Military Affairs

Swimming, Soaring, and Biting Dragon

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There are a few essays filed today at Strategypage.com that concern how China is developing into a credible future threat.

One of the most exciting developments in weapon systems over the past several years has been the emergence of sophisticated Unmanned Aerial Vehicles, robot planes that are controlled from the ground which are unfettered by the frailties that come with having a human pilot on board. This article details how the Chinese are looking to field their own version of the Global Hawk, one of the more capable UAVs in the US arsenal.

The reason why this is interesting to observers in the West is due to the fact that this new aircraft is intended to be used for maritime patrol, even though China is hardly a great naval power. The only credible justification of the expense for development and deployment of the new weapon is as yet another tool to be used in the military conquest of Taiwan, a goal the communist government of China has never been shy about expressing.

The Chinese have no real chance of landing troops on Taiwan unless they first neutralize any US aircraft carriers in the region. This article details how Chinese submarines are stalking American carriers, something that strongly reminds me of the bad old days of Soviet/American cat and mouse naval games during the Cold War.

If you should be moved to click on that last link, please note how some Chinese subs are being deployed even though they are unsuited to this kind of work because of excessive noise. This shows that the Chinese military understands that real world training is paramount if one is to have an effective military. It also indicates that they are well aware that the Americans are very unlikely to attack the Chinese vessels, and so they can gain that training at very little risk to their scarce and expensive submarine fleet.

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USS Juneau

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While visiting Alaska we toured the capital city Juneau. Juneau lies on a small flat section of land among towering mountain peaks and is very scenic. Along the water front huge cruise ships were moored, disgorging tourists to wander the local shops. So what catches MY eye…

A plague commemorating the USS Juneau, of course. The USS Juneau was a US light cruiser of the “Atlanta” class, and was relatively small in size. “Light” cruisers at the time generally carried 6 inch guns, and “Heavy” cruisers carried 8 inch guns (for comparison, battleships carried guns in the 14 to 18 inch range). The Atlanta class light cruisers had five inch guns, in twin mount turrets, and in some ways were just larger destroyers. On the other hand, they were revolutionary in that they were Anti-aircraft cruisers, similar to the British “Dido” class, which performed valuable duties especially protecting the Malta convoys which ran through heavy Axis air attack routes.< While I knew this right away it probably isn't common knowledge that the Juneau was the ship that, in a way, inspired the movie "Saving Private Ryan". The Juneau was the ship where the famous five Sullivan brothers all served as sailors. The Juneau was sunk by the Japanese off Guadalcanal in late 1942; the ship was struck by one of the powerful torpedoes and it sank quickly. Three of the brothers died when the ship sank and the other two died at sea while awaiting rescue. I did not realize it until I read the wikipedia site that the situation of the survivors was comparable to that of the Indianapolis, which was immortalized in “Jaws”, in that they were adrift at sea for several days before they were rescued, and that is why only ten survived out of a compliment of 700 sailors.

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A Lucky Country

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I can walk to work from a few different directions and I took a detour and headed south on LaSalle street. Just north of the Chicago River there is a refurbished office building with a large photo essay on the Eastland disaster. The S.S. Eastland was a passenger ship that capsized in 1915 and killed 845 passengers along the Chicago River (near where this building stands today). The exhibit is called “A Day Unlike Any Other”.

What does this essay say about America, and why are we “A Lucky Country”? As a history buff, when I see any date from the time period 1914-1918 only one thing leaps to mind – World War One. While the United States did participate in World War One, we declared war in 1917 and only had sizable forces on the ground for the 1918 German spring offensive and the subsequent Allied counterattack.

Thus while 1915 is “A Day Unlike Any Other” (and even the wikipedia page on this date, July 24, points to the Eastland disaster) in America, let’s put this in perspective.

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NEW BOOK: The John Boyd Roundtable: Debating Science, Strategy and War

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Re-posted from Zenpundit.com at the request of my co-author Lexington Green:

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The John Boyd Roundtable: Debating Science, Strategy, and War

This post has been a long time coming.

