The problem as stated many times. The US has a 4-8 year vision of the world, The Chinese a 50+ year outlook. As seen in the current debt limit kerfuffle, they are only pushing the can down the road another 2 years, not providing a real solution.
What you are missing is the dependance of China on trade. Without a global system of trade China cannot survive. The global system depends on maritime traffic, and in our lifetime the guarantor of safe traffic over the oceans of the world has been the United States Navy.
Now, put yourself in a leadership position in China. Your nation cannot survive without access to worldwide markets. But, the nation who kept open the sea lanes, has shown that it is unable to continue to build and maintain a Navy sufficient to throttle nation-state interference with trade, to bat down pirates, and discourage privateers. What would you do?
The answer is what China is doing. They see that we are not serious people. Our navy to too small, too poorly designed, and too inefficient to guarantee the free passage of merchant ships over the waterways of the world. A nation dependent on trade has to have a navy capable of insuring freedom of the seas. Now that the U.S. Navy is declining, the Chinese are simply filling a vacuum.
Fat and stupid, also known as hubris, is not a good plan. The U.S. has been suffering from a lack of “come to Jesus” events, similar to the Imperial Japanese Navy “victory disease” of early 1942. I hate to think what it will take to get the Potomac Fleet off its collective derrière. I phrase it that way because at present there is no visible indication that Big Navy actually understands the swamp it blithely sits in. The last time I looked, we had more flag officers than ships. That is really sad. Lean and mean might actually get more done for the country as a whole, and the Navy specifically.
Difficult point to drive home when the the likes of Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang shouts "without China all is lost"and Jamie Dimon going to China to strongly endorse "no decoupling". China saw an opening in South America when the good ole US of A provided nothing to the countries of South America during the Covid "pandemic" while China dumped masks, ventilators, gloves, and hazmat suits. In Kenya the saying is "when Chinese come we get hospital, when English come we get stern lecture about the Chinese". Doesn't take rocket science to realize that business drives improvement in people's lives, NOT the guvmint political "best and brightest" (that's sarcasm)..
What the charts scream to me are SSNs and a method to cut the belt/road play. We need the ability to counter the CCP stranglehold on key sectors of the US economy and we need the tools to threaten their trade routes. CBG's won't survive to do that. SSNs and unsinkable Islands (think Malta) will. Indonesia and Australia are key
Who got the credit for opening up Japan in 1853? It wasn't Millard Fillmore. Admiral Perry got the credit. Dick and Hank, probably at the behest of capitalist entrepreneurs who saw a great opportunity to convince a billion Chinese to increase their hemlines by 3 inches and buy American cotton, Rayon and Banlon to do it, wanted to open up China. It was to be Dick's legacy, and having his terrific intellectual German friend along lent credence to "This is a good thing". And, by damn, Dick wasn't going to let some upstart Admiral take the credit. I am sure there was a push by the Southern Baptist Missionaries to Christianize the heathen Chinee just like the push to Christianize the Philippines when we liberated Spain's few remaining colonies in 1898. In their day it all seemed like good intentions. How did it work out? The destruction of the Russian Fleet in 1905. The Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere 1931-1945. Millions dead in the Philippines Insurrection 1899-1902 after we usurped their near victory in the battle for independence from Spain, and those stubborn Filipinos remained as solidly Roman Catholic as they had for the previous 350+ years. China? One way trade deal, deindustrialization of the U.S. We completely financed China's rise in exchange for cheap goods. Cheap as in "cheap". I only grind this ax in hindsight because life, lived long enough, can turn anyone from a cheery optimist into a cynic. I was triggered by the last word in Brettbaker comment.
I am not rooting for Balkanization, Sid, but my little corner of the world in the extreme Western tip of the Florida Panhandle (AKA, Baja Alabama) is sure worth fighting for.
