Recent news articles outline the extents of the debate over what constitutes a licit national defense. Those who are against using war as an counterterrorism method have argued that the US ought to use police and intelligence methods — rather than military solutions — when fighting al-Qaeda. An article in Wired, for example, describes a national “hit squad” that can be used instead of expeditionary forces.
CIA director Leon Panetta got into hot water with Congress, after he revealed an agency program to hunt down and kill terrorists. A recent report from the U.S. military’s Joint Special Operations University argues that the CIA didn’t go far enough. Instead, it suggests the American government should set up something like a “National Manhunting Agency” to go after jihadists, drug dealers, pirates and other enemies of the state. …
Sometimes, that will mean operating “in uncooperative countries.” In those cases, the teams must be prepared “to act unilaterally, with no support or coordination with local authorities, in a manner similar to that employed by Israel’s Avner team in response to the Munich Olympics massacre.” … Such a group wouldn’t just go after terrorists. “Human networks are behind narcotics trafficking, arms proliferation, piracy, hiding war criminals from authorities, human trafficking, or other smuggling activities,” Crawford writes. “Human networks also lie at the core of national governments, offering an increased potential to nonlethally influence state actors with precision. A robust manhunting capability would allow the United States to interdict these human networks.”
The idea that America will replace Sergeant Rock with Jason Bourne may at first seem like an enlightened one. But hold on. Weighing in on the other side was Italian Judge Oscar Magi, who sentenced 23 CIA agents to jail in absentia for allegedly taking part in the kidnapping of Abu Omar in 2003 and rendering him to Egypt. Jason Bourne had better be prepared to stay on the run from the Italian authorities.
At first glance defending one’s territory against bombardment may seem unambiguously legitimate. One threat that Israel now faces but which other countries may face as available missile ranges grow longer is the threat of bombardment from nonstate actors. Space War reports that rockets from Gaza can now hit Tel Aviv. An Iranian system being supplied to Hamas can reach out to Beersheba and possibly Dimona. The Hezbollah has also been supplied with up to 250 Iranian-designed Fateh 110 missiles, which have a 160 mile range. Israel has been widely criticized for trying to take out Hezbollah and Hamas in order to stop bombardments.
What abut interdicting arms supplies? Surely that’s better and exactly what Israel has just done. MSNBC reports that the Israeli navy has seized a ship carrying hundreds of tons of munitions bound for Hezbollah.
“It’s a cargo certificate that shows that it was from a port in Iran,” military spokeswoman Lt. Col. Avital Leibovich said. “All the cargo certificates are stamped at the ports of origin, and this one was stamped at an Iranian port. … Israeli military officials said the ship’s journey started in Iran, and it arrived a week ago in Beirut. The next stop was Damietta, Egypt, where the weapons were loaded, they said. Ben Yehuda said the ship was headed for Latakia, Syria.
But the Israeli action was branded “piracy” by the Syrians. And the Egyptians maintained that simply because the weapons were loaded in Egypt, it was illogical to think that Cairo was shipping weapons to Hezbollah. Israel has demanded that the UN investigate the “war crime” perpetrated by Iran. Good luck to them on that.
What about diplomatic measures? Hope has been held out that the West can stem “the hatred” directed against it by employing confidence building measures to communicate that it means no harm to anyone. Recently the US dismantled a missile defense system that would be based in Poland. But the message has been slow to sink in. The Telegraph reports that Russia simulated a nuclear attack and offensive amphibious operations against Poland’s Baltic coast in September.
The armed forces are said to have carried out “war games” in which nuclear missiles were fired and troops practised an amphibious landing on the country’s coast.
Documents obtained by Wprost, one of Poland’s leading news magazines, said the exercise was carried out in conjunction with soldiers from Belarus.
The manoeuvres are thought to have been held in September and involved about 13,000 Russian and Belarusian troops.
Poland, which has strained relations with both countries, was cast as the “potential aggressor”.
The documents state the exercises, code-named “West”, were officially classified as “defensive” but many of the operations appeared to have an offensive nature.
The Russian exercise highlights the seamless way that “defense” can segue into “offense”. Even using the high ground of space to defend against missile attack is seen as provocative. The NYT called space defenses “folly”. This line was repeated by candidate Obama who pledged not to “weaponize space”. But a high Chinese defense official has now gone on record as saying that this is inevitable and argued that his country should agressively pursue the capability to fight outside the earth’s atmosphere. The Telegraph reports:
A TOP China air force commander has called the militarisation of space an “historical inevitability”, state media said today, marking an apparent shift in Beijing’s opposition to weaponising outer space.
In a wide-ranging interview in the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) Daily, air force commander Xu Qiliang said it was imperative for the PLA air force to develop offensive and defensive operations in outer space.
“As far as the revolution in military affairs is concerned, the competition between military forces is moving towards outer space… this is a historical inevitability and a development that cannot be turned back,” Commander Xu told the paper.
What about disarmament efforts? What about building “a world without nuclear weapons”? In 1922 President Warren Harding tried something simpler: creating a world without battleships. He convened a Naval Conference in Washington DC ostensibly for the purpose of scrapping useless and expensive fleets. But not only did many of the signatories cheat (the mightiest battleships in the world, Bismarck, Tirpitz, Yamato and Musashi, were built in violation of the treaty) the development of the aircraft carrier dates in large part from conference. Denied one avenue of advance, the militaries of the world simply pursued another and more deadly method. When the Second World War broke upon the America nineteen years later it was carrier borne aircraft which led the attack on Pearl Harbor. A world without battleships became a world of super-battleships and the aircraft carrier.
There is no universally held consensus on what it means to keep the peace. What is sauce for the goose is not always sauce for the gander. All across the board there is dispute over what actions a nation can take, in time of peace, to prevent or forestall a wider war. A “national hit team” may prevent war, but it ‘undermines international law’. Letting Israel go after shipping may avoid the need to go into Gaza or Lebanon, but what about ‘freedom of the seas’? Hamas’ missiles can reach Tel-aviv, so shouldn’t missile defenses be pursued instead? But missile defense ultimate requires sensors, radar and possibly outer space. And we can’t go around weaponizing space can we?
