The Marines Do It Right And Active Defenses

Technologically, we've turned a corner where active defenses are in, and armor is out.

A particularly stunning demonstration of the fact that active defenses are ready for prime time comes from Israel's defense of a massive Iranian missile and drone attack, nominally in retaliation for Israel's strike on Iran's embassy in Syria to kill an Iranian military leader there.

Iran’s attack against Israel on April 14 was historic—it marked the first time that Iran has directly struck Israeli territory from its own soil despite decades of tensions and shadow conflict. Iran utilized around 170 drones in the operation, making it one of the largest drone attacks in history—possibly the largest. As such, the attack epitomizes the increasing reliance on remote, uninhabited systems in modern warfare.

Aerial drones and other types of uninhabited vehicles are undoubtedly key to the future of conflict, but Iran’s attack demonstrates that the current generation of these systems have crucial weaknesses that limit their effectiveness on the battlefield against sophisticated adversaries. In particular, drones are highly susceptible to air defense and thus often do not reach their intended targets. However, Iran’s large-scale use of drones against Israel also illustrates how the military deficiencies of these systems can be leveraged to achieve two higher-order, strategic political goals—limiting escalation and maintaining a strong reputation for resolve.

Defense Is Stronger Than You Might Think

The only thing more striking than the large quantity of drones Iran used in its attack against Israel was the number of those drones that were shot down by Israel and other countries. According to Israeli estimates, over 99 percent of all Iranian weapons used in the attack were intercepted before reaching their targets—including all 170 drones. In part, this reflects the sophistication of Israel’s air defense capabilities and the abilities of the many other countries that helped Israel destroy these drones. But it also highlights something broader—the generally high susceptibility of drones to air defense compared to more traditional inhabited aircraft.

There are at least three reasons uninhabited aircraft are typically easier to shoot down than their inhabited counterparts. First, current-generation drones tend to fly much slower. For example, Iran’s Shahed-136 drones, which were used in the attack against Israel, can only fly a maximum speed of around 115 miles per hour. By contrast, Iran’s inventory of MiG-29 inhabited aircraft, which it acquired decades ago in the early 1990s, have maximum speeds closer to 1,500 miles per hour. The slow speed of uninhabited aircraft has helped enable Ukraine to shoot down Russian drones (many provided by Iran) with even unsophisticated air defense tools like machine guns.

Second, today’s drones tend to have only limited countermeasures they can deploy to protect themselves against air defense systems. For instance, they typically do not carry chaff or flares, which can be used to confuse air defense missiles. Compared to inhabited aircraft, military-grade drones (such as the Shahed or the Turkish-built Bayraktar TB-2 drone used by Ukraine) usually have quite limited maneuverability. This weakness, which does not apply to small quadcopters, makes it harder for drones to evade air defense missiles by executing sudden rolls and turns.

Third, the signals that enable communication between a pilot and a drone can be jammed. This is one crucial defense tool Russia and Ukraine have been using to down each other’s drones. It is also a tactic Israel deployed to disrupt the Iranian attack.

Of course, the cat-and-mouse game between drones and air defense will spur future innovations that could make uninhabited aerial vehicles less suspectable to being shot down. For example, drones can be designed to fly at faster speeds, carry more sophisticated countermeasures to air defense systems, and operate autonomously if communication links with pilots are severed. Furthermore, even existing systems do have at least one potential advantage over the defense: shooting down cheap drones that cost just tens of thousands of dollars with expensive air defense assets that can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars or more can bleed the financial resources of a country over time. Israel’s defense likely cost more than Iran’s offensive.

Nevertheless, the high vulnerability of most current-era drones to air defense can help explain why all of the Iranian drones were shot down and failed to reach their intended targets. It also explains why the attrition rates of Ukrainian and Russian drones are similarly high, with Ukraine losing as many as ten thousand drones per month. As one Ukrainian air force pilot said, relatively high-end and expensive Turkish TB-2 drones “were very useful and important in the very first days [of the war] . . . but now that [the Russians have] built up good air defenses, they’re almost useless.” 

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In any case, the most interesting aspect of the attack may be what it portends for the future of warfare. The alleged offensive advantage current-generation drones provide over the defense is overrated, but a new era where drones can operate autonomously in coordinated large-scale swarms is coming. To keep pace, defenders will need to continue to innovate cost-effective counter-drone technologies, including the possibility of using drones directly to destroy other drones. Sporadic drone-on-drone “dogfights” have already occurred in the Russia-Ukraine War and may offer a preview of the next generation of remote warfare.

Despite the military deficiencies of contemporary drones, their political utility will continue to be a defining element of modern warfare and statecraft well into the future. As Jacquelyn Schneider said, “These systems exist not because they are invincible, but instead because they decrease political risk for decision makers.” By reducing the financial and human costs of conflict, increasing public support for the use of force, and lessening the chances of escalation, drones are having a transformational effect on international politics.

Similar, but less sophisticated defenses in Ukraine have neutralized perhaps 95% of incoming large missile and suicide drone barrages from Russia.

Armor, in contrast, has been less effective. 

In the Ukraine War, single 40-100 pound anti-tank missiles and suicide drones have taken even the heaviest Russian and American made tanks, like the M1A Abrams tank, out of commission. So have barrages to cannon fire from an M2 Bradley, and single artillery shells and tank shells.

Likewise, one or two anti-ship missiles or torpedoes which are under half a ton each, are enough to remove from action warships that are many thousands of tons each, and probably even large amphibious ships, cruisers, and aircraft carriers up to a hundred thousand tons.

Armor can shield a target from small arms fire up to about a 0.50 caliber machine gun round, and heavy armor can even stop individual rocket propelled grenades and grenade sized cannon rounds that don't hit just right or with many successive hits. But they won't stop larger missiles and shells designed to be armor piercing, which are ubiquitous in near peer conventional warfare.

