HG S2 (Intel Bot)

Civil wars are nasty and unpredictable things. The longer they go, the more the thin veneer of civilization starts to strip away for even the most advanced nations and their people. Less advanced nations devolve to Madmaxistan rather quickly. All governmental efforts, money, and attention goes towards weapons, food, and fuel. Industries, infrastructure, and parts of civil society that do not support that get left as if frozen in aspic. If you don't live in a nation suffering that civil war, it is easy not to pay attention to that which does not effect you. There is one aspect of the Yemen civil war that no one should ignore - and it is at sea. This isn't a disaster that anyone can state will be a surprise in the likely event nothing is done in time and it reaches its ultimate end. This isn't a "Black Swan" - this is a White Swan. In a real world version of "Life After People" there is a ticking timebomb off of Yemen. Via Maritime-Executive; Floating in the Red Sea, attached to an oil pipeline that runs nearly 300 miles to the war-torn city of Marib, the FSO Safer was established as a Yemeni oil export facility in 1988. The massive converted tanker was due to be decommissioned and replaced by a land-based terminal when the Yemen civil conflict erupted nearly eight years ago. Owned by SEPOC, a company which itself is owned by the Government of Yemen, the Safer sits off the coast of Ras Isa, an area controlled by Houthi rebels. The vessel is still loaded with 1.14 million barrels of oil. While roughly 15,000 barrels have evaporated over the last eight years, and a thin layer has polymerized, the majority of that cargo remains liquid and liable to spill. The portion of the pipeline that runs for five miles beneath the Red Sea has an additional 17,000 barrels of liquid crude in it. Without intervention, the Safer will either explode or corrode and spill its contents - and likely take the pipeline with it. Of note, Safer is a single hulled old-school tanker just rotting in the water. There is little to any margin of error left. What could the results of inaction be? For context, the amount of oil spilled off Mauritius (which destroyed an entire marine protected area) was 8,450 barrels. This is less than one percent of what is at stake with the Safer, and less than half of what is in the subsea pipeline. And while the Ever Given disrupted trade through the Suez Canal for six days, some projections suggest the Safer's spill could slow or stop trade through the entire Red Sea for weeks or even months, forcing ships to divert around the Cape of Good Hope to avoid spreading the oil by sailing through it. The combined risks of a massive explosion, the blockage of international commerce, and a devastating oil spill form only part of the concern with the FSO Safer. Add in the deaths of millions of people (already in famine) from loss of drinking water, caused by the contamination of desalination plants, and limited access to food caused by the blocking of Hodeida, and we will have a humanitarian emergency at a level the world cannot currently sustain. Furthermore, with the annihilation of the world’s most temperature-resistant coral system along with 10 unique species of fish, and the long-term damage to economic activities like fishing and tourism, the effects of this one vessel’s demise would be felt for generations. The potential consequences dwarf the various other maritime disasters experienced in the last few years. Usually when there is a cause for international action it is either military related or the disaster has already happened. This looks to be a space where those maritime nations who are hesitant to get involved militarily to maintain the global order, make a lot of noise about being "green," and generally make long speeches at the UN about such issues ... well ... they could take action. The UN even has a "Go Fund Me" like pledge drive going to raise enough funds to get a cheap fix instead of an expensive clean up. I'm not sure if you get a tote-bag or not, but...I mean, really...this is embarrassing. So much time and money spent on imaginary or exaggerated threats to the environment are flooded with billions of dollars, but a real one has to beg for scraps? I'm pretty sure a fraction of the money spent at the latest Davos gathering by the WEF would have covered the cost, but there would be no power to be gained and the skiing in terrible in Yemen, so I guess not. Time is ticking. h/t E. View the full article

Americas Raytheon won a $21.6 million modification, which adds hours to finalize the design, integration, and to conduct test and evaluation in support of Phase Two for the Maritime Strike Tomahawk (MST) rapid deployment capability. Additionally, this effort provides for joint flight test to be performed which will provide additional data for MST integration of […]View the full article

Complacency, a self-serving bureaucracy, and a willful forgetfulness of the fundamentals of war is a common thread in most 21st Century defense establishments in the developed world, but these very human conditions are worse in some nations than others. Germany stands out. If you want a sobering view of the military situation of our German allies, Der Spiegel has a staggering report that provides a stark view of what small budgets, ill-fitting reforms, and just plain anti-military politicians can do to a nation who is - whether they want it or not - a keystone to NATO's continental defense. Though it isn't quite fair to use the end of the cold war force levels - everyone's graphs would look nasty with that benchmark - but it is helpful to look at what was in living memory back when your host 'ole Sal was a JO; Coming to 2023 and recent history, well, what the German political elite did makes what we've done to the American military look like art; According to a forecast by the German Economic Institute, Germany will fall 10 billion euros short of the 2-percent target by 2026 – and by just short of 40 billion euros the following year. And it’s not even certain that NATO’s defense spending target will remain at 2 percent. Given the Russian threat, some Eastern European member states are insisting that alliance members raise defense spending to 3 percent of their gross domestic product. There are a number of indications that NATO is planning this year to turn the 2-percent mark from a target to a minimum. Germany, which sees itself as a leader on security policy, would find itself in a position of having to prove its intent by adequately funding its military. A boost to the Defense Ministry budget would only be politically palatable, however, if it can be guaranteed that the extra billions for the Bundeswehr would not simply trickle away like water in the desert. And for that, the military would have to be fundamentally reformed, a project that Minister Christine Lambrecht has shown no interest in – even if she bears little responsibility for the predicament in which the Bundeswehr currently finds itself. This should sound familiar; The grain-size for sand in shooting ranges is specified, for example, while limits for the exposure to gunshot gas in the combat compartment of infantry fighting vehicles are bickered over so that the threat of "amniotic fluid damage to the female Puma crew" can be strictly ruled out. Regulators require that gangways on new warships must be as wide as those on civilian ships. Now, you can walk past each other with "two walkers without any problems," as one naval officer scoffs. Meanwhile, though, the Bundeswehr is no more combat ready than it used to be. On the contrary. The armed forces have lost their core competence over the years as they have become completely bureaucratized: combat. Within the administration, combat isn't even a relevant category – except, that is, when it comes to dealing with the next closest department. The administration thinks in terms of processes, not results. The most important thing is that decisions be made in accordance with the rules. Every civil servant knows that mistakes can slow down a career and that a project well done doesn't necessarily guarantee further advancement. Instead, risks are eliminated to the degree possible. And time plays no role in the equation. This combination of regulatory frenzy coupled with risk aversion is stifling the Bundeswehr. Systematically, responsibility has been shifted from the bottom up to anonymous large-scale authorities. In the past, it was up to a battalion to decide who would be promoted to lance corporal. Today it is the Personnel Office of the Bundeswehr that makes that decision. Are any nations doing this well, or are we all just different degrees of bad? The German military is in many ways is subject to a distilled version of the challenges the US military has. Large budgets can hide a lot of problems from bad leaderships and worse ideas. Shrink that budget down, and you get a concentrated soup of bad. The present German government is led by the SDP, a party that simply is not institutionally capable in 2023 of being a serious leader of a serious military. Until there is fundamental change at the top where the desires of the German people align with the desires of their NATO allies, then we will have to continue to find work arounds. In the long run, the experience of the last year will set back Germany a few decades from her taking her position on the continent where she belongs. An opportunity for Poland and France, if they want it. View the full article

Americas The United States will no longer pursue a plan to deploy the US Army’s Strategic Mid-Range Fires (SMRF) System in Japan. The US Indo-Pacific Command had proposed under its Pacific Deterrence Initiative to deploy these intermediate-range missiles to the first island chain as a conventional deterrent to China. Japan’s recent decision to acquire long-range […]View the full article

