Of Course They Were Designed as Aircraft Carriers

So, really ... no one here really thought the IZUMO Class was just an ASW carrier, did you?

Come on over to USNIBlog and see the least surprising bit of naval news so far this year.

The Unaffordable Empire or the Sustainable Republic?

The Economist's Lexington brought back to me one of my hobby horses that I have not ridden in awhile; the fact we cannot afford the military we think we need - even if we could, we shouldn't.

The world changes, constantly. We once stood athwart the world because the rest of the world was so relatively poor. That world is gone.

The rest of the world is getting richer, and as a result regional powers will naturally grow. We are not declining - the delta is just shrinking.

We have become accustomed to having overmatch to such a degree that we are setting ourselves up for overreach trying to live in a past that was never that great to begin with.

I can hear intellectual shields going up all over the place - again - so just take a moment to ponder Lexington's last two paragraphs;

A less-noted problem is that America’s unthinking reverence for its fighters is forestalling a badly needed reappraisal of how it organises its forces, and to what end. The fact is, America’s foreign-policy doctrines envisage a degree of global dominance, based on military might, which its volunteer force is now too small to enforce. And to increase the force sufficiently, on current trends, appears unaffordable or impossible. “This force cannot carry out that foreign policy,” concludes Andrew Bacevich, a historian and former army officer, who happens also to be a Gold Star father.

This constitutes a looming crisis, which could logically end in one of two ways. Either America will have to reintroduce conscription. Or it must curtail its military ambitions. Neither outcome is palatable to American policymakers, however, so the problem is seldom discussed. Maintaining the happy delusion that America’s forces are ideal and irreproachable makes that easier. But reality cannot be deferred indefinitely.

We need to finish up the wars we have. Give our friends enough notice to get their defenses in place, as we need to come home.

Let me a repeat again what I have put out for over a decade; remove all land-based maneuver forces from overseas. Maintain a few combined bases with allies for training, logistics, and the occasional surge exercise. No forward deployed TACAIR. Exceptionally limited forward deployed naval forces, if any.

We are a maritime, air, and space power. That is our competitive advantage. We were not designed to sustain, nor do we need, a large standing Army. We need to demobilize and shift to a largely balanced towards National Guard and Reserved land forces. If our rich friends are under threat from ground forces, then they should reflect that in their military investments. We can argument them from the sea, air, and space - and if needed, begin to mobilize land forces.

Our military spending could, and should, be 30% less than it is right now if we really believe that we should be a mercantile republic. If as a nation we decide that we are a global empire in style and action - then keep doing what we are doing.

We aren't. We shouldn't. 

Does anyone really think the path we are on is that desirable or sustainable? Ignore the domestic spending challenge - that isn't "our" wheelhouse. Do you want to be a citizen of a republic blessed with relatively good neighbors and large oceans - or an empire that desires and is expected to bleed blood and gold to protect people who won't protect themselves, or to rule people who have no desire to be ruled? 

Must we always be searching for dragons to slay, both real, imagined, or of our own creation?

Unmanned's Manning Problem

Thanks to Rachel Karas over at InsideDefense, a little bit of an untold aspect of the unmanned aircraft side of the house slipped out.

Lt. Gen. Steven Kwast said at the Air Force Association's winter conference the service doesn't have to settle for a personnel-to-aircraft ratio about seven times greater than manned aircraft require, and needs to find a way to manage those...

Did you catch that? Seven times.

Remember, the greatest utility of UAS is that there is no possibility of human loss to the enemy in case one is shot down. The PAO, PSYOPS and INFO OPS - not to mention all the associated POW issues - unwanted effects of losing a manned aircraft are huge, and quickly move a tactical loss to a strategic handicap.

Those who say they are a great manpower saver? Well ... notsomuch.

We are still in the early days of this chapter in the expansion of unmanned systems decades in the work. To make sure we tailor our platforms and CONOPS - not to mention budgets - we need to be as open as possible to the cost-benefit of the manned unmanned mix.

Personnel costs are not a secondary concern.

Fullbore Friday

You've heard it here before; character isn't built - it just waits for a moment in time to be demonstrated.

You have it or you don't. 

As three young JROTC members demonstrated recently, they had it.

Three cadets killed in the Parkland school shooting are being posthumously honored for their acts of heroism.

