Sunday Cutdown LV ([A]14 December 2024)

Clearing my inbox of stories I want to document

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1) The new power in Syria is …?

NYT: Al-Assad’s Fall Has Changed the Future of the Middle East

Turkey, it would seem.

Nice analysis here:

The collapse of the regime of Bashar al-Assad not only upends decades of Assad family rule in Syria, it also promises to realign power across the Middle East.

The situation on the ground remains highly uncertain, especially around questions of whether the rebels can consolidate control and how they will govern if they do. But as a new reality in Syria sets in, a reordering of regional power dynamics is already taking shape that sharply diminishes Iran’s influence and positions Turkey to play a critical role in shaping the future of a post-Assad Syria.

My first thought when I encountered the unfolding developments was: Who’s backing HTS?

Smart money says Turkey:

Ankara’s ties to Hayat Tahrir al-Sham — the designated terrorist group that led the regime-toppling offensive — are complicated. Turkey does not openly collaborate with H.T.S. but maintains quiet lines of communication and influence. The country is likely to become a key H.T.S. interlocutor and bridge to the international community, given the group’s proscribed nature, which will deepen its influence in Syria, where it already maintains a de facto buffer zone across much of the north. It will almost certainly use this new position to keep Kurdish power in Syria in check, and try to begin to facilitate the return of some three million Syrian refugees, a source of growing internal tension.

Plenty of motivation there, which is good.

We don’t want to re-own any part of Syria, if we can avoid it. But we also don’t want another ISIS-like situation to germinate in the power vacuum, so don’t be surprised if the USG quickly reassesses HTS as a potential partner, despite the old al-Qaeda links.

We are the beggars at this banquet, by necessity and by desire.

2) Getting while the getting is good

TIMES OF ISRAEL: In historic campaign across Syria, IDF says it destroyed 80% of Assad regime’s military

Israel saw the opportunity to give the Syrian military a crew-cut — hell, a beheading — and it moved with speed.

The operation was dubbed “Bashan Arrow” within the military, after the biblical name for the Golan Heights and southern Syria region.

The IDF released footage from the campaign, during which it said over 320 targets were struck across all of Syria.

The strikes began late Saturday, first taking out Syrian air defenses to give the Israeli Air Force more freedom.

Wave after wave of airstrikes carried out by IAF fighter jets and drones then hit Syrian airbases, weapon depots and weapon production sites in Damascus, Homs, Tartus, Latakia and Palmyra, according to the military.

The military said the airstrikes destroyed many long-range projectiles, Scud missiles, cruise missiles, coast-to-sea missiles, air defense missiles, fighter jets, helicopters, radars, tanks, hangars and more.

This is called beating the crap out of somebody already lying on the ground because … well, because you can.

Does it contribute to a power vacuum dynamic in Syria?

Sure, but Israel’s on a roll and you take what your opponents give you.

This check-down was a total beat-down, and that is so supremely rare an opportunity.

God certainly seems like he’s on somebody’s side as of late. I mean, you start out with a complete disaster (10/7) and 15 months later this is where you are?

Amazing.

3) Where have all the young ones gone?

CNBC: Greece’s ghost towns offer a glimpse of a country struggling with ‘existential’ population collapse

Reminds me of “Children of Men” and what was, to me, its most chilling image:

It always use to depress when I’d go home to Boscobel WI, my hometown, and see the shuttered Catholic grade school that I attended (Immaculate Conception).

In its heyday (1960s), it was a bulging, vibrant place run by a cluster of nuns. Honestly, it was “A Christmas Story” come to life, right down to the time Roger Haney got his tongue stuck to the frozen flagpole and the firemen had to come — legendary!

Our school’s anchors was this collection of huge families with 5-12 kids in each — the 4 Bs accounting for half the school it seemed at one point; namely, the Barnetts, Brindleys, and both sets of Beinborns. At any one time, each of these families would have 3-4 kids in the school together, rendering it this strangely extended family, its own little universe. You really had to get along, because you were stuck with all these extra sibling-like characters for your entire childhood!

But nobody has families like that anymore. Of my six siblings, I came closest to our family’s 7-of-9 surviving with six kids of my own, but I cheated with three adoptions. My penance now? I had a kid in grade school when I was 60 (Are you the grandfather?) and now at 62 I have four kids ranging from 16-24 — not advisable for your nerves or your bank account even as they all delight me to no end.

I have been going to school events for three decades (two more HS graduations to go) but have no idea if I’ll ever hold a grandchild.

That’s an incredible pivot and yet it’s happening all across the Global North, with places like S Korea and Japan and Greece and Italy leading the weird way.

No one has any clear sense as to how this works out, although my wife’s work as a hospice social worker tells me one key part: More and more people die alone and I mean alone. This is why my spouse drives a car crammed with quilts and plushy animals: because there’s no one there to provide them to the dying other than her. She buys them with her own dime by the barrel at thrift stores.

