Yet Another Garbage From RAND.

RAND suddenly produced yet another "study" about SMO, this time about "propaganda". In this study titled The Nightingale Versus the Bear, What Persuasion Research Reveals About Ukraine's and Russia's Messaging on the War, RAND's continues to live in alternative universe and once one tries to take this "study" seriously, at the first try one immediately runs into the one of the reasons why the US cannot win a single war despite all efforts from RAND to pretend that they deal with strategy and not strategery. It doesn't take them long:

The Specifics of Period 1: Russia’s Initial Offensive and the Battle for Kyiv. Russia’s Messaging Targeting Russian Audiences. 

So, this group of RAND "scholars" evidently still believes, trying to do the "study", that there was some "Battle for Kiev". It is not surprising for RAND and overwhelming majority of the US think-tanks to confabulate things, but it may come as a shock to these shysters but there never was any Battle for Kiev, nor there was any intent on Russia's part to conduct any battle other than to do a demonstration probing attack to convince Kiev regime to sit at the negotiation table. There never was any operation conducted to take Kiev, nor any serious intent to surround (blockade) Kiev, and we still don't know a full set of objectives for Russian paratroopers fighting for Gostomel airfield. Part of it, obviously, was to take the field itself, but rumor has it there were things at this field which needed urgent taking care of, which did happen. 

But then again, what can one expect from US "think-tanks" when they use, like RAND did, this type of "experts". 

Khrystyna Holynska. Assistant Policy Researcher, RAND, and Ph.D. Student, Pardee RAND Graduate School Santa Monica Office.

Education: Ph.D. in political science, Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv, Kyiv, Ukraine; MBA+MBAI in business administration, artificial intelligence and data analytics, Kyiv School of Economics, Kyiv, Ukraine; M.A. in political science, Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv, Kyiv, Ukraine.

And here comes this proverbial issue--what good your "data" analysis IS when your "data" is utterly corrupted? GIGO--Garbage In, Garbage Out--this is the ONLY type of data which US "strategists", even those who try to be objective, use--garbage. The examples abound--America's "history" of WW II, America's economic data, GDP metric, finally, total, utter ukrainization of America's always second rate military analysis, and now fantasies about SMO, which paraded Pentagon and its subsidiaries like RAND as a collection of amateurs. RAND, read my lips--you do not have Russia specialists in your pseudo-academic org, neither you have any real military specialists in practical geopolitics and balance of power.

This whole book 5 years ago described in detail how your "models" and views of war and geopolitics are nothing but concoctions of utter rubbish. 

How about some excerpt from it:

We are not going to review Richardson’s arms race model here—it is outdated and requires very serious quality adjusters to an otherwise purely quantity-driven model. But one of the models which does reflect a degree of competition and is helpful in gaining an understanding of equilibrium between major powers that Richardson was trying to describe is the model, Status of the Nation. This model is claimed to be quantitative and is new despite absorbing many principles of geopolitics and military balance from as far back in time as the work of Alfred Thayer Mahan up to the 2005 RAND publication, Measuring National Power. This model, developed within the framework of the project Complex System Analysis and Modelling of Global Dynamics, which was done in the world-renowned Keldysh Institute of Applied Mathematics of Russian Academy of Sciences was developed by a group of researchers who titled their paper “Russia in the Context of World’s Geopolitical Dynamics: Quantitative Assessment of Historic Retrospective, Current State and Perspectives for Development.” This model is very instructive for a number of reasons, the main one being a manifest failure in accounting for qualitative, such as operational and technological, military factors as the main drivers of the geopolitical balance and status of nations. 

