Part-Time Pundit

What if Chavez Isn’t Bluffing About War with Colombia?

Hugo Chavez is making news again, this time threatening war with Colombia (a U.S. ally) over the assassination of terrorist elements that have taken refuge in Ecuador. The facts aren't quite known, but it is alleged the Colombia sent military forces into Ecuador to attack members of the FARC, a terrorist group that has been staging attacks in Colombia and taking hostages (it is currently holding three U.S. citizens, for instance).

In what was considered a bizarre response, Chavez ordered several battalions to the border with Colombia and has threatened all-out war with the country. Ecuador is understandably upset, but many attribute Chavez's latest media-grabbing stunt as more saber-waving from a dictator who craves international attention for "standing up to U.S. imperialism." There are important reasons to take Chavez's threats at face value, but first some background.

United States Military Doctrine

Since the 1990s, the United States Armed Forces have held various iterations of a win-win doctrine. The current version of the doctrine (the 4-2-1 strategy) states that the United States will maintain the capability to "conduct two, overlapping 'swift defeat' campaigns… [and] the force must be able to 'win decisively' in one of the two campaigns". In layman's terms, this means the United States has set up its military to win two medium-sized wars simultaneously.

It is also important to note that the United States military debates its over-reaching strategy out in the open for the world to see. Not a single spy is needed to determine how we structure our military and with what aims in mind. A foreign agent can pick up any number of academic journals, surf the various public military and government websites, or read the many books written on the subject. No security clearance is needed. Other countries know full well what we design our military to do and conversely know what limitations we build into our system.

One can look at the current situation of the U.S. military and see how this strategy has worked (albeit not without bumps). The military is engaged in operations in both Afghanistan and Iraq and achieving successes in both countries. The only area where improvement has not been substantial is in the area of nation-building, particularly, getting the native populations to take responsibility for their own political destiny. The lack of will for U.S. imperialism has come at a price.

The current situation shows that the strategy can work and is working. Al Qaeda in Iraq is essentially no more. However, it has also shown that it engages a large proportion of the resources available to the United States military that can be used for war-fighting. The preventative operations still continue, sure, but it is less than clear that the United States could, without significant difficulty, engage in a third conflict; much less a fourth conflict.

The Foreign Policy Objectives of China and Russia

In the sense of power distribution, international relations is similar to a zero-sum game. When one nation loses power, some other nation or nations gain power. The inverse is also true; when a nation gains power, it comes at the expense of another. When the USSR collapsed, the United States largely gained the power that was left on the table. This has been a point of consternation for some time for the former world power.

On the other hand, China, which has never been a superpower, does overtly crave such a status. In order to achieve such a status, the United States would have to relinquish or lose some of its current power. This leaves China and Russia as partners in a similar quest, to gain international power at the expense of the United States, the only country which that power must come from.

As an additional sideshow, there are a variety of powers across the globe that would cheer at the prospect of an American military embarrassment (no small number are European). Many lay commentators cheer on Russia and China, who criticize America's foreign policy, including commentators in the United States. One ought not to be naïve to think that these nations which murder journalists and dissidents, repress speech, and shun the rule of law inside their own borders are suddenly acting with the purity of wind-driven snow once on the international stage.

Currently, both Russia and China have ties with Venezuela (that include Russia shipping military goods to Venezuela). Russia also has historical ties with Serbia and has been a vocal supporter of Serbia against the independence of Kosovo. Currently, both areas are now volatile with Chavez's threats on one side and antagonistic behavior by Serbia on the other. Kosovo and Colombia, on the other hand, are US foreign policy commitments to continue to support those countries.

As an important counterpoint, there are elements in China and Russia that do not see eye-to-eye with the hostile-to-the-US foreign policy. They are minorities but they are the ones with money. Many of the largest businesses in both countries are beneficiaries of the American economy and thus have a vested interest in the status quo.

Could Chavez Be Serious?

Currently, the United States economy is in trouble; there is broad consensus on that at this point. Bad lending is never a good thing for an economy. Full-on economic collapses are usually combinations of multiple factors, bad lending often being one. So if Chavez isn't serious, he, along with Russia and China, is quite stupid. That is a presumption we ought not to make.

