Category Archives: Warfare

Periodic World Craziness Update # 18

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The latest month’s wackiness in the world of international relations, politics, and brinkmanship.

Syria Begins to Break Apart Under Pressure From War: This article states the obvious. I wonder when, if ever, the NYT is going to regain its former luster as a serious paper. Syrian-jihadists-400-x-300 As the analysis in this piece could be done by any 2-year old with an internet connection It is obvious that Syria is falling apart and has been for the past 2 years. The war there would probably be over were it not for foreign meddling in what is arguably an internal conflict. Apparently Western bleeding hearts have more finely developed skills of self-delusion than I originally thought as they seem incapable of admitting that the opposition is rapidly becoming co-opted by Jihadist extremists I am also dismayed that we don’t see more pieces abut how foreign interference has prolonged both the fighting and the suffering in Syria.

Rand Paul: My colleagues just voted to arm the allies of al Qaeda: The story here is not that Rand Paul is opposed to arming Syrian rebels it is that such an insane proposition got enough votes to get it out of committee in the first place. I have wracked my brain for weeks and still cannot come up with a sound strategic reason for the US to get further embroiled in the muddy, murky problems of a region full of people that hate the US in particular, and the West in general. It would appear the Arabs are busy killing each other off and we should let them be about it.

Israel general sees increased risk of surprise war: There is no question that with the Civil War in Syria and other upheavals across the region the risk of Israel being attacked is greater. Nothing would unify Arabs more than an attack on the universally hated Jews of Israel. I would argue that Israel is correct to be wary and it would imprudent for them not to be.

Riots grip Stockholm suburbs after police shooting: What is difficult to discover about these riots is that they originate from one of the Muslim enclaves in Stockholm. Stockholm-riots May 13The linguistic contortions engaged in by the press to avoid mentioning that are amazing. At some point, we in the West are going to have no choice but to admit that Islam is incompatible with Western values and it’s adherents are unable or unwilling to assimilate. One of the biggest questions to me is how many bodies are going to be stacked up before it happens and whether it will then be too late to rescue our society. What will it take for both Western leadership and societies to admit what is so obvious for thinking people to see? Is the modern liberal thought really a suicide pact among so-called Western intellectuals?

A Twofer – New Computer Attacks Traced to Iran, Officials Say and Confidential report lists U.S. weapons system designs compromised by Chinese cyberspies: These stories, especially the second, lead me to wonder what constitutes a digital “Act of War”? It seems unfathomable to me that the wholesale theft of sensitive weapons plans is not an act of war. At a minimum the US should be doing everything possible to shut down the Chinese internet or at least try our hardest to cut of the Chinese from access to US based servers. Perhaps it is time that offensive cyber-war on the part of the US was stepped up? I would argue that say hacking the Chinese power grid and turning off the lights across China in retaliation or even better, hacking their military network and planting false information would be in order. Something must be done and it is obviously past time for he US to stop playing shabby defense in cyberspace and play more offense thus forcing the other guy to devote more resources to defense.

Syria’s Assad “confident in victory” in Civil War: Well, I would not expect him to say anything else publicly even if the rebels were pounding on his bedroom door. This is actually kind of a stupid story because what should he say? “We are losing and prepared to throw in the towel if we are promised cushy exiles in France along the lines of Idi Amin.” I am also not sure what to make of the claims that the new missiles from Russia have already been received. The claims strike me as boasting and the lack of an Israeli response tends to suggest they are not there. I simply cannot see Israel not following through on a threat as such activity is counter to past Israeli actions. The Israelis do not promises they do not keep, especially where they see their security at stake.

Russia to send nuclear submarines to southern seas: I don’t even know what to make of this. I would guess that Russia’s return to nuclear sub patrolling is similar to the pre-WWI German Risk theory of naval operations. I just don’t see Russia’s blue water force being able to achieve anything other than being a residual threat that must be calculated into US/Western naval operations. US/Western naval dominance will not end any time soon.

Britons warned to steer clear of Turkey as 1,700 protesters arrested after riots rock the country for a third day: The main thing to note about this story is not that the Brits have issued a warning about travel to Turkey but that Turkey is apparently following the civil unrest of the Arab Spring at about two years remove. Are we seeing signs here that the average Turk is not a willing Islamist or Proto-Islamist? I tend to think we are and that Kemal Ataturk’s secular experiment is not as dead as I and many others had thought it was with the rise of Erdogan’s AKP. Only time will tell.

