Today appears to be a day for wishful thinking. This time it’s by Rep. Dana Rohrabacher in the Washington Examiner, it’s with respect to Afghanistan, and it’s on behalf of privatizing our efforts in Afghanistan:

President Trump inherited a total mess in Afghanistan. After 16 years, 2,300 lives lost, 22,000 maimed, and nearly a trillion dollars spent, America finds itself stuck in the longest war in our history with no end in sight for thousands of U.S. troops still engaged there. If changes aren’t made soon, radical Islamic terrorism will be more threatening than after or before 9/11.

Of course, one option is to pull out quickly and completely, which would soon lead to a complete jihadi victory within a year or two. As the black Taliban flag is raised over the U.S. embassy, the ultimate recruiting call for every terrorist wannabe in the world would have been sounded.

Another approach is to do what most conventional generals want: Send tens of thousands more U.S. troops back to do more fighting with the requisite costs of American blood and treasure rising together, only to maintain the status quo.

Wisely, the president so far has rejected this all-or-nothing choice, because neither approach is in the interest of our country.

As the Pentagon has been cycling generals in and out of Afghanistan, it now has become evident that no one is really in charge and no one is really held responsible. We are losing the war, but the generals all get promoted, not fired. A return to the old system of having one person in charge of policy, rules of engagement, spending by all agencies and departments, including military operations and budgets, makes the most sense.

A common sense approach is to embed highly qualified trainers with Afghan military units for sustained periods. Few Americans realize that when our troops go to Afghanistan to train indigenous soldiers, they typically spend only about eight hours a week doing so. They never go into harm’s way with them, instead staying safely holed up on U.S. bases most of the time.

This is incredibly expensive and inefficient. And the current approach does not ensure that Afghan troops get paid on time, are equipped properly, and are effectively supported on the battlefield with logistics, intelligence, ammunition, and air support. The new approach would accomplish this.

This isn’t about privatizing this conflict so that someone like Prince can make money. His suggested plan would save taxpayers some $40 billion each year. Besides that, concerns about private-sector actors making money on conflict seem to overlook those companies already benefiting from the status quo.

We don’t need a new strategy in Afghanistan. We need different objectives. Counter-insurgency is a flop. We don’t have the Sitzfleisch for it and Rep. Rohrabacher’s proposal would just underscore that. That was apparent a decade ago and if President Obama had had the wit to recognize it we would have saved most of the American lives lost.

All sorts of people are offering advice on what to do about North Korea. Here’s Henry Kissinger’s, from his op-ed in the Wall Street Journal:

For more than 30 years, the world’s response to North Korea’s nuclear program has combined condemnation with procrastination. Pyongyang’s reckless conduct is deplored. Warnings are issued that its evolution toward weaponization will prove unacceptable. Yet its nuclear program has only accelerated.

The Aug. 5 sanctions resolution passed unanimously by the United Nations Security Council marked a major step forward. Still, an agreed objective remains to be established. But the North Korean success in testing a prototype intercontinental ballistic missile eliminates the scope for further equivocation. If Kim Jong Un maintains a nuclear program against the opposition of China and the U.S. and a unanimous Security Council resolution, it will alter the geostrategic relationship among the principal players. If Pyongyang develops a full-scale nuclear capacity while the world dithers, it will seriously diminish the credibility of the American nuclear umbrella in Asia, especially for our allies in Tokyo and Seoul.

The long-term challenge reaches beyond the threat to American territory to the prospect of nuclear chaos. An operational North Korean ICBM arsenal is still some time away given the need to miniaturize warheads, attach them to missiles, and produce them in numbers. But Asia’s nations are already under threat from North Korea’s existing short- and intermediate-range missiles. As this threat compounds, the incentive for countries like Vietnam, South Korea and Japan to defend themselves with their own nuclear weapons will grow dramatically—an ominous turn for the region and the world. Reversing the progress Pyongyang has already made is as crucial as preventing its further advancement.

American as well as multilateral diplomacy on North Korea has been unsuccessful, owing to an inability to merge the key players’ objectives—especially those of China and the U.S.—into an operational consensus. American demands for an end to the North Korean nuclear program have proved unavailing. U.S. leaders, including in the military, have been reluctant to use force; Defense Secretary Jim Mattis has described the prospect of a war over Korea as “catastrophic.” Thousands of artillery tubes entrenched within range of the South Korean capital demonstrate Pyongyang’s strategy of holding hostage greater Seoul’s population of 30 million.

Unilateral pre-emptive military action by the U.S. would involve a risk of conflict with China. Beijing, even if it temporarily acquiesced, would not long abide an American strategy of determining by itself outcomes at the very edge of China’s heartland, as its intervention in the Korean War of the 1950s demonstrated. The use of military force must be carefully analyzed, and its vocabulary must be restrained. But it cannot be precluded.

