Tag: war

WND column

Is Obama unfit for command?

There were no American helicopters shot down at the CIA annex in
Benghazi. But those who have seen the movie, “Blackhawk Down,” will
surely recall the scene where the two Delta snipers, Randy Shugart and
Gary Gordon, are desperately fighting off the Somali attackers, who are
attempting to capture the crew of the downed Black Hawk. Shugart and
Gordon, valiant men who were both posthumously awarded the congressional
Medal of Honor, killed 25 Somalis while defending the crew before being
killed by the enemy militia.

As the details of the large-scale attacks on the American diplomatic
compound and the CIA annex gradually leak out into the press, it appears
that two of the four fallen Americans, former Navy SEALs Tyrone Woods
and Glen Doherty, died fighting in a manner no less valorous than Sgt.
1st Class Shugart and Master Sgt. Gordon.

The drone war widens

Drones are already being flown into Israel.  How much longer before they are flown into the USA and Americans become targets?  I mean, of course, those Americans who aren’t already being targeted by their own government.

The Israeli air force shot down a drone after it crossed into southern Israel on Saturday, the military said, but it remained unclear where the aircraft had come from.  The drone was first spotted above the Mediterranean Sea in the area of the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip to the west of Israel, said military spokeswoman Avital Leibovich.
It was kept under
surveillance and followed by Israeli air force jets before it was shot
down above a forest in an unpopulated area near the border with the
occupied West Bank.  Leibovich said it
was shot down at about 10 a.m. (0700 GMT), after it traveled east some
35 miles across Israel’s southern Negev desert.

It should be illuminating indeed to hear federal officials angrily decrying the monstrosity and inhumanity of those flying lethal drones firing missiles at Americans inside the USA.

Navies in space

Foreign Policy interviews a naval analyst concerning what science fiction gets right and what it gets wrong about warfare, especially from the naval perspective upon which so much fictional space war is based.

FP: The United States is in the midst of a major
debate on what our defense policy, especially given shrinking budgets and the
rise of China as Pacific sea power.  Does
sci-fi offer lessons on how the United States can resolve this?

CW: Fiction does not replace policy analysis.  But science fiction is the literature of
“what if?”  Not just “what
if X happens?” but also “what if we continue what we’re doing?”  In that way, science fiction can inform
policy making directly, and it can inform those who build scenarios for
wargames and exercises and the like. One of the great strengths of science
fiction is that it allows you have a conversation about something that you
otherwise couldn’t talk about because it’s too politically charged. It allows
you to create the universe you need in order to have the conversation you want
to have. Battlestar Galactica spent a lot of time talking about the war in
Iraq. There were lots of things on that show about how you treat prisoners.
They never came out and said that directly. They didn’t have to. At the Naval
War College, one of the core courses on strategy and policy had a section on
the Peloponnesian War. It was added to the curriculum in the mid-1970s because
the Vietnam War was too close, so they couldn’t talk about it, except by going
back to 400 BC. 

I’m a big believer in the martial utility of wargaming, but as the article notes, most wargames and all science fiction tend to completely omit the more tedious elements of war, especially logistics and bureaucracy.  Unsurprisingly, wargames tend to do a better job of addressing strategic assumptions and strategic goals than other entertainment media, although even the wargaming implimentation are usually built into the game design rather than left up to the player.

You’d better sit down for this one

I’m certain we’re all just absolutely shocked by this revelation:

U.S. intelligence officials knew within 24 hours of the
assault on the U.S. Consulate in Libya that it was a terrorist attack
and suspected Al Qaeda-tied elements were involved, sources told Fox
News — though it took the administration a week to acknowledge it.  The
account sharply conflicts with claims on the Sunday after the attack by
U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice that the
administration believed the strike was a “spontaneous” event triggered
by protests in Egypt over an anti-Islam film.

 It’s always so hard to see innocence shattered.  So much for the feared rage of Jihad Boy.  Sure, we all knew that Obama and his handlers were liars, but the remarkable thing is how bad at it they are.  Mitt Romney, now, there is a politician who can tell perfectly credible lies without blinking, insofar as he can resist contradicting himself.

The need to restrict drone use

Those discussing the use of killer drones, both pro and con, at the New York Times somehow managed to completely fail to consider the two most problematic aspects of their use:

One point in favor of drone strikes is that they are weakening Al
Qaeda, the Taliban and affiliated groups, and hence protecting lives,
American and other.

