At U.N., Haley says U.S. is ‘prepared to do more’ in Syria

“It could be that Russia is knowingly allowing chemical weapons to remain in Syria. It could be that Russia has been incompetent in its efforts to remove the chemical weapons,” Haley said, echoing similar comments made by Secretary of State Rex Tillerson Thursday. “Or it could be that the Assad regime is playing the Russians for fools. Telling them that there are no chemical weapons, all the while stockpiling them on their bases.”

It seems to me that these are the kinds of questions Trump’s State Department should have been asking, and getting answers for, before a strike than after. If these are important questions, if they had actually asked them, why couldn’t they have waited for an answer, and would they have still bombed if these question had been answered?

Obviously, while they are asking these question, which may determine the appropriate US response, more people may have been gassed, but it might also mean there would have been a possibility that Russia would take action against Assad after realizing they have been fooled or Russia’s personnel are incompetent.

Of course if Assad’s story is correct, i.e. the sarin gas was produced by the insurgents and released when Assad bombed, there most likely would have been no more people dying from a sarin gas leak, unless there were many manufacturing areas that had remained hidden from the Russians and everyone else.

But asking these question and receiving answers to them is now pretty much a waste of time. The world now knows that the US will be willing to commit thousands of troops and trillions of dollars, without any answers to these, or perhaps any, questions.

But thanks U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Nikki Haley. Your questions may be  a dollar short (59 million) and a day late, but they should count for something, as Trump, although not very presidential, has shown he is a man of action, which is something.

Source: At U.N., Haley says U.S. is ‘prepared to do more’ in Syria

Pentagon moving to increase US troop numbers in Iraq soon

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Pentagon said Friday it was moving to increase the number of American forces in Iraq and announced that U.S. forces have killed the Islamic State’s finance minister. “We are systematically eliminating ISIL’s cabinet,” Defense Secretary Ash Carter said.

I think Trump will have a mandate to make those in the Arab world take care of their own, or pay us to do it for you. I wonder if Trump knows how quickly relationships can change? I mean he had to maintain his image to keep people coming back to his buildings with his name on it. Is he going to keep that image, or become a leader.

In other words, is Trump going to put his name on this country or not? Would a leader?

Gen. Joseph Dunford, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said recommendations on ways to increase U.S. support for Iraq’s ground fight against IS are going to be discussed with President Barack Obama soon.

So muster up some cash Congress, if you got some kind of war to fight, or not. But let’s face it, this election might be the most important one you let happen–you need to commit yourself to something more than throw Obama out of the WH.

The Constitution has done that part for you, so who are you fighting? Not a big fan of the Constitution, eh?

“The secretary and I both believe that there will be an increase in U.S. forces in Iraq in coming weeks, but that decision hasn’t been made,” Dunford told Pentagon reporters during a briefing. He did not say how big that increase might be.

Yes Republicans, Obama hasn’t made that decision yet. Do you want Trump to do it? The answer maybe something voters need to listen to before the Middle East explodes, and not after, when it is out of our control.

One may say that we never had control in the first place. The difference between Shia and Sunni Arabs have been deemed unsolvable according to Islam, and, from what I have heard, climate change is taking away their water, neither which the Republican’s base believe we have control of.

I am just not sure Trump is saying that. That is the problem when living inside a bubble.

Source: Pentagon moving to increase US troop numbers in Iraq soon – Yahoo News

Iran’s leader says never trusted the West, seeks closer ties with China

DUBAI (Reuters) – Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on Saturday called for closer economic and security ties with China, saying Iran had never trusted the West, as the two countries agreed to increase bilateral trade more than 10-fold to $600 billion in the next decade.

Truly a relationship made in heaven. The USA would have had to create this relationship, if it didn’t just all happen by itself. 🙂

The reason is this:

It sounds to me like

China is the epicenter of the looming crisis. China in today’s cycle is what US housing was during the financial crisis in 2008. In 2008, China reacted quickly, resorted to fiscal stimulus, which saved the boom and even amplified it. In addition, however, the liquidity from the QE-program in the US flooded into the country, which even accelerated the uptrend – in terms of credit growth and investment, the boom in China grew into the biggest excess in the history of mankind.

and Iran could use all the excessive commodities it can now buy, as sanctions are lifted, and its economy becomes a player in the developing market.

It’s a relationship made in heaven, because China’s relationship with Turkey is strong enough that they hold combined military exercises and strong enough with Russia that there is much in integration at their border regions, and Iran is basically at war with the Arab Sunni kingdom.

Whither that “Kingdom” is heaven, has yet to be seen.

 

Source: Iran’s leader says never trusted the West, seeks closer ties with China – Yahoo News

Strategy: Winning or Calculation?

Mark asks, on my twitter feed, a good question. I presume he made it after reading the post to the link in the tweet Critt also made on my feed:

Here is the post:

“What is strategy? A mental tapestry of changing intentions for harmonizing and focusing our efforts as a basis for realizing some aim or purpose in an unfolding and often unforeseen world of many bewildering events and many contending interests.

John Boyd

This quote comes from Science, Strategy and War: The Strategic Theory of John Boyd, Frans Osinga. Pg.13.”

Via: http://crittjarvis.com/2012/06/boyds-elegant-epitaph-what-is-strategy/

While Boyd describes the essence of strategy, he does leave it open to Mark’s question. Is the essence of strategy about winning or is it in the calculations?

I don’t know Boyd that well to quote him accurately, but in essence he said that if you are not willing to take the steps to winning, then you should think about joining the other side. Clearly to Boyd winning is everything.

