The Left (including RINOs such as John McCain, George P. Shultz, Henry Kissinger, Condoleezza Rice, and Colin Powell) constantly (and falsely) claims that the US needs to continue reducing its nuclear arsenal, even unilaterally, with a view towards ultimate complete nuclear disarmament of the US.

They falsely claim that not only can the US afford to do so, but that it “needs” to do so; that to be secure, it needs to continually cut and eventually completely scrap its arsenal; that any cut in America’s nuclear stockpile, no matter how deep and no matter if unilateral, is “a good thing”; that the elder President Bush’s 50% cut in that stockpile and its associated delivery systems was “a good thing”; that cutting the US nuclear deterrent will make America and the world more secure!

It is on that basis that they demand that America’s nuke deterrent be cut further and eventually scrapped altogether, and it is on that claim – which leftists (including the forementioned RINOs) have elevated to a religious dogma – that all disarmament/arms control treaties and policies are based.

Leftists claim that the US “needs” to cut its weapon arsenals – nuclear and conventional – because it would supposedly make America more secure.

Even some non-RINO Republicans, such as House Strategic Forces Subcommittee Mike Rogers (R-AL), have accepted this faulty logic and this utterly false claim and say they’re OK with deep cuts to America’s nuclear deterrent – as long as it’s done by treaty or by an Act of Congress. 13 Republicans, including Johnny Isakson, voted for New START, and Saxby Chambliss said in December 2010 that he “wanted to vote for it”.

But they’re dead wrong. Cutting America’s arsenals of weapons – nuclear, conventional, or otherwise – has never made and will never make America more secure. Read on, and I’ll show you why, in simple terms and with simple examples.

Firstly, history proves that disarmament proponents are dead wrong. No nation that disarmed itself – whether uni-, bi-, or multilaterally – became more secure as a result. On the contrary, disarmament and arms control have always made the nations practicing such suicidal policies LESS SECURE.

A classic example is the West during the 1920s and 1930s – Western nations (other than Germany) disarmed themselves, signed a number of “arms control treaties” and honored them, but Germany (from 1933 onwards) and Japan did not and armed themselves to the teeth. Peaceful Western nations (the US, Britain, France) refused to arm themselves even after 1933, after Germany’s and Japan’s aggressive designs were obvious to anyone with half a brain – and as a result, their militaries were too weak and too obsolete to stop German and Japan aggression.

Indeed, after WW2, George F. Kennan, the author of the Containment Doctrine, pointed these facts out after WW2 and strongly condemned the “disarmament will make us safer” fantasy as a distraction that unnecessarily absorbed the West’s attention at a time when Western countries should’ve been rearming and modernizing their militaries. Kennan was likewise highly critical of the calls for disarmament made aftwr WW2; he knew they were lunacies.

Had George F. Kennan been alive today, he would’ve likewise strongly condemned the Arms Control Association, Ploughshares, Global Zero, the “Project on Government Oversight”, and the “Council for a Livable World” and the treasonous unilateral disarmament policies these treasonous, subversive organizations advocate.

George Kennan is best known as the author of the Containment Doctrine, but he would have been the first to admit that the doctrine was based primarily on the power of America’s nuclear deterrent (the US actually had a nuclear monopoly until 1949) and on a global network of military bases surrounding the Soviet Union. In other words, on STRENGTH, not weakness. Because it is STRENGTH that deters aggressors. Weakness only invites aggression. This is another truth that has ALWAYS been proven correct throughout ALL of human history.

The facts are really simple: the fewer nuclear weapons you have, the weaker and more liable to aggression you are, and the fewer enemy targets you can hold at risk (and strike if need be), thus reducing the enemy’s risks should he commit aggression. Also, a smaller nuclear arsenal is less survivable and more liable to an enemy’s disarming first strike.

By making the utterly farcical claim that cutting America’s nuclear deterrent will make America safer, the Left has turned the “peace through strength” method on its head – they essentially claim that weakness makes one secure and the weaker America is, the safer she is!

Of course, common sense alone tells us that this is utter garbage. The actual national security record of “arms control” (read: disarmament) treaties in recent decades has been even more dismal.

Although President Obama has announced his intention to rid the world of nuclear weapons, and is disarming the US unilaterally, NO ONE – no other country – is following America’s lead. Obama’s claim that America must “lead by example” has been exposed as an utter farce. Even Britain and France are (understandably) unwilling to disarm themselves unilaterally or in concert with the US while Russia, China, and others retain their nuclear arsenals.

Meanwhile, Russia, China, North Korea, Pakistan, and India all utterly refuse to cut their nuclear arsenals by even one warhead or delivery system and, in fact, are EXPANDING their nuclear arsenals – North Korea even publicly announced its intention to do so a few months ago.

Russia has, since 2010, been steadily expanding its nuclear arsenal, and plans to continue doing so, as it is allowed to do so by New START. China now has at least 1,800, and up to 3,000, nuclear warheads (per General Viktor Yesin and Professor Philip Karber, respectively),  enough fissile material for 3,600, and over 3,000 miles of tunnels in which to hide these warheads and their delivery systems. And of course, Iran is racing towards nuclear weapon status.

This, BTW, utterly refutes the Left’s promises that if America were just nice enough to cut its nuclear arsenal, other countries would follow suit, and Iran would stop pursuing nuclear weapons.

But it isn’t just America’s enemies who are refusing to disarm and growing their arsenals. Many of America’s allies are capable of going nuclear in several months, and willing to do so if the US continues to cut its nuclear umbrella. They know they can’t afford to bet their security and their very existence on America breaking free of its “nuclear disarmament will make us safer” kool-aid by 2016, especially since the US couldn’t do that in 2012 and foolishly reelected Obama.

For example, according to a recent 66.5% of South Koreans believe their country should acquire its own nuclear weapons, and 70% support the reintroduction of US tactical nukes to the peninsula. Japan could go nuclear in months and has recently opened a nuclear fuel processing plant which would allow it to produce 2,000 nuclear warheads per year, as reported by the Center for Security Policy.

Thus, America’s nuclear deterrent is crucial not just for the protection of America and its allies, but also for preventing nuclear proliferation – a problem which will become much worse if that deterrent is cut further.

Over 20 years of deeply cutting that deterrent, usually unilaterally, has done NOTHING WHATSOEVER to improve US national security. It has only undermined it. It has made America much weaker and much less secure, while undermining allies’ confidence in the deterrent, emboldening America’s enemies, and encouraging rather than nuclear proliferation. Cutting the US nuclear arsenal does NOTHING to stop proliferation – it only encourages it.

As the Center for Security Policy rightly says, it is time to stop pursuing that suicidal policy and completely reverse course. For that to happen, however, the Republican Party will have to win back the White House and the Senate.

Russia builds up its missile defenses, criticizes the US for doing the same

For a long time, Russia has strongly opposed the deployment of any US missile defense systems in Europe, claiming that such deployment would undermine its nuclear deterrent, give the US a first strike advantage, and spark an arms race. Western disarmament advocates have been constantly claiming the same. They and Russia’s leaders, with whom they are in complete agreement, have been lobbying the Bush and Obama administrations to cancel such deployments or, at least, sign agreements that would limit US missile defenses and thus their effectiveness.

But at the same time, Russia has been developing, deploying, and perfectioning its own missile defense systems.

Since the early 1970s, the A-35 and later A-135 nuclear-armed missile defense systems have been deployed around Moscow. These were joined in the late 1980s (in violation of the ABM treaty) by the very capable S-300 family of air- and missile defense systems, first the S-300V series and later the S-300P series, described and documented in great detail by air defense expert Carlo Kopp, founder of Air Power Australia. The S-300 (also widely exported by Russia around the world, most recently to Syria) has a range of 200 kms.

In 2007, these were then joined by the much longer-ranged S-400 “Triumf” (SA-21) system, first deployed around Moscow and then in other locations in Russia. Both can shoot down ballistic and cruise missiles (even barrages of them) as well as aircraft. Russia recently agreed to sell the S-400 to China; other countries may receive it as well. For short-range area defense against aircraft and cruise missiles, Russia has Tor-M1 and Pantsir-S1 systems (exported around the world).

Russia is now developing the new S-500 “Triumfator” system, which will have even greater range and the capability to shoot down massive barrages of ballistic and cruise missiles. The S-400 and the S-500 will greatly outperform the PATRIOT and THAAD.

Concurrently, Russia and China are developing laser-based missile defense systems. With its acquisition of S-300 and S-400 systems, procurement of many domestically-produced HQ-9 system batteries, and developments of other systems, China is likewise building a missile defense network of its own.

Such systems, if they continue to be deployed in large numbers, could undermine America’s nuclear deterrent, which the Obama administration is cutting unilaterally. In 2010, President Obama signed and the Dem-controlled Senate ratified New START, which obligates only the US (not Russia) to cut its arsenal by 1/3; between 2010 and 2013 he also unilaterally withdrew nuclear-armed cruise missiles from US submarines, while Russia has not done so and does not intend to ever do so.

But while developing and deploying BMD systems of their own, Moscow and Beijing never cease to protest America’s development of the same and to demand that the US limit or forego the development and deployment of these. Moscow’s and Beijing’s protests and demands are seconded by the American Left, particularly by Western disarmament advocates.

The Obama Administration is currently engaged in secret talks with Russia on an agreement on missile defense “cooperation”; it, like the Bush Administration, has been cravenly trying to appease Moscow on the issue and seeking Russia’s permission to deploy these systems. Some former arms control and missile defense officials, however, have condemned such outreach attempts to a hostile Russia. Former Assistant Secy. of State for Arms Control Paula DeSutter and former MDA Director LTG Henry Obering (USAF, ret.) oppose any deal that would limit America’s missile defense systems and say the US should deploy a full panoply of such systems with or without Russia’s approval.

China tests another anti-satellite missile

On Monday, China successfully tested an anti-satellite ballistic missile, thus proving it can shoot down US satellites and make the US military blind and deaf in the opening stage of any campaign. The missile was disguised as a space exploration rocket, according to the Washington Free Beacon. That newspaper was the first to report its existence (in October 2012) and its planned test (in January 2013). The test itself came just a week after China protested the DOD’s annual report on China’s military power, wherein the DOD mentioned China’s anti-sat missiles.

The missile, designated Dongning-2 and launched from the Xichang Space Launch Center – China’s main space facility, located in southern Sichuan Province –  reached the Earth’s orbit successfully, but it is not know if it hit a target. In 2007, however, China tested an SC-19 ICBM against an obsolete weather satellite, which left thousands of debris pieces still in the Earth’s orbit, posing danger to spacecraft (this debris did not reenter the atmosphere and thus didn’t burn on reentry). Also, several years ago, China blinded a US satellite with a laser, thus committing an act of war against the US.

Pentagon spokeswoman Major Cathy Wilkinson refused to comment: “We don’t have a comment on it as we don’t discuss intelligence.” China Foreign Affairs Ministry spokesman Hong Lei didn’t deny the test, but claimed that China opposes the militarization of space and advocates its peaceful use: “I am not aware of the development that you described. China has consistently advocated the peaceful use of outer space and is opposed to militarizing and conducting an arms race in outer space.”

The new anti-sat missile is but one part of China’s huge, diverse, sophisticated, and continually growing arsenal of anti-access/area-denial weapons whose purpose is to create, around the Western Pacific and China itself, a zone which US military units won’t be able to enter without suffering prohibitive casualties – a “no-go zone”.

These weapons are intended to cripple US bases and warships in the region, as well as communications and cyber networks (and the satellites on which they depend, including the GPS), in the first few hours of the conflict while keeping US warships and aircraft out with anti-ship missiles, submarines, naval mines, and air defense systems. This would mean striking at America’s current vulnerabilities – overdepence on carriers, short-range nonstealthy aircraft, cyber networks, and satellites, as well as poor anti-submarine and demining capabilities.

The idea comes from ancient Chinese general and strategist Sun Tzu, who, in his famous treatise, The Art of War, counseled strategists to attack weakness, not strength, strike where they’re unexpected, and strike boldly like a thunderbolt or like a falcon that swiftly strikes its prey.[1] China’s deceptive claims of favoring a peaceful use of space and opposing its militarization – while militarizing it with anti-sat weapons – also stem from Sun Tzu’s treatise, wherein deception and total secrecy – which have been the hallmarks of China’s military buildup – are highly advised and recommended as the norm. Sun Tzu believed that “all warfare is based on deception.”

Striking on US satellites, such as those of the GPS constellation, would have severe consequences for US civilians, not just the military. Richard Fisher, a defense analyst, commented to the WFB that:

“This is not merely a threat against some American military satellites, but a threat to a what has become a vital part of the global electronic infrastructure, affecting global commerce and financial flows, to your personal finances that contribute to personal freedom.”

China currently has around 24 ASAT missiles, according to the WFB. These could shoot down US weather, communications, intelligence, and navigational satellites (the latter being used for missile guidance and for military and civilian navigation alike). Thus, for example, American drivers could no longer rely on GPS.

X-47B drone test successful, but China tests its own UCAV

Earlier this week, the Navy celebrated a successful test of its first carrier-capable combat drone, the X-47B, a prototype for future operational Unmanned Combat Aerial Vehicles. The drone took off from the USS George H. W. Bush and landed at NAS Patuxent River. Later this week, the drone performed touch-and-go landings on the ship. Should carrier-capable drones be proven viable, they would dramatically increase a carrier wing’s combat capability while enabling it to stand off far from the shore of an enemy country.

Currently, the Navy’s longest-ranged strike aircraft is the F/A-18E/F Super Bug, with a 450 nm combat radius. The F-35C’s combat radius will be about 600 nm. That would put Navy carriers well within the range of Chinese and Iranian anti-ship missiles, including the Silkworm, the Moskit, the Yingji family, the FL family, and the Dongfeng-21D, which has a range of 3000 kms (over 1000 nmi).

