Priorities for the New Year

                A commentary

                By J. F. Kelly, Jr.

                The last column of the year ideally should exude optimism and high hopes for the new year. That isn’t an easy task as I write this one but I’ll try. Most Americans, according to polls, feel that the nation is headed in the wrong direction but are deeply divided over what would be the right direction. It will take, I believe, strong, transformational leaders to help us decide on a new direction. This being an election year affords us that opportunity. We can’t blow it by settling for a rematch between two increasingly out- of-touch dinosaurs who have had their term at the helm and now need to step aside to make way for younger, less controversial leaders.

                If the GOP really wants to win back the White House and the senate, it should coalesce around the candidacy of Nikki Haley, the former governor of South Carolina and ambassador to the United Nations. Polls show her a 17-point favorite to beat President Joe Biden if the election were held today as compared to former president Donald Trump’s predicted 4-point margin of victory. That’s because she would win a larger share of the female vote that would otherwise go to the Democrat nominee because of the abortion issue. Ms. Haley brings strong executive experience having governed one of the fastest-growing states and her foreign affairs experience as ambassador to the UN. With the right running mate to groom as a future president, she may be the GOP’s best chance to win. If the Democrats stick with Biden, their only chance to win would be against Trump who can always find a way to lose. He is chaos personified.

                I usually devote the last column of the year to suggested New Year’s resolutions for politicians who are too busy to make their own but this year I’ll just offer one for legislators and finish with a few of the urgent priorities for action. To legislators I say simply do the job you were elected to do. Remember that your constituents include people who didn’t vote for you. Negotiate and compromise. Negotiating does not consist of shouting at one another like street demonstrators.

                The leading domestic priority now is to regain control of our southern border. This is a matter of national security. Immense harm has already been done as a result of human trafficking, drug smuggling and chaotic conditions at the border. The Biden Administration has been more concerned about the territorial integrity of Ukraine than ours. The cartels of Mexico probably have more control over who and what enters the United States over our southern border than we do.

                The leading foreign policy priority now is to fully support our democratic ally, Israel, in its war to eliminate Hamas. That support does not include telling the Israelis how to fight that war. Bowing to international pressure to restrict operations against Hamas savages that committed unspeakable atrocities against women and children on October 7^th in order to prevent collateral damage to Palestinians who allowed Hamas to take over Gaza will lengthen the war and cause additional casualties on both sides. Israel is fighting for its survival against a force that is pledged to its destruction. We can’t let this happen and Biden and Blinken need to stop looking for moral equivalence in this conflict.

     I recently studied some ancient maps of the Holy Land showing the “land of milk and honey” which includes most of what is now called the West Bank. My Bible says this land was promised to the Jews while they were held captive in Egypt. I ran across an item from the “Little Brown Book of Anecdotes” by Warren Boroson, published in the Jewish Standard, edited by Clifton Fadiman. “On the sixth day”, he writes, God turned to the angel Gabriel and said, “I shall create a magic land. It will be called Israel. It will stand as holy. Its magnificence will be known all over the world. I will send to this land special people of goodness, intelligence and conviction, so the land will prosper. I will call these people ‘Jews’.”

    “Pardon me, Lord”, said Gabriel. “Aren’t you being too generous to these Jews?” “Not really”. said the Lord. “Wait ‘till you see the neighbors I’m sending them.”

    In spite of ugly, world-wide discrimination against God’s chosen people, they have managed to maintain a sense of humor. It is a sort of gallows humor because they know that more attacks may come that may cost their lives and those of their loved ones but they will never surrender or vacate their promised land.   

    Anti-Semitism has always plagued the world. Back in 1835, Daniel O’Connor attacked British Prime Minister Sir Benjamin Disraeli in the House of Commons and referred to his Jewish ancestry. Disraeli famously replied, “Yes, I am a Jew and when the ancestors of the right honorable gentleman were brutal savages in an unknown island, mine were priests in the temple of Solomon.”

    In spite of all our faults and some of the politicians we elected that failed to cure them, we are still the greatest nation on earth and the destination of choice for most of the world’s huddled masses. Have a happy, safe and prosperous new year. God bless America.

December 28, 2023

Saving Higher Education

                A commentary

                By J. F. Kelly, Jr.

