Manufactured by Kalashnikov Concern is the Lancet UAV.
https://southfront.org/unmanned-aerial-and-ground-vehicles-combat-laser-and-future-aerospace-craft-russias-military-modernization/
Ruth Igielnik is a senior researcher at Pew Research Center.
Tuesday, December 31, 2019
Picture of what looks like a new Russian drone and possible loitering munition.
Manufactured by Kalashnikov Concern is the Lancet UAV.
https://southfront.org/unmanned-aerial-and-ground-vehicles-combat-laser-and-future-aerospace-craft-russias-military-modernization/
Tucker Carlson Tonight 12/30/2019
U.S. is Getting Sucked Back into More Endless Wars
U.S. Conducts Airstrikes in Iraq and Syria
https://youtu.be/5ymi9CnLjEs
Saturday, December 28, 2019
Lou Dobbs Tonight 12/27/2019
--New Supersonic Russian Weapon Becomes Operational.
--Russia, China and Iran hold Naval Drills in the Gulf of Oman.
--Trump Warns Syria, Russia and Iran Against Killing Innocent Civilians in Idlib.
https://youtu.be/SY_BGlqNxoI
Thursday, December 12, 2019
Tuesday, December 10, 2019
America’s Forgotten War on the Rio Grande
December 9, 2019
by Douglas Macgregor
Trump repeatedly tells enthusiastic crowds, “Great Nations don’t fight endless wars.” The president should consider adding, “Great Nations also don’t survive undefended borders.”
Early on the morning of March 9, 1916, Mexican rebel leader Francisco “Pancho” Villa led fifteen hundred Mexican Guerillas in an attack on Columbus, New Mexico. Before Villa’s men withdrew, they killed twenty-three Americans, including nine soldiers from the 13th Cavalry Regiment and burned the town.
President Woodrow Wilson reacted swiftly, sending Gen. John Pershing with fifteen hundred Army troops into Mexico and placing one hundred thousand Army National Guardsmen on the border. When the United States declared war on Germany in April 1918, the U.S. Army finally withdrew from Mexico.
In 1909, Churchill argued that “It would be very foolish to lose England in safeguarding Egypt. If we win the big battle in the decisive theater, we can put everything else straight afterwards. If we lose it, there will not be any afterwards.” For the American People, however, the decisive theater is in Mexico and Central America, not the Middle East, Northeast Asia, or Eastern Europe. And, if we lose the war on the Rio Grande, then there will be no afterward for the United States.
Criminal violence inside Mexico is out-of-control. Prior to this year, 2018 was considered the most violent year in Mexico’s history, with over 33,500 murders, the highest reported number since records began in 1997. However, 2019 is sure to be worse. Whereas roughly 67 percent of U.S. casualties in the last eighteen years in Iraq and Afghanistan resulted from improvised explosive devices or mines, more than 90 percent of Mexican citizens have died from small arms fire. By any standard, Mexico is at war.
Mexico’s Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) that ruled from 1911 until 1991 maintained the façade of law and order, but that façade has collapsed. The Mexican government is so inextricably intertwined with Mexico’s Drug Cartels it is difficult to discern where one begins and the other ends. Disentangling the cartels from Mexico’s corrupt government is like trying to understand Afghanistan without the Taliban. As a result, Washington’s hope of forging a meaningful partnership with Mexico to police the U.S.-Mexican border or suppress the Cartels is delusional.
Inside the United States, Mexican cartels employ a sophisticated distribution network that reaches millions of Americans with heroin, cocaine, methamphetamine, marijuana and fentanyl. The resulting loss of American life from illicit drugs has climbed to more than sixty thousand per annum. On top of these losses, Americans must add human trafficking, murders, kidnappings, carjackings, rapes and robberies that cannot be viewed in isolation from the disintegration of law and order in Mexico. In November of this year, eleven illegal aliens were arrested on twenty-seven counts of sexually assaulting children.
To these problems must be added the growing strength of Islamist Terrorist Organizations in Mexico. A captured Islamic State (ISIS) fighter recently recounted how the Islamic terror group is committed to exploiting the porous U.S.-Mexico border, including through contact ISIS-sympathizers already living in the United States. Given the undefended border, it was probably inevitable that Chinese intelligence agencies, like the KGB during World War II and the Cold War, would set up shop in Mexico.
Recent events have given President Donald Trump’s campaign promise to secure the chaotic U.S.-Mexican border new urgency. Short of a U.S. military invasion and pacification of Mexico itself—something neither Americans nor Mexicans want—the only way Americans can eliminate or mitigate the menace of drug-fueled violence, human trafficking and hostile foreign exploitation of Mexico’s chaos is to commit U.S. Army Ground Forces to the defense of America’s Southern Borders.
America’s eighteen-hundred-mile border offers Mexican criminal networks endless smuggling routes for illegal drugs, natural resources, arms and humans. Only the U.S. Army, the Coast Guard along with the support from the U.S. Air Force can secure America’s border with Mexico. The Army has a wealth of experience securing borders in Germany, Korea, Iraq and Afghanistan. It is now time to put that expertise to work on a national emergency that could easily metastasize into a proxy war with Mexico if drastic action is not taken as soon as possible.
To date, Trump’s desperate pleas for funds to secure the Southern Border have met with a mixture of scorn and disinterest—even willful negligence—from Congress. The U.S. military’s forty-two four-star generals and admirals have been universally silent about the escalating violence along the southern border. Instead, the top brass at the Pentagon and congressional leaders remain obsessed with sinking trillions into failed military commitments thousands of miles away to protect the citizens of other countries, not the American people. At the same time, investment in border defense against ever more massive waves of migrants and the unknown numbers of dangerous criminals and terrorists masquerading as asylum seekers or “undocumented workers” has been minuscule by comparison.
More to the point, America’s ruling class has profited handsomely from supporting these failed enterprises, so what does it care? Meanwhile, the American people are suffering the consequences; just ask the ranchers, the border patrolmen, police officers, public school officials, or the soaring homeless and unemployed workers massing in the streets of America’s major cities among others, victims all of America’s border war.
Trump repeatedly tells enthusiastic crowds, “Great Nations don’t fight endless wars.” The president should consider adding, “Great Nations also don’t survive undefended borders.” As Wilson’s responsive actions demonstrated, U.S. political and military leaders once understood this truth. Today, they don’t seem to care.
Col. Douglas Macgregor (retired) is a decorated combat veteran, a PhD and the author of five books. His latest book is Margin of Victory, Naval Institute Press, 2016.
Image: Reuters
https://nationalinterest.org/feature/america’s-forgotten-war-rio-grande-103332
Sunday, December 8, 2019
Tuesday, December 3, 2019
Saturday, November 16, 2019
Tucker Carlson Tonight 11/15/2019
Policy Differences Over Russia at the Center of the Impeachment Inquiry
Unelected Bureaucrats are Trying to Undo the Election
https://youtu.be/bog7ibdfUFM
Wednesday, November 6, 2019
Monday, October 28, 2019
Thursday, October 24, 2019
Monday, October 21, 2019
Saturday, October 19, 2019
Wednesday, October 16, 2019
The Joe Piscopo Show 10-16-19
9 AM Hour 10-16-19 Ronica Cleary, President of Cleary Strategies and a former White House Correspondent
https://omny.fm/shows/the-joe-piscopo-show/9-am-hour-10-16-19-ronica-cleary-president-of-clea
Tuesday, October 15, 2019
Lou Dobbs Tonight 10/14/19
White House Demands a Ceasefire from Turkey as New Sanctions are Imposed
https://youtu.be/rUfXFO1lNaI
Monday, October 14, 2019
The Joe Piscopo Show 10-11-19
The Joe Piscopo Show
9 AM Hour - 10-11-19 - Col Douglas Macgregor
https://omny.fm/shows/the-joe-piscopo-show/9-am-hour-10-11-19-patrick-wayne-the-son-of-actor
Sunday, October 13, 2019
Of Interest: Majorities of U.S. veterans, public say the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were not worth fighting
JULY 10, 2019
Majorities of U.S. veterans, public say the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were not worth fighting
BY RUTH IGIELNIK AND KIM PARKER
Nearly 18 years since the start of the war in Afghanistan and 16 years since the U.S. invasion of Iraq, majorities of U.S. military veterans say those wars were not worth fighting, according to a new Pew Research Center survey of veterans. A parallel survey of American adults finds that the public shares those sentiments.
