At dawn on September 1st, Luftwaffe struck at Polish airfields destroying most of the planes before they could get off the ground. With control of the skies assured wicked Wehrmacht began the systematic destruction of railroads and the few communications nodes. From the very outset the Poles mobilization plan was seriously compromised. Before the day ended, chaos reigned at Polish Army HQ.
The first phase of the campaign, fought on the frontiers was over by September 5th and the morning of the 7th found reconnaissance elements of Army Group South’s 10th Army just 36 miles southwest of Warsaw. Meanwhile, also on September 5th, vBock’s Army Group North had cut across the corridor and turned southeast for Warsaw. Units of the 3rd Army reached the banks of the River Narew on September 7th, just 25 miles north of Warsaw. The fast moving armored panzer 'Schwerpunkts' of blitzing attacks left the immobile Polish armies cut up, surrounded and out of supply.
Meanwhile the closing of the inner ring at Warsaw witnessed some tough fighting as the Polish Poznan Army, bypassed in the first week of the war, charged heading and attacked toward Warsaw to the southeast. The German 8th and 10th Armies were put to the test as they were forced to turn some divisions completely around to meet the desperate Polish assault. In the end the gallant attack fell short and by September 19th the Poznan Army surrendered some 100,000 men and Poland’s last intact army. As this was occurring the second, more deeper envelopment led by General Heinz Guderian’s panzers took the city of Brest-Litovsk on September 17th, and continued past the city where they made contact with the 10th Army spearhead at Wlodowa 30 miles to the south.
The war, for all practical purposes was over by September 17th. Lvov surrendered on the 19th. Warsaw held out until September 27th, gave up the ghost and the last organized resistance ended October 6th with the surrender of 17,000 Polish soldiers at Kock.
The campaign had lasted less than two months and ended in the destruction of the Polish Army and the fourth partition of Poland. German losses were surprisingly heavy considering the brevity of the campaign.
Deutsch casualties total some 48,000 of which 16,000 were killed. Fully one quarter of the panzers the German committed to battle were lost to Polish anti-panzer guns. Luftwaffe was forced to trash 550 aircraft.
It was not a cheap victory by any means but it did confirm to the generals of Wehrmacht that the military machine that they had built was indeed the best in the world and worthy of their confidence.
Reaction around the world on 1 Sept 1939?
France - mobilized her military and demanded Deutschland withdraw from Poland.
Great Britain - mobilized her army and RAF (the Navy was mobilized the day before) and demanded Germany withdraw from Poland.
Italy - Announced no military plans or initiatives.
Russia - warned concern for civilian population of Russian descent and fear of Polish bandits would warrant armed intervention. She also mobilized her military.
Great Satan - Demanded a halt of indescriminate bombing of towns and civilians.
Finland, Norway, Sweden and the Swiss - announced neutrality
Deutschland - "Determined to eliminate insecurity and perpetual civil war from the borders of the Reich"
Poland - appealed to Great Britain and France to intervene in honour of the Mutual Assistance Treaty of 1939.
1 September is the day an old world order was violently overturned, chock full of lessons, promises and harbingers that echo still today.
Fratricide? The theory being that as Afghan army and police "stand up" to the fight, their western allies and mentors can draw down and go home. The Taliban routinely claim every Isaf death, but it was the incident in which they were not involved which has the potential to destroy the heart of Isaf's withdrawal; 42 coalition soldiers have been shot this year by the men they are supposed to be training, 12 this month alone.
Each time one of these "green on blue" attacks occurs, coalition spokesmen play down their significance. They have, we are continually told, no wider significance. There is no common thread, little evidence of infiltration and the majority of such attacks are the result of personal grudges.
Oh really?
"One group sees the other as a bunch of violent, reckless, intrusive, arrogant, self-serving profane, infidel bullies hiding behind high technology; and the other group generally views the former as a bunch of cowardly, incompetent, obtuse, thieving, complacent, lazy, pot-smoking, treacherous, and murderous radicals. Such is the state of progress in the current partnering programme."
Over a decade of fighting shoulder-to-shoulder had created mutual loathing that was impossible to camouflage. The mutual grudge match ranged from big issues – night raids, failure to treat Afghan military casualties with the same urgency as their own – to trivial ones - urinating in public, personal hygiene, thievery.
This is, perhaps, worse than finding the ANA is riddled with Taliban sleeper cells. Infiltration can be stopped by counter-intelligence. But what, after this length of time, reduces sheer bad faith?
