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2016

Strategic Stability Vs Arms Control Follies :Peter Huessey

For much of the nuclear age, and certainly after the first arms control agreement between the US and the Soviet Union in 1972, America has sought to balance both arms control and deterrent imperatives by building both nuclear deterrent forces and later missile defenses that in combination make the use of nuclear weapons against the United States and its allies less and less likely.

As Admiral Richard Mies, the former Commander of US Strategic Command has emphasized, the watchword of nuclear deterrence has been to prevent nuclear war from ever breaking out between the nuclear armed superpowers. Critical to that effort has been to enhance what is known as “strategic stability” which means in a crisis there is no pressure on an American President to use nuclear weapons.

The current geostrategic landscape, however, is fraught with grave concerns which have heightened nuclear dangers. Civilian and military leaders of the Russian Federation just since 2009 have in more than two dozen instances threatened the use of nuclear weapons against the United States and its allies. China has threatened the use of military force against its East Asia neighbors as well as the United States should its hegemonic moves in the South China Sea be challenged. In North Korea, a rogue regime may now have an arsenal of upwards of 20 nuclear weapons which it routinely threatens to use against the Republic of Korea and the United States. And in Iran, the mullahs seek nuclear weapons while publicly denying any such ambition even as they remain the world’s number one state sponsor of terror while holding the largest missile arsenal in the Middle East.

FEELING TOO MUCH BERN: MARK STEYN

The denouement of my appearance on the ABC’s Q&A echoes on. Chris Kenny writes in The Australian:

In the final minute, US-based Canadian commentator Mark Steyn was summing up the prospects of Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders in the US presidential race. He quipped that Guardian journalist Lenore Taylor might get her wish — a socialist president. The audience burst into spontaneous applause, welcoming the prospect of a socialist president of the US. Steyn was flabbergasted.

“That’s not an applause line,” he admonished the crowd.

Host Tony Jones suggested it might have been a “laugh” line while a bemused Steyn suggested he might as well get a taxi to the airport. Then the insight of the moment seemed to dawn on Jones: “Well, it wasn’t the entire audience,” he protested.

Perhaps he was right. Maybe there were a few non-socialists in the ABC audience.

Speaking of Bernie, because of the openly corrupt nominating process in the Democrat Party, he’s getting stiffed in the delegate count by the so-called “super-delegates” who are pre-pledged to Hillary. So, even though he tied her in Iowa and whumped her 60-38 in the New Hampshire primary, she’s leading with 468 delegates to 53. The slugs who run the party loathe their voters and rig the system to render it a sham. Sporadic reader Bill Tomlinson proposes a solution:

Hi Mark

I have been a sporadic fan of yours for years, and I particularly enjoyed your “The March of Trump, and the Feel of Bern”.

But here’s a thought. Suppose Bernie wins the popular vote for the Democrat nomination, but Hillary leapfrogs him using her super-delegates. Bernie will be mad, but his supporters will be madder still.

Administration Misses Deadline to Give Counterterror Strategy to Congress By Bridget Johnson

President Obama missed a Monday deadline to have a Middle East strategy, including his counter-extremism plan, in the hands of lawmakers.

The comprehensive plan, which was supposed to be delivered by the secretaries of State and Defense, was a provision in the National Defense Authorization Act signed by Obama last fall.

The Obama administration has been focused on their Asia pivot over the past several days, as the president hosted a retreat session with ASEAN leaders at Sunnylands in Southern California.

“Unsurprisingly, the administration cannot articulate a strategy for countering violent extremists in the Middle East,” House Armed Services Committee Chairman Mac Thornberry (R-Texas) said. “Time and again, the president has told us his strategy to defeat extremist groups like ISIS and al-Qaeda is well underway; yet, months after the legal requirement was established, his administration cannot deliver that strategy to Congress.”

“I fear the president’s failure to deliver this report says far more about the state of his strategy to defeat terrorists than any empty reassurance he may offer from the podium.”

The law requires that the strategy include: “A description of the objectives and end state for the United States in the Middle East and with respect to violent extremism; a description of the roles and responsibilities of the Department of State in the strategy; a description of the roles and responsibilities of the Department of Defense in the strategy; a description of actions to prevent the weakening and failing of states in the Middle East; a description of actions to counter violent extremism; a description of the resources required by the Department of Defense to counter ISIL’s illicit oil revenues; a list of the state and non-state actors that must be engaged to counter violent extremism; a description of the coalition required to carry out the strategy, and the expected lines of effort of such a coalition; an assessment of United States efforts to disrupt and prevent foreign fighters traveling to Syria and Iraq and to disrupt and prevent foreign fighters in Syria and Iraq traveling to the United States.”

Trump Again Threatens to Sue Cruz, Reveals Self-Serving Motive By Walter Hudson

If you need further evidence that Donald Trump is running for president in order to serve the best interests of Donald Trump, here it is from the Associated Press:

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump on Monday offered rival Ted Cruz an ultimatum, threatening to sue Cruz over his eligibility to serve in the White House unless the Texas senator stops airing what Trump calls “false ads” and apologizes for what the billionaire real estate mogul called a series of lies about his positions.

