October 31, 2006
An Incompetent Charlatan
In his response to the ire he has drawn upon himself, Senator Kerry says this:
If anyone thinks that a veteran, someone like me, who's been fighting my entire career to provide for veterans, to fight for their benefits, to help honor what their service is -- if anybody thinks that a veteran would somehow criticize more than 140,000 troops serving in Iraq, and not the president and his people who put them there, they're crazy. It's just wrong.And this, in response to a question:
They know my true feelings. They know I fought to provide additional money for veterans. They know I fought to provide money for combat -- for veterans. They know I fought to put money for VA. They know I've honored those veterans.
The truth is that Americans see through these slippery techniques. Senator Kerry has made a career out of being the artful dodger of American politics: he routinely makes insinuations about the American military and when called on them he trots out his service as a sort of blanket immunity for any criticism of his statements. "How could I have possibly meant that! It's absurd! After all, I'm a war hero!" The effect is supposed to be the conveyance of two separate concepts at the same time: the one to those who would agree with his disparagements of the military, the other for those who would not.
The problem is that even an undereducated idiot veteran like me can see through this. Kerry is the worst kind of magician in this regard: pitiful, for his every trick is so transparent.
Kerry, in fact, is a strange breed of politician. For all the cries about the war being run by those who are "chickenhawks," who are presumed to be eager for war due to their lack of experience with it, Kerry could be called the polar opposite: a "bulldove" or something similar, whose pronouncements about the insanity of the war are supposed to have the brilliance of received gospel, due only to the time he spent in uniform some 35 years ago.
The problem here is just as acute as it is with the so-called chickenhawks: military service does not necessarily impart infallible strategic judgment. One can serve and be wrong, or not serve and still be right. Since his return from Vietnam, Senator Kerry has fallen clearly into the former camp.
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Second Lieutenant Booth and Senator Kerry
Yesterday Senator Kerry insulted those in uniform. But the day before yesterday he called the parents of Marine Second Lieutenant Joshua Booth, killed in action in Iraq earlier this month, to offer his condolences. His mother explains:
Second Lt. Joshua Booth died on Oct. 17. His mother said that what makes Kerry's words so offensive is that they come one day after Kerry called the family to offer condolences.So was Lieutenant Booth good at anything?"We did appreciate the call. I am appreciative of anyone who reaches out to me and to then turn around and say something that is so totally incorrect," Booth said.
As to whether Kerry should apologize, Booth said that Kerry needs to do more to make amends.
"In addition to apologizing, he needs to learn a little bit about what our men and women in the military are actually made up of," Booth said. "We don't want to send that kind of signal, that you only go into the military if you are not good at anything."
You decide. Last week National Public Radio did a segment about him and it can be heard in its entirety here.
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John Kerry is such a moron
For all the bashing Bush takes for being poorly-spoken, or inarticulate, does anyone recall him ever saying anything so absolutely moronic as Kerry did yesterday?
What an idiot. The US military cuts a broad swath across society. In my interactions with other officers, I've encountered men whose fathers are venture capitalists, state office-holders, successful business executives, coal-miners, and truck drivers. This is not an exaggeration. I have a particular individual in mind for each of these.
Also, Kerry might want to take a look at famous Marines.
UPDATE: I suppose the assertions I make above are more or less about class, and Kerry's statement was about education. But in a meritocracy such as ours, the two are intimately related.
UPDATE: Two buddies email:
You forgot to include immigrant union train mechanics (currently retired playing lots of golf poorly) as one of the fathers of officers you know. They are a special breed.And:
Yes and add prison dentist dad to that list.
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Why do they hate us?
Robert Keohane and Peter J. Katzenstein have a new article in Policy Review that excerpts their work Anti-americanisms in World Politics
First, we distinguish between anti-Americanisms that are rooted in opinion or bias. Second, as our book’s title suggests, there are many varieties of anti-Americanism. The beginning of wisdom is to recognize that what is called anti-Americanism varies, depending on who is reacting to America. In our book, we describe several different types of anti-Americanism and indicate where each type is concentrated. The variety of anti-Americanism helps us to see, third, the futility of grand explanations for anti-Americanism. It is accounted for better as the result of particular sets of forces. Finally, the persistence of anti-Americanism, as well as the great variety of forms that it takes, reflects what we call the polyvalence of a complex and kaleidoscopic American society in which observers can find whatever they don’t like — from Protestantism to porn. The complexity of anti-Americanism reflects the polyvalence of America itself.As to the first point, they make a careful distinction between opinion and bias:
Some expressions of unfavorable attitudes merely reflect opinion: unfavorable judgments about the United States or its policies. Others, however, reflect bias: a predisposition to believe negative reports about the United States and to discount positive ones. Bias implies a distortion of information processing, while adverse opinion is consistent with maintaining openness to new information that will change one’s views. The long-term consequences of bias for American foreign policy are much greater than the consequences of opinion.The authors then go on to detail the varieties of anti-Americanism that they have discerned:
Liberal anti-Americanism. Liberals often criticize the United States bitterly for not living up to its own ideals . . .Their most interesting paragraphs are those detailing the "polyvalence" of America:Social anti-Americanism. Since democracy comes in many stripes, we are wrong to mistake the American tree for the democratic forest. Many democratic societies do not share the peculiar combination of respect for individual liberty, reliance on personal responsibility, and distrust of government characteristic of the United States . . .
Sovereign-nationalist anti-Americanism. A third form of anti-Americanism focuses not on correcting domestic market outcomes but on political power. Sovereign nationalists focus on two values: the importance of not losing control over the terms by which polities are inserted in world politics and the inherent importance and value of collective national identities . . .
