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Saturday, January 18, 2003
January 18: Shabbat Shalom! As many of you know, Saturday is the Jewish Sabbath. In that spirit, my weekend posts to this blog will always be "good news". I will share Sufi wisdom, highlight the acts of good and decent people, laugh at humourous events, and point to amazing discoveries that could benefit humanity. Other blogging days may include these things as well, but today I seek to fill my entire day with that. This provides a necessary and important break from current events, which by nature are often dark. Unless I can stop to acknowledge the other side of the coin and see the light also, my perspective and analysis will inevitably become flawed. If you do have a hankering for our standard fare, I recommend yesterday's extensive daily contents - including some excellent late additions. Today's Blogs: Broadband Pop Sociology I originally wrote the following to Jerry Pournelle and a version of it was posted on his site. In keeping with Joe's site theme of "No bad news" on Saturday, I think folks will find this both amusing and thought provoking. ------ Jerry, I have run across an interesting techno-sociological evolution for your consideration. Tom Holsinger and I were having a conversation the other night when he started describing some of the things his daughter was up to using his DSL broadband access with her girl friends. She was interacting with three friends via a text chat channel plus multiple-recipient instant messages, Internet phone via DSL/computer microphone & speakers with one girl and regular telephone line via headset with another. That is, two different verbal channels and multiple text channels were active simultaneously. This was girl-gossip gone to heaven. Tom's daughter was communicating to individuals, to some, and to all of the group as she wished, with catty verbal and text comments and digs flying to one, two and three girls while the nominal four party text conversation ran on. Tom compared this to a study Microsoft did with some of their interns that they followed around one summer taping. These interns, when they wanted to have a conference, did not go to a conference room to interact. Instead, they all went to separate computers with verbal/streaming video channel and a "white board" text channel in order to conference. In both cases, broadband access allowed these youngsters to not just multitask,, they multiplexed their communications at a much higher data rate with much higher data density. I differentiate here based on interactivity. People have been multitasking for a long time. At cocktail parties, you often have people in one conversation while keeping track of one or two others. At home people often have the stereo and TV going while playing computer games. The legal and financial professions often have people doing one task while they are thinking of another. In some of my conversations with Tom I am on a cell phone with him, have Internet news on my computer and a television going in the background. It is really no big thing. The difference with these compared to the Tom's daughter and her friends is that the older folks' interactions had only one active channel open. The girls were active in as many channels as there are combinations that four girls can gang up on each other. The difference between Tom and his daughter is a difference in kind and not degree. This is something we have already seen between the computer-phials and computer-phobic. The example I used with Tom was what happened when the Army Colonel commanding the Army 21 brigade in 1997 National Training Center maneuvers lost control. The sensors and displays gave the commander accurate position information on all friendly and enemy units. He ignored the displays in favor of the radio channels he was used to. He couldn’t accept that the new communications channels used by his subordinates made his oral communication channel almost useless as a source of information on his own command. His 20s-something tank crews were using their appliqué data terminals to navigate across miles of desert for refueling and reprovisioning WITHOUT GETTING LOST OR COMMUNICATING VERBALLY. The radio chatter that the Army Col. listened to, in order to determine what was going on, was missing. This was a perfect example of how those over 30 couldn't understand what those under 30 were up to. Broadband is a generational change - which makes those who grow up with it able to communicate and think differently than those who didn't. There are implications in this which I am only just sorting through. "Information overload" will be much less of a problem for these kids when they are adults. This overload advantage doesn’t mean we will have a "Logan's Run" situation where the young displace the old. There will be too many important societal activities where experience and guile will trump youth, exuberance and information handling ability. Coming from a military cultural background, I can see this in using teleoperated robotic sensors and weapons. Americans will have the same cultural advantage with this technology as Americans in WW2 did with the internal combustion engine. Even if "durn furiners" can match the theoretical performance of our military toys, they will not have the equivalent scale of skilled operators, and maintainers, needed to get full capability from the same systems. The larger economic and social implications are harder to digest. America's freer economic and political system lets change happen faster here than anywhere else in the world. What is going on is that broadband technology is opening opportunities and rewards for more people with different modes of thinking and learning. People with short but broad attention spans, who are low productivity in current modes of work, can be more economically useful in the jobs broadband will create. The mobilization of more of American society into more productive niches is a virtuous wealth creating cycle. Not only will the rich get richer in America, but also the poor will get richer because it will be easier to cheapen the cost of broadband access to poor Americans than it will be to extend it to other 1st world, let alone 3rd world, nations due to institutional and cultural obstacles. This also means that global talent will flow where it can be most easily rewarded, AKA in the USA. I get the distinct impression from all this that American Superpower dominance of the planet will continue for an extended period of time. Trent Telenko P.S. Since that letter was written, the dot.com bubble burst and the Baby Bells managed to stop the rapid expansion of broadband via monopoly powers and lobbying for regulatory barriers to market entry. This still won't stop the social change the letter spoke of. College students who had their dorm rooms wired with broadband connections are graduating and making both employment and housing choices based on local broadband access. Between the tubing costs of cellphones and the growing access to local broadband, people in some urban areas are giving up analog local phone service entirely. That is why you are seeing the Baby Bells buy into cellphone companies. Now whether the cellphone business can survive the senior management of the Baby Bells is a different question entirely. Some non-Americans will make much of the fact that both Finland and South Korea are far more heavily wired for broadband than America on a population percentage basis. And they would be right, but also miss the point. Orders of magnitude mean things. There are now more people with broadband in America than the combined populations of both those nations. This means there is a larger critcal mass of people, technology, markets and institutions that will be able to sweep up the "next big thing" when it arrives than elsewhere. Sufi Wisdom of the Week: Let Love Rule As militant Islam does its level best to discredit the religion, it's important to remember that there are other voices within the faith. One such is the Sufis, the Islamic mystics who live islam (submission), iman (faith) and ishan (awareness of G-d, "to act beautifully"). The Wahhabi hate them, of course, which constitutes an endorsement in my books. The great poet Rumi was a Sufi, and so were many other figures of religious and cultural significance. I've come to appreciate the Sufis for their poetry, their humour, and their body of wisdom. Every Shabbat, therefore, I will be sharing some of that via my Blog. This one comes from Ahmad Hatif: "Let the eye of your heart be opened that you may see the spirit and behold invisible things.For in-depth philosophical exploration of these concepts from a less mystical point of view, you might try this essay, whuich references Hatif's words in the process. Quantum Cryptography: Can You See the Light? This week, both ZDNet and WIRED carried reports about a small breakthrough at Northwestern University. Scientists there say they have harnessed the properties of light to encrypt information into code, using approaches that are a signifiant advance over previous 'single photon' encoding models. "What makes the system so secure is that an eavesdropper can't tap into it without disturbing the photons," said Paul Kwiat, a professor of physics at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and a leading authority on quantum cryptography. "If an eavesdropper disturbs the photons, then they're gone." The implications for military and intelligence use are obvious. So are the implications for both terrorists/criminal syndicates and for personal freedom as the technologies involved become cheaper and cheaper. Which makes this a development worth keeping an eye on. That said, Quantum cryptography still suffers from one major limitation. As it stands today, all quantum cryptography techniques only work over dedicated fiber-optic lines -- not over the Internet -- between less than 90 kilometers apart. Research continues. Anthrax as a Cure for Leukemia? Well, it can't be any crazier than the idea of botulinum as a solution to skin-care woes. Noah Shachtman's excellent "Defense Tech" blog has the story. The greatest warrior is the one who turns an enemy into a friend. Human ingenuity continues to astound me. Friday, January 17, 2003
