Chincken-hawks or What Triggers Me.

It is one of my most favorite videos but this hilarious representation of the Korean Conflict applies fully to many US legislators whose only skill is barking. 

I abhor ANY war-monger, anywhere, who never having a real service and background to make even tactical, forget about operational and strategic decisions in their lives bark their non-sense into the air due to their recognition of the fact that they themselves will never have to go and fight, let alone die for the principles they love to show off as their moral compass, while in reality being nothing more than political prostitutes and chihuahuas in human terms. Enter couple of such guys: 

1. Senator Richard Blumenthal. His bio states this:

Born in Brooklyn, New York, Blumenthal attended Riverdale Country School, a private school in the Bronx. He graduated from Harvard College, where he was editor-in-chief of The Harvard Crimson. He studied for a year at Trinity College, Cambridge, in England before attending Yale Law School, where he was editor-in-chief of the Yale Law Journal. At Yale, he was a classmate of Bill and Hillary Clinton. From 1970 to 1976, Blumenthal served in the United States Marine Corps Reserve, attaining the rank of sergeant. After law school, Blumenthal passed the bar and served as administrative assistant and law clerk for several Washington, D.C. figures. From 1977 to 1981, he was United States Attorney for the District of Connecticut. In the early 1980s he worked in private law practice, including as volunteer counsel for the NAACP Legal Defense Fund. ... Blumenthal received five draft deferments during the Vietnam War, first educational deferments, then deferments based on his occupation. In April 1970 Blumenthal enlisted in the United States Marine Corps Reserve which, The New York Times reported, "virtually guaranteed that he would not be sent to Vietnam". He served in units in Washington, D.C., and Connecticut from 1970 to 1976, attaining the rank of sergeant. During his 2010 Senate campaign, news report videos that showed Blumenthal claiming he had served in Vietnam created a controversy. Blumenthal denied having intentionally misled voters, but acknowledged having occasionally "misspoken" about his service record. He later apologized to voters for remarks about his military service which he said had not been "clear or precise"

Yes, Stolen Valor and draft dodging are very wide-spread among US political class, enough to remember Hillary's "courage under fire" and then Brian Williams' being fired upon in Iraq. All of it, obviously, turning out to be a complete BS. So, it is not a bug but a feature. 

2. Representative Joe Courtney. Yet another lawyer pretending to "serve American people", who saw military service on TV in such shows as M.A.S.H. and movies by Oliver Stone, who, BTW, is a bona fide Vietnam Veteran. 

So these two "heroes", who wouldn't know the difference between targeting and firing solution, came up with a brilliant idea: 

American sailors should be prepared to take on Russia and show their strength as the country goes “head to head” with Moscow amid fears of a possible invasion of Ukraine, two US legislators have demanded. ...Blumenthal said that he agreed with President Joe Biden that the US should not send soldiers to fight in Ukraine, but insisted that increasing NATO capabilities in the region would be an important part of showing strength “around the world in other areas where we go head-to-head with the Russians.” In particular, he pointed to the role submarines can play in confronting Moscow. “Undersea warfare – because we’re talking about the Mediterranean, about the Black Sea as potential areas of tension and conflict – is very much in play even though it isn’t directly involved in the confrontation in the Eastern Ukraine area or Crimea or in the northern borders of Ukraine, which represent perhaps the greatest immediate threat in Belarus, where Putin is amassing forces right now.”

I have some news for Blumenthal and his side-kick. The fact that Blumenthal sits on the Armed Services Committee and is privy to some chit-chat by people who know and has access to classified briefings doesn't make him a specialist on naval warfare or any warfare to start with. They don't teach that in Law Schools and it is much harder to command a modern submarine than passing a bar exam. In fact, several order of magnitude harder. But the main news, of course, is the fact that US Navy's submarine forces ARE present in Med and have been there for a long time. So, how "going head-to-head with Russians" in submarine warfare looks like, Blumenthal will not understand even if I, out of goodness of my soul, will agree to give him a course of lectures on hydrology, non-acoustic sensors, tactics and operations, review with his a variety of highly classified tactical and operational manuals related to submarine operations, and maybe even explain to him basics of signal processing and why one doesn't want to use a cookie cutter. Even after that, he still will not understand that, including the fact that this "head-to-head" thing is happening in Med right this very moment as I type this. 

