Diversity Thursday

There are but a few options here, none of which speak well of our Navy or its leadership – but we have to look at where this is with clear eyes.

I have tried to be as clean-slate optimistic as possible with the CNO, Admiral Gilday. On a lot of actual Navy issues, I find him incredibly well informed, intelligent, and thinking in the right direction – but that is only part of his job. 

Another part of his job is to be a good steward of the position of the CNO, the Navy’s apolitical stance in line with our national traditions, and to ensure that all his Sailors can expect fair and equal treatment and consideration under his command. In the last respect, I can no longer give what I otherwise consider good man and exceptional officer the benefit of the doubt. 

He has become a willing accomplice to division, sectarianism, and the radicalization of our Navy. He has positioned himself and his Navy as supporters of sectarianism and division for one of a few reasons:

1. He is trying to keep the worst people circling around the Beltway – the diversity industry and its DOD/DON embedded nomenklatura – at bay, sated, and leaving him alone so he can pursue “the important things.”

2. He is terrified that he will find himself in the center of some Star Chamber trial for not being “part of the solution” and being made another example of leading a systemically racist organization, not being an ally, and needing to be removed.

3. He is a true believer. In the zero sum game that is accessions and promotions, he believes that one of the primary considerations need

What ever reason, the results are the same and the negative effects on our Navy will be long lasting.

I don't really have to say all that much more, I'll let the CNO tell you for me.

He is looking at offering Navy advancement exams in multiple languages.

He is open to different standardized testing requirements based on self-identified race.

That sets a hell of a precedent. 

Go to the 51:15 mark.

He knows this, but I'll put it here anyway: if he goes forward with this, he is laying a minefield for himself and his Navy in the future. Here's why.

For a simple example: if you have three cohorts and they are approved based on different gate requirements for objective standards that predict performance (they do). Group-1 has to break 100. Group-2 break 90. Group-3 only 75.

At every point and milestone, if they are evaluated and promoted based on performance and objective criteria, Group-1 will always do better, be selected more often, and simply do their job better ... on average ... than Group-2 and Group-3. 

The "crisis" of difference not only never ends, the ongoing crisis is baked in at the very beginning. As a byproduct, your organization will also perform less well because you have more people with lesser ability to do the needed job dragging average performance down.

If you set up different standards you also encourage an already existing problem to get worse; identification fraud by people who should be in Group-1 trying to be evaluated as Group-2 or 3. You also force the growing number of mixed-race people to "pick a side" when they are not one or the other. Forcing people to classify themselves like this in order to position themselves for advantage is cancerous and unethical ... but it is encouraged by this system. This doesn't make one from many ... this makes many from one.

If people who promote this evil are allowed to expand their world view, it metastasizes throughout the system. 

Since the middle of the '00s I've warned here about the growing number of billets being dedicated to the diversity industry nomenklatura - growing in number and power. They have no desire to fix any problem, only to keep them active. That is how they justify their paycheck and very existence. 

Well meaning leaders have given in year after year to their demands for more billets and more power out of fear, fellow travellership, or at worst - simply to make them go away and be someone else's problem.

They advance and advance with little to no pushback. They wait for a ripe time - and then they push extra hard.

There was no time since the early 70s where racial tension was higher than this summer. As the "time was ripe" the embedded diversity bullies made their move across a wide front. 

Another example made it my way this month, this time from USNA. What do you notice about this?

Fully in line with the CNO's efforts in the first part of this post; meritocracy is identified as a barrier. 

How much longer will we allow this cancer to go unopposed?

I will finish this DivThu with this reminder: this is Trump's Navy doing this. This is Trump's CNO. This is Trump's diversity and inclusion nomenklatura. Except for his last few months, his government did nothing to push back against this cadre driven by sectarianism and feeding off of division.

Next time those who support a color blind nation where people should be judged by the content of their character and not the color of their skin decide to back a candidate, pick better. Demand better. Demand action early and continuous. 

Nagorno-Karabakh War's Maritime Lessons Learned?

