Tag: war

Three and three

If conservatives, Republicans, and the Alt-Right want to survive the conflict with Antifa and the violent forces of globalism, then all of them would do very well to read this book: 4th Generation Warfare Handbook. I would strongly advise getting the paperback, both for future reference and the ability to share it with others.
This is not a practical guide. But it establishes core principles that need to be understood, from which specific practices and policies can be developed.
The Three Classic Levels of War
The three classic levels of war – strategic, operational, and tactical – still exist in Fourth Generation war. But all three are affected, and to some extent changed, by the Fourth Generation. One important change is that, while in the first three generations strategy was the province of generals, the Fourth Generation has given us the “strategic corporal.” These days, the actions of a single enlisted man can have strategic consequences, especially if they happen to take place when cameras are rolling.
What succeeds on the tactical level can easily be counter-productive at the operational and strategic levels. For example, by using their overwhelming firepower at the tactical level, state forces may in some cases intimidate the local population into fearing them and leaving them alone. But fear and hate are closely related, and if the local population ends up hating the state forces, that works toward their strategic defeat.
Fourth Generation war poses an especially difficult problem to operational art: put simply, it is difficult to operationalize. Often, Fourth Generation opponents have strategic centers of gravity that are intangible. These may involve proving their manhood to their comrades and local women, obeying the commandments of their religion, or demonstrating their tribe’s bravery to other tribes. Because operational art is the art of focusing tactical actions on enemy strategic centers of gravity, operational art becomes difficult or even impossible.

Three New Levels of War
While the three classic levels of war carry over into the Fourth Generation, they are joined there by three new levels which may ultimately be more important. Colonel Boyd identified these three new levels as the physical, the mental, and the moral levels. Furthermore, he argued that the physical level – killing people and breaking things – is the least powerful, the moral level is the most powerful, and the mental level lies between the other two. Colonel Boyd argued that this is especially true in guerrilla warfare, which is more closely related to Fourth Generation war than is formal warfare between state militaries. The history of guerrilla warfare, from the Spanish guerrilla war against Napoleon through Israel’s experience in southern Lebanon, supports Colonel Boyd’s observation.
This leads to the central dilemma of Fourth Generation war: what works for you on the physical (and sometimes mental) level often works against you at the moral level. It is therefore very easy to win all the tactical engagements in a Fourth Generation conflict yet still lose the war. To the degree you win at the physical level by utilizing firepower that causes casualties and property damage to the local population, every physical victory may move you closer to moral defeat, and the moral level is decisive.
Some examples from the American experience in Iraq help illustrate the contradiction between the physical and moral levels:

  • The U. S. Army conducted many raids on civilian homes in areas it occupied. In these raids, the troops physically dominated the civilians. Mentally, they terrified them. But at the moral level, breaking into private homes in the middle of the night, terrifying women and children, and sometimes treating detainees in ways that publicly humiliated them (like stepping on their heads) worked powerfully against the Americans. An enraged population responded by providing the Iraqi resistance with more support at each level of war, physical, mental, and moral.
  • At Baghdad’s Abu Ghraib prison, MPs and interrogators dominated prisoners physically and mentally – as too many photographs attest. But when that domination was publicly exposed, the United States suffered an enormous defeat at the moral level. Some American commanders recognized this when they referred to the soldiers responsible for the abuse as, “the jerks who lost us the war.”
  • In Iraq and elsewhere, American troops (other than Special Forces) quickly establish base camps that mirror American conditions: air conditioning, good medical care, plenty of food and pure water. The local people are not allowed into the bases except in service roles. Physically, the American superiority over the lives the locals lead is overwhelming. Mentally, it projects the power and success of American society. But morally, the constant message of “we are better than you” works against the Americans. Traditional cultures tend to put high values on pride and honor, and when foreigners seem to sneer at local ways, the locals may respond by defending their honor in a traditional manner – by fighting. After many, if not most, American military interventions, Fourth Generation war has tended to intensify and spread rather than contract.