Guess from three times who turned out to be correct, me or RANDinians? Well, you know the answer. Remarkably, what I warned about for many years, namely utter incompetence of US military "modelling" establishment now became obvious to Russians who increasingly begin to not just question but state a complete failure of American views on XX century history, warfare and geopolitics. This failure is not anymore a theorem, but axiom and no amount of Ph.D degrees in useless contrived subjects, such as "Policy Analysis" can obfuscate the fact that no serious self-respecting people would continue to churn out in industrial quantities pseudo-academic bullshit which is absolutely useless, especially in the country undergoing what James Kunstler brilliantly described as:

And the USA is so lost in self mind-fuckery that we can’t even get our House of Representatives in order. The American students (and faculty!) cheerleading for Gaza’s Road Warrior executioners might represent the last stand of Woke derangement. This degenerate nonsense has run its course. It may dawn in our centers-of-learning — and every other collaborating institution — that we have more important things to think about than the etiquette around men who dress-up as women.  

American education is destroyed and so is its understanding of the real world which to a large degree drives this self mind-fuckery. RAND's yet another "paper" is a proof of it.

Let Me Repeat.

And I don't mean it disrespectfully, but American operational experience in any war the US fought since Vietnam is absolutely worthless in application to real war in the so called "peer-to-peer" environment. Some tactical tricks are for the consumption and discussion of armchair generals from mommy's basement during school breaks. But that truism, evidently, is not known to Mr. Kelley.

A group of senators from both parties is pressing the Pentagon for more information on what it would take to send F-16 jets to Ukraine.  The fresh push came in a letter Tuesday to Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin from eight senators, and obtained by POLITICO, as top administration officials from President Joe Biden on down have poured cold water on bipartisan calls to send U.S.-made fighters into the fight for now. The conflict between Russia and Ukraine is “now at a critical juncture,” the senators wrote, arguing F-16 fighters could give Kyiv an edge as Moscow’s full-tilt invasion enters a second year. “After speaking with U.S., Ukrainian, and foreign leaders working to support Ukraine at the Munich Security Conference last month, we believe the U.S. needs to take a hard look at providing F-16 aircraft to Ukraine,” the senators wrote. “This would be a significant capability that could prove to be a game changer on the battlefield.” The letter was organized by Sen. Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.).

Senator Mark Kelly was a great astronaut and I deeply respect him for his career in NASA, and for his aeronautical engineering degree, but this line in his C.V. doesn't make him an authority of the REAL air combat:

He was then assigned to Attack Squadron 115 (VA-115) in Atsugi, Japan, and made two deployments to the Persian Gulf on the aircraft carrier USS Midway, flying 39 combat missions in Operation Desert Storm.

In other words, he flew missions against the enemy with NO functional air defense, air force and command and control. I spoke in depth about debilitating influence of a "victory" of the US Armed Forces against utterly incompetent and, in some areas, utterly defenseless enemy in Desert Storm. For those who want again to refer to proper description of this turkey shoot, here is CSIS's analysis of that campaign.    

Anthony H. Cordesman's book, The Gulf War, was published in October 1994, and was the first comprehensive analysis of the strategic and military lessons of the Gulf War. Unlike previous studies, which concentrated primarily on the diplomatic and policy decisions affecting the war, or decisions at the high command level, Cordesman provides a detailed analysis of all of the military trends and actions that occurred during Desert Shield, a net assessment comparing Iraqi and each of the major Coalition military forces, and a detailed analysis of the history and lessons of each phase of Desert Storm.

Kelly, never flew in his life against the best Air Defense in the world and against one of the best Air Forces in the world. In fact, he has zero understanding of it, which is true for most US military professionals who grew out of the beating defenseless kids in the sand box of the Middle East and because of it thinking that they know the war. He is a classic representative of this very environment of the US warmongers and neocons who due to their ignorance counted on Russia collapsing in a few months since the start of SMO. But then again, Kelly never attended any kind of schooling related to Operations and Planning. So, it is only natural for him, and his ilk, to think that F-16 in any numbers could be "a game changer". 

