Came upon this discussion yesterday, by accident almost. Although it unintentionally reveals much about the commenters and their odd notions-- I looked in vain for Skippy-san, perhaps he was using an alias-- it brings up a good point.
An interesting briefing by the Northcom Commander General Victor Renuart has flagged cyber and arctic threats as priorities for the next President. Reportedly, the National Security Council is debating drafting a new strategy document on the Arctic. We have already discussed cyber threats a couple of times, but not the Arctic. Ironically, Russia's behavior in Georgia may have ripple effects of national security thousands of miles away in the Arctic if we really are seeing the resurgence of an aggressive Russian bear. For that matter, one of the near-term security implications of global warming is to make the Arctic more in play for geopolitics. The Arctic mission is also one that would have interesting inter-service rivalry implications, since it would be primarily a Navy and Air Force mission. How important is the Arctic and should an increasing portion of defense resources be directed to it? My own sense is that the bipartisan push for energy security will make the Arctic a higher priority for future Administrations than it has been for decades, and its importance will grow in the decades to come. Given the long lead-times for some weapons purchases, it would be foolish not to make at least some investments in improving our capacity to project power in that region. The priority still should be on other near term concerns, winning the wars that we are in, as Gates puts it, and ensuring our capacity to respond to more urgent challenges, but it is smart strategy to be thinking anew about the Arctic. How big a factor should the Arctic be in US military planning?
At the top of the world we are cheek by jowl with Mother Russia. The end of the Cold War (supposedly) brought the end of the existential threats the old regime presented, the ICBMs, the bombers, the subs. Well, since the new boss in the Kremlin is the same as the old boss, welcome back to a new Cold War in the cold.
All of this has flown below our DEW Line, but it is a frequent topic over at The Torch...
New cadets are formed into companies as they prepare to "march off" to the Barracks and the beginning of Matriculation Week. ? VMI Photo by Kevin Remington.
LEXINGTON, Va., Aug. 23, 2008 ? It helped that the weather for Matriculation Day, Aug. 23, was less hot and humid than the August norm. But the Institute?s 446 matriculants also found many helping hands along the way, from their morning sign-ups to the culminating afternoon March Off to begin nine days of intensive training by the Cadre.
For the record, they used to call it a "march in" and it went something like this:
Next evolution. Chopped this one up a little. Lifting music doesn't really help me with cardio and cardio music doesn't really help me with lifting. Need a good beat for cardio and need to be worked up into a fury to lift.
Lifting
1. Killing in the Name - Rage Against the Machine
2. More Human than Human - White Zombie
3. Slither - Velvet Revolver
4. For Whom the Bell Tolls - Metallica
5. Let the Bodies Hit the Floor - Drowning Pool
6. Immigrant Song - Led Zepplin
7. Raining Blood - Slayer
Cardio
1.Don't Stop Me Now - Queen
2. All The Things That I've Done - The Killers
3. Wrong Way - Sublime
4. One More Time - Daft Punk (a little eh... Eurotrashy, but great rhythm)
5. Stronger - Kayne West
6. Praise You - Fatboy Slim
7. Long Road to Ruin - Foo Fighters
Cool Down Soul to Squeeze - Red Hot Chili Peppers Tuesday's Gone - Lynyrd Skynyrd
If Hanna Montana pops up anywhere on this list, you can bet Charlie's been tampering with my post. Speaking of, I *believe* that Charlie does Crossfit.... which is way too hardcore for me, I'm Air Force. Credit to our buddy Lex for sticking to the same hellacious routine.
...In Europe! As we dust off the Russia analysts from various think-tank basements, we seem to be seeing a replay of many Cold War Soviet vs US conflicts. First up: STAR WARS. From the Economist:
THE east Europeans have little reason to fear a strike from Iran. So why are they eagerly signing up to America?s system to intercept Iranian missiles? Because they are scared of Russia. Within days of Russia?s invasion of Georgia, Poland had agreed to host ten American interceptors. Ukraine offered to link up its early-warning radars and contribute to surveillance in space. The Czech Republic had already agreed to host the missile-tracking radar.
What's next? Russia putting mid-range missiles in Cuba or Venezuela? Russian support of insurgencies in Africa? What about Iran? Hold on as we travel back to the future...
All indications are that Imperial Russiathe Soviet Union modern Russia's seizure of a good part of Georgia is taking on an air of permanence. Even if we grant the nine-tenths of the law (!) that is possession, and accept Russian hegemony over Abkhazia and greater Ossetia, their occupation of Georgia proper is ugly, unacceptable, and at the moment unanswerable. Even if they pull back completely, their ability to dominate the scene has been established.
Unfortunately, it's also unsurprising. This crisis has had me asking, like Ted Nugent grasping a bloody arrow, "Where have we seen this before?" This is a recreation of the old Czarist quest for empire, and the re-enactors are frightfully realistic. By chance I was scanning one of my favorites, Peter Hopkirk's The Great Game; the parallels are striking. Hopkirk describes the slow, steady, calculated, three-steps-forward-and-two-steps-back advance of the Czar's armies, and British government's repeated realizations that St Petersburg could willingly say one thing while its generals in the field did quite another. (And in Theodore Rex, Morris describes how TR was astonished during the negotiations over the end of the Russo-Japanese War, at how the Russian delegates would pile lies on top of lies utterly without shame.)
Once installed, difficult to dislodge. Where have we seen this before?
