I Love Armies

 The first two paragraphs of a NYTimes article on getting Leopard tanks for Ukraine:

" Nearly a month after Berlin gave European allies permission to send German-made tanks to Ukraine, the flow of tanks so many leaders vowed would follow seems more like a trickle.

Some nations have discovered that the tanks in their armory don’t actually work or lack spare parts. Political leaders have encountered unanticipated resistance within their own coalitions, and even from their defense ministries. And some armies had to pull trainers out of retirement to teach Ukrainian soldiers how to use old-model tanks."

I particularly laughed at the second sentence: maintenance is always problematic, particularly in armies which haven't fought wars.  

Hybrid Tanks

 Remember that TFG had big problems with the Ford aircraft carrier--the latest and best USN warship?  He told the Navy to go back to steam-powered catapualts instead of the electromagnetic ones they were pioneering.  Navy ignored him.

Just imagine what he'll think of the new Abrams tank the Army is getting.  It's a hybrid--I guess on the model of a prius though this doesn't give details. Presumably the diesel (rather than gas turbine) drives a generator to the battery which feeds electric motors.  Advantages in fuel consumption and a "silent" mode of operation.

Disadvantages, which the TFG will note:  it's new and therefore will having bugs.

The Future of the Chinese Military

 Putting together this Powerline post, which includes a graph projecting China's population to 2100, which shows it crashing.  Meanwhile Mr. Kilcullen in his book notes the "little emperor" syndrome, with parents and grandpartents focusing attention on their one child/grandchild. He argues that it will make China's leaders very reluctant to incur casualties in a war. 

Kilcullen II

 I blogged previously about David Kilcullen's book.  Not done yet. 

Interesting discussion of the Russia military, particularly in light of their performance in the Ukraine.   One striking bit is the idea of "escalate to descalate"--fast, aggressive strikes to establish a position where resistance is unlikely.  

One example was the Georgian war.  It seems as if the original Russian plan for Ukraine 2022 was the same--a fast strike to decapitate Ukrainian leadership, take Kyviv before NATO could respond.  There's also the possible use of nuclear weapons--small nukes (300 ton TNT equivalent)--use them early betting that retaliation will be hindered by the need for an alliance to coordinate.

Kilcullen describes the evolution of the Russian military since the breakup of the Soviet Union, but might have been surprised that the reforms haven't been as effective in Ukraine as they were thought to be.

Weapons Maintenance

An ex-Marine writes here  about the difficulties in properly cleaning/maintaining weapons.  I wasn't a Marine, but the piece seems valid to me. 

It struck a chord because I remember the captured soldier in the early days of the Iraq war.  For a while she was made an icon of the fighting woman.  Eventually it turned out that her weapon jammed so she never fought.  I had sympathy for her.  I don't think I ever cleaned my weapon in Vietnam.  As a matter of fact, there was a screwup in getting my departure orders to me, so it was a mad dash to get to Camp LBJ and go through out-processing, one step of which was turning in my weapon. When I tried to, the guy (spec-4 maybe?) refused to take it until I cleaned it.  I tried to explain the situation, my flight was due out shortly, but he was adamant.  Finally I threw some money at him >$50<$100 and he agreed to take it.

I made my flight. 

(It seems possible that the Russian soldiers fighting in the Ukraine have been as lax in their maintenance as I was. )

Basic Training 20 Years Ago, and 56 Years Ago

 Here's a description of Army basic training as of 1999. 

Some things struck me--the expansion from 8 to 10 weeks first of all.  Sounds as if they've used the extra time for more military stuff-I don't remember a full week of field exercises, nor any exposure to machine guns.

 No mention of policing the area. . Policing the area was basically forming a line and picking up cigarette butts. I wonder if that still happens, given the decline in smoking since 1960's? 

KP--glad to see they still make young troops do it.  By the time I got through basic at Fort Dix and went to Ft. Belvoir they had started contracting it out there.

The pay--$380 a week?  We got $80, IIRC.

Suicides and War

This fact was noted in one of the newspapers but I found this at the USO site. 

In 2021, research found that 30,177 active duty personnel and veterans who served in the military after 9/11 have died by suicide - compared to the 7,057 service members killed in combat in those same 20 years. That is, military suicide rates are four times higher than deaths that occurred during military operations.

