Category Archives: defense policy

Obama-Iran Axis

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It sort of makes any Trump-Russia connection look awfully tenuous.  Politico has a long report out on what actually transpired during Obama’s “negotiation” of the Iran nuclear weapons deal, particularly with regard to the seven folks in American detention whom Obama released to Iran as a deal sweetener.

A couple of highlights (read the whole thing; it’s important):

In reality, some of them were accused by Obama’s own Justice Department of posing threats to national security. Three allegedly were part of an illegal procurement network supplying Iran with US-made microelectronics with applications in surface-to-air and cruise missiles like the kind Tehran test-fired recently, prompting a still-escalating exchange of threats with the Trump administration. Another was serving an eight-year sentence for conspiring to supply Iran with satellite technology and hardware.

And

[I]n a series of unpublicized court filings, the Justice Department dropped charges and international arrest warrants against 14 other men, all of them fugitives.

And

Three of the fugitives allegedly sought to lease Boeing aircraft for an Iranian airline that authorities say had supported Hezbollah, the US-designated terrorist organization.

As a probably unrelated aside, recall that Boeing has just concluded a deal to sell 100 passenger aircraft to “an Iranian airline.”

And this:

The biggest fish, though, was Seyed Abolfazl Shahab Jamili, who had been charged with being part of a conspiracy that from 2005 to 2012 procured thousands of parts with nuclear applications for Iran via China.

Even regarding others we were on the verge of capturing or were tracking, Obama got in the way so he could have his deal.

…Justice and State Department officials denied or delayed requests from prosecutors and agents to lure some key Iranian fugitives to friendly countries so they could be arrested. Similarly, Justice and State, at times in consultation with the White House, slowed down efforts to extradite some suspects already in custody overseas, according to current and former officials and others involved in the counterproliferation effort.

And as far back as the fall of 2014, Obama administration officials began slow-walking some significant investigations and prosecutions of Iranian procurement networks operating in the US

This is the sort of thing then-President Barack Obama (D) was covering up in his rush to get a deal—any deal—with Iran concerning the Iranian nuclear weapons program.

And not a peep about this out of the current Democrats in Congress.

Again, RTWT.

Timidity Is

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…as timidity does.  The Japan Times has it, too, as demonstrated in its editorial last Wednesday.  The editorial board is worried about Japan actually achieving an ability to defend proactively itself.  The board’s concern was triggered [sic] by a Liberal Democratic Party proposal that

Japan consider developing the ability to strike enemy missile bases.  …a response to North Korea’s repeated ballistic missile launches….

The board fretted that

an attempt by Japan to build up the capability to attack enemy bases could result in destabilizing the region’s security environment by giving an imagined enemy an excuse to carry out pre-emptive strikes on our country.

Never mind that the region’s security environment already is at risk from Japan’s current inability strike (back) at an “imagined” enemy who attacks (including a Japanese ally?  That’s the implication of the Times board’s term); Japan can only to receive such a strike, potentially without post hoc answer.

The editorialists did raise a legitimate Constitutional question on the matter:

In 1959, defense chief Shigejiro Ito stated that possessing offensive weapons on the grounds of potential danger of enemy attack as mentioned by Hatoyama runs counter to the Constitution.

However, Ito misunderstood the Japanese Constitution and the duty of any nation’s government.  No government may, legitimately, surrender its people, the government’s master, into slavery or destruction; government must mount the means to defend itself.  With today’s technologies, that of necessity includes the obligation (not merely the right) to act preemptively if the situation demands it.

Preemptive defensive actions thus still defensive actions, and so they are well within the bounds of Japan’s Constitutional limits on military activity.

The Times‘ board went on:

To equip the Self-Defense Forces with the ability to pound enemy bases would require advanced technologies and equipment…. Possessing these kinds of technologies and equipment could go beyond the principle of defense-only security that the nation has adopted under the postwar Constitution.

Aside from the board’s lack of understanding of the nature of self-defense and the government’s obligation to be able to act preemptively, there’s the question of the board’s limiting principle here.  Would, for instance, concluding a treaty with another nation that obligates that nation to defend (and so to conduct preemptive actions for the sake of) Japan be a close enough possession of such technologies to violate the Japanese Constitution?  Would concluding a treaty with another nation for that nation to use its technologies to advise Japan and guide Japanese systems to the enemy bases be a close enough possession of such technologies to violate the Constitution?  In both cases, after all, Japan would deliberately be making use of these apparently proscribed technologies, if only indirectly.