Pic - "Unfriendly Fire"
"She"s not really pretty - she just looks that way"A cruel descript for certain elements who live life like they type - really fast with lotsa mistakes, nicht wahr? Also kinda like 44"s cruel Bystander in Chief mode vis a vis the killing fields of ye olde Suriya al- KubraEighteen months into the Syrian slaughter, 44 finallyhappened on a barbarism he would not countenance. Fighter jets and helicopter gunships had been pounding the city of Aleppo, and the dictator had made it clear that the cruelty meted out to Homs could be Aleppo’s fate, as well. Massacres had become the rule of the day, more than two dozen torture centers had turned Syria into a hellish land, and now finally a red line had been drawn. Assad “hasn’t gotten the message,” 44 says. But the truth is that the Syrian ruler some months back concluded that he could kill with abandon, and that powers beyond wouldn’t come to the rescue of the Syrian people.
The cruel fate of Daraya, a working-class Sunni town a few miles southwest of Damascus, tells of a Syrian regime free of any scruples or worries about the outside world. Over the past week, hundreds perished in Daraya, women and children killed execution-style. The Local Coordination Committees, a reliable group that has been monitoring and documenting the protests, put the death toll in that town at 630, a mini- Srebrenica in many ways.
It was one thing to run out the clock on the Syrians, but that didn’t suffice. The sophistry and the cynicism that covered up the abdication assumed that all, at home and abroad, were incapable of seeing through the pretense. Thus, help was always on the way, just another round of deliberations at the United Nations Security Council away.
We exhausted and stretched the language of outrage -- our diplomacy ran out of adjectives, as Senator John McCain so aptly put it. Our cavalry would turn up if only the Syrian opposition would overcome its differences. Then there was the specter of the jihadists: They were converging on Syria, and surely, Secretary of State HRC said, we wouldn’t want to be on the side of Ayman al-Zawahiri and al-Qaeda.
The best is the enemy of the good: There was no way of determining in advance what kind of regime would emerge in the aftermath of Assad, hence we should be forgiven our caution. What might look like moral callousness in Houla and Aleppo should then be considered strategic wisdom.
The ways of the world are what they are: The custodians of American policy had placed their wager on the attention span of spectators to the Syrian slaughter. Crimes, however monumental, become routine. Wait out the initial outrage and people move on, they weary of calamities. Besides, the policy of the Obama administration had skillfully depicted the choice in Syria between boots on the ground or total indifference. Now it could be argued that this is a false choice, that there is a great deal that could be done short of dispatching the Marines to the shores of Latakia.
From the very beginning of this war between the Syrian ruler and the vast majority of his people, it was well understood that Turkish policy deferred to America’s preferences, so close is the relationship between 44 and Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Turkey could have tipped the scales with a no-fly, no-drive zone on the Syria- Turkey border. A buffer zone would have given would-be defectors from the Syrian army protection and encouragement. Sunni recruits have been eager to desert the Alawite regime, shamed and violated by the cruelties inflicted on ordinary civilians.
One mantra of 44's administration has been that Syria isn’t Libya, that the former has more difficult and sensitive borders. But these borders call for a more assertive American policy. The feuds of Syria were bound to spill into neighboring lands.
Lebanon is, of course, the most sensitive of these neighbors to the Syrian contagion. That delicately balanced country is on the verge of a relapse into its old, deadly ways. Loyalists of Assad battle his opponents, while kidnappers and masked men roam free in Beirut. It is a veritable hell in the northern city of Tripoli, where a conservative Sunni majority is at war with an Alawite enclave.
There are tremors of Syria making their way into Iraq, as well, playing on the fault lines between the Sunni sympathizers of the Syrian rebellion and its Shiite opponents.
A swifter outcome to this fight for Syria would have been both a strategic and a moral imperative. Great Satan didn’t have to carry the burden alone. Turkey and the Sunni Arab states would have been assured that She. was in this fight, as well.
44 has only now chosen to speak out on Syria and to draw a line that the Dr General President For Life in Basharopolis never intended to cross. Pic - "...And you hide away and find your piece of mind..."
"I love Germany so much I am glad there are two of them!"Is the ancient fear of a re hooked up Deutschland becoming a self fulfilled crystal ball exercise?Without new clear weaponry, power projecting air craft carriers, or a military base abroad, Deutschland has won the 100 year German Wars started in 1914 by the Hoch Kaiser and then refired up via 3rd Reich. Defeated twice militarily, now she ist der seig mein schatzen!! In truth, German character — so admired and feared in some 500 years of European literature and history — led to the present Germanization of Europe. These days we recoil at terms like “national character” that seem tainted by the nightmares of the past. But no politically correct exegesis offers better reasons why Detroit, booming in 1945, today looks as if it were bombed, and a bombed-out Berlin of 1945 now is booming.
