Reality, Attrition, and History Return to the Navy

To get numbers the Navy will abandon the capital ship-heavy fleet that has defined the post-Cold War Navy:

Despite expected cuts to shipbuilding programs in the fiscal year 2021 budget request, Secretary of Defense Mark Esper is committed to a bigger, but much lighter, naval force, he said in an exclusive interview with Defense News.

In the wake of reports that the Navy may cut shipbuilding in its upcoming budget request, Esper said he is “fully committed” to building a fleet of 355 ships or larger. But to get there, the Navy is going to have to fundamentally reshape itself around smaller ships that can be more quickly bought than the large, exquisite designs the service now relies on — a shift that could have big implications for both the industrial base and the carrier force.

Such a plan would mark a departure from the current Navy force structure assessment that calls for twice the number of larger ships over small surface combatants: 104 large, 52 small.

I've noted the shift in the composition of the fleet to larger warships at the expense of smaller, less capable, and cheaper ships.

Back before we thought we'd have to fight for control of the seas I thought I was stating the obvious that the Navy had to pick the number of ships it wants and build the type of ships it can afford under its budget:

The United States Navy is shrinking and our missions aren't.

So we have to do something. This article lays out the somethings options.

I have another idea. Set a number of platforms that we need to perform the missions we need to protect ourselves. Then build ships to reach that number.

Oh, they don't all have to be Ford super carriers or high end Aegis cruisers/destroyers. We really can build some less capable and cheaper ships for many missions. Remember, our fleet is composed primarily of high end ships, unlike the past when we had a core of capable ships and then cheaper, less capable, and more numerous escorts. In a version of grade inflation, our destroyers are no longer the cheap tin cans of World War II but high end ships that are amongst our most capable.

Yet the high end still needs to exist. The Navy extended production of Burke-class ships as an interim measure but it is an old if good design. The Navy will have another go at a replacement:

The U.S. Navy in 2021 is planning to kick off a five-year research, testing and design effort for its next generation of large surface combatant, according to Navy budget documents released Monday.

The large surface combatant program is looking install older, proven systems “into a new hull design that incorporates platform flexibility and growth capabilities to meet projected future Fleet system requirements,” according to Navy fiscal year 2021 budget documents.

Let's hope that with the technology developed for the truncated-at-three-ships Zumwalt lying around that the new ship design will be under budget under the accounting rules.

It has taken a while for that reality and the history behind it to reach actual shipbuilding plans.

Perhaps the prospect of taking losses to control the seas rather than just projecting power abroad was the needed hit with the clue bat.

Precision Declaration of War

The issue of Congressional authorization to use force (our modern version of the declaration of war) is coming up a lot more recently. Maybe we should focus a little attention on how we define who we are defining as an enemy in a AUMF. Can we declare Precision Declarations of War?

I only ask because I recently observed in a data dump:

Given that the Treaty of Paris ending the American Revolution actually named the several states as the parties Britain was recognizing as independent as part of America (and even Americans didn't start thinking of America as the United States instead of these United States until after the Civil War), could Britain have pulled a slick move and declared war only on certain American states in 1812 in order to split apart an America divided on war with Britain? That never occurred to me until now.

Today we worry about Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea as potential conventional war threats.

And while current concerns wonder if the post-9/11 AUMF against amorphous and evolving non-state jihadis perhaps encompasses too much, maybe we need to apply that to states.

Could Congress declare war on a part of a country rather than an entire country?

I mean, China, Russia, and Iran are basically empires that in theory could break up.

And I've already wondered if America could declare war just on Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps. So Iran is potentially vulnerable to another method of focused war. While North Korea is no empire, it could be vulnerable to this angle if we simply declare war on the North Korean Communist Party.

And what if enemies did that to us? After 9/11 there were some on the left who asked why al Qaeda hit the "Blue State" people of New York City rather than the "Red State" people who were really the enemy of the jihadis--not those pacifistic lefties who just wanted to know how we could change so as not to deserve jihadi hate.

If China declared war on America but stated that they were not including Hawaii, California, and New York, how would the leadership of those Blue States react?

Do we need legislation saying a declaration of war on any part of America is a declaration of war on all? Or is that kind of implied? Or explicit? Our states have the authority to defend themselves until the federal government can arrive to fight. Do they have the authority to refuse to fight--to be "sanctuary" pacifist states--when the federal government goes to war?

I know that we are in a Westphalian state-based system that is the very basis for the United Nations. But if we are really in a post-Westphalian system despite the formal global structure, wouldn't it be a good idea if wars reflected reality?

Can we declare war on ruling parties or specific regions of foreign countries?

The Walk Away Option

Palestinians have to accept that America isn't going to split the difference between the maximalist Palestinian goal of annihilating Israel and the more moderate goal of eliminating Israel as a basis for a peace plan. Israel could just walk away.

Pretty much:

To themselves Palestinians take it for granted that they only solution to their disagreements with Israel is for Israel to be destroyed. Many Arab nations have concluded that this is not practical, especially when Arab states are facing a serious Iranian threat, something they share with Israel. As a result Arab governments are establishing economic, military and diplomatic ties with Israel.

The Trump peace deal is basically telling the Palestinians that holding out for the destruction of Israel is no longer acceptable and they can take it or leave it.

As I noted in this data dump:

The Palestinians are angry at the US proposal for a two-state solution alongside Israel? One, they're always angry about something.  And two, the deal might be something that Israel can just unilaterally do. This may be more about dumping the Palestinians as too much bother to govern. If the Palestinians reject the deal the only thing they might be rejecting practically speaking is $50 billion in aid, a UN seat, and cooperation with Israel to help make things better for the Palestinians. Is Iran going to bail the Palestinians out? Even if Iran under sanctions could afford that, are the Palestinians unaware of the way Arab deals with Iran work? (After I wrote this I see that Scott Adams recognized the same aspect of not requiring the Palestinians to carry this out.)

Palestinians are trying but seemingly failing to rally support in the UN Security Council against the US peace plan unveiled. But the Palestinians rejected the plan sight unseen in 2018.

The Palestinians don't seem to realize they are no longer the Queen of the Victims Prom.

Sadly, instead of seizing the opportunity for a normal life the Palestinian "leaders" will probably sign up for Iran's offer to let ordinary Palestinians die for Iran.

Opportunity Comes Knocking for the Marines

The theory for modular design of the Littoral Combat Ship (LCS) was sound (if not the original intent of sailing in "green" and "brown" waters close to shore), but it was screwed up with cost overruns and delays. Now the Navy wants to rid itself of that troublesome ship. Or at least some. Is this an opportunity to test a new (old) type of ship for the Marines?

The Navy will no longer be needing your service:

It was something many of us saw as a near-certain eventuality, the Navy has formally announced that it wants to retire its first four Littoral Combat Ships. Split evenly across both the Freedom and Independence classes of the failed Littoral Combat Ship concept, the oldest of the vessels was commissioned just 12 years ago, the youngest a mere six years ago.

The Marines want to see if using units smaller than battalion task forces (the MEU) in order to directly support the fleet rather than storm the beaches is the proper response to lots of enemy missiles tied to effective surveillance assets.

I had hoped to use decommissioned Perry frigates to recreate the old armed assault transport (APD) used in World War II that hauled around companies of troops on old converted destroyers and destroyer escorts (USNI membership required for access to my article in Proceedings). But the remaining Perry vessels were disposed of, eliminating that option.

I'd mentioned in the article the possibility of the LCS for a conversion to an APD given their interior space and weakness for sea control missions (and I'm not the only one), and now that four will be retired can't we use these still new hulls as experimental test beds?

Austin Bay has thoughts on the ship.

Are those first four LCS really too crappy for even test beds?

Weekend Data Dump

How woke do you have to be to believe this? I swear, they just pass out PhDs to anybody these days, don't they? Tip to Instapundit.

