Moon of Alabama — First Fallout Of Trump's Decision To Withdraw From Syria

President Trump campaigned on lessening U.S. involvement in wars abroad. He wants to get reelected. He does not need a Secretary of Defense that involves him in more wars that have little to none defined purpose.

Mattis is an ingrained imperialist. He always asked for more money for the military and for more meddling abroad. One of Mattis' little notice acts as Defense Secretary was a unannounced change in the mission of the Pentagon:For at least two decades, the Department of Defense has explicitly defined its mission on its website as providing "the military forces needed to deter war and to protect the security of our country." But earlier this year, it quietly changed that statement, perhaps suggesting a more ominous approach to national security....The Pentagon's official website now defines its mission this way: "The mission of the Department of Defense is to provide a lethal Joint Force to defend the security of our country and sustain American influence abroad."

The Pentagon no longer "deters war" but provides "lethal force" to "sustain American influence abroad." There was no public nor congressional debate about the change. I doubt that President Trump agreed to it. Trump will now try to recruit a defense secretary that is more aligned with his own position.…

Moon of Alabama
First Fallout Of Trump's Decision To Withdraw From Syria

Caitlin Johnstone — Mattis: Putin Is Trying To “Undermine America’s Moral Authority”

Hear, hear!

America needs no help in destroying its soft power and moral standing in the world. It's doing that just great all on its own.

Caitlin Johnstone — Rogue Journalist
Mattis: Putin Is Trying To “Undermine America’s Moral Authority”

Caitlin Johnstone

Pat Lang — An interim post on Syria ... (Editorial) by PL

An expert assessment of the recent missile attack on Syria and what's next.

Sic Semper Tyrannis
An interim post on Syria ... (Editorial) by PLCol. W. Patrick Lang, US Army (ret.)

At the Defense Intelligence Agency, Lang was the Defense Intelligence Officer (DIO) for the Middle East, South Asia and counter-terrorism, and later, the first Director of the Defense Humint Service. At the DIA, he was a member of the Defense Senior Executive Service. He participated in the drafting of National Intelligence Estimates. From 1992 to 1994, all the U.S. military attachés worldwide reported to him. During that period, he also briefed President George H. W. Bush at the White House, as he had during Operation Desert Storm.

He was also the head of intelligence analysis for the Middle East for seven or eight years at that institution. He was the head of all the Middle East and South Asia analysis in DIA for counter-terrorism for seven years. For his service in the DIA, Lang received the Presidential Rank Award of Distinguished Executive. — Wikipedia

EW?

SouthFront
Pentagon Is Concerned About Results Of Syria Strike, Prepares To Launch Internal Probe – Sources

SouthFront links to an article in Russian. Here is an English translation from Chrome.

The Pentagon earlier said that 105 missiles were launched across Syria. In Damascus, they said that they successfully repulsed more than 70 of them.

Syria successfully repulsed the missile attack of the United States, France and Britain. The Pentagon said that 105 missiles were fired from the Syrian territories. In the US Defense Ministry even released a video of the launch of the cruise missile Tomahawk from a submarine in the Mediterranean. The US military, as well as US President Donald Trump, said that the operation in the SAR was successful.

However, according to the dry statistics, 71 coalition missiles were intercepted by Syrian air defense. As Syrian President Bashar Assad said, the attack was repulsed with the help of missiles of the Soviet period.

At the same time, the question remains unanswered, where the unsettled American missiles were. The former chief of the Main Directorate of Armaments of the Russian Army, Colonel-General Anatoly Sitnov, put forward a version that the missiles could be redirected from the ground along a different route.

He noted that the Russian army has many breakthrough technologies, including secret ones, one of which is missile redirection.

In particular, Sitnov recalled that such a situation was in Serbia. Then the Russian peacekeepers tried Kevlar networks measuring 2.5 meters per meter, in which the American Tomahawks, aimed at strategically important facilities, were simply stuck.
The military does not rule out that Russia demonstrated its military-technical capabilities in Syria as well.

"Everyone realized that if this is possible only by such methods, it is better not to fight," says Colonel-General Anatoly Sitnov in an interview on YouTube.

Tsargrad TV

The Russian general put forward a version where disembodied American missiles disappeared in Syria

Also

Lots of good stuff. Anatoly is now based in Russia.

