Mr. Grok tells me that the cheap 120mm rounds are limited to ~7.7 km. The laser-guided precision munition projectile has a CEP of under 10m out to 12 km.
Unless you think Mr. Grok has access to classified documents and will freely divulge their contents, its responses are limited to information you yourself could find with Mr. Google (or DuckDuckGo); given that we're just a couple months past the days when Mr. Grok was going by Mr. MechaHitler, and that the latest version of its cousin ChatGPT hallucinates more frequently than the previous versions (does Musk even publish benchmarks on hallucinations?), you're probably better off asking your drunk uncle.
As far as I can tell from a web search, the only 120 mm mortars in PLA service are self-propelled. If they're sneaking entire AFVs into trailer parks next to bases, we've got a bigger problem than a few bombers.
I only mentioned Mr. Grok because that was the context of Brettbaker’s comment.
Fair enough, on the 120mm mortars. But, without looking it up, I’m pretty sure they have something in the 60-80mm category. I have read that NVA mortar crews could drop one in your lap, they were that good. Perhaps a bit of exaggeration, though my guess is that for such an important target, the PLA could afford to infiltrate one of their best teams.
Seriously, guys, you are living in a past century. Who the hell would even bother with mortarts to attack your airbase? A load of FPV drones with bombs would to the trick.
<sigh> Of course, FPV drones could do the job. I was responding to Brettbaker, who talked about one of many attack vectors simply to show one of the many easy ways of removing B-2s from the playing field. We could also talk about gas attacks, or EMPs, or .......
But Occam's razor strongly recommed on concentrating on simpliest vector of attack; swarming drones, either released from the ground (by the way, Chinese property nearby might not even be involved in such attack - a truck with unsuspecting driver would be enough), or from long-range stealth carrier (presumably also unmanned ones).
Check out the kind of bomb attacks the IRA made on various government offices in London, including the top British intel agency and the Prime Minister's office. They succeeded in hitting the first, and the mortar they sent to No 10 blew up very close to it.
The Mark 10 mortars were 7" diameter gas cylinders that launched a propane tank packed with 45 pounds of fertilizer explosives and set off by a black powder propellant ignited by a photo flash bulb.
People made fun of Reagan because he read Tom Clancy. Then 9/11 happened. I really hope that JD and Pete have some outside-the-box thinkers on staff quietly - very quietly, given the Fifth Column threat - taking mitigating action.
Well we allow Chinese students into top labs at our universities. Why wouldn't we allow them a ring side seat at Whiteman? The Pentagon needs a civilian advisory committee staffed by CDR and other like minded patriots; since the slugs at the Pentagon, CIA, NSA and the 17 other gun toting, "intelligence" agencies are too busy to notice egregious security problems like this. We are effed Lord.
I'm reminded of the sailor who went to jail for taking pictures inside a submarine to show his family.
I'm also reminded of the sailor who set up an illegal WiFi on a ship and was punished. They were crushed for their stupidity. What should the punishment be for all the suits who knew about this? What should the punishment be for the morons who should have known about this? How long before they do something?
If they like to have the spies where they can keep an eye on them so they allow them to stay then they better be really sure those RV's aren't armed.
Trump wants 600,000 more china students. The solution for all of the problems is more of same problems. The solution set on offer being more of the same problems is as obvious as those original problems.
And yet most refuse to see the clear intent. Our projection of our own good intentions clouds our judgement. The financialization of everything muddles it even more so.
What would an occupied government be doing differently?
lol I like that one. There is a certain recursive elegance to inviting chiners into our lotus houses of communist indoctrination because our home-grown commies are more dangerous to the system if operating outside that system.
1. Trump won't go to war to defend Taiwan. As far as possible successors go, Vance won't, Newsom won't. Rubio maybe. I doubt whether it's a good idea, given Taiwan's own ambivalence manifested by their defense spending. If they make the move, cut them out of world trade and travel to the extent we can.
2. The Chinese won't launch a Pearl Harbor style attack on US forces and territory before US forces try to interdict the blockade and invasion forces. They can read history.
Given (1), the more Chinese brains we drain, the more tied up with American freedom they are, the more Chinese elites are deterred from upsetting the status quo over Taiwan.
One problem in your calculations; USA aren't exactly the shining light of example they were in 1990s. One ride on New York subway would persuade any Chinese student that "it's not a freedom, it's anarchy and chaos". The PRC isn't like old USSR; their Party control isn't annoying to the point of peoples starting to value freedom above all.
