Day: June 21, 2022

A Lesson In Bad Foreign Policy

As long as foreign policy is the topic of the day here on IST…..a little history to close out my posts.

My readers know that I truly enjoy our history, well all history….and today is the day that our most begotten war was started….the year was 1812, 18 June to be exact.

I have taught American foreign policy from pre-revolution until today and this war was one that was a bad idea.

But check it out for yourself….

The 210th anniversary of America’s declaration of the War of 1812 against Great Britain, which falls on June 18, will not inspire much in the way of celebration or commemoration. It had, at most, a minor impact on American and world history. Yet that distant conflict is worth remembering, if only as a cautionary example: it stands as the most misbegotten war the United States has ever fought.

It was an offshoot of the great conflict between Great Britain and France that grew out of the French Revolution of 1789 and ended with the defeat of the French Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte at the Battle of Waterloo in 1815. In what came to be known as the Napoleonic Wars, Britain sought to use its maritime supremacy to stop other countries’ trade with France. The United States declared itself neutral and claimed the commercial rights that international law accorded to countries with that status during wartime. This led to a conflict with Great Britain over just what those neutral trading rights were. The Americans embraced an expansive definition, which afforded wide latitude for profitable trade. The British insisted on more restrictive terms and began seizing and searching American ships in the Caribbean and confiscating cargo that they regarded as contraband. President George Washington sent the Supreme Court Chief Justice John Jay to London to negotiate with the British government on the issue, where he reached a compromise agreement. In 1795 the Congress reluctantly ratified what became known as Jay’s Treaty.

https://www.realclearhistory.com/2022/06/14/revisiting_americas_most_misbegotten_war_837198.html

The US has had many misbegotten wars but 1812 was our very first one.

I do hope my reader has learned a wee bit about our history to better understand today’s world.

Class Dismissed!

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

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No Path To Victory

Ever since the conflict between Ukraine and Russia the belief is that if we pour enough money and weapons into Ukraine they will eventually defeat the invader…..I believe that is just wishful thinking and PR for the M-IC.

The Tide of Battle – and Mounting Casualties – Turning Against Ukraine – Since it became evident a few weeks into Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine that Moscow’s troops were stopped cold outside of Kyiv, there has been a near-universal belief in the West that Ukraine would eventually win. All that was needed, many pundits claimed, was to get Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s forces sufficient numbers of weapons and ammunition. As the war now grinds towards the four-month mark, it is becoming painfully evident that the odds are stacked in Russia’s favor.

Militarily speaking, there is no rational path through which Ukraine will ever win its war. Without a course correction – and soon – Kyiv itself may not ultimately be safe.

After Russian armor suffered a “stunning defeat” by Ukrainian defenders north of Kyiv and Kharkiv during the first few weeks of war, many pundits were writing off the Russian army as “incompetent” and suggested they were incapable of defeating the Ukrainian Armed Forces (UAF), whose great bravery and skills were widely hailed.

In late April, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin visited Kyiv and told Zelensky that the West could provide his troops with “the right equipment” and the “right support” because Austin wanted to help Ukraine win and see “Russia weakened.” In addition to direct battlefield aid, the West concurrently wielded economic tools intended to deprive Putin of the capacity to continue waging war.

There Is No Military Path for Ukraine To ‘Defeat’ Russia

Even our President, Biden, has told his posse to stop chest thumping…..

President Biden was not happy with the rhetoric from Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin and Secretary of State Antony Blinken following their visit to Kyiv in April, NBC News reported Thursday, citing unnamed administration officials.

“Biden was not happy when Blinken and Austin talked about winning in Ukraine,” one administration official said. “He was not happy with the rhetoric.” The report said that despite Biden being “upset” about the rhetoric, he didn’t reprimand Austin and Blinken once they provided him with the context of the comments. One official said that what Austin said in Poland remains US policy.

Biden doesn’t have much of a leg to stand on when it comes to criticizing fiery rhetoric as he declared that Russian President Vladimir Putin “cannot remain in power” back in March. The White House walked back his remarks, insisting that the US policy in Russia is not regime change, but the damage was already done.

The NBC report said that some administration officials want Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to tone down his rhetoric about how his goal is to drive Russia out of all Ukrainian territory, including Crimea. The US isn’t pressing Ukraine to negotiate with Russia to end the war and is prepared to support Kyiv for years to come, but appears to want Zelensky to set more realistic goals.

