Cutting Empire To Size, Or Yet Another "National Security" Crisis.

It becomes really redundant by now and, frankly, tiresome. 

WASHINGTON — America’s military superiority has “eroded to a dangerous degree,” leaving the U.S. in a “crisis of national security,” especially if faced with more than one conflict at once, a new congressionally-mandated report concluded.“The U.S. military could suffer unacceptably high casualties and loss of major capital assets in its next conflict,” reads the report, issued Wednesday by the National Defense Strategy Commission. “It might struggle to win, or perhaps lose, a war against China or Russia. The United States is particularly at risk of being overwhelmed should its military be forced to fight on two or more fronts simultaneously.

Truth is, there is no "crisis of national security" in the US--nobody is intent on attacking the US or cut vital for the US Shipping Lanes Of Communications (SLOC), other than some terrorists, but FBI can handle that; US Navy, despite all of its very real problems, is still a very potent navy, especially its submarine component, to do the job of keeping SLOCs open. Neither Russia nor China are intent to interdict these SLOCs unless the United States decides to start a war on them, then, of course, if the US, say, tries to attack Russia, things change. Other than that--there is no crisis. Russia can obliterate the US today, she could do it yesterday, and she will be able to do it tomorrow, the same goes the other way--this is MAD, folks. But Russia explicitly doesn't want to attack the US. So, what's the fuss is all about? 

The fuss is about this (from the article):

But the authors worry that the department, as it is structured both strategically and financially right now, would not be able to successfully manage two conflicts at once – or be guaranteed victory in even one, should it come down to a fight with Russia or China.

Talk about folie de grandeur of unimaginable scale (see Report). One may ask the question on how those people in National Defense Strategy Commission really envision, say war against Russia alone. It is really a fascinating, for all the wrong reasons, scenario since, I am sure, these guys (such as former CNO Admiral Gary Roughead among other 11 members of this Commission) try to play this scenario strictly in conventional framework, because otherwise the United States as a state will cease to exist. 

I was thinking about this, not to mention getting tired of reading all kinds of alarmist, justified and not, as in this case, "reports" and here is my simple take. 

1. United States never fought against first-rate, well-trained, equipped and determined adversary which can match US capabilities across the whole spectrum of modern warfare. US fought in Vietnam where it lost to determined but largely peasant force with only some very few capabilities of a first world army, it fought in Korea where it ended with bloody stalemate and, of course, US had its turkey shoot against grossly incompetent Saddam's Army. US armed forces never fought in their modern history against the adversary capable to strike (conventionally) to the strategic depth. That means under no conditions were US troops, their rear services, bases, strategic command and control assets, ammunition stocks etc. subjected to a serious (and sustained) fire impact since one day Pearl Harbor affair.  Of course, we do not even talk about US proper.

2. United States doesn't have effective battle field air defense capable to prevent such a (stand-off) impact--no US AD complex is capable to reliably intercept most Russia's stand-off weapons thus exposing every single US combat asset on the theater of operations. 

3. A painful issue of US air assets--good luck dealing with the best air-defense in the world. A single regiment of S-300 PMU2 in Syria shut down Israeli Air Force (equipped with much vaunted F-35) operations over coastal Syria. 

4. Ground forces? Another wowser since nobody knows how US ground forces will fare against steady and fast attrition of its assets against arguably best anti-armor and area-impact weapons in the world. US simply has no historic experience with that under the conditions of very limited resources and manufacturing base being destroyed (conventionally) domestically. 

So, how this Commission envisions such a war is a really funny question. They do state, however: 

We recommend that DOD more clearly answer the question of how it intends to accomplish a core theme of the NDS—defeating major power rivals in competition and war. Without a credible approach to winning a war against China or Russia, DOD’s efforts will befor naught

Apart from fluffy (and expected) pseudo-military BS, I have question to this Commission--do they have any idea how it will feel, if they imagine a set-piece (totally unrealistic scenario) battle at Russia's borders in purely conventional way, to lose, say, 150,000 KIAs alone just within one-two months of "fighting"? You say impossible? I would say I am being way too cautious. After all, this is US Army Colonel speaking in 2012 BEFORE certain events unfolded:

In 110 days of fighting the German army in France during 1918, the U.S. Army Expeditionary Force sustained 318,000 casualties, including 110,000 killed in action. That’s the kind of lethality waiting for U.S. forces in a future war with real armies, air forces, air defenses and naval power. Ignoring this reality is the road to future defeats and American decline. It’s time to look beyond the stirring images of infantrymen storming machine-gun nests created by Hollywood and to see war for what it is and will be in the future: the ruthless extermination of the enemy with accurate, devastating firepower from the sea, from the air, from space and from mobile, armored firepower on land.

