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This is going to be a hell of a decade or two.
If you are in a big city, get out.
If you are in a lot of debt, get out.
If you find yourself in a large crowd, get out.
If you are in a career that is in decline, get out.
If you have your kids in bad public schools, get out.
Get ready.
If we're wrong, you'll be fine. If we're right, you'll be in a place to help yourself and others.
More good news over at USNIBlog.
Come on over; clothes to rend and teeth to gnash not included.
As we spend our days time travelling to gibbet our ancestors for ... well ... existing in a different century mal-aligned with 2020's struggle sessions, the rest of the world continues its march forward.
We need to remember that many of the world's events will unfold on their own timeline independent of our picayune obsessions.
North Korea has blown up a joint liaison office with the South near the North's border town of Kaesong.
The move comes just hours after the North renewed threats of military action at the Korean border.
The site was opened in 2018 to help the Koreas - officially in a state of war - to communicate. It had been empty since January due to Covid-19 restrictions.
In a statement, South Korea warned it would "respond strongly" if the North "continues to worsen the situation".
The destruction of the office, it said, "abandons the hopes of everyone who wanted the development of inter-Korean relations and peace settlement in the Korean Peninsula".
North Korea is such a hermit state whose national character has been developing in isolation for so long, no one really knows what they are thinking - but this cannot be good.
At best, they are signaling ... or trying to get attention ... internal or external, who knows.
Pyongyang is also angry at Seoul for not challenging Washington's insistence that strict sanctions should remain in place and for not pursuing inter-Korean projects which would have breached both UN and US sanctions.
It feels as if North Korea could be punishing the South and with the aim of using the tension as leverage in future talks.
Whatever the reason, this is a real slap in the face for a South Korean administration that pushed so hard for engagement.
How do you try to move forward when every step you take in a positive direction, the other party kicks you in the chest back two?
Pray for peace ... or better yet ... we get lucky.
The only people who dislike this instability more than the South Koreans & Americans are the Chinese.
It is in both our interests that this relic of the Cold War, North Korea, drifts in to history.
If I could offer something - if a window opened - it would be to work with the People's Republic of China to wind this down.
If they would agree to allow the unification of Korea, then the USA would remove all American ground forces from the peninsula withing 18-months of unification. Drawing down 50% withing 12-months.
No USA ground forces will return to the peninsula except for training or exercises and never more than battalion strength. PRC observers will be allowed to witness for a period of 15 years.
We can negotiate from there.
I work cheap; DM me.
If you can get your mind past the protests, riots, SCOTUS, and COVID-19 news flooding the zone, there is a good chance you've noticed things heating up on the Indian-Chinese frontier.
While it is a point of concern, many rightfully note that this is just a frozen conflict from 1962.
Actually, it has a longer pedigree that that.
174 years old.
Since 1846, when the British took over J&K post the first Anglo-Sikh War, an attempt was made to have a boundary and was quickly followed up in 1847. In all, the British proposed boundaries — five separate ones in 1846-47, 1865, 1873, 1899 and 1914, China rejected each of them. Britain got China to send in troops during World War I and II, but the boundary remained undecided.
Major Alexandar Cunnigham, who led the British attempt in 1847 to demarcate the boundary, details this in his 1854 book “Ladakh Physical, Statistical and Geographical”. He narrates “The settlement of this boundary (between Ladakh and Tibet) was of some importance”.
In 1834, the Dogra Army, led by General Zorawar Singh, captured Ladakh. During the Sino-Sikh War (1841–42), the Qing Empire invaded Ladakh, but the Sino-Tibetan army was defeated and “a letter of agreement” was signed in 1842.
...
Sequence of events post Independence
1947: Chinese army enters Tibet
1950: India unilaterally declares McMahon Line in Arunachal as its boundary
1954: India claims Aksai Chin as part of its northern border
1958: India discovers China has built a road over the plateau of Aksai Chin
1959: PM Nehru rejects Chou En-lai’s letter accusing Indians of overstepping McMahon Line
1960: China bizarrely expands its claim on another 5,100 sq km of the territory in eastern Ladakh
1960: China wants status quo — India keeps NEFA (now Arunachal), while China keeps Aksai Chin — northeast edge of J&K
1961: In November, India launches forward policy to retain control over territory
1962: In Oct-Nov, India-China go to war
1993: Pact is inked on maintenance of peace along LAC
2014: PM Modi suggests demarcation of LAC, China says let representatives resolve it
Yes, watch --- but don't think this is a bolt out of the blue problem.
It is an old problem between two of the oldest cultures on the planet.
We may get a break.
Long deployments, new SECNAV, civ/mil stew bubbling, and everyone who left the USN to the USNR because they couldn't stand being in the yards, are being activated to spend a year ... in the yards.
These are just a few of the topics that we'll be covering in this month's LIVE Melee.
No guests this week, just us and you.
As with all melees, we'll take questions in the chat room or on the phone.
You can listen to the show at this link or below, but remember, if you don't already, subscribe to the podcast at Spreaker or any of the other podcast aggregators.
If you use iTunes, you can add Midrats to your podcast list simply by clicking the iTunes button at the main showpage - or you can just click here.