Friday: Written Wisdom Yesterday was a corker. The U.N. inspectors actually managed to find some undeclared chemical warheads in Iraq. But you already knew that. Trent says it's evidence that Bush knows what he's doing. Hmm. If you're interested in military matters at all, however, Trent's in-depth interview with a "Wild Weasel" pilot is a must-read. These are the guys who fly jets over anti-aircraft missile and gun sites, bait them into turning on their radars, then head in for the attack. Not for the faint of heart. Trouble is, the U.S. Air Force has had a lot of this capability stripped away. His piece adds real depth and concrete examples to some of the points made Wednesday by Vandergriff and Coram via "The American Way of War - Good Enough?". Muslimpundit opened with a substantial post of his own, meanwhile, a broadside right into the pretentions of the ever-deserving Edward Said. Damn, but I'm proud to be with these folks; and we kicked it up yet another notch today. Today's Blogs: 48 Ways to Wisdom: Way #14 - Written Instructions for Living This is a regular feature on Winds of Change. Every Friday (for Friday evening begins the Jewish Sabbath), we cover one more way to wisdom from Rabbi Noah Weinberg. They're written by an Orthodox Jewish Rabbi, but retain their full value no matter what creed you follow. Think of them as a gentle and modern way of sharing almost 6,000 years of accumulated wisdom. This week's feature encourages Jews to RTOM, or "read the owner's manual": "All men have an inalienable right" -- straight from the Bible. "Love your neighbor" -- the Bible. Isaiah's vision of peace adorns the United Nations. The biblical sanction to "proclaim freedom throughout the land" is engraved on the Liberty Bell.Thanks, Rabbi, but I'm kind of busy over here. Maybe later? Hey, he understands: "We don't have the patience to get to know ourselves and we want to learn from experience. Many people say: "After I make money, when my business is self-sustaining, then I'll take time out to learn Torah. But I need to experience life a little first."Uh, point taken. Letters from Iraq If you haven't yet tuned into "Where's Raed?" - do so. It features a number of letters from someone inside Iraq to an Arab friend outside. Several other bloggers have looked into this and pronounced it legit. I can't be sure myself, but if its a staged operation it's a pretty good one. Feminism AWOL on Islam Like this is a big surprise to anyone. From an article in the Winter 2003 City Journal: "You didn't hear much from feminists as it emerged that honor killings by relatives, often either ignored or only lightly punished by authorities, are also commonplace in the Muslim world.... As you look at this inventory of brutality, the question bears repeating: Where are the demonstrations, the articles, the petitions, the resolutions, the vindications of the rights of Islamic women by American feminists?"Where, indeed? Lucid and devastating. (Hat Tip: Terror Watch) Axis of Evil? Oh, Yeah. In case you haven't seen it yet... Read this, then come back and tell me with a straight face that evil isn't real, and running North Korea. Palestinian Islamists Aren't Nazis - But They're Trying Meanwhile, the IDF has shut down 3 universities on the West Bank. When you read and see what they found there, you'll understand why. Disgusting does not even begin to do this justice, but I guess it all accessorizes nicely with the Osama Bin Laden key chains that are so popular among the "Palestinians" these days. There will be no peace until the Middle East is de-Nazified, and the organized hatred is stopped cold. Whether this happens the "easy" way or the hard way is up to them. Hitchens on De-Nazification Christopher Hitchens is still essentially a Trotskyite leftist. Which is to say, a long way from my point of view. But he has an unusual distinction among leftist commentators - my full respect. When Henry Kissinger was named to the 9/11 investigation commission and Hitch slammed the choice as unconscionable, he got an attentive hearing from me... and upon considering his points, I agreed. I don't always agree, of course, but I'll always give him a close hearing. Hitch earned it the hard way: with raw moral courage and a laser-sharp pen, battling steadily against evil in front of him and rampant moral cowardice among his colleagues behind. To face one's enemies in combat is one thing. To face one's friends takes rare courage indeed. So it's no surprise that he should come out with a very worthwhile article on Iraq and what we're up to. One that adds something to the debate about our road ahead in Iraq, and also raises an issue that I told a friend yesterday was coming to our debates: the reassessment of colonialism on both the left and right. "Barham Salih, the brave gentleman who is currently the elected prime minister of Iraqi Kurdistan, told me recently that of the two historic examples of American involvement in "nation-building," he prefers the instance of Germany over Japan. "In Japan too much of the old order was left in place. In Germany there was de-Nazification." This would be more like "revolution from above" or what colonial idealists used to call "the civilizing mission": everything from the education system to the roads. Nobody should underestimate for a second what the magnitude of the task is. But we still persist in employing a clever euphemism, which was designed precisely to obscure that task, and its magnitude, from our gaze."Remember this as the first shot, folks. As this issue begins to bite in earnest, it will help define our age. And it will not break along traditional left/right lines. More on this issue next week. Zimbabwe and liberal guilt. Today's L.A. Times has a laudatory article about land seizures in Zimbabwe. They miss more than a few things, however, including the brutality aimed at stealing elections and terrorizing the white minority; the allocation of choice land to cronies of Zimbabwe's despot Mugabe; the fact that the agricultural economy of Zimbabwe has collapsed and that the country faces starvation; and, finally, a growing body of work that suggests that real (in both senses of the word) property rights seem to be strongly correlated with development. Now if you've looked at the history, you'll note that part of the crisis was made in the U.K., who committed to fund a land buyout and apparently has issues. Even Afrocentric commentators seem appalled. A key element of my liberal beliefs is that we in the better-off, developed world need to help those who are less well-off become better off. A pervasive sense of guilt that allows us to look at something like the land seizures (which reinforce the notion that property is political booty) warmly isn’t going to get us there. I have talked about a few things that might… Iraq This is an expansion of a piece I recently did at Armed Liberal. I haven’t published much of anything about Iraq, although I’ve written a bunch about it and thrown it away. Most of what I’ve written has represented my own confusion about there I stand, and while honesty is a good thing, simply standing up and saying “I’m confused” seemed like a waste of my time and yours. But I saw something the other day over at Oliver Willis’ place that made me sit up and think and finally brought me to some clarity. It was an article in Newsday, suggesting that members of the Administration have floated a plan to take and sell Iraqi oil to pay the costs of the invasion. ‘Spoils of war” they call it. A model for the carve-up of Iraq's oil industry was presented in September by Ariel Cohen of the right-wing Heritage Foundation, which has close links to the Bush administration.I’m not putting on my “No Blood For Oil” t-shirt yet, but thinking about this brought some small clarity to my thoughts, and I realized just what it is that I think we’re doing wrong. There are (at least) two issues at stake in our approach to the Middle East. The first is that we (the industrial West) have profited quite substantially from Middle Eastern oil; our trading partners there have profited as well, but the profits haven’t built economies and societies that offer much to the average person. In fact, in an effort to personally keep their hands on the wealth that oil produces, these countries tend to be ruled by oppressive despots. The second issue is that in no small part in response to the dysfunctional societies that have been built and maintained with our oil money, a culture has emerged which is virulently anti-Western; it combines the anti-Western Romantic intellectual strains that flowered in the 60’s and became intellectual commonplaces in the 90’s with traditions in Muslim history of conflict with the West. The despotic rules of the Middle East have supported these movements as a way of defusing the internal political pressure for reform. This second issue, funded by the profits of the first, has emerged as a chronic, low-level war that has most dramatically shown itself on 9/11, but has cost thousands of lives over the last decade in less-dramatic attacks. This second issue is a genuine threat to us, and to our allies in the West, as the hate and frustration has built to the point where it is being and will continue to be acted upon. In addition, the people who are forced to live in religious dictatorships in Islamist countries suffer (note that not all Islamic countries are religious dictatorships or post aggressive threats to the West). This problem is in no small part of our (again, the West’s) making; we traded freedom for stability in the region in order to have secure and compliant trading partners. But having had a role in raising a psychopath doesn’t mean we should let ourselves be attacked by him as a way of assuaging our guilt. I am coming to believe that the fight is inevitable. The rage that has grown in the Middle East won’t burn itself out, and the opportunities for reform are too few to deny it fuel. If we are going to fight, we have a clear choice; we can fight to secure a supply of affordable oil, and to intimidate the other countries in the region into maintaining our supply of cheap oil; or we can fight to dismantle the social structures that our oil money and their dictators have created and attempt to free the people who have been forced to live hopeless, squalid lives. The first may come as a consequence of the second, but the second will never come as a consequence of the first. If we can help create stable societies in the Middle East, they will most likely be good trading partners. If we create good trading partners, they will most likely have to continue the repression that fuels their population’s hopelessness and rage. There’s a bunch of issues collapsed into that paragraph that will require substantial discussion and explanation…at a later time. Right now, I want to focus on one thing; that if we’re going to do this, we need to do it for the right reasons, or at least for reasons that aren’t transparently wrong. If we are going to invade Iraq, we need to make two public and firm commitments: 1) We aren’t in it for the oil. Not in the short run, anyway. A prosperous, stable Middle East would doubtless want to sell and exploit their natural resources. We’d want to buy them. Sounds like a deal could be made. But planning now for our own version of ‘crony capitalism’ stinks, and it is already costing us much of our credibility and moral leadership. 