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Monday, March 8, 2021

Speak And Remove All Doubt

There’s an old and very wise proverb that goes,

 

It is better to remain silent and be thought a fool then to speak and remove all doubt.

 

After reading the latest memo from SecDef Austin, it is clear that he is in the process of removing all doubt.

 

Austin issued a memo to the Department of Defense in which he outlined his priorities.  The memo has no redeeming value, whatsoever, and removes all doubt about the SecDef.  He lists three top level priorities (1):

 

  • Defending the Nation
  • Take Care of Our People
  • Succeed through Teamwork

 

Well, that pretty much says nothing but let’s see what Austin's more detailed priorities reveal:

 

 

Defending the Nation

 

Defeat Covid-19 – Austin has this to say about the virus,

 

The greatest proximate challenge to our Nation’s security is the threat of COVID-19.

 

I’m sorry but that’s garbage and patently false.  The virus has certainly disrupted our economy [well, the virus hasn’t, it was the media driven panic frenzy that led to the draconian measures which disrupted our economy – none of which had any positive impact on the virus] but it is not a threat to national security.  That’s not even remotely true.  For 99% of infected people, the virus is just a nuisance and for a very large percentage, it is asymptomatic.  This virus is barely worse than the common flu.

 

Prioritize China as the Pacing Threat – I’m on board with this although Austin reduces the topic to a PowerPoint cavalcade of nearly incomprehensible buzzwords,

 

We will ensure that our approach toward China is coordinated and synchronized across the enterprise to advance our priorities, integrated into domestic and foreign policy in a whole-of-government strategy, strengthened by our alliances and partnerships, and supported on a bipartisan basis in Congress. (1)

 

Address Advanced and Persistent Threats – This appears to be addressing the remaining threats of Russia, Iran, NKorea, and terrorism.  That’s great but, unfortunately, the method of addressing those threats would appear to be appeasement,

 

… using all of our tools to lower the risk of escalation with our adversaries … (1)

 

You don’t address enemies by doing everything you can to ‘lower the risk of escalation’.  That’s the definition of appeasement.  You address enemies by demonstrating that you have the courage, will, and capability to crush them and then you put that determination and capability into action from time to time so as to impart a bone-deep lesson.

 

Innovate and Modernize – The scary part of this priority is,

 

Where necessary, we will divest of legacy systems and programs that no longer meet our security needs, while investing smartly for the future. (1)

 

This is the same failed policy we’ve been pursuing of abandoning firepower in pursuit of some magical offset that will grant us victory through technology and ignores our enemy’s plans and capabilities.  For example, the Marines have dropped legacy tanks in pursuit of some kind of magic hidden outpost where they will perform anti-surface and anti-submarine warfare in some unexplained, invisible manner.

 

Tackle the Climate Crisis – Setting aside the utter lack of proof that there is such a thing as climate crisis (go study historical climate cycles dating back millions of years and you’ll see that we’re not experiencing anything noteworthy), it is not the job of the military to solve a climate issue.  This is a betrayal of the military’s responsibility to the nation.

 

 

Take Care of Our People

 

Grow Our Talent – This is just PowerPoint garbage.

 

Build Resilience and Readiness – This would be a great priority except that it doesn’t mean what it says.  Here’s what it really means,

 

We maintain and enhance force readiness and develop the capabilities we need to protect America when we fully embrace a diversity of backgrounds, experiences, and thought. (1)

 

This is diversity and social engineering masquerading as a military goal.  Readiness is a function of repair depots, maintenance, training, etc., not diversity. 

 

Ensure Accountable Leadership – Well this one is already out the window.  If there was any accountability, Austin would be gone after penning this piece of garbage.  Instead, this is all about political removal of conservative beliefs.

 

… working to stamp out extremism … (1)

 

 

Succeed Through Teamwork

 

Join Forces with Allies and Partners – This is the completely discredited concept of sharing the military responsibility so that we don’t have to maintain as strong a military and can redirect our funding to social programs.  The Thousand Ship Navy was a failed example of this.

