Ian Welsh

The horizon is not so far as we can see, but as far as we can imagine

Palestine and Ukraine Updated Commentary

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On October 17, 2023

26 Comments

In the Ukraine, Russia is advancing, and while it’s slow, it’s steady and a lot better than Ukraine did in its complete flop of a counter-offensive. Weapons and aid from America are now flowing to Palestine, and most Western countries are reluctant to send more arms and munitions, not least because the shelves are almost bare and production has not been significantly ramped up.

Russia, on the other hand, has vastly increased its ability to produce key munitions, and is importing from North Korea and Iran (though Iran may soon become more reluctant.) The Russians have more artillery, more missiles and more drones, and plenty of artillery shells. Ukraine is so desperate for manpower it is trying to force Ukrainian who fled to other countries to return so they can be conscripted, and it has expanded conscription among women.

The immediate front is highly fortified, and Russian movement into it is slow, though not as slow as Ukraine’s was. Mud is also an issue, but it remains entirely poss that Russia will break thru at some point in the next few months.

Militarily, it would be very much in Russia’s interest if the Israel/Palestine war was to expand, and if the US was to become involved

As for Gaza and Palestine, the Israeli Army keeps coming up with excuses not to invade Gaza. First it was “there are clouds”, now it is “we won’t invade while Biden is in Israel.” Hamas still has at least 40K troops, and Gaza is excellent defensive ground, plus if Hezbollah wants to open a second front, it’s logical for them to wait till Israeli troops are engaged in Gaza.

The US may have indicated (I have some doubts) that if Hezbollah attacks Israel, it will attack Hezbollah. I’m not sure how well this will work out for the US: even Jordan might no longer be willing to base their aircraft, Iraq bases will come under attack immediately, and I suspect Turkey will forbid sorties to fly from there. That means reliance on aircraft carriers, and Hezbollah has anti-ship missiles, with Iran having a lot more.

Part of what is driving Israel to delay the invasion of Gaza (or rethink it entirely) is a desire to make sure that if regional war occurs, the US is actually part of the war. Israel alone against Hezbollah/Syria/Iran/Hamas, is in serious danger of losing.

Water has supposedly been turned back on in Gaza, but it makes little difference, as there isn’t enough power to run pumps and deslanization, and much of that infrastructure was bombed day one by the Israelis.

Leaving aside direct deaths from lack of water, or drinking untreated water and sea-water, it would be surprising if there wasn’t a cholera epidemic soon.

Even leaving aside a ground incursion, actual genocide can occur if the water, food and power situation is not resolved soon.

Negotiations are ongoing to get humanitarian aid in with some commitments made so there’s reason for mild optimism.

Likewise there are negotiations to allow refugees out to Egypt, though Egypt definitely doesn’t want them and it’s going to take some massive bribes to get them to accept anything more than token numbers, if they will at all. (Egypt is in a debt crisis right now, if I were them I’d hold out for actual debt forgiveness, not another crap IMF deal.) Remember that Hamas is ideologically aligned with the Muslim Brotherhood, whom the Egyptian military couped, and violently suppresses in Egypt, where they are the natural ruling party.

It is also true that allowing massive numbers of refugees into Egypt gives Israel the “win”, allowing them to ethnically cleanse another group of Palestinians

Gaza hospitals have been repeatedly hit, and there are reports Gaza is now out of painkillers among many other medicines and medical supplies. Given how bombing tends to produce burn victims, this is especially horrific.

There is still serious danger of escalation of the Israeli/Palestinian war, and if it escalates it could escalate very quickly and widely. If the US starts hitting Iran, well remember that Iran is a serious Russian and Chinese ally. Understand also that the “street” in most Muslim countries is super-majority pro-Palestine.

Frankly, if I were them and could co-ordinate it, I’d just all declare war and finish the problem once and for all. Israeli unconditional surrender, and the creation of a new Palestinian state with equal rights for all, no matter their religion or ethnicity. Then de-Zionize. In other words, give them the Germany/Japan post-WWII treatment. As long as Israel exists as a religious ethnic apartheid state, it will remain a source of massive instability, and remain the possible flare up point for regional or even world war.