Considerations such as these have caused the administration’s attempt to enlist China in a diplomatic effort to press Korea toward denuclearization. These efforts so far have had only partial success. China shares the American concern regarding nuclear proliferation; it is in fact the country most immediately affected by it. But while America has been explicit about the goal, it has been less willing to confront its political consequences. Given North Korea’s enormous and disproportionate allocation of national resources to its nuclear-weapons program, abandoning or substantially curtailing it would produce a political upheaval, perhaps even regime change.

China surely understands this. Therefore one of the most conspicuous events of current diplomacy is Beijing’s support in principle of North Korean denuclearization. At the same time, the prospect of disintegration or chaos in North Korea evokes at least two major concerns in China. The first is the political and social effects of a North Korean internal crisis on China itself, re-enacting events familiar from millennia of Chinese history. The second involves security in Northeast Asia. China’s incentive to help implement denuclearization will be to impose comparable restraints on all of Korea. To be sure, South Korea has no visible nuclear program or announced plans for it, but an international proscription is another matter.

China would also have a stake in the political evolution of North Korea following denuclearization, whether it be a two-state solution or unification, and in restrictions on military deployment placed on North Korea. Heretofore, the administration has urged China to press North Korea as a kind of subcontractor to achieve American objectives. The better—probably only feasible—approach is to merge the two efforts and develop a common position jointly pursued with the other countries involved.

Statements defining the U.S. goal as bringing Pyongyang to the conference table reflect the assumption that negotiations are their own objective, operating according to their own momentum, separate from the pressures that brought them about and are needed to sustain them. But American diplomacy will, in the end, be judged by the outcome, not the process. Repeated assurances that the U.S. seeks no unilateral advantage are not sufficient for countries that believe the Asian security structure is at risk.

So which parties should negotiate, and over what? An understanding between Washington and Beijing is the essential prerequisite for the denuclearization of Korea. By an ironic evolution, China at this point may have an even greater interest than the U.S. in forestalling the nuclearization of Asia. Beijing runs the risk of deteriorating relations with America if it gets blamed for insufficient pressure on Pyongyang. Since denuclearization requires sustained cooperation, it cannot be achieved by economic pressure. It requires a corollary U.S.-Chinese understanding on the aftermath, specifically about North Korea’s political evolution and deployment restraints on its territory. Such an understanding should not alter existing alliance relationships.

Paradoxical as it may seem in light of a half-century of history, such an understanding is probably the best way to break the Korean deadlock. A joint statement of objectives and implicit actions would bring home to Pyongyang its isolation and provide a basis for the international guarantee essential to safeguard its outcome.

Seoul and Tokyo must play a key role in this process. No country is more organically involved than South Korea. It must have, by geography and alliance relationship, a crucial voice in the political outcome. It would be the most directly affected by a diplomatic solution and the most menaced by military contingencies. It is one thing for American and other leaders to proclaim that they would not take advantage of North Korea’s denuclearization. Seoul is certain to insist on a more embracing and formal concept.

Similarly, Japan’s history has been linked with Korea’s for millennia. Tokyo’s concept of security will not tolerate indefinitely a nuclear Korea without a nuclear capability of its own. Its evaluation of the American alliance will be importantly influenced by the degree to which the U.S. management of the crisis takes Japanese concerns into account.

The alternative route of a direct U.S. negotiation with Pyongyang tempts some. But it would leave us a partner that can have only a minimum interest in implementation and a maximum interest in playing China and the U.S. off against each other. An understanding with China is needed for maximum pressure and workable guarantees. Instead, Pyongyang could best be represented at a culminating international conference.

There have been suggestions that a freeze of testing could provide an interim solution leading to eventual denuclearization. This would repeat the mistake of the Iranian agreement: seeking to solve a geostrategic problem by constraining the technical side alone. It would provide infinite pretexts for procrastination while “freeze” is defined and inspection mechanisms are developed.

Pyongyang must not be left with the impression that it can trade time for procedure and envelop purpose in tactics as a way to stall and thus fulfill its long-held aspirations. A staged process may be worth considering, but only if it substantially reduces the Korean nuclear capacity and research program in the short term.

A North Korea retaining an interim weapons capability would institutionalize permanent risks:

• that a penurious Pyongyang might sell nuclear technology;

• that American efforts may be perceived as concentrating on protecting its own territory, while leaving the rest of Asia exposed to nuclear blackmail;

• that other countries may pursue nuclear deterrent against Pyongyang, one another or, in time, the U.S.;

• that frustration with the outcome will take the form of mounting conflict with China;

• that proliferation may accelerate in other regions;

• that the American domestic debate may become more divisive.

Substantial progress toward denuclearization—and its attainment in a brief period—is the most prudent course.

