ON A SUNDAY MORNING FAR AWAY

As a former naval officer one of the things that did amuse me, after a while, was that there was not one single solitary soul in the United States military that thought that something like Pearl Harbor could ever happen again. Once and done as they say. We were ready every day to deal with fires on ships, security threats to nuclear weapons that may, or may not have been on our ships but there was never a single thought given to fighting the ship with a duty section aboard and that was back in the Cold War.

I see throughout X this morning that an enemy has attacked Russian air bases all over Russia with drones launched from concealed launchers that had been free to roam around the country. If you think about it for just a little bit you understand that there was massive collusion on the parts of the various frontier NATO states that permitted drone operators to fly their drones over the frontiers into Russia where they could be collected, armed and concealed in trucks for a long ride to their launch/distribution point.

The thing is though that just as Churchill was content to let Coventry burn despite knowing of the attack in advance, so too is a KGB man willing to sacrifice a few obsolete weapons to gather incontrovertible truth that NATO is carrying out direct attacks on Russia. At this point there is no point in gathering evidence to put before any world body since they are all completely corrupt and useless for the purposes they were built to enshrine. Nobody cares what the UN says about anything. However, in a war of first causes it will be convenient for Russia to show the flow of drones directly over the border from the Baltic States into Russia that were used in the attacks. And you know what?

One of those countries is armed, trained and equipped to wage war and the others are not. Not one single one of them that will lift a finger to save other NATO members that deliberately launched an unwarranted attack on Russia. NATO and the EU are in the first stages of rapid sudden disassembly and a year from now they'll be bleating and demanding to know, 'how did this happen?'

Everybody seems to think that there is a visible smooth progression from peace to war that people can see and throw up a hand and shout STOP! and you know what? In hindsight there is always a visible clear progression from peace to war but the people and the politicians were too damned stupid to see it and the media was too damned stupid and ignorant to report what was actually happening at the time and the people were just ignorant.

WE ALL KNOW HOW

 It's an interesting fact that gets repeated every day and that is that the lowest socio-economic rungs in our society are illiterate and this is despite having received the 12 years of free public education some contractors seem to think is guaranteed to relieve all ignorance and turn out model citizens of the republic. There's good money in fooling 100% of the democrats and the other dimwits with this stupid insistence that public education is a public good that relieves society of the burden and dead weight of nonperforming ignorant violent thugs. (There must be some reason to waste our time and money on public schools, right?)

It is said that the first 3 years in school are to teach the child how to read and that after that is achieved the child essentially teaches his or her self by reading the lessons and writing the desired answers. That would mean that there is one point in every educable student's life that is the go/no go point for further education and you can guess what it is even before I write, passing the 3rd grade.

Everyone seems to think that a massive enormous gigantic universal test is required to measure teacher effectiveness and student learning and yet this is probably the easiest thing in the world to measure and assess. It's simple. You throw a big party and before the kids get drunk and get their little 3rd grade diplomas, you hand them a reasonable 3rd grader's book of short stories and you tell that little kid to read it aloud to all the other kids and parents and teachers for that little 20 person or fewer class and if they cannot read, they cannot go on to the fourth grade. They get to repeat the entire year over again.

That's not hard. It may involve getting kids used to reading aloud all the time in the annoying way that kids who can read have of marching around reading aloud all the time but that's a small price to pay. Only a complete idiot could find anything racist or objectionable about it and only a fool would try. The important thing here is to be able to read and note, I said nothing about filling out some stupid written test to demonstrate that the kid has mastered the second aspect of reading which is reading comprehension because that's just a barn door any reader will rush through at some point in their school time if presented with the correct reading materials.

I know there are those that think this is setting the bar too high for some but I'm sure those people are racists of the first water and don't understand, California needs idiots!!!! They require them in vast numbers and California DOESN'T CARE IF THEY CANNOT READ OR WRITE. So you see, even the little failures will find rich full and satisfying lives in California, so buck up!

On the down side, LA City Council is demanding that big hotels and the airport businesses pay their minimum wage workers such as maids and cleaners a minimum of $38.00/hour. But I'm sure there will be no shortage of such jobs in California once that kind of minimum wage insanity spreads there at the speed of cockroaches. 

I mean, who else would want jobs like that in California? It's not like people are breaking into the country to be fruit and veg pickers, maids, cleaners, Air Traffic Controllers and Congresswomen. Not at those wages....

THE PROPER ROASTING OF LIBERAL DEMOCRATS

 I think maybe the time has come for the Administration to simply throw the ridiculous court maneuverings right back into the faces of the liberal clowns running amok. It is fine to propose that the Administration stand and shake its fist in rage but I think it is also a good trick for the Administration to bow to the same winds that blow through the Ivy League and the former Administration. 

The Ivies are very pointedly completely disregarding the Supreme Courts clear ruling on discrimination at university admissions and hiring and the former Administration simply ignored everything and did whatever it felt like including continuing to announce that Student Loans did not have to repaid by the guilty parties and other annoying things that bothered me.

The Liberals have no real defense if the Administration simply ignores the Courts now. In places like New York the "lawmakers" have been pointedly refusing to acknowledge the 2nd Amendment for decades and ignoring all Supreme Court rulings in modern times. New York is not alone in this contempt for the Courts and their animus, hatred and disregard for the Court is shared by every single Blue State. 

If the Administration simply tells the various Judges that it is doing everything in strict accordance with the Law and nothing then happens, how is the Court going to manifest its shock and horror at being ignored by the Orange Haired Man? What if the President announces that he is imposing his own Executive Rules on the Courts and tells them that he will begin to order his minions to comply once EVERY OTHER Court ruling is fully complied with by the various balking States and Universities? A very strict First In-First Out before those opinions that came later get complied with. 

What could be fairer than that? 

"Gosh, Judge, my hands are tied while I wait my turn to do what the Court ordered decades or years ago. You'll have to wait your turn just like all the rest."

 It probably won't take any longer than say, the time it took for Steyn/Mann's lawsuit to make it through the swamp known as the Washington DC Superior Court. I think it took more than 10 years so people should just compose themselves to wait patiently.

A NEW PARLOR TRICK

 I think this should do the trick. I think these rancid little judges have probably gone and done the thing that unleashes a righteous war on the Courts. It’s long overdue. 

HELLO MAELSTROM, I DIDN'T SEE YOU THERE

 It looks like the idiots and countries that brought us World War I, World War II, The Crimean War, et al are all hellbent on bringing us the next round of universal death and dying. I really don't know how people can fail to notice that there is exactly and only one player in the ugly conflict going on currently who is most definitely not playing around or a dabbler and actually means what he says. If Putin tells you a thing, you can take it to the bank and he has been that way since his first term as President of the Russian Federation.

And so the Chancellor of Germany announces that from now on all range limits on weapons Germany supplies to Ukraine will be removed and the weapons may be used to attack any targets in Russia.

What are some of the things that Russia can do in return for the Germans attack on Russia? 

- Cut off all energy flow to Germany and Western Europe.

- Make deliberate attacks on the energy supplies originating in Scandinavia that power Germany. 

- Make direct attacks on the factories making the weapons.

- Full blown cyber warfare

- 100% blockade of Ukraine

- My perennial favorite, the Pirate Submarines make their long awaited reappearance.

