Says Trump's National Security Adviser.
PORTSMOUTH NAVAL SHIPYARD, Maine — The U.S. Navy plans to put hypersonic missiles on all Arleigh Burke-class destroyers, President Donald Trump’s top national security official said Wednesday. The Navy wants to field hypersonic missiles first on the Virginia-class attack submarine, then on the new Zumwalt-class destroyers, and then finally across the Burkes, national security adviser Robert O’Brien told an audience at the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard in Maine. “The Navy’s Conventional Prompt Strike program will provide hypersonic missile capability to hold targets at risk from longer ranges,” O’Brien said in prepared remarks. “This capability will be deployed first on our newer Virginia-class submarines and the Zumwalt-class destroyers. Eventually, all three flights of the Arleigh Burke-class destroyers will field this capability.”
In related news, I also plan to win Oscar as the best male lead role, nah, I am straight white male, so I will not qualify, but how about Nobel prize in physics? Why not? I plan to get there, eventually. As per hypersonic missiles for US Navy, it seems there is still a huge confusion on part of the top political brass regarding what KIND of hypersonic they plan to get. This phrase explains it.
Swapping out the launchers on all the destroyers would be a significant expense and would likely tie up shipyards for years to come. An alternative to back-fitting the older destroyers would be waiting for a smaller hypersonic missile to be developed, such as an air-breathing model, as opposed to the boost-glide design
Ah, that's clearer. So, basically the idea is to remake DDGs into the carriers of glide vehicles designed for hitting fixed targets as was initially conceived by the basically wet dream program such as Prompt Global Strike. Sure, why not. But the most important qualifier is what is highlighted in yellow, which is a euphemism for the United States not getting genuine anti-shipping/land-attack hypersonic missile anytime soon. I simply do not see US Navy getting actual working and controllable hypersonic missile for years, if not decades. Why it is so I explained not for once and I see no reason for doing it once again. The way the United States simply discarded missile development for decades in favor of what David Gattuso and Lory Tanner, both carrier aviators, put it:
Is mind-boggling. Time, of course, didn't stand still, neither did technological progress and as Gattuso and Tanner predicted 20 years ago the technology mismatch did occur and, boy, did it do it with vengeance. Now hypersonic thingy is so in vogue in D.C. that even regular ballistic missiles of all kinds are "marketed" as hypersonic ones. You know, sound-bites, election year, a shitstorm in economy--time to spin BS.
Now to a related item, God Complex. Wiki gives this definition to that peculiar state of mind:
Huge swaths of journalists, economists and political scientists around the world are afflicted with this psychiatric disorder. And if this state in doctors, who do often grant life is somewhat understandable, what can some Ph.D in economics or in journalism in US know about serious military operations remains a complete puzzle. Enter Mr. Ignatius, who, as David Larison points out:
The renewed fighting between Armenia and Azerbaijan over Karabakh has not drawn that much attention in the West, but many of the initial, knee-jerk responses to the conflict have been remarkably bad. Whether it is members of Congress urging U.S. recognition of an independent Artsakh, pro-Azerbaijan advocates calling for U.S. support for the aggressor, or Iran hawks cheering on aggression against Armenians because they have the “wrong” geopolitical alignment, many Americans are eager to co-opt and meddle in a conflict that has nothing to do with us. David Ignatius takes the cake with his new proposal to impose a “no-fly zone” in the South Caucasus (a region whose name he doesn’t know how to spell).
So, let's clear some things immediately. Ignatius, who saw military technology only on pictures or heard about it from his father, a former WW II naval officer and, at some point, Secretary of the Navy in LBJ's Admin, is not a military specialist by a long shot. Maximum danger this major in economics and a consummate "writer" for WaPo was subjected to was primarily from, using Phil Giraldi's meme, a danger from choking on foie gras in one of the upscale D.C. restaurants. Ignatius is not the only offspring of the top military professionals who turned BS spinner, enough to recall Jim Morrison of Doors and who his father, an admiral, was. We all know how Jim turned out and how he ended up, not that I don't like Doors' music--some of it is really good. David Ignatius, however, is definitely afflicted with the God Complex, because he thinks that being a WaPo BSer he knows how things work. He doesn't, but that is the point. The United States is the only nation in the world whose media are staffed with a huge portion of not only ignoramuses but with war-mongers and psychos with God Complex who think that they know how to run a war. So, now this cretin wants to establish a "no-fly zone" right in Russia's underbelly.
Well, being a journo and a man with no practical or serious education, he should learn, removing here any specific details of the conflict in Karabah, that his "no-fly zone" will not just be "not welcomed" by Turkey but will be inside the operational zone of responsibility of both Russian base in Gumri in Armenia and Russia's Southern Military District, which has attached to it a rather very capable 4th Air Force and Air Defense Army. It is a funny "little" army which can easily be reinforced by additional SU-35s (apart from having couple of regiments of SU-30SMs) and, considering an extremely good mobility of S-300PMU or S-400 AD complexes, closing skies over the region is not such big of a deal for Russia, who has her very specific objectives in the region. Ignatius, being half-Armenian, is probably all over the place but he is no God, he is not even good at geography, let alone in combat operations--he is just a mediocre BSer, a man afflicted both by graphomania and a desire to feel himself important, but he is merely a creature of an American Parnassus of very moderate writing talents (or any other talents for this matter) and that what makes him think that he is qualified to suggest a dramatic escalation, if his stupid and incompetent advice will be heeded. But then again, intellectual level of American "elites" is appalling. It never was high to start with once the counter-culture of 1960s truly solidified itself throughout American political and academic institutions, together with the faux-conservative reaction to it, and we all observe today the inevitable result of that--a rule of dumbfucks across the board. It is a sad situation, especially when one understands that below the social class and political bottom line of a vomit-inducing present American establishment, there is still a bright and inquiring American thought out there, which asks serious moral and academic questions on a direction this country took after its ruling class, and those "intellects" which serve it, got utterly corrupted by the sense of entitlement, born out in the words of Al Pacino in Devil's Advocate 'egos larger than cathedral', supported by ignorance if not outright psychiatric disorders such as God Complex.
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