Category: Geopolitics

Thoughts About The Israel/Hamas War

The Daily Escape:

Sunrise, Town Cove, Eastham, MA – October 2023 iPhone photo by Wrongo

Wrongo and Ms. Right returned today from another fine stay on Cape Cod. Time with family and friends in a special environment is always fun and refreshing. It almost made us forget that we’re in the midst of a global hysteria surrounding the Israel/Hamas war.

What has happened so far and what may happen soon should be revolting to anyone who can empathize with other humans. Wrongo has a few thoughts for today’s Monday Wake Up Call: First, as terrible as the Israel/Hamas story is, we and the media shouldn’t obsessively focus on it to the exclusion of other important events. There are other problems that we need to keep a focus on.

And while it’s important to stay current, no one should subject themselves to watching the hostage videos that Hamas says they will be broadcasting of the hostages. Watching people suffer won’t make them suffer less. You can’t unsee these things. Moreover, you shouldn’t play into Hamas’ hands.

Second, Biden has been doing a reasonably good job in this crisis. From Dan Pfeiffer:

“Biden has been astride the world stage — speaking with strength, empathy, and moral outrage about the horrendous terrorist attack in Israel. At the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue, the Republicans have been involved in an embarrassing spectacle of self-sabotage and narcissistic incompetence.”

Axios reported that on Sunday, Israel resumed supplying water to the southern Gaza Strip after strong pressure from the Biden administration.

But here at home, we still have the problem of Republicans fighting amongst themselves:

“Electing a Speaker is the most basic Congressional function, yet the Republican Caucus seems incapable of doing so. The dysfunction among House Republicans has left the U.S. with only one branch of Congress. Without a Speaker, Congress cannot pass a bill to keep the government open, send military aid to Israel or Ukraine, or even name a post office.”

Third, people often say horrible things in the aftermath of an attack. But shouldn’t political officials be self-censoring? That wasn’t so with Israeli President Isaac Herzog. He said on Friday that all citizens of Gaza are responsible for the attack Hamas perpetrated:

“It is an entire nation out there that is responsible….It is not true this rhetoric about civilians not being aware, not involved. It’s absolutely not true. They could have risen up. They could have fought against that evil regime which took over Gaza in a coup d’état.”

Herzog is asking: Why didn’t the people of Gaza rise up and overthrow Hamas? He implies that if they had, Israel wouldn’t have to attack them. The thought of a politician holding civilians in any country (half of whom aren’t adults) collectively responsible for atrocities committed by a unaccountable minority should be carefully parsed.

And using this as justification for destroying neighborhoods, for cutting off fuel and electricity to an entire population while ordering the mass evacuation of over a million people, seems to Wrongo to be a disproportionate response. There are a few ethicists who follow the Wrongologist Blog. Hopefully they will weigh in on Herzog’s justification for invading Gaza, and the ethics of targeting civilians in war.

From a political viewpoint, if Israel acts in a restrained way and doesn’t respond with overwhelming force, then Israel looks weak both to its citizens and to the Arab world. That’s likely to encourage more attacks, perhaps by other Middle East actors.

If Israel responds with overwhelming force, then lots of Palestinian civilians will die. Israel will be condemned and possibly other Muslim countries will join in an attack on Israel. So, perhaps Hamas’ attack wasn’t to create maximum casualties in Israel, but to trigger this lose/lose set of options for Israel’s response.

Finally, no one has a serious idea on a way to reach across the mammoth void between the Palestinians and the Israelis. Wrongo found a quote that may offer a way to think about a future for the region:

“At the end of 1918, Marshal Foch was in his Luxembourg headquarters examining with his international staff how to deal with Germany and the Germans. He had this thought: “The Germans, we either exterminate them, or we get along with them. Exterminating them is impossible. So, gentlemen, let’s work out how to get along with them.”

That didn’t work in WWI. It hasn’t worked in the Middle East. Yet, people are the same all over the world. They all want family, friends, a dependable job, and a secure place to live. That’s certainly true for both the Palestinians and the Israelis. The question is: What must be sacrificed by either side to achieve it? And is either side capable of making a sacrifice today that will largely benefit their children’s grandchildren?

Time to wake up America! Do we ever take the long view? We seem to have forgotten how to sacrifice today for a better tomorrow. It’s possible that the Gazans are invoking such a sacrifice right now.

This shouldn’t be a foreign idea to Americans, particularly to Christians. Much of Christianity’s beliefs involve sacrifice. For example, Christians believe that Jesus endured the sacrifice of torture, crucifixion and death for their redemption. That sacrifice is remembered in most Christian Sunday services.

There’s a major difference between the sacrifice of Christ and the sacrifice about to be imposed on the men, women and children of Gaza. Christ sacrificed himself for others while Hamas is forcing tens of thousands of Palestinians to endure sacrifice for them. Those tens of thousands aren’t choosing to be sacrificed. It’s doubtful that Israelis want to be sacrificed: They’re just wishing the Palestinians would go away.

To help you wake up, watch and listen to “Zombie” by The Cranberries from 1994. The song was written by the late Delores O’Riordan, about The Troubles in Northern Ireland, the decades-long conflict between nationalists (mainly Irish or Roman Catholic) and unionists (mainly British or Protestant).

The Troubles ended, while the Israel-Palestinian standoff continues.

The song was written in response to the death of two young boys, Tim Parry and Johnathan Ball, who were killed in an IRA bombing when two IRA-improvised explosive devices hidden in trash bins were detonated in Warrington, England. Ball died at the scene:

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Henry Kissinger’s Reputation

The Daily Escape:

Sunset, Flaming Gorge Reservoir Recreation Area, UT – August 2023 photo by Doreen Lawrence. The Gorge is the largest reservoir on the Green River.

