The Korean War by Indy Neidell
Published 16 Sep 2025Bloody Ridge is barely over, but orders have come for the UN forces to already attack the next ridge to the north, and UN planes violating the Kaesong neutral zone sabotage Matt Ridgway’s plans for conquest.
Chapters
00:00 Hook
00:49 Recap
01:27 Van Fleet’s Planning
08:44 The War and the Conference
14:28 Summary
14:46 Conclusion
15:20 Call to Action
(more…)
September 17, 2025
The Korean War Week 65: Another Bloody Ridge Begins? – September 16, 1951
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“It would be a grave error to scrap NORAD”
J.L. Granatstein makes the case that abandoning NORAD in a fit of pique over the antics of the Bad Orange Man would be worse for Canadian national defence interests and might not even be noticed in Washington DC:
There are beginning murmurings that Canada should get out of the North American Aerospace Defence agreement (NORAD). Given the Trump administration’s hostile tone — its 51st state suggestions, its tariffs, and its growing concerns with Arctic defence — the United States has become a difficult partner and a threat to Canadian sovereignty. But would this be a sensible decision for Ottawa to make?
Not at all. In the first place, NORAD is a joint alliance to defend North America against Russian, Chinese, or other potential attackers. Canada provides aircraft, radars, personnel, and expertise to this role that serves our national interests. It would be a grave error to scrap NORAD and to take on the role of defending our part of North America on our own. It would also be hugely expensive.
The problem, however, is that the Trump administration is right: Canada is, in fact, not doing enough today to defend our portion of North America and protect our sovereignty in the region.
The Royal Canadian Air Force has 1980s vintage CF-18s flying patrols and occasional larger surveillance aircraft monitoring traffic in Arctic waters; there are snowmobile and ATV patrols of Canadian Rangers armed with rifles; and a few army exercises in the north each year. The Royal Canadian Navy has a half dozen new Arctic Offshore Patrol Vessels that have limited utility in Arctic waters and are very lightly armed, and the Canadian Coast Guard (CCG) has only one 66-year-old icebreaker capable of clearing thick ice. The CCG is now under the authority of the Department of National Defence, but its members, unlike those in the Canadian Armed Forces, are unionized, and its vessels are unarmed. This could be a problem in a conflict.
Yes, Ottawa has promised to do more. The Trudeau government agreed to the $38.6 billion NORAD Modernization Plan, which includes the new Northern Approaches Surveillance System featuring the Arctic Over-the-Horizon Radar and a Polar Over-the-Horizon Radar, enhancing early warning and threat tracking from the North for air and maritime threats. These systems will not be fully operational until the 2040s.
There’s more, but it’s behind the paywall.
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Dark Forest Deterrence: Bureaucrats are Destroying the Universe
Feral Historian
Published 2 Sept 2022A quick look at a minor and neglected detail of Cixin Liu’s Three Body Problem series. I trust that everyone has done the reading.
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QotD: Indecision
For those who’ve seen Band of Brothers, there’s a very telling conversation between Carville and Winters, as the sergeant complains about his platoon commander, Lt. Dyke:
“It’s not that he makes bad decisions; it’s that he doesn’t make any decisions at all.”
Any time you see that situation in a manager, any manager, it is a flashing neon sign of incompetence.
One of the reasons why Marxists make such poor managers is that if they are presented with a situation which cannot be addressed by Party doctrine, they are largely indecisive. Even worse, if that doctrine runs counter to good management, they will use that as the underpinning for their indecisiveness. We saw this a lot under Obama, who was pathetically underqualified as a manager, having had no executive experience in his entire life before becoming POTUS. More often than not, when faced with a decision, he simply froze and allowed events to dictate the outcome, even if that outcome was inimical to the interests of the country he was supposed to be governing. (And to prove my point above, his Marxist doctrine held that the United States was a malignant force in world affairs, so allowing harm to befall the country was — to his mind — actually the proper thing to do as it “corrected” or atoned for America’s past sins.)
Kim du Toit, “Failure”, Splendid Isolation, 2020-06-04.
