Armchair Generalist

Neocons Never Get Enough Blood

In an amazing show of bravado, a group of forty political analysts, including more than a dozen former officials of former President GW Bush, have posted a letter in the Foreign Policy Initiative website calling for President Obama to bring some "American exceptionalism" in the form of gunboat diplomacy to Libya. It really is amazingly idiotic drivel for such Very Serious People to voice.

Therefore, we recommend the United States, in conjunction with NATO allies, take the following specific actions immediately:
 
1) The United States should call upon NATO to develop operational plans to urgently:

• Establish a presence in Libyan airspace to prevent the continued use of fighter jets and helicopter gunships against civilians and carry out other missions as required.
• Move naval assets into Libyan waters to aid in evacuation efforts and prepare for possible contingencies. Establish the capability to disable Libyan naval vessels used to attack civilians.

2)     Freeze all Libyan government assets in the United States and Europe.

3)     Consider temporarily halting importation of Libyan oil to the United States and Europe.

4)     Make a clear statement that Col. Qaddafi and other officials who order and participate in massacres of civilians will be held accountable for their crimes under international law.

5)     Provide humanitarian aid to the Libyan people as quickly as possible.

Yes, because our military was so successful in combat operations against Iraq and Afghanistan, why not just add another Arab nation to the list of "people we really didn't like anyway, and oh yeah, damn the massive projected spike in oil prices, full speed ahead." You will not be surprised to see that the list of characters is very similar to the original PNAC crowd, the ones who thought in 1998 that overthrowing Iraq through US unilateral force was such a great idea. What jackasses.

In the interest of academic fairness, it would be good to know who the FPI signatories believe we should help in Libya. Should we just drop boxes of automatic rifles and ammunition on the beaches near Benghazi? There are no carriers in the Med, should we divert one or two and station it off the coast? Do we shoot down the defecting Libyan air force pilots as well as those straffing the cities? What if the Libyans see our actions as an attack against them and not just the regime? The rest of the world seems to be capable of getting their own citizens out of the country without the use of force. 

It is a good thing, however, for these villains to sign their names so freely. It's important to know who the people are who would so freely loose violence upon the world for the sake of their false ideology, spilling US blood and treasure without any thought of the potential fallout on civilization.

Worrying About Libya's WMDs

The Wall Street Journal was a little concerned that Qaddafi might be tempted into using his chemical weapons stockpile to beat back the rebel forces in Libya. He was scheduled to have eliminated his chemical weapons and precursors by the end of this year, but was dragging it out a little (probably more to milk international funds than any nefarious thoughts). So what's up with that?

Libya initially said the U.S. could convert a weapons facility outside Tripoli into a pharmaceutical factory, but then demanded an Italian firm do the work, extending the process. Libya also was reluctant to provide U.S. and British officials visas to monitor the process and cited environmental concerns for the slowed process.

Libya was to have destroyed all 23 metric tons of its mustard gas by the end of last year, according to the OPCW, but 9.5 metric tons remain. The Hague-based body said Libya was granted an extension until May to destroy the rest.

Libya also possesses more than half of the 1,300 metric tons of precursor chemicals used for developing chemical agents. The material is believed to be stored in jugs at the former Rabta chemical-weapons facility.

A spokesman for the OPCW said the utility of such chemical agents is lessened without the delivery systems. But officials in Washington said they remain concerned about the security of these materials. They wouldn't rule out the possibility Col. Gadhafi could seek to use them.

Well, according to the NTI country profile, Libya had produced mustard agent but only had nerve agent precursors (i.e., no actual nerve agent produced). They destroyed the munitions, so unless Qaddafi orders the army to load his ancient Scud rockets with mustard, he really doesn't have a capability. And Scuds, not really that accurate for use against bands of roving insurgents. As for bioweapons, he had intentions, but no developed stockpiles or weapons capability. So all is well, at least on that concern.