The United States military is structured to win two conflicts simultaneously. If both Kosovo and Colombia-Venezuela go hot, even militarily we would be stretched thin, if not to the breaking point. Odds are we would face the choice of sacrificing one or the other to avoid "losing" a war. With forces already on the ground in Kosovo under the auspices of NATO, we would likely have no choice but to fight in that conflict. Colombia, on the other hand, would be very easy to leave out to dry.

If forced to fight in both additional conflicts, it would provide an enormous additional strain on an already troubled economy. Drastic funding choices would have to be made to support the resources required to fight in all four conflicts simultaneously independent of the number of troops consideration. It is entirely possible that it could push an economy on the brink of recession into a full-on recession. Or for that matter, push an economy in a recession into a far worse economic position.

If China and Russia want to take definitive action to ensure American power is decreased, all they have to do is stoke the flames of conflict in Kosovo and Colombia. American political debate is focused on the superficials; no real political movement would support retaliatory action for subtle actions by Russia and China to provoke other nations to pick fights. In short, there would be little political cost to Russia and China in provoking these fights while there is everything to gain.

The only counterbalancing effect is whether those nations would prefer to ride on America's economic coattails or if they'd rather see American foreign power decline to their advantage. With the economic troubles America is facing, it becomes increasingly tempting to think those economic coattails aren't as long as they once seemed. Time will tell which trains of thought will win out.

March 14th, 2008 Posted by John Bambenek | Columns, International, Military / War, Politics | no comments

Home Rule Begins in Northern Ireland Once More

Northern Ireland has for years been ruled from England. There have been several attempts to come to a compromise solution to let Northern Ireland rule itself since the Good Friday agreements. It appears that finally home rule is about to begin again there.

This is good news, not only because home rule is beginning again, but because both sides are expressing hope that it will work this time. Both Ian Paisley and Martin McGuinness have said they believe the bloodshed over the territory has come to a close. However, this bright spot on another conflict coming to a close was overshadowed by the press inserting their politics into the story.

The conflict is not or has never been about religion. Ever. Yet the press continues to write on the conflict in terms of a fight against Catholics and Protestants. A few details would be helpful.

For many years, the British exerted complete control over Ireland. In 1921 the Irish Free State was formed free of British control. However, this territory did not include what is now called Northern Ireland. Many Irish believe that those territories rightly belong to Ireland as they were taken from them by the British centuries ago. Since that time, the nationalists had fought against the unionists to gain control over Northern Ireland.

Ireland is basically a Catholic country; England is obviously Protestant under the Church of England. The two nations have obvious religious identities. However, because a nation has a religious identity does not mean that every action that nation performs finds its origins in religion. The nationalists believe Northern Ireland is theirs (Ireland), the unions believe it belongs to them (England). The basis for those arguments have no support or recourse to religion.

The attempts to make the conflict (or hopefully the former conflict) about religion is politically driven by ideologues who want to paint religion as nothing but causing wars, devastation and destruction. It is disheartening, to say the least, that the so-called objective media has fully-throatedly adopted the propaganda of the anti-theists.

That said, I’m hopeful like other bloggers that the conflict is over.

May 8th, 2007 Posted by John Bambenek | International, Military / War, Politics, Religion, The MSM | one comment

Does the University of Illinois MBA Program Hate the Troops?

Breaking News: This will be updated in this post as more information comes in. (Hat Tip to Marathon Pundit.

The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) has established an innovative program specifically targetted to Illinois veterans of the War on Terror. Basically, the state and the University will allow them to get a FREE executive MBA from UIUC (in there Chicago office) or attend the MBA program in the Champaign campus by having the state pay for the program with Illinois Veterans Grants (IVG) and the College of Business picking up the rest (about 54% of the total yearly tuition). The program was touted far and wide by Rumsfeld, Congressmen, and the State of Illinois. There were 110 slots for veterans. In the end, according to varying reports, 46 were accepted. The details of the program can still be viewed on the College of Business website.

The architect of the program has left the University and has filed a lawsuit, alleging anti-military bias and discrimination. The University of Illinois system is the same system that employs William Ayers as a distinguished professor of education. That’s the same Bill Ayers that tried to blow up government buildings and infamously quipped that people should kill their parents.