Of course they are. But - how big percent of total numbers they represent? I suspect, not big enough to make China even slightly worried. As you said - on street level, China cities can be freer than US ones, and for majority of peoples (who are not politicians, or activists) it's just enough to don't care. So for the vast majority of Chinese students, Western way of life is just not attractive enough to care.
I know of one who became a quant at Goldman Sachs. That's one powerful brain earning seven figures now.
Given general American friendliness and the nature of college student life, I think the cohort of students that went back to China also form a pool of good will towards Americans. That might retard pro-war sentiment.
About those 600K Chinese students...why don't they stay and study in their gloriously great universities in China, since according to the CCP, the US is in decline and China is rising? Logically, there's "nothing" to steal from a declining nation, or is there?
Not sure why Trump wants to keep institutions that hate him open. As for unemployed academics, they can be reformed by having them perform the work currently done by migrant workers. The time in the country will benefit them.
Because he have nothing to replace them with. And crashing the US scientific and research system would be tantamount to voluntary surrender. USA still have scientific and partial technological lead over China; it's one of dwindling number of advantages USA still have.
Can you explain how training Chinese students, who will either take their education back to China or join a US company to steal its IP, keeps the US ahead?
All a dedicated adversary would need, to carry out Pearl Harbor a thousand times over, is a lot of drones and few maps. Military bases are just the start. How many shipyards do we have? Dry docks? Aircraft and munitions factories? And that’s leaving aside infrastructure like the electrical grid. I sure hope somebody in a big, five-sided building is thinking through all these possibilities.
Dig at the right spot on our farm, you can take out an interstate natural gas pipeline AND a transcontinental phone line the DOW pays the phone companies to maintain for backup communication.
I got my email “Wake Up” today early hours; I did not reply. Best to pass along so others are aware! Be careful shipmates. NJ
“My Company Hangzhou Iron and Steel Ltd, is seeking to engage you as her part-time regional business intermediary executive within your region (USA/CANADA) If interested, kindly reply to this message.
Ahhh.... I was down in Texas for a visit a year ago. Mind you I lived through many many MANY Texas storms for 13.5 years. During one that was bad, but not THAT bad, (not a hurricane or with horrific tornadoes) in 2024, a huge area of Houston was blacked out for over a week because an electrical tower collapsed. That was a new one on me. I had NEVER heard that one before. Or the long time to fix such damage. I wonder if it was built with cheap Chinese steel in the last decade (a large part of the area was newer construction) thanks to Gov. Abbott and Costello and his shortsighted views on foreigners in his own state. (GET HIM OUT! HE IS A HUGE PART OF THE PROBLEM!) But yeah, their Iron and Steel is a hazard. Their own bridge just collapsed. We need to take this seriously!
CDR Sal, thanks for triggering a lot of bad memories. Not. (Just kidding). Did a lot of work with "Red Teams" at...high levels over the years. The requirement to look "inside out" at your own vulnerabilities is frequently not taken seriously because of the shocking, bad news realities. As a scenario writer for large events, it was almost too easy to wreak havoc. I was frequently (and correctly) reined in as my proposals were not in line with the event objectives (major force on force events...usually). Actual real-world examples of suspicious events abound. This is one. Snipers (remember the two guys in a car around DC?), fires (I love LA), biological events (suspicious warehouse full of really bad things in California), fires at refineries, etc. etc. ad infinitum. The supply chain, logistics support (railways) and national power grid are very vulnerable. Actual military hardware could be easy prey to an adversary who is all in on a coordinated assault...or the credible threat of one.
No one likes bad news. I get that. But if no one is willing to tell the emperor he's naked, it gets really, really ugly for the rest of us. On a much, much smaller scale, two shipmates and I were supernumeraries on a newly commission Spru Can, ordered there to get an advanced look at the handling of the ship before ours was completed. The subject ship's XO asked us to take a tour of the ship to help him find items that had not been properly secured, etc. When we gave him the somewhat long list, he was really pissed at us for finding that number of problems.
The military, like corporate America focuses on "compliance" with rules, regulations and SoPs, often with good reason. Compliance is not going to fix this problem.
I'd suggest something akin to the Citizens' Advisory Council on National Space Policy, a group of retired military officers, science fiction authors, scientists and engineers. For this to work, Hegseth and the the Trump Administration broadly will have to take the work seriously.
"Compliance" is easily gundecked unless backed up by rigorous inspection by people who understand what they are inspecting and are intent on and allowed to find the non-conformances.
