One of the things you get accustomed to living in the Midwest is that things can go on for days, weeks, or months here and it barely receives a mention in the national news. However, if something happens that affects New York or Los Angeles, it becomes front page news. Today’s example of this is the smoke cloud from the Canadian wildfires. Here’s a snippet of a report by Dylan Stableford, Rebecca Corey and Caitlin Dickson at Yahoo:

Smoke from Canadian wildfires continues to trigger air quality alerts in U.S. states, with health officials warning people, especially those in sensitive groups, such as children, the elderly or with respiratory conditions, to limit their time outdoors.

The Federal Aviation Administration issued a ground stop Thursday on all flights bound for New York City’s LaGuardia airport due to poor visibility. The Air Quality Index spiked to “hazardous” levels in Philadelphia, where everyone was urged to stay inside.

Here in Illinois we’ve been experiencing this for weeks. Reuters, the New York Times, the Washington Post and many other outlets have reported it. I’m just linking to Yahoo because it was the first one I found and it’s not gated.

Some are attributing the Canadian wildfires to anthropogenic climate change. If that’s the case it’s pretty far down the chain of causality. Smoke clouds are caused by fires which are caused by human action (setting the fires, for example) and natural causes, e.g. lightning strikes. There have been forest fires as long as there have been forests and there will continue to be forest fires as long as there are forests.

In this particular instance a factor contributing to the fires may be land management which brings me to the topic of this post. Environmentalists come in multiple flavors. One sort of environmentalist believes in action, sometimes drastic action—rebuilding everything, to head off environmental cataclysm caused by human action. Another sort believes in leaving as much of the natural environment pristine as possible. If it’s not obvious that those two flavors are at cross purposes, let me give you an example. It has been estimated that the amount of carbon released into the atmosphere by the Canadian wildfires to date this year exceed the amount released by jet aircraft in the U. S. in a year. The first sort would argue in favor of managing forests better to reduce the amount of undergrowth and thereby reduce wildfire spread. The second sort would oppose such stewardship.

At present the problem is that both of those two flavors are winning and the result is worse than if either view prevailed.

I found this article at The Debrief by Leslie Kean and Ralph Blumenthal interesting and entertaining but I honestly don’t know what to make of it. It’s about a whistleblower complaint about vehicles and technology of non-human origin that has allegedly been kept secret from Congress and the rest of us:

A former intelligence official turned whistleblower has given Congress and the Intelligence Community Inspector General extensive classified information about deeply covert programs that he says possess retrieved intact and partially intact craft of non-human origin.

The information, he says, has been illegally withheld from Congress, and he filed a complaint alleging that he suffered illegal retaliation for his confidential disclosures, reported here for the first time.

Other intelligence officials, both active and retired, with knowledge of these programs through their work in various agencies, have independently provided similar, corroborating information, both on and off the record.

It’s not that I believe that the only intelligence in the universe is human intelligence. I don’t or, more precisely, I think it would be astonishing if it were.

It’s that I’m skeptical of the ability of the U. S. government to keep secrets. Furthermore, if there are vehicles of non-human origin that have landed or crashed on U. S. territory, there are also such vehicles that have landed or crashed on Canadian, Russian, Chinese, Brazilian, etc. territory and I’d need to believe that all of the above are keeping things secret successfully.

So, for example, this:

Dr. Garry Nolan, a Professor in the Department of Pathology at Stanford University and a renowned inventor and entrepreneur with more than three hundred published papers, has started over half a dozen companies based on technologies out of his laboratory. Nolan has previously applied some of those technologies to the analysis of exotic materials, publishing the first peer-reviewed paper examining such materials.

“Human civilization was utterly transformed by something as small as a grain of silicon or germanium—creating the underpinning of the integrated circuits that underly computation and now even artificial intelligence,” Nolan said.

I find the conventional history of the development of semiconductors a lot more credible.

The piece that most caught my attention this morning was Jane Shaw Stroup’s post at the American Institute for Economic Research. It’s about economists’ futile search for an explanation of why and how economies grow. It’s hard to excerpt but here’s a snippet:

The elevation out of poverty did not come about because of “take-off” or “balanced growth” or any such thing. As Connors, Gwartney, and Montesinos make clear, cost-reducing innovations—from the container ship to the internet—created a transportation-communication revolution that boosted the volume and extent of trade around the world.

