Category Archives: defense policy

A New US-RoK Alliance?

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That’s what Michael O’Hanlon, of the Brookings Institution wants.  He thinks a continued, but greatly reduced alliance would be a useful tradeoff for northern Korea’s elimination of its nuclear weapons and nuclear weapons development program along with a reduction in its conventional military forces.  Aside from the utter naivete of the suggestion that northern Korea would reduce its conventional capability along with giving up its nuclear capability—or especially in light of that cessation—one comment at the end of his piece really illustrates the naivete of his idea.

The heavy Army brigade now in Korea might be transformed into a light brigade, better suited for peacekeeping missions.

Peacekeeping missions are wholly incapable of keeping the peace unless they’re fully capable of fighting.  Unfortunately, peacekeeping missions are incapable of fighting a serious enemy (and police forces are better suited for dealing with unserious enemies—criminals).  A light brigade on that peninsula would not be a peacekeeper, it would be a target.

Thirty Days

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That’s when NATO’s newly expanding rapid response force would be ready to act when called upon.

The alliance is planning to establish a pool of around 30,000 soldiers who could be operational within 30 days. They would be armed with several hundred fighter jets and ships, according to high ranking NATO diplomats cited by the paper [Welt am Sonntag]. The new troops would be in addition to the already established NATO Response Force (NRF), which has around 20,000 soldiers.

This would be risible if it weren’t so incompetent.  It took 36 days for Germany to overrun Poland with numerically inferior forces at the start of last century’s WWII.  It took Germany 46 days to overrun France with numerically and technologically inferior forces at the start of that war.

Russian forces may remain numerically inferior, but they’re not technologically inferior.  Beyond that, 21st century forces are much faster and strike with much greater precision and with much greater power.

A “rapid” response force that can’t be ready for 30 days likely won’t find a fight to enter.  Such a response time harks back to WWI and prior wars where mobilization occurred first and took several weeks to complete.  Today’s force-on-force war will begin with a limited mobilization at most and a running start.  And I’ve elided the likely parallel cyber attack that will be fought to the detriment of communications, even impacting the target’s sensor systems’ ability to say that an attack is underway.  That cyber attack will shorten further the response time available.

A nation or a bloc that forms a “rapid” response force that can’t be ready for 30 days isn’t taking the matter seriously.

Australian Trade with the PRC

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Australia is finding much of its exports to the People’s Republic of China piling up in PRC ports (Australian wine is the proximate subject of the WSJ piece at the link)—not because the customers no longer want them but because the PRC government objects to Australian policies designed to limit PRC meddling in Australian domestic affairs.

From that, there’s this remark by Rob Taylor, the piece’s author:

Australia faces an awkward diplomatic balancing act in trying to address concerns about political interference while relying heavily on China for its economic well-being.

Stop being dependent on the PRC for trade. It’s as dangerous to be dependent on a single trading partner as it is for a business, or a nation, to be dependent on a single product.

There are lots of other markets around the world—and throughout Asia—for Australian goods and services. It’ll be expensive for Australia to wean itself off the PRC, but the payoff will be well worth it.

Other nations doing business with the PRC should consider the same weaning. After all, what’s the value of a large potential customer base when its government uses that connection for an economic Anschluss?

The Libya Model and the NLMSM

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Much has been made of National Security Advisor John Bolton’s remark that the “Libya Model” would make a good example for handling northern Korea’s nuclear weapons and its nuclear weapons development program.  That todo is centered on what the NLMSM is pleased to describe as the “Libya Model.”  Deutsche Welle‘s characterization is typical:

…North Korea could end up like Libya, which found itself in a civil war and its leader killed after giving up its nuclear weapons.

That’s not the Libya Model; it’s a deliberate conflation of two separate events.  The Libya Model is this.  Libya under Muammar Gaddafi had been subject to economic and political sanction as a result of its complicity in a number of terrorist acts for some years.  The US’ burning Saddam Hussein’s evil government in early 2003 was the final straw: in late 2003, Gaddafi agreed to give up his nuclear weapons program, and international facilities shortly after the agreement dismantled and removed all traces of it.  Libya lived peacefully with its neighbors in the ensuing years, and the incidence of its participation in terrorist activities fell off sharply, even if Gaddafi did continue to sorely abuse his own people.

Fully eight years later, an entirely separate event occurred.  As part of the Arab Spring of 2011, the Libyan people revolted against Gaddafi’s thuggish rule, and with the active support of European air power and American refueling aircraft and ordnance resupply (the European nations quickly ran out of bombs—literally—and had to be resupplied by us; those same nations also had no air refueling tankers of their own; two examples of a level of preparation that might sound familiar today), they succeeded in overthrowing the Gaddafi regime.

These cynical misrepresentations by the NLMSM do not help in dealing with rogue gangs like northern Korea’s rulers.

Europe, EU, and Iran

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Walter Russell Mead had an op-ed in Monday’s Wall Street Journal wherein he suggested that, while Europe…is dismayed…with President Donald Trump, they still need us, as we need them.  There are, though, a couple of remarks that want response.

The Europeans should have checked the relevant clauses in the American Constitution, assessed the state of congressional sentiment, and realized that Mr Obama simply lacked the authority, political or constitutional, to commit the country permanently to such an agreement.

The Europeans knew—and know—this stuff full well. They’re just desperate for Iran’s post-JCPOA nuclear-armed missiles to fall elsewhere than Europe and hoping that their continued appeasement today might achieve that.

The Trump administration’s apparent indifference to European concerns….

Never mind that European leadership is utterly indifferent to the concerns of the US. European concerns are all that matters. Especially regarding those Iranian missiles and how much we owe Europe.