The Army is recognizing Peter Wang, 15, and Martin Duque and Alaina Petty, both 14, with the Medal of Heroism for the danger and extraordinary responsibility they took on during last week’s shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School.

Friends said the three always had a sense of duty and honor as members of the school’s junior ROTC.

Also Tuesday, the U.S. Military Academy at West Point posthumously admitted Peter to the prestigious academy on the day of his funeral. It’s where Peter dreamed of attending. He could have been in the Class of 2025.

Peter died in his JROTC uniform last Wednesday, holding the door open to allow others to escape, as gunman Nikolas Cruz shot and killed 17 at Marjory Stoneman, authorities and witnesses said.

“He saved people’s lives,” said Victoria Downing, one of Peter’s classmates, at the funeral service. “He deserves it.”

West Point conferred the letter of admission, along with honorarium tokens, to his family, local West Point alumnus Chad Maxey said.

Gov. Rick Scott also has directed the Florida National Guard to honor all three cadets. Alaina was honored at her funeral Monday, as Martin will be at his funeral Saturday.

That's about all I will have to say about that.

Fullbore young men and lady. Fullbore.

Diversity Thursday

Our Coast Guard has a lot to answer for.

The only reason this fits in to DivThu is because one of the most caustic efforts of the diversity industry is how it metastasizes in to the legal system. 

The nation’s highest military court has thrown out the 2012 rape conviction of a Coast Guard enlisted man because admirals and prosecutors packed the seven-member jury with five women, four of whom held jobs as advocates for victims of sexual assault.

In a 5-0 ruling that could change how the military conducts sex abuse trials, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces unleashed caustic criticism of all involved.
...
the Coast Guard commandant down to an appellate court to the original trial judge ... contributed to a “stain on the military justice system.”
...
The opinion, delivered by Judge Margaret A. Ryan, said the four admirals who played a role in assembling the officer and enlisted jury pool produced an illegal “gender-based court stacking.” She suggested that the admirals’ role amounted to unlawful command influence

Politics and agendas have always seeped in to our legal system. Only transparency, a free press, and a lot of money for good lawyers to force the truth out keeps that in check.

There is a special kind of evil in humans that will willingly - heck joyfully - move to destroy another person's career, family, friends, and private life for no other reason than to move a narrative forward. To promote an agenda. Or worse, to satisfy an internal need to feed some other craven desire.

This isn't the first case, and it won't be the last - but it does beg a few questions.

- After over a half a decade, how does a man get his reputation back?
- Who will be held accountable for warping the legal system?
- What will happen to them?
- What can we put in place to prevent this from happening again?

Most of us know both victims of sexual assault and those who have been accused of same. I've been around enough to know both more than I like to remember.

While we should all be focused on victims on sexual assault, not every accusation is true. There are legion of false charges, as there all with all crimes. 

If it has not already found its way in to your life, it will. You will have someone in your circle accused of sexual assault of one degree or another. If you are friends with someone who has been charged with any kind of sexual crime, do not automatically assume they are guilty. If you are truly a friend, be a friend. 

They probably will be abandoned my most people they know. Their personal and professional lives will be shattered and will never be the same regardless of what comes out of the legal system. If they are military, even if they are found not guilty in civilian courts, the military can and probably will take them to Court Martial. Double jeopardy is a thing, and is a Kafkaesque experience to watch someone go through.

If guilty, they will have family that will need support - and even they will need support if you are willing to provide it. Remember, the legal system is not totally about guilt and innocence - it is often about winning or losing. Even if guilty, he may not be. Even if they admit their guilt or you are sure of it and you cannot be in the same room as them ever again - remember their family and friends and support them.

If they are found not guilty ... and you wait until then to come back to them - don't expect to pick up where you left them off. They have a life to rebuild. They probably will have little use for such a poor quality material that abandoned them when things were the worse.

Hat tip Ken.

Not quite the Morocco Crisis, but a little ...

There are some interesting things happening in the Indian Ocean.

I'm over at USNIBlog pointing out a spot of bother over in the Maldives.

Come pay a visit and tell me what you think.

Obama's Syria Blink

How did we find ourselves where we are in Syria with the Russians back, the Iranians stronger, and the Turks playing Ottoman?

In a wide ranging interview with the short-lived former SECDEF Chuck Hagel at DefenseNews, he outlines a moment in time that simply has not been explored enough by the press - any of the press.

