Category: defense & war

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defense & war public opinion

Iran: What Next

Iran, war, democracy

The Iran Question dominates the news.

Most papers and programs have numerous takes at the top of the page or the hour devoted to Israel’s attack on Iran’s nuclear program; President Trump’s demand that Iran unconditionally surrender, and the government of Iran’s defiance; and Trump’s latest statements vaguing up “his decision” to bomb Iran.

And in a man-bites-dog angle, I’m going to agree with The New York Times.

Specifically, the editorial board’s “America Must Not Rush Into a War Against Iran,” run yesterday.

Where the Times is right regards not the disputed facts and theories about the conflict, but whether the United States military, under direction of its Commander-in-Chief, should bomb Iran.

That is not merely open to debate but must be debated.

Many in Trump’s base oppose any involvement: Trump was voted into office to stop the endless wars.

But it’s not just the matter of politics. It’s a constitutional issue: “An unprovoked American attack on Iran — one that could involve massive bombs known as bunker busters — would not be a police action or special military operation,” the Times declares. “It would be a war. To declare it is not the decision of Mr. Netanyahu or Mr. Trump. Under the Constitution, Congress alone has that power.”

And if we wince at the idea of our dysfunctional Congress grandstanding and bloviating about such a weighty matter, consider this: the congressional debate must occur in a context where Americans debate. We debate; the People.

After all, we end up playing lots of heavy roles in these things. 

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Still a Big Advantage

allies, South China Sea, China, CCP, defense, foreign policy, war

In all the talk of America First — and of the United States as the indispensable nation — we Americans sometimes forget this doesn’t mean “America Alone.” 

“Ultimately, a strong, resolute, and capable network of allies and partners is our key strategic advantage,” U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth recently informed the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore. “China envies what we have together. And it sees what we can collectively bring to bear on defense.”

Hegseth was speaking directly to Indo-Pacific allies, whom he reminded: “it’s up to all of us to ensure that we live up to that potential by investing” to “quickly upgrade [our] own defenses.”

Our alliances of free nations in Europe and Asia constitute a huge edge against a bullying, totalitarian China.

My entire life, these past six decades, Big Daddy America was by far the biggest, best military on the block. Still is the best. But it’s no longer the biggest: China now has a bigger navy, much greater shipbuilding capacity, and many more soldiers in uniform. Technological and other strategic advantages have been diminished as well.

The defense secretary acknowledged that — after “a lot of ongoing conversations with our military leadership in the Indo-Pacific” — “there is something to be said for the fact that China calculates the possibility and does not appreciate the presence of other countries . . . as part of the dynamics or decision-making process, and, if that is reflected in their calculus, then that’s useful.”

We cannot afford to squander our “ally advantage.” We need each other.

This is Comon Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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China, No

Hegseth

“China’s behavior towards its neighbors and the world is a wake-up call,” U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth warned at last weekend’s Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore. “We cannot look away, and we cannot ignore it.” 

“Hegseth throws down gauntlet to China” was how Newsweek headlined its story on the Defense Secretary’s “assertive policy address” at Asia’s “premier defense summit.”

“We will stand with you and work alongside you to deter Chinese aggression,” the Secretary pledged to Asian allies. Moreover, he declared that, as a first step, “the Department of Defense is prioritizing forward-postured, combat credible forces in the Western Pacific to deter by denial along the first and second island chains.”

“Hegseth described Chinese coercion and aggression against Taiwan and the South China Sea more clearly than any prior U.S. defense secretary,” offered Bonnie Glaser, managing director, of the German Marshall Fund’s Indo-Pacific Program. 

Today is June Fourth, 36 years to the day that the People’s Liberation Army rolled tanks into Tiananmen Square, firing on and killing students and other peaceful protesters. Had the George H.W. Bush administration delivered a stronger message to China back then, maybe Hegseth wouldn’t be required to restate President Trump’s insistence that China not be allowed “to invade Taiwan on his watch.”

Or talk openly of doing “what the Department of Defense does best — fight and win — decisively.”

“[B]arely a month after the bloodshed in Tiananmen Square,” Ted Galen Carpenter wrote five years ago, “the White House dispatched National Security Adviser Brent Scowcroft on a secret trip to Beijing to mend ties. That visit followed an impassioned personal letter that Bush sent to Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping” in which the president “came perilously close to kowtowing to a brutal, autocratic regime.”

Contributing to the clear and present danger we face today.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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In Memory of the Fallen

Memorial Day

Today is Memorial Day. It grew out of Decoration Day, which developed into a reconciliation memorial in the late 19th century to honor the fallen soldiers in the Civil War. 

Decoration Day started in the South as Confederate Heroes Day and Confederate Decoration Day, but it almost immediately caught on in the North — one can hardly get more Yankee than the Danbury, Connecticut, avant-garde composer Charles Ives (1874-1954), whoseDecoration Day (1915-1920) tone poem (he later placed it in his Holidays Symphony as the second movement) is one of the great American orchestral classics (or so I’m told).