This should be emblazoned on every wall of any US military-related "think-tank" or "commission" because reality will be even grimmer once one understands that in order for US (NATO) to fight Russia they will need to come into Russia's backyard (Russia is not going to occupy or attack anyone unless attacked first) and people way more capable strategically and tactically than those in Pentagon tried it, not for once, and ended losing not only wars but their armies and  states. US military "thinkers" evidently have no grasp of what even conventional war with Russia may bring to the American side--the scale of attrition which will make Vietnam an easy stroll in the park in comparison, albeit Americans who fought there were tough soldiers and good leaders on tactical level. This is not the case today. But General Van Riper's lessons still must be studied to avoid a catastrophe which expects any adversary deciding to fight Russia in her vicinity. 

But what is this "crisis" really about? It is actually about not willing to face reality and fight a real war (it is scary and is pregnant with major political consequences), as opposed to comfortable rolling over grossly inferior adversaries. It is about constantly diminishing military capability margin, which was grossly inflated to start with in the wake of the Soviet collapse, and which now is getting to be more proportional to the Empire which is being "cut to size" by geopolitical, economic, military, technological and human reality. So, no--United States is not capable to fight either Russia or China separately, let alone those two simultaneously--this delusional idea was born out of ignorance, hubris and, frankly, lack of knowledge of the real warfare with capable adversaries. Projecting (lack of) "lessons" from Iraq or Afghanistan occupations and (not)fighting there in what is a medium to low intensity conventional (COIN) conflicts onto modern 21st century warfare against nuclear superpowers--it is either, indeed, folie de grandeur or a sign of a mental disorder among those who have to face reality of American very real economic and, with it, military decline. United States either learns to live within its by far not limitless means and accepts the new geopolitical reality, thus preserving own status as one of the few true global superpowers, or it will destroy itself completely trying to retain which it thinks, wrongly, a providence-bestowed crown of hegemon. I feel it is time to address some issues of possible casualties in a conventional conflict. I will do it later.

It Begins To Sink In, Finally, But Too Late.

No, really.

Russian oil exporters are pressuring Western commodity traders to pay for Russian crude in euros and not dollars as Washington prepares more sanctions for the 2014 annexation of Crimea by Moscow, Reuters reported last week, citing as many as seven industry sources. While it may have come as a surprise to the traders, who, Reuters said, were not too happy about it, the Russian companies’ move was to be expected as the Trump administration pursues a foreign policy where sanctions feature prominently. This approach, however, could undermine the dominance of the U.S. dollar as the global oil trade currency.

This situation, which passes as a surprise in the US only, augments well Ron Unz' yesterday's excellent summary of Trump Presidency.

However, although Trump had reached the presidency by advocating a radical populist-nationalist agenda, he has hardly governed in those terms. For his first two years in office, he sunk nearly all his political capital into enacting huge tax cuts for the rich, wholesale Wall Street deregulation, large increases in military spending, and an extremely pro-Israel foreign policy—exactly the sort of policies near-and-dear to the establishment conservative candidates whom he had crushed in the Republican primaries. Meanwhile, his jilted grassroots supporters have had to settle for some radical rhetoric and a regular barrage of outrageous Tweets rather than anything more substantive. With Republicans in full control of Congress, finding excuses for this widespread betrayal was quite difficult, but now that the Democrats have taken the House, Trump’s apologists can more easily shift the blame over to them.

Difficult to argue, because in terms of what really matters, that is tangible economic results, Trump has very little realistically to show for it. As Ron Unz continues:

For foreign policy reasons, I had strongly favored Trump both in the primary and in the general election, but I hardly regarded him as a thoughtful vessel for the positions he claimed to espouse. To put it bluntly, he struck me much like a highly-opinionated construction worker, angrily spouting off on politics in his local neighborhood bar, being right on some matters and wrong on others, but with none of his views based upon any deep understanding of the issues. I suspect that even many of Trump’s strongest supporters have gradually come around to a similar appraisal of their idol.

So did I, but hopes were dashed really fast and as Fred Reed in a moment of utter sheer brilliance observed about Trump he was First Transgender President, Trump Became Hillary. Trump simultaneously became also W and in terms of foreign policy, which in reality matters for the United States way more than it is traditionally credited with, Trump became a neocon in a sense of fanatically following an aggressive dogma and "weaponizing" US economy. So, the world learned fast that the economic war was declared on it and it started acting or, rather, counter-acting and most important strategic move was, inevitably, to slay a holy cow of America's economic "development" (or otherwise) of the last 70 years or so--the US Dollar. 