Radical anti-Americanism . . . is built around the belief that America’s identity, as reflected in the internal economic and political power relations and institutional practices of the United States, ensures that its actions will be hostile to the furtherance of good values, practices, and institutions elsewhere in the world . . .
Elitist anti-Americanism arises in countries in which the elite has a long history of looking down on American culture. In France, for example, discussions of anti-Americanism date back to the eighteenth century, when some European writers held that everything in the Americas was degenerate . . .
Legacy anti-Americanism stems from resentment of past wrongs committed by the United States toward another society. Mexican anti-Americanism is prompted by the experiences of U.S. military attack and various forms of imperialism during the past 200 years . .
American symbols are polyvalent. They embody a variety of values with different meanings to different people and indeed even to the same individual. Elites and ordinary folks abroad are deeply ambivalent about the United States. Visitors, such as Bernard-Henri Lévy, are impressed, repelled, and fascinated in about equal measure.And they finally describe the process by which the concept of "America" is appropriated worldwide:
“Americanization,” therefore, does not describe a simple extension of American products and processes to other parts of the world. On the contrary, it refers to the selective appropriation of American symbols and values by individuals and groups in other societies — symbols and values that may well have had their origins elsewhere. Americanization thus is a profoundly interactive process between America and all parts of the world. And, we argue here, it is deeply intertwined with anti-American views. The interactions that generate Americanization may involve markets, informal networks, or the exercise of corporate or governmental power — often in various combinations. They reflect and reinforce the polyvalent nature of American society as expressed in the activities of Americans, who freely export and import products and practices. But they also reflect the variations in attitudes and interests of people in other societies, seeking to use, resist, and recast symbols that are associated with the United States.
Commentary
Several observations:
Is there not also a distinctly conservative form of anti-Americanism? Many conservatives look at the US today and are aghast at much of its popular culture, consumerism, and selfishness. Those who feel this way would be the first to deny it. But don't they really adhere to pastoral or romantic visions of a past that will never return? They love America, but as it once was, not as it is.
Second, the authors' description of the process of appropriation rings similarly with the Adventures post Globalization and War, about a year ago, especially a certain part, which attempts to debunk key assumptions about globalization:
Globalization will inevitably lead to Westernization. It's rather ironic that so many leftist academics espoused this theory, since it manages to embrace a sort of assumed Western superiority while at the same time turning the rest of the world's cultures into victims. Or maybe, Westernization would result because we in the West are so aggressive? No matter. The assumption is false. If there is any lesson to be learned these days from globalization's effects on people and cultures, it is that it transmits all of them, and transforms all of them. There is an process of give-and-take at play in nearly every place -- whether physically or in cyberspace, or other media -- where two or more cultures and peoples collide. In this way, we find radicalized Muslims as easily in Munich as we do in Mecca, and democrats as easily in Kabul as in Kansas. Moreover, the very cultures that were thought soon to be washed away by the onrush of global capitalism find themselves just as easily transmitted by it as those of the West. Witness the border region of the US and Mexico, which is a teeming hybrid of both Western and Latin cultures, or examine the growing influence of Chinese and Japanese pop culture upon the rest of Asia and even the United States. Western -- and American -- culture have influenced each of these others in turn, but by no means can be described as ascendant, and even less and less so, as dominant.Finally, one of Keohane's and Katzenstein's most interesting insights is that of the polyvalence of America. If personal freedom has become second nature in the United States; if man feels free to do as he wishes in all spheres of his life -- much more so than in other places; and if a respect for freedom has become institutionalized over centuries, then isn't the polyvalence of America much more than just an "American" trait? Isn't it a microcosm of the expression of human life in all of its manifestations? Emma Lazarus didn't mince words in her poem on the Statue of Liberty.
Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,Perhaps it is that golden door that is most upsetting to so many elsewhere, who are still learning of the unimaginable dynamism that lay behind it.
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame."Keep ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she
With silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"
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October 30, 2006
The Next War in Gaza
Just on the heels of this piece in the WSJ, this analysis by Westhawk, and this commentary by Belmont Club, comes this news report: Israel Preparing Extensive Gaza Operation.
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert warned that the army was preparing an extensive operation in the Gaza Strip, with the government to make a decision on the offensive within days, an MP has said.Now it gets interesting . . ."The army is preparing for an even more extensive operation in the Gaza Strip," the prime minister was quoted by the source as telling parliament's defence and foreign affairs committee.
"The government intends to reach a decision on the exact pattern of the operation in the coming days," Olmert was reported to have said.
Stay tuned.
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A Presidential bid for Congressman Hunter?
I'm about to leave DC, but just heard on a local FM radio news program that there are reports that Representative Duncan Hunter will announce today an interest in a presidential bid.
This would certainly be interesting. I don't know much about Hunter, but what little I do know, I like: he's a veteran, has an in-depth knowledge of defense issues, seems well-composed on television, and is from California, which would all make for an interesting campaign.
His official bio is here.
Here's a second confirmation of this news.
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October 29, 2006
Marine Corps Marathon
Well, this weekend found me in DC for my first marathon, The Marine Corps Marathon. All went pretty well until about 19.5 miles in, when my knees began to cramp a good bit. I had to periodically stretch them from then on, out of fear of getting a charlie horse that would derail the whole thing. So, I had a significant drop in speed in the last 5 miles, and especially the last 3. But all, told, I'm pretty happy with how I did. Back to regular stuff tomorrow. You can see my results here.
After lots of warnings from forecasters about gusting winds, the weather turned out perfectly, by the way.
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October 27, 2006
The Most Dangerous Game
Are you a hunter or the hunted?
