Happy 250th Birthday, America

Happy birthday, America!  

My mom made this for me for the 200th anniversary*:

I will have my 50-star flag out on the flag pole. Of course. And I bought the most eye-catching 250 shirt I could find. 

It is hard not to be an optimist about America.

My grandparents came here from Ireland and the Austro-Hungarian Empire. One grandfather served in World War I and the other served on the Mexican border mission prior to World War I; my parents (my dad was barely old enough to enlist in the Navy in World War II) built a solid blue collar life for me and my siblings in a deteriorating Detroit, and told me I should go to college; I became the first in my family (with two brothers serving during the Vietnam War, one serving in Vietnam) to go to college (with a side trip to the Army National Guard that somehow didn’t send me to the Persian Gulf) and then got out of Detroit for a white collar career; and my children have opportunity to thrive (one with a PhD and the other in medical school).

It’s the American dream over four generations. I’d have to be an ungrateful moron not to be an optimist! Or to fail to love this country which provides such opportunity.

I don't understand how people's patriotism can vary depending on what party holds the White House. Mine has never varied one bit based on mere politicians. Our country is far more than who we select to sit in the Oval Office. If your patriotism varies by that metric, you love your party and not your country. 

Perhaps watch this if you hate your own country and can't bring yourself to celebrate this grand day:

Or you can read the 1917 original here. 

I assume I will make it to celebrate 275. But absent serious advances in medical science, 300 is right out. 

NOTE: TDR Winter War of 2022 coverage continues here. 

NOTE: You may also like to read my posts on Substack, at The Dignified Rant: Evolved. Go ahead and subscribe to it. It's the right thing to do!

NOTE: It is actually pretty big. It is stretched across my small sofa for the picture. I have taken it to every place I have lived since heading off to college. Thanks, mom! May she rest in peace. 

Kill Them All, Let AI Sort the Ammo Out

Aerial suicide drones are just the explodey bits of an entire system built to create a kill chain from finding targets to destroying them. Suicide UAVs will become just one of many types of ammunition available to be selected by Artificial Intelligence (AI) for their needed capabilities to kill specific targets.

Preaching to the TDR choir, they are:

The AI orchestration software that fuses sensor feeds, assigns targets, and sequences fires across hundreds of platforms is already selecting and engaging in the functional sense. In other words, the software pulling the strings is where the autonomy lives, not the projectile. 

 As I observed a couple months ago:

We may say each drone is much cheaper than each shell or rocket. But you must consider the training needed to fly drones and the cost of the ground-to-space-spanning intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) network and communications network that allow both FPV drones and precision artillery to find and attack the enemy. With total costs considered, is the drone really lowering the total cost of delivering strikes significantly compared to a precision shell or rocket?

Heck, as I observed in this essay, rather than AI making even slightly old weapons obsolete, "perhaps we are underestimating what AI can do with older weapons. Even as new weapons and means of fighting are used in the Winter War of 2022, old—ancient in some cases—weapons are being hauled out of storage to fight."

The entire Reconnaissance Strike Complex system is the key. We can plug in lots of ammunition types into that RSC apart from suicide drones. And when we can do that, small suicide drones will be reduced in importance as other forms of ammunition prove they can do some things better than small suicide drones. 

NOTE: TDR Winter War of 2022 coverage continues here. 

NOTE: You may also like to read my posts on Substack, at The Dignified Rant: Evolved. Go ahead and subscribe to it. It's the right thing to do!

NOTE: Image from the article.

Speak Softly and Escort a Big Ship

With Iran's navy, air power, and surveillance crippled, America was able to use land-based forces to shepherd civilian shipping through the Strait of Hormuz.

The United States quietly escorted civilian ships through the Strait of Hormuz: 

It emerged this month that the US has begun guiding ships through Hormuz with their signals off, by a route that hugs the Omani coast, helping to boost oil and cargo flows. 

The Navy wasn't needed and was able to act as a hammer from the distance in case the Iranians got too active. And the Marine threat kept the Iranians distracted, too, I bet. 

That mission is why we had command and combat elements of the 82nd Airborne Division there. And why we lost an Apache helicopter when it was hit by an Iranian UAV. 

The Strait wasn't fully open. But it helped to cushion the effect of Iran's effort to close the strait. 

NOTE: TDR Winter War of 2022 coverage continues here. 

NOTE: You may also like to read my posts on Substack, at The Dignified Rant: Evolved. Go ahead and subscribe to it. It's the right thing to do!

NOTE: Photograph from the article.

The Sun Sets So Bureaucrats Can Feast

Britain cannot defend itself despite a not-insubstantial defense budget.

Why Britain’s military is hollow:

[Britain used to focus] on what really matters: training, munitions and maintenance. … But since the post-Cold War drawdown that was underway by 1991, almost every European defense ministry has wasted increasing proportions of their diminishing defense spending to keep increasingly empty bases open — often just to preserve civilian janitors and ground-keepers in a job[.]

So what they have is a bloated organization and officer corps that maintain the base at the expense of the sharp edge of usable military power.

