Oh, they have no trouble at all with planning 5, 10, or more years into the future. The problem is they are not accurate farther out than six months or less.
DC is not. It’s the crab pot, and we haven’t had a competitive service strategy since Goldwater-Nichols. We’ve got a realistic likelyhood of losing the Big One in the next few years.
I agree. I nearly hit the like button because that's how I usually respond to a post I agree with, but the prospect of losing the big one isn't one I like very much.
I don't think the current DC thinking is to even fight that Big One, they will simply surrender day one. Their focus is on Nationwide domination of the people of America and climate change.
I certainly hope they are reading this;while the West ties its energies to bizarre political and social ideologies they continue to build.Western nations and in particular U.K. take notice and act.
So, the 600 ship global Navy under Reagan was good because we are the good guys, but the Chinese buildup under Xi in their own backyard is bad because they are the bad guys? Anybody ever consider the possibility that we come to an agreement with the other great powers instead of trying to impose a Pax Americana on the world?
There is no one capable in our government to conduct “diplomacy”. They are purchased by China via “Elite Capture” and China is running out of return on investment.
Thankfully, the Chinese failed to learn the lessons of the West's 21st century recession and repeated it on steroids, so the likelihood of China becoming the #1 economy this century is approaching nil.
Vienna was not a treaty with Napoleon, rather a treaty amongst the victors about what to do with the corpse of his empire. Treaty of Berlin did not even secure peace for a generation. Besides neither avoided war but were settlements after a war.
The Chinese view is that they are the center of the globe. The middle Kingdom. They don't think of other states as allies, but rather economic tributaries. Look at their business in Africa.
what? you're gonna pull up "peaceful co-existence" ? really? you risk being seen as a shill for the wrong side, or simply blind to the truth. China is EXPANDING. deliberately. at cost to global stability. there is no win-win here. none.
I do not want another world war with China, or any other nation the loss of life will be incredible, the damage and destruction horrific and for a century after or more the world will be in anarchy, despotism and servitude.
The thing is while we (NATO, US, EU) stand down more of our forces China is building for war.
It take two to fight and if one doesn't they become the slaves of the other.
So you DO grasp the situation! A nation with a massive, aging population. A nation with a tremendous surplus of military-age males with no prospects for wives. A nation with a collapsing economy, but currently enough money to spend on military build-up. A nation of extreme nationalism ("Middle Kingdom" is not an affectation) that's been dominated by the West since the mid-1800's.
Reagan may have known it but the CIA was projecting a strong Soviet economy right up until the end It's almost as if the CIA is not actually good at it's main job
And Xi thinks Gorbachev was a moron and has given multiple speeches telling his subordinates that China must avoid the collapse of the Soviet Union through strength, autocracy and militarism.
As their buildup is explicitly directed at us, they are not seeking "agreement" so it's hard to see how an agreement is possible (unless we give up without a fight, which I'm sure they'd accept).
Youve identified that there are good and bad guys here. Good job. Now, how about sifting through history and finding all the success stories about making agreements and appeasement with "bad guy" countries...
Agreements are nice in fantasyland, but in reality, it doesn't work like that...
You can reach a decent agreement with a bad guy when your foreign policy is run by a Talleyrand, Metternich or Palmerston as opposed to a Blinken or a Nuland.
Well heres the catch...why would we want an agreement of any kind with the worst regime in post WWII history??? Why wouldnt our focus be more on sering its undoing??? The fact that we are so cozy with the CCP, and that we've funded this massive military buildup, while wrecking our own manufacturing base is beyond disturbing. I dont want an agreement with China (which would obviously have compromises... And why would we??), I want them to be the defanged global pariah they deserve to be until they become a proper nation, on the world stage, and domestically...
Exactly...which tells you they are not our friends. If they were interested in "talk, talk, talk" and not "war, war, war" they wouldn't be doing what they're doing and saying what they ARE saying.
Actually attributed wrongly to Winston Churchill. Churchill actually said, ‘Meeting jaw to jaw is better than war.’ Harold Macmillan incorrectly quoted Churchill a few years later with the "Jaw, jaw is better than war, war" statement. So Macmillan gets credit!
The secret is knowing which ones ARE, though, and being cautious not to enter into such agreements - with the follow on consequences - through inattention and stupidity.
My simple heuristic: if the enemy has limited wants, you might consider appeasing. If the enemy's wants are unlimited, there's no point. Nazis, communists, and radical Islam all wanted the entire world. You have to read their writings to see if they want the world or the border land up to the river.
It's not the US that gets tribute, it's the political, military, and diplomatic hacks who run the US and NATO that get tribute; our very own Nomenklatura.
They are using our dollars, our pension funds, our supply chain and our technology to build a military that is pointedly and directly mentioned in strategy and action, to end “our domination”. In simple terms, they are an existential threat to our future. No matter what form it takes, post constitutional republic, reformed constitutional republic or plain old banana republic.
Ah that would be a hell to the no. As for the Pax Americana remark? Perhaps consider just where the roots of that "ideology" originates from and ask yourself do you think it's Joe Sixpack that's pushing that ideology... or is it the foreign entanglement mushrooms that dwell DC? Xi's intentions have been made abundantly clear; which probably explains why the rest of the ASEAN are spooling up their military budgets quite aggressively.
The Middle Kingdom isn't interested in a protracted war... they prefer things settled before the 1st shot is fired and they prefer outcomes overwhelmingly weighted in their favor. The resolve rests with PRC and the CCP to reclaim Taiwan and that's been abundantly evident for some time. The foreign policy "pros" who like to waltz to "Let's pretend circumstances are as we imagine them to be rather than what they truly are" now find themselves stumbling over their dance feet & have come to realize the game of "funsies" is over.
Resolve matters and the PRC has that. There's the potential win because the resolve of Taiwan's population on the other hand??? We can posture all we want on our end, if the PRC persuades Taiwan's population that the results are all but a fait accompli, then it's not going to matter much what we do or what Taiwan's military does. And I don't have much interest in us going through another episode of defending another country that isn't prepared to go 'honey badger' on any adversary that messes with it.
All available polling data would indicate that the people of Taiwan are not too keen on unifying with Xi Dada. Now will they fight as hard as the Ukrainians, idk. I'm not sure if you can know that until the shooting starts.
Well, people take different lessons from Sun Tzu's writings...usually like most things, hearing what they want to hear and disregarding what they don't like. Probably the one most apt here is: "If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle."
There are a number of ways to look at that.
Bad for us: We are so half-assed and disorganized right now that we don't understand ourselves, let alone anyone else...so we're in trouble. May or may not be the case. But more than one Master Chief or Seargent has said it best, "you better get yourself unfuc*ed in a hurry, son, or you are going to get killed by the enemy or me!" We have been fortunate to get ourselves straightened out in the past, we'll see if we can again.
Bad for them: China underestimates our military and our people, they have disdain for our culture and government, and don't realize they could have all they ever want through friendship rather than war. So do they really understand us? Or for that matter do they even know themselves, given the things we know about their military and its shortcomings in efficiency/corruption/training/personnel/equipment over the years and their lack of experience.
Of course, both of us being ignorant of those dynamics is what will lead to war. We won't want it, they might out of ignorance, but they are counting on quantitative overmatch and a quick victory...which we are, at least, likely to counter (and have the ability to do so).
Pax Americana wasn't something imposed by the US, it is the result of a rules based world order amongst nations built on economic trade/development and tamping down wars, even fighting small wars, to prevent larger wars. But every 80 to 100 years, somebody forgets what war is like and there we are again.
There always were "classical" liberals hoping for the finer things and advancing the culture vs leftists who thought those things were bad and relegated to the bourgeoisie and want to tear down that foundational culture (which is what we are contending with now).
But Pax Americana can be badly executed...it was better when politics stopped at the borders and we dealth with other countries in a unified way. What we see now is thinks like Kerry going behind the Trump Administrations back to sabotage things...what must countries think? They certainly aren't going to trust us or find us a stable ally.
We have to recommit to JKFs paradigm: Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe to assure the survival and the success of liberty.
I cannot hide my exasperation with the handiwork of smug & arrogant elites in DC that presumed they are ably qualified to steer the internal machinations of other countries because... well... they "know stuff." Yet time and again, unpredictable human behavior and cultural norms (that we arrogantly presumed to grasp but didn't) showed up and what followed was chaos and disorder that we had a hand in creating. More than a few exposes have come to light over the decades that reveal just how unskilled we often are when we drift away from things that we can do well and desired outcomes are far easier to measure... like helping to secure & safeguard the global commons. Oh no... that apparently got boring, so we went on a new adventure called "nation building."
Yeah, nation building can only be done on rubble (like post-WWII) or by the nation in question of its own free will. We are very bad about selling the US and Western culture these days because 1) the liberals don't believe in it and want to tear it down and 2) because of leftist machinations, the "brand" has been damaged.
