Category Archives: defense policy

Land Swapping

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President Donald Trump (R) is upset with Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy over the latter’s pointing out that he cannot, under the Ukrainian constitution, agree to any land swap with Russia, as a condition to a ceasefire or for any other reason.

On this matter, though, Trump is badly mistaken on two grounds. The first is that Zelenskyy must follow his nation’s most basic law (as well as all of its legislatively generated laws), and that forbids him from agreeing any land swap.

The other ground is at least as big an obstacle. Russia is not offering any land to swap for Ukrainian land. The barbarian is only offering—and only may be offering here—to swap some barbarian occupied land in return for being allowed to retain other barbarian occupied land. This is akin to the burglar offering to return some of the jewelry and other valuables he stole if, in return, he’s allowed to keep the rest of the jewelry and valuables he stole.

Trump should know better than this.

He’s anxious to force this deal, though, because he’s chary of all the killing that’s going on in the barbarian’s war, and he wants it to stop. Trump needs, however, to recognize that he’s dealing with a barbarian chieftain, not a civilized leader of a civilized polity. The killing won’t stop in the wake of this sort of sham deal.

The fastest way—if only because it’s the only way—for the killing to stop is for Ukraine to win this war outright and decisively, the only way that can happen is for Ukraine to succeed in driving the barbarian wholly and completely back out of Ukraine, and the only way that can happen—and it’s virtually guaranteed to happen if this criterion is met—is for the US, which is to say Trump, to stop slow-walking and instead to transfer arms and logistics of the kind the Ukrainian military say they need, in the amounts and at the pace they need them and without limits on targeting, to Ukraine. Additionally, Europe (with or without pressure from Trump to do so) needs to execute the same arms and logistics support.

The faster Ukraine wins this war, the faster the killing about which Trump is so worried will end.

Sophie’s Choice, Is It?

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That’s the choice with which Ukraine is faced, at least according to Jillian Kay Melchior in her Wall Street Journal editorial. She summarized her view of the matter near the end of her piece.

That’s the temptation Ukraine faces as it considers sacrificing some territories ostensibly to save others. Many Ukrainians have loved ones in occupied regions, notes Yulia Marushevska, a Defense Ministry official: “Giving it up is not giving it up to keep it quiet there. It’s giving them up for destruction. It’s giving up your friend or brother.”

But that’s not the choice Ukraine presently faces. As the Russian state-owned and run outlet, RIA Novosti, put it in a headline as recently as 30 July,

There is no other option: no one should remain alive in Ukraine[.]

(It would help if Melchior had actually read the article in the original Russian or as translated into English. The headline she so carefully singled out is the outlet’s sarcastic summarization of its distortionate view of Ukrainian and Western persistence: Ukrainians must fight to the last soul. The article, though, does tout the Russian intent on encouraging that outcome if it’s what’s necessary for the barbarian to occupy the terrain.)

Nor is the article just editorial hype. The barbarian is bent on extermination of Ukraine as a polity and as a culture.

  • Putin is working to “eliminate Ukraine as a language and ethnicity, as an identity and culture, and as an independent state”
  • in the Kyiv suburbs of Bucha and Irpin, retreating Russians left behind mass graves and civilian bodies bearing signs of torture, sexual violence and summary executions
  • Ukrainian authorities say they have information about nearly 20,000 cases in which Ukrainian children have been kidnapped to Russia

There is no Sophie’s choice for Ukraine here. Sophie had a choice: pick one of two children for the Nazis to murder. Ukraine has only national and cultural suicide on offer from the barbarian. Not some fraction of the nation to be murdered, but all of it.

It is the West—the Trump administration and Europe’s NATO member nations—which are faced with Sophie’s choice: pick one of several (so far, only Eastern European) nations for the Russian barbarian to murder in exchange for a phantom peace that would be nothing more than a small period of relative quietude.

There is, though, an actual choice. This one begins with changing the rhetoric from “Ukraine must be helped to fight on” and the more recent “cease fire right damn now” to “Ukraine must win.” That must be supported by overt and rapid transfers of arms and logistic support to Ukraine in the numbers and types the UA—with its superior and more current battlefield experience—says it needs and at the pace it says it needs them. Further, those transfers must come with no restrictions on the types and locations of targets against which the UA might employ them.

“Collective Defense Guarantee”

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That’s the hype in a Fox News article centered on Russia’s flying armed drones through NATO member Lithuania’s airspace.

In recent days, drones launched from the Russian-aligned state of Belarus have pierced Lithuanian airspace, drawing alarms from the region’s political and military leaders. One drone traversed approximately 100 kilometers, loitered ominously over Vilnius carrying two kilograms of explosives and ultimately crashed inside a military training zone. Earlier in July, another drone forced the evacuation of high-level officials when it crashed near the Šumskas border crossing.

Lithuania’s Defense Minister, Dovilė Šakalienė, has responded [paraphrased by Fox News].

while stressing that there is no evidence suggesting the latest drone breached intentionally, said “this is an unprecedented and alarming incident,” especially given that the drone flew just one kilometer from the president’s residence.
Describing the behavior as “reckless drone incursions,” she warned they amount to “a direct test of NATO’s resolve.” In response, Lithuania has pledged to review its defensive protocols and urged NATO to bolster its air defenses as a clear message that the alliance stands ready to safeguard every inch of its territory.

