Author Topic: Military Science, Military Issues, and the Nature of War  (Read 392292 times)

Crafty_Dog

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WSJ: Uke Software Brigades
« Reply #1150 on: March 09, 2023, 05:25:17 PM »
Ukraine’s Software Warrior Brigade
They are bringing tech innovation to the battlefield faster and more effectively than Russia is.

By Shyam Sankar
March 8, 2023 6:00 pm ET

image A Ukrainian serviceman flies a drone near Bakhmut, Ukraine, March 3.PHOTO: EVGENIY MALOLETKA/ASSOCIATED PRESS


Ukraine is learning what happens when you conscript 300,000 of the world’s most capable software engineers, product managers and technologists and send them into battle.

The story usually goes something like this: An employee of a small information-technology outsourcing company becomes a unit commander on the frontlines. He sends his battle-born ideas back to his former colleagues in the tech-company lab. They rapidly build prototypes to show to Defense Ministry officials responsible for military technology procurement. The government then buys these prototypes and asks for more.

It’s a virtuous circle of innovation and entrepreneurship that has led to a proliferation of startups in Ukraine, including dozens of drone companies since the beginning of the war. Among other things, Ukraine’s wartime tech community has developed 3D-printed fins that can attach to Soviet-era grenades to maximize accuracy when dropped from greater heights. This innovation has turned consumer drones into remote bombers with a payload of up to six grenades that can deliver precision strikes on Russian lines.



In February, I traveled to Ukraine to see firsthand how defense and intelligence agencies are using technology. I also wanted to get a sense of what we could be doing to help Ukrainian forces increase their situational awareness on the battlefield.

What I saw was that Ukrainian conscripts are connoisseurs of software. They have a visceral knowledge of how it is built. Crucially, they have the vocabulary to provide feedback that can help developers improve the product. Their knowledge and experience has laid the foundation for collaboration among allied international software developers looking to help.

In other circumstances, I’d be trying to hire them as engineers.

So many of the most common defense-tech problems I’ve seen over the past 15 years—including the difficulty of adopting and rapidly deploying new technologies to the field—have melted away in Ukraine during this war. The urgency is simply overwhelming.

Militaries generally don’t understand software. They have a process, a mental mode and a funding model to buy tanks, weapons and other hardware. Software is largely considered an afterthought, or a piece of the hardware itself. This is changing in the U.S. but remains a challenge for every Western country.

In Ukraine, the military became discerning consumers of software practically overnight. Perhaps more important, they became discerning consumers of software talent. Highly technical Ukrainian war fighters are able to identify and work with world-class software engineers, allowing them to rush advanced technological solutions to the battlefield. Ukraine’s 300,000 computer-science conscripts are quick to try new things, challenge sacred programs that aren’t delivering, and fund multiple competing efforts. They understand that software requires constant innovation, iteration and updates. You don’t just set it and forget it.

Even though it would be easy for Kyiv to bestow special monopoly status on a handful of programs during wartime, Ukrainian officials continue to see value in funding multiple overlapping efforts. They are willing to trade bureaucratic orderliness for increased innovation, lethality and capability on the battlefield.

As American venture capitalist Ben Horowitz pointed out in a famous 2011 essay, there is a difference between a wartime CEO and a peacetime CEO. Each takes a different view on what is necessary for success. There’s an analogous difference between a peacetime defense program and a wartime defense program. The peacetime view is that you invest in military innovation before war begins and be ready to fight with the technology your investment produces. You fight with the hardware you have. The wartime view is that you get the software you need for the fight you find yourself in.

Ukraine is showing the world how the wartime view can produce the software necessary to win the fight. After Ukraine wins, there will be 300,000 war heroes who happen to be computer scientists. They will be as comfortable wielding Javelins as Jupyter notebooks. I can’t wait to see what they build.

Slava Ukraini.

Mr. Sankar is Palantir’s chief technology officer.

Crafty_Dog

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Biden's Budget
« Reply #1151 on: March 10, 2023, 11:08:11 AM »
About That ‘Record’ Defense Budget
Biden’s 3.2% increase is a cut in real terms despite rising threats.
By The Editorial BoardFollow
March 9, 2023 6:42 pm ET



The White House is touting President Biden’s U.S. military budget for fiscal 2024 as a record, and Mr. Biden is betting busy Americans won’t look past the headlines. The truth is that he’s asking for a real defense cut, even as the U.S. is waking up late to a world of new threats.


The Pentagon’s budget request may seem large at $842 billion. But the figure is only a 3.2% increase over last year, and with inflation at 6% it means a decline in buying power. Compare the 3.2% growth with the double-digit increases for domestic accounts: 19% for the Environmental Protection Agency; 13.6% for both the Education and Energy Departments; 11.5% for Health and Human Services.

For all the talk about a bloated Pentagon, defense in 2022 was only about 13% of the federal budget. It’s about 3% of GDP, down from 5% to 6% during the Cold War, even though America’s challenges today are arguably more numerous and acute.

China is building a world-class military to drive America out of the Pacific. Russia is committed to grinding down Ukraine and then moving its military to the Polish border; Iran may soon have a nuclear bomb; North Korea is lobbing missiles toward Japan. Hypersonics and missiles threaten the U.S. homeland.

The Pentagon isn’t releasing the finer points of the budget until Monday, but a hefty portion of any increase will be absorbed by a 5.2% pay increase for troops and civilians, needed in part to offset Mr. Biden’s inflationary policies. The White House includes bromides about America’s “long-term commitment to the Indo-Pacific” and highlights $9.1 billion for the Pacific Deterrence Initiative.

But Pacific deterrence depends on a U.S. Navy large enough to discourage bad behavior, and the goal of a 355-ship service remains a fantasy. The document promises “executable and responsible” investments in the fleet, which is a euphemism for cutting ships without adequate replacements.

The budget commits to “ongoing nuclear modernization,” but recapitalizing all three parts of the triad is a generational challenge that is straining budgets. The document nods at expanding “the production capacity of the industrial base to ensure the Army can meet strategic demands for critical munitions,” and Congress last year authorized multiyear contracts that should help. But the U.S. still isn’t procuring its best precision weapons in sufficient quantities to last more than a few weeks in a fight for Taiwan.

