State Dept. China Appeasers

More evidence of the liberal dominance in the US State Department, as they seek to appease our enemies and hurt our allies. Details from Bill Gertz at the Washington Times:

Taiwan's air force currently flies about 150 F-16A/B model jet
fighters that were purchased in 1992. Taiwan in May 2006 told the U.S.
government that it wants to buy 66 F-16C/D models to counter a growing Chinese
missile and aircraft threat across the Taiwan Strait. China has some 1,000
missiles within range of Taiwan and also has Russian-made Su-27 jets armed with
advanced missiles in the area.
But State Department officials want the sale
postponed in order to avoid upsetting China prior to the Olympic Games, saying
that Beijing already is angry at the protests that have dogged the worldwide
Olympic torch relay over its military crackdown on Tibet. These officials want
to delay the F-16 sales until after the games or later. China considers Taiwan a
renegade province and calls U.S. arms sales an interference in its internal
affairs.

The more help we give to our allies, the less work our own battle-worn forces have to do. Seems to me a self-sufficient Taiwan would be less provocative than a US battlegroup parked practically in China's backyard in nearby Guam.

More High Tech Fallout

We give the high tech obsessed Air Force no reprieve as funds for much needed replacements for venerable workhorses is spent on wonder planes. From Strategypage:

The U.S. Air Force has grounded over 500 T-38C jet trainers, after
two of them crashed in an eight day period. The air force is hustling to find
out if there is a connection between the two crashes, and if there is any kind
of fundamental flaw in the aircraft.

The T-38 has been in use as
a trainer for 47 years, and has a good safety records... Production of some
1,200 T-38s ended in 1972, so all existing models are over 36 years old. The
five ton aircraft is actually a variant of the F-5 fighter aircraft...

All these are great old planes, but the keyword here is OLD! Nothing wrong with utilizing an old design, in my view, as long as the plane itself is kept in production to replace platforms as they are worn out. Most civilian consumers buy a new car every 5-10 years, but we expect our brave warriors who sacrifice so much to make due with these military versions of the '57 Chevy!

Just a suggestion, the USN uses a version of the British Hawk series as a trainer, which they dub the Goshawk. And the Hawk is still in production...

Robot Thunderbirds

I stole borrowed this photo from the Ares Blog, via Maj. Glen MacPherson, US Air Force.

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.

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.

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.

The End of the RAF

Is the end in sight for the world's first and most famous independent air arm? From the UK Telegraph:

At sea, air defence is the job of the Fleet Air Arm. On land,
although the
Army has ground-to-air missiles for close defence, and naval
aircraft
provide cover in maritime expeditionary operations, it is the job of
the
RAF. Only territorial air defence, which these days means the United Kingdom
(even Nato commitments have been curtailed), is a separate, independent
function, though, as in 1918, its importance should not be
underestimated.
The superb but ruinously expensive Eurofighter is billed
as multi-role, but it is first and foremost an air-defence fighter for
combat with the Soviet air force. None of this would matter much if the
three Services were properly funded. As one of Louis XII's marshals
baldly told that great military adventurer: "To make war, three things are
necessary: money, money and yet more money." Five centuries on, nothing has
changed, so if Gordon Brown will not provide more money, he must either not
make war or else decide unequivocally where we are to take the strategic
risk.

I see the USAF headed in this direction. More often in recent years we see the budget funding fewer and fewer high capacity, low affordability planes. The numbers have been shrinking every decade since airpower's high tide in World War 2. With so many American planes reaching the end of their lifespans, soon we will have a hollow air force unless something drastic occurs.



My own idea would be to purchase cheap airplanes off the shelf, especially geared towards close air support and counter-insurgency (COIN). More likely, with Air Force leadership so adamant against warfare off the shelf, the airmen's traditional functions will be displaced by unmanned aerial vehicles sometime in the near future.



My favorite part of this article is:

But where, other than perhaps in the mind of the Prime Minister,
unencumbered with military reality, is this priority to current operations? "We
will continue to favour capability over quantity," he says. But for the Army,
the infantry in particular, quantity is capability: you cannot make up for a cut
in the number of regiments, and a shortfall in manpower, with high-tech
equipment.
And you certainly can't if the equipment is late into
service.

