Israel's Strategic Failure

My cold-blooded and deranged response to Walter Russell Meade's post on the subject.

The real strategic failure is that Israel continues to start measures and then backpedal in a way that produces all the negative consequences of action without any of the achievable goals being produced:
Going into Lebanon and then later Gaza in force to root out the problems at their source, and then stopping and withdrawing in the face of the usual international reaction. Their international reputation would have hardly been worse if they had finished the job. Anyone who supported the initial policy in each case has to be disapointed by the ultimate lack of fortitude to follow through with it (which was predictable to me as both these campaigns started, though I hoped I was wrong), and anyone who opposed Israel in these cases is quietly thanking their good fortune.

Yet as I said, the each unfolded predictably, every time, exactly as I have foreseen, because at bottom even - especially - the Israelis want to not only do the right thing, but what is actually worse be *seen* and *perceived* as doing the right thing. So when they go to cut the knot, they saw half way through and when the International Community's Greek Chorus shouts them down, they stop and back off, letting it regrow and metastasize, letting it feel it has the momentum, feel a sense of victory, and that the Winds of Change are on their side.

This inevitably leaves them with the worst of both worlds. Surely WRM knows Napoleon's saying that if you set out to take Vienna, TAKE VIENNA.

Probably the best strategic move Israel could do now is rename itself "North Korea" (while not adopting that nation's political ideology). Then they could do whatever they want, sink any ship, threaten and kill anyone they needed to, and the ever-so caring International Community wouldn't care one whit - except to urge "Caution" and "don't over-react" and "nobody should escalate the situation."

Anyhow, it's really all over now; as my mother said the other day about this, it's like a dying person connected to a respirator. Everyone knows what is to come, but no one knows when.

Or, in one of my favorite quotes, tragic in this context, "The non-inevitability of events we nevertheless know are bound to come."

It is non-inevitable: Something could change, in us, the broad us, the so-called civilized world. But do you think it will? In time? Since it hasn't yet, despite many wuss-slaps to the face by reality, when and under what circumstances do you think it will? Again: In time. In this case, in time for the Israelis, who one would think have sacrificed enough and been sacrificed enough to other's self-regard.

T.S. Eliot: "Half of the harm that is done in this world Is due to people who want to feel important. They don't mean to do harm. But the harm does not interest them. Or they do not see it, or they justify it because they are absorbed in the endless struggle to think well of themselves."

These days it most, more than half, of the forces for evil in this world would be readily checked if it wasn't for these two sorts of people. But we let them hold the reins.

Politics and the Arabic Language

Musing a bit further on this article, particularly this section:

Next, our counterterror adviser evokes the perverse logic behind the administration’s recent decision to censor words offensive to Muslims (which I closely explored in this PJM article):

Nor do we describe our enemy as “jihadists” or “Islamists” because jihad is a holy struggle, a legitimate tenet of Islam, meaning to purify oneself or one’s community, and there is nothing holy or legitimate or Islamic about murdering innocent men, women and children.

Inasmuch as he is correct in the first clause of that sentence — “jihad is a holy struggle, a legitimate tenet of Islam, meaning to purify oneself or one’s community” — he greatly errs in the latter clause, by projecting his own notions of what constitutes “holy,” “legitimate,” and “innocent” onto Islam. In Islam, such terms are often antithetical to the Judeo-Christian/Western understanding. Indeed, the institution of jihad, according to every authoritative Muslim book on Islamic jurisprudence, is nothing less than offensive warfare to spread Sharia law, a cause seen as both “legitimate” and “holy” in Islam. As for “innocence,” by simply being a non-Muslim infidel, one is already guilty in Islam. Brennan understands the definition of jihad; he just has no clue of its application. So he is left fumbling about with a square peg that simply refuses to pass through a round hole.

Until the recent "troubles" it wasn't just Islamic jurisprudence that properly understood what the term Jihad meant; it was universally understood throughout not just Islam but all cultures that had contact with Islam to mean warfare, specifically directed at non-Muslims or those declared heretics and thus deemed to be un-Islamic.

In recent times Muslim spokesmen working in conjunction with the usual suspects of PoMo intellectuals/pseudo-scholars and progressives have attempted to re-define the term. But one needs only to pick up any book from the previous era that even tangentially touches on the subject to see the term used in its proper historic meaning. As a student of ByzantinoRoman history I know this full well. Thus Ibrahim is actually wrong when he says, almost reflecting the thinking of Edward Said, that his "dual Middle-East/Western background gives me the advantage to understand both the Islamicate and American mindsets equally." Previous generations of Westerners also understood the term Jihad properly. The ethnocentric projection Ibrahim rightly condemns is actually a post-modern and multiculturalist phenomenon, and thus a rather recent innovation. This might seem like a minor quibble, but it's critical to our understanding of the problems we face.

It would be more proper to say that the word "Crusade" has transformed from its original meaning than it is to say "Jihad" has. After all, we have such things as "crusades for peace" and "The Billy Graham Crusade," neither of which involve mobilizing armies to recover¹ lands from Islam by military means. Jihad has never ceased to mean what it means, however, up through the mobilization of Arabs to fight in Afghanistan against the Soviets and down through the present, though we are asked to believe otherwise. But we are told we cannot use the word "Crusade" because it is inflamatory, while also being instructed to re-conceive our understanding of calls for Jihad. This is a form of mental manipulation inflicted upon us not by our enemies, but by ourselves - or at any rate one wing of our own civilization.

And of course many young people, knowing little, having come of age in this era of degenerate pseudo-scholarship, educated by the instructors they have been educated, sincerely believe Jihad does not mean what it means. This is one means of intellectually disarming us, and leading people into accepting the received wisdom of progressivism on the sources and causes of this conflict, rather than connecting it to history. It helps open them to the conclusions of a Said or a Fisk or even their slightly-less-radical imitators: That we are to blame.

