Our Future Warfighting Concept in Action

Apparently, two ships attempting transit of the Strait of Hormuz were attacked by Iranian small boats.
 

The captain of ‌a tanker said it had been approached by two Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps gunboats that fired ‌on the vessel.[1]
 
A container ship was also hit by gunfire … [1]

The vessels turned back and no injuries or significant damage was reported (so why did they turn back?).
 
What is the significance of this?  The significance is that it’s the future of our military/Navy and it’s not looking good.  This should be eye-opening and shocking for those idiots who are developing our future warfare concepts.
 
What is the foundation of our future warfare concepts?  It’s regional (if not world wide!) sensor networking resulting in total situational awareness with the sensor network intimately linked to weapons.  Nothing exists without us being aware of it and destroying it.  To be fair, the military doesn’t actually talk about destroying things when it describes our future warfare concepts.  I added that part.  The military talks about total awareness somehow, in some undefined way, giving us an advantage by rendering the enemy “confused” and that will gain us victory without any explicit mention of firepower.
 
The regional sensor network will be comprised of all manner of sensors from ships, aircraft, satellites, etc.  We will blanket the region and we’ll see everything.
 
The Middle East, and the Strait of Hormuz, in this case, is a clear example of the regional sensor network concept being applied against a third rate enemy over a very small region.  This should be as dominating an effect as is possible to get.  Iran has no sensor countermeasures.  No jamming.  No signal disruption capability.  No reported cyber attack capability.  Nothing to hinder our sensors or the regional network.  Our networked sensing should be flawless.  Perfect.  Omniscient. 
 
So … how did Iranian boats manage to attack two merchant ships and return safely to wherever they came from?  How did we not see them?  How did we not kill them seconds after they emerged from wherever they were hiding?  For that matter, how could they hide from our all-seeing, all-knowing, regional sensor network?  These are not some kind of uber-stealth vessels aided by sophisticated electronic warfare equipment.  These were some Iranians in a speedboat sailing around, pretending to be a navy – the equivalent of Boy Scouts pretending to be an Army.  The Navy claims to be able to spot periscopes at vast distances ... but not speedboats racing around confined waters?
 
The Strait of Hormuz is not the vast Pacific Ocean.  It’s a very small area and we should be able to blanket it with sensors.  That’s the whole idea of our regional sensor network.  How much more challenging will this be when we attempt it across, say, the entire first island chain when we fight China?  That’s thousands of miles and millions of square miles.  How’s that going to work if we can’t even successfully execute the concept over a tiny strait against an unresisting enemy?  And we’re basing our entire future warfare concept on this?  Yikes!
 
Hand in hand with the sensor issues, where was the firepower component?  Where were the patrolling P-8s, Triton, helicopters, ships, F-35s, drones, etc?  Where were the escorts providing protection for the merchant ships?  It’s not as if there are currently hundreds of merchant ships lined up bow to stern, transiting the strait.  It’s just a few odd ships sporadically making the attempt.  Shouldn’t we be keeping an especially close eye on them to ensure their successful passage for public relations purposes, if nothing else?  Shouldn’t we have vaporized those Iranian boats the moment they appeared?  Shouldn’t we have had firepower ready and waiting when the merchant ships radioed a warming call for help?  Could it be that we did see the boats and just had no firepower available to destroy them?  That’s pure speculation on my part and there is absolutely no indication that we ever saw the boats.
 
No matter how you attempt to spin this, it’s a very bad look for the US and a gut-level warning for our supposed military leaders who are crafting a military concept predicated on networked sensors.  We’re in trouble.
 
 
 
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[1]Newsmax website, “Iran Navy Warns Hormuz Shut Again; Ships Report Gunfire”, 18-Apr-2026,
https://www.newsmax.com/newsfront/strait-of-hormuz-iran-navy-oil-tankers/2026/04/18/id/1253365/

AI Hacked – How Would We Know?

Since the age of sail, sailors have mastered the skill of navigation on the open seas using the stars and a sextant.  What happened when we introduced the miracle of GPS?  We completely lost our navigating skills.  Aside from a few individual throwbacks who enjoy using a sextant as a hobby, no one in the Navy can navigate without GPS.  Unbelievably, in some of the recent spate of collisions and groundings, it was discovered that bridge navigation teams had even lost the skill of fixing a position by taking bearings on known landmarks.
 
Since time immemorial, explorers have traversed the land using the stars, a map, and dead reckoning.  Our overland navigational skills increased even further with the advent of the compass.  Today, the Army has lost the ability to navigate overland without GPS.
 
Pilots used to be able to navigate cross country and hit a time on target to the second with nothing more than a map, bearings, and a stopwatch.  Today, that’s a lost skill.
 
GPS, the miracle of technology, caused us to lose our navigational skills and has made us weaker and less competent.  We have become dependent on GPS.  When our GPS systems fail or are degraded or eliminated by the enemy, we have nothing to fall back on.  Exactly like a drug addict, we have become addicted to GPS and unable to function without it.
 
What’s the next miracle of technology that we’re working so hard to acquire?  Yes, artificial intelligence (AI).  Does anyone have the slightest doubt that we’ll become utterly dependent on AI?
 
Ask a college student to write a report without using AI.  He’ll produce gibberish.  He’s lost his ability (or never developed it) to conduct research, assemble a cogent thesis, and present an intelligible, written document.  Heck, forget AI;  ask a student to write a paper without the Grammarly app and see what results.  Even simpler, ask any young adult who’s gone to public school to calculate change for a purchase in his head, without a calculator, and watch the deer in the headlights, frozen response.  We’ve become dependent on calculators and can’t even do simple arithmetic in our heads anymore.
 
Does anyone have the slightest doubt that we’ll become utterly dependent on AI?
 
The military, by the way, is attempting to make AI the foundation of our entire command and control systems.  We believe, mistakenly, that AI will give us the advantage we need to beat China.  AI, we believe, will analyze all our data, make sense of the fog of war, tell us exactly what the enemy is going to do even before he knows, and will tell us how to counter and defeat the enemy.  AI.  Magic.  One and the same.
 