Perhaps I’m missing something but I don’t see anything in Dr. Kissinger’s proposal for negotiations or anyone else’s for that matter that North Korea gets that it can’t get by retaining its nuclear weapons. That strikes me as the very definition of “wishful thinking”.

I don’t believe we should engage in preventive war. I don’t think we should hurl idle threats against North Korea. I don’t believe that North Korea can be trusted to honor the terms of any negotiation.

That leaves just two alternatives: accepting a nuclear-armed North Korea as we’ve done for the last ten years as long as they don’t use those weapons or sell them or imposing sanctions on North Korea’s trading partners, mostly China. Take your pick.

Increasingly, I find myself in the position of someone born shortly after the War of the American Revolution when looking back from the vantage point of 1860. Or how someone born in 1870 would feel looking back from 1940.

Let’s define some terms.

Those are very approximate. I’m using Tom Brokaw’s definition of the “Greatest Generation” and assigning later generations based on attitudes rather than strict year count. Necessarily, there’s quite a bit of overlap.

Here’s one way of looking at it. If the first president you can remember is Calvin Coolidge, you’re Greatest Generation. If the first president you can remember is Franklin Roosevelt, you’re Silent Generation. If the first president you can remember is John Kennedy, you’re a Baby Boomer. If the first president you remember is Ronald Reagan, you’re Gen X. If the first president you remember is Bill Clinton or George W. Bush, you’re a Millennial.

Here’s another way. John Wayne was Greatest Generation. James Dean was Silent Generation (so is Dustin Hoffman). Madonna is a Baby Boomer although her primary market has been Gen Xers. Will Smith is Generation X. Selena Gomez is a Millennial.

Now we’re beginning to meander towards my point. Although I think that Baby Boomers are justifiably blamed for all sorts of things, I also think they’re given a bad rap about some things. Who do you think of when you think when you of when I say “1960s campus radicals”? The leaders of the Berkeley Free Speech Movement, Jerry Rubin, Abbie Hoffman, and William Ayres were all Silent Generation. Most of those both fighting and protesting the Vietnam War were Silent Generation although they were joined by some of the oldest Baby Boomers. The Haight-Ashbury scene? Silent Generation. Leisure suits? Silent Generation. Disco? For that you can blame Baby Boomers.

Mitch McConnell, John McCain, Nancy Pelosi, and Harry Reid are all Silent Generation. Chuck Schumer is a Baby Boomer.

I agree with about half of Tom Friedman’s assertion in his New York Times column:

The more we freak out about North Korea’s nuclear capabilities, the more leverage it has. Instead we should be telling Kim Jong-un: “Hey, pal, not impressed with your nuclear toys, been there, done that with the Soviet Union. Time is on our side — and now the whole world is asking why you won’t accept our credible peace proposal. So have fun with your firecrackers! Don’t even think about lobbing one near us, or we might just shut off all the lights in your pathetic failing state. We can do that — just like we can make your rockets blow up or go off course. Have you noticed? And when your people get tired of eating potatoes every night, give us a call: 202-456-1414. Ask for Donald.”

However where he’s wrong is that we can’t deter North Korea any more than we already have, which isn’t much. And how do we contain North Korea without the active cooperation of China, their primary patron?

Rather than citing any particular story, I’m just going to comment on President Trump’s threats against North Korea overall. As I presume you’re aware on Wednesday President Trump threatened North Korea with a severe U. S. response if North Korea were to attack Guam. He used the phrase “fire and fury as the world has never seen”. Yesterday he reiterated the threat, suggesting that if anything he’d understated the U. S. response.

Reactions to President Trump’s statements have largely been along Trump supporter-“never Trump” lines. Trump supporters have lauded Trump’s language and assertiveness (particularly by comparison with President Obama) while NeverTrumpers have condemned them as part of a pattern of hollow threats, war-mongering, etc.

Contrary to what some of his supporters have claimed, President Trump clearly has drawn a “red line” and not following through with it will further weaken U. S. deterrence.

As I’ve said before, I don’t believe in threats, especially by the United States. Threats are for the weak. The U. S. military’s overwhelming power is such that if the fact of that power is not enough, threats are extraneous. If potential enemies don’t believe the power, they won’t believe the threats, either.

The Chinese authorities, contrary to the predictions of many, are saying precisely what I told you they would say in reaction to the Kim regime’s threats against the United States. The Washington Post reports:

BEIJING — China won’t come to North Korea’s help if it launches missiles threatening U.S. soil and there is retaliation, a state-owned newspaper warned on Friday, but it would intervene if Washington strikes first.

The Global Times newspaper is not an official mouthpiece of the Communist Party, but in this case its editorial probably does reflect government policy and can be considered “semiofficial,” experts said.

