S.P.Q.A. - The Senate and People of America "America Erit in Orbe Ultima"

I am so glad...

2010-06-05T10:07:00.004-05:00

we have brilliant people who know what a library is leading our country again. Or else our Secretary of State would be doing dumb things like, oh I don't know, forgetting when the Queen's birthday is. Although, admittedly, that could just be a calculated move in the Obama administration's continuing campaign against one of our best allies. I have to rule that possibility out though, "never ascribe to malice that which is adequately explained by incompetence".

So no righty consipracy theorists, that also means Obama didn't blow up the Deepwater Horizon and then bungle the response on purpose.

Mexico is descending into chaos, who would have thunk it?

2009-01-14T23:17:00.007-05:00

The news that the U.S. military ranks the collapse of Mexico as a major risk seems to have caught many off-guard. Ed Morrissey over at Hot Air seems to be like many in his surprise at this possibility. I'm not going to pretend I "seriously gamed out what having a failed state on our border would mean" as Mr. Morrissey mentions, but I have raised and at least considered this issue some time ago (although I also will not pretend many people saw it then). This is a post of mine from November 30, 2006 about the growing chaos and possibility of collapse south of our border:

Time to Dust Off War Plan Green

Note: War Plan Green was part of a series of color-coded war plans drawn up by the US military between the World Wars. Green dealt with intervention in Mexico.

Without much media attention, Mexico continues its slide into chaos. Every now and then there will be a story about it, such as yesterday in the Washington Post. It reports that the number of violent deaths in Mexico continues to rise. Although media coverage of this is new, as witnessed by the US travel advisory to Mexico, the violence and chaos are not. With journalists being killed, large cities increasingly ungovernable, gangland shootouts that include RPG’s and machine guns, public officials beheaded, a weak divided government trying to act humanely (this story covers a lot of it), you’d think this would be a story the media would love, but I guess not having the US military to blame is a deal breaker for the media.

At first glance this chaos seems odd. Mexico is a large resource rich nation, with a good level of population growth, Western cultural heritage, and direct access to 1/3 of the world’s economy. The problem is that Mexico has taken almost all of the worst aspects of Western culture, socialism, racism, and xenophobia. Socialism makes it difficult to create wealth and jobs in Mexico. There may be bountiful resources in Mexico but when the government alone owns them they are not efficiently exploited. The xenophobia in Mexico is primarily focused towards the North (though still expect to be greeted by machetes, clubs, and almost no legal rights if you’re from south of Mexico). The xenophobia primarily works with socialism to keep Mexico’s economy inefficient and undercapitalized by keeping out American investors. Better to leave the countries wealth to the whites of Mexico than have the gringos of El Norte “steal it” the people are told and believe. Thus, xenophobia also assists in maintaining Mexico’s terribly racist quasi-apartheid system. Most of the wealth and power in Mexico is concentrated in its white minority that consists of only about 10% of the population. The average income in Mexico is $6,500, for the top 10% it's $24,100, for the bottom 10% $1,040 (from the CIA World Factbook). Essentially 10% live like Western Europeans, 80% like Eastern Europeans, and 10% like Chinese. This places Mexico in the top 10% of most inequitably distributed income countries. These are the seeds of the current growing chaos in Mexico.

To be stable and flourish, Mexico needs to end all three practices, yet the three main parties are focused on only ending socialism (PAN), only ending racism (PRD), or actually reinforcing the old ways (PRI). A growing population can be a blessing if a country has a free market system that can absorb and utilize the extra workers. Since Mexico does not have this, the only safety valve has been to export around 400-500,000 people a year to the hated north. However, even our ability to absorb and utilize this horde is being stressed near, if not past, the breaking point. Add to the witches brew oil and drug cartels and Mexico’s problems only grow. With the oil, the Mexicans can copy the country destroying policies of Hugo Chavez, while the drugs open a route to a Columbia style drug war. In short, don’t expect the chaos to abate anytime in the near future.

This is where War Plan Green comes into play; the Pentagon needs to thoroughly update it. We must make sure we always have enough brigades, even if they are mostly National Guard, ready to move south if the violence becomes severe enough to spill over the border, create a humanitarian crises in northern Mexico, or threaten Mexico’s vital oil exports. We need to have a clear idea of how far we will go, such as only form a security zone in northern Mexico or go all the way to Mexico City, intervene in the chaos or let it rage south of our zone, get involved in the political situation or leave it for the Mexicans to sort out. We further need to plan nationally and encourage affected companies to have their own plans for the economic collapse that unbridled chaos will cause. One of the unfortunate side effects of free trade and globalization is that they have linked the health of our economy to weak unstable economies like Mexico’s (we definitely need more such plans but I doubt any serious ones exist). Venezuela, Bolivia, Columbia, and Argentina are societal meltdowns that we can largely watch from afar, not so with Mexico. Its size, proximity, and enormous émigré population in the US means the chaos there will inevitably spread here.

It would be nice if we could support them now more peacefully. However, since anti-Americanism was used to define Mexican identity long before even Canada existed, it is next to impossible for us to help in any overt and effective manner. We agreed to a free trade deal with Mexico, and we have taken their surplus population for 30 years running, we've provided an example, there’s not much more we can do to help. This could develop into a very serious problem right in our backyard in the near future so we should at least be prepared. I only hope the President hasn’t allowed his unabashed love of anything from south of the border to cloud his judgment on this issue.

2008-07-24T13:03:00.001-05:00

The following two posts just link to the various topical pages of my blog for anyone who has the time to burn reading my older posts. If you do, enjoy.

2008-07-24T13:00:00.000-05:00

Barack "the Quayle" Obama strikes again

2008-07-22T13:56:00.006-05:00

I haven’t written much about Obama’s inability to string 2 words together when he’s not reading from a teleprompter (indeed, I haven’t written much at all about anything), but Obama’s latest mangled attempt at speech is too funny.

As we all know in Obama’s world there are 57 states, 10 year presidencies, Arkansas is closer to Kentucky than Illinois, he’s already president prior to the election (sort of Alice in Wonderland like there, president now, election later), they speak Arabic in Afghanistan, and kids with asthma use breathalyzers and “inhalators”. Now though, he has comforted Israel with these words:

“Well, let me -- let me be absolutely clear. Israel is a strong friend of Israel's. It will be a strong friend of Israel's under a McCain government -- administration. It will be a strong friend of Israel's under an Obama administration. So that policy is not going to change.”

That’s good to know that Israel’s policy of being a strong friend of itself won’t change regardless of the outcome of the US election. Shame Obama didn’t take the opportunity to express American support for Israel, ahh well, he’s a Democrat so it would be halfhearted support at best anyways. I am though looking forward to the view of the “Greatest orator since Pericles” on such issues as Jordan’s support for Jordan, France’s support for France, Germany’s support for Germany. Just to help Obama out a little, there’s 16 lander (states) in Germany, they speak French in France, Jordan borders Israel, and for God’s sake don’t engage in another foreign sport like bowling while overseas, stick with your native basketball. Also, we call the government a president leads an administration not a.... oh, I'm a little too late on that one.

A couple liberal canards rear their heads courtesy Obama

2008-05-15T12:51:00.013-05:00

Aside from revealing yet again how much of a lightweight he is in foreign policy (here's my take on his brilliant I'll invade Pakistan comments), Obama mentioned a two favorite leftwing talking points in his recent speech in Cape Girardeau, MO. When talking about why there aren't more NATO troops in Afghanistan he boiled it down to a simple cause, they are mad about Iraq so they refuse to help in Afghanistan. That is wrong for many reasons as it assumes,

Non-Anglo NATO forces that are in Afghanistan are helping. They aren't by and large unless conducting traffic or manning the copier in Kabul are considered "helping".

Non-Anglo NATO countries would be helping in Afghanistan sans Iraq. It is equally, I would argue more but for the sake of argument I'll say equally, possible that there would be fewer NATO troops in Afghanistan as it would be the "bad war" absent Iraq. A similar dynamic can be seen amongst US Democrats, switching from opposition/resigned acquiescence to support for Afghanistan after Iraq.

Non-Anglo Europe was all out opposed to the Iraq invasion and we forced it down their throats. Simply not true, most of Europe (I'm referring to governments of course) supported the Iraq War and/or the subsequent occupation.

Non-Anglo NATO countries have hordes of soldiers just waiting to rescue us in Afghanistan (or Iraq in some cases). Last year Continental Europe proved unable to provide a few thousand soldiers and 9 helicopters to support the NATO mission in Afghanistan, not for lack of support for the mission but for far more tangible reasons.

These last two points are what I want to focus on since they just happen to be the topics of three of my first posts on this blog back in June 2006. The first deals with the incorrect notion that "Europe" was monolithically or even mostly opposed to the Iraq War, the second with the idea that Germany could provide many 10's of thousands of soldiers to support us if we were nicer, and the 3rd is the same as the second but covers France. The last two were written some 2 years ago so some of the specifics are out of date (budgets, "current" deployments, the German military is reorganizing, etc) but they remain accurate overall. They also deal with Iraq, but if they don't have the capacity to help us in Iraq they don't have it to help us in Afghanistan.

The "Europe refused to help us in Iraq" Myth

(Green are countries who helped in Iraq, Red those who didn't, and Gray are those with reason not to.)

When dealing with why some European countries (e.g. France and Germany) did not help us in Iraq, it can be easily forgotten that most of Europe (24 countries) has in fact helped us. True they have not sent large numbers of soldiers, never more than 25,000 in total, but that is because they suffer from many of the same problems and constraints as France and Germany. That they still managed to send some soldiers further shows the venal and self-serving nature of France and Germany’s refusal to help even in a limited capacity.

Continue reading post...

The Phantom Euro Army Part 1 - Germany

One of the major complaints about George Bush's foreign policy is that by giving the Europeans short shrift, he kept them from providing the soldiers that would have made the Iraq occupation much easier. It is taken as simple fact that the lack of forces from certain European countries in Iraq is due to Bush's hubris and nothing else. If only Bush had asked pretty please and had a tea party with Chirac and Schroeder there would be tens of thousands of French, German, and other European soldiers in Iraq today. However, if the European militaries are analyzed it becomes apparent that no matter how nice and "multilateral" (apparently the multi part only applies when you hit the 33rd ally, since having only 30 or so allies is clearly being alone) Bush was, there simply could not be any significant numbers of French, German, or Belgian soldiers in Iraq.

First up is the Bundeswehr. It is a decent sized force on paper with some 250,000 soldiers. Its budget is only $30 billion which means the Bundeswehr is one of the least well funded militaries in NATO at only $116,000 per soldier. This compares to a nuclear-adjusted $245,000 for the U.S. Military.

Continue reading post...

The Phantom Euro Army Part 2 - France

This is the second post on whether some European states could have sent significant numbers of soldiers to Iraq. The contention is that Bush has been rude to Europe and therefore they will not send soldiers to help in Iraq. This, I think, is not supported by the facts. The reality is most European countries do not have many soldiers to send nor the financial and/or political means to do so if they wanted. The first post covered Germany and this one deals with France.

France's armed forces have around 200,000 soldiers in their ranks. Though this is 20% less than Germany, the French military budget is 50% larger at $45 billion. Around $4 billion does need to be subtracted from this to account for the Force de Frappe (nuclear forces) that Germany and most countries do not possess. This leaves $41 billion which is a respectable $205,000 per soldier.

Continue reading post...

Essentially, no amount of making nice, cajoling, policy changing can entice Continental Europe to provide more soldiers for either Iraq or Afghanistan. While Europeans may wish to delude themselves into believing that it can for obvious reasons (no Emperor wants to point out they have no clothes), we need to be a bit more cognizant and realistic about Europe's very real limitations in the global power realm. This goes especially for our potential future presidents, not that any of the three particularly stand above the other two in this regard.

Democrats and the Phony "Phony Soldiers" Controversy

2007-10-04T13:52:00.000-05:00

I'm sure pretty much everyone has by now heard about the Democrats slamming Rush Limbaugh for suposedly calling anti-war soldiers "phony soldiers" even though he was calling phony anti-war soldiers "phony soldiers". There's not much to add to that since you can go to Rush Limbaugh's webpage and read what he really said if you so care to. I do, however, have a bone to pick with the Democrats.

There have been frequent Democrat smears of our troops (reminscent of Genghis Khan, same as Gulag torturers, terrorists terrorizing the Iraqi people, etc.) for which they have been unapologetic. When last month a liberal group called General Petreus "General Betray US" half the Democrat's in the Senate couldn't even bring themselves to condemn it. This is not to even mention the Democrat's problems with substantive support for the troops (such as supporting more money for their needs and not using defense budget bills as political pawns). Now though, we hear paeans from various Democrats about the anti-war soldier and they rush to the defense of soldiers who disagree with the war (or so they would have us believe). I suppose it's a start since there is at least one kind of soldier the Democrats have decided to support, now what about the rest of our soldiers? When will the Democrats decide to support them?

Now for my own opinion of anti-war soldiers. So long as they don't use their views to affect the morale of their unit I support them as much and believe they are as patriotic as the rest of our military. They are the true representation of the "patriotic dissent" liberals blather about to try excuse their lack of patriotism. Opposing a war is perfectly fine and patriotic, seeking to bring about your country's defeat is not. As such anti-war soldiers deserve all the respect and support that pro-war soldiers do. I know they have, do, and always will get it from me and I've never heard them not get it from Rush.

As for anti-war politicians, such as the Democrats and a few Republicans, "patriotic dissent" is also not trying to sabotage your country's foreign policy in a time of war. The patriotic thing to do would be to voice opposition to the war but actively seek to help bring it to a victorious conclusion. That would include doing things like voicing support for our soldiers, not using every setback for political gain, voting for a bigger defense budget to increase combat pay, equipment procurement, number of soldiers, and so forth to ensure that our military has everything it needs to win the war. Politicians who disagree with the war could then use their maturity in dealing with our nation's interests to have a civil debate about how our foreign policy should be conducted. They could possibly persuade the country that their ideas are better without serious acrimony since they have shown they will always put America's interest first. Last but not least, they would give our soldiers the comfort of knowing they will not be defeated in Washington and deny the enemy the comfort of thinking what they can't win on the battlefield can be won in Washington.

Barack Obama will o-bomba Pakistan until it ba-rocks

2007-08-01T12:50:00.000-05:00

I don’t write many blog posts anymore but there is a steady if smallish stream of visitors and this story is quite a whopper.

Well the media is giddy since Obama is showing the country he's tough, grrr, he's tough. Unfortunately for us and the world, the kind of toughness Obama is displaying is precisely the kind of poorly thought out toughness for which liberals are famous. The reasons why invading Pakistan is a bad idea are as numerous as they are sundry. To name a few that come immediately to mind (although apparently not to Obama's mind after several days), Pakistan is to some degree an ally, has a population of 170 million, has nuclear weapons that could easily fall into terrorist hands, is mountainous, borders a major important country (India), it’d be difficult to support large operations there, would block our access to Afghanistan, etc. etc.

Why then when it should be so quickly evident that this a foolish idea that could quickly make Iraq look like a minor operation would Obama even discuss doing it? Well during last year’s fighting between Hezbollah and Israel I mentioned the lashing out to look tough mentality of the left,

“It's not obvious that the Israeli government has a clear idea of what it is doing. While the campaign appears to be a typical interdiction campaign to prepare for a ground invasion, it could also just be the outgrowth of a hit back and look tough policy that Olmert has lost control of. Olmert’s Kadima government is essentially left-wing and such poorly thought out strategic policies are common amongst left-wing leaders (think Bill find-me-an-aspirin-factory-and-empty-tents-to-bomb Clinton and Lyndon find-me-jungle-to-carpet-bomb Johnson).”

I suppose if he is elected president we’ll have to add Barack find-me-a-madrassa-to-smart-bomb Obama to that list of Democrat luminaries.

Obama wanting to invade a perhaps not active enough ally while feting our active enemies basically sums up everything that is wrong with the majority of the Democratic Party’s foreign policy views. While pretty much all Democrats are in favor of appeasing our enemies in Tehran, Damascus, Caracas, and Pyongyang, I know not all Democrats would support invading Pakistan. However, whether they want to “get tough” with Israel and Saudi Arabia, cut business ties with the UAE and India, or anger important allies Japan and Turkey with demands of apologies for past behavior they are still in favor of treating our allies worse than they would treat our enemies.

I suppose with a Democrat Party that doesn’t understand if you punish work and reward sloth you get more of the latter and less of the former it’s too much to expect Democrats to understand that punishing allies and rewarding enemies doesn't increase the former or reduce the latter.

Some year old yet still relevant thoughts on Illegal Immigration

2007-06-28T14:22:00.000-05:00

I probably should have done this earlier seeing as the Senate has somehow managed to bow to public opinion on illegal immigration already. At any rate, since this is a major issue of the day here are a three posts I wrote about last years "comprehensive immigration reform" that work equally well today.

The first compares the economic dislocation of mass low-skill illegal immigration to the Latifundia of ancient Rome which were instrumental in destroying the Roman Republic's economy.

The second compares the social upheavel mass low-skill illegal immigration to the social upheavel caused by the mass importation of barbarian foederati to the late Roman Empire.

The third and last one deals with my ideas for dealing with illegal immigration. Some of it is standard fare, secure the border and attrit, but some of it is new I think (I can't be certain of course) such as a plan to fly captured illegals to southern Mexico instead of bussing them to the other side of the border and an idea for every increasing terms at a detention center (1 month second time, 2 months third time, etc.).

Even though the Senate ended the President's dreams of being "El Grande Gringo" this is still an important issue of course. Although we are in no where near as bad a position as ancient Rome on this issue I think history, and common sense, shows it could potentially cause major crises down the road.

One Final Thought

2007-05-03T10:04:00.000-05:00

The political situation in Israel is I think a fitting summation of the basic beliefs I expressed in this blog. Hopefully the grossly incompetent left-wing tetrarchy of Olmert, Livni, Peretz, and Halutz is soon to end. I'm not in Israel so I'm not certain of the exact situation but from news reports it appears the Israeli people would easily elect Benyamin Netanyahu to replace Olmert should he finally give into the near universal pressure to resign.

Part of the reason for this extra post is also that I wanted to give a shout out to Netanyahu. He was one of the first world leaders I became aware of and liked when I was in middle school back in 1995. I think he has served his country extremely well as Prime Minister then and more recently as Finance Minister (where he was called "Thatcherite", all I need to know to like him). With Israel facing potentially the greatest crises in her recent history, and with the US/UK essentially rudderless and apparently unwilling to do anything, I can only hope that for Israel's sake there are elections soon and the Israeli people elect Netanyahu with a sizable margin of victory. If we again leave it to the Jews to deal with our problems they will need a firm, competent, resolute Prime Minister at the helm.

The political problems in Israel are a far more extreme version of the problems besetting the Western world in general. Israel’s case is more extreme since the threat of militant Islam is most acutely felt there and the ineptness of the current prime minister is hard to match. Even though the rest of the West doesn’t stand to lose as much as Israel should militant Islam emerge triumphant, we will still lose plenty. That alone isn’t much to fear since Islam, nor anyone else for that matter, has the slightest hope of defeating a confident responsibly led West. The worrisome aspect of this is that the West seems to be generating a string of actual and potential leaders who are utterly, almost farcically, unsuited to lead. Olmert in Israel may be the most egregious example of this but he is not alone. Canada has Paul Martin, France Dominique de Villipan, Britain Gordon Brown, Germany Gerhardt Schroeder, Italy Romano Prodi, Australia Mark Latham and we in America had John Kerry with Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama waiting in the wings. All of these people share several traits, they are from the far left, consider every problem through domestic political lenses, prefer sweet talk to substantive action, seem to have little understanding of history, national honor, power politics, or shifting global power balances, and view leading their country as another stop on their journey of self fulfillment not as a solemn duty contingent on what’s best for their country (hence the difficulty of getting rid of them as can be seen with Olmert).

Many would compare this current crop of left-wing leaders to the group who led Western democracies in the 1930’s. I think that is unfair to Chamberlain and Daladier. Unlike today’s wannabe appeasers, they at least understood what they were doing, what the potential consequences of their actions were, and why despite that they still considered it worth the risk. They also did wake up to the threat posed by Hitler prior to the war (though it was too late for a democracy to get itself on a war footing in time). Today’s appeasers seem to not know any of those things. It’s also unclear if they will ever wake up seeing as not even the destruction of two of our largest skyscrapers was enough to rouse them. Say what you will about Chamberlain but I’m pretty sure had Hitler bombed Big Ben and St. Paul’s he would have at the very least stopped the appeasement policy. As the adage goes, the first appeasement was a tragedy, this second appeasement, should it happen, would be a farce.

Of course there are good-great leaders still around. I’d obvious list Netanyahu as one but there are several others both in the West and outside of it. I always intended to a series of posts entitled “Jarod’s Leaders” detailing why I like them. Just to list them in no order, they are John Howard of Australia, Alvaro Uribe of Columbia, Junichiro Koizumi and Shinzo Abe of Japan, Vladimir Putin of Russia (probably my favorite), Silvio Berlusconi of Italy, and Jose Aznar of Spain. The most important thing that separates these leaders from the leftist group listed before is that under them their nations have prospered both internally and externally.

So in summation the key points of this is that contrary to what these leftist leaders believe history never ends, the world will keep turning, and success is never final. We in the West need to elect leaders who understand that we can either choose the arduous road of maintaining our peace, prosperity, and security or we will be forced down the terrible road of fighting to hold onto what prosperity and security we can. Otherwise we may learn all too well that while Rome wasn’t built in a day, she did fall in a day.

Europa Declinis

2007-04-15T22:25:00.000-05:00

I apologize, I couldn't resist using that play on Europa Universalis one of my favorite computer games.

The last month or so has really driven home the major shifts underway in the global balance of power that we would be wise to get in front of. Simply put we are seeing global power move, fairly quickly, from the western side of the World Island (Europe) to the eastern half (China, Japan, Russia, and India). Despite this we are still wedded to the institutions and alliances of the old Euro-centric world. This is a very new world for anyone who has lived in the last half millennium so of course it will take some getting used to, but we can’t take too much time.

Of the several European states, only two try to aspire to great powerdom and an active role in international affairs, France and the UK. There are other potentially active European states, most notably Germany and Italy, but Spain, the Netherlands, and Poland also to lesser extents but none comes close to the UK or France. France and Britain are perhaps now more equal in power than at any time in their history. Both have just over 60 million people, economies of a bit over $2 trillion, roughly 200,000 soldiers with around $55 billion in military spending, nuclear forces of about 200 warheads, permanent UN Security Council seats, etc. However, both have been in the news of late having to come to grips with the fact that they aren’t great powers anymore.

First up are the French. The AP has a story about the melancholic funk the French are in as they approach their upcoming election. As anyone who has paid attention to France or the French for the last 200 years knows, they’ve always thought they were still the land of Napoleon, a giant on the international stage who bows to no one (except perfidious Albion but they’re perfidious after all, oh and the Germans but I’m not sure how Frenchies rationalize that one). Apparently they are just now realizing that isn’t the case anymore. While this is understandably depressing for the French, it is always better to be realistic about your actual power and capabilities. The story says some of the causes of the gloomy atmosphere in France are:

1) Large national debt and deficit limiting fiscal options and causing future problems.

2) Average economic growth of only 1.5%, well below Britain, China, America, and below even slow-growth Germany (not mentioned but that would also mean France’s per capita income growth is 1.1% which is even further below Britain, America, and Germany’s PCI growth).

3) Stubbornly high unemployment rate of 8.7% with youth unemployment over 20%.

4) Ethnic riots by the large and growing underclass of immigrants that France neither wants nor can get rid of.

French people have begun leaving in ever larger numbers as a result of these problems. According to a Times story, 2.2 million French have left so far, the rate has increased 40% in the last decade, and is dominated by young educated people with no intention of returning.

Aside from the pride of having the world’s fastest train (wow, am I ashamed of my slower train America), the one point of influence France has had that the French people are proud of is opposing the invasion of Iraq. Yet even that is hollow, the invasion still happened despite French opposition. Indeed if the French goal was to stop the invasion, and not to simply cause as many problems for the US as possible, their opposition was counter-productive. All it did was convince Saddam that his French buddies would prevent the invasion in the UN so he need not comply with UN/US demands thus causing the invasion. This highlights why the French coming to terms with their loss of power will be good. With Iraq the French were presented with three options, 1) stay out of it, 2) join the US, or 3) oppose the US consequences be damned. A great power cannot stay out of the major international issue of its day and still be considered a great power so 1 was out. Joining the US would have necessarily required being second fiddle to the US and losing potential allies who may have problems with the US which is something France as a fiercely independent and proud great power could never countenance. That left France with option 3, opposition for the sake of opposition regardless of its effect on others. Until we finally end, or start ignoring, the old Euro-centric global institutions like the UN we are giving France the ability to cause problems out of all proportion to their global power which makes option 3 very enticing to a power that hasn’t accepted its true place in the world. Since we show no signs of doing either of those things, it will be just as good if the French wake up and understand they aren’t a great power and don’t need to be sticking their noses in everything (I’m assuming actually working with the US will still be a bridge too far for them).

Britain is an altogether different case than France. Whereas France has the will of a superpower with the resources of a middle power, Britain has been more realistic about her position. Britain has been faced with the same three options as France and chose option 2, using her power in convergence with America’s. However, it’s becoming more questionable if the British have the will to keep up with the US anymore. The recent hostage crisis showcased a British military, government, and people not psychologically up to the challenges of even a second fiddle middle power. In addition to the hostage crisis, the British have also retreated before the Taliban in southern Afghanistan and the militia/terrorists in southern Iraq. EU Referendum Blog covers all this in far more detail than I ever could so I’ll defer to them and just summarize it here. The main problem is that the British government is not properly funding its military while sending it on missions the military doesn’t want and its people don’t support. There’s not much that can be done about the people but that’s not as important, leaders are called leaders for a reason after all. The other two military related issued could be corrected with the proper will. The funding shortfalls are perhaps the easier of the two, an extra $5-10 billion a year would suffice. That’s roughly what gets spent on national health care every week or two and pales in comparison to the amount Gordon Brown has showered on health care, education, and social programs in recent years (to no effect but anyways). Seeing as it’s easier and more popular to continue dropping money into the black holes of health care and education I wouldn’t expect military spending to increase significantly anytime soon. The other option would be to have the British military prioritize its current resources better. The Royal Air Force and Navy seem to be stuck in 1989, desiring expensive new toys that would be great at battling the Soviet Union but serve little purpose today. The British Army on the other hand wants expensive hi-tech peacekeeping vehicles that would only be useful where there was no fighting to begin with. I wrote about this problem in more detail before here (again though primarily with links to EU Referendum). The British will always have a welcome place by our side if they are willing to do their part, but it isn’t a major problem if they don’t since they can’t contribute much (and will be able to contribute even less as the years go by) and they haven’t had a policy of rank oppositionalism of the French.

The rest of Europe is dealing with the same declining power and influence that Britain and France are although it’s somewhat masked since the rest of Europe doesn’t have the same history of international influence. The reason is simple enough, Europe has had an extremely low birth rate for over 30 years. With ever shrinking numbers of young people to enter the work force and serve in the military both European economic and military power are diminishing. Though the effects are only recently beginning to show the process itself is easy to recognize and is something I’ve written about frequently. The rapid drop off in births can be seen by looking at the number of males aged 18-49 in 1991 and 2006 (from CIA World Factbook 1992 and 2007). I use the number of males simply because it’s easy to find but also it has a more direct impact on military power but also on economic output to some extent. The trend is revealed by looking at the average number of men at each age and how many are being born each year, it’s not sophisticated but it works. The following table shows how the biggest Western European nations compare to the US in those categories (males in millions, Births in thousands):

While it is true as some argue that low birth rates are not necessarily a permanent feature of Europe the fact is that just as it 30 years of consistently low birth rates before the effect was felt so to will it take 30 years of high birth rates to correct it. The Europeans haven’t yet shown any sign of having more children so we are at least 31 years away. Immigration is another popular salve for the problem but it would be necessary on such a vast scale that it would completely change Europe and most likely not for the better. That's assuming that it doesn't turn out like almost every non-American mass immigration movement and end in discord and bloodshed. Given that a lower level of immigration is causing riots and turmoil in European cities (Paris, Brussels, Malmo, Copenhagen, and so forth), causing military forces to be suspect (France didn't consider using the army against Muslim rioters since 1/7 of the French Army is Muslim) is already changing Europe (pictures of Porky the Pig banned, cops not allowed to eat during Ramadan, two sets of law Sharia for Muslims regular law for the rest, etc) I think it would be difficult to raise the number of immigrants anyhow. Even should Europe raise its low birth rate and somehow manage to integrate immigrants everything is relative and Europe is now permanently behind every other region. Since this is the primary driver of economic and military power, and since it is basically set in stone for decades to come, we can tell that European power will continue this decline.

From the other side of the World Island comes this story about the new space race amongst Asian powers and America. This shows that national pride still means something to some countries and that Asian nations now have the resources to use for unnecessary pride pursuits. Combined with the rapidly growing military budgets of China, Russia, and India along with their acquisition of the newest and most advanced weapons systems and their vying for influence around the globe and it becomes apparent where the future of great power politics rests (I wrote about China and Russia here). The game is a bit muted at the moment since the Asians nations are still getting their feet wet. Nevertheless, in the coming years and decades China, Japan, India, and Russia will all matter more to us and the world than Germany, France, Britain, and Italy. Unless we start taking more steps to adapt to this new world we’ll quickly find our self on the wrong side of the equation.

A quick Iran/Britain post to make up for the missed holiday ones

2007-04-10T15:03:00.000-05:00

Since I never remember when holidays are until the day they happen I should have mentioned last weekend’s posts wouldn’t happen due to Easter. In their place I’ll post a short rumination about the recent hostage crisis.

I’m sure glad I’m not English at the moment given the Iran hostage humiliation. John Derbyshire, resident ex-Englishman and Sinologist over at the National Review, is taking the incident quite hard. One of his latest comments on the rotten state of England is,

“I've told this story before, so I hope I'll be forgiven for telling it again. My Mum, Esther Alice Knowles (1912-98), eleventh child of a pick'n'shovel coal miner, in one of the last conversations I had with her, said: "I know I'm dying, but I don't mind. At least I knew England when she was England."
I discounted that at the time. Old people always grumble about the state of the world. Now I understand it, though. I even feel a bit the same way myself. I caught the tail-end of that old England—that bumptious, arrogant, self-confident old England, the England of complicated games, snobbery, irony, repression, and stoicism, the England of suet puddings, drafty houses, coal smoke and bad teeth, the England of throat-catching poetry and gardens and tweeds, the England that civilized the whole world and gave an example of adult behavior—the English Gentleman—that was admired from Peking (I can testify) to Peru.

It's all gone now, "dead as mutton," as English people used to say. Now there is nothing there but a flock of whimpering Eloi, giggling over their gadgets, whining for their handouts, crying for their Mummies, playing at soldiering for reasons they can no longer understand, from lingering habit. Lower the corpse down slowly, shovel in the earth. England is dead.”

I hate to think of a day when I say the same about my country, especially since unlike Englishmen I have no other country to call home. Nevertheless, despite being American the hostage crisis and the end of England as a proud great nation does hit me hard. It’s like Scipio Aemilianus crying as he watched Carthage destroyed since he knew one day his Rome would suffer a similar fate. As I watch England laid low and humiliated by a pipsqueak third rate power while her people cheer the avoidance of anything difficult I can see that the same fate will eventually befall America. Regardless, whatever happens to my country I do have the consolation of knowing that on my deathbed I will be able to say, “At least I knew America when she was America.”

Iran Hostage Crisis - Day, ..., Far Too Many

2007-03-31T19:53:00.000-05:00

Since school is taking much more time this term than usual my blogging will be well below the normal slow-ish pace for the next three months. Probably mostly weekends now.

Without further ado, it would appear the British sailors and marines are still hostages. This one crisis sums up so much of what’s wrong with the world today. Iran makes an armed attack against the military of a sovereign nation in the territorial waters of another nation and no one, not even the British, care about the violation of diplomatic standards (written about here). If we are not going to require countries live by the rules of civil intercourse, excepting times of war of course, then why should Iran restrict itself by following them? The British resort to diplomacy with a country that doesn’t respect diplomatic norms not because it’s the best choice but because the weak and unsupported British armed forces lack the ability to provide any other options. Once again we are seeing the ineffectiveness of our European allies in international affairs due to their unwillingness to invest the requisite resources to maintain credible military forces (and the British are atthe top of the heap even).

The Ayatollahs only understand force and without the threat of it hanging over their head they have no need to release the Britons until they get what they want from Blair. At the very least they want Britain humiliated. I know many modern post-history lefties think such emotional aspects of international relations no longer matter but they do which is why the Ayatollahs desire it. I do hope Blair holds firm despite a large portion of his countrymen being perfectly willing to trade humiliation for the servicemen. I also hope that Bush is in close consultation with Blair and is willing to help our ally with other options if need be. Diplomacy didn’t get the US hostages freed until President Reagan arrived with a clear willingness to use force to free them if necessary. If it requires the threat/application of American force then so be it, Britain has been a loyal ally and deserves such support.

