Maliki Takes Charge

Some fighting words from a bold Iraqi leader, via the Long War Journal:

In an interview with Al Iraqia satellite television, Maliki
said he would pursue the offensive against "militias" but the
door remains open to those who would assist the government.
"Those who want
to join the political process have to help the state in handing over gunmen or
information about the hideout of the criminals and wanted men," Maliki said. "We
are not talking about one militia, but several militias, al-Qaeda and other
armed groups, and security forces must be informed about the places of these
outlaws... and no one has the right to prevent us from tracking them down."
Maliki also denounced the Mahdi Army's use of "human shields" and deplored the
militia's use of mosques as weapons storage facilities.

Appears that the spirit of the Surge has affected the Iraqi leadership. A well needed steeling of the spine thanks to Bush and Petraeus.

The All Battleship Navy

I consider the United States Navy even in its below 300 ship doldrums as the mightiest fleet on earth, bar none! I also believe it was built to fight the wrong war.

Most dominant seapowers desire with each new conflict to refight some glorious past victory over its enemies. The British Royal Navy up until World War 1 most desired to refight the battle of Trafalgar, when in 1805 Admiral Nelson defeated the French Navy and secured its control of the sealanes for over a century.

When its Trafalgar finally came during the 1914-1916 war, instead of the decisive exchange of broadsides the English most desired, they were forced to contend with submarines, mines, torpedoes, and the first primitive aircraft at sea. Needless to say the Royal Navy was quite annoyed when their German antagonists failed to fight in the expected manner.

For over half a century the US Navy has sought to repeat its miraculous victory of 1942 against the Japanese at the Battle of Midway. Most of the same weapons that fought this brutal encounter still make up the complement of the fleet, save for having grown larger, more complicated, and more expensive. These include aircraft carriers, cruisers, destroyers, and submarines whose role in modern sea strategy have changed very little as well.

The problem here is no other power on earth either duplicates our powerful carrier forces in number or quality of training. Potential rivals at sea like China, Russia, and Third World powers have found it far cheaper to circumvent our unstoppable battlefleet with submarines, fast attack craft, and cruise missile armed naval bombers.

For the next Midway, the USN maintains a force of less than a dozen 100,000 ton supercarriers each able to carry up 90 aircraft. To defend the carriers we also deploy about 125 cruisers, destroyers, and attack submarines collectively able to fire thousands of long range missiles in a single salvo.

Meanwhile, piracy on the high seas is surging. The unsophisticated Iranian Navy regularly humiliates the big ships of Western fleets by seizing their crews and practising suicide runs with fast attack craft. Recently the Spanish called on China to assist the West in combating these threats from Third World navies, in what has been essentially European waters since the 15th Century.

Though the all-gun battleship is long gone from the American fleet, their influence on the Navy leadership is firmly entrenched. While the principles of Alfred Thayer Mahan, America's premier naval strategist and big ship advocate was most welcome during our nation's rise to power in the last century, something better is sorely required to handle the multitude of threats in the 21st century, as the insurgents increasingly transfer their proven land tactics to the world's oceans.

With such an unmatched superiority from its powerful aircraft carriers groups and missile launchers at sea, it seems long overdue for the USN to freeze all construction on big ships for at least a decade or longer. Such an act is hardly unprecedented, as occurred soon after World War 1 when the 1922 Washington Naval Treaty halted all battleship construction until right before the next conflict. Such tremendous savings could go towards building up our escort fleet of frigates and patrol craft, thus producing a real brown water force capable of defeating the new pirates at their own game.

Gas Up 60% Under Democrat Congress

It appears Speaker Pelosi is a little out of touch, according to this in a email from Joe Eule of Freedom's Watch:

In a 2006 press release, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi claimed that
Democrats had a common sense plan to bring down skyrocketing fuel prices. The
average price for a gallon of gas when Democrats took control of congress that
November was $2.25 - a price that Pelosi and other liberals claimed
amounted to "price gouging". The average price of a gallon of gas today is now
up to a record $3.61, and in Speaker Pelosi's home Congressional district in the
California bay area, the price tops $4 a gallon.
Despite the price going up
$1.36 per gallon (that's 60%!) since Democrats took control of Congress 15
months ago, an out-of-touch Speaker Pelosi and Congressional leadership have
still not released this so-called common sense plan to bring prices under
control. Just last week in an interview with Larry King, Speaker Pelosi cited
the national average as being only $2.56.

I don't believe we will ever get over our need for fossil fuel. God put them there for a reason and we only need to dig a little deeper and perhaps a little farther out to sea to expand our domestic production. Only then can we cease helping to fund Islamic radicals and Latin American dictators.

Depending on China to Defend the Sealanes

The cat is in the hen house. Story from Radio Australia (and thanks to Galrahn):

There's been a call for China and other Asian nations that
fish off the coast of Somalia to take part in a proposed United Nations-backed
force to combat maritime piracy.Spain's prime minister, Jose Luis Rodriguez
Zapatero, says the area off the African coast has become especially
dangerous.

I warned earlier that the new Maritime Strategy and our obsession with the Big Ship navy was conceding the littorals to the pirates. Meanwhile, while the US continues funding an all-battleship navy, we are looking to nations who still build small ships to fight a war we should be handling with ease, against Al Qaeda insurgents on the high seas. For the folly of calling on China to help us with what should the West's responsibility, consider the Anglo/Japanese Alliance of 1902 and how that worked out.

The New Wolf Packs

Ominous forebodings are in store for the surface navy, according to this in a continuing series by Martin Sieff:

The Nazi wolf packs were faster than slow-moving convoys of
cargo ships, however, when they surfaced. So wolf pack attacks were not launched
from underwater, or by day. They were carried out on the surface of the Atlantic
by night. The aim was to have so many submarines that they could overwhelm the
smaller number of surface escort warships protecting the merchant
vessels.

The new tactical concept of the Chinese wolf pack that could
threaten U.S. aircraft carrier task forces in coming years, however, is very
different. Modern diesel-electric submarines can stay underwater for long
periods of time and can travel fast in spurts of speed, though they don't have
the endurance of nuclear-powered subs. That speed means they don't have to
surface where they would be easy targets for carrier-launched aircraft. And they
don't have to await for any attack by night either.

But the new U-boats are out for larger prey than slow-moving merchantmen:

...their goal wouldn't be to just sink cargo ships like the German
Kriegsmarine subs of World War II...They would be out to kill 90,000 ton
nuclear-powered super-aircraft carriers.

This is why I doubt the logic of current navy planners to place all of our expensive and vulnerable eggs: giant carriers, super destroyers, amphibious assault carriers into so few and highly vulnerable platforms. While modern warships are far more capable than ever before, this doesn't mean they are any more unsinkable than the US battle fleet at Pearl Harbor.

To combat a similar enemy surface fleet in a future war at sea, or attack a Third World power which possesses little or no navy, I think we are well prepared. But the former no longer exists, and it is doubtful we can count on all our enemies sitting idly by while our unmatched fleet cruises leisurely off their coastlines, not while modern precision weapons fired from inexpensive d/e subs might offer them an effective counterweight.

The Man Who Sabotaged Barack Obama

The greatest piece of advice that Senator Barack Obama's pastor of 20 years, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright never gave to his young protege, was to forget about their long and close association, at least until after the 2008 Presidential Election. Sadly, the advice wasn't given and Obama chose to stand by his man, whose racially charged sermons and anti-American point of view were the antithesis of the Senator's message of hope and reconciliation among people of all colors.

