Category: Military Page 3 of 10

On October 17, 2022

The Ukraine war is steadily escalating. Strikes on infrastructure, the Russian mobilization of reserves (Ukraine has already mobilized multiple times) and increase NATO aid as well as economies stuttering around the world. Tac-nukes have been put on the table, though not used.

Peace is better than war, but there seems to be no route towards peace. The Ukrainians have passed a law stating they won’t negotiate while Putin is leader, both sides think they can win on the battlefield and so more refugees flood out of Ukraine, more people die, are raped or tortured or maimed for life.

It is in no one’s interest for this war to continue to spiral up the escalation chain, not even America’s. Europe is already locked in US satrapies, and America is shuddering under the effect of the sanctions plus Covid. For America the real enemy is China, not Russia; and for China the real enemy is America, but both nations need the other for now and neither of them wants a war, even as the US puts on further semiconductor sanctions and widens sanctions to aircraft.

Russia and Ukraine cannot make peace. The normal method would be to find a neutral third party, but there is none who is trusted and powerful enough to take on the task.

There are two nations who can force a peace, however. The US, as the lead nation in NATO and China, which is keeping the Russian economy going. China needs Russia for its future, since Russia makes it immune to a naval blockade choke-out by America and its allies. The US needs Ukraine a lot less, but Ukraine simply cannot fight the war without US/NATO support.

Both Ukraine and Russia need a victory. Any peace will have to give them something they can call a victory. In particular, Zelensky and Putin must be able to sell any peace deal as a win.

It is also important to recognize that some parts of Ukraine really do prefer to be in Russia. What the borders were drawn as generations ago does not change that fact and that Musk made it does not mean it is false. These regions will never truly be loyal to Kiev.

Since there is no neutral third party, the way to peace is to have China and the US negotiate the deal. Let them draw their lines, and then draw the final line in the middle. China is negotiating for Russia; the US for Ukraine.

An approximate deal which will work is:

At least Donetsk, Luhansk and Crimea go to Russia. Perhaps somewhat more, in regions that are more Russian than Ukrainian.
Russia gets international acknowledgement of these areas as a permanent part of Russia, including from the Ukraine, US and the EU.
The land bridge to Crimea may go to the Russia. If it does not, then a joint Chinese/US force administers it, with no missiles, long range artillery, or military aviation beyond transport and a choppers allowed.
Ukraine gets guaranteed accession to the EU in 5 years if they meet some reasonable targets. No take-backs. Ironclad.
Ukraine gets to join NATO in 10 years, again if they meet some reasonable targets. No take-backs.
A large fund for rebuilding Ukraine. Perhaps matching from the money frozen from Russia and from the West. China might throw in some money as well, if they get to do some of the rebuilding. (China is arguably the best at the world at infrastructure right now.)

Russia might be able to take more land than it will get in such a deal, but it will not get international acknowledgment of what is taken and it will have to lose a lot more men. Given Russia’s demographics, further mobilization is not in its medium and long-term interests.

What Ukraine really wants is full integration with Europe and the West. It gets that, which it won’t get otherwise, since after a war it will be discarded, and it no longer has to fight over areas that really don’t want to be part of Ukraine.

The West gets an end to the war, which will help its economies, and will help the politicians in charge stay in charge. (Remember that Biden was begging the Sauds for enough oil to get him thru the mid-terms.)

China keeps its Russian satrapy and thus its strategic depth. If they negotiate a reasonable deal, the Russians are grateful, which will be helpful down the line.

The world ends an escalation cycle which could end in the use of tactical nuclear weapons, which is in everyone’s interest, including Russia’s.

And a hell of a lot less people die, are maimed, raped and tortured or lose their homes and livelihoods.

With this deal everyone gets something which can be considered a win, but no one gets everything they wanted.

It’s a lot better than the alternatives, likely even for the belligerents. Ukraine is NOT getting everything back by fighting a war, and the costs of a war are painful for Russia (that Europe is hurting more does not mean this is good for Russia) and won’t get it official acknowledgment of its gains.

Peace is better than war. Let’s make it happen.