It's another two-fer this week at TCSDaily. My latest article examines the "virtual levee en masse" of radical Muslims that is taking place on the internet, and wonders if it's not behind some of our more recent headlines. If so, then those of us that write about the war are much more directly involved than our journalistic and editorial brethren were in past conflicts and more involved than we might realize.
I submit that the only thing keeping us from getting at the other side in cyberspace is the language barrier. Well, I don't say that in the article, but it occurs to me now.
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October 26, 2006
This will make you laugh
Go see this, immediately. I should read Democratic Underground more often [via Tim Blair].
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"Sleepwalking into a Nightmare"
Senator Rick Santorum's speech to the National Press Club and Pennsylvania Press Club is available at National Review Online. The speech is outstanding. Read the whole thing.
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Steve Acuff Airs a YouTube Video
Steve Acuff, Republican congressional candidate for North Carolina's 4th District, has just aired what I believe is his first YouTube video, in which he denounces CNN for showing an insurgent snuff film, calls for their investigation, and describes their behavior as treasonous.
I've mentioned before that I did a little bit of volunteer work for Steve's congressional campaign over the summer. I didn't help much, just once a week for a couple of hours over the course of a month or so.
So having met the man, let me say that this is the most angry I've ever seen him. Don't get me wrong. He's still got his emotions in check. But the degree to which he's upset about this issue clearly shows.
Also, the film doesn't even mention his opponent. In fact, it's not really even a political commercial, in a certain sense.
I should make it clear that I didn't assist with making this film.
Steve's campaign site is here.
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Request for assistance from Air Force readers
If any Air Force readers can answer this question, I'd really appreciate it: Is it, or has it ever been, a standard training procedure to land long-range bombers on US interstate highways? I'm nearly positive I heard a story about this on NPR a long time ago, but can find nothing about it after several google searches. Your assistance would be most appreciated.
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"Welcome to the party, pal!"
A quick cycle through the headlines of the past two days provides an update on our NATO allies:
Continue reading ""Welcome to the party, pal!""
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Does Max Boot read blogs?
Max Boot's written a column for the Wall Street Journal that is behind their subscription firewall [hat tip: Kobayashi Maru]. The subject is the use of private militaries in Africa.
Sending mercenaries to Africa isn't politically correct. But it would be a lot more useful than sending more aid money that will be wasted or passing ineffectual resolutions that will be ignored.This was a topic that was broached here at Adventures back in May of this year. Let Blackwater Loose in Darfur was prompted by a report in the Boston Globe that Blackwater had volunteered to go to Africa and stop Darfur's genocide, provided someone would pay them. Here was my take then:
The essential problem is unique to the international system: horrific events, like genocide, which occur within the boundaries of a given state, are seen as being within the sovereign bounds of that state, and the territorial sovereignty of any given state, in our current system, is sacrosanct. Only the society of states, embodied in a number of international institutions, can choose to violate that precious sovereignty. Cries of "Never again" then seem to pale so long as that which prompts them is confined to one state. Intrastate genocide becomes, ironically, a sort of externality of the international system.All of this is especially relevant to the previous post, The Autumn of the Patriarch, which wondered where all these "proxyized" forms of warfare are headed.
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October 25, 2006
The Autumn of the Patriarch
Frederick Turner has written a brilliant piece in TCSDaily that offers a reinterpretation of the "death squads" so frequently mentioned in the press coverage of Iraq:
When there is a significant fraction of the population that will not join in political compromise, whether because of ideological idealism, addiction to supernatural power, or the passion for revenge, civil society is faced with a diabolical paradox.How to deal with this minority?It wishes to form legal and political institutions that are transparent, correctable by debate, and under the control of the people (with protections for minorities), where people can make good money in the marketplace and raise families in peace. But the reality is that even after all possible compromises have been offered to the refuseniks, civil society is faced with a small but absolutely hostile minority that will be content with nothing but total victory.
Continue reading "The Autumn of the Patriarch"
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Heroes
I've written a new post over at WindsofChange.net, which manages to incorporate the NBC show Heroes, Frodo of Lord of the Rings, and Robert E. Lee. See what you think.
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October 24, 2006
Ten Kilotons and The Port of Long Beach
I've written a piece for PajamasMedia that examines a RAND study of the effects of a nuclear blast on the Port of Long Beach. The article raises a number of questions about nuclear strategy, defense, and so forth. Check it out and feel free to comment either there or here.
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A Simple Plan
The New Media Journal carries a fictional bit of prognostication by one Raymond S. Kraft. It is the story of a surprise nuclear attack on the United States, performed with aplomb by Iran and North Korea [via Rocket's Brain Trust].
At 0723 Hawaii time on the 67th Anniversary of the Pearl Harbor attack three old fishing trawlers, about 100 miles apart, and each about 300 miles off the east coast, launched six small cruise missiles from launch tubes that could be dismantled and stored in the holds under ice, or fish, and set up in less than an hour. The missiles were launched at precisely one minute intervals. As soon as each boat had launched its pair, the skeleton crew began to abandon ship into a fast rubber inflatable. The captain was last off, and just before going overboard started the timer on the scuttling charges. Fifteen minutes later and ten miles away, each crew was going up the nets into a small freighter or tanker of Moroccan or Liberian registry, where each man was issued new identification as ship's crew. The rubber inflatables were shot and sunk, and just about then charges in the bilges of each of the three trawlers blew the hulls out, and they sank with no one on board and no distress signals in less than two minutes.Commentary
The missiles had been built in a joint operation by North Korea and Iran, and tested in Iran, so they would not have to overfly any other country. The small nuclear warheads had only been tested deep underground. The GPS guidance and detonating systems had worked perfectly, after a few corrections. They flew fifty feet above sea level, and 500 feet above ground level on the last leg of the trip, using computers and terrain data modified from open market technology and flight directors, autopilots, adapted from commercial aviation units. They would adjust speed to arrive on target at specific times and altitudes, and detonate upon reaching the programmed GPS coordinates. They were not as adaptable and intelligent as American cruise missiles, but they did not need to be. Not for this mission.