So much of the problems we have in the Middle East and North Africa can be traced right back to the simply wrong world view held by President Obama.

The cuddling up to the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt during his apology tour. The bash-and-shrug in Libya. The premature withdrawal from Iraq. Pretty much everything with Iran. Do I need to go on?

I'll let this pull quote speak for itself.

Ponder.

Was it a mistake not to go into Syria with force and respond to the use of chemical weapons? 

Well, we were ready to do it, as you know. It was a decision made by the National Security Council, a unanimous decision. I strongly favored it. At the last minute the president decided not to do it. I think it was a mistake, I’ve said that. We wouldn’t have had to kill volumes and volumes of people — there was a way to do some things to Assad’s government. And that was the intent. That was the strategy. So it is what it is. Would that event have changed the course of things in Syria? I don’t know.

But also I would say [that] at the time, the Russians were not there. I think it sent a very clear message to the Russians, very clear. When the Russians saw [us not attacking Assad], that action, that was clear to them that we were not going to be players in Syria and we were not going to be involved. And what they did is they took a little naval base, which was nothing, in Latakia province, and used that to build up a huge air asset campaign, troops on the ground, intelligence, navy. And now they’ve got a significant set of sophisticated assets in Syria and now really hold the cards in Syria.

See WESTPAC from the Chinese Shore

In an article about great power conflict from an exceptional Special Report from The Economist, The Future of War, there is a superb challenges we face vs. China in that theater.

First there is optimism;

Jonathan Eyal of RUSI, a defence think-tank, (says) demographic factors and changing social attitudes in China suggest that there would be little popular appetite for conflict with America, despite the sometimes nationalistic posturing of state media. Like other developed countries, the country has very low birth rates, fast-decreasing levels of violence and large middle classes who define success by tapping the latest smartphone or putting down a deposit on a new car. In a culture of coddling children prompted by the one-child policy, Chinese parents would probably be extremely reluctant to send their precious “snowflakes” off to war.

It outlines well what we have described here over the years as the Most Likely COA for the Chinese - and the most smart; the Chinese Porcupine. 

The risk that the West will run into a major conflict with China is lower than with Russia, but it is not negligible and may be growing. China resents the American naval presence in the western Pacific, and particularly the “freedom of navigation” operations that the US Seventh Fleet conducts in the South China Sea to demonstrate that America will not accept any Chinese claims or actions in the region that threaten its core national interests or those of its allies.

For its part, China is planning to develop its A2/AD capabilities, especially long-range anti-ship missiles and a powerful navy equipped with state-of-the-art surface vessels and a large submarine force. The idea is first to push the US Navy beyond the “first island chain” and ultimately make it too dangerous for it to operate within the “second island chain” (see map). Neither move is imminent, but China has already made a lot of progress. If there were a new crisis over Taiwan, America would no longer send an aircraft-carrier battle group through the Taiwan Strait to show its resolve, as it did in 1996.

How such tensions will play out depends partly on America’s allies. If Japan’s recently re-elected prime minister, Shinzo Abe, succeeds in his ambition to change the country’s pacifist constitution, the Japanese navy is likely to increase its capabilities and more explicitly train to fight alongside its American counterpart. At the same time other, weaker allies such as Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia and Indonesia may conclude that bowing to Chinese military and economic power is a safer bet than hoping for a declining America to fight their corner.

The greatest danger lies in miscalculation through a failure to understand an adversary’s intentions, leading to an unplanned escalation that runs out of control. Competition in the “grey zone” between peace and war requires constant calibration that could all too easily be lost in the heat of the moment.

It is this that we need to be preparing for with our friends around China's maritime borders. WESTPAC is their "Gulf of Mexico" and VACAPES, and we should keep that in mind as we travel in those areas. The Chinese are bold, and we are looking weak, that is also something to remember given the Chinese culture of how the weak should be treated by the strong.

Fullbore Friday

Sometimes you have to bring up a ship that did just solid, warship duty. For example, I give you the USS MANCHESTER (CL-83).

That is all for FbF today - but I leave you with something to ponder.

As we discuss what is or is not littoral warfare - check out this picture. All the stealth in the world won't help you here --- and a lack of damage control will kill Sailors wholesale. That is why the selling of LCS is almost a crime.





First posted JAN2010

Don't let, "That's a Ford for 'ya" - become a snarky catch-phrase

Are you up to speed on the latest issues with the USS FORD (CVN 78) and EMALS?