                My Incoming email yesterday contained a letter from the fellows of Harvard College addressed to the members of the Harvard Community. A fellow, according to one definition, is a member of a group of learned people who work together in pursuit of mutual knowledge. Another definition is a privileged member especially selected in recognition of his or her work and achievement. That achievement, of course, may have something to do with their generosity with regard to financial support. The senior fellow of Harvard College, for instance, happens to be a “gal” named Penny Pritzker, a member of one of the richest families in America.

                I received the letter because I’m a member of the Harvard “community” by virtue of having graduated from the university’s Graduate School of Business Administration Program for Management Development (PMD) in 1971, as one of several senior naval officers selected to attend. It was a semester length, resident course taught at the graduate level by business school professors. Those were turbulent times with an unpopular war raging in Vietnam and there were student protests on many college campuses including Harvard’s. Since the Harvard ROTC facility had been vandalized, our service records including pay and medical records were kept at nearby Massachusetts Institute of Techknoledgy (MIT).

                We military students largely stood clear of the Harvard College campus located in Cambridge. I was dared to walk across Harvard Yard in my uniform. The business school was across the Charles River on the Boston side where the atmosphere was decidedly more conducive to serious study and mature student behavior. Large universities like Harvard are sometimes characterized as loosely-coupled organizations consisting of semi-autonomous colleges. At the business school, some of the professors were actually conservative. Imagine that.

                Times have changed. Harvard has been trying, unsuccessfully, to defend its policy of discriminating against Asian and Asian-American who seek admission but are rejected in spite of superior test scores to allow more blacks to be accepted, thus discriminating on the basis of race. Now the university, along with other elite universities, including the University of Pennsylvania and MIT, are embroiled in controversy over the failure of their presidents to initially condemn demonstrations and threats against Jewish students as against university values.  

                The letter reaffirmed the support of the fellows for Harvard president Claudine Gay’s continued leadership, saying that their “extensive deliberations” affirm their confidence that “she is the right leader to help our community heal and to address the very serious societal issues we are facing”. The fellows are right that we need to heal because the university is indeed sick and it does face very serious societal issues, largely of its own creation. They are wrong, however, in saying that Dr. Gay is the right leader. Not after that disgraceful performance before Congress.

                While she has apologized for the “way she handled her congressional testimony”, it comes too late and probably only motivated by the backlash it caused. Now comes the revelation that she has been accused of plagiarism. The letter states that the fellows initiated an independent review by “distinguished political scientists” of her published works which revealed “a few instances of inadequate citation”, polite language suggesting plagiarism.

                Dr. Gay, the 30^th president of Harvard, joined the university as a professor of government in 2006. She was appointed a professor of African and African-American Studies in 2007. Her bio indicated that she added emphasis and energy to such areas as climate change, ethnicity and migration. Prior to joining Harvard, she was an Assistant Professor of Political Science at Stanford. Senior fellow Penny Pritzger was Secretary of Commerce in the Obama Administration. Another fellow, Karen Mills, served as Administrator of the U.S. Small Business Administration during the Obama Administration.

                On the Harvard shield is emblazoned the Latin noun Veritas, meaning truth. Entrusting the stewardship of what used to be America’s most prestigious university to anyone who practiced plagiarism is not consistent with the school’s principal value. She should not only resign as president, but as a faculty member as well.

                But that’s only a small step toward what’s needed to save American Universities. They need to start practicing the diversity they so claim to cherish in the hiring of faculty which currently is overwhelmingly progressive and woke and appears to be dedicated to producing legions of badly misinformed students who have been taught to hate their country.

                Have a blessed and happy holiday season. Merry Christmas to all.

December 21, 2023

Why We Need a Bigger Navy

                A commentary

                By J. F. Kelly, Jr.

                Nearly everyone who keeps up with current events has a pet cause for how our nation’s limited revenue should be spent. I and others have been concerned about the threat that Chinese Communism poses to America and its allies. It is a graver threat than that posed by Russia because of the size of the Chinese economy and Beijing’s aim to displace us as the world’s most powerful and influential superpower. A conflict over Taiwan and Chinese actions to colonize and militarize the South China Sea is an existential threat to our own vital interests. We must therefore be prepared to deter or win a war with China. Because of the geography involved, such a war would be largely fought at sea, in the littoral regions and in the air.

