First actual posting here on the new MT blog. Parallel paths diverge here.

Thanks Dean!

I just logged into Blogger, and find the new interface. Of course, I was just going to post that I will be doing some migration work over to MT, so I won't get all that much practice with it. One thing that is missing is the "Archives" button, which is where you go to fix the permalink problem. Maybe that will be fixed, too? Dunno. Day late and a dollar short.

Adam Ant arrested (link via Drudge):

LONDON (Reuters) - Former British pop star Adam Ant has been arrested after apparently running amok and stripping off in a London cafe.

Police said on Thursday they had arrested a 49-year-old man on suspicion of criminal damage, while The Sun newspaper showed pictures of the former 1980s heartthrob being held by two burly policemen, a blanket wrapped around his waist.

Reuters misses the chance for the big punchline:

Ant's career saw him selling 15 million records, including punk-pop hits like "Prince Charming" and "Stand and Deliver." Police said he had been released on bail until mid-July.

They missed this album:

Phil Carter has a new post on the retirement of GEN Shinseki. In it, he writes:

Always the consummate diplomat, he does not explicitly blame Rumsfeld for the problems in Iraq, or castigate him for plans to cut the Army's size.

I think this is gets it wrong. Shinseki is not just being diplomatic - he certainly takes a swipe at the civilian leadership. He doesn't castigate Rumsfeld for plans to cut the Army's size because they don't exist. Early on in his tenure, he discussed it as an option, but even prior to September 11th, that was off the table. And quite clearly, with the ongoing war on terror, it is a non-starter now. The Defense Department prepares a 5 year Future Years Defense Plan (FYDP). The CBO reports (in a report that questions cost projections) that:

As a consequence, the Administration plans to initiate or increase funding for programs such as space-based radar satellites, unmanned combat air vehicles, unmanned reconnaissance aircraft, small surface combatants for the Navy, advanced-technology combat vehicles for the Army, and precision munitions. Nevertheless, the Administration's 2003 plans would continue to fund nearly all of the major acquisition programs inherited from the Clinton Administration (except the Army's Crusader self-propelled howitzer program, which was terminated). And the 2003 FYDP incorporates no significant changes over the next five years to the military's force structure--the number and composition of Army divisions, Air Force tactical fighter wings, Marine Corps expeditionary brigades, Navy carrier battle groups, and so forth.

Emphasis mine. In other words, there is no plan by Rumsfeld or the DoD to cut the size of the Army.

As for the "problems" in Iraq, again, it isn't diplomacy. Rumsfeld didn't cause the problems in Iraq - Saddam Hussein did. And some of the "problems" simply don't exist - like the now debunked "looting" of the Iraqi National Museum that Carter cites in his article in the Washington Monthly. The force structure that is there and will be required there is not closer to Shinseki's prediction than to Rumsfeld's. We have 120,000 or so troops there now. That is not "several hundred thousand." The SecDef had said that he hoped to get the force down to 70,000 by September. We are not likely to put "several hundred thousand" troops there because we simply don't have them.

Rumsfeld is criticized on both ends, here. One, for not having enough troops in Iraq, and two, for having too many. Donald Sensing picks up on it, and so does Steven den Beste.

The point that everyone is making is that we are "overcommitted." There are two ways to address that - first, you can increase resources, second, you can reduce commitments. Increasing resources is just not likely to happen. The size of the services is capped by law. Even with an ongoing war, the American people will not support the massive increases in spending standing up a couple more divisions would cost. Listen to the tax cut rhetoric. The argument is never made that taxes are cut at the expense of further national defense needs. They are cut at the expense of the children, or granny's drugs. Activating a couple of Reserve/Guard divisions is less costly, but there are already some 70,000 or so guard and reservists activated, and have been for a while. Activating entire divisions will be a very hard sell to the American people. A lot of military like to think that Viet Nam was lost by Walter Cronkite's reporting on Tet - they forget that there was significant ill will generated by the Joint Chiefs demanding a 270,000 troop activation in its aftermath.

So the Administration is working the other end. We have static and dynamic commitments in the world. Among the static commitments are leftovers from the Cold War in Europe and Asia. We have troops essentially pinned down in Germany and Korea and Japan. Moving the troops in Korea doesn't just teach South Korea a lesson, it makes them available for rotations or missions elsewhere.