If we don't stand up for Western Civilization, which has advanced mankind from abject poverty into relative wealth (intellectually, materially, physically) for everyone on the planet, then we will all surely slide into an abyss from which mankind may never emerge. Since the Enlightenment and the Rennaissance, Mankind has gone from a vast majority of people struggling to survive everyday to a relative few - and those few we have the ability to help, and try - though it is badly organized, executed and interferred with by bad actors. Why? Because of Western values, science, intellectual advancement, technical developments, and most of all the freedom to BE free.
Nobody said there weren't bad actors...we let the Russians and Chinese in. In my opinion, you have to collapse the UN now and only invite democracies that meet certain requirements back into to a new organization. Why a new organization? Because it does give people someplace to meet and talk things out.
Also, we shouldn't foot the vast majority of the bill for it anymore.
Depends on what you do with it. Building a force so you can attack a democratic nation, whether YOU think they are a rogue province or not, is not operating with the best intentions. And once they get a taste for it, with their moves to supplant the Western based global order, you can bet they will be trying to control all of Asia. We have some interests in that area, and friends, and treaties.
Taiwan is one matter but the rest of S.E. Asia is another matter entirely. How likely are ASEAN countries going to be content with being bullied into submission? Their growing defense outlays suggest they're not comfortable with Beijing's heavy handed way of doing things. We don't have "some" interests in this region, we have vital interests in that region. I suspect with AUKUS, Japan and SK and India (add in a few other non-aligned nations in the mix) that this region is NOT going to be content to be dictated to by Emperor Xi.
I don't see them kowtowing immediately, either...BUT that means we have to BE there (which is really the point of more hulls, forward deployed to show the flag and stiffen backbones).
Aside from Australia and Japan, all the unaligned nations, SK, and India are likely to be in it for themselves and will ride the winning horse and align with whover they perceive as winning. Otherwise they wouldn't have been fliriting with China at all if they could remember WWII. They really just want to kick back and have people give them money for development....whoever does that, they are behind. It was China's Belt and Road strategy and would have been REAL trouble if the Chinese hadn't been so ham-handed about their extortion of partners. It was like a cheap gangster movie.
We are steering through waters with a lot of non-aligned nations and that's understandable given the evolution of things. The mutual interest of all these parties is to be able to re-align relationships for commerce and trade as they see fit as things appear to head to a multi-polar world. And yes we need to be there. I just tend to think the mix of hulls might include a few more USCG vessels that can partner with these nations in their EEZ. That I think speaks to their own sovereignty and is not escalatory in terms of military confrontation. Just the same, feeding these countries a live picture of what's going on in that region is another confidence booster. Not antagonistic... partnership and transparency. Light is a great disinfectant and China is all about saving face.
The facade of white paint vs grey paint is lost on the Chinese, so USCG is as escalatory without the capability. We should permanently station a DESRON/Surface Action Group (maybe a mix of Burkes and the new Constellation Frigates) and a couple of AMPHIB groups out of the Phillipines and other bases...move them around.
Just have to remind the guys to watch their Ps&Qs on shore leave outside of Australia (Aussies understand a good shore leave and have a sense of humor).
Oh, the Chinese get the paint difference. Remember, it's been Coast Guard vessels "protecting Chinese fishermen from harassment in traditional Chinese fishing areas".
"the 600 ship global Navy under Reagan was good because we are the good guys, but the Chinese buildup under Xi in their own backyard is bad because they are the bad guys?"
That's a strawman. The 600 ship global Navy was good because it was good for us regardless of what anyone else is doing?
If a 600 ship navy is good in and of itself then it is little more tham a jobs program. In a peaceful world you wouldn't need a navy at all. We build warships for a reason. BTW, in Orwell's 1984 huge warships were built for no other reason than to destroy wealth and keep people poor and hungry.
It was good for us as it helped ensure freedom of navigation and security of commerce. Since we didn't and shouldn't trust anyone else to do that, it really didn't matter what they were doing.
+1 for 1984 (LCS, cough). Beyond that, I like to read it and Brave New World every few years to remind myself how close our current world is to what might have been born of carnal congress between the two authors
Means in service of virtue is good. Means in service of vice is bad. Makes sense. What common ground do we have with Putin and Xi? Is peace at any price worth it?
That's an interesting read. I'm worried that we aren't ready for the "blind" part as I imagine that we have grown fat, dumb and happy in synch with the exponential growth in ISR capabilities over the last 25 years+ since I served. Not just ISR either, navigation, command & control and weapons systems are all very dependent on modern tech that has never really been "contested." Data links can be fragile things. Beyond the physical destruction of important assets, there will surely be some jamming/EW surprises that nobody has anticipated. God's Eye will be more like a Polyphemus after his meeting with Ulysses. Best we get to work on those autonomous robot platforms. Maybe call it Skynet.
It's been over 30 years since we had to even think of fighting a peer opponent. Meaning that the only people who even remember the idea are potbellied graybeards like me.
Frankly, one of my biggest worries would be sabotage/SPECOPS attacks on the satellite uplinks and UAV control stations. The last time Americans had to worry about attacks on our own soil was 1865.
We soon forget there was plenty to defend against in WWII. Since then its been under the covers with the spy stuff mostly, but its always here. Plus haven't we had a few encounters with Iranian operatives here trying to kill someone? And those Chinese breaking into Key West? The game is on. we just need to scream loud enough for the boring masses to understand more than they do.
well there was the U-boat "Happy Time" in early-mid 42.
And we worried a lot about attacks on our own soil from those evil Nisei in California, but were forced to ignore the far more numerous Japanese in Hawaii
No, like the Ukraine war shows, the side with high tech air-launched weapons can strike into the heart of the enemy without taking any blows in return.
EPLRS in addition to viasat. It’s going to get real when SLCM’s take out Viasat’s,, spaceX’s and Iridium’s satcom control ceters, and the Ellison Onizuka Satellite Operations Facility. Not sure they can range on Colorado Springs, that might take a van with a 120mm mortar.
They might have SOF teams here now, with the border as it is and all the other BS. But they aren't getting one of their few boomers in range...and if they fire missiles at CONUS, it is over for them.
You think of all the things they COULD possibly do, but not really - both in terms of capability and responses that they well know.
Besides, what do you think those X-37Bs and satellite constellations are about?
If US strikes China they are not going to play Jake Sullivan and go "Oh, no we can't escalate."
Given that Sullivan's boss has said we will go to war over Taiwan China may very well decide to preemptively make that as hard as possible. If the flight line at Lemoore and Whidhely Island mysteriously blow up one night along with a bunch of subs, destroyers and some critical coms nodes I'd suggest it is a flaming datum saying Taiwan is a go.
Ummmm...I think you misunderstand...this is China striking Taiwan and us. I don't where you guys always get that somebody is talking about striking China first. SURRRE, if WE struck China first blah, blah, blah...but nobody is talking about that.
We're talking about if/when China decides that they think they can take Taiwan by force. Now, they have a choice to do it or not do it...if they do, as Sullivan's boss said, we will defend Taiwan. If China does something it won't be "preemptive" of anything, they will be starting a war of their own free choice.
You know it isn't easy to get those things done, right? Sneaking in and blowing stuff up? I hope you think better of us. We made it harder for ourselves with stupid border policies and trying to play nice with the Chinese, but don't think that means everyone is stupid and nobody is watching.
We need some closed loop ISR networks and not assume we will have or should be using a network where we all can see everything all the time. I don't want some punk kid who thinks his internet gaming buddies are smarter than the rest of mankind screwing us for the next 100 years. I liked it when we were planning a VTOL UAV with 900nm mission range (TERN). We could have had ships going and picking their own Tomahawk targets potentially.
TERN? Now that is a a name I've not heard in some time. I don't know if it went dark or just simply ceased to be a thing but it looked like a very nice complement that could be folded into a lot of hulls. VTOL with range and lethality... kind of has Indo-Pac written all over it I would think?
And every male citizen. It worked well when you planted crops, went to war, and then came home to harvest each year. It broke down when they made them all go on multi year deployments, far from home, for no other reason than maintaining their greatness.
It then fell to a professional paid army made up mostly of auxiliaries from the provinces. If we pay attention to our Gibbon (and Barry Linton more recently), we see where this can lead. We kind of avoided that by doing a volunteer professional force - so still like the citizen army, but by free will and not conscription.
We should probably have a mandatory service (not directed toward social issues) program for 2-years, though, with basic familiarization and physical fitness for all. Provide vocational and educational incentives for it and a direct path to the military if they choose it.
Of course, if you do that, the liberals will soon have them out doing some Peace Corps type stuff instead of disaster response, etc.
I can't morally support a draft for overseas activity, but it seems reasonable for defense of the borders. Maybe that two years is spent mostly in Tx, NM, Az, and Ca.
I was reading A World Undone | The Story of the Great War 1914-1918 by G.J. Read that book and especially the events post-June 1914 to August 1914 and one comes away with clear understanding of why having skin in the game matters.
When imperial Rome was sacked by the Visigoths in 410, 32 of her armories were full of weapons. Why? The “citizens” were no longer homogeneous and “Roman”. The flavor and culture of Roma had changed due to corruption, immigration and lack of identity as Roman. No one came to defend Rome because no one cared about Rome.
