Recessional

Caption: Kipling –

 

Bullet Points:

** There was a discussion of the British naming their cannon rounds CRAP the other day.  For those of us who worked with our French Parachute Infantry colleagues, there was more than enough CRAP to go around. I write of the Commandos de Recherche et d’Action en Profondeur teams, who endured snickers and collegial ribbing from their English-speaking counterparts. Eventually, in 1997, CRAP changed its name to avoid the drama the former acronym unfailingly raised. The Commandos de Recherche et d’Action en Profondeur (Long-Range Search and Action Commandos) are now known as the “Groupement de Commandos Parachutistes” (Parachute Commando Group), with the innocuous initials GCP. Unit members generally operate in small groups deep behind enemy lines and cross-train with the US Navy’s SEAL Teams, with Delta, British and Australian Special Air Service, and other allied special forces. They earned foreign jump wings training with us, and we earned French wings jumping in Corsica. It’s one of those reciprocal things that everyone wants to do. There are never too many foreign jump wing qualifications or gongs to be collected. Yeah, a lot like North Korean generals.

** The British Empire, which began with overseas possessions and trading posts established by England in the late 16th and early 17th centuries, grew to become the largest empire in history by the 19th and early 20th centuries. At its peak, the British Empire covered approximately 35.5 million square kilometers (13.7 million square miles), about six times larger than the Roman Empire at its height. This vast expanse included dominions, colonies, protectorates, mandates, and other territories ruled or administered by the United Kingdom. The empire’s reach was so extensive that it was often said, “The Sun never sets on the British Empire,” as the Sun was always shining on at least one of its territories.

By 1921, the British Empire had brought nearly a quarter of the world’s population under its rule, with one in every four people living within its territories. This immense population included diverse cultures, languages, and religions, contributing to the empire’s rich and complex legacy. The British Empire’s influence extended beyond mere territorial control; it shaped global trade, politics, and culture, leaving a lasting impact on the world. The legacy of the British Empire is still evident today in the widespread use of the English language, legal systems, and cultural practices across former colonies.

It’s shrunk back today, and Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland want to go their own way. Only England remains, a shell of her former self but woke—you can say that for the English. They’re exceptionally woke and so completely broke that even the USA wouldn’t want to assume their debt and take them on as a colony. The only thing they have left is Jules Jewels. That’s something. (see below)

** Elena stepped lightly through the meadow, the hem of her dress brushing against the damp grass. The morning sun had not yet burned away the silver mist that clung to the earth, and the air smelled cool soil. She closed her eyes and listened to the breeze shifting through the budding trees. Now came the hum of insects stirring from their winter rest and the distant warble of a blackbird tuning its song.

Elena knelt by a cluster of wildflowers, their petals trembling like tiny dancers. Fresh and delicate pink pastels swayed together in harmony, all framed by the lush green of young grass. A new season was beginning, and the earth exhaled in color.

Elena reached into her satchel, pulling out her worn sketchbook and a soft pencil. Her fingers traced the curves of each bloom, catching the gentle arc of a stem bowing beneath the weight of a dewdrop. She had always believed flowers held music within them, an unseen melody woven into their fragility. If she could capture it she’d find a way to hold onto this fleeting moment forever.

The world around her faded as she worked her hand over the pad. The lines she drew seemed to pop when filled with watercolor wash, echoing the softness of spring’s arrival. With each brushstroke, she felt something lift within. Elena smiled. Some people heard music in grand orchestras, in the swell of a piano’s keys, or the rush of violins. But here in this quiet meadow amidst the first wildflowers of spring, she had found her symphony.

Prints available here 

** (Alligator tears) Radical leftist Joy Reid melted down in a deluge of tears as she spoke out after losing her MSNBC show and departure from the network. Reid posted a video of herself crying while addressing the cancellation of a show nobody watched. She spent the first few moments struggling to regain her composure before narcissistically congratulating herself. I won’t post photos of the bald negro lady responsible for such vial conduct.