The Navy's tale of woe in trying to force the acquisition system to actually produce something besides process is almost too painful to recall, especially on the surface side of the house. We have the walking wounded of LCS, the squib DDG-1000, the gilded promise Ford CVN, and the never-was-has-been CG(X). We have hope that we can't screw up the existing Franco-Italian FREMM in the upcoming modified to American requirements Constellation Class FFG, but we shall see if our optimism is well placed. As we all wait with bated breath and gritted teeth on what may be with DDG(X), we should look around to see if there is a benchmark recently that did work. On the surface side of the house, LPD-17 won't quite make the cut as it was only made to work with a lot of additional money and Sailor sweat, though we can call it adequate, if a bit expensive and clunky in initial execution. We can look over at the aviation side of the house, but that is quite spotty. F-35 is meeting our lowered expectations, but it is a Joint hobbled kludge. If you ignore the pile of pants that is maintenance, the sub side of the house seems to be doing quite well, but they're a special case in a variety of ways. The Super Hornet program was a great success, but that was only because NAVAIR tricked everyone in to thinking that it was just an update to the Hornet...which it was absolutely not. Hmmmm, a successful acquisition system from the 1990s that was a success by ... bypassing the acquisition system. Did anyone learn a lesson there? Well, it appears the USAF did in the B-21. Via Stephen Losey at DefenseNews; Following a dramatic unveiling of the B-21 bomber in California on Dec. 2, 2022, former Air Force leaders are holding a muted celebration. By moving from contract award to public rollout in seven years, they said in interviews with Defense News that they proved their acquisition strategy — despite McCain’s criticism — worked. Better yet, they said, their unexpected approach might provide best practices for other major programs and serve as an antidote to the beleaguered development of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter in the 1990s and 2000s. Their secret? They learned how to limit bureaucracy. “There were fewer checkers checking the checkers,” James said. “Don’t ever underestimate the ability of the Pentagon bureaucracy and these many, many reviews to slow the doggone thing down.” Most notably, officials point to the unusual move to put the Rapid Capabilities Office in charge of the B-21′s development. That office had a narrowly focused team of skilled, experienced engineers and program managers, a board of directors to hash out key decisions and reviews, and an ability to cut through red tape, James said. In other words, when you really want something done, you go around the system that is there to help you. Kind of telling, isn't it? ...the Air Force’s decision to have the Rapid Capabilities Office take charge of developing the B-21 was a critical step in its acquisition process. The Air Force created the Rapid Capabilities Office in 2003 to quickly develop, acquire and field some of the service’s highest-priority programs — many of which were classified, such as the X-37B Orbital Test Vehicle. The RCO is intended to take advantage of innovative approaches, “without the rigidity of traditional acquisition,” the Air Force said in an online fact sheet about the office. The B-21 was a much larger program than the RCO typically managed, Wilson noted, but it worked. The office’s team on the B-21 was unusually slim compared to other programs, and it included some of the Air Force’s most experienced engineers and program managers. Most importantly, she said, they were trusted to use their judgment and go fast, without micromanagement. “It was run very differently from other programs,” Wilson said. “You get high performers in the [RCO] program office, and you don’t crush their will to live with huge bureaucracies. … I think it’s a good example of how to do major programs better.” Another data point in our long-standing call to uproot the not fit for purpose, accretion hobbled, rent seeking, and self-satisfied acquisitions system that best seems to serve itself. It is a human creation - not the revealed truth from some diety. Other systems have better served our nation. It is time to upgrade this one. If the end result does not have at least 50% few GS/SES, then we have failed. View the full article

Americas The United States and the Philippines vowed Friday to “invigorate” defense cooperation to address shared security concerns including disputes over the South China Sea. Manila hosted a high-level security dialogue with its top defense ally as part of efforts by President Ferdinand Marcos to restore a seven-decade partnership that was unsettled by his predecessor Rodrigo Duterte. The […]View the full article

Officially the Navy may have a “new mission” but it is just putting in to law what has been in existence since the first Stone Age man outfitted his fishing canoe as a war canoe. In a modern society, words mean things and even what is self-evident must on occasion be put in writing. What is “Title 10?” That is what tells our Navy what it’s mission is. We now have newTitle 10 language, in Section 8062(a):“The Navy, within the Department of the Navy, includes, in general, naval combat and service forces and such aviation as may be organic therein. The Navy shall be organized, trained, and equipped for the peacetime promotion of the national security interests and prosperity of the United States and prompt and sustained combat incident to operations at sea. It is responsible for the preparation of naval forces necessary for the duties described in the preceding sentence except as otherwise assigned and, in accordance with integrated joint mobilization plans, for the expansion of the peacetime components of the Navy to meet the needs of war.”What’s different? As our guest stated earlier this summer;“…the peacetime value of the Navy is no longer negotiable, it cannot be minimized, or at least it cannot as easily be minimized. As I said earlier, this is NOT an increase in the Navy’s mission set, it is a codification of the Navy’s mission set. The Navy has been promoting the national security interests and prosperity of the United States in peacetime since its inception, but only now (if passed) will the law actually reflect this.”Don’t miss this Sunday’s Midrats from 5-6pm Eastern where almost exactly 13 years since his first appearance, Bryan McGrath, Managing Director of The FerryBridge Group LLC. returns for the full hour to discuss this and more. Join us live if you can, but it not, you can get the show later by subscribing to the podcast. If you use iTunes, you can add Midrats to your podcast list simply by clicking the iTunes button at the main showpage - or you can just click here. You can find us on almost all your most popular podcast aggregators as well. View the full article

Today is a great day; A hero pilot who shot down at least four Russian Migs in a classified dogfight at the height of the Cold War which saw his jet shot 263 times is to receive the Navy Cross. Retired Navy Captain Royce Williams was sworn to secrecy for more than 50 years over fears that his battle against seven Soviet fighters could spark war with Russia. Now the 97-year-old is free to tell his tale and is due to receive the Navy's second highest award for combat valor on Friday at the San Diego Air & Space Museum. Captain Williams first graced the pages of CDR Salamander almost 11-yrs ago. In honor of his well deserved Navy Cross, let's bring it back. No one will challenge us; they never had before.Don't worry - just another boring CAP mission; four JOs against ... the flight schedule, I guess.Yawn ... and I have to wear a dry suit. Ungh. No such thing as a normal combat mission. History finds you when she does - and when she does, let's hope you're fullbore. View the full article

"Hey, we have this bizarre operation that has a shoestring budget, is in the middle of nowhere, and is asking for something to be done that has never been done before. Most likely, if the people sent are ever seen again, it will end in abject failure and humiliation for the officer leading it. Who should we send?" "Hey, who is that weird 40-yr old LCDR down the hall with all the strange tattoos and whose uniform is all out of wack? I have no idea what he does at that desk, I won't miss him." "Oh, you mean LCDR Geoffrey Basil Spicer-Simson?" "Yes, that chap. He has an eclectic background fitting his personality. I think he just might be the fit." And so starts a story that inspired books, radio programs and movies ... all for a wee spat in an important but relatively forgotten backwater. ...and below is Spicer-Simpson, right after he captured the German ship Kingani. Yes, he went to war in a skirt. If you find the naval campaign in Africa interesting, I did another post a few years ago I'd recommend. Hat tip Campbell. First posted AUG2018.View the full article

Americas BAE Systems won a $72 million deal for the manufacture and delivery of five Columbia-class submarine components. Work will be performed in Louisville, Kentucky (100%), and is expected to be completed by May 2030. Fiscal 2023 National Sea-Based Deterrence Fund funds in the full amount will be obligated at time of award, of which […]View the full article