 

Partnership with Our Nation - ?????  Partner?????  Would the military 'partner' with someone else?  Are they taking bids from various countries?  This is some kind of garbage about … well … I really don’t know what this is other than it’s a waste of the paper it was written on.

 

Unity Within DoD – More compete meaningless gibberish.

 

 

 

Conclusion


Well, there you have it … the defining tome from your top military figure.  Impressive, huh?  I would have a hard time intentionally writing a more worthless piece of garbage and Austin meant this to be serious.  I had to check to see if it was April Fool's Day but, sadly, it wasn't.  Almost none of the memo addressed warfighting, the DoD’s main responsibility, and what little touched on it was so corrupted by social engineering and utter gibberish as to be incomprehensible and worthless.  As worthless a document as I’ve seen. 

 

SecDef Austin has spoken and removed all doubt.

 

 

 

_________________________________

 

(1)USNI News website, “SECDEF Lloyd Austin’s Message to the Force”, 4-Mar-2021,

https://news.usni.org/2021/03/04/secdef-lloyd-austins-message-to-the-force


39 comments:

  1. You know, not killing lots of trees to print this steaming pile of fertilizer would have been very "green" of Mr. Austin.

    Just sayin'.

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  2. Around 20% of adults who get covid require hospitalization. Many will have long term health issues afterwards. Only 1% of people who got the flu required hospitalization.

    At least TWENTY FIVE times more people died from it last year in the US than the flu. More US citizens have died from it in a single year than died in all of WWII. And that's with draconian lockdowns and mask wearing.




    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. We're not going to debate the virus or the validity of the data, much of which is falsified.

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    2. As one of the 70 million survivors of COVID, I can say this message from Austin is garbage from the first paragraph to last. Unfortunately, it seems we have too many 3 and 4 stars that will go along to get along and and not pushback where needed to ensure our military forces will stop being neutered.

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    3. Comment deleted. I said we're not going to debate virus matters. There are other blogs where you can do that.

      Delete
    4. More comments deleted. We're not going to discuss Covid. I don't care whether you agree or disagree, we're just not going to discuss it. This is a naval blog not a medical one.

      Delete
    5. There are approximately nine million venues to discuss COVID, this is a naval blog.

      While I don't completely agree with CNOPS on the matter, this is not the place for yet another COVID debate.

      Delete
  3. This looks more like the foundation document to justify the purge of dissidents than any sort of meaningful strategic or tactical document.

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  4. Remember Austin's qualifications for the office -- he gave away somewhere between $42M-$500M to 56 individuals to train "moderate Syrian rebels", trained by his own admission "4 or 5 people" and then "forgot" who he gave the money to. And his punishment for this was PROMOTION. He is the "poster child" for everything wrong in the military for the last 20 years..

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    Replies
    1. Austin's qualifications for the office are that he was a Black General Officer who would go along with the current "Administration"'s SJW goals and activities.

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    2. While it would be naïve to believe that diversity is not a consideration in political appointments, I have no evidence and, therefore, no reason to believe that Austin's race was a factor in his selection. That he was in agreement or willing to go along with the administration's goals was obviously a factor as it is with every administration and SecDef selection. That's just standard practice.

      My conclusion about his incompetence has nothing to do with his race but, instead, his appalling willingness to subjugate military concerns to political ones and his lack of integrity in doing so along with the lack of intelligence that such behavior demonstrates.

      While all SecDefs have political masters and exert a degree of political impact on the military, most still attempt to put the good of the nation and the military ahead of pure politics. Austin, in contrast, has put the politics of this administration far ahead of the good of the nation and the military.

      Delete
    3. "Obama and Biden's"

      This comment was deleted. This is NOT a political blog. If you wish to make your military points, feel free to repost with the politics removed.

      Delete
    4. Unless someone has proof that race was a factor, that's enough about race.

      Delete
    5. It sounds less about race, and more that he's more of a career senior manager who's been promoted to CEO and is "woke".

