This is a Very Smart Move

Donald Trump was on Jimmy Kimmel, and in response a question from the late night host, Trump said that he would be willing to debate Bernie Sanders, and Sanders promptly picked up the gauntlet:

On ABC's "Jimmy Kimmel Live!" Trump was asked if he would consider holding a debate with Sanders. Trump agreed to the idea.

"If he paid a sum toward charity I would love to do that," said the business mogul, noting that a Sanders vs. Trump debate "would have such high ratings."

In a campaign stop in North Dakota, Trump said Sanderrs would need to raise $10 million for charity in order for the debate to happen.

Sanders quickly responded with a tweet reading, "Game On. I look forward to debating Donald Trump in California before the June 7th primary."

I don't expect Trump to follow through, but there is no way that this is a losing proposition for Sanders.

If Trump backs out, he looks weak.

If Sanders does poorly in the debate, Clinton is not harmed, and her campaign gets a preview of Trump's debate performance.

Sanders gets another chance to sell his movement and his campaign.

If Bernie trounces Trump, he gives a big boost to his chances in California.

There are no downsides for Sanders, and only one downside for Clinton, here, and all likely outcomes are bad for the "Short Fingered Vulgarian."

Well played.

What it Means to Have Meaningful and Achievable Goals

Notwithstanding all the reports from western that the Russians are somehow or other are immersing themselves into a quagmire, a military analysis of the Russian campaign in Syria has concluded that their campaign is well conceived and likely to achieve its goals at a relatively low cost:

Three months into his military intervention in Syria, Russian President Vladimir Putin has achieved his central goal of stabilizing the Assad government and, with the costs relatively low, could sustain military operations at this level for years, U.S. officials and military analysts say.

That assessment comes despite public assertions by President Barack Obama and top aides that Putin has embarked on an ill-conceived mission in support of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad that it will struggle to afford and that will likely fail.

"I think it's indisputable that the Assad regime, with Russian military support, is probably in a safer position than it was," said a senior administration official, who requested anonymity. Five other U.S. officials interviewed by Reuters concurred with the view that the Russian mission has been mostly successful so far and is facing relatively low costs.

………

Yet since its campaign began on Sept. 30, Russia has suffered minimal casualties and, despite domestic fiscal woes, is handily covering the operation's cost, which analysts estimate at $1-2 billion a year. The war is being funded from Russia's regular annual defense budget of about $54 billion, a U.S. intelligence official said.

………

Putin has said his intervention is aimed at stabilizing the Assad government and helping it fight the Islamic State group, though Western officials and Syrian opposition groups say its air strikes mostly have targeted moderate rebels.

The western response to the Russian intervention, which, BTW, is actually legal under international law because the sovereign government of Syria has requested the aid, is completely incoherent.

Case in point, the absurd and self contradictory statements by the head of Human Rights Watch: On December 25 of this year he said that the killing of Zahran Alloush is an attempt to eliminate any moderate opposition, while on December 30 of this year, he claimed that the initial release of Alloush from prison in 2011 was an attempt to taint the opposition with a jihadist brush.

Note that the Russians are also supporting the Kurds, while the NATO forces are both supporting the Kurds (most of NATO) and bombing them (our NATO "allies"the Turks)

The Russian strategy appears to be effective because their goals are limited, and not self-contradictory:

Rather than pushing back the opposition, Russia may be settling for defending Assad's grip on key population centers that include the heartland of his minority Alawite sect, said the U.S. intelligence official.

Russia is taking advantage of the operation to test new weapons in battlefield conditions and integrate them into its tactics, the intelligence official said. It is refining its use of unarmed surveillance drones, the official added.

"The Russians didn't go blindly into this," said the U.S. intelligence official, adding that they "are getting some benefit out of the cost."

………

Vasily Kashin, a Moscow-based analyst, said the war is not financially stressing Russia.

"All the available data shows us that the current level of military effort is completely insignificant for the Russian economy and Russian budget," said Kashin, of the Center for Analyses of Strategies and Technologies.

"It can be carried on at the same level year after year after year," he said.