While Obama did eventually distance himself from Wright's more controversial statements, such as blaming whites for the AIDS virus and the US government for 9/11, he failed to sufficiently denounce the Reverend and prove to potential white supporters that all forms of racism was wrong, no matter who was espousing them.

Still, the numbers seem to favor the first black candidate with a realistic chance of becoming US President. His support is as strong as ever, as is fundraising which numbers tens of millions higher than any other candidate, Republican or Democrat. Yet, these same opponents have pounced on this new chink in Obama's political armor. Against Hillary Clinton especially, the frontrunner early on in this election cycle, he has been unable to "close the deal", with the former First Lady clinging desperately to his heel.

Though it is still early to say for certain, this could be the beginning of the end for the Press' favorite candidate: the demise of Barack Obama's aspirations to the White House. Jeremiah Wright, plus his elitist speech in San Francisco, followed by an embarrassing loss in Pennsylvania all suggest that the glory days are behind the Senator.

Meanwhile, Wright garners much attention and large funds at successive speaking engagements, while settling down in his church-funded million dollar mansion. Thus, while his young friend flounders in the polls, the Reverend is living the good life he once denied his followers to seek, the American Dream.
Perhaps this was his intent all along, to sabotage what was for Obama a clear path to the White House. How could he and his cabal of race baiters continue to rail against "the man", when one of their own was "the man"? Where then would Wright's legion of followers along with their monetary support go?

Respect for America on the Upswing

Winning tends to make you a lot of friends. This story is from the Australian:

...in a world supposedly awash in anti-US sentiment, pro-American
leaders keep winning elections. Germany's Angela Merkel is certainly more
pro-American than Gerhard Schroeder, whom she replaced. The same is true of
France's Nicolas Sarkozy.
More importantly in terms of Green's analysis, the
same is also true of South Korea's new President. Lee Myung-bak, elected in a
landslide in December, is vastly more pro-American than his predecessor, Roh
Moo-hyun.
Even in majority Islamic societies, their populations allegedly
radicalised and polarised by Bush's campaign in Iraq and the global war on
terror more generally, election results don't show any evidence of these trends.
In the most recent local elections in Indonesia, and in national elections in
Pakistan, the Islamist parties with anti-American rhetoric fared very poorly.
Similarly Kevin Rudd was elected as a very pro-American Labor leader, unlike
Mark Latham, with his traces of anti-Americanism, who was heavily defeated.

This was the reason Ronald Reagan and his successors had to work so hard to restore American power after the debacle that was the Vietnam War. Sadly, the Democrats have forgotten this hard won lesson.

No Strike Planned on Iran

Despite what you continue to hear from the hysterical Left, Galrahn believes otherwise:

We read any sustained increase of two aircraft carriers to be
a signal that a considerable amount of military activity is about to take place
in both Afghanistan and Iraq. It will be interesting to see how long the Truman
CSG remains in the region, and it could be that events on the ground in Iraq
over the next few days will decide how long the carrier remains in
theater...

Yes, we are intentionally ignoring the Iran possibilities,
although we will be monitoring this and this closely. We admit we might be willfully
denying the possibility of a strike against Iran, despite the fact that if you
add the European forces, we are currently observing the highest level of naval
presence in the Middle East region since late 2003.

Someday we may have to go in, but I think the worse thing that can happen to Iran, already has: the Iraqi's are standing up!

Suppositions Upon Suppositions

You probably heard the new National Geographic report stating that man was almost wiped out about 70,000 years ago then started back on the road to recovery. Here's Answers in Genesis' take on the subject:

The way the news sources present this chapter of human history, you
might think it were written on stone tablets—an unquestionable fact in the
history of man. In fact, the story is a piecemeal elaboration from several
separate research projects of what may have been—if you accept a number of
assumptions...
The family tree the team constructed showed an ancient divide
in early humans (a divide they date to 90,000–150,000 years ago). The legacies
of this divide are different mitochondrial lineages: one set found in the
Khoisan people, other sets found in Africa, and eventually worldwide. The BBC
News notes that Africans today harbor a mixture of these lineages.
The
researchers then took these facts and built one interpretation of the
facts—their “epic story”—based on evolutionary assumptions. Most critical is the
assumption that comparing differences in mtDNA can lead to near-perfect family
trees, along with the assumption of around 5000 years for each mtDNA mutation,
which allows evolutionists to put such old dates on these happenings. These in
turn are based directly on evolutionary ideas about when humans and chimpanzees
shared a common ancestor (and thus looking at differences between humans and
chimpanzees and then interpolating mtDNA changes in the time since then).
The
researchers also built their story on the assumptions that humankind originated
in Africa and that climate change in the past 150,000 years affected early
humankind. And, of course, these assumptions are based on other evolutionary
interpretations of various legitimate studies, with those interpretations also
based on assumptions as well!

In other words, the researchers start off bending and stretching the facts, until they are no longer recognizable. Every day seems like the Evolutionists change their story, but the Bible never changes.

Al Sadr Retreats from Threats

This is good news and thankfully, the Maliki government didn't back down earlier. From Bill Roggio:

Less than one week after threatening to conduct an uprising against the
Iraqi government and US forces, Muqtada al Sadr, the leader of the Mahdi Army,
has called for his fighters to maintain the self-imposed cease-fire. The US and
Iraqi military continue to strike at Sadr’s Mahdi Army in Baghdad. Ten
“criminals” were killed in strikes in Sadr City, making 82 Mahdi fighters killed
in the six days since Sadr threatened renewed violence.
In a statement read
during the Friday prayers at the Al Hikma mosque in Sadr City, Sadr called for his militia to halt the fighting.
“You have been patiently committed to the freeze decision and magnificently
obeyed your leader,” Sadr statement read, according to Voices of Iraq. “I hope
you retain your patience and faith.”
Sadr also said he did not threaten the
Iraqi government with “open war” last weekend, but was directing his threat
against Coalition forces. “The open war we threaten is meant against the
occupiers,” Sadr said. “There is no war between us and our Iraqi brothers
regardless of their sect or ethnicity.”

The reconciliation continues! Maliki has proved himself a viable leader and given his infant democracy a very real chance. The house of cards that the radicals built in the Middle East is beginning to fall and Iran should be worried about now.

More-Even the MSM is taking note with "Iraqi forces see victory in Basra" from the Times Online.

Hillary in the Forge

Some in the media have declared that Hillary Clinton's continued persistence in the race for the oval office has been a needed learning experience for Barack Obama. Her tough and experienced form of campaigning is supposedly making a better candidate of the first term Senator from Illinois. My own view is the opposite is true, as Obama's own hypnotic, non-threatening, but ultimately empty speech making, as he's propped up by the fawning mainstream media and George Soros' war chest, has finally allowed Hillary to "find her voice" and her legacy. Early on the former First Lady has been accused of riding her husband coattails to the nomination. Who can say so now, when if anything Bill has been a thorn in her flesh, with the wife performing surprising victories often in spite of her husbands numerous gaffes in the Press?

We also saw an interesting side of Hillary Clinton during this weeks' Pennsylvania primaries that we haven't seen of late. We have been used to her stance since Barack Obama began rising in the polls of questioning the Iraq War, going so far as to label our military leaders as being dishonest on recent gains in the 5 year conflict. Now that her fortunes seem to be on the rebound, we see a more hawkish, more moderate side of the liberal Democrat.

Clinton's recent tough speech vowing to obliterate Iran, plus the Pennsylvania ad viewing her as a pro-military hawk in the tradition of Truman and Roosevelt is a welcome change. So, in her quest to be the polar opposite of her far-left opponent Obama, whose stated intent to negotiate with our enemies and punish America's allies is well known, we see a better, more rationale Hillary. Just as her husband sustained Democrats during a resurgent era of conservatism in the 1990's, this new Hillary might just be the antidote to the elitism many Americans see the Party has fallen into in recent years.

