It took a while, but a few discussions, and proof in the pudding, convinced my American sweetheart that Canadian-style health care can actually work. She thought it was something like everything is covered. In Canada, it's not. Only the basics are covered.
Let's do the math.
A country of 330 million people can't 'afford' a single payer system. A country of 35 million people that is larger in size, can somehow afford it. Hmm. My bullshit detector just went off.
Is it easy, or cheap? Is it perfect? Is everyone absolutely happy? NO, no, and no.
But let's look at the alternative.
A profit-based system that wants government to pay for the indigent (those who don't have private health plans) but that will happily take $4,000 per year just for insurance, and then deny it if you forgot to dot an 'i', or admit to a bout with Chlamydia 14 years ago, is not health insurance. It is a health mafia, that only gives you the paper stamped with a logo if you are a good risk. How much does it cost to stamp that paper so the logo is embossed anyway?
Develop an irritating tick, a weird rash, and you move up into the realm of higher risk. Talk about irritating. If you move up in the risk rank and are paying for the coverage, your family is riskier too.
I can without a private health plan still visit a doctor, get tests, and with a little gentle arm-twisting, be provided with what I need drug-wise. Most doctors get sample packs of various medications that they have no use for, and they will ALL provide them to patients who absolutely need them. All for NO out of pocket expenses.
ZERO dollars. What part of ZERO is hard to understand? That week I am not getting paid, after all the bills are paid and I have no money, I can still see the doctor. I can still go to the hospital without getting a bill in the mail.
Americans call it socialized medicine, but have very little idea of what it actually entails.
Christina and I have had the TAX discussion. Yes, up front taxes are lower in the U.S. Yes, so are a lot of other taxes.
Add in the toll roads (I know we have the 407 Highway, the stench of which will live on for another 90 years), the local taxes, local sales taxes....and the cost of privately paying for health insurance though, and the amount is remarkably similar.
http://www.canadiansocialresearch.net/taxes.htm
The kicker about health insurance in Canada though, is that when you need it, it is ALWAYS THERE!
Nobody, by virtue of job, economic status, colour, immigration status, is ever treated less than someone who has full, comprehensive medical coverage. In Canada, everyone is provided basic medical care on as needed basis.
It does not include dental, prescription drugs, eye care, chiropractic care, prosthesis, crutches, and many other things that broadly fall into the category of 'elective' procedures. It seems cruel that the Chiropractic procedure I received to align my spine (successful) would be considered elective, as in I chose it for no good reason other than personal, non-medical, not absolutely necessary reasons, but there it is.
In Canada, I have no fear of visiting a doctor due to monetary reasons.
It is true that initially in the U.S. there will be a huge take up of any pseudo-socialized health services. This will be a function of the demand that hasn't been met. Millions of Americans have been living with easily treatable ailments, and with coverage will seek treatment.
Health-wise, don't you think someone living in pain would be less likely to be interested in working, being nice on the freeway (road rage), or being a good citizen, when from every side they hear about how good the U.S. system of government is, how everything is peaches and cream. If only you could get your hands on some peaches. Or cream.
It is completely social, in a society kind of way, acceptable for me to not want my fellow citizens to live in unnecessary pain and suffering, to be able to get their burst appendix fixed, to be able to walk after knee surgery, to be able to work alongside me.
DO I think everything about the healthcare system here is fair? No. Do I like it. Yes. Are we constantly trying to make it better. Yes.
Your turn, naysayers.
Saturday, April 17, 2010
Sunday, March 14, 2010
Small food from China.
Small food. Small quality food. That is my beef.
Does everything have to come from China, a place where they had to shut down 30,000 factories so the air would be clear enough to host an Olympic event, a place where people were tasked with clearing the green slime from the waterways by hand, so the rowers could compete?
I do not want my food to come from China. 80% of store bought fish is processed in China. China is a place where fish farms can exist in a seemingly endless chain, where the excess feed, antibiotics, and poop from the fish farm upstream are injested, then expelled downstream to the next farm.
