Readers Notes -- Geography is Destiny

In comments to my previous notes I mentioned that reader Arthur's comments provided me with a segue to my next post. Which this is.

I believe I saw Tim Marshall's book Prisoners of Geography: Ten Maps That Explain Everything About the World (Amazon link) linked in an Instapundit post.

It should come as no surprise to anyone that has studied military tactics that geography has a controlling factor on what you do, and how you do it. It therefore follows that geography has an impact on your application of Operational Art, and of your strategy, not to mention of what used to be referred to a your "Grand Strategy", but in this less-poetically inclined age we simply refer to as "Foreign Policy"; in other words, "geo-politics" is more than just a word.

British journalist Tim Marshall attempts in this book to lay out the geographic causes behind how nations have developed, and fallen.  As the sub-title says, he lays out 10 maps of significant nations or regions to be studied, one chapter each. This analysis addresses current issues in international geopolitics as well as "how we got here."

He starts with China, then moves on to Russia and the USA; he then looks at regions: Europe, the Middle East, Africa, South America, the Indian sub-continent, northeast Asia, and finally, the Arctic.

He describes, for example, how geography (including climate, topography and hydrology) impacted the development of Mexico as contrasted to the United States.

There are few earth-shattering (heh) revelations here for the student of history, especially of military history, at least, not when examining well-studied eras and campaigns. But few westerners have an appreciation of how, for example, African geography constrained the development of civilizations and societies beyond the tribal/village level, and even now prevents most nations there from taking full advantage of the potential available to them.

So I believe that this book will have some useful information to anyone, and might serve as a primer for students with an interest in why nations make the decisions they do, but it is far from an in-depth study.

I will note, on the other hand, that at a certain level it is typical of books that address current events in that in only 3 years, some (much?) of the commentary is already obsolete. For example, he mentions that Obama's Iran deal has dissolved fears of an Iranian nuclear attack.

On the gripping hand, I did see some examples where the author's reasoning was a bit, well, facile. As an American, I am used to the subtle sneers and jibes of Europeans who shrug off anything we do in a sort of  "Well, you know, Americans. AmIright?" way. But Marshal spends a lot of time explaining why Mexico did not grow into the socio-economic powerhouse that the USA did, implying that the United States sort of fell into the jackpot, easily and undeservedly, while poor Mexico got stuck with the North American booby prize.

But the only reason Mexico did not inherit an empire that covered all of North America is that the Spanish Empire's interest in the New World was primarily as a source for the gold that would allow Spain to conquer and maintain a European empire: All that gold was pissed away in the Netherlands, the English Channel, and Italy.

Consider an alternate universe, where Spain saw the Great Plains as an opportunity for colonization for more than just extractive reasons. Where Spanish trappers paid Native Americans for furs, instead of complaining impotently while gringos took them directly, trapping the mountains almost bare of beaver in the process. Where instead of inviting American settlement in Texas as a buffer between Mexico and Comancheria, Spain found loyal subjects who would take on that challenge. But Spain didn't find any subjects who were interested in settling on the frontier, they were interested either in milking the New World for all they could get, or in converting the natives -- and it is questionable just how serious they were about saving native souls.

Whereas Americans were not just interested in settling on the frontier, they were downright insistent that they had a right to and would do so even when their own government said they didn't and couldn't. And, oh by the way, it wasn't all that easy. Europeans, amiright?

In other words, while geography shapes strategy and policy, so does culture. Geography also has an impact on culture, but culture has an impact beyond just "a people who arise in such-and-such terrain will be characterized thus-and-so."

Having spotted these issues in the chapter on the United States, I couldn't help wonder if I was missing similar issues in the other chapters.

Mind you, I'm not saying it ruined the book for me; far from it. The analyses of how geography has and will continue to impact national-level policy and strategy were, IMHO, spot on.

So this book is recommended, just be prepared for an occasional jolt as you think "Did he really write that?" or "THAT statement didn't age well!"


Here is the Amazon blurb:

Maps have a mysterious hold over us. Whether ancient, crumbling parchments or generated by Google, maps tell us things we want to know, not only about our current location or where we are going but about the world in general. And yet, when it comes to geo-politics, much of what we are told is generated by analysts and other experts who have neglected to refer to a map of the place in question.

All leaders of nations are constrained by geography. In “one of the best books about geopolitics” (The Evening Standard), now updated to include 2016 geopolitical developments, journalist Tim Marshall examines Russia, China, the US, Latin America, the Middle East, Africa, Europe, Japan, Korea, and Greenland and the Arctic—their weather, seas, mountains, rivers, deserts, and borders—to provide a context often missing from our political reportage: how the physical characteristics of these countries affect their strengths and vulnerabilities and the decisions made by their leaders.

Offering “a fresh way of looking at maps” (The New York Times Book Review), Marshall explains the complex geo-political strategies that shape the globe. Why is Putin so obsessed with Crimea? Why was the US destined to become a global superpower? Why does China’s power base continue to expand? Why is Tibet destined to lose its autonomy? Why will Europe never be united? The answers are geographical. “In an ever more complex, chaotic, and interlinked world, Prisoners of Geography is a concise and useful primer on geopolitics” (Newsweek) and a critical guide to one of the major determining factors in world affairs.