Among veterans, 64% say the war in Iraq was not worth fighting considering the costs versus the benefits to the United States, while 33% say it was. The general public’s views are nearly identical: 62% of Americans overall say the Iraq War wasn’t worth it and 32% say it was. Similarly, majorities of both veterans (58%) and the public (59%) say the war in Afghanistan was not worth fighting. About four-in-ten or fewer say it was worth fighting.
Veterans who served in either Iraq or Afghanistan are no more supportive of those engagements than those who did not serve in these wars. And views do not differ based on rank or combat experience.
Views do differ significantly by party, however. Republican and Republican-leaning veterans are much more likely than veterans who identify with or lean toward the Democratic Party to say the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were worth fighting: 45% of Republican veterans vs. 15% of Democratic veterans say the war in Iraq was worth fighting, while 46% of Republican veterans and 26% of Democratic veterans say the same about Afghanistan. The party gaps are nearly identical among the public.
Views on U.S. military engagement in Syria are also more negative than positive. Among veterans, 42% say the campaign in Syria has been worth it, while 55% say it has not. The public has very similar views: 36% say U.S. efforts in Syria have been worthwhile, while 58% say they have not.
Among veterans, these views are consistent across era of service, rank and combat experience. Republican veterans are significantly more likely than Democrats to say the Syrian campaign has been worth it (54% vs. 25%).
Saturday, October 12, 2019
Wednesday, October 9, 2019
Upcoming Event
The American Conservative
Regime Change: How to Replace the Beltway Blob with the Foreign Policy Americans Want
As we near the end of President Trump’s first term, conservatism has been turned on its head. A national conversation has unleashed new approaches to everything from Washington politics and the economy, to government and American culture. Thankfully, this landscape has also created new opportunities for challenging the predominance of U.S interventionist foreign policies. The people have spoken. Americans clearly want change in our militaristic approach to the world.
Yet there is still one obstacle standing in the way of real success : A fully entrenched establishment devoted to American military primacy, global hegemony, and maintaining the status quo, at all costs. We call it ‘The Blob.’
Join us at TAC's 6th annual Foreign Policy Conference where we discuss how to defeat these vested interests whose broad tentacles are working directly in conflict with real American goals and values.
We have an exciting roster of speakers.
Event Information
Thu, November 7, 2019
8:30 AM – 3:00 PM EST
Location
Hart Senate Office Building
120 Constitution Avenue Northeast
Room 902
Washington, DC 20002
The registration is free.
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/regime-changehow-to-replace-the-beltway-blob-with-the-foreign-policy-americans-want-tickets-71423787471
Schedule for November 7th:
8:30-8:50am Breakfast/Coffee
Welcome remarks John Burtka
Overview of Conference, Jim Antle, Intro Andrew Bacevich
9-9:45 Q & A
Jim Antle and Andrew Bacevich
9:45-10:45 a.m.Realism versus Washington power: Why the Blob persists
Damon Linker
Michael Desch
Monica Toft
Andrew Bacevich
Moderator: Will Ruger
Short Break
11-12p.Throwing a monkey wrench into the military industrial complex
Heather Brandon Smith
Emma Ashford
Trevor Thrall
Moderator: Reid Smith
Peter Van Buren
12-12:15p LUNCH
12:15-1p Conservative media changing the foreign policy consensus
Matt Peterson
Will Chamberlain
Daniel McCarthy
Jim Antle: moderator
1-2 p.m. Think Tank Town: The swampy ecosystem supporting status quo
a) Ben Freeman
b) Stephen Wertheim
c) Chris Preble
d) moderator: Kelley Vlahos
e) Lydia Dennett
2-3p.m. How to End the Failed American Era in the Middle East
Moderator: Curt Mills
Mark Perry
Doug Macgregor
Daniel Larison
Closing remarks, John Burtka
Tuesday, October 8, 2019
Tucker Carlson Tonight 10/7/2019
Meltdown Over Trump's Syria Pullout
DC Establishment Furious Over Syria Pullout
https://youtu.be/QtHi9ir-eeU
Wednesday, October 2, 2019
Tucker Carlson Tonight 10/1/2019
The Ukraine Connection
Hunter Biden's Lucrative Deals in Ukraine & China
Ukrainian Energy Firm Paid $3 Million to a Bank Account Linked to Hunter's Business
https://youtu.be/o5JYNMFPkUs
Tuesday, September 17, 2019
The reckless analogy between China and Nazi Germany
By Edward Luce
September 16, 2019
I made the mistake last week of contradicting a China hawk on Twitter. He had compared China today to Nazi Germany “circa 1935”. My response — “China is not Nazi Germany: reckless analogy” — triggered an onslaught of Sinophobic invective. “Definitely worse. The Nazis didn’t have wholesale organ harvesting,” said one. “Count the bodies. The CCP is no better than the Nazis,” said another. “The only reckless thing is appeasement idiots like you downplaying what the CCP really is,” said another. Unless you are a fan of Twitter threads, which can go on indefinitely, it is a poor forum for engaging in intellectual persuasion. So here you go Swampians.
The rise of Sinophobia in the US and beyond is disturbing for three reasons. First, it has an element of self-fulfillingness. The point of diplomacy is to secure what you want via peaceful means. Even if we were suicidal enough to use force — and in the unlikely event that we won a war to occupy China, and considered the massive human toll to be worth it — the west has very little ability to make China adopt the kind of political system we would prefer. After 18 years and more than $1tn in spending, we can’t even secure a half-decent politics in Afghanistan — a country with less than two per cent of China’s population. The idea that we can coerce China into treating its own people better is quixotic. It is also counter-productive. The more we talk of China as the enemy, the more China will behave like one. That includes cracking down on internal dissent. China’s political change will come internally. The best we can do is incentivise China to reform and shine the light on China’s internal abuses. That includes the internment of 1m or more Uighurs and allegations of organ harvesting.
Second, though some Americans appear to think otherwise, not everything in history can be compared to Munich. But even that notorious summit is misunderstood. Britain was not ready for war in 1938. Chamberlain’s act of appeasement bought Britain time to step up armaments production in the ensuing year before war broke out. Nor is every country that we dislike a budding Nazi Germany. Indeed, it is hard to see that any are. There is nothing in China’s ideology to suggest it plans to conquer the rest of its continent and liquidate vast swaths of their populations. Hitler was bent on genocidal world conquest. That had been apparent since he wrote Mein Kampf more than a decade before 1935. Xi Jinping’s China is resolved on regaining its great power status and erasing its “century of humiliation” at the hands of the west. The more we talk about China in what sounds to them like neocolonial terms, the likelier China will be to respond aggressively. When Senator Tom Cotton, one of the Republican party’s leading hawks, calls China the new “evil empire” he doubtless gets wild approval among the Manicheans on Twitter. As the basis of a foreign policy, however, Cotton’s stance is foolishly self-defeating. Do we actually want to go to war with China? If not, do we have a half-intelligent plan of how to accommodate its rise?