Same could be said for the USAF's long-delayed Raptor and F-35 warplanes.

Sen. Graham on the Hollow Air Force

I've been pestering Senator Lindsey Graham, a USAF reservist and member of the Senate Armed Services and Veterans Affairs Committee, on the block aging of almost the entire complement of USAF aircraft. Below is his response via snail mail to yours truly:

"As the Air Force increases the duration and number of combat
missions, it is important we ensure that we can quickly replace worn out
materiel and spare parts. The 2009 Department of Defense (DoD) budget request by
the President includes $35.9 billion for the Air Force for Operation and
Maintenance. I am pleased the budget request includes $12.68 billion in
additional funding for procurement of new aircraft. For example, the request
includes $3.61 billion for 20 F-22A aircraft and $1.67 billion for 8 F-35
aircraft. Although I am pleased by this funding increase, I understand your
concerns as to the type of aircraft we are purchasing..."

Recently, you may recall, the USAF grounded over 400 of its frontline and over-worked F-15 fighters because of advanced aging. A total of 28 new fighters, however their advanced new stealth and abilities to combat future air defense threats, hardly begins to replace so many tried and true warplanes, not to mention the 1000+ F-16s which themselves are at an advanced stage of wear and tear. His last statement "I understand your concerns as to the type of aircraft we are purchasing" appears to me that even the Senator realizes his arguments for a handful of superfighters to supersede our mighty and tested aerial armada, are rather weak.

The Economical Predator

Commentary from Stuart Koehl on the outstanding American Predator unmanned aerial vehicle, via the Worldwide Standard:

A single MQ-9 Predator can remain aloft with a useful sensor
and weapons payload for more than a day at a time, as compared to typical
mission times of 4-6 hours for an F-16 or an A-10 (aerial refueling can extend
time on station, but then the limiting factor becomes pilot endurance).
Therefore it takes about 3-4 F-16s to provide the same degree of coverage as a
single Predator. But the F-16 costs about $40 million, and the Predator
something on the order of $8 million, so in terms of cost, the difference is
$120-160 million for the manned aircraft, vs. $8-10 million for the UAV. And
that's without counting the operation and maintenance (O&M) costs such as
fuel, spares, maintenance, etc. Moreover, being slow and capable of loitering at
high altitude, the UAV can provide its own ISR capability, for which the manned
aircraft must rely on other platforms (ironically, mostly UAVs). As the U.S.
develops a wider range of effective lightweight munitions intended to reduce
collateral damage, the number of targets that can be engaged by a single
Predator UAV also increase, making them as competitive in that area as any
manned aircraft.
UAVs can therefore be a force and budget multiplier for the
Air Force's LIC mission. For the cost of a single F-22 (perhaps $115 million),
the Air Force could buy fourteen Predators...

This sounds like a good deal and is the future of warfare. How about a future Air Force consisting of 500 manned fighters plus swarms of inexpensive and increasingly more capable UAVs!

Ancient Weapons put our Troops at Risk

The pitfalls of the hi tech military is revealing itself, says Joseph F. Callo:

The Army has been wearing out equipment at a rapid rate in Iraq. Tanks, trucks and Humvees, for example, are operating in an environment that degrades equipment very rapidly. And rocket-propelled grenades and IEDs "degrade" equipment instantaneously.
Meanwhile, the Navy remains far below the minimum level of ships it needs. In fact, at 280 ships, its force level is at a 90-year low - and even the most powerful ship can't be in more than one place simultaneously.
While the technologically advanced tilt-rotor Osprey aircraft significantly increases the Marines' tactical flexibility, funding for this aircraft remains low because of defense-budget limitations.
The Air Force is flying bombers that were built 50 years ago; its tanker fleet inadequate in terms of age and numbers of aircraft. And the Coast Guard is making do in its expanding missions with the oldest fleet of coastal vessels in the world...America's safety is being compromised - and the situation can't be fixed quickly. It takes years to rebuild a military force, in terms of material and people. The men and women of the armed forces will eventually pay in blood for the seriously pinched defense funding.