That was a problem of long standing. The X Legion, which wrecked Jerusalem under Titus, was raised mostly from the population of Syria. A true Roman Army had ceased to exist with the Varian disaster at Teutoburg Forest. Augustus roamed his palace deep in dispair saying, " Publius Quinctilius Varus, give me back my legions. Given the size of he Roman Army at the time, the losses put Rome on her back foot for some time. It took on the order of 4 to 10 years to build a Legion, depending on who you listen to, and the original 25K troops Varus had in Germania were about 20% of the frontline Roman Army.
Something had to be done, and done quickly. So Legions were raised in places like Syria and the Auxiliaries expanded. It worked early, but laid the foundation for the military rot that was seen later.
Being Roman was the core of their success. A people that accepted the discipline required because they had a common background and understanding of the stakes is what worked. It leant itself to strong unit cohesion. As the true Roman component shrank, the Army became less effective.
They also had personal armies. So no, I like our clear distinction between civilian and military and professional armies that are not loyal to some Pro-Consul above the Republic.
"a grand networking scheme that ties everyone in the battlespace together —"??? Anyone else get a little shiver running down your back? How many network security failures have we had in the US Guvmint in the last 5 years? How many IT parts are out there still collating and mirroring network traffic? With China as the culprit. Anytime anyone tells you a highly classified network is "secure" just run away. Your network is only as a secure as the dullest tool in your IT shed (Jack Teixeira immediately comes to mind).
I give the "grand networking scheme (now there's a predictive word) less than 12 hrs after the balloon goes pop.
We'd better be drilling that in case. We have no idea what will be tiffany or robust 72 hours into the next war. ABDA would be a great case study for being unprepared and isolated.
I would say a good many of the GOFOs will be Fredendall, not Patton. Given the serious damage started under Bush I, and the social engineering and wokester BS, the military is in a deeper hole than many like to think.
I fully expect the GOFO to be exquisitely incompetent with a resultant dipping deep down by the president into the ranks to find the warriors who were missed during the transition into the new socially conscious DoD. (The President will have to do that to either be reelected or save their party. Winning a war will only be an indirect consequence.)
Well, what's the short-run solution, say 0-5 years? Well, this has probably been thought about before but what about low-cost mother missiles, launchable from surface ships. These mother missiles would carry n (some number) of anti-ship missiles (Harpoons?). The mother missile's role, obviously, is to get her angry babies in range of surface targets. The idea is to be able to deliver anti-ship missiles in the thousands.
As for the surface ships why not acquire used AFRAMAX tankers (80,000 - 120,000 metric tons) -- think of them as low cost arsenal ships. They cost about $40+ million used. Just how many launchers and missiles could you put on just one of these?
To speed up getting such a system in service, offer a $1 billion dollar prize for the best working prototype of the mother missile along with a production line design for their manufacture in one year.
I'm just another guy with an opinion -- imagine what the really creative men, women and others could come up with along these lines?
Iran iraq war proved Tankers sink just fine. Break it up. We can get 16 Mk 41 on a 30-35 million dollar FSV that can make 38 knots, do a zero radius turn, and male 3800 miles at over 20 knots. More of that, please.
I think that "too many eggs in one basket" is a thing. Its been suggested that CVNs are a case of that, but look at the assets collected to protect them. Im not a believer in this "distributed lethality" silliness, but on the other hand, having 100, 300, 500 or 1000 missiles on somthing that doesnt submerge is asking for trouble...
all the vehicles in the ground war in Ukraine aren't under ground. We need the capabilities split onto smaller platforms even if they still sail together as a fleet. My 300 million dollar radar doesn't need to be sub hunting and I don't need it to lob a missile 900nms away.
This is handled by planes - from fighter/bombers to B-1/B2/B-52s and eventually B-21s. Rapid Dragon extended that by a few thousand transport aircraft...all out of range of interdiction by the enemy when being launched.
So missiles, lots and lots of missiles. JASSM-ER and LRASM-ER preferably.
No way the USG goes FPO on that within 5 years. We need to start buying and fielding what works now. If the balloon goes up, it's going up before many of these wunderwaffe get past their first round of testing.
Great idea. Let's say someone take a container ship and send it on a typical container ship course to their customer. And the top layer are all Club-Ks. And when they get 50 km off the coast of the destination they'll pop up and fire and everything from Lemoore to Coronado has a careless smoking problem. And at the same time there is another one heading for Seattle...
We had a Navy suitable for an empire with Lehman's nearly 600 ship navy. That was always at least part of the rationale among the deep state cognoscenti , not simply having enough ships for duk'n it out off Murmansk and Pete.
Now? Meh, not so much.
And the surrender of PBs to Iranians, groundings, fires, and global warming worship ain't making us look 10 foot tall to the ChiComs either.
How 'bout next year the Navy Academy football team be 50/50 male/female and beat the snot out of Notre Dame to prove there's something to that 'diversity is our strength' stuff our leaders in uniform have been preaching at every chance.
Things we could have if we only had the national will and urgency. (Having some serious individuals in the five sided f***ery factory would help too...)
We always measure capabilities, not intent....however as pointed out, this type of capability development reveals intentions. My one question would be how well trained the people on the ships could possibly be with this quick of a buildup, generating personnel quickly, and relatively sophisticated weapons - really an evolutionary step for them. I think that and coordinating the force will be their major difficulties if they try to fight...which they will try to do under their shore based missile umbrella, not in open waters.
Our intent will be to choke off trade from a distance and strike their fleet from outside their ability to interdict our actions with LRASM-ERs and such from multiple platforms...while also preserving/conserving our ships and personnel.
We spoke about drones for fleet defense on another topic yesterday, possibly carried on LTAs for dropping when the fleet is threatened with recovery of the drones (at least the onese not exploded) for cyclic operations. But the LTAs could also provide a forward radar (SPY-6?) for over the horizon detection of any incoming missiles - and that time would make a difference in defending a fleet. We could also carry a LOT of SM-3/6 or LRASM-ERs (Rapid Dragon concept) on LTAs with heavy lift capacity (and yes, they are faster than ships...and can rise and drop very quickly - not sitting ducks at a distance).
This could be a quick force multiplier for our side to make up for hulls and VLTs.
yer on the right track friend. just gotta stretch that a leeeeetle bit. 'n see "LTA" as something much, much more than they have heretofore been. (them blimps 'n such-like)
toss in "stealthy as a B-2" (do-able), amphibious, rigid -hulled instead of glorified balloon, and much faster.....speed to 150kts
(you sure you ain't read "Ghost Ships" on my blog?
Well, I don't know about a convert...I've been a proponent of LTA for a long time. I think they made a huge mistake discontinuing the prior programs....they solve a lot of problems from logistics/heavy lift (with increased speed) to a variety of offensive options. And due to the heavy lift capacity, they can carry a lot of power for things like radar, lasers, etc.
Despite their lack of experience, one thing I rarely see discussed is the quality of the people they are putting in their Navy. We know they have a LOT of people. We know a lot of them are smart; they are near half the STEM post grads in our country and Europe, much less their own country.
Could they not be "recruiting" heavily of the more intelligent age group for Navy, at the expense of ground pounders? There is of course still a learning curve at an institutional as well as individual level, but if the players are smart the learning curve may be accomplished fairly quickly.
Yeah, the "STEM test scores" thing is also a scam. We test EVERYONE. They (and many other countries, by the way) only test the elite schools - thus test scores are higher. If you go to the normal man on the street, the ground pounders and seamen, they aren't the people that are smart, can run things, and make money.
Yes, that is and has been a stupid move. Thought was that it would expose them to our society and mitigate towards peace. Of course, they are military affiliated, to a large part, and directed as to what they study and bring back. BUT...it also means NONE of them are on ships or in planes NOW. It would take more than a little time to create an effective force, or integrate, those folks into formation.
I agree with respect to the scientists; they aren't going to the fleet.
With respect to "expose them to our society" etc., read this book recently and it was mentioned. The author was an early believer in the strategy but believes it failed.
EMP followed by nuclear and conventional strikes on CONUS and Alaska bases, Guam, US Bases in Japan and Hawaii and Australia. Taiwan will vote themselves back into Communist China. Expect massive 5th column attacks in the U.S. those Chinese military males and secret CCP police stations are not here for sight seeing….
Taiwan will go without a shot fired. We are naive to expect China to not use preemption regarding nuclear weapons. They know that the elite captured in our current government will likely not strike back with nuclear weapons.
There are two possibilities. The Taiwanese are the French in WWII when the Germans invaded...got kicked in the teeth, outmaneuvered, then gave up to save their cities and culture from destruction. Of course, they still remembered WWI mostly fought on their ground.
Or they could be the Ukrainians and ready to fight. Who knows? I am leaning towards Ukrainians, but the cultural ties to China may make more of a difference to them that it did to the Ukrainians.
Chinese CCP influence is heavy in Taiwan culture, business and government. They have leverage The Taiwanese will fold when they see the US Navy get its teeth kicked in on the first couple of weeks of the war.