Trade itself increases wealth, but more trade had other effects as well: It led to greater labor specialization, rewarded entrepreneurship and good business management, and pressured governments to adopt better policies.

And it even led to a “virtuous cycle of economic development.” As wages increased, families had fewer children (the opportunity cost of bringing them up had risen). This meant that a higher proportion of the population was in the prime working ages and had greater interest in developing human capital through education and skills training. These improvements built upon themselves.

Waayyy back when I was taking economics classes (I don’t remember whether it was Intro to Econ or Intro to Microeconomics) the prof said something that stuck with me: “We don’t know how to create growth but we do know how to produce shortages”. As the linked post illustrates things have not changed much in the more than half century that has elapsed since then.

Actually, in fairness we do know more. We know that public debt overhang slows economic growth. Suffice it to say that isn’t free trade or free markets more generally or government subsidies.

In the interest of science let me harness Occam’s Razor to the task and propose the simplest possible explanation: energy production makes economies grow. Not only does that explain why England’s economy and the U. S. economy grew when they did it also explains why African economies (for example) have grown so slowly. Consider Nigeria’s per capita energy production and per capita GDP. If I had the time and the energy I’d plot them against one another.

In his regular Washington Post column David Ignatius tells us that Ukraine has begun its long-awaited counteroffensive, it’s working, and implies that victory is inevitable:

It was bracing that Ukraine launched its counteroffensive against Russian invaders as we celebrate the anniversary of the 1944 D-Day landings this week. This assault could turn the tide of the battle for Ukraine, just as the Allied assault on the Normandy beaches altered the trajectory of World War II.

Military campaigns are rarely all or nothing, but this one comes close. If Ukraine can drive back an already shaky Russian army, it stands a chance of forcing Moscow to bargain for an end of its failed invasion. But if Ukraine fails, it would be a bitter blow to the country’s weary population and could endanger continued support from some restless NATO members.

Biden administration officials believe the offensive began on Monday with a Ukrainian thrust south along multiple axes. A major goal is to cut the land bridge across southeastern Ukraine that connects Russia with its occupation forces in Crimea, U.S. officials believe. Part of Ukraine’s strategy appears to be an attack along several lanes, so they can move forces among them to hit targets of greatest opportunity.

Administration officials were encouraged by better-than-expected progress Monday, as Ukrainian units pushed through heavily mined areas to advance between five and 10 kilometers in some areas of the long front. That raised hopes that Ukrainian forces can keep thrusting toward Mariupol, Melitopol and other Russian-held places along the coast — severing the land bridge.

David Ignatius has long been the published voice of the prevailing Washington wisdom so I guess this is what our political leadership is hearing. It bears noting that the Ukrainian government denies that Ukraine’s spring counteroffensive has begun but see the list of participants in my last post. There are a lot of players.

A regular commenter recently observed in comments:

So it has gone from the
“Russians bombed their own pipeline” to
“who knows who actually did it” to
“perhaps some Ukrainians did it with no link to Ukrainian government and with no foreknowledge to the American government” to
“the Ukrainian military did it without President Zelensky being involved and the American intelligence knew and told the Germans”.

How long before it is
“the Ukrainian military did it with the assistance of another NATO nation (Poland) and the CIA but the White House wasn’t looped in” to
“the Ukrainian military did it with the assistance of NATO (Poland and US) through the CIA and the White House was looped in but the President was not” to
“the Ukrainian military did it with the assistance of NATO (Poland and US) through the CIA and the White House, the President was looped in but he doesn’t recall because of his age and signs of dementia”

Maybe it’s just me but I think we may be seeing that same evolution again with respect to the explosion at the Khakhovka Dam but at a greatly accelerated pace. The Western media have pretty much decided that the Russians blew up the dam. The Russians deny involvement. Meanwhile, at Asia Times Stephen Bryen sees it somewhat differently:

For the Russians to have blown up the Kakhovka dam they would have needed to move tons of explosives using boats or underwater equipment, put explosives on the dam facing the reservoir and set off a massive explosion. From the video posted by the Ukrainian government, it looks like the explosions happened below the waterline.

concluding:

It will take time to get a full accounting if we ever get one. We still don’t have one for the Nord Stream pipeline or for Crimea’s Kerch Strait Bridge.