I also haven’t notice more outrage over the treatment of the British servicemen, the woman in particular. Admittedly, I haven’t been able to follow the news too closely with school and all so I may have just missed it, but does no one else care that they are video taping them and forcing her to wear a headscarf? This behavior is especially egregious in this case since these were combatants who were actually following the laws of war and were illegally captured. Then again as the former Navy commander during the Falkland Wars commented, the hostage aspect of this mess, and probably the entire crisis, could have been avoided if British soldiers were allowed to use their weapons. The Iranians tried this game against American soldiers and only got a few dead Iranians for their trouble (they should have gotten more dead Iranians if you ask me but that’s another post).

Lastly though, Iain Murray over at the National Review notes “Blair has made me ashamed to be British this week. My only consolation is perhaps it will make the British people realize how utterly useless the U.N. is.” Only about 7% of Britons seem to agree with him on the first part. On the second, hehe, fat chance. Oh, and what are US Democrats doing at this moment? Well Speaker Pelosi is giving aid and support to the Syrians and powerful Representative Waxman is berating Sec. Rice over Joe Wilson’s trip to the Niger 5 years ago. Good to see Democrats have their priorities straight.

Russia, China, and the next Global Power Struggle

2007-03-11T15:03:00.000-05:00

The last few weeks have shown more evidence that the current unipolar moment is ending. We are also seeing that the end of the evil Amerikkka’s hegemony won’t be the halcyon end of history imagined by many around the world. In international relations terms, we are simply seeing the end of a period of hegemonic stability that will be followed by a restructuring of the global power order (with all the associated conflicts, struggles, and wars). Though this seems to be surprising to the Washington foreign policy establishment, it of course shouldn’t be .

Much of the recent news centers on our old friend Russia. Vladimir Putin has most expertly returned Russia to the great power game. Signs of Russia’s return have been around for some time and is something I’ve written about frequently (about last year's military budget increase and general mischief, potentially driving the Iran crises, using hard ball tactics with Europe). Prior examples include supporting Iran’s nuclear defiance of the international community, slowly taking control of Europe through controlling its energy supplies, assassinating dissidents and nosey journalists, feeding China’s drive to the south (i.e. away from Siberia), and the general growth in Russia’s economy. The more recent examples include bellicose statements, a revision of Russia’s national security doctrine, and massive increases in military spending. Along with Russia, China is also making noises with her growing economy and even faster growing military budget.

The current bout of bellicosity began with Putin’s bizarre anti-America rant at the Munich conference of defense ministers. It was followed up with a Russian general threatening Poland and the Czech Republic over American anti-missile sites in those countries. Now the Russians have written this new aggressive attitude into their defense doctrine. The Russian Security Council has said the reason for this revision is that, “Armed forces are still being used as an important instrument in maintaining political and economic interests of states, and Russia cannot ignore these factors in developing its military doctrine." In effect, while criticizing the United States for using military force to protect her interests Russia is declaring the use of military force to protect Russia’s interests a necessity. This more active approach will apparently supplement Russia’s more passive-aggressive policies, such as arming Iran and Syria, to cause as many problems for the current great power(s). There is again nothing surprising or bad about this. It’s the way the world works, Russia is a revisionist power with a small sphere of influence so if she can gain a piece of our or others' sphere by causing chaos and problems around the world it’s a net gain.

Russia’s doctrines and statements would mean little if they were not backed up by a growing economy that supported a growing defense budget. Russia is not disappointing on either account. Since Putin ascended to power at the end of 1999, Russia’s economy has grown 23% a year in dollar terms, 7.5% in Purchasing Power Parity, and 11.5% in my own system of accounting for currency adjustment*. Even though it did come off a fairly low base this impressive growth has given Russia the first stable economy that can support a vigorous military in 20 years. As a result, Russia’s official military spending has grown even faster, over 28% a year in dollar terms to $32.4 billion (bottom of the story) and 13.5% in my system referenced above. When adding in the much larger non-official defense spending it means Russia has clearly surpassed Britain, France, and Japan’s $40-50 billion defense budgets and is firmly in third place globally. This is despite the fact that Russia’s economy is only 1/2 the size of Britain and France’s and 1/4 the size of Japan’s. The extra hundreds of billions will be put to good use forming a hi-tech modern Russian military over the coming decade that will be on hand to carry out Russia’s new doctrine of using military force when and necessary to further her interests around the globe.

The Chinese have been somewhat more circumspect as regards their public rhetoric and they haven’t yet formally switched over to a more aggressive posture. They are much more of a actions speak louder than words type nation so this isn’t surprising. Like the Russians they are also taking hostile actions, reorganizing their military into a more professional expeditionary force, and increasing their defense budget by leaps and bounds. Even more so than Russia, China’s economy and ability to support her military has advanced very quickly.

China has been taking ever more non-friendly actions over the years. In the last year alone they tested an anti-satellite missile that created a dangerous debris field for everyone’s satellites, had a submarine shadow a US carrier in international waters, and violated the territory of Japan with planes, ships, and subs in increasing numbers. Not the friendliest of actions but then being friendly to us or anyone isn’t China’s job. China’s army is reorganizing from a large conscript infantry based territorial defense force into a smaller professional mechanized offensive force. At the moment only a handful of units have been converted (3 corps with 12 brigades so far, though I can’t find the link for that). The navy is growing a bit slower at the moment as learning to build and man ships takes a bit of time, but China is doing just that and is preparing for a powerful blue-water fleet in the future. The air force is likewise switching from a poorly trained, obsolete, short range, light air defense force into a better trained, modern, long range, multi-role force. To make this transition to a force capable of projecting Chinese power and influence possible requires vast sums of money. And vast sums of money is what Beijing is providing the Chinese military forces. The latest year will see another double digit increase (17.8%) in official defense spending to $45 billion. As with Russia, the real figure is 2-3 times as high and is by far and away the second largest defense budget in the world. Due to China’s act first explain later policy we’ll realize the impact of this only after they make a move.

Individually, the power of China and Russia is still somewhat limited even though it is growing fast. However, they have reached a point where combined they have the power to resist US power in the world. Over just the last 7 years the economy of Russia and China has risen from 17% of the US’ to almost 30%. Their combined official military spending has reached $77 billion, 15% of the US, this year from $21 billion, 6.5%, in 2001 with the real figures again being 2-3 times higher. They are the new (well, new-old) powers on the international scene and will seek an international order that recognizes their place. We will, along with countries more threatened by Russia and China, attempt to maintain the current system. With their continued rapid economic growth, massive military spending increases, and reorganization of their militaries the Chinese and Russians will have the ability to force a world more amenable to their interests. The result is that the future will be as filled with conflict as the past (the last century exempted most likely). Especially should Democrats continue to gain at the national level and US power, influence, and military spending retrench in the coming years they may prove quite successful.

*I can't quite figure out how to put math symbols like sigma on here but the system is fairly simple, I just multiply the current year's exchange rate by 8, the prior year by 7, etc. and divide the result by 36 to get the adjusted exchange rate. It works fairly well by ironing out the massive gyrations in exchange rates and producing a more realistic dollar GDP value for most countries that still accounts for variations in currency values.

Democrat is as Democrat does- Part 2

2007-03-07T11:27:00.000-05:00

Seems I spoke too soon in my last post about the Democrats backing off from cutting military funds and/or using the money to try to dictate foreign policy to the President. According to Politico.com, Speaker Pelosi did back off but she is now facing a major revolt among the hard left core of the Democrat Party. I haven’t paid very much attention to the inner workings or power divisions of the Democrats so I have no idea if this is a minor nuisance, a major problem, or something that can and will change policy. At the very least it will just add to the worries of the military as mentioned before.

However, whatever its end result this does bring up another issue, the importance of voting by party and not by candidate these days. The problem is that no one candidate will have a major effect on party policy. The major impact they will have is to increase the power of the very liberal or conservative elements of the Democrat and Republican parties respectively. Due to gerrymandering both parties have around 110-140 safe seats that are ideologically at the extreme of the party. They will usually make up the majority of their party, but more importantly they will occupy almost all of their party’s leadership positions. This will more often than not lead to the current situation where the voters elected a pro-military Congress but by also putting the Democrats in the majority they essentially put the anti-military far left of the Democrat Party in charge.

Democrat is as Democrat does

2007-03-03T17:57:00.000-05:00

As I fully expected prior to last year’s election, the Democrats have made moves towards cutting military spending a few days ago. I would hardly rate my pre-election post as a prediction as knowing what the Democrats will do is not terribly difficult. Nevertheless, they managed to convince millions of pro-military Americans otherwise and so here we are. The Democrats plan was to reduce $20 billion from President Bush’s $140 billion supplemental bill. To lessen the political hit they would take they promised to increase funding over the next few years; a promise that could and would be easily forgotten. I could go on about why the $20 billion is needed for new equipment and supplies this year not next year but since the Democrats quickly backtracked there isn’t much point. It seems only the realization that a Republican President and Senate filibuster would prevent the reduction while not preventing the political damage caused them to hide their true colors. This does show however what the military will have to deal with while the Democrats have any political power. The Democrats can consider defeat desirable, deem sacrifice for one’s country to be a waste, and think people in our military are the dregs of society whether they are in power or not, but they can only make it happen if they are in power. Though we have, we shouldn’t be adding to our soldiers, sailors, Marines, and airmen’s hardships and worries like this. We’re stuck for now but I can only hope that barring a near miraculous change of heart by the modern Left the American people will see fit to correct, or at least not compound, this situation in 2008.

The Many Shades of Gray in the Iran Conflict

2007-02-26T15:59:00.000-05:00

The Iraq series I had planned turned out to be a bigger bite than I could chew, so enough of the past for a moment. The Wall Street Journal Editorial Report had an interesting discussion of the Iran crises last week. I think it highlights a key point about the current confrontation with Iran, our only options are not war or direct diplomacy. This is a part of the situation with Iran that seems to be ignored in the current brouhaha.

The first part of the show was an interview with Amir Taheri, an Iranian columnist. They discuss whether diplomacy is even possible with the current Iranian regime. Taheri, like me, does not believe it is. He bases his belief on the revolutionary nature of the Iranian regime that he says makes it implacable and unable to compromise like prior revolutionary states. I’ve written before (here and somewhat here) on why I think it is ludicrous to expect any diplomatic solution with Iran. Even though it is always an important element, I don’t focus as much on the human side of Iranian policy. Instead I base my view on a simple power politic calculation that is undoubtedly understood in Teheran. That calculation is that there is at this time nothing to be gained for the Iranian regime by compromising. In the language of the left, rejecting the white option of diplomacy means only the black option of war. Why the left insists on viewing the world in such black and white terms I don’t know, but there are a range of gray options from aggressive diplomacy to undeclared war between diplomacy and war. Taheri touches on this because anyone who says that we can’t negotiate with Iran is immediately tagged by the left as a warmonger,

Gigot: And so the implications of that for U.S. policy have to be regime change? Is that your argument?
Taheri: Yes, it has to be a policy aimed at helping Iran to really become an ordinary nation-state and stopping the revolution. This doesn't mean, of course, invading Iran. Because as soon as you say that you can't talk to these Iran, people think that I am preaching an invasion and full-scale war. No. This is--the important thing is to realize that you cannot make a deal with this regime, because even if its leaders wanted to make a deal, they can't. They are--their DNA would not allow it. They are programmed not to make a compromise. Therefore, the long-term or midterm policy should be regime change. This could be achieved by supporting the Iranian opposition inside the country, by trying to reduce the price of oil, by helping the new emerging regional alliance against Khamenei's regime. There are lots of things one could do. And this is a very weak regime fundamentally. It has lost its revolutionary legitimacy inside Iran. It is trying to gain a new legitimacy, and it is really in a vulnerable position.

This list of actions is a good start and entirely in line with the process of effecting regime change without a war. I would argue in addition that we should encourage Iran to become an ethno nation-state with the slogan “Persia for the Persians”. This would be simply a replay of the Reagan strategy for subverting the Soviet Union. Iran and the USSR are very similar in many regards. Both had/have global ambitions, both had/have terrible economies and had/have to rely on weakness in the West to allow their victories, both of their populations were/are only 51-53% of the core ethnicity but had/have 20-25% of their minorities of the same ethnic stock as the core, both were/are heavily dependant on oil exports. Against the Soviets our subversion campaigned consisted of economic action by collapsing the price of oil, the USSR’s primary export, engaging in an arms race that ruined the weak Soviet economy, fighting the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan through proxies (though I’d say with hindsight we went a bit too far in that regard), destabilizing the Soviet hold on their empire in Eastern Europe, being as ready as possible to defeat the USSR in a war, and ultimately encouraging the subject peoples of the Soviet Union to demand better treatment that led to the formation of a smaller “Russia for the Russians”. A similar strategy today would involve Taheri’s ideas above along with economic sanctions, fighting the Iranians in Iraq, destabilizing their hold on the Levant, being as ready as possible for an all out war, and perhaps encouraging the subject peoples in Iran to demand better treatment or independence. Of course the Mullahs could decide, unlike the Soviets, to drag the whole country down with them. If they do it is their decision, not ours, and the Iranian people will see it as such. If, contrary to all expectations, they do decide to deal and compromise then we will be able to do so from a position of strength and be able to demand a cessation of terrorism, the nuke program, Iran’s ambitions in the Middle East, more freedom for the Iranian people, and so forth in return for normalized relations.

On the issue of a war with Iran, the left and media is not content to just say its either talks or war, they also say there is only one type of war possible, one like the Iraq War in 2003. Apparently, our only options to fight Iran are to mass half a million soldiers on Iran’s border and occupy the entire country. The Washington Post had an article (I thought by Anne Applebaum, but I can’t seem to find it) detailing all the reasons why we can’t invade and occupy all of Iran. Yes, they are 100% true. Without a major mobilization and massive increase in military spending, we do not have the capability to occupy a mountainous nation of 70 million competent people. That does not mean that is our only possible strategy. We never had the manpower to contemplate occupying all of the Soviet Union, and vice versa, but that didn’t stop war plans and preparations on both sides. The British and French had nowhere near the capacity to occupy the Russian Empire in 1854, they didn't let that stop them from fighting against Russian expansion into the Balkans. Lastly, the Prussians didn’t have the capability to occupy and enforce regime change on either Austria or France in 1866 and 1870 but they still formulated a war plan that achieved their aims without occupying either of those countries. What then would a US war with Iran look like? Something like the Kosovo War mixed with the Crimean War. The Kosovo War relied entirely on bombing Serbia until the leadership had had enough and overthrew Milosevic. The Crimean War involved a blockade of Russia, attacks on a few key ports, and the occupation of the Crimea Peninsula (to damage Russia’s position in the Black Sea area), and support for the Ottoman forces fighting the Russians in modern day Romania. A war with Iran would most likely consist of a powerful air campaign that would destroy Iranian infrastructure at a methodical pace, a full blockade of Iran with the seizure of key ports like Bandar Abbas, an invasion of oil producing and flat Khuzestan province, the destruction of any Iranian forces that attempt to attack outside of Iran, and possibly support for Kurdish, Baluchi, and other rebels fighting the Ayatollahs. The war would then continue until either the leadership overthrows Ahmadinejad and the Mullahs, the current leadership agrees to our demands, or Iran is weakened to such a degree that the campaign could be suspended.

The main point I’m trying to make here is that if diplomacy is rejected it does not automatically mean war, and if war does occur there are other ways of fighting it that do not include the unlikely or impossible. The left and the media will try to make it a case of if not A then B, and B is impossible so therefore it must be A. However, the world does not exist in such diametric tones. The Ayatollahs may see the world that way, but we can far more effectively advance peace, prosperity, and America’s interests by understanding that it is not.

Iraq Part 2: Why We Should Have Invaded

2007-02-20T11:40:00.000-05:00

The first part of my Iraq series, over where we're going in my opinion is here, and the introduction is here. This is a very long post, lots of reasons, but well worth the read whether you favored the Iraq war or not I think.
This isn't the completed post yet, due to a schoolwork surge (engineering projects are fun) and the overall difficulty of preparing this post (maps, tables, old news stories and such), I've written 14 of 16 reasons so far. The rest will of course be added as they're completed.
All maps are courtesy of the CIA so I don't think there's any issue using them. I also realize that my additions are crudely drawn at best.

The second part of my series on Iraq is about the reasons we should have toppled Saddam. I haven't written much about Iraq simply because most of the arguments over it are essentially over ancient news. Like it or not it happened, the important thing is what to do now. However, since a lot people seem to have either forgotten or never knew that there were many valid reasons for invading Iraq I figured I'd add them into an Iraq series. This is generally from reasons I developed prior to 2000 and fleshed out for chat room debate, if it can be called "debate", prior to 2003. Anyways, onto the matter at hand, I should note that I don’t agree with all of Bush’s stated reasons for invading Iraq so there are differences on key reasons (I’d also add spare me the flurry of comments over WMD’s but I don’t get a flurry in the best of times so knock yourself out). I of course have no idea what convinced President Bush to order the invasion so I’m not saying we invaded for any of the following reasons (though I know a few played a role). I’m also not saying that the goals of any of these reasons were necessarily met; several of them will show up in the next post about what we should learn from mistakes in Iraq. . I have them listed by overall rationale, direct, indirect, long-term, and non-Iraq specific and in no particular order therein.

Direct Reasons to Invade

The UN needed to decide whether it was going to play a useful role in the world.
This argument did appear a few times in Bush’s speeches. The UN has thus far been failing to live up to the hopes and dreams some have placed in it to prevent mass slaughter around the world. For good reason, it is no more than the sum of its member states and when none of them wish to do anything, the sum of their action is nothing. This had been learned over the years and most tinpot dictators had long since learned that they could ignore the UN if it suited them to. Saddam was far and away the most egregious example of this. Threatening and if necessary using force was a way to see if the problem was just none of the member states wanting to act or if it went much deeper into the very structure of the UN. It seemed to me that the value of the UN was learned when it did nothing to stop the slaughter in Bosnia, Rwanda, Darfur, and Chechnya, but since it could be argued those cases were only because no one wished to act (indeed the US is regularly criticized for not acting in most of those cases) we needed one more go of it. If the UN refused to go along with one of its member states finally handling the most recalcitrant dictator, when would it go along?

Saddam was breaking out of his box and becoming the hero who defeated America.
One of the popular mantras of the Clinton years was that we had Saddam safely in cage. The sanctions were working and would be in place be forever I guess. Neither was true. As we found out, as anyone who cared to know before the war could have, the sanctions were deeply subverted by Saddam with the aid of permanent members of the Security Council. They were well on their way to falling apart and allowing Saddam free access again to the supplies and equipment he needed for his military and NBC forces. Attempts to reverse this by Bush in 2001 through tougher/smarter sanctions ran into UN and regional intransigence. We would later find out that a major reason was that the Oil-for-Food scandal reached to the highest levels of governments and the UN. Had we allowed the sanctions to collapse, as they would have, while Saddam was in power it would not have been seen as anything but what it was, a defeat for the United States. Where Saddam would have gone from there is impossible to say, but with Iraq's oil wealth and victories over the hated Persian and Crusader under his belt it would have been entirely up to him and almost certainly against our interests. Initiative when loss is very difficult to regain.

We needed to remove a potential terrorist & WMD threat.
The second threat is obviously the one that got the most attention in the run up to the invasion. The main threat from the WMD wasn’t in any that would have been piled up prior to the invasion as they would have mostly degraded. The primary problem was the knowledge and equipment that could be put to later use; hence the term “pre-emptive war” (as in before the threat manifests itself). I know it’s some consider it axiomatic that “secular” Saddam would never ally with Islamic extremists, but that was the same attitude that caused the French and British to prepare for war with Hitler believing that Stalin would be at the least be confrontational towards Germany. We also found out in 2004 that after 9/11 Russian President Putin informed Bush that Russian intelligence believed Saddam was planning attacks against the US with Islamic terrorists. Given the disintegration of the UN’s sanctions, and with it the last check of any sort on Saddam’s activities, he was simply too dangerous to leave in power. While I didn’t know about the Russian info prior to 2004 I did know enough to realize it was a possibility, one that especially after 9/11 had to be avoided at all costs.

Humanitarian.
This one is sort of self-evident so there isn’t too much for me to add to it. Clearly amongst modern dictators, Saddam had one of the larger butcher’s bill. Not the largest to be sure, but he had still oppressed and killed enough Iraqis to justify his removal on that count alone in my opinion. A victim of mass murder doesn't only count if they're European (even then only because Americans decided to do something).

Indirect Reasons to Invade

Occupying Iraq placed us in a better position to deal with Iran and Syria.
Although Saddam supported terrorists somewhat more than the anti-war crowd would let on, he was by no means the biggest sponsor. Iran is far and away the biggest state sponsor of terror in the world as a whole with Syria predominating among anti-Israel terrorists. Iraq isn’t officially in league with Iran and Syria but it does have one valuable trait, it is between both and was the only country adjacent to each that was not in some way aligned with us in 2002. Syria especially benefited from Saddam as it was a key smuggling route for him which provided Damascus with precious hard currency. By occupying Iraq we placed ourselves in a position to more easily and forcibly attack or destabilize both Iran and Syria increasing our leverage over them to effect peaceful resolutions. Without Iraq our avenues of attack with Iran were limited to the ocean and small thrusts from the north and east, and with Syria from the sea (since using Israel would have been a diplomatic nightmare). Another major benefit was that Iraq is next to some of the most restive minorities in each country. The Kurds of each country are next to their brethren in Iraq as are the Arabs of Iran. Given the natural permeability of any long border we would be excellently placed to support each. The Iranians could be exceptionally hard pressed as the Iranian Arabs mostly inhabit Khuzestan province, home of Iran’s oil fields. While they didn’t prove much help to Saddam in the 80’s, it’s not hard to blame them. Not only did Saddam prove utterly incapable of even taking the province when his soldiers outnumbered the Iranians 10:1, but they were then quickly ejected by inferior Iranian forces. That and it’s hard to see how trading the Ayatollahs for Saddam was something worth fighting for. Should the Iranians and Syrians try to destabilize Iraq we could then destabilize them and trade stability for stability. As with Italy in World War II, Iraq would allow us to hit the soft underbelly of the Tehran-Damascus Axis when and where we chose to. This one was something of a risk since Iran and Syria could just as easily do the same to us in Iraq should we prove, as we have, unwilling to actually follow through with this option. Risky though it was, fortune favors the bold.
This map shows the situation with Iran and Syria. Blue borders are where we had them surrounded in 2002, red borders are those countries' borders with Iraq that as can be seen completed the encirclement. Yellow dotted areas are Kurdish and maroon dotted is most of Khuzestan province, the area with Iran's Arabs and oil. The maps this is based can be found here for the Kurds and here for Iran.

It would upset the Sunni-Shiite balance of power in the Mideast and place us at its fulcrum. The balance of Shiites and Sunnis in the Arab part of Southwest Asia is greatly in favor of the Sunnis. Of the nearly 120 million people, 84.3 million are Sunni and around 27 million Shiite. This changes markedly when Iran is added to the picture. With Iran the Sunnis only slightly outnumber the Shiites, 89.6 million to 88.5 million. This specter greatly scares the Arabs as the Persians have always proven so much more capable such that when Saddam, with the most powerful military ever fielded by an Arab nation, attacked an extraordinarily weak Iran the result was a draw. The one thing holding back the Sunni nightmare scenario was Sunni control of Iraq, the second biggest Shiite country. With Saddam in Iraq, countries ruled by Sunnis were marginally larger than those controlled by Shiites. Further, the Levant, while technically Shiite controlled (Alawis are only like Shiites in that they are heterodox, but they claim to be Shiite) it’s Sunni majority and was detached from Iran and surrounded by Sunnis. By replacing Saddam with a Shiite government we greatly altered the overall Sunni-Shiite balance. Now Shiite ruled nations hold an almost 2-1 population advantage over Sunni ruled ones. The Shiite Arabs of Iraq, on the whole, hate the Persians as much as the Sunni Arabs. We could then be the guarantor of the Shiite Arab country and if they didn’t go along then we could threaten to leave them to the Ayatollahs or the Sunnis who would put themselves back in power with the help of their coreligionists in other countries. Meanwhile, as the Sunni Arabs gaze nervously at the new Shiite crescent to the north they must also worry about their own large Shiite minorities. The Sunnis could then be presented with three options, rely on the Turks who they hate almost as much as the Persians and who want nothing to do with Arabs anymore, rely on poor, far away, and Israel checked Egypt for support, or help us deal with the Sunni Iraqis so that Iraq did not become a full blown member of the Shiite crescent. If they chose, as they did, to not help us work with Iraqi Sunnis but rather to aid the Sunni revanchists then we could threaten to leave Iraq to Iran and be done with the region. Essentially, we would be able to make the first side to be uncooperative the loser. Of course, like before, this would have required at the least our appearing to be willing to follow through with the threat. Russian President Putin is making a move to become this very fulcrum. To which I must once again say bravo, he has yet again shown himself to be quite expert at improving Russia’s place in the world regardless of its effect on other nations. If only we could get him to teach American foreign policy makers how the world works.

This table is compiled from population data in the CIA World Factbook. The key thing to note is the radical shift in the share of population under Sunni governments versus Shiite governments following the Iraq war. Before it a slight majority were under Sunni governments but today the Shiites hold a 5:3 advantage. It's even more dramatic excluding Iran, the Sunni advantage in just the Arab part of Southwestern Asia fell from just under 4.2:1 to under 1.4:1. (Iraq should be 33% Sunni, due to the difficulty of switching out pics in the middle of posts in Blogger I'm leaving the incorrect one with this correction)

See if the Arabs proved as ready for democracy as they and liberals before 2002 claimed.
Back before 2002 there was two main trains of thought over Middle East democracy. The foreign policy realists, who had largely dominated US foreign policy to that point, claimed that Arabs couldn’t handle democracy. It either leads to chaos or the election of Islamic fundamentalists. The foreign policy liberals argued that Arabs could handle democracy if we would stop supporting dictators and help them achieve it. Around 2002 those two schools of thought largely merged as a greater threat arose, the “neo-conservative” (still haven’t really heard that defined, they seemed more neo-liberal to me, but whatever). Contrary to the “you can’t spread democracy at the point of a gun”, it has been spread that way before, in Germany, Japan, Italy, the Philippines, Dominican Republic, Panama, Liberia, and Sierra Leone. It has also failed before, most notably on numerous occasions in Haiti, but also Cuba, Mexico, and other Central American States. Each has differences with Iraq of course, Germany, Italy, and Japan were devastated to a degree we would never imagine doing in Iraq and were functioning nations prior to WWII, Panama, Liberia, and Sierra Leone are small countries, and the Philippines and Dominican Republic are islands with little prospect of foreign meddling. Even so, the Philippines in particular was close to what Iraq would be like. We had to deploy a huge army for the time (initially 120,000 but falling to 80,000) for 8 years to suppress 2 separate insurgencies (like OMG that’s 2.3 WWII’s, how did we ever manage). The Filipino Insurrection lasted 4 years and involved fighting mostly on the northern and central islands against Christian Filipinos. As that was suppressed, another insurrection by fanatical Muslims in the south who used suprise suicide attacks took a further 4 years to suppress (the Moro War). A low grade insurgency continued for another 7 years in the south. It was several more years before the Filipinos were ready to run the country, we stayed longer than necessary due to the Japanese threat, so it shouldn’t be surprising that it will take many a year to fully establish an Iraqi democracy. That is should it prove viable. If it doesn’t, and if the Arabs simply use the opportunity to kill kill kill and bring in Islamic extremists then the issue is settled in the realists favor. We will then need to move to the long term Syngman Rhee/Chiang Kai-shek/Pinochet form of economic/political development. We should change our policy to finding nicer free market strongmen who can keep the baser instincts of their populations under control as they take 50 years developing their countries and steadily introducing more freedoms. I don’t think it’s quite to the point of throwing in the towel on Arab democracy, but it’s getting close. Whatever the Arabs choose, we needed to see for certain what it was before we ultimately choose. Nicer though those strongmen were, we still shouldn’t relegate hundreds of millions of people to living under them for decades unless we have to.

Take the fight to the terrorists’ home front.
This has been dubbed the “flypaper strategy” and has appeared in many of Bush’s speeches. The goal is to draw the terrorists into a combat zone where justice can be dealt out far more swiftly and effectively than if we wait for them to come here where lawyers can protect them. It undoubtedly would create more terrorists (just like the German army of WWII grew larger until the last months of the war) but it would result in most being killed. Soldiers would sadly be killed also, but the critics who focus on casualties get it backwards, the purpose of a soldier is to fight and if necessary die so civilians back home don’t (certainly something that I and many of the guys I met in the army understood when we volunteered). The other thing it did was force the terrorists to react to the American victory in the heart of the caliphate much quicker than they would have liked. This led to the bombings in Saudi Arabia that got the Saudis to finally shut down terrorist organizations in their country though still not international funding apparently. Similarly, the attacks in Jordan that culminated in the dreadful bombing of the wedding party in Amman showed the Arabs what the terrorists were capable of. Jordan also became even more committed to fighting terrorism, though they were already very committed for an Arab country. Inside Iraq the terrorists, if not the run of the mill insurgents or militias, are deeply unpopular. As I recall the most popular Iraqi TV show simply has captured terrorists being interrogated and humiliated on their way to an inevitable execution. It is true that Iraq opened the possibility of a greater threat migrating to certain countries in the Arab world and Europe. Again, this could have been another useful tool to pry cooperation from them. We were going to invade Iraq with or without them, if Iraq generates a flood of terrorists because it fell apart, most of the terrorists would head back to their own countries or to Paris, Berlin, London, Madrid, or Rome (well for some that is their home country) whether those countries helped or not. Given that they might as well help and lower the odds of that result. As the others, this is assuming we would seriously make that case.

Long-Term Reasons to Invade

By spreading democracy to Iraq we would help it spread throughout the Middle East.
This is another of the reasons that can be found in many of Bush’s speeches. Helping Iraq develop a democratic government would serve two purposes in the wider goal of spreading democracy throughout the Middle East. It would firstly be a clear example to Arabs and other Muslims that they could indeed manage a democracy. Clearly, this is tied to the reason above about seeing if Arabs could handle democracy. If the Iraqis failed the test then obviously it wouldn’t be much of an enticement. The second effect this would have is to put our money where our mouth is and show the various dictators and indigenous voices for democracy that we will support democracy now. This one isn’t as tied to the success or failure of the Iraqis as the very attempt is what matters. The ultimate strategic goal would be to use Iraq to encourage the indigenous spread of democracy in other nations as the people demand it and the petty tyrants fear ending up at the end of a noose like Saddam. It would be a sort of reverse domino effect. Bush has made much of the draining the swamp aspect of this argument, the idea that until the Middle East has freedom and liberty it will continue to produce terrorists. This would primarily target next door Iran and Syria. Iran in particular would prove susceptible to such democratic undermining since it is run by extraordinarily unpopular theocrats and has one of the most pro-America populations in the world (New York Times Columnist Thomas Friedman noted on one of his documentaries that American college students in Europe were subjected to constant anti-Americanism until they visited Iran). Another strategic advantage to the United States and other democracies is the same one that spreading democracy had to Athens in ancient Greece. Similar governments tend to be much friendlier with other than with different government types. This can be seen in our alliances with Europe, Australia, Turkey, Japan, Taiwan, S Korea, etc versus China’s ease of maneuvering with countries like Cuba, Venezuela, Iran, Saddam’s Iraq, Cambodia, Burma, and so on. Especially as we see an undemocratic Sparta and Thebes (China and Russia) rise to challenge the free world it is in our interests to flip as many dictatorships to democracies as possible. Since it is much easier for China or Russia to shore up a dictatorship than for us to change it to a democracy and since short of a World War II scale effort we are not going to be able to take the kind of direct role that we did in Iraq with many other countries we had to move quickly if we were to have any impact before China and Russia got into the game. This would require a great deal of follow through however. By its very nature it would hit the more moderate dictators who were friendly with us along with impinging on the interests of great powers like Russia. It’s easy to say we will help if people rise up, but it’s much harder to actually support them when they do.

It would give us the Kurdish card.
The Kurdish card is the ability to create or threaten to create an independent Kurdish state. This is a particular case of the next reason for invading Iraq but it’s the biggest one since it affects most of the major players in the Mideast since a free Kurdistan is greatly feared by Turk, Arab, and Persian alike. The majority of Kurdistan is in Turkey where around 14 million of the 25 million Kurds live. Iran and Iraq each have over 4 million Kurds and Syria has the remaining million or so. Iraq only has about 1/6 of the Kurds but it is in the center of their homeland and is also the most economically viable due to the Kirkuk and Mosul oil fields. It’s also the one we have the most influence over. With direct control over the future of Iraq we would be in a position to utilize this card as negotiating tool with Iran, Syria, and if need be with an increasingly Islamist Turkey. This would be similar to the Polish question of the late 18th and 19th Centuries in Europe. The Russia, Austria, and Prussia had divided Poland between during the 3 Partitions and had unwittingly created a serious weakness for themselves that Napoleon would later exploit. By invading Iraq and helping the Kurds we would give ourselves enormous leverage over the other peoples of the Mideast. They could be presented with a choice of either cooperate or see an extremely capable, pro-America, stable, prosperous Kurdish state arise in the heart of the Middle East. This would be a long-term policy since it would obviously undermine any attempt at Iraqi democracy and assumes a high degree of uncooperative behavior from the Sunni Arabs, Persians, and Turks. It goes to show though that even should things turn out worse than expected after the invasion, it would open other options that still make it worthwhile.