One DF-21D or one Moskit would be sufficient to sink any ship. Their long range means USN surface ships would have to stay over 1000 nmi away from China’s coast, and thus, their aircraft wouldn’t come even close to that coast, let alone to targets deep inland. The drone, with a combat radius of over 1,500 nmi, will solve that problem, allowing carriers to stand off at safe distances.

It is not clear, however, why the Navy continues to spend money on developing and procuring the F/A-18 and F-35 aircraft that are already obsolete and overtaken by events.

Anti-ship cruise missiles can still be carried by aircraft, however, including China’s Flankers, J-10s, H-6s, and JH-7s, as well as China’s surface ships and submarines, thus extending their range still further. The longest-ranged of these, the H-6K bomber, has a combat radius of 2,200 kms. China also has 36 Tu-22Ms on order.

Moreover, China is not behind the US in drone technology. Last week, it revealed its first domestically-produced UCAV, which is very similar in appearance to the X-47B and the European nEUROn drone. It is not known whether the Chinese developed the technology domestically or stole it.

Richard Fisher, the IASC analyst, told the Washington Times: “This UCAV demonstrates an understanding of current concepts for proportioning and shaping to confer range and low observability, or stealth. The [Chinese military] likely is very pleased that these images of China’s UCAV appear at about the same time that the X-47B is about to commence carrier testing.”

The flights of China’s stealthy manned fighters, the J-20 and J-31, have already demonstrated that China has mastered advanced stealth technology, including shaping, which is the dominant factor in determining low observability. Fisher says the drone is likely being built by the Hongdu Aircraft Group and the Shenyang Aircraft Corp. – the J-31′s constructor.

[1] Sun Tzu, The Art of War, Chapter VI verse 27, Chapter VII verses 13 and 15.

You may remember, folks, that last year, the University of Maryland and the extremely leftist “Center for Public Integrity” commissioned a rigged poll which claimed that 66% of Americans supported cutting defense spending to the tune of $100 bn per year. Anti-defense groups such as the misnamed, Soros-funded “Project on Government Oversight”, and anti-defense writers such as Micah Zenko falsely claimed on that basis that most Americans support deep defense spending cuts, including sequestration.

There were, however, other polls saying something completely different, including one by the National Journal and one commissioned by the Foreign Policy Initiative.

Then, earlier this year, Pew conducted a poll showing that 73% of Americans oppose any cuts to defense spending (and similar percentages oppose cutting anything else).

And most recently, Gallup has released a poll showing that 36% of Americans believe the US spends the right amount of money on defense and another 26% think the US, if anything, isn’t spending enough – so in total, 62% of Americans oppose cutting defense. According to Gallup, only 35% of Americans think the US spends too much.

Moreover, the “don’t cut defense spending” view is held even more widely among the Independent and Republican electorates. 73% of Indies and 78% of Republicans share this pro-defense view, believing the US spends the right amount or an insufficient one.

Only among the Democrats does a majority think the US spends too much – and even among them, it’s barely a majority (51%). See here for details.

Gallup’s poll’s results mean that there is NO popular demand for defense cuts today, unlike the Vietnam War years and the late 1980s. All of that despite over 40 years of uncessant anti-defense leftist propaganda (particularly intense in the last 5 years). Gallup tells us that:

• “In the late 1960s and early 1970s as the United States was fighting the Vietnam War, Americans’ dominant view was that the U.S. was spending too much on defense.
• In 1981, just after Ronald Reagan took office after making concerns about U.S. military strength in light of the Iranian hostage situation and the Soviet Union’s invasion of Afghanistan a major theme of his presidential campaign, Americans shifted to the view that too little was spent on defense.
• As the Reagan administration built up military spending in the 1980s, Americans again came to believe the U.S. was spending too much in this area.
• Near the end of the Clinton administration, as the government made an effort to reduce military spending and George W. Bush’s presidential campaign questioned U.S. military strength, an increasing number of Americans said the United States was spending too little on defense.
• In the first several years after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, which included U.S. military operations in Afghanistan and Iraq, Americans most commonly said defense spending was “about right.”
• Over the last five years, Americans have alternated in their views between believing the U.S. spends too much and believing it spends the right amount on defense, including this year, when roughly equal percentages of Americans hold each view.”

But what Gallup doesn’t tell us is that, in addition to the 36% of Americans who think the level of defense spending is “about right”, another 26% think the US isn’t spending enough, meaning that 62% of Americans – almost two-thirds of the society – oppose defense cuts.

This debunks yet another myth being spread by the left. Not only is defense spending NOT bloated, not only would deep cuts to it severely weaken the military (as sequestration is already beginning to do), not only would such cuts utterly fail to meaningfully reduce the budget deficit or attract new voters to the GOP, but also they are very unpopular: the vast majority of Americans OPPOSE them. There is NO popular demand for such policy, unlike the Vietnam War years – the time of the “guns vs butter” debates – and the late 1980s.

Not only that, but in contrast to the Vietnam War years and the 1970s, the US military is now held by the majority of the public, including 54% of young Americans, in very high regard.

American ground troops have not come under air attack since 1953 – for 60 years. This is because, with the partial exception of the Vietnam War, the US has always held air superiority, thus providing air cover for its ground troops and enabling offensive air strikes on its enemies. This era is now coming quickly to an end, unless the DOD and the Congress act quickly.

There are basically two kinds of threats to US air superiority, on which the entire US military is predicated and depends and without which it cannot function: enemy air defense systems and fighters.

Efforts to address these threats are greatly hampered by the mistaken, delusional belief held by many in the Department of Defense, on Capitol Hill, and in the think-tank world that Russian and Chinese air defense systems and fighters (and other weapons) are obsolete and decisively inferior to their American counterparts and weapons intended to counter them. This fallacious belief could not be further from the truth; it is built on decades-old assumptions that ceased to be true a long time ago (if they were ever true).

Let’s review these two kinds of threats.

Air defense systems consist of surface-to-air-missile (SAM) and anti-aircraft-artillery (AAA) batteries. There are also mixed systems (such as the Tunguska (SA-19 Grison), Tor-M1, and Pantsir-S1) which consist of short-range missiles and guns. The latter are usually used to defend small areas around key assets (structures, military equipment, etc.) from missiles and bombs; the former are used to defend entire areas from air attack.

The Russians and the Chinese have now fielded and widely exported potent systems of all three classes.

Even legacy Cold War era Soviet air defense systems such as the SA-2 Guideline, SA-3 Goa, SA-4 Gopher, SA-5 Gammon, and SA-6 Gainful can, if competently operated and sufficiently upgraded with modern technology, be very deadly to nonstealthy aircraft. An example of this was the massive attrition imposed by the North Vietnamese with primitive (by today’s standards) SA-2 systems on US aircraft fleets during the Vietnam War, when the US lost 8400 aircraft, including hundreds of F-4s, F-105s, and A-4s, and 17 B-52 bombers. This despite a massive use of jammers and AGM-45 Shrike anti-radiation “SAM-killer” missiles – most of which failed to kill anything.

While US data cites SAMs as shooting down only 35% of US aircraft lost in that war and AAA being the lead cause of the losses, the fact is that Vietnamese SAM systems were indirectly responsible for these losses too – because they forced US pilots to fly at low altitudes and thus expose themselves to AAA. Had these SAMs been absent from the theater, US aircraft would’ve simply flown at high altitudes, outside AAA’s kill envelope.

By using both SAMs and AAA, in line with the Soviet air defense doctrine, North Vietnam created a dense, robust air defense systems whose components had different and complementary capabilities and kill envelopes. This presented US pilots and air campaign planners with a “damned if you do, damned if you don’t” choice. Moreover, even though the SA-2 is not a very mobile system, the Vietnamese nevertheless tried to relocate it as often as possible, even though it took several hours a time.

Soviet air defense systems also took a deadly toll on Israel in the War of Attrition (1968-1970) and the Yom Kippur war – especially the latter. The Soviets, in fact, deployed an entire division of their anti-air defense troops in Egypt in the late 1960s, equipped with the newest Soviet AD systems: the SA-3, SA-4, SA-6, and SA-8. In line with Soviet doctrine, these systems were employed in a “hide, shoot, and scoot” manner – hiding in ambush, firing at unsuspecting Israeli pilots, and then immediately fleeing. These systems were manned by experienced, well-trained Soviet personnel, and inflicted high casualties on the IAF in both wars.

Israel had much better success against Syrian-operated Soviet AD systems in 1982. The same systems were used, yet Israel trashed them. Why? It wasn’t actually the quality of Israeli aircraft, jammers, or pilots; after all, they were massacred by the Soviets and the Egyptians in 1973.

The difference was the manner in which the Syrians used their systems: in a totally static manner. The Syrians never tried to hide, shoot, and scoot, which made their batteries easy targets. And there wasn’t much to relocate, because the SA-2, SA-5, and some variants of the SA-3 are static, not mobile. Thus, Israeli intelligence had many months to pinpoint their exact locations, including those of the radars. In warfare, if you’re static and seen, you’re a dead duck. Half of the difficulty of killing you is finding you, and only 50% (or less) is actually having the physical means to take you out once you’re located.

The Iraqis made the same mistake in 1991 and 2003, employing their obsolete air defense systems in a completely static manner.

Another factor was the low technological proficiency of Syrian and Iraqi ADS crews. The old Soviet systems they used require a good technical education and high proficiency to be used effectively. Modern Russian and Chinese ADSes do not, because they’re digital and highly automated.

But even when equipped with now-obsolete Soviet legacy systems, a country can frustrate the US. Serbia did that in 1999. The Serbians trained their SAM crews well, enforced discipline and teamwork, and and relocated these systems ceaselessly. Because of this, the vast majority of them survived the war and even inflicted some embarrassing losses on the US, shooting down an F-16 and an F-117 and damaging another F-117. NATO F-16s, EA-6Bs, and Tornados spent the entire OAF campaign trying to hunt down Serbian SAM systems, and NATO expended over 740 HARM anti-SAM-system missiles – largely to no avail.

If this is what an enemy equipped with even legacy ADSes can do, how much more can a competent enemy equipped with the world’s most modern ADSes (S-300, S-400, S-500, HQ-9) do if he hides, shoots, and scoots! Russia operates the first two systems, is developing the third, and has widely exported the first – to China, Venezuela, Belarus, Slovakia, Cyprus, and now also Syria. It has offered to export it to more countries, including Turkey, Iran, and Saudi Arabia. It has  recently decided to export the S-400 to China – which also operates the S-300 and its indigenous modern ADS, the HQ-9.

All four systems have very long detection and missile ranges, high power radar and control system aperture, a high degree of digitalization and automation, and are very resistant (nigh proof) to jamming and highly mobile. They, and even the legacy late 1970s’ Soviet SA-11/17, can shoot just 5 minutes after stopping and flee just 5 minutes after shooting. They are, like the SA-6 and SA-8, designed from the start for “hide, shoot, and scoot” tactics.

This means that the US can no longer rely on a small fleet of stealthy aircraft to “punch holes” in enemy AD network and allow nonstealthy aircraft to operate. If a single enemy SAM battery is taken out, another one can quickly replace it; and besides, enemy ADSes will not be employed in a static manner standing always in the same position. They will relocate quickly – they’ll hide, shoot, and scoot.

Any airspace protected with the S-300/400/500, the HQ-9, or even upgraded mobile legacy systems like the SA-3, SA-4, SA-6, and SA-11/17, manned by competent crews employing hide-shoot-scoot tactics, is firmly closed to all nonstealthy and “economy stealth” aircraft, including the B-52, B-1, F-15, F-16, F/A-18, EA-6, EA-18, AV-8, F-35, Eurofighter Typhoon, Gripen, and the Dassault Rafale. 

The second threat to US air supremacy consists of the advanced 4+ and 5th generation fighters of Russia and China. The best known is the Flanker family (Su-27/30/33/35/J-11) of long-range fighters. These fully digital, high-speed, high-altitude, well-armed and very agile fighters is superior to all American fighters except the F-22 and the F-15, the latter barely holding parity with them.

Specs for the different models on both sides vary, and this writer has written extensively on the subject already. Suffice to say that the F-22 and F-15 can fly somewhat higher and faster (65,000 ft, Mach 2.35-2.5) and are slightly more agile (wing loadings of 375 and 358 kg/sq m, respectively), but the Flankers have better electronic attack capabilities, an IRST (which these fighters lack, although it could be installed), a better (30 mm) gun, and are almost equal in thrust/weight ratio while also carrying more and longer-ranged missiles. The Flankers are also much younger than the F-15, cheaper than the F-22, and exported widely around the world to China, Belarus, Venezuela, Vietnam, and many others. Furthermore, the Su-35 and the F-22 have supercruise capability; the F-15 does not.

Basically, the latest Flanker (the Su-35) is significantly better than the latest F-15, although still inferior to the F-22.

Russia’s response to the latter is the PAKFA 5th generation stealthy fighter, AKA the Raptorski. With thrust-vector control and supercruise capability and a powerful Irbis-E radar (which the Su-35 also has), but much better aerodynamic and kinematic capability than the Su-35 (a T/W ratio of 1.19:1, a ceiling of 65,000 ft, and a WL of 330 kg/sq m). Most importantly, the PAKFA is highly stealthy, in the -30 dBSM class, making it a Raptor peer and far superior to the F-35.

Like previous Russian fighters, it will likely be widely exported. India plans to buy hundreds; Vietnam will likely be the next customer.

China is developing two 5th generation stealthy fighters. Little is known about the smaller Shenyang J-31, but more is known about the larger Chengdu J-20. It is highly stealthy from all aspects and is larger than the F-22. It probably has a large enough fuel tank to operate unrefueled across the WestPac from Japan to Indonesia and the Philippines, and certainly has a large weapons bay. It will likely be powered by the same engines as the PAKFA – the AL-31F117 supercruise- and thrust-vectoring-capable engines (which Russia has already sold to China), enabling both aircraft to fly at supersonic speeds without resorting to fuel-gulping afterburners. No US aircraft except the F-22 has that capability.

The J-20 and the PAKFA have as much power as they weigh; fighting them in the vertical is a death sentence.

