(This article first appeared in NationalReview.com: Diversity in Military Not a National-Security Imperative | National Review )

Bullets snapping across a battlefield are equal opportunity employers. That’s because bullets don’t discriminate based on skin color, and soldiers don’t shoot more or less accurately because of their skin color.

But, yet, in oral argument this week in a case before the US Supreme Court, Students for Fair Admissions vs UNC, Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar argued that “[I]t is a critical national security imperative to attain diversity with the officer corps. And, at present, it’s not possible to achieve that diversity without race-conscious admissions, including in our nation’s service academies.”

Of course, she’s never worn a military uniform, let alone set foot on a battlefield, so you would think she would have referred to some real evidence to support her assertion. She didn’t. Instead, she relied upon the opinion of a collection of retired general officers who, also without evidence, asserted the same imperative in an amicus brief they filed for the case.

They’re all blowing smoke.

Here’s why:

Because, if Prelogar and those generals are right, ie that racial diversity in our officer corps is a “national security imperative,” then the services would at least track racial percentages in their mandatory assessments of unit combat readiness, but they don’t. Racial diversity is not included, and never has been.

That’s because it is factually irrelevant to the violent imposition of our will on the enemy, which is the object of all war.

As a defining example, let’s look at Army Regulation 220-1, which establishes the official requirements and formal process to determine and report the readiness of Army units to perform their wartime missions. It requires unit commanders to measure, assess and report four, designated areas: personnel, equipment on hand, the serviceability of that equipment, and the unit’s collective training proficiency.

Racial make-up of units is not mentioned.

But maybe we missed it. Maybe it’s nested as a metric under one of those four areas. The obvious one would be personnel, but when we look there we find only these three metrics, “total deployable personnel strength, assigned military occupational specialty skills match, and the deployable senior grade composite level.”

Again, racial make-up is not a criterion the Army measures to assess combat readiness.

But maybe we’re looking at an Army regulation that is sorely out of date. Nope. The current one is dated, 16 August 2022.

Okay, you say, that’s a regulation, maybe out in the real Army things are different. Well, during my 32 years in an Army uniform, having commanded combat units here and on the battlefield, never once in those years did the Army ever require me, or even politely ask me, to report the racial make-up of my unit or assess race as a component of my units’ ability to put bullets into the faces of evil men. Never.

I can say with absolute confidence that this is the case for the entire Army, not just my units. How so? Because my final Army assignment was Deputy Director of Operations for HQs Army, and the monthly readiness report of every, soon-to-deploy, combat brigade in the US Army crossed through my office and was briefed to the Vice Chief of Staff of the Army. We scrutinized the statuses of scores of brigades during that period, and not once was the assessment or reporting of racial make-up a requirement. Not once.

If the racial composition of our military units was a “critical national security imperative,” then it would be imperative on the Army to track it and assess it. It’s not, so the Army doesn’t.

Consequently, with no such national security imperative, our military has no such imperative to force racial diversity into its officer corps, and without that, our nation’s service academies have no need to resort to racial preferencing in their admissions processes.

It’s time to remember that the essence of war is violence, not virtue-signaling. Let’s get back to selecting future combat leaders on the basis of their qualifications and nothing else. If we don’t, future battlefields will sort this out for us.

Ernie Audino is a graduate of the United States Military Academy at West Point, and a retired Brigadier General, US Army.

The UAE’s President, Sheik Muhammad Bin Zayed, met in Moscow with Russia’s President Vladimir Putin amid much turmoil in international politics. There is American anger at the OPEC decision to cut oil production by 2 million barrels daily.

There is also a war going on between Russia and Ukraine. The Biden Administration should positively view the active diplomatic role of the United Arab Emirates and the wise statesmanship of Muhammad Bin Zayed.

The Emirates is not changing its relationship with the United States. The Emirates is sending a message to the world that it is possible to engage Russia gradually in world politics again and discuss with its leaders seriously how to end its war with Ukraine. There is no need to misinterpret the diplomacy of the Emirates. It allows Russia to change its behavior and terminate the war soon. For sure, there are diplomatic difficulties approaching Russia. One recent American commentator described Russia as a failed state. Contrary, the Emirates still sees a role for Russia in world politics, and there could be a good purpose in returning Russia to the world community of nations and in ending the global boycott of her. The capacity of the U.A.E is that it can help revive Russia’s economic ties with the West. It is significant to notice that the Emirates is the only nation where the Russian national airliner Aeroflot still operates. The Emirates understands that it is wrong to isolate Russia entirely. An isolated Russia with dangerous weapons is a lethal prospect in world politics.

Russia needs the Emirates because the Kremlin leaders feel that it is safe to talk to Muhammad Bin Zayed and discuss with him a full and heavy schedule of critical stakes in international relations. On the other hand, the Emirates still maintains excellent relations with the United States. It buys a lot of American weapons. The two countries have prospering trade and investment relations. Yet, the best quality about the Emirates is that it can assume new foreign policy tasks. Previously, it succeeded in thwarting the dangers of the Muslim Brothers reaching power in Egypt and many other countries in the Arab World. Now, it has the task of assessing the strategic implications of the failures of the collapsing regime of the Ayatollahs in Iran. The Emirates’ public ethics is one of religious tolerance, and its ethos has sympathy with the truth. Therefore, it will have excellent insights into what is going on in the tumultuous state of affairs in Iran at present and shortly. Hence, it is a must for Biden’s White House to listen carefully to how the Emirates is probing and monitoring the deteriorating situation inside Iran.
Ultimately, Sheik Muhammad Bin Zayed is a realist in foreign policy. He knows how to articulate the national interest of his country very well. He does not intend to play Russia against America or vice versa. His methods of diplomacy are straightforward and honest. He is working to promote strategic stability in the Gulf. America should not steer itself away from the Emirates because its President went to Russia. America should comprehend the Emirates’ foreign policy steps and imitative as profoundly impactful foreign policy endeavors.

*The views in this article are the express opinions of the author

Maria Maalouf is a journalist, broadcaster, and owner of the capitol Tv show from Washington DC. She holds an MA in Political Sociology from the University of Lyon. You can find her on Twitter @bilarakib

(This article first appeared in the American Spectator: https://spectator.org/the-war-over-ukraine-will-it-go-nuclear/)

Biden Talks Armageddon

Begin with impromptu remarks over Ukraine that our president made at a Democratic Party fundraiser:

Think about it. We have not faced the promise of Armageddon since Kennedy and the Cuban Missile Crisis. We’ve got a guy I know fairly well. His name is Vladimir Putin. I spent a fair amount of time with him. He is not joking when he talks about tactical and nuclear weapons, or biological or chemical weapons, because his military is, you might say, significantly underperforming. And it is part of the Russian doctrine that they will not. If the Motherland is threatened, they’ll use whatever force they need including nuclear weapons. I don’t think there is any such thing as an ability to use a tactical nuclear weapon and not end up with Armageddon. What we’re trying to figure out: what? What is Putin’s off ramp? Where? Where does he find a way out? Where does he find himself in a position that he not only does not lose face, but lose [sic] significant power with Russia?

Let’s deconstruct the president’s semi-coherent rambling. Putin is not joking. True. Tactical and nuclear weapons. He clearly meant tactical and strategic nuclear weapons. And it is part of the Russian doctrine that they will not. An incomplete sentence. Nuclear weapons used if the Motherland is threatened. Threatened, hardly; attacked, surely. Use of a tactical nuclear weapon will trigger Armageddon. Absurd. No imaginable Allied response to a single hostile nuclear use will automatically trigger an escalation that leads to an all-out nuclear exchange annihilating hundreds of millions. Putin’s off-ramp? To date his off-ramp is a Russian victory.

Who Holds the Nuclear Triggers? Before proceeding further, we must examine nuclear command authority, recently the subject of a 2019 study, The Finger on the Button: The Authority to Use Nuclear Weapons in Nuclear-Armed States. The study examined how each of the nine states who are members of the “nuclear club” handles nuclear command authority. (One nation, Israel, has never publicly acknowledged that it has nuclear weapons.)

The study fits nuclear command structures into two models, delegative and assertive—with states at times shifting between the two, depending upon time-urgency and the state of civil-military relations. The dichotomy is between a delegation-oriented “always” model, that emphasizes rapid decisions and certitude that orders to fire will be carried out; and a restraint-oriented “never” model, that incorporates strong intermediate safeguards supreme commanders or executives cannot unilaterally bypass.

Features of the “never” command structure include one or more of several checks: two-person missile launch codes, or dual (local and remote) codes—called in the U.S. lexicon “permissive action links” (PALs); authentication, establishing that the person giving the order is entitled to do so; controlling or verifying authority between initial order and final launch (PALs); and twin, distinct chains of command, one for launchers and once for for warheads. Target selection falls within the chain of command structure as well, partly delegated but reserved in part for the supreme commander.

American procedures implicitly follow the “never” model. The president, per the U.S. Constitution (Art. II, sec. 2, cl. 1), is commander of America’s armed forces. The chain of command runs through the secretary of defense, and then gives “line” (operational) authority to the senior commanders of each of the services. Officially, if the president orders nuclear use, the order must be carried out. In reality, no order for nuclear use will automatically be carried out.