I've got the goods for 'ya over at USNIBlog.

Come visit and give it a read.

What the Pros Study

Come on people ... I know you love you some logistics!

Don't run away ... David Beaumont has a very good and readable post up titled, HOPING AND PLANNING FOR THE BEST: UNDERSTANDING WAR WITHOUT LOGISTICS, that is well worth your time as he kicks off a full year of logistics.

No, seriously ... it is what he does.

Of note;

Security is being recast as international logistics systems and supply chains contribute to the reshaping of the global order, and strategic policy intertwines itself with economics and industrial power to create objectives for the military forces protecting national interests (it has, of course, been ever thus). The growing logistics needs of combat forces creates pressures at a time where ‘small wars’ are being fought on a shoestring budget, where the increasing outsourcing of military activities binds operational success with the fortunes of commercial opportunity, and the growing complexity and diversity of supply creates troubling issues for military security.
...
There is little discussion – nearly a complete absence – of how logistics shaped the Western counter-insurgency operations which followed. With forces ‘hoping for the best, and planning for the best’, small logistics footprints and inadequate strategic consideration severely curtained British Army operations in Basra in the early years of its deployment in Iraq. The need to secure supply-routes and distribution tasks restricted the frequency of combat patrols, and entrenched forces into ‘forward operating bases’ thus reducing the tactical mobility of the force. Similar experiences in Helmand, Afghanistan, were encountered. More and more significant resources had to be directed to logistics missions, drawing upon helicopters to overcome lacking equipment and the state of lowering materiel readiness as the supply chain failed to keep up.

Keep an eye on him for logistics with an Aussie accent. Hopefully, with very little slang.

Those are not simple sand bars China is building

If you haven't checked with the latest imagery of what China is building in the South China Sea, then you've missed a sea change.

What was at one time little more than sandbars with a shack and a spotty pier, are now a series of scaled down Diego Garcias.

Via the UK Daily Mail;

The dramatic military build-up is shown in pictures taken from a height of 1,500m (4,920 feet) in the last six months of 2017, according to the Philippine Daily Inquirer.

One of the fortresses is situated on Panganiban, a reef which a United Nations-backed court has previously ruled belongs to the Philippines, it is reported.

On the three largest reefs, Kagitingan, Panganiban and Zamora, runways appeared to be ready to receive military aircraft.

As an old TLAM guy, I fully recognize a nice target set when I see one - but there is a lot more to coercive power in peace than what might happen in full war;

China had in December defended its construction on disputed islands as 'normal' after a US think tank released new satellite images showing the deployment of radar and other equipment.

The military expansion also ties into a broader Chinese initiative, called One Belt One Road.

The vast infrastructure project, launched by Chinese President Xi Jinping, is set to build a 'new Silk Road' of ports, railways and roads to expand trade across an arc of countries through Asia, Africa and Europe.

Hat tip BB.

A long, irregular, and forever war; a discussion with Dan Green - on Midrats

As we enter our 17th of ongoing conflict in Afghanistan and the global struggle against terrorism, why is this war taking so long? Where are we making progress, where are we stalled, and where are we falling back?

There are no easy answers to these questions, if there were they wouldn’t need to be asked.

We will discuss these and related issues for the full hour this Sunday from 5-6pm Eastern with author Dr. Daniel R. Green, a Defense Fellow at The Washington Institute for Near East Policy focusing on counter-terrorism, counter-insurgency, and stability operations in the Middle East and Central Asia.

He is a reserve officer with the U.S. Navy with multiple deployments to both Iraq and Afghanistan, along with holding several senior advisory positions dealing with the Middle East, Central Asia, and NATO/Europe in the Office of the Secretary of Defense and the State Department.

Dr. Green recently completed his third book, In the Warlords' Shadow: Special Operations Forces, the Afghans, and their Fight with the Taliban that we will use as a stepping off point for our conversation.

Join us live if you can, but if you miss the show you can always listen to the archive at blogtalkradio or Stitcher. 

If you use iTunes, you can add Midrats to your podcast list simply by clicking the iTunes button at the main showpage - or you can just click here.

Fullbore Friday

No one will attack you. No one has a reason to. You are neutral. You have not armed yourself with anything aggressive that might provoke them.

Your unit is not finished training. You are nowhere near the front. You have plenty of time before you have to confront the enemy.