Any notion that legacy US aircraft (partially excepting the F-15) and the heavy, sluggish, “economy stealth” F-35 can defend the US and its allies against such fighters, let alone penetrate airspace defended by them and by the forementioned air defense systems, is quite absurd prima facie, based on an overwhelming amount of evidence. US legacy aircraft are now hopelessly obsolete, impotent, irrelevant, and useless. The F-35 is also obsolete and useless – already now, before it has entered service.

The emergence of the forementioned air defense systems and fighters has imposed an obsolescence on legacy US aircraft and the “economy stealth” F-35 in the same manner as that in which the battleship HMS Dreadnought, launched in 1906, imposed on all previous battleships.

The only Western (not just American, but WESTERN) aircraft which can penetrate airspace defended by such systems are the B-2 bomber and the F-22 fighter, of which the US has only 20 and 183, respectively. This is nowhere close to enough to defeat anyone except the smallest and most primitive enemy.

The only Western fighter that can defeat all forementioned Russian and Chinese fighters is the F-22 Raptor, or to be more precise, evolved and enhanced variants of this aircraft.

The F-15, Rafale, Typhoon, and Gripen can (if sufficiently upgraded) compete with the Flanker family but not with the PAKFA, J-20, or J-31.

The Super Bug is totally outclassed even by the oldest Flanker variants and the J-10 Sinocanard, as well as the legacy MiG-29.

The F-35 will be similarly so outclassed… assuming, of course, that this utterly failed project even progresses to any kind of large-scale production.

All other legacy Western aircraft and air defense systems will be outclassed and outperformed in like manner, and will be even more ineffective against the PAKFA, J-20, and J-31 than they are against the Flankers and the J-10.

Bottom line: America’s air supremacy monopoly is coming quickly to an end, unless the DOD and the Congress act quickly to reverse this trend.

Why do they (and a large part of the British electorate) want Britain to leave the EU? Because of their own utter ignorance and fantasies about how supposedly well-off Britain would be if she were to just leave the EU. Some Eurosceptic Conservatives probably don’t really believe in such fantasies but are deadly afraid of the UK Independence Party (UKIP), which is siphoning voters away from the Conservative Party.

But both assumptions are wrong. Britain would, in fact, be much worse off if she left the EU, and promising to do so will not bring many UKIP voters back into the fold.

Norway and Switzerland: halfway in the EU but with no voice in it

British Eurosceptics love to point to Norway and Switzerland when conjuring up fantasies of how Britain would supposedly be better off if she just left the EU and have nothing but a free trade agreement with it… just like Norway and Switzerland.

The problem is that 1) Britain would be much worse off, and 2) Norway and Switzerland are far more tightly integrated with the EU than British Eurosceptics admit – but without having any voice in it.

Norway is a part of the Schengen passport-free travel zone and a part of the European Economic Area. It has almost unfettered access into the EU’s Single Market (AKA Common Market). But this “half-membership” comes at a heavy price: Norway has to accept about 90% of the laws and regulations adopted by the EU – virtually all of them except those pertaining to agriculture, fisheries, and some justice and immigration affairs. But it has to accept ALL other EU laws and regulations – including the social and employment policies so hated in Britain, including the 48 work week.

Basically, if an EU law/regulation is not about agriculture, fisheries, justice, or immigration, Norway has to obey it – without having any voice whatsoever in its shaping.

Moreover,  Norway doesn’t even have unfettered access to the EU’s Single Marker (hence I used the word “almost”). Since it’s not a member, Norwegian businesses shipping goods into or out of the EU have to comply all the customs and VAT forms that non-European countries have to. For big businesses, this isn’t much of a problem. For small and mid-sized businesses, it’s a nightmare. To cope with that, many Norwegian businesses set up subsidiaries in an EU member state that complete these forms for them and thus provide them with access to the EU’s Single Market.

But this is costly – Norwegian businesses would be better off if they didn’t have to set up such subsidiaries at all… but that would be the case only if Norway fully joined the EU.

Moreover, Norwegian officials, lobbyists, and businesses are not even informed about what’s going on in European institutions and what are their discussions and plans – unless colleagues from an EU member state (usually Britain or a Scandinavian state) tell them. And Norway has no way to stop any EU laws/regulations it doesn’t like. To do that, it relies on… Britain, an EU member state, i.e. one with a seat at the table.

And Norway does have to contribute to the EU budget – it is, in fact, its 10th largest contributor, and pays more into the EU budget (per capita) than Britain does. But again, unlike Britain, it doesn’t have any say in how much money is required by the EU or what it’s spent on, because it doesn’t have a seat at the table. Britain does, being an EU member.

In fact, at the last EU summit, Britain was able to effect something that has never been done before in EU history (or in Washington, DC, pre-sequestration): cutting spending. It has also preserved its rebate. But that was possible only because Britain, being an EU member, has a seat at the table and a veto.

But were Britain to withdrew, she would STILL have to contribute to the EU’s budget – proportionally to its economy, that would be at least 2 bn EUR per year – but without having ANY say in how much it has to pay or what the money will be spent on.

In short, Britain would STILL have to comply with almost ALL regulations issued by the EU – but without any influence on them – and pay at least 2 bn euros per year for the privilege – again, without any say about it.

Is this what the British people really want?

Some will say “OK, maybe Norway’s arrangement is not what we should seek. Let’s go the Swiss way, then.”

But Switzerland is also closely integrated with the EU – far closer than British Eurosceptics acknowledge.

Switzerland joined the European customs’ union in 1972, abolishing its tariff and subsidy barriers. It has also joined the Schengen zone. It has full access to the EU’s Single Market in goods, but this comes at a price: accepting, as in Norway’s case, all EU laws and regulations pertinent to that market. And it only has partial access to the Single Market in services and capital, because it hasn’t yet accepted all of the EU’s relevant laws and regulations on the matter. It will have full access only once it accepts these in full – and Swiss companies are now lobbying the Swiss government to do so. If they fail, they won’t have access to the world’s largest single market, where they could offer their services (especially financial services in the post-crash EU).

But obtaining full access will mean adopting all of the EU’s relevant laws and regs. No ifs, buts, or ands.

Overall, Switzerland already has to comply with 80% of the laws and regulations the EU issues and is a member of its customs union as well as the Schengen zone. Had it not done so, it would’ve stagnated economically, being surrounded on all sides by the EU.

But, like Norway, Switzerland has no say in the matter. It has no influence whatsoever on the laws/regulations it must comply with. To fight the more onerous ones, it relies on an informal ally who also has a large financial sector: Britain.

But if Britain withdrew from the EU, Switzerland would lose its only ally in it, and the regulations would only get more onerous – with both Britain and Helvetia being forced to comply but with no say in the matter.

More information can be found here and here.

Now, why do Norway and Switzerland have to comply with all these regs, and why would Britain have to do the same were she to withdraw from the EU but still want access to the Single Market?

Because for a Single Market to exist, there must be a single set of regulations – not 27 different national ones – and someone to enforce these common rules. And Britain would slump into a deep recession if she were not to retain access to the Single Market.

So Norway and Switzerland have to comply with all the relevant EU regulations as a price of having access to the Single Market.

In fact, were Britain to withdraw from the EU, she would then be in the position of a begging supplicant, asking to be granted access to it. You can bet your life that EU members would demand a high price for such a concession. Eurosceptics’ idea that Britain’s European partners would give Britain something for nothing is a childish fantasy.

In short, withdrawal from the EU would have very few benefits to Britain. Its budgetary contributions would be reduced slightly, and it would no longer be bound by the EU’s common agricultural and fisheries policy. But it would still be bound by ALL other EU policies, laws, and regulations – those on the books now, and any that Brussels issues in the future. And it would have to pay at least 2 bn EUR per year for the privilege.

I’m absolutely confident that British MPs and most British voters would quickly dump notions of withdrawing from the European Union as soon as they heard of these facts.

Now, what about UKIP?

Some scared Tories believe that their party must support withdrawal from the EU to bring UKIP voters back into the Conservative fold.

Leaving aside the fact that it would be suicidal and unpatriotic to ruin the British economy just to appease some voters, the fact is, offering such policy would utterly fail. UKIP’s pledge to withdraw Britain from the EU if it wins power is not what draws most of its supporters to the party.

As extensive polling by Conservative peer Lord Ashcroft has shown, the vast majority of UKIP voters – all but the diehard Eurosceptics – don’t care deeply about Britain’s relationship with the EU and support UKIP for totally different, and closely related, reasons.

Firstly, they are worried about issues like immigration, the budget deficit, the debt, unemployment, sluggish economic growth, education, and political correctness. And UKIP, with its single unifying theory of what is wrong and how to put it right, offers an intellectually lazy, but simple and attractive solution that appeals to many people (even though it is dead wrong).

Secondly, many Britons believe that on the above issues, the three biggest parties don’t listen to ordinary people, while UKIP does.

Thirdly, most UKIP voters know, and would openly admit, that UKIP doesn’t stand a chance of ever winning power and that they vote for it simply as a protest. They furthermore say that UKIP, not being electable, can afford to say what it really thinks and not be called on it. And they like that.

This is certainly an appealing trait. And since UKIP has never been in power, it’s the last party on the right side of the British political spectrum that nobody can feel disappointed by. But this is also a tacit acknowledgment that UKIP can never, ever win power and deliver on its promises. Its single unifying theory and its prescriptions can never be verified. UKIP cannot deliver on its promises. Yet, for many Britons, that is not a weakness or a flaw: it’s a part of UKIP’s appeal.

In that sense, UKIP is like the other xenophobic, Eurosceptic British party, the British National Party, and like France’s National Front and far left parties. They will never win power and deliver on their promises. But that also means they can say whatever they want and never have to answer for it.

In any case, UKIP’s appeal has little, if anything, to do with the EU. Conservatives should not delude themselves otherwise. Remedies based on the wrong diagnosis will do far more harm than good.

A satellite photo, with markings, of China’s underground submarine base at Jianggezhuang near Qingdao in northeastern China. The base is super-hardened against air and missile attacks. While this 2000s photo depicts only a Han and a Xia class submarine present outside the base, more submarines were based inside. This is the base from which Chinese SSBNs going on deterrence patrols against the US probably operate. Photo source: DigitalGlobe/”China’s Nuclear Forces,” Imaging Notes, Winter 2006, p. 25.

DOD releases report on China’s military power

On Tuesday, May 7th, the DOD released its annual report on China’s military power and defense policies. The report is much longer and more detailed than last year’s, which was dramatically shortened to just 10 unclassified pages, ostensibly to cut costs while costing more to prepare than 2011′s much longer report.

This year’s version, at 92 pages, gives a great amount of information – both verbal and graphic – on China’s military power, the dispersal of its troops and bases, and the ranges of its missiles. However, while analysts consider it a significant improvement over last year’s document, this year’s still significantly understates China’s military power.

For example, it claims that China’s air force still flies, for the most part, obsolete 2nd- and 3rd-generation fighters and that modern fighters are still a minority in its fleet. This is factually incorrect: the J-7 and J-8 fighters which the report refers to, at 569 aircraft, are now less numerous than the PLAAF’s modern fighters, which number 587 (J-10s, J-11s, Su-27s, Su-30MKKs, JH-7s). Moreover, modern aircraft’s share of the PLAAF’s fleet will only grow overtime: 70 additional J-11s as well as 24 Su-35s are on order and an unknown number (but possibly hundreds) of 5th generation stealthy J-20 and J-31 fighters are poised to join the fleet.

Moreover, the J-7 and J-8, despite their age, are actually superior to the costly F-35 now under development: they can fly much higher and faster and are more agile. The J-7 has a max altitude of over 57,000 feet and a top speed of Mach 2; and its light weight and low wingloading ratio make it a superior dogfighter to the F-35. The J-7 can defeat an F-35 easily by simply refusing to be a straight, level target. In Vietnam, MiG-21s (on which the J-7 is based) routinely defeated American F-4 fighters.

The report also significantly understates China’s nuclear arsenal and submarine fleet. It claims that only 3 modern Jin class SSBNs (“boomers”) are in service, even though there were that many as early as 2007/2008; China actually has 5 in service with a sixth one under construction. This is intended to replace the old Xia class SSBN, still in service, which, together with the Jins, gives China a 6-boat SSBN fleet and thus already a continous at-sea nuclear deterrent – which the report falsely claims China doesn’t yet have.

Nonetheless, the report does warn of a large ongoing expansion of China’s sub fleet – it plans to deploy a total of 8 Jins and 6 Shangs (other sources say 6-8) and is developing a new SSBN (Type 096) and attack submarine (Type 095, Tang class). Two Tangs have already been deployed, and these are much quieter than China’s previous, noisier submarine classes.

This makes mockery of Adm. Jonathan Greenert’s recent claim that “we own the undersea domain” and that “the Chinese are not there yet”, especially in light of the fact that the USN can only supply 10 attack submarines to combatant commanders when its own minimum need is 16, and the fact that the USN’s anti-sub-warfare skills and equipment have atrophied.

The report claims that the range of the JL-2 SLBM is only 7,200 kms and can reach only parts of Alaska. But the JL-2 actually has a range of 8,000 kms according to multiple Chinese and Western sources (including SinoDefence and GlobalSecurity), and the report’s map deceptively shows the JL-2′s range as if it were launched from Chinese mainland. (p. 81)

But the JL-2 is a submarine-launched missile, meaning China can launch it from anywhere on Earth. Even with a 7,200 km range, the JL-2 could reach Los Angeles if launched from 160 degrees east, well west of Hawaii. With an 8,000 km range, it can reach LA from a position just east of 150E, i.e. just east of Japan.

Similarly, the report wrongly claims that the DF-21 land attack and anti-ship ballistic missile’s range is only 2000 kms. In fact, the DF-21A, the longest-ranged land attack variant, has a range of 2,700 kms, and the DF-21D ASBM, 3,000 kms – stretching out almost to the Second Island Chain, including Taiwan. This means any surfance ship within 3,000 kms of China’s coast can be sunk.