Those of us who grew up during the introduction of computers are all too familiar with the well known computer programming adage, Garbage In, Garbage Out (GIGO).  Bad data in, bad results out.  AI is not immune to this phenomenon.
 
Be honest.  Does anyone seriously question what they find on the Internet?  Sure, we’ll make jokes about the Internet but does anyone actually question what they read?  Of course not.
 
Does anyone have the slightest doubt that we’ll become utterly dependent on AI?
 
Where are we going with this?  Hang in there.  We’re almost at the point of the post.  One more tidbit to assimilate.
 
Does a week go by without hearing about high level computer systems and programs, both in the military and civilian worlds, being hacked?  Nope.  And those are just the incidents that are made public.  The military and government computers and programs are hacked on a daily basis but for security reasons the incidents are kept quiet.  Despite our best efforts, various state and criminal actors routinely hack our most secure systems.  For all practical purposes, they’re unstoppable.
 
So, now put those two bits together:  absolute dependency on new technology and unstoppable hacking, and ask yourself what the result will be? 
 
The answer is easy to predict.  China will routinely hack and compromise our AI-based systems and we’ll by absolutely paralyzed because of our dependency.
 
But wait, it gets worse.  What if China hacks our AI-based systems subtly and we don’t even know it?  What if they simply manipulate the AI to give us results that give them the advantage?  We’d blindly accept the results (that’s what dependency is), never questioning them and never knowing we were being mislead and manipulated.  In fact, it would never even occur to us to ask whether the AI output was valid.
 
But wait, it gets still worse.  Even if someone was inclined to question AI results, we have no one competent enough to know what a valid result should be.  You have to have subject matter knowledge and expertise to even have an idea that something might not be right and our so-called professional warriors have no expertise (you built a ship without galvanic corrosion protection!).  So, even someone who was inclined to question a result wouldn’t have the slightest idea whether the result was or was not valid.
 
A calculator is a great tool for someone who has been trained in classical math and can recognize a garbage out result.  It is a terrible tool for someone who has no useful math skills and is unable to recognize a garbage out result.  So too, an AI command and control program could be a useful tool to a thoroughly trained and experienced professional warrior who can recognize a garbage out result.  It is a terrible tool for someone who has no useful warfighting skills and is unable to recognize a garbage out result … such as entire current flag officer corps.
 
We all recognize that networked computers are a vulnerability because if one is hacked, they’re all hacked.  We aren’t doing much to address that vulnerability but we do recognize it.  Similarly, we must recognize that AI is a vulnerability, especially when it’s being used as the basis of our highest level command and control programs.
 
Right now, just like drug dealers, we’re being given a free taste of AI to get us hooked.  We need to halt the process before we become totally addicted and helplessly dependent.  We need to regain our unaided warfighting expertise.  We do that by eliminating all non-war education (diversity, equity, gender sensitivity, climate, etc.) at the service academies, eliminating diversity crap from the leadership and ranks, ruthlessly eliminating paperwork from the daily lives of officers, eliminating deployments, bringing the fleet home for maintenance and training, start promoting a culture of acceptance of aggressiveness and ‘good’ mistakes, and start conducting daily realistic warfighting exercises and force our incompetent leadership to learn their profession.
 

Network Lessons for Future Warfare

The Navy (and, to be fair, the entire military) has gone all-in on networking as the basis of our future combat capability.  We’re attempting to create vast regional (or worldwide!) networks of distributed sensors and weapons all tied together in a completely interchangeable, any-to-any linkage.  The Navy claims this will deliver omniscient awareness that will place us inside the enemy’s decision/action loop (OODA, for those of you who recall Col. Boyd’s work) and allow us to wreak havoc and destruction against a hapless, helpless, confused enemy.  While we aren’t at the end point with fully functioning network systems, yet, we do have more than enough existing pieces to get an accurate assessment of the viability of the concept.
 
To ever so briefly review, ComNavOps has mocked the concept as being utterly unrealistic and pure fantasy.
 
To ever so briefly review, history and real world events have mocked the concept as being utterly unrealistic with example after example of the failure of networks, sensors, and weapons.
 
Now, we have yet another real world example of the failure of networking and distributed sensing to examine.  You recall the recent friendly fire shootdown by the Navy of a F-18F Super Hornet on 22-Dec-2024 by the USS Gettysburg (CG-64)?  Reader ‘G2mil’ brought an interview to my attention that examines the incident and offers insight into the networking and sensor failures that led to the shootdown.[1]  The interview is available on YouTube and features retired Navy Capt. Kevin Eyer, a former Aegis cruiser captain, discussing the friendly fire incident with retired former Navy Commander and F-14 RIO, Ward Carroll.
 
Caution:  The interviewee, Capt. Eyer is not on active duty and made no claim to have inside authoritative information.  He did, however, imply that he has access to unofficial, inside information.  The Navy has not yet issued a formal report.  You can make your own assessment of the credibility of the Captain’s information.
 
 
Continuing …  I’ve extracted salient points from the interview and summarized them below.
 

• The IFF interrogation of the aircraft initially succeeded and the aircraft was identified as friendly.  However, the Gettysburg was in the act of recovering a helo of its own and during the recovery had to shut down all emissions.  Upon re-establishing sensor coverage, the aircraft was again queried but this time the IFF failed and the aircraft was not tagged as friendly.
• An electronic warfare (EW) operator identified the aircraft’s emissions as friendly and designated the aircraft as such.  However, the designation failed to register in the system due to a software bug that has been known since 2023.
• The EW operator followed up with a verbal designation of ‘friendly’ on the CIC communication net but, in the din, confusion, and stress of the CIC environment, the verbal statement failed to register with the TAO or anyone who might have intervened.  Verbal communications in stress situations always fail.
• The area wide Cooperative Engagement Capability (CEC) network did correctly have the aircraft identified as friendly however the Gettysburg’s CEC was either down or failed to register the designation from the network.  Networks always fail.

