Saturday, June 28, 2008

The Aftermath of Heller....

From: Lanier, Cathy (MPD)
Sent: Thursday, June 26, 2008 6:35 PM
Subject: Supreme Court Update

[INDENT]Residents,
Unfortunately, the Supreme Court today struck down part of the District of Columbia's
handgun ban. I wanted to drop you a note to let you know the immediate impact of this
decision.

The Supreme Court's ruling is limited and leaves intact various other laws that apply to
private residents who would purchase handguns or other firearms for home possession. It
is important that everyone know that:
[INDENT]a.. First, all firearms must be registered with the Metropolitan Police Department's
Firearms Registration Section before they may be lawfully possessed.
a.. Second, automatic and semiautomatic handguns generally remain illegal and may not
be registered.
a.. Third, the Supreme Court's ruling is limited to handguns in the home and does not
entitle anyone to carry firearms outside his or her own home.[/INDENT]

Lastly, although the Court struck the safe storage provision on the ground that it was too
broadly written, in my opinion firearms in the home should be kept either unloaded and
disassembled or locked.

I will comply with the Court's reading of the Second Amendment in its letter and spirit. At
the same time, I will continue to vigorously enforce the District's other gun-related laws. I
will also continue to find additional ways to protect the District's residents against the
scourge of gun violence.

Residents who want additional information can visit the Metropolitan Police Website at
[url=http://www.mpdc.dc.gov/gunregistration]Metropolitan Police Department: Gun
Registration[/url]. Residents with questions are encouraged to contact the Firearms
Registration Section at 202-727-9490.

Sncerely,
Cathy Lanier
Chief of Police[/INDENT]

Wednesday, June 25, 2008

Future failure of Social Security will lead to change

I anticipate Social Security will change to provide 7 years vacation after 20 years of work. Then, after you take the 7 years off, supplemented by as much money as you managed to accumulate (and it may be possible to accumulate money every year, through thrift and investments!) then you go back to work, to earn a second 7 year retirement, then you go back to work again.

Mark Twain in his "Letters from the Earth" describes what Methuselah's many times great grandchildren thought about him. One of his descendants was Noah, who was quite upset that the old guy kept dropping by and making fun of the ark.

So, live long enough to be a problem for the children. Then be a problem for the grandchildren, then the great grandchildren...

See, It just gets better and better. Someday you will have more time in Civil Service than you have in the uniform Air Force. That will be a big day.

Kipling has a story about "The Miracle of Purun Bhagat" , where a gentleman lives what to him is a perfect life: 20 years a student, 20 years a soldier, 20 years a head of household, rising to be prime minister of his country. Then he leaves his position, and becomes a traveling, begging holy man, spending 20 years a priest. At the end of that time he is permitted to perform a miracle, in the commission of which he sits down to rest in the position of prayer, and dies. The villiage who he saved built a shrine to him, and worshiped him as a very G-d.

Each life well lived has different roles. Actions suitable for one role are abhorrent in another, only to the extent that they are not ridiculous. Life is the point. In all the vast expanse of space, the only place where we know of life is here. Of all the world teaming with life, the only intelligent species is Man. And some of us aren't too bright, and those of us who are have our bad days. Everyone is ignorant, just on different subjects.

Don't worry. Be happy!

Thursday, June 12, 2008

George Friedman gets it wrong. Completely wrong.

Jewish World Review June 12, 2008 / 9 Sivan 5768

The U.S. Air Force and the Next War

By George Friedman

http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates has fired the secretary of the Air Force and the Air Force chief of staff. The official reason given for the firings was the mishandling of nuclear weapons and equipment related to nuclear weapons, which included allowing an aircraft to fly within the United States with six armed nuclear weapons on board and accidentally shipping nuclear triggers to Taiwan. An investigation conducted by a Navy admiral concluded that Air Force expertise in handling nuclear weapons had declined.

We should keep in mind that the Air Force did away with Strategic Air Command, which had the expertise in handling nuclear missions. They combined SAC with Tactical Air Command (TAC) that had no mission. TAC had the duty of training fighter pilots and fighter units who would be forwarded to Pacific Command or NATO in the event of a conventional war. Now any association with large aircraft (B-52, B-1, B-2) is NOT career enhancing.

