Charles Krauthammer had some things to say on Monday’s Special Report, including that the threat from Daesh and our so far failing attempt to stop Americans from going and joining them is unprecedented. He added,

What’s also unprecedented is the utter passivity of the United States.

The irony is that the Russians aren’t in there to fight ISIS. The Russians are in there to support Assad, to establish their predominance in the region, to bring in Iran and to establish military facilities[.]

What he said.

As has been noted before, it’s a very dangerous 15 months we have ahead of us.

Recall the PRC’s invasions of our government computer systems including theft of personally identifying information—including fingerprints—of millions of Americans who are, or were, or merely applied to be Federal government employees. Keep in mind that “government employees” includes our soldiers and our intelligence personnel.

Recall what President Barack Obama said he’d do about that.

We’re not going to just stand by while these threats grow. If you think you can just hide behind borders and leap laws and carry out your activities, that’s just not going to be the case.

Here’s what Obama actually did about that. He got PRC President Xi Jinping to agree to this:

neither country’s government will conduct or knowingly support cyber-enabled theft of intellectual property, including trade secrets or other confidential business information, with the intent of providing competitive advantages to companies or commercial sectors.

Of course the PRC’s non-government entities will be winked at (Did that do that? Really? That’s a shame) and go merrily on their way doing the thefts to the State’s content.

Never mind, too, that there are a lot of reasons to penetrate another nation’s computer systems other than to steal information:

• test their cyber penetration tools
• test our cyber defenses of their penetration tools
• test our cyber defenses generally
• learn what we know about their capabilities—military, economic, cyber, political, etc
• learn what we know, or think we know about our own capabilities—military, economic, cyber, political, etc
• oh yeah—steal information for its own sake

Of course the famous Yale Law Review Editor and Constitutional Law Instructor knows this, full well.

In talking about American disengagement under the Obama Doctrine, to a German reporter, Germany’s former Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer had this to say, as cited by The Wall Street Journal.

What there is of world order disappears because the last world power can no longer be taken seriously.

Hmm….