This is what Trump and people on the American "top" do not recognize, while the US still remains an economic powerhouse:

1. American Deindustrializtion hasn't been stopped while Reindustrialization requires a volume of the investment (money) which simply cannot be printed anymore nor could US treasuries be viewed anymore as a trusted instrument, because...

2. A main pillar of these treasuries--the US military power and ability to control the empire, apart from being grossly inflated to start with, diminished greatly in the last 20+ years and continue to decline because...

3. The actual size of the US economy is much smaller than those proverbial $22 trillion and China outproduces the United States by a great margin in many critical fields and catching up in others. As an example, one of many, the US commercial shipbuilding doesn't even register (0.35% of global tonnage) in this industry, never mind nauseating mantras about US being "largest economy" in the world--it is not, China is. One can review Chinese commercial shipbuilding here, or can review who is a real mover (a hint--they are a gas station) for satellite-constellations in space.

4. Removing, or bypassing, US Dollar as the only global reserve currency--the process which is ongoing and accelerating as I type this--inevitably will cut the US economy "to size" and will accelerate the process of "landing" greatly, hopefully not crash-landing which may force desperate US "elites" unleash a global conflict. 

Trump's trade wars are a good indicator of desperation and these wars only accelerate dedollarization and there is nothing the US can do about it short of unleashing a global military conflict, as I said earlier. Some people in D.C. think about it. Iran's SWIFT snafu is just the latest in a row of the geopolitical and economic prescriptions which do not work and, in reality, harm the United States itself. Well, Trump is correct in one thing for sure--if not for the United States China would have never become what she is today and for that, as the saying goes, United States has only itself to blame. In the end, if not for the way the US treated Russia in 1990s there would have been no fundamental rethinking of Russia's foreign and defense policies. But here we are. Trump merely, rephrasing Clausewitz, continues American aggression by other (economic) means and we are in the brave new world where nobody takes American words and promises seriously anymore. In related news, last week:

ZHUHAI, China (Reuters) - China and Russia on Tuesday unveiled a life-size model of a proposed wide-body long-haul jet at the opening of China’s largest airshow, giving public shape to their joint efforts to break into a market dominated by Boeing and Airbus. 

This Is Not Good.

WSJ reports:


Boeing Withheld Information on 737 Model, According to Safety Experts and Others 

This is more than just "not good", this is down right scary.

The automated stall-prevention system on Boeing 737 MAX 8 and MAX 9 models -- intended to help cockpit crews avoid mistakenly raising a plane's nose dangerously high -- under unusual conditions can push it down unexpectedly and so strongly that flight crews can't pull it back up. Such a scenario, Boeing told airlines in a world-wide safety bulletin roughly a week after the accident, can result in a steep dive or crash -- even if pilots are manually flying the jetliner and don't expect flight-control computers to kick in. That warning came as a surprise to many pilots who fly the latest models for U.S carriers. Safety experts involved in and tracking the investigation said that at U.S. carriers, neither airline managers nor pilots had been told such a system had been added to the latest 737 variant -- and therefore aviators typically weren't prepared to cope with the possible risks."It's pretty asinine for them to put a system on an airplane and not tell the pilots who are operating the airplane, especially when it deals with flight controls," said Capt. Mike Michaelis, chairman of the safety committee for the Allied Pilots Association, which represents about 15,000 American Airlines pilots. "Why weren't they trained on it?"

Make no mistake--I am all for automation, where it is needed. But I am also, and primarily so, for high level of professional training of personnel which provides a set of fundamental skills allowing professional pilots, mariners, surgeons, what have you, to be independent of "technology" in critical situations while deciding when and how to engage it. We just saw another example of a loss of a situational awareness and of extremely low level of fundamental professional skills here:

At least in Norway no people got killed, in case of Indonesian Boeing every one on board died. Somebody at Boeing has to answer for this major FUBAR and higher-ups there at least may try to remind people who write all kinds of software for commercial aircraft that it is not a freaking video-game they are coding--people's safety is at stake. But that opens another can of worms altogether--technophilia taken to the extreme in a firm conviction, primarily among people who do not have required complex skills such as piloting, that machines can do everything for us. They can't, and they shouldn't. In the end, the Miracle on Hudson occurred primarily for the reasons of Chesley "Sully" Sullenberger and his crew's superb professional human skills under the conditions of almost complete failure of technology. In the end, I would be extremely apprehensive while being flown in the aircraft in which pilots are merely operators of the cockpit at the service of main on-board computer, or to be driven in pilot-less cars--another wet dream of office plankton who thinks that human lives can be described in Java or C++. 