As Larry once stated in 2018 and I quoted him in my first book:

Any air defense engineer with a security clearance that isn't lying through his teeth will admit that Russia's air defense technology surpassed us in the 1950's and we've never been able to catch up. The systems thy have in place surrounding Moscow make our Patriot 3's look like fucking nerf guns. All of the knowledgeable aircraft commanders are usually scared shitless about the prospect of a legitimate air-to-air skirmish with a SU-30 or any Russian air superiority fighter.

I omit, of course, here anecdotal but very reliable evidence of Russian SU-35s literally toying with US F-22s in Syria. Senator Kelly, evidently, for all his impressive C.V., lacks basic understanding of the SEAD and its requirements to deal with Russia's VKS, not to speak of the issues which the US military didn't encounter ever--that is having its operational depth, including its airfields being mauled by stand-off high precision weaponry against which US simply has no effective means of defense. Hey, he flew Shuttles and didn't have time to study war. But behind that one can easily see a desperation from complex of inferiority in the field where the United States, while losing its wars even against weak enemies, managed to convince itself that it has "the finest fighting force in history". It is difficult to part with this delusion and Kelly articulates this pain in the open. He should have asked SACEUR General Cavoli.

And all this, while Russia didn't even deploy her main forces. Throwing few Brigade Combat Teams from 101st and 82nd at Russians as some suggest will change absolutely nothing strategically in 404 but will kill many of American personnel which shouldn't even be  there to start with. 

But Kelly is not alone, here is another RAND creature (combat veteran, adviser and "model major general") whose military exploits, again, are not applicable operationally and strategically to modern warfare. Yet, the guy writes on the subject he has no clue about:

One does not easily imagine Russian President Vladimir Putin and his generals poring over maps or conferring with his cabinet, gazing at PowerPoints, weighing various options. Surrounded by servile opportunists who depend on his approval, one suspects that Putin may hold his immediate circle in outright contempt. These are, after all, his minions—mere messenger boys talking taxidermy. At home, Putin faces no elections, no party or state institutions that threaten his rule, no domestic political opposition. He is Russia. And Russia is his—so long as he projects strength. Avoiding defeat is his paramount objective. According to his foreign minister, Putin takes his counsel from Ivan the Terrible: He fires generals, jails dissidents at home, poisons those abroad. Measuring by his years in power, Western leaders are mere novices. He faces his third president of China, his fourth president of France, his fifth U.S. president, and his seventh prime minister of the United Kingdom. Longevity doesn't make one smarter, but, as the Russian saying goes, Putin “has seen the parade quite a few times.”

I am Russian, and with professional military pedigree but I never heard in my 60 years this "Russian saying" about parade. But then again, and I am beginning to speak openly about it--we ARE facing the issue of professional military incompetence on the American side. SMO exposed it dramatically and the way US Military-Industrial-Media complex shrieks and lies, while being consistently wrong on any Russian and warfare matter, is the best proof of a lost, largely self-proclaimed, military superiority. Hence hysteria about MQ9 Reaper. It is a fodder for US media bottom feeders, but reality is very simple--Russia will start dealing with ISR assets in a much more strict way and that was the message. I think the next step will be killing one or two commercial satellites the US uses to spy on SMO. Russia has all means to disable what she sees as a threat and issued warning officially on a number of occasions. 

But in the end, the 800-pound gorilla in the room is the fact that Russian General Staff is older than the United States as a nation, and that Russian military history dwarfs, in scale and quality of enemies, anything the US ever fought, with the exception of the primarily naval Pacific War, in its history, not to mention the fact that US lost all of its modern wars. One has to have a good credit history to get a loan and the US is sorely lacking in this department. The US simply stopped, long time ago, being this "American observer" of which Alexandr Svechin wrote in his Strategy and became exactly what he warned about--a third rate student who doesn't do his homework. 