Compare this to the US policy:

• Support regime change in Syria with a goal of a democratic and secular replacement.
• Support for Saudi and Turkish efforts supporting Sunni Salafist Jihadi forces,which included the creation of ISIS.
• Opposition to ISIS, the declaration that they are of a significant threat to the US, and supporting a massive air campaign against them.
• Support of Kurdish forces fighting ISIS.
• Allowing Turkish attacks against those same Kurdish forces by Turkey.
• Supporting "moderate" rebels that collapse as soon as they end up in conflict with Jihadi rebels.  (Said support ends up in ISIS hands)
• Demanding the removal of the Assad regime.
• Demanding that government remains intact in some form.

This is the stupidest big of mind f%$#ery since Johnson and Kennedy's "Best and Brightest" believed that they could win the war in Vietnam.

Basically, the Russians are following Barack Obama's stated policy, "Don't do stupid sh%$," and Barack Obama is ignoring ignoring this policy, which is why their strategy appears to be gaining traction, and ours does not.

H/t Moon of Alabama.

This is a Very Interesting Perspective on Black Lives Matter

Even more than the now moribund Occupy movement, Black Lives Matter appears to be a movement without goals.

There is nothing approaching a statement of goals, just a vague statement of principles, which are unattainable because they are little more than a word salad of good sounding words.

Over at Orchestrated Pulse, R.L. Stephens II says that this serves a purpose, and that many of the "leaders" of the nominally leaderless Black Lives Matter movement have personal career goals at the core of their actions:

The latest effort to storm Bernie Sanders’ appearances is only making the problem more obvious. The two women that interrupted Sanders last weekend seemingly did so unilaterally. You can’t build real mass political power that way, but building effective power is not their point. Make no mistake, this Bernie Sanders hoopla is ultimately about campaign jobs and foundation funding, not emancipation for the masses. These interruptions will create career opportunities for a few activists and political operatives—the Black leadership desired by [BLM activist] Tia [Oso] and others—but, as with Ferguson, the masses of Black people will be unaffected. 

I have heard variants of this complaint for decades, that some elements of the Black political class are driven more by a desire for patronage positions than by a desire for substantive change.

Certainly, this would explain why BLM activists have not been as active, or as effective, at confronting Hillary Clinton.

If the name of the game is patronage, than it naturally makes sense to hitch your star to Hillary, who has been a creature of this sort of politics, for decades.

Read the rest.

H/t Naked Capitalism.

Our Private Little War Is Going so Well

ISIS just took over Ramadi, the capital of al Anbar provice:

Islamic State fighters used a sandstorm to help seize a critical military advantage in the early hours of the terrorist group’s attack on the provincial Iraqi capital of Ramadi last week, helping to set in motion an assault that forced Iraqi security forces to flee, current and former American officials said Monday.

The sandstorm delayed American warplanes and kept them from launching airstrikes to help the Iraqi forces, as the Islamic State fighters evidently anticipated. The fighters used the time to carry out a series of car bombings followed by a wave of ground attacks in and around the city that eventually overwhelmed the American-backed Iraqi forces.

Once the storm subsided, Islamic State and Iraqi forces were intermingled in heavy combat in many areas, making it difficult for allied pilots to distinguish friend or foe, the officials said. By that point, the militants had gained an operational momentum that could not be reversed.

“The dust storm at the very least neutralized capabilities that could have been decisive,” said one former senior military official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss confidential battle assessments.

Translation, the Iraqi army cannot find its ass with both hands, and needs extensive air support not to fold up like overcooked cabbage.

There is a reason that, "A column of 3,000 Shiite militia fighters, many supported by Iran, has arrived at a military base near Ramadi as part of the effort to reclaim the city," because the US trained army lacks the competence, leadership, and toughness to successfully prosecute this conflict.

Bush's folly continues.

What the Hairy One* Said

My older brother, Sasquatch Stephen, makes a very good point about the tactics of ALEC (American Legislative Exchange Council), which is that while they are a bunch of evil mother f%$#ers who will be first up against the wall when the revolution comes, their tactics viewed in isolation are in fact both laudable and effective:

In the well duh category, the Huffington Post recently posted an article entitled Democrats Create An ALEC-Killer.

Gee, often I have heard the cries about these dark, underhanded, suspicious tactics of this group.

And what are these tactics, why the Republicans have organized a right-wing group to push for its policies at the state level, providing political discipline, they create draft statutes, coordinate activities, and support people who agree with them across the spectrum. And all this has worked for them very well over the last decade.