Map of the Kurdish lands.

A possible revolutionary redrawing of the Mideast could occur.
In line with the prior reason, this one is a long-term plan that would primarily be used should the direct and indirect benefits of invading fail to materialize. It seems that most people view the Middle East as a monolithic bloc of Sunni Arabs with a few Jews in Israel. This is no doubt how the Sunni Arabs themselves wish the Middle East to be viewed. However it is very divided both by ethnicity and religion. A previous reason focused primarily on the power struggle between the two largest religions in the area while the previous one dealt solely with the Kurdish minority. This diversity in the Mideast makes it extremely susceptible to the ancient tactic of divide and conquer which has been used frequently in the region. The following graphs show the divided nature of the region.

The most recent such division was the reorganization of the former Ottoman provinces by the French and British after World War I. That worked for its day but many of the problems in the Middle East today stem from the refusal to realign the region to suit today’s situation and interests and not the interest of two defunct empires a century ago. One example of this is Lebanon. The area that is now Lebanon was generally combined with Syria until the 19th Century. Initially Beirut was broken off to be its own duchy. It was expanded under pressure from Europeans in the late 19th Century to include the Christian central Lebanon region after increased oppression of the Christians by Ottoman authorities. When the Levant passed to France following World War I, they expanded the duchy of Beirut to what we know as Lebanon today so it would include as many Muslims as possible while keeping the pro-French Christian population in the majority. That was all well in good in the early 20th Century but no longer serves any purpose but causing chaos in Lebanon today as the Christians are no longer a majority and no longer have the French Empire backing them. Invading Iraq would allow for the encouragement and support for indigenous nationalist movements to gain independence from the current powers in the region. This would be similar to the redrawing of Eastern Europe following World War I after dissolution of the German, Austro-Hungarian, Russian, and Ottoman Empires (similar since the mistake of the Kingdom of the Southern Slavs shouldn’t be repeated). A primary benefit of such a redrawing is that it would mainly impact the key problem country in the region, the current decrepit form of the Persian Empire, Iran. One delicate area here is the pro-America views of the Persian people. Hopefully we would be able to encourage a sentiment of “Persia for the Persians” amongst them (which I was surprised to find was generally well taken by many of the Persians with whom I chat). If not then we should still go through since it would help with many of the problems in the region. Iraq would be the largest part of the western half of the division and is the easier of the two. The eastern half draws in Pakistan, Turkmenistan, and Afghanistan and is an entirely different order of magnitude as a result. This map shows what a possible new Middle East could look like. Red denotes the western division while blue represents an eastern division. A- Shiite Arab State. B- Kurdistan. C- Greater Azerbaijan. D- Sunni Arab State (or seperate Greater Syria, Jordan, and Anbar). E- Beirut city-state. 1- Greater Turkmenistan. 2- Hazarastan. 3- Baluchistan.

Since invading Iraq is the key the western division I won’t go into the eastern one. The Azeri, Kurd, and Shiite Arab parts of Iran could be broken off and combined with their compatriots across the border. Lebanon could be reduced to its 19th Century Christian majority Beirut duchy status with the Muslims either returned to Syria sans Kurds or combined with a Greater Sunni Arab state. The change this would cause in the populations of the various Mideast nations is roughly estimated on the following table.

The effect this would have is to create more stable nations with clear ethnic/religious majorities. It would also cause America to be seen as the granter and guarantor of the newly independent nation-states in much the same way that France created a ring of pro-France states in the Balkans following World War I. This would have obvious benefits to the US although it would also require us to defend the new nations from any revisionist moves by the Persians, Turks, and Sunni Arabs along with possibly Pakistan (a much thornier issue). I am not to say that this would be the end of changing borders. Nothing is ever final.

A developed Iraqi oil industry would break Saudi control of global oil prices.
Ahhh, oil, the black gold that we supposedly invaded Iraq to steal according to the international left. Not quite the reason to invade, but there is an oil-related reason for the invasion. The Saudis are well known to essentially control the price of oil since they are not only the largest exporter of oil, but they also have by far the largest reserve production capacity and the ability to cut millions of barrels of oil production almost overnight. Obviously they aren’t the only factor in oil prices, but they are the only controllable factor (i.e. global economic growth, the weather, international conflict are difficult to impossible to influence by a single government). This causes far more power and influence to accrue to the Saudis that makes it difficult for any country to stand up to them. To counter Saudi influence we would need a country with similar production and capabilities as the Saudis. Looking around the globe there are not many countries capable of doing so. The Saudis can produce between 10 and 11 million barrels of oil per day. The other two major oil producers, Russia and America, produce about 9 and 8 million bpd respectively. However, both America and Russia cannot greatly influence oil prices as both have little reserve capacity, do not produce oil based on political decisions, and have little ability to lower production. Other smaller producers such as Canada, Kazakhstan, and Iran that with significant investments could produce far more oil than they do each have problems that would keep them from matching the Saudis. Canada is free market, Kazakhstan lacks reliable access to global markets, and Iran would first require regime change. The only country that has the ability to match Saudi Arabia in oil production and that could counter-manipulate the oil market is Iraq. Iraq at one point had the capacity to produce 6 million bpd and could probably exceed that with investment in the future. Like Iran though, that wasn’t possible without regime change. Saddam had shown that he was not trustworthy when it comes to managing tens of billions of dollars of oil production each year. We would also need a more pro-America government since Saddam would not likely manipulate the oil market to our favor anyways. There is nothing wrong with the global superpower making war with the interest of stabilizing a key global commodity. As the general guarantor of the global economy it is in the interest of everyone for us to stop the wild oscillations in oil prices. The British had the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company in their day and we would do better to have an American-Iraqi Oil Company today (much fairer AIOC of course).

Non-Iraq Reasons to Invade Iraq

We need nation building experience.
It’s been a long time since the United States successfully helped rebuild a nation. Since World War II we largely ignored the nation building game until the 90’s. Through out the 90’s we had a series of largely botched exercises in nation building. We tried in Somalia until a few soldiers were killed and we ran away with our tail between our legs. We intervened in Bosnia after hundred of thousands were killed, but unless success is lowered to mean that 11 years after maintaining a military force equal to 1% of the countries population to simply separate the warring parties into their own de facto countries we haven’t been successful there. Kosovo is an even worse example than Bosnia. 8 years after attacking Serbia to protect the terrorist KLA, all we have to show is a non-functioning country that is only marginally peaceful since we’ve allowed the Albanians to drive out most of the Serb population. East Timor is the smaller example, less than a million people live there, but even it has decayed into little more than a broken protectorate of a UN that as with the KLA is only capable of protecting the troublemakers not the country or the people. This is all not to even mention the Congo, which lacks direct US participation and as a result is fairing even worse than the Balkan efforts. The UN internationalist way of nation building has been tried and found greatly wanting. If billions around the world who are born into non-functioning tyrannical countries are to have any chance of a better future we will have to figure out how to do nation building. Like the other reasons in this category, this is not a reason to invade Iraq per se as much as it is something that invading Iraq allowed. Iraq is not a particularly large country with less than 27 million people. The average size of the 192 countries of the world is around 33 million. However, Iraq is far larger than any of the other rebuilding efforts except the half-hearted Congo one. As such Iraq is large enough to be a serious exercise that can teach useful lessons and is small enough to minimize the cost of the operation and mistakes. These mistakes are bound to occur, why it is so shocking to the left and some on the right that they do is beyond me. Last I checked no one walked without first falling. Conversely, Iraq would reveal whether the America and the world have the stomach for real nation building. If not then it would allow us to change our foreign policy to compensate. The Romans and British also had a moment when they switched over from wars of expansion (nation building in our case) to punitive wars. Iraq would show whether we need to plan future wars in the Iraq mold with a full occupation and reconstruction or more in the mold of the Kosovo War, air and missile assault to destroy the power of the country. With whatever lesson learned from Iraq we would be better able to adjust our future policies to be inline with our capabilities and national will.

The military needs an occasional war to combat test new tactics and weapons.
This seems cold-hearted but stems from the desire to ultimately save soldiers lives while also advancing America’s interests as best as possible. Military affairs involve such morbid calculations. Soldiers are going to die, nothing will ever change that. All that can be done is to minimize the deaths while still achieving the objectives. For example, the Dieppe raid of 1942 was certain to fail and produce an extremely high casualty rate. Yet it was willingly launched since the Allies had to learn how to launch amphibious landings in Europe. Better to sacrifice 6,000 soldiers today to prevent the 180,000 landing at Normandy from being destroyed tomorrow along with allowing the war to be won. The Prussians were so successful in 1870 not only because they were fighting the French but because they had just fought and learned from the smaller war with Austria in 1866. The Prussians were so successful against the Austrians because they had just fought and learned from the war with Denmark in 1864. The 25,000 Prussian casualties in the 1860’s helped prevent even more casualties in the much larger Franco-Prussian War and ensured that Germany’s interest were advanced to the utmost. The German military, from 1740-1790 and 1860-1945 the finest military machine in history, had a saying that one short war was worth 10 years of peace-time training. Like all great powers we have the same requirement today. Military weapons and the tactics they require change frequently. If we were caught in a major war, say with Iran, N Korea, or China and used our weapons incorrectly the price in lives would quickly dwarf the 2,700 or so combat deaths in Iraq thus far. It would also potentially cause irrevocable damage to America’s interests. As with nation building, this isn’t to say Iraq was the only option but it was an option (the only one besides North Korea we had a casus belli against). Also like with nation building, Iraq had the benefit of being large enough to teach real lessons but not so large as to cause enormous casualties and cost overall and for mistakes that would undoubtedly happen. One mistake nations tend to make is to learn too much from small wars which often teach lessons contradictory to the needs of larger wars. The British were alone in 1914 among Western Europeans in expecting their cavalry arm to play a major role in the war. They believed that because cavalry had played a major role in the Second Anglo-Boer War. They didn’t seem to realize that cavalry was only effective because of the open flat veldt of South Africa and the fact the Boers generally fought with under 1,000 men per mile of frontage. In cluttered northern Europe against 5,000 men per mile such tactics led to the slaughter of the British cavalry that happened at the Somme in 1916. Along with not teaching false lessons, Iraq was small enough to limit the damage from mistakes. Against far more capable Iranians for example, the unarmored Humvee mishap would probably have led to the loss of at least 4-6 times as many soldiers as it did in Iraq. Since Iraq caused a critical short fall in munitions of almost all types in 2004, it is unlikely that we would have been able to meet the demands of a far larger war like Iran or China. Our military has been able to perfect and figure out how best to employ the new weapons developed during the 90’s and have been able to come up with new previously unthought-of weapons and tactics. We also now have a generation of combat experienced officers and NCO’s, the most valuable trait for any military. When we inevitably have to fight again against a far more powerful enemy, our military will be fully prepared. In addition to advancing the interests and safety of their country, the sacrifice of our soldiers today will help advance the interests and safety of their country tomorrow while lowering the sacrifice required of their brothers in arms. Our soldiers will always be called on to sacrifice for the good of our country. The only way to stop it is to abandon the second part which I, and many Americans, would never support and which is only temporary. Thus it is incumbent upon us to do everything we can to limit the amount of sacrifice for which we call on them. Along with a larger military budget (5% of GDP plus war appropriations, or about $800 billion this year) I think periodic medium wars is the best way history will sadly show.

Iraq Part 1: Where We Are Heading

2007-02-06T18:16:00.000-05:00

This is the first in a series about Iraq, the Introduction is here.

I don't think any sober analysis would argue Iraq is shaping out well geopolitically for the United States. However, this has little to do with Iraq itself. The biggest issue with Bush’s strategy in Iraq isn’t necessarily the Iraq part, which has generally been ok, but the policies regarding the larger conflict of which Iraq is merely one part. Put another way, the problem is that Washington seems to have lost sight of the global forest for the Iraqi tree. I don’t mean this in the manner of “ignoring Afghanistan” as some have charged or ignoring China or Venezuela but rather in ignoring (or not understanding) the ways Iraq has changed the global order and allowing those changes to drift out of our favor. If this tendency isn’t arrested it will make a real victory extremely difficult to achieve in Iraq and what victory we do manage would likely be either fleeting or Pyrrhic. We still have the chance to use the wider struggle Iraq has initiated to improve our geopolitical position if we can keep the Democrats from forcing a precipitous retreat and if Washington will start engaging the wider conflict. It should be noted however, that this isn’t a new American tendency. We have done it before in much greater wars and the reasons are all the same.

Recently, President Bush at very long last has been making some changes to Iraq policies that do take a tougher position inside Iraq while marginally recognizing the global nature of the conflict. Though sort of little and somewhat late, they are still welcome changes. US soldiers are finally being allowed to go after Iranian and Syrian meddlers in Iraq. Rules of engagements seem to have been loosened and more aggressive patrols launched. Shiite militias will apparently be targeted along with the usual Sunni suspects. The addition of 5 combat brigades at least seems to indicate our intention to finish the job. It’s not an extremely large or lengthy deployment so I’m not sure what its practical impact will be, but changing perception is in itself something important. Through all this we seem to be telling the Iraqis that if they follow Arab tradition and take another opportunity to miss the opportunity we are presenting them that it will be the last time they do that. Again, whatever the limitations, whatever the unnecessary delay, it is good to see these changes in Iraq. That doesn't mean they are enough though. Max Boot, author of The Savage Wars of Peace about America's small wars, has a good piece in the LA Times about some changes Bush should make in Iraq. I'd say some like the security issue and moving soldiers out into the population are sort of being addressed but could use more. Some, such as appointing a clear American leader for everything in Iraq and doing a census and handing out ID cards, would be better late than never. Others however are simply too late like imposing martial law and keeping suspected insurgents looked up despite a lack of evidence.

However, because these changes primarily deal with the situation inside Iraq, they are not dealing with the main supporters of the chaos in Iraq, Iran, Syria, and Islamic terrorists. Bereft of support from these three sources the Sunni revanchists would have run out of the required money, weapons, supporters, and fear for a terror/insurgent campaign. This would have happened prior to the Shiites growing so tired of the continued Sunni sponsored violence that they launched their revenge terror campaign that is fueling the current violence. Minus the support of Iran the Shiites would have far less capable of doing so even had they decided to. As good as it is to let our soldier kill those trying to kill them, the reality is that killing individual ants after they cross the Iranian or Syrian borders is not the best way to deal with the problem. The only way to deal with it effectively is to go for the ant queen in Teheran. This doesn’t mean starting a war, but rather clear and painful action (economic mostly) that is linked to Iran and Syria continuing to support chaos in Iraq. If that doesn’t stop them then we could show as much respect for the Iranian and Syrian border as the show for the Iraqi border and launch small scale raids on terror camps and facilities in those countries. If those countries choose to escalate from there that’s their decision, though we would have to be prepared for that escalation. Lastly, though I don’t think we have the resolve, we could counter-destabilize Iran and Syria both. Syria is run by a very unpopular heretical minority, the Alawis. Iran is only 50% Persian with the rest largely disgruntled Azeris, Baluchis, Turkmen, Arabs, Kurds, etc. If we made Tabriz as unsafe for Persians as the Iranians have made Basra for the British we could potentially trade security for security or at least make Iran pay a price for its activities.

This international conflict doesn’t just impact Iraq inside Iraq, it also does so outside of the country. Caroline Glick, a columnist for the Jerusalem Post, has an excellent article about Bush’s pointless general retreat from pretty much all aspects of the global conflict outside of Iraq. I would recommend reading it since the few points I’ll mention are also mentioned by her along with many others. Iraq is the central front of this conflict, but the other fronts can have a major influence on it. This is primarily because the willingness of these three actors to confront us in Iraq is driven by our retreats elsewhere. Since the more trouble Iraq is for us the more we retreat elsewhere, we’ve given Iran and Syria a massive incentive to cause as much trouble in Iraq as possible. All the more since until recently we haven’t even been fighting them in Iraq, much less in their own countries (which we still aren’t doing). As we continue to retreat in Lebanon, in the Palestinian areas, in Libya, in Uzbekistan, now in Somalia these are all to one extent or another falling to the Iran-Syria-Islamic terrorist axis. Rather than strengthen our hand in Iraq, these retreats will make our job all the more difficult as Iranian resolve strengthens and the perception of American weakness grows stronger. The sad thing is that it is only perception, we have the power to deal with these problems if only we would accept that we are in conflict with something beyond the nebulous “terror”. Somalia especially we did a great job by sub-contracting the invasion to Ethiopia (who showed so much tenacity that some conservatives jokingly suggest licensing Iraq to them also) but supporting it with intelligence, aid, and some air power. Now for some unfathomable reason we are joining with Europe, the UN, and the Arab League in demanding the Islamic Courts Union be brought back to share power. The result is that while Bush is coming around to what has been needed in Iraq for years now, we could still easily see the stable Iraq we form end up as little more than an Iranian puppet. Even should Iraq not fall to Iran we would probably be left looking at the price of Bush’s unnecessary retreats elsewhere along with a costlier than need be Iraq occupation and like Pyrrhus considering his retreat from Sicily to win 2 costly victories against Rome wonder what kind of victory we had achieved.

As mentioned above, this isn’t the first time that we’ve lost sight of the bigger picture and real goals during a war. The worst example of this tendency has to be the way in which FDR, General Marshal, and General Eisenhower conducted the European campaign of World War II. Liberating all of France and smashing up as much of Germany as possible were allowed to override winning the war as quickly as possible and in a manner that didn’t plunge the world into another global conflict. The British, as long-time masters of managing an empire and fighting wars, understood this and were from late 1944 were in conflict with the US leadership over the wars conduct. JFC Fuller’s Military History of the Western World covers this in its last chapters. By the end of August 1944, the German army had largely been destroyed in both France and Italy. What was left in France, 11 small divisions, faced 38 larger Allied divisions while in Italy the Germans were racing for their last line of defense, the Gothic Line in the north. Prior to this 3 decisions were made which kept Germany from losing the war before the end of 1944. The first was the decision to liberate Paris before the German army west of the Seine had been destroyed. Due to the diversion of 3 American divisions to Paris, the Germans after a furious battle were able to break the encircling Allied divisions at Falaise and get enough troops out to continue the fight east of the Seine. The second decision was to withdraw 10 divisions from the Mediterranean to invade southern France so as to liberate the entire country. 6 of these divisions were pulled from Italy which kept General Alexander from breaking through the Gothic Line and pushing into the Po valley and possibly southern Germany in late 1944. The last decision was the one to advance on a broad front through France instead of blitzing through weak German defenses into either the Ruhr as per Montgomery’s plan or the Saar as Patton would have liked. Although I’d cut the US leadership some slack on the last one, they knew the Allied forces were not anywhere near as capable of the Germans at operational maneuver and didn’t want to get sucked into the kind of bloody maelstroms the Soviets kept walking into (such as 3rd Kharkov). At any rate, the desire to liberate France and to placate the Soviets (who didn’t want us occupying Germany before they did) we prolonged the war until 1945. Since we didn’t make it to the borders of Eastern Europe before the Soviets we, as the British warned us, consigned that region the Soviet domination and the world to the Cold War.

The reasons for these decisions are pretty much the same as today. The biggest problem is that due to our sheltered history we have a hard time accepting wars that are fought to benefit ourselves. Wars are to be fought to destroy evil and only to destroy evil. During World War II we therefore had trouble thinking like the British and planning for how the war would leave a world that benefited us. We could only think in terms of totally eradicating Nazism, no matter how long it took and no matter how much more favorable the peace was to another power. Today we can understand fighting terrorism and getting WMD out of the hands of a madman, but Iraq is increasingly about America’s position in the world and that is much harder to sell as worth the fighting. Dovetailing with the last problem, we also tend to trust that other countries are like us and have good intentions leading us to have unrealistic expectations. During World War II it was our unbelievable faith in the Soviets. We believed they were our true friends and saw no reason to try to win the war before they gobbled up too much. We apparently never questioned whether the Soviets would use their gains to start another war. Today it is the even more unbelievable faith that the State Department in particular has in Iran and Syria. This can be seen in the constant recommendations from the Iraq Survey Group and others that we talk to Iran since Iran has no interest in a chaotic Iraq. This is said despite the obvious fact that Iran has a lot to gain from a chaotic Iraq (as mentioned above and as Mark Steyn writes about). Another major problem is the constant electoral cycle in which our politicians exist. JFC Fuller notes that one of the reasons FDR ruled out focusing on Italy and driving into Austria and Slovenia was the upcoming presidential election. He had been warned by advisors that the American people were fixated on France, if things didn’t go as well as expected in France and it was discovered that he had allowed divisions to be diverted to invade “the Balkans” he would likely face a difficult re-election campaign. President Bush likewise faced major pressures in 2004 when insurgency was in its growth stage to not allow US casualties to rise to high lest it become a campaign issue. As such the April attacks into Fallujah and the killing of al-Sadr were called off. While Fallujah was taken care of after the election, al-Sadr becomes a greater problem with each passing day. FDR’s reluctance to be seen expanding the war and attacking on multiple fronts is also reflected today by the outcry that has already occurred over the idea of attacking other countries in the progress of fighting Iran and Syria.

These are the real problem’s I see today with Bush’s Iraq policy and could be summed up with the slogan “Iraq has nothing to do with Iraq”. This is of course exaggerated but it gets to the heart of the matter. Yes there are powerful forces and sentiments in this country against fully prosecuting the war on all levels, but that doesn’t absolve the President for taking us to a war he apparently didn’t intend to fully wage. We are playing a much bigger game in Iraq than just knocking off Saddam and replacing him with a democracy. Iran and Syria have risen to our challenge and are fighting back to markedly improve their position in the world at our expense. As victory everywhere else cannot make up for defeat on the main front, we do need to win in Iraq also, which at long last Bush is making moves inside Iraq in that direction. However, due to the influence the other fronts have on Iraq, unless the Bush Administration soon comes to grip with the wider war, who we are fighting, why we and they are fighting, what we are trying to accomplish beyond Iraq, and does what needs to be done regardless of internal pressures, we are likely to end up with an international situation, that while better than if we let the Democrats call it quits and retreat from Iraq, is still less than desirable and not worthy of the sacrifice of our soldiers or our great nation.

An Iraq Series: Where we are heading, Why we're there, and so on

2007-02-06T14:53:00.000-05:00

Seeing as declaring Iraq to be a “debacle” that has “destroyed” America’s place in the world seems to be all the rage today I figure I would do a series of posts dealing with different aspects of the Iraq war from an unabashedly pro-war perspective. Hopefully I will touch on some issues that you may not have heard of so that whether you were for/against it from the get go or for it before you were against it there will be some food for thought. The first part, as the most important part, deals with the prospects going forward of Bush’s overall strategy not just in Iraq but with the war on terror in general. The second part looks back at my reasons for supporting the invasion of Iraq which only peripherally overlap with the official reasons and which also pre-date the Bush Administration. The third part deals with the mistakes we’ve made, as best as can be determined from this still early date, from the standpoint of what we can learn from them. The last part is whether and to what extent this has damaged our place in the world.

Ranting a la Chirac

2007-02-03T03:41:00.000-05:00

Blogger and internet problems kept me from posting until today so sorry for the lack of posts last week.

We all know President Bush has a reputation, especially overseas, of being a raving belligerent lunatic, but it seems you have to be a Frenchman to really get it right. Last week, French President Jacques Chirac continued in the grand French tradition of de Gaulle and Mitterrand when it comes to refined bullying. Last I checked Bush has yet to respond to a disagreeable country by telling them they had missed an opportunity to shut up like Chirac did when those ingrate Eastern Europeans had the temerity to support America over France’s EU on Iraq. Bush spent 6 months at the UN trying to get it to enforce its own resolutions with Iraq before dealing with the problem, while Chirac didn’t bother informing the UN, EU, or NATO before he occupied the Ivory Coast to protect French cocoa interests. Even with terror attacks Bush does not rise to the level of Chirac who warned that any country that supported a terror attack on France would face nuclear retaliation. I could go on and on with past examples of Gallic brusqueness but there’s no need to with 2 new examples from just the last week.

The first example is Chirac’s comment that a nuclear Iran is no threat to anyone except maybe Israel (so of course, who cares). He further elaborated that should Iran nuke Israel, Israel would nuke Iran (so again, who cares). I know for many, especially in France, it must be calming to think that big bad scary Iran is only a threat to the Jews, but it isn’t. The effect of a nuclear Iran will be felt by everyone. For example, is Chirac still willing to contemplate any response, much less a nuclear response, to an Iranian backed terror attack in France? Part of the cause of high oil prices is the fear that the next terror attack or round of saber rattling may lead to a major war, the destruction of important oil fields, and/or the closure of the Straits of Hormuz by Iran. What will the price be when an emboldened nuclear Iran can more swiftly bring about each and is more resolute about threatening to do it? This is not to mention when a nuclear Iran takes advantage of this situation and demands tribute from the West. Even if Iran were only a threat to Israel and even if any exchange would result in both being wiped off the face of the planet I can’t imagine why anyone, especially a leader of a nation, would be blasé about that prospect. At the very least we are condemning around 80 million people to live under a nuclear sword of Damocles and at worst millions of them will die should the Ayatollahs be less rational than Chirac expects or should Iranian/Israeli nuclear command and control prove less than 100% reliable. Anyways, whatever the correctness, or not, of the comment, the point remains, Bush has never said oh well if N. Korea goes nuclear, if they nuke Seoul S. Korea will destroy the north. I intended to write a full post about this last week, but due to the aforementioned blogger/internet problems, Chirac was able to correct his statement before I could. He now says it’s not what he really thinks, and he thought he was off record anyhow. I think he initially said what he believes so I’ll stick with that.

Like all masters of their art, Chirac was merely warming up when he took on the little Satan of the Franco-Iranian world view. He was saving his best act for later in the week when he challenged le grande Satan, the United States. America’s economy is a serious threat to France and we aren’t going along with the left’s drive to use hysteria over “global warming” to drive the US economy into an equally uncompetitive position as Europe in general but France in particular. Whoops, I meant “global climate change”, the alarmists had to protect themselves against to their previous charge that we were heading for an ice age (due to man’s pollution of course) and against any future weather changes that may revive the ice age charge. Anyways, so we aren’t going along with the diktats of France’s EU and that won’t do at all for France. So, according to Chirac France will have the EU punish us with a carbon tax on our exports for not accepting their climate imperialism. The fact that France and the rest of Continental Europe have utterly failed to pay the price to live up to their own pollution treaties (newest I could find, EU-15 should be around 8.4 and dropping in 2003, not 8.6 and rising, as usual only the British are making the effort to meet their commitments) further shows that this is economic warfare plain and simple. Whether Chirac has the EU follow through or not is questionable since the already strained Continental economies would not likely take the combination of higher American import prices and reduced exports from the inevitable American retaliatory sanctions very well. Like with Chirac’s other comments, the key thing here is that this is a level of gall that we haven’t seen out of Bush.

While I do sometimes wish Bush would be the raving belligerent lunatic that much of the world imagines him to be, the fact that he isn’t and couldn't be highlights the difference between him and Chirac. Bush is the leader of the most powerful country of the world and Chirac is not. Bush must as the leader of the free world be far more circumspect than leaders of lesser countries who do not share his responsibility. It is easy to say that a nuclear Iran isn’t a big deal when it’s not your problem to deal with. Likewise it is a simple matter to demand your main economic competitor sign on to economy wrecking pollution treaties when you won’t abide by them and you wouldn’t have any impact of global pollution if you did. Bush on the other hand, as leader of the free world, if fully expected and does abide by agreements that we have signed. While it is to be expected that due to his lower position Chirac can get away with worse comments and threats than Bush can, it doesn’t mean Bush should drop to his level nor ignore them. As annoying and counter-productive as his comments may be, the Gallic flare with which Chirac delivers them can still be appreciated.

A World without America

2007-01-30T02:01:00.000-05:00

In accordance with my recent posts about the fate of America and the world if we don’t get out of our funk, this post is about the “World without America” that many people seem to think is the solution to all the world’s problems. Fareed Zakaria has an article in Newsweek about the trouble this is already causing and some warning about the future if it doesn’t stop. He mentions several issues that have already appeared, such as global trade talks are collapsing as France refuses to allow Europe to sign on to the agricultural subsidy cuts the US proposes in exchange for developing world fully opening its financial sector. Any possibility of reducing global pollution is gone as India and China demand the same per capita pollution levels as Europe. However, he only really covers those two problems that are the favorites of Western internationalists, globalization and global warming. Beyond these there are more pressing problems that are developing as the mice realize the cat will no longer wake up.

Absent US intervention, Darfur continues to be the scene of mass slaughter. Sri Lanka’s war with the LTTE has flared up again despite decades of Euro soft power intervention. As America’s resolve has slackened, Russian pressure on former Soviet Republics that we were helping like the Ukraine, Georgia, and Kazakhstan is increasing. Probably the most deleterious effect on future global stability is the loss of the Pax Americana that underpinned the low defense budgets and free trade that we saw in most of the world. The cause of the relative peace we’ve seen for the last 15 years was the reality that any country that attacked another would simply be destroyed by the US military. No matter how much money any country spent (Japan and Germany aside) they could never hope to match even a single American carrier and division. With zero chance of victory there was no reason to try. In a world without an active America that calculation changes drastically. There are still national hatreds and disputed territories to fight over around the world. Places like Arica, Kashmir, the Crimea, Taiwan, Azerbaijan, Kurdistan, and the Fergana Valley are potential scenes of centuries old grudge matches. This can also be seen by the growing defense budgets and the purchases of advanced military weapons by countries around the world. Just because Alsace-Lorraine, Silesia, the Skane, and Tirol are not at the moment disputed and Euro defense budgets are presently inadequate doesn’t mean conflict is a thing of the past. Zakaria ends his article by quoting Niall Ferguson about what may be in store for the “World without America”,

“In a provocative essay in Foreign Policy three years ago, the British historian Niall Ferguson speculated that the end of American hegemony might not fuel an orderly shift to a multipolar system but a descent into a world of highly fragmented powers, with no one exercising any global leadership. He called this "apolarity." "Apolarity could turn out to mean an anarchic new Dark Age," Ferguson wrote, "an era of waning empires and religious fanaticism, of economic plunder and pillage in the world's forgotten regions, of economic stagnation, and civilization's retreat into a few fortified enclaves."”

Something for Americans should remember, even if we aren’t exposed to the sort of depravations that Europe, Africa, and much of Asia will be, we’ll still be part of that world and it will far worse for us than anything Iraq can be imagined as. This is something that I've written about since the earliest days of this blog (all of 8 months ago). The earliest being my 8th post back in May 2006 about that contrary to what the left says we will have to fight and win this struggle and contrary to what some on the right say this isn’t the last great conflict, we’ll have to do it again and again. This post from June covers my general agreement with the top British strategist who warned the West is looking mightily like the Roman Empire at its end these days. Also from June are two posts, one dealing with how the insistence on treating every “nation” equally is creating many of the world’s problems that are then being fanned by the fatigue we are now showing in spades, and the other dealing with the problem of relying on Europe for our alliances in the future as the Democrats desire. There are other ones that deal tangentially with this topic but that should show that isn't something recent or surprising.

I should add that one of my quibbles with the article is that he states the power of the US and Europe in the world is declining. In my view there are two types of power, theoretical and real. Theoretical power is the total potential power of a nation realized or not while real power is that power which a nation is willing to use. Europe’s power, however you define it, is on the decline so I don’t dispute that point. As for us it is true that our real power is on the decline as we seem intent on no longer exercising the full breadth of our capabilities. However, our theoretical power is essentially unchanged. Our economy grows at roughly the world average so there isn’t much change there. Our population is growing at near the world average and will actually likely be above the world rate soon. Our military holds as big if not a bigger share of global military power than ever before, as we are the only nation with a fully combat experienced force, our weapons and tactics are proven in combat, and we dominate global R&D spending (both military and civilian). This is what is so disheartening about the current mood in America, we have the power of Britain in 1870 at the height of the Pax Britannica, yet we are behaving and electing politicians like the Britain of 1970 at the ebb of her power (when even France and Italy! were richer than England, may that never be said about us).

Defeat Has a Price as Well- Cont.

2007-01-29T01:05:00.000-05:00

To follow up on my previous post, there is a short article by Michael Barone that notes some of the reasons for the softness the American public is showing. He also links to an editorial on the website for Der Spiegel, which is here also, about how much worse things are in Europe. The one consolation for concerned Americans whenever we consider the dark waters the American people are allowing our nation to drift to is that Europe is much further along than we are in almost all respects of weakness (economic, military, demographic, cultural, etc.). There will always be the final hope that Europe going into the abyss will at last wake up the American people just before we fall in.

On the political side, the wife of wannabe First Lady William Clinton Rodham is continuing the Democrats strategery of trying to bring about defeat in Iraq, like they did with Vietnam, while not being blamed for it, like they did with Vietnam. Her comments that it’s Bush’s job to extricate us from Iraq are classic liberalism, all political maneuver no substance. If it’s Bush’s job then she needs to prevail on her party to get out of his way and let him handle it. If however, she doesn’t think Bush is making the right choices and needs to be told to then it isn’t his job and she shares responsibility for the outcome. Again, though the Democrats want neither of those things. The Democrats want to hide the fact the jaws of defeat we are struggling to pull victory from are their own. Then if Bush can manage to pull victory from their jaws of defeat they can still claim they were in favor of it all along, they just had some “constructive criticism”, but if Bush cannot then they can step aside and let Bush take the blame. Either way, politically they win; our soldiers and our nation will always be second to that.