How tough are you?
In times of war, it is almost a given that men will push themselves far beyond their former limits to commit feats of extraordinary courage and valor. Those who perform such exploits are usually honored and commemorated.
However, often war necessitates the testing and breaking of other kinds of limits too, requiring a man to go far beyond what most can imagine or endure. A perfect example of this was the case of George Ray Tweed, a radioman first class of the United States Navy.
Where did he find himself?
All the family members of US military personnel had been evacuated from Guam in October 1941, so when the Japanese Army began their attack on the island on the 8th December, the only Americans on Guam were US Navy and US Marine personnel, and some nurses.
The numerically superior Japanese forces quickly swamped any resistance on the part of the Americans, and the American garrison surrendered on the 10th of December.
However, six American Navy men decided not to surrender. Instead of resigning themselves to spending the rest of the war in a Japanese prison camp, they chose to flee. One of these six was Tweed.
As soon as Tweed and another man, Radioman First Class Albert Tyson, heard the news about the American surrender, they took off. On the way out of town, Tweed stopped at his place and filled a pillowcase with essentials, as did Tyson.
Some things don't fit in a pillowcase.
Unfortunately, in their haste, they forgot to take one of the most crucial items for survival: water. This was a dangerous oversight, as Guam suffered from a dearth of fresh water.
After moving through the bush and getting cut up by the island’s lemonchina plants (spiky, chest high plants covered with ½-inch thorns) they managed to get some rest, They were spotted, but the person who discovered them was a native Chamorro, an old man named Francisco. He took them to his house and gave them food and water.
They didn’t have much chance to rest, though, as the Japanese were already looking for the escaped Americans. Francisco helped Tweed and Tyson find a safe place in the bush where they could hide overnight. He also fed them again the next morning.
The fact that the local Chamorro people were so willing to help the Americans proved to be a crucial factor in terms of Tweed’s long period of evasion of the Japanese. Without their assistance, he probably would have been captured.
They were known to the enemy;
The Japanese initially tried to get the native islanders to assist with their efforts to capture the Americans by offering a monetary reward to the Chamorro for information. This started out as 10 yen for each American, and 50 for Tweed, because of his skill in repairing radios.
For the rest of the story - and to increase the Chamorro people in your mind, head on over to War History Online.
It has a happy ending ... and a Chevy.
For months, the news cycle has been dominated by COVID-19, China, and now riots – which is understandable – but this is an election year in the USA and there has been a dangerously small amount of coverage about what the policy background is of the person who has a solid chance of replacing Donald Trump.
Those who have followed me for any length of time know my position on Trump since 2015. It has not changed. Some here are big Trump supporters, some #NeverTrump, and even some of you brave souls are pro-Biden.
All are welcome here, but one thing I will not cotton to is the idea that to say anything contra-Biden, then you must love Trump.
No. Adults must be able to talk to each other, and one of my favorite adults, Kori Schake, has put out a marker over at The Atlantic saying what all knowledgeable people cannot deny; Joe Biden is a highly problematic person in the areas of foreign and defense policy.
Read the whole thing, but here’s some pull quotes;
Joe Biden has been wrong a lot on foreign and defense policy. A lot. This year’s presumptive Democratic presidential nominee voted against the 1991 Gulf War, in which the United States and a broad multinational coalition quickly achieved their goals, and in favor of the 2003 Iraq War, and regretted both votes. Years into hostilities, he opposed the troop surges that brought some stability to both Iraq and Afghanistan and even insisted that “the Taliban per se is not our enemy.” He argued for carving Iraq into sectarian statelets even as Iraqis voted for cross-sectarian political lists. And he opposed the raid that killed Osama bin Laden. These stances suggest not only that he lacks a philosophy of how to use military force effectively, but also that his instincts on when to use it are often faulty.
…
Robert Gates, who served as the secretary of defense under George W. Bush and Barack Obama, wrote in his 2014 memoir that Biden “has been wrong on nearly every major foreign policy and national security issue over the past four decades.” Last year, Gates reiterated his concerns. “I think that the vice president had some issues with the military,” he declared on CBS’s Face the Nation.
…
…Trump’s and Biden’s positions on Afghanistan are indistinguishable: Both vow to “end the forever wars” by withdrawing American troops, but neither has a plan for what happens after that. Biden said last year that Trump’s withdrawal from Syria was “a complete failure,” yet he advocates the same policy for other places. When talking about Syria, Biden rightly asks, “Who will stand with us if the United States is reduced to an unreliable partner?” But he neglects to apply that standard to abandoning Afghanistan, where 60 allies have fought alongside the U.S.
…
As for defense policy, neither Trump nor Biden appears to have a view about what the size and sticker price for U.S. forces ought to be. Biden seems to think America has spent too much on “traditional warfare” while also believing we need to retain military superiority. He merely waves his hands and vaguely supports more emphasis on America’s space and cyberdefense capabilities.
Finally, Kori puts out a challenge to fair-minded people in the natsec arena to explore;
But Biden’s continued advocacy of muddled and mistaken foreign policies shouldn’t be overlooked, and he can best help his cause by quietly rebooting them.