I don’t know what you’re implying. I’m speaking a simple truth that we are going to get our shit handed to us on the first rounds of the coming war with China. I’ve been sitting on the porch since 2004 -2005 discussing what China will or won’t do and it’s coming to fruition. I’m pointing out China is a fucking existential threat. I also got “disinvited” from recurring seawall tactical and strategic symposiums when I was a TAO in Enterprise back in the 2000’s because I had the gall to raise my hands and shoot holes in a certain strike group admiral’s goatfuck of a tactics session. In front of 150-200 of my peers. So spare me your pejorative.
You know exactly what I'm implying - show me your evidence (beyond a shit bird opinion) not of BUILDING things but of the ability of the Chinese to use them competently, to fight a war, that considers our capabilities. Sure we could and should have MORE capabilities, but we are not helpless nor will we "get our teeth kicked in". Again, thinking like that - if believed - will lead the Chinese to miscalculate and make a huge mistake. It is anything but a "simple truth".
You don't underestimate the enemy, but you also don't make them 10-foot tall and invincible.
Perhaps you got "disinvited" because you were, as you are here, acting more as a bomb-throwing troll than as someone making a thoughtful contribution to discussion - as a professional officer should in a tactical discussion, for instance. If you were ANYTHING approaching your verbiage, attitude, and arrogance here in front of an Admiral you were neither professional nor did you have due care for your career in the Navy. Good way to end up with locked heels before the mast.
The problem, Horatio, lies not in the stars but in yourself.
The time to prepare was yesterday. The coming war will be a decades long slug fest and won’t be won or lost by either side in the first years. It will be interesting how the American public reacts to Taiwan folding in the first weeks but it won’t matter because the Chinese aggression that starts the war will make Pearl Harbor and 9-11 look like child’s play.
We have a lot going for us that will allow us to win in the end, but we will be a changed republic. The fury of Americans against the Chinese will be unlike anything ever experienced.
It won't take that long...because China depends on importing 60-70% of its food and fuel. They might cause trouble around Taiwan - depending on how it plays out. But in the long run, as you say, they will lose their ships, subs, and planes and be cut off from trade by a blockade they can't break...because they would have to sortie into the open ocean and out from under their shore-based missiles.
Right now they are cutting down trees and ripping up parks to build farms on whatever land they can. Yep...they're preparing for war. But so are we.
Want to talk reality? We can sortie just the remaining B-1 fleet and launch over 1,000 LRASMs in one sortied, from beyond the range of China to stop them. If their fleet is in the Taiwan Strait, or port, they are going to lose most of their capital ships in one sortie. And we can do it again. And again. No fleet, no invasion.
That is not something that can, or will, go on for decades. The result will be the collapse of the CCP and the end of the fight in at most a year or two. Because they've sold their people on an easy fight by their great military heroes...their Wolf Warriors. When reality hits, it won't be pretty.
I don't think we are a constitutional republic anymore as it is. Whatever comes out of the next protracted conflict, whether with a peer or internal, won't be directly descended from the first Republic at all, except perhaps in ideology if we are lucky.
Then again, the people of Taiwan know that Mao basically destroyed actual Chinese culture and what exists in the PRC today is a Marxist shell of the real McCoy.
Ive always thought the Chinese timetable would center around the SSGNs retiring, and the actual date would be determined by where the fwd CVN is. That BG will get EMP'd, removed from the playing field, and the CCP can even use that for propaganda- how they magnamimously saved lives aboard the "threatening" US ships by not actually sinking them. Of course, strikes on Guam and Japanese bases wouldnt be as polite, but the CVBG would be blamed as the trigger...
And if they pop a nuke on a battlegroup...which is what that EMP is...they will get a reciprocal nuke and it all goes down hill from there. They aren't going to go there. They want nukes so we won't invade....which we never would.
"EMP followed by nuclear and conventional strikes on CONUS and Alaska bases"
Really, why bother with the follow-up? With a suitable EMP attack (not two or three air bursts, but dozens) they should be able to sit back and watch 80% of us starve.
Only a couple, they can get on the hotline and say, "Renegade general fired the missiles. We're sorry, and we're going to execute him immediately". Try to avoid a counterstrike. But if they launch enough for a guaranteed effective strike, we take them out with our nukes.
Sadly, I believe this is the most likely Chinese course of action.
They have their strategic goals carefully thought out, and are making their plans to achieve them, likely by force of arms, with the odds very much on their side.
But, perhaps their mere overwhelming forces, home field advantage and "elite capture" investments, and the unpleasant realization that we are in fact outnumbered and a hollow force with leaders unqualified to fight a peer level war just might result in a humiliating decision to meekly accede to whatever demands China makes. Sounds like a better deal than having all our Pacific base wide out and nuke strikes on the homeland. Just the effect of a single EMP attack would set back our civilization to the pre-electric era, and Americans today are totally unprepared for that and urban areas would be uncivilized cannibalistic death traps within a week.
The Chinese may even be thinking in terms of military patrols up our major waterways with the equivalent of "treaty ports" to protect their newly won interests. Very similar to what we did in China from the 1850s to 1940s.
DC has trouble with planning ahead 5 years, let alone 50. So of course their response will be slow at best.
That's being charitable. The reality is, the swamp is worried about the next election and extending their time at the trough.
Mostly they are concerned with Domestic rule and have limited interest in external defense.
The "good news" is we won't have to wait 50 years for an answer, the bad news is well....we won't have to wait 50 years for an answer.
Oh, they have no trouble at all with planning 5, 10, or more years into the future. The problem is they are not accurate farther out than six months or less.
DC is not. It’s the crab pot, and we haven’t had a competitive service strategy since Goldwater-Nichols. We’ve got a realistic likelyhood of losing the Big One in the next few years.
I agree. I nearly hit the like button because that's how I usually respond to a post I agree with, but the prospect of losing the big one isn't one I like very much.
I don't think the current DC thinking is to even fight that Big One, they will simply surrender day one. Their focus is on Nationwide domination of the people of America and climate change.
"Their focus is on Nationwide domination of the people of America and climate change"
Propaganda regarding the latter is simply a tool in furtherance of the former.
I certainly hope they are reading this;while the West ties its energies to bizarre political and social ideologies they continue to build.Western nations and in particular U.K. take notice and act.
So, the 600 ship global Navy under Reagan was good because we are the good guys, but the Chinese buildup under Xi in their own backyard is bad because they are the bad guys? Anybody ever consider the possibility that we come to an agreement with the other great powers instead of trying to impose a Pax Americana on the world?
No.
Why not? Great diplomats of the past have done so. Vienna 1815. Berlin 1878.
Great diplomats are in short supply globally.
That’s by design. The current cabal want war with Russia while the larger threat is China.
There is no one capable in our government to conduct “diplomacy”. They are purchased by China via “Elite Capture” and China is running out of return on investment.
Elite capture, I like that and it is descriptive of the Government.
It’s an actual name and part of the CCP’s doctrine and strategy of “total war”. China owns our government.
Chamberlain.
Yep, "Peace in our time"...LOL
Nuclear Weapons outweigh diplomacy. If we didn't have em, Taiwan would already be part of the PRC and our kids would be speaking Mandarin.
If China becomes the #1 economy learning Mandarin might not be a bad idea.
Thankfully, the Chinese failed to learn the lessons of the West's 21st century recession and repeated it on steroids, so the likelihood of China becoming the #1 economy this century is approaching nil.
Vienna was not a treaty with Napoleon, rather a treaty amongst the victors about what to do with the corpse of his empire. Treaty of Berlin did not even secure peace for a generation. Besides neither avoided war but were settlements after a war.
"in their own backyard"
The Chinese view is that they are the center of the globe. The middle Kingdom. They don't think of other states as allies, but rather economic tributaries. Look at their business in Africa.
Pax Sinica is not a feature
Somewhere the CCP is printing China-centric Gingery map projections. https://www.jasondavies.com/maps/gingery/
what? you're gonna pull up "peaceful co-existence" ? really? you risk being seen as a shill for the wrong side, or simply blind to the truth. China is EXPANDING. deliberately. at cost to global stability. there is no win-win here. none.
You may be right. But Reagan and Gorbachev were able to come to an agreement.
https://www.foreignaffairs.com/united-states/xi-jinping-says-he-preparing-china-war
If I were Xi and were reading this blog I'd be preparing for war too.
Then I would respectfully posit that you fail to understand while no one here advocating is for war, we are aware of what China is doing.
Thank you. I feel so much better.
The Chinese have been preparing for war for almost two decades. This blog simply calls out the facts. Go shill for China somewhere else.
Wars cost much silver. Trying to avoid a catastrophe is not shilling.
I do not want another world war with China, or any other nation the loss of life will be incredible, the damage and destruction horrific and for a century after or more the world will be in anarchy, despotism and servitude.
The thing is while we (NATO, US, EU) stand down more of our forces China is building for war.
It take two to fight and if one doesn't they become the slaves of the other.
China is threatening NATO?
Why? Would Xi be under the ridiculous assumption that Sal is another Biden pseudonym?
