What is China Doing in South Sudan's Civil War?

South Sudan relapsed into war on December 15, 2013, primarily due to the power struggle between South Sudan President Salva Kiir and former Vice President Riek Machar. China once again found one of its sizable foreign investments—particularly in the oil sector—embroiled in local political turbulence. This serves as a painful reminder to Beijing that independence not only endowed South Sudan with 70 percent of unified Sudan’s total oil output, but also daunting political and security risks.

Beijing’s conflict resolution efforts in South Sudan were widely applauded by the international community until the delivery of the first consignment of a $38 million order of arms from China North Industries Group (NORINCO) to Juba, South Sudan’s capital, in June, which called into question China’s neutrality in the peace process. The reported statement by the Chinese embassy in Juba on September 20 that NORINCO would halt the remainder of its arms contract, in addition to the Chinese Foreign Ministry’s announcement of the deployment of a full infantry battalion to the United Nations Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS), signals a renewed—and hopefully more consistent—commitment to the uneasy peace process. An independent South Sudan, just as the unified Sudan before, is likely to remain a testing ground for China on how to balance its policy of non-interference and the urgent need to protect fast-growing overseas interests.

link.

Bush Bombs Iraq (well, the USS Bush)

The US Navy has carried out an air strike on Islamic militants in Iraq, mere hours after President Barack Obama authorised US forces to conduct aerial attacks in the region.

Two of the USN’s Boeing F/A-18E/F Hornets dropped 226kg (500lb) laser-guided bombs on a “mobile artillery piece” near Irbil, the capital of the Kurdistan region of Iraq, Pentagon press secretary Rear Adm John Kirby says.

The strike was carried out at 06:45EDT on 8 August against an artillery piece being used by the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) terrorist group. The group was aiming to shell Kurdish forces defending the city, where US personnel are also located.

The Super Hornets were operating from the USS George HW Bush aircraft carrier, which is deployed in the Arabian Gulf.

link.

Ukraine: Grinding Patterns

Today was a strange one for Ukraine.

First off, the ruling coalition for Ukraine collapsed when the Udar and Svobada parties withdrew from the government. Yatsenyuk has resigned. The reason for this was to force new elections and to get try to force out the members of the Rada seen as obstructionist and 'traitors.' I sincerely hope Yatsenyuk regains his position after the election. Volodymyr Groysman was appointed as PM in his place.

Secondly, the Rada is has a bill before it to renew its nuclear status: 4351a.

The Ukrainians have taken Lysychansk.This is just across the river from Severodonetsk which the Ukrainians had just taken in the past few days in Lugansk Oblast.  The Ukrainians also took Verkhniokamenskiy in the Donetsk Oblast.

The rebels keep blowing up bridges. More in Donetsk Oblast especially. One in Gorlovka again and another with a train. Multiple sites have been blown for the railroad tracks.

The Russians have been increasing the # of shellings from their territory. One Ukrainian brigade (79th) got hit hard. This reminds me of the fights between the separatists and Georgians. I think the Ukrainians are aware of the danger and are trying to avoid the same outcome.  The US government has acknowledged this...finally.

There is an interesting video this morning (yesterday if you are a Ukrainian reading this) from a car-camera driving through Lugansk at 9:30 am.  There is not a soul in sight.

Both Canada and Europe added more sanctions.

Ukraine: Firming the Pattern

Clashes continued today, but little in the way of major developments.

Poroshenko has already been to Slavyansk.

There are reports the Ukrainian army is in Krasnodon.

The rebels may be fracturing.

Some videos:

Ukrainian armor on the road to Donetsk.

Destroyed railroad.

The Russian army moving to the Ukrainian border.  Still.

Ukraine: Race of the Cripples

Shelling by the DPR on Ukrainian positions outside of Slavyansk.

Ukrainian artillery being moved to the front.

The Economics of the American Civil War

The Civil War has been something of an enigma for scholars studying American history. During the first half of the twentieth century, historians viewed the war as a major turning point in American economic history. Charles Beard labeled it “Second American Revolution,” claiming that “at bottom the so-called Civil War – was a social war, ending in the unquestioned establishment of a new power in the government, making vast changes – in the course of industrial development, and in the constitution inherited from the Fathers” (Beard and Beard 1927: 53). By the time of the Second World War, Louis Hacker could sum up Beard’s position by simply stating that the war’s “striking achievement was the triumph of industrial capitalism” (Hacker 1940: 373). The “Beard-Hacker Thesis” had become the most widely accepted interpretation of the economic impact of the Civil War. Harold Faulkner devoted two chapters to a discussion of the causes and consequences of the war in his 1943 textbook American Economic History (which was then in its fifth edition), claiming that “its effects upon our industrial, financial, and commercial history were profound” (1943: 340).

