Tag: war

The campaign to equalitize the British military meets a setback:

The first woman to join an infantry regiment since defence chiefs lifted a ban on females serving in combat units has quit after just two weeks of training, The Mail on Sunday can reveal.

The recruit dropped out of an 18-week course this month after falling behind her male counterparts on endurance marches and failing other physical tests at a training base in Suffolk.

It is understood that when the woman resigned, she admitted having underestimated the physical requirements of being an infantry recruit. She also told officers that living in female-only accommodation made her feel ‘like an outsider’ and weakened her resolve. Her resignation is a huge blow to officials who are determined to integrate women into fighting units in the Army, Royal Marines and Royal Air Force.

The feminist notion that resolve can overcome reality tends to remind one of the WWI French generals’ firm belief that esprit was capable of overcoming machine guns.

The Weekly Standard attempts to redefine the term “protest”:

They’re not protests. They’re suicide-riots.

On Monday President Donald Trump fulfilled his campaign promise to move the United States embassy in Israel to the country’s capital, Jerusalem. As usual, the American and European media’s coverage interpreted the event in the worst possible light for the nation of Israel. One learns very little from our mainstream news sources about what the move may mean for the nations primarily concerned—Israel and the United States—but a great deal about the Palestinian “protests” happening along Israel’s southern border with Gaza: Headlines in the New York Times and Washington Post proclaimed (misleadingly) “Israel Kills Dozens and Wounds 1700 at Gaza Border” and “Over 50 Killed in Gaza Protests as U.S. Opens Embassy in Jerusalem.”

We put the word “protests” in quotation marks advisedly. In ordinary English usage, a protest is a collective action or gesture meant to bring pressure on a government or corporate entity. The Gaza “protests” are meant to bring pressure on Israel, but they’re intended mainly to kill and maim both Israelis and the Palestinian “protesters” themselves.

These demonstrations would be better described as suicide-riots. For nearly two months, Hamas and other militant factions have been encouraging young Palestinian men to storm the fence separating Gaza from Israel. The rioters cut holes in the fence, charge Israeli guards with crude weapons like axes, and lob fire bombs over the wall in attempts to set Israeli fields on fire. Hamas has pledged to massacre those on the other side of the fence, and these riots are expressions of that intention. Israeli defense forces are obliged to respond with force. An axe-clutching Palestinian insanely charging into Israeli territory isn’t a “protester” but a combatant and a terrorist. The fact that he doesn’t expect to prevail against the might of the Israel Defense Forces—he is in essence on a suicide mission—doesn’t somehow oblige Israeli soldiers not to use force to stop him. The Israelis have no choice but to fire back, and they do, often with deadly results.

If the Gaza protests are intended mainly to kill and maim Israelis, they are making an incredibly ineffective job of it, given the lack of Israeli casualties. On the other hand, these “suicide-riots” are proving to be very effective at bringing political pressure on the Israeli government from a broad global spectrum.

The Turks have expelled the Israeli ambassador. China has expressed serious concern. Russia has condemned the “indiscriminate” nature of the thousands of shootings. The UK government has urged restraint. These protests may be suicidal, but they are absolutely and without question protests, and to the extent their objective is to put international pressure on the Israeli government, they are successful.

Prime Minister Netanyahu clearly needs to read more Martin van Creveld than he has.

This is not what “winning the moral level of war” looks like:

Israeli snipers kill scores of Palestinians and wound 2,400 as 35,000 protesters rally against the US Embassy opening in Jerusalem overseen by Trump’s Middle East envoy Jared Kushner and daughter Ivanka.

A 14-year-old was among 52 shot dead along the Gaza border on what is already the deadliest single day in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict since a 2014 war between the Jewish state and Gaza’s Islamist rulers Hamas.

At least 2,400 more have been injured with hundreds of them by live bullets, according to Gaza officials as the Palestinian government accused Israel of committing a ‘terrible massacre’ and Amnesty International called the bloodshed an ‘abhorrent violation’ of human rights.