Modern society finds inspection and discovery of errors distasteful. It should not be, that's how we learn and improve.
There is an element of being honest with your wife about how she looks in her new dress here. So, weighing the cost benefit of what is said is critical. With the wife, it's personal between two people. At the DoD level, we're talking pieces of the DoD budget pie, and anything that takes away from the Military Industrial Complex (MIC ((TM)) will elicit objections from them and their associates in the senior active duty and government civilian ranks and congress. Frontal assaults on fortified positions are costly and usually fail. So, a combined arms (and arm bending) approach must be well thought out and executed with a consequence management mindset (like the Citizens' Advisory Council on National Space Policy) to have any chance of success.
The flip side of that argument is who wants to go down in history as being the guy in charge who overlooked the chicom trailer park outside the gate of our stealth bomber base and let them do chicom things there? Amending this as a woman to address your first point.... it's all fine and good till she sees a photo online of the party and she looks like the backside of a barn in that dress and then YOU are blamed for not telling her it was so bad. There are ways to address it diplomatically (Well, dear, I think THIS dress highlights your beautiful boobs more and the color goes with your eyes). But being afraid to tell people difficult truths sets everyone up for failure and the blame game.
"it's all fine and good till she sees a photo online of the party"
Sigh. Just another dreadful unintended consequence of the digital world.
Life was better before everyone knew everything about everyone else (because everyone was proudly posting all their mundane drivel for the world to see.)
The admiral who told the Navy Secretary and FDR to not deploy the fleet to Pearl Harbor until the base infrastructure was completed got sacked as well. So there's always the incentive problem. As someone put it, "people have to personally lose blood before they put up with mild inconvenience".
It strikes me that if the Federal government doesn't own the land then this issue is a State/Local Government issue. Or the Feds now have to exercise eminent domain and confiscate lots of land all over the US near many military bases.
It is likely that the trailer park has been there for more than a while. If you look at military bases throughout the US you will find that there is typically something like this very near the perimeter fence. They are purely capitalist endeavors serving, primarily, the junior enlisted who want (or have) to move out of the barracks (or as the USAF prefers to call them, dormitories). One can't really gripe that other than many are likely predatory (like those 26% APR car loans we hear about).
But the train has left the station on many of these. In a lot of places the local town has grown up to the perimeter fences. NAS Jacksonville is one such. There is no way in hell that the US Government is going to clear out a larger perimeter as many are old, established, high end neighborhoods. The uproar might not be quite government toppling, but it could be a make or break deal for politicians at local, state, and federal level.
This is a very good point, but not insurmountable. That is why we have congressmen and Senators in each state, some on Defense Intel Committees, etc. Well, imagine if Sen. Cornyn or his Buddy Ted weren't so busy giving everything to Israel first, and selling out the country and undermining Trump that they would listen to a briefing about such things and maybe propose legislation about enemy ownership of land in the USA or something. I know it's a fever dream but.... (I pray Paxton cleans his clock in the next primary). And don't get me started on what Gov. Abbott is allowing there vis a vis Islamic extremists infiltrating the entire state. Point is, at a certain point eminent domain exists as law for a reason and it can be invoked if local authorities refuse to see reason, or want to be left holding the bag of blame when a domestic Pearl Harbor occurs. (And it will, because we are so stupid.)
You beat me to it. I used to live a five minute walk from the main gate of NAS JAX. I have always wondered how they secure the river side of the base. Of course most of my experience on or around military installations is pre-terrorism, so I am sure physical security on all installations is much, much, better now. Security from electronic eavesdropping is a lost cause, we need to learn to live with it.
The fact that this situation even *exists* is a glaring example of the rot in DC, much less than it is allowed to continue to exist. I guess when the FBI is spending all of its time surveilling Republican politicians it doesn't have the bandwidth to worry about the country that is determined to rule the 21st centrury.
Kinda like Trump's nonexistent follow-up on Executive Order 14269, signed on April 9, 2025. That's the EO about restoring our maritime dominance.
Has anybody heard anything about it being carried out? Decrees are only worth using for toilet paper if Trump doesn't follow through by demanding obedient action from his cabinet secretaries.
They were building a corn processing mill. Thing is, it probably was completely legit, but the CCP taking advantage of the situation after it was built is a very legitimate concern.
China should be NOWHERE NEAR ANYTHING involved with controlling any part of our food supply. Do we control theirs???? I have commented elsewhere on this.
