One More Must Die

It is a testament to their goodness as people that so many have expressed forgiveness to the accused murderer, Dylann Roof, for the cold-blooded killing of 9 African Americans as they studied the Bible. But that is not where this must end.

I can't imagine being this forgiving:

"May God have mercy on your soul," said the mother of the youngest victim, 26-year-old Tywanza Sanders, while Roof looked on, expressionless.

But in our system of justice, it is up to our society and government to punish the killer. The families of the victims should not be burdened with insisting on justice.

Healing may be helped by forgiveness. Healing to go on for the living is all the families of the victims can get now for themselves.

But justice is not served by forgiveness. The killer, when convicted, should die for this crime motivated by racial hatred. The killer murdered good people with good families, and should pay the ultimate penalty.

UPDATE: Interesting question:

For many black Americans and others, however, the attack was by definition an act of “terrorism,” a word that connotes acts against the American way of life itself – an attack against the country.

Was the killing a case of terrorism? Or "just" mass murder?

The attack was for a political purpose--to spark a civil war. That's what Iran and Syria were doing in Iraq when we were fighting there--hoping to spark a civil war between Shias and Sunnis. So that's in favor of calling it terrorism.

But where is the group that wants to exploit this and fight the civil war the killer hoped to spark? In Iraq you had al Qaeda, Baathists, and pro-Iran Sadrists eager to take their part.

It's nowhere, it seems, in America. And nobody seems even remotely sympathetic to the murderer. And if some are, they're keeping quiet in recognition that sympathy will generate revulsion. So that argues for the killings being a really horrible crime.

UPDATE: Oh, and while it is an interesting question, I don't think it is terrorism based on what we (think we) know now. I think the organization aspect might explain why more liberal groups are asking the question and assuming the answer is "yes." They assume there is a vast movement of conservative whites (probably the evil Tea Party!!!) eager for the race war. Which is nonsense.

Besides, if that man was really a terrorist, the left would be busy asking "why does he hate" and concluding it is the victims' fault for his understandable rage.

So the murderer is a very evil criminal. Make him pay.

UPDATE: While there are surely racists in America (as there are everywhere), the accused killer apparently despaired of anybody like-minded organizing to carry out his sick vision of racial civil war:

We have no skinheads, no real KKK, no one doing anything but talking on the internet. Well someone has to have the bravery to take it to the real world, and I guess that has to be me.

That's the good news, at least.

I will say that I'm more open to considering this an act of terrorism given his (apparently) stated political goal. If Oklahoma City was domestic terrorism when it lacked an organization to support their political goals, this could be, too.

I guess what holds me back is the transparent effort by the Left to paint this as terrorism of the Right when it is no such thing.

But No Lovely Parting Gifts

We are thinking about post-Syria Assad. That's a good idea.

The war in Syria will change:

The United States and its allies are weighing the possibility that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, under growing military pressure, may soon narrow his focus on defense of more limited areas of the country, the top U.S. general said on Wednesday.

Yeah, that's a good possibility to entertain.

You'd think that we could exploit an Assad defeat to our benefit.

I have a bad feeling that somehow we'll be involved in saving Assad. Because our State Department is that good.

UPDATE: One change could be Assad backers pulling out of the war to save him:

A quiet insurrection against the Assad regime has been building for the past year in the Syrian province of Sweida, home to the bulk of the country’s minority Druze population. The rebellion reached a crescendo this week when a prominent religious figure declared that the Druze were no long obliged to serve in the Syrian Arab Army—a development that poses a major threat to the teetering regime of Bashar al-Assad, which has long been losing soldiers to defections and desertions and more recently been losing ground to an increasingly more organized and effective rebel force.

Is this just the first? It could be "every clan for itself" time. We may get an answer to my math question.

UPDATE: If Assad goes down, don't assume ISIL has a free ride to victory:

Kurdish-led forces in Syria advanced on Tuesday into the outskirts of an Islamic State-held town after capturing a military base overnight, aided by U.S.-led air strikes in some of the most dramatic gains yet against the militants.

Don't let fear of ISIL push us to save Assad. With our support, there are people--perhaps even ex-supporters of Assad--who can help us fight ISIL after Assad is beaten.

A Damn Fool Thing in the Balkans?

Balkan states can maneuver between outside powers to gain better deals.

Will China be one of the outside powers in addition to the more traditional seekers of influence?

And will Greece--notwithstanding its membership in NATO--make a dramatic maneuver to escape their financial crisis? That's possible.