20 years, down the drain

And just like that, my Army career was rendered irrelevant.

Pacific Stars and Stripes: Moon and Kim Discuss Denuclearization at Historic Summit

BBC: North Korea's Kim Jong-un Pledges 'New History' With South Korea

The Times: Koreas Poised For ‘Great Transition in World History’

Voice of America: North, South Korean Leaders Hold Historic Meeting

Moon and Kim
Photo from The Small Wars Journal

Moon and Kim
Photo from The Small Wars Journal

Not really, of course.

Note, by the way, that Kim and Moon did not sign a peace treaty, which some of the reporting implied happened. It sounds like they agreed to look into it later this year.

No, what is so momentous is the fact that the heads of state met: Neither country has heretofore even acknowledged that the other existed legitimately. North Korea has always insisted on meeting with the USA alone, while the USA refuses to meet separately, and officially designates it "north Korea", with a small "n".

As I was explaining to a colleague in The Salt Mines,  I served for 20 years, 3 months, and 3 days, and almost 9 of those years were in the Republic of Korea. I spent a fair amount of time on, or within rifle-shot of, the Demilitarized Zone.

One year I was Watch NCO at Field Station Korea; this was under Bush 41, when Mrs. Drang and I were still newlyweds, and de-nuclearization talks on The Peninsula were proceeding well enough that every installation in the republic of Korea was required to make plans for how to deal with commie inspectors.

At a facility that was a wholly-owned subsidiary, so to speak, of the National Security Agency (which was still commonly referred to as "No Such Agency" at the start of my career) you might assume this resulted in some angst.

You would be correct, but it might surprise you that the Secret Squirrel contingent just read the instructions, and made plans accordingly. (Collection operations would be suspended, equipment turned of, and contents of filing cabinets and the like would be covered with kraft paper. IIRC, things would filed so that the kraft paper could be pulled back to reveal files, but they would be set up in such a manner that nothing could be learned of the contents of files by so doing. They would not have the right to inspect read the files, just do a quick scan with the Mark I Eyeball, and wave a Geiger Counter over it, if they wanted.)

(This was the first use I saw of an Access Card scanner; some genius covered those boxes with kraft paper...)

No, the person who really got all spun up was the NCOIC of the Information Technology Section. (Whatever we called it back on 1990.)

Mind you, that doesn't mean we were all impressed, those of us who had already invested a significant amount of time and effort into the "Korean Mission" fully expected the whole thing to come to naught, which it did.

So.

My standard answer regarding peace on the Korean Peninsula remains "I'll believe it when I see it", but I must admit, for the first time since 1980 I do feel some hope.

#Paris, more

Mostly courtesy Instapundit, again.
The jihadis’ master plan to break us | New York Post
Good stuff there.

The Islamic State’s message is stark: Western civilization is doomed. Its last bastion, America, lacks the will for war. The infidel loves life and treats it as an endless feast. Jihadis have to ruin that feast and persuade the “infidel” to abandon this world in exchange for greater rewards in the next.

ISIS calling | Power Line
Ditto.

One {thing that stood out} was that the attacks in Paris were coordinated by a cell operating from a neighboring country*. The attackers were divided into two groups, one that was assigned to suicide missions and one that was assigned to escape. That’s not the normal M.O. and the cops are asking why the change. Several did escape. At least one got to a neighboring country. The logical conclusion is that the escapees were being saved for “the next big thing.”

‘Anonymous’ Hackers Declare War on ISIS in Video Message.
Good for them.

Lots of speculation along these lines: Next Big Future: France could commit the foreign legion to Syria and could invoke NATO Article 5 requiring joint NATO action
Which would be real interesting when Turkey has to fish or cut bait...

Also, from that article:

The revelations that at least four French citizens were involved in the attacks — three brothers and a man who lived around Chartres, about 60 miles southwest of Paris — seemed destined to exacerbate longstanding fears in France about the place of Muslim immigrants and converts in French society. 

A France-U.S. Anti-Islamist Alliance - WSJ
(To read a WSJ article without subscribing, Google the title.)

{I}magine if Paris had joined the Americans in the invasion of Iraq; the now-dominant Western narrative of that conflict might have been very different. Because of the attacks Friday, the narrative will change. The soft-power-heavy, somewhat guilty Western analysis of Islamic militancy—where the progressive-minded avoid referring to Islam in describing an antipathy that sanctifies killing—is now dead in Europe and will soon be irretrievably embarrassing across the Atlantic.

President Obama’s inability to have an adult conversation about Islam’s manifest problems with modernity, which also tore Christianity apart, have kept the West’s loudest bully pulpit from provoking contentious and entirely appropriate debates among Muslims. The advancement in the Middle East of grand modern causes—the abolition of slavery, the slow march of women’s social and political rights, the expansion of education, the brutal tug of war between secularism and religion—has always been stirred by Western thought and actions.