It is a shame and disgrace that the world's richest country can't even replace its weapons on a one-on-one basis, even more so since our defense budget dwarfs all others. Yet, extremely poor spending practices and the exploding costs of Industrial Age armaments as our manufacturing capacity shrinks, has us in this Catch-22 situation.

Congress, not Bush, is mostly to blame. For decades they have indulged the spending excessive of the generals and admirals, without expecting the quality such budgets demand. We need to build not just the military we want for the types of wars we prefer to fight, but good enough weaponry designed for the kind of wars we most often find ourselves in, like Korea, Vietnam, and now Iraq.

USAF's Bomber Conundrum

The Fighter Mafia, which since the end of the Vietnam War has dominated US Air Force strategic thought and procurement, is struggling over the increased need for a new long range bomber. It is ironic that the fighter pilots supplanted the bomber generals within the high command just as modern weapons were giving the large planes the capabilities which airpower prophets has so long promised.

We were told since the dawn of military aviation in the last century that "the bomber will always get through". After each major conflict the heavy planes were seen as the ultimate deterrence, the acquisition of which would prevent any aggressor form attacking the homeland if the enemy was in turn threatened with massive retaliation upon its civilian population.

The reality was that even when married to the frightening new and powerful A-bombs, the strategic bomber wasn't very effective in preventing new wars. Man has always found a way to kill one another. The end of Great Power war after World War 2 only saw the rise of guerrilla conflict, most notably in Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan, and today in Iraq. For deterring war, today's bomber fleets are equally impotent. However, For quick and decisive tactical strikes and even close air support, such planes are now the weapons of choice. The huge ordinance load which include new precision guided weapons, each of which can be programmed to attack individual targets, make them a far more economical choice than short range fighters. America's premier force of B-1s, B-2s, and ancient but well-preserved B-52s have performed stellar service in all America's recent military actions; especially in regions where nearby landing fields are sparse or unavailable due to reluctant allies.

Rather than speeding development full force on the new planes, the Air Force is instead enamored with its new superfighter, the F-22 Raptor, some 25 years in the making. Strapped for cash in the War on Terror, the pilots have been forced to make due with only 180 of these $200 million hi-tech wonders, far fewer than they desire. Distracted and disappointed, the USAF seems stymied for a solution to their future needs.

Some see unmanned technology, such as the Boeing X-45 UCAV as a solution. Other call for a "stretched" version of the Raptor for our long-range perpetrator needs. A radical and more affordable solution might be a converted airliner, which could load cruise missiles or precision bombs as well as a B-52.

Whatever the new bomber ultimately reveals itself as, it can come none too soon for the USAF, with only a handful of fairly new B-2s in service, and the older workhorses already several decades old.

America's Vanishing Air Force

It's dying of old age. Here's a list via the World Affairs Board Forum:

Fighter Aircraft - average age: 20 years; average flight hours 5400+

Bomber Aircraft - average age: 32 years; average flight hours 11,400+

Tanker aircraft - average age: 44 years; average flight hours 18,900+

C2 Fleet - average age: 22 years old; average flight hours 32,000

ISR Fleet (excluding UAV) - average age: 30 years old; average flight hours 18,000

This is criminal, in my view, the result of technology worship so prevalent in today's military. There might be some good news, though.

Big Guns versus Smart Bombs

I am continually amazed that the armed service which gave us the New Warfare during the 1991 Operation Desert Storm, with smart bombs, cruise missiles, and stealth aircraft, has become so resistant to the change, and backward in their thinking. In an opinion piece at the New York Times, a USAF officer is coming to the defense of our Cold War legacy weaponry, which we continue to cling to long after the demise of the Soviet Union. Here is Major General Charles J. Dunlap Jr.:

Many analysts understandably attribute the success to our troops’ following the dictums of the Army’s lauded new counterinsurgency manual. While the manual is a vast improvement over its predecessors, it would be a huge mistake to take it as proof — as some in the press, academia and independent policy organizations have — that victory over insurgents is achievable by anything other than traditional military force.