UPDATE: Are the Greeks head-faking away from Europe by flirting with Russia?

And yes, a Greek default that leads them to leave the Euro and perhaps even the European Union might be a small lesson on borrowing and spending that we could all use before we reach Greek levels of financial distress.

And yes, it is bonus territory if it helps take down the autocratic European Union proto-empire by nullifying any notion that there is a Brezhnev Doctrine for the European Union.

I believe I've been more or less clear on my opinion of the EU.

But I worry more about whether Greece leaves NATO and rents itself out to China or even Russia if a new patron willing to ship money to Athens will allow the far-left Greek government to deny the lesson their default on Western loans might teach the rest of us.

UPDATE: Would Greece actually flip?

Will they fall in with Vladimir Putin? Probably not. But it wouldn’t be much out of character.

That's probably about right. I don't really expect it. But I wouldn't be shocked.

The same can be said for Putin's willingness to bankroll the flip. I don't imagine Russia can afford it. But the idea of sticking it to America with a dramatic gesture would really appeal to him.

Now China on the other hand, has motive and means ...

China's Quantity Option

China's warships getting much better, quality-wise. They haven't abandoned quantity. Indeed, they've adopted my hopes for Modularized Auxiliary Cruisers.

China will be better prepared for mobilization of national naval resources:

China's government has passed new guidelines requiring civilian shipbuilders to ensure their vessels can be used by the military in the event of conflict, state-run media said on Thursday.

The regulations require five categories of vessels including container ships to be modified to "serve national defense needs," the state-run China Daily newspaper said.

Eight years ago I first proposed using container ships as auxiliary cruisers.

And here's my article that the United States Naval Institute sat on for a year before rejecting it:

Our Navy defends our nation within the incompatible and unforgiving boundaries formed by the tyrannies of distance and numbers. We struggle to build enough ships both capable of deploying globally and powerful enough for fighting first-rate opponents. Operating within a network-centric Navy, auxiliary cruisers could once again play a valuable role in projecting naval power. Using modular systems installed on civilian hulls, auxiliary cruisers could handle many peacetime roles; free scarce warships for more demanding environments; add combat power within a networked force; and promote the global maritime partnership.

Our Navy is surely superior to any conceivable combination of potential foes, alarmism notwithstanding. Yet as a global power, our sea power cannot be narrowly defined by our superb warships able to win conventional sea-control campaigns. We have many objectives at sea. Modularized Auxiliary Cruisers could provide the numbers we need to achieve our maritime objectives. The tyranny of numbers matters to the United States Navy.

I wonder what else is included in this order? In my 2005 scenario for China invading Taiwan, I relied on the use of civilian ships to enable the Chinese invasion:

Civilian merchant ships on scheduled arrivals will be loaded with supplies, weapons, and light infantry battalions and will sail into Taiwanese ports on both coasts. ...

Warships, amphibious warfare, and drafted commercial ships loaded with troops put to sea and aircraft take off. ...

The PLANs amphibious warfare ships will be used to lift the Chinese marines to the Pescadores Islands to seize that position as a staging area for helicopters and air cushion vehicles to shuttle follow-up forces to Taiwan itself. This will also have the effect of nullifying the anti-ship missiles based there.

With light infantry already unloaded from civilian shipping in Taiwan's harbors, the invasion force will sail in to reinforce them. Obsolete warships, either converted into troop ships or just emptied of most ammunition and crammed with troops, will make a high speed dash for the ports. Merchant ships taken into the service of the PLAN will begin lifting 9 divisions of infantry from widely spread ports. Roll on/roll off ships will carry heavy armor and artillery to unload in the ports. From the Pescadores, additional forces will be sent against the beaches of Taiwan with the amphibious warfare assets and air cushion vehicles to spread the Taiwanese out. [emphasis added]

News on these guidelines will be on my radar screen.

Pity we couldn't leverage our use of modules for Littoral Combat Ships to stockpile modules for use on Western container ships.

UPDATE: Ah:

The Technical Standards for New Civilian Ships to Implement National Defense Requirements cover five categories of vessels - container, roll-on/roll-off, multipurpose, bulk carrier and break bulk. They establish specifications and design requirements that will mean vessels can serve national defense needs if they are mobilized, the society said in a statement.

So there you go. The roll-on/roll-off (RO/RO) is particularly relevant for moving heavy equipment into captured ports and unloading quickly.

Bomb and Bomber

You'd think that the first block of instruction time for suicide bombers would be about not getting in to a fight while wearing a suicide vest--especially with a suicide bomber also wearing a vest.