Whatever course is taken some risks must be run. The problem is that national politicians are afraid of risks and are quick to denounce even rational and proportionate actions at the first sign of criticism. But the dilemmas remain and it is not always possible to forever escape from their horns.
Update: a reader writes:
I read with interest your post today about the fine line between offensive systems and defensive systems, which I found (as usual) informative and thought-provoking.
I have to urge a correction on the factual and interpretive details about Harding and the Washington Conference, however. The conference is called in 1921, and meets from November 1921 to February 1922. It’s easy to lambast the conference and its outcome as silly, because they hoped that by getting rid of battleships they’d get rid of war, but it worked remarkably well. The impetus for the conference was Great Britain and the United States not wanting to sink enormous quantities of money into a pointless arms race (since it would have been directed, on both sides, at each other) AND Britain being bound by its 1902 alliance with Japan, up for renewal in 1922 (but now aimed only, ever really, at the United States, which the Canadians and Australians deeply opposed). And in the context of the great war just having ended, no one thought that war was likely. It’s a model for a successful arms control process, in fact, because it lasted more than a decade, the powers held to the limits they were given (while putting their energies into less significant weapons systems) and substituted a political-diplomatic framework in Asia that substituted for a power-
based relationship (i.e. the size of fleets). Only with the Great Depression, and the concomitant Japanese and Chinese internal political chaos, does the system really break down irreparably. You mention the carriers, and of course no one at the time thought about using carriers as the exclusive method of offensive attack–that doesn’t come until after 1929 (with the U.S. thinking about it in the fleet problems of that year and the next) and with the British attack on the Italians in 1940–which we now understand to have been the model for the Japanese plan of attack on Pearl Harbor. Some analysts of the Washington system have faulted it for preventing the U.S. from building up a large enough force for the outset of the war in 1941 (which is a little anachronistic) but the general agreement among scholars of the subject is that it +saved+ the U.S. from sinking inordinate amounts of money in the 1920s and possibly the 1930s onto weapons platforms that would have been, by the standards of the 1940s, obsolete. So the U.S. built much more modern stuff instead of wasting money on attempting to upgrade legacy systems. Finally, the Germans did not really “cheat” with their pocket battleships because they were not signatories in the original conference; the Japanese built the Yamato and Musashi in 1937 and 1938 (respectively) +after+ Japan had left the Washington system in late 1934, free to begin construction on the warships it wanted after two years…and thus in early 1937.Jonathan Reed Winkler
Associate Professor of History
I think there is a lot of justice in this comment. First of all, I had forgotten, but now remember that the British were deeply afraid the US would outbuild their exhausted economy after the Great War ended and wanted to freeze the ships to near enough where their stock of battleships lay. I think the most telling point was that the arms control effort was driven by the interests of the parties. Countries can sometimes wish to control arms, a wish which coincides with disarmament.
One interesting difference is that while older ship ties lose their utility with age, nuclear weapons do not become less useful to the same degree. An exact copy of Little Boy, for example, would have a lot of utility in 2009 in ways that an exact copy of the Enola Gay would not. But this should not obscure the fact that I was thinking very sloppily when I used the example of the Naval Conference.
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48 Comments
1. Josh:Are we looking for the magic word that makes it all nice?
All of the above. Predators. Carpet bombing. JDAM. Nukes. James Bond. Sergeant Rock. CIA. We *do* mean harm to anyone who gets in our way, and don’t ever let them think otherwise. But also, Peace Corp. McDonalds. Trade. Open communications, tourism. Humor. Diversity. Tolerance. Generosity.
Even the U f’ing N. We’ll play the game, up to a point.
We’re complicated.
But it comes down to:
Nov 5, 2009 - 9:56 am 2. wretchard:Eternal vigilance is the cost of freedom.
The UN says that using Predators may break International Law.
Just saying.
Nov 5, 2009 - 10:00 am 3. Lifeofthemind:The distinction between state and non-state actors is entirely pernicious. There is nothing gained by the indulging of the proliferation of non-state actors in the field of international relations and the coddling of a perception that a state or a population can escape responsibility for the actions of people who plan or conduct attacks from its territory. Nothing has proven superior to the Westphalian System in promoting lawful relations among people, regulating violence, and ensuring accountability.
The Red Cross serves a useful purpose. Technical organizations that largely predate the United Nations serve a useful purpose. Almost everything else that exists outside of the authority of the nation-state should be abolished in the international sphere.
If a state has a functional government, if it is competent and possesses the attributes of sovereignty, and if it wishes to retain good relations with the US then it will pursue those who threaten or commit acts of violence against either the United States or US persons. The later includes both human beings, citizens, nationals or lawful residents, and corporate bodies. Any territory that does not possess such a government should be placed under Trusteeship or a similar form of administration. If a nation is competent and refuses to cooperate then our argument is with that nation and not just with the offending party.
In 2001 we requested cooperation from the Taliban, who were the de facto government of Afghanistan. If they had cooperated then the War on Terror would have been a police action. The reasons to consider ourselves in a lawful state of war with Iraq before 2003 were even more numerous. We should recognize that since 1979 we have been in a state of war with regard to Iran.
The recent conceit that legal belligerency can only exist when authorized by the United Nations, which means when Russia and China agree, is a complete inversion of what the UN and the Security Council were meant to achieve. All that the UN Charter says is that when the Big Five Powers agree then that is a fact that no small powers can refute or resist. The UN has no binding legal presence separate from the combined will of the powers of the Security Council and every country has the right to defend itself.
We should yank Philip Alston’s visa and make it clear that no agent of the UN has any standing to sit in judgement of the United States.
Nov 5, 2009 - 10:12 am 4. Vincent Vega:If the Russians and Chinese weren’t preparing for war, what would they do differently? Yesterday Victor Davis Hanson suggested that the bill would come due (in the form of military aggression involving one of the obvious hotspots abroad) sometime in the next 18 months, and it’s difficult to imagine that not being the case. What will we do? Based on everything the current administration has said, done and continues to do, I have to think nothing of substance.
