Here’s another article I wanted to highlight. At The War Zone Joseph Trevithick writes:

A U.S. Navy briefing slide is calling new attention to the worrisome disparity between Chinese and U.S. capacity to build new naval vessels and total naval force sizes. The data compiled by the Office of Naval Intelligence says that a growing gap in fleet sizes is being helped by China’s shipbuilders being more than 200 times more capable of producing surface warships and submarines. This underscores longstanding concerns about the U.S. Navy’s ability to challenge Chinese fleets, as well as sustain its forces afloat, in any future high-end conflict.

Read the whole thing.

What’s missing from the article is that shipbuilding doesn’t exist in a vacuum. Not only can’t you add more shipbuilding overnight, as the author points out:

Shipbuilding is also a complex and costly affair that requires large amounts of skilled labor and resources, which can take significant time to source. Delays or other hiccups in shipbuilding, as well as repair and overhaul work that requires shipyard capacity, can easily cascade. This reality has manifested itself to an especially extreme degree for the U.S. Navy when it comes to submarine maintenance.

but we need to produce more steel and the thousands of other materials used in modern navies, mine more iron and coal and thousands of other commodities, and create entire supply chains nearly from scratch.

We used to produce more of all of those than anybody else but over the last half century have steadily deindustrialized. It was a stupid, risky, and expensive mistake.

I wanted to bring this post by Joann Muller at Axios to your attention. It appears that sales of electric vehicles have hit a bump:

The growing mismatch between EV supply and demand is a sign that even though consumers are showing more interest in EVs, they’re still wary about purchasing one because of price or charging concerns.

It’s a “Field of Dreams” moment for automakers making big bets on electrification — they’ve built the cars, and now they’re waiting for buyers to come, says Jonathan Gregory, senior manager of economic and industry insights at Cox Automotive.

However:

Hybrid vehicles have much lower inventory levels, supporting Toyota’s argument that consumers want a stepping stone to fully electric cars.

I suspect that when gas prices are skyrocketing people start thinking about EVs but when gas prices are stable or falling not so much. At that point other factors loom larger.

Speaking only for myself I do not find myself at all tempted to purchase an EV but I am considering a Toyota hybrid or maybe a PHEV for my next car.

I am deeply tempted to quote Jason L. Riley’s Wall Street Journal column on black economic progress in full but will just quote a couple of substantial chunks of it:

The black American worker has had a pretty good run in recent years, though you might not know it because the political left and its allies in the press prefer to accentuate black struggle. Racial inequality shouldn’t be ignored but neither should black progress.

Between 1963 and 2012, unemployment averaged 5.1% for whites and 11.1% for blacks. The 2008 financial crisis hit black workers especially hard, with unemployment reaching 16.8% in March 2010. Under President Obama, black unemployment declined but didn’t fall below double-digits until the seventh year of his presidency. When he left office in January 2017, the black jobless rate was 7.5%. Under President Trump it dipped to 5.3% in August 2019, then fell to a record-low 4.7% in April of this year.

Positive black economic trends undermine the liberal argument that we live in a society stacked against certain racial and ethnic minority groups, so these trends tend to get played down or spun to advance a left-wing agenda. Last week’s jobs report put black unemployment in June at 6%. Bloomberg, Reuters and other news outlets were quick to note that this was the second consecutive month that black unemployment had increased. That’s true—the rate was 5.6% in May—and perhaps a trend is developing. Still, one month of 6% unemployment is hardly cause for panic, and other data on black workers suggest that the labor market remains strong.

For starters, the black employment rate of 58.9% is only 1.5 percentage-points lower than the white rate of 60.4%, which is a historically narrow racial gap. Second, labor-force participation rates for black workers, which have tended to trail those of white workers, now surpass them slightly. The trend started before the pandemic and has been noticeable for most of the past year. In June 2020, 62.2% of working-age blacks were employed or looking for a job, versus 61.9% of whites. Last month the rate was 62.6% for blacks and 62.3% for whites.

with this conclusion:

What’s more likely to improve black outcomes in the workforce are better black outcomes in the classroom, not a return to irresponsibly low interest rates. Addressing the racial achievement gap, which worsened under Covid, ought to be a priority. Which makes the nation’s teachers unions and their opposition to school choice a far bigger problem than Mr. Powell’s Fed.

I don’t know that school choice is the solution or even part of the solution. I think it’s fair to suggest that big city teachers’ unions need to change their focus from protecting their turf to improving educational outcomes. Maybe parents and students need to change what they’re doing as well. If you’re going to blame everything on racism and, in particular, “systemic racism” you need to include an explanation of why the economic fortunes of black Americans improved as much as they did from 2017-2019.