Mr. Biden’s largest failure is promising his budget will keep “America safe,” instead of leveling with the public about the threats and what will be required to meet them. The reality is that U.S. military power is “slowly sinking,” as a Navy admiral put it last year, and Congress will have to start plugging the hole.


ccp

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us space laser test
« Reply #1153 on: March 16, 2023, 08:39:33 AM »

G M

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Re: us space laser test
« Reply #1154 on: March 16, 2023, 09:17:48 AM »
https://www.nextgov.com/emerging-tech/2023/03/naval-research-lab-launches-first-space-laser-energy-experiment/384024/

I hate to be so cynical but China will be testing theirs next week

The fact that it looks just like ours is pure coincidence, you Sinophobe!

ccp

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Re: Military Science, Military Issues, and the Nature of War
« Reply #1155 on: March 16, 2023, 09:20:18 AM »
it will look just like ours
but a small fraction of the cost since they don't have to pay much for research
only bribes to their operatives

which they deduct under cost of doing business.  :-P

G M

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Re: Military Science, Military Issues, and the Nature of War
« Reply #1156 on: March 16, 2023, 09:23:01 AM »
it will look just like ours
but a small fraction of the cost since they don't have to pay much for research
only bribes to their operatives

which they deduct under cost of doing business.  :-P

Well, they double billed us for Fauci’s bio weapon production at Wuhan.






ccp

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Crafty_Dog

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Americans Have Stopped Trusting the Pentagon With Their Lives
« Reply #1167 on: April 01, 2023, 04:30:21 PM »
https://townhall.com/columnists/kurtschlichter/2023/03/27/americans-have-stopped-trusting-the-pentagon-with-their-lives-n2621099

Americans Have Stopped Trusting the Pentagon With Their Lives
Kurt Schlichter

Mar 27, 2023
   

Right now, many of us vets are looking back on our years of service and wondering what the hell we did it all for. We used to know – for the USA. Yet you look at the disaster that is our country, our culture, and our beloved military, and you just want to go find a wall and pound your head against it. But a lot fewer folks are going to have this problem in the future because a lot fewer young people are joining our military. The Pentagon can't meet its recruiting goals, and, of course, the fault is our young people, our potential soldiers, for being unwilling to sacrifice their time, and sometimes their lives, in support of the bizarre social pathologies that our garbage ruling class embraces.

The military lost our trust, and it seems uninterested in earning it back. Time for the normals to go on strike until the military becomes a military again instead of a camouflaged faculty lounge.

Why the hell should anybody join the military right now? Don't tell me that it is "to defend the United States" because that's not what the military's primary occupation appears to be anymore. Let's review. We just had former admiral and current Biden Baghdad Bob, smarmy State Department Spokesperson John Kirby, announce that a "core part" of United States foreign policy is "LGBTQ+ rights." You know, not a lot of normal people particularly want to suffer and bleed for that blue coastal fetish. Maybe they do in the rich liberal neighborhoods where Kirby's masters live – actually, they are happy for your kids to suffer and bleed for it, not their own. Oh, and you know what else is a strategic priority? The weather. Who is up to enlist in service of it not being slightly hotter in 200 years? And don't forget Ukraine – yeah, I know they promise we are just advising and will never get sucked into a war in the Mekong Delta. Oops, I mean the Donbas.

Combine all that with the fact that we aren't even allowed to protect our border from illegal aliens and the drug smugglers who are killing over 70,000 Americans a year with fentanyl, and normal people are going to shake their heads at the priorities of the ruling class and count themselves out of being its enforcers. Our national interest seems to be anything but protecting our own people. Young folks have noticed, and they are not signing on the line which is dotted.

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Our military, which, not coincidentally, has failed to unequivocally win a war in 30 years, did what it always does when it faces a problem. It makes the problem worse by hiring contractors to help them solve it. They hired people to go out and poll young people to find out why young people were not willing to commit their lives to the hands of people whose gross incompetence and total corruption have been on display for the last several decades. And here's a surprise. You're gonna be shocked. The answer was exactly what the brass wanted it to be, exculpatory. Turns out the answer the contractors delivered is nothing that challenges the ruling class's established prejudices or preferences. No, the answer is that American kids are too fat and too sick and mostly too scared to man up and die in the service of our trash, ruling caste fantasies. Phew! No change or reform required by our military. What a relief, and how convenient! And how disgraceful.

Go tell the dead in Kabul that they were "scared," forced by the gross negligence of senior leadership to mingle in close proximity to unvetted Afghans so that a bomber could get close and blow 13 of them apart. They didn't hesitate. They didn't falter. They deserved better.

Here's what's missing from the polls – the reality. Even in the past, the vast majority of Americans can't or don't want to serve. They have their reasons. Mostly, the reason is that it's hard, and you can make more money doing much easier things out on the outside. Service is not for everyone or even most people. So really, when you poll about recruiting, you should be polling just the target audience, the segment of people who might actually ever join the military, to find out why those select folks now refuse to. 

And a big reason might be that our ruling caste believes – and the military teaches – that these select folks are bad people. The majority of potential recruits are traditional and conservative rural kids, poor kids, and suburban kids, mostly looking to serve their country, maybe make some money for college, and have a life adventure. That's the reality. And a huge number of them are family members of vets since the military has become a family business in America. So it's these people you should be polling if you want to find out why these people aren't showing up anymore.

Here's what you won't find in the poll results. You won't find any reports of potential recruits' concerns about incompetent military leadership. Kabul, anyone? That part about not winning a war in 30 years? That's important. I was there the last time we unequivocally won a war. I highly recommend it. It's much preferable to these long conflicts with inevitably disgraceful exits under the leadership of those medal-be-decked losers in the Pentagon. Nobody wants to be part of a losing team, but that's what we are right now. You flag officers can tell each other that we are still the most lethal powerful fighting force ever and watch the Chinese laugh.

The potential recruits are particularly disgusted by the gross betrayal of our soldiers over COVID. These idiots threw out thousands of dedicated military personnel because they wouldn't take an unproven vaccine that actually doesn't stop transmission and doesn't prevent you from getting the disease. They were lied to by the generals and admirals and betrayed by the generals and admirals, and now the generals and admirals are scratching their close-cropped heads, wondering why young people won't commit their lives to their care.

Don't even get me started on how the military abandoned Navy Lt. Ridge Alkonis to the Japanese "justice" system. When I trained in Japan 20 years ago, our allies had far too much respect for us to reject a request to return an unjustly imprisoned American. Now they just laugh at us. And our military nearly cut off his family's pay! But hey, recruits, totally put your life in the Pentagon's hands! It's got your back!

