ON CONFIDENCE

 I don't get it. I don't see how anyone has any confidence and yet one and all the outsiders are clamoring for a war or at least all-out spare-no-expenses preparations for a massive war with China and yes dear readers, I realize that this horse has been well and truly beaten to death but nevertheless, it moves. I really don't understand why it still has any legs under it much less all four and I don't see why nobody else out there seems at all interested in inviting the War Party to answer a few questions and yes, you know what the first one is. It is always the first question you ask when you decide to make war:

How the Hell are you going to win this war?

Now we have seen two recent examples of hubris marring an otherwise flawed execution of the most wild-eyed optimistic war plan that ever did stroll down the pike. The Coup de Main tried by Putin in Ukraine could, some people argue, be proving to be an epic disaster on par with little tragedies like:

Battle of Austerlitz 

One of the saddest facts that came out of the Napoleonic Wars was how utterly pointless each and every battle was until Waterloo and the final end of Napoleon. He fought one coalition of his enemies after another for a decade and mostly kicked their ass and yet the end was always going to be a French defeat. One country cannot take on the rest of the world and win. You know who knows that? China does.

 China doesn't have to defeat the United States in order to win, it merely needs to survive long enough. Both China and Russia know that a Republic is incapable of fighting a losing war for more than one election. After that, it is game over. (yes yes, the pedant will try to point to Iraq, Afghanistan or even Vietnam but the trick you see is that America thought it was winning all those wars right up until they decided to withdraw at which point the entire country got to see that it was all just a charade and that the Government had been lying to them from day one in each of those wars.) 

We had the illusion of winning for all those years. You know who didn't think we were winning? Any student of warfare and just about anybody who fought there. It was exactly the same in Vietnam where everyone there knew that we could win all the hearts and minds we wanted to in the South and it meant nothing at all unless we made a good faith effort to exterminate the enemy in the North and we never even tried that. 

So now I ask in all confidence, what kind of naval strategist scraps 100% of its mine countermeasures assets, ships, helicopters, trained personnel and then decides it's time to wage war in the narrow seas and choke points like the Strait of Hormuz? Did the naval powers-that-be have such absolute confidence in the replacement MCM gear, ships and equipment that it left it to languish in Singapore throughout the engagement and utterly dismissed the whole idea of engaging in mine countermeasures? I really don't know but the Confidence Scam worked so well it destroyed 100% of America's MCM fleet and 100% of England's pathetic little MCM fleet before they even fired a shot. That's confidence.

Back during the Cold War the enemy had assets and some astonishingly capable and ruthless men who would have looked at putting the kibosh on USN operations in the Pacific and perhaps even the Atlantic by introducing mines into our waters. That is why we maintained Squadrons and Divisions of minesweepers in Seattle, Tacoma, Treasure Island, Long Beach and San Diego. We did much the same in the Atlantic with minesweepers at Newport, Norfolk/Little Creek, Charleston and Florida. As you might expect there was special emphasis in and around Kings Bay and Bangor.

We must confidently believe that nobody on earth could mine our waters because.......... well something or other because otherwise would we have scrapped all of our MCM capability? That's confidence.

You know a lot of strategists dismiss the idea that the PLAN or the Peoples Liberation Army could cross the Formosa Strait and invade Formosa and yet the same bunch seem to believe that we could effect a regime change or some military victory that knocks China out of the war by sailing all the way across the Pacific. I don't know what kind of power they think we can project anymore. 

Back in the Cold War everyone on both sides knew it was a game and that nobody was seriously going to attack anyone. With China I am less and less sanguine. People seem to pick up weapons so deadly we don't even have real names for them and wave them around threatening China and talking about even more overkill and it all seems detached from reality but the reality is always there and right now it looks like the never ending scam to part the Americans from their money and send it to permanently crooked defense contractors and I'll be damned if I can figure out why.

You or I could end the the spat with Iran overnight- well, I'd like a solid week or two but it would probably all happen at night and you know what it would take? Mines.

Of course this requires understanding the true nature of the game and playing like all the other players. You see, not one single one of them gives a rat's patoot about any of the other players. They genuinely don't care about US or each other and I mean that in the most sincere way. They would cheerfully push each other into the fire if that's what it takes to win. We on the other hand are pretending so hard that we care that it makes people's teeth ache to watch the rictus grimaces of concern.

We used to be so much better at platitudes and lying thru our teeth and double dealing and kicking an enemy when he was down. I don't know what happened but I'm blaming it on vegetarians. People that depraved are capable of anything.  

On the gripping hand, I also see this as a very different game playing so far in the background nobody is meant to notice it. Somehow somebody convinced the entire First World to tank their economies, import millions of very dangerous military aged drones and destroy their energy supplies and wipe out their own military. It is so far gone now that they have no meaningful cadre of professionals to rebuild with and their own indoctrination has permanently turned their last 2 or 3 generations against all aspects of First World realities. The current spat with Iran is a wake up call to them and perhaps the last one they will ever get. I am confident that they will sleep right through it.

People think there is a lot of ruin in society and that used to be true but unfortunately one has to notice and right now it doesn't appear that anybody in Europe has any understanding just how much they have ruined over the last 35 years. There is almost nothing left now. The course is set and short of the most extraordinary measures there is nothing that will cause the course to change even one degree from the path to ruin they are well down already. 

As an example you could simply look at Brexit. The people spoke and they voted to leave and the government point blank ignored them for the next 10 years and didn't leave and lied about it and lied about it some more and never even tried to leave. It was the same in Ireland and the Netherlands and always the government simply ignores the people. You can do that in a tyranny.  

Even if they somehow had fair and honest elections and let all parties run their own candidates and those candidates won, it would mean nothing because the judges are evil incarnate and will adamantly refuse to permit any changes at all and the EU will step in and declare any saving measures the new government enacts as immoral, unethical, wrong and forbid their implementation and the pussies in Europe today have no way to fight back and lack even the will to try.

On the other hand, Rheinmetall is making millions of artillery rounds and the French have always enjoyed using artillery in little political spats that get too exuberant in their cities. 

Then out spake brave Horatius,
    The Captain of the gate:
‘To every man upon this earth
    Death cometh soon or late.
And how can man die better
    Than facing fearful odds,
For the ashes of his fathers,
    And the temples of his Gods