According to Robert Van Der Hooning, the architect of this program, the University (specifically Dean Ghosh) tried to scale back the amount of “jarheads” in the program. He alleges that the criteria for acceptance was changed after the vets were promised slots. That is why only 46 of the 110 slots are currently taken by students. According to anonymous sources, the reason that the number is so low is that the remaining applicants did not meet the criteria for acceptance by the appropriate deadlines. One would assume that a free executive MBA would draw more than 110 applications and that applications denied for cause would not have lead to a high-profile administrator in the College of Business not only leaving the University but filing a lawsuit.

Currently, Dean Ghosh is referring all questions to the University Public Relations office and Lt. Gov. Quinn is unavailable as of this writing to comment further.

According the University spokesperson Robin Kaler, the EMBA program only has a capacity of 60 students. The room will only accomodate that many students and there is only enough faculty to handle one class of those 60 students. The program has cost the College of Business $650,000 and according to Kaler, “all commitments were honored regardless of whether they were authorized or not.”

At present, the facts on hand don’t warrant the kind of article that Marathon Pundit put up (and Pajamas Media linked to). I’m not saying the University is in the right, I’d like to see more information.

Possibility 1: That Ghosh and company did in fact have a problem with too many jarheads in the program. This, after having supported the creation of a program almost exclusively for jarheads.

Possibility 2: Miscommunication about what can and cannot be done with Van Der Hooning over-extending the University.

Possibility 3: Van Der Hooning is engaging in a press push to keep the heat on the University while his lawsuit is working his way through the court of claims in Illinois.

Kaler made some pretty good and fatal points to Van Der Hooning’s claims. One of them is lying, the facts will determine which one.

More facts need to be had before condemning the University, or at least Dean Ghosh, of being on an anti-military crusade. There are more questions to ask, and the downside of blogging, is that people want to rush their stories to the web without doing all the footwork to get the facts straight. Will update with more information when I get it.

(Waiting on calls back from others in the know, will update as I get it).

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March 5th, 2007 Posted by John Bambenek | Chambana, Education, Military / War, Politics, University of Illinois | 12 comments

Leak of Israel’s Plans to Nuke Iran Smells like BS

Drudge Report is splashing the news that the Sunday Times of London plans on reporting that Israel is planning a nuclear strike against Iran to head off Iran’s nuclear ambitions. According to Drudge:

Israel has drawn up secret plans to destroy Iran’s uranium enrichment facilities with tactical nuclear weapons, the SUNDAY TIMES of London is planning to report, British media sources tell DRUDGE…

At first glance, the entire story smells of a fabrication. The obvious reason being that if Israel had secret plans to nuke Iran, they likely wouldn’t have been leaked. If they did get leaked, the police better start dredging the Sea of Galilee for the bodies of those involved. More importantly this leak gives huge benefits to Iran.

Israel is not stupid. A tactical nuclear weapon would likely do very little for a protected underground bunker. It is possible that either Drudge or the London Times doesn’t know precisely what a tactical nuclear weapon is. However, the fact remains in order to really do damage to the facility an ICBM (a strategic nuclear weapons) would need to be used. The momentum of a missile coming down from low earth orbit would be necessary to burrow deep enough to do the damage desired. There is indication that even then, the strike might not be successful.

One simulation indicated it would require 400 or so missiles to do the job. At best, entrances and exits from the underground facility could be collapses and that would certainly delay the program. The radiation from the strikes would need to dissipate and the tunnels would have to be rebuilt. It is possible such a strike could be times when Iran’s nuclear weapons were being brought above ground, but that would be extremely difficult to pull off.

Iran’s move to build its nuclear program underground was brilliant. They learned the lessons of Iraq in 1981. However, the key defense of the move is also its biggest weakness. Namely, any nuclear weapon developed underground could not be used until it is brought above ground at already known locations. A nuclear strike at those locations would keep the weapons out of Iranian hands underneath irradiated soil. That move, however, is only a temporary solution.

It is likely that both Israel and the US have drawn up simulations and plans but every indication is that they are a last resort. The other fact is that these plans aren’t precisely secret, at least in general. Leaking the plans now, just shortly after sanctions have been levied against Iran indicate that the plans were likely not coming from Israel.

