- The Author
Welcome to my blog. Your author is a retired US Naval intelligence officer who served around the world, afloat and ashore, from 1983 to 2004. My last operations in the Navy were Iraqi Freedom and Enduring Freedom in 2003. I live in the “Inland Empire” of southern California now, and struggle daily against inertia and the small stuff, to research and write a book on the Cold War, and work on small home-business projects.
I enjoy the world of political blogging, and the exchange of ideas with thoughtful posters from all backgrounds. I hope you will feel at home here, if those words describe you. I anticipate making entries both short and long (so don’t be alarmed by the long ones). I am a big fan of civility, and require that guests be as well.
To contact The Optimistic Conservative please email dyerbag@msn.com.
I am so glad you started the blog and look forward to great content.
By: Gordon Chang on February 9, 2009
at 11:57 pm
Bookmarked! In fact, RSS’d. In other words, ditto Mr. Chang’s comment above.
By: CK MacLeod on February 10, 2009
at 3:05 am
This kind of venue is meant for someone like yourself. The internet has to live up to its potential from time to time and you are proof that it can happen. Good luck.
By: nailheadtom on February 10, 2009
at 7:24 pm
I’m excited to read this blog, you’re incisive analysis keeps me humble and reminds me how much I don’t know.
By: Graham on February 10, 2009
at 10:46 pm
Congratulations on the new effort. I always enjoyed your input and observations at Contentions. I’ll try to keep up with you over here, as well. (I, too, have recently started an on-line effort.) All the best.
By: Forbes on February 11, 2009
at 12:12 am
Oh Good! I’ve long enjoyed your comments, and will look forward to keeping up with you here.
By: The Elephant's Child on February 11, 2009
at 2:42 am
Thanks to everyone for the encouragement. I have some kinks to work out on the tech side of this enterprise, and appreciate the patience you will no doubt show with that effort. I hope to provide content that will be worth your time!
By: theoptimisticconservative on February 11, 2009
at 3:21 am
Dear J.E. Dyer:
I encountered you on Gordon Chang’s Contentions blog. I’ve also learned there that you launched this blog lately.
I’ve always been interested in knowing your down-to-earth and well-informed views about America’s allies and foes.
I’ve been divided with Gordon over the U.S.-Japanese security treaty. And perhaps you and I, too, have different opnions on this issue. But I believe you are a person that values differences. I opine that exchanging views with one who shares the same opinions with me is a sheer waste of time. (I can’t afford such time because I’m 73.)
It will be great if you take a peek at my most recent blog entry:
http://www.tokyofreepress.com/article.php?story=20090212085024373
I’m also the owner of a “cyber museum” which commemorates my late father who was a prominent aeronautic engineer.
http://www.yamafami.com/cm/
Yu Yamamoto
Yokohama
By: Yuichi Yamamoto on February 15, 2009
at 4:47 pm
Dear Yuichi Yamamoto,
Thank you for the link to your blog. I have actually visited it since seeing a link to it from Gordon Chang’s blog at Contentions. I hope others here will take the time to check it out for some very interesting content.
I was unable to register as a new user at the post you link to (the site says new registration is disabled). But I do want to comment on your argument about the lion pushing the cub out of the den, as a metaphor for America and Japan.
I should note first that I had no idea Mr. Aso’s IQ was 80. That seems remarkable.
I understand why your American interlocutors almost all prefer to maintain the security treaty between us as it is now. It makes us feel more secure! Having been stationed in Japan during my military career (in Yokosuka, very enjoyable), I know that Japan carries much of the costs of basing American forces in her country. She has not been the “money pit” ally some of our European friends have been.
What I fear, however, is that the demise of our security treaty will not be a matter of American initiative, but of Japan eventually deciding that her alliance with us is no longer the best guarantee of her own security. I would hate to see that day come, because of the implications about America’s choices, and our care of our allies, and respect for their interests.
Japan, as a great trading nation, needs access to foreign trade on her terms; she needs free access to the world’s waterways — especially the ones in East Asia; and she needs access to fossil fuels, and the liberty to make her own decisions about her future energy needs. There are nations like Russia and China that would hold these needs hostage, if they could, to win concessions from Japan. America’s role, in the last few decades, has been to keep them from being in the position to hold Japan hostage in such a way.
