Ma will take care of you ...

MA-Deuce that is it.

A U.S. Navy security team fired warning shots Wednesday at two small boats approaching a navy supply ship off the coast of Somalia, Agence France-Presse reported…

The security team aboard USNS John Lenthall, an oiler, fired the shots after “defensive measures” failed to stop the two unmarked vessels…

All the warning shots hit the water, about 50 meters from the closest boat, and the vessels turned away after the shots were fired.

Relearning an old lesson about pirates - if you make yourself a tough target, they leave you alone.

Just ask retired Sailor Rod Nowlin.

Here is a firsthand account of a pirate attack on two yachts. It took place only 30 miles off the coast of Yemen at 13°28' North 48°07' East on 8 March 5pm local.

This report has been filed with the relevant authorities: the Yemen Coast Guard, Yemen Navy, Aden Port Control, US Coalition 5th Fleet, US Embassy and State Department.

Richard Donaldson-Alves, Controller, Mobile Maritime Net, South East Asian Waters (14,323 MHz 0025 Z daily Wx @ 0055 Z daily)

On 8 March 2005, two sailing yachts, Mahdi & Gandalf, were moving SW 30 miles off the coast of Yemen proceeding to the port of Aden from Salalah, Oman.

At about 0900 two outboard powered boats, about 25 feet long with 3 men in each one, passed off our stern moving south at about 25 knots. An hour or two later they returned, one coming quite close and looking us over carefully. The second boat passed our bows but quite a ways away. These boats were obviously not engaged in a normal activity such as fishing, etc. At that time we were south of Al Mukalla, Yemen. The area around Al Mukalla is well documented as being a piracy problem area and we started watching carefully for anything out of the ordinary. At about 1600 we observed two different boats approaching us head on from the SW. These boats were 25-30 feet long, had higher freeboard and diesel powered. They were coming very fast directly at us. There were 4 men in each boat. The boats separated at about 200 yards, one boat ahead of the other, coming down Mahdi’s port side and firing into the cockpit. The other boat was firing an automatic weapon at both Gandalf and Mahdi from ahead, more at Gandalf. These guys were shooting directly at the cockpits, and obviously intended to kill us. The first boat swung around behind Mahdi’s stern to come up and board us. At that point I, Rod Nowlin aboard Mahdi and armed with a 12 gage shotgun loaded with 00 buckshot, started shooting into their boat. I forced them to keep their heads down so that they could not shoot at us. I am not sure I hit anyone at that point although I could see the driver of the boat crouched down behind a steering console. After firing 3 shots at them their engine started to smoke and I swung around to shoot at the boat ahead. At that point, I saw Jay Barry on Gandalf ram that boat amidships almost cutting it in two and turning it almost completely over. I turned back around to shoot again at the boat behind Mahdi and that is when they turned away from Mahdi and were heading toward the stern of Gandalf. Gandalf was beside us, about 100 feet away. The bow of the pirate’s boat came right up against Gandalf’s stern and two men stood up on the bow to board Gandalf. That was a serious and probably fateful error on their part. I shot both of them. That boat then veered away and I shot the driver, although I am not sure of the outcome because they were farther away and I did not knock him down like the other two.

Mahdi and Gandalf kept going at full speed to put as much distance between the pirates and us as possible. As soon as we were out of rifle range we looked back and both boats were drifting and appeared to be disabled.

If Jay on Gandalf had not had the presence of mind to veer over into one boat and ram it, the outcome of this attack would have been totally different. All they needed to do was stand off a ways and shoot us to pieces with automatic weapons. We were extremely lucky. We broadcast Mayday calls on all VHF and HF radio frequencies, including two HF emergency frequencies supplied by the US Coast Guard a few days before. The Coalition Forces in the area were supposed to be monitoring these frequencies. There was no response except from a commercial ship in the area on VHF 16 who approached and observed the disabled pirates for a bit, then sailed along side of us for 2-4 hours until dark to make sure we would be all right.

The pirates were well organized and well armed. There were at least 4 boats involved. They had set up a picket line out from the Yemen coast probably at least for 50-75 miles, so if you transited the area during the day they wouldn’t miss you. The two boats that attacked us appeared to have come from the south.

There has been speculation in the past that this ongoing piracy problem off the Yemen coast was being carried out by Somali pirates. Given the number, type of boats involved, and the direction the spotter boats came from, this does not appear to be correct in this case. This problem is getting worse and the pirate attacks are getting deadly. One could only expect that the Yemen Government will take more direct action. At the very least, allow yachts to group in Salalah, Oman and at some point on the NW Yemen coast to request an escort along the Yemen coast.

March 11, 2005

Rodney J. Nowlin, USN Retired

S/V Mahdi

Oh Eagle1; you'll love this site.

Hat tip Lex.

Yemen - a Long Way to Go

ACLED continues to be an exceptional source for data-nuts when it comes to areas of conflict in the world.

Their recent Yemen numbers - combined with the ongoing talk about what is very much a nasty civil war - needs to be put in some context.

#YemenWar Death Toll Exceeds 90,000 According to New ACLED Data for 2015: https://t.co/GluwkQWLSZ #Yemen pic.twitter.com/11Tv9O1sVQ

— Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project (@ACLEDINFO) July 15, 2019

Civil Wars are a nasty bit of business and I don't want to diminish 90,000 lost souls, but there needs to be a note of caution for those who think - or hope - that this is close to burning itself out.

In 2016, Yemen had a population of ~28 million. 90,000 is 0.3% of the population.

In 1860, the USA had a population of 31.4 million. 0.3% would be 94,200.

Estimates vary, but sources say between 600,000 and 1-million total deaths North and South in the war. Let's use a nice round compromise of 750,000 dead.

750,000 would be 2.4%.

For Yemen to exhaust itself to the same degree as the USA did in its civil war, 672,000 will need to die.

No, odds are, the killing is a long way from being over.

Another datapoint. By 2016, the UN estimated that 400,000 were killed in the Syrian Civil War. That is about 1.7% of the 2012 population of 22,500,000.

As I said - in Yemen, there is a lot more killing to be done.

The White Swan off Yemen

Civil wars are nasty and unpredictable things. The longer they go, the more the thin veneer of civilization starts to strip away for even the most advanced nations and their people. Less advanced nations devolve to Madmaxistan rather quickly.

All governmental efforts, money, and attention goes towards weapons, food, and fuel. Industries, infrastructure, and parts of civil society that do not support that get left as if frozen in aspic.

If you don't live in a nation suffering that civil war, it is easy not to pay attention to that which does not effect you.

There is one aspect of the Yemen civil war that no one should ignore - and it is at sea.

This isn't a disaster that anyone can state will be a surprise in the likely event nothing is done in time and it reaches its ultimate end. This isn't a "Black Swan" - this is a White Swan.

