Guardian Unlimited | Life | Chess! What is it good for?

Chess & War:

The UK Guardian has this look at how modified games of chess can be used to study warfighting:

By modifying key variables, such as the number of moves al lowed each turn, or whether one player can see all of the other's pieces, they are investigating the relative importance of a host of factors that translate to the battlefield, such as numerical superiority, a quick advance and the use of stealth....

One major difference between chess and war is that chess does not contain what the military terms "information uncertainty". Unlike a battle commander, who may have incomplete intelligence about his opponent's level of weaponry or location of munitions depots, one chess player can always see the other's pieces, and note their every move. So Kuylenstierna and his colleagues asked players to compete with a board each and an opaque screen between them. A game leader transferred each player's moves to the other's board - but not always instantaneously. For instance, one game modification resulted in a player being prevented from seeing their opponent's latest two moves.

The lessons they've extracted so far appear to be applicable to all similar games--checkers, for instance. The lessons will sound familiar to students of modern American warfighting:

[A] fast tempo can be important, particularly in combination with "deep planning". Deep planning involved, at every move, each agent considering all their previous moves and their opponent's responses, and their responses to those responses, and using this to develop a "tree" of possible strategic paths they could follow to win. "A deeper planner is one who can search deeper into time, and has more possible end points," says Calbert. In general, deep planning plus a fast tempo was devastating - even if the opponent was numerically superior.

Do they apply to real war? It sounds very similar to the Afghan campaign, where the US footprint was tremendously limited, but used tempo and intel to take a much smaller and embattled Northern Alliance to victory over dug-in Talibani in short order. And Iraq?

The build-up to the war in Iraq coincided with the first results from the chess simulations run by Jason Scholz and his team. "We watched with great interest the dialogue between General [Tommy} Franks, who wanted to use more materiel, and Donald Rumsfeld who wanted a fast tempo and lighter units," Scholz says. Based on the chess results, which favoured a fast, decisive attack strategy, Scholz says his advice would have been to go along with the US defence secretary's ideas. "In the end, there was a compromise," he says. "But a relatively fast tempo did really gain a very decisive, rapid advantage in Iraq."

Hat tip, Arts & Letters Daily.

The Liberal Conspiracy - Satire, Informed Commentary and 9-11 Research

Catblogging:

Sovay--who lives a few miles away from me--has decided to carry on the old CalPundit tradition of catblogging. I should note that she left off one of Sam's several names: Assassin. That cat dropped a metal stool on my head once, from off the top of her refrigerator.

AllRefer Encyclopedia - Bob Dole (U.S. History, Biographies) - Encyclopedia

Honor & Nonfeasance:

If you appoint somebody to repair your roads, and pay them the monies promised, and then they don't bother to show up and do it, you've got a situation called "nonfeasance." If some small-town official doesn't perform the duties they've been elected or appointed to perform, but takes the money, they're subject to penalties under the law.

But what of a high official, say, a Senator? The Senate requires both more and less, as it turns out. For the man of honor, it demands more. A Senator takes a Federal oath of office:

I do solemnly swear that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter: So help me God.

All Senators are entitled to be called "Honorable." Alas, not all of them live up to the honorific, or to the honor of their office or their oath. Some do:

In June, 1996, Dole resigned from the Senate in order to devote more time to the presidential race[.]

Some, alas, do not:

Presidential hopeful John F. Kerry [related, bio] has been a virtual no-show in the U.S. Senate over the past 14 months, but he hasn't missed a paycheck, even though a dusty federal law says some of his $158,000 salary should have been withheld.

During his run for the presidency, Kerry has missed every one of the 22 roll call votes in the Senate this year and was absent for 292, or 64 percent of the roll call votes last year, according to a Herald review of Senate records.

That means the Massachusetts senator has been away from his post in the Senate chamber for at least 128 days over the past 14 months.

Kerry is not the only political truant. U.S. Sen. John Edwards [related, bio] (D-N.C.), the runner-up behind Kerry in the hunt for the Democratic nomination, has also missed every roll call this year and skipped 178, or 39 percent of the votes last year.