Also, there don’t seem to be better means of doing
so.

Points against drone strikes are the cost in civilian lives, the
alienation of parts of the Islamic world, potential harm to the
authority of international law, and the possibility that drone use will
spread around the world, generating more conflict and harming long-term
U.S. interests.

These are all valid points, and I respect that reasonable people
could be convinced by either set. My own reasoning turns on four
arguments.

  1. First, states have a primary responsibility for the protection of
    their own citizens. If drone strikes are the best way to remove an
    all-too-real threat to American lives, then that is an especially
    weighty consideration.
  2. Second, I doubt that ending drone strikes would substantially reduce
    anti-Americanism in the Islamic world or put a dent in radical
    recruitment.
  3. Third, the U.S can do a lot to moderate some harms caused by its use
    of drones. By being clearer about what it’s doing and offering detailed
    legal justification, the U.S. could mitigate damage to international
    law and the threat of uncontrolled proliferation.
  4. Finally, there is evidence that drone strikes are less harmful to
    civilians than other means of reaching Al Qaeda and affiliates in
    remote, lawless regions (for example, large-scale military operations).

There are two serious problems with the use of drones overseas, both of which outweigh their potential benefits.  First, it has successfully established a precedent for using them domestically for routine law enforcement.  Second, and more problematic, the administration has foolishly granted a comprehensive justification for the use of drones by foreign forces against Americans on American soil.  When foreign militaries acquire access to drones, and they will, the US will find little sympathy from other nations when the equivalent of Hellfire missiles begin raining down on New York and California.

And the threat of disproportionate response won’t necessarily be a convincing deterrent, because clever attackers will be careful to disguise who is piloting the drone.  An Iranian drone might actually belong to China.  A Chinese drone might actually be utilized by American rebels… or by China making it look like American rebels.  The widespread use of drones is a very foolish move on the part of the U.S. Commander-in-Chief and can be safely expected to result in some serious blowback.

Iran vs Israel

One has to give credit where it is due.  For all of his observable anti-Americanism, Obama nevertheless appears to be doing a better job of giving priority to American interests on the foreign affairs front than George W. Bush, John McCain, or Mitt Romney:

As debkafile
reported after that Obama snub, the wrangling with Washington has
reduced Netanyahu’s options to start standing alone and making his own
decisions. Obama’s latest words underline this. The prime minister can no longer
avoid his most fateful decision and one that is critical to Israel’s
survival: to attack Iran and disrupt its nuclear program or live with an
anti-Semitic nuclear Iran dedicated to the destruction of the Jewish
state and a threat to world stability.

For two weeks, the Israeli prime minister has dodged and ducked around
the White House message. Instead, he has kept on bombarding Washington
with high-powered messengers. They all came back with the same tidings:
the US President is not only fed up with Israeli pressure but more
determined than evade any military engagement with Iran.

The hostilities between Iran and Israel certainly have the potential to be dangerous, but neither country are a direct national security interest of the United States.  Neither is a military ally and both countries could perish in a mutual nuclear conflagration and it wouldn’t effect the USA in the slightest.  If Israel decides to attack Iran, or if Iran decides to attack Israel, the only concern of the USA should be to prevent the war from going regional by keeping the Sunni Arab nations out of the conflict.  Given the fact that Israel has no serious allies and most of Iran’s neighbors are varying degrees of hostile towards both Israel and the Shi’ite Persians of Iran, there is little reason to believe that a war between them is likely to draw in a substantial number of third parties.

Nor should anyone take the hysterical posturing by American Jews about the potential for a second Holocaust if the USA does not intervene seriously.  Ehud Barak, the Israeli Minister of Defense, has estimated that a war with Iran would last one month and cost Israel around 500 dead.  In a worst case scenario.

Death of a gamer

One of the murdered diplomats was a respected EVE player:

On Tuesday, Sean Smith, a Foreign Service Information Management Officer assigned to the American consulate in Benghazi, Libya, typed a message to the director of his online gaming guild: ”Assuming we don’t die tonight. We saw one of our ‘police’ that guard the compound taking pictures.” The consulate was under siege, and within hours, a mob would attack, killing Smith along with three others, including the U.S. ambassador.

