Unrestricted Warfare and Lawfare

A few years ago, two Colonels in China's People's Liberation Army wrote a book entitled "Unrestricted Warfare". This book deals primarily with how a technologically advanced nation (i.e. the United States) can be defeated by a less able power using a variety of methods. Such methods would cripple the larger power without involving decisive military action. The Chinese know that their fleet cannot stand up to the US Navy, and they know that they have no defence against the American nuclear deterrent. In order to expand their sphere of influence against American opposition, the Chinese have decided that a creative approach is in order. Tactics such as Network Warfare (i.e. hacker attacks) and economic warfare do not involve direct use of force, yet have a dramatic effect perhaps more so than a military effort.
Another tactic proposed is "lawfare." This is using the court system, "international law," and Non-Governmental Organisations to hamper the ability of the opponent to fight or at least oppose Chinese influence. Lawfare influences public opinion, and is extremely pernicious in a society where the idea of "rule of law" is important. Such rulings are binding, and often debilitating.
Of course, it seems that the Chinese won't even have to try their new tactic. Radical groups here are working hard enough. The latest silliness involves a lawsuit brought against US aid agencies. They are accused of furthering global warming through their development activities. The backing comes at the behest of a number of environmental groups. Read more about it here
This is just silly. Third world nations can either sit in poverty forever and endure famine and all manner of ills, or they can develop. Development means some pollution. This can be ameliorated by technology-transfer agreements that allow developing nations to cut down on their greenhouse production, such as the recent agreement made by the United States and several Asian nations.
Of course, this is anathema to environmental groups. As their mantra goes, technology is never a solution because technology is the problem. They prefer hard limits such as the Kyoto Protocol.
Speaking of Kyoto, it seems that several European signatories might exceed their Kyoto emissions targets. Why is the US's failure to ratify trumpeted above China and India's exemption, or Europe's failure to reach their assigned targets? Simple- ideological and political reasons. Developing countries (responsible for much, if not most, of the release of greenhouse gases) are exempted from any targets, despite the fact that their emissions will continue to climb. This is worsened by the fact that they lack technology to clean up their act. The bonus is that they can ratify the protocol and receive aid from first-world nations without paying a price.
This demonstrates the massively unbalanced effect that a few committed activists can have. Imagine the effect when an organised power undertakes these sorts of activities. It also shows how devious action can undermine a good principle such as rule of law. To counter this influence, one either must ignore the rule of law, or accept de facto marching orders from another power whose interests do not always coincide with one's own. Such is the price of the lack of moderation that characterises modern political discourse.

Travel the World with Dschingis Khan

Yes friends, you too can travel the world with famous German pop band Dschinghis Khan. Although the band is best known for their trip to Moskau, they've apparently done songs about Rome, Madagascar, the Sahara desert, and Israel. Take a tour with them here.
It seems our neighbours to the South have been active since my last posting. First, I see (with some satisfaction) that hard-left Brasilian President Lula da Silva has been tainted by a massive corruption scandal. This is made more amusing by the fact that Lula was elected on an anti-corruption platform. He's asked the Brasilian People to "forgive him." Though leftist westerners are apparently more than willing to take up his offer, Brasilians have been more reticent. Understandably so, but then one must ask what else they expected to happen when they elected a hard-left nutball who has done nothing to decentralise power. The best checks on government corruption are virtue on the part of government officials and distrust of the state on behalf of the populace. The only way they can rid of the corrupt state there is to eliminate as many chances for officials to enrich themselves as possible.
I also see that Hugo "Fidelito" Chavez has revoked immunity granted to US DEA agents operating with the Venezuelan law enforcement authorities in the fight against drugs. He's also refused to cooperate with them. To justify this action, Chavez has accused them of being "spies" (he's already taken a page out of Fidel's play-book). A more prosaic explanation comes from the fact that since Hugo has taken over the state, Venezuela has given substantial aid (including air cover, I've heard) to the Colombian FARC rebels. It's notable that FARC's primary source of funding is narcotics. It seems to me that Hugo wants an alternate source of funding for all those paramilitary forces that he's equipping. Perhaps I'm just cynical.
In any case, it sounds like Lula's ripe for a military coup. If this sort of thing keeps up, the military there will have little problem removing him. Eventually Hugo will either wear out his welcome and suffer a similar fate and so continue the "cycle of South American governance", or he'll crush the military and become a dangerous version of Fidel Castro due to his control of a significant oil supply.
Fortunately, the US Military has a convenient Tinpot Dictator Removal Kit that we might want to lend to Alberto Uribe. It would certainly ease his troubles with his next-door neighbour.
To-morrow is V-J Day. It's been sixty years since the war that changed the world. We're about due for another one, methinks. In any case, it's a good day for reflection, especially on policies of appeasement, especially those involving Germans.