 
 
Here’s a couple of interesting, related notes:
 

• USS Gettysburg ‘failed’ its pre-deployment workups with the ship and crew’s performance being notably short of meeting standards.  Despite this, the ship was allowed to proceed on deployment due to a lack of potential replacement ships.  You’ll recall that we’ve talked about the widespread use of waivers that inevitably lead to tragedy and are at the heart of nearly every incident.  We’ve also noted the Navy’s refusal to hold anyone or anything to established standards.  This ship should never have been allowed to deploy.  The entire point of pre-deployment workups is to certify that the ship/crew are proficient enough to deploy.  Gettysburg was not but deployed anyway.
• NavSea knew about the software bugs but pushed the Aegis software out into the fleet anyway.  This is literally criminal negligence and, in the civilian world, is the basis for criminal and civil trials and lawsuits all the time. 
  

 
 
Discussion
 
As with almost every incident, it was due to a number of supposedly unlikely factors all occurring together.  However, upon examination we see that some of the factors were well known and, thus, the incident was less of a freak confluence of unlikely factors and more of a known problem waiting to happen.  It was just a matter of time.
 
In this incident, we see that despite multiple ships and aircraft tracking the F-18, area wide networks sharing their data, an aircraft that was talking and squawking its identification, and the most advanced surveillance and fire control software in the world, we still managed to lose situational awareness and shoot down a friendly aircraft.  If we can’t keep track of a friendly aircraft with IFF flying a known safe flight path and with no enemy cyber or electronic hindrance, what hope does a regional (or worldwide!) network have in combat?
 
With these repeated demonstrations of ineffectiveness and unreliability, why are we basing our entire future warfare plans on this kind of network/software approach?  This network/data/software approach to warfare requires perfect performance to even begin to be useful in combat and when does perfection ever occur in combat?
 
We shoot down our own aircraft, collide with hulking merchant ships, are unable to verify attacks on us (USS Mason affair), and yet we choose to ignore those real world experiences in favor of fantasy level imaginings of future warfare.  How stupid are we?  The answer is … admiralty stupid!
 
 
 
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[1]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bo34Zwbte6c

Ripped from the Headlines

I just read a single headline that blindingly exposed the idiocy of the US (and the West, in general) military’s fascination and obsession with information, networks, and artificial intelligence as the basis for future warfighting capability.  From a Newsmax article, this headline perfectly sums up the situation [1],
 

Hamas Attack Shows Limits of AI, Tech for Global Security

 
 
Despite the cumulative monitoring by the entire Western world and, specifically, the intensely focused monitoring by Israel, Hamas managed to utterly surprise Israel with a massive attack that included parasails, thousands of rockets, hundreds of vehicles, boats, etc.  Despite one of the world’s most extensive and sophisticated sensor systems of radar, optics, ground vibration sensors, observation towers, and human intelligence backed by the West’s satellite and signals intelligence, the Israelis and the West completely missed the preparations involved in a massive assault by Hamas.  All of that high tech, state of the art (state of the universe?) surveillance focused on one tiny strip of land and we completely missed the months/years long assault preparations
 
  …  and the US wants to base its entire future military capability on that demonstrably ineffective technology. 
 
Despite all evidence to the contrary, the US military has placed its bet for future warfare on the pursuit of perfect situational awareness.  Armor has been ignored.  Firepower has been relegated to an afterthought.  Logistics is a distant tertiary concern, if even that.  Our entire concept of future warfare is based on perfect sensing:  large, all-encompassing, regional sensor networks that see everything.  Of course, no one has yet explained how, even if this could be achieved, that would destroy the enemy.  Destruction requires overwhelming amounts of firepower and we have no interest in firepower.  But, I digress.
 
So, despite the fact that some of the most concentrated and intense surveillance and data collection the world has ever seen was focused on a tiny strip of land and failed, utterly, we’re betting we can flawlessly monitor all of China, the entire East/South China Seas, and all of the surrounding areas, thereby assuring our victory over a hapless and helpless China?  That’s some world class fantasy, there.
 
Just to remind ourselves that the Hamas assault was not some sort of one-off, fluke occurrence, let’s examine some other well known, real world examples of the failure of perfect situational awareness.
 
Afghanistan Drone Strike – During the US’ Afghanistan evacuation, the US executed a drone strike on terrorist leaders in a vehicle based on perfect observations from a UAV.  The only problem was that the target was actually an innocent family.
 
USS Mason – Despite their own Aegis radar system, scores of regional surveillance assets, nearby ship sensors, overhead satellites, and extensive signals intelligence, the USS Mason falsely detected three separate missile attacks and launched defensive missiles.
 
Malaysia Flight 370 – A Malaysian Boeing 777 vanished from one of the world’s most heavily travelled and monitored regions despite multiple radars, IFF, an established flight plan, regular communications, and satellite surveillance.
 
Vincennes – Despite their own Aegis radar system, scores of regional surveillance assets, nearby ship sensors, overhead satellites, and extensive signals intelligence, the USS Vincennes mistakenly shot down a commercial airliner.
 
Riverine Boat Seizure – Despite GPS navigation, regional fleet surveillance assets, and unhindered communications, two riverine boats obliviously got lost and wandered into Iranian territorial waters where they were promptly seized.
 
Port Royal Grounding – Despite GPS navigation, regional fleet surveillance assets, established charts, automated navigation software, and visible landmarks, the USS Port Royal got lost and grounded.
 
McCain and Fitzgerald Collisions – Despite Aegis radar, navigation radars, EO/IR sensors, regional surveillance assets, and IFF systems on both the Navy and commercial ships, the destroyers managed to run into giant, hulking commercial ships in known, well defined, shipping lanes. 
 
Helo Shootdown – In 1994, two F-15C aircraft misidentified and shot down two US Blackhawk helicopters enforcing a no-fly zone over Iraq.  This occurred despite the sophisticated radars and sensors on the F-15s as well as concentrations of regional sensors aimed at the no-fly zone. 
 
 
I can continue with example after example but these should suffice to make the point.  In each case, there was overwhelming surveillance technology and situational awareness assets and yet they failed spectacularly.
 