When Caesar nailed Jesus to the cross, they had a crime problem. Two Thousand years later is it a surprise that some crimes are still being committed. So far in human history we seem unable to completely stamp out crime. But, the idea we live in some sort of post-apocalyptic cesspool, is simply wrong. Look around you, live is good.
The FBI's annual crime report for 2021 says violent crime decreased by 1% from the previous year. The FBI tracks seven major types of crime, and Property crime - theft, auto theft and burglary - has been falling regularly for the last 20 years. Violent crime - aggravated assault, murder, rape and robbery - increased at least in 2020, but remains lower than it was in the 1990s.
The outlier is murder and gun violence. There's been a dramatic uptick in murder over the last several years. FBI data shows that it rose nearly 30% from 2019 to 2020 - the largest single-year increase ever recorded in the U.S. But, while the murder rate is much higher than it was just three or four years ago, it is significantly lower than it was in the 1990s. As much as 30-40%.
Our broadcast media wants eyeballs. They get us to watch by inciting emotion, and one of the easiest emotion to incite is fear. They stoke the lizard brain; and the emotion of fear and anger take over. Fox 6 isn’t going to get viewers to tune in to an investigation into the radar absorbing capability of naval paint, but they are going to viewer tuning in to the “killer at large.”
The fact of the matter is that our society is flourishing. Folks live better in America than they ever have in human history. Free enterprise, free trade and individual liberty are an irresistible force. Don’t fall for the lies of fear mongers. sic itur ad astra!
Having gotten my USNR-A (RAD) in mid-1971, I completed grad school,at UHManoa (HI) doing InfoSci / Ops Research while Dr. Jim Dator was launching the mid-Pacific’s Hawaii Research Center for Futures Studies (@HRCFS) with emphasis on brainstorming multiple plausible scenarios. Unsure if any Viet Nam Era influencers were tuned into that mode of decision-making.
He also published ...
“Mutative Media: Communication Technologies
and Power Relations in the Past, Present, and Futures”
Sal I emailed you this in Feb 2021. No response. Maybe I'm SPAM. If I'm classified crazy, please block me.
Hello Sal
Thanks for your insightful writing and the guests you manage to get on Midrats. It's my favourite podcast. I write to ask about a specific approach to naval tactics that occurs to me out of my work background.
I'm not from a nav/mil background but I write analytics models for a large (non-defence) (redacted country) government agency on very large datasets. I have to adapt a lot of different approaches to automatically deliver thousands of decisions every day in that information-imperfect context. There are tolerances for 'how much error can we afford?' etc. From what I read about carrier groups and the challenges they face (where to place each vessel in the context of the imprecisely-known location of enemy platforms (esp anti-ship missiles and subs)) in decision-making, one particular method occurs to me.
Method
With computing having become so cheap, it is feasible to take information that is known and very rapidly mix that with thousands of possible variables to generate billions of scenarios that are within the realm of possibility. Having done that, we can score or rate hundreds (or thousands) of potential decisions we might take and automatically score each of those choices according to the results it would produce in each scenario. The potential decision that scores best is, in many cases, the best. I find you can only sustain a handful of goals (3-4 is ideal) for such a scoring system.
Adaption to naval tactics
Inputs to the crunch would be:
1. Geo/hydrographic grid,
2. The known/suspected/unknown location of enemy platforms and their reach (each platform is a variable - where numbers are not precisely known, we simply put enough platforms in the game to meet the estimate),
3. Each platform needs a speed, endurance cycle point attached to it (or randomised for each scenario, where this is unknown), acknowledging some platforms have complex variables - particularly optical satellites which would be an important ingredient on the Chinese side,
4. Numerically quantified goals for the score - which could include:
a. reducing uncertainty by detecting enemy assets in a given area,
b. avoiding detection by or engagement with particular platforms,
c. or engaging particular platforms on favourable terms.
I acknowledge that even with a good chunk of known values, a crunch would generate trillions of scenarios, and that the level of complexity is governed by the grain of the timescale and how many steps into the future you crunch. However, the neat thing about modern computing is we can generate this in seconds and we don't need humans to personally comprehend each scenario - we can score the potential decisions and summarise and sample some of the scenarios or outcomes (if we like).