These two are likely to cost the EU everything it has. The EU Foreign Minister and re-imagined Queen

 

When I was much younger I thought that Europeans were a lot like Americans except not as feisty or boisterous. How modern day Europe adopted all of the worst aspects of the 3rd Reich, Loius XVI, the Second Bourbon Restoration and the liberum veto era of the Polish Kingdom is as much a mystery to me as what Starmer is doing selling some IO people the islands that Britain has owned for over 200 years that actually once belonged to some other people now doubly dispossessed by the idiots that mangled and twisted Brexit into a complete disaster for England. 

Is there some sort of competition over there building new European running shoes that will permit them all to race into disaster at the fastest human pace possible? My God, what if they get an AI up and running and it is programmed like the two idiots above.

Europe is doomed, again.

WHERE WE FIND THEM

 Some of them just vanished and never came back. Let us not lose sight of those that went down to the sea. There were a lot of men remembered like this and never got a headstone to name them for future generations.

Names and locations of all the warships sunk in Iron Bottom Sound during the War. A staggering number.

One page of the book of remembrance at Coraopolis Library

Names of War dead in the last two centuries

As usual the Civil War took an enormous toll

An eternity in Ashland, a small town we like to stop in on our way elsewhere

VIVE LA DIFFÉRENCE

In the olden days of yore, various chief minions of the Government and Military would appear before the various Congressional Committees to offer Testimony on their Departments and their weapon systems and were there to beg the Congress to be generous in all future funding for said things. Can you spot the difference between the people who appear in front of those Committees today who will sit there and rip the Senator or Congresswoman to pieces for being idiots and stupid and really dim-witted or noted truth dodgers?

That's right gentle readers, the people hand picked by President Trump don't give a Flying Fcuk about what Congress does with their Departmental Budget or to their weapon systems since they're so damned busy pruning out 69 years of pure waste and idiocy and won't miss a single dime cut by Congresscritters enraged at not being deferred to like the perfumed princes of old. 

It really makes for some enjoyable youtube watching.

DIMWITS AND SLOW COACHES

 I find myself wondering if there was ever much in the way of real intelligence at the Ivy League universities and then I think back to when they were absolute bastions of white male superiority and provided 100% of the intellectual heft that created the Manhattan Project, created Plutonium and created the environment that led to every meaningful invention in the last 100 years and realize that there was simply no point in asking such an idiotic question. They had a few POCs even back then but they were standouts of a particular sort not found very much anymore and the women back then had their own colleges nearby in order to secure the future of the race. But honestly, I don't think you could find today a single Harvard or Columbia administrator, dean or board member with an IQ larger than my shoe size.

What kind of imbecile picks a fight with a President who clearly has nothing at all to lose by telling them to clean up their sleazy racist act and fly right and in strict accordance with the newly revised, as interpreted law of the land, as dictated by the black robed morons in DC? What kind of idiot decides that this is the most opportune time to put that 'stupid New York real estate mogul' in his place and tell him to shut up and consider his real place in the world? I mean, does that sound at all smart to anyone?

It is a little tiresome to play every single round 9 times over as the Courts get to piss on the breakfast crunchies before a higher court tells them to butt out but at the end of the day that man who is most clearly not any kind of stupid or idiot is going to win and the Ivies are going to lose and lose big. What I want to know is, WTF did they think they were going to WIN by picking this fight?

That is where the true magnitude of the stupid rings like a bell. The President of Harvard has just delivered a real humdinger of a zinger and put that orange headed oaf in his place and so there! I can see you scratching your heads and asking, what? Who made these people the heads of these IVY universities and why have they not been hauled out of their crypts and burned alive on the hallowed quads of the pathetic remains of once great universities? They should all be named and shamed and turned out but that's the real kicker isn't it? There is nobody left to point out to anyone that matters that only the clowns and stupid fools remain at the colleges and universities at every level.

I doubt that any of them ever see the irony of repeatedly calling what started at Berkeley so long ago, 'The Free Speech Movement.' The very last thing anybody of the left or the liberal bent want or will permit is free speech. These are the ones that use antifa thugs as their enforcers and when they don't enforce hard enough they call up the Red Guard and the PFLP along with the eco-freeks and they batter into submission anyone who dares to speak against them. These people strongly believe in censorship of all speech and particularly any speech by anyone who disagrees with them. They are corrupt beyond your worst imagination because every single one of them thinks this is the most logical and American decision ever made and see nothing wrong with throttling you to death if you don't agree with their pronouns or any other little thing.

I applaud the government for shutting down all their government funds, slashing their ridiculous pass-throughs and overhead rates and terminating their desire to educate the foreign elite in their pigsty of liberal perfection. I hope that they also lose their tax exemption and that they be investigated for every bit of fraud and chicanery they have been party to since 1968. All those research papers that keep getting recalled because they're nothing but made up lies and fake statistics, they should be investigated as frauds perpetrated on the Government and the PIs should be looking at jail and restitution.

Honestly, how did people this damned stupid manage to take over and run every single one of our great universities?

WE SHALL SEE

 It will be interesting to see if Zelensky and Putin can negotiate an end to the war absent a sincere desire by either man to actually settle for anything less than all of what they demand. It will be interesting to see where the wriggle room develops as the negotiate the end of hostilities because if there was ever a conflict based in ineluctable divisions of geography this is it. At the end of the fighting there can only be an outcome that is favored by Russia because Russia is the only one that must be convinced to stop fighting and I haven't seen any reason at all for them to stop in even a single proposal out of the West.

The history of this type of conflict is pretty clear and well known to anybody who reads history. Russia cannot stop now without some pretty meaningful changes to the way Europe operates these days and there is zero sign that Europe has picked up on this. This war boils down to Russia being forced back on its final frontier by a power crazed coterie of madmen and women running the EU and American diplomacy since Clinton entered office.

They pushed and shoved NATO to expand to the East despite every assurance to Russia that they would not and then they arranged for all kinds of 'color revolutions' to sweep nationalist out of power throughout the former nationalist countries of all of Europe. It's like there are no real Europeans running any country in Europe because what kind of European would destroy their own countries by unlimited immigration, ruthless failure to assimilate immigrants, destruction of their military forces and finally the destruction of their economic basis by converting overnight to net zero energy insanity?

How can you conclude any kind of peace deal with fanatics of that stripe? They don't care at all about destroying their own countries and they have made it crystal clear that they urgently want to destroy Russia. With that kind of conclusion going into the talks how can anyone expect Europe or its lackeys to negotiate in good faith or keep even a fraction of what they do agree to? The outcome is foreordained and what Russia gets out of any 'peace' with Ukraine is nothing but a breathing space that allows Europe to rearm Ukraine before pointing them at Russia's throat again.

I think the talks will look as dishonest and filled with ill intent as you can believe and that the instant hostilities end the EU will try to do to Russia exactly what the Allies did to Germany after the Armistice was signed in 1918. Remember that Armistice? It wasn't a surrender, it was an agreement to stop fighting to talk peace and what went on in the meantime to a Germany? Well, you can still read about it.