In a real world version of "Life After People" there is a ticking timebomb off of Yemen. Via Maritime-Executive;

Floating in the Red Sea, attached to an oil pipeline that runs nearly 300 miles to the war-torn city of Marib, the FSO Safer was established as a Yemeni oil export facility in 1988. The massive converted tanker was due to be decommissioned and replaced by a land-based terminal when the Yemen civil conflict erupted nearly eight years ago. Owned by SEPOC, a company which itself is owned by the Government of Yemen, the Safer sits off the coast of Ras Isa, an area controlled by Houthi rebels.

The vessel is still loaded with 1.14 million barrels of oil. While roughly 15,000 barrels have evaporated over the last eight years, and a thin layer has polymerized, the majority of that cargo remains liquid and liable to spill. The portion of the pipeline that runs for five miles beneath the Red Sea has an additional 17,000 barrels of liquid crude in it.  Without intervention, the Safer will either explode or corrode and spill its contents - and likely take the pipeline with it. 

Of note, Safer is a single hulled old-school tanker just rotting in the water. There is little to any margin of error left.

What could the results of inaction be?

For context, the amount of oil spilled off Mauritius (which destroyed an entire marine protected area) was 8,450 barrels. This is less than one percent of what is at stake with the Safer, and less than half of what is in the subsea pipeline. And while the Ever Given disrupted trade through the Suez Canal for six days, some projections suggest the Safer's spill could slow or stop trade through the entire Red Sea for weeks or even months, forcing ships to divert around the Cape of Good Hope to avoid spreading the oil by sailing through it.

The combined risks of a massive explosion, the blockage of international commerce, and a devastating oil spill form only part of the concern with the FSO Safer.  Add in the deaths of millions of people (already in famine) from loss of drinking water, caused by the contamination of desalination plants, and limited access to food caused by the blocking of Hodeida, and we will have a humanitarian emergency at a level the world cannot currently sustain. 

Furthermore, with the annihilation of the world’s most temperature-resistant coral system along with 10 unique species of fish, and the long-term damage to economic activities like fishing and tourism, the effects of this one vessel’s demise would be felt for generations. The potential consequences dwarf the various other maritime disasters experienced in the last few years. 

Usually when there is a cause for international action it is either military related or the disaster has already happened. 

This looks to be a space where those maritime nations who are hesitant to get involved militarily to maintain the global order, make a lot of noise about being "green," and generally make long speeches at the UN about such issues ... well ... they could take action.

The UN even has a "Go Fund Me" like pledge drive going to raise enough funds to get a cheap fix instead of an expensive clean up. I'm not sure if you get a tote-bag or not, but...I mean, really...this is embarrassing.

So much time and money spent on imaginary or exaggerated threats to the environment are flooded with billions of dollars, but a real one has to beg for scraps?

I'm pretty sure a fraction of the money spent at the latest Davos gathering by the WEF would have covered the cost, but there would be no power to be gained and the skiing in terrible in Yemen, so I guess not.

Time is ticking. 

h/t E.

Kill, don't capture?

After awhile the question gets asked; are we being made the sucker for a world that really just doesn't give a damn? What do we gain from working with other nations so they can arrest terrorists if they let them go? Read this from Yemen.

The trial of 19 alleged al Qaeda members had been designed to showcase how serious Yemen was in the fight against terror. But the Islamic militants, accused of plotting to assassinate Westerners and blow up a hotel frequented by Americans, were all acquitted for lack of proof, the presiding judge ruled Saturday.

Here is the kicker.

Several of the defendants did confess to having been in Iraq to fight U.S. troops there and had Iraqi stamps on their passport, the court heard. "But this does not violate [Yemeni] law," the judge said.

"Islamic Sharia law permits jihad against occupiers," he said.
...
Muslim extremists remain popular, and the four-month trial of the suspected terrorists often produced elements of a farce, as an at-times raucous crowd followed heated discussions between the defendants and the judge.

All but one of the alleged militants have denied the charges, several stating they were arrested simply because they had fought in Iraq. But one defendant, Ali al-Harthi, acknowledged in court that he had returned home to perpetrate jihad, or holy war, against Americans in Yemen.

From behind the bars where they stood clad in blue prison uniforms Saturday, the 14 Yemeni and five Saudi defendants greeted the verdict with cries of "Allahu akbar" (God is great).

Believe it or not, I am a softy - but even I have my limits. I am to the left of many when it comes to International Law, but now and then, this screams through my head from back in the day before legions in the West decided to queue up to hand in their balls.

Oh, along the same line - via Powerline, Ralph has popped a circuit breaker again.

Killing terrorists during a conflict isn't barbaric or immoral - or even illegal. We've imposed rules upon ourselves that have no historical or judicial precedent. We haven't been stymied by others, but by ourselves.

The oft-cited, seldom-read Geneva and Hague Conventions define legal combatants as those who visibly identify themselves by wearing uniforms or distinguishing insignia (the latter provision covers honorable partisans - but no badges or armbands, no protection). Those who wear civilian clothes to ambush soldiers or collect intelligence are assassins and spies - beyond the pale of law.

Traditionally, those who masquerade as civilians in order to kill legal combatants have been executed promptly, without trial. Severity, not sloppy leftist pandering, kept warfare within some decent bounds at least part of the time. But we have reached a point at which the rules apply only to us, while our enemies are permitted unrestricted freedom.
...
Isn't it time we gave our critics what they're asking for? Let's solve the "unjust" imprisonment problem, once and for all. No more Guantanamos! Every terrorist mission should be a suicide mission. With our help.

Seriously, what do we do in The Long War? Some nations are not serious when we let them take terrorists to trial (not just Yemen). We take them to GTMO, and they continue their war via lawyers. Do we follow Le Clerc's example and line them up and shoot them? Not in this century, not in this war. Don't like the concept personally. Would I be shocked about a modern version of what happened with the 41st Infantry Division in the Pacific in WWII, or what happened at 1130 April 29,1945? No, not shocked. Might even understand it. Roll something in a spider hole, or send someone down there to get them up?

Tough questions that should have an easy answer. Should.

The War in Yemen, with Katherine Zimmerman - on Midrats

It is a civil war, tribal war, religious war, and proxy war with local, regional, and global implications.

The specific and larger implications of the war in Yemen will be our topic for the full hour this Sunday from 5-6pm Eastern with our guest Katherine Zimmerman.

Katherine Zimmerman is a research fellow at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) and the research manager for AEI’s Critical Threats Project. As AEI’s senior analyst studying terrorist groups, she focuses on the global al Qaeda network and covers the Salafi-jihadi movement and related trends in the Middle East and Africa. She also specializes in al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula and Yemen, al Shabaab in Somalia, and al Qaeda in the Sahel.