The FBI arrested Jian in June in connection with allegations related to Jian’s and her co-defendant, Zunyong Liu’s, smuggling into America a fungus called Fusarium graminearum, which causes “head blight,” a disease of wheat, barley, maize, and rice, and is responsible for billions of dollars in economic losses worldwide each year. Fusarium graminearum’s toxins cause vomiting, liver damage, and reproductive defects in humans and livestock.
According to court records, Jian received Chinese government funding for her work on this pathogen in China. Jian’s electronics contain information describing her membership in and loyalty to the Chinese Communist Party. Jian’s boyfriend, Liu, works at a Chinese university where he conducts research on the same pathogen and that he first lied but then admitted to smuggling Fusarium graminearum into America—through the Detroit Metropolitan Airport—so that he could conduct research on it at the laboratory at the University of Michigan where his girlfriend, Jian, worked.
I recall a story of Cold War era Red Team tests by special forces against United States Army units in West Germany. One unit was warned the "enemy" was coming. They were on alert all night. In the morning, thinking they were triumphant, they began their morning vehicle maintenance.
When they opened the engine compartments they found wood rectangles with the word "BOOM" painted on them. And on the other side if you touched it? "BOOM AGAIN"
Don't know if that was just an embarrassment or a lesson learned. If our enemy is at war with us, pretending we are not also at war is suicidal.
I honestly do not know what to do. Our vision is so scattered that it seems we can't see. That the politicians see the country as a plaything for their monetary benefit. A significant number of "Americans" have Oikophobia wanting the country to be destroyed. We can't even prevent out largest city from electing an Islamic mayor. I have been saying this for thirty years. And I hate it having seen shipmates die in a flight deck fire but, the only way militarys change, in general, is pressure applied from outside in the form of lost men and material.
The Mrs. and I flew out of Charleston in April. Joint Base Charleston shares a common runway with the civilian airport and it was hard not to notice that a minimum of 10 C-17s were lined up in a nice neat row on the tarmac. I saw no protective measures that existed at all.
We have become so lax and arrogant that getting our collective asses handed to us every couple of decades is a forgone conclusion.
After retirement I ran the Charleston Air Force Base Fly Club. Actually made more money for the base MWR than the golf course did. We used to laugh/joke about some crazy guy joining the club and on his solo dive into the C-17 parking lot. Boom, there goes a billion bucks. There still is no security other than the perimeter fence - which isn't bullet or drone proof.
"Grok, what is the range of the most common 120mm mortar used by the PLA firing laser-guided bombs? Also, the range of their MANPADS as well?
Mr. Grok tells me that the cheap 120mm rounds are limited to ~7.7 km. The laser-guided precision munition projectile has a CEP of under 10m out to 12 km.
Unless you think Mr. Grok has access to classified documents and will freely divulge their contents, its responses are limited to information you yourself could find with Mr. Google (or DuckDuckGo); given that we're just a couple months past the days when Mr. Grok was going by Mr. MechaHitler, and that the latest version of its cousin ChatGPT hallucinates more frequently than the previous versions (does Musk even publish benchmarks on hallucinations?), you're probably better off asking your drunk uncle.
You can check the latest hallucination numbers on the open-source HuggingFace Hallucination Leaderboard: https://huggingface.co/spaces/vectara/leaderboard
As far as I can tell from a web search, the only 120 mm mortars in PLA service are self-propelled. If they're sneaking entire AFVs into trailer parks next to bases, we've got a bigger problem than a few bombers.
I only mentioned Mr. Grok because that was the context of Brettbaker’s comment.
Fair enough, on the 120mm mortars. But, without looking it up, I’m pretty sure they have something in the 60-80mm category. I have read that NVA mortar crews could drop one in your lap, they were that good. Perhaps a bit of exaggeration, though my guess is that for such an important target, the PLA could afford to infiltrate one of their best teams.
Seriously, guys, you are living in a past century. Who the hell would even bother with mortarts to attack your airbase? A load of FPV drones with bombs would to the trick.
<sigh> Of course, FPV drones could do the job. I was responding to Brettbaker, who talked about one of many attack vectors simply to show one of the many easy ways of removing B-2s from the playing field. We could also talk about gas attacks, or EMPs, or .......
But Occam's razor strongly recommed on concentrating on simpliest vector of attack; swarming drones, either released from the ground (by the way, Chinese property nearby might not even be involved in such attack - a truck with unsuspecting driver would be enough), or from long-range stealth carrier (presumably also unmanned ones).
