Turkey, the nation, is lead by morons

Turkey is a confusing ally.  On the one hand, they don't like the Assad regime next door.  They also don't like the Kurdish parties inside Turkey and Northern Iraq and Syria.

On the other hand, they refuse to help fight Islamic State (Caliphate). They refuse to let US fly from Turkish airports.  They refuse to let Kurds move in to reinforce their brothers fighting the Caliphate. They consider the Kurds and Islamic state equal enemies.

They have forgotten a simple maxim: the enemy of my enemy is my friend.

Why wouldn't they allow Kurds to go fight in Syria? The more that empty out into Syria the less are left in Turkey.  The weaker Islamic State is then the better for Turkey.

No one says they have to let Kurdish fighters back later on.  They could solve two problems at once. 

The fact that they can't see where their true interest lies, leads me to think they aren't lead very well. 

One thing a manager can't turn down.

A manager can follow all sorts of madness in the name of better management. They adopt all sorts of fads in the quest to remain relevant: Right sizing. Divestment. Agile programming. Tsun Tzu for business decisions. And so on.

There is one condition that survives all this needless poking and prodding. Success.

If you are successful you make your manager look good. I've said it before you aren't hired to do a job you are hired to make your boss look good. If you adopt that philosophy it improves your chances because every decision is win/win. Work done the right way pays off twice.

Succeeding makes your boss look good.

If he interferes with how you got to successful he risks ruining continued success. By actively changing it, his fingerprints are all over the failure. He will be accountable for wrecking the success you have given him.

That's worse than laissez-faire. Letting it be.

So it's simple. If you want to be left alone to work then be successful. You leave your manager no choice but maintain the status quo. 

When an Army becomes a bureaucracy, the results are predictable:

This is a thoughtful and frank discussion of what is wrong with the US military.


An Officer Corps That Can’t Score

Any Army officer worth his salt should accept reality.  If an officer becomes political - all about themselves - rather than tactical then the system is doomed.



The greatest indictment is that the "Up or out" professional progression breeds the wrong kind of behavior from leaders.  Military operations are a costly and difficult skill to master, why would you want the successful ones to leave what they know best?

What has happened is the reliance on technology to make up for shortfalls in personal training. When your weapons are getting better then how can you see your officer corps is not as dedicated to the profession?

The root cause is the same for all the ills: it should not be shocking to anyone, that when politicians meddle with the military and the military doesn't stand up for itself.  It becomes a bureaucracy.

Post-war Ukraine will look like post-war Yugoslavia

Since neither NATO nor Russia want a fight to the death over Ukraine, this crisis won't go nuclear and therefore the only other option is an uneasy peace.

I predict that the #Ukraine will look like post-war Yugoslavia with a divided ethnic separation.  The peace deal won't go far enough until they agree to weapons cantonment sites, disarmament of militias, and an UNPROFOR-style peace observation force. 

One side will drift into the Russia sphere and the other into the Western sphere of influence. 

If I was an ethnic Russian war criminal, I wouldn't feel safe in post-war Russian-side Ukraine. Look what happened to Ratko Mladić, the commander of the army.

Bartering: Pots for Soil

I found a great way to save tree pots that you get from the garden stores from the recycling bin.

I collect my pots from all the bushes and trees from the season, at least 10 or more, and I take them to a local business garden shop.  I trade a set of pots for a few bags of potting soil.  I don't ask for much and I am consistent.

I reason it like this: a couple of bags of soil can be written off each year and also if this business has a greenhouse he or she can raise a few trees in those pots and sell them for a couple of bucks to tens of dollars that will more than make up for a couple of bags of soil.

Helps the economy, saves recycling. 

The Manager Rule

There is a constant push for improving efficiency in organizations to meet the needs of stakeholders and shareholders. When hierarchies are looking for ways to reduce cost, then managers are most expensive and the least useful components. In theory, a manager handles all operations within a unit and expending resources to manage the performance of that unit is a necessary.  In reality, managers spend more time making sure they are needed in the operations they oversee than doing the forethought, planning, and managing that are expected by the job description.


Here is a simple rule to decide whether or not you need a manager:

If the manager can't make decisions about the purpose, the people, or the resources of the suborganization he or she leads then get rid of the manager. Use a team lead instead. 

A team leader directs work day to day - they lead the team. Use performance bonuses to motivate the team leader to motivate performance. Use an administrator to account for the numbers day to day, just as before. Then a higher manager is responsible for many sub-organizations managed by team leads.  A manager still handles the extra effort but at a higher level and distributed. That is how you handle improving efficiency.