Ms. Zimmerman has testified before Congress about the threats to US national security interests emanating from al Qaeda and its network. She has also briefed members of Congress, their staff, and US military, diplomatic, and intelligence community personnel. Her analyses have been widely published, including in CNN.com, Foreign Affairs, FoxNews.com, The Hill, The Huffington Post, The Wall Street Journal, and The Washington Post. She is a term member with the Council on Foreign Relations and a member of the RESOLVE Network Research Advisory Council.

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

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.

So, you want to play varsity football?

Last week, the varsity team took the field;

Three U.S. warships are operating off the coast Yemen following a guided missile attack against a UAE operated ship by Houthi rebels, two U.S. defense officials confirmed to USNI News on Tuesday.

The ships – guided-missile destroyers USS Nitze (DDG-94), USS Mason (DDG-87) and the afloat forward staging base USS Ponce (AFSB(I)-15) – are on station off Yemen near the Bab Al Mandeb strait that links the Red Sea to the Gulf of Aden.

Reports as of late Sunday tell us the locals decided to scrimmage.

"USS Mason detected two inbound missiles over a 60-minute period while in the Red Sea off the coast of Yemen. Both missiles impacted the water before reaching the ship," Pentagon spokesman Captain Jeff Davis said.

"There were no injuries to our sailors and no damage to the ship," he said.

So far, well done all.

Sandy pessimism

It is good to see that many are showing cautious pessimism about what is going on in Egypt, Tunisia, and perhaps even Yemen.

While there is reason for hope in the Iranian "Green Revolution" (if it ever really takes off) - there is little to no reason to be enthusiastic about what is going on elsewhere. It isn't that I support the present rulers, it is just that I understand that once one power structure falls, another must take its place. If you are like me a staunch republican (small r) and democratic (small d) fundamentalist, you quickly see that those who have a power structure waiting in the wings in these countries share nothing with you.

Tunisia is different in many ways compared to Egypt and Yemen. Like Carthage of old, it is closer to being Western than not. From the relative freedom its women have to demographics and education - Tunisia is a muslim country, but of a distinctively Mediterranean variety. More Italian that Omani. Even there though, there is no strong democratic movement to step out of the tear-gas fog to take power. It is also a small nation of little consequence in the large scheme of things.

In Egypt, you have just the opposite problem. There is but one power structure waiting in the wings - the Muslim Brotherhood. Egypt has a few million educated and western minded citizens, buy literally by an order of magnitude, they are outnumbered by a swelling, ignorant, Islamists mass yearning not to be free.

Yemen, an economic and demographic time bomb is set up to just go from misery to woe. No Jefferson or Washington to be seen. If he does exist, he took a plane long ago to London or Deerborn and is an associate professor somewhere worried that his daughter is a Justin Bieber fan.

In our age, there is a pattern to revolt in Muslim countries I am afraid. In Iran, they have lived under Islamist government for over 30 years. They have a very educated younger generation. Being that they have lived under the Islamist, they have no desire to make that mistake again. They have yet to stage a real, sustained rebellion - but the trend lines are clear. Once the new generation of Iranians take power, they will be more of a force for good than evil. It may take awhile, but the trend lines are good.

Persians are not Arabs, Sunni are not Shia - but the difference between Iran and what we are seeing in Egypt and other places differs mostly because of the fact that the people of those nations do not know what it is like to live under Islamist rule. While there is an Islamist power structure in the waiting, there is no western, freedom focused power structure in waiting to counter them. As a result, when the present power structure falls, there is only one direction for those nations to go. Islamist. They will have to learn the hard way.

The implications will be bloody and stark. Will they lash out internally or externally ... or a bit of both? We won't know until things take their course. Fair to say though, Egypt's Copts and Israel will have a very tough(er) decade to come.

The pessimist's view.

---

UPDATE: Michael J. Totten is on about the same sheet of music with a first hand report from Cairo ... from 2005. A must read.

What if we gave a war and everyone came

The Middle East sure is a dog's breakfast.

The last few years have seen a victory squandered in Iraq that is now soaked in blood again.

Syria is to a point that all one can expect is for it to be bled to still a lighter shade of pale.

Lebanon is, well, from worse to more worse.

Israel has won the Golan Heights argument for the next few generations, will keep building in the West Bank, and is still the jewel of that part of the world - but is having a bad relationship on a personal level with its benefactor.

Jordan is being held together by duct tape, bailing wire, and the best Arab leader of this generation.

Saudi Arabia is all over the place and decided yesterday to invade Yemen again to kill Shia. Looks like they are leading a Sunni coalition of the spanking with fighter jets from Jordan, UAE, Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain. Yesterday saw Egypt and Pakistan stating they are in.

Interesting. As I've stated before, only someone who understands the plot lines of Game of Thrones will be able to explain how to the north of Saudi Arabia that in conjunction with Sunni partners we support Iranian proxies and Iranian-actuals to kill Sunni, and then to the south of Saudi Arabia we have those same Sunni partners who are at war with Iranian proxies.

Someone needs some quality time on the white-board to diagram it. I understand it in my head, but for the life of me I can't explain it in under 5,000 words and five diagrams.

Oman is  ... well Omanish - we can call that a draw along with Morocco and Algeria.

Yemen ... check your news feed on this proxy to not-so-proxy Sunni-Shia conflict, as I am sure my few words above did not help at all.

Egypt is back under the only thing that works there - a military dictatorship.

Tunisia is trying to pretend it is a suburb of Caan ... but is infected with Islamic fundamentalists who have the morality of Thulsa Doom.

Libya is Madmaxistan.

The only nation doing well is ... the Islamic Republic of Iran ... with whom we are are now acting as their tactical air force. Aloha snackbar ... or something like that. Let's make nose-art out of it.

The future? At best, we cull the herd and let the scavengers fight over the remains of the Islamic State. Even if the Islamic State is defeated, thousands of radicalized young fighters who survive will return home to France, Germany, Britain, Australia and the USA. They will not come home in peace.

What to do about Iran? We missed that boat when we abandoned the Green Revolution years ago.

Long war ... a very long war.

Cole mastermind freed

Another victory for LAWFARE.

Yemen has set free one of the Al Qaeda masterminds of the bombing that killed 17 American sailors aboard the destroyer Cole in 2000, a senior security official said Thursday.

Jamal Mohammed Ahmad Ali Badawi, who is wanted by the FBI, was convicted in 2004 of plotting, preparing and helping carry out the Cole bombing in the Yemeni port of Aden. He received a death sentence that was commuted to 15 years in prison.

He and 22 others, mostly Al Qaeda fighters, escaped from prison last year. But Badawi was granted his freedom after turning himself in 15 days ago and pledging loyalty to Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh, said the official, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to release the information.

Witnesses said Badawi was receiving well-wishers at his home in Aden.