The response has largely been to look to active defenses. The navy, whose surface warships are so vulnerable to multiple threats, has taken this lead on this front, with systems like the Phalanx Close In Weapons System that shoots large numbers of cannon round at income missiles and shells, new laser and microwave directed energy weapons that can cause drones and missile fuel and warheads to ignite and explode, electronic warfare systems and flares designed to prevent guided weapon guidance systems from directing missiles to their targets, and small supersonic missiles designed to take down incoming aircraft, incoming anti-ship missiles, and incoming drones. These defenses were highly, but not perfectly, effective in warding off Houthi missile attacks on U.S. Navy ships and civilian merchant ships in the Red Sea.

The U.S. Marine Corp has been the U.S. military force that has best headed the lessons of recent military conflicts. It has shed tanks and howitzers from its forces entirely. And, it is more than tripling the size of its air defense forces by 2029:

The U.S. Marine Corps is in the process of a major expansion of its organic ground-based air and missile defense forces. The total number of air defense batteries within the service is set to increase by more than two-thirds by the end of the decade. Starting just next year, those units will be equipped with a mixture of new medium and short-range capabilities, including a version of Israel's Iron Dome, with a particular focus on added defenses against drones and cruise missiles.

Marine Col. Mike McCarthy, who runs the aviation enablers branch within the office of the Deputy Commandant for Aviation, provided an update on the service's air and missile defense plans earlier today at the annual Modern Day Marine exposition.

"Just give you some perspective about kind of where we're going in ground-based air defense, in 2019, when Force Design [2030] started, we had four air defense batteries the Marine Corps armed with Stinger missiles and machine guns. That was it," McCarthy said.

Force Design 2030 is the Marine Corps' current template for a complete restructuring of its forces, which is still ongoing and is centered on supporting new and evolving expeditionary and distributed concepts of operations. McCarthy was also referring here to the mix of Humvee-based Avenger air defense vehicles, armed with heat-seeking short-range Stinger surface-to-air missiles and .50 caliber M3P machine guns, as well as shoulder-fired Stingers, or man-portable air defense systems (MANPADS), that have formed the core of the service's air defense arsenal for decades now.

Marine Avenger short-range air defense systems. DOD

"As we approach 2029, we're going to have 15 batteries of air defense in the Marine Corps, to include the reserve component, and the weapon systems they're going to employ are night-and-day better than what we had three [to] four years ago," McCarthy continued.

Next year, we're going to field the Medium-Range Intercept Capability [MRIC]" which is "a cruise missile defense system based on the Israeli Iron Dome," the Marine Colonel added.

MRIC is by far the most substantial forthcoming addition to the Marine Corps' air defense arsenal. As McCarthy said, it is derived from the Israeli Iron Dome system and utilizes a trailer-based road-mobile launcher. It also fires the same Tamir interceptors as Iron Dome, which use active radar seekers to zero in on their targets and have a very high degree of maneuverability. The missiles also have a two-way data link and proximity-fuzed warhead to improve accuracy and the overall probability of scoring a hit. 

A Marine Corps MRIC Expeditionary Launcher. A total of 10 Tamir missile canisters are seen here loaded on the launcher, which can hold up to 20 at a time. USMC 

While the Marine Corps is acquiring MRIC with a focus on defending against incoming cruise missiles, as an Iron Dome derivative, the system inherently has the ability to engage a broader array of other incoming indirect threats. This includes artillery rockets and shells, as well as drones. Significant upgrades have been made to Iron Dome over the years to expand the breadth of targets it can be employed against, and MRIC could further evolve into an even broader medium-range air defense system.

"Next year, we'll also see the initial fielding of the Marine Air Defense Integrated System [MADIS]," Col. McCarthy also highlighted today.

A complete MADIS system in its current form consists of two 4x4 Joint Light Tactical Vehicles (JLTV) with similar, but different air defense configurations. One vehicle has a remote weapon station armed with a 30mm automatic cannon capable of firing proximity-fuzed rounds and Stinger missiles. The second vehicle has the same type of remote weapon station, but no Stingers, and has added electronic warfare, electronic support measures, and sensor capabilities, including active electronically-scanned radar arrays (AESAs). Small form factor AESA radars are an increasingly popular component of counter-drone systems, in general. 

A complete Marine Air Defense Integrated System (MADIS) system. USMC

There is also the "Light" version of MADIS, or L-MADIS, which consists of 4x4 Polaris MRZR all-terrain vehicles equipped with a mix of sensors and electronic warfare jammers. The L-MADIS vehicles can be carried inside the main cabin of an MV-22 Osprey and Col. McCarthy highlighted how this system is ideally suited for supporting smaller echelons, including forces embarked on amphibious warfare ships.

L-MADISs have already been in use for years now and there are now multiple configurations of the system. An L-MADIS buggy, lashed to the deck of the Wasp class amphibious assault ship USS Boxer, was actually used to knock down an Iranian drone that came within "threatening range" of the ship as it transited through the Strait of Hormuz in 2019.

A view of the forward end of the USS Boxer's flight deck from around the time of the knocking down of the Iranian drone in 2019, with an L-MADIS system seen highlighted inside the red circle. USN 

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MADIS and L-MADIS are both primarily geared toward the counter-drone role. MADIS, with its Stinger missiles, also has the ability to be used for more general short-range point air defense. 

The U.S. Army is also now in the process of developing a more capable replacement for the venerable Stinger that will still be able to use existing launchers, and that could be of interest to the Marines in the future. Newer versions of Stinger have already been developed that are better optimized against drones.