Having the French more vigorously in this game will help compensate for the politically correct, ahistoric timidity that has seized much of the intelligentsia in the U.S. and Britain. Trailblazers in analyzing modern Islamic fundamentalism, the French could well rescue the American left from its fixation on Islamophobia. They could provide encouragement and cover to American liberals to reflect and act without fear of being labeled Islamophobes (who are a dime a dozen on the American right and, as handmaidens of isolationism, don’t matter).

 How comforting: ISIS Has Help Desk for Terrorists Staffed Around the Clock - NBC News
I can't help but think this represents an exploitable weakness...

When you've lost Diane Feinstein: Paris attacks: Dianne Feinstein breaks with Obama, says 'ISIL is not contained' - POLITICO

***

*Belgium.

Laugh of the day

Urging civility, Obama appeals to Jews on Iran deal

Urging civil...

BWA-HA-HA-HA!!!

Urging ci...

BWA-HA-HA-HA!!!

Obama urges ci...

Oh, stop!  You're killin' me!

GOAL Post 2015-Special-8

FROM: GOAL <goalwa@cox.net>

TO: undisclosed-recipients:

SENT:  Fri 6/26/2015 5:59 PM

SUBJECT: GOAL Post  2015-Special-8

Legislative Update from Olympia 26 June 2015

• THIS IS GETTING OLD!
• GOOD NEWS:  NO DISCUSSION OF FIREARMS
• THIRD SPECIAL SESSION TO START NEXT WEEK?

Right after I posted GOAL Post last week, it sounded like they had made a budget breakthrough.  Apparently that was a grossly optimistic view.  Republicans are standing their ground on a balanced, no-new-taxes budget, while Democrats continue to press for significant tax increases.  Budget negotiators claim they're getting closer, but no agreement yet.

Tomorrow is the 30th and last day of the second special session.  Unless lightning strikes overnight, we can expect a third special session to begin shortly.

Furlough notices have already been sent imposing a "partial" state government shutdown, effective July 1st (next Wednesday).

The only good news in all of this is that the firearm issue has not been raised.  The House passed a few bills in the past two days, but no impact on firearms.

QOTD, 03/05/15

I just started reading Inventing Freedom, by Daniel Hannan, Member of European Parliament for South East England.

...to the Eurocrat, "unregulated” is more or less synonymous with "illegal."

For "Eurocrat", one can easily substitute, say, "Bureaucrat." Or "Statist." Or "Leftist."

The full quote runs thus:

British Euro-skepticism owes a great deal to a resentment of what is seen as unnecessary meddling, but, to the Eurocrat, "unregulated” is more or less synonymous with "illegal." I see the difference almost every day. Why, I often find myself asking in the European Parliament, do we need a new EU directive on, let's say, herbal medicine? Because, comes the answer there isn't one . In England, herbalists have been self regulating since the reign of Henry VIII. In most of Europe, such a state of affairs could never have come about.

The same "reasoning" leads to seeing "loopholes" anywhere the statist sees free men and women doing as they please.

Well isn't this special?

Police: Woman beheaded at Oklahoma food distribution center | abc30.com

And doesn't this line come as a shock: (The suspect) "had recently been trying to convert coworkers to Islam..."

Am well aware of the fact that "Not all Muslims are terrorists", or even goat-humping stone-age neo-barbarians who long for the establishment of Shariah law.

But it gets harder and harder to ignore the fact that one hears of pretty much no Muslims standing up and yelling "Stop!"

In the meantime, I do not leave the house unarmed if I can avoid it. 

"...but sometimes it rhymes."

Jews ordered to register in east Ukraine

Jews in the eastern Ukrainian city of Donetsk where pro-Russian militants have taken over government buildings were told they have to "register" with the Ukrainians who are trying to make the city become part of Russia, according to Israeli media.

And here we are with some bizarre cross between Woodrow Wilson and Jimmy Carter steering the Ship of State...

QOTD, 04/09/2014

John Stockley, in a thread on Tom Kratman's timeline about this story, on Facebook:

I have to keep readjusting my idea of worst case scenario with Obama. I'm down to, "he's unlikely to return Alaska to the Russian Federation without at least asking for the return Seward's original payment."

A Blast From The Past

So to speak.  On this 68th anniversary of the dropping of The Bomb on Hiroshima, (and courtesy of Instapundit), I thought I'd link Paul Fussel's essay Thank God for the Atom Bomb, from August 1981.

Korea

Been thinking about this post for a while.  Bill Quick asked me for my input on Daily Pundit, and I thought I'd expand on it here.  Understand that, while I spent my  Army career as a US Army SIGINT geek, I retired almost 13 years ago, so at this point what I am offering is based on current Open Source data as much as (or even more than) stuff I knew back then.

Some links:
North Korea’s Tipping Point of No Return | SOFREP
Author makes a convincing argument that Little Kim may have reached the point of no return: north Korea has closed the KaeSongDong Industrial Area, which is their only legitimate source of revenue.  (As opposed to dealing drugs and counterfeiting.  They used to make coin from the rake-off from pachinko parlors in Japan--lots of ex-pat norks in Japan, and one of the few areas of commerce the Japanese allowed them was running pachinko parlors--but the Yakuza moved in.)

