Oh, No. Not Again!

It seems that the issue of Real RMA has got to Pentagon big time. Washington Examiner published today reflections of Pentagon's Assistant Director for Hypersonic Weapons Mike White on why the United States finds itself today where it finds itself in this never-ending competition for military supremacy. White doesn't mince words and goes for the jugular from the start:

“In past decades, we've been world leaders in hypersonics technology, but we have consistently made the decision to not transition that to weapon applications and build weapons systems out of hypersonic technologies that we were working on in the laboratory,” he said. But the Russians and Chinese have. 

There is something inherently false in most statements by US officials whenever they try to express themselves on the issue of the actual history. Especially the one which is so recent. While the article states (correctly):

Russia started hypersonic research around the same time as the U.S. in the late 1940s, building on a Cold War Soviet Union legacy.

It forgets to mention, of course, this crucial historic fact: by 1960s USSR/Russia crossed into the high-supersonic territory with a mind-boggling array of anti-shipping missiles which changed the balance of power in the world ocean. Those also provided a gigantic array of data required for further progress along the path to a genuine hyper-sonic capabilities. The United States, indeed, decided (wrongly) that it can maintain its perceived military dominance by a combat aircraft fitted into the rigid and obsolete doctrinal framework of Duhe's views on the role of combat aviation. Aviator "Union" in the US Navy sabotaged altogether any attempts to develop supersonic long-range anti-shipping missile. One attempt, however, was made but was abandoned for a variety of technical and financial reasons with missile turning out to be a very unreliable and extremely expensive weapon. White's explanation, however, is down right risible:

In response to a Washington Examiner question about why the U.S. waited to invest in hypersonic weapons when it knew Russia was making the transition to the weapons, White said that “the world has become a place where our great power competitors have watched us over the last several decades.” Noting U.S. dominance in space, land, and sea, he said, “It's really driven by the build-up of our great power competitors and their attempts to challenge our domain dominance."

This "explanation" sheds a light on the increasingly delusional, and filled with pain, world Pentagon resides in since everything White states here is put exactly upside down. 

1. The United States hasn't been a competitor in super-sonic, not to speak of genuine hyper-sonic, weapons since 1970s. It is also true in terms of Air Defense and ABM systems from whose missiles (SM-6) the United States tried to construct some sort of a hyper-sonic weapon. USSR/Russia pursued this capability relentlessly and if not for Gorbachev selling his country out would have had this capability not in 2010s but, likely, by 2000s. 

2. I have no idea where did White find US "dominance on land" but the actual track record suggests otherwise, not to mention the fact that last time the United States encountered what could be broadly defined as land power peer was in Korea, where Chinese troops turned out to be a rather potent competitor. 

But White gets one thing right, when defines what those weapons are as envisioned in the US:

“It's not going to be one or two hypersonic weapons,” Lewis said. “It's a range of capabilities. It's intermediate range. It's long-range. It's things coming off of ships. It's things coming off of trucks. It's things coming off of wings of airplanes and out of bomb bays. It's a full range of capabilities.” But, the experts admitted, the “things” won’t be ready until the mid-2020s.

Right, and that is the whole point. They won't be ready, and most likely, beyond the mid-2020s, by which time Russia (I am not sure about China 100%) would be moving onto the second generation of these weapons, granted that the bulk of those are already deployed in combat role, from Avangard to Kinzhal and now Zircon. For failing to react and adapt to an unfolding Revolution in Military Affairs when failing to lead it, the United States has only itself to blame, including learning all the wrong lessons from wars it fought and most of which it lost.

Military Newspeak, Same As Oldspeak.

I am always cranky whenever I see all kinds of taxonomies and "classifications", never more so than when those, mostly vague and, often, propaganda-driven distinction methods are applied to military affairs. Make no mistake, I am not against systematization, generalization and proper linguistic representation of military, or any other, phenomena--I am all for it, when done professionally, after all, there is a reason one of the first books on the table of any officer in Russian Navy or Army, as an example, is the small book called "Command Words" and phrases. Things, any things, need to be named correctly and have a very good reaction "path" to the brains of those to who they are addressed--be it a young soldier or an experienced rear-admiral. Clarity is the main requirement. Hm, maybe that is why I am published by Clarity Press. Maybe it wasn't accidental that I decided to go with them. 