Welcome to your Monday wakeup call! Wrongo has lived a long life, but he’s still 20 years younger than Henry Kissinger. Kissinger turned 100 in May. When Wrongo was in his late teens, he was protesting against the war in Vietnam. At that point, Kissinger was already a foreign policy advisor to the failed presidential campaigns of Nelson Rockefeller.

He would go on to become Nixon’s national security adviser and Secretary of State, a crucial figure overseeing the conflicts in Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos, that many say included war crimes. Kissinger was never indicted, but Anthony Bourdain wrote the following about Kissinger in his 2001 book “A Cook’s Tour”:

“Once you’ve been to Cambodia, you’ll never stop wanting to beat Henry Kissinger to death with your bare hands. You will never again be able to open a newspaper and read about that treacherous, prevaricating, murderous scumbag sitting down for a nice chat with Charlie Rose or attending some black-tie affair for a new glossy magazine without choking. Witness what Henry did in Cambodia—the fruits of his genius for statesmanship—and you will never understand why he’s not sitting in the dock at The Hague next to Milošević. While Henry continues to nibble nori rolls and remaki at A-list parties, Cambodia, the neutral nation he secretly and illegally bombed, invaded, undermined, and then threw to the dogs, is still trying to raise itself up on its one remaining leg.”

But unlike other possible US war criminals like Reagan and Nixon, Kissinger has never needed to rehabilitate his reputation. As Rebecca Gordon says:

“….despite his murderous rap sheet, the media and political establishment has always fawned over him.”

Kissinger is remembered for his initiative to open diplomatic relations between the US and China in 1972, though full normalization of relations with China would not occur until 1979.

Kissinger’s second innovation was inventing the for-profit third act of a public service career. Before him, former foreign policy principals usually wrote a memoir, gave the occasional foreign policy speech, and maybe became head of a nonprofit.

But Kissinger pioneered a for-profit third act in 1982 when he and Brent Scowcroft founded Kissinger Associates (with the help of a loan from the international banking firm of E.M. Warburg, Pincus) to offer advisory services to corporate clients. Kissinger’s prime selling point was that he had access to the corridors of power, not only in Washington, but in Beijing and Moscow.

Wrongo started out being a fanboy, having read Kissinger’s 1957 book “Nuclear Weapons and Foreign Policy” while in high school. It criticized the Eisenhower Administration’s “massive retaliation” nuclear doctrine. It also caused much controversy at the time by proposing the use of tactical nuclear weapons on a regular basis to win wars. Once Wrongo was running a tactical nuclear missile base in the mid-1960s, he was no longer a fan.

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?

Kissinger provided advice, both formal and informal, to every president from Eisenhower to Trump (though apparently, not yet to Biden). His fingers are all over the foreign policies of both major Parties. And in all those years, no “serious” American news outlet ever reminded the world of Kissinger’s long history of bloody intervention in other countries.

In fact, as his hundredth birthday approached, he was fawned over in an interview with PBS NewsHour anchor Judy Woodruff. From Rebecca Gordon:

“Fortunately, other institutions have not been so deferential. In preparation for Kissinger’s 100th, the National Security Archive, a center of investigative journalism, assembled a dossier of some of its most important holdings on his legacy.”

A third thing that Kissinger is associated with is the use of the concept of “Realpolitik” in foreign policy. It means conducting diplomatic policies based primarily on considerations of the reality on the ground, rather than strictly following ideology or moral and ethical premises.

Realpolitik has come to mean something quite different in the US: It is associated not with “what is” but with “what ought to be” on the ground. In Kissinger’s realpolitik, actions are good only when they sustain and advance American strategic power. Any concern for human beings that stand in the way, or for the law and the Constitution, are not legitimate.

More from Gordon:

“That is the realpolitik of Henry Alfred Kissinger, an ethical system that rejects ethics as unreal. It should not surprise anyone that such a worldview would engender in a man with his level of influence a history of crimes against law and humanity.”

The idea that the only “realistic” choices for generations of America’s leaders require privileging American global power over any other consideration has led us to our current state — a dying empire whose citizens live in an ever-more dangerous world.

Wrongo knew about Kissinger while in high school 60 years ago. There are thousands of Boomers who worked around him in government and the military who have clear personal memories of his actions. The late Christopher Hitchens wrote “The Trial of Henry Kissinger” which examines his alleged war crimes. These link Kissinger to war casualties in Vietnam and Cambodia, massacres in Bangladesh and Timor, and assassinations in Chile and Cyprus.

Not surprisingly, there are a number of countries HK’s had to avoid visiting in his “retirement” lest he be taken into custody on war-crimes charges.

And yet, he was Hilary Clinton’s foreign policy guru. He remains a respected political elder. It is as if we, as a nation, regularly put any of our memories older than last week down the memory hole to be incinerated. Of course, if nobody remembers anything inconvenient, then no one can be guilty of anything.

A thought game: Which living person gets sent into Hell first? Who should go second? Wrongo will start. First, Kissinger. Second, Dick Cheney. Your turn.

Time to wake up America! Some of our politicians deserve trials. To help you wake up, listen to the late Peter Tosh’s 1969 tune “You Can’t Blame The Youth”:

Sample Lyrics:

So, you can’t blame the youth of today
You can’t fool the youth
You can’t blame the youth
You can’t fool the youth

[Verse 3]
All these great men were doin’
Robbin’, a rapin’, kidnappin’ and killin’
So called great men were doin’
Robbin’, rapin’, kidnappin’

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China’s Triangulation Of Russia And The West

The Daily Escape:

Joshua tree in bloom, Joshua Tree National Landmark SW, UT – March 2023 photo by Lisa Simer

We’re back at the Mansion of Wrong after a few lovely days in St. Helena, CA. Surprisingly, it seems that lots of things happened while we were away. From Heather Cox Richardson:

“So, for all the chop in the water about the former president facing indictments, the story that really seems uppermost to me today is the visit China’s president Xi Jinping made today to Moscow for a meeting with Russia’s president Vladimir Putin.”