FOCUSING ON PRESENT CONFLICTS
While Gates insisted that this was the immediate reason for the firings, he has sharply criticized the Air Force for failing to reorient itself to the types of conflict in which the United States is currently engaged. Where the Air Force leadership wanted to focus on deploying a new generation of fighter aircraft, Gates wanted them deploying additional unmanned aircraft able to provide reconnaissance and carry out airstrikes in Iraq and Afghanistan.

It is a matter of balance. Certainly the stealthy F-22 is not needed to fly the friendly skies of Iraq, performing close air support missions. The AC-130 and A-10 are much more suited to that mission. The F-22 and its little brother the F-35 have few weapons. They are not weapons suitable against massed enemy ground forces. They are weapons suitable against poorer countries attempting to match US and allies in high technology fighters. F-22 against other fighters in the air, or F-35 against other fighters in the air, or on the ground, both using Precision guided missiles: These are battles that the US will not lose.

But there are many more potential battles than "Wack a Mole" against terrorists, or Wannabe powers like Iran, Venezuala.

There are Naval battles defending Taiwan, Phillipines, or South Korea from Communist China. There is a conventional battle for western Europe against an agressive Russia. In either of these scenarios, the F-22 and F-35 would be essential in defensive actions to protect US allies, or US bases from attempts at coercion.

These are not trivial issues, but they are the tip of the iceberg in a much more fundamental strategic debate going on in the U.S. defense community. Gates put the issue succinctly when he recently said that "I have noticed too much of a tendency toward what might be called 'next-war-itis' — the propensity of much of the defense establishment to be in favor of what might be needed in a future conflict." This is what the firings were about.

Naturally, as soon as the firings were announced, there were people who assumed they occurred because these two were unwilling to go along with plans to bomb Iran. At this point, the urban legend of an imminent war with Iran has permeated the culture. But the Air Force is the one place where calls for an air attack would find little resistance, particularly at the top, because it would give the Air Force the kind of mission it really knows how to do and is good at. The whole issue in these firings is whether what the Air Force is good at is what the United States needs.

A good rule of thumb. Those who talk about things like that, don't know. Those who know, don't talk. The "Bush Lied" crowd are long on accusation, and absolutely lacking on any evidence.

There is a neat alignment of the issues involved in the firings. Nuclear arms were the quintessential weapons of the Cold War, the last generation. Predators and similar unmanned aircraft are part of this generation's warfare. The Air Force sees F-22s and other conventional technology as the key weapons of the next generation. The Air Force leadership, facing decades-long timelines in fielding new weapons systems, feels it must focus on the next war now. Gates, responsible for fighting this generation's war, sees the Air Force as neglecting current requirements. He also views it as essentially having lost interest and expertise in the last generation's weapons, which are still important — not to mention extremely dangerous.

Mr. Friedman has this right. The threat of Nuclear Incineration was indeed the weapon of the last war, and like most weapons against freedom, was aimed at the people, not the Government of democratic nations. Mr. Friedman doesn't see looking past the last war as a virtue. Nor do I. I see present and future wars as a continuium, and we have to be ready for nearly any possible situation, while providing enough force to win and win big in the current war. You don't win big with papercuts. You don't get allies for a war against a strong nation by promising them they will lose.

FIGHTING THE LAST WAR
The classic charge against generals is that they always want to fight the last war again. In charging the Air Force with wanting to fight the next war now, Gates is saying the Air Force has replaced the old problem with a new one. The Air Force's view of the situation is that if all resources are poured into fighting this war, the United States will emerge from it unprepared to fight the next war. Underneath this discussion of past and future wars is a more important and defining set of questions. First, can the United States afford to fight this war while simultaneously preparing for the next one? Second, what will the next war look like; will it be different from this one?

There is a school of thought in the military that argues that we have now entered the fourth generation of warfare. The first generation of war, according to this theory, involved columns and lines of troops firing muzzle-loaded weapons in volleys. The second generation consisted of warfare involving indirect fire (artillery) and massed movement, as seen in World War I. Third-generation warfare comprised mobile warfare, focused on outmaneuvering the enemy, penetrating enemy lines and encircling them, as was done with armor during World War II. The first three generations of warfare involved large numbers of troops, equipment and logistics. Large territorial organizations — namely, nation-states — were required to carry them out.

