Tag Archives: foreign policy

Security and Ebola

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The head of the CDC said Saturday that imposing a travel ban between the US and West African countries dealing with the Ebola virus could worsen the outbreak that has killed over 3,000 people in five countries.

“Though we might wish we can seal ourselves off from the world, there are Americans who have the right of return and many other people that have the right to enter this country,” Dr Thomas Frieden told a press conference. “We’re not going to be able to get to zero risk no matter what we do unless we control the outbreak in West Africa.”

This is carefully, cynically mendacious. “Americans who have the right of return” from western Africa are few, and they’re easily controlled at the point of departure until they can be shown to be Ebola-free. Those infected can be brought back under suitable controls, as has already been demonstrated.

Moreover, there are not at all very “many other people that have the right to enter this country;” that’s the point of border control: no nation has an obligation to let any non-citizen enter, except as that nation sees fit.

Frieden compounded his…error…with this:

We really need to be clear that we don’t inadvertently increase the risk to people in this country by making it harder for us to respond to the needs in those countries by making it harder to get assistance in and therefore those outbreaks would become worse, go on longer, and paradoxically, something that we did to try and protect ourselves might actually increase our risk.

This is more nonsense. A travel ban would be on travel from western Africa, not to it. Even were such a ban to include to western Africa, exceptions for humanitarian purposes are easily defined.

We don’t get to zero risk by restricting travel from enemy nations during time of war, either, until we control and terminate on our terms the war at its source; however, we routinely and effectively reduce risk by such restrictions. So it is here. Ebola isn’t a shooting war, but it is a war against a virus that has devastating effect wherever it invades. Travel restrictions would significantly reduce risk.

Arms Control and the Terrorists

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The Iranian government appears to be steadily leveraging the Islamic State crisis by dangling the possibility of cooperation against the terror group in exchange for a favorable deal on its nuclear program….

And

Iranian negotiators wanted to see more flexibility on the nuclear issue, in exchange for working with the US and its allies to tackle the Islamic State threat.

And

[Iranian President Hassan] Rouhani, in his U.N. address on Thursday, made clear Iran’s cooperation in addressing terror threats hinges on the outcome of ongoing nuclear talks – as he once again urged other nations to drop what he described as “excessive demands.”

Rouhani said a deal could mark the “beginning of multilateral cooperation” and allow for “greater focus on some very important regional issues such as combating violence and extremism.”

In a press conference on Friday, when asked about a possible trade-off, Rouhani said that a nuclear deal could lead to “trust-building” and “cooperation” between the U.S. and Iran.

Of course, it’s not true until it’s been officially denied. For instance, by President Barack Obama, through his Press Secretary Josh Earnest:

The United States will not be in a position of trading aspects of Iran’s nuclear program to secure commitments to take on ISIL.

Hmm….

A Geopolitical Misunderstanding

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…if The Wall Street Journal‘s interpretation is accurate, and a lack of political courage [emphasis added].

A solution to the Ukraine crisis is still far off, German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier warned on Saturday, as his Russian counterpart accused the West of seeking to create chaos in the Kremlin’s geographic sphere.

And

Steinmeier said that a few weeks ago “we were on the brink of direct confrontation” between Russian and Ukrainian armed forces but that diplomacy had “prevented the worst.” However, he said, “I am under no illusion. A political solution is still a long way off.”

Last things first. Diplomacy has “prevented the worst?” Only if the worst is taken as the conquering and occupation of Ukraine as a whole, which is not an implausible view. However, diplomacy has failed to prevent the near-worst: Russian occupation of Crimea and eastern Ukraine, together with a drive along Ukraine’s Sea of Azov coast with a view toward opening a land route to occupied Crimea, solidifying militarily the occupation.

Diplomacy alone—talking alone—can achieve very little beyond abject acceptance of these military facts. Diplomacy, to have any material effect, must be backed by, must be animated by, force—economic, military, and/or their combination. To date, there has been no force backing the West’s…diplomacy. The West has been too timid even to apply economic force against the Russians, only pin pricks that give western leaders a means of comforting themselves through the night.

Now to this:

[Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov] reiterated the conditions Moscow requires for the crisis to be resolved, including acceptance of Ukraine as a “neutral and non-bloc country,” meaning one that would remain outside of the EU and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.

