Category: Geopolitics

Memorial Weekend Musings

The Daily Escape:

Sunrise, Paines Creek, Brewster, Cape Cod, MA – May 2024 photo by Bob Amaral Photography

Wrongo and Ms. Right just returned from a whirlwind visit to family in Western MA and from there to family on Cape Cod, MA. We then moved on to the Havanese National Dog Show in North Kingston, RI. Now, we’re happy to be back at the Mansion of Wrong, where most of our flowering plants are in bloom or are budding.

Happy Saturday, and welcome to Memorial Day Weekend, when we remember those in the military who died in service to the country. Before 1971, it was called Decoration Day, which was first observed on May 30, 1868, when flowers were placed on the graves of both Union and Confederate soldiers at Arlington National Cemetery. Back then, it was our most solemn holiday.

Memorial Day is Monday, when we mourn the soldiers we knew, and we briefly remember those we never knew personally. By now, the standard American public’s response is, “thank you for your service”. Saying it has become a reflex, like “bless you” when someone sneezes. Our default position is to thank, but not to think. For most of us, America’s foreign wars are a kind of elevator music. Always present, but we barely notice them.

So maybe we watch our town’s parade. There’s likely to be a cookout. It isn’t about love of country. It’s about sad Facebook emojis, Memorial Day mattress sales, and burgers on Monday

Let’s take a moment to think about the wars we are currently waging in Ukraine and Israel. Alex Vershinin, a retired US Army Lt. Col, has an article at RUSI “The Attritional Art of War: Lessons from the Russian War on Ukraine” about the costs of war and how countries fight them in different ways, which can create great difficulty for the combatants: (brackets and emphasis by Wrongo)

“The US (and Israel) are set up to conduct high intensity, airpower heavy conflicts. Russia has long preferred attrition and that is the battle plan adopted by [Hamas]…Attritional wars require simple to operate weaponry since the odds [are] that both sides will have their experienced and well-trained forces badly thinned, forcing them to rely more and more on not-well-trained recent inductees. And of course being able to produce armaments in huge volumes is also important. The Western dismissiveness towards this strategy, seeing it as primitive, is setting it up for a fall.”

Satyajit Das, a former banker takes a similar view: (brackets by Wrongo)

“War requires massive amounts of equipment, munitions and manpower…..Western powers are currently struggling to match Russia and China in producing armaments for its client states [Ukraine and Israel]. The US and its allies have [not prioritized]…heavy manufacturing essential for weaponry in favor of consumer goods and services.”

This is econospeak for saying that the US and Europe are unable to keep the weapons supply chain full for the two wars they currently support. More:

“In contrast, their opponents have prioritized military manufacturing and maintaining inventories for armed conflict. Western industrial ecosystems, frequently now privatized,…lack the necessary capacity and surge capability.

It has always been true that sophisticated weapons systems can be countered by low-cost and low-tech improvisation. We’re seeing this in Ukraine with the use of cheap drones and missiles that can alter the battlefield situation.

That stands in contrast to America’s ‘boys-with-toys’ syndrome that places its faith in expensive high tech weapons, such as the F35 jets that cost around $150 million. Or Patriot Air Defense Systems that cost over $1 billion, with each interceptor missile costing a further $6-10 million. Individual artillery rounds can cost upwards of $3-5,000.

Given the Russian strategy of attrition, degrading Ukraine’s ability to finance its military action is an essential tactic. Russia’s targeting of industrial and agricultural infrastructure combined with the displacement of manpower has reduced Ukrainian output by about 35%. The cost of rebuilding what has been lost in power plants and other infrastructure is thought to be around $500 billion. Soon, Ukraine will need to restructure the country’s $20 billion international debt to avoid default.

Israel’s obliteration of impoverished, aid-reliant Gaza is economically pointless, unless the goal is to drive Gaza residents away. How and when Gaza gets rebuilt is unknown, but certainly it will take decades. OTOH, Israel’s economy has shrunk by as much as 20%. The call-up of reservists for military service and flight of talent out of the country has disrupted its industries. The conflict has cost Israel around $50 billion (10% of GDP) while increasing Israel’s debt. Its credit rating has been downgraded.

Neither of these wars can go on indefinitely. Ukraine and Israel are reliant on their Western backers who will soon be less able to support them financially or in their demand for more weapons. And in both cases the enemy is conducting wars of attrition. Those type of wars last longer and they test both a warring country’s industrial capacity and its borrowing capacity. From Vershinin:

“Unfortunately, many in the West have a very cavalier attitude that future conflicts will be short and decisive. This is not true….Even middling global powers have both the geography and the population and industrial resources needed to conduct…attritional wars.”

If the West is serious about a possible great power conflict, say between the US and China, or between NATO and Russia, the West needs to look critically at its industrial capacity, mobilization doctrines and their ability to conduct a protracted war.

Today, most US war games take place over a single month of conflict. As Afghanistan and Iraq have taught us, that isn’t a likely outcome. The attritional strategy is counterintuitive to most US military officers. Western military thought views being on offense as the means of achieving the decisive strategic goal: forcing the enemy to come to the negotiating table on unfavorable terms.

But they should know better. All of their recent combat experience acquired in overseas operations says when we’re fighting a war of attrition, we lose.

Anyway, it’s Saturday and time for our Saturday Soother. Here is some beautiful (and meditative) music for your Saturday. The Adagio in G Minor is attributed to Tomaso Albinoni, but actually was composed by 20th-century musicologist and Albinoni biographer Remo Giazotto, purportedly based on the discovery of a manuscript fragment by Albinoni. Albinoni died in 1751, and Giazotto obtained a copyright for the Adagio in 1958.

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Why Ukraine?

The Daily Escape:

St. Ann’s Church and Shrine, Polonia, Buffalo NY, abandoned in 2012  – March 2024 photo by Abandoned and beyond Buffalo. It was recently purchased by a group of Muslims aiming to transform it into a refuge.

