Military

This is the state of our military. These are three female Masters at Arms (Navy MP’s). This picture was taken right after they got out of a Navy Law Enforcement vehicle. Massive change in the military is required to end this nonsense.

The Chinese, on the other hand, are a much more credible threat. PLAN (the Chinese Navy) is large, modern, and growing. Six modern, recent nuclear submarines. The diesel submarines that can’t do well in the open ocean work quite well in the shallow waters of the China sea, and PLAN has 45 of them.

They have 46 new destroyers, 44 frigates, and 3 carriers with more under construction.

Contrast that with the US Navy. We have :

• 11 carriers (8 of them are more than 25 years old)
• 9 amphibious assault ships (aka baby carriers, and half of them are more than 25 years old),
• 9 cruisers (all of them are more than 30 years old),
• 75 destroyers (a third of them are older than 25 years), and
• 51 submarines (half of them are more than 25 years old, but all are nuclear).

Also keep in mind that we have to monitor 2 oceans. PLAN only has to cover one. Our Navy still has a decided advantage, but the Chinese are building a lot of ships, and the US isn’t.

Nuclear Weapons

The Chinese own an estimated 600 nuclear weapons and they are expected to have double that number by 2030. It is also estimated that only 24 of them are actually deployed on delivery devices. In both cases, I say estimated because no one really knows for sure. Since they are producing roughly 120 warheads a year, they are quickly growing in capability.

Contrast that with the US stockpile of 3700 operational warheads. That seems impressive until you realize that over 1900 of those warheads are in storage and are not available for use. While the tactical nuclear arsenal could once be deployed on NATO-designated aircraft within minutes, today the readiness level is measured in months. Since 2010, when Obama signed a new nuclear policy, the US has committed to not developing new warheads. He wanted to push us to a near unilateral nuclear disarmament.

For those reasons, China will be a near peer in deliverable nuclear warheads within the next 5 to 7 years.

Too Little, Too Late?

Forcing NATO to begin providing for their own defense and providing their own nuclear umbrella is a wise move, and one that I would like to see Trump continue to pursue. China is our most dangerous and most credible adversary. Russia is in the middle of asking for North Korean assistance in order to invade Ukraine. They just aren’t in a position to threaten the entire world.

China has all of the people it needs. They are in the middle of securing access to minerals and other natural resources worldwide. There are tons of natural resources just to their north, and the only reason that they haven’t gone to go get it is that those resources belong a strong nuclear power. Once Russia collapses, it is theirs for the taking. Opposing Russia and trying to get Europe and the US to fight them is exactly what China wants.

The time to begin producing systems to defend ourselves is now, but we are too busy seeing our tax money syphoned off by greedy, corrupt politicians on both sides of the aisle for that to happen.

The largest threat to the US is, in my opinion, the internal threat posed by the insurgent movement being backed by our own intelligence agencies/bureaucrats. China is our largest external threat.

The Houthis fired missiles at a US aircraft carrier. They have announced that no US ships will be permitted to sail through the Red Sea. Trump is a President who is doing all that he can to keep this nation out of conflict. However, the US cannot ignore a state sponsored terrorist group telling the US that they cannot sail in a given area. The first time this was done has caused the Marines to sing about it for over 200 years after President Madison ordered them to go kick some Barbary ass. The Navy has a long tradition of enforcing freedom of navigation. That is the entire reason why we have a Navy.

In response, Trump could probably order US aircraft to do some serious damage to the Houthi encampments. That will be time consuming and expensive, but he will probably do it. More effective in my opinion would be to go ahead and back up his warning to Iran. They are supplying the weapons, they pay the price.

Initiate Praying Mantis II. For those who don’t remember, Praying Mantis was a naval action in 1988 that saw the Iranian navy get its ass kicked over an 8 hour period by the US Navy. I don’t think that they learned their lesson the first time.

The Iranian navy has 6 submarines, 7 frigates, 3 corvettes, and a whole bunch of smaller craft. I think that sinking most of their Navy would perhaps be appropriate. It shouldn’t take more than a couple of days. If they try to defend those ships with aircraft, shooting most of them down would also be appropriate. If the UN and International court don’t like it, that’s just too damned bad.

Why does the EU/UK need the US to be involved in the Ukraine affair? All you have to do is look at the numbers.