The practice of a successful Fourth Generation entity, al-Qaeda, offers an interesting contrast. Osama bin Laden, who came from a wealthy family, lived for years in an Afghan cave. In part, this was for security. But bin Laden’s choice also reflected a keen understanding of the power of the moral level of war. By sharing the hardships and dangers of his followers, Osama bin Laden drew a sharp contrast at the moral level with the leaders of local states, and also with senior officers in most state armies.
The contradiction between the physical and moral levels of war in Fourth Generation conflicts is similar to the tension between the tactical and strategic levels, but the two are not identical. The physical, mental, and moral levels all play at each of the three classic levels – tactical, operational, and strategic. Any disharmony among levels creates openings which Fourth Generation opponents will be quick to exploit.

SJWs always project

And what they are projecting is fear. Lots and lots of fear. SF-SJW David Gerrold rants on Facebook:

“After my initial flash of anger more than two years ago, I have said little about rabid puppies, sad puppies, and their pathetic efforts to stuff the various ballot boxes for awards.
Several reasons. I consider their “movement” to be a sad desperate effort by angry little men, and because I have more important things to do than invest energy in self-destructive attention-bores. And finally, because negativity in some creates negativity in others — the only way to win that game is to not play.
But while the rabid puppies movement in SF is a mostly unimportant flicker, eventually to be forgotten as a momentary annoyance, it still has to be seen as a symptom of something worse, the rise of neo-nazis tactics in the national conversation.
It’s no accident that Vox Bray and Milo Yiannazinuts are working off the same page. They are not “the alt-right” — that’s a euphemism. They’re not just assholes, committed to specific cultural disruptions, they’re shit-magnets, hoping to create power by attracting the worst of the worst
as followers.
This week, the so-called “alt-right” have revealed themselves to be the fault-right. They have paraded through the streets of an American city waving the flags of treason and genocide.
Americans of good will have the right to be concerned. We have the right to be frustrated. And finally, we have the right to be justifiably angry at the behavior of spoiled little white boys.
The tiki-torch marchers have revealed themselves to be political illiterates, historically ignorant, and little more than a cluster of desperate little wannabe bullies. Their shouts of defiance are intended to intimidate the rest of us into fearful silence.
It won’t work.
Okay, it’ll work for a while. This week’s exercises in torch-waving and dick-waggling will inspire other, equally silly demonstrations of disloyalty to the American ideal.
But eventually — and it cannot come too soon for me — the men and women who have actually taken an oath to defend the United States and its Constitution will be called upon to deal with this attempt to create a new Civil War.
If I were a conspiracy theorist, I would argue that there are groups in this nation committed not only to a new Civil War, but ultimately the destruction of the United States government and the Constitution, so that they can replace it with a theocratic fascism.
If I were a conspiracy theorist, I would trace all this back to the Fred Koch’s funding of the John Birch Society and I would point out that the game plan they’ve been following for fifty years can be found in the Blue Book and the Black Book of that group — the English translations of Mein Kampf.
If I were a conspiracy theorist, I would further argue that the failure of the police to act against these thugs is a result of a decades-long campaign to infiltrate police departments with white supremacists.
But one doesn’t have to be a conspiracy theorist to see the dangers inherent in the neo-nazi tactics of those who falsely believe that their time has come. They are an ugly political minority, a cancer on the American soul.
We have not yet found our new Gandhi, our new Martin Luther King, our new Harvey Milk — but there will come a day when the rest of us find our voice and draw a line in the sand. Perhaps we need not a single voice, but a whole chorus of voices speaking out, calling shame on those who have become enemies of the very nation that nurtured them and protected their freedom.
The United States is a nation of immigrants, it is a nation whose strength is diversity. The promise of America is liberty and justice for all. When the all of us are ready to confront the some of us, there will likely be violence, that’s what they are working toward, that’s why they are working themselves into a blather — but if the last Civil War couldn’t break the Union, I doubt very much that this latest rabble of desperate and pathetic little losers will accomplish anything useful, except perhaps to give themselves further reasons to fester in self-destructive bitterness. They are pathetic, desperate, fearful little men.”

Another thing I noticed. SJWs not only always project, they’re always waiting for someone else to show up and do their fighting for them.