Redfining terms by those with an ideological axe to grind is almost invariably aimed at controling the thinking of others.

¹Yes, recover: Crusades, aweful as many Crusaders behaved, were launched as counter-attacks. To call any but the 4th aggressive is akin to calling D-Day agressive. But, in this degenerate age, that history, however bad it was even told "straight," has been corrupted for ideological ends.

A Plague of Toads

WRM has a decent post on postwar/postimperial Britain's international situation and what to do about it. The first part is essentially a factual narrative and analysis, the second part a recommended policy for Britain.

Arguably it's a policy worth attempting. I'm not sure it will be attempted, in part because the new British government is built on foundation that does not share some of WRM's premises. If it was attempted, there is of course no guarantee it would be effective, but life, and policies, are not about guarantees.

There are three other policies that could be followed. One: The LibDem dream policy of integrating Britain into the Franco-German project, with Britain signing on to the "ever greater union" as envisioned by the Franco-Germans. Britain would stop becoming an "obstacle" and would have apparent/illusory influence. This influence would only be superficial, however, as it would consist of getting along by going along and not making waves.

The second option would be "splendid isolation," withdrawal from the EU itself. This does not have to be as catastrophic as one might think. WRM's article mentions Norway and the fact that Norway is not a member of the EU. But Norway has trading agreements with the EU, and other ties, and gets on fine.

The third option, the least likely option (and thus naturally my preferred option) is revitalization of the Commonwealth as an economic and political/international force: The commonwealth as a free trade area which also attempts to coordinate a common foreign policy wherever policy. Frankly I wish that this had been the course followed in the wake of WWII: Instead of America insisting upon effectively neutering the British Commonwealth, encouraging its transformation into a free trade zone and joining it, along with the Philippines and Japan. What I think of as the best is almost always the least likely/possible, but such is life. Plus, if America were to join the Commonwealth, arguably Britain's international influence would not be increased: It would instead just be the reverse side of the same coin that has integrating itself with Franco-German EU policy on the obverse. Only a Commonwealth Free Trade Zone that has Britain as its first-among-equals would potentially increase British influence in world affairs, and as long as India keeps growing as fast as it is, Britain's premere status would necessarily be temporary.

Odds of a revitalized Commonwealth, with or without the U.S. joining, lay somewhere between slim and none. Which leaves Britain with the other three options: WRM's, Harmonized Borgism, or Splendid Isolation. For better or worse, if one wants Britain to have more influence in international affairs (which is what WRM concentrates), neither the HBism nor SIism will achieve that. WRM's outline is the only policy within the realm of the possible that could produce this.

Of course, there are other goods than international influence. Britain might decide the best thing to do would be to avoid getting entangled in such as much as possible and working on its own domestic problems. In which case Splendid Isolation would be the best policy: Being drawn into ever closer union within the EU naturally would involve participating in whatever disputes it has, both within the EU and with the broader world. Britain would not be entirely isolated if it left the EU anyhow: It would still be a member of NATO, for example, and in any case should wake from the Europe-wide revere that war is over and one need not have the capacity to truly defend one's own interests: It should shift its spending priorities to insure it will have the capacity to deter, and if necessary defeat, Argentina again, should that prove necessary.

Confidence is High

From Walter Russel Mead's Blog:

Wretched as Washington is, Brussels is almost infinitely worse.

Well, that's inspiring, no?

This in a post where he's hoping the markets respond favorably to the EU's bailout of Greece and don't swing against the PIIGS.

It's a fairly vain hope once one recognizes how wretched "Brussels" is, but it may just work. Then, later, when the house of cards comes crashing down at some future date, we can all blame bankers again. Huzzah!

There's also this, for all those who think government is the only way we have to make the world a better place¹:

Ten years ago, the European Union with great fanfare unveiled the “Lisbon Agenda”, a ten-year action plan to make the EU “the most competitive and dynamic knowledge-based economy in the world capable of sustainable economic growth with more and better jobs and greater social cohesion”.

How'd that go?

It flopped. Europe is less of a factor today than it was ten years ago in the high-tech world.

Well, lets do emulate Europe, as so many want to do: It's working out so well for them, after all.

From his previous post on the subject:

The point of the protesters is that the rich should pay the costs of the economic crisis not the ‘blameless’ ordinary people whose only sin is to have voted for generations of demagogic politicians who promised to give them the moon and pay for it with other people’s money.

Nothing like that could ever happen here, at least...

¹As commenter "Roland" put it in a response to my post of the below at WindsofChange.

Malign Neglect

One of the under-appreciated achievements of the Bush Administration was forging stronger ties with India. One of the under-criticized aspects of the Obama Administration has been its indifference to India, despite it's growing importance.

B.O. and the Lowest Politically Feasible Support

First thing is that last night's speech continued to emphasize that we are in a new era. That all of time is divided between "A.O.", and "B.O." - We're in the First Year After Obama, and all that came Before Obama stunk. He emphasized this more than anything else in a speech that was supposedly about why we should continue the fight in Afghanistan.

Obama's "decision" on Afghanistan and last night's speech was oddly spiritless only if you think it's odd for a Progressive to lack passion when speaking on the subject of our country's foreign enemies (Homework Assignment: Contrast with the passion he displays when talking about his domestic political opponents, or when giving a speech to SEIU on shared goals and battles).

I have a feeling, no proof because there wouldn't be any, but that the number of troops being sent is based not on military need, but simply on what is politically feasible. People are saying it's three-quarters of what General McChrystal recommended, but really it's only half of what he requested, and three-quarters of what was considered the minimal number needed.

My guess is that 30,000 happened to be the bottom number that would prevent resignations among the military leadership. Personally, I think they should resign anyhow on the correct grounds that they are not being given what they feel they need, and the Commander in Chief should replace them with someone who thinks they can do the job with this number.

