Damned If You Do, Damned If You Don't-I (Military Power, Again).

I do sympathize with US Armed Forces in one very serious respect--being a tool of insane neocon foreign policy and delirious military-political doctrines, US Armed Forces, together with the US as a whole, have sustained some major, to put it mildly, reputational damage as of lately. Arguing about this is really a waste of time since the sheer number of high profile scandals from forcing an ROTC cadets to walk in women's shoes, to naming Navy's tanker after Harvey Milk--the gay rights activist, to actual very serious strategic and operational failures both in Iraq and in Afghanistan (and in Syria), is more than enough to give an impression that things are not going the way they are supposed to go. And they are not, and it is not just the impression.  It is also a very sensitive matter since very many (by far not all, though) in and around US Armed Forces have gotten used to thinking about themselves as omnipotent. As Lt. Colonel Davies succinctly put it:

"In the aftermath of Operation Desert Storm in 1991, there was great celebration in America that the crushing military victory over Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, “kicked the Vietnam syndrome once and for all” and demonstrated the United States was now the world’s sole military superpower. That was no empty bluster. Even Beijing and Moscow were impressed and openly lamented they were militarily inferior. Americans across the board were optimistic and proud. However justified that pride might have been at the time, it quickly mutated into distasteful arrogance. Now, it is an outright danger to the nation."

Fact is, the US military talked itself up so much that at some point it simply stopped being adequate to the qualities and capabilities it claimed to have. Make no mistake, it is still a first class fighting force and is a force which could only be described in terms of a superpower  which US as a whole still remains. For how long? That is a question of questions. 

No force represents American superpowerdom better than her first class and world's most powerful Navy. There is no discussion about it--it is by far the most powerful navy in the world, which also has a glorious battle history and is highly professional. Yet, the same as with the country it represents, it has some very serious operational and technological issues. In layman's lingo--it is not invincible. In the last three years since the start of Ukrainian mayhem number of US high ranked generals, such as Philip Breedlove, claimed that Russia had regular troops in Ukraine fighting alongside "separatists". Did Breedlove know that this was a BS? Hell yes, he knew, he also knew that should Russian Army fight in Ukraine, the war will be over pretty fast. Here he got himself into the classic Damned If You Do, Damned If You Don't situation. You are damned if you lie about Russian Army, thus making yourself look like a fool, you are also damned if you use your own professional background and senses and state that real Russian Army's capabilities are such that it would take about a week to simply wipe Ukrainian Armed Forces out as an organized fighting force. This is a military version of Russophrenia--the enemy must be simultaneously a piece of crap which doesn't even touch the feet of US Armed Forces and be very powerful as to impede or shut down everything what goes under the title of "force projection" as to provide enough cash flow from the holder of the purse to buy new shiny toys.  

Enter current Chief Of Naval Operations Admiral Richardson and his interview to TNI with telling title:

Chief of Naval Operations Richardson: US Aircraft Carriers Can Fight Inside A2/AD Zones

This interview is a classic example of this Damned If You Do, Damned If You Don't principle and it is absolutely not new for modern US Navy--because US Navy is a carrier-centric one. US Navy's large aircraft carriers are magnificent ships, incredible feats of engineering in their own right and they do provide an imposing visuals which easily translate into a clear statement of US global power to project force... that is when we are talking about some third world sh.tholes which have no real navy, no real air-defense, no real air force or, in general, anything that accounts for... drum roll... A2/AD (that is Anti-Access/Area Denial) capabilities. But in US Navy it is damned if you do not have carrier-centric navy, damned if you do, because for a 20+ billion dollars per single Carrier Battle Group you have to find the way to do more than just provide visuals and to bomb with impunity the shit out of such places as Iraq or Afghanistan, and damned if you do since the whole premise of American exceptionalism and superpowerdom goes to hell without carriers and there are very good chances to lose them when facing serious people. Are US CBGs really capable to fight inside REAL A2/AD zones? Here, after we skip the platitude about US Navy leadership's views on A2/AD: "A2/AD—as it is now called—has existed since the dawn of warfare when primitive man was fighting with rocks and spears. Overtime, A2/AD techniques have evolved as technology has improved with ever-greater range and lethality. Rocks and spears eventually gave way to bows and arrows, muskets and cannons. Thus, the advent of long-range anti-ship cruise and ballistic missiles is simply another technological evolution of A2/AD," Admiral Richardson makes a very startling statement:

"Indeed, as many U.S. Navy commanders including Richardson and Rear Adm. (Upper Half) DeWolfe Miller, the service’s director of air warfare, have pointed out, anti-access bubbles defended by Chinese DF-21D or DF-26 anti-ship ballistic missile systems or Russian Bastion-P supersonic anti-ship missile systems are not impenetrable ‘Iron Domes.’ Nor do formidable Russian and Chinese air defense systems such as the S-400 or HQ-9 necessarily render the airspace they protect into no-go zones for the carrier air wing."