Russia claimed to have detected six American F-35s flying along the Iran-Iraq border during Iran's missile barrage at two of our bases in Iraq post-Soleimani strike. Maybe. But remember that stealth isn't just about being undetected. The planes aren't invisible. Stealth also makes the planes harder to track and keep a lock on it for firing at the stealth plane.

The Wuhan Flu coronavirus has prompted plenty of articles speculating about whether this will cripple the Chinese Communist Party control of China. My less direct contribution is here. But I realize that hopes rush ahead of facts. I'd rather have a prosperous and friendly China. But when the choice looks like it is between a prosperous and aggressive China or a collapsed China incapable of being aggressive, I'll take the latter. Of course, the problem is that the CCP might decide that the prospect of collapse requires aggressiveness abroad to prevent the coming collapse. Even losing a war will seem like an acceptable price to pay if it keeps the CCP in charge.

You know life is good when you think you are out of beer and you happen to find four cans in a cold storage pantry.

Nothing bad will happen to the Democratic partisans masquerading as whistleblowers, as Democrats allege these days. That sort of thing was reserved for whistleblowers in the prior administration.

I've been mentioning India's inability to even try to match China's rising military power effectively. India's navy isn't going to gain any ground on China any time soon. Heck, China might not even need to deploy their navy to hit India's fleet pretty hard, the way I see it.

There are a lot of panicky stories about the coronavirus out there and I have no idea if they are true and we should be worried, potentially true and the stories are designed to prompt a reaction to prevent the worse from happening, or just a means by authors and media outlets to generate eyeballs on their stories.

The counter-offensive is late but needed.

This is a good and proper move, but a Democratic president would have done it in three days--to the cheers of the media. Tip to Instapundit.

Why do I get the feeling that Bernie Sanders is taking notes about what Maduro is doing in Venezuela for exactly how much free market he'll need to allow to keep the teetering corpse of socialism he wants to foist on America intact for his term of office? I really hope his popularity is a narrow base of ignorant young people magnified by Twitter and not reflective of the Democratic Party.

Biden keeps emphasizing that he'll get a primary win when African-American voters are finally in play. But maybe not. Am I too cynical to assume this story and this story were floated by Biden people to hurt those candidates also in the so-called moderate lane? And who was digging into the ancestors of Buttigieg for this woke kill shot (ancestry is character embedded in your DNA, they say, unlike gender ...).

If you paid attention you never thought the Syrian civil war was "simple." You may note that I started calling it a "multi-war" at one point because it was too complex to be called a "civil war" as if it was a simple tale of government versus rebels.

I understand why some Republicans loathe Trump. Hello! Long history of despising Trump as a clown and liberal here! But I don't understand why, after seeing his policies and seeing what the Democrats offer as an alternative, that there are Republicans trying to defeat his reelection. That option is for primaries and it failed in 2016 and is still-born this year. So get over it. Seriously, Biden is the Great Never Trump Hope?! Again, I understand the basic feeling. Been there, done that. I just don't understand the response of working against him when we can see what the alternative is. Seriously, if Bernie is the Democratic nominee they fear most, would Bernie's victory in the primaries be enough to get those people to vote for Trump in the fall?  I won't miss Trump when he leaves the political scene, but I hope that is in January 2025.

This gets to the point of my oft-repeated warning that trying to control the expanding federal bureaucracy is a fool's game for Republicans. The only solution is to shrink it. Pity this correct proposal for one slice of that problem will die in the House.

General Flynn was screwed by our prosecution bureaucracy, although I think failing to level with his bosses was grounds for firing. I don't understand why he didn't report honestly to Pence way back when.

We need the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to protect our country from terrorists and other foreign threats at home. But we need to make sure Americans trust the court to focus on actual enemies. The abuse of the courts to target political enemies and undermine domestic liberties must be punished and safeguards put in place to rebuild trust in the court. Do that or Americans will demand its dismantling to the detriment to our security.

Okay, this joint American-German intelligence coup was impressive. We only had indirect intelligence on the Soviets and Chinese, but still. Bravo. I've long assumed (hoped?) that our CIA was better than the publicized failures indicated. But God almighty it is not "unsettling" that we might have done nothing "about countries that used Crypto machines while engaged in assassination plots, ethnic cleansing campaigns and human rights abuses." Ask Churchill (although this author rejects the conventional history of that issue). The balancing issue is accurate even if the example isn't true in part or in whole.

Judging the rise of China's military is difficult because the shiny new weapons are less effective than technical specifications because of personnel and "softer" issues that are needed to exploit the capabilities of those weapons.

For over three years people on the left have delighted in saying that Trump could shoot somebody on Fifth Avenue and his fans wouldn't reject him. This is meant to belittle Trump's fans (and we'll skip by the Obama worship for this point). Today that might actually happen. Not because Trump's fans are fanatically blind. But because his fans have seen the media accusing Trump of various ridiculous crimes for three years and likely wouldn't believe the news of a shooting until verified by more trusted sources.

The Army is again going to try to get a design for an infantry fighting vehicle to replace the Bradley. The Army wants it optionally manned. My Infantry magazine article on this angle for a "virtual" squad gets the Army closer to that unmanned option.

American forces clashed with Syrian forces in eastern Syria. There are reasons to stay in Syria. But there is a price to pay despite those horrified that Trump might order a withdrawal. As I've been saying, we need to figure out what we are willing to fight and die for in eastern Syria.

While I am concerned that our Trump-era economy is sustained by unsustainable federal spending deficits, I'm more concerned about the deficits themselves. Keep in mind that those deficits didn't sustain our economy during the Obama years.

American warplanes staged a show of support for Taiwan after China staged a show of threat to Taiwan.

Mass murderer? Mass destroyer of everything that any of us might love or cherish in the whole [world]? Murdering brown people for profit?  Are Roger Waters and the people applauding him literally insane from Trump Hysteria Condition? I can understand opposing Trump' policies, or disliking Trump, or even despising Trump personally. But this is loony toons level of gibbering nonsense. Say, speaking of a record of bombing brown people.

I've been reading things about the J-20 China stealth plane that seem to imply that the plane is fully stealth from all aspects and not stealthy from the front only, as I thought. This CSIS report on the plane talks a lot about the plane until conceding late that the plane has an "emphasis on frontal stealth". So we've got that going for us. As I note in my post, dispersing friendly radars could prevent China from having a corridor that keeps their frontal stealth facing our detection systems. Maybe stealthy long-endurance American UAVS could be a picket line to detect J-20s as they pass our line of drones to detect the J-20s from the rear or flank.

Once more, with feeling.

Comparisons to Trump in 2016 of Bernie Sanders winning the Democratic nomination this year by having a committed minority behind him plus a divided field against him who can't gather the majority anti-Sanders vote ignores that the 2016 Republican contest was basically winner takes all in each state while the Democratic contest is proportional delegate allocation, meaning losers keep going and winners don't win decisively. The Republican process is designed to get a winner. The Democratic process is designed to give out participation ribbons--until the "super delegates" (or whatever they are called now) of party insiders weigh in to get a winner. That system amuses me every time a Democrat complains about the Electoral College.

I'm just a little amused about Bernie Sanders supporters being called "digital brown shirts." Brown Shirts is a dog whistle for Nazis, although I doubt that is literally what the comment meant in practice. Still, Bernie's campaign complained bitterly about the association. Nazism. It's not just for baselessly accusing Republicans of being.

The Marines are getting into the ship-killing business. Good. Supporting the fleet is in their lane.

That's different. Because reasons. You do remember Obama speaking about Hillary's illegal and unsafe private email server, right? I don't like any of that command influence stuff. So I'm not defending Trump for saying something even though he is right on the merits. But now it is a Constitutional crisis? Related memories back when this was business as usual for our media rather than a Constitutional crisis.

The Navy plans a buying spree for anti-ship missiles. That seems prudent.

