WAR 11-19-2022-to-11-25-2022__****THE****WINDS****of****WAR****

[Housecarl]

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(270) 09-17-2022-to-09-23-2022__****THE****WINDS****of****WAR****​

(271) 10-28-2022-to-11-04-2022__****THE****WINDS****of****WAR****

(272) 11-05-2022-to-11-11-2022__****THE****WINDS****of****WAR****​

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WAR - 11-05-2022-to-11-11-2022__****THE****WINDS****of****WAR****

(269) 09-10-2022-to-09-16-2022__****THE****WINDS****of****WAR**** (270) 09-17-2022-to-09-23-2022__****THE****WINDS****of****WAR**** (271) 10-28-2022-to-11-04-2022__****THE****WINDS****of****WAR****...

www.timebomb2000.com

ALERT - RUSSIA INVADES UKRAINE - Consolidated Thread

2:30 Instant Karma -- Russian's Sabotaging People's Boats in Friendly Fire View: https://youtu.be/cmolymnEEnI

www.timebomb2000.com

ALERT - Cruise missile with a dummy nuclear warhead lands in Ukraine

IIRC, this might have been posted buried in one of the other threads. This requires its own thread. IMHO, this was not an "accident", or "Russians running out of munitions" as the story suggests. I also do not believe this missile was shot down. I believe it was landed intentionally where it...

www.timebomb2000.com

OP-ED - A Popular Uprising Against the Elites Has Gone Global | Opinion

Insider Paper @TheInsiderPaper 3h WATCH: Massive protests on the streets of Paris over soaring prices (rising living costs) View: https://twitter.com/TheInsiderPaper/status/1581767115773648897?s=20&t=DhcD031bpGOUuWmJtoqeEA This is what i'm talkin' 'bout!

www.timebomb2000.com

ALERT - The Winds of War Blow in Korea and The Far East

BNO News @BNONews BREAKING: Maximum range of North Korea's new missile includes nearly the entire world, except parts of South America - REU View: https://twitter.com/BNONews/status/1593447759423901698?s=20&t=eXj65vNMVjlRyvOKrZJrdw Funny, I was just talking to one of the guys at work about how...

www.timebomb2000.com

TERRORISM - North Korea test launches ballistic missile capable of striking anywhere in US

fair use and all that jazz... North Korea test launches ballistic missile capable of striking anywhere in US North Korea missile lands 130 miles off Japan's coastline and within Japanese exclusive economic zone North Korea test-launched an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) capable of...

www.timebomb2000.com

WAR - Regional conflict brewing in the Mediterranean

Israel Radar @IsraelRadar_com · 51s Defense minister Gantz in warning to #Iran: Israel has the strongest army in the Middle East and excellent allies...if needed, Israel will take action, and achieve its aims (via @MaarivOnline )

www.timebomb2000.com

BRKG - Texas Guard to send tank like vehicles to border

Its winter. They need all terrain warming booths. Send em a tank.

www.timebomb2000.com

WAR - Main Persian Gulf Trouble thread

Saudi Arabia, U.S. on High Alert After Warning of Imminent Iranian Attack; Saudis said Tehran wants to distract from local protests, and the National Security Council said the U.S. is prepared to respond Tuesday, November 1, 2022, 12:25 PM ET By Dion Nissenbaum Wall Street Journal Saudi Arabia...

www.timebomb2000.com

WAR - CHINA THREATENS TO INVADE TAIWAN

Is clock really ticking down toward a Taiwan war? Jeff Pao 5-7 minutes PLA soldiers in a training formation. Concerns are rising China is preparing for an invasion try on Taiwan. Photo: China's Eastern Theater Command The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) called for boosting the People’s Liberation...

www.timebomb2000.com

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Hummm........

Posted for fair use.....

https://www.realcleardefense.com/articles/2022/11/19/why_america_loses_wars_865793.html

Why America Loses Wars​

By John Waters
November 19, 2022

Clausewitz tells us to measure society’s strength by whether we achieve victory on the battlefield. Victory entails not just destroying the enemy’s fighting capability or claiming his territory, but achieving certain political objectives. American politicians have shown a willingness to end wars without achieving their objectives. In other words, they have shown a willingness to lose.

Precedent was set with the 1953 ceasefire in Korea and upheld when America withdrew from Afghanistan in 2021. It remains unclear whether politicians intended to lose those wars (and others) or merely accepted that the price of victory had become too high, that victory was no longer worth the time or effort required.


Whatever the case, our troops care about winning. Desire for victory is one reason young Americans leave their homes and families to enlist. They join to gain a mission, to make a difference, and to win on the battlefield. Desire for victory was part of the reason our troops performed so well in the fight against terrorism. Ask anyone who served whether they believed their combat deployments were making a difference. Odds are they answer ‘yes’, but acknowledge the overarching policy was misguided if not destined to fail.

No one blames the troops for our failures in Korea, Vietnam, or Afghanistan. Rather, it is “the political leaders who have forgotten that victory matters,” historian and Clausewitz scholar Donald Stoker told me recently over the phone. And since the politicians do not believe that victory matters, our troops have found themselves trapped in endless wars that lead to defeat or stalemate, a doom loop of poor planning-leads-to-poor results, where the pursuit of war itself becomes more important than defeat or victory.

In his book Why America Loses Wars (Cambridge, 2019), Stoker argues that flawed thinking about war, especially limited war, has led to flawed war policy and poor results. And, Stoker anticipates more of the same unless our political leaders clearly define their political objectives and apply the necessary military strategies and resources to achieve those objectives. The following is our conversation on war and politics.

Can you first define “war” for our readers?

War is the use of military force to achieve a political aim. The violence (force) element is pivotal. What you will see argued is that you can have war without violence. That’s wrong. You have rivalry and competition, but war must have politically directed violence, directed at an adversary for a political end.

Your writing is concerned with winning on the battlefield. Define victory.

Achieving your political aim. That’s the one that shines through. When you get what you want, and have the strength or ability to convince the other side to agree to your terms. This is where the complexity of the book comes into play. The most difficult chapter to write was on how to end wars, particularly those wars fought for a limited aim where often you’re not able to impose your will on the enemy. In such situations, it’s difficult to force the other side to come to your point of view, as was the case in the Korean War and the Gulf War, to name a couple of examples. It was too difficult to get the agreements to end those wars on the terms we wanted.

I’ll add that we almost never plan for the ending of a war, which is one reason for our failure to achieve victory in some of our wars since 1945. This is not just a problem for the United States—most countries never plan for the end of a war. The Russo-Japanese War [1904-05] is one of those very few examples where a nation-state (Japan) contemplated in advance exactly how to end the war. Japan thought through the negotiation steps needed to end the conflict on favorable terms. In contrast, the H.W. Bush Administration had thought about the need for a plan to end the Gulf War but didn’t create one. Instead, it had General Schwarzkopf negotiate in a very ad hoc way, and he was criticized for the settlement even though everything he did was approved by the administration.

You are opposed to loose usage of “war” in academia, government, and journalism. The term “limited war” is particularly bothersome. “Hybrid war” as well. To borrow a line from the Smiths: What difference does it make?

I get criticisms sometimes that I’m worrying about nothing, but as you dig into the arguments, you discover that we don’t even agree on basic definitions for “war” and “peace.”

For instance, there’s this constant drumbeat that we’re at war with Russia, that we’re at war with China. I think many terms we use confuse “subversion” and “crime” with actual war. Now, the “gray zone” is a big one used to denote actions occurring in this supposed realm between peace and war, but my point is that people are again misunderstanding “subversion” and elements of Great Power Competition. I think we’re creating new terminology and imaginary complexity that amounts to sloppy thinking. This affects our ability to plan and make war.

Let’s apply these terms. Was the Iraq War a failure?

That depends. You can look at the question several different ways.

First, what were the political aims being sought in the Iraq War? The political aims were to (a) overthrow Saddam Hussein’s regime; and (b) build a democratic Iraq. You can make a good argument that we achieved both aims, but that we did not understand that achieving these aims required different things. Building a democratic Iraq is a completely different political aim and, when the aims are different, usually the ways must be different. The Iraq War certainly killed more people and cost more than it was expected to, but you could argue that the war was a success.

All that said, I don’t like the question. You could certainly argue that we helped create a situation in Iraq that allowed Iran to obtain a dominant position in the country, that this probably would not have happened without overthrowing Saddam Hussein.

Okay. How about the War in Afghanistan. Was it a failure?

Obviously.

We wanted to (a) overthrow the regime; and (b) build a democratic Afghanistan. Then, late last year [2021], we decided we didn’t want to support the regime we created. What we did in Afghanistan failed to achieve the aim. In Iraq, we got our aim but was it worth it? I’m iffy on that. In Afghanistan, we didn’t accomplish our political aim.

But is it a problem of thinking or a problem of will? We knew the political objective of the war: to create security conditions for peace and the development of a new government and military. We also understood the problem: accomplishing the objective would take 100 years.

