Coherent Unicorns.

And a generic justification for a mess that the US military acquisition system has become from all quarters of the American think-tankdom who care to notice that the United States consistently is not ready to fight real wars. Yet another one of those justifications appeared yesterday in TAC and it is, as is expected, well, generic. 

As one observer recently pointed out, the Defense Department’s convoluted and wasteful acquisitions process is a symptom of a more fundamental problem, which is that the United States lacks a coherent global strategy and is blind to the limitations of its power.  

Generic, of course, but the author of the piece takes us on a journey to the  La-La Land of the American coherent global strategy:

So it’s worth taking a look at what research, development, and fielding of new weapons looked like when America had a clear mission—and when the American defense sector championed merit over politics. In order for future developments such as the Air Force’s promising Next Generation Air Dominance program to succeed

And the author gets immediately into the American military myths. 

The Lockheed Corporation, predecessor to the F-35’s embattled designer Lockheed Martin, was responsible for building some of the most impressive aircraft in history. Lockheed’s Advanced Development Projects, nicknamed “Skunk Works” as a reference to a 1940s comic strip, built aircraft that played a pivotal role in countering the Soviet Union during the Cold War. The F-80 Shooting Star was the first jet fighter to shoot down another jet, a Soviet MiG-15 fighter over Korea. The ultra-lightweight U-2 reconnaissance aircraft flew high over Soviet territory, taking photographs of military installations from up to 80,000 feet and evading early surface-to-air missiles. The A-12 and SR-71 spy planes added extreme speed to extreme altitude, blazing past Soviet air defenses at up to three times the speed of sound. Skunk Works was effective because its top-notch engineers were allowed to operate with relative freedom from Lockheed’s bureaucracy and management constraints, and even encouraged to bypass standard procedures when necessary.

It is forgivable for a person with such a generic background as Chris Nagavonski's, to write a generic and militarily and historically ignorant piece. But what do you expect? Truth is, when talking about American ingenuity and high engineering standards which still worked in the times of alleged American foreign policy "coherence" (a historic and geopolitical unicorn many inside the Beltway still believe in) Navagonski could at least point out to excellent F-16 or F-15 fighters which were the force to be reckoned with in 1970s and 1980s, but using a F-80 Shooting Star, who saw its numbers decimated by MiG-15s in Korea, I don't know what was he thinking. Even introduction of excellent F-86 Sabre didn't overturn kill ratio of American pilots who flew by far superior to F-80 aircraft when fighting Soviet pilots. In the history of the jet-age combat aviation F-80 was not a milestone against the background of Me-262 which was superior still to it and saw a fairly extensive, however late, combat in WW II, one is surprised that openly inferior aircraft would garner such an admiration. But Nagavonski doesn't stop here. 

He brings up the U-2 spy aircraft which earned its distinction as US aircraft type which was twice shot down by Soviet Air Defense in 1960 and 1962 and which became obsolete in any serious recon sense barely four years into its service life, because modern air-defense missile systems made it absolutely useless against countries which had them, such as Chinese downing in 1965 Taiwanese U-2 by the Soviet-made S-75 Dvina complex. In other words, U-2 turned out to be useful primarily against backward nations and who can forget this Gary Powers' "surprise, surprise". U-2 is still being used today to monitor all kinds of things using modern recon technology but it is an easy target for any moderately non-ancient combat aircraft and any air defense complex from 1970s. Yet again, how does this aircraft  reflect on the alleged American "coherent global strategy" remains a complete mystery to me.  

SR-71, of course, is a unique aircraft, not the least due to the titanium obtained from the...ahem, Soviet Union, and saw extensive use over Vietnam requiring almost a week to service for a single sortie, but while it is up to the American side to debate until hell freezes over why the initial retirement of SR-71 happened relatively fast, there is very little doubt that appearance of the S-200 air defense complexes in 1967 and eventual procurement of MiG-25 in 1970 with new air-to-air missile made SR-71 obsolete, same as was the case with U-2, few years after it was deployed. None of the American technology author introduces as, in his opinion, proof of some kind of America's better R&D acquisition practices due to some "coherence" can be taken seriously, because all of those weapons failed to make an impact other than against technologically backward adversaries and all three were obsolete by the time they were deployed against "peer" power. 