There was not a sea battle to be fought in that little war ... but there are lessons for our Navy all in it.

I ponder my #1 lesson over at USNIBlog.  

Come by and ponder with me.

Egads on NGAD

I don't know who lead it will be or what crisis will cause it, but at some point we will realize that the golden calf idol of a procurement process we seem to think is a god is not only false, it is evil.

An entire generation going or two of acquisition professionals have grown up in a system that consistently fails the nation.

It doesn't have to be this inefficient or this ineffective, but it is. 

Latest datapoint is the overthinking and self-doubt is the replacement for the Super Hornet.

We have individuals who know what needs to be done - and if they had their way we would be a long way down the road to a modern fighter to replaced the butched-up 1970s runner-up that we have now ... but our self-imposed and voluntary system we work under won't let them. The amount of time this takes is simply gobsmacking - but we don't change.

Example. This sounds correct and sound.

The Navy is leaning toward replacing its fleet of Super Hornets with another manned fighter that will work with emerging unmanned aircraft concepts under the umbrella of the service’s Next Generation Air Dominance program.

Yes, that could have been said a decade ago and more - as a matter of fact it was, however ...

Rear Adm. Gregory Harris, who leads the chief of naval operation’s air warfare directorate (OPNAV N98), said Tuesday that the aircraft following the Super Hornets will “most likely be manned,” but that the Next Generation Air Dominance program will include a mix of both manned and unmanned platforms.

“As we look at it right now, the Next-Gen Air Dominance is a family of systems, which has as its centerpiece the F/A-XX – which may or may not be manned – platform. It’s the fixed-wing portion of the Next-Gen Air Dominance family of systems,” Harris told attendees at a Navy League breakfast. 

Is that clear? Sound confident?

Of course not. Harris knows what we need ... but ... 

“But we truly see NGAD as more than just a single aircraft. We believe that as manned-unmanned teaming comes online, we will integrate those aspects of manned and unmanned teaming into that,” he continued. “Whether that – we euphemistically refer to it as our little buddy – is an adjunct air-to-air platform, an adjunct [electronic warfare] platform, discussion of could it be an adjunct advanced early warning platform. We’ll have to replace the E-2D [Advanced Hawkeye] at some point in the future, so as we look to what replaces that.”

The Navy has been inching toward a family of systems approach for NGAD over the last several years. USNI News previously reported the service was leaning toward a manned fighter aircraft as part of the NGAD family of systems. The Navy last year quietly stood up its NGAD program office.

He can't see the future through a cloud of good idea fairies, snake oil salesmen, rent seekers, and people hanging on long enough to maximize their retirement. 

The system we have is so ossified and impeded by accretions, we can't just fiddle with it - it needs to be ripped up by the root and thrown in a chipper. 

DOD/DON won't do it either - Congress must act. 

Our acquisition systems isn't just not fit for purpose, it is an obstacle to producing the weapons our nation needs to win ... or even have a chance to win.

If you think this is a normal, efficient, and effective system - you are delusional.

Raids, Probes, & Scouting Parties

The latest iteration of the People’s Republic of China’s highly successful island hopping campaign in the Southwest Pacific has brought us to another round of the US national security nomenklatura and chatterati pounding away at their keyboards trying to figure out not just what is going on, but what China’s goals are.

Everyone continues to talk each other in circles, your humble blogg’r included. Towards the end of last week it started to dawn on me that perhaps part of the problem is that “we” continue to think ourselves in to the same intellectual box canyons. As a result, at the end of each iteration we don’t make progress and the Chinese get more islands.

The last decade saw the Chinese get the low hanging fruit with little substantive pushback or consequences, effectively creating a new normal in the South China Sea concerning who controls what. There really is nothing new here. As a matter of fact, it is old school, “This is mine, do something about it." mentality. As the saying goes, the mighty do what they will, the weak suffer what they must.

OK, there I go again – the usual intellectual box canyon. It sounds right, makes sense, explains a lot, but at the end of the chain, it just does not “feel right.”  Why?