Where does all this lead? Right now to some great unknowns that terrify most of Europe. Will German industriousness and talent eventually translate into military dominance and cultural chauvinism — as it has in the past? How, exactly, can an unraveling EU, or a NATO now “led from behind” by a disengaged Great Satan, persuade Germany not to translate its overwhelming economic clout into political and military advantage?
Gruss Gott!!
Debate in Germany is now moving beyond Greece towards the question of political union. During the two and a half years since the euro crisis began, Germany's approach has been to seek to impose its own economic preferences on the eurozone. It insisted that all eurozone countries agree to enact an equivalent of the constitutional amendment it passed in 2009, which required it to maintain balanced budgets.
Bunches of peeps, have seen in Germany's approach a kind of economic imperialism. But Germany seems to be coming to the conclusion that it is no longer enough to try to remake the eurozone in Germany's image in economic terms; it must do so in political terms as well.
Pic - "Die Bundeswehr ist eine Armee im Einsatz, Leibchen!!
Kinda like the Corleone family strategy, right? Take out a boss and their high level minions,
kick back and chillax Is killing or capturing enemy leaders an effective military tactic? Previous research on interstate war and counterterrorism has suggested that targeting enemy leaders does not work. Drawing on newly collected data on counterinsurgency campaigns, new analysis on the effectiveness of leadership decapitation is presented.
The results suggest that leadership decapitation is more effective than the conventional wisdom suggests.
First, campaigns are more likely to end quickly when counterinsurgents successfully target enemy leaders.
Second, counterinsurgents who successfully capture or kill insurgent leaders are significantly more likely to defeat insurgencies than those who fail.
Third, conflict intensity is more likely to decrease following successful leadership removals than after failed attempts.
The implications of these results for academic research, military operations, and policy are smoking!!
Pic - "Despite her controversial nature, Great Satan"s asset kicking counter-terrorism strategy has demonstrated a degree of effectiveness."
WoW - the Watchers Council - it's the oldest, longest running cyber comte d'guere ensembe in existence - started online in 1912 by Sirs Jacky Fisher and Winston Churchill themselves - an eclective collective of cats both cruel and benign with their ability to put steel on target (figuratively - natch) on a wide variety of topictry across American, Allied, Frenemy and Enemy concerns, memes, delights and discourse.
Every week these cats hook up each other with hot hits and big phazed cookies to peruse and then vote on their individual fancy catchers. Thusly sans further adieu (or a don"t) Council Winners
Second place with 2 votes – The Noisy Room- Israel – Barbarians at the Gate Third place with 1 2/3 votes – The Right Planet- Democrat 101: Always Accuse the Enemy of the Very Same Crimes They Themselves Are CommittingFourth place with 1 1/3 vote – The Colossus of Rhodey- Predictably infuriating Fifth place *t* with 1 vote – Bookworm Room- The predictable Democrat ad hominem attack against those special forces who fear the administration’s loose lips Fifth place *t* with 1 vote – The Political Commentator-I am going to vote for Obama/Biden 2012 because… Fifth place *t* with 1 vote – The Glittering Eye- Spending Madness Sixth place with 2/3 vote – The Razor – In Support of Pussy Riot Seventh place *t* with 1/3 vote – VA Right! –RANT: I Would Rather PAY a BRIBE to Open a Business Than Deal With the American Bureaucracy Seventh place *t* with 1/3 vote – Rhymes With Right –Christian Child With Down Syndrome Charged With Blasphemy In Pakistan Fifth place *t* with 1/3 vote – GrEaT sAtAn”S gIrLfRiEnD – Caliphate General Staff Fifth place *t* with 1/3 vote – The Independent Sentinel – Obama’s Stealth Move Towards Single Payer Healthcare Non-Council Winners
