Comments at the end of the preceding class.
Next week is National Security, to me the most interesting sounding of this year's topics.
I have ordered two of the books recommended in our Text.
One notes that “There are wars of Necessity and there are Wars of Choice.
To confuse the two runs the danger of ill-advised decisions to go to war.”
Later: A first person account of recent decisions by one who was there. He considers Afghanistan and first Iraq was were wars of necessity and the second Iraq and continuation in Afghanistan as wars of choice.
The other book, Shield of Achilles, notes that “The nature of a state is to reserve violence to itself.”
Later. Small print, long paragraphs and I kept falling asleep and dropping the book.
I don't expect to get all the way through 1,250 pages, but they both look interesting.
If you find next week's session interesting, you can buy each book, used on Amazon for $2 plus shipping.
They must be classics used by other classes and quantities sold into the used market
For those new to this class or who may have forgotten. Any time-and-effort that people
will spend on homework is in preparation for the next class, not followup to the last class.
Therefore, anything you expect our members to read has to but provided BEFORE the class.
That means handouts at the end of the preceding class -- because some of us don't have email.
The receptionist will kindly provide photocopy service for you.
The next topic is National Security. I run a history of WW2 website and have accumulated some pithy comments about preparations for national security to set some of the tone for the next session.
Note. The topic of National Security runs much deeper than war making and war planning.
Though that is the most interesting part of it, the scholar correctly point out that national economic health , international trust, and other soft, touchy feely topics are to be considered.
2. National Security - Handout - Great Decisions 2011
COMMENTS
Rallying cry of politicians before WW2: "Bridges, not bullets; schools, not ships; trains, not tanks." One sought re-election with, "I cut the military budget to the bone and then cut some more!"
War is a come as you are party. No capital ship authorized after Pearl Harbor was completed in time to see service in WW2.
http://www.WW2pacific.com/wwt/comment.html
We had two years, three months and four days --from the Declaration of War in Europe over Poland until Pearl Harbor -- to prepare and did not.
http://www.businessweek.com/news/2010-10-28/northrop-navy-ships-not-survivable-in-combat-official-says.html
Missile vs. aircraft carrier. China has enhanced the Dong Feng missile to be able to sink a carrier at 1,200 miles. Traveling at 100 miles a minute, it is virtually unstoppable. Back at the start of WW2 in the Pacific, the range to the enemy was determined by a seaman's eye or in good weather was extended by an airman's eye. Neither side was sure where the other was. Intelligence, guts, and luck were on Fletcher's side in stopping the enemy until American industrial capacity could overwhelm their smaller enemy. Now satellite scanners, GPS, and automation track every surface ship and sheer distance from the enemy does not protect industry or populations. The Navy is shifting to smaller littoral ships and is refurbishing the underseas fleet. That submarines are invisible is proven by French and English subs colliding in the Atlantic last year, neither was able to detect the other. The fleet has the guts ; luck is on the side of the prepared ; lets hope the intelligence part is working, too.
Firearm Statistics. There have been an average of 160,000 troops stationed in Iraq during the peak of activity. During this time the firearm death total was 2,112, or a rate of 60 per 100,000.
The firearm death rate in Washington, D.C. is 80.6 per 100,000.
That means that you are more than one-third more likely to be shot and killed in our Nation's Capitol, which has some of the strictest gun control laws in the nation, than you are in Iraq.
Conclusion: We should immediately pull out of Washington, D.C.
High Speed Vessel (HSV)
2005.
All four services desire this militarized high speed ferry able to transport a company of soliders and their vehicles into shallow water or any other medium amount of cargo. Two leased examples from Australia have proven their value in the Persian Gulf and in Hurricane Katrina relief.
2011.
Unfortunately, budget cycles extended the lead ship to Fy'08. Followup today, 6 years later, we have one of two samples operational.
Are we at war or not? Where is a today's Kaiser? He built fifty, yes, five-oh, aircraft carriers in 12 months early in WW2.