I buy things at the 'Dollar Store'. A place in which I know just about everything is made in China, and what isn't, is made in India.
Still, that doesn't mean I am without taste. I like Oysters, Mussels, Clams...lots of stuff from the sea. The stuff I am used to, produced in Canada or the US, tastes good and comes in whole morsels of seafood.
One day, I noticed the Dollar Store had some for sale. A can of mussels, a can of oysters....
The seafood was broken, miscellaneous pieces that could have been from any sea animal. A lot of it consisted of parts of the oyster some people leave out, like the intestines. They are small animals, so eating those parts by accident won't kill you, but they are not the tastiest or meatiest parts.
Several months ago I noticed the disappearance of Snow Peas from the grocery shelves. What took the place of one of my favourite raw foods was labelled Snap Peas. They look the same, but these ones, only from China, are smaller, a grey-green (think tired), and are bitter, even after cooking.
Wasn't China until the last few years a recipient of food aid? Someone could help me here. What are they doing exporting food to us? I thought we had an abundance of food to sell to others.
Look, I will buy a crappy ladle that will break after 100 uses, or a frying pan that will fry itself after 50 uses. I will buy the cheap batteries, the pack of pens that will each spontaneously explode or stop working after a week.
I will NOT buy my food from China, a polluted wasteland where expertise in government supersedes expertise in any form of engineering.
Is THIS the country we want free trade with?
Does everything have to come from China, a place where they had to shut down 30,000 factories so the air would be clear enough to host an Olympic event, a place where people were tasked with clearing the green slime from the waterways by hand, so the rowers could compete?
I do not want my food to come from China. 80% of store bought fish is processed in China. China is a place where fish farms can exist in a seemingly endless chain, where the excess feed, antibiotics, and poop from the fish farm upstream are injested, then expelled downstream to the next farm.
I buy things at the 'Dollar Store'. A place in which I know just about everything is made in China, and what isn't, is made in India.
Still, that doesn't mean I am without taste. I like Oysters, Mussels, Clams...lots of stuff from the sea. The stuff I am used to, produced in Canada or the US, tastes good and comes in whole morsels of seafood.
One day, I noticed the Dollar Store had some for sale. A can of mussels, a can of oysters....
The seafood was broken, miscellaneous pieces that could have been from any sea animal. A lot of it consisted of parts of the oyster some people leave out, like the intestines. They are small animals, so eating those parts by accident won't kill you, but they are not the tastiest or meatiest parts.
Several months ago I noticed the disappearance of Snow Peas from the grocery shelves. What took the place of one of my favourite raw foods was labelled Snap Peas. They look the same, but these ones, only from China, are smaller, a grey-green (think tired), and are bitter, even after cooking.
Wasn't China until the last few years a recipient of food aid? Someone could help me here. What are they doing exporting food to us? I thought we had an abundance of food to sell to others.
Look, I will buy a crappy ladle that will break after 100 uses, or a frying pan that will fry itself after 50 uses. I will buy the cheap batteries, the pack of pens that will each spontaneously explode or stop working after a week.
I will NOT buy my food from China, a polluted wasteland where expertise in government supersedes expertise in any form of engineering.
Is THIS the country we want free trade with?
Making private debt public.
Iceland, tiny Iceland, did what all other countries should have done. They denied the economic raptors their unjust rewards. And they can and will do it for several reasons.
A vote to deny repayment to Britain and The Netherlands the monies they gave to jilted depositors of Iceland's failed internet bank, Icesave, so that they could recoup 100% of their losses. No responsible government guarantees 100% of losses for the simple reason that personal and corporate wealth is in any country larger by almost an order of magnitude.
Let's go back here for a second though. People in Britain and The Netherland's deposited money in an INTERNET bank that, by virtue of its not having physical branches, was able to offer higher interest rates than the average stodgy brick-and-mortar bank one can visit simply by walking down the street. I will venture a guess that as long as those higher off-shore interest rates were being earned, year after year, nobody complained.