You know what that poisonous peace with Germany brought a mere 15 years later? That's what I expect out of any kind of armistice between Russia and the EU. The EU is in it to win and to win they must topple Putin and break up Russia and there is no evidence at all that they mean to stop.

I will know that there is some real interest in peace over there if there is a sudden wave of unexpected deaths among the people that are quietly and secretly running the destroyers of the West. The puppet masters need to be pruned back hard perhaps and perhaps join the xroyalty of the Holy Roman Empire in the past. The world cannot afford letting the people who engineered the total destruction of the old Imperial West to continue to run things.

Remember who we're dealing with, these mean seriously float the idea that you should be made to eat bugs and like it while squatting in the dark surrounded by 3rd world savages who prey upon you and use every means at the State's disposal to make damned sure you aren't allowed to fight back.

THE STUPID PREVAILS

 It's hard to grasp just how vast the expanding bubble of really stupid ideas is and strange that almost nobody can see it. In this comedic story out of Newsweek we are treated to the idea that the Republic of Korea just got the plans to build an aircraft carrier and are going to rush off and build one because every country needs them and besides, it will look good on their resume.

Aircraft carriers are built for one reason only and that is it, they exist to project power. They allow any country in the world to go out and menace every other country in the world. That's all they do. They don't show the flag, they don't pull into port and deter crime, they don't build men, they just float around projecting one nation's will on all the other nations. It's really not all that difficult to grasp.

Now ask yourself why South Korea would need an aircraft carrier? They have one enemy and no world spanning interests anywhere else in the world that require power projection for resolution so why would they spend the 20 trillion dollars to build one? Their one single solitary enemy shares a border with them and is all within easy fighter/bomber range of any airbase in South Korea so there is no shortage of aircraft, bombs, or targets. Why would they need an aircraft carrier?

One could ask of the Australians why they need a fleet of nuclear submarines and get just about as much of a well reasoned answer. Some highly educated twit thinks they will need them for the inevitable war with ______________________.

The problem is of course that they will never now fight that enemy which is slowly and gradually taking over Australia in the quietest way every single day. Australia already lost that war the twit feared so much he contracted with the Bidens to get nuclear submarines built for the RAN. Australia caved into unlimited immigration and within a generation or two there will be almost no native non aboriginal Aussies left. Indonesia has been sponsoring the longest invasion since the fall of Rome.

There is also the problem that they cannot man and operate the submarines they currently have and show little inclination to do anything about it. 

Everyone thinks its easy to exist without purpose but it is hard to do that today. The USN maintains fleets of carriers and submarines because we have spent every moment since 1945 meddling with or invading every country on the planet except, maybe, the Vatican. Our subs were out spying on the USSR and then blowing things up very quietly and accomplishing real serious things, not just swanning* about like the Royal Navy for the last 80 years.

*swanning–that thing you do with an entire fleet consisting of scores of warships rather than send one of them down to the single solitary sole flash point remaining of your whole entire former empire in order to deter some feckless MILITARY JUNTA from invading islands they have claimed for a century or more.

Kind of makes you wonder how many of the RN's ships are actually swanning around the Malvinas today....Some people learn from history, some lost the knack and others never had it.

PUSHING CIVILIZATION RIGHT OFF THE CLIFF

 I think the major reason for the disaster that is our public education policy is that the politicians all figured out that a well educated, well read and intelligent population would demand real answers and real solutions from people eager to just kick the cans down the road. No politician wants 100% of the real voters knowledgeable about the Constitution and all of its amendments and none of them want educated people who know damned well that face masks do not stop a virus and never will and that social distancing your away from catching a disease is about as stupid as it gets.

What they lost sight of about 80 years ago was that the same ignorant dumb morons they permit to become public teachers also took over the Unions and the policy maker positions at every level in the Education Departments and that they then took over the Private and Parochial Schools that were once used by the rich and the professionals to educate their own children. Without that last bastion of smart students and educated adults, things started to come apart faster and faster. Now you have people who cannot find South Dakota on a map, know what language they speak in China and cannot tell you the square root of 9.

Most of the tiny handful that persist in the ability to do these things end up as....middle managers working for policy idiots from the main stream. In a country that doesn't honor merit there is no natural rise to the top for the smart and well educated. You get DIE morons at every level and especially at the top because they owned the HR system before you thought about how much damage they could do there and you let them.

Well, not you gentle reader, I'm talking about the people that were running things into the ground. Did you ever think that even in this moment of time a leading Bishop of the Episcopal Church in America would express both his contempt and disdain for the very idea of helping white refugees? Did they learn nothing at all from the DIE FEMA morons that were deliberately bypassing homes in Western Carolina that gave away their political leanings by having the nerve to fly an American flag over the flood and wind ravaged ruins of their homes? I guess not.

Sadly, I think every single mainline Christian church in America is aligned with the Episcopal jerks on this topic. The only hope out there now is the Evangelicals.

MY QUESTION

 When do we get to know who was actually running the United States of America for the previous four years? That's all. Who was really pulling the strings, doing the national security policy making and decision making and who let that happen despite what must be some Constitutional objection to permitting a vegetable to rule the United States of America.

When do we get to know what that was?

ON THE SUBLIME

 When you have more than a moment this small piece For Dorothy at Sippican Cottage is easily one of the most sublime pieces that I have ever read. You might enjoy it too. It provides perspective.

LET'S GO TO THE TAPES

 One of the more fascinating aspects to the Watergate Coup was how it was so carefully blown onto the rocks of Lie and Deceit because 18 minutes of the tapes from the Oval Office somehow went missing and thus the press and coup leaders were free to scream to the nation that Nixon was evil and stuff like that. It takes its place among the saddest episodes of pure evil and chicanery in Washington, DC.

But speaking of tapes there is one thing that can now be thrown into sharp focus and that is something as simple as releasing hours and hours of the tapes from the Oval Office when slow Joe Biden was in there being all Presidential. I'd like to listen to those tapes and I don't think I'd just hear the hiss of dead air as the tape played and I don't think it would all be just snoring sounds from the direction of the Resolute desk and chair set. Nope.

I think we'd hear the sausage getting made right there in the Oval Office as the various Enemies of the State divvied up the loot among themselves and their sponsors. They probably cut deals right there in the Oval Office. We are talking about evil but stupid people. They could be that stupid and I'd like to see if it is true because it sounds like a criminal enterprise run amok in the White House and why not go to the tapes and end any doubt as they are doing now by releasing the JFK assassination records in full (even if they are redacted to hell and gone) and of course the munificent release of the copious files, tapes, digital records and the thousands of terabytes of data removed from Epstein's little pleasure island, his mansion in New York City, his bank vaults and all the other places a blackmailer stashes the evidence.

Yes yes, I hear you say, what about Executive Privilege? Yes, that's right, Biden waived that privilege when it was President Trump's records, notes and documents and it is probably a nice touch if he returned the favor and simply turned over every single minute of what went on in the Oval Office when it was used by his predecessor and the other members of that criminal enterprise.

 Release the Tapes!

INTO AFRICA

 As I saw this I laughed out loud. Who wouldn't?

Either Rwanda or Congo would be fine. A good place for them.

AND NOW WE ASK, HOW DID HE KNOW?