Remarkably, the best American military technology was produced not because of the "coherence" but because of a scientific and combat tradition which naturally worked in the Cold War period in mass produced and excellent combat aviation ranging from ground-based F-16 and F-15 to carrier-based work horse of F-18, to always excellent US Navy's submarine force which led a revolution in naval warfare and strategic deterrence, which makes U-2 and SR-71 pale in comparison as boutique technological oddities in their "impact". Mass-produced P-3 Orion was a fearsome ASW weapon and in this role was orders of magnitude more feared by Soviet/Russian submariners than some exotic and dubiously "effective" exhibition and PR items. P-3 Orion first flew in 1959, its different and younger mods still fly today--this is 62 years in service, while SR-71 is primarily a museum exhibit with only 32 built, while P-3 Orion saw its production numbers in 750+ range. How's that for comparison? 

But that brings us to the main issue--Skunk Works is a fine-fine engineering org and is the American legend and institution which has to have a certain due respect to be paid for. But it is also responsible for F-35 and F-117 which saw its "stealth" characteristics stripped from it in the most dramatic fashion by Serb good ol' Soviet-made air defense in 1999. In fact, the United States didn't produce a good solid combat aircraft in ages. The last, promoted as if it was a next best thing ever, F-22 Raptor, stopped its production run in 2011 and became known in the USAF as "Hangar Queen". The issue which Nagavonski raises but never actually goes to the heart of the matter is that the US military technology almost never encountered first-class opponent since WW II, bar the air-battles with Soviet 64th Air Corps in Korea (Americans are not going to like those kill ratios) and facing off with Vietnamese Soviet-made MiGs-17, 19 and 21s and air-defenses. Period. The rest of opponents were, as Patrick Armstrong says, small fish. As a result, the United States got used to little to no resistance to its hi-end weapon systems in real combat and learned all the wrong lessons, with or without "coherence". Tumultuous events of April this year give some clue that someone does understand that the R&D and acquisition process in the US is a mess. That is why it brought about a rare moment of an actual coherence on part of Biden's Admin which wanted the summit with Russia, and that in itself could be considered a first verifiable encounter with a coherent unicorn.  

Some Thoughts From Colonel Macgregor.

Colonel Douglas Macgregor, being a man of a considerable courage, also makes considerable assumptions when writing about Ukraine crisis in The American Conservative. 

President Biden can bring stability to U.S.-Russian relations if he doesn’t make the usual mistakes.

The key word here is "usual"--that's the problem. I don't know, maybe the United States has some local diplomatic successes somewhere in Africa or South America, but when it comes to relations with Russia, royally fvcking things up, for the last quarter of a century, is usual for the United States. Statistically, the United States should have done at least something right by now when it comes to Russia, but I, honestly, can only recall one failure after another and even recent extension of the START by Biden Administration hardly improves the overall picture of one failure after another. 

Macgregor notes, however: 

Putin’s directive to return most of his troops to garrison while leaving their weapon systems and equipment in place along the Ukrainian border should be viewed in Washington as an opportunity to create a measure of stability in U.S.-Russian relations that’s been missing for years. It’s not enough to hurl insults and simply restate what the Biden administration is against. It’s time to explore what kind of alternative to the fragile and dangerous status quo in Ukraine that Washington and Moscow can both support. Washington did a deplorable job of formulating strategic aims in the Middle East and Afghanistan that justified the sacrifice of American blood and treasure. The president cannot seize the strategic initiative now if Washington continues to react impetuously and emotionally to real or imaginary threats to U.S. and allied interests.

I agree, but immediate question is this--WHO formulates those strategic aims by means of doing a "deplorable job" whilst formulating those? Present American foreign policy establishment, apart from being ignorant, is utterly unqualified for such a job, hence it being deplorable, since it is not aware, by means of self-delusion, of already gross limitations of the American power and influence. This delusion grows together with the increasing growth of said limitations. Russia was ready to talk in 2014-15, since then a lot has happened and in 2021 Russia has a massive escalation dominance in Ukraine and Macgregor being a first-rate combat officer cannot fail to know that. 