By 1890, every Union state had adopted a Memorial Day of some kind, under different names, not always celebrated on the date first promoted in the North, May 30. The two world wars shifted the emphasis even further to a national commemoration, and, in 1968, Congress changed the day of its observance to the last Monday in May; in 1971, Congress standardized the name as “Memorial Day.”

In 2000, Congress passed the National Moment of Remembrance Act, asking people to stop and remember at 3:00 pm. According to Statista, there have been 1,304,705 military fatalities in America’s wars. These ultimate sacrifices warrant a special day of remembrance dedicated solely to them.

Don’t we owe them our freedom? I certainly believe we owe it to the fallen to keep that freedom alive.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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defense & war national politics & policies

Gift Horses & Pocketed Putts

trojan horse, Qatar, Air Force One

“Over the past nine months, undocumented communication devices, including cellular radios, have also been found in some batteries from multiple Chinese suppliers,” according to a Reuters story. The “rogue communication devices” were not listed in the documentation.

No one should be surprised. Though China pretends to be all sweetness and light, a former director the U.S. National Security Agency offers the basic truth: “We know that China believes there is value in placing at least some elements of our core infrastructure at risk of destruction or disruption.”

It is in this context that I place the recent discussion of Qatar’s offered Air Force One replacement. President Donald Trump has been clear regarding the Persian Gulf state’s seemingly generous offer. He’s for it. Why pay for something when you can have it for free?

“If they give you a putt, you pick it up and walk to the next hole and say ‘thank you very much.’”

But Air Force One, which carries the United States president across the country and around the world, is more than an ordinary plane. It’s a military device.

And outsourcing military devices to other countries is a dubious activity at best. The dangers are readily understandable. “Beware of Qatarians bearing gifts”; the horse mentioned in The Aenid, presented to Troy — is the classic case.

Why trust the state of Qatar?

Just as “U.S. energy officials are reassessing the risk posed by Chinese-made devices that play a critical role in renewable energy infrastructure after unexplained communication equipment was found inside some of them,” so too should Trump’s team reassess the gift horse from the Middle East.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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To Halve and Halve Not

China, Taiwan, war, foreign policy

“Why is Taiwan such a hot flash point?” 

That’s what U.S. Senator Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) asked Admiral Samuel Paparo, head of the United States Indo-Pacific Command. “Why could it lead not only to a catastrophic war, but also global Great Depression? Why should Americans care about an island on the other side of the world?”

The admiral told the Senate Armed Services Committee that the senator’s “last point [was] quite salient. Many a research organization postulate that conflict in the western Pacific over the Taiwan question would result in a 25 percent GDP contraction in Asia and a knock-on effect of 10 to 12 percent GDP reduction in the United States of America, with unemployment spiking seven to 10 points above base and likely 500,000 excess deaths of despair above base as well.

“This is just the importance of the regional stability to the world economy and its effect on people’s lives,” added Paparo. “And this is a function of freedom of navigation; it’s a function of the world dependency on semiconductors.”

“And to be clear,” offered Sen. Cotton, “simply having the conflict over Taiwan which is such a center of gravity in the modern economy could lead to many of the consequences you just outlined.”

Paparo explained that “most of the things” he has “studied indicate that American intervention would halve that impact,” adding “a successful American intervention would. 

“Still a grave result,” Admiral Paparo acknowledged, “but half as grave, with savings of a lot of human misery.”

Let’s hope and pray and prepare militarily to deter Chinese aggression.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Resisting Invasion

China, Taiwan, foreign policy, war, defense, deterrence

“China is the Department’s sole pacing threat, and denial of a Chinese fait accompli seizure of Taiwan — while simultaneously defending the U.S. homeland,” Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth declared (using the latest jargon) in a memo setting forth global U.S. strategy, “is the Department’s sole pacing scenario.” 

Recently shared with military brass and congressional national security committees, and recently leaked, Hegseth’s Interim National Defense Strategic Guidance is, according to The Washington Post, “extraordinary in its description of the potential invasion of Taiwan as the exclusive animating scenario that must be prioritized over other potential dangers.”

While I can’t find a copy of the leaked document, The Post relates that “given personnel and resource constraints,” the United States will focus on China and “pressure allies in Europe, the Middle East and East Asia to spend more on defense to take on the bulk of the deterrence role against threats from Russia, North Korea and Iran.”

This makes enormous sense. We are already at war in Ukraine and across the Middle East, while China, the most dangerous aggressor, has been ratcheting up its bullying and threats against its neighbors whom we have pledged to defend. 

Taiwan is too important — especially strategically, but also economically, and even symbolically, as an incredible democratic success story — to allow it to be gobbled up by the genocidal Chinese Communist Party regime. 

Europe can step up to defend itself and is increasingly doing so. Germany has troops and tanks headed to Lithuania, the first such deployment since the Second World War.

These are serious times. Glad to have a more serious plan to address them. And to count other free countries as allies. We will need each other.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

P.S. On four separate occasions, President Biden publicly promised that the United States would come to Taiwan’s assistance militarily should China’s repeated threats to invade come to fruition, but where President Trump would stand in his second term seemed uncertain. Would he make a deal with Xi Jinping that sold out Taiwan, as John Bolton, his former national security advisor, has claimed? Bolton has been wrong before.