Defeat Has a Price as Well

2007-01-28T02:46:00.000-05:00

I apologize for the week with no posts. I was caught off guard by two midterms that were scheduled in the third week of class.

Daniel Henninger has an excellent editorial in the Wall Street Journal, which can be found online, about the fatalism gripping America today. He discusses how this fatalism in America is on almost everything, justified or not.

“Yes, on any given day on some discrete issue (Prime Minister Maliki's bona fides, for example), the criticism of the American role is not without justification. But the cumulative effect of this unremitting ill wind is corrosive. We are not only on the way to talking ourselves into defeat in Iraq but into a diminished international status that may be harder to recover than the doom mob imagines. Self-criticism has its role, but profligate self-doubt can exact a price.”

I think the second to last sentence is the key one there, we will not be able to mosey back into our current position in the world if we give up in Iraq and elsewhere. I’ve written about this several times since I think it is the most troubling part of the media and Democrat’s endless pessimism (here is a general one and here is one when I was more optimistic about the voters' ability to see the left for what it is). The days when we could choose to be isolationist and then instantly restore our place in the world are over. The old Euro-centric great power system that we couldn't help but lead no longer exists. Although the Democrat’s either don’t know or don’t care, there are real penalties for losing our top spot in world affairs. We would live in a world where like Europe we have to suffer Russia and the Arab’s energy politics, like Japan the price of our imports would vary wildly on the basis of someone else’s currency, and like China foreign trade is conducted according to another culture’s standards.

Our lack of resolve over Iraq is also sending a terrible signal to our allies. If a nation of 300 million can’t endure 3,000 dead in Iraq then what are the odds that it will suffer more to protect Japan from China, Ethiopia from the Arabs, or the Ukraine from Russia? Not very likely some countries will decide leading them to take the best deal they can from these countries. Even the most powerful nation requires a handful of allies to operate effectively. We don't need many but we don't need to scare off potential real allies either. Henninger quotes the Australian Foreign Minister who is for obvious reasons worried,

“What concerns me about this," he said, "is that it's sort of an isolationist sentiment, subconsciously, not consciously, and that would be an enormous problem for the world. I hope the American people understand the importance of not retreating and thinking the world's problems aren't theirs.”

The Aussie FM mentions another point, the world’s problems will still be our problems. The only difference will be our ability to do anything about them. As with other issues we’ll be left to hoping others keep them from becoming problems for us (fat chance) or simply living with them.

Power will always exist and be exercised. If the nation who holds it doesn’t then someone else will in their place. If we decide that we aren’t up to the responsibility our power entails then others will do it for us. The Europeans are desperate for the Euro to replace the Dollar which would place our import prices at the whims of the European Central Bank and Europe’s creaking economy. Russia and China are maneuvering to corner the global production of various raw materials so they can be used to their and not the world’s advantage. China is especially making moves to relocate the various global trading boards from New York and London to Shanghai so China can have a greater role in determining the value of raw materials to benefit herself. Problems like international terrorism, Lebanon, and Taiwan would be left to the witless UN and EU and would be handled by them much as they dealt with international communism, Bosnia, and Rwanda. There is no denying that many benefits accrue to us as the world’s superpower, but along with them comes responsibility and duty, we cannot have one without the other. The American people should be aware that the decision to ignore our responsibilities comes with a great and possibly irreversible price.

My last worry about this focuses on the US military. The American military is about the only part of the US government and probably the only global institution that still functions properly. Our soldiers are very proud of their country and their duty to her (I certainly was and am), much more so than the civilian population. I believe this is one of the key aspects that make America a great country and the main problem for most other countries. An Iraqi soldier was quoted in a news story (it’s several years old so I can’t find it) saying that after serving with American soldiers he can see that Iraq’s main problem is that not enough Iraqis love their country enough to die for it. However, this is one of the increasingly large gaps between the military and the public at large. The military is of course very worried that its 5 years of hard work and sacrifice will soon be thrown down the drain by an American public and establishment apparently not up to the task of supporting their armed forces. Former Army Vice Chief of Staff Jack Keane is quotes as saying in exasperation,

“My God, this is the United States. We are the world's No. 1 superpower. This isn't about arrogance. This is about capability and applying ourselves to a problem that is at its essence a human problem."

It’s not likely or something near term, but I just wonder if longer-term we are heading to a point where our military could no longer tolerate a public not worthy of its sacrifices.

When Leaders Follow Diplomats Who Want to Talk at any Price

2007-01-21T05:34:00.000-05:00

To continue with my last post on American diplomacy, there are a group of news stories that deal with the troubles that stem from using the diplomacy-ueber-alles policy with every international problem. Yahoo News had a story a few days ago about the Democrats seeking to block any military action against Iran unless Bush gives Iran advance notice and time to prepare by first going to the Democrat Congress for approval. Usually this would be worth a long post about how the Democrats are only reinforcing Iran’s opinion that we won’t do anything to stop them so they can push as far as they like. However, barring any major attacks by Iran (apparently killing American soldiers in Iraq isn’t major enough) it doesn’t seem likely Bush will actively move to stop Iran in his last 2 years. It would be a very tough decision even in the best case, but since the American people clearly don’t want anything done that would risk raising gas prices even a penny and voted in the left to run Congress this is not the best of cases. Ultimately, it is up to Bush but since the American people would either rather deal with Iran at much greater expense later or live in a world in which a nuclear Iran dictates oil prices and extorts tribute from America to keep terrorism to a lower level then I would expect Bush to go along (though I hope I’m wrong). Of course the people will blame Bush when the bill comes due for their current demands. I’ll instead focus on another issue this story brings up, the seeming inability for members of modern leftists and diplomats to understand that negotiating with dictators and terrorists for the sake of negotiating, or worse giving them concessions for the privilege, is not to our advantage and only makes the problem worse when we do decide to deal with it.

What grabbed my interest in the Yahoo story was the comments at the end by Lee Hamilton. He was the Democrat co-chair of the Iraq Study Group, which definitely makes him prime fodder like his co-chair James Baker (whom I covered over his plan to deal with Iran to stabilize Iraq and his plan to sell out Israel to stabilize Iraq). Mr. Hamilton, along with the ISG, believes the solution to the Iran and Iraq issues is… dialogue. What a surprise. He tries to flip the issue in a way so that if you criticize talks then you’re criticizing US diplomats by saying, “Do we have so little confidence in the diplomats of the United States that we're not willing to let them talk with somebody we disagree with?" The problem is not so much American diplomats but the “somebody we disagree with”. American diplomats are fine professionals who are capable of advancing America’s interests in the world when they don’t fall for the left-wing-no-bad-peace-we’re-so-smart-we-can-solve-any-problem-null-think. The problem is they usually do and this gives the advantage to the “somebody we disagree with.” This kind of muddled thinking can be seen in Hamilton’s statement, Iran is a country that has on many occasions killed Americans, violates diplomatic norms whenever they want, is currently doing everything they can to see to it that Iraq is as bloody as possible, and is starting a nuclear arms race in the Middle East and possibly beyond (for those who would blame Israel, she’s had nukes for some 30 years, Arab countries are only now talking about starting nuclear programs). This is not a country with which we merely “disagree”. It doesn’t take much rational thinking about the world to realize that.

We can see what happens when diplomats win and attempt to reason with the unreasonable in other recent news. Mario Loyola over at the National Review has a recap of recent news regarding talks with North Korea. In short it’s the same as it’s always been. Talk, talk, talk, nothing happens except North Korea continues advancing their nuclear and missile programs. Given that the Iranians are visiting, they are also likely sharing their knowledge. Or if we do give in and give them goodies to behave, as Clinton did, they simply take the goodies and continue as before. Either way talk alone accomplishes nothing and only allows the situation to degrade. In Columbia, President Uribe offered talks with Marxist rebels last month. Uribe has generally done a great job fighting the Marxists so at least he is entering talks from a position of strength. Nevertheless, his offer of talks was still met with bombing in the capital city. The Marxist rebels are also demanding the military offensive against them be called off in exchange for talks. Can’t imagine why they’d want that (hint to lefties, it’s because they’re losing). Can't mention failed talks without mentioning the endless round of Israeli concession followed by Palestinian (or other Arab) backtracking that has been the 50 year Arab-Israeli "Peace Process". Nothing particularly new here though, Hezbollah is quietly and quickly rebuilding after last Summer's fighting despite UN "mandates" to the contrary. Israeli Prime Minister Olmert at least hasn't been foolish enough yet to enter into talks with Hezbollah, but we'll see.

Lastly, and most relevantly (hence its own paragraph), from Spain comes news that the far left Prime Minister Zapatero is under pressure because his 9 month long peace talks with the Basque ETA terrorist group resulted in a car bombing at the Madrid airport. One of the surprising things is the shock that the Prime Minister displays about the bombing, “It (ETA) made the worst decision — a criminal, mistaken and useless one. It chose the path of terror." Fancy that, a criminal terror group choosing the criminal path of terror. Unlike Zapatero and other lefties, that decision doesn’t throw my entire perception of reality out the window. As for mistaken and useless, ETA got the peace talks despite its bombings, Al-Qaeda made Spain retreat from Iraq with bombings, so whether it in facts turns out to be a mistake there is certainly reason for ETA to not see it as one. The Prime Minister then makes a Chamberlain-esque mea culpa, “I want to recognize the clear mistake I made before all Spanish citizens.” What I don’t understand is why does all of become so clear of a mistake to the left afterwards? The right and non-diplomats seem to be capable of understanding it beforehand. I know the left hates hearing the words Hitler, Chamberlain, and Munich together, but that was simply the most well known and egregious example of the error of their policies regarding dictators, terrorists, and other assorted thugs (I know, that’s why they hate to hear it).

Bush would be wise to note what has happened to Zapatero’s fortunes since the bombing. Zapatero was elected following a major terror attack promising to talk. He has been popular and followed through with his talks even though it should have been expected to do nothing but give the terrorists breathing room. Now his poll numbers have collapsed and Spaniards say things such as, "What is your word worth after all this? You have been fooled by a pack of murderers." Sadly, it doesn’t work with voters, as Zapatero tried, to point out that you were merely doing what they wanted at the time, “I did what most Spaniards wanted, try to use the truce to end the violence.” Now he is discredited, ETA is as strong as ever, several Spaniards died, and the electorate is up in arms. Sometimes being a leader means leading where others need to go, but don’t want to. I hope Bush is watching and learning.

China Acts, America Whines, Something Isn't Right Here

2007-01-19T09:19:00.000-05:00

The news that the Chinese have apparently successfully tested an anti-satellite weapon is an opportunity to mention something that bothers me about the US national security apparatus, its whiny responses to any challenge from other powers. My personal favorite being the State Department official who responded to Russia’s hardball energy politics a year ago by saying, “they’re acting like it’s the 19th Century.” I certainly hope they were able to find that official a ba-ba and a blankey quickly since Russia isn't playing by his rules. We’ve also seen it with the moaning over China’s rapidly increasing military budget, Russia helping Iran, North Korea, Iran, Syria, and others not wanting to join the “community of nations”, and so forth. Sadly, ther one of the few serious voices in US diplomacy is now former representative to the UN Bolton. Ah well, that's the price a US diplomat pays these days for not going along with the Democrat/State Dept. policy of coddling kleptocrats at the UN and murderous tyrants abroad.

The newest case obviously involves China developing the technology to shoot down satellites. The way a grown-up serious nation would deal with is by looking at 1) if we need that ability, 2) if yes then what is the possibility of a treaty banning it working with the power in question, 3) if yes to 1 and not likely to 2 (almost always the case) then can we in other ways make it not worth it to the power to possess these weapons, and lastly 4) regardless of the answer to 3, what counter-measures can we develop to the technology. Instead Washington seems to deal with international problems today by 1) whine, 2) cry to the UN or do nothing (same thing though the second is somewhat more dignified). Regarding the anti-sat we’ve quickly completed step 1 and are presumably well onto step 2. According to National Security Council spokesman Gordon Johndroe, “The United States believes China's development and testing of such weapons is inconsistent with the spirit of cooperation that both countries aspire to in the civil space area… We and other countries have expressed our concern to the Chinese."

This is an absurd statement because every weapon system is “inconsistent with the spirit of cooperation that both countries aspire” in any field. Our large fleet of warships and subs that is increasingly weighted towards the Pacific is not exactly in the “spirit of cooperation”; ditto for our expansion of facilities in Japan and Guam. Our anti-ballistic missile systems are designed specifically to limit China and other countries’ ability to threaten our forces with missiles, one of our major weaknesses. The anti-sat weapons are themselves meant to bring down our satellites that make us much more effective at destroying Chinese targets in a war. Yet again we are not being very consistent with the spirit of cooperation. It would seem obvious then that just as we want to make it as difficult for other powers to hurt our interests that China and others would likewise want to limit the ability of powers to harm their interests.

Yet for some reason it doesn’t seem to be obvious enough to Washington. The concept that nations behave in a way that benefits themselves and not necessarily the United States seems to be an alien one outside of the Pentagon. Maybe it’s because of the “kumbaya we are the world” trash they’ve taught in colleges for the last 40 years. Whatever the cause, the world’s super power needs to act like an adult and realize that isn’t wrong for countries to look out for their own interests first. If it conflicts with our interests then we need to make it not in their interest to continue with their behavior. Granted in this case we are likely doing something to counter (I hope) China's new anti-sat capability but we need to do it in a more dignified manner. Since perception matters as much as, if not more than, reality in power politics a superpower that whines like a little kid who isn’t getting his way is not long for superpower-dom. Since superpower transitions rarely go smoothly we will pay dearly in the future if we don’t start understanding this reality.

Israel Offers Many Important Lessons, We Should Pay Attention

2007-01-15T15:19:00.000-05:00

Strategypage.com has a story about how Israeli tanks performed against Hezbollah last summer in Lebanon. That the Israeli tanks generally performed well despite a few hiccups is as I expected at the time (and can be seen in my July/August posts about the conflict), and isn’t really anything noteworthy. However, I think this story conveniently ties together three other common themes of this blog along with an important point. The first is the conversion of Western media outlets into propaganda way stations for the Islamists. The next is the importance of properly funding militaries so they can deal with both counter-insurgency and conventional operations. The third theme is the importance of learning from history, even very recent history, and other countries. Lastly, this further reinforces the fact that the tank is far from dead on the modern battlefield.

From the beginning of this war the media has to at least some extent been a propaganda organ for the Islamists. Even prior to the Afghan invasion we were fed a constant series of stories about the “Graveyard of Empires”, the “Invincible Afghan Super-Tribesman”, the “Ferocious Afghan Winter”, etc (all of which is highly inaccurate by the way). The media could contain its collective glee for all of three weeks before jumping to label the operation a “quagmire”. It is not then unexpected that the media leapt at the opportunity to do some cheerleading for the Islamists last summer. Hardly a news story was written that didn’t include some item about Hezbollah “gutting” the Israeli Defense Force or “unexpected/exceptional Hezbollah resistance”. We have a media today that takes the Islamist line about Hezbollah supermen who with their novel tactics and wonder missiles were destroying the IDF and runs with it without bothering with such a trifle thing as checking its veracity. Now it is becoming clearer as many like myself said last summer that Israeli thrashed Hezbollah militarily. As I pointed out in a post, despite Hezbollah having better training and weapons than past Arab opponents, excellent fortified defensive terrain, and a hamstrung IDF that wasn’t as ready as it should have been, Hezbollah still did no better than past Arab armies. During World War II the media did not fall for the similar German propaganda about the “Nazi Supermen” or with “Nazi Wonder Weapons”. The media ignored it even though it was technically correct if inflated. Many divisions of the Waffen-SS, along with some regular army divisions (the Paras, Groess Deutschland, Panzer Lehr, etc.) were a head and shoulders above any allied division in capability. Germany also had superior weapons in many areas like Panther and Tiger tanks, Me-262 jet fighter, V-2 rockets, SG-44 assault rifles and so on. Somehow the media managed to resist propagandizing this to the home front for the Nazis. Our media by comparison cannot muster the same strength (I know it takes a lot) to ignore the flat-out false propaganda of the enemy. Had the World War II media fallen for Nazi propaganda it would have been a tragedy, but the media falling for Islamist propaganda is simply a farce; one we could well do without.

Another problem this report reveals is what happens when a military is forced to fight a long counter-insurgency operation without a requisite increase in defense spending. Many of Israel's problems can be traced to the IDF simply being unfit for conventional operations due to years of reduced funding for training. Tank crews were utilized as security soldiers for Palestinian areas and thus were not riding around practicing in their tanks. According to the CIA World Factbooks, from 1999 (prior to the second intifadah) to 2003 Israeli military spending declined from 9.4% to 8.75% of GDP despite increased military operations. Between 2003 and 2005, as the intifadah was largely suppressed, defense spending declined much more rapidly from 8.75% to 7.7%. A shrinking defense share of the economy, increased operational tempo, and a focus on counter-insurgency combined to create a situation where the Israelis were not as ready as they should have been for Hezbollah’s challenge. The price for that was paid last summer, is being paid in the large increases now required in defense spending, and will be paid when a revamped Hezbollah returns (possibly controlling Lebanon). A further lesson being taught is that when you elect a leftist to run your country they will not take national security seriously. The rank military incompetence displayed during the actual fighting by Israeli Prime Minister Olmert is continuing after the war. Despite the obvious need to increase the defense budget following last summer's war, Olmert has decided against properly funding the IDF. The soldiers dying to keep Israel safe and free won’t get the extra money they need but the education colleges have had their cuts reduced (note how protective the Labor MK is over education spending, if only they were as concerned with mending the damage low budgets have done to the IDF). Despite claims by the leftist politicians that they take defense issues seriously, when it comes to defense or social spending they will always go for the latter regardless the situation.

A favorite theme of mine is the importance of learning from historical and current mistakes of other countries. Otto von Bismarck made one of my favorite quotes regarding this, “fools learn from their own mistakes, I learn from others’ mistakes.” It’s not like we haven’t ignored Israeli's dearly paid for lessons before. Prior to the Iraq war, if I recall correctly, Israeli officers went to the Pentagon to teach us what they learned about modern counter-insurgency operations. I had expected this since Israel had mountains of information to share and we would need it in post-war Iraq. The program was ended and we didn’t adopt any of Israel's tactics in Iraq since as one of Fox News’ rent-a-generals so astutely counseled, "we’ll rightly ignore the Israelis, we don’t want to turn Iraq into the West Bank" (I paraphrase). A year and a half and scores of dead Americans later we were rushing to learn about the use of armored bulldozers, shoulder fired rockets, house clearing techniques and so forth from Israel. We improved these tactics and used them to great effect in cities like Fallujah, Ramadi, and Tal Afar (the Israelis repaid the favor and didn’t pay attention to our lessons when they attacked Bent Jbail). This story is a very important one indeed for Americans as the Democrat Congress races to repeat Israel’s mistake regarding defense spending. As of right now the military is managing somewhat to pay for both counter-insurgency operations while also maintaining its conventional war fighting capacity. There is a debate brewing over the need to fund both counter-insurgency and conventional capabilities at this time (here's an example, and my view regarding the Air Force at least). The argument for the Israeli-style policy is that the only fighting at the moment is counter-insurgency so that’s all we need to worry about. The fact that we won’t always be fighting counter-insurgencies and that the money being pledged today will take effect years from now when the world situation may be different are disregarded. The Democrats will likely find the billions they could free up for domestic spending by eliminating conventional weapons programs and training too appealing to pass up (my pre-election concern can be seen here). Like Israel, we will find it easier to do this for many years. Also like Israel the price of this policy will far outweigh the benefits and will have to be paid eventually.

My last point is a small one and is only generally related to the others. We have seen yet again that the tank still has a vital role on the modern battlefield. Relearning this is nothing new as the tank has been discounted since its inception in 1916. Part of the reason France and Britain did not focus on tank warfare prior to WWII was because they had learned the wrong lesson from the Spanish Civil War, that the tank was very limited since it could easily be destroyed by anti-tank guns. Then the light tank-destroyer was supposed to kill the tank, then the anti-tank guided missile, and then more advanced anti-tank missiles. Various advanced militaries around the world have at various times proposed getting rid of tanks. The US military did under Gen. Eric Shinseki and then briefly under Rumsfeld. The Canadian military tried at one point to get rid of its few tank units. Britain is presently on a Shinseki-style craze to transform her army into a hi-tech medium weight peacekeeping force without tanks. Even Israel has been reducing her tank fleet for some time. With the exception of Britain, each country has learned through combat operations that the tank is still very valuable. It is true that we have to watch that we don’t allow generals and politicians to hold onto their relics from prior wars, but we also have to see that they don’t get rid of valuable weapons because they incorrectly view them as “relics”.

The Rising Sun Continues its Ascent

2007-01-10T07:28:00.000-05:00

There’s a host of news stories out of Japan that indicate the country is continuing normalization at a decent clip. As I’ve mentioned in many posts, I believe whether Japan becomes a normal country is the most important factor in determining how the first half of the 21st Century plays out. Due to their influence on India, they will also play a key role in encouraging that nation to join the US and Japan in keeping the second half of the 21st Century as peaceful and prosperous as possible.

The most important story is the upgrading of the Defense Agency to a full-fledged ministry. This editorial by the Japanese newspaper Yomiuri goes over the advantages this brings. The Defense Minister will now be able to directly call meetings and propose bills, instead of having to go through the Cabinet Office to do so. As the head of a ministry he will also have greater stature and be able to more effectively present the national security side of debates to the government. The upgrade will also see new sections added to the military such as a strategic planning section and a section to handle US-Japan military cooperation. This ends phase 1 of the necessary military expansion by Japan. Phase 2 and 3 will need to end the proscription of offensive military weapons and the 1% of GDP defense spending cap. Japan is simply too powerful of a country to not be helping us keep the secure global environment their economy heavily depends on secure.

The next important story is tied to the first. When the Japanese Diet past the bill to create the Defense Ministry, it also passed a bill that will have Japanese schools teach patriotism again. This will, over time, help to instill a level of confidence and willpower in the Japanese people that being an active global power requires. This is very important militarily as the amount of support from home has a major role in the effectiveness of the operation and diplomatically as an assertive willful nation needs to have a public that will stand by the government’s decisions. As more and more of our old allies, and perhaps even America herself, lose their national confidence and thereby their capability to do anything (only really Australia is left these days), this bill in Japan will become ever more important.

There are a group of stories that indicate Japan is becoming more active and assertive diplomatically and strategically. Since there are so many of them I’ll just list them in no particular order:

1) The ruling Liberal Democrat Party has made supporting visits to the Yasukuni Was Shrine part of its party platform. This is a signal to the East Asian countries, primarily China and South Korea, that Japan will not allow them to humiliate her over World War II and the Japanese Empire anymore. Japan will honor her war dead as she sees fit and if China or others have a problem with it then that’s their problem.
2) According to the China Daily (not sure how reputable they are) Japan will pass a law soon that opens an undersea gas field to Japanese development. The gas field is also claimed by China. Japan and China have been arguing over this gas field for some time. If the Japanese do pass the law and develop the gas field it would be another sign that Japan isn’t going to be pushed around anymore.
3) The government of Japan is doing more diplomatically than just reacting. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is currently on a diplomatic tour of Europe. He is in Europe to expand Japanese ties with the EU and NATO. The overall importance of the EU as a positive factor may be nil but its negative impact can be large as was seen a few years back French President Chirac and German Chancellor Schroeder attempted to end the arms ban imposed on China after Tiananmen Square in 1989. This would have allowed China access to some of the latest military technology and would have been very problematic for Japan. It’s important for Japan to have a voice at the EU if only to persuade the EU not to do anything bad. Having contacts with NATO has more obvious positive results for Japan. Abe will be the first Japanese Prime Minister to address the North Atlantic Council.
4) Japan is no longer handing out foreign aid based primarily on World War II. It is being re-oriented to line up with strategic interests instead. Prior foreign aid was predominately given to countries like China, South Korea, the Philippines, etc. who were occupied by Japan at one time or another. Now it will be focused on shoring up the Middle East and competing with Chinese foreign aid.
5) According to news reports a few days ago, South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun proposed renaming the Sea of Japan to, ahem, “the Sea of Peace”. The Japanese government publicly rejected renaming the Sea of Japan. Later news stories have the South Korean President claiming to have informally offered several names like “Sea of Friendship” as a confidence building measure between Japan and South Korea. Either way, this is another sign that Japan will not be pushed around. I’d say China has two seas, Korea should ask to name one of those (yeah I know that won’t go anywhere).
6) Almost a month old, but Japan and India are developing a strategic partnership. The two countries have pledged to work together to maintain regional peace and security. This would include economic, military, and diplomatic cooperation. This is critical for us and the world since the ruling Congress Party in India was born and bred with anti-Americanism during the Cold War it makes it somewhat more difficult for us to make headway with India. When the Hindu nationalist BJP, which is much more pro-American, is in office we can work more closely with India. However, Japanese contact allows for continual alliance building with India even when the Congress Party is in power.
7) Japan continues to direct a large amount of her savings and investment to the US with the latest example being a plan to finance nuclear power plant construction in the US. Probably the most critical relationship in the global economy is between aging wealthy Japan and young growing America. As the only developed nation with a growing population and quickly growing economy, America needs large amounts of capital for investment. The Japanese need somewhere to put their massive pile of savings that will both earn a good return and be safe. This deal shows that this economic relationship will continue. We need large amounts of new power generation, Japan needs the profits they will generate, and we both need the close relationship it will develop.

A strong confident country with active diplomacy and a powerful military requires a strong economy to back it up (fukoku kyôhei for any Japanese readers out there). Japan has been a little weak in economic growth from 1990 to 2002 or so. The last few years have seen the Japanese economy grow around 2% a year. That sounds low but is pretty good for a country with a slowly shrinking workforce. The government expects the growth to continue into 2007. Renewed economic growth is important since it is the basis of all the things above. It helps the Japanese people feel proud and confident about their nation. It allows for active “Yen diplomacy” and makes access to the Japanese market more of an incentive. A powerful military needs a government with the tax revenue to properly fund it.

These news stories are mostly no more than 3 days old. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has been setting a fairly hectic pace in his efforts to normalize Japan. So far he has been successful. He has some major challenges ahead such as adjusting the Japanese Constitution to reflect the reality of the world today. Hopefully for Japan, for the US, and for the world he will continue being as successful as he has.

Enter Hu Jin-Tirpitz and the Sino-American Naval Race

2007-01-05T14:52:00.000-05:00

China’s President Hu Jintao recently gave a speech stating that, “The navy force should be strengthened and modernized... to serve the country and its people more effectively.” This doesn’t quite have the symbolic or real world impact of “a fleet second to none” or “a place in the sun” but it also isn’t something we can blithely ignore. Even though China will not be able to challenge the US and Japan on the seas for some time, they are preparing for that day. They are building modern ships, submarines, and power projection capabilities at a decent rate. This buildup will soon place China third in the world in modern and semi-modern vessels (2005: China-25 ships/19 subs, US-123/52, Japan-44/16, Russia-27/36 poorly maintained, UK-27/9, France-18/6, and India-17/13). This naval expansion is nothing new or evil. The Franco-English and Anglo-German naval races of years past were very similar in many respects. The players have changed but the game is the same. A new great power arises and discovers that a first-class great power requires a powerful fleet to protect its security. This powerful fleet invariably threatens the security of already existing great powers. At this point one of 4 things happen (example naval race from history, my guesstimate of it happening today):

1) Current great power accepts the hit to its security and gives up (Anglo-US, possible but not likely I would think/hope),
2) New great power does the same and gives up (US-USSR, not happening),
3) New great power doesn’t want to wait the 30 or so years it takes to build a powerful fleet, so they develop “risk theories” that they think allows them to mount an early challenge the current great power with the superior fleet (Anglo-German & US-Japan, most likely given China's actions and moves).
4) New great power does wait 30 years while it builds up its fleet (Anglo-Dutch, China's best choice, depends on if Beijing can hold off on Taiwan for the next 20 years, given that and the fact that this is somewhat rare historically I don't think it's too likely but we'll see).

It is very easy to dismiss China’s naval growth, as the Chinese would like us to, because it pales in comparison to the strength of the mighty US Navy. Also, there is the excellent Japanese navy to consider. However, China’s naval buildup should be closely observed and if need be countered for two reasons. Firstly China doesn’t need to match the American and Japanese navies ship for ship and crew for crew. China, like von Tirpitz’s Germany, understands that all they need to do is raise the risk of confronting China to an unacceptable level for us and Japan. This only requires close approximation and not full parity or superiority between the Chinese navy and the US Pacific Fleet and Japanese navy. The second reason follows from the fact that it will be the US Pacific Fleet and not the US Navy as China’s opponent. What this means is that while China’s entire navy will be used in a conflict, we will only be able to send a portion of ours due to global commitments and distance from our main ports. Unless we increase the size of our fleet we will have to steadily weaken ourselves elsewhere to provide the margin we need against China. Unfortunately, with the exception of India in the Indian Ocean, there are not many good nations to take our place in their region if we withdraw. Britain was forced to withdraw from the Americas and East Asia to deal with Germany in 1914. She at least was able to hand power over to like-minded countries. Although even with like-minded countries this would turn out badly for Britain since Japan turned violent with the Royal Navy absent.

The overall growth of the Chinese surface fleet does not at first glance look impressive. Its total strength is expected to grow from 19 destroyers and 40 frigates in 2000 to 28 destroyers and 42 frigates in 2015. However, all but one of the ships in 2000 was obsolescent and most would have been little more than target hulks for the US Navy in the event of a conflict. By 2005 China’s count of modern ships had grown to 6 destroyers and 2 frigates. This is expected to grow to 14 destroyers and 8 frigates by 2015. At the same time China is adding semi-modern vessels that could still pack a punch when paired with modern ships. This intermediate category will likely grow from 2 destroyers and 6 frigates to 3 destroyers and 14 frigates in 2015. At some point, globalsecurity.org says 2010 but others say after 2020, the Chinese fleet will receive its first aircraft carrier. It’s expected to be about half the size of a US carrier at around 48,000 tons displacement and 24 fighters. These estimates are from before Hintao’s speech calling for more navy funding so the real figures will likely be higher.

More critical to China’s ability to simply damage the US Navy severely enough that we won’t challenge them are submarines. In 2000, China actually possessed more attack subs than the US, though again most were obsolete (Chinese copies of Soviet copies of German WWII designs). Of China’s 64 attack subs in 2000, 5 were semi-modern nuclear attack subs (the Han-class) and 5 were modern conventional attack subs (Kilo-class and a Song-class). In 2005 China had 1 modern and 5 semi-modern nuclear attack subs, and 13 modern conventional attack subs. According to older estimates these numbers should be 6 modern and 5 semi-modern nuclear attack subs, and 29 modern conventional attack subs in 2015. The growth of the modern conventional attack sub force is perhaps the most worrisome aspect for the US Navy. Modern conventional attack subs are extraordinarily difficult to find and track. Japanese, Australian, and Swedish conventional subs regularly manage to get within strike distance of a US carrier in wargames without being discovered. Any thoughts that this was a feat that only well trained crews in the most advanced subs could perform were dispelled a few months ago when a Chinese sub trailed a US carrier from 5 miles away without being noticed. The fact that this incident took place near Okinawa further shows the greater ranges at which the Chinese sub force is capable of operating.

The Chinese are not focusing on glamorous new ships and subs while neglecting the more mundane aspects of naval power projection. Their amphibious fleet has undergone a radical improvement in its capabilities. Prior to 2000 most of China’s amphibious vessels were WWII American designs. The 26 large amphibious ships they had in 2000 could carry a max load of 15,600 soldiers (although they would carry less than that depending on the supplies they would need to take with them). In 2005 this has expanded to 33 ships with a 21,600 soldier capacity and will be at least 52 ships and 31,200 soldier capacity by 2015. No fleet can operate far from home without underway replenishment vessels accompanying them. This area of the Chinese navy will see its 2000 total of 3 ships and 34,200 tons of cargo capacity grow to 5 ships with a cargo capacity of 57,000 tons in the near future. There don’t appear to be any further plans for expansion beyond that, but again these are only estimates and something like a cargo vessel could be ordered up fairly quickly. Officially, this side of the navy modernization is chalked up to Taiwan. The ships are only needed to move soldiers and supplies for operations against the Taiwanese “separatists”. It shouldn’t take much mental power to realize that those ships will be just as capable of moving soldiers and supplies to other places.

Barring any disruptions from the Democrats gaining control of Congress, the US Navy is projected to grow from 123 ships and 52 subs to 161 ships and 50 subs. Due to our other global commitments it’ll be difficult to send more than half of our fleet to the western Pacific unless we wished to invite more trouble by reducing those commitments. Adding in the Japanese Navy, this would yield a force of approximately 100 ships and 40 subs today and 110 ships and 40 subs in 2015. Impressively larger that may be, but the ratio of ships will decline from 4:1 to 2.75:1 and of subs from 2:1 to 1:1. It has to be noted though that 22 of these new US ships are the smaller and less capable Littoral Combat Ships. Since the final design of the LCS hasn’t been determined yet, it’s difficult at this time to say if they would have much use against China. At the moment it would seem that they wouldn’t since they are mainly for operations in shallow waters against less capable countries like Iran or North Korea; but who knows until the design and procurement schedules are finalized. The effect of the US Navy’s 12 aircraft carriers is also somewhat difficult to gauge. On the one hand each has more theoretical firepower than just about any navy on the planet. On the other their anti-submarine capabilities are not proportional to their greater firepower and their prohibitive cost would likely cause them to see more limited usage than is normal (especially in light of the sub part). Exactly how much this would limit their tremendous firepower can only be known when the war happens.