Second place *t* with 1 2/3 votes – Sultan Knish –The World of Tomorrow submitted by The Political CommentatorSecond place *t* with 1 2/3 votes – Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses –Pakistan’s Descent into Chaos submitted by GrEaT sAtAn”S gIrLfRiEnDThird place *t* with 1 1/3 votes -Ben Cohen/Commentary-Attacking Israel Online submitted by Joshuapundit Third place *t* with 1 1/3 votes- RedState -Radical Islam Joins the DNC submitted by VA Right! Third place *t* with 1 1/3 votes - Right Wing News/Cherna Moskowitz –Racist To Tell Jews Where They Can And Cannot Live submitted by Rhymes With RightFourth place *t* with 1 vote - PJ Media/ Michel Gurfinkiel –No Future in France: Dire Times for French Jews submitted by The WatcherFourth place *t* with 1 vote -Cato @ Liberty/David Boaz –The Cost of Government submitted by Gay PatriotFifth place *t* with 2/3 vote - Reuters Gallery –A Teleprompter Obscures U.S. President Barack Obama submitted by Bookworm RoomFifth place *t* with 2/3 vote -Alex Tabarrok/Marginal Revolution –Racism by Political Party submitted by The Glittering EyeFifth place *t* with 2/3 vote -The Union Label Blog –Unions Protest the U.S. Marines For…No Reason s submitted by The Mellow Jihadi Sixth place *t* with 1/3 vote -Wired Science –Apocalypse Not: Here’s Why You Shouldn’t Worry About End Times submitted by The Colossus of RhodeySixth place *t* with 1/3 vote -Front Porch Politics – Obama’s Scandals Get Wider As Lawmakers Probe Deeper submitted by The Independent SentinelSee you next week! And don’t forget to follow us on Facebook and Twitter
It"s official!!Not unlike being chased off a cliff by vicious savages intent on doing grievous harm only to fall bassackwards into a boatload of hot wimmenses! See, alla cool kids knew eons ago that Drones Gone Wild is the "least horrible option" for Great Satan"s excellent adventure in crazy assetted places where Writ of State is as rare as a Victoria"s Secret franchise.You know - especial spots in the CENTCOM Gap betwixt the Nile and Indus - like Pakistan"s Land of the Pure and Yemen. Where the States effective range is like unto the effective range of an AK 47 (400/500 metres for those that collect such intell).The sad ancient memes that Great Satan is bizzy bizzy creating metric tonnes of enemies, draining vital resources, making it more funner and easier to haj to uncool terrorist rich spots and kill sans worries about GENCON, incarceration and care for captured cats, converting fence sitters into active anti American combatants and POing easily unhinged elements on Foreign turf remains easily LOLed
See,
"Contrary to conventional wisdom, we see little evidence that these actions are generating widespread anti-American sentiment or recruits for AQAP.... In short, targeted strikes against the most senior and most dangerous AQAP terrorists are not the problem, they are part of the solution."
And such sexyful solutions are sweetly swaying just in reach While most Pakistanis deplore the drones when polled about them, FATA residents who have first-hand knowledge of specific strikes and who really died in them are, "very positive.... They know who's being killed."
So while the risk of backlash against Drones Gone Wild!! attacks is real, the alternatives are worse because they would cause even more unintended casualties -- American, allied, and civilian -- while doing less damage to the terrorists. It would be ideal to capture terrorists, bring them to justice, and interrogate them rather than kill them yet in the Pakistani tribal lands, "there are no police, there are no law enforcement agencies. When the Pakistani military goes in after insurgents, "they're very imprecise and kill loads of people," sending thousands of civilians fleeing from their homes.
An American ground attack would be even more costly in human, military, and political terms After 9/11, Great Satan"s's initial response to countries that it thought harbored terrorists was to invade, not just bomb specific targets:
Money Shot The shift to drones, is actually a de-escalation bay bee!!
A reaction to this overreaction. The risk of anti-Great Satanism backlash remains but it is driven less by drone strikes specifically than by unNeoconic support in general for oppressive regimes, like that in Yemen, as they crack down "indiscriminately" against both terrorists and political critics.
Whoa!! Yet what about the 77 million innocent dead civilians that wide spread drone carnage creates? Really lousy data. There are no birth certificates and there are no death certificates and many news reports on drone strike deaths don't even "try to confirm there was in fact a burial."
Drone strikes tend to take place in the same areas where insurgents and the Pakistani authorities are already clashing and, on closer examination, some of the injuries attributed to drones are more likely to come from terrorist bombs -- "the Taliban don't always claim the bad stuff they do" -- or from errant ordnance from Pakistani military operations. Some of the alleged victims don't seem to have ever existed.
Pic - "Drones are a tool of strategy, and a powerful one!"
