Category Archives: Foreign Policy

Rocket Man & The Messy Calculus Of Weapons Of Mass Destruction

BAB's A List, Foreign Policy, Military, War, WMD

Writes Barely A Blog’s resident physicist Myron Pauli:

Missile defense like the Israelis had against the HAMAS missiles “worked” because:

1. The missiles were poorly guided – hence only a limited number required defense.

2. The missile attack was not near-simultaneous – hence the system was not overwhelmed.

3. The missiles did not have nukes – hence they either fell harmlessly or one or two
hit a home or building with limited damage.

However, 34 years after Reagan’s “Star Wars” speech of March 23, 1983 and half a trillion dollars, we are still as vulnerable to massive damage in a nuclear war.

The other reality is that one cannot decouple “defense” from “offense” in that the US may be more likely to be offensively “reckless” if we think (real or delusion) that we are “invulnerable.”

As to THAAD (Terminal High-Altitude Area Defence): The Department of Defense contractors believe in them, but then they are just tested in DoD controlled scenarios. Still, China and North Korea think they are aggressive and this might get them to be more on a “hair trigger” to launch if they think the US is going to start a war. It is always a messy “calculus” of mass destruction.

The history of America’s “Hitler of the year” villains like Saddam, Qaddafi, Assad, and now Kim Jong Un is that the US seems incapable of learning from its mistakes. Kim Jong Un learned to never give up nuclear weapons – they are his lifeline. Even if he fired three at Seoul and three at Tokyo and only one got to hit both cities – that is enough of a threat to scare the shit out of everyone. With nukes, it doesn’t matter if you can stop “most” or if a few still get through!

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Dr. Myron Pauli received his Ph.D. from Cambridge MA (MIT), in 1981, and has worked on infrared sensors, mainly at Naval Research Laboratory in Washington DC. He is distantly related to physicist Wolftgang Pauli. Click on the “BAB’s A List” category to access the Pauli archive.

Nikki Haley: Smalltime Politician Turned Big-League Scold

Donald Trump, Foreign Policy, Neoconservatism, UN, War

Only a woman would wag her finger at a country and say, “Enough is enough.”

I give you Nikki Haley, the provincial idiot—a smalltime politician—whom President Trump has turned into a global power broker. (Is she Ivanka’s friend?)

What a scold.

“To the members of the Security Council, I must say, enough is enough,” she said at an emergency Security Council meeting, which was called in response to North Korea’s sixth and strongest nuclear test, on Sunday. “We have taken an incremental approach, and despite the best of intentions, it has not worked.”
“The time has come to exhaust all diplomatic means to end this crisis,” Haley said. “Only the strongest sanctions will enable us to solve this problem through diplomacy.”

Now she wants to starve the people of North Korea.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un is “begging for war,” she said. “The stakes could not be higher. The urgency is now.”

The Leader, Kim Jong Un, will stay as chubby and well-fed as he is. The impoverished North Koreans alone will be affected by Haley’s sanctions. Another thing: Idiots like Haley and her neocon cohort truly believe North Koreans love her and hate their chubby leader. Not at all. Most people do not wish to be told how to live by foreign busybodies like Haley.

Can’t we send Dennis Rodman, instead?

Here’s “what the media and Haley aren’t telling you about North Korea’s missile tests:

What the media failed to mention was that, for the last three weeks, Japan, South Korea and the US have been engaged in large-scale joint-military drills on Hokkaido Island and in South Korea. These needlessly provocative war games are designed to simulate an invasion of North Korea and a “decapitation” operation to remove (Re: Kill) the regime. North Korea’s supreme leader, Kim Jong-un has asked the US repeatedly to end these military exercises, but the US has stubbornly refused. The US reserves the right to threaten anyone, anytime and anywhere even right on their doorstep. It’s part of what makes the US exceptional. Check out this excerpt from an article at Fox News …

UPDATED (8/22): Someone Doesn’t Know The First Thing About America First

Donald Trump, Foreign Policy, War

POTUS, in outlining a “new” Afghanistan plan, has declared that “the American people are weary of war without victory.” Promising to increase American presence in Afghanistan, by sending 4000 additional soldiers there, Trump alleges he is fighting terrorism, not undertaking nation building. This is tantamount to talking out of both sides of his mouth.

There is no way to tease those two facets apart in war. If you’re sending “about 4,000 more soldiers to add to the 8,400 now deployed in Afghanistan,” you’ll be doing what Obama was doing in Afghanistan, and Bush before him: Killing some civilians mixed in with bad guys. Sitting down with tribal leaders to mediate and bribe. Basically perfecting the credo of a global fighting force that doesn’t know the first thing about America First.

We are weary of WAR, full stop. We thought Candidate Trump understood that there is no victory to be had in Afghanistan.

Apparently he didn’t.

A lot of very bad men are thrilled with Trump’s Afghanistan commitment. There is no chance of Lindsey Graham being blinded by the solar eclipse; he’s already deaf, dumb and blind to the Deplorables’ plight. And now, Graham is overjoyed with Trump’s Afghan plans. The presidency is going his way. Hopefully, Deplorables understand what that means. I bet all three amigos—Joe Lieberman, Lindsey Graham and John McCain—are currently smiling upon Trump.

RELATED: “Trump lays out plan to continue Afghanistan War.”

UPDATE (8/22): MAfgGA: Make Afghanistan Great Again.

Ending nation building with a surge. What a joke.


You can’t say America First and stay in wherever Afghanistan is.


Who did 9/11?


Talking, talking, in Phoenix, Arizona:


Not even the misnomer “radical Islam.”

Neoconservatives Will Love Sebastian Gorka’s Hyperventilation About A Hyperpower

Bush, Conflict, Donald Trump, Foreign Policy, Neoconservatism, War

Tonight, watch your favorite Fox News neoconservative. Chucky Krauthammer, Brian Kilmead and other neocons will be wallowing in the “greatness” of Sebastian Gorka’s hyperventilation about the US being a hyperpower.

“Don’t test American, and don’t test Donald J Trump”.
“We are not just a superpower,” Mr Gorka said. “We were a superpower, we are now a hyperpower … The message is very clear: Don’t test this White House.”
The word “hyperpower” refers to a nation that dominates in all areas, from economics and military might to cultural attitudes and language. The term was first popularised by French Foreign Minister Hubert Vedrine in 1999, when he suggested that the US had become a unilateral power that needed to be controlled.

Shades of DC operative Karl Rove, Bush II’s main man. Rove declared this during that “wonderfully” “vital” excursion into Iraq: “We’re an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality.”