Likely this is what would happen if no reinforcements were sent, or if Obama sent 20,000, which was what General McChrystal said would be so low as to make no difference. Thus the 30,000 figure was chosen as a false "middle ground", not for reasons of military effectiveness, but a political balancing act by someone who said Afghanistan was the war of necessity when it was politically expedient to do so, but whose heart really isn't in this fight, because Afghanistan isn't the "enemy camp" to them.

His passion, like that of all Progressives, is reserved only for the fight against domestic political opponents. Thus he sprinkled

On Asymmetric Warfare: Byzantine Grand Strategy in the 11th and 21st Centuries

This follows my first and second posts in this series, as well as other related posts.

As is obvious by my web-name, it's no state secret that I'm into the Eastern Roman (aka "Byzantine") Empire. Back when I was a Freshman in Uni I read Edward Luttwak's excellent Grand Strategy of the Roman Empire, a work I highly recommend. Well he has completed the obvious sequel, a book on the Grand Strategy of the Byzantine Empire.

In Foreign Policy he has an article recommending the essential features of this strategy to the United States. I would argue that we already follow most of them, including a pernicious corruption of them that the Byzantines themselves engaged in during the 11th Century.

I. Avoid war by every possible means, in all possible circumstances, but always act as if war might start at any time. Train intensively and be ready for battle at all times -- but do not be eager to fight. The highest purpose of combat readiness is to reduce the probability of having to fight.

America has, critics to the contrary notwithstanding, typically followed this, including in the latest war, where, as many have noted, they "were at war with us, but we were not yet at war with them", and even in the "rush to war" against Iraq that took a decade.

II. Gather intelligence on the enemy and his mentality, and monitor his actions continuously. Efforts to do so by all possible means might not be very productive, but they are seldom wasted.

I shall elide over this a bit for the time being, because it is clearly one area where one might say we fall short of the highest standards. However, I will note that we do better than are given credit for, including in the current conflict where we must be right all the time in our counterterrorism efforts to foil attacks against us, while one intelligence failure on this front can lead to catastrophic results and the pointy finger of blame being directed at poor intelligence, flawed analysis of intelligence we did have, failure to recognize the value of intelligence or what it meant, and the like. But the Byzantines also had such failures: Just ask Nicephoros I or Manuel Komnenos. Nothing human is perfect.

III. Campaign vigorously, both offensively and defensively, but avoid battles, especially large-scale battles, except in very favorable circumstances. Don't think like the Romans, who viewed persuasion as just an adjunct to force. Instead, employ force in the smallest possible doses to help persuade the persuadable and harm those not yet amenable to persuasion.

Again I would say that by and large and for the most part, the invidious Powell Doctrine to the contrary notwithstanding, we do this. Sometimes to excess: Witness the initial attempt at a small footprint in Afghanistan. Arguably that was a good strategy, however, depending upon what ones goals in Afghanistan are. If they are simply to defeat our foes and keep them on the run, than this, in conjunction with the use of native forces as allies and proxies, is enough. If our goal is to build a strong democratic state there, then it is insufficient.

IV. Replace the battle of attrition and occupation of countries with maneuver warfare -- lightning strikes and offensive raids to disrupt enemies, followed by rapid withdrawals. The object is not to destroy your enemies, because they can become tomorrow's allies. A multiplicity of enemies can be less of a threat than just one, so long as they can be persuaded to attack one another.

Iraq is the one recent counter-example to this that people may point to. Afghanistan is becoming a counter-example in part because of the limitations of lightning-strike warfare. This is not to say that such strikes are always a failure, but they are not a panacea either. Note that in Iraq itself, pre-surge, this was the operational method that was preferred: Minimize American presence in the cities and neighborhoods, and conduct strikes from basecamps instead. The Surge meant occupying more areas to produce security.

V. Strive to end wars successfully by recruiting allies to change the balance of power. Diplomacy is even more important during war than peace. Reject, as the Byzantines did, the foolish aphorism that when the guns speak, diplomats fall silent. The most useful allies are those nearest to the enemy, for they know how best to fight his forces.

This is done more quite often. The same people who will on the one hand criticize American "militarism" will often on the other hand condemn our "proxy-wars". I'll note that in Afghanistan we recruited local forces from the outset, and neighboring countries. I'll also note that in my tour in Iraq, I got the chance to work for a couple weeks with a SF Team that was responsible for training the ISOFOR. During that time, Iraqi recruits were subjected to a psychological screening conducted by military psychologists from friendly Arab country bordering Iraq (I'll leave it to the reader to guess which one): So even there, more allies were recruited to help than is generally known.

VI. Subversion is the cheapest path to victory. So cheap, in fact, as compared with the costs and risks of battle, that it must always be attempted, even with the most seemingly irreconcilable enemies. Remember: Even religious fanatics can be bribed, as the Byzantines were some of the first to discover, because zealots can be quite creative in inventing religious justifications for betraying their own cause ("since the ultimate victory of Islam is inevitable anyway …").

This is done more often than we're given credit for, and indeed when critics of American foreign policy note it, it is to condemn any efforts to subvert or suborn enemies from within. I will note that we largely won the Cold War in Eastern Europe, however, in no small part through the use of such tactics, and that to the extent to which there was a period when Saddam was "friendly" with America, it was during a spell when we were employing this strategem against both Iran and Iraq and the Soviets.

VII. When diplomacy and subversion are not enough and fighting is unavoidable, use methods and tactics that exploit enemy weaknesses, avoid consuming combat forces, and patiently whittle down the enemy's strength. This might require much time. But there is no urgency because as soon as one enemy is no more, another will surely take his place. All is constantly changing as rulers and nations rise and fall. Only the empire is eternal -- if, that is, it does not exhaust itself.