I’ve already given my explanation: I think that restricting immigration of entry level workers helps black Americans.

In the wake of the announcement of Sweden’s membership in NATO, there is an active discussion of adding Ukraine to NATO and, as you might expect, some difference of opinion. In his piece discussing the NATO summit in Vilnius at RealClearPolitics Charles Lipson seems to think Ukraine’s membership is inevitable:

Two issues dominate the longer-range future: rebuilding Ukraine and its membership in NATO. A Western rebuilding effort will succeed only if lots of partners provide lots of funding and only if the war is truly over. The country cannot be rebuilt if peace is unstable. Second, they will discuss a timetable for Ukraine joining NATO and undoubtedly postpone it.

The goal of Ukrainian membership is obvious: to deter any future Russian attacks. The danger is just as obvious: If Russia did attack its neighbor, it would activate NATO’s Article 5 and lead to a direct war between Russia and the West, not the proxy war now grinding on.

while at The National Interest Christian A. Preble thinks the opposite—that talk of NATO membership for Ukraine is a cruel hoax:

First, simply put, Ukraine doesn’t have the votes, and it won’t get them. While current NATO members are almost universally sympathetic to Ukraine’s plight and fully supportive of its efforts to defend and restore its territory, they will not unanimously support its accession to NATO—and unanimity is required, as Sweden’s case reminds us. This political reality has been well understood ever since the 2008 NATO Summit in Bucharest, when then-President George W. Bush pressed NATO to make a rhetorical commitment to Ukraine and Georgia eventually joining the alliance, despite clear indications that their bids for membership lacked support among key NATO members.

The reticence around admitting Ukraine and Georgia into the alliance in 2008 was based on the rational assumption that Russia would react harshly to NATO’s further enlargement to the east. Those who objected to the Bush administration’s 11th hour push for Ukrainian and Georgian membership pointed to Russia’s vehement objections to NATO positioning additional forces on its border. At the time, advocates for NATO expansion dismissed such concerns, arguing that because Moscow had acquiesced to previous rounds of enlargement, it would do so again.

I think there are issues unmentioned by either writer including tensions between Ukraine and Poland and Ukraine and Romania that will provide additional barriers to Ukraine’s membership which, as pointed out, must secure unanimous agreement.

Update

Communique from the summit:

11. We fully support Ukraine’s right to choose its own security arrangements. Ukraine’s future is in NATO. We reaffirm the commitment we made at the 2008 Summit in Bucharest that Ukraine will become a member of NATO, and today we recognise that Ukraine’s path to full Euro-Atlantic integration has moved beyond the need for the Membership Action Plan. Ukraine has become increasingly interoperable and politically integrated with the Alliance, and has made substantial progress on its reform path. In line with the 1997 Charter on a Distinctive Partnership between NATO and Ukraine and the 2009 Complement, Allies will continue to support and review Ukraine’s progress on interoperability as well as additional democratic and security sector reforms that are required. NATO Foreign Ministers will regularly assess progress through the adapted Annual National Programme. The Alliance will support Ukraine in making these reforms on its path towards future membership. We will be in a position to extend an invitation to Ukraine to join the Alliance when Allies agree and conditions are met.

Does that look inevitable to your or not? It looks like backpedalling from the statement in 2008 to me.

There’s quite a bit of disagreement in the media about the NATO summit and it doesn’t all fall within party lines. The editors of the Wall Street Journal are optimistic:

The first task in Vilnius is to sustain support for Ukraine through a difficult counteroffensive and whatever comes next. Western leaders still seem reluctant to say they want Ukraine to win outright, which is a mistake because it sends the Kremlin mixed signals about Western resolve. But barring a decisive victory, the allies have a stake in helping Ukraine negotiate a peace from a position of strength. That will mean more advanced arms shipments.

NATO also needs to finish the expansion it started in the wake of the Ukraine invasion when Sweden and Finland announced their intention to join. Finland is now a member but Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdogan is blocking Sweden’s bid for no good (or even obvious) reason. This week’s summit will be a chance for other leaders to remind Mr. Erdogan that Turkey benefits from belonging to the bloc, which comes with a commitment to be a team player.

A bigger question concerns Ukraine after the war. A debate is underway over whether Ukraine should benefit from a formal Western security guarantee, or perhaps join NATO. President Biden is cautious about membership, but the West has already decided that defending Ukraine from Russia is in its interest—hence the weapons supplies.