In 2015, shortly after Russia intervened in the Syrian Civil War, Wrongo asked a visiting Russian author who spoke at our local library whether Putin wanted to move Russia closer to the west or to the east. He said unequivocally that Putin was a product of the west and would keep Russia in the west’s orbit.

It’s clear that he was wrong. Russia has moved away from the west, possibly permanently. Earlier in March, Wrongo said the following:

“The US is attempting to isolate both China and Russia. With Russia, we’re using ever-tightening economic sanctions. With China, we’re building a geographic containment strategy among our allies in Asia.”

And on Monday, Chinese President Xi met with Russian President Putin in Moscow. Here’s a meeting summary from the blog Institute for the Study of War:

“… [the meeting]…on March 20…offered a more reserved vision for Russian-Chinese relations than what Putin was likely seeking. Xi and Putin touted the strength of Chinese-Russian relations in their meeting…but offered differing interpretations of the scale of future relations….on March 19 Putin published an article in Chinese state media in which he argued that Russia and China are building a partnership for the formation of a multipolar world order in the face of the collective West’s seeking of domination and the United States pursuing a policy of dual containment against China and Russia.”

….Xi offered a less aggressive overarching goal for Russian-Chinese relations in his article published in Russian state media….in which he noted that Russia and China are generally pursuing a multipolar world order but not specifically against an adversarial West. Xi instead focused…on presenting China as a viable third-party mediator to the war in Ukraine….

David Ignatius concluded in the WaPo that the meeting was about:

“A strong China…bolstering a weak Russia….The Chinese aren’t providing weapons (yet), but Xi certainly offered moral and psychological support in what might be described as a get-well visit to an ailing relative….The paradox of the Ukraine war is that Putin’s bid for greater power in Europe has made him weaker. This diminished Russia will fall increasingly under China’s sway….Maybe that’s the biggest reason for Xi’s…visit: He is bolstering a flank against America and the West.”

China’s dominance over Russia will grow if Russia cannot find a way to end the war in Ukraine. Russia has lost its energy markets in Europe because of the invasion, so it must depend heavily on demand from China. China’s growing economic power in Asia coupled with its capabilities in space, cyber, and artificial intelligence will increasingly dwarf Russia’s.

Russia’s economy is concentrated on exports of energy. It also has a major population problem. The Economist reports: (emphasis by Wrongo)

“Over the past three years the country has lost around 2million more people than it would ordinarily have done, as a result of war, disease and exodus. The life expectancy of Russian males aged 15 fell by almost five years, to the same level as in Haiti. The number of Russians born in April 2022 was no higher than it had been in the months of Hitler’s occupation.”

More:

“…the life expectancy at birth of Russian males plummeted from 68.8 in 2019 to 64.2 in 2021, partly because of Covid…Russian men now die six years earlier than men in Bangladesh and 18 years earlier than men in Japan.”

And the Economist says the exodus of well-educated young people at the start of the Ukraine War also hurts Russia’s future. According to its communications ministry, 10% of IT workers left the country in 2022. Many were young men, further skewing Russia’s unbalanced sex ratio. In 2021 there were 121 females over 18 for every 100 males. More:

“Demographics is rapidly making Russia a smaller, worse-educated and poorer country, from which young people flee and where men die in their 60s.”

As Wrongo said, separating China from Russia used to be a central goal of US foreign policy. The Biden administration tried that strategy in reverse: Warming relations with Moscow at the June 2021 summit in Geneva in part to concentrate on the challenge China presented.

How did that work out?

Now it’s China trying the role of triangulator. Xi’s playing off the split between the US and Russia, helping Putin, but also keeping some distance while building China’s bona fides with the third world.

Xi’s also used China’s close relations with Iran to make a diplomatic breakthrough between the Saudis and the Iranians, something that the US could never achieve.

We seem powerless to blunt what’s happening before our eyes.

And all the while, the Republican Party of the world’s greatest superpower argues about drag queens and wokeness.

Wake up America! Check out what China, Russia, Iran and Saudi Arabia are building for us. You’re not going to like it.

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Monday Wake Up Call, Diplomacy Edition – March 13, 2023

The Daily Escape:

Wildflower bloom, Peridot Mesa on the San Carlos Reservation, AZ  – March, 2023 photo by Sharon McCaffrey

China has brokered an agreement between Iran and Saudi Arabia to re-establish diplomatic relations. The agreement, reached after four days of talks with senior officials in Beijing, may ease tensions between the two Middle East powers after seven years of fighting a proxy war in Yemen. In the war, Saudi Arabia has supported Yemen’s government and Iran has backed the opposition Houthis.

Both Iran and Saudi Arabia announced they will resume diplomatic relations and open up embassies once again in their respective nations within two months, according to a joint statement.

Saudi Arabia is Sunni Muslim while Iran is a Shiite Muslim country. Saudi broke off relations with Iran in 2016 after protesters stormed the Saudi embassy in Tehran. The protests followed the Saudi execution of a Shiite Muslim cleric, Shia preacher Nimr Baqr al-Nimr. Al-Nimr had earlier spent 10 years studying in Tehran.

News of the diplomatic breakthrough came as a surprise to the US and to Israel. It was also a diplomatic and political success for Beijing. Here are some of the winners and losers in this.

The winners:

  • Iran, now with Russia, China and Saudi as allies, may be able to break the US sanctions.
  • Saudi Arabia has distanced itself even further from the US. It may now be able to end its involvement in the war in Yemen.
  • China, by outplaying the US. China’s success in achieving is recognition of its growing status in global politics.
  • Iraq and Syria will become more influential Middle East players as Saudi and Iran move to end their rivalry.