I fear the answer to that is no. Which brings me to my third concern. The better analogy is between communist China and the Soviet Union. Hence talk of a “new cold war”. Both acted brutally towards their own people. Both possessed threatening military prowess. There are also differences. The USSR was bent on exporting world revolution. China is in the more traditional business of cultivating non-ideological client states. Most importantly, the USSR’s economy was almost entirely detached from the west. China’s is intimately entangled. For a few years, we believed we could convert China to liberal democracy by deepening our economic engagement. The idea that membership of the WTO leads to democracy proved to be a naive expectation. Now we’re threatening to go into full reverse — to enforce so-called economic “decoupling” with China. In other words, we’re swapping one failed grand bet for another. This is the psychology of a person suffering from bipolar disorder. It’s as if we’re no longer capable of strategic thinking.
I do not know the perfect strategy to contain China and shape it in a benign direction. I do know that a war between China and America would be a cure a hundred times worse than the disease. I also know that a full economic divorce would sharply raise the prospect of an eventual war. It may be true than any product from China — down to the rinkiest children’s toys — are infected with Chinese backdoor technology that will lie dormant until the day China wishes to take over the west. It could also be true that we have watched too many dystopian cyborg movies. The US needs to conduct a mature debate about how to continue to engage China without compromising its national security. That would involve America rejoining the TPP, treating China’s neighbours like valued allies, calling out what China is doing in Xingjiang and elsewhere, and understanding that intelligent diplomacy is based on knowledge. Throwing out words like Munich and appeasement is invariably a sign of ignorance.
Thursday, September 12, 2019
Rethinking US national security priorities with Doug Macgregor
September 5, 2019
In this episode of Coffee Break with Paolo, GPI Podcast, GPI President Paolo von Schirach talks with Doug Macgregor, retired US Army Colonel, PhD and author of five books. The discussion focuses on the misguided security priorities that are at the foundation of prolonged and wasteful military engagements, such as the occupation of Afghanistan and the war in Iraq.
http://globalpolicyinstitute.libsyn.com/bay-atlantic-university-presents-coffee-break-with-paolo-rethinking-us-national-security-priorities
Wednesday, September 11, 2019
Tuesday, September 10, 2019
Macgregor to Trump: Overrule your detractors and get out of Afghanistan now
Sep. 10, 2019 - 3:58 - Nothing in Afghanistan is worth the life of a single American soldier, retired Army Col. Douglas Macgregor says.
Link to YouTube video
https://youtu.be/JAsgl3g3bTc
Link to YouTube video
https://youtu.be/JAsgl3g3bTc
Saturday, August 31, 2019
Thursday, August 29, 2019
Of Interest: The Daily Caller
Of Interest: Check out the following website, The Daily Caller, that features breaking news, opinion and entertainment 24 hours a day. The link below will take you to the listing of articles on Females in Ranger School.
https://dailycaller.com/buzz/ranger-school
Tuesday, August 27, 2019
Even Some of Israel’s Greatest Supporters Don’t Get the Middle East Conflict
The president should be wary of a one-sided peace deal.
Macgregor states:
"There is no attainable compromise between Israelis and Palestinians in the Near East. A Muslim Leader in the Near East who is powerful enough to lead the charge for peace and to survive the religious and political fallout of making a lasting peace with Israel does not currently exist. Sadat died for it, Mubarrak spent much of his time in power atoning for it in mosques, and Jordan’s Hashemite Rulers survived thanks to massive Israeli, US and UK support. Today, the Hashemite grip on power in Jordan is extremely fragile.
A “Palestinian” leader can “discuss” or “negotiate” peace, and even sign agreements because no Muslim is bound under the Qur’an and sharia to keep agreements with non-Muslims that are not beneficial to Muslims. At the same time, no “Palestinian” leader can deliver on a promise of peace as long as there is a Jewish state in the once Muslim-dominated Near East to attack.
Thus, “Mideast peace” is a dangerous mirage; an illusion made to seem real by the exhaustion and thirst of those hunting for it. Muslim Arabs and Turks remain willing and able to continue sacrificing generations of Sunni Muslim lives to achieve eventual victory and drive the last vestiges of non-Muslim power out of the region. They have largely expelled Christians from across the region, and reduced the once substantial [though dhimmified] Christian minorities of Egypt, Syria, and Iraq to brittle remnants of what they were just a generation ago."
https://freebeacon.com/blog/even-some-of-israels-greatest-supporters-dont-get-the-middle-east-conflict/
David Isaac - AUGUST 26, 2019 10:45 AM
Never has a U.S. administration been so favorable to Israel. And Israeli Jews are full of gratitude—anything good earns a Trump comparison: "It’s No. 1, like Trump," an Israeli grocer told me the other day, pointing to an especially well-regarded mango.
Yet the Trump administration, like those before it, either doesn’t grasp, or won’t face, the truth about the Arab-Israeli conflict. Today, perhaps, the individual most voluble in telling the truth about the conflict is Prof. Mordechai Kedar, a lecturer on Arabic and Middle East studies at Bar-Ilan University.
His message is straightforward: Islam cannot accept a Jewish state in the Middle East, "not even a tiny one on the Tel Aviv coast." It’s a theological threat. Jews and Christians do have a protected status under Muslim rule "by becoming subservient to Islam in what is known as dhimmi status, which means they are legally deprived of many rights including the right to own land and bear arms," he writes.
Although this has been said many times, many ways, over the years, it fails to find an ear in America’s halls of power, partly because it’s foreign to modern Western ideas, partly because of well-oiled Arab propaganda and partly because it’s resisted by the conflict resolution industry (intractable religious problems leave it no part to play). And, partly, because Israel can’t face it either.
The iconoclastic Trump administration held out the greatest hope of seeing the conflict for what it was. Instead, only a few days after his election, Trump called Mideast peace the "ultimate deal" in a Wall Street Journal interview. (Apparently, Trump never said "deal of the century." That came later, a likely mistranslation of comments made by Egyptian president Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi during a meeting with Trump.)
The president put his son-in-law Jared Kushner in charge of the Mideast peace team, which began working in earnest in November 2017. The economic part of the deal, unveiled in Bahrain in June, shows that Trump is serious. The plan is highly detailed—two pamphlets of 40 and 96 pages each—offering a $50 billion investment fund for 179 business and infrastructure projects.
Kushner later held a conference call with Arab media, in which he said, "I have a lot of respect for President Abbas, he’s devoted his life to making peace, he’s suffered some setbacks along the way. I believe in his heart he wants to make peace, and that we can give him an opportunity to try to achieve that."
To say that the Palestinian Authority’s Mahmoud Abbas has been working for peace is a stunning upending of reality. It was only two months earlier, in April, that Abbas admitted the Palestinian Authority was behind all the terrorism coming out of its midst.
"Israel needs to understand this. It is impossible to send a soldier to war and then not take care of his family. We are talking about someone who acts on our behalf and receives orders from us," Abbas said, explaining why the PA must pay terrorists and their families.
These are terrorists who stab civilians and run teenagers down with cars. The terrorists who threw an explosive, killing a 17-year-old Jewish girl on Friday and badly injuring her father and brother, will be well remunerated. When faced with Israel’s withholding of a portion of its taxes as a result of its terror payments, the PA reacted by increasing such payments in the first five months of 2019. At the same time, it cut payments to civil servants. The PA had to cut somewhere, but funding terror comes first.
Yet, we are to believe that Abbas is a man who’s "devoted his life to making peace."
Magnifying the problem is Trump’s apparent faith in his own personal diplomacy. It manifests itself in his dealings with North Korea’s Kim Jong-un. Trump probably hoped to work his charms on Putin, as well, and he’s certainly trying with Abbas, of whom, according to Kushner, he is "very fond."
As Clifford May wrote in the Washington Times in March, "The comforting notion that skilled diplomats bearing gifts and not baring their teeth can seduce and reform those who threaten us may be the most important thing we know that simply isn’t so."
The Trump administration has even less excuse than prior administrations for its Mideast peace pursuits as it has the benefit of their experience. Peace efforts by Presidents Clinton, Bush I and II, and Obama all ended in failure. The Trump team can also look on the fate of several generous Israeli offers, which ended in disaster, including under Prime Ministers Ehud Barak (92 percent of West Bank) and Ehud Olmert (93 percent of West Bank).