A particular strategic policy must be devised for every war; each war is a special case, which requires its own particular logic rather than any kind of stereotype or pattern, no matter how splendid it may be. The more our theory encompasses the entire content of modern war, the quicker it will assist us in analyzing a given situation. A narrow doctrine would probably confuse us more than guide us. And we must not forget that only maneuvers are one-sided, while wars are always two-sided. We must be able to get a grasp of war as it is perceived by the opposing side and clarify the other side's desires and goals. Theory is capable of benefitting only those who have raised themselves above the fray and have become completely dispassionate; we have chosen this path, despite the dissatisfaction with which several of our young critics have encountered the excess of objectivity, "the posture of an American observer," in military questions. 

Hey, I am on record--find better professionals who understand the real war of the 21st century and what it entails, and why the United States cannot and must not fight it because it will lose catastrophically. 

Why Are They Doing This?

Scott Ritter penned a piece yesterday. Naturally it deals with 9/11 and has a title which anyone in the United States who still has operational brain would have subscribed to: 20 years after 9/11, I no longer recognize my country. The US has become a malignant narcissist, infecting all it encounters. In it, Scott arrives to the conclusion which I speak and write about for the last decade:

In trying to explain the actions of the US post-9/11, the most accurate diagnosis I can come up with is narcissistic personality disorder. This is a mental condition defined by an inflated sense of one’s own importance, a deep need for excessive attention and admiration, troubled relationships, and a lack of empathy for others. Notably, underneath this veneer of extreme self-confidence is a fragile ego vulnerable to the slightest criticism.  

Well, give it up for Alexis de Tocqueville who recognized this trait almost 200 years ago and since then things didn't get much better. And when you thought that you reached the bottom, somebody knocks from beneath. Enter Mr. Ochmanek and RAND who came up with a "study" recently which in anyone with even a rudimentary understanding of the modern warfare inspires only one question: do they issue hard drugs in RAND as part of employees' benefits, or do they procure this mind-altering shit on their own and then are tripping on it for weeks? When I say that the US "expert community" is a laughing stock, I mean it. Enter: 

A Strong Ally Stretched Thin. An Overview of France's Defense Capabilities from a Burdensharing Perspective

The summary to this... thing reads like that:  

The French military currently is one of Western Europe's most capable, and it boasts a full range of capabilities that enable it to engage in the full spectrum of operations, including high-intensity conventional warfare against a peer adversary. In this report, RAND researchers examine the role that the French military might play as a coalition partner in a hypothetical high-intensity conventional conflict in Europe. Researchers drew on a wide range of publications in French and English, as well as on conversations with French defense experts to understand not just the French military's capabilities and capacity to wage war in general but also its ability to wage high-intensity conventional warfare in particular.

I don't know why they conduct those "studies", but evidently neither "researchers" in RAND  nor "defense experts" in France have any clue on what modern conventional warfare is. Not surprising. Obviously a modest generalization by RAND about "high-intensity conventional warfare" in Eastern Europe is a euphemism for war with Russia. Here is verbatim:

The 2019–2025 Military Programming Law (Loi de Programmation Militaire, or LPM) puts a strong emphasis on modernizing some of the equipment that would be used in a large-scale, conventional contingency; improving the readiness of existing equipment; and boosting troops’ morale and training. However, some gaps will remain beyond 2025 because France trades depth for breadth—France is able to conduct military operations across the full spectrum of conflict, but it does not have the ability to sustain the fight during a protracted conflict against a highly capable adversary, such as Russia.

Obviously, one has to explain why France would want to fight Russia. RAND immediately waxes geopolitical and concludes that, yeah, France is not really ready to fight Russia, but as a "coalition"... Sure, it is called NATO, or rather the United States and a collection of its lap-dogs. This is on page 27 and after that a familiar pseudo "policy" and "operational-strategic" fodder by RAND tries to cover up stupidity and incompetence of people who write this idiocy. Nobody in RAND, literally, former US generals and other officers, let alone political "science" majors, have any clue on what they will be doing once Kinzhals or 3M14Ms will start flying into the windows of not just Elysee Palace, in case France decides to commit a suicide as a nation, but D.C. as a "decision-making center" may experience serious stone rearranging, all that without the use of nuclear weapons. Moreover, even "coalition warfare", meaning the United States decides to deploy force large enough not to be obliterated immediately to Europe, one has to ask a question--what for? 