The losers are:

  • Israel, and specifically Netanyahu. For years, his twin foreign policy goals have been the isolation of Iran and the normalization of ties with Saudi Arabia, which has never recognized Israel. Also his efforts to pull the US into a war with Iran is now even more unlikely.
  • The US for being outplayed on a playing field it used to dominate. And for losing more global prestige to its rival China.
  • The Emirates for losing some political influence and also losing some of its sanctions busting trade with Iran.

Wrong thinks this could be a big geopolitical deal. It may bring peace or at least, an absence of war in Yemen. It is also a bold example of using diplomacy as a tool of national power. That’s a good reminder since the US has been mainly thinking about the war in Ukraine (and the threat of war in Taiwan). Our global focus has been on military power and economic sanctions.

The Ukraine war has led to a revival of the NATO alliance. This, along with the strengthening of European relations are diplomatic accomplishments. But since the start of the war, US global diplomacy has been directed at jawboning the third world into agreeing to the sanctions regime against Russia.

So China’s use of diplomacy to deliver a breakthrough agreement between Saudi Arabia and Iran makes the US efforts look small and foolish. The NYT quotes Daniel C. Kurtzer, a former ambassador to Israel and Egypt:

“It’s a sign of Chinese agility to take advantage of some anger directed at the United States by Saudi Arabia and a little bit of a vacuum there….And it’s a reflection of the fact that the Saudis and Iranians have been talking for some time. And it’s an unfortunate indictment of US policy.”

After Trump killed the Iran nuclear deal in 2018 and reimposed heavy economic sanctions on Iran, Iran moved to deepen its relations with Russia and now with China. Tehran has provided drones for Russia to use in its war in Ukraine, making it an important partner for Russia.

Now, by turning to China to mediate with the Saudis, Iran has elevated China in the region, while Israel finds its hopes for an anti-Iranian coalition with Saudi Arabia dashed. Is the looming axis of Iran and China a direct threat to the US? Probably not, but the balance of power in the region is changing.

We’ve spent decades in various wars in the Middle East, at a cost of more than $8 trillion. We tried showing the Middle East that strength came from military might. But China is showing the Middle East that you can win both the diplomatic and the economic battle without firing a bullet. Who knew?

Their approach to the Middle East is more constructive than America’s. China, like the US, has an agenda. But it has committed to building 1000 schools in Iraq; a country we “helped” by invasion.

Time to wake up America! The world is now challenging America’s heavy-handed unilateralism. We may be seeing the start of a post-America Middle East. To help you wake up watch and listen to Marcus King and Stephen Campbell of the Marcus King Band perform the 1966 Merle Haggard tune “Swinging Doors” at Carter Vintage Guitars:

Sample Lyric:

And I’ve got swinging doors, a jukebox and a bar stool
My new home has a flashing neon sign
Stop by and see me any time you want to
Cause I’m always here at home till closing time.

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The Looming Russia-China Alliance

The Daily Escape:

Peach trees in bloom, Low Gap, NC – March 2023 photo by Donna Johnson

Springtime brings hope after a dark, cold winter. The clocks leap forward this Sunday. It’s also a time to take stock of the old assumptions that our recent geopolitical strategies are built on. The US is trending in what may be an unsustainable direction in our global politics.

A year ago with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, America sought to make Ukraine a proxy for the fight between authoritarianism and democratic forms of government. The Ukraine war caused several major changes within Europe and NATO:

  • Germany moved away from its strategic energy supplier, Russia.
  • NATO became more clearly unified than at any time since its founding.
  • The Eastern European members of NATO became the drivers of military engagement on the side of Ukraine.
  • The US and NATO have found they do not have the production capability to continue providing military weapons and ammunition at the rate Ukraine is using them.
  • This has made it clear that the US and NATO aren’t prepared for a major confrontation with a great power such as China or Russia.

The Ukraine war has precipitated other global consequences. While Russia has become a pariah to Europe, China has become one of Russia’s most important allies.

Many readers won’t remember that 60 years ago, there was a fundamental split between the Soviet Union and China, largely over differences in communist ideology. Over the years, they have slowly moved closer together, driven in part by US policy and by their shared quest for a global reset of geopolitical power.

Now they are willing to work together to dismantle or blunt the US-led world order.

This “alliance of autocracies,” is built on China’s and Russia’s belief that the US’s supremacy is waning. And they are entitled to rule within their own spheres of influence. And to use force if necessary to control those spheres. An alliance between China and Russia brings advantages to both countries. Recent US intelligence says that China may supply Russia with weapons to aid in its war against Ukraine. There is talk of China building a drone factory in Russia to supply its war in Ukraine.

Russia also desperately needs China to stabilize its economy by importing more below-market cost oil, a boon to China’s economy. In June 2022, Russia became the PRC’s largest oil supplier, eclipsing Saudi Arabia. While Russia is betting that Western fatigue will hand them a victory in Ukraine, China is sizing up America’s ability to engage in a faraway battle should China decide to invade Taiwan.

The US is attempting to isolate both China and Russia. With Russia, we’re using ever-tightening economic sanctions. With China, we’re building a geographic containment strategy among our allies in Asia. Containment has been helped by North Korea’s bellicosity against South Korea and Japan, who recently decided to partner militarily, much to China’s distress. The Pentagon has also expanded its bases in the Philippines while shrinking our military footprint in the Middle East.

With US/Russian relations basically clinging to life, prudence should have indicated that the US adopt a more friendly stance toward Beijing. However, we’ve prioritized support for Taiwan over better relations with China. Both the Trump and Biden administrations embraced high tariffs on Chinese imports.

In 2022, Biden added sweeping tech restrictions on China, including a provision barring the PRC from using semiconductor chips made with US tools anywhere in the world. That’s the harshest economic measure leveled against China since the normalization of diplomatic relations in 1979. This hasn’t gone unnoticed by China. China’s new foreign minister said:

“The more unstable the world becomes, the more imperative it is for China and Russia to steadily advance their relations.”