Not to sound like a broken record, but the Chinese fleet is not going to be a force that can clear the oceans of US Navy ships anytime soon. The trouble is that it could still pose a major threat to the US Navy and the Pax Americana even in a smaller state. The problem is that the Chinese are not preparing for a stand up fight, and we would likely shirk from one anyways (their preferred result). Unlike Germany in their naval race, the Chinese understand that their sub force is their major threat. Admittedly, it will be much more difficult in war-time for a Chinese sub to get within 5 miles of a US carrier than it was last October. However, in less than a decade China will have at least 40 subs trying to do just that, not just one. The US Navy has been trying to develop new tactics to counter the new super-quiet conventional subs, but we of course don’t know if the Navy is having any success (a potentially hostile sub being able to shadow a carrier until the sub chose to reveal itself doesn't exactly inspire confidence).

These Chinese subs would be looking for one of the 4-8 carriers we send to the western Pacific. The more carriers we send does increase the odds of Chinese subs being found, but it would likely increase the odds of a carrier being sunk even more. With only a couple dozen each of subs and ships free the US Navy will be hard pressed to search the sea lanes across the breadth of the Pacific for them. Like the dreadnaughts of WWI, modern supercarriers are so prohibitively expensive and imbued with so much national pride that the loss of one would be a tremendous blow to America. Losing 2 or 3 would simply have unthinkable consequences to America’s position in the world.

The Chinese surface fleet would have its opportunities to do damage as well. While America’s carriers, along with around 30-50 escort ships, are desperately trying to avoid Chinese subs hundreds and maybe thousands of miles east of Taiwan, the surface ships of the Chinese navy would be well positioned for rapid sorties against smaller American/Japanese task forces. In this way they would play a role similar to Germany's Battlecruiser Squadron during WWI. The goal would be to sink enough American ships that we give up, regardless of how many ships and subs China loses. China also has various “assassins’ mace” weapons that they hope will be able to exploit weaknesses in the US Navy’s capabilities. These include weapons like lasers, anti-satellite devices, ballistic missiles capable of hitting a moving target, and so forth. What impact they would have is unknown. At the very least they would add to the US Navy’s worries and force the carriers to operate in an even more limited capacity. Most importantly is if the Chinese think these weapons will be tremendously effective. That’s all the more reason for them to create a situation where they could be.

However, this is not the scenario the Chinese wish to occur. Rather it is the scenario they hope America so fears that she won’t even dare to challenge them. Germany wagered in 1914 that Britain would rather keep her dreadnaughts and thus her empire than risk both to stop Germany’s goals in Europe, they were wrong. China is wagering that America would rather keep her supercarriers and maintain her position in the rest of the world than stop China’s moves in East Asia, I wish I could say they are wrong. However, the buckling of American resolve in Iraq under 3,000 dead in almost 4 years does not offer hope. How quickly will Americans be demanding and end to conflict and the return of cheap toys and kitchen appliances when 3,000 sailors go down with a carrier? America and Japan cannot rest easy even if the Chinese are not megalomaniacally willing to risk their small fleet by starting a war whose success depends on weak American resolve. Longer-term this initial fleet is providing China with industrial and military know-how that is necessary to build and operate a large fleet along with the experience they will require to actually fight the far more experienced US Navy. With their growing economy, ship building industry, and cadre of trained sailors, it would not be difficult for China to launch into a sudden massive shipbuilding program in the near future.

Either way, this is a development that should be closely watched and replied to by both the United States and Japan. Chinese protestations aside, it is not their declared intentions but their capabilities and our interests on which we must base our own policies. Aircraft carriers, underway replenishment ships, and vast numbers of modern conventional attack subs are not needed to conquer Taiwan, they are needed to fight the US and Japanese navies. At the least, they are preparing the capability to fight us, we must make sure we maintain and if need be expand ours.

Note: I consider a modern warship to be one with a) anti-aircraft capabilities beyond 10 miles, b) a close in weapons system to defend against missiles, c) either less than 20 years old or extensively upgraded in the last 20 years, d) capability in more than 2 areas (anti-air, anti-surface, anti-sub, and land attack). A semi-modern ship would be one that has at least 2 of the above. Subs are a little more difficult, but aside from the Chinese Han-class I consider the rest modern. The Han-class isn’t only because it’s a very noisy sub even by nuclear standards. The conventional subs show a clear break between older and modern designs in capability (as witnessed by the aforementioned Chinese Song-class exploit) so they are either counted or not.

"Sic Semper Tyrannis", Regardless How Sick the Sic

2007-01-03T14:25:00.000-05:00

The execution of Saddam has caused the expected complaints from the left along with some unexpected unease amongst the right. As has been well publicized, the complaints and unease center around the taunts and jeers leveled at Saddam by the Shiite members of the execution crew and the speed with which the execution occurred. Even my favorite columnist Mark Steyn is a bit unhappy with the behavior during the execution. While I agree the execution could have been better managed, I don’t agree that there was anything particularly wrong with the execution.

When a people are tyrannized so ruthlessly and for so long, it is difficult for them to contain their rapturous joy at the demise of their former tormentor. This is not a cultural thing but human nature. The handling of Mussolini by an Italian mob is perhaps the most famous such incident. In the off chance you don’t know that he was hung up on a meat hook along with his mistress, here’s a picture. To further compound the crass spectacle, Mussolini was then posed dead with a scepter. Hitler decided to kill himself after seeing how Mussolini was dealt with to prevent the same from happening to himself. As an example of how regicide was handled in European history, King Louis XVI of France was beheaded in front of a cheering and certainly jeering crowd in 1793. Though Western Europe has been bereft of such executions since 1945 it’s simply because it’s been bereft of tyrannous leaders who deserve it.

The other complaint has focused on the "rushed" execution. Since it’s been 3 years since Saddam was captured this is primarily about the quickness from his conviction and sentencing or from the scheduling of the execution to the actual execution (about 7 weeks and 3 days respectively). Whichever standard is used it is still ages compared with the swiftness that Iraqi leaders King Faisal II and Col. Qassim were executed (less than a day for both). In recent European history there is the execution of the Ceausescu’s that took place mere days after his overthrow. Unlike Saddam, none of these leaders received a regular trial or any appeals. We also didn't hang Saddam's wife along with him. I'm not quite sure why Europeans and Arabs saw a need to kill the women around the dictator along with the dictator but that is definitely going too far.

Despite the fact that I think Saddam should be considered lucky to have gotten off with only a few insults prior to his execution, it still could have been managed better by us. I agree with Mark Steyn that our inability to comprehend the importance of the execution goes hand in hand with our declining ability to comprehend power politics and the world beyond America and Europe. I thought Saddam should have been executed within months of his capture. His trial should have consisted of no more than a very, very long reading of the names of everyone killed during his reign concluding with his conviction and sentence of death. Instead we had him treated like some common criminal. When it became apparent that this approach was going to be dragged out ad infinitum by Saddam’s American lawyers (how did we allow that one to happen?), they decided to do a rush job and end the problem in a way that left a bad taste in many people’s mouths.

Steyn writes that the execution should have said "Time to move on, says Government of Free Iraq", not "Payback's a bitch, says local enforcer." That’s all well and good, and but for our post-modernist peacenik null-think we could have managed to send a better signal. Nevertheless, I’m satisfied with the region’s despots simply hearing, "Payback's a bitch, says local enforcer."

SPQA's 2006 in Review

2007-01-01T02:40:00.000-05:00

One hopeful sign from 2006 that all is not lost in the world, my blog had a decent first year (well part of it anyways). Since I’m a very part-time blogger I’m happy with the smallish numbers. My blog has been up for 223 days including various vacation, college, and injury related breaks. In these 223 days SPQA has had:

Posts - 91
Words – 66,900
Visitors – 10,007

Hopefully next year's numbers will show even more is right with the world.

A Good Week that Ends a Bad Year

2006-12-30T11:57:00.000-05:00

For the first time in what feels like ages there is finally some good news for the forces of good in the world. Yes, each of these four events requires follow up and will produce ample cause to worry in the future. Nevertheless, we’ve been moving backwards for so long (since April 2004 I’d say) that it feels like a major cause of celebration just to see us going in the right direction again, regardless of how limited that shift may in fact be. Sort of like the United States after Antietam and Guadalcanal, or the British after El Alamein and Mafeking (throw a rare one in for you). The four pieces of news are:

Saddam’s execution. This finally closes a dark chapter in Iraqi, Arab, and world history. No longer can the Sunnis hope and the Shiites/Kurds fear that the Democrats will reinstall Saddam "to make Iraq a better place to live". This has an unknown level of practicality since we have no idea if or how the Iraqi people will react to the releasing of Saddam's ever present grip on their lives. Nonetheless it is a moral victory that will at least remind the other brutal tyrants of the region that it can happen to them (even though we’ve given them every reason not to fear it).

Somalia. The Ethiopian military has thoroughly defeated the Islamic Courts Union in only a week’s time (I do declare they deserve a fourth cheer). Ethiopia has reminded us what a professional military can do to Islamist rabble militias when it is fully unleashed. Hopefully Washington and Jerusalem were watching and took notes. Whichever rotten government takes hold in Somalia next now knows not to work with the Islamists, unless they desire the same fate. Ethiopia has also placed itself in a postion to heavily influence the next government in the right direction since it owes its existence to Ethiopia. If Ethiopia takes advantage of this they can further teach the US and Israel the art of power politics we've forgotten.

Iran. According to The Wall Street Journal, Washington is beginning a campaign to push for tough non-UN economic sanctions on Iran. This follows the UN imposing a series of wrist slapping sanctions on Iran itself. I’m not sure why this new sanctions push would be any more successful than the last ones, but Washington is doing something for a change even if it is pathetically tiny. I shutter to think that I would consider this good news, but the Iran crises is being managed so badly by Washington that I’ll take what I can get these days.

Japan. This news story states that Japan recently researched the steps needed to develop nuclear weapons. If true this would mean Japan is finally throwing off the last vestiges of post-World War II de-normalization. A normal Japan is one of the most, if not the most, important requirements for a stable free world in the 21st Century (old post about it). The sooner they become “normal” the better, and from the looks of it we may not have long to wait. If confirmed and followed up on this would qualify as the best news of the year, but being unconfirmed it'll have to go at the bottom of the best news of the last week of 2006, one of its few good weeks.

A Lesson from History: Everyone Hates a Winner (unless they need him)

2006-12-24T02:55:00.000-05:00

Early on in my independent study of history I noticed a trend in global power politics that I thought would be of concern for America’s future. What seemed to happen time and time again was that when a single nation would emerge indisputably victorious from a great conflict, most of the enemy and neutral nations would turn on this power while allies would remain neutral at the commencement of the next great conflict. Though it was only 1995 and we were in the middle of the halcyon days of the mid 90’s this indicated trouble ahead for America when she would inevitably be called back to fight (sorry, at the time I didn’t know what email was much less have a blog so I can’t reference this).

This trend is most notable in the wars of the European balance of power era starting around 1700. Prior to that, and in the first decades of the 19th and 20th Centuries, there was a single power in Europe so great that all the wars were focused on restraining this power (Spain first, then France, and lastly Germany). These wars (e.g. Nine Years War then War of the Spanish Succession, Wars of the various Coalitions, and World War I and II) were mostly repeats of the last war as far as alliances go.

With the War of the Spanish Succession and the introduction of a rough balance of power in Europe this changed. The war itself was fought by Britain, Holland, Austria, and various German and Italian states against France and Spain. This is the first war which left no one dominating power against which the rest of Europe could align. It was also the first war that left only a single true victor. When the war ended in 1714, Austria gained Spain’s possessions in Italy and the Mediterranean while the other belligerents received nothing for their trouble. This laid the groundwork for the resentment which would build and engulf Austria in 26 years.

Except for France, who fought a war against Austria in the 1730's, the other European powers waited like vultures for the day when Maria Theresa succeeded her father to the Hapsburg throne in Vienna. That day finally came in 1740 and they didn’t waste any time in taking advantage of the opportunity to grab some land. France, Bavaria, Saxony, Poland, and most importantly Prussia started the War of the Austrian Succession with dreams of partitioning the Austrian Empire. Only Britain, worried as always about maintaining the European balance of power supported Austria. However, Britain did so only with subsidies, colonial action, and threats. In the end, after 8 costly years of war, again only one power would see any gain. This time it was Prussia and its upstart king Frederick II who added the rich Austrian province of Silesia to his realm.

Frederick the Great was no fool and understood his fait after being the sole victor in 1748. As he expected, by 1756 Austria had formed an alliance with France, Russia, Poland, and the Holy Roman Empire. As before these powers planned to partition the rising Prussian state amongst themselves. Also like before Britain (along with Hannover) was Prussia’s sole ally after the Diplomatic Revolution. This time though they did field an army of British and German soldiers who fought against France in western Germany. Following the new tradition, there was a single winner after the Seven Years War, Great Britain. While all of the other belligerents gained nothing for their efforts, Britain annexed much of the French overseas empire following the war.

The lopsided British victory of 1763 was the straw that broke the camels back for most of Europe. Perfidious Albion hiding on her island behind the Royal Navy had always avoided the deprivations of war. The other Maritime states of Europe especially bided their time. Their moment came a scant 12 years later when the American Revolution broke out and threatened Britain’s grip on her most productive colony. Though it was understandable that France and to a lesser extent Spain would take such an opportunity, even the Dutch who had been protected by Britain for a century joined in. Prussia, the country that owed Britain the most and could do the most to draw off French resources, indirectly supported the colonists. Most of the rest of Europe would join the League of Armed Neutrality which limited Britain’s ability to fight in the colonies via economic means. Except for the loss of the American colonies, Britain would actually win against every belligerent and further expand her empire.

This is the last of the balance of power wars since shortly after the American Revolution came the French Revolution and a 23 year series of wars to restrain France. The mid 19th Century “diplomatic wars” do not fit as well within this framework since they were much more limited. To an extent it could be said that though every power except France benefited in 1815, Russia was one of the biggest benefactors. When she tried to gain further territory, the British, French, Sardinians, and Turks fought to prevent it in the Crimean War of 1854-56. After Prussia’s string of three triumphal victories over Hannover, Austria, and France Bismarck knew Europe would focus on Germany and it of course did. Again though, Germany quickly grew so great in power that it was no longer balance of power but stopping a country with the power to dominate Europe by itself. This required 2 world wars and the intervention of the United States to accomplish.

World War II ended with 5 countries claiming victory and major gains for two of them. This developed into a 50 year balance of power conflict that of course ended in 1990. At the conclusion of the Cold War there was but one victor, the United States. Russia was humiliated and driven back to the borders she held in the 1600’s. Japan and Europe both fell into the economic doldrums and saw their non-military based diplomacy shorn of its value. China gained little from the end of the Cold War. A Russian adversary and American ally flipped to an American adversary and Russian ally. It doesn’t take much brainpower to realize which was the better deal. Smaller countries all over the world lost the economic life support they had grown accustomed to during the Cold War Superpower courtship. Only America saw her position in the world irrefutably improved.

This I believed would be the core of the resentment for which we would have to watch out in the coming years (that is today). We have seen it manifest itself in many ways over the years. The obvious desire by Europe and others that the Euro destroy the dollar based trading system and they hope damage the US economy. The growing efforts by countries like China, Russia, France, Iran, and Brazil to replace our influence in their regions with their own. The UN and other transnational groups (like Kyoto) renewed attempts to redistribute our diplomatic, economic, and military power in the hopes of leveling the playing field for weaker countries. I think also that this has also shown itself in the difficulties we are having rousing the world to face down Islamic extremism. Except for our Anglo brethren and Japan, most of our allies today are those who need us to protect them from Russia, China, or the Islamists. This is much like Britain needed Austria and then Prussia to help fight France regardless of their sole victory.

The resentment in these challenges is palpable. As mentioned in a previous post, most people who oppose us only seem upset that we aren’t doing what they want or helping them directly. We could be spending a hundred billion dollars a year in Mexico Mexicans gripe, implementing the US economy devastating Kyoto Protocols Europeans grumble, overthrowing the Ayatollahs Iranians complain, lining the pockets of Kofi Annan and other UN staffers and friends the UN protests, or building fire stations in New York Democrats charge, etc. Nevertheless, the clear goal of all this is to drop us down a peg and allow others to divide up our power and influence. It is nothing new or exceptional and should not be surprising. It is however dishonorable, distressing, and for many countries counterproductive. Such is human nature, as it has always been, and as it will always be. Though we should hope for better out of humanity, we cannot expect and plan for anything else.

Three Cheers for Ethiopia

2006-12-23T01:12:00.000-05:00

According to this and other reports, Ethiopia is taking on a much bigger role in the current Somali civil war. This is excellent news that shows at least some people in the world take the threat of Islamic extremism seriously and are ready to contest its expansion. All of Somalia falling to the Islamic Courts Union would obviously be very bad. Al Qaeda has had a long relationship with Somalia and the last thing the world needs is a Talibanesque failed state controlling shipping through the Red Sea (and thereby the Suez Canal). Just as Afghanistan served as a safe haven for terrorists operating throughout the world, so too would Somalia.

While we apparently aren't willing to act to prevent such a scenario from developing, it is heartening to see that one country is. Ethiopia may be very poor and of limited capabilities but it has had a long history of dealing with expansionist Muslims. As a Christian state since the 4th Century and the only one in the region for 1,000 years, it was frequently at war with the Muslims who surround it. As one of the countries to be sold out prior to World War II, the Ethiopians also know all too well how far Western democracies will go to get a few more years of “peace”. They know who the first target will be after a radical Islamist Somalia radicalizes other Muslims in the region. They also know what the West will be willing to do to keep those radical Muslims away from us for a few more years.

As with the Israelis in Lebanon, when the Ethiopian soldiers go forth to fight the ICU, they are fighting our fight also. We will benefit greatly if Ethiopia can halt the spread of the Islamic radicals in the Horn of Africa. As such I can only hope that we are giving Ethiopia our full support in this endeavor. We don’t need to contribute large numbers of soldiers but only maybe a few hundred of the Special Forces soldiers stationed in Djibouti. That and a billion dollars in aid/weapons would be enough to help Ethiopia defeat the ICU. Of course Europe should help also, but seeing as they haven’t sent the promised aid and combat capable soldiers to Afghanistan I wouldn’t expect any support from that corner. Especially not when European politicians realize they can score political points with Muslim voters by opposing Ethiopia.

Again I can only really, really hope that we are doing something to support Ethiopia. If we are going to win this war in the long-term, we need to get other countries in the world who are directly threatened by Islamic extremists to start taking action against it. So far most are willing to let the US largely bear the cost of the enterprise. As the country that is the least directly threatened long-term by Islamic extremism (by which I mean we, unlike even Europe, don’t face the risk of Sharia law here if we don’t win), this inequitable distribution of cost is becoming harder and harder to sell to the American people. Ethiopia has shown they will take up the burden; we need to make it as easy for them as possible. The last thing I would hope is that Ethiopia will prosecute its campaign with much more vigor than the either us or the Israelis have so far shown.

New Opportunities Present Themselves in Iran

2006-12-21T23:57:00.000-05:00

On December 15th there were municipal elections in Iran in which Ahmadinejad and his allies lost heavily. How Ahmadinejad responds to this defeat will be very important to us and the world. There’s basically three ways he could go, he could moderate in response to the electoral slap in the face, pretend it never happened, or realize he needs to move faster before he himself is tossed out. Of course, no one except Ahmadinejad (and maybe not even him) knows which way he is inclined towards. As such we should definitely be watching the country a lot more closely and prepare to pounce at the most opportune time. No, by the way, I don’t think we will by any stretch but anyways.

The first option for Ahmedinejad in response to the election is to tone down his rhetoric and reverse some policies. This is the traditional route in Western democracies. Bill Clinton and George W Bush have both done it after their respective losses in Congressional elections. Although the Strategypage.com article linked to above mentions this as a likely outcome, I don’t think it is. Iran is not in any way shape or form a Western democracy. Ahmadinejad is in no way shape or form a Western democratic style leader. To a demagogue, the rejection of the people only doubles the desire the press on by any means necessary. If the people require a few more eggs must be broken to get to the omelet, then so be it.

I seriously doubt Ahmadinejad is reading up on Burke and Locke right now. Nevertheless, any opening by the Iranian government could allow real deals to be made with Teheran. That is deals that will ultimately undermine the theocracy like allowing trade unions, or a freer press, or the right to protest. The Ayatollahs would be very unlikely to agree, but it would resonate with the Iranian people who have just felt a little empowered by Ahmadinejad stepping back in the face of their votes. Even though the current government in Washington would never press for such deals doesn’t mean we couldn’t or shouldn’t.

Another option that Ahmadinejad could choose is to simply ignore the election results. In this case he’ll simply go on as before regardless of what the Iranian people wish. Nothing much would change if he did so except the growing anger of an already angry populace. This would continue the current muddle that we currently find ourselves. Unlike the other options where Iran makes our decision for us, in this situation we would have an Iranian government just repressive enough to prevent any peaceful subversion, an Iranian people not quite angry enough to take matters into their own hands, and an Iranian government not quite crazy enough for most Westerners to accept the need to take more forceful action against it.

The ultimate problem this poses for policy makers is that any course of action would preclude the other open possibilities. Military or economic action would likely eliminate the subversion option, the subversion option requires no military or economic action, etc. This leaves us simultaneously with the greatest number of options and least amount of will to choose one. Eventually, Ahmadinejad’s time would near an end which would move us to option 3 later rather than sooner.

The third route Ahmadinejad could take in light of the election results would be to accelerate his efforts. When you add to the picture that the Ayatollahs are trying to move up the next presidential election (Dec. 10 story) to get rid of Ahmadinejad as soon as possible, I think this one is entirely plausible though not the most likely. Assuming he actually believes it, he is on a quest to hasten the return of the 12th Imam. The Ayatollahs rule only until the 12th Imam returns, so who are they to stop his return by throwing out Ahmadinejad? While it is no means certain that Ahmadinejad would win a show down with the Ayatollahs, that doesn’t mean he knows that. Even if he does know that he can’t win it doesn’t mean he would simply stand down. It reminds me of a Biblical verse about the devil’s last days on earth before the end times,

“But woe to the earth and the sea, because the devil has gone down to you! He is filled with wrath, because he knows that his time is short."

Ahmadinejad could vent his wrath internally or externally. On the internal side he could attempt a coup and/or start a civil war. While his power base may not be as powerful on paper as the Ayataollahs, he could still make it bloody. Should the army stay neutral, the Pasdaran split, and the Basij support Ahmadinejad he would even have a good chance of winning. Should only the Basij support him he would still be in good shape despite its lack of training and weapons. He would have at least 1 million gunmen controlling the countryside against half a million or so not well trained or equipped regular soldiers. This would open too many opportunities to count for us. Especially if the army goes neutral we could support it and the people against both Ahmadinejad and the Ayatollahs. Or we could support the Ayatollahs in exchange for them giving up political power (but keeping their lives and wealth). If all else fails we could let the two sides exhaust each other and then put pressure on the victor to change. Should he start an external war then we can destroy the theocracy with it being clear to the Iranians that we didn’t start or ask for the war. Again this may even come later, when it becomes clear he won’t win the next election (his last one being because turnout was low overall but very high amongst his Basij supporters). Either way, If Ahmadinejad truly wants, as he claims, his “Allahdammerung”, then we’ll eventually have no choice but to give it to him.

2006-12-19T22:29:00.000-05:00

Russia Continues to Win with 19th Century Tactics

2006-12-19T22:12:00.000-05:00

Due to the recent release of The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess (greatest game ever in my expert opinion) this will be a shorter post. According to the Monday Wall Street Journal it appears that Russia is using free trade as a weapon in their quest for global power and influence. They are doing this despite the fact that it flies in the face of everything the State Department believes about geopolitics. Oh well, not like it’s the only thing the internationalists at State are getting wrong.

This case in particular involves meat exports to Russia. Russia has banned meat imports from Europe on the pretext that the EU cannot protect against unsafe meat from Romania and Bulgaria. Russia is allowing meat imports from certain countries (Germany and Denmark so far) who Russia says will break EU policy and protect Russia from the scourge that is Romanian pork. However, since the countries that Russia is allowing to export meat are “friends of Russia”, and agriculture is a major sore spot in Europe, many suspect Russia is simply playing divide and conquer amongst the Euro states. Those EU members who do not want their precious agricultural sector hurt will have to tow the Russian line or see their agricultural exports go to another member who will.

Russia has also used energy exports as a weapon in international affairs. Most notably they did so by shutting off exports to punish Europe and the Ukraine for the defeat of the pro-Russian faction in the Ukrainian national elections. They have used the price of natural gas to punish former Soviet republics who want to leave Russia’s sphere-of-influence. The Poles are being punished for their anti-Moscow positions by having a new pipeline built along a more expensive route through the Baltic instead of overland through Poland.

I'm not even going to delve into Russia’s theft of foreign investments in Russian energy projects, the Kremlin’s assassination campaign against critics, and Moscow’s open support for anti-Western regimes. The Russians are advancing their interests in the world, punching well above their weight, and playing us as fools (and bravo to the Russians on all accounts). They are, as one State Department official said, “acting like it’s the 19th Century”. Of course such behavior is practiced by all countries towards non-normal (or rogue) nations, but part of the concept of the new-age globalized world is that such behavior is extinct amongst normal countries. We’re all supposed to trade freely, get rich together, and live happily ever after. As the above shows not all normal countries agree. Russia by her 21st Century behavior and Europe by their 21st Century acquiescence are showing that “19th Century” geopolitics are still around. One day we’ll also realize this, hopefully before the Beijing-Moscow Axis has won the current round of the Great Game.

More Brilliance from the Foreign Policy Realists, Just Sell-Out the Jews

2006-12-14T18:44:00.000-05:00

This is too rich. In exchange for no longer supporting terrorists killing innocent civilians for the purpose of sending Iraq into chaos, Syria and the foreign policy “realists” want Israel to give up the Golan Heights. But what does Israel having the Golan Heights have to do with Syria helping Sunnis and Shiites kill each other in Iraq? Nothing of course. It’s just a real world power grab, the very kind liberals claim is extinct. It’s also one that liberals who supposedly oppose such behavior wish to reward and thereby encourage. So to stop the Arabs from killing each other, we just need to hand over the Jews. Well, I guess that would stop the intra-Arab killing, at least until all the Jews are dead. Yet again, as Menachem Begin would say, “Goyim kill Goyim and they come to hang the Jew”.

You’ve got to hand it to Syria and Iran, they are playing the so-called “sole superpower” like the weak willed fools we seem so intent on being. We could of course overthrow both governments in a matter of days. Unlike Iraq though, we wouldn’t be there to protect the former oppressors from the tender mercies of the people they for so long oppressed and they know this as well as we do. However, due to our idiotic actions over the last 3 years they no longer fear it. The summer of 2003 was our chance to hand down marching orders to the petty-dictators of the region. Instead, at the behest of the UN, Europe, and the State Department, we swore off anymore invasions. Through 2004 we still had to chance to use less forceful means (subversion, economic warfare, etc.) to convinve them to behave. Instead we chose to let the Euro-3 willfully swallow Iran's lies for us. Iran and Syria quickly realized their nightmare world was not coming to pass and so changed their tune. The result is the veritable “dictators gone wild” we are now seeing. Whereas in 2002 the dictators at least knew an invasion was a possibility, we’ve now convinced them it isn’t. So with the cat going back to sleep and refusing to wake up for anything, the mice are out to play, with suicide bombers, I.E.D.’s, ballistic missiles, and nuclear weapons. Now we are left with the options of paying them off until they again go too far and we must have a big war (the realist way), or start another smaller war.

I can’t for the life of me think of another moment in history when a country so powerful has behaved in such a pathetic way. At least Rome was gripped by civil war, and the British were exhausted from two world wars when they gave up their power and influence. Power abhors a vacuum, if we continue to refuse to exercise it, someone else not of our choosing or with our interests will. We can try to hide from the world all we want, but as the French and British found out in 1914 and 1939, and we discovered in 1917, 1941, 1950, and 2001, the world has a way of finding us whether we want it to or not. Only this time, with the other side fast becoming nuclear armed, we either won’t be able to reverse it like we did before, or the casualties fighting a pipsqueak nation like Iran will rival that of fighting Germany and Japan (the third, maybe second, and fifth greatest powers of their day). I’ve said it before and will say many times more, the world will keep on turning no matter how much we wish it to stop.

What if the Chief Doesn't Have Any Capable Indians?

2006-12-12T21:44:00.000-05:00

Kofi Annan gave his final speech to the UN at long last. In it he exhorts the United States to provide global leadership while being multilateralist. This begs a couple questions. Who's to blame when someone tries to lead when or where no one can follow? Further, when has the United States done anything by itself? I’ll deal with both in turn.

I frequently discuss our need to adapt to the changing world power structure and the increasing inability of our old allies to follow us anymore (it’s mentioned in about ¼ of my posts). Simply put, with shrinking populations, stagnant economies, massive budget liabilities, and growing unassimilated Muslim populations, Continental Europe won’t be following us anywhere anymore. They also haven’t lived up to agreements on issues with which they could help. Continental Europe isn’t even meeting its Kyoto pollution reduction requirements, and that’s its pet project. This is who we are supposed to rely on to follow us and lose export opportunities to Iran in the process? I'm obviously excluding the British here, being Anglo they are much more trustworthy and willing to help, but Eurosclerosis is spreading even on the Blessed Isle (thanks to Gordon Brown, Britain has surpassed even Germany's tax load). Asia offers more promising allies for the future but they are as yet undeveloped. Japan is the best prospect but she still has a way to go to recover from post-war de-normalization (though they have started). Australia is fast becoming our new, if diminutive, Britain. The Aussies may not have as much power but since power not used is effectively power that doesn't exist, Australia will be more important in the coming decades. India is our best chance for a powerful ally in the long-term, but they have yet to decide where they want to go in the world, and have some more economic development to go before they can start helping other peoples’ problems.

Even if the number of followers is somewhat limited, has the United States been non-multilateral? I know this comes down to semantics. Unilateral means by yourself but many take it to mean without some much higher number of allies or occasionally without UN approval. Nevertheless, when exactly have we been unilateral? Despite having a cease-fire with Saddam that he was not respecting (a casus belli), we still went through UN purgatory and got 2 resolutions prior to the 2003 invasion. We had the support of 30 some odd countries (including most of Europe), the UN, and NATO (minus France) on Iraq. On Iran we have gone through the UN, the IAEA, and the Euro-3 for some 3 years to get something done. We are now building up alliances with Arab countries to deal with Iran. With North Korea we have insisted on having the North's neighbors involved in the talks to do something about its nuclear program. To try to resolve the Palestinian issue we have worked with the Quartet. After Syria overreached in Lebanon 2 years ago we worked with France and the UN to help Lebanon form a new government. We’ve refused to do anything about Darfur, choosing instead to work with the same UN that did nothing during Rawanda and Bosnia. The list goes on and on. Given this, I think what many of the “multilateralists” mean is America isn’t doing what they want.

Essentially, what is happening here is responsibility shifting. For example, why can’t Europe do something about the slaughter in Darfur? That’d be hard and risk European oil contracts in the process. Thus the Europeans can console themselves because America isn’t doing anything either and they are the world leader so it’s not so bad. Of course, should we try to do something, Continental Europe will refuse to help on account that it isn’t multilateral, ignoring that it isn’t multilateral precisely because they refuse to help. Everyone can then go home happy, except the people of Darfur. This refusal to take responsibility is also a cause of the UN's ineffectiveness as I've written before, "despite what the United Nations thinks of itself, international organizations are nothing in and of themselves. All such organizations are a conglomeration of different nations who have different interests and different abilities. Regardless of its structure, no international organization can do more than its most powerful members are willing or capable of doing, and no such organization can command more authority than its most powerful members are willing to give it. Simply adding more unwilling nations or establishing rules they supposedly must “obey” does not change this fact."

Learning Nothing and Forgetting Nothing, the Realist Foreign Policy Comes to Iraq

2006-12-09T00:48:00.000-05:00

James Baker, co-chair of the Iraq Study Group, has, along with his group, called for negotiating with the Iranians over Iraq. The idea is that either the Iranians will talk and stop supporting the violence in Iraq, or they won’t show or stop supporting the chaos in Iraq and we will show the world that Iran is the problem. This is a standard argument made by the diplomacy always crowd. I’ve heard it too many times to count since I began paying attention to world politics a dozen years. It is tried time and time again despite one simple reality, it almost never works and offers the rogue nation the opportunity to constrain the power who initiated it.