President Congress

The Saker argues that the God-Emperor is participating in his own foreign policy neutering by the Congress:

I submit that the key to the correct understanding of the Russian response is in the fact that the latest US sanctions contain an absolutely unprecedented and, frankly, shocking feature: the new measures strip the President from the authority to revoke the sanctions. In practical terms, if Trump wanted to lift any of these sanctions, he would have to send an official letter to Congress which would then have 30 days to approve or reject the proposed action. In other words, the Congress has now hijacked the power of the Presidency to conduct foreign policy and taken upon itself to micromanage the US foreign policy.

That, my friends, is clearly a constitutional coup d’état and a gross violation of the principles of separation of powers which is at the very core of the US political system.

It also is a telling testimony to the utter depravity of the US Congress which took no such measures when Presidents bypass Congress and started wars without the needed congressional authority, but which is now overtly taking over the US foreign policy to prevent the risk of “peace breaking out” between Russia and the USA.

And Trump’s reaction?

He declared that he would sign the bill.

Yes, the main is willing to put his signature on the text which represents an illegal coup d’état against this own authority and against the Constitution which he swore to uphold.

With this in mind, the Russian reaction is quite simple and understandable: they have given up on Trump.

Not that they ever had much hope in him, but they always strongly felt that the election of Trump might maybe provide the world with a truly historical opportunity to change the disastrous dynamic initiated by the Neocons under Obama and maybe return the international relations to a semblance of sanity. Alas, this did not happen, Trump turned out to be an overcooked noodle whose only real achievement was to express his thoughts in 140 characters or less. But the one crucial, vital, thing which Trump absolutely needed to succeed in – mercilessly crushing the Neocons – he totally failed to achieve. Worse, his only reaction to their multi-dimensional attempts at overthrowing him were each time met with clumsy attempts at appeasing them.

For Russia is means that President Trump has now been replaced by “President Congress”.

Is he correct? Quite possibly. But remember, Donald Trump has a long history of making initial missteps and then correcting for them. It is far – FAR – too soon to count him down, let alone out.

Russia expels US diplomats

This is a warning to the Trump administration: do not permit NATO to extend an invitation to Georgia:

Speaking late on Sunday, the Russian president said that the time for retaliation has come: “we’ve been waiting for quite a long time that maybe something would change for the better, we had hopes that the situation would change. But it looks like, it’s not going to change in the near future… I decided that it is time for us to show that we will not leave anything unanswered.”

Putin added that “the personnel of the US diplomatic missions in Russia will be cut by 755 people and will now equal the number of the Russian diplomatic personnel in the United States, 455 people on each side” Putin said, adding that “because over a thousand employees, diplomats and technical personnel have been working and are still working in Russia, and 755 of them will have to cease their work in the Russian Federation. It’s considerable.”

Putin also told the Russian audience that “the American side has made a move which, it is important to note, hasn’t been provoked by anything, to worsen Russian-US relations. [It includes] unlawful restrictions, attempts to influence other states of the world, including our allies, who are interested in developing and keeping relations with Russia.”

Target USA

The mainland USA is now in range of a North Korean ICBM:

North Korea fired a missile on Friday that experts said was capable of striking Los Angeles and other U.S. cities and the United States and South Korea responded by staging a joint missile exercise, the South Korean news agency Yonhap said.

The Trump administration, which has branded North Korea the “most urgent and dangerous threat to peace,” condemned the launch as reckless.

“By threatening the world, these weapons and tests further isolate North Korea, weaken its economy, and deprive its people,” President Donald Trump said in a statement. “The United States will take all necessary steps to ensure the security of the American homeland and protect our allies in the region.”

The unusual late-night launch added to exasperation in Washington, Seoul and Tokyo over Pyongyang’s continuing development of nuclear weapons and intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs). Friday’s test prompted U.S. and South Korean military officials to discuss military response options…. The launch from North Korea’s northern Jangang province took place at 11:41 p.m. (1441 GMT), an official at South Korea’s Office of the Joint Chiefs of Staff said.

Japanese Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga said the missile flew for about 45 minutes before apparently landing in the waters of Japan’s exclusive economic zone.