… Trump saved the bulk of his criticism for Cruz. “If he doesn’t take down his false ads and retract his lies,” Trump said in a statement bashing Cruz, he will immediately file a lawsuit challenging Cruz’s eligibility to serve as president.

Trump has previously said a federal court should decide whether Cruz meets the constitutional requirement of being a “natural-born citizen” to serve as president. Cruz was born in Canada to an American mother, and many legal experts have said he meets that test.

Ask yourself, does Trump really care whether or not Ted Cruz is eligible to be president of the United States? If so, by presenting this ultimatum, hasn’t he effectively agreed to let Cruz’s eligibility go unchallenged in exchange for favorable treatment? If Cruz’s qualifications are truly in doubt, shouldn’t his eligibility be challenged regardless?

Climate Alarmists Botch Yet Another Prediction By Tyler O’Neil

A new study published Monday explains why sea levels have not been rising as much as predicted — “thirsty continents” are absorbing extra water. Perhaps this discovery will encourage humility among climate scientists.

Tom Hartsfield, a scientist and writer with a PhD in physics from the University of Texas, explained that this isn’t a failing of science so much as a call for nuance in a politicized field.

Our global system of air currents, ocean currents, cloud patterns, resonant temperature cycles, energy storage and release mechanisms, and further processes is mind-bogglingly complex.

Presently, the best climate models fall many orders of magnitude short of the power and intricacy needed to effectively predict the long-term climate patterns that emerge from the interactions of all these planetary systems. And that’s not a failure of science; it’s just the reality of how tough the problem is.

But there is a failure of science occurring as well, Hartsfield notes.

The failure is the lack of transparency and honesty about how feeble these models are and how much we should stake on their all-too-fallible forecasts. Thus the same problem continues: climate science has once again botched a prediction that its models were underequipped to make.

A Republican Game Plan By David Solway

In The Race Card, a book examining the influence of racial stereotypes in manipulating election results, Tali Mendelberg’s analysis applies as well to voting patterns in general. “Norms and consciousness,” she explains, are the “necessary and missing factors” in shaping electoral response. The extent to which the individual feels that his self-understanding or desired identity resonates with the party’s implicit message and nature significantly conditions the way he votes. In other words, it is not only a question of policy compatibility but of an internal norm, a tacit or latent identification of the voter’s ideal self with the party’s, and its representative’s, manifested character.

This is why many potential Republican voters may sit out an election or, from a reaction of frustration or resentment, cast their ballots for the opposition. For they do not see their self-image reflected in the stance of the Republicrat who advances such policies as amnesty for illegals, entitlement spending, pro-choice abortion, hospitality for unvetted refugees, green energy boondoggles, carbon taxes to combat non-existent global warming, and the social leprosy of Islamic accommodation. Blue Republicans only kindle a feeling of disappointment or betrayal in those who would in optimal circumstances be natural constituents.

What most politicians forget is that the voter essentially votes for himself. Regarding himself as insightful, trustworthy and unafraid, his candidate must strike him as replicating these qualities. Thus, a Republican campaigner who fearlessly embraces the core tenets—what we might call the intrinsic platform—of his party’s history, or at the very least is not reluctant to be upfront, vocal and vigorous in disseminating his message despite the dead hand of political correctness, stands a good chance of succeeding.

Tony Thomas Attack of the Gender Warriors

The sisterhood is grimly determined to see women in every unit of the armed forces, objections on grounds of physical capability, logistics, group psychology and lowered standards being dismissed as mere phallocratic prattle. Let us hope that peace prevails while commonsense does not
“For the strength of the pack is the wolf, and the strength of the wolf is the pack.”

–Rudyard Kipling

Western feminists are getting a good scorecard on feminizing the Western military, starting with the all-powerful US forces. The Sisterhood’s pack, apart from the likes of our own Lt-General (Retd) David Morrison and politicians, include the human rights bureaucracies, the Left, and “diversity” advocates. The plan, branded as “equality”, is to have women promoted to one-star rank (roughly Colonel/Brigadier-General) and beyond. Those so elevated can then drive the feminizing from atop the system.

There is a problem, though. Currently, women without prior combat experience struggle to secure the loftiest promotions, so the campaign is on to lower combat fitness standards. “Equality” to the Left – and the current crop of top brass — means “discrimination” if women don’t represent suitably proportionate numbers in elite units. To conservatives, “equality” means equal opportunity to pass a necessary military test. If women don’t get through, too bad.

