Mid East Regional War. VP Debate. A Hurricane. Putin in Trouble

Your weekly news roundup

(Ken’s on a short vacation in Berlin! Show him some love; he doesn’t get out much from under his obsessive rock.)

Middle East in Flames. The world saw a major escalation in Middle East fighting this week, with the mainstream news media still not convinced that this is a regional “war,” which we find ridiculous. 

This IS war, and it is taking place over thousands of miles in many different domains (air, cyber, space, etc.). Israel’s strategy, if it can be divined, is to destroy its enemies, and nothing short of that. Iran’s strategy, in simple terms, is to uphold its honor and the honor of Shia muslims. The conflict can only be understood if one dispenses with Washington jargon. One should stop waiting for Iranian tanks to start rolling across the desert. The war is being fought right now.

One thing that we should all remind ourselves as we assess Israeli and Iranian moves is that this is not war as America fights, which is mostly to some paper conclusion pleasing to the big brains in national security land. The countries seek annihilation, and though Iran’s existential existence is not threatened, they are fighting for the impossible. What is more, there is no reason to believe that Israel’s strategy in fighting Hizballah in Lebanon, to destroy the movement through head hunting, will ever work. Israel has been assassinating Palestinian and terrorist leaders for decades. It is a strategy that the United States adopted after 9/11, and though it was successful in destroying corporate al Qaeda around bin Laden, a host of other groups emerged to take their place. For Israel, the same will happen.

Despite claims of the Biden administration that it has put together some ceasefire plan for Gaza, a diplomatic solution now seems further away than ever. In fact, Joe Biden this week signaled that he doesn’t oppose an Israeli strike on Iran’s oil facilities, or even worse. Again, the implications in conventional terms is that if Israel or Iran did X, the war could then careen out of control, which is kind of like saying that a speeding vehicle will speed even more.

Boots on the Ground. Meanwhile, U.S. military attacks took place in Iraq, Syria, and Yemen over the past week, and the various military branches “trained” with their counterparts in eight countries (at least): Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Syria, and the UAE. A shockingly empty ⁩article in the New York Times this week titled “Here’s Where U.S. Force Are Deployed in the Middle East” failed to even mention Jordan, Saudi Arabia or Oman (where the U.S. has troops on the ground) and also glossed over the ongoing war in Syria. The article reads more like a Pentagon press release than actual journalism. And, the United States has soldiers on the ground in Israel, working hand-in-hand on air and missile defense.

The American “buildup” to respond to events, though touted in the news media as frenzied, turns out to be no more than one additional Air Force squadron on the ground in the Gulf since Israel’s pager caper. Everything else was just words or forces already scheduled to be in the Middle East or already there for long-planned war games.

Ukraine. “For the first time since 1941, a foreign power is on Russian soil," the chairman of NATO’s Military Committee said this week. It wasn’t a good week for Putin. Not only is Russia continuing to lose in Ukraine, but the state of the economy is choking the country’s ability to mobilize more. The Russian people are also getting tired of the war, polls show. Ukraine says that over the month of September, Russia lost 1,271 soldiers in Ukraine every day, the second-highest monthly number since the invasion began. Ukraine also says it is shooting down 80 percent of Russian drones attacking their country, 1107 out of 1339 in September.

Putin, despite signs this week of wanting to provide arms to the Houthis, also got struck by Israel’s war planes in Syria this week, the first time Israel has bombed Russian forces there.

Vice Presidential Debate. Meanwhile, there is a presidential election that is a month away. The Vice Presidential debate this week between Tim Walz and J.D. Vance  was astoundingly short of any discussion of national security. With a softball opening question about the Middle East, neither was ever asked any follow-ups about Gaza, or Ukraine, or China. As veterans, the two were not even asked what they thought about the military. We understand that CBS News probably thought it was providing a service by focusing on pocketbook issues, but it’s time for the American people to start realizing that the money for anything will come partly from $1 trillion a year national security spending, which of course the government says they can’t lower because, item one above, the world is at war.

Vote. Election interference continues to dominate the news, and continues to attract outsize attention from the FBI, homeland security, and the intelligence community. The feds seem stuck between their concern about Russian, Chinese and Iranian interference on the one hand and not undermining the confidence of the American public in the sanctity and credibility of the elections on the other. “Malicious actors, even if they tried, could not have an impact at scale such that there would be a material effect on the outcome of the election,” Jen Easterly, director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, said this week, something we’ve been saying here for months.

The intelligence agencies and the military continue to prepare for violence, particularly in Washington, around the elections, much of that planning being conducted in secret. "The terrorism threat environment in the Homeland is expected to remain high over the coming year,” Homeland Security said this week in its new Homeland Threat Assessment. “This is due to a confluence of factors, including potential violent extremist responses to domestic sociopolitical developments — particularly the 2024 election cycle — and international events like the ongoing Israel-Hamas conflict."

Hurricane Helene. On the heels of a hurricane this week that some are calling the most deadly and damaging since Katrina, the Biden administration would like you to know that they were ready and responsive. Part of their argument is that the National Guard pulled together as many as 6,700 soldiers to respond. We wondered if this was a lot? After January 6, 26,000 National Guardsmen and women were deployed at the peak, that is, to protect Washington from the American people, January 6-May 23, 2021. And in Katrina, the number was around 50,000 troops. Perhaps the reason for the modest response: Guardsmen and women from Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, New Hampshire, New Jersey, South Dakota, Tennessee, Vermont, and Wisconsin are all in the Middle East or on their way (all of which was reported on KlipNews this week.)

Corrections made: The election is a month away, not too. The editor doesn’t know what day it is. Also changed the typo of 6,7000 to 6,700. Thanks to readers.