The Georgia campaign also sent me rummaging through my shelves for another old favorite, On Infantry, because I recalled the author's discussion of the Russian soldier as "the master digger." It only took me a few minutes to find the passage-- the actual quote is "the champion digger"-- and to confirm my recollections. The German found that the stolid Russian peasant soldier had a talent for going to ground, and with no more than his entrenching tool and ox-like endurance he could turn a small gain into a strongpoint overnight. And once installed he was difficult, almost impossible, to dislodge. The obvious lesson was that if you give them an inch, they'll take at least a mile. And you won't soon get it back. Of course, this was all meant in the tactical sense, but I think we can safely extend the analogy up the chain through operational all the way to strategic.
The Russian seizure of the parts of Georgia that the Kremlin deems part of Mother Russia was planned well in advance, and carefully kept in hand until the most advantageous time presented itself. It was done in the knowledge that it would embarrass the U.S., put gas-starved Europe on notice, and send an oh-so-subtle message to the various old satrapies of the Czar.
We can expect more of the same. Let's hope that we are up to the challenge.
Second, I commend Fred Hiatt piece on what made Russia attack. This article reminds me of the quote from George Santanya and I paraphrase, "Those who do not study the past are destine to repeat it." As George Kennan pointed out in the Long Telegram, the history and nature of Russia is consistent. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/08/17/AR2008081702076.html
Austin Bay writes that a ?Peacekeeping Brigade? or ?PKB? is the ideal force package to respond to a Georgia-like crisis. According to COL Bay, a PKB would be comprised of ?at least two engineer battalions with attached military police, medical, Civil Affairs, signal units and lots of media connectivity. Add Special Forces with their linguistic talents and a light infantry battalion for local security. Embed non-governmental organizations with the guts to participate and promise support to NGOs who choose to operate on their own but would accept clean water and blankets?
The structure of Army brigade combat teams has been a topic of conversation among Army strategists (or those that imagine themselves strategists) since its inception. Many officers simply believe that the idea of a BCT is simply a re-hash of the regimental combat team system in WWII. Other Infantry types disparage the current BCT construct because it only contains 2 ?instead of 3 ?infantry battalions. BCTs claim to be ?modular,? which indicates that there is a ?plug and play? relationship between units. In reality, this could prove to be very difficult to anyone attempting to structure a mission-tailored force.
That being said, a ?PKB? to respond to a Russian invasion of a satellite country, or a re-structured BCT to deal with a theatre-specific challenge may complicate matters, because it deprives another deploying BCT assets it needs for its mission. Re-thinking the BCT concept to allow for more modularity and force-tailoring may be necessary for the changing missions that Army will face in the future. As the Iraq combat mission draws down, force levels may remain constant, but ?BCTs? may be replaced with ?MTTs? or some other evolution of the ?transition team? construct. This could include training teams with security, support, intel, engineer and CA elements that are included. The point is that these evolving force requirements do not match the current BCT construct ?but they need to.
A new look at force structure concepts may be necessary as we move past our initial ?transformation? hurdles that the military faced in 2004, but are much less relevant in 2008.
I took this picture Saturday at Thunder Over Michigan. The aircraft are C-47s and the jumpers are all WWII re-enactors. The day was windy as hell with a very low ceiling. They had to make 4 passes over Willow Run before they finally jumped.
After the jump, there was a huge WWII battle re-enactment that was pretty incredible. I will try to get some pictures up soon.
Great quote from a soldier trying out the latest in Army tech, robots that can fire weapons, remove ordinance, and perform ISR tasks, keeping troops out of harm's way.
Soldiers from the 519th Military Police Battalion, 1st Maneuver Enhancement Brigade, watched futuristic technology turn to reality during a demonstration at Range 9, here, Aug. 5. The presentation, by Foster-Miller Defense Technology Solutions, showcased the latest in Soldier-saving technology for the battlefield and urban environments.
"These robots can replace Soldiers in dangerous situations," said Adrian Herkenbrack, Foster-Miller DTS representative. "The advantage is that these robots have no fear, and we'd rather lose one of them than a Soldier."
Three robots, including "Dragon Runner," "TALON SWAT/MP" and "Modular Advanced Armed Robotic System," demonstrated their capabilities and versatility through three scenarios.
Check out the entire article, as robots on the battlefield aren't going away any time sson.
It is indeed. It's increasingly clear that the Russians had this on tap for quite sometime, and had bided their time-- and cloaked their intentions well-- for the right moment. Ugly, very ugly. It is difficult to place blame on the Georgians, although they might have (vastly) underestimated the Russian response. I feel very sorry for them, because they're getting a heavy dose of old-style Red Army firepower. And there's not much we can do to help them in the direct sense. The Black Sea is closed to us, in any case.
There are a couple of good posts at B5. The best is this one, with some illuminating comments from our frequent reader, Olga. And this one too, is right in the money.
Imperial Russia spent hundreds of years expanding its territory into the Caucasus and Central Asia, a policy pursued with equal fervor by their Soviet successors. Apparently, they'd like to turn the clock back.
As many have said there and on other good sites, the Poles, Czechs, Hungarians, Estonians, Lithuanians, Latvians, Georgians, etc etc, have much to be concerned about. And Western Europe too, if they can get their heads out of their asses.
I commend the following article in this week Economists on Alexander Solzhenitsyn and the importance of people speaking the hard truths. http://www.economist.com/opinion/displayStory.cfm?story_id=11885318&fsrc=nwlgafree
http://www.economist.com/opinion/displayStory.cfm?story_id=11885318&fsrc=nwlgafree or this link
http://www.economist.com/opinion/displayStory.cfm?Story_ID=11885318
I enjoy shooting. Friday, my wife and I stopped at a local shooting range, it is run by a gun store owner and has about 15 firing points ranging from 15 yards to 100 yards.
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