Border crossings should go down now

Military at the border:

This is a clear failure

Leadership failure, intelligence failure, and a military failure are all wrapped into one problem:

Uh oh.

Russia often creates some high tech military equipment.  The thing is they cannot afford to produce very many. Their new fighter might be the greatest innovation in aerial combat - at least for the last generation. 

A follow up on Get Woke Go Broke from Bill Whittle

Following up on Bill Whittle's previous thoughts on Get Woke Go Broke companies, he contrasts Russia's military recruiting commercial with America's latest mamby-pamby military commercial. Frankly, it's sad and pathetic. Not because of the story, but because it is not a military recruitment video.  It's wokeness for the sake of wokeness.

Where is the China Exit Strategy?

China has become a global problem as well as an American problem.  They have moved down the path towards being a global military threat.  They have embarked on a predatory mercantilist style of economic imperialism not just in Africa, but also Europe, the Americas and the rest of Asia.  They conduct espionage on a grand scale as well regularly manipulate their currency and steal intellectual property on a similarly massive scale.  Not to mention they have suppressed their own people with both propaganda and physical force. All of this is done by various Chinese entities in thrall of the oppressive, imperialist, expansionist communist regime or by the communist party itself.

Make no mistake, China has become a menace on global scale in the last 20 years in particular.  It has become more evident to some due to the at-a-minimum secretiveness around COVID-19. But it has not opened the eyes of enough people.  Because all the while this has become more and more evident both Republicans and Democrats in America as well as leaders in other nations around the world have shortsightedly chosen to enable China rather than thwart their evil global ambitions. No one seems to look beyond their own short term interest enough to see China as the bad actor that they are on the global stage.

How much do we need to see before we wake up?  If you are not "woke" to this you are part of the problem.

A holistic China Exit Strategy is needed.  With president Trump leading it has been apparent that European countries are willing to join American leadership on some issues.  Not only does the world need a military containment strategy, removing economic and intellectual ties or at least returning them to a balanced reasonable level is necessary and should be the objective. 

Supply chains cannot be moved overnight but they must be moved.  Not everything needs to come back home, there are other countries willing to trade with the U.S. fairly. 

While it's necessary, it won't be easy.

But that's only part of the solution.  A robust policy of trade in high technology goods is need.  Immigration, employment, and education all need monitoring, restrictions and controls put in place.  Chinese hacking needs to be aggressively countered, worldwide.  Chinese immigrants require a different level and type of scrutiny than others.  Embargos may be necessary.  COVID reparations should be provided to affected countries.  World Trade Organization membership needs to be reviewed.  And a pacific counter-alliance between America, Japan, Taiwan, South Korea the Philippines, Australia, New Zealand and potentially other regional nations would be timely.  An alliance of both an economic and military nature would be best.   A jointly funded and managed alliance unlike NATO would provide a level of military and economic security long overdue. 

It's become crucial that president Trump wins the 2020 election because he is the first president since before Richard Nixon to recognize the threat and to want to do something about it rather than have America be the frog in the slowly boiling pot of water as communist China rises at the expense of the rest of the world.  American leadership, and the provision of a liberty and fair, capitalist alternative to free stuff from China are critical now.  It cannot be ignored any longer, we do so at our own peril. 

President Trump's China containment strategy involves India

President Trump may seem like a loose cannon when it comes to geopolitics but if you look closely, he's doing a lot of things that precisely fit American national security and geopolitical interests.  Containment of China for example is being handled deftly.  Of course there is always an economic component to the Trump doctrine, and that is being handled through the trade deal negotiations.  But the communist Chinese government started getting very militarily aggressive during the Obama administration.  Military containment remains a priority.  To that end, American strategy includes a sort of ring fencing around China.  With Russia to the north, it is not possible to entirely encircle China to prevent aggression, but neither is it entirely necessary.  It's southern Asia where Chinese is attempting to expand it's influence.

While president Trump is attempting to draw down all American presence in Afghanistan, that does not mean he is not acutely aware of the China situation.  Evidence comes in the form of the recent military deal with India:

This is entirely consistent with the Trump doctrine: allies, with common interests, need to pay their fair share of the cost in confronting totalitarian regimes and geopolitical rivals. 

Quick Hit: Factual History vs. Frantic Hysteria on Military Border Patrols

CNN is no doubt definitely panicking over president Trump's decision to treat the Mexican border as a national security issue and use the military to patrol the border.  One analyst went so far as to describe it as the military taking to the streets.  Um, no.  Military at the border is a real thing.  Not just on the Mexican border, but throughout history. The Berlin Wall.  The DMZ in Korea.  Guantanamo Bay in Cuba.  Countless other examples exist.