Obviously Russians are not going to attack Europe. Why? To gain what? In case of NATO deciding to start a war, no matter what the United States does, Russians will break through to Kaliningrad in a matter of couple of days at the most, no matter what the US deploys in Baltic States. For anyone who knows how modern combined operations are conducted it is not a secret. Even RAND admits on pages 70 and 71. 

Wargaming and analysis reveal serious gaps in NATO’s ability to blunt a large-scale Russian attack.3 Given NATO’s current posture, the allies could confront a situation in which their ground forces were badly outnumbered and outgunned by the force that Russia could deploy to the borders of the Baltic States within one to two  weeks. NATO’s air forces would find it difficult and time-consuming to suppress the network of surface-to-air missile systems that Russia would deploy in the region, limiting NATO ability to provide fire support to the ground defense. Air bases, command and control centers, logistics concentrations, lines of communication, air- and seaports of debarkation, and other rear-area assets could come under attack from Russian ballistic and cruise missiles. Military space constellations that provide reconnaissance; communications; and position, navigation, and timing services could be disrupted by cyber, electronic jamming, and kinetic attacks. In short, NATO nations concerned about the possibility of Russian threats to allies along NATO’s eastern flank have ample reasons to be dissatisfied with the current situation.

Well, if you understand that, then why single France out specifically? It doesn't matter if France fights Russia alone or as part of NATO, the result will be absolutely the same, NATO and US have zero capability to repel or even blunt salvos of long-range stand-off weapons not just on NATO's prepositioning areas, but on France's and US proper naval bases and military infrastructure. As Vladimir Trukhan, a retired colonel of Russia's General Staff put it bluntly few months ago: "We don't even sweat about NATO". Plus no NATO serviceman ever experienced the effects of a a fire impact from a salvo of, say, Iskander missiles or battlefield weapons such as 9A52-4 Tornado and this, folks, is nothing like counter-insurgency. A single battery of said Tornados can dispose of everything living (there will be no survivors, those who may accidentally survive will envy the dead) on the area of 32 Hectares in a single salvo. Just to give you an idea--32 Hectares (around 80 acres) is the area or roughly 64 football fields. There is a reason ISIS was terrified in Syria whenever there were operational Tornados anywhere. Here is how it looked in Syria. Watch it on YouTube.

So, this is how a company to battalion level unit is wiped out in one (not full, at that) salvo and did French or Americans fight anyone who can inflict casualties numbering in thousands not just in months but in hours? Nope. Colonel Wilkerson estimates that the level of casualties will be around 40,000 in the first week. I think this is the bottom (the base) number. Modern combined arms formations are easily detectable and with NATO not having serious troops (войсковая) air defense, they become just sitting ducks in case Russians, with their crank wire phones, old radios, and CRT monitors on their XT computers with 5.25" floppy diskettes, decide to do something about NATO troops' concentration at Russia's borders. 

Then why come up with this "study" which is based on sheer delusion? I think the answer is two fold: as always to push for more money for Pentagon, but also to send a signal to Europeans that the United States still runs NATO and the closing paragraph in this study gives a hint: 

Although transatlantic relations have worsened, Macron has continued engagement with the United States, and the United States and France continue to enjoy a strong defense relationship through joint operations, personnel exchanges, multilateral exercises, intelligence sharing, and other activities. France’s 2017 Strategic Review describes the United States as a “fundamental partner, due to the convergence of their defense and security interests as well as a strong bilateral relation in the operational and intelligence domains.” France is also keen on developing interoperability (as evidenced by its concern that the future FCAS be interoperable with the F-35), as it recognizes that it will need partners for most missions, particularly high-end ones. Although specific modes of cooperation would have to be devised for each capability in ways that preserve the interests of both U.S. and French defense industry firms involved, such cooperation could help France address its challenges in fighting high-end conventional wars more quickly. 

