Monthly Archives: March 2014

View 814 Sunday, March 09, 2014

“Transparency and the rule of law will be the touchstones of this presidency.”

President Barack Obama, January 31, 2009

If a foreign government had imposed this system of education on the United States, we would rightfully consider it an act of war.

Glenn T. Seaborg, National Commission on Education, 1983

Christians to Beirut. Alawites to the grave.

Syrian Freedom Fighters

We seem to have been bracketed by earthquakes, one in northern California and one in waters off Mexico since dinnertime today. None of that was felt here in Los Angeles, and no damage has been reported.

Crimea is, I think, an accomplished fact: the secession will be confirmed by plebiscite, and the new government will then ally with Russia and eventually become an independent state within the Russian federation. If that sounds a bit like the way Texas became part of the United States (eventually with the assistance of the United States Army) you should not be surprised. Russians study history even if most Americans can’t be bothered.

Eastern Ukraine is a tougher nut. The further west you go in Ukraine the more people call themselves Ukrainians and the closer the language resembles Polish; going east more call themselves ethnic Russians and speak Russian. Some partition is likely over time, but there’s no hurry. From Putin’s view it is enough that the Ukraine does not join the western bloc, and remains dependent on Russia. Russia began in Kiev with the Vikings, and there is a long attachment, felt stronger among Russians for Ukraine than the other way around. Stalin, after all, conquered Ukraine and starved the peasants, gong so far as to confiscate their shovels so that they could not feed themselves. See Robert Conquest, Harvest of Sorrow, http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/52139.The_Harvest_of_Sorrow for more than you will want to know about that. The result was that many Ukrainians saw the Wehrmacht as a liberation army, and many allied with the Germans. That did not last due to Hitler’s policies.

There is a famous story of a German Wehrmacht colonel being questioned by an American intelligence officer.

The German said “Do you want to know where we lost the war?”

The American said, “Everyone knows that was Stalingrad.”

“Oh, no. It was much earlier than that. It was in Kiev, when we hoisted the Swastika rather than the Ukrainian national flag.”

Hitler being Hitler and the SS being the SS, it was probably inevitable; but it makes for an interesting speculation: had Germany come as a liberator, would the outcome of World War II have been different? But given Hitler, that seems unlikely.

They are revising the SAT again. The results will not be good, and the revisions are in deference to the concept of ‘diversity’ rather than grade prediction, aptitude testing, tests of abilities, and in particular, in rejection of the whole notion of IQ.

The Post’s View

As the SAT changes again, colleges lose critical measures

By Editorial Board, Published: March 8

IT’S THE NEWS that will launch a thousand test-preparation courses: The College Board is once again altering the SAT, the much-criticized college admissions exam that has struggled to defend its approach to student assessment. The SAT’s writers appear to be doing two things: changing what it tests; and making it easier. There’s reason for the former, and danger in the latter.

The SAT has had a rough several years, as critics have continued to charge that performance on the exam doesn’t predict college performance well, or much better than students’ socio-economic status does. Worse from the College Board’s perspective, no doubt, is that the SAT is now a less popular college entrance exam than the ACT, which used to be common in the center of the country and very rare on the West Coast and in the Northeast.

. . .

Integrating the SAT with what’s taught in class is a fine idea, particularly since the exam’s writers gave up on their claim to measure raw aptitude years ago. But making the exam easier in order to chase the ACT isn’t. It sounds as though students could conceivably get a perfect score on the new exam and yet struggle to fully comprehend some of the articles in this newspaper. Colleges should want to know if their would-be English majors are conversant in words more challenging than “synthesis,” or that their scores reflect more than lucky bubble guesses, now that wrong answers carry no penalty.

The SAT’s fiercest critics claim that the test is practically useless, reflecting little more than students’ socio-economic status. Grades alone are better predictors of college success, they argue. But grades can be misleading, too, since their value depends on the particular expectations of individual schools and even individual teachers. Colleges are right to want a common assessment in the mix as they evaluate applicants, including top inner-city students who might have spotless transcripts but few other ways to demonstrate that they’ve achieved as much as or more than other applicants at schools with better reputations.

http://abcnews.go.com/US/top-surprising-sat/story?id=22786291

Understand, Paul Horst in a study financed by the Office of Naval Research at the University of Washington in the 1950’s developed a multivariate grade prediction program that was amazingly successful; alas, although race was not one of the variables and was not in fact collected, the program was not equal in outcomes predicted for various minority groups, according to research by other groups who did collect racial information. The grade prediction program is no longer in use.