 For those following the news closely you may have observed that our President was prescient last week when he gently hinted that the next Pope would be an American. Through the Ages of mankind, future generations will stand in awe of this amazing man and his otherworldly capacity to somehow divine all things.

Musings from the dark early morning hours not long after midnight if one lives in California.

ONLY PLAY AT WAR TO WIN

 Happy Victory in Europe Day!

GOING ATOMIC

 Well it has happened again, we have two nuclear armed powers exchanging rocket fire and aerial bombardment over the simple utterly predictable massacre of a bunch of harmless people out simply enjoying nature in their own country because a group of implacably evil islamic enemies of civilization found them without any means of self-defense. It could be a real atomic war. Both sides are the very essence of fanatics and they don't hesitate to share their enthusiasm for killing the other side and never shirk from killing in the name of some god.

...and you thought the special military operation was a bad thing.

Oh, and the other little plucky warriors are gearing up to snag others into striking long-range blows against a nuclear armed state (Iran) in order to prevent them from making their own nuclear weapons and you have these idiot morons who claim, "oh it's just some airstrikes, it's not like we're really attacking them," and your mind boggles.

....and then you read the sudden 'unexpected' revelation that Saudi Arabia has nuclear weapons and the people who know or just found out are like all shocked and stuff. They are the same kind of twit that swans around informing the poor that, 'money doesn't buy happiness' and totally oblivious to the fact that it buys every other thing on the planet which includes both islamic and Russian nuclear weapons.

It's a brave new world out there but fortunately our best and brightest are keenly involved in getting us into a shooting war with China over something or a minuscule spat over a pointless thing that they are literally dying to sell us. As you know, the whole Vietnam War was predicated on not letting the dirty commies win there but we're supposed to overlook that and defend them to the death against the bad Chinese communists. If not for human design factors, heads would spin right off.

Everyone remember that Pakistan was hiding Osama bin Laden right outside their military academy? The pakistanis have a penchant for terrorism that matches, oh just about every islamic regimes'.

IT WAS A BEAUTIFUL FAILURE

 There was a launch failure at Andoya but it was really quite beautiful. If you haven't seen it I recommend giving it the 30 seconds or so that it needs. I thought they would blow it up before it returned to earth but perhaps they thought they could get it to start flying again.....who knows.

Full screen if you please, the screen shots don't do it justice.

POWER AND WILL

 If there was yet another place that would force anyone to the conclusion that there really is a role for sea power and air power it is the unpleasant Yemen that exists today. As you can see from the map below, Yemen is a very isolated little bit of Hell on earth and so the question must be asked, why are we tolerating their nonsense?

The Southern End of the Red Sea and most of Yemen

Yemen is pretty close to the equator and so much larger than you picture it. It does however, share some qualities which make it almost as unique as Cuba. It is bounded by the sea on both the south and west sides and it has only enemies to the north. From the east there is a sand drift of deep unpleasantness and then Oman. Beyond Oman lies Iran.

It is not a place of great industry or technical might and can probably best be described as backwards. 

Some people might think that if the problems there were overwhelming and damaging to the countries outside the Red Sea that rely on safe passage for much of their energy supplies and quite a bit of their commerce, they might shut off all international trade and commerce between Yemen and the rest of the world in retaliation.

France is not one of those countries since they had the good sense to go nuclear and stay nuclear decades ago but they are the former colonial power in Djibouti and as nice as the French have been to all of their former colonies in Africa I'm sure that if Macron asked nicely that Djibouti would be happy to allow expanded basing rights for a powerful force out of the EU to stage their naval and air blockades out of. 

To the north lies the Empty Quarter and desert. It's also known as Saudi Arabia and the Saud's like Yemen even less than we do. It is possible that some smart diplomacy would weld the Gulf Cooperative Council to the EU effort to open up the Red Sea to the free passage of tankers and this might help control the continued flow of support from Iran to Yemen.

I don't advocate any of this and I don't see any reason for the US to take any active part, or any part at all in the process of restoring Europe's other gas supply. I would hate for us to decide that the thing to do was to create in Yemen something like our arrangement with Shah Massoud in Afghanistan. Let's stop giving high performance SAMs to tribesmen and gold to our sworn enemies.

If the flow of weapons and the materials to make them is cut off then we might paraphrase Tacitus and his quote from Calgacus, "the EU forces can make a desert and call it peace." It's already a desert so that part shouldn't be too hard.

I'll reiterate though that we should really sit on our hands this time and stay out of it. Let the EU put aside the animosity they share with their Houthi brothers for Israel and see if they can make the Red Sea safe for goods bound to and away from the Mediterranean through the Suez Canal. This is one of those countless times where the best thing for US to do is nothing.

ON A LIGHTER NOTE

 This was funny.

The sudden onslaught of massive supporters of Pope Francis in the media never fail to refer to him as a reformer. I suppose he could be described so if you mean along the lines of Obama or Clinton but less so if you are going to talk about the place and role of God in this world or the nature and the sins of the Catholic Church not just in this century but in the last 20.

Now of course, the all-knowing good-souls that make up NPR and PBS and the rest of the MSM are speaking of a new reform candidate who will no doubt toss all the pitiful remnants of Christ's teachings out the window of the Sistine Chapel and start wearing polyester leisure suits on his pontifical visits around the world.

I was wondering how they will react to the near inevitable selection of an African or Asian Pope. I'm kind of looking forward to it. OTGH, we are talking about the Church so it could be a Drag Queen from Australia.

A MERE TRIFLE

 I see that Mr. Rubio is accumulating titles at a fearsome rate. Some wag said he was looking like a 16th century Duke who had won the favors of a grateful monarch. Rubio is now Secretary of State, National Security Advisor, Administrator of USAID and dozens of other titles that come with those jobs.

I wonder if President Trump is dreaming up some sort of parallel to the Order of the Garter or a newfangled Marshall’s Baton for highly favored principals in his orbit. I’m sure he has several suitable schemes in mind already.

As I recall from my reading of C S Forester’s Hornblower books, the monarch used to give such men the title and pay of Colonel of Marines. President Trump could do something like that and award them the title, Colonel of the Space Marines. First up, Elon Musk. I suppose Colonel of Colonial Marines would work as well.

SEARCH ENGINES

 Why did the various people who have them decide to destroy them? It used to be so easy to write a query and get a reasonably complete set of good or valid answers in return but now they are hopelessly and ridiculously off the reservation so it must have been done by design. I'm not interested in AI for something as unprofound as searching the web for a string of words using an algorithm and simply only returning results that are contained within the " " like it used to.

It used to work!

CLEAR AND SIMPLE AS THE TRUTH

 The Russian Foreign Minister appeared on Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan and she asked him right off the bat a simple question. See for yourself:

What I find fascinating is that I don't think one single solitary main stream news person has ever read Donald Trump's The Art of the Deal and 100% of them would be shocked and horrified if someone proposed to them that they might gain some insight and appreciation for the man they love to hate if they simply picked up his book and read it. We are talking about the very same people that thrilled to read the fabulous fabrications of Obama and the outright lies of both Clintons.

AS I WAS SAYING

 This is now the current state of the USN. It demonstrates very clearly the extent of damage any sailor of ill-will can wreak on a supine and helpless navy that allowed itself to recruit possibly thousands of men and women who don’t love America and sadly the mechanisms to get rid of them need to be imposed starting at the very top of the organization.