The basic problem with this policy is that it assumes many things that are usually not true. Firstly it assumes that the offending country is interested in meeting and compromising on an issue. It next assumes that whatever countries are meant to be impressed by this display will actually be impressed and offer support after the offending nation rejects or refuses the advance. Essentially this means that these countries are willing and able to do something but are not doing anything merely because the offending nation has not been offered the chance to resolve the dispute diplomatically (the fact that the offending nation has not itself tried diplomacy doesn’t matter of course). Lastly it assumes that even should the offending nation show up and agree to stop its behavior for some carrots, that it will actually stop its behavior as it promises.

Due to its history of failure and its inaccurate understanding of the current situation we can fully expect such a policy to fail every bit as miserably today with Iran as it has in the past. Each of the above assumptions is wildly off in today’s standoff with Iran:

Iran wants a stable Iraq like the rest of us

This is only correct if you allow for Iran’s different definition of a “stable Iraq”. Sure they want it stable, under the Ayatollahs as a totalitarian Shiite government like Iran’s. This is obviously not what most of the world considers a “stable Iraq”. Iran is also damaging our geopolitical position and making it much more difficult for us to do anything about their nuclear program because of the continued violence. The violence is ensuring that no American government will initiate another preemptive war anytime soon. Thus it is in Iran’s long-term interests to see that things are as bad as possible as long as possible in Iraq to make sure this opinion reigns in the US for as long as possible. Why then would Iran help us form a stable Iraq that is in our interests and not their’s?

Europe, Russia, and China will finally accept the need to do something about Iran

Not likely. These powers do not support our efforts to stop Iran’s nuclear program and restoration of the Achaemenid Empire because they have no ability to do so and would lose too much in the process. Russia and China support Iran as part of their campaign to multi-polarize the world. Iran is working miracles for them in this regard so they are not going to support us no matter what. Europe will be no more capable of doing anything to stop Iran tomorrow as they are today. Except for the British (who aren’t in a position to help anyways), they have no projectable military power and won’t support sanctions since it would cost them business contracts with Iran. Iran imports almost $6 billion worth of goods from Germany, $3 billion from Italy, and $2.5 billion from France. None of those countries has seen much economic growth in the last 15 years, and none are willing to take an economic hit for us or the world. Europe further knows that if Iran does become a major threat, they can beg us to rescue them, and we’ll ride to their rescue as we have for the last 100 years. We are after all building missile defense sites to protect Europe from Iranian missiles free of charge in Poland.

Iran will accept a good offer and stop supporting the violence in Iraq

The first half of that statement is almost certainly true. If we offer Iran tribute to stop being bad they’d be idiots not to accept it. That doesn’t mean they will stop supporting violence. If we make a deal with them and they continue supporting the violence, then what? We have a deal with them Europe, China, and Russia will intone; we cannot risk wrecking the deal over such a trifle thing as Iran not living up to its end of the bargain. Rather than add impetus to the effort to stop Iran, all we will have done is pay off the Iranian government, give it credibility amongst the Iranian people, and further hamper any effort to head off the major storm coming down the road.

Even though a clear understanding of the situation and the interests of the powers involved would indicate the deal will not work and will only hurt us, there is also history to add to the argument against it. The Munich agreement would of course be the most glaring and devastating example of this. Hitler accepts a deal, doesn’t live up to it and everyone looks the other way. Israel has had countless similar deals with the Palestinians. Most notable was the Camp David Accords of 2000. Israel offered the Palestinians almost everything they want. Arafat not only walked away but soon after started the second intifada. Initially the diplomacy always crowd argued this was great for Israel since the Palestinians had shown that they were the true obstacles to peace. Despite this, world support for Israel lasted only as long as Israel did nothing about the suicide bombers attacking her civilians (that is to say a very short time indeed). I’m not even going to go through the 17 times we tried this with Saddam, including not once but twice prior to the 2003 invasion. Most relevant of all, what happened to world support for punishing Iran when it didn’t stop enriching uranium on August 31st? The idea was Iran would stop enriching or else. If they didn’t the world would supposedly see that Iran was the problem and support efforts to stop their nuclear program. Well, Iran didn’t stop and what was the world’s reaction?

Russia- said no to sanctions or any action; but they did regret Iran’s actions.
Europe- demanded…. more talks since 8 years is obviously to short a time to rush to impose visa sanctions on Iran’s leaders.
UN- nothing, not even a statement since it was the ambassador from Ghana’s last day, and as he told reporters, “give me a break.”

Why anyone believes the world’s reaction will be any different this time round is beyond me. Whether Iran simply refuses to talk or takes our tribute and continues supporting violence in Iraq, the result will be the same. Unless we accept, and accept soon, that Iraq does not exist in a vacuum, that our titular allies have neither the will nor the capability to do anything, and that Iran, Russia, and China have no interest in seeing us succeed in forming a stable mostly free/democratic Iraq, we will lose in Iraq and the price for us and the world will be incalculable. The realists’ motto appears to be, “Pounds for the cure tomorrow, not an ounce for prevention today”. However, guessing by last month's elections, it is how the American people want it, so it is how the world will get it.

I'd add liberal foreign policy in the title, but for liberals to have a foreign policy that learns nothing and forgets nothing, they'd, well, first have to have a foreign policy (and no, blaming America and Israel for everything, worshipping the UN, and extolling the virtues of oppressive anti-American Third World despots doesn't count as a foreign policy).

The Foreseeable Unforeseen in Lebanon

2006-12-03T02:53:00.000-05:00

What a shocking and unexpected turn of events in Lebanon. Riding high on their “victory” over the invincible Israelis, Hezbollah and its masters in Iran and Syria are now pushing a coup of sorts against the current anti-Tehran/Damascus government. I know, I know, who could have possibly anticipated this. Israel, America, Europe, and the UN all seemed to think that Hezbollah would be so grateful for Israel not destroying them that they would happily focus on their supposed charities and making the trains run on time in Beirut and stop their Iran backed campaign to kill Jews while spreading Shia extremism. It was clearly impossible to predict that a violent terrorist organization supported by a country seeking to make the world safe for the 12th Imam would follow-up a victory over the “Little Satan” by seeking a victory over what they consider the puppet government of the “Great Satan”.

Of course it was painfully obvious last summer that this would be the result of Israel not completing her mission in southern Lebanon. Also so apparent a kindergartner could have figured it out was that Hezbollah would receive lots of cash from Tehran after the fighting and would be helping the southern Lebanese before the bureaucrats at the US State Department and the UN had even signed the forms to schedule the meeting to arrange the conference to discuss sending aid. I’m not even going to start on how insane it was to think that a UN force supporting the Lebanese army was going to stop Hezbollah(4th paragraph) from rearming or operating in southern Lebanon. That no one in the foreign ministries of the West understood this is a sad testament to our inability in the West to understand the people and events that are making the world of our future.

To say that this is why Israel shouldn’t have fought Hezbollah to begin with is also terribly inaccurate. The only thing that boosts ones image more than a bloody victory is a bloodless one (think if France and Britain had fought over but ultimately acquiesced to Hitler’s Anschluss and re-occupying the Rheinland, sure Hitler’s stature would have been boosted but would the German people and army been as accepting of the Munich, Prague, Memel, and Polish Corridor gambles?). At least Lebanon is now aware of what Hezbollah brings to their future. Had Israel not fought, Hezbollah would have come off looking much more powerful (so powerful even the Israelis fear them) and it would have appeared that Hezbollah can deliver victories for Lebanon that the US backed government cannot. The reasoning in Lebanon would have been, why spark a civil war when Israel won’t do anything. Now they at least know if they don’t start a civil war to stop Hezbollah, the Israelis will return. Further, Hezbollah and Iran cannot simply be negotiated out of bellicosity by the Israelis. They want Israel exterminated and are willing to fight to achieve it. Whether Israel and the West like it or not, they will get their fight eventually. To paraphrase Winston Churchill, we can choose war or dishonor, if we choose dishonor we will get both. It’s well past time that we in the West wake up to this reality.

Time to Dust Off War Plan Green

2006-11-30T20:52:00.001-05:00

Note: War Plan Green was part of a series of color-coded war plans drawn up by the US military between the World Wars. Green dealt with intervention in Mexico.

Without much media attention, Mexico continues its slide into chaos. Every now and then there will be a story about it, such as yesterday in the Washington Post. It reports that the number of violent deaths in Mexico continues to rise. Although media coverage of this is new, as witnessed by the US travel advisory to Mexico, the violence and chaos are not. With journalists being killed, large cities increasingly ungovernable, gangland shootouts that include RPG’s and machine guns, public officials beheaded, a weak divided government trying to act humanely (this story covers a lot of it), you’d think this would be a story the media would love, but I guess not having the US military to blame is a deal breaker for the media.

At first glance this chaos seems odd. Mexico is a large resource rich nation, with a good level of population growth, Western cultural heritage, and direct access to 1/3 of the world’s economy. The problem is that Mexico has taken almost all of the worst aspects of Western culture, socialism, racism, and xenophobia. Socialism makes it difficult to create wealth and jobs in Mexico. There may be bountiful resources in Mexico but when the government alone owns them they are not efficiently exploited. The xenophobia in Mexico is primarily focused towards the North (though still expect to be greeted by machetes, clubs, and almost no legal rights if you’re from south of Mexico). The xenophobia primarily works with socialism to keep Mexico’s economy inefficient and undercapitalized by keeping out American investors. Better to leave the countries wealth to the whites of Mexico than have the gringos of El Norte “steal it” the people are told and believe. Thus, xenophobia also assists in maintaining Mexico’s terribly racist quasi-apartheid system. Most of the wealth and power in Mexico is concentrated in its white minority that consists of only about 10% of the population. The average income in Mexico is $6,500, for the top 10% it's $24,100, for the bottom 10% $1,040 (from the CIA World Factbook). Essentially 10% live like Western Europeans, 80% like Eastern Europeans, and 10% like Chinese. This places Mexico in the top 10% of most inequitably distributed income countries.

These are the seeds of the current growing chaos in Mexico. To be stable and flourish, Mexico needs to end all three practices, yet the three main parties are focused on only ending socialism (PAN), only ending racism (PRD), or actually reinforcing the old ways (PRI). A growing population can be a blessing if a country has a free market system that can absorb and utilize the extra workers. Since Mexico does not have this, the only safety valve has been to export around 400-500,000 people a year to the hated north. However, even our ability to absorb and utilize this horde is being stressed near, if not past, the breaking point. Add to the witches brew oil and drug cartels and Mexico’s problems only grow. With the oil, the Mexicans can copy the country destroying policies of Hugo Chavez, while the drugs open a route to a Columbia style drug war. In short, don’t expect the chaos to abate anytime in the near future.

This is where War Plan Green comes into play; the Pentagon needs to thoroughly update it. We must make sure we always have enough brigades, even if they are mostly National Guard, ready to move south if the violence becomes severe enough to spill over the border, create a humanitarian crises in northern Mexico, or threaten Mexico’s vital oil exports. We need to have a clear idea of how far we will go, such as only form a security zone in northern Mexico or go all the way to Mexico City, intervene in the chaos or let it rage south of our zone, get involved in the political situation or leave it for the Mexicans to sort out. We further need to plan nationally and encourage affected companies to have their own plans for the economic collapse that unbridled chaos will cause. One of the unfortunate side effects of free trade and globalization is that they have linked the health of our economy to weak unstable economies like Mexico’s (we definitely need more such plans but I doubt any serious ones exist). Venezuela, Bolivia, Columbia, and Argentina are societal meltdowns that we can largely watch from afar, not so with Mexico. Its size, proximity, and enormous émigré population in the US means the chaos there will inevitably spread here.

It would be nice if we could support them now more peacefully. However, since anti-Americanism was used to define Mexican identity long before even Canada existed, it is next to impossible for us to help in any overt and effective manner. We agreed to a free trade deal with Mexico, and we have taken their surplus population for 30 years running, we've provided an example, there’s not much more we can do to help. This could develop into a very serious problem right in our backyard in the near future so we should at least be prepared. I only hope the President hasn’t allowed his unabashed love of anything from south of the border to cloud his judgment on this issue.

Injured Blogger Update

2006-11-27T07:00:00.000-05:00

I apologize for being quiet longer than expected. My hand ended up being injured much worse than hoped (almost lost a finger), which means I’m not able to type well yet. As a side note, rehab, though necessary, sucks. So, you know, don’t go cutting tendons, nerves, and major blood vessels unless you have to. Also, preferably don't do it when so many interesting and bloggable things are happening (and wow did I support Rummy at the wrong time, oh well regardless of what Bush thinks I still like Rumsfeld and think he was a great Sec. of Defense).

Injured Blogger Notice

2006-11-07T17:47:00.000-05:00

Since I badly cut my left hand (to the point of requiring surgery) I won’t be blogging much except occasional (very) short posts. I’ll be back blogging whenever the severed tendon heals enough (hopefully not more than 2 or 3 weeks). Thanks as always for the interest, take care.

Saddam & The Gallows, A Perfect Match

2006-11-06T06:22:00.000-05:00

The upcoming executions of Saddam Hussein and his assorted henchmen are a truly historic moment. Provided they aren’t stopped by some freak judicial intervention, they will represent a rare moment in history in which a monster ruler has received justice in this life. All too often these human beasts get away with their crimes and depravity. Only a few have met their maker through worldly justice; for every Vlad the Impaler, Adolf Eichmann, or Benito Mussolini who do, there are countless men like Josef Stalin, Mao Tse-Tung, Ivan the Terrible, and Jimmy Carter (note: Simpsons humor) who do not.

Thanks to the skill, dedication, and hard work of the Coalition Forces and Iraqis who want a better future, Saddam will soon be listed with Vlad and not Ivan in the history books. This is not to argue that the price was worth it, or that we should have invaded, or anything like that. It is only to say that it is good to see justice being served to one of the worst dictators of a century that had all too many. Wherever one stands on the Iraq War, pro all the way, con all the way, for it before you were against it, this should be something that we can agree on. Once Saddam is in God’s court, we can get back to squabbling over Iraq.

The Case for Rumsfeld

2006-11-04T01:38:00.000-05:00

There is a debate (the favorable posts are too old and aren't online anymore, in short several contributors like Rumsfeld, con, con) at the National Review over the efficacy of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. I personally admire Rumsfeld very much as can be seen below. This post, Rumsfeld vs. the McClellan Democrats, from a month or so ago explains some of the reasons I like him. The following post is much older and explains why I think, contrary to some conservatives, that the current war makes transformation more imperative not less. Also, yes Rumsfeld wanted to eliminate two divisions prior to 9/11. Even under the first Bush budget, better though it was, the Army was simply not funded to a level required for 10 fully operational divisions. While the Defense Secretary must advocate for more, he also must plan based in reality (the Navy can have a plan for 33 carriers, it still isn't happening). Converting to an entirely light army would have been a mistake, and one I opposed at the time, but no one is perfect. Even so, it wouldn't have been too serious to this point, and it may have even been beneficial given the wars we fought. More light infantry would have been useful in Iraq in the first year and it was all we used in Afghanistan and elsewhere anyways. Nevertheless, it wasn't a good idea and Rumsfeld has dropped it. Anyways, on to the old post...

The 40,000 Soldier Question

Since 9/11 we have heard liberals frequently claim we need to add 40,000 more soldiers to the Army. It is treated by the left as a panacea for everything that ails the Army (whether true or not). Meanwhile, in the background Rumsfeld's transformation of the Army continues plodding along. Should we have added 40,000 soldiers? Or was allowing Rumsfeld's work to continue the better call? (It should be noted when discussing the reform of the Army that it is extremely difficult to find complete information on all aspects of it. I assume in cases where no information is available that it is staying similar to the current Army.)

First off, why reform at all? The reason is we still have a military which is essentially the little brother of the Cold War military. That military was designed to send dozens of divisions to fight the Soviet Union on the plains of Germany. Our current military is designed to send 3-6 divisions to fight regional wars against lesser states; Cold War planning in miniature. Further, the basic combat unit is still the division. This despite divisions almost never deploying for combat as they are organized in peacetime. The heavy battalions of the Army are still organized for the mass tank confrontation with the Soviet Union. Compared to the 18-24 armor battalions we had guarding the few dozen miles of the Fulda Gap in Germany during the Cold War we had 4 armor battalions sweeping the several hundred miles of desert in the invasion of Iraq. It no longer makes sense to have all tank battalions, as the ad hoc usage of mixed mechanized infantry (hereafter called mech) and armor task forces in Iraq shows. Lastly, the overall mix of troops we need has changed. In the past we needed lots of armor and artillery, now we need more infantry and military police.

Rumsfeld's reforms largely takes these issues that are being worked through on an ad hoc basis during combat operations and makes them permanent. On the issue of divisions, they are being made "modular". This means the brigades in the divisions can be easily switched around to suit the needs of the current mission. All of the support assets that used to be loaned from the division when it came time to deploy are now permanently part of the brigade. The heavy battalions are being changed from 3 mech or 3 armor companies to a mix of 2 mech and 2 armor companies. Many artillery and air defense battalions are being replaced with more useful military police and cavalry battalions. The net effect of these reforms is to increase the number of combat and close combat soldiers in the Army without increasing the overall number of soldiers. Basically, it is making the Army more efficient. The pre-Rumsfeld Army had approximately 59,000 combat and 61,000 near combat soldiers, or about 12.5% in each category. (note: my definition of combat soldiers is soldiers in infantry, armor, cavalry, and special forces units; close combat soldiers are those in artillery, air defense, engineer, and military police units. It does not conform to the Army's MOS classification system, nor do I include artillery as a combat unit.) Once Rumsfeld's transformation is completed with 48 new brigades, there will be 75,000 combat and 64,000 near combat soldiers. This would represent about 15.5% and 13.5% of the Army. While the overall number of combat soldiers per brigade would drop from 3,370 to 2,700, the total number of brigades that could be sustainably deployed would increase from 14 to 20. This means that the number of Army combat/near combat soldiers that could be deployed somewhere like Iraq would increase from 47,000 to 54,000 (the number of combat soldiers would see a much greater increase from 21,500 to 27,500).

The problem with only adding 40,000 soldiers is that it would just be adding more soldiers to the old Cold War Army. It would do nothing to solve various problems such as deployability, tactical rigidity, or exceptionally low share of combat soldiers of the old system. It is also more expensive than transformation while being less effective. Simply adding 40,000 soldiers to the Army would add 5,000 combat and 5,000 close combat soldiers. This compared to the net gains of 16,000 and 3,000 respectively with transformation. However, it would require an increase in the Army budget of nearly $6 billion a year plus many more billions upfront for the new equipment and buildings. Transformation costs a few hundred million for the more expensive training of the extra combat soldiers and such. While I support much more money for the Army, what matters is that Congress will not fund the extra $6 billion on a sustained basis. Congress has always cut funding quicker than troop levels.

The question would then arise, why not do both? Besides the fact that it is difficult enough just expanding the Army much less transforming it at the same time, the main reason is that the Pentagon as a whole does not want to reform to begin with. Armies have historically had major issues with reform and change. As great as our Army is, it is still an army. It has all the institutional problems that afflict all armies and nothing will ever change that. That said there are two things that spur change and reform in an army, defeat and fighting a war with limited means. To successfully change an army you must know how to operate within these constraints. Rumsfeld knows much better than most how to work within the Pentagon.

Examples of the first case include the German army after World War I and the French army after the Seven Years War. However, this situation will not force reform through today in the US Army so is not relevant. The second case can apply today and is what we are doing. When armies are provided with everything they ask for to fight a war, they will simply fight it the way they have always fought. The best (or worst if you like) example of this is World War I. Initially every army was given everything it could ask for, all the men, guns, and supplies they wanted. The result was the generals fought on like they always had. They did not attempt any reforms since they were constantly receiving new soldiers and supplies to try again. It was not until 1916 when her manpower reserves began to run low that Germany started to think about different, quicker ways to fight. England followed suit after Lloyd George refused to send more conscripts to France in the wake of the Paschendale Offensive. By early 1918 the Germans had developed the organization and tactics that allowed for infantry exploitations while the British had begun figuring out tank exploitations. It was the requirement to fight a war without all the resources they wanted that forced these armies to develop their new ideas. Sadly, that is how armies have always worked, and always will.

This is what we are doing today. The Army is having to figure out how to provide more combat troops to deal post-conflict occupations without simply recruiting extra soldiers. In the process it is possible to get through other reforms to deal with the outdated Cold War structure of our Army. The overall effect on Iraq is limited since as evidenced in my prior post I think we are at the point where adding more soldiers becomes counter-productive. However, it would be nice to either have more combat soldiers with the same number of soldiers overall, or the same number of combat soldiers with fewer soldiers overall. It is also good (though not necessary, we are at war) to lower the strain on the National Guard. Iraq is also a great opportunity for reform because while it is limiting opposition to transformation, we are not at major risk by reforming before adding more soldiers. By comparison, had the British military been slow to change in 1918, the decision to stop sending new soldiers could have easily cost them the war when the Germans unleashed their new tactics in March 1918.

Once transformation is complete we could add 40,000 soldiers and get even more combat soldiers. But until the Army reforms are completed, it is better to hold off lest it cause the generals to begin seriously opposing transformation because of their new found leverage. Since in addition to fixing many of the current structural problems in the Army, transformation will also provide more combat soldiers at much less cost it is the better bet anyways for alleviating any troop level or deployment related issues the Army has. Afterwards, if Congress would continue funding the new soldiers and not force the Army to reduce its important procurement and training budgets then it is a good idea to add more soldiers. I never have and never will oppose troop increases or increased funding for the Army in general, only when there is good reason to. The need to reform the Army is just such a reason.

US Army OrBat http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/agency/army/bua-list.htm
US Army Budget http://www.asafm.army.mil/budget/fybm/FY07/overview.pdf
Numbers of soldiers is arrived at by using the above OrBat with the TO&E in the latest version of the Steel Panthers computer game.

Et Tu, Britannia?

2006-10-30T16:39:00.000-05:00

Ever since the end of the Cold War, it was obvious that due to the massive reductions in defense spending by NATO members few could operate along side us anymore. This progression can be seen in the three main conflicts since the end of the Cold War. In the Persian Gulf War of 1991, most of NATO was capable of at least sending a squadron of aircraft. By 1999’s Kosovo War most of NATO was no longer capable of operating with us but instead spent the war hanging back and stretching while we did the heavy lifting. In 2003, most of NATO’s militaries had become so out of shape that they were not even able to hang back and stretch while showing the flag.

The one exception to this decline was thought to be Great Britain. Even as old Europe fell by the wayside, we, including myself, thought at least our kinfolk in Britain could still work with us. The last two years in Iraq and Afghanistan has seriously called this assumption into question. This is in no part due to the bravery and professionalism of the British soldier, which is as high as it has always been. Unfortunately, the British government has not funded the British military as much as their soldiers’ dedication and skill merits. This is beginning to cause serious problems as the British military, like ours, needs to purchase the expensive equipment required for counter insurgency operations and to replace the aged Cold War stockpile that is being rapidly burned through in Iraq.

The British are in an especially bad situation regarding counter-insurgency equipment. 15 years of moderate under funding has left the British military a very capable conventional force (as witnessed in Kosovo and Iraq) but without enough modern COIN equipment for even a medium scale operation. We at least had the hundreds of helicopters, UAV’s, counter-battery radar, fast quiet armored vehicles (Strykers), precision weapons, etc. that are the stuff of counter-insurgency. We have had to buy far more than planned, but it wasn’t too expensive. The British would have to buy most of it new which simply hasn’t happened. Since the British government is evidently uninterested in providing more defense funding (billions for health care, not a penny for defense seems to be the reigning philosophy), they should have at least reworked their current questionable spending plans.

EU Referendum Blog has been following the failure of the British government to properly allocate defense monies for some time. Unlike us, Britain is no longer responsible for global security and can safely focus more on either conventional or COIN aspects of their military. I would argue that since the British will mostly be engaged in COIN that they should focus on that capability. However, London’s spending plans indicate an almost entire focus on conventional war even while their soldiers have been fighting insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan for 4 years now. Even then, to save money, the conventional weapons Britain is buying would be of very limited use in an actual war. EU Referendum has an exchange with the Minister of State for Defense over this very issue. For example, the British government is overpaying roughly $4 billion (compared to the excellent and combat proven US Aegis Destroyer) for Type 45 destroyers that have most of their functionality removed. That’s not to say anything about the army’s $20+ billion FRES armored vehicle program that won’t be useful for either conventional or COIN operations, or the Eurofighter, or countless other smaller pointless and/or overpriced programs.

While what little money the British military has is blown on largely useless programs whose only real purpose is to get Britain promoted to the European grown-ups table from the Euro-kiddie table to which France has relegated her, the troops in Iraq and Afghanistan go without. This is becoming a problem for us and is growing worse every month. Without the proper equipment, the British Army has been mostly confined to their barracks, only patrolling in heavily armed convoys. This post from EU Referendum is their latest about the problems in Iraq. Lacking proper vehicles, British soldiers are easy targets on patrol. Lacking proper equipment, British soldiers are easy targets in their barracks. The only options are to stand in place and die, or retreat. When the British retreat, the militias fill in the void as happened in Amarah recently. We now have a situation developing where southern Iraq is being overrun with militias. I would not find it surprising if southern Iraq is more violent than the notorious Sunni Triangle soon (don’t hear much about Anbar anymore, for a reason).

One thing British leadership at all levels can be criticized for was the smug arrogance they took into Iraq and Afghanistan. The general attitude was that the British, unlike those well meaning but clueless Americans, understand “hearts and minds”. The British have been at this for centuries, they know how the game is played. They didn’t wear helmets, ride around in heavily armored vehicles, and do everything to kill any insurgent or terrorist they came across like we foolishly did. What the British forgot though was that they used to be able to operate like that because of the way they dealt with troublemakers. Back in the days of Empire, the British strapped insurgents to cannons, buried British soldiers under a tomb of native skulls, put executed Muslims in coffins with pigs, almost annihilated the Zulu people for Isandlwana, placed the entire Boer population into concentration camps (akin to refuggee camps today) for years, etc. The natives knew the price of misbehavior and so needed little extra encouragement to behave. This allowed the British to easily maintain order with a modicum of sparingly funded military forces. I am not saying the British should do this today, but they should realize that neither can they conduct operations in the laid back manner like they did before.

Though it isn’t easy or cheap and we will never get credit for it, we are learning how to fight a counter insurgency in the most humane way possible. Hopefully, the British will follow suit. If they do not then I don’t think we have any other choice but to not include the British in anymore operations. I always thought it was a mistake relying on NATO so much to help out in Afghanistan. Most NATO militaries have wasted away to such a point that they are little more than glorified crossing guards that shouldn’t be expected to do more than direct traffic in Kabul. As it happened, some, like Norway, requested just that recently (combat forces being used for combat, my goodness, someone get the smelling salts before I feint). The problems in southern Afghanistan are also revealing the hollowness of most NATO forces.

The British are a great people, who produce superb soldiers, and have an excellent history (if we are only half as successful as the British were during their time at the top, the world can count itself very lucky). Despite a smaller stature they still have ability to be a major force for good in the world. We have been good and loyal allies to each other for a century now. Though we are fast approaching such a crossroads, I still pray it never comes to pass that we can no longer say "Non Angli, sed Amici".

I should add that when referring to NATO militaries or forces I do not mean the individual soldiers an officers but the orgranization itself. Like British soldiers, NATO soldiers deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan are excellent warriors. The Canadian, Spanish, Bulgarian, Polish, etc. soldiers give their best and have on most occasions held their ground while giving far far better than they got. However, with some notable exceptions (Special Forces and the 3rd PPLI Battalion for example), they simply do not receive anything like the funding, equipment, or training they need to conduct sustained offensive operations. They are also mostly bereft of the moral support from back home needed to sustain the casualties necessary to complete their missions.

What Price Peace? The Air Force Component

2006-10-28T17:09:00.000-05:00

I can't seem to figure out captions, so that's a pair of F-22's to the left and a single F-35 below to the right.

As I mentioned a few posts ago, one of my major concerns about a Democratic victory in the November Elections is that they will cut new weapons programs to free up money for domestic spending. This attitude can be seen in this report by the Council on Foreign Relations. The general thrust of the report is that the military doesn’t need all the new expensive weapons in development, especially with the current wars ongoing. Yet this concept of mortgaging our future military power to make the present situation cheaper would be a grave mistake if carried out.

One of the major focuses of the report, and the Democrats, is Air Force fighter procurement. Probably the most glaring error in this report is that it claims US fighters are superior to anything around the world for the foreseeable future (something Democrats have also claimed). That is flat out wrong. This site has the results of the British Defense Evaluation and Research Agency study (near bottom of page) about the combat effectiveness of current and next generation fighters. As can be seen, no current US fighter, with the possible exception of the Navy’s Super Hornet, is a match for the Russian Su-35, Eurofighter Typhoon, or French Rafale. The article also notes that the Chinese J-10 (Pakistani F-10) regularly outperforms Su-35’s in training so that fighter may also be added to the list. Thus, far from our fighters being superior for the next decade or two, current and potential opponents like China, Russia, the countries Russia supplies weapons to (Venezuela, Iran, Syria, any other anti-American country with cash), Pakistan, and France either have or have access to better fighter planes than we do. While true that none of these countries approaches the US Air Force in training or experience, it does not mean that will remain the case forever. Even without the training to challenge the USAF directly, such advanced fighters would cause major problems for a US military dependant on total control of the air simply by being an X factor, or if you prefer an air force in being (that is, rather than doing things like supporting ground troops some American fighters will have to be on constant watch for them, missions must always take their presence into account, etc. depleting force strength).

Something that also has to be considered (the report does mention it near the end) is that the Air Force must contend not only with enemy fighters but also with enemy surface to air missiles. As SAM’s, radars, and communication equipment become more capable and widely utilized, we need to have something other than 20 $2 billion B-2’s and 36 well past their prime F-117’s that can reasonably operate against them. This isn’t a major problem if our enemy either gives us the time we need to pick apart their air defenses (Iraq 91) or doesn’t have a serious air defense (Iraq 03). However, seeing as the only occasions of that occurring involved the same stupendously stupid Saddam, we shouldn’t allow ourselves to rely on it. A war with China, North Korea, Iran, or any number of countries would not afford us either of those luxuries. The F-22 would especially fill this need as it is extremely stealthy, fast, maneuverable, and has a 2,000 lb bomb load. This makes the F-22 capable of performing, amongst its many other missions, the F-117’s vital mission. The F-22 would thus be doubly useful in the initial phase of a war as an air defense suppressor/ground attack (admittedly limited in this respect), and an air superiority fighter still capable of intercepting enemy aircraft (this is an Air Force story on the F-22's effectiveness, biased of course though still useful). Except in ground attack where it is 7 times more capable, the F-35 is not as stealthy, capable, or as expensive as the F-22. It is still useful since it’s far superior and not too much more expensive than the 25 year old F-16. It would also be more survivable in a weak but still operational air defense environment and versus the more advanced fighters now in service around the world. These would both limit the employment of the F-16 and raise their losses. It should go without saying that if our air support is limited or attritted, our ground forces will also suffer more casualties and a tougher war.

One of the biggest complaints is that no matter how effective these aircraft are at their missions, do we actually need them to perform those missions? It doesn’t take much thinking to realize that the F-22 would be of almost no use in Afghanistan or after the first day in Iraq. By this argument though, we hardly need an Air Force at all. A half dozen B-1’s and B-52’s plus several dozen A-10/F-16/F-18's are all that is needed in each country. Since that’s all we need for brushfire wars, then why should we keep around 500 F-15’s, 700 F-18, 900 F-16, 270 A-10, and 180 bombers? The reason should be obvious, the Air Force has more jobs than simply supporting counter-insurgency operations. The military in general needs to be prepared for both COIN and conventional wars, not only one or the other. If we make the opposite mistake we made during the Cold War, and only prepare for COIN wars then we will pay dearly for it in a future conventional war. If we get caught off guard and unprepared by a war with China, we will be lucky to keep the number of killed below 600 per week much less per year as in Iraq. While conventional wars are rarer and deterable, they are not deterred by throwing up 30 year old fighters against a nation(s) rapidly arming with the latest fighters and missiles. That is simply a recipe for miscalculation, the mother of great power wars.

So on to another complaint, though the F-22 and F-35 would be an extremely effective pair, are they worth the great expense? The heart of this question is whether the F-15 and F-16 are still capable enough to do the job at much lower cost. The advantages versus SAM’s and in supporting ground troops is hard to quantify beyond saying the F-22/F-35 would be more capable than current aircraft (venerable A-10 excepted). The F-35 isn’t as much in debate since its total cost per plane of $115 million is not that great. The bigger debate is over the F-22 and its $340 million per plane price tag quoted by critics. The first thing to realize is that of the $340 million, $150 million represents development cost that we have mostly already paid. Moreover, it is unfair to attribute all of that cost to the F-22 since its R&D spending has helped lower the development cost for the F-35 and various UAV’s. A further $50 million (based on the $137 million construction cost) is the cost of setting up the production line that has mostly been paid as well. This $200 million of the price tag is essentially fixed and is therefore dependant on the number of aircraft purchased and would drop to $100 million if 360 F-22’s were purchased instead of 180. It would also be lower if the Congress would approve the FB-22. This would be a fighter-bomber based on the F-22 with somewhat inferior air-to-air capabilities replaced with a far superior 7,500 lb payload and range.