Making the failures worse is that none occurred in the face of cyber or electronic opposition as would be the case in a war.  Whatever degree of surveillance success we enjoy now (none?) will be greatly reduced in a real war when the enemy applies cyber, electronic, and kinetic attacks against our surveillance and network systems.
 
The only possible conclusion is that surveillance technology is highly unreliable and ineffective.
 
On a closely related note, we’ve talked at length about the dependency and vulnerability that inevitably develops when technology replaces human skill.  Discussing the Hamas assault, a senior Israeli reserve officer clearly pointed out the problem with technology and dependency:
 

“We were living in an imaginary reality for years,” …“We became over-reliant on the sophisticated underground barrier, on technology.[2]

That’s exactly what happens when technology replaces human skill – we become blind, unaware, and dependent and, like any addict, we lose the ability to function and reason.
 
 
 
Of all the things we could possibly base our future military capability on, information, data collection, and networks is the least effective or desirable. 
 
 
 
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[1]Newsmax website, “Hamas Attack Shows Limits of AI, Tech for Global Security”, Marisa Herman, 19-Oct-2023,
https://www.newsmax.com/platinum/hamas-attack-israel/2023/10/19/id/1138867/
 
[2]https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/oct/09/how-did-hamas-manage-to-carry-out-its-rampage-through-southern-israel

Faith in Networks?

By now, you’ve undoubtedly heard all about the recent massive leak of US military documents.  On the off chance that you haven’t, here’s a brief summary from The Guardian website, 

The man believed to be responsible for the leak of hundreds of US defence documents that have laid bare military secrets and upset Washington’s relations with key allies is a 21-year-old air national guardsman based in Massachusetts. 

Jack Teixeira was arrested at his home in the town of North Dighton, Massachusetts, by FBI agents on Thursday. 

Teixeira was the leader of an online chat group who uploaded hundreds of photographs of secret and top-secret documents, according to the New York Times. The online group called itself Thug Shaker Central, made up of 20 to 30 young men and teenagers who shared their love of guns, racist memes and video games. 

Members of the group have told the investigative journalism organization Bellingcat, the Washington Post and the New York Times that the documents were shared on Thug Shaker Central in an apparent attempt to impress the group, rather than to achieve any particular foreign policy outcome. 

The Times said it had seen about 300 of the documents, only a fraction of which have so far been reported, indicating the national security damage could be worse than has been acknowledged.[1] 

Do you grasp the meaning of this?  Our finest military security protocols couldn’t stop an amateur group of video gamers from accessing hundreds of secret documents.
 
Moving on to a seemingly unrelated note, our military continues to accelerate their complete and total commitment to, and dependence on, network and data based warfare in lieu of firepower.
 
I’m going to pause a few moments, here, to allow you to make the connection between those two pieces of information.
 
Dum de do … ta da da … yawn … boop de doo …
 
Okay, that’s long enough.  You see the connection, right?  Again, on the off chance someone (likely a US officer of flag rank) has failed to make the connection, I’ll spell it out.
 
We’re basing our entire future warfare capability on networks and data which can be – and are – breached daily.  If rank amateurs can do this what do you think China, Russia, Iran, and NKorea are doing to us?  We’re just not hearing about it because they don’t release the information they’ve obtained.  I doubt we have a single secret in our entire military that’s unknown to our enemies.
 

What’s going to happen when the war with China starts and we suddenly find that they know every specification on every weapon system we have?  Every strength, every weakness?

 

What’s going to happen when the war with China starts and we suddenly find that they know every battle plan we’ve ever developed?

 

What’s going to happen when the war with China starts and we suddenly find that they’re inside every network and monitoring our intel and communications in real time?

 

What’s going to happen when the war with China starts and China begins inserting fake intel and data into our networks and we can’t tell the difference between real and fake and we don’t know what data to trust and what to avoid?

 
 
If we can’t keep some amateur video gamers out, do we really think we can keep China out?  And, if we can’t keep China out, why are we basing our entire future military capability on an unsecured, wide open network(s)?
 
The most vulnerable aspect of our military is our networks so, of course, we’re building our entire future warfare capability around them.  What’s wrong with this picture?  Ask Battlestar Galactica what’s wrong with networks!
 
At this moment, some of you are still in denial and believe that our networks are secure.  Well, can you name a single major network that hasn’t been hacked recently?  How many times have you received notice that your personal data may have been compromised?  The conclusion is inescapable:
 

There’s no such thing as a secure network.

 
Definition of a network:  An electronic information system that aids hackers in the access and theft of information by organizing and storing it in large, central, easy to access data files.
 
 
 
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[1]The Guardian website, “Pentagon leaks: US air national guardsman, 21, identified as suspect”,Julian Borger and Manisha Ganguly, 13-Apr-2023,
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/apr/13/pentagon-leak-suspect-close-to-being-caught-says-joe-biden

Balloon Story Grows

Well, this story just gets better and better.  If – and I stress the ‘if’ part – we can believe

General Glen D. VanHerck (Commander, North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) and United States Northern Command (USNORTHCOM), the Chinese have floated balloons over the US multiple times … that we know of.

 

A senior U.S. general responsible for bringing down a Chinese spy balloon said on Monday the military had not detected previous spy balloons before the one that appeared on Jan. 28 over the United States and called it an "awareness gap."

 

The Pentagon said over the weekend that Chinese spy balloons had briefly flown over the United States at least three times during President Donald Trump's administration and one previously under President Joe Biden.

 

Air Force General Glen VanHerck, head of U.S. North American Aerospace Defense Command and Northern Command, said the balloon was 200 feet tall and the payload under it weighed a couple thousand pounds.

 

"I will tell you that we did not detect those threats, and that's a domain awareness gap," VanHerck said.[1]

 

We are basing our entire military future and national security/existence on total battlefield awareness, data, surveillance, and networking and yet a simple balloon has eluded our detection at least four times … that we know of.  How many other times did it occur that we never became aware of?

 

Our very best surveillance equipment, networks, and software couldn’t see a balloon.