From Timothy Snyder:

“…It has been 459 days since the US Congress passed legislation to support Ukraine. Russia, supported by arms from Iran and North Korea, is now slowly advancing…and sending scores of missiles and drones at cities throughout Ukraine.  Russia has…destroyed one major Ukrainian hydroelectrical facility, and…is targeting two others.  The aim is to bring down the Ukrainian electricity grid.

The US Congress is once again in recess.  Although sizable majorities of Americans and their elected representatives want to support Ukraine, legislation has been blocked by the Putinist wing of the House of Representatives.”

This means that the House won’t address funding for Kyiv until mid-April at the earliest. It would be difficult to state the problem more succinctly or better than Snyder does. Where have the Biden administration and the US House been for the past 460+ days?

Rep. Don Bacon (R-NE) was on “Meet the Press” yesterday. Bacon favors some support for Ukraine and highlighted his partnership with Reps. Jared Golden, (D-ME), Brian Fitzpatrick, (R-PA), and Ed Case, (D-HI) on a Ukraine aid bill:

“We put a bill together that focuses on military aid — a $66 billion bill that provides military aid to Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan….If we do this bill, and I think we will, there’s enough support in the House to get this done. And — and I want to make sure that we have support in the Senate…”

It’s possible that Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) could face a vote to oust him if he moves to pass Ukraine aid in the House. Before the House left for its two-week vacation Marjorie Taylor-Greene, (R-GA), submitted a motion to vacate, which could lead to a House vote to oust Johnson. Since Greene did not file the motion as privileged, the vote can happen at an indefinite point in the future. Shortly after Greene filed the motion, she said: (parenthesis by Wrongo)

“He (Johnson) should not bring funding for Ukraine to the floor…”

The US has been in a stalemate on resupplying weapons to Ukraine for six months. Zelenskyy told CBS News that Ukraine’s forces had managed to hold off Russian advances through the worst of the winter months:

“We have stabilized the situation. It is better than it used to be two or three months ago when we had a big deficit of artillery ammunition, different kinds of weapons….We totally didn’t see the big, huge counteroffensive from Russia… They didn’t have success.”

CBS said that Zelenskyy acknowledged that the invading Russian troops and their seemingly endless supply of missiles and shells is having a negative effect, that they’re not going to be able to defend against another major Russian offensive expected in the coming months. That, he said, was expected around the end of May or in June.

More: (parenthesis and emphasis by Wrongo)

“He (Zelenskyy) said what’s needed most are American Patriot missile defense systems, and more artillery…he said the nature of the funding dedicated by the American government to help Ukraine must be put into perspective.”

He then made the point that the vast majority of the funds committed to Ukraine go to defense contractors in the US:

“Let’s be honest, the money, which is allocated by the Congress, by the administration, in the majority of cases….at least more than 75% — stays in the US. This ammunition is coming to us, but the production is taking place there, and the money stays in the US…”

What’s happened to Americans? Two years ago every town in the US was sponsoring Ukrainian families. Zelenskyy spoke to the US Congress and received standing ovations. Their war of necessity with Russia dominated the evening news.

Now, we get crickets instead of news about Ukraine. It seems that we’ve become a culture where we admire, support and follow “winners only” like BeyoncĂ© and Taylor. We like winners. Their stories are simple to follow, and their detractors are easy to get angry about.

Ukraine looked like a winner in the fall of 2023, so America was all in, but that died in the standoff in the spring of 2024. America no longer has the willingness or ability to think through complex problems like Ukraine vs. Russia, a problem that may take several more years to solve. So we kick Ukraine to the side of the road and instead talk about Princess Kate and her cancer diagnosis or about Dodgers pitcher Shohei Ohtani, his awesome huge contract and his possible connection to gambling.

You know, the easy stuff that doesn’t make your hair hurt.

We need to keep Ukraine in the forefront of our thinking. We need to realize that Russia sees the eastern NATO countries on their border like potato chips. And you can’t expect Russia to eat just one.

America has two “far enemies” (as opposed to “near enemies”). Our far enemies are Russia and China. Rather than allow them time to become near enemies, we need to deal with them where they are today. This means arming Ukraine with the best air defense systems we have and with longer range missiles that can strike at Russia’s oil, shipping and manufacturing facilities.

Its long past time for the US Congress’ wakeup call! Your dithering may cost Europe and America far more than you think.

To help you wake up, watch and listen to the late Kirsty MacColl perform her hit “Walking Down Madison”, from her 1991 album Electric Landlady. The backup group includes Johnny Marr (The Smiths) on guitar and rapping by Aniff Akinola. Wrongo has loved this song since he first heard it 33 years ago. The idea that you’re never far from having reality whack you in the face has always appealed

Sample Lyrics:

From an uptown apartment
To a knife on the A train
It’s not that far
From the sharks in the penthouse
To the rats in the basement
It’s not that far
To the bag lady frozen asleep on the church steps
It’s not that far

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Who Attacked The Civilians In Moscow?

The Daily Escape:

MLK statue through Cherry blossoms, Tidal Basin, DC – March 2024 photo by National Parks Service

An event in Russia highlights how difficult it is for many to believe what they’re reading and hearing. A terrorist attack took place in the outskirts of Moscow at the Crocus City Hall last Friday. At least 133 people were killed and more than 100 others were injured in the attack just before a performance by a rock band. Assailants who were dressed in camouflage uniforms opened fire and reportedly threw explosive devices inside the venue, which was left in flames with its roof collapsing after the deadly attack.

The Islamic State in Afghanistan known as the Islamic State in Khorasan Province, (ISIS-K) – subsequently claimed responsibility for the attack.