Do I ever tire of DivThu? Yes, every Thursday I tire of it ... but we've been at it so long, why not? Do I get tired of the topic? Well, sure. Heck, almost 13-years ago I tired of seeing higher education organizations - always claiming poverty - spending millions of dollars a year, especially at the service academies, doing nothing but promoting the division of young men and woman on the basis of race and ethnicity. ...but ... especially in the last few years, there has been a wonderfully blossoming of the understanding of this cancer in higher education that bleeds out in to the general culture. That glimmer of hope and the fact that we seem to be getting traction is, really, why I keep going here. To really start to turn to a 21st Century construct of race relations - something that is becoming more and more needed as we have many more mixed race citizens - we need leaders. Serious leaders with a record of success is the one thing that has been missing. Leaders who understand how to use power and influence to effect change through access to the levers of power. That is how the diversity industry got where they are today, and that is the only way you are going to excise them from their bastions. We now have open advocates in the House of Representatives and the Senate ... but not yet the majority. They are growing in number and influence. What was once only whispered is now openly called out. The Supreme Court - even at its slow pace - is really ahead of everyone in this area, as I believe we will see further proof soon with the upcoming ruling against Harvard and UNC almost a decade in the making. To really take action to the next level towards a better, more unified nation, we need help in the Executive Branch. It won't take much, but it does take vision and courage. What do I mean by "much?" Simple. The best things usually are simple. We just need a leader willing to say, "No." Refusing to let there be any more discrimination and division based in immutable characteristics. To do the right thing; Governor Ron DeSantis can ask Florida public universities for information on their spending on critical race theory and “diversity, equity, and inclusion,” a federal judge ruled recently. ... The requested data includes detailing how the campus programs involve CRT and DEI and the number of employees allocated to them, as previously reported by The Fix. Follow. The. Money. If you didn't already, look at the "13-years" link above. It was millions of dollars at USNA alone then, it has to be much more now. I would offer that those asking for metrics need to be careful, as was shown recently, the diversity industry will try to hide what they are doing. You have to look not just at the full time and part time nomenklatura, you need to look at "targeted recruiting," travel, and hosting expenses for racialist speakers, panels, and affinity group activities. That is where you are going to find the real expenditure of money. You also need to interview faculty under Chatham House rules. From PhD students to professors at civilian and military schools of higher education, I continue to almost daily get reports - most on background not for attribution or sharing - on what is going on. They are in some combination horrified at what is being done, disgusted with what they are participated in, and terrified that they will be seen as not "onboard" with this cult of division. It's a racket - and a counterproductive one at that. Forget the morally reprehensible insistence that people self-segregate based on self-identified sectarian divisions, even ignore preferential treatment or punishment based on same ... no ... just look at the fact that as what Rod Dreher points out, what even the well-meaning are doing is counterproductive; Over the years, social scientists who have conducted careful reviews of the evidence base for diversity trainings have frequently come to discouraging conclusions. Though diversity trainings have been around in one form or another since at least the 1960s, few of them are ever subjected to rigorous evaluation, and those that are mostly appear to have little or no positive long-term effects. The lack of evidence is “disappointing,” wrote Elizabeth Levy Paluck of Princeton and her co-authors in a 2021 Annual Review of Psychology article, “considering the frequency with which calls for diversity training emerge in the wake of widely publicized instances of discriminatory conduct.” Dr. Paluck’s team found just two large experimental studies in the previous decade that attempted to evaluate the effects of diversity trainings and met basic quality benchmarks. Other researchers have been similarly unimpressed. “We have been speaking to employers about this research for more than a decade,” wrote the sociologists Frank Dobbin and Alexandra Kalev in 2018, “with the message that diversity training is likely the most expensive, and least effective, diversity program around.” (To be fair, not all of these critiques apply as sharply to voluntary diversity trainings.) If diversity trainings have no impact whatsoever, that would mean that perhaps billions of dollars are being wasted annually in the United States on these efforts. But there’s a darker possibility: Some diversity initiatives might actually worsen the D.E.I. climates of the organizations that pay for them. That’s partly because any psychological intervention may turn out to do more harm than good. The late psychologist Scott Lilienfeld made this point in an influential 2007 article where he argued that certain interventions — including ones geared at fighting youth substance use, youth delinquency and PTSD — likely fell into that category. In the case of D.E.I., Dr. Dobbin and Dr. Kalev warn that diversity trainings that are mandatory, or that threaten dominant groups’ sense of belonging or make them feel blamed, may elicit negative backlash or exacerbate pre-existing biases. Many popular contemporary D.E.I. approaches meet these criteria. They often seem geared more toward sparking a revolutionary re-understanding of race relations than solving organizations’ specific problems. And they often blame white people — or their culture — for harming people of color. For example, the activist Tema Okun’s work cites concepts like “objectivity” and “worship of the written word” as characteristics of “white supremacy culture.” Robin DiAngelo’s “white fragility” trainings are intentionally designed to make white participants uncomfortable. And microaggression trainings are based on an area of academic literature that claims, without quality evidence, that common utterances like “America is a melting pot” harm the mental health of people of color. Many of these trainings run counter to the views of most Americans — of any color — on race and equality. And they’re generating exactly the sort of backlash that research predicts. If you think the worse of what we are seeing in academia isn't at the US Naval Academy, West Point, USAFA, or USCGA - well then you either have not been a loyal reader of DivThu for the last 18-years or so, or you live in willful disbelief. If you don't think it isn't elbow-deep in to the military ... well ... I'm not sure how far it will take to get you our of your denial. Again, we will have to wait for the right chief executive, but there is no reason the ground cannot be prepared by Congress. If Republican really care to act instead of signal, then there are simple things to do. Like Governor DeSantis has done in Florida, they can effect change at our service academies. They need to ask ... no belay my last ... demand that the service academies answer the same question about funding. Be both broad and very specific on the request and audit the answer you get. Salaries, BA/NMP, collateral duty, travel, speakers, panels, consultants, seminars, affinity groups based on DEI's usually subject areas, all of it. ...and interview, in private, the active duty and civilian instructors who are there. No one said doing the right thing is easy. Make sure and come back next week where we will be reviewing some of the nasty-bits in the "Academic Year 2021-22 Institutional Effectiveness Assessment Report" from the US Naval Academy. Yes, it is about as bad as you think. View the full article

Americas Canada has put off a project to replace its five-decade-old Twin Otter military aircraft used in Arctic operations. The move comes despite the government’s earlier assurance that it is committed to improving its defense capabilities in the north. Instead of procuring new aircraft, Ottawa will extend the service life of its aging Arctic planes. […]View the full article