Navy Slowly Accepting Gunboat Diplomacy

Call it asymmetrical warfare at sea if you like, but the mere presence of a USN gunboat nearby can often deter aggression far better than a supercarrier far out at sea. Here's David Axe:

Preventing -- or, more accurately, deterring -- war has long
been a major Navy mission, but the means of prevention has traditionally been
overwhelming display of potential force. The Africa Partnership Station concept
reverses that tradition by emphasizing assistance over threats. But doing so
means resisting the powerful magnetism of the Navy's -- and the world's -- most
powerful warships.

For decades, the U.S. Navy built its forces and operations
around large nuclear aircraft carriers equipped to wage major conventional wars,
especially against the Soviet Union. When the Cold War ended, the 100,000-ton,
$5-billion-per-ship carriers remained -- but without a serious enemy to fight.
Meanwhile the traditional concentration of naval forces around carriers left
vast swaths of sea vulnerable to pirates, smugglers and insurgents. The Africa
Partnership Station breaks the carrier's death-grip, pushing small groups of
vessels into troubled regions where they can help local navies secure their own
waters.

We see with the woes facing the littoral combat ship (See Costly Lesson on How Not to Build a Navy Ship ) the USN leadership trying too hard, thinking a few hi tech warships can solve all our problems. With the demise of the Soviet Blue Water threat, the Navy has been desperately seeking a like foe specifically in China, which may someday occur but certainly not now. Gunboat Diplomacy might not be as glamorous as commanding a missile cruiser or nuclear attack sub, but is an equally vital and far less costly mission if its carried out seriously. With the mass outbreak of piracy in recent years, is the Navy finally getting the message?

Galrahn has more on the story.

Planned Parenthood Targets Black Community

Key quote-"For whatever reason, we will accept the money".

Odierno called "best choice" for Iraq Command

From a fighter to a thinker according to this article in the USA Today:

As commander of the 4th Infantry Division in Iraq in 2003, Odierno
was known for emphasizing combat, not building relations with
Iraqis.
"Odierno had a reputation in his first tour as part of the
kick-down-the-doors crew," said Andrew Bacevich, a retired Army colonel and
international relations professor at Boston University. "By the time of his
second tour, he had become a convert to counterinsurgency. My expectation is
that he would hew to the same."

I post this as proof of the adaptability of the modern All-Volunteer Army, as apposed to some who would prefer to go to an old style conscript force. In particular, the Vietnam era fighting force too often emphasized firepower over tactics, which as we see here, Ordieno and his peers were forced to reverse themselves from to survive in a new era of insurgency conflict.

More on this:

Good News for Iraq Max Boot

Better for America Thomas Barnett (as the author reveals, we will now see what happens when Petraeus gets control of the often faltering Afghan campaign, plus the troubled Pakistan theater.)
Petraeus to CENTCOM Bill Kristol

Battlefield Promotions Wall Street Journal

LA Times: Is McCain Fit for Command?

Because he receives disability payments for having been tortured in Vietnam, the LA Times dares to question his fitness for service. The story is from FoxNews:

The Los Angeles Times is after John McCain, reporting that
while he boasts he is in robust health and can hike the Grand Canyon, he also
receives a 100 percent tax free disability pension from the Navy.
McCain has
said he receives a pension of about $58,000. He suffered extensive injuries when
his plane was shot down and he was tortured as a prisoner of war in North
Vietnam. He cannot raise his hands above his shoulders and walks with a slight
limp.
California tax lawyer Robert Schliemann tells The Times, "It is a
legitimate question to ask about the commander in chief: Is he fit to
serve?"...McCain senior adviser Mark Salter reiterated Wednesday that the
senator is in good health: "He is disabled from his war wounds which is why
receives the pension."

Here is the Times story. So in their view, this man would be unfit to serve in the high office:

Who led America through the Great Depression, fought and won World War 2, created the United Nations, and basically established the post-war world, Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

Petraeus, Odierno for Top Commands

General David Petraeus

Lt. Gen. Ray Odierno

Here's the scoop on this major turn of events in the war, from Yahoo/AP:

Army Gen. David Petraeus, the four-star general who led troops
in Iraq for the past year, will be nominated by President Bush to be the next
commander of U.S. Central Command, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said
Wednesday.
Gates said he expected Petraeus to make the shift in late summer
or early fall. The Pentagon chief also announced that Bush will nominate Army
Lt. Gen. Ray Odierno to replace Petraeus in Baghdad...

GOP presidential hopeful John McCain, R-Ariz., said he
supports both Petraeus and Odierno. He called Petraeus "one of the great
generals in American history."

Think Grant and Sherman, Lee and Jackson, Eisenhower and Patton, each of which were battle winning combos without peer. How exciting to live in these times when American arms are once again triumphant over her enemies!

Decapitating Al Qaeda

Despite reports to the contrary, Iraq is proving to be Al Qaeda's Vietnam, rather than America's. Story is from Strategypage:

Between mid-March and mid-April, al Qaeda suffered major losses in
Iraq. American and Iraqi troops killed or captured 53 al Qaeda leaders. These
include men in charge of entire cities (or portions of large cities like Mosul
or Baghdad), as well as men in charge of various aspects of terror operations
(making bombs, placing them or minding the bombers). Most important, nine of the
ten most senior men involved, were captured, and interrogated. This led to
locating more al Qaeda staff, and assets. Hundreds of weapons and explosives
caches have been discovered this year, as a result of interrogating captured
terrorists. The result has been a sharp fall in suicide bomber attacks,
and the ones still carried out are against soft targets...

Both Bush and Bin Laden has declared the Iraq front as the Center of the Terror War. Al Qaeda will likely be a force for years to come, but with such a dramatic failure within the Islamic heartland, their recruiting problems must be far worse than our own.

Looking for a Better EARTH DAY

Revelations 21 vs 1-4:

And I saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away; and there was no more sea.

And I John saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.

And I heard a great voice out of heaven saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and he will dwell with them, and they shall be his people, and God himself shall be with them, and be their God.

And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away.

With no thanks to Al Gore.

Bigger Ain't Always Better

The old "David versus Goliath" scenario from Martin Sieff:

U.S. aircraft carriers were designed to carry more and better
aircraft than any other carrier force afloat, and for 65 years, as they have
gotten bigger and bigger, they have become and more dominant until today, no
other nation in the world has plans to build enough surface aircraft carriers to
even dream of challenging the dominant U.S. ones.

But instead, the
gigantic U.S. ships must face the looming 21st century threat to their survival
from lots of cheap, easily built diesel submarines. Russia and China have bet
big on this option, as we have repeatedly noted in these columns, and other
countries like Iran and Indonesia are trying to follow in their paths, too.

Similarly, the main challenge in the first wars of the 21st century to
the mighty General Dynamics M1 Abrams MBT comes not from its supposed arch
rival, the Russian T-90, nor even from rocket-powered grenade launchers. And
they were already a formidable presence in the Nazi Wehrmacht of 1944-45 as the
familiar Panzerfaust.

Instead, the main threat to the U.S. land
leviathans in urban environments has come from the simple shaped-charge
improvised explosive device that has been used so effectively by Sunni Muslim
insurgents in central Iraq.