And that’s where the charges and countercharges about who was behind the deed started flying across the internet. Earlier, on March 7, the US Embassy in Russia issued a warning to “avoid large gatherings over the next 48 hours”:

“The Embassy is monitoring reports that extremists have imminent plans to target large gatherings in Moscow, to include concerts, and US citizens should be advised to avoid large gatherings over the next 48 hours.”

Apparently the US Embassy also passed this information on directly to their Russian counterparts. It’s likely that the collapse of US-Russia relations since the start of Ukraine/Russia war makes it very difficult for Russia’s security services to take seriously any intelligence the US might provide about possible attacks.

All of this led to the US State Department saying that ISIS-K was to blame, while the Russians accused Ukraine. Unsurprisingly, Putin is all over the idea that Ukraine is behind the attack: (emphasis by Wrongo)

“They were trying to hide and were moving toward Ukraine….Based on preliminary information, a window for crossing the border was prepared for them by the Ukrainian side.”

Whether or not this is true, it represents a Russian verdict on Ukraine’s guilt.

But think about Putin’s “window”. The idea that escaping terrorists would head for Ukraine is nuts. Russia has 20,000 miles of border. The Russian-Ukrainian portion of it is covered with Russian soldiers and security forces. The Ukrainian side is heavily mined. It’s a site of active combat. It’s almost the last place an escaping terrorist would choose to run to.

Ukrainian officials have denied having anything to do with the attack, and American officials have said there is no evidence of any Ukrainian involvement. From Paul Campos:

“…people often forget that a) Russia occupies vast territories populated predominantly by Muslims, b) Russia has waged a brutal war of terror in order to subjugate some of those territories, and c) Russia has been a target of radical Islamist terror in the past. Consequently, allegations of ISIS-K involvement easily pass the smell test.”

It’s apparent that neither side is remotely interested in a comprehensive investigation. The State Department’s verdict was that Ukraine was innocent and ISIS K was to blame. The Russian FSB’s verdict is that it was hired nobodies from Tajikistan who were sponsored by Ukraine’s GUR (intelligence service) – and thus it was a terrorist act supported by the West. From Timothy Snyder:

“Russia and the Islamic State have long been engaged in conflict. Russia has been bombing Syria since 2015. Russia and the Islamic State compete for territory and resources in Africa. Islamic State attacked the Russian embassy in Kabul. This is the relevant context for the attack outside Moscow.”

Finally CNN begs to differ with the Russians: (parenthesis by Wrongo)

“In March alone, Russian authorities had thwarted several ISIS-related incidents, according to RIA (the state-run RIA-Novosti news agency). On March 3, RIA reported that six ISIS members were killed in a counter-terrorist operation in the Ingush Karabulak; on March 7, it said security services had uncovered and “neutralized” a cell of the banned organization Vilayat Khorasan in the Kaluga region, whose members were planning an attack on a synagogue in Moscow; and on March 20, it said the commander of an ISIS combat group had been detained.”

It is in Putin’s interest to pin the attacks on Ukraine because Russia needs to mobilize more troops to finish the Ukraine job.

OTOH, if Ukraine had anything to do with the murdering of Russian civilians on an industrial scale, the West would shut off their arms & ammo supplies. The US and NATO has zero reason to risk starting a nuclear war by allowing it’s Ukrainian client to murder and maim Russian civilians.

And Ukraine targeting civilians doesn’t fit with their strategy of attacking Russian airfields, refineries, railroads, critical bridges, and FSB offices. If they were going to kill civilians it would be workers in weapons factories or oil industry or railway employees.

Meanwhile during and since the incident, Ukraine attacked two Russian Ropucha Class landing ships, the Black Sea Fleet Communications Center in Sevastopol, and a few more refineries.

Time to wake up America! We need to see beyond the headlines in a complicated story like this terrorist attack in Moscow. This is why people who get their news from social media without better research into the full gamut of possibilities will make bad conclusions about what/who is behind this. It’s probably a good idea for all of us to keep our powder dry and wait for the evidence to tell the story.

To help you wake up, watch and listen to three guys play boogie-woogie on a public piano in St. Pancras station in London. This is an excellent tune to start your day:

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Russia. China And Iran, And Other Thoughts

The Daily Escape:

Snow at sunrise, Grand Canyon NP, AZ – February 2024 photo by John Fecteau

Welcome to another Monday Wake Up. Wrongo wants to touch on a few different ideas today. First, a non-trivial topic that Wrongo plans to return to this year. When we look at the geo-political landscape today, the US is confronting a growing alliance between three countries, each of which holds ill-will towards us and towards our western allies. Those three are China, Russia and Iran.

We’re confronting them separately and also in the case of the Ukraine War, jointly. This is an excellent time to harken back to something that Zbigniew Brzezinski wrote in 1997. He had formerly (through 1981) been Carter’s National Security Adviser:

“Potentially the most dangerous scenario would be a grand coalition of China, Russia and perhaps Iran, an ‘anti-hegemonic’ coalition, united not by ideology but by complementary grievances. . . . Averting this contingency . . . will require a display of US geostrategic skill on the western, eastern and southern perimeters of Eurasia simultaneously.”

Today’s geopolitical landscape reflects exactly what Brzezinski feared more than two decades ago. Is the world heading toward what the late Brzezinski referred to as “the most dangerous scenario”? What should America be doing now to head off what we’re seeing from our three rivals? Or is it already too late?

Which presidential candidate will do the better job of blunting this potential power conflict ?

Second, what did the weekend’s South Carolina Republican primary tell us? Trump won by a wide margin. As of this writing, the tally has Trump at 59.8% and Nikki Haley at 39.5%. The media is treating this as a significant triumph. When you win by 20 points, that’s true.