Unfortunately, starry-eyed enthusiasts have misread the manual to say that defeating an insurgency is all about winning hearts and minds with teams of anthropologists, propagandists and civil-affairs officers armed with democracy-in-a-box kits and volleyball nets. They dismiss as passé killing or capturing insurgents.

To me this is an astonishing lack of understanding and appreciation of the sacrifice of our troops and the profound change in warfare as evidenced by the insurgency tactics we have neglected so long. Such close-minded thinking almost led us to disaster with 4 years in Iraq and the terrorists continuing to run roughshod over the Iraqi civilians, while we here at home came dangerously close to a premature and disgraceful cut-and-run in the face of the supreme threat of our times. The general continues:

And while the new counterinsurgency doctrine has an anti-technology flavor that seems to discourage the use of air power especially, savvy ground-force commanders in Iraq got the right results last year by discounting those admonitions. Few Americans are likely to be aware that there was a fivefold increase in airstrikes during 2007 as compared with the previous year, which went hand in hand with the rest of the surge strategy. Going high-tech once again proved to be highly successful.

Correct, and yet he fails to mention what was not utilized to bring about the highly successful strategy, that of the USAF’s dream aircraft, the F-22 Raptor, already in service since 2005, with no present plans to operate them in the Middle East. Air support in Iraq and Afghanistan has been mainly relegated to lo-tech fighters, such as the F-16 and A-10, plus the always dependable Eisenhower era B-52 bomber. Hi-tech super fighters like the F-15 Eagle has been forced out of the fight since it was never designed for the rigors of a war of attrition.


The Air Force leadership seems in denial that there is a war on. Imagine the American military of World War 2 without plans to deploy the P-51 Mustang over Berlin or the B-29 bomber against Imperial Japan, but saving them for some future, unspecified threat. Congress would likely have canceled such absurd planning before they left the drawing board, if such advanced weapons couldn’t be used against the immediate threat to our security.



To consider our winning the Battle of Iraq as the end of the War on Terror, is as ludicrous as of the Korean War of 1950-53 spelled the finale of the Soviet occupation of eastern Europe. In fact, it was just the beginning of our last “Long War”. Petraeus’s winning strategy is the correct one, that is finally achieving success against the terrorist who caught us asleep on 9/11, 2001. This is no time to return to our slumbers, but to continue the work begun by our brave and brilliant young men and women, who now have found away to beat Al Qaeda at its own game.

F-35B: The Essential Vertol

Michael Goldfarb at the Weekly Standard doesn't understand the need for the F--35B, the short take-off, vertical lift version (STOVL or vertol) of the F-35 Lightning II:

...I've never found the rationale for STOVL very convincing. The Marines want to be able to operate from remote bases close to the battle, but a first-class Navy ought to be able to seize and build landing strips, position aircraft carriers, refuel in mid-air, etc., so as to obviate the need for STOVL. Our allies, the British and the Italians specifically, operate small carriers that rely on STOVL aircraft. So it makes a lot of sense as an export. But the added cost in R&D is substantial, and it has long since become a serious drag on an already expensive program.

Some may recall the original rationale for vertol aircraft like the classic Harrier, was the need for NATO to have some type of survivable jets after the likely destruction of our forward airbases by the Soviets along the Central Front during the Cold War. This still seems to be the rationale for the RAF's plan to replace their own Harriers in the near future, as well as our own Air Force toying with the idea as an attack plane to replace the A-10.

So we see it not just for the Navy's sake that we need the F-35B. Had I my druthers, I would see the entire line of the Lightning II produce the vertol version, backed up by swarms of UAVs.

F-22 Raptor Combat Ready, After 25 Years

That's about how long the planning for our newest and most advanced fighter ever has been ongoing, as detailed by Bill Sweetman at the Ares Blog:

A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, I covered a Society of Automotive Engineers aerospace conference in Anaheim. It was the first public occasion where industry and air force people talked about the Advanced Tactical Fighter (ATF), and it was pretty clear where the requirement was headed: supersonic cruise, stealth and a primary air-to-air mission.