It’s clear that the Russia‐​PRC relationship isn’t yet a full‐​fledged military alliance, but it’s moving in that direction. And both are friendly with Iran and North Korea, which have also supplied weapons for Russia’s war in Ukraine. It isn’t a great stretch that these four could create a new “axis of evil” that could lead to the West needing to plan to fight two faraway wars simultaneously.

This is at a time when we cannot find enough munitions and weapons to fight one proxy war in Europe.

The odious Henry Kissinger once cautioned that it must be a high priority for the US to make certain that our relations with both Moscow and Beijing were closer than their relations are with each other. But our policy makers have done just the opposite.

While the argument for not continuing a proxy war in Ukraine has merit, Wrongo has argued that Ukraine is a war of necessity because democracy in Europe is what’s really on the line. And, with the 2024 presidential campaign about to start, Republican opposition to the war is growing.

Biden needs to keep what political capital he has, but he also needs to improve our ability to sustain our military support for Ukraine. That may be difficult because America hasn’t developed a solid military strategy for tomorrow’s battles which may well be with one or more of the great powers.

It is more difficult because we’ve spent the last 20+ years using $80 million-dollar planes to drop $400,000 bombs on $25 tents, while still wondering why we didn’t win any of our wars in the Middle East.

Ironically, our geopolitical strategy and the supporting military strategies may have the US in the position of being the midwife bringing a newborn Russia‐​PRC military alliance into the world.

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China’s Spy Balloon

The Daily Escape:

Zion NP in snow – January 2023 photo by Rich Vintage Photography

What is it about the Chinese balloon story? Why did the media and politicians go totally nuts about it? Here’s what  Damon Linker thinks:

“Degraded American public life”. This is another example of Wrongo’s column yesterday about how we’re all living in our virtual vertical communities. The Republican political vertical immediately locked in, like a cat watching a laser pointer, to this mostly low-risk intrusion into US airspace by China. From Forbes:

“Talking heads on cable TV are up in arms about the Chinese spy balloon that was floating across the continental US, before it was shot down Saturday afternoon. Conservative commentators have insisted President Joe Biden should’ve ordered the balloon be shot down earlier and that a foreign balloon flying over US territory never would’ve happened under President Donald Trump. But it did happen under Trump…”

It happened under Trump at least three times.

The Pentagon says it was definitely a surveillance balloon and that China had the ability to maneuver it using external propellers. OK, if you’ve ever sailed a boat even in a moderate breeze, paddled a canoe across a windy lake, or bicycled on a windy day, you know maneuvering in high winds is very difficult. So how will a balloon generate enough power to overcome the prevailing winds at 60,000’? And the balloon doesn’t have an aerodynamic shape. So bottom line, you aren’t controlling the path of a balloon in any sizable wind.

A balloon actually sucks for spying. A quick look at earth.nullschool.net shows that the current winds at the specified latitude are running between 50-100 mph. No balloon with a propeller can plow through that. It’s likely that the propellers aren’t for propulsion, but for changing the direction that the antenna is pointing, so that it can phone home.

It’s possible that as the Pentagon says, the deceased balloon was gathering data on our defenses, but all nations do that all the time. So where’s our politicians’ and the media’s common sense? Their hysterical reaction is totally on brand, but as always, very depressing.

We have to hope the politicians and generals who control America’s nukes have better minds than our GOP politicians.

Let’s deal with the question about why Biden didn’t shoot it down over land. One issue was that the debris field when the balloon remains hit the ocean was seven miles long. One advantage of knocking it down where they did is that the ocean is only about 50’ deep off the Carolina coast. Imagine a seven-mile debris field spread across any American state: It would be a fantastic opportunity for souvenir hunting.

Back in 1945, before WWII ended, Japan sent thousands of bomb-carrying paper balloons via the jet stream towards North America. Only a small percentage of the balloons reached land. But six people, five of them children, were killed by one balloon that landed in Oregon.

There’s a (possibly apocryphal) story about a US Navy ship firing on a suspected Japanese balloon until they finally realized that they were shooting at Venus.

Bottom line, Biden and the US military showed professionalism and caution in tracking and attacking the balloon. The US military was able to jam the balloon’s instruments as it crossed America, while collecting information about Chinese intelligence gathering capabilities. They shot it down when and where the risk to civilian casualties and property damage was deminimis. From Robert Hubbell:

“But the ‘spy balloon’ did allow the Chinese military to glean one significant piece of intelligence about America—that Republicans are clowns who cannot be trusted to run the US military again.”

One Republican said Biden should be impeached. Several wanted to “SHOOT IT DOWN NOW”. Consider this tweet from Rep. Joe Wilson (R-SC):

Does anyone believe the balloon threatened the lives of millions of American families? Or that Biden and Harris should resign? Wilson forgets to say that resignation would make House Speaker Republican Kevin McCarthy president. It’s just awesome how serious the Republican Party has become.

All of the hostile one-upmanship aimed at China over the balloon served to show that there is no downside to an American politician taking a hawkish stance towards China.

China remains a crucial trading and economic partner and competitor, but both Republicans and many Democrats are happy to take a battering ram to our relationship with China. And the media decided to work the Chinese balloon story rather than spend time talking about Friday’s blockbuster jobs report, or how unemployment reached a 50-year low.

That news wasn’t important or exciting enough when there was a Chinese balloon on the horizon.

America’s relationship with China has always been fraught. If you’re as old as Wrongo, you remember 1971’s Ping-Pong diplomacy, one of the first official contacts between the countries since before the Cold War.

You may ask, what’s happened since then? Well, the balls have gotten bigger.

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Saturday Soother – January 21, 2023

The Daily Escape:

Round Bald summit, TN, looking towards NC – January 2023 photo by Tim Lewis. Those are some very blue Blue Ridge Mountains.