Most of all, I  would be very, and I am, apprehensive of exclusion of a human professional from the decision loop in Combat Informational Control Systems (aka Battle Management) responsible for the use of sensors and weapons because in this case a Skynet scenario becomes not only possible but reasonably probable. In warfare, I am all for networks and AI but only under conditions of a human having his hand at the switch. I really hope that Boeing learns its (tragic) lesson because I like Boeing's aircraft but the idea that those could become simply uncontrollable pieces of metal with no ability to get them under control is, frankly, terrifying.   

When You Have A Cigar And A Real Blues.

Cause it's Gary, late Gary... 

Lenochka Fischer.

Is she German, is she Russian? Well, I guess she is both. She sure as hell was born near where my wife was born--Krasnoyarsk. She packs stadiums in Germany. 

Time for her come home and rock the hell out of Russians, or Germans, of whoever the hell populates Russia. And, of course, who would forget this, LOL. 

Now, Everything Is Clear;-)

Because nobody got killed, thank God, and it is Friday--the cause of Norwegian frigate sinking has just been revealed. Thanks to "intelligence community", you know, the one which fights Russian meddling in US elections and Brexit. 

Plus, of course, Russians "jammed" GPS. How "jamming" GPS may affect radar and visual tracking of maneuvering targets is not disclosed but, anyway, blame it all on Russians. And we are not into the tax time yet, can you imagine what Russians could do to IRS, thus gaining love and adoration of most Americans;-)

Realism?

I finished latest book, The Great Delusion, by John Mearsheimer recently. I will review it later, it is not that important to do it now, I have to say, that while being sympathetic to the so called Realism in general, and some points Mearsheimer makes in this his treatise, it seems that he himself still resides in a delusion. Mearsheimer repeats, with conviction, some beaten to death cliches of American exceptionalism, such as the myth of "liberalism defeating Fascism",

Liberalism "defeating" Fascism

or stressing Soviet Union's "humiliating defeat in Afghanistan". Unlike Mearsheimer, who has very little knowledge of Russia, Colonel Lester Grau long ago addressed this issue. Unlike Merasheimer, who, despite his USMA West Point background, is a political "scientist", Grau is an authority on Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan. I will repeat his conclusions yet again: 

"There is a literature and a common perception that the Soviets were defeated and driven from Afghanistan. This is not true. When the Soviets left Afghanistan in 1989, they did so in a coordinated, deliberate, professional manner, leaving behind a functioning government, an improved military and an advisory and economic effort insuring the continued viability of the government. The withdrawal was based on a coordinated diplomatic, economic and military plan permitting Soviet forces to withdraw in good order and the Afghan government to survive. The Democratic Republic of Afghanistan (DRA)managed to hold on despite the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. Only then, with the loss of Soviet support and the increased efforts by the Mujahideen (holy warriors) and Pakistan, did the DRA slide toward defeat in April 1992. The Soviet effort to withdraw in good order was well executed and can serve as a model for other disengagements from similar nations."

In what can only be described as an empirical middle finger to Mearsheimer's assertion about "humiliating defeat" (and I get it where he comes from in his assertion, but about this later), we get today these news. You don't need to read Russian, just go directly to CNN video embedded in article (which is a transcript of the video) and listen. 

Defeated, especially "humiliatingly", nations do not host in their capitals meetings of parties involved in the war in which the host supposedly was defeated. Obviously, even after this "humiliating defeat", Russia continued to exert an immense influence on Afghanistan both indirectly and directly, including, of course, arming Northern Alliance. "Humiliatingly defeated" nations do not behave like that. I will omit here the whole issue of Taliban being officially declared (in 2003) in Russia a terrorist organization, but times and things change. As in Syria, where Russia was forced to clean a mess created by NATO (US), Russia will have to make arrangements in Afghanistan. After all, we know by now how ISIS was defeated in Syria. 

The United States has been in Afghanistan for 17 years--with zero results to show for it while redefining military common sense (and science) in terms of victory being "just staying there", and, of course, having a good PR machine, which can spin a defeat into victory. This is not how Russia works and that is what parties in Afghanistan know. The prime task is to prevent ISIS from reconstituting itself as a major player in Afghanistan. If it takes Taliban to help deal with this scourge--so be it, let's talk. In the end, the fate of a huge region is at stake, including Russia's "soft underbelly". And here we come to this "realism" thing; while I still would recommend a book by Mearsheimer to be read, it is really about time that many (not all) American "realists" followed Mearsheimer's advise and stopped living in delusion, no, not the liberal one, a "realist" one, and finally face geopolitical reality of a tectonic shift in power balance in the world in which real realism, capable to operate with tangibles, not simulacra, triumphed. In the end, one has to operate with reliable data, not propaganda cliches. Victory in war is defined by attaining war's political objectives. We know how that goes for the US lately.