Arrogance of Global Ambitions

I was looking at this Danger Room post last week, talking about the challenges of intercepting the Somali pirates that are roaming all over the place.

[VADM Mark] Fox, who commands U.S. naval forces in the Middle East, attributed that expanded reach to a reduced monsoon season this year and increased pirate reliance on “mother ships,” larger vessels that serve as launch points for smaller ships in deeper water. But while the weather is hard to predict, using mother ships isn’t a new tactic for the Somali pirate fleet. The Indian navy sunk one in the Gulf of Aden back in 2008. Mideast-based U.S. Navy forces even captured one the following year.

And that exposes a basic weakness, as National Journal noted. Fox confessed, “with the vast distances that are involved here, you know, there’s a lot — there’s a lot of places where we are not.”

That’s a general concern. The more immediate lesson emerging from the Quest is that even when the U.S. Navy responds assertively to a hostage situation — getting into position quickly; using massive force but not being provocative; being diplomatic before getting violent — things can still turn ugly.

Now within the DOD WMD community, the two big concerns are "loose nukes" from some nation's stockpile that might pop up in a US city and "emerging infectious diseases" that might impact the United States. Of course, these aren't the only threats that DOD sees, so you find this statement in the QDR 2010 as a defined effort: "Maintaining awareness of the global environment to identify potential threats and emerging opportunities." That's not just in adversarial countries but friendly/neutral countries and the "global commons." And it's not like the intel community isn't trying to do this already.

So the proposals include throwing hundreds of millions of dollars into "global nuclear detection architectures" and a "global biosurveillance" network. Never mind that it's DHS's job to do the first and DHHS's job to do the latter. Neither federal agency are funded enough to do the job, so obviously DOD needs to do their jobs for them (no, this isn't "interagency cooperation" as much as it is "get outta my way, you're screwing it up"). My only question is, if the DOD can't focus on one very specific region of the world and identify the exact movements of Somali pirates who are threatening ships, how exactly is it going to succeed against "loose nukes" and "emerging infectious diseases?"

I don't see it. But that doesn't stop ambitious people from trying to get attention and funding to attempt such things, even if they aren't directly supporting DOD's primary warfighting mission. It's bad policy, be it in the Obama administration or the past one.

Military Information Operations Gone Awry?

With apologies to my comrades over at Crooks and Liars, I'm not ready to declare LTG Bill Caldwell as a villain in the latest Rolling Stone article by Michael Hasting. In short, LTC Michael Holmes, a guy who was in Afghanistan to do information operations, says he was told to use his skills against US congressional representatives visiting the command. 

Congressional delegations – known in military jargon as CODELs – are no strangers to spin. U.S. lawmakers routinely take trips to the frontlines in Iraq and Afghanistan, where they receive carefully orchestrated briefings and visit local markets before posing for souvenir photos in helmets and flak jackets. Informally, the trips are a way for generals to lobby congressmen and provide first-hand updates on the war. But what Caldwell was looking for was more than the usual background briefings on senators. According to Holmes, the general wanted the IO team to provide a "deeper analysis of pressure points we could use to leverage the delegation for more funds." The general’s chief of staff also asked Holmes how Caldwell could secretly manipulate the U.S. lawmakers without their knowledge. "How do we get these guys to give us more people?" he demanded. "What do I have to plant inside their heads?"

The short of this pretty simple. Military leaders have to put up with visiting congressional delegations all the time. To prepare for these guests, such as they are, the staffers are expected to have a short one-pager describing each visitor, identifying their background, committee assignments, positions on particular issues. These congressional visitors are not stupid. They know the deal. It's almost a formality, the dog and pony show that follows. Nancy Snow explains it well.

Why is my skin not crawling here? It's not a problem of a runaway general, as Rolling Stone chooses to call Lt. General William Caldwell. It's our problem. The way we do business today is one big influence bazaar. Corporate marketing, public relations, and spin are the smooth sugar coating for the bitter little pills of truth we must swallow.