We’ll continue to keep an eye on Palestine going forward, but I’ll see if I can weave in articles on other topics.

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Week-end Wrap – Political Economy – October 15, 2023

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On October 15, 2023

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by Tony Wikrent

 

Strategic Political Economy

US science agencies on track to hit 25-year funding low 

[Nature, via Naked Capitalism 10-11-2023]

The Smart Corporate Tax Idea That Might Have Prevented the UAW Strike

Jessica Church, October 9, 2023 [washingtonmonthly]

Targeting out-of-control CEO pay by using the tax code is the right policy for this moment. Here’s how it works….

Indeed, this strike could have been avoided were company profits shared more equitably among workers and management. But despite taxpayer largesse that not only rescued the auto industry during the Great Recession but led it to thrive, that has not been the case. Under the Barack Obama-era bailout, workers and company executives were supposed to make sacrifices. But while unions accepted that two-tier wage system that the UAW is fighting, executive compensation has soared.

A situation where executive compensation shoots up like a missile while workers’ wages flatline was not inevitable. In 2021, Congress debated a measure that might have made the strike unlikely and unnecessary. Both chambers considered versions of the Tax Executive CEO Pay Act, introduced by Bernie Sanders, the independent senator from Vermont.

The clever and potentially revolutionary legislation (discussed extensively in Washington Monthly) aimed to rein in excessive executive compensation by levying a tax on companies that pay their CEOs 50 times or more than their median employee earns. The tax came as a surcharge on corporate income tax, meaning that it only applied to profitable companies with federal corporate income tax liability. That surcharge increased as the CEO-to-median worker pay ratio worsened (0.5% for ratios between 50-100:1, 1% for ratios between 100-200:1, 2% for ratios between 200-300:1 and so on, up to 5% for ratios more than 500:1)….

How red-state politics are shaving years off American lives

[Washington Post, via The Big Picture 10-09-2023]

Americans are more likely to die before age 65 than residents of similar nations, despite living in a country that spends substantially more per person on health care than its peers. Many of those early deaths can be traced to decisions made years ago by local and state lawmakers over whether to implement cigarette taxes, invest in public health or tighten seat-belt regulations, among other policies, an examination by The Washington Post found. States’ politics — and their resulting policies — are shaving years off American lives.

Africa’s revolt against Net Zero 

Thomas Fazi [UnHerd, via Naked Capitalism 10-14-2023]

For the past two centuries, human prosperity has correlated with one factor: energy, released through the burning of fossil fuels. This is a self-evident global truth. Europe and North America, the wealthiest regions on the planet, are also those with the highest per capita CO2 emissions (along with the oil-producing Gulf states); Africa, on the other hand, has the world’s lowest levels of per capita energy use — the average African consumes less electricity than a refrigerator and around 600 million people live without access to to electricity. In this sense, it’s the “greenest” continent on the planet. It’s also the poorest, with almost half a billion Africans living in extreme poverty.

More than any other resource, Africa is starved of the energy it needs for economic development. This isn’t for lack of natural endowment. Africa possesses vast reserves of coal, oil and natural gas. But extracting those resources and using them for domestic development requires money, infrastructure, expertise and institutional capacity — which Africa’s poorest nations, especially in the sub-Sahara, sadly lack. One solution is partnering with foreign energy companies — until recently, mostly European and American firms — but that means that much of the domestically produced gas and oil is then exported rather than used for local development….

 

Global power shift

You’re not going to like what comes after Pax Americana 

Noah Smith [Noahpinion, via Naked Capitalism 10-08-2023]

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Open Thread

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On October 14, 2023

28 Comments

Use to discuss topics unrelated to recent posts. (i.e. no Gaza/Israel stuff.)

Avoiding Mass Ethnic Cleansing Or Genocide In Gaza

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On October 12, 2023

34 Comments

So, the Israeli government has:

Of course, that number can’t be moved and if they could, it’d be mass murder in its own way.

I’m going to state this very simply.