That was TWENTY-FIVE YEARS AGO.

He inserts an interesting note:

The most successful fighter of the modern age is indisputably the F-16. The project was launched in 1972 with a contract for two prototypes...
It was operational eight years later.

The mighty F-16 was also designed under the watchful eye of Col. John Boyd, likely America's greatest military strategist of this generation. I have consistently called for production of more F-16s, which have been fighting all our wars anyway for the past 20+ years, to replace our aged and worn out fighter fleet. Otherwise, we may see our unmatched aerial armada become another "hollow force".

China and the New Warfare

The following is an exert from my recent book "New Wars: The Transformation of Armies, Navies, and Airpower in the Digital Age" which you can purchase via the ad in the top corner:

According to recent reports China is buying more high-tech weaponry, by cutting back on conventional forces. To do so, they are reducing their army to about the size of America’s during the 1980's, but they still have a mass of reserves to call on. They are improving their fighters, warships, along with stocks of missiles, mostly aimed at Taiwan, but with a growing ICBM capability. All this on a defense budget a little more than Britain's and far less than our own.

America and Britain's answer to this should not be a cutback, but a compromise. Older weapons should be replaced with newer ones, not just discarded. UAV's, patrol ships, guided munitions, and cruise missiles should be priority over super carriers, nuclear submarines, battle tanks and "hot" fighters. All of the latter absorb massive amounts of funds without adding to our conventional capability. They may be useful, but we can no longer afford such luxuries in wartime.

These are the main reasons for cutbacks. The new weapons are so expensive they can only be built by our "robbing Peter to pay Paul". Government budgets are now stretched to the limits having to pay for social programs along with increased defense, something has to give. Everyone wants a piece of the pie. There is hope, however.

The infantryman, with GPS and a laser range-finder, is the new "God of Battles". He can call in an air strike with a guided bomb, whether fired from land, sea, or air. This is the new warfare. All he needs is a ride and a little cover to hide behind. A main battle tank out in the open has no defense against a laser-guided bomb. He cannot maneuver well enough and no armor can save him.

The age of sleek jet fighters is at an end, even as they reach their peak of performance. Nations now prefer to hide behind massive batteries of surface to air missiles, which too are coming of age. If a US patriot missile can destroy the ejected warheads of elusive battlefield missiles, what chance will a heavy jet fighter have? America and British warplanes are now utilized almost exclusively as "carriers" for guided missiles, bombs, and in the future, UAV's. Already AWACS planes control the air war, as mobile airborne command posts. How easy it will be to replace the bombers and jet fighters in a future war with cruise missiles and UAV's armed with guided munitions.

The new power at sea is not new after all. It is the venerable diesel/electric submarine. This was proved recently in war games when a clunky Aussie Collins class conventional sub "sank" a state of the art Los Angeles class nuclear boat, which is touted as the worlds quietest. Diesel subs are still quieter and are being constantly improved with digital periscopes, air-independent propulsion, and advanced underwater weapons. Concerning the latter, both America and Russia are experimenting with super-cavitating rockets which can approach the speed of sound underwater! There is no defense. Already, with so many advanced add-ons, diesel subs are approaching the price of its nuclear counterpart. During the Falklands War, Britain lived in mortal terror of Argentina's German built subs, even after spending decades in ASW development to defeat the nuclear boats. The Royal Navy never found the Argies.

The new capital ship of the surface navy is already with us and recently used in combat. This is the HSV-X1 Joint Venture catamaran. Joint Venture is a multi-purpose vessel, meaning it can do it all! During Operation Iraqi Freedom, she performed surveillance, ferried cargo, served as a command post for Special Forces, all in waters too shallow for destroyers or frigates, and at very high speeds(40+ knots). These unique vessels can also carry helicopters, missiles, and various unmanned vehicles. Their price? $50 million without add-ons. Already a nuclear supercarrier costs $5 billion plus, not including air-wing, escorts, etc. which adds up to about the same amount ( give or take a billion, which would mean 200 Joint Ventures!). Where are our priorities?