                I and others have warned for years that our navy battle fleet is far too small to either deter or win such a conventional war, the assumption being, of course, that neither side would employ nuclear weapons. The warning has largely been ignored as John Lepore, a frequent contributor to these pages, had kindly pointed out recently. The focus of recent administrations has been on domestic issues, choosing butter over guns to use the metaphor economists are fond of. Since most Americans seem to be under the impression that our navy is equal to the challenge, it may be useful to recall that by the end of WW-II our naval fleet consisted of 6,768 ships. We don’t need nearly that many manned ships now but we do need far more than we have. Here’s why. First of all, navies should be sized not by the size of the enemy’s fleet but by the missions they must support. A war with China would, hopefully, be fought in China’s backyard, not ours. But we have a vast ocean to cross to get there and to maintain and protect the supply lines to keep it functioning. China’s fleet, on the other hand, is already there.

                The current edition of the U. S. Naval Institute Proceedings, the independent forum of the sea services     for which I’ve written numerous articles, features a series of essays by military and civilian experts on sea power discussing how a war with the People’s Republic would likely be fought. There follows here a brief discussion of some of these and my own reasons for why we need more ships if we are to deter, or failing that, to win such a war.

Such a war would be provoked by China, not us, and would therefore probably be preceded by a surprise attack on our forward deployed and homeported ships in Japan and Guam prior to invading Taiwan. We would suffer heavy initial losses to ships, aircraft, bases, and repair facilities in the Western Pacific. We would struggle to replace the ships and aircraft because we lack the infrastructure to build or repair them rapidly and to rebuild what’s left of the base facilities. Nevertheless, we would have no choice but try to establish sea control with what we have.

China relies on reliable imports of fuel and food to survive and keep its economy growing. It will get much of that from Russia, but most of it comes by sea. We must sever their maritime supply lines and blockade their ports. We will be hampered in doing the former by a shortage of attack nuclear submarines (SSNs) and in the latter effort by a shortage of surface warfare ships. We will have to rely heavily on our allies for help, especially Japan, South Korea and Australia and hope for adequate interoperability. Hopefully, Japanese and South Korea assets will survive or be salvageable. More attack submarines are needed desperately but our existing shipbuilding and maintenance facilities will be unable to meet the navy’s stated requirement for more SSNs for years to come.

Our aircraft carrier fleet, while already stretched to the limit, is greatly superior to China’s current fleet of four. Our forward-deployed and Japanese-homeported carriers and big deck amphibious assault ship may not survive an initial PRC attack. Chinese destroyers and frigates are of high quality and heavily armed, carrying a variety of anti-ship cruise missiles (ASCMs) and also land attack cruise missiles (LACMs). We will be hampered in the early stages of conflict by a shortage of such weapons and their ship platforms. We would also be handicapped by a shortage of hypersonic missiles. Theirs are also faster than ours. We are currently capable of producing only two Arleigh Burke class guided missile destroyers and two guided missile frigates per year and lack the shipbuilding capacity to catch up to the numbers needed in time to make much difference. Amphibious operations will be hampered by the lack of any landing ships (LCMs) which the Marines have requested and by reliability problems with the Osprey tilt rotor aircraft (V-22) all of which are currently grounded for safety concerns.

Deployment and repositioning of the navy’s diminished fleet to the Western Pacific area to replace initial losses will leave insufficient assets available for contingencies elsewhere such as the Middle East or ballistic missile defense of our homeland, especially Hawaii, Alaska and our west coast cities. Not only will we have a critical shortage of warships, but we lack sufficient logistical ships to keep essential supplies and imports flowing. We rely on foreign-flagged, foreign-crewed and foreign-owned hulls because it is cheaper than using American sailors. Their availability in combat would be questionable. There are insufficient ships under control of the Military Sealift Command to meet the supply needs of a major power conventional war.

