Starting The Day Off With Politics

 I was wobbly yesterday. I missed the writer's group. Nothing much accomplished. A bit of research done, but nothing worth talking about.

This morning I started off thinning the email and going to the convenience store.

I will get back here with something of more substance, but I want to get the rancidity of our politics off my mind.

NATO reaffirms ‘ironclad’ joint defense in Ankara declaration (Daily Sabah) fails to mention anything useful said or done by Donald J. Trump. Too polite to mention his ranting about Greenland, or his general dislike of our friends. Why should a man without friends see the value of allies?

How Ukraine's drone strikes are wreaking havoc in Russia (CNBC) destroys Trump in one paragraph:

Ukraine is holding all the cards, she said, adding that they have “drones and counter-drone systems, and indeed data on how to fight the Russians.”

It is clear now how a man could bankrupt a casino. He has no idea what cards are needed for a win. 

Trump is promising Patriot missile defense to Ukraine. Let us hope it is not another hot flash in his brain. 

The Bourbon trap: military prowess is not a grand strategy (Engelsberg ideas ) arrived before Trump decided to give up the ceasefire with the Iranians. It does not make any less pertinent - or scary:

At the outset of Trump’s second term, I worried that his political instincts might make sense for peacetime grand strategy, but not for wartime strategy. As I wrote in these pages: ‘Trump’s preference for transactionalism and uncertainty, along with his ongoing effort to eviscerate the national security bureaucracy, will make it more difficult to implement strategies with a better chance of success. Because Trump’s approach to grand strategy increases the odds of another strategic quagmire, history may remember his second term as a grim irony.’ While it is too soon to make definitive judgments, the recent war in Iran seems to point in that direction. The president seems to have believed that a rapid bombing campaign would topple the regime, leaving in place a new government willing to bend to US pressure. But the bombing did not lead to regime change; it bolstered hardliners in Tehran. According to some observers, the net result has bolstered other great powers at America’s expense, and given them new opportunities to erode US advantages. Trump’s predilections cut against the logic of his administration’s stated grand strategy, creating uncertainty about American national security policy, and working against coherent strategy in war. 

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Two other lessons stand out. The first is that battlefield excellence is not a substitute for strategy, and lethality is not the same as security. President Trump revels in military operations that seem to resolve longstanding problems with little cost or risk – witness his victory lap after US bombers targeted Iran’s nuclear programme in June 2025, and when US special forces captured Venezuela’s president in January 2026. Meanwhile, the Pentagon under Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth has chosen a back-to-basics focus on improving tactical performance. This is understandable, given the resurgence of conventional war alongside continuing counterterrorist operations. Yet Hegseth’s emphasis on lethality is misguided, because it suggests that the key metric for wartime success is killing power. The ability to destroy is not the same as the ability to translate military force into political results. Increasing the enemy’s body count is not the same as compelling the enemy to stand down – and to accept the idea of losing. Sometimes it has exactly the opposite effect. Lethality run amok is likely to generate lasting antipathy and mistrust among those on the wrong end of the spear, meaning that battlefield victories will, at best, produce only temporary gains. Excessive killing in war will complicate grand strategy in the aftermath. 

U.S., Iran trade more strikes after Trump says ceasefire is "over" (CBS) 

 What truly interest TRump is not the nation but what he can put in his pocket from the nation: The Corruption Is Unprecedented (Sheila Kennedy).

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