From Minor Power to the Major Leagues

Some 100 years ago, the British Royal Navy constructed the revolutionary HMS Dreadnought, which also allowed other navies to start from scratch and play catchup, as the Germans, Japanese, and Americans proceeded to do. America's current monopoly on high technology has given it unprecedented military and international prestige, but such easily accessible weaponry can also fuel the imperial desires of other powers, whether friend or foe. Most Western states are struggling to replace or at least maintain old Cold War style inventories, most notably in the news have been Germany, Australia, and Canada. For simplicities sake we will focus on Canada's armed forces.

Like most small powers, Canada is a mirror of the US armed forces in miniature. It maintains the three standard arms: air force, navy, and army. By clinging to this industrial age establishment, she finds it increasingly difficult to replace Cold War era weaponry, including aircraft, helicopters, armored vehicles, and ships. She is also failing to take advantage of the New Warfare of the Digital Age .

A case in point is her navy. Canada currently maintains a destroyer/frigate force, a handful of submarines, and a few logistics ships, while planning to build an amphibious type warship in the near future. Perhaps by focusing on maintaining the most potent of these, her submarines, she could carry out the bulk of her maritime missions at far less expense and with less procurement headaches. By arming them with cruise missiles, the submarine can be considered on par with and a threat to the most powerful of warships. To a small navy, the modern undersea boat can be considered a capital ship, cruiser, destroyer, anti submarine vessel, and patrol ship.

Rather than spending precious funds on refitting elderly frigates, which also require advanced and expensive helicopters, as is her current plan, she could use the same funds to purchase new subs to replace the "lemons" she already has, and perhaps even expand the fleet. (See my article titled "An All-Submarine Navy")




As for logistics and troops transports, this could be effectively performed rather inexpensively by maintaining a sizable merchant marine. Such a task could be accomplished by offering tax incentives and occasional government contracts. Some specialized vessels such as fast cruise ships or freighters could be built to military specifications, and called from commercial service in a national emergency. Fitted with guns and helicopter landing decks, some merchant vessels could be used as patrol ships, as often occurred in the World Wars.

As for airpower, there is ample proof from the various Gulf Wars, that precision missiles and bombs have greatly magnified the firepower of individual fighters and bombers. Single attack planes can now do the work formerly required of whole squadrons from as recently as the Vietnam War. The West has become so proficient at aerial combat, it has been decades since they have lost a fighter in air to air combat. With so many high performance jets still in the hands of non western militaries, it would be foolish to completely downplay the need for dogfighters in a future war, however.

The Canadian Air Force has over 100 very expensive F-18 multi-mission fighters equipped for all forms of combat. In the future, a force of 50 could be maintained strictly for the air superiority role for greatly less cost. These could be backed by several hundred COIN (counter-insurgency) aircraft for air support of the troops. Preferably these would be as light and cheap as possible, such as the subsonic Hawk family of attack/trainers. Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) also could be bought for the same missions, as such planes increase in capabilities.


Most nations already have sizable commercial airlines, which could be mobilized for military service in an emergency, and also supply a cadre of reserve air force pilots. Commercially built planes have been utilized for many defense purposes, including air tankers, maritime patrol, troops transports, and could conceivably become long range bombers when fitted with launchers for long range cruise missiles.

If our present wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have taught us anything, it is the need for generous numbers of infantry. Current Western practice is for technology to replace manpower as much as possible, but the facts remain that no nation can long survive if the majority of its populace doesn't have a stake in its survival and security. This isn't a call for the return of conscription, but efforts could be made to vastly increase manpower pools, which may include such politically incorrect schemes like hiring mercenaries and increasing ROTC training in schools and colleges.

Canada's Army has a strength of 62,000, which is almost scandalous considering far poorer Latin American countries generally deploy between 200-300 thousand troops on active duty. One solution might be to integrate reserve and active forces, as do the Israelis, while maintaining a small cadre in service at all times. To pay for an expanded Army, it will be necessary to scrap quantities of World War 2 style arms like tracked armored vehicles, self-propelled artillery, and attack helicopters. By concentrating on a single weapons programs at the expense of others, as we saw with navy submarines, much savings can be gathered without noticeable loss in battle efficiency.