China has repeatedly warned both Washington and Pyongyang not to do anything that raises tensions or causes instability on the Korean Peninsula, and strongly reiterated that suggestion Friday.

or, in other words, the Chinese would defend the North Koreans if the U. S. attacked North Korea but the North Koreans are on their own if they attack the United States.

The question is whether the Chinese authorities are sincere or whether they would inevitably be drawn into a conflict between the North Koreans and the U. S. in any event. I think they’re sincere.

How would you interpret a sharp decline in the producer price index?

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. producer prices unexpectedly fell in July, recording their biggest drop in nearly a year and pointing to a further moderation in inflation that could delay a Federal Reserve interest rate increase.

Other data on Thursday showed an increase in the number of Americans filing for unemployment benefits last week. The trend in weekly jobless claims, however, remained consistent with a tightening labor market.

The Labor Department said on Thursday its producer price index for final demand slipped 0.1 percent last month, weighed down by decreasing costs for services and energy products.

That was the largest decline since August 2016 and reversed June’s 0.1 percent gain. In the 12 months through July the PPI increased 1.9 percent after rising 2.0 percent in the year through June. Economists had forecast the PPI ticking up 0.1 percent last month and climbing 2.2 percent from a year ago.

Barring the possibility that it’s just a fluke, it seems to me that it suggests deflation. It also makes me wonder if China’s economic problems aren’t worse than the Chinese authorities might want us to believe.

There are several interesting ideas in F. H. Buckley’s op-ed at the Wall Street Journal on the effects of the social/identity and economic dimensions on the outcome of the 2016 presidential election:

Before the arrival of Donald Trump, the Republican establishment tended to define politics along a one-dimensional economic axis. Their Democratic opponents were socialists while they were the growth and opportunity party. Mitt Romney’s candidacy embodied this view. His campaign’s 59-point plan of sensible free-market ideas was a manifesto for Republican insiders. No one but them ever read it. The Republican one-dimensional man was left in 2012’s dustbin.

The Voter Study Group’s Lee Drutman recently looked beyond the simple left-right paradigm in a questionnaire asking 2016 voters to identify both how they voted and how they felt about various economic and social issues. Mr. Drutman then mapped the results in a diagram, with economic preferences on the horizontal axis and social preferences on the vertical. The diagram revealed some surprising insights about American politics.

Most Hillary Clinton voters were deeply liberal on both axes. The surprise was the Trump voters, who were very conservative on social issues but moderate on economic ones. By Mr. Drutman’s count, 73% of all voters were left of center on economics. Most of the remaining Trump supporters were quite moderate on economic questions.

After the election, the so-called NeverTrumpers claimed that each of their favored candidates would also have beaten Mrs. Clinton. Mr. Drutman’s figures show what a pipe dream that is. A presidential candidate like Ted Cruz, who defines himself primarily through right-wing economic policies, begins with nearly three-quarters of the electorate in the other camp. Such a candidate isn’t likely to go very far.

While the great majority of voters were liberal on economic issues, a small majority (52%) were social conservatives at the top of the diagram, enough to swing the election to Mr. Trump. Only 3.8% of voters were libertarians in the lower-right quadrant, socially liberal and economically conservative. They split their votes evenly between Mr. Trump and Mrs. Clinton.

The crucial differences between the two parties came down to social concerns, including pride in America, immigration, and especially moral issues such as abortion and gay marriage. The social-conservative awakening that helped elect Mr. Trump came when voters recognized that the liberal agenda amounted to something more than a shield to protect sexual minorities. It was also a sword to be used against social conservatives.

The Trump voters might have grumbled about the Supreme Court’s 2015 Obergefell v. Hodges decision, but same-sex marriage didn’t pick anyone’s pockets and no great political protest followed. That changed, however, when homosexual activists employed their newly won rights to start putting religious believers out of business.

In particular, the Democrats gave the back of their hand to Catholic voters, the principal bloc of swing voters in America. Democrats of the past would have been horrified to learn that their party makes faithful Catholics feel unwanted: That’s what they thought Republicans did. But Mr. Trump courted white Catholics, and they provided him with the winning margins in Pennsylvania, Ohio and Michigan. Those three states determined the outcome of the election.

Among them are the multiple dimensions that affect an election. The bulk of the electorate don’t cast their votes for a single reason but for multiple reasons including social/identify, affiliation, policies, economic, and other reasons. Trying to isolate the reasons for voting to any single factor is an exercise in self-delusion.

But look at the scattergraph from the op-ed that I’ve reproduced above! Note how concentrated the Clinton vote was in the lower left hand quadrant. That tells us that there really is no practical way for Democrats to eschew identity politics in pursuit of “Trump voters” (if there are such things). Today’s Democratic Party is identity politics.