I'm unfamiliar with Mr. Kraft's work, but here he succeeds in rapidly painting a scenario that is entirely plausible. The more interesting questions are those it merely implies.
Continue reading "A Simple Plan"
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The Adventures of Chester Radio: Interview with Daveed Gartenstein-Ross
Today's guest on Adventures Radio is Daveed Gartenstein-Ross, terrorism consultant, frequent contributor to The Counterterrorism Blog and author of the forthcoming book, My Year Inside Radical Islam
This is a longer episode, coming in at around 51 minutes.
Daveed and I discuss the following:
0:00 How he came to be a Muslim and joined a radical Muslim group
4:59 His disillusionment with the group
11:18 His conversion to Christianity
14:39 Islam in America
18:24 Prison jihad: recruitment in US prisons
22:39 Daveed's idea for an elite unit within the prison bureau
29:00 Propaganda in the larger war: CNN, the YouTube Jihad, Osama's broadcasts
33:46 European riots: economically or ideologically driven?
37:55 In which Daveed explains Somalia, and makes a case for US military action
47:51 The "Bono of Indonesia" goes toe to toe with Islamic censors
You can listen right now by clicking right here. Or you can subscribe to my show here. You can also subscribe via iTunes here.
Comments are open!
UPDATE: The direct-link above works fine, but there's a technical problem with the feed. I'll update again tomorrow once it's resolved.
UPDATE2: The iTunes subscription feed seems to work just fine. I'm still working on the XML subscription feed for those who use it.
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October 22, 2006
The Wisdom of Survivalist Crowds
My latest effort is now available at TCSDaily. It's a reaction to Glenn Reynolds' piece last week, which discussed the mainstreaming of survivalism.
What do you think?
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October 18, 2006
Reading
Things are a bit sluggish around here this week as I work behind the scenes on some other media ventures. But here are some interesting pieces to keep you occupied:
Westhawk wonders if James Baker's Iraq Study Group will pull the plug on the war, or recommend a radical change of some sort.
The British are apparently asking universities to keep close tabs on Muslim students.
Michael Freund warns readers of the Jerusalem Post that there is another war right around the corner, larger in scale, and much more deadly.
Thailand's new prime minister plans to "reach out" to Muslims in the south. I wonder how that will work . . .
The Guardian relates the battle of Sangin. Great reading. Via Samizdata.
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Debate: Steve Acuff vs. David Price
A debate between the candidates in my congressional district was held recently and is now available on the web. Steve Acuff is the Republican Challenger and David Price is the Democratic incumbent.
Go here to view the debate, which is just under 30 minutes.
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October 17, 2006
Collapses and Coups
The world should not be surprised by a Chinese-sponsored coup in North Korea.
Consider two assumptions: first, that of all the countries surrounding North Korea, China by far possesses the most levers of influence. It shares a long border with North Korea; provides food aid and other types of logistics support to North Korea; has a treaty with North Korea, calling it a "friend"; has a shared ideological background; has cooperated on some military matters; and so forth. Not only that, but because of all of these relationships, the Chinese are in a much better position than the other neighbors to have a clear read on exactly what is going on inside the North; what the status of the military is; who in the leadership might be tired of Kim; and so forth.
The second assumption is that there are many possible futures for the crisis. These beg the question: which will be more beneficial to China, and therefore, which might China attempt to foster?
Continue reading "Collapses and Coups"
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Banned Blogs Update
Belmont Club has more information on the reports that the Department of the Interior is blocking blogs such as his, and this one. Apparently, the concern is that employees will post comments to such sites while at work.
One of the problems is that the word "blog" is now no longer really descriptive. This site is technically a blog, but so are about a zillion or so on myspace. But it's safe to say that the content here is a little different. A new vocabulary is required . . .
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October 12, 2006
The Adventures of Chester Radio: Interview with Bill Roggio
It's the first episode ever of The Adventures of Chester Radio! Bill Roggio, author of The Fourth Rail, and a veteran of two embeds with coalition forces, discusses the war.
How is the US fighting Moqtada al-Sadr? Or are we?
What is up in Waziristan?
How long will Musharraf's regime last in Pakistan?
You can listen immediately by clicking here. Or you can subscribe here.
The show's about 18 minutes long.
Please, drop a comment below. This is the first Chester Radio podcast, so you can be the one who helps make it better! Or feel free to chime in about the Afghans and such . . .
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October 11, 2006
Sic Semper Tyrannis
My latest effort at TCSDaily is now available! It takes issue with the constant characterization of Kim Jong Il as a "madman" or "nutjob."
I mean, no doubt he's not normal, but . . . well, go read and see.
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Are you reading a banned blog?
Gates of Vienna received an email from a reader today to the effect that the Department of the Interior had blocked Gates from their servers. After further investigation, it seems quite a few blogs were blocked, this one among them. Here's the list of blocked blogs:
Blocked Blogs:Commentary
Captain’s Quarters
Cox and Forkum
Gates of Vienna
Little Green Footballs
Michael J. Totten
Michelle Malkin
Power Line
Protein Wisdom
Rantings of a Sandmonkey
Roger L. Simon
The Adventures of Chester
The American Thinker
The Belmont Club
The Doctor is In
Wizbang
What a triumph! I have a mere iota of the traffic of the rest of those blogs! To be mentioned in the same breath with them should boost these Adventures to the heights of the blogerati!! My scheme of hacking the Interior Dept has worked!! Now, if only the State Department's firewalls weren't so darn difficult to break . . .