Anti Material rifle, recoilless or .50 BMG.
Somebody imported some 14.5mm a few years ago for those of us tired of the pedestrian 12.7mms....
That would work as well. Obviously buying MANPADS from the Cartel is also and thought.
We all saw The Fourth Protocol, didn't we? Great movie. Or read the book by Frederick Forsyth.
I don't think it makes much difference whether you own a trailer park or rent one trailer.
Or with .50, 20mm or drones you don't even need a trailer.
True you can just grab a vehicle and make it a technical.
Who the hell would be trying to smuggle a mortar nowadays, if simple civilian FPV drones could do the job as well?
Check out the kind of bomb attacks the IRA made on various government offices in London, including the top British intel agency and the Prime Minister's office. They succeeded in hitting the first, and the mortar they sent to No 10 blew up very close to it.
The Mark 10 mortars were 7" diameter gas cylinders that launched a propane tank packed with 45 pounds of fertilizer explosives and set off by a black powder propellant ignited by a photo flash bulb.
Ingenious bastards.
People made fun of Reagan because he read Tom Clancy. Then 9/11 happened. I really hope that JD and Pete have some outside-the-box thinkers on staff quietly - very quietly, given the Fifth Column threat - taking mitigating action.
Well we allow Chinese students into top labs at our universities. Why wouldn't we allow them a ring side seat at Whiteman? The Pentagon needs a civilian advisory committee staffed by CDR and other like minded patriots; since the slugs at the Pentagon, CIA, NSA and the 17 other gun toting, "intelligence" agencies are too busy to notice egregious security problems like this. We are effed Lord.
I'm reminded of the sailor who went to jail for taking pictures inside a submarine to show his family.
I'm also reminded of the sailor who set up an illegal WiFi on a ship and was punished. They were crushed for their stupidity. What should the punishment be for all the suits who knew about this? What should the punishment be for the morons who should have known about this? How long before they do something?
If they like to have the spies where they can keep an eye on them so they allow them to stay then they better be really sure those RV's aren't armed.
Trump wants 600,000 more china students. The solution for all of the problems is more of same problems. The solution set on offer being more of the same problems is as obvious as those original problems.
And yet most refuse to see the clear intent. Our projection of our own good intentions clouds our judgement. The financialization of everything muddles it even more so.
What would an occupied government be doing differently?
Something about the Chinese will do less damage than unemployed academics.
lol I like that one. There is a certain recursive elegance to inviting chiners into our lotus houses of communist indoctrination because our home-grown commies are more dangerous to the system if operating outside that system.
I take two things as given:
1. Trump won't go to war to defend Taiwan. As far as possible successors go, Vance won't, Newsom won't. Rubio maybe. I doubt whether it's a good idea, given Taiwan's own ambivalence manifested by their defense spending. If they make the move, cut them out of world trade and travel to the extent we can.
2. The Chinese won't launch a Pearl Harbor style attack on US forces and territory before US forces try to interdict the blockade and invasion forces. They can read history.
Given (1), the more Chinese brains we drain, the more tied up with American freedom they are, the more Chinese elites are deterred from upsetting the status quo over Taiwan.
China is not invincible or immune from influence.
One problem in your calculations; USA aren't exactly the shining light of example they were in 1990s. One ride on New York subway would persuade any Chinese student that "it's not a freedom, it's anarchy and chaos". The PRC isn't like old USSR; their Party control isn't annoying to the point of peoples starting to value freedom above all.
True. On a street level, Chinese cities can be freer than US ones. There is a let the good times roll feeling.
Still, some young Chinese would prefer the political freedom and mobility of the USA or Europe. I've met a few of these wanderers.
Of course they are. But - how big percent of total numbers they represent? I suspect, not big enough to make China even slightly worried. As you said - on street level, China cities can be freer than US ones, and for majority of peoples (who are not politicians, or activists) it's just enough to don't care. So for the vast majority of Chinese students, Western way of life is just not attractive enough to care.
I know of one who became a quant at Goldman Sachs. That's one powerful brain earning seven figures now.
Given general American friendliness and the nature of college student life, I think the cohort of students that went back to China also form a pool of good will towards Americans. That might retard pro-war sentiment.
About those 600K Chinese students...why don't they stay and study in their gloriously great universities in China, since according to the CCP, the US is in decline and China is rising? Logically, there's "nothing" to steal from a declining nation, or is there?
https://www.dataabyss.ai/studentabyss
The Romans sent their children to conquered Greece for their education.
