Consolidate!?

Posted on by
2

Iran’s terrorist satrap Houthis have seized a critical island in the Red Sea allowing them—and so Iran—to control traffic through the Red Sea. Matthew Continentti, who should know better, thinks the appropriate response by the Trump administration includes

bring[ing] the Saudis, Israelis, and Emiratis together to prevent the Houthis from consolidating their position.

Stern finger-wagging and harsh words by this coalition won’t accomplish anything beyond emphasizing the perception of Iran’s opponents as paper kittens.

What really needs to be done is to get Saudi Arabia and Jordan—which has as much interest in a free-sailing Red Sea as the Saudis and Emiratis—to commit their ground troops, under American air cover, to run the Houthis back off that island. That’s the only “prevent them from consolidating” that has any value.

The parallel step—not “next step” as Continetti characterizes it—is to allow[] the US military to finish its target list from Operation Epic Fury, adding if missing from that target list communications networks, transportation hubs, state institutions, and symbols of the regime.

Half measures not only don’t cut it, they run up costs in friendly treasure and blood. And that’s immoral as well as politically stupid.

Cislunar Isn’t Enough

Posted on by
Reply

Joint Chiefs of Staff General Dan Caine is advising/warning of the need for the US to be prepared to fight in the region of the moon.

At a conference at the Air and Space Forces Association, Caine said that

American troops need to prepare for combat not only in Earth’s orbit but around the moon….

And that

the US military should adapt now so it “is prepared to fight, endure, and win…from the seabed to cislunar space.

That’s good, but it doesn’t go far enough. We need to be able to fight and win on the surface of the moon, also, and we need to seize the even higher ground of the Martian surface and the volume of space around it, which includes Mars’ moons and their potential for to serve as bases and launchers.

The region around the moon must also include—and we must explicitly seize for our exclusive military use—the Lagrange points of the Earth-moon system. These points are areas well separated spatially from the moon where the gravitational forces of Earth and the moon are balanced so that objects can sit there stably without needing to expend energy to remain in place.

The Earth-moon Lagrange points include two in the moon’s orbit roughly 60 degrees in front of and behind the moon, a third just beyond the moon on the Earth-moon line, a fourth on the same line but between the moon and Earth, and a fifth on the same line but on the far side of Earth from the moon.

Those Lagrange points, as stable as they are, also are important economically since refiners and factories would be stable there.

One more item: communication lags between Earth and the moon, and especially between Earth and Mars, are such that real time, active control from Earth of our defensive systems there would be impractical. That puts a premium on active, military-tailored AI being in place to exercise tactical and immediate control over our systems there within strategic parameters transmitted to them from DoD here on the ground. That puts a premium on putting a low lid on efforts to overregulate AI innovations.

An Excellent Opportunity in the Offing

Posted on by
Reply

The Bank of England is keeping its benchmark interest rates unchanged for the time being, and it says it’s changing the way it would change the way it reduces its holdings of government bonds at a time when gilt yields have risen to multidecade highs, including pausing auctions of those bonds until next year.

The BOE is doing this in part because gilt yields are at multidecade highs. Those highs also mean that the market prices for the gilts are at multidecade lows. Which creates the opportunity.

Instead of pausing its auctions, or perhaps in conjunction with them, the BOE might take advantage of those near historic low prices and buy back a passel (to use the technical term) of the gilts, particularly those with the longest time yet remaining to maturity, and retire them.

Of course, that would have its maximum effect only if the British government were to get its fiscal house in order and cut out its addiction to spending like there’s no tomorrow, which there won’t be if the government doesn’t. That, though, is another story.

A Faux Angst

Posted on by
Reply

There is growing upset over the CDC having not yet opened its ordering process for States to order “their” supplies of Wuhan Virus vaccines for children.

It’s a falsely created upset. Leave aside the minor matter that it’s difficult to predict when the right time in the year is to administer a Covid booster shot, former CDC leaders said.

Reasonably healthy children, even sick ones with comorbidities extant, don’t need vaccine: between about six months old and pubescence, they are already immune to the virus. Before six months, their immune systems are not established, so the vaccine would do those babies no good, and it could be dangerous for them.

Here, though, is this, from Dr Demetre Daskalakis, formerly in charge of overseeing CDC’s immunization efforts:

Even if there’s a little delay, that’s creating a disparity[.]

It’s not fair. The angst has nothing to do with any actual need, only to do with equity. Some who don’t need the vaccine are getting it, so everyone who doesn’t need the vaccine should get it.

A Brief Thought on Responsibility

Posted on by
Reply

In his WSJ piece centered on who, exactly, is responsible for AI mistakes—in the present context, AI functionalities “breaking out” and hacking other businesses—the news writer had this in his otherwise well worth the read article:

When you delegate to a person, your own burden can lighten, because part of your responsibility has gone elsewhere.

No, absolutely not. Responsibility is not a physical commodity that can be subdivided at will and to any extent desired. Responsibility cannot be delegated at all. The one doing the delegating—the one in charge of the program involved—retains all of his responsibility for the program and for the performance of every subordinate involved in the program, no matter how much authority he might have delegated.

Take careful note of that. What the delegator delegates is a measure of authority to carry out or to direct the carrying out of certain actions in pursuit of pushing the program forward. He is not delegating any responsibility at all; although he is assigning a measure of responsibility commensurate with the degree of authority he’s delegating. That responsibility he assigns, though, is de novo responsibility; it is not a portion of his own responsibility.

If responsibility were dilutable through delegation as the news writer suggested, it would be possible for the initially responsible person—the one in charge, perhaps—to dilute through delegation all of his original responsibility until he has none at all remaining, regardless of the good or bad performance (or intention) of any of the delegatees in the chain. How convenient that would be for a misbehaving or incompetent delegator.

Further, by retaining that which cannot be delegated, the delegator remains fully responsible for the performance of the delegatee to whom he has granted a measure of authority.