The new program is not going to be very useful in selecting those who will and will not be successful at university, but that is no longer its purpose.

One change will be that students will no longer be penalized for wrong answers. This is entirely political. Any multiple choice examination must contain a penalty for wrong answers, else the proper strategy for taking the test is “always guess since you can’t lose.” If there is a penalty, then you need to know precisely what it is to develop a test taking strategy: of the five multiple choices, you can generally eliminate one, so that a pure guess will now have a 25% chance of being correct as opposed to 20% if you have no idea whatever. If the penalty is 0.2 then you should guess if you can eliminate one answer, and always guess if you can eliminate two (thus getting a 33% chance of getting it right by chance). With no penalty at all, never leave an answer blank. Always guess. Best if you have a source of random numbers, but even pseudorandom guesses are better than leaving any question unanswered.

The SAT has been criticized for being a test of how well you take the test rather than of any ability you may have; this will likely make it more so.

For more see http://abcnews.go.com/US/top-surprising-sat/story?id=22786291

I note that the Syrian government has taken another important city. Israeli forces have seized a boatload of missiles destined for Gaza. There are riots and bombings in Iraq, except for in Iraqi Kurdistan where Americans are popular (so far) and there is stability, but Baghdad writ does not run there.

Bremer Mistakes & The Surge

Jerry,

General Peter Mansoor is on C-Span2’s weekend "BookTV" talking about his book "Surge". He seems to be in violent agreement with you on Bremer’s early mistakes being a major reason the Iraq insurgency developed to the point where the Surge was needed.

In the first few minutes of the talk (it’s about an hour and a half

total) he cites two Bremer decisions: To de-Baathify Iraq well beyond the top level types, far down into the levels where as often as not joining the Baath Party was simply what you had to do to get a job.

And, as you’ve often mentioned, to disband the existing Iraqi army (as opposed to the far more political Republican Guard formations.)

He continues into some detail on how we fostered the later chaos, before he starts on the main part of his talk about the actual conduct of the Surge.

The video is at

http://www.c-span.org/video/?317658-1/book-discussion-surge# .

Henry

Bremer is the most incompetent proconsul in Mesopotamia since – well actually none of the Romans were that incompetent, nor any of the Saracens. Since ever.

Are ‘Blackwater’ now active in Ukraine? Videos spark talk that U.S. mercenary outfit has been deployed to Donetsk Jerry,

This is crazy.

First we get video of Ms. Nuland passing out cookies to Ukrainian protesters followed by the phone intercept of her decreeing who will be in the cabinet of the interim government.

Now we have reports of Blackwater mercenaries in Ukraine.

As Gov. Palin would phrase it, it appears that Obama stuffed a pair of rolled up socks down the front of his mom jenes to delude himself into thinking that he is macho then picked a fight with bear wrestling Putin.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2576490/Are-Blackwater-active-Ukraine-Videos-spark-talk-U-S-mercenary-outfit-deployed-Donetsk.html

I am mystified about what national interest was served by destabilizing Ukraine and provoking a confrontation with Russia that has long since ceased to be an existential threat.

This can not end well.

James

This is the sort of thing I rarely post here, but the rumors of Blackwater mercenaries – isn’t that company out of business – do spark an idea for a story which I am unlikely to write. Who would be paying them, and to do what?   And where in Ukraine?  They are not needed in Crimea. By either side.

Dr. Pournelle,

In addition to your observations about knowledge of European history, there seems to be a memory gap in recent and personal history. For instance, the CINC campaigned on his opposition to Iraq invasion rev 2 (on grounds of costs and lack of political interest), yet seems to be more of a hawk than his predecessor on the Ukraine and Crimea.

Hope that your hearing is continuing to return, albeit slowly.

-d

Putin Needs Russians

Presumably he doesn’t really understand how free enterprise works much better than Obama. He has plenty of money. all he has to do is put lots of it into child support, probably only of children who have at least 2 ethnic Russian grandparents though that would get a lot of western fingerwagging.

If you tax something you will get less of it. if you subsidize it, enough, you will get more.

That would be cheaper than wars.