And Macgregor, being a highly respected military professional, while allowing some of his wisdoms to be taxonomized in 5 points, nevertheless ends with what one expects from a professional of such a level and one of a few brilliant American strategic minds still out there trying to make their voices heard. 

Finally, President Biden must devise a new national strategy that ensures its political goals are congruent with U.S. military capabilities and fiscal realities. Too many hotheads in the Senate and House are ready to commit American military power without first soberly assessing the concrete interests and the costs of such action. President John F. Kennedy thrilled his supporters with his assertion that Americans should “meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe to assure the survival and the success of liberty.” It was great rhetoric, but it put the nation on the road to disaster in Vietnam. The United States does not have the resources or the need to export its political ideas at gunpoint.

I think this sums up Macgregor's sober realism extremely well. But the question remains: who will devise a new national strategy built out of understanding of America's dwindling economic and military resources and thus may address the danger of the global conflict in which the United States has no ways of surviving. Sometimes, to survive one needs to admit own weakness. And even admitting is not enough, internalizing it is what may give some ideas for the survival. Removing neocons could be a good start in formulating such a strategy. 

Here is a visual representation of the US foreign policy nowadays. 

No comments are necessary in this particular case. 

Daniel Larison Coins New (For Me) Term.

Daniel Larison, in his "discussion" at the pages of TAC with Brookings Institute own Thomas Wright uses the term "supremacists". Wright, as you can see,  has a lot of "degrees" in all kinds of pseudo-scientific fields, but, as is the case with many people from the American (cess)pool of "strategists", and geopolitical "thinkers", which Larison describes as supremacists, has very little clue about the subject he "tries to make case" on. It is expected from people associated with such pseudo-"scholars" as Robert Kagan or Strobe Talbott--the "stellar" record of "supremacists" (aka exceptionalists, aka neocons etc.) failing to forecast own bowel movements, let alone complex trends in geopolitics is well known. Those guys are not in the business of actual studies, they are in the business of juxtapositioning selected (by far not all) historic, economic and military facts in such a way as to increase the probability of holding on to their "think-tankdom" sinecures. 

Being "supremacist" in D.C. is a cool job, if you can get one, because you get paid handsomely for propagating the most contrived BS which then is fed into the "influence fuel" pipeline of diverse financial, ethnic, religious and political mafias running US so called "foreign policy". Larison thinks that this Wright's assertion requires a serious answer: 

Global retrenchment is fast emerging as the most coherent and ready-made alternative to the United States’ postwar strategy. Yet pursuing it would be a grave mistake. By dissolving U.S. alliances and ending the forward presence of U.S. forces, this strategy would destabilize the regional security orders in Europe and Asia. It would also increase the risk of nuclear proliferation, empower right-wing nationalists in Europe, and aggravate the threat of major-power conflict.This is not to say that U.S. strategy should never change. The United States has regularly increased and decreased its presence around the world as threats have risen and ebbed. 

Larison responds by trying to make a logical case:

Wright’s case deserves a serious answer. He acknowledges that U.S. strategy can change as circumstances allow, and he is willing to entertain some reductions in U.S. involvement in some areas while arguing for more in others. Advocates for restraint believe that more reductions are called for and there is much less need for forward-deployed U.S. forces than Wright takes for granted, but there is some overlap between the two positions. Where we differ is that Wright sees restraint as “the indiscriminate abandonment of a strategy that has served [the U.S.] well for decades” while we would say that it is a carefully considered rejection of a strategy that has outlived its usefulness. Wright agrees with some of the prescriptions that advocates of restraint make. Like us, he believes that the war in Afghanistan should be brought to an end. He says that “the United States should also impose new limits and conditions on its alliances with many authoritarian states.” Among other things, that means reassessing the relationship with the Saudis and cutting off support for the war on Yemen. But in the end, he concludes that significantly reducing U.S. involvement and commitments across the board is misguided. 

