Tag Archives: freedom

A New Defense Alliance

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This thought was triggered by a Wall Street Journal op-ed by Anders Fogh Rasmussen, NATO Secretary General, and General Philip M Breedlove, SACEUR and Commander US European Command, concerning “A NATO for a Dangerous World.”

Given European NATO members’ long-standing disdain for national defense, for providing their treaty-obligated share of men and equipment for NATO defense, for providing their treaty-obligated GDP share of funding for NATO defense, it’s time to walk away from NATO and form a new mutual defense alliance with selected nations of eastern Europe.

As Rasmussen and Breedlove themselves note, NATO (and the underlying EU) aren’t facing the current threats (the US isn’t either, but the US can control that), and they’re failing the spirit of their defense obligations, if not exactly the letter of them. Yet Rasmussen and Breedlove themselves underestimate the problem.

Now, an unprecedented period of peace has been challenged by Russia’s aggression against Ukraine.

And against Georgia, its nuclear threats against Poland over a missile defense capability, its economic war against Europe (vis., Russia’s winter cutoff of natural gas to Ukraine a couple years ago, which caused gas shortages—as Russia knew it would—in Europe). We have, in fact, a new cold war with Russia. (And one with the People’s Republic of China, and a shooting war that we don’t recognize with terrorists—ISIS, for example. The latter two, though, aren’t directly relevant to this article; I’m writing about an alliance to deal with Russia in the face of NATO’s evident failure.)

R&B do recognize parts of the problem, and they understand some of what needs to be done.

  • fundamental mission remains the same: to defend the territory, populations, and shared values of all…members
  • the presence of NATO forces in Eastern Europe for as long as necessary; upgraded intelligence gathering and sharing; updated defense plans; and an expanded training schedule with more exercises, of more types, in more places, more often
  • able to deploy even more quickly and deploy at the first sign of trouble
  • also need to pre-position equipment and supplies, so that they can travel light but strike hard if needed

All of these are needed, but NATO already has demonstrated that it’s politically unequal to the task, and its leadership is emotionally unequal to it. This is especially the case with those last two bullets. The recognition and decision to act are more political matters than military, and NATO and EU leadership have demonstrated repeatedly their reluctance to decide quickly and their reluctance to act quickly once decided.

No, I propose the following. The US should walk away from NATO. The EU’s NATO member nations have been free riders on our treasure long enough. Instead, we should form a mutual defense alliance with selected nations of eastern Europe, nations whose peoples and leaderships remember what it was like to live under Russian dominance. This alliance should have as its core mission the four bullets above, only it’ll be on their home territory, instead of western Europe magnanimously moving to “defend” eastern Europe, so long as that serves the interests of western European nations.

The eastern European nations I propose to be approached for membership in this Free Europe Treaty Organization include these, running generally north to south:

  • Norway
  • Sweden
  • Finland
  • Estonia
  • Latvia
  • Lithuania
  • Poland
  • Czech Republic
  • Slovakia (and maybe we can help them adjust their politics and economics. If not, we’ll need to rethink their membership)
  • Ukraine (even—especially—rump Ukraine if that’s all that’s left after the West’s shameful abandonment of them to the tender mercies of Russia)
  • Romania
  • Bulgaria
  • Georgia (especially Georgia)

Also, contra R&B, Russia’s hybrid war tactics involving “snap exercises, secret commandos, and smuggled missiles” should be added to our new alliance’s kit; they work, as Russia is demonstrating.

Other nations can be looked at as interest and suitability develops.

These nations will provide to such an alliance considerable interest and capability; nearly all have significant per centages of their populations who know firsthand what Russian dominated life was like. Western Europe has lost the memories of the Russian (Soviet) threat, and they have lost the associated motivation.

Unfortunately, aside from the pie in the sky aspect of the thought, this alliance also must await a more reliable, trustworthy American President.

Press Mindset

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This is from an AP article, but I suggest it’s typical of the press generally. The AP is reporting on a case involving the drunk driver-involved deaths of two children and the immediately subsequent shooting death of the drunk driver. The father of the two children is accused of

killing a drunk driver in a fit of rage after his two sons were fatally struck in 2012 on a rural road in Southeast Texas.

His defense attorney says [the father] is a good man, a grieving father, and not a murderer. At the same time, his defense hasn’t publicly suggested who else might be responsible for [the drunk driver]’s shooting death.