Let’s go back to the “old school” comment above and pick at it.

Is that really “old school?” Am I suffering, as many other US natsec people may be, from an unfortunate byproduct of playing “Risk” too much? The Risk-Trap seems to get us in a lot of trouble trying to figure out what is going on in the real world. The game is all based on grabbing bit of territory in a manner to gain world conquest. It also sounds right, makes sense, explains a lot, but at the end of the chain, it just does not “feel right.”  I mean, is Irkutsk really that important? Really?

I don’t think Risk is all that popular in China, and perhaps that is the problem; cultural context. 

Old school, especially in the Chinese context, is OLD. I always try to keep in mind that they have a continuous culture going back 3,000 years just with the written word. Only the Jewish people have a longer record. The USA is less than a 10th of that age.

Our military history is also dramatically different, and it is there that I am trying to look at what the Chinese are doing in a different context. It is much more than China being a continental power while – contrary to Army fever dreams – the USA is a maritime and aerospace power. No, much deeper than that.

Though flavored with the "people’s army" insurgency foundation that is the modern Chinese military (even their navy is the People’s Liberation Army Navy), the Chinese military tradition, habits, and reference points go back thousands of years steeped in the fundamental nature of steppe warfare.

Where the only American experience in steppe (Great Plains) warfare was a few decades at the end of the 19th Century against … well … a people who immigrated from the Asian steppes over 10,000 years earlier, the Chinese for thousands of years faced Mongols, Manchurians, and other people who inhabited the grasslands and deserts on the periphery of the Han heartland.

What are the characteristics of steppe warfare? Raids, Probes, and Scouting Parties. Light, fast moving parties crossing empty spaces to isolated pockets of important terrain, cities, and resources. First in small groups to check the reaction, strength, and resiliency of the locals, and if the odds look right, sending for larger forces to take what is worth taking, plundering what is worth plundering, and laying waste to anything that might encourage the previous inhabitants to come back.

Perhaps we need to be thinking and studying more about that cultural reference as we try to get our minds around what is happening in the Western Pacific.

As the great philosopher Lloyd Cole encouraged, lean over on the bookcase if you really wanna get straight.

Because I’ve already read his entire canon twice, at first I thought of Hopkirk's works, specifically "Setting the East Ablaze" & "Foreign Devils on Silk Road." 

Where to go from there? This weekend led me down the rabbit hole of bits and pieces elsewhere of the Mongol conquests – and to the Russian experience with the same, especially their 17th and 18th century expansion of the Russian Empire in to Central and Eastern Asia. 

From there, I found a gold mine of “I wish I didn’t have a paying gig so I could read all of these this week” list from the University of Michigan’s Erik Hildinger’s article Nomadic Steppe Warfare.

In the article he has a simply fascinating reading list. I need more bookcases.

The subject of nomadic steppe warfare is narrow enough that no general work of any depth seems to have been written exclusively on this topic apart from Hildinger 1997. However, there are useful chapters or passages on the campaigns and tactics of various nomadic warrior societies in other general works on the history of warfare, notably Keegan 1994, Jones 1987, and Lot 1946. Grousset 1970, monumental and easily available, although primarily a general political history, touches on the details of steppe-style warfare in its first chapter. Although these last four works do not treat nomadic steppe-style warfare in exhaustive detail, they are informative as to its general characteristics and, by contrasting it with the more familiar aspects of warfare as practiced by sedentary peoples, they are helpful.

Davies, Brian L. Warfare, State and Society on the Black Sea Steppe, 1500–1700. London: Routledge, 2007.

As the title suggests, this book covers more than steppe warfare, though it has sections of some specificity regarding the equipment, tactics, and strategy involved in this area. Lithuanian, Russian, Polish, and Crimean Tatar interests are covered. It appears to be the only book-length treatment in English to focus on Russia’s expansion to the south.

 

Di Cosmo, Nicola. Warfare in Inner Asian History, 500–1800. Handbuch der Orientalistik 8. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 2002.