Well, here I am again, ranting. This time I had it with the term Blue Water Navy. I opened Yahoo News feed today and, bang--Dmitry Gorenburg of Center for Naval Analysis writes this:

In the near to medium term, the Russian Navy’s role will be to serve primarily as a deterrence force to constrain U.S. and NATO operations in the eastern Mediterranean and to provide forward defense for approaches to the Russian homeland through the Black Sea. It will have some power projection through its ability to hold opponents’ territory at risk with its cruise missile capability, rather than through traditional naval strike groups. Out-of-area deployment capability will increasingly shift to smaller patrol ships and to submarines as Russia’s remaining Soviet-era large surface ships become increasingly less reliable. Over the last decade, there has been a transition in the Russian Navy’s future planning from unattainable blue-water aspirations to establishing a fairly capable green-water force. Its overall focus remains defensive in the near term, with the possibility of greater emphasis on power projection in the medium term as more Yasen-class nuclear attack submarines come online and older Soviet submarines are armed with Kalibr cruise missiles as part of ongoing modernization plans.

While Gorenburg's piece, surprisingly more-or-less balanced (for "American" analyst), is not wrong in a matter-of-fact way, passage highlighted in yellow makes by eyebrows being raised pretty high. For starters, what are "blue-water aspirations"? Let's see. We go to WiKi, and why not.

In public discourse blue-water capability is identified with the operation of iconic capital ships such as battleships/battlecruisers, aircraft carriers, and nuclear submarines.  

Public discourse, of course, is important but I was getting away from this term for a long time now, since it makes NO operational sense whatsoever if it is not judged relative to its mission against PROBABLE adversaries.  Here is how some people define these Blue-Water, Green-Water, what have you, capabilities. 

So, is the United States Navy a Blue-Water Navy? Absolutely--it is large, it can sail globally, it single-handedly can destroy some countries and in a civilian logic which still exists at the power-balance configuration circa 1999-2003 it is, it MUST be, a Blue-Water Navy. Well, I have issues with this statement in October, 2019. For starters, I took Stansfield Turner's (and not his only) operational truism to heart, long time ago. 

“It isn’t the number of keels, or size of ships that count. It is the capacity to do what might be decisive in some particular situation.”(c)

Blue-Water Navy's definition is as operational (or strategic, if one wishes) as it is a geopolitical qualifier and here is, where Gorenburg, while making his point within old, and, I would dare to say, obsolete cognitive apparatus, born primarily within deep recesses of Pentagonese Newspeak and fantasies taught as "science" in the Political Science courses in US Universities, is wrong. Blue-Waterness or lack there of is defined primarily by such tactical, operational, strategic and geographical term as the RANGE, distance that is. The further one's navy sails, the bluer this navy becomes. But as of lately, this range thing turned into a peculiar category. Just on this merit alone, as in the distance one's navy assets sail, we cannot be particularly sure, or otherwise, that Russian nuclear subs are not hanging out somewhere in the Gulf of Alaska, or at the entrance to Gibraltar. Who knows, but if the prior experience is any indication, chances are that they are there. So, in this respect, Russian Navy is a Blue-Water Navy because ANY Navy which has nuclear submarine forces equaling in capability Russian one is a Blue-Water navy by definition, since it sails its serious assets globally. So, Gorenburg, basically contradicts himself immediately following what I highlighted in yellow. This is not the way to conduct analysis by contradicting oneself immediately after making statements.

He also forgets to mention that Project-885 (Yasen-class) SSGNs are armed not with just 3M14 but primarily with 800-km range capable P-800 Onyx supersonic anti-shipping missiles with 1000-km range 3M22 Zirkon slated for the first underwater launch from this very same class of subs next year. So, a single Yasen-class SSGN with Zircon creates an exclusion zone of area A=pi x r^2= 3.14 x 1,000^2=3.14 million square kilometers. "Parked"  somewhere in or "near" GIUK Gap a single Yasen creates A2/AD "bubble" from roughly Greenland to UK. That is if this (or these) sub(s) operate there, if it moves beyond GIUK Gap in the  South-Western direction roughly  700 miles (around 1,000 km), two subs of this class can completely wreck havoc on Atlantic SLOCs. If that is not Blue-Water operations, I don't know what is. Mind you, those have nothing in common with "power projection", those will be good ol' classic SLOCs' interdiction operations and, frankly, sinking the enemy fleet. That is how real wars are fought. As we may all know (not from me) US Navy has no viable defense against salvos of high supersonic missiles such as P-800 Onyx and will not have viable defense against hypersonic missiles any time soon. So, where all this leaves us with this Blue-Water thing. Here is what Dmitri Gorenburg thinks:

The Mediterranean will play a key role in Russian naval strategy because of its strategic significance as an access point to southern Europe, the Middle East, and North Africa. For Russia, the Mediterranean symbolizes the larger competition between Moscow and Washington. By building up its naval forces, Russia is hoping to circumscribe NATO access to the region, protect Russia’s southern flank, and assist its current and potential future client states in the region. At the same time, maintaining forces in the eastern Mediterranean is less of a priority for Russian strategy than defending the homeland. Maintaining naval presence in the Mediterranean is a far more effective strategy for the Russian Navy than pursuing a globally active blue-water navy because Russia has neither the resources nor the global ambitions to challenge U.S. naval supremacy around the world.

Here is a conundrum, for Gorenburg and the US Navy--Russia does not need a clone of US Navy to deny its "supremacy" which was, apart from being grossly overstated, dramatically reduced by consecutive denial its "Bluishness" by means of creation of vast impregnable exclusion zones around Eurasia. What's the point of moving enormously expensive assets, such as US Navy's CBGs, into such zones where they (CBGs) are simply not survivable, forget any effective use of their weapons. With Russia's M=10+ capable Kinzhal having own range of 2000 km (up to 3,000 with MiG-31K range), or X-32 with own 1,000 km range with TU-22M3 combat range of 2,500 kilometers, or with recently paraded China's DF-17 2,000 kilometer range hypersonic missiles, what kind of "supremacy" Gorenburg is talking about? What does this "supremacy" even mean? Russia doesn't really care if US Navy exercises its supremacy anywhere other than in a Russia's (and generally Eurasia) vicinity. South Atlantic sounds fine, Pacific Ocean? Sure. Hawaii is a lovely place. Why should one build a vast, ungainly, ridiculously expensive and dubiously combat effective force to meet a challenge, when the US Navy, for all its glorious combat history and impressive visuals was turned obsolete for a minute fraction of a price by introduction of weapons, force structure and operational concepts which created a synergistic effect? The answer is obvious--there is no justification for such a ridiculous waste of money and resources, not to mention the fact, which Gorenburg accurately omits, that the United States itself has no resources to support its grossly unrealistic ambitions. The nation is simply bankrupt and demoralized. But sure, US Navy still maintains "supremacy" in numbers of platforms most of which are fat and prestigious targets for new weapons which drive Real Revolution in Military Affairs.

So, what is a Blue-Water Navy then? The answer is simple--it is not what one may think or try to express it in Pentagonese or Political Scientinese. It is really sad that many complexities of modern warfare (and of geopolitics)  have been reduced to a couple of obvious, to just about anybody, traits and memes while Turner's brilliant operational truism 'It is the capacity to do what might be decisive in some particular situation' was discarded in favor of propaganda expediency and inherent ignorance of political "scientists", which is in the foundation of the American economic, military, moral and intellectual decline. As per the American field of the so called "Russian Studies", as I stated it not for once--it is a wasteland of pseudo-"science", pseudo-"history" by pseudo-"academe" about the country which realistically never existed and which continues, being a civilization, to masquerade itself as a nation. As per warfare and "supremacy", reduced to a simple truism (or meme), this is how it is done, too bad few people took the lesson to heart. Maybe they need to learn a new language?

Paul Craig Roberts About My New Book.

PCR wrote a review on my latest book and I give here some excerpts from it: 

Martyanov’s book is, in a way, two books.  One is about the revolution in military affairs that has left the United States behind.  The other is about the self-medicating and propagandistic version of reality that Americans mistake for reality.  Martyanov convinced me that the Pentagon’s war planners need to upgrade their understanding of war and how to conduct one, but I found more interesting the fake reality supported by controlled explanations from which Americans seem unable to escape that is described in the other part of his book.  It turns out that it is not only the insouciant general population but also the ruling elites themselves who are locked in The Matrix.