In the years after World War II, a new group of economic historians — many of them trained in economics departments — focused their energies on the explanation of economic growth and development in the United States. As they looked for the keys to American growth in the nineteenth century, these economic historians questioned whether the Civil War — with its enormous destruction and disruption of society — could have been a stimulus to industrialization. In his 1955 textbook on American economic history, Ross Robertson mirrored a new view of the Civil War and economic growth when he argued that “persistent, fundamental forces were at work to forge the economic system and not even the catastrophe of internecine strife could greatly affect the outcome” (1955: 249). “Except for those with a particular interest in the economics of war,” claimed Robertson, “the four year period of conflict [1861-65] has had little attraction for economic historians” (1955: 247). Over the next two decades, this became the dominant view of the Civil War’s role industrialization of the United States.

Historical research has a way of returning to the same problems over and over. The efforts to explain regional patterns of economic growth and the timing of the United States’ “take-off” into industrialization, together with extensive research into the “economics” of the slave system of the South and the impact of emancipation, brought economic historians back to questions dealing with the Civil War. By the 1990s a new generation of economic history textbooks once again examined the “economics” of the Civil War (Atack and Passell 1994; Hughes and Cain 1998; Walton and Rockoff 1998). This reconsideration of the Civil War by economic historians can be loosely grouped into four broad issues: the “economic” causes of the war; the “costs” of the war; the problem of financing the War; and a re-examination of the Hacker-Beard thesis that the War was a turning point in American economic history.

link.

Ukraine: Patterns of Death

Ukraine suffers. There's no other way to put it.  

The bombardment of Slavyansk and Kramatorsk continues.  There are some pretty depressing videos coming out of there about the civvies.  

There is VERY heavy fighting at Shchastya (Schaste). At least 15 Ukrainian soldiers were killed there. 

Just to the south is Metalist, which the Ukrainian army took a few days ago, but there are noises it might still be contested.

There are two tanks in Donetsk.  There are claims these are T-72s again.  There has been a lot more equipment coming across the Russian border.  Whether or not these are really T-72s, I cannot say.  My Russian tank IDing days are about 20 years in the past and the ones which recently crossed from Russia were T-64s, rather than T-72s.  These may, in fact, be the same tanks reported before, but moved south from Gorlovka.  I would NOT be surprised if there was more.

There is a video of a guy walking around a T-64 which is claimed to be a captured Ukrainian army tank.  It seems abandoned as much as anything.

In Gorlovka, there is a report of an Ukrainian Su-25 being shot down.

There are reports the LGM have started quartering their troops in people's houses.  That ended well for the brits here and Ukrainians are just as fierce about their homes, if not more so.

The Russians continue to move more troops to the border.  Its feeling more and more like the earlier withdrawal was a troop rotation.  There are plenty of videos. 

Kiev is increasingly stating they believe the gas line blast was intentional.

Poroshenko is offering a unilateral ceasefire. Iryna Gerashchenko is appointed the peace envoy to the east. Pushilin rejected Poroshenko's peace plan and ceasefire. 

I am increasingly concerned about the Euromaidan activists.  They're protesting, including with the Right Sector, with increasing fervor in Kiev.  I understand their anger and frustration, but...

Is Iraq Doing a South Vietnam Circa 1975?

An al Qaeda splinter group seized control of the Iraqi city of Mosul on Tuesday, putting security forces to flight in a spectacular show of strength against the Shi'ite-led Baghdad government.

The capture of the northern city of 2 million by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant - Sunni Muslims waging sectarian war on both sides of the Iraqi-Syrian frontier - complements ISIL's grip on key western towns and followed four days of heavy fighting in Mosul and the border province of Nineveh around it.

The United States, which pulled out its troops two and a half years ago, pledged to help Iraqi leaders "push back against this aggression" as the government of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki asked parliament to declare a state of emergency that would give him extraordinary powers to tackle the crisis.

But the battle, for the time being, seemed to be over. Some police were discarding uniforms and weapons and fleeing a city where the black flag of ISIL now flew over government buildings.

"We have lost Mosul this morning," said a colonel at a local military command center. "Army and police forces left their positions and ISIL terrorists are in full control.

"It’s a total collapse of the security forces."

link.

The Confederate Flag is the Flag of Traitors

You can debate whether the Confederate flag is a symbol of racism. But the one thing you can't dispute: The Confederate flag was flown by traitors to the United States of America who slaughtered more than 110,000 U.S. soldiers.

I know some will take issue with my calling the Confederacy a band of traitors, but let's be blunt -- that's what they were. They broke from the United States and created their own nation, calling it the Confederate States of America. They issued their own currency, elected their own president and Congress, raised an army and went to war with the United States of America, firing the first shot at Fort Sumter, South Carolina.

What's even more troubling about the so-called Confederate flag we see so often is that it was not the official flag of the Confederacy. It's worse than that. The flag commonly referred to as the Confederate flag was actually the battle flag of the Army of Northern Virginia.

Why is that worse? Because this was the flag carried on battlefields by Confederate troops during the Civil War as they killed U.S. soldiers.

go read the rest.

General Sherman was too Soft: Eneas Africanus

A friend sent this to me.  the whole story made me sick to my stomach and furious beyond words.