You know, this is called activism. I once tried to point this out at a MoveOn meeting I was stupid enough to attend. The reception to that comment wasn't good.

Sure it's financed by the right's most fanatical and finanically interested participants, and you expected different?

(emphasis mine)

The reaction at the MoveOn meeting is not surprising.

MoveOn has always been more about giving comfortable people the impression that they are doing something  than it is about actually getting sh%$ done.

^*I have it on good authority that he once frightened a Chinese village that described him as a "Hairy Giant."

What Needs to be Said

A democracy and anti al Queda activist from Yemen has published an OP/ED in the New York Times saying that our drone war in Yemen is bolstering the terrorist organization:

“DEAR OBAMA, when a U.S. drone missile kills a child in Yemen, the father will go to war with you, guaranteed. Nothing to do with Al Qaeda,” a Yemeni lawyer warned on Twitter last month. President Obama should keep this message in mind before ordering more drone strikes like Wednesday’s, which local officials say killed 27 people, or the May 15 strike that killed at least eight Yemeni civilians.

Drone strikes are causing more and more Yemenis to hate America and join radical militants; they are not driven by ideology but rather by a sense of revenge and despair. Robert Grenier, the former head of the C.I.A.’s counterterrorism center, has warned that the American drone program in Yemen risks turning the country into a safe haven for Al Qaeda like the tribal areas of Pakistan — “the Arabian equivalent of Waziristan.”

Anti-Americanism is far less prevalent in Yemen than in Pakistan. But rather than winning the hearts and minds of Yemeni civilians, America is alienating them by killing their relatives and friends. Indeed, the drone program is leading to the Talibanization of vast tribal areas and the radicalization of people who could otherwise be America’s allies in the fight against terrorism in Yemen.

The first known drone strike in Yemen to be authorized by Mr. Obama, in late 2009, left 14 women and 21 children dead in the southern town of al-Majala, according to a parliamentary report. Only one of the dozens killed was identified as having strong Qaeda connections.

…………

This is why A.Q.A.P. is much stronger in Yemen today than it was a few years ago. In 2009, A.Q.A.P. had only a few hundred members and controlled no territory; today it has, along with Ansar al-Sharia, at least 1,000 members and controls substantial amounts of territory.

His entreaties will likely fall on deaf ears, because Obama has been thoroughly captured by the high-tech remote violence crowd in the state security security apparatus.

More of This

Alan Grayson accurately calls his opponent Taliban Dan Webster.

This is what Alan Grayson does best: He explains the moral dimensions of Republican beliefs and Republican policy.

As opposed to drinking tea with the pinky extended, and talking about how stupid or lame the voters or your base is, he takes it to them.

If you don't call out evil and insanity this time around, it becomes normal behavior the next time around.

This is why triangulation is a failure, it serves only to embolden your opponent to move further away from sanity when you extend the boundaries of what is socially acceptable discourse.

It's why I love^* Alan Grayson.

He understands the moral dimension to policy, and he aggressively communicates these dimensions.

Needless to say, the Beltway Kool Kidz club is having the vapors about his ads.

^*In a 110% purely heterosexual kind of way, of course, as the General would say.

Unbelievably F%$#ing Stupid

Let's look at the targets and paths, shall we?

---

Pakistan


North Korea


Iran

Well, we now have SecDef Robert Gates saying that the U.S. has conventionally ballistic missiles in deployment:

Responding to a question from NBC’s David Gregory on the ability to deter nuclear armed rogue states, Gates said: “We have, in addition to the nuclear deterrent today, a couple of things we didn’t have in the Soviet days… And we have prompt global strike affording us some conventional alternatives on long-range missiles that we didn’t have before."

This is f%$#ing insane.

Incoming ballistic missiles, whether with nuclear, conventional explosive, or kinetic warheads, all look the same from launch until the moment of impact, and so are very likely to trigger a nuclear counterstrike.

I'm with Noah Shachtman on this one:

The Obama administration is poised to take up one of the more dangerous and hare-brained schemes of the Rumsfeld-era Pentagon. The New York Times is reporting that the Defense Department is once again looking to equip intercontinental ballistic missiles with conventional warheads. The missiles could then, in theory, destroy fleeing targets a half a world away — a no-notice “bolt from the blue,” striking in a matter of hours. There’s just one teeny-tiny problem: the launches could very well start World War III.