I know, the idea is too stupid to even contemplate. Of course nobody complained.
There was a run on the banks influenced by the collapse of Lehman Brothers, and typical of governments who should know better, The Iceland Government quickly offered guarantees on private banking debt to try to stabilize their currency.
I'm not one to brag about my knowledge in such matters, but look, if you grew up with very little, and you end up with very little, what have you lost?
Iceland used to be a poor place, occupied by whalers and fisherman, and little else. And no, whales are not fish for anyone who asks. It is a small country blessed by natural sources of energy that are the envy of the world. I can't remember the exact number, but 40-60% of Iceland's heating needs are met by geothermal sources.
So what happened?
Little Iceland was poor once, and saw itself as poor. With few exportable commodities, and looking at what their neighbours across the sea were doing in Ireland, the idea of making money by dealing in money must have seemed appealing. And it worked for several years.
When my current bank is offering 2% on a savings account, and another bank comes along offering 5%, I might be tempted to be honest with you. But in my world, a solid 2% matters, whereas 5% seems very speculative.
Basically, the story I am seeing over and over, from all around the world, is one of people who should have known better, betting the farm on something that always smelled wrong. I swear that I saw the housing bubble in 2004, when home prices seemed to magically go up 10-20% per year, while wages went up 1-2%, and inflation was pretty much at 0%. I didn't need a degree in economics to see the problem.
But maybe an understanding of basic arithmetic was better to have, than a blind faith in any financial advisor. How many people who claim to now have nothing profited from Madoff? Hundreds of people who should have known better, who should have questioned the unfailingly strong returns.
I'm not a Cassandra. My RSP was tanking in a good year (-5% average) so I dumped the company. They were a little snippy when I told them I wanted to close my account because of performance issues, but noted that management costs never seemed to change. It really is karma that I have no money invested with them, but I can still log in to my account to see how their various funds are doing...same as ever, -5% of market.
But back to the point.
Iceland allowed several business entities to be set up, as any sovereign country can do, to offer their services for sale.
One of these businesses, Icesave, a high-interest bearing savings vehicle, was so popular that in 5 months it attracted 125,000 depositors from The Netherlands. It's really a guess, but probably accurate, that most of those 125,000 put most or all of their money into one bank - Icesave.
Then they lost all their money. I'm sorry, but I have a hard time believing in the sophistication of anyone when they do something so utterly stupid. And even less faith in a system that bails out their loss, merely because they ran like lemmings to the same cliff.
I am no financial wizard, but I found something that explains things nicely, and why people who should have known better got themselves into trouble:
PART 1:
PART 2:
A vote to deny repayment to Britain and The Netherlands the monies they gave to jilted depositors of Iceland's failed internet bank, Icesave, so that they could recoup 100% of their losses. No responsible government guarantees 100% of losses for the simple reason that personal and corporate wealth is in any country larger by almost an order of magnitude.
Let's go back here for a second though. People in Britain and The Netherland's deposited money in an INTERNET bank that, by virtue of its not having physical branches, was able to offer higher interest rates than the average stodgy brick-and-mortar bank one can visit simply by walking down the street. I will venture a guess that as long as those higher off-shore interest rates were being earned, year after year, nobody complained.
I know, the idea is too stupid to even contemplate. Of course nobody complained.
There was a run on the banks influenced by the collapse of Lehman Brothers, and typical of governments who should know better, The Iceland Government quickly offered guarantees on private banking debt to try to stabilize their currency.
I'm not one to brag about my knowledge in such matters, but look, if you grew up with very little, and you end up with very little, what have you lost?
Iceland used to be a poor place, occupied by whalers and fisherman, and little else. And no, whales are not fish for anyone who asks. It is a small country blessed by natural sources of energy that are the envy of the world. I can't remember the exact number, but 40-60% of Iceland's heating needs are met by geothermal sources.
So what happened?
Little Iceland was poor once, and saw itself as poor. With few exportable commodities, and looking at what their neighbours across the sea were doing in Ireland, the idea of making money by dealing in money must have seemed appealing. And it worked for several years.