I don't find the counting generations of much value. The very successful defense of Ft. Driant in WWII shows that WWI technology had great utility during WWII. The Korean war had a combination of WWII bombers, new jet fighters, WWII tanks, biplanes more suitable for WWI, and ended with trench warfare and infantry assults, all under the threat of escalation to nuclear war.

Fourth-generation warfare is warfare carried out by nonstate actors using small, decentralized units and individuals to strike at enemy forces and, more important, create political support among the population. The classic example of fourth-generation warfare would be the intifadas carried out by Palestinians against Israel. They involved everything from rioters throwing rocks to kidnappings to suicide bombings. The Palestinians could not defeat the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), a classic third-generation force, in any conventional sense — but neither could the IDF vanquish the intifadas, since the battlefield was the Palestinians themselves. So long as the Palestinians were prepared to support their fourth-generation warriors, they could extract an ongoing price against Israeli civilians and soldiers. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict thus became one of morale rather than materiel. This was the model, of course, the United States encountered in Iraq.

Fourth-generation warfare has always existed. Imperial Britain faced it in Afghanistan. The United States faced it at the turn of the last century in the Philippines. King David waged fourth-generation warfare in Galilee. It has been a constant mode of warfare. The theorists of fourth-generational warfare are not arguing that the United States will face this type of war along with others, but that going forward, this type of warfare will dominate — that the wars of the future will be fourth-generation wars.

That blending of different generations seems to confirm that the "generation" paradigm is of little utility. So, is it a strawman? Shouldn't someone be cited as using it to argue?

NATION-STATES AND FOURTH-GENERATION WARFARE
Implicit in this argument is the view that the nation-state, which has dominated warfare since the invention of firearms, is no longer the primary agent of wars. Each of the previous three generations of warfare required manpower and resources on a very large scale that only a nation-state could provide. Fidel Castro in the Cuban mountains, for example, could not field an armored division, an infantry brigade or a rifle regiment; it took a nation to fight the first three generations of warfare.

The Communist nation state was critical in supporting terrorists such as the Red Army Faction, the Baader Meinhof gangs. The Taliban, created by Pakistan Intelligence, created the nation state from which 9-11 was launched. Nation states provide secure bases, and are an essential part of terrorist war.

The argument now is that nations are not the agents of wars but its victims. Wars will not be fought between nations, but between nations and subnational groups that are decentralized, sparse, dispersed and primarily conducting war to attack their target's morale. The very size of the forces dispersed by a nation-state makes them vulnerable to subnational groups by providing a target-rich environment. Being sparse and politically capable, the insurgent groups blend into the population and are difficult to ferret out and defeat.

Nations are rarely the victims of terrorist wars. President Bush was not killed. Rather, the citizens of those nations are the target, through the medium of the news media. Terrorism is an information war, disguized as a guerilla war.

In such a war, the nation-state's primary mission is to identify the enemy, separate him from the population and destroy him. It is critical to be surgical in attacking the enemy, since the enemy wins whenever an attack by the nation-state hits the noncombatant population, even if its own forces are destroyed — this is political warfare. Therefore, the key to success — if success is possible — is intelligence. It is necessary to know the enemy's whereabouts, and strike him when he is not near the noncombatant population.

It is also the news media's job to report facts, not terrorist propaganda.

THE AIR FORCE AND UAVs
In fourth-generation warfare, therefore, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) are one of the keys to defeating the substate actor. They gather intelligence, wait until the target is not surrounded by noncombatants and strike suddenly and without warning. It is the quintessential warfare for a technologically advanced nation fighting a subnational insurgent group embedded in the population. It is not surprising that Gates, charged with prosecuting a fourth-generation war, is furious at the Air Force for focusing on fighter planes when what it needs are more and better UAVs.

In truth, unmanned aerial vehicles have long been part of war. In that broad category are rocks, arrows, bullets, bombs, cruise missiles, grenades, and ballistic missiles. Pretending that any one service should have a monopoly on "things that fly through the air" would reduce the Navy to operating Rams, and the Army to spears, and swords. Ludicrous!

The Air Force, which was built around the concept of air superiority and strategic bombing, has a visceral objection to unmanned aircraft. From its inception, the Air Force (and the Army Air Corps before it) argued that modern warfare would be fought between nation-states, and that the defining weapon in this kind of war would be the manned bomber attacking targets with precision. When it became apparent that the manned bomber was highly vulnerable to enemy fighters and anti-aircraft systems, the doctrine was modified with the argument that the Air Force's task was to establish air superiority using fighter aircraft to sweep the skies of the enemy and strike aircraft to take out anti-aircraft systems — clearing the way for bombers or, later, the attack aircraft.