• The EU has a population that is 50% larger than the US- 518 million, compared to our 340 million. (UK 68 million, EU 450 million).
• The GDP of the UK/EU is $20.5 Trillion, compared to the US $27.2 Trillion.
• The UK/EU spends $394 Billion (UK $68.3 Billion, EU $326 Billion) on defense. That is 1.9% of its GDP.
• The UK/EU spends $1.2 trillion on medical care and $4.5 trillion on welfare benefits. That’s a total of $5.7 trillion, or more than a quarter of their GDP. That’s why they can’t afford a military, but that’s OK, the US will supply that, am I right?
• The US spends $1 trillion on defense, or 3.7% of its GDP, with a fifth of that going to support the defense of Europe. A third of the money spent on Europe’s defense comes from the US, with the other 2/3s coming from the 32 countries of Europe.

While all of this is going on, while Europe is demanding that we the United States do something to stop Russia, they are busy buying Russian oil. So much oil that the Russians have received more European money over the past three years than has Ukraine.

Europe has been spending their money on free healthcare, vacations, and baubles because they can afford to. The US is taking care of the defense budget. That’s what Trump has been complaining about- the nations of Europe are, like teenagers, spending all of their money on music and fast food because the US is acting like parents, and taking care of the groceries and home expenses.

Now tell me why American money needs to go to Europe, why Americans have to enter a war and die, all so Europe can continue partying like it’s a Frat party funded by Europe and the US.

It’s time for that to end. There is no reason why the nations of Europe can’t take care of Russia. The US has a bigger problem to deal with- China. The thing is, what is going to be needed to deal with the Chinese threat isn’t going to be the same as needed for Russia.

Russia only has 8 surface warships in service that are less than 25 years old and larger than 1,000 tons, and they are all Frigates. The remainder of their surface Navy is more than 25 years old, in drydock, or a Corvette (similar to a Coast Guard cutter).

They have one nuclear attack submarine that was built this century, the rest are cold war relics. The only attack submarines they have that are less than 25 years old are diesels.

That’s OK for shallow water operations, but they are no longer a blue water navy. They can’t protect SLOCs, nor can they project power. The Russian navy is not really a force projecting service any longer.

I am not saying that the US has no business interests in Europe, because that is false. The US has business interests in every nation in the world. That isn’t the same thing as a vital national interest. Our military doesn’t exist to make sure that no business venture in the world has risks. No American should die just so some businessman somewhere doesn’t lose money. The US military isn’t here to provide a risk free business environment for all of the nations of the earth.

It’s time that we stop being Uncle Sugar, the World Police, and stop borrowing money that we don’t have to provide security to Europe while they enjoy all of the fruits of our labor, our blood, and our treasure.

Joe Blow decides to call me stupid for stating that the Ukraine/Russia war is a stalemate. Normally, comments attacking me like that wouldn’t make the blog, but Joe is a long time commenter and has earned a bit of grace. He just needs some facts.

The fact is that Russia only controls 19% of Ukraine, and about a quarter of that was the territory in the Crimea that was taken a decade ago. The fact is that the front lines have been largely in the same place for the past three years. This is where the lines were in November of 2022:

Now look to see where the front lines are now:

Nearly two and a half years later, and there is virtually no difference. In fact, in terms of territory held, there have been no gains since the first year of the war.

You can see that the Russians made huge gains in the initial two months of the war, then Ukraine won back some territory within six months, then the lines have remained virtually stable since. That’s called a stalemate. In the meantime, over one million lives and half a trillion dollars have been lost, and for what?

I see absolutely no US national interest in this war. None. The “oh, we need to defend Ukraine or the Russians will take over Europe like Hitler did” is simply a weak imitation of the domino theory, a stupid holdover from the Cold War that has been used as justification for every stupid useless war that the US has been involved in for the past 80 years.

There is not a reason to spill a single drop of American blood, nor waste a single American dollar on a war that simply isn’t our problem. Let Europe worry about this one. I don’t think that Russia is going to go to war with the European Union unless the EU keeps beating war drums and trying to start one. We need to stop letting France, Britain, Russia, and Germany drag us into the wars that they have been fighting in Europe for over 1,300 years. If they want to keep fighting, let them, but there is no reason for us to be involved.

The fact that members of the EU have been refusing to allow US military units to purchase supplies is beyond the pale. For example, a Norway company recently refused to allow a US submarine to purchase diesel fuel for their backup generator, and called for other companies to do the same. The Norwegian government quickly backed away from this boycott, which is good for the EU, because if I were Trump, my first step would have been to pull all nuclear weapons from EU bases. All of them. It’s something that is quick and easy to do, and sends an unmistakable message to the EU: our military cooperation with your country can disappear overnight, if you want to fuck around.