Moving the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem is the right thing to do. It is not the responsibility of the US government to decide where a nation’s capital is located. But whatever Israeli general is responsible for handling the protesters is making a complete hash of it. If Israel was looking for foreign support in its desired war-by-proxy against Iran, this is most certainly not going to help.

I don’t know why Israel hasn’t established a separate gendarmerie for handling the West Bank and Gaza, because military history strongly suggests that using soldiers as police tends to fail as brutally as using police as soldiers does. And, as Martin van Creveld has repeatedly observed, one-sided war tends to have a demoralizing effect on the winner.

And, of course, it is reprehensible that so many New Israelis should be treated so violently when all they are seeking is a better life for them and their children on the other side of the fence. Especially when the Israeli economy would benefit so greatly from embracing 35,000 new citizens.

I sincerely hope France, Germany, and the UK are dumb enough to listen to Obama’s ex-officials and call what they wrongly imagine is the God-Emperor’s bluff on the Iran deal:

Two former Obama administration officials suggested that America’s European allies should punish President Donald Trump for withdrawing from the Iran deal and levying additional sanctions on the Islamic republic.

The European Union and individual European countries are obligated to take aggressive steps to preserve the Iran deal, in order to avoid becoming Trump’s “doormat,” Steven Simon and Jonathan Stevenson argued in an op-ed that ran in The New York Times Thursday. Both Simon and Stevenson were directors on former President Barack Obama’s National Security Council (NSC).

“The European Union could, for instance, announce the withdrawal of member-states’ ambassadors from the United States. Isn’t this what states do when diplomatic partners breach solemn agreements, expose them to security risks and threaten to wreak havoc on their economies? That is, after all, what the administration is threatening to do by courting the risk of a Middle Eastern war and applying secondary sanctions to European companies,” they argued. “Depending on the American response, European capitals might even follow up with expulsion of American ambassadors.”

“It would be hard to fault these moves as irresponsible, given that they would not impair vital security functions like intelligence-sharing and law enforcement coordination. They would, however, symbolize a stark diplomatic breach that could extend to other areas in which the Trump administration needs allied support,” the former Obama officials wrote. “Thus, the White House would face the first hard choice in this whole process: a full-blown crisis in trans-Atlantic relations. If the administration’s next move were to impose secondary sanctions on Europe, the Europeans could slap its own penalties on American multinational corporations, which in turn would place additional pressure on the White House.”

It’s truly remarkable how these once-powerful bureaucrats simply don’t understand the power calculus involved. Or, as it should be phrased, the power addition. The US runs a big balance-of-trade deficit with Europe, so any such action on the part of the European governments would affect them much more severely than it would affect the United States.

We are rapidly coming to the end of the peaceful period when butter mattered more than guns. Which is why Europe is waning in influence as Russia, and particularly China, are waxing. What mattered more to the Syrian government, Germany’s cars or Russia’s anti-aircraft systems? What was more important to defeating the Islamic State, UK banking institutions or Iranian military advisors?

Any such move on the EU’s part will help break the illusion of its power and offer further encouragement to the rising nationalist movements seeking to free their peoples from the EU’s chains. In the meantime:

H.J.Ansari Zarif’s senior advisor: “If Europeans stop trading with Iran and don’t put pressure on US then we will reveal which western politicians and how much money they had received during nuclear negotiations to make #IranDeal happen.”

If Trump doesn’t already know them, he should offer the Iranians something to go public with those names.

Conservatives conserve nothing. Not even something so fundamental as biological sex:

I doubt that many Americans would disagree that the country’s conversation about gay rights is far more mature and considered than it was two decades ago. Today, there exists broad understanding that homosexual people are unavoidable and common, present in all corners and demographics of American life. Through education, and especially exposure, homosexuality is no longer regarded as bizarre, threatening, or mysterious. Even if we remain unsure about what makes a minority of men and women gay, only the tiniest fringe still consider the orientation something worth trying to “fix.” When states attempt to ban homosexual “conversion therapy,” as California is trying to do at the moment, it feels like anachronistic performance. Disinterest in judging homosexuality is not an attitude government has coerced Americans into, it is the product of a free people’s informed knowledge.