Of course. we have all heard the saying "the bigger they are the harder they fall", which seems to be the usual justification for these high tech giants, but I fear our military leaders have been lulled into a false sense of security thinking our mighty land, air, and sea behemoths are invincible. Earlier, I studied this problem of controlling size in weapons systems, concerning our new DDG-1000 destroyers, and created this chart:

• Fletcher (1942)-2050 tons


• Gearing (1944)-2616 tons


• Charles F. Adams (1958)-3277 tons


• Spruance (1973)-6600 tons


• Arleigh Burke (1989)-8230 tons
  
• Zumwalt (2012?)-12,000 tons

Notice how the DDG-1000 is over a 5-fold increase in size of its war era counterpart. The seemingly endless and absurd reasoning for ever costlier, larger in size, while fewer in numbers weapons platforms reminds us of another period in history when super-size was in vogue:

History details the account of a great naval race in the
ancient world which transpired between the Greek nations that arose following
the death of Alexander the Great. The navies of Macedonia, Syracuse, and Egypt
built ever larger and more absurd vessels which were for little more than show.
One great galley with 40 banks of oars and 4000 rowers was so large it could
barely put to sea. Finally the Carthaginians and Romans put an end to the
madness, by producing vast numbers of similar galleys which could be easily
massed produced.

We see then while the Greeks were distracted impressing one another with these sea-going marvels, younger nations were preparing to seize the mantel of power from them. Food for thought to our stubborn leaders who still look to the weapons of the past to fight our future wars.

Gates Scold USAF over UAVs

Much more can be done, maintains the Secretary of Defense, via Ares blog:

"My concern is that our services are still not moving
aggressively in wartime to provide resources needed now on the battlefield. I’ve
been wrestling for months to get more intelligence, surveillance, and
reconnaissance assets into the theatre. Because people were stuck in old ways of
doing business, it’s been like pulling teeth. While we’ve doubled this
capability in recent months, it is still not good enough. And so last week I
established a Department of Defense-wide task force much like the MRAP task
force to work this problem in the weeks to come, to find more innovative and
bold ways to help those whose lives are on the line. The deadlines for the task
force’s work are very short.

All this may require rethinking long-standing service
assumptions and priorities about which missions require certified pilots and
which do not. For those missions that still require manned missions, we need to
think hard about whether we have the right platforms. Whether, for example,
low-cost, low-tech alternatives exist to do basic reconnaissance and close air
support in an environment where we have total command of the skies – aircraft
that our partners can also afford and use."

UAVs have already substituted manned jets on many of the latters traditional roles. As Gates declares, much more can be done, as as the number of robot planes increases, the number of manned systems should decrease.

A Reluctant Empire at Best

Deep cuts are planned by the Sarkozy government for the French Army, one of the world's historic, technically proficient , and experienced armed forces. Then there is Canada, which recently threatened to pull its indispensable troops out of the fight in Afghanistan if other NATO allies refused to carry their fair share in the fight against radical Islam. It appears the War on Terror is less popular than the Cold War, despite the inescapable fact that with terrorism, the frontline isn't just a far-off battlefield, but thanks to the West's liberal immigration policies very often on each nation's doorstep.

It is against these internal threats which hold Britain, Denmark, France, and other European powers in mortal terror of racial violence, that the US might have to defend their allies against. Where once our legions were poised along the Central Front in Germany to deter the Soviet menace, we may soon be forced to send peacekeepers to maintain order within our traditional allies, to stave off internal collapse and a descent into Islamic domination.

America was once dragged kicking and screaming to a new global role after World War 2, by Democrats no less, after the war-weary Europeans proved unable to stem the tide of communism. Later, only after numerous attacks on her embassies, ships, and cities did she belatedly take a stand against Islamic Radicalism in the Middle East. As before, the first initial response in our dreaded new world burden was initiated by a Democratic President, Bill Clinton.

It is such a farce, then, when the Left wing blogosphere reacts with accusatory panic at each US Navy fleet movement in the Gulf region. Every new aircraft carrier deployment is viewed by the conspiracy theorists as an imminent sign of the long-predicted attack on Iranian nulcear facilities, and an expasnion of the American Empire. Anyone recall what happened during the "Week of April 6th"? Not much.

When Europe seems to be eagerly disarming and forcing its defense concerns increasingly on the US, presumably so that the former can maintain their much-loved Welfare State, charges of a "Neocon scheme" for world domination fall flat.

Seeking Sanford for VP

The maverick Senator from Arizona John McCain plus the maverick Governor of South Carolina Mark Sanford for the oval office in 2008? Sounds like a winning combo, to me and the Wall Street Journal's Brenden Miniter:

Over the past six years, Mr. Sanford has amassed a political record
that many within the GOP would like to see enacted in Washington: tax cuts,
school choice, market-based entitlement reform and a long list of vetoes handed
out to a profligate legislature. Newt Gingrich, Karl Rove and Sen. Lindsey
Graham (a stalwart John McCain backer) have all floated Mr. Sanford's name for
veep...
South Carolina isn't the first state many Republicans might think to
find a running mate; it's likely to vote Republican no matter who Mr. McCain
taps. But Mr. Sanford is popular on the right because he understands markets.
"There are only two ways to raise the standard of living," he said, "through
technology – one backhoe can dig more dirt than 50 men with shovels – and
through brain power . . . And that's it."

I still can picture Sanford walking into the State Capitol building with the pigs pooping all over him. That's basically what pigs do, in real life and in politics.

Iraq Forces Take Basra!

The normally pessimistic NY Times is today reporting some hopeful news as the Iraqi Army takes its country back from terrorists and Saddamists:

Iraqi soldiers took control of the last bastions of the cleric
Moktada al-Sadr’s militia in Basra on Saturday, and Iran’s ambassador to Baghdad
strongly endorsed the Iraqi government’s monthlong military operation against
the fighters.

By Saturday evening, Basra was calm, but only after air
and artillery strikes by American and British forces cleared the way for Iraqi
troops to move into the Hayaniya district and other remaining Mahdi Army militia
strongholds and begin house-to house searches, Iraqi officials said. Iraqi
troops were meeting little resistance, said Maj. Gen. Abdul-Karim Khalaf, the
spokesman for the Iraqi Interior Ministry in Baghdad.

But Al Sadr still spouts defiance:

Despite the apparent concession of Basra, Mr. Sadr issued
defiant words on Saturday night. In a long statement read from the loudspeakers
of his Sadr City Mosque, he threatened to declare “war until liberation” against
the government if fighting against his militia forces continued.

But it
was difficult to tell whether his words posed a real threat or were a desperate
effort to prove that his group was still a feared force, especially given that
his militia’s actions in Basra followed a pattern seen again and again: the
Mahdi militia battles Iraqi government troops to a standstill and then
retreats.

Sadr is definitely in dire straits, and is playing his final card: threats and intimidation, while hoping either Iran or the Democrats will save his faltering cause.

This is certainly good news, because just last year as we learned the British were pulling out, there seemed little more the US could do, tied down with the Surge, to protect this southern Iraq city. More proof that as the Iraqi's stand up, we will be able to stand down!

More coverage from the Long War Journal.

High Tech Hi Jinks

As we stated here earlier, the high tech military and especially the US Navy has yet to be tested in full scale combat. We also maintain the various Gulf Wars America has fought in the past three decades haven't been a adequate testbed of the capability limits of the modern armed forces, since they have been fought exclusively against Third World competitors and not against a First World antagonist such as the former Soviet Union, or perhaps China.

Though the military powers of Iraq, Iran, or their proxies often deploy first-class weapons purchased either from the West or the former Soviet Union, the leadership and training is sub-par when compared to the heritage and initiative exhibited by the US fighting man.