In a recent Weekend Data Dump I commented on the resignation of the British defense minister:

Protest: “British Defense Secretary John Healey resigned on Thursday, accusing U.K. prime minister Keir Starmer of skimping on defense spending at a time of ‘rising threats.’” Britain’s budget is sizable. Much seemingly supports an administrative base rather than the shrinking fighting force.

Yes, the administrative base thrives. Never mind the purpose of the military is to fight and the administrative base is supposed to sustain the tip of the spear. That priority is inverted in Britain--and in too much of Europe. 

Does anybody really think that the European Union could weld these pieces together into a cohesive force? It won't even be able to weld them into a cohesive bureaucratic entity. Nor does it care if it does.

Also, the initial article has a bonus slam against UNIFAIL UNIFIL.

NOTE: TDR Winter War of 2022 coverage continues here. 

NOTE: You may also like to read my posts on Substack, at The Dignified Rant: Evolved. Go ahead and subscribe to it. It's the right thing to do!

NOTE: I made the image with Bing.

Europe Needs a Roof

European air defenses are woefully inadequate to protect rear area assets from aerial attack. If Russia is having problems with their strong investment in ground-based air defense, how bad would air attacks be for European states?

Well, yes:

In a serious near-peer conflict, Western countries can't count on their homelands remaining safe while their militaries fight overseas, a top NATO commander told Business Insider. ...

NATO's problem now is that cheap long-range drones, missiles, sabotage, and mass air attacks mean the rear is no longer just theoretically vulnerable. Instead, it could be routinely contested, and the West may not have enough defenses to adequately protect everything, requiring tough choices. 

Europeans especially need to take ground-based air defense seriously again.

Remember the effort in World War II?

Around 3,000 pilots fought in the Battle of Britain, but thousands of other people helped defend Britain in the summer of 1940. They were the Royal Air Force (RAF) ground crews who the pilots depended on in order to get in the air and engage the enemy, the staff in the Sector Station operations rooms who ‘scrambled’ the fighters into action, and the teams operating defences on the ground. 

Thousands of other people? That's off at least an order of magnitude from information on the site that stated that! The Observer Corps alone had 30,000 members at the outbreak of World War II.  

Mind you, America needs to do much better, too. But we have oceans and friendly countries near us (except for more exposed Alaska, Florida, Puerto Rico, and Guam). 

NOTE: TDR Winter War of 2022 coverage continues here. 

NOTE: You may also like to read my posts on Substack, at The Dignified Rant: Evolved. Go ahead and subscribe to it. It's the right thing to do!

NOTE: Photo from the "Remember" link.

The Winter War of 2022 Followed My Script (Is it Enough?)

 

Twelve years ago my basic advice to the Ukrainians should the Russian full invade was to preserve their army, send body bags back to Russia, and strike Sevastopol, the base Russia started the war in 2014 to secure by taking over Crimea. 

Head on over to Substack for the essay. I decided to put the essay there from now on. But you can always get the link here on TDR.

NOTE: ISW updates continue here. 

NOTE: Also, I put war-related links and commentary in the Weekend Data Dump on Substack. You may read my posts on Substack, at The Dignified Rant: Evolved.

Weekend Data Dump

The Weekend Data Dump is a compilation of short entries about the previous week’s defense and national security news that I found interesting. I couldn’t possibly comment on everything in my news flow or delve into everything that interests me. So most news that interests me doesn’t make the cut for a post. The rest go in the data dump. Enjoy!

HOP ON OVER AND READ IT! On the bright side, you can comment on Substack!

In case you missed it on Substack: Don't Buy the Middle Power Moment

In case you missed it on Substack: Defending NATO's Baltic States ... From the Sea

In case you missed it on Substack:  "European" Rearmament

In case you missed it on Substack:  Dispersing Assets and Massing Effects

Help me out by subscribing on Substack and by liking and sharing posts. I occasionally post short data dump-type items (or not-so-short) on my Substack "Notes" section. 

Golden Domes and Plastic Threats

Saturation of high-tech defenses is the defensive problem of the day.

This is a problem with the development of our missile defense as cheap precision long-range attack drones enter the battle:

Smarter weapons are shaping today’s world order by passing advanced missile defense systems in utility.

Cheap suicide drones undermined the Iron Dome system's means of defense by coming in low and slow to hit one, paving the way for other weapons to penetrate its weakened shield. This scales up to more sophisticated defenses against ballistic missiles.

What can be done? Let me toss in two angles. A phalanx model of defensive systems. And drone-based ballistic missile defense. Just notions that address two elements of the challenge. But sometimes I get close enough to correct for the engineers to take over!

UPDATE: I forgot this was a round in the scheduled publication magazine, so I didn't think to add this news about a Ukrainian company developing drone-based ballistic missile defense. 

NOTE: TDR Winter War of 2022 coverage continues here. 

NOTE: You may also like to read my posts on Substack, at The Dignified Rant: Evolved. Go ahead and subscribe to it. It's the right thing to do!

NOTE: Image from the article.