Streetwise Professor

The current clash between the Trump administration and the Federal courts is a boundary war. As I wrote sometime ago, such wars are inevitable due to the fact that the Constitution’s separation of powers reserves domains of authority for each branch, and outlines general principles identifying what those domains encompass, but under particular factual circumstances it is unclear where the boundary lies. Moreover, and crucially, these disputes cannot be resolved on a principled basis because there is inherently no ultimate arbiter between branches under the separation of powers.

Disputes are also inevitable because each branch wants to expand its domain at the expense of the others.

This all implies that conflicts like those currently raging between the executive and judicial branches are power games that will be decided by politics. The administration can exercise the Andrew Jackson option of refusing to enforce or adhere to court edicts. The cost of doing so is political. Thus, Trump’s decisions going forward will be driven by whether he deems that the substantive results of the refusal to recognize the judiciary’s boundary claims outweigh the political cost.

How this will play out is highly uncertain. This is due in part to the fact that there are so many disputes in play that will ultimately have to be decided by the Supreme Court, and there is a lot of unpredictability regarding the order in which cases will reach it, and the particulars of the decisions that are appealed to it.

This makes the game inherently dynamic, and how it evolves will depend on which cases reach the court first. Trump’s political and legal position will be stronger for some cases than others, and this will likely drive his strategy.

For example, the  James E. Boasberg decision in the Alien Enemies Act regarding deporting Venezuelan and El Salvadoran illegal immigrants (and gang members) presents very good possibilities for Trump. Siding with Boasberg would require the Supreme Court to repudiate (or twist beyond recognition) a precedent, Ludecke v. Watkins, which ruled that the president’s power under the Act is almost unlimited. It also relates to matters that are clearly within the executive domain, namely national security and foreign policy.

Moreover, the politics on this are clearly on Trump’s side. A large majority of Americans want these thugs out of the country. The optics of being a judge who sides with foreign gang bangers notorious for the depredations they have wreaked on Americans are very, very bad, and politically Trump wins big by flouting such a jurist.

Meaning that Trump may indeed want to choose to fight this battle first. There is actually a political benefit of telling Boasberg to bugger off, and having this reach the Supreme Court early would put Roberts et al at a big disadvantage due to both the politics (and yes, the Supreme Court does follow election returns, as the old phrase goes) and the legal precedents.

This could be in fact why the administration chose to use the Enemy Alien Act the basis for its deportations, something that has puzzled some who argue that Trump could have deported on other grounds. But that Act clearly relates to a presidential power and the courts are in much greater danger of a boundary violation if they rule against him than would be the case if the deportations were justified on other authorities.

Other cases are far more problematic for Trump. Firing federal employees is less of a clear political win for Trump (though I think that it is still a net political positive), and the legal grounds are more dicey. Refusing to spend money or attempting to claw back money is also probably a net political win but legally chancier, in particular as this would involve the Court arbitrating a boundary dispute between the other two branches, whereas cases like the Alien Enemies involves a dispute between the executive and judiciary, and Trump can argue powerfully that the judiciary cannot decide what falls within its own domain without violating the separation of powers. Trump’s attempt to exert control over “independent” agencies is also legally riskier, and most Americans’ eyes probably glaze over on this issue.

The cost to the Supreme Court also depends on the particular matter before it. The court recognizes that there is a cost to it if the administration exercises the Andrew Jackson option, especially in a case where the public strongly favors the administration on the substance. Not only is its legitimacy contested, but its authority is proven chimerical. It does not want to choose to die on a politically indefensible hill.

(And maybe I should say the “Joe Biden option” instead of the Andy Jack option. After all, Biden clearly flouted the Supreme Court’s decision on student loans. In this regard it is worth noting that Roberts has been conspicuously silent about that even though he was quick to criticize Trump for attacking Boasberg).

There is also the distinct possibility that none of these cases will result in clean decisions that resolve, or attempt to resolve, the underlying issues. The Court can sidestep and fudge, or make decisions that may have a substantive result that benefits Trump but do not draw firm boundaries. Throwing out cases for lack of standing is a standard way of achieving a particular substantive result without coming to grips with the more fundamental issues. What fudges are available will depend in part on the legal arguments the administration makes.

But where there’s a will, there’s a way. My guess is that the Court will look for escape hatches whenever possible, and that Trump will get a lot of hollow victories that do not establish the precedents he clearly seeks.

One likely outcome from all this is that the Court will eliminate, or at least substantially curtail, nationwide injunctions. Thomas and Alito said long ago that they should be eliminated. The onslaught of litigation against the Trump administration has led to an unprecedented use of such injunctions, almost exclusively by highly partisan judges, and in particular in the DC circuit which is clearly hard left.

These injunctions greatly raise the legal stakes, and make it far more likely that the matters will reach the Supreme Court. Simply out of a desire to reduce its involvement in such fraught matters the Court may well decide to eliminate or sharply circumscribe the scope of district courts’ injunctive authority.

In sum, by asserting his view of the domain of his powers under Section II of the Constitution, Trump is in conflict with courts that believe that this encroaches on their domain under Section III. Under the Constitution there is no independent authority who can arbitrate between them, so the ultimate outcome will require one to surrender to the assertions of the other, or come to some mutually unsatisfactory compromise, and do so on the basis of calculations of power and politics, rather than Constitutional principles. This game is very complex for myriad reasons, so predicting its outcome is very difficult. Given the stakes and risks, both sides have incentives to avoid a decisive outcome, meaning that these fights may end with whimpers, rather than bangs.

Some French MP has demanded the US return the Statue of Liberty to France:

French MP demands the US 'give us back the Statue of Liberty'
?? https://t.co/OA2Px6vhlr pic.twitter.com/zGiUPPC2hA

— FRANCE 24 English (@France24_en) March 16, 2025

“We’re going to say to the Americans who have chosen to side with the tyrants, to the Americans who fired researchers for demanding scientific freedom: ‘Give us back the Statue of Liberty,'” he told cheering supporters.

“‘We gave it to you as a gift, but apparently you despise it. So it will be just fine here at home,'” he added.

As we say in Texas:

No? OK then. Fuck off like a good little froggy.

The insufferable condescension, hypocrisy, and stupidity here is off the charts.

For one thing, that was gifted by France in the 19th century because the US was a unique beacon of freedom in the world, not because the US intervened to stop tyrants abroad–most of whom were European, by the way.

In fact, that was an era when the US still largely adhered to John Quincy Adams’ dictums: “The United States goes not abroad in search of monsters to destroy,” and that if the US did so, “She might become the dictatress of the world. She would be no longer the ruler of her own spirit.” Arguably, the erosions in freedom that the United States has indeed experienced in recent years is directly attributable to attempting to remake the world. And those attempts–notably Iraq and Afghanistan–failed miserably in their object.