2) We’re in this for the long haul. We don’t get to ‘declare victory and go home’ when the going gets tough, elections are near, or TV shows pictures of the inevitable suffering that war causes. The Marshall Plan is a bad example, because the Europe that had been devastated by war had the commercial and entrepreneurial culture that simply needed stuff and money to get restarted. And while we’re damn good with stuff and money, this is going to take much more, and we’re going to have to roll up our sleeves, work, and be willing to sweat with this for some time. There are no good examples of this that I can think of in history. The postwar reconstruction of Japan comes the closest, and it’s not necessarily a good example, because the Japanese by WWII were a coherent, unified, hierarchical society that could be changed by fiat from the top. I don’t think that Germany is a good example, because once we de-Nazified, there was some tradition of liberal politics to work with. The Robert Kaplan-esque world we’re moving toward doesn’t have any of that. 3) We need to make a grand moral gesture to make it clear to the world that 1) isn’t the case. Personally, I think that it needs to come both from the American people and businesses, from our government. I think the whole anti-SUV thing is a good place to start. It’s an incredibly powerful symbol to the rest of the world that we’re killing people in Iraq so we can buy Hummers, Excursions, and Suburbans. I don’t believe it should be legislated, I don’t believe they should be banned, but I think that we should each examine what we’re willing to give up to play our part in changing the world so that 9/11 is an aberration. I do think that on a national level, we should talk about moving toward taxing energy to encourage efficiency; there are a lot of arguments about this, but I’ll make a simple one: we can buy energy from outside our economy, or we can buy ingenuity and products that save it from within it. Which one leads to jobs? I’m not one of the liberals who has a vision of essentially 19th Century village life as the way we all should live. That goal is of people who have an essentially abstemious belief set, and see a frugal life as it’s own reward. I don’t believe that sacrifice and frugality are in themselves character-building or good moral values. I do believe that sacrifice in the name of a goal is a good thing, and that frugality in the name of building a better future is something we could all use. So if the Democrats want a response to the war, here it is: 1) We won’t take Iraqi oil as booty; If we can’t answer all three as a solid “yes”, we shouldn’t go. We should just close out eyes, hunker down and hoep for the best. If we can, we should. We’re in a fight, and wishing it away won’t make it disappear. Silence from Amnesty & Human Rights Watch I know this sort of stuff is probably getting old, but where are Human Rights Watch or Amnesty International on the "systematic cannibalism, rape, torture and killing by rebels in a campaign of atrocities against civilians in the forests of northeast Congo, with children among the victims"?I've visited both sites, and the most recent documents I can find with the search term 'congo' are from December. Is forced cannibalism not a human rights concern? The UN investigative team has confirmed a list of atrocities that read like a Brett Easton Ellis novel:
MILTECH: Send in the 'Droids One of the on-line magazines I frequent to get the latest in military technology is the Journal of Electronic Defense. The Jan. 2003 issue has a corker of an article on the development of Killer UAVs. The article (registration is required) is titled The Robot's Got Your Back by Brendan P. Rivers. Here is the passage that grabbed my attention: "An even more ambitious UAV-based SEAD program, however, is already underway: the Loitering Electronic Warfare Killer (LEWK) advanced-technology concept demonstrator (ACTD), a program involving all four US military services (with the Air Force serving as the lead). Begun in 2001, the LEWK ACTD seeks to develop a UAV with the ability to deliver precision-guided munitions - in this case, BLU-108 sensor-fuzed weapons - and provide a jamming capability to augment the EA-6B Prowler, all at a unit cost of about $100,000. For the ACTD, the LEWK will be deployed from a CH-53 helicopter, but the plan is to eventually get the UAV certified on a fighter aircraft. The idea is to have LEWKs, pre-programmed with target points as determined by the enemy's electronic order of battle, carried into a threat zone by a manned aircraft and released. The LEWKs would then fly in close to their targets for stand-in jamming and fly pre-programmed egress routes to a recovery point upon completion of the mission. In addition, the LEWK would provide an additional capability to strike time-critical targets that may pop up in the area. "If there's a time-critical target out there and we can meet the rules of engagement by employing the BLU-108s, we'll do that," said Col John Wilcox, US Air Force. Again, the benefit to employing a UAV for this type of mission is the aircraft's persistence. "Putting a LEWK on a fighter that goes in at 500 knots and dropping it allows the LEWK to use all its fuel on station, rather than traveling to and from the site of interest," Wilcox said. The flight from Mazar-e-Sharif, for example, would take an average UAV three hours. The LEWK, Wilcox pointed out, gets there more quickly and can loiter longer. But the LEWK ACTD is even more ambitious. Although the initial flights under the program have focused on controlling a single LEWK, Wilcox said, "We plan to have a swarm of LEWKs. We want to have one pilot and 50 LEWKs." Employing a swarm of UAVs, though, presents some challenges. Deploying the swarm requires a lot more carriage capacity than a fighter possesses, so a rack has been developed that could carry 18 LEWKs, with designs in place for a rack that could carry as many as 24. Controlling the swarm poses yet another challenge. The pilot, he said, could be anywhere - in a ground-control station, in an EA-6B - so long as he's got the laptop-based control system and a datalink. But Wilcox explained that the swarm concept is still a little way off. "We're going to crawl before we walk and walk before we run," he said. "After we get through one guy controlling one LEWK, we'll probably go to one guy controlling two LEWKs, then one guy controlling six LEWKs and see where we go from there." This isn't so different from the way manned aircraft are handled, Wilcox noted. "A lot of times manned platforms abort, and we have to retask other fighters and bombers to pick up their targets. It would be the same thing with LEWKs," he said." So there you have it. America is looking to automate the control of armed UAVs such that swarms of them can be used by a single controller to hunt down and kill enemy air defenses, or any other military target. The real mind bender is when this swarm control technology is mated to emerging micro-UAV technology in the law enforcement and paramilitary role to control large urban populations. But that is the subject of another post here on Winds of Change. Stay tuned. Gaming the Invasion of Iraq -- A Thought Experiment Steven Den Beste is saying that Late January/Early February looks very good as a date for kicking off operations in Iraq. After reading the media reports on our deployments, I tried to view them in this manner: 1st Strategic Echelon 2-3 Heavy Divisions, Reserve, 1st Strategic Echelon 2nd Strategic Echelon 2-3 Heavy divisions [Including British 7th Armored Brigade] Reserve, 2nd Strategic Echelon The second American strategic echelon is in the deployment pipeline to the Iraqi Theater of Operations with date certain arrivals. Both the reserves and the 2nd echelon are beyond the reach of Saddam's WMD. The American 1st echelon will be in place by Jan. 28th We have every military incentive to kick off the 1st echelon attack before the 2nd echelon starts debarking at Kuwaiti ports and airfields because of the threat of Iraqi Scud/Frog/multiple rocket launcher delivered weapons of mass destruction, primarily persistent nerve agents, mustard gas and possibly anthrax. Airmobile forces and Marine AAV-7's mean we can take Iraqi river obstacles nearly in stride with combat forces. And those light/marine infantry units are now armed with Javelins for dealing with tanks. They will also have top cover from loitering B-1 and B-52 heavy bombers carrying Sensor Fuzed Weapons fitted with Wind Corrected Munition Dispensers and AH-64 Longbow Apaches flying in close support to prevent "A Bridge Too Far" from happening. Remember, bridges are for combat service support (CSS). That is, bullets, bombs, food and fuel for advancing forces that must go by truck. And how much of CSS will be needed in the event of an Iraqi collapse outside Baghdad is the real issue. The biggest Iraqi threats are the chemical armed multiple rocket launchers, Frogs and Scuds in the hands of Saddam's regime protective forces -- particularly the first in a 'Siege of Baghdad' scenario. When we will kick off is as much keyed on the results of our psychological warfare campaign and other special operations, as it is CSS. We will go if and when we think we can get someone to shoot Saddam by moving with our forces. Or if we get lucky and can nail Saddam ourselves. That could be tomorrow or it could be six months from now. We are playing for high stakes with Iraqi WMD. Their capture and neutralization is the highest priority, followed by the capture of Saddam's files for intelligence exploitation. The Bush Administration is playing to win big, not to fight as soon as it can in order to show manly chest hair to the Arab Street, the Western Media, or its own conservative Republican base. Given the course of our psychological warfare campaign to date, I see Bush and Blair demanding another U.N. use of force authorization vote after the American state of the union address. The point of which is to utterly destroy any hope in Saddam's inner circle that the usual suspects (France, Russia, China, Arab states) can in any way affect the American "Hammer of God" about to fall on them. So their choice become a) Fight and Die for Saddam, b) Shoot Saddam now and get a good deal from the Americans, or c) Shoot Saddam later and get almost nothing from the Americans. You all know which choice the Bush Administration wants Saddam's inner circle to take. Thursday, January 16, 2003
