Month: February 2010

Recommended Reading (2010-02-08)

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WHO DAT NEW ORLEANS!

– We didn’t think we’d go out like this. Krugman: “Instead of re-enacting the decline and fall of Rome, we’re re-enacting the dissolution of 18th-century Poland.”

– Politics and football: as American as global power projection. America Bowl breaks down the relationships: 44 presidents, 44 Superbowls (via Andrew Sullivan).

– Since winning an election, Hamas has been unable to govern responsibly. Or really govern at all. Michael Herzog in Foreign Affairs:

Constantly torn between its ideology as an Islamist jihadi movement and its responsibilities as a governing authority in the Gaza Strip, Hamas has proven unwilling to transform itself. The result has been an ongoing ideological and political crisis for Hamas and, more generally, the Palestinian Authority.

– The Air Force is canceling new systems left and right across the board and turning to old models with life extensions, such as the C-17, C-5, and the HH-60 for CSAR operations. War is Boring lays out why the CSAR-X cancellation probably isn’t a good thing.

For Love of Country, Part V

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Part 5 of a 5-part series.

On behalf of France, La Coloniale and the Armée d’Afrique performed admirably in both combat and occupation duties during World War I.

The French Africans who served in Europe came from all across the empire—Tirailleurs from Senegal, spahis from Tunisia and Algeria, and goums from Morocco, 175,000 in all. Other local regiments of Tirailleurs from equatorial French Africa were in turn deployed to the French colonial possessions in North Africa, and many others (about 160,000 in total) joined the Armée Métropolitaine in France on an ad hoc basis.

Moroccan goums, 1914.

In combat, the colonial troops proved themselves beyond a shadow of a doubt. Many succumbed to the illnesses brought on by the radical change of climate, and for the most part, the harsh European winters meant that the African units would winter in the south of France. To some, this was reason enough to doubt the effectiveness of Africans in combat, but it was always ignored that these ‘deficiencies’ had nothing to do with the fighting skill of men from the tropics.

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Recommended Reading (2010-02-07) – SUNDAY Edition

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Chinese digital camouflage variants, part of a great collection of global camo uniforms at Strike - Hold!

I have so often seen how people come by the name of genius; in the same way, that is, as certain insects come by the name of millipede — not because they have that number of feet, but because most people won’t count up to fourteen.

— Georg Christoph Lichtenberg

– I’ve railed a number of times against the seemingly-necessary dumbing down of politics and mass communication. But it turns out that it might be stupidity on a subconscious level rather than a conscious one. Easy = true?

– However, Jacob Weisberg at Slate agrees with my original hypothesis: people are stupid.

– Food for thought: our entire universe might be a giant hologram.

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An Island Apart

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Muslims protest Geert Wilders' appearance before Parliament, October 2009.

Something’s gotta give. No, seriously. Finally backlash seems to be mounting against the British government’s tolerance for extremist organizations (provided, of course, that they are Muslim). The trend is especially present in universities, however, where the constant mantra of “free speech” has somehow blocked out all voices, such as the BNP and others, with the sole exception of any Islamic or Muslim society.

The Christmas Pants Bomber has prompted a new bout of soul-searching as the west attempts to decipher the source of radicalization. Nigerian Nobel Laureate Wole Soyinka perhaps made the loudest and boldest claim, laying blame on Britain (“a cesspit“) – and not Nigeria – for the pants bomber’s radicalization.

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For Love of Country, Part IV

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Part 4 of a 5-part series.

World War I was more global in scope than is often realized.

World War I belligerents; Allies are green, Central Powers orange, and non-aligned are gray.

The colonial forces of both Britain and France were tried and tested in theaters throughout the globe, perhaps most surprisingly in India itself. Thanks to the Anglo-Japanese Pact of 1902 there was no direct threat across the frontier – as the Japanese would pose in World War II – but the fighting in the  Middle Eastern theater often spilled over in the Punjab, and nationalist revolts there and in Bengal threatened to destabilize the Raj. In Mesopotamia, there were three mutinies by Muslim soldiers unwilling to fight their fellow believers, but for the most part native troops remained unwaveringly loyal. Even the horrific casualties in the various African campaigns did not dissuade colonial troops from fighting alongside their occupiers and preserving their own subjugation.

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Recommended Reading (2010-02-06)

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Members of the Indian Border Security Forces mounted on camel rehearse "Beating the Retreat" as part of preparations for Republic Day celebrations at Vijay Chowk in New Delhi, India, Thursday, Jan. 21, 2010

The desire for safety stands against every great and noble enterprise.

–Tacitus

– Claude Berube makes the libertarian case for replacing “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” with “Didn’t Know, Don’t Care.”

