Proactively “From the Sea”; an agent of change leveraging the littoral best practices for a paradigm breaking six-sigma best business case to synergize a consistent design in the global commons, rightsizing the core values supporting our mission statement via the 5-vector model through cultural diversity.
In this month's issue of USNI's flagship publication, Proceedings, LT Matthew Hipple gives everyone a tap-on-the-shoulder reminder of one of the best members of our unsexy-but-important Navy's Island of Misfit Toys;
PCs are well designed for presence and protection missions as they are able to transit all but the shallowest and most confined areas with speed and agility. The shoal waters and crowded oil fields our larger ships avoid are daily transits for the PC fleet. Speed and access combine with superior maneuverability, a compact command and control structure, and a formidable gunnery team including stabilized 25-mm gun systems and Griffin missiles. The PC is a powerful contender for close-in fighting, particularly in unexpected conflicts.
PC capabilities come with comparatively low costs in manning, resource consumption, and payload. The footprint in personnel and resources is minimal. In raw numbers, a guided-missile destroyer (DDG) is crewed by enough sailors to man ten PCs—a second Forward-Deployed Naval Forces (FDNF) PC fleet. For a year’s regular operation, the FDNF PC fleet uses less fuel than a deployed DDG under way for two months. Additionally, PCs need no tugs, no cranes, and only minimal line handlers for entering port. These austere characteristics are ideal for commanders seeking operational and engagement opportunities.
The PC’s payload also makes it comparatively advantageous for some operations and engagement. Beyond merely “being there,” presence is observing the pattern of life and engaging local forces. Day-to-day observation, security, and engagement do not require platforms with Tomahawks or a well deck. From South America to the South Pacific, PC-type vessels are the preferred option for the regular business of maritime security. In this light, a guided-missile cruiser or DDG might not be only an over-application of resources for engagement but also less compatible. For a small footprint, PCs are an unobtrusive and complementary member of the local civilian and military maritime community.
Additionally, PCs are a leadership incubator—an invaluable opportunity for the surface community and its sailors. From our notional ten PCs mustered from one DDG crew, we have more “surface area” for leadership: ten ships with ten triads leading ten crews standing ten bridge watches and operating ten engineering plants—all amounting to more than ten times the opportunity. We have ten commanding officers (CO), as junior as a lieutenant, ten lieutenant (junior grade) executive officers, and 20 second tour division officers already stepping into department head roles. We have ten chiefs as senior enlisted advisors leading first- and second-class petty officers, who will earn and stand officer of the deck. A third-class petty officer serving as engineering officer of the watch is not unusual.
Max Boot has put forward one of the more concise summaries about what President Obama and SECSTATE Kerry will be leaving their nation in the last year of their Administration ... and what table they are setting for the next President and his Administration to clean up.
But it seems safe to speculate that if Iran signs a piece of paper in June the multilateral sanctions regime will collapse sooner rather than later. This means that Iranian coffers will be flooded with hundreds of billions of dollars in new income. What will the money be used for? Some undoubtedly will go for social services to buy off a long-suffering Iranian population and prevent an insurrection against the ayatollahs. But it is certain that a large chunk of the money also will go to the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, which not only runs the nuclear program and a ballistic-missile program but also is in charge of exporting the Iranian revolution abroad. There is absolutely nothing in the Lausanne accord that does anything to hinder much less stop Iran’s support for terrorism or its ballistic-missile programs–both subjects ignored in the Obama administration’s frenzied quest for a nuclear accord, no matter its specifics.
The IRGC, and specifically its elite Quds Force under Gen. Qassem Suleimani, has been busy for decades exporting Iranian power to countries such as Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, and Yemen. Its subversive efforts have borne fruit in recent years by creating a virtual Iranian Empire stretching from the Persian Gulf to the Mediterranean. Iranian lucre has funded the barrel bombs that Bashar Assad has been dropping on civilians and the abusive militias which Shiite leaders in Iraq have been assembling to undermine the Iraqi state. And that is what Iran has achieved with an economy still in a sanctions straitjacket. What will it be able to do once that straitjacket has come off?
That is the grim prospect that will now confront Israel, Saudi Arabia, and other states that feel a mortal threat emanating from Iran. They will now have to face an Iran with a nuclear program delayed but not dismantled, and an Iran with growing power to undermine and dominate its neighbors. Under such a scenario do not be surprised if Saudi Arabia proceeds with a nuclear program of its own, as it has long threatened to do.