The American soldier has been tested, however, and proven as resilient and adaptable to modern warfare as during any war in our nation's military history. Whatever loss of reputation the troops suffered following the Vietnam conflict has been more than reversed by his courage and sacrifice during years of attrition warfare in Iraq and Afghanistan. Where the soldiers have been let down most often is the choice of equipment forced on them by politicians and military leaders, arms which have not proven as enduring when decades of constant service is forced on them. Such armaments are often so expensive they are not easily replaced. Patched up for each new war, as the design and testing of ever more complicated machines continues unabated, they quickly become worn and tired and faced with block obsolescence.

America currently possesses an individually power army, navy, and air force that are steadily shrinking in numbers of combat equipment. In some future conflict a technically less capable but numerically superior power can conceivably attack us on more than one front in a "divide and conquer" stratagem. He can then swamp our tiny and overstretched forces at his leisure, as is detailed in this fictional tale "Not By Might".

In our obsession with smaller high tech forces, we repeat the same mistakes suffered by the Germans in World War 2. In the early stages of this conflict, Hitler's vaunted military held numerically superior weapons, or thanks to its superbly trained and swift moving tank divisions, local superiority where it counted. As the war dragged on, however, through carelessness and by choice the Nazis soon lost this advantage, though not the individual excellence of its soldiery. Hitler increasingly turned to grandiose vision of wonder weapons, a futile hope that he clung to even as Allied Armies finally crushed his dreams of a Thousand Year Reich.





Some, though, were quite good. Most notable were the Tiger and Panther tanks, that held up Allied armies for several crucial weeks at Normandy. Then there was the fearsome Me-262, the world's first production jet fighter that provided a rude awakening to the mass American and British bomber forces over Germany. Also, the Kriegsmarine possessed in the Type XXI U-boat a super stealthy sub that was the direct ancestor of today's mighty nuclear boats. The V-1 missile was the precursor of today's Tomahawk cruise missiles, while the V-2 rocket was man's first step towards conquering space.


Even these astonishing triumphs of Nazi engineering with their too few numbers, failed to stave off defeat. Gradually the noose tightened as the overwhelming production capacity of the superpowers easily replaced sizable battlefield losses, and crushed the pitiful remnants of Germany's war machine. Wrecked factories, no fuel and unstoppable armies was enough to spell doom to Hitler's dream of a Thousand Year Reich.

So too is the danger faced by Western Powers today if we trust in our technology alone to save us.

The Stagnation of Warfare #2

Not my words this time, but from Martin Sieff:

But between major wars, evolution in weapons systems tends to move
a lot more slowly. Nobody dreamed that when the first Boeing B-52 Stratofortress
bombers became operational with the U.S. Air Force in the 1950s that they would
still be an effective front-line strategic weapons system more than half a
century later. Even modern battleships never had operational lives half as long
as that.

The Lockheed C-130 Hercules short landing and take-off
transport aircraft has enjoyed an even longer career. Demand remains high in the
U.S. Air Force and among allied nations for the new "J" variant, or mark, the
Super-Hercules, which Lockheed Martin continues to manufacture today.

But even the B-52 and the C-130 pale in longevity compared with Russia's
Tupolev Tu-95 Bear. In its airframe -- a clear copy of the great Boeing
long-range strategic bombers of the late 1940s and early 1950s that began with
the B-47 and culminated in the B-52 -- the Tu-95 is less advanced in its design
than any of them as it is powered not by jet turbines at all, but only by
turbo-prop engines. Yet the propeller-driven Tu-95, relatively vulnerable and
slow though it is, is so useful to the Russian air force that there are
currently plans to keep it on operational duty until 2040.

This echoes my own view that technology is slowing the breathtaking pace it endured during the last century. I wrote:

Most in the Pentagon leadership are fearful to make the required
sacrifice and cease production of ever more difficult to construct and risky
when deployed weapons system, for the tried and true weapons mass produced by
nations such as Russia and China. There is little to fear, however, for such
good and plenty arms are already forming the backbone of our forces fighting the
War on Terror. Warplanes designed in the 1950's, armored cars based on 1980's
technology, destroyers first deployed in the 1990's currently are holding the
line against America's enemies for the present and likely far into the
future.

Now the problem is getting our military leaders to think in this fashion, and keep in production weapons which have served us so well in all our recent wars, like the F-16 fighters, C-17 transports, A-10 attack planes, ect...As we already know, they will likely continue forming the backbone of our fighting forces for some time to come, given the extended development cycles of modern hi-tech arms.

The Elites Don't Get This

Barack Obama and his followers must have been very uncomfortable watching this astonishing display of religion and patriotism, as President Bush welcomed Pope Benedict XVI to America. From the New York Times:

The general tone on a day when he was feted by thousands of
flag-waving supporters on the streets of the capital appeared aimed at
celebrating and challenging more than scolding.
He found a kindred soul in
President Bush, who has made his Christianity a central tenet of his life as a
politician. Christian conservatives, including conservative Catholics, have been
a crucial component of the president’s political base, and the papal visit gave
the White House a fresh opportunity to reinforce those ties in an election
year.
The White House hosted a crowd of 13,500 on the South Lawn in the
morning, welcoming the pope with a 21-gun salute; a fife-and-drum band; the
soprano Kathleen Battle, who sang the Lord’s Prayer; and
two rounds of “Happy Birthday.”
The crowd burst into applause when Mr. Bush
told the pope that Americans “need your message that all life is sacred,” a
reference to the two men’s shared opposition to abortion rights.
The
president also adopted a trademark Benedict phrase when he said the nation
needed the pontiff’s “message to reject this dictatorship of relativism.”

Though I'm no fan of Catholicism, considering our own Protestant heritage, I do respect the Pope as an essential political ally of the West, as well as an outspoken proponent of moral values in our highly secular era. Wish more of our own religious leaders would speak as boldly on such matters of faith and politics.

Why Submarines Rule

David Axe at Danger Room weighs in on the "Subs vs Carriers" debate, and points to an earlier posting I missed with this comment:

...despite the best efforts of naval technologists over the
past 100 years, submarines are still by far the most powerful seaborne weapons
ever developed. Nothing's better for winning a full-scale sea war. Need proof?
See here and here. Forget $5-billion
DDG-1000 battleships. Submarines rule the
waves.

Though Galrahn would disagree with yours truly, I contend that no matter how useful our magnificent force of strike carriers are and unmatched by any other seapower, if the submarine can sink our entire force of huge flattops or chase the survivors into port, then by default the boats are the new capital ships, whether they can bombard a shoreline, launch scout planes, or show the flag.

The aircraft carrier never was a perfect substitute for the battleship, as we see from constant calls for improvements in our Marine fire support. A fragile flattop could not be expected to survive long in a surface duel, a mission which the battlewagons, with their thick armor layer, excelled at. Yet, the carrier prevailed despite their flaws, for the simple fact that they prevented the dreadnoughts from performing the essential mission of sea control. And though there has yet to be a full-scale war at sea involving carriers versus submarines, we may get a glimpse of the future in this incident from the Falklands Island Conflict of 1982.

On the afternoon of May 2, and in the only such incident so far in history, the nuclear powered attack submarine HMS Conqueror sank one of Argentina's prime battle force ships, the cruiser General Belgrano. The 2 escorting ASW destroyers fled the scene, leaving the stricken ship's crew to fend for themselves. In its only sortie during the war, the Argentine carrier fled back to port after the Belgrano sinking, never to pose a threat to the British task force. Imagine this on a grand scale as a sign of a future war between subs and surface ships!