You are in a modern city full of civilians. There is no reason for anyone to attack you.

You are only 17 in 1940.

You have made it to 2018. You've had a full life - one whose experience is a witness to the false assumptions of others.

If you pardon the rough translation, I give you Corporal William 'Bill' Ramakers, Royal Netherlands Marines, the last veteran of the Battle for the Maasbruggen as the Dutch call it - or the 1940 Battle for Rotterdam in the Anglosphere.

Bill recently passed away after 95 years;

As a 17-year-old marine, Bill and his comrades fought for days against the German invasion force in Rotterdam during May of 1940. Because of their steadfast resistance, the marines, dressed in dark blue uniforms, were nicknamed by the Germans the "schwarzen Teufel": the Black Devils.

What an interesting path he took.

Ramakers became prisoner of war after the battle, but managed to escape a short time later. After the liberation of the south of the Netherlands in 1944, Ramakers left Scotland and Camp Lejeune in the United States for marine training.

After extensive training, with with the Marine Brigade he was supposed to participate in the invasion of Japan if that country did not surrender. With no invasion, Ramakers left for the former Dutch East Indies, and returned to the Netherlands in 1948. In 1951 with his young family, Ramakers emigrated to Canada.

Fullbore Corporal ... and congrats on a long and well lived life.

The pic is from his return to The Netherlands in 2014 with a visit by the King and Queen.

As for the Battle of Rotterdam, this is a great video overview of a brief part of WWII mostly unknown outside The Netherlands.

Diversity Thursday

The diversity industry has a unique ability to make both idiots and cowards of people.

A perfect example this week comes from the Home Country;

Mandarins at the Foreign Office invited staff to wear Islamic headscarves for the day, claiming they symbolised ‘liberation, respect and security’.

The event was last Thursday, just days before Britain marked the 100th anniversary of women being given the vote.

We all know where this came from. Their internal Diversity Commissariate had a wonderful idea that only a sexist, racist, homophobic bigot would oppose ... so of course it would be approved and supported. You know the drill;

An internal email to Foreign Office staff said the event was taking place on February 1 between midday and 2pm inside the department’s headquarters at Whitehall.

It read: ‘Would you like to try on a hijab or learn why Muslim women wear the headscarf? Come along to our walk-in event. Free scarves for all those that choose to wear it for the day or part of the day.

‘Muslim women, along with followers of many other religions, choose to wear the hijab. Many find liberation, respect and security through wearing it. #StrongInHijab. Join us for #WorldHijabDay.’ Posters for the event, featuring Foreign Office branding, were circulated. World Hijab Day, an annual event, was also marked in the Scottish Parliament.

As there seemed to be no one in the Foreign Office that had a shred of intellectual courage, we'll have to let others make the point;

The department was accused of backing the ‘institutional oppression of women’ by giving away taxpayer-funded headscarves at a walk-in event to mark World Hijab Day.

The event was held as women in ultra-conservative Iran burned their headscarves in protest at being forced to wear them or face arrest and prison.
...
Many Muslim women across the world have shunned the hijab – which covers the hair and neck but not the face – as an antiquated, oppressive, religious tool.
...
Maajid Nawaz, who heads the counter-extremism think-tank the Quilliam Foundation, criticised the department for ‘supporting World Hijab Day and the institutional oppression of women through modesty culture, while brave Iranian women risk all to remove hijab tyranny’.

Anti-hijab activist Masih Alinejad told Reuters: ‘We are fighting against the most visible symbol of oppression. These women are saying, “It is enough – it is the 21st century and we want to be our true selves.”’

Bad Liberty, but Good Location

India and China are busy in the IO. The bases are not where I would want to be stationed, but interesting when you put them on the big map.

I'm reviewing over at USNIBlog.

Come on by and give it a read.

Kissinger Has Your Answer, if you are Willing to Listen

Walter Russell Mead over at WSJ has a quick summary of Kissinger's view of today. There is so much here to agree with, and hopefully Kissinger, a WWII vet still with us, is able to still influence the right people in the right places.

I once heard someone ask Mr. Kissinger what he saw as the most important trends in the world. I braced myself for an hour of sage but complex geopolitical monologue. Instead he replied with a single sentence, albeit one with more substance than most books published in the field: “You must never forget that the unification of Germany is more important than the development of the European Union, that the fall of the Soviet Union is more important than the unification of Germany, and that the rise of India and China is more important than the fall of the Soviet Union.”