Much like any well-trained and tested model, where this would come in really handy is operationally: the 30-60 minute decision cycle (assuming that to be an appropriate cycle) when a fleet is actually sailing. Where do we best put the frigates, or the ASW assets? Which direction and speed to take now, in 15 minutes? Where do we put AWACS or patrols? What could allied assets do of most value to the goals?
At a very basic level: it's card counting in a casino on a scale that humans can't do.
Maybe all of this already exists. I have no idea. However, I have had a peek into the analytics use of quite a few non-defence organisations (including private sector) and there is nothing about the Western defence establishment that, from the outside, hints anything like this exists.
If I was the PLAN, this is exactly what I'd be working on, especially given my superior numbers and my relative lack of tactical and combat experience. It's the sort of trick that could turn a novice chess player into one that, although not a grand master, could inflict serious damage. The West should be working on this if only as an exploratory exercise into how the PLAN would seek to secure a clear advantage despite their inexperience.
Thanks for reading and if you are aware of any machine learning or statistical (the above being the later) in this area I'd be grateful to receive any pointers.
UNCLAS Graduate studies paper that J.R. Geary & I co-authored (1971) also influenced these ongoing developments per Dr. Robert O. Briggs at HICSS-34 (2001) conversation. Learned USAF-SAC (Omaha, NB) also enabled ongoing (2009-ThinkLets) refinement.
Well done. The graphics tell the story. It's not a good one if you're an American.
Once again, history rhymes:
Stalin was reportedly sceptical — he is reported as asking,
“What fools would sell us their secrets?”
In 1946 the British Government approved the Soviet purchase of 10 Derwent and 10 Nene jet engines.
The problem as stated many times. The US has a 4-8 year vision of the world, The Chinese a 50+ year outlook. As seen in the current debt limit kerfuffle, they are only pushing the can down the road another 2 years, not providing a real solution.
Recent Rx update posting from Center for Naval Analysis (CNA) ...
https://twitter.com/cna_org/status/1664255486550773760?s=61
What you are missing is the dependance of China on trade. Without a global system of trade China cannot survive. The global system depends on maritime traffic, and in our lifetime the guarantor of safe traffic over the oceans of the world has been the United States Navy.
Now, put yourself in a leadership position in China. Your nation cannot survive without access to worldwide markets. But, the nation who kept open the sea lanes, has shown that it is unable to continue to build and maintain a Navy sufficient to throttle nation-state interference with trade, to bat down pirates, and discourage privateers. What would you do?
The answer is what China is doing. They see that we are not serious people. Our navy to too small, too poorly designed, and too inefficient to guarantee the free passage of merchant ships over the waterways of the world. A nation dependent on trade has to have a navy capable of insuring freedom of the seas. Now that the U.S. Navy is declining, the Chinese are simply filling a vacuum.
Fat and stupid, also known as hubris, is not a good plan. The U.S. has been suffering from a lack of “come to Jesus” events, similar to the Imperial Japanese Navy “victory disease” of early 1942. I hate to think what it will take to get the Potomac Fleet off its collective derrière. I phrase it that way because at present there is no visible indication that Big Navy actually understands the swamp it blithely sits in. The last time I looked, we had more flag officers than ships. That is really sad. Lean and mean might actually get more done for the country as a whole, and the Navy specifically.
A good Gut Bustin' bloody Navy war might change their minds quite Riki tic.
Difficult point to drive home when the the likes of Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang shouts "without China all is lost"and Jamie Dimon going to China to strongly endorse "no decoupling". China saw an opening in South America when the good ole US of A provided nothing to the countries of South America during the Covid "pandemic" while China dumped masks, ventilators, gloves, and hazmat suits. In Kenya the saying is "when Chinese come we get hospital, when English come we get stern lecture about the Chinese". Doesn't take rocket science to realize that business drives improvement in people's lives, NOT the guvmint political "best and brightest" (that's sarcasm)..