The whole World Economic Forum/Davos experience is one part Bond villain parody, one part clout seeking billionaires, one part megalomania, a heaping cup of greed, and a dash of rent seeking. In 2023 things have reached the point where any association with Davos should put an individual or organization under notice of suspicion. Amazing to see people who claim to be American conservatives or lovers of liberty attending in an non-ironic, non-protesting capacity. This wannabee gaggle of quasi-oligarchs and autocrat throne sniffers represents everything that is wrong with the human desire for control, power, and to crush the individual for fun and profit. They pretend to be the world government in waiting that no one asked for, no one wants, and trust me on this - no one wants to live under. Being unaccountable to the people is their ideal state. If you don't know what I am referring to above, shame on you. Google it yourself, but I couldn't help but giggle when I read the title from this article by Gideon Rachman at The Financial Times; Geopolitics threatens to destroy the world Davos made. Really? It is? Then by all means let's have MOAR! ...the 2023 WEF — the first to take place in its regular winter location since the pandemic began — could be seen as signalling a return to normalcy. However, China’s sudden abandonment of its zero-Covid policy has raised fears that a new wave of variants could emerge. And, even if a fresh pandemic phase is avoided, Covid has left its mark on the way governments and businesses think about globalisation. The assumption that goods and commodities can always be shipped easily around the world has been shattered. Except for the mentally fragile few and those who leverage power through them, the world is over COVID like it is over the flu. The last three years has been a clarifying event bringing in to stark relief those the autocracy worshipers and hypocrites who hold individual rights in contempt. It also helped us see the existential danger a free people can face when their governments and industries put themselves at the mercy of governments who see a crisis opening a door for an easy grasp at additional powers they will never want to give back. The past the Davos desired failed the future that is our present, but that doesn't give pause to any of them. The Davos view of the future where everyone (except for those at the top) lives in a pod, eats bugs, owns nothing but is "happy" is at best dystopian, at worst justifies at some point if they are not stopped, open global revolt against the ruling class with all the violence and blood that comes with it. As an American, I have no problem saying that. America is a revolutionary nation that twice in its history drenched its soil with blood to ensure the rights of the individual over government and an unaccountable ruling class lording over those they considered lesser humans. We are not at that point in most nations ... but when you see it happen like we saw in Sri Lanka ... understand where it is coming from.Often prompted by governments, businesses are having to change their ways. It is not wise to rely on complex supply chains vulnerable to disease, war or other emergencies. Companies such as Apple — which boasted of products “designed in California, assembled in China” — are having to diversify production. Apple increasingly also produces in India and Vietnam.Notice to complete focus on mercantilist concerns here? No mention or recognition, intentionally, of the maligned influence and moral repugnance of the People's Republic of China? Efforts by some western companies to lessen their dependence on China were prompted by the pandemic, but they have since accelerated because of a heightened awareness of geopolitical risk — otherwise known as war. These are not dumb people. If it took them until the last couple of years to be concerned about war with the PRC ... are they fools or were they just trying to drain as much money out of offshoring to the PRC using slave labor until it was no longer easy to do? I vote the later. Either way, they are not using their intelligence for good. So, yes - bring us to a post-Davos world ... and let anyone who attended WEF before 2019 be giggled at ... and anyone who attends after 2023 - we'll give well meaning people a year to catch up because we're nice like that - on be an anathema to a free people. Nuclear war is the most frightening potential development — and one that has concerned the White House since the outbreak of fighting last February. Even if the use of nuclear weapons is avoided, the danger of widening conflict remains as Nato sends advanced weaponry to Ukraine and Iran supplies Russia with military drones The chance of nuclear war is less now than it was for the first 30 years of my life. The pearl clutching and paper bag huffing about this just encourages the use of nuclear blackmail. I'm sorry - but if you are "frightened" right now, then find another line of work besides national security. This profession requires rational thought, not emotional posturing. Additionally, if we could keep the externalized masochism to a minimum it would be appreciated. The conflict is not expanding because we are helping a nation to defend itself from an imperial war of aggression. When the first Russian tanks crossed the Ukrainian border (again) that is your widened conflict. All else is the inalienable right to self defense.Politicians and industrialists are scanning the horizon for the next big geopolitical threat. Many have focused on Taiwan, which produces 90 per cent of the world’s most advanced semiconductors. A Chinese invasion of Taiwan might shut down TSMC, the most important semiconductor producer, with devastating results for the world economy. Even geopolitical tensions that stop well short of war have disrupted international commerce. The increasingly wary US attitude to China has led the Biden administration to sharply restrict exports of sensitive technology there. This affects not just US companies, but also foreign technology giants, such as South Korea’s Samsung, that use US tech.Again...the Davos mindset. 180 degree lockoff. Taiwan and its semiconductors are not the threat, the PRC is. Note that it isn't the maligned presence of the PRC that is the problem, it is the US response to it. Of course, in line with the mindset above, it isn't the WEF that is the problem, but ..Political leaders, particularly in the west, must worry, too, about domestic pressure from populists. Many of the latter have made the WEF a symbol of inequality and rootless international capitalism.Can anyone tell me where WEF is a supporter of equality and working towards domestic national resilience vice quarterly balance sheets, sketchy bank accounts on small Caribbean islands, or unaccountable power grabs?In recent years, Davos has attracted the ire of anti-vaxxers, climate change sceptics, religious zealots and hardline nationalists. The forum features in a range of conspiracy theories. On the wilder internet fringes, the WEF has been accused of using the pandemic to seize control of the world economy.Oh, nice ... no legitimate concerns, just swivel eyed loons. Don't dare oppose anything going on at Davos, your betters may just call you a name or throw you in the bin with the icky people.Such theories aside, the idea that Davos is faintly toxic has gained ground. President Joe Biden, determined to present himself as fighting for ordinary working Americans, is unlikely to risk an appearance at Davos — unlike Donald Trump, who enjoyed rubbing shoulders with the assembled CEOs. Even centrist and conservative leaders in Europe may be cautious about coming.Good. They should be. Also, will someone put the American (R) there on notice that we see them? President Emmanuel Macron of France, a defender of globalisation who has spoken at Davos in the past, has a sensitive domestic pension reform to push through, so may decide that now is not the right time to attend the WEF. As a new British prime minister, and one with a finance background, Rishi Sunak would normally be expected to seize the opportunity to woo the world’s most powerful chief executives. But the UK faces a wave of strikes, so he too will probably decide that it would be wise to miss Davos this year. Simply unacceptable in democratic nations that the will of the people might promote change in political leadership. Next thing you know, they might want even more free speech and redress of grievances. Those world leaders who are present might do well to take the funicular up to the Schatzalp Hotel, which served as Mann’s model for the sanatorium in The Magic Mountain. The hotel’s view is the best in Davos — it may offer a chance for quiet reflection on how to prevent war and natural disaster from once again engulfing the global economyUnspoofable. Perhaps they should reflect on how they encouraged Russian aggression and European vulnerability to hydrocarbon blackmail? Should they take a moment to see how they look the other way as the PRC engages in wholesale oppression of their Muslim minority? Are they proud of their dividends derived from almost unimaginable levels of air and water pollution flowing out of PRC's slave labor run factories? Unlikely - they might miss out on the next party. A post-Davos world? How do we bring it here faster? h/t Alessio. View the full article

Americas The US Air Force has started phasing out one of its oldest and most reliable assets, the HH-60G Pave Hawk helicopter. This move comes as the Air Force’s 55th RQS (Rescue Squadron) has just returned from a successful deployment, during which the Pave Hawk fleet played a crucial role in a variety of missions, […]View the full article

Whenever I see something about South Korea, their economy or their military, I think of my dad's generation who were of draft age during the Korean War. I've read a bit about the war and the condition of the country and its people when we fought to keep the communist yoke of their neck, and when you look at the South Korea of 2023, it is simply an amazing testimony what free enterprise and education can do to a people held back by autocracy and illiteracy ... with a good bit of rule of law and a benign quasi-imperial military power willing to give them the security to grow. Worth the war? I think so. In the last year, South Korea has impressed many who were not paying attention concerning their growing place as a military-industrial power - specifically their arms exporting and partnership with Poland as she does all she can to be the military power of the Three Seas nations. I keep wondering, do we need to bring South Korea closer in to the Western military infrastructure? Yes, she has a spot of bother to the north that needs almost all her attention and her demographics are far from robust ... but still - is their a collective gain by bringing her closer in? This graph from Zach Cooper really hit home how isolated, in a way, South Korea is outside the bi-lateral relationship it has with the USA. In the abstract to his paper (that I'd love to read in full, but I am sans-access...ahem). As South Korea has aligned its focus to that of the United States, Seoul has expected Washington to integrate South Korea more deeply into American regional strategy. Yet, US efforts to build minilaterals have seldom included South Korea. Addressing this divide will require leaders in both capitals to adjust their approaches to both focus and format in the Indo-Pacific.South Korea has a population of 51.7 million souls, greater than all but six of the 30 NATO nations (USA, TUR, DEU, FRA, GBR, ITA). She has a GDP of 1.8 trillion USD, greater than again all but six of the 30 NATO nations (USA, DEU, GBR, FRA, ITA, CAN). Worth more pondering. View the full article

Americas The US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency has teamed up with California-based SentinelOne for the Joint Cyber Defense Collaborative to “further support the US government’s strategy to secure the cyber ecosystem and critical infrastructure.” As part of the partnership, the company will provide its autonomous platform to assist in data collection, analysis, and sharing of […]View the full article