For another, where is the limiting principle? If we are to confront Russia because it is ruled by a tyrant, why not China? North Korea? Cuba? Venezuela? And on and on and on. There are many monsters abroad. Indeed, arguably most of the world is monstrous.

And as for the hypocrisy: as J. D. Vance bluntly told it to your Eurofaces, Europe today is anti-freedom. Anti-free speech. Anti-personal liberty. Anti-economic freedom. Matthew 7:5 is more than apposite here: “Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother’s eye.”

As for science and scientists, uhm, U.S. government scientists being fired are hardly (to put it in your language, Frenchy) la crème de la crème. And they were not fired because they stood up for scientific freedom. They were fired because they were not producing anything of value.

Indeed, their main lament is that they are unemployable outside the U.S. government. If they are so wonderful (a) you should be overjoyed because you will soon be blessed with brilliant ex pat science brains, and (b) well no, actually, because they could easily find employment in the U.S. because of their alleged brilliance and the moribund nature of European innovation. Many of these scientists specialized in what they chose because of the demand from government, demand derived from political forces not intellectual or commercial ones. Our money went to paying for their “freedom” to do useless research.

The words of another American ex-president, Eisenhower are also very apposite here:

Today, the solitary inventor, tinkering in his shop, has been over shadowed by task forces of scientists in laboratories and testing fields. In the same fashion, the free university, historically the fountainhead of free ideas and scientific discovery, has experienced a revolution in the conduct of research. Partly because of the huge costs involved, a government contract becomes virtually a substitute for intellectual curiosity. For every old blackboard there are now hundreds of new electronic computers.

The prospect of domination of the nation’s scholars by Federal employment, project allocations, and the power of money is ever present and is gravely to be regarded.

Yet, in holding scientific research and discovery in respect, as we should, we must also be alert to the equal and opposite danger that public policy could itself become the captive of a scientific-technological elite.

Eisenhower’s warning was ignored, much to our cost as a nation. The current culling is merely a start at undoing the damage caused by the government dominance of science that has occurred over the last 70 years.

Today is the 5th anniversary of Trump’s (much to his discredit) imposition of a 15 day (hah!) lockdown to “stop the spread.” THAT is what government science has given us. We were told to shut up, and “follow the science.” The government science that was a lie from start to finish. The government science that, almost certainly, caused the outbreak in the first place. As the British and German governments concluded at the time (as we are only finding out now).

So yes. The less of that science, the better.

A large part of America, the majority in fact, has no use for lectures from condescending European nitwits and hypocrites. You have no right or reason to judge us. And your diatribes are all the more reason for us to be shed of you, and leave you to your own pathetic devices.

I was about to write that Europe has lost its mind, but I’m starting to wonder whether it had anything to lose. The meltdown over Trump having the audacity–the temerity!–to try to end the war in Ukraine (or at least bring a respite to the fighting) continues apace. Indeed, it seems to ramp up daily.

One common response to the US insistence that Europe put on its big boy pants and provide for its own defense is to say that well, if the US is going to abandon Europe, Europe should ally with China. Now, many of those saying so are just online midwits and dimwits, but not all of them. Indeed, the UK deep state’s preferred think tank, Chatham House, is flogging the idea:

Donald Trump’s approach to Ukraine is a test for Europe’s ability to adapt to a world of great power politics. To pass it, Europe should reach out to China. https://t.co/RAvcXmKprb

— Chatham House (@ChathamHouse) March 10, 2025

How is this supposed to work, actually? China is going to protect Europe against Russia? You know, the Russia that is in an alliance with China, and which China provides much of the support necessary to keep the war in Ukraine going on? That Russia? Will China base troops in Europe to defend against Russia? Oh, and is China going to put Europe under its nuclear umbrella . . . to deter a nuclear attack by Russia?

So please do tell: just how is China going to replace what the US has provided Europe for the past 80 years?

I’ve heard idiotic ideas in my time, but this is in the running for the most idiotic.

Because it’s not a rational response. Instead, it is adolescent petulance, along the lines of: “Daddy is forcing me to support myself. I’ll show him! I’ll go down on the local fentanyl dealer!”

Go for it. I’m sure that will be awesome, and that China will respect you in the morning!

Europe is also making moves to strengthen its military.

Shot:

The decision to unleash the power of the federal balance sheet to transform Germany’s military and revamp its infrastructure is a watershed moment https://t.co/MZJTtey2ZX

— Bloomberg (@business) March 15, 2025

As detailed by the invaluable Eugyppius, to achieve the “game-changing plan”, German crypto chancellor Merz made an insane deal with the Greens to change the constitution to permit breaking budgetary restrictions. This deal will do little to enhance actual German defense capability, but will throw €100 billion at more climate change unicorns, which will just go to dig Germany’s economic grave even deeper.

Chaser:

German army struggles to get Gen Z recruits ‘ready for war’ https://t.co/ox38cjqHE5

— Financial Times (@FT) March 15, 2025

So even if Germany does defy my expectations and buy some armaments, they won’t have anybody to fight using them. Maybe they’ll buy robots (from Tesla?) with voices like Arnold in Terminator to operate them.

France’s Henery Hawk, AKA Manny Macron, is acting very butch. He is flying the French version of AWACS over the Black Sea, pretending it can replace the intel the US is providing. A portion, boy, only a portion.

But Macron has inadvertently given away Europe’s real motive for not wanting the war in Ukraine to end:

??Europe can send troops to Ukraine without Russia's consent, French President Macron said.

"Ukraine is sovereign. If it asks to deploy allied troops on its territory, whether it accepts it or not is none of Russia's business. When Russia says that the ceasefire will be a… pic.twitter.com/PYklv3sboI

— ?MilitaryNewsUA?? (@front_ukrainian) March 16, 2025

That is, if fighting stops in Ukraine, Putin will move on to attack other countries, so the fighting must go on. In other words, Europe wants to fight to the last Ukrainian because they are petrified at their own impotence. All the while camouflaging their cynicism with lofty statements about protecting Ukrainian sovereignty.

The Baltics, in particular Estonia, have also been very vocal in their demands that “let’s you and him fight to protect me.”

Very revealing. Though as I’ve said repeatedly, if you look at capabilities, their fears are vastly overblown.

And as for the last Ukrainian, it is not hyperbole to say that Ukraine would be a dying nation even without this war. Europe as a whole is a demographic nightmare, and Ukraine is the most nightmarish country of them all:

That 23.8 million forecast decline represents 61 percent of Ukraine’s current population. 61 percent.

To put it bluntly: why should the US, or Europe for that matter, fight Putin over what will soon be a corpse? And why should the US, and the rest of Nato, shackle itself to what is soon to be a corpse, and promise to go to war (under Article 5) to protect it? That didn’t work out well for Germany in WWI with Austria-Hungary.

To me the most telling sign of Putin’s malignity is that he is willing to sacrifice hundreds of thousands of Russians to take control of a terminally ill nation. Especially in light of Russia’s own demographic train wreck, which looks good only in comparison with Ukraine (and some other eastern European nations, notably Poland).

