Amphorae

A clever explanation of the odd shape used by the ancients. 

A Non-Mystery about Tryggvason

I guess it's hard to get published without claiming that there's some unknown to be solved, or a mystery to be explored, or novel information to be had. This time there really isn't. (H/t: Hot Air)

At [the center of the naval battle at Svolder] stood Tryggvason’s great warship, the Long Serpent, one of the most famous vessels in saga literature. Enemy ships closed in from all sides, capturing Norwegian ships one by one until only Olaf’s flagship remained.

From there, the king is said to have fought on the deck of his ship while his fleet was destroyed around him. But aggressors had the upper hand. Most accounts agree on the basic ending. Olaf disappeared into the sea.

“Everybody thinks that he jumped overboard and drowned because he was wearing full armour,” Hollway says.

This remains the view accepted by most historians. But not all.

When I saw the headline -- "He Was One of the Greatest Viking Warlords and His Death Is Still a Mystery" -- I thought the article was going to be about Sven Forkbeard. We know when Sven died, in England at the very height of his powers, but we have conflicting sources about how. Some say he'd been hiding a long illness, others that he fell off a horse. Either or both could be true. 

Olaf Tryggvason's death, by contrast, is clearly recorded in the Heimskringla. Snorri has quite specific details about the whole thing, a matter on which he seems well-informed. Some of the Heimskringla shades into legendaria -- Odin is mentioned towards the beginning as a founder of the kingly line in Norway -- but that is mostly confined to the early books. By the time of Tryggvason, Snorri is writing solidly about history.

Kolbjorn the marshal, who had on clothes and arms like the kings, and was a remarkably stout and handsome man, went up to king on the quarter-deck. The battle was still going on fiercely even in the forehold. But as many of the earl's men had now got into the Serpent as could find room, and his ships lay all round her, and few were the people left in the Serpent for defence against so great a force; and in a short time most of the Serpent's men fell, brave and stout though they were. King Olaf and Kolbjorn the marshal both sprang overboard, each on his own side of the ship; but the earl's men had laid out boats around the Serpent, and killed those who leaped overboard. Now when the king had sprung overboard, they tried to seize him with their hands, and bring him to Earl Eirik; but King Olaf threw his shield over his head, and sank beneath the waters. Kolbjorn held his shield behind him to protect himself from the spears cast at him from the ships which lay round the Serpent, and he fell so upon his shield that it came under him, so that he could not sink so quickly. He was thus taken and brought into a boat, and they supposed he was the king. He was brought before the earl; and when the earl saw it was Kolbjorn, and not the king, he gave him his life. At the same moment all of King Olaf's men who were in life sprang overboard from the Serpent; and Thorkel Nefia, the king's brother, was the last of all the men who sprang overboard. It is thus told concerning the king by Halfred:—

"The Serpent and the Crane
Lay wrecks upon the main.
On his sword he cast a glance,—
With it he saw no chance.
To his marshal, who of yore
Many a war-chance had come o'er,
He spoke a word—then drew in breath,
And sprang to his deep-sea death."

The following chapter gives eyewitness reports of his death. It describes a rumor that spread at the time that the king might have slipped out his mail-coat underwater -- try that sometime, if you have access to a hauberk of mail! Be sure you have a friend to pull you back out again, because you won't be able to do it -- and somehow escaped, but it also contains a poem scolding people for raising such stories that was written by one of Olaf's own skalds. 

I Won

At least initially. 

I won.

A Trill in the River

When I was a boy, we had a creek behind our house that had some stone cascades in it. I used to walk down with my dog and watch the water shooting across the stones, a cool place to spend hot summer days like these. You'd sit and watch the water, and watching it you would notice persistent shapes -- trills, you might call them -- that leapt up and curled as the water pressed against the stones just-so in its rush. 

Imagine that scene, or whatever version of it you grew up with yourself. Watching water flow over stones is almost universal among humanity. Imagine watching such a trill, and then you hear a rock upriver shift in the flow. This changes the pattern of the river ever-so-slightly, but the trill you were admiring for its beauty and perfect curves suddenly vanishes and can never be restored by anything you can do. 