The report admits, for the first time, that China is testing a DF-41 multiple-warhead ICBM, but does not include it on its missile range map nor acknowledge that the DF-41 may very well already be deployed (it was first photographed in 2007). It also claims the DH-10 land-attack cruise missile has only a 2,000 km range; in reality, it’s 4,000 kms, more than enough to reach Guam.

Last but not least, Richard Fisher, a Chinese affairs expert with the International Assessment and Strategy Center, has criticized the report for failing into account China’s supply of transporter-erector-launchers for North Korean KN-08 ICBMs.

General Dempsey bows to the Muslim Brotherhood

An Army Lieutenant Colonel currently lecturing at the Joint Forces Staff College has been denied promotion and faces possible dismissal following an intervention by Gen. Martin Dempsey.

Dempsey, as chairman of the Joint Chiefs, ordered an investigation after Muslim Brotherhood affiliated organizations filed a complaint with the DOD urging LTCOL Matthew Dooley, a combat veteran and West Point graduate, to be punished after LTCOL Dooley was found to teach his students about the dangers of radical Islam. The National Defense University, which oversees the college, has not found any fault with Dooley’s teachings.

Dooley, a West Point graduate, has 6 combat deployments and 18 years of military service under his belt. An Army promotion board unanimously recommended him for promotion to battalion command, praising his career and accomplishments. However, in 2011, a student of Dooley’s complained about his supposedly offensive teachings to the DOD, and General Dempsey was informed. Dempsey, a political general, personally ordered that Dooley be denied promotion and that an investigation aimed at throwing him out of the military be initiated. The investigation has reached its predetermined conclusions, claiming that he was a “poor officer” and resulting in his firing.

The Washington Times has narrated the story in more detail here.

France makes defense cuts, retains ambitions

The French government announced some painful cuts to the military last week, as it looks to defense spending to cut France’s massive budget deficit.

While the cuts will not be as deep as in other countries – defense spending will be frozen in nominal terms (and cut slightly in inflation-adjusted euros) – there will be a cut of 24,000 personnel, mostly from the defense ministry’s administrative staff, but also a reduction of the number of troops deployable abroad from 30,000 to 15,000-20,000. The Navy will have only 15 “first-rang frigates” rather than 17, and the fleet of fighters for the Air Force and Navy combined will be cut sharply, from 300 to 225. France will also not resume production of fissile material for nuclear weapons.

Moreover, the government has delayed the delivery of new weapon systems, which, in the long term, will cost more than if they were to be delivered sooner. The decisions, outlined in the new White Paper on National Defense, will form the basis of the Law on Military Procurement for 2014-2019 and for the defense budgets for those years.

The defense cuts have been criticized from both the Right and the Left. Far-left politician Jean-Luc Melenchon has denounced them as weakening the stature of France; far-right leader Marine Le Pen has called for defense spending to be ring-fenced and kept permanent at 2% of GDP. Mainstream right-wing UMP (neo-Gaullist) party politicians have also expressed worries. So have retired generals, who estimate that with just 15-20K troops deployable abroad France will have little capacity to intervene abroad in defense of its national interests and be only a minor contributor to coalition operations alongside the US, Britain, or other allies.

Under the plans, announced recently in detail by Defense Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian at the Ecole Militaire in Paris, the French military will avoid the deep cuts in programs imposed on other Western militaries. However, it is already a small military by American standards. Furthermore, it is estimated that 20,000 deployable troops won’t be enough to make a significant contribution to allied operations. The same can be said of its plan to cut the combined Air Force – Navy fighter fleet to just 225 aircraft, down from 300 today.

Moreover, there is a basic criticism of the White Paper: that it is being made to fit the budget, rather than the other way around, i.e. some critics claim that the government is putting the cart before the horse by making the strategy fit the budget. This is the same mistake that the governments of the US, Britain, Canada, Australia, Germany, Italy, and other countries have made, which has made them less secure.

The Obama administration is preparing to announce a new round of deep, unilateral  cuts in America’s nuclear arsenal, writes Bill Gertz of the Washington Times.

Writing in his weekly Inside the Ring column, Gertz states it will happen “soon” and that a Pentagon “review”, written precisely to “justify” these new, deep, unilateral cuts, will be used for that purpose. The cuts, as many outlets have already announced, may bring the arsenal to as few as 1,000 (or fewer) warheads. Gertz states this “review” was completed, and the decision to cut was made, months ago, but have been withheld from the public so far to prevent Obama from losing the 2012 presidential election.

Obama, having been reelected by the American electorate in 2012, will not to have to face voters ever again.

The result will be not just a deep, unilateral cut in America’s nuclear deterrent, but also a possible cancellation of warhead modernization programs, a replacement for the B-52′s aging cruise missiles (the B-52 has such a huge radar signature it cannot safely enter enemy airspace itself), the new “boomer” (ballistic missile submarine) class, and a plutonium pit producing facility in New Mexico, all of which were promised by Obama in 2010 during the New START ratification debate and in the New START ratification resolution. Construction of the said facility is also mandated by the FY2013 NDAA.

(NOTE: In 2010, this writer warned not to believe or accept President Obama’s modernization promises on the grounds that his word cut not be trusted under any circumstances; however, this writer’s warnings were roundly ignored and 13 Republicans foolishly voted for the treaty. Some of these Republicans are now the same individuals complaining about Obama’s failure to fulfill his promises, even though Obama never intended to keep those promises.)

Meanwhile, the Russian Ministry of Defense has announced it will continue growing its nuclear arsenal and modernizing it substantially, including the development of a new road-mobile ICBM (the Yars-M, tested successfully last year) and a rail-based ICBM (thus further adding to Russia’s arsenal of ICBMs). It also plans to develop a heavy ICBM (the “Son of Satan”) and an ICBM called the “Avangard”, as well as a “pseudo-ICBM” with a range of 6,000 kms, to counter China’s large nuclear arsenal of 3,000 warheads.

The US, on the other hand, does not have any road- or rail-mobile ICBMs and has no plans to develop any, although the USAF is studying such options.

Rail-mobile ICBMs were prohibited by the first and second START treaty, but are not forbidden by the one-sided New START treaty negotiated by the Obama State Department and signed by Obama in April 2010. Russia is now taking advantage of this huge loophole, as well as of the loophole (also found in previous START treaties) that does not count its 171 Tu-22M strategic bombers as such under these treaties. It’s also taking advantage of New START’s extremely weak verification regime, which gives it ample opportunity for cheating.

Concurrently, Russia is modernizing the other legs of its nuclear triad: its next generation bomber is scheduled to enter service in 2020 (as are the forementioned ICBMs), and the first of its new class of ballistic missile submarines, the Yuri Dolgoruki of the Borei class, joined the Russian Navy’s fleet last year.

Historically, Russia, and before it, the Soviet Union, has never complied with any arms control treaty it has signed.

Critics have charged that by cutting the US nuclear arsenal deeply and unilaterally below New START levels, Obama is inviting Russian nuclear blackmail of the US and dramatically undermining US national security, while needlessly dismantling the only weapon type that has never failed for its entire 67-year-long existence.

 Dempsey appeases China

During his visit to China last week, Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Martin Dempsey, an Obama appointee, asked China for help in combating cyber attacks.

Despite the well-documented fact that many, if not most cyberattacks on the US originate from China and have been perpetrated by the PLA and other Chinese government entities, Dempsey put his faith in China’s benevolence, asking its leaders for help and proposing Sino-American “cooperation” on the matter.

Such “cooperation” would mean that Chinese government and military personnel would gain intimate access to US computer networks and thus be able to find out how to navigate – or disable – them and how to steal more information from the US government.

Yet, Gen. Dempsey called a Sino-American “working group” recently established “to combat cyber attacks” “both timely and appropriate”, and claimed that cyber attacks do as much damage to the Chinese as to the US economy.

Similarly, last year, Hillary Clinton claimed that both the US and China have been “victims of cyber attacks”, suggesting moral equivalence moral equivalence between the two countries.

Heritage Foundation analyst David Inserra commented recently:

“By turning a blind eye to China’s obvious bad cyber behavior, Dempsey and others are encouraging China to keep hacking, since there will obviously be no consequences from Washington. Even worse, by recommending more cooperation with China on this issue, the Obama Administration is actually rewarding the Chinese for their hacking by allowing them to become more familiar with our cyber systems and cybersecurity responses—and thus better prepared to spy on or disrupt them.(…)

The U.S. should change its approach to China on cybersecurity. China is not a victim on this issue; it is the perpetrator, and the U.S. should take actions that make its hacking more costly and painful—for instance, by calling out Beijing for its bad actions and ceasing to cooperate. The U.S. should also pursue legal and economic actions against Chinese companies that trade in stolen U.S. intellectual property. On top of that, the U.S. should break down Chinese censorship of the Internet and support the free flow of information within China.

Failing to change the U.S. policy toward China’s cyber crimes will only encourage more crime and attacks. It’s time to stand up to China and defend American interests.”

Ray Mabus: cutting warships, playing with boats

Navy Secretary Ray Mabus still insists on decommissioning 7 of the Navy’s newest cruisers while building 55 littoral combat ships that lack appropriate combat power, survivability, and are very vulnerable to cyber attacks.

The Navy’s released FY2014 budget proposal still insists on decommissioning the cruisers .

At the same time, Mabus insists on continuing the Littoral Combat Ship program of building 55 poorly-armed, easy-to-sink boats armed with nothing more than a gun and a few short-range missiles and costing $440 mn each, without counting the cost of their combat modules.

Mabus has hailed the LCS program as “one of our very best shipbuilding programs”, even though it is grossly overbudget and behind schedule and produces poorly-armed boats that cannot defend themselves. Think-tanks such as the CNAS and the Heritage Foundation have called for truncating LCS production.

The Navy’s own shipbuilding plans and girues also show that the service will not reach even its meagre goal – set last December – of reaching 306 ships, let alone the 313 ships the Navy said it needed as recently as December 2011. Indeed, the service’s plans show its ship fleet – especially the fleets of cruisers, destroyers, and submarines – shrinking deeply during the next 2 decades. During and after that period, the Navy’s total ship number will be significantly inflated by LCSes.

Critics, such as House Seapower and Projection Forces Subcommittee Chairman Randy Forbes (R-VA-04), have charged that the Navy is woefully underinvesting in its ship fleet and leaving it too small for the missions of today, let alone those of the future. They claim that, as the US “pivots” to the Western Pacific and continues to attempt to deter Iran in the Gulf, a large ship fleet is needed to keep the peace in both theaters, which are predominantly maritime.

Currently, the Navy is able to meet only 59% of Combatant Commanders’ requests for ships and only 61% of their requests for submarines.

Partial remedies have been suggested by think tanks such as the CNAS and Brookings. The former proposes establishing “red teams” to evaluate what it calls the “unconstrained” requirements of COCOMs, while Brookings proposes to station more warships abroad to make more available where they’re needed. It points out that one warship forward-deployed abroad (e.g. in Japan) is worth 4 warships based in the US.

Congressman Forbes proposes to increase the annual shipbuilding budget from $15 bn to $23 bn per year. That budget has been stagnant at $15 bn per year for several years.

It is falsely claimed that:

1)      Nuclear weapons are irrelevant in the 21^st century security environment. They are relics of the Cold War.

2)      A “world without nuclear weapons” is both realistically attainable and desirable.

3)      The nuclear triad is too expensive and not worth the cost.

4)      The entire nuclear arsenal is too expensive and siphons money away from other defense programs.

5)      Conventional weapons, missile defense systems, and cyberweapons can replace nuclear weapons in a very wide range of missions and scenarios and against the vast majority of targets.

6)      The fewer nuclear weapons the US has, the better; cutting America’s nuclear deterrent makes America safer.

Let’s deal with these myths one after another.

Myth #1: Nuclear weapons are irrelevant in the 21^st century security environment. They are relics of the Cold War.

The facts: Nuclear weapons are HIGHLY RELEVANT in the 21^st century security environment. They protect America and all of its allies against the following three, potentially catastrophic, security threats: a nuclear/chemical/biological attack, a large-scale conventional attack, and nuclear proliferation.

megoizzy (CC)

Russia has 2,800 strategic nuclear warheads (including 1,550 deployed) and up to 4,000 tactical warheads – and the means to deliver all 6,800 if need be. Its 434 ICBMs can collectively deliver 1,684 warheads to the CONUS; its 14 ballistic missile submarines can deliver over 2,200 warheads to the CONUS (while sitting in their ports); and each of its 251 strategic bombers can carry up to 7 warheads (1 freefall bomb and 6 nuclear-tipped cruise missiles). Its Tu-95 bomber fleet alone can deliver over 700 warheads to the middle of America.

China has at least 1,800, and up to 3,000, nuclear warheads, and the means to deliver 1,274 of them. Among these are almost 70 ICBMs, 120-140 MRBMs, over 1,600 SRBMs, dozens of land-attack cruise missiles, six ballistic missile submarines, and 440 nuclear-capable aircraft. While the vast majority of its SRBMs and cruise missiles are reportedly conventionally-armed at present, they could be armed with nuclear weapons anytime, which is called “breakout capability.”

Then there’s North Korea with its nuclear arsenal (which it has announced it will grow) and ICBMs capable of reaching the US, and Iran, which is coming closer to achieving nuclear weapon status everyday.

Besides deterring nuclear attack, nuclear weapons also protect America’s treaty allies against a large-scale conventional attack – ensuring that it has never happened so far.

Myth #2: A “world without nuclear weapons” is both realistically attainable and desirable. 

The facts: A world without nuclear weapons (“Global Zero”) is neither achievable nor desirable. Not achievable, because no other country in the world is following America’s disarmament “example” (and foreign countries don’t care about America’s “examples”; they care only about their self-interest). No other country is following the US on the road to “Global Zero”. Accordingly, there will NEVER be a world without nuclear weapons.