In his professional and personal life, Smith was a husband and father of two, an Air Force veteran, and a 10-year veteran of the Foreign Service who had served in Baghdad, Pretoria, Montreal and The Hague. But when gaming with EVE Online guild Goonswarm, he was a popular figure known as “Vile Rat,” and alternately as “Vilerat” while volunteering as a moderator at the internet community Something Awful. Smith’s death was confirmed on Wednesday morning by the State Department and reported widely in the news media. But the first people to report Smith’s death were his friends. Their reaction was shock and mourning.

“My people, I have greivous [sic] news. Vile Rat has been confirmed to be KIA in Benghazi; his family has been informed and the news is likely to break out on the wire services soon,” wrote Goonswarm director Alex Gianturco in a message mirrored to Something Awful at 11:21 EST. “Needless to say, we are in shock, have no words, and have nothing but sympathy for his family and children. I have known Vile Rat since 2006, he was one of the oldest of old-guard goons and one of the best and most effective diplomats this game has ever seen.”

According to his friends, Smith had emerged as a key leader for the community, and was known as a senior guild diplomat who helped engineer the destruction of Goonswarm’s chief rival, the Band of Brothers. He let his guildmates design his tattoo. On Wednesday, Gianturco posted an obituary for his friend of more than six years. “He was on jabber when it happened, that’s the most fucked up thing,” Gianturco wrote. “In Baghdad the same kind of thing happened – incoming sirens, he’d vanish, we’d freak out and he’d come back ok after a bit. This time he said ‘FUCK’ and ‘GUNFIRE’ and then disconnected and never returned.”

In addition to bringing this a little closer to home for everyone who has belonged to an online guild, Vile Rat’s death tends to belie the ridiulous “da masses wuz mad about da movie” narrative being pushed by the Obama administration in a feeble attempt to absolve itself of any responsibility for the deaths of the diplomats. The fact that their own guards was seen taking pictures of the compound before the attack tends to indicate that the attack was a planned and purposeful operation.

Free trade and war

Yet another pillar in the free trade theory appears to be on the verge of falling:

China declares economic war on Japan

China is trying to hurt Japan economically, to gain leverage in its campaign to take control of the Senkaku/Diaoyu islands. In the 2010 confrontations, China took revenge on Japan by terminating shipments of rare earth minerals, needed for manufacturing of many of Japan’s electronic products. In the current confrontation, the Beijing government is encouraging the Chinese people to demonstrate and protest against Japanese businesses in China. The government urged protesters not to use violence, but that part of the message is clearly not getting through. Protesters torched a Panasonic factory and Toyota dealership, looted and ransacked Japanese department stores and supermarkets in several cities. China’s National Tourism Administration ordered travel companies last week to cancel tours to Japan over the weeklong National Day holiday in early October. AP and Bloomberg

Chinese Communist Party urges punitive sanctions against Japan

The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is urging strong punitive sanctions against Japan, for its “well-orchestrated plan” to take control of the Senkaku/Diaoyu islands, according to the CCP’s official newspaper:

“The “nationalization” of the Diaoyu Islands by Japan after “purchasing” them from a “private owner” is ridiculous and cannot change the fact that they are Chinese territory. … China should take strong countermeasures, especially economic sanctions, to respond to Japan’s provocations. Military consideration, however, should be the last choice.

The United States has frequently used Article XXI Security Exceptions of the WTO (taken from the earlier General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade) to impose economic sanctions on other countries. The security exception clause says a country cannot be stopped from taking any action it considers necessary to protect its security interests. That means a country can impose sanctions on enterprises, financial institutions, organizations and even other countries’ central and local governments. Taking a cue from the US’ practice, China can use the security exception clause to reduce the export of some important materials to Japan.

China didn’t announce any sanctions against the Philippines in April, but it froze banana imports from that country in response to Manila’s aggressive attitude in the Huangyan Island dispute. Though the economic countermeasure forced the Philippines on the back foot, it also harmed the interests of some Chinese enterprises.

So it is important for China to devise a sanction plan against Japan that would cause minimum loss to Chinese enterprises.

The US’ capability to impose economic sanctions on other countries is based on its economic strength, huge share in global trade, financial institutions and global intelligence network. China, too, has the capability to impose sanctions on other countries now that it is the second largest economy, has the largest foreign reserves, and is the largest exporter and second largest importer.