Helicopters, which provide a unique form of mobility have been utilized successfully in all wars of the past 50 years, and could become a cavalry force in its own right, plus provide air support, and troop transport.(See my article "An All-Helicopter Army") Likewise have fairly inexpensive wheeled armored vehicles proven adequate substitutes for main battle tanks in the Middle East Wars.

A recurring theme for victorious powers in history has been to keep warfare simple, and this lesson holds true today. Computer technology, available everywhere and off the shelf should be utilized for updating antiquated defense establishments which struggle to replace old fashioned weapons of the last century. A minor power such as Canada's could conceivably transform itself from a force dependent on major allies for defense, to a major regional power with a greater voice in world affairs.

Welcoming the Hollow Force

Here is yet another news article on the Air Force's rapidly aging and antiquated aerial armada, titled "Aging planes, lost jobs worrisome for generals". It is no secret now that America's tanker force which enables our global reach, along with our C-130 cargo planes, essential for our boots on the ground overseas, and the bulk of our mighty long-range bomber force was conceived, bought, and built in the Eisenhower and Kennedy era.

It seems the high costs of modern jet fighters and bombers are forcing on us an increasingly smaller air fleet, even though we are surrounded by constant threats to our security, and a defense budget which is bigger than ever. The Navy, Marines, and Army are experiencing the same difficulties with tanks, warships, and helicopters. In the near future, unless there is a drastic change in the way we procure new weapons, we will likely possess a military smaller in size than some Third World countries.

Our current weapons woes stem from several factors: Congress refusing to allow retirement of obsolete planes to keep numbers high (and bases open). Generals who put off ordering new aircraft, preferring to refit older planes decade after decade (as in the A-10 attack planes, probably our hardest working combat jet.) The main culprit, though, is the immense expense and long gestation periods needed for modern aircraft. An oft-used example is the F-22 Raptor stealth fighter, whose extended life span I'll detail here:

1. 1981-USAF identifies requirement for an Advanced Tactical Fighter to eventually replace the F-15 Eagle.
   
2. 1984-Advanced Tactical Fighter Statement of Operational Need issued.
3. 1985-First funds approved by Congress.
4. 1986-Two teams, Northrop/McDonnell-Douglas and Lockheed/Boeing/General Dynamics are selected to build prototypes.
5. 1990-Flyoffs conducted by the YF-23 and YF-22 prototype fighters.
6. 1991-F-22 selected as the future USAF Advanced Tactical Fighter.
7. 1999-Air Force awards contract to build six F-22 Raptor production-representative test vehicles.
8. 2001-Assembly of the first operational F-22 Raptor fighter.
9. 2005-The F-22A Raptor achieved Initial Operational Capability.
10. 2006-US Air Force Declares F-22A Raptor "Mission Capable".

An astounding 25 years from planning to "mission capable"! Sadly, this isn't the lone example of decades long waiting periods for our pilots, sailors, and troops to receive new weapons. Others include the infamous CV-22 Osprey tiltroter plane, design of which also began in 1981, and is only now entering service. Also, a desperately needed replacement for the F-16 fighter, a plane "conceived in the 1960's", won't be deployed until around 2011 or later.

Fortunately, where technology seems to be forcing obsolescence on traditional fighters, bombers, and cargo planes, it may also provide the answer to our shrinking aircraft inventories. New unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) are finding increasing popularity among soldiers and pilots and have even been tested on submarines. Some are approaching the cost of jet fighters, about $40 million for new combat UAVs, but smaller ones which can fit in a Marine's backpack run only a few hundred thousand dollars.