Hitler's Death Car!

No, this post isn't about Hitler's choice in motoring. Instead, it's a quick rumination on two subjects. The first subject is Hitler himself, especially viewed through the eye of the excellent Kraut film Der Untergung. The second involves some thoughts on the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, an event that occurred sixty years ago to-day.
For those who have yet to see it, I can give high marks to Untergung. It can be a hard film to watch, but it accomplishes something important. Ever since Hitler became a notable figure, he has attained a sort of mythical status. In Nazi Germany, he was obviously lionised as humanity's saviour, and by his enemies as a cartoonish lout (portrayed by Charlie Chaplin in The Great Dictator. Since the discovery of his true legacy after the war, he's been seen as an inhuman monster, even a sort of demon. In fact, when Annaliese Michel, a Bavarian girl, was exorcised in 1976 one of the demons said to be infesting her identified itself as Hitler. The common view of Hitler to-day is as a psychotic, a madman, or a demonic monster.
In truth, Hitler was a human being, and I think that this fact is the most difficult thing for us to face. Hitler, until the very end, was in control of his own actions and emotions. He did what he did not on the compulsion of some dark force, but rather of his own will. He wanted to do it because to him it was a "necessary sacrifice."
The same with his cronies. I've read one account of Heinrich Himmler, the Reichsfuerher-SS and a fanatical Nazi, attending the murder of some three hundred Jews. Despite this being a literal "drop in the bucket" compared to what Himmler had carried out, he couldn't watch it. He fainted during the proceedings.
Hitler, Himmler, and the rest of the criminals of the Third Reich were not somehow born lacking a conscience, but instead supressed it for the sake of the "greater good". There's an important lesson here- one's conscience is one's only guide to the world. Once it's ignored, there's no limit to what can happen.
The second matter, also a matter of conscience, speaks of the nuance of conscience, and the sort of inhuman decisions that must be made in the face of war. As stated previously, sixty years ago to-day a nuclear weapon was used in combat for the first time in history. A fifteen kiloton Uranium-gun weapon was dropped onto the manufacturing city of Hiroshima, Japan. Around seventy thousand died immediately, with many more dying after due to radiation.
In modern times, there's been a great deal of speculation (especially from the anti-nuclear lobby) that dropping the bombs was not necessary, and was done for more base motivations. One group holds that the US is inherently racist, and wanted to kill as many of the "Nips" as possible. Others hold that it was more a way to impress Stalin with America's technological prowess. In any case, they argue that Japan had already been reduced, and all that was needed was time.
I don't think these people have done their research, or perhaps they have let their own biases cloud their judgment. Anti-nuclear feeling is more an irrational hysteria than a reasoned opinion in many cases. It's no different here.
The basis of their theory, that a sustained air campaign could break an enemy's morale and destroy their war-fighting ability was a popular one in the early stages of World War II. In fact, aerial bombing was viewed at that time in the same light nuclear arms are viewed now. Prime Minister of Great Britain Stanley Baldwin thought bombers to be so dangerous as to merit a complete international ban, along with severe restrictions on civil aviation to prevent development of technology that might lead to advances in strategic bombardment.