Rationality Is A Process, Not A Conclusion (Nuclear Weapons Edition)

On October 5, 2022

A lot of mistakes come from assuming rationality means “thinks the same way I do” rather than “reasons from premises I might not share.”

Less than 1/1000 economists predicted the financial collapse, because they reasoned from assumptions like “the market is self-correcting” or “housing prices never go down.” (Sometimes both at the same time, which is rarely rational.)

Back in 2008 I wrote an article saying the next war w/Russia would be over Sevastopol/Crimea. I was told by Eurocrats that was impossible, because it would be irrational: the energy trade was too big to risk, Putin needed it. Rational. Putin didn’t see it that way, either then or now: Crimea and Sevastopol were Russian regions, strategically and emotionally important. When Ukraine seemed serious about cancelling the Sevastopol naval base lease, he acted.

Right now I hear a lot of people saying things like “never give into nuclear blackmail because then Russia will keep using it” or “Putin is rational, he would never use nuclear weapons.”

Now I don’t think he will, but I don’t think it’s impossible, even if one considers Putin rational. All he has to have is a scenario where he believes that he will get more than he will lose.

So, imagine that at some point Russia wants to end the war with Ukraine but doesn’t or can’t conquer enough to force a peace. Or imagine that there is a fake peace (no peace treaty) and Ukraine keeps dropping artillery shells into territory Russia says is theirs now.

Putin might, rationally, decide that the way to force a peace is to indicate that if war continues, he’ll go nuclear and if people don’t believe him, drop a tac-nuke or two to prove he’s not bluffing. (Remember, blackmailers who kidnap people often DO kill the victim. They aren’t bluffing.)

He thinks that the West is not really willing to risk a nuclear war and that if he is willing to risk one they will back down, especially if what he wants isn’t really that big. That’s a rational belief. It might be wrong, but it’s not irrational.

Or perhaps Putin gets into a scenario where he’s losing the war badly, and believes that if he does either he loses power and maybe his life; or that the Western maximalists will succeed in breaking up Russia. If the only way to stop that is to drop a nuke or two, why not? The US dropped nukes on Japan for less reason, although it’s true that no one else had nukes back then.

But what does the West do? If they tit-for-tat, and drop a tac-nuke or two, that means general war: Ukraine doesn’t have nukes, remember, so a NATO country has to attack and that will lead to nuclear war pretty fast if Putin thinks he can’t win a general war. (This is also true of a conventional war against Russia by NATO. Once he’s used tac-nukes, what makes you think he’ll stop when faced by a much more powerful enemy?)

The idea that Putin won’t use nukes is based on the idea that the risk of armageddon is always greater than whatever he expects to achieve. But what if he figures he can only die once or that Russia will cease to exist if he doesn’t use them, or that using them is the only way to stop a long drawn out fake peace? Also, remember that to some people dying by nukes and dying any other way is still just dying.

Now I have to say that think Russia is very unlikely to use nukes , even tac-nukes, but I also feel uneasy ruling it entirely because it is quite easy to come up with scenarios where Russian leadership decides the gain is worth the risks. This is even true if Russia feels backed into a corner, or if they are in an Afghanistan or Spanish Ulcer situation (Napoleon constantly losing troops in Spain). An ongoing bleeding which can’t otherwise be stopped might be worth risking nuclear war. If you’re going to lose anyway without it, why not risk it?

This, by the way, is why fighting a nuclear superpower over what they consider a core interest (notice “they”, not what you think, but what they think) is so risky and why the USSR and the US danced around each other like ponderous elephants. “If we really fight, we both lose.”

If Russia wants to win in Ukraine more than we (and given our support for Ukraine, it is “we”) do, they may well use nukes. Pretending it’s impossible is stupid and very very dangerous.

How Peace In Ukraine Has Been Made Almost Impossible

On September 26, 2022

To make peace either one side has to be unable to fight any more, or both sides must want to make peace.

One problem in Ukraine is that both sides (and I don’t mean Ukraine and Russia, but Ukraine/NATO v. Russia) have put themselves into a trap where the leaders of various countries can’t afford to lose the war, because they will lose power.