Gorbachev was in a failing state at the time, Reagan probably knew that but the world didn't and saw that as working towards peace.
A failing state with nukes may be very dangerous.
So you DO grasp the situation! A nation with a massive, aging population. A nation with a tremendous surplus of military-age males with no prospects for wives. A nation with a collapsing economy, but currently enough money to spend on military build-up. A nation of extreme nationalism ("Middle Kingdom" is not an affectation) that's been dominated by the West since the mid-1800's.
Yeah, they just want to get along.
Reagan may have known it but the CIA was projecting a strong Soviet economy right up until the end It's almost as if the CIA is not actually good at it's main job
And Xi thinks Gorbachev was a moron and has given multiple speeches telling his subordinates that China must avoid the collapse of the Soviet Union through strength, autocracy and militarism.
He probably got 50 cents for that post. Don't hate the player, hate the game.
As their buildup is explicitly directed at us, they are not seeking "agreement" so it's hard to see how an agreement is possible (unless we give up without a fight, which I'm sure they'd accept).
Youve identified that there are good and bad guys here. Good job. Now, how about sifting through history and finding all the success stories about making agreements and appeasement with "bad guy" countries...
Agreements are nice in fantasyland, but in reality, it doesn't work like that...
You can reach a decent agreement with a bad guy when your foreign policy is run by a Talleyrand, Metternich or Palmerston as opposed to a Blinken or a Nuland.
As I recall the CCP and the Brits had an agreement vis.a.vis Hong Kong...
And we all see how that turned out.
Yeah but I'm sure this time with Taiwan, it will be entirely different.
Well heres the catch...why would we want an agreement of any kind with the worst regime in post WWII history??? Why wouldnt our focus be more on sering its undoing??? The fact that we are so cozy with the CCP, and that we've funded this massive military buildup, while wrecking our own manufacturing base is beyond disturbing. I dont want an agreement with China (which would obviously have compromises... And why would we??), I want them to be the defanged global pariah they deserve to be until they become a proper nation, on the world stage, and domestically...
You don't make peace with your friends.
Exactly...which tells you they are not our friends. If they were interested in "talk, talk, talk" and not "war, war, war" they wouldn't be doing what they're doing and saying what they ARE saying.
Maybe they fear us. They saw what happened to Serbia Libya etc and other places we intervened.
Dinklage?
Actually attributed wrongly to Winston Churchill. Churchill actually said, ‘Meeting jaw to jaw is better than war.’ Harold Macmillan incorrectly quoted Churchill a few years later with the "Jaw, jaw is better than war, war" statement. So Macmillan gets credit!
China isn’t interested in “peace”.
Sure they are, as long as we surrender up front.
All depends on what your definition of "peace" is;
"...and where they make a desert, they call it peace."
Or, to prove I is reely an intelekshual---"Auferre, trucidare, rapere, falsis nominibus imperium, atque, ubi solitudinem faciunt, pacem appellant"
Tacitus
I could support an agreement where they do what their people let them in their own country, and do not threaten our people with threats to commerce.
Or a Neville Chamberlain, more likely.
Not every agreement is Munich 1938.
The secret is knowing which ones ARE, though, and being cautious not to enter into such agreements - with the follow on consequences - through inattention and stupidity.
My simple heuristic: if the enemy has limited wants, you might consider appeasing. If the enemy's wants are unlimited, there's no point. Nazis, communists, and radical Islam all wanted the entire world. You have to read their writings to see if they want the world or the border land up to the river.
Xi is not looking for detente or an agreement. He thinks Gorbachov was an idiot. Xi wants tributaries not partners.
So glad we are not like that.
How much does the US get from NATO in tribute? It would appear the funding is going in the wrong direction, if that's the case.
Think of all the money were making following the destruction of the pipeline in the Baltic.
It's not the US that gets tribute, it's the political, military, and diplomatic hacks who run the US and NATO that get tribute; our very own Nomenklatura.
They are using our dollars, our pension funds, our supply chain and our technology to build a military that is pointedly and directly mentioned in strategy and action, to end “our domination”. In simple terms, they are an existential threat to our future. No matter what form it takes, post constitutional republic, reformed constitutional republic or plain old banana republic.
Ah that would be a hell to the no. As for the Pax Americana remark? Perhaps consider just where the roots of that "ideology" originates from and ask yourself do you think it's Joe Sixpack that's pushing that ideology... or is it the foreign entanglement mushrooms that dwell DC? Xi's intentions have been made abundantly clear; which probably explains why the rest of the ASEAN are spooling up their military budgets quite aggressively.
You may be right but let's consider an alternative approach as we slouch to an Asian Sarajevo.
The Middle Kingdom isn't interested in a protracted war... they prefer things settled before the 1st shot is fired and they prefer outcomes overwhelmingly weighted in their favor. The resolve rests with PRC and the CCP to reclaim Taiwan and that's been abundantly evident for some time. The foreign policy "pros" who like to waltz to "Let's pretend circumstances are as we imagine them to be rather than what they truly are" now find themselves stumbling over their dance feet & have come to realize the game of "funsies" is over.
Sounds like the PRC has been reading up on Sun Tzu by winning battle beforehand.
Resolve matters and the PRC has that. There's the potential win because the resolve of Taiwan's population on the other hand??? We can posture all we want on our end, if the PRC persuades Taiwan's population that the results are all but a fait accompli, then it's not going to matter much what we do or what Taiwan's military does. And I don't have much interest in us going through another episode of defending another country that isn't prepared to go 'honey badger' on any adversary that messes with it.
All available polling data would indicate that the people of Taiwan are not too keen on unifying with Xi Dada. Now will they fight as hard as the Ukrainians, idk. I'm not sure if you can know that until the shooting starts.
Well, people take different lessons from Sun Tzu's writings...usually like most things, hearing what they want to hear and disregarding what they don't like. Probably the one most apt here is: "If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle."
There are a number of ways to look at that.
Bad for us: We are so half-assed and disorganized right now that we don't understand ourselves, let alone anyone else...so we're in trouble. May or may not be the case. But more than one Master Chief or Seargent has said it best, "you better get yourself unfuc*ed in a hurry, son, or you are going to get killed by the enemy or me!" We have been fortunate to get ourselves straightened out in the past, we'll see if we can again.
Bad for them: China underestimates our military and our people, they have disdain for our culture and government, and don't realize they could have all they ever want through friendship rather than war. So do they really understand us? Or for that matter do they even know themselves, given the things we know about their military and its shortcomings in efficiency/corruption/training/personnel/equipment over the years and their lack of experience.
Of course, both of us being ignorant of those dynamics is what will lead to war. We won't want it, they might out of ignorance, but they are counting on quantitative overmatch and a quick victory...which we are, at least, likely to counter (and have the ability to do so).
Maybe. But extrapolate current trends and where did you see our and their positions in 3 to 5 years?
Make specific proposals. So far, your posts are replete with nice sounding generalities and very little of anything realistic.
As soon as I get Victoria Nuland's job.
In short, you have nothing and are simply bloviating about things you know little about.
Pax Americana wasn't something imposed by the US, it is the result of a rules based world order amongst nations built on economic trade/development and tamping down wars, even fighting small wars, to prevent larger wars. But every 80 to 100 years, somebody forgets what war is like and there we are again.
I would submit that Pax Americana has taken on a new aroma, much like how the original definition of the word "liberal" has "evolved."
There always were "classical" liberals hoping for the finer things and advancing the culture vs leftists who thought those things were bad and relegated to the bourgeoisie and want to tear down that foundational culture (which is what we are contending with now).
But Pax Americana can be badly executed...it was better when politics stopped at the borders and we dealth with other countries in a unified way. What we see now is thinks like Kerry going behind the Trump Administrations back to sabotage things...what must countries think? They certainly aren't going to trust us or find us a stable ally.
We have to recommit to JKFs paradigm: Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe to assure the survival and the success of liberty.
I cannot hide my exasperation with the handiwork of smug & arrogant elites in DC that presumed they are ably qualified to steer the internal machinations of other countries because... well... they "know stuff." Yet time and again, unpredictable human behavior and cultural norms (that we arrogantly presumed to grasp but didn't) showed up and what followed was chaos and disorder that we had a hand in creating. More than a few exposes have come to light over the decades that reveal just how unskilled we often are when we drift away from things that we can do well and desired outcomes are far easier to measure... like helping to secure & safeguard the global commons. Oh no... that apparently got boring, so we went on a new adventure called "nation building."
Yeah, nation building can only be done on rubble (like post-WWII) or by the nation in question of its own free will. We are very bad about selling the US and Western culture these days because 1) the liberals don't believe in it and want to tear it down and 2) because of leftist machinations, the "brand" has been damaged.
If we don't stand up for Western Civilization, which has advanced mankind from abject poverty into relative wealth (intellectually, materially, physically) for everyone on the planet, then we will all surely slide into an abyss from which mankind may never emerge. Since the Enlightenment and the Rennaissance, Mankind has gone from a vast majority of people struggling to survive everyday to a relative few - and those few we have the ability to help, and try - though it is badly organized, executed and interferred with by bad actors. Why? Because of Western values, science, intellectual advancement, technical developments, and most of all the freedom to BE free.