IN THE TRENCHES WITH THE ILLUMINATI

 One of the things that is becoming sadly apparent is that the United States military is no longer fit for purpose. There is currently a war being waged against the people of the United States by some truly evil and despicable people and those people are allied with a small number of judges and are dedicated to overturning the will of the people as expressed in the last election. It is nothing less than a coup d'etat and the only reason it has been allowed to persist for as long as it has is because it is now clear that the military will almost certainly not follow the orders of the Civilian Commander-in-Chief.

The impact of this division that has been engineered by 100% of the men and women now wearing four stars and all of the officers who preceded them in that rank for the last 25 years is that the military is fundamentally unreliable. We know it is truly incompetent at the things that professional military forces routinely accomplish. They are unable to perform anything like reasonable and competent research and development leading to the design, development and construction of modern weapons and weapon systems.

They cannot wage war competently anywhere on earth. The incredible failures in the Air Force that saw a pack of men wander into a nuclear weapons magazine, pick up and carry out live nuclear weapons and adorn a B52 with them and then fly that aircraft to another Air Force base and nobody knew they had taken away nuclear weapons, left them unattended on the wings of a bomber far away and nobody was hung, drawn and quartered is kind of the military that we have today.

The debacle in Afghanistan showcased the idiocy and incompetence of officers selected not for their ability but for being toadies of the democrats and toadies of DIE is just the latest case in point. Every single officer involved in that debacle should have been terminated and sent to Leavenworth for a couple of decades. That was no rude military shock, that was basic in-your-face incompetence at every level.

The recent discarding of truly stupid officers in command positions for loss of confidence in their ability is just the lowest wave of the Terrible Great Wave that you can see if you step back far enough. The President was forced to reach out to find a retired 3 star general to nominate as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. That screams, every other serving 3 and 4 star general is a useless and probably despicable toady of the left who would, like general Milley just casually commit treason by calling his communist Chinese counterpart and telling him that he would disobey the orders of the President.

The top ranks of the 5 services and the Coast Guard do need to be purged and when that happens it is also essential to purge every single member of the Senior Executive Service because if there is anyone even more dishonest and despicable than the 4 star generals and admirals, it is the hordes of jealous rice bowl guarding bureaucrats that are like a massive anchor on any and all change.

The upshot, when President Trump decides he has had enough of the Courts and their blatant usurpation of the rights and prerogatives reserved by the Constitution to the Executive Branch of our government, we can expect every Blue city to go up in flames and there are still good people who live in some of them who will need protection just as the Guard, the Army and the Reserves have protected them from Civil Unrest in the past and right now, nobody knows if those forces will follow orders or not.

Good job Bill Clinton, Obama and Biden and every one of you lickspittle politicians in uniform that have forced us to this point. You did that. You created a mush of lies and deceit and destroyed the unitary military mindset that had held this country safely at the core of its regard for over 200 years and all it took was you, your corrupt cronies at every level of government and the bureaucracy and ruthlessly purging the finest officers out of the military at the the 06 and 07 level.

That was another thing 30 years of naval service got me was duties in the Middle East, Far East and West Coast. I worked exclusively for officers that had eschewed the Pentagon tours and somehow still made it to the top back then to be CINCPAC, CINCPACFLT, COMUSNAVCENT, 3RD Fleet and the rest. You would not believe how different those admirals are from the ones serving today and over the last 20 years. It is night and day.

There may be a few that point out that the Navy is executing well in the Red Sea but that is not so much tribute to them and us as it is to the utter uselessness of the enemy. What does concern us is that we are expending our missiles at a significant rate and the production lines for some of them were shut down years ago and no longer exist. There is no production line rolling out scores of land attack munitions every month, much less the hundreds that would be needed in a real war. There is nothing like that at all.

We ate, sank, destroyed or gave away what we used to call the War Reserve materials. We also ended production of just about every form of ammunition, missile and bomb. Outside Destructors, I'd be surprised if we have so much as a single sea mine anywhere outside of a museum. 

That and the sad state of the Fleet and the maintenance for that Fleet is a concern. Back when I was in we could fix just about anything onboard a ship. We had a level of spares that was in constant decline but I'd be surprised if spares exist outside of cannibalization now for many systems on our ships and the longer a ship stays in maintenance status the more likely it has been stripped of parts needed for operations elsewhere.

What I find most concerning is that the problems we face require highly motivated and ethical young people in large numbers and yet every single shiny new face is going to be received by the DIE hires of the previous administrations who now occupy every level of management and are infected with the woke and DIED mindset and who will resist any efforts to revitalize the military with every fiber of their weak being. I am not too sanguine about the up and coming officers who will be products of Academies and Colleges that don't prepare them to work unrelentingly and tirelessly to rebuild the military.

BREEZING UP

 

SIC THE DEVIL ON THEM

My cunning Middle East Peace plan has no shiny parts and costs nothing of any importance.  Start by disarming Hamas in Gaza. This will, according to all our left-wing friends and Europeans, be dead easy. Abbas orders Hamas to surrender the hostages and weapons to his agents and then he sends the PLO and Fatah in to disarm Hamas, free the hostages and punish the wicked. (probably nothing more than a smack on the wrist but it could take the form of flying lessons off tall buildings.)

Everyone is so used to paying palestinians to kill stuff that they can all stay on the payrolls of European countries and slip on down the Red Sea to Yemen and disarm the Houthis. And then, the peace de la résistance; they stay there. They deserve each other.

THE WAR DABBLERS

 NATO is the very poster child of lost and forgotten mythical beings that only lived in the backs of closets under something you'd rather not shove out of the way to look under. This amusing site  points out that our NATO allies are about as honest and forthcoming as one can expect from a group of terrified people on the brink of fighting a hopeless war against a terrible and powerful enemy that cannot fail to smash them into the dust.........wait. I'll go back. 

Showing uncommon nonchalance in the face of a titanic evil superpower, the good people of western Europe cheerfully spat on America and woefully under-prepared for war by ignoring all the wisdom of the ages that shows the truth that if you fear war you should be prepared.....wait, I'll start again.

Perhaps we should do our bit and tell the good people of Europe our history of waging war on that continent and they will understand their position a little more thoroughly then heretofore. In 1914 all the European twits lunged at each other with murder and mayhem in their hearts and tore each others guts out before we decided 3 years later to get involved.

In 1939 all European twits lunged at each other with murder and mayhem in their hearts and tore each others guts out before we decided 2 years later to get involved but only after one of the stupid bastards declared war on US. 

So, when we say, "that you can count on us to save you from your silly little wars of the future," consider how we mean those words. You guys fight on your own for a year or two and we'll start thinking about getting involved in yet another one of your pointless, stupid, meaningless wars.

And who knows? The way things look now, Europe would be forced to surrender even faster than France or Belgium in the last war and we won't have to fight at all. 

On the other hand, it may well be that Europeans have finally woken up to the fact that if they maintain anything at all that even looks or smells like an actual army or navy they will be buried in politicians eager to use it to go commit murder and mayhem somewhere else in Europe. Maybe its best if they really did just disarm.

I know, how many of us can say Kellogg-Briand Pact with a straight face even now almost 100 years later?