The Trump administration argues that the United States should at least try to make peace. "We'll see what happens," Trump said of the process. "We're doing our best to help the Middle East."
The trouble is that in this case helping hurts. The deal’s political aspects haven’t been revealed, but Israel is rightly nervous. With the plan expected to be dropped shortly after Israel’s elections, the Netanyahu government released its "red lines" last week—no more uprooted settlements and an undivided Jerusalem among them.
In July, Israeli media reported that the Trump plan calls for a land corridor linking the Gaza Strip with the Palestinian Authority. It would be better called a terror corridor. Israel’s internal security services revealed recently that Hamas, more or less confined to the Gaza Strip, is pushing to create terror cells in the West Bank. An unrestricted land corridor, effectively cutting Israel in two, would make the job that much easier.
If Israel is nervous, Jordan is even more so. King Abdullah fears that the peace deal will make changes to Jordan’s status on the Temple Mount. Its control of the Muslim holy sites there is what gives the kingdom its religious legitimacy. Abdullah also fears the deal will propose some sort of confederation between the kingdom and the West Bank, which would undermine Hashemite rule and turn Jordan into a "de facto" Palestinian state.
In fact, when it comes to the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians, the only thing worse than trying for an agreement is succeeding in making one. The Oslo Accords were a catastrophe for Israel. Land was handed over to a terrorist entity that proceeded to kill nearly 2,000 Jews in attacks the likes of which Israel had never seen. The Oslo process eventually led to Israel’s withdrawal from the Gaza Strip, which has exposed the country’s south to incessant rocket attack and the torching of thousands of acres of fields. With one such "peace agreement," can Israel survive two?
Trump could end this madness with a tweet. He isn’t overly invested.
Confronted with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s remarks that a deal may be "unexecutable," Trump responded quite simply that he "may be right." Just last week, on August 18, Trump said, "It is tough to make a deal when there is that much hate."
Such comments could swiftly lead to the exits. "Hey folks, we got it wrong. One side isn’t interested in peace." It would mean an end to the painful tradition of one administration after another jousting at the same peace windmills.
Lies can sow enormous suffering. But they’re also like balloons. Sometimes it just takes a pinprick.
Thursday, August 22, 2019
Tuesday, August 20, 2019
A Peace Plan for Washington
Join RPI August 24th in Washington! Tickets here.
Breaking Washington's Addiction to War
by The Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity
War and Threats of War: How to Detox Washington
You know you're in trouble when even the stated opponents of Washington's imperial foreign policy cannot put together an intellectually satisfying, philosophically coherent argument against the warfare state. Too often ostensible opponents of Washington's impossibly aggressive foreign policy believe they are being "reasonable" by couching their criticisms in banal technicalities or obscuring them in a cost/benefit argument that ignores what should be the threshold for initiating foreign policy action: "Why act?"
A recent piece of analysis from a not necessarily unfriendly Beltway organization argued that we should end the war in Afghanistan because, "the United States can’t win against the Taliban at a remotely acceptable cost." Again, this is not a terrible paper from our perspective, but, turning the argument around, on what planet is an aggressive war fought against those who have not attacked us justified if it has an "acceptable cost"? If we only could kill more with less, it would be OK?
The Taliban should be decimated because they have "weird" religious views and allowed al-Qaeda to train for 9/11 on their soil? The same could be said for Florida.
At this point Afghanistan is just a testing ground for US mega-weapons and a jobs program for well-connected weapons manufacturers. That's why up to late last year, the sine qua non of a peace agreement with the Taliban was that a US force must remain behind. To fight al-Qaeda and ISIS. That the Taliban was already fighting. It's like our idiotic illegal outpost on Syrian soil: we must remain in Syria to fight al-Qaeda and ISIS...but when the Syrian government actually attacks the last al-Qaeda stronghold in Syria, the State Department demands they stop fighting al-Qaeda. And Americans can't understand why the rest of the world is scratching its collective head at the schizophrenic irrationality of US foreign policy.
No, here's our view: A lower cost would not justify the US war on Afghanistan. If we could get Saudi Arabia and Israel to write the check, an attack on Iran would still be an abomination. And here's the bitter pill: Even if Congress authorized a US war on Iran, China, Venezuela, fill-in-the-blank, it would still be an illegal and immoral war unless they attacked the US. If we don't want the rest of the world with its boot on the neck of our sovereignty, we must accept the sovereignty of others. Even if they choose leaders Washington does not like or endorse economic systems we believe are goofy.
It's all common sense, but the mainstream media propaganda has Americans believing they are Popeye and there is a never-ending supply of spinach. We can "free the oppressed people" worldwide with enough sanctions, State Department regime change training, and a few bombs if needed.
It does not work. Even if "this time it's different," as we are hearing about the US-sponsored cook-up in Hong Kong. Lucy, hold that football.
This is the last RPI update before our Washington conference on Saturday. If you have not gotten your tickets I would urge you to do so immediately. We have less than two tables left before the venue will force us to stop selling seats. We have a great program of people you need to hear from and perspectives you will rarely hear.
I was sitting here starting this letter to you when my phone rang and it was Rep. John Duncan on the line, really excited about his scheduled speech at the conference on being an antiwar conservative. How often do you hear about that on Fox or MSNBC? But we all need to hear it, to take this message and churn it into our broader movement. We will win because we have the best ideas, and as Dr. Paul always says we do not need 50% plus one. We just need to understand the freedom philosophy and transmit it to the millions of receptive Americans, just waiting to hear something - finally - that makes sense!
Join us!
Get your tickets TODAY! This is an event like none other inside the Beltway. We are coming not to compromise or to make a deal. We are coming to Washington to demand a change in US foreign policy! Reserve your place at this critically important gathering of forces opposed to the neocon plan for endless war and destruction!
Breaking Washington's Addiction to War
August 24th, 2019
Dulles Airport Marriott, Dulles, VA
Program: RPI Washington Conference
8:30: Registration, store opens, coffee and tea
9:30 – 9:50: Daniel McAdams Welcome and Introduction, “Real Anti-Interventionism.”
10:00 – 10:20: Rep. John Duncan, “An Antiwar Conservative.”
10:30 – 11:00: David Stockman, “NATO’s Destructive Tentacles.”
11:00 – 11:20: Coffee break
11:20 – 11:40: Nathan Goodman, "The Economic Costs of US Empire."
11:45 – 12:05: Rick Sanchez, “US Media in Crisis.”
12:10 – 12:30: Larry Johnson, “Understanding the Intel and Law Enforcement Plot to Destroy the Trump Presidency.”
12:30 – 1:30: Lunch
1:40 – 2:00: Doug Macgregor, “National Security Without Constant Conflict.”
2:05 – 2:25: Lew Rockwell, “Rothbard and War.”
2:30: Ron Paul
***PLEASE NOTE***
The Dulles Airport Marriott hotel is booked solid for Friday night, August 23rd. Our overflow hotel is:
COURTYARD DULLES TOWN CENTER
45500 Majestic Drive
Sterling, VA 20166
To receive the discounted rate, attendees must request the Ron Paul Institute Conference room block at the Courtyard Dulles Town Center. Guests may also reserve online using the link provided below:
Book your group rate for Ron Paul Institute Conference
Guests may now begin to make their reservations, by calling central reservations at 800-369-3902.
Thursday, August 15, 2019
Can swarming drones map battles in real time?
FACTS
1) Quadcopters generally only have a range of up to 300 meters from the operator well within small arms range.
2) Quadcopters with longer ranges of between 2 km to 7 km must emit a considerable EM signal. Thus with decent EW detection can easily find the operator.
3) Their endurance is typically between 8-10 minutes.
4) The longer range quadcopters can have up to 25 minutes endurance.