We are planning for a long war. We intend to prepare the American people for that, and we are prepared to ask Congress for more money,” one official said. The US has already authorized $54 billion for Ukraine aid, the majority of which is direct military assistance and money for the Pentagon.

(antiwar.com)

There is your reason….DC wants a long war so the money keeps flying into the defense industries bank accounts.

Think not?

In the war that no one asked for or was asked about, the Biden Administration is putting together the biggest weapons package yet for Ukraine, this one worth at least a billion dollars. The blank check is now on an automated recurring payment plan…

According to the Wall Street Journal, the US is sending around $130 million a day in military aid to Ukraine plus economic and other assistance. That’s more than what the US spent at the height of its Afghanistan war.

Pathetic BS….it is what Washington does best.

Then there is the media….now it seems that the media is preparing the US audience for the collapse of Ukraine….

When the Lies Come Home

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Biden China Policy

The US policy of containment is the only policy Biden will allow…..a policy that has been the ‘norm’ for 70 years…..

Blinken compared the China of today with the China of a half century ago, saying it has moved from isolation and poverty to being a global power. He then claims that “China’s transformation . . . was also made possible by the stability and opportunity that the international order provides. Arguably, no country on Earth has benefited more from that than China.” He then accuses China of using its new found power, not to reinforce the international order that made it possible, but to undermine it.

Blinken’s accusation is an old one. It is an incarnation of the theory that Alexander Lukin, Head of International Relations at the HSE University in Moscow, says insinuates that China deceived the West by accepting its help in joining the international trade system and international organizations, making it possible to launch its economic growth, and then reneged on the implied agreement that it would then take its subordinate place, on America’s terms, in the international system under US hegemony.

The assumption behind Blinken’s charge against China is that membership in the international system supposes taking your place under US leadership and that any country that follows an alternative path to the US led path needs to be contained so that it does not challenge the world’s inevitable adoption of the American social, political and economic model and leadership.

Biden’s New China Policy

For the third time, President Joe Biden declared a new U.S. policy toward Taiwan, only to have his officials insist that nothing has changed.

The policies Biden is attempt to enforce are not all that new….

Then there is Taiwan….

While the world is focused on the prolonged war in Ukraine…Taiwan makes a move…..

China has scoffed at comparisons of itself and Taiwan to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. But that hasn’t eased the fears of Taiwanese residents, who are now taking a step many never expected: getting firearms training. Although gun ownership is strongly regulated in Taiwan, people who’ve never picked up a weapon in their lives are flocking instead to sites that train in how to shoot less-dangerous airsoft guns, devices that fire off nonmetallic projectiles. “More and more people are coming to take part,” Max Chiang, the CEO of Polar Light, a combat skills training firm in Taipei, tells Reuters. He adds that signups for lessons in how to shoot airsofts have almost quadrupled since the war in Ukraine started in February. The news agency notes that “many of the movements and tactics involved” in shooting airsoft guns “resemble combat skills, from shooting posture to aiming.”

Polls have increasingly showed that the people of Taiwan are willing to defend themselves against a Chinese invasion if need be, reports the Los Angeles Times. Some, including retired Adm. Lee Hsi-ming, the former chief of the general staff of Taiwan’s armed forces, are even suggesting that civilians receive combat training and set up a DIY defense force, much like one that Ukraine employs (others say, however, that such a volunteer force isn’t currently feasible). Taiwan does currently have mandatory military service—four months for young men, plus occasional reservist training—but those who’ve been through it say they receive minimal firearms training. “I need to come to these kinds of lessons to actually learn something,” a 26-year-old personal trainer who’s gone through his conscription says of the airsoft gun training he’s now undergoing.

In short, many in Taiwan simply want to be prepared in case China one day tries to use force to sweep Taiwan more fully back into its fold. “I wanted to learn some combat skills,” including skills “to be able to react to any kind of situation,” one Taiwanese man, a tattoo artist, tells Reuters. “I … don’t want to go to war, but in the unfortunate event of this really happening, I will be mentally prepared.” The Taiwanese public is prepping for the worst in other ways as well, stocking up on food, batteries, and other emergency supplies, purchasing pepper spray, and rigging their homes with alarm systems. “Think about how you can help yourself and others survive,” one councilman candidate says.

(antiwar.com)

This slow boil will soon erupt into a major conflict if we are not careful…..

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”