You've listened to ComNavOps harp on the loss of combat mentality and focus by the Navy and, despite the overwhelming evidence presented in post after post, some of you don't quite believe it. Well, just for a change of pace, why don't we listen to the people who have been in the Navy at various levels? What follows is a re-post of a Dec 2017 post on the topic.
Why a re-post? Well, aside from the fact that the post is pertinent and compelling, there is also the issue of dynamic readership. The blog has been in operation for several years, now, and readers constantly come and go. Thus, newer readers have missed much of the older material. The archives exist to allow readers to go back and catch up on earlier material but not everyone takes full advantage of that. I know, you're shocked - as well you should be - but it's true. With that in mind, I'd like to present an occasional older post that is particularly relevant so that we can get everyone up to date. This runs the risk of becoming repetitive for long time readers so I'll keep the re-posts to a minimum and only when they are particularly relevant. Feel free to comment and let me know if you like/dislike the idea.
The post below clearly demonstrates the loss of combat mentality and focus and does so using the statements of Navy officials and captains. Thus, in this case, it is not ComNavOps opinion being presented but, rather, the observations of the people who have been there. They've seen the problem and are now describing it. Read on and enjoy …
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ComNavOps has been harping relentlessly on the theme that the Navy has lost its warfighting mentality and capability, that we no longer train effectively for warfighting
Why a re-post? Well, aside from the fact that the post is pertinent and compelling, there is also the issue of dynamic readership. The blog has been in operation for several years, now, and readers constantly come and go. Thus, newer readers have missed much of the older material. The archives exist to allow readers to go back and catch up on earlier material but not everyone takes full advantage of that. I know, you're shocked - as well you should be - but it's true. With that in mind, I'd like to present an occasional older post that is particularly relevant so that we can get everyone up to date. This runs the risk of becoming repetitive for long time readers so I'll keep the re-posts to a minimum and only when they are particularly relevant. Feel free to comment and let me know if you like/dislike the idea.
The post below clearly demonstrates the loss of combat mentality and focus and does so using the statements of Navy officials and captains. Thus, in this case, it is not ComNavOps opinion being presented but, rather, the observations of the people who have been there. They've seen the problem and are now describing it. Read on and enjoy …
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ComNavOps has been harping relentlessly on the theme that the Navy has lost its warfighting mentality and capability, that we no longer train effectively for warfighting
And now,
here’s proof from some former ship captains and former Deputy Defense Secretary
Bob Work as described in a Breaking Defense article (1).
“The fleet, argues former Deputy
Defense Secretary Bob Work, is demonstrating presence at
the expense of training for high-intensity warfighting.”
The Navy’s
mission is warfighting, not presence and DepSecDef Work is confirming that the
Navy has lost its warfighting focus, just as ComNavOps has been saying all
along.
“When officers join the Naval War College
Remedial
briefings on the systems they’ve been using and are supposedly proficient
with?! That’s more proof of loss of
focus.
ComNavOps
has also harped on the unrealistic and nearly worthless training that the Navy
provides. Well, here’s a former ship
captain’s take on that.
“Every time a ship gets prepared to
do a SM-3 shot,
quite literally, a team of rocket scientists comes on board and they groom the
system,” Eyer [retired Capt. Kevin Eyer, former skipper of the cruisers Shiloh,
Chancellorsville, and Thomas Gates] said.”
Where’s the
value in having a team of experts come on board and prepare a ship for a
test? What does that tell us about the
state of the weapon system or the crew’s training? Nothing!
That team of experts is not going to be on board when war comes.
More on
unrealistic training from Capt. Gerry Roncolato, who commanded the
destroyer Sullivans and Destroyer Squadron 26.
“… when was the last time we had an
unconstrained ASW exercise, (where) you go with an unalerted sub, an unalerted
surface ship, you’re given a mission, you can fire as many torpedoes as you
have, you have to win. We don’t do that.”
“Same thing goes for air defense
exercise that is unconstrained and unalerted — we don’t do it,”
You’ll recall
that I’ve described the fleet wide degradation of the Aegis system? Here’s part of the reason why.
“The Navy used to have a special
Aegis training command to help sailors learn how to get the most out of the
complex system, recalled retired Vice Adm.
Peter Daly. That command is gone now, and key training for the task
has been truncated.”
ComNavOps
has called for greater live fire exercises.