 

These were not tiny little children’s birthday party balloons.  As Gen. VanHerck stated, the balloons were 200 ft tall with slung payloads of a couple thousand pounds.  How do you not detect that?  How many people on this site have claimed that our various radar systems can spot aircraft and ships hundreds of miles away … and yet we can’t see a giant balloon?  Heck, we claim to be able to spot tiny submarine periscopes in the middle of the ocean with our all-knowing, all-seeing radar … but we can’t see a giant balloon.

 

How many people on this site have claimed that carriers are a thing of the past, just waiting to be sunk, because satellites will be able to track carrier groups anywhere in the ocean … and yet none of our satellites could see a giant balloon slowly drifting towards and across America for days on end?

 

Do you people who believe in the omniscience of our radars and detection systems see the ignorance of your claims?

 

 

Consider these previous examples of our vaunted systems being unable to see what’s in front of them:

 

Yemen Missile Attacks – Recall that the Navy claimed that the Burke class destroyer, USS Mason, was attacked multiple times by anti-ship missiles from Yemen.  In reality, despite all the sensors in the region, satellite surveillance, Aegis radar, etc., the Navy was unable to even decide whether an attack had occurred despite the ship launching several defensive missiles (see, “Yemen Missile Attacks").

 

Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 – This commercial aircraft disappeared without a trace in the middles of one of the most heavily monitored regions of the world.  Searchers had no clue where to even begin looking.

 

Balloons – Apparently, there were four previous balloons that entered US airspace undetected.

 

Destroyer Collisions – As you know, two Burke class destroyers collided with giant merchant ships during simple sailing.

 

 

If these examples of large objects, none of which were making any attempt to evade, couldn’t be detected, why are assuming we can detect enemy forces that are stealthy and making every effort to hide?  Our entire foundation of future warfare is invalid.

 

 

 

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[1]Newsmax website, “General: US Failed to Detect Past Chinese Spy Balloons”, 6-Feb-2023,

https://www.newsmax.com/us/china-spy-balloon/2023/02/06/id/1107478/

Air Force Looking To Eliminate Kinetic Effects

The two decade long Afghanistan debacle has clearly demonstrated that our military leaders are absolute idiots who have no idea how to conduct a war.  This is no longer even debatable.

 

Now, these same demonstrably failed military geniuses are leading us down the path of an ever weaker military chasing the illusion of data and networks.  Here’s something that should scare you to your core: the military is now envisioning replacing kinetic effects with data.  According to Air Force chief of staff Gen. CQ Brown,

 

… advances in artificial intelligence, supercomputing, cyber weapons and space point to an ever-increased reliance on data and software, as well as a trend toward non-kinetic effects. (1)

 

Gen. Brown is looking to significantly reduce our kinetic combat capabilities.

 

“I can’t predict the future, but I would bet the non-kinetic effects will reign supreme,” Brown said during the Dubai International Air Chiefs Conference. “Now we’re somewhere stuck in the thinking that mass needs to be physical. What if we did not have to produce sorties to achieve the same effect? What if a future small diameter bomb looks like ones and zeros?” (1)

 

Mental masturbation about data and networks is all well and good until a Chinese amphibious fleet appears off Guam and none of our data matters at all.  At that point, it’s all about firepower and attrition and we are voluntarily and systematically giving up both firepower and numbers, steadily weakening our forces.

 

We just got kicked out of Afghanistan – a war in which we had total information dominance – and our military leaders want to double down on that failure by further eliminating firepower and emphasizing data?  Remember the definition of insanity?

 

China doesn’t even need to build up their military any further, they just need to wait while we tear down ours!

 

 

 

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(1)Breaking Defense, “Could kinetic warfare go the way of Blockbuster?: US Air Force chief ”, Valerie Insinna, 16-Nov-2021,

https://breakingdefense.com/2021/11/us-air-force-chief-could-kinetic-warfare-go-the-way-of-blockbuster/

Yet Another Information Dominance Failure

The US military is betting its future on intelligence:  networks, data, artificial intelligence, and so on.  Our omniscient intel and situational awareness will overcome the enemy’s superior firepower and numbers.  Data will rule the battlefield.  We’ll be adroitly maneuvering through the multi-domains while the enemy cowers, stunned and confused, in the corner wondering what’s happening.

 

On a seemingly unrelated note, here’s Gen. Milley, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, commenting on the near instantaneous collapse of the Afghan government and military,

 

There was nothing that I or anyone else saw that indicated a collapse of this army and this government in eleven days. (1)

 

Wait a minute!  Gen. Milley, you had total total information dominance in Afghanistan and you had no inkling that this was coming?  You had networks, people on the ground, data being crunched by computers, UAV overflights, total sensor awareness, and joint all-domain dominance.  In short, you had the perfect information dominance situation that you say we need to ensure future military dominance and yet you got fooled by armed rabble? 

 

And you want to base our entire military future on more of the same?

 

Are you an idiot or are you being paid by some foreign government to sabotage our military?

 

 

We just discussed this and proved that information dominance does NOT ensure victory (see, “Information Dominance – Proof of Failure”) and this is yet another proof of failure of the concept  …  but we’re going to continue down this path as our foundation for future war?  There is not a single example of information dominance winning a war and many examples of losing wars despite having information dominance and yet we’re going to continue down this path?

  

 

Note:  Feel free to comment but we are not going to discuss the politics of Afghanistan.

 

 

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(1)Red State website, “Mark Milley Afghanistan Press Conference Had the Qualities of a James Bond Martini”, steiff, 18-Aug-2021,

https://redstate.com/streiff/2021/08/18/the-secdef-lloyd-austin-and-cjcs-mark-milley-afghanistan-press-conference-had-the-qualities-of-a-james-bond-martini-n429112

Information Dominance - Proof of Failure

Cdr Salamander, on his blog, offered a post that contains a pearl of wisdom too good to let pass.  He was discussing a recent wargame (2) whose results have been making the rounds of the Internet and one of the specific points he was addressing was that of networks and information advantage and how the military claims this will give us a decisive advantage over our enemies.  Here is his thought on the notion:

 

We had a huge information advantage over the Taliban and how did that work out for us. (1)

 

I’m not going to discuss that wargame because there is no definitive information on the conditions or results so there is nothing to intelligently discuss.  Besides, what little has come out of it publicly is almost too stupid to believe although the military never ceases to amaze me with its ability to self-deceive so …

 

Instead, I want to expand on Cdr Salamander’s thought a bit.