Russia has recently declared it will not cut its nuclear arsenal nor enter into any negotiations to that end. It is actually building UP its arsenal (as allowed to do so by the New START) and modernizing it. China, which has up to 3,000 nuclear warheads, is also rapidly building up and modernizing its arsenal, and refusing to even disclose its size or enter into any talks – let alone formal treaty negotiations – about it. Likewise, India and Pakistan refuse to join the Nonproliferation Treaty, disclose the size of their arsenals, or enter into any talks – let alone arms control treaties – pertaining to these arsenals. Ditto North Korea, which has recently announced it will NEVER give up its nuclear arsenal and that, if anything, it will INCREASE its size and restart the Yongboyng reactor to harvest plutonium from spent fuel rods.

So NO nuclear power wants to join the West in its suicidal nuclear disarmament quest. None whatsoever. Not Russia, not China, not India and Pakistan, not North Korea. And, of course, Iran is racing towards nuclear power status.

Even Bruce Blair, a supporter of America’s nuclear disarmament, testified recently before the House Armed Services Committee on March 19^th that even if America cut its nuclear arsenal deeply, e.g. along the lines of what his organization (Global Zero) proposes, NOBODY would reciprocate. (1:04:41)

Which is true – Russia, China, North Korea, India, Pakistan, etc., are all refusing to even cut, let alone eliminate, their nuclear arsenals. Obama has NO followers on the road to his totally unrealistic goal of “global zero”. There will never be a “global zero.”

Nuclear weaponry is a genie that cannot be put back into the bottle. It cannot be “un-invented” or banished from the face of the Earth, contrary to the unrealistic dreams of several US Presidents, including Ronald Reagan (this shows that, alas, Reagan wasn’t perfect and had some flaws).

Nor would a “nuclear-free world” be safer and more peaceful than it is now, contrary to Obama’s false claims that the US should “seek the peace and security of a world without nuclear weapons.” On the contrary, it would be less peaceful and secure.

Humanity lived through “Global Zero” – in a world without nukes – for almost its entire history from its dawn to 1945. During that time, there were numerous and horribly destructive wars between the great powers of the time, each one leading to huge casualties among combatants and civilians and to great destruction. Examples included the Peloponesian war, Rome’s wars of conquest, the Hundred Years War, the Wars of Religion, the Thirty Years War, the Seven Years’ War, the Napoleonic Wars, and of course, the two World Wars. Not to mention the numerous bloody civil wars such as those in the US (1861-1865) and Russia (1918-1923).

5 million people, including 1 million Frenchmen, died in the Napoleonic Wars. Proportionally to the populations of today, that would be 50 million Europeans, including 10 million Frenchmen. French casualties in these wars were 14% higher than in WW1. In that war alone, about 10 million people died; in World War 2, over 60 million, and its perpetrators attempted the extermination of entire nations (peoples) and even races. The sheer barbarity and murder witnessed during that war is unmatched by any conflict before or after that war.

Since 1945, however – the advent of nuclear weapons – there has been NO war between the great powers. And it is mostly, if not entirely, because of nuclear weapons, which have moderated their behavior and forced them to accept coexistence with each other even if they have diametrically opposed ideologies. Nuclear weapons have taught them that even the most difficult compromise is better than a nuclear exchange.

Nuclear weapons have not ended war completely – no invention will ever do that – but they have eliminated great power wars. All wars since 1945 have been either between smaller, non-world-power countries (e.g. conflicts between Israel and its Arab neighbors), or between a world power and a weaker country (e.g. Iraq, Vietnam), or between a country and an insurgency (e.g. the US vs the Taleban).

Such conflicts have a much smaller scale, body count, and destructive power than great power wars. Since WW2, there hasn’t been a conflict even approaching the sheer barbarity and destruction of WW2, and it is mostly, if not entirely, due to nuclear weapons.

Instead of seeking their scrapping, we should all learn to love them.

Myth #3: The nuclear triad is too expensive and not worth the cost.

The facts: The nuclear triad is NOT too expensive and is well worth the cost. The ICBM leg of the nuclear triad – the cheapest, most ready, most responsive, and most dispersed leg – costs only $1.1 bn per year to maintain; the bomber leg, only $2.5 bn per year. The entire nuclear arsenal, including all the warheads, missiles, bombers, submarines, supporting facilities, and personnel costs only $32-38 bn per year to maintain, which is only 6.3% of the entire military budget ($611 bn in FY2013, pre-sequestration).

For that low cost, taxpayers get a large, diverse, survivable nuclear triad capable of surviving even a large-scale first strike and of striking anywhere in the world with any needed measure of power. A triad that gives the President huge flexibility in where, when, and how to strike; a triad that keeps the enemy guessing as to how the US would retaliate.

As Robert Kaplan says, “Don’t give your enemy too few problems to solve because if you do, he’ll solve them.”

Without the ICBM leg, the enemy would have to destroy only 2 submarine bases, 3 bomber bases, and any SSBNs that would be on patrol. WITH the ICBM leg still existing, the enemy would also have to make sure he destroys every single USAF ICBM silo; there are 450, and the USAF may have built decoy siloes.

Numbers don’t lie. Liberals do.

Without a triad, the nuclear deterrent would’ve been much less survivable than it is. This will be even MORE important as the arsenal is cut to even lower, post-New-START, levels.

A nuclear triad is the most survivable and most flexible nuclear arsenal arrangement ever invented, which is why the US, Russia, China, and Israel all have it, and why India is developing it. The Air Force is also considering the development of a rail-mobile ICBM, which could be hidden in innocently-looking, civilian-style railroad cars.

Myth #4: The entire nuclear arsenal is too expensive and siphons money away from other defense programs.

The facts: According to the Stimson Center, maintaining the US nuclear deterrent costs ca. $32–36 bn per year, including all the warheads, delivery systems, support facilities, personnel, and nuclear-related intelligence. This is a paltry 5.872% of the FY2013 military budget ($613 bn per the FY2013 NDAA). Modernizing the nuclear arsenal will, according to Stimson, cost up to $390 bn over the next decade, i.e. $39 bn per year on average. This is 6.4% of the FY2013 military budget. These are microscoping percentages.

So the US provides a large nuclear umbrella to itself and to over 30 allies at a cost of only 6% of its total military budget.

Furthermore, even if the ENTIRE nuclear arsenal were scrapped IMMEDIATELY and UNILATERALLY today, that would “save” a paltry $36 bn per year and thus fail to come even close to paying for sequestration, let alone balancing the federal budget.

No, the US nuclear arsenal is not siphoning money away from anything. As usual, it’s a scapegoat for liberals.

It is, in fact, other, more costly defense programs that are siphoning money away from nuclear deterrence and other defense priorities. For example, the development and acquisition of 2,400 short-range, understealthed, slow, sluggish F-35 strike jets will cost $400 bn. A single aircraft carrier costs $15 bn, yet is tragically vulnerable to ballistic and cruise missiles, submarines, and naval mines. Yet, the biggest cost drivers in the defense budget are personnel programs (pay, benefits, healthcare, retirement, etc.), which, unless seriously reformed, will consume the ENTIRE defense budget by no later than FY2039. That means no money for nuclear deterrence or for weapons of any kind.

And while F-35s and aircraft carriers are increasingly and prohibitively expensive, they’re also increasingly vulnerable and useless for the threat environments the US military will have to operate in. Meanwhile, the next generation bomber will be able to strike from well over the horizon – even the CONUS – and submarines have always been stealthy. USAF ICBMs sit in hardened siloes, can strike any place on the planet, and may be replaced by rail-mobile ones (see above).

Myth #5: Conventional weapons, missile defense systems, and cyberweapons can replace nuclear weapons in a very wide range of missions and scenarios and against the vast majority of targets.

The facts: Such claims are preposterous. None of these weapons have anything even close to the destructive, crippling power of atomic weapons.

Conventional weapons utterly lack such power. Even the most powerful conventional bombs – MOABs and the now-retired Daisy Cutters – have the explosive power approaching only that of the lowest-yield nuclear warheads, and MOAB is not even designed to penetrate anything.

Cyberweapons can shut down computer networks, but only temporarily, and can’t physically destroy anything. Buildings, vehicles, warships, aircraft, and humans will still exist. Cyberweapons can only complement other types of arms, but never replace them.

Nor can missile defense ever replace nuclear weapons. It has long been an article of faith among conservatives, including conservative think-tank analysts, that it can, but the truth is that it can’t. This truth will be uncomfortable for them, but my job as defense analysts is to tell people the truth, not what they want to hear.

Missile defense technology is still in its infancy. Moreover, one needs several interceptors to shoot down one missile. For example, to shoot down one Russian ICBM would take 7 ground-based interceptors of the type deployed in AK and CA. US missile defense systems (except the PATRIOT) have never been tested in massive missile barrages – the type of missile attacks the US will actually have to counter.

Furthermore, BMD systems’ ability to distinguish real warheads from decoys is yet unclear, and there are no systems available for boost-phase interception. But worst of all, BMD interceptors are far more expensive than the ballistic missiles they’re designed to intercept. A THAAD missile costs $9-10 mn; an SM-3, $10 mn; a ground-based interceptor, $70 mn. It is far cheaper to build and launch ballistic missiles than to intercept them. Furthermore, America’s enemies already have such huge inventories of BMs of all types – measured in thousands – that they are and will always be able to overwhelm American BMD systems through sheer numbers.

The best way to protect against missiles of any kind is to kill the archer, not the arrow. Only “offensive” systems – strike systems – can do that. This includes ICBMs, SLBMs, cruise missiles, bombers, and theater strike aircraft.

Myth #6: The fewer nuclear weapons the US has, the better; cutting America’s nuclear deterrent makes America safer.

The facts: These claims are also completely false. No nation in history has become more secure by disarming itself – whether uni-, bi-, or multilaterally. No nation in history has increased its security by indulging in arms reduction and disarmament – such policies have only weakened, and reduced the security of, the  nations practicing them.

Myth #6 is, in fact, an utter rejection of any principle or notion of deterrence or of peace through strength; it turns these principles upside down. Myth #6 is essentially a claim that weakness is good and leads to peace and security; that weakening one’s own military (and that’s what cutting its arsenals of weapons does – it weakens the military) makes one more secure and the world more peaceful.

Many variations of this myth have been uttered by the Left. For example, during the forementioned HASC Strategic Forces Subcommitteee hearing, its ranking member, Democrat Jim Cooper of Tennessee, an ardent enemy of nuclear weapons, claimed that the biggest cut in America’s nuclear deterrent – made by the elder President Bush in the early 1990s – was “a good thing”, that it made America and the world more secure and peaceful, and that this is supposedly shared by the “mainstream” of American opinion. Another strident leftist, John Garamendi (D-CA), claimed that “whatever we can do to cut nuclear arsenals – here, in North Korea, around the world”  is a good thing.

Their claims are blatant lies, of course. As I’ve already stated, no nation in history has become more secure by disarming itself, and America won’t be the first. President Bush’s deep unilateral cut in America’s deterrent is a textbook example of that. He cut the arsenal by almost half, withdrew US nuclear weapons from Korea and from surface warships unilaterally, terminated MX ICBM production and B-2 bomber production at just 21 aircraft, terminated the Midgetman SRBM, and terminated warhead production and testing.

Yet, no one else has reciprocated. Since then, China has dramatically increased its nuclear arsenal – to at least 1,800 and up to 3,000 warheads – while North Korea and Pakistan joined the nuclear club, India and these two countries have conducted nuclear tests, and Iran has made dramatic progress towards nuclear weapon capability. Russia has begun rebuilding and modernizing its arsenal.

So Bush’s deep nuclear cuts only weakened America’s deterrent (and confidence in it) while utterly failing to discourage others from developing or increasing their own arsenals. Two new states have joined the nuclear club, others have conducted tests, and Iran is well on its way there.

That’s because cutting America’s nuclear deterrent DOES NOTHING to prevent or even slow down nuclear proliferation or encourage others to disarm themselves. It is perceived (correctly) as a sign of American weakness and appeasement. It only emboldens America’s enemies while leading America’s allies to doubt the US umbrella. It does NOTHING, and will never do anything, to eliminate or even reduce the arsenals of other powers.

Other nuclear (and aspiring) powers don’t care about America’s “example” or observance of arms control treaties; they care only about their own military strength and see nuclear weapons as a key element of that. America has NO followers on the road to “Global Zero” – which other nuclear powers simply DON’T want to travel. Even Bruce Blair has admitted at 1:04:41 that even if the US totally disarmed itself, NO ONE would follow suit.

Thus, we have refuted all of the 6 most popular leftist lies about nuclear weapons. It is impossible (and not even necessary) to refute all myths that have been made about these crucial instruments of deterrence; and the vast majority of the lies about them fall under one of these 6 categories.

Nuclear weapons are NOT a threat to America’s or the world’s security; on the contrary, they are key to preserving it far into the future. They are irreplaceable instruments of peace and deterrence.

In December, North Korea tested an ICBM which delivered a North Korean satellite to the Earth’s orbit, thus demonstrating the capability to miniaturize payloads and to deliver such payloads to the orbit – and to the US.

In February, the North Koreans declared that not only will they not surrender their nuclear arsenal, they’ll actually INCREASE it, and published a video simulating a nuclear strike on the US.

Last month, they withdrew from the 1953 Panmunjon armistice that suspended the Korean War, put their missile force on its highest alert level, threatened to attack the US and its allies in Asia, cut off all hotlines with the South, and brought the KoreanPeninsula to the brink of war.

Meanwhile, Russia announced that she will not agree to any further cuts in its vast nuclear arsenal and confirmed she’ll continue the comprehensive modernization of her entire arsenal – strategic and tactical, ICBMs, bombers, and SSBNs alike.

In the first days of April, North Korea declared it’s in “a state of war” with the South and that it will never surrender its nuclear arsenal or even discuss its existence; that its arsenal is “non-negotiable”; and that it has “confirmed” plans of a nuclear attack on the US. Meanwhile, China amassed troops on its border with North Korea to show support of its fraternal Communist neighbor (China’s only formal treaty ally).