Here also we have invested quite a bit of effort and creativity into just that over the last three or four decades.

But I want to turn the rest of my post on this to what could be called the Dark Side of Byzantine Strategy, an internal conflict that burst into the open in the 11th Century to the ultimate detriment of the Eastern Roman Empire, and again at the dawn of the 13th. Proxy forces can be waged against external enemies, but those engaged in internal political squabbles may consciously or unconsciously tempted tengage in warfare by proxy against their opponents, to humiliate, weaken, and discredit them in the struggle for political dominance.

After the death of Basil II Makedonion, the already existing tensions between Byzantium's "Civil" and its "military" elites flared up, worstening throughout the next five decades. The American counterparts of this are the Blue State "Georgetownist" Transnational Progressives and the Red State "Arlingtonist" nationalists. In Byzantium this conflict included the elimination of opponents from positions of influence even if (ultimately, especially if) they were competent, diverting funding (for example, Constantine IX Monomachus' demobilization of the forces of the Dukate of Armenia, at the time when Turkish raids were starting), sabotaging military campaigns (the most obvious being the withdrawal of half the army at Manzikurt, leaving Romanus III Diogenes to be defeated), and ultimately paying Turkish proxy forces to fight against each other in civil wars during the 1070s, even as the Turks conquered Anatolia.

One hundred years later, the son of a deposed Emperor recruited Crusaders to help place his father (or him) back on the throne, resulting instead in the conquest of the capital by said Crusaders and untold destruction.

Are we at that stage yet? Clearly not. Our current situation resembles the 1040s more than the 1070s, much less 1200s. But all the elements are in place, including a ruling class that is tougher with domestic opponents than with foreign enemies, always ready to advocate extending understanding and diplomatic, tactful treatment of foreign enemies while having nothing but the harshest, hatefully vituperative and merciless treatment of their domestic opponents. They have already rhetorically at minimum on numerous occasions used foreign enemies as proxies, and their mentors marched under the banner of more than one foreign foe, openly rooting for their victory, believing it would help discredit their domestic political opponents and advance their own cause.

These are facts: Pointing them out is only an act of intellectual honesty. It is simply chronicling current history accurately. None the less, it is extremely controversial to take note of this reality, except in the most indirect or praising way (that is, you can note it without controversy if you share their perspective). It is also not unfair to say that the outcome of what passes for their sage wisdom on the waging of war, and their fundamental transformation of traditional International Law and the Laws of War hinder their own nation's efforts and make it easier for their country's enemies (see previous posts in this series). This is what makes "asymmetric warfare" possible at all. It is this kind of "warfare by proxy" that results in dictators getting their job through the New York Times, and even now regularly speak power to truth in their efforts to advantage undemocratic enemies of their country abroad at the expense of integrity. Once you've read about international law untainted by their manipulations, or what the drafters of the real Geneva Conventions had to say:

"(2) Members of other militias and members of other volunteer corps, including those of organized resistance movements, belonging to a Party to the conflict and operating in or outside their own territory, even if this territory is occupied, provided that such militias or volunteer corps, including such organized resistance movements, fulfil [sic] the following conditions:[
(a) that of being commanded by a person responsible for his subordinates;
(b) that of having a fixed distinctive sign recognizable at a distance;
(c) that of carrying arms openly;
(d) that of conducting their operations in accordance with the laws and customs of war.

you then realize that these people have turned reality on its head. It is no exaggeration to say that they now offer far more protection to what are, under true international law, unlawful combatants who in a sane era were not extended the protections given uniformed combatants, than anyone ever extended to lawful, uniformed combatants. It should surprise no one that deciples of 'Franz Fanon' (sic) would behave in such a fashion, and that they would be drawn to concepts aimed at persuading people that fighting insurgencies is futile (which flies in the face of actual historical experience in defeating insurgencies). One is to be portrayed as a wild-eyed extremist for noting in a non-laudatory way what they say in their own words, which itself represents 1) the enforced detachment from reality that we are nudged into and 2) one aspect of the very internal conflict under discussion here, where war methods are waged with ruthlessness against internal dissent. (Language is an important expression of mentality: a "War Room" is what one has to combat domestic enemies; a "Situation Room" is what is now used to address overseas crises).

They are not to be seen as extremist for behaving this way: You to be treated as an extremist nut engaging in un-American activities, even as a terrorist for opposing them at home and for highlighting such behavior in an unflattering way. The degeneration of our governing class is all the more evident in the fact that they are sincerely delusional, thinking of themselves as outsider underdogs "speaking truth to power" when they are the ones in power, and are everywhere speaking power to truth in their efforts to destroy all opposition root and branch, and the fact that even ostensibly sensible people like Steven M. Teles thinks that this is not only a legitimate attitude towards those who disagree with them at home, but "necessary": The idea of a "loyal opposition", legitimate institutions other than ones they control, has become so foreign to not only the core of this group, but its sympathizers, that they believe they have "no choice but to use the... tools at its disposal to destroy its opponents root and branch". Since they "agree with Mao that power comes largely from the barrel of a gun", it should not be a surprise that they are not above using proxy forces in an attempt to discredit and destroy their domestic political opponents in this way.

I could invoke far more examples to drive this point home, but those in the "reality-based community" that dismiss empirical reality would pooh-pooh it regardless. Suffice to say that the attitude of domestic warfare that our governing class displays, when combined with the incontrovertible fact that they are as grounded in reality as O'Brien, forms a dire combination that bodes ill for the future.

Bonus for Extra Credit: Compare and contrast a typical example of the sage military advice offered up by these people with Luttwak's and other real experts, as well as those with actual experience, and remembering that the British defeated an insurgency in Malaysia even while the "typical example's" conception was taking root. Which passes for conventional wisdom, and who does it serve that this is maintained as conventional wisdom, all empirical evidence to the contrary notwithstanding?