There are hard realities out there. That's why Rummy is the right person at the right place at the right time - his age and wealth make him immune, relatively, to the criticism someone asking people to do something difficult will receive. Again, the Army needs to get on board, or they will make themselves as irrelevant as they fear they are becoming. GEN Shinseki was intransigent on the force needed for Afghanistan. As a result, Marines operated the ground bases in a landlocked country during the war there.

Baby Blaster turned 2 yesterday. One thing he got for his birthday was some kind of stomach flu. The fever just broke. So he's eating Goldfish and watching Courage the Cowardly Dog. And I'm blogging.

Terrorism bad.

Killing terrorists good.

I hate RealPolitik.

Rumsfeld, with his glasses and Brylcream, bears some resemblance to Robert McNamara. Vietnam era officers hate McNamara, deservedly so. Some think of his deputies like Wolfowitz as "Whiz Kids," and think he is trying corporate management techniques for efficiency out on the military establishment. Of course, this ignores the fact that he has held this job before, 1975-77, which would have been a very turbulent time for the Department.

Phil Carter notes that the new Chief of Staff of the Army is a retired general, and comments on what that means. (link via Instapundit) He writes in his analysis:

I think this sends a very loud message from the Eisenhower Corridor (where Rumsfeld's office sits in the Pentagon) to the Army's leadership. The SecDef couldn't find his man in the Army, so he had to reach into the pool of retired officers for his man. Not only that, he didn't like any of the "establishment" Army generals from the infantry or armor branches, so he chose one from the special operations community -- the antithesis of an "establishment" general.

Yes, it is a loud message indeed. Full disclosure - I really like Secretary Rumsfeld - not just the one inside the Matrix of Frank J's mind - but the "real world" one. I like him because he talks tough and backs it up. An old guy with a gazillion bucks in the bank who doesn't have anything to prove - the perfect person for a nearly impossible political job. That nearly impossible job is now called "transformation," and used to be called RMA - revolution in military affairs.

It seems like 100 years ago, but I recall speculation in the Washington Post and on NPR about whether Rumsfeld would be the first of the Bush cabinet secretaries to go - this was August and September of 2001. He was rubbing the Joint Chiefs the wrong way, and they, and the longtime civilians looked at him with a "this too shall pass" point of view. I think it is true, I'd have to go look in the Washington Post archives (which costs money!), but the front page had a story on Rumsfeld's troubles with the Joint Chiefs on 9/11. Of course, all of that went by the wayside as he became a celebrity with the Washington press corps. It resurfaced in the buildup for Iraq, with the argument that the Secretary was not listening to the Joint Chiefs, and then during the war during those few days when the quagmire flag went up. And now in the occupation phase.

But really looking at it, the disagreements have not been with the Joint Chiefs, but with one Chief - the Chief of Staff of the Army, GEN Shinseki. Other criticisms for Rumsfeld came from retired Army generals Wesley Clark and Barry McCaffery. Recently, former Secretary of the Army White (former because he was asked to resign by Secretary Rumsfeld) was critical, too. There is some question of whether there was political or other motivation in those attacks - Jed Babbin had a piece on NRO about that in March. I also read an article a while back that I have to dig up about how GEN Shinseki, one of the champions of transformation in the Army became the strongest defender of status quo against Secretary Rumsfeld. An interesting side battle in all of that - Shinseki has proposed that the Army have more Stryker brigades, units armed with lighter, wheeled vehicles, and Rumsfeld wants to kill Stryker.

But the point remains - the major contention is not between Rumsfeld and "the military," but Rumsfeld and the Army.

Appointing a retired general to be the new Chief of Staff is a real shakeup for the Army, but injures less egos than jumping someone up in rank. It doesn't mean that noone in the active Army could fill the bill, but certainly noone at the 4 star level could. (Another aside - Phil Carter makes note of bypassing "establishment" officers. While it is true that the big critics of Rumsfeld - Shinseki,Clark, McCaffery, and White - are all West Point graduates, and were infantry or armor officers, and Schoomaker was an ROTC graduate from the Special Operatiosn world, the establishment is in mindset, not where they come from. President Clinton selected GEN Hugh Shelton to be the Chairman of the JCS, and he was an ROTC officer from Special Operations. Of course, he was not Chief of Staff of the Army.)