Kerry, when the assets of his wife are included, is one of the wealthiest members of the Senate with a reported net worth somewhere between $198 million and $838 million.

The first duty of a Senator is to represent their constituents. That is the most important of the duties of office that they swear faithfully to discharge. We cannot be there in the Senate, hearing the testimonies and voting on the laws. We entrust that to Senators. We trust them to keep their oath of honor.

When they do not, there is a penalty.

However, he and the other AWOL candidates have been spared the automatic paycuts called for in a long-ignored federal law passed in the 1850s.

Section 39 of the United States Code Service requires the Secretary of the Senate and the Chief Administrative Officer of the House to deduct daily pay from members for each day they are absent.

The only legal excuse is if the senator or representative, or one of their family members, is ill, the law states.

Or at least, the law says there is a penalty. In fact, there is none: the Secretary of the Senate has apparently never enforced this federal law, and the current one is citing that as a good reason to carry on not enforcing it.

This is no surprise. The lesson we ought to have learned by now is this: no law can restrain the honorless. No one who will not be restrained by his oath of office is fit to sit in the Senate, nor any judgeship, nor any other position of authority. We have seen that the law cannot restrain the powerful if their word will not restrain them.

Kim du Toit - Weekly Rant

Quote of the Month:

Good lad Kim du Toit has what I think may be the finest thing I've read in quite a while. If it doesn't strike you so, you're entitled to your own opinion.

Note to Virginia Postrel: real men don't take Prozac.

If life gets a little to much for a real man, he gets drunk, has sex, goes to the shooting range or gets into a fistfight while getting drunk. 'Twas ever thus, and men did quite fine thereby for centuries, until some pussywhipped doctors decided that it would be soooooooo much better just to medicate men into being women.

Yeah, "sound medical reasons", "ameliorating effects" blah blah blah.

You tell 'em, mate.

Spain

Spain:

I've been asked to share this with anyone interested.

The Embassy of Spain convenes a silent demonstration tomorrow, Friday, March 12th, to express its outrage for today's terrorist attack perpetrated in Madrid, in which approximately 200 people have died and 900 have been injured.

The demonstration will take place at the Washington Circle (Pennsylvania Ave and 23rd St NW) at 12 am.

BBC NEWS | Asia-Pacific | China doctor calls 1989 'mistake'

Communist Awakening:

Dr. Jiang Yanyong, subject of the People's Republic of China, is a very brave man. Last year he exposed the Chinese government's coverup of the SARS virus. Now, he is calling for the Chinese Communist Party to admit that the Tiananmen Square massacre was a mistake:

Jiang cited former President Yang Shangkun as telling him that "the June 4 incident is the most serious mistake committed by our party in history."

One thinks of the Great Leap Forward (which left thirty to sixty million people dead of starvation) as a competitor for that title. There's also the Cultural Revolution, and the repression of the Hundred Flowers period, the founding of the Red Guards... but let's not quibble. It's a bold step, and I wish them well with it.

Yahoo! Mail - bjarnr@yahoo.com

Spymaster:

The Senate Armed Services Committee yesterday heard DIA Director Vice Admiral Jacoby. His testimony is available at that link (PDF warning). It's a balanced report, and one of the most complete world-sitreps I've seen available as OSINT. I assume our enemies will take advantage of the opportunity to read it; you might as well too.

Pandagon: A Real Pro-Growth Agenda

Um, what?

Via our beloved friend at The Liberal Conspiracy, we have to ask a question about Pandagon's "Pro-Growth Agenda". Pandagon says:

By reframing the health care initiative, you get businesses on your side and end the idiotic cries of socialism -- this is about keeping American workers competitive, why are you anti-American? You want all our jobs to go to France?

The United States has an unemployment rate between four and six percent, from year to year. France's rate is from nine to thirteen percent. That health-care thing isn't working out. Nice try, though, Pandagon.

UPDATE: The aforementioned beloved Liberal, Sovay, demands that I expand on my comment. Pandagon was just joking about France, she tells me, and so focusing on the joke is missing his point.