The real story, however, is that Trump underperformed expectations and failed to expand his coalition beyond his base. If you doubt that, take a look at the polling group 538’s polling vs. actual results for Trump across the three Republican primaries:

We’re seeing Trump consistently underperform the polls by 7-8 points. Worse for Trump, Fox News’ John Roberts talked about an alarming exit poll finding that 59% of Haley voters in South Carolina last night (equal to 40% of the electorate) would not vote for Trump in the general election.

From Simon Rosenberg:

“It’s my view that something broke inside the GOP when Dobbs happened. That even for many Republicans, it was just too much, the party had gone too far, had become too ugly and dangerous.”

Trump and the GOP are showing signs of deep institutional weakness. They had disappointing elections in 2018, 2020, 2022 and 2023. They’re replacing the entire leadership team at the RNC due to their ongoing fundraising struggles. Today’s RNC is broke:

In addition, the GOP’s state parties have atrophied in some key battleground states. Trump is burning through cash at unprecedented rates to fund his many lawsuits. Even Nikki Haley out raised him last month.

Wrongo thinks that we’re finally seeing “Trump Fatigue”. Everybody has seen his act and has zero need to ever see it again. The assertion that Trump is strong beyond his die-hard MAGA base seems to at last, be untrue. But what does Wrongo know? When he retired from the F500, he thought he would go into private equity. But he was seduced into online journalism by the promise of very small paychecks and zero job security.

Our third story is for the birds. The Guardian reports that:

“The Eurasian eagle owl named Flaco, which escaped New York City’s Central Park Zoo last year, has died after crashing into a building in Manhattan, officials said late on Friday.”

Here’s Flaco in happier times:

More:

“Flaco was rescued by the zoo in 2010, when he was less than a year old. He was reputed to be the only owl of his kind in the wild in North America, and there were widespread fears he ultimately wouldn’t survive for long outside captivity.”

The Eurasian eagle-owl is one of the larger owl species. Flaco’s wingspan was reported to be about 6 ft. Ornithologist Stephen Ambrose wrote on LinkedIn that there was evidence light glare from city buildings’ windows could blind owls momentarily and increase their risk of crashing into the structures, especially at night.

This raises the evergreen question of how to keep birds safe in US urban areas. Federal officials estimate that one billion birds in the US die annually after accidentally flying into building windows. Wrongo and Ms. Right had this happen to us years ago when a hawk crashed through our lakefront cottage living room’s wall of glass. He was dead when he hit the floor. It doesn’t only happen in high-rise buildings.

Time to wake up, America! There’s glare everywhere, including in the media’s silly discussion about how overwhelming Trump’s electoral chances are vs. Biden. Trump has a very small chance of being elected in 2024. To help you wake up, watch this great video of England’s Prince William singing “Livin’ on a Prayer” with Jon Bon Jovi and Taylor Swift at the Winter Whites Gala charity ball at Kensington Palace. This is fun and worth your time:

The future King of England singing with the current Queen of Americana.

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Cartoons Of The Week

(The Wrongologist will not publish a Monday Wake Up Call column this week)

Last week ended with a New York judge handing Trump a crushing defeat in his civil fraud case, finding the former president liable for conspiring to manipulate his net worth and ordering him to pay a penalty of $355 million. In addition to the monetary penalty, Justice Engoron imposed a three-year ban preventing Trump from serving as an officer or director of any New York corporation or other legal entity for three years.

The verdict was civil, not criminal. That means Trump hasn’t yet been convicted of a crime, but he has been declared a fraud by the state of New York. He’s settled numerous fraud trials before this one, notably the Trump University case, in which he was barred from ever running another charity in New York after he defrauded little kids with cancer.

It’s the Democrats’ job to see that this stays in the forefront of the voters’ minds. When you’re barred from running a business in New York, how can Republicans make the case that you’re qualified to run the country? Or if you’re in debt bigly, wouldn’t it be tempting to take a few bribes? Or sell a few classified documents? On to cartoons.

Trump now has some thinking to do:

OTOH, he’s proving surprisingly difficult to kill:

The Kansas City Super Bowl parade becomes just another unsafe place:

The Ukraine city, Avdiivka fell on Friday because it didn’t receive ammo from the US on time:

Trump offers gift to Putin:

RIP Alexy Navalny:

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The Red Sea Is Becoming A Bigger Problem

The Daily Escape:

Sunrise, Camden Outer Harbor, Camden, ME – February 2024 photo by Daniel F. Dishner Photography

A quick update to Wrongo’s column, “The End Of US Naval Superiority?” which concluded by saying:

“We don’t have sufficient deterrence to keep the Red Sea and thereby, the Suez Canal, open. We can’t do enough to the Houthis to make them back down. And we won’t be able to stop them with boots on the ground.”

That’s still true, and the military situation hasn’t gotten any better. Tim Anderson, Director of the Centre for Counter Hegemonic Studies, mused on Xitter that the Houthis might have a path of escalation if the US and UK keep striking at their missile and drone launch capacity by cutting the Red Sea’s internet cables. The Houthis have denied this, but that doesn’t matter. The possibility is now out there.

From The Middle East Eye: (brackets by Wrongo)

“Egypt is a major [undersea cable] chokepoint, handling traffic from Europe to the Middle East, Asia and Africa, and vice versa. The 15 cables that cross Egypt between the Mediterranean and Red seas handle between 17% to 30% of the world population’s internet traffic, or the data of 1.3 billion to 2.3 billion people.”

Does this mean that the Houthis have a path to escalatory dominance? We also learned from CNN that a few days ago, the USS Gravely had to use its Phalanx CIWS (Close-In Weapon System) against a Houthi cruise missile that had gotten to within a mile of the ship. The Phalanx is essentially the ship’s last layer of air defense against incoming attacks. The fact that the Houthis got a missile through the AEGIS system which is the ship’s primary defense against incoming attacks by air, must be really concerning to the Pentagon. Having the possibility of a US Navy ship getting hit by the Houthis would be something that the Chinese, Russian, and Iranian navies would be watching very closely.