Not sure why Trump wants to keep institutions that hate him open. As for unemployed academics, they can be reformed by having them perform the work currently done by migrant workers. The time in the country will benefit them.
Because he have nothing to replace them with. And crashing the US scientific and research system would be tantamount to voluntary surrender. USA still have scientific and partial technological lead over China; it's one of dwindling number of advantages USA still have.
Can you explain how training Chinese students, who will either take their education back to China or join a US company to steal its IP, keeps the US ahead?
All a dedicated adversary would need, to carry out Pearl Harbor a thousand times over, is a lot of drones and few maps. Military bases are just the start. How many shipyards do we have? Dry docks? Aircraft and munitions factories? And that’s leaving aside infrastructure like the electrical grid. I sure hope somebody in a big, five-sided building is thinking through all these possibilities.
No, they are quietly seething because their Rainbow month was taken away from them and the Furry Parties stopped.
Unfortunately, that’s exactly the kind of dumb crap they are probably spending their time on!
Dig at the right spot on our farm, you can take out an interstate natural gas pipeline AND a transcontinental phone line the DOW pays the phone companies to maintain for backup communication.
I bet there’s “many such cases,” as the kids say these days.
If I was China, one of the first things to hit would be fuel storage in Hawaii.
The environment types already did that.
CDR Salamander,
I got my email “Wake Up” today early hours; I did not reply. Best to pass along so others are aware! Be careful shipmates. NJ
“My Company Hangzhou Iron and Steel Ltd, is seeking to engage you as her part-time regional business intermediary executive within your region (USA/CANADA) If interested, kindly reply to this message.
regards,
Yuxuan Zhang“
Perhaps Nurse Jane has the opportunity for a new career as a double agent?
I get these every day, sometimes multiple inquiries a day. I am targeted, I believe, because I am a government contactor.
Ahhh.... I was down in Texas for a visit a year ago. Mind you I lived through many many MANY Texas storms for 13.5 years. During one that was bad, but not THAT bad, (not a hurricane or with horrific tornadoes) in 2024, a huge area of Houston was blacked out for over a week because an electrical tower collapsed. That was a new one on me. I had NEVER heard that one before. Or the long time to fix such damage. I wonder if it was built with cheap Chinese steel in the last decade (a large part of the area was newer construction) thanks to Gov. Abbott and Costello and his shortsighted views on foreigners in his own state. (GET HIM OUT! HE IS A HUGE PART OF THE PROBLEM!) But yeah, their Iron and Steel is a hazard. Their own bridge just collapsed. We need to take this seriously!
I've wondered how well their icebreakers will fare for just this reason...
Chinese honeytraps are making a beeline for you.
It can get sticky and messy.
Should my feelings be hurt because I havent (yet- but hope springs eternal) been hit up by a Chinese honeypot?
I’m jealous. All I get is a Nigerian prince who want my bank # to store his money in exchange for a generous fee.
CDR Sal, thanks for triggering a lot of bad memories. Not. (Just kidding). Did a lot of work with "Red Teams" at...high levels over the years. The requirement to look "inside out" at your own vulnerabilities is frequently not taken seriously because of the shocking, bad news realities. As a scenario writer for large events, it was almost too easy to wreak havoc. I was frequently (and correctly) reined in as my proposals were not in line with the event objectives (major force on force events...usually). Actual real-world examples of suspicious events abound. This is one. Snipers (remember the two guys in a car around DC?), fires (I love LA), biological events (suspicious warehouse full of really bad things in California), fires at refineries, etc. etc. ad infinitum. The supply chain, logistics support (railways) and national power grid are very vulnerable. Actual military hardware could be easy prey to an adversary who is all in on a coordinated assault...or the credible threat of one.
No one likes bad news. I get that. But if no one is willing to tell the emperor he's naked, it gets really, really ugly for the rest of us. On a much, much smaller scale, two shipmates and I were supernumeraries on a newly commission Spru Can, ordered there to get an advanced look at the handling of the ship before ours was completed. The subject ship's XO asked us to take a tour of the ship to help him find items that had not been properly secured, etc. When we gave him the somewhat long list, he was really pissed at us for finding that number of problems.
Come on. You can't expect them to tie crap down. They had videos of how to use pronouns properly to watch. Don't get in the way of their learning!
The last Spruance was commissioned more than 40 years ago.
