Turkey is upset about the resolutions in the United States and Sweden regarding the alleged Armenian Genocide. Logical reaction from Turkey? Threaten to deport 100,000+ Armenians because it worked out so well the first time and all.

“There are currently 170,000 Armenians living in our country. Only 70,000 of them are Turkish citizens, but we are tolerating the remaining 100,000. If necessary, I may have to tell these 100,000 to go back to their country because they are not my citizens. I don’t have to keep them in my country.”

Turkey will always be haunted by the fact that Turks “settled” land that has been occupied for thousands of years by many other peoples with various religions. Worse still for the Turks, they are still around and the Turks are in complete denial about it. In some ways, their problem is similar to Israel where the very identity of their state is inseparable from ethnicity (and in some ways religion) and yet a big percentage of the population in territory under their control is not only foreign, but was there first. They haven’t made much progress thus far and its very uncertain as to when or if they ever will.

Got this from a friend who deals with North Korea. Not in English but perhaps readers can identify the origin and meaning of it. Nevertheless quite funny!

With all the childish diplomacy going around between the US and Israel, which is seemingly all that’s employing many of the buffoonish commentators from both sides whose chatter and reading of the diplomatic tea leaves would put high school gossip to shame, one amusing statement out of the State Department caught my eye.

Israel remains a strategic ally of the United States, the US State Department reaffirmed Monday amid a dispute over Israeli plans to build settler homes in east Jerusalem

What does that even mean anyway?

How does an alliance with Israel help the United States achieve its strategic objectives today. I’m not talking about any ethnic, cultural or political ties we may share. Israel is just a country like any other and a country with serious baggage at that. Moreover, nowadays, everything seems to be “Strategic.” Everyone is a major or strategic ally and every problem (flavor of the month Yemen) is of strategic importance.

If Israel is really a strategic ally, then let’s first look at our National Security Strategy and its goals:

It is the policy of the United States to seek and support democratic movements and institutions in every nation and culture, with the ultimate goal of ending tyranny in our world. In the world today, the fundamental character of regimes matters as much as the distribution of power among them. The goal of our statecraft is to help create a world of democratic, well-governed states that can meet the needs of their citizens and conduct themselves responsibly in the international system. This is the best way to provide enduring security for the American people.

So how are we to acheive these goals (for better or worse)?

1) Champion aspirations for human dignity;
2) Strengthen alliances to defeat global terrorism and work to prevent attacks against us and our friends;
3) Work with others to defuse regional conflicts;
4) Prevent our enemies from threatening us, our allies, and our friends with weapons of mass destruction (WMD);
5) Ignite a new era of global economic growth through free markets and free trade;
6) Expand the circle of development by opening societies and building the infrastructure of democracy;
7) Develop agendas for cooperative action with other main centers of global power;
8) Transform America’s national security institutions to meet the challenges and opportunities of the 21st century; and
9) Engage the opportunities and confront the challenges of globalization.

Does giving Israel over a billion dollars a year and pretending to be angry when they disobey us really get us closer to those goals? Moreover, we must decide whether our perception of achieving those goals is more important than the perception of others. Logically, given that the goals are international and involve making positive changes in other parts of the world, I would argue that the perception of others is more important, based solely on those stated goals (not whether I agree with them). So let’s check that list again. Does an alliance with Israel help us achieve these strategic goals?

1) Nope.
2) Yes and No.
3) No.
4) Partially?
5) Irrelevant.
6) Irrelevant.
7) No.
8) Irrelevant.
9) ? A vague goal in general.

Of course, I admit and agree there are other reasons for our relationship with Israel, and that policy is not made in such purely logical manner. However, I think it’s time for the US to realize that Israel is more of a liability to us rather than an asset, not to mention a large recipient of government welfare. If we want Israel to be a strategic ally, then we need to adopt policies that truly force them to help us achieve our goals instead of acquiescing to actions that harm US goals and interests.

Building on my recent post about self-sufficiency and reliance for individual security , I’d like to begin laying out a proposal for the US adopting small decentralized solutions to the problem of border security. This is not so dissimilar from what the US is attempting in Afghanistan.