The economic situation hasn’t improved either. The WSJ reports that the world’s oceans are seeing an interlocking set of maritime security crises from Europe to East Asia. This raises a troubling question:  How difficult will it be to preserve freedom of the seas going forward? Here’s a map showing the way shipping routes have been altered in the last year:

This is exacerbated by the way the US Navy was sidelined during America’s decades of counterterrorism fascination. It makes it difficult to defend not just the shipping lanes but also undersea data cables and gas pipelines that are equally important to global economic output. More from the WSJ:

“Even if those ships can evade Houthi missiles, they can’t hide from insurers. The rate for war insurance through the Red Sea, once a tiny percentage of the total value covered, has ballooned to 1%, a difference that many shippers deem cost-prohibitive.”

The 10,000-mile-long alternative route, circumnavigating Africa, is so fuel-intensive that cargo ships pay steep climate taxes on arrival in Europe and risk scoring failing grades on the International Maritime Organization’s carbon report index.

Adding to shipping costs is the spiking of container rates. Here’s a chart (paywalled) from Statista:

While rates remain lower than they were in 2022, the fact that freight rates have spiked is a sign that the Houthi attacks are getting the desired effect, and that the maritime industry is taking them seriously.

This is an example less of asymmetric warfare than of asymmetric objectives. Briefly, the Houthis have a simple objective – trade disruption – which is straightforward to accomplish with relatively unsophisticated weapons. The West’s objective – freedom of navigation – is much more complex and requires a large, long-term presence with the ability to operate by land, sea and air, without ever having to seize the initiative.

As we’ve said previously, ships handle more than 80% of global goods. We seem unable to stop the Houthis. So it is likely that longer lead times on imported goods are right in front of us, along with more cost in delivering them.

This is another way in which Israel and Netanyahu specifically have dragged the US and the west into an escalating dilemma. There seem to be only two options: We end Israel’s destruction of Gaza as a means to eliminate Hamas, or we escalate in Yemen.

What will Biden and the US military say is our way out of the box we’ve gotten ourselves into?

That’s enough for this weekend. It’s time for our Saturday Soother, where we try to forget about Trump, Nikki Haley and the pile of hot steaming stuff that are the House Republicans. We do that by turning off the news for at least a few minutes. Here at the Mansion of Wrong, we remain undecided about when to take down our Christmas tree. The ornaments are packed away, but Wrongo likes looking at the lights in the evenings. Maybe just before company arrives for Super Bowl weekend.

To help on your way to unplug from the news, start by brewing up a vente cup of Frank Sumatra coffee ($13.95 for 12oz) from Camden, ME’s Coffee on the Porch. It is said to be a fun and lively roast with notes of nutmeg, dark chocolate, and a fruity zing. Who doesn’t like a fruity zing?

Now grab a seat by a window to watch and listen to Ravel’s “BolĂ©ro” performed by Prequell live in Paris. The backstory to this performance is that it was part of Paris’ 2017 campaign to host the 2024 Summer Olympics. The city wanted to create a moment combining the city’s history, culture and sporting spirit using the Seine river. One project was this performance of “BolĂ©ro” on a 100-meter track floating on the Seine.

It showcases French classical music with a floating orchestra, arranged in a straight line, playing Ravel’s “BolĂ©ro”. As you know, Paris was successful in its bid for the 2023 summer games.

Watch and listen to Ravel’s masterful earworm:

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Biden’s Dilemma

The Daily Escape:

Highlands, Nantahala National Forest, NC – January 2024 photo by Michele Schwartz

The drone strike on a US base in Jordan killed three American troops and wounded at least 34 more. The base is called Tower 22. The attack has had several effects: First, it makes very real the likelihood of a widening conflict in the Middle East (ME). Second it has caused another partisan fire storm in US politics. Biden vowed to respond to the assault, blaming Iran-backed militias for the first US military casualties in the many similar strikes in the region since the start of the Israel/Hamas war. Here’s a map showing where the attack happened:

Basically, this is a logistics location for US troops in Syria at the US military base at al-Tanf, just 12 miles north of Tower 22. Tanf has been the key support location in the US effort to control ISIS in Syria and to contain Iran’s military build-up in eastern Syria. From AP News:

“Since the war in Gaza began Oct. 7, Iranian-backed militias have struck American military installations in Iraq more than 60 times and in Syria more than 90 times, with a mix of drones, rockets, mortars and ballistic missiles. The attack Sunday was the first targeting American troops in Jordan during the Israel-Hamas war and the first to result in the loss of American lives.”

The timing of this attack could hardly be worse. What began in October as a war between Israel and Hamas has now morphed with involvement by militants from four other Arab states. In addition Iran, Israel and Jordan all bombed Syria this month. Iran also bombed Pakistan, and Pakistan retaliated.

All of this is tit-for-tat in which American airstrikes against militias in Iraq or Syria, alternate with more militia attacks on the US installations. This illustrates the ME mission creep since last October. Whatever the original mission was for US troops in Syria, Jordan, and Iraq is now being sidelined as protection of the troop presence itself becomes the main concern.

All of these tit-for-tats carry an extreme risk of escalation into a larger conflict.

Iran has a network of proxy militias to project power across the ME. It is trying to support them while simultaneously trying to remain outside of the conflict. While Iran has tacitly accepted Israel’s targeting of Hamas, it  has been loath to unleash Lebanon’s Hezbollah, fearing that Israel (or the US) will hit back at Iran directly. Iran would like to force Israel into a ceasefire in Gaza and force American troops out of the ME. So far, its proxies have achieved only an increased American presence.