Pointed fact to keep in mind when addressing the Extra-Credit Question: FDR's America would have had no problem employing the means necessary to defeat opponents we now are expected to take for granted cannot be beaten militarily.

Note also that another real expert on matters military connects this outlook to a real ideology, whose aims you can judge for yourself.

Response to Potential Objection: Yes, in spring they sent more troops to Afghanistan, and they haven't followed through on their previous rhetoric about Iraq, behaving, now that they are in office, in a more responsible way. But note that they do not embrace this outlook as a means of discrediting themselves, it's only for the utility of destroying their domestic political opponents. So, when a process like this is underway, we should naturally expect their own behavior to differ from what their rhetoric was when they were assailing their opponents. At minimum temporizing and an obvious tension about what decision to make, as they struggle with the internal conflict of their ideology pulling them one way while their instinct for political survival tugs them the other way.

Nothing illustrates this better than Obama's recent speech. I believe he is sincere when he said ""I will never rush the solemn decision of sending you into harm's way. I won't risk your lives unless it is absolutely necessary, and if it is necessary, we will back you up to the hilt."

I'm positive he sincerely perceives himself that way, just as he sincerely holds a contrary idea in his head (cognitive dissonance is not alien to these people). However, it is simply not part of his mental process that he already made such a decision (last spring, in sending additional troops), and he is now Hamlet over whether to back to the hilt or not, because of the tension between the siren song of their base, which is where their heart lays, where their own beliefs rest.

So we are served a public rationalization over why there is a delay in decision and why the forces necessary for victory ought to be denied which no rational people could possibly believe is sincere. We're to believe that a circle of Chicago Pols with close ties to the likes of ACORN and George Soros and benefit from shenannegans of all kinds are shocked, shocked! by political corruption in Afghanistan. Roman, please! If you sincerely believe that, as opposed to pretending to believe it because you're a sycophantic courtier speaking power to truth like the rest of the coterie surrounding this faction, I have only one question for you: Do you have your own cup to drool into, or do you have to share one?

Another objection of course is, aren't I just on the other side? In the great sense, no. I am chronicling this and hoping people will be aware of it. I certainly have sympathy for one side in this conflict, and as is obvious by what I concentrated on describing, hold the other in at best a minimum of high regard. But I am certainly not asking or hoping for you to become active in fighting against them and for Team B, aka "The Outer Party". That simply fuels the conflict. Additionally, voting, and other conventional political activism is a laughable way of thwarting this, as the locus of their power, is insulated from democratic politics as we normally understand it. Being in office helps the velocity by which they "affect change", marginally, but being out of office does not cripple them, as they are never truly out of power. The tides still flow.

I have no program, and won't offer up the usual "ten point plan for restoring the Republic" of items that range from the futile to the banal that others do and which are always so anticlimactically inconsequential or fantastically outside the realm of the possible (even as they illustrate the point I am making here, in that 70% of the voting public would support them, or something like them, but there aint no way they'll ever get close to be placed on the agenda) as to be depressing.

The last thing I should advocate is "taking sides" in this conflict and fighting it, as tempting as that is. Hopefully someone out there does have some idea of how to resolve this non-catastrophically, and I chronicle and describe it in no small part in the hope that someone shall put their mind to it.

He Said It

Related to this, former Senator Bob Kerry (D), writes:

No serious leader in Kabul is asking us to leave. Instead we are being asked to withdraw by American leaders who begin their analysis with the presumption that victory is not possible. They seem to want to ensure defeat by leaving at the very moment when our military leader on the ground has laid out a coherent and compelling strategy for victory.

They seem to want that fairly often, no? Which raises the obvious question of whether there is substance behind the semblance. In my opinion, the answer to that is equally obvious, though it is not always conscious.

Decline and Hypertrophy

Mark Steyn said recently

"Why squander your presidency on trying to turn an economically moribund feudal backwater into a functioning nation state when you can turn a functioning nation state into an economically moribund feudal backwater?"

Then there's this article by Charles Krauthammer (yes, I'm way behind the "current" normally expected of blogs, but who cares?)

"Facing the choice of whether to maintain our dominance or to gradually, deliberately, willingly, and indeed relievedly give it up, we are currently on a course towards the latter. The current liberal ascendancy in the United States--controlling the executive and both houses of Congress, dominating the media and elite culture--has set us on a course for decline. And this is true for both foreign and domestic policies. Indeed, they work synergistically to ensure that outcome. . .

..."Domestic policy, of course, is not designed to curb our power abroad. But what it lacks in intent, it makes up in effect. Decline will be an unintended, but powerful, side effect of the New Liberalism's ambition of moving America from its traditional dynamic individualism to the more equitable but static model of European social democracy."

I quibble with the first sentence of that 2nd paragraph: It is designed consciously to shift resources from the legitimate functions of government to the illegitimate ones. It's no accident that in an era of runaway, unaccountable spending, the only department that was told to look for every possible "savings" (cut) was defense, and that the only area of spending deliberately excluded from any "stimulus" money was defense, and that after years of saying our soldiers weren't being given the equipment they needed, when money could have been spent to "help" GM and Chrysler buy buying more vehicles for them, that did not happen.

A dream of the Left has been to ratchet up social spending to the point where spending on the legitimate functions of government would necessarily be starved for funds and decline.

This affects the ability to project power. Growth provides the sinews of dominance--the ability to maintain a large military establishment capable of projecting power to all corners of the earth. The Europeans, rich and developed, have almost no such capacity. They made the choice long ago to devote their resources to a vast welfare state. Their expenditures on defense are minimal, as are their consequent military capacities. They rely on the U.S. Navy for open seas and on the U.S. Air Force for airlift. It's the U.S. Marines who go ashore, not just in battle, but for such global social services as tsunami relief. The United States can do all of this because we spend infinitely more on defense--more than the next nine countries combined.