“Live-fire training has also been
cut back, Daly said … We’ve done things in the fleet like eliminate the
proficiency missile firings.”
Loss of
focus on the main mission is further addressed by Work.
“Since 1991, Work said, the
Department of Defense evolved into a “Department of Shaping,” more concerned
with “shaping” the environment to avoid a war than preparing to fight a war.”
There’s
nothing wrong with trying to prevent a war but not at the expense of being
prepared to fight one because, ultimately, wars start despite our best efforts
to avoid them. Germany Japan Russia China
Work goes
on to nicely sum up,
“All ready forces were committed to Iraq Afghanistan
“We could accept that in a period
with no great power competition,” Work said, but not now. “In this period of
time, we have to rededicate ourselves to (being) a warfighting navy.”
ComNavOps
has a very low opinion of Mr. Work but, on this topic, he’s correct. We have little or no surge capability to
respond to a sudden need with. If China
We’ve given
up our surge capacity to support highly questionable active deployments. Worse, our supposed surge units have
cross-decked personnel and equipment/aircraft to deploying ships just to meet
immediate needs. Our surge personnel,
equipment, and aircraft are already “surged”.
There’s little left at home and none of it’s surge capable.
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(1)Breaking
Defense website, “US Navy Is
NOT Ready For Major War: Ex-Skippers, Bob Work”, Sydney J.
Freedberg, Jr., 5-Dec-2017 ,
I'm sure the Chinese will shortly provide the US Navy with some realistic combat scenarios along the lines you describe.
ReplyDeleteWouldn't bet on it, at least for now.
DeleteIf I'm China, I'm more than happy to keep building up my (still inferior) forces for 1-2 decades while the USN rots away.
Why would they risk waking up America from her folly?
Agree to a limit, China is patient and if the apple is rotting on its on, why bother with it, let it fall when its done BUT you can't be sure, if opportunities present themselves, China might go for it.
DeleteIMO I still think they need more practice and a few real squirmishes to work out the kinks....let's not forget, USA did Grenada, Just Cause (Panama), El Dorado Canyon Libya strikes, Med strikes, Iran covert ops for about 10 years before we did GW1. I would be surprised if China just goes straight to invading Taiwan or ops against USN, I would expect a couple of military ops in Africa and some small naval in counters to get all the glitches out first.
About the scientific team fixing AEGIS or preparing missiles before exercises, I cant recall hearing USAF needing help before a RedFlag getting AESA and AMRAAMS ready, would be interesting to know if USARMY needs help with Patriots or is this a USN specific problem?!? Why is this only necessary for AEGIS and USN???
" I would expect a couple of military ops in Africa and some small naval in counters to get all the glitches out first."
DeleteAstute observation and quite likely.
"Why is this only necessary for AEGIS and USN???"
DeleteI don't know anything about AF or Army so I can't comment on that. As far as Aegis, I've previously documented - and the Navy has acknowledged - that Aegis is too advanced and too complex for the normal Navy training and support to keep it running at top form. This is one of the ongoing issues that we have: that some of our equipment is too complex for be reliable, maintainable, or combat-effective. We need to give serious consideration to 'dumbing down' some of our gear to the point that we can actually benefit from having it.
Only indirect experience, my Staff Sergeant came from Patriots. Sounded like your typical Army gear, pretty easy to set up and take apart, heavy electrical cables, testing gear,etc...wonder if its because its for the Army, they "dumb" it down? I don't recall him saying they needed experts around, just a bunch of tests after every move to make sure it worked. Now with all the new upgrades and PAC3 and MEAD/THAAD, wonder if its that "easy"? Would be fascinating to know if those need experts or still "dumb" enough....
Delete"IMO I still think they need more practice and a few real squirmishes to work out the kinks"
DeleteGood point, while shooting at third world heathens isn't exactly a peer war, that's still more real world experience than the Chinese military has.
The trick for them is to get into some small-potatoes war the US won't care about.
Maybe Indochina? No way America will get into another Vietnam.
Africa for land troops for sure, good practice for logistics. Not sure who China could mess with at sea. Vietnam? Thailand? Maybe Philippines? Not easy finding a little fish China navy could mess with without getting into a war with USA...probably Vietnam best bet.
Delete" while shooting at third world heathens isn't exactly a peer war, that's still more real world experience than the Chinese military has."