 

As we’ve discussed ad nauseam, the Navy (and the military as a whole) has bet all-in on networks and information dominance as the foundation and key to future combat dominance.  We’ve also demonstrated the folly of this approach, repeatedly.  I’ll try not to repeat that discussion but I would like to expand on Cdr Salamander’s thought with some more examples.

 

Afghanistan – We had total information – and technology – overmatch over the Taliban to a degree that beggars the imagination and yet, here we are, today, pulling out of Afghanistan having lost after 20 years of total information dominance.  As the Cdr notes, how did that work out for us?

 

Vietnam – We had total information dominance and network superiority (albeit of a cruder level than today) and we lost to people living and fighting day to day in huts, caves, and tunnels.  How did that work out for us?

 

 

Now, let’s consider another example that turned out differently.

 

 

Desert Storm – We had total information dominance and this one was a spectacular tactical victory (and a strategic failure).  What was different about this?  The difference was that we won through overwhelming firepower, training, logistics, and motivation – all the traditional elements of a powerful military.  Of course, having a totally incompetent, unmotivated enemy helped! 

 

 

 

Conclusion

 

Desert Storm was won because we had and applied overwhelming firepower superiority.  Contrast that with Afghanistan.  We had overwhelming firepower superiority, as a military, but we didn’t apply it.  Desert Storm saw armored divisions roaming the battlefield while Afghanistan saw infantry patrols sporadically appearing on the battlefield and then returning to base.  Our information dominance had no decisive impact.

 

The conclusion is obvious:  information dominance does not win wars but firepower does – when it’s applied.

 

We won’t achieve information dominance over China.  At best, we’ll achieve parity.  If we couldn’t win any wars with total information dominance, why do we think we’ll beat China with, at best, information parity?

 

 

 

_________________________________

 

(1)cdr salamander blog, “We’re Designing Ourselves To Lose”, 26-Jul-2021,

https://cdrsalamander.blogspot.com/2021/07/were-designing-ourselves-to-lose.html

 

(2)https://www.defenseone.com/policy/2021/07/it-failed-miserably-after-wargaming-loss-joint-chiefs-are-overhauling-how-us-military-will-fight/184050/

Networks and Royal Navy Signal Flags

In several posts, we’ve examined historical naval battles and analyzed them from today’s perspective to learn lessons applicable to our current strategies, doctrine, and tactics.  The timelessness of the lessons has been striking.

 

Today, we’re going to look not at a battle but at a technology and see what lessons can be learned.  Specifically, we’re going to look at the English Royal Navy system of signal flags, implemented in the age of sail.  As we do, we’ll keep in mind the parallel between the English flag system and today’s networks and command and control (C2) systems.

 

Before the advent of radio, communication between ships was problematic, to say the least.  Ships that were out of sight of each other were, essentially, out of communication.  Even within sight of each other, communications were difficult.  Simplistic signals involving sails or flags or lanterns or some such were used but their effectiveness was subject to degradation by darkness, weather, distance, and the confusion of combat.

 

Eventually, the Royal Navy attempted to standardize the meaning of a limited set of signal flags, as described below.

 

Between 1337 and 1351 the British Navy lists two signals in their old “Black Book of the Admiralty.” The first was to hoist a flag of council high in the middle of the mast, to notify all captains to come aboard the admiral's flagship for a meeting. Hoisting another flag aloft reported the sighting of the enemy. (3)

 

By the late seventeenth century things still had not progressed much. A code book issued for the British Navy in 1673 defined 15 different flags, each with a single predefined meaning, which was probably not too much different from what had been used since antiquity. (3)

 

Following this, the English came up with a major step forward when they established an extensive system of standardized signal flags.  From Wikipedia (4),

 

Several wars with the Dutch in the 17th century prompted the English to issue instructions for the conduct of particular fleets, such as (in 1673) the Duke of York's "Instructions for the better Ordering of His Majesties Fleet in Sayling". Signals were primitive and rather ad hoc ("As soon as the Admiral shall loose his fore-top and fire a gun..."), and generally a one-way communication system, as only flagships carried a complete set of flags. In 1790 Admiral Lord Howe issued a new signal book for a numerary system using numeral flags to signal a number; the number, not the mast from which the flags flew, indicated the message. Other admirals tried various systems; it was not until 1799 that the Admiralty issued a standardized signal code system for the entire Royal Navy. This was limited to only the signals listed in the Signal-Book. In 1800 Captain Sir Home Popham devised a means of extending this: signals made with a special "Telegraph" flag referred to a separate dictionary of numbered words and phrases. (4)

 

The system was straightforward and simple.

 

The signaling system in use by the Royal Navy at the time of the Battle of Trafalgar had been introduced in 1799 by Admiral Lord Howe and was further developed by Captain Sir Home Popham. Howe's original system was based on a set of flags numbered 0 to 9 that when hoisted in various combinations could transmit words, numbers, or messages listed in the Signal Book. Each letter of the alphabet was allotted a number, enabling words to be spelled out, The numeral flags could also be used to send numbers as such. But most signals were two-or three-flag combinations which referenced messages in the Signal Book, e.g. to discontinue the engagement, to pursue the enemy, to anchor, etc. The Signal Book was so arranged that the sender and receiver could quickly compose and interpret flag hoists. (2)

 

Howe's system was impractical for sending long messages due to the large number of flags required to spell out individual words. In 1800, therefore, Captain Popham developed a "vocabulary" system by which three- or four-flag hoists referenced words or phrases in the Signal Book. This was the system in use at the time of Trafalgar and Nelson's famous signal is a fine example of how it worked. This type of hoist was preceded by the so-called telegraph flag, indicating that a vocabulary message was to be sent. The signal was terminated by a finishing flag, functioning like the period at the end of a sentence. Receiving ships acknowledged the signal by hoisting the Affirmative flag, indicating that it had been seen and understood. If the signal was seen but not understood, receiving ships hoisted the Affirmative flag over numeral flag no. 8. For repeated numbers a substitute flag was provided. In Nelson's signal this flag, yellow with black stripes along the top and bottom, was employed in the hoist for the word do (No. 221), substituting for a second no. 2 flag.