New radars are another important component of the Marine Corps' future air and missile defense plans, especially when it comes to MRIC. Currently, the service plans to pair MRIC with its existing AN/TPS-80 Ground/Air Task-Oriented Radar (G/ATOR), which is a modern road-mobile multi-purpose AESA radar that can be used for air defense and more general air traffic control purposes. You can read more about G/ATOR here.

Last year, the Marine Corps also awarded a contract to Leidos for the delivery of four prototypes of a new air defense radar called the Medium Range Air Defense Radar (MRADR; pronounced 'marauder'). Leidos subsidiary Dynetics is leading the development of the MRADR. The Marines have also been exploring Humvee-based mobile radar systems.

The Marine Corps' focus on cruise missile and drone threats in its new air defense push is hardly surprising.

Near-peer competitors like China and Russia are continuing to develop and field more advanced cruise missiles, including claimed hypersonic types. More and more capable cruise missiles are also proliferating among smaller countries and even non-state actors like Iranian-backed Houthi militants in Yemen.

The threat posed by uncrewed aerial systems has also now fully exploded into the mainstream consciousness, thanks in large part to the conflict in Ukraine. However, as The War Zone has long pointed out, the drone threat, including when it comes to weaponized commercial types, is not new, and is becoming an increasing given in conflicts large and small. The Marines and the rest of the U.S. military continue to very much play catch-up when it comes to addressing this threat through the fielding of systems like MADIS and L-MADIS. . . . it is also worth pointing out that MRIC will give the Marine Corps its first medium-range air defense capability of any kind since the service retired its HAWK surface-to-air missiles in the 1990s.

The Marine Corps is also developing palletized medium range missile systems to use, for example, in conjunction with with its new Light Amphibious Warships, which would be used for island hopping missiles carrying units of about 75 Marines, rather than concentrating larger Marine units on a single amphibious ships as the current force structure does.  

The Corps has established special “littoral” units for the specific purpose of refining an ability to conduct warfare operations in coastal and island areas throughout the Pacific such as the island chains in the South China Sea. As part of this, the Corps’ Marine Corps Force Design 2030 document calls for specific “stand-in” ready forces capable to conducting offensive operations in close proximity to enemy areas within the larger perimeter reach of longer-range weapons. . . . For instance, forward operating “stand-in” forces will, according to Force Design, operate with a much greater concentration of drones, unmanned systems and manned-unmanned teaming to ensure mobile ISR and targeting and sustain connectivity with stand-off forces and other command and control nodes. Stand-In forces will also need self-protective capabilities and offensive firepower typically less available to mobile, dismounted, island-hopping units. These kinds of mission challenges, threats and operational expectations form much of the inspirational rationale for the Marine Corps emerging Light Amphibious Warship.

The Operational Concept is to enable closer-in, faster, lighter and more expeditionary amphibious operations and quickly transit weapons and Marines from island to island or along littoral coastal areas without needing to risk a larger, more vulnerable footprint. Quick landings and close-in-ship-to-shore operations will be required to a much greater extent should the Corps find itself in need of protecting or taking over island chain, littoral and coastal areas. . . . 

Raytheon has been working with the Corps on a land-fired variant of the well-established ship-fired Naval Strike Missile.

Northrop Grumman, yet another massive weapons developer and US Navy industry partner, sought to anticipate the Corps' operational need and enterprise a mobile, multi-domain missile system engineered to sling-load beneath a helicopter and fire from both warships and land-locations. Northrop Grumman’s Modular Payload System is a 26,000-pound four-pack missile system designed for forward, highly-mobile fires from warships and land-locations as needed. Built to travel beneath a US Navy UH-60 Sea Hawk or CH-53 Super Stallion, the MPS can quickly transit from am amphibious warship to an island location for quick setup and attack.

Modular Payload System -- Northrop Grumman Image

Northrop Grumman innovators, who displayed renderings of the weapon at the 2024 Surface Navy Association, explained that the weapon is engineered for maximum modularity, meaning it can set up fire control and attack wherever there is a link to targeting data. This means the MPS is built to synch with both ship-based radar and fire control as well as land-operating systems. Precise ranges or details regarding the warheads and kinds of explosives are likely not available for security reasons, yet the weapon is designed for mobile, offensive attack in support of dismounted, fast-moving Marines. . . . Missiles of this kind could potentially offer counter-drone protection, anti-aircraft fire or even missile attacks against high-value land targets with a previously non-existent level of versatility and mobility. . . .

Corps weapons developers explain the LAW is intended to fill a critical maritime warfare capability gap between large, big-deck amphibs and smaller transport craft such as Landing Craft Utility vehicles or Ship-to-Shore Connectors. With this in mind, an MPS system capable of traveling beneath a helicopter from an amphibious assault ship or LAW could introduce unprecedented mobile lethality for “stand-in” forces needing close-in attack and rapid ship-to-shore kinds of combat transitions.

A couple of reasons suggest why the Marines are making the smarter choices. First, they are a smaller organization, which makes change less burdensome. Second, they are the only U.S. military service that integrates land, sea, and air resources under a single bureaucratic tent, which encourages cooperation and smart tradeoffs that other services including only one of these, can only make with intervention at the highest joint operations levels.

The Road Christianity Could Have Taken

 

Christianity has steadily become a morally evil force in the United States. This was not an inevitable result, although, perhaps it was a likely one.

Mainline Protestants and Catholics could have tried to nip in the bud the current trend in the bud, denouncing the prosperity gospel, the resort to Old Testament thinking, and the general atmosphere of hate in Christianity. There were seeds of that. In Catholicism there was liberation theology and the social gospel, and as a global faith with a leader in Italy, it has always been a bit more cosmopolitan than American Protestantism, even if it has had no qualms about blending church and state. These trends also made real progress in elite seminary training for mainline Protestants, but the living faith of the people in the pews didn't transform in the same way.