Behold the stupid:

In Pakistan there was an increasingly common event involving Islamic terrorists; another case of those seeking to carry out a suicide bombing attack instead destroying themselves because of incompetence. In this case police investigators found that two men sitting on a park bench were seen arguing with each other. The two then started punching each other and shortly after that they both exploded. The two dead men were wearing suicide bomb vests and police have still not found out who they were working for or what their target was.

Stop obsessing over the quality of our local allies who we want to fight jihadi terrorists. These allies don't have to beat anybody's A team. They have to beat these jokers.

Our enemies are evil and persistent, but not particularly bright in many cases. So work the problems to get our allies into the fight to win.

A Matter of Faith and Morals

The Pope will put the weight of the Catholic Church behind global warming. Ah, science!

Well this is just great:

Pope Francis will call on all people to be "stewards of creation" and address the hot-button topic of climate change on Thursday in the most feverishly awaited papal encyclical in decades.

By making environmental protection a moral imperative, his intervention could spur the world's 1.2 billion Catholics to lobby policymakers on ecology issues.

Global warming is already a religion. It's like the Church is granting permission for that new nature-based pseudo-pagan church to take over Catholicism. From dust to dust, and all that, I suppose.

And it makes sense since the doctrine of papal infallibility says that on issues of faith and morals the pope may claim infallibility to settle a debate.

So now the pope will settle a science debate with his authority. Well, he may not formally invoke it (which has been done only twice, I believe, both on issues of faith). But that's the gist. The science is settled. And rejecting it is sinful.

Now the high priests can get on with the debates about how many angels can fit on the head of a pin.

Yes, when reality shows the models aren't predicting what we are experiencing, don't even think the models might be inadequate! No, change the data.

In what way is this science rather than dogma?

Actually, this might be the point where global warming jumps the shark. If the always despised (by the left) Catholic Church comes out for global warming science, how can the vanguard of the warmetariat continue to march with these guys?

Now go and emit no more. Because nobody expects the Warmish Inquisition!

Sing it, brothers and sisters!

UPDATE: I'm really not interested in my Pope's views on climate change.

The Pope seeks favor with people who don't like the Church much anyway. He won't get them to like the Church and will just drive away Catholics who  prefer their pope to address matters of faith.

What's next? Will he walk around dragging a mattress?

UPDATE: I'm angry about this. But should I be?

After all, how many divisions revisions does the Pope have, anyway?

The Network of Death

Mad Minerva noted a bit back that chaos in the Middle East shows the falsity of the earlier left-wing claim that peace in the Middle East required the Palestinian issue to be resolved first--a position that President Obama once held. But the president already admitted as much.

Well, yeah (quoting Commentary magazine):

The Arab spring, civil war in Syria, the rise of ISIS, and the Iranian nuclear threat proved that the Palestinians had little or nothing to do with the most serious problems in the region. Indeed, by forcing Israel and the Saudis to cooperate against Iran with little attention being paid to the dead end peace process with the Palestinians, Obama has effectively debunked the core idea at the heart of his foreign policy.

Yeah, President Obama already told the Arab world that the Palestine-centric conflict with Israel distracts them from their real problems. As I commented in September 2014:

Holy Dissonance, Batman! The Arab conflict with Israel is a distraction from solving their problems at home?

Solving the Palestinian problem (which, oddly enough, isn't considered their self-destructive impulse to wage endless war and select scum to lead them) isn't the priority task to set the keystone of building a lasting peace in the Middle East that resolves all conflicts?

Huh.

President Obama can learn, after all. By God, I am feeling a little bit of the hope we were promised.

And for bonus material, President Obama described an Axis Network of Evil Death we must fight:

And we'll find out whether his slavish followers can accept what the president has learned about the need to defeat that "Network of Death" that the president said has “access to technology that allows small groups to do great harm," and that "they have embraced a nightmarish vision that would divide the world into adherents and infidels, killing as many innocent civilians as possible, employing the most brutal methods.”

Ah, nuance. No word if the threat is considered "imminent."

The Doomsday Weapon?

Remember that in 1991, Saddam Hussein ordered his forces to spew oil into the Persian Gulf to punish the world for acting against him. Does Iran have that capability?

Saddam dumped 2-6 million barrels of oil into the Persian Gulf in 1991.

We're still debating the damage. And at the time I remember worries about whether it would foul Saudi desalinization plants.

