Category Archives: defense policy

Walls and Negotiation

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Last Friday, President Donald Trump hosted House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D, CA), Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D, NY), House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R, CA), Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R, KY), and a few others for another round of attempted negotiation over the border wall we so badly need.

The outcome?  Pelosi and Schumer continued their refusal to negotiate at all.  They demanded the government’s partial shutdown be ended before they’ll say a word about funding for a wall.  Never mind that, as they’ve made clear since last month, that word, their only word, is “No,” anyway.

Trump may be responsible for the partial shutdown’s initiation (that’s arguable, though, given Pelosi’s and Schumer’s opening position, even before Trump said he’d officially take the fall), but it’s plain that Pelosi and Schumer are responsible for keeping the partial shutdown going—they’re the ones refusing even to discuss funding for a wall, much less negotiate the matter.  This is the same pair that voted for a wall under both Clinton and Obama, and this is the same pair that supported $25 billion for a wall in return for protections not for just 800 thousand DACA persons, but for those 800 thousand DACAs plus a million more who are similarly situated, just a bit over a year ago.  Until Schumer welched on the deal.

Just after that meeting, we had this spectacle: on Fox News‘ Outnumbered Overtime program Progressive-Democratic strategist and ex-Hillary Clinton campaign advisor Antjuan Seawright disparaged Trump’s “shutdown” over his keeping a campaign promise (scroll ahead to about 2:48).

How is it possible to negotiate with those who refuse to negotiate?  How is it possible to negotiate with those who consider promises to be empty words?  Even were the former overcome, no agreement with Progressive-Democrats could be trusted—their agreement is only too likely to be just another ploy.

Has Jeff Flake Relocated to Utah?

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After Mitt Romney’s unprovoked tirade in his New Year’s Day op-ed in The Washington Post—before he even was sworn in as the Republican Senator from Utah—I have to ask.

The Trump presidency made a deep descent in December.

It’s downhill from there.  America is divided and getting more so—and that’s President Donald’s fault, not at all the Progressive-Democrats’.  It was the Progressive-Democrats that tried to assassinate with smear a Supreme Court nominee.  It’s Progressive-Democrats that daily dismiss those who disagree with them as ignorant, racist, misogynists.  It’s Progressive-Democrats who want to abolish ICE, hamstring CBP, and functionally eliminate our nation’s borders by demanding they be entirely open.  It’s Progressive-Democrats who move to protect illegal aliens, even at the cost of murdered cops, American citizens, and the expansion of our drug abuse epidemic, while declining to protect those same cops and citizens with the same energy.

But divisiveness only comes from one side.

It’s early in Romney’s Senate term, but he’s not off to a promising start.  Except, perhaps in the eyes of his BFF.

Of Course They Can

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President Xi Jinping of the People’s Republic of China increased pressure on the Republic of China to surrender and be “unified” with the PRC.

Mr Xi said differences in political systems can’t be used as an excuse to resist unification.

Of course they can. Those differences are what makes the two nations separate from each other.  Never mind that the two have been independent of each other ever since the mainland under Mao Tse-tung won then-China’s civil war and drove the Kuomintang off the mainland onto the island of Taiwan, with Mao then creating the PRC.  The reason for the civil war was precisely those differences, differences over which the Communists were willing to kill those who opposed them.

Xi went on.

He promised Taiwanese people a peaceful and prosperous future with the mainland….

Right.  Just ask the folks on Hong Kong, who were the victims of the same promise and who now see their freedoms eroded and in many cases outright eliminated.  They’re not even allowed to elect their own political leaders; they must choose from a list the Communist Party of China provides them.

Xi’s word is worthless, and the citizens of the RoC, along with their government, know that full well.  RoC President Tsai Ing-wen: Xi’s

framework would place the island under China’s rule with limited autonomy, as has been done in Hong Kong.
…
“Taiwan will never accept ‘one country, two systems,'” Ms Tsai said. “The vast majority of Taiwanese public opinion also firmly opposes ‘one country, two systems.'”
…
“China must face the reality of the existence of the Republic of China, Taiwan,” she said…. She said [that] Beijing must “not reject the democratic system that the Taiwanese people have built.”