5) Any payload will cut into the range and endurance. This is why deliveries via drone simply doesn’t make economic sense.
6) A swarm of these demand computer control and significance EM emissions that would make it easily detectable allowing for easy destruction within the 7 km max range.
7) Quadcopters are all easily jammed. The Russians with their brute force approach to EW can drop entire swarms from the sky.
https://www.c4isrnet.com/unmanned/2019/08/14/autonomous-robots-could-map-battles-in-real-time/
Can swarming drones map battles in real time?
By: Kelsey D. Atherton
With air and ground robots, DARPA tested autonomous systems built to scout and map an urban environment. (Kelsey D. Atherton / YouTube Screenshot)
Against the gray sky, the black robots hum. The swarm moves without words, mapping the neighborhood below, a flurry of buzzing and plotting, sharp angles and short orbits, creating in real time a blanket of surveillance over the selected objective. Part of DARPA’s OFFSET (OFFensive Swarm-Enabled Tactics) program, the quadcopters are pieces in a greater whole, an incremental step to providing an expansive robot’s-eye view to humans fighting on the ground.
The neighborhood in question for this exercise was an urban warfare training complex at Fort Benning, Georgia, in June 2019. Flying through and over the “Selby Combined Arms Collective Training Facility,” the quadcopters worked with ground robots to identify locations of interest and then create a perimeter around that objective, in a process DARPA likens to “the way a firefighting crew establishes a boundary around a burning building.”
Firefighting looms large in the modern conception of swarm tasks. In January 2019, the Air Force Research Laboratory, together with the UK’s Defence Science and Technology Laboratory, launched a project for drone swarms to model wildfires, with lessons applicable to military and battlefield uses. Finding danger and plotting a path for humans through it is an ideal task for robots.
In DARPA’s OFFSET exercise, the swarm had to find a mock city hall, an objective inside that building, and then provide situational awareness over the area in runs that lasted 30 minutes. Using commercial off-the-shelf machines and custom software, the program wants to create in real life as close to the kind of real-time tactical information a person might find in a strategy video game.
OFFSET is scheduled to have new exercises and new updates roughly every six months for the next two years, with the June sprint the second in the series. The end goal is for swarms of up to 250 drones to operate autonomously, providing real-time information to humans who can then move through the battlefield confident that the area has at least been robotically scouted and monitored.
As the Pentagon’s blue-sky projects wing, DARPA is focused on advancing the technology to the point where it can be picked up and refined by other labs or industry. Building tactics from the new capabilities, and machines specific to swarm-human teaming, will have to come later. It’s worth looking at the swarms as a possible component of future battlefields, and when designing technologies to meet the needs of the now, keeping an open mind to how swarms might change or hinder those same functions.
Watch below:
Sunday, August 11, 2019
Turkey to annex northern Syria with US blessing
The Turks, or at least Erdogan and the AKP and probably the MHP nationalists and populists who are the vital junior partners in the ruling gov’t, strongly support a conflict in northern Syria.
Ankara wants to take over and “finish the job” that the Turks believe the US and reactionary regimes like Jordan and KSA screwed up—destroying the “Shi’a Crescent.” Turkish action involves crushing the Syrian Arab Army, putting the alQaeda wing of SDF in charge of Damascus, and wiping out the Kurds… and then, eventually, repeating a similar process in Iraq.
These actions will also enable the Turks and Qataris to mount a serious challenge to Iranian dominance in the Persian Gulf. Ankara has Qatari money and connections behind them, and the Turks think they can count on the US/NATO to protect them if things go badly because the Russians and/or Iranians oppose them. However, Ankara will get no support from NATO and Washington would be foolish to back Turkish aspirations.
The Israelis will welcome this development as a guarantee that Iran will be isolated from Its ally in Lebanon. In addition, Turkish intervention promises an enduring struggle for control of Mesopotamia between Sunni Islamist Turkey and Shiite Iran. The outcome suits Tel Aviv. Of course, Tel Aviv puts its own security at risk with alQaeda friendly forces in Damascus and Turkish Forces Near it’s Northern Border, but that appears to be their plan.
Clearly, we should withdraw from Syria ASAP and disengage from Iraq as well. Keeping US troops in the region risks involvement in a regional conflict that we don’t need to fight. This will also further weaken, if not, destroy what’s left of NATO. Christians in the region will be driven out or killed.
https://www.asiatimes.com/2019/08/article/for-paul-turkey-to-annex-northern-syria-with-us-blessing/
Turkey to annex northern Syria with US blessing
Ankara outmaneuvers Washington, weeks after crisis in relations over purchase of Russian S-400 missile system
Kurdish fighters attend the funeral of a Syrian Democratic Forces fighter in the town of Tal Tamr in Syria's northeastern Hasakeh province on December 21. Observers say the planned withdrawal of American forces from Syria will put Kurdish fighters in Turkey's crosshairs. Photo: AFP
The United States military, desperate to avoid an open confrontation between its NATO ally and Kurdish clients, has capitulated in a game of chicken with Ankara, agreeing to an occupation zone across northern Syria.
The announced agreement comes just weeks after US lawmakers threatened Turkey with sanctions over its purchase of the Russian S-400 missile defense system. By threatening an imminent attack on the Kurdish YPG militia – America’s ally against ISIS – Ankara appears to have obtained a green light for a US-shepherded seizure of Syrian territory.
The so-called “peace corridor” is expected to span the entire region east of the Euphrates River, stretching 460 kilometers, according to Turkey’s state news agency Anadolu. It will also go 32 kilometers deep into Syrian territory, putting Kurdish-held towns like Kobane – seized from ISIS in 2015 – under Turkish authority.
A statement by the US Embassy in Turkey said the agreement included the establishment of a “joint operations center in Turkey” in order to set up the zone, though it did not offer details on the size of the area or how the Pentagon plans to deal with its Kurdish allies of the past six years.
“The safe zone shall become a peace corridor, and every effort shall be made so that displaced Syrians can return to their country,” the embassy said.
The statement suggests that the area will become a dumping ground for Syrian refugees, who are currently facing an unprecedented crackdown in Turkey, including forced deportations.
The Syrian Foreign Ministry called the US-Turkish accord “blatant aggression against the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the Syrian Arab Republic and a flagrant violation of the principles of international law and the UN Charter.” There was no indication, however, that Damascus was prepared to send troops into the fray.
Doomed deal
The US blessing for a Turkish zone of influence across northern Syria came after Ankara threatened to invade unilaterally in order to rid the area of the YPG – the sister group of Turkey’s blacklisted Kurdistan Workers’ Party, the PKK.
“We entered Afrin, Jarabulus, and Al-Bab [in northern Syria], and now we’re going to enter east of the Euphrates,” Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said August 4, alluding to the Euphrates Shield and Olive Branch operations of the past three years, which resulted in de-facto annexation of those Syrian towns.
It is unclear how the new, purported agreement with Washington will avert open conflict.
“What I see is the United States making a last attempt to prevent Turkey from taking a unilateral step,” said Mutlu Civiroglu, an analyst focusing on Kurdish affairs. “It’s an effort to gain some time, like in a soccer game.”
Nicholas Heras, an analyst at the Center for a New American Security, echoed those comments. “The entire plan now is to keep on giving the Turks some wins that can hold off an invasion,” he said.
The gap between the two governments remains vast.
While Ankara aims to seize full control of the YPG-held areas along its border, the Kurds are pressing for an international force to oversee any proposed safe zone, according to a July 31 International Crisis Group (ICG) report.
“Washington can protect the YPG or strengthen its ties with Turkey, but it cannot do both,” the ICG said.
Should the Kurds find themselves exposed to Turkish attack, they will likely redeploy forces from areas vulnerable to an ISIS resurgence, which in the US view risks wiping out gains of the years-long campaign.