Both. Loose terminology is a problem of thinking. But it always boils down to will, too.

Clausewitz would say it always comes down to one side’s ability to hold. People would argue that the North Vietnamese or the Afghans were just willing to do it longer.

What if it’s impossible to achieve the aim? I think it’s a fair question to put forward in the context of Afghanistan. I’ve seen it in a couple of books. When Mullah Omar and Karzai cut a deal in early 2002, the administration wouldn’t accept the deal because it was very much an Afghan deal. It was rejected by the administration. Just think if they had taken the deal – what would have happened? It’s a fascinating one to think about.

It’s really tough if you’re in the political decision-making role. You may have to make the decision that you’re willing to lose. That’s the criticism leveled by Peter Bergen at the Biden Administration in Afghanistan, that they decided to lose. But did they really think they were losing the war?

Harry Summers’ book on Vietnam says there was no clear political aim in Vietnam. But it’s very clear from the Kennedy and early Johnson administration documents that these administrations wanted a non-Communist Vietnam. The interesting thing from Summers’ argument is that there are all these flag officers he interviewed who did not know the political aim. It’s as if it was not pushed down the chain. There’s a broken link in the chain.

When you look at the political aims for the Iraq War, it’s very clear that the administration wanted to overthrow the regime and establish a democratic Iraq. But then you have Rumsfeld writing in his correspondence that the goal was not to establish a democratic Iraq. Moreover, the political aim given to the war planners was to overthrow the regime, not to plan for creation of a democratic Iraq. The disconnect between the WH – DoD – ground commanders was huge in the Bush Administration. I think it was very different in the Obama Administration. As far as communicating the political aim, I think there was some improvement in the Obama administration but there was also a real tightening of control at the WH in the Obama administration. Consequently, there was a real loss of strategy in favor of tactical planning. In Ash Carter’s memoir, he writes that the Administration was slow to figure out a strategy to fight the Iraq War in 2014 and beyond. I think there was a lack of emphasis on winning during the Obama Administration.

I’ll add that it’s very weird to see flag officers say that the point of fighting a war is not to win. You’ll see evidence of that dating back to the Korean War. It’s very odd. The class I taught at the Naval War College was essentially on “how to win wars,” but now you’ll see from military officers and politicians and others that the point is not to win the war. If you’re not trying to win the war, how will you ever get to peace? Fighting the war becomes an end. There’s a phenomenon where the war becomes more tactical the longer it goes on, and planners and decision-makers lose sight of the strategic picture.

There is a divergence between the academic’s answer and the participant’s answer. Many veterans believe we won tactically but lost strategically. There is a sense that the people most out-of-touch with war—politicians, bureaucrats, other “experts” in war policy—are the people most responsible for our failure. Can people who never served in war fully understand war?

I think at some levels “yes” and some levels “no.” There’s a friend of mine who spent a year in Iraq and a year in Afghanistan. His father had been an infantryman in Vietnam. He said when he came back from Iraq, his father finally talked to him about Vietnam and the wounds he suffered. He never spoke about the Vietnam War beforehand, maybe because it was too personal and he feared he wouldn’t be understood. Another colleague had a similar experience with a student who had a grandfather who served in World War II. The reason why is because they had someone they knew—someone they knew would understand.

So, yes, I think it’s difficult to really understand the violence and chaos of war unless you’ve experienced it.

You mentioned Clausewitz. I’ve not given you any preparation, but can you apply his “ends,” “ways,” and “means” analysis to the engagement in Ukraine?

I’m probably wrong on this because I’m guessing, but here it goes, from the Ukrainian side:

ENDS – I don’t know. Ukraine wants to secure its independence. Do the Ukrainians also want to retake land they lost in 2014? Some would argue “yes” but we don’t know.

WAYS – depends how you want to slice it. Probably defensive. Attrite the Russians and give ground until Ukraine can mount an offensive. [Which has happened since the interview was conducted]

MEANS – an effort to mobilize the entire country. Zelensky tried to revive the levée on masse at the beginning of the war, from ages 16 to 60. I’m uncertain how well this has worked.

That seems right. Thanks for doing the analysis on the fly.

Sure. And one further note on Clausewitz, if I may.

Of course.

He was first and foremost an infantryman, a soldier. We have this misperception that he was just a staff officer. He was in at least 36 battles. There were weeks where they would fight every day. He was at the Battle of Borodino. He once took a bayonet to the side of the head. He experienced nearly everything about war, from being wounded to being a prisoner of war, to leading in combat. But he also sat in meetings with the Czar. He had vast experience and vast education on war—he built his theoretical approach on all these different things. Bad theory will get you killed, he believed. And so, I’ve taken up that last point by writing this book, an attempt to encourage better thinking about why and how we wage war.

John Waters is a writer in Nebraska.

* The opinions expressed here do not represent the views of the National Defense University, the Eisenhower School, or the U.S. government.


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[Housecarl]

Posted for fair use.....

US partners in Middle East avoid taking sides against China

Also: cryptocurrency takes spotlight in Abu Dhabi and Gargash outlines UAE approach to foreign policy.

www.al-monitor.com

US partners in Middle East avoid taking sides against China​

Also: cryptocurrency takes spotlight in Abu Dhabi and Gargash outlines UAE approach to foreign policy.

November 18, 2022
UAE has “no interest in choosing sides between great powers”

ABU DHABI — Anwar Gargash, Diplomatic Advisor to UAE President Mohammad bin Zayed Al Nahyan, said this week that while “the UAE has no interest in choosing sides between great powers, our primary strategic relationship remains unequivocally with the United States.”

Speaking at the ninth annual Abu Dhabi Strategic Debate organized by the Emirates Policy Center, Gargash said that UAE foreign policy seeks “zero problems” with the region and has staked out a unique space as a conduit and facilitator of diplomacy between East and West.

“As a medium-sized power, we also need to be pragmatic,” said Gargash, and “we sometimes need to engage with people we find distasteful,” adding that the UAE will choose “quiet diplomacy instead of outspoken criticism” in its conduct of foreign policy. See Salim Essaid's report on the topic.

Gargash’s take on the United States and China, the “great powers,” is not unique to the UAE and the Middle East.

In a separate panel discussion on Europe at the debate, a similar theme emerged. While European countries are closer to the United States on China, including regarding concerns about human rights and climate, they are not necessarily all in on making China the focus of their national security strategy, as the United States has done.

For the Middle East and much of the world, the divisions outlined in the US National Security and Defense strategies between democracies and autocracies and between the United States and China foreshadow increasing unease in the region with a likely escalation of the “strategic competition” between Washington and Beijing.

The Biden administration’s security strategy considers the next 10 years a “decisive decade” in dealing with China. The “choices” the US strategy references extend to countries outside the Indo-Pacific to increasingly align with US policy and “deliver results.”

US allies and partners are, according to the strategy, “clear-eyed” about the nature of China's challenges, but the choices required may be increasingly blurry. The question is how long they can continue to opt out.

The case is well presented by Evan Feigenbaum, vice president of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, former US deputy assistant secretary of state and top American China expert.

As the United States increases sanctions and regulatory pressures on Chinese technology firms, Feigenbaum explains, the choice required by countries could include falling afoul of US laws and regulations. While US trade and investment in the Middle East still outpaces China, an “us or them” choice may not be an easy one for the region.

One area where China can't compete is the long-standing close US political and security ties in the Middle East. The region prefers American arms, and China has so far shied away from deepening its security and diplomatic footprints, preferring to keep its focus on investment, trade and energy ties. Howard Shatz has the take here in an Al-Monitor Pro memo.

While there may be some unease in the Gulf with the US security commitment in the region, none of the GCC states consider China a possible substitute, especially to deter and contain Iran. This is what Gargash meant by unequivocal US-UAE security ties.

Showdown at new Abu Dhabi crypto hub

Al-Monitor correspondent Salim Essaid was there at Abu Dhabi Finance Week when Noubil Roubini, chief economist at Atlas Capital, slammed Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao, who had just appeared on the previous panel.

Roubini said that Binance should not be allowed to operate in the UAE, that the crypto currency system was totally corrupt and, in a tweet highlighting his remarks, referred to Galxy Digital CEO Mike Novogratz, who also appeared at the Abu Dhabi Global Market forum, as a “lunatic.”

Both Zhao and Novogratz are “rats and roaches,” Roubini tweeted.

The crypto market has recently lost two-thirds of its peak valuation. Binance is the largest crypto infrastructure provider in the global $1 trillion cryptocurrency industry, reaching more than 120 million users. The company is being investigated by the US Justice Department for possible violations of money-laundering rules, Reuters reported last week.

Meanwhile, Abu Dhabi Global Market (ADGM) launched a crypto hub this week, despite the market downturn. ADGM is an economic free zone subject to its own English common law-based system. The ADGM court system announced this week that it would adopt blockchain technology to seal court rulings. See our report about it.