These movements within American Christianity didn't bear fruit. Promising steps in the 1960s and 1970s in that direction fizzled out without fanfare. The path suggested by the Chicago Folk Service faded away, while the path imitating secular arena rock thrived.

One of the big barriers to this path is that Christianity is fundamentally at odds with the metaphysical naturalism that is the correct description of our world. In a scientific worldview, there is no room for miracles, for divine intervention, for prayers that make a difference, for faith healing, for demonic temptation and corruption.

The people who have left Christianity are not a random sampling of Christians. They are disproportionately people who share that scientific worldview, and it so happens that a scientific worldview and more humane moral instincts tend to coincide. This is why a more moral Christianity was always going to be a less likely outcome.

Of course, in the United States, where there is great freedom of religion, it is also the case that heresy can't have legal force. The First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution means that there is no such thing as a heretical sect in the United States. It is an open marketplace of ideas, and the sects that appeal to the darker sides of human nature thrived in that competition.

U.S. Births Fall Again In 2023

Teen birth rates are again lower than they have ever been in the history and prehistory of humans in North America. 

The provisional number of births for the United States in 2023 was 3,591,328, down 2% from 2022. The general fertility rate was 54.4 births per 1,000 females ages 15–44, down 3% from 2022. The total fertility rate was 1,616.5 births per 1,000 women in 2023, a decline of 2% from 2022. Birth rates declined for females in age groups 15–19 through 35–39 and were unchanged for females ages 10–14 and for women ages 40–44 and 45–49 in 2023. The birth rate for teenagers ages 15–19 declined by 3% in 2023 to 13.2 births per 1,000 females; the rate for younger teenagers (ages 15–17) was unchanged, and the rate for older teenagers (ages 18–19) declined 3%. . . . 

The provisional number of births for the United States in 2023 was 3,591,328, down 2% from the number in 2022 (3,667,758). The number of births declined by an average of 2% per year from 2015 to 2020, including a decline of 4% from 2019 to 2020, rose 1% from 2020 to 2021, and was essentially unchanged from 2021 to 2022.

The provisional number of births declined 5% for American Indian and Alaska Native women, 4% for Black women, 3% for White women, and 2% for Asian women from 2022 to 2023. Births rose 1% for Hispanic women and were essentially unchanged for Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander women. . . .

The provisional total fertility rate for the United States in 2023 was 1,616.5 births per 1,000 women, down 2% from the rate in 2022 (1,656.5); the rate had declined less than 1% from 2021 to 2022, risen 1% from 2020 to 2021, and declined 2% per year from 2014 through 2020. The total fertility rate estimates the number of births that a hypothetical group of 1,000 women would have over their lifetimes, based on the age-specific birth rate in a given year.

The total fertility rate in 2023 remained below replacement—the level at which a given generation can exactly replace itself (2,100 births per 1,000 women). The rate has generally been below replacement since 1971 and consistently below replacement since 2007. . . . 

The provisional birth rate for teenagers in 2023 was 13.2 births per 1,000 females ages 15–19, down 3% from 2022 (13.6) and another record low for this age group. The rate declined an average of 7% annually from 2007 through 2022. The rate has declined by 68% since 2007 (41.5), the most recent period of continued decline, and 79% since 1991, the most recent peak. The number of births to females ages 15–19 was 140,801 in 2023, down 2% from 2022.

Provisional birth rates for teenagers ages 15–17 and 18–19 in 2023 were 5.6 and 24.9 births per 1,000 females, respectively; the birth rate for younger teenagers (ages 15–17) was unchanged from 2022, whereas the rate for older teenagers (ages 18–19) was down by 3%, a new record low. From 2007 through 2023, rates for teenagers ages 15–17 and 18–19 declined by 8% and 6% per year, respectively.

From the National Center for Health Statistics: Births: Provisional Data for 2023.

Birth rates by race and ethnicity are as follows and the differences by race and ethnicity are generally significantly smaller than they were few decades ago:

More Thoughts On The Conflict In Israel

* Palestine hasn't been a sovereign state for more than 75 years and the international community has done great harm by supporting this expectation. Palestinian claims for a right of return have no validity. Claims that people who have never lived in Israel proper (which is the case for most Palestinians in Gaza) are refugees aren't valid either. Conquest is a legitimate basis for sovereignty.

* In the same way, the international community has done great harm by refusing to recognize the People's Republic of China's claim to Taiwan and by not pressuring Taiwan to drop its claims to the mainland. 

* The current conflict is fundamentally the fault of the Hamas leadership in Gaza supported by Iran.

* The military actions of Hezbollah, Hamas, the Houthis, Iranian backed militias in Iraq and Syria, and Iran, purported directed at Israel are all completely unjustified. The U.S. and Israel should formally declare war on all of them, exterminating completely all of the soldiers and political leaders behind all of Iran's proxies and destroying Iran's military capabilities and nuclear efforts of all kinds completely.

* Gaza claims that 32,000 lives of its 2.3 million people have been lost, it should count itself lucky that the number is so small. Everything that it has suffered, it has brought on itself, with broad popular support. It should have unconditionally surrendered. Instead, even now, most Gazans support the decision to launch the October 7 attack, and still is pushing for Palestinian sovereignty, and still wants to exterminate Israel. They tried, over and over again. They lost. It's over. The Middle East will be at war forever until the world acknowledges once and for all that the Palestinians lost.

* Gaza cannot support 2.3 million people anymore in any sustainable way due to destroyed homes and infrastructure. Something like half of the population needs to be relocated somewhere. And, about the same proportion of Gazans would like to leave. The international community should stop questioning the fact that most Gazans need to be relocated, i.e. exiled, basically permanently, and should start recruiting countries to receive exiled Gazans. Exile is really the only solution that is humane and viable. If the Islamic world really cares about the people suffering in Gaza, it should offer to take them in with open arms.