Since the start of the Syrian civil war in 2011, Kurdish forces have worked to avert confrontation with Assad’s forces. They were equally skeptical of the opposition, which was quickly dominated by Islamist factions – some of whom now operate as mercenaries in the service of Turkey.
Over the course of the conflict, the Kurdish YPG repeatedly clashed with Islamist factions, most notably ISIS. That war effort gained them the air support of the United States, which continues to operate alongside the Kurds in northeastern Syria – much to its ally Turkey’s chagrin.
It is unlikely that Marxist Kurdish guerrillas will accept the deal without a fight and succumb to rule by Turkish troops and their Syrian allies.
Afrin model
The fate of the towns to be included in the Turkish “peace corridor” will likely mirror that of other regions annexed by Turkey and its allies in the northern countryside of Aleppo.
Those areas included the Kurdish-majority town of Afrin and its surrounding villages, seized more than a year ago. The takeover carved out a safe haven for tens of thousands of defeated rebels and their families, while displacing half the local population.
Afrin this season shipped its most famed product, olive oil, from its vast orchards to Turkey, whose authorities insist they must prevent the profits from falling into the hands of the ousted PKK.
Schools now enforce gender segregation, Turkish flags fly over public buildings and portraits of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan hang in shops, according to residents interviewed by Asia Times.
The battle for Afrin was relatively quick, as it was isolated from other Kurdish-held areas. But the proposed “peace corridor” includes hundreds of kilometers of contiguous YPG-held territory. US troops are still deployed in the area, though their presence has been significantly reduced.
Kurdish fighters attend the funeral of a Syrian Democratic Forces fighter in the town of Tal Tamr in Syria's northeastern Hasakeh province on December 21. Observers say the planned withdrawal of American forces from Syria will put Kurdish fighters in Turkey's crosshairs. Photo: AFP
The United States military, desperate to avoid an open confrontation between its NATO ally and Kurdish clients, has capitulated in a game of chicken with Ankara, agreeing to an occupation zone across northern Syria.
The announced agreement comes just weeks after US lawmakers threatened Turkey with sanctions over its purchase of the Russian S-400 missile defense system. By threatening an imminent attack on the Kurdish YPG militia – America’s ally against ISIS – Ankara appears to have obtained a green light for a US-shepherded seizure of Syrian territory.
The so-called “peace corridor” is expected to span the entire region east of the Euphrates River, stretching 460 kilometers, according to Turkey’s state news agency Anadolu. It will also go 32 kilometers deep into Syrian territory, putting Kurdish-held towns like Kobane – seized from ISIS in 2015 – under Turkish authority.
A statement by the US Embassy in Turkey said the agreement included the establishment of a “joint operations center in Turkey” in order to set up the zone, though it did not offer details on the size of the area or how the Pentagon plans to deal with its Kurdish allies of the past six years.
“The safe zone shall become a peace corridor, and every effort shall be made so that displaced Syrians can return to their country,” the embassy said.
The statement suggests that the area will become a dumping ground for Syrian refugees, who are currently facing an unprecedented crackdown in Turkey, including forced deportations.
The Syrian Foreign Ministry called the US-Turkish accord “blatant aggression against the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the Syrian Arab Republic and a flagrant violation of the principles of international law and the UN Charter.” There was no indication, however, that Damascus was prepared to send troops into the fray.
Doomed deal
The US blessing for a Turkish zone of influence across northern Syria came after Ankara threatened to invade unilaterally in order to rid the area of the YPG – the sister group of Turkey’s blacklisted Kurdistan Workers’ Party, the PKK.
“We entered Afrin, Jarabulus, and Al-Bab [in northern Syria], and now we’re going to enter east of the Euphrates,” Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said August 4, alluding to the Euphrates Shield and Olive Branch operations of the past three years, which resulted in de-facto annexation of those Syrian towns.
It is unclear how the new, purported agreement with Washington will avert open conflict.
“What I see is the United States making a last attempt to prevent Turkey from taking a unilateral step,” said Mutlu Civiroglu, an analyst focusing on Kurdish affairs. “It’s an effort to gain some time, like in a soccer game.”
Nicholas Heras, an analyst at the Center for a New American Security, echoed those comments. “The entire plan now is to keep on giving the Turks some wins that can hold off an invasion,” he said.
The gap between the two governments remains vast.
While Ankara aims to seize full control of the YPG-held areas along its border, the Kurds are pressing for an international force to oversee any proposed safe zone, according to a July 31 International Crisis Group (ICG) report.
“Washington can protect the YPG or strengthen its ties with Turkey, but it cannot do both,” the ICG said.
Should the Kurds find themselves exposed to Turkish attack, they will likely redeploy forces from areas vulnerable to an ISIS resurgence, which in the US view risks wiping out gains of the years-long campaign.
Since the start of the Syrian civil war in 2011, Kurdish forces have worked to avert confrontation with Assad’s forces. They were equally skeptical of the opposition, which was quickly dominated by Islamist factions – some of whom now operate as mercenaries in the service of Turkey.
Over the course of the conflict, the Kurdish YPG repeatedly clashed with Islamist factions, most notably ISIS. That war effort gained them the air support of the United States, which continues to operate alongside the Kurds in northeastern Syria – much to its ally Turkey’s chagrin.
It is unlikely that Marxist Kurdish guerrillas will accept the deal without a fight and succumb to rule by Turkish troops and their Syrian allies.
Afrin model
The fate of the towns to be included in the Turkish “peace corridor” will likely mirror that of other regions annexed by Turkey and its allies in the northern countryside of Aleppo.
Those areas included the Kurdish-majority town of Afrin and its surrounding villages, seized more than a year ago. The takeover carved out a safe haven for tens of thousands of defeated rebels and their families, while displacing half the local population.
Afrin this season shipped its most famed product, olive oil, from its vast orchards to Turkey, whose authorities insist they must prevent the profits from falling into the hands of the ousted PKK.
Schools now enforce gender segregation, Turkish flags fly over public buildings and portraits of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan hang in shops, according to residents interviewed by Asia Times.
The battle for Afrin was relatively quick, as it was isolated from other Kurdish-held areas. But the proposed “peace corridor” includes hundreds of kilometers of contiguous YPG-held territory. US troops are still deployed in the area, though their presence has been significantly reduced.
Tuesday, July 30, 2019
RPI Conference Speaker Line-Up!
Breaking Washington's Addiction to War
by The Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/breaking-washingtons-addiction-to-war-tickets-62781334662?aff=odeimcmailchimp&mc_cid=f01000bb75&mc_eid=e922f50b7b
Date And Time
Sat, August 24, 2019
9:30 AM – 3:30 PM EDT
Location
Washington Dulles Airport Marriott
45020 Aviation Drive
Dulles, VA 20166
Refund Policy
Refunds up to 1 day before event
Description
Your ticket includes a hot lunch and refreshments through the day!
$80
(Partial) Speaker List for Conference. More speakers to be added!
Breaking Washington's Addiction to War
August 24th, 2019
Dulles Airport Marrriott
Dulles, VA
Daniel McAdams - Non-interventionism or "sometimes-interventionism?"
Fmr. US Rep. John Duncan, Jr. - An antiwar conservative.
Nathan Goodman (George Mason University) - The economic costs of US empire.
Rick Sanchez - (RT America news anchor, former CNN) - Lies: The dismal state of mainstream media in the US.
Larry C. Johnson (former CIA officer) - The myth of Russian interference.
Col. Douglas Macgregor - (Retired highly-decorated combat officer and frequent guest on Tucker Carlson show) - The insanity of neocon Iran war plans.
David Stockman - (Former US Congressman and Director of Management and Budget [Reagan Administration]). NATO? No!
Lew Rockwell, Founder of the Mises Institute and LewRockwell.com
Ron Paul - Keynote.