Whatever the price, how does the F-22 stack up against its rivals? The aforementioned DERA fighter study indicates how it would in a straight up fight. Although US fighters will likely never be in a straight up fight, it does still provide a good indication of their relative performance. The following table has the kill ratios vs the F-22 of various current aircraft from the DERA study, the purchase price of each aircraft from Defense-Aerospace.com amongst others, and then their total price per kill and vs the F-22. (note: the F-35 was not including in the DERA study, I just used the roughly 3:1 capability difference between the F-15 and F-16 as guideline)

It thus becomes evident that far from being the most expensive aircraft for conventional conflict, the F-22 is one of the cheapest. Further, it should be noted that in addition to dollars, losing almost 13 F-15’s compared with 1 F-22 means 12 more lost pilots.

I am certainly not arguing for the defunding of the current wars or COIN preparations in favor of conventional war programs like the F-22 and F-35. The cost of these two programs is $8.1 billion this year. We are completely capable of funding them, current operations, and future COIN programs at the same time. If one or the other is not receiving enough then we need to increase the defense budget, not eliminate any of the programs. If necessary, this is one of the rare situations where it is better to under fund each somewhat than it is to fund 2 completely and 1 not at all. We have to be able to conduct brushfire wars or else the chaos in much of the world will spread and eventually possibly threaten the civilized word. But we also must not make the same mistake the British made twice and focus solely on “imperial policing”, thereby simultaneously raising the odds of a great war and its length and severity. Around an extra $150 billion a year to guard against each outcome is a small price to pay given the cost of ignoring them (e.g., WWII would cost us something like $30 trillion today). If the Republicans do not fully understand that now, they at least will when it becomes unavoidable. The modern Democrats never have or will.

Newsflash!! Elections decided by votes not by pre-election random polls, Democrats perplexed, Republicans respond: Duh

2006-10-24T15:11:00.000-05:00

Trolling through political chat rooms, talking with liberals at school/work, or reading the Opinion Journal (third story), it becomes apparent that the left is yet again calling the election in their favor 3-4 weeks out (in some cases in a major way, 40 House and 7 Senate pickups!! update: now some saying 60 House and 8 Senate, if it keeps growing like this the Dems will be up to 232 House and, I think, 14 Senate by the election). I know, I know, they claim they are going to win every election years in advance, but it’s not until a few weeks out that they really really believe it. This causes the post-election meltdowns that we see every two years. This time is a little different in that lefties are beginning to talk more openly about civil disturbances if they don’t win this election. I don’t think it will actually materialize to any great extent, but violence does begin with talk. Also, it’s what leftist are doing elsewhere as can be seen in Mexico.

They believe they should win every election since the media produced countless polls showing the Democrats winning, and since they know the American people agree with them (why they don't know anyone at their San Fransico latte club who votes Republican). Therefore, the only answer for their loss must be that the Republicans stole the election and their victory. The fact that, as I’ve known since kindergarten, elections are not decided until Election Day still hasn’t been learned by some on the left. It also only took me one election (2000) to learn to not fall for the inevitability trap. Like most Republicans I thought Bush was a shoe in. Then Election Day came, and despite the fact that it was still a Bush victory, I learned to never again take victory for granted. It would be nice if the left would learn this and other electoral lessons like sometimes you lose, no amount of random sampling will ever be able to reliably predict a vote, and its not a dirty political trick for Republicans to tell the people what Democrats believe (Heaven knows the Democrats and the media won’t do it).

Why I Oppose the "Cut Off the Nose to Spite the Face" Republicans 2: Illegal Immigrant Amnesty

2006-10-23T04:43:00.000-05:00

This follows my last post about why I will vote Republican (even for Republican moderates like DeWine and Pryce) this election despite not being entirely enthralled with the Party’s performance. The last post covered defense spending and this one will cover illegal immigration. The reality is that just as the Democrats can do lasting damage to our country and the world by not providing the military with a sufficient budget, they can also cause permanent damage with illegal immigration. It's, of course, not 100% certain that this will happen, but it is devestating and likely enough to be very concerned.

Within the government, the only check on the liberal-Bush illegal immigrant amnesty plan was the House Republican caucus. The notion that amnesty will not move forward despite the elimination of this sole check is lunacy. The prospect of another “immigration reform” bill is very real and worrisome following a Democrat win in November. Again, the Republicans are not perfect on the issue but they are far far better than the Democrats. So much so that I really do not understand why some Conservatives who say this is their number one issue are so willing to throw out the Republicans and see their worst nightmare happen.

The basic premise behind this is that a Democrat House/Congress will not “accomplish” much over the next 2 years beside raising the minimum wage and limiting defense spending. Similarly, President Bush will also be unable to get anything done in his last two years. About the only major issue that both the Democrats and the President agree is illegal immigrant amnesty. Is there any doubt that if they don’t instantly recognize this that they will by the end of the session? They both will have the desire, interest, and power to see that an amnesty happens; what more do they need?

The Democrats in particular will like the results of an amnesty. True the natives may not like it so much, but as the Republicans who think it’s a good idea to cut off the Republican nose to spite the Republican face plan to show, all that will happen is they won’t vote so as to teach the country a lesson. As far as the Democrats are concerned it’s win-win. The Democrats understand that native demographics are working against them. Birth rates in blue states are at European level deathbed levels compared with reasonable rates in the red states. Simply put, basing your political power on DINK’s, single women, Episcopalians (along with other so called Christians) and homosexuals is not a recipe for long term success. The Democrats need new blood and the 10-15 million illegals are just what the doctor ordered in their eyes.

This would be nothing surprising for a leftwing party. Leftists are the same the world over so it is instructive to see how other leftwing parties are dealing with similar situations. In the Low Countries the socialists reacted to the increasingly rightwing voting habits of the natives by allowing immigrants to vote. The effect was to allow them to hold onto power in the recent elections that they would have lost without the immigrant votes. The downside for the country is that the Muslims are demanding Islamic government policies. But the Leftists keep their power a little longer and that’s all they care about.

Fortunately we have not allowed our immigration problem to get as out of hand as Europe’s, but a similar policy could still lock in a permanent Democrat majority. The country is, at best for conservatives, broken about 53-47 (right-left). In total votes all it would take to swing that is around 7 million. I think the Dems will be able to manage that at some point out of the 10-15 million illegals to which they granted citizenship and welfare. Even should the natives revolt at such a policy, the best we can expect is we will get a small conservative majority. It won’t take long for enough new illegals to arrive, and cut off the nose to spite the face Republicans not voting, for the Dems to eventually become a permanent majority. While this won’t move our politics in an Islamist manner as is happening in Belgium and Holland, it will move it in a Latin Socialist manner.

Admittedly, it will be a constant fight to prevent this outcome. Big business, a faction of the Republican Party, and the entire Democrat Party are too in bed with illegal immigration to make amnesty go away. All it will take to see one occurs is for Democrats and/or the pro-illegal faction of the Republican Party to control the Presidency, House, and Senate. Right now the pro-illegal Republicans control the Presidency and the Senate. Republicans who oppose an amnesty will simply turn over the only one of the three opposed to an amnesty to the pro-amnesty Democrats by not voting. This will cause the issue, and by extension the country, that these Republicans care so much about to be permanently lost. Quite a price to pay for a temper tantrum.

Why I Oppose the "Burn the Village to Save It" Republicans 1: Defense Spending

2006-10-21T15:04:00.000-05:00

Like most conservatives, I have more than a few gripes with the Republican Congress. However, I refuse to join those conservatives who think that the best way to save the Republican village is to burn it down for several reasons (they are more commonly known as cut-and-run conservatives). Everyone is, or should be, aware of the Democrat’s plans with taxes, spending, regulation, illegal immigrant amnesty, etc. Those certainly motivate me to do my part in keeping them out of power (the last one much more than the other three) but there is another major reason that hasn’t been discussed, what Pelosi-Reid et al will do to the defense budget.

Even now we are not spending what we should on the military during peacetime much less during war. Peacetime base military spending should be around 4.5% of GDP or about $630 billion in 2007. Next year we will only spend $440 billion or 3.1%. This would be one of my complaints about the Republicans. Given how important military spending is to me (it’s one of my top issues) I should stay home to teach the Republicans and America a lesson according to the burn-the-village-to-save-it Republicans. I will not since doing so will cause the penny-wise pound-foolish Democrats to gain the spending power over the military which is far worse than a repeat of the last Congress.

This is a dangerous possibility as the bills come due from the Clinton procurement holiday of the 90’s at the same time procurement costs escalate rapidly to purchase the new advanced weapons our military needs to stay on top. These expenses can be seen from the future estimated spending in the 2007 defense budget. (in billions of 2007 $)

2007- 84,197
2008- 97,688
2009- 104,148
2010- 104,870
2011- 108,167

In all likelihood this will not be enough to properly equip our military but it is most definitely better than allowing the Democrats to have any influence over the nation’s purse strings. Also, the Republicans have shown that when it becomes more obvious that it isn't enough, they will increase the spending to compensate.

We can be certain that the Democrats will not for two reasons; first it’s what they’ve done in the past, and second their planned policies will leave them no choice. The only two times that the American people were foolish enough to give the modern Democrats control of the government was in 1977-1980 and 1993-1994. In 1993-1994 the Democrats slashed the procurement budget a whopping 24% to only half its 1990 level. The defense budget would go on to shrink every year under Clinton until the Republicans realized the damage being done and began to trade some domestic spending for increased military spending in 1998-2000. No the Republicans weren’t perfect but they sure did a better job than Clinton or the Dems at ensuring our military had proper funding. That was during peacetime, surely the Dems wouldn’t do that during a conflict? From 1977-1980 they did. During four years of power by the Watergate Democrats the military budget increased a mere 1% (I’m excluding 1981 even though it should be included because if I recall Reagan forced through extra spending for the year and if not then Carter no doubt only allowed higher spending to head off Reagan, not because he wanted to). Again, only the Republicans caused military spending to remain at least near proper levels.

It is not only the Democrats’ past that points to their future, but also the Democrats themselves. The Democrats' raise taxes, raise domestic spending, and pay as you go budgeting will prevent the above procurement increases and may even require reductions. This is all the more so since the Democrats have said they oppose many new weapons programs (again as they have in the past). The primary target would most likely be the F-22 Raptor program. We have already paid for about half of this $62 billion program. The rest will be paid out over the next 6-10 years for production of the fighter barring any unfortunate elections. Some Democrats have called for the purchase of F-15’s instead of the F-22. Now the F-15 is a great fighter, but it is over 30 years old. The Europeans and Russians have more advanced fighters that they are selling to anyone with the money to buy them. We cannot allow a situation where Venezuela has better fighters than we do. Our Navy needs to increase its number of warships to counter the growth of navies around the world. Even the modest increase asked for by the Navy will cost an extra $20 billion over the next 5 years. However, some of the biggest supporters of this are in close elections and would be replaced by far less interested Democrats. It also goes without saying that the roughly $9 billion a year National Missile Defense budget would not remain at such levels. These are only three programs, but they total nearly $20 billion a year. When the Dems find out that their tax increases aren’t enough to support their new domestic spending (which will happen almost immediately), it won’t be long before they cast an eye towards these programs.

It is true that President Bush would at least be in office for the next 2 years so the Democrats won’t be completely free to take an axe to the military budget as they would like. The damage they could do is bad enough though. Since the Republicans are spending the bare minimum as it is, any reduction resulting from budget negotiations would severly compromise our military's future. Military procurement programs require years of stable funding. They cannot simply be turned on and off like a light switch. It is very expensive to restart a program after it has been cancelled or downsized. As such it will cost us dearly to correct the Democrats defense spending and program cuts. If the Democrats do not cut new programs then they will have to cut procurement for new equipment to replace equipment worn out or lost in Afghanistan and Iraq. Either way our military will not receive the amount of funding it needs to deal with the present and the future. We will also lose the time that these weapons could have been available to our soldiers. Even if Republicans do retake Congress and restore funding, if trouble flairs over Taiwan in 2010 our soldiers will desperately miss, and be killed by the absence of, the F-22’s, NMD, and more capable warships Democrats refused to fund 3 years earlier.

As can be seen by a short read of history, military underfunding can be a direct cause of war. World War I was started because the Germans believed they could defeat Britain, France, and Russia at the same time. Part of this was because the British only spent about 2.25% of their economy on defense, compared with 3-6% in Europe. Had the British, like the Germans, spent 4% on defense then the Germans would likely not have calculated that they could knock off France before Britain was prepared for war. It is a similar story in 1939 when the British again badly underfunded their military while the Germans spent like crazy in preparation for the coming war. Admittedly, the left-wing British government did increase military spending in 1938 but to their dismay, military spending takes time to translate into actual ships, planes, weapons, and soldiers. As I’ve written before the British certainly had the capacity to stop Hitler had they not been so parsimonious with defense spending in the 1930’s (yes they had good reasons to not be gun-ho but given the price of their mistake we don’t have an excuse to copy them). Lastly, it was not a coincidence that the biggest period of post World War II Soviet expansionism occurred during Carter’s military spending freeze. The great game of global power politics continues unabated whether we like it or not. The more margin that our weaker military leaves other powers, the more likely they are to take advantage of it to our detriment.

Despite the Republicans not spending to the level I think necessary on defense, they are at least spending more than the Democrats would. I also trust the Republicans to not force the military to choose between the present and future when the cost of the procurement holiday comes up against the cost of new weapon programs. The Democrats have shown by their past and their present statements that they are not trustworthy on military spending. The British paid the price twice for undercutting military spending, we paid the price in the 1980’s to defeat the rejuvenated Soviet Union, and we will soon pay the price for the “peace dividend” of the 1990’s. We cannot allow ourselves to make that mistake again. Even though Republicans are not perfect on the issue, they are good, and I will not help the perfect become the enemy of the good by helping to elect a party who is terrible on one of the most important issues to myself and my country.

Taxing Polls

2006-10-19T22:17:00.000-05:00

Just a disclaimer, there's some boring math and so forth in this post so read at your own risk.

As the election draws nearer I will be a bit more political than usual (well actually anything is more political than usual since I haven’t posted in 5 weeks, but anyways). So with the campaign season comes the usual festivities. Pollsters and pundits can find work again, producing wildly offbase polls for the former and using those absurd polls to predict the death of the Republican Party for the latter. Lefties believe said polls and pundits along with other fever swamp theories about the Bushitler personally supplying and testing North Korea’s nuke, then personally cutting Corey Lidle’s gas line so he would crash into a New York building, and finally rushing back to the White House to send emails to the NFL threatening dirty bomb attacks on football stadiums. Sigh, if only he would use his genius for good. The Democrats are on their usual no holds bar quest for power. When not outing gay Republicans they are busily trying to divine whether a GOP senator used the “N-word” some 40 years ago and hiring Nazi genealogists to determine if this senator also has the blood of the Juden in his veins. If you think that would be the limit you'd be wrong, they are also throwing oreo’s at a black GOP senate candidate while having Nazi ethnologists decide if his contributors have features of the Juden. Ahhh, makes you feel like a kid Christmas time, you just wish it could go on all year.

The key to all this election year behavior is the polls. I know, it seems like every election we go through the same routine. Polls predict GOP rout, lefties get irrationally exuberant, election happens, their bubble pops, and then we get to listen to them cry about it and come up with dark conspiracy theories about stolen elections, questioned patriotism, created terrorism, and such until the next election season when we start the cycle all over. So in the spirit of trying to help some lefties become rationally exuberant, and some conservatives to not be so irrationally depressed, I’ll analyze a recent poll and point to some other analyses of polls that support my theory that polls are becoming more and more useless.

This is a recent New York Times-CBS poll for the Ohio Senate race. I picked it not only because it is at the high end for Sherrod Brown but also because it is the only one of the five recent polls to include internals. It has DeWine losing by 14 points. The first thing to note is that the poll has almost 100 questions and fills up 30 pages! As is one of the oldest complaints about these polls, obviously the middle aged middle income couple with kids who make up the bulk of voters and the bulk of the Republican Party do not have the time to answer these things. Nevertheless, delving down to the bottom of the report they have the poll's weighting. Of all respondents the Rep/Dem breakdown is 30/34. Not too unreasonable, the 2004 exit poll had the party breakdown in Ohio at 40/36 so it’s sort of close. Then they weight it to a 27/34 breakdown without saying how or why they did it.

They then further adjust the poll for “likely voters”. They only show the likely voter total (693 out of 1164) and like the weighted total they do not say how this number was calculated. It seems to have been done by simply multiplying the weighted respondents by the number who said they will “definitely vote” (page 15, question 2) since I arrive at 684 “likely voters” and also the same Brown by 14 result doing that. I thought pollsters had some elaborate method of foretelling who would vote and who wouldn’t, but I guess I was wrong. So after correcting for “likely voters” the poll sample is (R/D) 27/37. Again, this is compared to 2004’s 40/36. The change per party (with independents tossed in) is -13/+1/+14. Anyone who has followed politics for more than just this year would recognize this result is ridiculous.

It is possible this year will have lower Republican turnout, but 33% lower? We can also compare these weights to historical turnout (state election website). In 1998 and 2002 (picked since they followed motor voter and such laws that caused a major increase in registration and corresponding drop off in turnout) turnout was 49% in Ohio. In the 2002 primary turnout was 19.4% with 586,000 Dems and 659,000 Reps voting. In 1998 primary turnout was 28% with no partisan breakdown. This year’s primary turnout was 24% with 872,000 Dems and 870,000 Reps voting. So yes this indicates higher Dem turnout but not a 27/37 advantage. It also means that if turnout is 49% or thereabouts again and Republicans are only 27% of voters then Republicans will only increase their turnout 12% over the primary. Further, the poll has likely voters at 70% of registered voters which means a full 30% of them are lying and shouldn’t count. This causes the poll to be worthless, are those 30% DeWine voters, or Brown voters? Or they could be equally both, no one knows. My own guess, for what little it is worth, is that the turnout will be (R/D) 36-37/38-39.

Others have picked up on this line of reasoning as they do before each election. Rich Lowry at the National Review has a good review of the partisan weighting of the “Generic Ballot” polls (which are even more useless than Senate polls). In short, they are also grossly over-weighted in favor of the Democrats. Also at the National Review, Jim Geraghty reviews a lot of House polls from across the country. He looks at polls from the same district released during the same time. Despite being the same district and the same time frame the polls have radically different results. For example, in Iowa-1 a poll has the Democrat up 11 points while another has the Republican up 13 points. So either it’s a major win for the Dems or it’s a major loss for them. You can see this in the DeWine-Brown race. Looking at the Real Clear Politics list of polls, Brown is either up 4 (Zogby) or 14 (NYT-CBS). Overall, it’s the same as it is every election. Media polls show Democrat victory, election reveals Republican victory (though certainly less of one this year than most), sun rises, sun sets.

Update: Looks like every leftie's favorite pollster (Zogby for those who didn't know) has a series of good Senate polls for the Republicans. I swore off Zogdby long ago (Kerry winning Florida and Ohio my, ahem) and put no credance in any of his polls but since lefties love him there you have it.

The (except America) No Armed Troops Organization

2006-09-16T02:27:00.000-05:00

It used to be that NATO was considered the one international organization on which we could count. After all it was the “most successful alliance” in history and such. It also wasn’t full of corrupt and incompetent third worlders like the UN. However, the value of even this alliance is increasingly in question.

The fundamental flaw in NATO is similar to the problem with the UN, it has become extremely unbalanced in the capabilities, responsibility, and interests of its members. The rapid collapse of Europe in virtually all aspects of global power and influence is the heart of the problem. This has bred in Europe a desire to maintain the trappings of power and influence the only way they can (diplomacy) while avoiding any tough actions that would lay bare their impotence. They are further bedeviled by their rapidly growing Muslim minorities, their proximity to the rapidly growing homelands of said Muslims, and their rapidly growing class of retirees with their high social spending requirements. The former restricts European actions due to fear of social disturbances and the latter prevents European actions due to lack of military spending and the intense quest for money wherever it can be found.

We are seeing the results of an increasingly dysfunctional Europe today in Afghanistan. NATO has sent remarkably few troops given its European members have over 400 million people and 2 million soldiers. Recent requests for an additional 2,500 soldiers have apparently fallen on unconcerned ears. One of the few good European countries, Poland, has offered 900 soldiers but sadly their capability doesn’t match their courage and responsibility (we should increase aid to help the former). Norway has recently ordered their soldiers to redeploy to a safe northern province since they aren’t prepared for combat (no excuse in this case, Norway is as rich as us with much of it coming from oil). Meanwhile, what NATO forces are in the south are not capable of completely wiping out the Taliban in their area since we have yet again been burned by European promises.

The change in the world power structure highlighted here is nothing new or surprising and should be expected and adapted to. Europe is in an irreversible slide, Japan is reawakening, Russia is returning to great power status, China and India are rising, and a global anti-West socialist ideology is advancing throughout the third world and beginning to join forces with radical Islam. Bush has made great strides in refocusing our foreign policy to radical Islam and China, while deepening our alliance with Japan and India. Yet the central focus of our foreign policy continues to be on a Europe who more and more does not share either our capabilities or our interests. The world is going to keep on turning no matter how much we wish it would stay still.

Friendly fire then and now

2006-09-06T20:22:00.000-05:00

I’m vacationing at the moment so this is just a short observation. After the Gulf War the media went crazy over the friendly fire rate. I was a preteen at the time but was already watching the news and Discovery Channel. As such I remember the reports and shows about the unbelievably high “blue on blue” incidents during the war (to think of what things were like before the internet and Fox News, *shudder*). Why, they were much higher than in World War II, Korea, or Vietnam. Countless time was spent analyzing why this was the case and what should be done to fix it. As I recall the most common conclusion was that war had become to video gamey. All the thermal displays and night vision had made it too difficult for soldiers to tell who was who.

Even at the time I thought this attempt by the media to disparage whatever aspect they could of our massive victory to be silly. I thought the high friendly fire rate was merely the result of the Iraqi soldiers not doing their jobs. Had they been more competent and actually stood and fought then the friendly fire share of killed would be much lower. Thankfully the Iraqis didn’t even though that meant the friendly fire share was higher than usual. There were other peculiarities about that war that would have caused higher friendly fire casualties, it was a large and extremely aggressive mobile campaign, fought in the open desert, and fought day and night for the first time.

I was reminded of this by this article on strategypage.com about the number of friendly fire incidents in Iraq. Out of 2,100 killed in action since March 2003, only 21 have been due to friendly fire or 1%. This war, like all wars, also has its difference with past wars. Many of the killed are the result of I.E.D.’s that don’t have gunfights associated with them, engagements are mostly smaller scale with little operational maneuver that results in units unknowingly bumping into each other, and the soldiers are not dealing with a furious 24 hour tempo. Given the choice, I would prefer 21 friendly fire dead representing an absurdly high 35% of soldiers killed in action rather than 1% even if it causes the media to look down on trigger happy G.I.'s.

Nevertheless, it does show that American soldiers do not have an obsession with killing anything that moves, including fellow Americans. Unfortunately, that notion has been hammered into the minds of many around the world by this point. It is also further evidence that the media does not like the military or report fairly or intelligently about it. The military wins a conventional campaign quickly and with low casualties and the media still finds something that looks bad when incorrectly analyzed and beats the military over the head with it. Now it is ignoring the historically low friendly fire rate, once its pet cause, and instead focuses on casualty rates that are below those of the Filipino Insurrection and Vietnam (5 per 1,000 soldier-years for the Philippines vs. 20 in Vietnam vs. 4 today). Lastly, it further shows how incompetent the media is that they couldn’t figure out something an 11 year old boy could; that the high friendly fire share of the Gulf War was nothing endemic and would unfortunately not be as high when we faced an enemy who fought.

Thoughts about a couple Muslim talking points

2006-09-03T19:05:00.000-05:00

We kept hearing during the fighting in southern Lebanon about “disproportionate” Israeli action. Teeth were gnashed and hands were wrung by countless people over the fact that roughly 6 Arabs were dying for each Israeli. The Lebanese Prime Minister bemoaned what he said was the world valuing Israeli tears more than Lebanese blood. And so on it went. This was the same thing were heard regarding the Palestinians during their second intifada (where about 5 Arabs died for each Israeli). Yet, no one complains about the Arabs disproportionate prisoner swap demands. For one Israeli prisoner the Arabs routinely demand 400-1000 Arab prisoners. The same Arabs who decry what they say is counting an Arab as 1/6 an Israeli are counting their prisoners as 1/400 to 1/1000 an Israeli. It should also be noted that the Iranians have said trading 60 million Muslims for 6 million Jews is worth it since it is a loss of 6% of the world’s Muslims for 50% of its Jews. So the Arabs own Muslim brothers put the Muslim-Jew value at 1/10. For that matter, where are the complaints about the Alawis killing 20,000 at Hama for demanding democracy? Or when the Jordanians finally had enough of Palestinian terrorism and killed thousands, maybe tens of thousands, during Black September? Or are disproportionate responses only ok when it’s Goyim doing the killing? It would seem to me then that Israel is overvaluing Arabs by at least twofold and maybe as high as 170-fold based on the Muslims own view of their value.

Never mind that “proportionate” responses are never how a nation should respond. After Pearl Harbor we didn’t respond by bombing Kure Naval Base, killing exactly 2,400 Japanese, and then going home. We didn’t respond to the Lusitania sinking by demanding Imperial Germany load up a similar sized German vessel with 1,100 civilians so we could sink it. Nor was the Iranian response to Saddam’s limited invasion of Khuzestan province to invade a similar Iraqi province but to attempt to overthrow Saddam and occupy Iraq. In the world of geopolitics this is a non-issue.

This also touches on the similar Muslim talking point that the world in general and America in particular care a lot more about Israeli babies than Arab ones. Last I checked it wasn’t the Israelis but the Arabs who are sending their children on “martyrdom operations” and who are setting up rocket launchers and terrorist safe houses in places with lots of children about. Adding the Iranians to the mix again, it was they and not the Israelis who used their young boys by the hundreds of thousands as human mine clearers and machine gun fodder. Even if the Muslims are right about us caring more about Israeli babies than theirs (which I would disagree with that), the real questions are why do they expect others to care more about their children than they themselves do and why they don't care about either their babies or Israel's.

Next up is another frequent claim by various “moderate” Muslims that stereotyping Muslims as terrorists is angering them and producing more terrorists. So angry at being considered the prime source for suicide bombers, bus bombers, school kid murderers, and beheaders they are going to disabuse us of this notion by….producing more suicide bombers, bus bombers, school kid murderers, and beheaders. Well I don’t know about you, but I’m certainly disabused. However, to be fair to Muslims, I will fully agree we need to focus more attention on elderly Japanese women’s Mahjong groups the first time one carries out a grade school massacre or bus bombing. Also I should note that I have no problem with hardline approaches against other terrorists like the ETA and IRA (to the point that I think the British should have invaded Ireland in the 60’s or 70’s for allowing the IRA to operate there). The attention on Muslims has nothing to do with their religion (except inasmuch as it motivates their actions and therefore requires us to pay attention to them) and the sooner “moderate” Muslims accept that and help us battle a common enemy, the sooner we can stop worrying about Muslims as terrorists.

Leftists are the same everywhere

2006-09-02T02:17:00.000-05:00

How is a congressman to react when the outgoing president of the opposite party who won the recent election is about to give his State of the Union speech? If he’s leftwing, he’ll react by storming the stage and refusing to allow the president to speak of course. That’s one of the ways the left in Mexico is dealing with its narrow defeat in the July 2nd elections. It’s also blocking roads, holding mass protests, and otherwise making as much a mess of things as they can.

Fortunately for us, thus far our leftists only sit on their hands at the State of the Union, complain bitterly, imagine vast rightwing conspiracy after vast rightwing conspiracy, and otherwise make as much a mess of the courts as they can. Even prior to the 2004 election, the left admirably managed to limit itself to petty vandalism, a few burglaries, and a couple cases of assault and more serious destruction of property. However, as with the Mexican left still holding a grudge over what they claim was a stolen election in 1988 (mentioned here), how much longer before we see this sort of misbehavior and serious violence from the Democrats?

Hopefully the Democrats will instead realize elections are not street ball and will lose their "if I don't win I'm taking the school's ball and going home" mentality.

International community…what is it good for?

2006-09-01T14:57:00.000-05:00

Absolutely nothing, as we are seeing. However, since that didn’t quite have a good ring to it, I’ll have to wait for someone to come up with a monosyllabic word for the international community before I use it again. Oh well, again at least the last part is right. August 31st was supposed to be a big day. Iran was to stop its uranium enrichment program as decreed by the United Nations. Completely unsurprising to all but the most dedicated internationalist, Iran didn’t. The IAEA also released a report that revealed that highly enriched uranium was found for the third time in Iran, and this time it couldn’t be written off as contamination from Pakistan. To further add insult to injury, Ahmadinejad was also very clear that he did not care what the U.N. said or did (I will give Ahmadinejad credit for that, I wish our president was as forthright about the U.N.’s value, or lack thereof).

Where is the vaunted international community that agreed at the G8 meeting that this was Iran’s last chance? Russia has said no to sanctions or any action; but they do regret Iran’s actions. I'm sure we will also have their regrets when London, or New York, and Iran are radioactive parking lots, but I digress. Europe is demanding…. more talks since 8 years is obviously to short a time to rush to impose visa sanctions on Iran’s leaders. The U.N. didn’t even release a statement as it was the ambassador from Ghana’s last day, and as he told reporters, “give me a break.” What a surprise that the good people of Ghana who can’t provide enough food, clean water, or jobs for their own people think that a nuclear Iran isn’t the biggest threat to their country. What is surprising is that there are people who think such a country should be allowed to head what is supposedly the most important institution to the security and stability of the world.

Well so much for promises from the international community (but then Europe's promises aren't worth the paper they are written on as I wrote about here, and pretty much the same thing with the Russians and Chinese). None of this is helpful to a Bush Administration that is beginning to look a lot like Olmert’s in Israel. Bush accepted the challenge from Iran, losing the challenge through inactivity as he is on his way to doing will be worse for us and the world than never having accepted the challenge to begin with.

Rumsfeld Vs. The McClellan Democrats

2006-08-31T19:37:00.000-05:00

I should start by saying that I’m a huge Rumsfeld fan. Have been ever since I read the Wall Street Journal editorial back in 2000 calling for his appointment and discussing his prior distinguished Pentagon stint (for example, as Defense Secretary under Ford he almost single-handily saved the cruise missile from arms limitation talks; that alone should earn him a statue in Washington). Of course I don’t agree with all of his policies, but even if I disagreed with most of them, his expert management of the children in the press corps alone is more than worth his tenure. We are seeing in recent days another reason why I’ve always been a Rummy fan. He has an ability of pointing out simple facts that while not directed at the left causes the lefties to reveal their true colors.
Rumsfeld has again laid bare the hollowness of the Dems strategy on the war. Rumsfeld calling our enemy “Fascists”, something most average Americans would not contest, and drawing parallels with others in history who chose to ignore the threat fascists pose has left the Dems with three options:

Agree our enemies are fascists, but say it’s not that big a deal and thereby play to their type as weak on national security,
Agree and propose a vigorous policy to defeat these fascists and thus lose their nutroots and any hope of electoral victory this election,
Decry such remarks against the good patriotic freedom loving wannabe American Revolutionary (pick one or more based on the war) Soviet, N. Korean, N. Vietnamese, Iraqi, Iranian, terrorist, (enemy in the next conflict) people we are wrongly fighting thus making the Dems look not only weak but also insane (this is the option they seem to be choosing, I guess so they are at least in good company with their base).

As the Dems realize they put their collective foot in their mouth again, they are beginning to lash out at Rumsfeld, Cheney, Bush, Rove and all those simpletons who keep tricking them into saying stupid things. Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid decided to respond with what liberals consider history, take their current policy preference, slap “history shows” in front of it, and presto; much easier than spending hours upon hours reading and understanding history you must agree. He brought up that favorite of lefty charges, that Rumsfeld had ignored “military experts when he rushed to war without enough troops” (the full press release is here). Only this time, Rumsfeld is alleged to have ignored history as well.

First off, the reason why this assertion is so ridiculous is that you cannot say history always shows you should always send more soldiers. Even a cursory study of history would reveal that this is dependant on the situation. So what the argument should be is history shows more soldiers were needed for reasons x, y, and z, which compares with historical outcomes a, b, and c. The second thing to note is that there are “military experts” who would advise against any chosen course of action. It is simply impossible to do something that does not contravene a “military expert” selected by your political opponents. My views on this charge are a bit light because I link to posts I wrote before about them that are far far more detailed.

The claim that Rumsfeld did not send as many soldiers as were needed is highly questionable at best. I know this is the core liberal claim against the policy in Iraq as they think it allows them to sound tough while also opposing the President’s policy. Yes, they do have generals on their side, although it must be noted that their two highest profile generals, Clark and Shinseki, ended their careers in ignominy (both had been prepped for it during the Clinton years, although in Shinseki’s case they had to wait until Bush was in office to execute it, no it had nothing to do with Iraq). I wrote a post, "Echoes of the Sicilian Expedition" about that telling historical analogy that shows why I think sending 300,000 soldiers would have caused many more problems for us than it solved (it’s a long post, too long to copy here but well worth a read I would say). Essentially, we needed enough soldiers to keep the Sunni revanchists from winning while we established a Shiite-Kurdish security force without sending so many soldiers that we caused the majority of Iraqis to believe that, as lefties in the West told them, we were there to colonize their country and steal their oil.