And the graphs cannot be denied, great job.
What the charts scream to me are SSNs and a method to cut the belt/road play. We need the ability to counter the CCP stranglehold on key sectors of the US economy and we need the tools to threaten their trade routes. CBG's won't survive to do that. SSNs and unsinkable Islands (think Malta) will. Indonesia and Australia are key
Found the original series of infographics.
1960
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FKiRAOyXMAcHK7x?format=jpg&name=4096x4096
1970
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FKiQuN7WQAANHd1?format=jpg&name=4096x4096
1980
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FKiQhX_XMAE1rXN?format=jpg&name=4096x4096
1990
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FKiQKO6XwAMqSTo?format=jpg&name=4096x4096
2000
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FKiPwk-WQAAblBw?format=jpg&name=4096x4096
2010
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FKiPSnVXIA43v5c?format=jpg&name=4096x4096
2020
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FKiOOWoXMAIq4h9?format=jpg&name=4096x4096
At the time, Dick and Hank were thinking 100 Soviet divisions not pointed at Western Europe.
They also thought the Chinese would act like good liberal internationalists.
Who got the credit for opening up Japan in 1853? It wasn't Millard Fillmore. Admiral Perry got the credit. Dick and Hank, probably at the behest of capitalist entrepreneurs who saw a great opportunity to convince a billion Chinese to increase their hemlines by 3 inches and buy American cotton, Rayon and Banlon to do it, wanted to open up China. It was to be Dick's legacy, and having his terrific intellectual German friend along lent credence to "This is a good thing". And, by damn, Dick wasn't going to let some upstart Admiral take the credit. I am sure there was a push by the Southern Baptist Missionaries to Christianize the heathen Chinee just like the push to Christianize the Philippines when we liberated Spain's few remaining colonies in 1898. In their day it all seemed like good intentions. How did it work out? The destruction of the Russian Fleet in 1905. The Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere 1931-1945. Millions dead in the Philippines Insurrection 1899-1902 after we usurped their near victory in the battle for independence from Spain, and those stubborn Filipinos remained as solidly Roman Catholic as they had for the previous 350+ years. China? One way trade deal, deindustrialization of the U.S. We completely financed China's rise in exchange for cheap goods. Cheap as in "cheap". I only grind this ax in hindsight because life, lived long enough, can turn anyone from a cheery optimist into a cynic. I was triggered by the last word in Brettbaker comment.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MZcZrF77w9Y&ab_channel=VladimirGLenin
Beyond the military/economic context, this country is suffering serious societal rot all across the spectrum.
More and more people are going to question whether its all even worth fighting for...
https://cwbchicago.com/2023/05/chicago-mayor-neighbor-killed-woman-baseball-bat-dumped-body-in-alley-charges.html
I am not rooting for Balkanization, Sid, but my little corner of the world in the extreme Western tip of the Florida Panhandle (AKA, Baja Alabama) is sure worth fighting for.
It's where I'm from as well...
Still get there often, but the great cities are swirling down the toilet.
No matter how insulated one may feel...or perhaps because many feel they are largely unaffected...is a significant danger.
https://cwbchicago.com/2023/05/man-shot-by-chicago-cops-in-august-2020-sparking-waves-of-looting-has-been-found-guilty-of-attempted-murder-of-police.html
https://cwbchicago.com/2023/05/3-days-after-getting-probation-a-kia-boy-is-charged-with-attempted-robbery-and-home-invasion.html
When Caesar nailed Jesus to the cross, they had a crime problem. Two Thousand years later is it a surprise that some crimes are still being committed. So far in human history we seem unable to completely stamp out crime. But, the idea we live in some sort of post-apocalyptic cesspool, is simply wrong. Look around you, live is good.