It appears that the recruiting and retention challenges are breaking above the ambient noise at the start of 2QFY23. We go through these cycles, but if things seem a bit different to you this time, your instincts are right. The ebb and flow of manning the Navy is a regular story - but there is one major cause that is different this time around and is beyond the control of anyone - it is an almost geographic or structural in nature as will be outlined later in the post. Layered on top of this structural challenge to recruiting and retention are challenges of our own creation and are fully in our control - a headwind of our own creation via decisions and policies that even if changed overnight, their effects will linger for years...and their negative effect will increase with time unless changes are made sooner more than later. Via Diana Stancy Correll at Navy Times; There are about 9,000 operational sea-duty gaps, with the highest gaps appearing in the most sea-intensive ratings... The first thing to came to mind when I read that were the "too clever by half" efforts to "solve" afloat manning that help lead to the horrible summer of 2017. I do believe that we have tried to address this problem of throwing unqualified people just to make the metrics work, but that temptation will always be there. I would really like to see the data over time with that gap number. What has it been for, say, the last 20 years? I know that graph exists...I'd love to see it just so we know how the challenge in in FY23 than it was in FY2013, FY2003, etc. Ships that belong at sea need Sailors, so this multi-causal problem will require more than one effort to fix it. Vice Adm. Roy Kitchener said the Navy is experimenting with a new pilot program aimed at eliminating the number of temporary additional duty, or TEMADD, sailors that are taken from their primary duty stations. Again, this brings more questions than anything else. There is nothing "new" about this problem that would make it a cause of today's difficulties ... unless we have allowed a known problem to get worse. Where are those TEMADD Sailors going? How do FY2023 numbers compare to FY2020? FY2015? If we're talking schools, well good googly moogly, this was a problem when I was a JO. Heck, back in 2011 when I was only 2-yrs post-active duty, in San Diego I asked the senior Lieutenant of a riverine craft doing a static display what was the number one thing he wanted from Navy leadership. His answer was, roughly, "Don't have my Sailors show up only long enough to check in before they are sent off to school to be qualified to do their job. If I'm short an EN1 and Millington tells me, 'You have an EN1 I just sent you.' I tell them, 'Yeah, he checked in last week, will sit here for eight more weeks before going to a six month school. By then my most experienced EN2 is separating. Heck, he goes on terminal leave in two months. That EN1 not only is no good to me, the way he was sent to me only makes my problem worse." We then spent a few minutes saying bad things about Millington before I asked him what his plans were. I'll consolidate and paraphrase roughly. "I'm getting out next year. I'm a Lieutenant in a riverine command. I have no competitive future on active duty." Like I said, not a new problem. So, back to the challenge we're talking about today. As we saw with previous shortfalls, everyone hits the "Easy Button." “The reality is we need to buy more people,” Kitchener said. “And I think right now we’re committed to buying more people; we’re just having a hard time recruiting.” The Navy is offering multiple enlistment and retention bonuses to recruit and keep sailors. For example, future sailors or veterans who re-up right now can combine the maximum enlistment bonus with a maximum student loan repayment to cap out at $115,000 — if they ship out before March. The Navy first introduced the policy last year and kept it for FY23. Well, yes, money helps, but it is only going to get you so far. What is the structural problem I mentioned at the top of the post? 2023 is not 2003 or even 2013. This is the most important graph for understanding our manning problem. Demographics. Demographics is destiny. Always was, always will be. Each year, the a new cohort of children born 18-20 years earlier become the source material to recruit in to the military. Is it easier or harder to get more people from a shrinking pool? Yes, we have that problem - but like our geography and natural resources, the USA has this as a comparative advantage, in a fashion. Compared to other developed nations, our demographics are rather good. Have you seen Korea's? The People's Republic of China? Germany? Russia? As a species, human society has never see such a demographic profile. The developed world and its militaries will have to figure out how work around it. So, yes, the USA and its Navy has a demographic challenge, but so do our friends and competitors ... we just look healthier.Oh, in case demographics and population trees are new to you and you don't really understand how different things have changed for the USA, the below graph is helpful. So much of how we think about manning and retention in our military is based on outdated assumptions about demographics. Look again at the first graph. The USA will have a slightly easier time with a larger cohort of 18-20-year olds in 2028, but then that pool shrinks again, fast. The easiest time to recruit officers and enlisted in the last half century was ... 2011 - and that pool is simply not coming back. Speaking of pools, this should give everyone pause; The Navy met its active duty enlisted recruitment goals for fiscal 2022, but fell short among active duty and reserve officers, as well as reserve enlisted personnel. The service is also prepared for an even more challenging year in recruiting; it drained its Delayed Entry Program pool to the lowest the service has experienced in 40 years to meet its active duty enlisted recruitment benchmarks for FY22. You can only do that once and that trick is done. Over at twitter retired Admiral John Harvey, USN made a solid point on this; https://t.co/59Da39WAHM This is a very big deal - with the DEP depleted to make last year's goal and if recruiting stays way down this year, manning shortages will grow at sea and training pipelines won't be adequately filled. Afraid it's the tip of the iceberg. — John C. Harvey, Jr, ADM USN (Ret) (@JohnHar05137790) January 15, 2023 I see a lot of reacting, pulling from the historical took box and otherwise dealing with symptoms to try to move the needle inside a POM cycle. However, we got here for a variety of reasons years in the making that will not respond quickly to the degree we think they will as described above. Some things, like demographics, we can't do anything about. As we face that shrinking pool we will see again in 2028, there are things we need to act on now to help change perceptions that can linger for years before they change. To make these changes, it will require admissions of error, and that is the problem. Feelings will be hurt. Rice bowls will be turned over. As that those feelings and rice bowls contributed to the problem we have, that shouldn't bother well meaning people. Here they are; Image, Leadership, Reputation: Image: What do our candidates see and hear? In the civilian world, every call is a sales call and every customer is a referral source for new business. In the military, every photograph, event, and gathering in uniform is a recruiting event. We have covered it here in detail previously so no need to point to examples, but who would want to join a service whose ships look uncared for? Whose Sailors are all wearing three or four different uniforms ... brown boots, black boots, camo, blue hat, tan hat ... etc? What messages do rusty ships and disheveled Sailors send to friends and enemies? Why does it seem that so many leaders in our Navy seem to want to dress like they are in the Army or the USMC when they are CONUS or afloat? Are they ashamed of being Sailors? Are they even recognized as being Sailors by potential recruits? Does any of this make the Navy an attractive place to join or stay in - or a place to avoid? Leadership: What are candidates' future bosses saying? When senior leadership is seen and heard from, what are they talking about? Would you want to join an organization whose leadership seems mostly concerned that they employ a bunch of racists, sexists, rapists, and domestic terrorists? Do you want to work for leaders who never seem to defend their people ... who at first chance will defer to the latest slander and promise to "do something about it" when they know there really isn't an "it" but won't support their people by saying so? What about over a decade trying to act as if there were no costs, no down side to making 8, 9, 11-month deployments with a short turnaround as the "new normal?" What about the reality of people spending the balance of their first enlistment in a ship during overhaul because we can plan for the expected? Reputation: What do others think of their Navy a candidate may want to join? One of the worst examples of governmental corruption at scale this century in the United States was/is the "Fat Leonard" scandal. It has been 13-years, almost four times longer than it took to fight WWII, and the primary player, Leonard Francis, has yet to go to trial and even escaped from home arrest earlier this year. On a regular basis, we have IGs investigate someone for an accusation of X, X is never found, but they still dig until they find Y and then destroy a person's decade long service - often draining their personal funds defending themselves in the process. We burn a multi-billion dollar large deck amphib in port, blame it on an undesignated Seaman, drag his name, life, family, and fortune through a court system only to find him not guilty ... all while scrapping the evidence needed to find the cause in the process. The chief uniformed leader, the CNO, invests what little personal and professional capital he has left promoting the toxically divisive racial essentialism of Ibram X. Kendi. This is going on while at the same time parents all across Northern Virginia and the United States are in open rebellion against the public schools in their area for promoting the same Critical Race Theory adjacent racialist practices in their schools. Would those same parents want their kids to join an organization who admits they like having pictures in promotion boards so they can actively discriminate on the basis of race? Really? These all add up. Drip, drip, drip ... the issues with the Navy's image, the defensive crouch and thirsty virtue signaling of its leadership, and the own goals degrading its reputation among the general public - a very different cohort than those the Potomac Flotilla socializes with - has etched a mark on the Navy's attractiveness that cannot be buffed out in a year or two. No, it will take a few years to stabilize the ship and to get it underway on a better course. There are enough challenges out there in recruiting numbers that we need, we need to scrape off the self-applied accretions making the effort even more challenging. It won't come without other costs, but if the goal is to move the needle out of orange and in to yellow, then we need to focus on those things we can control. Start with image, leadership, and reputation. All three have lesser included actions that will come along if you can do these three things better to remove reasons not to join the Navy, and equally important, come off the list for those who want to leave the Navy. View the full article

Americas Bell Boeing won a $23.4 million modification, which exercises options to provide continued flight test support for the V-22 aircraft in support of the Navy, Air Force, and Foreign Military Sales (FMS) customers. Work will be performed in Patuxent River, Maryland; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; Fort Worth, Texas; and Hurlburt Field, Florida, and is expected to […]View the full article