One of the lessons of wars since the industrial revolution is that a nation no longer gets powerful by grabbing the territory of unfriendly neighbors if you have to keep their recalcitrant population too. Britain learned this in Ireland and India & learned the opposite lesson about the strength of friends in Australia and Canada (& despite a little carelessness in 1776 in the US too).

I once calculated that by 2050, at present rates of population growth <http://www.geographyiq.com/ranking/ranking_Population_growth_Rate_dall.htm> Yemen will have a larger population and a more aggressive population than Russia (more aggressive because poorer, more crowded and large families make young men more expendable). Not problems I wish on either.

Best Wishes

Neil Craig

I am quite certain that Mr. Putin understands family incentives and tax breaks. And not wanting recalcitrant minorities is likely to look very high in his calculations. In the case of the Crimea the benefits of annexation outweigh the costs.  In the cast of the ‘stans’, it is better to lure the Russians to Russia; the land is not really wanted. With the Ukraine itself things get complicated.  I suspect Russians are quite capable of rational analysis on these issues.

Ukraine and the Washington-New York implosion 

Hi Dr. Pournelle,

It seems to me that all the fuss over Ukraine along the New York-Washington axis is because those folks really believed that Great Power competition could be subsumed under a hazy fog of U.N. resolutions. Much of their self-importance is wrapped up in this concept; you see, if physical force has great importance, then a nation’s power largely comes from its economic heft, which means Washington has reason to be concerned about the effects of its policies on the real economy out there in flyover country, and the New York banks have reason to be concerned about the effects of their business practices on the economy at large. If peace and prosperity flow from the pen of the U.N. Secretary General, then the opinion of the great and good is all that matters.

At any rate, along comes our “partner for peace” Vladimir Putin, acting as though power grows out of the barrel of a gun, and abrogates the Budapest Memorandum—under which peace-loving Ukraine surrendered its nukes for a mess of pottage—and all of a sudden it becomes clear that the only safety to be found in this world is under the cover of superior firepower. No surprise to anyone who has been paying the least attention, but now the denizens of the East Coast Establishment can’t so easily fool themselves.

Their disbelief (why else was there no intelligence report indicating what any analyst should know would happen?) has been followed by anger at Russia, and I suspect that bargaining is currently underway. That leaves depression and acceptance—although it may take another Great Power use-of-force event to bring them to that point…

Neil

One place the current lesson will not be lost is in Pyongyang.

AND this should have gone up a week ago. Apologies

Dr. Pournelle,

Thanks for your historical summary. Something about the CIC’s statement that President Putin is "…on the wrong side of history…" for the annexation of the Crimea bothered me when I heard it, and I think the run-down you gave put it in focus for me. Spoken by an old-school socialist referring to a new-style imperialist, I suppose his comment is particularly ironic.

One wonders if SecState is any better versed in history than his boss, and if so, will it make a difference in the outcome. The U.S. has no real interest in the Ukraine, and has shown its lack of resolve in dealing with Syria, Egypt, Afghanistan, and sundry other "crises." I suppose that negotiating an unlikely concession from a weak position might make SecState’s job more interesting, but hardly more effective.

I visited Lviv (or Lvov, depending on the kind of Vodka one drinks) in Ukraine in 1992 under non-mysterious and otherwise uninteresting circumstances. A reforming cold warrior at the time, I enjoyed the people and the sights, but left with the impression that the country had been pretty much exhausted by repeated invasion over several generations. I agree with the suggestion you printed, that they could sell (or even 99-year lease) the area to Russia at a profit, still retain some coastline with the Black Sea, negotiate for more compensation for Chernobyl and other concessions, and come out with what is left of their dignity and growing spirit of nationalism.

As for nukes, I’ve been laboring under the belief that western aid was withheld from Ukraine until the Russians got them all out. If true, it would be one thing done right by the Clinton administration. The KGB and other formerly Soviet forces were still quite active in Ukraine while I was there, and the Crimea was given up to Ukraine almost by default as the U.S.S.R crumbled. Ukrainian military assets were abandoned at least temporarily in Western Europe, basically for lack of gas money to get home. I’m very skeptical that they could keep the old Russian weapons working, yet alone get a delivery system up to initial capability. Having nukes and not having others know about them is counterproductive, so if they’d had a development and maintenance program for the last 20-some years, I think they’d have advertised it. But before you ask, no, I’m not ready to bet the farm. Having such a weak leadership, I’d be more assured if we had an adequate foreign intelligence service, but with the concentration on the middle East and anti-terrorism for the last decade, I’m not betting any marbles there, either.