Detailed academic study of warfare with, and between, nomadic peoples and their empires. There is a good deal of emphasis on Chinese responses to nomadic opponents, and a section dealing with the Manchu integration of the Mongols into their state in as they prepared to conquer China.

 

Drews, Robert. Early Riders: The Beginnings of Mounted Warfare in Asia and Europe. New York: Routledge, 2004.

DOI: 10.4324/9780203389928

A brief general history by a well-known academic. It treats the domestication of the horse, its use in warfare, steppe-style tactics, and the author’s view of the aims of those who practiced nomadic warfare.

 

Grousset, René. The Empire of the Steppes: A History of Central Asia. Translated by Naomi Walford. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1970.

Treats briefly the essential military characteristics of the steppe warrior, though with some exaggeration about the practical range of the composite bow. Though dated, the book is still useful and was long a standard text on the history of the many steppe tribes of central Asia. Now superseded by Sinor 1990 (cited under Modern Works Treating Specific Peoples).

 

Hildinger, Erik. Warriors of the Steppe: A Military History of Central Asia, 500 B.C. to 1700 A.D. New York: Sarpedon, 1997.

Apparently the only general history of nomadic steppe-style warfare. It contains chapters dealing with nomadism, the essential combination of horse and bow, strategy and tactics, and the activities of the most significant of the nomadic warrior societies, or those settled societies that retained or adopted their military techniques.

 

Jones, Archer. The Art of War in the Western World. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1987.

Chapter 2, “The Diversity of the Medieval Ways of War,” treats briefly, but perceptively, the Mongol approach to war from a primarily strategic and logistical viewpoint.

 

Keegan, John. A History of Warfare. New York: Vintage, 1994.

Chapter 3, “Flesh,” discusses in some detail the various aspects of nomadic life that work to mold nomads into successful warriors.

 

Lot, Ferdinand. L’art militaire et les armées au Moyen Âge. Paris: Payot, 1946.

Several chapters treat the more significant nomadic warrior societies with whom the West had contact. The work is long (two volumes) and detailed. There is unfortunately no English translation.

Warfare is downstream from culture. Perhaps we all need to do a better job of getting to know the Chinese military culture, and then we can get a better grasp of what they are doing as Chinese, and not what we think they are doing as if they were Americans.

In steppe warfare, what do the raids, probes, and scouting parties look like? 

What follows? 

Biden and Mahan: National Strength and Maritime Power Are Still Linked

The last year has seen a growing bi-partisan consensus that the United States and the People's Republic of China are in competition to set the global order for the next century. After a year to firmly set in the minds of national security leaders on both sides of the aisle, we find ourselves at a moment when Congress and the Executive branch of government are both in the mood to strengthen our nation and expand job opportunities by opening the door for more spending. Why haven't we seen the logical connection between the two? 

To explain the importance of this moment in time is returning guest poster, Bryan McGrath.

Bryan, over to you.

---

In a speech in Pittsburgh Wednesday, President Biden announced what the Washington Post termed a “…$2 trillion jobs, infrastructure, and green energy proposal…”. With the simple title of the “American Jobs Plan,” Biden’s proposal is under fire from those concerned with its cost and from those who believe it does not spend enough on their priorities. It is not the purpose of this essay to take a position on the merits of the plan or its likelihood of passage but to point out that despite its significant cost and claims of working to provide for good jobs, not a penny is devoted to the good jobs building a larger Navy would create and sustain. This is particularly troubling given that the last large-scale recovery/jobs program (2009 American Recovery and Re-investment Act) also failed to capitalize on the strategic “two-fer” offered by putting more Americans to work building warships. 

The Obama Administration can be forgiven its 2009 oversight, as it clearly had not brought China into sharp relief as a competitor/adversary. But no such grace is available now, as the Biden plan’s White House Fact Sheet plainly addresses the strategic competition, stating “The American Jobs Plan is an investment in America that will create millions of good jobs, rebuild our country’s infrastructure, and position the United States to out-compete China.” A key part of that competition is military, and the central element of the military competition is naval. Ignoring both the national security benefit of a naval building program and the economic and industrial benefits of the good jobs it would produce is a mistake that can still be rectified. In so doing, the President could gain support for a bill that will likely prove popular with an American public for whom higher corporate taxes and higher individual tax rates on high earners are not central concerns. 