Badawi had escaped prison once before, in April 2003, with nine other suspects of the Cole attack, but was rearrested.

Al Qaeda had an active presence in Yemen, the ancestral home of Osama bin Laden. The group was blamed for the Cole bombing and the attack on a French oil tanker that killed one person two years later. Since a suicide attack in July that killed eight Spanish tourists at a Yemeni temple, Saleh has said that his government has reached a truce with the terrorist network.

Lesson Identified, I hope. Some people just need a good killing. I hope he fears the Reaper - this Reaper - remember?

Oh hai Anwar!

This is good - and BZ to all involved.

Anwar al-Aulaqi, a radical U.S.-born Muslim cleric and one of the most influential al-Qaeda operatives wanted by the United States, was killed Friday in an airstrike in northern Yemen, authorities said, eliminating a prominent recruiter who inspired attacks on U.S. soil.

In Washington, a senior Obama administration official confirmed that Aulaqi is dead.

A U.S. counterterrorism official said intelligence indicates that the 40-year-old cleric, a dual national of the United States and Yemen, perished in an attack on his convoy by a U.S. drone and jet, the Associated Press reported.

Nice to see everyone getting to a mature understanding that some people just need to be killed and are not worth the effort to capture and take to court.

This bit of FOD was on the short list. Rinse, repeat.

... but, everyone needs to be reminded of this.

Anwar al-Awlaki - the radical spiritual leader linked to several 9/11 attackers, the Fort Hood shooting, and the attempted Christmas Day bombing of an airliner - was a guest at the Pentagon in the months after 9/11, a Pentagon official confirmed to CBS News.

Awlaki was invited as "...part of an informal outreach program" in which officials sought contact "...with leading members of the Muslim community," the official said. At that time, Awlaki was widely viewed as a "moderate" imam at a mosque in Northern Virginia.

At the same time, the FBI was also interviewing Awlaki about his contacts with three of the 9/11 attackers - Nawaf al-Hazmi, Khalid al Midhar and Hani Hanjour - who were all part of the crew of five that hijacked the American Airlines jet that hit the Pentagon.
...
Still, it's not clear what kind of vetting or background check was done by the Defense Department before Awlaki was allowed into the building.

I can tell you - no one wanted to know. That was then, this is now.

So .... next!

Well ... Lookie Here ... the Salamander Airwing is Here, in a Fashion

Remember this post from half a decade ago?

Sure, there are plenty of foreign examples out there from the Super Tucano to the AT-6 - but what would I find the most interesting ... well ... what do you think about the Air Tractor® AT-802U? "What?", you say - you think it looks like a crop duster? Well, because it is. But ponder this.

» Real-time eye in the sky for ground troop support» Integrated fire control system» Training-focused force support» Small logistics footprint

Proven - I've got your proven hang'n.

In part, this is because of the robust mechanics of turboprops and in part because Air Tractor’s fuel tanks have rubber membranes which close around bullet holes to slow leaks. Add extra fuel tanks, which let the plane stay aloft for ten hours, six 225kg precision-guided bombs and more than 2,000kg of missiles, rockets and ammunition for two 50-calibre machineguns, and you have the AT-802U, a formidable yet reasonably cheap (at $5m) warplane.

The Air Tractor® AT-802U is an economical single engine turboprop aircraft designed for surveillance, precision strike, and rugged dirt strip utility missions. The AT-802U combines an 8,000-lb. (3,629 kg) payload and 10-hour ISR mission capability with the flexibility and responsiveness of a manned weapon system – for a fraction of the cost of unmanned aerial vehicle systems.

(when the unarmed version has been conducting counter drug missions) Despite the planes’ having been hit by more than 200 rounds, though, neither an aircraft nor a pilot has been lost.

... and now ... I tell you; never to miss a single post at CDRS!

They may look like your average crop dusters, but four U.S. planes being sent to Jordan are outfitted with state-of-the-art surveillance gear and laser weapons that will allow the Middle Eastern ally to patrol its lawless eastern border with Iraq, where the ISIS threat looms large.

The spy planes, retrofitted 36-foot AT-802 two-seaters, were initially destined for Yemen, where the U.S. had been trying to help the president hold off an Iranian-backed siege. But with American forces pulled out of that Gulf nation, and Jordan in need of help in the fight against ISIS, the new planes could be the first installment of a bigger armament package diverted from Yemen. The Air Force ordered accelerated delivery of the planes, which Amman requested to help it seek and destroy terror threats on both sides of the border, and documents seemed to indicate that personnel could be on the way, too.

Excellent! I will still take a few squadrons for USAFR/USANG/USNR ... but for now, this will do.

I hope they prove useful.

In Addition to a Vote, the Enemy has Eyes and Ears

I think no better picture captures the blinkered mindset of many designing cutting edge weapon systems than the DDG-1000 advertising poster of the last decade.

There she is, alone and unafraid - attacking an unpopulated, supine, and defensiveless coast in the tropical regions of Shangri-La.

In the real world, it is crowded and messy. Our world is teeming with people and those people go about their business as best they can to feed their families. In most of the world, the coastal regions are full of small boats either plying some trade or attempting to catch what few fish the Chinese left behind.

In those waters, we plan to send out unmanned systems. Have we in any way designed them to hide themselves, defend themselves, or at least evade? Once again, it appears not.

As reported by Ben over at USNINews;

Houthi forces have captured a U.S. Navy research unmanned underwater vehicle off the coast of Yemen, according to a video released on Monday.

In the video posted online by local media on Monday, four men described as members of the “Houthi Navy” in dive gear are surrounding what appears to be a REMUS 600 UUV with the name “Smokey” printed on the body. According to the AMN News web posting, the Houthis discovered the UUV within the past week somewhere off the coast of Yemen.

Good googly moogly - as the below video shows, we even have it painted in "capture me yellow."



We need to up our game a bit.

Lyndon Baines Obama

I thought one of the lessons we learned from the Vietnam War was that the CINC needs to back away from Tactics and focus on the Strategic issues. Then again, in order to not repeat the past, you have to be a student of the past.

I think it is safe to say, President Obama is not very well read in matters of military history.

Mr. Obama has placed himself at the helm of a top secret “nominations” process to designate terrorists for kill or capture, of which the capture part has become largely theoretical. He had vowed to align the fight against Al Qaeda with American values; the chart, introducing people whose deaths he might soon be asked to order, underscored just what a moral and legal conundrum this could be.

Mr. Obama is the liberal law professor who campaigned against the Iraq war and torture, and then insisted on approving every new name on an expanding “kill list,” poring over terrorist suspects’ biographies on what one official calls the macabre “baseball cards” of an unconventional war. When a rare opportunity for a drone strike at a top terrorist arises — but his family is with him — it is the president who has reserved to himself the final moral calculation.
...
Just days after taking office, the president got word that the first strike under his administration had killed a number of innocent Pakistanis. “The president was very sharp on the thing, and said, ‘I want to know how this happened,’ “ a top White House adviser recounted.