So, I am triggered always, when some uneducated hack (or collection of hacks) who do not know shit from shinola and have ZERO military professional background at least of the tactical officer level begin to wax "Top Gunnish" and based on their Hollywood military porn "expertise" begin to offer their advice on matter they have no clue about. And clue they don't have. Everything they do when offering their nauseating war-mongering fodder is done for a PR purposes only, and serve ONLY one thing they desire above all--to be re-elected to maintain their position of power and possible financial benefits which US Congress affords its members. Considering a very high susceptibility of the American population to military porn and aggressive rhetoric, due to America's utter illiteracy about real war and warfare, this works for people like Blumenthal. It doesn't work, however, in real life and real war, but neither of these two would know anything about it. Nor do they understand how they look like barking chihuahuas when proposing something which is already in place and is ongoing. But then again, look at the video above.

Ships Are Just Platforms.

It matters what they carry as weapon systems which defines them as either "bad" or "good", to put it in the layman's lingo. Remarkably, this is not the idea former Senator Jim Talent and former armor officer Lindsey Neas can wrap their brains around, when they write, in the neocon rag The National Review, next:

There is good news at last for America’s armed forces, or at least for the Navy. A bipartisan group of legislators has sponsored a bill that has the potential to address at one stroke a first-order priority for American national security: upgrading and expanding the nation’s shipyards. ... The Shipyards Act is an outstanding first step on the path to revitalizing America’s sea power. Given the pressing need for a bigger Navy, however, the sponsors should also seek to set aside additional money from the proposed infrastructure bill to increase the Navy’s shipbuilding accounts and buy more vessels as the shipyards expand.

I write extensively on the pitiful state of the American shipbuilding industry in general, and commercial one in particular, in my latest book. So, the fact that some steps are being undertaken to revitalize some shipyards seems to be a logical set of actions. But the issue here is not that pouring money on the problem will somehow resolve a huge list of issues for the United States naval power in its attempt to shape itself up trying to meet China PLAN's challenge. Not only Congressional Budget Office (CBO) doubts that this whole thing will make huge difference, when writing about subs: 

CBO’s projection includes anticipated improvements in productivity. Automation is expected to lead to a onetime 3 percent increase in productivity—that is, tasks will take 3 percent less time, on average. For example, the design and manufacture of replacement parts is being automated in ways including computer-aided design and automated cutting of sheet metal. Because some tasks are more difficult to automate than others, the amount of time saved per task will vary greatly. The agency also projected that shipyards would realize the 5 percent efficiency gain that the Navy anticipates from the infrastructure improvements made under SIOP. CBO projected that both increases in efficiency would phase in from 2022 to 2031

It is all fine and dandy, but if one follows Talent's and Neas' ideas of "sea power":

So the Navy needs a lot more ships. No less than six recent reports and studies — including the Navy’s formal position of a 355-ship fleet by 2030 — recommend a combined total of between 355 and 688 manned and unmanned vessels in the fleet. The exact nature of the needed expansion will depend on our maritime strategy; the evolution of technology, doctrine, and tactics; the size and capabilities on the PLAN, and the contributions of our allies and security partners. That said, the Navy needs to do at least the following over the next decade. First, sustain production of aircraft carriers, destroyers, and both attack and ballistic-missile submarines. Second, in keeping with a growing consensus, ensure a substantial number of smaller surface combatants that can provide both forward presence across the Indo-Pacific region, to conduct the wide array of missions necessary in littoral environs, and the kind of distributed threat that will strengthen deterrence against Chinese aggression.