Thursday: Muslimpundit vs. Said I was wondering what Adil's first topic post to Winds of Change.NET would be. Now we know. With a bit of help from Ibn Warraq's exhaustive essay, he takes dead aim at "the pretensions of Edward Said toward... any conceptions of intellectual scholarship." Don't hold back, Adil. Tell us how you really feel! Meanwhile, looks like someone else has picked up Trent Telenko's brainwave re: North Korea's "Blazing Saddles Defense," and even gone one up on T2. Today's Blogs: The Sword That Was Broken Iain Murray, the columnist and blogger better known as "The Edge of England's Sword," has been dismissed from his workplace. His blog was given as cause, even though he had previously been given permission to do it. It's also worthy of note that none of his organization's procedures or policies for discipline were followed in this case. First things first. Please head over to Iain's blog - especially the tip jar. Second: as blogging becomes more high profile, this sort of thing is unfortunately something to keep in mind. Blogging has helped some, and hurt others. If you're a blogger, consider both your position and your protection... and secure both. Finally, Iain, go see a lawyer. From here, it looks like your employers have left themselves open to action on this front. You owe it to yourself to find out for sure, and most lawyers will do the consultation for free. Best of luck, friend. Interview with a Weasel Jock – A Retrospective A few years ago, at roughly the time Scott O'Grady's F-16 was shot down in 1995 over Bosnia, I had a long correspondence with a now likely ex-USAF Wild Weasel pilot. The original e-mails have been lost in a hard disk crash, but I pulled the following from my floppy files, edited it for clarity, and removed a number of professional references to my correspondent. I originally sent this to a mailing list that included Austin Bay, James Dunnigan, Steven Cole and several others from my old Genie Military Round Table community. While this is dated, I think it useful for two reasons. First, it nails down some of the institutional problems of the USAF’s Fighter Pilot leadership is causing. Second, it lays a stick in the ground against which to judge what has happened in the USAF since then. I have my own postscript after the interview. TRENT: I am particularly taken with the charges in the book THE ICARUS SYNDROME, by Carl Builder of the RAND corp. His evaluation of the "Fighter Pilot Mafia" seem spot on. That is, you ask an ex-Air Force officer what he was and he says he "was a F-16C pilot" while an ex-Army officer says "I was an Army officer." In other words, the USAF officer corps takes more pride in which piece of heavy equipment they operated than in the institution as a whole. SOURCE: I believe you and Carl Builder have interpreted the organizational loyalty climate in the Air Force correctly -- we don't seem to have any broad-service identity like the Marines do. We are very isolated and tribal. Especially fighter, bomber, controller, intell, and maintenance types -- the fighter guys divide into air-to-air and air-to- mud mentalities. The same family atmosphere and loyalty a bunch of sharks have. TRENT: I am very tempted to say that "Air Superiority is to important to be left to Fighter Pilots." SOURCE: Air Superiority is becoming less and less an air combat (fighter to fighter) type activity. More and more of our potential enemies are investing heavily in surface-to-air defenses -- primarily Third World countries who don't have the technological culture to invest heavily and train intensely in independent fighter maneuvering flying. SAMs are there 24 hours a day, and in the case of radar SAMs, in any weather. Much easier to train a primitive in operating a SAM radar system than flying a supersonic jet fighter. New SAMs like the SA-15 are essentially like the Patriot -- they do all the work for you and you simply consent to fire. More systems are refining their radars and missile kinematics to target cruise missiles (low radar cross section). TRENT: The Fighter Pilot Mafia also seemed to have curious delusions of "Beyond Visual Range Godhood." They think Sparrow and AMRAAM radar guided missiles are far longer ranged than those of the Russians, when the opposite was true, and absolutely ignored the possibility of air-to-air ARM's when the Russians have large numbers of them both for anti-fighter and anti-AWACS work. SOURCE: BVR radar air-to-air missiles will be like our M1A1 tanks and Apache helicopters were in Iraq -- we had the thermal sensors and the weapons to kill enemy tanks, who didn't even know we were there. The AA-10 has some long-range motor models that shoot quite a long way, and some variants have an ARM seeker (good to use on US fighters who ALWAYS use their radars). We'll get a nasty surprise some day like Israel did in 1973. TRENT: The contractor electronic warfare community, in its periodicals, seemed much happier with the "SAC Generals" than the "TAC/ACC Generals." The SAC Generals are shown to always appreciate ECM while the TAC Generals seemed to think all you needed to be was a "Sh*t Hot" pilot in a high performance plane to dodge the SAM's. The "TAC boys" seem to change their minds on ECM when the shooting started and forget as soon as it is over. The recent downing of an F-16 over Bosnia seems a good case in point. SOURCE: SAC knew the threat its bombers were facing during the Cold War, but relied on nuclear exchange for suppressing much of the radar threats -- it had a great track record for equitably caring for its navigators (especially radar navigators/bombardiers and EWOs). When TAC and SAC merged into ACC, TAC had to grudgingly accept many "promotable" navigators and EWOs into ranks of Colonel and even higher -- this was unheard of in TAC. TAC fighter pilots were notoriously ignorant of threats and countermeasures/countertactics. They seldom knew much threat knowledge. There have been two "privileged classes" of fighter pilots -- those hand-picked and groomed "Golden Boys": McPeak's F-15A air-to-air "Manly Men" fighter pilots exclusively selected in the late 70s who have all gone on to become TAC/ACC's generals, and the pilots selected to fly the F-117 in the 80s while it was still a black program (most are passing through Colonel now to stardom). McPeak was notorious for making any plan or mission highlight the F-117 since that was key to our buy of the F-22 and B-2. Many generations of navigators, EWOs, intell officers, and maintenance officers were sacrificed to promote these characters below-the-zone and to create for them an atmosphere not unlike Napoleon's Grenadiers a Cheval of the Imperial Guard Cavalry enjoyed. Much of the McPeak rottenness seems to have abated but I'm (Deleted References) In any case it did its damage over the past 5 years since the end of the War. We rewrote history to show that the F-4G and EF-111 really didn't do much in Desert Storm -- the war was won by the F-117. The Wild Weasel blitz of the Iraqi IADS the first week of the war is essentially covered up -- Gen Profitt who was recently killed in an airplane crash, was a big proponent of the EF-111 and discounted the contribution of the F-4G. There are very few Weasels still left in uniform to defend it. TRENT: Who is the other "privileged class?" Are they any good as flyers? It sounds like you need a Israeli style pilot training system -- a "Commissioned Warrant Officer Pilot" track and a separate command track. This system of "Highlands Clan cronyism" will destroy itself. I can see signs of it now in the hits the USAF is taking in the budget wars with the Army and Navy. SOURCE: The two privileged classes of pilots were: F-15A (late 70s) drivers and F-117 (early 80s) drivers. Since the dates I mentioned, both jets have been opened up to a wider array of pilots but the early days of both mentioned were an incestuous interest-filled activity. Hand-picked favorites and golden boys (some general's pet boy). The Israeli AF, like many others like the RAF, has two tracks -- one for a simple jock who just wants to fly with essentially no other responsibility (can be a warrant or more likely stay a company grader forever), and the other for a professional career military officer who has the capability and desire for more responsibility and demonstrates command potential. You are right -- we are f*****g ourselves in the air force and I'm not sure even Fogleman can turn it around soon enough -- he's making a valiant effort though. (Deleted references) Often, the handpicked Golden Boys of privilege and interest aren't very good in the jet. They are usually specialists in f*****io and s*d*my for some senior officer. (Deleted References) The USAF institution is rotten to the core with its promotion and personnel system. They recently "reexamined" it but they never considered changing or ridding itself of the Below-The-Zone promotion concept which is the primal source of its rottenness. You wind up with someone getting a command billet who has never gotten his hands dirty working in the trade -- inexperienced and immature, and also someone who is such a careerist they don't have the guts to stand up for their people or make a decision (they might be WRONG!). The Highland Clans may have had a cronyistic system but at least they all could FIGHT when necessary. Look at the candy asses of the 1st Fighter Wing in Desert Storm compared to the regular bubbas in the 33rd FW. The 33rd got 16 MiG kills and the 1st "Golden Boys" got 0 (but don't think they weren't trying, and CENTCOM was stacking the deck on CAP/Escort missions to put them in position to get some). TRENT: It is my belief that the draw down in USAF Electronic Combat capability started when the Tacit Rainbow ARM UAV came out of the "Black World," and the