Strongly worded letters won’t help Taiwan, South Korea, Georgia, Poland or Israel if the “rockets” fly and the tanks roll.
Nov 5, 2009 - 10:14 am 5. Grimmy:Yeah. Lets go back to the Law Enforcement model in dealing with jihadiscum. That worked soooo well in the few decades preceding 9/11, didn’t it?
Nov 5, 2009 - 10:23 am 6. Lifeofthemind:On PJM disturbing story of charges against US Air Marshall in the UK. Possible rape or railroading, http://tinyurl.com/yzzfamw
Also OT, michellemalkin tweet
For those of you w/o TV, Fox is livestreaming DC #housecall hlthcare protest: http://is.gd/4O1w3
Nov 5, 2009 - 10:23 am 7. Josh:Of *course* use of Predators is “against the law”, I never assumed otherwise for a moment. Just their use of airspace is probably a violation, much less inserting high explosives where they’re not expected.
btw, meant to add – the Russians are just acting crazy, and the Chinese are for the most part rather clear-headed, just sort of young and enthusiastic, and maybe not quite up to speed on the European vision of a peaceful world.
Nov 5, 2009 - 10:24 am 8. NahnCee:Article here suggesting that the Obama White House is in cahoots with the Italian / Yurp courts to harass and/or punish Republicans and the CIA: http://volokh.com/2009/11/04/italy-convicts-twenty-three-cia-agents-in-absentia/
Just when I decide that Obama is too stoopid and ineffective to be a Manchurian Candidate, something like this pops up to suggest that he *is* in the control of an overseas puppetmaster.
I do still think, too, that there’s a good chance that eventually Obama will attempt to give over control of American military to the United Nations. Their yipping is becoming louder and more aggressive in a “gimme gimme we DESERVE it” sort of way which makes me wonder who has been promising what to that august body behind the scenes.
Nov 5, 2009 - 10:30 am 9. Mark:I liked the comments in an earlier thread that a message of Republicans should be ’small government,’ free enterprise, etc.
My comment is only seemingly off-thread. With a weak economy, and with a government that is holding its citizens in silver handcuffs with nationalized health care etc., the US has no economic reserves to outspend its adversaries. This bug, as commenters have pointed out, is actually an Obama-think feature.
I think Reagan understood that he had economic reserves that his adversary did not possess. He could afford to be offensive in a couple of senses. Richard’s post title invites some thinking about offensiveness and defensiveness.
Obama and his domestic policies put us in a position wherein we have neither the current capacity or the reserves to pursue an independent course. We will find ourselves in the position of just being one more nation among many.
Nov 5, 2009 - 10:34 am 10. Lifeofthemind:When I was a child Halloween meant going door to door collecting for UNICEF. Don’t see that anymore. My idea after 9-11 was to move the UN HQ to Governor’s Island in NY harbor. That would put almost it right in the shadow of the WTC site. The security benefits would be considerable too.
Nov 5, 2009 - 10:36 am 11. Storm-Rider:“What about building “a world without nuclear weapons”? In 1922 President Warren Harding tried something simpler: creating a world without battleships.”
It never ceases to amaze me how so many people remain blind to this truth: We cannot create a world without human evil.
Nov 5, 2009 - 10:38 am 12. Storm-Rider:“Letting Israel go after shipping may avoid the need to go into Gaza or Lebanon, but what about ‘freedom of the seas’?”
Freedom of the seas did not apply to the naval forces of Nazi Germany or Imperial Japan during World War II. Executing just war in defense of life and liberty requires that forceful limitations are placed on those who would destroy life and liberty – and thereby create peace under tyranny.
“Hamas’ missiles can reach Tel-aviv, so shouldn’t missile defenses be pursued instead? But missile defense ultimate requires sensors, radar and possibly outer space. And we can’t go around weaponizing space can we?”
Simple answer to both questions: Yes.
Nov 5, 2009 - 10:45 am 13. Storm-Rider:“US drone strikes against suspected terrorists in Afghanistan and Pakistan could be breaking international laws against summary executions…”
“US musket/cannon strikes against suspected Royalists at Bunker Hill and Yorktown could be breaking Imperial British laws against summary executions…”
Nov 5, 2009 - 10:51 am 14. Pork Rinds for Allah:It’s a much simpler game than we need think…
Take Gaza of instance…
Israel could solve the problem of Gaza in 20 minutes….
You might not like my answer but it would work…
Solution for Gaza.
By Pork Rinds for Allah
Wherewith and henceforth Israel (who from this point forward shall be called “ZE” for zionist entity) shall do the following to the non-nation state of Gaza (from this point on shall be referred to as “GZ”)
ZE shall notify all present population of GZ that all food, water, fuel and power will be cut from ZE to GZ at midnight zulu time.
ZE shall notify all present population of GZ that the border between GZ and Egypt (at Rafah) shall be destroyed and that all present populations seeking not to be destroyed shall move as quickly as possible thru Rafah into the Sinai.
ZE shall start napalm and cluster bombing exactly 12 hours after notification of the GZ of it’s intentions.
ZE shall start the destruction at the top (northern end) of the GZ and shall move from both the north and east into the GZ towards the general direction of Rafah.
Once the GZ has has been destroyed large quantities of toxic waste shall be sprayed in the area that used to be GZ.
The population that used to live in GZ now will live in Sinai with their Egyptians brothers.
At that point GZ will no longer be a threat to the ZE.
Simple really…
If you need to do elsewhere, then do it…
If you think I am radical what do you think Hezbollah, Hamas, Fatah, Islamic Jihad, Iran, Syria (and about 30 other groups and states) wish to do to Israel & America….
Wake up folks…
Nov 5, 2009 - 10:52 am 15. F:There has been talk for many years about putting together some sort of military capability that would be able to operate without a large expeditionary force. My recollection of Kennedy’s support for the Green Berets was just this sort of idea — small teams that could literally parachute into a location and build infrastructure, instruct, and use local forces to accomplish military ends.