If the idea behind this was to cause a major nuclear accident that could be blamed on the Russians, it is an outrageous act that threatens Ukraine and Europe, maybe the world.

If it was Ukraine that did it, did they act on their own or did they get permission from outside? If it was Russia, then someone had better come up with arguments supporting that proposition.

Read the whole thing. It has some other interesting tidbits. He makes a pretty credible case that the Ukrainian military did it.

I think this is the “fog of war”, the uncertainty of war described by von Clausewitz. It’s even foggier than usual because there are so many participants:

the Russian military
the Wagner Group
pro-Russian militias and partisans
the Ukrainian military
pro-Ukrainian militias and partisans
the intelligence organizations of NATO members
the actual military of NATO members

and the communications between groups on the same side and their respective political leaderships doesn’t seem to be particularly good.

In an op-ed in the New York Times Jaroslav Kuisz and Karolina Wigura pain a picture of a decreasingly liberal Poland. Here’s the kernel:

The government, led by the hard-right Law and Justice party since 2015, has taken over key state institutions such as the public media, curtailed the independence of the judiciary and instituted draconian abortion laws. To neutralize opponents, almost all political tricks are allowed: wiretapping, denigration and even outright lies. With crucial parliamentary elections coming this autumn, the electoral process has been tinkered with to favor the incumbents and a new bill passed that could remove opponents from political life on the pretext of acting under Russian influence. In its bid to secure a third term, the Law and Justice party is leaving nothing to chance.

The party’s success has been built on targeted social transfers, genuflection to the country’s Catholic identity and avowed nationalism. But it also owes a lot to skillfully played campaigns of collective fear and demonization. For much of the party’s eight years in office, migrants, women and sexual minorities have been the chief targets. The government also regularly attacks the opposition, often in luridly conspiratorial terms. Its ministers and supporters suggest, for example, that the leader of the opposition and a former prime minister, Donald Tusk, plotted the plane crash that killed the Polish president in 2010. However outlandish, such conspiracy theories play into — and amplify — a pervasive fear that things are changing rapidly for the worse.

I presume that some would describe our relationship with Poland with an old proverb: the enemy of my enemy is my friend. I would use another: he who sups with the devil should have a long spoon.

For a long time our policy with regards to Eastern Europe has been largely formed by Poles, Ukrainians, and nostalgia. IMO it’s long past time to reconsider. By “reconsider” I don’t mean “abandon”. I mean come to an understanding better founded in facts.

I frequently agree with Walter Russell Mead’s assessments. Not this time. His latest Wall Street Journal column bears the title “What if Putin Loses His War in Ukraine?”.

Let’s pause right there. It is not merely Putin who is at war with Ukraine. If Vladimir Putin were to vanish from the face of the earth, in all likelihood whoever replaced him would not only continue to prosecute the war, they’d be more likely to deploy the Russian military directly or to use nuclear weapons.

Then there’s this paragraph:

A Ukrainian victory—which we can describe as an end to the conflict that leaves Ukraine with all or most of its original territory, independent of Moscow and aligned with the West—would be a geopolitical earthquake. The Russia that Europe has known and feared since the 18th century, an immense and looming presence relentlessly bent on expanding westward, will be gone. The consequences would reshape the politics of Europe and the Middle East and define a new era in U.S.-China competition.

If Dr. Mead has evidence of Russian westward expansionism since the 18th century, he should produce it. Not Soviet expansionism. I concur that the Soviet Union was expansionist.

France invaded Russia in 1812. Britain invaded Russia in 1807 and 1919. Poland invaded Russia in 1919. Germany invaded the Soviet Union in 1941, inflicting more casualties than were suffered by any other country during World War II. Even the U. S. invaded Russia in the 20th century. These repeated invasions are exactly why Russia wants a buffer area against possible invasion. Most important in that is Crimea.