The Unz Review
Post-Bombing Assessment

Anatoly Karlin

Also

The Saker picks up the strategic analysis from here.

The Vineyard of the Saker
Alas, this is far from over!
The Saker

Also

The media reaction to the US-French-British strikes on Syria early in the morning of 14 April has been quite distinct in the USA versus Europe, and then still more differentiated from the reaction of Russian media. In this brief article, I will direct attention to the general contours marking each of these three areas of reporting, and also will share some of the particularly interesting observations that were presented on Russian television, which, as is self-evident, was the most interested party in making sense of the weekend to the general public, given that Russia was the central power in play over the weekend even if the geography said “Syria.”...

Tidbit:

The Times of London ... leads with an article predicting that to punish the United Kingdom for its role in the Skripal case and in Syria, Moscow will unleash a barrage of hacked damaging confidential materials relating to government ministers, members of Parliament and other elite British personalities. In response, May’s cabinet is said to be considering a cyber-attack against Russia.

What the British elite is really concerned with — being outed by kompromat.

Une parole franche
Fact and Fiction: what the US did and did not achieve by its attack on Syria, 14 April 2018
Gilbert Doctorow | European Coordinator of The American Committee for East West Accord Ltd.

Also

Global Research
Trump is Playing a “Dirty Game”? — Report from Damascus at 4am at the Height of the Bombings

Mark Taliano | Global Research

Transcript of Remarks by James Mattis on the National Defense Strategy

For the record.

Summation: The strategy of the US is founded not on geographical defense but rather on protecting and extending "Enlightenment values," that is, liberalism.

Ladies and gentlemen, we have no room for complacency, and history makes clear that America has no preordained right to victory on the battlefield. Simply, we must be the best if the values that grew out of the Enlightenment are to survive....

Under Christendom it was "saving souls."

United States Department of Defense
Remarks by James Mattis on the National Defense Strategy
James Mattis | US Secretary of Defense

Delivered on January 19, 2018

Moon of Alabama — "Above All" - The Junta Expands Its Claim To Power

Is the US now ruled by a military junta through soft coup?

Moon of Alabama
"Above All" - The Junta Expands Its Claim To Power

b

David Marks — Risk of Unleashing ‘Mad Dog’ Mattis

The appointment of a recently retired general as secretary of defense and investing him to run military policy undercuts civilian control of the military, a cornerstone of liberal democracy.

This added to the previous institution of a professional army threatens the political fabric of the nation.

Add to this Mattis's military reputation as a loose cannon and the mix becomes volatile.

Consortium News
Risk of Unleashing ‘Mad Dog’ Mattis
David Marks

See also

The immediate prospect for significant improvement in U.S.-Russia relations now depends on something tangible: Will the forces that sabotaged previous ceasefire agreements in Syria succeed in doing so again, all the better to keep alive the “regime change” dreams of the neoconservatives and liberal interventionists?

Or will President Trump succeed where President Obama failed by bringing the U.S. military and intelligence bureaucracies into line behind a cease-fire rather than allowing insubordination to win out?….

The record of the US being able to keep its agreement is abysmal.

The Pentagon’s resistance and the “accidental” bombing of Syrian troops brought these uncharacteristically blunt words from Foreign Minister Lavrov on Russian TV on Sept. 26:

“My good friend John Kerry … is under fierce criticism from the U.S. military machine. Despite the fact that, as always, [they] made assurances that the U.S. Commander in Chief, President Barack Obama, supported him in his contacts with Russia … apparently the military does not really listen to the Commander in Chief.”

Lavrov specifically criticized Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman, Gen. Joseph Dunford for telling Congress that he opposed sharing intelligence with Russia despite the fact, as Lavrov put it, “the agreements concluded on direct orders of Russian President Vladimir Putin and U.S. President Barack Obama [who] stipulated that they would share intelligence.” Noting this resistance inside the U.S. military bureaucracy, Lavrov added, “It is difficult to work with such partners.”

Putin picked up on the theme of insubordination in an Oct. 27 speech at the Valdai International Discussion Club, in which he openly lamented:

“My personal agreements with the President of the United States have not produced results. … people in Washington are ready to do everything possible to prevent these agreements from being implemented in practice.”…

That is basically the characteristic of a rogue state.