Salim Essaid breaks down the questions and complexities of the crypto market in the UAE and worldwide, including whether the crux of the challenge is the tradeoffs of high asset returns and inadequate security, faulty regulatory practices or whether the technology that supports the crypto market is flawed to begin with.

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Read more: US partners in Middle East avoid taking sides against China

Read more: US partners in Middle East avoid taking sides against China

 

[Housecarl]

November Sierra Sherlock........

Posted for fair use.....

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine could start a race for nukes, Austin says

The Defense secretary painted a bleak picture for the world, alluding to a scenario in which autocrats will race to acquire the bomb if Russia isn't repelled.

www.politico.com

RUSSIA’S WAR ON UKRAINE

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine could start a race for nukes, Austin says​

The Defense secretary painted a bleak picture for the world, alluding to a scenario in which autocrats will race to acquire the bomb if Russia isn't repelled.

By PAUL MCLEARY and ALEXANDER WARD

11/19/2022 02:44 PM EST

HALIFAX, Nova Scotia — Russia’s invasion of Ukraine could entice autocrats around the world to race to develop nuclear weapons, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said Saturday, potentially sparking a dangerous era of nuclear proliferation.

Moscow has threatened to use tactical nuclear weapons against Ukraine several times over the past nine months, leading to a flurry of phone calls this month between U.S., European and Russian officials trying to tamp down tensions.

A day before he leaves for a multi-day swing through the Indo-Pacific, Austin painted a bleak picture for the world, alluding to a scenario in which autocrats will race to acquire the bomb if Putin isn’t successfully repelled.

“They could well conclude that getting nuclear weapons would give them a hunting license of their own. And that could drive a dangerous spiral of nuclear proliferation,” the secretary said at the Halifax International Security Forum.

Austin further warned that “Putin may resort again to profoundly irresponsible nuclear saber-rattling” as the war drags on and if Ukrainian forces continue their gains against Russian troops.

The secretary said helping to defend Ukraine is in the national interest, and there’s no option but to assist in Kyiv’s fight since peace talks are unlikely any time soon.

The comments come against the backdrop of a new round of missile tests by North Korea, including a recent launch of an intercontinental ballistic missile, moves that have again raised fears that the regime in Pyongyang is increasing the range and sophistication of its nuclear-capable missile arsenal. At the same time, international efforts to revive the Iran nuclear deal have stalled, and Iran has significantly expanded its nuclear program.

Sen. Jim Risch of Idaho, the top Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said he agreed with Austin’s assessment, especially as it pertained to Iran. “If the Iranians got their hands on a nuclear weapon, there’s going to be a stampede of countries in the Middle East and other parts of the world that think they’ve got to have nuclear weapons to respond,” he said. “That is not a small concern. That is a big concern.”


Kirby on nuclear threat: U.S. ‘has seen nothing’ to change ‘strategic deterrent posture’

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There is no indication that Ukraine is ready for negotiations with Russia, even as Russian forces pull back in Ukraine’s south and Russian missile strikes pound civilian infrastructure throughout the country, turning off the lights, heat and water in Kyiv and other major cities.


During his own Halifax address, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy appeared to say that Moscow had asked Kyiv for a “short truce.” But one of his top aides, presidential office chief Andriy Yermak, clarified that Russia made no direct request for a temporary pause in fighting.

NATO’s top military official, Adm. Rob Bauer, had exchanged a series of letters over the course of this year with the head of the Russian military Gen. Valery Gerasimov, a back-and-forth cut off by the Russian general several weeks ago, Bauer told POLITICO on the sidelines of the event.

“I’m not in his head, but if I have to guess then I would say it didn’t serve him to contact me,” Bauer said, adding that Gerasimov demanded that NATO stop supplying Ukraine with weapons. “He basically said in his last communication that he doesn’t want to talk until NATO backs off” from supporting Ukraine.

Bauer pointed out that the weapons and military aid supplied to Ukraine are provided by individual NATO member states, but the Kremlin equates that to contributions by the alliance itself.

He said Gerasimov told him in last communication: “you’re part of the problem.”

 

[Housecarl]

Posted for fair use.....

China's new submarine-launched missiles capable of reaching US from its own waters

The weapons have been built to 'threaten the United States', the commander of Washington's Pacific Fleet has said

www.telegraph.co.uk

China's new submarine-launched missiles capable of reaching US from its own waters​

The weapons have been built to 'threaten the United States', the commander of Washington's Pacific Fleet has said

By David Millward 20 November 2022 • 5:56pm

China has deployed a new generation of long-range ballistic missiles on nuclear submarines capable of hitting the US from the safety of its own waters....

 

[Housecarl]

Hummm.....(ETA: And this doesn't even really get into the deficit in recruiting vs the needed strength to operate what's needed in the first place...HC)

Posted for fair use.....

The Bias For Capability Over Capacity Has Created a Brittle Force - War on the Rocks

The military brass has been sounding the alarm about the imminence of a potential Chinese attack on Taiwan. But this urgency is not reflected in the

warontherocks.com

THE BIAS FOR CAPABILITY OVER CAPACITY HAS CREATED A BRITTLE FORCE​

MACKENZIE EAGLEN
NOVEMBER 17, 2022
COMMENTARY

The military brass has been sounding the alarm about the imminence of a potential Chinese attack on Taiwan. But this urgency is not reflected in the Pentagon’s budget. Last month, the Chief of Naval Operations, Adm. Mike Gilday, said he needs to prepare his service for potential aggression against Taiwan this year. But by prioritizing capability over capacity in its spending, Washington risks inviting the aggression it seeks to deter.

Over the past nine fiscal years, budget after budget has traded away combat power, truncated needed weapons early, and permanently closed production lines. As a result, margins in the force are dangerously low, readiness is still recovering, and America’s conventional and nuclear deterrents are at their nadir. Yet Pentagon leaders continue to sacrifice capacity, as measured by fleets, inventories, and their associated force structure, in the fervent belief that Beijing will not attempt to forcibly reunify Taiwan in the next five years.

This rosy assumption flies in the face of China’s recent actions and ignores the reality that robust capacity is what the United States needs to bolster deterrence and avoid the war that the United States seeks to win later. Pentagon leaders would be wise to better balance investments for deterrence and the warfight before both are weakened. If military leaders truly believe Beijing is prepared to act sooner than anticipated, they should focus on what can be built and fielded in this decade.

2027 Is Here and Now for Pentagon Bureaucracy

The Pentagon’s 2023 budget request seeks to build just eight new Navy ships while cutting 24. The five-year plans would have the Navy continue to shrink down to 280 ships by fiscal year 2027 — the same year defense civilians say the force must be ready to defend Taiwan. Worse, 16 of the ships proposed to be scrapped still have service life left. Meanwhile, the replacements for these platforms won’t reach operational status until 2030.

Cutting vast amounts of legacy weapons to pay for bets on developmental technologies suffers from several flaws. First, it discounts developmental risk and focuses on technology before operational concepts. Second, it ignores massive deferred modernization bills coming due now. And third, it underinvests in sustainable equipment choices.

This is more than a strategy of “divest to invest.” The U.S. Navy, in the case of at least one of its modernized Aegis cruisers and some of its more recently procured littoral combat ships, is in effect proposing a strategy of “invest-to-divest.” In terms of the littoral combat ships, that means the Navy has poured billions of dollars into ships that it is now seeking to decommission, even as some of them were put into service as recently as 2019 and 2020.

The Air Force is following the same playbook, seeking to cut needed platforms almost as soon as they reach initial operational capability. Sometimes doctrine changes allow for this shift, but other times it is done simply to meet reduced budget bogies. That is not only a waste of effort but a waste of taxpayer funds. It also launches a knowable acquisition death spiral. Buying fewer units means costs increase, which triggers a Nunn-McCurdy breach, which often leads to schedule slips and more program cuts.

Besides, for a bureaucracy as large as the U.S. military, 2027 is basically the same as today. The process that stretches from desire to planning to requirements to approval to bid to contract award to research to fielding at scale takes three to five years at best. This why it is so problematic that the current wave of early retirements and mass divestments all come when follow-on or replacement capability is frequently stalled or delayed. This creates a gap in combat power at a time when there are no gaps in global threats.

Take the always-busy airborne early warning and control airplane (AWACS). The Air Force wants to retire half the fleet of 31 aircraft this year, but leaders say there will be “a capability gap as new capabilities … are being developed.” The Air Force is cutting its planned purchase of Joint Strike Fighters while doubling its purchase of F-15EXs in this request. But these are two different fighter capabilities that meet separate requirements. Buying more of one tactical fighter doesn’t free up the other one to conduct more missions.

The near-term shrinking and aging is playing out across all the services in the current budget request. The Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff recently confirmed this, stating the forthcoming third iteration of the Joint Warfighting Concept “recognizes gaps in the current force’s capability.” Another official in the Air Force characterized the situation aptly, noting that, “By any measure, we have departed the era of conventional overmatch” vis-à-vis China. Beijing has “advanced so far and so fast in its air and space power that the Air Force’s ability to deter through conventional forces is at risk.”