From the same web site: The North Korean Threat
Concur with their assessment that north Korean missiles, with any warhead, are no real threat to the Continental US, and of scant threat to Alaska and Hawaii.  Japan, Guam, the Philippines, maybe -- not so sanguine about their ability to not have the thing go "ka-boom!" shortly after lift off, not to mention hit their target.

OTOH,who's to say that they will attempt an attack via conventional means?  Why not a nuke in a shipping container?  Or a weaponized "weather satellite"?  (h/t Bill Quick's Emergency-Preps.com board.)

Or...
Korean Special Forces: North vs South | SOFREP
+
This Is What Air War Over North Korea Would Look Like - Popular Mechanics (h/t Insty.)
+
Can North Korea Flatten Seoul? - North Korea’s Weapons Capabilties - Popular Mechanics

Pretty much every artillery piece that north Korea ever owned is still in service, ranging from direct-fire anti-tank pieces that Hitlers Panzers laughed at up to 170mm and beyond, plus Scuds and Katyuskas and I can't remember what else without a Wiki-wander that isn't really necessary at this point. (Still.) Leaving aside the much-vaunted Taepo Dongs, etc., they can easily bombard as far south as the Han River --  meaning Seoul -- although it may be true that, as the author of that last link points out, their ability to "flatten" Seoul is hyperbole.

On the other hand, the Seoul area of the Republic of Korea is, if anything, even more urbanized than Los Angeles and vicinity.  Miles and miles of multiple (12?  20? More?) story apartment blocks, row on row, as far north as Tongducheon. From the air -- why didn't I have a camera during my last tour? -- they look, aptly enough, like dominoes waiting to be tipped over.  (I was told that at least one ROK Army officer said they were sited and built deliberately as part of the Obstacle Plan.  Don't know.)

Now, one of the reasons that military doctrine tends to discourage operations in urban areas is that, the more destruction you cause in your attack, the easier it is for the defender. 

And I know for a certainty that every bridge, dam, and levee was designed and built with it's demolition in mind.

And every hilltop north of the Han River has at least an air defense observation post on it, unless it has a counter-battery radar site.  (Most of these sites are not fully occupied under ordinary circumstances, but revetments and bunkers are in place.  Great for training, until the owning ROK unit shows up for their training.  They were usually pretty cool about sharing, but I spent one years as Platoon Sergeant of a Heavy Radio Direction Finding Platoon trying to figure out where to put my teams during exercises.)

The same is not exactly true up north: north Koreans cannot dream of anything like the development the Republic of Korea has undergone, it does not have anything like the population, or infrastructure.  Only select families are allowed to live in any of the cities. There are few paved roads, let alone superhighways.

And the hilltop sites are fully occupied, all the time; each one has one or more heavy Anti-Aircraft Machine Guns, and often anti-aircraft artillery cannon, radar, missiles...

In a way the AAMGs are more worrisome than the heavier (and logically more deadly) cannon or missiles, because they rely on the Mark One Eyeball for guidance and an itchy-for-the-glory-of-the-Eternal Leader Kim Il Sung trigger finger.  Field telephones and radios suffice for communications and fire control (although by the time I retired we suspected that some form of cellular telephones were in use by commanders.)

So, while the Suppression of Enemy Air defenses (SEAD) mission will be critical, and hairy indeed.  ("Yes, Colonel, my EH60s can jam the enemy air defense nets.  No, they cannot keep up with your Apaches.  And we have no armament.  And G2 won't chop us to that mission.  No, Eighth Army G2 won't either.  No, Combined Field Army J2 won't, either.  Maybe you should call the White House.")

***

While attending the Advanced  Non-Commissioned Officer Course (ANCOC) at the US Army Military Intelligence Center and School at Ft Huachuca, we were assigned to write a ""staff study" on a hypothetical Low Intensity Conflict in our area of concern.  I posited a scenario in which, after a massive bombardment, the north launched an assault across the Demilitarized Zone with it's conventional forces, including mechanized brigades, with the primary intention of infiltrating it's special operations forces, who would the, allegedly, wreak havoc in the Republic of Korea's rear, possibly attempting to cross the Sea of Japan East Sea (originally known in Europe as the Korean Sea, BTW) to see what mischief they could get up to there.

No doubt the conventional forces would continue to die gloriously for the revolution, unaware that they were mere pawns in the great game of life.  Or thrones, if you like.

The intent, of course, would essentially be to blackmail the ROK and it's allies into acquiescing with whatever it is that the lunatics in Pyongyang thought it was they stood to gain. 

Thing is...  1996 Gangneung submarine infiltration incident.

The guy they captured?  Caught on a farm, he broke in to steal food, wasn't worried about being seen, since he was out in the boonies, never ever occurred to him by his own admission that a mere farmer would have a telephone.  Or that the police could arrive so quickly.

Two of the commandos were seen on a ROK Army base, playing video games in the exchange.  (Bit of an uproar about that in the Ministry of Defense...)

Commie infiltrators are routinely tripped up by their very obvious dialect and accent; in fact, defectors to the south have a hard time doing more than getting by, because they are so poorly prepared to live in a high-tech, industrial more-or-less democratic society.