Now, North Korea often makes threats and uses bellicose rhetoric, but rhetoric of such degree of bellicosity and intensity – and openly threatening (and even simulating) a nuclear attack on the US – is something scarcely heard of. So is the acquisition of ICBMs capable of striking the US homeland and miniaturizing warheads to make them fit atop missiles. That’s something only Russia, China, and NK itself have mastered to date.

Meanwhile, Russia and China continue to increase and modernize their large nuclear arsenals – strategic and tactical.

What has brought this disastrous situation about? What does it show?

It proves the utter failure of “arms control” (read: disarmament) and appeasement policies, which have pursued since 1989 by successive administrations, Republican and Democratic.

It proves the utter failure of the “arms control” and appeasement policies advocated (to this day) by pro-arms control groups such as the Arms Control Association, the Ploughshares Fund, Global Zero, and the “Council for a Livable World”.

For decades, these liberal, extremely-leftist treasonous groups have claimed that cutting America’s nuclear deterrent would make the US and the world safer; that “less is more”; that it would somehow magically “induce” Russia to cut its own arsenal or at least stop growing it; and that it would somehow convince North Korea and Iran to stop pursuing nuclear weapons, or at least convince other countries to put pressure on Pyongyang and Tehran.

All of these claims were always blatant lies. Nothing more. Yet, many were duped by them, including the 71 gullible Senators who voted for New START in December 2010, in the twilight days of the 111^th Congress. Some Americans may still be duped by these lies. Yet, no one should be, for they were never anything more than lies.

For many years, I have been warning that the claims of arms controllers – such as the above-mentioned ones – are blatant lies, have been refuting them, and have been reminding people that the ONLY thing that can guarantee America’s and allies’ security is a strong, unmatched US military, including a large, modern nuclear deterrent.

Turns out I was right all along, and the proponents of “arms control”, arms reduction, and disarmament, including the ACA, Ploughshares, the CLW, and Global Zero were wrong all along.

Since 1991 – the end of the Cold War – America’s nuclear arsenal has been cut by over 75%; numerous nuclear-capable systems have been terminated entirely; nuclear testing has been suspended indefinitely; the remaining arsenal (and its supporting infrastructure) have been allowed to decay; and US tactical nukes have been unilaterally withdrawn from US ships and the KoreanPeninsula.

Yet, all of that has utterly failed to convince Pakistan, North Korea, and Iran to stop pursuing nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles of increasing range. It has also completely failed to convince other countries to put heavy pressure on these rogue states. Thus, it has utterly failed to stop or even slow down nuclear proliferation. Pakistan became a nuclear power in 1998; North Korea in 2006; and Iran is well on its way to the nuclear club.

22 years of cutting America’s nuclear deterrent deeply have also utterly failed to convince China to stop expanding its nuclear arsenal which, according to the most credible estimates by veteran nuclear strategist Professor Philip Karber and former Russian missile force commander Gen. Viktor Yesin, consists of at least 1,800, and up to 3,000, nuclear warheads, along with their delivery systems: dozens of ICBMs, 6 ballistic missile submarines, 440 nuclear-capable aircraft, over 1,600 short-range, and up to 120 medium-range ballistic missiles, plus nuclear-armed cruise missiles.

And now, Russia, having substantially reduced its nuclear arsenal in the 1990s and early 2000s, is now rebuilding and modernizing it rapidly. Permitted by New START to grow its deployed arsenal, it has done so, reaching 1,550 deployed strategic warheads and 700 deployed launchers (plus many others nondeployed). It is now building it up beyond New START limits, and its tactical nuclear arsenal, estimated at up to 4,000 warheads and their delivery systems, is not limited by any treaty in any way. It consists of a wide range of systems: nuclear torpedoes, nuclear naval mines, nuclear depth charges, nuclear artillery shells, freefall bombs, warheads for SRBMs, etc.

Cutting America’s nuclear stockpile unilaterally under Presidents Bush and Obama has thus utterly failed to “induce” Russia to stop growing and modernizing its own arsenal. Nor has it “induced” it to refrain from provocations like simulated bomber strikes on US missile defenses in Alaska, CA, Guam, and Japan – four months within less than a year, as chronicled by the WFB’s Bill Gertz.

Every policy must be judged by just one standard: whether it succeeds or fails in advancing US interests and national security. “By their fruit ye shall know them”, said Jesus Christ.

Judged by its results – its “fruit” – arms control and arms reduction have been an utter, dangerous failure for the West, including the US, some of the results of which we’re now witnessing in the Korean Peninsula, as an increasingly emboldened Pyongyang mounts its provocations and threats, and grows its nuclear arsenal while the US cuts its own.

Russia’s, China’s, and Pakistan’s nuclear buildups, and Iran’s race to the nuclear club’s doors while exposing Western sanctions as toothless likewise prove the utter failure of “arms control”.

Only a large, modern, multi-legged nuclear deterrent and a multilayered missile defense system can provide security and peace for the US, its allies, and the world at large. Nothing else will work. Any attempt to try anything else is doomed to fail – as arms control has – and would be an unneeded distraction from the work that needs to be done to rebuild and modernize America’s nuclear deterrent.

It is high time for the US to stop cutting and start building up and modernizing its nuclear deterrent, resume the development and testing of nuclear weapons, and build a comprehensive, multilayered missile defense system.

A recent article by the investigative journalist Eli Lake proves beyond all doubt that North Korea does have an ICBM capable of reaching the United States, as well as the technology to miniaturize warheads and put them on such missiles.

It has been, and still is, an article of faith among arms-controllers and advocates of defense cuts in the West that North Korea does not know how to miniaturize warheads and mate them to ballistic missiles and that it doesn’t have an ICBM. They have been persistently making such claims even though the North already has two different ICBM types capable of reaching the US and has delivered satellites into the Earth’s orbit twice: in 1998 and last December.

It is that second satellite launch that has tipped North Korea’s capabilities off. The US and South Korean navies retrieved parts of the missile that carried out that launch, including the frontal section, where the bus for the payload would reside. It confirmed that North Korea has mastered the technology of miniaturizing warheads and mating them to missiles. It follows the simple logic that if North Korea can deliver satellites to the orbit, it can also deliver nuclear warheads, since the technology to deliver both is the same.

South Korean Navy sailors stand guard in December near a part of debris believed to be a fuel container from a rocket launched by North Korea. (Shin Young-gun/AP); republished in http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/04/15/exclusive-u-s-recovered-north-korean-rocket-head.html

Lake himself writes:

“When North Korean engineers launched a satellite into space December 12, it seemed like business as usual, with the familiar cycle of condemnations from the West and statements of defiance from the Hermit Kingdom. But that launch also led many U.S. intelligence analysts to assess that Pyongyang possessed the ability to miniaturize the components necessary to yield a nuclear explosion for a crude warhead that would sit atop a ballistic missile.

After the North Korean launch, U.S. Navy ships managed to recover the front section of the rocket used in it, according to three U.S. officials who work closely on North Korean proliferation. That part of the rocket in turn provided useful clues about North Korean warhead design, should the next payload be a warhead rather than a satellite.

The same basic engineering and science needed to launch a satellite into space is also used in the multistage rockets known as intercontinental ballistic missiles. The front of the satellite rocket, according to three U.S. officials who work closely on North Korean proliferation, gave tangible proof that North Korea was building the missile’s cone at dimensions for a nuclear warhead, durable enough to be placed on a long-range missile that could reenter the earth’s atmosphere from space.

“Having access to the missile front was a critical insight we had not had before,” one U.S. nonproliferation official tells The Daily Beast. “I have seen a lot of drawings, but we had not seen the piece of that missile at that time.” This official continues: “We looked at the wreckage from the launc,h and we put it together with other kinds of intelligence and came to this judgment that they had figured out the warhead piece.””

The discovery thus utterly disproves the claims of arms controllers and defense cuts advocates that North Korea can’t miniaturize warheads or mate them to missiles and that additional missile defenses are unnecessary.

No flexibility on missile defense, Rogers says

State Secretary John Kerry recently offered China and Russia a downgrading of US missile defenses in Asia in exchange for unspecified cooperation on bringing North Korea to order.

His offer, however, has been rebuked by House Strategic Forces Subcommittee Chairman Mike Rogers (R-AL), who has warned that the House will not authorize any such measures – or any cuts in America’s nuclear deterrent that are not done by treaty or an Act of Congress itself.

Washington Free Beacon senior editor Bill Gertz wrote on Friday:

“Rep. Mike Rogers (R., Ala.), chairman of the House Armed Services strategic forces subcommittee, stated in a letter sent Tuesday to Kerry that he is concerned about the offer disclosed in statements this week by Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.

“Unfortunately, for the second time in as many weeks, Secretary Kerry has alluded to making deals with foreign countries regarding our missile defense,” Rogers said in a statement. “I suggest he consult with Congress about deals it won’t possibly support prior to offering concessions with countries that are not friends of ours.”

“He has forgotten pretty quickly since leaving Congress that it controls the purse strings,” the lawmaker said.

Lavrov told reporters in Moscow after a meeting of the NATO-Russia Council that U.S. officials recently supplied “suggestions” for talks on missile defense and revealed plans for adding missile interceptors in Alaska and California and bolstered defenses in Asia.”

Rogers also decried the $500 mn cut in missile defense spending that the administration has proposed in its FY2014 budget submission.

Rogers, however, has not promised to oppose cuts made by Congress itself, or by treaty, even if such Congressional statutes and treaties do cut the nuclear deterrent and US missile defense systems down to inadequate levels.

The House and Senate committee reports of the annual defense authorization bill are due in June.

No more “no-first-strike pledge”

The most recent defense white paper issued by the Chinese government omits any mention of its old no-first-strike pledge.

Hisorically, China has pledged never to be the first to use nuclear weapons, and not to use them against non-nuclear states. However, this pledge now seems to be dead, as China has removed any mention of it from its latest defense white paper.

This follows an earlier statement by a hawkish, anti-American PLA general who has said that China’s no-first-strike pledge does not apply to the US, and statements by Chinese officials that China could use nuclear weapons – even preemptively – if the US defended Taiwan against a Chinese invasion.

The omission occurs in the context of China’s secret nuclear buildup, which has brought the Chinese nuclear arsenal up to a level of 1,800 to 3,000 warheads, depending on the source (retired Russian missile force general Viktor Yesin for the former and former DOD nuclear strategist Philip Karber for the latter figure). While the US intel community and Western arms control advocates still stubbornly claim that China has only 240-300 warheads, Yesin, Karber, and other analysts point out that China has already enough fissile material for 3,600 warheads, enough industrial capacity to produce such large amounts, and a network of 3,000 miles of tunnels for ballistic missiles (called “the Great Underground Wall”) which can only hide a large nuclear arsenal as 3,000 miles of tunnels would be way too much for a small arsenal.

During the Cold War, the US intel community underestimated the Soviet Union’s nuclear arsenal by 20,000 warheads.

Being secretive about military affairs is explicitly advised by Sun Tzu in his famous military treatise, The Art of War, which generations of Chinese military officers have studied and on which China’s current military buildup is based:

“All warfare is based on deception. Hence, when able to attack, we must seem unable; when using our forces, we must seem inactive; when we are near, we must make the enemy believe we are far away; when far away, we must make him believe we are near. (…) Pretend to be weak, that he may grow arrogant.” – ch. I, verses 17-18 and 21;
“Let your plans be dark and impenetrable as night, and when you move, fall like a thunderbolt.” – ch. VII, v. 19;

“Hence that general is skillful in attack whose opponent does not know what to defend; and he is skillful in defense whose opponent does not know what to attack.
O divine art of subtlety and secrecy! Through you we learn to be invisible, through you inaudible; and hence we can hold the enemy’s fate in our hands. (…) By discovering the enemy’s dispositions and remaining invisible ourselves, we can keep our forces concentrated, while the enemy’s must be divided.” – ch. VI, v. 8-9 and 13.

Sadly, these people are wrong. Rand Paul, like his father, is a leftist libertarian. His leftist brand of libertarianism is evident on many issues: deep defense cuts, supporting the cretinous “Balanced Budget Amendment”, supporting violations of states’ rights Paul’s pet issues, opposing action against Iran.

But on no issue is it more visible than on illegal immigration. Rand Paul supports a full-throated amnesty for illegal aliens (without calling it that way; he deceptively calls it “a pathway to citizenship”), bilingualism, and open borders, and opposes employment verification, including the very effective E-Verify Program.

Employers, including Big Business, are lobbying hard for amnesty and against E-Verify, because they love to hire illegal aliens; they can pay them much less than Americans and avoid federal and state employment laws.

But doesn’t Rand Paul realise that amnesty and bilingualism will only lead to bigger, more costly government? Don’t his supporters realize that?

Don’t they and their idol Rand Paul realize that amnesty (or “pathway to citizenship”, or whatever you want to call it) is TOTALLY INCOMPATIBLE with limited Constitutional government (not to mention that it rewards lawbreaking, and a limited government – Constitutional or otherwise – cannot exist if the law is not obeyed)?

Don’t they and Rand Paul understand that amnesty will create 12-20 million new Democratic voters who will send the political Right (not just the GOP) and all conservatives to the political graveyard and give the Democrats a permanent, unbeatable majority?

As Ann Coulter rightly says, as soon as the nation starts to resemble California demographically, it will also resemble California politically.

To see what amnesty would mean politically, just look at California, where whites are now only 40% of the population – a “majority minority” state. Massive immigration – both legal and illegal – has transformed California into such a liberal state that no Republican can be elected statewide anymore. Taxes are going in only one direction, the state is on the verge of bankruptcy, and there’s no one left to pay the bill anymore, because businesses are fleeing Commiefornia en masse.

Not so long ago, this state gave America such great Republican Senators and Governors as Richard Nixon, S. I. Hayakawa, Ronald Reagan, and Pete Wilson.

But now, California is permanently lost to the GOP. The Dems control the governorship and have 2/3 majorities in the state legislature.