It may seem outrageous that we built F-35s that can't really fight, but we did need to train pilots and ground crews to operate the fighting F-35s, no? So using those early F-35s for an aggressor squadron to help our pilots face Chinese or Russian stealth planes seems like a no-brainer good idea. Apparently Congress disagrees. For the moment, at least, to be charitable. Tip to Instapundit.

The French have developed a second-generation fuel cell air-independent propulsion system.

The National Guard wants a Space Force National Guard. There is no Navy Guard and no Coast Guard Guard. I'm not inclined to think this request should be granted. Although I'm willing to listen to the arguments, I suppose.

Russia is a regional power with defense needs spanning Europe and Asia that they can't afford now. If Russia wants to pay the money needed to gain influence in Africa, I say have a ball. What objective is that "advance" going to achieve? Destabilizing Africa? Are African governments really cooperating with that? If they do, how can we counter that through AFRICOM? I say every ruble spent in Africa is one less spent in Europe. I'm really just not impressed with Putin's grasp of strategery. He pokes and prods and when people notice, he puffs up his chest and boasts "I did that." Whatever.

Congress is free to wrestle with the president on war powers. It is complicated. Not that Congress could override a Trump veto on the resolution preventing him from taking "any military action against Iran without Congressional approval. That is too broad to be sustained by the courts, I think, given the president's role as commander in chief of the military. And I think it is shameful to assert that Congressional right in defense of Iran, making the legislation Iran's first line of defense. But that's just me I guess. On the other hand, maybe it isn't so harmful if--and given Iran's threats is that realistic?--it encourages Iran to keep their military options dormant lest they do something that not even this Congress will ignore. Since economic squeezing is our main effort to defeat Iran, that would not be a bad effect, eh?

Strategypage explains concussion (TBI, or traumatic brain injury) and PTSD injuries. The information is good but as with many posts of this nature, it is recycled as can be seen by the comment that for troops coping with the injury, "with the shape the economy is in, quitting your job is not a good option." Even trusted sources have to be watched.

Poland chooses the F-35A, and related discussion.

Remember, the Left thinks you are a Nazi because you are conservative even if you hate Trump as much as they do. I really don't get why conservatives--no matter how much you despise Trump--can hope the current socialist-friendly Democratic Party will win the presidency and Congress in the 2020 election. Tip to Instapundit.

The U.S. offered to help North Korea deal with the coronavirus spreading from China. I bet South Korea is glad to have the DMZ.

As we watch Assad continue to make gains against the remnant of opposition to his continued rule, let's not forget how the Kerry-Lavrov deal on Assad's chemical weapons paved the way for Assad's win by abandoning the rebels and inviting Russian involvement in Syria that eventually became direct intervention in 2015 and Russian-Iranian-Turkish cooperation. Are we still calling that Smart Diplomacy?

When the Russians persist in acting like aggressive a-holes they lose the right to complain when the targets of their aggressive a-holery react, as we and the Norwegians did.

Whose side are Moqtada al Sadr's "blue hat" supporters on? Sadr's side. My only shock is that they don't wear brown shirts. Next stupid question. We may yet live to regret letting that 3-time insurrectionist live. To be fair the article is a good one. The stupidity comment is for Iraqis who follow Sadr.

NATO will take a larger role in helping Iraq stabilize. America and Britain took the largest foreign role in winning the kinetic phases of the Iraq War early on, and I've long wanted allies to take on a bigger role in the stabilization mission. This is especially helpful as our military resets to deter Russia and China in conventional warfare. We'll see how this Phase IX ultimately looks like, I guess, with NATO help.

I'm not hopeful that there can be a real peace with the Taliban in Afghanistan despite the not-quite-an-actual-ceasefire. Even a sincere desire for peace by the Taliban--if it even exists now--will be undermined by Pakistan as it seeks to restore the alignment of the group it started to preserve Pakistan's influence in Afghanistan via those Islamist nutballs.

As the coronavirus Wuhan Flu looks worse every day as perhaps months of Chinese cover ups are exposed, China attempts a dramatic reboot of their effort to contain and reverse the epidemic. Let's hope it works and let's hope the rest of the world is braced to cope with the spread that took place while China was covering up the scale of the virus. And I really hope the concerns of worst case speculation are overblown. I still have no idea if I should be rationally concerned.

The United States military is working up efforts to contain the Wuhan Flu coronavirus within its ranks should it get hit with the virus, as a force protection measure. If the military is to carry out its missions, it needs to have sufficient personnel healthy enough to do their jobs. Which could included supporting civilian agencies cope with the Wuhan Flu if it spreads here. But no word on that contingency.

I wish Trump didn't use Defense Department funds for Mexican border barriers, but if Democrats won't provide the money directly what choice is there for this important government border security responsibility? And the idea that Democrats are putting out there that this could harm the ability of the military to react to a foreign or domestic emergency is nonsense. Would Congress really refuse to spend even more borrowed money in a crisis to replace that transferred money--or as much as needed above that? Please.

Yeah, tell me again that Trump supporters are deplorable.

He is not representative of the vast majority of Democrats, I readily concede. But the media silence on these violence-prone people is representative of the media's sympathies, no?

California's public pension system is run by a man with ties to the Chinese Communist Party? Why the ef not given all the odd actions Californians demand their government take--or not take. Just bounce the freaking California rubble. I'm inclined to just let the Democrats have the place--good and hard.

Snopes has gone full Trump Hysteria Condition nuts, but to be fair they dutifully serve their nutso readers.

I know I've mentioned this issue before, but relying on fines and penalties is a disgraceful way to raise money and this "taxation by citation" smacks of tax farming granted by the states to local governments on the backs of poor and working people. Government should be financed by direct taxes. The federal court system should be used to break this as arguably a civil rights violation.

Sri Lanka does not need high performance jets and so it is not a shock that bribery is involved in an old purchase from Ukraine.

Perhaps not wanting to let a coronavirus crisis go to waste, China has appointed a hardliner associated with oppressing religious believers to run the top political "advisory" body in Hong Kong.

Had I known that this kind of language to a superior can be technically legal if actually requested or ordered, I still would not have handled this suggested verbiage from my drill sergeant when speaking to the senior drill sergeant in basic training.any differently.

The United States Navy intercepted Iranian weapons bound for their Yemen Houthi allies. At least Iran is willing to supply weapons when asking Arabs to die for Iranian interests.

As a rule I want America to beat China in the technology race. But as China has started to catch up with us I kept reading articles about how China had an advantage of following the first developers which made their efforts cheaper than the cost of those who first invent something. But now China will reap the rewards of developing 5G phone technology first? Maybe that is so, but our being first in 4G didn't stop Chinese cyber-espionage using that technology against us, did it? So I'm concerned that China can beat us in a technology. But I don't know if it really matters unless China holds that capability as a monopoly for years or decades.

What is Duterte's major malfunction? Does he really think he doesn't need America to resist Chinese territorial claims on the Philippines in the South China Sea?

No prosecution of McCabe for lying to investigators. "Scooter" Libby--who didn't commit the underlying act that Armitage committed--was unavailable for comment. Totally fair, no doubt.

Belarusian dictator says Russia wants more integration with Belarus--that is, virtual annexation. I've long worried about an Anschluss like that, which makes more sense--for now--than challenging NATO member states that used to be part of the Soviet system. Belarus is a potential launching pad to hit the Baltic former Soviet but now NATO states.

"Bombshell" has been mis-used for so long by Democrats that I won't assume it is real when Republicans use it about the Obama administration involvement in the Russian conclusion nonsense. And yes, Russia interfered in 2016 at some low spending level--as Russians/Soviets have long done in our domestic politics--but there is no indication of Russian-Trump collusion.

I'm thinking that Iran's claim that our killing of Soleimani has made Iraqis eager to eject American troops from Iran is just Iranian spin in the ongoing Phase IX in Iraq over Iranian influence. If we screwed up, Iran would be quietly taking advantage of it instead of loudly trying to make people believe the claim is true. We are putting pressure on Iraq to reject the Iranians. Iran has influence in Iraq from fear, corruption, and waning admiration for Iran. We need to help and push Iraq's government to reject Iran's destructive influence.