So, I dunno.  Is north Korea a threat to the Continental US?  Again, I doubt it.  If their long-range missiles can make it off the launch pad, they might have the range to hit Alaska or Hawaii, but there's an awful lot of "nothing" in those areas; ditto for Guam or the Philippines.

OTOH, like I said above, they may try something in a shipping container or the like.

And, hell, simply disrupting the economies of the Republic of Korea, Japan, and both Chinas will be devastating to a sensitive world economy.

What do they have to gain?  Hell, I don't know, their people would be better off festooning lampposts with their bodies and surrendering.  The trouble with that theory is that the north Korean people have been so isolated for so long; Kim Il Sung (and Kim Jong Il and Kim Jang Un) is their religion and their reason for being.  As former Washington Post and NPR Tokyto correspondant T.R. Reid described in The Man Who Would Be God; North Korea's Kim Il Sung - The Washington Post | HighBeam Research, on a tour intended to bring in hard western cash in 1992, he interviewed a few north Koreans.

 "We learned in history that only by The Great Leader's Armed Struggle did we defeat the Japanese," says Chun Chang Yon, a 16-year-old junior at Pyongyang No. 1 Junior-Senior High. "America had no effect on the result."

Chun says he did learn in history class about the atomic bomb at Hiroshima, but he sees no connection between that and Japan's defeat in World War II. "We learned that America dropped the atomic bomb, killing so many thousands, because the Americans wanted to show their strength and might to the rest of the world."

This creative approach to history extends to more recent events as well. "Yes, we learned in science class that men had landed on the moon," said Li Chun Ran, a friendly 17-year-old senior at the same school. "The Russian people sent a man to the moon."

In an interview about the time this article was published, Reid described asking a north Korean farmer about "man walking on the moon" and the farmer asked the interpretor if the "Yangnom" was crazy.

Bottom line, war is nasty, and a war on the Korean Peninsula would be as bloody a civil war as has been fought in a century or more.  The leaders of north Korea are not sane, and may very well be insane enough to start WWIII just  to prove a point. As for the people, well, Reid again:

...But it appears that the people of North Korea genuinely do revere their Great Leader.

You see it in the awe-filled faces of the pilgrims lined up at Mangyongdae, a Mount Vernon-like expanse of grassy parkland surrounding an Abe Lincoln-style thatched hut purported to be Kim's birthplace. You see it in the painstaking care of a train porter as she polishes her Kim Il Sung lapel badge at the end of a long day. You hear it in the proud, reverent voice of the teacher chosen to read the daily scripture passage from The Great Leader's memoirs to the students in a public school.

It is almost as if the people of North Korea would rather believe the myth than face the reality of their brutally difficult daily life.

That must be why the markets have bright color paintings of lush fresh fruits and vegetables on the walls while the actual shelves offer only slim pickings of wormy potatoes and half-rotted onions. That must be why posters depicting happy children greeting the Great Leader in a bosky green park have been erected in the middle of playgrounds that are actually cracked asphalt pavement.

"We are finding that our biggest problem is not the top of the government but the people," says Aage Holm, an American with the United Nations Development Program who has been working here on a U.N. effort to build economic ties between North Korea and the non-socialist world.

"They are so wrapped up in this business about The Great Leader and their own self-reliance that they don't want anything to change.

"We say, 'You have to change. You have to plan for the future.' And they say, 'We like things the way they are, the way the Great Leader does it.' "

And, yes, The Great Leader is Kim Il Sung, dead lo! nearly 20 years.  His son, Kim Jong Il, the Dear Leader is also an ex-tyrant.  And Li'l Kim can't seem to get no respect. 

What better reason for a sawed-off runt of a hereditary dictator to start a conflagration?

***

Some other links:

• War-Weary Americans Would Support War with North Korea | Via Meadia
• “Green Détente” on the Korean Peninsula? | Via Meadia  In the midst of a famine that would have been of record proportions if the commies had had anything resembling an open society, they cut down just about every tree in the country, thinking they'd free up more farm land.  The ROPKs are looking at helping them to plant trees to deal with the subsequent erosion...
• OK, Now We’re Worried | Via Meadia  Current ROK president Park, Geun-hye, has given the ROK armed forces permission to shoot without prior political clearance.  And without the commies shooting first.  (President Park, BTW, is the daughter of Park Chung Hee who ruled the Republic of Korea for 18 years.  Her mother was murdered in a north Korean assassination attempt on her father)

This has turned into something of an uber-post, something I never intended to do, so I'll some other anecdotes and tidbits separately.

This just in: Al Qaeda, Gitmo Connection Seen In Consulate Attack

Fox News:Al Qaeda, ex-Gitmo detainee involved in consulate attack, intelligence sources say.

Intelligence sources tell Fox News they are convinced the deadly attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya, was directly tied to Al Qaeda -- with a former Guantanamo detainee involved.
That revelation comes on the same day a top Obama administration official called last week's deadly assault a "terrorist attack" -- the first time the attack has been described that way by the administration after claims it had been a "spontaneous" act.
"Yes, they were killed in the course of a terrorist attack on our embassy," Matt Olsen, director of the National Counterterrorism Center, said during a Senate hearing Wednesday.