In response to his concern, the C.I.A. downsized its munitions for more pinpoint strikes. In addition, the president tightened standards, aides say: If the agency did not have a “near certainty” that a strike would result in zero civilian deaths, Mr. Obama wanted to decide personally whether to go ahead.

Here is an interesting thing to chew on. Do they sit in a little theater looking place with a covered series of "0" "25" "50" "75" "100" buttons on the arm of their chair?

The selection board from h311.

It is the strangest of bureaucratic rituals: Every week or so, more than 100 members of the government’s sprawling national security apparatus gather, by secure video teleconference, to pore over terrorist suspects’ biographies and recommend to the president who should be the next to die.

This secret “nominations” process is an invention of the Obama administration, a grim debating society that vets the PowerPoint slides bearing the names, aliases and life stories of suspected members of Al Qaeda’s branch in Yemen or its allies in Somalia’s Shabab militia.

Snort. Back to LBO.

The nominations go to the White House, where by his own insistence and guided by Mr. Brennan, Mr. Obama must approve any name. He signs off on every strike in Yemen and Somalia and also on the more complex and risky strikes in Pakistan — about a third of the total.

Aides say Mr. Obama has several reasons for becoming so immersed in lethal counterterrorism operations. A student of writings on war by Augustine and Thomas Aquinas, he believes that he should take moral responsibility for such actions. And he knows that bad strikes can tarnish America’s image and derail diplomacy.

OK, help me out here. Where is there anywhere in his past where he has mentioned studying August and Tom? Anyone ... anywhere? I'm calling a flag. I know his pastor wasn't preaching that from the pulpit.

But the control he exercises also appears to reflect Mr. Obama’s striking self-confidence: he believes, according to several people who have worked closely with him, that his own judgment should be brought to bear on strikes.

Noted expert in all things military at the Tactical level, I am sure.

So the president, and I think all of us here, don’t like the fact that people have to die. And so he wants to make sure that we go through a rigorous checklist: The infeasibility of capture, the certainty of the intelligence base, the imminence of the threat, all of these things.

I'm sorry - I am quite happy that people who plan to kill women and children by the score who are simply on a plane to vacation or on a subway to work are set to die. Some people need to simply go away.

I can actually sympathize with the President. If you do not frame this conflict properly, you will find yourself in a position of trying to explain away the inevitable sloppy nature of war. Innocent people will and do die - but that is the fault of your enemy and the nature of war, not the President. If you don't understand that, or are uncomfortable explaining that, and have contempt for those in uniform - then you can start to micro-manage.

There we are; Lyndon Baines Obama.

Off Yemen, the Future Speaks

Ignore the PPT.

Blow off the Beltway prophet.

Bind your mind instead to what is happening now.

This week, look to Yemen's main rebel held port.

I'm discussing over at USNIBlog.

Come on by and give it a read.

So media, had enough yet?

As a long standing member of the "leave-me-alone-small-(l)-libertarian" caucus, I have long given up on what goes for a the 4th Estate and all its statist enabling - I'm in a state of political self-exile if you will.

It seems however - let's just ignore the idol worship of the last half-decade - that a combination of obvious lying over Benghazi with no kidding blood on their hands due to the dozens of deaths worldwide after they advertised the youtube video as cover - and the IRS openly acting in a partisan manner, that we finally might have something wakening in the ABC/NBC/CBS/CNN/AP core; heck WaPo and NYT might even come out to play.

I do know this; if the above two incidents took place in a Republican administration, the media would literally be going apesh1t.

If anything was holding them back; maybe this will break the seal;

The Justice Department secretly obtained two months of telephone records of reporters and editors for The Associated Press in what the news cooperative's top executive called a "massive and unprecedented intrusion" into how news organizations gather the news.

The records obtained by the Justice Department listed incoming and outgoing calls, and the duration of each call, for the work and personal phone numbers of individual reporters, general AP office numbers in New York, Washington and Hartford, Conn., and the main number for AP reporters in the House of Representatives press gallery, according to attorneys for the AP.
...
The Justice Department secretly obtained two months of telephone records of reporters and editors for The Associated Press in what the news cooperative's top executive called a "massive and unprecedented intrusion" into how news organizations gather the news.

The records obtained by the Justice Department listed incoming and outgoing calls, and the duration of each call, for the work and personal phone numbers of individual reporters, general AP office numbers in New York, Washington and Hartford, Conn., and the main number for AP reporters in the House of Representatives press gallery, according to attorneys for the AP.
...
The government would not say why it sought the records. U.S. officials have previously said in public testimony that the U.S. attorney in Washington is conducting a criminal investigation into who may have leaked information contained in a May 7, 2012, AP story about a foiled terror plot. The story disclosed details of a CIA operation in Yemen that stopped an al-Qaida plot in the spring of 2012 to detonate a bomb on an airplane bound for the United States.
...
The May 7, 2012, AP story that disclosed details of the CIA operation in Yemen to stop an airliner bomb plot occurred around the one-year anniversary of the May 2, 2011, killing of Osama bin Laden.

The plot was significant because the White House had told the public it had "no credible information that terrorist organizations, including al-Qaida, are plotting attacks in the U.S. to coincide with the (May 2) anniversary of bin Laden's death."

The AP delayed reporting the story at the request of government officials who said it would jeopardize national security. Once government officials said those concerns were allayed, the AP disclosed the plot because officials said it no longer endangered national security. The Obama administration, however, continued to request that the story be held until the administration could make an official announcement.

Seriously ... would any reporter at AP use a land-line in 2013 to communicate with source? Heck, even 'ole Sal only communicates with some of his sources using IP based communication through ... well ... I won't share more. Let's just say, my spies seem to be a bit more protected than AP's sources ... and I never ever even get near classified information.

Pathetic. Lesson learned - send your UNCLAS scoops to 'ole Sal.

In a larger sense, when will the media decide that the Constitution that gives them the freedom they enjoy, is more important to making people happy so they get invited to the right parties?

Need a reason to drink this weekend?

Mark Steyn is at it again.

What country today has half of its population under the age of 15? Italy has 14 per cent, the UK 18 per cent, Australia 20 per cent - and Saudi Arabia has 39 per cent, Pakistan 40 per cent and Yemen 47 per cent. Little Yemen, like little Britain 200 years ago, will send its surplus youth around the world - one way or another.
...

Seventeen European nations are now at what demographers call "lowest-low" fertility - 1.3 births per woman, the point at which you're so far down the death spiral you can't pull out.

In theory, those countries will find their population halving every 40 years or so. In practice, it will be quicker than that, as the savvier youngsters figure there's no point sticking around a country that's turned into one big undertaker's waiting room: not every pimply burger flipper is going to want to work himself into the ground to pay for new shuffleboard courts at the old folks' home.
...