This is what the ENTIRE country will look like if amnesty is passed. The two major parties, as Ann Coulter rightly says, will be the Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) Democratic Party and the Chuck Schumer Democratic Party.

Contrary to the popular canard that “Hispanics are natural conservatives/Republicans” and that “the Hispanic vote is winnable for the GOP”, they’re not and it’s not. The converse is the truth: Hispanics are natural liberals.

They are less likely than anyone but Jews to attend religious services and to oppose abortion and gay marriage. They are more likely than anyone else except blacks to be born out of wedlock, do poorly in school, drop out of high school, have children out of wedlock themselves, be poor, be dependent on the federal government for survival, commit crime, and go to prison. They depend on an entire cornucopia of federal programs to survive – from cradle to grave.

As Pat Buchanan points out, most Hispanic households are led by single mothers who, if they work, have no tax liability (due to the high tax-free treshold and the EITC), and if they don’t work, they receive welfare rolls and 99 weeks of unemployment checks. For food, she gets foodstamps and her children receive 2-3 “free” meals at school.

For healthcare, there’s Medicaid and Obamacare.

Her children are educated for “free” K-12 and can apply for Pell Grants and student loans.

Why would these people vote for a party that promises to cut taxes they don’t pay, but pledges to cut government dependency programs they do “benefit” from and use? Doesn’t self-interest dictate voting for the party that pledges to let them keep using these programs and, if anything, promises them more “free” giveaways?

The vast majority of Hispanics are government dependents (i.e. ideal Democratic voters). Republicans will never beat the Democrats at the giveaway offering game.

Have you ever wondered, Dear Readers, why most Latin American countries (Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay, Brazil, Peru, Ecuador, Venezuela, Mexico, etc.) have socialist governments? Answer: Because most of their citizens are socialists.

Most Americans don’t know that decades ago, the Democrats began implementing their plan to create an unbeatable Democratic majority by importing millions of immigrants from the Third World while making it harder (nigh impossible) for well-educated, highly-skilled Europeans to immigrate to the US. This plan is close to being completed. Amnesty #2 would be the final step – and the final nail in the GOP’s coffin.

The Democrats did not, and do not, want to change their ideology or their policies; instead, they’ve decided to change the voters, and they’ve done so and continue to do so.

Someone will say, “But in 2004, George W. Bush won 44% of the Hispanic vote!” Yes, he did, but that’s not a great result. If repeated at future elections and if amnesty is passed, the GOP will still be doomed. Let’s do simple math.

Assuming that there are 12 million illegal aliens in the US, let’s say 44% of these people vote Republican once naturalized, and “only” 56% vote Democratic. That is, let’s assume they’ll vote Republican in George W. Bush numbers.

OK, here’s the math:

44%*12 million = 5.28 mn new GOP voters

56%*12 million = 6.72 mn new Dem voters

Net gain: 1.44 mn new voters for the Democrats.

So on net, the Dems would gain 1.44 mn new voters.

Easy to see why the Democrats are for this. But why would a GOP that were not suicidally inclined support such a policy?

Those who support amnesty, including Rand Paul, need to ask themselves only this question:

If there was ANY chance – even the slightest chance – that amnesty could help Republicans in ANY way whatsoever, do you think the Democrats would’ve supported it?

The answer is obvious. It’s a resounding “no”.

Rand Paul must not be allowed to win a GOP presidential or vice presidential nomination under any circumstances whatsoever. Nominating Rand Paul for President or Vice President would be an electoral suicide for the GOP and would be an utter rejection of all conservative principles the GOP has ever stood for.

To start with, Kerry falsely claims that New START has preserved peace, stability, and predictability between Russia and the US. That is false. The treaty’s Potemkin village verification regime is extremely weak (compared to that under the original START), with only 17 visits per side per year allowed, and is very prone to cheating.

As Ronald Reagan said, “We comply with arms control treaties. Those nations which don’t wish us well don’t.” Moscow has never complied with ANY arms control treaty it has signed.

New START cuts only America’s nuclear arsenal – not Russia’s. Moscow is actually allowed to increase its nuclear arsenal (and has done so, right up to New START limits; it is now grousing about growing its stockpile above these ceilings) and the treaty’s definition of a strategic bomber does not include Russia’s 171 Tu-22M aircraft, even though these are clearly intercontinental strategic bombers, just like Tu-160s.

Furthermore, New START doesn’t limit Russia’s huge tactical nuclear arsenal, which consists of as many as 4,000 nuclear warheads and their diverse delivery systems. Russia has an advantage of up to 10:1 over the US in tactical nukes. New START does nothing about this.

Nor has New START moderated Russia’s behavior or its aggressive nuclear exercises and simulated attacks on the US. Last year, Russia held the largest nuclear strategic exercises since the Cold War’s putative end, and conducted simulated nuclear bomber attacks on the US on two occassions: in June and on July 4^th. In February 2013, Russia conducted two new such simulated attacks – against Guam and then against US missile defenses in Japan, with the very Tu-22M bombers New START exempts from its limitations.

No, Secretary Kerry, New START is not “working exactly as advertised”. It’s an utter failure of US diplomacy and a huge weakening of America’s defenses. Signing and ratifying it was an act of treason.

Kerry claims that New START’s ratification was a sign of bipartisan consensus on arms reduction. That is also a lie. In fact, the treaty just barely passed the Constitution’s required 2/3 treshold; had only 5 more Senators voted against it, it would’ve failed as it deserved to. Most of the 13 gullible Republicans who voted for it were retiring Senators heading out the door; others, like Tennessee’s Lamar Alexander and Bob Corker, were deceived by Barack Obama’s dishonest, and never fulfilled, promises of funding for America’s nuclear facilities modernization – funding that never materialized.

Kerry falsely claims that the biggest threat today is that of nuclear terrorism, not Russia or China’s nuclear arsenals. That is also patently false. Nuclear terrorism is a merely hypothetical threat that has failed to materialize; meanwhile, Russia and China have (and are growing and modernizing) large nuclear arsenals. (China reportedly has up to 3,000 nuclear warheads, not the mere 240-300 that American arms control advocacy groups falsely claim.) THESE are the biggest threats to US security and that of its allies.

And contrary to Kerry’s false claim, nuclear retaliation CAN sometimes deter terrorists – by deterring their state sponsors.

Kerry claims he wants to see the “commitment to arms control and nonproliferation” that started under Richard Nixon renewed, but that commitment should’ve never been made in the first place. For arms control has been an utter failure for US national security and national interests.

America has cut its nuclear arsenal by 75% since the Cold War’s putative end in 1991. However, since then, China and India have significantly INCREASED and modernized their nuclear arsenals while two new countries joined the nuclear club: Pakistan and North Korea. And now, Iran is well on its way there. Meanwhile, Russia has begun rebuilding and significantly modernizing its nuclear arsenal from its 1990s nadir. It is now developing 3-4 ICBM types and a “pseudo-ICBM” to circumvent the INF treaty as well as retaining its huge lead in tactical nukes.

Arms control has utterly failed to reduce nuclear arsenals outside the US and Russia, prevent Russia’s nuclear re-building and rapid modernization, or prevent nuclear proliferation, as two new entrants joined the nuclear club.

By all evidence – by the facts – arms control has been an utter failure and has been detrimental to US national security and interests.

Kerry reminds his readers that New START is merely the first cut the Obama administration intends to make in America’s arsenal, while falsely claiming that it will make “only those reductions which are in US interests – and those of our allies.” That assurance is entirely hollow, however. It’s not credible. The Obama team does not care one whit about America’s security; its goal is to “cut America down to size”, as Obama bundler George Soros has openly stated.

If they really cared about America’s and its allies’ security, they would not be making cuts in America’s nuclear arsenal, especially not at this perilous time as America’s enemies rapidly grow and modernize their arsenals and America’s allies rely on the American umbrella for protection against these common enemies. And they wouldn’t be stalling the modernization of America’s deterrent and its supporting infrastructure or lying about the threat environment.

Not one of their assurances is credible. They are all lies. Obama does not honor his promises – except to America’s enemies.

Moreover, NO reductions in America’s nuclear arsenal are in her national interests. None whatsoever. Cutting that – or any other – weapon arsenal only weakens America’s defenses, thus emboldening America’s enemies to perpetrate nuclear blackmail (as North Korea does now) or even potentially aggression (as North Korea threatens to do).

Cutting America’s nuclear deterrent – or any other part of America’s defenses – is especially foolish today, as Russia and China rapidly grow and modernize their already large nuclear arsenals, North Korea grows its own (and threatens to use it), and Iran speeds up nuclear weapons development. It is always foolish, but particularly in such dangerous times.

Kerry falsely claims that cutting the US nuclear arsenal will make for “a more stable and secure world.” Again, that is a blatant lie. In fact, it will produce the opposite: a more unstable and dangerous planet.

Not only will it mean dramatically weakening America’s defenses, it will force America’s allies to develop their own nuclear weapons, since they cannot bet their own security and their very survival on America breaking free of its “nuclear disarmament will make us safer” kool aid. 66.5% of South Koreans already want to “go nuclear.”

And no, the world won’t be peaceful. Just the opposite. Recall that, prior to 1945 (nuclear weapons’ advent), for humanity’s entire history there were no nuclear weapons (and thus nothing to moderate the world’s great powers). The result? Dozens of long, bloody wars between the planet’s great powers, whole countries laying in waste, tens of millions of people dead (mostly civilians), people starving, and countries in revolution. World War 2 alone killed over 60 million people.

By contrast, since 1945, there has been NO war between the great powers.

Nuclear disarmament is not a desirable goal. It would be an utter disaster for US national security.

John Kerry admonishes American citizens, policy analysts, and politicians to focus on “the facts.” But none of his claims are “facts”, despite his desperate insistence on using that word. All of his claims are blatant lies, as demonstrated above.

But we shouldn’t be surprised. This is the man who, as a veteran, appeased Jane Fonda and badmouthed American troops, and as Senator, voted against every crucial weapon system the US military has employed – B-2 bombers, F-14 and F-15 fighters, Trident ballistic missiles, the Strategic Defense Initiative, the Apache helicopter, etc. He’s a fierce enemy of a strong national defense.

Shame on Secretary Kerry for lying so blatantly, and shame on all Senators who voted to confirm him.

On Wednesday, April 10^th, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel unveiled the FY2014 defense budget request, to the tune of $526.6 bn for the base defense budget. It optimistically assumes – as the DOD previously did – that sequestration will be repealed. Accordingly, it is $52 bn over the budget cap set by sequestration for the DOD for FY2014: $475 bn.

Specifically, the DOD requests $137 billion for personnel, $99.3 billion for procurement, $67.5 billion for R&D, $9.5 billion for construction, and the rest for operations &maintenance, i.e. daily operations, training, the maintenance of existing equipment and bases, administration, etc.

In the budget submission, the DOD is requesting authorization for conducting crucial reforms of its personnel programs (most notably, healthcare programs that are eating the Department’s budget alive) and its base infrastructure (which is ca. 24% excess to its needs) through authorizing a BRAC round.

According to the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, personnel spending alone will consume 100% of the defense budget by FY2039, and, taken together with operations &maintenance spending, will consume all of the defense budget long before then – in FY2024, just 11 years from now. Accordingly, the DOD needs to make serious reforms in both areas. However, the Congress remains knee-jerk opposed to any such reforms, despite imposing a $1.1 trillion cut mandate on the DOD through the Budget Control Act. Congress is essentially telling the DOD “you must cut $1.1 trillion out of your budget per decade, and while doing you, you cannot touch personnel spending or bases in America.”

Excess bases cost the DOD billions of dollars per year to maintain. However, so far, parochial members of Congress have prevented BRAC from being authorized since 2005, despite past BRAC rounds now producing annual savings of $12 bn.

Critics claim that the 2005 round will not produce net savings until 2018. However, that round was not representative of BRAC, because its purpose was “transformation” and implementing Secretary Rumsfeld’s lofty visions for the military, not saving money like it was for previous four BRAC rounds. The previous four rounds achieved break-even point within 4-6 years at most, as confirmed by DOD Comptroller Robert Hale.

North Korea can target the US

An unclassified portion of a classified assessment by the Defense Intelligence Agency confirms “with moderate confidence” that North Korea can miniaturize nuclear warheads and mate them to ballistic missiles, including ICBMs.

That DIA assessment was quoted by Rep. Doug Lamborn (R-CO) during an April 11^th, 2013, hearing of SECDEF Hagel and General Martin Dempsey. Both were caught off-guard.

The assessment says that North Korean missiles probably have “low reliability” for lack of advanced guidance systems as those possessed by Russia and China. However, even a missile with low accuracy can, if armed with a nuclear, chemical, or biological warhead, obliterate a major city, given cities’ large area.

The DIA’s assessment is confirmed by the fact that North Korea has twice – in 1998 and 2012 – delivered satellites to the orbit. The technology required to miniaturize satellites and mate them to ballistic missiles (Taepodong missiles delivered both satellites) is the same as that used for nuclear payloads.

North Korea currently has two ICBM types: the mobile KN-08, whose range is not exactly clear, and the Taepodong-2 which, according to different sources, has a range anywhere between 6,000 and 10,000 kms. The former would be enough only to reach Alaska, the latter would be enough to reach the US West Coast.

The DOD’s spokesman, George Little, later denied that North Korea has learned how to miniaturize nuclear warheads or mate them to missiles. However, his claims are belied by the above-mentioned DIA assessment and satellite launches.

It appears the Obama Administration, including the DOD, has now adopted the same policy towards North Korea as that which the US has used for many years towards Russia and China: appease them, downplay the threat they pose, and cut America’s defenses unilaterally.

For many years, successive administrations, intelligence bureaucracies, politicians, and leftist think-tanks have dramatically understated the Russian and Chinese military threat, thus providing a false justification for America’s unilateral disarmament and for the appeasement of Moscow and Beijing, a policy supported by both parties and the entire federal bureaucracy, as well as the think-tanks and most senior leaders of the US military (i.e. businessmen wearing uniforms). This policy has allowed Russia and China to build up their militaries and threaten US interests while being unchallenged and ensuring that the US will, one day, have to play catch-up.