How do CIVMARs handle a fire while underway? Via gCaptain and the crew of the Maersk Iowa;
The only details we know are what we can get from the video: The fire occurred at 13:16 local time on January 10, 2015 approximately 50 miles off the Georgia-Florida border and was believed to have started when the No. 5 cylinder blew.
Skip to 16 minutes for the action (if the video didn’t start there already). Captain gets to the bridge at 19 minutes. At the 45-minute mark, you can here the Captain the discussing the details of the incident with the Coast Guard.
We all owe Andrew deGrandpre and MilitaryTimes a respectful nod for their 5-part series on TASK FORCE VIOLENT that I posted on here after Part-1. Part-5 is out, and take some time today to follow the link and read the series. This story shows our Marines at their finest, but our Navy-Marine Corp nomenklatura in a way only those who have been on the receiving end of this kind of behavior would understand. If noting else, more people need to know this story to see an example of leadership as it is expected, not expected by your Chain of Command, not by your men per se; but morally. There really is nothing more to say than, read this.
Widespread media coverage depicted them as out-of-control cowboys. The public scrutiny was embarrassing. The prospect of going to prison was terrifying. And their 10-month legal battle was relentlessly stressful. One enlisted Marine, a Mexican national, was convinced his mother would be deported. Others recalled their superiors telling them "it doesn't look good for you boys."
Collectively, the fallout left them physically sick, psychologically broken and deeply embittered toward the leaders they blame for causing and perpetuating their anguish and shame, including men who've earned generals' stars. For some like Galvin, there have been lasting professional setbacks, too.
But the betrayal from within, that shattered their trust in the institution. It defied the core values instilled in these men from the moment they joined the Corps: honor, courage, commitment. "This still haunts us," one of those Marines explained, "because no one has publicly acknowledged we did the right thing that day. We did our jobs — and we were crucified for it."
Galvin has been on a mission to restore honor for Fox Company, one that consumes him even when some suggest he should move on with a new life. But he's not wired that way. He believes he owes it to his men to secure the full and public vindication they've never had.
For some strange reason - this man came to mind again this AM. Let's revisit.
There are some men whose true story should give all a pause to ask, "Am I as dedicated to my cause?" "What risk will I take?" "What is the level of my dedication?" Simply an amazing man. You need to read it all.
Witold Pilecki, a 39-year old veteran of the Polish-Soviet War of 1919-1921 who fought against the initial Nazi invasion and a member of the Polish resistance, volunteered himself in 1940. Pilecki's mission was to allow himself to be arrested and, once inside Auschwitz, to collect intelligence for the Polish resistance in the country and the government-in-exile in London, and to organize a resistance from inside the camp. "I think he knew, he realized what he was getting himself into," said Jacek Pawlowicz, a historian at Poland's Institute of National Remembrance. "But even so, he was not prepared for the things he was actually able to witness."
During the next three years, Pilecki was involved in one of the most dangerous intelligence-gathering and resistance operations of the war. He authored three reports about life inside the camp for the Polish resistance. During his incarceration, Pilecki witnessed from the inside Auschwitz's transformation from a detention facility for political prisoners and Soviet soldiers into one of the Nazis' deadliest killing machines. An English translation of Pilecki's third and most comprehensive report -- a primary source for this article -- was recently published as a book titled The Auschwitz Volunteer: Beyond Bravery .
It is a fascinating first-hand account of virtually all aspects of life inside the camp. The original document is in the custody of the Polish Underground Movement Study Trust in London. ... By early 1943, Pilecki began considering his escape from the camp. He had gone in and accomplished his objective of organizing a resistance within the camp, at which point he thought the logical thing to do was wait for an attack on the camp by the Polish resistance from the outside so they could rise up from within. On top of this, the Gestapo was clamping down on security in the camp and many of Pilecki's recruits had been lost.
Pilecki ultimately made the decision to escape on April 13, 1943. The reason behind this was so he could make the argument for an armed assault on Auschwitz in person to the resistance leadership. He began handing over his network contacts and responsibilities to top deputies as a gradual transition process. After approximately 2,500 roll calls and 947 days inside the camp by his own calculations, Witold Pilecki and two other inmates escaped Auschwitz.
On the night of Monday, April 26 -- the day after Easter Sunday -- the three men were assigned to work in the bakery, which was located outside the camp grounds. They took advantage of a moment when the SS guard wasn't paying attention to cut a telephone wire, force open a door and made a run for it. Pilecki eventually made his way back to Warsaw and reported to the Home Army's headquarters on August 25, 1943
There is not a happy ending though. Just another card to put in the stack next time someone tries to excuse the evil of Communism.