Iran has 40 million barrels of oil off their coast:

Iran has 40 million barrels of oil sitting in tankers offshore right now, awaiting a greenlight from the nuclear negotiations. The deadline for a comprehensive agreement with the West is the end of the month. A deal would not only set aside a major source of geopolitical tension, but the détente would also allow Iran to sell oil on the global market unimpeded by international sanctions.

Is it sitting waiting to be sold? Probably.

Could it be a weapon aimed at the Arab shores on the west side of the Gulf? I wouldn't assume the answer is "no."

The Bloody Obvious

I hate to point out the bloody obvious to a former Swedish prime minister--but I will.

The force of obliviousness is strong in this one:

The rapprochement between Iran and its negotiating partners on the core nuclear issue is obvious. No one at this point seriously believes that Iran is maintaining an active program to develop nuclear weapons, though not long ago it was almost conventional wisdom that the country was close to having them.

Now the focus is on ensuring that Iran would need a year or so to assemble a nuclear device if it ever decided to do so. But the concept of “breakout time” is dubious. If trust were to collapse, and the Iranian regime decided to abrogate all of the relevant international agreements, it is highly likely that it would get its weapon, even if the country itself was bombed repeatedly. The strategic emphasis on “breakout time” is thus misplaced. [emphasis added]

I hate to point out the obvious, but if an agreement is needed to keep Iran from having the ability to assemble a nuclear device in less than a year (breakout time), might that not explain why Iran does not have an active program to develop nuclear warheads (as opposed to ballistic missiles to deliver them?

That is, the project worked. Or they have an alternate proxy program in North Korea that allows fools to believe Iran doesn't have nuclear weapons ambitions.

He goes on to say that the key isn't breakout time, but moving Iran to not wanting nukes. Yeah, nice work if you can get it, eh? That is the obvious problem.

Mullah nutballs are poor raw material for convincing them to be domestic policy wonks who overcome unfortunate anger management issues.

Yet the author also says this:

Just as conservative forces in Iran can be expected to try to stop an agreement, forces thriving on confrontation in the United States and elsewhere will do the same.

Oh darn, he violated my rule for taking an author seriously:

If President Obama and his defenders can't tell the difference between Iran's hardliners who want nukes and our "hardliners" who want a deal that actually keeps Iran from getting nukes, how am I supposed to trust the administration can tell the difference between Iranian hardliners and "moderates?"

Yeah. Our hardliners don't thrive on confrontation. They are willing to confront Iran to keep them from going nuclear. Iran's hardliners want no limits on getting said nukes.

So buh bye, Mr. Bildt. He's well practiced in carrying out the West's end of a nuclear deal with Iran.

That this isn't obvious is disturbing.

Russia Loves Corruption

I hope Romania is able to combat corruption. As Ukraine shows, corruption allows avenues for Russia to wield influence and all on its own wrecks a country's military that could resist a Russian invasion.

Let's hope this kind of work succeeds:

SINCE taking over as director of Romania's National Anti-corruption Directorate (DNA) in 2013, Laura Codruta Kovesi has been prosecuting officials at ever-higher levels, putting a steady stream of former ministers and even an ex-prime minister behind bars. The DNA has become the poster child for the European Union's drive to tame corruption in its new eastern members, particularly Romania and Bulgaria. But it is safe to say that Ms Kovesi's latest target is her biggest yet. On June 5th, the DNA announced it is investigating Romania's sitting prime minister, Victor Ponta (pictured above), for forgery, money laundering, tax evasion and conflict of interest.

If corruption reaches the top, that's pretty bad. Or is Romania counting on Ukraine to always be a buffer state between them and Russia?

Motive and Opportunity

The data breach that laid bear deep personal information about the federal workforce is a serious matter. Such data can kill.

We're still reacting to this knowledge:

Chinese hackers are blamed for a hack of the Office Of Personnel Management two weeks ago that put personal information for 4 million federal workers at risk. Administration officials said last week that hackers may have stolen applications for security clearances, in a second hack.

Blackmail, bribery, harassment, and just the data for even more breaches are bad enough.

But who is mentioned in this data--even those not federal employees--could matter even more, depending on where they live.

Let's recall the time in June 1950 when the North Koreans captured personnel records from us as the North Koreans swept into Seoul:

The ghastly mistake made during the early hours of 27 June [1950] was that the personnel records of more than five thousand Korean employees of the [American] embassy were left in their files. ...

Those files would fall into the hands of the [North Korean army], and none of the employees who remained at their homes in Seoul would survive the Communist occupation.

From This Kind of War.