I mentioned logical, that doesn't mean that it is knowledgeable. I, certainly, can make explanation of my weird night dreams as "logical", such as why I fly in the air and why I do not kill myself when falling from the skyscraper--there is a logic in that, it is just that it is not of this, real, world, but of dreams. The phrase highlighted in yellow is what is the most peculiar about this response. Immediate question is: what circumstances and how they allow. This is not being petty and neat-picking, it is about understanding of the emergence of modern American exceptionalism in the immediate aftermath of the WW II. Wrong lessons were learned about circumstances and the essence of the American "supremacy". I like Atkinson's characterization of Patton (a rather run-of-the mill WW II general, who was extolled in US as a "genius" who he never was):

The creeping arrogance, the hubris, which would cost the American Army so dearly in Vietnam. Summing up the achievements of his troops in crushing the German counterattack of December 1944, Patton with pardonable pride claims to have “moved farther and faster and engaged more divisions in less time than any other army in the history of the United States—possibly in the history of the world... No country can stand against such an Army.” These memoirs are valuable not least in showing, however unwittingly, that a disastrous presumption of invincibility took root in the ranks of officers who led the American military after World War II. 

Should Atkinson book have been written today, Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, among many others, would have been added to the list of the American geopolitical disasters, which all, without exception, starting from inability to win in Korea are marked by the common feature of sheer ignorance, arrogance and, in fact, total inability to give any sensible account of existing circumstances. The only circumstances which ever led to a "change" in those ever illusive coherent American strategies after WW II were circumstances of sustaining an outright military defeat or inability to competently prosecute and win any war, period. Here is the story of the United States "strategies" and of "change":

It is a story of "foreign policy" based on inability to process even basic facts about the outside world which DO constitute those very "circumstances" to which the United States can only REACT and has no record whatsoever of having ANY coherent realistic foreign policy because none can exist in the echo-chamber of mostly wacky, wishful thinking "concepts" of the surrounding world. Moreover, it cannot exist within environment--be that US think-tankdom or any other official institutions--where there is absolutely no understanding of the nature and application of the power, especially military one. General Latiff of RAND states plainly that this cannot exist among people who draw those ideas from entertainment.         

Make no mistake: the willful ignorance of the American public and its leaders will have dangerous consequences. Most Americans, including many of our political leaders, pay scant attention to military issues until a situation arises concerning our armed forces. Then they act based on emotion and political expedience rather than on facts, and that rarely ends well. 

Let's put it even more bluntly: the idea that some US bureaucrat with mostly humanities education can produce something of intellectual value when discussing power component of geopolitics is down right preposterous--overwhelming empirical evidence of the US foreign policy establishment's utter ignorance on this issue is available to anyone who wants to see. In fact, not only it is the evidence of ignorance, it is a testimony to a complete irrationality and rejection of these very same "circumstances" which, finally, turned the United States into what essentially amounts to a bankrupt rogue state with nuclear weapons. Slight deviations from suicidal fanatical exceptionalist world-view in the US, once one begins to view history from the point of life-span of nation-states, are in no way indicative of ANY change, even among many "realists" and "restrainsionists" who differ with their neocon white-board pseudo-academic brethren only on a tactical level without changing their outlook on the United States as a real democracy and God's gift to the world. 

Yes, Larison tries to be logical when speaking of Russia and China and tries to be factual when states:

The U.S. has enjoyed almost unchecked primacy for at least the last 30 years, and in that time the U.S. has caused or contributed to the destabilization of at least half a dozen countries and fueled conflicts that have killed hundreds of thousands and displaced millions. During that same period, the U.S. has wasted trillions of dollars and lost thousands of lives in pointless wars that haven’t made the U.S. more secure. If this is a strategy that has served us well, I would like to know what a failed strategy looks like.  