Such, I realize tonight, is the human condition. We are like the trills in the river. All the parts of us that were us are already long gone down the flow. All the parts that are us are just coming to be us, will be part of us very briefly and will then flow on accordingly. And someday, when something in the world changes just-so, the trill itself will vanish and no human effort will be able to bring us back.

But what is it to love a trill? What is it to mourn one? What reality did it ever really have? It was just a shape of moving water. 

The Ballad of 155mm

D29 links a story ultimately from ProPublica about a failed Texas ammunition factory. The problem is that it was built with Turkish robots, which in a normal year the very phrase "Turkish robots" would have caused eyebrows to raise in shock and surprise. They didn't work, which wouldn't have surprised anyone.

The robots, giant metal arms with clamps for hands, would end up drenched in oil, which would then — no surprise — combust as they moved steel blocks heated to 1,800 degrees into and out of a machine that periodically erupted columns of fire. One blaze that summer melted a robot’s cables, putting it out of commission for a week.... 

[E]mployees were already used to spectacular mishaps, fiery and otherwise. “After the second, third, fourth time, it just became almost normal,” one former worker said. “It got to the point where I was not surprised by anything that happened there.”

Instead of producing shells in an efficient and streamlined fashion, the pricey machines kept failing in bizarre ways. The robot arms would swing out of control, smashing into carefully calibrated equipment, and sometimes they would unexpectedly drop hunks of steel 5 feet down to the floor. The factory’s signature device, meant to precisely stretch the steel for the artillery shells, instead often cracked it beyond repair.  

Then there were the giant press machines, which required regular pounding with a sledgehammer to function properly but still botched the shaping of nearly every shell.... 

A short interlude, courtesy of Bugs Bunny.

To resume our narrative: why on earth would anyone buy Turkish robots to make high explosive ammunition? 

The reason is that for close to three years now, the 155mm has been the workhorse in two great conflicts. The first is obviously the war in Ukraine, where not only Russia but the Ukrainians have been burning through gigantic stockpiles of heavy artillery. That war started in 2022, and at first it was an excuse for NATO to use up old stockpiles and replace them with fresh rounds. These things don't last forever, after all, so having new ones was a good deal and there were old stockpiles to use up. Russia is playing a similar game with its old Soviet stockpiles, still surprisingly deep in spite of all the decades of gunrunning.

But then in October of 2003, Hamas engaged in its act of blood magic and touched off a second regional war. Israel started using up 155mm as it went after hardpoints throughout Gaza. They make their own, but not enough of it. NATO supplies were already going to Ukraine. Manufacturers have been having a heyday ever since. It's a seller's market for anyone who can make it. You can sell as much as you can make or obtain. Both Ukraine and Israel have networks of scouts out looking for it through any channel that can manage the ITAR regulations and can offer a cheap enough price for their straining budget -- after all, they both need as much as they can get.

So it's a wise investment, increased 155mm capacity. Not just for the USA. Estonia has retasked part of its national economy to build precursors for 155mm ammunition. Some European factories are out of the filler explosive, so rather than build a factory Estonia is building filler and buying its ammunition in a kind of international barter. That way, if the Russians come calling, all of Europe's stockpiles will be bigger. 

All that makes sense. Why Turkey, though? I can tell you that the only places on earth that have excess capacity lately have been Turkey and South Korea. The Turks make plenty of 155mm because they regularly use up old stockpiles on the Kurds (and occasionally elsewhere). They're not doing anything right now, so they've been available to produce -- but being an Islamic country* they don't sell to Israel, at least not directly. Indirectly adds to the costs (and also could violate international arms regulations), and Israel is already strained because it needs to buy more interceptors too. South Korea will sell to anyone, as far as I know, within of course the confines of international law (such as they are).

So if you wanted to find someone who had excess 155mm ammunition-making equipment they could sell you, it'd have to be one of those two for now. I imagine the Turks were quite a bit cheaper, and you all know the story about the government going along with the lowest bidder. 

UPDATE: A sudden fire at an Italian factory that makes 155mm. 

* The supposed Islamic solidarity against Israel actually isn't universal at all; Uzbekistan, for example, has historically close relations with Israel and remains quite friendly. Turkey is definitely not one of the exceptions to it, though.

