"Experts".

Kyle Mizokami, who "blessed" many of us at some point of time with his "expert" opinions while writing for tabloid The National Interest, does it again. This time in Popular Mechanics. He, obviously, doesn't get, which is expected from the guy with some funny background in some "security", that the main issue are not some "hyper-sonic" weapons related to a rather bizarre concept of Prompt Global Strike but a completely different fruit altogether.

As the Union of Concerned Scientists points out, hypersonic weapons traveling at Mach 5-plus experience a whole new level of heat buildup. While a ballistic missile warhead might spend only seconds exposed to air friction, hypersonic weapons experience air friction throughout their entire flight. Chemical reactions with the surrounding air even create a plasma around the hypersonic weapon, which can interfere with the object’s ability to reference GPS or receive outside course correction commands. That’s not all. Hypersonic travel is so brutal that an object traveling at such speeds slowly tears itself apart during flight as the speed magnifies heat, wind, and other environmental factors. This gradually alters a hypersonic weapon’s flight dynamics, making accuracy an increasingly difficult problem.

Based on that triviality, he concludes, that hypersonic weapons "are not accurate". There is one issue, though, with this whole "expert" opinion--not only those hypersonic weapons are very accurate and have confirmed their accuracy, but are already deployed on a combat duty. So, what's the problem then? The problem is that Mizokami writes about hypersonic gliders which in Russia are known as fully combat ready Avangard system and which the United States tried to create (still tries) under different programs. The fact that, as is now traditional, Mizokami has no idea what he is writing about is mentioning of GPS. Sure. But Mizokami, he is an "expert" after all, must know that both in ballistics and hypersonic weapons (call it a hunch) one of the main correction channels is optronic one, including, but not limited to, capability to get celestial correction, as well as final capture (lock) of the target. But even this is not the main point. The main point is THIS:

WASHINGTON — In a move with sweeping consequences for the U.S. Navy’s battle force, the service is canceling plans to add 10 years to the expected service lives of its stalwart destroyer fleet, a cost-savings measure that would almost certainly hamper plans to grow the size of the fleet. In written testimony submitted to the Senate Armed Services Committee, the Navy’s Assistant Secretary for Research, Development and Acquisition James Geurts said performing service life extensions on Burkes designed to bring them up from 35-year hull lives to 45 years was not cost-effective.

One may ask a question--WHY? It is a good question and part of the answer to this question is undeniably fiscal. The United States realistically is bankrupt, while its technology, even a good one as those handsome Arleigh Burke-class DDGs, is insanely expensive. This is to put it politely. But the other huge part of the answer is in this passage:

Bryan Clark, a retired submarine officer and senior fellow at the Hudson Institute, said the cuts were a necessary step. Clark recently authored a study with the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments that called for canceling the DDG service life extensions. “It’s crazy to throw good money after bad for a bunch of ships you say you don’t need,” Clark said. “I think the Navy is coming to grips with the fiscal realities; the unsustainable nature of their current plan; and the recognition it is going to have a need for fewer large surface combatants in the future and needs to husband its resources to build a larger fleet of smaller surface combatants. Those are going to be the bulk of the distributed force they intend to have.”

Ah, that is much-much warmer. The reason for that is a simple fact that large and expensive surface combatants are not survivable in the modern naval combat, unless they have weapon systems which can fight REAL hypersonic weapons such as fully combat ready and deployed Kinzhal, 3M22 Zircon or even nearing M=5 X-32 anti-shipping missiles. That is the real hypersonic threat, not those exotic Avangard gliders which merely exist to forestall the appearance in the future of similar systems in the United States and, if it ever materializes (I doubt it, but who knows) some sort of strategic anti-missile system. Unlike Avangard, which is a nuclear deterrent, another one in Russia's arsenal, Kinzhal, X-32 and Zircon are actual weapons designed specifically to fulfill a classic Sea Denial (or, if one wants an exercise in Pentagonese from me--Battle Space Denial) in both conventional or nuclear variants. They, not the Avangard, are the weapons which, being tactical-operational ones, achieved already a strategic and even doctrinal effect and these weapons are extremely precise. United States knows that. Liana, as Shoigu reported recently, namely last Peon NKS is nearing completion (in Russian), that's what is going to complete creation of Liana, which will (already does) provide detection, tracking and targeting for hypersonic and supersonic weapons against any targets.  

Same way as creation of modern rifles and machine guns forced infantry to abandon linear tactics and reduce its battlefield "footprint" by spreading (distributing) itself over distance, inevitably same distribution over area, including reduction in size and, inevitably, tightest control of emissions is one of the ways for surface combatants to increase their chances of survival against weapons which cannot be stopped and will not be stopped for some fairly long time by the US Navy. This is why, the United States lacking those capabilities, is destroying START treaty by demanding to include in it such weapon as Kinzhal. US also increasingly nuclearizes its own posture precisely because it lacks those conventional capabilities. Russia was ready to talk about Avangard and even offered a "discussion" on Kinzhal, but all those "discussions" today come with many strings attached and price to be paid, and Russia, certainly, is not discussing Zircon.  The United States is not ready to pay this price. This is the point Mizokami misses when discussing hypersonic gliders, which are not even that important against the background of a real RMA which completely changed power balance globally. 

In related news, it will be Severodvinsk, not Kazan, which was initially planned, to launch Zircon soon (in Russian), while Admiral Gorshkov will continue testing of this weapon this year. Several launches are announced. Zirconization of the Russian Navy proceeds apace. Well, that, plus global de-petrodollarization. We are at the threshold of the brave new world, or should I say: Brave New World? No, not Huxley's novel, but Iron Maiden's album, wink-wink;) Judging by modern day "experts" this future seems assured for us and it will require a lot of bravery to face it. 