After the war broke out, it was found out that bombers were not the wonder-weapons that they were thought to be. The veritable bristle of machine-gun turrets were insufficient to defend bombers against fighter attacks, and even with precision bomb-sights bombers had difficulty getting bombs close to their targets. Bomber crews suffered a terrifying loss rate in combat missions.
However, advocates of air power insisted that continuous bombing would reduce the enemy population. This is one reason why invasion was delayed until the summer of 1944, rather than 1943, which was the original date. However, it was apparent that this wasn't working, and an invasion was needed.
The will to fight in Japan had not been broken either. Hiroshima and Nagasaki were both producing war materiel when they were bombed. Furthermore, the horrific fire-bombing of Tokyo in 1945 killed more than one hundred thousand people in a single night. The raid was carried out on 9-10 March 1945. Later, from 1 April to 21 June 1945, the United States invaded Okinawa, an outlying island that has historically belonged to Japan. Over the course of the battle, the American forces suffered 72,000 casualties, twice the combined toll of Iwo Jima and Guadalcanal. The Japanese lost 76,000 soldiers (which, coincidentally, was the entire strength of the Defence Force, minus 2,300 who were captured), and about 130,000-150,000 civilians (militia and otherwise), about a quarter of the population (which was estimated at about half a million).
As for the planned invasion of Japan, projected casualties for the American Forces ranged anywhere from 500,000 (a best-case estimate) to just under two million! Keep in mind that the total toll from the Civil War was about 650,000 on both sides. Also note that the total number of Americans killed in the Second World War ran about 300,00. All told, maybe a million Americans have died in all wars we've fought. Imagine increasing the number by two hundred percent in a two or three year period.
If one imagines the Americans had it bad, the Japanese would be manifestly worse. Their army historically took close to one hundred percent casualty rates because they refused to surrender. The Japanese Army designated to defend Japan had a strength of two million men in fifty-five divisions. In addition, there were a further three million men in the Army at the beginning of 1945, for a total of one hundred and forty-five divisions and five million men. Nearly all of the Defence Army would die in the operation, along with whatever divisions the High Command would throw at the advancing allied forces. If one would take Okinawa as an example, a bit more than a fifth of the population died. In the 1940 census, the Japanese population was about seventy-three million. One fifth of that is 14.6 million people. As to whether that many would have died it is hard to say, but it is worth noting that seventeen million civilians died in the USSR during the Second World War. Still, that's an atrocious figure. Millions upon millions would have died, and it seems likely that Japan would have become a vassal state of the US, as Okinawa was until the seventies.
The counter for this argument was that the Japanese were "ready to collapse" and they just needed a few more weeks. Again, not so. Even after the devastation of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, there were still militant elements in the government that would not bend. Eventually the Emperor intervened and ordered surrender. He was apparently shocked to it by the bombings.
Let's hope that the type of decision that Harry Truman made in August 1945 ever has to be repeated. Choosing hundreds of thousands or millions of deaths is not something that one's conscience should ever have to deal with.

