No surprises here...

[lederhosen]

SMH article (from other sources):

A memorandum written by Tony Blair's Cabinet Office for the British Prime Minister eight months before the Iraq war warned that the Americans had not planned at all on the possible problems of a postwar occupation... "A postwar occupation of Iraq could lead to a protracted and costly nation-building exercise," warned the memorandum, prepared on July 21, 2002. "As already made clear, the US military plans are virtually silent on this point," it said...

"We disagree with the characterisation. There was significant postwar planning," said David Almacy, a White House spokesman. "More importantly, the memo in question was written eight months before the war began... there was significant postwar planning in the time that elapsed."

Which rather suggests they're still missing the point. The aftermath was always going to be the trickiest part, and should have driven the planning, rather than being forced to fit in with a predetermined invasion strategy. (IIRC, it's been suggested that the "fast push to Baghdad and then mop up" strategy, while hastening the invasion, may have also made the insurgency problem far worse.)

Meanwhile, the top Democrat on the Senate foreign relations committee, Joseph Biden, warned that the US would "have to face" a painful dilemma on restoring the military draft. Mr Biden made the prediction after new data showed the US Army failed to meet its recruitment targets for four consecutive months, by 1661 for May. But experts said that was misleading because the army had lowered its recruitment target from 8050 to 6700 recruits.

Unless I'm missing something, this says they managed about 5000 recruits, against a former target of 8000... that's actually, what, a 37% shortfall? Add into that a sizeable commitment in Iraq, and a rather less enthusiastic public/political attitude towards war than prevailed in 2003, and it's no wonder China and North Korea have been saber-rattling of late.


If I was running the PRC, and I was determined to invade Taiwan, I'd be waiting for the USA to finally decide to withdraw from Iraq. I'd launch my attack either shortly after the decision had been publicly announced (when the USA's political will for another war would be at its weakest), or in the middle of the pullout (when resources are tied up with the withdrawal and soldiers are psychologically ready to go home, but not enough has yet been freed up to help in Taiwan).

I'd aim for a fast invasion without much artillery or bombing beforehand. This would mean losing a lot of PRC soldiers, but it would reduce the media impact, which would in turn reduce the USA's desire to fight, and conscription + China = no problem replacing them. A bit of "I'm sorry, this line's really noisy" to stall protests while the invasion is completed, and by the time the USA realises what's happened, they're looking at attempting to re-invade an island (with no cooperative neighbours from whom a ground assault might be launched) not far off the coast of a nuclear-armed superpower, while still smarting from Iraq. At which point, they might just subside into tut-tutting and maybe a few sanctions and disapproving looks.

(I'm no military strategist, so I'd be much obliged if somebody could tell me why China wouldn't want to do things this way.)

In lighter news, a very accurate summary of Ep III. And you wouldn't *believe* how expressive Dog-Or can be when Rey gets home in the morning and he decides it's Time For A Walk. Cavorting around the door, making a hopeful singing noise, and looking up with Big Puppy Eyes...