You can't blame everything on pronouns. Like, Seaman Timmy and SNAFU have always been things.
The military, like corporate America focuses on "compliance" with rules, regulations and SoPs, often with good reason. Compliance is not going to fix this problem.
I'd suggest something akin to the Citizens' Advisory Council on National Space Policy, a group of retired military officers, science fiction authors, scientists and engineers. For this to work, Hegseth and the the Trump Administration broadly will have to take the work seriously.
"Compliance" is easily gundecked unless backed up by rigorous inspection by people who understand what they are inspecting and are intent on and allowed to find the non-conformances.
Modern society finds inspection and discovery of errors distasteful. It should not be, that's how we learn and improve.
There is an element of being honest with your wife about how she looks in her new dress here. So, weighing the cost benefit of what is said is critical. With the wife, it's personal between two people. At the DoD level, we're talking pieces of the DoD budget pie, and anything that takes away from the Military Industrial Complex (MIC ((TM)) will elicit objections from them and their associates in the senior active duty and government civilian ranks and congress. Frontal assaults on fortified positions are costly and usually fail. So, a combined arms (and arm bending) approach must be well thought out and executed with a consequence management mindset (like the Citizens' Advisory Council on National Space Policy) to have any chance of success.
The flip side of that argument is who wants to go down in history as being the guy in charge who overlooked the chicom trailer park outside the gate of our stealth bomber base and let them do chicom things there? Amending this as a woman to address your first point.... it's all fine and good till she sees a photo online of the party and she looks like the backside of a barn in that dress and then YOU are blamed for not telling her it was so bad. There are ways to address it diplomatically (Well, dear, I think THIS dress highlights your beautiful boobs more and the color goes with your eyes). But being afraid to tell people difficult truths sets everyone up for failure and the blame game.
A great point. Depending who wins the conflict, the history will be recorded...differently.
"it's all fine and good till she sees a photo online of the party"
Sigh. Just another dreadful unintended consequence of the digital world.
Life was better before everyone knew everything about everyone else (because everyone was proudly posting all their mundane drivel for the world to see.)
Here's one that even SNOPES can't deny: https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/china-gnc-military-bases/
How much damage could be done to an entire base with adulterated product before people are aware?
I've always thought GNC was a money-laundering operation.
Stores in malls around the world, expensive items, you never see anyone buying.
The signs are all there. Sitting here in the peanut gallery it's easy to think we are led by Indian truck drivers. Who will be our next Kimmel?
The admiral who told the Navy Secretary and FDR to not deploy the fleet to Pearl Harbor until the base infrastructure was completed got sacked as well. So there's always the incentive problem. As someone put it, "people have to personally lose blood before they put up with mild inconvenience".
It strikes me that if the Federal government doesn't own the land then this issue is a State/Local Government issue. Or the Feds now have to exercise eminent domain and confiscate lots of land all over the US near many military bases.
It is likely that the trailer park has been there for more than a while. If you look at military bases throughout the US you will find that there is typically something like this very near the perimeter fence. They are purely capitalist endeavors serving, primarily, the junior enlisted who want (or have) to move out of the barracks (or as the USAF prefers to call them, dormitories). One can't really gripe that other than many are likely predatory (like those 26% APR car loans we hear about).
But the train has left the station on many of these. In a lot of places the local town has grown up to the perimeter fences. NAS Jacksonville is one such. There is no way in hell that the US Government is going to clear out a larger perimeter as many are old, established, high end neighborhoods. The uproar might not be quite government toppling, but it could be a make or break deal for politicians at local, state, and federal level.
This is a very good point, but not insurmountable. That is why we have congressmen and Senators in each state, some on Defense Intel Committees, etc. Well, imagine if Sen. Cornyn or his Buddy Ted weren't so busy giving everything to Israel first, and selling out the country and undermining Trump that they would listen to a briefing about such things and maybe propose legislation about enemy ownership of land in the USA or something. I know it's a fever dream but.... (I pray Paxton cleans his clock in the next primary). And don't get me started on what Gov. Abbott is allowing there vis a vis Islamic extremists infiltrating the entire state. Point is, at a certain point eminent domain exists as law for a reason and it can be invoked if local authorities refuse to see reason, or want to be left holding the bag of blame when a domestic Pearl Harbor occurs. (And it will, because we are so stupid.)
You beat me to it. I used to live a five minute walk from the main gate of NAS JAX. I have always wondered how they secure the river side of the base. Of course most of my experience on or around military installations is pre-terrorism, so I am sure physical security on all installations is much, much, better now. Security from electronic eavesdropping is a lost cause, we need to learn to live with it.