Ukraine at the end of the war will have one of the strongest militaries in Europe, with modern weapons and inter-operability with NATO. The prospect of joining NATO would help Volodymyr Zelensky sell a negotiated peace to Ukrainians, while enhancing deterrence against Mr. Putin and Russia’s next Putin.

and they support President Biden’s decision to send cluster munitions to Ukraine:

Ukraine isn’t seeking to use these bombs against civilians. It wants them because they are running out of other munitions and figures they can compensate for some of the advantage Russia still holds. The greater risk to Ukrainian civilians is from Russia’s invading army and indiscriminate weapons targeting.

If you can’t see a moral distinction between Russia’s aggression and Ukraine’s use of cluster bombs for defense, then you have the blurred vision. Those best suited to make the tradeoff between risks are the Ukrainians whose lives are on the line every day.

The New York Times disagrees:

With Ukraine using up ordinary artillery shells at a huge rate (the United States alone has sent more than two million rounds to Ukraine), the cluster munitions, of which the United States has a bountiful supply, could give Ukrainian forces an advantage in prying the Russians from their trenches and fortifications along the 620-mile-long front. Besides, Russia has been using its own cluster munitions, as has Ukraine, from the outset of the war, and Ukraine’s leaders have been urgently asking for more.

This is a flawed and troubling logic. In the face of the widespread global condemnation of cluster munitions and the danger they pose to civilians long after the fighting is over, this is not a weapon that a nation with the power and influence of the United States should be spreading.

However compelling it may be to use any available weapon to protect one’s homeland, nations in the rules-based international order have increasingly sought to draw a red line against use of weapons of mass destruction or weapons that pose a severe and lingering risk to noncombatants. Cluster munitions clearly fall into the second category.

and

While it is Ukraine’s decision to choose what weapons it uses in its defense, it is for America to decide which weapons to supply. At the outset of the conflict, the United States resisted sending advanced weapons for fear of encouraging a wider war and Russian retaliation. But as the fighting dragged on and Ukraine proved increasingly capable of standing up to Russia, line after line has been crossed, with Washington and its allies agreeing to provide sophisticated weapons like the Patriot air-defense system, the HIMARS long-range rocket launcher, the Abrams tank and soon the F-16 jet fighter.

There is a legitimate debate about whether this amounts to the sort of mission creep that marked conflicts in Vietnam or Afghanistan. Sending cluster munitions to Ukraine amounts to a clear escalation of a conflict that has already become far too brutal and destructive. But the greater issue here is sharing a weapon that has been condemned by a majority of the world’s nations, including most of America’s close allies, as morally repugnant for the indiscriminate carnage it can cause long after the combatants have gone.

The WaPo hasn’t weighed in on either subject but its columnists are all over the map.

At the Sun-Times Alden Loury laments the Supreme Court’s ruling in the affirmative action case:

Even though affirmative action got me admitted to a predominantly white college, it didn’t mean that I was accepted. The officers chose only to question five Black men in a sea of white students parading along Green Street — including many who had also gathered briefly in small groups as we had.

The sympathy I felt for my white classmate who did not get accepted has eroded over the years, as I’ve gained a deep knowledge of the overt racism of our past and the more subtle forms of discrimination that persist. Affirmative action may have provided me an advantage in getting into the U. of I. But he has advantages in practically every other facet of life.

Data shows he’s more likely to be approved for a mortgage, hired for a job, benefit from generational wealth and see his property values appreciate faster. He’s also less likely to attract the suspicions of law enforcement or the public at large.

The six Supreme Court justices who voted to kill affirmative action may have followed the letter of the law, but their assessment that the policy is “unfair” feels tone-deaf in a nation that was literally built on a system of oppression — a system that most Americans don’t seem to be motivated to change.

Fifty years ago I argued in favor of preferential access to education for black Americans, the descendants of slaves. During that period I also opposed mass immigration on the grounds that black Americans, the descendants of slaves, would be injured by it. Unfortunately, I was right. The primary beneficiaries of affirmative action in the form it has taken have been African and Caribbean migrants. Today I think it’s time to try something else. I suggest providing preferential access to education based on poverty or even zip code of family residence but I’m open to other approaches.

I also think that a Supreme Court that follows “the letter of the law” and precedent is precisely what we need. I’m seeing precious few critiques of the SCOTUS ruling on legal grounds that wouldn’t also defend Plessy v. Ferguson. Most of the criticisms I’ve seen complain about the policy and setting policy is not the SCOTUS’s job. That’s the job of the Congress. I find it difficult to fathom how the longest-serving members of Congress have longer tenure than any of the SCOTUS justices with their lifetime appointments.

The editors of the Washington Post look forward to the NATO summit in Vilnius:

As things stand now, only 11 of 31 members meet its target of spending 2 percent of annual gross economic output on defense.

Yet they have little choice but to step up their game, because Mr. Putin has proved that it is folly to play down the threat Moscow poses.