Then the Bay of Pigs came along and Cuban expatriates who had been trained in the US and many of whom were armed with .22 rifles (the idea being they would capture weapons from troops they surprised and either killed or disarmed) would lead to a popular uprising. We all remember the outcome — the air cover that was a key part of the planning was cancelled because it did away with any plausible deniability, and the popular uprising that was supposed to materialize did not.
Special Forces were supposed to be the key to changing the equation in the early days of Vietnam too, only Pentagon planners soon looked at the amount of materiel the North Vietnamese were able to infiltrate into the south, and the problems with the ARVN, and concluded a small troop buildup would fill the gap. We all know where that small buildup went.
We have used Special Forces, with CIA cooperation and support, and varying degrees of success, in a number of other hot spots. And I have to say the men (and sometimes women) who do this have my respect and admiration. But if they require deniability to be successful you can almost count on failure. The more secret we try to make them the more eager some journalist is to make his reputation by outing the program, or some disgruntled CIA employee (think John Agee) is to make it known. Those “outing” efforts of course get support from governments who would like to limit our maneuver room, while other governments are very happy to have our resources on the ground supporting their own limited abilities.
So planners continue to kick around such programs but never with the total support given to similar efforts by the OSS and OWI during WWII, when they were lean, mean and staffed largely by Ivy Leaguers, frequently with superb language skills. We’re a different nation now, with different priorities and legal constraints, and I personally doubt our ability to repeat the daring, sometimes extra-legal, and frequently hare-brained feats of the OSS and OWI.
An alternative remains, however. That is to re-establish the US Information Agency, but without the universal approach it had at the end of the last century when I worked for it. In those days the conventional wisdom among USIA planners was that it had to be present in every country where we had an embassy and had to have the same mission everywhere: a library, a cultural and educational exchange program, a local publication, etc. While it was fun to program Taj Mahal in Kinshasa or Duke Ellington in Vientiane, one has to wonder if there was much marginal propaganda value in such efforts.
The short message we have is that a free market system represents opportunity for growth and develoment in countries where our typical propaganda message previously found little resonance. Even in traditional societies like Saudi Arabia, with its small population of super-wealthy royal hangers-on, there are parts of the population who recognize that what America has done could be translated into local development but only if there is a dramatic change in the status quo. That change would likely move society in a direction that would be more friendly to the US.
So while James-Bond-like efforts capture public imagination, the real work needs to be done with selective efforts that change ideas in cultures that currently see America as a great satan. These would be different for different countries, obviously — the “one program fits all” approach of previous USIA efforts need to be changed in favor of tailored country programs that develop one-country expertise. I’d like to see USIA re-created, but with a different mission and mentality.
F
Nov 5, 2009 - 11:01 am 16. Geoffrey Britain:Those who are against using war as a counterterrorism method are also against conducting war itself, which is their real objection.
Replacing Sergeant Rock with Jason Bourne is no more an option than replacing tanks with rifles. It’s not a case of one or the other, each are needed.
What must be done about terrorism cannot be done because sufficient political will to do so… doesn’t exist. Just as in the 30’s, liberal pacifism, denial and calls for appeasement prevent any decisive action against the infrastructure of terrorism.
That shall, just as it did in the 30’s, result in nothing substantive being done during the “gathering storm” phase.
Once nuclear terrorist attacks start occurring, then finally shall the US gain the unity that presently escapes us.
Tragically, millions shall once again die because liberal pacifism refuses to face the world as it is rather than as they so desperately wish it to be.
Nov 5, 2009 - 11:11 am 17. Geoffrey Britain:#14,
In principle I agree, Israel can only solve its Palestinian problem by permanently ‘annexing’ Gaza and the West Bank and forcibly deporting every Palestinian.
That said, its not simple because the consequential repercussions will be daunting; the cessation of all US aid to Israel and the passing of UN resolutions authorizing severe economic sanctions against Israel.
Nov 5, 2009 - 11:22 am 18. Brock:There is an answer to the problem of keeping the peace, but Wretchard is correct to say that not everyone agrees that it is correct (despite the empirical evidence). The “reality based” community continues to believe in dangerous fantasies, like “peace in our time” and benevolent Marxism.
The answer, by the way? Fukuyama almost nailed it (however premature his prediction of victory). The only part he missed was being well enough armed to make “invade and tax” schemes too expensive to be profitable.
Nov 5, 2009 - 11:48 am 19. Storm-Rider:“There is no universally held consensus on what it means to keep the peace.”
Just war is the (apparently eternal) struggle against those who would, without informed consent, violently establish peace under tyranny. The goal of just war is peace under liberty.
Nov 5, 2009 - 11:54 am 20. wretchard:I think there is a tremendous constituency for the restoration of the pre-September 11 world because it was very convenient environment for a lot political forces. The GWB Bush years are seen in this light as an aberration from the normal, a departure from the the world as it should be. It was argued that the Bush years increased the global threat of war — and the evidence for it would be Iraq, Afghanistan and Israel/Lebanon 2006.
The counterargument is that the pre-September 11 years also increased the threat of war in their own way. And the absence of a second September 11 attack can be cited as evidence for this proposition.
Maybe a Man from Mars — a totally disinterested observer — would conclude that each has increased the risk of war in their own ways. It is in the choice of the kind of conflicts they accept which that differentiates them.
Whether conservatives like it or not, the restoration of certain aspects of the pre-September 11 world is now in full swing. And now we shall see what we shall see. My guess is that some sort of conflict will be upon us fairly soon. The Hezbollah and Hamas aren’t acquiring these rockets are Christmas ornaments. Like the fireworks skyrockets people buy, they are bought to be shot off, not stored. Although one wouldn’t wish it, there is some considerable probability that with the return of the pre-September 11 world will come all the things that went with it.
Consider what would happen if a second massive attack, say 2 to 3 times worse than the first happened? What should one do? Maybe a Bush-like figure will return only to be brought down after a time, by the combined efforts of the Left. And then we are back to the same old, same old cycle again. Has the world become a larger version of Israel doomed to oscillate between alternating periods of concession and belligerency? A kind of Clinton-Bush-Obama sine wave of responses with giant equivalents of Gaza which we are permitted to watch with anxiety but never invade?