DeleteThere's a caution there, though. Small wars is what has degraded our big war capability because we've developed a generation of leaders who think small wars is how war is fought. We've learned the wrong lessons. It's like practicing against the JV - you'll develop a lot of bad habits because it's too easy.
The Patriots had a long string of field testing with Saudi/Houthi Test team. They may be short on offensive ew capability, but they launch varied assortment of targets.
DeleteTough to trust the Saudis and data released so far, I think they claiming 80% success rate with Patriots.....I'm sure USA and Raytheon have better idea of the truth but not saying anything.
Delete"There's a caution there, though. Small wars is what has degraded our big war capability because we've developed a generation of leaders who think small wars is how war is fought. We've learned the wrong lessons. It's like practicing against the JV - you'll develop a lot of bad habits because it's too easy."
DeleteTrue but China has to start somewhere! I think they need a Grenada or Panama just like USA did in the 80s to get the groove back after Vietnam, get the kinks out and test new gear and C2. China needs to beat up a little guy to do the same.
If USN doesn't have anybody with real combat experience, neither does China! They producing a lot of new gear, ships, jets, etc... nobody there has recent war experience, they will need to do more than practice. Nothing like somebody shooting back to get a reality check, be it a goat herder with an AK or a few idiots in fishing boats...
Delete"China needs to beat up a little guy to do the same."
DeleteHopefully, they'll draw the same wrong conclusions we did!
India would be a good sparring partner for China. They've both shown they can fight a little and walk away.
DeleteFighting with the only country in the world that can match your population is the last thing I'd do if I were China.
DeleteAgree, India far too big. More likely some operation to take out a govt in Africa or rescue mission. Even massive humanitarian mission would be good practice for China, they need to work on cargo, logistics, command, comms,etc....better than just training exercises.
Delete"It's like practicing against the JV - you'll develop a lot of bad habits because it's too easy."
DeleteEven worse when you can't beat the JV. Don't kid ourselves. Yes, we have run up some reasonably impressive territorial conquests, but have we really accomplished anything significant? Are things there hugely better than they were 20 years ago? Better enough to justify the cost and lives and limbs lost?
Hmm, my line of thinking was more along the lines of GW1. Not really afterwards or the end results, which is more political....so I'll stay away.
DeleteWould USA military performed as well as it did if the only operation between GW1 and Vietnam was failed Iran rescue mission OR did the small operations against Grenada, Panama, Libya F111 strike, Iran ops,etc...help and made GW1 a success militarly? I think they did overall, plus I think we still had some people that were in Vietnam or trained against people that had direct war experience....does anybody inside China have that experience or knowledge? War is just another human endeavor and to get better at it, you need lots of practice but eventually, you need to do it to learn and improve....IMO, as long as we dont see any military moves from China, I don't think we have to worry too much. When you see a military ops in Africa or small naval squirmishes with actual ASM fired, thats their military getting ready for bigger things. My 2 cents....
Here's what I'm wondering about regarding the Chinese navy; everyone is so impressed with the astonishing speed they are building and launching major ships at.
DeleteHaven't we seen that before? Like when they built those huge cities in the middle of nowhere where almost no one ever lived in? The buildings in it look impressive from a distance, but once inside them, it turns out they lack basic utilities, and often the supporting plumbing and cabling to be able to install those. Worse, the quality of construction is p**s-poor too. 'Concrete' that you can scrape off walls to reveal reed matting behind them, and all sorts of other cost saving shenanigans.
Or the three-gorges dam. Best dam ever! Can withstand a once in 10.000 years flooding! Correction, a once in a 1.000 years flooding! Correction, a once in a hundred years flooding. Maybe. They don't really know, because quality control and building inspection was done by the very same people who designed and built the damn thing! (Pun intended)
Most of you will have experience with appliances or household items that are 'made in china'. Are you impressed by their quality? I'm not.
So why assume that those ships they are building are any different? I seriously doubt they are. It only takes a few subpar elements to render it ineffective.
To be completely honest, and some of you may not like this, but given the sorry state the USN is in (evidence, this entire blog) and the lack of practical and institutional experience of the Chinese navy; and the questionable quality, operational availability and effectiveness of much of the hyped modern systems on both sides; if they were to go to war now, it be like the Keystone cops times two. Seriously, it might be the most embarrassing naval battle ever.
R
@R. You probably right, reports out from customers of Chinese knockoff of Predator/Reaper is its terrible and already trying to get rid of them but hoping your adversary is even more incompetent than you isn't much of a strategy...although probably best thing going for USN!