That danger is likely to persist following the illegal war in Ukraine, whenever it finally ends, and addressing it will be high on the Vilnius agenda. NATO’s collective security guarantee, under which all members pledge to respond to an attack on one, means it cannot grant Kyiv’s wish for accession without drawing the alliance into the war against Russia. But the leaders can and should craft concrete, long-term plans to give Ukraine top-shelf arms, training and intelligence.

while at The Guardian Simon Tisdall insists that NATO forces “step in” to prevent Ukraine from losing to Russia:

The pressing question of Ukraine’s membership is expected to dominate this week’s pivotal summit of 31 Nato states in Vilnius, Lithuania’s capital. Volodymyr Zelenskiy knows a gold-embossed official invite is unlikely to arrive while his country is still at war with Russia. But Ukraine’s leader is urging US president Joe Biden and alliance leaders to take immediate “concrete steps”, including security guarantees, a roadmap and timeline. Zelenskiy argues that would boost morale and send an implacable message to Vladimir Putin.

Zelenskiy is right. Like Finland, Ukraine’s accession should be fast-tracked. Yet important though this issue is, Nato faces a far bigger question this week: whether it is doing enough to ensure Kyiv wins the war – or at least, doesn’t lose.

There’s a risk, if the current counteroffensive produces no breakthrough, weapons supplies run short, a new winter energy crisis strikes and western public support drops further, that Zelenskiy will be forced into negotiations – even into trading territory for peace. Secret, informal US-Russia talks are already under way. If Ukraine were already a Nato member, as promised 15 years ago, all this would not be happening.

My hypothesis from the president’s recent announcement that he would send cluster munitions to Ukraine was that he was doing it because we had run out of other munitions to send and those were gathering dust on the shelves. I see that others have begun to think of that as well.

I suspect that if the topic of NATO membership for Ukraine is the main topic for the summit, discussion may get pretty heated. Arguendo, let’s assume that Ukraine is admitted to NATO. What will happen?

1. The alliance will collapse
2. Nothing much that isn’t already happening
3. NATO member states will begin committing troops to Ukraine
4. Russia will immediately start using nuclear weapons to attack Western capitols
5. Something else (specify)

I lean towards some combination of B (most likely) and A.

I would also suggest that we can tell nothing from President Biden’s repeated assertion that there will be no American “boots on the ground” in Ukraine. As conditions have changed we have done several things, e.g. sending F-16s, sending long-range weapons, sending F-16s, that he had said we wouldn’t do.

Stephen Bryen predicts the likely outcome of the upcoming NATO summit:

It will be very hard to get a NATO consensus on the road ahead, no matter how much arm twisting Washington uses on its European partners.

Europe is already in a recession thanks to both the COVID catastrophe, to the sanctions on Russian energy and the huge unemployment levels, impacting recent immigrants. The impact of all that is social unrest across Europe. France is already experiencing a serious revolt, and while the French situation has eased in the past few days, it will come back. Meanwhile the German government coalition​ is steadily losing popular support and the AfD, Germany’s right wing party, is now the second most popular party in the country. Sholtz and his coalition partners don’t know what to do: they may try banning AfD as a last ditch effort. Italy is also far from out of the mess, as the country already has a conservative leadership but is being battered by unprecedented waves of immigrants coming from the Middle East.

Europe is out of money and out of bullets. It is not in a mood to give a blank check to Ukraine or risk a bigger war that might spread into Europe.

concluding:

It will be interesting to see how Vilnius plays out. It will certainly be a propagandistic show, but there is a good chance Vilnius will be a flop.

I suspect our European allies will be delighted to see the U. S. contribute more to assisting the Ukrainians. Beyond that I won’t be surprised if there is little consensus.

Continuing on a subject that I touched on the other day, Kendall Qualls touches on something I mentioned in his piece at RealClearPolitics:

Anyone who examines the condition of black Americans objectively will see what I see – a culture that has departed from its roots of faith, family, and education. Since the 1960s, we have gone from 80% of black children being born into two-parent homes to 80% of black children being born to single mothers in 2017. Affirmative action programs cannot and will not make up for the decline of two-parent families over the last 50 years and its effects on generations of black children.

Research reveals that children from two-parent families, regardless of race, experience high levels of academic success compared to children from fatherless homes. A 2021 study from The Institute for Family Studies found that “Black children in single-parent homes were 3.5 times more likely to live in poverty.” The same study found that black children raised by two parents had a 70% higher chance of graduating from college, while those raised by single parents were “twice as likely to be incarcerated by their late 20s.”

The retort from those who believe that present day problems of people whose great-great-grandparents were slaves can be traced directly to that slavery is frequently declaiming that even to point out what Mr. Qualls calls “the elephant in the room” is racist.