I believe Japan has the human resources to be fully capable of standing up for her own strategic needs, although I defer to your better knowledge of how long it would take the citizenry of today to “cowboy up,” as we say, to that obligation. The pain in my mind is from the inevitability of this fact: if Japan believes that she NEEDS to pursue that course, it will be because America is losing our effectiveness as a great power. It will be because we are no longer the most useful ally another nation can have.
I have an axiom by which I analyze international relations, which goes like this: You don’t have allies because you need them — you have allies because they need you. In my view, America’s course must be to remain the kind of nation others need as their ally.
America also sought Japan as an ally because we need her. I don’t think that has changed. Both geographically and culturally, Japan is a nation we must either have as an ally, or live in perpetual tension with. I would be open to renegotiating our current security treaty, as long as the basic idea was to remain allies, if perhaps on a new footing. I would be gravely alarmed if the US and Japan did not share enough common interests to remain in alliance with each other.
So that is the basic position from which I view your proposal. I think it would be terrible for America to lose Japan as an ally. But the particular terms of our existing security treaty need not be carved in stone for the rest of time. Both Americans and Japanes are likely to see renegotiation as too much of a headache, I suspect, until some outside event — maybe aggression by Russia or China — makes us reevaluate our situation.
I hope to engage in more such interesting dialogue, and look forward to better acquaintance with you and your blog.
Jennifer Dyer
By: theoptimisticconservative on February 15, 2009
at 10:42 pm
Dear Jennifer Dyer,
Many thanks for your insightful comment.
I have nothing against your axiom which says you have allies because they need you. My question here is: “Exactly who are they?” Obviously it’s not taxpayers as far as Japan is concerned. By now we have learned that a handful of bandits have had huge vested interests in our country’s “defensive defense.”
Here’s mine: “A military that fights may commit unwarranted atrocities at times, but one that does not fight is doomed to corruption.” Not a single drop of Japanese blood has been shed in warfare since the end of the Pacific War and the Japanese take it for granted that this will last forever. This leads you to this question: how Japan’s defense budget (more than $40 billion per year) can be justified? In 2007, it came to the surface that the Defense Ministry had been, and still is, purchasing U.S.-made weapons at prices two to three times higher than what the Pentagon is paying its contractors. At that time, well-informed pundits were saying this was the “tip of the tip” of the huge iceberg.”
Thus far only a handful of Americans that I know of have come forward to say the U.S. should break away from all or some of its allies. But most of them are, like Rajan Menon, author of “The End of Alliances”, telling fairy tales about a self-reliant Japan. Dr./Sen. Ron Paul would say, “Who cares if Japan wouldn’t survive without us?” (I like this country-first attitude) but there’s no denying that his foreign policy is helplessly naïve. So I am almost alone in saying, “Why doesn’t the U.S. give it a try and shove the cub into the abyss?” I just thought this had to be one of the priorities for the Obama administration if it really wanted to turn the once-in-a-century crisis into a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, but apparently things are going the other way.
At any rate, I think the “we pay by cash, you pay by the blood of your young men” sort of attitude is totally impermissible because this will do both of us much more harm than good. Today, the best Japan can do (only after a nationwide heated debate) is to open a free gas station in the Indian Ocean. This way Japan will soon go out of business because now the shift to nuclear-powered aircraft carriers seems to be accelerating. I hear when nuclear-powered, an aircraft carrier needs a refill every 25 years.
Don’t misunderstand me, however; I have nothing against “ad hoc” and flexible alliances against specifically identified enemies. I’m just saying a permanent arrangement to fight against invisible/imaginary enemies will never work in this changing world.
I’m neither an optimist, nor a pessimist, but my goal here is to learn a lot from Theoptimisticconservative’s Blog as much as I can. For my part, I will keep TokyoFreePress alive as long as my poor health permits. In the meantime, if you want to sign up with my blog (actually I want you to sign up) please click “Contact Us” button you find on the extreme left column of my site. (My Geek Log is not so user-friendly.)
I have many more questions to ask of the Optimistic Conservative but I’ll leave it there for now.
Yu Yamamoto
By: Yuichi Yamamoto on February 16, 2009
at 9:42 am
Thank you for this extraordinary blog and your exceptional analysis.
By: Rick Richman on February 24, 2009
at 6:18 am
Look forward to your long-form and thorough analysis that you whetted my appetite with at Contentions.