So will hostilities cease soon despite Europe’s wish that they continue? I don’t know, but I can say that Europe’s desires matter not at all, except if they feed Zelensky’s delusions sufficiently to make him to reject reality and refuse any compromise.

Zelensky has–after being reminded through the limited withdrawal of US support of his dependence on America–agreed to the cease fire plan offered by Trump. Putin has publicly said that he will agree too . . . with conditions. In response to which the cry has gone up “See–he isn’t interested! It was dumb to expect otherwise! Why does Trump even bother? It must be because he’s Putin’s poodle!”

Said by people who apparently don’t understand that public statements–especially by the likes of Putin–must be discounted heavily. What matters is what transpires out of view. Trump and Putin will supposedly speak this week. That’s what matters, though the usual bedwetters are saying that this only proves that Trump is Putin’s stooge.

Methinks their real fear is that Trump will bring the fighting to an end, at least for a while.

Putin needs a deal, for many reasons. But he has proven that he is willing to expend lives to gain some concessions. Europe and the foreign policy establishment in the US refuse to countenance any such concessions, including in particular a denial of Nato membership for Ukraine.

But that is a price that the US should be more than willing to pay: indeed, Biden should have offered it in 2021 or 2022, in which case the war might well never have begun in the first place. Again, shackling the US to a Ukrainian corpse-to-be would be all pain and no gain for the US.

If that’s a hill the Europeans want to die on (or more accurately, want the Ukrainians to die on), so be it. The US should not be party to their folly, and their selfish cynicism.

There have been stories regarding construction of Chinese landing barges presumably for use in an invasion of Taiwan circulating for some time now. There are now pictures:

BREAKING:

China unveiled its new huge ”invasion barges” during an amphibious landing exercise near Zhanjiang.

The barges will make it possible for China to move large amounts of military equipment to a shore without docking facilities.

Ships would dock with barges, unload… pic.twitter.com/2eAXTW4Zrp

— Visegrád 24 (@visegrad24) March 13, 2025

This brings to mind two historical episodes relating to threatened invasions of another island, Great Britain.

The first is Napoleon’s Flotille de Boulogne, constructed starting in 1801. Napoleon ordered the construction of a fleet of hundreds of barges and gunboats intended to ferry a 200,000 man strong army across the English Channel to invade Britain. The plan never came off, because it required France to control the Channel, a dodgy prospect at best due to the dominance of the Royal Navy. Even before Nelson virtually annihilated the French and Spanish fleets at Trafalgar in October 1805, Napoleon realized that the prospects for an invasion were dim (and likely a fantasy), so he left Boulogne and turned east to fight the Austrians and then the Austrians and Russians, a campaign that saw the decisive battles of Ulm and Austerlitz.

The second is Hitler’s plan to invade Britain after the fall of France in 1940. Like Napoleon, he constructed a fleet of invasion barges in France and Belgium to be used in Operation Sea Lion. Whereas Napoleon had to get control of the sea, Hitler had to get control of the sea and air. The Battle of Britain was fought to achieve the air supremacy necessary for a cross-channel invasion. When that battle was lost, Hitler, like Napoleon, gave up his invasion plans and turned east.

These historical events demonstrate that a fleet of barges may be a necessary condition for an amphibious invasion, but they are definitely not sufficient. Successful amphibious invasions, notably D-Day and various American operations in the Pacific in WWII, were mounted by overwhelming forces that controlled the sea and the air. (The Luftwaffe was only able to fly a handful of sorties on D-Day. Japanese air operations were feeble at best in opposition to US landings. The Great Marianas Turkey Shoot before the invasion of Saipan destroyed a desperate Japanese attempt to attack the invaders from the air).

So what matters in Taiwan is not that the Chinese have invasion barges. So did Napoleon. So did Hitler. But they could never achieve the supremacy necessary to make them anything but targets, so they didn’t use them.

And looking at those barges reminds me of the sardonic nickname for US Navy tank landing ships (LSTs): long slow targets. I sure as hell wouldn’t want to be on one.

China will not use them unless it believes it can and does achieve superiority over the Taiwan Strait. Whether it can do so is very much in doubt. Mines, anti-ship missiles, anti-aircraft missiles, and air power (especially if the US intervenes) make any such attempt a very risky proposition indeed.

Meaning that Xi has to answer one question: Do you feel lucky? Well do ya, punk?

China is bellicose, for sure. But whether it turns from argy bargy to launching invasion barges would be a move of daring, and indeed, desperation.

Those of you intrepid souls who have followed this blog for a while know that I’ve been banging on about the pathetic state of US Navy procurement, and especially shipbuilding, for years. It’s therefore encouraging that the Trump administration has prioritized this issue, and created a White House shipbuilding office.

My main reservation is that it promises to address both commercial and naval shipbuilding. To be blunt, (a) US commercial shipbuilding is a lost cause, and (b) a division of effort is likely to mean that neither is likely to do well, especially if (as is likely) the lost cause sucks up disproportionate resources. That would be a tragedy.

A few basic facts.

Most importantly, US naval power has never been heavily reliant on commercial shipbuilding capacity in peacetime. Indeed, the US has always been an also ran in terms of US commercial ship construction. In the 19th and early-20th centuries, Britain dominated civilian construction. The US share was measly. Ditto in the interwar years. Only during the World Wars did US commercial construction represent a majority of hulls built in the world, and immediately after each–and I mean immediately–US commercial ship construction shriveled to virtually nothing.

Thus, clearly the US has never had a comparative advantage in building bulk, liner, or container ships. Never. Even with the sunk investments in shipyards and workforce training, and learning by doing (notably in Liberty ships, for example), US yards could not compete after WWII.

Yet, even with its emaciated (at best) civilian ship production, after WWII in particular the Navy was able to churn out numerous ships of all types, many of them first-of-their-kind, such as large deck carriers, nuclear subs, ballistic missile subs, large amphibious craft and on and on, as well as numerous new classes of conventional types such as destroyers, cruisers, and frigates. The US achieved a 600 ship navy when its share of non-military construction was rounding error:

(Figure from an article “Industrial Policy: Lessons From Shipbuilding” in the Fall 2024 issue of the Journal of Economic Perspectives by Barwick et al that I will return to below).

In brief, a large civilian shipbuilding sector is not necessary for US naval construction to flourish. It is also very hard to identify any synergies whatsoever, and indeed, the sectors would compete for specialized resources (notably labor in coastal regions).

Next, and relatedly, competing in the civilian ship world will be enormously expensive and unremunerative, and for a reason related to the lack of US production today (and for decades past): massive subsidies by other countries.