ASPJ, both went "tango uniform" [JK Note: milspeak for T.U., or "Tits Up," i.e. dead] in the late 1980's - early 1990's. It accelerated after the Gulf War with the cancellation of the MAWS, the cancellation of the EF-111 SIP upgrade, and the vetoing of a F-15E based Wild Weasel armed with a laser blinder by McPeak. Your thoughts? SOURCE: The real draw down of USAF EC capability began in around 1982 when the F-117 was fielded at Nellis -- single-seat "fighter" capability that didn't need no dang confounded gadgetry and pencil-neck geek four-eyed EWOs (Chuck Yeager accent added for authenticity). Flaccid Rambo [Note2 from Trent: a slightly pornographic reference to the cancelled Tacit Rainbow anti-radar cruise missile] and ASPJ (a Navy program so it can't be good for us) were stillborn by the late 1980s -- nonstarters. Corder had a pet black project that was probably also killed when he was fired but I don't know its status. [Note3 from Trent: Gen. Corder was the USAF's foremost expert on electronic warfare and developed the USAF's 1980's anti-SAM doctrine.] Col Jock Patterson at TAWC/EC and _GENERAL RALSTON_ at TAC/DR basically stopped advocating any new EC systems because the senior leadership had essentially bought off on stealth, hook line and sinker. Our F-111s are gone and our A-10s are essentially gone -- those and the F4s were the three jets (Gen.) Russ had on his "hit list" when Desert Shield kicked off. Schwarzkopf's replacement at CENTCOM had to call McPeak and personally order him to turn around some F-4Gs that were on their way to the boneyard after the end of the war -- they were still needed to enforce the peace over Iraq. (Gen.) Corder was fired for advocating that we keep squadrons of F-4Gs in the active AF when McPeak was trying to find a way to keep all the F-15C squadrons at a time when the AF was shrinking by at least 1/3. We stopped buying new ECM pods, missile approach warning systems, new RWRs, improved flares, etc. We've almost stopped testing threat weapon systems. Our entire countermeasures industrial base and experienced engineers in the program offices dried up, probably never to rebuild until we lose half an air force in the next war and go back to the days of the late 60s again (Quick Reaction programs because we were too myopic to anticipate the threat). All the things we learned from Vietnam and used so well in the Gulf are now gone. The electronic warfare community has essentially been "purged" -- most EWOs were passed over for promotion and SERBed while they and the EC pilots (who didn't get F-15/F-16 assignments) have gotten good jobs as contractors and consultants. EC/EW has now evolved into "Information Warfare", which generally doesn't include SEAD or ECM and seems to rely on deception. Our offensive and defensive domination of the electromagnetic spectrum has all but disappeared and the generals have totally bought off on stealth as the panacea to every threat. If the Bosnian Serbs had deployed a few SA-10 systems we would have been up a creek -- they would have been able to dominate the skies and keep us away. --- Trent’s Postscript --- The USA has yet to face a SA-10 or SA-15 surface to air missile system in combat.The Bosnian Serbs couldn't afford either system and it seems few other state can. So the real test of US post-Gulf War SEAD capablity has yet to happen. The heart of the USAF's institutional culture was Strategic Air Command (SAC). It was where the pilots that learned how to do teamwork, logistics and (nuclear) strategy. That was where officers were groomed for senior flag rank command slots. When SAC was stood down, Tactical Air Command (TAC) took over in the form of the renamed Air Combat Command (ACC). We are talking fighter jocks, the prima donna's, the cowboys. The anti-intellectuals who are scared to death of people smarter than they are. Look what happened after the Gulf War when ACC was in charge. Col. John A. Warden, the architect of the Gulf War air campaign was black balled by Gen. Horner. He retired a thrice passed over Col. at the Air Command and Staff School. Gen. Corder -- the man who put together the 1980's USAF SEAD doctrine used so well in the Gulf War -- was effectively sacked by the USAF chief of Staff (CoS) for disobeying a "strong suggestion" to lie to Congress about the need to retain the F-4G Wild Weasels. (The then CoS was trying to retain more F-15C's in the force structure.) His efforts to deploy a missile warning system** to protect USAF planes was cancelled partially in retaliation. When Corder's allies in Congress started making noise in 1993 about the draw down of F-4G Wild Weasel and EF-111's, the USAF put the recently retired Corder on a special six month SEAD study to satisfy them. Then the Air Staff sat on the results for close to three years. Corder, under the legal restrictions of the Reagan era secrecy laws, was thus effectively silenced while the deed was done. The downing of Capt. O' Grady in Bosnia was a direct result of the purging of F-4G Wild Weasel and EF-111 Spark 'Vark's from the USAF force structure and senior ACC staff's willing EW incompetence. USAF CoS Fogleman, for all his faults, recognized the lack of institutional professionalism. His support of the Air Command and Staff College, Maxwell AFB, Alb. and attempts to create a USAF doctrine codifying entity like the U.S. Army's Training and Doctrine Command (TRADOC) were what was needed. Unfortunately, Fogleman could not delegate and his reforms died with his military career. The inability to delegate is a defining fault of USAF fighter pilot culture. Fogleman’s successors haven’t tried to address these core institutional issues since then. The F22 budget wars and the real wars since 1997 have left the USAF CoS no time for anything else, assuming they were interested. ** I think I have identified the secret missile warning and defense electronic warfare program of USAF General Corder's that CoS McPeak cancelled. The predecessor of the current ALE-50 towed decoy/radar jammer was started as a black program by Sanders, according to a Sept. 1996 AvWeek article titled "Aircraft Defense Shifts To Towed Decoy, Ir Beams," pgs. 46-47. It was flight tested in the late 1980's, roughly the same time Gen. Corder and other senior Brass opted the USAF out of the ALQ-165 Advanced Self-Protection Jammer (ASPJ) for the F-16. It would have been ready for production & deployment just after the Gulf War when McPeak killed the MAWS program and Corder retired in disgust. JK UPDATE: We'd be totally remiss if we didn't point you to Mike's "Cold Fury" blog. Not only does he have the single coolest slogan in blogdom, he also has a description of the "Wild Weasel" pilot's role that's beyond my ability to do it justice. You can read it all right here. See also Cedar Bristol's comments on this post. When Ibn Warraq met Edward Said It is commonly supposed that pursuing knowledge in a systematic, scientific manner is good scholarship. There is an excellent reason for this - the frontiers of human understanding are advanced only by modifying or discarding theories that fail to explain reality in favour of those that do. In other words, it takes a theory to beat a theory. In intellectual circles, this has become the obvious standard against which the quality of scholarship is held. And yet, in some cases, it isn't so obvious. In an important sense, such scholarship is regarded as more valuable in some cultures than in others. In a culture driven by a sense of justice that derives itself from positional authority, as opposed to a rational authority, extending scholarship to its logical conclusions can fraught with problems. Good scholarship does not allow itself to be subordinated to personal issues of shame and honour – it carries on regardless. But in cultures where the claims of the community against its members take unconditional priority over individuals against the community, the costs of renegade scholarship are considerably greater than the short-term benefits. In other words, works that cross the boundaries of defection exact a very high price. In the U.S., as well as Britain, Middle Eastern Studies seems a culture unto itself. Since the publication of Orientalism: Western Conceptions of the Orient by Edward Said, the study of the Middle East has been driven more by insidiously shaming scholars into harbouring particular viewpoints, rather than analysing the intellectual merits of the subjects under scrutiny. Never has an established academic field so widely degenerated into emulating what is meant to be the remote object of its study. And the recent, albeit timely, advent of Campus Watch reflects an overwhelming need to readdress such unwarranted bias in an era where silencing critics of Said and his followers has become more widely institutionalised ever since the days when Orientalism was first published. Said's book was purportedly aimed at "deconstructing" the writings of past and present Orientalists, who served, according to Said, only to justify and advance the New Imperial Order, where Europe’s and America’s mighty armadas moved to subjugate the stupid and hapless Oriental. Orientalism ignited a whole field of “post-colonial studies” which reiterated the standard quasi-Marxist accusations towards Western nations, especially America, for having hijacked the Orient for its own evil ends, thus taking much of the blame for the present pathetic and humiliating state of the Arab world. And yet, in spite of claiming to “deconstruct” Orientalists whose fallacious writings, Said believed, were seen to be always infused with an air of contempt directed against the Oriental, nowhere did Said introduce a new way of thinking about the Arab world; nowhere did he provide an alternative, superior theory and framework that contained none of the alleged defects of Orientalist theories. As Martin Kramer has pointed out, Said admitted in the afterword of the 1994 edition of Orientalism that "I have no interest in, much less capacity for, showing what the true Orient and Islam really are." In other words, Said was not interested in advancing scholarship, but only anti-Western polemical screeds, being mostly content with hurling vitriolic and malicious invective against past and present Orientalists, such as Silvestre de Sacy and Bernard Lewis. Despite his Arab heritage, there is also a peculiar condescension towards Arabs and Muslims that runs throughout many Said’s works. This is disturbing, given that many Arabs and Muslims share much