You know it was a dream once that sane and mostly sober men could take away the fear and banish war just by making ready for it because they all understood the one single essential true thing about every war in history. Every single one of them started because some powerful fool thought, "this time, he could win!" Modernists over the last 170 years modified that charming nonsense into the newer and more powerful version that declared that every war would always be over by Christmas. You see? "A quick war that we will win"!

I see that President Trump et al is winding down his attempt at making a peace in Ukraine and accepting the reality that Zelensky is not the slightest bit interested in peace. All the idiots propping him and Ukraine up to continue a pointless war they cannot ever win has gone to his head and convinced him that he can just keep on fighting and to a certain point there is some truth in that. The thing is of course and what almost nobody in the world really understands is that neither side has actually been fighting any kind of war. It is all bloody theater.

Neither Putin nor Russia are fighting a war. They keep telling everyone that but nobody understands what is being said. Russia is fighting a Special Military Operation and to make it clear that means that Russia is very much waging a special operation whose entire purpose is to gut western Europe and NATO and destroy and level their economies. Everyone poopoo's Russia as a gas station with Nukes but seriously, they grow more powerful every day and Europe only shrinks into less and less relevance anywhere.

Just try to think how would you go about destroying NATO as it was, if you had 60 years and special KGB Training to set it up?

-long march through the institutions turning them all against their own governments/peoples (done)

-fund the suicidal peace and anti-nuke cavalcades of dimwits all through the 60s, 70s and 80s (done)

-create out of whole cloth the Green Movement outside the COMINTERN to devastate the west (done)

-spark great friction between the allies over Treaty failures and unfair trade (done)

-gut the military through under-funding and public ridicule until nobody joins up anymore (done)

-continuously gut their economies by emphasizing free trade and globalization (done)

-have them import vast numbers (hordes) of people antithetical to everything in the West (done)

Create and cast the image of your nation as just a friendly and not so thuggish bear, sort of like Paddington. (done)

-Wage a mostly gentle and harmless special military operation that gradually consumes every $ and free Euro to pour into Ukraine's bottomless pit of corruption instead of spending it on their own military and carefully manage one of the most fake wars since The Phony War to lure the idiots into thinking they were on the point of victory or triumph or at least nondefeat in spite of the facts on the ground. (in progress)

-Don't shut down the gas lines, energy grids, don't attack the gas lines, energy grids, don't declare and enforce a naval blockade of Ukraine and don't retaliate even after it is painfully obvious that the Europeans have crossed the line and are now co-belligerents with Ukraine in a war against Russia. Do not rile up the lib/progs in the US.

You see Putin and his guys understand something that is true now but we don't know how much longer it will be true. "Nobody at all in the West is the slightest bit interested in fighting and dying for their country, way of life or anybody else's and absent the Will, there is no Way."

It kind of helps that the Arsenal of Democracy cannot make weapons in quantities necessary to fight even the most limited and harmless little war and the production lines are all gone or impossible to scale up to meaningful numbers. The arsenals and depots in the West are all empty. The old War Reserve stocks of vehicles and ammo is long gone.

The talking heads persist in thinking and saying that Russia is in trouble but failed to notice the BRICS and the loss of the $ as the world's reserve currency. They kind of failed to notice the offshoring of all the critical components of our modern war machines such as the microchips and the rare earth metals. The thing is though, Russia can maintain this level of effort for decades. The West cannot.

Tomorrow I'll write about peace in the little Satan reaches of the middle east.

FUNNY THING TO SEE

 Just about the only thing I do not see Harvard standing for is fairness. I echo the sentiment of Thomas Sewell and observe with him that at the middle of every catastrophe in American history there stood a man with a Harvard degree.

Harvard somehow turned into the embodiment of all evil which used to be rare in a place that started out with a theological bent. Of course most of what we once embraced as divine has become corrupt beyond all understanding at the hands of men and now women from Harvard and various seminaries.

It is kind of amusing that the liberal left elects to see Harvard standing up for the right. On the gripping hand, Harvard only wants to continue to discriminate against people based solely on their race and background and they demand that you and I do as well. In fact, they are going to argue in Court in front of judges who mostly went to Harvard and other serial racist schools that they have a right to the Public's money and they don't care what anyone thinks about how they do business.

Did you ever imagine in your darkest nightmares that the idiots in charge of the Ivy League were an Entitlement Program even more worthy of your money then Social Security? I think it is long passed the time to tell these entitled jackasses to go to Hell. What do they produce for all those billions? At least if we funded MIT or Cal Tech there is some tiny chance that there would be spinoffs to benefit mankind. 

I wonder if they have figured out yet that the majority of America has fallen out of love with the whole idea of public funded higher education/indoctrination? I doubt it. They all get all of their news from NPR and PBS. As I hear them read all the news they make up I sometimes recall wuzzadem from long ago.

those were some funny sockpuppets

A MAN TALKING ABOUT ETERNITY

 It happened April 22, 2008. A couple of men and a time worth remembering.

A NEW DAY DAWNING

 I hope that all are granted a day of joyful repose and time with family and friends. It wouldn't be Easter without a picture and so,

A FIERY PATH

 I wondered to myself what would happen if the President decides that he has had enough of the Courts and declares himself the sovereign leader of the Executive Branch of the Country and tells the Courts that he will no longer abide by their insanity.

It would erupt in violence and it would be very ugly and it would be ugly in the same way that the last 2 wars fought in this country were but I think we're running out of room and time to entertain the idea that the Founders deliberately and with malice left the Republic's fate solely up to a bunch of black robed idiots who cannot tell us what a 'woman' is. 

I don't think that's what the Founders had in mind.

I do know that if it comes to a test, it will be the outright fascists who set fires and try to burn the entire country down. Unlike the Germans? I'm perfectly fine with shooting fascists.

NEUTRALIZATION

 If war was your dominant thought and you thought a lot about going to war against a country that seemingly had overwhelming dominance on land, sea and air and even in space, what direction would your thoughts trend as you prepared for a war with that dominance?

Me? I'd think about it long and hard and then I'd think of putting together not one but up to 20 or 30 schemes to neutralize all that dominance. It wouldn't be by launching a massive wave of ICBMs or launching a frontal attack across the border but by being sneaky. I'd be really sneaky.

I shudder to think what happens as the next confrontation takes place with people who are so sneaky they work out a way to get exploding devices into the hands of our ruling elite. I mean, now that we know it has been done, everyone is eager to try it again and see if it really works. Can people really be that damned stupid?

I'm just picturing some Senators plucking their new "senatorial use only free cell phone" out of their pocket to take a very important message from their sponsor....... I'm pretty sure most dems would fall for it and everyone ever promoted by General Milley or any 4 star in the last 20 years. 

so, i guess we got that going for us....

THIS IS A LITTLE WORRYING

 From Instapundit comes this in his italics. My response is in bold.

    China has done everything possible to incur global distrust and fear.

But nowhere near to incurring the global distrust and fear of the United States earned by US.

    Most of the world accepts that the COVID-19 epidemic that killed and maimed millions worldwide was birthed in a Wuhan virology lab under the auspices of the People’s Liberation Army. The world also remembers that China and the Chinese-controlled WHO lied repeatedly about the origins and spread of the virus.

