The Duck of Minerva

What Greg said. The pearls of wisdom just keep on coming this morning.Lack of intellect+misplaced faith in easy to understand analogies=advocacy of diasterous foreign policy.Filed as: Appeasement

Why do people pay this man for his commentary?Dan’s favorite commentator is back again, this time with an op/ed in the Philadelphia Inquirer. Hanson essentially lays out what he sees as the talking points the Bush administration should be using in an effort to deflate criticism of the handling of the War on Terror. What follows is a long, snarky discussion of Hanson's latest drivel.VDH’s first problem lies with questions regarding how to deal with the prisoners at GITMO:“Take the uniformless and stateless terrorists being held at Guantanamo Bay. To be sure, there are alternatives to the...

For an administration that likes to keep things secret they sure do pick some funny things to make public--like our military's operational weakness. This was accomplished in large part by partaking in a strategically questionable operation that begins with the letters I-R-A and ends in Q. This has long been a complaint of mine. Yours truly in January of '06:"...the Iraq War not only decreased the capability of the US to launch any kind of substantial invasion/occupation of Iran but it also demonstrated (and continues to demonstrate) this fact in the most public way. It is virtually...

Breaking news (via Chirol), and it isn't good:"At least 20 people have been killed in at least seven blasts on trains in the Indian financial capital, Mumbai (Bombay), police say."If confirmed, these strikes are reminiscent of the Madrid and London bombings. But, as Chirol notes, the added danger of these attacks is that if any links are established between the bombs and Pakistan would likely spark an international crisis between the two nuclear powers. Always a good thing.Filed as: Terrorism

In the comments section to Peter’s latest post about the after-effects of North Korea’s missile test I noted that I was puzzled as to why China has not done more to compel Kim Jong-Il. Given the steps suggested in Japan recently to shift their defensive posture to one that would operationally and legally allow them to carry out preventive strikes against the North (not to mention grumblings about a Japanese nuclear program) it would seem that China’s own interests in not seeing such a shift in Japan would motivate it to act.Nayan Chanda offers a thought, one that slipped my mind when writing...

In today’s Washington Post Jon Wolfsthal writes that the key to stopping North Korea’s missile program is good old-fashioned deterrence. Wolfsthal writes:"Over the long run, how can Americans be sure that some future "test" missile won't be fitted with a nuclear weapon and targeted on a US city? The short answer is they can't. But through a straightforward policy of deterrence we can eliminate any thought in North Korean minds that they can attack the United States and survive. President Bush should declare that any offensive missile fired at the United States or its allies in the region...

I fail to understand why this concept is so hard to get one's head around. Like Steve Clemons says, taking issue with the Iraq conflict (and leaders who supported it)"has nothing to do with being 'anti-war', it has everything to do with being 'anti-Iraq War' and trying to prevent the same kind of dangerous calculus from being followed in the future."Seems pretty simple to me.Maybe we ought to use smaller words to get the point across.Filed as: Iraq War

Via FP Passport, a view inside the weapon system procurement process. You'll notice that in the upper right-hand corner of the chart that this is a classroom aid for students at the Defense Acquisition University--yes, there is a university dedicated to the subject. That should tell you all need to know. FP Passport has a link to PDF versions of the front and back (oh yes, there is a back, and it 'clarifies' the chart on the front).Filed as: Defense Procurement

With the (failed) test launch of the Taepodong-2--along with a few other Scud-like missiles)--some uncertainty regarding North Korea's capabilities has been cleared up--the DPRK lacks the capability to credibily threaten an "annihilating strike" (or any strike for that matter) against the United States. However, by going forward with the test launch, North Korea has put the United States in a position where it must now reveal just how much it really believes what it says about the importance of its reputation.As Dan notes, the US (along with Japan) has been making all sorts of noise...

Wishing my fellow members of the Duck and all our readers a safe and happy 4th of July.In between burgers and dogs I would recommend giving E.J. Dionne, Jr.'s column a read. Hopefully we will never forget that 1776 was merely a starting point and that great work remains to be done.Filed as: Independence Day