DeleteIt is one thing for them to sell cheap crap to foreigners and another to build their own warships the same way, but you still have a point.
DeleteFunny, I was just thinking about how your old posts were hauntingly correct in retrospect... One thing that jumped out at me was one of the people quoted was a CO for THREE cruisers!! THAT guy has a valid opinion!! Today's Admiralty, if you look at their bios, usually have ONE seagoing command under their belt. The overpopulation of the upper ranks, coupled with the lack of ships is creating a generation of leaders whos experience is more admin than warfighting!!
ReplyDeleteAny leader wanting to get things in shape needs to start having suprise surges and exercises that are frequent enough to become expected, and ships/crews will be at a higher level of readiness. I wonder what the results would be if today we gave a Navy wide "be at the 12 mile limit in 90 min" order??? Would love to see the ships leaving the piers without tugs, driven by JOs and cobbled together watch teams (think Pearl Harbor)...
As far as the highly scripted and analyzed live-fires, thats got to change. I understand missiles are expensive, but at the very least maybe there should be a dozen 'blue' ones loaded during peacetime??? In my mind at least once a month a ship should be firing things off, and a real exercise would see 10-20 missiles fired, whether strike or AAW....
"posts were hauntingly correct in retrospect... "
DeleteI like to think that they're hauntingly correct in FORESIGHT ! :)
"if you look at their bios, usually have ONE seagoing command under their belt."
DeleteAs we've recently documented, even that one 'sea-going' command may well never leave port!
We should be requiring a set amount of at-sea days, not time in command. If it takes ten years to acquire one year of at-sea time then, so be it. We should not be promoting people who have no sea time in command - like our Admiral Kirk, for example.
@JJ. Just wait till their only command is 1 "tour" of duty on LCS that never left port! More than 2 "tours" and you'll have a direct like to Admiral, thats a lot of experience! 🤣
Delete"at-sea days, not time in command"
DeleteGood distiction, and to me, probably the most important metric!! Whether CO or E-3 unrated sailor, nobody is learning anything, or getting a grasp of the small/large picture of warfighting unless theyre at sea, doing the job. COs have no clue about their ship, crew, tactics, warfighting, or the strengths and weaknesses of all the above if they arent at sea. So those that have captained pier/yard queens right into flag rank will continue to be uninformed and make poor choices. Vicious circle that can only be broken by making the Sea Service Ribbon with "X" stars are prerequisite to promotion, not only into XO/CO positions, but absolutely beyond!!
We just recently had a test where USN put out to sea (or tried!) reserve cargo and transport ships. Why doesn't it do the same for active military ships?!? Why not CinC just announce get as many ships as possible out to sea in 6 hours? See what happens? Or just too risky to too many careers and bad PR?
ReplyDeleteWe all know the answer here....but it really needs to be done, nothing else to shake out the cobwebs.
"Too many careers"? Well, don't we need to weed those out?
DeleteThe US has a policy of deterring war and the USN is a big part of that. Start a war and we start bombing you straight away. Deterrence by denial or quick punishment.
ReplyDeleteThe problem is the USN is too small to do this and prepare for major war.
That means align your resources with what's important or increase the resources.
Becoming a good navy re China means a lot more small wars. And small wars drive politics.
"The US has a policy of deterring war and the USN is a big part of that. Start a war and we start bombing you straight away. Deterrence by denial or quick punishment."
DeleteBut we don't do that. At least not any more. We send a bunch of troops in to occupy territory and "win their hearts and minds," with don't-shoot-until-you're-dead ROEs. It's a bunch of (word I cant' use on here). We're not going to win their hearts and minds. They hate us, they hated us before we got there, and they will hate us after we leave. All we can do is kill the worst of them and be vigilant going forward.
"The problem is the USN is too small to do this and prepare for major war."
And as long as we insist on building $14B Fords and $800MM LCSs and $3B Zumwalts and $3B LHAs/LHDs, the Navy will remain too small. We will run out of bucks before we build a credible force, particularly since all of the above are basically useless for their assigned tasks.
"That means align your resources with what's important or increase the resources."