This symbiotic relationship between a powerful Navy and a prosperous nation was first laid out for Americans (and the world) in the late 19th Century by Alfred Thayer Mahan, and was reinforced this week in the Proceedings of the U.S. Naval Institute by author Nicholas Lambert. The essay, entitled “What is a Navy For,” is one of the most persuasive bits of writing on this subject since Samuel Huntington’s 1954 “National Policy And The Transoceanic Navy” and though Lambert’s piece mentions China only once—in the caption of a photograph—it is clear that Lambert is reminding a new generation of the relevance of Mahan’s thinking, and the special role that Seapower has in promoting our nation’s fortunes. Lambert explains Mahan this way:

“State power, Mahan held, was a function of national wealth, and the generation of wealth derived from commerce. In modern times, the single most valuable font of commercially produced wealth was overseas trade. Following this logic, he reasoned that access to the sea (the “common”) was essential to national well-being; hence the need for a strong navy to guarantee access.”

Writing in the late 19th Century, Mahan was responding to a set of strategic imperatives and fiscal challenges not unlike those facing America today. Here is Lambert again:

“The dispute was so intense because it occurred during a period of social upheaval and economic depression—and against the background of a still more profound debate over the future shape of U.S. society. Simply put, there were competing fiscal demands. Some interests wanted the federal government to invest instead in national infrastructure (or the Panama Canal). Others demanded more generous pensions (especially for Union Civil War veterans). A large number thought the money would be better spent fixing societal problems at home—a down payment on a redistribution of wealth necessary to create a more equitable society.”

Not only are more ships required to better compete with China, but additional infrastructure also to support those ships is needed. The Navy’s “Report to Congress on the Long-Range Plan for Maintenance and Modernization of Naval Vessels for Fiscal Year 2020” highlights “highlights a shortage of dry docks for surface ship maintenance and the need to improve existing infrastructure at public and private yards to keep up with newer classes of ships, as well as the need for process improvements to allow private shipyards and the supply chain to grow their capacity and move faster to respond to a growing fleet size.” 

Additionally, in 2018 the Navy proposed a 20-year, $21B initiative to overhaul its four public shipyards. Called the “Shipyard Infrastructure Optimization Plan,” recent press reports point to dissatisfaction in Congress with the pace of the plan. The Navy is reticent to move faster, citing considerable work that must continue to be done in these yards that would be disrupted with a faster pace. Perhaps then, one solution to put some of the resources from the American Jobs Plan into addressing ship repair and modernization infrastructure improvements, to include standing up an entirely new public yard?

And while the President’s bill is silent on the Navy, his party has not been. Rep. Elaine Luria (D-VA), a former nuclear-trained Naval Officer, recently wrote a letter to the President making an eloquent plea for “…a National Defense Strategy, that acknowledges and prioritizes the maritime nature of the current strategic environment” while also directly stating “Now is not the time to cut our defense spending—reality requires that we spend more to meet our defense needs.” Obviously, the Navy is funded by annual defense appropriations, but that should not preclude additional targeted funding flowing to the Navy as part of this China responsive jobs initiative. 

China is in the midst of an unprecedented peacetime naval buildup, a buildup that threatens freedom of the seas in the Western Pacific and beyond. The President has proposed a plan designed to achieve several important goals, including job creation and out-competing China. It is important for him to remember that the engine of our national power is an economy that provides for the kinds of investments in infrastructure, health care, and clean energy he desires. American Seapower underwrites that economy in a way that no other element of military power does or can. He should listen to Representative Luria about directing a maritime-based National Defense Strategy, and he should make a down-payment on it by adding a naval building and infrastructure program to his American Jobs Plan. It will be far more difficult for legislators to oppose his plan if it is not only popular with the American public but also helps to rebuild the Navy. 