Formerly it was just the Continental Europeans that relied upon the kindness of strangers for their protection. A calculus that might be adaptive if your protectors is the rather generous and benign Anglosphere. Now it will be the entirety of Western Civilization that relies upon the kindness of strangers. Even if these strangers were to have our best interests at heart, a true (as opposed to faux/superficial) multiculturalist would know that their priorities are different from ones we might assert ourselves; liberty is not high on the list of any of them with the possible exception of Anglosphere-influenced India.

I note here that the Obama Administration, for all the plaudits they get for "diplomatic outreach", is engaging in malign neglect of the close relationship the "unilateralist, cowboy" Bush Administration built up with India.

Those are the conditions today. But they are not static or permanent. They require constant renewal. The express agenda of the New Liberalism is a vast expansion of social services--massive intervention and expenditures in energy, health care, and education--that will necessarily, as in Europe, take away from defense spending.

This shift in resources is not hypothetical. It has already begun. At a time when hundreds of billions of dollars are being lavished on stimulus and other appropriations in an endless array of domestic programs, the defense budget is practically frozen. Almost every other department is expanding, and the Defense Department is singled out for making "hard choices"--forced to look everywhere for cuts, to abandon highly advanced weapons systems, to choose between readiness and research, between today's urgencies and tomorrow's looming threats.
See above.

The effect on the dollar is already being felt and could ultimately lead to a catastrophic collapse and/or hyperinflation. Having control of the world's reserve currency is an irreplaceable national asset. Yet with every new and growing estimate of the explosion of the national debt, there are more voices calling for replacement of the dollar as the world currency--not just adversaries like Russia and China, Iran and Venezuela, which one would expect, but just last month the head of the World Bank.

Again, to to the extent to which these cretins are even aware of the value of having one's own currency serve as the international reserve currency, I don't think they mind the U.S. losing it. It doesn't fit with their transnationalist vision.

But, of course, if one's foreign policy is to reject the very notion of international primacy in the first place, a domestic agenda that takes away the resources to maintain such primacy is perfectly complementary. Indeed, the two are synergistic. Renunciation of primacy abroad provides the added resources for more social goods at home. To put it in the language of the 1990s, the expanded domestic agenda is fed by a peace dividend--except that in the absence of peace, it is a retreat dividend.

And there's the rub. For the Europeans there really is a peace dividend, because we provide the peace. They can afford social democracy without the capacity to defend themselves because they can always depend on the United States.

So why not us as well? Because what for Europe is decadence--decline, in both comfort and relative safety--is for us mere denial. Europe can eat, drink, and be merry for America protects her. But for America it's different. If we choose the life of ease, who stands guard for us?

Canada, I guess: Their National Anthem says so, after all. Oh, wait...no, it says "We stand on guard for thee" - meaning people should stand on guard for their nation. Again, inverted under Tranzi progressivism.

Because, while globalization has produced in some the illusion that human nature has changed, it has not. The international arena remains a Hobbesian state of nature in which countries naturally strive for power. If we voluntarily renounce much of ours, others will not follow suit. They will fill the vacuum. Inevitably, an inversion of power relations will occur.

Note how at odds this view is from the alternative view. The alternative view asserts, in effect, that we are the only protagonist, the only "Player Character" in the world: That others are simply NPCs who respond to our stimuli. That any bad acts on their part are in effect caused by our actions, and if we change our policies, they will change theirs and become benign. This is clearly the vision of the current Administration, and of those who awarded it the Nobel Prize. They clearly believe that if we voluntarily transform, others *will* follow suit, because we generate all the antagonism, which otherwise would simply fade away if only we give out the right cookies.

"We've got to think about giving out cookies," said Gration, who was appointed in March. "Kids, countries -- they react to gold stars, smiley faces, handshakes, agreements, talk, engagement."

Other countries are basically small children aping the "adult", the Actor. They are simply re-actors, without minds and policies of their own. In this way, those who claim to be most respectful of other peoples are actually giving them the least credit as independent actors with wills, desires, and goals of their own, and the vision to pursue them the way we can.

They'd be Insane Not To

There's sound and fury about a move away from the dollar as the international reserve currency and unit of exchange for pricing commodities.

Here in America, note of this is often accompanied with an undertone of shock, appalled at the idea that other countries are scheming against the dollar and plotting to replace it. Even those Americans who recognize that our current policies are devaluing the dollar and run a nontrivial risk of leading to hyperinflation seem to have this attitude.

But really, can one blame anyone in the world for seeking a refuge in the face of this building storm?

No. Instead, one should be advising Americans to get out of dollar-denominated assets as much as they can, and invest in things that will retain their value in the face of a devalued dollar.

This is unfortunate, and sad, and the U.S. Government is insane to risk losing one of America's most important assets, an asset they clearly under-appreciate and take for granted, the status of the dollar as the world's reserve currency. But if we cannot convince them to change their policies, which are self-destructive, we cannot blame others for seeking to shield themselves from the consequences of these deranged policies, and indeed would be wise to do so ourselves.

On Asymmetric Warfare: Sedition?

The connection between my first post on Asymmetric Warfare and this one on Progressives being "tough with domestic enemies, and soft with foreign ones" should be as obvious as it is outrageous. Therefore, it's worth starting with this:

[A]s I listen to the increasingly vitriolic and even seditious rhetoric coming from the political right, I can't help thinking that we need a threatening external enemy

Especially after the previous eight years, one might think the unsupported assertion of "sedition" on the political right is a simple case of projection, but it's not quite.

For Progressives, political opposition to Progressive policies, politicians, and extraconstitutional transformamtion of America is tantamount to treason. But it is not conservatives who are trying to restrict military options or that the war is lost.