* Cease fires, efforts to reinstate local home rule, and so on, are only aggravating the suffering.

* The Palestinians of the West Bank should be given a choice: be ceded to Jordan or be exiled with the people of Gaza. They chose Hamas to lead their home rule too, and as such, they should not be eligible for further local home rule.

Major New Legal Developments

There have been several major new legal developments lately that either have happened or will take effect soon. 

In several cases, these developments reflect Biden administration officials working quietly behind the scene to change federal regulations in the face of Congressional gridlock. But, it has taken time for these efforts to bear fruit, because the regulatory process is quite slow. The other new developments are at the state level, which don't face the legislative gridlock seen in Congress.

* The federal FTC is banning non-competition agreements nationwide under a new regulation issued this week which will take effect in six months (October of 2024) unless a court rules otherwise. See, e.g., here. This is already the law in California.

* The federal National Labor Relations Board made a ruling in early 2023 that significantly limits the use of non-disparagement and confidentiality clauses in settlement agreements and severance packages with former employees under Section 8 of the National Labor Relations Act, which is one of the few provisions of that act that apply to employees who aren't in unions. The case is McLaren Macomb, 372 NLRB No. 58 (2023) (see more here). California has adopted legislation with a similar effect.

* Colorado enacted a new law, which will probably take effect on July 1, 2024, which prohibits residential landlords from not renewing periodic leases with no formal right to renew, without good cause. The full text of the act is here.

* The federal Corporate Transparency Act requires most closely held businesses to disclose their major and controlling owners to FINCEN, the federal anti-money laundering agency. Closely held businesses formed in 2024 must make the disclosure within 30 days of formation. Closely held businesses formed prior to 2024 must make the disclosure by the end of January 2025. The legislation is rather clunky, however, and the information disclosed will not be available to the general public.

* The federal regulatory process of reclassifying marijuana under the Controlled Substances Act, so that it is not a Schedule I drug, is underway and will be completed before the end of the current Presidential term. This means that marijuana can be prescribed as a drug without violating federal law (which the federal government has declined to enforce when state law authorizes it for man years). This makes it easier to do clinical studies of marijuana based drugs. This means that marijuana industry firms that are legal under state law can use the regular banking system. This means that marijuana use and businesses won't run afoul of contract and lease terms that require compliance with federal law. And, lastly, but hardly least, this means that 26 U.S.C. § 280E, which disallows tax deduction for marijuana dispensaries other than costs of goods sold, will no longer apply to marijuana businesses making them vastly more profitable after taxes (and probably significantly reducing the retail price of marijuana), but also reducing state tax revenues in states where state income taxes are based upon federal taxable income.

* Birth control pills are now available over-the-counter nationwide as a result of federal FDA regulations that were issued last July. This has been the case in Colorado for many years already.

* Via Boing Boing:

[T]he U.S. Department of Transportation announced a new rule requiring airlines to automatically provide full cash refunds when flights are canceled or drastically changed without haggling or jumping through hoops. "Passengers deserve to get their money back when an airline owes them – without headaches or haggling," declared Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg.

The refund mandate doesn't stop there. It also covers those maddening scenarios when you fork over extra cash for amenities like Wi-Fi or preferred seats, but the airline fails to deliver on its promises. No more getting stiffed – you'll get an automatic refund for any ancillary services not rendered. And finally, some justice for the lost luggage struggle: airlines will have to cough up that baggage fee if your checked bag is significantly delayed upon arrival.

Musings On Markets and Monopolies

There are some economic choices where not having "freedom to choose" works out reasonably well.

Untroubling monopolies

For example, I have no choice over:

* who I buy water and sewer services from;

* who collects my trash and recycling;

* who responds to fires;

* who builds and maintains the roads, bridge, and tunnels that I drive on and through (apart from one toll road in the Denver metro area); and

* who I buy natural gas and electricity from.

The first three are provided by local government. The fourth is provided by a combination of local and state governments with some state funding. The fifth is provided by a state regulated utility company.

Sometimes there are quality of service issues and customer service issues with each of these four services. But I don't believe that competition between firms to provide them would be significantly better, and I don't perceive the prices charged for any of them to be excessive.

Toll roads, where they exist, are generally regulated monopolies used to finance road construction and maintenance. They are generally underused relative to freeways and are modestly expensive but not all that hugely profitable. There are also public sector toll lanes on free roads which seem to work better (and are free for high occupancy vehicles and buses and motorcycles).

Leaky monopolies and near monopolies

Postal service

Postal service is a federal government monopoly, in theory, but in practice, there is considerable competition in parcel delivery, there is some competition in junk flier delivery, and email and other online communication tools have provided a lot of competition in delivering the messages and payments which were historically sent by mail. 

For reasons that are a mix of technology issues and governance issues, the quality what is done by the U.S. Postal Service is falling, and the price of that service keeps going up. The U.S. Postal Service did its job quietly, efficiently, and well when I was younger, but has slipped steadily over the last thirty years, and has plummeted since U.S. Postmaster De Joy was appointed.

Telecommunications

There is a de jure monopoly on cable television, although streaming and satellite TV make this a leaky monopoly, and there are only about two significant providers of high speed Internet service: the cable company, a regulated utility, and a DSL provider affiliated with the legacy local landline phone service company which is also a leaky monopoly due to cell phone service. The cable company is too expensive, has miserable customer service, and really displays none of the reasonable cost, reliability, and stability of government owned and regulated private utilities that have worked well. Competition in the cell phone and long distance telephone service industries, in contrast, has worked reasonably well.

Intercity passenger transportation.