When faced with factual history, apparently left prefers frantic hysteria.  But that's not news, and neither is CNN.

Court oddly bars president Trump on transgender military service reversal

Via San Francisco Chronicle:

WASHINGTON (AP) — A federal judge in Washington on Monday barred President Donald Trump's administration from excluding transgender people from military service.

U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly ruled that transgender service members who had sued over Trump's policy were likely to win their lawsuit. She directed a return to the situation that existed before Trump announced his new policy this summer.

On the surface of it, it's ridiculous. How could president Obama change the rule but president Trump cannot reverse the decision? No judge blocked president Obama from making the change, so how does a court have the ability to do so now? Either both changes are legally permissible or neither are. The specious argument that transgender service members are likely (likely???) to win their lawsuit does not rise to the level of reasonable cause to deny the president the option to attempt to reverse the recently changed policy. The lawsuit has not even concluded yet. As a result of the lawsuit perhaps a change will be required.  At this point, why?

By that judicial logic, likelihood is enough of a reason to allow the president's travel ban to be extended indefinitely: it's likely that someone from one of the countries named in the travel ban will at some point in the future commit an act of terror against the United States.

Both sides can play the game of likely. I expect that this activist judicial decision will be overturned. Regardless of your view on the transgender issue. the court is on thin ice with the argument behind this decision.

The fallout of Obama's gutting of the American military

Heritage explains:


China knows it.

Popular Mechanics, you're doing it wrong

I like reading Popular Mechanics - for the mechanics, not the politics.  There's an article there arguing - get this - in favor of foreign born recruits in the military in exchange for citizenship.  Setting aside the fact that a foreign militia is correlated to the downfall of the Roman empire, the case is pretty flimsy;

Let's make this very clear: Our nation has always needed foreign-born recruits. First, because we are an entire nation of immigrants, so much so that at some points in our history entire Corps of our armies (such as the XI-th in the American Civil War) barely spoke English. Second, because once we became a global power, we really had a deep need for cultural and language skills among our forces, not just in the Special Forces, but in Intelligence and other fields as well. We even made laws to entice recent immigrants into service specifically for their native-born skills, but also perhaps for some specialized skills like medicine and dentistry, that they bring with them. And lastly, because if there is a better way to introduce an immigrant to the range of the American melting-pot than service to the nation in uniform, I really don't know what that might be.

In summary (1) we're all immigrants (2) we need cultural and language skills from outside America and (3) it's a great way to integrate foreigners into the American melting pot.

Ridiculous.

(1) That's a social argument not one that helps the military. What the military needs it combat skills and fighting effectiveness. (2) any skills lacking in American born recruits is an indictment of America's schooling system. Intelligence is another matter - on the ground knowledge, or specialized skills and dialects are useful. But that's not a military issue. Remember president Trump recently had a 'secret meeting' with Vladimir Putin (in front of and among the rest of the G20 leaders) and the media went nuts because the interpreter was a Russian. Sooooo... double standard. And (3) that reason is not the job of the military.

And that's without moving on to other reasons outside of the stated rationale.

Look Popular Mechanics, stick to stories about new engines or advances in rocketry and such. Otherwise you will end up as the ESPN of science magazines/ezines. M'kay?

Saturday Learning Series - Why the U.S. military made GPS free to the public

Without going into whether the decision was the correct one or not, this video explains the GPS satellite network and why it was made available to the public and for commercial use, for free.  An interesting watch.

GOP Candidate Info - Rick Perry Edition

Governor Rick Perry on race relations, and military exercises.

Stratfor: Russian financial crisis?

Via Stratfor: Russian economy, what's going on?


This is against a backdrop of a Russian military refurbishment that has been going on for a few years:

Hey America! You and what army?

Chuck your liberal stripes are showing. 

Chuck Hagel, the indefensible Defense Secretary of the United States, realizes that the United States is facing unprecedented international challenges and existential threats.  His solution?  Gut the military.  I mean, really gut it.  Yeah, that'll work.

Via Yahoo News:

Saying it was time to "reset" for a new era, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel recommended shrinking American forces from 520,000 active duty troops to between 440,000 and 450,000.

