Category Archives: foreign policy

Hold Off, Guys

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That’s what the American “defense” establishment is advising Ukraine now as that nation fights for its existence against the invasion of barbarian Russia. Wait until the new arms transfers, just agreed at a NATO meeting, arrive, those worthies say.

The US has advised Kyiv to hold off on any major counter-offensives against Russian forces in Ukraine until Washington’s latest supply of weaponry and trainings have been provided, a senior White House official said, according to Reuters Saturday.

And

A senior US official told reporters that the US believes Russia will gain an advantage when it comes to a war of attrition and therefore Ukraine needs to change the dynamic on the battlefield.

And

The official did not clarify for how long the US wants Kyiv to hold off on launching a counter-offensive or when Washington will deem Ukraine ready to do so….

That’s…foolish…for a number of reasons.

The US is notoriously slow even to get the promised equipment out the door, let alone delivered into Ukrainian hands. For how long must the Ukrainians “hold off?” These US officials are careful to avoid answering that question.

On the other hand, “Washington” claims to know better than the Ukrainians when Ukraine will be ready to go over to the offensive again. “Washington” Know Betters, after all, are looking from the vantage point of their airconditioned DoD, State, and White House offices. The Ukrainians can only see the whites of the barbarian’s eyes, see the barbarian’s fatigue, the way the winter cold saps the poorly equipped for winter barbarian’s will to fight or the manic rage of Wagner’s horde sitting right across from them. This is just quintessential ugly American arrogance. The Ukrainian forces in the field don’t need to be ready enough to suit “Washington.” They only need to be readier than the barbarian for a winter offensive.

Which brings me to: rather than sitting on the defensive, ceding the initiative, and thereby fighting the war of attrition that Washington is rightly worried about, the best way for the Ukrainians to change the dynamic on the battlefield is precisely to prosecute a winter offensive of their own. Just like they changed the then-dynamic with their Kherson offensive last spring.

Aside: The Pentagon doesn’t want to ship M1 Abrams tanks to Ukraine. The US has argued its tanks are too costly and difficult to maintain. Then why are they still in our inventory soaking up money and time and soldiers to keep some fraction of them combat ready? At least DoD officials aren’t arguing (publicly, anyway), like the Germans are vis-à-vis their Leopard tank, that the dumb Slavs are just too stupid to learn how to drive a tank.

Another Aside: These Washington officials plainly are projecting their own imperatives onto the Ukrainians. That suggests dangerously meek positions vis-à-vis our own government’s willingness to defend the Republic of China. Or our own nation.

Time to Cut Turkey Loose

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Turkey—its President, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, anyway—objects to the Swedish government decision to not investigate a Kurdish protest in Stockholm over the protestors having committed no crime. Erdoğan has been threatening to block Sweden’s accession to NATO (which requires unanimous consent of the members) if Sweden doesn’t treat the Kurds IAW Erdoğan’s demands, Swedish law be damned. The present case is no exception. Erdoğan’s panties are especially wedgied because the protestors hung his effigy from a lamppost in central Stockholm.

It’s time to be done with Erdoğan’s preciousness and his hurted feelings. Turkey needs to be removed from NATO altogether. Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has shown himself, for long enough, to be no friend and to be an unreliable ally and NATO member. NATO needs figure out how to expel Turkey from NATO, and get it done.

And don’t worry about Turkey’s control of the outlet from the Black Sea and Erdoğan’s sub rosa support for Russia. The straits at both ends of that outlet are narrow and easily plugged if needs be.

It’s Time to Move Away…

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…from any reliance on Germany as a weapons supplier to allies. Or as an ally.

Germany is continuing to stonewall sending serious weapons to Ukraine and is openly blocking its fellow NATO members from sending those weapons they bought from Germany to Ukraine.

Germany won’t allow Poland and other allies to give those tanks [Leopard tanks that Germany sold Poland and so many others] until Washington agrees to provide Ukraine with a US-made equivalent, specifically M1 Abrams, aides to Mr Scholz said.

This is Scholz still terrified of Vladimir Putin looking angrily at him. It’s time for the rest of us to move on from the German arms industry. German weapons, no matter how good they might seem on the training grounds, are worthless if they cannot be passed on to those who need them in war. It’s time to move on from Germany as an ally. Skilled, industrious, and technologically and economically advanced as they are, they’re of no use in an alliance when those factors are not available to the rest of us, or to a nation fighting for its very existence on the German border.

Japan has a very excellent and skilled work force with a modern industrial base that can be plussed up to produce and sell modern, capable weapons systems for itself and allies and for nations like Ukraine and the Republic of China.

The Republic of Korea has a similarly excellent work force and modern industrial base. It also can ramp up and produce and sell modern, capable weapons systems. It’s also fully capable of developing its own nuclear weapons systems, and it’s starting to think seriously about that in light of Baby Kim’s rhetoric and weapons testing.