From what I've seen, that research was backed, supported, funded and guided by the CDC and the United States of America who lied about every single aspect of the virus and its origins for a damned good reason....they were behind it.

 
    The global public may recall that China stopped all domestic flights out of Wuhan on the internal news of the lab leak of the virus, while for days greenlighting nonstop air travel to major European and American cities. The world now accepts that China will never explain exactly when the virus appeared, how it “escaped” from the lab, why it was created in the first place, why Beijing repeatedly lied about all such inquiries, and what happened to an array of whistleblowers who warned of the leak.

What were the World's foremost Intelligence Communities telling us the reasons for that were and WHY DID WE IGNORE THEM and let those flights into our airspace?

These are of course the same brain dead morons that insist its perfectly safe to bring Ebola infected people here out of Africa because it's 'perfectly safe.'

    China’s so-called allies, such as Russia and India, have historical grievances and ongoing border disputes fueled by Chinese aggression.

Nobody on earth has 'so-called allies' like the United States does. See below. Have you looked at our borders and border history?

    NATO, the EU, Japan, South Korea, Australia, and the US also are curious as to why China is using its vast foreign exchange not to lift about a quarter of its population out of third-world-level poverty. Instead, it is frantically building 3-4 nuclear bombs a month, a 700-ship navy, and 2,500 combat aircraft as it ratchets up pressure on Taiwan.

Putting on my Oz disguise I look at the whole world and would you believe that when you say NATO, EU, Japan, South Korea, Australia and the United States what China sees is a sea of enemies that have repeatedly attacked and invaded China for centuries and have, for the last 30 years since the Cold War ended, seen the US leading the pack trying to ramp up China as the new ne plus ultra enemy to be feared and demonized. What exactly did you expect China's rulers to do faced with this existential threat?

    The complexities of trade and tariffs present all sorts of minefields. But the Trump administration is beginning to navigate them, and its trajectory is rather simple. In the next 90 days, it will likely conclude trade deals with our allies and third parties that bring either tariff parity or no tariffs at all that will reduce the U.S. trade deficit.

Perhaps. I'm still curious about these allies you keep mentioning. In just what way have they proven to be allies of ours as opposed to, say, very troublesome freeloading moochers who have been gouging US since 1941?

    Of course, our allies and neutrals still use stealth tariffs to ensure advantage by money manipulation, VAT taxes, and pseudo-health and security impediments to free trade. And they deeply resent the Trump administration’s loud denunciations of their surpluses and asymmetrical tariffs. But those machinations can be addressed later in round two after tariff reciprocity or elimination is finalized.

Honesty compels me to point out that we have rigged the whole entire world so thoroughly in our favor it is hard to see around the bend to where these guys are really getting away with all that much. It cuts both ways all this talk about manipulating markets, gold supplies, the $ and little things like the FED gaming it all for its own benefit.

    For now, Trump should persuade our allies that if they were not so subject to Chinese mercantilism, they would have more flexibility to ensure fair trade with the U.S. And thus, they should not do something self-destructive and side with China but instead join the U.S. to force China to keep its long-broken promises and play by international rules. A reduced import footprint from China in the U.S. could make room for increased imports from the EU, Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan—if they strike parity deals with the Trump administration. Barring that, they should simply get out of the way and not opportunistically cut reformist trade deals with China.

Perhaps you recall when President Trump warned Europe 4 years ago to stop subsidizing Russia and relying 100% for its Energy supply on Russia? How'd that work out? 

I was not there but I can guarantee that nobody left that meeting of the WTO all those years and thought for even one microsecond that China was going to play by the WTO rules. 99% of them left after voting for China entry because they were unforgivably stupid, unforgivably corrupt or pushed really hard by the United States ruling entity at that time to admit China. Nobody thought that China would play by rules none of them were playing by either. Srsly, Airbus?

    If China really does reduce most of its exports to the U.S., America will have to scramble for a year or so to establish new supply chains and some alternate importers of U.S. products. But after a year of gradual dislocation, China will begin to hemorrhage, and then quite suddenly, given the U.S. has almost all the advantages—if it chooses to use them.

On Pen in Korea, those of us from CONUS got used to the IC and USFK and 8th Army and Combined Forces Command telling us that what they feared when North Korea inevitably collapsed was that the ruler would give way to the impulse to "USE IT OR LOSE IT" and take us down when North Korea inevitably went into the Dark. What do you think they all have to say there and in Hawaii about China going down into the Darkness if/when their economy is wiped out?

Seriously, did all the Pol/Mil and Geo-strategists just all dry up and blow away? 

THEY ALL KNEW

 I keep hearing reading that some people are sick and tired of waiting for all the arrests and indictments of all the lying thieving scum that were recently run out of office or let go from misservice to the State and people seem to have forgotten that the bureaucracy is just about 90% toxic democratic/liberal progressive types and that even with the very top of the heap trying to do the right thing it takes time and a lot of work to push any bureaucrats to even begin to do their job even when they agree with what they're supposed to be doing.

At least this time the new heads of department know that they have some damned good backup in the form of the various headhunters that President Trump appointed to lead just about every federal agency even before he finished his first day in office this time. Keep in the back of your mind that it is all too easy to fire crappy insubordinate pricks but getting cases built, charges in place and rounding up all the miscreants takes a lot of willing hands dedicated to making the country better. It won't happen overnight.

It's also worth keeping in mind that it will take a professional lifetime to change the bureaucracy and military back into the sleek professional force they once were. The whole merit promotion test and board for promotion in the Civil Service is a start and weeding out the crooked and the incompetents will help a lot in this regard but it may require reopening Adak to put all the bureaucrats that cannot be dumped or reformed and to assign midlevel incompetent military personnel to if they won't quit.

An awful lot of that shower of dreck really think they are the best and brightest and they know this because "look where they at!!!" It is hopeless to try to change minds that were never all that sharp to begin with and have just gone downhill ever since they 'legalized' pot.

Right now the Secretaries running their Departments know all this but they still have to find and place the lawyers and officers who will do the tasks assigned rather than just drag their feet or actively sabotage the efforts of the Administration.  it will take time before we see any mass effects or legal charges.

ON THE CONTRARY

 There is a man who ruminates on the Law for a living and that is what he does all day. More power to him because some would say it is good to know the law and to understand it well. I find satisfaction in knowing that there are people who make the study of Law their whole point in life. That said, I have my own understanding of the Law and it is not a trivial understanding since I used to wage war in the military law trenches both as the prosecutor and as the Judge and here is my take on Tillman's judgement of understanding the Law. "Oh Bullshit!"  You may quote me.

When the Law is murky it is no law at all and after over 200 years of tootling around with it there is no excuse for any of us to accept some lawyer's or judge's decision that, 'on this the law is murky.' If you cannot explain it satisfactorily in every situation you mean to apply it then you have no business trying to apply it at all.

If you don't like the laws the way they are written then why should anyone accept every black robed idiots interpretation of it? Obviously the Law is championed by a subruling class that makes their whole living and way of life out of making every aspect of the Law they can as murky as possible. That's not a justice system, that's full employment at any cost for judges and lawyers. It really isn't that hard to write sensible and understandable laws and if there are no such then there is no law and it cannot be applied unless it is done at the point of a gun.