If we concede that transgenderism is not going away, and is not something anyone intends to exert effort toward ending, then Americans, especially conservative ones, should reflect on our culture’s honest and fair attitude toward homosexuality and acknowledge that the most sensible path out of the present acrimony will probably require similar compromise. Some degree of cultural ceasefire and consensus seems the only path for both sides to maintain a degree of pride while avoiding a more radical, disruptive societal transformation….

Part one of the compromise will be borne by cultural conservatives and traditionalists. It asks for broad tolerance for the reality that transgender men and women exist, and are entitled to basic human dignity, just like everyone else. This does not mean having to morally endorse behavior many may believe runs contrary to God’s plan for a just and healthy society, but it does imply that acts like ostentatiously calling people by pronouns they don’t want, or belittling their personal struggle, are boorish and petty. It means acknowledging that arbitrary discrimination against transgender people is a cruel bigotry like any other.

But part two of the compromise requires sacrifice on the part of progressives, who are currently overplaying their hand in an effort to strong-arm sweeping social change as a flex of their power. There must be a halt in the use of state authority to impose accommodation of transgenderism in a fashion far more totalitarian than is rationally  justified. Transgender people constitute a tiny minority of Americans who, in the vast majority of cases, are explicitly eager to opt into the broad two-gender social order our civilization is based around. Tolerance does not necessitate a purge of any and all public manifestations of the gender binary in the name of extreme exceptions to the rule.

Accepting transgenderism as an inescapable human phenomenon does not mean that there is nothing left to learn about it or that cautious or even skeptical attitudes toward purported manifestations of it are never legitimate.

If the social order requires compromise on such issues, then the social order is not worth preserving. The transformation of the cultural war into civil war is only a matter of time now. Sanity cannot compromise with madness.

The Saker appears to have correctly predicted the recent increase in hostilities between Iran and Israel in one of his recent articles.

Risks with Israel’s plan “B”

Think of 2006. The Israelis had total air supremacy over Lebanon – the skies were simply uncontested. The Israelis also controlled the seas (at least until Hezbollah almost sank their Sa’ar 5-class corvette). The Israelis pounded Lebanon with everything they had, from bombs to artillery strikes, to missiles. They also engaged their very best forces, including their putatively ‘”invincible” “Golani Brigade”. And that for 33 days. And they achieved exactly *nothing*. They could not even control the town of Bint Jbeil right across the Israeli border. And now comes the best part: Hezbollah kept its most capable forces north of the Litany river so the small Hezbollah force (no more than 1000 man) was composed of local militias supported by a much smaller number of professional cadre. That a 30:1 advantage in manpower for the Israelis. But the “invincible Tsahal” got its collective butt kicked like few have ever been kicked in history. This is why, in the Arab world, this war is since known as the “Divine Victory”.

As for Hezbollah, it continued to rain down rockets on Israel and destroy indestructible Merkava tanks right up to the last day.

There are various reports discussing the reasons for the abject failure of the IDF (see here or here), but the simple reality is this: to win a war you need capable boots on the ground, especially against an adversary who has learned how to operate without air-cover or superior firepower. Should Israel manipulate the US into attacking Iran, the exact same thing will happen: CENTCOM will establish air superiority and have an overwhelming firepower advantage over the Iranians, but other than destroying a lot of infrastructure and murdering scores of civilians, this will achieve absolutely nothing. Furthermore, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is no Milosevic, he will not simply surrender in the hope that Uncle Sam will allow him to stay in power. The Iranians will fight, and fight, and continue to fight for weeks, and months and then possibly years. And, unlike the “Axis of Kindness” forces, the Iranians do have credible and capable “boots on the ground”, and not only in Iran, but also in Syria and Iraq and Afghanistan. And they have the missiles to reach a very large number of US military facilities across the region. And they can also not only shut down the Strait of Hormuz (which the USN would eventually be able to re-open, but only at a cost of a huge military operation on the Iranian coast), they can also strike at Saudi Arabia proper and, of course, at Israel. In fact, the Iranians have both the manpower and know-how to declare “open season” on any and all US forces in the Middle-East, and there are plenty of them, mostly very poorly defended (that imperial sense of impunity “they would not dare”).