How those two rise in parallel will be the story of this century. We are a "mature" and settled power, they are not.

His next point, which should be obvious, is ignored every day by people of both parties. Culture, tradition, and history are critically important.

People do not think the same. Not all cultures are equal. History does not pick a side, and unquestionably does not owe you a future.

It has often been said, sometimes by Mr. Kissinger himself, that he is a “realist” while many of his critics are “idealists.” There is some truth there, and Mr. Kissinger’s most trenchant opponents attack what they characterize as his cynical willingness to achieve policy objectives through morally dubious or even reprehensible means. But the gap between Mr. Kissinger and the rest cuts deeper. He isn’t suspicious merely of rosy idealism; he is suspicious of those who think ideologically about foreign policy, reasoning down from first principles and lofty assumptions rather than grounding their analysis in the messiness and contradictions of the real world.
...
Historical study and a lifetime of experience have taught Mr. Kissinger the folly of assuming that Vladimir Putin, Xi Jinping or Ayatollah Khamenei thinks like American leaders do or wants the same things. Each of these men and their supporters are grounded in cultural and historical imperatives that do not always mesh with ideas about Adam Smith, liberal order and win-win negotiating.

Finland Ain't Playing Games

Remember that Finland only has a population of 5.5 million, 1.7% of the population of the USA. She only spends 1.4% of her GDP on defense. She only has a wee bit of coastline in the cul-de-sac of the Baltic ... but she is nestled up to Russia and a bit of a history with her.

All that being noted;

The U.S. State Department has cleared a pair of first-time missile sales for Finland’s navy that could top $730 million in total.
...
The first package covers 68 Evolved Seasparrow Missiles (ESSM) and one ESSM inert operational missile, along with associated parts and technical expertise, with an estimated cost of $112.7 million. These weapons are for use on Finland’s new Squadron 2020 class Corvette ships.

The second package, which comes with an estimated price tag of $622 million, covers a mix of surface launched Harpoon weapons, which will go on Finland’s Hamina class ships, Multirole Corvette ships, and Coastal Batteries.

Included in this package are 100 RGM-84Q-4 Harpoon Block II Plus Extended Range (ER) Grade B Surface-Launched Missiles, 12 RGM-84L-4 Harpoon Block II Grade B Surface-Launched Missiles, 12 RGM-84Q-4 Harpoon Block II+ ER Grade B Surface-Launched Upgrade Kits, four RTM-84L-4 Harpoon Block II Grade B Exercise Surface-Launched Missiles, and four RTM-84Q-4 Harpoon Block II+ ER Grade B Exercise Surface-Launched Missiles.

On a per-capita basis, that would be like the USA buying 8,882 Harpoons - if you only count the 100 Block II ER.

She's not in NATO (yet), she does not have a large navy - but she has enough to distract the Russian Baltic Sea Fleet ... and that will do well enough.

Now, if she will just grow to 2% GDP or a bit more like her Estonian neighbor, she will be much more on track. Small nations need to have big spines.

How Many Votes do Marines Have?

The slow, painful death of the of our best ally's military - a nation that cannot even defend her home waters anymore - should be a reminder to everyone what happens when the number of politicians who want to buy votes via the welfare state outnumber those who have an understanding of history and what it takes to maintain a nation's ability to defend itself. 

Perhaps I am being unkind to politicians, because the larger part of the problem are the citizens who don't really care, they just want more Soma;

The United Kingdom will lose its ability to conduct specialised amphibious operations, if leaked plans considered in the National Security Capability Review (NSCR) are not cancelled by the new Modernising Defence Programme (MDP), according to the Commons Defence Committee.

In its Report, 'Sunset for the Royal Marines?', published today, the Committee warns that further reductions in the Royal Marines and the disposal of the amphibious ships HMS Albion, and HMS Bulwark, would be “militarily illiterate” and “totally at odds with strategic reality”.

The NSCR, has been carried out by the National Security Adviser rather than by the Ministry of Defence. It has led to persistent rumours of major cuts in conventional forces. Up to 2,000 Royal Marines – about 30% of current strength – would be lost, together with the two amphibious assault ships which are essential for landing personnel, heavy equipment and supplies over a beach.
...
The Report sets out the series of challenges faced by the Royal Marines in recent years. Since 2011, numbers have declined from 7,020 to 6,580; training and exercises have been cancelled; and surveys have shown a tangible drop in morale. The disproportionate contributions made by the Royal Marines to UK Defence – not least in providing up to half of all UK Special Forces personnel – are being put at risk by inadequate funding.