But one phrase which PCR used (I really wish I could have come up with it;)) is really succinct and beautiful:

                     Slogans masquerade as ideas

Damn, this is good. It also captures the essence of the contemporary political discourse in the United States. Indeed, where are the real ideas instead of nauseating in their repeatability talking points delivered often by people who absolutely have no business in what should have been the "marketplace" of the real thoughts? Bar some large scale thinkers, such as PCR himself, who constitute a constantly shrinking field of people with actual expertise crucial for saving the United States, all we have today is infotainment. But then again: what constitutes this "saving". What are its basic parameters and metrics? Economy? Absolutely! You cannot to anything without economy, healthy, working economy that is. Military power? Sure! But what are the extents of this power, what it should be and how should it be used? Crucial issue? Absolutely! But, in the end--it all comes down to people who constitute this entity which should be saved. 

As classic of Marxism, Lenin that is, stated once (correctly) that idea becomes a real force when it take possession of the masses. Today, there are no ideas, only slogans and they cannot substitute ideas which are badly needed. World became too complex and it requires new mechanism, instead of utterly corrupt and often incompetent think tanks, for generating ideas which really matter. In the end, those are not just about the fate of the United States, but about humanity as a whole and it is this humanity, a global community, which increasingly doesn't see the future in what came to be known as liberalism, which increasingly comes across as totalitarianism in foreign and domestic policies. And this mutation is being countered as I type this. I finished one of the chapters in my new book with this:

Soviet poet Alexandr Trvardovsky left a Great Patriotic War literary masterpiece for the Soviet people—the epic Vasily Tyorkin, large and written in many self-contained parts, because many Red Army soldiers could never expect to read the entirety because of the possibility of being killed at the front. It was a poem about life and the combat of a simple Russian soldier, Vasily Tyorkin, which later transcended its literary origin and lived on in Russian folklore and culture. One of the most powerful episodes in Tvardovsky’s master­piece about River-Crossing under enemy’s fire, encapsulates the meaning of the titanic struggle against Nazi evil:

Бой идет святой и правый.

Смертный бой не ради славы,

Ради жизни на земле.

The battle goes on, holy and righteous

A deadly battle not for glory

                       For life on Earth

This is what at the stake for humanity today. No less than that. Maybe, more.    

S-500 Is In.

As many news agencies reported:

The S-500 Prometey, Russia’s next-generation surface-to-air long-range missile system, has completed most of its trials and is ready to go into series production, according to the Russian industry and trade minister.The development of the system is in its “final phase” after each element of the system was tested individually, Denis Manturov told Interfax in an interview. The current work is focused on checking the S-500’s performance as an integrated system.“All main specifications of the air defense system have been confirmed during the tests and it is now ready for series production,” he said, adding that the hardware will be delivered to the Defense Ministry on schedule.

It is a milestone. I hate speculations, especially filled with all kinds of pseudo-scientific psychobabble with a sprinkle of many cool technical terms. So, I'll leave it to many a "military expert" out there and will add only the fact of which I am certain and spoke about not for once--S-500 is the system to deal with perspective hyper-sonic weapons, which may come out of US military-industrial complex. I know of Russian air-defense professionals who described transition from S-300 to S-400 as being in awe of its capabilities when compared with S-300s. S-500 is something of the same scale when compared to S-400. Recall also that there are few serious issues when trying to detect and track hyper-sonic glider vehicles for radar. I assume that such issues have been resolved in S-500. 

 

Together with combat laser systems, S-500 will constitute the backbone of future Russia's anti-air and space defense and if my hypothesis that S-500 is designed to intercept maneuvering hyper-sonic vehicles with velocities of M=10+, that makes it a system which already has genuine future capability since, except for Russia, and, allegedly, China no such weapons do exist anywhere else so far. The United States is in pursuit here but will it succeed in creating something akin to Avangard is yet to be seen. Per pure anti-ballistic and aerial targets, combination of S-400 and S-500 and combat lasers, supported by short-to-medium range AD infrastructure such as new, greatly up-ranged versions of S1 Pantsir, Tor-M2 and Buk--such an environment is a worst nightmare of any combat aircraft or stand-off weapon in the world. So, at this stage, the shield is winning. It all may change, of course, but I don't see it yet. 

 

So, "the slow blade penetrates the shield" (c). For now this "slow blade" will be, traditional now, propaganda in Western media in a desperate attempt to shift the focus away from military-doctrinal catastrophe which unfolded for the West in a sense that new defensive technologies coming on-line if not make completely obsolete, then blunt weapons, which in the West were considered effective, dramatically, to the point of ensuring that under any circumstances, including any preventive strike scenarios (they do exist) the response will be instant and devastating. It also gives Russia an additional bargaining chip in any geopolitical rearrangement scenario. This also opens significant additional commercial opportunities for export versions of S-400 and there are many, very many takers of this complex. 