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Only a Test?

drones, military, defense, brainwashing, PSYOP, psychology

“This has been a test, and only a test. 

“Of the Emergency Propaganda System.

“In case of a real emergency, we would have bombed you already.

“Or infected you with a new disease from one of our gain-of-function labs.

“Or (and this is a real stretch) found the missing plutonium that’s always whispered about.

“Instead, the mystery drones were a scheduled test run of a newly developed drone technology, which the FAA had this last month scheduled as a testing period for the product. The developer is an above-board military contractor in New Jersey. The test period was indicated in a bulletin. Somebody outside the military must’ve read it.

“Now, if we had the interests of the citizens in mind we would have made a big deal out of the FAA bulletin. Or at least referred to it after people began noticing the drones.

“But let’s get real. We did not do either of those things. Instead, we reacted as if we knew nothing. And, of course, most government functionaries knew nothing. But the Biden administration knew,* and the Federal Aviation Administration knew, and the CIA and the NSA and the military knew. We could have told everyone the whole truth.

“We didn’t because we needed to learn how people would react to a swarm of oversized drones dotting the skyscape. This was a test of how Americans would react in a possible (and admittedly eerie) emergency.

“And, boy, did citizens react entertainingly. Some people — easily confused by parallax effects — saw more drones than existed, misidentifying normal airliners for drones, for grand example.

“Some people opportunistically made fake video footage. Some of those fakers may or may not have been paid by tax dollars.

“And some people noticed non-drone UFOs, and reported them. We won’t talk about those, either, even when they appear over the Pentagon.

“Remember: Only a test.”

And this, here at ThisIsCommonSense.org, is Common Sense. And I’m Paul Jacob.

* Unless nobody bothered to tell the Lame Duck-in-Chief. See Wednesday’s witless assurance.

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The UFOs Are Here

UFO, UAP, drone, military

Now that UFO sightings are ubiquitous, is it at all amusing that ufologists generally scoff at them, dismissing them as “drones”?

Out-of-place lights dot the skies of New Jersey and other east-coast states, and have for several weeks. Yet there is no panic that The Aliens Are Coming! The Aliens Are Coming!

Speculation as to what they actually are — and whose — is rampant.

And the government hasn’t helped.

The first congressperson I heard on the subject said there had been no briefing on the subject from the Pentagon. The second claimed to have confidential information that these were Chinese-made drones deployed by Iran. The Pentagon has denied this.

Governor Philip Dunton Murphy of New Jersey says there’s “no threat,” but how on earth would he know, since he seems to know nothing of consequence?

“Dozens of drones have been reported hovering over the state since before Thanksgiving mostly in northern areas about Route 78. The Democrat said he held a briefing Wednesday with Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, senior officials from federal and state homeland security and State Police,” reports New Jersey 101.5. “‘We are actively monitoring the situation and in close coordination with our federal and law enforcement partners on this matter,’ Murphy said Thursday in a statement on his X account.”

So we are in the dark. 

Or, very spotty light.

We don’t even know they are drones — as in the recent hovering/flying technology allowed by improved battery and computing technology, but relying on propellers, not anything as outré as Zero Point energy.

Considering that the rise of drone tech was something we could all see coming, however, why is government so incoherent on the subject?

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Trump & Taiwan

“China Issues Donald Trump a Warning Over Taiwan,” Newsweek headlined Billal Rahman’s recent article.

For the last five years, I havecounseled that the U.S. must either withdraw from Southeast Asia or convince the Chinese regime that we and our allies are willing to stand up to them, militarily.

How will President Trump respond in a second term?

Arguing that “the United States . . . is always America first,” a spokesperson for China’s Taiwan Affairs Office recently needled: “Taiwan at any time may turn from a pawn to a discarded child.” 

However, Lyle Goldstein with Defense Priorities notes that “During Trump’s last four years there was quite a robust stance in favor of defending Taiwan . . .” While Al Jazeera headlined a recent story, “Trump signals hard line on China with hawkish cabinet picks.”

Still, “I think Taiwan should pay us for defense,” Trump said back in June.* 

“[T]hey want protection,” he told Joe Rogan last month. “The mob makes you pay money, right?  But with these countries that we protect, I got hundreds of billions of dollars from NATO countries that were never paying us.”

Mr. Trump did successfully prod NATO countries into putting more money into their militaries. That seems to be his gambit with Taiwan.

And maybe it’s working. 

“Taiwan is considering a massive $15 billion military package,” Fox News is reporting, “in a show to the incoming Trump administration that it is serious about defending itself against the threat posed by China.”

Plus, as The Epoch Times illuminates, “A coalition of the willing is already emerging.” Countries in Europe and Asia are increasingly coming together and standing up against Chinese bullying of Taiwan.

As we await the second Trump administration.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

* Trump also charged that Taiwan “stole” our computer chip business. True, in the same sense that Shohei Ohtani stole 57 bases for the LA Dodgers last season.

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