Europe is bicultural: a fading elderly population yielding to a young surging Islam. ...
The remorseless transformation of Eutopia into Eurabia is already prompting the Dutch to abandon their country in record numbers, for Canada and New Zealand.
...

In the '70s and '80, Muslims had children - those self-detonating Islamists in London and Gaza and Bali are a literal baby boom - while westerners took all those silly books about overpopulation seriously. A people that won't multiply can't go forth or go anywhere. Those who do will shape the world we live in.

Cluelessness and the Africa Challenge

One the strangest things I've seen in the last few weeks has been the attempted Benghazization of the deaths of our Green Berets in Niger.

Sadly, many in the natsec left, who are smart and should know better, made a go of it and lost a lot of credibility in the process. Still, there were others in the press and general public who kept trying to politicize it.

I've come to the conclusion that they have such narrow news sources and interests that they simply missed the whole story. That or are so blinded via politics-uber-alles they refuse to see it. 

Outside natsec pros, there is the fact that so many left leaning people narrow their information sources - and in the last year can't seem to get Trump out of their head - to a degree there isn't room to keep track of the big picture.

Some of the info that they are getting is complete garbage. Take the latest from ViceNews;

... the U.S. military has already seen significant action in Africa, where its growth has been sudden and explosive. When U.S. Africa Command, the umbrella organization for U.S. military operations on the continent, first became operational in 2008, it inherited 172 missions, activities, programs, and exercises from other combatant commands. Five years in, that number shot up to 546.

Today’s figure of 3,500 marks an astounding 1,900 percent increase since the command was activated less than a decade ago, and suggests a major expansion of U.S. military activities on the African continent.

No context. No ability, even in 2017, to understand the nature of Global War on Terrorism - and the critical "bleeding edge" where Dar-al-Islam and Dar-al-Harb meet in Sub-Saharan Africa. As we move them out of one area, they will move to the next etc. We knew that they had Africa as their back yard right after 911 when we first began HOA OPS - it is even more true now.

“The huge increase in U.S. military missions in Africa over the past few years represents nothing less than a shadow war being waged on the continent,” said William Hartung, the director of the Arms and Security Project at the Center for International Policy.
...
“This military-heavy policy,” said Hartung, “risks drawing the United States more deeply into local and regional conflicts in Africa and generating a backlash that could actually aid terrorist organizations in their recruitment.”

If you get your news from ViceNews, you are getting it from an organization that isn't even trying in this case to educate anyone. This is the worst form of natsec yellow journalism.

Ever heard of "Arms and Security Project at the Center for International Policy?" If you are a serious person, probably not.

The Center for International Policy (CIP) was founded in 1975, in the wake of the Vietnam War, by former diplomats and peace activists.
...
In the late 1970s, the Indochina program promoted the normalization of relations between the United States and Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia.

In the 1980s, CIP staff turned its focus to Central America.
...
...the effort to end the counter-productive isolation of Cuba,...

Yeah, those guys.

Oh, for the love of Pete, this guy;

“There is a notion,, in some circles at least, that training missions are ‘safe,’ and that U.S. troops are not exposed to the same level of risk as if they were engaged in direct combat,” said Hartung. “There may be an element of truth in this, but when push comes to shove, training missions can easily cross the line into combat operations.”

What circles? Your drum circle? 

I hated those Commie loving bastards in the 80s, can't abide them now.

Did ViceNews make any effort to talk to anyone who actually knows about the mission? Might have a bit better historical knowledge of the subject?

No.

“We’ve seen a significant increase in U.S. military training to the African continent in recent years,” Colby Goodman, the director of the Security Assistance Monitor, which tracks U.S. spending on foreign militaries, told VICE News. The number of African troops trained by U.S. military personnel jumped 89 percent, Goodman notes, from 22,825 trained in 2014 to at least 42,815 individuals a year later.
...
Hartung shared similar concerns and said it was critical for the public to stay informed of the military’s often quiet expansion. “Congress and the public need to pay more attention to far-flung U.S. military train-and-equip missions, both in Africa and globally. They can too often sow the seeds of greater U.S. military involvement,” he said.

Who is "Security Assistance Monitor?" Glad you asked, it is just a project of CIP. A human centipede of knowledge this is.

ViceNews has done some good work in the past. Like PBS, now and then good stuff is pushed out there.

Here is an idea for ViceNews. Look at the demographics and economic trends we are seeing in Sub-Saharan Africa and discuss how that is trending WRT creating a place where people have opportunity ... or not.

What are those implications? What are the mitigation options? That is a story.

Of note, there was also the story about a decade+ ago about Yemen and the societal tensions caused by demographic and economic realities pressing on an already tender ethnic and religious situation.

How did that work out for you? Did Yemen sneak up on you? If so, you are a repeat offender.

Ignorant people make dumb decisions. Everyone needs to up their game for the collective good.

As a side note, not to toot our own horn - but there's some fair stuff on Africa here, just click the tag below. You can also listen to one of the Midrats episodes of many we did on Africa, this one from FEB 2015 with the Commander of CJTF-HOA.

The Hard Math of Hypersonic

As much as I like to emphasize the important but much maligned liberal arts side of this line of work, I have to give a nod to our engineering minded; the math matters. As such, and be kind, but let's exercise that side of the brain today.

Be warned; there will be math.

As the designers of the Long Lance torpedo and its victims will tell you - the engineering matters. Speed. Distance. Rigorous, operationally realistic testing. It all matters. When war comes, they speak.

The numbers - both quantity and quality - are what often at sea define the odds when the shooting starts. It predestines nothing; in Tamarian I believe it goes, "The Spanish Armada in the Channel" or somesuch - but it must be the entering argument. Once you establish that baseline, then you can talk about tactics, leadership and all that liberal arts stuff.

Remember; the Comanche had the best light cavalry in the world; the Germans had the best tanks; the Japanese had the best torpedoes; the French had the best DFAC ... so ... having the best isn't everything, but it is preferred.

In that light, let's look at the most deadly offensive weapon in Anti-Surface Warfare (ASUW). Just in time for Christmas, this little present was slipped under the tree;

Two aging Russian Navy battlecruisers will be outfitted with the anti-ship version of the world's first hypersonic missile, the 3K-22, which carries Zircon (or Tsirkon) 3M22 hypersonic warheads. This hypersonic missile will also arm Russian ballistic missile submarines.

With a claimed speed of Mach 5 or 6,200 km/h, the 3K-22 has a range of 450 kilometers. The weight of the 3M22 Zircon warhead remains unknown but will likely be heavier than the 200 kg warhead on India's BrahMos supersonic cruise missile. 