 

As I said and wrote--we all are inside Real Revolution In Military Affairs.

Facepalm Of The Week.

Richard Haas wrote yet another (many others wrote similar crap, see Fukuyama's recent piece in this very same Foreign Affairs, among others) pretentious meandering piece on, what else, global "order", or disorder if one wishes, and continued a glorious tradition of American political "scientists", "diplomats" and other former bureaucrats in avoiding speaking about real reasons for decried by them "decay" or this global order. Haas starts with a wowser of generalizations in his piece titled How a World Order Ends:

• A stable world order is a rare thing. When one does arise, it tends to come after a great convulsion that creates both the conditions and the desire for something new. It requires a stable distribution of power and broad acceptance of the rules that govern the conduct of international relations. It also needs skillful statecraft, since an order is made, not born.

I don't know if Haas senses a deep sarcasm in this his statement but the point is--those who proclaimed themselves the enforcer of this "order" succeeded gloriously in destabilizing the world they thought they "won" by the end of the Cold War. Since the times after late George H.W. Bush, that is starting from Clinton getting to power, terms "skillful statecraft" and the US can not be used in the same sentence since the degradation of American elites responsible for this alleged "craft" is nothing short of catastrophic both for the US and for the world. Haas is one of those "elites". So, to prove that he is "elite" and "intellectual" he, of course, waxes "historical". He gets to the point by predictably asking:

What lessons can be drawn from this history? As much as anything else, the rise and fall of major powers determines the viability of the prevailing order, since changes in economic strength, political cohesion, and military power shape what states can and are willing to do beyond their borders.  

He goes onto drawing parallels and looking for power balance symmetries in the events of the 19th century and this is where most American "thinkers" make huge mistake. History really teaches very little (albeit some generalizations, of course, are possible and even necessary for human nature is slow in changing), it certainly taught very little people like Haas, or Fukuyama who time after time buy into own pseudo-intellectual constructs trying to rationalize a subject which neither Haas, Fukuyama, Allison and most of the crop of the American, ahem, scholars have no clue about--the nature of military power and its application. It is simply not there; not having this clue about what, actually, always defined, defines and will continue to define balance of power, global "order", what have you in the foreseeable future, is rather peculiar feature of American (and Western) political scientists. Of course, appeals to history are cute, knowing few facts more about Metternich or about wording of some 19th Century treaty than your opponent makes a good background for "intellectual" exchange, debate and, eventual arrival to some form of intellectual "discovery" (especially if a good Scotch and cigar are involved) but in order to learn actual history one must learn real military history with all that it entails.They also must understand this simple (can I be arrogant and claim it?) Martyanov's axiom--world class military power is a function of the world-class nation-state, especially its economic and scientific potential. Both cannot exist without each-other.

Once such a commitment to actually learning stuff is made, one inevitably will arrive to conclusions on HOW and WHY "rise and fall of major powers" happens and this is a tricky and very sensitive issue for the United States because she is NOT a continental warfare power. With the exception of a turkey shoot of a third rate Saddam's Army in the Gulf and, granted, a magnificent victory in the Pacific during WW II, all other military events in the American history were of secondary importance when ranked against the background of a global military history. US "victories" in both WWI and WWII were coalition victories with the US arriving very late to the fight. American Civil War, while of importance as a first bona fide war of the industrial age (well, Crimean War certainly qualifies too) was primarily internal US and, to a degree, British endeavor. In other words, America's rise as a global power was predetermined primarily, apart from undeniable American technological and industrial genius, by a combination of very unique favorable circumstances in which NOT fighting a continental war with all it entails was a defining factor in American emergence as a true global player after WW II. Hence a rather foolhardy attitudes towards a war in the US because people who call on it all the time, including Haas (he wanted the US to be a global sheriff), Kagan cabal, US policy-makers and other public "servants" know extremely well that in case of war their asses will still reside in the safety of the America-proper while American GIs will die for whatever BS doctrine is a fad any given day in D.C. 

Haas needs, however, to justify the failure of the American doctrine-mongering (he knows about this failure, if he doesn't--then it is the case for medical psychology, not history) and he does what most of them do, he deludes himself with this:

Although Russia has avoided any direct military challenge to NATO, it has nonetheless shown a growing willingness to disrupt the status quo: through its use of force in Georgia in 2008 and Ukraine since 2014, its often indiscriminate military intervention in Syria, and its aggressive use of cyberwarfare to attempt to affect political outcomes in the United States and Europe.   