** Wisconsin Democratic governor proposes replacing ‘mother’ with ‘inseminated person‘ in state law source: Fox News #Wisconsin #ExecutiveOrder #Motherhoodhttps://share.newsbreak.com/bouo3xvx Democrats, keep reaching for and obtaining newer levels of stupidity. This is just another way of demeaning women in their continuing war against mothers.

** The media campaigned to keep Democrats in charge and to keep government workers home forever—remember that a Biden bureaucrat tried to give thousands of employees a stay-at-home order for another five years because of the ongoing threat of COVID—but now that Trump is in charge, they are supposedly sympathetic to the people running small businesses, who will also be affected.

 

How Much is Too Much?

Niall Ferguson: “Economists have long sought in vain a threshold that defines how much debt is too much. My formulation of Adam Ferguson’s idea focuses on the crucial historical relationship between debt service (interest plus the repayment of principal) and national security (expenditure on defense, including investment in research and development).

The crucial threshold is the point where debt service exceeds defense spending. After this point, the centripetal forces of the aggregate debt burden tend to pull apart a great power’s geopolitical grip, leaving it vulnerable to military challenge.

The striking thing is that the U.S. began violating Ferguson’s Law last year for the first time in nearly a century.

Annual defense spending—to be precise, national defense consumption expenditures and gross investment—was $1.107 trillion in 2024, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA), while federal spending on interest payments (the government long ago gave up on paying down principal) topped out at $1.124 trillion.

These outlays can also be expressed as percentages of gross domestic product. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO), which uses a narrower definition of defense spending than the BEA, places it at 2.9% of GDP for last year. Net interest payments (adjusting for the interest received by bonds held by government agencies) amounted to 3.1%.

We have seen nothing like this since the era of isolationism. Between 1962 and 1989, U.S. defense spending averaged 6.4% of GDP; debt service was less than a third at 1.8%. Even after the end of the Cold War, the federal government was still spending, on average, roughly twice as much on national security as on debt interest. The fact that the U.S. is currently projected to spend a rising share of its GDP on interest payments and a falling share on defense means that American power is much more fiscally constrained than most people realize.

By 2049, according to the CBO’s latest long-term budget projection, net interest payments on the federal debt will have risen to 4.9% of GDP. If defense spending maintains its recent share of discretionary spending, it will amount to half that share of GDP.”

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Syria and Environs

Strategypage—h/t Claudio—Claudio sent me this article. I’ll print it for you below and then comment on it because I’ve been running around in that part of the world.

After ruling Syria for over 50 years, the Assad clan was overthrown in early December by Abu Mohammed al-Golani, who led a force of several thousand armed men and quickly conquered most of Syria in a few days. He left alone the Kurdish-held areas, which insist only on some degree of to-be-negotiated local autonomy. The Syrian Kurds remain peaceful and are waiting for Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham or HTS to make them an offer. (More on this below)

Kurdish-led forces were pivotal in defeating ISIS/Islamic State of Iraq and Syria back in 2019 and have continued to guard detention centers holding ISIS fighters and their families. The Democratic Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria, also known as Rojava, is the only part of Syria where Sharia councils have been abolished, and religion is a personal choice. Since 2012, Rojava has been home to around two million Kurds, alongside other minority groups, including some Arabs.

Turkey has been waiting in the wings for an opportunity to annihilate Rojava. For years, the Turkish government has insisted that there is no difference between ISIS and the Kurdish self-governance system of Rojava. Both are seen as terrorist threats to Turkish national security.

Aside from the departed Assads, Iran and possibly Russia are the other big losers. The Russians occupy an airbase and port in western Syria. Since the 1980s, Iran has spent nearly $20 billion to establish and maintain a presence in Syria and Lebanon. Now that is all gone. The losses include weapons factories and air defense systems.