Sure, our European allies say they are too focused on Russia to help with China. That's fine, they are far from China and more than symbolic European deployments to Asia aren't cost effective for them. But their credibility on their so-called focus would be higher if they made more of an effort to oppose Russia at the eastern borders of NATO.

Don't buy the Iranian nutball's assertion that Trump pushed America and Iran to the brink of war. This is just another example of the Iranians working with the pro-Iran Echo Chamber here in America to save Iran.

Iranians who hope for a better future have little faith in elections likely to "return" "conservative" to control in parliament. The myth of moderates who we can support to lessen Iran's nutballery versus conservatives who kill people at home and abroad amuses me in a "we're so screwed" sort of way. When the very nutball mullahs screen every candidate for office, Iranian so-called moderates are simply religious conservatives who wear suits and are able to avoid screaming "Death to America and Israel" in English, on camera, with visible spittle flying.

Is the coronavirus a "black swan" that threatens the Chinese Communist Party? My thoughts.

Not to dismiss this, but I'd think as the largest economy that we'd be able to have the largest absolute reductions in carbon emissions. The point is we don't get credit because we don't panic in the same way as other countries pretend to panic over climate change. It might be a little more impressive given that we are not the largest industrial country. We're behind China. I don't know if it is fair to say we are behind the European Union given that it is so far a collection of states and not a single political entity.

It looks like the Russians want to gently sabotage or take control of satellites and not just kill them with lots of debris the result. I guess Space Force gets no pause to think about uniforms and what to call their troopers.

Good news--if true. But can we trust coronavirus news from China?

Commence the Decimation in the Bureaucracy

This is a good interview of Victor Davis Hanson. Yes, the "deep state" exists. I think the image of some evil genius stroking a cat while pulling strings behind the scenes is out of place, but the permanent bureaucracy does have its own interests that it defends.

"Where you stand depends on where you sit" is the expression that fits. So no conspiracy. Just the logical bad result of having a large permanent bureaucracy.

That said, this assessment of those high ranking members of the federal bureaucracy is horrifying:

They think it deserves authority, and they have contempt—and I mean that literally—contempt for elected officials. [They think:] “These are buffoons in private enterprise. They are the CEO in some company; they’re some local Rotary Club member. They get elected to Congress, and then we have to school them on the international order or the rules-based order.”

In two decades of working for the state legislature with a rotating cast of legislators under term limits, I never developed that attitude.

I always said to myself--and to others as I explained my role--that I never received even a single vote, and my job was to provide the best information I could get to the people who got the votes and the right to make our laws.

Which is funny because before I worked in Lansing I had contempt for legislators. But seeing them and working with them made me appreciate that there are good and bad, and that most come into office with a sincere and obvious desire to do good things (regardless of whether I agreed with their definition of "good").

I developed respect.

I think there needs to be a lot of prosecutions, firings, and loss of pensions for senior people in our federal bureaucracy--a nonlethal and possibly nonrandom version of a Roman decimation--to send the message of proper roles and attitudes for those hired to work for those elected.

The interview is older but I don't think I've ever seen it. Better late than never.

He Can Take His "Moral Authority" and Shove It

Think highly of yourself much?

Germany's president criticized the U.S. administration at a security conference on Friday for appearing to reject “even the idea of an international community.” ...

Steinmeier, a former foreign minister, is independent of Chancellor Angela Merkel's government but the German president is viewed as a moral authority even though his role is largely ceremonial. [emphasis added]

Oh, the sainted international community exists. The problem is that it is a community spoiled by thugs and tyrants who are fine with murder and death committed by fellow thugs and tyrants.

Continental Europeans like to fancy themselves as custodians of an enlightened international community but they do not deserve that fantasy status.

As for the Germans? They sometimes claim--when asked to spend more for the defense of the free NATO part of international community--to see themselves as barely restrained Nazis who can't be trusted with modern armaments or a capable military.

So largely ceremonial President Steinmeier can--with the proper ceremonial embellishments, naturally--shove his bizarrely styled moral authority (tip to Instapundit) and get the Hell out of the way while America goes about the real work of defending the West from tyrants and thugs. You're welcome.

Maybe the continent could think about helping us with that.

UPDATE: The strange enduring German-Iranian relationship. Tell me more about that moral authority:

As non-nuclear-weapon states, Germany and Iran both share an interest in interpreting the Non-Proliferation Treaty generously. That is why Germany has always been in favor of conceding to Iran the right to enrich uranium. And that is also why, until today, the extent of the danger posed by nuclear weapons in the hands of Shiite Islamists is hardly mentioned in German public debates. To quote Peter Rudolf again: “The fact that despite intelligence reports to the contrary, the German government tends to downplay the [Iranian] nuclear issue is quite puzzling.”

What kind of perverse moral authority thinks that mullah-run Iran can have nuclear weapons?

UPDATE: But don't think French leftists get a pass on the nutball Iranian regime:

It is worth remembering that the Iranian theocracy was a great project of the secular Western Left.

The Red-Green alliance that is so apparent in the West has always mystified me. As has the failure of Western feminists to be the most outspoken supporters of the war on Islamist terrorism and ideology.

It isn't just the Sunni jihadis that the Left loves. I just don't get why Westerners--despite differences that are trivial compared to our collective differences with Islamists--don't unify against the scum that threaten all of us.

Have a super sparkly day.

UPDATE: This post is twisting down a rabbit hole. Regarding my Red-Green alliance comment (tip to Instapundit):

This dangerous mindset [that the ends justify the means] makes radicals prone to another pernicious fallacy—that their enemy’s enemy is their friend.

Initially, the September 11th attacks, which killed 2977 people, elicited in me a feeling not of horror but of excitement. After all, a devastating blow had been dealt to American hegemony. My moral compass was completely thrown off by the notion that the terrorists’ jihad was best understood as a liberation movement against Western capitalist imperialism—the chickens had come home to roost. This view was quite common among radicals.

They are screwed up, sick people.

UPDATE: Back to the original subject:

German officials confirmed Wednesday that a court has ordered the release of an Iranian man wanted by the United States, but declined to comment on reports that the move was part of a prisoner swap with Iran.

Thanks moral authorities!

Something Spectacularly Stupid and Destructive

Keep an eye on Iran.

The war against Iran inside Iraq rages at a low level:

Iraq has slipped into an unofficial civil war between pro and anti-Iran factions. Iran has used force against anti-Iran protesters, responsible for most of the 550 protesters killed since the protests began in October 2019. These deaths have exceeded the casualties caused by Islamic terrorists. Half the deaths have been in Baghdad and Iraqis know Iran is a big fan of shooting protesters. In the same time period over a thousand protesters in Iran were killed.

Sadr continues to maneuver between the pro- and anti-Iran factions, with his ambitions the only constant:

Sadr ordered his armed supporters to use force to suppress anti-government protestors. The reaction to that was much more anti-Sadr than Sadr had expected. Suddenly he was tagged as just another opportunistic, pro-Iran Iraqi leaders. Sadr had guessed and wrong and, even though he remained hostile to Iranian influence in Iraq, he was an opportunistic Iraqi politicians who was willing to kill Iraqi Shia if he thought it would increase his power.

And in the broader war, Iran is on shaky ground since America killed terror-master Soleimani:

Soleimani was supposed to win some spectacular victories against Israel and America and thus justify all the band behavior by Iranian religious leaders/rulers. With the loss of Soleimani the Iranian leaderships is even more desperate and likely to do something spectacularly stupid and destructive.

I've warned that Iran could lash out militarily under economic pressure from America.

And I'm definitely a long-time worrier about three-time insurrectionist Sadr.