Why this statement is startling may not be obvious for a civilian but for anyone with even rudimentary understanding of military power this "revelation" is not only stunning it reeks of a "distasteful arrogance"(c) since Admiral Richardson forgets to mention several major force components which constitute this very A2/AD concept--the factors which US Navy never encountered in real combat and, hopefully, never will. One such, among many others, factor is actual an actual air force of the side which defends itself from being "democratized" and "liberated" by the US Navy.  

Let's ask ourselves a question--what is an aircraft carrier? The answer is extremely simple: it is a mobile airfield which carries with itself its own mini-air force, that is the air wing. I will omit for now scenarios which are a wet dream of many in what Elmo Zumwalt defined as the "carrier trade union"--that is a dream of a large carrier naval battle between two fleets in the ocean, harking back to the glory days of Midway and to moribund Mahan's doctrine--this is not a serious discussion for anyone who has any understanding of a modern warfare. Let's imagine what A2/AD complex of such a gas station masquerading as a country of Russia looks like. I, once, made a very brief review of it in this blog. Now it is time to take a closer and much more detailed look at it and we will start with...

1.  Air Force. 

Admiral Richardson (undeniably a very competent officer, a former submariner) is being disingenuous here. A2/AD for people who really do give a huge damn about own security, such as Russia, starts with what really matters when dealing with those who want to "operate" within this zone--in this particular case it is one or several CBGs of US Navy--it starts with air defense, which in Soviet times had its own... air force. No, I am not talking about "air force" such as Iraqi or even Iranian one, which still flies old and obsolete F-14s. No, we are talking here about the Air Force which operates state of the art planes, complex networks, first class sensors and early warning (ground and airborne) systems. A brief look at the only theater where US Navy's carrier groups can possibly encounter Russian A2/AD is the Russian Far East. From Kamchatka, along the Kuril island Chain, to Japan--these are ocean spaces where CBGs could theoretically deploy in order to attack Russia. The straight line distance between Vladivostok and Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky is about 1500 miles, the same is from Tokyo to Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky. This is the "front"--this is just to give the impression of a good size of a theater BEFORE crossing Kuril Islands Chain. This is also (very-very roughly) the line from which US carriers have to launch their planes to attack both Russian Navy's assets in the area and strike main naval bases of Russia's Pacific Fleet--Vladivostok and Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky. You can mentally (or on the actual map) draw two circles with centers in Vladivostok and Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky respectively with both circles or rather rings having a radii between 400 (internal) and 600 (external) miles--this is where the launch of the carrier borne jets will happen--to bomb the shit out of respectively Vladivostok and Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky. That is if both naval bases have the same capability as Iraqi Armed Forces or even better equipped and trained Iranian ones. But here is the problem with carriers--they always were a huge fat targets and in the age of serious sensors' advancements getting tracking and targeting information on them is much easier than it was in 1960s or even 1980s. 

If you didn't notice, while discussing this whole A2/AD business I didn't mention a word "nuclear", I will later. For now we have to concentrate on purely conventional option. And here are some very unpleasant news for those who think that carriers would be able to operate within this zone against near peer or peer. It starts with a simple realization of operational reality of Russia's Air Force, whose air superiority, air defense (intercept), strike, refueling and early warning assets are located exactly around both Vladivostok and Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky. Just to give some taste of what is in store for carrier air-wings attacking Russian assets within this zone, here are some:

1. 35 Su-35s located 11 in Vladivostok and 24 near Komsomolsk-on-Amur, with the capability to redeploy to any airfield closer to the coast; 

2. The regiment of Mig-31s (presumably updated to BM) from Elizovo is another X-factor in all these considerations;

3. Then, of course, comes another Y-factor of how many out of available 80 + advanced Sukhoi Su-30 (SM) will be made available for operations against US CBGs;

4. Another absolute Z-factor will be how many SU-34s (apart from being the outstanding strike aircraft, and being also a decent jet-fighters in their own right) will be made available to the 3rd Air and Air Defense Forces Command responsible for the safety of Russian far East.   