Japanese broadcaster NHK, citing a military official, said the missile reached an altitude of more than 3,000 km (1,860 miles). The South Korean military said the missile was believed to be an ICBM-class, flying more than 1,000 km (620 miles) and reaching an altitude of 3,700 km (2,300 miles). In Washington, the Pentagon also said it had assessed that the missile was an ICBM.

U.S. officials said the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), the Pentagon spy agency, has determined that North Korea will be able to field a reliable nuclear-capable ICBM by next year, earlier than previously thought.

Jeffrey Lewis of the California-based Middlebury Institute of International Studies said the launch showed Los Angeles was within range of a North Korean missile, with Chicago, New York and Washington, just out of reach.

“They may not have demonstrated the full range. The computer models suggest it can hit all of those targets,” he said.

The U.S.-based Union of Concerned Scientists said its calculations showed the missile could have been capable of going as far into the United States as Denver and Chicago.

The potential cost of dealing with a nuclear North Korea is only going to go up from here. The question is, are Russia and China on board with a US attempt to remove the North Korean threat or is a nuclear North Korea simply something that the world will have to accept, as it has accepted a nuclear Pakistan, Israel, and Iran.

There are no good options here, only varying degress of slightly less bad. I don’t know if Trump will actually dare to grasp the nettle, but I think he’s much more likely to do so than Bush, Clinton, or Obama were.

Border battles in the EU

Diversity and vibrancy suddenly don’t appear to be strengthening trans-European ties anymore:

AUSTRIA has warned it will send soldiers to close the border with Italy in 24 hours if Rome decides to take the “nuclear option” and grant visas to almost 100,000 migrants stranded in the Mediterranean country.

Austria is threatening to close the Brennan mountain pass border with Italy. Desperate Italian officials have said they are considering allowing thousands of migrants out of the country and into the rest of Europe, as they struggle to cope with the 10,000 people arriving every day.

Austria, which shares a border with Italy via Brenner, an Alpine mountain pass, has reacted to the proposals with fury, saying it would immediately introduce border controls in the region.

Yesterday during a border visit, Austria’s Interior Minister Wolfgang Sobotka said: “Italy granting humanitarian visas to migrants is unacceptable. In that case, we would immediately introduce controls in Brenner.

Let’s see. Option 1: border war with Austria. Option 2: send the invaders back. This really doesn’t seem to be a very difficult decision.

This isn’t an entirely new development. Switzerland already has troops in position on the border just north of Como; they sent a tank battalion to the Como-Chiasso border last year. Which, one assumes, is why we didn’t see pictures of invaders swarming up through Switzerland towards Germany despite it being an obvious route.

Mailvox: “May he rot in Hell”

It is being widely reported that Sen. John McCain is terminal with brain cancer. One reader is entirely unsympathetic.

John McCain is dying from the same type of brain tumor that my father is – a Glioblastoma. There is an indirect but pertinent relationship between my father and the dear senator that extends beyond their shared terminal illness.

In early to mid elementary-school ages, I remember my father deploying numerous times to Bosnia/Herzegovania/Kosovo.  At the time, I didn’t understand why it was necessary.  I’m no genius and no one really explained it to me outside of the “America is for freedom” concept.  Almost 20 years later, with a skeptics intuition, I smell bullshit.

My father is a Physician’s Assistant which requires a master’s degree in medicine.  His only health issues in the past were kinetically related because he played soccer and basketball.  We also have no family history of any cancer at all.  He took care of himself; no smoking, regular exercise, good diet.

So it came as a shock to us when we learned he had a brain tumor that was likely to be his end.  When he met with the private oncologist who operates her private practice near a military base we were stunned by what she told us.  Over 70 percent of the patients she sees with Glioblastomas were or are military members who have had exposure to burn-pits.

What’s a burn-pit?  In a base of operations overseas there is no garbage service.  No one makes you differentiate your organic vs recyclable garbage.  You throw everything into a big pit that is set on fire.  This really isn’t a big deal as long as you’re not burning anything hazardous.  Plastic and paper and shit will make you cough, but it’s not likely to give you long-time health problems.  But what if you throw in depleted Uranium casings?