When my current bank is offering 2% on a savings account, and another bank comes along offering 5%, I might be tempted to be honest with you. But in my world, a solid 2% matters, whereas 5% seems very speculative.
Basically, the story I am seeing over and over, from all around the world, is one of people who should have known better, betting the farm on something that always smelled wrong. I swear that I saw the housing bubble in 2004, when home prices seemed to magically go up 10-20% per year, while wages went up 1-2%, and inflation was pretty much at 0%. I didn't need a degree in economics to see the problem.
But maybe an understanding of basic arithmetic was better to have, than a blind faith in any financial advisor. How many people who claim to now have nothing profited from Madoff? Hundreds of people who should have known better, who should have questioned the unfailingly strong returns.
I'm not a Cassandra. My RSP was tanking in a good year (-5% average) so I dumped the company. They were a little snippy when I told them I wanted to close my account because of performance issues, but noted that management costs never seemed to change. It really is karma that I have no money invested with them, but I can still log in to my account to see how their various funds are doing...same as ever, -5% of market.
But back to the point.
Iceland allowed several business entities to be set up, as any sovereign country can do, to offer their services for sale.
One of these businesses, Icesave, a high-interest bearing savings vehicle, was so popular that in 5 months it attracted 125,000 depositors from The Netherlands. It's really a guess, but probably accurate, that most of those 125,000 put most or all of their money into one bank - Icesave.
Then they lost all their money. I'm sorry, but I have a hard time believing in the sophistication of anyone when they do something so utterly stupid. And even less faith in a system that bails out their loss, merely because they ran like lemmings to the same cliff.
I am no financial wizard, but I found something that explains things nicely, and why people who should have known better got themselves into trouble:
PART 1:
PART 2:
Contacting me made easy.
It was recently noted that I should make it easier for people to contact me.
r_pratt@ fastmail (dot) fm
rpratt039@ gmail (dot) com
I look forward to your responses.
r_pratt@ fastmail (dot) fm
rpratt039@ gmail (dot) com
I look forward to your responses.
Tuesday, February 23, 2010
Drive by Wire, and nasty computers.
Drive by wire (cars), or fly by wire (airplanes), is a system in which there are no direct mechanical or hydraulic links between the controls and the hardware. In many newer vehicles, when a person steps on the accelerator or the brake pedal, or turns the steering wheel, or shifts gears, all that happens is that a signal describing the desired input is sent to a computer, which then sends a command to activate the brakes, open or close the throttle, or turn the wheels according to the degree of input from the driver.
Until quite recently it was easy to find the throttle cable, see the steering column poke through the dashboard, etc., and actually see where those things were attached to the rest of the car. It was simple, tried and true direct mechanical linkage from the user to the hardware.
Now, let me ask you something. Why would anyone want to mess around with a system that was a brilliantly simple, proven to work for long periods of time, and would even often work when there was no sound reason for it to do so. A few old friends’ cars come to mind....
Have you seen how tightly everything is packed under the hood of the average car these days? There simply isn't the room to have a straight 3 foot steering column jutting out at an angle from the driver to the steering linkage. But it isn't only that.
Making vehicles with better fuel efficiency often means looking for ways to make them lighter. All the old-fashioned parts that used to manually link driver inputs to the mechanisms that would accomplish what the driver wanted to do could be removed if the controls were routed through a computer, which could then send a signal to a gear box or other apparatus right above the mechanical part.
From an engineering point of view it's a brilliant solution to both lowering the weight of the vehicle and maximizing space usage under the hood. Computers always do what we want them to anyways, right? Uh huh.
If you've never experienced computer hiccup, delay, the occasional inexplicable problem, then you are almost unique. Now link 30 computers together, give each of them its own primary purpose, and have them drive your vehicle. How likely is it that there will never be any problems?
If one of the computers in your car goes haywire, no amount of pressing on the brake pedal is going to help, because the commands are not being delivered by you to the brakes, but rather from you to the computer to....where, nobody knows.