Even if to forego a large number (in hundreds) of legacy but still very capable modernized SU-27 (SM, SM3), which are and will be available for the defense of Russia's Far East, even if to discount this enormously potent force in its own right, and even if to discount large numbers of updated Mig-29s, even then, what is left numbered in pp. 1-4 represents a combination of a 100+ combat aircraft with the cutting edge sensors and firepower. Augmented with early warning, intelligence and refueling capabilities this becomes a force which can handle on its own any air wing. And these are not perspective capabilities we are talking about--these planes are already there, they are tested and are piloted by pilots who actually know how to fly and how to fight. Not only this force is capable to fight off the enemy, but it is capable to carry out its own strike missions with X-31 supersonic missiles. I reiterate, this is IF the force is calculated only based on the numbers from points 1 through 4. Once integrated (which it is already) into the much larger air-capability, both deployed and on-demand, one has to ask the question whose A2/AD zone Admiral Richardson talks about in his interview? Russia's? I hope so that this is not what Admiral had in mind, because even in conventional framework US Navy, trying to operate within Russia's Far Eastern A2/AD "bubble", will encounter something that it never encountered since WW II and that is peer-to-peer competitor. What is most important, this competitor is in no rush to project its force anywhere else--it is there to protect itself and that what makes this whole situation so interesting to ponder. And it was pondered, it was studied by a man whom I (and not me only) respect tremendously as a remarkable naval strategist and a thinker, even though he was my enemy at some point of time. But at least he knew what REAL naval war could be against the competent adversary and he seldom underestimated one. 

       

Admiral Zumwalt

This post is the start, or rather a continuation in a different plane, of elaborations on a general topic of military power and, especially naval, warfare. This time with actual numbers (and, yes, I know, I know--some calculus and other funny math) at hand.....

To Be Continued.... 

I Said It Many Times Before.

A superb piece by Dirk Bezemer and Michael Hudson in today's Unz Review. Couldn't miss it: Finance Is Not the Economy. I couldn't miss this insightful, albeit fairly long, piece since one of the major premises of my blog's existence is my both academic and empirical understanding of finances as merely a tool servicing a real economy, which, in the end is based around manufacturing of actual goods and services. That is also where the real GDP is. There are many wonderful insights in this article but I want to leave you here with one quote which I find particularly important:

"Asset prices can rise only by debt creation or by diverting current income. The recognition that such debt-fueled inflation of asset prices is a form of rent extraction is central to our analysis of its unsustainability. By contrast, the now conventional economic models give us no handle to even start addressing these phenomena. By viewing capital gains as transfers instead of as income, we define the long-term sustainability of capital gains and asset prices in terms of trends in disposable income plus debt growth. Just as a Ponzi scheme must collapse with mathematical certainty (even though the timing of the collapse is uncertain), so it is with asset markets that expand faster than income growth. The divergence between income growth and rent extraction (asset price growth and financial transfers) is unsustainable, although, by going global, asset markets can be kept inflated over decades."

In general, don't spare your time and delve into this important piece by Bezemer and Hudson. This will also give a new impulse for continuation of my  Military Power series.  

Everybody Was Kung Fu Fighting....

OK, people, this is getting ridiculous. French MP wants mandatory martial arts classes in schools following terrorist attacks. Are these people for real?  Make no mistake, I am all for martial arts. I spent years being trained by some very impressive martial artists, starting from Kyokushinkai (by my friend, 3rd Dan) and eventually moving to "softer" styles of Kung Fu. And I am talking about full contact and grueling training sessions, not some BS for teenagers. My kimono was dirty and bloody, some spots never washed away. My, fairly limited, skills did come handy couple of times but never in my mind would I think that I could use those in the situation with terrorism. In the end, my very close friends, who trained number of special units of KGB and MVD would never even think about instructing fighters of those units to drop their AK-74s (or AKSU) in a face of armed and determined enemy. A really great martial arts skills which can make a difference are a realm for a relatively narrow strata among attendees of all kinds of martial arts groups and overwhelming majority of those attendees do it mostly for psychological self-assurance, while never getting serious skills which would allow them to effectively defend themselves. Those skills come through a lot (and I mean a lot) of pain and blood. And here are some things which all those Europeans may (but will not) take as a lesson from USSR/Russia. 

Instead of imposing mostly useless exercise in futility, how about looking at this:

These are not fake, albeit on the second photo I would have really kicked the ass of the teacher for pointing, even if unloaded and disabled, AK towards students. Let me explain why those are not fake--because in my time it also was absolutely normal to come to the lesson on physics or geography with AKM (later AK-74) if we would have some exercises in the course of NVP (Nachalnaya Voennaya Podgotovka--Basic Military Training) after this lesson. These photos are most likely from Belarus or Kazakhstan where the subject of NVP not never was cancelled (unlike it was in Russia) but thrives and rightly so. I, as well as very many of my peers in USSR knew how to assemble-disassemble AK as early as 5-6th grade,  we learned about basic tactics in offense and defense (squad-platoon), by 10th grade we would be on the nearest military unit's firing range firing real live ammo from Kalashnikovs--these were and are real requirements for the graduate of the high schools. Russia is also re-introducing NVP in its schools. And here is an advice to this Euro-morons--get your kids trained in basic weapons, in how to react to terrorists and terrorist acts, how to profile, how to avoid being hurt in stressful situations, how to develop a cohesion in a class during an attack, how to move. Yes, I know, all this is a wishful thinking--no European nation will implement this, because everything is fine, everything is peachy and shooting, decapitating, stabbing, blowing people up or executing them because they are infidels is not a war, no--it is just a cultural enrichment and it has to be gladly accepted. Exercising an idea that a boy is on his way to becoming a man and that any man must have basic weapons and tactics skills is so not metro-sexual, is so not tolerant, is so not-Euro.......But still....it is all fun and games.