Thus, during Richard Nixon’s final days, after the impeachment vote by the House Judiciary Committee, his resignation became inevitable. He faced certain impeachment by the full House and subsequent conviction by the Senate if he refused to resign. Then-secretaries of state (Henry Kissinger) and defense (James Schlesinger) witnessed Nixon’s deep depression and rage at his impending fate. So they alerted the White House staffers that any presidential order to launch nuclear weapons be forwarded to them before sending out the order; further, they had the White House staff covertly remove the nuclear “football” satchel carrying the specific launch codes and instructions, and transfer the satchel to still-vice-president Gerald Ford, before Ford was formally sworn in as president.

Nor can Congress realistically be called upon. Its power to declare war (Art. VIII, sec. 8, cl. 10) does not extend to implementation. And, in the event of a surprise nuclear strike, prior consultation is clearly impossible. Ronald Reagan put it perfectly:

The Russians sometimes kept submarines off our East Coast with nuclear missiles that could turn the White House into a pile of radioactive rubble within six or eight minutes. Six minutes to decide how to respond to a blip on a radar scope and decide whether to unleash Armageddon! How could anyone apply reason at a time like that?

It should be noted that the Russians would never take out the White House without launching a massive “bolt from the blue” nuclear strike against America’s strategic nuclear triad (bombers, submarines and missiles), to limit destruction of the Soviet strategic nuclear arsenal.

Broadly speaking, the Russian Federation also follows the “never” model, with multiple safeguards between initial authorization (by Putin), and actual launch release; the two-person launch code rule is followed. Russia also has “Doomsday” devices that can be activated if supreme command has been killed and there are confirmed detonations on Russian soil.

The American Enterprise Institute (AEI) dedicated a recent “WTH podcast” on the subject of possible nuclear escalation over Ukraine. It featured Frederick Kagan, director of AEI’s Critical Threats Project. Kagan cites Putin’s reliance upon “bounded rationality”, a managerial concept in which human decision-makers set boundaries to the extent of the input they receive, keyed to their own ability to absorb and process information. This means Putin is basing decisions on assumptions about factual reality which may be errant. But, fortunately, “Putin is not Hitler [he is not interested in] bringing the world down in flames around him.” The chance of Armageddon is thus “vanishingly improbable.”

As to the tendency of Western leaders to mirror-image their adversaries, Kagan states: “. . . Putin has to know that he can’t win . . . and that he can’t escalate and then de-escalate and then we can talk about off-ramps.”

U.S. Military Readiness Shortfalls. Former naval commander Jerry Hendrix writes that we are in a “coffin corner”—military pilot-speak for a condition where a plane is caught between conflicting forces of gravity, engine thrust and airspeed, and thus stalls and plummets. We are militarily weaker than at any time in the past generation, without the robust defense industrial base needed to quickly ramp up production. The U.S. has not yet sent Patriot missile defense systems to Ukraine, because our forces still are not fully protected from missiles. In 2020, there were no Patriot systems in Iraq to protect our troops when Iran launched ballistic missiles at two U.S. military bases, in retaliation for our airstrike taking out Iran terror mastermind Qassem Soleimani. As a result, more than 100 soldiers suffered traumatic brain injuries.

Cuban Missile Crisis. In 1962 local Russian commanders on the island (with land-based missiles and aircraft), as well as in submarines (with torpedoes only, as Russian subs did not carry ballistic missiles in 1962), had received delegated launch authority. Worse, dictator Fidel Castro had some ability to bypass those commanders, commandeer the missiles, and launch them. Conversely, JFK convened ExComm, a panel of top present and former civil and military officials, to guide his presidential decisions.

A 1990 book, Khrushchev Remembers: the Glasnost Tapes, presented hitherto undiscovered recollections of the Soviet premier, who died in 1971. Of the Crisis, he described Castro as “a young and hotheaded man,” and JFK as “a clever and flexible man.” Of Castro’s fervent desire he said:

Castro suggested that in order to prevent our nuclear missiles from being destroyed, we should launch a pre-emptive strike against the United States. He concluded that an attack was unavoidable, and that this attack had to be pre-empted. . . .[It] became clear to us that Fidel totally failed to understand our purpose. . . . . We had installed the missiles not for the purpose of attacking the United States, but to keep the United States from attacking Cuba. [A Soviet/Cuban first strike] would immediately be [met by] a counterblow—both against Cuba and our own country.

Columnist George Will notes that in 1962 Khrushchev could simply have openly proclaimed an alliance with Cuba, and then placed Intermediate-Range Ballistic Missiles (IRBMs) there as the US had done with Turkey (already a member of NATO). In August 1962 JFK had considered unilaterally withdrawing the IRBMs from Turkey, as they were obsolete. Late-summer 1962 saw the U.S. detect emplacement of Soviet SAMs in Cuba, but we did not detect the assets they were deployed to protect. No technology safeguards could have prevented tactical commanders from firing the missiles in Cuba, or the nuclear torpedo nearly launched at an American naval vessel. Putin today is a greater risk-taker than was Khrushchev, who immediately realized he’d pushed too far and worked with JFK to end the Crisis. During the Crisis, the U.S. declared a DefCon 2 alert, the second highest of America’s five Defcon levels.

Yom Kippur War Crisis. In October 1973 the United States went to Defcon 3 alert status over a confrontation between the U.S. Sixth Fleet and Russian warships during the Yom Kippur War; In November 1973, shortly after the 1973 crisis had ended, Richard Nixon told members of Congress: “I can go into my office and pick up the telephone and in 25 minutes, 70 million people will be dead.” The Washington, D.C.-Moscow Hot Line set up in 1963—and first used during the 1967 Six-Day Mideast War—proved invaluable in 1973, by enabling direct communication between U.S. and Soviet leaders that was unavailable in 1962.

How Should We Respond to a Putin Nuclear Use? Former NATO supreme commander Gen. Wesley Clark states that Russia has over 2,000 tactical N-warheads. Russian war doctrine is now “escalate to de-escalate.” NATO has 100 tactical nukes, delivered by aircraft. Cold War exercises showed that tactical nukes, even used in “pulses” of 10 kiloton weapons, are difficult to use effectively against maneuvering forces. Yet in 2020 the Navy retrofitted a missile on one of its Fleet Ballistic Missile submarines, the USS Tennessee (SSBN-734), with a low-yield (less than 5 kilotons) W-76-2 warhead; several other FBM subs are slated for similar missile retrofit. This move recognizes that the U.S. needs anew what in the early 1970s then-defense secretary James Schlesinger called “limited nuclear options”: intermediate tactical nuclear options between a conventional conflict and an all-out strategic nuclear exchange.

Schlesinger, who served as SecDef under presidents Nixon and Ford, cited Nixon’s 1970 statement on the need for limited retaliation options:

Should a president, in the event of a nuclear attack, be left with the single option of ordering the mass destruction of enemy civilians, in the face of the certainty that it would be followed by the mass slaughter of Americans? Should the concept of assured destruction be narrowly defined, and should it be the only measure of our ability to deter the variety of threats we may face?

At NRO, Michael Brendan Dougherty warned that coupling Ukraine to NATO means defending 2,300 more miles of border, and may force NATO to escalate if Russia uses a nuke; he warned that even a wide-scale conventional strike would likely trigger nuclear retaliation:

The emotional shock of a broken nuclear taboo would send policy-makers reeling. . . . Markets might respond to the use of a tactical nuke by cratering. The nuke itself would explode only on Ukraine, but the economic fallout would reach everyone. Tens of thousands . . . would begin fleeing major cities. Social disorder could begin to break out beyond Ukraine as people scrambled for groceries and gas.

Eight Key Takeaways. (1) Putin faces strong internal opposition, especially as to any use of nukes; (2) Russian internal corruption will sap the morale of troops, both front and rear echelons; (3) Moscow does not want a nuclear conflict; (4) The (unfunny) joker in the deck was an enraged Fidel; (5) That’s why Khrushchev went public to broadcast to JFK; (6) This later gave birth to the U.S. Moscow Hot Line; (7) Moscow’s nuclear command/control is now much like ours; (8) No single person on either side can order and execute a rogue launch.

Add one incredible statistic: Ukraine has destroyed an estimated 80 percent of Russia’s nuclear-armed SS-26 Iskander SRBMs. These are Russia’s most fearsome short-range ballistic missile systems. Deployed near Ukraine, they are mobile, hypersonic and deadly accurate. This was done without the full range of missile defense systems Ukraine requested.

Will He or Won’t He? By definition, absolute certitude never exists as to the course of future events. But I believe it highly unlikely that Moscow would assent to its first-ever military use of nukes. As noted above, the Russian chain of command goes from the top through several intermediate layers. Even if all senior staff is present at a planning meeting, the actual launch location will be hundreds of miles elsewhere. Also, as noted earlier, there is a two-key launch procedure similar to ours, with both keys turned in a couple seconds, far enough apart so one person can turn both.

Also, a nuclear first strike on US/NATO soil certainly would trigger a retaliatory strike on Russian soil; any nuclear response would make escalation to an all-out nuclear exchange highly likely. I’m confident that the senior leaders would turn on a dime against Vlad the Mad, if he ordered a first-strike; Moscow’s leaders bought into a quick takedown of Ukraine’s leadership, surely with no thought whatsoever of possible resort to nukes.

