Tag Archives: defense policy

Wrong Answer, Right Answer

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The US took more serious damage to Naval Support Activity Bahrain, one of CENTCOM’s naval control nodes in the Middle East, than was previously acknowledged. In response, DoD is considering a number of moves, two of which are the following.

…revamping the base in Bahrain, reducing the US presence in Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, and moving some bases or base functions west, farther from the reach of Iranian missiles and drones….

Withdrawing—retreating—is absolutely the wrong answer. That just contributes to the sense of the terrorists running Iran that they’re winning this conflict, encourages them to continue their violations of the (mistakenly done IMO) MOU, and at least as bad, to a mindset of backing up and defeat in our own military and our politicians—too many of whom already are begging for some sort of surrender.

Alternatively,

Command and control nodes could be moved underground. And military capabilities could become more spread out across the region, the officials said, though they cautioned that no decisions had been made.

This is closer to the right answer. Don’t retreat, never retreat, especially in the face of terrorists. Disperse and decentralize our assets.

And I add: plus up the defense facilities for these establishments, and increase significantly the amount of combat forces and weapons systems in the region.

It is never appropriate to signal withdrawal when our enemies attack. It’s always appropriate to counterattack, do so more powerfully than the attack, and to improve defensive systems.

Don’t Sell F-35s to Turkey because…

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…Turkey still has Russian S-400 air defense missile systems?

The Trump administration is expected to override a decision by a Democratic lawmaker who is blocking a proposed $750 million sale of jet engines to Turkey over concerns about the country’s ties to Russia.
Congressman Gregory Meeks (D, NY) had placed a hold on the sale to Turkey—a NATO ally that is hosting an alliance summit next month—because the country continues to hold a Russian S-400 air-defense system that it bought roughly a decade ago, along with other concerns about Turkey’s role in the region.

That S-400 system, after all, might spy on Turkey’s F-35s and learn how to defeat it.

This is silly. There are reasons to not sell F-35s to Turkey, but the idea that the S-400 can compromise the F-35’s stealth capabilities isn’t one of them, at least not anymore (if it ever was). We’ve sold lots of F-35s to other nations over the years. If the jet’s stealth capabilities could ever be compromised, they already have been, just from their use around the world and our enemies observing their use, including by those objectionable S-400 systems, and collecting data on detecting and otherwise countering the jets. And that foolishly ignores the fact that over those intervening years of F-35 operational use, there have been a plethora of—steadily more and more capable—systems watching and observing and analyzing the F-35 in all its operational flexes.

There are reasons for going ahead with the sale, too, and these should be weighed against those reasons for not selling. The presence of S-400s in the buying nation is not relevant.

The Barbarian Strikes Again

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The Russians just attacked Kyiv Pechersk Lavra, a thousand-year-old Orthodox Christian holy site and cultural icon in Kyiv. The hit was direct, not a nearby one for which the Lavra was merely collateral damage. The targeting was deliberate. And it was repeated, with a subsequent strike adding to the damage. This is far more than just a Russian communist attack on religion, for all that the barbarian has

confiscated church property, tortured clergy, and otherwise persecuted Protestants, Catholics, and Orthodox believers[.]

It’s also more than a simple campaign of terrorism that would make the 13th century Mongols overrunning Russia blush. The modern-day barbarian appears to be starting a campaign to erase Ukrainian culture altogether.

It’s long past time Europe—and the US—stopped dilly-dallying around with half measures and stepped up support for Ukraine, arming and supplying them at the rate they need, with the weapons and materiel they need, so they can drive the barbarian back out of their nation, and do it so decisively that the barbarian will be unable to attack again for years if not generations.

Not “Back to Other Agencies”

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The Wall Street Journal‘s editors are dismayed that an intel naif like Bill Pulte has been designated the Acting Director of National Intelligence. They go farther and want the whole office of the DNI eliminated altogether. I’ll not go into Pulte’s qualifications, or lack, for the position; my disagreement with the disposition of the office.

Its first director, John Negroponte, quickly hired hundreds of people who duplicated the job of the analytical side of the CIA. It’s now a vast political bureaucracy.

The editors are correct in this criticism.

However.

From the editors’ penultimate paragraph:

In a better world, Congress would use Mr. Pulte’s appointment to eliminate the DNI and send its staff back to other agencies.

No, if that staff really is redundant (and the vast bulk of them are), that better world would see the large excess returned to the private sector, rather than reallocated elsewhere in the government, inflicting their unneeded employment on other agencies.

Better yet would be for Congress to amend the legislation creating the Office of DNI: cap the total number of employees, volunteers, staff on loan to the DNI, and political appointees, Senate confirmable or not, at some low number like 100 and no more. In conjunction with this, explicitly limit the ODNI DOC to coordination among the other intelligence agencies, facilitating communications among them, and the like. Explicitly bar ODNI from doing its own intelligence gathering or fact checking of other agencies’ data, and the like. Give the DNI some teeth: his instruction for an agency to share these data, unredacted, in toto, and immediately, with that (or those) other agency(s) should be directive, not suggestive, with bureaucrats stalling, slow-walking, or outright refusing, being a fireable offence on the DNI’s authority, with the President strongly encouraged to fire the obstructing political appointees.

But as the editors alluded with their own proposal, that’s in an ideal world. We live in a Congressional world, instead.

At It Again

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Section 702 of FISA is up for renewal, and President Donald Trump (R) has nominated Federal Housing Finance Agency Director Bill Pulte for DNI after the incumbent Tulsi Gabbard announced her resignation to be with her husband, who’s been diagnosed with cancer.

Progressive-Democrats, obstructionist Never Trump-No To Republicans to the core, are saying they’ll block Pulte’s confirmation unless they get what they want in FISA’s renewal legislation.

Regardless of what we might think about FISA and its Star Chamber court or of Pulte’s fitness for DNI, it’s time for Republicans to locate their spine, recovery a measure of unity, and use their majority to simply ignore these Progressive-Democratic Party politicians and move ahead. Who will become DNI has nothing to do with whether FISA should be renewed. This is just Party attempting to extort their way into control.