Not that I'm saying there will be a liquidation campaign as the result of this data theft.

I'm just saying that this data is important and the harm that can be inflicted with this will depend on the level of opportunity to do harm and the degree of hostility that those who possess the information have toward us.

UPDATE: Yes:

What if a team of Chinese agents had broken into the Pentagon or — less box office but just as bad — the U.S. Office of Personnel Management and carted out classified documents?.

The next day, the newspapers and morning TV shows would show pictures of the broken locks and rummaged filing cabinets. And if we caught the Chinese spies in the act, perp-walking them for the world to see? Boy howdy.

My hunch is that the airwaves would be full of people talking about how "this was an act of war." And I have no doubt that if the situation were reversed and we had sent our team to Beijing, the Chinese would definitely see it as an act of war.

Why yes. It is no less an attack on us by coming via the Internet than if Chinese troops carted off the physical files. But if it doesn't count, we should respond in kind.

Of course, given the nature of this sort of thing, I guess I can't know that we aren't. But the way this administration reveals information to make them look better, I think they would have revealed this by now.

UPDATE: If you like your highly classified personal data, you can keep your highly classified personal data:

Anxiety is spreading among defense officials and the military community that the recent theft of federal government data linked to China may affect hundreds of thousands of service members. ...

Some military officials believe the recent hack targeting the civilian-run OPM seized information from tens of thousands of Standard Form 86s, which are required for all service members and civilians seeking a security clearance. That includes service members of all ranks, officers and enlisted, in a wide range of job specialties and assignments.

Wonderful. One wonders what information our foes have stolen on our personal health information.

UPDATE: Really, this is really bad even if the theft was via the Internet and not a physical theft of documents. While President Obama can't be blamed completely for this, he is the president right now and doesn't seem to have any sense of urgency over this theft:

Yet note this: When the exchanges crashed on their maiden flight, the government managed to build a crudely functioning website in, basically, a month, a task they'd been systematically failing at for the previous three years. What was the difference? Urgency. When Obama understood that his presidency was on the line, he made sure it got done.

The serial IT disasters we have seen over the past seven years do not need a blue-ribbon commission or a really stern memo to fix them. If we want these holes fixed before they become catastrophic, we need leaders with a scorched-earth determination to have adequate IT. The only way that determination happens is if these failures become an existential threat to the careers of the politicians in charge.

Drama? No Obama. That's the signature attitude of this presidency to any foreign threat. If only the Chinese fell under the jurisdiction of the IRS. Then, we'd get action no matter how illegal.

UPDATE: China had access to those files for about a year:

The recently disclosed breach of the Office of Personnel Management’s security-clearance computer system took place a year ago, giving Chinese government intruders access to sensitive data for a year, according to new information.

The considerable lag time between breach and discovery means that the adversary had more time to pull off a cyber-heist of consequence, said Stewart Baker, a former National Security Agency general counsel.

Pardon me for letting my paranoia show, but with access for so long, is the only problem how much data China took from us?

What about data China could have put in our system? Could they have smoothed out data for any agents in place or even created new files for new people?

Could China have planted data on our loyal people that could lead to suspicions being cast upon them to cover one of their own agents as they steal information--or just to mess with our people?

Donalditatus

Donald Trump announced the debut of his 16-month infomercial for Brand Trump.

Not since Caligula considered his horse for the Roman senate have we seen such a political spectacle as this:

Donald Trump, the reality TV and real estate impresario, descended a golden escalator in a building that bears his name to announce that this time, he actually is running for president.

“I will be the greatest jobs president that God ever created,” he said in a speech Tuesday, declaring that the United States has become a “laughingstock all over the world.”

What the heck? We're the laughingstock now? Perhaps it is that bad. I hope not. But is the solution to bounce the rubble after President Obama's alpha strike against our reputation?

Republicans should be ashamed to take this Clown American (I'm not sure how he self-identifies, but he's a clown) seriously.

Let me remind these fellow conservatives swooning over the Donald of a basic fact that they may be overlooking: This is freaking Donald Trump we're talking about!

Of course, I think Democrats should be ashamed to consider seriously Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, and even Hillary Clinton for the presidency.

But Trump doesn't want to be president. This is advertising for Brand Trump. Perhaps because a sex change has been done already.

Don't buy what he's selling. Trump's campaign will be as real as one of his reality shows.

UPDATE: Yes, Trump could be a serious problem for the Republican candidate (as Ross Perot was by providing a holding pen for voters unhappy with Bush 41 but not quite ready to vote for Bill Clinton).

