Category Archives: foreign policy

A Small Quibble…

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…within a larger problem. In the WSJ‘s Tuesday house editorial regarding President Donald Trump’s (R) quest for a grand bargain creating a global triumvirate (the editors’ term, but it’s apt), the editors had this characterization of Trump’s “Yalta 2” goal:

The Yalta analogy isn’t entirely apt since Stalin and Churchill were US allies in 1945.

That’s only half right, and that’s my small quibble. Stalin was by no means a US ally in 1945 or at any other time. The US and the USSR were on the same side in that war; the USSR was a co-belligerent of convenience, only for the duration.

The larger problem is that Trump wants to divvy up the world with our two most dangerous enemies, one of which badly regrets as a global catastrophe the collapse of the USSR late last century and is currently pushing at gunpoint his western border further into Europe while expanding his “gray zone”—a very dark shade of gray—conflict with the rest of Europe even as he kidnaps journalists that write things he doesn’t like, and the other of which has publicly and repeatedly stated its overriding goal of replacing us as a serious player around the world (which is tantamount to saying take functional control of our foreign policy and of our economy) and has a long-standing law requiring each business domiciled within it to conduct any espionage its intelligence community requires of it.

This is a meeting that should never take place. As the editors put it,

A new triumvirate that divided the world into spheres of influence would blow up America’s global credibility as a reliable ally.

Worse than that, it would badly weaken the US itself, making us vulnerable to defeat politically, even kinetically, in any conflict with either of these two nuclear powers, one of which is extremely powerful cybernetically, already holds the trump cards in rare earths, and currently has a first strike capability.

A Slick Idea in the Oil Trade

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Miad Maleki, of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies has one.

The US has imposed sanctions on some 160 shadow fleet oil tankers, 70% of which are relatively young as tankers go: less than 20 years old.

[T]he administration was reportedly considering easing sanctions on shadow-fleet vessels and allowing them to carry oil not subject to sanctions in an effort to bring down record high freight rates. Those discussions, a US official told Reuters, include the possibility of lifting sanctions on tankers “on an individual basis” so they can change hands.

Maleki’s idea is a tightening of this:

Washington should create incentives for US-aligned operators to buy ships out of Iran’s black market and put them to legitimate use in the Strait of Hormuz.

That legitimate use would be shuttling crude from within the Arabian Gulf through the Strait of Hormuz into the Gulf of Oman, there to be transferred to waiting tankers for shipping forward to the oil’s final destinations.

Even just lifting the tanker sanctions on a case by case basis to facilitate each tanker’s sale to a legitimate buyer would be a very good move, but doing so to facilitate an American buyer’s purchase would make a good move much better, easing as it should, the shortage of American tankers.

And this, a bit of well-deserved schadenfreude:

Washington should open a gate and let the [Iranian] regime watch its fleet work for someone else.

Another Mistaken Response

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This one from NATO’s military boss, General Alexus Grynkewich. In responding to the Russian threat to Europe, he made this remark:

NATO could “match any enemy move up the escalation ladder….”

What about, instead, getting out in front (get higher, to stick to the metaphor) in the escalation sequence and by being in front—escalating farther and faster than Russia can respond—block any further escalatory efforts by Russia’s President Vladimir Putin? Surely American military leadership learned the blood-soaked folly of tit-for-tat reactive moves, which only extend the conflict and greatly increase the friendly casualty butcher’s bill.

He had this, too:

Grynkewich laid out a “block, blunt, and break” strategy for defeating an invading force. The alliance’s superior data and sensing ability means Mr Putin wouldn’t have the luxury of surprising the West.

This is incredibly naïve for so senior a military officer. I was stationed in West Germany at the height of the Cold War, and one of things that we worried about and tried to train against was the ability of Spetznatz to infiltrate and lie low until the USSR decided to come over the fence. At that point, those infiltrated and secreted agents and small teams—4-5 agents—would act to sabotage key communications and radar nodes, interfere with Army crashout ops, blow or at least damage key bridges, and so on.

Today, the ability of Russia’s modern-day and evolved Special Operations units to infiltrate and secrete extends much farther than human agents. It includes smuggled-in and hidden until The Day drones (of which Ukraine has already demonstrated the catastrophic consequences) and malware inserted into key communications nodes and fuel, water, and electricity distribution infrastructure chokepoints not doing anything until activated on The Day.

Russia already is collecting a plethora of intelligence with its campaign of drone incursions and cyberattacks, which, far from being intimidation or warning moves, are in their essence reconnaissance probes.

Cowardice of Euphemisms

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Last Saturday, Houthi terrorists fired missiles at King Khalid International Airport in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, killing 12 and injuring more than 300. The terrorists then repeated their claim that humanitarian flights to and from Riyadh would be permitted only with their prior authorization.

Almost as perfidious, though, are the reactions of Canada and Ireland.

Canada said military activity there had disrupted flights. Ireland’s embassy called it a serious incident.

Terrorist actions are not “military activity,” nor are they “serious incidents.” They’re terrorist actions, and nothing else.

As long as these two governments cannot bring themselves to name a terrorist activity for what it is—or worse, if they cannot recognize a terrorist activity when it occurs—these two governments cannot be trusted with anything.

Full stop.

Bombers and RAF Fairfield

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Our B-1s and B-52s have been redeployed Stateside (cynics might term the transfer a retrograde movement, but they’d be overstating the case) from RAF Fairford after the recent intercepted terrorist attack attempt.

My own not very humble take on that is this. Fairford has no bunkers for protecting aircraft based there; the aircraft are just parked out in the open for anyone with a long gun to take potshots at should the notion strike. The UK government’s apparent disdain for restraining terrorist wannabes—the terrorists were out on bail within hours of their arrests—emphasizes that exposure. Our bombers had no business being there for any reason other than a maintenance problem that prevented an individual bomber from reaching a serious air base.

Diego Garcia, on the other hand, is the same distance from Tehran as is Fairford. It has the same lack of bunkers, but it’s much harder for terrorists to approach.

Deployment to Diego Garcia has an additional benefit: getting there, and back at the end of a deployment, enables a number of aerial refueling squares to be filled.