Peaceful Defense. A fellow called into a radio talk show telling how the world will be safer without military. When asked what will happen when some group armed themselves and attacks our defenseless country ; his answer was : "That is what Police and Firemen are for."
I wonder if it was he who wrote our text.
News Tuesday:
3 Iowa soldiers wounded
Three Iowa National Guard soldiers were wounded Monday by a roadside bomb in Afghanistan.
Almost a decade ago Congress has mandated that a third of all military ground vehicles will be unmanned by 2015.
ARPA – Advanced Research Projects Administration. -- held three annual, public, international, contests for developers of unmanned vehicles offering millions to prize money. The trick is to integrate sensors with artificial intelligence programming. Many different approaches are required and to be tested.
2004. Off road test of 140 miles. Nobody finished the first test. The farthest any team got was just over 7 miles by Carnegie-Mellon U.
2005. The second Grand Challenge was sixty mile thru country roads in Arizona had several finishers won by Stanford U. The unmanned truck developed by Oshkosh Truck Corp. in cooperation with Rockwell Collins and the University of Parma, Italy came in fifth. The thing is, TerraMax is THE big truck, 16.5 ton, 10-wheel drive, already used in Iraq. It was not an SUV (space for computers) or Prius (already had electric to power computers) that took top places in the Challenge. Oshkosh was awarded a contract for service in Iraq and Afghanistan.
2007 saw an Urban Challenge offers $2 million for an unmanned vehicle to drive 60 miles through traffic in a city. There was a lot of interest because the Defense Department had acted so quickly in giving a development order for the previous winners. The Oshkosh TerraMax was again a top finisher.
2011. Five years later . It now has an acronym, UGV, unmanned ground vehicle, and an agreement with the Navy (representing Marines) to begin testing sometime. The project gets no listing in the company's media center. That company's primary interest in this area is an armored troop truck to replace the Hummvee, which replaced the Jeep, which replaced the motorcycle. That is where the political interest is, hence with the most money potential. Whereas the UGV is harder to develop and only saves lives. Wikipedia lists 16 UGV and the TerraMax is not among them.
Ever hear the story of the Spitfire? It was designed and flew without a government order, but was ready when needed with 24,250 built. British Patriotism.
Oshkosh has an order, yet delays, and delays, and delays and delays and is still delaying.
By the way, Mercedes and Volkswagen had introduced some of these automatic features in 2011 cars.
Is there a precedence of other interests interfering with the national interest in time of war? The Lockheed P-38 Lightening, probably the best fighter aircraft of WWII, flew years before the fighters we fought the first years of the war with against superior Zeros and Messerschmitt. Lockheed assigned all of their top engineering staff to converting their commercial passenger liner into a maritime reconnaissance bomber for sale to Commonwealth nations rather than perfecting the complex twin-engine fighter that belatedly cleared the skies to Berlin and Tokyo.
And Army truck drivers from Iowa are still getting killed and maimed.
Somebody is going to say an MRAP saved their lives. But they did not need to be there in the first place. Therefore no injuries at all.
2. NATIONAL SECURITY
SCRIPT.
Welcome to an interesting topic. Some of us consider this the most
important function of a Federal Government -- Federal Government is important to us because they tax us and provide some expensive services with our treasure.
For almost 100 years the US was “top dog,” from the end of WWII until – humm … when? Until failure to win in Korea? or Vietnam? Failure to depose Castro, an ineffective response to 9/11. Or are we still top dog, but just getting shaggy and faltering with decline? The world is seeking to remove the dollar as the international reserve currency. Individuals walk into any public place and kill dozens at a time. We have to take off our shoes to board an airplane. To surrender your cell phone if you want to change your social security with-holdings. Or has the world always been going to Hell? Socrates and Mark Twain told us so -- long ago.
We live in a new world. No longer is the chief threat that of Russian tanks charging across the Falase Gap in Germany. The threats today are invisible. Rather than weapons alone, we must attend to Financial Health, International Good Will, Nation building. Example, Iraq – we easily overthrew an evil dictator. We had a plan for a new government, including our tame Ayatollah. Our selected good guys were quickly assassinated. There has been a near quagmire since.