In a speech outlining the proposed defense budget, he said Monday that after Iraq and Afghanistan, US military leaders no longer plan to "conduct long and large stability operations."

If approved by Congress, the Pentagon move would reduce the army to its lowest manning levels since 1940, before the American military dramatically expanded after entering World War II.

Don't expect Congress to go along with this. The question though is how Hagel sees the logic in this.  The explanation lies in this bit:

The Pentagon had previously planned to downsize the ground force to about 490,000.

But Hagel warned that to adapt to future threats "the army must accelerate the pace and increase the scale of its post-war drawdown."

There's the problem. Hagel thinks that to face future threats, the army must be weakened. There is no logic in this. The last time America''s military was as small as Hagel wants it to be, what happened? Pearl Harbor happened.

This is not to say that in order to get America's burgeoning debt under control that military spending cuts don't need to play a part, they do. But Hagel is being disingenuous when he says that smaller means stronger. It simply doesn't. Being Secretary of Defense his role is to argue for the strongest, most effective military force possible. He is abdicating his responsibility arguing any other position. Especially when he is doing so in such a transparently ineffective fashion.

All of that without even getting into the economic impact of reducing military personnel, shutting bases, mothballing aircraft etc.  There will be serious consequences if this happens.  my suspicion though is that the Obama administration doesn't want this to happen anyway.  It's all about getting Republican's on record for opposing spending cuts after they have been howling for years about Obama's profligate spending.  With his tried and true approach of throwing it back at Republicans and saying they have offered no alternatives (the same canard he keeps using on Obamacare), he can argue to voters going into the midterm elections that this is proof that Republicans don't mean what they say.  That's a powerful weapon to help stem the tide of a possible electoral bloodbath for Democrats in Congress.  With a complicit media, it might work.

NYT overlooks the sinister possibilities re: Egypt

 

The New York Times has an article today about the considerable leverage that the US Government has with the Egyptian military and how the Obama administration is reviewing that leverage.  But what the NYT overlooks, is that it is very possible that the leverage has already been applied and that the Egyptian military is already listening to Washington. Nevertheless, the Times does present some interesting facts.

In fact, Egypt is so enamored of Apache attack helicopters, M1A1 battle tanks and F-16 fighter jets that exasperated American military officials have been telling generals there for years that they need to expand beyond the hardware of bygone wars and spend more American money on border security, as well as counterterrorism and surveillance equipment and training that a truly modern military needs.

Either way, a close look at the details of American military aid to Egypt shows why the relatively modest $1.3 billion may give the United States more leverage over the Egyptian military than it may seem, although still not as much as it wants.

Even if Saudi Arabia and other Persian Gulf monarchies make up for any aid the United States may suspend, Washington would block Egypt from buying American weaponry with that money — a serious long-term problem for a military that is already viewed as sclerotic and has neglected pilot training so badly that the Egyptian air force has one of the worst crash rates of any F-16 fleet in the world.

What Egypt’s generals fear most is the cutoff of hundreds of millions of dollars in mundane but essential maintenance contracts that keep the tanks, fighter jets and helicopters running, American officials and lawmakers said. In the past, maintenance costs have represented roughly 15 percent of total American military aid to Egypt, according to the Government Accountability Office.

Egyptian Spring 2.0

It looks as if the drift towards an Islamic Brotherhood run state in Egypt has been stalled by Egyptian citizens with a nod to the military.  The Egyptians may have saved the White House from yet another embarrassment in it's call for Mubarak to step down during the previous iteration of the Arab Spring in Egypt.  Despite the bungling of the whole Middle East situation by both Obama and Clinton (et. al.), Egypt may yet come out of this a democracy and less hostile to the West than peviously.

Then again, it could turn ugly.

Iraq paying U.S. for F16s

What did the U.S. get out of the Iraq war? No Saddam, and now it's receiving payment for 18 F16 fighter jets that help secure Iraq against an Iran full of bluster and other regional threats.  It wasn't a ar for oil, which progressives would conveniently have you forget (since they were wrong).  But at least the U.S. is getting some modest financial return from the effort.

Michelle Obama's secret political agenda on food

"What's your name, fat-body?"

Normally, it's an unwritten rule that keeping families out of politicians out of the spotlight is a fair thing to do.  Indeed it's noble to not cover them, particularly in the case of children.   While the mainstream media was good with Laura Bush in terms of her efforts as First Lady, one has to question whether it was out of that sense of nobility or simply that broadcasting anything that showed any Bush in a good light was not advancing the cause of liberal Democrats.  After all, Laura Bush focused her efforts as First Lady on education and literacy.  That it was done without much fanfare is not surprising. Yes, she did receive coverage, but not like Michelle Obama and her war on obesity.