I see all the lawyers admiring the cut and thrust of applying law to perfectly sane and understandable actions and none of them seem to let themselves get carried away by any enthusiasm for the other parts of the Constitution that lay out the powers reserved to the Executive and the Legislative. They also seem to cave in entirely when dealing with the Regulatory state.

It might be time to sweep all of that away. Perhaps Shakespeare had something when he mentioned the just fate of lawyers.

ON THAT NOTE

 From the esteemed Large Regular,  yeah, wars are mostly about trade. The hifalootin chicanery used to describe the source of the conflict always skips lightly over that part. You should have seen what we did to Japan and that’s nothing compared to what we do to Russia.

THE ETERNAL VERITIES OF AIRFIELD DEFENSE

 I've never had to do it myself but I lived and worked on a number of air bases and it would occur to me just how one would go about securing an air base from attack. There are a number of approaches and of course there are the standard definitions of the word 'secure'. It's an old joke among us:

If you were a Marine you think it means to attack the building with fire and maneuver.

If you were in the Army you think it means post guards to control access to the building.

If you were in the Navy it means to turn out all the lights and lock the door.

If you were in the Air Force it means to take out a five year lease with an option to buy.

But with that old saw, what is the current environment for securing an air base in the 21st century? In the old days we would expect to find that some degree of ground force combat element was present in sufficient numbers to keep out the bad guys. "On March 8, 1965, about 3,500 Marines from the 3rd Marine Division’s 9th Marine Expeditionary Brigade landed at Red Beach in Da Nang. The landing force, the first U.S. ground combat unit in Vietnam, consisted of troops from the division’s 1st Battalion, 3rd Marine Regiment, and 3rd Battalion, 9th Marines. The battalions were sent to Da Nang to protect an air base there, which the South Vietnamese and U.S. air forces had been using to launch attacks on North Vietnam since Operation Rolling Thunder began on March 2, and the air base needed added security." 

There would also be some form of anti-aircraft capability and one might even speculate on whether or not there was some form of ballistic missile defense.  

That being said, what exactly is the air base defense against the already widely spread killer drones? It would have to be something pretty damned devastating and effective if it is to cover an air field that covers square miles of wide open land. Those runways alone are more than 10,000 feet long and there are usually several of them aligned in different directions and in among them are the hangers, armament buildings, parking ramps, taxi-ways and all the usual infrastructure of petroleum, oil and lubricants and the officer's club liquor supplies.

I'd really like to know what the Air Force is using or planning on using to defend its installations overseas and here in America from thousands and tens of thousands of drones that can be programmed to seek and destroy B2 bombers and any winged thing it finds in the vicinity of a control tower. Right now I think we have nothing at all out there and no prospects of immediate deployment of useful systems and let's just be honest here and say that a useful system incorporates a 99.9% kill rate on incoming drones and costs far less than the drones. It would also have someway to backtrack to the drone controllers and kill them as well.

I think we're talking about bringing out of the black a number of existing programs that nobody wants to admit exist because then every base commander will be clamoring for them and the people that own and control that capability don't want to tip their hand or let on that they have the means to neutralize drones.

I've been writing about this now for 15 years and so far there hasn't been a lot of innovation deployed but then I could be wrong. It was not very often that we took a Close-in-Weapon System and shifted it to Air Auto where it would automatically detect and engage air contacts in its vicinity. Still, that was a long time ago.

I do hope that they are looking at multitudes of anti-drone systems and not doing our usual one-size-fit's all nonsense. It would be interesting to see what the Mission Needs Statement looks like and the Required Operational Capability  and Projected Operational Environment look like for all the systems that I'm sure the Marines, Army and Navy want. If they were smart, the FAA would get aboard along with HLS and New York City.

I'll tell you one thing for free though; it is hard. Adding fire control and deadly weapons to the mix top-filled with aircraft can only be deadly and requires extreme focus. It's 2 o'clock in the morning and you have a radar contact. How do you decide to unleash the killer bots? Welcome to the past.

OFF TO THE RIVAL SCHOOL

 Back in a minute.

ON WAR

Every war in history started out as a Trade War.

Not every Trade War resulted in immediate Armed Conflict

Most did.

War is described as the continuation of politics by other means and we all know that politics is really nothing more than getting, maintaining and controlling access to scarce resources and politicians will literally go to any lengths in order to get what they want.

All those dreams of building up our Navy to take on China are toast now. It is and always was too late. You cannot defeat a land power like China with a naval war and you'd look pretty silly trying. Now we see if the words that Robert Heinlein tossed off in jest have any merit.* I suspect they do and one of the most interesting things in them is the way that China itself left giant gaping holes to trade through and the world will find it palatable to do so.

What holes? Well, Hong Kong is still there being Hong Kong. Taiwan is 100% Chinese or did you all forget that when you moaned about having to prepare ourselves to defend the Chinese in Taiwan from the Western Chinese? I kind of wonder what kind of blandishments and inducement Xi is preparing to make to his dear cousins in Taipei to seal the deal.

It will be interesting to see the various twists and turns it takes and people far smarter than I am have been gaming this scenario for the last 30 years ever since they wrapped up Hong Kong and saw a chance to do the same bloodless thing with the big island. I mean, people pretended for over 100 years that Hong Kong was not China. They can do it again.

*The Moon is a Harsh Mistress:"

"
 

SPOTTED AT THE LOCAL BOOK SHOP

 In the window,

I liked the arrangement but suspect the book shop is enjoying new management. 

NEW SHARDS

I wonder if there are any potters out there turning out the modern and updated versions of the ancient Greek pots featuring the various soldiers of the era. Can't you see people rushing to buy old looking urns painted with Bradley IFV and Strykers? Perhaps we can see what they would look like with updated war machines and men on them. Can you see an ancient Greek amphora with a nice looking Warthog front and center?

I'll put out a call to The Pirate Potter and see if she is interested... It could happen.

ARE THERE ANY TEETH IN ALL THAT BARKING?

 It looks like the ruling class all over the world are a bit ired by the President's decision to reflect upon them their trade policies toward US. Quite a few of them are rearing way up on their hind legs to screech about how they are going to make US rue the day!!!!! 

I suspect it's almost all theater and there isn't a single country except maybe one unexpected one that will be stupid enough to embark on an all out trade war with US because Trump does have a point. We won't lose anything if they don't buy our goods in the pitiful volumes they allow today and they'll be gutted like fish if we don't buy any of their goods in volume and in the meantime we'll be pocketing the lucre and nobody really needs a new BMW or VW since they last forever anyway.

I am really interested in what form their destructor will take when President Trump retaliates on a massive scale for the EU Commission's ongoing Censorship and Deplatforming Campaign against Musk and the rest. It's not like he doesn't have a massive dog or two of his own in this fight.

I think Gozer the Gozerian sounds like Ursula von der Leyen. I think they're all just barking a lot and will roll over and play dead as soon as nobody is looking. Kind of like what they're doing now in Ukraine as it becomes apparent to all that the rulers of the EU cannot reach out and dredge up any cannon fodder to send to Ukraine since they have run short of their own and cannot find anybody stupid enough to step up and do it for them.