But acting as if a clown isn't actually a clown--albeit a very rich clown--isn't the way to undermine that potential threat.

Now this is speaking truth to clown:

Donald Trump may be the man America needs. Having been through four bankruptcies, the ridiculous buffoon with the worst taste since Caligula is uniquely positioned to lead the most indebted organization in the history of the human race.

And this is priceless:

On the substance, Trump is — how to put it gently? Oh, why bother! — an ass. Not just an ass, but an ass of exceptionally intense asininity.

Let the mockery begin. Let a candidate spout nonsense on policy but act like it isn't nonsense and you get the Bernie Sanders boomlet.

I suspect Trump will spend very little of his own money. But if you want to donate, he'll spend that happily to bolster Brand Trump.

Has the Left Thought This Through?

I'm really not interested in the culture debate over self-identification. But as a rule-of-law guy, I have to ask whether this concept destroys diversity laws and all their unofficial quotas for "looking like" America.

If Bruce Jenner can self-identify as a woman without having the chromosomes or plumbing; and if Rachel Dolezal can self-identify as African American without apparently being any part African American, aren't equal opportunity systems rendered obsolete?

Couldn't the Klan itself instantly become "diverse" by instructing its members to self-identify in comforting numbers as various minorities?

Any business could do this, couldn't it, and thus statistically "look like" America by self-identification?

Heck, couldn't Asian Americans upset that elite educational institutions are rejecting them simply self-identify as some other ethnicity/race/whatever category to escape that road block?

Isn't this whole debate rather absurd? By all means, self-identify all you want.



Be the Czar of all the Russias for all I care (although Putin may dispute that). It's your life. It's a free country.

But sympathy and support--and tolerance--for an individual person's personal issues, while laudable, shouldn't require tying our laws in knots trying to encompass every diverse niche. Should it?

Doesn't slavish defense of this self-identity concept undermine--if not destroy--lots of laws based on external judgments of who you are?

Heck, maybe those who cherish individual rights rather than group rights should jump on board this self-identification bandwagon and push it to its limits. Could it be that this Pandora's Box has to be kept open until hope escapes, too?

I eagerly await a court case where some all-white and all-male company claims it is in perfect compliance with equal opportunity laws because the appropriate percentage of its employees self-identify in the proper categories.

Remember, statistical deviation from those percentages can be used as proof of discrimination.

Who tells these people self-identifying to shut up because they are wrong and struggling against reality?

Doesn't this undermine leftist attacks on conservative women and minorities that they are not "true" members of those groups? Doesn't their self-identification trump that external judgment?

Perhaps Barack Obama is not our first African-American president if Bill Clinton sincerely self-identifies as our first African-American president. (Can we even judge sincerity?)


Do we owe Elizabeth Warren an apology?

Just who judges this whole issue under these new rules?

Always Review the 'Definitions' Section

We say Russia has violated our START arms control agreement by developing new missiles with prohibited range. Russia says we are violating the agreement by building missile defenses.

This article says we are considering moving theater nuclear missiles to Europe to counter the Russians. I sincerely doubt that will happen in the Obama administration.

But this Russian claim is the most interesting to me:

Russia denies violating the treaty and has, in turn, claimed violations by the United States in erecting missile defenses.

I'm so old that I remember when the administration dismissed claims that the treaty hampered our missile defense initiatives:

I am not convinced when defenders of the treaty claim that the treaty doesn't hinder our "development" of missile defenses. Sure, Russia apparently has no problem with research. But "deployment" is another thing altogether, and is an issue that treaty proponents glide by without addressing. If "development" is equivalent to "deployment" why are the Russians still raising a stink about plans to break ground on building such a defense in Europe? ...

If this is what we think of as reducing constraints, I don't want to know what hindering us would look like. The Russians have not green-lighted building missile defenses capable of protecting America, and claims that START clears the path are outrageous.

So remember this minor difference of opinion when the glorious reset nuclear deal with Iran is presented to America.

Enough Rule of Law to Matter?

I haven't written anything about Turkey's elections that provided a setback to Islamist hopes to reset Turkey as an Islamic state. One vote is not necessarily significant if there is no rule of law. So I'm waiting to see how this plays out. But Austin Bay has some commentary.

The vote is hopeful, anyway:

In nationwide parliamentary elections held June 7, Turkish voters rejected President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's "soft Islamist" power grab. In doing so, Turks strengthened their secular republic's democratic system and provided the globe with an example of democratic temperance. ...