So-called distributed lethality, involving putting more weapons on merchant ships and other non-warship hulls, will aid in their own self-defense but may also detract from their main mission. Doing more with less is more of a slogan than a strategy and won’t win or deter a war. Only credible strength will. The Chinese Communists are not intimidated by bluster. Decades of ground wars have left our navy underfunded and neglected. The piper must now be paid. It gives me no satisfaction to say as I’ve been saying that it may be too late now to catch up to where we need to be. I believe that history will judge those leaders who ignored the warnings harshly.

December 14, 2023

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GOP Needs to Get Organized

                A commentary

                By J. F. Kelly, Jr.

                Nimrata “Nikki” Haley’s campaign to win the GOP nomination for president received a big boost when billionaire Charles Koch’s conservative group said that it would support her candidacy. The group, Americans for Prosperity, is led and partly financed by Koch. Haley, according to recent polls, is statistically tied with Florida Governor Ron DeSantis in a still-distant tie for second place behind former president Donald Trump in the battle for the Republican presidential nomination. Gov. Haley’s support is growing, however, while the DeSantis campaign appears stagnant.

                The former South Carolina governor served seven years in office before stepping down to become Trump’s ambassador to the United Nations, a post she held for two years. She is a graduate of Clemson University and served six years in the South Carolina state legislature before her successful campaign for governor. An accountant by training, she would bring to the oval office experience in foreign relations along with executive and legislative experience.

                Haley is the daughter of Sikh immigrants from India. She converted to Christianity in her 20s. She would be the first woman and first Asian-American nominated for president by the GOP. A relatively youthful 51 years of age, she would bring energy, experience and demonstrated competence to the highest office in the land. Unlike Trump, who has nicknamed her “Birdbrain,” she thinks before she speaks, exercises mature judgement and possesses good communications skills. She was a suitably tough ambassador to the UN, unwilling to sit in silence while lesser nations berated the United States. Together with the right choice of a running mate and secretary of state, she would restore foreign policy expertise to the White House.

                With the focus of our military and diplomatic efforts shifting to the Indo-Pacific region where over half of the world’s population lives and where the two most populous nations are located, Haley’s background and understanding of the Asian cultures would be especially valuable. Republicans should coalesce around her candidacy while her momentum is rising to avoid another self-defeating battle for the nomination led by Mr. Trump. It is not too early to do so. Trump’s die-hard supporters need to recognize that most Americans do not want their choice limited to two grumpy, old men who are increasingly out of touch with the times and who would be lame ducks if elected, limited to four more years in office. They have had their day in the lime-light. We need fresh leadership.

                Especially important in this election will be the selection of a running mate. Candidates for the presidential nomination invariably say that they have no interest in the job of vice-president. They should get interested because the Veep is the second-highest office holder in the land and a heartbeat away from the presidency. If properly tasked by the president, serving as vice-president can be the best possible preparation for a later run for the presidency.  It is selfish of presidential candidates to select running mates bases on superficial reasons such as the likelihood that they will not upstage the president. Excellent choices in my opinion would include former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo or former New Jersey governor, Chris Christy.

                Most pools are showing Trump beating Biden this time but Mr. Trump can always figure out a way to lose. In any event, Americans deserve a better choice. I believe that most Americans will hold their noses and vote for the lesser of two evils. Libera nos a malo. But it will likely provoke a third party candidacy and we could end up with no candidate getting enough electoral votes (270) to win in which case the election would be held in the House of Representatives.

                Whatever happens, the prospects of Joe Biden remaining in office during the next four years of his dotage is depressing. His administration has been a train wreck starting with the cancelation of most Trump initiatives regarding the border and asylum policy without replacement plans ready. The result was chaos, which continues today, and a flood of illegals, drugs and human smuggling. The withdrawal from Afghanistan was a costly fiasco. We failed to expand our navy and air force or significantly increase our defense industrial base in order to better deter future war with China over Taiwan. Crime and violence have surged in the cities. We demonized fossil fuels and declared war on the oil industry before being remotely ready to shift to renewable energy or drive EVs that most Americans don’t want and can’t afford. The homeless problem grew. Americans are being held hostage by terrorist groups, We went from fully supporting our ally, Israel, to conditional support. Pro-Hamas groups demonstrate on campuses and city streets. Anti-Semitism is on the rise. We are $34 Trillion in debt. This is only a partial list because I’m out of space.

                Ask yourself if you are better off than you were three years ago.

December 10, 2023