The View from Right Field

Visiting the Baltics After “Voting for Estonia” in 2016

Just before the 2016 election, I wrote a post entitled “On Election Day, I’ll Be Voting for Estonia”.  The post continued – and explained: “and Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Slovakia, the Czech Republic, Hungary, and many more.”¹  At the time, I was worried about then-candidate Donald Trump’s foreign policy: “He has threatened to abandon most of our NATO allies.  He has implied to Japan and South Korea that they are on their own.”  While I disagreed with some parts of Hillary Clinton’s foreign policy, and even more of her domestic policy, I voted for her because I felt she would maintain our NATO commitments and would continue to support our other allies and friends.  I felt such a foreign policy was the best way to protect the security and well-being of the United States. 

In saying I was “voting for Estonia”, I was really saying I was voting against what I feared would be President Trump’s foreign policy.  And I still think that was the right vote.  If President Trump’s foreign policy in his first term wasn’t as bad as I feared, that may have been because, for the first couple of years, he didn’t know how to do what he wanted (and, at times, didn’t even know what he wanted).  Inexperience slowed him down – and made his first term foreign policy not as bad as it might otherwise have been. 

Where Are All the Military Correspondents - Just When We Need Them?

Back in the day (not that long ago), major newspapers had military correspondents.  Not just reporters who covered the Pentagon, but reporters who really understood how militaries worked, how battles were fought, and how wars were won and lost.

At the turn of the century, i.e., the nineteenth to twentieth century, Winston Churchill was a military correspondent for newspapers in London, covering the Second Boer War in South Africa, among others.  Between the World Wars, there were people like B.H. Liddell Hart, who wrote for the Daily Telegraph and then The Times, as well as writing books on strategy and on military history.  More recently, a military correspondent I particularly remember was Drew Middleton of The New York Times, who, in addition to writing for them, wrote books such as Can America Win the Next War? and Submarine.

“Oppenheimer”, the Bomb, and Should It Have Been Used

With the new movie “Oppenheimer” out, we are once again debating whether it was right to drop the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki at the end of World War II.  I have talked about this question many times before, so I will not go into it again,¹ except for one thought that I have had for a while but not written about before.  Actually, it’s more of a possibility or a question than a certainty.  In any case, I thought of it again because of a couple of things in a review of Road to Surrender, a new book by Evan Thomas focusing on three men involved in the decision to drop the bomb and end the war:

“After receiving a full description of the destruction wrought on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, including an account of the civilian death toll, President Truman ordered that further atomic bombs would be used only on his explicit order – first time in American history that a president had taken direct control of a military weapon. …

More Weapons; More Ammunition; More Defense. Now.

I have written about this before, but it needs to be said again: We need to spend more money on weapons; we need to spend more money on ammunition; we need to spend more money on defense.  Some of those weapons, a lot of that ammunition, need to go to Ukraine in the short run, but in the longer term, we need more supplies of weapons and ammunition for ourselves.  Plus, in any case, most of the increased spending is for us.  Actually, all of the spending is, in the end, for us because Ukraine beating Russia is for us.^1,2  Ukraine beating Russia makes the world a safer place.  Plus, Ukraine beating Russia may give China, and Xi Jinping, some pause with respect to how they pursue reunification with Taiwan, which is also good for the world, including us.³

The problem is how do we get agreement to increase spending for weapons, ammunition, and defense generally.  In an editorial last Tuesday, “America is Running Out of Ammo,” The Wall Street Journal suggested that President Joe Biden

Ukraine and the Failure of Sanctions – One More Time

I’m sorry to keep harping on the failure of sanctions, but it’s important because they are not working, or at least not doing enough, in Russia’s war against Ukraine.  As I mentioned here, there were two articles in the Financial Times last week about how sanctions against Russia are being violated and how they are aren’t getting the job done. 

There was another article in yesterday’s FT¹, this one about the “ghost trade” in dual-use goods.  Dual-use goods are products that can be used for civilian purposes and for military or intelligence purposes.  The ghost trade is when goods are ordered by a company in one country and never show up there.  What is happening, among other things, is that the dual-use goods are ordered by companies in places such as Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Georgia and are shipped, from EU countries, through Russia to get to their destination,  But the goods are never arriving.  They are disappearing.