It is a very telling (false through and through) passage since it discloses a nagging, barely hidden under the surface, complex of inferiority they feel. It is schizophrenic really, akin to Russophrenia--when one has to both proclaim the US the "greatest" power that ever was, while having zero evidence of this power's military successes in the second half of the 20th and, especially, 21st centuries to support such claims. So, Haas and his keen of "intellectuals" who influence US foreign policy need to use a mental therapy by inventing things which are not there:

1. For starters, there is nothing, zero, "indiscriminate" in Russia's participation--Russia was invited to Syria by this country's legitimate government, does Mr.Haas know this? Russia kills in Syria, using a lot of SMART munitions, a Jihad Internationale ranging from ISIS, Al Qaeda to other unicorns ("democratic" head choppers supported by the US and her allies). US desperately wanted Russia and Assad government to fail--but since they didn't study military history they knew very little about what Russia's objectives were and how she fights in Syria. So people like Haas are really pissed--yet another of their forecast didn't pan out. 

2. Russia didn't really use her force in Ukraine. Yes, Russia, obviously, supports LDNR republics but I wouldn't call it use of force since if the force would have been really used, Ukraine would cease to exist as a state really-really fast with NATO getting a western rump of this largely failed state, while LDNR with Russia's help would reconstitute something new in the East and South of present day Ukraine. So, why Haas writes an obvious BS in supposedly scholarly magazine is a mystery. Self-medicating mentally? Possible.   

3. Ah, yes, Russiagate, Russians "meddling" in Western "democracies". Surely both Russia and US conduct cyber operations but this whole circus with Russia "influencing" outcomes is really pathetic (did Haas call Muller recently, I am sure after two years of "investigation" we all will get "evidence" about Russians subverting US "democracy" any minute now) and characteristic of a lack of any self-respect and huge insecurity of US "elites" who long ago hit the bottom and are on the level of travelers to Roswell in their attempts to connect spiritually with aliens. 

In general, there is nothing scholarly in this continuous, often murky, stream of recent American "thinkers" theses, ranging from magazine articles to books, since in their continuous lament about collapse of Pax Americana, or "global order", or "liberal order", whatever the moniker they want to slap on the global chaos the US is trying to perpetuate in an attempt to save its hegemony, they continuously forget to mention one simple military fact. This fact is the loss of American insulation from conventional warfare (who wants to fight a nuclear war, no, really?) she enjoyed since WW II and facing a very grim reality of getting conventional strikes on US Command and Control and military industrial infrastructure in case of igniting conventional conflict with, say, Russia. It is this massive change in military-strategic paradigm, driven this time by a very real, not contrived, Revolution in Military Affairs (RMA) which the US appeared to be not ready for. This is what drives this mass hysteria among those who want to blame their own lack of knowledge, education, foresight and of this proverbial statecraft on everyone else but themselves. Indeed, with "scholars" and "thinkers" like Haas (or Fukuyama, or Allison, or.....theirs is the army) there is very little surprise that the United States finds itself where it is. In other words, those "scholars" should have known better but they haven't and for that they have only themselves to blame, even if hiding behind pseudo-scientific rhetoric about "global order", because in the end one reaps what one sows.        

So, Kalashnikov Developed Yet Another Gun.

It is called AK-308 (in Russian), and we all may expect yet another round of all kinds of professionals, from combat veterans to Law Enforcement Officers, and, of course, armies of utterly unprofessional internet warriors getting ready to virtually kill each-other trying to prove that they know best what is needed in actual combat. It is, meanwhile, a very nice looking weapon:

AK-308

I will give a hint: even being an officer, during some certain events in Azerbaijan many of us still preferred to have, apart from standard issue PM, AK-74 with us when being deployed to some localities which required armed attention. AK-74 is my favorite of them all, despite me having an intimate knowledge of all of them in 1970s-80s from AK-47, AKMs and other versions of this venerable Russian "assault" rifle (whatever that means, but I am being PC here). I don't know how this new weapon feels but it looks cool. 

    

Now to unexpected turn of events. Remember this mecha-robotic son of a bitch? 