Pilecki was arrested by communist authorities not long after, on May 5, 1947. According to Pawlowicz, "His fingernails were ripped off, ribs broken, nose broken. His interrogation was very difficult and he was tortured badly." He, and others, were given a show trial for activities against the state the following March.
On March 15, he was found guilty on several charges. The court declared, "As a paid agent of General Anders' Intelligence Service, he organized a spy network on Polish territory, collecting information and sending it abroad,' and in doing so 'betraying state secrets.' Pilecki was sentenced to death. A typical capital punishment sentence was carried out within 95 to 105 days of the sentence. The order for Pilecki's execution was given on May 22, two months after his trial.
The final account of anyone seeing Pilecki alive comes from father Jan Stepien, a Home Army chaplain whose own capital punishment was later changed to a 15-year prison sentence. His description of Pilecki as he was being led to his execution at the Mokotow prison in Warsaw: "He had his mouth tied with a white bandage. Two guards led him by his arms. He could hardly touch the ground with his feet. I don't know if he was conscious then. He seemed completely faint."
The exact location of where Pilecki was buried is unknown. His remains are believed to be either in a meadow next to the Sluzewiec cemetery, or in an area of the Powazki Military Cemetery in Warsaw, also called the meadow, in a mass grave with others who were executed by the post-war communist regime.
I do not agree with what you have to say, but I'll defend to the death your right to say it.
-Voltaire
Everything not forbidden is compulsory.
- Murray Gell-Mann's Totalitarian Principle
As I was about to highlight another example how part of your personnel budget is being used to pay six-figures to an otherwise unemployable person to be the designated Command bigot, I changed my mind. I've decided to bring over something I posted yesterday on FB, as it really does fold in to some of the issues we raise on DivThu. I only do this grudgingly as well ... ya'll know about the only thing here I like less than DivThu posts, is having to tell other people that they were right, and I was a fool to roll with hope. No matter what I will put down on this topic, I will lose someone - but that is what it is. I like to share with everyone what I'm pondering - but if you can't accept that without getting the vapors and bolting, then maybe you shouldn't be reading CDRS anyway. Here you go. For those who are watching the goings on in Indiana - as Ace reminds us, what you are seeing is a perfect example of Baseball Crank's "Seven Stages of Liberal Legal Activism" - except now it has morphed in to full foam-flecked mob form. Like I said on twitter earlier this week, I am ashamed of my former allies in the repeal of DADT. They have become what we used to rail against the hardest - mindless bullies who hate, and especially those who hate with the threat of violence. Agree or disagree, but to actively support by joining in, or worse - passively saying nothing as all the "cool kids" join with the bully - that is the absolute worst. They are no better than the worst insecure gay-bashing bullies we knew from high school ... or the drunk idiot outside a bar at 2am that we knew from adulthood. No better. Instead of rising above the fray when victory has largely been achieved, they has sunk down to the jackbooted fascist mob. 1. It's a free country, X should not be illegal. 2. The Constitution prohibits X from being made illegal. 3. If the Constitution protects a right to X, how can it be immoral? Anyone who disagrees is a bigot. 4. If X is a Constitutional right, how can we deny it to the poor? Taxpayer money must be given to people to get X. 5. The Constitution requires that taxpayer money be given to people to get X. 6. People who refuse to participate in X are criminals. 7. People who publicly disagree with X are criminals. Shame on you all. You/we have lost the moral high ground. It is no longer about equality and fairness, it is about dominance and power. Also shame on those who allowed what was once an honorable and valid cause to be hijacked by the diversity industry and their jackbooted thugs. You have now left the circle of The Enlightenment, and have allowed your cause to be loaded in to the Cultural Marxist brigade baggage train of useful idiots. You have sullied a good cause by throwing in with problem, as opposed to being part of the solution. It torques me off mostly because it is a betrayal of a core belief founded on individual liberty - well maybe it was just me - but also that you have proved your/our most vocal enemies right. I hate when I have to nod to others and say, "On this point, you were correct." As a side note, I still maintain my positions on the issue of the repeal of DADT and the general proposition that "I don't care" about who one falls in love with and who makes your mortal time a joy. It has been my opinion for decades, that isn't going to change. I am simply completely divorcing myself from my former allies and their useful idiots who by acts of commission or omission have become what they once opposed. The cause was good and just; the organizations at the front and their leaders - it seems - are not. I'll end with a longish quote from Kevin D. Williamson at NRO on what is a much more important foundational issue.
