Setting off nukes in space is illegal. Everything else is fair game.

They should have sent a poet.

While "Star Wars" was a bad joke, this latest round of studies seems well founded. There can be little doubt that one day such weapons will be deployed.

I have no clue where you get the idea of it being a bad joke given it made quite a few serious strides in advanced concepts and gave us some impressive tech for the era. Overly ambitious, yes, a joke, no.

Who watches the watchmen?

And had they promoted it as being just that, I would have no problem with it. But it was presented as being a practical near-term solution to nuclear proliferation and MAD, in the 1980's.

To the point that the Russians still consider it a masterfully executed reflexive control strategy.

Si Vis Pacem, Para Perkele

Well, it serves the current Russian adminstration's purposes to pretend to be fooled by it. Just as the Pentagon tends to take Russian claims of their military hardware at face value come budgeting time.

Nah, Soviet and Russian military literature considered themselves to have been fooled by it during the Cold War. There were genuine misunderstandings between two regarding the others mindset, intentions and/or capabilities.

It's a sort of case study for them and I wouldn't be surprised if they still believed in it. It fits their view of the world.

Edited by TerminusEst on Mar 16th 2019 at 8:04:37 AM

Si Vis Pacem, Para Perkele

I thought you were referring to the current missile bases in Eastern Europe. My bad.

No, it wasn't. It was promoted as a way to protect the US from the perceived missile gap which was a deliberate misdirection by the Russians which in itself was an effort to undermine the value of MAD and deterrence in general. The whole point of the system was to intercept launches not against proliferation. The program almost entirely focussed on intercept not preventing the spread of missiles. Of course, none of that changes the fact the Russians were and still are also deliberately trying to create weapon systems, in reality, to undermine them.

Your opinion on the matter does not make it a bad joke in reality by any stretch. The fact remains they made real, measurable, and factual progress which has played major roles in modern missile interception technology and played major roles in the development of energy weapons and advanced systems today. That takes it well beyond a bad joke.

Who watches the watchmen?

Allright, missile gap not proliferation, point remains that they wanted money for it because of the implication that they were ready to deploy it. They have made significant advances in such technology, a fact that I myself emphasized, but back then not so much.

Edited by DeMarquis on Mar 16th 2019 at 11:08:28 AM

At the time they lacked the intel to ascertain what was really going on. The Russians have always had a frighteningly capable and effective intel arm in pretty much all fields. The tech developed was based on what Intel they could reasonably gain. It wasn't the first time they had played western powers and it won't be the last. Though some of there field stuff like the "green men" are not exactly hallmarks of their trade. Their tampering with elections and influencing the public and political aspects have always been very effective.

Who watches the watchmen?

Two veterans' groups on opposite sides of the political spectrum have come together to speak against the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.

Good. This is one of the things Vets and Vet groups should be doing.

Who watches the watchmen?

They said they'll still be at each other's throats on everything else, of course, but they really hope they can at least work together on this one.

CMDR Salamander,the rake who was a thorn on the Navy's side during the Bush years now blogs at the USNI.

A few days ago he tore the whole DOD a new one:

Wargames as Sales Tool? Touchy Business.

tl;dr - it's one thing to admit that the DOD has been on the wrong track, it's another thing to do something about it.

Still it's a good read - the DOD hasn't been this scared of Russia and China since The '80s.

All night at the computer, cuz people ain't that great. I keep to myself so I won't be on The First 48

Some context for the above linked article:

"“In our games, when we fight Russia and China,” RAND analyst David Ochmanek said this afternoon, “blue gets its ass handed to it.” In other words, in RAND’s wargames, which are often sponsored by the Pentagon, the US forces — colored blue on wargame maps — suffer heavy losses in one scenario after another and still can’t stop Russia or China — red — from achieving their objectives, like overrunning US allies...

...Its communications satellites, wireless networks, and other command-and-control systems suffer such heavy hacking and jamming that they are, in Ochmanek’s words, “suppressed, if not shattered.” The US has wargamed cyber and electronic warfare in field exercises, Work said, but the simulated enemy forces tend to shut down US networks so effectively that nothing works and nobody else gets any training done."

Apparently, according to some RAND Corp wargamming experts, the US military electronic infrastructure is really vulnerable to Russian or Chinese hacking and disruption efforts.

The problem is that all the focus on The War On Terror caused a lot of capability to wither on the vine AND a lot of areas to be missed.

It's not just hacking - bases get spammed by ballistic missiles, ships get sunk.

The network was sold as the solution to these problems and the wargames show that it wilts in the face of hot superpower on superpower action.

The DOD's bobbins tried to keep this under wraps but now they can't avoid it because of an aggressive Russia and China.