Washington is in a constant state of war frenzy. The question of how to manage global challenges seems to be always met with the same answer: threaten sanctions and move military assets. Thus, the US sends carrier strike groups toward Iran, into the Black Sea, into the South China Sea, and elsewhere to make it clear that force is the only language spoken by the United States government and its national security apparatus.
US sanctions cripple a targeted country's economy, punishing the civilian population for the alleged sins of their leaders.
"Diplomacy" means it's Mike Pompeo's State Department issuing the threats instead of the Pentagon or John Bolton.
Meanwhile, Washington's aggressive approach to the rest of the world is backfiring. Far from our becoming more engaged, sanctions and threats of war actually push former enemies to forge alliances to sidestep dealings with the US. The Europeans have been trying to create a system of trade with Iran that bypasses the US, which has reimposed sanctions. Russia and China cooperate with an eye on ending dollar hegemony. Peace talks take place among warring factions in places like Venezuela and Ukraine without the US being invited to participate.
With war drums getting louder, no one seems to really be in charge.
No longer does even the president seem to have control over the war machine. No sooner does President Trump announce that we've won in Syria and are bringing the troops home, than his national security advisor or someone else in his administration issues a "clarification" that nullifies the policy declaration.
Congress? Has anyone heard much from Congress? Or have they wasted two years on either side of "Russiagate"?
This summer the Ron Paul Institute will gather a beyond left/right group of expert speakers to take a hard look at why our foreign policy is a miserable failure and why it has been a miserable failure for US administration after administration.
In post-Mueller, post-Russiagate America, why are Beltway "experts" and their allies in the mainstream media still acting as if today's Russia is a far more deadly enemy than Stalin's Soviet Union? Who benefits and why?
After the almost complete defeat of US and allied-backed jihadists in Syria, why do the State Department and Pentagon still pursue "Assad must go" policies?
Why does Washington insist that the citizens of Iran and Venezuela must starve until their leaders capitulate to neocon demands?
Most importantly: who are the true isolationists? Are they we non-interventionists who promote America's original foreign policy of peaceful relations with all who seek the same? Or are they the sanctioners, the war-threateners, the dictat-deliverers?
Join the Ron Paul Institute and friends this August 24th and be a part of a unique Washington Beltway experience: a beyond left/right coalition of progressives, libertarians, conservatives, and beyond, who are hammering out a new foreign policy that actually benefits the United States instead of the well-connected elites. A foreign policy of peace.
Important notice: There are a limited number of rooms available for a special discounted rate of only $99/night for the August conference. Use this link to book your special room rate, or call (800) 228-9290 and say you will be attending the Ron Paul Institute event with code RPI.
This does not support the desired narrative!
https://theintercept.com/2019/07/29/pentagon-study-africom-africa-violence/
The ACSS is a good research shop so of course it's inexpensive and under appreciated.
Saturday, July 6, 2019
The Ingraham Angle 7/5/2019
How the Haters Misread Trump's Foreign Policy
Media Can't Let Go of Their Russia Obsession
https://youtu.be/uw7K71XGfek
Thursday, July 4, 2019
Of Interest: What Is Trump’s Military Parade Actually Celebrating?
Thursday's rally will feature tanks, flyovers and soldiers. But after 17 years of failed war policies, there's not much to salute.
By GIL BARNDOLLAR • July 4, 2019
Presidential Inaugural Parade in Washington, D.C., January 20, 2017. (U.S. Army photo by Sgt. George Huley)
Washington is getting Trump’s martial parade after all. Today the capital will see fighter jet flyovers, marching Marines, and a pair of Abrams tanks squatting like mastiffs on the National Mall. It will surely be politicized and cost millions. But this “Salute to Service” has a far bigger problem: what the hell are we celebrating?
Certainly not victory in the GWOT (Global War on Terrorism). For all the unquestioned valor and dedication of our servicemen, our military is 0 – 2 in wars against ill-equipped insurgents since 9/11. Toss in the crusade to kill Qaddafi and we’re 0 – 3 above the tactical level. The jury is still out on Syria.
America has spent nearly $6 trillion in the war on terror. The cost to the countries we broke is incalculable. Afghanistan and Libya will continue their civil wars for years, if not decades. Iraq could easily join them again.
Okay, so how about celebrating the force itself? Today’s tributes, honestly, will come off as empty as any Starbucks salute. Since 9/11, we have lost nearly 7,000 men and women in combat and have returned at least 350,000 mentally and physically damaged veterans to their communities. Yet the VA remains a work in progress, at best.
The All-Volunteer Force is struggling. The Army failed to meet its recruiting goal last year, for the first time since 2005. The Marine Corps is throwing up to $280,000 at pilots to keep them from fleeing to the airlines. The Army’s Training and Doctrine Command admits that our current micro-managed operations are eroding the decision-making abilities of junior leaders. Those in uniform are only too aware that “special trust and confidence” and “mission command” are empty pronouncements. And they also know that most Americans have no skin in the game.
The gear is in worse shape than the guys. The F-18s overheard today will presumably be fully mission capable but most Super Hornets aren’t—the result of unanticipated operating hours spent chasing ghosts in the Greater Middle East. The United States could use more F-22s in the air than MRAPs, absurdly, in the hands of American policemen. The U.S. Navy may be too small to check the Chinese—and its ships keep running into things.
True, we haven’t had a major attack on “the homeland,” but one can’t help suspecting that there were cheaper ways to get that result.
So taken it all in, there seems little to really celebrate by way of the military. For Washington, though, there have been some wins. The machine churns on. Eisenhower, that Cassandra, has been dead for fifty years and the Soviet Union packed up shop almost three decades ago but the military industrial complex hasn’t missed a beat. Tyson’s Corner is booming, the defense budget climbs steadily upwards, and the revolving door is in rude good health. It turns out there is at least one industry where trickle down economics works.
Best of all, there’s no accountability. No one has to pull a Profumo and atone. The architects of the Iraq War don’t even have to stop talking. You can see them around DC on a weekly basis, if you know where to look. Paul Wolfowitz gets slapped on the back by journalists at charity dinners. Max Boot descends from the Council on Foreign Relations, the high church of the foreign policy establishment, when he has a new book to hawk. John Bolton even gets a final round in the arena, blowing up accords and agitating for war, though his days in this administration may finally be numbered.
The generals get it best of all. Vince Lombardi had it backwards. Winning isn’t everything —it isn’t even anything. You can find David Petraeus on stage these days, bragging about his cycling mileage and joking about his private equity sinecure. H. R. McMaster has a think tank perch, where the fabled victor of Tal Afar can decry American war-weariness while doing his best to find us new wars. Those further down the food chain, with only a star or two in their shadow boxes, can at least pick up a second career hawking weapons and services for Raytheon, Boeing, or one of the many other payers of McLean mortgages.
So enjoy the celebration. Most TAC readers, myself included, will be at more prosaic parades, far from Versailles on the Potomac. For those in D.C., go and enjoy the event if you can stomach it. One hopes that today’s crowd will include a few from that great sardonic breed of GWOT veteran—skinny Vonnegut completists who eschew the de rigueur vet beard—wearing one of the decade’s better black jokes: the “We Were Winning When I Left” t-shirt. Talk to those guys instead of just thanking them for their service.
Gil Barndollar is the Military Fellow-in-Residence at the Catholic University of America’s Center for the Study of Statesmanship. He served as a U.S. Marine infantry officer from 2009 to 2016, deploying to Afghanistan twice.
https://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/what-is-trumps-military-parade-actually-celebrating/
Certainly not victory in the GWOT (Global War on Terrorism). For all the unquestioned valor and dedication of our servicemen, our military is 0 – 2 in wars against ill-equipped insurgents since 9/11. Toss in the crusade to kill Qaddafi and we’re 0 – 3 above the tactical level. The jury is still out on Syria.
America has spent nearly $6 trillion in the war on terror. The cost to the countries we broke is incalculable. Afghanistan and Libya will continue their civil wars for years, if not decades. Iraq could easily join them again.