But as was established: Washington establishment doesn't change, because it doesn't learn--it is not capable to do so, because the foundation, of knowledge and causality, to sound strategies and policies has been removed completely from US "international studies" programs. And while Larison makes a valid tactical point, does he understand that it is not the issue of "strategy" or circumstances--it is the issue of the nature of modern post-WW II United States with its folie de grandeur taken to the psychiatric extreme which are in the foundation of the American decline. The unfolding recognition that there is something rotten in the self-proclaimed shining city on the hill, is too little too late, even when is declared by the people who are largely responsible for that. And even admissions by inventor of a hollow pseudo-scholastic meme of Thucydides Gap, Graham Allison change absolutely nothing: 

The New Spheres of Influence. Sharing the Globe With Other Great Powers

They change absolutely nothing because these are precisely representatives of this US "foreign policy" establishment who not only have no clue about the world outside, as bad as it is, they lack even a basic concept of the actual strength of their own country, the United States that is, because none of them is taught how to correctly assess it, least of all in military sphere. Yes, I may agree with Larison that:

Wright accepts the need for a “selective retrenchment.” Advocates of restraint are convinced that the U.S. can and should reduce our military involvement overseas even more, because we see the current level of U.S. involvement as both unnecessary and undesirable. Wright is correct to say that the U.S. “should be more selective as it safeguards its interests,” but he does not go far enough. Our European and Asian allies are the ones that are best prepared and capable to provide for their own security, and the U.S. has discouraged them from doing this to preserve an illusion of our own “indispensability.” It is long past time that we encouraged them to take up their responsibilities for regional security after having carried that burden for more than seventy years.  

I do, however, have couple reservations on that. Retrenchment is defined as the act of retrenching; a cutting down or off, as by the reduction of expenses. It is not going to help, even if to assume that Trump Administration succeeds in part in doing this. It is too late for that, because the problem is deeper and systemic on a historic scale. It is the car engine which is broken, not the driver who's got sick, and that is what neither "supremacists" nor "realists" can understand. The question is not about "retrenchment", especially when one understands that the United States has neither resources nor viable doctrine to fight conventionally even near-peer and win, not to speak of great powers such as China or Russia, no--the issue today is will the United States preserve itself as a viable state without imploding into the ethnic violence and economic collapse which even Wall Street-trained shysters from economy cannot hide anymore. The statistics is out there:

And it is not encouraging, to put it mildly. 

Retrenching will not change America's fates much, addressing catastrophic structural deformities brought on by suicidal domestic and foreign policies, may. In this sense, the United States may be an exceptional nation, exceptional in a sense of blowing two historic opportunities handed to it by providence, once after the WW II, and then, with the collapse of the Soviet Union, in a manner and with degree of hubris in a historically short time, instance, really, seldom recorded in human history. I don't think the United States wants this kind of exceptional distinction. For me, however, it is a painful personal journey, seeing the country me and my family love as our home, disintegrating in a front of our eyes into chaos and insolvency precisely because those who run it (into the ground) have no understanding of circumstances and cannot react, forget being proactive, to them by taking necessary steps to arrest this dangerous collapse. Are they even capable of that? I don't think so, no matter the scale of tactical differences between "supremacists" and "realists". As I predicted more than 5 years ago, yes, I am doing it again:

Explaining to American "elite" the fact that US didn't "win" the WW II, that "winning" the Cold War came about because Soviet people simply decided to end it, that Wall Street "economy" has no relation to real economy and that real wars produce misery and destruction on a scale which is incomprehensible for the "populace" of the Washington D.C. "strategists", it is not just difficult--it is next to impossible. So, the events must run the course. But it is already clear that by failing to achieve any sensible political objectives in Ukraine and in Russia, and, by this, starting a massive global re-alignment, the United States sustained a defeat. What will be the consequences of this defeat? I hate to speculate, I just know that they are already big and that the moment of facing the reality is coming. My suggestion to those who are still making decisions--open and start reading  War And Peace by Leo Tolstoy. I don't hold my breath, though. The moment US handlers of their Kiev puppets conceived that Ukrainian Army can "win" in Donbass, the stopwatch started.   

Tik tok, tik tok, tik tok...the reality is finally here. 

I Write About This For Years.

Far from idealizing military anywhere, I still insist that Western political and punditry class is utterly incompetent in matters of war, thus making it unqualified for making decisions or promoting aggressive foreign policy. Now American war veterans made their voice heard somewhat. 

An important new consensus is forming against America’s endless wars, shaped by an important constituency: the military veterans who have sacrificed so much to fight them. A Pew Research poll of veterans released contained results that contradict the cherished talking points of the bipartisan Washington foreign policy blob that sees “leadership” and “engagement” as being synonymous with bombing and regime change. Sixty-four percent of veterans said the war in Iraq was not worth fighting when the costs to America are weighed against the ostensible benefits to the region and our national security. Just 33 percent concluded that George W. Bush’s Baghdad democracy adventure was worthwhile in retrospect.