I don’t think any blast doors will be rolling in Montana, either, though, as I think the threat would be Ukraine’s against Russia. In light of our record in the Arab Spring and subsequent events, I am not so cynical to think that our President (shudder) is nuts enough to loose the hounds in the case of a possible conflict confined to eastern Europe, and I know of no entangling treaties that would make it necessary to intervene. I sincerely pray for the President’s good health, though, at least partly because I’m not too sure of the veep’s sanity.

I am glad that you are enjoying music in spite of the hearing setbacks! With hope for your full recovery,

-d

The batteries ran down in my hearing aids. The system signals by having each aid send a pattern of gong sounds at intervals, never both at once, one ear at a time. Tonight for the first time in two weeks I heard – faintly but definitely – the gongs in my left ear. If there is some hearing left in there, they may be able to reprogram the system. Tomorrow I take the last steroid pill; Tuesday I get the final shot in the eardrum. After that I will go to COSTCO and see what they can do. As I taper off the steroids my digestion is better but alas the flatulence remains. I’ll stop Zantac after Tuesday.

Freedom is not free. Free men are not equal. Equal men are not free.

View 813 Friday, March 07, 2014

“Transparency and the rule of law will be the touchstones of this presidency.”

President Barack Obama, January 31, 2009

If a foreign government had imposed this system of education on the United States, we would rightfully consider it an act of war.

Glenn T. Seaborg, National Commission on Education, 1983

Christians to Beirut. Alawites to the grave.

Syrian Freedom Fighters

If you like your health plan, you can keep your health plan. Period.

Barrack Obama, famously.

Rob Reid please send me an email address.

Wednesday and Thursday were devoured by locusts. Actually by steroids, which I continue to take in the hope of restoring hearing in my left ear. I am also now interrupted by robot telephone calls of all kinds, to the extent that I am if a fit of fury. Anyone who uses his or her voice for a recorded message to be sent to lists the callers have not volunteered to be on should be sentenced to six weeks in the public pillory. During that time their message will be played. The public will be told when and where. The government will not supply baskets of rotten tomatoes, but volunteers may bring extra if they choose. If you are going to call me with and unwanted message, have the decency to be human so that I can tell you what I think of your message and your life choices.

Begun Thursday, continued on Friday:

I am now convinced that no one in power in this nation knows any history whatsoever. Not even the history of the Seventy Years War with Bolshevism or what we call The Cold War – which now may become Cold War One if Barrack Hussein Obama de Santa Anna has his way. The State Department has, I am told, 3000 officers with PH.D.’s. One wonders in what subjects. Certainly not in history.

Before Putin came to power, Clinton went out of his way to kick the Russians in the shins in the Balkan incidents; matters there came within minutes of a shooting engagement between a Russian commander and American forces; this in American support of the Bosnian side in a blood feud going back to the time of Suleiman the Magnificent and the Siege of Vienna in 1527.

When the Turks conquered the lower Balkans, they imposed the Koran-mandated tax on unbelievers. The tax imposed was young boys to be taken to Istanbul, forcibly converted, and raised to be Janissaries, elite infantry of the Turkish Army. Some Balkans converted to Islam and thus became tax collectors. Ethnically, the differences between Albanian, Serbian, Bosnian, and Croat are small; but under the Turks the non-Muslims paid taxes and the Muslims collected them. This created blood feuds in a land known for them for two thousand years. Many of those family feuds continued to this day.

After the collapse of the Soviet System there was a period in which there was indeed a reset in the relationship between Russia and the United States, as Herman Kahn predicted there would be. Then came the Balkan crisis in which the ancient blood feuds dating back to the 13^th Century were revived. That had lasted through the conquests of the Balkans and Hungary in the reign of Suleiman the Magnificent, and continued as the Turkish controls began to recede.  Then came the first Balkan Wars with their “Bulgarian Atrocities”, and the gradual liberation of Balkan nations, the brief existence of the Christian Kingdom of Montenegro, consolidation with Serbia, World War I and the dissolution of the Austrian Empire, formation of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, German occupation of the Balkans, communist Tito vs. Christian monarchist Draza Mihailovich, Tito’s victory and consolidation of Yugoslavia, Tito’s defection from the Soviet bloc and his attempt to play the USSR against the West to his advantage, and the breakup of Yugoslavia at his death. And during all those times the ancient blood feuds and hatreds continued. All contending sides had factions who advocated and used ethnic cleansing as a tactic.