No Fighter Gap

That's the claim of Loren Thompson, "Air Force expert with the Lexington Institute", from the Air Force Times:

“At some point, you have to say to yourself, a gap compared to
what? Against what?” Thompson said. “If [another nation] was buying [fighters in
large quantities], you’d say, ‘Yeah, we need to keep up.’ But they’re not. It
seems as though we’re posturing ourselves for the threat we want to fight rather
than the fight we’re actually in.”
Indeed, some lawmakers, congressional
staff and defense analysts have questioned the Air Force’s plan to replace 1,647
F-16s and A-10s with 1,763 F-35s. The F-35 is at least four times as capable as
the legacy systems it will replace, according to Air Force budget documents, so
the skeptics have argued that the legacy aircraft do not need to be replaced at
a 1-to-1 ratio.

The power of modern weapons plus advanced aircraft is also why I think we can do with far fewer aircraft carriers. Back to the USAF, considering the capabilities of the new planes, seems we could do with as few as 500 (especially the F-35B vertol version), if we add swarms of the UCAVs, the combat UAVs currently entering service and rising in capabilities themselves. A little bit of the old and the new.

It's Better in Basra

A second look proves that the Iraqi city is doing alright, despite what you may have heard in the Media. From the AFP:

An AFP correspondent said three northwestern neighbourhoods once
under the firm control of the Mahdi Army militia of radical Shiite cleric
Moqtada al-Sadr -- Al-Hayaniyah, Khamsamile and Garma -- are now encircled by
Iraqi troops who are carrying out door-to-door searches.
Two other
neighbourhoods once dominated by the Mahdi Army, Al-Qiblah in the southwest and
Al-Taymiyyah in the centre, have been cleared of weaponry and many people have
been arrested, military officials say.
Residents expressed relief at the
improved security.
"I am very happy about the situation right now. The
deployment of the Iraqi army has made gunmen and gangsters disappear from the
streets," said court employee Mahdi Fallah, 42.
"The gangs were controlling
the ports and smuggling oil. Now the ports are back in government hands.
Everything in Basra is better than before."

Read the rest of this encouraging story. Looks like the Iraqi Army is finally stepping up. Not a perfect battle to be sure, but certainly a major improvement, and I expect many more from our new democratic allies.

A Call for Help

From Move America Forward:

"On Friday we put out a call to action for pro-troop supporters to help
us send a massive shipment of Gatorade/Beef Jerky care packages to our
troops serving in Iraq and Afghanistan.

We have between 150,000 - 200,000 troops currently serving in these
theaters, and temperatures in Iraq have already begun to climb to the
mid-to-upper 90 degree range.

The problem: thus far only 64 people have sponsored a care package for
our troops. That's not enough. We need THOUSANDS of you to pitch in
and make sure our troops are taken care of.

So please take action now and sponsor a care package. You can use this
link here to place your order."

Navy Thinks Quick Fix Will Save Fleet

To increase the rapidly shrinking USN, the Navy leadership plans to keep old vessels around even longer. From National Defense Magazine:

The Navy has had a checkered history of decommissioning surface
ships well before the cruiser and destroyer hulls have attained their full
service life expectancy of 30 years and 35 years, respectively. The first
baseline Ticonderoga-class cruisers were taken out of service before they
reached 20 years because the Navy could not afford to modernize them. Likewise,
the entire Spruance-class destroyers were retired early. “There was a lot of
service life left in those ships,” says Vice Adm. Paul Sullivan, commander of
Naval Sea Systems Command.
Decommissioning ships years before their scheduled
service retirement means the Navy has been throwing away the millions of dollars
it invested in those hulls. Officials hope that by modernizing the current
surface fleet, they can sustain the ships through their full service lives and
meet the goal of a 313-ship fleet.

While I do think this is a better way to go that purchasing the budget-busting hi-tech wonders the Navy currently wants, like the DDG-1000 destroyers, it can only be a temporary solution at best. You must eventually have affordable alternatives to replace older ships, or you end up with block obsolescence as the Navy faced in the early 1970's. Then the fleet numbers declined dramatically as the old World War 2 warships were discarded, which already endured massive facelifts in the 50s and 60s to bring them into the jet and missile age. The fleet fell from a Vietnam War high of about 1000 ships in the late 1960's, to 450 by the end of the next decade.

McCain: "Cut Federal Gas Taxes"

Someone is making sense. Washington is always calling on us to sacrifice. Now its their turn to tighten the belt. From Yahoo/AP:

John McCain wants the federal government to free people from paying
gasoline taxes this summer and ensure that college students can secure loans
this fall, a pair of proposals aimed at stemming pain from the country's
troubled economy...

To help people weather the downturn immediately,
McCain was calling for Congress to institute a "gas-tax holiday" by suspending
the 18.4 cent federal gas tax and 24.4 cent diesel tax from Memorial Day to
Labor Day. He also renewed his call for the United States to stop adding to the
Strategic Petroleum Reserve and thus lessen to some extent the worldwide demand
for oil.

To be honest, I haven't worried about the rising gas prices so much over the past few years, even as it cuts into my grocery bill. Yesterday I heard that some major airlines might be folding due to the astronomical cost of jet fuel, and I finally woke up. Something needs to be done NOW to reduce the price of fossil fuels, for the sake of our industries which keep us all in jobs and funds most of the taxes which the liberals love.

Not too many would agree with my proposal which isn't to stop using so much here at home, but start drilling even more! Oh, and a bunch of new nuclear power plants would help out as well.

"Now" versus "Maybe" Wars

I take issue with those who say our conflict in the Middle East is causing us to neglect future wars, readiness, and equipment needs. If we are ever going to straighten out the mess that the Arab world has been in for decades, thus ensuring our own safety, it is now not later. Here is Jim Hoagland at the Washington Post:

On one side are the "fight-win guys," as some describe themselves.
They are led by Gen. David Petraeus and other commanders who argue that the
counterinsurgency struggle in Iraq must be pursued as the military's top
priority and ultimately resolved on U.S. terms.

In this view, the Middle
East is the most likely arena for future conflicts, and Iraq is the prototype of
the war that U.S. forces must be trained and equipped to win.

Arrayed
against them are the uniformed chiefs of the military services who foresee a
"broken army" emerging from an all-out commitment to Iraq that neglects other
needs and potential conflicts. It is time to rebuild Army tank battalions,
Marine amphibious forces and other traditional instruments of big-nation warfare
-- while muddling through in Iraq.

This seems to be the attitude of the"future war" advocates-that the military should never fight conflicts unless they are quick and easily decided blitzkrieg battles, like Operation Desert Storm in 1991. Sadly, such victories are few and far between in history, and usually end with paving the ground for the next war, as in the endless series of Arab/Israeli Conflicts.

This comment from the same article is my favorite-" The "now" war has to trump the "maybe" wars, at least for the year ahead."

Here's more on the same subject via Ares:

With two very expensive shooting wars going on in Iraq and
Afghanistan, there’s an obvious—and undeniable—tension in the military between
funding troops in the field while still pouring money into research and
development back home to ensure that new systems are developed and
tested...

“How can you look at the future and the modernization of the
force while you’re still trying to fight the war today?” Gen. Mundt asked,
before answering his own question with, well, another question: “How can you not
do that?” You’ve constantly got to be thinking about modernization.”
At the
same time, Gen. Mundt said, officers in charge of procurement plans need to be
more careful when choosing between needs and wants. When programs get stretched
out well beyond their original budgets and timeframes, “you end up getting
caught in evolutionary rather than revolutionary advances in our technology.”
Unsurprisingly, his answer is more money...

This is astonishing! Not only is the Army leadership attempting to fight the last war, but when Iraq is over, they will still be fighting the war before the last one, meaning the Cold War. Has this ever occured anywhere in the history of warfare?!