The way things are going, the only way to stop Israel from committing genocide or a wave of ethnic cleansing that makes the Nakba look mild (and quite possibly both) is if Hezbollah/Syria/Iran and perhaps other Muslim countries declare war and win.

It’s unfortunate, but the Israelis have gone mad with power and demonization of the people who are primarily their victims, the Palestinians.

Kick your victims into a corner, brutalize them for generations, then they lash out with violence that is horrific but not even close to as bad as what you have done to them, use it as justification for more horror.

I again refer you to the actual death/injury card and remind you that Palestinians did not invade someone else’s land and kick them out of their homes, then live in them.

And children, if you think anti-semitism is bad now you haven’t even seen how bad it will be if Israel does what it’s planning to do.

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I Try To Avoid The Word Genocide

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On October 11, 2023

22 Comments

—because it’s vastly over-used. Most things are not genocide, even some events were believe are (the Holodomar) are not. Genocide is the deliberate killing of mass numbers of specific ethnicity because they are that ethnicity.

Now, I’ve always been very concerned for Palestinians and Israelis because there is no way for Israel to remain a “Jewish” state in the long run without getting rid of the Palestinians. One option is ethnic cleansing. The other is genocide.

The sane solution is to make everyone a citizen and give up on blood citizenship, but that wouldn’t be a “Jewish state”.

Israel has bombed Gaza plenty in the past. It’s sickening and evil and collective punishment and all those bad things. They’ve also engaged in ethnic cleansing repeatedly, that’s part of why so many Palestinians are packed into Gaza.

But they’ve stopped short of genocide.

Now here’s the thing which isn’t being emphasized about the current attack on Gaza: all water has been cut off and the water infrastructure has been bombed. Much of Gaza’s water comes from “Israel”, much comes from desalinization (which requires electricity), and while some comes from wells and there is one stream in Gaza (it doesn’t make it to river) there simply isn’t enough water. Palestinians do have a lot of cisterns, but they will run out soon.

You die fast without water.

And Israel has been attacking any relief convoys trying to come from the Egyptian side.

Israel is mowing the grass — killing as many civilians as they can. That’s the plan and they’ve been open about it. The US, of course, is helping.

Days like these it’s hard to disagree with Iran when it screams about America being the “great Satan”. (For the record, I am not a fan of Iran. I am a believer in secular society with equality between the sexes and so on.)

If there isn’t a climb-down from this monstrous nonsense, we’re in danger of seeing Israel commit a genocide, aided by much of the West.

Much is still in play, including possible entry of Hezbollah, Iran and Syria. Israel’s army is performing pathetically, with Hamas soldiers still able to attack into Israel and running gun battles.

But Israel is on course to lose its soul. You don’t “mow the grass” or commit genocide because about a 1,000 people were killed after you’ve spent over 70 years killing another people at loss ratios of over 10:1, while stealing and living in their homes and on what was their land.

Well, actually, you often do. America certainly did, squealing about Indian atrocities (which definitely happened) even as it committed greater ones.

I do not expect Israel, as a Jewish state, to exist in 50 years, and that is whether or not they genocide Gaza. It may end much, much sooner.

But the end of Jewish Israel will be a lot less violent and bloody if they do not go full Nazi first.

This is not America or Germany, this a tiny country surrounded by the co-religionists of the people they are massacring.

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Thinking About A Hezbollah Intervention

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On October 9, 2023

18 Comments

So, let’s say Hezbollah intervenes, as they have said they will if there’s a ground incursion–and Netanyahu has announced it has started.

Remember that Hezbollah has thousands of missiles and that the Israeli “Iron Dome” couldn’t even keep up with Hamas’s attack.

Hezbollah didn’t have much of a missile force in 2006, and what they had were short range and inaccurate. Still, Israel was unable to find and destroy most of the launch sites and its ground incursion was defeated. Indeed Hezbollah was able to intercept Israeli comms while Israel could not intercept Hezbollah’s comms, since they were based on an underground private system.

It seems like the first steps would be to overwhelm the Iron dome, then hit the airfields and ports. A few missiles that get thru to the ports could wreck enough ships to make the ports unusable and hitting airfields, whether the planes are on the ground or not, would cripple the IAF. No nearby nation is going to let Israel run its air attacks off their airfields, after all. Even places where the government is sympathetic (Egypt) couldn’t, the population backlash would be immense and violent.

