Flashy Drones Get the Credit

A SINKEX provides useful information on weapons performance. It is not a tactical exercise. Yet the drone fever continues to burn and can only be quenched with more cowbell!

So drones were used to sink an old warship in multinational exercises last fall:

A U.S. warship used aerial and maritime drones to help sink a decommissioned frigate last fall, Fourth Fleet officials have confirmed, adding that the experience is now shaping how the Navy will go into future battles.

An old, stationary American frigate. That wasn't defending itself. Or maneuvering. Or even moving, it seems. Or conducting damage control. 

Also, the air and sea drones were employed to "help" sink the ship. Again:

The robot formation executed three kinetic strikes against the Simpson as part of live-fire attacks ...

What else helped as part of the UNITAS 25 live-fire attacks? Oh:

The Simpson was thus a floating “magnet” that missiles, guns, and torpedoes could hit and sink. The first “hits” were made by MH-60R and MH-60S helicopters flying from the San Antonio-class amphibious transport dock USS Arlington. There was also an attack helicopter launched from the  Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer USS Thomas Hudner (DDG-116).  

So we know drone-carried explosives can  help sink ships. Shocking. Welcome to the anti-ship party, pal. Don't fling panties at a new weapon in the belief that they're a silver bullet for all our military problems.

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 this article about the exercise. I don't think it is a photo from the UNITAS 25 exercise, however. 

The Winter War of 2022 Seeks the Holy Grail of Battle-Hardened Soldiers

Is Russia gearing up for a summer offensive? Or is what we see what they've got? I keep hearing that the Russian ground forces are now combat experienced. But I see an exhausted ground force.

The war goes on.

Russia's ground war has faltered:

Russian forces are performing poorly on the battlefield and failing to make operationally significant advances in their ongoing spring-summer 2026 campaign, as Ukrainian forces continue to counterattack and comprehensively strike Russian mid–range targets and deep in the Russian rear.

 Russian war supporters wonder why Russia hits symbolic targets in their air war:

Russian milbloggers heavily criticized the May 24 strikes as expensive but not militarily useful and that the Oreshnik strike against Bila Tserkva did not have a clear militarily significant target. Milbloggers further criticized the strikes as expensive and as not contributing to the Russian war effort, while Russian forces are under-resourced and unable to advance on the frontline. 

The appearance of success with missile strikes may now rely on aerial attacks in the absence of a ground war that provides that. You can only pretend to have taken a town from the Ukrainians so many times before people start to notice.

Recall that there were those who claimed the U.S. Army was "broken" by its campaign in Iraq after it suffered perhaps a thousand KIA per year there. I thought that was ridiculous:

Our Army is stressed. And we need to take actions to counter and eventually relieve that stress. So far, we seem to be doing that successfully. Don't confuse this, as Korb seems to do, with the other problem of being unbalanced--so focused on counter-insurgency that we are slighting conventional warfighting skills. But once Iraq deployments slow after victory, the problems of both stress and balance will be resolved. And we will retain the combat experienced troops for a generation.

Yet Russia with deaths in over four years of combat (nearly 500,000 according to Britain's GCHQ director) a couple orders of magnitude greater than America's 4,500 deaths in Iraq over about 6-1/2 years of combat missions is combat-hardened with hard-won experience against Ukraine? What survivors will make Russian ground forces better in the next war?

Call me skeptical about seeing bloodied and battered Russian ground force elements and thinking "none shall pass" that awesome array of experienced combat power!

Still, Russia's ground forces have power in the positional war of attrition they are optimized to fight now. Fighting that sort of war against Russia would not be ideal. As long as their troops are willing to die in large numbers, of course. Are we just seeing a pause in Russia's advance? Or has Russia lost the ability to attack. If the latter, can Ukraine exploit it before Russian ground forces can recover? 

Ukraine has a six-month window in which to seize the battlefield initiative from Russia and strengthen its hand for peace talks, a senior commander told Reuters, predicting a “turning point” was imminent after more than four years of war. 

Can Russian ground forces recover? Will a much-discussed Russian mobilization make or break the troops in the field?

UPDATE (Monday): The war is shifting. Will a ceasefire by the result?

The mood among Ukrainian commanders, however, has changed. Russian attacks are putting less pressure on their units than they did in previous years. Although drone strikes and shelling remain constant, Russian combat performance is waning. In Kyiv, there is a growing optimism that Ukraine can fight Russia to a cease-fire.

Ukraine’s mood shift is not the result of a radical transformation of how the war is being fought but rather stems from a subtle turn in several trends that together point to a major change in the war’s trajectory. 

Indeed. I did say in March that things seemed ... different ... this year. 

Would Russia use a ceasefire to rearm to continue its bizarre war against Ukraine and NATO beyond it?