One is immediately struck by, to put it mildly, "platform-centricity" of naval thinking of these two guys. Sure, numbers matter, they always do, but the issue, apart from making a strategic and operational sense to ramp up submarine production, where even today the US Navy enjoys a decisive technological edge over PLAN, is what those aircraft carriers and destroyers will carry as their weapon systems? I omit here a reality of building more carriers, but does the United states seriously think that it can "outcarrier" mainland China which was steadily improving what no US aviator encountered since Vietnam, its comprehensive air-defense system, and what no US aviator encountered since Korea--a very capable Air Force. Even authors of this alarmist and "give-us-more-money" piece admit:

The balance of hard power in the Western Pacific has been shifting for a number of years. The implications of that are obvious. Unless deterrence is strengthened — and that means, first and foremost, a stronger American naval presence in INDOPACOM — it is only a matter of time before Beijing attempts to use force to snuff out democracy in Taiwan. That would be a disaster for America’s vital national interests in the region. The Shipyard Act, if it passes, will be the first signal in a long time that Congress is really serious about preventing it.

But I have news for them, one doesn't fight wars with "presence". China today, apart from having a deterrence of her own, has weapon systems whose analogues the US Navy will not have for a long time, if ever and that makes all the difference in the world. I am talking about, of course, anti-shipping missiles which effectively annul any legacy surface force in case of a serious war. Not only the US Navy will not be able to deploy enough CBGs around Taiwan to impress China which did put her carrier-building program in the turbo-charged mode, but the whole area around Taiwan already today is an exclusion zone for any type of a surface force, simply on the merit of China having enough "weight" in salvo to effectively overwhelm any current sea-based air-defense and this capability, augmented in the nearest future with the hypersonic capability (and, most likely, Russia-provided targeting), makes no difference in terms of actual power projection, which, as a viable concept in peer-to-peer scenario, ceased to exist at least a decade or two ago. 

There are no reasons, so far, to believe that the United States can address this main, and a host of other related issues when planning for "containment" and "deterrence" of China--a set of the hollow Pentagonese catch-phrases and buzz-word which are absolutely meaningless in the world of accelerating development of a very to very long range anti-shipping supersonic and hypersonic missiles, which really do not discriminate what legacy air-defense they overcome or what legacy platform they hit--they can and will do that in case of war. This is the idea which is slow on arrival to the minds of the American naval thinkers who never graduated from the views on the naval warfare as a combination of impressive visuals and battles of carrier-centric navies of the Pacific War of 1940s. This merely underscores a complete strategic and doctrinal dead-end in Pentagon and inability to adapt to ever changing realities of a modern warfare. But, of course, visuals are important, wink, wink. But ships are merely platforms and if the US Navy thinks that it can fight China in her geographic vicinity with "alpha-strikes" of carrier aviation and with subsonic medium-range Naval Strike Missile, I think this era of naval warfare has passed long time ago. Ah, yes, I forgot--take a look at that. 

For illustration, this is a new PLAN's type 055 DDG. 

She carries 112-cell VLS, capable to accommodate a truck-load of YJ-18 anti-shipping and land-attack missiles, which are, and you may have guessed it already, Chinese versions of Russian 3M54/3M14 missiles, they even look the same, so if one thinks that such a ship cannot launch several salvos of M=3 on terminal anti-ship missiles (how about 3 salvos with 8 missiles in them?), they better check their facts. The US Navy simply has nothing comparable at its disposal. As I said, I repeat, it is how you are armed not how you look which matters. Chinese got that right, but then again--they had good teachers, wink, wink.

Getting To The (Intermediate) Finish Line.

As was expected it was confirmed today about Zircon:

Trials of launching a missile from a naval vessel are planned to start at the end of the year. The Admiral Gorshkov-class frigate, also known as Project 22350, from the Northern Fleet will be used," the source said adding that earlier trials included launching Zircon missiles from land.