The Israeli army isn’t an elite bunch, they’re mostly conscripts who man checkpoints. Hezbollah is battle hardened. Once the Israeli air force is grounded, a land incursion suddenly doesn’t look as bad. Israel deploys its artillery in formations which indicate it hasn’t learned the lessons of the Ukraine war: drones and missile attacks could take much of it out.

At that point its Hezbollah ground troops vs. Israeli ground troops, and that’s a lot more even than it looks. Israel is a small country, there’s little land to give up.

The joker is Israeli nukes, but I have seen claims that Iranian intelligence knows where the ground based nukes are.

A strike against them is super-dangerous, if Israel thinks they are going to lose them, they’ll use them. At the same time, if Israel looks like it’s going to be defeated, they might use them anyway. Especially if Iran becomes involved, taking them out becomes very important.

Israel also has five diesel subs, possibly retrofitted with nuclear launch capability. I don’t know if Iran has any way of dealing with those.

Now, remember that there are other actors. Iraqi militias have indicated they support the Palestinians, and I would expect that many of them are already on their way to Israel’s borders. Syria hates Israel, and may decide to join in. Yemen has plenty of missiles as well, and strongly supports Palestine. Finally, there is Iran.

Iran is significant Russian ally, and one of the only countries to unconditionally support Russia in Ukraine (Israel has supported Ukraine.) Russia’s unlikely to extend its nuclear umbrella to Iran against Israel, but it might warn the US not to use nukes if the US decides to escalate.

I am not convinced that if the entire “axis of resistance” gets involved that Israel will win the ensuing war. These aren’t the incompetent Arab armies of the 60s, these are well equipped and battle-hardened troops who have been fighting for much of the last 20 years.

I think Israel’s military position is far more tenuous than it wants to admit, and probably more so that it even realizes.

We’ll see how this plays out. But the first thing to watch is Hezbollah. If they decide to go “all in” this is going to be a real war, not a replay of 2006 where they had to stay on the defensive and just take the massive bombing from Israel.

(Oh, and as for the American carrier group, well, don’t be so sure that if it gets involved, it’s immune to counter-attack.)

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Hamas Attacks, What Does It Mean?

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On October 9, 2023

20 Comments

For once I was taken by surprise. I didn’t expect this attack and despite my low opinion of the Israeli military, would not have expected it to be so successful.

Hamas actually captured the Israeli southern command base briefly. It was retaken with massive air strikes (meaning Israel was willing to hit its own people.) In the initial 12 hours or so they wiped the floor with local Israeli forces.

This is the most successful Palestinian military operation I can think of.

Hamas could not, of course, hold the ground it took and is retreating to Gaza. Israel has declared war and stated that they will invade Gaza.

A ground invasion will be extremely bloody, Gaza is one of the most densely populated places on Earth, and Hamas has had plenty of time to prepare. Bombing and shelling urban areas does not make invasion significantly easier.

Let’s drawn out some specific points:

Complete Mossad Intelligence Failure

Mossad, the Israeli intelligence agency, has a fearsome reputation, but they either wanted the attack to happen (which is unlikely) or they were caught completely by surprise. This is an embarrassment, to vastly understate the case.

Israeli Military Weakness

As I have said repeatedly, and as the last war with Hezbollah showed, the Israeli army, no matter how many weapons or men or planes it has, is weak and incompetent. This is not the military of 1967 or even 1980, when the legend of Israeli military brilliance was created.

This is due to serving primarily as an occupation army. All occupation armies, fighting against the weak, become weak, brutal bullies incompetent at fighting real opposition.

The Israeli army was slow to respond, a general was captured and a command base. This is, again, humiliating.

Humiliation

Humiliation is the word of the day. Just as a bully whose victim manages to get in a few good punches has to be brutal in response, so Israel will lash out massively.