" they "know stuff." "
And, don't forget, " Their strength is as the strength of ten
Because their hearts is pure."
"a rules based world order amongst nations"
We can call it a "League of Nations"! I look forward to the peaceful and prosperous future guaranteed by those rules.
Nobody said there weren't bad actors...we let the Russians and Chinese in. In my opinion, you have to collapse the UN now and only invite democracies that meet certain requirements back into to a new organization. Why a new organization? Because it does give people someplace to meet and talk things out.
Also, we shouldn't foot the vast majority of the bill for it anymore.
Depends on what you do with it. Building a force so you can attack a democratic nation, whether YOU think they are a rogue province or not, is not operating with the best intentions. And once they get a taste for it, with their moves to supplant the Western based global order, you can bet they will be trying to control all of Asia. We have some interests in that area, and friends, and treaties.
It would be easier for China to buy Asia than invade it.
Exactly...just like us.
Hunter is not a bad artist but his paintings are overpriced.
If you ignore the corruption and grift...but, no, he is not a very good artist.
Lol
It's getting harder by the day for China to buy anything right now. Deflation is a B.
Taiwan is one matter but the rest of S.E. Asia is another matter entirely. How likely are ASEAN countries going to be content with being bullied into submission? Their growing defense outlays suggest they're not comfortable with Beijing's heavy handed way of doing things. We don't have "some" interests in this region, we have vital interests in that region. I suspect with AUKUS, Japan and SK and India (add in a few other non-aligned nations in the mix) that this region is NOT going to be content to be dictated to by Emperor Xi.
I don't see them kowtowing immediately, either...BUT that means we have to BE there (which is really the point of more hulls, forward deployed to show the flag and stiffen backbones).
Aside from Australia and Japan, all the unaligned nations, SK, and India are likely to be in it for themselves and will ride the winning horse and align with whover they perceive as winning. Otherwise they wouldn't have been fliriting with China at all if they could remember WWII. They really just want to kick back and have people give them money for development....whoever does that, they are behind. It was China's Belt and Road strategy and would have been REAL trouble if the Chinese hadn't been so ham-handed about their extortion of partners. It was like a cheap gangster movie.
We are steering through waters with a lot of non-aligned nations and that's understandable given the evolution of things. The mutual interest of all these parties is to be able to re-align relationships for commerce and trade as they see fit as things appear to head to a multi-polar world. And yes we need to be there. I just tend to think the mix of hulls might include a few more USCG vessels that can partner with these nations in their EEZ. That I think speaks to their own sovereignty and is not escalatory in terms of military confrontation. Just the same, feeding these countries a live picture of what's going on in that region is another confidence booster. Not antagonistic... partnership and transparency. Light is a great disinfectant and China is all about saving face.
The facade of white paint vs grey paint is lost on the Chinese, so USCG is as escalatory without the capability. We should permanently station a DESRON/Surface Action Group (maybe a mix of Burkes and the new Constellation Frigates) and a couple of AMPHIB groups out of the Phillipines and other bases...move them around.
Just have to remind the guys to watch their Ps&Qs on shore leave outside of Australia (Aussies understand a good shore leave and have a sense of humor).
Everything the west does is escalatory to Emperor Xi, so there's that...
Oh, the Chinese get the paint difference. Remember, it's been Coast Guard vessels "protecting Chinese fishermen from harassment in traditional Chinese fishing areas".
The Indonesians seem to have a backbone WRT Fishing rights, and I suspect will on oil as well. Chinese fishing boats get sunk
Ask the Uyghurs.
"the 600 ship global Navy under Reagan was good because we are the good guys, but the Chinese buildup under Xi in their own backyard is bad because they are the bad guys?"
That's a strawman. The 600 ship global Navy was good because it was good for us regardless of what anyone else is doing?
If a 600 ship navy is good in and of itself then it is little more tham a jobs program. In a peaceful world you wouldn't need a navy at all. We build warships for a reason. BTW, in Orwell's 1984 huge warships were built for no other reason than to destroy wealth and keep people poor and hungry.
It was good for us as it helped ensure freedom of navigation and security of commerce. Since we didn't and shouldn't trust anyone else to do that, it really didn't matter what they were doing.
+1 for 1984 (LCS, cough). Beyond that, I like to read it and Brave New World every few years to remind myself how close our current world is to what might have been born of carnal congress between the two authors
It's a toss up between the tyranny of Big Brother and the drugged up Brave New World Order.
I've learned to embrace the power of "and" when it comes to how our governments abuse their power
Means in service of virtue is good. Means in service of vice is bad. Makes sense. What common ground do we have with Putin and Xi? Is peace at any price worth it?
That's an interesting read. I'm worried that we aren't ready for the "blind" part as I imagine that we have grown fat, dumb and happy in synch with the exponential growth in ISR capabilities over the last 25 years+ since I served. Not just ISR either, navigation, command & control and weapons systems are all very dependent on modern tech that has never really been "contested." Data links can be fragile things. Beyond the physical destruction of important assets, there will surely be some jamming/EW surprises that nobody has anticipated. God's Eye will be more like a Polyphemus after his meeting with Ulysses. Best we get to work on those autonomous robot platforms. Maybe call it Skynet.
It's been over 30 years since we had to even think of fighting a peer opponent. Meaning that the only people who even remember the idea are potbellied graybeards like me.
Frankly, one of my biggest worries would be sabotage/SPECOPS attacks on the satellite uplinks and UAV control stations. The last time Americans had to worry about attacks on our own soil was 1865.
We soon forget there was plenty to defend against in WWII. Since then its been under the covers with the spy stuff mostly, but its always here. Plus haven't we had a few encounters with Iranian operatives here trying to kill someone? And those Chinese breaking into Key West? The game is on. we just need to scream loud enough for the boring masses to understand more than they do.
well there was the U-boat "Happy Time" in early-mid 42.
And we worried a lot about attacks on our own soil from those evil Nisei in California, but were forced to ignore the far more numerous Japanese in Hawaii
"We should deport or intern the Japanese on Oahu. Oh wait... there are too many of them and they are doing vital war work. Never mind!"
No, like the Ukraine war shows, the side with high tech air-launched weapons can strike into the heart of the enemy without taking any blows in return.
That is why we need nodes at at tactical level with line-of-sight communications and redundancy in the net. Lasers, microwaves, etc.
EPLRS in addition to viasat. It’s going to get real when SLCM’s take out Viasat’s,, spaceX’s and Iridium’s satcom control ceters, and the Ellison Onizuka Satellite Operations Facility. Not sure they can range on Colorado Springs, that might take a van with a 120mm mortar.
They might have SOF teams here now, with the border as it is and all the other BS. But they aren't getting one of their few boomers in range...and if they fire missiles at CONUS, it is over for them.
You think of all the things they COULD possibly do, but not really - both in terms of capability and responses that they well know.
Besides, what do you think those X-37Bs and satellite constellations are about?
If US strikes China they are not going to play Jake Sullivan and go "Oh, no we can't escalate."
Given that Sullivan's boss has said we will go to war over Taiwan China may very well decide to preemptively make that as hard as possible. If the flight line at Lemoore and Whidhely Island mysteriously blow up one night along with a bunch of subs, destroyers and some critical coms nodes I'd suggest it is a flaming datum saying Taiwan is a go.
Ummmm...I think you misunderstand...this is China striking Taiwan and us. I don't where you guys always get that somebody is talking about striking China first. SURRRE, if WE struck China first blah, blah, blah...but nobody is talking about that.
We're talking about if/when China decides that they think they can take Taiwan by force. Now, they have a choice to do it or not do it...if they do, as Sullivan's boss said, we will defend Taiwan. If China does something it won't be "preemptive" of anything, they will be starting a war of their own free choice.
You know it isn't easy to get those things done, right? Sneaking in and blowing stuff up? I hope you think better of us. We made it harder for ourselves with stupid border policies and trying to play nice with the Chinese, but don't think that means everyone is stupid and nobody is watching.
We need some closed loop ISR networks and not assume we will have or should be using a network where we all can see everything all the time. I don't want some punk kid who thinks his internet gaming buddies are smarter than the rest of mankind screwing us for the next 100 years. I liked it when we were planning a VTOL UAV with 900nm mission range (TERN). We could have had ships going and picking their own Tomahawk targets potentially.
TERN? Now that is a a name I've not heard in some time. I don't know if it went dark or just simply ceased to be a thing but it looked like a very nice complement that could be folded into a lot of hulls. VTOL with range and lethality... kind of has Indo-Pac written all over it I would think?
The Army is fielding something akin to this in a drone....https://newatlas.com/military/northrop-grumman-martin-uav-test-flight-vbat-vtol-drone-us-army/
Tactical in scope - 350 mil range. Mainly ISR payloads, but if it can carry all that stuff it can carry guidance and a warhead.