Okay, so how about celebrating the force itself? Today’s tributes, honestly, will come off as empty as any Starbucks salute. Since 9/11, we have lost nearly 7,000 men and women in combat and have returned at least 350,000 mentally and physically damaged veterans to their communities. Yet the VA remains a work in progress, at best.
The All-Volunteer Force is struggling. The Army failed to meet its recruiting goal last year, for the first time since 2005. The Marine Corps is throwing up to $280,000 at pilots to keep them from fleeing to the airlines. The Army’s Training and Doctrine Command admits that our current micro-managed operations are eroding the decision-making abilities of junior leaders. Those in uniform are only too aware that “special trust and confidence” and “mission command” are empty pronouncements. And they also know that most Americans have no skin in the game.
The gear is in worse shape than the guys. The F-18s overheard today will presumably be fully mission capable but most Super Hornets aren’t—the result of unanticipated operating hours spent chasing ghosts in the Greater Middle East. The United States could use more F-22s in the air than MRAPs, absurdly, in the hands of American policemen. The U.S. Navy may be too small to check the Chinese—and its ships keep running into things.
True, we haven’t had a major attack on “the homeland,” but one can’t help suspecting that there were cheaper ways to get that result.
So taken it all in, there seems little to really celebrate by way of the military. For Washington, though, there have been some wins. The machine churns on. Eisenhower, that Cassandra, has been dead for fifty years and the Soviet Union packed up shop almost three decades ago but the military industrial complex hasn’t missed a beat. Tyson’s Corner is booming, the defense budget climbs steadily upwards, and the revolving door is in rude good health. It turns out there is at least one industry where trickle down economics works.
Best of all, there’s no accountability. No one has to pull a Profumo and atone. The architects of the Iraq War don’t even have to stop talking. You can see them around DC on a weekly basis, if you know where to look. Paul Wolfowitz gets slapped on the back by journalists at charity dinners. Max Boot descends from the Council on Foreign Relations, the high church of the foreign policy establishment, when he has a new book to hawk. John Bolton even gets a final round in the arena, blowing up accords and agitating for war, though his days in this administration may finally be numbered.
The generals get it best of all. Vince Lombardi had it backwards. Winning isn’t everything —it isn’t even anything. You can find David Petraeus on stage these days, bragging about his cycling mileage and joking about his private equity sinecure. H. R. McMaster has a think tank perch, where the fabled victor of Tal Afar can decry American war-weariness while doing his best to find us new wars. Those further down the food chain, with only a star or two in their shadow boxes, can at least pick up a second career hawking weapons and services for Raytheon, Boeing, or one of the many other payers of McLean mortgages.
So enjoy the celebration. Most TAC readers, myself included, will be at more prosaic parades, far from Versailles on the Potomac. For those in D.C., go and enjoy the event if you can stomach it. One hopes that today’s crowd will include a few from that great sardonic breed of GWOT veteran—skinny Vonnegut completists who eschew the de rigueur vet beard—wearing one of the decade’s better black jokes: the “We Were Winning When I Left” t-shirt. Talk to those guys instead of just thanking them for their service.
Gil Barndollar is the Military Fellow-in-Residence at the Catholic University of America’s Center for the Study of Statesmanship. He served as a U.S. Marine infantry officer from 2009 to 2016, deploying to Afghanistan twice.
https://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/what-is-trumps-military-parade-actually-celebrating/
Tuesday, July 2, 2019
Sunday, June 30, 2019
Saturday, June 29, 2019
Tuesday, June 25, 2019
Of Interest: The Global Hawk Shoot Down: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly
By Dr. John T. Kuehn | June 24, 2019
https://blog.usni.org/posts/2019/06/24/the-global-hawk-shoot-down-the-good-the-bad-and-the-ugly
On 20 June (Iran time) an expensive U.S. unmanned aerial reconnaissance system
(UARS) known as Global Hawk was shot down in the Strait of Hormuz not far from the
major Iranian naval base at Bandar Abbas. Immediately, the war cries of “havoc” went up
from the jingoistic U.S. national security establishment and pundits for a retaliatory strike
against Iran.
The Good. On Sunday, we learned that President Donald Trump turned these strikes off
(temporarily) with the aircraft and ships literally in the air and at the ready at sea with
guarded missile switches up and ready at the 11th hour—maybe the 11th hour and
59th minute. He thus possibly averted, for the time being ,an unnecessary and new
“undeclared” war with the Islamic Republic of Iran. This is the same Iran that lost an
Airbus full of civilians more than 30 years ago in the same location to a U.S. missile from
an U.S. Navy Aegis cruiser in a tragic accident during another “undeclared war.” The
story circulating is that the President asked how many Iranians would be killed in the
6/25/2019
2/2
strikes and when told about “100” balked because the United States had not lost a single
life in the Global Hawk shoot down. The United States “only” lost $220 million of the
cost of that platform and possibly the compromise of any technology in the debris that the
Iranians might have recovered.
The Bad. You might think that last sentence in the good is the “bad,” but it’s worse than
that. The speculation is that the Iranians used a Russian-built BUK 2 type missile to shoot
down the Global Hawk, which means it was either an SA-6 system or the newer SA-17
surface-to-air missile (SAM) system. Under the best of circumstances this means the
Russians and their allies and buyers for that system now know it works against the Global
Hawk, at the cost of what, $10,000–20,000 for the SAM interceptor? Or worse, it might
have been the older and much more ubiquitous SA-6 system, which means even more
people know their system can shoot this down.
We provided a free operational test for our adversaries and competitors—great.
Even if the cost was more it certainly was a fraction of $220 MILLION. As taxpayers,
citizens in the United States should be offended. Who put that kind of money and
technology at risk so cavalierly? Ultimately that would be Commander of U.S. Central
Command, Marine Corps General Kenneth F. McKenzie, Jr. Nice job, general. The new
American militarism hard at work for Joe and Jane on main street USA.
The Ugly. But wait, it gets worse. How can the United States claim transit or innocent
passage for a UARS on a spy mission against Iranian facilities in the Strait of Hormuz or
the various islands (such as Abu Musa) in that part of the strait near Iran . . . and what are
the littoral baselines? Are those baselines disputed between Iran, Oman, the UAE, to say
nothing of the international community? Even if the Global Hawk was in international
airspace, its mission was not a simple transit to relocate but an actual surveillance mission
—nothing innocent about that. Thus under international law it might be argued the UARS
was not due the protections of international airspace.
In summary, the United States has a very poor case for any sort of action against Iran. The
entire crisis, now and ever since the Trump administration withdrew from the nuclear deal
with Iran (the JCPOA), is entirely a manufactured series of “crises.” We must ask, why all
this smoke and heat over an area of the world that holds no real vital interest for the
United States anymore (since it became energy independent)? Are we being manipulated
by allies in Saudi Arabia, Israel, and the UAE for their own security purposes? If so,
shame on them and shame on us.
Good strategy involves all the elements of national power, not just the military options.
It is time for diplomacy, not missiles.
Dr. John T. Kuehn
Dr. Kuehn is Professor of Military History at the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College (CGSC). He retired from the U.S. Navy 2004 at the rank of commander, serving as a naval flight officer (NFO) flying land and carrier-based surveillance aircraft including over the Strait of Hormuz, Iraq, Gulf of Oman, and Persian Gulf. He authored Agents of Innovation (2008), A Military History of Japan: From the Age of the Samurai to the 21st Century (2014), Napoleonic Warfare: The Operational Art of the Great Campaigns (2015), and co-authored Eyewitness Pacific Theater (2008) with D.M. Giangreco as well as numerous articles and editorials and was awarded a Moncado Prize from the Society for Military History in 2011. His latest book from Naval Institute Press is America’s First General Staff: A Short History of the Rise and Fall of the General Board of the Navy, 1900-1950 (Fall 2017).
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