Thomas Barnett from this year’s TED:

In this bracingly honest and funny talk, international security strategist Thomas P.M. Barnett outlines a post-Cold War solution for the foundering US military: Break it in two. He suggests the military re-form into two groups: a Leviathan force, a small group of young and fierce soldiers capable of swift and immediate victories; and an internationally supported network of System Administrators, an older, wiser, more diverse organization that actually has the diplomacy and power it takes to build and maintain peace.

Critics will probably focus on the expected cost of this deal (terms undecided at the moment) but this relationship is going to be very important given the uncertain situation in Russia:

President George W. Bush said on Monday he had agreed the United States would help modernize the Polish military as part of a U.S. plan to base components of a global missile defense shield in Poland.

Bush’s announcement, after White House talks with Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk, appeared to mark a major step toward meeting Poland’s demand that Washington boost military aid in exchange for allowing the basing of 10 missile interceptors in Poland.

The two leaders hailed their meeting as a success but made clear that no final deal had been reached on the anti-missile system, something U.S. and Polish officials have said could still take months more.

“The United States recognizes the need for Polish forces to be modernized,” Bush told reporters. He said “before my watch is over” — he leaves office in January 2009 — U.S. experts would have assessed those needs.

Russia is not going to be happy.

It sounds like law enforcement has quite a lot to work with as they try to solve this case:

The trail of possible clues stretches from New York City to Washington D.C. after a bicycle-riding bomber was caught on private security video. First, the bicyclist is seen riding along Military Island at about 3:38 am and getting off the bike just outside the a military recruiting station. About two minutes later the cyclist rides away, and then there is an explosion.

Mysterious letters arrived in Washington to at least four congressional offices that contained a photograph of a person with outspread arms outside the recruiting station before it was bombed and a note saying: “We Did It. Happy New Year.”

The letters were more than 30 pages long and said to be rambling, with a return address from California. A man whose name was signed to them has acknowledged sending them, but officials believe there may be no connection between the letters and the bombing.

Police are still looking at a possible connection to pre-dawn explosions last October at the Mexican consulate and the British consulate in 2005.

“The times are very close, a bicycle was believed to be used,” said NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly. “Those are the similarities.”

But fake grenades were used in the first two cases, not an ammunition box like on Thursday.

Fake (inert) grenades and ammo boxes can usually be purchased from a single location such as a military surplus store. Sounds like there are more similarities than differences to me.

Sounds like we have some homegrown (and thankfully inept) terrorists on the loose:

New York police said a small explosion outside a military recruiting station in Times Square early Thursday caused minor damage but no injuries.

New York bomb squad officers inspect the street in front of the neon-festooned military office.

The FBI said the FBI New York Joint Terrorism Task Force “is on scene working with” New York police.

“They will gather evidence, conduct interviews and begin the investigation. Anyone with information is requested to call the FBI or NYPD,” an FBI spokesperson said.

The Associated Press reported that the blast was caused by an explosive device.

We’ll have to see how this shakes out but I’m betting on house-burning “Progressive” types.

Mayor Carty Finkbeiner sent Alpha Co. packing despite the obvious importance of wartime training and the objections of his Police Chief Jack Smith:

“He told me he did not want them, as he put it, ‘playing war in Toledo,’” Smith said of the 2006 training session. “I told him, as a former Marine, that if one young Marine’s life is saved because of training he or she received in Toledo, Ohio, then it was worth the inconvenience.”

City council isn’t pleased with the Mayor either:

Several city council members today said they would look into reimbursing the Marines for money lost due to the last minute cancellation. They also demanded that Finkbeiner apologize to the Marines on the city’s behalf.

You can contact Carty Finkbeiner (WTF is up with that name anyway?) at mayor.toledo@toledo.oh.gov.

A troubling confrontation in the Persian Gulf:

The U.S. military reported Monday on a “significant” confrontation involving five Iranian Revolutionary Guard boats that “harrassed and provoked” three U.S. naval ships in international waters over the weekend.

U.S. military officials said the incident occurred Saturday night in the Strait of Hormuz, a narrow shipping channel leading in and out of the Persian Gulf.