  

Can US Still Save Itself-III?

As you may know, I treat The National Interest magazine with degree of irony and sarcasm. Their headlines on military matters most of the time are hilarious and hark back to the days of good ole' traveling fairs with chapiteau circuses promising all kinds of "showdowns", "world-class", "champions of the world", "deadliest", what have you, entertainment just to attract the public. But once in a while even TNI puts out a worthy material written by real professionals--such as Lt. Colonel Davies--and then it makes total sense to discuss them. Such material is a fairly short article by Barry Given with telling title:

American Power in an Age of Disorder

It is a thoughtful piece and the phrase which drives the point is:

The liberal ethos that has been the foundation of American primacy is proving to be a weak barricade against national, ethnic or religious identity, even deep within the Western alliance. Democracy provides no answer when tribal animosities take hold and groups are pitted against groups.

Not for once did I point out that nation is a tribe, in which blood, ethnicity, race play a defining role together with culture. These are things which American "elites" refuse to acknowledge. Any mentioning of the fact that, contrary to politically correct narratives, United States' achievements in industry, science, culture, business were primarily due to the activity of the white European, ethnically and culturally (predominantly with Christian background), component may give current US "elites" an aneurysm. But facts are undeniable, from Russians Igor Sikorsky and Vladimir Zworykin, to Germans Werner Von Brown and William Boeing, to purely US-bred and USDA approved Anglo genius Samuel Clemens--these are mostly people of European background, including less prominent but still immensely important millions upon millions of English, Italian, Irish, Slavic Europeans who made the American nation. Remove these people, their culture and there is no United States left. I deliberately omit here the issue of minorities, including that of a black one--they do have their place in American history and culture but how many of them today identify themselves as Americans? 

While European people constituted an overwhelming majority in the US, the idea of a nation built primarily upon political and ideological creed, where liberty and pursuit of happiness trumps blood and cultures, with their differences, such an idea could exist.  It can not today and this is where we have a problem, a huge one. By failing to properly identify itself as predominantly nation of Europeans with European culture as a pivot, US also failed to formulate properly a real national interest--today it is nothing more than a patchwork of various, often competing and contradictory, interests of different ethnic, religious or social groups. AIPAC is a shining example of such a complete mess. How can anyone formulate own interest when one can not identify oneself coherently? But this is the only way human world, which existed tens of thousands years before United States came into existence, identified itself--by race, by blood, by culture, by religion. The whole notion that the country which came together in what could only be described as the most favorable geographic and geopolitical conditions will dictate to the world how it is supposed to view itself is, frankly, preposterous. But even that is not the worst part--the worst one is identifying WHAT American nation. Is it a nation of Black Lives Matter, thug culture, ethnic and religious mafias running a disastrous foreign policy, steadily turning into multicultural cloaca of liberal dogma or is it a nation of those who created it and these are Europeans? I don't know the answer yet. I hope it is the latter, because the former means only one thing--chaos and eventual dissolution (some will only be too happy to see it) of what used to be an American nation under the weight of colossal and unsolvable problems both domestically and internationally. 

Is there a way out of this conundrum? Again, I don't know but here is what I know for sure--until United States identifies itself as the North America-specific, geography wise, iteration of European culture and places this identity at the core of its culture, the descent, guided by totally corrupt "elites" who have no loyalty to Americans, will continue. It will continue domestically--into the third world state, it will continue internationally with US serving as the agent of chaos which is incapable anymore to let go of the idea that it is an "exceptional nation", while it resembles nation less and less, and loses what's left of its moral, economic and military power. Internationally, US has no other option but to work with world's great powers and doing what this blog was calling from the inception--finding a compromise and accommodation. This only is possible under the condition of US formulating its national interests as a nation and I really hope that this ultimately needed process will not be described by Given's closing phrase to his poignant article: The problem is that it doesn’t seem to be possible. If it will, indeed, turn out to be true, we better start thinking how can we salvage the best what will be left, if any. I lived (rather, survived) through collapse of one empire, I hope to avoid experiencing the second one.