Or to pivot to face China's power and potential threat to Russia's Far East and Central Asia influence? 

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: The NATO Force Model Shrinks

In case you missed it on Substack: Operation Epic Criticism

In case you missed it on Substack: Baby UGV Steps in North Africa

In case you missed it on Substack: To the Shores of Taiwan

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.

The Air Force Taunts the Army

The Air Force deigned to provide special forces with dedicated ground support aircraft. The Army can continue to pound sand.

Well that’s nice for special forces: 

The Air Force now has 18 new light attack aircraft that are designed to support special operations forces on the ground, and it expects to receive “a handful more” by October, said Lt. Col. Robert Wilson, of Air Force Special Operations Command, or AFSOC.

The single-engine turboprop OA-1K Skyraider II is “essentially a Swiss Army Knife of airborne capability,” that can fly armed reconnaissance, close air support, and precision strike missions, said Wilson, AFSOC’s armed overwatch requirements branch chief.

But this plane is a flashy distraction from the refusal to have a dedicated close air support plane for the Army's maneuver forces.

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 article. 

The Thucydides Trap Definitions Section

China's Xi raised the Thucydides Trap during the recent Peking summit as a cautionary tale that should instill American caution. How convenient.

Victor Hanson writes that the Thucydides Trap does not actually describe the situation between Athens and Sparta as a cause of the war. Yet the political scientist who popularized the model relied on other competing rivals to bolster the ancient scenario that he used to name the problem. 

The theory is often talked about in power transition terms. A dominant power may strike a rising power before it can be ascendant. Or a rising power impatient for its anticipated dominance may strike first to accelerate the trend. 

There are problems with the data set, too. An obvious one is the U.S.-Japan rivalry that led to war in 1941. Japan's GDP was about 1/8 America's. Where was the threat or promise of a power shift?

And while there is certainly validity to the general observation about competing powers, the data gives it more credibility as a virtual machine that spits out predictable results with the competition inputs. That is merely the color of scientific rigor.

I think the great distance between America and China prevents each from really going for the throat of each other's homeland. America can't successfully invade vast China and China can't even try to invade vast America. This distance reduces the tipping point urgency to act now.

I suspect Xi was trying to appear near when he knows it is far from overtaking America.

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 https://www.hellenic-art.com/hellenipedia/greek-hoplite-phalanx/.

Marines in Australia

Has the Marine presence in northern Australia reached its endpoint? Or is it just the beginning?

Capabilities in Australia: 

Marine Rotational Force-Darwin 26 was recently certified as a Special Purpose Marine Air-Ground Task Force, marking the first MRF-D unit to earn the certification since the rotational force was established in 2011.

The Marine presence has come a long way.  

Will it go even farther?

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.

Air Base Defense 101 Must Be Reviewed

Air supremacy is no longer America's God-given right. Our Cold War--let alone our World War II--anti-aircraft capabilities have eroded just in time for missiles and cheap drones to take aim at our air bases. A sense of urgency is in order given our reliance on air power.

Most of the American aircraft lost from Iranian action were drones and weren’t knocked down while on the ground and so completely irrelevant to the author’s point, but yes:

The days of exposed aircraft sitting safely on runways to prosecute operations unimpeded are over. But not nearly enough U.S. military bases at home or abroad are hardened or sheltered to protect our most capable equipment.

I am fully onboard the need for ground-based air defense and more basic air base protection measures.

And grant me that I recognized the base defense problem that small drones would pose. And that was before they were armed with explosives and got longer range. 

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 last war when we failed to have a sense of urgency about air base defense.

The Eastern Question Reverses Direction

I used to think we have an Erdogan problem. Wait him out and Turkey could return to reliable ally status. I fear he is the symptom of an Islamist problem. And even if that wasn't the case when he was elected, his duration has made this an Islamist problem. And a new Eastern Question.

I believe our government once believed Erdogan would be a great example for Islam by being a "tame" Islamist government still able to align with the West. That is not working out:

Turkey’s accelerating development of ballistic, cruise, and potentially hypersonic missiles should force Washington and Brussels to reconsider whether Ankara is evolving into a stabilizing NATO partner—or a revisionist power armed with increasingly sophisticated strike capabilities.

We thought Turkey could be a good example for Iran, which we also once bizarrely believed could be tamed rather than defeated. Perhaps there was hope that Pakistan, which remains an army barely in control of a country--because of the Islamist-infected population--could be cured, too.

Instead, I fear that either Pakistan and Iran will be potential models for Turkey when its Islamists no longer pretend to be tame as they pursue a return to Ottoman glories. Although they'd be smart to model Iran which always gave hope to Westerners that mythical "moderates" could gain power if only we granted Iran enough concessions.

The Eastern Question may be reversing. 

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: Map from Britannica.