As for the battle with Iran over the fate of Iraq, I've been talking about this since the destruction of the ISIL caliphate in Iraq, and call it Phase IX of the Iraq War begun in 2003 (and that assumes we call the gap between the 1991 Persian Gulf War and 2003 as "peace" rather than a low-level war against Saddam's Iraq). I don't know what the defining main effort in this phase will be.

Keep an eye on Iran. They might try anything to reverse what they might see as their gathering defeat.

UPDATE: I suppose this rocket attack could be ISIL but I'd bet on Iranian-backed or controlled forces:

Multiple rockets hit an Iraqi base hosting American troops near the US embassy early Sunday, the latest in a flurry of attacks against US assets in the country.

"The Coalition confirms small rockets impacted the Iraqi base hosting (coalition) troops in the International Zone... No casualties," said coalition spokesman Myles Caggins.

The battle rages.

Erdogan's Red Line

The Turks seem to be setting a red line in Idlib province against further Syrian offensives. Well that's interesting.

Indeed:

President Tayyip Erdogan said on Wednesday that Turkey's military would strike Russian-backed Syrian forces by air or ground anywhere in Syria if another Turkish soldier was hurt as the Assad government tried to regain control of Idlib province.

The Turks seem determined to stay in Syria despite what Assad wants, but I don't see the commitment yet:

Turkey had too little inside Syria last year to stop Assad. The reported numbers recently sent don't seem nearly enough to halt the Russian-backed Assad offensive there.

Isn't it a bit late for Turkey to enforce their old ultimatum?

Or does Erdogan think Iran is too weakened by America's effort to resist Turkey? And does Erdogan think Russia is too weak and too eager to complete the sale of S-400s and perhaps aircraft to Turkey (in the hope of scoring a diplomatic coup of splitting Turkey away from NATO) to oppose Turkey as long as Turkey leaves Russia's Syrian bases alone?

If Turkey is willing to intervene in a more distant Libya, perhaps their willingness to fight in Syria is higher, eh? Maybe there is no expiration date on the ultimatum.

Russia doesn't want to blow their halting relationship with Turkey but can hardly afford to abandon Assad:

The Kremlin said on Tuesday that all attacks on Russian and Syrian government forces in Syria's Idlib province should stop and that agreements it had struck with Turkey on the conflict had to be upheld.

Moscow made its comments, which underscore rising tensions over Syria between Russia and Turkey, after Syrian government forces took control of a highway in northwest Syria for the first time since 2012.

As I noted in a January data dump:

Erdogan is alienating NATO ally America in favor of promoting friendship with long-time enemy Russia. And outside of Erdogan's fantasy world, Russia backs Syria's attacks in northwest Syria over Turkish objections--which continues to make progress in Idlib province--while Russia and Turkey are on opposite sides in the Libyan civil war. Brilliant!

I wonder if Turkey will find it needs the good will of its NATO allies that Erdogan is peeing on by cozying up to Putin's Russia?

The Syria multi-war continues to impress me with its complexity.

UPDATE: AP discusses the M5 highway noted as a Syrian success in that story quote about Russia's role:

It is arguably one of the most coveted prizes in Syria’s civil war, and after eight years of fighting, Syrian President Bashar Assad has got it back.

The Damascus-Aleppo highway, or the M5, is known to Syrians simply as the “International Road.” Cutting through Syria's major cities, the motorway is key to who controls the country.

It was a major trade route north to and through Turkey and south to and through Jordan.

Not that the devastated Syria can exploit that trade role now, but at least it can be used as a regime line of supply.

UPDATE: It's sad that Erdogan's reset with Putin's Russia isn't working as the Sultan wants:

Turkey's Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said on Sunday he told his Russian counterpart that attacks in Syria's northwestern Idlib region must stop immediately and that a lasting ceasefire had to be achieved there.

Maybe alienating NATO and America to make Russia their best buddy wasn't the best policy idea, eh?

I guess we'll see what happens by the end of the month when Turkey says Syria (and Russia) must comply.

Addicted to Trump

Okay:

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif) in a tweet Tuesday night accused President Trump of engaging in “political interference in the sentencing of Roger Stone” and called for an investigation into the Department of Justice (DOJ).

"Addicted To Trump"

Your lights are on, but you're not home
Your House is not your own
Nadler sweats, AOC shakes
Another probe is what it takes
Can't legislate, you can't vote
There's no doubt, you can't cope
Your schedule's tight, you can't breathe
Another probe is all you need
Ohh oohh

You like to think that there's a new bombshell...oh yeah
It's closer to the truth to say you can't find a crime
You know you're gonna have to face it
You're addicted to Trump

You see the polls, but you can't read
You're lookin' at a different need
Your base Tweets in double time
Another probe and he'll be gone, a one track mind
You can't be saved
Oblivion is all you crave
Your own Left comes for you
You don't mind Impeachment 2
Ohh oohh

You like to think that there's a new bombshell...oh yeah
It's closer to the truth to say you can't find a crime
You know you're gonna have to face it
You're addicted to Trump

Might as well face it, you're addicted to Trump
Might as well face it, you're addicted to Trump
Might as well face it, you're addicted to Trump
Might as well face it, you're addicted to Trump
Might as well face it, you're addicted to Trump

Your lights are on, but you're not home
Your House is not your own
Nadler sweats, AOC shakes
Another probe is what it takes
Ohh oohh

You like to think that there's a new bombshell...oh yeah
It's closer to the truth to say you can't find a crime
You know you're gonna have to face it
You're addicted to Trump

Might as well face it, you're addicted to Trump
Might as well face it, you're addicted to Trump
Might as well face it, you're addicted to Trump
Might as well face it, you're addicted to Trump
Might as well face it, you're addicted to Trump
Might as well face it, you're addicted to Trump
Might as well face it, you're addicted to Trump
Might as well face it, you're addicted to Trump

At some point Pelosi is just stalking Trump, isn't she?

With thanks to these people for the original lyrics.

Iran's Interest in the Region

Israel has been hitting Iranian assets in Syria all along without prompting a "crushing response," so what's up with this warning by Iran's Foreign Ministry?

"The Islamic Republic of Iran will give a crushing response that will cause regret to any kind of aggression or stupid action from this regime against our country's interests in Syria and the region," ministry spokesman Abbas Mousavi said.

Is Iran really worried about elsewhere in the "region" like Lebanon where Hezbollah, the crown jewel of Iran's foreign legion of Arabs willing to fight to the death for Iran, is located?

Because Hezbollah is a target I've long thought Israel is preparing to hit hard:

I've long speculated that Israel will deal with the Hezbollah threat by mounting a multi-division, multi-month raid that pushes deep into Lebanon to uproot Hezbollah and really tear them a new one.

That's what my larger plan would be. Who knows if Israel thinks that the lesson of the 2006 war is that they have to improve their aerial attack capabilities.

But I've been wrong for a long time on that issue.

Karma is a Bitch

While we shouldn't get our hopes up that a silver lining to the Wuhan Flu coronavirus outbreak the Xi's secrecy has allowed to explode on China and possibly the world has a silver lining of the defeat of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) dictatorship, Xi will face problems. And who knows when the Mandate of Heaven gets withdrawn from him?

This much we know:

For the first time since coming to power, Xi’s high-tech censorship machine is meeting with intense resistance from millions of Chinese Internet users. The controlocracy is being put to the test. Most likely, though, the outbreak itself will be used to justify even more surveillance and control of the population.

But what happens next with the virus and the blowback from it inside China is unknown.

Would Xi risk war to try to get nationalistic impulses to rally around the flag in the face of mounting problems and criticism?

The black swan virus could unleash unintended consequences inside China even if the virus itself is ultimately contained short of disaster. Maybe the military would rally around the flag in the face of popular unrest--but decide Xi is not the one to hold the banner.

And if the CCP under Emperor Xi does get overthrown, the winners of the purge will find that Xi has conveniently set up a network of prisons in distant Xinjiang where the purged communists can be reeducated for productive lives.