Add to that the fact that in many parts of the world humans live in an invisible sea of (mostly human generated) electromagnetic and radio waves. For the most part their effects are minimal, but if you don't believe they have any effect at all, first see if your vehicle still has AM radio. If it does, find a station and drive around some high tension power lines. The station will disappear in a sea of static.
For almost three years, I didn’t have a case for my computer. My main board, CPU, hard drive….were all exposed. Every time there was a thunderstorm, it would spontaneously shut itself off. Yeah, risky stuff to those who know, but it was my computer, and parts of it still live on in the system I am using now.
I’m all for keeping some things simple, when simple makes sense. Electronic windows always irritated me because there is no manual backup. At the moment, there is no backup plan in many new vehicles if the computer has a hiccup, or can’t decide whether to follow user inputs or follow the computer code written by software engineers in a safe office somewhere.
Some car manufacturers say that preferential treatment is given to the brake pedal if a driver is pressing it, and the throttle is stuck open. Toyota obviously didn’t do this, or it wouldn’t be having such a glorious train wreck in front of the world.
This wasn’t really about Toyota, or taking a cheap shot at them. I’ve never driven a Toyota, but have had Ford and Chrysler products, and have learned to enjoy the quirky personalities the vehicles take on as they age.
Nevertheless, for those who are interested, and despite previous Toyota claims that they haven’t been able to duplicate the runaway car problem, it seemed quite easy for the professor in this video to simulate the event:
Auto Professor Pinpoints Possible Car Flaw
Expert says electronic design flaw is linked to runaway Toyotas.
http://abcnews.go.com/Nightline/
Until quite recently it was easy to find the throttle cable, see the steering column poke through the dashboard, etc., and actually see where those things were attached to the rest of the car. It was simple, tried and true direct mechanical linkage from the user to the hardware.
Now, let me ask you something. Why would anyone want to mess around with a system that was a brilliantly simple, proven to work for long periods of time, and would even often work when there was no sound reason for it to do so. A few old friends’ cars come to mind....
Have you seen how tightly everything is packed under the hood of the average car these days? There simply isn't the room to have a straight 3 foot steering column jutting out at an angle from the driver to the steering linkage. But it isn't only that.
Making vehicles with better fuel efficiency often means looking for ways to make them lighter. All the old-fashioned parts that used to manually link driver inputs to the mechanisms that would accomplish what the driver wanted to do could be removed if the controls were routed through a computer, which could then send a signal to a gear box or other apparatus right above the mechanical part.
From an engineering point of view it's a brilliant solution to both lowering the weight of the vehicle and maximizing space usage under the hood. Computers always do what we want them to anyways, right? Uh huh.
If you've never experienced computer hiccup, delay, the occasional inexplicable problem, then you are almost unique. Now link 30 computers together, give each of them its own primary purpose, and have them drive your vehicle. How likely is it that there will never be any problems?
If one of the computers in your car goes haywire, no amount of pressing on the brake pedal is going to help, because the commands are not being delivered by you to the brakes, but rather from you to the computer to....where, nobody knows.
Add to that the fact that in many parts of the world humans live in an invisible sea of (mostly human generated) electromagnetic and radio waves. For the most part their effects are minimal, but if you don't believe they have any effect at all, first see if your vehicle still has AM radio. If it does, find a station and drive around some high tension power lines. The station will disappear in a sea of static.
For almost three years, I didn’t have a case for my computer. My main board, CPU, hard drive….were all exposed. Every time there was a thunderstorm, it would spontaneously shut itself off. Yeah, risky stuff to those who know, but it was my computer, and parts of it still live on in the system I am using now.
I’m all for keeping some things simple, when simple makes sense. Electronic windows always irritated me because there is no manual backup. At the moment, there is no backup plan in many new vehicles if the computer has a hiccup, or can’t decide whether to follow user inputs or follow the computer code written by software engineers in a safe office somewhere.