We're in the longest war in U.S. history. It will be ten years in October. Remember all that public support for hunting the Taliban and Al Qaeda just weeks after 9/11? It's all gone, and yet the warriors are still there. Each man and woman serving in Afghanistan costs us $1 million to support annually. Afghanistan alone has cost about 134 American Revolutions. The wars in Afghanistan and Iraq have cost American taxpayers over $1 trillion and the theater brass are rallying for billions more. To paraphrase Gordon Gekko, the point is ladies and gentlemen that war, for lack of a better word, is business-as-usual. Since our founding, the United States has been engaged in war about 20 percent of the time or one in every five years.

If you're a member of Congress and don't have an established position on the two wars in the Middle East, then you're flagrantly stupid (and maybe there are those few, but I doubt it). You don't need a visit to Afghanistan to affirm ones' view of this war. The congress-members aren't going to change their mind on something like the lack of progress over a ten-year period and no end-date or sustainable strategy (if they haven't yet to date). They've already taken their positions. Now they - the politicians and the military leaders - just have to do their kabuki dance for the American public.

Caldwell and his staff didn't do anything wrong, and there's nothing there to castigate. People don't understand the differences between information operations, psychological warfare, public affairs, and propaganda. There is a difference, although the military's own leaders are confused about it sometimes. All Holmes did was protest his being told to do "duties other than assigned." It's not a court case.

UPDATE: Gulliver agrees, but says:

"But really, it can't be this way. Our military leaders can't be viceroys, and they can't have carte blanche to skirt law and regulation in order to get the job done. This should be a reminder that constant vigilance is required to keep the proper balance in civil-military relations, and for civilian senior leaders to stay informed and engaged as best they can to ensure that happens."

I will disagree here. Congress, the State Dept, and OSD have allowed the three- and four-stars in overseas command positions to become viceroys. It's a defacto situation, so they're doing the job that's been handed to them. Prof Walt notes, "of course it's spin." It's not helpful to note that the system's broke when no one's attempting to fix it.

Casual Fridays

Ah, the eighties. So innocent. So pre-Wars on Terror.

This UK article says Journey's going on tour - without Steve Perry - in June 2011, along with Styx and Foreigner. I'd like to see them if they tour the United States, but my punk-rocker wife would divorce me.

Famous Movie Quotes

But in fairness, they forgot some of the better quotes (see the comments at the youtube page).

Never Leaving Afghanistan

John Nagl and Nathaniel Fick, both of the Center for a New American Security, had an op-ed in last Sunday's NY Times. They're both former military officers, now big think-tank executives, and they decided to report on the Great Progress our armed forces are making in Afghanistan. Mind you, the Afghan government still sucks and the Afghan security forces are still ineffective, but our boys are aces!

One of us, Nathaniel, recently flew into Camp Leatherneck in a C-130 transport plane, which had to steer clear of fighter bombers stacked for tens of thousands of feet above the Sangin District of Helmand Province, in southwestern Afghanistan. Singly and in pairs, the jets swooped low to drop their bombs in support of Marine units advancing north through the Helmand River Valley.

Half of the violence in Afghanistan takes place in only 9 of its nearly 400 districts, with Sangin ranking among the very worst. Slowly but surely, even in Sangin, the Taliban are being driven from their sanctuaries as the coalition focuses on protecting the Afghan people in key population centers and hubs of economic activity, and along the roads that connect them. Once these areas are cleared, it will be possible to hold them with Afghan troops and a few American advisers — allowing the United States to thin its deployments over time.

A significant shift of high-tech intelligence resources from Iraq to Afghanistan, initiated by Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the former top commander, is also having benefits. The coalition led by the United States and NATO has been able to capture or kill far more Taliban leaders in nighttime raids than was possible in the past.

The United States certainly can’t kill its way to victory, as it learned in Vietnam and Iraq, but it can put enough pressure on many Taliban fighters to encourage them to switch their allegiance, depriving the enemy of support and giving the coalition more sources of useful intelligence.