Not that I'll shed many tears for the thugs who run China:

China is the world champion at “cancel culture.” Only when the communist tyranny cancels you, you aren’t just hounded off social media or pushed out of a job in the media or academia. You are literally canceled; executed, organ harvested, imprisoned, forced into a concentration camp, or excluded from all social participation in society.

The targets of this despotism are primarily religious believers — Falun Gong, Uyghur Muslims, and, most recently, Christians. Millions have been victimized by these vicious pogroms in recent years — and it appears the persecution has just gotten started.

There must be no loyalties above Emperor Xi, First of His Name.

Xi demanded the power to achieve all tasks in China. He may get all the responsibility for failure, too. Karma would be a bitch.

Five is Right Out*

Europe wants to step up to a global role. Good luck with that.

Europe wants a larger global role but doesn't know what to do:

Yet today’s Europe seems unsure of its global role. The United Kingdom has officially exited the EU. Rising populism is producing polarization, paralysis, and internal pressures so severe that the Union’s very survival no longer seems certain. And investors have noticed: the region’s stock markets have consistently underperformed for two decades, implying a lack of faith in the bloc’s long-term prospects.

But it is far too soon to write off Europe. In my view, there are four key areas where the EU could establish itself as a global player.

I personally think Europe hasn't had a global role since World War II. Europe could think they had a global role in the Cold War because in that global struggle between America and the USSR, Europe was the central front:

As others have noted, the Cold War largely disguised the fact that European nations no longer were powers with real global power (other than the British, that is). The continent’s role during the Cold War was to be a huge tough immovable block of concrete that the Soviets could not shove into the English Channel. The fact that this very local responsibility had global consequences hid the lack of real global power. The inability of the Europeans to mount an invasion of modest proportions in the Balkans in 1999 and their equally embarrassing lack of air power, finally laid bare this truth.

The Europeans just had to roll out their base gates, take off, or leave port to be key players in a potential fight. But losing there would have been a global loss. So it was a strange global role.

The author of that article says that Europe can seek a role in trade, regulatory prowess (!), managing the China-American competition, and the defense of Western values.

These are problematic areas.

Trade as a source of global power ignores that Europe relies on trade for prosperity. How do they leverage that for power when trading partners will have as much or more power over Europe than Europe can exert over trading partners?

Regulation? Of technology especially? Stick to cheeses, dudes. I'm laughing too hard to even address whether other countries would want to subcontract their regulations to the Europeans' dizzying intellect.



Managing the China-US competition is kind of revealing. So the Europeans are going to abandon being an ally of America in order to balance America and China? I am not shocked that the European Union would think that way.

That leaves us with the fourth, the defense of "Western" values. That probably isn't what you think and we should worry if Europe is the key defender:

Fifty years ago, democracy was in a minority globally, but lucky enough to be led by a powerful America.

In a review of a new book on the spread of democracy in the West, a reviewer states of the author:

He reminds us how, at the start of his period, democracies were rare: Europe was not merely severed by an Iron Curtain, but Greece was run by the Colonels, Spain by Franco and Portugal by Salazar. Outside the English-speaking world and north-western Europe there was little democracy; and his book is an account of democracy’s triumph, as Gorbachev lets the Soviet bloc go.

Indeed. I've noted that the Western tradition did not fully embrace democracy until after America entrenched in Europe following World War II and spread our influence. As I wrote in this post about the threat to America that could arise in Europe[.]

I'm thinking that if Europe has to choose among these four options they should try dominance in the cheese regulation area. Although I'm pretty sure America will take a hard pass on that. But good luck elsewhere.

Isn't it revealing that a fifth European option for having a global role isn't supporting America in defense of free trade and Western values--including keeping technology from supporting autocrats--in opposition to China, which rejects Western values?

I'm not a fan of the European Union, if you haven't caught on by now.

*If you don't get the title:


UPDATE: This is a long but related post on defining what makes a great power.

Europe is Not Worthy of Fawning Admiration

This article rejects the notion that continental Europe is some sort of center-left Utopia of enlightened policies and governance:

Right-thinking Britons see their country as an embarrassment sliding towards populism, a sad contrast to the moral superpower that is Germany and France under centrist leader Emmanuel Macron. Yet the Continent of the Anglo liberal imagination is as unreal as the supposed nostalgic Britain of yesteryear loved by Leavers.

The article provides country-by-country explanations in defense of the argument.

It is humorous that the panty-flinging fanboys (and girls) of Europe extol the superb nuance of European thinking but spare none at all for the reality of Europe as it is.

And yeah, I've said much the same thing rejecting the moral superiority of Europe:

The unofficial reason for NATO after World War II was to "keep American in (Europe--unlike after World War I), keep the Russians (Soviets) out (of Western Europe, after the Soviets advance to the Elbe River), and keep Germany down (after starting two world wars)."

The modern purpose of NATO is to keep America in Europe, keep Russia out, and keep European autocratic impulses down. The third reason is a real threat that is easy to forget in the post-World War II time frame that we remember as the normal state of European affairs. And the first reason is the means to achieve the third.

We forget the role that America played in creating the free and democratic Europe that we wrongly assume is the natural state of now-free Europe[.]

The continent is filled with barely restrained autocrats. We should not pretend they are our moral superiors. Nor should we pretend that that the EU won't enable the wannabe autocrats.

Ending the Hybrid War Charade?

Now that I think about it, Russia can't be that happy about the precedent of America killing the Iranian terror threat Soleimani:

Soleimani’s killing was, without question, the most consequential act of Trump’s presidency. It didn’t just punish Iran for the action of its proxies. After decades of the U.S. letting the Islamic Republic get away with murder, the Trump administration made it clear that America would no longer allow the regime to hide behind its militias.

And it isn't just punishing Iran.

Consider all the undeserved hype about Russia's so-called "hybrid warfare" demonstrated first in the Crimea in 2014 and a little later that year in the Donbas region of Ukraine.

I dismiss the whole "hybrid warfare" craze and boiled it down to this:

Good Lord people, Russian "hybrid warfare" is just Russian aggression that we pretend isn't happening. Sadly, there's nothing new or novel about that.

The Russians invade (which includes local allies and not just Russian troops), the Russians deny they are invading, and the West publicly accepts that fiction that Russia is not invading.

Mind you, the actual invasion-denial-acceptance issue is separate from what is also lumped into hybrid warfare--information operations:

Moscow and Beijing have weaponized previously benign activities like diplomacy, investment flows, infrastructure development, foreign asset purchases, and media. University campuses have become battlegrounds of covert influence and interference. These activities complement more aggressive forms of political warfare operations, such as espionage, cyber-attacks, and intellectual property theft. For its part, the West at large gave up on political warfare operations after the end of the Cold War, complacently believing that the ideology that birthed them—communist authoritarianism—had been consigned to the “dustbin of history.”

Deterring, combating, and defeating political warfare campaigns whether or not they support combat is critically important for the West. I heartily endorse engaging in that sphere of battle (although "democracy defense" legislation could simply be censorship despite the happy title; and there certainly was FISA abuse that should be corrected).

But that Western effort against Russian (or Chinese) information warfare must be made apart from whether their information warfare supports "subliminal" combat. The West has called the combination of information warfare and subliminal warfare "hybrid warfare."

Regarding the combat portion of the combination, by killing Soleimani, America stopped the key pretending anchor about the source of the violence and mayhem that Iran foments but denies. Russia counts on a similar disconnect between seeing the bloody obvious invasion and the Western reaction to the bloody obvious.

Did America kill that model at the same time Soleimani was killed?

Black Swans and Unintended Consequences in the Land of Five-Year Plans

China is using their Orwellian Social Credit Score system designed to enforce loyalty among the people to control the People's Liberation Army (PLA), whose loyalty is absolutely essential to keeping the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) solidly in control of China.