Edited by TairaMai on Mar 17th 2019 at 7:51:05 PM

All night at the computer, cuz people ain't that great. I keep to myself so I won't be on The First 48

I would take any of the war game stuff like that with a large helping of salt. Not only do they almost always excessively exaggerate either Blue Force or Red Force capabilities, but they almost always give one side levels of efficacy and success you would never realistically see.

Edited by TuefelHundenIV on Mar 17th 2019 at 9:49:01 AM

Who watches the watchmen?

http://www.mil.gov.ua/en/news/2016/04/11/military-police-to-be-formed-by-2018-in-ukraine/

This announced (old now) mentions that the Ukrainian military was to be formed in 2018. I was under the impression that it was raised in 2002.

Looking at the article shared by Taira, I am simply not impressed.

And right at the top of the article, you should probably point out they are stretching to unrealistic levels to make the US lose.

This one sentence alone encompasses so much utter bullshit I don't know where to begin.

No, we wouldn't have just one patriot. If the US honestly thought they would be going into a serious shooting war in Europe there would be more than one patriot battery, there would be more than just patriot.

I am sorry but this is bullshit up front. Hacking is not magic. It takes a lot of time and doesn't magically disable all these assets, neither does jamming. These guys need to put down the Tom Clancy Thrillers. Jamming is far less effective than they give it credit and hacking is quite very limited in what it can actually do. This is scaremongering horse shit at its finest. That isn't how any of this works at all.

So who the fuck hired this guy to work for Chinese military propaganda? They are literally describing the enemy having mystical and magical capabilities that are guaranteed to work 100% every time with complete and utter success...you have to be fucking kidding me. The chances of them ever pulling this off approach zero. It's almost as bad as the phrase "Short Victorious War"

.

Then we get to what are effectively snarl worlds like Transformationist used by the author whose tone reeks of someone who prefers "traditionalists" and dresses it up with a different phrase and uses the other to bash those who obviously disagree with their notions. So supporting obvious exaggerations, snarl worlds, and scaremongering I got nothing but red flags on this article. Frankly, I doubt the RAND article would read like this dreck or spell it out as doom like this. Looking at the author's list of articles he writes a lot of scaremongering garbage.

Edited by TuefelHundenIV on Mar 17th 2019 at 10:05:37 AM

Who watches the watchmen?

There isn't enough PATRIOT in Europe to protect Poland and Israel - 5-7 ADA is tasked with supporting Israel AND providing protection for NATO and they are one battalion. Until 2 years ago there was NO, none, zlich, SHORAD in USAEUR.

the article in Breaking Defense points out that NATO bases are huge targets.

We have AEGIS Ashore in Romania, 5-7 ADA in Germany (HIMAD) and 5-4 ADA (SHORAD).

Right now, if Putin wanted to fuck up the Baltics, they'd be speed bumps.

Of course the network is going to get hacked, during the Cold War, the Soviets practiced jamming and spoofing NATO communications - and the US planned for that.

In the 2000's, the US kinda forgot about that and NATO ignored it until the Russians moved on Crimea and Georgia.

And China has been planning for years on how to push PACOM around.

This isn't "scaremongering" it's the fact that the DOD let itself get lapped by China and Russia.

All night at the computer, cuz people ain't that great. I keep to myself so I won't be on The First 48

Offutt AFB, home of USSTRATCOM, is getting hit by a flood.

Between this and what Hurricane Michael did to the F-22 fleet, it might be time to start paying attention to how this "climate change" thing is going to affect defensive readiness.

Echoing hymn of my fellow passerine | Art blog (under construction)

Eagle: Yeah Offut got hit hard by the local flooding which has just wiped out a number of roads and caused untold havoc across the state. Eastern Nebraska is looking pretty trashed. This is on top of the very rough winter giving us some really bad potholes that have closed several roads until they can be repaired temporarily.

Taira: Yes this is scaremongering of the worse type and so blatantly overt the writer likely wore a clown mask typing it up. Just because we don't have a dozen batteries of Patriot in Europe right this second doesn't equal the scenario highlighted. Again, quite simply, if the US had any real reason to believe the Russians would actually try something there would be way more than one Patriot battery and other ADA moved to Europe. Right now the Russians couldn't afford a push and most of the small Nations they would have to overrun first would chew them up in non-stop Guerilla Warfare as they tried to move through those areas and the Russian military is not exactly in the best of shape in terms of maintenance or funding. The writer of the article is peddling scaremongering horse shit in giant steaming piles.

Edited by TuefelHundenIV on Mar 18th 2019 at 5:39:46 AM

Who watches the watchmen?

How many fighters do we have in Europe?

Many.

Personally, I find the conclusion they’re drawing here a little hyperbolic. While our peer-state capabilities have atrophied over the last 20 or so years, it’s nowhere near the point where we’re at risk of getting washed by Russia or China like they’re implying.

They should have sent a poet.