In seeking to persuade Russia to to stand down, a two-tiered approach likely would work best: Public appeals should be directed to Moscow, whose top leaders are deeply divided. But appeals to Putin should be private, so as not to publicly engage his personal pride and frustration.

Bottom Line: Will We Ever Learn? Western countries are forever declaring holidays from history and peace dividends; our adversaries do neither. In a 1949 exchange with CIA director Walter Bedell Smith, Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin said: “We do not want war anymore than the West does, but we are less interested than the West in peace, and therein lies the strength of our position.”

We are learning the hard way that projecting our beliefs upon our adversaries is a recipe for unpleasant surprise. Is a limited nuclear war possible? Contrary to Western arms control theology, our adversaries think it is. And, if one or more adversaries think limited war is possible, at minimum it would alter the risk calculus during a crisis; in a worst case, it could lead an adversary to use nuclear weapons in an effort to force us to capitulate. Which is why we once again face the dilemma of limited nuclear war in Ukraine. And why we once again face the angst of nuclear blackmail.

The nuclear blackmail national security dilemma was best framed by the late, great French political philosopher, Raymond Aron, in 1956:

Let us have the courage to admit that the fear of war is often the tyrant’s opportunity, that the absence of war, that is, of open conflict between legally organized political units, is not enough to exclude violence between individuals and groups. Perhaps we shall look back with nostalgia to the days of “conventional wars” when, faced with the horror of guerrilla war and the atomic holocaust, the peoples of the world submit to a detestable order provided it dispels the agonies of individual insecurity and collective suicide.

Leaving us with an “all or nothing at all” nuclear posture that arms control advocates would have us adhere to would morally paralyze our leaders during a nuclear crisis. It would, however, not morally paralyze our adversaries. We would find ourselves faced with stark choices posed by an “Apocalyptic Trinity”: the moral horror of committing nuclear genocide; the civilizational death of committing mass societal suicide; and the freedom-destroying humiliation of surrendering to the dictates of totalitarian powers.

For reasons presented above, the chance that Russia will go nuclear in Ukraine is as close to zero as it can get. A “detestable” European order that leaves Ukraine under Russian domination would inevitably encourage other adversaries to use nuclear blackmail, and pursuit of “detestable” regional orders in the Pacific and Mideast theaters. America’s nuclear umbrella of “extended deterrence” would collapse, and what remains of Pax Americana anchoring the world order would be replaced by anarchic sauve qui peut. (“save himself who can”).

John Wohlstetter, a senior fellow at the Gold Institute for International Strategy is author of Sleepwalking with the Bomb (Discovery Institute Press, 2d. ed. 2014).

How very deeply saddened we all are at the death of Her Majesty the Queen this afternoon at Balmoral. She has been the monarch and enduring and constant symbol of our nation, respected throughout the world, over much of the lives of so many of us. She has received or appointed 15 Prime Ministers from Churchill to Truss. She has met 13 US Presidents. On becoming Queen she ruled an empire across the globe which during her reign was transformed into a 54 nation Commonwealth. She finally remained as Head of State of 14 countries. We all feel a great sense of personal loss at this time. I was enormously privileged to meet and talk to her. She personified the confidence and stability of the nation and represented enduring values in an era of enormous change and challenges. Her selfless Christianity was imbued in all that she did and her life was a great example to us all – a constant reminder that above each of us, regardless of our station in life, there was someone above us that deserved our loyalty and respect. We mourn her loss. The modern Elizabethan era has now ended. We have great confidence that her steadfast values are in the safe hands of King Charles III.

God Save the King.

(This article first appeared in the American Spectator: Https://spectator.org/supersonic-boom-overture-goes-presto/)

Recently TAS published my article, Mach Miracles: The Joy of Commercial Supersonic Flight. Therein I speculated as to when such service might return. A new announcement by Boom Supersonic, as reported by CNN, may advance the date for regular supersonic service. The article noted:

Nearly two years after rolling out its prototype supersonic demonstrator . . . Boom has unveiled a major new design (1:24) for its much anticipated “Overture” airliner, which will fly at twice the speed of today’s subsonic commercial jets and is expected to carry its first passengers in 2029.

CNN’s piece followed on the heels of a CBS “60 Minutes” July 10, 2022 segment (13:40), titled Supersonic, on the possible return of non-military supersonic travel. It concluded that 2035 was the earliest plausible date for a new supersonic era. The program’s focus was on two key concepts, one of which was Boom Supersonic. Entrepreneur Blake Scholl’s aim is to raise $7 billion in all-private-funding—a first for supersonic planes. His company aims to test-fly a single-seater craft this year; if successful, he’ll raise funds for a full-size plane, dubbed Overture, which would serve 600 destinations around the globe. Routes would be 4 to 5 hours flight minimum, and use 100 percent sustainable aviation fuel, a currently highly scarce commodity. Scholl’s long-term goal is—NOT a misprint—to enable air travel anywhere in the world in 4 hours at $100 per customer.

I then concluded my earlier piece with this assessment: “The dismal state of flight today augurs ill for a rapid return. Perhaps a supersonic business jet will be a stepping stone to a new Golden Age of Flight.”

The new video touts advances in the latest version: (a) contoured fuselage to reduce drag, thus increasing fuel efficiency; (b) a new delta-wing design, to improve supersonic performance and subsonic stability, thus maximizing safety and efficiency; (c) gull wings, to reduce supersonic noise (i.e., sonic boom), and minimize engine stress; (d) stabilizing tail, for balance and performance; (e) 4-engine design—the earlier XB-1 model (4:37) had 3 engines; on a 71-foot airframe one-third the length of Concorde and Overture —for efficient supersonic performance within standard temperature ranges, plus the ability to fly without afterburners (i.e., use “supercruise” to enable sustained high-speed flight, and thus minimize noise and fuel consumption); (g) Mach 1.7 top speed over water—twice today’s subsonic jets, and 20 percent faster overland subsonic speed, at Mach 0.94, than today’s jets attain; (h) zero carbon-emission “sustainable aviation fuel.”

Overture aims to carry 65-80 passengers up to 4,900 statute miles (7,900 km.), in an airframe roughly the same size as Concorde, with 700-miles longer range, and at 60,000 feet ceiling (same as Concorde, to minimize JetStream effects). This creates at least 600 potentially viable routes, given business first-class comfort. The company estimates that its round-trip fare will be 25 percent more than subsonic business class today, and 75 percent less than Concorde’s $12,000 round-trip fare in the 1990s. Overture provides, we are promised as we view a soft-lit modern interior, that “productivity meets tranquility.” Digital experiences, with customized windows, will offer fliers productivity modes for work, relaxation modes for rest and exploration modes for tracking flight progress.

A New York Post article provides added detail. The article notes that Overture will use lighter, stronger, more thermally stable carbon materials than Concorde’s aluminum alloys for much of its 21st century airframe.

Overture’s NYC – London travel time will be 3-1/2 hours versus 7 hours for today’s planes, LA – Sydney, 8 hours v. 15 hours today; Tokyo – Seattle, 4-1/2 hours v. 9 hours today. The NYC – London time is 15 minutes slower than that for Concorde, reflecting Concorde’s faster top speed (Mach 2.0 v. Mach 1.7); but the difference is minuscule, as much of the flight is not at top speed.

For the longer routes, Overture’s advantage will be greater, as Concorde would have to make one stop for the Tokyo – Seattle flight, and likely two stops for LA to Sydney, because the great circle distance (over the polar regions) shrinkage is far less than for Tokyo – Seattle, due to the southern latitude of Sydney. This Great Circle blog post shows Great Circle distance benefits to major Asian hubs; nearly all distance savings are on the order of a one percent distance reduction. This world latitude map shows latitudes for the above flight-linked cities: New York (400 N to London 520 N); Tokyo (360 N) to Seattle (480 N); LA (340 N) to Sydney (340 S).

More than 100 orders (news reports vary) are on the books—of course, contingent on delivery of the plane. CNN reports that Overture will be built by 2025, begin test flights in 2026 and serve commercial—business passengers, to be sure—in 2029.

Bottom Line. With the global economy teetering on the verge of possible economic collapse, any ambitious business plan is hostage to fortune. Supersonic flight incubates many new technologies, whose interaction cannot be assessed until actual test flights are flown, with full-size airframes. As airline orders are provisional, buyers incur minimal risk, with perhaps significant proffits if everything goes well. Versus my earlier assessment, the new Overture design offers modest cause for a less skeptical outlook.

That said, I am reminded of the classic joke about the optimist and the pessimist. The optimist exclaims, channeling Voltaire’s Candide, “This is the best of all possible worlds!” To which the pessimist, channeling O’Toole’s Commentary on Murphy’s Law, replies: “I agree.”

John Wohlstetter, a senior fellow at the Gold Institute for International Strategy is author of Sleepwalking with the Bomb (Discovery Institute Press, 2d. ed. 2014).

Dr. Nahro Zagros: ​​Joe Biden went to the Middle East after 18 months in power, do you think his visit was successful?