The Iran-Iraq war lasted for eight years (1980-1988). It cost the Iranians hundreds of thousands of lives (if not more). The Iraqis had the full support of the US, the Soviet Union, France and pretty much everybody else. As for the Iranian military, it had just suffered from a traumatic revolution. The official history (meaning Wikipedia) calls the outcome a “stalemate”. Considering the odds and the circumstances, I call it a magnificent Iranian victory and a total defeat for those who wanted to overthrow the Islamic Republic (something which decades of harsh sanctions also failed to achieve, by the way).

Is there any reason at all to believe that this time around, when Iran has had almost 40 years to prepare for a full-scale AngloZionist attack the Iranians will fight less fiercely or less competently? We could also look at the actual record of the US armed forces (see Paul Craig Roberts’ superb summary here) and ask: do you think that the US, lead by the likes of Trump, Bolton or Nikki Haley will have the staying power to fight the Iranians to exhaustion (since a land invasion of Iran is out of the question)? Or this: what will happen to the world economy if the entire Middle-East blows up into a major regional war?

Now comes the scary part: both the Israelis and the Neocons always, always, double-down. The notion of cutting their losses and stopping what is a self-evidently mistaken policy is simply beyond them. Their arrogance simply cannot survive even the appearance of having made a mistake (remember how both Dubya and Olmert declared that they had won against Hezbollah in 2006?). As soon as Trump and Netanyahu realize that they did something really fantastically stupid and as soon as they run out of their usual options (missile and airstrikes first, then terrorizing the civilian population) they will have a stark and simple choice: admit defeat or use nukes.

Which one do you think they will choose?

Now, I’m still not convinced that the God-Emperor is doing what most observers believe him to be doing. I have no doubt that the Saker is right about the fact that both the Israelis and the globalists want the US to go to war with Iran, but I am not at all convinced that Trump is actually giving them what they want. As always, my advice when confronted with unknowns and unknowables is to wait and see.

It appears the EU is experiencing a “come to Queen Cersei” moment with regards to the Iran nuclear deal, which is not a treaty and from which the God-Emperor clearly had the ability to withdraw unilaterally.

The European Union has rebuked Donald Trump over his move to break the Iran nuclear deal, telling the US president he does not have the power to unilaterally scrap the international agreement.

In a statement delivered on Tuesday night EU foreign affairs chief Federica Mogherini said the US should reconsider its position, but that it was not within the power of the country’s president to end the accord.

Speaking in Rome the EU’s Ms Mogherini said Europe “regrets” Mr Trump’s new policy, but added: “As we have always said the nuclear deal is not a bilateral agreement and it is not in the hands of any single country to terminate it unilaterally.

“It has been unanimously endorsed by the UN security council resolution 2231, it is a key element of the global non-proliferation architecture, it is relevant in itself, but even more so in these times of encouraging symbols on the prospect of the denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula.

“The nuclear deal with Iran is crucial for the security of the region, of Europe and of the entire region. As long as Iran continues to implement its nuclear-related commitments as it is doing so far the European union will remain committed to the continued, full, and effective implementation for the nuclear deal.”

President Trump didn’t “end the accord”. He simply took the USA out of the arrangement. The EU, or Cameroon, or the Vatican are welcome to continue abiding by whatever accord they want with regards to Iran. Of course, it doesn’t matter what they do.

This recent interview of military historian and Castalia House author Martin van Creveld by a French magazine is particularly interesting in light of the recent Israeli airstrike on Syria, to which Iran has threatened to respond. Read the whole thing there.

