots that have no relation to each other.

And then we will find out if the war on the Syria branch of ISIL envisions Assad as our new partner or sees Assad as just a different enemy that must be defeated, too.

The evidence for the latter may be completely imaginary dots, I admit.

UPDATE: While I can believe that Jordan is already running out of bombs to drop, I'd like to believe that this is a cover explanation to ship in supplies and equipment needed for a Jordanian ground thrust into Iraq:

The United States is readying plans to resupply Jordan with munitions in the coming weeks, possibly including precision-guided arms, expediting support for the kingdom as it expands its role in airstrikes against the Islamic State (IS), officials say.

Many of our allies don't have war reserve stocks and count on us to resupply them. Of course, we kind of like that to prevent our allies from starting wars that we might have to finish. There was one Indo-Pakistan war that I recall (1965?) when the Pakistanis secretly saved up ammunition we supplied intended for training in order to build up a war reserve stock in order to go to war.

But I digress.

It is perfectly plausible that Jordan needs precision bombs and that is the only thing they will get.

But if a joint Jordan-Iraqi ground offensive into Anbar is coming, this would be cover to ship other stuff, too.

UPDATE: We really need to address Anbar soon:

An Iraqi tribal leader said Saturday that ISIS militants are gaining ground in Anbar province, predicting a "collapse within hours" of Iraqi army forces there if tribal forces withdraw.

Sheikh Naim al-Gaoud, a Sunni Muslim leader of the Albu Nimr tribe, called for more U.S. intervention -- including ground troops, arming tribes directly or at least pressuring the Iraqi government to give the tribes more firepower.

While U.S. officials have said that ISIS, which calls itself the Islamic State, is on the defensive in Iraq and Syria, al-Gaoud says that's definitely not the case where he is.

"In Anbar, we are losing ground, not gaining," he said.

We need those Sunni Arab tribes to eject ISIL from Anbar. If they collapse, a pure conventional attack will be much harder and take a lot more time.

We did just commit Apache gunships to the battle in Anbar at al-Baghdadi, which ISIL just took near that large Iraqi base they attacked.

I may be wrong, but is this the first time Army assets have been used?

These are boots hovering near the ground, anyway. Is this a sign we're transitioning to ground operations (with non-US maneuver units, mind you)?

UPDATE: Egypt checks in formally in Libya, where they've been quietly helping non-jihadis in the civil war there:

Egyptian jets bombed Islamic State targets in Libya on Monday, a day after the group there released a video showing the beheading of 21 Egyptian Christians, drawing Cairo directly into the conflict across its border.

Egypt said the dawn strike hit militant camps, training sites and weapons storage areas in neighboring Libya, where civil conflict has plunged the country into near anarchy and created havens for armed factions.

During the Iran-Iraq War, Egypt helped Arab Iraq against Persian Iran in order to regain stature lost from the peace treaty with Israel and regain their leadership role in the Arab world.

In the Persian Gulf War, the Egyptians sent two heavy divisions to Saudi Arabia to roll into Kuwait. I don't think they engaged the iraqis, but they did go.

So it isn't out of left field to suggest that Egypt could send (paid for by Saudi Arabia) a couple mechanized brigades to Iraq to help with an offensive against ISIL in Iraq.

UPDATE: We aren't going to provide a maneuver unit for the war despite this news:

More than 4,000 Fort Carson soldiers are heading to Kuwait, where they will take over as one of America's largest ground forces in the region after President Barack Obama asked Congress to authorize military action against terrorists who are cutting a large swath across the Middle East.

We've kept a heavy brigade there since we left Iraq in 2011, and this is just the latest rotation. It's really just an emergency force that could be used in an emergency inside Iraq that might require a heavy escort to move US people out of Baghdad.

And it deters any Iranian impulse to move into southern Iraq and hang a left.

But it does not signal any increased American effort in the war against ISIL in Iraq.

UPDATE: Bahrain will join the United Arab Emirates in sending planes to Jordan to help with the bombing campaign.

Are these contingents going to Jordan to supplement Jordan's air power to support a ground drive into Anbar from the West (or perhaps conduct operations in Syria to free up Jordan's aircraft for ground support)?

UPDATE: And relevant to Assad's commitment of his still-scarce ground troops to the south that started this post, Assad wants to protect the far north while his troops are busy near Jordan and Israel:

The United Nations envoy to Syria said Tuesday he has received a commitment from the Syrian government to suspend airstrikes and artillery shelling on the city of Aleppo for six weeks to allow a proposed U.N. plan to "freeze" hostilities in the country's largest city to be tested.

Rest assured, Assad hopes to succeed in the south during that time so he can shift his shock troops back north.