Well, Russians for some reason decided to present this new Kalashnikov 308, together with a huge array of a military hardware at the Forum "Armia-2018" (Army-2018) about to open its doors in Moscow,  by means of a lovely 4.5 ton contraption which looks like a bastard from the unholy coitus between this Paul Verhoeven's classic walking nightmare from Robocop and robots from late 1950s Hollywood B-rated sci-fi flicks or, maybe, a group robotic sex with some decent caliber net-centric capable machines squeezing primitive blue locals from Unobtanium fields in James Cameron's Avatar. So, here is this thingy.

Well, Russians love robots. Who doesn't? There is no better way to go than being shredded into a bloody pulp by robots' automatic guns or, for that matter, have 4.5 tons stepping on one's balls, a range of excruciating departures from this world which would satisfy even Lieutenant Frank Drebin's exquisite tastes in death.  

But jokes aside. This is the robot, or some versions of it, which may at some point of time pop up somewhere as a real combat bot and Russia, sure as hell, was working on this topic for quite some time. You maybe surprised with the array of high tech killing machines Concern Kalashnikov produces today. Yes, not just famous rifles. Somebody warned about not being overtaken by all this Revolution in Military Affairs (RMA) fad in mid-1990s--it was legitimate and sensible call then. Today? Time to think hard about RMA as a real deal because we are into the reality of weapon systems with elements of AI and who knows, we may yet, at some point of time face the necessity to slay the Skynet in order for all of us to survive. But I am getting ahead of myself here. 

UPDATE: Meme machine finally hit the high gear. LOL!

RMA.

I understand that long forgotten art of simplest, middle school level, linear extrapolation based on two or three, or four data points is only now being resurrected in American top policy (or lack thereof, rather) circles. But it seems General John Heyten tried to deliver the "news" (those are the "news" only for Washington political "elite") yet again at Space Symposium on Tuesday. 

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. — The head of U.S. Strategic Command would not say whether the United States has seen evidence of Russia’s “invincible” hypersonic missile, but the U.S. military has observed both Russia and China operating hypersonic missiles of varied capabilities, he confirmed Tuesday. “I won’t give you any specifics about the means we use to watch that. I won’t give you any of the technical specifics about the capabilities of those missiles,” Gen. John Hyten told reporters at the Space Symposium. “But I can tell you that we have observed both Russia and China testing hypersonic capabilities.”

The Kinzhal hypersonic cruise missile, which will be able to be equipped with both a nuclear and conventional warhead, can “overcome all existing and, I think, prospective anti-aircraft and anti-missile defense systems,” Putin said then. Whether that missile is in its developmental stages or actually undergoing operational tests, Hyten wouldn’t say. But it was obvious he took Putin’s claims very seriously. “You should believe Vladimir Putin about everything he said he’s working on,” Hyten said. “Now, the operational status of a lot of those capabilities…that’s a different issue. But everything that he’s said, I know that Russia’s working on, and we watch them very closely. We also listen to what they say very closely, and none of what he did and none of what he said surprised me.”

The issue here is extremely, like almost kindergarten level, simple—the US and her so called Russia's "military expertdom", bar some very few (and I mean a very small number: 5-6 at most, if not fewer) real professionals and true experts, is pathetic. It has a "stellar" record of neither predicting nor understanding Soviet/Russian military-technological realities nor operational, strategic or political ramifications of just about anything Russia (or USSR) ever produced in her military technology. It is akin to explaining the aliens from other galaxy who procreate by spawning what is the meaning of unprotected sex. 

Soviet Union lead the United States in supersonic cruise missiles for many decades. Kinzhal or no Kinzhal, 3M22 Zircon or no Zircon, an overwhelming lead by USSR in this field became clear already by 1970s. M=2.5 at high altitude capable P-700 Granit became the mainstay of anti-shipping and secondary TLAM capability in Soviet Navy by 1980. West had nothing comparable. By the time P-800 Onyx (Oniks) came around in late 1980s only moron couldn't see where this all was going. The race was always for hyper-sonic speeds to limit reaction time of whatever air-defense systems NATO fleets would deploy and to deny any "traverse", let alone "catch up" intercepts in case of relatively high densities of AD means, such as the case with US Navy's CBGs. 4-6 3M54 missile salvo, especially from underwater, provides very high probabilities of at least the leaker or two, that is missiles which break through AD screen and hit targets, 10-20 missile salvo spells the doom to any group of the ships, including aircraft carrier. Zircon or Kinzhal make any group of surface ships simply defenseless. 