Amb. John Bolton: I don’t think the trip was successful. I don’t I don’t think he demonstrated the kind of leadership, the kind of grasp of the many issues that face the region. You know, there’s a theory in the United States that says that China is the big threat of the 21st century and we can forget about the Middle East, forget about Europe, and only concentrate on China. It’s a big mistake. America and its allies have interests all over the world and the Middle East remains a central focus for friends of the United States and for the US. And it requires leadership, requires doing things that help bridge differences among our friends. It means taking a tough stance against our adversaries, and you can’t shirk that responsibility.

Dr. Nahro Zagros: Well, the meeting was devoid of any drama or excitement, but knowing that, you know what Biden said in Jeddah in Saudi Arabia to say that America is not leaving the place and leave a vacuum for the Russians and Chinese to come over. That’s a powerful statement, right?

Amb. John Bolton:: Well, the statement was good now. Now the question is what he does about it, the principal threat in the Middle East today, as it has been for many years, comes from Iran and its pursuit of nuclear weapons, its support of terrorism in the region and around the world. Its aspirations for hegemony. There are many other sources of tension as well. Erdogan and Turkey has Neo-Ottoman aspirations. And there are terrorist groups, the threat and many of our friends there. So this is something that for long term peace and security in the region and around the world, the United States does not participate actively. It only makes the day much further away when we can expect….peace

Dr. Nahro Zagros: So the previous administration, the Trump administration, and the Biden administration, it seems that they have something in common. They both wanted to get out of the Middle East and yet Biden came back. Like we said, less than two weeks ago. Do you think the visit was mainly to counter Iranian threat there or it’s related to the Russia Ukraine war? Or perhaps America doesn’t want to leave their friends behind in the Middle East?

Amb. John Bolton:: I think the President doesn’t fully understand the impact in the region and more broadly, of the American and NATO withdrawal from Afghanistan. I think it was a strategic mistake by the United States to do it. And I think it left all of our friends around the world worried about our staying power, and there was not much from President Biden’s trip to the Middle East that changed that impression.

Dr. Nahro Zagros: So you think it was nothing to do about foreign policy about countering Iran about American leaving difference behind in the Middle East it was mainly about the price of oil and gasoline?

Amb. John Bolton: I think I think he wanted more production. Out of the Gulf Arab countries. They had agreed the month before and OPEC to a modest increase, but they didn’t agree to anything more. But of course, being in the region. President had to visit Israel and he had to say something about the American role, but I just think it reflects a lack of attention. And surprisingly, for Biden, who’s spent so much of his career in the Senate on foreign policy, he’s made really little difference in international affairs. The events have gotten beyond his control, like the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Dr. Nahro Zagros: What about the JCPOA? This administration promised that they will get the JCPOA back on the table. So do you think this is going to happen on the Biden administration?

Amb. John Bolton: I hope not because I thought it was a bad deal and 2015 and I think the concessions that Biden has made over the past year to the Ayatollah have made it worse. Iran has shown no strategic decision not to pursue nuclear weapons. Do they want relief from economic sanctions? Yes, they do. Are they willing to give up the pursuit of no nuclear weapons? I don’t think so. So I think they represent really a huge threat not just because of the nuclear program, but because of their support for terrorism, and it requires much more of a stronger position by the United States.

Dr. Nahro Zagros: You advised Donald Trump about the JCPOA and you advised him to leave the pact. So he did. Do you think it was successful because it doesn’t feel that he has achieved anything?

Amb. John Bolton: I don’t think we went far enough. I think it was the right thing to do to withdraw to impose US sanctions on Iran to try for what we call maximum pressure. But, the problem will not be solved until there’s a new government in Iran, a government that represents the people of Iran, not the Ayatollahs … that didn’t happen. We didn’t pursue regime change, but we should have.

Dr. Nahro Zagros: Well, he did advocate for preemptive strike on North Korea and Iran and regime change in the latter. But do you think it was lack of understanding from the perspective, from Trump perspective., that he didn’t go far enough with a plan?

Amb. John Bolton: Well, I didn’t think he really understood what the implications were he was against the JCPOA because Obama had negotiated but not really appreciating that the regime in Tehran wanted nuclear weapons, and would have been prepared to negotiate at great length. If they could get free from the economic sanctions. It was the leverage the pressure that we put on the regime that caused them to want to negotiate but while they were willing to say they’d give up nuclear weapons, they never did anything to accomplish it.

Dr. Nahro Zagros: In your book, you mentioned that Trump wanted to delete Iraq, and yet at the same time, he was criticizing Barack Obama for leaving Iraq in 2011, who created a vacuum for ISIS to come for. So, what was the narrative that we don’t understand? On the one hand, Trump is against staying in Iraq, on the other hand criticizing Obama for leaving Iraq in 2011?

Amb. John Bolton:: Well, I didn’t understand the narrative either. It’s not that Americans really want to have our troops deployed all over the world. That’s the really the farthest thing from their mind, but it’s better to take care of threats and dangers to the US and its allies, where the threats originate not in the streets or the skies of America. So, the presence in Iraq, which Obama should not have abandoned was a way to see if Iraq could succeed as a nation, and to keep troublesome outsiders like Iran, like Syria, like Turkey, at a distance while we tried to solve that problem.

Dr. Nahro Zagros: You are one of the architects of the Iraq war, or the invasion of Iraq in 2003. Do you think it was a success story?

Amb. John Bolton: Well, I think there are different parts of the saga. It was certainly a success in that it removes Saddam Hussein from power and he was a threat to international peace and security. He was a threat to his own people in particular, the Kurds. I remember after the first Persian Gulf War, in 1991, going with Jim Baker from the north of Turkey, just into Iraq and seeing 10s of 1000s (tens of thousands) of Kurds who had fled fearing Saddam Hussein’s wrath after the first war, they were without shelter. They were without food. It was a potential for a great humanitarian tragedy. Saddam didn’t care about that at all. So removing Saddam was an important thing to do. Did we accomplish the next step of building a new Iraq? No, I don’t, I don’t think we succeeded. I’m not sure we should have tried the way we did. I think ultimately it was going to be the peoples of Iraq who would decide whether there would be a new Iraq and how it would succeed. It wasn’t anything that we were going to impose. We could draw a ring around them, to give them the chance. And I think that’s all that we should have done.

Dr. Nahro Zagros: So in other words, it’s America won the war, but what’s the peace in Iraq?

Amb. John Bolton: Yeah, that’s why I say there are different phases to this. The war was a success. What came after was not a success, not because of bad faith by the United States. But because in large measure, we became another political party in Iraq. And that was not the path to success, also because of the intervention of Iran, and its effort to impose their kind of theocratic rule in Iraq as well.

Dr. Nahro Zagros: So what led to the downfall of the plan and for the flat plan not to succeed because in five years, America lost 5450 service members as well. As 3793 military contractors only between 2003-2018.. So, what went wrong? Exactly?

Amb. John Bolton:Well, there were a lot of other things that were happening, not the least of which was the renewal of al Qaeda terrorism and a different kind of form a lot of developments that really were extraneous to the effort in post Saddam Iraq. I’m not going to tell a Kurdish audience how complicated the politics of Iraq are, but to have succeeded as a state to these three disparate provinces of the Ottoman Empire was going to require political compromises among ethnic groups and confessional groups. It’s possible it could have been done. But there was not good faith on the part of all of the players. There were external powers that were interfering in it. And there were not the circumstances where trust could be built up, especially after the United States withdrew in 2011. Our presence could not guarantee success. But our withdrawal, I think, hastened the failure [11:05]. And I think there had to come a point where reasonable people could say, this creation of post-World War One, European dealmaking wasn’t going to succeed, and we had to look at what the successor structures would be one of those would have been an independent Kurdistan and acknowledges the reality on the ground to say we tried to form a viable Iraq and for reasons not having anything to do with the Kurds. It wasn’t going to succeed. So there has to be an effective government for the people. And that’s what leads you to the conclusion that if Iraq can’t succeed as a country, you have to look at alternatives.

Dr. Nahro Zagros: I’ll come back to this. Talk about Kurdish independence. But first. Iraq is an important country in the region. One of the reasons America went there, it’s to get rid of Saddam Hussein and all the threats that his regime was posing, but also at the same time to counter Iran. And yet, Iraq is run by Iranians, thanks to the invasion, it’s in the hands of Iranians. So from that perspective, it’s a complete fiasco, right?

Amb. John Bolton: Well, I think as it worked out because of Iranian interference, you know, in the balance between the Kurds, Sunni Arabs and Shia Arabs, the influence of Iran, even within the Shia community to build an Iraq that looked like Iran was quite small. And yet we were not able in the parties were not able to find a way to compromise so that you could have not a secular population but a secular government that could accommodate different interests. And I don’t think we gave the kind of support we could have, recognizing the threat from Iran. So that I would say the one of the reasons for failure was the American failure to see the threat that Iran poses, not just because of the nuclear program, not just because its support for Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis in Yemen, but their interference and their desire not to have a success at creating an effective Iraqi government.

13:30 (KURDS MIDDLE EAST)

Dr. Nahro Zagros: Okay, I’ll move to another subject about the Kurds in the Middle East. In your book, you mentioned that Trump said he doesn’t like Kurds, and reading what you wrote. that made you furious. Right, because you have this people in the Middle East who are the most reliable American friends in the region and yet the President of the United States is saying he doesn’t like them. So, was it lack of understanding or, or something else?