From Boyd’s quote: strategy is a bunch of steps structured as a mental tapestry that is mentally changing at different tempos and focus. At the end of the structuring process clarity is found in the forms created.

As the three domains of war are Honor, Interest, and Fear, out of the “many contending interests”, Boyd was building the structures for  the center domain “Interest”. Strategy builds a structure of form where none was before. Boyd was building interest out of human morality, and his Ends, Ways, and Means was through the OODA loop.

So the essence of strategy is not about winning, but about the calculations needed to create (build). In Boyd’s definition of strategy he is creating interest through calculations.

However, Boyd is not building a structure or domain to go to war on. To Boyd winning is everything which also means losing According to Boyd, winning might mean joining the other side, which, like the son of Genghis Khan found out, is losing.

With interest, the possibility of losing is taken out of the “bewildering events”, because a structure is created in the past (the beginning of the “End”) to build Honor on; and there is less to Fear, because a structure is also created in the future (the end of the “End”) that can be seen.

While building interest where interest was not before is a simple thought, I am sure that strategy is, in essence, simple.

4GW

John Robb was talking the other day, and Zenpundit  later expanded, about how to enter into another’s OODA loop. I suggested one way of positioning inside another’s loop, but I have thought of another. You can enter into another’s OODA loop through flux. Flux is when your position is within another’s, in such a way that the image of Ying/Yang is displayed. It can be said that you are in the position of Ying/Yang with another. This is an insurgency (incumbent/insurgency) position called Fourth Generational Warfare (4GW).

Call it what you want, Fourth Generational Warfare or a Fourth Generational World, this is a civil war, as we become connected, because of Globalization in Communication, like never before.

Well, maybe not unlike before. There could have been 3 more or less other cycles, so this could be the twelfth or thirteen, but who knows? In fact, this 4GW stuff is probably what happens when the world historically becomes connect on a globe scale. Maybe in a Rome-Countrymen-lend-me-your-ear type connection.

The problem is that there is no 5GW to go forward towards a future worth living. Of course there actually is 5GW, but it is without ethics, and it is ethics that a movement like Ying/Yang is structurally built out of. Therefore, a 5GW world is a world without structure and without structure a thing doesn’t exist.

What’s so terrifying about 4GW is that neither the incumbent nor the insurgency has an advantage over the other; they simply move one country, or another, this way or that. They are perpendicular forces (Ying over yang is the exponent that defines the structure of the insurgency) that just steer the movement one way or the other. Think General Sherman here, as he marched across the South in a most un-American maneuver. At least un-American for, at the time,  an American North and South.

But I would say we have choices:

• We could continue to build a middle class, so the 1% incumbent force doesn’t over-power the 99%.
• We could go back to 1GW, which is happening on our southern border.
• We could go back to 2GW, which is happening on our northern border.
• We could continually engage in 3GW, as the US has been in Iraq and Afghanistan, to mention just a few.
• Or we could just continue to be terrified, as a war without ethics approaches.

It should be noted that the problem isn’t that the ethics of the American middle class has changed, as Paul Krugman’s graph shows us it hasn’t. If the ethic of the 99% had been the one changing so much, then there would have been big spikes in the addition/  subtraction of resources. The problem is that the ethics of the 1% is in constant change, as they “get religion” through the regulation of the market place, or lose their faith in the square.

Dunbar on the Middle East

As I have posted before, war is developing East and West between un-like people, but is being fought, North and South by like-people. The Middle East is a good representation of this phenomenon.

Arabs divide themselves as to those East of Egypt and those West of Egypt. I don’t know what this division is based on, but if I understand correctly, they believe those East are un-like those of the West. Genetically they are all Arabs, it is simply the part of genetics that is programed from the advantage the Arab takes from their environment that makes them different, East and West.

I don’t know that much about the environment on the East and West of Egypt, but the difference seems to be in the logic in the movement of Arabs, and those other peoples who lie East and West of each other. Those people North and South have similar environment, in which it gets colder the farther north you go and warmer the farther south. This phenomenon repeats itself  inversely at the southern hemisphere, where there are land masses. Because the world spins, pressure ridges form north and south that separate those east and west (think oceans as inverse ridges). The difference between the two, east and west, are caused by the environments that forms as the word spins.

Those of the East seem to follow the Eastern logic of the benevolent leader, while those of the West follow the logic of the strong father. They have taken on this logic because of the particular advantage it holds to the environment they observe.

The Eastern logic is more linear, while the Western is more non-linear. The benevolent leader forms attractive and repulsive forces that produce friction when they “slide” by one another. On the other hand, the strong father forms forces, of command and control, that are perpendicular to each other. The friction in the strong father is controlled by the vertical force of command.

Within the logic of the strong father, perpendicular forces form an area called a plane. This creates an exponent (area squared)  in the movement.
The exponent is commanded by the vertical perpendicular force, and controlled by the horizontal perpendicular force.

The Eastern logic forms forces of attraction and repulsion, which are added and subtracted linearally. The logic of a benevolent leader forms a sum of forces, which create the potential for movement when the sum is not zero. When the sum of the forces in the Eastern society are not zero, a center of gravity forms that attracts or repulses outside forces.

In the Middle East the forces of benevolentness are fighting the strong fathers. What this means to those of us in the USA is that the strong fathers will fight with the weapon they have always used, the price and availability of oil. We will see how those East and West in the USA react. We are becoming a society of benevolent leaders, but there is still some sentimental logic of the strong father in place.