From the NYT:

“Western defense officials on Friday failed to reach an agreement on exporting German – or American -made battle tanks to Ukraine, setting back Ukraine’s hopes of quickly getting weapons it sees as crucial to its defense against an expected new Russian offensive.”

This is the fractured state of play in NATO’s support for Ukraine. Despite a statement signed by nine other NATO allies saying they were willing to participate in a coalition of German-made Leopard 2 tank donors.

Germany has not yet decided whether to allow Leopard 2 tanks to be sent to Ukraine. The NYT also reports that German Chancellor Mr. Scholz has insisted Berlin would not send any of its own Leopard tanks unless the US also sends its M1 Abrams tanks. However, the Biden administration thinks that the M1 Abrams tanks – which run on jet fuel and require frequent maintenance and spare parts — would be difficult to position in eastern Ukraine, where supply lines could be cut off easily.

Germany’s reluctance may be due to polling that shows a sharp division among Germans over sending battle tanks to Ukraine. This is despite widespread support by Germans for providing other weapons. Some think this is also a byproduct of its legacy of blitzkrieg tank warfare in World War II.

This is big since Ukraine’s senior military commander, Gen. Valery Zaluzhny, has said his forces need about 300 Western tanks to make a difference in the battles for fiercely contested cities and towns in the eastern provinces of Ukraine that border Russia.

It’s clear that more and newer tanks are crucial in pushing back Russian forces. The Leopard 2 would help offset Russia’s superiority in artillery firepower. They would be of even greater value as the war begins its second year next month, and Ukraine needs to fight against a Russian spring counteroffensive.

OTOH, Britain has agreed to send to Ukraine 14 of its Challenger 2 tanks, and 30 artillery guns in a move it made at least in part to encourage other NATO countries to donate their own tanks.

There are clear advantages for deploying the Leopard 2: There are many in Europe (about 2,000). They are easy to move to Ukraine. The logistics and maintenance would be easier, as would providing  supplies, spare parts, and training.

But the US and Germany are dithering because they remain concerned about the possible escalation of the Ukraine War into a larger conflict. Any conflict between Russia and NATO powers has the potential to devolve into a nuclear war. And no one wants to see tactical nuclear weapons used on any battlefield.

While it’s useful to exercise caution, we crossed the escalation bridge when we sent the HIMARS precision-guided missiles to Ukraine. Give the tanks to Ukraine!

On to our Saturday Soother, where we will try to forget that Rep. George Santos (R-NY) is denying that he ever appeared in drag, even though there is a YouTube video of him in a dress and makeup at Carnival in Rio.

Sorry to put that image in your mind but try to relax for a few minutes and think about the great David Crosby who died on Thursday. Crosby was a notorious dickhead who got kicked out of every band he ever played with. After The Byrds, he teamed up with Buffalo Springfield’s Stephen Stills and The Hollies’ Graham Nash to form Crosby, Stills & Nash. And later, Neil Young was added, making the group, CSNY.

By the end of his life, no member of CSNY would speak to him, despite Crosby’s efforts late in life to apologize to each of them. There’s a lesson to take from this. Evaluate your relationships. If something’s wrong or missing with the people who are important to you, do something about it before it’s too late.

Crosby wasn’t the primary singer or the main songwriter of the Byrds or of the CSN or CSNY songs that became mega-folk rock classics. But he was a superhumanly gifted harmony singer whose voice was the Super Glue of these groups.

It’s clear that the 2020s decade will see many of the remaining icons of the 1960s music scene leave us. Crosby, who received a liver transplant nearly 30 years ago (paid for by Phil Collins) is not someone Wrongo would have predicted to even make it this far.

Two ways to remember Crosby. Wrongo and Ms. Right strongly recommend “David Crosby: Remember My Name” a 2017 documentary in which Cameron Crowe interviews him.

One great song that Crosby wrote was on CSN’s 1970 album, “Déjà vu”. Listen to “Almost Cut My Hair”:

There are lots of dickheads in the music industry. Despite that it’s surprising how much good music gets made.

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Saturday Soother – December 24, 2022

The Daily Escape:

Santas on the Grand Canal in Venice 2017 photo via WSJ

(This column is late coming to you since the big storm left the Mansion of Wrong with no internet for two days, due to a large tree falling across our road. The high winds prevented crews from working to remove it for 24 hours. It also may be Wrongo’s last column until Jan. 4th.)

The New Year will continue to bring us the chaos that we’ve sadly become accustomed to. The 118th Congress and its Republican House majority will again test America’s norms. The 2024 presidential election is going to bring an extra silly season of political news, so take a real break if you can.

One thought for year end is to set out a framework for thinking about America’s commitment to Ukraine.

We know that a significant number of Republicans and some Democrats want to pull the plug on our support for Ukraine in its war with Russia. For now, the majority think it should remain a “whatever it takes, for as long as it takes” situation. Implicit in the second viewpoint is that American soldiers are never going to be combatants in Ukraine, and that we’re not talking about another 20-year war like in Afghanistan.

A few things to think about. Do we have a choice to support Ukraine, or is supporting them a necessity? We have talked about the difference between “wars of choice” and “wars of necessity” throughout Wrongo’s adult life. Two of our worst military experiences were in wars of choice: Vietnam and Afghanistan. We didn’t have to intervene in either, but our political leaders decided that America’s national security had a true connection to both conflicts. The clear wars of necessity for America were the US Civil War, and the two World Wars. All threated the existence of the US homeland.

Somewhere in between wars of choice and necessity is Ukraine. It isn’t an ally where we are obligated by a treaty, like we have with Europe via NATO. We are obligated to defend any NATO member who is attacked. For example, that would mean a war against Latvia is a war against the US.

We spent 20+ years fighting in Afghanistan. Given what we learned there, would America ever spend a minute fighting for Latvia? When Trump was president he flirted with saying we wouldn’t immediately commit to defending just any NATO country, and he wasn’t alone in that thinking.