This brings us back to the first thing. Neither Ukraine, nor any other of the nations bordering on Russia, belong in any way to Russia or to “the Kremlin’s geographic sphere.” These are sovereign nations, and they’re free to chart their own course—including aligning themselves with the West, joining the prosperity of Western free market economics, even taking in the essential sovereignty of a people over their government. No matter how uncomfortable this might make Russia.

And no, Mr Lavrov, not all cultures are equal, and neither are all polities morally equivalent.

A Little Bit About Fighting

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This came up a while ago from Bing West’s book, The Wrong War.

The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Adm Michael Mullen, was fond of saying, “we can’t kill our way to victory.” That was political drivel. If the Taliban weren’t killing people, there wouldn’t be 100,000 American troops in Afghanistan. It was comparable to a police chief saying, “Arrests are not the solution to crime”—a vacuity sure to result in fewer arrests. War is centered on killing. The grunts knew that, even if their own generals did not. Killing was not the solution, but it was the means to the solution.

It’s still true, and it’s especially applicable today as the Obama administration pays lip service to taking on ISIS. We need to take this war seriously, and set about doing a couple of things:

  • getting serious about fighting—and killing—these terrorists, rather than just taking potshots from the air
  • repairing our reputation with our friends, allies, and enemies so that we can get a real coalition going and take the fight to these terrorists, on the ground as well as from the air.

It’s also applicable today as so many on the Left argue that this isn’t a war we should be fighting, it’s a wrong war. Never mind that if we don’t fight today, there, the terrorists will force us to fight tomorrow, here.

The time for talking is long past. Three administrations have tried talking, including the present one for six interminable years. Words don’t stop terrorists.

Coalition and Air Strikes

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The US has expanded its “air campaign” against ISIS to targets in Syria, including targets involving an affiliate of al Qaeda, a gang calling itself The Khorasan Group.

I used quotes around the term because the only ones calling it an air campaign are the Obama administration and the members of the coalition that flew into Syria along with the US. The coalition, the administration now is willing to say, consists of the US, France (which is limiting its participation to airstrikes in Iraq—recall that Syria was a French client before it became a Russian client) Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates, and Qatar.

The US, though, has declined to identify which targets which of our coalition mates struck, how much ordinance each of them delivered, or any other material battle participation information, except to note that Qatari aircraft merely accompanied American aircraft without releasing ordinance or conducting any pre- or post-strike reconnaissance. Apparently their pilots were simply filling a periodic cross-country nav currency square. It’s also clear that the size of the Arab participation was token only: each of the Arab coalition mates flew only two or four aircraft in the strikes.

The US led off the effort with a cluster of Tomahawk cruise missiles launched from a ship in the Red Sea and one in the Arabian Gulf. Following that, the aircraft went in and struck a total of 24 targets. Count ’em.

Unfortunately, even a sustained series of strikes like these can hardly be called an air “campaign,” and it’s worth noting that no one—not the US, as Obama has repeatedly promised the ISIS terrorists—and not our putative Arab allies, who are even more proximately threatened, is willing to go up against these terrorists on the ground. (The sole exception are the Kurds, who are under direct attack, and we’re doing a woefully inadequate job of arming and training them. Even the Iraqi “army,” also under direct attack, cuts and runs at every opportunity, rather than going onto the offensive and attacking, on the ground, these terrorists.) Air strikes alone, even a serious campaign, cannot defeat an enemy that already occupies extensive territory.

No, the Syria strikes were just more potshots, in the style of our month-long series of strikes in Iraq; they’re not part of a serious campaign, in coordination with an equally extensive ground campaign, of striking simultaneously all across ISIS-held territory, attacking infrastructure, equipment, weapons and ammunition depots, the terrorists themselves—strategic as well as tactical targets.

In fact, given the loud, public advance notice President Barack Obama gave—two weeks’ worth—to anyone who would listen, including explicitly the Syrian and Iranian governments, very few ISIS terrorists—some 120, or so—were killed: the buildings hit, including a couple of ammo dumps and a command center, were largely empty when the coalition struck.

This isn’t a serious effort; it won’t be, as it runs counter to Obama’s six-year theme that if we only sit down and talk, things will be resolved amicably.

Given the different…goals…of Obama and the terrorists, I’m reminded, again, of the parable of the mouse and the owl. The mouse thinks the owl’s ways are wrong; the owl thinks the mouse is lunch.