The resources required would seem to be:
- 2 carrier task forces to handle China, 2 carrier task forces to handle Europe, 1 carrier task force to deal with rogue nation/terror threats, and 1 carrier task force in reserve; per ComNavOps's Marc Mitscher quote, a carrier task force means 4 carriers plus 18-24 escort, so we are looking at 24 carriers plus 110-140 escorts
- 2 surface action/hunter-killer groups in the Pacific, 2 in the Atlantic, and 1 in the Indian Ocean, to provide sea control and to deal with SSBNs that sneak through our first line of defense, and those groups need escorts too
- sufficient amphibious and littoral forces to accomplish an island-hopping campaign in the first island chain versus China, or the eastern Med and a littoral campaign in the Baltic versus Russia, while dealing with a rogue nation or terrorist threat elsewhere
- sufficient submarines to match up and defeat both Russia and China simultaneously
So we are looking at something like 24 carriers, 16 other capital ships, 200 escorts, 90-100 attack submarines, 50-60 amphibious ships, 75-100 small corvette/patrol/MCM ships, and a service force to feed and fuel and support them worldwide. We can't get there from here without some serious rethinking of our ship acquisition policies.
"Becoming a good navy re China means a lot more small wars. And small wars drive politics."
Small wars are okay as long as you fight them to win. A war that we have been fighting for 17 years is neither a small war nor one that we are fighting to win.
If you have the stomach for it, check out almost any official Navy publication and you will see s whole lot about the wonderful state of inclusion and diversity of our Navy. What you won’t see that much of is concern about the ability of officers to lead their sailors into the fight when the order comes down to go kill some people.
ReplyDeleteWhat is our worst case scenario? How about a two-front peer war with Russia in Europe and China in Asia, plus a rogue nation or terror group in, say, the Mideast?
ReplyDeleteSo what do we need to win that?
Seems to me we want 8 carriers in Asia--4 down at the south end of the China Sea to prevent any Chinese commerce getting through and supporting Vietnam, the Philippines, and points further south from Chinese aggression, and 4 between the Philippines and Japan cutting off Chinese access to the Pacific and supporting Japan, Taiwan, and South Korea--and 8 in Europe--4 in the Med and 4 in the North Sea to cover the Baltic and the GIUK gap--plus 4 to deal with the rogue threat. That's 20 carriers, or 5 of ComNavOps's 4-carrier task forces. We are currently 10 carriers short of that, and with one almost always in maintenance, we have no plans to get much closer than half of that.
What about the open oceans? Seems to me we want about 2 surface/ASW task groups in the Atlantic, 2 in the Pacific, and 2 in the Indian ocean to catch anything that sneaks through, and particularly to search and destroy any missile subs. We don't have any of that, particularly not the ASW component.
And you don't win in the end without some boots on the ground, so you need some sort of amphibious capability. Along with that you need some actual littoral capability--small corvettes and patrol boats, mine warfare ships, and some coastal submarines. I could see island-hopping campaigns through the first island chain, or the eastern Med, or similarly around the Baltic. And I could see an amphibious campaign against a rogue Iran or other nation.
As far as submarines, obviously we need a credible SSBN threat. I think that is being taken care of with the Columbias, although I worry about cost overruns and delays. We cannot afford for them to be another Ford or LCS or Zumwalt. Beyond that, we need 80-100 attack boats to be able to outgun both Russia and China.
Those are the things I think we need--20+ carriers, surface action/HUK groups, capability to do actual amphibious assaults, capability to do littoral warfare including MCM, and a sub force equal to two potential enemies. We don't have any of them.
Until we get them--if we ever do--it seems to me that our best diplomatic course is to try to triangulate Russia against China and build alliances in the first island chain. And get out of the Mideast, where we are wasting a lot of our capability on no-win wars between people who have been fighting each other for thousands of years, and will fight each other for thousands of years after we leave.
If that's too political, I apologize, but we are at a point where defense and politics meet. And in my opinion, we are not handling it well on either the military or the political front. And to remove the idea that I am backing one political party or the other, I don't see either one as having the right plan.
"get out of the Mideast"
DeleteThere is one factor that people tend to ignore when discussing pulling out of the Mideast and that is terror. While I certainly agree that we aren't accomplishing much and that the various factions will continue to fight each other whether we're there or not, the reality is that the Mideast's main export, arguably, is terror. It takes the form of ideology, terrorists, refugees, etc. If we were to completely walk away from the region, terror would gain a secure base (ISIS is a good example) from which to expand out to the rest of the world. We'd wind up facing the Mideast problems everywhere instead of somewhat contained in the region.