The sobbing of Russian old-fashioned navalists and other missile age and Augmented Salvo Equations denialists can be heard all over the place, but if Kinzhal closed off Russia's littoral and near (and even some remote) sea zones, deployment of 1000+ kilometer range Zircon on ocean-going ships and, consequently, submarines is a whole other story altogether. It ends modern naval warfare as we know it. So, what's next? An operational singularity until some form of more-or-less effective counter will be developed and that means a very long time. I stress again, sticking lasers on ships is not going to do it for a number of huge technological reasons which must be addressed before any serious talk about lasers as effective weapon begins.

So, for US Navy the only way is to get on with own hyper-sonic anti-shipping weapons. How far behind the US is in this race? Who knows, some people say 10-15 years, which in modern times is a hugely long time, once one considers the dynamics of military-technological developments. The key factor, however, for the US is not R&D, it is institutional inertia and gridlock which continues to prevent the US Navy from actually facing reality and forces it to remain, despite all public invocations of Distributed Lethality, a solidly carrier-centric navy with no real prospects for change which is long overdue. Remember this, always:

They are easy to remember and calculate. It is a primer for understanding a ruthless dynamic of modern warfare which removed already old delusions of a dying empire about warfare it thought it could wage with impunity. 

It’s time to look beyond the stirring images of infantrymen storming machine-gun nests created by Hollywood and to see war for what it is and will be in the future: the ruthless extermination of the enemy with accurate, devastating firepower from the sea, from the air, from space and from mobile, armored firepower on land.

I guess, the future has arrived already and don't tell me that I didn't warn about it. 

It Is Official And It Is Over.

While the whole Western media are shaking (incompetence will do this to one) in their boots from Vladimir Putin's address, where he demonstrated, among many things, new RS-28 Sarmat ballistic missile, behind that revolutionary weapon system, one was almost completely ignored by media. Again, "education" based on catch phrases (such a "nuclear weapon) will do this to one. By far most shocking (albeit inevitable) revelation was deployment of a new hyper-sonic missile Kinzhal (Dagger) to regular service with front line Air Force units in Southern Military District. Mig-31 carries this weapon, I am positive any SU-35 or SU-30SM or SU-34 will be able to do it too. Here is a video and CGI simulation. 

The missile is... well, for the lack of better word, is stunning--it is M=10+ highly maneuverable missile with the range of 2000 kilometers. The naval warfare as we know it is over. Without any overly-dramatic emphasis--we are officially in new era. No, I repeat, NO, modern or perspective air-defense system deployed today by any NATO fleet can intercept even a single missile with such characteristics. The salvo of 5-6 of such missiles is a guaranteed destruction of any Carrier Battle Group. 

The mode of use of such weapon, especially since we know now that it is deployed (for now) in Southern Military District is very simple--the most likely missile drop spot by MiG-31s will be international waters of the Black Sea, thus closing off whole Eastern Mediterranean to any surface ship or group of ships. It also creates a massive no-go zone in the Pacific, where MiG-31s from Yelizovo will be able to patrol vast distances over the ocean. It is, though, remarkable that the current platform for Kinzhal is MiG-31--arguably the best interceptor in the history. Obviously, MiG-31's ability to reach very high supersonic speeds (in excess of M=3) is a key factor in the launch. But no matter what are the procedures for the launch of this terrifying weapon, the conclusions are simple:

1. It moves aircraft carriers into the niche of pure power projection against weak and defenseless adversaries;

2. It makes classic CBGs as main strike force against peer completely obsolete and useless, it also makes any surface combat ship defenseless regardless its air-defense capabilities. 

3. Sea Control and Sea Denial change their nature and merge. Those who have such weapon, or weapons, simply own vast spaces of the sea limited by the ranges of Kinzhal and its carriers. 

I don't want to sound dramatic and I knew that there were and are always surprises in Soviet/Russian weapons but today's revelations from the highest podium in Russia about Kinzhal were shocking. The balance of power just shifted dramatically, with it the naval warfare as we knew it is no more. It is OVER!  

UPDATE: Is it beginning to sink?  