This is interesting:

The PLA is being pushed to be combat-ready as soon as possible, but military reforms haven’t been welcomed across the board. Changes in promotion structures, preferences for highly skilled labour and a new focus on high-tech joint operations have challenged the ways in which the PLA has operated for decades. However, the party’s longstanding battle to ensure that its army is loyal to it is an increasing priority under Xi, and the CCP continues to emphasise that the party controls the gun: 党指挥枪 (dang zhihui qiang). Under Xi, disloyalty to the party has been made illegal in order to protect the CCP’s power.

In the light of that threat perception, the PLA version of a social credit system seems to be a new tool for punishing betrayal, dissuading dissent and rewarding allegiance to the military.

It is interesting because the CCP clearly fears losing control of the major institution of raw brute force. It is just a pilot program now and not rolled out for the entire PLA. But who thinks it won't be rolled out to all the military?

The problem is that the CCP assumes their Social Credit Score System is accurate and diligently used by the bureaucrats under the system. Is that something that can be assumed?

I wrote this about the system in a data dump about a year ago:

China's new dystopia spreads its wings: China is now using its horrible "social credit score" system to deny 23 million people the ability to travel. With any luck this has built into it collateral damage on the Chinese Communist Party as corruption undermines the system and people in the cheap seats see how the wealthy and influential get a good score from the people in charge no matter what they do to violate the social credit rules. I'm sure the Green New Deal people who like "lists" of enemies could find a use for this system here to phase in the total ban on air travel, starting with "deniers" I'm sure (the article is satire but the tweet is not). Tips to Instapundit.

Will corruption undermine the accuracy (as defined by the CCP) of the system? Will people learn that the system itself is corrupt and just one more means of corrupt officials to extort money from people desperate to have a good social credit score? And will the people of China add this to the long line of grievances that they have against the Chinese Communist Party?

And more broadly, will the social credit system even if it works as intended simply kill the goose that laid the golden egg?

But hey, maybe the grievances don't need to wait for that development to have a dire effect. Cue the Wuhan Flu coronavirus:

Back on January 21 last year, Chinese President Xi Jinping told a gathering of senior officials that they must be on guard against “black swans” and “grey rhinos” which could threaten the rule of the Communist Party amid a slowing economy.

At that time, Xi’s use of animal metaphors sparked discussions among observers who generally interpreted his warnings as being related to different kinds of economic risks. “Black swans” are events that cannot be predicted but have a profound impact on markets, while “grey rhinos” are known risks that have the potential to cause great harm but which people choose to ignore.

One year later, Xi’s wildlife metaphors about the dangers facing the country have proved prophetic on a more literal level.

But we just don't know what the impact of this will be. But it could be a big deal:

Diseases emerge with some frequency. But given the Chinese dynamic and China’s current condition, the virus could readily evolve into a geopolitical and political event, in which tension within China might explode, with the coronavirus the last straw and China’s international position transformed.

To emphasize, I have no idea what “2019-nCoV” is or what it will do, but judging from what is being said about it and the level of anxiety, I will assume for the sake of argument that it is more dangerous than not.

Maybe a black-snake virus or a corrupt grey bureaucracy will be the source of a decisive threat to the CCP. "Rise people, who do not wish to be slaves," indeed.

Heck, before the social credit system pilot program can be rolled out to the entire PLA, will the leadership of the military that sees itself as the defender of China decide they have to save the country from the narrowly concerned CCP before the military is neutered with a snip-snip of the system applied to them?

Return of Deterrence to Europe

I don't mind comparisons of our revival of Army prepositioned stocks in Europe to the Cold War REFORGER program because I think the people at the top know the difference between that program and the modern version; and most civilians have no idea what REFORGER was designed to achieve.

Still, the discussion by Carafano is useful. And I'm all on board this:

For starters, the U.S. needs a bigger continuous footprint in Europe. Instead of the current three brigades, four would make more sense. The U.S. also needs a forward-deployed higher headquarters—like a corps-level command.

I wanted a corps to remain in Europe in this old Military Review article (see pages 15-20), and I still think that is a good idea.

I remain torn in this new era of great power competition over whether the corps should be a heavy one to fight in Europe or a more deployable one able to also extend its reach to an arc of crisis from West Africa to Afghanistan.

Maybe a parachute brigade, an up-gunned Stryker brigade, and three armored brigades as part of a corps (plus prepositioned stocks) would be good.

But I'd also pay good money to replace one of the heavy brigades with a true honest-to-God armored cavalry regiment for the Baltic states.

Certainly remember that modern Russia is not USSR in its ability to pose a threat to Europe. The USSR could threaten the alliance and break the West in Europe. Short of mass use of nukes, Russia can only make relatively small territorial gains (but can they hold them?) without posing an existential threat to the West.

UPDATE: I don't care where the new 4th corps headquarters is based in America. What I'm happy about is that forward elements will be based in Europe:

The Army has said the new corps headquarters will include more than 600 soldiers based in the U.S. and will maintain a rotational command post of about 200 troops in Europe.

Great power competition in Europe requires the ability to command larger number of formations.

Weekend Data Dump

Some of the media apoplexy over Trump's impeachment acquittal is likely due to the media's enthusiastic role in sustaining the Trump candidacy back in early 2016 when they thought it would be hilarious to disrupt the Republican nominating contest and pave the way for President Hillary with a cupcake opponent. Oops. The do-over failed. And now they can really stew in their role in getting America to this place. I don't mind where we are. But they do mind very much.

Turkey is trying to kill two birds with one jihadi stone: "Syrian militants affiliated with groups such as al-Qaida and the Islamic State group are currently being sent by Turkey to fight on behalf of the U.N.-supported government in Libya, according to two Libyan militia leaders and a Syrian war monitor." As the Assad-Russian offensive continues to crush rebel strongholds in Idlib province over Turkish protests, the last thing Turkey wants are large numbers of defeated Turkish-supported jihadis running loose to cause problems inside Turkey. So sending the jihadis to Libya where they can kill Turkish enemies there while dying or at least going wild far from Turkey is a good idea for Turkey. China did this on a larger scale in the Korean War where they sent former KMT soldiers captured in the civil war to fight and die against the UN forces.

The Navy has been pretty active in conducting Freedom of Navigation Operations in the South China Sea in defiance of Chinese territorial claims. But while the article says the FONOPs have not made China back down from their claims, that isn't the purpose. The purpose is to not validate those claims by failing to protest them. We achieve that. Also, contrary to the article many (all?) of the so-called FONOPs in the Obama administration were not true FONOPs.

Strategypage discusses the China virus factory and the China "virus" that scares OBOR pathway states.

Adam Schiff is batsh*t crazy: "Trump could offer Alaska to the Russians in exchange for support in the next election, or decide to move to Mar-A-Lago permanently and leave Jared Kushner to run the country, delegating to him the decision whether they go to war." The coronoavirus is nothing compared to Trump Hysteria Condition.

Haha:

Seriously, I've written as much.

Again, for all that Democrats accuse Republicans of being racist, Joy Reid accuses Buttigieg of appealing to Democratic voters with a racist "dog whistle."

The people who think they can run America like a well-oiled machine if only they had the power to control it can't run a single day of vote-counting in a place they've been doing this every four years. This should not just be a lesson for Democratic control, of course. Nobody has the information and wisdom to control our economy as every experiment in socialism shows, whether in benign versions in Scandinavia or in dictatorships like the USSR or Venezuela.

Looking back at liberal privilege a year ago in Virginia. 

Strategypage discusses virus generation in China and the democracy virus in this podcast. Interestingly enough they mention the issue of the potential for multiple countries within the empire's current borders if things go really bad for the CCP.

In theory I have no problem with Iraqis government officials wanting to tackle ISIL without American help. In the long run, that's great. But if it makes their counter-terrorism efforts fail or allow Iran to gain or even just retain influence, that's bad. I bet the Iraqi military wants American support since they are at the pointy end of the stick.