………

The Pentagon mumbled all kinds of assurances that Beijing or Moscow would never, ever, never misinterpret one kind of ICBM for the other. But the core of their argument essentially came down to this: Trust us, Vlad Putin! That ballistic missile we just launched in your direction isn’t nuclear. We swear!

Former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld couldn’t even muster that coherent of a defense. [Though the juxtaposition of, "Former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld" and, "Coherent," is generally a losing battle anyway.]

“Everyone in the world would know that [the missile] was conventional,” he said in a press conference, “after it hit within 30 minutes.”

(emphasis mine)

So, you will know after a missile hits the target whether or not it is a decapitating nuclear strike aimed at you.

Somehow, this is not reassuring, particularly since if we have a tool like this, we would likely use it on an at least annual basis.

Why We Need to Cut the Military Budget by at least 85%

Because, whether the President is a Democrat or a Republican, having an "invade anywhere anytime" military is like giving a loaded revolver and amphetamines to a toddler:

Sen. Joseph Lieberman, (I-Conn) a renowned hawk and one of the foremost champions of the invasion of Iraq, warned on Sunday that the United States faced "danger" unless it pre-emptively acts to curb the rise of terrorism in Yemen.

"Somebody in our government said to me in Sana'a, the capital of Yemen, Iraq was yesterday's war. Afghanistan is today's war. If we don't act preemptively, Yemen will be tomorrow's war," Lieberman said, during an appearance on "Fox News Sunday". "That's the danger we face."

(emphasis mine)

The problem with having a military that is able to invade anywhere, anytime, for any reason, is that there are people, including Joe Lieberman and whoever, "Somebody in our government," is with small brains, and even smaller penises, who will use military power with all the forethought of the aforementioned child on speed.

If you build the military, they will use it recklessly, to the detriment of both the nation and to the military itself.

The current "seabasing" concept being developed in the Pentagon is just the sort of "invasion in a box" that will make this even easier to do, and hence more likely.

The capabilities that we implement actually increase the military death toll, because they encourage insane strategies by the civilian and senior military leadership.

What's more, they starve our economy, it will be costing in excess of $1 million a year per soldier in Afghanistan, and they starve the social safety net, killing our own citizens through lack of healthcare, and over the longer term, through a lack of investment in infrastructure and education.

H/t Attackerman.

Pushback on Supporting Karzai

It's beginning to look like Obama has a problem in Afghanistan.

On one side, he has the military, which is pushing for an escalation, because too many of the senior officers are too invested in their theories of irregular warfare, and have lost sight of the regional goal, and so are looking for "victory" (McChrystal, Petraeus).

On the other side, which also includes military personnel, you have people see the real goals of Afghanistan as simply insuring that al Qaeda does not create another safe-haven there, and this side includes much of the state department, most of our European allies, and now, it appears, Karl Eikenberry, the US ambassador to Afghanistan, who has sent memos saying that an escalation would make things worse.

Note that Eikenberry is a retired general, and he commanded US forces there in 2007 and 2007, but until now he has scrupulously avoided comment on the military end of things:

Although Eikenberry's extensive military experience and previous command in Afghanistan were the key reasons Obama chose him for the top diplomatic job there, the former general had been reluctant as ambassador to weigh in on military issues. Some officials who favor an increase in troops said they were surprised by the last-minute nature of his strongly worded cables.

In these and other communications with Washington, Eikenberry has expressed deep reservations about Karzai's erratic behavior and corruption within his government, said U.S. officials familiar with the cables. Since Karzai was officially declared reelected last week, U.S. diplomats have seen little sign that the Afghan president plans to address the problems they have raised repeatedly with him.

When I made comparisons to the mistakes made following the assassination of Diem in Vietnam, I had no idea that people who have Obama's ear were of like mind.

Karzai is there because the US installed him, and could only gain legitimacy through the quality of his governance, hence he has no legitimacy in Afghanistan.

With all that is going on, and there are now official statements from the White House saying that, "Our commitment is not open-ended," which implies people are starting to get a clue, and aren't being hawkish because they think that it will help in 2012.