There is, of course, much more to it than mere cost/benefits analysis but I will take here whatever I can. I will just remind you, that in the immediate wake of 9/11 tragedy I was FOR military operations in Afghanistan. But most importantly, The American Conservative's staff which wrote this column concludes it with what I write about for years:

The men and women on the frontline have seen the results of these mishaps firsthand. They know how the realities of these wars have differed from the abstract theories of the neoconservatives and liberal hawks, concocted in think tank conference rooms far removed from the real world. It’s time to heed their counsel more and the Beltway “experts’” less. 

Yes, about that--the United States completely discredited the principle of civilian control over military precisely for the reason that most militantly ignorant, aggressive, war-mongering elements of US government and media, responsible for millions of deaths, refugees, horrors of displacement, in the end, thousands upon thousands US servicemen who lost their lives, health and mental peace, are civilians whose only understanding of military is limited to Hollywood propaganda and most of who didn't serve a day in uniform, let alone have serious military academic background and operational experience. Good that someone other than me points out this damning fact.     

You Gotta Love Tucker.

Just as I finished my expose' on all kinds of Russian military so called "experts" (pardon me--frauds) nine days ago, Tucker Carlson started asking those most important, bottom-line, expertise questions about America's very own military "experts" such as Max Boot and Bill Kristol in The American Conservative. Tucker gets to heavy artillery really fast: 

One thing that every late-stage ruling class has in common is a high tolerance for mediocrity. Standards decline, the edges fray, but nobody in charge seems to notice. They’re happy in their sinecures and getting richer. In a culture like this, there’s no penalty for being wrong. The talentless prosper, rising inexorably toward positions of greater power, and breaking things along the way. It happened to the Ottomans. Max Boot is living proof that it’s happening in America. Boot is a professional foreign policy expert, a job category that doesn’t exist outside of a select number of cities. Boot has degrees from Berkeley and Yale, and is a fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. He has written a number of books and countless newspaper columns on foreign affairs and military history. The International Institute for Strategic Studies, an influential British think tank, describes Boot as one of the “world’s leading authorities on armed conflict.” None of this, it turns out, means anything. The professional requirements for being one of the world’s Leading Authorities on Armed Conflict do not include relevant experience with armed conflict. Leading authorities on the subject don’t need a track record of wise assessments or accurate predictions. All that’s required are the circular recommendations of fellow credential holders. If other Leading Authorities on Armed Conflict induct you into their ranks, you’re in. That’s good news for Max Boot.

The very notion that one must have academic (yes, military sciences are really physics-mathematics and engineering sciences in the foundation) and military, especially command, experience to even utter a sensible word on anything related to armed conflict, somehow doesn't exist in modern, post-truth, world. I remember one humanities-"educated" hack who saw weapons only in pictures and who wouldn't know the difference between attrition models on the land and on the sea, preaching to me that cadre officers cannot have good understanding of strategy. So, today, it seems, in order to become a military "expert" one needs a degree in economics or sociology, or in theater. So, Tucker hits target here really well. In general, it is an excellent piece by one of few remaining sane voices in D.C. But in the end Tucker gives a grim assessment of the situation, same way as I am trying to make a case for the last few years: the state of American military science, strategic assessments, military analysis, military history is dire--the field is occupied by insane and illiterate people who pass judgements on subjects they have no clue about and they really don't care. As Tucker notes about another mindless and illiterate war-monger Kristol:

By the spring of 2018, Kristol was considering a run for president himself. He was still making the case for the invasion of Iraq, as well as pushing for a new war, this time in Syria, and maybe in Lebanon and Iran, too. Like most people in Washington, he’d learned nothing at all.

As I said many times, political "scientists", lawyers, most journalists and political "strategists" do not make good "experts" in armed conflict or any other field which requires serious effort in obtaining actual applicable skills. This especially rings true for ones who exist in a Washington's echo chamber which increasingly begins to look like a padded room for violent patients in the asylum.