The Link Between Capacity and Readiness

Volume is crucial to maintain healthier readiness levels across the armed forces. The Congressional Budget Office has shown that both the Navy and the Air Force saw fleet-wide declines in aircraft availability rates between 2001 and 2019. Fewer airframes to employ means pilots fly less, which leads to reduced readiness. In Fiscal Year 2021, active-duty pilots averaged 10.1 flying hours per month, putting them at 121.2 hours per year. That is about 80 fewer hours than the number that the Air Force believes necessary for peak readiness.

Fewer planes available to fly also means fewer planes that can be put into a fight. And in a high-end conflict with a peer adversary like China, the United States would need to deploy as many planes as possible, given the likelihood that nearly half of the Air Force and Navy inventory could be destroyed. Sufficient capacity also depends on sufficient personnel and maintenance periods. In these, too, the services are struggling. The Army came up 25 percent short of its target recruiting goal for FY22. The entire Air Force was down 1,650 pilots in FY2021, while the Navy was short 587 officers in FY22 across both the active force and reserves.

As the military struggles to bring in new talent, units will become overworked and undermanned as they’ll be forced to pick up the tasks that would otherwise have been assigned to new recruits. That will put the military into a retention crisis, further shrinking the force and reducing readiness. To take just one example of how this is playing out, the Pacific Air Forces’ crisis response forces are currently five squadrons short of requirements.

It’s clear that the services need both size and strength as they seek to deter Beijing. All these factors — steep weapons retirements, high operating tempo, and degraded readiness — create reinforcing feedback loops. As fewer aircraft and pilots are available for the same number of missions, for example, existing fleets are driven into the ground as man and machine are worn out faster.

Continued....

 

[Housecarl]

Continued.....

Even though the force is too small to meet global demand and modernize at the same time, the White House is opposed to many provisions in the Senate’s defense policy bill that seek to prop up the capacity of the armed forces until replacements can be fielded later this decade. That opposition is largely due to the Pentagon attempting to resource its defense strategy through a three-Future Years Defense Program approach, which over-weights developing the capabilities of the early 2030s rather than on maintaining and procuring the capabilities of today.

Cull Research and Development, Build New Old Equipment

One cause of this temporary disarmament is an overemphasis on the warfight at the expense of competition and deterrence. If a system doesn’t “survive the threat ring” in Asia, it is on the chopping block for budget cuts. But the U.S. military also prevents wars, and capacity can act as a deterrent in its own right.

Buying less capability now makes little sense when the potential for hostility is increasingly near. What’s more, size matters, not just technology. Relying on capability alone to win the day will only allow America’s armed forces to get smaller, older, and less ready. Instead, mass and attrition should return as foundational force-planning principles for the U.S. military. Putting more mass in theater doesn’t mean that it’s all just cannon fodder. In fact, the aim of purchasing and fielding more platforms is to increase U.S. military capacity precisely in order to deter war.

In other words, the military needs more stuff and it needs it fast. What it doesn’t need are platforms irrelevant for a fight in the Pacific or those that could be fielded, at the earliest, a decade from now. It needs existing capabilities that can not only act as a bridge for next-generation platforms but are useful for winning and deterring war in the Indo-Pacific and maintaining presence forward to prevent conflict.

However, the Defense Department can’t purchase more unless it has enough funds in the right appropriations account. That’s why resetting the procurement to research and development ratio is important. In the administration’s budget request for FY23, that ratio is 1.11 to 1. This is a far cry from the days of the Reagan administration’s buildup, when a ratio of 2.74 to 1.00 produced much of the equipment that our military uses today.

A healthy and feasible ratio is closer to 2.25 to 1. To meet the threat from China, policymakers should shift $45 billion per annum from research and development into procurement over the next five years. Given that ongoing support for Ukraine is straining some key U.S. military supplies, Washington should be concerned that the China fight would demand even more and faster.

Trading away capacity — especially before the promised next-generation technology arrives — results in a force with tiered modernization incapable of carrying out the full ambitions of the defense strategy. Even if the ongoing efforts at transformation succeed, without creating more capacity in the meantime it will lead to an unbalanced military, reduce the efficiency and cost savings of the acquisition system, and leave future policymakers with fewer and worse choices. By narrowly focusing on one future scenario, policymakers are too quick to retire and divest from the so-called legacy systems that maintain deterrence through daily global presence missions.

The Path Forward

Crucially, not all legacy systems are created — or recreated — equal. New technologies often need a platform with which to partner and demo. As the future is fielded, all the military services will be a blended mix of old and new. The Army of 2030 will only modernize about half the total Army when complete. Given the constant mix of new and old — or enduring and legacy — equipment, leaders must carefully consider what legacy systems are worth keeping and updating.

Legacy systems can keep capacity from sliding even further and possibly be useful in war, whether as tech playgrounds or by being updated and given entirely new missions. The Pentagon should avoid throwing aside older weapons systems in favor of wholesale investments in new technologies and platforms. While modernization is necessary, the Department of Defense does not have the time, track record, or funding to rapidly field replacements to legacy systems. Besides, in many cases the Pentagon doesn’t need entirely new systems: It only needs new tech on old stuff. Invention and innovation are not the same thing. The Pentagon was the inventor from the 1940s through the 80s but now must be the innovator — using existing platforms to put things together that already exist to create a different and better outcome.

For instance, the 70-year-old B-52 bomber can carry high-tech standoff munitions, while the 36-year-old B-1 bomber is now being considered to carry hypersonic weapons. Rather than retiring legacy systems before they have a suitable replacement, the services should start thinking creatively about how to employ them now.

With more procurement dollars, the Pentagon should focus on maxing out production lines in a few key areas. First, it should expand yard capacity and then place orders for more destroyers, oilers, and attack submarines. It should also place orders for large amphibious and amphibious assault ships, and eventually, the light amphibious warship that can rapidly deliver marines in the event of a contingency.

As Ukraine has demonstrated, wars require a massive amount of things that blow up. Munitions production should rise across the board, not only to replenish stocks drawn down to aid Ukraine but to grow reserves. Special attention should be paid to increasing anti-ship weapons, like the Long-Range Anti-Ship Missile, currently produced at such a slow rate that the Navy and Air Force will have a paltry 629 combined by 2027.

The military also needs more F-35s and expendable drones, as well as expanded logistics support and long-haul capacity in the form of C-130s. The Army will need more manned cargo and attack helicopters for bridge capacity while it awaits Future Vertical Lift. This isn’t an exhaustive list of investments and reforms that should be made but are first steps to increasing capacity in the Indo-Pacific.

The armed forces need more equipment, higher readiness, and greater urgency to deter Beijing. The imbalance in the three-legged stool of capability, readiness, and capacity is sure to invite the very aggression that trading capacity for capability is intended to avoid.

Mackenzie Eaglen is a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. She has previously worked in Congress and at the Defense Department as well as staff to three previous national defense strategy commissions.

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Lamborn signals continuity in House space focus, tows harder nuclear line - Breaking Defense

Pentagon acquisition of space systems needs to be "faster and leaner," stressed Rep. Doug Lamborn, R-Colo., who is expected to chair the House strategic forces subcommittee next year.

breakingdefense.com

• CONGRESS, NUCLEAR WEAPONS, SPACE

Lamborn signals continuity in House space focus, tows harder nuclear line​

Pentagon acquisition of space systems needs to be "faster and leaner," stressed Rep. Doug Lamborn, R-Colo., who is expected to chair the House strategic forces subcommittee next year.​

By THERESA HITCHENS
on November 18, 2022 at 10:25 AM

WASHINGTON — Rep. Doug Lamborn, the Colorado Republican who is expected to take over as chairman of the House strategic forces subcommittee next year, recently made clear that Space Force’s congressional overseers would continue their long-standing focus on space acquisition reform.

However, he also signaled a slightly harder line on the nuclear weapons issues for which the subcommittee also is responsible — for example, citing his “disagreement” with the Biden administration’s cancellation of the the Navy’s nuclear Sea-Launched Cruise Missile (SLCM-N) program.

During a conference sponsored by Politico Wednesday, Lamborn said that with regard to space, he is “focusing on acquisition; we have to be faster and leaner.”


He further echoed the conventional wisdom within Congress, and more recently within the Space Force, that the military space architecture needs to move away from its current structure based on small numbers of large, highly capable satellites towards a more resilient one comprising large numbers of smaller satellites dispersed across various orbital regimes.

“Instead of the exquisite and expensive but vulnerable, huge satellites that do a lot of functions very exquisitely, we have to have, let’s say a constellation — a disaggregated array of smaller satellites that can do the same thing, but can be easily replaced if some of them are taken out in a conflict,” he said.

Lamborn noted that the shift in force design for military space should, in itself, help spur speedier acquisition and at the same time lower the enormous costs associated with current satellite systems. (For instance, the five Next Generation Overhead Persistent Infrared system missile warning satellites are projected by the Pentagon to require $12 billion in funds between fiscal 2023 and 2027.)