Seriously though, rumor has it that Bill Roggio's blog is banned in Pakistan. Now that's good PR.
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Are political categories dissolving? Could they?
This week's post at Windsofchange is now available. It asks whether one or both of the national political parties might dissolve into its constituent parts, or whether other political categories might become more powerful. It makes a case that the issue which might propel these changes is the war.
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A Nuclear Leviathan in the Pacific
Westhawk argues that the biggest loser of North Korea's nuclear test is China.
China remains by far the biggest loser from North Korea’s actions. America’s security alliances with Japan and South Korea will become more important and these bonds will be strengthened. Japan, now led by the unapologetic nationalist Shinzo Abe, will scrap any remaining restraints on its military doctrine and will invest in an offensive military strike capability. Japan could also very quickly become a nuclear weapons state itself, something that could occur after further provocations.Joe Katzman argues at WindsofChange that the focus should not be on North Korea, but on China:
The truth is that North Korea is an irrelevant bit player in this whole drama. The real player here is China. They have helped North Korea at every step, and North Korea's regime cannot survive at all without their ongoing food and fuel aid. Kim Jong-Il's nuclear plans may be slightly inconvenient to the Chinese - just not not inconvenient enough to derail a strategy that still promises net plusses to those pursuing it within China's dictatorship.Both of them think that the best way to influence China, and thereby to influence North Korea, is to make it clear that Japan, South Korea, and possibly even Taiwan, will be encouraged or given tacit approval by the US to strengthen their militaries.
Westhawk:
The U.S. and its allies in the region will be forced to bypass an ineffectual China when formulating their security arrangements in the Asia-Pacific theater. And this will result in a strengthening American-led, anti-Chinese alliance in the region. This is exactly opposite the outcome China wished to see occur.And Katzman:
In other words, China won't move unless its current strategy is seen to cost them, big-time.David Frum, former Bush speechwriter, takes a similar tack, in an article in the New York Times (here via AEI):The biggest cost, and the only one that will be real to them in any sense, is to have Kim Jong-Il's nuclear detonation result in parallel nuclear proliferation among the nearby states China wishes to dominate/ bully. That would be a foreign policy disaster for the Chinese, and would cause the current architects of China's North Korea policy to be buried along with their policy. Which, as we noted earlier, is the only kind of policy education that works in a system like theirs.
A new approach is needed. America has three key strategic goals in the wake of the North Korean nuclear test. The first is to enhance the security of those American allies most directly threatened by North Korean nuclear weapons: Japan and South Korea.Frum offers a four part plan for dealing with the crisis and accomplishing his three steps [emphasis added]:The second is to exact a price from North Korea for its nuclear program severe enough to frighten Iran and any other rogue regimes considering following the North Korean path.
The last is to punish China. North Korea could not have completed its bomb if China, which provides the country an immense amount of food and energy aid, had strongly opposed it. Apparently, Beijing sees some potential gain in the uncertainty that North Korea's status brings. If China can engage in such conduct cost-free, what will deter Russia from aiding the Iranian nuclear program, or Pakistan someday aiding a Saudi or Egyptian one?
Step up the development and deployment of existing missile defense systems.Commentary[ . . . ]
End humanitarian aid to North Korea and pressure South Korea to do the same.
[ . . . ]
Invite Japan, South Korea, Australia, New Zealand and Singapore to join NATO--and even invite Taiwan to send observers to NATO meetings.
[ . . . ]
Encourage Japan to renounce the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty and create its own nuclear deterrent.
What Frum proposes would most certainly punish China, but how much punishment is too much? Consider the panoply of security architectures that have comprised the US alliance system in the Pacific. The US has a security treaty with Japan. It has similar agreements with South Korea. It has guarantees, explicit and otherwise, with Taiwan. The US used to have an alliance with Australia and New Zealand called ANZUS; but New Zealand protested the stationing of nuclear weapons or nuclear ships in its ports in the 1980s, forcing the US to come to refer to New Zealand as a "friend, not an ally." The alliance with Australia on the other hand, is one of the strongest that the US maintains.
At the same time, each of these countries has dramatically differing relations with each other. Australia maintains an alliance with New Zealand. Japan has no security relationship with South Korea, though it has offered to help defend Taiwan from China. A diagram of the existing security relationships might look like the following. I've included all alliances as arrows, whereas other lesser defense partnerships are lines without arrows. All of the US relationships are included; not all of those between the other countries are:
Continue reading "A Nuclear Leviathan in the Pacific"
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October 10, 2006
Global Crisis Watch Special Edition
I'm a guest in the latest Global Crisis Watch podcast. Listen here.
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Welcome to Jack Kelly Readers
If you're visiting this blog for the first time after reading about it in Jack Kelly's recent column, welcome! Feel free to look around or send me an email. The address is in the sidebar.
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October 9, 2006
"Collapse Brinkmanship"
In 2004, an article appeared in the Korea Times, quoting National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley. Hadley stated that the US policy toward North Korea is one of "regime transformation."
In an apparent policy turnaround, the United States will seek transformation of the North Korean regime without attempting to change or overthrow it, a top U.S. security policymaker said Tuesday.If regime transformation is the policy of the US government, it seems a strategy of "collapse brinksmanship" is the method being employed to reach it.``If the U.S. policy is put into words, it would be `regime transformation,’’’ National Security Advisor-designate Stephen Hadley was quoted as telling South Korean parliamentary delegates visiting the U.S.
Hadley also reiterated the U.S. is firmly committed to the six-party talks aimed at resolving the nuclear standoff and has no intention of attacking North Korea, according to the lawmakers.
Rep. Park Jin, a key member of the delegation, said Hadley’s statement can be understood as a U.S. policy that would induce North Korea toward transformation through gradual economic reform without trying to collapse the current regime.