I'm not sure I agree--Pandagon probably is joking, but joking to make a point. The point ought to be refutable by refuting the joke. Sovay is a bit humorless on occasion--only now and then, when she's on about politics--so I'm going to go ahead and rebutt formally.

The policy Pandagon suggests isn't sound for this reason: health-care costs affect the economy regardless of who foots the bill. We aren't losing jobs to France, we're losing them to the Third World. We're not losing them to Socialist safety-net states, but to states which have no net at all. Their costs are lower, therefore wages and other structural expenses can be lower.

Health care is one of those structural expenses, yes. If the employer is paying for insurance, the cost of employing a worker is higher. However, if the employer gets a "tax credit" from the government for that expense, the money is still being spent. Unless the government is suddenly going to become willing to cut spending--pardon me a moment while I laugh bitterly--the government is going to need higher tax revenues to offset the tax credits. Those revenues are almost certain to be collected in the form of higher tax rates, which tax increases add to the cost of doing business just as much as paying for the insurance in the first place. (Indeed, Pandagon suggests paying for it by repealing the Bush tax cuts, which is to say, by raising tax rates from where they are now.) Moreso, the Pandagon policy adds a middleman--you now have to pay for the people who process all that tax-credit paperwork, government employees who have to be paid out of tax revenues. How are we going to pay for these new salaries on the public dole? Oh, right, there go those tax rates up again.

There's a reason that governments, like France, which have a thick socialist safety net also have massive structural unemployment. If you're really serious about outsourcing and unemployment, there are a few options, but increased socialist spending--even if it's disguised as tax credits--is not one of them. Protectionist trade policies are one response; a dismantling of parts of our own safety net, to make us more competitive with the Third World, another. Right now the Republican party seems to prefer the latter, and the Democratic party (including, I suppose, me) the former. There are not many other realistic options, but one thing that definitely won't fix the problem is drifting off into fantasies like these, whereby we can have increased socialist spending and also lower market unemployment.

Southern Appeal

Southern Appeal:

Southern Appeal is being especially clever. :)

Secrecy News 03/09/04

USNORTHCOM:

The JAG is talking about the "drastic" change in the way the US military conducts domestic ops. There are quite a few documents on the topic that have become available recently. Essentially, the main change is that the military is doing a lot more inside the US, where civilian law enforcement has traditionally been the mainstay. From Secrecy News (a contradiction in terms, yes?):

In the absence of clear guidelines and effective oversight, the U.S. military is becoming increasingly involved in domestic operations, including surveillance activities that blur the traditional distinction between foreign intelligence and domestic security.

"Since September 11, 2001, the role of the military in domestic operations has changed drastically," according to the 2004 Operational Law Handbook of the U.S. Army Judge Advocate General (JAG) Corps.

"Prior to September 11, military involvement in domestic operations was almost exclusively in the area of civil support operations. Post-September 11, the military's role has expanded to cover 'homeland defense' and/or 'homeland security' missions, somewhat undefined terms," the JAG Handbook stated (p. 355).

Several instances of "an expanding military role in domestic affairs" were reported today in the Wall Street Journal.

In one case, an Army intelligence officer demanded that a University of Texas law school turn over the videotape of an academic conference in order to identify "Middle Eastern" individuals who had made "suspicious" remarks....

One military intelligence organization with a domestic presence is the low-profile Counterintelligence Field Activity (CIFA).

Quietly created post-September 11, CIFA has a broad charter to provide counterintelligence and security support to the Defense Department around the world and within the United States.

"Worldwide, more than 400 civilian and military employees work for CIFA with the ultimate goal of detecting and neutralizing the many different forms of espionage regularly conducted against the United States by terrorists, foreign intelligence services and other covert and clandestine groups," according to the Defense Security Service.

"The threats posed by these adversaries include actions to kill or harm U.S. citizens; to steal critical information or assets (military or civilian); or destroy critical infrastructures."

CIFA was established in 2002 by Department of Defense Directive 5105.67.