Some car manufacturers say that preferential treatment is given to the brake pedal if a driver is pressing it, and the throttle is stuck open. Toyota obviously didn’t do this, or it wouldn’t be having such a glorious train wreck in front of the world.
This wasn’t really about Toyota, or taking a cheap shot at them. I’ve never driven a Toyota, but have had Ford and Chrysler products, and have learned to enjoy the quirky personalities the vehicles take on as they age.
Nevertheless, for those who are interested, and despite previous Toyota claims that they haven’t been able to duplicate the runaway car problem, it seemed quite easy for the professor in this video to simulate the event:
Auto Professor Pinpoints Possible Car Flaw
Expert says electronic design flaw is linked to runaway Toyotas.
http://abcnews.go.com/Nightline/
Sunday, February 21, 2010
The Military Policy Circle Jerk
Air Chief Marshal Sir Stephen Dalton KCB ADC BSc FRAeS CCMI RAF, Chief of the Air Staff gave a speech to the International Institute for Strategic Studies on February 10th. The topic: Dominant air power in the information age.
I don't know what's worse, an Air Marshal arguing for the pre-eminent importance of air power that, however cogently put will always seem a little self-serving, or his point that only those with the years of working with air war assets should make decisions on the composition of such forces. Again self-serving, but that's not really what is problematic.
The sum total of the speech amounts to an argument that things should stay the same. Keep the aircraft carriers, keep all of the abilities that we have now, keep the shiny toys on the battlefield. Glossed over half-truths, anachronistic thinking, and a fair bit of tunnel vision from a man who has spent his adult working life embalmed with the fluids of military preservation.
"I don’t want to talk in too much detail about kit, because air power is about capabilities, not just the platforms that deliver key parts of those capabilities." Fair enough. But then the Air Marshal goes on to talk about the Tornado, a platform he piloted for many years.
No, I don't have a personal problem with the person giving the speech. He is emblematic of a way of thinking that becomes so tightly woven within itself, I'm sure he doesn't even realize that he is a perfect product of the machine that made him. It is likely he is as normal as you are. As to how normal I am, well, I'll leave that for you to decide.
AM Dalton talks briefly about The Green Paper, which is like a pre-policy government paper where interested parties can contribute thoughts before a White Paper is produced that is actually meant to serve as direction for a period of time (as little as 5 but often up to 20 years). It is instructive to note that AM Dalton says, "The Green Paper draws heavily on the excellent work of the Development, Concepts and Doctrine Centre on the Future Character of Conflict."
The DCDC is a British Ministry of Defense think tank.
Yes, that's right. The British Ministry of Defense contributed material to a Green Paper that is supposed to help set policy for future military capabilities, acquisitions and philosophy for the next twenty years. What we have here folks is a closed policy loop.
You may not care what the British are doing, but the speech nicely encapsulates the process that all major countries use to determine future force projection capabilities. Essentially, a bunch of (very well educated) generals sit around and imagine what kinds of toys they want in the future. Then they send their ideas to the government, which is gathering information on what kinds of toys they should have in the future.
AM Dalton was educated in the mid 1970's, and joined the RAF in 1976. Is it possible for someone who received the bulk of his education more than 30 years ago to become forward thinking? To imagine what war will be like in the future? The British experience at least is full of examples of small-scale and large scale conflict, counter-insurgency operations, and politics behind the barrel of a gun.
He certainly tries to appear flexible.
"...Strategic Defence Review will shape our future structure and determine the equipment programme, with implications that will resonate for at least the next 2 decades. So for the sake of our future security, as CDS recently observed, Afghanistan must serve as a prism to view the future, not as a prison for our thinking."
"I believe air power provides a comparative advantage in relation to the capabilities of potential adversaries."
..."future battle-space will be congested, with forces drawn into densely populated areas; cluttered, where targets will be difficult to distinguish; contested, where access will be disputed and we’ll have to fight for the freedom to manoeuvre..." (italics original)
The last two quotes are sequential, and contextual. AM Dalton seems to be saying that air power can be used in congested, cluttered areas where targets are hard to distinguish (from civilians). History has shown that this is a bad idea. Ask U.S. Marines who were sent into battle in Iraq after the limits of air power were reached how they occupied congested, densely populated areas.