And let's talk about wokeness. Supposedly wokeness isn't even a consideration among the recruiting base. Baloney. It's a huge problem because it's the conservative Americans who actually serve who are being denigrated and insulted by this DEI crap. Normal people take one look at what is happening – they hear about it from vets and the currently serving – and say, "Hell no, I am not going to devote four years of my life to sitting around being indoctrinated into trans awareness." The fact that we have a military so essentially frivolous that it allows men pretending to be women to share close quarters with females is proof plenty to the recruiting base that the American military is no longer receptive to normal people.

Here's how bad it is and how thoroughly this idiotic ideological mind virus has penetrated the leadership. Let me share with you a recent email sent by an active-duty command sergeant major to his/her/xir troops. You need to understand something about a command sergeant major. That's the guy who stands beside a colonel or a general and has the respect and gravitas to take that officer behind closed doors and say, "Listen up, sir, you're being stupid." And a good officer listens. A CSM was once a legend, but the "C" now stands for "clown." This is an actual email sent by a US Army CSM to American soldiers:

Spread the word.

Tell the ENTIRE formation.

Emma Watson’s HeForShe campaign invites men to join the conversations. “Gender equality is your issue too… Both men and women should feel free to be sensitive. Both men and women should feel free to be strong.” We should all feel empowered to “take action against all form of violence and discrimination faced by women and girls.” (Emma Watson UN speech)

When all of us gain traction on this first step we will all inherently afford this alienable right to all people that raise their right hand, and serve.

Take that, People's Liberation Army!

R. Lee Ermey himself (unbelievably NSFW) did not possess adequate reserves of profanity to adequately describe this woke nonsense. Now, who is the young man who dreams not of tough training and camaraderie in a band of brothers but of being lectured about the perfidy of his penis for the duration of a four-year hitch? Not the kind you want in your infantry company. Perhaps the military should be spending its time studying Hannibal instead of Hermione.

Now, I've got 20 bucks that say half of these brass buffoons don't even know who the hell Hannibal is. And half of those don't think Hannibal is worth studying because he was cis, though some may get past that because he was also African.

And let's not even get into the rest of the racial garbage and the political garbage where you get told you are trash and a traitor because of your race and your politics, particularly conservative, traditional politics. No wonder most vets are telling young people not to go where they are not welcome. You won't get that from the talking head generals on CNN. You will get it from us retired colonels, majors, captains, and senior noncommissioned officers. When young people come up to us and ask, "Hey, what do you think of me joining?" we tell them that if they join, we will support them, but we don't recommend it because you can't trust this military leadership.

Congratulations on losing our trust, generals and admirals and woke E9s – just like you lost the wars you ran. This strike does not make us happy, but sometimes people only learn the hard way, and maybe if the generals and admirals don't get their fresh meat, they might change course.

As for the rest of you, support our troops. You can best do that by electing someone who will ruthlessly fire most of the generals and admirals and make America's military great again.

Follow Kurt on Twitter @KurtSchlichter. Get Inferno, the seventh book in the Kelly Turnbull People's Republic series of conservative action novels set in America after a notional national divorce, as well as his non-fiction book We'll Be Back: The Fall and Rise of America.

ccp

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Crafty_Dog

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Recruitment Crisis is Symptom of Cultural Rot
« Reply #1170 on: April 14, 2023, 11:02:32 AM »
The Military Recruitment Crisis Is a Symptom of Cultural Rot
We need new leaders to cultivate the American spirit and restore the integrity of institutions.
By David McCormick and James Cunningham
April 14, 2023 1:50 pm ET
WSJ

America’s cultural cancer manifests itself in many ways, but no symptom is more telling than our low military recruitment. Last year the Army hit only 75% of its recruiting target, while other services had to scramble to meet theirs. This year looks to be worse. The all-volunteer force, formed 50 years ago, is in peril and threatens our ability to defend ourselves in a dangerous world. What does this say about America?

It says we have a national health crisis. A volunteer military requires able-bodied recruits, but 77% of young Americans would be unfit to serve for health reasons. Behind that statistic lies a mountain of concerning data. Every year, fentanyl and other drugs take more than 106,000 lives and affect millions more, reducing the pool of recruits.

It says that partisan politics have infected America’s core institutions. Civilian leaders have used the uniformed services as political pawns and directed them to push progressive priorities. This makes it harder for military leaders to accomplish their central mission—fighting and winning the nation’s wars. It also explains why less than half of Americans (48%) express a great deal of confidence in the U.S. military, a 22-point drop in five years. The politicization of institutions, whether the military, schools or professional sports, divides our country where it should be most unified.

Those divisions contribute to the atomization of American society, which the U.S. military hasn’t escaped. In the late 1980s, when a young Lt. McCormick looked at his platoon in the 82nd Airborne Division—with a Southern Baptist from Alabama, a black man from Newark, and a Puerto Rican platoon sergeant—he saw a strong, diverse and confident America. Now the military draws from a shrinking pool, most with parents or close relatives who served. The rest of society has few family ties to the military. This is only one of the thousands of small fractures subdividing our society, stoked by social media, the left’s obsession with race, sex and identity, and extreme figures on the right as well.

These factors fuel the greatest cultural ailment of all: waning confidence in American exceptionalism. Members of the military carry on a proud tradition, and the nation owes them our gratitude. But their willingness to wear the uniform stands out in a country where only 9% of those eligible to serve wish to do so.

How did it come to this? Americans have been fed a narrative of victimhood. Our society treats veterans as victims or, worse, charity cases, not as warrior-citizens taught leadership, discipline and camaraderie. On campus, in the media and across popular culture, grievance is the new currency of the realm.

Children are taught to doubt, not love, America, and leaders on both sides of the aisle question its goodness. Perhaps we shouldn’t be surprised that only 38% of Americans highly value patriotism and an equal share say they is “extremely proud” to be American.

The same forces that threaten the all-volunteer force endanger American society at large. These concerns animate our new book, “Superpower in Peril,” in which we chart a path to national renewal. But policy alone can’t heal a spiritual problem. The American spirit fills our national character with courage, ambition and creativity. It is our source of strength when times get bad, and the defining feature of American exceptionalism. That spirit has been neglected—or worse, suppressed—by the forces laid out here. The military recruiting crisis is a direct result of its decline.