As the Barwick et al article shows, the demise of UK shipbuilding dominance and the succession of new dominant countries, first Europe, but then especially Japan, South Korea, and China in the post-war period, was due to subsidization and industrial policy by these countries. Japan, Korea, and Japan successively identified shipbuilding as a strategic sector, and threw lavish resources at it. Indeed, it is likely that the Koreans and the Chinese were just imitating the Japanese model.

To beat a subsidy you need a subsidy. And a particularly big subsidy if you don’t have a comparative advantage in the first place–as US history demonstrates it does not. And a really really big subsidy if the leader is subsidizing heavily, as is the case today with China.

Bartwick et al estimate using very clever methods that China has subsidized its shipbuilding industry to the tune of $80 billion. They further estimate that this lavish support has indeed built market share, but not profit. Indeed, they estimate that every $1 in subsidy in China has produced 20 cents in additional industry profit. The world, not China itself, is likely the biggest beneficiary of China’s generosity, through the ability to buy cheaper ships.

“Go for market share not for profit” is usually a very, very, very bad commercial strategy, reminiscent of the South Park Underpants Gnomes:

1. Subsidize to get market share.
2. ????
3. Profit!

Except, of course, profit never comes.

A semi-plausible justification for a market share first strategy is that customers are sticky, and that once you get market share you will have market power over customers who find it costly to switch. But that theory is wildly implausible for big ticket items like ships with sophisticated buyers–as the successive supplanting of British, Japanese, and Korean firms amply demonstrates.

It is a mug’s game to compete with this. The “industrial base” that will result will represent a huge waste of capital that would be far better invested in rejuvenating and expanding the military shipbuilding industrial base. Focus there. That’s where it is needed.

And as I noted above, dividing efforts would be inimical to success in the truly vital area–naval construction. It is an all too familiar phenomenon that reinforcing failure and directing resources to floundering divisions at the expense of successful ones is common in conglomerate enterprises. This is a major justification for spinoffs–to prevent the drowning from dragging down those who can swim. Trying to expand both commercial and naval shipbuilding would be a classic conglomerate mistake, and one with serious national security ramifications.

Don’t do it. The Chinese have bought market share at huge expense and received no real economic benefit. Don’t imitate stupidity out of jealousy. Market share is not value.

So kudos to the administration for recognizing a serious problem and endeavoring to fix it. But I pray that they concentrate on the real problem–naval shipbuilding–and scuttle lost causes–civilian ships.

Yesterday morning I was composing a post in my head, to the effect that Zelensky had come to Washington to sign a deal that would give Trump the justification for continuing to provide US funds (and weapons) to Ukraine.

Then yesterday afternoon happened. Get me rewrite!

I won’t give the blow-by-blow. If you are reading this you’ve probably already seen several of those. So I’ll just give some reactions and analysis.

The basic conclusion: it was the most idiotic play I’ve ever seen by a national leader in public. Ever. I mean, screwed the pooch doesn’t even come close to describing it.

One administration person said “Zelensky didn’t read the room.” That’s totally wrong. Zelensky acted like he didn’t even know what fucking room he was in. He was in the American White House, with the American president and vice president, in public.

You don’t talk smack about someone in their house with the world watching. Especially is that someone is notoriously thin-skinned and not that well-disposed to you to begin with. (In fact, the bigger the asshole you consider Trump to be, the dumber Zelensky’s stunt has to look). And especially especially if that thin-skinned host holds your fate in his hands. And you don’t wrangle an invitation under false pretenses, as Zelensky did, by claiming that he was there to sign a deal.

Trump has one overriding objective: to stop the fighting. That’s not enough for Zelensky. He repeatedly emphasized that he wants total victory (meaning return of all territories lost since 2014) and security guarantees including Nato membership and US troops in Ukraine.

These things are not in his opportunity set. Not even within hailing distance of his opportunity set. Hell, you can’t see them with the James Webb telescope from where he is.

Zelensky kept emphasizing that Putin started it, that Putin is evil, etc., etc., etc. Which means absolutely fuck all even if totally true (which I believe it is).

In the real world–which Zelensky does not inhabit–cosmic justice is unattainable. Deals with the devil are frequently the best of bad alternatives. Half loaves are preferable to none.

This is why Trump repeatedly told Zelensky he didn’t have the cards to play. This is a home truth, and one that the administration has expressed repeatedly in private, but which Zelensky refuses to accept.

Zelensky and his European and American enablers remind me of the heads of belligerent governments in WWI. They all–all–believed the other side was evil, and was to blame for the war. As a result, they utterly refused to countenance anything but total victory. Though the rational thing to do once stalemate arrived on the western front in late-1914 would have been to negotiate an agreement that would have satisfied no one, they fought on and on and on.

Due to their obduracy, millions died and nations and empires collapsed. And that process and dying did not end in November 1918 or even in June 1919 at Versailles. It kinda sorta ended (but not completely) in May 1945.

What’s more, Zelensky wants a Versailles-like diktat imposed on Russia, including reparations. (He reacted enthusiastically to a question suggesting that Russia pay for the damage inflicted on Ukraine).

Putting aside the wisdom of such a diktat (didn’t work out well for the Allies post-1919, did it?), only a total victor is in a position to impose one. And there is no universe in which that is happening today.

So Zelensky came to DC under false pretenses to make impossible demands, threw a fit when he was told–at first very politely–that they were impossible, and kept up the fit until he made it necessary for first Vance and then Trump to smack him down. And even then he was rude–interrupting, calling Vance by his initials, rolling his eyes, crossing his arms in highly passive aggressive body language, etc.

Frankly, he got off lucky. Trump and Vance would have been perfectly justified in bitch slapping him silly.

Whatever capital he had had with this administration, he lit on fire. Marco Rubio, not a hot tempered type, was obviously furious and at the end of his rope:

I have never seen the man so amped up, let alone for 18 plus minutes straight.

Even Ukraine’s biggest fanboi is over him:

When you've lost Lindsey Graham . . . https://t.co/jKdN3VGKq0

— streetwiseprof (@streetwiseprof) February 28, 2025

All of which is why this was the most self-destructive performance by a national leader that I have ever seen or read about in history. The only way to conclude that Zelensky behaved intelligently is to believe that he wants to self-destruct. Because that’s what he did.

Of course the Europeans immediately rallied to console him. “Oh poor boy! Were those brutes mean to you? Mommy is here for you!”

And maybe that’s Zelensky’s problem–he really believes that. Another reality that appears to escape him is that the Europeans are as useless as tits on a bull. (Ditto if he was playing to the US press, which was the biggest loser of the 2024 election).

Actually, they are worse. They feed his delusions.

Those Europeans-Macron and Starmer-who have pledged troops for Ukraine came to DC and made it plain that pledge would vanish without US troops on the ground. Which ain’t happening. I further note that even the European pie crust promises are conditional on a cease fire, which can only be obtained on terms that Zelensky has rejected.