Iran’s general tactic has been to run the clock and delay as much as possible. This indicates that they are likely very close to being finished making nuclear weapons which would change the dynamics of diplomacy greatly. They have every incentive to keep stalling until they’ve met that landmark.

This plan, being leaked now in the way it was only gives more cover to Iran. The international community and human rights groups will likely jump all over Israel and demand investigations and action. Despite basically looking the other way of actual genocide going on in Darfur, they’ll jump to action on the rumor of a hypothetical “genocide.” We’ll skip past the international community’s non-response over Iran’s very public desire to commit genocide against Israel.

This leaking has every indication that it was done by Iran, or a supporter or Iran, to give more cover and time. While international eyes are peering at Israel, Iran’s program will continue undeterred.

See others: Blogs of war, LGF, Wizbang, Ed Driscoll,

January 6th, 2007 Posted by John Bambenek | International, Iran, Military / War, Politics, Sudan, United Nations | 8 comments

Al Qaeda’s Economic War and Online Identity Theft: A Perfect Storm

Online identity theft has become a constant concern in a world of online shopping and bill paying. In the rush to move to the internet age, many companies simply neglected security concerns and the result has luckily not been as bad as it could have been.

In 2005, I did an estimate of the amount of money that was compromised because of online identity theft and came up with $24 billion in the United States alone. With the help of Agnieszka Klus, I redid the study recently with more realistic numbers and found over $55 billion was compromised. That amount is enough to pay off the entire state debt of Illinois.

Despite this large amount of money being at risk, very little of that money actually gets stolen. What investigators have found is despite it being relatively easy to steal money online, the current fraud protections make it hard to steal a great deal of money; “The straw is only so big”, according to one government source. The running assumption is that online identity theft would be used for theft and there is a finite limit of the amount of theft that can actually take place. This has allowed financial institutions to build in this amount into their business models and simply write the cost of fraud and fraud protection into the price for their services.

The idea that we, as a society, should rely on only one layer of protection (the limitation on how much can be stolen) is absurd and violates defense in depth. Eventually someone will figure out a way around the straw. More importantly, however, earlier this month proved false the assumption that identity theft would be used solely for stealing money.

On December 1st, the Department of Homeland Security warned of an “aspirational threat” to United States banking interests by Al Qaeda. A website claiming to be affiliated with Al Qaeda encouraged the cyberattack against US financial interests using denial of service attacks and viruses. While the specific methods of attack are “low tech” and easy to prevent, it shows that terrorist groups are moving to expand their tactics to include economic warfare.

If the goal of identity theft is to make money, the incentive is to keep taking as much as you can. If the goal is economic warfare, the behavior changes dramatically. As a concrete example, Al Qaeda could use run-of-the-mill hacker techniques to build a large botnet to steal identities. It could then use those machines that they have taken over to process fake transactions in the name of that consumer.

For instance, they could use a consumer’s home PC and process transactions at amazon.com to buy a bunch of books using the credit card information and home address of the consumer. It is not clearly a case of fraud because the hacker is not getting any personal gain. Does Amazon or the credit card company believe that the consumer really didn’t make the order when the product is going to their home address?

Now repeat this attack for a thousand consumers, ten thousand consumers, or one hundred thousand consumers. What would happen with the ensuing media coverage is that consumers would think twice about shopping online if their assets can’t be protected. They would think twice about paying bills online or banking online if they’re bank accounts can’t be protected. If done correctly and on a large enough scale, it would lead to a dramatic loss of confidence in electronic commerce and could push the United States economy back ten years.

The fundamental problem with electronic commerce is that transactions are not effectively authenticated. If someone knows all the right information, they can place a transaction in your name. We’ve learned that in the digital age that stealing information from consumer PCs is remarkably easy. However, there exists technology today to fix this problem.

Two-factor authentication (something you “have” and something you “know”) would mitigate the risk of stolen information. Some banks use key chains that generate random numbers to authenticate users to their bank accounts. This must be widely applied to not only bank accounts but general financial transactions online. As another example, instead of entering credit card information with a keyboard, a user could insert a credit card with an embedded smart card into a card reader attached to their computer. The reader could have a keypad to enter a PIN to make the transaction secure and the card reader would happily give the online merchant all the information it needed to complete the transaction.