And:

Japan’s attempt to obtain capabilities to strike enemy bases could be reciprocated by potential enemies, including North Korea, potentially leading to an arms race between the two countries.

Stipulated.  Is that better or worse, though, than Japan leaving itself exposed to the enemy’s initiative and the enemy’s possibly nuclear initial attack?  Does the board think Japan could survive a nuclear attack, much less answer it successfully?

Does the board think northern Korea (for instance) can maintain such an arms race for a longer time than Japan before it must leave off?

The Times‘ position is just the potential hostage preemptively surrendering itself into hostage status.

And it’s shameful.

A Misunderstanding

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…between the roles of State and Defense and how those roles should be carried out.  The misunderstanding is illustrated in (though it’s not the primary subject of) a Friday Wall Street Journal piece by Dion Nissenbaum and Maria Abi-Habib.

President Donald Trump is (very properly) backing away from a Lyndon Johnson- or Barack Obama-esque micromanagement of what the military is permitted to do, including target selection, timing of engagement, and weapons permitted to be used on those targets.  Instead, he’s encouraging DoD to have its commanders on-scene to exercise more initiative, with less mother-may-I delay waiting for permission from the White House (and notice that use of the chain of command from the top down, too).   From that, as illustrated by General John Nicholson’s decision to drop a MOAB on his own initiative on a Daesh network of tunnels and caves in eastern Afghanistan near the Pakistani border, we’re seeing a more aggressive military with more timely activities.

This has led to the misunderstanding.

The firmer military stance has fueled growing concerns among State Department officials working on Middle East policy that the Trump administration is giving short shrift to the diplomatic tools the Obama administration favored. Removing the carrot from the traditional carrot-and-stick approach, some State Department officials warn, could hamper the pursuit of long-term strategies needed to prevent volatile conflicts from reigniting once the shooting stops.

No, he’s not.  What’s being given short shrift is diplomatic dithering.  There’s not just a new sheriff in town, there’s a new pace in town, too: State Department officials working on Middle East policy—along with the rest of State below Secretary Rex Tillerson’s immediate staff—need to push their own pace, too.  A faster diplomatic pace isn’t just a matter of keeping up with the military; State still should lead, for the most part, and the military still should follow State’s lead, for the most part.  There is, though, no need for the slow pace they’ve been accepting.  Our diplomats need to push the pace—they always have needed to do so, even if they’ve not—and put the onus on other nations to respond, to keep up.  Especially regarding our enemies and those nations that support our enemies or host nodes of terrorist network entities like the Daesh or al Qaeda.

Nor has any carrot been removed from the traditional, yet useful, carrot-and-stick technique of pushing, prodding, cajoling, pressuring.  The carrots have merely been pushed farther forward in time: no more slowness.

Contra those State officials, all that has changed are two items: on-scene commanders are being restored to their jobs and initiative (which is not a matter about which State need concern itself), and the pace of development is being accelerated.  The speed of diplomacy should no longer be a good approximation of glacial.

Potemkin Missiles?

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The Yonhap News/Zuma Press image, below, appears to be a new ICBM, and apparently a transportable one, shown in a military parade in Pyongyang, northern Korea, last Saturday.

Also paraded were missile launchers with “never-before-seen missile canisters” (imagery not provided in the Wall Street Journal article at the link).

“Never before seen” and “new.”  Are these truly so, or are they only new to the NLMSM and haven’t actually been successfully concealed from the world’s intelligence services?

Or: are these real weapons, or are they just shams, empty containers?  Inquiring minds want to know.

Hot Air and a Strong United States

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Recall the Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte was going to heavily reinforce “all ocean features controlled by Manila” and plant the Philippine flag on them.

Now, it turns out that the People’s Republic of China has instructed its newest client state not to do so, and Duterte has obeyed.  He’s withdrawn his “threat”

because he values Chinese friendship.

PRC Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang:

Beijing is “happy to see the Philippine side working more closely with the Chinese side.”

Duterte’s strong words having been exposed as so much hot air clearly demonstrates the need for a revitalized and strong American presence everywhere in the South—and East—China Seas.