B-52 OVER THE MED: The bomber is refueling — and the pilots have an American flag (big flag) unfolded and on display in the cockpit window.

MOUNTAIN FLIGHT: An Osprey (tiltrotor variety) in the mountains near Asturias, Spain. Gorgeous, with a gorge.

FIGHTING THE KOREAN INFORMATION WAR: The Trump Administration’s information warfare operation has strategic traction. Even The Washington Post has noticed.

FIGHTING THE KOREAN INFORMATION WAR: The Trump Administration’s information warfare operation has strategic traction. Why, even The Grand Courtesan of Beltway Media, The Washington Post, has finally noticed.

RELATED: Stephen Green posted this article quoting Joni Ernst earlier this morning.

HOT NIGHT LAUNCH: An F-18F Super Hornet leaves the flight deck of the aircraft carrier USS Nimitz. Yes, an exhausting close-up.

SECDEF MATTIS ON NORTH KOREA: Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis spoke to the Association of the U.S. Army’s annual meeting today.

When asked about North Korea Mattis said:

“Now what does the future hold? Neither you nor I can say, so there’s one thing the U.S. Army can do. And that is you’ve got to be ready to ensure that we have military options that our president can employ if needed. We currently, we currently are in a diplomatically-led effort and how many times you’ve seen the U.N. Security Council vote unanimously, now twice in a row, to impose stronger sanctions on North Korea.”

He added this:

“The international community has spoken, but that means the U.S. Army must stand ready. And so if you’re ready, that’s your duty at this point in time and I know the Army will always do its duty…”

VERY CLOSELY RELATED: USAF B-1B in formation with South Korean F-15Ks. (Yes, it’s a cheeky reference to Close Air Support. No, a B-1B isn’t an ideal CAS platform but it carries precision munitions and can handle CAS missions (link discusses one in Iraq). F-15E Strike Eagles can handle CAS, and the F-15K is an F-15E modified to meet South Korean specifications. )

THE CHINESE TAKEOVER OF NORTH KOREA: This is a speculative scenario written by a former Economist editor, Bill Emmott. Project Syndicate published it about a month ago. It’s not too different from a couple of other “China intervenes” scenarios I’ve read in the last 15 years. But it’s a good read. The goal of China’s military intervention isn’t combat, but convincing the North Korean military to help remove the Kim regime.

Whereas a nuclear exchange with the US would mean devastation, submission to China would promise survival, and presumably a degree of continued autonomy. For all except those closest to Kim, the choice would not be a difficult one.

China’s strategic gains from a successful military intervention would include not only control of what happens on the Korean Peninsula, where it presumably would be able to establish military bases, but also regional gratitude for having prevented a catastrophic war.

More:

Could it work? We can’t know the answer for sure, and any military intervention carries great risks. The Chinese armed forces are now well equipped, but lack comparable battlefield experience. Their inferior opponents have leaders who might be prepared to use nuclear weapons or other weapons of mass destruction, if they did not simply accept Chinese terms and surrender.

What we can say with near certainty is that a Chinese land and sea invasion, rather than an American one, would stand a better chance of avoiding Kim’s likely response: an artillery attack on the South Korean capital, Seoul, which lies just a few dozen miles south of the demilitarized zone.

In June StrategyPage.com published an analysis of China’s relationships with North Korea and South Korea. You’ll have to scroll down to the Korea section of the update to read that a united Korea “is something China is willing to go to war over to prevent, or at least make some serious moves in that direction.” The Project Syndicate scenario maintains the division of Korea.

Today the Voice of America published an article discussing the China intervention scenario and the comments President Trump made at the White House last Thursday. Following a visit to the White House by top U.S. military leaders, President Trump said the White House event was (quoting VOA) “the calm before the storm.’ When reporters asked the president to elaborate on “the storm,” he simply said: “you’ll find out.'”

Today President Trump fired two tweets at North Korea:

“Presidents and their administrations have been talking to North Korea for 25 years, agreements made and massive amounts of money paid……”

“…hasn’t worked, agreements violated before the ink was dry, makings fools of U.S. negotiators. Sorry, but only one thing will work!”

The Donald is messing with Rocket Man. Trump is giving the Kim regime a relentless dose of its own threat-theater bombast, an information warfare tactic it is not used to dealing with. It isn’t all theater. The U.S. and its allies back the verbal and tweet theatrics with shows of powerful and credible military force. Of course Trump appalls mainstream media, but so what. The tactic forces the Kim regime to recognize the game has changed. Does it mean war is imminent? Stay tuned.

KIM JONG UN CLAIMS THE U.S. TRIED TO ASSASSINATE HIM:

From The New York Daily News:

“In May this year, a group of heinous terrorists who infiltrated into our country on the orders of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) of the U.S. and South Korean puppet Intelligence Service with the purpose of carrying out a state-sponsored terrorism against our supreme headquarters using biological and chemical substance were caught and exposed,” the article reads.

North Korea is supposed to conduct a test of some type during the next four or five days, but Rocket Man is rattled, and it shows.

TRUMP SHOULD SHOW IRS COMMISSIONER KOSKINEN NO MERCY:

From The Hill:

It’s so far beyond time for President Trump to fire Internal Revenue Service Commissioner John Koskinen that it’s truly unbelievable he’s still there.

What other reasonable conclusion can be drawn from the revelation this week that his agency — already under fire for allowing 700,000 taxpayer files to be hacked two years ago — last Friday decided to award a sole-source, no-bid contract to Equifax, the credit bureau titan that recently revealed it had failed to protect the security of the credit files it holds on 145.5 million Americans?

Read the whole thing.