Current events. Listen to on the noon news. Disruption of the social fabric of the Arab Nations.
I hope the CIA was involved. But I doubt there is a replacement strategy. The Muslim Brotherhood is the only organized entity in the area.
We vote for change, but is all change good?
The video is almost different from the text. Those who read up and those who only see the video will have different thoughts on what this class is
about. This video is better than last week's hand wringing. Pay particular attention to the girl, she raises a wealth of issues that need to be addressed, by us in this class and by the U.S., that is, if you still believe the government is "Of the people, by the ..., and for the ....
Good thoughts. Bring out your thoughts while we go through the outline.
The text has three and a half themes.
- Military
- Economy
- Homeland Security -- in three parts
- Names some issues -- Finances, Budget, Nuclear, Middle East, China.
Lets discuss them in order.
Future Military.
What to prepare for?
- Big world war – US overwhelming conventional/nuclear power preempts such a thing from happening. Do we disarm and risk this alternative coming back into possibilities
- Regional Nuclear War – what can we do in Pakistan and India go at it?
- Bilateral, two counties fail to blink. Risk of expansion to the region or to the whole world is great. Venezuela and Columbia came to blows a couple years ago.
- Insurgencies. How do we live with them? Al Kada, Libya, Africa?
Note: Japan had suicide bombers, called kamikazes, unstoppable on air, land, or sea. But there was a central authority that could end it – the Emperor. Who can end Muslim Jihad? Other than Allah?
The Marine Corps provides 31% of ground forces in our two current wars.
12% of attack aircraft. 19% of attack helicopters. For, only 8% of the Dept of Defense Budget
Yet, there is talk of dissolving the Marines into the Army.
Special Forces – highly trained soldiers, are sponsored as the new lean Army. Sylvester Stallone Rambo types. Realistic?
Note: the Allies won WW2 on Intelligence ; the Brits broke the German codes and the US broke the Japanese codes. We knew what they were doing. It helped. Men still died, but it was more of them and fewer of ours. It really helped.
The text presents only two alternatives: (1) “big” forces – ships, planes, tanks – and (2) COunter INsurgency war against irregulars -- sensors, body armor, etc. Yet, are there other things that might happen rather than either extreme and preparing for the two extremes does not mean that those other potentialities can be addressed if we are prepared for only two alternatives.
Note: In WW2 the US had more than two years to prepare for a relatively known type of warfare and we still lost for the first year until we learned how to do it.
Consider the warnings : Japan into China in January 1932. Italians in Ethiopia in Oct 1935. Germany into Austria March 1936, annexed in March 1938. Siege of Madrid. Nov 1936, the war that allowed testing of military hardware by the big powers.
Official start of Sino-Japanese War in July 1937. Turks carries out Kurdish Genocide, July 1938.
Europe mobilized Sept 1938. Peace in our time ; Krystal night ; Polish Corridor ; Britain takes Jerusalem ; Japan possesses richest portions and half the population of China – all in the fourth Quarter of 1938. Turmoil continues for another year until Germany invades Poland and war is declared in Europe 3rd of Sept 1939.
Then, two years, three months, four days later is Pearl Harbor “Dec 7th, 1941, a date that will live in infamy” and the US enters a war, still, very, unprepared.
Now jump to our world today when virtually anyone can box up a nuclear bomb on a container ship and sail into
Charleston Harbor. They can sprinkle toxins into the NYC water supply. Can infect a few cows or an orchard or a field of vegetables. Or plant a virus into the financial system. Or shut down the power grid. What to do? Besides wringing our hands? How will twelve aircraft carrier task-forces help? If China backs Chavez or somebody, against us, the U.S, we had better well have the survivors of those carriers. Survivors? In the Pacific War, we lost all eight battleships and four of our seven carriers, over half, in the first few months of WW2. More -- http://wwwpacific.com
the red handout to take with you is a case study of an over-optimistic lack of military preparation.
The book is the first edition; second edition with 10 more pages is on sale online.