Notice that last. According to the press, the father must, if not outright prove his innocence, at least offer plausible alternatives.

No. The press’…misunderstanding…notwithstanding, no such defense obligation exists. It’s on the prosecution—the government—to prove any defendant’s guilt; no police work, no investigative work at all, is required of the defense. Full stop.

A Gun Control Loss

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The gun rights sheriff incumbent, David Clarke Jr, defeated his Democratic primary challenger for the Milwaukee (Wisconsin) County job (and he’s in because there’s no Republican challenger for the fall general election). This also had been, among other things, a referendum on ex-New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s gun control philosophy, as that one had thrown down $150,000 on TV ads in his own attempt to influence the election.

However, primary challenger Milwaukee Police Lt Chris Moews‘ own justification for gun controls demonstrates the fallacy of the gun control position:

If I have the opportunity to defend myself and my family I will do so to the best of my abilities but I’m certainly also going to call 911 if I have the ability because I need the cavalry to come and help me.

Indeed. Because the cavalry—those police on the other end of that 911 call—are minutes away, plus the time to make the call, the man on the scene is the one who must deal first with the situation.

Moreover, as Moews intimated, it might not be possible for the man on the scene to make the call, leaving him without aid in facing the threat.

And there’s Moews’ implied strawman that an armed man wouldn’t call 911 at all.

Forcing that man to remain unarmed maximizes the danger to him.

Negotiate with Terrorists?

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Democratic Party Presidential contender and current Senator Elizabeth Warren (D, MA) had some thoughts from the Progressive side of the situation unfolding in Iraq. In supporting President Barack Obama’s tepid moves vis-à-vis ISIS, the Yezidis, and the Kurds, Warren said this:

It’s a complicated situation right now in Iraq and the president has taken very targeted actions to provide humanitarian relief that the Iraqi government requested, and to protect American citizens. But like the president, I believe that any solution in Iraq is going to be a negotiated solution, not a military solution. We do not want to be pulled into another war in Iraq.

Warren added this, exposing Progressives’ misunderstanding, generally, of what is required to destroy a terrorist entity:

It’s a very complicated situation in Iraq. The president has now taken two very targeted actions, and those two actions will change the mix of what’s happening in Iraq, and we’ll have to just monitor it[.]

Of course it’s wholly insufficient for us to toss our shoes onto the field and expect the terrorists to cut and run. A cynical man might suggest that the Progressive wing of the Democratic Party is projecting its own world view onto hardened thugs.

And just to seal the muddle, Andy Metzger of MassLive, summarized Warren’s position thusly, taking her at her word that she actually was serious:

While calling for a negotiated solution, Warren said the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria is a terrorist organization and the US does not negotiate with terrorists, while leaving open the possibility the US could assist the Iraqi government negotiating with ISIS.

How, indeed, does one negotiate with terrorists? Never mind that this administration has brought this on the Iraqi people, the Kurds, and itself when it abandoned Iraq three years ago under its disingenuous claim that it was “leaving behind a sovereign, stable and self-reliant Iraq.”

We’re entering a very dangerous period in the life of our nation. The Progressives of the Democratic Party simply are unable to see the error of their ways, and they want, post-2014, post-2016, to continue the obviously disastrous policies of the Obama administration.

The White House as Tax-Writing Authority

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Secretary of the Treasury Jack Lew originally (originally: three weeks ago, in mid-July) acknowledged he had no authority to alter the tax implications of US businesses reincorporating overseas in order to reduce their US tax burden.

Now he’s looking at (not for) ways to “meaningfully reduce the tax benefits after inversions take place” because reducing a company’s cost structure, the legally and fiscally required behavior of any company’s managers, by making use of this “unpatriotic tax loophole” is unpatriotic. I’ll ignore the fact that what’s unpatriotic here is the usurious tax rates charged American companies and the zeal with which this administration attacks American companies for worrying about their bottom line more than they worry about government imperatives in order to get to a different point. As The Wall Street Journal put it,

So now we have a President in an election year looking for a way to raise taxes on corporations after he couldn’t get Congress to agree. Has anyone asked Treasury’s career lawyers or the Office of Legal Counsel? Someone should. And when the next President arrives in 2017, one of his first acts should be to release publicly all of the OLC memos making the legal case for Mr Obama’s many illegal acts, assuming there are any.

And if there are not, the next President should release far and wide the empty file folder that would be this administration’s lack of consultation with the law or with any government lawyers.