There are three problems with rewarding those who use accusations of bigotry as a political cudgel. First, those who seek to protect religious liberties are not bigots, and going along with false accusations that they are makes one a party to a lie. Second, it is an excellent way to lose political contests, since there is almost nothing — up to and including requiring algebra classes — that the Left will not denounce as bigotry. Third, and related, it rewards and encourages those who cynically deploy accusations of bigotry for their own political ends.
An excellent illustration of this dynamic is on display in the recent pronouncements of columnist and gay-rights activist Dan Savage, who, in what seems to be an effort to resurrect every lame stereotype about the shrill, hysterical, theatrical gay man, declaimed that the efforts of those who do not wish to see butchers and bakers and wedding-bouquet makers forced by their government at gunpoint to violate their religious scruples is — you probably have guessed already — nothing less than the consecration of Jim Crow Junior. “Anti-black bigots, racist bigots, during Jim Crow and segregation made the exact same arguments that you’re hearing people make now,” Savage said. Given the dramatic difference in the social and political position of blacks in the time of Bull Connor and gays in the time of Ellen DeGeneres, this is strictly Hitler-was-a-vegetarian stuff, the elevation of trivial formal similarities over dramatic substantial differences. The choices for explaining this are a.) moral illiteracy; b.) intellectual dishonesty; c.) both a and b.
Adlai Stevenson famously offered this definition: “A free society is a society where it is safe to be unpopular.” We do not live in that society.
...
The people who have hijacked the name “liberal” — the étatists — always win when social questions are decided by the state rather than in private life, because the expansion of the state, and the consequent diminution of private life, is their principal objective. The self-styled progressive sets himself in rhetorical opposition to Big Business, but the corporate manager often suffers from the same fatal conceit as the economic étatist — an unthinking, inhumane preference for uniformity, consistency, regimentation, and conformity. It is no surprise to see Apple and Walmart joining forces here against the private mind. There is a reason that the atmosphere and protocols of the corporate human-resources office are a great deal like those of the junior-high vice-principal’s office: All reeducation facilities have a little something in common.
The ancient rival to étatism in the Western world is the church militant, both in its formal institutional expression and in the relatively newfangled (and thoroughly American) choose-your-own-adventure approach to Christianity. For the culture warrior, bringing these nonconformists to heel is a strategic priority. Gay couples contemplating nuptials are not just happening into cake shops and florists with Christian proprietors — this is an organized campaign to bring the private mind under political discipline, to render certain moral dispositions untenable. Like Antiochus and the Jews, the game here is to “oblige them to partake of the sacrifices” and “adopt the customs” of the rulers. We are not so far removed in time as we imagine: Among the acts intended to Hellenize the Jews was a ban on circumcision, a proposal that is still very much alive in our own time, with authorities in several European countries currently pressing for that prohibition.
“I expect to die in bed,” Francis Eugene Cardinal George famously remarked. “My successor will die in prison, and his successor will die a martyr in the public square. His successor will pick up the shards of a ruined society and slowly help rebuild civilization, as the church has done so often in human history.” Perhaps it will not come to that. But we already are on the precipice of sending men with guns to the homes and businesses of bakers to enforce compliance with dictates undreamt-of the day before yesterday.
Yes, render unto Caesar, and all that. But render only what is Caesar’s — and not one mite more.
I am increasingly worried that we are going to completely mess up the next step in unmanned air systems. The reason? Simple; we are trying to have all things and everything in one platform ... again. We are repeating the same mistakes that have plagued us over and over the last few decades; we are either trying to force everything in to one platform, or we are seduced by the next BIG thing that our ever-hopeful futurists insist will make everything new and perfect, and all existing old and obsolete. Neither of those things ever pan out past the PPT to thrive in a world where things make shadows on ramps and displace water pierside ... but like Charlie Brown, Lucy and the football - that doesn't stop us. The beltway mindset that spawned LCS and F-35 seems to be smothering the promise that unmanned air systems have to bring additional tools to the tactical and operational level commanders. Here is where it looks like we are going wrong; the argument is moving towards the bifurcated extremes of individual theories and influences, and away from the juicy middle where you have a good, affordable, flexible tool to evaluate and - if the hype matches its promise - expand and grow. Over at DefenseOne, Robert A. Newson, CAPT USN, outlines what I think is a very fair critique of the direction we are heading;
Initial UCLASS fielding is projected seven to eight years from now in 2022-3 and we will be a decade closer to the rise of the small and the many. While it is not an either/or proposition, over-investment in unmanned platforms that are large, complex, and limited in numbers (because of exorbitant cost) will significantly disadvantage the United States in a major conflict ten to twenty years from now when the UCLASS and its decedents fly into combat.