The Army is being given a message - get on board on transformation. The Army is an institution of traditions. It is also a huge bureaucracy. There is significant resistance to change of any type in the Army - for example, GEN Shinseki changed the Army hat from a camouflage cap to a black beret. This took months, and was the target of thousands of letters to editors, the ire of the Ranger Association, and even Congressional hearings. That was just to change a hat.

Changing the face of warfare itself is going to be somewhat harder. Some say that air power is the primary method of winning a war now - like former Air Force Chief of Staff GEN Merrill McPeak in an oped in the Washington Post. He writes:

Nevertheless, the coming flood of "lessons learned" will focus on a stale issue: Can advanced (principally aerospace) technology substitute for large, heavy ground combat forces? That matter is settled. Because air warfare is so plainly the centerpiece of modern combat, it would be far more productive to figure out how to fight it better.

This represents a threat to the Army that Hussein couldn't muster. Air power subsituted for large, heavy ground combat forces. That would wipe out whole divisions. Of course, McPeak is retired, and he doesn't calculate what it takes to patrol the streets after the war. And there is no indication that Rumsfeld thinks the way McPeak does. But a lot of Army people fear that he does. Because the programs he has killed or wants to kill - Crusader and Stryker - are Army programs. The Air Force and Navy have not had high profile programs eliminated.

But what the Army folks are missing is that transformation has already made massive changes to the way the Air Force and Navy operate. The Air Force for a long time was accused of not wanting to do ground support because it wasn't as "sexy" as flying the cool supersonic jets. But all of the cool supersonic jets now fly ground support missions - F15's and F16's, and even B1 and B2 bombers. Even the old B52 is available to the grunt on the ground. Not to mention their acceptance of not only unmanned aircraft but armed unmanned aircraft. The Navy, too, puts Top Gun F14's and F18's in ground support roles, and fast attack submarines no longer hunt Russian subs but launch cruise missiles at tactical targets.

This is a huge philosophical change for those services. The Army has yet to internalize that same level of change. It took months and months to change a hat - "transformation" will take years and years. The Army cannot keep dragging its feet. That is the message that Rumsfeld is sending. Even McPeak understands the challenge, though. His last line was:

Memo to Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld: Good luck with "transformation."

Yes, good luck. And I hope the Army gets the message.

I am pretty sure I am going to move this blog off of Blog*spot and onto a MT powered site - at the urging of Dean Esmay, and the performance of Blogger and Blog*Spot together. Now the key is picking a domain name to go along - blastersblog.com is available, but it seems that noone, noone, puts "blog" in the name of their blog. So my other thought is "overpressure.com," which I like a lot, and goes with my theme.

What do you think?

UPDATE: Blogger sez: Error 203:java.lang.NumberFormatException: (server:page) That cinches it.

ANOTHER UPDATE: OVERPRESSURE.COM it is!

Yesterday Virginia had a primary. Where I live, there was only a Republican primary - the Democratic incumbents had no challengers. There were 3 offices to vote for a candidate, and only one of the contests had I heard anything about beyond yard signs. So I just guessed on the other two. When I came home, I looked them up, and I voted for the people I would have if I had put a little more study into it. I guess my only consolation if I had voted for David Duke or something would be that there is no way that a Republican would win in this district.

We make a big deal about our democracy, and I consider myself politically engaged. But I just when in and winged that one. I bet that is how most people do it (I looked it up, and only 2600 people voted, and only 250 or so in my precinct.) When you think about it, that's pretty scary.

This is from the NYT, so Lord knows if it is actually true or not, but:

Senator Larry E. Craig of Idaho is blocking the promotions of more than 850 Air Force officers, including young pilots who fought in Iraq and the general nominated to bail out the scandal-plagued United States Air Force Academy, in a rare clash between the Pentagon and a senior Republican lawmaker.

Mr. Craig's price to free the frozen promotions now awaiting final Senate approval? Four C-130 cargo planes for the Idaho Air National Guard.

I am not entirely sure how that is possible. General officers need approval by the Senate, so I am not sure how he can stop the promotions of "young officers." But if its true, this guy is just a moron. Maybe someone should unleash McCain on him.