There has been a lot of debate in Congress about establishing a domestic counterintelligence agency, like the British MI-5, so that the FBI won't have to try to carry counterintelligence as well as law enforcement. The two disciplines are very different, and the firewalls the FBI has to put up to make sure that the rights of citizens are protected makes them quite poor at CI. I've always been opposed to having a domestic CI branch, though there are good arguments on both sides. It looks a bit as if the DOD has gotten ahead of the Congress, and simply begun handling domestic military intelligence. I have complete faith in our military professionals, but I suspect that the Congress is going to resent the initiative as they become aware of it.

Rantingprofs: IF FOREIGN LEADERS BACK KERRY DOES THAT HELP HIM OR HURT HIM?

Kerry Breaks the Logan Act:

Rantingprofs asks this about Kerry's announcement today (emphasis added):

And at what point did it become appropriate for a candidate for office to have contact with foreign leaders? Doesn't Kerry realize the damage that can do? If he leads any foreign leader to believe that he'd be more sympathetic to their arguments and interests -- which clearly he's done -- how isn't that a signal to those countries to hold off any dealings with this administration in the hopes it will soon be sent packing and they'll be able to do better? And if that's the case, then why isn't Kerry now interfering with American foreign policy in a way that could potentially benefit him (by reducing the level of success this administration can chalk up between now and the elections since at least some leaders will be stonewalling hoping for a better deal)? No doubt some of that kind of stonewalling is likely with other governments during any election season -- should Kerry be explicitly encouraging it?

In fact, if Kerry has been involved in talks of these kinds with foreign leaders, he is guilty of violating the Logan Act, which has been on the books since 1799:

Sec. 953. - Private correspondence with foreign governments:

Any citizen of the United States, wherever he may be, who, without authority of the United States, directly or indirectly commences or carries on any correspondence or intercourse with any foreign government or any officer or agent thereof, with intent to influence the measures or conduct of any foreign government or of any officer or agent thereof, in relation to any disputes or controversies with the United States, or to defeat the measures of the United States, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than three years, or both.

This section shall not abridge the right of a citizen to apply, himself or his agent, to any foreign government or the agents thereof for redress of any injury which he may have sustained from such government or any of its agents or subjects.

Three years in a Federal prison is the penalty for this--that makes it not only a Federal crime, but a felony. Kerry won't be prosecuted, of course, for the simple reason that Bush can't afford to prosecute him--having Kerry arrested for any crime would appear to be a political assassination, regardless of guilt. But the point here is the same as the point below: Kerry, master of nuance, has been twenty years on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. He knows what the law is. Yet, he not only has responded to these advances from more than one foreign leader, he trumpets them to the press. Beware him.

UPDATE (2005): In later discussions on the Logan Act, it became clear that there were some important facts about it not clear to me at the time I wrote this piece. The first is that it has never been enforced; the second is that a sitting Senator may very well claim to have proper authority to speak for at least his part of the government, and constituents. Kerry's Vietnam-era negotiations in Paris appear still to have been a violation of the (never enforced) Logan Act, but this would not appear to be. The final position at the end of the debate was here. I say that Senators are 'obviously' exempt, though plainly it wasn't obvious to me at the beginning. It only became so on examination.

Newsday.com - AP World News

Viking Harbor:

Archaeologists have discovered a Viking harbor in Norway, the oldest preserved to our age.

The ancient harbor complex at Faanestangen, near the west coast city of Trondheim and some 250 miles north of Oslo, was discovered when a local landowner started work on a small boat dock on the same spot selected by his ancestors a millennium earlier.

It will be very interesting to see what is uncovered as the dig progresses.

In Sweeping Critique, Kerry Condemns Bush for Failing to Back Aristide

Unilateralism:

John Kerry is talking foreign policy in an NYT interview:

Had he been sitting in the Oval Office last weekend as rebel forces were threatening to enter Port-au-Prince, Senator John Kerry says, he would have sent an international force to protect Haiti's widely disliked elected leader, Jean-Bertrand Aristide.