The Feel-Good Purpose of Sanctions

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote a post asking: “Can Even More Sanctions Beat Russia?”  My answer was no.  More evidence to support this view came last week in both the Financial Times and The Wall Street Journal. 

The FT had two articles.  One was about a Russian spy network that is buying machine tools and microchips Russia needs to maintain its military-industrial complex.¹  While people from Washington are traveling to western Europe to talk about tightening enforcement of sanctions, the point is the Russians are still able to get around them.

Can Even More Sanctions Beat Russia?

The Financial Times reported on Tuesday that the United States is proposing to the other G7 countries that they replace the current sector-by-sector regime of sanctions against Russia with a ban on all exports to Russia except for a few exemptions.¹  The EU and Japan are pushing back, but they trade more with Russia, so this kind of a ban would cost them more than it would the United States.

The frustrating part of this proposal is that it’s just another attempt to try to beat Putin with sanctions.  Too many people in our government seem to think Russia can be defeated in Ukraine if we just impose one more set of sanctions, if we just limit a few more things we sell to Russia or cut back a little more on what we buy from Russia.  It seems so easy – and cheap. Just impose enough sanctions and poof, Russia loses.  Except it doesn’t work that way, and it certainly hasn’t stopped Vladimir Putin so far.

The Air Force Wants to Get Rid of the A-10 Warthog – Again

The Wall Street Journal has a long article about the Defense Department’s effort to get rid of the A-10 Warthog in today’s paper.  The title of the article, “Why Is America Still Flying the A-10 Warthog, a Cold War Relic?,” pretty well tells the writer’s view.  But the story of the A-10 Warthog is more than just the Defense Department struggling to build the Air Force we need for the future against parochial members of Congress caring only about jobs in their states or districts. 

The Warthog has a specialized mission: providing close-in aerial support for ground troops.  And it has done a great job of it from the first Gulf War to Afghanistan.  But the Air Force says the A-10 doesn’t work on the modern battlefield.  Actually, though, the Air Force has been trying to get rid of the A-10 for years.  The Warthog is not a fancy plane.  Its top speed is 420 mph.  It is not “stealthy.”  And its main purpose is to support the Army, not a job that appeals to Air Force generals who like advanced bombers and supercharged fighter jets.

NATO: And Finland Makes 30*

Finland officially joined NATO on yesterday, becoming the 30th 31st* member of the alliance.  And yesterday, a Kremlin spokesman said that Finland’s membership was an “aggravation of the situation” and “an encroachment on Russia’s security.”¹  I suppose it is true that Finland’s membership did aggravate Vladimir Putin.  As for it encroaching Russia’s security, it might have done so if Russia’s security is defined as being able to invade any country it wants to.

Also, Russia’s Defense Minister, Sergei Shoigu, said that it was Finland’s membership was an “anti-Russian policy,”¹ which is actually 100% true.  There is no way Finland would have joined NATO if Russia had not renewed its invasion of Ukraine in February of last year.  Finland didn’t join NATO so it could attack Russia; Finland joined NATO so Russia wouldn’t attack it.  So, yes, it was an anti-Russia policy.  Or at least, an anti-Vladimir Putin policy.

If Russia wants to stops its neighbors from joining NATO because they are scared of Russia, maybe Russia should stop doing things that scare them.
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¹ Henry Foy and Anastasia Stognei, “Kremlin vows retaliation after Finland signs up to ‘anti-Russian’ Nato alliance,” Financial Times, April 5, 2023.
* Oops, 31st member.  I forgot about North Macedonia joining in 2020

We Need to Give Ukraine More. Now.

Joe Biden is doing a pretty decent job in Ukraine, but he could be doing better.  In fact, if we want Ukraine to prevail, we need to be doing better.  Americans are still supporting Ukraine – so far.  But how long will that last?  Americans lose interest.  We get tired, our attention lags, and we abandon our commitments.  So those of us who want Ukraine to prevail need to push to get it done now.

This is especially true with Donald Trump lurking in the background.  Who knows what he would do if he were elected again.  Or if some Republican gets nominated who tries to appeal to what he/she sees at the populism/isolationism of the Trumpian base.¹  Not to mention, how long will progressive Democrats support aid to Ukraine if we have a Republican president, instead of a Democrat?