Amb. John Bolton: Well, he disparaged the Kurds. I think he heard from people who said they’re great when they have American airpower. They’re not so great when they don’t. We tried to explain to him that the Kurds had fought valiantly for many years for their own independence and had been critical for decades against Saddam Hussein, who had resisted against all odds, who were helping us critically and against the Assad regime and against the Iranian and Hezbollah interference in Syria. And it was just one of these things that you couldn’t reason with him on what the facts were and it obviously made coming up with a sensible and fair policy for the Kurds. (it was) very, very difficult.

Dr. Nahro Zagros: But during the campaign, Donald Trump, just before becoming President, when he was touring around the states, he was advocating for independent Kurdistan. And yet when he was the president, he disagreed with it. The reason I’m saying that it reminds me of something else, then that’s Joe Biden. When the invasion of Iraq happened, he wrote an article and he advocated for a three-state solution for Iraq. So now he’s the president, but he’s doing nothing for that reminds me of Trump, on one hand, saying he supports Kurdish independence. On the other hand, he saying he doesn’t like Kurds. So, do you think this administration can protect the Kurds in the Middle East?

Amb. John Bolton: I guess the lesson is that American politicians campaigning for office say a lot of things they may not fully understand. To be fair to them, or they just say things because they think that’s what their audience wants to hear. And so, everybody is well advised as Americans have learned painfully that the politicians’ promises don’t always come true. I’m very worried at the moment about the Biden administration because it remains convinced that if it can either revive the JCPOA or find some kind of accommodation with Iran, that that it can it can somehow bring the regime in Tehran out of the self-imposed exile that it’s in isolation from more civilized regimes around the region. And I think the Biden administration is reluctant to do anything that would distract Iran from that objective. So, the notion of an independent Kurdistan, which has been so hard to bring about for so many years, because the neighboring states don’t want an independent Kurdistan. It could interfere with their objective with Iran, as it could with Turkey. And so, it’s, as often happens to the Kurds, other priorities interfere with handling the issue of what kind of government the people of Kurdistan should have.

Dr. Nahro Zagros: So, I’ll come back again to the referendum and that notion of independence, but before then, in your book, you also mentioned that Trump wanted to offer personal favors to dictators and the United States Justice Department, made Halk bank in Turkey, illegal for different reasons for money laundering, but also in it was participating in a multibillion-dollar scheme to evade US sanctions on Iran. So, do you think that was one of the reasons Trump was hesitating to support Kurds outright? Or? …because he wanted to get along with Erdogan. He was against all your advice, I think.

Amb. John Bolton: No, it’s an interesting theory, but I don’t think it crossed Trump’s mind, I think he saw it in very simple direct terms. Erdogan was concerned about Halk bank. Trump wanted to do him a favor. We tried to explain that Erdogan’s family used Halk bank as a kind of personal financial vehicle and there were many other problems that Halk bank was violating our Iran sanctions. It was committing financial fraud. It was proven already in one criminal prosecution. Now, there was another ongoing. I think it was much more superficial on Trump’s part. 18:47

Dr. Nahro Zagros: So, the referendum for independence took place in Iraqi Kurdistan, or in the Kurdistan Region on September 25 2017. We didn’t get support from the United States. And yet when the United States wants Kurds to fight ISIS, we were the first one to go to the battle and defeat ISIS on behalf of the world. So this bond was created between the United States and Kurds, yet when 99% of the population of Kurdistan voted for independence, the United States didn’t want to support this. What was the reason? [referendum]

Amb. John Bolton:Well, it was a mistake on the part of the United States. I don’t think people fully appreciate what the implications would be, they didn’t see what the government of Iraq might do in response or how others in the region would respond. You know, you can attribute some of the problem I think to divisions among the Kurdish people.

Dr. Nahro Zagros: But the threat was realistic from neighboring countries?

19;42

Amb. John Bolton: Well, I think I think the problem was not so much the evaluation of the threat as understanding that when Kurds voted on independence, there wasn’t much question what the answer would be and yet in the US and elsewhere in the West, people didn’t think through what those implications meant. Now, in hindsight, a lot of people who said the referendum was therefore a bad idea. I don’t agree with that. I think there’s a lot of responsibility to allocate here. But we collectively did see that others would not simply accept the referendum and we weren’t prepared and among the Kurds, there wasn’t adequate preparation for the response. But the notion of asking people how they want to be governed is fundamental. And whether this referendum resulted in a concrete achievement or not. There will be another referendum in due course.

Dr. Nahro Zagros: To be fair, the Kurdish leadership never wanted to break up from Iraq, but it became unlivable. And it became a difficult reality of the whole environment in Iraq the way the government’s been hijacked, the way the militias rule in different parts of Iraq. So because the Kurds had no choice but to break away or to decide to break away. But do you think a better administration would have supported independence during the Trump administration when Tillerson was in charge of the State Department? 20:50

Amb. John Bolton:Well, I think that should have been the US policy and it was a great lost opportunity and very difficult and painful for the Kurds when we didn’t follow through on it. Look I’ve watched this issue for over 30 years now, but going back to Operation Provide comfort after the first Gulf War. And I have to say, no set of leaders. No political unit ever operates perfectly but in terms of cooperation of trying to find concrete solutions to problems of putting up with a lot of unnecessary diplomatic grief. I think the Kurds and their leaders have behaved in an exemplary fashion for a long time, and it’s to be disappointed as they were at the time of the referendum. It was really tragic. Unfortunately, the Kurds have a long history and in finding themselves on the wrong end of the of an arrangement like that and their subsequent behavior, as you just said, in in playing a critical role in the anti-ISIS coalition is proof of the merit of giving the Kurds a government that allows the people to control their own destiny.

Dr. Nahro Zagros: Knowing who we are right now, knowing how chaos and how chaotic Iraq and the Middle East is. Do you think we should count on America?

Amb. John Bolton:Well, I’m worried about the Biden administration. I mean, I have to be straight about this. I’m not sure their focus is there. I’m not sure their level of attention is there or their energy to make sure that they have solid support from the American people for another effort in the Middle East. There’s a narrative in this country unfortunately about endless wars. The leadership of the United States has not argued effectively that a forward presence by the United States in very difficult situations can be to our advantage not just to the advantage of the people involved, although that’s an important factor, but ultimately can lead to stability in a place like the Middle East that benefits the United States [23:06]. So you need American leaders who can explain a complicated situation in a faraway place to the American people. I think that’s something that can be done. I’m worried at this point, that it’s not the Biden administration that can do it.

Dr. Nahro Zagros: What happened in Afghanistan? You know, you left Afghanistan and the Taliban came back. And do you think you might also leave Iraq and Syria and leave the Kurds behind?

Amb. John Bolton: You know, anything is possible, but I can tell you that there’s a very widespread feeling in (US) Congress and I think increasingly around the country that the withdrawal from Afghanistan was a mistake.

They understand that America’s less safe now the terrorist attacks from the territory of Afghanistan are again possible. Hopefully they don’t occur. But we gave up an enormously strong position and are now in a more vulnerable position. This is not the time for further withdrawal from the Middle East. We’ve seen dramatic changes in the region with the Abraham accords with the extension of full diplomatic relations between Israel and some of the Arab states. The threat of Iran has brought former adversaries together. There’s a lot of potential in the Middle East, still dangerous and difficult, but this is exactly the wrong time for the United States to reduce its involvement.

Dr. Nahro Zagros: You think in a few years we might see an Iran who is part of the international community or there will be a war between Israel and the US? 24:47

Amb. John Bolton:I think people should understand, Israel will not allow Iran to get nuclear weapons and in fact won’t allow Iran to get very close to nuclear weapons if they need to do that. I do believe that the regime in Tehran is weaker today than any point since the Islamic Revolution of 1970. I think people don’t see it because Western reporters don’t go out of Tehran or the other big cities, but out in the countryside. Among the farmers, the small business people, the shopkeepers, they’re not shouting death to the United States or death to Israel anymore. They’re saying death to the Ayatollahs. Now, the Revolutionary Guard and the military still have a monopoly on force. But I believe there’s splits even within the regime. And this is a time, I think, to put real pressure and support behind the people of Iran and give them a chance for self-government. And if we could resolve that we won’t solve all the problems of the region, but solving other problems I think will be significantly easier.

Nahro: In other words, you’re saying if this JCPOA is not resolved, if the Iranian regime is not changed, then Israel will attack?

Amb. John Bolton: Well, Iran continues to pursue nuclear weapons. There’s no doubt about that.

They’ve shut the IAEA.

Nahro: So if they continue to pursue, Israel might attack?

Amb. John Bolton:Israel is attacking now and other states in the region. And I think that the people of Iran that is something that they’re increasingly understanding. They’re not safer, because Iran is pursuing nuclear weapons. They’re more in danger. And I think that is undercutting the regime as well.

