Author: Graham J.

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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Because It’s What Next

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The Constellation Program logo

Included with the stunning just-released $3.8 trillion budget was an interesting cut. It appears alarming at first: NASA’s Constellation Program, with the goal of returning men to the moon by 2020, has been told to shut down (alas, the Post has taken down their earlier, more hilarious title: “Obama’s Proposed Budget for NASA Starts Moon War on Earth”). The winding-down itself will cost $2.5 billion, after $9 billion was put into the project.

This does seem troubling to aficionados of space travel and exploration (not to mention NASA employees and contractors), but there’s most assuredly a silver lining:

Instead of continuing to develop the Ares 1 and Orion, the administration wants to invest $6 billion over five years in a commercial space taxi to carry astronauts into low Earth orbit. The budget would also funnel billions of dollars into developing new space technologies, such as the ability to refuel spacecraft in orbit. What isn’t in the budget is a specific target for exploration.

You know what? That’s absolutely fine. If anything, a more open-ended commitment is ideal, as it allows more space for contingencies. The truth is, we don’t know what we’ll find, or discover, or invent. The same goes for other massive scientific projects like the Large Hadron Collider. Sure, there are some concrete objectives, but they’re fairly modest in scope (with the exception, perhaps, of the ‘God particle’). The fact that overall NASA funding has actually increased is very encouraging.

And to all those who decry a space program as a waste of dollars better spent here… as usual, Aaron Sorkin phrases it better than I ever can:

There are a lot of hungry people in the world, and none of them are hungry because we went to the moon. None of them are colder, and certainly none of them are dumber because we went to the moon. We have to go to Mars because it’s next. For we came out of the cave, and we looked over the hill, and we saw fire. And we crossed the ocean, and we pioneered the West, and we took to the sky. The history of man is hung on the timeline of exploration, and this is what’s next. [YouTube]

…and we reach for the stars.

For Love of Country, Part II

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Part 2 of a 5-part series.

The Sepoy Mutiny of 1857 can be attributed to many factors, but foremost was the British persistence in attempting to alter the traditional culture of India, particularly the ‘civilizing’ efforts of modernizers and evangelical Christian missionaries.

Sati (Suttee) in practice

The three practices of female infanticide, thagi (a supposed cult of assassin-priest highwaymen), and sati (ritual self-immolation by a widow) were the most heinous in the eyes of British. While these attempts at eradication did not even enjoy the pretense of East India Company legitimacy, it was nevertheless believed by many Indians that every Briton had come to stamp out Hinduism and Islam alike.

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Fisk Hates Israel

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Robert Fisk, writing in the Independent, has portrayed Israel as a self-hating, self-destructive state whose very existence is unjust. I can’t quote at length, as the piece is too sarcastic in decrying the “Israel under siege” mentality and as we all know, sarcasm doesn’t translate well on the internet.

Britain – this came yesterday from Israel’s ambassador in London, no less – is “a battlefield” in which Israel’s enemies wish to “de-legitimise” the 62-year-old Jewish state…

…Israel the underdog. Israel the victim. Israel whose state-of-the-art, more-moral-than-any-other army was now in danger of seeing its generals arraigned on war crimes charges if they set foot in Europe…

…One of the most distressing moments at Herzliya came when Lorna Fitzsimons, former Labour MP and now head of Bicom, a British-based pro-Israeli think-tank, pointed out that “public opinion does not influence foreign policy in Britain. Foreign policy is an elite issue.” Deal with the elite, and the proles will follow – that was the implication. “Our enemies are going out to international courts where we are not supreme,” she said…

…Alas, no Kahan Commissions for Israel today. No judgment for Gaza. Just a slap on the wrist for a couple of officers who used phosphorus and a criminal charge against a soldier for stealing credit cards…

…All of which suggests that the real earthquake beneath Israel, the real danger to its image and standing and legitimacy, is a nation called Israel.

Brilliant, Fisk. First you imply that any Israeli fear of a growing sense of illegitimacy is pure hogwash, and then conclude your idiotic ramblings with a suggestion that the nation probably doesn’t deserve to exist, thereby proving your earlier point wrong (and reminding us again and again that anti-Israeli – and not just anti-Zionist sentiment is alive and well). Well-played.

Recommended Reading (2010-02-02)

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A UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter swiftly departs the flight line during dusk on Camp Taji, Iraq, Jan. 11, 2010. The helicopter is assigned to the 1st Cavalry Division's 1st Air Cavalry Brigade, which conducts aviation operations 24 hours a day, seven days a week, to support U.S. and Iraqi forces.

– Ever wonder why so many terrorists have engineering degrees? Isegoria has the answers.

– War is Boring (yes, they’re on a roll) analyzes the new Russian T-50 and finds it to be an update of the Su-30, rather than some sort of “Raptorski.”

– The 60 Minutes piece of several nights ago on the “quiet professionals” is pilloried by Tim Lynch. So many mistakes on so many levels, and the ‘Stockholm Syndrome’ of embedding only makes it worse. Though if this was the best footage of these guys… what was the other stuff like? (via Registan)

– Petraeus has announced that in addition to the eight-land based Patriot missile batteries, two Aegis destroyers are on station ready to intercept outgoing missiles. Too bad about that SBX radar.

– ‘Humane bombs‘: an oxymoron no more?

For Love of Country, Part I

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Part 1 of 5. Adapted from “For Love of Country? Britain, France, and the Imperial Multiethnic Army, 1815-1919.”

The British and French Empires at their greatest territorial extents (British in red, French in blue).

AT THE HEIGHT OF EMPIRE, nearly thirty percent of the peoples of the world and more than a third of its surface area were controlled by only two nations. The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland ruled a quarter of the earth’s population and a quarter of its landmass. As the saying went, “the sun never sets on the British Empire,” and indeed, for nearly two hundred years it never did.

By far the most expansive and successful empire in history, Britain consolidated and expanded its holdings through wars of conquest and a military might unmatched by any other power on the planet. Britain was not the only globe-spanning empire, though. France controlled much of Africa (to an even greater extent than Britain), as well as holdings in Indochina, the Middle East, and the Caribbean.

French and British Empires alike were kept in power by the violent repression of rebellions, mutinies, and ‘uprisings’. In large part, however, the armies participating in the repression were not composed of all-white formations. The sheer size and scope of the global empires required the imperial powers to recruit heavily from among local populations, and the manpower demands of the two world wars necessitated their deployment to the Western Front.

In many cases, the colonial troops performed even better than their European counterparts. The French Tirailleurs Sénégalaise in particular enjoyed a widespread reputation after the war as both peaceful and respected occupation forces, and as daring and highly successful soldiers. Many other French colonial troops garnered equal praise. The British ANZAC and colonial troops also earned warm words for their bravery (Erwin Rommel was quoted as saying, “If I had to take Hell, I would use the Australians to take it and the New Zealanders to hold it”).

It is no exaggeration to state that both French and British Empires alike were founded on the backs of the native populations. But this went beyond local labor forces and resource extraction.

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