Whoa!44's recent "red line"hello to the Wookie sized Dr General President for Life about doing ye olde Suriya al Kubra if nasty nasty agents like blood agents, blister agents and/or nerve agents make their battlefield debut is prett sweet!! As one of the world’s leading pariah states, it should come as no surprise that the Syria of Bashar al-Assad takes enormous pride in the formidable array of chemical weapons it has acquired in order to sustain its rulers in power.
Syria - like Little Satan - punches far above her weight class in diplopolititary deals. Instead of cool stuff like Hooters, literacy rates off the charts or creating advanced avionics - Bashar Bay Bee follows poppa Assad's script utilizing asymmetrical assets creating a slave trading Syria, abusing Palestinians as a strategic minority resource, literally bombing an Arab sister's political cadre out of existence, fiddling about with new clear WMD witchcraft, hanging with the most wanted terrorists in the world while maybe or maybe not enabling official enemies like Hiz'B'Allah with wmd delivery systems and frightened of Facebook. Having suffered two catastrophic defeats at the hands of Little Satan during the Beatle and Wings era, Assad’s predecessors resolved to make the development of chemical weapons a central feature of military doctrine, to ensure that Syria did not suffer similar humiliations in future.
Consequently, the regime’s stockpiles of these internationally outlawed weapons now include large quantities of mustard gas, sarin, a nerve agent that repeatedly stimulates the body’s glands and muscles, causing breathing problems that eventually result in complete paralysis, thereby causing death. And just in case neither of these proves effective enough, it also has at its disposal reserves of VX nerve gas – arguably one of the most dangerous chemicals ever created – as well as stores of cyanide.
Nor do Assad and his cronies make any bones about their willingness to use this Aladdin’s cave of diabolical compounds against their many enemies. Responding to American intelligence reports last month, which suggested that the regime’s loyalists had begun to move its stockpiles of chemical weapons, Assad’s official spokesman, who had previously denied any suggestion that his country possessed such weapons of mass destruction, declared that Syria was more than willing to use them in the event of “external aggression”.
Oh Snap!! That would — should — change ebberdobby"s equation.Great Satan has long worried that Syrian stockpiles of such weapons of mass destruction — probably including nerve agents mustard gas, VX and Sarin gas and missile systems to deliver them — could find their way into terrorists' pecker grippers. There are tons of the uncool and - you know - "wrong people" in Syria and its hood, not all of them al-Qaida. The terrorists of Hiz"B"Allah, for instance, are close homies of embattled Bashar Bay Bee.How would an anti-WMD operation by Great Satan and her posse of allies work? Unclear. Syria's biological and chemical weapons are reported to be widely dispersed at as many as two dozen storage sites. Bombing such sites could be effective, but might also create a toxic cloud of chemicals that would threaten the local populace. Another possibility: Bomb access roads to weapons sites to make moving the chemicals difficult if not impossible.
A last resort: Send specialized teams to neutralize the weapons, possibly by burning them on site. Those teams would require coordinated air and ground protection, likely involving thousands of troops. Even then, it's not clear if Western forces would be able to destroy the chemicals or would have to attempt a risky removal from Syria. If the latter, who'd be willing to accept lethal Syrian chemical or biological munitions, even temporarily?
Despite those tactical concerns, 44 is right to make clear to Assad and his allies that there are inviolable red lines. While Great Satan has yet to order any military action, especial cats have "put together a range of contingency plans."
Pic - "Red line, bitches"
Senkaku or Diaoyu?Collectivist China"s Island Resource grab may not be so bad? There is little reason to believe that the present pattern of disputes is likely, in the near future at least, to degenerate into something more serious. But the unresolved issues between the two countries represent by far the most serious danger in the region. The dispute is often likened to that over the Spratly and Paracel Islands in the South China Sea, which involves the competing territorial claims of China and various South East Asian countries including Vietnam, the Philippines and Malaysia.
This dispute, too, concerns largely unoccupied islands in seas which are believed to be rich in mineral deposits. But clashes between China and Vietnam or, for that matter, the Philippines, do not carry anything like the same threat as those between China and Japan, because of the incendiary nature of the historical bitterness between the latter.
And the hap hap happy fact that both China and Nippon have on hand some serious navy chiz for naughtical nautiness Look at the prospects of war in strictly military terms, as a contest between Chinese and Japanese sea power.
