The PLAN Plans For a SINKEX

China dangled its oldest carrier northeast and east of Taiwan. Which is useful training for its wartime role of distracting the United States Navy.

The PLAN headed to sea: 

The People’s Liberation Army Navy Liaoning Carrier Strike Group was operating in the Philippine Sea as of Wednesday, according to a Japan Joint Staff Office. 

Led by aircraft carrier CNS Liaoning (16), the strike group was spotted 155 miles south of Japan’s Ishigaki Island launching and recovering aircraft. The strike group includes Liaoning, cruisers CNS Anshan (103) and CNS Wuxi (104) and destroyer CNS Huainen (123). 

The location is interesting, as this map by Japan's Joint Staff Office tracked:

My view is that the old Soviet carrier that the Chinese used to begin their carrier development is best suited to distract the United States Navy which may take the time to smash the task force while China uses that time to get ashore in strength on Taiwan.

NOTE: TDR Winter War of 2022 coverage continues here.

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NOTE: Images from the article.

Making Lemonade from LCS Lemons

The Navy is looking at how the Marines can use the Littoral Combat Ship (LCS) for attack helicopter operations. Let's explore expanding that line of inquiry.

Huh:

The U.S. Navy is demonstrating how a ship originally built for littoral surface warfare could assume a broader role as a mobile aviation node for Marine Corps attack helicopters. In imagery dated October 5, 2026, and released October 12, Commander, Expeditionary Strike Group 7 documented sailors aboard the Independence-variant littoral combat ship USS Canberra (LCS 30) preparing a Marine Corps AH-1Z Viper of Marine Light Attack Helicopter Squadron 367 for departure at White Beach Naval Facility, Okinawa. The activity is part of wider Navy-Marine Corps integration that could expand the number of locations from which armed rotary-wing aircraft can operate across the Indo-Pacific.

One, if helicopters can carry out strike missions, why did the Marines rip apart the Corps with Force Design 2030?

Second, as long as the Navy and Marines are looking at the LCS, consider using them to move and sustain Marine outposts in expeditionary advanced base operations.

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.

Are Russian Counter-Drone Operator Missions Effective?

Ukraine says that the Russians are more effective in hitting their small UAV operators behind the lines. Interesting.

Is this true?

Ukrainian military sources have reported on the increasing effectiveness of Russian glide bomb and artillery strikes against Ukrainian drone operators, as the Russian military command looks for ways to overcome Ukraine’s natural defensive advantage and its advantage in unmanned systems.

On the one hand, it has long made sense for combatants to use their persistent battlefield surveillance to find and strike the drone operators in their bunkers behind the lines. So this seems logical. Russia is going after Ukraine's drone operators and is having some success.

Yet it also makes sense for Ukraine to "admit" it is hurt if Russia's efforts aren't very successful. It makes sense for Ukraine to "publicize" Russia's so-called success to encourage Russia to keep doing what they are doing--which could be largely ineffective in reality.

From where I sit, the battlefield isn't transparent at all. And it isn't just from my perspective far from battlefields, eh? 

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: U.S. Army photo.

AI Is Not Replacement Intelligence

Artificial Intelligence is not Artificial Leadership.

I concur enthusiastically:

"You can't AI yourself to be the best maneuver brigade commander out there," LaNeve said. "You use AI as a tool to help you push the formation, use the tools to defeat the enemy, but you still have to be grounded in the core tasks that you’ve been assigned."

I recall that in the Cold War the Soviets wanted computers to actually make the decisions of officers leading combat units. I don't remember the level of command. I think it was more for company commanders. This would make up for lack of an effective NCO corps and for poor initiative in officers. It failed.

We really shouldn't try the same thing believing AI can replace well-trained officers and NCOs. AI is just a tool that can make good leadership more effective. Or make poor commanders FUBAR at the speed of AI.

But I won't be shocked if the Russians and Chinese try the same path.

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.

The Winter War of 2022 Wonders About the Russian Army

 

Have Russia’s ground forces effectively collapsed? Do we fail to see it because Ukraine can’t scale up their offensive capabilities? Does the jump in troop dispersal on the battlefield make it harder to generate and expand panic in enemy troops?

Head on over to Substack for the essay. 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: The Ford-Class Amphibious/Strike Carrier

In case you missed it on Substack: Russia's Bluff Gambit

In case you missed it on Substack: The Mother of All Cutters

In case you missed it on Substack: Enabling Maneuver With UAVs

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.

Is There a Debate Over the Main Enemy in the PLA?

I will ask again, does the People's Liberation Army (PLA) believe it is the defender of China or the defender of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP)?

What is PLA leadership disloyal to? China or Xi? 

Chinese President Xi Jinping’s purge of the senior leadership of the People’s Liberation Army continues unabated. It reveals both the reach of the Chinese Communist Party’s disciplinary apparatus, and the persistence of disloyalty and corruption in the PLA. ... 

Its central purpose is to ensure that professionalisation does not generate military autonomy and that organisational authority remains subordinate to party authority.

But recall that the primary objective of the CCP is to maintain the CCP’s monopoly on power in China. So the decline of communist purity in favor of nationalism to bolster the CCP legitimacy is a dangerous path for the CCP.  

Xi may want a PLA both technically proficient and utterly loyal. But autocrats have often discovered they must choose one. Who is Xi more worried about? 

Yet, if an effective military is chosen, sometimes an autocrat may find it must keep that military too busy to think about the autocrat as the enemy. Or the autocrat may find that nationalism inspires at least part of the military to act when it believes the political leadership will not--or to protect itself as the true defender of the nation.

Have a super sparkly "how's that pucker factor" day.

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" Identifies Its Real Enemy

Sometimes enemies telegraph their hostility. Say, look at what the European Union wants. When the solution to every problem is "ever closer union" you have to consider whether ever closer union is the only thing that matters to Brussels.

This is fascinating in what it reveals:

Factional struggles around the US president have left Europe at the mercy of competing foreign policy agendas. But European disunity only undermines European interests[.]

What's the solution? More "Europe":

Europeans need to gather all the unity they can to undermine Washington’s divide-and-conquer strategy.

To defend themselves against America.

I think that divide-and-conquer accusation is a whole lot of EU projection. And of course the EU fanboys (and girls) view America as their main enemy. America is the main reason Europeans have freedom more broadly since 1945. 

Without American influence in Europe, I don't know how long that breadth of freedom will last. The proto-imperial European Union can't strip away the prefix to suppress stirrings of liberty amongst the peasants who need to know their place with America around. So every "crisis"--real or imagined--is an opportunity to chip away at the prefix.

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.