In Cold War nuclear strategy, brinkmanship was first defined by John Foster Dulles as "the ability to get to the verge without getting into the war." Wikpedia notes, "Brinkmanship is ostensibly the escalation of threats to achieve one's aims. Eventually, the threats involved might become so huge as to be unmanageable at which point both sides are likely to back down. This was the case during the Cold War, as the escalation of threats of nuclear war is mutually suicidal."
But the brinksmanship being practiced now by the US is one of collapse, not nuclear attack. The US is attempting to create conditions whereby it becomes more and more likely that North Korea will collapse. The intended audiences for this interplay are China and South Korea, who have the most to fear of a North Korean collapse. Also, whereas in nuclear brinkmanship, as Wikipedia notes, both sides usually back down to avoid suicide, the US will not suffer suicide if North Korea collapses. Sure, it might be ugly, but the US has the least to lose from such an event.
In short, the US strategy is meant to show South Korea and China just how dangerous North Korea is, to get them all to on the same page, so that the North can then be induced to negotiate away its nuclear capability. Then, as Hadley detailed, the regime can be transformed, via "gradual economic reform."
It's a bold strategy, and it might not work. But the alternatives are equally hairy. Live with a nuclear North? Begin a military confrontation? Or other combinations of either of these? None are very palatable. Collapse brinkmanship may well be the least of many evils.
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Global Crisis Watch
I'll be on the next podcast from Global Crisis Watch, with hosts Nick Grace, Richard Lafayette and Bill Roggio, and guests Rohan Gunaratna and Daveed Gartenstein-Ross. I'll post a link when the podcast is up.
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Was the nuke test a hoax?
This site does not profess conspiracy theories.
But from time to time, I do attempt to perform what I've called "agressive pattern-spotting."
Consider:
1. About two years ago, there were rumors of an impending North Korean nuclear test. Later, there was an enormous explosion. The explosion was later determined to have been a massive amount of conventional munitions. The North Koreans, living in such a mountainous country, are quite good at mining, tunnelling, and excavation, and large quantities of TNT and other explosives are part and parcel of those competencies. Read about this incident here, via the BBC.
2. President Bush, in his statement today about the test, said this (emphasis added):
Last night the government of North Korea proclaimed to the world that it had conducted a nuclear test. We're working to confirm North Korea's claim. Nonetheless, such a claim itself constitutes a threat to international peace and security.3. Via Drudge, Japan's Kyodo News Agency is reporting that a number of jets have been dispatched from the Japanese Air Self Defense Force to:[ . . . ]
Threats will not lead to a brighter future for the North Korean people, nor weaken the resolve of the United States and our allies to achieve the de-nuclearization of the Korean Peninsula. Today's claim by North Korea serves only to raise tensions, while depriving the North Korean people of the increased prosperity and better relations with the world offered by the implementation of the joint statement of the six-party talks.
check levels of radioactivity over the Sea of Japan and other areas following North Korea's announcement about its nuclear test.4. The scale of the explosion was small for a nuclear test. This article quotes the Korea Earthquake Research Center thus:The agency's move to collect samples at an altitude of 10 kilometers is part of the Japanese government's efforts to step up its monitoring of the impact of the reported nuclear test.
The activity measured 3.6 on the Richter Scale, which could be caused by the explosion of the equivalent of 800 tonnes of dynamite, he said.
Based on these four things, there is a significant chance that it is still unclear whether North Korea has actually conducted a test; that our own and allied governments are working to independently confirm such; and that it is within the realm of possibility that the seismic event detected was in fact a massive conventional explosion.
I think we should await independent confirmation.
Feel free to discuss.
UPDATE: Only the Russians are claiming that the blast was larger:
Russia's defense minister said Monday that North Korea's nuclear blast was equivalent to 5,000 to 15,000 tons of TNT.That would be far greater than the force given by South Korea's geological institute, which estimated it at just 550 tons of TNT.
ANOTHER UPDATE: Here's a much more detailed description of the large explosion in 2004. It seems no one is really sure just what happened then.
ONE MORE UPDATE: Gratuitous Machiavellian thought of the day: if we tell them we don't believe their test was real, and they test again, how many tests before they run out of weapons? I'll turn my internal monologue back on now.
STILL ANOTHER UPDATE: Suitcase nukes are supposed to be difficult to produce because, among other reasons, they only require very small amounts of radioactive material, and that material decays very rapidly. If there are any nuclear scientists reading this, by all means chime in.
MORE: Welcome Instapundit readers! He had the same Machiavellian thought. Feel free to look around. I hope you'll visit again sometime.
MORE AGAIN: There is speculation that the test was a dud. This raises an interesting totalitarian leadership question: if one has only a handful of nuclear scientists, and they are expensive to create and maintain, when a nuclear scientist fails you, how do you punish him? Moreover, if one is such a nuclear scientist, and one knows that a nuclear capability is still beyond your means, but the Dear Leader schedules a test without your foreknowledge, how do you tell him that his capabilities aren't quite what he thinks they are? Or do you just go ahead with it and hope that afterward his ire won't fall completely upon you?
LATEBREAKING UPDATE: The Washington Times' Bill Gertz is reporting that "U.S. intelligence agencies say, based on preliminary indications, that North Korea did not produce its first nuclear blast yesterday."
Still not conclusive. Gertz frequently reports things that aren't seen anywhere else. Either he has incredible access or his sources are sometimes wrong. Or both. We'll see what happens in this case.
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Leviathan
A Loyal Reader sends the following email, which he allows me to reprint for discussion. The article he refers to is here.