Amtrak has a de jure monopoly on intercity passenger rail in the U.S., although private high speed rail ventures, all from the same parent company if I understand it correctly, have been authorized with operations in Florida, Texas, Nevada, and California, although only Florida's medium speed passenger rail is up and running. There is also some separate scenic or limited service rail service.

This is a leaky monopoly, because it has competition from private intercity bus services, at least one publicly owned intercity bus service in Colorado (Bustang), and commercial air traffic.

Basically everywhere outside the Northeast Corridor, Amtrak is a dismal failure. It is slower than passenger rail was in its heyday in the 1950s. It is unreliable and plagued with long delays. It has infrequent service. It runs huge operating losses per passenger mail. Bus service between cities is comparably fast, varies greatly from more comfortable to less comfortable, is cheaper, and operates without subsidized operating costs. Commercial airlines are much faster, are often less expensive than Amtrak's operating costs, and are sometimes cheaper.

Intracity Transit

In theory, the Regional Transportation District (RTD) is a regional local government that has a monopoly on intracity bus and passenger rail service in the Denver metro area. In practice, this monopoly is also not all that strict. There are private cabs, Uber and Lyft, hotel shuttle services, a school bus system, apartment and church shuttle services, and more that compete with it in particular niches.

De facto monopolies

On the other hand, there are some services that are not formally monopolies, but are monopolies in substance. 

Commercial airports

Denver International Airport, which is owned by the city and county, is the only commercial airport in the metro area, even though there are several general aviation airports in the area that could offer commercial airport service. And, it works reasonably well.

Pro-sports

We have pro-football, soccer, baseball, basketball, hockey, and lacrosse teams that are not formal monopolies, but are part of dominant national pro-sports leagues that allow only one team in our metropolitan area and region. The teams are privately owned although their stadiums are publicly financed. On the other hand, these pro sports teams do compete with myriad high school and college sports teams for spectator interest.

Software

Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel, and Adobe Acrobat are all de facto monopolies with dominant market share because compatibility between users in different firms and households is so crucial to their usefulness. In the case of Microsoft Word, this is unfortunate, because the product quality is poor. Microsoft Excel and Adobe Acrobat are better quality products, so this is less troubling in those cases.

Unnecessary competition

There are some areas where we have competition we don't really need. 

Oil Companies

There are several very profitable and heavily polluting large oil companies that extract, refine, and distribute petroleum for use as gasoline, diesel fuel, airplane fuel, boat fuel, heating oil, plastics, and fertilizers. But while there is arguably value in having competition between local gas station/convenience stores that dispense gasoline and diesel fuel, these are standardized products. It isn't at all obvious that we are better off having competing oil companies rather than nationalizing this industry as a great many countries do. 

Hospitals, ambulances, and their competitors

All but one of the hospitals in the metropolitan area are non-governmentally owned, either on a for profit or non-profit basis. Denver Health and the VA hospital system is the only governmentally owned hospitals in the metro area. And, there are many privately owned ambulatory surgery centers, free standing emergency rooms, and urgent care centers that perform services that compete with hospitals.

But, as a practical matter, emergency room patients have virtually no choice over whose emergency room they seek treatment in. Often they aren't even conscious, and in major disasters, ER availability trumps patient choice. Patients are also typically ill-equipped to meaningfully evaluate the available hospital choices which are typically constrained by what their insurance will cover anyway.

Similarly, patients have essentially no choice over which ambulance service providers choose them and don't really benefit from having multiple competing providers of that service.

Two year college and trade school programs

Publicly owned school district trade schools and community colleges are the dominant provider of higher education and professional training short of a bachelors or gradate degree. These schools and community colleges are inexpensive, available close to home, and generally speaking provide a good value to students who earn degrees, and are available to almost any student interested in attending, although the community college drop out rate is extremely high.

There is very little competition in this sector from private non-profits who make up a large share of colleges and universities that offer four year and graduate degrees.

There are for profit educational institutions that compete with the public sector in this market. But they are expensive, are mostly financed with federal government grants and loans, and with just a handful of exceptions in the entire United States are offer educational services that are greatly inferior to those of publicly owned trade schools and community colleges.

Choice without much private sector competition

Everyplace in the United States has public K-12 schools which are the dominant providers are education in those grades. Most places in the United States also have some private K-12 schools for at least some grades owned by either religious affiliated non-profits, or secular non-profits (the market share of "for profit" private K-12 schools is negligible although there is a private tutoring industry that supplements other schools).

In Denver, the public school system offers many school choice options, some between programs at ordinary public schools, and some set up as "charter schools" which are public schools that are governed by private non-profits that are autonomous from the school board that runs ordinary private schools. There are also some places that offer school vouchers that allow parents to use public money to send their children to truly private schools including private religious schools, typically in amounts a little less than the average per child funding level of the public schools.

Studies of school choice systems reveal two things. First, the main benefit of school choice systems is that they force poorly performing schools that parents don't choose, to shut down and allow parents to not send their children to those schools. Second, adjusting for the socioeconomic status of the students attending them, private voucher funded schools and charter schools don't consistently outperform ordinary public schools.

The economic importance of choice

In general, choice matters primarily because monopoly government owned good and service providers allow poorly performing and poor quality parts of their operations to continue at losses without being shut down or reformed.

When a private non-profit or for profit venture can't secure enough customers and patrons to cover its expenses, it promptly goes out of business. And, this happens organically, location by location, transit route by transit route, and not necessarily all at once, although mass downsizing via a Chapter 11 bankruptcy is fairly common. 

Sometimes, this happens dramatically. Essentially the entire subprime mortgage lending industry and the entire investor owned investment bank industry collapsed in the financial crisis. Blockbuster, which used to be the biggest video rental store in the country, went from 9,000 stores in an early 1990s peak, to just one store in the nation thirty years later. Chains like Radio Shack, Sears, Kmart, JC Penny, Big Boy, and Bed, Bath and Beyond are gone or nearly so. Thousands of dollar stores are closing. Dozens of airlines have gone out of business over the years. 