Istanbul’s Taksim Square quiet after chaotic, violent night:  11 days on and no end in sight. It seems apparent at this point that all the hard line attitude by Erdogan is achieving is to piss off the average Turk even more.  The question now becomes if he is willing to soften his tone or is he confident enough to face a possible electoral whipping in the upcoming elections and possibly losing power.  It is a good bet that the Turkish military will not fight a civil war to keep a neo-islamist in power as the AKP has not been in power long enough to purge the secularists from the military completely.

 U.S.: Syria used chemical weapons, crossing “red line”:  The only thing I can say to this is STUPID! STUPID! STUPID!  By some accounts the rebels are also guilty of using chemical weapons and we know that a significant portion of the rebels are jihadist/Al Qaeda affiliates.  What possible stretch of the imagination could make it seem that arming groups such as these is a good idea?  If we arm the rebels we are very likely to see the weapons we give them turned on us at some point in the future.  I reiterate, thee are no viatl Western or US strategic interests at stake in Syria.  The best thing for the US and West to do is sit back and let the Syrians and Arabs settle this for themselves.  There is no need to go rushing in to “save” anybody.  R2P is not a justification for stupidity although some policy makers apparently think it is.

Support the Syrian Rebels?: How stupid can the West be?

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 Video shows Islamist rebels executing 11 Syrian soldiers:  Yet for some unfathomable reason the Administration is talking about providing support to the rebel groups in Syria.  The video is below (Warning, it is graphic).

After watching just contemplate that these are the folks some in the West want us to help.  How they differ from the regime thugs I have no idea.

Compare the picture in the linked article with the video.  Notice there is no mention of the cries of Allahu Akbar in the article although they do mention in passing that the group is Islamist.  Now also remember the constant refrain about Islam being a Religion of Peace, which Muslim’s give the lie to almost every day by their barbarities and savageries.

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Periodic World Craziness Update # 17

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The latest month’s wackiness in the world of international relations, politics, and  brinkmanship.

North Korea demands US withdrawal from peninsula before resuming talks: Now we know that the North is just posturing and has no stomach to start a hot war with the South.  The bad part from their perspective is that if they are dumb enough to try and ;pull off even a limited attack the days when they could expect a proportional or even no response from the South are probably over as the South would probably retaliate all out of proportion to the scale of any provocation from the DPRK.  

Boston Marathon bombings: No doubt more information about this will come out as the investigation proceeds.  I have linked the Wikipedia article as it gets updated very quickly with developments and the editors do a pretty good job of keeping it objective.  One thing seems pretty clear now, the bombings were motivated by Islamism of some sort although exact details are unknown.  A disturbing development is the idea proposed by some Republicans that the surviving attacker be denied his rights as a US citizen and be treated as an “enemy combatant.”  I don’t expect that to go anywhere in this case but the idea has been proposed and that it is seriously proposed by members of the US government is scary in the extreme.

Some lawmakers told last week about Syria, sarin, U.S.: Intelligence points to small-scale use of sarin in Syria:  There have been several reports of Syrian use of Chemical Weapons over the last few weeks first from the Israelis and now coming out of Congress.  I simply cannot believe there is any corroboration or confirmation of their use or this story would be all over the news since the Boston Bombings are starting to fade.  I tend to discount these reports until we get confirmation of their veracity.  The next question is what the response will be?  It has been longstanding US policy that they will not tolerate the use of such weapons but I would guess that we will do noting unless and until US personnel are impacted.  The US stood by as Saddam gassed the Kurds in the 80′s why would it be any different now?

PWCU #17

Too late for Syria-Radicals now rule the rebellion:  Ralph Peters has a pretty interesting take on Syria and a pretty good argument for why the West and particularly the US should stay out of it.

Israel Targeted Iranian Missiles in Syria Attack:  I think we are supposed to be shocked and dismayed that Israel is being pre-emptive about the Syrian Civil War and countering threats before they kill Israeli civilians.  I don’t know why we should be though.  What I am surprised about is the level of restraint Israel has thus far shown.  Then again, I am not one of those that automatically assume anything Israel does is evil and anything their enemies do is virtuous either.