Yes, that's right there in the Constitution, Article II: 'The President is the commander in chief of international forces.' You know, those fast-reacting ones that can be on the spot in time to stop a sudden rebel uprising that, in the course of a few days, overthrows a country. Like the European Rapid Reaction Force, which... well, it doesn't actually exist yet, does it? But when it does come into existence in 2007--in theory Kerry could still be President, assuming this EU project is actually on time for a change--plans are for it to be deployable in 15 days. NATO does rapid-reaction forces, but on a localized basis--they are setting one up for the Olympics this year, for example, but it won't be able to deploy across the world because it won't have the transportation capacity to do so, and I am fairly certain that they do not keep one handy in the Carribean in case of sudden accidents.

The uprising lasted just 24 days even if you count from the rebel's seizure of the town of Gonaives, but at that point there was no reason to think that Aristide would be ousted. It wasn't until the 16th that refugees returned from the Dominican Republic and seized Hinche, which was the sign that the trouble was mounting; and the rebels 'advancing on Port-au-Prince' was, as noted, just over the weekend. France got around to calling for a UN authorized force on the 25th, four days before the fall of Aristide--but France conditioned any UN resolution on such troops on Aristide's withdrawl from the country, which Kerry says he didn't want. Presumably France, even if it had the capacity to devote troops to Kerry's 'international force,' would not have done so to prop up Aristide.

The fact is that there is no 'international force' that can respond to a crisis on that timeframe. I think it's fair to say that there is only one organization that can put that many troops on the ground, that fast. You might give the benefit of the doubt to another politician speaking on the issue--but Kerry proudly trumpets his mastery of nuance, and has been almost twenty years on the Foreign Relations Committee. A man trying to get away from his youthful claim that he was an "internationalist" who felt that US forces should only be deployed wearing blue helmets might take the opportunity to recognize that this is an example of when only US forces will do. A man who runs on the line, "I know something about aircraft carriers for real!" might like to demonstrate that he also knows about the men who serve on them. A man who dares to command them ought to demonstrate that he respects them and their abilities: abilities that are not merely extraordinary, but unique.

Bonus question for the nuance-lovers among you: how does the claim that he would have chosen to send troops to Haiti mesh with this one:

"But if I am President, the United States will never go to war because we want to, we will only go to war because we have to."
-- John Kerry 9/2/03

So, what? It doesn't count as war if it's just a little Carribean country? Or, we had to send troops to prop up Aristide? Or, as seems most likely, Kerry didn't mean what he said?

The Ballad of the Alamo

1836:

Remember the Alamo. If you happen to think the brave old days are gone forever, they're not. The Free State Project is still looking for people who believe in Davy Crockett's tradition. For those of you interested more in the history than the movement, you can find some history right here.

USMC in Georgia

USMC in Georgia & Points South:

This is the other Georgia. The USMC is training Georgian security forces in combined arms, still a new concept over there. There's a brief, but interesting write-up over at USMC.mil.

Meanwhile, Marine Corps Times has published the "Lessons Learned" doc for OIF, USMC Reserve. I've worked on docs like this in the past, though not for the Corps. Doc-in-the-Box will be glad to know that they include this gem:

Corpsmen. Mobilize them on the same schedule as their SMCR unit.

Meanwhile, as always, I'm taken by the dedication. Ten Marines gave their lives in the course of the events that led to these suggested improvements. It's good to know the Corps takes that seriously--but we, of course, expect nothing less.

Georgia Primary

Georgia Primary:

I spoke to the family over the internet--we here at Grim's Hall have one of those cheap video-com webcams so that the grandparents can visit with wee Beowulf--and asked after the recent primary back home in Georgia. The whole family voted in the Democratic primary (regular readers will know that Grim comes from a very long line of Southern Democrats, in a tradition right back to James Jackson). The whole family voted for Edwards, who lost narrowly, mostly due to the Atlanta vote. Georgia is becoming a microcosm of America, divided on urban-rural lines. Atlanta has almost exactly half the population of the whole state, and is fervently liberal. The rest of the state is quite rural with only a few small cities, and quite conservative. Conservative Democrats voted for Edwardian populism, entirely familiar to the Southerner; liberal Democrats, reasonably, voted for Kerry and his lifetime 93% rating from the Americans for Democratic Action.