Now consider the drubbing the Palins take in the media as if somehow that family deserves everything it gets. Does that mean the gloves are now off because it suits the media's bias?  All is fair now? I don't think so.  I have tried to not comment on Michelle Obama much.  But in light of the additional coverage she's getting, and the fact that her statements have impacted the national discourse, it seems fair that commenting on her comments that have become political is not out of bounds.

Iraqi Al-Qaida Terror Leader Killed

From the US Armed Forces web site;

Acting upon a warrant issued by an Iraqi judge, Iraqi forces and U.S. advisors stopped a vehicle and searched several buildings for Khalid Muhammad Hasan Shallub al-Juburi, also known as Shaykh Khalid, who is a suspected leader for the terrorist group in northern Iraq.

He is believed to have played an integral role in approving AQI operations, including attacks against the Iraqi people before and during the recent parliamentary elections, officials said.

One more win for the good guys.

American Cyber Shortfalls

Everyone surely realizes that there are holes in national security - the border, international travel and shipping are prime examples in the news quite often. These areas need to be addressed. But they are not alone. Back in June, Google carried a story about the U.S. Military preparing a counter-espionage entity designed to fight the most obvious method of attacks from the likes of China. The big question is, what took this so long?

In the article back in June, it points out that the U.S. military has realized the importance of cyber security.  Good.  google itself seems to be waking up about the issue now too.  Also good.

WASHINGTON (AFP) — The US military announced a new "cyber command" designed to wage digital warfare and to bolster defenses against mounting threats to its computer networks.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates formally established the command -- the country's first -- that would operate under US Strategic Command, Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said.

The command will begin operating in October and be fully operational in October 2010, Whitman said.

The move reflects a shift in military strategy with "cyber dominance" now part of US war doctrine and comes amid growing alarm over the perceived threat posed by digital espionage coming from China, Russia and elsewhere.

US officials say China has built up a sophisticated cyber warfare program and that a spate of intrusions in the United States and elsewhere can be traced back to Chinese sources.

The officer widely expected to lead the command is Lieutenant General Keith Alexander, the director of the super-secret National Security Agency (NSA).

Alexander has described cyberspace as the new military frontier that could shape the future of national security, comparing it to sea or air power.

But for me it raises a number of troubling questions.  Why the delay?  Why now?  How much damage has already been done?  If Al gore invented the Internet (/sarcasm) why did the U.S. allow itself to fall behind the likes of China and Russia in an area the country not only invented but completely owned?

As a country with the greatest vested interest in keeping secrets (both military and commercial), you'd think someone, somewhere would be all over this.  The Chinese are stealing technology via cyber attacks, they are infringing on copyrights and patents, and the Iranians are waltzing out of the country with technology for nuclear reactors.  It's beyond disgraceful.

This is not however about affixing blame, rather it's about fixing only.  National security and cyber security more specifically is a bi-partisan issue.  It's not a liberal versus conservative thing.  It's not about blaming the military or even politicians.  But this should have been a no-brainer - it's mission critical stuff.

What is evident is that spying on America is not new.  Certainly not to the Chinese.  What's needed is a concerted effort to fix the problem before there's nothing left to defend.  All of that stimulus money, supposedly to preserve the economy and preserve jobs could be better spent by (1) not spending all of it and (2) the stuff that does get spent could be used to get a rigorous program in place to provide counter cyber-espionage.  Train and then employ a couple of hundred thousand cyber experts as a line of defense (never mind first line, a line period) against these sorts of incursions.

While you are at it, how about beefing up port security, airport security and maybe building a border wall that would prevent people from backpacking into the country?  Not liberal enough?  Hey, at least it would help employ some people. 

This is really a matter of national security and it's something that should be on everybody in the country's radar.  The world is not a completely friendly place full of unicorns and rainbows.  There are those who want their piece of America and they do not mean to do well for America in the process.  It's yours to defend and every day more isn't done, the greater the risk.  I hate to sound like a paranoid lunatic, but there is plenty of room for concern on this issue.  Plenty indeed.

NOTE:  Much of the text originally slated for this post was wiped out by a weird Blogger edit and immediate autosave.  I'm not saying the Chinese had something to do with it, just that it's sure coincidental that it happened on this particular post..........