While President Obama did nothing and said nothing, John Kerry complained publicly:

Only in December 2016, in an interview with Matt Viser of the Boston Globe, did Kerry admit that his efforts to deal with the Russians had been thwarted by then-Defense Secretary Ashton Carter – as well as all those forces he found so difficult to align.

“Unfortunately we had divisions within our own ranks that made the implementation [of the ceasefire agreement] extremely hard to accomplish,” Kerry said. “But it … could have worked. … The fact is we had an agreement with Russia … a joint cooperative effort.
“Now we had people in our government who were bitterly opposed to doing that,” he said. “I regret that. I think that was a mistake. I think you’d have a different situation there conceivably now if we’d been able to do that.”... 

The Syrian Test of Trump-Putin Accord

Ray McGovern

The U.S. mainstream media and Democratic Party politicians have built a major “scandal” out of accusing Russia of “meddling” in the U.S. election to help Donald Trump win the presidency and possibly even colluding with his campaign to do so. The charges began as “allegations” but now are routinely asserted as facts.

The Washington Post recently ran a long article claiming all the above plus saying the operation was directed by Russian President Putin himself and implying not enough has been done to “punish” Russia. The July-August 2017 edition of Mother Jones magazine features an article headlined “We Already Know Trump Betrayed America. Collusion? Maybe. Active Enabling? Definitely.”

Is this effort to indict Russia and condemn Trump based on facts or political opportunism? Does it help or hurt the progressive cause of peace with justice? Following are major problems with the “anti-Russia” theme, starting with the lack of clear evidence.…

Democrats and media continue to shoot themselves in their fast dwindling extremities. Next is to aim at the head?

Ten Problems with Anti-Russian Obsession

Rick Sterling

Moon of Alabama When Generals Make Policies - From Tactics To Strategy To Political Decision

Let me draw out a bit the point that b makes about strategy versus tactics. The priories in descending order are policy, which set goals and purpose, strategy which sets objective for reading the policy goals and achieving purpose, and tactics, which is concerned with operational means in achieving objectives.

Policy is fixed, strategy is adaptable, and tactics agile.

Mixing these up is unprofessional and can become amateurish, as in mission creep led by tactics.

The etymological root of "strategy" is Greek strategos and Latin strategus, meaning a general, or other general officer such as a field marshall. Generals are in charge of strategy. They are part of the general staff. Their portfolio is planning. In the US, "the Pentagon" is an abstraction for this function.

Officers from colonel below are officers of the line, or line officers. They are responsible for the actual fighting, that is, tactics.

A problem arises because generals are promoted from the line. Therefore, the Peter principle applies. Since candidates for promotion are chosen on the basis of past performance rather than intended performance, some candidates may be promoted beyond their level of competence.

This is a persistent problem in militaries. Good tacticians don't necessarily make good strategists. For example, Patton and Rommel are known as great tacticians, even superb tacticians, but they are not considered great strategists. 

This is a problem for President Trump since he doesn't have the military competence to make good choices. He knows that so he has ceded military choices to his commanders. However, to be successful he must have the ability to distinguish good strategist, or be lucky. He was neither in choosing James Mattis.

The entire general staff seems to suffer from this syndrome when they say that there is no end in sight the global war on terror and it may go on for many decades. They have no plan and it is appearing that there is no viable plan without massively occupying many countries for the foreseeable future, which is not viable politically.

They need to be figuring out an exit strategy that saves as much face as possible, instead of repeating a Vietnam situation where they end up fleeing as they draw down.

Moon of Alabama
When Generals Make Policies - From Tactics To Strategy To Political Decision

b

Moon of Alabama — The War In Afghanistan Is A Racket

Update on the situation in Afghanistan. Mattis says things are not going well and wants to mount another surge with no exit strategy. Meanwhile, it is a hole in US policy leading money.

Moon of Alabama
The War In Afghanistan Is A Racket

b

Paul Robinson — Strategy-free time

The strategy-free wars the US is fighting.

If you’re a conspiracy theorist, you could say that this is all part of a cunning plan to spread chaos. This, however, ignores the fact that the costs in both blood and treasure are enormous and far outweigh any benefits the USA might theoretically derive from such chaos. It’s also pretty obvious that people like Mattis really want to win all these wars.