God, Guns, and Obama

Well, not surprisingly Barack Obama's foes are giddy at the Senator's recent gaffe, which seems rather insulting to rural Americans when you hear it:

"You go into these small towns in Pennsylvania and, like a lot of
small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing
[has] replaced them. And it's not surprising, then, they get bitter, they cling
to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or
anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their
frustrations."

Sounds really out of touch, right? There are so many things wrong with the statement, at least in my South. First, most people I know often are faithful church members whether they have a good job or not. Most are grateful for the comfort our faith brings when the bad times come. We praise him in the good times and bad which is how He instructs us: True Religion.

Though I personally am not a hunter, this is so common where I've grown up that its obvious men and some women do so for the pure enjoyment. Some really enjoy the taste of wild game, and uses the sport to cut down on the grocery bill. I can't imagine someone so upset over losing their job that they suddenly decide to go hunting!

Finally, a common assumption our politicians make is that ordinary Americans outside California are against immigration as a whole, when it is illegal immigration and the unimpeded flow of ever more dependents on our schools, so-called jobs Americans won't do, plus the strain it has on our hard pressed hospitals and government institutions. By claiming rural citizens are against all immigration, they shut down the debate, claiming we are a bunch of racists, all for the sake of more votes for whatever Party.

I must admit that Hillary is making alot of sense on the subject, whether her motives are noble or not. For once she didn't sound like she was pandering or phony when she stated:

"Americans who believe in the Second Amendment believe it's a
matter of constitutional right. Americans who believe in God believe it's a
matter of personal faith," she said. "The people of faith I know don't 'cling'
to religion because they're bitter. People embrace faith, not because they are
materially poor but because they are spiritually rich."

Sounded much better on video if you happen to catch it on the news.

Surprising words from Obama, considering his well-known faithfulness to a single church for 20 years. It begs the question, what would the Senator and his elite supporters have us replace the Joy of Living with? Perhaps his own faith that government is so all powerful that that it can supply the common man with all the answers, which we think we have found already in our God and traditions.

Interesting-This is via Daily Kos"Pennsylvanians fought and died for liberty, a Constitution, and a government that would obey the law. When they thought it was stretching its powers, they had the Whiskey Rebellion. When they ask about "patriotism," you can talk about the Constitution. It was written here, OK? People get it.
Religion? This state was founded on religious tolerance, with Quakers, Shakers, Jews, Hindus, Muslims, and lots of Catholics. You can still hear Mass in Polish, and churches aren't the size of aircraft carriers. People know the "The Rapture" is strictly from crappy paperbacks, not the Bible."

The Next Battle of the Atlantic

British Prime Winston Churchill once said that the only thing which really worried him during World War 2 was the battle with the U-boats, which weren't decisively defeated until well into 1943. The entire liberation of Europe and North Africa hinged on whether the Allies could continue the free flow of troops, weapons, and supplies at sea. Until the Battle of the Atlantic was won and the vital merchant shipping assured protection , no major land or air operation could be carried out effectively.

Despite the fact that the submarine menace has not only continued in the post war era, but has become magnified thanks to modern technology, the US Navy has no such fears. In the 3rd in a series of articles titled "Subs vs Carriers", Martin Sieff reveals that:

"the U.S. Navy no longer uses its trusty old Lockheed Martin
S-3B Viking aircraft in their traditional Anti-Submarine Warfare -- ASW -- role
to protect the gigantic ships."

Apparently for reasons of economy, the mighty aircraft carriers no longer possess a long range ASW weapon, other than helicopters, to combat the rising threat from silent and deadly diesel submarines, which almost any navy can operate, and the sustained menace from high-performance and speedy nuclear attack subs.

In the last few decades, the modern nuclear submarine has become a pure underwater beast and a creature of its element, the oceans. With a streamlined hull and depth piercing design, it is the ultimate achievement in man's quest to conquer the sea.

It is such a marvel of technology and fearsome sea serpent, the traditional surface warships such as aircraft carriers, cruisers, destroyers, and frigates must now contend with the new U-boat for mastery of the waves. Sadly, these nautical monuments of the past we have worshiped for decades have changed very little over time, save only cosmetically.

The guided missile, which has enhanced the capabilities of the surface ship beginning in the mid 20th century, has also proven its Achilles heel. Increasingly such highly visible castles of steel are becoming prey to robot weapons of such precision as to always ensure a direct hit, and mostly unstoppable with speeds surpassing that of manned jet aircraft. In its haunts beneath the waves, the submarine has little to fear from such weapons.

The modern surface ship's failure to adapt over the decades puts it at a grave disadvantage, then, in the next Battle of the Atlantic. The conventional versus the unconventional.

Some Choice!

Thanks to John Burtis for this!

The Hollow Air Force Looms

Despite repeated warnings, the USAF dependence on unaffordable hi tech platforms threatens its very existence. From Air Force Times:

The Air Force will begin facing a shortage of fighter aircraft by
2017, and the shortage will balloon to 800 aircraft by 2024, senior Air Force
officials said Wednesday.
That fighter gap could force the Air Force to keep
aging F-15s and F-16s flying beyond their anticipated retirement dates by
sinking billions into additional service-life extension programs...
“The size
of the F-22 force is certainly a contributor, but the real contributor to [the
gap] is ... the Joint Strike Fighter production rate,” Hoffman said. “We still
stand by 1,763 as our final number, it’s just when do we get there and how do
the legacy aircraft age until that last one is delivered? JSF replaces all our
F-16s and all our A-10s, but they may not live long enough until the last JSF
comes along.”

To stave off disaster, the Pentagon must invest in new build, late model versions of proven aircraft like the venerable F-16s. To do otherwise would run the risk of a future administration refusing to allow our airmen to continue flying ancient legacy planes built in the last century. As we have seen, such battle worn jets have been literally falling from the skies. Thus we will end up with an Air force about the size of Britain's, with less than 200 new Raptor fighters and perhaps and handful of F-35 planes as its main force by the middle of the next decade.

Town of Branchville "Almost Dead"

Branchville town hall in rubble after a March 15 hit by an F-3 tornado.

These are the words of a city councilman at this weeks town meeting. From the Times and Democrat:

Council members, following a spirited debate Monday, voted to
have a replacement town hall built back in the original town hall location on
Main Street.Engineer Kirk Nivens presented the council with several renderings
of possible building configurations. Nivens also explained a provision in the
state’s procurement code that allows municipalities to pass a resolution
indicating an emergency situation, which allows municipalities to bypass many of
the advertising timing requirements for bid processes.Nivens noted that
following the state’s procurement code would mean at least a two-year time frame
before a new Branchville Town Hall would be in place. However, taking action to
declare an emergency through resolution would mean a new building in seven to
nine months, he said.

Councilman Glenn Miller asked that council members take more
time to consider alternate locations for the replacement town hall.“Our town is
almost dead. We don’t want to bury it,” Miller said. “We need to make sure we
look at all our options.”

Niven's comment is interesting. Is the contractor trying to rush things to get in a first bid? Makes you wonder...

Facing up to Carrier Obsolescence

Here's an astonishing comment from Martin Sieff that I've been maintaining for years:

...America's nuclear aircraft carriers have been sitting ducks for
fast-attack submarines for the past 40 years.

How can this be, you ask? Because the once maligned "pig boats" have, since the addition of nuclear power at mid-century, equaled or surpassed the once feared surface warship in speed and performance (plus they're extremely stealthy):

...neither U.S. policymakers nor the American public realize the
vulnerability of giant aircraft carriers to torpedo attacks from modern fast
submarines was demonstrated in 1968 when a fast Soviet nuclear-powered attack
submarine matched the USS Enterprise at top speed in the Pacific Ocean. That
moment, vividly and thoroughly discussed in Patrick Tyler's "Running Critical,"
was as epochal a moment in the shift of the strategic balance at sea as Billy
Mitchell's sinking of Ostfriesland.