That means we could consider choosing not to defend NATO at all, or not to defend individual NATO countries.

We’re facing Cold War II with China and Russia. Our new Omnibus budget allocates 10% more money to national defense than last year, largely because of the possibility of fighting both countries at great distances from home. The budget implies that our national security is threated by both of them.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine could become a generation-long rolling war between Russia and the small NATO countries that border either Russia or Belarus, if Ukraine loses. Would America then rally and support NATO? Where would we draw the red line? Support for Germany but not for Poland? Ok, we’ll support Poland, but not Latvia?

We need to think through our priorities. We fought in Afghanistan because we believed fighting a far enemy (al-Qaeda) was better than waiting and fighting them as a near enemy. That is also the basis of why we created and remain a member of NATO: Fighting Russia over there was smarter than fighting it nearby, like in Cuba.

Neither China nor Russia are presently our near enemies. If China invades Taiwan, direct involvement by the US would be another war of choice with a far enemy. Ukraine represents a war of choice with a different far enemy, but one in very close proximity to our treaty partners, an enemy that could cross NATO’s trip wire at any time.

Our history suggests that the American people will agree to wage wars of choice if they are relatively cheap and short in duration. What we call a cheap war is mostly a partisan political question. But talking about the cost of a war of choice is a proxy for how Americans value the country that we’re intent on supporting.

Ukraine is a proxy war of choice. We have very few people on the ground and none in a direct combat role. The twin goals are to preserve Ukrainian independence and to bleed Russia of its conventional military capability. Americans need to consider the following implications for national security:

  • Since our resources are limited, should we choose between containing Russia or containing China?
  • What is the goal of containing either or both?
  • How important are the small NATO counties to our national security?
  • If Ukraine loses its fight with Russia, would our national security be weakened?
  • If yes, can we live with that, or should we be doing more now?

On to a Saturday that’s also Christmas Eve! Forget tree-trimming and the last-minute Amazon shopping for a few minutes. It’s time to unplug and land on a small oasis of soothing in the midst of all of the chaos.

Gaze out at the last few leaves on the trees, and listen to the late Greg Lake, of Emerson, Lake, and Palmer, perform 1985’s “I Believe in Father Christmas”. Although most people think of it as a Christmas song, Lake wrote the song to protest the commercialization of Christmas. Here Lake, along with Jethro Tull’s Ian Anderson on flute perform it live at St. Bride’s Church, in the City of London along with the church’s choir:

The last line of the song says: “The Christmas you deserve is the Christmas you get.”

That might be considered harsh in some circumstances, but it might also be true. Anyway, Merry Christmas, Happy Festivus, Happy Chanukah, Happy Kwanzaa, and Happy New Year to all. Let’s hope the deep divisions in our country can be somehow healed by a seasonal miracle.

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Russia’s New Ukraine Strategy

The Daily Escape:

Dune Evening Primrose, Anza Borrego Desert SP, CA – November 2022 photo by Paulette Donnellon. This flower only blooms at night.

The war in Ukraine has entered a new phase. Early predictions that Russian forces would roll over token Ukrainian resistance didn’t last long. Confidence grew in a possible Ukrainian victory after Kyiv took advantage of America’s HIMARS artillery and other highly capable Western equipment began to degrade the Russian logistics and command systems.

Then, Ukraine launched a series of counter-offensives that have liberated formerly Russian occupied territory. November’s evacuation of Kherson by Russia showed that Moscow hasn’t yet found a way to stabilize its front lines in the face of Ukrainian military ground tactics.

But the ground has now shifted. The newest Russian commander, General Sergei Surovikin, in October began a bombing campaign on Ukrainian utilities throughout the country. It soon became clear that Russia is attempting to take out as much of Ukraine’s electrical grid as it can.

The WaPo said in late October:

“Russia’s ongoing attacks on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure have been so methodical and destructive that administration officials say they are being led by power experts who know exactly which targets will cause the most damage to Ukraine’s power grid.”

Tactically, Ukraine’s weapons and ammunition can be replaced by the west. Troops can be trained to use new systems; cash can be transferred from Washington and/or Brussels. But the electric grid infrastructure cannot be easily fixed with replacements or money. There isn’t a large inventory of Soviet-era power generating and transmission gear laying around Europe that can be marshaled to fix the Ukrainian grid.

The grid destruction is taking place primarily by precision missile strikes launched from aircraft flying within Russia. We’ve seen that Russia continues to struggle in the land battle, but they have much more latitude to strike against Ukraine’s society and economy from within their own country.

We may have to refine our viewpoint about who is winning and losing this war. The US and NATO have focused on the land battle, which now favors Ukraine. But Russia seems willing to use air bombing to grind western Ukraine into a wasteland. The precision bombing of infrastructure can go on all winter, while the movement of ground forces will largely come to a halt as winter deepens.

Russia could make western Ukraine so close to uninhabitable that many of its citizens leave for Europe. No electric power in western Ukraine also means no water. That would mean the only people who could continue to live there would be the hardiest.

Russia can do all of this while the ground war is literally frozen in place. Russia can do this without a major commitment of additional troops, tanks, or new logistics paths into Ukraine.

If this is Russia’s plan, it makes sense. It’s incremental, has flexibility and fully utilizes Russia’s current advantages, including control of its own airspace. And since NATO and the US haven’t supplied Ukraine with weapons that could reach Russian soil or airspace, Russians are invulnerable to sustained Ukrainian attack.

Russia isn’t acquiring and defending new territory; it’s degrading much of Ukraine instead. Whether this is a winning strategy or not, it’s evidence of new and higher quality military thinking on Russia’s part.