A thoroughly neocon and "exceptionalist" rag Foreign Policy suddenly posted, still bile and delusions-filled, but less insane piece titled with precisely the message Putin was trying to deliver globally to the world:

Putin’s Nuclear-Powered Cruise Missile Is Bigger Than Trump’s.There’s no point in competing with Russia’s new trove of bizarre doomsday devices.

While US "Intelligence Community" may state whatever they want, the issue is not even "bizarrness" of these weapons--in fact, there is nothing bizarre about them at all. The issue is that the United States currently has nothing comparable to this technology and the main, and I quote, message of Putin was:

 You didn't want to listen to us in 2004, now listen to us now.

And yes, Mr. Jeffrey Lewis, it is not just about nuclear weapons--both Avangard and Kinzhal are perfectly capable of conventional munitions. In fact, that is what they primarily are. But then again, I doubt anyone among US mainstream Russia "experts" read 2014 Russia's Military Doctrine and what is stated there in terms of  Conventional Strategic Containment.

In related news, Gazprom started the procedure of annulment of all gas delivery and transit contracts with Ukraine. It is over. Isn't it strange how many times I used the word over in the last 48 hours?

Damned If You Do, Damned If You Don't-I (Military Power, Again).

I do sympathize with US Armed Forces in one very serious respect--being a tool of insane neocon foreign policy and delirious military-political doctrines, US Armed Forces, together with the US as a whole, have sustained some major, to put it mildly, reputational damage as of lately. Arguing about this is really a waste of time since the sheer number of high profile scandals from forcing an ROTC cadets to walk in women's shoes, to naming Navy's tanker after Harvey Milk--the gay rights activist, to actual very serious strategic and operational failures both in Iraq and in Afghanistan (and in Syria), is more than enough to give an impression that things are not going the way they are supposed to go. And they are not, and it is not just the impression.  It is also a very sensitive matter since very many (by far not all, though) in and around US Armed Forces have gotten used to thinking about themselves as omnipotent. As Lt. Colonel Davies succinctly put it:

"In the aftermath of Operation Desert Storm in 1991, there was great celebration in America that the crushing military victory over Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, “kicked the Vietnam syndrome once and for all” and demonstrated the United States was now the world’s sole military superpower. That was no empty bluster. Even Beijing and Moscow were impressed and openly lamented they were militarily inferior. Americans across the board were optimistic and proud. However justified that pride might have been at the time, it quickly mutated into distasteful arrogance. Now, it is an outright danger to the nation."

Fact is, the US military talked itself up so much that at some point it simply stopped being adequate to the qualities and capabilities it claimed to have. Make no mistake, it is still a first class fighting force and is a force which could only be described in terms of a superpower  which US as a whole still remains. For how long? That is a question of questions. 

No force represents American superpowerdom better than her first class and world's most powerful Navy. There is no discussion about it--it is by far the most powerful navy in the world, which also has a glorious battle history and is highly professional. Yet, the same as with the country it represents, it has some very serious operational and technological issues. In layman's lingo--it is not invincible. In the last three years since the start of Ukrainian mayhem number of US high ranked generals, such as Philip Breedlove, claimed that Russia had regular troops in Ukraine fighting alongside "separatists". Did Breedlove know that this was a BS? Hell yes, he knew, he also knew that should Russian Army fight in Ukraine, the war will be over pretty fast. Here he got himself into the classic Damned If You Do, Damned If You Don't situation. You are damned if you lie about Russian Army, thus making yourself look like a fool, you are also damned if you use your own professional background and senses and state that real Russian Army's capabilities are such that it would take about a week to simply wipe Ukrainian Armed Forces out as an organized fighting force. This is a military version of Russophrenia--the enemy must be simultaneously a piece of crap which doesn't even touch the feet of US Armed Forces and be very powerful as to impede or shut down everything what goes under the title of "force projection" as to provide enough cash flow from the holder of the purse to buy new shiny toys.  

