Now it Begins

So, we are closing the Russian consulate in San Francisco, and the bulk of people in the world say, "The Russians had a consulate in San Francisco?"  This is, of course, a reaction to the extreme number of cuts at the embassy in Russia.  The majority of those people were not waiting for the other shoe to drop when the Russians began their closings, if they even thought about it.

Next, I wonder why we ever allowed a consulate of any size in the land of Silicon Valley where most of the new innovations in IT are from.  That makes me wonder who else has one in that place.  The big ones are India, Russia, China and France.  Two of those are the main competition in the telecom industries and two are enemies.  Your political leanings might allow you to believe any one of those would fit that bill.  It was about time we closed that Russian office which is a little bigger than what I remember a consulate being.  It does depend on what country you are in, but they usually are a little smaller than a seven story bunker of a building.  It looks Russian.

Maybe the folks in the Valley need consulates from France, Greece, Switzerland, and some others because they are global companies, but I wonder if they need such big ones.  Our embassy in Russia was said to be 750 people, when our President said he thought we should thank the Russians for the staff trimming.  It looks like trimming might work well for a lot of people.  That needs to be looked at again, and maybe we do have the Russians to thank for it.  Let's start with China.

Not a Computer Game

China's foreign ministry said today that the United States should remember the Korean situation is not a computer game.  This thoughtful insight is sure to make the State Department counterparts scramble for new ideas about how to handle the Korean situation, absent the game theory of traditional war games.  Or not.

The problem for the US is that it isn't a computer game, and we seem to know that better than China.  North Korea postures and speculates on a future where nuclear weapons are dropped on the coastal areas of our country.  We must suppose that the Chinese take this seriously, but are doing little substantively to stop it.  It serves their purpose.  We know that part is not a computer game.

If you run the scenarios of missile launch and intercept enough times, it seems like a computer game. Because missiles do not take long to get to the target, you get to replay them quite a few times in a day.  Each one has an outcome that is scary, and these are simple compared to the war gaming scenarios that involve several countries that are affected.  We do these kinds of scenarios because they are considered to be the most likely ones that will happen.  Unless China and North Korea are bluffing, we better practice what we do in response.  That isn't a computer game.

Because the North has fired a missile over Japan - again - we have another country involved, pushing for a better solution to these kind of provocative actions.  When you send people running for shelter in the middle of the day, that does not sit well with the population.  That isn't a computer game.

There might be a few in the world who think we should be grateful to the Chinese for their insight, but on this one they are flat wrong.  This isn't a computer game.

US Ships Aircraft to Baltic Area

Reuters is saying today that the US is sending seven F-15 fighters to patrol the skies over the Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia while the Russians are running their military exercises next month.  There will be 600 military troops sent to do support and other missions during that time.