The Air Force was built on the foundation provided by Guilio Douhet and the US Army Air Corps. The ability to tactically move a concentrate of effect from left to right on the field of battle is a classic response to enemy action. Airpower expands that to Operational and Strategic levels, as demonstrated in North Africa. That reaction in time is due to long range, and the ability to run multiple bases from which the operational commander can choose to launch his forces.

The response to the Air Force position is that the United States is no longer fighting the first three types of war, and that the only wars the United States will fight now will be fourth-generation wars where command of the air is both a given and irrelevant. The Air Force's mission would thus be obsolete. Only nation-states have the resources to resist U.S. airpower, and the United States isn't going to be fighting one of them again.

This should be the key point of contention for the Air Force, which should argue that there is no such thing as fourth-generation warfare. There have always been guerrillas, assassins and other forms of politico-military operatives. With the invention of explosives, they have been able to kill more people than before, but there is nothing new in this. What is called fourth-generation warfare is simply a type of war faced by everyone from Alexander to Hitler. It is just resistance. This has not superseded third-generation warfare; it merely happens to be the type of warfare the United States has faced recently.

Terrorism is not resistance. Terrorism using illegal methods of resistance because you know that there is no concequence to the illegality of your methods. There is no consequence of terrorism launched by the Soviet State against West Germany and Italy because of the nuclear standoff. There is no consequence to terrorism by Pakistan Intelligence because of the cover of Saudi religious fanatics, Saudi money, and Communist news media, horribly dissappointed that the US won the Cold War.

Wars between nation-states, such as World War I and World War II, are rare in the sense that the United States fought many more wars like the Huk rising in the Philippines or the Vietnam War in its guerrilla phase than it did world wars. Nevertheless, it was the two world wars that determined the future of the world and threatened fundamental U.S. interests. The United States can lose a dozen Vietnams or Iraqs and not have its interests harmed. But losing a war with a nation-state could be catastrophic.

Vietnam was, in fact, a proxi war launched by communists in North Vietnam, supported by Communists in China and Russia, under the cover of the Nuclear Standoff which was the Cold War. The methods of the Vietnamese Communists ranged from terrorism when the US and South Vietnamese allies were strong, to conventional invasion when the US military was constrained by traitors in the US news media, Congress and Senate (call your office Senator Kerry.)

THE NEXT WAR VS. THE WAR THAT MATTERS
The response to Gates, therefore, is that the Air Force is not preparing for the next war. It is preparing for the war that really matters rather than focusing on an insurgency that ultimately cannot threaten fundamental U.S. interests. Gates, of course, would answer that the Air Force is cavalier with the lives of troops who are fighting the current war as it prepares to fight some notional war. The Air Force would counter that the notional war it is preparing to fight could decide the survival of the United States, while the war being fought by Gates won't. At this point, the argument would deadlock, and the president and Congress would decide where to place their bets.

There is only one war. The war against freedom. The people who hate freedom don't care about ideology, and accept allies where they can. How else to explain Communist Homosexuals support of Islamicist terrorists who have demonstrated by castration and murder their distain for sexual freedom?

But the argument is not quite over at this point. The Air Force's point about preparing for the decisive wars is, in our mind, well-taken. It is hard for us to accept the idea that the nation-state is helpless in front of determined subnational groups. More important, it is hard for us to accept the idea that international warfare is at an end. There have been long periods in the past of relative tranquility between nation-states — such as, for example, the period between the fall of Napoleon and World War I. Wars between nations were sparse, and the European powers focused on fourth-generational resistance in their colonies. But when war came in 1914, it came with a vengeance.

We get to choose what the decisive war will look like when we decide what kind of war we do not prepare to win. There is, at present, little reason for nuclear bombers, since land and sea based ICBMs can precisely deliver nuclear weapons far more quickly. Still, we should keep our bombers ready for nuclear war, becaust with nuclear bombers, there is no advantage for an enemy to invest in an enemy anti-missile system. The Submarine basing mode makes direct attack on land based missles worse than useless. The land baseing mode makes defense against airbreathing of little value. It is an admirable recipe to prevent any effective defense. It worked, and the US won the Cold War in large part because of it. Even traitors in Washington (Senator Kennedy call your office) couldn't credibly pretend that the Soviets would win a nuclear exchange.