      I don't think I saw anything about buying 10,000 tomahawks, while waiting for the next gen land attack missle, sadly

      Andrew

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  5. So... A new secretary who either has no clue, or doesn't care. Im going to have to take up drinking, or stop. reading this blog, or.... It seems like its not just the Navy thats doomed. The whole DOD will be infested with this idiocy... 4yrs of this will destroy any last vestiges of hope I had....

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. You'll note that I've addressed a couple of political related issues in recent posts. I hate doing this but, as you noted, the DoD is infested with politics to a degree unseen prior to the new administration. Unfortunately, this means that I'll have to continue addressing the issues as they rear their heads. I will try to minimize the number of such posts but I won't pretend the issues don't exist. As stated, this blog addresses ALL naval matters and when politics insert themselves into naval matters it must be addressed.

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    2. Sure... I know that you want to avoid the political side, but you're absolutely right, in that the impact of social and political trends and ideas is going to have an increasingly large and detrimental effect. It cant be ignored. Many of them are going to be huge detractors from warfighting, which is seemingly already low on the DODs priority list. Your posts are timely and relevant, even if they arent up for discussion. Dont shy away from them....

      Delete
  6. Is "Work smarter, not harder," still in vogue.

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    Replies
    1. In that vein, is 'drive the waste out of the procurement process' still a thing?

      Lutefisk

      Delete
  7. https://www.military.com/daily-news/2021/03/07/how-biggest-arms-manufacturers-steer-millions-influence-us-policy.html

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    Replies
    1. I don't mind links to articles but please include some kind of analysis or point to go along with it. You posted the link for a reason, whatever it was, so please share your reason and add some value!

      Delete
  8. The quote listed under "Prioritize China as the Pacing Threat" is gold...absolute gold. I have never seen so many platitudes, buzzwords and non-sensical jargon strung together rather eloquently. If you didn't actually read or try to understand the words themselves, it would almost sound impressive!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Signal-to-noise ratio essentially zero there.
      Impressive!

      Delete
  9. I'm of the opinion that anything not directly related to or enhances the military's ability to conduct war, is a waste of time and resources that could be better spent, well, on the ability to conduct war.

    COVID is at best, annoyance to the demographics that make up our military.

    Climate change, is better reduced thru a plethora of different agencies, some of which that is their primary focus. The future implications of climate change and its impact on our military's ability to conduct operations successfully, is most likely a non factor.

    As to building alliances with nations that don't offer any significant increase if our ability to conduct war, those resources could be better spent on ourselves via training and maintenance.

    We are wasting time and resources whilst our enemies aren't.

    ReplyDelete
  10. "Grow Our Talent – This is just PowerPoint garbage."

    It is not garbage but vitally important. Problem is that the nation doesn't have any workable policies to address this issue.

    During the Civil War, Southerners yelled "one Southerner equals 10 Yankee". Union's high tech weapons and ample manpower defeated millions of people united together loyal to their "nation".

    The nation graduates far less STEM students than China (less than 1/10). Smart students refuse to study STEM. The nation is flooded with ... .... but less and less first class scientists and engineers.

    Do you still wonder why in recent years, majority of new weapon development programs end up in failure? At the same time, most Chinese programs end in success?

    Sorry, verbally encouraging more students to study STEM(doing now) is useless, worthless, pointless, directionless, ....

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. You are off base on multiple points.

      First, growing talent does not refer to the nation, it refers to the military so what students choose to study is irrelevant. It may be a societal issue but it's not an immediate military issue.

      I didn't bother pulling out any quotes from this section because it was just vague generalities about removing barriers so people could be better partners with DoD - pure gibberish.

      Second, your assessment of the success of Chinese programs is completely unfounded unless you have access to inside Chinese military information that not even the US military has.

      Finally, to believe that the number of engineering students is somehow related to the success or failure of military weapons programs is completely unfounded. As we've demonstrated in this blog, repeatedly, the reasons for failure are idiotic requirements and specifications, improper contracting, lack of CONOPS, endless change orders, etc. The actual proficiency of the manufacturer's engineers is the least of the reasons for failure and likely isn't a reason, at all.

