Category Archives: defense policy

NATO and Mutual Defense Alliances

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Secretary of State Rex Tillerson was in Europe at the end of the week, and among other things, he pushed for NATO member states to honor their decades-old commitment to spend 2% of their GDP on defense.

Germany, among other members, insisted that honoring their commitment was “unrealistic.”

German Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel said demands for 2% of GDP spending were “totally unrealistic.” He said that to meet the US target, Germany would have to increase spending by some €35 billion ($37 billion).

After all, Gabriel has argued,

…a strong defense isn’t enough to ensure security.

That’s a cynically offered straw man, though; no one is arguing that a strong defense is sufficient, only that it’s necessary.  Gabriel will have to play with his dolly without me.

There are others who agree that the nations need to boost their own spending—Germany’s Chancellor Angela Merkel, for instance, and NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg.  But it isn’t sufficient.

We need to be developing a mutual defense alliance that includes eastern European nations, anyway.  Maybe the result of that development should be a separate alliance, not an expansion of NATO.  Perhaps even the result should replace NATO, or at least our role in the new alliance should replace our role in NATO, since so many of the nations of NATO have so little interest in their own treaty responsibilities.

Distractions

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Congressman Adam Schiff (D, CA), Ranking Member of the House Intelligence Committee, wants them.  He’s so anxious to have them that he’s insisting that Committee Chairman Devin Nunes (R, CA) to stop being Chairman.

Mr Nunes should step aside from any congressional investigation pertaining to Russia or to the “incidental” collection of intelligence information, like what Mr Nunes said occurred to Mr Trump’s transition team.

Mr Schiff said in a statement it was “not a recommendation I make lightly…. I believe the public cannot have the necessary confidence that matters involving the president’s campaign or transition team can be objectively investigated or overseen by the chairman.”

Never mind that his latest call was triggered by Nunes’ meeting with an official in a secure facility to review classified information regarding just that “incidental” collection against the Trump transition team by the Obama administration.

Never mind that Nunes has said through his spokesman, Jack Langer, that he

met with his source at the White House grounds in order to have proximity to a secure location where he could view the information provided by the source.

And that Langer also said,

The chairman is extremely concerned by the possible improper unmasking of names of US citizens, and he began looking into this issue even before President Trump tweeted his assertion that Trump Tower had been wiretapped.

Why does Schiff keep trying to shift the subject away from that unmasking—and who authorized it, who did it, who leaked it—which unmasking is a felony, to focus solely on the method used to look at some information?

Why does Schiff want so badly to bury those questions and their answers?

A Plan for Rigorous Enforcement

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Mark Dubowitz, Chief Eecutive of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies,  writing in The Wall Street Journal, had some thoughts regarding strict enforcement of the Iran nuclear weapons agreement and some thoughts on an alternative path for dealing with Iran and its nuclear weapons.  I’m focusing on the latter.

First, Mr Trump must address the Iranian threat the way Ronald Reagan treated the Soviet one. … The Trump NSC needs a similar plan, one that uses both covert and overt economic, financial, political, diplomatic, cyber, and military power to subvert and roll back the Iranian threat.

Second, the Trump administration, with an assist from Congress, needs to reinvigorate the sanctions regime aimed at Iran’s support for terrorism, ballistic-missile development, human-rights abuses, war crimes, and destabilizing activities in the Middle East.

The Trump administration also needs to put Iran on notice that the US will use force to counter Iranian aggression. Sanctions without the credible threat of military action will always be insufficient to change the regime’s calculus.

With regard to that last, “notice” by itself is just talk.  President Donald Trump will need to act, as well—having the Navy sink Iran’s fast boats that charge in provocatively and too close or other Iranian naval shipping that fire live weapons from too close will be necessary to give force to the rhetoric as well as to the sanctions.

My questions are these.  Do the Republicans in Congress have the stomach for this?  Do the Democrats in Congress have the integrity?

Inadvertent Tapping and Leaks

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As House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes (R, CA) revealed the other day enroute to the White House, intelligence community personnel, in the course of surveilling the communications and other activities of foreign nationals (vis., Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak), also surveilled incidentally members of then-President-Elect Donald Trump’s campaign and transition teams, and perhaps Trump himself.  Wire tapping, indeed, if loosely and metaphorically.

Of larger import, though, is this, also from Nunes.

…the intelligence “ended up in reporting channels and was widely disseminated.”

It was previously reported that former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn was “unmasked” in this way; however, Nunes said “additional names” were unmasked as well.

Why was this classified material leaked to the press, and who leaked it?

Of nearly as large importance, too, is this: why is the NLMSM focusing on the admittedly unusual procedure of briefing the press, the President, and then the Intelligence Committee, in that order, instead of focusing on this cynical leak of classified information?

Well, It’s About Time, Ollie

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Secretary of State Rex Tillerson has spoken up in a way contrary to his predecessors regarding our policy—our very attitude—toward northern Korea.

Let me be very clear: the policy of strategic patience has ended[.]

That’s not just on Hillary Clinton and John Kerry, though.  Our various administrations have tried for 20 years, or more, the idea of talking, cajoling, bribing (to the tune of $1.35 billion in “aid”) northern Korea’s various Kim dictators.  Baby Kim, in glad response, has only accelerated his drive for sticking nuclear warheads on ballistic missiles (he already has the warheads and the missiles).

Talking is nearly always a better first step than shooting, and we tried that.  Now, though, it’s become time—it’s way past time—to do something else, to stop repeating Einsteinian insanity.

Among the somethings else is taking a harder line vis-à-vis the People’s Republic of China.

Mr Tillerson noted that China has been punishing South Korea economically because Seoul is deploying America’s THAAD missile-defense system. “This is not the way for a regional power to help resolve what is a serious threat to everyone,” he said, referring to China. “We instead urge China to address the threat that makes THAAD necessary.”

(It’ll be interesting, too, to see the PRC’s reaction to being called a regional power rather than the global one to which the Warring State is aspiring.)

Other somethings else include increasing further the missile and other defense capabilities of the Republic of Korea, Japan, us, and other friendly and allied nations in the region or with interests in it and the relatively explicit possibility of military strikes ranging from shooting down northern Korean missile launches, whether test or otherwise, to striking northern Korea’s missile launch facilities, nuclear facilities, and long-range artillery facilities that might be used to try to retaliate against Seoul.

Other somethings else include more direct action against the PRC and its interests: barring PRC business enterprises that do business with or in northern Korea from the US financial system.