An analysis of Sino-Japanese economic interdependence shows that Japan’s economy will suffer severely if China were to impose sanctions on it. China’s loss would be relatively less. … So it’s clear that China can deal a heavy blow to the Japanese economy without hurting itself too much by resorting to sanctions.

Apart from its reliance on China, Japan has been suffering from other economic ills. First, Japan’s massive government debt is increasing substantially. … Third, Japan’s fiscal deterioration is likely to continue. There are enough indications that Japan’s economic growth in 2013 will slow down or slip into another recession. The irreversible trend of long-term economic downturn, combined with Japan’s aging population, will eat into the country’s household savings, and the declining purchasing power of the Japanese will increase Japan’s fiscal debt. …

But instead of blindly boycotting Japanese goods, China should work out a comprehensive plan which should include imposition of sanctions and taking precautionary measures against any Japanese retaliation. China should also have several rounds of policies ready to undermine the Japanese economy at the least cost of Chinese enterprises.

Furthermore, in case Chinese enterprises suffer because of the sanctions, the Chinese government should be prepared to compensate them. And once China imposes sanctions on Japan, the government should ensure that all enterprises in the country, domestic and foreign, obey the rules.”

China and Japan have only been trading since diplomatic ties were normalized in 1972; China became Japan’s largest trading partner in 2004. A war between two of the world’s largest economies would permanently shatter the oft-heard argument that trade eliminates the possibility of war. It’s an argument that should always have been dubious, however, as England’s many wars against the various principalities in India and the USA’s Middle East wars have all followed the inception of large-scale trade with the region.

Once more, we see that free trade delivers precisely the opposite of what it promises. And, as Generational Dynamics adroitly points out, trade actually expands the range of warfare as well as providing an economic weapon that can be wielded against the trading partner. Even when trade is not a cause of the war, it provides a means of fighting it.

Lest anyone think I am setting up a strawman here, consider this article by a free trade advocate at the Mises Institute: “The Classical Liberals of the nineteenth century were certain that the end of the old Mercantilist system–with its government control of trade and commerce, its bounties (subsidies) and prohibitions on exports and imports–would open wide vistas for improving the material conditions of man through the internationalization of the system of division of labor. They also believed that the elimination of barriers to trade and the free intercourse among men would help to significantly reduce if not end the causes of war among nations.”

A classic gaffe

Mitt Romney commits a classic gaffe by inadvertently stating the obvious:

US Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney questioned the feasibility of the establishment of a Palestinian state in the West Bank, according to video footage published Tuesday by US magazine Mother Jones.

“I’m torn by two perspectives in this regard,” Romney said at a $50,000-per-plate fundraising dinner on May 17. “One is the one which I’ve had for some time, which is that the Palestinians have no interest whatsoever in establishing peace, and that the pathway to peace is almost unthinkable to accomplish.”

Considering that the Begin-Sadat accord was nearly 40 years ago and there is still no peace in sight, I think that’s a safe conclusion. Of course, why should the Palestinians be interested in peace until they get their land back? Israel has a right to the land by right of conquest, but that very right means that they will likely have to fight to hold it.

Manchuria redux

I think Japan will find it considerably harder to take China if there is a round two:

The Middle East has been a tinderbox for decades. But there’s a problem with our intervention in Afghanistan in particular, and that is the fact that both Pakistan and India, not far away, have nuclear weapons. India is reasonably stable but Pakistan is another matter entirely, and the last thing we need is for a conflict to spread into that country.

The worst of the unrest, however, isn’t there and isn’t being widely-reported. It’s in China.

China and Japan have had a long-running territorial dispute over some a handful of islands. Over the weekend what had been a simmering issue turned into a real problem with Chinese rising up and doing something extraordinary: They are demanding WAR with Japan.

These are not just people waving signs either. They are burning Japanese-linked stores and factories, from sushi places to car dealers. Automobile owners are being ejected from their vehicles on a forcible basis and their cars destroyed. And while I’m sure some official agitation is involved this appears to have caught a number of people by surprise, including officials from Japan and the United States.

It is really remarkable how clearly socionomics predicts these things. Not the specifics, but the generalities. I mean, who would have ever imagined that war between China and Japan could be a genuine possibility in the next ten years? The drums of war are beating and one can hear them nearly everywhere. We’ve all forgotten the Japanese occupation of the 1930s, but it is very clear that the Chinese haven’t.