Cowen and McChrystal

 Cowen's interview with McChrystal--what struck me:

• he supports a draft, to get away from restricted recruiting from South and Midweat and military children, including women.
• big concern about getting the right people into the military for drones, surveillance, etc. 
• he supports a period of affirmative action (thinking about the history of women in the military) which means accepting the fact that some of the beneficiaries of AA will not be as good as their competitors.
• he still eats only one meal a day.

Other interesting bits there. 

Equality and Inequity in WWII--the Bomber War

 Interesting--in WWII the RAF bomber crews were self-selected with no divisions of rank or class--they stuck the men who had finished training as pilots, navigators, gunners, etc.  in a big room and let them choose each other to form a bomber crew.  Lots of diversity, at least by country (different parts of the British Empire, plus Poles, Free French, Americans, etc.)   

In contrast America was very authoritarian, as the military tends to be, and strikingly was class-based.  College men who were officers were the pilots and navigators; the rest of the crew were enlisted men. A new crew was formed by order from Washington; preferences had nothing to do with it.

Lessons of the Past--F-35

 I read "Skunk Works" recently. For those who don't remember, it was a unit of Lockheed Aircraft which developed innovative planes, particularly the U-2, the stealth fighter, and the RB-71.  By having good people dedicated to the job led by someone who could navigate the bureaucracy and still inspire, it did damn well.

They were not involved in the F-111 program, known to geezers as McNamara's TFX. It seems from the wikipedia article for it that it turned out okay, but back in the day it was heavily criticized for being over-complicates and too expensive as a result of McNamara's pet idea--have one plane which could serve both the Navy and Air Force. 

My initial reaction when reading this Salon piece on the F-35 was to remember the TFX.

Sometimes I Underestimate the Military

I wasn't impressed by the military during the time I was in the Army; something which is likely reflected at times in my posts here.  But via Lawyers, Guns and Money I was directed to this article on Army anti-drone efforts, which seems impressive. 

Drones and the Military

 The Armenia-Azerbaijan hostilities have involved extensive and effective use of drones by the Azerbaijanis which caused the Post to see the future of warfare. in this article.

I doubt that DOD will move quickly to adapt weapons and tactics for scenarios where the adversary is using drones against us--it's not a situation we've run into much up to now, so the military bureaucracy is unlikely to have focused on the threat.

I'm reminded of some discussions of the evolution of the submarine and torpedo, where you had "torpedo boats", then "torpedo boat destroyers" which evolve into the WWI-WWII hierarchy of weapons. 

Gates on Foreign Policy

 Reading Robert Gates: Exercise of Power, American Failures, Success, and a New Path Forward in the Post-Cold War World.

This Post review is pretty good.  Gates applauds Nixon and Reagan as having foreign policy agendas on entering office, and working effectively to implement them. He likes George HW Bush's response to the end of the Cold War, but criticizes Carter, Clinton, Obama, and Trump. He offers overviews of our history in dealing with various foreign affairs issues over the last 50 years, during much of which he was either at CIA, NSC, or DOD. Then he offers suggestions for better management.

His three big things are:

•  reviving, in my eyes, the Weinberger/Powell criteria for military engagement
• arguing for building up our non-military instruments of foreign policy--State, foreign aid, sanctions,education, etc.
• arguing for coordinated use of foreign policy instruments--he cites GWBush's Pepfar (aid to Africa for AIDS) as a model.

Two thoughts in response:

• for any organization there's a trade-off between specialization and coordination of effort. We had that in USDA, still do, and I don't think anyone has really solved the problem.  The National Security Council was supposed to be the solution originally, but Gates doesn't think much of  its modern incartnation.
• Gates in a sense is arguing for "defunding the military" as progressives are arguing for "defunding the police." In both cases the analysis is that using force is counter-productive and/or ineffective, and using available alternatives to force would work better. (This is my take, definitely not his.)

Just a note from history--in the1950's the UN was the hope of the left.  While Gates doesn't ignore the UN, it's obvious from his discussion how far its stature has fallen.