The need for changes in the sclerotic and byzantine space acquisition process was the primary driver behind congressional support for the creation of a Space Force — support led by Rep. Jim Cooper, D-Tenn., outgoing strategic forces subcommittee chair, and Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Ala., now expected to take the reins of the House Armed Services Committee.


Cooper — who is retiring this year after he said the Tennessee Republican Party successfully gerrymandered away his Nashville district — told Politico that “we’ve still got a lot of work to do” in fixing space acquisition, but the “Space Force is making progress.”

However, Cooper voiced some concern about the fact that the service still has three separate arms responsible for developing and fielding satellite systems: Space Systems Command, the Space Rapid Capabilities Office and, since October, the Space Development Agency.

“It worries me that we have to have three but I’d rather have redundancy than to have insufficiently fielded satellites,” Cooper said. He also voiced caution against an acquisition strategy that relies too heavily on what is currently available in the commercial market, rather than focusing on keeping military space technology at least a decade ahead.

“My goal is not just to be good shoppers from the commercial market, because remember, the United States is on the verge of not being the biggest market in the world. And some of our companies are going to be tempted to serve the biggest market in the world, which is not us,” he said, clearly referencing China.

“So, what we really want are technologies that are a decade or more ahead of the commercial sector,” he explained. “And that’s a very difficult thing to field today, because people are able to be billionaires if they go ahead and take it to market. Who’s going to forego the opportunity to be a billionaire with their invention?”

Nuclear Division

With regard to nuclear weapons, Cooper and Lamborn both expressed strong support for the Biden administration’s expansive, and expensive, nuclear modernization program, which in essence continues along the path originally outlined by President Barack Obama.

“We need to continue the modernization that was begun under Barack Obama. I applaud him for this,” Lamborn said. “It’s taking some money, but these weapons are aging — some of the components aren’t even replaceable anymore because they’re old and obsolete.”

Stressing that the goal is not to build new weapons but upgrade the current arsenal, Lamborn said the key is keeping US nuclear forces reliable.

“We have a nuclear umbrella that about 30 countries depend on us for, and so reliability is a big issue for everyone, not to mention potential adversaries. We have to have that deterrence factor based on the reliability of our nuclear enterprise,” he said.

At the same time, Lamborn chided the Biden administration for its plan, codified in the recently released Nuclear Posture Review, to cancel SLCM, citing its usefulness as a middle rung on the nuclear escalation ladder and thus aid in deterring nuclear-armed adversaries.

“I think that that is a mid-range capability that we should at least have in our toolbox. If you have an all-or-nothing approach, that can lead to awkward situations,” he said. “Having a mid-approach, like a smaller yield nuclear cruise missile from a submarine, at least tells an adversary, ‘Okay, there’s more doubt about me getting what I want.'”

Lamborn said that he expects the ongoing House and Senate negotiations on the 2023 National Defense Authorization Act to end up with some research and development funds being authorized for the SLCM-N, but with a bar on spending towards making it operational.

The House Armed Services Committee’s version of the NDAA would give the Navy $45 million for the effort; their Senate counterparts slated $25 million.

“That’s a good interim status,” he said.

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[jward]

The Real Cost of Breaking Saudi-U.S. Ties​

by David B. Ottaway​

---

In late August 2001, then-Saudi crown prince Abdullah sent a fiery letter to President George W. Bush threatening to freeze political, military, and security cooperation with the United States unless he acted to halt a particularly bloody incursion by the Israeli military into the West Bank town of Hebron. Abdullah signaled he meant business by calling home a Saudi military delegation on a visit to Washington.
Abdullah’s initial twenty-five pages of talking points for his Bush letter were so menacing that Saudi ambassador Prince Bandar bin Sultan felt he had to tone it down to avoid a break in U.S.-Saudi relations. Still, the crux of the letter, as Bandar recounted and I detailed in my 2008 book The King’s Messenger, was: “You go your way. I go my way.”
What prevented that from happening was a far more serious crisis in U.S.-Saudi relations just two weeks later on September 11. Nineteen Arab terrorists hijacked three American commercial airliners and crashed one of them into the Twin Towers in New York and another into the Pentagon building, killing nearly 3,000 people. It turned out that fifteen of the hijackers were Saudis, and so was their inspiration, Osama bin Laden.

In the wake of 9/11, relations deteriorated so badly that it took Bush and Saudi rulers four years to put them more or less back on track while the American media continued to heatedly debate whether Saudi Arabia was a friend or foe. It also took two meetings between Bush and Abdullah at the president’s Texas ranch before the two sides devised a restart to the badly damaged relationship. Their first meeting was a near disaster. But their second meeting, in April 2005, was a success, with Bush taking hold of Abdullah’s hand to lead him up the path to his ranch.
Both sides had done their homework. Abdullah presented a plan for an increase in Saudi oil production capacity by almost 3 million barrels a day by 2010. They set up a permanent joint committee headed by their foreign ministers and formed six subcommittees to deal with every aspect of the relationship, from security and fighting terrorism to building closer economic ties. One subcommittee even addressed their “respective concerns” about each other as a result of 9/11. They agreed, too, on a massive scholarship program for Saudis to study in the United States that saw tens of thousands of Saudis attending American universities at Abdullah’s personal expense. The two sides also laid the groundwork for the additional Saudi purchase of $60 billion of U.S. arms.

The question naturally arises whether a similar approach would work today to patch up America’s fast-unraveling ties with the kingdom. Doing so promises to prove even harder than overcoming the post-9/11 crisis. Failure would mark the end of the longest alliance the United States has had with any Middle East nation since World War II.
If there is any chance for success, it is worthwhile reflecting on why the Bush approach worked. First and probably foremost, the American president and the Saudi crown prince were able to set aside their considerable personal and political animosity. Neither leader wanted to see a divorce despite the fallout from 9/11, which had left Congress and the American public up in arms against the kingdom. Bush went out of his way to demonstrate a renewed personal camaraderie by leading Abdullah hand in hand up the garden path to the front door of his Crawford, Texas, ranch.
The 2005 reconciliation also worked because the United States and Saudi Arabia had found a very strong common cause in fighting the massive upsurge in international terrorism, particularly after Bin Laden’s Al Qaeda launched a campaign of terrorist attacks inside the kingdom starting in 2003.

It is also important to remember that in 2005, the United States was importing 12 to 13 million barrels of crude oil and products per day to meet consumer demand, and that Saudi Arabia was either the first or second most important source of U.S. crude oil supplies. The kingdom was also a leading purchaser of U.S. arms, and Bush and Abdullah set in motion the largest deal yet—the $60 billion purchase that President Barack Obama announced five years later.
The contrast to today’s state of affairs between the two countries is striking from the very top on down. President Joe Biden began his time in office by declaring his intention to render Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) an international pariah in retaliation for the 2018 murder of Jamal Khashoggi. Biden’s trip to the kingdom in July to patch up his personal relations with MBS and get more Saudi oil on the market proved a disaster. Subsequently, MBS instead cut Saudi oil production, assuring high prices at the pump during November’s congressional elections. It is hard to see any improvement in their personal relations, certainly not an invitation from Biden to MBS to come hold hands outside his home in Delaware.

Nor have Biden and MBS so far found a common cause similar to the war on terrorism, which helped bolster the two countries’ ties in 2005. Oil has become a sorely divisive issue in the U.S.-Saudi relationship. The United States has become the world’s number one producer and a rival exporter, explaining in part why Saudi Arabia has had to forge an alliance with Russia to maintain much higher prices. Nor has MBS shown any interest in lining up with the United States and Western Europe in their new Cold War-like feud with Russia.
Moreover, Biden has said there will be “consequences” for Saudi Arabia pushing the OPEC+ oil cartel to declare a cut of 2 million barrels per day at its early October meeting. What these might be remains to be seen.

Iran’s nuclear ambitions now loom as a real brake on Biden moving toward a divorce in the seventy-five-year-old U.S-Saudi marriage. Preventing Iran from obtaining a nuclear bomb is fast becoming the missing common cause that might well serve to extend the life of the increasingly-fraught partnership. Common fears of a nuclear Iran may also become the catalyst for Saudi Arabia to raise its relationship with Israel from secretly below the table to publicly above.
Biden’s special representative for Iran, Rob Malley, has said the United States will not “waste [its] time” on the continuation of negotiations to revive the 2015 Iran nuclear deal and repeated the president’s commitment to never allow Iran to obtain the nuclear bomb, even if it requires using the military option.
With military confrontation with Iran looming, this hardly seems the opportune moment to freeze U.S.-Saudi military and security cooperation. This is what cutting off or suspending arms sales to the kingdom—the proposal of an increasing number of lawmakers—seems certain to achieve.
Before taking such a consequential step, the Biden administration would do well to weigh whether exercising the military option against Iran requires a role for Saudi Arabia in its success.