Why are the Europeans so afraid that Trump is pushing for a cease fire that will not result in Russia’s total defeat? Looking at their public statements, it appears that they are afraid that if that does not happen, Putin will invade their welfare states and plant the Russian flag (or maybe the Soviet one!) on the English Channel, the Bay of Biscay, and the North Sea.

I’ve seen bedwetters before, but this takes the prize. If anything, the war in Ukraine should put such fears to rest, not stoke them. At most the war might say something about Putin’s dreams or intentions of conquest. But it clearly shows that his capabilities to pose any threat to Europe are completely lacking.

At best, Russia is able to make advances of a few kilometers here and there over a front of a couple of hundred clicks against an undermanned and under-firepowered foe. Advances on foot, mind you. Russia’s armor has been all but annihilated. Most of the front is inactive and static because the Russians cannot muster enough force to do anything except make very narrow advances.

And let’s not forget. If the Russian invasion of Ukraine has triggered European nightmares of Soviet advances in 1944 and 1945, those advances were completely dependent on American trucks. Russia has no comparable logistic capabilities today.

Even at the beginning of this fiasco, Russian logistics were shambolic due in large part to very basic problems–like shoddy Chinese tires that blew out after minimal use on bad roads. And those were the glory days! Look now–Russians are using civilian cars and vans, including old Ladas, to transport troops and supplies to the front lines. They have even resorted to donkeys.

Note that the Russians cannot even sustain enough combat power to retake the Kursk bulge on Russian territory.

Fears of Russian military might were overstated in 2022. (Even the vaunted Battalion Tactical Groups–which were obliterated in short order–were optimized for defense; which is perhaps why they failed in the offense). Putin fooled the Europeans (and a lot of Americans) with Potemkin military “reforms.” Anyone who harbors such illusions now is beyond help.

Speaking of the Europeans, a European think tank estimated that it would cost ~$250 billion/year to replace America’s contribution to European defense. Thanks for that estimate of the amount by which we have been subsidizing those free riders for the past 8 decades.

The bottom line is this. Continuing the war in Ukraine is not in American interests. Ending the war is. The president of the United States has the responsibility of advancing American interests. By trying to end the war, even under conditions that do not achieve cosmic justice, and allow an evil actor to pocket some gains and live to be evil in the future, Trump is advancing American interests.

But if he succeeds, he is advancing Ukrainian interests too. Perhaps most of all. This war is destroying that nation and its people, and its continuation will only increase the destruction. Zelensky thinks that recovering blasted regions is in his nation’s interest, regardless of the cost. In that way, he is as much an enemy of the Ukrainian people as Putin.

Although there’s more to be said about the continuing secondary explosions from the Trump administration’s carpet bombing of the Europeans, today I’ll turn attention (as promised) to the home front. Specifically, the legal battles that Trump’s flurry of Executive Orders and the operations of DOGE have triggered.

Across the nation, aggrieved parties have engaged in a forum shopping spree to file cases in Federal courts demanding temporary restraining orders (TROs) and/or preliminary injunctions to stymie the administration’s actions. Not all of these are created equal, and it’s worth categorizing them and analyzing category by category.

At the outset, let me say that one thing that deserves greater attention is whether the plaintiffs in these actions have standing. At least one request for a TRO has been rejected on standing grounds. Given that standing was the basis for the rejection of many of the 2020 election lawsuits filed by Trump or other parties, it’s quite clear that courts routinely use standing as a way of quashing suits they don’t like while avoiding ruling on the substance of the claims. I wouldn’t be surprised if courts (up to and including the Supreme Court) might punt on many of these cases by throwing them out on standing grounds.

Now, going to the substance of the various types of cases being filed. One good classification algorithm is based on the fact that virtually all of these legal actions relate to a challenge of presidential authority under Article II of the Constitution.

The Constitution establishes a separation of powers. A major role of the courts is ruling on boundary disputes that are inherent in such a separation. One boundary is between the legislative and the executive. Another boundary is between a branch of the federal government (executive or legislative) and the people: such a boundary exists because of the Bill of Rights. Another boundary, and the most problematic, is between the courts and either the executive or the legislative.

Cases that challenge the administration’s cutting spending relate to the executive-legislative boundary. Where the boundary is relatively clear is when Congress has mandated specific expenditures. The executive’s ability to withhold or cut those is shaky at best. Although even here the fact that Congress apparently felt it necessary to pass the Congressional Budget and Impoundment Act of 1974 to constrain the president’s power to impound funds suggests that even when it faced a crippled and very unpopular Nixon administration Congress was not confident that the restriction on the president’s impoundment power was not rooted in the Constitution. The constitutionality of the restrictions on impoundment may become the overriding issue, and this would have to be resolved at the Supreme Court–or by Congress changing the impoundment laws, which is not outside the realm of possibility.

Things get far more ambiguous when Congress allocates moneys to a particular department or agency, yet doesn’t provide specific orders on how the money is to be spent. It appears that’s where Trump/DOGE are focusing, and it’s by no means clear how that will play out in the courts, and in the Supreme Court in particular, where this dispute, like all the others, will end up one way or another.

There’s also the very important issue of where DOGE’s algorithms have identified apparently fraudulent expenditures which it refuses to make or even tries to claw back. The president has the duty to see the laws are faithfully executed, and fraudulent expenditures of moneys allocated by Congress would represent a violation of those laws, meaning that the president has an obligation to stop them.

Here is where what constitutes “fraud” will come into play. This will be an issue of fact as well as an issue of law, and the facts will differ in every instance.

As for “DOGE is not elected!!!” well, DOGE is part of the executive branch, and every part of the executive has accountants, auditors, and investigators whose supposed job is to prevent and deter fraud. DOGE is basically performing that function . . . and in so doing is demonstrating that those who are supposed to be doing this are doing a crap job at it. It is watching the watchmen, and the watchmen don’t like it one bit–nor do those the watchmen have failed to detect.

Another legislative-executive boundary war involves the ability of the president to terminate executive branch personnel. Relationships with these personnel are governed in large part by civil service laws dating back to the Pendleton Act of 1883. Meaning that courts will have to decide whether executive branch actions violate these laws.

A more ambiguous type of case involves things like the deals that the on-its-way-out-the-door Biden administration negotiated with government employee unions on things like work from home. As executive actions those would at least be plausibly within the new president’s power to undo.

The executive-people boundary is implicated mainly in Trump EOs relating to things like eliminating DEI, banning transgenders from the military, and eliminating biological males from participating in female sports. These will also be fact-intensive matters, specifically whether a particular EO violates any right.

As noted earlier, the most problematic boundary is between the executive and judicial. Many of the suits have challenged the executive’s authority to do things that seem to be quite clearly and unambiguously under the purview of the executive. Most notable of these are attempts to restrict executive branch personnel from accessing executive branch information resources. The most astounding of these is the TRO that barred the Secretary of the Treasury from . . . accessing Treasury Department databases.

