America faces several existential threats. Two of them – Russia and China – are somewhat ordinary, in that we’ve faced them for years. They remain threats none-the-less, but we know how to deal with them. Then, there’s debt, huge, multi-tiered layers of debt – federal spending, Medicare and Medicaid, Social Security, multiple federal and state […]

Sometimes you need fiction to fully grasp what is happening in the real world. This occurred to me the other day when I read a politician’s glaringly anti-Semitic remarks. A scene from Herman Wouk’s novel “Winds of War” came to mind, where the Nazi banker calmly comments to the US Naval Attache to Berlin, telling […]

In the Pentagon, fascinated as it is with “joint” warfare, few people seem to understand questions of naval policy or naval theory, but we are a maritime nation. That has a host of implications, but the most immediate is that it means our true first line of security is our navy. We need a great […]

Last week Congress passed an omnibus spending bill and the President signed it. It funded the wall – in part. Then there was some more yelling by nearly everyone about what it said or didn’t say. Here’s what I saw: Another omnibus spending bill. A $1,300,000,000,000 (that’s 1.3 trillion) omnibus bill, a demonstration that Congress […]

Jonathan Swift, where are you when we need you? Roughly 300 million people have died in all the wars ever fought. Slightly less, between 250 million and 300 million have been killed by their own governments (perhaps a quarter of them by Chairman Mao). Maybe 600 million in 6,000 years. Worldwide, since 1973 nearly 1.5 […]

There’s been a lot of talk about Socialism and Socialists of late, with several being elected to Congress. All this even as Venezuela – a land blessed with natural resources – unravels under socialist rule. When challenged that socialism has never worked, the Socialists respond that true Socialism has never been tried and that if […]

Comedies are often far better at revealing subtle truths than are drama; perhaps that’s why good comedies are more rare than good dramas. In a scene in the movie “Major League” the Cleveland Indians, ahead by one run, face a tight situation: runners on, the big Yankee slugger stepping into the batter’s box. The relief […]

Snow here in the Country. No one with any sense is going anywhere. The larger is sacked and the fire is roaring. – Vic The Corporate Conscience There’s a common warning, given to everyone at one time or another, to “stay in your lane.” Stated otherwise, focus on what you’re supposed to do. A recent […]

A really smart friend of mine once noted, while speaking of the DOD: “You need to remember that we don’t do why!” Joe’s point was that there is, in all government bureaucracies, a resistance to anyone trying to get to the primary reason that would explain actions, because in the end bureaucracies are really about […]

People don’t change, as a friend reminded me just the other day. 800 years ago the rulers of the Grand Duchy of Moscow wanted more land, buffer zones between them and the “others.” Kiev soon became part of the Russian “buffer zone.” But, Russia lost Kiev (and Ukraine) in 1991. They want it back. In […]