 

The second signal that Nelson ordered to be hoisted was No. 16 in the Signal Book: "Engage the enemy more closely." This remained aloft until it was shot away in the heat of battle. (2)

 

 

Standardized signal flag systems, while a vast improvement over ad hoc signals, were still subject to distance limitations.  The sender and receiver had to be within visual range.  This was partially remedied by using signal chains whereby the sender could disseminate a signal to ships out of visual range by using a repeater chain of ships, each ship relaying the message to the next ship in line.  Of course, this required time for the message to slowly repeat its way along the chain and required a string of ships.  Fortunately, naval battles in the age of sail were generally fairly slow affairs, often requiring many hours to lead up to the actual battle.  The system also suffered from the confusion of battle where signals might be missed, misread, shot away, or otherwise fail since both the sender and receiver had, understandably, higher priorities.

 

Here is an example of the signal chain from the Battle of Trafalgar:

 

Accordingly the French admiral Villeneuve hoisted the signal to weigh anchor, and at six in the morning of 19 October the British frigate Sirius, waiting outside Cadiz, signalled to the fleet below the horizon ``Enemy have topsails hoisted.'' An hour later it hoisted signal no. 370, ``Enemy ships are coming out of port.'' The hoists were made to the next frigate in the signalling chain, Euryalus, which in turn signalled no. 370 to Phoebe with the accompanying admonition--superfluous in a service schooled to such discipline--``Repeat signals to lookout ships west.'' And so no. 370 travelled down the chain, from Phoebe to Naiad, Naiad to Defence (a line-of-battleship), Defence to Colossus and Colossus to Mars, standing in Nelson's line of battle itself, 48 miles from the mouth of Cadiz harbour. The news reached Nelson at 9:30. He immediately ordered ``General chase southeast'' and steered to place the fleet between Cadiz and the Straits of Gibraltar. The opening move of the battle of Trafalgar had begun. (3)

 

 

Regarding Nelson and Trafalgar, it is interesting that Nelson opted not to depend on signals for his C2, choosing, instead, to emphasize doctrine over command and control.  In fact, he conducted the entire battle while sending only two signals, neither of which was of a tactical nature.  Nelson understood that even a simple system like signal flags could, and would, be misapplied and misunderstood in the heat of battle and that the preferred method of exercising C2 was to not attempt to exercise C2.  He chose, instead, to depend on clearly defined doctrine which allowed local commanders (the individual ship Captains) to act without higher command direction and yet still unerringly act with total adherence to his intent.

 

 

Lessons

 

As with the historical battles we’ve examined, nothing has changed from age of sail to today in terms of the lessons about communications and networks.  The same problems that plagued naval communications then still plague us today and will continue to do so on the future naval battlefield.  Weather will still degrade communications.  Confusion will still rear its head.  Signals are still susceptible to detection and interception.  And so on …

 

The technology has changed but the lessons remain constant.

 

Inevitable Confusion – Anyone who has ever played the child’s party game of passing a whispered message around a circle of people and seeing how distorted it comes out at the end can testify to the inevitable confusion and garbling of any communication.  A message that is crystal clear to the sender may be confusing gibberish to the receiver – and that’s without considering the effects of weather, distance, light, jamming, false signals, combat, or whatever other form of disruption occurs.  The sources of confusion may have changed (jamming, false signal induction, cyber attack, etc.) but the effects and the lessons remain the same.  Communications will be misunderstood and the advent of radio and electronic signals has done nothing to mitigate the confusion.  A famous example of this is the Admiral Nimitz’s radio message to Admiral Halsey during the battle of Leyte, in WWII, where the meaningless padding phrase, “the world wonders”, was accidentally left in the message and interpreted by Halsey as a sharp rebuke of his actions and wound up changing his plans.

 

Distance – Distance has been the nemesis of communications since time immemorial.  Even today, electronic signals degrade with distance as interfering phenomena are encountered.  Line of sight communications are impacted by distance and impose constraints and altered behavior by the sending platform. 

 

Interception – The mere sending of a signal, and frequency of signaling, even if the meaning is not understood, can provide the enemy with valuable intelligence (see, “The Battle of Heligoland Bight”). 

 

Here is an anecdotal story from a reader,

 

I spent a while working with a blokey from EW element of the Royal Signals, they would spend an entire exercise doing SIGINT traffic analysis of our own side during exercises in Germany.

It is really scary what can be discerned by traffic analysis alone (all the more prevalent when crypto is so effective - in the context of the battlefield timescale). (5)

 

 

The only truly secure signal, the only signal that cannot be detected, intercepted, and analyzed is the one that is not sent.

 

 

Doctrine and Commander’s Intent – The only sure form of communication is no communication and the best communication is no communication.  This is where doctrine and Commander’s Intent comes in.

 

During the Cold War, the US Navy carrier groups would routinely launch entire strike forces without a single radio transmission and aircraft could conduct air-to-air refueling with no transmissions.  Today, our forces have acquired a severe case of verbal diarrhea and are utterly lost without constant communications. 

 

We need to re-establish doctrine and relearn comms-out operations.  The corollary to this is that we need to drop our obsession with ever more intrusive C2 and return to allowing local commanders to command.  If we allow local commanders to command then we don’t need to communicate with them and that is, after all, the best form of communication.

 

 

Conclusion

 

Despite all the historical and current evidence to the contrary, we still cling to the fantasy of region-wide networks of sensors and shooters all tied together in a mammoth, flawless, seamless, real time network of instantaneously shared data and intel.  Just as the Royal Navy learned that the best form of communication was no communication, we, too, must learn to operate without communication and that means emphasizing doctrine and commander’s intent instead of the ceaseless – and useless – drone of higher authority clogging the airwaves.