Can you give us an overview of the actual situation of the Israeli armed forces?

One could argue that, taking a grand strategic perspective and starting with the establishment of the State of Israel seventy years ago, some things have not changed very much. First, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) remain the armed organization of a democratic country, one in which it is the politicians who decide and the military which obeys. Second, the objective of the IDF was and remains to defend the country, a outrance if necessary, against any military threats that may confront it. Third, Israel remains in a state of war with several other Middle Eastern countries; nor is there any way in the world it can bring the conflict to an end by defeating them and compelling them to make peace against their will. Fourth, the occupation of the West Bank and the Golan Heights notwithstanding, Israel remains a small country with very little strategic depth. Fifth, the lack of strategic depth implies a heavy reliance on intelligence to detect threats before they materialize. Sixth, and for the same reason, Israeli military doctrine remains basically offensive, with a strong emphasis on destroying the opposing armed forces.

In its short history, the State of Israel often fought and won wars in which it was outnumbered and trapped: is this because of its only technological superiority or is there also a strategic and tactical factor? 

Starting in 1948 and ending with the 1973 war inclusive, the most important factor behind Israel’s victories has always been the quality of its troops. Both in terms of education—Israel, unlike its enemies, is not a third-world country but a first-world one with educational, technological and scientific facilities to match. And—which is more critical still—in terms of motivation and fighting morale.

After 1973, and especially the 1982 First Lebanon War, things began to change. Education, technical skills and scientific development continued to improve, turning this a nation of less than eight million people into a world center of military (and not just military) innovation. There are, however, some signs that, as some of its former enemies concluded peace with it and its own military superiority came to be taken for granted, motivation suffered. To this was added the need to combat terrorists in Gaza and the West Bank—the kind of operations that contribute nothing to overall fighting effectiveness and and even detract from it.

Can the logistic organization represent a decisive factor – militarily -?

Logistics, it has been said, is “that which, if you do not have enough of, the war will not be won as soon as.” As recently as the Second Lebanon War against Hezbollah in 2006, so heavy was expenditure of air-to-surface missiles and other precision-guided munitions that the IDF had to apply for US aid even as hostilities were going on. This situation which has its origins in budget constraints, may well recur.

Furthermore, in all its wars from 1948 on the IDF has enjoyed near-absolute command of the air. As a result, it was able to attack enemy lines of supply whereas the enemy was unable to do the same. The buildup of reliable and accurate surface-to-surface missiles in the hands of Hezbollah, Syria and Iran may very well change this situation, causing supply bases and ammunition dumps, as well as communications-junctions and even convoys on the move to come under attack. This scenario, which is not at all imaginary, is currently giving the General Staff a lot of headaches.

We know that the intelligence is the decisive element to ensure strength to Israeli Armed Forces: can you explain what is this strength?

Israeli technological, tactical and operational intelligence has always been very good. Two factors help account for this fact. First, there exists in Israel a large community of first-class experts (known as Mizrahanim, “Easterners” who know the countries of the Middle East, their language, culture, traditions, history, and so forth as well as anyone does. Many members of this community spend their periods of reserve duty with the IDF intelligence apparatus.

Second, modern intelligence rests on electronics, especially various kinds of sensors and computers. As the famous Unit 8200 shows, these are fields where nobody excels the IDF. Nobody.

That said, it is important to add that Israeli top-level strategic and political intelligence is nowhere as good as it is on the lower levels. Starting at least as early as 1955, and reaching all the way to the present, IDF intelligence has often failed to predict some of the most important events. That included the 1967 war, the 1973 War, the 1987 Palestinian Uprising, the 1991 Gulf War, the “Arab Spring,” and the outbreak of the 2011 Syrian Civil War.

Compared to its actual friends, which are its strengths and weaknesses from a military point of view?

As I said, strengths include a well-educated and highly skilled society, excellent technology, and vast experience in fighting various enemies (though some of that experience is now dated). The chief weaknesses remain the country’s relatively small size and lack of strategic depth—Iran, for example, is eighty times as large as Israel. Perhaps most important of all, there is reason to think that motivation, though much higher than in the NATO countries, is no longer what it used to be.