We need new leaders to cultivate the American spirit and restore institutional integrity: in the Pentagon, to put war fighting and deterrence first; in schools, to teach civics and America’s exceptional story; in business, to reaffirm the principles of merit and capitalism; and across society, to create a new national commitment to citizenship.

William F. Buckley Jr. defined citizenship as the union of privilege (because to be an American is to be blessed with liberty and opportunity) and responsibility (because as Americans we have a duty to preserve the republic and serve our nation). Today, we have the balance wrong, emphasizing privilege and too often forgetting responsibility.

Perhaps the military recruiting crisis is the lagging indicator of America’s cultural collapse. Or maybe it’s the canary in the coal mine, an early warning that it is time to rescue American exceptionalism. What we do next as citizens will decide.

Mr. McCormick, a combat veteran and former CEO of Bridgewater Associates, was a candidate for the Republican U.S. Senate nomination in Pennsylvania in 2022. He is author, with Mr. Cunningham, of “Superpower in Peril: A Battle Plan to Renew America.”

Crafty_Dog

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Re: Military Science, Military Issues, and the Nature of War
« Reply #1171 on: April 14, 2023, 02:44:25 PM »
second

Pentagon Gives Aerojet Rocketdyne $216M to Boost Production of Weapons Used in Ukraine
By Marcus Weisgerber
The Pentagon will invest $216 million to expand and modernize Aerojet Rocketdyne manufacturing facilities in Arkansas, Alabama, and Virginia in an attempt to boost production of rocket motors used in a host of missiles given to Ukraine.

Crafty_Dog

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Up from the Memory Hole: Obama's Purge
« Reply #1172 on: April 14, 2023, 07:58:26 PM »

ccp

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military : windmills in the [God darn] way!
« Reply #1173 on: April 17, 2023, 09:01:01 AM »
https://www.yahoo.com/news/pentagon-sounds-alarm-over-biden-113008189.html

I would be surprised if Susan Rice et al. take heed to this and do not ignore it.

Crafty_Dog

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George Friedman: The Logic of American Strategy and War
« Reply #1174 on: April 18, 2023, 06:49:10 AM »

April 18, 2023
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The Logic of American Strategy and War
By: George Friedman

In recent weeks I have focused on the social and economic evolution of the United States. Obviously, we also need to discuss U.S. strategic policy. Domestic policy tends to be more dynamic than strategic policy, which follows from more persistent things like imperatives. The United States is secure from an attack on land. Neither Canada nor Mexico has the ability to wage or interest in waging a land war against the United States. Therefore, the fundamental threat to American national security must come from the sea. Still, American strategy has within it a logic. It lacks the cyclical logic of domestic politics but is shaped by the necessities imposed by place and enemies.

America’s entry into World War I was triggered by a German attack on U.S. shipping. In World War II, Washington’s key motive was the same. If Germany cut off lines of supply between the U.S. and Britain, it could isolate Britain and attack it at will. Having secured the Atlantic and a base of operations in Britain, Germany could threaten the East Coast. In the Pacific, the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, if fought sensibly, could have secured sea lanes from Hawaii to the West Coast and possibly enabled Japan to impose its will there. Even the Cold War was primarily naval. Germany was indeed the line of contact with the Soviet Union, but the vital supply lines ran from the U.S. to Europe, and NATO could be crippled by cutting off those supplies. Toward that end, the Russians deployed submarines and supersonic anti-ship systems.

The Germans (twice), the Soviets and the Japanese each saw the defense of their nations as rooted in maritime war against the United States. The German failure permitted D-Day to take place, the Soviet failure made a Soviet ground offensive in Europe impossible, and the Japanese failure led to Hiroshima and the U.S. occupation of Japan. In each case, the ability of the U.S. to maintain lines of supply and block enemy attacks was the key to the defense of the United States and its economy, and in each case, American strategy was built on deterrence. In the event that U.S. security was not entirely at risk at sea, Washington created barriers to block enemy powers from moving assets toward Atlantic or Pacific ports. It was understood that the immediate threat might be trivial compared to the long-term threat. Therefore, it was essential to engage Germany as early as possible – to contain the long-term threat while it still entailed combating ground forces and before the sea threat had fully materialized. This was also critical in the Pacific against Japan. It should be noted that in Vietnam, where the U.S. had no land-sea strategy, matters ended badly.

In Ukraine, there is an element of this strategy. Russia, if it were to defeat Ukraine, would be at NATO’s border and could attack westward. The U.S. is practicing a strategy of preemption at a relatively low cost in terms of U.S. casualties to prevent the very unlikely move of Russia to the Atlantic coast. Maritime action is used to drive back land forces. This was the strategy used against the Soviet Union in the Cold War, and it is now being used against Russian forces in Ukraine. In this use of sea power, there is significant indirectness designed to impose an element of risk on ground forces deep in their own territory. It is a strategy normally too subtle to easily see.

Therefore, U.S. naval strategy in Ukraine is designed primarily to block waterways that could facilitate Russian movement – namely the Black Sea and the Baltic Sea. It is not the heart of the broader U.S. strategy.

It is with respect to China that this strategy is being most seriously tested. The primary strategy of the U.S. must be to maintain control of the Pacific and maintain lines of supply to allies to prevent an opening for China. The heart of the strategy is to apply varying pressures on China so that it is forced to balance and rebalance its forces. As an example, China’s seizing Taiwan is not possible given the time needed for a task force to reach the Taiwan coast, during which it would be open to attack by the United States. This limits the ultimate Chinese threat to the U.S. coasts. Naval warfare (and here I include naval air power, as has been normal since World War II) combines two strategies, one limiting Chinese movement at sea and the other opening the possibility of threatening the Chinese homeland.

The Chinese constantly threaten Taiwan, but until now they have never acted because of the likely intervention of the U.S. Navy. The U.S. has a far inferior ground force – primarily to be transported by naval power, which would be a challenge – to pose a threat to a Chinese invasion. It is naval power that prevents Chinese action. There is a logic between the United States and China, a logic of geography, technology and fear that is in its way consistent and ties us in an internal cycle that naval war generates.

Adm. Alfred Thayer Mahan wrote the book on this strategy more than a century ago. It is a strategy that is still in place, replete with subtle interaction with land power. When U.S. military action was unsuccessful, as in Vietnam, it failed either because the terrain was not susceptible to naval power or because naval power was not used. However, as I have tried to show, U.S. warfighting strategy, particularly on the strategic level, has never changed. China is constrained by that power, Russia is blocked from effective use of waters on its periphery, and other hostile powers seek to avoid U.S. naval power, whereas the U.S. uses it as a central force.

