The Morning Rant: Minimalist Edition

The Obama purge of our military has exacerbated the institutional flaws that are inherent in most military organizations. Pork Barrel procurement is probably as old as the first army, as is ridiculous weapons system design, the typical strategy of planning on fighting the last war, and a host of other issues that will probably never change.

But political reliability in the highest ranks, deference to the most insane progressive and post-modern lunacy (DEI, transgenderism, etc), coupled with a foreign policy seemingly designed to embolden our enemies have all conspired to put America squarely behind. We can't build ships, we can't build planes, we can't attract men to enlist, and our biggest Pacific ally is a generation behind in their planning for a war with China that is becoming more and more likely.

Preserving Peace Through Naval Power

Today, the U.S. Navy has a peer naval competitor in the Chinese PLAN and does not have enough resources to counter it and perform its other assigned global duties. Catching up to current requirements, let alone those which might come from China in the future, will be expensive, difficult, and time consuming. Maintaining the current U.S. naval spending as a percentage of GDP will increase the risk of war.

Increasing the pace of building major naval combatants such as supercarriers and their F35 aircraft, nuclear submarines, and guided missile destroyers is crucial to the goal of deterrence. U.S. shipyards will need to increase their skilled workforces. Component suppliers will need to invest in new production lines. Congress and the Department of Defense need to radically change procurement processes relating to building and maintaining state-of-the-art naval vessels. These major blue water combatants are essential for deterrence and for victory if actual hostilities occur.

US Navy's warship production is in its worst state in 25 years. What's behind it?

The U.S. Navy is struggling to build affordable warships needed to face expanding threats around the world. Among the numerous challenges obstructing its efforts are a serious shortage of skilled workers, poor shipyard employee retention, last-minute design changes and the Pentagon's shifting priorities. Eric Labs is a longtime naval analyst at the Congressional Budget Office. He says the shipbuilding industry is in its worst state in 25 years.

Good news, bad news in Japan's military reawakening

Chinese leader Xi Jinping has done what no American president ever could. He got Japan to get serious about defense after decades of pathological overdependence on US forces.

But here’s the problem: Being serious about defense and actually being able to defend oneself are different things. Japan already has a large and powerful defense force – on paper at least. Its military power has been rated #7 in the world.

And in recent years Japan has undertaken to double defense spending, buy and develop long-range missiles, signed defense agreements with several foreign countries, is poised to establish a Joint Operations Command and is pushing the Americans to operationalize their US Forces Japan headquarters.

And the Japan Self Defense Force (JSDF) is doing more and increasingly complex exercises with the Americans, the Australians and others.

That’s the good news. But here’s the not-so-good news: the JSDF still isn’t a real fighting force. It’s not prepared to fight a war in terms of organization, logistics, command and control, hardware and weaponry, combat-casualty replacement, reserve forces, or even psychologically.

But current weaponry has shrunk that advantage. Space-based weapons, ICBMs, hypersonic missiles, internet-based attacks, EMPs, and more have decreased our perimeter, while the complexity of our modern weapons systems has increased exponentially our resupply and repair challenges.

We simply cannot afford to muddle through the first weeks or months of a war, ferreting out the substandard officers, figuring out which weapons work and which don't, bringing our logistics up to a war footing, and on and on and on.

Our next war is going to happen far to quickly and far too fast for us to have that luxury.

[Crossposted at CutJibNewsletter]

posted by CBD at 11:00 AM

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