By: J. Lichty on February 26, 2009
at 9:25 pm
I just saw the link to your blog at Contentions.
Very good. Will visit frequently.
By: Paulo on February 28, 2009
at 8:24 am
Congrats on being linked by Mark Steyn at NRO. You could not have been recognized by a more brilliant one that Steyn. Your thoughts on the Rush / Frum situation were exceptional. You are on my blog list. Thanks for your service to the country and good luck with your blogging.
Tom Fry
St. Louis, MO
By: Tom Fry on March 10, 2009
at 5:36 am
Wow. Thanks for including me on your blogroll!
By: soccer dad on March 12, 2009
at 5:08 pm
Hey JED – I’m wondering whether your part III on Iran options is the end of the series – it wasn’t clear to me from the text whether that represented fulfillment of your original plan.
Also, I’d like to recommend that you employ some version of the tag in your posts – under whatever name, allowing users to scan and more easily choose among posts (which display only up to the tag unless clicked on), instead of having to scroll down through the entire length of each piece while checking for comments or looking for an earlier post. Different text editors will offer different options, or you may need to use a plug-in, but it would make navigating the blog much easier.
More choices under “recent posts” or a full menu of titles would also be helpful.
Later!
CK
By: CK MacLeod on March 19, 2009
at 5:49 am
CKM — I do have one more post envisioned for the Iran series. It started with “The NIE is Dead,” continued with “Deterrence and the Superpower,” and then with “Hit ‘em Hard” I, II, and III. The last one is to address “preemption” as a philosophical and political issue.
I also intend to get that selection of online reference links posted, as promised in a previous comment.
By: theoptimisticconservative on March 19, 2009
at 6:22 pm
no wonder our country is going to hell if people as ignorant as yourself were the “intelligence” analysts
moron
By: tom on March 28, 2009
at 8:35 pm
http://pajamasmedia.com/richardfernandez/2009/04/24/suddenly/
This sounds like something hard to be optimistic about. Will you be blogging about it?
- Pete
By: Pete Madsen on April 25, 2009
at 6:04 pm
Pete Madsen — please see my latest post on 27 April. You caught me at a good time, contemplating the post you suggested, so I went ahead and assembled the thoughts for a briefer, less comprehensive post than I was originally thinking of.
By: theoptimisticconservative on April 27, 2009
at 2:54 am
For those of us who have chanced upon your analysis of crisis points across the globe in Contentions, it’s great to discover that you’ve got a site of your own. I just read your take on Pakistan.
I have no connections to offer you, but current affairs magazines/sites ought to tap your expert knowledge, analytical smarts, and lucid style.
By: Stuart on April 27, 2009
at 5:59 pm
Dear JE.
Well, there you are, Commander! I’m glad we found you (thank you hermit!).
I am sure that “the others” will join me in wishing you and your blog a great success. As for you, personally, I wish you the best of everything and hope that you will remember to visit us from time to time. You will always be welcomed at my campfire.
Oh, and let me know if you ever need some help with anyone that doesn’t or won’t appreciate what a terrific and insightful mind you have. I’ll be sure to set them straight if they dare to wonder in here hoping for easy pickings…
In the meantime, I will take a step back and let the more…ahhh…civilized and erudite among you play by yourselves. But I will be visiting your blog to enjoy reading what you have to say about the madness that surrounds us; pretty much as I always did, of course.
Your friend,
rafa
By: Rafael Hernandez on May 1, 2009
at 3:15 am
Rafa — it’s great to see you here, shipmate! This is something I’ve been wanting to do for quite a while, and it’s a lot of effort. Has been occupying a tremendous amount of my available “e-time.” So my apologies for being scarce around Zillas. The Lenten break was the right time to make this start happening — and you can imagine why it seemed so imporant to me, in this of all years.
But believe me, I’ll be back. Do tell the gang to get their military tails over here. The Zillas Zest can only improve the tone here at The Optimistic Conservative’s lair. I don’t know how much everyone else will care about football (I know that’s why you stick with Zillas), or firearms, ammo, and Wet Dogs.
By: theoptimisticconservative on May 1, 2009
at 3:27 am
I’m glad I found you, Commander!
Like Mr. Hernandez, I was informed of your new endeavor by hermit. (That hermit really does get around.)