Momentum is certainly growing in Washington for the United States and Saudi Arabia to finally go their separate ways. But they both need to figure out how they intend to deal with the prospect of a nuclear Iran before they do so.

David B. Ottaway is a Middle East fellow at the Wilson Center. He just released a book about contemporary Saudi Arabia, Mohammed bin Salman: The Icarus of Saudi Arabia? His book before that, co-authored with his wife, Marina, is A Tale of four Worlds: the Arab Region After the Uprising, published by Oxford University Press in 2019. He worked 35 years for The Washington Post as a foreign correspondent in the Middle East, Africa and Southern Europe and later as a national security and investigative reporter in Washington before retiring in 2006. He has won numerous awards for his reporting at home and abroad and was twice a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. Ottaway received a BA from Harvard, magna cum laude, and a PhD from Columbia University.

The Real Cost of Breaking Saudi-U.S. Ties

With military confrontation with Iran looming, this hardly seems the opportune moment to freeze U.S.-Saudi military and security cooperation.

nationalinterest.org

 

[jward]

A lil somethin-somethin from the way back machine:

The V-2 Rocket: Changing The Trajectory Of Warfare​

Dr. Charlie Hall

---

It's difficult to overstate the significance of the V-2 rocket. Named the A-4 (Aggregat 4) by German Army Ordnance, the rocket was dubbed “Vergeltungswaffe Zwei” (“Vengeance Weapon Two”) by the Nazi propaganda ministry in 1944. The world’s first liquid-propellant rocket vehicle to be built in large numbers and the first ballistic missile, the V-2’s shadow extends well into the 20th century — with its design inspiring many modern-day rockets and launch vehicles.

Even Russia's invasion of Ukraine and its use of short-range ballistic missiles early on, as well as other standoff weapons today, from repurposed surface-to-air missiles to Iranian drones, to target civilian infrastructure and rain terror on population centers can draw a line to the use of Germany's 'Vengeance Weapons' in a similar manner nearly eight decades prior.
Now, historian Dr. Charlie Hall traces the history of the V-2 from its Nazi origins to its impact on intercontinental ballistic missile development later in the 20th century. In the first of three special articles, he explores the development of the V-2 in World War II and its early post-war afterlife.

Part One: The Dawn of the Missile Age
On September 8, 1944, the face of warfare was forever changed. This transformation was first felt on Staveley Road in Chiswick, a leafy and affluent part of west London, at approximately 6:45 PM. An explosion rocked the surrounding houses even though there were no bomber aircraft overhead and the air raid siren had not sounded. The explosion caused thousands of pounds worth of damage and claimed three lives — 63-year-old Ada Harrison, three-year-old Rosemary Clarke, and Sapper Bernard Browning, on leave from the Royal Engineers. These three unfortunate souls were the first-ever victims of a ballistic missile attack.

The aftermath of a V-2 rocket strike at Tewkesbury Terrace, Bounds Green Road, Southgate, London, September 16, 1944. Photo by Daily Mirror/Mirrorpix via Getty Images
The weapon which had killed them was the V-2 rocket, launched by a Nazi artillery unit stationed just outside The Hague in the Netherlands, some 200 miles from Chiswick. Traveling faster than the speed of sound, it arrived without warning; the rushing noise it made as it hurtled to earth could only be heard after it had hit its target. Its payload was a one-ton high-explosive warhead, which shattered windows, knocked down walls, and left an enormous crater in the middle of the street.

The speed and surprise of its arrival, and the destruction that it delivered, made the V-2 the herald of a new era of warfare. Every long-range ballistic missile used since 1944 has been built on the foundations laid by the V-2. Not just that, but the technology which allowed the Nazis to kill three people in Chiswick on a September evening in 1944, also took the first men to the moon, less than 25 years later, in July 1969.

View of the Apollo 11 rocket standing with its gantry on the launch pad at Kennedy Space Center, Cape Canaveral, Florida, July 16, 1969. The rocket served in the first American manned lunar mission, with Neil Armstrong, Michael Collins, and Edwin Aldrin. Photo by Hulton Archive/Getty Images.

Despite its dark roots, the V-2 is an icon of twentieth-century warfare and of technological accomplishment. Surviving examples stand today in the atria of both the Imperial War Museum in London and the National Air and Space Museum in Washington, DC, exemplifying its ability to straddle two worlds. In this article, I will sketch out how the V-2 was developed, the story of its deployment during World War II, and how its true potential was not fully realized until after 1945.
The arrival of the V-2 in September 1944 may have come as a shock to the people of London, but its development had been underway for many years, and the foundations on which it was based can be traced back to the 1920s.
After World War I, Europe and the U.S. underwent a major surge in public interest in science and technology. Its potential for violent destruction had been seen on the battlefields of Belgium and northern France, but now there was a desire to see how it could be wielded for more peaceful ends.

Rocketry was just one area of newly enthusiastic scientific endeavor. Far-sighted engineers, like Robert Goddard in the U.S. and Hermann Oberth in Germany, not only conducted pioneering experiments but actively sought to whip up public support for this new technology. Oberth even served as technical advisor on Frau im Mond, a path-breaking and remarkably realistic science fiction film directed by Fritz Lang, about a rocket-powered journey to the moon.

Woman in the Moon (aka Frau im Mond) poster, 1929. Photo by LMPC via Getty Images.

Young people across the world were inspired by these experiments, and their fictional representations, leading many to pursue careers in engineering. Chief among these individuals, at least as far as the story of the V-2 goes, was Wernher von Braun. Born in 1912 in Prussia to a wealthy family – his father was a politician and civil servant, his mother a member of the minor nobility – he developed a passion for astronomy, and an aptitude for physics and mathematics, while still a child.

When he turned 18, he began his studies in mechanical engineering at the Technical University of Berlin, and also joined fellow enthusiastic amateurs in the Spaceflight Society. In 1934, he completed his doctorate in physics at Friedrich-Wilhelm University and began his career just as Adolf Hitler was consolidating power. Hitler’s ambitions for a major war of domination in Europe meant that there was demand, and thus funding, for a military rocketry program. Von Braun – ever the pragmatist – set aside his dreams of space travel and followed the money, beginning work on a long-range ballistic missile for the Nazis.

Wernher von Braun (in the driver’s seat) and two colleagues, conducting early rocket experiments in 1931. Unknown author/Wikimedia Commons.

By the time war broke out in 1939, von Braun was technical director of a massive army research center at Peenemünde, on Germany’s Baltic coast, where he was responsible for developing the A-4 – a missile that would later be known as the V-2. In July 1943, von Braun and his associates traveled to Hitler’s secret Wolf’s Lair headquarters and screened a short film of a V-2 launch. The Fuhrer was so impressed that he reportedly said, “if we had had these rockets in 1939, we should never have had this war.” Orders were given to commence mass production.

One month later, plans were thrown into disarray when the Royal Air Force conducted a major bombing raid on Peenemünde, as they suspected it was being used to produce rockets. The raid was only a limited success, but it did force the Nazi regime to move the rocket manufacturing facilities to an underground factory, known as the Mittelwerk, built into the Harz Mountains at Nordhausen, where this top-priority project would be safe from any further Allied bombs.

Mittelwerk underground V-2 production facility. Unknown author/Wikimedia Commons.

Here, in horrendous conditions, slave laborers from the nearby Dora concentration camp were worked to death on the production of V-2 rockets. Laboring and living far underground, they were deprived of fresh air and natural light, as well as food and rest, and were subject to the arbitrary violence of their SS guards. Indeed, more people died building the V-2 than were ever killed by it in action.
By the time the first V-2 rocket hit London, World War II had less than a year left to run, and the tide had firmly turned against Germany. The Red Army’s hard-won victory at Stalingrad in early 1943 had been followed by the steady rollback of Nazi forces in the East, while June 1944 had seen troops from the U.S., Britain, Canada and their allies land in Normandy and begin their assault from the West. Hitler knew he needed a dramatic transformation in fortunes if he had any hope of staving off a terrible defeat.

As such, he ordered the beginning of the vengeance weapon campaign. Vengeance Weapon 1 (or V-1) was a flying bomb (an early cruise missile) that had been developed by the Luftwaffe in parallel with the V-2. The first of these were launched against Britain on June 13, 1944, only a week after D-Day. They proved a nasty shock to those in the firing line but a series of counter-measures – anti-aircraft fire, barrage balloons, and attack by fighter aircraft – meant that their impact could quickly be reduced.

A V1 flying bomb, or Doodlebug, on show at Roote's, Piccadilly, London, November 1, 1944. A sign next to the bomb reads "This is an actual flying bomb." Photo by A. R. Coster/Topical Press Agency via Getty Images.