So, do women do well at war? From 2001 to 2013, 154 US servicewomen were killed on duty in Iraq and Afghanistan, many by IEDs which, admittedly, do not discriminate. Nineteen mothers returned to their toddlers and children, but in body bags.[1] All studies suggest that women’s casualty rates become disproportionate the closer women get to combat – and close to half US women troops reported hostile action in those two war zones. But to the Sisterhood, these are trivial issues compared with the need for equality, “fairness” and “civilizing” the rude military. If the push leaves the West less able to deal with, say, ISIS and/or Iran, North Korea, Islamic “caliphates” and thousands of lone-wolfers, well, thAt’s just tough for the West. Feminists, so seemingly reluctant to denounce Islamic misogyny while Western men persist in looking at their watches or wearing blue ties, have maintained a prolonged and remarkable silence. Perhaps their hope is that they and their sisters will be the last consigned to sexual slavery and life in a burka’d sack.

Last December, US Defense Secretary Ash Carter announced lifting of all gender-based restrictions on combat and infantry roles, most in infantry and armor units[2] and including the elite Rangers and SEALS.[3] The Marines had wanted the toughest jobs, such as machine-gunner and field reconnaissance, to stay male-only. They lost partly because the US, conveniently for politicians, has faced no serious opposition in the field since Vietnam. There has been no extreme combat to test the fragility of mixed-sex combat units. [4]

Carter’s professed rationale – prompted by females’ lawsuits and pressure from the Obama White House — was to increase the pool of potential recruits for 220,000 new unrestricted roles. Low ability of women to pass existing physical tests (developed from generations of combat experience) may shrink the pool to just a birdbath, hence the push to drop standards.

Prior groundwork has included such comical stuff as rolling out courses for US non-commissioned officers and combat veterans, starting on Japanese Marine bases. The instructors donned fake 12kg bellies and boobs and, thus clad, went through the PT regime in order to feel greater empathy with pregnant soldiers. These courses were mandated whether or not a team actually had any pregnant soldiers. To watch the gym session, click on the video below [5].

Brennan: Islamic State creating chemical weapons By Rick Moran

CIA director John Brennan said in an interview with 60 Minutes that the Islamic State is developing the capability to use chemical weapons on the battlefield and in terror attacks.

Washington Examiner:

“There are reports that ISIS has access to chemical precursors and munitions that they can use,” Brennan said Sunday on “60 Minutes.”

“We have a number of instances where ISIL has used chemical munitions on the battlefield,” Brennan continued.

“60 Minutes” further reported, “The CIA believes that ISIS has the ability to manufacture small quantities of chlorine and mustard gas.”

To buttress his accusation, the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) confirmed that laboratory tests had come back positive for the sulfur mustard, after around 35 Kurdish troops were sickened on the battlefield in Iraq last August.

Reuters:

The OPCW will not identify who used the chemical agent. But the diplomat, speaking on condition of anonymity because the findings have not yet been released, said the result confirmed that chemical weapons had been used by Islamic State fighters.

You won’t believe that latest warmist excuse for the failure of their prediction of doom By Thomas Lifson

We’re getting to the point where “the dog ate my homework” is going to look better than what the warmists are coming up with to explain why doomsday is a bit late in arriving. But trust them, it will arrive. Err, pretty soon…

You will remember that global warming isn’t absent; it is just in hiding, deep underneath the world’s oceans, just waiting to emerge. And now, to explain the downright embarrassing fact that that the sea level rise isn’t flooding poor island nations the way it was supposed to, we now have – ta-da! – “thirsty continents.” Why, those tricky continents, it turns out, actually absorb water in their soil. Who knew?

Sean Greene explains in the Los Angeles Times:

Despite the accelerated melting of glaciers and ice sheets, sea levels aren’t rising quite as quickly as scientists anticipated. The reason: Continents are absorbing more of the water before it flows into the seas, according to a new study.

Scientists at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory figured this out by measuring changes in Earth’s gravity with twin satellites orbiting the Earth in tandem. Over the past decade, thirsty continents have slowed the rate of sea level rise by about 20%, or about 1 millimeter per year, according to the study published in Science.

Okay, it’s not “the dog ate my global warming,” but it is an attempt to explain away yet another failure of a doomsday scenario that was used to panic the public into uncritically accepting economy-killing measures that would, just coincidentally, vastly increase the power of governments over all economic activity.

Technology Security: The Profit Disconnect By Stephen D. Bryen and Shoshana Bryen

One great disconnect afflicting American society is between earning a profit and safeguarding our national security. On one side are those who support free trade in the belief that open markets and shared technology trade strengthen the economy. On the other hand, there is something categorically wrong with the free trade paradigm if free trade means selling or sharing technology critical to national security. Then, the cost of free trade is very high, so much so that it could be fatal to the long-term survival of the state.

The United States is justifiably proud of its technological prowess; in fact, much of our military might is based on our superior technical smarts. But is this an artifact of a fast-evaporating past?

Starting in the early 1970s, or even perhaps a little before, the then-Soviet Union embarked on a massive military buildup, committing a huge portion of their Gross National Product (GNP) to military development and production, starting with nuclear weapons and their delivery systems. The Soviet aim was to shift the balance of power between East and West, and secure for the Soviet Union something better than equality with the United States. By threatening to overrun NATO in a general war, the Soviets were looking for economic and political concessions — principally in Europe, although they also promoted a big push in the Middle East, rich in oil and in markets for Soviet military goods.