Anyone who didn't expect this? No, not you, we know you drank the #PresidentWeakHorse kool-ade. Any adults?

3 for 3

Although if we're keeping score for His Imperial Majesty it'd be 0 for... I dunno. How do I put an "infinity" symbol in here?

Yemeni protesters storm U.S. embassy in Sanaa: witnesses - Yahoo! News

SANAA (Reuters) - Hundreds of Yemeni demonstrators stormed the U.S. embassy compound in Sanaa on Thursday in protest at a film they consider blasphemous to Islam, and clashes with security forces killed at least one person and injured 15 others.

Young protesters, shouting "We sacrifice ourselves for you, Messenger of God", smashed windows of the security offices outside the embassy with stones and burned at least five cars as they broke through the main gate of the heavily fortified compound in eastern Sanaa, the witnesses said.

"We can see a fire inside the compound and security forces are firing in the air.

The demonstrators are fleeing and then charging back," one witness told Reuters. Witnesses said embassy guards fired in the air to keep the protesters at bay.

WTF is with this "firing in the air" crap?

And where is my copy of The Wind And The Lion?

Shall We Kipple? (II)

Dane-geld

A.D. 980-1016*

IT IS always a temptation to an armed and agile nation

To call upon a neighbour and to say: –

"We invaded you last night – we are quite prepared to fight,

 Unless you pay us cash to go away."

And that is called asking for Dane-geld,

And the people who ask it explain

That you've only to pay 'em the Dane-geld

And then you'll get rid of the Dane!

It is always a temptation for a rich and lazy nation,

To puff and look important and to say: –

"Though we know we should defeat you,

we have not the time to meet you.

We will therefore pay you cash to go away."

And that is called paying the Dane-geld;

 But we've proved it again and again,

That if once you have paid him the Dane-geld

 You never get rid of the Dane.

It is wrong to put temptation in the path of any nation,

 For fear they should succumb and go astray;

So when you are requested to pay up or be molested,

You will find it better policy to say: --

"We never pay any-one Dane-geld,

 No matter how trifling the cost;

For the end of that game is oppression and shame,

 And the nation that plays it is lost!"

Feel free to add dates, i.e., 1930-1938, 1979-2012, etc.

Shall we Kipple? (I)

The Truce of the Bear

1898

YEARLY, with tent and rifle, our careless white men go
By the Pass called Muttianee, to shoot in the vale below.
Yearly by Muttianee he follows our white men in -
Matun, the old blind beggar, bandaged from brow to chin.

Eyeless, noseless, and lipless - toothless, broken of speech,
Seeking a dole at the doorway he mumbles his tale to each;
Over and over the story, ending as he began:
"Make ye no truce with Adam-zad - the Bear that walks like a Man!

"There was a flint in my musket - pricked and primed was the pan,
When I went hunting Adam-zad - the Bear that stands like a Man.
I looked my last on the timber, I looked my last on the snow,
When I went hunting Adam-zad fifty summers ago!

"I knew his times and his seasons, as he knew mine, that fed
By night in the ripened maizefield and robbed my house of bread.
I knew his strength and cunning, as he knew mine, that crept
At dawn to the crowded goat-pens and plundered while I slept.

"Up from his stony playground - down from his well-digged lair -
Out on the naked ridges ran Adam-zad the Bear -
Groaning, grunting, and roaring, heavy with stolen meals,
Two long marches to northward, and I was at his heels!

"Two long marches to northward, at the fall of the second night,
I came on mine enemy Adam-zad all panting from his flight.
There was a charge in the musket - pricked and primed was the pan -
My finger crooked on the trigger - when he reared up like a man.

"Horrible, hairy, human, with paws like hands in prayer,
Making his supplication rose Adam-zad the Bear!
I looked at the swaying shoulders, at the paunch's swag and swing,
And my heart was touched with pity for the monstrous, pleading thing.

"Touched witth pity and wonder, I did not fire then . . .
I have looked no more on women - I have walked no more with men.
Nearer he tottered and nearer, with paws like hands that pray -
From brow to jaw that steel-shod paw, it ripped my face away!

"Sudden, silent, and savage, searing as flame the blow -
Faceless I fell before his feet, fifty summers ago.
I heard him grunt and chuckle - I heard him pass to his den.
He left me blind to the darkened years and the little mercy of men.

"Now ye go down in the morning with guns of the newer style,
That load (I have felt) in the middle and range (I have heard) a mile?
Luck to the white man's rifle, that shoots so fast and true,
But - pay, and I lift my bandage and show what the Bear can do!"

(Flesh like slag in the furnace, knobbed and withered and grey -
Matun, the old blind beggar, he gives good worth for his pay.)
"Rouse him at noon in the bushes, follow and press him hard -
Not for his ragings and roarings flinch ye from Adam-zad.

"But (pay, and I put back the bandage) this is the time to fear,
When he stands up like a tired man, tottering near and near;
When he stands up as pleading, in wavering, man-brute guise,
When he veils the hate and cunning of his little, swinish eyes;

"When he shows as seeking quarter, with paws like hands in prayer
That is the time of peril - the time of the TRuce of the Bear!"