Well, this was at least a slight step up the sanity ladder from this:


Romney voted for one of the two impeachment charges. I'm sure he had a binder full of reasons. May he enjoy his rehabilitation in the media that called him a homophobic, Russia-obsessed 1 percenter Nazi in 2012. If he truly voted to convict based on his sense of what is right, I'll grant him a point for courage. But deduct for bad judgment on concluding what is right and wrong under the circumstances. I would not figuratively exile him, because I assume he hasn't gone full "woke" and should be a generally reliable conservative vote in the Senate. Never punish the 80% ally at the risk of getting a 100% foe.

So rather than being a serious effort to remove Trump the impeachment was servicing the fan base of the Democrats? That makes sense. Just think of CNN and MSNBC as competing political porn channels with Democrats as their excited customer base. But despite the stroking Pelosi gave her caucus before the Senate vote, what will the frustrated fans do without a happy ending? Tips to Instapundit.

Afghanistan.

Reading this story about the Iowa caucus imbroglio makes me think of people trying to take control of the bridge of the Democratic ship to sail it to the White House. And then you realize that the ship is the RMS Titanic that hit an iceberg called Shadow whose visible tip concealed the 90% "disorganization and stupidity" that sank the event--and they should be heading for the too-few life boats rather than the bridge.

I really should laugh at this given how their fans sneer at doubters. Tip to Instapundit.

Another university researcher nabbed for working for China. And more keep showing up. Those Confucius Institutes on American university campuses are clearly espionage hubs and not "just" propaganda arms of the Chinese Communist Party. They should be shut down ASAP and their records seized to figure out the extent of their penetration of our society.

Sure, there are a lot of reasons why Iran and America could clash in Iraq. But the basic reason is that the battle with Iran over Iraq is essentially Phase IX of the Iraq War begun in 2003. I'm hoping this phase is less military than past phases. A stable Iraq with rule of law is our best weapon. But mostly I'm hoping we win this phase. If you lose the last phase you've forfeited the prior wins.

No word if Li Wenliang was hospitalized in the same facility that Jeffrey Epstein was held. He doesn't seem to be in the demographic (34 years old) for high mortality, does he? Or maybe he's alive. Hope so. Tips to Instapundit. No, sadly he is dead and the Chinese Communist Party is working hard to eliminate the tributes to his courage in defying--and ending--the cover up. Communists are evil bastards. Treat them accordingly.

The Yemen clusterf*ck continues. Although just because the place is totally screwed no matter which way you look at it, nobody should want Iran positioned along the Strait of Mandeb where it could interdict oil traffic or our sea line of communication to the Middle East.

So who set up Afghanistan's vote-counting system? The Iowa Democratic Party?

Give the Kenyans the college credit and give them immigration priority.

Hahahahahaha! Some influential people are experiencing some consequences for illegal immigration sanctuary policies. Are they having fun yet?

Sad but funny. I've bitterly complained about that deficit and debt issue.

Iran's effort to create a "Shia crescent" across the Middle East is faltering--now that America is opposing rather than enabling mullah-run Iran's ambitions. The article describes efforts supported by America to rein in and tame the pro-Iran militias that I've mentioned in the past. That still needs to be done, of course. And until then we should highlight Iran's desire to fight its enemies to the last dead non-Iranian Moslem.

American pilots flying over enemy territory will have a compact version of the M-4, the GAU-5A, in case they need to hold off enemies until rescue arrives.

The Indian defense budget is dropping after accounting for inflation. Modernization or replacement of aging weapons is reduced to continue to pay personnel salaries and pensions. China smiles. The article mentions that India still hasn't contracted to replace 126 fighters despite deciding to do that nearly a decade ago. I called that the most important Indian defense decision of the last decade. Oh well, what's the rush, eh? What level of disaster will India have to face to fix their dysfunctional weapons procurement industry?

I was never happy that Israel cooperated with China by sharing Lavi technology that was based on the F-16. Israel abandoned the Lavi and China's version the J-10 just can't attract foreign sales.

Iraq's Grand Ayatollah Sistani called on the government to protect Iraqi protesters--which certainly implies that the government or Iranian actors acting in the government's name shouldn't actively murder protesters. I'm amazed Sistani is still alive and just about prayed for his survival during the Iraq War. But if we are in Phase IX the war is still going on.

Trump fired Gordon Sondland from his position as the ambassador to the European Union. I don't think we should have any ambassador to the EU. Do we have an ambassador to the Model United Nations? We should appoint an ambassador to the EU the minute after France gives up its United Nations Security Council permanent member seat to the EU.

Lesbos is a pilot program for the idea that there is no limit to how many illegal immigrants can arrive in Europe without causing problems. What a shock that people turn to radicals for solutions when the "responsible" politicians refuse to do anything to help.

Oh good, another war on wasteful and fraudulent government spending. I'm sure this time for sure it will work. If Trump can succeed, good for him. But bloating the government budget first as he and every other president has done just makes the basic problem bigger.

When Chris Matthews is a voice of cautionary reason--and the loonies bolster his point. I am repulsed by Sanders and his "socialist" ilk, because as I noted in this data dump: Bernie Sanders was having a drunken ball with his Soviet friends in the Soviet Union on June 13, 1988. By contrast, I was having a very bad day on 13 JUN 88--but at least I had grenades to look forward to the next day." Tip to Instapundit.

I listened to and sometimes watched the State of the Union address. It was a good speech and used guests to illustrate themes just as past presidents have done. I have no idea what the heck the media was talking about in their fearful descriptions of the speech. I do not want whatever they're taking, that's for sure. And as I've said, I'd give good money if a president would simply send the SOTU in written form to be read--or ripped up in Pelosi's case--out of the spotlight. But in our video age that isn't going to happen because it is a lot of free advertising for the president and even some for those present but in opposition.

Members of Congress are calling for investigations into the practice of the Chinese Communist Party mouthpiece China Daily of putting hundreds of pieces of propaganda into the Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, and New York Times disguised to resemble news articles. The Chinese paid for those pieces, of course. Fake news meddling in our daily life and not just during election season, eh?

The Army wants to build up  Army pre-positioned stock (APS) sites in INDOPACOM. Obviously I'm in favor of that.

I've been very worried about the ALIS logistics software that supports all users of the F-35 given what an enemy could learn if it is hacked. Allies weren't too comfortable with this, either. We worried enough to build a replacement called ODIN. Is this just ALIS with a tougher name or does it work?

Hahaha!


The Ukraine crisis where the West battles with Russia. My view is that Russia's 2014 invasion and occupation of portions of Ukraine plus the fact that pro-Russian Ukrainians in Russian-occupied Ukraine can no longer vote in Ukraine has made Ukraine the front line of the West and not just the no-man's land point of contact between Russia and the West. A big battle in that struggle is reducing Ukrainian corruption so that Ukraine isn't just a weaker version of corrupt Russia. Do that and Ukraine can fully take it's place in the West. That first article also notes that Russian control of Crimea allows Russia to project power south. I did say that Russia's direct intervention in Syria in 2015 was not just enabled by Crimean bases, but actually provided a justification for the war with Ukraine.

Russian special forces get an all-weather Mi-8 helicopter.

I'm going to try to draft a succinct description of the whole Russiagate-to-impeachment saga as I see it: "The Obama administration had some reason to believe Russia colluded with the Trump campaign to influence our 2016 election. Rather than investigating and rapidly dismissing such notions as without basis, the administration went too far into its own illegal collusion to find evidence it was true, believing Clinton would win and nothing would come out. After Trump won, the Democrats involved in that illegal collusion of their own have been conducting a spoiling offensive--including impeachment--to remove Trump from office. Or to at least stall and taint Trump administration actions against the Obama administration people for their overly enthusiastic investigation to make that illegal collusion "old news" unworthy of punishment at this late date." There you go.