It's widely believed BrahMos II is the export version of the 3M22 Zircon. BrahMos II, which will have a speed of Mach 7 (8,600 km/h), will be the world's fastest cruise missile when it enters service with the Indian Armed Forces some eight years from now.
Production of the 3M22 Zircon is expected to begin in 2017. Tests of this warhead began last March.

Yes my friends, over the last couple of decades as our best and brightest spent a lot of real capital - not to mention mountains of political and reputational capital - on one ship to counter Boston Whalers and another designed with around guns that can't afford the rounds it shoots - other navies were focused on weapons designed primarily to keep the premier global power from operating in THEIR seas, i.e. sinking the US Navy.

We made the decision that we could push to the right and accept the risk of not being able to do the same. In the post-Cold War era, we got a bit spoiled and rested on our temporary supremacy at sea. As a result, most of our primary surface warships built since the fall of the Soviet Union - the DDG-51 Class - don't - and more importantly can't - even carry Anti-Ship Cruise Missiles (ASCM), let's check in on what we have in the near term inside our lifelines, and what may be peaking it's nose over the horizon. 

As a companion piece to what I ran last month at USNIBlog, let's look at a couple of things;

- What we have.
- What they have.

When you can you see it?

How long until a weapon is ready to engage?

At what distance will your weapon intercept it?

SHOOT SHOOT LOOK SHOOT?

...or perhaps this?



With those ASCM in the green, like we have seen off Yemen this year, we can handle that. Those in the Yellow? We've been thinking about that challenge since the end of the Cold War.  

Those in the Red?

Well, do the math and it doesn't take long to realize that the only effective kinetic counter to hypersonic once it makes it to a few minutes from impact needs to be, yes, the speed of light; lasers. Lasers are limited to line of sight, so that gives us the visual horizon of a warship.

I warned you there would be math. Let's use round numbers for a point to argue from; if both the incoming weapon and sensor are 30' above the water, that gives you a visual horizon to detect of 12.9-nm. For a missile going Mach 3, that gives you about 21 seconds to impact. 

Again, follow the questions between the spreadsheet and the video above.

That is for a Mach-3 ASCM. Now do the math for a Mach-5. A Mach-7.

It does focus the mind a bit, yes?

For some, this brings up the old saw, "Shoot the archer, not the arrow." OK; shoot it with what?

I actually like the archer analogy for a couple of reasons. Here's one way that goes a little deeper. 

Let's go back to the "archer." In the late Middle-Ages, the English/Welsh Longbowmen were the terror of Europe. They were fast, agile, and could eliminate the flower of European nobility hundreds of yards before that nobility, with their shining, exquisite armor and expensive lances, maces, swords, and battle-axes could be brought to bear.

Longbowmen were also very vulnerable, as they were lightly armed. The only way to eliminate them from the field was through a surprise cavalry attack from the flank or by your own archers who had the range, will, and numbers to move them off the field.

We have yet to see a Battle of Crécy at sea to really show the power of the ASCM. From the coast of Sinai, to the Falkland Islands, to the Persian Gulf, we have seen little demonstrations over the last couple of decades, that is about it. 

We have been warned.

Note I didn't include the recent US Navy swatting down the relatively primitive ASCM used off Yemen. That generation of ASCM really is no match for our DDG as long as everything works. That exchange ended as it should - but we should not think we have the modern problem solved.

In time, it was only the invention of the firearm that ended the Longbowman's tenure. That took awhile, as will our response to modern ASCM.

There is a larger question here, and it has to do with a dominate power's complacency. We mostly talk about defense - but what are we doing about offence? Why is it the world's premier naval power has some of the slowest and shortest range ASCM?

Does that fact give you pause? It should. Look at what we are, replacing Harpoon with, perhaps, LRASM and NSM. Are they even supersonic? No. Do they challenge modern defenses? On paper, not really if you discount any electronic fairy dust.

In some ways, we are just building the best, most high-tech pre-Dreadnoughts in an era when Dreadnoughts are growing in number.

NB: all speeds used here are from open source material. You, or I, may have different speeds in mind - but keep all that to yourself. This is just to demonstrate a point, not be military pedantic or to forget that we are blogg'n in the Red, not Green. An errata as well; "NATO Strike Missile" should be "Naval Strike Missile." My bust, I had NATO on the brain.

The Drone Overreach is Nigh

This technology, only a POM away, is the answer to all our problems. If we only invest a bit more and trust this one braintrust, the future will be ours to dominate with fewer units, fewer personnel, less bloodshed, with more power and flexibility. All we need to do in to close our minds and trust our seers of the future who know. They just know, dontchaknow.

What we need to do is to throw away all that oldthink, embrace the Tommorowland of Our Betters, ignore the reality of the conflict and operational reality all around us and focus on the vignette. Focus on the presentation. Focus on our pristine, exquisite, transformational vision of what will be.

We just need to recapitalize, redirect funds, retire oldthink platforms early and hold out hands together is the only way smart, visionary, right thinking, and - ahem - promotable people think. The post-retirement jobs are all going to be here for those who, well, you know. We don't need to get in to specifics about that right now, now do we?

We have seen this movie before. An experienced and slightly world weary matron is once again seduced by the handsome flatterer who tells a story clear to all but the matron that is is little more than the usual over-promise and under-deliver sweet talk that she has fallen for in the past. What follows is a roller coaster of great expectations followed by excuse laden disappointment that in the end leads only to painful recriminations and prenury.

Unmanned systems will continue to provide incremental additional utility if we are smart with our money, humble with our ambitions, and harsh in our evaluations. But no, that is not good enough. Once again we are seeing slick aspirational ideas that we are all supposed to embrace - in spite of the reality of what we see around us tells us what is actually needed, regardless of what the last few conflicts have tried to teach us - indeed, what centuries of solid military experience has taught us. 

Like the push for the A-12 prevented us from having a viable and much needed replacement for the capabilities of the A-6, this snake-oil pushing may lead us to miss what unmanned systems have to really offer us by mid-century.

The industry overreach never ends, they never stop. There is always a new group of thinkers who think they have, like those cute teenagers who think they have discovered s3x, discovered something that no one else ever has. They have an insight in to a new way that no one else. They have an idea, a technology, a concept that they are sure - if only everyone trusted them and showed the same enthusiasm they had - will transform, offset, or generation jump their way in to the future where enemies fall away before their dominance while everyone is quickly victorious and makes it home for supper.

Sorry, it never works that way. In spite of a few thousand years of people trying to convince their leaders it really will this time - after all, they are smarter and more insightful than previous generations. It. Never. Works. That. Way.

And so it is for drones, Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV), Unmanned Aircraft System (UAS), Unmanned Combat Air Vehicle (UCAV) Remotely Piloted Aircraft (RPA) - or whatever we are calling it this FY.