Eyeless, noseless, and lipless, asking a dole at the door,
Matun, the old blind beggar, he tells it o'er and o'er;
Fumbling and feeling the rifles, warming his hands at the flame,
Hearing our careless white men talk of the morrow's game;

Over and over the story, ending as he began: -
"There is no truce with Adam-zad, the Bear that looks like a Man!"

From the "So What?" File

North Korean flag used as target practice by US and South Korean troops - Telegraph
If, by some wild mis-chance, I was inclined to feel sympathy for the commies (giggle) I would simply reflect on all the commie propaganda I've seen ove the last 3+ decades of watching their inexorable goose-step to hell, and theier determination to drag the rest of us with them, and I would be forced to conclude "meh."

"Notes on Nationalism"

At about the same time as I was reading the posts anent the ChiCom propaganda I referred to in my previous post, someone posted to Facespace a link to an article on some progressive website in which some libtard idiot demanded that "We take back memorial Day from the Military!"  In conjunction with the commie whining about Memorial Day being full of "excessive patriotism", as quoted on Daily Pundit, the Red propagandist actually quoted George Orwell's "Notes on Nationalism".

By "nationalism" I mean first of all the habit of assuming that human beings can be classified like insects and that whole blocks of millions or tens of millions of people can be confidently labelled "good" or "bad." But secondly -- and this is much more important -- I mean the habit of identifying oneself with a single nation or other unit, placing it beyond good and evil and recognizing no other duty than that of advancing its interests. Nationalism is not to be confused with patriotism. Both words are normally used in so vague a way that any definition is liable to be challenged, but one must draw a distinction between them, since two different and even opposing ideas are involved. By "patriotism" I mean devotion to a particular place and a particular way of life, which one believes to be the best in the world but has no wish to force on other people. Patriotism is of its nature defensive, both militarily and culturally. Nationalism, on the other hand, is inseperable from the desire for power. The abiding purpose of every nationalist is to secure more power and more prestige, not for himself but for the nation or other unit in which he has chosen to sink his own individuality. 

(The initial emphasis is in the original; I added the underlining.)

Not actually a lot of support for your claims that there's something wrong with us there, Comrade; perhaps you should ask the people of Nepal and Tibet how they feel about how feelings of nationalism "can lead a country to impose their way of life on others."

Seems to me that patriotism is something we--still--have in abundance here in the US of A; nationalism, on other hand, is in short supply, and is suspect when it does arise.  (A current exception may be what Orwell describes later in the essay as "negative nationalism", which seems to exist to excess on the political Left.  cf #OccupyWherever.)

Once again, "THEY" fail utterly to understand us.

I like it like that.

Battlespace Preperation

By way of Bobbi and Tam, I learned yesterday AM that China Condemns U.S. Gun Ownership As Human Rights Violation.  (Also at the commies' NY Consulate, Full Text of Human Rights Record of the United States in 2011; and at David Codrea.)


Meanwhile, by way of Daily Pundit, it seems that China Daily feels that US Memorial Day marked by excessive patriotism|.

I do believe that we have here a new definition of "chutzpah."  The old definition, of course, was murdering your parents and then pleading for mercy as an orphan.

Now, it's murdering a hundred million citizens subjects, either by shooting or starvation or grinding them under the treads of tanks on global television, ruining your agricultural base so millions more starve, ruining schools and more farms by forcing the adoption of an absurd "micro-industrial" model, restricting reproductive rights, forcing mass migration, Great Leaps Forward and Cultural Revolutions, destroying thousands of years of cultural artifacts, invading other nations with no cultural or linguistic relationship, committing cultural genocide by suppressing those nations cultures, languages, and religions, and then claiming that "Oceania has always been part of..." they have always been part of your country...

...lecturing other nations that point out your failings to mind their own business...

...And then telling Americans (and the world) that the facts that Americans love their country and own a lot of guns is an indication that America is some kind of hell hole where "basic human rights" are denied or non-existent...

I see the following possibilities:

1. The Chicoms are hoping that liberals/progressives/socialists/Occutards will believe it, and that they can get Obama re-elected "to fix it."
2. The Chicoms have given up on Obama, see a great conflict coming, and this is Battlespace Preparation¹.  That is, they are hoping to weaken public opinion at home (a la Viet Nam) and to isolate us internationally, before that reckless cowboy Romney is elected...
3. Either way, they are angling to have reduce our effectiveness in the United Nations, which is about to consider a world treaty on small arms, including restrictions on private ownership of same.

 This all reads like standard-issue commie propaganda, White variety².

Things to consider:

• China's economy is in no better shape than ours, and is possibly worse.  Just because they can build a lot of factories, and pay the slaves peasants workforce a pittance, does not mean they are prosperous or even developing.  See reports of phantom cities, for example.
• China can buy a surplus Russian aircraft carrier, but it still can't round up enough canoes to invade Taiwan^{3.  Hell, they're having trouble getting that flattop shipshape, let alone sea-worthy.}
• They outnumber us.  So what?  Westerners have always been fascinated by the sheer size of the Chinese population, convinced that it was the ultimate market, or an invincible force.  Neither.  It's a lot of peasants. And those peasants are broken up into a multitude of ethnic groups, most of whom don't care for each other, or Beijing. Works for whatever bunch of bandits are currently running things, as long as the MPs have plenty of ammo.  Don't run out.