These suits seem to me to be facially absurd. How is the executive supposed to see that the laws are faithfully executed if he or his designated agents are not able to access information about the operations (most notably the distribution of moneys) of executive departments and agencies?

It is abundantly clear why these actions have been filed–and it’s not because of a punctilious regard for Constitutional powers. It is because information is power. The (unelected!) bureaucracy wields massive power precisely because at least heretofore it has had control over information. Giving the actual chief executive access to that information is a mortal threat to the power of bureaucrats/the administrative state/the Deep State.

This, of course, is precisely why under Trump’s direction DOGE’s first actions have focused on accessing and mapping that information. It realizes that control of information is the center of gravity in the war on the bureaucracy. Hence unhindered access to data and information is DOGE’s/Trump’s schwerpunkt.

And here is where the court-executive boundary comes into play. These actions are self-evidently in the sphere of the executive, and necessary for him to achieve his duty of ensuring the execution of the laws. By intervening in this domain the courts–or more accurately, specific Federal judges–are transgressing the limits of their authority.

It is a basic principle of Anglo-Saxon law that no person should be a judge in their own case. But that’s effectively what certain federal judges are doing here–judging what falls in their sphere. This is an inherent conflict under the separation of powers: who judges the judges? Yes, you can say that higher court judges will judge these district judges, but at the end of the day you still are in a situation where the highest court of judges is determining how far its powers, and those of its inferiors, extend.

So if there is a Constitutional Crisis now, it is one that is an omnipresent possibility under the separation of powers.

How can these conflicts be resolved? One is for the executive to exercise the FU option, and refuse to comply. Andrew Jackson’s response to a Supreme Court decision (“Mr. Marshall has made his decision. Now let him enforce it.”) is one way. Similar is Lincoln’s in ex parte Merryman, where Supreme Court Chief Justice Taney issued a writ of habeus corpus that Lincoln refused to obey: Taney ruled that only Congress could suspend habeus corpus. Taney admitted that he was powerless to enforce it, and Lincoln ignored the court. (Ex parte Milligan raised similar issues, namely the ability of the administration to try people with military tribunals while civilian courts were operating, but the Supreme Court decision came down when the issue was effectively mute, meaning that there was no need for the administration to defy the court).

These standoffs inevitably become political issues. In the Lincoln-Taney standoff, the suspension of habeus corpus was widely popular in the US, and a little more than a year after Merryman Congress passed a law authorizing its suspension. But even here, Lincoln felt compelled to make the case to the nation:

The whole of the laws which were required to be faithfully executed were being resisted and failing of execution in nearly one-third of the States. Must they be allowed to finally fail of execution, even had it been perfectly clear that by the use of the means necessary to their execution some single law, made in such extreme tenderness of the citizen’s liberty that practically it relieves more of the guilty than of the innocent, should to a very limited extent be violated? To state the question more directly, Are all the laws but one to go unexecuted, and the Government itself go to pieces lest that one be violated?

I suspect that outside the usual suspects on the left and in the media (redundant, I know) letting slip the DOGEs of war on the bureaucracy’s information monopoly will be widely popular, especially given the bad look arising from disclosures like those involving USAID have had. Thus, I think it highly likely that the administration would prevail in the political controversy that defiance would unleash.

Some on the right, notably commentator Kurt Schlicter, recommend that that administration comply and just let the issue work through the courts. They argue that Trump’s case is so strong, and the high court’s neuralgia at overstepping its bounds in a fraught political issue is so great, that he will eventually prevail without having to bring things to a confrontation. This would have the added benefit of creating useful precedents.

This is probably wise. After all, the administration still has the FU option, and can defer choosing to exercise it until it becomes necessary. This would avoid paying the strike price of a political frenzy that would inevitably result.

Trump’s odds of prevailing depend on the bucket a particular case falls in. He has the best odds in the last type of case where the courts are asserting authority over matters that seem clearly outside their domain and within that of the executive. The cases that fall into the other categories are less clear-cut, and Trump will no doubt lose many though will prevail in more than a few.

The Trump administration is causing an intercontinental meltdown. Politicians in Europe, Canada, and the US are wetting the bed over its latest moves. I’ll cover the domestic meltdown in a future post. Today I’ll focus on the furriners.

Trump himself started the hysteria by announcing from DC that he and Putin had agreed to begin negotiations to end the war in Ukraine. His deputies, Vice President Vance and SecDef Hegseth, then delivered some home truths right in blunt terms right to their faces.

Hegseth said Ukrainian membership in Nato was not in the cards, and further, that Ukraine could not expect return of all territories lost since 2014. To which the Europeans took extreme umbrage. Premature concessions to Putin! Ukraine must go into Nato!

These are only concessions to reality, something to which the Europeans have a very doubtful attachment. Trump, and/or Hegseth and/or Vance and/or Rubio are apparently going to have to go all Colonel Jessup on them: You Can’t Handle the Truth! Because they obviously can’t.

It’s also beyond bizarre that the Europeans should want Ukraine in Nato, especially given their extreme neuralgia at spending money on defense. Ukraine in Nato would (a) provide no additional defense to Nato beyond what it is providing outside it now, and (b) because of Article 5 would increase Europe’s risk of going to war with Russia, a prospect that it apparently holds in dread.

Or does it? On the one hand, it wrings its collective hands and wails how Russia is an existential military threat. On the other, it has stubbornly refused to make a serious effort-or any effort at all-to strengthen its own defenses. So actions don’t match words. Why should we take them seriously?

And here’s where something else Hegseth said has the Europeans’ panties in a wad. Defending Europe is up to. . . Europe. The US has to focus on a pacing threat from China.

OMG! That’s undermining Nato!

No. Again, more reality.

As for Nato, it was formed when Europe was on its back and did face an existential threat that was also a threat to US interests. That was almost 70 years ago. Europe is off its back. The USSR is gone, and Putin’s Russia is a pale simulacrum of that. China was not a major threat to US interests then. It is now.

In other words, the threats Nato faces are far diminished, the Europeans are far better positioned to deal with, and the US has business elsewhere So deal with it.

But no! Uncle Sucker has to do it!

And the Euros are stamping their little feet and shooting off their fat mouths.

In the fat mouth (and other body parts) category is German Defense Minister (an oxymoron if I’ve ever heard one) Boris Pistorius says that the remarks of Vance (more on him below) and Hegseth are “unacceptable.”

JUST IN: German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius starts whining about JD Vance's speech, says it was "not acceptable."

Looks like Vance's speech was a success.

The whining came after Vance ripped European nations for criminalizing free speech and acting like tyrants.

"If I… pic.twitter.com/zM9DBo7V3M

— Collin Rugg (@CollinRugg) February 14, 2025

Yes, we get that reality isn’t acceptable for you. But there it is. Lump it or like it, as you will.

Former German Defense Minister [sic] and current EU President Ursula von der Leyen said “Ukraine needs peace through strength. Europe wants peace through strength.”