Think about that for a minute. It always depresses the hell out of me.

And then ask yourself how much you might want to see a lot more immigration into this country — at whatever the loss of privilege.

4) In Russia, drones find you! (In Syria also!)

WAPO: Syrian rebels had help from Ukraine in humiliating Russia

Some nifty David Ignatius reporting.

Ukraine supplying HTS with drones to stick it to the Russians!

The Syrian rebels who swept to power in Damascus last weekend received drones and other support from Ukrainian intelligence operatives who sought to undermine Russia and its Syrian allies, according to sources familiar with Ukrainian military activities abroad.

Ukrainian intelligence sent about 20 experienced drone operators and about 150 first-person-view drones to the rebel headquarters in Idlib, Syria, four to five weeks ago to help Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), the leading rebel group based there, the knowledgeable sources said.

The aid from Kyiv played only a modest role in overthrowing Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, Western intelligence sources believe. But it was notable as part of a broader Ukrainian effort to strike covertly at Russian operations in the Middle East, Africa and inside Russia itself.

The Russians were happy enough to bitch about it while Assad was still ruling, but, once he fell, the Kremlin was quick to discount Ukraine’s contributions.

That’s how nasty a propaganda hit it was, which you gotta love.

5) The Military Singularity is VERY near

AXIOS: 1 big thing: Shooting down NGAD

The Air Force’s Next Generation Air-Dominance (NGAD) project appears to be heading toward the chopping block, if DOGE has any say about it:

Both Vivek Ramaswamy and Elon Musk, billionaires tapped to cut costs and rightsize the federal workforce, have ridiculed manned aircraft.

• Ramaswamy told Axios' Mike Allen at the Aspen Institute's Washington forum that sharpening U.S. defense means investing in drones and hypersonic missiles, not "a wide range of other expenditures for new kinds of fighter jets."

• Musk posted on X, which he owns, that "some idiots are still building manned fighter jets like the F-35" and that "manned fighter jets are obsolete in the age of drones anyway."

Say goodbye to Top Gun and that entire culture.

Here’s what the head of Booz Allen had to say when pressed:

Q: When will wars be waged solely by robots?

A: This is not the answer I would like to give, but the answer is now. If you think through the warfighting domains, in cyberspace, we're essentially almost at computer-to-computer conflict. Then you go to space with all the debris and the congestion and everything out there, autonomy is around the corner, and as it becomes a contested domain, same thing. Then you start to think about underwater and all these other domains.

• I wish I could say never. That would be a better answer.

The end of conventional war as we have known it for almost the entirety of recorded human history … is coming.

Rejoice!

And get ready for Robocop, citizen!

6) What does this tell us about our North-South world?

NYT: Recent Immigration Surge Has Been Largest in U.S. History

You can say it’s all about our bad border security, but I ain’t buying it.

The pressure isn’t going away with a stronger border.

Of the 8 million who surged into the US under Biden, five million were undocumented.

The arguments rage on:

Some Republican politicians, including Mr. Trump, have spread falsehoods about recent immigrants, claiming that they have caused a crime wave. In truth, immigrants have historically committed crime at lower rates than native-born Americans, and crime fell nationwide over the past few years as immigration levels spiked.

Similarly, academic research suggests that the immigrants of recent decades, who have come primarily from Asia and Latin America, are climbing the economic ladder and assimilating into American society. Their children and grandchildren have made progress at a pace similar to that of the predominantly European immigrants of the late 1800s and early 1900s.

But high levels of immigration do have downsides, including the pressure on social services and increased competition for jobs. The Congressional Budget Office has concluded that wage growth for Americans who did not attend college will be lower than it otherwise would have been for the next few years because of the recent surge. On the flip side, higher immigration can reduce the cost of services and help Americans, many with higher incomes, who do not compete for jobs with immigrants

I don’t come away from this experience believing we can let them all in — far from it.

I just see the northward-pressure building incredibly with climate change.

We’ll say it’s all about economics and crime, but this is the reality facing the Global North with its rapidly aging populations: about 80% of the world’s population is clustered along my Middle Earth band stretching 30 degrees north and south of the equator, and about 80 percent of those people live off the land to some degree. That land is going to be made far less productive (and already is), pushing people off the land. Local economies will not be strong enough to accommodate this surge toward cities, which means these people are either incentivized to stay in numbers (by us in the North) and somehow make it work or they’re coming our way.

This is why I say, don’t fortify the border — extend it instead.

Meanwhile, let’s give mass deportations a college try …

7) China has already caught US

VISUAL CAPITALIST: Ranked: The World’s 20 Largest Economies, by GDP (PPP)

The grower here is India, which will soon enough (by mid-century) pass us just like China did, when measured in PPP — a much better way to capture relative consumer power than the standard adding-up-production route.

But this chart says something very key to our future: there is no “competition” with China where we win and they lose. There is no win for anybody if it involves torpedoing the world’s largest economy (and the key development partner and influence regarding the future #2).