Nov 5, 2009 - 12:02 pm 21. Brock:That’s a tad over the top, don’t you think? Israel didn’t have to completely level southern Lebanon to discourage Hezbollah’s attack; merely firing back several-fold what they received was enough. The same would work in Gaza and the West Bank.
Here’s a simpler (and more humane) approach that wouldn’t invite quite the same level of criticism:
-ZE announces (and regularly repeats, until no one in the territory can possibly claim ignorance of this plan) that henceforth for each attack (missile, suicide bomber, sniper shot, or otherwise) originating from a Palestinian Territory (a “PT”), ZE shall
– Return fire with five missiles with an ordinance at least twice the attacker’s. ZE may make some attempt to fire back from the originating geographic spot, but it may not, entirely in its discretion.
– Cut off electric and water to the PTs for 1 week.
– Close all entrances and exits to the PTs for 1 week.
This is reactive (not preemptive) and slightly more proportional than your proposed solution. It should be effective though.
ZE should in the mean time make a point of broadcasting a “Radio Free Palestine” explaining in layman’s terms all the ways that life could be better in the PTs if it were just a tad bit better governed. Also, any Palestinian men or women (with known no connections to Hezbollah or Hamas) who want to be trained in the formation and running of local police/militia for the purpose of providing local law & order, and the use of bolt action rifles, need only ask at the nearest ZE security checkpoint. The ZE will even provide a bolt action rifle and 20 rounds of ammunition to anyone who completes the course.
The ZE would also do well to translate Bastiat and Thomas Paine into Arabic and drop a few million copies of each onto the PTs.
Nov 5, 2009 - 12:06 pm 22. Brock:Ooh! Ooh! Pick me! Pick me! I’ve read this one before.
Nov 5, 2009 - 12:10 pm 23. RWE:“Sometimes, that will mean operating “in uncooperative countries.” In those cases, the teams must be prepared “to act unilaterally, with no support or coordination with local authorities….”
Or,
“Should you or any of your IM force be captured or killed, the Secretary will disavow any knowledge of your actions.”
Next, they will be suggesting that we set up covert operations teams inside the prisons for our POWs held by our enemies.
Both of these would make good concepts for TV shows. In 1965.
This is the same kind of thinking that ensured a half-assed approach to the war in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia, as well as the Bay of Pigs. It is the invention of those too lilly-livered to do the job right. And it always fails.
Nov 5, 2009 - 12:12 pm 24. Geoffrey Britain:“Has the world become a larger version of Israel doomed to oscillate between alternating periods of concession and belligerency? A kind of Clinton-Bush-Obama sine wave of responses?”
Temporarily, yes. It’s been that way since the 1979 US embassy seizure by Iran.
Historically, it is ‘temporary’ because Iran’s gaining of the bomb is a paradigm change. The resultant wave of nuclear proliferation that shall follow will inevitably lead to terrorist groups directly or indirectly gaining access to nukes. They will of course use them and when they do, the world shall change, permanently. It’s a ‘crossing of the Rubicon’, an opening of Pandora’s box that cannot be undone.
Especially ironic given Obama’s sincerely expressed wish for a nuclear free world. For the only way to prevent it is to use overwhelming military force and that, he will not do, it’s just not in him.
In a world of nuclear terrorists, only one of two extreme responses are possible, an all-out fight to win or create fortress America with the resultant ‘benevolent’ tyranny that fear makes inevitable.
Nov 5, 2009 - 12:27 pm 25. John Lynch:The disarmament treaties kept the Japanese from bankrupting themselves building obsolescent battleships. They were planning on building 2 a year, maybe more, before the treaties. That would have left them with a huge fleet, and no money, by 1930. Whether that would have been a good or a bad thing is unknown.
On the war, it seems to me that no one has yet devised a substitute for taking and holding the enemy’s country. That’s what COIN is, taking and holding what’s important to the enemy. This is easy to see if you look at reality from the ground, from informants who are in Afghanistan and can see firsthand the results of a strategy that does not occupy the enemy’s physical space.
Only people removed by ignorance and distance can let abstract ideas of technology and UAVs and movie spies convince them that this is an effective way to win the war.
Nov 5, 2009 - 12:56 pm 26. John Lynch:My other thought is the irony of assassination becoming more acceptable than capture. With Gitmo attracting so much bad PR, we’ve started to kill enemy leaders rather than attempting to capture them. With interrogation becoming progressively harder in the political environment, we may as well kill our enemies. So, not only do we kill them but often the civilians they surround themselves with. All because of attempts to make war more humane. Death rather than life and perhaps eventual release. Bizarre.
Nov 5, 2009 - 1:20 pm 27. Walt:Barbarians threaten the very life of the West, and we tremble at the thought of resisting, fearing the dark, the unknown, creating a world where the crazies believe they can win, that the West will never fight, a timidity on our part that only invites war and the desolation the inevitable response will bring. Acting now to solve the problem of the savages acquiring nuclear weapons would save the world the nuclear holocaust that is surely coming, but we are impotent, bound hand and foot by constraints of our own making. Where is our Scipio Africanus? Where is our Cato? Cannot we delenda est these people?