From 12–25 August 1920 there was one of the more important battles of modern history that is relatively unknown out of the country the battle took place in. It is a story of audacity in th eface of incredible odds by a nation only reborn less than two years earlier against an equally younger malignancy. The Battle of Warsaw; The Polish-born and much feared head of the Cheka (Bolshevik secret police), Feliks Dzierzinsky, was made head of a Polish Revolutionary Committee, which would follow the Red Army and form the new government. Lenin was absolutely confident of success. Initially all went well, and within six weeks the Red Army was at the gates of Warsaw. But as the Polish Communists had warned, all classes did indeed unite, and there was no rising in the city. Also the Polish commander, Józef Piłsudski, drew up a bold, if not foolhardy, plan of counterattack. The Polish army would stand on the defensive in front of the city, and when the Red Army was fully committed to the battle, Poland’s best units would launch a flanking attack from the south, cut the Bolshevik lines of communication, and encircle much of the Red Army. Some Polish generals were aghast at the risks involved, but in their desperation there seemed no alternative.As often happens in war, things did not run as per the plan. The enemy has a vote, and they were advancing too fast. The Poles had to move a day early. The Red Army fought its way to the village of Izabelin, only 8 miles (13 km) from the city, but the Polish attack succeeded beyond wildest expectations. Driving through a gap in Bolshevik lines, the Poles advanced rapidly against little opposition. In the Red Army, all was chaos; commanders lost control of their units, with some divisions continuing their advance on Warsaw, others fleeing. Three armies disintegrated, and thousands fled into East Prussia, where they were interned. In an encounter that saw Polish lancers charging and overwhelming Bolshevik cavalrymen, the First Cavalry Army, trapped in the "Zemość Ring," was all but annihilated. The Fourth Army meekly surrendered after being encircled. Marshal Mikhail Tukhachevsky desperately tried to pull his troops back to a defendable line, but the situation was beyond redemption. A few more engagements followed, but the war was effectively won. Lenin was forced to agree to peace terms that surrendered a large tract of territory whose population was in no way Polish—the Red Army returned to reclaim it in 1939. Losses: Soviet, possibly some 15,000–25,000 killed, 65,000 captured, and some 35,000 interned in Germany; Polish, up to 5,000 dead, 22,000 wounded, and 10,000 missing.The seeds of one victory often hold the next defeat. First posted AUG2018.View the full article

Americas The US Air Force has awarded machine learning-based health developer Sparta Science a small business innovation research deal to identify early signs of sub-concussive brain injury in airmen. Data gathered from the research will assist experts in developing a capability to recognize the impacts of repeated exposures to subconcussive blasts. According to Sparta, results […]View the full article

Unless you have kids of college age like I do, you may not be up to speed with just how far things have gone. Some of you were a little shocked with what we covered back in September about the goings on at the US Naval Academy. They're playing catch up, really. There is a lot worse going on at USNA that I am not at liberty to share (sources and methods, etc) - but trust me, it is getting worse as the faculty and leadership there chase the latest trends at other government and private universities. Shall we check in on what is going on in larger academia? Why, yes, we should. It is coming your way sooner more than later. Here's a little pull quote from an extensive report by John Sailer over at The Free Press, How DEI Is Supplanting Truth as the Mission of American Universities. Many American college students are now required to take DEI, anti-racism, or social justice courses. At Georgetown, all undergraduates must take two Engaging Diversity courses. At Davidson College, the requirement goes under the title of Justice, Equality, and Community, which students can fulfill by taking courses like Racial Capitalism & Reproduction and Queer(ing) Performance. Northern Arizona University recently updated its general education curriculum to require nine credit hours of “diversity perspectives” courses, including a unit on “intersectional identities.” DEI is also becoming a de facto academic discipline. In 2021, Bentley University in Massachusetts created a DEI major. Last year, the Wharton School announced its introduction of a DEI concentration for undergraduates and a DEI major for MBA students. Meantime, the open faculty position listings at universities across the country illustrate how a focus on race, gender, social justice, and critical theory can be crucial to landing a job. Last year, the University of Houston–Downtown sought an instructor in Early Modern British Literature, including Shakespeare, with a preferred specialization in “critical race studies.” At Wake Forest University, an applicant for assistant professor of Spanish should be someone “whose critical perspectives are linked to the experiences of groups historically underrepresented in higher education in ways that inform and influence their pedagogical approach.” Williams College recently sought an assistant professor of German who works “in the areas of migration, race and anti-racism, post- and decolonial approaches, disability, and/or memory studies.” These imperatives often come from the top. In May, the Board of Governors for California Community Colleges (CCC), the largest system of higher education in the country, decreed that every employee—faculty, staff, and administrators—must be evaluated for their “diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility” competencies. Each district in the system ultimately decides how to enforce the new rule, but the Chancellor’s Office released a list of recommended competencies. It suggested faculty create a curriculum that “promotes a race-conscious and intersectional lens” and advocate for “anti-racist goals and initiatives.” What can be done? Is there anyway to get this nightmare back in the bottle? Well, yes - but while simple, it isn't easy. For decades conservatives retreated from and were pushed out of the institutions. Conservative leaders did nothing. From your local university to the Boy Scouts to Annapolis, those who others who were relied on to hold the line surrendered every hill that they decided was not worth fighting for. Now their enemies hold all the high ground and they are surrounded. Lesson learned here; no longer support that kind of "leader." You know, the kind who accepts the slander against them and their allies in silence, and are more willing to deal with their enemies than they are in supporting their friends. Look for leaders who not only know what time it is, but don't care what names they are called and will take action. You know, like Governor Ron DeSantis of the Free State of Florida; ...DeSantis announced the appointment of six new board members at the small Sarasota college, many of whom were ultra-conservative political players and academics. Sharf, a trans woman, said that she returned to shore—and her phone—to find it had blown up with messages from people telling her the news. “I got really sad and then just, like, laid down,” she told The Daily Beast. Among the appointees on Friday were Charles R. Kesler, a professor and editor for a publication of the far-right Claremont Institute; Mark Bauerlein, a Trump-allied Emory University professor; and Matthew Spalding, a professor at conservative Christian University Hillsdale College in Michigan. “It is our hope that New College of Florida will become Florida’s classical college… more along the lines of a Hillsdale of the South,” DeSantis chief of staff James Uthmeier told the right-wing Daily Caller, laying out their plan. But what immediately caught Sharf’s eye were tweets by incoming board member Christopher Rufo, who only days before had declared that “Gov. DeSantis is going to lay siege to university ‘diversity, equity, and inclusion’ programs.” In addition to being perhaps the key figure behind the bogus right-wing backlash to mostly nonexistent use of “critical race theory” in schools, Rufo has also been an avid opponent of what he calls “radical gender theory” in education. And among other appeals that form part of his admittedly ruthless political playbook, he has issued callouts on Twitter for “documents, PDFs, audio-video, and training materials related to gender, grooming, and trans ideology in schools.” Yes, I pulled the quote from The Daily Beast, because their tears are precious to me. A better bio of the players can be found here. The Governor's spokesman; In a state full of large public universities, the New College of Florida stands out as an anomaly. With just under 700 students, the liberal arts college is by far the smallest of the 12 institutions that make up the State University System of Florida. Because of its size, NCF has been in the crosshairs of the state Legislature in recent years, with lawmakers arguing that it’s too expensive to operate. A failed 2020 bill would have stripped NCF of its independence and made the college part of Florida State University. DeSantis press secretary Bryan Griffin said by email that New College of Florida “is a public institution with a statutorily stated mission of ‘provid[ing] a quality education.’ Unfortunately, like so many colleges and universities in America, this institution has been completely captured by a political ideology that puts trendy, truth-relative concepts above learning. In particular, New College of Florida has reached a moment of critical mass, wherein low student enrollment and other financial stresses have emerged from its skewed focus and impractical course offerings.” We'll see what happens ... but imagine a Chief Executive actually pushing back against the illiberal left on campus and giving taxpayers and option in education. There is hope - you just need to vote for it. View the full article

Americas Northrop Grumman demonstrated a scaled-down electronic attack system prototype during the US Navy’s Rim of the Pacific (RIMPAC) exercise last year. The company demonstrated key components of the future Ultra-Lite Electronic Attack (EA) Prototype System aboard a US Navy Arleigh Burke-class destroyer. Northrop developed the anti-ship missile defense system for smaller ships that cannot […]View the full article