Nahro: In your opinion, how optimistic are you that in a few years we will see a peaceful Middle East, knowing what’s going on around the world with the Russia Ukraine war, and knowing who the actors are in the Middle East? (26:53)

Amb. John Bolton: Well, I think we’ve moved beyond the ideological warfare of the Cold War. We’ve been through war on terrorism. We’re back in a period where there’s enormous great power competition. Again, this is not something America looks forward to. But it’s a world we live in and the Middle East for thousands of years has been the center of great power competition. I think if we can keep external forces outside, we can deal with the principal internal problem, which is Iran. There’s a lot of potential in the region…

And again. The reconciliation between Israel and some of the Gulf Arab states and other Arab countries, shows that part of the world can change very dramatically. And we’ve just got to keep applying our effort to it. Because progress is possible. I’m not saying it’s easy, it won’t be it.

Dr. Nahro Zagros: But what we need in the Middle East is strong leadership, American leadership boots on the ground, and that’s what it’s lacking at the moment. So without that nothing can be achieved?

Amb. John Bolton:Well, I think that’s why I think the Biden administration it’s not going to provide the leadership, there’s no indication that it’s of interest to them. They’re more interested in climate change than a lot of American strategic interests. But we’re now in a period in our country where we’re in an election campaign. For Congress, by November there will be an election campaign , for 2024 for the presidential nomination. It seems like we’re always in an election campaign, but it’s important for aspiring leaders in the United States to explain to the people that our best interest here comes from having a strong presence internationally, especially in regions that are important to us and where the risk of conflict is high. So if we’re not present, we’re not going to have influence, if we are then we’ve got a chance to make progress.

Dr. Nahro Zagros: Ambassador Bolton, do you think the future administration’s of the United States will realize that Kurds are the only supporters of the United States and only friends of the United States? Therefore they have to support Kurdish independence?

Amb. John Bolton:Well, I think there’s a large number of people in the United States who have dealt with the Kurds over the years and the American military, the diplomatic corps, American business community, who are the strongest friends of an independent Kurdistan and if you want stability and a difficult and unstable region, there are ways to do it and one of them is to continue to find ways to achieve the long side goal of an independent Kurdistan.

Dr. Nahro Zagros: Ambassador Bolton, many thanks for your frank talk, as always.

Amb. John Bolton: Glad to be with you.

Geoffrey Van Orden CBE, former leader of the Conservatives in the European parliament, writes: Over dinner in Brussels in January 2002, I put it to David Trimble (obituary, July 25) that one of the greatest strategic errors of the Northern Ireland Unionists and British government was to make little effort to rally those of Scots-Irish background in America to speak out against the Irish Republican caucus (those who support the Irish Republican cause – Sinn Fein/IRA for short) in Congress.

This left the field open to the IRA activists and their sentimental apologists and ignored the large number of Scots-Irish migrants to America — the largely Ulster-origin families, many of which had risen to leading positions in American political and industrial life — indeed, 17 Ulster Scots had become president. David agreed the point while observing that, generally speaking, the Protestant Irish migrants had assimilated more rapidly into the wider population and were more dispersed than their Irish Catholic counterparts and so were less easy to mobilise.

(This article first appeared in the American Spectator: https://spectator.org/uvalde-ii-will-we-ever-apply-empirical-lessons-learned/)

The Main Roadblock: Politics. Put simply, the Left’s ultimate goal on guns is not merely making schools safe. Rather, it is evisceration of the Second Amendment, by subjecting gun rights to the proverbial “death of a thousand cuts.” As straightforward amending the federal Constitution to eliminate the Second Amendment is a political non-starter, there being too many Red states to allow this to pass, death by oppressive regulation is a logical fallback play for the diehards.

It has become clear that hardliners will use any mass shooting to undermine the Second Amendment personal right to “keep and bear” arms, a goal it made clear the president would pursue from the start.

One top Democrat who openly advocates this strategy is Hillary Clinton. Another top Democrat, Chuck Schumer, offers nostrums—banning so-called assault weapons, limiting magazine clip size (to as little as 10), making it harder for “mentally unstable” people from buying guns—that have proven ineffective in the past. Speaker Nancy Pelosi called again for more extensive background checks.

For his part, President Biden initially responded to Uvalde by stating the obvious, i.e., that the Second Amendment is not an absolute—“you can’t own a cannon”; at the same presser, vice-president Harris called for taking on the “gun lobby.” Jonah Goldberg shreds the “gun lobby” argument:

In 2020, the NRA gave less than $1 million directly to candidates — putting it 996th on the list of top donors. It spent $5.4 million on lobbying, making it the 169th most lavish lobbyist. As Stephen Gutowski, founder of The Reload, a site focused on gun issues and politics, wrote in The Atlantic, since 2012, “the NRA’s highest contribution ranking has been 294th, and its highest lobbying ranking has been 85th.”

Over Memorial Day Weekend, the president indicated a desire to ban 9mm (38 caliber) handguns, owned by 57 percent of gun owners (as of 2019). The president is apparently ignorant of the physics of bullets: high-powered rifles have a much higher muzzle velocity than that for handguns, and thus rounds fired from high-powered rifles do far greater damage than those fired by handguns. (One violator of gun laws Joe ignores: Hunter Biden.) Incredibly, the White House press secretary publicly stated on May 31 that the president does NOT favor hardening schools, nor does he favor legislation dealing with mental illness issues. She said that Biden believes that guns are the problem, and gun control the remedy. But Sen. Biden, in 1985, believed the polar opposite:

During my 12 and a half years as a member of this body, I have never believed that additional gun control or federal registration of guns would reduce crime. I am convinced that a criminal who wants a firearm can get one through illegal, nontraceable, unregistered sources, with or without gun control.

June 4 cometh, enter Biden Gun Control 3.0: He decided that he now supports hardening the schools. Biden 3.0 announced that he will sign the June 12 compromise package reached by 10 R and 10 D senators, paving the way for probable passage. The bill would encourage adoption of “Red Flag” laws, provide a first-ever federal ban in gun trafficking and straw purchasing, and establish enhanced background checks for purchasers under 21. It would be, if passed, the first major federal legislation since the 10-year “assault weapons” ban enacted in 1994.

Background checks are very popular with the public despite their dubious effectiveness; a poll taken after Uvalde showed 88 percent public support. A new ban on “assault weapons” won’t work; raising the age for purchase from 18 to 21 would have marginal impact at best. Banning bump stocks, mandating background checks for ghost guns at point-of-sale, adding restrictions on gun trafficking, are laws we can live with. (One GOP policy endorsed by most voters is arming teachers.)

Trying to limit access to mentally unstable people is much harder to accomplish than at first blush it may seem. Federal law already makes it a felony for anyone to knowingly sell or transfer guns to adjudicated mental defectives or those who have been confined to a mental institution, as procedural due process safeguards would initially be bypassed. President Trump called for (2:36) pre-empting due process during a Feb. 2018 meeting after the Parkland massacre. He issued an executive order two days after that meeting instructing the attorney general to draft rules banning bump stocks. Constitutional scholar John Yoo warns that some proposals would violate the Second Amendment (6:51). Fox News legal analyst Greg Jarrett explains why some of Biden’s original gun-control measures violate the Supreme Court’s 2008 Heller decision which held that private citizens have a constitutional right to own guns for personal-self defense, upon which undue burdens may not be placed.

Kevin Williamson notes that Democrats juxtapose crackdowns on lawful owners/merchants, while being increasingly more lenient on career criminals, who are either not prosecuted at all, or rapidly released if convicted of gun crimes carrying long sentences under federal/state law.

But determining who, among those not already identified, is mentally ill and dangerous to others, is often notoriously hard to establish. And if, as in New York, Red Flag laws on the books are not enforced, no legislation will work. The predicate for passing new laws is that either there are no existing laws, or that existing laws do not fully cover a new situation. Assessing how well laws are being administered is a task for legislative oversight; but unlike oversight hearings, talkfests that rarely attract voter interest, introducing a new bill shows voters that those they elected are “doing something.”

One view is that we are missing the “REAL Red Flag“: the corrosive socio-cultural climate that generates a growing number of violent, under-socialized males. Shining exceptions recently came from two Florida sheriffs, who upon learning of a minor making an adult threat to commit murder, immediately arrested them—a policy they follow whether the threat is real or fake. A not-so shining counter-example is California, where the State Senate has passed a bill relegating student threats made against schools solely to the school administrators, with no state involvement.

Draconian magazine-clip limits are worth resisting, as under the extreme stress of a home invasion or a burglary, many shots miss, even at close range. Criminals will get high-capacity magazines on the street; new magazines can be reloaded in seconds. By one tally, only once, in a 2011 mass shooting, were intended victims able to rush the shooter during reloading, and that was because the shooter dropped the replacement magazine. Finally, imposing stringent storage rules on homeowners could deny them access to their weapon in event of criminal entry.

Consider the realities of home self-defense, using the most recent area data available for each category (nationwide unless specified otherwise): The average residential home size is 2,300 sq. ft.; the average urban apartment size is 882 sq. ft. They range from Seattle’s 711 sq. ft. to Florida’s 1,038 sq. ft. The single family suburban home depicted here is a duplex, which would make for 1,150 sq. ft. per level. The typical assailant, according to a noted police calculation, covers 21 feet in 1.5 seconds, the amount of time a typical police officer can draw a gun from a holster and be ready to fire. In round figures with a square configuration urban units would range from Seattle’s 27 ft. per side to Florida’s 32 ft.; for houses, assuming a square shape, each floor would have 34 ft, diagonals. (Per Pythagoras, using rectangles would change the numbers, but not by much.) In no case would the homeowner have more than three seconds to aim and fire.