of Said’s conclusions of who is to blame for their mess. And yet for Said to place much of the blame on Western shoulders strongly implies that Arabs and Muslims are inherently incapable of beginning to sort out their societies; that such people are pathetic, downtrodden children, utterly bereft of any capacity for being instrumentally rational, aside from a talent simply for acting to gain attention the way a two-year-old child throws a tantrum to get Mommy's attention. Surely this is condescension of the worst kind. Despite what the Arab world has been through, no reasonably sane person could believe that of Arabs and Muslims. And yet it is there hidden away, couched beneath Said’s heavy denunciations of the Western “rape” of the Orient. It is, in fact, not surprising that this is so. In implying such a contemptible viewpoint – whether consciously made or otherwise – Said is forced to necessarily raise the intensity of abuse hurled against his Western targets in order to increasingly obscure the obvious insinuation made within. This also acts as a useful relief mechanism for assuaging such pent-up guilt from such condescension by releasing it elsewhere, much of it at the usual suspect – the West. Incidentally, this is common practice among quasi-Marxist interpretations of history. Said's writings have received rebuttals in the past, of which among the most notable are by Bernard Lewis and Keith Windschuttle. More recently, Ibn Warraq of the Institution of the Secularisation of Islamic Society (ISIS), has also joined the fray. Ibn Warraq, an ex-Muslim who is no stranger to defecting from established conventional wisdom having written and edited some excellent books on the origins of Islam, has now turned his attention towards the Saidian polemicists and penned a rather exhaustive essay decrying the pretensions of Edward Said towards harbouring any conceptions of intellectual scholarship. Ibn Warraq’s dissection of Orientalism: Western Conceptions of the Orient is a masterfully written, albeit long, catalogue of Said’s errors and misconceptions. Indeed, one of the most absurd charges made by Said was one levelled against Bernard Lewis. In an essay, Lewis had discussed the etymological root of the classical Arabic term thawra [revolution] as follows: “The root th-w-r in Classical Arabic meant to rise up (e.g. of a camel) , to be stirred or excited, and hence, especially in Maghribi usage, to rebel. It is often used in the context of establishing a petty, independent sovereignty; thus, for example, the so-called party kings who ruled in eleventh century Spain after the break-up of the Caliphate of Cordova are called thuwwar ( sing. tha’ir ).” Said responded thus: “Lewis’s association of thawra with a camel rising and generally with excitement (and not with a struggle on behalf of values) hints much more broadly than is usual for him that the Arab is scarcely more than a neurotic sexual being. Each of the words or phrases he uses to describe revolution is tinged with sexuality: stirred, excited, rising up. But for the most part it is a ‘bad’ sexuality he ascribes to the Arab. In the end, since Arabs are really not equipped for serious action, their sexual excitement is no more noble than a camel’s rising up. Instead of revolution there is sedition, setting up a petty sovereignty, and more excitement, which is as much as saying that instead of copulation the Arab can only achieve foreplay, masturbation, coitus interruptus. These , I think , are Lewis’s implications ....” To which Ibn Warraq has this to say: “Can any rational person have drawn any conclusion which even remotely resembled that of Edward Said’s from Lewis’s scholarly discussion of Classical Arabic etymology? Were I to indulge in some prurient psycho-biography, much in fashion, I would be tempted to ask, “What guilty sexual anguish is Said trying to cover up? Just what did they do to him at his Cairo English prep school?”. Lewis’s concise and elegant reply to Said’s conclusions is to quote the Duke of Wellington: “If you believe that, you can believe anything”.” And that is not all. Ibn Warraq’s essay is full of delightful rejoinders at Said’s expense. In reading this piece, one recalls the apt words of Stephen Schwartz on Said's book: "Said's Orientalism, a ridiculous imposture from its first page to its last, is now a standard text in Anglo-American universities, but reads like the product of a rather dense college student who has just discovered Marxism; there can be no more telling condemnation of the present state of the American academy than the ascendancy of Said.” Indeed. Even a Stopped Clock is Right Twice a Day -- UNMOVIC Finds The Goods It looks like Inspector Clueseau wanna be's of UNMOVIC struck lucky and found prohibited weapons of mass destruction. Specifically they found 12 empty artillery rocket chemical warheads, most likely for a The BM-21 Grad (Hail) 40-tube 122mm multiple launch rocket system. The Federation of American Scientists says the following on the Grad: "The BM-21 fires a "9-ft rocket" with a range of 20,380 meters. Each launch tube is grooved to impart a slow rotary motion to the rocket. However, the rocket is primarily fin-stabilized. This combination of spin- and fin-stabilization ensures closely grouped fire at ranges of up to 16 kilometers. The BM-21 and other 122mm rocket launchers can fire all 122mm rockets designed to fit in Soviet-derived 122mm launchers (including those that can achieve ranges of 30,000 to 36,000 meters). The 122-mm fin-stabilized rockets can deliver Frag-HE, chemical, or incendiary warheads to a range of over 20 kilometers, or the newer HE and cargo rockets out to 30 kilometers. On explosion, the warhead produces a great fragmentation effect and shock wave. Because of its high volume of fire and large area coverage, the BM-21 is well suited for use against troops in the open, for use in artillery preparations, and for delivery of chemical concentrations. One volley from a BM-21 battalion is 720 rounds. Because these weapons have a large circular area probable (CEP), they are not suited for attacks against point targets." Make no mistake folks, this is a material breach.The gun is not only smoking, it is red hot. The UN Report is on Iraqi compliance with weapons of mass destruction inspections is scheduled for 27 Jan. 2003. George Bush will give his State of the Union Address 28 Jan. 2003. American popular culture has some lines for this kind of occasion: "It's a pleasure watching a professional at work." George Peppard in Battle Beyond the Stars after the good guys rented the Robert Vaughn character. "I love it when a plan all comes together like this!" George Peppard in The A-Team when the good guys won by improbable luck. As I pointed out in an earlier post: The fall and "soft landing" of the Soviet Union were not accidents. They were stage managed in large part by the efforts of the mid-to-senior level national security appointees from the first Bush Administration. Those people now make up Dubya's senior level national security team. The sign of a master strategist is not only arranging his decision tree so that every result is a victory for him. It is arranging those choices so that his opponents rationally make decisions in their immediate short term interest that support the strategist's master plan for his optimum outcome. It didn't matter what UNMOVIC did or didn't do as far as the ultimate outcome in Iraq is concerned. Bush was going to remove Saddam's regime. The only question was the ultimate political and military price America would pay for that victory. And how paying it would affect future campaigns in the war. So Bush's people laid out the choices for the U.N. such that being America's unwilling tool was a better thing in the immediate short term for the U.N. than becoming "League of Nations road kill." The same game was played with the Saudis via press stories that spooked them into giving the U.S. military air space access and basing rights in the short term, even if it isn't in House of Saud's interests to see Iraq fall. Face it folks, the Bushies know what they are doing. (Steven Den Beste has noticed this about the Bush Administration as well.) They are preparing Iraq for a "soft landing" regime change that will remove Saddam and make sure none of his WMD fall into non-American hands. Wednesday, January 15, 2003
Wednesday Contents Another banner day yesterday. From where I sit the content is better, the workload is bearable, and the process is more fun. I wish I had gone to a team blog several months ago, but as my friend Pat Milland always says: "the universe unfolds." Thanks for reading! Today's Blogs: P.S. The promised "Iran and Al-Qaeda" post has been held over a bit; I want to do a bit more research into Persian traditions of statecraft. Any suggestions or links in that area, please email joe {at} windsofchange{.}net. 4GW: The American Way of War - Good Enough? Lots of visitors to Trent Telenko's JSOW piece yesterday here at Winds of Change (thanks, Glenn!). Just one more example of how far beyond the rest of the world America's military capabilties are headed. Now, here's a question for everyone: when it comes to military effectiveness, are technologies like that enough? A recent article in the US Army War College magazine PARAMETERS was clear and unequivocal: No. It's one of the apparent paradoxes of conflict that technologies can change the nature of battle, but not win wars. Col. John Boyd's insights into that conundrum produced some important thinking, and led to the concept of 4th Generation Warfare (4GW). It doesn't supplant or replace classical views on the subject, but it is an important adaptation that's especially relevant to our current situation. We ignore his ideas at our peril. Winds of Change has covered 4GW for a while now (see our Quarterly Archives, conveniently arranged by date and title). Recently, Atlantic Magazine's James Fallows began an Atlantic Unbound email discussion with a couple of Boyd's disciples: "...a word about each of your books. I was surprised when reading them to find that despite their differences—in approach, tone, length, documentation, official subject—they're really about the same thing: the role of character in military affairs. Robert Coram's biography of John Boyd is about an under-appreciated pioneer in twentieth-century military tactics and strategy. Donald Vandergriff's Path to Victory is about internal changes in Army rules and culture that are at odds with