The Report also rigorously examines the role of HMS Albion and HMS Bulwark. It concludes that their disposal would remove any prospect of the Armed Forces achieving a successful amphibious landing with a substantial force.

When Labour gets back in power?

You can read the full report here.

Fullbore Friday

In 2009 we lost a lion of the Cold War. 

 It is amazing, especially in NYC, who could be just around the corner.

Of all the things I spent my time on there, wouldn't it have been great to have audited a class of his, or at least asked him if I could buy him a cup of coffee?

Major General Béla Király, PhD - Hungarian Army and Member of the Hungarian Parliament.

Well done on a life well lived. From the NYT's Obit;

Gen. Bela K. Kiraly, the commander in chief of the revolutionary forces in the Hungarian uprising of 1956, who for more than half a century was considered a folk hero in Hungary, and who returned there in 1989 to serve in its post-Communist government, died Saturday in Budapest. He was 97.

story at Brooklyn College, where he taught from 1964 to 1982. Before returning to Hungary, he lived for many years in Highland Lakes, N.J.

A former major general in the Hungarian Army, General Kiraly was the senior military leader of Hungary’s short-lived revolt against Soviet forces in the autumn of 1956. As commander in chief of the Hungarian National Guard and the leader of the Budapest garrison, he commanded a force of 26,000 insurgents and 30,000 Hungarian Army troops who had joined them.

When the uprising began on Oct. 23, General Kiraly was weak, ill and exhausted; he had just been released after spending five years in prison, four of them on death row, on manufactured charges of espionage. After the uprising was put down violently by the Soviets less than two weeks later, he fled to the United States.
...
Bela Kalman Kiraly was born on April 14, 1912, in Kaposvar, in southwest Hungary. After graduating from the state military academy in Budapest, he served as an army officer in World War II. In later years, General Kiraly said in interviews that he had tried to join the Russian side in the war rather than serve with Hungary’s fascist forces, but was unable to do so.

During the war, Mr. Kiraly commanded a battalion of 400 Jewish slave laborers at the Ukrainian front. Disobeying orders from his superiors, as The Jerusalem Post wrote in 1993, he “put the 400 men under his command into Hungarian uniforms and treated them humanely.” For his actions, he was honored in 1993 as a Righteous Gentile by Yad Vashem, the Holocaust memorial authority in Jerusalem.

Captured by the Russians in 1944, Mr. Kiraly was sent to Siberia. He and two dozen of his men managed to escape from the train carrying them there and walked over the Carpathian Mountains back to Hungary. Mr. Kiraly was made a general in 1950 and appointed leader of the military academy in Budapest.

In 1951, General Kiraly was arrested on charges of subversion, sedition and spying for the United States. (The charges are now widely believed to have been concocted by Hungary’s Stalinist leaders.) He was given a death sentence, later commuted to life at hard labor. In October 1956, General Kiraly was among the prisoners paroled by the Hungarian government in a futile effort to appease mounting popular unrest.

When the uprising started, General Kiraly was in a Budapest hospital. “I was skin and bones coming out of five years of imprisonment,” Agence France-Presse quoted him as saying in 2006. “I was far from being healed, so I had to slip out of the hospital because the doctors would not let me go.”

At the request of Imre Nagy, a liberal Communist who was Hungary’s prime minister from 1953 to 1955 — and who was returned to office at the start of the uprising — General Kiraly organized the loose confederation of students, workers and other insurgents into a well-oiled fighting force.

“In 24 hours, I created a professional military staff,” the general said in the Agence France-Presse interview.

But it was no match for the hundreds of Soviet tanks that rolled into Budapest on Nov. 4. Pursued by two tank divisions, General Kiraly and a small band of resistance fighters headed for Austria. As they approached the border, the general ordered his men to blow up a nearby ammunition dump. With the Soviet tanks enveloped in the resulting cloud of smoke, General Kiraly and his men slipped through the border fence.

General Kiraly made his way to the United States, where he remained for the next 33 years. In 1958, Mr. Nagy and other leaders of the uprising were executed by Hungary’s post-revolutionary government. Had General Kiraly returned, he would most likely have met the same fate.