Publius Cornelius Obamanus
Nov 5, 2009 - 1:22 pm 28. JMH:Sat thoughtful on his throne
For though the world seemed ominous
Stout legions he did own
The problem was he did not think
The law allowed to use ‘em
He knew his foes would raise a stink
And claim that he’d abuse ‘em
Barbarians were at the gates
A’pounding at the portals
Hurling pomegrams and dates
As well as sneers and chortles
With slings and arrows falling fast
Obamanus sat quiet
He knew the slings would never last
And nukes? They would not try it
He played it cool until the day
The missiles started flyin’
And at which point he stood to say
I’m one damn mad Hawaiian
As mushroom clouds rose overhead
He finally launched his legions
And laid to waste with many dead
The barbarism regions
With sadness he did contemplate
The world and all its ruin
And knew the lawyers would not wait
To file the papers suin’
Him for the reckless use of force
Accused of going Roman
And so he sighed with great remorse
And stared into the gloamin’
That once held all the world he knew
Including his great nation
Where not a tree or flower grew
For all was desolation
Alone, berobed and laurel wreathed
He wandered through the White House
And knew the future he bequeathed
Was glowing like a lighthouse
Regarding the Washington Naval Treaty, Prof. Winkler is largely correct, but there are a couple of (edit: three, there are three) useful additions. (edit: Monty Python mode off now)
First, the original treaty did give a great boost to Carrier developement, as the three main signatories (US, UK, Imperial Japan) all had partially finished battleships or battlecruisers on the ways and rather than waste all the work that had gone into these hulls, wrote a clause into the agreement allowing each nation to convert some of the unfinished ships into carriers. These were large hulls, and gave the USN and IJN some exceptionally large fleet carriers in the mid-20’s with which to experiment. Without the treaty, it’s likely much smaller ships would have been the testbed for developing carrier aviation among the two navies that became most adept at using it. Lexington, Saratoga, Kaga and Akagi all started out as 30,000+ ton battlecruisers, and remained the largest carriers of either side until well into the war (or in the case of the US, after the war). By the time the war broke out, both sides were able to operate large air wings from smaller displacement ships, but the experience with the big ships must have helped. The Royal Navy declined to convert any large hulls (I forget if it was for cost reasons) and didn’t have a large carrier during the inter-war years. Despite the Taranto raid, the RN never really developed effective offensive carrier doctrine (though admittedly, the missions the RN was tasked with were not generally offensive). And the RN flattops had consistently smaller air wings, even on a ton-for-ton basis, than their US counterparts (19kton CV-5 Yorktown operated 72 to 90 aircraft. 22kton Ark Royal, launched the same year, operated 50 to 60).
Second, the treaty also included provisions (insisted on by the Japanese) that limited the development and fortification of Pacific island bases by the US. This meant the US had no defensible mid-ocean bases that could resist the Japanese onslaught when the war began. In hindsight, this might have been a blessing as those bases may have been useless, like Truk and Rabaul proved to be at the end for the Japanese. On the other hand, strongly held bases may have been a deterrent to Japan launching the war. Peace Through Weakness hardly ever works.
Third, the ratios set by the treaty, 5:5:3 for the US, UK, and Japan, rankled the Japanese. The logic behind the ratios was that the US and UK both had to be prepared to conduct operations in more than one ocean while the Japanese only had to worry about the Pacific, but to the Japanese it was something of an insult to be assigned a smaller fleet. There were enough other factors leading to the war that maybe this didn’t matter, but it certainly didn’t help. Much like the disarmament provisions of Versailles rankled nationalistic Germans and were exploited by the Nazis to gain support.
The upshot is that these things have secondary and tertiary effects far beyond what anyone expects.
Nov 5, 2009 - 1:27 pm 29. dan:Those who responded or continue to respond “it’s an intelligence war, stupid!” betray a certain unnecessary misunderstanding about the world as it has been since something like 1914:
The world *already is* engaged an intelligence war, a total war – a *total intelligence war,* all the time.
For a beginning date I submit “Germany’s Aims During the First World War” as describing and establishing the fact of the start of the modern intelligence war, carried out by the Germans for the purpose of destablizing (1) Russia and (2) the Muslim heartlands of the Punjab during the British Raj. Their success with the first – which they bequeathed, along with the Okhrana, to their agents Lenin & Co. – is well-known, but it’s been harder to follow the threads of the second. Still, I bet it continues, one way or another, possibly morphing at some point with the heirs of operation (1). Habu maybe knows something about this.
Nov 5, 2009 - 1:35 pm 30. tehag:“Weighing in on the other side was Italian Judge Oscar Magi, who sentenced 23 CIA agents to jail in absentia for allegedly taking part in the kidnapping of Abu Omar in 2003 and rendering him to Egypt.”
Wow! An Italian judge volunteering for the terrorist side. Hmm… Bourne’s next target, I hope.
Nov 5, 2009 - 1:46 pm 31. Marsh Arab:Wretchard @ 2: If the use of Predator drones is in violation of international law – their increased use may very well have arisen out of efforts to comply with other international law in closing Guantanomo.
National Public Radio, October 8th, a story titled “Capture or Kill?”
Given the difficulty of detaining high-value terrorists in the United States, Cuba, Afghanistan, black sites or foreign countries, another possibility exists.
“To be perfectly blunt, I don’t think that they’ll pick them up at all,” says Ken Anderson of the Hoover Institution and American University’s Washington College of Law, who has written about these issues. “I think that we’ve actually allowed the courts to arrange the incentives to kill rather than capture.”
Many national security experts interviewed for this story agree that it has become so hard for the U.S. to detain people that in many instances, the U.S. government is killing them instead.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=113612058
Nov 5, 2009 - 2:00 pm 32. Tcobb:You use the right tool for the job. When the bad guys have a standing army you bring out the Daisy-cutter bombs.
When they’re a bunch of conspirators like the 911 bunch you bring out James Bond to find and execute them, one at a time. I don’t know one way or another but I suspect that the fact that we haven’t had another 911 was because the terrorists were being sought out and executed by the James Bonds employed by the US government.
But I suspect that those days are over. The mental light-weight who occupies the white house now has as little conception of reality as I have of knowing how to perform open heart surgery—none.
Nov 5, 2009 - 2:09 pm 33. whiskey:Wretchard — I don’t think you give the political forces their due. We have returned to the pre-9/11 World because it suits the elites. You cannot have influence of gays, Blacks, Hispanics, and above all SWPL yuppies and women and be fighting a real war. Fighting a real war means sacrifices, power shifts, and all that. Power shifting from spoiled, wealthy elites to men in the front lines fighting, killing, and dying, and those who make the weapons and supplies. Not transgendered spokespersons for Gay Whales and Rainbows and people of color.
In a White majority nation this means power shifts to the White middle class that does the overwhelming amount of the fighting, killing, and dying, as well as weapons building. Instead of the current alliance of White elites and non-Whites.