Bryan McGrath is the Managing Director of The FerryBridge Group. These views are his and do not represent any client. 

Fullbore Friday

They've found her; USS Johnson (DD-557);

A team of ocean explorers has found the wreck of World War II Fletcher-class destroyer USS Johnston (DD-557) which played a critical role at the Battle off Samar, Navy History and Heritage Command said on Thursday.

Victor Vescovo, explorer and retired Navy officer, in the manned submersible Limiting Factor located Johnston‘s bow further down a cliff face at 21,180 feet. He said he is committed to respecting the final resting place for many of its crew, but will provide the Navy with all sonar data, imagery and field notes from his expedition.

Caladan Oceana's Battle of Samar Expedition has a superb website I highly encourage you to visit. 

The background;

Steaming straight for "Taffy 3" were four battleships (including the Yamato), eight cruisers (two light and six heavy), and eleven destroyers. Lieutenant Robert C. Hagen, Johnston's gunnery officer, later reported, "We felt like little David without a slingshot." In less than a minute, Johnston was zigzagging between the six escort carriers and the Japanese fleet and putting out a smoke screen over a 2,500-yard (2,300 m) front to conceal the carriers from the enemy gunners: "Even as we began laying smoke, the Japanese started lobbing shells at us and Johnston had to zigzag between the splashes.... We were the first destroyer to make smoke, the first to start firing, the first to launch a torpedo attack...."

For the first 20 minutes, Johnston could not return fire as the enemy cruisers and battleships' heavy guns outranged Johnston's 5-inch (127 mm) guns. Not waiting for orders, Commander Evans broke formation and went on the offensive by ordering Johnston to speed directly toward the enemy—first a line of seven destroyers, next one light and three heavy cruisers, then the four battleships. To the east appeared three other cruisers and several destroyers.

As soon as range closed to within ten miles (16 km), Johnston fired on the heavy cruiser Kumano—the nearest ship—and scored several damaging hits. During her five-minute sprint into torpedo range, Johnston fired over 200 rounds at the enemy, then under the direction of torpedo officer Lieutenant Jack K. Bechdel, made her torpedo attack. She got off all 10 torpedoes, and turned to retire behind a heavy smoke screen. When she came out of the smoke a minute later, the Kumano could be seen burning furiously from a torpedo hit. Her bow had been blown completely off, and she was forced to withdraw. Around this time, Johnston took three 14 in (356 mm) shell hits from Kongō, followed closely by three 6 in (152 mm) shells—either from a light cruiser or Yamato—which hit the bridge. The shells resulted in the loss of all power to the steering engine and all power to the three 5 in (127 mm) guns in the aft of the ship, and rendered the gyrocompass useless. A low-lying squall came up, and Johnston "ducked into it" for a few minutes of rapid repairs and salvage work.[1] The bridge was abandoned and Commander Evans, who had lost two fingers on his left hand, went to the aft steering column to conn the ship.

At 07:50, Admiral Sprague ordered destroyers to make a torpedo attack: "small boys attack". Johnston, unable to keep position with her damaged engine, and with her torpedoes already expended, nonetheless moved to provide fire support for the other destroyers. As she emerged from a smoke screen, she nearly collided with the destroyer Heermann. At 08:20, Johnston sighted a Kongō-class battleship—only 7,000 yards (6,400 m) away—emerging through the smoke. The destroyer opened fire, scoring multiple hits on the superstructure of the much larger ship. The return fire from the battleship missed clearly.

Johnston soon observed Gambier Bay under fire from an enemy cruiser, and engaged the cruiser in an effort to draw her fire away from the carrier. Johnston scored four hits on the heavy cruiser, then broke off as the Japanese destroyer squadron was seen closing rapidly on the American escort carriers. The Johnston engaged the lead ship until it quit, then the second until the remaining enemy units broke off to get out of effective gun range before launching torpedoes, all of which missed.