"Ukraine needs peace through strength. Europe wants peace through strength"

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen says "real deterrents" are needed to combat "the authoritarians of this world." Live updates: https://t.co/09MjMRGl8U pic.twitter.com/ZroKpotoM7

— Bloomberg (@business) February 14, 2025

This being the woman, mind you, under whose “leadership” the German military trained with painted broomsticks and had an abysmal operational readiness rate in aircraft in particular.

Then there’s little Manny, who like other Europeans is demanding a seat at the table:

Macron to the FT : Trump brought “ element of strategic disruption”. It’s for Zelenskyy “alone” to discuss “territorial and sovereignty issues”. And “up to the international community, with a specific role for the Europeans, to discuss security guarantees
https://t.co/5O46RaDf7z

— roula khalaf (@khalafroula) February 14, 2025

Hop along like a good little froggy now. The reality (there’s that word again!) is that to get a seat at the big boys table you need to buy in. The buy-in at this table is hard power. Of which Europe has none. By choice.

Europe is willing to fight to the last Ukrainian and the last American dollar. That doesn’t get you into the game no matter how much you harrumph and whine.

You see, America is being selfish!

Former French Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin tells @flacqua the Trump administration has no willingness to defend the interests of Ukraine, and is only guided by the interests of the US https://t.co/bX1GK76cQT pic.twitter.com/dNLFQE4naZ

— Bloomberg (@business) February 14, 2025

Yes. And?

How dare the US be guided by the interests of <checks notes> the US? The nerve of those people, right?

Well, you can hop along right after Manny, Dominique. You look after Europe’s interests, the US will look after ours.

Vance’s broadside, delivered at the security conference in Munich that followed hard on another mass atrocity by an immigrant (from Afghanistan), dropped truthbombs on subjects beyond Ukraine, and as a result sparked more hyperventilating (e.g., the Pistorius remarks above). Vance lambasted Europe for its virulently anti-free speech policies and attitudes, its cultural malaise, and its suicidal immigration policies. All right on target, and precisely for that reason a trigger for hysterical shrieks.

To which Vance no doubt says: “I don’t really care, Margaret.”

Face it. Europe is a dysfunctional mess. It is a continent of Lilliputians who want to tie down Gulliver and get him to do their bidding. The analogy is exact. Per Wikipedia:

The Lilliputians reveal themselves to be a people who put great emphasis on trivial matters. For example, which end of an egg a person cracks becomes the basis of a deep political rift within that nation. They are a people who revel in displays of authority and performances of power. Gulliver assists the Lilliputians to subdue their neighbours the Blefuscudians by stealing their fleet. However, he refuses to reduce the island nation of Blefuscu to a province of Lilliput, displeasing the King and the royal court.

Europe to a “t.” Well, Europe, Trump-Gulliver doesn’t give a damn if he displeases you. You are going to have to face Blefuscu on your own, and deal with your own internal (and self-inflicted) dysfunctions.

Like Robin Williams pointed out years ago: Reality . . . What a concept. And one the Europeans haven’t yet grasped, and show no signs of doing so any time soon.

Friend of SWP James T sent along an article titled “Hypersonic Overhype” and thought I might be interested and that the subject is worth a post. Both thoughts are correct!

I’ve long cast a skeptical eye at hypersonic missiles. These have been hyped repeatedly over the last 10-15 years as wunderwaffe that will transform warfare, and in particular will dramatically shift the correlation of forces against the US (and in particular the US Navy) in favor of China and Russia, who claim to have deployed operationally effective hypersonic missiles. In contrast, US development efforts have been plagued by problems and delays.

My skepticism rests on two propositions: (1) wonder weapons are almost never as transformative as advertised, in part because even if they work (which they often don’t–see 2) countermeasures are typically developed relatively rapidly, and (2) wonder weapons often don’t work, or don’t work as advertised.

The linked article highlights the extreme technological challenges of producing hypersonic weapons. These challenges are myriad. And as this article demonstrates, these are exactly the challenges that have dogged US efforts.

Which leads to two possibilities about supposed Russian and Chinese advances and deployments: (1) either the US really sucks at this, or (2) the Russian and Chinese systems , though allegedly deployed, have the same issues but unlike the US those nations decided to rush unreliable systems into service.

Of course (1) is possible, but I consider it much less likely than (2). (Remember the US had manned hypersonics, e.g, the X-15 in the 60s!) This is particularly true with regards to Russia. FFS, Russia has serious–and I mean serious–problems with getting decades-old ballistic missile technology to work. Hell, simply to avoid catastrophic explosions on launch or soon thereafter. This casts serious, serious doubt on their ability to get a far trickier technology to function. Perhaps the Chinese are better, though their defense efforts generally involve widespread theft or copying of US technology, so if our technology sucks, why wouldn’t their’s?

One more comment about hypersonics in the nautical domain in particular. Yes, hypersonics are fast, but that relates only to the last leg of the OODA loop–what happens after “A” (act). Hypersonics are at best complementary to technologies and assets that relate to the other legs, specifically observe and orient. The oceans be big. Ships move, and can move unpredictably. Successful deployment of hypersonics against a carrier task force require the intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance (“ISR”) and communications assets necessary for observation and orientation, and for deciding on a course of action.

(The Battle of Midway is a classic example of this. The US had superior ISR that allowed it to target the Japanese fleet–and even that almost failed due to a course change that the US fliers only detected by accident. Conversely, a breakdown in Japanese reconnaissance, namely the delayed launch of some search planes and a radio failure on one of them, led them to detect the presence of the American fleet only belatedly).

China is certainly working on those capabilities. That’s reallly what a lot of its space program is about. But just as there will be countermeasures for the terminal element of a hypersonic strike, there will be (and are) countermeasures to the ISR elements.

For all these reasons, I remain skeptical that hypersonics will be as transformative as claimed. As a result, it’s also an open question whether hypersonic development is a wise use of US defense funds, especially inasmuch–as the Hypersonic Overhype article discusses–there are other more mature and reliable technologies that can serve the same operational purpose.

In some respects, the raving about hypersonics and the US’s laggard status reminds me of earlier hysterias like “the bomber gap” and “the missile gap.” We allegedly face a “hypersonic gap” now, but I suspect that this will prove as chimerical as those earlier gaps.

Which brings me to the public choice aspects of this issue. Defense contractors and the officers and civilians in programs like hypersonics have a vested interest in hyping both adversary capabilities and American infirmities. This is what gets the money to flow. So be very skeptical about those who are talking their book, and cast a jaundiced eye on hypersonic hype.

Complex systems are inherently vulnerable to “normal accidents” (also called “system accidents”). A complex system is one with a large number of components that interact. Moreover, these parts are “tightly coupled,” meaning inter alia that delays in performance of any element can cause the failure of the entire system, and that the order of the performance of these components is invariant. That is, the functioning of each part is necessary to the operation of the whole and the parts must operate in a specific sequence. That is, tightly coupled, complex systems have the potential to be like the one-hoss shay: they work fine until they don’t, and when they don’t the entire system breaks down. (Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr., the author of the poem, could be viewed as the true expositor of the theory of normal accidents).