There is a lot more, please read it all.

Men like are the ones that make you ask; "What have I really done with the life that I have been given?"

I used to be a regular at a small restaurant that was owned by a husband and wife team. He was an officer in the Hungarian Air Force and escaped after the fall. He told me almost all of the other officers in his unit were executed immediately after capture; he kept running, made it to Austria then the USA. He still proudly kept a picture of himself in uniform with him.

A proud people. I hope this century is better to the Hungarians than the last.

First posted in 2009.

Keeping an Eye on the Long Game: Part LXXII

Most everyone here has probably heard about the Chinese test installation of a "railgun."

I don't know what it is, but it is big.

Three standard sized containers are mounted on the ship’s open deck immediately aft of the turret, which are believed to be the generators and other associated equipment needed to power a railgun. Other modifications on the ship seen in the published photos also include a new additional observation gallery and an unknown sensor atop the original superstructure, which is believed to be a control room and observation platform related to the railgun.

The bow doors used for conducting amphibious operations has also been welded shut. It is not known where the modified ship was photographed, although the Haiyangshan was previously known to serve with the PLAN’s East Sea Fleet. The ship has made at least one voyage post-modification, suggesting underway trials to test the seaworthiness of the modifications has begun.

When I saw that barrel, I immediately thought of this picture of our shore mounted test vehicle we bolted on a JHSV a bit ago - just like the author of the article did.

Yes, that sure looks familiar.

A couple of things. First, we don't know if it is a railgun, or if it is - how far along their testing is. That being said, I don't think the PLAN would do that install if they didn't think it was a go. We'll see.

Second, if it is, don't be shocked. Have you looked at all the advanced positions in technology and engineering at our finest engineering schools we openly give to Chinese nationals? Are you are up to speed on the huge amount of espionage they are engaged in while our FBI invests much of its intellectual capital playing political games in DC?

It would be zero shock to me if the Chinese did not have all the plans and testing results from our railgun program. As a matter of fact, given the record, I would be shocked if they did not.

If it makes you angry that the Chinese keep stealing our stuff so they can use it against us later, then by all means, get angry - but don't be mad at the Chinese. Our counter-intel operations have been a disgrace for years. Get mad at the FBI and those who have oversight of them. Get mad at our universities who gladly give up limited advanced spots to fully paid Chinese students over native-born students that only pay in-state or need scholarship money.

Let not your heart be troubled, some good things are happening on our end too. The Japanese - whose submarines are exceptionally good - are leaning in strong;

An effort that was initiated by the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force (JMSDF) to modernise its undersea warfare capabilities in 2012 is on track to deliver the planned fleet of 22 diesel-electric submarines required for the country’s defence needs by the early 2020s called for under the Japanese government’s 2013 National Defense Program Guidelines, according to a JMSDF official.

Speaking at the Undersea Defence Technology Asia seminar at the Asia Defence Expo & Conference Series (ADECS) 2018 in Singapore, Captain Takahiro Nishiyama, deputy director of the Plans and Programmes Division at the Ministry of Defence’s (MoD’s) Maritime Staff Office, revealed that seven of the service’s 82 m Oyashio-class submarines – which have a surface displacement of 2,800 tonnes – have already completed service-life extension work to date.

The seven boats have received extensive refits during their second and third maintenance cycles, which have been planned to bring the vessels to “almost the same level of that of the latest model [Souryu-class] submarine” while extending their service lives.

If the Japanese would double their build so that by 2030 there are more like 35-45 Japanese SS in commission - that would keep things sporty.

In other weapons development, we are moving hopefully in another area faster than the Chinese can steal it; lasers.

The US Navy (USN) has selected Lockheed Martin’s .. for the fast-track development of a high-energy laser weapon system for testing on a DDG 51 Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer.
...
HELIOS will leverage proven mature technology to field a 60-150 kW class high-energy laser weapon system

See the kW? Remember the low-end laser we installed on the PONCE a few years ago? It is 30kW.

Build a little; test a little; learn a lot.

China is playing the Long Game - I think as an institution we are too, at last.

We need to broaden our efforts. We need to up counter-intel, neck down training China's scientists, encourage our friends to carry a fair bit of the security load, and keep building bit by bit.

Oh, being that we are talking railguns ... I have to embed the video...