In raw numerical terms, there is no contest. Japan's navy boasts 48 "major surface combatants," ships designed to attack enemy main fleets while taking a pounding themselves. For the JMSDF these include "helicopter destroyers," or light aircraft carriers; guided-missile destroyers equipped with the state-of-the-art Aegis combat system, a combination radar, computer, and fire-control system found in frontline U.S. Navy warships; and an assortment of lesser destroyers, frigates, and corvettes. A squadron of 16 diesel-electric submarines augments the surface fleet. Juxtapose this against the PLA Navy's 73 major surface combatants, 84 missile-firing patrol craft, and 63 submarines, and the bidding appears grim for Japan. China's navy is far superior in sheer weight of steel.
Raw numbers can be misleading, for three main reasons. First, as strategist Edward Luttwak has observed, weapons are like "black boxes" until actually used in combat: no one knows for sure whether they will perform as advertised. Battle, not technical specifications, is the true arbiter of military technology's value. Accurately forecasting how ships, planes, and missiles will perform amid the stresses and chaos of combat thus verges on impossible. This is especially true, adds Luttwak, when conflict pits an open society against a closed one.
Open societies have a habit of debating their military failings in public, whereas closed societies tend to keep their deficiencies out of view. Luttwak was referring to the U.S.-Soviet naval competition, but it applies to Sino-Japanese competition as well. The Soviet Navy appeared imposing on paper. But Soviet warships on the high seas during the Cold War showed unmistakable symptoms of decay, from slipshod shiphandling to rusty hulls. The PLA Navy could be hiding something as well. The quality of the JMSDF's platforms, and its human capabilities, could partially or wholly offset the PLA's advantage of numbers.
Plus a sexyfull variable in conflict variable in warfare - material and human factors.
The latter is measured in seamanship, gunnery, and the myriad of traits that set one navy apart from others. Mariners hone these traits not by sitting in port and polishing their equipment but by going to sea. JMSDF flotillas ply Asian waters continually, operating solo or with other navies. The PLA Navy is inert by comparison. With the exception of a counter-piracy deployment to the Gulf of Aden that began in 2009, Chinese fleets emerge only for brief cruises or exercises, leaving crews little time to develop an operating rhythm, learn their profession, or build healthy habits. The human edge goes to Japan.
And three, it's misleading to reduce the problem solely to fleets. There will be no purely fleet-on-fleet engagement in Northeast Asia. Geography situated the two Asian titans close to each other: their landmasses, including outlying islands, are unsinkable aircraft carriers and missile firing platforms. Suitably armed and fortified, land-based sites constitute formidable implements of sea power. So we need to factor in both countries' land-based firepower.
Japan forms the northern arc of the first island chain that envelops the Asian coastline, forming the eastern frontier of the Yellow and East China seas. No island between the Tsushima Strait (which separates Japan from Korea) and Taiwan lies more than 500 miles off China's coast. Most, including the Senkakus/Diaoyus, are far closer. Within these cramped waters, any likely battleground would fall within range of shore-based firepower. Both militaries field tactical aircraft that boast the combat radius to strike throughout the Yellow and East China seas and into the Western Pacific. Both possess shore-fired anti-ship cruise missiles (ASCMs) and can add their hitting power to the mix.
There are some asymmetries, however. PLA conventional ballistic missiles can strike at land sites throughout Asia, putting Japanese assets at risk before they ever leave port or take to the sky. And China's Second Artillery Corps, or missile force, has reportedly fielded anti-ship ballistic missiles (ASBMs) able to strike at moving ships at sea from the mainland. With a range estimated at more than 900 miles, the ASBM could strike anywhere in the China seas, at seaports throughout the Japanese islands, and far beyond.
Consider the Senkakus, the hardest assets to defend from the Japanese standpoint. They lie near the southwestern tip of the Ryukyu chain, closer to Taiwan than to Okinawa or Japan's major islands. Defending them from distant bases would be difficult. But if Japan forward-deployed Type 88 ASCMs -- mobile, easily transportable anti-ship weapons -- and missile crews to the islets and to neighboring islands in the Ryukyu chain, its ground troops could generate overlapping fields of fire that would convert nearby seas into no-go zones for Chinese shipping. Once dug in, they would be tough to dislodge, even for determined Chinese rocketeers and airmen.
Whoever forges sea, land, and air forces into the sharpest weapon of sea combat stands a good chance of prevailing. That could be Japan if its political and military leaders think creatively, procure the right hardware, and arrange it on the map for maximum effect. After all, Japan doesn't need to defeat China's military in order to win a showdown at sea, because it already holds the contested real estate; all it needs to do is deny China access. If Northeast Asian seas became a no-man's land but Japanese forces hung on, the political victory would be Tokyo's.