Context

This is one reason why Hamas lashed out. No one could be expected to endure this, year on year, and not want to strike back. It is also why, while I have sympathy for anyone hurt or killed, I have no patience with crocodile tears from Israeli supporters, acting as if they haven’t been doing worse to Palestinians for years.

The Hezbollah Question

is whether they’ll attack. The answer seems to be “probably” as Hezbollah has said that if there is a ground invasion of Gaza, they will declare war. Hezbollah is no joke, they are battle hardened, have between 40K and 150K missiles, a drone force, and their own private comms system.

Israel is moving forces to the Lebanese border as we speak. Militarily speaking, if I were Hezbollah, I might attack sooner rather than later.

The Iran Question

Iran is Hamas and Hezbollah’s sponsor. It is VERY unlikely Hamas did this without Iranian greenlighting and if that’s so, the plan isn’t “do one attack, then get hammered.”

The “Iron” Dome

Israel’s missile defenses cracked under Hamas’s missile barrage. There is no question, if Hezbollah attacks, the Iron Dome will not shoot down most missiles. This time it won’t be Lebanon’s heartland being bombed mercilessly while Tel Aviv is spared, there will be carnage in both homelands.

Nukes

In some ways this is the bottom line. Israel has nukes. If they did not, I would expect Iran to join in and if I were Egypt, I might invade. Israel is weak and humiliated. But as long as they have nukes, other countries will shy off from direct war unless they think they have a way of taking out those nukes.

Diplomatic Damage

Israeli-Saudi Arabia negotiations are dead for the time being and other Arab allies will not be able to do anything but condemn Israel. There are massive demonstration in support of Hamas in Turkey, Egypt and many other Muslim countries.

Ethnic Cleansing and Occupation

Israel has a huge problem, in that it has a massive population of non-citizens, and those non-citizens are out-breeding the citizenry, except for the ultra-orthodox Jews who do not serve in the military. This is an ulcer, and many Israeli politicians have been clear they want to just get rid of the Palestinians. They can’t genocide them, because it would destroy the Holocaust trump card, but many would love ethnic cleanse them. This may be an opportunity.

This is also an issue because if Israel wants to directly run Gaza, the occupation will be a bloody guerilla war, an endless bleeding ulcer.

If they don’t want to run it, they have to find a friendly quisling force, like the Palestinian authority, to do it for them, and at least right now, there’s no one to take that role. Hamas are more moderate than the other main Gaza factions.

Imperial Overstretch

Usually when Israel is in trouble the US airlifts in massive arms and munitions to help them, as they did in the 2006 war. But right now the shelves are almost bare because of Ukraine.

Balance of Forces

Hamas is obviously still the massive underdog. They are praying for Hezbollah to join in, and perhaps they want Israel to invade so they can fight a ground war against Israel on their own ground. The smart money is still on Israel.

But do not underestimate Hezbollah, and don’t underestimate how nasty this could get if Hezbollah does intervene. As noted above, they will be able to strike Israel’s heartland. If Israel attacks into Lebanon in response, with ground assets, my money is Hezbollah and if I were Hezbollah I would want that. Defeat the attack, then counter-attack into Israel.

If Hezbollah has to attack on the ground because Israel won’t oblige them I honestly don’t know how it will go.

But, while smaller and less well equipped, Hezbollah is the superior military with higher morale. If I were Israeli, I would not be sanguine.

Concluding Remarks

I won’t cavil, I think Hamas is justified in this attack. I also think the argument that settlers are civilians is weak (though by settlers I do not mean all Israelis.) Israel is an apartheid religious-ethnic state which stole another people’s land and continues to brutalize them.

The only humane solution, one which allows Israel to continue to exist, is a single state with everyone as full citizens.

Alas, that is not on the table.

In the long run, Israel as an ethic religious state, like the Crusader States, is doomed.

The only question is how many people have to suffer before Israel becomes a nation whose very basis is not completely unjust.

(Oh, and if Iran joins in.)

**Edit: it seems early reports of Ukrainian aid weapons winding up with Hamas are incorrect, or at least unverified. Removed with my apologies. (Although I suspect many have wound up on the black market, and would be surprised if Hamas didn’t wind up with a few.)