Support for Ukraine is popular in Europe, but it is also true that such support has cost the Europeans a great deal, and that ordinary Europeans have seen bad economic times as a result. This is especially true in Germany and is seen as true in the UK (where more of the reason is their political leadership.) This will get worse as the war drags on thru the winter, as it seems certain to do, and Russia reduces or cuts off energy supplies as they seem almost certain to do.

Western war propaganda has been about how Ukraine is kicking Russia’s ass, and that Russia’s economy and logistics are on their last legs, while their army is weak and so riddled by refuseniks it can barely fight. Maximalist scenarios, like retaking Donetsk, Luhansk, Crimea and even breaking up Russia have been constantly stated as the war goals.

European politicians have made these statements or implicitly backed them, and if Russia is seen by their own population to win the war then there is likely to be a massive political backlash that loses them their jobs.

My read on Russia has always been that if Putin isn’t seen by Russians as winning the war (it doesn’t matter what Westerners think) then he loses power, as well, and quite possibly his life. To win Putin needs Crimea, Luhansk, a good chunk of the coast and for Ukraine to respect those borders in practice (no military incursions, no artillery or missile strikes) if not in principle.

Ukraine has virtually endless NATO material, surveillance and planning support. The West is willing to fight Russia to the last drop of Ukrainian blood, and even to encourage volunteers (many of whom I suspect are “volunteers”) and mercenaries to fight for them. Ukraine has been drafting for a long time, and still has plenty of manpower.

Russia has a 3 million man reserve. One my wonder if they can really call up all of it and what quality it is, but remember that Russia does have the world’s second largest armaments industry and that the armaments which have been doing the majority of the work aren’t fancy guided missiles (though those get the press), but simple dumb artillery with aid from the type of drones you can by on Amazon. They export food and fuel and can buy most of what they need but don’t make from China and India, where countries are scrambling to get into the market as Western companies leave.

Not only can Russia call up those 3 million, in theory it could draft many more, the question is political will and internal unity. While Western reports of resistance to the call-up seem to me to be one-sides (there are also reports of large numbers of volunteers), I would expect Russia’s political ability to call up men beyond the reserves is limited. The bill which was used to call up 300K was written to allow up to a million to be called.

So both Ukraine/NATO and Russia have a lot of ability to still poor men and weapons into Ukraine. They have incompatible peace criteria: Ukraine is not to give up any land and even take back land it already holds while Russia wants assurances from a Ukraine government it probably can’t get without toppling the government or making it clear that Ukraine cannot defend itself.

One can legitimately point out that negotiators ask for what they never expect to get and say “neither side can seriously expect to get this?” but this isn’t a private negotiation. Putin and Zelensky and western politicians have to get a deal which their population and powerful interests will accept, and the more the rhetoric has been heated up, the harder that becomes. Putin’s real opposition is the hard right: there is no left wing or liberal opposition in his country.

Then there’s the US: the US economy is suffering, sure, but a lot of it is self-inflicted and US political elites are insulated from popular opinion. The Federal Reserve has just announced it will throw many millions more out of work to crush inflation by crushing wages of poor people rather than hurting the really rich, after all, and in any case the worst costs of the Ukraine war fall on Ukraine (whose suffering is irrelevant to them) and European countries whose weakening making them more reliable American satrapies. Humbling Germany and doing as much harm to their industry as possible is an especial bonus and very important to ensuring there is never a Europe which is independent of America.

All of this means that we’re in a trap. For there to be peace one of two conditions must prevail:

One side or the other must make such gains on the battlefield that the other side feels it has no choice but to give in. Russia must make it clear it can destroy Ukraine using conventional force, or Ukraine must actually push the Russians back and make clear they can and will march into all the occupied territory or even strike into Russia.
The costs of continuing the war must seem too high to the decision makers or those who can replace the decision makers. This doesn’t just mean Putin and Zelensky, it means NATO leaders and especially America and it means the public coming to find economic conditions intolerable and not worth it. It means China saying they will pull the plug on Russia (very unlikely unless used as pressure for a “get some of what you want deal”). If these conditions prevail on BOTH SIDES and both sides change their propaganda to “Russia gets some land and Ukraine recognizes that” then a deal is possible. Until then it is not.