The idea of a consistent domestic model is more difficult to grasp than that of a consistent military strategy. But the latter has a persistent reality of geography and a persistent solution of naval power aligned with technology and strategy. Even when the connection between naval power and a war deep on land seems to make that strategy pointless, there is constant pressure for the enemy to go to sea. The Soviet Union was forced to enter the North Atlantic as was Germany in spite of their focus on land operations. It is vital to understand the naval dimension of all American wars.

G M

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Re: George Friedman: The Logic of American Strategy and War
« Reply #1175 on: April 18, 2023, 06:56:14 AM »
The US Navy's ships are rusty and filled with Sailors competent only in LGBTpedo ideology.



April 18, 2023
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The Logic of American Strategy and War
By: George Friedman

In recent weeks I have focused on the social and economic evolution of the United States. Obviously, we also need to discuss U.S. strategic policy. Domestic policy tends to be more dynamic than strategic policy, which follows from more persistent things like imperatives. The United States is secure from an attack on land. Neither Canada nor Mexico has the ability to wage or interest in waging a land war against the United States. Therefore, the fundamental threat to American national security must come from the sea. Still, American strategy has within it a logic. It lacks the cyclical logic of domestic politics but is shaped by the necessities imposed by place and enemies.

America’s entry into World War I was triggered by a German attack on U.S. shipping. In World War II, Washington’s key motive was the same. If Germany cut off lines of supply between the U.S. and Britain, it could isolate Britain and attack it at will. Having secured the Atlantic and a base of operations in Britain, Germany could threaten the East Coast. In the Pacific, the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, if fought sensibly, could have secured sea lanes from Hawaii to the West Coast and possibly enabled Japan to impose its will there. Even the Cold War was primarily naval. Germany was indeed the line of contact with the Soviet Union, but the vital supply lines ran from the U.S. to Europe, and NATO could be crippled by cutting off those supplies. Toward that end, the Russians deployed submarines and supersonic anti-ship systems.

The Germans (twice), the Soviets and the Japanese each saw the defense of their nations as rooted in maritime war against the United States. The German failure permitted D-Day to take place, the Soviet failure made a Soviet ground offensive in Europe impossible, and the Japanese failure led to Hiroshima and the U.S. occupation of Japan. In each case, the ability of the U.S. to maintain lines of supply and block enemy attacks was the key to the defense of the United States and its economy, and in each case, American strategy was built on deterrence. In the event that U.S. security was not entirely at risk at sea, Washington created barriers to block enemy powers from moving assets toward Atlantic or Pacific ports. It was understood that the immediate threat might be trivial compared to the long-term threat. Therefore, it was essential to engage Germany as early as possible – to contain the long-term threat while it still entailed combating ground forces and before the sea threat had fully materialized. This was also critical in the Pacific against Japan. It should be noted that in Vietnam, where the U.S. had no land-sea strategy, matters ended badly.

In Ukraine, there is an element of this strategy. Russia, if it were to defeat Ukraine, would be at NATO’s border and could attack westward. The U.S. is practicing a strategy of preemption at a relatively low cost in terms of U.S. casualties to prevent the very unlikely move of Russia to the Atlantic coast. Maritime action is used to drive back land forces. This was the strategy used against the Soviet Union in the Cold War, and it is now being used against Russian forces in Ukraine. In this use of sea power, there is significant indirectness designed to impose an element of risk on ground forces deep in their own territory. It is a strategy normally too subtle to easily see.

Therefore, U.S. naval strategy in Ukraine is designed primarily to block waterways that could facilitate Russian movement – namely the Black Sea and the Baltic Sea. It is not the heart of the broader U.S. strategy.

It is with respect to China that this strategy is being most seriously tested. The primary strategy of the U.S. must be to maintain control of the Pacific and maintain lines of supply to allies to prevent an opening for China. The heart of the strategy is to apply varying pressures on China so that it is forced to balance and rebalance its forces. As an example, China’s seizing Taiwan is not possible given the time needed for a task force to reach the Taiwan coast, during which it would be open to attack by the United States. This limits the ultimate Chinese threat to the U.S. coasts. Naval warfare (and here I include naval air power, as has been normal since World War II) combines two strategies, one limiting Chinese movement at sea and the other opening the possibility of threatening the Chinese homeland.

The Chinese constantly threaten Taiwan, but until now they have never acted because of the likely intervention of the U.S. Navy. The U.S. has a far inferior ground force – primarily to be transported by naval power, which would be a challenge – to pose a threat to a Chinese invasion. It is naval power that prevents Chinese action. There is a logic between the United States and China, a logic of geography, technology and fear that is in its way consistent and ties us in an internal cycle that naval war generates.

Adm. Alfred Thayer Mahan wrote the book on this strategy more than a century ago. It is a strategy that is still in place, replete with subtle interaction with land power. When U.S. military action was unsuccessful, as in Vietnam, it failed either because the terrain was not susceptible to naval power or because naval power was not used. However, as I have tried to show, U.S. warfighting strategy, particularly on the strategic level, has never changed. China is constrained by that power, Russia is blocked from effective use of waters on its periphery, and other hostile powers seek to avoid U.S. naval power, whereas the U.S. uses it as a central force.

The idea of a consistent domestic model is more difficult to grasp than that of a consistent military strategy. But the latter has a persistent reality of geography and a persistent solution of naval power aligned with technology and strategy. Even when the connection between naval power and a war deep on land seems to make that strategy pointless, there is constant pressure for the enemy to go to sea. The Soviet Union was forced to enter the North Atlantic as was Germany in spite of their focus on land operations. It is vital to understand the naval dimension of all American wars.