 

 

 

________________________________

 

(1)Richard Howe, Signal and Instruction Book, ca. 1776

https://quod.lib.umich.edu/c/clementsead/umich-wcl-M-899how?view=text

 

(2)https://tmg110.tripod.com/british21.htm

 

(3)https://www.royal-signals.org.uk/Datasheets/SignallingFlags.php

 

(4)Wikipedia, “Naval Flag Signaling”, retrieved 25-Jan-2021

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naval_flag_signalling

 

(5)Navy Matters, “The Battle of Heligoland Bight”, Dave Wolfy, January 6, 2020 at 12:10 PM

https://navy-matters.blogspot.com/2020/01/the-battle-of-heligoland-bight.html?showComment=1578341445590#c1103685532335291121

Networks or Firepower?

Today’s military is myopically focused on data and networks as the key to future warfare.  However, no matter how much data you have, you eventually have to kill the enemy’s troops and destroy their equipment.  That requires firepower … explosives.  ComNavOps has stated that the military is substituting networks and data for firepower, not supplementing and supporting firepower.  Is this true or just a misconception?  Let’s look.

 

Since … oh, I don’t know … say, Desert Storm in 1991, how many new networks, sensors, and data collection and analysis systems has the Navy developed?  Here’s a partial list:

 

• CANES (Consolidated Afloat Networks and Enterprise Services) – provides shipboard network
• NIFC-CA (Naval Integrated Fire Control – Counter Air) – integrated area wide data/targeting sharing
• CEC (Cooperative Engagement Capability) – provides data/targeting sharing and remote fire control
• TTNT (Tactical Targeting Network Technology) - waveform technology providing high throughput, anti-jam, low latency and quick net join waveforms for IP connectivity
• SQQ-89 – anti-submarine software that integrates ASW sensors and weapons
• NMCI (Navy Marine Corps Intranet) - provides a shore-based enterprise network in the continental United States and Hawaii via a single integrated, secure information technology environment for reliable, stable information transfer
• ONE-Net (OCONUS Navy Enterprise Network) - evolved from the Base Level Infrastructure Information (BLII) Modernization Program in 2005, ONE-Net provides secure, seamless and global computer connectivity for the DON outside the continental US
• NGEN (Next Generation Enterprise Network) - provides secure, net-centric data and services to Navy and Marine Corps personnel
• NTCDL (Network Tactical Common Data Link System) - allows the Navy to share large quantities of critical ISR data across platforms and networks
• NIWC (Naval Information Warfare Center) Pacific Command and Control - fleet support center for command, control and communication systems and ocean surveillance
• Link 16 – data transmission
• AESA Radar – provides detection, tracking, communications, and electronic warfare
• JADC2 (Joint All Domain Command And Control) – overarching network that connects sensor from every service into a single network

 

The preceding list is only a partial list that barely scratches the surface of all the Navy’s data and networking applications.  A new networking command and control scheme comes out seemingly every day!

 

Now, for comparison, let’s list the new Navy ‘explosives’ that have been developed over the same time period.

 

• LRASM (Long Range Anti-Ship Missile) – Tomahawk replacement
• NSM (Naval Strike Missile) – Norwegian small anti-ship missile
• JSOW (Joint Stand Off Weapon) – guided glide bomb with altitude dependent range

 

That’s it.  That’s all there are unless I’ve missed one - which I'm sure I have and I have no doubt that someone will triumphantly point it out!

 

Regardless, it’s clear where the Navy’s focus has gone, isn’t it?  We truly have stopped pursuing firepower and have replaced it with networks and we’ve done so without testing those networks in realistic combat conditions against full spectrum anti-network effects (cyber, jamming, disruption, spoofing, etc.).

 

There’s a few other weapons that you might be tempted to think of as new but they’re actually just upgrades from existing weapons or they’re pre-1991:

 

• Mk54 torpedo – upgrade from Mk50
• JDAM (Joint Direct Attack Munition) – not a weapon but a guidance package for dumb bombs
• ESSM (Evolved Sea Sparrow Missile) – upgrade to Sea Sparrow
• SLAM-ER (Stand Off Land Attack Missile – Expanded Response) – modified Harpoon
• Mk77 Incendiary Bomb – napalm replacement
• AARGM (Advanced Anti-Radiation Guided Missile) – upgrade to HARM

 

Note that most of the weapons are just minor evolutionary improvements of existing weapons that have been given a new designation, like Standard -1, -2, … -6.

 

There’s absolutely nothing wrong with weapon system upgrades but they offer no new capabilities, just generally minor enhancements to existing weapons.  Good but not new capability and not any increase in firepower.

 

 

Now, here’s a list of weapons that haven’t been developed but desperately need to be. 

• Cluster munitions
• Supersonic anti-ship missile
• Short range conventional ship launched ballistic missile
• Intermediate range conventional ship launched ballistic missile
• Self-propelled, armored, medium range SAM vehicle for Marine Corps
• Self-propelled, armored, short range SAM vehicle for Marine Corps
• Littoral torpedo
• Anti-torpedo torpedo
• Large caliber naval gun (8” and larger)
• Navalized MLRS
• Navalized 5” rocket launcher
• Wake homing torpedo
• High explosive, 1000 lb warhead torpedo

 

These would offer substantially new capabilities (or revival of old, dropped capabilities!) and increased firepower but the Navy clearly has no interest in developing firepower.  They’d much rather focus on the sexy, shiny, high-tech networks – which won’t work in a contested environment, anyway.

 

It’s also quite depressing to recall some of the weapon systems that have been dropped, with no replacement, since 1991: 

• 16” Battleship Gun
• Tomahawk Anti-Ship Missile (TASM)
• CAPTOR Mine
• Cluster munitions
• Marine Corps Tanks
• SHORAD (AAW Short Range Air Defense)

 

We have got to regain our focus on firepower.