Ahh... if you have jets dropping bombs on Taliban positions and had to surge US forces to 100,000 troops because NATO didn't want to grow its presence and Afghan forces aren't capable, you ARE in fact trying to kill your way to victory. I'm not going to dissect this op-ed, I'll refer you to Joshua Foust for that analysis, but I'll tell you what discouraged me about this pollyannish article. First, the two authors want us to be encouraged that after more than nine years of fierce combat in Afghanistan, we might - just might - be able to get down to 25,000 combat forces four years from now. If we're lucky and Karzai leaves office and a competent Afghan government takes his place.

Second, they use the opportunity to suggest that the counterinsurgency tactics are responsible for a shift in momentum that will allow the "Long War" to get shorter. There's been nothing new that I've seen that suggests anything other than bone-grinding attrition has been the overwhelming tactic here. As much as they cheer on the military operators, and I am sure that our military operators are skilled and efficient killers, the Taliban isn't giving up and the Afghan population isn't throwing its trust behind Karzai. It's a slog, an attrition-based battle with no end game. As TwS points out, "Tactical success shouldn’t be used as a predictor of strategic success."

But here's the bottom line. Let's assume Nagl and Fick are right, that everything clicks, that we're able to drop US combat presence in Afghanistan to 25,000 by 2014. So what? What exactly have we gained? What strategic interest has been achieved? So we cleared out one country of AQ (which, oh by the way, they left  years ago and operate out of Pakistan now - and Yemen and Somalia and other countries...). It's not as if Afghanistan is going to be a valued partner in the War on Terror. No, that country is going to patch its wounds and hope that it can achieve a living condition similar to Pakistan - if it tries real hard for about twenty years while sucking down billions of dollars in American financial aid. Great stuff.

But hey, I suppose Nagl and Fick are just supporting SecDef Gate's view on life, as misguided as that point of view is.

20 Years Ago - Ground War

"Stormin'" Norman Schwartzkopf tells a story...

Run Away, Run Away!

The Australian Tax Office in Penrith got a nasty letter with "white powder" the other day. They evacuated the building, all 700 people, and shut down the place for three hours. You know, just to be safe.

Reasoning the evacuation action, Ben Feszczuk, the Police Superintendent of Penrith, stated: “A drill was put into place that meant everyone from the immediate area needed to be evacuted. They actually ended up evacuating about 700 people from the premises. Henry St was blocked off ... a Hazmat team came and the offending material was contained for later examination”.

He added that many people who got the powder exposure were decontaminated and 58 others were given further review. No casualties have been reported so far.

No report on what the "white powder" was. I think someone in Australia is taking lessons from angry, disgruntled white guys over here.

Deep Thoughts

"There's a reason you separate military and the police. One fights the enemies of the state, the other serves and protects the people. When the military becomes both, then the enemies of the state tend to become the people."

- Commander Bill Adama

DHS's CBRN Defense Agenda

Within the DHS FY12 budget submission, we can identify the discrete parts that apply to our favorite topic, CBRN defense. DHS is asking for $56.9 billion, which is just 3% over last year's budget. Accordingly, you would not expect many new initiatives. And in fact, there is exactly one new item of interest.