Drones have been with us for decades and technology holds the promise of their greater utility in the future. They key is "promise." We should continue to build a little, test a little, learn a lot - but that isn't good enough for some. Those "some" need to be challenged at every step or they will put us right were we are now; the A-6 to A-12 debacle; the loss or organic tanking; the myopic victory of the Light Attack Mafia that left our multi-billion dollar CVN with decks full of short ranged strike fighters and little more; the LCS who seems to only be able to combat the effort to build a functional fleet; and the white elephant DDG-1000 who, I am willing to bet, has only begun to build on its record of transformationalist under-performance.

Where there are solid, sane, and defensible developments in the drone world, such as the decision to focus the Unmanned Carrier-Launched Airborne Surveillance and Strike (UCLASS) program on Carrier-Based Aerial-Refueling System (CBARS) - that doesn't keep the drone good idea fairy from pushing. They will always push as their product is the push.

We're going to unpack something, and it is going to be painful - at least for me. From the 11 July Defense News, retired Air Force Generals John Loh and Ronald Yates ask, "What Next for Drone Warfare?" The executive summary is, "Not this." - but what fun would that be? Let's pull apart the juicy center, a mini-Fisk if you will;

There is no shortage of scenarios well suited to this next generation of combat RPAs. Obviously, their current effectiveness can be improved with all-weather stealth technology, longer endurance, better sensors, larger payloads and connectivity to the global "info-sphere". With these improvements, they can cover targets in other regions where terrorists congregate, such as North Africa, Yemen, Somalia and Southwest Asia. Further, with an optimized vehicle, RPAs can be incorporated into war plans against aggressive nation-state adversaries.

Next-generation RPAs can also be the foundation for enforcing international truces and treaties. They can provide continuous, high-resolution surveillance of important facilities to detect activity that could violate agreements, and immediately strike targets.

Establishing no-fly zones over contested areas is a viable alternative to nation-building. The continuous no-fly zones over Iraq for twelve years after the First Gulf War in 1991 demonstrated their effectiveness as a deterrent to further warfare. No-fly, no-drive zones patrolled with RPAs and manned aircraft can detect and strike any air or ground target, obviate the need for "boots on the ground", and maintain air dominance over the area.

In the same vein, new, optimized RPAs would be the best choice for tracking activity and exerting U.S. influence in hot spots such as the Ukraine, Taiwan Straits, North Korea, Spratley Islands and Central America.

A new fleet does not require new infrastructure. Today's RPAs have capable ground-based flight and mission-control facilities, and robust, jam-resistant data links. Fortunately, programs are already underway to upgrade them such that fielding a new force of RPAs would require little, if any, additional capabilities. And, the global info-sphere of space-borne, networked communications already exists to link RPAs in any region of the world.

Goodness. What a start;

There is no shortage of scenarios well suited to this next generation of combat RPAs.

Of course, if you carefully design your vignette to remove the enemy's vote, assume your dominance of the electromagnetic spectrum and low-Earth orbit, and you can keep the JAG/LEGAD hogtied and ball-gagged in some fan room with two MA's securing the door. No problem.

Obviously, their current effectiveness can be improved with all-weather stealth technology, longer endurance, better sensors, larger payloads and connectivity to the global "info-sphere".

There, in a nutshell, is how we got ACS, A-12, LCS, DDG-1000, FCS etc etc etc - we just assume all challenges away and all good things to happen as a result of just saying so. Additionally, on the back of a cocktail napkin, I think the drone in the above paragraph will need to be something between a G4 and a 737. Good luck hiding that from anyone. It would also help having a vertically challenged contractor in the back room spinning hay in to gold.

With these improvements, they can cover targets in other regions where terrorists congregate, such as North Africa, Yemen, Somalia and Southwest Asia. Further, with an optimized vehicle, RPAs can be incorporated into war plans against aggressive nation-state adversaries.

How many years lost to "making do with what legacy systems we have left after we retire others to capture the cost" will that take? What opportunity cost for those hundreds of millions? What of the conflicts we will be in that - as history tells us - this brave new world capability will be useless in? I assume "optimized" means that whatever you have is covered with fairy dust and will even cure the Heartbreak of Psoriasis?

Next-generation RPAs can also be the foundation for enforcing international truces and treaties. They can provide continuous, high-resolution surveillance of important facilities to detect activity that could violate agreements, and immediately strike targets.

Will someone check the fan room? I am sure I heard the JAG screaming through the ball gag. Also, we are pretty much already doing that, minus the AI implied "immediately." But, yeah.

Establishing no-fly zones over contested areas is a viable alternative to nation-building. The continuous no-fly zones over Iraq for twelve years after the First Gulf War in 1991 demonstrated their effectiveness as a deterrent to further warfare. No-fly, no-drive zones patrolled with RPAs and manned aircraft can detect and strike any air or ground target, obviate the need for "boots on the ground", and maintain air dominance over the area.

Wait, did someone just come out of a coma? I'm sorry, but I don't think the Shia or the Kurds agree all that much and - in the end analysis - that the NFZ in Iraq prevented any conflict. Sure, prevented one unknown possible conflict, but conflict came anyway. Any air or ground target? No need for "boots on the ground?" My Buddha, it is almost as if nothing has happened in the last decade.

In the same vein, new, optimized RPAs would be the best choice for tracking activity and exerting U.S. influence in hot spots such as the Ukraine, Taiwan Straits, North Korea, Spratley Islands and Central America.

"Best choice" under what terms? Define how you exert U.S. influence via something that no one sees, interacts with, or knows what it is doing? That is ISR, not presence of influence operations. Oh, and if they can see or interact with it - then you won't have that asset any more to do your subliminal influencing - or what ever this means.

A new fleet does not require new infrastructure. Today's RPAs have capable ground-based flight and mission-control facilities, and robust, jam-resistant data links. Fortunately, programs are already underway to upgrade them such that fielding a new force of RPAs would require little, if any, additional capabilities.

So, no new hangars? No new facility to support troops and contractors? No new simulators or repair facilities? No new bandwidth requirements?

And, the global info-sphere of space-borne, networked communications already exists to link RPAs in any region of the world.

"Info-sphere" - is that a new term I need to add to BS-Bingo? Will we see that more? Again, I assume that all the bandwidth we are using right now is fully under military control, robust against jamming, can avoid hacking or ASAT, and can operate against a hostile EW environment against peer and near-peer operators? Scaleable and secure? Redundant with ready spares?

Really?

Read it all. It all sounds so clear, easy, and doable - and of course it does. This is the classic problem of choosing the "all assumptions are green" nested best case scenario thinking that has set us back time and time again. This needs to be challenged at every step of the way or we will once again find ourselves passing up "good" evolutionary products that were doable for ethereal "generation jumping" ideas that just never wind up making a shadow, or are produced in such small numbers that they have little use.