Changing Dynamics

Forbes explores the sudden collapse of Socialist darling Hong.

Socialist Francesca Hong was heavily favored to win the Wisconsin Democratic gubernatorial primary Tuesday in betting odds and among politicos, but the few polls taken proved unreliable in a primary with several major last-minute developments that changed the dynamics in the race.

What were these dynamics? The changing roster of opponents in a crowded field, perhaps. The guy who won had actually dropped out of the race, then re-entered suddenly in spite of having never had any support.

Also, her anti-Thanksgiving posts had a news cycle right before the election.

Still, the guy who won had never reached more than half her numbers. 

Perhaps this is 'changing dynamics.' Or perhaps it's the same dynamic we keep seeing in numerous other places; the recent race in LA for mayor comes to mind. A certain "F" shaped curve in 2020's election. There does seem to be an intelligible signal in all this noise. 

UPDATE: Hot Air identifies these and more evidences of this signal.

Look, Hong is a crazy, but she's their crazy. If they'll cheat her they'll cheat you. Stand up for the crazy lady. It's important. 

Happy Red Plants

Just a small garden this year, but it's happy. These are San Marzano tomatoes, similar to but better than the more locally famous Roma. After this lovely photo I broiled them ruthlessly, combined them with red New Mexican chiles and some chiles moritas, a little salt, a little onion, and some home-grown dried oregano I ground for the purpose. Blended and then fried to reduce and meld the flavors, cool, and it's a delicious but mild sauce. 

National Firearms Act Loses a Fang

For the first time since 1934, suppressors (usually called 'silencers' in the same way that rifles are increasingly called 'assault weapons') have been transferred without government approval. Gun Owners of America effected the transfers last night. 

This follows a victory by plaintiffs (including Hall favorites the Firearms Policy Coalition) in Federal Court. 

Because Congress eliminated the NFA’s making and transfer taxes for most regulated firearms in 2025, the Act’s remaining registration and recordkeeping mandates lack any valid constitutional foundation.

FPC Statement: “This is a massive win and an important step forward in our strategic plan to end the NFA. We cannot wait to fully and finally eliminate this unconstitutional scheme so people can exercise their rights when, where, and how they choose.”  — Brandon Combs, FPC President

The ruling was issued last week but delayed for a week to give time for an appeal by the ATF. The Trump Administration declined to appeal the ruling. 

UPDATE: The NFA is down a fang most places. In 15 states (including mine, because of our lousy Democrat governor who backs every form of gun control he can) the Democratic leadership of that state is blocking transfers without the Federal paperwork at the state police level. That is arguably grounds for Federal prosecutions, not just another lawsuit: deprivation of rights under color of law.

Clear and Present Danger

The Washington Post has what might once have been a blockbuster report. It accuses the President of actually carrying out the plot of a Tom Clancy novel and movie, Clear and Present Danger.

The mysterious strikes targeting multiple Ecuadorian fishing boats near the Galápagos Islands this year were carried out as part of a covert CIA program, The Washington Post has learned. 

While many details about the agency’s involvement were not clear, one person with knowledge of the matter said the strikes were part of a “covert action” program, a type of secret operation overseas that is approved by the president but where the role of the U.S. government is not publicly acknowledged. The person spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the subject’s sensitivity. 

No agency or government has claimed responsibility for the incidents, including the disappearance in January of a fishing vessel and eight of its crew members. 

The CIA’s involvement adds a new and secretive dimension to the Trump administration’s otherwise highly publicized campaign against alleged drug traffickers at sea.

If it's true that there was a Presidential finding justifying a covert CIA program, there is no legal recourse. The CIA is authorized to break any foreign or international law under those circumstances, nor can the troops be prosecuted if they were transferred to CIA command for the duration of the action. So it's legal under US law -- the law supports covert programs as long as they're outside the territorial USA and authorized by a Presidential finding. All other laws are allowed to be violated under that section of our law.