B-1B AND SLAM EAGLES ON A PRACTICE BOMB RUN: It was practice, but the B-1B dropped a live bomb. The Slam Eagle is the South Korean F-15K, a specially modified F-15E Strike Eagle.

The bombing exercise recorded by the USAF photo was one of several Korean peninsula show of force operations conducted in mid-September. The most dramatic show of force occurred on September 23 when B-1Bs and F-15C escorts flew in international air space over the Sea of Japan east of North Korea.

EMBRACE THE SUCK: Second Edition pre-order page at Amazon. The new cover is superb.

HOW DONALD TRUMP HAS DISRUPTED THE MEDIA:

From The Weekly Standard, citing a new Pew media study:

…something about Trump has made the news media strikingly self-referential. Pew identified nine major types of sources relied on for coverage of Trump’s first 100 days. (The Pew researchers did not cite how often anonymous sources were used, which might have been an interesting bit of data.) The most commonly cited source, understandably, was the president or someone from his administration. But the next most commonly used source—employed 35 percent of the time —was not members of Congress, or experts, or everyday citizens, but “another news organization or journalist.”

“One of the things that was interesting to see was that, while the topic of the news media was not a huge percentage of overall coverage, journalists were both the second most common source type as well as the second most common ‘trigger’ of the stories,” says Amy Mitchell, director of the Pew Research Center.*

That might go some way in explaining the elite media feedback loop..

“Elite media feedback loop.” Is that another way of saying leftist bubble babble echo chamber?

AS BENGHAZI’S PORT RE-OPENS WARRING LIBYAN FACTIONS START TO TALK: Libya is a mess. However, Tobruk government (eastern government) forces have been defeating opposition Islamist militias and consolidating control in their region. Fighting shut down commercial operations in Benghazi’s port for three years. A few days ago it re-opened. So, stay tuned.

LAUNCHING A BLACKJACK: U.S. Marines in the Med aboard the USS San Diego (LPD 22) prepare to launch a Blackjack small tactical unmanned aircraft.

EMBRACE THE SUCK ALERT: Second Edition pre-order page at Amazon.

COMFORT TO PUERTO RICO: USNS Comfort departs Norfolk to aid Puerto Rico.

IS LANGUAGE A LEARNED ACTIVITY? A review of Daniel Everett’s How Language Began.

SPECIAL OPERATIONS COMMAND’S QUEST FOR FREEZE DRIED PLASMA (FDP): FDP is an emergency dehydrated version of blood plasma. Plasma requires refrigeration. FDP doesn’t. It’s easy to see why SOCOM was interested. But when it came to obtaining FDP for U.S. soldiers, the enemy was the Food and Drug Administration.

“…SOCOM has been using French FDP, which the French military has been producing and using since 1994. After 2001 SOCOM became aware of allied special operations troops using it and in 2010 sought to get it for American troops. No American firm produced FDP because earlier (late 1940s) efforts were abandoned because of seemingly insoluble contamination problems.

The French military solved those contamination problems and produced it for use by French troops operating in distant parts of the world. By 2010 SOCOM was still trying to find an American supplier of FDP. The problem was that in the United States the FDA (Food and Drugs Administration) needed an American firm to produce FDP that they could put through their testing and approval process.

Read the whole thing.

SPANISH GOVERNMENT “DISMANTLING” CATALAN SECESSION VOTE’S INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY SYSTEMS: That’s what Fox News reported within the last 90 minutes. Spanish authorities had threatened to do this. They seized paper ballots earlier this week.

Authorities have already confiscated 10 million paper ballots in the last few days — which will make it much more difficult for Catalan officials to carry out an effective vote.

MORE:

The Catalan government has pledged to declare independence from Spain within 48 hours of Sunday’s vote if the `yes’ side wins, no matter what the turnout is.

Is the vote illegal? I think so.

From The Economist:

The Catalan regional government of Carles Puigdemont is preparing to hold a unilateral referendum on seceding from Spain on October 1st, which it says will be legally binding. Catalans will be asked whether they want to form an independent republic. But there is a problem: Spain’s democratic constitution of 1978, which was approved by more than 90% of Catalan voters, gave wide autonomy to the regions but affirmed “the indissoluble unity of the Spanish nation”. Only the Spanish parliament can change the constitution. Mr Puigdemont’s referendum is therefore illegal, and Mariano Rajoy, Spain’s conservative prime minister, is determined to prevent it taking place.

(If you’re blocked by The Economist paywall the quote contains the gist.)

I’ve previously linked to this column I wrote on Catalan and Kurdish secession referendums. Though it was published last Tuesday evening when the Kurdish vote wasn’t official, it adds some perspective.

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT. My latest New York Observer essay: Rattled ‘Rocket Man’ Claims Right to Intercept U.S. Aircraft — Which Would Mean War.

Insulting a dictator’s “dignity” is a potentially valuable psychological weapon. And Trump uses it.

THE PITTSBURGH KNEELERS AND NATIONAL FLAG-DISSING LEAGUE (NFL): Powerline’s The Week In Pictures.

THE 173RD AIRBORNE BRIGADE DROPS IN ON ITALY: A beautiful photo with a paratrooper in silhouette.

THREE MYTHS ABOUT CATALONIA’S INDEPENDENCE MOVEMENT: Read the whole thing.

RELATED: My Creators Syndicate column this week discussed Kurdish and Catalan separatism.

THE CHAIRMAN OF THE JOINT CHIEFS OF STAFF SPEAKS: China is America’s “most significant long-term military challenge…”

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT. My latest New York Observer essay: Rattled ‘Rocket Man’ Claims Right to Intercept U.S. Aircraft — Which Would Mean War.