      Delete
    2. "Grow Our Talent – This is just PowerPoint garbage."

      As it is implemented, it is garbage. I recently watched the 10th Mountain shoot house montage, and I feel that best illustrates the problem. We don't have the in house experience at conducting complex military operations to reliably teach those concepts anymore. 10th Mountains standard and understanding of training was so bad, they didn't know it was bad, thus release footage of said training as a promotional video.

      Meanwhile, the powers that be, are too focused on equality and handing out Article 15s for cold weather injuries instead of meeting mandatory, minimum training requirements and standards.

      Some combat units when I was in, barely had working tanks and maybe qualified with their M4s once a year, let alone knowing if they're optics for said M4 worked.

      I once was told, nearly 2/3rds of the Army every couple years leaves, via retirement, end of contract, etc. All that experience is simply walking out the door and we're not filling the gap its creating with realistic training. Obviously, none of the other branches are in a better position.

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  11. Has there ever been a good and clear example of Commander's intention in these "Message to the Force" in peacetime? I admit that although I try to follow all military matters, I sometimes leave out unnecessary filler communication and this is a prime example. I felt the intention of this message is similar to the kind of CEO communication that is mainly intended for PR purposes rather than force purposes or information for the lower ranks. This makes it less reliable for us to gauge his intentions and a waste of time to decipher the vague statements. I don't know if you ever gain any interesting information out of these force messages but up until now, I never had.

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    1. " I don't know if you ever gain any interesting information out of these force messages"

      What I gain from it is an assessment of the writer's state of mind: what they think is important and what isn't. I don't expect to see any actual useful details in this kind of broad message but what the writer chooses to emphasize, and not emphasize, tells me a lot. In this specific case, it is crystal clear where Austin's priorities lie and what kind of person he is. It does not bode well for the military over the next few years.

      Delete
  12. The ADF reserves were called up FOR THE FIRST TIME a bit over a year ago for massive bushfires.

    The ADF have again been used to manage quarantine.

    We certainly haven't taken our eye of China. We are doing more and more there as well.

    But a live in a country that has no Covid-19, and the ADF was still needed to make it that way and keep it that way.

    In Australia deaths are down. During the first lockdown people stopped killing themselves in car accidents etc. Infection controls meant almost no-one died of the flu.

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    1. PS The RAAF is 100 years old this earlier this week. The second oldest airforce in the world. And at the end of 1945 the third largest.

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    2. Another type 055 destroyer entered service.


      https://militarywatchmagazine.com/amp/article/china-commissions-second-type-055-class-destroyer-lhasa-the-most-powerful-surface-combatant-at-sea

      Delete
  13. Where is the part about putting warheads on foreheads? You know doing the things to win wars?

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    1. Was speaking with someone on that topic here at work. How would we win an all out World War or fierce Naval battle in todays Navy when we have more people worried about what pronoun they use vice learning all the TTPs and tradecraft they need to destroy the adversary.

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    2. "Was speaking with someone on that topic here at work. How would we win an all out World War or fierce Naval battle ..."

      And what did you conclude?

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    3. That the odds would be stacked heavily against us to win. When it comes to being trained warfighters we have lost that edge, society could not stomach mass casualties and we would not want to do another massive lethal attack where civilians end up as casualties from our goal of stopping the enemy on foreign land. We spend more time in any given week doing admin, GMTs, bake sales, diversity group pig-ins, book clubs than we do with learning how to operate our warfighting systems, understanding adversary TTPs, understanding the next mans job, understanding what to do when our normal operating procedure fails, how to be accountable etc... While we still have some of the fiercest and smartest men and women in our ranks as ever before, on a whole I am just not seeing that warfighting drive. Then when you read SECDEF's message it sets the tone for our military institutions to continue to steer away from warfighting greatness.

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    4. I can't disagree and your last sentence cuts to the heart of the problem.

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  14. Today at 1230 we have our first of several extremism Stand Down for 3 hours given by our 4 star. Will be interesting to see what is said, implied or not said

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