This is how the Bin Laden assassination -- er, I mean, 'targeted killing' -- was legal. It violated Pakistani law completely, as well as Pakistan's territorial integrity and sovereignty and probably our treaty obligations. However, the SEALs who carried it out were officially CIA employees for the hours when operating under this law, and the CIA was authorized by a Presidential Finding.

So that is actually the plot of the novel and move summarized by the Wiki link above: the President and CIA Department of Operations is running a covert program dropping bombs on people and deploying snipers, while CIA Department of Intelligence doesn't know about it because they don't need to know about it. 

Notice the ending: all hero Jack Ryan can do is testify to Congress about it. Nobody can do anything else. 

Congress could impeach of course. I’ll pause while you stop laughing.

I said this would once have been a blockbuster story, and obviously Clancy assumes in his novel that the testimony to House Oversight would have some sort of serious consequences. How quaint an artifact of that age! 

That movie is from 1994. The Monica Lewinsky story broke in 1998. I remember people still believed that such public revelation of Presidential wrongdoing was going to end Clinton's career. I vividly recall a roundtable discussion involving some of the biggest news anchors, and they agreed that if the story was true he'd have to resign. 

NOPE! Suckers. The Party had the votes, so no consequences. 

That ball has rolled down hill to here, where they can just do the plot of the novel and laugh at Congress from across town. Nobody else can do anything at all. Nobody has standing to sue, and no laws were violated -- the law specifically authorizes this. Arguably it is forbidden by international law, but that's just a phrase that means nothing because it's unenforceable especially against the President of the United States. The Party has the votes to block impeachment. No consequences will befall anyone even if it's completely true.

Too bad, in a way. I recall it was a pretty good movie, but the newly anticlimactic ending kills a lot of the plot. 

Scars of Helene

It'll be two years in September, and three out of four small businesses that survived at all have not recovered to 80% of prior revenue. Many of them didn't survive to report at all, so the real economic damage is higher; new businesses have formed, though, as you would expect.

Circle of Bears Update

If you are interested in the Russian shadow fleet transiting the Arctic Circle*, the best source for now seems to be the one I started with, GCaptain. He has (they have?) updates and more information. 

One of the tankers has already suffered real damage in spite of its icebreaker escort. 

The incident resulted in an insurance payout of 53 million rubles, roughly $650,000, according to Russian insurer AlfaStrakhovanie, which did not disclose the name of the vessel....  The insurer said the tanker sustained hull deformation while navigating through ice and stressed that icebreaker assistance does not eliminate the physical risks associated with Arctic navigation.

“Even with icebreaker assistance, navigation in Arctic waters is associated with increased hull stress and the risk of damage,” AlfaStrakhovanie said in a company statement (in Russian).... AlfaStrakhovanie said its specialists investigated the incident, assessed the damage and calculated the insurance compensation before paying the shipowner the full amount.... an icebreaker can open a navigable channel but does not eliminate the stresses imposed on vessels following behind.

Another of the vessels, the sanctioned Suezmax tanker Latur, is attempting the passage without insurance -- or an icebreaker escort.

Russia is also forced to import refined fuel, The Moscow Times reports. They are buying mass amounts of gasoline that have to be ground-shipped from Kazakhstan and Belarus (thus avoiding the strong successes of Ukrainian naval efforts at sea interdiction, all the more impressive given that Ukraine has no navy), as well as an even larger amount being sea-shipped from India. The reason, India Today explains to its confused readership who wonder why the Russians are buying up their gasoline, is that Ukraine has crippled Russia's refineries. 

An additional effect has been that Russia has banned diesel exports to keep its own internal fleets running. Thus, exports are way down and increasingly perilous; imports are way up; and whole sectors of their energy income are closed.

* Lit. "the circle where the bears are," árktos being 'bear' in Greek; note "Ursus arctos," which they translate as "brown bear," is actually the Latin for bear followed by the Greek for bear, thus, "bear bear."

Medieval Studies

This graph compares modern city rates of violence with those of periods of Medieval Europe. The Medieval data is from here. I doubt its quality; the Thirty Years War, for example, should produce a very major spike that isn't evident. There may have been decisions taken to omit military conflicts, or the sources they used might not include that information. Nevertheless, the general picture of higher rates of interpersonal violence is probably broadly accurate. 