M4/M16 Problems

One of the things that I did not cover in my discussion of the firefight at Camp Keating was the performance of the weapons there.

Specifically, it appears that the M4s carbines and M249 "Minimi" SAWs started to fail over the course of the fight.

There are a number of links, but this release a draft report from the Combat Studies Institute seems to be the most definitive. (you can see other accounts , here, here, here, and here.

The big issue here is that there are reports of both the M4 and M249 failing as the engagement went forward.

Since both weapons were failing, with one (M4) having a short stroke gas-tube operation, and the other (M249) having a long stroke piston, it's pretty clear that the method of operation of these weapons are directly responsible for these failures.

Here is what I think is the pertinent quote:

Stafford crawled back up to the protection of the southern post of the OP, where he watched Specialist Bogar put up a heroic defense, nearly single-handedly, with his SAW. Bogar placed it on top of the sandbags, notwithstanding as Stafford noted, “I’m just watching that boulder pop with rounds coming in.” Stafford was badly wounded and drifting in and out of consciousness, but he distinctly remembered, “Bogar had just set his SAW on top of the sandbags and he was just kind of spraying, going through SAW rounds pretty quick. I remember him, loading and spraying, loading and spraying.” At the Crow’s Nest, Specialist Ayers was also going cyclic with the M-240. Stafford also remembered being impressed at the volume of fire that Ayers was pouring out, “I could also hear the 240 going off above me in the Crow’s Nest, because Ayers was just ripping them apart. I could hear Rainey screaming at Ayers not to melt the barrel on the 240 and to control his fires.”

Specialist Bogar fired approximately six hundred rounds at a cyclic rate of fire from his SAW when that weapon became overheated, and eventually jammed the bolt forward. Specialist Stafford noted, “Bogar was still in our hole firing quite a bit. Then Bogar’s SAW jammed. Basically it just got way overheated, because he opened the feed tray cover and I remember him trying to get it open and it just looked like the bolt had welded itself inside the chamber. His barrel was just white hot.”

(emphasis mine)

While I think that "White Hot" is probably an exaggeration, I would think that weapons would fail with the barrel still "cherry" hot, but it appears that there was a lot of shooting going on and the weapons were getting very hot as a result, at which point things like cook-off of rounds, expansion of parts, etc. begin to be a factor.

I will note that the M249 is a weapon that fires from an open bolt, which means that you have to be pumping a lot of rounds down range to get it that hot, so fire discipline, as alluded to in exchange above regarding the M240, a 7.62mm belt machine gun that is essentially the M249's big brother.

This may have been a situation where the weapons were simply fired beyond their design capabilities.

Part of the reason for this is that the weapons used by both had similar effective ranges.

The AK-47, because of its relative lack of accuracy, is really not effective beyond 200m, particularly in the hands of a typical insurgent, and the M4, with its short (14½") barrel and relatively light round, lacks lethality beyond that range.

The M16, by contrast, with its longer barrel, would be able to place effective fire on the enemy at more than 300m.

Had the soldiers been using the M16, they would have been able to engage the enemy before the enemy could engage them, and it is not entirely clear to me (please, someone educate me) why the troops were issued a carbine in a non-urban area where engagement distances would likely be longer.

Additionally, it appears that the position was located primarily due to non-combat considerations, which made it less defensible than it should have been.

All of these contributed to a very intense firefight, and it appears that the intensity of the combat was a significant cause as to the failures of these weapons.

Simply put, a personal weapon, or a squad automatic weapon, are not designed to throw that many rounds down range in that short a time.

One question that is not addressed in this report, at least not in this early draft of the report, is whether fire discipline was maintained, or if the troops were reverting to "spray and pray".

My guess is that fire discipline was maintained, at least to the degree that discipline is possible when you are being attacked by a heavily armed force that outnumbers you, but I have no direct military or combat experience to evaluate this.

That being said, I think that the M4 should be replaced. Most of the other modern western armies, the Germans excepted, have switched to a Bullpup design, and as such, they have longer barrels, and shorter overall lengths than the M4.

See the table below for a comparison:

Weapon	Barrel Length	Overall Length
M4	14.5 in	29.8 in (stock retracted)
Tavor T.A.R-21	18.1 in	28.5 in

Additionally, while there are advantages to gas tube operation, generally lighter weight and better accuracy because there are fewer moving parts, one consistent complaint about the AR-15 and its children is that the weapons require meticulous, almost obsessive cleaning.