At the end of the Nork article you say that it's time to develop a policy that addresses the risk that a state will hand a nuke to a terrorist group for use in America or one of our allies. I've been thinking of this since about noon on September 11, 2001 and am amazed that there has been so little discussion of it. It is the primary challenge facing our nation's future and yet there has been almost no effort spent in developing and implementing a policy for dealing with it. Pre-emption is a start, but it's simply not enough given our intelligence failures in the past and the enormous consequences of failing to detect an attack beforehand. The scale of a WMD attack means that the truism that terrorists "only have to succeed once and we have to succeed every time" makes it imperative that we develop and announce a policy for AFTER the attack.
Pre-emption is only half a policy. The second half is what I call “MAD for the Mullahs” or “Mullah Assured Destruction.” In its basic form, we create a list analogous to the State Department’s State Sponsor of Terrorism list except this one contains hostile regimes known to possess or be developing NBC weapons and having ties to terrorist groups. North Korea and Iran can be founding members. The relevant US government policy would simply state that if there is a WMD strike in the US or against an ally participating in the program, we will take certain actions. I will stick to the nuclear case here but you could have scaled retaliation for chem or bio attacks.
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Carolina FreedomNet Report
Well, this weekend found me in Greensboro at Carolina FreedomNet 2006, which was a great event. The John Locke Foundation was a great host, and the participating bloggers were all very interesting folks. I encourage visits to their own sites:
Scott Johnson of Power Line hardly needs any introduction: Power Line was at the very center of the controversy over Dan Rather's faked National Guard memos in 2004. Scott was a very unassuming and couteous guy, a real pleasure to meet.
The first panel of the day included Lorie Byrd, of Wizbang; Bob Owens at Confederate Yankee; Sister Toldjah of, well, Sister Toldjah; and Sam Hieb of Sam's Notes.
I joined the second panel, as did Mary Katherine Ham; Jeff Taylor of The Meck Deck; and Scott Elliot of Election Projection.
In his lunchtime address, Scott Johnson mentioned the similarities between the pamphleteers of the pre-Revolutionary period in America and blogging today. Strangely, he did so by quoting the book The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution
I won't do a comprehensive overview of the content of the conference, but I will be doing a post or piece about it a bit later. One conversation in particular was very thought-provoking.
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October 6, 2006
Stalking the Hermit
It's a two-fer this week at TCSDaily! I've got a new article there that addresses the North Korean regime's planned nuclear tests. Go check it out!
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October 5, 2006
Why the Caged Bird Sings
The Middle East Media Research Institute is hosting a video of a portion of a debate between an interviewer and an Iraqi Member of Parliament, on LBC-TV. The excerpt:
Iyad Jamal Al-Din: Blessed be America for giving Saddam a good kick, sending him straight into the abyss of jail. Blessed be America for giving Mula Omar a good slap, sending him straight into the garbage bin of history and into the dunghills of oblivion. These people were tiny idols, who humiliated their peoples, and turned Allah's property into states and His servants into slaves. It was the moral duty of America, as the greatest and strongest power in this world, to topple these rodents, who treated their people ferociously. We should be happy. Instead of going to Britain for asylum and to beg for food, we should welcome them, so they can rid us of these despicable dictators, who have plundered Iraq's resources and turned the Iraqis into their slaves. Now there is freedom in Iraq, there are elections. People who never even dreamt of being ministers have become ministers through free elections. We did not know what democracy was until America brought it against our will. We did not want democracy or freedom...Has MP Jamal Al-Din been reading Maya Angelou? If so, how annoying for the left. She read at Clinton's inauguration after all.Interviewer: At the same time, one can claim that there is much violence in Iraq, and this might even lead to a civil war. Some officials have acknowledged this. Blood is spilled in Iraq every day. Is this the price of democracy and freedom?
Iyad Jamal Al-Din: Yes, because we do not know what freedom is or what to do with it. We are like a tiny bird born in a cage. Its father and mother were born in the same cage, and so were its ancestors - for the past 1,400 years. Along came America and broke the cage open, but the bird does not know how to fly, because it has never used its wings. We do not know what to do with the values of freedom, because we were born slaves, the sons of slaves, the sons of slaves - for the past 1,400 years, with this inferior culture. I am not talking about the beautiful, tolerant, Islamic religion, which respects humanity. But there is an Arab Islamic culture, which, in many of its aspects... I don't mean all its aspects, because there is the Sufi culture, which is wonderful. But the official culture teaches you to become a slave to the ruler and to obsolete values and traditions. This is why we do not know what to do with the modern values of democracy.
The free bird thinks of another breeze
and the trade winds soft through the sighing trees
and the fat worms waiting on a dawn-bright lawn and he names the sky his own.But a caged bird stands on the grave of dreams
his shadow shouts on a nightmare scream
his wings are clipped and his feet are tied so he opens his throat to sing.The caged bird sings with a fearful trill
of things unknown but longed for still
and his tune is heard on the distant hill
for the caged bird sings of freedom.
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The European Intifada Continues
The violence in northern European banlieus was much in the news a year ago this month, but has strangely dropped from view. But now the French Interior Ministry warns that an "intifada" is pressing on many fronts:
Radical Muslims in France's housing estates are waging an undeclared "intifada" against the police, with violent clashes injuring an average of 14 officers each day.How will the French contain this violence? Can they?As the interior ministry said that nearly 2,500 officers had been wounded this year, a police union declared that its members were "in a state of civil war" with Muslims in the most depressed "banlieue" estates which are heavily populated by unemployed youths of north African origin.
It said the situation was so grave that it had asked the government to provide police with armoured cars to protect officers in the estates, which are becoming no-go zones.