If we assume that the Tower 22 hit was a deliberate hit, (the base has been there for several years), it’s certain that militias in the area knew where to hit it to achieve a maximum result. Expanding from that, the US has about a thousand bases scattered around the world that are used to influence local operations, etc. Up to now, the US has considered them as assets. But if they suddenly become targets, trying to defend them simultaneously will be as difficult as defending ships in the Red Sea: Impossible. On the other hand, they are excellent targets if the US wants to be provoked into attacking Iran.

If such attacks continue, the position of these bases is going to become untenable and will pose a massive political problem for Biden.

Biden has fallen into a trap. And worse, it is Israel that placed Biden in the trap by not even trying to find a way to de-escalate the war with Hamas and bring Israeli hostages home. Biden’s support for Israel and his gentle pressure on Netanyahu to stop killing Gazans hasn’t worked; it also helped Biden fall in the trap. Biden should stop letting Bibi lead him around by the nose.

Biden can retaliate directly inside Iran, which will likely escalate the tit-for-tat attacks. And if taken as far as certain Republican pols want to go, it will endanger the Straits of Hormuz and risk doubling oil prices.

Worse in some ways, direct retaliation inside Iran might lead Russia to announce Iran is under full protection of Russia’s nuclear umbrella. That would make the Russia-China-Iran axis a concrete and formidable enemy. That would be a terrible outcome, even though some American Neo-cons have been making noises about being able to “win” a nuclear war. Here are some Republican chicken hawk suggestions about Iran:

Sen. Roger Wicker (R-MI):

“We must respond to these repeated attacks by Iran and its proxies by striking directly against Iranian targets and its leadership. … It is time to act swiftly and decisively for the whole world to see.”

Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AK):

“The only answer to these attacks must be devastating military retaliation against Iran’s terrorist forces, both in Iran and across the Middle East.”

Rep. Andy Biggs (R-AZ) wrote:

“Joe Biden has emboldened Iran and shown weakness on the global stage. We have to have a stronger Commander-in-Chief.”

Talk is always cheap, and most of this is political theater. Biden could also conduct limited retaliatory missions against the actual militias in Syria who US Intelligence says attacked Tower 22. Whatever he does, Biden will suffer inevitable attacks from Republicans at home. All this with less than eleven months to go before Election Day.

As of now it isn’t clear how Biden intends to respond. In the past, when Trump targeted Quds Force General Qassem Soleimani, and other Iranian interests, the US conducted these actions outside of Iranian territory. Iran’s denial of direct involvement in the attack complicates the situation and makes it less likely that Biden will attack inside of Iran.

Striking militia leaders outside of Iran will cause Republicans to question the effectiveness of Biden’s tactics. The US has employed this type of retaliation in the past, but it hasn’t significantly curbed Iran’s or its proxies’ aggressive actions.

We need to keep perspective on the Tower 22 deaths. Republicans should remember that 48,000 Americans are killed by Americans with American-made guns every year. Of course our three soldiers should be honored, and we should retaliate. But if the loss of American lives is the big deal the Republicans say it is, then their indignation should be directed here at home in addition to in Jordan.

Otherwise, it’s false indignation.

All of us should remember that we have failed in every mission in the ME. We only accomplish growing our list of enemies like the Taliban, Al Qaeda, ISIS, Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis, Iran, Syria and whoever comes next if we stick around.

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The End Of US Naval Superiority?

The Daily Escape:

Barn in orchard with Mt. Hood in background, OR – January 2024 photo by Mitch Schreiber Photography

What are we to make of the continuing war in the Red Sea? The Iranian-backed Houthis launched more attacks on merchant shipping just hours after the US preemptively struck them in Yemen. There is word from unreliable sources that the Houthis have now banned all US and UK ships from transiting the Red Sea, an escalation. Previously, they focused only on maritime shipping associated with Israel.

From the WaPo:

“Just as global supply chains finally returned to normal….The continuing attacks by the Houthis…have increased global shipping costs, caused cargo carriers or their clients to opt for longer alternate routes from Asia to Europe and the United States and raised alarms about the economic costs of a wider conflict.”

More:

“Almost one-fifth of US freight arrives at East Coast ports after transiting the Red Sea and Suez Canal… Solar panels, electric vehicle batteries, toys and vacuum cleaners are among the goods making that trip. But for now, economists do not anticipate a major impact on the prices that US consumers pay — unless the violence worsens.”

Three months after the start of the Israel/Hamas war, a maritime danger zone has been created that extends hundreds of miles from its original location. Houthi militias have launched dozens of attacks on ships with drones and missiles, cutting container activity in the Suez canal by 90%.

The Western naval forces protecting global trade are now stretched dangerously thin. The attacks are beginning to spread beyond the Red Sea to the Gulf of Aden, which leads to the Arabian Sea and the Indian Ocean. That complicates the task facing US military planners.

The economic implications are easy to understand. What may be more difficult is what this implies for America’s preeminent role in defense of the seas. The US simply doesn’t have the armament or manpower to: a) occupy Yemen or b) push the Houthi back far enough from the mouth of the Red Sea to reopen the Suez Canal to western shipping.

We have to consider the implications of an important global logistic choke point being closed as retaliation for the Israel/Hamas war. Also a second choke point, the Panama Canal, has also been forced to limit ships due to their persistent drought.

A second strategic implication is the impact of drone warfare on naval operations. Drones are plentiful and cheap. Large numbers of cheap drones means that warships now must have enough anti-aircraft (AA) systems to stop drones, along with electronic warfare counter-measure systems. Otherwise, they become sitting ducks.

A new fact of war is that cheap drones will overwhelm expensive missiles.

Our navy’s defense against drone attacks on commercial vessels runs headlong into the fact that our ships at sea can only store so many missiles. The US has sent a number of AEGIS destroyers to help protect international shipping, performing the dual role of intercepting Houthi drone and missiles and coming to the aid of distressed commercial ships.

Every missile salvo reduces the amount of time before they have to be resupplied by returning to base. We also know that America’s  manufacturing capacity for missiles is far below what is needed to refill stocks, given how many need to be expended against drone swarms in the Red Sea and elsewhere.