I admire the breakthroughs that Eugene Stoner made when he created the weapon, and many of those innovations, the use of plastics and high-strength lightweight alloys, continue today, but I think that the use of the gas tube has been shown to be problematic.

That being said, I would favor moving to a new weapon, as opposed to something like the gas piston retrofit, as the existing weapon has problems that are inherent in the design (i.e. barrel length and overall length).

In my perfect world, the Army and Marines would purchase one of the Bullpups already in service, as opposed to developing a new weapon itself, but given the nature of defense procurement in the US, particularly the Army Ordinance's rather parochial view towards foreign weapons, I think that this unlikely.

Note: I have never served, and I've never shot anything more substantial than a .22 short rifle for in a riflery class in summer camp, so if I am wrong, please tell me in the comments.

All I ask is some detail. Don't tell me I'm an idiot, show me that I'm an idiot.

USAF Light Attack Program Proceeds

Boeing OV-10X Bronco

Hawker Beechcraft T-6

It looks like the USAF is getting serious about buying something to provide close air support in a counter-insurgency scenario, and we are now seeing the Boeing (originally North American Rockwell)It looks like the OV-10X Bronco and the Hawker Beechcraft (originally Pilatus PC-9) AT-6 Texan II being developed for these roles.

My own inclination would be to go with the Bronco. Twin engines, which can mitigate the effect of a lucky shot with an AK, along with a history of operating in austere conditions, works for me.

How Sri Lanka Defeated the Tamil Tigers

Here is an interesting analysis of how Sri Lanka defeated the Tamil Tigers.

The short version is that they ignore world opinion, and refused to make avoidance of civilian casualties a centerpiece of their campaign.

Note that these are legal under international law, which requires that non-combatants not be targeted, not that efforts be made to protect them from combat activities that legitimately target the enemy.

The post makes what I think is an error, in that it fails to distinguish between colonial conflicts, which include Iraq and Afghanistan, and internal civil wars, such as Sri Lanka.

Evidence shows that in an colonial conflict, these are precisely the most counter productive tactics.

As to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which is where I look for an application of this principle, I think that conflict in the disputed territories is much more of a colonial conflict than a civil war, so these techniques would not be effective.

Major Change in Pentagon Strategy

General James Cartwright, vice-chairman of the JCS, has announced that the so-called two war strategy will be dropped at the next DoD Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR).

This is an unalloyed good. Not only has this policy, that the US should be able to defeat two "near peer" opponents in short order, created a ruinously expensive military, but it has also created a military that is ill suited to the current conflicts that we are involved in, where over-reliance on high-tech, and under reliance of boots on the ground, has led to our military losing, as opposed to winning, hearts and minds on the ground.

Tactical Analysis of the Gaza Strip Combat

First a disclaimer, this is not an essay on the rightness or the wrongness of the Gaza operation. It is an analysis of the tactics used with an eye toward tactical lessons learned from the Lebanon war, and toward lessons that should be learned by the US military.

Think of it as the War Nerd, without the good writing.

Aviation Week & Space Technology has an analysis of the combat in the Gaza Strip (paid subscription required), and it's basic conclusion is rather unsurprising, though it's rather controversial in some military circles, that air force operations must be completely subordinate to the ground forces authority.

Considering the debacle in Lebanon in 2006, where the Chief of Staff was the first, and likely the last, Air Force general, and worked on the USAF model, basically the assumption that precision guided munitions delivered from altitudes in excess of 8000 feet could win the war, this is not an unanticipated change in tactics.

One need only look at Afghanistan to see that the Taliban's best recruiting tool is the USAF.

Some of the things that they did that worked on a tactical level:

• Using retired/reserve air force officers physically in the ground units as liaison officers.
• Each brigade had a specific helicopter squadron specifically assigned to them, and under their command.
• One pilot from the helicopter squadron was physically assigned to the brigade's communication cell, and he conducted all communications with the helicopter squadron.
• A tightly integrated network to allow handoff from target identification to strike in less than 1 minute.
• The brigade teams had significant autonomy from the high command in Tel Aviv.
• Each brigade had its own dedicated artillery support.
• Extensive operations at night, to take advantage of the Israeli superiority in night vision systems.