Added to this is the simple fact that the logistical situation in the region precluded invading with more than 80,000 soldiers that would build to 150,000 over 6-7 months. True it would have been better had Saudi Arabia and especially Turkey gone along, but that wasn’t Rumsfeld’s job. That was Powell’s job and he botched it horribly (some, including me, would add willingly). Granted, the Democrats apparently think Okinawa makes a suitable base of operations for the Persian Gulf, so I can understand why they don’t realize this but I’m discussing reality here. Also, there is the simple fact that our military is of a certain size and can only support so many soldiers on continuous deployment. The Dems will say aha, we support 40,000 extra soldiers. As I wrote in another post,"The 40,000 soldier question", that is not the best way to go and is opposed by the generals for several good reasons (i.e. the “military experts” the civilian leadership is supposed to obey, although that may only be when they support the Dems so maybe it’s ok to ignore them here; lefties?). Basically, our main problem is that we do not have enough combat soldiers and the ones we have are in the wrong fields (artillery instead of recon or military police and even Air Force bomb loader instead of Air Force light infantry). Correcting that should be the priority.

The Democrat position on these topics is just a modern updated version of the original Democrat war policy, the “McClellan Doctrine” of 1861. What the McClellan Doctrine calls for is massive overwhelming firepower to fight any enemy. The problem is that it requires such a preponderance of firepower that in practice it is impossible to ever achieve it. As Lincoln commented about McClellan (not an exact quote), I gave him 200,000 men and he asks for 500,000, if I gave him that he would ask for 1 million, if I gave him that he would ask for 2 million. It wasn’t until McClellan was sidelined that decisive, though non-overwhelming, force was utilized to accomplish something. What Lincoln and Rumsfeld understand that the McClellan Democrats then and now do not is that an army has to be used in a non-perfect situation because a perfect situation will never occur.

Yet another in the seemingly endless series of lessons on the importance of deterrence

2006-08-27T16:14:00.000-05:00

According to Hezbollah leader Nasrallah, had he known that the Israelis would respond as forcefully as they did to the kidnapping of their soldiers, he would never have ordered it. Even though Olmert never ordered the killing blow, the possibility was always there. This is not only a reminder that non-Westerners are not the military masterminds and adept students of Sun Tzu that lefties imagine them to be, but also of the value of deterrence.

The cause of deterrence is simply the belief that any action against another nation will result in so massive a retaliation (yes, that means disproportionate retaliation) that it is not worth it to take the initial action, in this case kidnapping or killing a dozen Israeli soldiers. What we saw with Hezbollah was the effect of years of lefty weakness in Israel. This was supposed to inspire a willingness to compromise in the terrorists but as we saw (and as the right predicted) has only whipped up a willingness to push the envelope against Israel.

We can only hope that Hezbollah has learned its lesson this time. However, since it is still alive, in all likelihood all it has learned is the need for bigger rockets next time. More critically is the lesson that the other nations in the region have taken. Whatever the deterrence effect Israel may have had on terrorists, it hasn’t had any on the nations of the region. Iran now feels free to attack Romanian and Azerbaijani oil platforms, Syria is openly declaring hatred for Israel and the need to conquer the Golan, Egypt is establishing ties with Iran for the first time and some are pushing for an end to the peace treaty with Israel, and Turkey is continuing her move away from the “Phantom Alliance” and secularism and towards Islamism.

I know lefties hate acting tough, much less actually being tough, but in the real world it’s a lot cheaper and better for everyone to make 100 nations fear you will go to war than to have to go to war with even one nation. One would think that with history, even recent history like Iraq, showing the value of deterrence and making your enemy believe that you will go to war this would be obvious to everyone. Sadly, it isn’t and sadly we, like Israel, will pay the price for it again and again in the future.

Europe backtracks and backstabs, what a surprise

2006-08-24T13:15:00.000-05:00

Well I didn't expect to be away for almost 2 weeks, but finals are finally over, yipee.

It shouldn’t be a surprise that both France and Germany have quickly backtracked on their promises to send soldiers to Lebanon. Aside from their inability to deploy many troops overseas, this simply continues the trend of the Continental Europeans ignoring their international commitments. It also isn’t surprising that the French would yet again backstab their Western allies for their own geopolitical benefit by promising to send troops and lead the force to get a ceasefire signed and then saying they won't be doing that. I have no idea why the Bush Administration continues to trust the Europeans in general and the French in particular to keep their word.

The main reason for this quixotic behavior by the Europeans is the rapid collapse of the military power of a continent that fielded ten million soldiers and held the fate of the world in its grasp just a generation ago. As the saying goes, when the only tool in your toolbox is a pen, every problem starts looking like a document to sign. What the Europeans will do when they so underfund their militaries that they can’t even afford pens anymore I don’t know. The only ability that the Europeans have to shape world events then is by using diplomacy to hobble the United States when it suits their interests or to get the U.S. to clean up Europe’s messes that are threatening them as in the Balkans. Since we won’t make our “allies” pay a price for such behavior there is no reason for them to not engage in it.

For example, the Europeans are almost single handily ensuring Iran will have nuclear missiles by their endless demand for more talks and then yet more talks. Why should they do that when Berlin, Paris, and Brussels are in range but not Washington? Simple, they are currently reaping the benefits of trading Iranian blood and suffering for European oil and profits just as they were doing with Saddam’s Iraq. From their perspective there is no reason to risk that cozy relationship because of the chance that Iran will go nuclear. If Iran does acquire nuclear missiles, the United States has spent hundreds of billions of ballistic missile defenses so Europe will be protected for free anyways. Indeed the European calculation is proving to be correct, they profit by making a huge overseas mess for us and we pay to protect them from it by installing interceptor missiles in Eastern Europe.

Back to the latest example of Euro-weaseling. That the French would change in a day from 3-4 thousand soldiers to 1,600-2,000 and the Germans from sending soldiers to sending a few naval vessels should have been expected given the few soldiers they have available for deployment. I wrote about both several months ago in regards to the silly lefty belief that France and German would have sent a division each to Iraq had Bush asked pretty please with a cherry on top (France is here, and Germany here). Simply put, the French have only a few thousand soldiers available for deployment who must be kept in reserve given their international interests while the Germans are essentially maxed out by their deployments in the Balkans and Afghanistan (although they could scrounge up a few hundreds if needed). I didn’t write about Italy but they do have a few thousand soldiers to deploy so 3,000 shouldn’t be too difficult to manage.

France’s appalling behavior at the U.N. is the norm for them sadly. They hoodwink us in by appearing interested in a real ceasefire and even going along with it. Then they change the deal but promise to send a large contingent of peacekeepers and to lead the force. The United States and Israelis go along with it (though Olmert hardly needed any encouragement to give up) since at least a strong European force will be in place to stop Hezbollah from returning. Then the day after the French and Germans announce they won’t be sending the soldiers they promised. Sounds a lot like the French game plan at the U.N. circa 2002, they get the U.S. to go through the purgatory that is the U.N with promises of being serious and then after the U.S. can’t wait any longer for a resolution they announce they will veto it.

This isn’t the first time Europe and especially France has broken their own international commitments. This is hardly an exhaustive list and is in no particular order: France and Germany continue ignoring the Euro rules on budget deficits that they themselves wrote, Europe is no where close to meeting its Kyoto Protocol requirements (they should be around 8 not 8.5, their pollution has been rising since the benefits from closing British coal power plants and East German factories ended in the mid 90’s), the reconstruction aid promised after the war in Afghanistan didn't arrive (no we didn't send as much as we could because we believed the Europeans when they said they would send the aid), their international Galileo satellite program is falling apart since no one will provide the funding they promised, the emissions trading system is breaking down as countries ignore it, the French especially break many defense contracts in a manner that benefits French industry. We need to accept that this is the sort of behavior that we will see from Europe in general and France in particular. It will only get worse as their global power and influence continues to recede and their Muslim populations grow ever larger and more violent. The only responsible and good nations left are us, Japan, and the Anglo powers (although Canada can be a bit wobbly on the responsible part when under the Liberals). If the world is to have any chance we must focus our efforts with these countries.

Some suggested reading

2006-08-11T14:37:00.000-05:00

Caroline Glick of the Jerusalem Post has written an editorial (here) that excellently spells out what is at stake in Israel’s war against Hezbollah and why it is important to the free world that Israel wins. I would recommend regularly reading her editorials anyways as she is one of the smartest and insightful people in Israel (or the rest of the world for that matter).

Meanwhile over at the National Review there is a copy an article (here) that does a great job explaining the inevitability of war with Iran.

Both are concepts that I’ve been writing about for the last month (I know I should have written about them earlier, but my blog hasn’t even been around for 3 months yet). Nevertheless, since both of these writers are paid for their work their articles are both much longer than mine so they are both good reading.

It's almost about time

2006-08-11T12:52:00.000-05:00

I guess this is good news, Israeli Prime Minister Olmert has only taken 9 or so days to move from possibly maybe ordering an offensive for some point in the future to ordering an offensive for some point in the future. It took him around 14 days to reach that first point so he at least deserves good marks for improvement. His behavior reminds me of Grant’s comment at the Siege of Chattanooga that General Rosecrans was acting like a duck smacked on the head (too bad Olmert doesn’t have a superior who could replace him). We can only hope that this offensive, if it does happen, is handled in a much better manner than the previous month was. I also hope he hasn’t exhausted U.S. support with his idiotic and drawn out campaign. Of course, if we weren’t going to support Israel however they dealt with Hezbollah President Bush should have been “encouraging” Olmert to either invade sooner or stop sooner. Anyways, what’s done is done. It’s just a shame we can't have more faith that Olmert will finish what must be done.

The Democrats go the Full Lamonty

2006-08-09T15:53:00.000-05:00

The primary defeat of Connecticut Senator Joe Lieberman to Ned Lamont is bigger I think than just the usual Republican angst/jubilation over the Democrats continuing their long slide into complete irrelevance on foreign policy in general and national security in particular. Lieberman broached the bigger issue that I think is at play in his concession speech last night. The problem is not so much that the anti-war left is taking over the party, it’s that the anti-civility (or angry) left is taking over.

The reason I don’t think it’s much of a problem that the anti-war left is taking over is because where the anti-war left does have an influence, they have already turned those Democrats who were not for a vigorous War on Terror from the start. Lieberman and Clinton are the only deep blue state Senators who have bucked it. Lieberman paid the price yesterday and Clinton will in the 2008 presidential primaries. However, where the angry left doesn’t have as much influence the Democrats are more able to behave somewhat responsibly and should largely continue doing so. It is somewhat silly for Republicans to claim that Lieberman losing is the end of the old Truman or Scoop Jackson Democrats. Lieberman is not the only Democrat, for example, to have supported the war in Iraq, supported it’s funding, and supports it to this day. These Democrats are no where near a majority of the Democratic Party but neither is Lieberman the last of them. Longer term this is also beneficial for the Republicans since the more the angry left shows its true colors the more independents are likely to vote against the Democrats and the more likely Republicans are to turn out to vote.

Rather, the major problem is that we are seeing civility in Washington disappear. The angry left is a movement that sees its political opponents as evil criminals and has no inhibition against saying it. A perfect example of this was on display last night during Hannity & Colmes’ coverage of the primary results. Hannity is the conservative of the duo and would thus be disliked by anyone of the liberal persuasion. Colmes was at the headquarters of Ned Lamont when one of Lamont’s supporters in the background held up a sign that read “Hannity sucks ass”. Why on earth would anyone do something like that on national TV? I very much disagree with Colmes on virtually everything but I would never say anything like that about him, especially not on national TV where everyone could see what an out of control idiot I was being. Lieberman mentioned this in his concession speech when he said,

“I expect that my opponent will continue to do in the general election what he has done in the primary, partisan polarizing instead of talking about how we can solve people's problems, insults instead of ideas… I'll never hesitate to work with members of the other party if it helps to achieve solutions to build better life for people of Connecticut. I will always do what I believe is right for my state and country regardless of what the political consequences may be.”

The main focus of most, including the nutroots themselves, may be the anti-war part but I think the overarching issue is that Lieberman played nice with Republicans even if he voted as an almost perfect liberal. You can see that in the complaints that are made about Lieberman saying adultery is wrong (imagine that) during the Monica scandal and the infamous “Judas kiss” from Bush.

Again, I do not think this outcome is necessary bad for the Republicans. Lamont represents everything that is wrong with the Democrat Party today. Karl Rove will no doubt take full advantage of yet another such perfect example come November. However, having one party so debase itself in such a way is not good for the country in any respect. If the said party wins then the country will be run by people fully capable of coming up with Bushitler and "Hannity sucks ass" but bereft of any real ideas or common sense. If they do not win (as is more likely) then the country will be run by a party that isn’t challenged and is thus not as ideologically prepared for running the country as it could be.

What we are seeing then is the end of the days when at least some Democrats didn’t think the answer to Republican electoral success is lawsuits, the reply to any compromise from the Republicans is to take it and then immediately decry the evil heartless Republicans and demand more, who do not believe that every funeral, tragedy, hearing is a political event to be exploited, and who love their country more than they hate their political opponents.

It's The Olmert & Peretz Show!! Tonite's episode: Who's in Beirut?

2006-08-07T17:17:00.000-05:00

Well I intended to write a latest news oriented post about Israel. Then I find out there is no latest news except for the continuing Abbott and Costello routine of the Prime Minister Olmert and Defense Minister Peretz. Apparently, 1 week after I first heard about the plan to push to the Litani, Costello has approved one but Abbott hasn’t ordered it into action yet. Thinking about it, I guess that explains the indecision within the Israeli government. I would guess that Olmert and Peretz are in an infinite "Who's on first" loop:

Olmert: Defense Minister Peretz, we have to get rid of the terror leaders in our region. Tell me where they are and their names.
Peretz: All right. But you know, strange as it may seem, they give terrorist leaders nowadays very peculiar names in the Israeli Defense Ministry.
Olmert: Funny names?
Peretz: Nicknames, pet names. Now, in our region Who's in Beirut, What's in Damascus, I Don't Know is in Tehran ---
Olmert: That's what I want to find out; I want you to tell me the names of the terrorist leaders in our region.
Peretz: I'm telling you: Who's in Beirut, What's in Damascus, I Don't Know is in Tehran.
Olmert: You know their names?
Peretz: Yes.
Olmert: Well, then, who's in Beirut?
Peretz: Yes.
Olmert: I mean the terrorist leader in Beirut’s name.
Peretz: Who.
Olmert: The terrorist leader in Beirut.
Peretz: Who is in Beirut.
Olmert: Well what are you askin' me for?
Peretz: I'm not asking you---I'm telling you: Who is in Beirut.
Olmert: I'm asking you---who's in Beirut?
Peretz: That's the man's name!
Olmert: That's who's name?
Peretz: Yes.
Olmert: Well go ahead and tell me.
Peretz: Who.
Olmert: The guy in Beirut.
Peretz: Who.
Olmert: The terror leader in Beirut!
Peretz: Who is in Beirut!
Olmert: Is there a terror leader in Beirut?
Peretz: Certainly!
Olmert: Then who's leading the terrorists in Beirut?
Peretz: Absolutely!
Olmert: When you try to bomb the terror mastermind in Beirut, who gets the bombs?
Peretz: Every one of them! And why not, the man's entitled to them.
Olmert: Who is?
Peretz: Yes.
Olmert: So who gets the bombs?
Peretz: Why shouldn't he? Sometimes his underlings get them.
Olmert: Who's underlings?
Peretz: Yes. After all, the man deserves it.
Olmert: Who does?
Peretz: Absolutely.
Olmert: All I'm trying to find out is what's the Islamo-fascist’s name in Beirut.
Peretz: Oh, no, no, What is in Damascus.
Olmert: I'm not asking you who's in Damascus.
Peretz: Who's in Beirut.
Olmert: That's what I'm trying to find out!
Peretz: Well, don't change the terror leaders around!
Olmert: I'm not changing nobody!
Peretz: Now, take it easy.
Olmert: What's the guy's name in Beirut?
Peretz: What's the guy's name in Damascus.
Olmert: I'm not askin' ya who's in Damascus.
Peretz: Who's in Beirut.
Olmert: I don't know.
Peretz: He's in Tehran. We're not talking about him.
Olmert: How did I get in Tehran?
Peretz: You mentioned his name.
Olmert: If I mentioned the Tehran terrorist leader's name, who did I say is in Tehran?
Peretz: No, Who's in Beirut.
Olmert: Stay outta Beirut, will ya?!
Peretz: Well, what do you want me to do?
Olmert: Now what's the guy's name in Tehran?
Peretz: What's in Damascus.
Olmert: I'm not asking ya who's in Damascus.
Peretz: Who's in Beirut.
Olmert: I don't know.
Peretz: He's in Tehran.
Olmert: There I go, back in Tehran again.
Peretz: Well, I can't change their names.
Olmert: Will you please stay in Tehran?
Peretz: Please. Now what is it you want to know?
Olmert: What is the fellow's name in Tehran.
Peretz: What is the fellow's name in Damascus.
Olmert: I'm not askin' ya who's in Damascus!
Peretz: Who's in Beirut.
Olmert: I don't know.
Peretz & Olmert: Tehran!

Almost four weeks later and they still can't agree on who's in Beirut. Funny on the little screen, tragic in real life.

In the real world, perception matters as much as reality

2006-08-05T11:36:00.000-05:00

Note: I'm a parttimer so I'm not exactly sure of how such things are handled in the blog world or if they matter, I left out a couple things in the original post and added them in two places thanks to the persons credited. I was also linked to by the people, thanks to both for that, who pointed out the ommissions so I know I don't have many visitors but they're something to check out.

One of the major problems with Olmert’s slow-mo strategy against Hezbollah is that it is putting what's left of (thanks Yaakov) Israel’s hard earned aura of invincibility at risk. I know that since leftists don’t believe that such emotions are supposed to impact national decision making, Olmert probably doesn’t think it’s an issue. The problem is not that his policy is causing the IDF to be defeated in battle at the hands of Hezbollah but that it is creating that perception for the vast majority of the world that doesn’t understand military affairs.

We are beginning to see more and more stories like this one about Hezbollah stopping the vaunted Israeli something (in this case tanks). The cable news is also beginning to report everything from the angle of the plucky underdog Hezbollah running circles around the plodding Israelis. Even Fox has sunk to those levels with host John Gibson saying something to the effect that Hezbollah has gutted the IDF. The only thing the non-military minded media would understand as an Israeli success is if a) the Israelis made it to the Litani River or b) the Israelis finished the fighting sooner. I have heard the incompetent union boss Israeli Defense Minister say on each of the last two days that the IDF will drive to the Litani. Yet, except for a report of an Israeli commando raid on Tyre, still no action.

This all masks what has been a fairly successful fight against Hezbollah by the Israelis and one that on strictly military terms is going very badly for Hezbollah. Yes, Hezbollah is not your standard Arab military force. It’s essentially a modern day equivalent of the post-World War II Jordanian Arab Legion. It is a smallish long term professional force trained, equipped, and led by a foreign backer. Despite all the advantages that Hezbollah enjoys, good training, high morale, good weapons, excellent defensive terrain to defend, 6 years to prepare defenses and to learn the lay of the land, using civilians as shields to restrict the actions of the humane Israelis (thanks Joe Settler), new tactics that the Israelis must adapt to, and a politically hobbled IDF offensive, Hezbollah is still taking casualties at between a 5 and 10 to 1 ratio. That is hardly better than Syria’s 8:1 ratio in 1982 fighting in the same area and far worse than the Arab Legion who gave as good as they got (and maybe even better) in 1948. The military problem for Hezbollah is that it is not your standard Arab militia force like those seen in the Palestinian areas and in Iraq. Those forces simply take a young man, give him a rifle and send him off to be killed. Losses do not affect them. Losses do affect a professional long term force. When Hezbollah loses say 7 fighters to one Israeli it is losing hard to replace fighters who took years to train and prepare. It is also a far greater portion of their fighting force. Meanwhile Israel loses a small share of its army and the rest gain combat experience that will benefit them and Israel for decades to come.

If the Israelis are doing fairly well in even their constrained environment, then why are they perceived to be losing? Simply put, because they aren’t advancing and they aren’t finishing the job quickly. There can be good reasons for a slow-mo approach, mainly it tends to limit casualties and fatigue within the military. The problem here is not just that Israel doesn’t have the time for this (the U.S. and France have agreed to a ceasefire resolution) but also because it causes this perception that no matter how successful Israel is in this village or that village, they are losing. This is extremely dangerous for a small country that depends on her “invincible” military for defense.

Having your enemies believe you are invincible can be one of the most important aspects in a battle. Prussia in the 18th Century was a relatively small power. Even so she was considered one of the major powers of Europe because of her excellent conscript army. Combined with the exceptional leadership of Frederick the Great the army would turn Prussia from a great power in name only into a real one. It would build such a reputation that all of Europe feared facing the Prussian army. Even Napoleon was scared to fight it in 1806. Following its crushing defeat by Napoleon, no one feared the Prussians as much anymore. This led to the humiliation by Austria at Olmutz in 1850. It took much reform and 2 spectacular victories to earn Prussia her reputation back. As for Napoleon, one of the interesting things about the success of his Grand Armee was how many times Napoleon and the army messed up and were saved simply because their enemy believed it was a clever trap and didn’t take advantage of it. After Wagram in 1809 his opponents began to realize that he was just a man who could be defeated and Napoleon’s successes began to decline. Within in the Grand Armee a further mystique built up around the “Old Guard”. They were Napoleon’s finest soldiers and had never been defeated in battle. The cause of the rout of the French army at Waterloo was when the Old Guard wasn’t defeated but simply wavered. The rest of the army saw the “invincible” Old Guard waver and panicked into a headlong rout. You can also see this dynamic in the Union generals who began to greatly fear General Lee and his Army of Northern Virginia during the American Civil War. One general who didn’t fear Lee was Grant, and after their first encounter at the Battle of the Wilderness in 1864, Grant had to convince his frightened generals to pursue Lee by tell them something like “you behave as though General Lee can somersault his entire army over our heads and into our rear”. Once Lee ran into a general who wasn’t afraid of him or his army, his success also declined.

Israel is in a similar situation today. The Israelis probably could not hold back a continual effort by the Arabs to defeat her. Even Frederick the Great’s Prussia could last only 7 years before fate saved them. One important aspect of Israel’s survival is inculcating the notion that she can never be defeated. This caused the Jordanians to give up their war with Israel around 1970. The Egyptians were somewhat done with their bloodlust prior to 1973. 1956 and 1967 had already convinced them of Israel’s superiority. What caused them to try one more time against Israel was Israel’s poor showing in the War of Attrition. If Israel allows her perceived invincibility to disappear because Olmert either doesn’t know what to do or is trying to limit casualties then it will simply set herself up for major problems down the road. Egypt and Jordan probably won’t return to the fight, but Ahmadinejad is watching from afar. Like a predator, he is hovering, waiting for the Israelis to appear wounded. He would obviously love nothing more than to bring down the Jewish state. Meanwhile, Olmert is having the IDF do their best wounded animal impression. This is not a good combination. Can Israel survive a conventional war with Syria, a massive guerrilla war in Lebanon, a major uprising in the Palestinian areas, all supported by Iran? Probably, but still no reason to make it a possibility by appearing to lose.

A hodgepodge of random Mideast thoughts

2006-08-03T18:10:00.000-05:00

Well I'm back from my college forced "vacation". I thought a break from thinking about Olmert's lack of thinking would do me some good but it hasn't. This isn't as heavy as my posts normally are, but I haven't seen much news in the last few days so I'll need to ease back into the news cycle.

First off, I still have no idea what Olmert’s plan is. I know, I never did, but I at least understood what was happening. However, like the orbat.com editor (2:30 Aug 3rd), I am also now having a hard time simply understanding what it is the Israeli leadership is doing anymore (that’s not just because I’ve been relatively out of the loop this last week). Olmert’s rhetoric seems to be more and more divorced from reality on the ground. At least with Bint Jbail there was some semblance between what the Olmert government was saying was happening and what was happening. I think it was last week that the Israelis began discussing pushing to the Litani River. The IDF has at least 9 active and 3 reserve brigades (likely several more of each) or 30-50,000 soldiers in northern Israel. A week would have been more than enough time to push the 10-18 miles to the Litani River for a force of that size. Yet at the moment it appears they are staging Bint Jbail style assaults in 3 or 4 locations. Jpost.com says these operations involve only 10,000 troops from 8 brigades. Initially, given Olmert’s rhetoric, I thought these were the advance guards of the 4 columns that would finally advance to the Litani. One week later, they still seem to be rotating small groups of troops in and out for shallow thrusts into Lebanon. I understand the Israelis need to clear out the towns and arms caches, but that is no reason not to send 2 or 3 active divisions to the Litani while 2 or 3 reserve divisions conduct the clearing operations in the rear. The problem doesn’t appear to be Hezbollah resistance. The Israelis are giving much better than they are receiving (19 to 3 yesterday according to JPost.com) and Hezbollah has far fewer fighters than Israel. The only thing I can think is that Olmert still doesn't understand he is running out of time and thinks he has as long as he needs to do this as casualty free as possible. If it isn’t Olmert then I have no idea what the problem is.

As if the quite extensive list needed any more entries, Prime Minister Olmert has again shown that he lacks any strategic sense. He actually claimed last week that the fighting in Gaza and Lebanon adds impetus to the West Bank pullout plan. Apparently the problems following the Gaza and Lebanon withdrawals aren’t enough for him. At the most basic, any such pullout would leave Jerusalem under the shadow of Palestinian rockets. The wall Olmert wants to hide behind only stops suicide bombers, not rockets. The only possible argument I have heard in favor of this idea was by NPR correspondent Mara Liasson on Special Report with Brit Hume, who stated that it was a good idea since the world would stand by Israel if she were attacked from the Palestinian areas. Just like with Gaza and Lebanon the world will initially be sympathetic until Israel tries to defend herself. I know the left considers the world’s sympathy to be sacrosanct, but in the real world it has little value. After all, Czechoslovakia had plenty of sympathy in 1939 and 1968 and that sure did a lot of good. He must really believe the leftwing motto, “fool me 7 times, shame on you, fool me 8 or more times shame on me”. I hope the Israelis can vote him out soon since they don’t have 8 times to wait for Olmert and the left to wake up to reality.

This news story summarizes the draft UN resolution for a cease fire in Lebanon that is circulating. What fantasy world do diplomats live in that they think this has any chance of solving the problem? Every single part of the resolution is impossible to implement in any real way. The first part demands an immediate cessation of hostilities. Uh huh. The only reason Hezbollah will quit is if it's losing and if it is losing the Israelis shouldn't let them quit. I know after that for a starter there’s little reason to continue looking at the rest of the faux demands but let’s continue. In exchange for this cease fire, Hezbollah will disarm as per UN resolution 1559. So Hezbollah will be given the chance to ignore 2 UN resolutions. Ah well, they’re still a lightweight in that category as far as Saddam Hussein was concerned. At this rate it’ll only take 12 years and 15 more UN resolutions before Hezbollah is disarmed. Anyways, back to fantasy land, Hezbollah will also return the 2 kidnapped Israeli soldiers and Israel will release some Hezbollah prisoners. In other words, Hezbollah will get what it wanted all along. To enforce all of this, a robust international force will enter southern Lebanon and will keep the peace along with the Lebanese army. Never mind that no one wants to or has troops to send to Lebanon. Never mind that the Lebanese army is completely incapable of doing anything and that at least 1/3 of the army would support Hezbollah given the chance. Never mind that this would require the Israelis to finish clearing out Hezbollah south of the Litani before this phantom force could arrive; something that won’t happen if Israel is stopped now. To top it off, they actually believe this cease-fire would hold.

There you have it, a lot has happened in the Mideast last week. The IDF was allowed to modestly step up operations but is still being hobbled by poor and indecisive leadership. Prime Minster Olmert continues to provide that poor and indecisive leadership. Lastly, the diplomats and internationalists continue drafting unworkable plans based on some alternate reality. So as much as has happened, far less has changed.

An addendum to the previous post about "Unexpected Hezbollah resistance"

2006-07-29T17:29:00.000-05:00

I’ve been hesitant for several reasons to write about any tactical level mistakes the Israelis may have made in their ill-fated Lebanon operation. The main reason is that it is obviously very difficult to know how many units of what type are involved, much less also what unit they are and any sub units they may have attached. It is even less certain where or how those units were used. We also do not know whether the army or the defense minister determined the makeup of the forces involved. Despite this, it is an important aspect of the issue so I figure I may as well write based on what I have been able to glean from news stories. I may be completely wrong, or I may be right and you may have read it here first (probably not).

This story from the Jerusalem Post indicates that the brigade size force in southern Lebanon consisted of 2 armored battalions with infantry battalions in support. Another story from the Jerusalem Post states that the 51st Battalion of the Golani Brigade (infantry) was involved so that would seem to be the non-paratrooper infantry support mentioned in the other story. The paratrooper battalion mentioned in this wiki article and in the Jpost story was most likely supporting the armor battalions since the Merkava tank that they are equipped with is also an APC. The 12th Battalion of the Golani Brigade appears to have been rotated in to replace the 51st which was pulled out. Based on this information and common military organization, my guess would be that the operation consisted of 2 armor battalions, 1 paratrooper battalion, 1 infantry battalion, 1 recon company, 1 special forces company, along with some combat engineer support. It’s hard to say whether this is both brigades, or if the second brigade was in Israel since the Israelis seem to have rotated troops every few days. I would assume that the second brigade was in Israel while the other is in Lebanon since 8 battalions should have been enough for the operation. This would be a pretty standard armor force so wouldn’t strike me as surprising in general.

While in general this is a balanced armored force it is not balanced for its mission. It must not only fight to secure 3 large villages (or small towns) but also hold around 10 miles of frontage. In addition to that it must fight an unknown number of Hezbollah fighters in difficult terrain. I’ve heard estimates of 200-300 fighters in Bint Jbail and 100-200 in Maroun a-Ras, with no info on the numbers in the third village or in the hills in the area. The head of the IDF said in a news conference on Fox that they estimate that at the low end 200 Hezbollah have been killed (in line with my estimate of 200-300 in the previous post). If that is the case, combined with the continuing fighting there must have been around 1,500 to 2,000 fighters, including reinforcements, in the area. Given the defensive preparations, the terrain, the quality and size of the enemy force, and the area involved it was a tall order to expect a single (or even two) armor brigades to achieve anything permanent.

An added difficulty for the Israelis is that their battalions are small compared the American battalions. (Note: I used the computer game WinSPMBT to obtain the TO&E's for the various units described below.) An Israeli force as outlined above would consist of just 66 tanks, 44 IFV/APC’s, 580 infantry, and around 1,400 combat soldiers total. A similar U.S. Army force would have 93 tanks, 73 IFV/APC’s, 720 infantry, and about 1,800 combat soldiers. A U.S. Marine Corps force would be even larger (they use some of the largest battalions in the world) with 140 tanks, 43 IFV/APC’s, 1,030 infantry, and 2,400 combat soldiers. These 4 small Israeli battalions were ordered to clear three villages with at least 300 fighters (more likely twice that number) while also fighting upwards of 1,000 fighters in the hills around the villages. By comparison, in 2004 we deployed 11 larger battalion equivalents (5 1/3 Marine, 2 2/3 armor, 2 LAR, and 1 mech inf), with greater fire and intelligence support, to solely root out the approximately 2,500 insurgent/terrorist fighters in Fallujah. Our attack force had 112 tanks, 200 IFV/APC’s, and 3,300 infantry. When we required 3,300 infantry to clear out 2,500 fighters, it is silly to think the Israelis could defeat 300-600 fighters plus hold off around 1,000 around the villages with only 580 infantry. Also of interest is the infantry:tank ratios. The Israelis are using a very low ratio of 8.8 infantry per tank. That is fine for maneuver warfare on the Damascus plain but not to attack villages in the hills. Attacking in an urban environment at Fallujah we used a ratio of 29.5 infantry per tank.

As the second JPost story indicates, the Israelis were attacking Bint Jbail with its minimum 200 defenders with only 2 companies of infantry or about 180 soldiers. Due to their small size they had to attack from the same side of the town. When things went bad they had to rush in 2 other infantry companies from wherever they were (Maroun a-Ras or guarding against Hezbollah attacks from the hills?) denuding the tanks on the perimeter line of their infantry support and/or stalling the attacks on the other villages. In 1982 the Israelis sent an entire armored division through the same area even though it wasn’t the main focal point of either the PLO or the Syrian defenses. A similar sized force would be required to take the villages in a few days time (10 battalions total, 2 for Bint Jbail, 1 each for the other 2 villages, 3 or 4 for the perimeter line, and the rest in reserve).

This is not to say the Israelis have not had an effect in hurting Hezbollah. They have definitely caused a good number of casualties. However, victory is not just decided by kill ratios. Olmert’s ignominious withdrawal is a victory for the Hezbollah. Although Hezbollah will claim it as a major victory that they won, it was handed to them by Olmert. The Israelis have more than enough military power to secure 3 villages in southern Lebanon held by less than 2,000 defenders. They have enough to easily secure the southern third of Lebanon if they wanted to. That they do not use it, or use it efficiently, is not the fault of the Israeli soldiers or possibly their commanders, but of Prime Minister Olmert. Again, we don't know exactly what was used, or how, so I could be wrong, this is just my best informed guess.