And this, from an outside “expert:”

Andrew D’Anieri, associate director of the Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Center, told Fox News Digital that while it isn’t crystal clear whether Putin is openly testing Article 5, his apparent lack of caution about these actions is telling.
“The kind of alarming thing is, we haven’t seen any real response from NATO to any of these,” D’Anieri said.

Here’s the text of Article 5 of the NATO treaty [emphasis added]:

The Parties agree that an armed attack against one or more of them in Europe or North America shall be considered an attack against them all and consequently they agree that, if such an armed attack occurs, each of them, in exercise of the right of individual or collective self-defence recognized by Article 51 of the Charter of the United Nations, will assist the Party or Parties so attacked by taking forthwith, individually and in concert with the other Parties, such action as it deems necessary, including the use of armed force, to restore and maintain the security of the North Atlantic area.
Any such armed attack and all measures taken as a result thereof shall immediately be reported to the Security Council. Such measures shall be terminated when the Security Council has taken the measures necessary to restore and maintain international peace and security.

Bruno Kahl, Germany’s chief spy…cautioned that Russia’s growing employment of hybrid tactics—ranging from sabotage and cyberattacks to disinformation—raises the likelihood that NATO may ultimately feel compelled to invoke Article 5.

For good or ill (I suggest for ill), Lithuania’s and other member nations’ responses meet the letter of that mutual defense requirement and that nothing, of necessity, would change were Article 5 formally invoked.

A mutual, collective defense arrangement is crucial for defending against invasions or other attacks, but such arrangements are practically executable only when what’s included in “collective self-defense” is understood rather than distorted. Beyond this simple thing, only when what’s included is clearly understood can necessary improvements—which Article 5 so desperately needs—be made.

In furtherance of that last, here is Article 3:

In order more effectively to achieve the objectives of this Treaty, the Parties, separately and jointly, by means of continuous and effective self-help and mutual aid, will maintain and develop their individual and collective capacity to resist armed attack.

This Article is dishonored—other member nations betrayed—by nearly a third of the current member nations as those deplorables steadfastly refuse to fund their own defense establishments much less honor their commitments to fund NATO directly to a percentage of their GDPs.

Article 12 organically provides for review of the treaty’s functioning:

After the Treaty has been in force for ten years, or at any time thereafter, the Parties shall, if any of them so requests, consult together for the purpose of reviewing the Treaty, having regard for the factors then affecting peace and security in the North Atlantic area, including the development of universal as well as regional arrangements under the Charter of the United Nations for the maintenance of international peace and security.

If such a review is not carried out in any serious manner (see the shortcomings above), then it’s time for serious nations to leave NATO (as Article 13 provides, or without it) and form a new, actually serious mutual defense arrangement.

I Have another Question

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FBI Director Kash Patel has uncovered burn bags/room filled with hidden Russia Gate files, including the Durham annex.

Regardless of the current disposition of those bags’ contents (Patel is declassifying them and intends to release them), my question is this: what level of negligence has it been that those burn bags have not been burned and still exist after all these years?

While it’s presently convenient that those burn bags remain unburned so their contents can be released after suitable (limited) redacting, the negligence is a threat to our nation’s security. The individuals responsible for that security negligence need to be identified and fired for cause.

The Peel is Double-Sided

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President Donald Trump (R) seems to be looking to peel the People’s Republic of China away from supporting Russia in the barbarian’s war on Ukraine.

[Trump] has also come to believe that the key to putting more pressure on Russia is to peel China away from its economic and other support for Moscow.
We hear that was part of the message that Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent brought to Sweden this week. Mr Trump wants the big trade deal with China that eluded him in the first term. But Mr Bessent is pitching a larger detente if President Xi Jinping is willing to stop supporting Mr Putin’s war.

This is against the backdrop of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s and PRC President Xi Xinping’s declaration of their no limits partnership and unbreakable friendship, their trade deal that lets the PRC develop—with PRC laborers and their families—Siberian resources and import into the PRC a significant fraction of those resources, and the PRC’s current large purchases of Russia’s existing oil and natural gas production and the PRC’s shipment to Russia of arms and logistical support for those arms.

Stipulate Trump succeeds in separating, at least somewhat, the PRC from Russia, in getting Xi to walk back, or just to water down, his commitments to Putin. With that demonstration of Xi’s reliability, for how long does Trump, or any of us, think Xi would maintain any commitment to us, or even simply to maintain any damping down of his support for Putin or the barbarian’s war effort? Long enough for Ukraine to succeed in driving Russia back out would be sufficient, but that can’t be relied on.

The effort (and, potentially, the ensuing success) may well be worth the risk, but that risk needs to be well understood before the effort goes too far. That’s especially so regarding these risks:

[Xi’s] abiding goal is to bring Taiwan under Mainland control, and his military is practicing maneuvers that would be part of an attempted blockade of the island. Would Mr Trump be willing to weaken US support for Taiwan?

The Wall Street Journal‘s editors cast Trump’s effort as a potential Nixonian move, a potential (re)opening of the PRC. While Nixon’s move seemed like a good idea at the time, though, in retrospect, it was a huge and expensive (along a number of dimensions) mistake.