The five Iranian ships made “threatening” moves — in one case coming within 200 yards of a U.S. ship, the U.S. officials said.
Don’t Miss

In one radio transmission, the Iranians told the U.S. Navy: “I am coming at you. You will explode in a couple of minutes,” the U.S. military officials told CNN.

When the U.S. ships heard that radio transmission, they manned their gun positions and officers were “in the process” of giving the order to fire when the Iranians abruptly turned away, the U.S. officials said.

No shots were fired and no one was injured in the confrontation.

I’d say that they were probing our defenses. The Iranians are not going to attack us directly, they’re not that stupid, but the information gathered in this exercise could be passed on to Iranian state sponsored terrorists or used in retaliatory strikes if we launch an air campaign. It’s the radio transmission that I find really odd here. We’ve had problems with these boats before but I’ve never heard of a case where the Iranians verbally threatened to attack.

Update 1/9/2007:
Mike Nizza of The Lede links to Navy video of the event and a transcript. While it’s helpful to see supporting evidence I should make it clear that I wasn’t expressing doubts about the Navy’s report in my initial post. I’m just really surprised by the hostile radio exchange.

John Cox, of the Cox & Forkum cartoon team (2003 Interview), has illustrated a new book that should appeal to BoW readers:

Chuck Sobietti was a seventeen-year veteran of the U.S. military. He’d seen it all - Gulf War I, Somalia, Bosnia, Afghanistan - but nothing in his experience could prepare him for one fateful day in Iraq and its aftermath.

Part political thriller, part war story, and part “classic” action comic book, Matamoros follows one of America’s heroes in the “Long War” - an ordinary guy who discovers that only extraordinary situations exist when the enemy is a protean entity which refuses to adhere to the laws of war or the laws of civilized nations.

Written by Sleet and Darius LaMonica, and illustrated by John Cox of the Cox & Forkum political cartoon team, Matamoros is the first comic book focusing on the U.S. military’s fight against radical Islamists.

Buy the book (It’s only $3.00) and visit the Matamoros blog.

There’s something about these stupid, inconsequential stories that reveal so much about our society’s misplaced values:

An essay that won a 6-year-old girl four tickets to a Hannah Montana concert began with the powerful line: “My daddy died this year in Iraq.”

…”We did the essay and that’s what we did to win,” Priscilla Ceballos, the mother, said in an interview with Dallas TV station KDFW. “We did whatever we could do to win.”

She had identified the soldier as Sgt. Jonathon Menjivar, but the Department of Defense has no record of anyone with that name dying in Iraq. Caulfield said the mother has admitted to the deception.

Priscilla Ceballos is saying that she never claimed the essay was true:

“When [contest organizer Robin Caulfield] asked me if this [essay] was true, I told her no,” Ceballos said. “We never said this was a true story. We do essays all the time. My daughter does essays at school all the time. It never did say it had to be true, but [Robin] said, ‘That’s what we expected.’”

I guess it never said the author had to show good taste, judgment, parenting skills, or proper respect for the fallen either. The bottom line via Scared Monkeys:

THEY DO NOT DIE SO THAT 6 YEAR OLDS CAN WIN HANNA MONTANA TICKETS!!!

Exactly.

Simon Rees on the truce:

The meeting of enemies as friends in no-man’s land was experienced by hundreds, if not thousands, of men on the Western Front during Christmas 1914. Today, 90 years after it occurred, the event is seen as a shining episode of sanity from among the bloody chapters of World War One – a spontaneous effort by the lower ranks to create a peace that could have blossomed were it not for the interference of generals and politicians.

The reality of the Christmas Truce, however, is a slightly less romantic and a more down to earth story. It was an organic affair that in some spots hardly registered a mention and in others left a profound impact upon those who took part.

Many accounts were rushed, confused or contradictory. Others, written long after the event, are weighed down by hindsight. These difficulties aside, the true story is still striking precisely because of its rag-tagged nature: it is more ‘human’ and therefore all the more potent.

Read on at FirstWorldWar.com.

They sang Joy to the World as well. Hopefully Baghdad will see more joy, and many more silent nights, in 2008.