UN accuses Syrian rebels of carrying out sarin gas attacks which had been blamed on Assad’s troops:  Well, what is it?  Is it the Syria government or the Rebels using Chemical Weapons?  If someone were willing to bet, I would bet that IF such weapons are being used, both sides are using them.  If that is the case who will the Western Powers attack and will rebel use affect the aid they are receiving from the West?  I would guess the Western powers will wink at rebel use because they have convinced themselves that the rebels are as pure as the driven snow and only do what they do out of necessity.

Lijian stealth drone prepares for test flight:  Is it just me or does it increasingly look like there is a Cold War shaping up between China and the US and our Allies?  This article reminds me of the Soviet roll-outs of new weapon systems as it seems designed to intimidate.  The difference this time around is I don’t think the US is prepared economically or politically to confront China for global dominance.  The US wasted whatever peace dividend we got from the demise of the Soviets in the fruitless wars of the past decade.

Hezbollah says Syria to supply ‘game-changing arms’:  Just to make things even more interesting it is increasingly starting to look as though the Middle East is getting ready for a do-over of the Arab-Israeli wars of the 50′s & 60′s with a side order of civil war thrown in.  We live in interesting times indeed.

“Middle War”: The new normal going forward

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The face of Middle War: documents and weapons sized in raid in Al-Alam, Iraq. Photo by Uathor

The face of Middle War: documents. cash, and weapons seized during a raid in Al-Alam, Iraq in 2004 by the author.  There was plenty of other stuff but this is the best picture.
Photo by Me during my tour downrange

The Center for Strategic and International Studies has just released Beyond the Last War: Balancing Ground Forces and Future Challenges Risk in USCENTCOM and USPACOM.  The report makes for interesting reading.  What I found the most interesting aside from the scenarios considered was the realization that air power and spec-ops troops cannot win wars by themselves.  Conventional military forces will be required into the foreseeable future.  That view alone is a breath of fresh air given the Pentagon’s lamentable tendency over the past few years to tour both types of forces while the simple ground-pounders are out there doing Yeoman’s work trying to make an unstable world more stable.  High profile raids and airstrikes do not a war make.  It is the infantry, cavalry, artillery, and engineers out there interacting, fighting, and dying on a daily basis that win wars.  In fact, I cannot think of one war that ended by decapitation strike.

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Book Review: Castles and Fortified Cities of Medieval Europe: An Illustrated History by Jean-Denis G. G. Lepage

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Castles and Fortified Cities of Medieval Europe: An Illustrated History is a very interesting book.  I picked it up because we had a three hour bus ride to get to my son’s football game and my wife was using my Kindle.  I am certainly glad I did.

This is a well written 330 page book.  It includes an index and bibliography, both unfortunately short.  The book is organized chronologically in five chapters covering fortification and castles from the 5th to the 16th century A.D.  Each chapter is further subdivided geographically and covers both eastern and Western Europe and the Middle East. There are many illustrations, both ground plans and sketches that help to illuminate the text. This is a very good introductory volume to medieval fortification.

I found the book to be both entertaining and informative.  The author has a very readable writing style and except for using the unavoidable specialist vocabulary of fortification is easy to understand.  For someone like me who finds the military aspects of castles fascinating it was quite illuminating to read.  I already knew quite a bit about castles but I learned a few things myself.  Of particular interest to me was the discussion of the development of the Trace Italienne fortifications of the 15th and 16th centuries.  I was not aware that many of the elements of that style were not really developed in Italy, but instead were only perfected there. One of the most interesting things about this book is that the author deliberately chose to focus most of this work on less famous castles and forts.  Everyone has heard of Carcassonne, Beaumaris, and Krak des Chavaliers.  Most people have not heard or seen descriptions of such equally important castles as Helmond Castle in the Netherlands or Bellver in Spain.  Many of these lesser known castles are fascinating in their own right and the descriptions cause me to add some of them to my bucket list of places to visit.

The only complaint I have about this book is that it does not include a glossary of terms which I feel would be extremely useful, especially for people unfamiliar with the technical terms for the parts of fortification   It can become pretty confusing to keep the different elements in mind when the author continually throws around such terms as enciente, ravelin, keep, donjon, burgfried, bastille, bastion, etc. Overall this well-written and illustrated work about medieval European and Middle Eastern castles and frost is well worth reading.  I highly recommend this work to anybody interested in European castles and how they developed over time.