The Problems:

• The United States government is either unwilling or unable to adequately patrol and secure the nation’s borders.


• A large number of Americans feel that their wish for a secure and better patrolled border is not being met.


• Insecure borders allow easy infiltration of illegal immigrants, organized crime, and terrorists into the United States. It also increases the ease of the smuggling and trafficking of drugs, weapons and people.

The Reaction

• A proliferation of self-organized groups like the Minutemen.


• This has led to:
  

  • Government, media and left wing hysteria that ordinary people would take responsibility for their country into their own hands.
  
  
  • Potential problems and miscommunication with law enforcement.
  
  
  • Potential legal questions.
  
  

Solution:

The solution to this problem is neither more CBP people, bigger government or more centralization. In fact these are surefire ways to make matters worse. The solution lies in harnessing the sizeable numbers of citizens who are willing to volunteer their time, effort, and even assume some risk in order to protect their communities and country. Moreover, the militia, as meant in the Bill of Rights (every adult male with a firearm) has been called up before and in recent history. During WWII, the militia was called up on the West Coast in 1942 to guard against Japanese landings and I believe on the East Coast against German ones but cant find a link on that at the moment.

Read the rest here.

Breaking news, American born AQ member Adam Gadahn caught:

KARACHI, Pakistan – The American-born spokesman for al-Qaida has been arrested by Pakistani intelligence officers in the southern city of Karachi, two officers and a government official said Sunday as video emerged of him urging U.S. Muslims to attack their own country.

The arrest of Adam Gadahn is a major victory in the U.S.-led battle against al-Qaida and will be taken as a sign that Pakistan, criticized in the past for being an untrustworthy ally, is cooperating more fully with Washington. It follows the recent detentions of several Afghan Taliban commanders in Karachi, including the movement’s No. 2 commander.

This is a major victory on top of the string of successful strikes and arrests of AQ and Taliban leaders in Pakistan. The real question we’ll start asking is, since he at least was an American citizen, how he will be treated? POW, enemy combatant, criminal? This debate is going to be started all over again. Considering we’ve intentionally targeted him with UAV strikes in the past, my assumption is he will not be treated as an American citizen, especially since he has publicly renounced his citizenship which makes him legally stateless.

Apparently not. Seems nobody is sure at the moment.

Over the past year and a half, readers have surely noticed two trends in my blogging. Firstly, the frequency has decreased compared to when I lived in Germany. Second, my interests are shifting from 90% foreign policy 10% domestic to a more even balance. Moreover, my lack of travel prospects for the near future make domestic issues that much more important to me and they affect my every day life.

My interests in political identity/loyalty, organization, small government and resilient communities are focusing my time and thinking on topics less relevant to Coming Anarchy. So what does this mean?

I’m officially downgrading my status to part-time CA blogger. basically just making ‘official’ what’s already the case. However, I’m starting a new blog, Rethinking the United States where I’ll focus on the domestic stuff. My foreign policy, travel and security related posts will still go there and I’ll crosspost anything else of relevance. I invite you to subscribe and hopefully participate in the discussions. The address is

Several days ago, US Vice President Joe Biden gave a speech at the National Defense University outlining the current administration’s arms control agenda. It included pushing for US ratification of the CTBT, the ongoing START talks with Russia and reducing the US nuclear arsenal. While we could discuss all three of these issues at length, I’d like to first concentrate on the idea of ‘getting to zero’ and reducing America’s nuclear capability.

The Vice President (as others) noted that

“We have long relied on nuclear weapons to deter potential adversaries. Now, as our technology improves, we are developing non-nuclear ways to accomplish that same objective.”

Non-nuclear weapons development includes the administration’s plan for an “adaptive” missile-defense shield and conventional warheads “with worldwide reach,” he said. “With these modern capabilities, even with deep nuclear reductions, we will remain undeniably strong,” Mr. Biden said.

The idea of replacing some nuclear weapons with conventional capabilities is not new. The argument is that the increasing destructive power of modern conventional weapons combined with the ability of the United States to ‘reach out and touch someone’ anywhere on the globe in a minutes or hours can play the same deterrent role as nuclear weapons currently do.