It isn’t necessarily a winning strategy if the west supplies Ukraine with better air defense weaponry or with weapons that have the range to reach into Russia. There are two types of weapons to consider. Those that have a range that could strike behind Russian lines, and those that could reach into Russia itself.

Longer-range weapons raise concerns that the conflict could escalate to include NATO. But at the currently underway Bucharest NATO meeting, Lithuanian Foreign Minister Gabrielius Landsbergis said  that Ukraine should be free to strike military sites inside Russia as it fends off attacks on its critical infrastructure. Washington has previously denied Kyiv’s request for the 185-mile range ATACMS missile, which can reach into Russia.

America is at a similar point in the Ukraine war to where it was in the Afghan war: The enemy is striking it from another country, and our policy is not to pursue them inside their political borders.

The difference is that America was doing the fighting in Afghanistan and Ukraine is doing the fighting inside Ukraine. But in both cases, the US policy is strategically flawed. Russia must be made to pay real costs if they are going to use stand-off weapons to grind Ukraine into dust.

The challenge for NATO’s and America’s generals is to recognize that the Russian war strategy has changed, and to adapt to it. Russia wants to make it into a war of attrition. Ukraine wants to retake its lands.

How should Biden and NATO respond? Can the West sustain Ukraine in a prolonged existential conflict like this without changing its strategy?

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Saturday Soother, Nordstream Clues Edition – October 1, 2022

The Daily Escape:

Sunrise, Kalalau Valley Lookout, Waimea Canyon, Kauai, HI – September 2022 photo by Alex Skoz

Who sabotaged the Nordstream pipelines? We’re forced to speculate, but it’s a near certainty that the US Navy knows who did it. In perusing Stratfor’s publication this week of where in the world US Navy fleets are located, Wrongo saw this map:

The map breaks the Navy’s fleets into Carrier groups (four in orange) and LHA and LHD Amphibious Assault groups (two in blue). The map shows the location of these groups over the last four weeks. The one of interest is LHD3. It spent most of the past four weeks in the Baltic Sea, including a great deal of time very near the Nordstream pipelines.

LHD3 is the designation of the USS Kearsarge, what the Navy calls a Multiple Purpose Amphibious Assault Ship, shorthand for a small aircraft carrier. The Kearsarge left the Baltic Sea a few days ago. Part of the reason the Kearsarge was in the Baltic was to participate in Baltops 22:

“This year, more than 45 ships, over 75 aircraft, and 7,000 personnel are tasked to execute a series of complex events throughout the two-week exercise.”

Seapower Magazine reported that one element of the Kearsarge operations in the Baltic was to test special sub-sea mine destruction technologies: (emphasis by Wrongo)

“A significant focus of BALTOPS every year is the demonstration of NATO mine hunting capabilities, and this year the US Navy continues to use the exercise as an opportunity to test emerging technology….Experimentation was conducted off the coast of Bornholm, Denmark….”

Bornholm is where the first breaches of Nordstream Two were discovered. Stratfor reports that:

“On Sept. 26, the Norwegian Petroleum Safety Administration warned of potential ”deliberate attacks” after energy companies reported multiple cases of unidentified drones flying near offshore oil and gas installations. Just a few hours later, officials in Denmark warned they had found a gas leak along a section of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline off the coast of the Danish island of Bornholm.”

The following day, the Swedish Maritime Administration announced it also detected two gas leaks on the Nordstream One pipeline in a nearby area. A fourth leak was discovered subsequently. While the Baltops 22 operation finished in July, the US Sixth Fleet didn’t begin leaving the Baltic Sea until September 22.

So it’s highly likely the Navy knows what happened and maybe who did it.

A head-scratching question is why would anyone do this? Damaging Nordstream is a direct terror attack on both Russia, and the EU, Germany, and the western European nations indirectly connected to the pipelines.

It is impossible to believe that it was done undetected. This type of clandestine operation requires deep water explosives, submersibles, divers and digging through the sea mud to attach explosives to the concrete shell that surrounds the steel pipeline.

Let’s take a brief look at the leading characters. Western governments say Russia did it, but why would it? One benefit to the Russians is that it forced the price of natural gas even higher (it went up 7%). It might have propaganda value; Russia can blame the US and thereby further turn Russian civilians against the West.

One old myth may apply: According to legend, Spanish conquistador Hernán Cortés ordered his men to “Burn the boats” as they began their conquest of the Aztec empire in 1519. The idea was that there would be no opportunity to retreat, and winning the battle was all that mattered. For Putin, could it be he purposefully destroyed billions of dollars of Russian energy infrastructure and their “cash cow”, believing that Europe will never again want Russian gas? If so, that means Putin intends to win WWIII.

Could it be China? Closing Nordstream means China would get all the gas it needs, and possibly at even cheaper prices. Rendering Nordstream useless forces the Russians to tie their currency more tightly to the Chinese Yuan. And the newest Chinese submarines might be able to do the deed.

Could it be the US? We have the technology and were in the area. But what goal of our foreign policy would be served by drastically hurting our NATO allies? If we did it, we’ve gone from a passive participant arming Ukraine to an active participant, possibly engaging in an Act of War.

Could it be a smaller state in the rabid anti-Russian west such as Poland?  The US Navy knows. Will they tell anyone?

On to the weekend, where we ignore what Gini Thomas told the Jan. 6 Committee or, whatever Judge Aileen Cannon is thinking about Trump’s documents. It’s time for our Saturday Soother! Start by brewing up a hot steaming mug of Kahiko ($47.95 for 8oz: expensive, no? Thanks Biden) from Hawaii’s Hula Daddy Kona Coffee. It is said to be richly chocolaty, harmoniously juicy, and bright.

Now, grab a seat by a south-facing window and listen to George Gershwin’s “Lullaby for Strings”, written in 1919, although it was first performed as an orchestral piece in 1967. It’s played here by the New York Philharmonic String Quartet in 2016:

BTW: Stop watching cable news.

 

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