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Re: Military Science, Military Issues, and the Nature of War
« Reply #1178 on: April 21, 2023, 07:45:00 AM »
wait
is that a white woman who christened the ship?

sounds racist to me.   :wink:

could have been a great Kamala image to further her career

the tugboat crash was much louder then the bottle being smashed on the stern

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Re: Military Science, Military Issues, and the Nature of War
« Reply #1179 on: April 21, 2023, 07:57:14 AM »
https://www.navy.mil/Press-Office/Press-Releases/display-pressreleases/Article/3015987/leading-the-way-into-the-future-navifor-hosts-diversity-equity-and-inclusion-su/

wait
is that a white woman who christened the ship?

sounds racist to me.   :wink:

could have been a great Kamala image to further her career

the tugboat crash was much louder then the bottle being smashed on the stern

Crafty_Dog

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WSJ: US military relies on one factory that just blew up , , ,
« Reply #1180 on: April 26, 2023, 05:36:41 PM »
The U.S. Military Relies on One Louisiana Factory. It Blew Up.
Decades of consolidation has left the Pentagon vulnerable to mishaps—including when the sole maker of a crucial type of gunpowder went offline
Nonexplosive testing materials were loaded into a press at the black powder factory in Minden, La., in February amid its preparations to resume production.
Nonexplosive testing materials were loaded into a press at the black powder factory in Minden, La., in February amid its preparations to resume production.
By Gordon LuboldFollow
 | Photographs by Cooper Neill for The Wall Street Journal
April 26, 2023 9:34 am ET


MINDEN, La.—Nearly two years ago, an errant spark inside a mill caused an explosion so big it destroyed all the building’s equipment and blew a corrugated fiberglass wall 100 feet.

It also shut down the sole domestic source of an explosive the Department of Defense relies on to produce bullets, mortar shells, artillery rounds and Tomahawk missiles.

The ramshackle facility makes the original form of gunpowder, known today as black powder, a highly combustible material with hundreds of military applications. The product, for which there is no substitute, is used in small quantities in munitions to ignite more powerful explosives.

No one was hurt in the June 2021 blast. But the factory remains offline, unable to deliver its single vital component to either commercial or Pentagon customers.

Military suppliers consolidated at the Cold War’s end, under pressure to reduce defense costs and streamline the nation’s industrial base. Over the past three decades, the number of fixed wing aircraft suppliers in the U.S. has declined from eight to three. During the same period, major surface ship producers fell from eight to two, and today, only three American companies supply over 90% of the Pentagon’s missile stockpile.

Lower-tier defense firms are often the sole maker of vital parts—such as black powder—and a single crisis can bring production to a standstill.


The mill is being rebuilt after an explosion in June 2021 shut down production.

Conveyor belts are used to move materials into a separate room to be packed by remotely operated equipment.
Today that’s emerging as a gnawing problem for the U.S., whether in supplying weapons and ammunition to Ukraine or in restocking reserves to prepare for a potential confrontation with China in the new era of great-power competition, according to U.S. military officials, defense experts and congressional staffers.

After months of supplying Ukraine with Stingers, howitzers, anti-armor systems and artillery ammunition, stocks are low in both the U.S. and its NATO allies, especially in 155mm howitzer shells, an ammunition that has been crucial to pushing back Russian forces.

“Can you imagine what would happen to these supply chains if the U.S. were in an actual state of active war, or NATO was?” said Jeff Rhoads, executive director of the Purdue Institute for National Security, a defense-research institute at Purdue University. “They could be in trouble very quickly.”

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The U.S. Military Relies on One Louisiana Factory. It Blew Up.
The U.S. Military Relies on One Louisiana Factory. It Blew Up.
In use for a millennium
The “incident,” as the Minden explosion has become known, is a pointed example of the risks facing America’s military. The blast that wrecked a World War II era building in a remote compound 30 miles from Shreveport has extinguished all production of black powder in North America.

The accident was part of what Labor Department records show is the mill’s history of explosions and fatalities under various owners in recent decades. The mill traces its origins to the 19th-century DuPont chemicals empire, and at the time of the blast was owned by Hodgdon Powder Co.

For a millennium, black powder was a crucial material for both military and commercial uses. Today, it is a specialty commodity with few commercial applications—mostly for rocket hobbyists—but it’s still used in more than 300 munitions, from cruise missiles, to bullets for M16 rifles, to the vital 155mm shells.

In each case, a small amount of black powder is used to detonate a more powerful explosive packed in the same bullet or missile. A 155mm shell for a howitzer, for example, will use half an ounce of black powder, lodged next to 26 pounds of a more powerful explosive.

Sales volume is limited and that means profits can be too thin to support more than a single production facility. This type of vulnerability is so common, the Pentagon describes it as the “single source” problem. Only one foundry in the U.S. makes the titanium castings used in howitzers, and only one company makes the rocket motor used in the Javelin antitank weapon widely used in Ukraine.

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U.S. Army soldiers worked on a M777 howitzer during a joint military drill between South Korea and the U.S. in South Korea in March. PHOTO: AHN YOUNG-JOON/ASSOCIATED PRESS
Part of the problem is that the Pentagon can be a fickle customer. Orders can surge or plummet depending on inventory levels, the state of U.S. military engagements or budget priorities. This posed a challenge for the operators of the black powder mill, who also faced costly regulations.

Hodgdon, which bought the Minden powder mill in 2009, said military purchases at that time represented significant sales. But over time, they “slowed in both frequency and volume,” said Aaron Oelger, spokesman for Hodgdon. He said no one with the company now was there at the time of the explosion.

Hodgdon decided to get out of the business after the explosion, and sold the mill last year to one of its shortlist of commercial customers, a model-rocket maker in Penrose, Colo., named Estes Industries. The Pentagon helped the transition with a $3.5 million investment in mill upgrades under the Defense Production Act, which provides funding for national defense, part of a larger program designed to alleviate the problem of having critical resources produced in far-flung, sometimes unreliable places.

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U.S. defense contractors’ inability to quickly replenish weaponry such as missiles and munitions for Ukraine has led Pentagon officials to argue that industry consolidation has gone too far and raised questions about how prepared America is for conflict. Illustration: Adele Morgan
After refurbishing the mill, Estes Energetics, spun off from Estes Industries, is scheduled to relaunch production and restart supplies to military contractors by this summer. Estes Industries also supplies students and hobbyists with model rockets, kits and accessories, and the small quantities of black powder used in old-fashioned weapons for re-enactors and hunters.

In the meantime, U.S. military contractors who use black powder have been drawing on stockpiles, according to people familiar with the matter and U.S. officials. Other producers of black powder exist in Germany, Poland, Switzerland, Brazil and China.

Chokepoints are one of a number of weaknesses in the U.S. military’s supply chains. Others include a lack of skilled workers in casting and forging, shortages of infrastructure for battery technology and periodic shortages of advanced microchips.

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Some domestic suppliers have quit unprofitable businesses altogether, leaving it to both allies and adversaries to supply commodities such as the rare earth minerals used in state-of-the-art technology. The Pentagon has invested more than $100 million in the mining and processing of such minerals in the U.S. after American companies ceded production to China.