Congress and the aircraft industry seem to want all eggs in an exquisite and expensive basket.
...
It should be self-evident that this focus on survivability in unmanned aircraft is almost a non sequitur, forfeiting s a prime value of unmanned systems. Because there are no humans on board, unmanned systems can conduct more risky missions and are, almost by definition, expendable—unless they cost $50 million dollars a copy. At what price point do unmanned systems become non-expendable and require even more investment in survivability?
That is indeed the question. I would also add that with complexity comes increased technology risk - a risk that we do not have a good record of managing. Besides bad habits, I cannot for the life of me understand why we can't get onboard with a first tranche a relatively simple and bare ISR unmanned air system with lots of engineering "white space" for growth and development. Once we crawl there, we can move to a slightly more capable platform in following tranches. Radical idea this "build a little, test a little, learn a lot" - works great. I like to kick the FIRESCOUT program around, but here is what they got right. They are working through more and more capable systems as they move forward and learn. That part they are doing correctly and deserve credit for? UCLASS? It is starting to smell like a F-35 FLAILEX ... starting from the beginning. Heck, we couldn't even call the F-35 in its proper numbering protocol for all fighters, and we named LCS and JHSV ... well, you know the story. Anyway, give UCLASS a real designation and we can move forward as adults and not PR people. Back to the article. Newson's solution?
On the other side of this much needed debate are those who see a world where the large and the few are overtaken by the small and the many. It does not strain the imagination to contemplate the advancements in miniaturization, sensors, and weapons technology that will continue the trends ushered in with precision weapons—hiding from detection will become increasingly difficult; dispersion of forces and capability is more and more important; and massing military capability will increase the probability and cost of combat losses.
Like those advocating the exquisite and expensive UCLASS, I think the "swarm theorists" are, in a fashion, guilty of the same futurists conceit. The small and distributed is a point that I agree will in many places shape future conflict - but I don't think we can assume that it will be future conflict. You can't make statements like, "We don't need large unmanned strike platforms." History is laughing at you like Tim the Enchanter. Sure, we do need to look at small and distributed - but it is a "both" not an "or." As the Ukrainians will tell you, those who have been speaking of the death of armoured warfare have been way off the mark. Likewise, those who think that a navy will not need to project power - a lot of power over sustained lengths of time - as in magazine emptying power projection - may be a little too narrow in their understanding of the wide spectrum of conflict. For strike, I have always thought that in general, unmanned air systems should complement what we have. There is a significant gap in strike between what TLAM brings to the game, and what the airwing brings. If nothing else, UCLASS is a slightly more capable, reusable TLAM - perhaps more. But to start - and unquestionably until we get some real experience with it - we need to be humble in our expectations. Unmanned systems fill that gap. More than ISR? Sure ... but ISR should be a large part of that capability to start off and ongoing. Strike? Sure ... but ... I am not sure the promise is all what people are making it out to be. ROE and the tender mercies of C2 via the electomagnetic spectrum will limit the utility of unmanned systems outside carefully crafted artificial vignettes, and highly scripted wargames. That being said, we should stretch and see ... but do so with an understanding that we may get it wrong, or only partially right. Where should be be heading? For starters, we need to move away from a single platform concept. This simply creates an excessively complicated platform that can do a lot, but none of it satisfactorily; a glorious monument to multi-mission mediocrity. That usual mix of a Tiffany Navy infested with sub-optimal ships. This accountant's desire for the on-paper cheapest solution via single platforms begat us a flight deck of light strike fighters, E-2s, and SH-60s. A single UCLASS will make this solution work at last? No. It is the height of historical blindness and arrogance for us to think that we know exactly what kind of platform we need in unmanned air systems. Until we start operating them, we need to not have all our eggs in one basket. We may find that one is best, or we may find that a variety of systems of different capabilities are the best thing to have to meet the wide variety of challenges that will come over the horizon. Small or large, we do not need to have a single-source, unproven concept based solution. As we figure things out, we need an unmanned air systems diversity like the flight deck of a Vietnam War WESTPAC carrier. We don't need the accountant's logic of an deck of F-18 variants and E-2s, no; we need that glorious mix of A-3, A-4, A-5, A-6, F-4, EA-6, E-2, and S-2. Let the fleet work it out. Build a little, test a little, learn a lot. Add deploy a lot ... and you have the way forward.