We need to stand loudly, overtly, and practically with the RoC.  We need to increase naval patrols of the Taiwan Strait, set up a naval basing right agreement for Kaohsiung City along with an Air Force basing agreement for Ching Chuan Kang and Tainan Air Bases.  We need to increase sales of modern air and naval weapons systems to the RoC.  We need to increase our trade ties with the nation, and we need to more actively support it diplomatically.

That’s just a start.

Brexit and a Pan-European Military Establishment

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Recall the year-old EU effort with PESCO (the EU’s carefully euphemistically named Permanent Structured Cooperation), the bloc’s effort to form an EU army that would represent and act in the (sovereign) name of the European Union in defending Europe from outside incursions.  Oh, and be less dependent on us and our nuclear umbrella, our treasure, and our blood for their defense.

We’re seeing yet another example of the too-broad effort to unite all of Europe under one political flag, as this PESCO effort continues to lag.  More importantly, we’re seeing the cost to the EU of Brexit.  As Handelsblatt Today observed, the current situation is one of military failure:

The German Council on Foreign Relations (Deutsche Gesellschaft für Auswärtige Politik, DGAP) and the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) recently reported that the EU at best has only a third of the resources needed for its ambitions to intervene in armed conflicts in Europe or neighboring regions, provide humanitarian aid in catastrophes, help in rebuilding programs, and to free hostages and evacuate civilians.
The EU does not have enough ships, planes, aircraft carriers, or even reconnaissance equipment to accomplish these goals, especially after the UK leaves the EU.

Notice that last.  Aside from the minor detail that the Brits will take with them half the EU’s carrier complement (France has the other one), they’re taking with them manpower, equipment, a serious (by European standards) defense budget, and a strong innovative capacity.

Prime Minister Theresa May is badly missing another strong bet in her series of missed bets as she “negotiates” Great Britain’s departure from the EU.

Afghanistan and A World’s Policeman

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The US currently supplies 14,000 of the 16,000 foreign soldiers in Afghanistan trying to shore up the government and rid the nation of Taliban, al Qaeda, and Daesh terrorists.  President Donald Trump is thinking about cutting our contingent in half over the coming year.  Trump’s rationale is that we shouldn’t continue to be the world’s policeman—unless and until other nations start picking up some of the costs of that role (or, in Trump’s terms, pay us something).

Germany objects.

I disagree with Trump on the world’s cop bit; there is a great deal of national security flowing from our being the cop on the beat rather than one or more of our enemies (as Russia already is demonstrating in Europe, the People’s Republic of China throughout Asia and associated Seas, Iran in the Middle East), regardless of the cost, even if all of that is borne by us.

Germany’s hypocrisy is instructive.  As is Deutsche Welle‘s careful omission of that “unless and until” continuation of Trump’s statement on being world policeman.

Germany has a contingent in Afghanistan, too—in a support role.  It’s a highly useful support role, but Germany demands its soldiers—soldiers!—be protected from risk by our soldiers.  Consequently, if we reduce our presence, Germany may well withdraw altogether.

And:

Norbert Röttgen, chairman of the German parliament’s foreign policy committee, expressed his concern at the development on Thursday. The US was “irreplaceable” as power for maintaining world order, he told public broadcaster ARD.
By withdrawing from this role, the US would make the world “less safe, more unstable, and more egotistical,” he added, before dismissing the term “world policeman” as outdated. “This is much more about world order, stability, balance, and diplomacy[.]”

Yet Germany declined to play any serious role in an order and stability exercise in Iraq.  Germany demands to play only that minor role in the order and stability exercise in Afghanistan.  Germany and most of the rest of European NATO, for decades, has been freeloading off American weal and soldiers for protection from Russia, not even keeping their own voluntarily entered into promise to commit 2% of their national GDPs to supporting NATO with soldiers and equipment—until publicly shamed into it over the last couple of years.  And even now, the majority of those nations continue to refuse even to try to honor their word.

The US [is] “irreplaceable” as power for maintaining world order[.]

But expose their troops to actual danger, even only in support?  Nah—you Americans do that.  We’ll hold your coats.

This Sallah-ian attitude—this timidity—makes it difficult, indeed, to sell the need for us to continue as world policeman (because I choose not to hide behind Röttgen’s meekly wordy euphemism) to our domestic audience—the very folks who are abandoned left to pay the cost in blood and treasure.