Charcoal is stored for production at the Minden factory.

The factory makes an effort to reduce sparks, the cause of the 2021 explosion.
The result is that the military is “increasingly reliant on a smaller number of contractors for these critical capabilities,” said Halimah Najieb-Locke, deputy assistant secretary of defense in charge of the industrial base, at a recent seminar. “That impacts everybody’s ability to ramp production.”

‘Last Supper’
The roots of the current crisis can be traced back three decades, to a 1993 dinner at the Pentagon often referred to as the “last supper,” when Secretary of Defense Les Aspin invited the CEOs of the top 15 defense companies and warned that the Pentagon couldn’t sustain them all. They would need to consolidate.

The number of major arms suppliers for the Pentagon went from dozens in the 1990s, down to just five, known as primes, who typically bid for major weapons programs today. A similar contraction took place among lower-tier suppliers.

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Overall, the defense industrial base shrank to 55,000 vendors in 2021, down from 69,000 in 2016.

Despite consolidation, the networks of companies remain large. The average American aerospace company relies on hundreds of first-tier subcontractors, according to Defense Department statistics, and thousands in the second and third tiers below that.

That scope presents its own problems. The network is so vast, the military has limited visibility, according to a Pentagon report, and “does not track these vulnerabilities as they impact weapons programs.” A failure down the supply chain can go unnoticed for months by prime contractors such as Boeing Co. or Lockheed Martin Corp., let alone the Pentagon.

The Minden mill, as a fifth-tier supplier, was deep down the defense supply chain. Given black powder’s importance, the Army in this instance noticed right away, according to people familiar with the matter. It still took months for the new owner to take over, and by the time Estes began refurbishing the mill, yellow wildflowers had sprouted in the factory yard.

Black powder is made essentially the same way it was 200 years ago. Some of that rusticity, using huge 6-ton metal and wooden wheels and grinders and sifters, is by design. The parts minimize the sparks that caused the accident in 2021 in the mill, where the fine powder is compressed into cakes and crushed into various sizes, and shut down the plant.

Nonexplosive testing materials are mixed at the Minden factory.
There are few computers near production areas at the Minden facility because electronics pose sparking dangers. Workers wear special shoes and floors are covered in paint that prevents the accumulation of static electricity. Cotton clothes also help mitigate the risk of sparks. Employees operate machinery much like a dentist takes an X-ray, standing outside the production room to stay safe.

The explosive properties of black powder, a simple mixture of sulfur, charcoal and potassium nitrate, were first discovered in 9th-century China, and it was widely used for centuries.

In the 20th century, smokeless gunpowder, made with different materials, became the preferred propellant—the explosive pushing a projectile out of a gun or cannon barrel—because it was more powerful, produced less smoke and left less residue. It was also somewhat safer to produce.

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After World War II, the black powder business declined, and the main customers used black powder in fireworks, model rockets or muzzleloading historic guns. The DuPont conglomerate sold its last remaining black powder mill in Pennsylvania in 1971.

After an explosion killed two employees, its new owners moved it to Minden in 1997, in part because Louisiana’s humid weather could reduce sparks. “Humidity is a powder man’s best friend,” Anita Vincenti, a Minden mill worker who moved with the plant from Pennsylvania, said this fall.

The Pentagon’s $3.5 million investment in mill upgrades after the recent shutdown is part of an effort by the Biden administration to strengthen the industrial base. It is working with suppliers to address similar weaknesses in munitions, forging and casting, batteries and microelectronics.


Karl Kulling, chief operating officer of Estes Energetics, at the Minden plant.

An emergency escape slide on a production building.
Late last year, the Defense Department identified 27 critical chemicals that have no U.S. production and are sourced from places, including Russia and China, considered adversaries of the U.S. The Pentagon expects to spend more than $207 million to bring production of materials back to the U.S. as soon as possible.

A handful of critical materials used by the U.S. are only produced inside war-torn Ukraine, said Anthony Di Stasio, a senior Pentagon official in charge of prioritizing and investing in defense production.

Stimulating the marketplace to bring production to the U.S. is doable, he said. “I’d be really surprised if we couldn’t get this done within the next three years,” Mr. Di Stasio said, of the overall effort.

In February, Estes company officials touring the facility pointed to upgrades to the mill. It now has a new, state-of-the-art fire suppression system, a shiny network of metal pipes and water guns aimed at the points of production vulnerable to the sparks that caused the 2021 accident.

The previous month Estes had restarted production of an inert black powder substitute as a safety test, before it resumes production of the real thing. The launch has been delayed a number of times, once recently when a water main broke in the middle of the factory grounds.

“Whenever you turn on old machinery that has stood for a while, [there] tends to be something that breaks,” said Karl Kulling, chief operating officer of Estes Energetics. “So we’ve gone through basically each machine and fixed up things here, there and everywhere.”


ccp

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A virtuous deed
« Reply #1182 on: April 29, 2023, 01:57:09 PM »
"At 94 years old, Gregg is the only living person in the Army’s history to have a base named after him, according to the U.S. Army. Gregg gave more than three decades of his life to the military and became a three-star general during his service."

"The base will be jointly named for Adams, who was the first Black officer in the Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps (later the Women’s Army Corps)."

https://www.yahoo.com/news/removing-the-legacy-of-slavery-fort-lee-gets-renamed-over-150-years-after-the-civil-war-191431863.html

indeed.  :wink:

Crafty_Dog

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WSJ U.S. Push to Restock Howitzer Shells, Rockets Sent to Ukraine Bogs Down
« Reply #1183 on: April 29, 2023, 07:49:12 PM »
https://archive.fo/jZu4c

U.S. Push to Restock Howitzer Shells, Rockets Sent to Ukraine Bogs Down
War in Europe drains U.S. stockpiles while Pentagon, defense industry look to deter China

Arms makers have added factory shifts to increase output of artillery shells and other munitions.
PHOTO: MATT ROURKE/ASSOCIATED PRESS
By Doug Cameron
April 29, 2023 5:30 am ET

More than a year after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, U.S. plans to increase production of key munitions have fallen short due to shortages of chips, machinery and skilled workers.

Arms makers have added factory shifts, ordered new equipment and streamlined supply chains to boost output of Javelin antitank missiles, artillery shells, guided rockets and much more, which Ukrainian forces are firing by the thousands at the Russian invaders.