No, that bill will not come close to passing through Congress. Progressives have become more subtle since Tom Hayden called for many Vietnams, protesters openly carried the enemy flag and chanted that the NLF is going to win, and cut off military support to our allies.

An exchange here is illustrative, however, of both now and then:

Unknown Speaker 1: "Just a few months ago, I spoke to someone who was carrying the NFL flag. I see that you're carrying an American flag, aren't you? How do you feel about those who are displaying the flag of the Vietcong?"

Unknown Speaker 2: "Well, this is my flag. That may be their flag, but this is my flag and I love it; so I carry it, and I wave it. I'm not gonna burn it, spit on it, it's mine. Somebody try to take it away from me, and I’d fight them to take it away from me."

To Gregory Rodriguez, "Unknown Speaker 2" is vitriolic and seditious, not the person who carried the NFL flag, because "Unknown Speaker 2" will fight back. ("Cet animal est tres mechant; quand on l'attaque, il se defend.")

How does that relate to overseas enemies of the United States, and the understanding and even sympathy Progressives extend to them? Even when they are theocratic reactionaries of the sort Progressives would viscerally abhor and detest if they were "Christianists"?

There is the direct, and the indirect. Lets explore the indirect first, how information supportive of our efforts is expunged from the record of The Narrative. On my 2nd blog, I had an extensive post on what was found in Iraq. Since that is gone, I'm able to use Andrew Sullivan and the Kay Report as a case study.

Do follow the links, if you have (understandably) forgotten about this. Under circumstances where the application of telling power to truth does not apply, what was in the Kay Report would critically inform everyone's understanding of the Iraq War. Instead, it is largely forgotten, and the belief that nothing of import was found in Iraq with respect to WMD is widespread. Along these lines also, the previous Joe Wilson is viewed as a Whistle Blower, when in fact he was found, in the Senate investigation, to be a serial liar (see also here and here).

Sullivan quotes from the links above are, given later turns of events, too apt to pass up:

The war was legally based on the premise that Saddam had clearly violated U.N. resolutions, was in open breach of such resolutions and was continuing to conceal his programs with the intent of restarting them in earnest once sanctions were lifted. Having read the report carefully, I'd say that the administration is vindicated in every single respect of that argument. . .

But what we now see may not impress those who are looking for any way to discredit this administration and this war. But it shows to my mind the real danger that Saddam posed - and would still pose today, if one president and one prime minister hadn't had the fortitude to face him down. We live in a dangerous but still safer world because of it. Now is the time for the administration to stop the internal quibbling, the silence and passivity, and go back on the offensive. Show the dangers that the opposition was happy for us to tolerate; show the threat - real and potential - that this war averted; and defend the record with pride and vigor.

What a difference an age makes: Sullivan subsequently turned on Bush, not just over spending and opposition to Gay marriage, but on the Iraq war itself, and not just it's conduct, but in toto, and soon found himself once again featured on MSNBC and celebrated in fashionable venues.

This demonstrates the power of The Machine over The Narrative, and how it can contribute to "Asymmetric Warfare" through manipulation of information. It takes a person of particular courage and intellectual integrity to resist it, when they run in its social circles. The Kay Report, and similar finds, are forgotten today, having been dropped down the memory hole.

By changing people's perception of reality, both in what is deleted from The Narrative and what is inserted into it that just aint so by the "Reality-Based Community" enables small-time thugs to compete with superpowers not just on an equal footing, but on one where all involved think they can emerge victorious.

We'll explore the more direct ways this dynamic plays out in the next post On Asymmetric Warfare.

Lieber on Insurgents

here, a primary source, as an addendum to my earlier post on Asymmetric Warfare.

See especially pp.17-22, and in particular p.22.

On Asymmetric Warfare: The Sources of Insurgent Power

First, I apologize to Clauswitz in advance, because not only am I not him, but I can't hope to emulate him. Also, little of what follows is original thinking, though it is entirely at odds with conventional wisdom on the subject.

If war is diplomacy by other means, asymmetric warfare is politics by other means. We're told that the Western Alliance is in danger of losing in Afghanistan, an alliance that represents the most advanced states of the world, consisting of three quarters of a billion people and over half of global GDP, fighting in a country of 25 million people. While reliable data is hard to come by, I believe that at least a plurality of that country's population would prefer to see the Alliance's foe, the Taliban/insurgents defeated, rather than see them return to power.

Why is this absurdity, the possibility of the alliance's defeat, not only considered possible, but actually likely? If we assume that the leaders of the Taliban are rational actors, why have they always held the belief in their ultimate victory?

Let me first assert that, as it is commonly understood, "Asymmetric Warfare" is a fallacy. If you have two forces, and the one whose power appears insignificant compared to that of its opponent, and yet is considered the likely victor, then you are only seeing a fraction of its real power. Like an iceberg, you see only the tip, but the rest is invisible under the veil of the sea.

Only when this Camouflage is drained away, and the whole is visible, can you see why the apparently weaker party not only has a chance of defeating the materially stronger, but is considered the likely winner among those who shape conventional wisdom even in the homelands of its opponents (in this case, the Western Alliance). The ostensible power of the Western Alliance's military forces is obvious, because it is primarily materiel and direct. The power of the insurgents are primarily political/propagandistic and indirect, consisting largely of the ability to manipulate mindsets, rather than battlefield outcomes.

To examine how this works I'll make another unoriginal observation, but one at odds with conventional wisdom. The drafters of Geneva Conventions a century ago and those who described international law during that same time were decent men (they were all men) who wanted to make an inherently inhumane activity, warfare, more humane, less brutal and bloody. The fact that the century of warfare that followed was the bloodiest in human history is not their fault. They were indeed intelligent men, no less intelligent than the men and women responsible for interpreting the Geneva Conventions and "international law" today. The gentlemen of a century ago knew that mercy to the guilty is cruelty to the innocent.