In order to break down this argument, I’d like to make two things clear. Firstly, the goal of our current nuclear force posture is to deter adversaries from attacking us and our allies. Secondly, the means to accomplish this is not and should not be the focus of discussion but instead the end. What do I mean? Many people focus on the weapons themselves, i.e. nuclear weapons, but as Biden notes, if conventional capabilities can fulfil the same function (i.e. survive a first strike and destroy enemy targets with high certainty), then they can be substituted for nuclear weapons. In short, how we do it doesn’t matter. The key thing is the destruction of enemy targets with high certainty. The fact that we use nuclear weapons for this purpose is a reflection only of the fact that they are the best suited weapon available for this task today.

However, there are very serious problems with the idea of replacing nuclear with conventional weapons.

If we accept the proposition that today, or sometime in the future, conventional weapons will be on par with nuclear weapons in terms of their deterrent capability, then several logical conclusions must follow:

1) These conventional weapons would be just as dangerous as nuclear weapons. Therefore replacing one with the other makes no substantive difference. Moreover, it would require time, money and effort to do this all with no gain.

2) If conventional weapons are used in the future in the same role as nuclear weapons today, they could invite a nuclear response from adversaries whose conventional capabilities do not match our own. This would be possible also in smaller conflicts because an enemy could then never be sure what weapons were employed since both nuclear and conventional are equall bad. It would lead to escalation at a much higher pace.

3) Having more conventional weapons in the US deterrent may lower the threshold for use.This may encourage a first strike by us or others.

4) If conventional and nuclear weapons are ever equal, they will be sought after by other states just as nuclear weapons are. This leaves us in the same situation as today. However, if the conventional capability is more expensive or difficult to achieve than nuclear weapons (which is older technology now), it will actually encourage the proliferation of nuclear weapons.

5) If these conventional weapons are indeed equal, it means countries will be able to acquire destructive power equal to nuclear weapons, but WITHIN the legal framework Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). This will lead to the irrelevance and death of the most important and successful nonproliferation regime the world has.

6) If conventional weapons can equal nuclear ones, they will require the same types of arms control agreements and nonproliferation agreements as nuclear weapons.

7) Replacing nuclear weapons with equally capable conventional weapons is a cosmetic change which does nothing to address the underlying nature of the international system which makes deterrence necessary in the first place. It’s a change in form, not substance.

Readers, I’d appreciate any thoughts, criticisms and comments you have on this.

France, unlike other European countries, seems to be willing to draw clear lines regarding what citizenship and French values mean, and to deny it without concern over leftist or politically correct criticism. A recent case:

The French government has refused to grant citizenship to a foreign national on the grounds that he forced his wife to wear the full Islamic veil. The man, whose current nationality was not given, needed citizenship to settle in the country with his French wife.

But Immigration Minister Eric Besson said this was being refused because he was depriving his wife of the liberty to come and go with her face uncovered. Last week, a parliamentary committee proposed a partial ban on full veils. It also recommended that anyone showing visible signs of “radical religious practice” be refused residence permits and citizenship.

I salute France in standing up for its values. No foreigner has a right to citizenship or even residence and twisted ideas of about fairness, political correctness and tolerance have led countries to act against their own interest by allowing in those who do not share even the most fundamental values of the land. For particularly sick examples see the Netherlands and Great Britain.

As immigration from the developing countries to industrialized countries continues to grow, and communication and transportation technology increases the movement of people across national borders, the question of the value and meaning of citizenship is something that must be raised again. If citizenship boils down to birth location or having the correct paperwork, then it is meaningless. Readers, what does citizenship mean today, particularly in a time of multiple loyalties?

There has been yet another IED attack in Russia on the rail system. After Afghanistan and Iraq, Russia is one of the ‘hottest’ place for IED attacks and yet many go unreported in the mainstream news. Most target critical infrastructure such as oil and gas pipelines or transportation.

My immediate thought is whether the future of Russia may one day look like Nigeria. With dozens of ethnic groups, religions and a history of separatism and Islamic extremism it’s not unthinkable. Combine that with the country’s increasing reliance on its oil and gas industries for both economic and political power, and key elements are there for such a campaign.

Via Bruce Schneier. Watch and wait for it.