Leaders can run the work which is what you need. But they aren't responsible for those bigger decisions they need to go higher for a decision. Which is a win-win, you save on management and don't waste effort of a manager for day-to-day simple stuff.  Every big decision is still held by a higher manager, that is where accountability rests. 

The final change is the adopt a Leader / Manager contract that explains exactly the responsibilities of each. Depending on the specifics of the duties, the leader can set up the work, the team, and so on but needs approval by the manager. The manager oversees all administrative but cannot interfere with daily operations.  If a problem exists that stops production then the manager is responsible for resolving the issue. The team lead can halt production until those issues are settled.

Crimea Stolen for The Black Sea Fleet: The Great Putin Swindle

Russian leadership must assume all people are typical, unenlightened and unremarkable.  But we in the West can figure out the subtleties of our politicians so it should come as no surprise when our democratic talents are applied to their obvious tactics. Let me explain the Ukrainian invasion by Russia. It's all about retaking the Black Sea Fleet for Russian military interests, pure and simple.

There is a lot of information on the Black Sea Fleet problems between Russia and Ukraine here. The bottom line is the agreement and the politics of the Russian Black Sea Fleet located at Sevastopol Ukraine has been an irritant for Russian leadership for years with constant complaints by the Ukraine regarding unapproved access, rights, permissions etc. The bottom line is - more than national pride - a lot of effort goes into arguing with the Ukraine. This port is STRATEGIC not economic nor NATIONALISTIC. Russian didn't care who owned it so long as they could lease it / use it. To reproduce the naval capability of the Sevastopol naval base would take billions of dollars. I'm just guessing it would take 50 billion to replace it. Not the ships, they would sail to the new base,  just the port capability, the housing, infrastructure etc. That's a lot of cash no one has lying around. So this is what the invasion is all about.

Remember Putin represents a group of Russian economic leaders, he is their military operative, and if he cared about nationalistic ideals he would stay at home and help the poor in Moscow, that would probably be a better use of the money funding an invasion.

Let me explain my point with a brief timeline.

On 19 February 1954, Nikita Kruschev gives the Crimea to the Ukrainian Soviet State Republic (SSR).  

2002 - Russia's last attempt to solve the Black Sea Fleet problem was using  Yanukovich; first as the agreeable Prime Minister and then ulitmately as the Ukrainian President. That solves their problem for them because they've "got a guy on the inside".


February 2010 - Yanukovich becomes Ukranian president.

April 2010 - Not 2 months into office as President, Yanukovich and Russia sign a deal ensuring the longer term lease of the Black Sea Fleet port. Russian gets a longer lease on the port in exchange for cheaper energy to Ukraine. 

February 2010 - February 2014 - Yanukovich allegedly bilks riches from Ukraine and the country spirals towards collapse. This is the economic benefit to Ukraine that comes with the lease for the Black Sea Fleet port, but where does it go? Europe-leaning populace in Ukraine inspires a revolution, Yanukovich uses deadly force on protesters and then flees the country for Russia.

March 2, 2014 - Losing control in Ukraine and potentially losing that port, Russia mobilizes and takes over key points in the Crimea. What key points? Protecting the people? To restore law and order? To defend ethnic Russians? Does Russia station troops in town squares to do all that? No. Russia surrounds airfields and military bases that would be used to take back the Black Sea Fleet port. If this invasion was about protecting citizens then the forces would be deployed against the western edge of Crimea to protect them from Western Ukraine. That's not where they are.

It is so obvious what this is about, that it really looks like theft. If Putin had made any other moves it would look genuinely humanitarian. Instead he looks like the highway bandit he is. He's not saving anyone. Nor is he fooling anyone.

So again, Russia makes a deal to get the port, Russia gives Ukraine money. Russian puppet steals the money back. Russia takes the port. Russia keeps a port worth say $50 billion for the cost of some international rebuke. This is the Great Putin Swindle.

He made a deal with Ukraine knowing he could renege on it and get his money back, either by loans to a failing state or by military force when they collapsed. This is a swindle, he never intended to pay for it, just bide time until he could get it back.

If I was a Russian Ukrainian (ethnic Russian in Ukraine) I would want to know how safe I was with a government capable of doing this? If I was a Russian Ukrainian I think I would get more from being a Ukrainian and having Russia spend lavishly to get the port back.