In their own way, the elites and non-Whites, the Bill Ayers and Bill Gates and Warren Buffetts, and Van Jones and Jeremiah Wrights and Barack Hussein Obamas, have their own fantasy ideology to match AQs.
AQ’s fantasy ideology and that of Jihadis is to attack and kill a lot of Westerners, to build up supplies of cash, men, and political power, and use it to take over a country: Egypt, Pakistan, Iran, Saudi Arabia, or Indonesia. Mohammed’s model when in Medina. It critically assumes that Westerners will ALWAYS submit after a few impotent counter-strikes. Allowing a golden utopia of personal power creating a “rightful Caliph” in whatever nation is taken over. Because the exile army will be “unstoppable” and the target regime riddled with their supporters.
This mirrors the Western elite-non-White partnership fantasy that “black clad ninjas” roping out of helicopters ala Bill Clinton’s description can deal with the fundamental problem — that relatively poorer, non-Western peoples who are violently fractured and divided have access to nuclear weapons and OTHER MASS KILLING DEVICES by technology becoming a basic commodity.
It is the same fantasy assumption that drove the Madoff scam (fantasy returns) or Enron or indeed the Obama boom of rainbows and unicorns coming out of an orifice of a “magical non-White Shaman” to save the world.
As in all fantasy ideologies, the outcome will be quite bloody.
As you predicted, Western cities will die. It will not be a “one-off and done” event like 9/11, indeed the success of killing a Western city will ensure that another dies. This drives Western responses in predictable ways. Since ANY Western city will be a target, and no concessions will suffice, the “solution” will be simply to eradicate all possible enemies. As rapidly and as completely as possible. Since the enemy will not be a regime but a people. The technology cannot be suppressed, any more than the drug trade can. Thus only the people can be “dealt with” and the logic of the movie “Silverado” (where the Kevin Klein character has the light bulb moment when he realizes the Brian Dennehy character cannot hurt his friend if he is dead) is inevitable.
It also pushes btw the arming of Poland and Czech Republic and Hungary and other Russian targets. If they cannot depend on the US, they can simply nuke up themselves. Not even Putin will trade Moscow for Warsaw. Nuke proliferation alters the power balance there too, making it imperative that small nations have them to ward off big ones. Relatively easy to get for these nations too I suspect.
INEVITABLY the Western Peoples will regard ALL Muslims as a threat, a mortal threat, to their lives and one that can only be dealt with by eradication. There were brief moments when a concrete explanation of the reality of nuclear proliferation and the need to create real deterrence by continuing military action ala Iraq and Afghanistan (and Iran and Syria) could have forestalled this fate.
But the fantasy among SWPL Yuppies and non-Whites was too great. Thus the nukes WILL BE USED. To kill in my guesstimation about 600 million people. Including btw about 12 million Westerners, likely mostly Americans. Well, the greens wanted a smaller population globally. They will get it, though not the way they thought.
Nov 5, 2009 - 2:51 pm 34. Mad Fiddler:Is not a summary execution the killing of an unarmed captive? NOT a death resulting from hostile action against aggressors still “in the field” and capable of responding with lethal force?
If Mr. Aston wishes to twist meaning of words all awry, that means any ambush by an otherwise legitimate soldiery is also a transgression of international law. Armies will have to file ten copies of their battle plans with the U.N. 90 days in advance of any action, or face stern lectures.
Death by a thousand paper cuts.
Nov 5, 2009 - 2:57 pm 35. Josh:restoration of certain aspects of the pre-September 11 world is now in full swing.
In what way(s)? More belligerence or less? Jihadis staying clear of the US? I think not.
Nov 5, 2009 - 3:57 pm 36. Tcobb:The essence of decadence is the ability to pretend. Black is white, and 2 + 2 really can be five if you want it to be. But reality is a harsh master. Ignore him for the moment, but you cannot ignore him forever, because one day he will be coming for you with a whip or a noose, and all your pretending will have gained you is a very painful punishment or death.
Messiah’s, whether false or not, often end up being crucified. The members of our political class seem to view themselves as Messiah’s. They can’t even envision that when things go wrong there will be be a cross built just for them.
Nov 5, 2009 - 4:02 pm 37. Kinuachdrach:Who enforces “international law”?
The concept of “international law” is plain silly. Unless there is a way to use violence or the threat of violence to enforce a “law”, it is merely empty words. Usually, European words.
Now, where is the President who will issue Letters of Marque against that European judge who convicts people not in his courtroom, denying them their “legal right” to a solid legal defense?
Nov 5, 2009 - 4:03 pm 38. Bob Smith:Hope has been held out that the West can stem “the hatred” directed against it by employing confidence building measures to communicate that it means no harm to anyone.
This hope exists because of the mistaken belief that Muslims hate non-Muslims because the non-Muslims did something, when in fact Muslims hate non-Muslims because they believe Allah has granted them the divine right to rule the world, and that anybody who tries to block Allah’s will deserves death.
Nov 5, 2009 - 6:01 pm 39. RagnarD:wretchard @ 2:
Emphasis mine. Translates to “UN Czar of Assassinations”. As for the international law bit, I don’t think there is a provision in the Constitution certifying international laws. Lem’me go check. (Search frantically………) Nope, nothing. So, wretchard, from a purely American perspective that argument is a no-go AFAIK.
Now, I do believe around the time of pResident Clintoon there was a law put on the books making it illegal for the US to run assassination squads. IOW, doing so is a direct violation of Federal Code.
NahnCee @ 8 said:
Should something like that go down, I believe that you could drop the flag on the revolution. That is one of those this far and no further points. JHMO
Pork Rinds for Allah @ 14: re: Your solution to the Palestinian Question – Thank G-d that the Israelis are more humane than that. They have some who advocate those kind of solutions and rightly then remember their won history. BTW, I have spent well over a year total time in Israel over the last 12 years.
Okay, off to more mundane pursuits.