– Basic services – paid for with taxes – become scams. This particular case is of a firefighting bill for $28,000. This trend started with rescue operations of hikers and outdoors-types getting lost, rescued by helicopter, and charged for their troubles. Now it’s a service whose very existence and purpose is funded by tax dollars (i.e., they exist just for this kind of accident). If the insurance companies and homeowners are equally pissed, that’s never a good sign (via Shloky).

– Apparently the sheer audacity of my writing this blog is weird for my generation. I love it when that happens (via Sullivan).

– Subversion is 85% of intelligence work (as opposed to intelligence-gathering). Sadly, whatever is happening to the US is not due to any outside power (or rather, any one targeted, concerted effort):

It takes from 15 to 20 years to demoralize a nation. Why that many years? Because this is the minimum number of years required to educate one generation of students in the country of your enemy exposed to the ideology of [their] enemy.

…The next stage is destabilization … It only takes two to five years to destabilize a nation.

– Even if their convention is a racist warehouse devoid of intelligence and independent thought, the Teabaggers Partiers might just be on to something. John Robb makes a convincing argument that the Tea Party is a) open-source warfare, only politics, and b) that it’s a further sign pointing towards the hollowing out of the state. I think to an extent he’s right (mostly as to what their frustrations mean), but depending on the extent of ‘astroturfing’ and corporate funding, it may not be nearly as spontaneous as it looks. Certainly the convention isn’t.

For Love of Country, Part III

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Part 3 of a 5-part series.

In the aftermath of the Indian Mutiny, whether the Indian Army was exclusively for garrison purposes (at its furthest extent, the invasion of bordering states), or if it could be deployed overseas was a matter of some concern.

The British Expeditionary Force towing artillery across Ethiopia, 1868

Trust in the native infantry regiments reached its nadir in the wake of the Sepoy Rebellion, but when the Emperor Tewodros of Abyssinia began holding British nationals hostage in 1866, they were the nearest available option for the British to deploy. Thanks to the telegraph, a force of 13,000 led by Lieutenant General Robert Napier that included four Native Cavalry regiments and ten Native Infantry regiments (with only a single cavalry squadron and the artillery fully manned by Britons) arrived within two months of receiving Queen Victoria’s orders.

After a brutal three-month, 400-mile trek through mountainous jungle and desert, the expedition reached Tewodros’ stronghold. The brief battle of two hours resulted in 700 Abyssinian deaths and 1,200 more wounded. The British (including native troops) suffered twenty wounded. Not one was killed. The Indian Army had proven itself more than capable of serving outside the provinces from where it was raised.

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Recommended Reading (2010-02-04)

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U.S. Army Staff Sgt. Chad Melanson, Provincial Reconstruction Team-Kunar security forces member from the Nevada National Guard's 1st Squadron, 221st Calvary Regiment currently assigned to Camp Wright in Asadabad, Afghanistan, speaks with other members of the security team prior to a night patrol of the camp's perimeter, Jan. 24.

The American is the Englishman left to himself.

– de Tocqueville

– Chirol reminds us that after Iraq and Afghanistan, Russia is the most popular destination for IEDs. He wonders: is Russia’s future as the new Nigeria?

– John Bruton is adorable. He thinks that a) supranational organizations deserve the same level of bilateral communication as nation-states, and b) thinks that the EU matters. Sorry to disappoint; I don’t think the EU-US Summit is going to be quite all it’s cracked up to be.

– Via Road to Academia: Iran successfully launches the cast of Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of Nimh into space. Possibly to counter this, Daniel Pipes wants Iran wiped off the map. Now, it’s definitely been said that Obama could end up salvaging his presidency (assuming domestic reforms go all to hell) by focusing on foreign policy, sort of a quasi-voluntary LBJ-style pivot, but a third underfunded, underplanned, idiotic, and roundly condemned Middle Eastern war is absolutely not the way to glory. Behold the Machiavellian wonder that is Pipes:

Not only does a strong majority — 57, 52, 58, 61, and 61 percent in these five [pretty outrageous push] polls — already favor using force, but after a strike Americans will presumably rally around the flag, sending that number much higher.

– Retrofitting for multitouch just got a whole lot easier. And it’s not just preexisting screens – you can just as easily turn a wooden coffee table into a multitouch-capable interface.

The 2010 QDR is Here

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The  DoD’s Quadrennial Defense Review is out, and its prognosis for America’s military future is quite interesting indeed. Overall funding levels have remained virtually identical; all Gates requested was a 2% increase, about $159.3 billion. Specific increases are called for in the areas of rotary-wing assets, manned and unmanned aircraft, and special forces assets.

For the most part, the strategy remains the same: using a mix of diplomatic, intelligence, and military solutions, keep America safe. Be ready to operate abroad. And be flexible: the military needs the capability to adapt to conventional war, COIN, stabilization, and any other kind of mission that might come up. Below are some key points from the topsheet.

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