Here are a few numbers from Stephen Bryen:

“The [AEGIS] destroyers have a complement of 96 VLS cells, while the [Ticonderoga class] cruisers have 122…However, they need to fit a mixture of weaponry in those cells so they can’t all be used for air defense….In short, each of the AEGIS has around 100 missiles.”

More:

“Neither the US nor the British ships can be reprovisioned at sea, so they have a limited ability to “stay in the fight” if it continues for any length of time.”

So Yemen can launch a hundred drones and missiles at US ships and the destroyer escorts will very quickly exhaust their supply of air defense missiles. In the 1970s the U.S. Navy had ship tenders that could pull alongside a destroyer and resupply it. But today, these new Vertical Launch Systems must be reloaded in port.

In the ME, that means the destroyers will have to sail to Dubai or Europe, and the US aircraft carrier they are accompanying will have to follow because it relies on them for protection from ballistic and cruise missiles. Does America have enough carrier groups to rotate them when missile inventories are exhausted? The answer is no. Unless we are willing to move carrier groups from Asia to the ME. The US currently has 11 aircraft carriers in service, but here’s a map from Stratfor showing the location of our three! active carrier groups (CVNs) as of Jan 11, 2024:

We have three of 11 active, and you can see that CVN 78 (The Gerald Ford) sailed out of the Mediterranean and was replaced by CVN 69 (the Dwight Eisenhower) this week. This is the likely rotation for resupply of on-ship missiles.

Then there’s the issue of the US Navy’s manpower shortages. Forbes says in an article:

“…America’s newest aircraft carrier, the USS Gerald R. Ford (CVN-78), has downsized, cutting the crew aboard by hundreds of sailors….Over the past six months to a year, some 500 to 600 sailors have left the USS Ford and not been replaced.”

More:

“…most likely scenario, according to long-time Navy observers…is that, after the Navy’s massive 20% miss in FY 2023 enlisted sailor recruitment goals, the Navy simply has no sailors to spare.”

This is the US Navy that pretends it can take on either Russia or China or both together!

A profound shift is underway: Our globalized economy relies on ocean freight. Some 80% of trade by volume and 50% by value travels on a fleet of 105,000 container ships, tankers and freight vessels. But today’s superpower rivalry and the decay of global rules may mean that oceans will become a contested zone for the first time since the Cold War. China’s naval build-up means the US Navy’s primacy in the Pacific is being contested for the first time since 1945.

The “law of the sea” is in decline. China increasingly ignores rulings that it objects to. And the West’s use of sanctions has triggered a boom in smuggling: 10% of all tankers are part of a “dark fleet” operating outside mainstream laws and finance, more than twice as many as 18 months ago.

The bottom line is that the US cannot invade Yemen or stop the Yemenis from shooting missiles at commercial vessels or at our own warships. As always, we can bomb a lot, but that’s unlikely to stop the Yemenis. They live in a mountainous country and their missiles are mobile.

The US Navy can’t take them out just by bombing. The Yemenis are tough, experienced fighters. They have endured one of the longest and most brutal bombing campaigns of the last few decades, and they are still here.

The plain fact is that the US and its western allies simply do not have sufficient deterrence to prevail in the Red Sea. The shipping industry has already come to that conclusion:

“In response, some shipping companies have instructed vessels to instead sail around southern Africa, a slower and therefore more expensive route.”

Commercial cargo lines are not going to chance being shot up.

We don’t have sufficient deterrence to keep the Red Sea, and thereby, the Suez Canal, open. We can’t do enough to the Houthis to make them back down. And we won’t be able to stop them with boots on the ground.

What will the US military say is our way out of the box we’ve gotten ourselves into?

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Saturday Soother – December 23, 2023

The Daily Escape:

Santa Christmas gondola regatta in Venice – December 2023 photo by Manuel Silvestri

Happy Saturday! Wrongo loves it when the days begin to get longer, if only by a fraction. It’s a hopeful sign of the return to more daylight and eventually, spring and summer. This may (or may not) be the last column until the New Year. If it is, Wrongo wants to end with some positive notes.

First, The Economist is out with its annual “Country of the Year” award. This year, it highlights the move back to moderation from conservative governments in three countries.

First, Brazil which swore in a center-left president, Luiz InĂĄcio Lula da Silva, after four years of mendacious populism under Jair Bolsonaro:

“…who spread divisive conspiracy theories, coddled trigger-happy cops, supported rainforest-torching farmers, refused to accept electoral defeat and encouraged his devotees to attempt an insurrection.”

The new administration quickly restored normality—and reduced the pace of deforestation in the Amazon by nearly 50%. But since Lula likes Putin, Brazil didn’t get the award.

Second, Poland had a remarkable 2023: its economy withstood the shock of the war next door; it continued to host nearly 1 million Ukrainian refugees. It raised its defense spending to above 3% of GDP. The country’s biggest problem has been the dominance of the populist-nationalist Law and Justice (PiS) party, which has run the government for the past eight years, eroding the independence of the courts, stuffing state media with lackeys and nurturing crony capitalism:

“In October voters dumped PiS in favor of an array of opposition parties. It is early days for a new coalition government, led by Donald Tusk, a veteran centrist, but if it does a good job of mending the damage PiS did to democratic institutions, Poland will be a strong candidate for our prize next year.”

Tusk is a former president of the European Council.

But Greece won the prize. We all remember a few years ago when Greece was the economic basket case of Europe. Incomes had plunged, the social contract was fraying and extremist parties on the left and right were popular. The government turned to China and sold its main port, Piraeus, to a Chinese firm:

“But after years of painful restructuring, Greece topped our annual ranking of rich-world economies in 2023. Its center-right government was re-elected in June. Its foreign policy is pro-America, pro-EU and wary of Russia. Greece shows that from the verge of collapse it is possible to enact tough, sensible economic reforms, rebuild the social contract, exhibit restrained patriotism—and still win elections.”