The speech devolves into acronyms, military platforms, and the uses of military hardware shortly after the last quote above. A general playing with shiny toys. It doesn't seem like original thinking in the least, and crucially ignores one important step that should be undertaken by every nation that produces Green Papers:
What image does a country want to promote now and in the future? I am no peacenik, liberal-libertarian or student of 'let's all play nicely and with trust and honour'. In the real world of politics, the person smiling at you may very well be looking for the place to push the knife in when you aren't expecting it.
All I am saying is that no military should have a hand in setting policy by virtue of an end-run around the democratic process. It must be up to a government alone to set policy, and then allow the military that serves the political arm of government to figure out, within the confines of the budget they have, how to best satisfy the directives given.
It may be that military planners cannot fulfill all objectives within their means and that the government will have to scale down its plans. Or, sticking with their plans, increase the military budget. In the end, the government will be wholly responsible for the outcome.
original article: http://www.iiss.org/recent-key-addresses/air-chief-marshal-sir-stephen-dalton/
I don't know what's worse, an Air Marshal arguing for the pre-eminent importance of air power that, however cogently put will always seem a little self-serving, or his point that only those with the years of working with air war assets should make decisions on the composition of such forces. Again self-serving, but that's not really what is problematic.
The sum total of the speech amounts to an argument that things should stay the same. Keep the aircraft carriers, keep all of the abilities that we have now, keep the shiny toys on the battlefield. Glossed over half-truths, anachronistic thinking, and a fair bit of tunnel vision from a man who has spent his adult working life embalmed with the fluids of military preservation.
"I don’t want to talk in too much detail about kit, because air power is about capabilities, not just the platforms that deliver key parts of those capabilities." Fair enough. But then the Air Marshal goes on to talk about the Tornado, a platform he piloted for many years.
No, I don't have a personal problem with the person giving the speech. He is emblematic of a way of thinking that becomes so tightly woven within itself, I'm sure he doesn't even realize that he is a perfect product of the machine that made him. It is likely he is as normal as you are. As to how normal I am, well, I'll leave that for you to decide.
AM Dalton talks briefly about The Green Paper, which is like a pre-policy government paper where interested parties can contribute thoughts before a White Paper is produced that is actually meant to serve as direction for a period of time (as little as 5 but often up to 20 years). It is instructive to note that AM Dalton says, "The Green Paper draws heavily on the excellent work of the Development, Concepts and Doctrine Centre on the Future Character of Conflict."
The DCDC is a British Ministry of Defense think tank.
Yes, that's right. The British Ministry of Defense contributed material to a Green Paper that is supposed to help set policy for future military capabilities, acquisitions and philosophy for the next twenty years. What we have here folks is a closed policy loop.
You may not care what the British are doing, but the speech nicely encapsulates the process that all major countries use to determine future force projection capabilities. Essentially, a bunch of (very well educated) generals sit around and imagine what kinds of toys they want in the future. Then they send their ideas to the government, which is gathering information on what kinds of toys they should have in the future.
AM Dalton was educated in the mid 1970's, and joined the RAF in 1976. Is it possible for someone who received the bulk of his education more than 30 years ago to become forward thinking? To imagine what war will be like in the future? The British experience at least is full of examples of small-scale and large scale conflict, counter-insurgency operations, and politics behind the barrel of a gun.
He certainly tries to appear flexible.
"...Strategic Defence Review will shape our future structure and determine the equipment programme, with implications that will resonate for at least the next 2 decades. So for the sake of our future security, as CDS recently observed, Afghanistan must serve as a prism to view the future, not as a prison for our thinking."
"I believe air power provides a comparative advantage in relation to the capabilities of potential adversaries."