Ducks Pick Ducks

Rand did a big study of how the different US armed forces recruit and promote their general officers, particularly what are the features of each one's culture.  I skimmed it, finding it interesting, with some resonance with the differences in the cultures of the different USDA agencies I once knew.  

I hadn't run across the saying in the title before, but it makes sense.  It explains a lot of patterns in the bureaucracy.  A paragraph:

 “Ducks pick ducks.” We were unable to obtain data on exact compositions and backgrounds of promotion board members in order to compare them with the backgrounds of the candidates they ultimately chose for promotion. But we heard repeatedly from interviewees in each service that there is a tendency for promotion boards to select officers whose career experiences are comparable to their own, and for senior officers to select officers with backgrounds similar to theirs for aide jobs, positions that serve as a signal of O-7 potential to board members and can provide access to powerful networks of G/FOs. We also observed this trend in the SLSE. The notion of “ducks picking ducks” serves to cyclically reinforce service culture by perpetuating the selection of officers who similarly reflect service goals and preferences. As far back as World War II, Morris Janowitz wrote about the propensity of senior military leaders to fill their staff roles (e.g., military assistant or executive officer) with people who could “speak the same language.”582 However, this observation does not mean that the officers who are selected for promotion by similar, more senior officers are necessarily less qualified; it is possible that the “ducks pick ducks” tendency in some cases occurs because well-qualified officers sitting on promotion boards are selecting for other wellqualified officers.

Learning in Naval Shipbuilding

It turns out there's a learning curve for shipbuilding, particularly as seen in going from building the first aircraft carrier with a new design to the second, as well as going from an experienced non-computer literate workforce to a younger, inexperienced but computer-literate workforce. 

Those Who Ignore History: the F-35 and the TFX

The F-35 is our latest and greatest(?) fighter.  Apparently the lessons learned from its development will cause DOD to go a different direction for the next one.

As a layman I understand the key feature of the F-35 is its use by both the Air Force and the Navy.  After all, both need fighters so why not build one to serve both needs?

It's dream we've had before, most notably in the 60's, with the TFX program..  Back then Robert McNamara was blamed for the decision to go for commonality. The TFX was very controversial and, in my memory, it was never deemed a success, though judging by the wikipedia article it was more useful for longer than I remembered.

The lesson I took away from the TFX episode was twofold:

• it's hard to do a project that meets the needs of two different organizations
• be cautious when trying to do innovation top down.

The continuing mystery is why I forgot those lessons when applied to projects trying to eliminate USDA silos, like ASCS and SCS.

[Update:  see this GovExec piece on the next fighter after the F-35.]

Guantanamo: 1800 for 40?

According to recent reports there are now 40 prisoners left in Guantanamo, an installation which has 1800 personnel.  The way the Times report was worded it sounded like therywere all military and all devoted to the prison but that seems absurd.

If the facts are true, in my opinion we should either do as Obama wanted, move the prisoners to max security prisons in the US which presumably wouldn't require extra personnel at all.  Or, if you don't like that, let's just release the prisoners.  They've been detained for 17 years. 

A Leap Too Far for the Army

As a former draftee I retain a deep skepticism of the wisdom of the US Army.   So I would have said "I told you so" to the Army's plan for its "Iron Man suit", that is if I'd known about it, which I didn't.

As it turns out it was impracticable to integrate all the features desired into one outfit, so the Army appears to be separating the bits out to use individually.

Double-Digit Midget--Some Things Never Change

Via Marginal Revolution, Business Insider has a list of phrases only the military would know.  Among them: "Double-Digit Midget."  That's listed right after "days and a wake-up".

I wonder if the draftees in earlier wars were using the same phrases.  I suppose only those in a bureaucratized military, with terms of service calculated down to the day. 

Anyhow, both those phrases and a few others were familiar from my days in the US Army.

Why No Americans in Thai Rescue?

This is (not) serious:  I understand while we had American military--Seals--on the site of the rescue of the Thai soccer team, they didn't go into the cave.

Why not?

Could it be they're too big--Accu-weather said the tightest opening was 15 inches, which is smaller than the 2 feet I'd heard before.  Seems to me likely that Americans would usually be too big to fit through the smaller opening. 

Bottomline: we need more immigrants in the smaller sizes so our military can be ready for any eventuality.