Japan also enjoys the luxury of concentrating its forces at home, whereas the PLA Navy is dispersed into three fleets spread along China's lengthy coastline. Chinese commanders face a dilemma: If they concentrate forces to amass numerical superiority during hostilities with Japan, they risk leaving other interests uncovered. It would hazardous for Beijing to leave, say, the South China Sea unguarded during a conflict in the northeast.
And finally, Chinese leaders would be forced to consider how far a marine war would set back their sea-power project. China has staked its economic and diplomatic future in large part on a powerful oceangoing navy. In December 2006, President Hu Jintao ordered PLA commanders to construct "a powerful people's navy" that could defend the nation's maritime lifelines -- in particular sea lanes that connect Indian Ocean energy exporters with users in China -- "at any time." That takes lots of ships. If it lost much of the fleet in a Sino-Japanese clash -- even in a winning effort -- Beijing could see its momentum toward world-power status reversed in an afternoon.
Here's hoping China's political and military leaders understand all this. If so, the Great Sino-Japanese Naval War of 2012 won't be happening
Pic - "From time immemorial people have sensed a great romance with the sea - filled with surprises"
Khalifa!!As the sandal dust settles from girl hating Aegypt"s 1st ever freely and fairly elected Ikwhanese Prez and the sacking sack of Pyramidland"s Highest Levels of Command reckon maybe it's time to meet the Caliphate General Staff?General Abdel-Fattah El-SisiA big fan of V Checks, the new Defense Minister GEN Sissi admitted to Amnesty Internat'l that the Army may halt feeling up girls before and after raping them to protect troops from allegations of rape. Military bona fides include Head of Military Intell, commander of the Northern Military Zone and, before this, as chief of staff of the Northern Military Zone. Such appointments followed an uninterrupted series of promotions since graduating from the Egyptian military academy (LOL - beleaf it or don't - Aegypt actually has one) in 1977. The new defence minister's first major gig is to fix up the Writ of State Free sitch in Sinai, which had like totally sucked in part because of the poor way it was handled by Tantawi and his commanders in the field. El-Sisi's previous experience in counter-terrorism is likely to prove crucial here. However, in the long term, he sees his most important task is the restructuring and reconditioning of the military establishment which has suffered attrition at various levels during the previous era. GEN Sissi also has ties to Great Satan"s This We"ll Defend cats - way back in the last millennium, Sissi hung out at Maneuver Center of Excellence Infantry City near Victory Drive.He's also totally sympathetic to the Ikwhan. Yay.General Sedki SobhiAegypt"s new Chief of Staff funnily enough totally blew it as a commander responsible for securing the Sinai and Red Sea regions before being promoted Recently Commander Third Field Army based in Suez, across the Gulf of Suez from Sinai. He began his military career in the 19th Infantry Division of the Third Field Army, which is noted for achieving strategic objectives against Little Satan in the Yom Kippur War. As commander of the Third Field Army, he was responsible for securing Egypt’s Suez and Red Sea provinces.In 2005, when he was a student at the Great Satan"s Army War College in Pennsylvania, he recommended Great Satan “permanently” withdraw her troops from the Middle East, and that her “one-sided” support of Little Satan was fueling hatred toward Great Satan abroad as well as totally queering the mix within Arab League - thus dang near ruining the whole world.
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said that with the general in his new role, he sensed “a positive trend towards civil control of a professional and a respected military.” Really sir?
Spending 30 years and about $45 billion cultivating the Egyptian military, so rest assured it is not going to stand by and let Egypt fall under the yoke of "Slamist rule. Pretty soon, though, they’ll have to fire up Story Line B: "Slamist rule is actually quite moderate and perfectly compatible with democracy . . .
The pursuit of American interests and promotion of American principles are unpopular because they collide with classical sharia doctrine. Yes, as the general says, the jihadists are rational actors, not wanton killers — they are acting on the commands of a coherent doctrine. But that doctrine is also ardently anti-Western. Any policy we would adopt to further our ends is bound to be unpopular in an environment where the presence of a Western army is deemed to trigger a duty to expel that army by violent jihad. Any policy we would adopt to shore up Little Satan’s security is bound to be unpopular in an environment where Little Satan’s destruction is unapologetically proclaimed to be a duty.
It is delusional to assume the Egyptian military is pro-American and thus a reliable bulwark against the advance of You Know What supremacism. Cairo’s armed forces reflect the broader society, whose able-bodied men are required to serve — and the Egyptian mainstream is "Slamist. Plus, the Egyptian army has always had "Slamists (including violent jihadists) in its ranks. Its historical tendency, moreover, has not been to lead; it has been to follow the shifting political programs of whatever dictator happened to be running the show.