If the situation between Israel and Iran (or Hezbollah in Lebanon) comes to a showdown, which could be the reactions of some States as Turkey, Syria, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Egypt or USA?

Hard to say. Iran will use Syria as a forward base for fighting Israel. Assuming the regime stays, Saudi Arabia will probably retain its ties with Israel, at least unofficially. Ditto Egypt. Turkey will probably not engage in a shooting war with Israel, but it will support an anti-Israeli coalition in other ways while at the same time fighting the Syrians (and the Kurds). Russia will try to support Hezbollah and Syria, but without becoming deeply involved. The US on its part will support Israel and against Hezbollah, but without directly taking on the Russians.

In short, while Israel remains stronger than its enemies, its strategic position has weakened somewhat since it became the primary regional power in the 1980s. It cannot defeat Iran or Turkey the way it defeated Egypt, Jordan, and Syria, and its two primary non-nuclear advantages – air supremacy and troop quality – have declined over time. It is also aware that its regional monopoly on nuclear weapons has a time limit.

From the Game Theory perspective, this would tend to indicate that another Middle Eastern war is likely sooner rather than later, because the trends suggest the odds of Israeli success are greater now than they will be in the future, especially given the fact that an Israel-friendly US President is now in office following an Arab-friendly one. Of course, since people in general, and politicians in particular, are not logical, and have a natural tendency to want to put off until tomorrow things that can more profitably be addressed today, that does not mean logic will dictate events.

UPDATE: I checked with Martin to clarify what appeared to be a typo, and he confirmed that he did mean the US supporting Israel AGAINST Hezbollah.

A partial transcript of last night’s Darkstream, which addressed President Trump withdrawing the USA from the multilateral Iran nuclear treaty before discussing the anointment of the new Fake Opposition by The New York Times.

First of all is the big news of the day which is of course the fact that the God-Emperor has trashed the Iran nuke deal. Now I am not even going to attempt to try to figure out what this means, what the implications are, all that sort of thing. You know some people are saying, “Oh, Trump is doing this to go to war with Iran for Israel” other people are following Qanon and seeing this as being related to draining the global swamp, and so there’s a lot of stuff going on. There’s a lot of potential interpretations.

I’m not interested in getting into any of that because I don’t know, and so the important thing to keep in mind is that President Trump has earned our trust, and the important thing to keep in mind is that we don’t know what’s going on. We don’t know what’s really going on so don’t overreact, just wait and see. You know, we all remember when oh we’re going to war in Syria, oh we’re going to war on the Korean Peninsula, well, neither of those things happened and now neither of those things look even remotely likely to happen, so you know, for me, my gut instinct is that this is something that Obama pursued, this is something that the European Union was involved in, and therefore it’s probably a good thing that that the USA is pulled out of it.

So relax, kick back, watch the news, don’t overreact, see what happens. That, I think, is that is the correct way to look at it.

The President opts out.

President Donald Trump announced Tuesday the U.S. will pull out of the landmark nuclear accord with Iran, dealing a profound blow to U.S. allies and potentially deepening the president’s isolation on the world stage.

“The United States does not make empty threats,” he said in a televised address.

Trump’s decision means Iran’s government must now decide whether to follow the U.S. and withdraw or try to salvage what’s left of the deal. Iran has offered conflicting statements about what it may do — and the answer may depend on exactly how Trump exits the agreement.

Trump said he would move to re-impose all sanctions on Iran that had been lifted under the 2015 deal, not just the ones facing an immediate deadline. This had become known informally as the “nuclear option” because of the near-certainty that such a move would scuttle the deal.

I’m not going to pretend to try to understand all of the implications, but anything that the EU and Obama supported cannot have been a good thing. And, as always, I would caution against making any assumptions about the God-Emperor’s intentions or objectives.

The man has earned our trust, repeatedly. Relax, wait, and see.