 

[jward]

Then, in September, as we have seen, Vengeance Weapon 2, or the V-2, arrived. There were no adequate countermeasures against this faster-moving missile and Allied commanders knew the only solution was to overrun the launch sites in France and the Low Countries.
Londoners faced with this new threat throughout the autumn and winter of 1944-45 responded in various ways. Some reacted with abject terror: “It’s awful isn’t it? You never know whether you’re going to be here from one moment to the next.” Others were more fatalistic: “What I say is if your name’s on it you’ll get it. No good worrying ‘cos you can’t do anything about it.”

Damage following a V-2 strike in Aldgate, London, November 10, 1944. Photo by Daily Mirror/Mirrorpix via Getty Images.

Both of these responses would no doubt have pleased Hitler, who knew the best hope of the V-2s – too few in number and too inaccurate to seriously cripple infrastructure or industry – was to deal a powerful blow to the morale of war-weary civilians. He would perhaps have been less thrilled with the comments of one 90-year-old woman who, when asked what she thought of the rockets, replied “The rockets, dearie? I can’t say I’ve ever noticed them.”

Certainly, the V-2 did not live up to Nazi hopes of it being a war-winning weapon. It had almost no effect on the course of a conflict which was already being decided by the sheer volume of resources – weapons, raw materials, finances, manpower – available to the Allies. But it is perhaps unfair to judge the V-2 against such unrealistic criteria.
London was hit by 1,115 V-2 rockets over a seven-month period, each of which delivered a one-ton explosive warhead. This resulted in the destruction of 20,000 houses and the loss of 2,855 lives. For comparison, over just two days in February 1945, Allied bombers dropped 3,900 tons of explosives and incendiaries on Dresden, resulting in approximately 24,000 fatalities and the obliteration of a 1,600-acre area in the city center.

The ruins of Dresden after the Allied bombing of February 1945. Universal Images Group via Getty Images.
The Nazi regime could not produce the V-2 in great enough numbers, or ensure they hit their target with sufficient frequency, to make a serious dent in the Allied war effort. Moreover, the resources needed to sustain the V-2 program were so substantial that they left other, perhaps more valuable, parts of the German war machine, such as fighter aircraft, neglected. The physicist Freeman Dyson, who worked for the RAF during the war, commented that the Nazis’ focus on the V-2 “was almost as good as if Hitler had adopted a policy of unilateral disarmament.”

Some have surmised that the V-2 ultimately arrived too late to turn the tide of the war back in Germany’s favor. However, it is perhaps more accurate to suggest that the V-2 arrived too soon – before the advent of guidance technology sophisticated enough to guarantee real accuracy – to fully realize its true potential.
It was that potential, however, that ensured the V-2 had a lifespan beyond World War II. As soon as the Nazis signed the unconditional surrender on May 8, 1945 – and in some cases beforehand – Allied officials began combing through the laboratories, factories, and research facilities of the ruined Reich, looking to extract anything of worth developed, produced, or invented by Germany during the war.

British soldiers sat atop a captured V-2 rocket, October 1945. Photo credit: Frank Micklethwaite, courtesy of Andy Micklethwaite.

The V-2 was practically at the top of that list. It offered visions of a new type of warfare that could be fought at great distance without needing to put one’s own soldiers or aircrews into harm’s way. With the advent of the atomic age after the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945, it seemed like the ideal delivery system for these new and supremely powerful warheads. One American journalist, writing just two weeks after the atomic bombs were dropped, described the coupling of atomic energy with rocket propulsion as a “Frankenstein’s monster,” resulting in “the most terrible weapon ever known”.

This was heightened even further by the onset of the Cold War. All the victorious Allies now began preparing for a new conflict; one that might well need to be fought between continents and where the ability to strike at distance could prove to be the difference between victory and defeat. The V-2 seemed to provide the shortcut to future ballistic missile superiority.
The Allies took different approaches to unlocking the secrets of the V-2. The British conducted Operation Backfire, in which three captured V-2s were launched from the German North Sea town of Cuxhaven, under experimental conditions. One of the launches was even attended by foreign dignitaries and members of the Press.

A V-2 rocket launched under British supervision as part of Operation Backfire, October 1945. Photo credit: Charles Black, courtesy of Warwick Black.

The U.S. and the Soviet Union planned on a more long-term basis. As well as evacuating tons of materiel – complete rockets, various components, blueprints, laboratory equipment, machine tools – they also sought to secure the services of the scientists and engineers who had worked on the V-2 program.
Both sides offered lucrative deals and attractive conditions, and neither were above applying a bit of pressure as well. The Soviets even kidnapped some specialists who were less keen to head east of their own volition. In this race for the human spoils of war, the U.S. seized the biggest prize – Wernher von Braun and his team – but both were able to provide their own nascent rocketry programs with a major infusion of German expertise and experience.

Wernher von Braun, his arm in a cast following a car accident, shortly after his surrender to the Americans, May 3, 1945. Louis Wintraub/Wikimedia Commons.

In the Soviet Union, efforts to unlock the secrets of the V-2 yielded the world’s first inter-continental ballistic missile – the R-7 – in May 1957, and a vehicle capable of launching the first artificial satellite – Sputnik I – was put into space in October of that same year. In the U.S., the V-2 provided the foundation of both their ballistic missile program and their space program. Wernher von Braun’s wartime accomplishments were eclipsed by his design of the Saturn V rocket which took men to the moon in 1969.
The story of the V-2, then, is a complicated one. Developed by those who dreamed of space travel, it was used to rain destruction on London and Antwerp and cost the lives of thousands who were forced to build it in the most appalling conditions. It failed to deliver on Hitler’s promise of a ‘wonder weapon’ which would change the course of the war but, in the years after 1945, it proved to have a more transformative effect on conflict, and on human endeavor more widely, than anyone could have predicted – which will be explored more deeply in the next article.

Dr. Charlie Hall is Lecturer in Modern European History at the University of Kent, UK. Charlie’s research centers on ideology, propaganda, and society in twentieth-century Europe and Britain. His first book, British Exploitation of German Science and Technology, 1943-1949 (Routledge, 2019), explores how Britain made use of Nazi equipment and expertise after World War II.
Contact the editors: oliver@thewarzone.com, thomas@thedrive.com

The V-2 Rocket: Changing The Trajectory Of Warfare

Introduced by the Nazis towards the end of World War II, the impact of the V-2 can still be felt well into the 21st Century.

www.thedrive.com

 

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China making South China Sea a nuclear missile launchpad​

Gabriel Honrada​

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China's JL-3 nuclear missile has a range of up to 10,000 kilometers, putting the US within closer range. Photo: Twitter / Handout / SCMP

China is one step closer to turning the South China Sea into a sanctuary for its nuclear ballistic missile submarines (SSBN), a move that would put the continental United States within range of its JL-3 submarine-launched ballistic missile (SLBM) from the semi-enclosed and hotly contested body of water.
On November 18, US Pacific Fleet Commander Admiral Samuel Paparo acknowledged to military reporters in Washington that China has fielded its JL-3 SLBM on its six Type 094 SSBNs, giving it the capability to hit the US from waters closer to America’s shore.

Paparo emphasized that these SSBNs were built to threaten the US and that the US Navy is keeping close track of them.
A year ago, the Pentagon said that the People’s Liberation Army-Navy (PLA-N) would gain the capability to target the US from China’s coastal waters, with Paparo declining to comment when asked if China’s Type 094 SSBNs have conducted deterrence patrols close to Hawaii.
The JL-3 has an estimated range of more than 10,000 kilometers, which allows China to target the US “from a protected bastion in the South China Sea,” US Strategic Command commander Admiral Charles Richard told the US Senate Armed Services Committee this March according to a US Congressional Research Service (CRS) report.
If true, the JL-3 is a significant improvement over the previous missile, the JL-2, which has a range of 7,200 kilometers. According to CRS, that gives China’s Type 094 SSBNs the ability to attack Alaska from the Bohai Sea. CRS notes that to strike the US West Coast, JL-2-equipped Type 094 SSBNs would have to be in waters east of Hawaii due to range limitations.

China’s JL-2’s on display. Image: Twitter
In response to the reports, China’s state mouthpiece Global Times last week slammed the US as having ulterior motives by hyping the “China Threat” to seek a greater presence in the Asia-Pacific in the form of more anti-submarine forces and its own Columbia-class SSBNs. It also claimed that spiking threat perceptions of China was a way for the US military to get more funding.
Global Times noted that China has yet to announce the commissioning of the JL-3. Although China carried out a JL-3 test launch in June 2019, the scheduled tests were standard and not aimed at any country or target, the Global Times report said.

It emphasized that China maintains a defensive national defense policy and a military strategy of “active defense.” The Global Times report also noted that while China has no plans to expand significantly its nuclear arsenal, it will continue to modernize it amid the changing strategic security environment.
China’s nuclear doctrine relies on a robust SSBN fleet. In a 2016 Carnegie Endowment for Regional Peace report, Liping Xia notes that a no-first-use policy, minimum nuclear deterrence, counter-nuclear coercion and limited nuclear deterrence are critical features of China’s nuclear doctrine.
Xia notes that China’s SSBNs are essential to its second-strike nuclear capability and with fleet upgrades allow China to be more confident of its no-first-use policy.
Echoing this view, Fiona Cunningham notes in a 2020 article for The Strategist that China’s nuclear force structure is optimized to ride out an adversary’s first strike and retaliate against strategic targets rather than credibly threaten the first use of nuclear weapons.