As I mentioned on Sunday's Midrats, I've been thinking a lot recently about the implications mid-century of this graph; Along with the larger reasons that India and the United States should further grow their relationship for both security reasons and the simple fact we are both republics, reasonable people would think that American diplomatic and other parts of our government would be giving this relationship the attention is clearly needs. Well, you know my opinion of our State Department. Some related thoughts from our friend Cleo Paskal; The United States sends mixed messages to India.On the one hand, Washington highlighted the importance of India’s rise and leadership in its Indo-Pacific Strategy, designated India a Major Defense Partner, and renamed PACOM as INDOPACOM in recognition of India’s important role in the region. On the other hand, in spite of statements about the importance of people-to-people relations, it currently takes years for someone in Delhi to get an appointment for a US visa, India’s efforts to feed and provide power for its people are described as being against the greater good and, well, Pakistan. ... Unfortunately, when it comes to India, State seems to be one of the departments least interested in improving relations. As a result, the first step in improving relations with India would be to ensure that engagement strategy is truly a US strategy and not just a State strategy. That would mean reforming State’s relationship to the rest of the executive branch—having it become more consistently, reliably, even-handed and less selectively integrated in the decision-making disciplines of the executive branch and even in Congressional oversight. As with so many things, it seems that the US State Department is doing as much as it can to not do much to advance American interests abroad. Without civil service reform specifically aimed at State so the ossified blob can be excised and progress made - the nomenklatura will continue to see their job as ensuring they and others have a job ... not to look at where they need to invest their efforts towards advancing the interests of the United States ... often when opportunities are right there being offered to us as it is with India. All we have to do is have people and processes that will do it. We don't seem to quite have it. View the full article

Americas Riverview Construction won a $10.5 million deal to construct a C-130 flight simulator training facility. Bids were solicited via the internet with six received. Work will be performed in Scotia, New York, with an estimated completion date of February 14, 2024. According to Lockheed Martin, the C-130 Hercules primarily performs the tactical portion of […]View the full article