At other times, it happens gradually. There are significantly fewer bank branches in the United States than there were at the peak perhaps a decade ago. Diner style restaurants have shut down one by one. There has been some consolidation and closing of locations in the legal marijuana industry in Colorado. A few marginal private liberal arts colleges have shuttered each year in recent years as demand for them as declined, in part, due to demographics and, in part, because the subjects they specialize in aren't as popular anymore.

This doesn't happen in the government owned sector until the situation is grossly out of hand. The vast majority of Amtrak routes outside the Northeast Corridor provide poor service at a high cost, but keep running. Suburban bus lines that carry few passengers at a high cost keep running. Public schools in school districts without school choice continue to operate even when they are very poorly run and have poor outcomes for their students, and even when they see marked declines in the numbers of students they serve due to demographic shifts in their area. Shutting down a local post office that doesn't have enough business to make sense any more rarely happens.

The number one reason that the Soviet Union was less economically vibrant than the West was that it failed to shut down poorly performing factories and businesses and operations within businesses quickly enough.

In the case of monopoly businesses that everyone needs for the foreseeable future, this isn't a problem. The people of Denver will continue to need water and sewer and trash collection services indefinitely, so shutting these services down entirely isn't something that will ever need to be done. And, these are mature enough fields that their basic business model isn't likely to be upended any time soon.

The government owned monopolies that are more problematic are leaking monopolies in industries where technological change has made their historic business model no longer viable, like the Post Office and AMTRAK.

Musings About Language and Religion In Japan

Language Log discuses an interesting evolving issue in the Japanese language, which has four parallel systems of writing that are mixed together, that is somewhat obvious, but I've never really drilled down the frame this way:

Mix and match Japanese orthography

Most Language Log readers are aware that the Japanese writing system consists of three major components — kanji (sinoglyhs), hiragana (cursive syllabary), and katakana (block syllabary). I would argue that rōmaji (roman letters) are a fourth component, as they are in the Chinese writing system.

How do people decide when to switch among the different components of the Japanese writing system? Of course, custom and usage determine when to use one and when to use another. (It's a bit like masculine, feminine, and neuter in gender based languages [a frequent and recent topic on Language Log] — you don't ask why, you just do it].) In most cases, convention has fixed which of the three main components of the writing system is used for a particular purpose. On the other hand, since I began learning Japanese half a century ago, I noticed a fairly conspicuous slippage regarding what I had been led to believe were predetermined practices. . . . there is a lot of variability in the way people mix and match hiragana, katakana, and kanji.

Not infrequently, multiple different writing systems will be incorporated in the same sentence, although each word will generally be written in a single writing system.

In the case of Japanese proper names, it is common for someone to say their name orally and then to say that it is written with a certain set of kanji, because there is more than one set of kanji that can sound essentially the same, but have very different meanings. 

Indeed, Japanese is full of pun wordplay because its many homonyms and words that sound very similar but are not identical sounding, are common, in large part, because Japanese has a quite small set of phonemes (i.e. distinct vowel and consonant sounds). 

The small phoneme set in Japanese is a big part of why English speakers who learn Japanese often have quite good accents (since almost all Japanese phonemes are present in English), while Japanese  speakers who learn English tend to have a much more difficult time overcoming thick accents (since many common English phonemes are absent in Japanese and English has less strict rules about how phonemes can be combined).

Another nuance in addition to these four writing systems is that there are certain words, like the words for numbers, that are written in a special way in legal documents in order to make them resistant to being forged or modified, with a few strokes of a pen. It is a custom somewhat similar to writing numbers in both words and numerals on a check or in a legal contract.

Scripts aren't the only context in which the Japanese mix and match. 

Japan is also famous for its religious mixing and matching, with the average Japanese person invoking a mix of Confucian philosophy (which is pervasive), Shinto religious practices (with shrine observances especially on certain holidays and in home shrines for deceased family members), Buddhist religious practices (especially with respect to funerals), and even some Western Christian religious/cultural practices (mostly Christmas celebrations heavy on Santa and light on Jesus, and aspects of Christian wedding practices). In Japanese popular fiction, it is almost cliche for supernatural threats to be challenged by mixed religion teams of priests from Shinto, Buddhist, and Christian perspectives, much like a party of warriors who are each trained in a different martial art.

NDAs

It should be a crime and violation of professional ethics rules, in and of itself, and should also make one a civil and criminal co-conspirator to use a non-disclosure agreement to conceal criminal conduct, tortious activity, breaches of contract, violations of government regulations, government mistakes, adultery, affairs, or to protect a person's reputation. Any such non-disclosure agreements should also be void ab initio. An NDA should be permissible solely to protect trade secrets. And, any valid NDA should disclose this limitation on its face.

Likewise, data protection and privacy rules and laws should never be used for these purposes.

Privacy protections for juvenile delinquency and educational records should also be abolished.

All of this legal protection for secrets does more harm than good.

Sunday Musings

 * The United States is deeply politically and culturally divided, and it has had a few political dynasties. But, ultimately, the U.S. has at least largely resisted the hereditary principle and clan politics. We have oligarchies of big corporations, but those big successful corporations, while not entirely free of it, are not hotbeds of nepotism either. Father to son CEO succession happens, but it is rare, and tends to happen second tier businesses not in big national S&P 500 companies.