The Republic of China has an even greater technological capability to go with its own highly capable industrial capability.

Closer to the current front, Great Britain has extant the industrial and technological base and already is offering alternatives to the German Leopard to Ukraine.

Poland has an industrial base and labor force on which to build easily.

Any of the Baltic States have the technological chops to meld with Poland’s industrial production.

American arms are very good, but they’re overpriced—see the F-35 and F-22, especially vs the newly developing F-15EX. They’re also very fragile, with excessively extensive maintenance tails—see the M1 Abrams tank.

Germany can’t be taken seriously as an arms supplier or an ally, and it can’t be taken seriously under any guise vis-à-vis Russia (or the People’s Republic of China, come to that). It’s time to walk away from them.

A Few Questions

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Then-Vice President Joe Biden (D) retained an (unknown and still growing) number of classified documents, taking them with him when he vacated his Vice Presidency in January 2017. I have some questions. In no particular order,

  • he signed the documents out of their secure storage, or he had a staffer sign them out for him. Where are the sign-out logs showing what document(s) were signed out and who signed them out—including for whom if it wasn’t the actual user of the docs?
  • when were the documents signed out?
  • what is the level of classification of the documents?
  • What is the subject matter (in general terms) of the classified documents Biden had (and still has?) squirreled away?
  • what is the nature of the documents?
    • were they finished products?
    • drafts?
    • notes for a draft or taken during meetings that were then classified by the note-taker?
    • some combination of the three?
  • what was Biden using these classified documents for or intending to use them for when he took them with him as he left office?
  • where is the documentation that the National Archives receives that identifies Executive Branch classified documents as they’re created?
  • when did the National Archives receive that documentation?
  • when do National Archive logs indicate the National Archives received the classified documents themselves, as listed on that prior documentation?
  • from whom do those logs indicate the National Archives received the documents?
  • when did the National Archives start asking questions about the classified documents it knew had been created but had not yet received?
  • where are the certifications the National Archives receives that the classified documents it received are the only copies of those documents?
  • who signed those certifications?

In the end, it’s clear that Biden, despite his claims to the contrary, knew and knows full well that he had those documents and has kept them all this time. He’s the one who signed them out or had a staffer sign them out for him. He’s the one who didn’t return them and sign them in when he was through or had a staffer do so in his name. He’s the one who moved those classified documents, or authorized an assistant to move them, from his VP offices to…someplace…between the time he had them in his VP offices and the time the Penn Biden Center was created. He’s the one moved those classified documents, or authorized an assistant to move them, from their ad hoc location variously to the Penn Biden Center and to his residence-cum-classified storage facility.

Finally, as Vice President, he had no declassification authority whatsoever beyond the authority of anyone with a clearance to declassify the notes he took and classified at the time he took them.

One more Finally: Biden says (now through his Presidential staffers) that he has no visitor logs for the building he occupies in Delaware and in which he garages his Corvette because, he claims, that’s his residence. This is nonsense. As soon as Biden moved those classified documents into his garage and a room in that building adjacent to his garage, that building ceased being his residence and became a classified storage facility. Visitors are required to be logged in and out of classified storage facilities, regardless of who lives there, and any of those visitors or Biden himself who viewed or removed from storage for viewing those classified documents are required to log them out and back in. The lack of logs is illegal.

One last Finally: Biden claims he advised the National Archives promptly as soon as his uncleared personal lawyers noticed he still had them. Promptly? He’s known for the last six years that he had these documents. What took him so long to get around to “promptly?”

Coverup

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President Joe Biden (D) was squirreling away classified documents in the Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement while he was sitting in our nation’s Vice President chair. The Penn Biden Center is hosted by the University of Pennsylvania, a university with close funding ties to the Communist Party of China. It turns out that now-President Biden’s administration—in particular, his Attorney General Merrick Garland (D)—had known about this for some time (I’m eliding the fact that Biden himself has known about his classified document squirreling for the several years since he started it and has chosen to not disclose that).

Just two weeks earlier, Biden’s lawyers disclosed to government lawyers on November 2—just six days before the midterm elections—that they had found sensitive government documents with classified markings inside an office that Biden used at the Penn Biden Center think tank in Washington after he left office as Barack Obama’s vice president.

Two weeks earlier: Garland had announced on 18 November that he had named a special prosecutor to investigate former-President Donald Trump’s (R) handling of classified documents found at Mar-a-Lago.

The Biden administration covered up Biden’s mishandling of classified documents until after the mid-term elections. It’s only coming out now because Biden’s mishandling can no longer influence the mid-terms, and it’s only coming out now in an effort to dilute its impact on the Presidential election in two years.

This is another example of the way Progressive-Democrats reign over our nation.