Porous Membranes

It's been some time, but with effort I am able to recall Mr. Beckleheimer's AP biology class. This class, taken my senior year along with Mrs. Chandler's AP Literature class, marked the high point of my interest in science. One particular memory that stands out is the experiment regarding the transmission of sodium ions across a porous membrane. It was certainly a simple experiment of a basic principle, but it has implications beyond the obvious, or even other areas where diffusion of sodium across a membrane is important, such its role in electrically polarising neurons and permitting the "firing" of the cell.
Another example of diffusion over membranes comes in a political form. In this case, the membrane is the southern United States border. It seems a lot of Mexican ions are diffusing across this membrane as of late. The United States government has been reticent to shore up border security despite the threat of terrorists crossing into the United States with something particularly unpleasant. Some of the more cynical might think that, with better border security, future terrorist attacks would be greatly hampered, and there would be no impetus for greater security powers that the government craves.
But it is not our place to question our betters in government. Instead, we must examine the concrete issue of the pros and cons of unregulated illegal immigration. Some have claimed that the true threat is not al-Qaida but rather the increasingly virulent Mexican drug gangs that actively pursue law enforcement with superior tactics and weapons.
In any case, the immigration issue has become the "elephant in the room" of contemporary American politics. Neither political party supports a crack-down on the border, and it is rarely mentioned in what passes for political discourse nowadays. This is curious, because there is considerable public support for such a measure. However, it seems both parties are ignoring it so that they do not appear "extremist." This attitude is rather silly when the parties are either pushing for Intelligent Design theory to be taught in classrooms or constantly comparing Gitmo to a Gulag.
Why are they ignoring it? Some more cynical types might claim that the parties cannot harm themselves by ignoring the problem, and can pick up the vote of illegals (which is rather substantial) in the process. Again, if there's one thing we've learned from the media, it is that we have no place to question the motivations of our betters in Washington, which are undoubtedly noble.
In any case, it seems that the flow will increase soon. It seems a virtual certainty that hard-left Mexico City Mayor Lopez Obrador will be elected to the Presidency of Mexico next year after he was cleared of a pesky criminal investigation involving abuse of power. He is widely compared to Venezuela's Hugo Chavez and Brasil's Lula da Silva. Although Sr. Chavez is undoubtedly a fine democratic leader completely uninterested in establishing a dictatorship, Lula is another story. Apparently the number of Brazilians entering the United States since Lula's election has increased drastically. According to some, the number of Brazilians entering the US has quadrupled since 2002, which (coincidentally, of course) is the year when Lula was elected on the "I loooove Brasil!" platform from the "Workers' Party". He has attempted to create a South American trade bloc with Cuba and Hugo Chavez to rival the economic juggernaut of El Norte somehow.
Again, some cynical people believe that the cycle of South American politics continues much as it did in the fifties, sixties, and seventies. First, there is a successful government that encourages growth. Eventually, that government is defeated in elections by a hard-left government that opposes los Norteamericanos and said new government tries to create either a regional power bloc or work with another foreign power to overthrow the Gringo domination. Then, either they become enough of a nuisance and are promptly removed by CIA (Allende, anyone?) or they destroy the political and economic structure of the nation with their policies and give an opportunity for the military to take over and rule for a good decade or two. Eventually, the military steps down and a civil government is elected, starting the cycle over again.
If Sr. Obrador, Sr. Chavez, and Sr. da Silva want to get together with Cuba and after a "Weekend at Fidel's" party decide to form a South American regional superpower, who's to stop them? They only have a few years before their respective militaries kill them, so it's important that they have some fun beforehand. However, I propose that the United States should stop playing "protective parent" and let them do as they please. That said, we should close the southern border. The last thing we need is to become a place for people to hide from the consequences of their actions. That way, while we deal profitably with stable allies such as Japan and Australia in the Pacific, we can wave at our Southern friends and watch as their attempt at a regional super-bloc collapses. Perhaps we can make it into one of those popular reality shows, where the audience can thrill to the back-stabbing that invariably follows grand ideas of unification such as this one. If so, said programme will be one of the few types of foreign investment heading into these far-left nations, seeing as how there is no Soviet Union to prop them up, and China prefers not to be too Communist.

Politics aside, here's the result of a fun test I discovered thanks to Professor Massa.

Der Resistance Achtung! You are 0% brainwashworthy, 27% antitolerant, and 47% blindly patriotic

Welcome to the Resistance (Der Widerstand)! You believe in freedom, justice, equality, and your country, and you can't be converted to the the dark side. Breakdown: Your Blind Patriotism levels are borderline unhealthy, but you show such a love of people from everywhere and a natural resistance to brainwashing, you would probably focus your energy to fight Fuehrer with furor, so to speak. Conclusion: Born and raised in Germany in the early 1930's, you would have taken up ARMS against the oppressors. Or even your friends' oppressors. Congratulations! Less than 5% of all test takers earn a spot in Der Resistance!

My test tracked 3 variables How you compared to other people your age and gender: You scored higher than 0% on brainwashworthy You scored higher than 38% on antitolerant You scored higher than 69% on patriotic

Link: The Would You Have Been a Nazi Test written by jason_bateman on Ok Cupid