* We are approaching a point where it may make sense to declare war on both Iran and its proxies like Hezbollah, Hamas, the Houthis, and Iranian militias in Syria and Iraq. The Houthis have directed piracy and missiles at commercial ships in the Red Sea and their insurgency has led to one of the worst famines in the world in Southern Yemen which has historically been the bread belt of Arabia. (It is worth nothing that both sides of the civil war in Yemen are united in their hate for the United States.) Hamas carried out the October 7 attack and has continued a suicidal response by Gazans to Israeli retaliation. Hezbollah in Lebanon has been lobbing artillery and missiles as Israel for decades. Iranian missiles recently killed a detachment of U.S. troops in Jordan. Iran has fired several hundred missiles at Israel in the last few days, has been in multiple skirmishes with U.S. Navy forces in the Persian Gulf, and has terrorized commercial traffic in the Persian Gulf.

* The U.S., admittedly, plays an important part in Iran's ascendancy. U.S. support for the Shah in Iran played an important rule in the 1979 Islamic Revolution in Iran that put the current regime in place. Sanctions the U.S. pushed for caused Iran to develop its own domestic military production (something similar happened as a result of sanctions in Israel, in South Africa, and in Turkey), and also pushed Iran into Russia and North Korea's circle of allies. U.S. military intervention in Iraq and Afghanistan defanged Iran's neighbors who were among its greatest military adversaries. Dislodging the neo-Communist dictatorship in Iraq opened the door to Iranian backed Shiite party political gains there. Encouraging Arab Spring revolutions in Syria contributed to the Syrian Civil War that still isn't over and has created a vacuum for Iranian backed militias there.

* Golf courses are a waste of water in the arid west:

* Agriculture and evaporation consume all but 18% of water in the Colorado River basin (and that 18% includes a significant portion for lawns and golf courses). About 70% of agricultural water is used for cattle feed, mostly alfalfa and to a lesser extent hay, according to a Denver Post analysis:

* Despite its immense water use, agriculture is almost economically irrelevant in Colorado.

* According to Denver Water, household water used breaks down as follows:

54% landscaping

13% toilets

11% laundry

10% showers and baths

6% faucets

5% leaks

1% dishwashers

* The Southwest is, however, a naturally ideal place for solar energy (and it doesn't hurt that a lot of the electricity demand there is for air conditioning which coincides with solar energy availability):

* This week I learned that there are both role playing games and video games in which the protagonist that you play is a bird.

* It turns out that a certain part of Poland is the heartland of ketchup production (a widely used product there):

The Polish Ketchup Belt is a narrow lane between the 51.5N and 52.5N parallels where almost all ketchup production in Poland is concentrated. (Source)

* Ukraine has made strikes deep into Russian territory:

It is 755 kilometers from Ukraine to Moscow and there are numerous Russian refineries and oil storage sites to attack along the way. Ukraine has been attacking those oil facilities and . . . the damage to oil facilities and other targets has been so great that Russia has had to ration how much fuel civilian and military users can get. It is estimated that the Ukrainian attacks destroyed twelve percent of Russia’s oil refining capability.

* Bible reading has recently fallen dramatically in the U.S.:

 * Coal use is up globally, despite falling in the U.S., the U.K., and a number of European countries, due predominantly to new coal fired power plants in Asia:

Greece's failure to tap into its abundant wind power capacity and its near ideal geography for electric cars, baffles me. The same can be said for Hawaii.

* Turkish people drink a lot of tea.

* According to data cited the Economist magazine, South Korea has an intense "glass-ceiling" for women in the workplace, which surprises me. I had thought that the situation for South Korean women who didn't marry or had kids was pretty good.

* Early 19th century grave robbing was driven by incentives you wouldn't expect:

At the 1815 Battle of Waterloo, Napoleon Bonaparte’s final battle, more than 10,000 men and as many horses were killed in a single day. Yet today, archaeologists often struggle to find physical evidence of the dead from that bloody time period. Plowing and construction are usually the culprits behind missing historical remains, but they can’t explain the loss here. How did so many bones up and vanish?

In a new book, an international team of historians and archaeologists argues the bones were depleted by industrial-scale grave robbing. The introduction of phosphates for fertilizer and bone char as an ingredient in beet sugar processing at the beginning of the 19th century transformed bones into a hot commodity. Skyrocketing prices prompted raids on mass graves across Europe—and beyond.

* In the Netherlands, the interest rate on a particular mortgage fall over time to reflect the reduced risk of loss to lenders as the debt to equity ratio falls as principal is paid off and real estate appreciates in value. But, this also disincentivizes selling one home to move to another, or refinancing.

* Average hourly wages vary greatly across Europe:

* In Ray Bradbury's short story "All Summer In A Day": "The children let Margot out of the locked closet at the end of "All Summer in a Day." They had locked her inside while the teacher was elsewhere, making Margot miss the sun, which only comes out every seven years." It was a story the affected me greatly as a child and still does.

* Skunks are an American thing. The skunk family (Mephitidae) consists of 13 species, and almost all are restricted to the Western Hemisphere, reaching from Southern Canada to the Strait of Magellan in South America. The exception is the Stink Badger which can be found in Indonesia.

* Gasoline prices, adjusted for inflation, are similar or lower now than they were in 2006. U.S. mortgage interest rates are middling by historical standards and historically low rate until recently may have helped drive up real estate prices:

* High rise office buildings are plummeting in value.

* There were once more than 9,000 Blockbuster video stores. There is now one, in Bend, Oregon.

* What's better with Jalapeños?

1. Pizza.
2. Beer.
3. Lemonaide.

* Humans are basically fish in flesh suits and our blood is a decent approximation of sea water. An image gets across the concept:

*  There ought to be a law disqualifying judges from deciding cases involving the person who appointed them as a party (in the appointing person's personal, as opposed to their official, capacity).

* Trump does not have legitimate defenses in the classified documents criminal case against him, despite the fact that a judge he appointed seemed to be "confused" about this point.