That’s right.  Our military uses depleted uranium ammunition because it’s effective at peircing armor and thick walls.  And what do they do with the remaining ordinance?  They throw it into a fucking fire right next to the camp.

What does John McCain have to do with this?  He’s an acolyte for the Prince of Lies.  Here’s an excerpt of a NYT Q&A w/ McCain concerning his initial disapporval of the Bosnian intervention and his ultimate betrayal of that “belief”:

Q. You, as much as anyone in Congress, know the high costs of war, and yet you and Senator Bob Dole, in a politically unpopular move, pushed for a Senate endorsement of the Bosnia mission. Why did you consider this important?


A. I had been a long-time skeptic, if not outright opponent, of our Bosnia policy. Senator Dole and I and others were strong proponents of lifting the arms embargo. But when the president made his commitment, committing not just Bill Clinton but the United States of America, the entire situation changed. There were significant negative costs associated with repudiating such a commitment — one, the credibility of the United States, two, the lasting viability of NATO, and three, the assurances of leaders of the participants in the war that the conflict would be reignited. I have no doubt that the Congress has the authority to cut off funding, but that was not going to happen. When you vote to cut off funding, with American troops already there, whether you intend to or not you send a message to those troops that you don’t support what they’re doing.

Apparently not funding a war that you supposedly disagree with is now treasonous because you can’t have the perception that the people you’re ordering to fight the war are doing something for an immoral pretense.

John McCain was just diagnosed with the same brain tumor my father was.  I firmly believe that had my father not been exposed to that radiation he would be happy and healthy.  He’s now teetering on a knife’s edge.

The God Emperor has released a statement that asks for thoughts and prayers for Johnny on the trigger.

I will not waste my prayers for John. May he rot in Hell.

Death comes for us all in time. I wonder if the senator has any regrets about his conduct during his time on Earth, or if he is hoping to hear “well done, thou good and faithful servant”, from the Father of Lies.

A dangerous game in Syria

Fortunately, the Russians aren’t biting as the US attempts to slow down the Syrian army’s destruction of ISIS and reclamation of its territory. The Saker explains the dynamic.

The dynamic in Syria is not fundamentally different from the dynamic in the Ukraine: the Neocons know that they have failed to achieve their primary objective: to control the entire country. They also know that their various related financial schemes have collapsed. Finally, they are fully aware that they owe this defeat to Russia and, especially, to Vladimir Putin. So they fell back on plan B. Plan B is almost as good as Plan A (full control) because Plan B has much wider consequences. Plan B is also very simple: trigger a major crisis with Russia but stay short from a full-scale war. Ideally, Plan B should revolve around a “firm” “reaction” to the Russian “aggression” and a “defense” of the US “allies” in the region. In practical terms this simply means: get the Russians to openly send forces into Novorussia or get the Russians to take military actions against the US or its allies in Syria. Once you get this you can easily see that the latest us attacks in Syria have a minor local purpose – to scare or slow down the Syrians- and a major global purpose – to bait the Russians into using forces against the US or an ally. It bears repeating here that what the Neocons really want is what I call a “tepid” war with Russia: an escalation of tensions to levels not even seen during the Cold War, but not a full-scale “hot” WWIII either. A tepid war would finally re-grant NATO at least some kind of purpose (to protect “our European friends and allies” from the “Russian threat”): the already terminally spineless EU politicians would all be brought into an even more advanced state of subservience, the military budgets would go even higher and Trump would be able to say that he made “America” “great” again. And, who knows, maybe the Russian people would *finally* rise against Putin, you never know! (They wouldn’t – but the Neocons have never been deterred from their goofy theories by such minor and altogether irrelevant things as facts or logic).

Does the Russian strategy work?

To reply to this, don’t look at what the Russians do or do not do in the immediate aftermath of a US provocation. Take a higher level look and just see what happens in the mid to long term. Just like in a game of chess, taking the Gambit is not always the correct strategy.