Their problem is that they’ve got themselves deep into situations they don’t understand and can’t control, but they can’t extricate themselves without looking bad. So, they just keep digging themselves in deeper and spreading the list of enemies in the hope that they can find a solution by going in a different direction.

As I’ve mentioned before, the first principle of war is selection and maintenance of the aim. If Mattis wants a strategy, he needs to select and maintain a single, clear objective. So far, the United States hasn’t....

There are also political constraints. The American public is tired of foreign adventurism with no lasting results, so now US politicians are reluctant to write the generals a blank check without an exit strategy.

Both war on terror, the war on drugs and the war on poverty have failed because it is impossible to make war on a concept. Such wars end up being strategy-free and with no exit strategy, endless.

Irrussianality
Strategy-free time
Paul Robinson | Professor, Graduate School of Public and International Affairs at the University of Ottawa

Jim Lobe — Bannon Down, Pentagon Up, Neocons In?

Balanced article on US politics relative to international relations and foreign and military policy.

LobeLog
Bannon Down, Pentagon Up, Neocons In?

Jim Lobe

Scotty — Trump has lost control over the Pentagon

Cutting through this heavy bureaucratic American doublespeak, the White House will be informed, but would have no commanding authority over the US military.…

It’s important to realize that this Trump’s decision to give more freedom to the US general to decide where to start a war, or as it’s been dubbed “the New Approach” had come after the fact that was “on display this week in Afghanistan, where Gen. John Nicholson, head of the U.S.-led coalition there, decided to use one of the military’s biggest nonnuclear bombs—a Massive Ordnance Air Blast bomb, or MOAB.”

After the MOAB was dropped, repeating without the presidential approval, the Media came out heralding this bombing of Afghanistan as “America’s top military commanders are implementing the vision articulated by Defense Secretary Jim Mattis: U.S. military commanders to make more battlefield decisions on their own.”

“A senior administration official said Mr. Trump didn’t know about the weapon’s use until it had been dropped.”

The Vineyard of the Saker
Trump has lost control over the Pentagon
Scotty

Pepe Escobar — Lots of shouting, tiny stick

Donald Trump won't be winning any wars against Islamist terror if he imagines dismantling the Russia-China-Iran alliance is possible. His sabre-rattling against Iran is pointless.

Asia Times

Lots of shouting, tiny stick

Pepe Escobar

See also

Escobar is not only an analyst but also a litterateur.

Counterpunch
Age of Anger

Pepe Escobar

Paul R. Pillar — Trump and His Iran-Haters

Some of President-elect Trump’s national security appointees are part of Official Washington’s “we-hate-Iran” group think, raising concerns about another Mideast war, notes ex-CIA analyst Paul R. Pillar. 

Consortium News
Trump and His Iran-Haters

Paul R. Pillar

Philip Giraldi — Fake News Versus No News

How Russia is pilloried while real news about Israel goes unreported

The Unz Review
Fake News Versus No News
Philip Giraldi | Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest and former counter-terrorism specialist and intelligence officer of the CIA.

Pat Lang — The WaPo thought Mattis was a retired BG

Ha ha. Washington Post commits yet another "crime against truth," this one just a moronic gaffe that underlines just how unprofessional their operation is.

Sic Semper Tyrannis
The WaPo thought Mattis was a retired BG
Col. W. Patrick Lang, US Army (ret.), former military intelligence officer at the US Defense Intelligence Agency

Daniel Larison — The Trouble with Mattis

It's Mad Dog.

The problem here isn’t that [Gen. James "Mad Dog"] Mattis is a bad choice for running our endless wars in the Near East compared to the alternatives, but that choosing him confirms that those wars are going to continue for the foreseeable future and new ones might be started. One problem I see with Mattis’ preoccupation with Iran is that it means that alarmist claims about Iran from other members of the ad ministration aren’t going to be countered by a more realistic assessment of the threat that Iran poses. Mattis is on record saying that Iran is the “the single most enduring threat to stability and peace in the Middle East” and has asserted that “Iran is not an enemy of ISIS.” The first claim is very questionable in light of the destabilizing behavior of the Saudis and their GCC allies, and the second is plainly false.

But at least Mad Dog is better than some other names that were floating.

I would be even more alarmed by the nomination of a Jon Kyl or Tom Cotton to this office.

Again, we are stuck with the least bad.

The American Conservative
The Trouble with Mattis

Daniel Larison