The Russians, as Russians always do – see the origins of The Great War — took the side of the Christian Slavs. This resulted in several standoffs between US and Russian forces, one or which came within minutes of a shooting engagement. The US began bombing Serbs, and US air strikes crippled the economy of the Lower Danube for at least a year. From the Russian view, the US chose sides: against Slavs. The truth of this is not so important as the deep seated belief among many Russians that it is true.

About 100,000 people were killed in the Bosnian War.

FYI from Wikipedia:

• 1944 to 1947 & 1951: 1.5 million Poles were deported from the eastern territories annexed by the Soviet Union into the western territories, which Soviets transferred from Germany to Poland. By 1950, 1.6 million Poles from the eastern territories annexed by the Soviet Union had been settled in what the government called the Regained Territories.

• 1944 to 1948: Flight and expulsion of Germans after World War II. Between 13.5 and 16.5 million Germans were expelled, evacuated or fled from Central and Eastern Europe, making this the largest single instance of ethnic cleansing in recorded history. Estimated number of those who died in the process is being debated by historians and estimated between 500,000 and 3,000,000.^[44]

• November and December 1944: more than 200,000 Danube Swabians in Yugoslavia were expelled from their homes and interned in starvation and concentration camps for the old, young and disabled. Some 30,000 workers were expelled to Russia as slave laborers for war reparations.^[45]

The President of the United States is said to have called the President of Russia to tell him that Russia must be punished. On hearing that I told Niven that it’s enough to make you wish for Jimmy Carter again; Larry said don’t waste a wish. He is right of course.

The President is also calling for the reduction of the Army to pre-WWII levels, and will punish Russia by cutting back on US cooperation with Israel in development of new anti-missile weapons (although we have a contract with Israel to co-develop them). We are reducing the size and cost of the Navy.

But Russia must be punished for its actions in the Crimea. The reactions of President Putin are not fully known.

The Washington Post has this to say:

A day after President Obama ordered sanctions over Russia’s military takeover in Crimea, Russian President Vladi­mir Putin emphatically rejected the U.S. position, saying his country could not “ignore calls for help” from ethnic Russians in Ukraine after what he has termed an illegitimate power grab there by pro-Western agitators.

Obama authorized the Treasury Department on Thursday to impose sanctions on “individuals and entities” responsible for the Russian intervention in Crimea or for “stealing the assets of the Ukrainian people.”

Speak loudly and carry a willow switch.

Interesting perspective.

IMHO, Obama must be getting foreign policy advice from his old chum gang friends. Nuland certainly seems to be on drugs.

http://www.shanghaidaily.com/article/article_xinhua.aspx?id=205228

James Crawford=

http://www.realcleardefense.com/articles/2014/03/06/building_a_us_army_of_125000_spartans_107123.html

The comments make much better case for how ignorant this proposal is than I could. Though, I can add one observation… this proposal doesn’t account for the necessity, and thus having the capacity, to rapidly expand the Army when needed (and, at some point, it will be needed!).

s/f

Couv

David Couvillon

Colonel, U.S. Marine Corps Reserve, Retired.; Former Governor of Wasit Province, Iraq; Righter of Wrongs; Wrong most of the time; Distinguished Expert, TV remote control; Chef de Hot Dog Excellance; Avoider of Yard Work

The kind of army you have will dictate the kind of foreign policy you have.  The 300 Spartans bought time == just enough for the Spartans and Athenians to win at Plataea. A strategy of Technology is needed; so are Seals and Marines. The United States has been able to depend on the seas as moats behind which we can mobilize, with Big Bill Knudsen’s conversion of Detroit to making cannon, tanks, airplanes, machine guns, rifles, artillery in enormous quantities to arm the conscripted soldiers being trained by the old Regulars, and the Marines held on by their teeth in the South Pacific. But the pace of war has changed, and we no longer have Detroit. We seem to have forgotten some of the lessons of Task Force Smith and Korea. As the pace speeds, the force you must fight with is the force you have at hand and can transport.