• BioWatch Gen 1/2: $90 million is requested to continue operating the Gen 1/2 BioWatch detection network, a federally-managed, locally-operated, nationwide bio-surveillance system designed to detect the intentional release of aerosolized biological agents in more than 30 cities.
• BioWatch Gen-3: The FY 2012 Budget provides $25 million to continue Gen-3 development, which is expected to significantly reduce the time between a release of a biothreat agent and confirmation of that release by BioWatch technology. Operational Testing and Evaluation of Gen-3 technology will begin in one of four test cities in FY 2012 with full deployment expected in FY 2014.
• Securing the Cities: $27 million is requested for Securing the Cities to continue the build-out of the domestic portion of the Global Nuclear Detection Architecture, the multi-layered system of detection technologies, programs, and guidelines designed to enhance the Nation’s ability to detect and prevent a radiological or nuclear attack in our highest risk cities.
• Radiological/Nuclear Detection Systems: The FY 2012 Budget requests $57 million for the procurement and deployment of Radiation Portal Monitors and Human Portable Radiation Detection Systems, providing vital detection equipment to CBP and the U.S. Coast Guard to scan for radiological and nuclear threats.
• National Bio and Agro Defense Facility (NBAF): $150 million is requested to begin construction of the NBAF, which will serve as a new, state-of-the-art biosafety level 3 & 4 facility. Work performed at NBAF will lead to the development of vaccines and anti-virals and enhanced diagnostic capabilities for protecting our country from numerous foreign animal and emerging diseases.

The DHS Office of Health Affairs has a broad agenda and many issues, but its budget is largely tied up with BioWatch ($115M of its $161M budget). The big change is producing 30 Gen 3 systems to test, using $25M, and hoping that this system will allow for reduced time between warning and testing from 24-48 hours to 2-3 hours. However, there's no indication on when more than 30+ cities (of the hundreds of US cities) will receive biological detection capabilities - after 8 years of this program's existance (FAIL). Chemical detection gets a measly $2.4M, because no one has ever used chemicals in a terrorist attack.

"Securing The Cities" is a special grant to NYC to allow its managers to continue their dependence on federal funding for NYC counterterrorism initiatives, so the less said about that, the better (don't tell the Tea Parties, they might insist that this is actually a state responsibility - and they'd be right). DNDO continues to hand out radiological detectors that aren't sensitive enough for a threat that doesn't exist, so their R&D efforts are being decremented by $118M in FY12. The NBAF falls under the DHS S&T Directorate, adding $150M to what would have otherwise been a flat funding line. You might recall that this initiative will place a biological R&D facility in the middle of America's farmland (Kansas). Yes, surely nothing can go wrong with that scenario.

DHS has a lot of responsibilities other than addressing terrorist CBRN incidents, and I can respect that its budget addresses higher priorities. The level of rhetoric, however, heavily outbalances the actual capability. Add to that the DHHS medical countermeasures successes (few to none), and one can see why certain DOD officials feel compelled to take CBRN defense money that would normally go to the troops and apply it to "protecting the nation against emerging infectious diseases." It doesn't matter so much to them that it would make much more sense to focus on getting the right federal agencies to appropriately exercise their roles and missions.

Side note, I will be looking at DOD's CBRN defense efforts as soon as the OSD comptroller puts the FY12 procurement breakout on its website. Right now, there's only RDT&E justifications. Don't know what the hold-up is.

Michele Bachman's WMDs

Wow. So Rep. Michele Bachman (R-Minn) wants to broaden the term "WMD" to include the US tax code. I suppose it's not uncommon to see politicians misuse the term "WMD," but she really redefines the term "nutcase." Here she is, addressing the Tea Party faithfuls in South Carolina:

Bachmann blasted entitlement spending and urged reform in Social Security. “The problem is our health care welfare spending which is out of control,” she said. “The good news is we can solve this problem. It needs to be a market based approach.”

She offered up a somewhat non-traditional solution: “We need to simply tell people the facts, like Glenn Beck, with that chalkboard, that man can explain anything. I think if we give Glenn Beck the numbers, he can solve this.”

Bachmann also said there’s a business bubble because the U.S. has the “highest corporate income tax rate in the world.”

It is the tax code she blames for the “business bubble.” She said, “We need to get rid of the blood-sucking tax code. It’s got to go, just scrap the current tax code,” adding that it is “a weapon of mass destruction.”

Still waiting for the Republicans to offer serious, grown-up advice on running the government. Certainly it's not coming from this asshat. Palin/Bachman 2012!!