One thing I wanted to look at compared with the chart assembled was the rural rate in the US: "US cities avg." only captures cities, which are notably more prone to murders than the countryside. I found some statistics via the National Institute of Health. It's the bottom-most line we are interested in, because the top lines look at either suicide rates or combined murder/suicide rates.

That graph gives the 'most rural' rate as a little below half the 'most urban' rate. It looks like just about exactly half if we take one step back from the 'most rural' to include some slightly less-rual places in the average. If we do the same thing for the urban side, for the 2010s -- which is the era the Medieval map is using -- the figure doesn't change between most-urban and second-most-urban. 

Thus, we can reasonably multiply the 'US cities avg.' (10) rate by 0.5 to get a rough figure for 'US rural avg.' as an estimate of how country murders compare with the Medieval chart. That gives us a rough rate of 5, allegedly very slightly more dangerous than NYC but less than any of the other cities on the chart. 

I have some questions about that too; but the NYPD reports that period as having been the record-holder for fewest murders until this year, when they are claiming a new record low. Since we have to assume that all of these numbers are somewhat dodgy -- there's no way we have perfect statistics for the Medieval period, when no one was really collecting statistics as such -- we'll go with it as a rough estimate. 

Make of it what you will, I suppose.

Exploring America

An infographic showing the major ways mid-century America got to know their country, and some of what they found there.

I've been to many of these places, but I know one of the locations well. The fort pictured as location 65 is not actually on Tybee Island, but on Cockspur Island on Savannah River between Tybee Island and the port of Savannah: it's Fort Pulaski, named after Casimir Pulaski, a Polish nobleman who came to join the Revolution and fought alongside Americans because he believed in their program of liberty. He once saved the life of George Washington and is honored by an equestrian statue in Savannah. 

About twenty-five years ago I worked on a documentary interviewing the CCC veterans who had restored Fort Pulaski during the Depression, as an oral history project while pursuing a degree in that discipline. They were a fun crew of older gentlemen with good stories to tell about the CCC and the War. I mentioned that experience about ten years ago.

Savannah has another fort, Fort James Jackson, named after that hero of the Revolution and early Georgia history. It's also a brickwork fort, an older installation that Pulaski was intended to replace. It was not reduced during the Civil War because the Union Navy was content to bottle up Savannah further up the river, though Sherman's army occupied it when they took the city much later in the war. It's quite lovely and right by the city; it's where the local Scottish Highland Games are held.

A third fort, Fort McAllister, was an earthwork fort that was much more successful at resisting rifled naval artillery than brickwork designs proved to be. It was attacked seven times but not taken or reduced until Sherman captured it with land forces. The Wikipedia page has an interesting anecdote I had not heard:

During the evening that the fort fell, [the fort's defending commander] Anderson was being held at the McAllister family home, the new headquarters of General William Babcock Hazen. General Hazen and Lt. Col. Strong invited General Sherman to dinner, to celebrate their victory. In a kind gesture of respect, General Hazen also invited Major Anderson to attend the meal, after clearing the request with Sherman. The discussion was surely lively - during the meal Anderson engaged in a heated exchange with General Sherman about the tactics employed to defend the fort and the bravery of all who fought there. Cigars were exchanged and smoked, and tributes were made to the fallen. However, Sherman remained greatly upset at Anderson's use of land mines in the defense of the fort, and ordered the Major [General] to personally join his fellow captured Confederates on mine-clearing detail.

My wife painted the ruins of Fort McAllister once when she was pursing a fine arts degree at the Savannah College of Art and Design. I don't know after whom the fort was named; the family was locally important. One of them was mayor of Savannah and his son was a state senator. I would guess it was probably one of them.

The map has many other interesting locations, and is fun to explore.

Tradition! Tradition!

A San Bernardino County train was under fire Monday night after bandits attempted a Wild West-style heist.

A group of suspects fired on officers with the Burlington Northern and Santa Fe Railway (BNSF) in what appeared to be an effort to rob the train as it passed through the desolate Cajon Pass between the San Bernardino and San Gabriel mountains.

Americans have traditions too. Wild West train robberies are a valued part of our national heritage.  