The Assads ended up in Russia because they ignored what was going on in their northwestern Idlib province. The Islamic terrorist group HTS had quietly evolved into an army of disciplined soldiers under the command of former Islamic terrorist Abu Muhammad Al-Golani. Most of Syria’s surviving Islamic terrorists, anti-Assad rebels, and their families had held out in Idlib for almost ten years. Efforts by the Turks, who had to feed millions of Syrian refugees in Turkey, to get HTS, the dominant Islamic terrorist coalition in the province, to cooperate with the Turks failed. Turkey finally proposed that HTS work with Turkey-backed Syrian militias to overthrow the Assad regime so Turkey could move the millions of Syrian refugees back to Syria. Turkey offered HTS sanctuary in Turkish-controlled areas and let a few HTS members into Turkey. Reaching an agreement with HTS on the details proved difficult. Still, the reality was the HTS and Turkey had quietly worked out an arrangement that enabled HTS to assemble thousands of soldiers who were Islamic terrorists who agreed to follow HTS leader Golani in a successful lightning campaign to conquer Syria.

That ended 15-20 years of Iranian efforts to make Syria a base for Iranian attacks on Israel. This is one of many catastrophic strategic defeats for Iran’s religious dictatorship in the past few months. The most recent is that corruption and mismanagement of its economy have produced a domestic oil and natural gas shortage. Iran’s president made a televised speech in December 2024 informing the Iranian people of this. He announced his decision to divert the currently available fuel stocks from the economy and jobs to heat housing so that millions of Iranians won’t die in the dark this winter.

Something else Iran has to rebuild is a belief among all Iranians that their current leaders will be able to end the poverty that has been growing over the last decade, with nearly half of Iranians impoverished and a few percent without housing or enough food to survive. Many Iranian leaders believe that an uprising is possible if the religious dictatorship does nothing or tries to suppress the continuing protests against poverty and violent suppression of protests.

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Let’s take a closer look at HTS.  Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) is a coalition of northern Syria-based Sunni Islamist insurgent groups that evolved from Jabhat al-Nusrah, or “Nusrah Front,” al-Qa‘ida’s former branch in Syria.

During the initial years of Syria’s insurgency, infighting among Nusrah Front, ISIS, and factions aligned with these groups for territory, revenue, and resistance to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s regime led some leaders to shift allegiances. Most notably, due to strategic disagreements, Nusrah Front leader Abu Muhammad al-Jawlani broke with al-Qa‘ida in 2016. In 2017, the Nusrah Front merged with other antiregime groups in northwestern Syria to form HTS. HTS later established the Syrian Salvation Government, with 10 ministries to govern its territory. In 2018, HTS defectors who remained loyal to al-Qa‘ida formed the al-Qa‘ida branch in Syria, known as Hurras al-Din.

OPERATING AREA
Northwest Syria (largely Idlib Province) and parts of Aleppo.

MEMBERS
Between 5,000 and 10,000

TACTICS AND TARGETS
HTS primarily focuses on attacks against the Assad regime and seeks to replace it with a government guided by a fundamentalist interpretation of Islamic law.

In the past, the al-Qa’ida types (Wahhabists) were utterly hostile to the USA and, by extension, Israel, and that would include the Kurdish Regional Government (KRG) in Northern Iraq. The KRG is closely aligned with the United States and is a close ally in a sea of less friendly politics. That seems to be less accurate today. Though Israel is concerned, they are less concerned with the regime change in Syria because the Iranian influence has been wiped out, and the Assad military machine was wiped out by the IDF (Russian military equipment) during the political instability. Likewise, HTS has hosted US government people to talk about their situation. I won’t go into details, but it’s happened within the last couple of weeks.

The Kirkuk-Ceyhan pipeline runs through Turkey, and oil flows through it. It makes money for Iraq, Kurdistan, and Turkey. I advise you, dear readers, to take care with your analysis in order to make sure it’s up to date. There have been big shake-ups in the Middle East; old power (the Assads and Iran) had their fangs pulled (and, in some cases, had their testicles detonate by “secure” pagers). The view today is not the view of 2023, for example.

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Identify the Armor

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It isn’t Chinese.

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End