Power of Decision

From the National Security Archives:

"The Power of Decision" may be the first (and perhaps the only) U.S. government film depicting the Cold War nightmare of a U.S.-Soviet nuclear conflict.  The U.S. Air Force produced it during 1956-1957 at the request of the Strategic Air Command.  Unseen for years and made public for the first time by the National Security Archive, the film depicts the U.S. Air Force's implementation of war plan "Quick Strike" in response to a Soviet surprise attack against the United States and European and East Asian allies.  By the end of the film, after the Air Force launches a massive bomber-missile "double-punch," millions of Americans, Russians, Europeans, and Japanese are dead.

Shortened version: We win over the Soviets because the US Strategic Air Command kicks major ass (a la Gen "Buck" Turgidson). This was just the trailer. The longer film is at the link.

Educating the Media

The NY Times editorial staff is wringing its figurative hands over an assessment delivered three weeks ago by nongovernmental analysts that Pakistan may have doubled the size of its nuclear arsenal. How can the US government just sit there and not worry about this drastic condition?

Washington could threaten to suspend billions of dollars of American aid if Islamabad does not restrain its nuclear appetites. But that would hugely complicate efforts in Afghanistan and could destabilize Pakistan.

The truth is there is no easy way to stop the buildup, or that of India and China. Slowing and reversing that arms race is essential for regional and global security. Washington must look for points of leverage and make this one of its strategic priorities.

The ultimate nightmare, of course, is that the extremists will topple Pakistan’s government and get their hands on the nuclear weapons. We also don’t rest easy contemplating the weakness of Pakistan’s civilian leadership, the power of its army and the bitterness of the country’s rivalry with nuclear-armed India.

The army claims to need more nuclear weapons to deter India’s superior conventional arsenal. It seems incapable of understanding that the real threat comes from the Taliban and other extremists.

The op-ed goes on to suggest that Pakistan and India have to come to closure with their historic rivalry, that Washington needs to encourage this dialogue through arms control negotiations. It's one of those truly "ah, DUH" moments that makes you wonder why the NYT even put the words down. But here's the thing. Maybe Pakistan has the ability to divert its money into a nuclear weapons program because it gets billions of US aid to buy military weapons. Maybe Pakistan believes it may lose the nuclear arms race because the US government gave special preference to India's nuclear technology efforts, despite that country's failure to join the NPT.

Pakistan has an extremist problem, sure. But based on its actions, its government remains convinced that its bigger threat comes from India, and if the US government would just stop bothering it about the whole Taliban insurgent thing, it could probably handle that issue quite well (by going back to a policy of allowing the western provinces to rule themselves). But I am so damned tired of hearing the nonsensical plot that Taliban extremists are close to stealing a Pakistani nuclear weapon and giving it to al Qaeda so that group can blow up an American city.

Have no doubt, that's the serious discussion that one hears in the Beltway these days. The Obama administration's preoccupation with nuclear terrorism is almost as myopic and fantastical as the CheneyBush administration's preoccupation with changing the Middle East into democracies (or at least, pliable allies). But the NYT editorial staff is dead wrong here. The answer is glaringly obvious - addressing Pakistan's nuclear arsenal requires a regional strategy that pushes India to reducing its nuclear weapons stockpile and joining the NPT, while reducing US military aid to Pakistan and getting US combat forces out of Afghanistan. It's not just about Pakistan's nukes.

The Obama administration really does think there's a problem here. It's just that the Obama administration, being staffed with Clintonian liberal interventionalists, doesn't like the one approach to regional stability that could actually work. It requires working with the realistic goals of those countries, rather than the idealistic views of global dominance that the US government harbors. The problem is, throwing money at governments, deploying troops around the world, and trying to control information isn't really a successful strategy. But it does demonstrate "action."

GWB and Qaddafi

Remember back in 2003-2004 when the CheneyBush administration was welcoming Qaddafi back into the international community as a result of "giving up" his WMD program? And when I say "WMD program," I mean Libya's small collection of nuclear technology and hardware, not any real offensive capability. Good times...