We need fewer "open systems" and more closed loop protocols. Learn from the dumbness of making all our SCADA devices IP accessible.
While I understand the temptation of putting SCADA systems on the net, it was a temptation that desperately needed to be rejected.
Maybe the Roman Republic had the right idea when they required that officials spend time in military command. They had skin in the game.
And every male citizen. It worked well when you planted crops, went to war, and then came home to harvest each year. It broke down when they made them all go on multi year deployments, far from home, for no other reason than maintaining their greatness.
It then fell to a professional paid army made up mostly of auxiliaries from the provinces. If we pay attention to our Gibbon (and Barry Linton more recently), we see where this can lead. We kind of avoided that by doing a volunteer professional force - so still like the citizen army, but by free will and not conscription.
We should probably have a mandatory service (not directed toward social issues) program for 2-years, though, with basic familiarization and physical fitness for all. Provide vocational and educational incentives for it and a direct path to the military if they choose it.
Of course, if you do that, the liberals will soon have them out doing some Peace Corps type stuff instead of disaster response, etc.
I can't morally support a draft for overseas activity, but it seems reasonable for defense of the borders. Maybe that two years is spent mostly in Tx, NM, Az, and Ca.
It broke down as soon as Rome got big enough to be worried about controlling more than just Italy.
I was reading A World Undone | The Story of the Great War 1914-1918 by G.J. Read that book and especially the events post-June 1914 to August 1914 and one comes away with clear understanding of why having skin in the game matters.
When imperial Rome was sacked by the Visigoths in 410, 32 of her armories were full of weapons. Why? The “citizens” were no longer homogeneous and “Roman”. The flavor and culture of Roma had changed due to corruption, immigration and lack of identity as Roman. No one came to defend Rome because no one cared about Rome.
That was a problem of long standing. The X Legion, which wrecked Jerusalem under Titus, was raised mostly from the population of Syria. A true Roman Army had ceased to exist with the Varian disaster at Teutoburg Forest. Augustus roamed his palace deep in dispair saying, " Publius Quinctilius Varus, give me back my legions. Given the size of he Roman Army at the time, the losses put Rome on her back foot for some time. It took on the order of 4 to 10 years to build a Legion, depending on who you listen to, and the original 25K troops Varus had in Germania were about 20% of the frontline Roman Army.
Something had to be done, and done quickly. So Legions were raised in places like Syria and the Auxiliaries expanded. It worked early, but laid the foundation for the military rot that was seen later.
A true "Roman" army stopped existing long before that. Being "Roman" is not what made their army successful.
Being Roman was the core of their success. A people that accepted the discipline required because they had a common background and understanding of the stakes is what worked. It leant itself to strong unit cohesion. As the true Roman component shrank, the Army became less effective.
The citizens stopped being "Roman" and "homogeneous" before Rome won the First Punic War.
They also had personal armies. So no, I like our clear distinction between civilian and military and professional armies that are not loyal to some Pro-Consul above the Republic.
"a grand networking scheme that ties everyone in the battlespace together —"??? Anyone else get a little shiver running down your back? How many network security failures have we had in the US Guvmint in the last 5 years? How many IT parts are out there still collating and mirroring network traffic? With China as the culprit. Anytime anyone tells you a highly classified network is "secure" just run away. Your network is only as a secure as the dullest tool in your IT shed (Jack Teixeira immediately comes to mind).
I give the "grand networking scheme (now there's a predictive word) less than 12 hrs after the balloon goes pop.
Exactly... I just hope everyone knows what to do after they go offline!!! And Im feeling they don't...
Given ROE in Kabul two years ago? Perhaps a dead network will result in fewer US combat losses.
Agreed!!! Lots could be said for unit level autonomy!!! At least as long as the commanders are real, and not political appointees!!!
We'd better be drilling that in case. We have no idea what will be tiffany or robust 72 hours into the next war. ABDA would be a great case study for being unprepared and isolated.
I would say a good many of the GOFOs will be Fredendall, not Patton. Given the serious damage started under Bush I, and the social engineering and wokester BS, the military is in a deeper hole than many like to think.
I fully expect the GOFO to be exquisitely incompetent with a resultant dipping deep down by the president into the ranks to find the warriors who were missed during the transition into the new socially conscious DoD. (The President will have to do that to either be reelected or save their party. Winning a war will only be an indirect consequence.)
Call Tech Support. Duh!
Don’t worry, they have some expert PhD software engineers running it. A Dr Yang and Dr Zhang.
“…What we are walking into…”
Amended to: “…what we are SLEEP walking into…”
Well, what's the short-run solution, say 0-5 years? Well, this has probably been thought about before but what about low-cost mother missiles, launchable from surface ships. These mother missiles would carry n (some number) of anti-ship missiles (Harpoons?). The mother missile's role, obviously, is to get her angry babies in range of surface targets. The idea is to be able to deliver anti-ship missiles in the thousands.
As for the surface ships why not acquire used AFRAMAX tankers (80,000 - 120,000 metric tons) -- think of them as low cost arsenal ships. They cost about $40+ million used. Just how many launchers and missiles could you put on just one of these?
To speed up getting such a system in service, offer a $1 billion dollar prize for the best working prototype of the mother missile along with a production line design for their manufacture in one year.
I'm just another guy with an opinion -- imagine what the really creative men, women and others could come up with along these lines?
Iran iraq war proved Tankers sink just fine. Break it up. We can get 16 Mk 41 on a 30-35 million dollar FSV that can make 38 knots, do a zero radius turn, and male 3800 miles at over 20 knots. More of that, please.
I think that "too many eggs in one basket" is a thing. Its been suggested that CVNs are a case of that, but look at the assets collected to protect them. Im not a believer in this "distributed lethality" silliness, but on the other hand, having 100, 300, 500 or 1000 missiles on somthing that doesnt submerge is asking for trouble...
all the vehicles in the ground war in Ukraine aren't under ground. We need the capabilities split onto smaller platforms even if they still sail together as a fleet. My 300 million dollar radar doesn't need to be sub hunting and I don't need it to lob a missile 900nms away.
This is handled by planes - from fighter/bombers to B-1/B2/B-52s and eventually B-21s. Rapid Dragon extended that by a few thousand transport aircraft...all out of range of interdiction by the enemy when being launched.
So missiles, lots and lots of missiles. JASSM-ER and LRASM-ER preferably.
And ISR ability at many levels.
"The idea is to be able to deliver anti-ship missiles in the thousands."
sadly, I don't think we could build thousands of them in the next five years
No way the USG goes FPO on that within 5 years. We need to start buying and fielding what works now. If the balloon goes up, it's going up before many of these wunderwaffe get past their first round of testing.
Great idea. Let's say someone take a container ship and send it on a typical container ship course to their customer. And the top layer are all Club-Ks. And when they get 50 km off the coast of the destination they'll pop up and fire and everything from Lemoore to Coronado has a careless smoking problem. And at the same time there is another one heading for Seattle...
Are those in DC responding properly?
Word of the day for August 30th; Somnolence.
We had a Navy suitable for an empire with Lehman's nearly 600 ship navy. That was always at least part of the rationale among the deep state cognoscenti , not simply having enough ships for duk'n it out off Murmansk and Pete.
Now? Meh, not so much.
And the surrender of PBs to Iranians, groundings, fires, and global warming worship ain't making us look 10 foot tall to the ChiComs either.
How 'bout next year the Navy Academy football team be 50/50 male/female and beat the snot out of Notre Dame to prove there's something to that 'diversity is our strength' stuff our leaders in uniform have been preaching at every chance.
Haha...id buy tickets to see that!!! Of course, im not gonna say who id be betting on though...!!!
50/50 male/female
How the heck would anyone know? Certainly the Supreme Court wouldn't be able to tell; we'd have to take their word for it
That photo makes me fondly recall those shots of a half dozen or more Spruances building or fitting out at the same time...
Probably could use that again about now.
we have the yard capacity. We don't have the supply base and labor pool.
Things we could have if we only had the national will and urgency. (Having some serious individuals in the five sided f***ery factory would help too...)
If we lost 50,000 in Vietnam how many might we lose in China?
Zero, in China.
point taken, but probably a few hundred at least in the black world
We always measure capabilities, not intent....however as pointed out, this type of capability development reveals intentions. My one question would be how well trained the people on the ships could possibly be with this quick of a buildup, generating personnel quickly, and relatively sophisticated weapons - really an evolutionary step for them. I think that and coordinating the force will be their major difficulties if they try to fight...which they will try to do under their shore based missile umbrella, not in open waters.
Our intent will be to choke off trade from a distance and strike their fleet from outside their ability to interdict our actions with LRASM-ERs and such from multiple platforms...while also preserving/conserving our ships and personnel.
We spoke about drones for fleet defense on another topic yesterday, possibly carried on LTAs for dropping when the fleet is threatened with recovery of the drones (at least the onese not exploded) for cyclic operations. But the LTAs could also provide a forward radar (SPY-6?) for over the horizon detection of any incoming missiles - and that time would make a difference in defending a fleet. We could also carry a LOT of SM-3/6 or LRASM-ERs (Rapid Dragon concept) on LTAs with heavy lift capacity (and yes, they are faster than ships...and can rise and drop very quickly - not sitting ducks at a distance).