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Week-end Wrap – Political Economy – October 8, 2023

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On October 8, 2023

2 Comments

Week-end Wrap – Political Economy – October 8, 2023

by Tony Wikrent

War

Hamas Attacks, What Does It Mean?

Ian Welsh, October 7, 2023

Hamas actually captured the Israeli southern command base briefly. It was retaken with massive air strikes (meaning Israel was willing to hit its own people.) In the initial 12 hours or so they wiped the floor with local Israeli forces….

As I have said repeatedly, and as the last war with Hezbollah showed, the Israeli army, no matter how many weapons or men or planes it has, is weak and incompetent. This is not the military of 1967 or even 1980, when the legend of Israeli military brilliance was created.

This is due to serving primarily as an occupation army. All occupation armies, fighting against the weak, become weak, brutal bullies incompetent at fighting real opposition.

The Israeli army was slow to respond, a general was captured and a command base. This is, again, humiliating.

Humiliation

Humiliation is the word of the day. Just as a bully whose victim manages to get in a few good punches has to be brutal in response, so Israel will lash out massively….

Nukes

In some ways this is the bottom line. Israel has nukes. If they did not, I would expect Iran to join in and if I were Egypt, I might invade. Israel is weak and humiliated. But as long as they have nukes, other countries will shy off from direct war unless they think they have a way of taking out those nukes.

Diplomatic Damage

Israeli-Saudi Arabia negotiations are dead for the time being and other Arab allies will not be able to do anything but condemn Israel. There are massive demonstration in support of Hamas in Turkey, Egypt and many other Muslim countries….

The Ukraine Connection

Of significant amusement is that it appears that much of the weaponry used by Hamas is from stockpiles sent to Ukraine and sold on the black market. This spread of weaponry was predicted and lo….

 

Invading Mexico to Destroy the Drug Cartels? Here’s How!

Harold Meyerson, October 5, 2023 [The American Prospect]

The Republican candidates for president, The New York Times reports, have united around a common solution for the scourge of fentanyl and other drugs coming across the border: invading Mexico. Almost to a person, they are calling for sending our armed forces—chiefly, special operations troops—into Mexico “to annihilate the Mexican drug cartels,” as Vivek Ramaswamy recently put it.

More than 20 Republican House members are co-sponsoring a bill that would authorize the deployment of U.S. forces against nine of those cartels. And a Reuters/Ipsos poll from September shows considerable public support for such action: By a 2-to-1 margin (52 percent to 26 percent), respondents favored sending troops there to take on the cartels. Even Democrats were narrowly divided: While 47 percent opposed such action, 44 percent backed it.

CANADA AND THE NATO ALLIANCE HUNKER DOWN TO DEFEND RACE WAR AGAINST RUSSIA — THE NEW EVIDENCE

John Helmer [via Naked Capitalism 10-03-2023]

Who Is Operating Ukraine’s New Abrams Tanks? Presence of U.S. or Polish Contractors Likely 

[Military Watch Magazine, via Naked Capitalism 10-01-2023]

Army War College Report Predicts Mass Casualties in Near-Peer Fight Against [Russia] – Analysis 

[Simplicius the Thinker(s), via Naked Capitalism 10-05-2023]

…The general gist of their chief point of concern is something we’ve all known, and something I’ve continuously written about, including in the previously posted report. It’s the fact that the past two decades of U.S. military action abroad have been nothing more than glorified policing actions against insurgent threats, dealing primarily with COIN (Counter Insurgency) training, tactics, and general strategic doctrine.

They now understand that years of fighting in a way where signal dominance and air supremacy reigned, allowed the U.S. to become undisciplined and lax, never having to worry about being ‘contested’ in any domain. This is the same point made by Dr. Philip Karber’s West Point Talk, where he repeatedly emphasized how bright the U.S. army’s rear logistical and C2/C3 points “glow” in the electromagnetic spectrum, and how easily this would be seen and pinpointed by Russia or any advanced peer force….

The Plan to Avert a New Cold War

Blaise Malley, October 5, 2023 [The New Republic]

Michael Doyle’s new book lays out how to avoid conflict with China and Russia.

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