Restructuring of the armed forces of the United States is needed, but it is far more complicated than simply fixing numbers and budgets. It also involves the schools and what is taught in them. And entrusting the safety of a Republic to paid soldiers has downsides.  Robert Heinlein and I debated for much of his life over conscription. His view was that any nation that needed conscripts had no right to exist. Mine was closer to Machiavelli’s. Conscription has the many benefits for a Republic, and its effects on liberty are not purely negative.  A nation needs paid professional Legions, but their existence allows them to be sent to wars we might be better off avoiding. Clinton would not have sent conscripts to the Balkans.

Building a U.S. Army of 125,000 Spartans

By J. Furman Daniel, III

Defense cuts are coming. The only question is how much. As it has grappled with the fiscal realities of sequestration, the U.S. Army has sought to define its mission in a post-war environment. The Pentagon’s latest budget request would reduce Army end strength to 440,000. While this reduction has caused a great deal of consternation in some quarters, this is not nearly enough.

In this age of budgetary and strategic uncertainty, the best course of action is to radically transform the Army by cutting the number of active-duty personnel by more than 75% to 125,000. To compensate for the resulting downsizing, the Army should adopt a multifaceted-approach to increase the quality, flexibility, and combat power of the force. This approach would entail stricter recruiting and promotion selection standards, significantly higher pay, greater emphasis on education and training, lengthier enlistment terms, longer deployments, a no-tolerance policy for criminal and disciplinary infractions, an increased use of private contractors for non-combat roles, and a rethinking of our reliance on the National Guard and Reserve.

http://www.realcleardefense.com/articles/2014/03/06/building_a_us_army_of_125000_spartans_107123.html

 

They were professionals and "a rapier among scythes" at the war’s beginning compared to the vast, conscripted armies of the continent. But they didn’t last a year due to attrition.

The thing is, where are we going to go and get involved in a war involving masses? I don’t think the writer has a grip on the whole truth but he is on to something.

William Bodin

 

It is as good a presentation of the case for a small elite military as any, and an argument that citizens ought to be aware of.

Subject : On your March 2nd, 2014 post regarding Freefall Message

I was recently directed to your post on the web comic Freefall, by Mark Stanley, and while overall I was pleased at a wonderful web comic being given attention by you, there is one minor quibble in an otherwise interesting article.

In the description of Florence Ambrose, you say her genetic manipulation involves human genetic material, but I’m afraid such is not the actual case. It’s not mentioned in the comic, and not easy to find the link (produced below) if one isn’t already aware of it, but in the backstory archive, a collection of things Mr. Stanley has said on the now-defunct The Nice forum, she’s explicitly said to not contain any human genetic material due to legal considerations, although some of the modifications to make a red wolf functionally humanoid (if obviously not human) are adaptations of similar human brain structures.

http://home.comcast.net/~ccdesan/Freefall/Freefall_Backstory.html

While I appreciate that you don’t and/or can’t sit around all day doing little, I think that you should set aside some time (it’s not a short page) to at least skim the backstory. I’ve found that the extra detail, much of which is never mentioned or used in the actual comic, helps enhance my enjoyment of the story. Given the detail-heavy kind of stories that you write, I think you might also appreciate the work on the Freefall universe backstory.

Sincerely,

Dan Poore

I thought I had recommended reading the story from the beginning. My apologies for memory lapses.  Thank you for the reminder.

Wednesday 5 March: I didn’t take blood measures yesterday but should have, and didn’t want to come upstairs and do it this morning. An hour after breakfast at which I did not take my metformin I found it was 221. It is now 115 and I have taken my morning pills including the metformin. Last night at bed time I could hear a faint scratching noise in left ear when I scraped the left hearing aid. Previously that was stone deaf since Sunday night a week ago. Can still hear that this morning, and possibly some high pitch bird calls. This may be a good sign. Hope springs eternal.

Took Zantac in hopes of controlling acid reflux caused by steroids. Did so and discovered that a side effect of steroids and Zantac is massive

Thursday, 6 March. MRI this morning. Blood sugar 147.

Friday after Breakfast: 234. Hike with Niven up the hill. Good walk, tiring but good. No change in hearing. Tapering off on steroid pills. Three today. Zantac continues. So does flatulence. Zantac plus steroids results in massive and uncontrollable flatulence.