I submit that to evaluate whether Putin’s policies are effective or not, to see whether he has “sold out” or “caved in” you need to, for example, look at the situation in Syria (or the Ukraine, for that matter) as it was 2 years ago and then compare with what it is today. Or, alternatively, look at the situation as it is today and come back to re-visit it in 6 months.

One huge difference between the western culture and the way the Russians (or the Chinese for that matter) look at geostrategy is that westerners always look at everything in the short term and tactical level. This is basically the single main reason why both Napoleon and Hitler lost their wars against Russia: an almost exclusive focus on the short term and tactical. In contrast, the Russians are the undisputed masters of operational art (in a purely military sense) and, just like the Chinese, they tend to always keep their eyes on the long-term horizon. Just look at the Turkish downing of a Russian Su-24: everybody bemoaned the lack of “forceful” reaction from Moscow. And then, six months later – what do we have? Exactly.

The modern western culture is centered on various forms of instant gratification, and that is also true for geopolitics. If the other guy does something, western leaders always deliver a “firm” response. They like to “send messages” and they firmly believe that doing something, no matter how symbolic, is better than even the appearance of doing nothing. As for the appearance of doing nothing, it is universally interpreted as a sign of weakness. Russians don’t think that way. They don’t care about instant gratification, they care only about one thing: victory. And if that means to look weak, that is fine. From a Russian perspective, sending “messages” or taking symbolic actions (like all 4 of the recent US attacks in Syria) are not signs of strength, but signs of weakness. Generally, the Russians don’t like to use force which they consider inherently dangerous. But when they do, they never threaten or warn, they take immediate and pragmatic (non-symbolic) action which gets them closer to a specific goal.

It’s rather fascinating how the Russians, rather like George Washington, keep “losing” the direct engagements, but somehow end up in the superior position a month or two later. But that’s why strategy and operations matter more than tactical brilliance.

Anti-white hate crime

Trump supporter stabbed nine times in California:

The pro-Trump supporter Tony Forman was right in the middle of a recent protest in Cathay where emotions ran hot over the sanctuary city controversy, but nothing like the violence that’s left Foreman now fighting for his life.

“This was politically motivated. That’s a concern because he is a good friend of mine,” Omar Navarro said. “I’m just really shocked someone would do this. What happened to free speech?”

Navarro is running to unseat the long time Democrat Maxine Waters in the 43rd District of the U.S. Congress, and there are also accusations coming from others.

The stabbing attack on Foreman is a hate crime because of his outspoken support for President Trump and the conservative agenda. “We don’t know if it is politically motivated or racially motivated, but we do know there were some racial slurs for him being white that were said to him,” Tim Gionet, a friend of Foreman, said.

Santa Monica police did not mention a politically motivated crime, only confirming they arrested  two suspects.

As I have pointed out in recent darkstreams, it is time to take your own rhetoric seriously. This is a cultural cold war that is in the process of turning hot. Prepare accordingly. If you’re going to take part in protests and public events, be equipped and prepared for the possibility of violence and don’t operate under the mistaken impression that the police are going to somehow magically protect you.

Destroying mosques over there

While they build them over here. The Great Mosque of al-Nuri is no more.

The United States and Iraq said ISIS blew up a historic mosque in Mosul that was the ideological heart of the terror group and the birthplace of its self-declared caliphate. ISIS, through its news agency, said US warplanes were responsible for the loss late Wednesday of the Great Mosque of al-Nuri and its leaning minaret.

US officials told CNN the ISIS claim was “1,000% false.” Iraq Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi said the ISIS act amounts to “an official announcement of their defeat.” His military commanders said militants blew the mosque up after troops closed in.

I don’t really care who destroyed the Great Mosque of al-Nuri. What I would like to know is why the West’s military forces are destroying mosques over there, where they belong, and not over here, where they do not. And even from the Muslim perspective, is an ugly community center building in London or Toronto really much of a substitute for a historic 800-year-old structure?

The only real question is if “backwards” or “retarded” is the more appropriate term for the West’s current military response to the third great wave of Islamic expansion. And here is a question: if ISIS shows so little respect for the architectural history and traditions of Islamic culture, why do you think its enthusiasts will show any more for the architectural history and traditions of the West?