Turkey's achievement has immense implications for the Middle East and, for that matter, the whole developing world. One of the major questions the Arab Spring posed in 2011 is how to modernize culturally Islamic nations.

If Erdogan truly evolved to accept rule of law rather than holding to his earlier claims that democracy was just a means to reaching an Islamist state--and if it didn't work other means would be used--then this is a good event.

If even Turkey can't manage rule of law, however, it might say a lot about hopes for the Arab Spring movement.

I was encouraged by the movement in that it called for democracy--even if those calling for it did not fully appreciate what the term means--rather than Islamic rule as an alternative to monarchies and autocrats. That alone was progress.

Unfortunately, Islamists were able to exploit the weakening of the autocrats (although not the monarchs). They had the organization to move against the autocrats.

My hope is that in the long run, the Arab Spring can succeed, and that these early setbacks to getting democracy can be overcome as the pro-democracy forces strengthen and organize (that's where the West can help).

But if Turkey, after so many years of secular rule to help inculcate respect for rule of law, can't navigate the process to real democracy with real transfers of power, who in the region can we expect to pull this off?

In that case, my long-run hopes for the Arab Spring become a longer range hope than I thought they might achieve.

Perhaps. But also consider that the secular part of Turkey has been out-bred by the more Islam-friendly part of Turkey. So it isn't necessarily the case that Turkey is rejecting rule of law and democracy as much as parts of Turkish society that long rejected rule of law and democracy in favor of Islamist rule are demographically gaining.

Yet it may also be that enough of the pro-Islamist part of Turkey has absorbed enough of the concept of rule of law to be a different breed of Islamists used to operating within a democracy.

So I'm waiting to see how this turns out.

UPDATE: There are limits of hope:

A recent opinion poll in Turkey about which countries were most of a threat to Turkey revealed that 42.6 percent of Turks saw Israel as the biggest threat followed by America (35.5 percent) and Syria (22.1 percent). When it comes to Islamic terrorism 85 percent regarded ISIL (Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant) as a terrorist organization but only 65.4 percent believed ISIL was a threat to Turkey while 24 percent believed ISIL was not a threat to Turkey. To Westerners this may seem odd but for over a decade Turks have been exposed to more and more government sponsored anti-U.S., anti-Israel and pro-Islam propaganda. This was part of an deliberate effort to return Turkey to its virtuous Islamic roots and undo nearly a century of efforts to “westernize Turkey”.

So I'm still waiting to see how this turns out.

Credit This as a Win

I will say that despite some competency worries I expressed about our reaction to the Ebola crisis, we seem to have dealt with it well.

I didn't really blog this issue since I knew too little to judge whether our efforts were futile, counter-productive, or irrelevant. But it all seems to have worked out.

So count that a foreign policy success for the Obama administration.

UPDATE: I may have been hasty. Futile or irrelevant may be back in play:

“While the virus is spreading more slowly than at the peak last year and Liberia has defeated the outbreak,” according to one news source, “cases have risen sharply in the past two weeks in Guinea and Sierra Leone.” There are also concerns that the region may not be much better prepared to stem an outbreak than it was last year.

Apparently, the war on Ebola was not responsibly ended.

And if Kerry has a hand in it, ponder the counter-productive angle, too.

The Vanguard of Heaven?

China's leaders do worry about mass unrest that would end their rule. Watch out for the workers.

Could China face a round of serious unrest if their economy isn't nearly as good as their statistics claim?

A wave of riots and protests swept across China’s industrial cities in 2008 and 2009, of which the unrest at Tonghua was just one example, but they have largely faded from memory in the West. The massive stimulus program deployed by Beijing, one that was more than twice the relative size of America’s rescue plan, worked exactly as it was supposed to: It reignited growth and put China’s expanding army of restless unemployed back to work. ...

And yet now, a mere six years later, central command in Beijing once again finds itself faced with rising labour unrest as the life sputters out of the Middle Kingdom’s economy. In the first five months of 2015, there were triple the number of labour strikes as in the same period in 2014, according to data from the Hong Kong-based China Labour Bulletin, while mass protests by workers against layoffs are on the rise.

And you never know what might spark simmering anger over other causes that focuses anger and frustration at the national government.

Keep in mind that if the lid blows off that China will be short of personnel to control the situation. They have 1.6 million police;  2.2 million active duty military; 510,000 reserves; and 660,000 paramilitary infantry (which often were army light infantry divisions renamed "police"). [The latter numbers from my 2012 The Military Balance.)