There you go. Neither US nor NATO are capable to fight a "peer" and survive. They know this, but the gravy train of "defense" contracts needs to run and to make sure it does run, RAND needs to pretend that it knows how to fight...Russia, if more gravy is poured over stale Pentagon's strategies and war experiences. That's narcissism of the highest order multiplied by greed and delusion. That is why they are doing this. Meanwhile Russia and Belarus, plus others, conduct real life war games, maybe because Russia doesn't have computers and wargaming software;)) (wink, wink) and the message is unmistakable--Russia is not going to be taking Berlin, Paris or any other European capital this time, she will simply destroy West's capability to wage a war, including by the means of a ruthless extermination of NATO's military personnel because this is how real wars are fought.

Just some video.

Patrick Armstrong Wrote An Excellent Piece.

About learning proper lessons from war. Patrick refers to my work (that is not the reason I refer to his piece, I quote him periodically) in this superb piece and to Fred Reed's succinct and always sardonic description of US military since Vietnam War. 

The US military has not won a war since 1945, with the exception of the First Gulf War, which the LAPD could have won. It lost decisively in Vietnam. It got run out of Lebanon with 241 dead Marines as its only accomplishment. After seventeen years it shows no signs of defeating barely armed Afghan peasants. Iraq has been a complete botch, achieving none of its goals, control of the oil, permanent bases, and a puppet government. Just now the military is losing in Syria. Nothing short of genius can account for losing so consistently given the enormous resources available to American forces. In light of this very low level of military competence, maybe wars are not our best choice of hobby.

Patrick, however, goes deeper and reiterates the main point shared among military professionals that:

The American way of warfare assumes unchallenged air superiority and reliable communications. What would happen if the complacent US forces meet serious integrated air defence and genuine electronic warfare capabilities? The little they have seen of Russian EW capabilities in Syria and Ukraine has made their “eyes water“; some foresee a “Waterloo” in the South China Sea. Countries on Washington’s target list know its dependence.

The last sentence is the most important one. Now recall my three years old "issue" with operational "planning" by RAND's very own Ochmanek and group of air power experts. That is until he himself admitted, two years later, in 2019 that NATO has its ass handed to it real war against Russia and China. Recall my main question then, in 2017:

                     What kind of war with Russia? 

Russian definition of the best air-defense in the world is very simple: our tanks at enemy's airfields. This obvious truism implies something much bigger than mere air operations, it requires a serious battle-space integration across all domains (damn, do I sound like a Pentagon bureaucrat) and, yes, those proverbial ground forces which, actually, have a very effective troops' (voiskovaya) air defenses which the US armed forces never encountered in their modern era. So, in general, Armstrong's piece is great and gives excellent historic introspective. A must read, as one would say.

Meanwhile, 6th international (32 participants from Russia, Belarus, Israel, Iran, Vietnam, China, you name it) army games Army 2020 opened yesterday in Russia and Russians greeted everybody with a ballet. No, not from Bolshoi or Mariinka, but primarily Western, Southern and Central military districts and ballerinas were charming and elegant. Primarily T-80s and Msta-S self-propelled gun. Just enjoy, nothing better than T-80s dance to Swan Lake and Nut-Cracker.  

 

The full ballet performance you can easily find at the Army 2020 Youtube channel. Meanwhile, the first full day of competitions, tank biathlon, saw Vietnamese kicking ass being clinical on targets on their (only China brought her own tanks) T-72B3s and that means a really hot contest, I am sure Chinese and Israelis will have something to say about it, apart from Russia and Belarus. You see, if the world could only fight in such "wars".   

RAND's Wet Dreams.