Now add in time factors (all rounded figures). In a typical suburban burglary, the burglar spends one minute casing the property, then once inside, 8 to 12 minutes, assuming the home is vacant. Most burglaries occur between 10 AM and 3 PM, when people are usually outside the home.

If someone is home, the burglar will of course deal instantly with the encounter—attack, demand compliance or flee. The Dept. of Justice estimates that out of 3.7 million annual burglaries, in 27 percent of the one million committed with people home, the occupant is victim of a violent crime.

Police response times vary widely. For household burglaries, 14 percent within 5 mins., 22 percent between 5 and 10 min. For 14 selected cities, none were less than 5 mins., 10 were between 5 and 10 mins., and four were over 10 mins.—for LA, America’s largest urban area, 20 min.

Finally, factor in gun-use metrics: There are from 500,000 to 3 million uses of guns by residents facing home invasion or burglary. Intended victims fire the gun only 8 percent of the time, otherwise using the gun to scare the intruder. Of 40,000 gun deaths per years, suicides were twice as often the cause of death, versus homicides; only about 2 percent were accidental deaths. Add gun-fight metrics from an article in the International Journal for Police Science Management:

According to the article abstract:

All subjects were tested for accuracy at target locations from 3 to 75 ft. For all locations, no difference was found in accuracy between expert and intermediate groups (p > 0.30). Experts and intermediates had better results than novices on all locations (p < 0.05) except from 3 to 15 ft. Alarmingly, experts were only 10% more accurate than novices between 3 and I5 ft. Finally, novices and intermediate shooters were more likely to hit head locations from 3 ft (57%), whereas experts mainly hit the body location (78%). The results of this study indicate that officers had no advantage over intermediate shooters and a small advantage over novices. (My italics.)

As further evidence of how Democrats historically have approached gun issues, consider what transpired in 2013. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) introduced a pair of bills (5:26); In his own words, when recently interviewed by Jesse Watters:

In 2013, I introduced legislation that would spend $300 million on federal grants to harden schools to make them safer, to make them more protected. The Democrats filibustered that legislation. I’ve introduced legislation to say schools like this elementary school behind me can get federal grants to harden their security, to put in bulletproof doors, bulletproof glass, to put in armed police officers to protect kids (at a cost of $1.3B].

Cruz later added:

In 2013, I introduced legislation called Grassley-Cruz, which targeted felons and fugitives and those with serious mental illness. It directed the Department of Justice to do an audit of federal convictions to make sure felons are in the database. It directed the Department of Justice to prosecute and put in jail felons and fugitives who try to illegally buy firearms.

Cruz went on to say that a majority supported the bill, but the Democrats, led by Speaker Harry Reid, blocked a cloture vote to end his party’s filibuster, thus killing the bill. Cruz concluded that passage of the bill was viewed by Democrats as a threat to their agenda of stripping law-abiding gun owners of the personal right to posses firearms for self-defense. It is hard to gainsay his assessment, as undeniably his legislation would have helped matters.

Immediately after Uvalde Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer quickly blocked a bill introduced by Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI), named after two victims of the 2018 Parkland massacre, which would have set up a website presenting school safety “best practices”; schools could individually elect which practices, if any, to adopt. Johnson had been so sure this bill would be accepted that he sought unanimous consent for its adoption. A presidential commission appointed by President Trump issued a massive report in Dec. 2021. It includes a section detailing best practices for schools security. Its recommendations are in line with the ones cited in this article—access control, armed presence, networked information sharing about active shooters who gain access to the school, mental health intervention.

On June 13, Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine (R) signed legislation allowing schools to arm school staff and teachers, after appropriate training.

But no security system can work if best practices are not implemented; one security expert details the challenges since Columbine in getting smaller communities to adopt such practices (4:03). Trump DHS secretary Chad Wolf said that local commanders can override orders from superiors given certain emergencies, of which Uvalde was an example (4:04). Former homicide detective Ted Williams said that the local commanders waited far too long for a SWAT team to arrive, and that they should have gone in quickly (4:26). Indeed, the local commander said at 11:33 am—three minutes after the shooter entered the school—it was no longer an active shooter situation; this was flatly false. There were seven officers on the scene at 11:35 and 19 by 12:03, when they held off, calling it a barricade standoff. Students in the room with the shooter risked their lives to inform police outside that there were more shots fired inside the room. When the last 911 call came at 12:47, 27 officers were on the scene. In the end, it took an elite Border Patrol unit to storm the school, after being delayed 30 minutes by the local police. Hardly reassuring is that the city of Uvalde is resisting disclosure of information about Uvalde police performance.

Andrew Pollack, who tragically lost his daughter in the Parkland massacre, writes that parents are the key in stopping mass shootings. Door access should be single-entry, multiple-exit; armed presence inside the schools can help; parents should confront schools and if the schools are not responsive, they should run for the school board to effect changes.

Can We Afford Securing the Schools? We cannot afford to let things be. The National Center for Education Statistics tallies 131,000 K-12 schools in the U.S. Using $400,000 per school (see above) yields $52 billion; adding 6,000 four-year colleges, at the same price, yields $2.4 billion. Combining costs would be equal to less than one percent of FY 2022 federal spending. The funds needed nationwide would surely be spread over several years.

President Biden’s FY 2022 budget called for $6TR in federal outlays, of which 65 percent—$4TR—was for so-called “uncontrollables”; these cover entitlements like Social Security & Medicare. By comparison, the $715B for military spending—is 12 percent of the budget, and is “discretionary,” and hence an easier target for budget cuts. These dwarf any costs that would be incurred to protect our schools nationwide.

To add historical perspective, take a gander at the U.S. debt-to-GDP ratio over the past century, from 1929 forward. In 1929, U.S. public debt was $17B, equal to 16 percent of GDP. In 1946, after the end of World War II, the debt was $269B, or 119% of GDP. In 1974, fueled by the postwar economic boom, the debt, at $475B, stood at a record postwar low of 31 percent of GDP.

That year marked passage by Congress of the Budget and Impoundment Control Act of 1974, overriding an-impeachment-weakened President Nixon’s veto. The new law shifted power from the executive to the legislative branch—where, to be fair, the Constitution vests the taxing and spending powers. The law also set up the Congressional Budget Office, and moved the federal fiscal year from July 1 to October 1, to give Congress more time to respond to executive branch budget proposals.

Congress did this not to spend less money, but to spend more. And did Congress ever succeed. In early 2022, the total federal debt outstanding surpassed $30 TR, putting the debt/GDP ratio at 124 percent of GDP.

No one knows when the financial merry-go-round will stop; as new trillion-dollar milestones were reached—$1TR, $5TR, $10TR, $15TR, $20TR, $25TR, $30TR—voices called for fiscal restraint, lest the country’s financial position collapse. Ultimately, most voters sense that there will be a financial reckoning, and that it will not be pretty. Whether it is tomorrow, next year, next decade, or later, no one can say with certitude. We would be wise to cut spending, but recipient constituencies will fiercely resist, So in the meantime, we should, for clearly dire emergencies like school safety, ante up what is needed to fix the problem—which only can work if we choose wise policies and elect leaders who will competently administer them.

Bottom Line. There is a wealth of available knowledge about virtually every aspect of mass shooter situations. The chief obstacle to their implementation has been an unholy alliance of politicians, media players and and interest groups obsessed with enacting into law a web of statutes and regulations that would eviscerate the right to possess firearms for lawful use. By accepting the Senate compromise, Republicans clear the way to press for further hardening the schools. The GOP will have a better chance to make its case to persuadable independents—if it can bypass hostile mass media coverage and social media censorship.

Hardline Democrat proposals bring to mind Albert Einstein’s famed definition of insanity: “doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” Their efforts fly in the face of a pair of infamous massive American regulatory failures: attempts to ban alcohol and drugs. Like alcohol and drugs, guns are easily transportable and in wide demand; applying supply-side prohibitory remedies cannot cure a demand-side problem. The Senate compromise represents a welcome step away from gun-control absolutism.

Guns abound worldwide, are getting far easier to manufacture, and increasingly in demand; the firearm black market surely will rise to the occasion, as the mob did with alcohol and the drug cartels did with drugs. The most likely outcome is that if strict gun control laws pass, they will prove once again ineffective. An outright ban would drive suppliers—and buyers—underground..

With the Senate deal, Republicans managed for the first time to get real concessions from the Democrats—at least, at the federal level. Blue statues will likely continue pushing more radical proposals, unless voters toss them out.

John Wohlstetter, a senior fellow at the Gold Institute for International Strategy is author of Sleepwalking with the Bomb (Discovery Institute Press, 2d. ed. 2014).

This paper originally appeared in the Reaction.Life, https://reaction.life/indo-pacific-tilt-why-the-uk-needs-to-up-its-game/)

Over a year ago, in its “most radical assessment of the UK’s place in the world since the end of the Cold War”, the British government set out its Integrated Review of Security, Defence, Development and Foreign Policy. It advocated for an “Indo-Pacific tilt” as a critical element in what was a fresh “Global Britain” strategy.

This was in the middle of the Covid pandemic and before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine urged a reappraisal of strategic threats and priorities. Russia was certainly identified as the most acute direct threat to the UK but the review’s emphasis on the need for an Indo-Pacific tilt also remains highly relevant.