Someone probably mentioned this already, but if they didn’t… You may want to know…

Corticosteroids (from the adrenal cortex) like you are taking are very different from anabolic steroids (from gonads) used by athletes (and legitimately to treat low testosterone).

John

Dang.

Freedom is not free. Free men are not equal. Equal men are not free.

View 813 Tuesday, March 04, 2014

“Transparency and the rule of law will be the touchstones of this presidency.”

President Barack Obama, January 31, 2009

If a foreign government had imposed this system of education on the United States, we would rightfully consider it an act of war.

Glenn T. Seaborg, National Commission on Education, 1983

Christians to Beirut. Alawites to the grave.

Syrian Freedom Fighters

In a few minutes I am off to get another needle full of steroids in the left eardrum. I have been taking huge doses of steroids all week, and I can’t imagine why anyone would want to, even to get into a Hall of Fame. The mood swings are strange to the point of frightening, the acid reflux in the night is horrible, the blood sugar swings are truly terrifying, and so far none of this has done a bit for my hearing, Hope springs eternal.

The great fear of the Cold Warriors – at least all of my colleagues and those I associated with – was that the USSR would destroy the world in its death throes. Sun Tzu said you should build golden bridges for your enemies. Machiavelli tells us never to do an enemy a small injury. One must strive to keep the respect of your enemies, and never confuse your real objectives with speculative dreams.

And so, when the USSR dissolved, and Yeltsin essentially ended the rule of Communism and the Party and the Nomenklatura, and tens of thousands of nuclear weapons were dismantled, there was some euphoria. A few of us worried, particularly since Yeltsin’s influence and power began to melt. Putin emerged: a KGB Colonel who restored the established church and made it clear he put Russian national interests ahead of all else: a Tsarist without a Tsar.

And there was opportunity for the United States to play the realist balance of power game in this suddenly created New World with Russia, China, Europe, as players, and the United States as the sole superpower. It was possible to build a world on that.

And then came Clinton and Madeleine Albright, and the Balkan crisis. Of all places where the US had few interests the Balkans ranked quite high: yet because we had this great army we had to do something with it, and liberal ideology prevailed. We intervened in a territorial dispute in Europe, and we did so to the chagrin and humiliation of Russia. It came close to a shooting engagement. And then our air power dropped bridges over the Danube. We wrecked the economy of the lower Danube to no gain of our own, thus infuriating the pan-Slavic Russians and leaving a lasting grudge that will not go away. Instead of looking for common interests with Russia, we chose hostility for its own sake with no national interest of ours at stake, and chose sides in the ancient blood feuds of Christian and Moslem inhabitants of the Balkans. We chose to bomb Christian Slavs, thus making enemies of pro-Slavic Russia.

We sowed the wind and we are reaping the whirlwind; and now we are supposed to ‘rescue’ Crimea from Russia? It was crazy to intervene in the Balkans. It is stark raving madness to contemplate intervention in the Crimea. Perhaps we can send The Light Brigade?

More on this later.

Few analysts seem to understand what Putin wants.  Unlike the USSR he’s not after territory and captive nations.  He doesn’t need more territory. He does object to being encircled by a cordon sanitaire, and while he is willing to have the Baltic Republics and Poland be part of NATO, Ukraine and Belarus are a different proposition.

What Putin wants and desperately needs is Russians. Ethnic Russians. The USSR had a horrid policy of deporting ethic members of a captive nation like Estonia or Lithuania and replacing them with communists: these tended to be Muscovite Russians. Col. Budrys, father of SF master A J Budrys, was a representative of the US recognized Republic of Lithuania, and Algis did not become an American citizen until after the liberation of Lithuania during the collapse of the USSR.  I also had friends in the exile representation of the Republic of Estonia. Both told the same story: after WW II the USSR would deport ethnic Lithuanians and Estonians to Siberia to settle there, and replace them with ethnic Russians who would sometimes assume the names of the people they replaced.  The notion was to better integrate the captive Baltic nations into the Soviet Empire.  It didn’t work very well, and worse, from the point of view of the new Russian government, many of those ethnic Russians have identified with their new homelands and do not admit to being Russian any longer; and most have converted to the Lutheran Church, so they might not be welcome back in the USSR.