The US is NATO and the EU has been taking advantage of the US security guarantee to increase social spending while ignoring defense. The number of main battle tanks in EU member states has decreased from 15,000 in 2000 to 5,000 today. The US has 4,657 main battle tanks in NATO territory, meaning that the US is 50% of NATO’s military strength. Even THAT statistic is misleading. Italy, for example, has about 200 Ariete tanks, but only 50 of them are fully operational, with the rest of them being in various stages of disrepair. If this is typical of NATO member states, the US forces in Europe make up 80% of the entire NATO force. What do we get in return for that?

This is why the EU has so much money to spend on social programs. The US military has 100,000 troops in Europe. That equals ten percent of our entire military, costing the US about $200 billion a year. What do we get in return for that?

The message being sent by Trump is unmistakable- the days of Uncle Sugar being exploited are over. The EU can screw around with Russia, but at the end of the day, they don’t have the forces to take on a large war.

There are many people who want to make the place crash in DC into some sort of deliberate attack. There is a saying- Don’t ascribe to conspiracy that which is adequately explained by incompetence. There is a video that I will embed below, where an instructor pilot explains how easily it would be to have such an accident with a relatively inexperienced pilot in crowded airspace. Some of the items he discusses are:

Her 500 hours of flight experience is laughably low. He points out that 500 hours is long enough for a pilot to THINK they know enough to handle everything, even when they don’t. I know from my own experience as a SCUBA diver that this is the case. There is a point, right around 40 to 50 logged dives, that a diver becomes confident in their abilities, but that usually comes to an end when the diver gets themselves into a situation that they shouldn’t have been in because they were overconfident in their abilities. That is where accidents happen. I think that was the case here.

Military people don’t have as much experience as their civilian counterparts. For example, the Captain of the last cruise ship I was on had been sailing as an officer for 45 years, and had been a captain for 25 of them. How many Navy captains have that level of experience? Zero, that’s how many. The same goes for pilots- the captain of a commercial airplane has thousands of hours as a copilot before taking command, then has thousands more as a captain. Your average airline pilot with 5 years’ experience will have between 3,000 and 5,000 hours of flight time.

He also says that the helicopter was going too fast for the conditions. When a helicopter is moving quickly, it is tilted forward, and in the UH60, this limits visibility of aircraft that are in front of you and at your same altitude.

He points out that the altimeter may have been set incorrectly, which an inexperienced pilot may easily forget to do, and this could account for the incorrect altitude.

It was a cascade of minor errors that an inexperienced pilot would make, and doesn’t require a conspiracy or a deliberate attack. I know that the video is half an hour long, but it is worth watching if you find this sort of thing at all interesting.

The pilot of the Blackhawk that collided with a passenger aircraft over the Potomac has been identified: Captain Rebecca Lobach.

She graduated from UNC Chapel Hill in 2019. She began her Army career in July of that year. She was assigned to the White House to be a party planner, officially called a “White House Military Social Aide,” whose job was supporting high-profile events such as the Medal of Honor and Presidential Medal of Freedom ceremonies. She was a sexual harassment/assault response and prevention victim advocate.

As far as her skills as a pilot, she had 450 hours of logged flight time in the Blackhawk. According to a friend of mine who flies that same helicopter, a pilot is required to fly 96 hours per year MINIMUM in order to remain certified to fly it. That works out to 8 hours per month. 450 hours would mean that she has been a UH60 pilot for about 56 months. The Captain has been in the Army for 5 and a half years, or about 65 months. So this means that accounting for flight school, she was only doing the bare minimum to maintain certification in the aircraft.

Appears like she was a DEI hire.

NORTHCOM has just announced increased security at all CONUS military installations, effective Monday morning:

The Commander of U.S. Northern Command has directed all military installations to immediately implement heightened security measures. These include:

100% ID checks

Random inspections

Suspension of the Trusted Traveler Program. (The Trusted Traveler Program was a procedure that allowed DoD-affiliated sponsors to vouch for vehicle occupants to gain entry onto an installation. )

Drivers should expect delays and random inspections at entry gates as we enhance the security posture of our installation to ensure our ability to project combat power when and where required. This is a critical step in ensuring the security and readiness of our installations. Drivers should expect delays at entry gates due to increased inspections.

Note that this move is supposedly in response to the events in New Orleans and Las Vegas, but if it was that serious, why wait nearly a week? Why would this move begin on the very morning that the Electoral College votes are to be certified?