A while back, we had a a symposium at Chicago Boyz to discuss and debate the superb book Science, Strategy and War: The Strategic Theory of John Boyd by Colonel Frans Osinga. It was a great discussion from which I learned far more about the ideas of the iconoclastic military theorist John Boyd than I had ever previously considered. Not everyone involved was an admirer of John Boyd, a few were initially skeptical and we had one certified critic ( though I had tried to recruit several more). Overall, it was the kind of exchange that makes the blogosphere special as a medium when it is at it’s intellectual best.

Shortly thereafter, via Dan of tdaxp I was approached by the publisher of Nimble Books, W.F. Zimmerman, who happened to be a military history buff and who was interested in working our loose online discussion of Dr. Osinga’s prodigious tome into a book. Initially, I was somewhat dubious but I warmed to the project at the urging of tdaxp and Lexington Green, and agreed to serve as the Editor and “herder of cats” in a project that would involve a large number of contributors with very different backgrounds and some fairly dense and esoteric material on strategic theory to digest and make comprehensible to a general reader.

A wonderful experience.

We had an excellent roster of contributors for The John Boyd Roundtable: Debating Science, Strategy, and War – Dr. Chet Richards, Daniel Abbott, Shane Deichman, Frank Hoffman, Adam Elkus, Lexington Green, Thomas Wade and Dr. Frans Osinga, who contributed several essays. Dr. Thomas Barnett sets the intellectual tone in the foreword after which the authors brought a wide range of professional perspectives to bear – cognitive psychology, military history, physics, strategy, journalism and, of course, blogging – in a series of articles that tried to explain the essence and dimensions of John Boyd’s contribution to strategic thought. Hopefully, we succeeded in creating an interesting and useful primer but the readers will be the ultimate judges, free to dispute our conclusions and offer contending arguments of their own.

I’d like to think that Colonel Boyd would have wanted it that way.

Get a Jump on Christmas! – Put Michael Yon in a Soldier’s Stocking

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Just a note that combat blogger Michael Yon has made arrangements with his publisher to offer his book Moment of Truth: How a New ‘Greatest Generation’ of American Soldiers is Turning Defeat and Disaster into Victory and Hope free of charge to soldiers through the Soldier’s Angels organization.

You can purchase Michael Yon’s book online, directly from the publisher, and the copies will be given to soldiers as a gift. It’s hard to imagine a book that would be better received and more thought-provoking for soldiers in the field. Michael Yon is one of the few voices committed to putting in the time to learn what is happening in Iraq and Afghanistan, supported only by citizen-contributors.

To quote Michael:

This project is dependent entirely upon private donations. Without your help, it won’t happen. For folks who wish to put one book in the hands of a soldier, it’s just $10. For five books, it’s just $40. Ten copies are $75. A donation of $150 will put a copy of Moment of Truth in Iraq in the hands of 30 American soldiers; that’s just $5 a book.

As a Canadian who’s donated to Michael’s efforts directly in the past, I’m particularly appreciative of the fact that he’s starting to report on the efforts of Canadian soldiers in Afghanistan. Those guys are getting far too little credit for their courage and skill over the last seven years (Canadian special forces and snipers were engaged since the beginning). In any event, I’m hoping that Michael gets a chance to interact with the Canadian troops as he did with the Brits in Basra. Their story needs telling.

And in the wider context, putting an exciting insightful book on Iraq into the hands of a soldier for Christmas, seems like a really good idea. I’ve chipped in $150 from the Great Non-White (just yet) North.

For the direct publisher link, please go here.

UPDATE (for commenter Seerov): Great White North is a term of endearment used by Canadians for their country, first appearing in a skit on the comedy program SCTV. It refers to snow. Being as it’s early September in Alberta, we have snow on the tops of the Rockies, but not “just yet” in the foothills … not yet, but soon.