The birth rate among ethnic Russians in Russia is low and falling. Russia is running out of Russians. While this is not an immediate problem, the continued population decline appears to be steady and inevitable, and that is a downward spiral with great consequences, aging population being one obvious result. Without young men you have no army; or so it has been through most of history.  Russia needs Russians. Putin believes he represents the soul of Russia. Putin needs Russians.

He has sent Russian passports to ethnic Russians in the Moslem ‘Stans’ in hopes of luring them home; I am told there were some initial successes but not so many now. He has appealed to ethnic Russians all over the world. Come home and be part of the New Russia. A reasonable policy but not sufficient to solve the problem. Israel has and had similar problems, to the point where for a while ethnic Russian dissidents from Russia were accepted as Jews if they said they were Jewish: Israel cannot be The Jewish State if it runs out of Jews; and Russia cannot be the Russian State without sufficient Russians.

Crimea has Russians. I would guess – a guess based on insufficient evidence to have a high confidence, but at least on evidence – that if a plebiscite were held in Crimea on the question of “Russia or Ukraine”, Russia would win by a clear majority; which, in the doctrine of the liberal Democrats in the United States of the self determination of nations, ought to be sufficient in and of itself, and US Marines ought to be landing to assist the Russians in disarming the remnants of the Ukrainian military. Of course that will not happen, but the grounds for US opposition to the secession of Crimea from Ukraine and its subsequent annexation by Russia must sound a bit strange to the inhabitants of Texas and Mexico. I would guess that economic sanctions on Russia over the future of the Ukraine are needless irritation of a major power with whom we have many common interests in East Asia, and for that matter in the Middle East, and serve no purpose whatever. If there ever were a territorial dispute in Europe that we ought not be involved in, the fate of the Crimea in this matter must be near the top of the list.

East Ukraine is another matter.  The difference between ethnic Russians and ethnic Ukrainians is not obvious even to Russians and Ukrainians, much less so to me. There is more of the Swedish Russ (Vikings, who founded the Kievan State and ranged south to the Crimea)  in the Western Ukraine than in the eastern part of the country, and more Slavic and Tatar ancestry mixed with Russ in Russians, but that is not universal and usually not obvious.  In the United States this would not matter much.  As Bill Buckley observed decades ago, one can study to become an American and do so no matter what one’s ethnic origins. This is not so with many European nations.  I recall in Finland being introduced to a man by being told that “he is a Swede but his family has lived in Finland for two hundred years.”  In Russia the same sort of sentiment is strongly felt. And there are lots of Russians in East Ukraine. Russia doesn’t so much want Eastern Ukraine  as she wants the Russians who live there and if they cannot be induced to come to Russia, then Russia will come to them. 

After World War II the United States abetted some great forced migrations which would now be called ethnic cleansing. In order to settle the borders of Russia, Poland, and Germany, borders were moved and millions of families were deported to their new homelands, Germans westward to the new borders of Germany, Poles out of the eastern Polish lands that went to Russia by right of conquest, and so forth.  At the end of World War I the Austrian Empire, which was very much an Empire of diversity, was dismembered even though the Hungarians wanted to remain part of Austria-Hungary and the Hungarian chief of state called himself the Regent for the Hapsburg emperor who was forbidden on pain of US military intervention from returning to Austria Hungary.  The nation of Czechoslovakia was created and jammed in Czechs, Slovaks, and Germans into a single republic dominated by Czechs; one of the more popular promises Hitler made was to return the Sudeten Deutschen to Germany.  Another was to annex Austria.  Eine Reich…  This “self determination of nations” policy waxed and waned in popularity between the two World Wars, and was used as the justification for the ethnic cleansings and great migrations after WW II ended.  Russia can now invoke it in the Crimea; and one wonders what part it will play in the Eastern Ukraine. 

Russia needs Russians, and Putin’s goal is to get enough to assure the survival of his people and preserve Mother Russia.

1430  Back from getting my eardrum stabbed. No apparent improvement in left ear hearing, which remains essentially at zero.  Mind races crazy so I try not to say anything without editing. Told to take Zantec with food for hiccoughs and indigestion due to steroids.  I take only 5 steroid tablets a day for this week, and get stabbed again next week.  We can hope.

Freedom is not free. Free men are not equal. Equal men are not free.