UPDATE: The only time I've seen Fiddler on the Roof was when my high school did it as its annual musical. I don't know why they picked it; we didn't have any Jewish students in the county as far as I know. I only went to see it because my sister played the mother, which in a way was family tradition too. She became a Thespian because my father had been one, although in fairness to him he only built sets. He didn't have a non-genuine bone in his body, so pretending to be somebody he was not wasn't a skill he ever developed.

Russia's Desperate Maneuver

Russia's desperation for cash meets China's desperation for oil: in a move unprecedented even in Soviet times, Russia is attempting to send a large fleet of oil tankers and supertankers through the Arctic to reach its buyers in Asia.

At the fleet’s current position, only four vessels are operating farther north: the Swedish icebreaker Oden, China’s polar icebreaker Xue Long, Norway’s research icebreaker Kronprins Haakon, and the ice-class expedition vessel Virgo, according to ship-tracking data. 

The routing places Russia’s Arctic oil fleet among the northernmost commercial vessels ever recorded. The route passes north of 81 degrees north, roughly 10 degrees farther north than Utqiagvik, Alaska, which sits at about 71 degrees north latitude.... 

Arctic shipping experts say they cannot recall commercial traffic of this scale using the route, making the operation unprecedented despite isolated Soviet-era voyages several decades ago.

The convoy includes the Suezmax tanker Dinasty, which industry observers say may become the highest-latitude commercial Suezmax tanker ever to operate. Suezmax vessels, among the largest tankers routinely engaged in international crude oil trade, are rarely seen operating in the high Arctic because of their size and the challenging ice environment... 

[T]he voyage remains challenging. Significant sea ice continues to cover parts of the East Siberian Sea. Three Russian nuclear icebreakers are currently deployed to escort commercial shipping along the Northern Sea Route.

Desperate times, desperate measures they say. 

Consciousness

A new theory about consciousness proposes that the brain doesn't create it. I think this is right; such a theory has been a rare but occasional topic of this space for some years. 

My version of it is a form of panpsychism, which holds that all of reality is conscious, but that we get the sense of being unique individuals because our brains work as a receiver and interpreter locally. This is much like how a television or radio doesn't produce the content you experience through it -- it's just tuned to a particular station, and thus is picking up a part of the TV or radio signals that are available in the air (radio still; television not usually anymore); you can account for things like brain injury altering the apparent personality of the brain-owner by analogy to adjusting their receiver so that it now is pulling from a different part of the radio spectrum (say).

The new version is by Christof Koch, who has been doing this work even longer than that; he and David Chalmers, also mentioned in the article, had a longstanding bet (which Chalmers won) on the subject.

To address that question, Koch turns to a philosophical framework known as analytic idealism, which proposes that consciousness may be a fundamental feature of reality rather than something generated by the brain.

Within this framework, the brain is viewed less as a producer of consciousness and more as a filter or shaper of conscious experience.

Sounds like he's on the right track this time!

Since consciousness debates are now tied up with AI, he adds this: 

The ideas also have implications for artificial intelligence. If consciousness is not simply the product of increasingly complex computation, the path toward conscious machines may be more complicated than simply building increasingly powerful AI systems.

That does not mean future AI systems could never become conscious. Rather, he argues that the debate cannot be settled simply by making computers more intelligent or more computationally sophisticated.

Well, take it further: the implication is that anything can become conscious if you tune it the right way. That then is merely a technical question: how do you tune the receiver? Have we done it already, by accident? Could we adjust our reception to improve it? We can certainly alter it, as he acknowledges from personal experience.

Several years ago, while sitting alone on a beach, he recalls the boundary between himself and the world dissolving, describing the experience as a timeless and universal reality.

In his essay, Koch describes the experience as "the most meaningful of my life," writing that it "flipped my view of reality".

Koch is careful not to present the experience as scientific evidence. Instead, he writes that it gave him "a view of Mind-at-Large" and prompted him to re-examine the metaphysical assumptions that had guided much of his scientific career, taking alternative philosophical perspectives more seriously. 

Sitting alone on a beach taking mushrooms, I would guess!