Cunningham mentions that although Chinese leaders have debated changing China’s longstanding no-first-use nuclear policy from time to time, there is no sign that China plans to change it anytime soon.
The JL-3’s deployment will mark a significant upgrade to the survivability of China’s undersea deterrent. A 2018 Carnegie Endowment for Regional Peace report notes that the JL-2 SLBM’s limited range means it cannot reach the US if launched from Chinese coastal waters. The report says that China’s SSBNs would need to sail into the Western Pacific to hit the US mainland with the missile.
A 2015 Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) report notes that the US and its allies could exploit chokepoints including the Miyako Strait, Bashi Channel and the Sulu Sea to track China’s SSBNs on their way to the Pacific Ocean.

These vulnerabilities go against the basic philosophy of an SSBN, which according to the CSIS report is to hide in the ocean’s vastness so that it would be impossible to detect or predict its location.

China’s Type 094A nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarine. Photo: Twitter / The National Interest
As such, the JL-3’s introduction may allow China to implement a South China Sea “bastion strategy,” obviating the need for its SSBNs to sail into the Pacific to launch their SLBMs. In this strategy, China would use the South China Sea as a sanctuary for its SSBNs, with the area protected by land-based aircraft and missiles, naval forces and fortified islands.
The South China Sea’s semi-enclosed configuration and proximity to China’s shores make it an ideal area to implement the strategy, with China’s large submarine base in Hainan showing that it is moving in that direction with its SSBN fleet.
Logistically speaking, it would be much easier for China to sustain short-range SSBN than open-water patrols with command and control facilities stationed in nearby waters.
As the South China Sea is straddled by major sea lanes of communication (SLOCs), the underwater noise environment makes it more difficult to detect China’s SSBNs, allowing them to hide amid the area’s unique underwater noise, thermal and acoustic features.


China making South China Sea a nuclear missile launchpad

 

[jward]

Xi Jinping’s Vision for Artificial Intelligence in the PLA​

By Koichiro Takagi for The Diplomat​

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Features | Security | East Asia​

China is seeking to use “intelligentization” to build a “world-class” military.

People’s Liberation Army (PLA) soldiers march past a poster depicting Chinese President Xi Jinping at their quarters during the opening ceremony of the 20th National Congress of China’s ruling Communist Party in Beijing, China, Sunday, Oct. 16, 2022.
Credit: AP Photo/Andy Wong

Xi Jinping, at the 20th National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) on October 16, stated that more quickly elevating the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) to a world-class army is a strategic requirement for building a modern socialist country in all respects. At the 19th Party Congress five years ago, Xi insisted China would build a world-class army by the middle of this century; this time he did not mention a definite deadline but clearly stated that he would achieve the goal more quickly.

How is Xi trying to accelerate the construction of a world-class military? The PLA is seeking to capitalize on the introduction of advanced technology, with a particular focus on the use of unmanned weapons and artificial intelligence. In this report, Xi Jinping mentioned the word “intelligent” (智能化) three times. The concept of “intelligent,” which refers to the use of weapon systems based on artificial intelligence, has rapidly gained attention since the release of the 2019 National Defense White Paper.

Xi said in this year’s congress that China would adhere to the integrated development of the PLA through mechanization, informatization, and intelligentization. These words indicate that the concept of intelligentization, which has developed rapidly since 2019, has been accepted into China’s national defense policy and that the national leadership has expressed its willingness to promote it. At the 19th Party Congress in 2017, Xi said that, by 2020, the PLA will basically achieve mechanization, make great progress in informatization, and greatly improve strategic capabilities. At this year’s congress, intelligentization was added to this list. In addition, the PLA has recently been actively discussing the relationship between mechanization, informatization, and intelligentization, and has established the concept of “three-izations,” (三化) in which they are not to be achieved in stages but are to be pursued simultaneously and in parallel.

During the Mao Zedong era, China invested a lot of money in the construction of nuclear forces, and the development of conventional forces lagged far behind. Deng Xiaoping changed this and began building a modern army equipped with conventional weapons. During the Jiang Zemin era, the PLA, shocked by the fighting style of the U.S. military, which made full use of precision-guided weapons in the Gulf War, promoted “high-tech” military development. Under Hu Jintao, the PLA – impressed by the way the U.S. military fought in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars – advanced “informatization.” In the first and second terms of Xi Jinping, the PLA also promoted informatization.

The fact that China is simultaneously advancing mechanization, informatization, and intelligentization suggests that despite these decades of reform, parts of China’s massive military are not yet even mechanized. However, in past military history, the presence of old-fashioned forces in an innovative development process is not necessarily a stumbling block. In 1940, Germany defeated France in just 42 days by blitzkrieg, utilizing tanks. At that time, only a small percentage of the German army was mechanized, and the majority of the German army was still an old-fashioned force dependent on horses and foot soldiers. This shows that even when only a small percentage of an army has the most advanced equipment of its time, it can be innovative in fighting.

For this reason, the most attention should be paid to the progress of the intelligentization of the PLA. This includes the introduction of artificial intelligence in the PLA and the development of new strategies that make use of it.
Xi said that the PLA will study and gain a good grasp of the characteristics of informatized and intelligent warfare and the laws that govern it, provide new military strategic guidance, and develop strategies and tactics for a people’s war. To realize these goals, Xi said, “We will establish a strong system of strategic deterrence, increase the proportion of new-domain forces with new combat capabilities, speed up the development of unmanned, intelligent combat capabilities, and promote coordinated development and application of the network information system.”

The strategy and tactics of the people’s war, which Xi referenced, mean fighting not only with the military but with the total power of the nation. This implies that informatization and intelligentization will not be achieved solely by the military, but will mobilize all of China’s assets and scientific and technological development. In addition, the people’s war is the traditional idea of asymmetrical warfare since the time of Mao Zedong. However, future Chinese asymmetric warfare will not be the guerrilla warfare of the past but will utilize artificial intelligence.
Papers that have been published so far by PLA senior officials and strategists show that the PLA is seeking to use artificial intelligence in four main areas. One is the autonomy of unmanned weapons, including the development of swarms of numerous drones. China aims to conduct highly autonomous integrated operations with a variety of unmanned systems and unmanned weapons.

The second is processing large amounts of information through machine learning. For example, the PLA is building a network of unmanned weapons and undersea sensors in the waters surrounding China and is attempting to process information obtained from this network using artificial intelligence. In addition, the PLA is considering a new form of electronic warfare that uses artificial intelligence to analyze received radio waves and optimize jamming.
The third is the use of artificial intelligence to speed up military decision-making. In the United States, studies point out that the use of artificial intelligence for decision-making, such as those involving nuclear strategy, has raised the risk of “flash wars,” in which conflicts escalate instantaneously. In China, too, there is debate over the extent to which decision-making should be entrusted to artificial intelligence in light of these dangers. For the time being, therefore, rather than delegating complex decision-making to artificial intelligence, it is likely that China will utilize artificial intelligence for simple tasks such as information processing and autonomous weapons.
These three are common arguments for new ways of fighting using artificial intelligence in the United States, such as “mosaic warfare” and “decision-centered warfare.” The unique argument in China is the idea of using artificial intelligence in cognitive warfare.

Cognitive warfare is influencing the cognition of the human brain and the will of the opponent to create a strategically favorable environment or subdue the opponent without a fight. In China, there is an active debate about cognitive warfare. For example, Qi Jianguo, former deputy chief of staff of the PLA, has stated that those who gain the upper hand in developing new-generation artificial intelligence technologies will be able to control the lifeline of national security: human cognition.

The PLA has not stated how it intends to use artificial intelligence to control human cognition. One means would be deep fakes, which are videos, images, and audio that have been altered or generated using artificial intelligence. There is concern that China could use artificial intelligence, such as language generation, to create social media content that could be used to manipulate public opinion in Taiwan or to try to discredit the United States’ trying to support Taiwan.
Building a world-class army implies an army that is comparable to the U.S. military. Of the three aspects of mechanization, informatization, and intelligentization, the PLA lags behind the U.S. forces in mechanization and informatization at the moment. However, if the PLA acquires intelligentization, even in a small portion of the PLA, as the German army in 1940 showed, the PLA may be able to catch up with the United States military.
Thus, China is trying to find a way to capitalize on cutting-edge technology. In this light, the broad U.S. restrictions on semiconductors will be a major blow to China’s development of artificial intelligence and the intelligentization of PLA. If technology development takes a hit, the construction of a world-class military may fail.

Xi Jinping’s Vision for Artificial Intelligence in the PLA

China is seeking to use “intelligentization” to build a “world-class” military.

thediplomat.com