Judge for yourself how likely these conditions are. World War I went on forever in part because both sides wanted something for having gone to war, and WWII happened because the Allies used their victory in WWI to punish Germany severely.

Peace requires one side to realize it absolutely can’t win and faces devastation if it continues, or it requires both sides to be willing to give up some gains they had hoped to realize. If both sides are committed to goals unacceptable to the other side, peace can’t occur until that changes.

Sweden and Finland Sell Their Souls For NATO Membership

On July 1, 2022

I live (for at least a little longer) in a house full of Turks. I’ve heard the refugee stories, and I know what it takes to be called a “terrorist” (and not be one, at all.) So I can read between the lines here:

Here are the things Turkey got:
• Sweden/Finland will lift its arms embargo
• Both will support Turkey on PKK, stop support to YPG
• They will amend their laws on terrorism
• They will share Intel with each other
• They will extradite terror suspects 1/

— Ragıp Soylu (@ragipsoylu) June 28, 2022

Extraditing terror suspects means “people who Sweden and Finland would otherwise judge were not terrorists will be extradited to Turkey, where they will be imprisoned and often tortured.”

This goes beyond Kurds; the secular opposition is treated savagely, and intellectuals and academics are particularly at risk.

Perhaps they’ll get the safety they sold their principle for from NATO, I have my doubts, but there is a strong case for it.

But they did sell their souls.

The Bottom Line On Ukraine As An Example Of Decision Analysis

On April 26, 2022

I could write a lot of words on this, but let’s keep it simple.

First: Russia keeps taking land.

Second: Putin has far more reserves he can commit than Ukraine does.

Third: this means that the decision about whether to win or lose is Putin’s.

Which do you think he’ll choose.

Oh, there’s considerations around acceptable costs and a possible guerilla war later, but this it the essence of the invasion.

This is a fairly basic but important style of analysis. Ask yourself:

1) Who makes the decision?

2) Do they have sufficient resources and power to enforce their decision?

3) What do they think the right thing to do is? (This isn’t always about self interest, though it often is.)

4) What decision are they likely to make?

You can add bits to this, like “does anyone have a veto?” but this is the essence of it.

This is why I have said for years that nothing would be done about climate change till too late, because the people who have the power to make the decision don’t think it affects them, and do think that the status quo is good for them, so they aren’t going to do anything.

Most reasonably reliable analysis comes down to simple heuristics like this one. Complicated heuristics for social decision making rarely work.

How to Keep Enforcers Like Police, the Military, and Spies Under Control

On February 16, 2022

There are broadly three groups of enforcers: police, secret police (spies), and the military. All three have a tendency to attract people who are reactionary, and who enjoy having authority and causing fear. The great attraction of being an enforcer, for many people, is that you get to make other people do things, and hurt them, and they can’t fight back.

Police, in particular, are always making choices as to what laws they enforce and how, and how strictly they enforce them. There’s a lot of discretion in the job. It’s long been noted that some people are treated far more harshly, for the same infraction, than others. Indeed, what can get you beaten up and arrested by cops if you’re part of a group they don’t like, or you irritate a particular cop, can also be ignored if they like you, or you’re part of a group they like.

This was a common complaint during the BLM protests, where right-wing protesters would be protected by cops and not arrested for actions for which they would have come down hard on the BLM protesters. In Canada, during the “trucker” protests, it’s been noted over and over again that indigenous and left-wing protesters would never have been treated so leniently by the police for so long — and indeed, it was only when protesters blocked trade between the US and Canada that any serious action was taken.

The most critical part of that action was financial. Chrystia Freeland announced that accounts would be frozen and that truckers’ insurance (without which you cannot operate a rig in Canada) would be terminated. That’s interesting, because these are administrative actions that don’t require the cops to actually do much, beyond report who’s there. There’s no going in with the horses and riot gear and tear gas and beating people up like they do to the indigenous and G7 protesters.