Now that subs also come armed with ship-killing cruise missiles, many of which outrange the carrier's anti-sub weapons, there is very little the big ships can do to defeat this unstoppable force at sea. As we stated in yesterday's post, the USN since WW 2 hasn't faced any type of peer enemy at sea to test this dangerous fault in our maritime strategy. And the Navy leadership in love with the supercarrier, has chosen to ignore the threat.

Consider for a moment the havoc, devastation, and worry these fragile "Little Davids" caused the Western allies during 2 world wars. Thousands of merchant vessels sunk, many millions of tons of supplies worth billions of dollars on the ocean floor, and great and ancient empires brought to the brink of surrender. All this from warships more or less 1000 tons in weight, armed with a single light deck gun and often faulty torpedoes, who could only spend a few hours at a time submerged, and then at only a crawling speed of less than 10 knots. This is the reason so many sub attacks occurred on the surface, where the boats somewhat better speed of 20 knots allowed it to catch the surface convoy.

So dire was the new threat to the surface admirals, that entirely new classes of warships in many thousands were ordered to defeat the menace. Destroyers, destroyers escorts, sub-chasers, escort carriers, sloops, frigates, and countless others were built to contain and eventually defeat the U-boat menace, which rarely consisted of over 100 boats in commission during WW 2, and a few score at sea in WW 1. The shipbuilding resources of 3 Western superpowers were mobilized to combat the menace. Canada alone had over 400 warships in service in 1945, especially geared towards winning the Battle of the Atlantic.

Today, thanks to streamlined hulls, advanced long-range weapons, and especially nuclear power, the submarine has become much more than just a threat to the fragile and slow merchant ship. As mentioned by Sieff, the new boats easily match the high speeds of our fastest warships. Unlike their world war ancestors, they rarely ever surface, even when attacking with their deadly cargo of cruise missiles. Even slower and cheaper conventional subs which are possessed by Third World countries like Iran and North Korea have also increased in endurance, thanks to new Air Independent Propulsion, while carrying the same deadly long-range weapons of the nuclear boats.

In response to this dire threat, the West since the Cold War has carried out a wholesale dismantling of their once huge anti-sub fleets. Soon after the fall of the Soviet Union, the masses of specialized ASW frigates were quickly discarded without replacement, especially in the US Navy. In their place, ever larger and more costly new battle-force warships were launched like aircraft carriers, missile destroyers, and amphibious ships, whose principle mission of Expeditionary Warfare would be untenable anyway if we lose the next Battle of the Atlantic. Just ask, if it were possible, the architects of the D-Day Landings in 1944 if you consider this an untrue statement.

The days when the surface warship roams unmolested at sea are swiftly waning.

The horrors they must face

I hear the abused teens held prisoner at the Texas polygamist compound were frightened by cult leaders with horrible, awful lies concerning the American school system and society. Some of the morbid untruths told was that pre-marital sex was not only allowed but encouraged, with birth control readily on hand in the class rooms, and that abortions were also available on demand at whatever stage of pregnancy without the need for parental permission. The virtues of a homosexual lifestyle were extolled at school, while practising religion strictly forbidden. The kids were wrongly convinced that single parent families were common and divorce the norm. With such horrible lies these helpless young girls were kept in a constant state of fear concerning the outside world.

Oh, wait...

Why Carriers Rule

America's aircraft carriers have yet to fight a real war at sea, as during the last World War, insists Martin Sieff:

The fact that no U.S. aircraft carrier has been seriously
threatened in combat in any of the wars the United States has fought since 1945
has added to the mystique of the carrier admirals. They continue to dominate the
Navy, greatly influencing its procurement decisions to this day. And arguably,
in the 21st century, the political power and prestige of the carrier admirals is
greater than ever...

However, the real reason none of America's magnificent
aircraft carriers has faced serious threat over the past 60 years is for the
very good reason that the United States has never fought any war during all that
time in which they faced any enemy with significant naval forces.

But can this highly desirable situation ( at least for Big Carrier advocates) last for long? Even Britain's mighty dreadnoughts finally were tested almost 100 years after their last similar conflict at sea, at Trafalgar. You would think, with no equal threat facing these costly and budget-shrinking powerhouses, the Navy might have weaned themselves off and turned to less costly but effective counters to Third World conflicts. But that would be too sensible.

Israel's Walls at Sea

Much like its Old Testament counterpart before the Babylonian conquest, modern Israel finds itself surrounded by enemies and increasingly forced onto the defensive. Nothing personifies the defensive mindset of the Israeli Defense Forces than its home built Merkava tank. While one of the world's most powerful armored vehicles, with its enhanced armor and unparalleled crew protection, it's function is a stark contrast to the fast mobile divisions of the 1967 Six Day War. The Merkava's mission is basically that of an anti-insurgent tank, designed to defend and protect the tiny but technically advanced nation's borders against its current principle threats: Lebanese or Palestinian terrorists. A far cry from the "Deep Battle" concepts of the pre-Yom Kippur era, that saw dramatic routs using blitzkrieg tactics against her Arab foes.

With her offensive capacity on land increasingly curtailed by treaties with former enemies, Israel might find room for maneuver on the sea. Potential aggressors such as in Lebanon or Syria could find their coastlines constantly at risk from a Jewish amphibious invasion. If her airbases are taken out from a surprise Arab attack, they could face immediate and overwhelming reprisal from an Israeli arsenal ship safely out of range afloat.

Such a plan was on the IDF's mind a few years ago, when it was proposed that the tiny patrol boat navy be greatly enhanced with new missile frigates, destroyers, cruisers, and even a 13,000 ton amphibious ship. Such a grandiose expansion of the scorned sea service came to nought, not surprisingly from resistance by the traditional services, especially the highly esteemed Air Force.

This remarkable strategy might be worth revisiting, though. It may be an extreme burden for an air strike against far away Iran, considering the distances involved, but a naval attack utilizing long range cruise missiles would face far fewer hazards. Ultimately, if confronted with a full scale Arab attack against Jewish military bases, a naval force might be all that survives to launch a counter-attack, especially in this age of precision guided missiles where no fixed defense is safe.

Such a radical change by the ancient land based power will likely never occur, however. An enlarged Israeli Navy might be construed as the last exit in case of an Arab conquest of the Holy Land, forcing Jewish evacuation of what they consider their God-given birthright. After enduring centuries of persecution from the West during the Christian Era, it is doubtful they would consider such an option as more desirable than dying to the last man, women, and child in defense of the homeland.

Free Tibet

I'm disappointed that the Right will support democracy movements around the world but not in the world's most populace country and potentially the next superpower China. Standing up for the liberty of Tibetans is the morale thing to do and could likely start a movement within the Peoples Republic to reverse the lost opportunity of Tienanmen Square in 1988. Then, the first President Bush failed to speak out boldly to condemn the communist crackdown on the infant student democracy movement, thus seeing yet another wall behind the Iron Curtain collapse.

I've a vague notion that our massive trade dependency with China (or are they more dependent on us?) is staying the necessary reproof, which we seldom fail to withhold from chronic rights' abusers such as Cuba, Russia, Iran North Korea, Venezuela, ect...

President Bush should use this cruel abuse of an oppressed race to raise the standard of freedom once again, and boycott the upcoming Olympic Games. The safety and security of Tibet should rise above the feelings of our athletes as well as our fear of upsetting an important trade partner.