The Wailin' Jennys

The name is a tribute to Waylon Jennings, but the music is their own.

More below the fold

Now That's Real Journalism

I've generally found motorcycle rallies and biker bars to be extremely friendly places, in truth. Still, if you just wandered in and you don't have any background, this is an actually helpful newspaper article that will convey information that will improve your life. 

Partly this is by actually writing down the "unwritten rules." 

Rule No. 1: Hands Off

A motorcycle is not a park bench.

Don't sit on one.

Don't lean against one.

Don't climb aboard for a photograph.

I won't copy the whole list, but here's another bit of real wisdom:

Rule No. 4: Leave The Old Lady Alone

A surefire way to get your ass kicked at Sturgis is by "messing with someone's old lady,” Pretty Bobbie continued.

The term itself might sound less than flattering to an outsider.

In biker culture, Pretty Bobbie said calling a woman “old lady” is "the utmost term of respect."

Come to think of it, versions of both of those are in the Ten Commandments. They had asses instead of motorcycles, but it made the list. 

Some Brighter Anecdotes about Japan and Security

So, to use that awful academic word, I have problematized the US-Japan relationship in my last two anecdote posts. Mainly, I wanted to give a brief overview of how the Japanese l talked with seemed to see the defensive alliance with the US as well as their own domestic concerns about their developing role in international security. Here, I want to relate some experiences that I think point toward a strong US-Japan relationship for the future.

First, whatever else the Japanese remember about their war with us, they have a powerful memory of the US feeding them and helping them rebuild their nation after they surrendered. The Japanese people were quite literally starving by the beginning of August 1945. I have had elderly Japanese people, complete strangers, come up to me in the street, ask me if I was American, and then thank me for feeding them after the war. I was clearly a couple of generations younger than them, so there was no possibility they thought I had actually been there in 1945. They remember their debts, even debts to a former enemy.

Their nation has prospered under the US security umbrella and while they may complain about one aspect or another of the relationship, they are grateful for that, too. It's been good for both nations and they know it.

It may seem much less important, but the Japanese in their teens and twenties and thirties (more than a decade ago now) seemed overall to have a positive image of the US. American music and movies are perennially popular there. Sure, they have criticisms of us (as we have of them), but it doesn't seem to blunt their enjoyment of American culture. If anything, I was typically a bit of a disappointment to them because I was mainly interested in doing traditional Japanese things. I would have been much more popular if I'd played tennis or golf.

Another positive development in Japan seems to be, if my sources are correct, that Marxism appears to be on the wane there, even while it is blossoming in the US. I can't walk across a US campus without tripping on a Marxist and the SDA is booming, but the fall of the Soviet Union seems to have begun a slow retreat from Marxism in the Japanese academy and society more broadly. The Japanese Communist Party is also slowly slipping, with numbers decreasing steadily since about 2014. These are good signs.

I hesitate to offer specific suggestions for improving the relationship in the ways we might want because I have been out of the field for so long and really don't know the current situation. That said, I will say that broadly speaking there is a strong foundation on the Japanese side for our two nations to cooperate to an even greater degree than we have been. At this point, I would simply make the maybe banal suggestions that, one, some sensitivity to how we approach changes in matters of security, being mindful of the domestic issues surrounding Article 9, would be wise. And, two, it's good to keep in mind that honor remains important to them. Yes, they like money and the things it buys, but there is still a little bit of samurai ethos in them, even the pacifists.

###

Postscript: Another good sign is the LDP is usually in power and one of its goals is amending Article 9. It takes a 2/3 majority in both the lower and upper houses of parliament to accomplish that, so the problem for a long time now has been the LDP hasn't ever gotten those numbers. Right now, they have 2/3s in the lower house, but, even with their coalition partner, are about 40 or so short in the upper house. For some reason I just assume everyone knows this; the LDP have been in the majority since 1955 with two brief lapses: 1993-96 and 2009-12. So, they're almost always in power.

Darker Anecdotes on Japan and Defense

In my previous post, I gave what I take to be some common Japanese views of their own Self Defense Forces. In this post I want to give some much less frequent, darker experiences I had that bear on the topic.