We have to move past such Cold War/zero-sum mindsets.

And yeah, on some level, that means taking the win that was/is US-style globalization and accepting this far more competitive, multipolar landscape.

8) Droideka: Well, that took less time than I thought

THE U.S. SUN: China unveils all-terrain SPHERICAL robocops to chase down, bludgeon & catch criminals using net-launching cannons

Here I was last Sunday Cutdown all excited by mere Ukrainian robot-medic and ammo-supply vehicles, dubbing them proto-droideka from Star Wars.

China is already working the domestic policing variant — just stuck (for now) in its wheels-only phase (with net shooter!)

Now if they would just unfold on the spot and start shooting like the real thing!

I will probably have to wait several weeks for that.

Technology sucks, it takes so long!

9) A baby step possibility?

GUARDIAN: Russia-Ukraine war: Zelenskyy suggests foreign troops could be deployed to Ukraine before Nato membership agreed – as it happened

If not NATO-membership-for-land, then start with NATO-boots-on-the-ground-for-land.

Volodymyr Zelenskyy today made the case for a diplomatic settlement to end Russia’s war in Ukraine and raised the idea of foreign troops being deployed in his country until it could join the Nato military alliance. It came after Donald Trump said Kyiv is ready to make a deal with Moscow to stop the war and that Vladimir Putin should make efforts toward negotiating a truce.

Hmm, say I, that is some practical flexibility.

10) America’s ABL asylum system

AXIOS: Path to asylum narrows for Latinos

Anybody But Latinos, it would seem.

Doesn’t it seem weird that the people we least want to accept are our most immediate neighbors in this world?

11) Russia is winning by losing?

FORBES: A Russian Tank Division Is Closing In On Pokrovsk. It’s Not As Strong As It Looks.

FORBES: ‘This Is F’ed,’ A Russian Drone Operator Mutters As Russian Troops Switch To Bicycles

Honestly, it’s almost impossible to spot the Russian on the bike leading a tank into battle. He’s just a smudge about 7 o’clock and two tank lengths in front of the real tank.

The Ukrainian drone operator was — empathetically enough — simply disgusted at this poor bastard’s fate.

Why is this happening?

A self-defeating new policy adopted by some of Russia’s regional military commands has deprived front-line regiments and brigades of the civilian vehicles they’ve long relied on to make good shortfalls of purpose-made military vehicles.

Banned from riding civilian cars, trucks, all-terrain vehicles and motorbikes into battle, more Russians are riding bicycles, instead. It’s the latest step-change in the steady devolution of the Russian armed forces amid catastrophic losses in Russia’s 33-months wider war on Ukraine.

Little wonder we can also note that Russia is bleeding itself dry:

Monthly troop losses exceed—by many thousands—the number of fresh troops the Kremlin recruits every month. Stocks of modern tanks and fighting vehicles are running low, compelling more Russians to attack in pickup trucks and vans.

And then true insult to injury:

At the same time, the swift collapse of Bashar Al-Assad’s brutal regime in Syria this week stranded thousands of Russian troops and substantial amounts of modern equipment at a handful of bases along the Syrian coast—and embarrassed Russian President Vladimir Putin at exactly the moment Putin should be projecting strength and confidence.

This war is only senseless on one side.

12) Climate change is coming for all ages

NYT: In Mexico, Heat Waves Are Even Killing Younger Adults

We think of the elderly as the most vulnerable, but it’s really those forced to work outdoors — or the younger adult.

Measuring heat-related deaths is complicated, since death certificates rarely name heat as a cause. A proximate cause of death, like cardiovascular failure, is often listed instead.

To get around this, Dr. Wilson and his colleagues used a common statistical approach to estimate how daily mortality rates across Mexico change in response to fluctuations in the “wet bulb” temperature, a measurement that uses humidity and air temperature to capture how well humans can cool their bodies through sweating.

Keeping with decades of research, the researchers found that adults older than 70 were vulnerable at very hot temperatures.

Unexpectedly, the team also found that a large number of children under 4 and adults aged 18 to 34 were dying from the heat — but at more moderate conditions than those affecting older adults.

Most of the deaths occurred at wet-bulb temperatures around 75 degrees Fahrenheit, roughly equivalent to 88 degrees Fahrenheit with 50 percent humidity.

That’s concerning, Dr. Wilson said, because while climate change is likely to increase the number of extreme heat waves, the moderately hot temperatures that seem to be causing young people to die will be far more common.

Measuring heat deaths is like measuring climate migrants: we under-count because it’s easy to cite the final dynamic than walking that dog backwards to the underlying cause.

So, climate migrants come for “economic reasons” and heat victims succumb to heart failure.

Peel back the layers: economic reasons because can’t make it in cities because moved to cities because farming no longer feasible because drought because climate change.

Long-story short: they really only come to steal our jobs!

If that heart attack doesn’t kill them first on the job.

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