Aviation is a complex system. In fact, it is a complex system of complex systems, in a fractal sort of way. At the micro level, planes themselves are complex, as are the people who fly them (individually and as members of crews) and control (coordinate) them. Zooming out a bit, a particular airport is a complex system. Reagan National (DCA), where the recent horrible crash occurred, is an example of that, and it is in fact a particularly complex complex system. It has a lot of planes landing and taking off, and these operations (and the preceding operations on the ground) must occur in a precise sequence. It also has another element complexity that is arguably unique to DCA–a massive volume of helicopter traffic operating in close proximity to the runways. The airport is also an artifact of the past, with short runways, and planes must often make sharp turns after takeoffs and during approaches. These conditions tighten the couplings and reduce system slack. For these reasons, DCA has always been my least favorite airport. Every takeoff and landing can be an adventure.

What happened at DCA earlier this week is highly likely to have been a normal accident in this particular complex system. Specifically, a series of actions and events, individually trivial, were deadly when interacting in this complex system.

Initial indications are that the Army Blackhawk helicopter that collided mid-air with the American Airlines CRJ-701ER was operating 100 feet above the allowed altitude (200 feet) at the time of the collision. Indeed, it gained that additional altitude shortly before the collision (after having flown at the correct altitude for some distance). Why? Perhaps the black boxes will provide some insight. Maybe not. Distraction, a gust of wind, a simple mistake. Could be myriad things–or several things interacting in a complex way.

Another element of the complex system is air traffic control. Immediately prior to the crash, Reagan ATC radioed the helo, asking if it saw the CRJ. The recordings I’ve heard don’t indicate a response: I’ve seen it conjectured that the helo was operating on a different frequency, but I have no idea. Regardless, the communication was extraordinarily ambiguous. Pilots can’t necessarily identify an aircraft type, especially at night. Moreover, there were multiple aircraft around, so which one was ATC referring to? How could the helo crew know? How could the controller know that the crew knew? Adding some directional information, like “at your 10 o’clock high descending left to right” would have focused attention on the plane on a collision course and made corrective action far more likely.

It was on a collision course because of a previous ATC instruction for the plane to shift from landing on Runway 1 to Runway 33.

The controller communicating with the plane and helo may have been bandwidth constrained. (Lack of “slack” in a complex system is a major contributor to its risk of failure). There should be two controllers on duty, one specifically handling helo traffic. But his supervisor had let him leave early, and the sole controller had to perform double duty. How familiar was he with controlling helos? Even if he was, was his ability to do so reduced by the greater workload put on him? That is, was the seemingly innocuous decision to let one person go home fatal because it eliminated vital slack in the system?

The role of the supervisor demonstrates another aspect of complex systems. They are often embedded in organizational and institutional structures (or perhaps better thought of as vice versa) and organizational and institutional factors can cause normal accidents. This is why a “safety culture” embedded in an organization is often essential. Bad organizations are conducive to system failure. (ValueJet, one of the canonical examples of a normal accident, was notorious for its lax safety culture. The erosion of Boeing’s culture is likely to prove another widely-taught case study).

Changing any one of these things probably would have meant no accident. That is, each element was a necessary condition for the accident. Individually they were low probability events, perhaps, but the probability of a sequence of low probability events is not zero. Very small, perhaps, but not zero.

The rarity of air crashes in the US demonstrates that the complex aviation system is very robust. This crash demonstrates that it is nonetheless at risk of an accident. That’s why they are called “normal accidents.” They are the normal (and indeed inevitable) part of the operation of a complex system.

So what is to be done? Well, one of the lessons of the study of complex systems and normal accidents is that it is impossible to reduce the risk of system failure to zero. Moreover, measures intended to improve safety (especially in the aftermath of one kind of failure) can actually make things worse, or at least, create the potential for different kinds of normal accidents. Adding some sort of safety mechanism makes the system more complex–especially if its proper utilization depends on the correct actions of other parts (notably, the operators of the system). (The 737 Max crashes are arguably on example of that). So a new piece may shut off one causal chain, but open another. Whether this is beneficial on net is impossible to say, precisely because the behavior of complex systems is inherently stochastic with a massive number of possible causal pathways relating actions of parts of the system to the operation of the whole.

Every normal accident tends to be unique. This one will no doubt be found to be as well.

Horrible accidents like this one inevitably lead people to ask: “who is to blame?” In normal accidents, its not too much of an exaggeration to say “everyone and no one.” In legal terms, this could be considered a case of “contributory negligence.” The negligence of multiple parties combined to cause the accident. But in complex systems everybody can do exactly what they are supposed to–that is, every human actor is non-negligent–and a normal accident occurs nonetheless.

Viewed broadly, this is all about complex chains of causation, so many chains that not all of them can be even identified, let alone understood or their probabilities calculated. Searching for someone to blame usually involves trying to find a sufficient condition for failure. But in most normal accidents, no single action is sufficient to cause it. Instead, a confluence of necessary conditions is “the” cause: not an individual cause, but multiple causes, the absence of any of which would mean no accident. For example, no altitude deviation by the helo. Even the helo having operated at a slightly higher or lower speed, or taking off slightly earlier or later, so it was at a different point in space at the time of the crash. The CRJ landing on Runway 1 instead of Runway 33. One could go on almost ad infinitum.

These kinds of issues come up all the time for me. For example, in my research: what caused the Great Financial Crisis? Will mandatory clearing eliminate the possibility of future Great Financial Crises? Why did oil prices spike and then crash in 2008? In my litigation work: determining what caused a particular price movement, and in particular, were the deliberate actions of one agent necessary for that price movement to occur.

Or in my avocation, history. My favorite example is “What Caused WWI?” Mountains of scholarship identify various necessary conditions: if the Germans hadn’t done this; if the Austrians hadn’t done that; if the Russians (or Serbians or British or French) had done something different, WWI wouldn’t have happened! So who caused it? Well, this would be an example where “everyone” is probably closest to the truth. Everyone played a vital role.

The world geopolitical system is inherently complex. The pre-1914 alliance system created tight coupling. Military logistics–notably the complexities of mobilization and the coordination of troop movements by rail–also created tight coupling. Historians have identified these as causes of the war. Yes, but only in the sense that they were parts of the system that operated as conditions necessary to turn “some damned thing in the Balkans” into a world war.

People want simple answers. They are impossible in complex systems.

Well, maybe not: “shit happens in complex systems” is both simple and accurate. Murphy’s Law is also informative.

All that said, the fact that something is normal doesn’t make it good. In fact, the normal is horrible. The victims and their families have my deepest condolences and should not view this as a rationalization of their tragic loss.