So, before you call for a complete pull out, make sure you have a plan for dealing with the terror consequences.
"we are wasting a lot of our capability on no-win wars"
Perhaps, rather than pulling out, what we need is a completely different rationale and objective for being there? Perhaps, what we need is to stop trying to produce a 'win' and, instead, try for containment (to borrow your China strategy!) where we ruthlessly attack the slightest sign of terror. That won't improve conditions in the region or win us any friends but it will contain the terror. Different objective. One that is achievable. Of course, this requires a radical recalibration of our geopolitical goals in the region but, hey, what we're doing now isn't working so why not try something different?
Or, maybe you can come up with some other objective?
OK, I'll tell you what my rationale is. Never fight a war that you don't intend to win. In to win, or don't go in.
DeleteWars end one of two ways--you win, or you surrender. Fighting not to win is fighting to surrender, and I don't see losing one American life or limb, or wasting one bullet, on that.
If it is worth going in, and you make a good argument that it is, then don't go in with don't-shoot-until-after-you're-dead ROEs. Go in full bore, kill them until they get tired of dying, break everything that needs breaking, let whoever is still standing know that if they screw up we'll be back to kill them, and get out--within 2 years. The alternative is endless wars of occupation and stalemate.
Here's what I'd do. I'd call the generals in and say, "You've got 6 months to end this. What do you need to do to make that happen?" They all know the answers to that question, it's just not politically correct to voice them. And our military leadership has become nothing if not politically correct.
As far as terror, terror happens when you are angry about something and when you think you can get away with it. The ways to stop terror are 1) get rid of what they're angry about, or 2) let them know that they can't get away with it. What we are doing right now is giving them something to stay angry about, without convincing them that they can't get away from it.
I'm actually not opposed to the containment approach. I've said before that if we can contain Russia inside the GIUK gap/Baltic/Black Sea and contain China inside the first island chain (that's inside, not at) and the Mideast at, say, the Straits of Hormuz, and inside those containment barriers provide our allies with enough support to make sure that they can hold their own, then we are probably doing about as well as possible.
Right now in the Middle East, we need to find the terrorist leaders nd kill them. That is the only viable goal. Holding territory, building schools and bridges, trying to win their hearts and minds, won't work. The use of the Marines as basically cops in occupied areas of Afghanistan and Iraq is an incredible perversion of purpose for what it supposed to be an elite military unit. We're not going to defeat terror by occupying land. We are going to defeat it by killing terrorists.
As far as ISIS specifically, remember that they are Sunni Muslims, in part a remnant of Saddam's Sunni regime in Iraq. They are in an area that is probably 80% Sunni. They are opposing Shia Iran, Shia Iraq, and Alewite (Shia) Syria. If you gave the people of eastern Syria and western Iraq the opportunity to vote between Iraq or Iran or Syria or ISIS, my guess is that ISIS would get 80% of the vote. So whatever we think about ISIS, they represent the will of a lot of people. And we have historically not done well supporting unpopular regimes against popular ones.
Short and sweet, my plan to deal with the terrorist consequences of pulling out is to kill all the terrorists before we pull out. That's never been our objective, and that's why we are accomplishing nothing.
DeleteI agree with a lot of this. And if we can see this, it's difficult to understand why policy makers can't.
DeleteMideast - A huge waste of focus and resources. Like Vietnam, the line between militants and civilians is very blurred, and we are not willing to kill enough civilians to get the terrorists. Arguably, doing that would just create more terrorists anyway... If we aren't willing to win, draw down to nothing or some minimal reaction force to prevent terrorists from organizing in the open.
Europe/Russia - Europe needs to pull their weight. They still need us to help lead/coordinate, but they should have all the resources to contain Russia on their own. Europe needs to be less of a priority, and we need to make it clear to Europe that they need to step up.
Asia has to be the focus. In a conflict with China, all the carriers will be needed. I would assume that fight would suck up resources from every theater. Once we define our priorities, it's easier to build the strategy and force requirements. Just like we can't afford ships that can do everything, we can't afford a military to do everything either. Not by ourselves.
"Never fight a war that you don't intend to win."
DeleteUh … containment??? Moving on!
"my plan to deal with the terrorist consequences of pulling out is to kill all the terrorists before we pull out."
