Keeping an Eye on the Long Game: Part LXIV

Five different ways to ponder your weaponeering ... but this is my favorite.

Oh, about that '80s foreign policy everyone had such a chuckle over

I think the Germans finally smell something,

The German military plans to bring 100 mothballed tanks back into service as it deals with increased demands from the Ukraine crisis.

Defense Ministry spokesman Jens Flosdorff said Friday that the military will pay $23.6 million to buy back the Leopard 2 main battle tanks from the defense industry, which has kept them in storage. The tanks will then be modernized starting in 2017.

The decision to equip the Bundeswehr with a maximum 328 tanks nearly reverses a four-year-old decision to cut the total from 350 to 225.

Here is something to ponder.

Germany only spends 1.3% of their considerable GDP on its military. The USA spends 3.8%, almost 3 times that of Germany as a percentage of GDP. As a land power, they do not have to spend as much on their navy as we do - and unlike the past, they do not have to worry about their western border. A bit more of 20th century math for you here; in 2014, Germany's GDP was $3.6 trillion. Russia was $2.1 trillion.

The USA? $16.8 trillion.

Imagine if you will, what kind of military that German could have if she invested even 2/3 what the USA did. Russia spends 4.2% of her GDP on the military ... but, she has two fronts to worry about. What if Germany doubled her spending to ONLY 2.6% of GDP. Imagine the positive effect that would have on keeping Russia a little more humble.

Fullbore Friday

Via Gretel C. Kovach, this is how it is done;

The operation began well, but “things don’t always go as planned,” Jacklin recalled. His team of less than 10 Marines supported by Afghan National Army and local police ended up in a hellacious two-day battle.

The two wounded Marines were shot on a rooftop during an initial volley of enemy gunfire from rifles, machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades. Their team leader, Capt. Derek Herrera, was instantly paralyzed. A sergeant appeared already to have expired.

As bullets shot past them, the Marines pulled the wounded off the building and started first aid.

Jacklin, who was serving his second tour to Afghanistan after three in support of the war in Iraq, took command. Their communications link was down, but he found a way through a supporting unit to summon firepower from artillery and aircraft.

Evacuating the wounded was paramount. “If you get hit, just get to the chopper,” Jacklin told his team as they prepared to run to the landing zone. “We’ll figure it out later.”

They blew a hole in the wall and threw smoke grenades for cover. “The men ... charged out into the heaviest barrage of gunfire I’ve seen in over 10 years of heavy combat, to get the job done. Their resolute determination and violence of action coupled with divine intervention secured the lives of (two Marines) that day,” Jacklin said.

The helicopters waved off because of all the gunfire. Out in the field, the Marines shielded the wounded with their bodies and kept shooting. “Jacklin remained in the open, raining M203 grenades on the enemy and directing the fires of his team, until the aircraft could land,” his citation says.

That night, the Marines were reinforced by a larger team of Navy SEALs, who suffered additional casualties. “Throughout a raging battle all the next day, (Jacklin) provided vital intelligence, tactical assistance, and deadly accurate personal fires. Throughout 48 hours, he inspired all around him as he led a vicious fight to defeat a determined enemy force.”

About 20 enemy fighters were killed, according to another medal citation. Both of the wounded Marines survived.

The team had been outnumbered and outgunned, surrounded by local fighters in a superior geographic position. “Everything was working against that team, and yet through their coordinated efforts, through their expertise, and through their ability to support each other, they generated a force and a lethality that was much greater ...” said Maj. Gen. Joseph Osterman, commanding general of U.S. Marine Corps Forces Special Operations Command, who presented the medals.

“That cohesion, that confidence, that bravery and professionalism really epitomized what that team concept is all about and what these Marines were all about.”

Read it all.

Diversity Thursday

Recall, over the years we've mentioned the racial self-identification fraud or misrepresentation we have all seen on active duty.

The most common brand is using Nixon's created "minority group" as the leverage point; the blond haired, blue-eyed, upper-class "Gonzalez" who applies for, and gets the "Hispanic" scholarship, and runs that for all it is worth. 