Nov 5, 2009 - 7:12 pm 40. rickl:CIA director Leon Panetta got into hot water with Congress, after he revealed an agency program to hunt down and kill terrorists. A recent report from the U.S. military’s Joint Special Operations University argues that the CIA didn’t go far enough. Instead, it suggests the American government should set up something like a “National Manhunting Agency” to go after jihadists, drug dealers, pirates and other enemies of the state. …
Brrrr. Be careful what you wish for. I can think of a lot of ways a National Manhunting Agency can go wrong, starting with who gets to define “enemies of the state”.
Better, as Kinuachdrach alludes to above, is Congress issuing Letters of Marque against terrorists. That idea has been floated some during the last few years, and I think it deserves a look. It is provided for in the Constitution, and would essentially empower privateers to go after terrorists. Decentralized groups of private citizens pursuing decentralized groups of terrorists. It’s fighting fire with fire.
Alas, I suspect that the reason the government isn’t interested is that it doesn’t cause more power to accrue to government.
Nov 5, 2009 - 8:29 pm 41. Joshua:Josh, #1: Eternal vigilance is the cost of freedom.
Which raises one more question: What is the cost of eternal vigilance? Can America – or any other nation – really keep up their guard forever, or is it just a matter of time before “vigilance fatigue” finally sets in and people start deciding it’s just not worth that cost anymore?
Mark, #9: Obama and his domestic policies put us in a position wherein we have neither the current capacity or the reserves to pursue an independent course. We will find ourselves in the position of just being one more nation among many.
In a thoroughly globalized and tightly interconnected global economic and cultural environment, no less. The one-worlders may indeed get their wish, though not quite in the way they had in mind (i.e. an effectively stateless world, rather than a one-world state).
Geoffrey Britain, #16: What must be done about terrorism cannot be done because sufficient political will to do so… doesn’t exist. Just as in the 30’s, liberal pacifism, denial and calls for appeasement prevent any decisive action against the infrastructure of terrorism.
That shall, just as it did in the 30’s, result in nothing substantive being done during the “gathering storm” phase.
Once nuclear terrorist attacks start occurring, then finally shall the US gain the unity that presently escapes us.
whiskey, #33: INEVITABLY the Western Peoples will regard ALL Muslims as a threat, a mortal threat, to their lives and one that can only be dealt with by eradication.
I wouldn’t stake Western civilization on either of these things happening even after an Islamic nuclear attack… at least, not if I had any choice but to do so.
Then there’s my “Fourth Conjecture” that I’ve brought up here a few times before, namely that after such an attack America and the West may indeed muster up the will to wipe out the ummah – but only just long enough to do the deed, after which the usual self-hatred not only returns but is amped up by an order or two of magnitude, once the enormity of what we’ve done sinks in. Once that happens, all bets on the West’s continued survival in any recognizable form are off.
Nov 5, 2009 - 8:36 pm 42. jWarrior:Former CIA guy Ishmael Jones thinks that the Italian Job that got the CIA in trouble was a dog and pony show. http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=ZTlmYTc4NGQ4NDhlYTZhYjBjZGE5MDUxMWQ0NjQ5OGE=
Nov 5, 2009 - 8:55 pm 43. buddy larsen:2) I am afraid Whiskey is right — the Muslim world will not have its equivalent of the Reformation before some moron nukes one or more Western cities, at which point we will kill them all. I can’t see how this does not end badly.
JMH/28, another crucial precursor was that in the six months between the November Armistice and the Versaille Treaty, US Progressive President Woodrow Wilson went into a pout over the Allies’ bickering and opted to imperiously ignore the two armistice promises he’d made (to oppose territorial concessions and monetary reparations) and allowed the French & British to write them out –and how –of the 1919 treaty. Woodrow threw in his cards on the first round of betting. Later the janitor, name of Adolf Hitler, found them on the floor and called for a restart of the game.
Nov 5, 2009 - 9:37 pm 44. Albert:An exciting new novel has just been released by Eloquent Books, New York, New York, titled “A Kiss for the President”. It has an absorbing plotline involving the mafia, the CIA, the Bay of Pigs, the murder of Marlyn Monroe, and the assassination of JFK. Buy it today at the folling website: http://www.strategicpublishinggroup.com/title/AKissforthePresident.html
Nov 6, 2009 - 10:58 am 45. HEPT:Terrorist: “Allah ackbar”
Nov 6, 2009 - 11:13 am 46. virgil xenophen:Police: freeze you have the right to remain silent, attorny…….
Terrorist: die infidel BANG.
Police: ouch ya shot me uggggh.
Terrorist: Allah ackbar!
You cannot hunt well armed military trained unconventional soldiers with Police.
I’m in total agreement with Whiskey here. Let me pose this question about our own historical past. Shortly after the golden spike was hammered at Promentory Point, Utah, creating the transcontinental railroad, what conditions allowed a young widow of twin six-year old girls to board the train at St. Louis and travel safely alone to Sacramento, secure in the knowledge they would not be attacked and killed by Indians? Was it because the RR cars had bullet/arrow-proof glass? Was it because the engineer was safe inside an armored engine? Was it because the Army guarded every train trestle and tunnel along the way? Was it because they were escorted by the US Cavalry? No. It was none of those. It was that we had simply killed all the Indians–or at least so many as the remainder were no longer a numerical nor military threat. There is a precedent in our own past for that which Whiskey predicts…
Nov 6, 2009 - 11:35 am 47. 49erDweet:Unlike a few other commenters, I concur with Pork Rinds for Allah’s solution. The alternate lesser suggestions seem too subtle for the ME mindset, in my view.
Per 26. John Lynch:, isn’t that called the “law of unintended consequences”?
Good post and thread, W, and good comments from whiskey, too.
PS: Got my own comment back to edit, so its working right now.
Nov 6, 2009 - 5:48 pm 48. JFSanders031:Whiskey, “Well, the greens wanted a smaller population globally. They will get it, though not the way they thought.”
I believe the people that drive and control the dysfunctional cats that are the “Left/Greens” actually work for this solution. Although I suspect they pray daily for a comet strike or some other mass extinction event.
I see the effects of the mental gymnastics of these types all around the world. But for the life of me I can’t figure out HOW they get to that place.
Nov 7, 2009 - 5:34 amSorry, comments for this entry are closed at this time.