Best of luck with your blog. You have great wisdom, wit, charm and experience to offer anyone who chooses to drop by.
I am sure that others from the old neighborhood will come to visit you here. And we will keep a chair reserved for you at the Zillas table.
Cousin Vinnie
By: Cousin Vinnie on May 1, 2009
at 5:05 am
I just don’t get it. How can someone NOT care about guns, ammo and wet dogs? The NFL, on the other hand…that’s for couch potatoes and wannabes…Like Scobie, John and Cousin Vinnie.
By the way, did you catch Cousin Vinnie calling me MR. Hernandez? Finally some well deserved recognition.
rafa
By: Rafael Hernandez on May 1, 2009
at 12:37 pm
How Not To Prevent A Holocaust was a brilliantly crafted and poignant piece of literature. The latest article, a farewell to America and Israel, indicates that my optimism is different from yours. I addressed America’s going the way of the Roman Empire in 1969. I compared similarities of events. Today I also know it in my bones. My optimism sees that all the dreams of mankind are closer to their manifestation now that the forces charged with that mission of bring liberty to the Creation are no longer in the running in their present state of moral collapse. And as a result, the messiah, waiting in the wings for marching orders, will soon step forward with this dream of mankind and mankind’s Creator as his agenda.
Israel’s purpose was to demonstrate how to obtain God’s blessings. Her mission was to create the moral and spiritual context for all human endeavors. Israel’s failure was followed by other religions who falsely claimed her mantle. So it is left for the messiah to do the job.
The state of our respective religions is such that their practitioners will object to the mission of the very man who is the object of their prayers and hopes! The doctors, lawyers, builders, pharmaceutical firms, food producers and marketers, ‘civil servants’, et al, will not want to do business on a foundation of brotherhood, as our Creator requires. The world will therefore have to be dragged, kicking and screaming to tranform its consciousness to that of our Maker’s so we can begin complying with His agenda.
By: Ron Singer on May 11, 2009
at 2:14 pm
Hello. I have so enjoyed your comments on the “Contentions” blog.
By: DocC on June 7, 2009
at 7:53 pm
Welcome, Ron Singer and DocC. For Ron Singer, it appears there was a glitch in the processing of your comment from several weeks ago. My apologies for that, and I appreciate your very thoughtful words. I hope you’ll be back. Any comments you’d like to make will post automatically from now on.
By: theoptimisticconservative on June 8, 2009
at 5:05 pm
I just found you by way of Rick Richman at Contentions.
Your posts at Contentions are consistently intelligent and interesting. I’ll be a regular visitor to your site for more of the same.
Good Luck
By: Paul Barry on June 8, 2009
at 7:37 pm
Commander,
What they said above..
..from a grateful former SAC warplanner.
W. H. Phinizy, Former Captain
DOCODW
Strategic Air Command
United States Ait Force
By: Войска ПВО on June 21, 2009
at 12:33 pm
Thanks, Vojska PVO (“Air Defense Force”). Spent a lot of years tracking and predicting that Войска ПВО.
Come back soon.
By: theoptimisticconservative on June 21, 2009
at 2:41 pm
OC (or JE)
Would you be willing to contact Omri (Mere Rhetoric) or me. We’d like to ask you something.
By: soccer dad on September 22, 2009
at 5:09 pm
soocer dad — I tried to email you at the address you’re registered here with, but got two non-Ds from the “postmaster.”
If you check this, please send to me at old1630@yahoo.com
I’ll check with Rick Richman and see if he has better emails for Omri or you.
By: theoptimisticconservative on September 22, 2009
at 6:24 pm
Hi Optimist:
While surfing the net today, I literally washed ashore on your post of 2/8/2009 on your optimism which was new to me. I thought your opening paragraphs were echoed in Palin’s Hong Kong speech:”We don’t believe that human nature is perfectible; we’re suspicious of government efforts to fix problems because often what it’s trying to fix is human nature, and that is impossible. It is what it is.”
I realize Palin had professionals review her speech but her emphasis is Palin’s own.Betcha no other U.S. politician would flat out state this in a speech.
By: Orcas 4 Palin on September 28, 2009
at 3:24 am
Thanks for the new picture.
I hope that she may somehow overcome and prosper throughout a long and happy.
By: fuster on October 10, 2009
at 3:51 pm