military effectiveness."Wait a minute! You say. Isn't the American military the envy/terror of the globe? We've covered Vandergriff before; he and Coram have some thoughts on that very question that are worth your time and consideration. With a promise of more to come. Fallows himself makes some good and valid points about the way American debate about the military has ossified from both sides... which makes this exchange worthy reading regardless of which side of the political fence you hail from. Parapundit's 2003 Predictions On my roster of underrated bloggers, one name stands out above the rest. Randall Parker was one of those "uber-commenters" par excellence. He now writes four (yes, 4!) blogs, solo, and somehow manages to fill them with relentlessly intelligent and thought provoking content. No, I don't know how he does it either. Today I'll just offer a hat tip, and direct you to the "ParaPundit Predictions for 2003." To go out and be that specific definitely takes los grandes huevos, but I know Randall and so I know that he's thought hard about every single one. Bet he makes you think, too. Germany's Path to its Present Chancellor Schroder may not be the most popular gentleman these days (it's escalated to the point where they're making video games about him now), but he didn't come out of nowhere. Back in July 2002, Norwegian Vegard Valberg briefly drew attention to "the 1968 generation" and its influence on Europe's politics. Looks like he was onto something. Omaha reporter Geitner Simmons at Regions of Mind points to and excerpts of a very thought provoking article on Germany in The National Interest. Uwe Siemon-Netto believes that three factors have received too little attention in explaining the course of recent political trends in Germany:
Afghanistan: A Bad War for the 'Fighter Pilot Generals.' Lets look at what is happening to USAF budget priorities within the American Department of Defense as a result of the Afghanistan campaign. 1) Carriers Forever. The political realities that made the huge investment in large deck carriers pay off in the Afghanistan campaign won't go away. The USAF case for transferring money from the USN at the expense of large deck carriers has been destroyed for the next 10-15 years, A.K.A. when the F22 is being procured and the F35 is being readied for production. 2) B52s forever -- NOT! Two B1s could deliver more JDAM than an entire carrier air wing. And no one believes that the B52 will last until 2040. The performance of the B52 and B1 during the campaign (72% of the ordinance delivered!) has reopened the debate over restarting the B2 production line just as the F22 is about to get on the production line. Odds are we will get more B2s to replace the B52s. 3) C17 production forever. The wings fell off a C141 last year during a refueling and the whole C-141 fleet was grounded pending wing crack inspections and repairs. The C5 transport fleet is averaging less that 60% availability due to various structural design and age issues. The upshot is that the USA *will* build more than 300 C17, not the 200 odd the USAF plans in budget documents. This means the C17's production run will go on for at least the next 10-15 years to replace both the remaining C141 fleet and the C5A fleet. That is, right through the "procurement hump" of the F22 in the USAF budget. 4) Jammers Forever. The 1950s era EA-6B Prowler's wings, like those of the C141 fleet, are wearing out. The Prowler is the primary jammer for any American air campaign. Kosovo showed even stealth aircraft need jammers; so replacing it is more vital than the F22. The Prowler replacement has to operate from carriers, so it will be a F18 variant. And the EA-6B had to be replaced _NOW_. The procurement money for this plane is much higher priority than the F22 at DoD level and it will be built simultaneously with it. 5) Armed UAVs & High Altitude "CAS." The emergence of armed UAVs in Afghanistan, plus the recognition with both UAVs and the bomber fleet that the key feature of modern close air support is the ability to _loiter_, endangers the short legged, manned, air superiority and strike fighters. The A10's big wing that slows it also makes it an outstanding loiter performer. For the price of a single F22, the entire remaining A10 fleet can easily be upgraded with digital data links and smaller 250 lb JDAM bombs (24 plus carried per A10!) to become a high altitude 'close' air support star. For the price of a single F22, scores of Hellfire armed Predator drones can be purchased and modified to carry data links plus 100lb or even 50 lb JDAM bombs. 6) Ground Forces are still needed. The Afghanistan air campaign did not get effective until special forces spotters made it so and the escape of Bin Laden from Tora Bora, and Marine projection of forces to the air field that became Camp Rhino, underlined both the US Army's need for transformation and the USMC's need for the V22 like transport capabilities. Raids on the Army's and USMC's procurement budgets for the F22 just got much harder. And stealing from the US Army's operations budget for heavy forces runs smack dab into the Congressional anti-base closing, it's 'pork in *MY* district,' buzz saw. 7) New tankers and the O&M 'Death Spiral.' The USAF logisticians in the late 1980s overlooked a key point in their insistence on keeping the old 707 airframes in the USAF fleet for the sake of 'commonality.' Now that the old 707 has been retired from airline service around the world due to noise pollution issues. The USAF is finding that part commonality with the _airline fleets_ is far more important than commonality across the _air force fleet_. That is why the oldest 707s are going to be replaced with leased 'KC-767s.' The problem in doing this via the operations and maintenance budget, rather than procuring them (at 30% less cost!) to protect the F22 budget, is that the maintenance 'death spiral' with older planes is really starting to bite. Ths brings up a major problem for keeping the B52 in service. When the early KC-135 tankers leave the force, so do their 1950s vintage turbojet engines. These engines are the same as those that power the B52. Once all the support costs for those 1950s era engines are placed on the B52 fleet, they will cost more to operate than the B2 with its exotic stealth coatings. The huge support costs for these engine has already forced the USAF's 707 based "Big Safari" recon planes to be reengined. Given the need for bombers, either the B52 will be reengined at the price of several F22s, or more B2s will be bought at the price of several F22s per B2. (It is rumored that Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld considers the B2 to be a more of a "Leap Ahead" technology that the F22.) This will leave the oldest F15 air superiority fighters as the highest cost to operate tactical fighter planes in USAF service when the F22 isn't being produced fast enough to replace them. If the choice is operating two F16 or a single F15, the choice will be to operate two newer F16s to keep the pilots. The structural reduction this will cause in the single mission F15 force will also reduce the total number of F22s built. 8) Missile Defense. The major American military procurement of the 21st century will be the deployment of theater and national missile defenses. The USAF Brass has been actively purging air force advocates of orbital missile defenses (necessary for boost phase ICBM intercepts) and space planes (which would service orbital constellations and be delivery platforms for both spy satellites and kinetic energy weapons) as threat to the F22. This has delayed missile defense, but it is also making the case to military space advocates in Congress that a new military space service, with a non-fighter pilot service culture, is needed. The ability of the US Navy to get a huge piece of the theater and national missile defense budget pie via upgrades to their Aegis cruiser fleet means that the missile defense delay game will get the USAF budget killed. The Fighter Pilot Generals face the following choice. Either they give up power in the USAF in favor of the service evolving in other directions. Or they are going to see the end of the USAF. There are no other choices open to them. If the USAF brass fights for more than 100-150 F22s, there may be no more USAF. Welcomes From the Team: Armed Liberal Well, first off my name really isn't 'Armed Liberal', although both of those adjectives usually fit me pretty well. I've been blogging over at www.armedliberal.com since way back in May of 02, when you had to build your own computers out of sand and tinfoil, (or actually use Blogger which felt like you were doing that). I started, as many did, because of Glenn Reynolds, Ken Layne, and Matt Welch. I'm joining this blog because my real life is sagging under the demands of a solo blog, and I'm hoping to do fewer better posts and still have time to take care of the boys, work, take care of the cats, take care of the house, and get snuggled by Tenacious G, my wonderful sweetie. I started blogging because I've struggled for years to figure out how I could vote Green and be a member of the NRA at the same time, and why it was that my head never exploded from containing those two worldviews. And blogging seemed like a way for me to work out my personal political problems with the help of an unsuspecting public. Because what I'm trying to do is rope that unsuspecting public into helping me figure out where I personally want to go, politically. Because I think that I'm actually pretty typical, and that the frustrations I feel with the current slicing of the political pie are felt by others as well. And my goal in writing this stuff is to force myself to try and articulate some of these notions about issues and engage you in trying to bat them back and forth and see if there's anything there. My core focus is simple: How can we construct a liberal politics that respects individual rights? How can we accomplish liberal goals...helping the poor, improving the environment, equalizing the imbalances of power...without creating a stultifying bureaucratic state? I think it can be done, but I honestly don't know how. And how can we do it in the face of a world where the imbalances within and between societies in power, wealth, and culture are running up against cheap communication, transportation, and weapons. This is about testing the first assumption and solving the problem. I'm more of a 'root causes' guy than a 'technique' guy; I think we're engaged in a War on Bad Philosophy, and that we'll need to change our worldview as a part of the overall changes that will be necessary to get us through the next fifty years. Stuff about me: I'm a middle-aged, middle-class guy who lives in the South Bay region of the Los Angeles SMSA. I have an advanced degree in urban economics and planning theory, and have worked in a variety of jobs in a checkered but wildly entertaining career. I'm the proud father of three wonderful sons, the proud ex-husband of two ex-wives, and the owner of too many motorcycles to fit in my garage and not enough shelves for my books. I'l suggest three of my old posts as introductions: Why be an Armed Liberal Rumsfeld Versus North Korea, Film at 11! Run, don't walk to this link. I'm still rolling with laughter. How can you not like a post with lines like this: "Unless that option is to starve to death while we watch and laugh, I'm not sure what they're talking about," Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said at a press conference. "Frankly, I'm getting tired of these retarded Commies. I keep trying to concentrate on the demise of the Iraqis, and then North Korea interrupts my train of thought by screaming, 'Kill us! Kill us horribly!'" Tuesday, January 14, 2003