Enter current Chief Of Naval Operations Admiral Richardson and his interview to TNI with telling title:

Chief of Naval Operations Richardson: US Aircraft Carriers Can Fight Inside A2/AD Zones

This interview is a classic example of this Damned If You Do, Damned If You Don't principle and it is absolutely not new for modern US Navy--because US Navy is a carrier-centric one. US Navy's large aircraft carriers are magnificent ships, incredible feats of engineering in their own right and they do provide an imposing visuals which easily translate into a clear statement of US global power to project force... that is when we are talking about some third world sh.tholes which have no real navy, no real air-defense, no real air force or, in general, anything that accounts for... drum roll... A2/AD (that is Anti-Access/Area Denial) capabilities. But in US Navy it is damned if you do not have carrier-centric navy, damned if you do, because for a 20+ billion dollars per single Carrier Battle Group you have to find the way to do more than just provide visuals and to bomb with impunity the shit out of such places as Iraq or Afghanistan, and damned if you do since the whole premise of American exceptionalism and superpowerdom goes to hell without carriers and there are very good chances to lose them when facing serious people. Are US CBGs really capable to fight inside REAL A2/AD zones? Here, after we skip the platitude about US Navy leadership's views on A2/AD: "A2/AD—as it is now called—has existed since the dawn of warfare when primitive man was fighting with rocks and spears. Overtime, A2/AD techniques have evolved as technology has improved with ever-greater range and lethality. Rocks and spears eventually gave way to bows and arrows, muskets and cannons. Thus, the advent of long-range anti-ship cruise and ballistic missiles is simply another technological evolution of A2/AD," Admiral Richardson makes a very startling statement:

"Indeed, as many U.S. Navy commanders including Richardson and Rear Adm. (Upper Half) DeWolfe Miller, the service’s director of air warfare, have pointed out, anti-access bubbles defended by Chinese DF-21D or DF-26 anti-ship ballistic missile systems or Russian Bastion-P supersonic anti-ship missile systems are not impenetrable ‘Iron Domes.’ Nor do formidable Russian and Chinese air defense systems such as the S-400 or HQ-9 necessarily render the airspace they protect into no-go zones for the carrier air wing."

Why this statement is startling may not be obvious for a civilian but for anyone with even rudimentary understanding of military power this "revelation" is not only stunning it reeks of a "distasteful arrogance"(c) since Admiral Richardson forgets to mention several major force components which constitute this very A2/AD concept--the factors which US Navy never encountered in real combat and, hopefully, never will. One such, among many others, factor is actual an actual air force of the side which defends itself from being "democratized" and "liberated" by the US Navy.  

Let's ask ourselves a question--what is an aircraft carrier? The answer is extremely simple: it is a mobile airfield which carries with itself its own mini-air force, that is the air wing. I will omit for now scenarios which are a wet dream of many in what Elmo Zumwalt defined as the "carrier trade union"--that is a dream of a large carrier naval battle between two fleets in the ocean, harking back to the glory days of Midway and to moribund Mahan's doctrine--this is not a serious discussion for anyone who has any understanding of a modern warfare. Let's imagine what A2/AD complex of such a gas station masquerading as a country of Russia looks like. I, once, made a very brief review of it in this blog. Now it is time to take a closer and much more detailed look at it and we will start with...