I mentioned that most Japanese seem to connect the terms army and navy with the 1930s & '40s militarism and are offended if you describe the current JSDF with those terms. I try (usually successfully) not to judge other people's linguistic associations, but it seemed a bit silly all these decades after the end of the war. However, on a couple of occasions I ran into Japanese ultranationalists who gave me pause.

In one case, I was touring a very small military museum that I ran across. It had a number of small displays about the Japanese Imperial Navy of the 1940s with photographs of young men in naval uniforms. I talked to the gentleman at the front desk about some of the exhibits and in answering he explained, as best as I can remember, that they highlighted the courage and sacrifice of the officers and sailors in particular engagements. He went on to tell me that, as an American, I should know that Japan's leadership did not order any atrocities during WWII, although there were small rogue units that unfortunately did commit war crimes. Also, he claimed, many of the stories about Japanese atrocities in China were just Chinese communist propaganda. He said he didn't hate Americans and was glad our nations were friends now, but we should learn the real history of the war. Although I think he's completely wrong, I was very interested in hearing his version of things and just asked questions and tried to look thoughtful. He did not strike me as the kind of man I could discuss this with openly, so I didn't try, although looking back maybe I should have. It's hard to say all these years later.

While I was in Japan, the government approved a number of new history textbooks that either didn't cover or downplayed Japanese war crimes during WWII. Schools (or prefectures? I'm not sure) can choose from a list of approved textbooks, so it just gave them these options, in addition to other textbooks that did cover the war crimes.

It is hard to know what to think of that. Japan's war crimes in WWII are in a way similar to the slavery issue here. One of the functions of national history is to have a shared story that forms a sense of being one people. How should we treat such evils as slavery and national war crimes while still maintaining a sense of national worth and national honor? How to remember the war is something that has remained very contentious there. Those who want a reduced emphasis on Japan's war crimes claim that too much time is spent on it and that such self-flagellation (as they see it) is unhealthy for a people.

On the other hand, many Japanese fear that, if schools don't teach about the evils of Japan's 1930s and '40s militarism, more and more Japanese will come to believe that Japan did nothing wrong in WWII. They fear that this would lead to a new rise of ultranationalism and a new militarism.

To be fair to them, there is a strain of Japanese history that points out that the US Navy forced Japan to open in 1853 and that European colonization of China and other parts of Asia forced Japan to industrialize and arm itself. So far, that's true. Where the narrative line gets pretty questionable is the further claim that European and American threats and aggression forced Japan to invade its neighbors and continually expand its empire in order to be strong enough to defend itself. It then becomes natural in this line of thought that Pearl Harbor was America's fault; our oil embargo prevented Japan from defending itself. Those that peddle this line bitterly resent the United States.

So, the supporting narrative is there for a new anti-American ultranationalism wherein Japan was the victim of WWII. There are also a number of ultranationalist groups in Japan that want to get rid of the constitution altogether and return to the Meiji constitution that gave significant political power to the Army and Navy. They oppose democracy and capitalism and the civil rights the Japanese enjoy under their current constitution. I have no real idea how big these groups are. They drive around in these big black buses painted with nationalist emblems, blaring out nationalist songs from what I think are the 1930s. They occasionally go out and parade around in Imperial Army uniforms, or outfits that look similar, and wave the old flags around. They always struck me as being a bit like the KKK here in that they wanted to demonstrate they're still around but they didn't have many adherents or much power. They seemed quite marginalized to me. Thankfully, they don't seem to be stabbing foreigners or pro-democracy political leaders or pro-capitalism business leaders to death on a regular basis as their predecessors in the 1920s did.

In this environment, for many Japanese, talk of amending the constitution, particularly Article 9, brings fears of a new rise of ultranationalism and militarism with a great loss of democracy and civil rights. Obviously, the ultranationalists are all in favor of ditching Article 9 and rearming, so anyone talking about ditching Article 9 and rearming seems a bit suspect. 

My opinion is the ultranationalists have few people and little power, so the chance of a resurgence of ultranationalist militarism is quite remote, but I can't say it's non-existent. And in any case, what I think doesn't matter. It's what the Japanese think that matters.