The interior minister, Nicolas Sarkozy, who is also the leading centre-Right candidate for the presidency, has sent heavily equipped units into areas with orders to regain control from drug smuggling gangs and other organised crime rings. Such aggressive raids were "disrupting the underground economy in the estates", one senior official told Le Figaro.There's been quite a bit of Ramadan violence in Belgium as well. See the posts from Brussels Journal here and here. The Journal warns that there may be another flare up this weekend, "The authorities are especially nervous since the Belgian municipal elections are being held on Sunday October 8th. It is likely that the elections will be won by anti-immigrant, “islamophobic” parties. Since ramadan will not be over on October 8th and many immigrants might perceive a victory of the indigenous right (as opposed to their own far-right) as an insult, Muslim indignation over the election results in major cities may spark serious disturbances."However, not all officers on the ground accept that essentially secular interpretation. Michel Thoomis, the secretary general of the hardline Action Police trade union, has written to Mr Sarkozy warning of an "intifada" on the estates and demanding that officers be given armoured cars in the most dangerous areas.
He said yesterday: "We are in a state of civil war, orchestrated by radical Islamists. This is not a question of urban violence any more, it is an intifada, with stones and Molotov cocktails. You no longer see two or three youths confronting police, you see whole tower blocks emptying into the streets to set their 'comrades' free when they are arrested."
He added: "We need armoured vehicles and water cannon. They are the only things that can disperse crowds of hundreds of people who are trying to kill police and burn their vehicles."
UPDATE: An interesting counterpart to this news is Theodore Dalrymple's review of While Europe Slept
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October 4, 2006
War Continuation Insurance?
My latest TCSDaily article, War Continuation Insurance? is now available. It ponders what sorts of innovations the private security market might soon develop.
I should say that I have no connections whatsoever to private security firms, other than an intense interest in their development and future.
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Apocalypse Everywhere
Well, it's Wednesday, also known as "Winds Day." So head over to Winds of Change and see my latest post, Apocalypse Everywhere. Feel free to comment either there or here.
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October 3, 2006
Don't Forget CarolinaFreedomNet 2006!
Coming up this weekend: Carolina FreedomNet2006, where I'll be a panelist, along with a number of other bloggers from both within NC and without. The keynote speaker will be Scott Johnson of Powerline. The price is a reasonable $25. Come one, come all!
(I guess I should note that none of that $25 goes to me; it just pays for all the logistics.)
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Good Cop, Bad Cop
Suppose you are a member of Britain's security services and are faced with a dilemma: you can either arrest a terror plotter and lose the opportunity to continue rolling up his network, or know that if you don't, the US will swoop him up and send him to a secret prison (aka, "render" him)? Which is worse?
Such is the scenario reported in the Guardian on Sunday [via the CS Monitor's Terrorism and Security Brief]:
Continue reading "Good Cop, Bad Cop"
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In Which the European Defense Agency Shows It Has Learned Nothing in the Last Five Years
Political discourse about warfare is all too frequently shot through with utopian impulses. This is because warfare involves both the vision of an "end-state" that one's forces work toward, and millions of decisions at all levels that are easily second guessed as time passes.
An article in the London Telegraph reports that the new European Defense Agency has released a paper envisioning the next 20 years of conflict.
The paper, An Initial Long-Term Vision for European Defence Capability and Capacity Needs, paints a Europe in which plunging fertility rates leave the military struggling to recruit young men and women of fighting age, at a time when national budgets will be under unprecedented strain to pay for greying populations.It seems the study does not attempt to really envision future conflicts so much as it attempts to proscribe a series of measures that must be in place in order for the EU to engage in war. In other words, rather than focusing on enemies, it seems to focus on its own requirements. There is a term for this: self-induced friction. The EU Defense Agency is only 2 years old and already is hamstringing itself.At the same time, increasingly cautious voters and politicians may be unwilling to contemplate casualties, or "potentially controversial interventions abroad – in particular interventions in regions from where large numbers of immigrants have come."
Voters will also be insistent on having backing from the United Nations for operations, and on crafting large coalitions of EU member states with a heavy involvement of civilian agencies, and not just fighting units, the paper states. They will also want military operations to be environmentally friendly, where possible.
All of this is similar to the Powell Doctrine in the United States, another set of internally imposed rules meant to make domestic constituents happy and to limit the kinds and types of wars that will have to be fought.
A hard-thinking, proactive enemy -- and there are few other kinds -- no doubt laughs in glee at these efforts, as it merely gives him all the more opportunities to avoid battle with the West and pursue his own agenda with impunity; or, once engaged in battle, to prevail simply by using methods and techniques that the West is institutionally (and thereby mentally) unprepared to counter.
The entire report may be downloaded here.
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October 2, 2006
Could Al Qaeda team with the mob?
There is a scene near the end of the film The Rocketeer in which a deal of some kind goes south and all of a sudden three parties find themselves in a Mexican standoff: cops, the mob, and a bunch of Nazi sympathizers intent of helping Hitler invade America. When the shooting starts, the mob quickly starts fighting the Nazis. At one point a cop and a mobster are crouching next to each other, firing away with submachine guns, when they pause, look at each other, shrug, and then keep firing.
But today, this sentiment -- "hey, mobsters are awful, but at least they love America," -- must be realized as so much wishful thinking. An AP story released over the weekend [via Instapundit] reported that the FBI is keeping close tabs on the possibility of collusion between organized crime and terror-related groups.
Continue reading "Could Al Qaeda team with the mob?"
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Slow Motion Arms Race
Because of the long lead times and enormous budgets necessary for much technological development of new weapons systems, advances can often be slow, and easily overlooked. The same is true of advances by possible adversaries.
But a tiny glimpse into the competitive dynamic of US and Chinese systems is revealed in these two articles:
Continue reading "Slow Motion Arms Race"
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