Therefore, in order to de-incentivize certain forms of warfare, they did not extend the protections of international law given to lawful combatants to insurgents, terrorists, and the like. The Geneva Conventions did not cover those who did not themselves follow them. In that era, it was accepted as a given that it was necessary to give such persons less protection, to deter people from engaging in activities that would make conflict less clear, and thus more destructive and more prolonged. Thus the Geneva Conventions, for example, declared that such combatants could be shot when captured.

It's not controversial, but simply factual, to observe that today insurgents are extended more rights than lawful, uniformed enemy soldiers would be, and that the argument is whether or not to extend them even more. Most of the Alliance's members send small forces to Afghanistan and compel them to operate under such restrictive rules of engagement that they are militarily useless, and indeed would be hostile to fortune if deployed in a combat zone, so they are kept out of harms way. Even those members whose forces are used in combat (primarily Anglosphere nations and the Netherland) operate under rules so increasingly constrained as to nearly, but not quite, tie their hands with an ever-tightening cobra. The enemy's propaganda complaints of collateral damage are listened to, and thus they are encouraged to use that as one of their main weapons in the conflict to thwart the Alliance.

We are told we need to accept these constraints, less we lose the "hearts and minds" of the local population. But the enemy quite clearly does not have to operate this way. The intimidation tactics and outright brutality which insurgents use to cow the population is also one of their weapons. Why? Because the "hearts and minds" strategy concentrates mainly on the hearts of those sympathetic to the enemy, their collaborators, and not on the minds of those who oppose them or are otherwise innocent, simply wanting a better life than the Taliban offers, but afraid they'll be left to die or otherwise suffer when we pack up and abandon the area, after concluding that our efforts are futile or even counter-productivly "alienating people". This mindset involves listening primarily to the complaints of those sympathetic to the insurgents, rather than those who would be our natural allies. Again, mercy to the guilty becoming cruelty to the innocent.

Highly constrained rules of engagement that limit the effectiveness of the Alliances armed forces also serve to to prove the point of those who shape conventional wisdom, who always assert that military force is not effective. This is not to say we should be bloody-minded and be indiscriminate. Indeed, the Armed Forces of the West are the most discriminate forces in human history. But warfare is warfare. A deranged mind might conclude therefore that these rules exist to prove the point of those shaping conventional wisdom, who are also the ones prodding for ever more restraint, making it a self-fulfilling prophecy.

The conventional wisdom suggests that an insurgency cannot be militarily defeated, and yet the historical facts belie this. Insurgencies have been defeated militarily: The Philippines, the Malay Insurgency, among others. Even Vietnam: It's no longer even controversial, outside of direct discussions of insurgent warfare in the arena of conventional wisdom, to acknowledge that, after Tet, the Viet Cong ceased to be a viable force, and that the North conquered the south in a classic armored offensive of tank columns and regular troops, rather than any sort of indigenous insurgency in the South. But the converse view is still prevalent in the conventional wisdom on the subject of guerrilla warfare, not because of its historical accuracy, but because of its political utility in present-day policy controversies in the West.

Defeating insurgents requires a combination of strictness, firm rules on the enemy and their sympatizers, not just our own forces, and employment of local troops under western officers, something done in a coy way during the Anbar Awakening (when we paid local militias, thus gaining some influence) as a means of discipline. "Advisor" programs, where Western soldiers mentor local counterparts, are another way of reproducing this in a coy way.

Why it is in the interest of the Western Alliance to enact policies that have the practice not only of tying the hands of their own armed forces, making them less effective, but in practice making warfare less humane on the whole by incentivizing a pattern of warfare by its opponents based on practices that the original drafters of the Geneva Conventions and international law did their best to deincentivize, because of its bloody results, becomes a key question. But a controversial one indeed.

This has to do with conflicts internal to the West itself, as one faction uses its own ability to manipulate procedural outcomes and guide conventional wisdom in order to defeat their domestic political opponents. This has the side-effect of providing the primary power of the insurgents themselves, which is, as mentioned above, primarily political and indirect.

It shouldn't surprise anyone, therefore, when the spokesmen of al Qaeda include in their list of grievances complaints that have a certain sort of resonance and appeal, creating a sort of symbiosis where the insurgent's power is parasitical.

How this works in practice would be inflammatory if put baldly, and require quite a bit of supporting argument, which I will go into in subsequent posts.

Indefensible: The Broad Picture

Regarding this swerve in policy, critics may miss the mark. The alternative being swapped in may or may not be better.

The real troubling aspect of this is one that seems to prevail on a lot of the current Administration's policy changes. For all their talk before the election, there seems to be less consultation with allies before anything is done, rather than more. But this should surprise no one.

The U.S. seems to be returning to the position Bernard Lewis once observed as being “harmless as an enemy and treacherous as a friend.”

Given that, the people of Iran will have to free themselves, for no one else will help them.

Before anyone says "well, it was always the case that they would have to free themselves", let us remember that in the long history of such things, no one has done so without significant outside support and encouragement.

Not even the fall of the Eastern Bloc is a counter-example, nor that of Lebanon. Lebanon indeed is illustrative: Their brief dawn of Democracy occurred when there was significant outside pressure on the Syrians (and their proxies). When the support faded, so to did Lebanon's false dawn.

Outside support does not have to be bombs. But it does have to be something more than a handful of half-hearted statements wrung out largely to avoid criticism at home of indifference.

The best bet to end any menace posed by Iran has always been replacement of the current Iranian regime by one more typical of the Persian people. The heavy lifting was always going to have to be done by them, but they need buttresses supporting them from the outside for their efforts to succeed.