The other issue in Georgia was the flag, with the new flag winning out. There was, again, unanimity in my family on the question, although for different reasons. My father voted for the flag, I gather, just so they'd quit changing the damn'd thing. My mother preferred it because it didn't have the Confederate Battle Flag on it anywhere, whereas the blue flag had a very small version of the Battle Flag. She was not aware that the new flag was based entirely on the Confederate National Flag, which actually left the voters without an option for a truly non-Confederate flag; but then again, they didn't have the option of voting for the Battle Flag, either. Therefore is Georgia a republic, I suppose, not a democracy.

Blackfive - The Paratrooper of Love: You Won't Believe This

No, And Hell No:

Our boy Blackfive has the story of a teacher and soldier, called up for duty, who has been told he has to fork over the cost of the substitute out of his military pay. We all know how well paid both soldiers and teachers are, especially considering the service each performs. This is a particularly astonishing example of disrespect for the volunteer military, from people who ought to be damn glad it exists. If you don't want to serve, honor a Reservist or National Guardsman: they're the reason we don't have to have a draft.

Those of us who honor them anyway, simply because they choose to serve, can only be appalled.

InstaPundit.Com

Gun Control:

As you know, today is the Senate vote on S. 1805, which is the bill to protect the gun industry from assault-by-lawsuit. The Puppyblender points out that both Kerry and Edwards, neither of whom have set foot in the Senate in ages, are both returning to D.C. today to cast votes in favor of limiting your rights. That is another attack against the Jacksonian values that the Democratic party has often relied upon.

We expect no better from Kerry, who has famously been dubbed the most liberal Senator of all, although I still can't quite understand why "liberal" means "in favor of restricting rights." Still, Kerry is consistent: he doesn't want you armed, but he doesn't want his country armed either. We might have expected better from the Senator from North Carolina, but we aren't going to get it.

May they reap what they sow here. Seeking to strip Men of the power to defend themselves, may they be stripped of power instead.

From the Halls to the Shores

Interservice Abuse:

Well, not abuse, exactly--the Army has it coming. :) Mike points out that Blackfive's excellent suggestions on how the Army needs to evolve sound familiar. Very familiar.

Iraq

Iraq: Constitution & Religion:

Iraq approved its interim constitution today. The LittleGreenFootballs blog is not at all happy about it; Charles himself is 'not encouraged,' and the commenters are downright growlish.

All this is highly unfair to the Iraqis, who seem to be taking these issues seriously:

The Iraqi Governing Council repealed decree 137 today (the controversial decree bringing in Sharia law passed in December. A group of women came in to lobby against decree 137. They presented their case to the Governing Council as to why Sharia discriminates against women.

The council vote to repeal decree 137 was passed by 15 in favor and 10 against (the full council of 25 was there). The women who had lobbied against decree 137 ululated and shouted for joy at the end of the vote.

Eight members of the council walked out in protest, but today an aide to the most powerful cleric in Iraq, al-Sistani, issued this statement:

And, an aide to Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Husseini al-Sistani said on Sunday that even in an Islamic state, people should be free to decide if they drink alcohol or if women should wear veils. "We don't want to put pressure on the people. Everyone was born free," Seyed Ali Abdul-Karim al-Safi al-Musawi, al-Sistani's representative in Basra, told The Associated Press.

Note that link is to a Pakistani newspaper. The whole idea of the Iraq war was that bringing democracy and freedom to Iraq could send shockwaves of reformation through the Middle East. What's the Richter scale on that statement from the spokesman of Iraq's Grand Ayatollah?

We fought in Iraq to make men free. It's their country now, and they can do what they like with it. They deserve credit for the hard choices and difficult considerations they are employing. If it's not what you want--or what I want--well, Iraq isn't ours. That was never the point. De Oppresso Liber is just a rephrase of that line from the Battle Hymn of the Republic:

As He died to make men holy
Let us die to make men free.

I don't wish to pick on LGF, which is an excellent weblog. Nevertheless, the people of Iraq's freedom was bought at a price in blood. To honor the dead, we ought to preserve and respect their exercise of that freedom. It's their country now, free, at last.