Over at Defense News, Megan Eckstein has your must read to start your week. I hope she does not mind, but I'm going to pull a lot from her article. Read it in full, but there is so much here that validates what we have spent the last two decades on the Front Porch and on Midrats discussing, we need to spend some time to take a deep dive. Back in 2009 we warned everyone that the Navy's decision to classify INSURV was nothing more than a smokescreen to hide the results of bad decisions on maintaining the readiness of our Navy from the taxpayers and allowed senior leadership to play other games as opposed to their core responsibilities. To say that almost two decades after the Cold War all of a sudden INSURV was classified was just, in a word, insulting. In 2009, the U.S. Navy faced a readiness crisis. The cruiser Chosin and destroyer Stout were both deemed unfit for combat operations by the service’s Board of Inspection and Survey, which at the time checked ships’ material conditions every five years. And they weren’t the only ones. From 2005 through 2009, nearly 14% of surface ships failed their inspections, up dramatically from 6.2% from 2000 to 2004 and 3.5% from 1995 to 1999. The crisis came after the Navy discontinued several of its Cold War-era organizations focused on maintenance and training in an effort to save money during a time without a significant threat to U.S. security. No, the "without a significant threat" line is simply BS, an excuse, and for many who knew better ... a lie. We all saw what the People's Republic of China was building. FFS, contemporarily we were a few years in to "The Long Game" series here and we were just riding the wave smarter people set in motion. "Without?" No, that dog just won't hunt. This excuse was designed only to cover people who were focused on little more than building personal clout in their present job, while shifting Navy problems in to someone else's PCS cycle to solve. Sure, there was myopia by an ill-informed or just wrong cohort, but for most it was simply, as we say in horse country, "shooting up the horse." There were some who tried at the time to fix it inside the system, but ultimately came up short. There were good guys, a lot of them - they just didn't get to 50.1%; Adm. John Harvey, who led U.S. Fleet Forces Command at the time, helped charter a fleet review panel to determine how the Navy ended up in this position. ... In 2010, the fleet review panel’s report, dubbed the Balisle Report after lead author retired Vice Adm. Phil Balisle, shocked the surface fleet with its data on the poor state of ship readiness and crew training. It painted a dire picture of a surface navy that needed to be fixed; otherwise, there was a risk someone could get hurt or killed. Let's freeze that for a moment. The summer of 2010. That is 12 and a half years ago. Here is what we wrote about this in June and July of 2010. What is that, between three and four WorldWars length of time? The review, released in 2010, was condemnatory. “The panel is in full agreement that surface force material readiness is in decline. [T]he message is clear: the trend is in the wrong direction.” Chief among the review’s recommendations was a call for the return of readiness squadrons, which oversaw surface ship maintenance and basic training. The review found that when these squadrons were eliminated in 1995, so too was the fleet’s focus on and accountability for making deployable ships and crews. So many of the problems we have today can be traced back to the post-Cold War arrogance of the 1990s, Perry's Last Supper, TQL, the triumph of the accountants, layered with the Transformationalist snake oil of the following decade. In 2010, Harvey pushed to reinstall the readiness squadrons, but he couldn’t rally enough support from the Navy’s manning, engineering and budgeting leaders, among others. The recommendation was never implemented. But in summer 2017, two separate collisions by Navy ships in the Western Pacific killed 17 sailors. The service once again had to dig out of a ship readiness hole, and a key leader again called for the return of the readiness squadrons. Again, the idea went nowhere. The lives of 17 Sailors and two WorldWars after 2010 later. "Nowhere" has one hell of a butcher's bill. “The Balisle Report gave us this tremendous look at a history, really since 2000 or so, of these various decisions that were made in various different parts of the Navy,” Harvey told Defense News. “The collective impact was very, very negative in terms of our ability to keep our ships properly manned, trained and equipped.” ... “Bringing back the readiness squadrons,” Harvey said, “if you talked to Adm. Balisle, it was his No. 1 recommendation to do. And I agreed with that.” Still, Harvey added, the urgency to make this major change was “overcome by other events at that time.” "Other events..." indeed; as we documented at the time linked to above. The U.S. Navy has not made significant progress toward growing its fleet size above 300 ships. The FY23 National Defense Authorization Act allows the service to shed 12 of the 24 ships it proposed retiring. Even with a slower retirement rate and marginally higher shipbuilding and construction funding from Congress, it will prove difficult for the Navy to grow the fleet toward 355 ships. That was the last publicly stated force structure objective, back in 2016; since then, the Navy has not officially stated a revised target. (Source: Doug Berenson/Oliver Wyman)It is a hard sell to beg for more ships when from a material condition to a maintenance support perspective we seem to have trouble taking care of what the taxpayers have already bought us by borrowing money in the name of children yet unborn. Kitchener said there are two key differences this time around: an advanced adversary in China that’s forcing the Navy to think about its near-term readiness to fight; and data analytics and modeling that prove the surface groups will be worth the investment.I'm sorry, but bullsh1t. The threat from the PRC was as well known in 2016 as it is now. I will add to this that no one has confidence on the "analytics and modeling" coming from the Navy. The Age of Transformationalism, gutting of maintenance, and the vaporware that was "optimal manning" have blown all credibility in the Navy's "muh metrics" claims. Kitchener's numbers may very well be perfect, but no one has any reason to believe any of them from Main St. to Congress. Sorry, but institutionally we blew that credibility over the last two decades and it will take a long time to get it back. We would make much better headway by simply saying, "For most of this century we blew it. We were wrong. We are trying to do better." Some, like Harvey, gave the Navy a window to save itself a dozen+ years ago and we didn't take advantage of it. We have years of work to do ... but Step-1 here is to admit our mistakes. Until we do that, everyone can very reasonably assume we will do it again. Data is central to Kitchener’s new effort. He told Defense News in an interview that various efforts have identified the ways to improve ship maintenance: building up a larger inventory of select spare parts, adding capacity in key shops and departments that are potential chokepoints, increasing training and growing expertise in certain technical areas, and more. Ahh...the "Just in Time - -TQL" hangover. What takes one year to destroy, takes five years to rebuild. All that Kitchener is saying is not new. It is, just like readiness squadrons, returning to the last baseline that worked. Are we in the process of a "baseline reset?" That would be a good thing. Take Destroyer Squadron 9, for example, located in Everett, Washington. Its ships are scattered geographically: one located in Everett, five in San Diego and two in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. I'll let you do a distance and time zone review of that for yourself. Norfolk-Mayport was hard enough. There are reasons this exists, but none of them are satisfactory when an overall net cost is considered. Kitchener said he’s awaiting the final recommendations of his working group this summer, but expects each fleet concentration area to have a single surface group responsible for maintaining and training all surface ships, including cruisers, destroyers, littoral combat ships and amphibious warships, based in those cities. These home ports include San Diego; Norfolk, Virginia; Mayport, Florida; Everett; Pearl Harbor; Yokosuka, Japan; Manama, Bahrain; and Rota, Spain. I am trying to hard not to just snark old-school...but really - we have reached the point that giving commanders a chance to "walk the pier" without getting on an aircraft is something "new." Instead of gratuitous snark, have a meme. I mean, this is how it should be ... and seems to be heading back in the correct direction. It should be applauded. Each surface group would devote itself entirely to readiness. ... in the case of a maintenance casualty, the surface group back home would work to find the quickest solution, allowing the destroyer or amphibious squadron staff to continue focusing on operations. “This is oversight and responsibility and accountability throughout the entire” readiness cycle, Kitchener said. “The idea is, this exists in the fleet concentration area, it’s got a cadre of people that are constantly on our ships assessing, understanding what the problems are; we’re pulling the trend analysis here at the headquarters, giving them focus areas. It’s a very active, not just some sort of bureaucratic, organization.”For those who were JOSs in the 90s, I guess a bureaucratic system focused on maintenance excellence is new and radical, but it has a track record. This is simply good stuff. We tried everything else and failed, why not try what worked? Also, can we also make progress in the "Syllabels Reduction Act of 2023?" Can we simply go back to calling things "bases" as opposed to "Fleet Concentration Areas?" 2 syllables and one word > 8 syllabels and three words. As there is a lot of ruin in a nation, there was a lot in institutional capital previous generations built up prior to the 1990s that could be drawn on to pay for bad decisions, but that account is pretty much drawn down to almost nothing. Talk to anyone on The Hill ... it's gone. The Navy has observed improvements in maintenance performance, but is also facing new setbacks as labor and supply chain challenges across the manufacturing sector continue to take a toll on the ship repair industry. Rear Adm. Bill Greene, the fleet maintenance officer for U.S. Fleet Forces Command, said in the fall that only 36% of surface ships are expected to complete maintenance availabilities on time in fiscal 2022, down from 44% in fiscal 2021. ... This duality is also reflected in the most recent Board of Inspection and Survey report, which noted surface ships are seeing higher overall readiness scores than the six-year average, but have more functional areas deemed “degraded” than the six-year average, using a scoring method of satisfactory, degraded or unsatisfactory. Time for a reminder ... we need to make INSURV publicly available again. Less accountability gave us less readiness, and as a result our nation and its Navy is less secure. What vexes the Navy, Kitchener said, is variance in maintenance performance: ... Kitchener outlined a three-step process to address this. The first step was already done under Performance to Plan ... P2P has highlighted the need to prioritize people or materials for a certain ship availability, and then coordinate activities across multiple shops at a shipyard to get a specific repair done on time. The second step is allowing surface groups to devote their full attention to implementing the actions identified through P2P in hopes of achieving better on-time maintenance rates. The third step, on which Kitchener said he’d offer more details soon, is creating a surface response plan that prioritizes certain ships’ readiness over others. If a contingency arose and a combatant commander needed three destroyers, the three ships at the top of the list would be called upon to deploy on short notice. Those ships higher up on the list would be expected to stay in a peak-readiness state, and the maintenance and supply communities would act accordingly. Ships lower on the list and less likely to be called upon for unexpected tasking may be in a lower readiness condition if the fleet is short on personnel or materials, for example. For those outside the Minotaur maze that is the US Navy's decision making, you are allowed to ask, "Why didn't we do this already?" I know. I know. So, what will this look like? Kitchener said the future SURFGRU Southeast, currently named Naval Surface Squadron 14, is the “most robust” organization and has served as a model for the working group, which determined how many supply specialists, logistics personnel, diesel engine (versus gas turbine) experts, and so on, were needed to keep ships properly ready. Kitchener said the Mayport group has 105 billets for a squadron that tends to about 10 destroyers — compared to just 10 personnel tending to nine destroyers and cruisers in Everett. The exact number of billets in each group would depend on the number of ships at a particular port, but Kitchener said the groups would more closely resemble the Mayport squadron than the Everett unit. Mayport ... the best Sea & Anchor Detail in the Navy. The Navy was skipping training and maintenance to achieve unsustainable levels of at-sea presence, and it was down about 12,000 sailors thanks to the individual augmentee program that sent personnel to support joint operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. Sequestration cuts to the federal budget in 2012 further diminished readiness, Harvey explained. No one said, "No." No one defended our Sailors or our Navy. We let the COCOMs abuse the running room they made for themselves as a result of Goldwater-Nichols and the whole accretions encumbered COCOM structure and Cult of the Joint that came with it. Yes, I am beating that horse and will continue to beat it until we get something fit for the 21st Century. No senior leader was willing to put their "career" - whatever that is after you have 4-stars - on the line to defend their Navy. We needed "Admiral No" and instead got "Admiral Hinge." It wasn't something that happened to our Navy. No, it was something we allowed to happen to our Navy. Heck, during some of the worst of it, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff was a USN 4-star. “It was going to take more billets, more people. … And there just was not a clean, widespread agreement among everybody who had to agree that this was the right way to go,” Harvey said. “In the greater scheme of things and what was going on, it just never rose to the level where it had a critical mass of leadership who all said: ‘Yes.’ ” No, plenty of billets were found for other "priorities and distractions" - they were just more important than manning, training, maintaining, and equipping a fleet to fight and win. As I've offered for years, give me the top-cover and the manning documents ashore, and I'll find your billets. Just let me recode and reassign as needed. If I need more, I'll look at afloat and DC staff. They're there - you just have to be ready to upset a different group of people who don't add warfighting value anyway. In the end, this is the cost of distraction and ill-focus; Retired Vice Adm. Rich Brown, who investigated one of the two fatal ship collisions in 2017 and then took command of Naval Surface Forces in 2018, resurrected the push to bring back readiness squadrons. He said that, by 2017, virtually all Balisle’s recommendations were implemented — with the readiness squadrons being the major exception. Brown told Defense News a robust readiness squadron likely would have prevented the fatal collisions involving the destroyers Fitzgerald and John S. McCain. In summary, yep. The existing structure asks destroyer squadrons to oversee the maintenance and certification of ships and serve as the sea combat commander for a carrier strike group. If the squadron needs a ship to fulfill a warfighting requirement, it creates a conflict of interest that can put maintenance and training needs at risk. Brown said this construct “failed, and we recognized that it was failing, and so that’s why the Balisle Report said, and later I said, we’ve got to do this. And we just didn’t do it.” He called the 1980s readiness squadrons “a proven model” that restored the Navy from having a hollow fleet in the 1970s to having a robust surface force by the 1980s. There it is again; baseline reset. A future “high-end fight requires so much dedicated concentration and focus that we need these additional commands. They’re going to come at a cost — it’s going to come at a huge manpower cost, and the Navy’s got to buy that manpower because it’s the right thing to do for our carrier strike groups,” Brown said.Yes, buy manpower ... but also repurpose existing bloat ashore. Yes, recoding BA/NMP is a pain - but it can be done. Yes, rice bowls and rent seekers will be upset. All it needs to be is a senior leadership priority. And at the end of the day, shouldn't the ability to fight and win at sea be number 1? We cannot change the past, but we must acknowledge, name, and recognize past errors so that they won't be repeated. There is some good stuff going on as outlined in Megan's reporting, and we should see more in this direction, but no more happy talk. No more multi-syllabic bullsh1t bingo lingo. No more petty distractions. There are a lot of smart, good people in important positions who want to do great things. They just need the right higher direction and guidance to execute. View the full article