They might be likened to the first rag-tag biplanes that created air warfare in World War 1. Like the first planes, the UAVs initially were used for aerial reconnaissance, then moved on to attack missions, as we see now in Iraq and Afghanistan. Like the pioneer dog fighters and their machines of wire and canvas, the unmanned vehicles are mere curiosities compared to superfighters like the Raptor, or our invisible B-2 bombers, but are increasingly complementing and will likely surpass these archaic and unaffordable dinosaurs, if history is any judge. The same can be said of other weapons of warfare:

• The attack submarine may outlive surface warships which have been struggling to deal with its menace for most of the last century, as it often duplicates most missions of the vulnerable carriers and destroyers.
  
• Cheaper and easier to build wheeled vehicles, Strykers and MRAPs, are already displacing the tank in the Middle East Conflict.
  
• Highly effective precision bombs have already enabled a few planes and ships to do the work once needed of many, and even smarter bombs should allow us to do away with many of our Industrial Age notions of warfare.

So don't pine too much when you see our giant aerial fleet retired from extreme age, or our surface navy wither and all but disappear, or the last Main Battle Tank sold for a curiosity to some museum. We are not necessarily seeing the demise of American military power, but the harsh growing pains of a new revolution.

Abolishing the Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marines!

Before you start thinking I've become an antiwar, Code Pink type, let me explain. Recently Robert Farley in the American Spectator stirred up a hornet's nest by proposing to scrap the bloated bureaucracy that America's Air Force has become, and spread the aircraft around the other services who might make better use of them. Well, the other services have their own issues with bloated budgets and unneeded weapons, so I propose doing away with all their bureaucracies and starting over.

In the spirit of the 1986 Goldwater/Nichols legislation which sought to induce greater cooperation in the armed forces, I propose creating a Combined Forces Command still under the auspices of the Department of Defense. The separate civilian Secretaries of the Army, Navy, and Air Force would be abolished, and replaced with a military staff, much like our current Joint Chiefs, under a single civilian head at Defense. Considering the enormous R & D and procurement needs of modern weapons, civilian undersecretaries will still be required.

Rather than continuing the expensive and unnecessary competition among individual services, the CFC would consist of separate military theaters, such as :

• Northern Command. Defends the Continental US and surrounding coast regions
• Eastern Command. Responsible for Europe and the Mediterranean Sea region.
• Western Command. The Pacific Ocean Area.
• Southern Command. Africa and Latin America.
• Central Command. The Indian Ocean area and the Middle East.

Each Joint Commander would specify the needs of his particular area, which would involve control of all land, sea, and air assets. Some may require a different mix, such as extra boots on the ground for the Mid East, and increased air and naval assets for the Pacific. Each command structure would be based on its needs, not the tradition of a service bureaucracy.

The Combined Forces would complete the process begun by the National Security Act of 1947, that created the Dept. of Defense and the Air Force, and united the separate Depts. of the Navy and War. The Goldwater/Nichols Act of 1986 also increased joint operations within the armed forces, which expanded the power of the Joint Chiefs Chairman. It would not be a radical change but a sensible and cost efficient evolution. In a sense, we are there already:

• The Air Force and the Navy are increasing forces on Guam in the Western Pacific to counter a rising threat from China.
• The Army continues to counter the rise of radical regimes in the Third World.
• The Marines are seeking a more expeditionary role among littorals regions around the world.

A single training program would be utilized by all the services for new recruits. After graduation from the initial boot camp, trainees would then be placed within the particular field of their choice, whether it include naval, air, or infantry. There would also be single logistics and medical support for all commands.

The allocation of precious defense dollars should be based on threat, not upon the wishes of a single service, which often duplicates the capabilities of each other. Today's warfighter depends on combined arms, including air, land, and sea assets, as much as a 17th Century general looked to his infantry, artillery, and cavalry forces to bring victory on the battlefield.

The Army might think it can win battles with its tanks alone. The Air Force believes that peace can only be achieved by the deterrence of its powerful bomber and missiles forces. The Navy is certain that security can only be maintained through the power of its unprecedented fleet of aircraft carrier task forces. With such a wasteful attitude, strategy is based on the qualities of weapons, rather than the needs of a particular environment where battle is engaged.Establishment of this more efficient Combined Forces Command will do away with unnecessary interservice rivalries, and place it squarely on defeating America's enemies.