..."future battle-space will be congested, with forces drawn into densely populated areas; cluttered, where targets will be difficult to distinguish; contested, where access will be disputed and we’ll have to fight for the freedom to manoeuvre..." (italics original)
The last two quotes are sequential, and contextual. AM Dalton seems to be saying that air power can be used in congested, cluttered areas where targets are hard to distinguish (from civilians). History has shown that this is a bad idea. Ask U.S. Marines who were sent into battle in Iraq after the limits of air power were reached how they occupied congested, densely populated areas.
The speech devolves into acronyms, military platforms, and the uses of military hardware shortly after the last quote above. A general playing with shiny toys. It doesn't seem like original thinking in the least, and crucially ignores one important step that should be undertaken by every nation that produces Green Papers:
What image does a country want to promote now and in the future? I am no peacenik, liberal-libertarian or student of 'let's all play nicely and with trust and honour'. In the real world of politics, the person smiling at you may very well be looking for the place to push the knife in when you aren't expecting it.
All I am saying is that no military should have a hand in setting policy by virtue of an end-run around the democratic process. It must be up to a government alone to set policy, and then allow the military that serves the political arm of government to figure out, within the confines of the budget they have, how to best satisfy the directives given.
It may be that military planners cannot fulfill all objectives within their means and that the government will have to scale down its plans. Or, sticking with their plans, increase the military budget. In the end, the government will be wholly responsible for the outcome.
original article: http://www.iiss.org/recent-key-addresses/air-chief-marshal-sir-stephen-dalton/
Sunday, January 17, 2010
First Post
Discussion, evaluation, irritation, reason, righteous indignation.
I will write about many things, and try to be a dispassionate observer when discussing ideas. From the seemingly mundane to the earth-shatteringly important. I will re-visit a few topics repeatedley because they are personal axes to grind.
My views tend towards the pragmatic. What makes sense for us, for society, our economics, our view of the world.
One of my personal hobby horses is spelling and language. I'm not a grammarian, and would likely not have won a spelling bee either, but certain things irritate me:
The use of their/they're, its/it's types of errors, and writing styles that are more appropriate for casual conversation than for the written word. This blog is new, but I have an idea to reward readers who spot spelling or other obvious contraction errors, some of which will be intentional, while others will not, and make a $1 payment for each error to the person who sees it first.
The payee always has the option of choosing a national literacy group (Canada or the U.S) to give the money to instead. I will find equivalent organizations in Canada and the U.S. and donate funds when they reach $10. A running tab will be kept.
I'm not a grammar Nazi, but have noticed a marked reduction in the quality of printed (paper or electronic) media over the last 20 years or so, and maybe it shouldn't, but glaring errors by professionals who write for a living make me discount the article in question as a reliable source. I'm not talking Wikipedia here. I occasionally clean up Wiki articles because they have awkward sentence structure or other problems that have nothing to do with the veracity of the content.
I will write about many things, and try to be a dispassionate observer when discussing ideas. From the seemingly mundane to the earth-shatteringly important. I will re-visit a few topics repeatedley because they are personal axes to grind.
My views tend towards the pragmatic. What makes sense for us, for society, our economics, our view of the world.
One of my personal hobby horses is spelling and language. I'm not a grammarian, and would likely not have won a spelling bee either, but certain things irritate me:
The use of their/they're, its/it's types of errors, and writing styles that are more appropriate for casual conversation than for the written word. This blog is new, but I have an idea to reward readers who spot spelling or other obvious contraction errors, some of which will be intentional, while others will not, and make a $1 payment for each error to the person who sees it first.
The payee always has the option of choosing a national literacy group (Canada or the U.S) to give the money to instead. I will find equivalent organizations in Canada and the U.S. and donate funds when they reach $10. A running tab will be kept.
I'm not a grammar Nazi, but have noticed a marked reduction in the quality of printed (paper or electronic) media over the last 20 years or so, and maybe it shouldn't, but glaring errors by professionals who write for a living make me discount the article in question as a reliable source. I'm not talking Wikipedia here. I occasionally clean up Wiki articles because they have awkward sentence structure or other problems that have nothing to do with the veracity of the content.
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