It now appears the US has adopted the same policy towards North Korea.

Navy on track to shrink to 220 ships

A recent testimony by Ronald Reagan’s Secretary of the Navy, John Lehman, before the HASC warned that the Navy will eventually shrink to 220 ships if more vessels are not built.

Mr Lehman blamed that only partly on inadequate shipbuilding budgets, and partly on bloated DOD bureaucracies, but mostly on the DOD’s inefficient acquisition process.

The process, Mr Lehman reminded, is what causes weapons to be developed in decades, not years or months, while technology progresses quickly, and what causes large cost overruns. Mr Lehman launched a full-scale assault on that system and on the Goldwater-Nichols Act of 1986, which largely created that system.

Mr Lehman stated that unless many more ships are built every year – compared to just 8 ships per year being built these days – the Navy will shrink to just 220 ships, a woefully inadequate number to meet its missions. (Already, the Navy can meet only 59% of Combatant Commanders’ requests for ships and only 61% of their needs for submarines.) He said that the Navy needs 346 ships, and to have them, it must build 15 ships annually.

Having a 313- or 300-ship Navy would require building 12 vessels every year.

Mr Lehman also fully endorsed the personnel (including healthcare and benefits) program reforms proposed by the DOD, noting that the last comprehensive reform of these occurred in the 1970s as the US was just beginning to create an All-Volunteer Force.

He also criticized the Littoral Combat Ship, which the DOD’s own testing and evaluation czar rates as not being survivable and lacking serious firepower.

Mr Lehman’s full testimony is available here.

Titled “Congress has a blind spot for Pentagon spending”, it begins by falsely claiming that defense spending is “out of control” and that even despite sequestration, the Congress has failed to rein it in.

This is such a blatant lie, it’s hard to believe such a lie has even been attempted. Congress has passed FIVE rounds of defense cuts in the last 4 years. First were the massive weapon program killings ordered by Secretary Gates in 2009 and 2010. Next was the New START unilateral arms cuts treaty. Third was the Gates Efficiencies Initiative ($178 bn), ratified by Congress in 2011. Next was the first (pre-sequestration) round of Budget Control Act-mandated defense cuts ($487 bn over a decade). Sequestration is the fifth, and it will cut another $550 bn from the defense budget over a decade.

To date, the DOD has contributed $900 bn (pre-sequestration) to deficit reduction, while no other federal agency or program has contributed anything meaningful.

The author falsely claims “smart, strategic cuts” in defense spending (she doesn’t even use the term – she calls it “Pentagon spending”, which is intended as a pejorative term) on the scale of sequestration (which is $550 bn per decade, $55 bn per year) can be made without harming national security and will actually make the nation stronger by supposedly improving its economic health.

That is a blatant lie, just like the rest of that screed. Cutting defense – no matter how deeply – would do little to reduce the budget deficit and thus improve America’s economic health. Even eliminating America’s military budget entirely would fail to even halve the annual budget deficit, which is over $1 trillion, as the below graph by the Heritage Foundation shows.

The author touts the various studies and reports written by “think-tanks across the political spectrum” as well as proposals by politicians ranging from Congressman Mike Coffman (R-CO) to the Congressional Progressive Caucus as supposedly proposing “smart, strategic cuts” that would allegedly not weaken the military or hurt national security. But that’s  an utterly false claims.

The majority of the cuts proposed by them, including the vast majority of the cuts proposed by POGO, “Taxpayers for Common Sense”, the pro-Russian Center for Defense Misinformation, the Cato Institute, the National Taxpayers Union, PIRG, Sen. Tom Coburn (RINO-OK), the Center for American Progress, and the Congressional Progressive (read: Communist) caucus would target the muscle and bone of the US military: nuclear deterrence, missile defense, air and naval superiority, power projection, and so forth.

(Most of these organizations are funded or co-funded by George Soros, by the way.)

They would target such vital weapon systems and assets as aircraft carriers, surface combatants, submarines, missile interceptors, bombers, ICBMs, nuclear warheads, V-22 Osprey tiltrotor aircraft, air superiority fighters, and so on. They would also deeply cut the force structure (i.e. the size) of all military services, which are already (excepting the Army) too small and too overstretched. (The Navy, for example, can supply only 59% of combatant commanders’ requests for ships.)

In other words, they could cut deeply into the muscle, not the fat: the essentials, not the waste.

I have personally reviewed all of these proposals, studies, and reports. The vast majority of them target the muscle, not the fat, of the military.

Rebecca Griffin demands that spending on “outmoded” weapon systems be cut and that somehow, cutting it deeply can avert sequestration and provide the necessary savings. That is balderdash. Not only does she not specify what she means by that, other than the F-35, that claim is in any case false. Firstly, Secretaries Gates and Panetta have already killed over 50 weapon programs since 2009, and Secretary Hagel has proposed to cancel two others (PTSS and the SM-3 Block 2B).

Secondly, acquisition is a small (and increasingly smaller) item in the defense budget. Operations &maintenance (financing current equipment and bases, as well as healthcare programs, training, and daily operations) is the largest, followed by personnel spending. Together, these two categories will consume 100% of the entire defense budget by FY2024 if allowed to grow on autopilot, thus automatically crowding out weapons spending.

This means that even if no more weapon programs are killed, personnel, operations, and maintenance costs will consume the ENTIRE defense budget by FY2024 on autopilot. No, weapons programs cannot yield any big savings. That’s not where the money is.

And while the F-35 is a badly flawed airplane, the air superiority mission is hugely important. Air superiority is the sine qua non of any successful military operation. And it is and will be contested by America’s adversaries. They (Russia, China, North Korea, Iran, Syria) have advanced air defense systems (e.g. the S-300, S-400, S-500, HQ-9, and SA-11/17) as well as advanced, high quality fighters (e.g. the Flanker family, the J-10, JF-17, PAKFA, J-20, J-31, MiG-35) that outmatch every US aircraft except the F-15 and F-22.

Indeed, while Griffin falsely claims that there will never again be a war with another conventional adversary, and only small terrorist groups threaten the US, the US actually has two peer competitors (Russia and China) who are very close to matching the US in military strength, having closed most of the gaps that previously separated them from the US military and now working hard on closing the remaining gaps.

But it isn’t just Russia and China. Rogue states like Iran, North Korea, Syria, and Venezuela are also growing their military power while America is cutting its own, and it’s emboldening them. North Korea now has ICBMs capable of reaching the CONUS – and can miniaturize nuclear warheads to mate them with missiles.

The “we have no conventional adversaries, so we can afford to cut defense spending deeply” claim is a blatant lie.

But while she makes light of sequestration and denies that leftist think-tanks defense cuts proposals would weaken the military, she makes apocalyptic claims about the sequester’s cut to civilian discretionary programs. She claims that poisoned food will land on your table and children will be starving if sequestration is not resolved. She furthermore claims that this is weaponmaking companies’ and their CEOs’ fault, and claims that under sequestration, American children will be starving while defense companies’ CEOs’ salaries will be protected.

This is a blatant lie. In fact, under sequestration, defense companies’ CEOs’ salaries will be cut significantly. Why? Because 100% of the sequester’s cuts will fall on weapon programs as well as operations &maintenance. Personnel spending and base infrastructure in the US are completely exempt from sequestration. So weapons spending will be cut deeply under this mechanism – and with it, the CEOs’ salaries.

And it is utterly dishonest and shameful for Rebecca Griffin to claim that the defense companies, their CEOs, or DOD weapon programs are to blame for sequestration or will cause children to starve, when these very companies and programs will actually get hardest hit by sequestration. Demonizing them is utterly dishonest and shameful. (Disclaimer: I do not, and have never worked, for any defense company.)

Griffin also falsely claims:

“As the Center for Strategic and International Studies points out, cuts on the level of sequestration would amount to the smallest post-war reduction in defense spending since before the Korean War. We can make smart, strategic reductions on the level of sequestration and still be spending more than the yearly Cold War average.”

This is also utterly false. Sequestration will be the biggest cut in defense spending since the 1950s (the post-Korean-War drawdown) and also the fastest, as it is required to be implemented quickly, starting THIS fiscal year, not in a gradual manner like previous drawdowns. Furthermore, it will cut defense spending this FY to $469 bn, BELOW the annual Cold War average.

“But apparently some people still think we’re locked in a global standoff with the Soviet Union. Remembering what century we’re in provides opportunities for major reductions, such as looking at our outmoded weapons systems.”

This is also a blatant lie. I’ve already addressed the issue of supposedly “outmoded” weapons systems and of weapons spending in general, but I shall also say that the world is now more dangerous than ever since the Cuban Missile Crisis. The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff has said this is the most dangerous world he has seen throughout his 38 years of service. While the Afghan war is slowly ending, the world is not getting any safer – it’s getting more dangerous by the day. Therefore, America cannot afford to cut its defense budget.

Griffin’s screed is a litany of blatant lies. Not one claim made therein is true. Shame on the Hill magazine for publishing it, and shame on Congressman Coffman for republishing it on his website solely because it mentions him.

Unfortunately, instead of stopping there, Taylor decided to write an angry letter to the French minister of “productive redressment”, Arnaud Montebourg, where he denounced the rigid French labor code, high taxes, low working hours, and trade union influence in much stronger words than he should have, thus sparking a backlash and a new souring of Franco-American relations. Outrage was sparked across France in the media, the cafes, and the political arena. Reactions were almost universally along the lines of “Who does this arrogant American think he is? How dare he lecture us Frenchmen? How dare he tell us how to run our country?”

Montebourg shot back, and then, Taylor responded in kind in this tit-for-tat cycle. And economic reform remains completely stalled in France.

Why did Taylor fail in sparking any kind of reform? And how can one engineer it in France?

Taylor failed because, while he’s (mostly) correct on the facts – France does have a very rigid labor code, high taxes, and very influential labor unions, and all of this is stalling France’s economic growth – he tried to communicate them the wrong way: in a manner considered arrogant by the vast majority of the French media and political class writ large.

Instead of going gently and saying politely in so many words that he can’t buy the plant because it would bankrupt him – due to a rigid labor code and high taxes – he shot from the hip like a careless cowboy. That might work in the Midwest, but it won’t work in France. It will earn you more enemies than friends in the Hexagon.

To begin with, no nation on Earth, including the French, likes to be lectured on its domestic affairs by foreigners. Just go to any foreign country and try telling the locals how they should govern their own country. They’ll probably refuse to listen, even if you’re right on the facts. One of the reasons the US has utterly failed to democratize the Middle East is because the peoples of the region resent foreign meddling in their affairs. Likewise, the Chinese don’t like being lectured on human rights because foreign meddling in their country’s affairs is a very sensitive topic there.

The French are no different from other nations in this respect. Who says something makes a lot of difference. If a Frenchman or Frenchwoman makes a case for reform, they’ll listen, but if a foreigner starts lecturing them on the same subject, they’ll react very negatively. In fact, in France, foreigners participating in political demonstrations face deportation and a 3-year reentry ban.

So a foreigner should not try to tell the French how to reform their country. They’ll have to figure it out themselves. And if you really have to tell the French what reforms to implement, you must do it as gently as possible – not shoot straight from the hip.

On top of that, the French are a very proud, ancient people who are trying to defend their culture in an increasingly globalized, Americanized world. The French cherish their culture and their ways of doing things so much that they even have a state institution – L’Academie Francaise – to regulate the French language. Taylor’s kind of lecture, but especially coming from an American, was not well received in France partly for that reason. National pride is important for many nations, and again, the French are no exception.

And let’s be blunt – by speaking “bluntly” and from the hip, Taylor was impolite. That was a mistake if his goal was to convert the French to capitalism. France is not Germany or the US; shooting from the hip doesn’t work there and won’t earn you many friends, no matter how right you are.

From my experience of dealing with the French people, I know that you have to be very polite in France no matter whom you’re dealing with (unless you’re talking to street hoodlums). You have to speak and behave politely. That means not only giving people their proper titles like Madame and Monsieur, but also telling them the facts in polite words. By my experience, the more polite you are, the higher your chances of succeeding in dealing with the French.

If you’re polite towards them, they’ll reciprocate in 99% of cases. If you behave like a jerk or a shooting-from-the-hip cowboy, expect to be treated accordingly. (Did Taylor think that if he said “You Frenchmen are lazy! You work only 3 hours a day!”, the French will fawn over him and say “Oh, dear Mr Taylor, thank you for opening our eyes and allowing us to see our errors”?)

In short, Go Gently on the French. That’s the way business is done – at least in Gaul. The more polite you are, the higher your chances of succeeding. Extra marks for those foreigners who speak French. (If you don’t speak French, hire a tutor or take classes.)

So how to introduce the French to American-style laissez-faire capitalism?

Reform cannot be imposed or coaxed on them from across the Atlantic. It’ll have to be initiated and fully implemented by the French themselves.

The best and brightest among French students should be selected to attend conservative American colleges and to work for some time in conservative American think-tanks such as the Heritage Foundation. Then, they should return to France and pass their knowledge – everything they’ve learned – to their fellow Frenchmen/women. They should try to build majority popular consensus for capitalist reform in France: write articles and books, teach at universities and grandes ecoles, convince right-wing politicians to adopt capitalist policies, participate in debates, and do interviews with France’s toughest journalists. They – like any successful salesmen/women – need to be both knowledgeable and good at salesmanship and public relations. They need to know their product well, but also know how to sell it. And they need to do it in a friendly, polite, optimistic manner to pose a stark contrast to the arrogant Hollande administration and the negativist, warlike, impolite, dour Jean-Luc Melenchon of the far left.

In sum, capitalist reform cannot be imposed or coaxed on France from outside by anyone. The French will have to discover the truth themselves. And if reforming their economy, or giving them advice on how to do it – assuming they want such advice – it must be done very politely, as all business is done in France.