For those who are interested in what makes RAND "click" nowadays in terms of its delusions and doctrinal and operational gibberish they "research", one may try the latest from Mr. Ochmanek and Co. in terms of what they present as:

U.S. Military Capabilities and Forces for a Dangerous World,  Rethinking the U.S. Approach to Force Planning

You can easily download PDF with their tedious report and if you have the time you may indulge yourself in about 153+ pages of an operational and strategic delusion which RAND's big brains present as a scientific research. I will not elaborate here on some overtly preposterous claims and false assumptions such as this one, among many:

To defeat ISIS, the United States has supported two major elements of the anti-Assad rebellion in Syria.

LOL, yes, by supporting and training these very same ISIS and Al-Qaeda. Or this strategic pearl unique in its hilarity:

During spring 2016, the Russian aerial campaign had some success in helping the Syrian armed forces to defeat a variety of rebel groups in and around Aleppo, Syria’s second-largest city. The Russian aerial intervention has complicated U.S. and allied use of air power and SOF units to inflict damage on ISIS.

Not to mention, of course, this, expected by now, statement:

More to the point, for the United States, having the finest force in the world does not, in and of itself, guarantee that those forces will be able to meet all of the demands being placed on them. Since the United States’ entry into World War II, this nation has espoused and largely practiced a uniquely ambitious national security strategy.

Obviously, causalities of WW II, as well as proportions and scales of it are not known to authors but how the "finest force" managed not to win since 1945 any conflict with any more or less determined (forget peer) adversary remains a complete mystery shrouded in the fog of RANDeanese or Pentagonese lingo and in the obfuscation of the most crucial operational, strategic, cultural and social factors of wars the United States fought since WW II. Well, WW II history in the US is altogether  a peculiar subject. But never mind, folks. Obviously, the authors of this "research" come up with pretty generic conclusions. You know, something like that: 

Addressing the challenges posed by the most-capable adversaries generally calls not for a larger U.S. force but rather for a force equipped with appropriate modern weapons and support assets that is also postured for responsive and resilient operations in theaters of potential conflict.

Yes, gimme, gimme, gimme, more, more, more of the same. That means more pork in producing weapon systems which do not work. And here comes this thing in this report--Russia, being named a main adversary of the United States (China, obviously, is second--but that is not really a contingency. Why, is a separate matter)--what kind of war with Russia. Forget now highly anti-scientific and anti-military propaganda BS of a "hybrid war" simulacra--by now the use of it is a first sign of military incompetence of people who express their opinions on the warfare. Authors, after repeating all tired and false cliches about US military, review the force required to fight a so called major war with Russia. They even tabulate it. Here is this table:

Granted Mr. Ochmanek's background in Air Power, one is literally forced, however, to ask him where did this number of 28 fighter squadrons and 7 bomber squadrons required to fight those pesky Russian Forces which are about to overtake free and democratic Europe come from? It is a number which can be expanded to a number of single aircraft using maximum parameter of 24 aircraft per squadron, that is 28 x 24 = 672 fighter aircraft and 7 x 12 = 84 bomber aircraft, plus all kinds of other transport and AWACS etc. So, altogether we are talking about 756 combat aircraft by 2020 "major conflict" with Russia. That is, of course, if Russia would want for some unknown reason "invade" those magnificent Baltic States. Obviously, to sound scientific Ochmanek and his group employ all kinds of platitudes and pre-conditions  such as:

We exhort the reader not to place too much store in the numbers in the table. They are based on the authors’ estimates using internal analyses and unclassified sources. The numbers that DoD would use are undoubtedly somewhat different. Our purpose in presenting them is not to attempt to provide definitive estimates of need, but rather to show a concrete example of how our recommended approach could be applied and to provide a basis for first-order comparisons of the size and cost of the resulting forces.