Our question regards the weapons the Air Force wants to procure. It wants to build the F-22 fighter at enormous cost, which is designed to penetrate enemy airspace, defeat enemy fighter aircraft and deliver ordnance with precision to a particular point on the map. Why would one use a manned aircraft for that mission? The evolution of cruise missiles with greater range and speed permits the delivery of the same ordnance to the same target without having a pilot in the cockpit. Indeed, cruise missiles can engage in evasive maneuvers at g-forces that would kill a pilot. And cruise missiles exist that could serve as unmanned aircraft, flying to the target, releasing submunitions and returning home. The combination of space-based reconnaissance and the unmanned cruise missile — in particular, next-generation systems able to move at hypersonic speeds (in excess of five times the speed of sound) — would appear a much more efficient and effective solution to the problem of the next generation of warfare.

The F-22 makes all other fighters obsolete. No other nation can field a stealty fighter at present. No nation wants to contest the air with the US. Soviet design bureaus are operating as a form of welfare. European production plants are being supported as suppliers to the F-35 and Northrop-Grumman/EACS tankers. This is the perfect way to both get something useful at market prices, AND correct the anti-Americanism that Communists have tried to incite through Europe. This will resolve attempts to separate the US from our allies.

We could argue that both Gates and the Air Force are missing the point. Gates is right that the Air Force should focus on unmanned aircraft; technology has simply moved beyond the piloted aircraft as a model. But this does not mean the Air Force should not be preparing for the next war. Just as the military should have been preparing for the U.S.-jihadist war while also waging the Cold War, so too, the military should be preparing for the next conflict while fighting this war. For a country that spends as much time in wars as the United States (about 17 percent of the 20th century in major wars, almost all of the 21st century), Gates' wish to focus so narrowly on this war seems reckless.

Continuing the Nuclear Triad is not to prepare for the next war, it is to assure that the next war will not be conducted by training nuclear missiles an anti-missile equipped Nuclear China.

At the same time, building a new and fiendishly expensive version of the last generation's weapons does not necessarily constitute preparing for the next war. The Air Force was built around the piloted combat aircraft. The Navy was built around sailing ships. Those who flew and those who sailed were necessary and courageous. But sailing ships don't fit into the modern fleet, and it is not clear to us that manned aircraft will fit into high-intensity peer conflict in the future.

Mr. Friedman doesn't get it. If you desire peace, prepare for war. I will go further, and say prepare for the war you don't want to fight. Strong conventional and nuclear forces means that no enemy can hide behind a nuclear standoff. No Conventional army can conduct agression. No Terrorist cabal can feel secure in the base areas provided by a friendly host nation.

We do not agree that preparing for the next war is pathological. We should always be fighting this war and preparing for the next. But we don't believe the Air Force is preparing for the next war. There will be wars between nations, fought with all the chips on the table. Gates is right that the Air Force should focus on unmanned aircraft. But not because of this war alone.

Pirates are the enemies of all mankind, and are properly denied sanctuary by all civilized nations. No nation would host such an uncontrollable force, unless by doing so they secured protection from the terrorists, AND weakened an enemy. Since the treaty of Westphalia, sovereign nations had to control their territory, and
were responsible for attacks launched from their territory, unless they were unable to control their territory. In that event, they no longer able to claim sovereign immunity from their neighbors, and their neighbors are justified if they drive out the pirates. The US Army did that under General Andrew Jackson, acting against pirates who used a base in Spanish Florida. Spain protested, but the US was acting only aginst forces which Spain claimed they was unable to control. Terrorists are like Pirates. They deserve nothing but summary execution. They are unprotected by the Geneva Conventions.


Nation states who permit criminals, pirates, or terrorists to operate from their territory against other countries forfeit any claim to sovereignity. Let the Mexican government look for US invasion of the swath of land controlled by drug trafficers and smugglers. Let Pakistan look for more attacks against Taliban bases. Let Iran look for destruction of training camps and weapons production facilities.

Monday, June 09, 2008

Video from Reason



Ok, I tried it, but no video. Again the Dragon wins.