And now the same regime shows that it never did get away from being a two-bit dictatorship that freely uses brutal methods to retain control. Just to say, I don't think neocons really care much about democracy or freedom as much as they do being able to shove around other nations' leaders like chess pieces (and leverage business opportunities).

My two cents, I hope that certain neocons can stop their ridiculous claims that they turned Libya away from a WMD program because of the threat of a preventive invasion, rather than persistent diplomacy that started in the Clinton administration. But I suppose people will continue to disagree on that point.

WMD Issue Was "The Big One"

From former SecDef Rumsfeld's appearance on CNN's "State of the Union" this past Sunday:

CROWLEY: Did you ever, when you found out there were no -- again, I asked -- I remember asking former President Bush about it, when you found out there were no weapons of mass destruction. He said, "I was sick to my stomach."

You know, would you -- did anyone say, "Get me the person who gave us this intelligence," because to me, sitting here listening to you...

RUMSFELD: Well, we know who it was.

CROWLEY: ... the fault of the war was the intelligence community.

RUMSFELD: Well, that's...

CROWLEY: The false premise of the war.

RUMSFELD: Well, first of all, there were a variety of reasons for the war, not simply WMD.

CROWLEY: Well, that was the one that you all pushed the hardest.

RUMSFELD: That's true, but if you looked at the resolution from the Congress, there were multiple reasons. If you looked at the U.N. resolution, there were multiple reasons. So it wasn't the sole reason.

CROWLEY: But it was a big one.

RUMSFELD: It was no question. No question it was the big one.

CROWLEY: I think probably people would argue to you that we wouldn't have gone in, had we said, no, they don't have weapons of mass destruction.

RUMSFELD: I think that's probably right. A great many people would have -- would not.

May he rot in the ninth circle of Hell. Hat tip to Crooks and Liars.

Ralph Peters Needs Help

I've talked in the past about how Ralph Peters, a former Army officer and prolific writer/ranter, has featured this dual personality. Every now and then he gets to do an op-ed in a normal newspaper (i.e., other than the NY Post or Wash Times) or respectable journal (like the Armed Forces Journal) and he seems sane. He makes sense. And then he wigs out and starts foaming at the mouth again.

He's done some truly graphic ranting at the Journal of International Security Affairs, which in all actuality, doesn't really seem to address international security affairs as much as topics addressing the continuation of Israel's regional dominance. In addition to his usual "War - it's what's good for America" chant, he goes on to describe why America is falling into ruins to explain why we're not winning in Afghanistan. There are six reasons (and I'm really not kidding here, he says this all): the American public has forgotten about 9/11, we ignore the potential Auschwitz incidents, the general public doesn't understand the military, the defense contractors and think tanks are selling a concept of "bloodless wars," we've allowed society to turn us all into pussies, and no one teaches the real history in schools.

Oh, and the media hates the military. Really, the same media that embedded with our troops in 2003-2005 and idiolized our military efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan.

While this brief essay cannot undertake to analyze the psychological dysfunctions that lead many among the most privileged Westerners to attack their own civilization and those who defend it, we can acknowledge the overwhelming evidence that, to most media practitioners, our troops are always guilty (even if proven innocent), while our barbaric enemies are innocent (even if proven guilty). The phenomenon of Western and world journalists championing the “rights” and causes of blood-drenched butchers who, given the opportunity, would torture and slaughter them, disproves the notion—were any additional proof required—that human beings are rational creatures. Indeed, the passionate belief of so much of the intelligentsia that our civilization is evil and only the savage is noble looks rather like an anemic version of the self-delusions of the terrorists themselves. And, of course, there is a penalty for the intellectual’s dismissal of religion: humans need to believe in something greater than themselves, even if they have a degree from Harvard. Rejecting the god of their fathers, the neo-pagans who dominate the media serve as lackeys at the terrorists’ bloody altar.