Then, Johnston's luck ran out; she came under heavy fire from multiple enemy ships, and right when it was most needed, the damaged remaining engine quit, leaving her dead in the water.

Some time into the battle, a Japanese battleship, Kongō, fired two rounds from her main cannons. One round punched through the thin side armor of Johnston and cut a hole through the engine room. Her speed was cut in half. The enemy ships closed in for an easy kill, pouring fire into the crippled destroyer.

Johnston took a hit that knocked out one forward gun and damaged another, and her bridge was rendered untenable by fires and explosions resulting from a hit in her 40 mm (2 in) ready ammunition locker. Evans, who had shifted his command to Johnston's fantail, was yelling orders through an open hatch to men turning her rudder by hand. At one of her batteries, a crewman kept calling "More shells! More shells!" Still the destroyer battled to keep the Japanese destroyers and cruisers from reaching the five surviving American carriers. "We were now in a position where all the gallantry and guts in the world couldn't save us, but we figured that help for the carrier must be on the way, and every minute's delay might count.... By 9:30 we were going dead in the water; even the Japanese couldn't miss us. They made a sort of running semicircle around our ship, shooting at us like a bunch of Indians attacking a prairie schooner. Our lone engine and fire room was knocked out; we lost all power, and even the indomitable skipper knew we were finished. At 9:45 he gave the saddest order a captain can give: 'Abandon Ship.'... At 10:10 Johnston rolled over and began to sink. The Japanese destroyer Yukikaze came up to 1,000 yards (910 m) and pumped a final shot into her to make sure she went down. A survivor saw the Japanese captain salute her as she went down, considering her an honorable enemy. That was the end of Johnston.

Crewmen from the destroyer escort Samuel B. Roberts spotted Evans at the fantail, asking "isn't that their captain", waving to them with what they did not realize was his only good hand.

From Johnston's complement of 327 officers and men, only 141 were saved. Of the 186 men lost, about 50 were killed by enemy action, 45 died later on rafts from wounds, and 92 men—including Cmdr. Evans—got off before she sank, but were never seen again.

A ship of legend, a superb Skipper, and a crew of unimpeachable honor.

If you have not read James D. Hornfischer's The Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors, you need to.

She is deep enough no one will bother their rest.

 

Ukraine Back in the Scan

I thought that we would have plenty to white space to concentrate on the start of what will be an interesting start to the fighting season in Afghanistan as we try to unwind our intervention there, but alas ... the Russians seem to have other plans, as we noticed yesterday.

~70 miles east of the Ukrainian border.

Engineers with their bridging kit.

Hey @thinkdefence - how often does a western nation have that much river crossing equipment together in that volume? https://t.co/5fsbafGRNw

— cdrsalamander (@cdrsalamander) March 31, 2021

We are in the golden age of OSNIT, but traditional news is reporting on this as well.

Ukraine demanded on Thursday that Russia halts escalating military tensions and reaffirms its commitment to a ceasefire in the eastern Donbass region.

Kyiv had earlier accused Moscow of building up military forces near their shared border, and saying that pro-Russian separatists were violating a ceasefire.

"Russia's current escalation is systemic, largest in recent years," Ukraine's Foreign Affairs of Ukraine Dmytro Kuleba said in a statement. 

"Russia's actions have brought the situation to a dead end. The only way out is diplomacy," Kuleba added, assuring that Ukraine preferred talks to violence. 

The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) recorded hundreds of ceasefire violations in the past few days, including 493 on March 26 alone.

In a smart move, SECDEF Austin notes that we are, after all, watching with interest.

I had a productive call with Ukrainian Minister of Defence Andrii Taran today. We discussed regional security, and I reaffirmed our unwavering support for Ukraine’s sovereignty, territorial integrity, and Euro-Atlantic aspirations. pic.twitter.com/yzui8hki2W

— Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III (@SecDef) April 1, 2021

History has her own plans ... but let's hope this is nothing more than spring positioning.

More interesting OSNIT,