The FBI's annual crime report for 2021 says violent crime decreased by 1% from the previous year. The FBI tracks seven major types of crime, and Property crime - theft, auto theft and burglary - has been falling regularly for the last 20 years. Violent crime - aggravated assault, murder, rape and robbery - increased at least in 2020, but remains lower than it was in the 1990s.
The outlier is murder and gun violence. There's been a dramatic uptick in murder over the last several years. FBI data shows that it rose nearly 30% from 2019 to 2020 - the largest single-year increase ever recorded in the U.S. But, while the murder rate is much higher than it was just three or four years ago, it is significantly lower than it was in the 1990s. As much as 30-40%.
Our broadcast media wants eyeballs. They get us to watch by inciting emotion, and one of the easiest emotion to incite is fear. They stoke the lizard brain; and the emotion of fear and anger take over. Fox 6 isn’t going to get viewers to tune in to an investigation into the radar absorbing capability of naval paint, but they are going to viewer tuning in to the “killer at large.”
The fact of the matter is that our society is flourishing. Folks live better in America than they ever have in human history. Free enterprise, free trade and individual liberty are an irresistible force. Don’t fall for the lies of fear mongers. sic itur ad astra!
Not sure what you are going on about Tom...
What I am describing is not a Fox news fantasy.
I live it every day...
https://cwbchicago.com/2023/06/lincoln-park-robbery-surge-continues-four-women-targeted-overnight-chicago-police.html
Even in Chicago crime has gone down since the 1990's.
Keep your blinders on Tom....
And the societal rot isn't just about crime.
Nicely done. Clear, compelling and sobering. Time to rethink some basic concepts for our future.
Having gotten my USNR-A (RAD) in mid-1971, I completed grad school,at UHManoa (HI) doing InfoSci / Ops Research while Dr. Jim Dator was launching the mid-Pacific’s Hawaii Research Center for Futures Studies (@HRCFS) with emphasis on brainstorming multiple plausible scenarios. Unsure if any Viet Nam Era influencers were tuned into that mode of decision-making.
He also published ...
“Mutative Media: Communication Technologies
and Power Relations in the Past, Present, and Futures”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Dator?wprov=sfti1
Obama Administration? The alarm was rung on April 1, 2001.
Sal I emailed you this in Feb 2021. No response. Maybe I'm SPAM. If I'm classified crazy, please block me.
Hello Sal
Thanks for your insightful writing and the guests you manage to get on Midrats. It's my favourite podcast. I write to ask about a specific approach to naval tactics that occurs to me out of my work background.
I'm not from a nav/mil background but I write analytics models for a large (non-defence) (redacted country) government agency on very large datasets. I have to adapt a lot of different approaches to automatically deliver thousands of decisions every day in that information-imperfect context. There are tolerances for 'how much error can we afford?' etc. From what I read about carrier groups and the challenges they face (where to place each vessel in the context of the imprecisely-known location of enemy platforms (esp anti-ship missiles and subs)) in decision-making, one particular method occurs to me.
Method
With computing having become so cheap, it is feasible to take information that is known and very rapidly mix that with thousands of possible variables to generate billions of scenarios that are within the realm of possibility. Having done that, we can score or rate hundreds (or thousands) of potential decisions we might take and automatically score each of those choices according to the results it would produce in each scenario. The potential decision that scores best is, in many cases, the best. I find you can only sustain a handful of goals (3-4 is ideal) for such a scoring system.
Adaption to naval tactics
Inputs to the crunch would be:
1. Geo/hydrographic grid,
2. The known/suspected/unknown location of enemy platforms and their reach (each platform is a variable - where numbers are not precisely known, we simply put enough platforms in the game to meet the estimate),
3. Each platform needs a speed, endurance cycle point attached to it (or randomised for each scenario, where this is unknown), acknowledging some platforms have complex variables - particularly optical satellites which would be an important ingredient on the Chinese side,
4. Numerically quantified goals for the score - which could include:
a. reducing uncertainty by detecting enemy assets in a given area,
b. avoiding detection by or engagement with particular platforms,
c. or engaging particular platforms on favourable terms.
