Tag Archives: defense policy

A NATO Disconnect

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French President Emmanuel Macron extended his “NATO is braindead” criticism.

The French leader has been critical of the United States after it abruptly pulled troops out of northeastern Syria, allowing NATO member Turkey to launch an incursion against the Kurdish YPG militia fighting against the “Islamic State” group. The US and Turkey did not coordinate their moves with NATO members.

Nor were either required to, regardless of what anyone thinks of the moves themselves or the rudeness of the lack of advisement.  Syria has nothing to do with NATO, for all that it’s on the rear porch of Europe’s nations.  Coordination with NATO was, and is, not required.

And

Macron said that Turkey cannot expect solidarity from NATO allies while also launching an offensive in Syria as a “fait accompli.”

Nor should it, since NATO solidarity is an “attack on one is…” and not “an attack by one means all must attack” alliance.  Turkey is out of line to hold up a NATO realignment of forces into the Baltics and Poland until NATO also openly supports Turkey’s independently done invasion.

As an aside on that last, there’s nothing keeping the member nations from deploying national forces consistent with what the alliance would realign were Turkey not in the way.

Still, Macron is not far wrong in his overall assessment.  Most of the European NATO nations don’t take their collective security seriously, insisting on freeloading off the US instead, even as President Donald Trump pushes the nations to increase their support of the alliance (which is theirs, too), at least to the point of honoring their own financial commitments to reach a spending level of 2% of national GDPs on NATO equipage and manpower by 2024.

Even as German Chancellor makes her cynical, disingenuous “promise” to reach 2% by sometime in the 2030s.  If the then-German government still feels like it.

Even as Western Europe member nations whine about the US’ redeployment of several American units out of Germany and into Eastern Europe member nations, nations that do take their security seriously.

Further still, though, Macron is badly mistaken to want talks with Russia aimed at

a new pact limiting mid-range nuclear missiles held by the US and Russia, after the landmark Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces treaty collapsed in August.

On what planet does Macron reside that he thinks Russia would honor a new treaty after it spent so many years violating the original?  An accord [with Russia] that would replace the INF would be the height of naivety and complacency.

In contrast with NATO’s disinclination to support Turkey in Syria, Macron wants NATO to support French forces in the Sahel.  Again, though, there’s this business about NATO being an “attack on one is…” alliance, and even though France entered the Sahel for legitimate reasons, France was not attacked there or from there.  The terrorist attacks on France were, for the most part, by Daesh operating out of the Middle East—where France generally declines to operate (even though it has a longer and more legitimate history there than Russia)—or whose terrorists were only passing through northern Africa en route to their targets in France (and Belgium).  On top of that, Africa is outside NATO’s area of operation and would require a (unanimously done) change to the NATO charter to include it.  NATO’s involvement in Afghanistan can at least be justified (however tenuously at this late date) by the United States having been attacked from there and/or by entities now operating from there.

Golly Gee

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Hold the presses.  German Chancellor Angela Merkel says Germany will honor its commitment to spend 2% of its GDP on NATO after all.

Oh, wait.  She says Germany will keep its word

by the early 2030s.

So far off, that amounts to a promise to be kept when the German government—whichever it is in all those years—feels like it.

Merkel’s “promise” is an insult to our intelligence.  Especially since Germany’s commitment, and those of its fellow NATO nations, was made five years ago and the nations promised to meet 2% by 2024.

Nuclear Disarmament

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Pope Francis wants it—completely, totally, for any purpose, even deterrence (assuming, for now, that this can be done verifiably and verifiably maintained).  The Pope thinks an arms race involving nuclear weapons adds to the danger of their existence, never minding the race, at least on the US’ part, is for self-defense and the defense of our friends and allies—the very purpose of NATO stationing nuclear weapons in Europe, for instance.

The Pope, though, avoided addressing how a non-nuclear nation with a small conventional military establishment would defend itself against an aggressively acquisitive non-nuclear nation with a large military establishment.  Like, say, the Soviet Union against the nations of Europe, individually or collectively. Or like, perhaps, the People’s Republic of China against the Republic of Korea or Japan—or us.

He appears unconcerned that this might lead to a conventional arms race and conventional military building-up race, a race whose deterrence exists only in the ability to conduct a follow-on mobilization race to the frontier—sort of like what turned out to be the first steps of European wars in the latter half of the 19th century and of two global wars in the first half of the 20th.

Of course, in the case of the PRC, the Pope already has abjectly surrendered control of the Catholic Church and of Catholicism—the Universal Church and universal religion—to the PRC government inside the PRC.

Maybe he expects the rest of us to meekly surrender politically, like he has done religiously.

No, I’m not going to turn the other cheek to conquerors and slavers. Not even St Augustine suggested that, for all that he decried preemption.

Outside…Commentary

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It turns out that Navy Secretary Richard Spencer tried to cut a deal with Trump without authorization to do so, a deal that would have allowed a Navy board follow through on its desire to review whether CPO Edward Gallagher would be able to remain a SEAL, and then Gallagher would retire with his Trident. SecDef Mark Esper fired Spencer over his insubordination.

I am deeply troubled by this conduct shown by a senior DOD official[.]

In the end, the Navy will not hold its board, and Gallagher and the Navy seem to be done with the matter.

The Dalily Kos concluded its news article by quoting Eric Carpenter, a Florida International University Professor of Law and former military lawyer:

The Navy leadership is saying they need to get back to basics and that outside interference undercuts that.

This is the other matter of importance in this affair, at least to me: that outside commenter, a professor with experience as a military lawyer, needs to answer the following questions:

Trump is the Commander-in-Chief of our military. In what way is a boss telling the organization of which he’s the boss what it must do “outside interference?” Is Carpenter saying, or saying that the military is saying, that the military’s legal system not part of the organization of which Trump is CINC?

Boeing and Foolish Questions

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In a Wall Street Journal article on the tortuous path to criminal prosecution that prosecutors would have in bringing Boeing to criminal trial over its 737 MAX crashes, Andrew Tangel, Jacob Gershman, and Andy Pasztor asked what seems to me to be a very narrow, short-sighted question.

Should prosecutors weigh Boeing’s importance to the economy and national security when deciding how to proceed with a criminal case over the 737 MAX crashes?

Of course prosecutors should—must—not. What’s truly important is the concept of weighing the risks to liberty and to national security of criminals being too big to be punished. We can never allow such a thing to enter even the run-up to criminal prosecutions.

If criminal actions can be seriously alleged against Boeing—based on the company’s behaviors—the company must come to trial. Only if found guilty, so there’d be a criminal sanction phase, could Boeing’s importance to our economy and our national security legitimately be considered—and then, not on the magnitude of the penalty(s), which absolutely must fit the crime(s), but only on the penalty(s)’s schedules of application, with interest accruing on any fiscal penalties not paid “promptly.”

The question of criminal trials for various individuals of Boeing’s management (and its aircraft testing function?) is an entirely separate matter.  The company’s importance to anything is wholly irrelevant here; the company can easily survive any number of its managers being locked up in a Federal hoosegow.