So, what's left for Pentagon to do in this case? As Russians themselves admitted, the United States works hard on some kind of hyper-sonic system but it is highly doubtful that it will come on-line, at least in IOC, such as Kinzhal has already, any time soon. As simply sensational performance of Pantsir S1 in Syria recently demonstrated, the fact US media are desperately trying to hide from public, any subsonic target for such systems is simply not a serious target, especially in the case of full integration into Russia's vast and powerful C4ISR complex. Starting from the third hull of Project 22800 Karakurt, all ships of this class will have navalized version of this very Pantsir, which will make those numerous ships not just capable, both anti-shipping and land-attack, missile platforms, but excellent air-defense screens. Pantsir, obviously, had no difficulties dealing with allegedly "Smart" and "stealthy" JASSMs (or naval version—LRASM). For now, the only weapon which is high supersonic on any US carrier is an aircraft carried HAARM missiles. The launch of such a weapon against the most likely background of pr. 22350 Gorshkov-class frigates, acting as a core of Ships Strike Group, armed with Redut AD complex mitigates any launch of HAARMs since requires any HAARM carrier to enter kill-zones and that is just one of the scenarios which doesn't account for impressive ECM-ECCM capabilities.  

Will the US at some point of time procure something more powerful and capable than venerable Harpoon or Tomahawk? Stop-gap measure of using SM-6 as "anti-shipping missile" is not being taken very seriously, at least not in Russia:

The US Navy is seeking to adapt the Standard 6 (SM-6) missile for use against ships. If this modification is successful, the range of the SM-6 will be increased from 250 km to 370 km. This is a new anti-ship mode that can shoot down airborne threats, and now the same missile can attack and destroy a ship at long range. The Navy wanted to spend $2.9 billion over the five years FY17-FY22on the modified SM-6 as part of its “distributed lethality” initiative. This new anti-ship mode makes the SM-6 highly lethal due to its speed and agility and nearly overnight doubles the purpose of every such missile used across our fleet of Aegis destroyers. Boeing’s (BA) Harpoon anti-ship missile has a range of about 67 nautical miles, less than 130 km. 

It is inevitable that US will get it done at some point of time but with modern Russian anti-shipping missiles hitting already launch ranges of 800+ kilometers, while improving the lethality of their AD systems, it really makes those stop-gap measures look merely as "doing something". This is WITHOUT consideration of Kinzhal and what it brings operationally and strategically. With Kinzhal and eventual deployment of MiG-31BMs which carry it to Syria, one can easily understand gigantic geopolitical ramifications. Perspective Russian destroyers, yes-yes, I know the score with those—long a tedious process of design, re-design and re-design yet again, with all those Design Bureaus showing off their models and exercising in PR, should be armed with either navalized S-400 of latest versions or, if available by then, navalized S-500, the whole concept of war in the ocean (and land) will be completely changed. Well, it already is changed—but who knows, we may indeed, be facing the final coming of long awaited but never materialized in 1990s and 2000s RMA (Revolution in Military Affairs). Who would have thought that it would be Russia, not US, who brought this about.   

UPDATE: Oh, goody, here we go again.  

Washington (AFP) - The US Air Force is awarding almost $1 billion to Lockheed Martin to design and develop a hypersonic missile that can be launched from a warplane.

The contract follows repeated warnings from senior defense officials about rapid advances by China and Russia in the field of hypersonic weaponry, where missiles can fly at many times the speed of sound and dodge missile-defense systems.

This, of course, was totally expected and predicted. 

Gary Pennett, director of operations at the Missile Defense Agency, recently said enemy hypersonic weapons -- which could be launched from planes, ships or submarines -- would create a "significant" gap in US sensor and missile interceptor capabilities.  

In related news for Gary Pennett, the gap "would not" be created, it has already been created. I am not sure, however, about China's real, not claimed, capabilities. They were doing their thing for a while too. Now, as was discussed on this blog not for once--what would US Navy's Carrier Union do, when its very own carrier offsprings, highly experienced carrier aviators, Commanders Joseph A. Gattuzo and Lori J. Tanner brought this issue up like this in 2001:

“In the past, the successful nations were those who best tailored force structures to meet political objectives... Cruise missiles will replace manned aircraft and sink the ships that carry them... Money spent furthering manned aircraft technologies and programs—the CVNX (proposed Nimitz-class carrier replacement) being one of them—is like polishing cannonballs so they will fly a little farther.”

Ah-h, this ever annoying force structure issue.