This does not make Gaza operations a victory, but these are lessons that the US military, and particularly the bomb happy boys in blue in the USAF, desperately need to learn for Afghanistan.

Navy Already Shifting Away from Shallow Waters? | Danger Room from Wired.com

It appears that the US Navy will be shifting strategy away from littoral (coastal) operations.

The article makes some grandiose statements about how a new networked battlespace will require naval ships to operate further offshore, but I think that this is bunk. Rather there are two imperatives driving this decision:

• Having a ship run aground ends a career in the Navy, even if it was really unavoidable, and littoral operations, because they are in shallower water, increase the possibility of a ground by at least an order of magnitude.
• Because of the US history of separation from enemies by oceans, there is a myopic focus on a blue water navy

What's Going on in Lebanon

Well, it appears that proximate cause of this conflict boils down to two thing, control of the Beruit airport and Hezbollah's communications system:

It has been announced by all sides that today is the first day of the civil war in Lebanon. This has been building with the steady assassination of political leaders since the conclusion of the war in 2006. Hezbollah is not happy, and all of a sudden the government of Lebanon has access to some very accurate intelligence.

It started with a tip regarding airport security and the means by which Iran was reportedly flying in military supplies to Hezbollah. It didn't go over well with the militia when the government announced they were going to seize control of a security camera system in the Beruit airport. That was followed by the removal of the head of airport security, a member of Hezbollah.

It's not particularly surprizing that this would lead to violence. You are talking about the supply lines and the communications network of Hezbollah, which are crucial to them tactically.

Hezbollah has now appeared to lave largely withdrawn from west Beruit, but they appear to still be aggressively confronting Walid Jumblatt's pro government Druze forces east of the city.

IDF Ramps Up Ground Forces Training

This increase in focus in training ground forces, which accompanies an increase in the status of ground forces is not surprising.

The conclusion of the Winograd report^*, which reviewed the 2006 Lebanon campaign was quite clear:

The military has abandoned the doctrine that stressed precision stand-off firepower over maneuver warfare, arguably the biggest mistake Israel made in the conflict.

It should be noted that the doctrine that they are abandoning is the central doctrine of the US military, particularly the USAF, and it is why you are seeing changes as a result of the experiences in Iraq and Afghanistan.

In fact, when one looks at the failures of the US military, at their core have been a consistent over-reliance on air power, whether USAF fast jets or slower helicopters.

^*Warning, the format is some sort of mutant flash called NTXbook.

Guiliani Lowering Expectations in Early States

I'm not sure whether this is a legitimate assessment that he is seriously behind Huckabee and Romney in Iowa and Romney in New Hampshire, or if this is just an attempt to lower expectations.

Considering that Connecticut, Delaware, New Jersey, and New York have primaries on February 5, and that he should do well there (remember the people who know and hate him live in New York city, and are not Republithugs), it could be a bit of both.

I think that, unless Guiliani plays his "keeping the n***ers down" card very hard in South Carolina, he won't be competitive there, and it may all be over before February.

Virtual Suicide Bombing

Clive Thompson plays Halo 3 online. Because he has a life, and does not spend 10-20 hours a day on line, his skills, and his power are limited.

However, he has found a way to even the scales:

....

Whenever I find myself under attack by a wildly superior player, I stop trying to duck and avoid their fire. Instead, I turn around and run straight at them. I know that by doing so, I'm only making it easier for them to shoot me -- and thus I'm marching straight into the jaws of death. Indeed, I can usually see my health meter rapidly shrinking to zero.

But at the last second, before I die, I'll whip out a sticky plasma grenade -- and throw it at them. Because I've run up so close, I almost always hit my opponent successfully. I'll die -- but he'll die too, a few seconds later when the grenade goes off. (When you pull off the trick, the game pops up a little dialog box noting that you killed someone "from beyond the grave.")

It was after pulling this maneuver a couple of dozen times that it suddenly hit me: I had, quite unconsciously, adopted the tactics of a suicide bomber -- or a kamikaze pilot.

....

What is interesting here is that the dynamic is pretty much identical to those of an insurgency. While the stakes are clearly less, no one is actually dying, the power dynamics are the same, and so are the resulting tactics.