The fact that this situation even *exists* is a glaring example of the rot in DC, much less than it is allowed to continue to exist. I guess when the FBI is spending all of its time surveilling Republican politicians it doesn't have the bandwidth to worry about the country that is determined to rule the 21st centrury.
Ding ding ding give the man a prize! You get it.
Sal - Thanks for shining the light on this pile of manure. Question is: What is anyone doing about it? Maybe a 60 day follow up?
Yes! Marking my calendar for on or about January 12, 2026.
Kinda like Trump's nonexistent follow-up on Executive Order 14269, signed on April 9, 2025. That's the EO about restoring our maritime dominance.
Has anybody heard anything about it being carried out? Decrees are only worth using for toilet paper if Trump doesn't follow through by demanding obedient action from his cabinet secretaries.
https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/04/restoring-americas-maritime-dominance/
This isn't surprising at all. China bought a whole bunch of farmland several years ago not far from the Grand Forks AFB in ND.
They were building a corn processing mill. Thing is, it probably was completely legit, but the CCP taking advantage of the situation after it was built is a very legitimate concern.
China should be NOWHERE NEAR ANYTHING involved with controlling any part of our food supply. Do we control theirs???? I have commented elsewhere on this.
We did control their soybeans until the latest trade war salvo. We still control part of it. I am not sure what happened to their deal with Brazil.
Sure looks like they really want to set up multiple ways to shut our food supply down...
https://www.justice.gov/usao-edmi/pr/chinese-national-pleads-guilty-and-sentenced-smuggling-dangerous-biological-pathogen
The FBI arrested Jian in June in connection with allegations related to Jian’s and her co-defendant, Zunyong Liu’s, smuggling into America a fungus called Fusarium graminearum, which causes “head blight,” a disease of wheat, barley, maize, and rice, and is responsible for billions of dollars in economic losses worldwide each year. Fusarium graminearum’s toxins cause vomiting, liver damage, and reproductive defects in humans and livestock.
According to court records, Jian received Chinese government funding for her work on this pathogen in China. Jian’s electronics contain information describing her membership in and loyalty to the Chinese Communist Party. Jian’s boyfriend, Liu, works at a Chinese university where he conducts research on the same pathogen and that he first lied but then admitted to smuggling Fusarium graminearum into America—through the Detroit Metropolitan Airport—so that he could conduct research on it at the laboratory at the University of Michigan where his girlfriend, Jian, worked.
I recall a story of Cold War era Red Team tests by special forces against United States Army units in West Germany. One unit was warned the "enemy" was coming. They were on alert all night. In the morning, thinking they were triumphant, they began their morning vehicle maintenance.
When they opened the engine compartments they found wood rectangles with the word "BOOM" painted on them. And on the other side if you touched it? "BOOM AGAIN"
Don't know if that was just an embarrassment or a lesson learned. If our enemy is at war with us, pretending we are not also at war is suicidal.
I believe it. The physical security of the installation I was based at back then was laughable. Good times.
I honestly do not know what to do. Our vision is so scattered that it seems we can't see. That the politicians see the country as a plaything for their monetary benefit. A significant number of "Americans" have Oikophobia wanting the country to be destroyed. We can't even prevent out largest city from electing an Islamic mayor. I have been saying this for thirty years. And I hate it having seen shipmates die in a flight deck fire but, the only way militarys change, in general, is pressure applied from outside in the form of lost men and material.
A new word! BZ.
The Mrs. and I flew out of Charleston in April. Joint Base Charleston shares a common runway with the civilian airport and it was hard not to notice that a minimum of 10 C-17s were lined up in a nice neat row on the tarmac. I saw no protective measures that existed at all.
We have become so lax and arrogant that getting our collective asses handed to us every couple of decades is a forgone conclusion.
Look and see what's near Kings Bay Sub base.
Like Pearl Harbor-the better to protect them from saboteurs.
After retirement I ran the Charleston Air Force Base Fly Club. Actually made more money for the base MWR than the golf course did. We used to laugh/joke about some crazy guy joining the club and on his solo dive into the C-17 parking lot. Boom, there goes a billion bucks. There still is no security other than the perimeter fence - which isn't bullet or drone proof.
(ahem) showing once again, how much we could use stealthy aircraft that need no runways....
Up vote for tenacity.
why thankyou Sir! two score and five now...