Years of stop-start Pentagon funding for munitions led companies to close production lines or quit the industry, while output of many components and raw materials moved overseas. Defense department chiefs estimate the decline will take five or six years to reverse.

“We want to get the fragility out of the system, so if this ever happens again, it’s six months instead of three years to get a meaningful improvement in capacity,” said Jim Taiclet, chief executive officer of Lockheed Martin Corp.

The U.S. has committed to giving Kyiv more than $36 billion in arms to fight the Russians, including hundreds of thousands of rounds of munitions for howitzers, tanks, portable rocket launchers and advanced guided missile systems. The U.S. arms—and weapons provided by European allies—have kept Ukraine in the fight, enabling it to push Russian forces back to a swath of ground along the Black Sea and in the eastern Donbas region.

U.S. defense contractors’ inability to quickly replenish weaponry such as missiles and munitions for Ukraine has led Pentagon officials to argue that industry consolidation has gone too far and raised questions about how prepared America is for conflict. Illustration: Adele Morgan
The Ukrainians have been firing as many as 3,000 shells a day at Russian positions, and stocks are low in both the U.S. and its NATO allies, especially in 155mm howitzer shells, an ammunition that has been crucial to repelling Russian forces.

Meanwhile, the Pentagon and the defense industry are looking at the next major national security challenge: deterring, and if necessary, fighting, China in the Indo-Pacific region.

Howitzer shells are a big focus of the defense industry’s push: The major manufacturers plan to boost production sixfold by 2028. The munitions are mainly made in aging, government-owned facilities run by private companies, including General Dynamics Corp. and American Ordnance, a unit of Day & Zimmermann.

The U.S. Army has committed $18 billion over the next several years, adding $3 billion over the past year, to revamp bomb-making factories and the facilities that service military equipment, which Army Secretary Christine Wormuth described as “vintage” in a congressional hearing on April 19.

A Ukrainian serviceman beside a truck loaded with howitzer shells, a big focus of the U.S. defense industry’s push to restock munitions.
PHOTO: ARIS MESSINIS/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE/GETTY IMAGES

The Army investments include $1.1 billion this year and $2 billion the following for new machinery and tooling at a plant in Scranton, Pa., that makes shell casings, another in Radford, Va., that adds propellant, and the Iowa Army Ammunition Plant near Middletown, where workers pack explosives and prepare the finished munition for distribution.

General Dynamics is outfitting its plant in Garland, Texas, with new machinery to support three shifts producing 155mm shells.

Under pressure from lawmakers and Pentagon leaders, the Army and defense companies hatched broad plans last summer to double output of some of the most widely used munitions over the next two years. Production is rising, but at a slower pace than originally hoped.

Lockheed Martin and Raytheon Technologies Corp. aim to boost annual production of their Javelin antitank missile to 3,500 in 2026 from around 2,000 currently. For the advanced Guided Multiple Launch Rocket System, or GMLRS, credited with enabling Ukrainian forces to bog down Russia’s advances with its long range and accuracy, Lockheed Martin and the Army have raised its targeted annual output to 14,000 in 2026, from 10,000 currently. The company this week secured a $4.8 billion deal to produce more over the next three years, by far the largest contract for the munition.

Artillery projectiles are manufactured at an Army ammunition plant in Scranton, Pa.
PHOTO: MATT ROURKE/ASSOCIATED PRESS

The Pentagon is also awarding contracts for items such as steel, alongside efforts to bring back production of raw materials used to make explosives and batteries.

Funding alone isn’t sufficient to boost production, said defense executives. Precision weapons such as the GMLRS are more complex to manufacture than artillery shells and require solid fuel rocket motors that have been in short supply.

Making even basic artillery shells is a complex, multistage process carried out in far-flung locations with aging machinery. Casings aren’t just lumps of steel, but highly engineered objects to ensure shells are the same size and can be fired reliably. Some also have sensors and electronic systems to improve range and accuracy.


It takes around a month from ordering the steel to make shell casings for the metal to arrive. The Army facility in Scranton takes about three days to machine the parts. The finished casings are shipped to Iowa, where it takes another three days to load and pack them with propellant and explosives.
Douglas Bush, the Army’s acquisition chief, attributes the slower-than-expected rise in production to issues of capacity rather than a shortage of materials.

The Pentagon last year launched its Munitions Industrial Base Deep Dive to analyze production levels and capacity, as well as weaknesses in the supply chain. And last month, the Defense Department established a new office called the Joint Production Accelerator Cell to help identify better production methods, including the use of 3-D printing to speed making parts that have become obsolete.

These efforts are giving the Pentagon fresh eyes on what it needs to wage and deter future conflicts, more closely tying military strategy with the ability of industry to support defense planning.
“We’re going back and we’re reviewing all of our estimates for logistic lessons for all of the key munitions, or munitions that are required for various contingency plans,” said Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff at a congressional hearing this month.

Defense companies said they still need more clarity on future demand, even with the promise of multiyear contracts to encourage more investment and hiring.

“We have more than doubled the capacity with the investments we’ve laid in or plan to make,” Northrop Grumman Corp. CEO Kathy Warden said this week. “For the government to go even further than that, we are suggesting that we can support that, but would look for government funding to complement it.”

Write to Doug Cameron at Doug.Cameron@wsj.com

G M

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Re: A virtuous deed
« Reply #1184 on: April 30, 2023, 11:17:39 AM »
"At 94 years old, Gregg is the only living person in the Army’s history to have a base named after him, according to the U.S. Army. Gregg gave more than three decades of his life to the military and became a three-star general during his service."

"The base will be jointly named for Adams, who was the first Black officer in the Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps (later the Women’s Army Corps)."

https://www.yahoo.com/news/removing-the-legacy-of-slavery-fort-lee-gets-renamed-over-150-years-after-the-civil-war-191431863.html

indeed.  :wink:
“It is embarrassing that our country ever had military bases named after men who waged war against the United States to maintain slavery and white supremacy,” Rivka Maizlish, senior research analyst for the SPLC’s Intelligence Project


It is a disgrace we let people like Rivka subvert this country.



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Star Spangled Banner singing causes "fear and disgust"
« Reply #1188 on: May 03, 2023, 05:42:41 AM »





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Re: Military Science, Military Issues, and the Nature of War
« Reply #1193 on: May 12, 2023, 08:02:44 AM »
Very well written!

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