Well, this is all fine and dandy and I, actually, agree with authors here on this particular issue--it is advisable to give at least SOME numbers which illustrate methods; but immediately here comes the question--WHAT methods are behind those estimates? This, if one discards this fluffy rhetoric about "finest force" and all this "stealth", "platforms" and other BS lingo. One must ask next questions and answer them:

Q. When was the last time the USAF fought in highly dense EW environment with AD systems whose capabilities already today cover ALL challenges which are presented by the latest in US technology? 

A. Never. In fact, the USAF may not even internalize yet that it will (not may) fight blind with its C3 either seriously challenged or completely disrupted. 

Q. When was the last time the USAF fought world-class adversary AF which can approach or match USAF on the theater both in quality of its pilots and aircraft, and in quantity? 

A. Never, since Korea. 

Q. When was the last time the USAF deployed to the front-line, or even rear, airbases which were subjected to major attacks by adversary's both AF and salvos of cruise and tactical operational high precision stand-off weapons, which led to a severe disruption of air operations, massive casualties of personnel and significant loss of aircraft? 

A. Never. After observing a rather unimpressive performance (OK, failure) of the Patriot anti-missile systems against obsolete 1970s Yemeni Scud knock-offs recently, one is forced to ask what will this AD do against state-of-the-art, stealthy, AI-driven and EW resistant missiles' salvo, say of 40 or 60 missiles? How about several such salvos?

Q. Does Mr. Ochmanek understand that the myth of Stealth has been completely dispelled and modern AD complexes and advanced radar systems of modern aircraft such as SU-30SM, SU-35C or MiG-31BM see, track and can shoot down any "Stealth" target? 

A. Maybe, but his Politburo tells him to produce this pseudo-scientific trash otherwise he will lose his sinecure. 

Q. Does this RAND group calculate own attrition (or FERs, Fractional Exchange Rates) in such conflict correctly? 

A. No. Anyone who thinks that the force of 762 good but fairly conventional (or really bad) combat aircraft can go against Russian Air-Space Forces in Russia's vicinity and win is either delusional or incompetent. USAF will not be able to suppress Russia's AD system to start with, the opposite most likely will be true. 

I am not even going to ground forces here--any military realist can see what is coming by 2020. So, the more one begins to ask this kind of questions, the more one begins to see a complete lunacy of this kind of "planning", "research" and "advice", which, in case of RAND, is delivered to US policy-makers as a distilled wisdom.  It is obvious that this "wisdom", as I already stated, is more about money--funding for Military-Industrial Complex. As DIA's Russian Military Power reports:

Russia also has a deep and abiding distrust of U.S. efforts to promote democracy around the world and what it perceives as a U.S. campaign to impose a single set of global values.

Here is the issue, Russia doesn't "perceive" anything about the US anymore. US' "stellar" record of unleashing conflicts all over the world, supporting terrorist groups and all kinds of illegal overthrows of governments is out there for everyone to see. So, if that is called "promotion of democracy" then I kinda get it why huge number of people around the globe try to arm themselves. But the 800 pound gorilla in those calculations is still in the room and it is inescapable not to notice it: when was the last time the US won anything militarily? I can only state obvious--bar some turkey shoot in Gulf in 1991--nothing. One of the reasons for failing time after time to win a classic military conflict, that is "compel the enemy to do our will" is, as I continue to state non-stop for years now, a complete delusion of American military planners who long ago bought their own carefully-crafted mythology about superiority of own weapons, which are not superior, or about superiority of an American soldier (American soldier is a good soldier but not "superior"--it depends), or of American "planning" which fails time after time the test of military reality, in which "superior" and false numerical coefficients are being plugged into the combat models to produce politically correct outcomes. As this RAND "research" testifies to--the lessons haven't been learned and they cannot be learned--they are difficult to learn until one sees what real war does to his own family, property, country, in the end--to himself. Those things are unknown and beyond the grasp of the "best of the best" US military planners, since none of them ever fought defending their home. Russians did it for millennium. No amount of falsification, stolen valor or propaganda can hide this simple military fact. Certainly not this RAND's pseudo-scientific report.