1.  Air Force. 

Admiral Richardson (undeniably a very competent officer, a former submariner) is being disingenuous here. A2/AD for people who really do give a huge damn about own security, such as Russia, starts with what really matters when dealing with those who want to "operate" within this zone--in this particular case it is one or several CBGs of US Navy--it starts with air defense, which in Soviet times had its own... air force. No, I am not talking about "air force" such as Iraqi or even Iranian one, which still flies old and obsolete F-14s. No, we are talking here about the Air Force which operates state of the art planes, complex networks, first class sensors and early warning (ground and airborne) systems. A brief look at the only theater where US Navy's carrier groups can possibly encounter Russian A2/AD is the Russian Far East. From Kamchatka, along the Kuril island Chain, to Japan--these are ocean spaces where CBGs could theoretically deploy in order to attack Russia. The straight line distance between Vladivostok and Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky is about 1500 miles, the same is from Tokyo to Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky. This is the "front"--this is just to give the impression of a good size of a theater BEFORE crossing Kuril Islands Chain. This is also (very-very roughly) the line from which US carriers have to launch their planes to attack both Russian Navy's assets in the area and strike main naval bases of Russia's Pacific Fleet--Vladivostok and Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky. You can mentally (or on the actual map) draw two circles with centers in Vladivostok and Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky respectively with both circles or rather rings having a radii between 400 (internal) and 600 (external) miles--this is where the launch of the carrier borne jets will happen--to bomb the shit out of respectively Vladivostok and Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky. That is if both naval bases have the same capability as Iraqi Armed Forces or even better equipped and trained Iranian ones. But here is the problem with carriers--they always were a huge fat targets and in the age of serious sensors' advancements getting tracking and targeting information on them is much easier than it was in 1960s or even 1980s. 

If you didn't notice, while discussing this whole A2/AD business I didn't mention a word "nuclear", I will later. For now we have to concentrate on purely conventional option. And here are some very unpleasant news for those who think that carriers would be able to operate within this zone against near peer or peer. It starts with a simple realization of operational reality of Russia's Air Force, whose air superiority, air defense (intercept), strike, refueling and early warning assets are located exactly around both Vladivostok and Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky. Just to give some taste of what is in store for carrier air-wings attacking Russian assets within this zone, here are some:

1. 35 Su-35s located 11 in Vladivostok and 24 near Komsomolsk-on-Amur, with the capability to redeploy to any airfield closer to the coast; 

2. The regiment of Mig-31s (presumably updated to BM) from Elizovo is another X-factor in all these considerations;

3. Then, of course, comes another Y-factor of how many out of available 80 + advanced Sukhoi Su-30 (SM) will be made available for operations against US CBGs;

4. Another absolute Z-factor will be how many SU-34s (apart from being the outstanding strike aircraft, and being also a decent jet-fighters in their own right) will be made available to the 3rd Air and Air Defense Forces Command responsible for the safety of Russian far East.   

Even if to forego a large number (in hundreds) of legacy but still very capable modernized SU-27 (SM, SM3), which are and will be available for the defense of Russia's Far East, even if to discount this enormously potent force in its own right, and even if to discount large numbers of updated Mig-29s, even then, what is left numbered in pp. 1-4 represents a combination of a 100+ combat aircraft with the cutting edge sensors and firepower. Augmented with early warning, intelligence and refueling capabilities this becomes a force which can handle on its own any air wing. And these are not perspective capabilities we are talking about--these planes are already there, they are tested and are piloted by pilots who actually know how to fly and how to fight. Not only this force is capable to fight off the enemy, but it is capable to carry out its own strike missions with X-31 supersonic missiles. I reiterate, this is IF the force is calculated only based on the numbers from points 1 through 4. Once integrated (which it is already) into the much larger air-capability, both deployed and on-demand, one has to ask the question whose A2/AD zone Admiral Richardson talks about in his interview? Russia's? I hope so that this is not what Admiral had in mind, because even in conventional framework US Navy, trying to operate within Russia's Far Eastern A2/AD "bubble", will encounter something that it never encountered since WW II and that is peer-to-peer competitor. What is most important, this competitor is in no rush to project its force anywhere else--it is there to protect itself and that what makes this whole situation so interesting to ponder. And it was pondered, it was studied by a man whom I (and not me only) respect tremendously as a remarkable naval strategist and a thinker, even though he was my enemy at some point of time. But at least he knew what REAL naval war could be against the competent adversary and he seldom underestimated one. 

       

Admiral Zumwalt

This post is the start, or rather a continuation in a different plane, of elaborations on a general topic of military power and, especially naval, warfare. This time with actual numbers (and, yes, I know, I know--some calculus and other funny math) at hand.....

To Be Continued....