At least when dealing with local cops, and especially in Ottawa and Windsor, it seems like the police basically refused to do their jobs or even, in Ottawa, follow direct orders from the police chief (who has since resigned and who also seemed, initially, very friendly to the protesters).

As I’ve noted before, there are normally three requirements for revolution: an elite faction in support of the revolution, a popular faction in support (at a higher percent than the “truckers” have, about 25 percent to 30 percent), and the refusal of enforcers to protect the current regime.

So, enforcer willingness to act against any threat is important.

But it’s also worth noting that enforcers aren’t a monolith. Police aren’t secret police, who aren’t cops, and even within, say, police, there can be splits. In the US during school integration, local cops usually wouldn’t protect school integration, so the federal police (FBI) were sent in and they did. The FBI traditionally had bad relations with local cops and were happy to stick their thumb in.

This leads to one of the main rules of running enforcers. You want them to hate each other. You want the feds to hate the state/provincial local police. You want the military to despise the spies and look down on the police, state and local. You want the local police to hate the state/feds for horning in on them, and loathe the secret police for keeping track of them and you want them to think the military are out of touch.

You also don’t want them cross-training. They do different things, and what is appropriate for police is not appropriate for secret police or military, and vice versa. As a rule, you should not allow someone who has worked in one branch to apply to have jobs in the others — no vets into the police or secret police and vice versa. You don’t want them thinking of themselves as one group — and in any case, militarized police are always a mistake and militaries that do police and occupation work always become incompetent, weak, and fight worse. This is what turned the Israeli army from one of the best in the world into crackers who get their asses handed to them by Hezbollah and are scared of even fighting it.

This is also why, in the military, there shouldn’t be one “military,” but multiple services. Anything you gain from combining them into one service is more than counterbalanced by the danger. (And, it’s clear, in many ways, they perform better when they feel competitive, in any case.)

The next problem is one of the oldest in history: Demobilizing armed men. This is one of the hardest things to do. Because it’s clear that the Ottawa police, for example, are no longer under civilian control, the majority of them need to be let go and replaced with people who will obey orders.

Doing this is hard. They would probably strike and become even more unwilling enforce laws, and it’s quite likely they would threaten elected officials. Once you’ve given a group a semi-monopoly on force, breaking that monopoly is difficult. This is why you need a divided enforcer class. While you’re disarming and firing, say, the spies, you need to be able to use the federal or provincial police, or in a worst case scenario, the military (who should only be used for policing in emergencies — they’re bad at it, and it’s bad for them, as previously discussed).

Finally, while you will always need some police, we need a lot less. Various cities have experimented with unarmed crisis response teams: If someone’s having a mental breakdown, sending non-police almost always leads to better outcomes, and if force does turn out to be required, someone trained in the sort of violence in which orderlies sometimes need to engage (restrainment) is far better than a police.

Take away all the miscellaneous activities from armed police, and you’ll have a lot less trouble. Make the traffic enforcers a completely different organization, the mental health guys different, expand the paramedics, etc. The less men with guns and a propensity for violence, the better.

Also, while you may never hear me say this in the case of anything else, I don’t think armed men should also have unions. Police unions always seem to be the worst of the worst. There’s a reason the military doesn’t allow unions and it applies to police, too.

There is also a selection issue, and we need to find a way to not select for reactionaries and bullies in the enforcer class. In the military, this was traditionally done by a draft (which I hate but tentatively endorse). In the police and the secret police, we have to find out a way to do it as well.

In Canada and the US both, the police are out of control. They are gangs, the most dangerous gang wherever they operate, and they despise and look down on civilians, including the politicians who are their nominal superiors. They need to be replaced en-masse, and the new police forces need to be much smaller. Police militarization needs to end, and rivalry between different police forces, the military, and the secret police (spies) needs to be encouraged, while the actual number of police needs to be cut at least in half to a third by giving many of their roles to other groups who are unarmed — or at the very least, don’t have guns, tazers, and so on.

This would be true no matter what type of government you ran. The enforcers are always dangerous, and they always have to be kept divided, and they are always ripe for abusing their power due to impartiality.

The Age Of Assassination

On September 20, 2021