The Economist closes with the thought that nearly half the world is due to vote in new governments in 2024, so democracy isn’t just on the line in America. It’s on the line everywhere.

Second, a piece of good domestic news. Charles Gaba at ACA Signups reports that, according to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS):

“In 2022, the insured share of the population reached 92% (a historic high). Private health insurance enrollment increased by 2.9 million individuals and Medicaid enrollment increased by 6.1 million individuals.”

Another stunner from CMS: US healthcare spending as a percentage of the GDP was lower last year than it was 6 years earlier. More detail:

“With a lower rate of health care spending growth of 4.1% in 2022, the share of GDP devoted to health care fell to 17.3% in 2022, lower than both the 18.2% share in 2021 and the highest share in the history of the National Health Expenditure Accounts of 19.5% in 2020. During 2016-19 the average share was 17.5%.”

That’s all good news. Around the global headquarters of the Wrongologist, we’re starting to look toward next year. And even if it seems the news can’t get worse, it probably will. Think about Trump on trial, epic Supreme Court decisions, ongoing foreign policy crises and the most important election of at least Wrongo’s life.

2024 will be a long year that’s going to require emotional and intellectual strength to avoid despair when the media continues covering this election as they have been. It will be a lot to handle.

Here’s Wrongo’s wish that you find some comfort and joy over the next week. And please keep showing up around here in the New Year. Wrongo promises to keep trying to give you perspectives that hopefully make some sense of the world.

On to another out of the ordinary Christmas tune. Watch and listen to the Canadian singer-songwriter Loreena McKennitt perform the “Huron Carol”, written in 1642 by a Jesuit missionary, Jean de BrĂ©beuf who lived among the Huron people. It is Canada’s oldest Christmas song. BrĂ©beuf wrote the lyrics in the native language of the Huron/Wendat people. In December 2021, McKennitt sang it together with an ensemble. It’s superb and haunting:

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Kissinger Has (Finally) Left The Building

The Daily Escape:

 Camden, ME – November 2023 photo by Daniel F. Dishner. Note the star: It’s on top of nearby Mt.Battie.

Kissinger may have changed the world, but that isn’t always a good thing. The media are calling his legacy “complicated”. For Wrongo, it isn’t complicated. He may have gotten Nixon to China and negotiated (?) the end of the war in Vietnam, but his time on our foreign policy stage is strewn with death and destruction. Think about the carpet bombing of Cambodia that led to the demonstrations against the war in May 1970 and to the murders at Kent State and Jackson State University. Think about the coup in Chile that overthrew Salvador Allende.

Now, Nixon’s entire Cabinet is dead.

Kissinger’s philosophy was to look at “the big picture”. He was gladdened by how his China diplomacy rattled the Soviets. Most of Wrongo’s current thinking about Kissinger comes from reading Christopher Hitchens’ 2001 book, “The Trial of Henry Kissinger”. Hitchens talks about Kissinger’s role in the destruction of Chilean democracy in favor of the Pinochet dictatorship. And when Pinochet ordered the assassination of dissenter and former U.S. ambassador Orlando Letelier on US soil by blowing up his car in Washington, Kissinger was fine with that.

He was responsible for the prolongation of the Vietnam War through the sabotage of Lyndon Johnson’s 1968 Vietnam peace talks along with the civilian deaths from the US’ bombing in Laos and Cambodia, helping to usher in the Khmer Rouge, while also not doing anything positive to win the Vietnam war. Kissinger then became supportive of the Khmer Rouge. He saw its leader, Pol Pot as a counterweight against North Vietnam. He asked Thailand’s foreign minister to tell the Khmer Rouge: “We will be friends with them. They are murderous thugs, but we won’t let that stand in our way. We are prepared to improve relations with them.”

That was Kissinger’s moral philosophy.

Kissinger was behind the Greek military junta’s invasion of Cyprus in 1974, and the Pakistani army’s crimes against humanity in East Pakistan (now Bangladesh). And we shouldn’t forget the Indonesian invasion and subsequent destruction of East Timor.

Quite the record for a Nobel Peace Prize Laureate.

Late in life. Kissinger continued supporting authoritarians including Putin. Kissinger intervened in Putin’s imperialist war in Ukraine in 2022 to support the idea that the West should bully Zelensky into giving up territory to the Russians. He was also on the board of Theranos helping to facilitate the fraud while lining his pockets.

Wrongo wrote earlier this year about how he started out as a Kissinger fanboy, having read his 1957 book “Nuclear Weapons and Foreign Policy” while in high school. It criticized the Eisenhower Administration’s “massive retaliation” nuclear doctrine. It proposed the use of tactical nuclear weapons on a regular basis to help win wars. By the time that Wrongo was running a tactical nuclear missile base in the mid-1960s, he was no longer a fan. From Wrongo:

“Wrongo met Kissinger in the mid-1980s at an event hosted by David Rockefeller at his Pocantico Hills estate. HK was walking his dog, a particularly obstreperous Golden Retriever. Wrongo asked “What’s the dog’s name?” Kissinger replied: “Madman”.  Could there be a more perfect name for a Kissinger family pet?”

Here are a few headlines announcing Kissinger’s death:

You’ve gotta love the Rolling Stone headline.

Kissinger’s legacy is defined by his role in the US’s resumption of ties with China. He did the groundwork for Nixon’s 1972 visit to China and made more than 100 trips to the country over the years. The WaPo noted that the China state broadcaster labeled Kissinger an “old friend of the Chinese people.”

Let’s close with another possibly apocryphal story about Kissinger by Corey Robin:

Let’s hope that Henry the K is having a really hot time in his new condo.

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