Severodvinsk

Total Recall-1.

I, as promised earlier (you can find this exchange on education and professionalism in one of the recent threads), begin to address some issues related to military-political analysis as a function of fundamental education and experiences. I want to stress, as I think Tom Verso may have misconstrued my point (and I apologize if I came across as a jerk--in real life I am just an average run-of-the-mill ass-hole, but not a jerk) about humanities as a sweeping generalization about the filed and as me being totally against humanities field. I am not. In fact, as I stressed many times--no truly educated man or woman are possible without rigorous training in philosophy, political economy, history and classic arts. That goes without saying, what also goes without saying is this, I quote myself from my latest book:

It was Socrates, via Plato’s Republic, who came up with the prescription which would, in his mind, make life better for all:

Until, then, kings are philosophers, or philosophers are kings, cities will never cease from ill: no, nor the human race; nor will our ideal polity ever come into being.

Socrates’ idea, formed in the times of sail and wars fought with swords, shields and spears, seemed reasonable since philosophers and intellectuals of the era had little problem grasping the essence of warfare, the marketplace and industry as it existed 2,400 years back. Any inquisitive mind then could learn a great deal about different manifestations of human activity given that it was greatly limited by the primitive conditions of the time. Philosophers could build and lead armies then, they also could be kings or Caesars, such as Marcus Aurelius who definitely satisfied Socrates’ desire to see a philosopher as a king and vice-versa. Today things have changed dramatically—the modern world is filled with philosophers and their other contemporary iterations such as political scientists, sociologists or even economists, yet their grasp of the modern world is growing weaker and very few of them are capable to grasp all the complexity of the ongoing processes of this increasingly puzzling modern humanity. In fact, increasingly what used to be philosophy’s prerogative—finding the answers to life’s most complex questions by reasoning on the basis of abstractions and principles—cannot be done anymore. It was possible to assert this prerogative in the times of sword and sail, but in the times of space travel, neural networks, instant propagation of information and robots, something else entirely is needed and mere appeal to well-learned philosophical wisdom is not enough. Reasoning can no longer be based on broad generalizations only. In fact, uninformed reasoning can, and often does, lead to unexpected and not always benign results. In the modern world saturated, if not altogether overwhelmed with data, one has to have at least some rudimentary tools which allow one to filter, systematize and analyze this data. Philosophy and political science simply do not provide viable tools for that—the reason being rather simple: most modern philosophers, political scientists and other representatives of what came to be known as the field of humanities are not educated in the field of modern technology.

As you can see, I merely underscore the lack of tools which are required for sound analysis (and synthesis) of the issue central, even more than any time in the past, of global power balance as a function of  military, technological and economic potentials of geopolitical players. I would say even more--no one without good training in humanities field will be able to pass sound judgement on this crucial issue. But this is just a necessary condition, but it is not a sufficient one. Something else is required. This something else is a key to unlocking the secrets of this balance--what is generally known in the Wests as STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Math). One simply cannot pass a judgement on modern tactical and operational matters without having a profound background and training in STEM. Real modern military, starting from WW II, is literally driven by STEM in its every manifestation and that imposes an enormously high and rigid requirements on modern military professionals who see themselves slightly more than mere automatons designed for carrying out orders--this doesn't work like this, in fact, it never did. The requirements for a genuine military analysts are even higher.

Here is a simple example. This is how C4ISR looked in the times of Admiral Nelson and Trafalgar Battle:

 And this: 

This, however, is how things started to change by early to mid-20th century. This is how Mark 63 Fire Control System, among many other similar fire control systems around the globe, began to look like by 1950s. 

By the end of 1950s fundamentals in guided missiles looked like that. Granted this 1972 version is based on classic 1957 Guided Missiles Fundamentals by the Department of Air Force. I have an  paper version in immaculate conditions of this superb book (thanks for garage sales) which is a superb textbook on physics as applied to rocketry. And suddenly this:

And this: 

And this: 

Among very many things, become one and the same--a modern warfare. And that is whole other science rooted in complex physics, higher mathematics, dynamics, radio-electronics and the list goes on and on, and on. Now, here is the issue with me personally. As I already stated not for once, I was quite happy to forget all this military science staff, together with my specialty and experiences, if not for damn politics and a catastrophe which unfolded with the US foreign policy which was shaped by people so removed from the state's main power tool--its military--that we could at the end of 2014, after Crimea returning back to Russia, with real hot war. This catastrophic mistake would have been made by utterly incompetent people in Obama Administration, people who have zero understanding (it is expected from people with degrees in political "science" and law) of the warfare and how wars are fought. I was forced to enter my Total Recall phase, abandoning my passive posture with some trolling posts on different fanboys discussion boards. By 2014 it was clear to me that one cannot continue with playing preposterous game of American foreign policy and pseudo-military (largely Hollywood-driven) semantics and has to try to explain to lay people that what they know about real war through mostly American media and so called "experts" is a caricature totally removed from reality. 

I should start with pointing out some huge, dramatic really, differences in approaches to higher military education in the USSR/Russia and the United States. I do go over this somewhat in my first book, but often people in the West, and even Russia, still cannot grasp the intensity of the STEM training to which most command-engineering officer cadres were and are subjected in Russia. And I do propose that without serious precise sciences background, not to mention military one, any talk about contemporary geopolitical balance shift becomes absolutely useless since lacks professional understanding of the main factor which drives it--modern military power. It is one thing to know force structure, totally another knowing or predicting how this force will perform. And that is how I began my total recall.  

To Be Continued....