Tuesday Contents: Almost Cut My Hair Please extend a warm welcome to Winds of Change.NET team member Celeste Bilby, who introduced herself yesterday. Her excellent post today proposes weblogs as a useful tool for the CIA and FBI.... and she ought to know. Trent Telenko, meanwhile, continues to throw out provocative stuff. His post about North Korea's "Blazing Saddles" Defense rings true, and it's damn funny to boot. Nevertheless, we'd be wise not to underestimate the threats of a foreign leader so bloodthirsty that he's obviously murdered every single hairdresser in his country. Today's Blogs: P.S. The promised "Iran and Al-Qaeda" post has been held over a bit; I want to do a bit more research into Persian traditions of statecraft. Any suggestions or links in that area, please email joe {at} windsofchange{.}net. Human Shield Killed in Iraq Occam's Toothbrush reports that a Canadian "human shield" volunteer died in Iraq late last week when his truck flipped along the Baghdad-Basra highway. In an additional irony, the body is considered "cargo" and therefore cannot be shipped out of the country without going through U.N. clearance due to the sanctions on the Iraqi regime. "Networkcentric" Death from 20,000 Feet While cruising the FreeRepublic.com BBS this week end I found a link to a Jan 2003 article on the Air Force Research Laboratory's Affordable Moving Surface Target Engagement (AMSTE) Program. The USAF is working with the US Navy to turn global positioning system (GPS) guided munitions like the Raytheon Joint Stand-Off Weapon (JSOW) and Boeing Joint Direct Attack Munition (JDAM) into killers of Scuds and tanks. The link shows a really impressive picture of a remotely driven M-60 tank with a newly installed "moon roof" from an inert JSOW. The two money paragraphs from the article: Under AMSTE, data from multiple airborne ground moving target indicator (GMTI) radar sensors are combined to provide weapons with real-time target position updates while in-flight. It is hoped that AMSTE will provide an enhanced but low cost ability to engage moving surface threats from standoff ranges, in all weather, using slightly modified precision-guided munitions. Such a system has particular significance in the theater of emerging 21st century shoot-and-scoot battlefield in any number of third world areas, land or sea. and A month before, two JDAMs, employing UHF anti-jam data links, simultaneously targeted the second and third vehicles within a five-vehicle convoy on the Navy’s desert test range, with both weapons landing within their effective circular error of probability (CEP). The JDAMs tested were slightly modified inert Mk-84 bombs with Raytheon UHF anti-jam data links added. Launched at 20,000 feet from an F-14D, the bombs took under a minute to travel six miles to the target for successful hits. Later the same day, a JSOW, launched from an F/A-18D flying at 30,000 feet and approximately 35 miles from the target and using a link-16 Weapon Data Terminal, traveled for approximately five minutes before scoring a direct hit on a remotely-controlled, maneuvering M-60 tank. Both tests were controlled by an E-8C Joint STARS aircraft, providing real-time target location and maneuvering velocity data gathered from bi-laterated GMTI radar. Northrop Grumman's BAC 1-11 test bed aircraft was also involved, carrying a fourth generation AESA F-35 prototype Global Hawk MP-RTIP radar to provide additional targeting data. Both radars are produced by Northrop Grumman Electronic Systems (Baltimore, MD). The bottom line is that the U.S. Military is less than three years, and perhaps as little as six months, away from deploying 1st generation air-to-ground "networkcentric" precision guided munitions using an inexpensive datalink add on to existing GPS guided munitions. What any one American plane sees with its radar, assuming it has the proper GMTI function, any other aircraft in the same data network can hit day, night, and in any weather. And while our blogging buddy CPO Sparkey has shot down the threat of Iraqi GPS jamming, anyone else who is good enough to do so will have to deal with American link 16 data link and aerial radars to beat this system. Advantage: America! N.B. for some rather in-depth explanations re: JDAMs and Jamming, Winds of Change also covered that thread here and here. What Keeps Britian's Tony Blair Up at Night? British Prime Minister Tony Blair held a press conference the other day whose transcript is worth reading in its entirety. The key excerpt for me: "...I would never as British Prime Minister send British troops to war unless I thought it was necessary. But there is a direct threat to British national security in the trade in chemical, biological and nuclear weapons. And I tell you honestly what my fear is, my fear is that we wake up one day and we find either that one of these dictatorial states has used weapons of mass destruction - and Iraq has done so in the past - and we get sucked into a conflict, with all the devastation that would cause; or alternatively these weapons, which are being traded right round the world at the moment, fall into the hands of these terrorist groups, these fanatics who will stop at absolutely nothing to cause death and destruction on a mass scale. Now that is what I have to worry about.The press conference also offers a good cross-section of his thoughts about N. Korea, the weapons inspections, and other domestic and international issues. CIA Blogging? A Little Gossip Might Help... I don't think I'm the first person to suggest this, but I haven't yet seen anyone articulate just how useful weblogs could be for the dissemination of intel information. Right now, this is roughly the way it works: analysts at the CIA and FBI each find out interesting bits of information. Each of them writes a report and sends it on up to their respective superiors. Superior decides wether or not to send it further on, or to act on it, or to share it with anyone else. If superior shares it, the superior at the other agency will decide wether or not its worth passing on. So information travels up the chain in one org and then down the chain in the other before it makes it to someone who would find it useful... and that's if the information even gets shared at all. The intel community already has a secure intranet, founded with improved access to intel and communications in mind. Blogging software already exists. Wouldn't it be cool if, say, the primary analysts for each country from each of the respective communities got together and had a team weblog? For instance, analysts at the CIA and FBI for Saudi Arabia each find out interesting bits of information. Each of them writes a report and sends it on up to their respective superiors. Each of them also posts that information to the Saudi Arabia weblog. Each of them reads the items the other analysts have posted. Everyone is better informed, and cryptic clues like "arab men are taking flight training" are less likely to get dropped on the floor or ignored. Comments sections for each of the posts allow analysts in other orgs to add to, or qualify the information. Related blogs get linked on the sidebar. Other cleared personnel who might be maintaining their own weblogs have read access to the data as well. Let it be understood that the information hasn't been vetted, but at the very least, it should give analysts more ideas for areas to investigate. JK Note: This is a great idea. I gave a presentation last November explaining how blogs can help spread knowledge inside organizations, and how to move forward with such an initiative. If anyone is interested, that presentation is freely available via the web. Monday, January 13, 2003
One For All... And All For One! What a weekend. Trent Telenko's North Korea posts ("...Clinton Knew..." and "What the Defectors Say") garnered substantial attention - and today's post about "North Koreas' Blazing Saddles Defense" seems likely to continue that . If you want to learn more about Trent, his intro. was posted Sunday. Adil "Muslimpundit" Farooq's return also got off to a great start, with a noble and heartfelt introductory post. To top it all off... Welcome, Armed Liberal! And Celeste Bilby says "howdy" today too. Our thanks to all who have sent their good wishes and regards. The best is yet to come. Today's Blogs: P.S. The promised "Iran and Al-Qaeda" post has been held over a bit; I want to do a bit more research into Persian traditions of statecraft. Any suggestions or links in that area, please email joe {at} windsofchange{.}net. Moral Clarity in a A Time of War Sounds like a great idea to me. "...the classic tradition insists that no aspect of the human condition falls outside the purview of moral reasoning and judgment–including politics. Politics is a human enterprise. Because human beings are creatures of intelligence and free will–because human beings are inescapably moral actors–every human activity, including politics, is subject to moral scrutiny."We have a war in progress. Iraq looms on the horizon, and surely there is more to come. Rarely in America's history has a moral as well as a practical debate been so necessary. To do that obligation justice, however, it's time to |