Apart from the growing economic importance of the region, China’s increasing military power and assertiveness needs to be counterbalanced. This means securing and enhancing relationships with old friends, particularly within the Commonwealth, and seeking new partners.

When some other parts of the world held back from condemning Russian aggression, eight out of 10 of the vital ASEAN bloc voted with the Western democracies, including its most populous member, Indonesia. As one of the world’s fastest-growing economies and predicted to become the world’s fourth-largest in 2050, Indonesia has been a priority post-Brexit partner for the UK. A year ago, the UK and Indonesia concluded the first round of exploratory trade talks and committed to further strengthening their trade and investment links, which rose to a record £3bn of bilateral trade in 2019 through a new joint trade dialogue.

Yet while the Integrated Review set out the ambitious goal of Britain being “the European partner with the broadest and most integrated presence in the Indo-Pacific,” the UK has struggled to make much of a visible impact in the region.

Aside from penning the AUKUS agreement, and its application to join the Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP), it has achieved few results so far. The principle behind the strategy remains sound. In what is a fast-moving environment, more of a priority must be placed on pushing through initiatives of substance, unless the UK is to be left behind by other competitors with poorer credentials.

Bottom of Form

The region is an ideal candidate for leveraging “post-Brexit freedoms”. But expansive new trade deals and deepened strategic ties have not been pursued sufficiently. Others, including the US with its Indo-Pacific Economic Framework, and the EU, which has trade talks underway with the ASEAN bloc and many of its members, seem to be on the front foot in the region. But even these initiatives have not been as substantive as many Asian countries may have hoped. Indonesia’s Coordinating Minister of Economic Affairs, Airlangga Hartarto, says these countries are merely asking for “equitable and comprehensive agreements which recognise the true potential of all parties.”

The potential for the UK is obvious. With over 270m people, already in the world’s top 10 largest economies, and current chair of the G20, Indonesia cannot be considered small fry by any government. It is an example of a country that should be a key piece of post-Brexit, Global Britain strategy.

Other major players in the region like the Philippines – where a new President looks set to actively pursue international engagement – Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam could also be vitally important for the UK. Equally, relations with ASEAN itself need to be expanded beyond Britain merely being a “Dialogue Partner”.

More concrete economic commitments and security partnerships, along with a more active information policy, must be at the heart of revitalised engagement if countries in Asia, and indeed elsewhere, are to take the UK seriously as a worthwhile international partner.

The importance of the Indo-Pacific, as outlined by the Integrated Review, in terms of the wider Global Britain vision is clear. Outside of its economic value (as a key market for British exports and a key supplier of British imports) there are other issues that loom large – climate change, defence, cyber security, democratic values, counter-extremism.

The leading role that Britain has taken in supporting Ukraine is an example that needs emphasis in other theatres.

Continuing along the generally slow path that it currently treads with regards to its Indo-Pacific engagement does nothing for its Global Britain credentials. The enormous post-2009 opportunity to assist and exert real influence in a country such as Sri Lanka lapsed into an unwelcome and often misconceived human rights critique. The disappointing results from failure to wean India from her over-reliance on Russia are clear from recent UN votes. The countries of South-East Asia and several Commonwealth countries are increasingly under the shadow of China, the primary trading partner for many of them.

Domestic political crises, the unhelpful attitude of some EU members, and the Ukraine conflict seem to leave little bandwidth for pursuit of vital British economic and foreign policy aims that would also greatly help the countries concerned. This is in spite of the British Foreign Secretary’s efforts. The “Indo-Pacific tilt” remains very much in the balance.

If Global Britain is to be anything more than a slogan, then there needs to be a more pragmatic, hard-headed and proactive approach to enhancing relationships in a crucial region of the world.

Geoffrey Van Orden is a Distinguished Fellow of the Gold Institute for International Strategy. He was formerly a long-standing member of the European Parliament, where he was Conservative Leader and Defence and Security Spokesman, Chairman of the Delegation for Relations with India and member of the Parliament’s Friends of Indonesia group.

By Derk Jan Eppink, Distinguished Fellow (Member of the Parliament of the Netherlands (JA21-ECR), formerly an MEP and a journalist)

Seth Cropsey, a former U.S. top military officer, published his vision on the war in Ukraine in The Wall Street Journal on 27 April, writing: “The U.S. should show it can win a nuclear war.” However, what does “winning” mean in case of a conflict with a nuclear power s prepared to deploy nuclear weapons? The war in Ukraine is increasingly turning into a war between Russia and the United States, albeit on Ukrainian soil. A war by proxy.

On 9 May, Russia celebrated its victory over Nazi Germany with a large parade on the Red Square in Moscow, showcasing Russian nuclear weapons, as a big warning to foreign countries. This includes the Sarmat, Russia’s most modern intercontinental missile.

For a long time after the Cold War had ended, the West saw such parades as empty displays of power. For decades, the United States, the Soviet Union and Europe have been discussing controlling their nuclear weapons: from the SALT I and II Treaties, to START and New START. Over the years, that discussion died down, but the nuclear weapons remained, as they were also modernised in the meantime. Today, a generation of politicians that did not consciously experience the Cold War, with political leaders for whom a nuclear conflict is akin to a Hollywood film, is in charge.

Nuclear power as life insurance

Already in 1957, in his book Nuclear Weapons and Foreign Policy, Henry Kissinger described the essence of a conflict with a nuclear power. He stated that a country with nuclear weapons will not capitulate without first having used them. This makes a conflict with a nuclear power by definition different from a conflict with a country without nuclear weapons. For the regime in North Korea, for example, and soon perhaps Iran as well, nuclear power is a kind of life insurance. That certainly applies to the Kremlin.

The war in Ukraine requires that politicians who talk about ‘winning’ – like the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, – gain more insight into Russian nuclear doctrine, which is a legacy from Soviet times. Russian military thinking is based on power and huge explosions with the most powerful guns or bombs, like the hydrogen bomb (nicknamed the Tsar Bomb). Here, destruction comes before precision. This nineteenth-century pattern of warfare was visible during the Tsarist Empire as well as the Soviet era and it can be witnessed today under President Vladimir Putin.

Russia’s status is based on its nuclear power

Russia’s status as a great power is not based on its economy – Russia’s gross national product is about the size of the countries forming the Benelux. Russia’s status is founded on its nuclear power, which rivals the nuclear potential of the United States. In 1982, the Soviet Union made a «no first use declaration»: Moscow would not be the first to deploy nuclear weapons. This promise was made during the discussion about placing American medium-range missiles in Western Europe. This helped the peace movement. It should however be recalled that at that point, the Soviet Union had already stationed SS-20 missiles itself.

After the collapse of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s, Russia abandoned its no-first-use policy, in 1993, and it introduced the strategy of preventive nuclear attack. This involves Russia reserving itself the right to strike first as soon as it faces a nuclear threat. This definition has been increasingly broadened. When the nuclear doctrine was redefined in 2010, it also included a conventional attack threathening the survival of the Russian state and its institutions. In 2020, the doctrine was strengthened further. It now also applies to a conventional attack on military bases in Russia, after which Moscow will use tactical nuclear weapons to deter the attacker. This policy is called «escalate to de-escalate» and it applies in the current war with Ukraine.

A thin dividing line of what constitutes «war»

Today, we find ourselves on a thin dividing line of what constitutes «war». The West, in particular the United States, is supplying more and more valuable military equipment to Ukraine. Initially, the arms deliveries were intended to repel the Russian attack, which partly worked.

The question is whether the supply of modern weapons is helping Ukraine or whether it is fuelling the conflict.

Another question is whether Russia, with its tactical nuclear weapons, is in the process of moving to “escalation” in a bid to de-escalate. We are, as it were, slipping imperceptibly into the nuclear phase.

That is a major change in the nature of the conflict.

Politicians without a memory of the Cold War will not hear the alarm bells. Then the battle is no longer about

Ukraine’s sovereignty, which should be the objective, but about the competitive struggle between two nuclear powers.

The command to deploy nuclear weapons is riskier in Russia today than it was during Soviet times.

During the Cuban crisis in 1962, the explosive character of Soviet Party leader Nikita Khrushchev did not seem the best guarantee for a controlled nuclear policy. Fortunately, a hotline was installed: a direct line of communication between the White House and the Kremlin. Under Leonid Brezhnev, who took office in 1964, collective leadership was installed, with more power for the Politburo. Secretary-General Brezhnev was a ruler, but not an autocrat. Putin is a de facto autocrat. Power does emerge from the party, but from the person. The ultimate decision power belongs to him.

A stalemate is needed for a way out of the conflict

The way out of the conflict in Ukraine must be found through negotiations. For that, a stalemate is needed, so that none of the parties has anything to gain. Continuing a war of attrition does not yield anything. Only then will there by a step from the battlefield to the negotiation table.

There, a route to the exit can be found, with questions like: «What should be on the agenda», «what are the goals of each party», and «what room is there for agreements?» With a final compromise, there would be some ‘wins and lose’ for each party. Nobody would be the big ‘winner’.

However, those recklessly pushing for nuclear war will make everyone a loser.

Originally published in Dutch by Elsevier Weekblad