Surely you can see the flaw in that plan? By killing them, you create new anger and new terrorists. I'm not saying that's a bad plan, just saying that it's not a final victory plan. You'll kill them all, pull out, and in a year you'll be dealing with a whole new batch of newly motivated terrorists.
Pulling out is an attractive thought but it may not be a wise thought. Of course, neither is continuing what we're doing. Hence, my suggestion for a new set of objectives.
"They still need us to help lead/coordinate"
DeleteWhy? Are they too stupid to lead themselves? Are they too confused to coordinate themselves? Why do they need us to lead/coordinate?
"If we were to completely walk away from the region, terror would gain a secure base (ISIS is a good example) from which to expand out to the rest of the world."
DeleteThis is true, but staying there forever is not sustainable either.
Perhaps just finding some friendly-ish "enlightened" ruler to keep those populations under control before leaving could work?
The alternative is giving them a very bloody warning not to do those things anymore, but suicidal fanatics won't care.
"Perhaps just finding some friendly-ish "enlightened" ruler to keep those populations under control before leaving could work?"
DeleteWe had one of those (Saddam) and we killed him. Maybe we had another (Pahlavi) and we let him get overturned.
"The alternative is giving them a very bloody warning not to do those things anymore, but suicidal fanatics won't care."
The street warriors are suicidal fanatics who don't care. But the masterminds typically do care, and recruit the fanatics to do their dirty work.
Here's what we don't seem to understand. We build a school where boys and girls can go to school together, and we crow about how 90% of the people love the idea of boys and girls going to school together. The problem is that the other 10% go down to the al-Qaeda/ISIS/terrorist-group-of-the-month recruiting office.
"Pulling out is an attractive thought but it may not be a wise thought. Of course, neither is continuing what we're doing. Hence, my suggestion for a new set of objectives."
ReplyDeleteAnd that is what I am saying. As Norman Schwarzkopf said, "Armies are good at two things--killing people and breaking things." So kill everybody that needs killing, break everything that needs breaking, tell whoever is left standing that if they screw up we will be back to kill them, and get out.
We didn't go into Afghanistan or Iraq with those objectives. So we are still there 17 years later having accomplished little or nothing. Saddam is gone, but what was a relatively stable country is now a mess. We neutered two enemies along Iran's borders--Iraq and Afghanistan--and now the Iranians are flexing their muscles more and more.
It is abundantly clear that we went in with no logical discernible objective. Or if we did, we promptly forgot about it once we got there. I remember after Saddam fell, Geraldo Rivera had just gone over to Fox. He did a video report where he toured Saddam's palaces. His purpose was to show the opulent lifestyle that Saddam lived. My reaction was, "What were we doing? These should have been the first places destroyed." Then I realized that we intended to be an army of occupation and we wanted these as quarters for our senior folks.
I don't know whether we have messed up so badly there that now the only possible outcome is to leave and let them sort it out. I think we owe the Kurds something, but beyond that I don't see what we are accomplishing or have any hope of ever accomplishing. And we are not putting and end to terror.
In a related note, the Center for International Maritime Security has an article comparing the 2010 version of Naval Doctrine Publication 1: Naval Warfare to the current it's current version released in April of this year.
ReplyDeleteThe author points out that NPD 1 (2020) was written for a broader audience, sailors and civilians alike, with a renewed emphasis on the history of American seapower. And, that NPD 1 (2020) delves more into naval warfare and less on joint oprrations compared to the 2010 version. Also, the 2010 version listed forward presense and HA/DR as core capabilities, these items were removed in the 2020 version.
Do you think there's anything of worth in the 2020 document or is it just fluff for public consumption?
DeleteI've only read bits and pieces so far. But, removing Forward Presence and HA/DR as core capabilities sounds like a step in the right direction. How the 2020 version translates into strategy, ship building, etc., remains to be seen.
DeleteRe HADR. For the Australian bushfires (how long ago was that) the Army Reserves got called up, for the first time.
ReplyDeleteFor Sars-Cov-2 the army is patrolling Victorian state streets for the very first time ever (well since we were a Royal Marine military penal colony).
I suspect HADR will force a comeback into military preparedness.
Viruses and China - what a mix.
Plus Australia is building a dedicated HADR ship for the South Pacific.
ReplyDeleteAustralia amphibious fleet main role is HADR in Queensland state during cyclone season if a extra large cyclone hits a city (most miss cities).
And my comment above should have been
Viruses, climate change, and China.