This could be a quick force multiplier for our side to make up for hulls and VLTs.
wha....? a convert! yahoo!
yer on the right track friend. just gotta stretch that a leeeeetle bit. 'n see "LTA" as something much, much more than they have heretofore been. (them blimps 'n such-like)
toss in "stealthy as a B-2" (do-able), amphibious, rigid -hulled instead of glorified balloon, and much faster.....speed to 150kts
(you sure you ain't read "Ghost Ships" on my blog?
Well, I don't know about a convert...I've been a proponent of LTA for a long time. I think they made a huge mistake discontinuing the prior programs....they solve a lot of problems from logistics/heavy lift (with increased speed) to a variety of offensive options. And due to the heavy lift capacity, they can carry a lot of power for things like radar, lasers, etc.
Despite their lack of experience, one thing I rarely see discussed is the quality of the people they are putting in their Navy. We know they have a LOT of people. We know a lot of them are smart; they are near half the STEM post grads in our country and Europe, much less their own country.
Could they not be "recruiting" heavily of the more intelligent age group for Navy, at the expense of ground pounders? There is of course still a learning curve at an institutional as well as individual level, but if the players are smart the learning curve may be accomplished fairly quickly.
Yeah, the "STEM test scores" thing is also a scam. We test EVERYONE. They (and many other countries, by the way) only test the elite schools - thus test scores are higher. If you go to the normal man on the street, the ground pounders and seamen, they aren't the people that are smart, can run things, and make money.
wasn't really talking about scores. They are almost the majority of technical post-grad and post-docs in our country.
Yes, that is and has been a stupid move. Thought was that it would expose them to our society and mitigate towards peace. Of course, they are military affiliated, to a large part, and directed as to what they study and bring back. BUT...it also means NONE of them are on ships or in planes NOW. It would take more than a little time to create an effective force, or integrate, those folks into formation.
I agree with respect to the scientists; they aren't going to the fleet.
With respect to "expose them to our society" etc., read this book recently and it was mentioned. The author was an early believer in the strategy but believes it failed.
https://www.defensenews.com/opinion/intercepts/2015/01/27/book-review-the-hundred-year-marathon/c
The PRC is building a war winning Fleet. They intend to own the world.
And no one is doing anything about it.
It will come down to Nuclear exchanges to fight it on our part.
EMP followed by nuclear and conventional strikes on CONUS and Alaska bases, Guam, US Bases in Japan and Hawaii and Australia. Taiwan will vote themselves back into Communist China. Expect massive 5th column attacks in the U.S. those Chinese military males and secret CCP police stations are not here for sight seeing….
Taiwan will go without a shot fired. We are naive to expect China to not use preemption regarding nuclear weapons. They know that the elite captured in our current government will likely not strike back with nuclear weapons.
There are two possibilities. The Taiwanese are the French in WWII when the Germans invaded...got kicked in the teeth, outmaneuvered, then gave up to save their cities and culture from destruction. Of course, they still remembered WWI mostly fought on their ground.
Or they could be the Ukrainians and ready to fight. Who knows? I am leaning towards Ukrainians, but the cultural ties to China may make more of a difference to them that it did to the Ukrainians.
Chinese CCP influence is heavy in Taiwan culture, business and government. They have leverage The Taiwanese will fold when they see the US Navy get its teeth kicked in on the first couple of weeks of the war.
Ummmhmmmm....well, the Chinese war boy contingent is heard from again. This type of thinking is what will get China in trouble.
I don’t know what you’re implying. I’m speaking a simple truth that we are going to get our shit handed to us on the first rounds of the coming war with China. I’ve been sitting on the porch since 2004 -2005 discussing what China will or won’t do and it’s coming to fruition. I’m pointing out China is a fucking existential threat. I also got “disinvited” from recurring seawall tactical and strategic symposiums when I was a TAO in Enterprise back in the 2000’s because I had the gall to raise my hands and shoot holes in a certain strike group admiral’s goatfuck of a tactics session. In front of 150-200 of my peers. So spare me your pejorative.
You know exactly what I'm implying - show me your evidence (beyond a shit bird opinion) not of BUILDING things but of the ability of the Chinese to use them competently, to fight a war, that considers our capabilities. Sure we could and should have MORE capabilities, but we are not helpless nor will we "get our teeth kicked in". Again, thinking like that - if believed - will lead the Chinese to miscalculate and make a huge mistake. It is anything but a "simple truth".
You don't underestimate the enemy, but you also don't make them 10-foot tall and invincible.
Perhaps you got "disinvited" because you were, as you are here, acting more as a bomb-throwing troll than as someone making a thoughtful contribution to discussion - as a professional officer should in a tactical discussion, for instance. If you were ANYTHING approaching your verbiage, attitude, and arrogance here in front of an Admiral you were neither professional nor did you have due care for your career in the Navy. Good way to end up with locked heels before the mast.
The problem, Horatio, lies not in the stars but in yourself.
The time to prepare was yesterday. The coming war will be a decades long slug fest and won’t be won or lost by either side in the first years. It will be interesting how the American public reacts to Taiwan folding in the first weeks but it won’t matter because the Chinese aggression that starts the war will make Pearl Harbor and 9-11 look like child’s play.
We have a lot going for us that will allow us to win in the end, but we will be a changed republic. The fury of Americans against the Chinese will be unlike anything ever experienced.
It won't take that long...because China depends on importing 60-70% of its food and fuel. They might cause trouble around Taiwan - depending on how it plays out. But in the long run, as you say, they will lose their ships, subs, and planes and be cut off from trade by a blockade they can't break...because they would have to sortie into the open ocean and out from under their shore-based missiles.
Right now they are cutting down trees and ripping up parks to build farms on whatever land they can. Yep...they're preparing for war. But so are we.
Want to talk reality? We can sortie just the remaining B-1 fleet and launch over 1,000 LRASMs in one sortied, from beyond the range of China to stop them. If their fleet is in the Taiwan Strait, or port, they are going to lose most of their capital ships in one sortie. And we can do it again. And again. No fleet, no invasion.
That is not something that can, or will, go on for decades. The result will be the collapse of the CCP and the end of the fight in at most a year or two. Because they've sold their people on an easy fight by their great military heroes...their Wolf Warriors. When reality hits, it won't be pretty.
I don't think we are a constitutional republic anymore as it is. Whatever comes out of the next protracted conflict, whether with a peer or internal, won't be directly descended from the first Republic at all, except perhaps in ideology if we are lucky.
Then again, the people of Taiwan know that Mao basically destroyed actual Chinese culture and what exists in the PRC today is a Marxist shell of the real McCoy.
Ive always thought the Chinese timetable would center around the SSGNs retiring, and the actual date would be determined by where the fwd CVN is. That BG will get EMP'd, removed from the playing field, and the CCP can even use that for propaganda- how they magnamimously saved lives aboard the "threatening" US ships by not actually sinking them. Of course, strikes on Guam and Japanese bases wouldnt be as polite, but the CVBG would be blamed as the trigger...
Good points.
And if they pop a nuke on a battlegroup...which is what that EMP is...they will get a reciprocal nuke and it all goes down hill from there. They aren't going to go there. They want nukes so we won't invade....which we never would.
"EMP followed by nuclear and conventional strikes on CONUS and Alaska bases"
Really, why bother with the follow-up? With a suitable EMP attack (not two or three air bursts, but dozens) they should be able to sit back and watch 80% of us starve.
Indeed
Only a couple, they can get on the hotline and say, "Renegade general fired the missiles. We're sorry, and we're going to execute him immediately". Try to avoid a counterstrike. But if they launch enough for a guaranteed effective strike, we take them out with our nukes.
You could be right about that; we might not even respond in kind
Sadly, I believe this is the most likely Chinese course of action.
They have their strategic goals carefully thought out, and are making their plans to achieve them, likely by force of arms, with the odds very much on their side.
But, perhaps their mere overwhelming forces, home field advantage and "elite capture" investments, and the unpleasant realization that we are in fact outnumbered and a hollow force with leaders unqualified to fight a peer level war just might result in a humiliating decision to meekly accede to whatever demands China makes. Sounds like a better deal than having all our Pacific base wide out and nuke strikes on the homeland. Just the effect of a single EMP attack would set back our civilization to the pre-electric era, and Americans today are totally unprepared for that and urban areas would be uncivilized cannibalistic death traps within a week.
The Chinese may even be thinking in terms of military patrols up our major waterways with the equivalent of "treaty ports" to protect their newly won interests. Very similar to what we did in China from the 1850s to 1940s.
Building a fleet is one thing. Operating that fleet at war tempo is another.
That is true and learning real war tactics OJT has a very steep learning curve.
DC can think as far as the next election and is driven to enforce they/them pronouns above actual warfare training.
The silver lining is the Chinese will never catch up with us on the pronoun front.
lol. Sad, but lol
Pass the flask.