I acknowledge that even with a good chunk of known values, a crunch would generate trillions of scenarios, and that the level of complexity is governed by the grain of the timescale and how many steps into the future you crunch. However, the neat thing about modern computing is we can generate this in seconds and we don't need humans to personally comprehend each scenario - we can score the potential decisions and summarise and sample some of the scenarios or outcomes (if we like).
Much like any well-trained and tested model, where this would come in really handy is operationally: the 30-60 minute decision cycle (assuming that to be an appropriate cycle) when a fleet is actually sailing. Where do we best put the frigates, or the ASW assets? Which direction and speed to take now, in 15 minutes? Where do we put AWACS or patrols? What could allied assets do of most value to the goals?
At a very basic level: it's card counting in a casino on a scale that humans can't do.
Maybe all of this already exists. I have no idea. However, I have had a peek into the analytics use of quite a few non-defence organisations (including private sector) and there is nothing about the Western defence establishment that, from the outside, hints anything like this exists.
If I was the PLAN, this is exactly what I'd be working on, especially given my superior numbers and my relative lack of tactical and combat experience. It's the sort of trick that could turn a novice chess player into one that, although not a grand master, could inflict serious damage. The West should be working on this if only as an exploratory exercise into how the PLAN would seek to secure a clear advantage despite their inexperience.
Thanks for reading and if you are aware of any machine learning or statistical (the above being the later) in this area I'd be grateful to receive any pointers.
Kind regards
Seems like concept worth pursuing as RADM Grace M. Hopper might respond.
Checkout following navigation guide:
“These Facilitation Guides are intended for you to prepare a specific event,
and to use ‘on the go’ in a live session.”
https://www.h3uni.org/resource-library/
Scan related online Medium article:
https://designforsustainability.medium.com/methods-for-collaborative-regeneration-transformation-cocreation-d2a45a71c86e
Related article on “Regenerative Leadership” cites Futurist Buckminster Fuller’s “Operations Manual for Spaceship Earth, 1969”
https://medium.com/age-of-awareness/regenerative-leadership-96a52a4f1e10
Supporting USN Captain Hopper’s innovative UNODIR (UNless Otherwise DIRected) initiatives enabling JCS-WWMCCS Group Decision Support Systems (GDSS) “Fail-Faster” prototypes was FOCCPAC-CO’s Mentor (USN Captain Joseph R, Geary) ...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_C._Richardson_(admiral)?wprov=sfti1
UNCLAS Graduate studies paper that J.R. Geary & I co-authored (1971) also influenced these ongoing developments per Dr. Robert O. Briggs at HICSS-34 (2001) conversation. Learned USAF-SAC (Omaha, NB) also enabled ongoing (2009-ThinkLets) refinement.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_supported_brainstorming?wprov=sfti1
FWIW - Here’s part of six segment series comparing DSS vs. GDSS problem-solving methods:
https://youtu.be/dMKswfJrOXw
Pinned EarthDay2023 Twitter Thread @BurkhartRj displays cumulative zero-sum game impacts of GDP-based practices.
Alternative GDSS “Genuine Progress Indicator” @GPIndicator metrics were implemented by Hawaii State Government ...
Recent Q&A efforts found Hawaii working model is based upon Maryland-DNR (Department of Natural Resources) metrics.
https://web.archive.org/web/20150908063231/http://www.dnr.maryland.gov/mdgpi/mdgpioverview.asp
Q: Why not hold DoD / JCS-GDSS Brass accountable for implementing more effective GPIndicator metrics?
A: Because unanticipated (cumulative consequence) burdens are by default deferred for future generations.
+++
Seriously I don't think the US can regain what it had.
The enemy is inside the wire and they are us.
Effective use of “Implications Wheel” graphics showing issues/barriers/challenges …
https://www.implicationswheel.com/
https://psyop4awareness.substack.com/p/99824638