I really don't invite you to read this article, unless you want to see an unhinged mind at his best. Ralph Peters is a good, prolific writer. I don't question that. He has a certain argument and he knows how to make a case using the written word. But when you read this angry diatribe about how we really need to build up a military that is ready to destroy other nations because China, Russia, and Islam in general are coming at us, you have to seriously wonder about his sanity. I really wonder about the logic of people who claim that there is such a thing as "American exceptionalism" while simultaneously pointing out how our society is going down the toilet. It seems contradictory.

I also wonder about the sanity of any journal that would publish such an article, or the wisdom of Small Wars Journal to reprint it. This article truly doesn't deserve mention other than as an example of the extreme madness that infects aspects of our society.

Nuclear Mondays

It appears that the US intelligence community has decided that Iran is once again pursuing a nuclear weapons program. It's that kind of on-again, off-again, and on-again story that we've grown used to hearing. From the WaPo:

Overall, the National Intelligence Estimate concludes that Iran is conducting "early-stage R&D work on aspects of the manufacturing process for a nuclear weapon," said a U.S. official familiar with the report. At the same time, the estimate describes "serious debate within the Iranian regime . . . on how to proceed."

Anticipation surrounding the new estimate has been intense, not only because it addresses one of the central national security dilemmas confronting President Obama, but also because critics regarded the previous estimate as confusing, and blamed it for undermining then-President George W. Bush's efforts to ratchet up diplomatic pressure on Iran.

The report carries weight because it represents the consensus view of the entire U.S. intelligence community, rather than the assessments of a lone agency.

Unfortunately, what you're not going to get is the "so what" part of this assessment. The IC doesn't want to say when Iran will have a nuke, how many they might develop as actual deployable weapons, or whether Iran will threaten the use of those nuclear weapons in a manner other than as a strategic deterrent. You know, the practical things that decision-makers might like to know. 

So the assessment will just have to stand as a political football for the Republicans to use as fodder to demand more missile defense and nuclear weapons modernization projects, and for the Democrats to use for rhetorical "tough-guy" talk to show they are as bad-ass as the Repubs. What a wonderful thing.

Cult of EMP Crazies

Because the Republicans have nothing urgent ongoing in Congress, Rep. Trent Franks (R-AZ)  has decided to remind us how unhinged they can be, when they really try. He's proposing a bill that will create an EMP Caucus, among other things. From TIME magazine:

Amid the real wars, the real lagging economy, the real budget crunch and the real turmoil in the Middle East, it's great some lawmakers have time to go all Buck Rogers on us:

The threat of an electromagnetic pulse weapon represents the single greatest asymmetric capability that could fall into the hands of America's enemies. Should a nuclear weapon from a rogue state such as Iran be detonated in Earth's atmosphere at a sufficient height above the continental United States, the blast of electromagnetic energy could immediately cripple America's electric power grid. Currently, the vast majority of the United States' infrastructure is unsecured and exposed. According to some experts, just one properly placed EMP blast could disable so large a swath of American technology that between 70-90% of the United States' population could become unsustainable.

That's the warning sounded this week by Rep. Trent Franks, R-Ariz. So he's stepping up to the plate by establishing the Congressional EMP Caucus and introducing H.R. 668, the Secure High-voltage Infrastructure for Electricity from Lethal Damage -- SHIELD -- Act. With all the real problems facing our country these days, it's nice that some folks remain preoccupied with the more dubious challenges facing us.

I wonder if he truly understands the billions that would be required to harden the electronic infrastructure and deploy the Ronald Reagan national missile defense system against a threat that doesn't exist. It's just not in the budget. Once again, Republicans show that they are not serious about national security. Hat tip to Cheryl!

UPDATE: From George Smith, "There’s not much more to say except that you can never be too nuts or odious in the 2011 GOP."

Casual Fridays

Field soldiers seem to hate working in the Pentagon, for some reason. Actual experiences may differ from person to person.