There are a variety of technologies to properly authenticate users to make purchases and these should be adopted. Al Qaeda and other groups are already on the lookout to undermine our economy. The question is will we stop them before it’s too late.

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December 22nd, 2006 Posted by John Bambenek | InfoSec, Information Security, Military / War, Politics, Technology / Internet, Terrorism | one comment

Preemptive Strike: Bush Firing Rumsfeld is Heading Off Congressional Harassment

Around 1pm Eastern the day after the election, while Democrats were still celebrating their victories, Bush made a sudden announcement of the resignation of Donald Rumsfeld as Secretary of Defense. To many, this was icing on the cake of a good election. Many missed the larger picture.

Democrats largely did not campaign on any issues. Even their “New Direction” was nothing that voters really cared about. One of the things they did promise and do intend to make good on is to investigate the Bush Administration, from Katrina (likely “finding” racism instead of fault where it belongs), to Iraq, to… Big Tobacco???

The key issue to be investigated is obviously Iraq and everyone knows it. The Democrats will likely waste no time in beginning the investigation so Bush launched a preemptive strike before the Democrats finished their celebrations. The strategy of the Bush Administration will likely to move forward and find new avenues for success in Iraq. Rumsfeld leaving is the obvious side-effect of this policy shift.

Two months from now when the Democrats start asking for investigation after investigation, Bush can say “I’m trying to move forward in Iraq and shift policy so we can achieve success and all the Democrats want to do is dredge up the past and yet still provide no alternatives of their own.”

Bush is establishing a defense by making the investigations moot. If heads have already rolled, the Democrats will likely be seen as beating a dead horse. This will put them in a difficult position, one where their most vocal camps will insist that Bush be made to suffer and the nation be dragged through the mud for 6 years and the less vocal camps who will be turned off by such antics. It’s telling that the races where the war was the central issue, the militant left fringe lost.

Bush made a good play and is keeping his eye on the ball (2008). Will the Democrats be as wise?

November 9th, 2006 Posted by John Bambenek | Congress, Elections, Impeachment, Law / Legal Issues, Military / War, National, Politics | one comment

The Price of UN Indecision over Iran: A Nuclear Arms Race

In the light on the obvious non-effectual nature of nuclear negotiations with Iran, six other Arab states decided they want to be nuclear powers. Algeria, Egypt, Morocco, Tunisia, UAE and Saudi Arabia all have announced plans to start working on nuclear technology. The obvious implication is that this “peaceful” research well within the “sovereign rights” of these nations will be used for nuclear weapons. For as much as people claim the US has shredding the Geneva Conventions, the bumbling over the Iran issue has lead to an effective dissolution of the Non-Proliferation Treaty.

This is the obvious consequence of the fact that Iran is transparently developing nuclear weapons, that the world knows it, and that the UN isn’t and can’t do anything about it. Iran has thumbed its nose at the world and the world shuffles around and navel-gazes.

Iran knows they won’t be stopped by the UN because Russia and China have effectively said they won’t even allow sanctions, much less military action. The consequences of a nuclear Iran have no effect on China or Russia (as opposed to North Korea) and in fact, it distracts the US and makes life difficult for them. A US distracted and hampered by problems in the Middle East is a boon to Russian and China and they know it.

Both the Vietnam precedent and current public opinion on Iraq show the world that the US simply does not have the internal fortitude to get involved in a war that isn’t over in a few weeks. Saddam Hussein knew this which is why he planned the so-called insurgency before the war. He knew that if he could run the clock long enough, the public pressure in the US would cause us to eventually leave. Iran knows this too, so they are playing their cards that the US is too committed in Iraq and wouldn’t invade anyway.

The rest of the Arab world has watched and also come to the conclusion that they can simply ignore international law and there will be no consequences. No one takes the righteous indignation of UN bureaucrats seriously unless it can be followed by some action. The UN has showed itself to be incapable of action. The US has showed itself unwilling.

Either the UN and Europe needs to man up and deal with Iran or the world has a nuclear arms race on its hands. An arms race that will take place in one of the most volatile places in the world at that.

November 4th, 2006 Posted by John Bambenek | Military / War, Politics, Terrorism, United Nations | one comment