...or the Navy Flag Officer who grew up in the cushy Maryland suburbs, but had - and no I am not making this up - a grandmother who "grew up near the Mexico border in Texas" and used that to claim "Hispanic" and again - used that for personal game in the Navy (including all the usual awards and speaking engagements). 

... or the same type of person who was known most of his life as "Paul" who at some point in his 20s became "Pablo." 

... or one of my favorites - and another Flag Officer - one of those German Teutons who grew up in Puerto Rico and as a result, is somehow adding more "richness" to our Navy's diversity than the son of Bosnian refugees. 

There was also the guy who is at best 1/4 sub-Saharan African decent, grew up upper-middle class and went to a top-shelf school, yet tells everyone at every turn about his unique African-American experience.

... and the African-American daughter of a flag officer who people don't know which part gave her the edge - because she worked both quite well - but they do know the son of Philippine parents would never get the same options.

All based on something as useless as race - but they are all just responding to a perverse incentive as a society we have created.

Yes, over the years we have covered all this and worse.

This isn't about the innocent people of all DNA who just do the best they can and wish everyone would just evaluate them on their merits ... no ... this is about the racial and ethnic rent seekers.

The civilian world has their own examples of racial self-identification fraud and misrepresentation for personal gain.

In a new website-slash-pitch for a memoir, Vijay Chokal-Ingam, the brother of comedian Mindy Kaling, reveals that he gamed the system and managed to get into medical school by claiming he was African-American.

Chokal-Ingam, who graduated from the University of Chicago with a meager 3.1 GPA, says that his ploy began after the self-described party boy saw his fellow Asian Indian-Americans, many of whom had higher grades, fail to get into medical school. “I shaved my head, trimmed my long Indian eyelashes, and applied to medical school as a black man,” he wrote on his website, AlmostBlack.com. “My change in appearance was so startling that my own fraternity brothers didn’t recognize me at first. I even joined the Organization of Black Students and started using my embarrassing middle name that I had hidden from all of my friends since I was a 9 years old.”

With this, “Jojo” managed to get into the selective Saint Louis University School of Medicine with the exact same application he used as an Indian man. As a fake black man, he allegedly secured interviews at nine highly selective medical schools, including Harvard, Columbia, and the University of Pennsylvania. As he told The New York Post:

“I disclosed that I grew up in one of the wealthiest towns in Massachusetts, that my mother was a doctor, and that my father was an architect,” he said Saturday, describing his med-school applications.

“I disclosed that I didn’t receive financial aid from the University of Chicago, and that I had a nice car,” he said. “I was the campus rich kid, let’s just put it on the table. And yet they considered me an affirmative-action applicant.”

This tells another side of the story. The most discriminated minorities in this nation are those of Asian and South-Asian extraction. Many come from families that are immigrants and who push education more than most. These kids work hard ... yet they are punished while others who did not work as hard are rewarded simply because ... some guy needed their metrics to work ... and those racial grievance mongers can't stand too many of "certain types" being overly represented in a purely meritocracy.  

Who cares if the DNA of all your doctors come from this or that part of the world as long as they got there because they were the best? I don't. 

For some though, health, safety, and even morality (but not sports, goodness knows we can't have anything but meritocracy for W&L for your college team) take a back seat to one thing - their hate and grievance of other ethnic groups; the driving force behind the modern diversity industry.

Until we grow up and treat everyone as individuals, we will continue as a society to encourage otherwise good people to lie, commit fraud - and in the zero-sum game that is admissions and selection - steal from their neighbor. We will also pay good money to people to be the organization's designated bigot.

That is evil ... and that is what the race-conscience and retrograde modern diversity initiatives are ... and we pollute our honor every time we are forced to support it.

A final note; Vijay is a hero for doing this. He is going to make all the right enemies, but is performing a great service to his nation.

He was wrong to do what he initially did, but he more than made up for it by owing up to it and making a public good, and turning it in to a constructive conversation starter.

In any event, what he did was nothing more than what people do every day - at the encouragement of their Chain of Command - in our Navy.

It is the institutions that promote - proudly promote - fraud and misidentification that are the real disgrace. The people? Just tools and useful idiots.

In Praise of the All that is in the Small

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.

Obama's Lausanne Legacy

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.

FIRE IN THE ENGINE ROOM

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.