Meanwhile, dissenters and journalists are already being imprisoned and beaten — if not worse. (There are unconfirmed reports that crucifixion is making a comeback.) Terrorist leaders have been sprung from the prisons. The Sinai has become a jihadist haven. Women are attacked in the street if they fail to don the veil. A fatwa that prohibited eating during Ramadan was issued. Xians are fleeing in droves, their churches torched behind them. And the emirs of Hamas are warmly received as brotherly dignitaries.
Pic - "Who Lost Aegypt?"
The panty ante gets all amped up via hot gossip and heated disses betwixt Little Satan and Persia's Preacher Command.
Any attack on new clear naughtiness is fraught with perilous peril - especially potential payback from Little Satan"s near abroad. Dubbed “the long arm of Iran” at the Little Satan Defense Forces HQ, Hiz"B"Allah in Lebanon is said to possess more than 70,000 missiles that can strike as far south as Little Satan’s new clear reactor near the city of Dimona – nearly 140 miles from the old Blue Line.
Combine this arsenal with the more than 10,000 rockets and missiles in the Strip and with Bashar’s chemical weapons, and the threat to Little Satan’s home front is the most formidable since the 1973 War when Egypt and Syria sneak attacked Little Satan.
Scary scary!! Such a fearfully fearsome threat from the Axis of Resistance could paralyze any chance of a strike - right?LOL!! Little Satan says "Disappear Fear! Her leaders seem content to shrug off this threat. On two recent occasions, Little Satan"s Defense Minister boldly estimated that Little Satan would sustain 300 to 500 casualties in a conflict with Iran and her proxies. Such an estimate suggests that Little Satan does not believe that her cities will bear the full brunt of Iran’s “long arm” as a consequence to a strike.
Makes sense - after all - only months after Hiz"B"Allah"s "Divine Victory" - homies in HAMAS acted out and got Cast Lead by the bucket load (all at wholesale American pricing LOL). Instead of following up promises to help their fellow rocket rich rejectionists - HbA totally refrained and stared at their fingernails as if they were the most interesting thing in the world rather than risk a redux of another disastrous Divine Victory
And the overtly robust (n xtra girthy) creepy Body Part Collector General admits Hiz"B"Allah may sit it out (being sooo battlefield bizzy in Suriya al Kubra at the moment) “I tell you that the Iranian leadership will not ask Hiz"B"Allah to do anything. On that day, we will sit, think and decide what we will do.”
Only now - Skippy Nazr"Allah says sump like "We can transform the lives of millions of Zionists in occupied Palestine to a real hell" See,
Little Satan"s objectives would be clearly limited. The intent would be to prevent Iran from acquiring a nuclear capability while minimising escalation towards war. Little Satan has no interest in a major conflict that would risk serious damage to the Little Satan state.
Though holding opposite objectives, Iran's attitude concerning a major war is similar to Little Satan"s.
While Iran regards nuclear capability as prospectively guaranteeing the survival of its "Slamic revolution, clerical leaders also understand that initiating a major war would make American intervention likely. Such intervention would pose an existential threat to the theocratic project that underpins the Islamic Republic.
Thus, in the event of a Little Satan attack, Iran's response would be finely calibrated towards achieving 3 objectives:
• 1st, punishing Little Satan for her attack.• 2nd, deterring further Little Satan strikes and so creating space for a reconstituted Iranian new clear programme.
• Finally, weakening international support for Little Satan so as to increase Little Satan"s isolation and vulnerability.
Axis of Resistance allies would play a major role in effecting Iranian retaliation. Iran may also attempt to launch a number of its new Sajjil-2 medium-range missiles against Little Satan. Again, however, using these missiles would risk major retaliation if many citizens were killed.
As a preference, Iran would probably perceive that utilising Hamas and Hiz"B"Allah would allow retaliation without forcing Little Satan into a massive counter-response.
Hiz"B"Allah, HAMAS and assorted splinter Gaza gangs are likely to attack Little Satan in a display of their solidarity, albeit only in a limited effort. Judging from past flare-ups, these groups understand Little Satan’s red lines, knowing exactly what ranges and what rates in which to fire their rockets while avoiding drawing Little Satan into a confrontation which could compromise their grip on power.
Despite the weakened state of Iran’s proxies, a Little Satan strike on the ayatollah’s new clear chiz will not be without consequence.
Pic - “War is the unfolding of miscalculations.”