The classic counter-insurgency rule of thumb says you need security forces numbering 2% of the population to be controlled. With 1.3 billion people, that means China would need 26 million troops.

So China is a bit short, to say the least. I imagine Communist Party members could be quickly organized and armed as local defense force militias. But still.

A localized round of unrest could be smothered by existing security forces. But if that unrest spreads to a certain level of population, the unrest strips the ability of China's security forces to cope.

And no amount of anti-ship ballistic missiles or advanced fighters will do any good at all.

Of course, the fact that much of China's army is not proficient at military tasks is irrelevant for internal security. As many "armies" are, the ability to kill and intimidate unarmed civilians is often the main task of these "armies" in name only.

Under those circumstances, Xinjiang and Tibet would have room to rebel when normally their small populations would allow Han China to swamp them with troops and colonists.

Or, of course, China might launch a short and glorious war in an attempt to short-circuit the rage and rally the unhappy people around a nationalistic objective.

In that case, the lack of military proficiency will be a problem depending on the scope of the "foreign" (which could be Taiwan or targets in the seas nearby) military adventure. Defeat often isn't a rallying point and could inflame anger against the rulers on another front.

I'd guess it would be islands owned by Japan or the Philippines since in the case of civil unrest, China would like to keep a foreign threat restricted to their least relevant forces for domestic unrest--their air force and navy. But these forces are likely to be not as proficient as the rulers believe.

Heaven help them in that case.

Force Multiplier

We will share our experience with India to help them build their own aircraft carriers:

The head of the U.S. Navy’s aircraft carrier design and engineering office is set to meet his Indian counterparts later this month to discuss the design of India’s next carrier, he told USNI News last week. ...

He characterized the talks as being in the formative stages, with the Indians still trying to determine what capabilities they’d want their carrier to have.

Helping India block China from breaking out into the Indian Ocean and points west is in our interest.

Watch out for China's anti-ship ballistic missiles. They aren't just our problem.

And if India develops the ability to project aero-naval power into the South China Sea, that's even better.

So call this a success of the Obama administration (that builds on Bush-era initiatives). Our foreign policy isn't all anvils and idiots.

Fund Them All, Let Allah Sort Them Out

I guess we now know why the administration has been peddling the line that a massive influx of money to Iran's mullahs will go to civilian needs and not significantly increase Iran's support for terror, mayhem, and regional dominance--the Obama administration discovered it can't lift sanctions narrowly on the nuclear issue.

Behold the Smart Diplomacy!

The Obama administration may have to backtrack on its promise that it will suspend only nuclear-related economic sanctions on Iran as part of an emerging nuclear agreement, officials and others involved in the process tell The Associated Press.

The problem derives from what was once a strong point of the broad U.S. sanctions effort that many credit with bringing Iran to the negotiating table in the first place.

The "interwoven" punishments for violating sanctions against dealing with Iran cannot be narrowly lifted to account for even a farcical Iranian pledge on nuclear weapons programs.

So soon the administration will just want to lift them all, arguing that it just doesn't matter.

You'd think that this type of information would have been compiled before we based plans on the assumptions we can lift sanctions narrowly.

Apparently the Iranians were right that sanctions have to come off quickly and completely. I guess they did their homework.

Once more, we have to pass a hugely complicated endeavor to find out what is in it. Ready, fire, aim.

Scratchscritchscratchscritch

That's the sound of all those "Already Against the Next War" bumper stickers being scraped off of Prius bumpers.

The kill list is still active:

The U.S. military conducted a "counter terrorism strike" on Saturday night against an al Qaeda-associated militant in Libya, the Pentagon said on Sunday.

Was this finally retaliation for the September 11, 2012 Benghazi terror attack?

Or just related to the mayhem in Libya since Khadaffi was killed and jihadis flowed into Libya?

Not that I'm blaming President Obama for jihadis going to Libya. Jihadis go where they can. And the solution isn't to keep thug rulers able to smash down the entire population in order to suppress jihadis--which they ultimately fail to do, anyway.

The problem is the jihadis themselves and their recruitment base--not where they go to plan, kill, and die.

So good that some were killed. I await news about how many are good jihadis now.

UPDATE: This is the man we targeted, although we aren't claiming success:

The recognized [Libyan] government said the strike had killed Mokhtar Belmokhtar, an Algerian militant who became a major figure in insurgencies across North Africa and the Saharan border region and was dubbed "The Uncatchable" by the French military.

The U.S. military confirmed Belmokhtar had been targeted in Saturday night's air strike but did not say if he was killed.

He's long been a problem.