Russian civilization may have many failings, but it always worth remembering that the national sport of Russia is playing chess.
Last weekend, Myanmar Qaddafi invited the head of the World Chess Federation to come from Russia to Tripoli to play a game. It was a “draw”, just like President Obama always wins at golf.
This has nothing to do with chess, and everything to do with Russia sending a message to NATO and the U.S. that they better be thinking 5 moves ahead in the Middle East.
NATO has serious problems – France’s aircraft carrier is obsolete and can’t sustain this level of conflict. the UK has decommissioned their only Harrier aircraft carrier. NATO has been covering up the fact that the planes being relied on for projecting air power were delivered with missing parts and are largely inoperable.
As I’ve pointed out before, Libya is 800×800 miles square (more or less). Without inflight refueling, NATO can’t reach much of Libya. AWACS planes can’t see much beyond the Libyan coast. You can’t launch cruise missiles at mobile targets. Drones can only effectively fire missiles with boots on the ground to do targeting. Libya is bigger than it appears in the rear view mirror.
To the subject of the War Powers Act – the White Houses attempt to Noam Chomsky the language is “If your troops aren’t at risk of being killed, you’re not in a war”. On December 7, 1941, aircraft flying from aircraft carriers at sea bombed military ships in Pearl Harbor, but Japan had no “boots on the ground” in Hawaii and the pilots were only at minimal risk due to the element of surprise.
By President Obama’s definition, was the attack on Pearl Harbor not an act of War?