Now, I'm not saying I think the commies are planning on initiating force with us.  I think they'd be utter idiots to do so.  If they do, I advise them to take out the entire Anglosphere, including all of it's deployed military forces.  Especially any SSBNs that may be lurking... anywhere, really.


1.  What we used to call Intelligence Preparation of the Battlefield; propaganda falls under Psychological Operations, which in turn falls under Military Intelligence.
2.  Propaganda comes in three basic flavors, white, gray, and black.  White propaganda is attributed to the force or organization that devised it, i.e., the Voice of America, Radio Free Europe, etc.  Gray propaganda is attributed to a third party, i.e., any reporting in the MSM about the Great and Good Saint Obama.  And black propaganda is either unattributed, or is run by a "false flag" operation.  Any of the three may be either the truth, the truth "spun" to make one side look good or bad, or a pack of bald-faced lies. 
3.  Yes, I know, they could pull something sneaky involving special operations forces secreted in great big wooden horses on container ships.  Calls for a lot of coordination and luck.   Any nation that tries such an operation based on luck deserves to get it's ass kicked.

They just don't make commie thugs like they used to

North Korea’s Clumsy Assassins | The Diplomat

...some activists argue that although the North’s agents may still circulate in significant numbers south of the border, they lack the direction and focus that once marked the ominous reach of Pyongyang. ‘It’s very difficult to accurately assess the threat of a lethal attack in the South,’ says Seoul-based North Korea human rights activist Tim Peters. ‘By some estimates, the North may have informants and agents here in the South that number in the thousands.

‘On the other hand, the type of mortal attacks, such as the one recently carried out but thwarted in its final stage on North Korean human rights activist Park Sung-hak, have tended to be rather rare,’ he says.

Peters is the founder of Helping Hands Korea, an organization that helps spirit defectors out of the North. ‘Those setting these plots into motion in Pyongyang seemed, in the past, to have a rather sophisticated calculus for choosing targets for their perfidy. These days, though, this type of attack seems to be more of a blunt instrument, and certainly more clumsy.’

Some go further. Chris Green, international affairs manager at the Daily NK, a dissident online newspaper based in Seoul, reckons the threat in the South, as much as it exists, is low. ‘Bluff and bluster are the order of the day,’ he says. ‘As far as there are multiple agencies from North Korea operating in the (North Korean-Chinese) border area under the guise of trading groups attached to a multitude of shady North Korean government organs, the risk there is much higher.’

Go RTWT. The commies are floundering around, aimlessly.

When the commie sub grounded on the east coast of South Korea back in the mid-90s, the commandos aboard murdered the crew and tried to blend in.

They failed.

At least one was caught because he was out in the stacks, and allowed a farmer to see him; he later testified that it never would have occurred to him that a simple rural farmer would have access to a telephone. Who ever heard of such a thing?!

(Mind you, the government of the Republic of Korea did not exactly come out of it smelling like roses, either--the grounded sub was reported by a pair of taxi drivers, and at least two of the north Korean commandos were apprehended on a ROK Army base, in the canteen, playing video games--how did they get there?)

Individually, they may not be a threat to the average US or ROK soldier, and there may be signs of a desperate regime here, but a desperate foe is prone to irrational acts, in the case, posing a danger to the whole world.

h/t Instapundit.

Electronic Warfare: North Korea Nears Completion of Electromagnetic Pulse Bomb - ABC News

Electronic Warfare: North Korea Nears Completion of Electromagnetic Pulse Bomb - ABC News

North Korea appears to be protesting the joint U.S. and South Korean military maneuvers by jamming Global Positioning Devices in the south, which is a nuisance for cell phone and computers users -- but is a hint of the looming menace for the military.

It is also an act of war.

Since March 4, Pyongyang has been trying to disrupt GPS receivers critical to South Korean military communications apparently in protest of the ongoing joint military training exercises between South Korean and U.S. forces. Strong jamming signals were sent intermittently every five to 10 minutes.
...
The jamming, however, has raised questions about whether the Korean peninsula is bracing for new electronic warfare.
The North is believed to be nearing completion of an electromagnetic pulse bomb that, if exploded 25 miles above ground would cause irreversible damage to electrical and electronic devices such as mobile phones, computers, radio and radar, experts say.

An EMP device is of great concern, of course, but the norks have trumpeted great success with boogie-man weapons before, despite their having fizzled horribly...

The current attempts to interfere with GPS transmissions are coming from atop a modified truck-mounted Russian device. Pyongyang reportedly imported the GPS jamming system from Russia in early 2000 and has since developed two kinds of a modified version. It has also in recent years handed out sales catalogs of them to nations in the Middle East, according to South Korea's Chosun Ilbo.
...
This is the second time North Korea has sought to interfere with military communications. Pyongyang is thought to have been behind a failure of GPS receivers on some naval and civilian aircraft during another joint military exercise in August.

Civilian aircraft... International law, and, again, act of war.

*sigh*

h/t eHam.net