Or this:

A Russian defeat would basically strengthen America’s hand globally, but there would be complications. On the plus side, with Russian expansionism firmly checked, the task of maintaining the status quo in Europe would require less U.S. investment. American and Western prestige would be significantly enhanced by victory and would be gravely impaired if Russia wins. As I noted last week, a victorious Ukraine would join Poland, the Baltic states and the Scandinavian countries in a pro-defense bloc of European countries who understand the value of the American alliance.

I don’t believe that’s what would happen. I believe that Poland and Ukraine would continue to do what they’ve been doing for the last 30 years: try to enlist the U. S. to further their national interests for them. I suspect the Baltic countries would be encouraged to de-Russianize their own territory. I have no idea what Sweden or Finland would do. BTW don’t expect Poland and Ukraine to play nicely together. There’s already friction between the two countries, see here.

I received notification of this story when I was chasing something else. At the Washington Post Shane Harris and Souad Mekhennet are reporting that we have known that the Ukrainians were responsible for sabotaging the Nordstream pipeline since before it happened:

Three months before saboteurs bombed the Nord Stream natural gas pipeline, the Biden administration learned from a close ally that the Ukrainian military had planned a covert attack on the undersea network, using a small team of divers who reported directly to the commander in chief of the Ukrainian armed forces.

Details about the plan, which have not been previously reported, were collected by a European intelligence service and shared with the CIA in June 2022. They provide some of the most specific evidence to date linking the government of Ukraine to the eventual attack in the Baltic Sea, which U.S. and Western officials have called a brazen and dangerous act of sabotage on Europe’s energy infrastructure.

The European intelligence reporting was shared on the chat platform Discord, allegedly by Air National Guard member Jack Teixeira. The Washington Post obtained a copy from one of Teixeira’s online friends.

There’s a lot to decompress in that story if true:

• The Ukrainians sabotaged the pipeline.
• A “European intelligence agency”, presumably the Poles or the Swedes, knew about it well in advance
• They notified our intelligence agency
• Either the president knew about it and lied about it OR he didn’t know (my suspicion)
• The whole thing was published online by Jack Teixeira

I wouldn’t fault the Ukrainians for going after the pipeline—it was a legitimate target. However, if our intelligence agency did not inform the president they did wrong. The president needs to know about this stuff. Either ignorance or lying about it reduces his credibility. That’s the reason I think he had not been informed.

The sabotage hasn’t hurt the Russians much—they just found different customers. It DID hurt the Germans—it forced their hand which was, presumably, the objective.

I wanted to bring Samuel Charap’s article in Foreign Affairs about concluding the war in Ukraine to your attention. Here’s its conclusion:

An endgame premised on an armistice would leave Ukraine—at least temporarily—without all its territory. But the country would have the opportunity to recover economically, and the death and destruction would end. It would remain locked in a conflict with Russia over the areas occupied by Moscow, but that conflict would play out in the political, cultural, and economic domains, where, with Western support, Ukraine would have advantages. The successful reunification of Germany, in 1990, another country divided by terms of peace, demonstrates that focusing on nonmilitary elements of the contestation can produce results. Meanwhile, a Russian-Ukrainian armistice would also not end the West’s confrontation with Russia, but the risks of a direct military clash would decrease dramatically, and the global consequences of the war would be mitigated.

Many commentators will continue to insist that this war must be decided only on the battlefield. But that view discounts how the war’s structural realities are unlikely to change even if the frontline shifts, an outcome that itself is far from guaranteed. The United States and its allies should be capable of helping Ukraine simultaneously on the battlefield and at the negotiating table. Now is the time to start.

I suspect that some readers will side with the “many commentators” above. Has any country ever given another country such a blank check?

Mr. Charap neglects to mention that there are reasons not to trust Ukraine unreservedly. There have been reports that weapons sent to Ukraine have made their way to Africa and even to Mexico. Others deny these reports with equal vehemence. There have also been complaints about Ukrainian corruption made by U. S. companies. The best retorts to these seem to be that it’s better than it used to be.