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.

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.

Bloomberg News: B.J. Ganem lost a leg to a roadside bomb in Iraq while serving in the Marines. Bobby  Donnelly lost his after a high-altitude parachute jump.

When the explosions went off in Boston last week, ripping through the crowd and injuring more than 260 people, the two ex- soldiers and three other veterans quickly flew to Boston to meet with the victims who lost limbs. Their goal: To bring a message of hope to the survivors, showing them how active they could be despite their injuries, Ganem said in an interview.

The Marines are part of the Semper Fi Fund, a group that provides assistance for wounded and critically injured Armed Forces members and their families. The fund helps soldiers with their lives post-injury, adapting their homes, getting prosthetics and providing support.

Bloomberg: Ganem, 36, is an endurance athlete who dances with his daughter using Microsoft Corp.’s motion-activated Kinect gaming console, he said. Donnelly, 30, competes in triathlons. They each own about a half-dozen artificial legs, some of which they showed off for the amputation victims at Boston Medical Center.

“A couple of the girls are big dancers,” Ganem said of the patients he visited for about 30 minutes each in their rooms at the hospital. “I told them, ‘I play the Kinect with my daughter and scored pretty high, and you already know how to dance. I don’t have any rhythm, so you guys can score amazing.’

“They were laughing,” he said yesterday. “It was good, the families really appreciated that.”

Read the entire article at Bloomberg or visit the Semper Fi Fund for more information.

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.

But nonetheless, this writer will offer an explanation to the lay reader to help the general public – and all interested – understand what is deterrence and what is required to maintain it.

Deterrence is a state of affairs whereby a country wishing to prevent war while remaining secure does so by deterring, i.e. dissuading, potential aggressors. That is, potential aggressors do not attack that country because they’re afraid that by doing so, they’d bring about disastrous consequences for themselves, and such consequences would outweigh any benefits they might accrue from a successful attack on the potential victim.

In other words, potential aggressors are deterred if, and only if, the consequences they and their countries and militaries would have to bear (in case of a failed aggression) would outweigh any benefits of initiating war, and if they realize that their chances of successfully attacking the victim are low, if not completely nonexistent.

This works with criminals as well: they’re deterred from attacking potential victims if, and only if, their victims (or their defenders present at the scene) are sufficiently armed and authorized by the law to defend themselves (e.g. the Castle Doctrine).

So what is required for deterrence?

As I just explained, to be deterred, potential aggressors must be convinced that their offensive plans would be foiled and that the consequences of attacking us would be disastrous for them and would outweigh any benefits an attack on us might accrue.

How do we convince potential aggressors of that (assuming they’re rational and thus make calculations before acting)?

To provide credible deterrence, we need three components (all three of them; remove any one of them and you no longer deter anyone):

1)      ADEQUATE MILITARY STRENGTH, including adequately-sized, modern, widely dispersed, and adequately manned arsenals of weapons. In other words, a military second to none.

2)      KNOWLEDGE OF WHAT KIND OF RETALIATION WOULD HURT THE ENEMY THE MOST, AND AN OPEN PROMISE OF STRIKING HIM RIGHT THERE. We must know what the enemy cherishes most and openly promise to wipe that out if the enemy perpetrates aggression against us or any of our allies. Specifically, WRT the West’s enemies (China, Russia, North Korea, Iran, et al.), threatening to wipe their civilian populations out is useless (as well as immoral), because their leaders don’t value their civilian subjects’ lives at all; what their dictators value instead are their militaries, military-related industries and assets,  and their economies.

3)      WILLINGNESS TO USE MILITARY STRENGTH FORCEFULLY AND CARRY OUT OUR PROMISES. Quite simply, being militarily strong and promising to strike the enemy where it hurts him most is not enough to deter him – one must also be willing to do so and be seen by potential aggressors as such. On a few occassions in history some aggressors challenged stronger adversary states whose leaders they perceived to be too timid and unwilling to use force. An example of this is Argentina’s invasion of the Falklands in 1982, due partly do Britain’s pre-1982 defense cuts and partly due to Argentine President Galtieri’s perception of Margaret Thatcher as unwilling to use force to retake the islands. Of course he was wrong, and Britain achieved a spectacular victory while President Galtieri’s military junta collapsed a year later – but not before 255 brave British troops died. For that reason, it is necessary for a nation’s leaders to be perceived as strong, decisive, and perfectly willing to use overwhelming force if their nations, or allied nations, are attacked.

These truths are applicable to all military matters, as well as to other dimensions of life, e.g. fighting criminals. Specifically, in nuclear deterrence, this (especially Fact #2), means that the US needs – and will, for the foreseeable future, need – a large nuclear deterrent, not just “some” nuclear weapons. “Minimum deterrence” – i.e. a small nuclear arsenal of a few hundred or 1000 nuclear warheads – would be woefully inadequate, for the following reasons.

Firstly, as stated above, to be able to deter, one must be able and promise to strike, in case of aggression what the enemy cherishes the most. America’s and the West’s potential enemies – Russia, China, North Korea, Iran, and others – do not value their civilians’ lives at all, only their military, economic, and other strategic assets (including, first and foremost, their standing militaries). Therefore, the US should target that, and not innocent civilian populations. But such “counterforce” targeting policy will require well over a thousand deployed strategic nuclear warheads – no fewer than the 1,550 ones allowed by New START, and possibly more.

A small US nuclear arsenal would not be a credible deterrent and would thus not deter anyone. Thus, “minimum deterrence” is no deterrence at all.

Secondly, a small nuclear arsenal, due to its small size, would be pathetically easy to destroy in a first strike by anyone, especially Russia and China. Russia has 2,800 strategic and up to 4,000 tactical nuclear warheads and the means to deliver all of them (though not all of them to the US). China has at least 1,800, and potentially up to 3,000, nuclear warheads.

But the above principles of deterrence apply to all military (as well as many nonmilitary) matters. To be able to keep the peace and enjoy security and prosperity, the US needs, and will always need, a large, modern, well-trained, ready, dispersed, and quickly deployable (in one word, “strong”) military, as well as leaders willing and pledging to strike any enemy where it would hurt him the most in case of aggression. Nothing short of that will suffice.

As Ronald Reagan said over 30 years ago, in his SDI speech, “We maintain the peace through our strength; weakness only invites aggression.”

This week, during a Moscow visit by China’s Defense Minister and 4th ranked member of the Central Military Commission, Gen. Chang Wanquan, it was announced that the Middle Kingdom will purchase several types of Russia’s newest military equipment: among others: 24 Su-35 multirole fighters, a number of Saturn AL-31F117S engines, four ultra-quiet Lada class submarines, Il-76 transport aircraft, and Il-78 Midas tanker aircraft.

This follows on Russia’s earlier sale of the Tu-22M bomber production line to China, which intends to procure 36 of these supersonic, intercontinental bomber aircraft. The Tu-22M has a combat radius of 2,410 kms which, however, can be greatly extended through mid-air refueling. Its maximum speed is Mach 1.88. Its armament consists of freefall bombs (nuclear or conventional) and either 3 Raduga Kh-22 air-to-surface nuclear-armed cruise missiles or ten missiles of other types (six on its rotary launcher and four on underwing pylons). The Kh-55 ALCM can also be used on the Tu-22M and has also been procured by China.

If procured, it would greatly add to China’s existing bomber fleet, which, with 120-160 H-6 (Tu-16) bombers, already gives China the ability to attack targets over 4,000 kms away from China’s coast using the CJ-10 air-launched cruise missile, which is nuclear-capable.

The Su-35 air superiority fighter is the latest member of the Flanker family. It is decisively superior to every current and planned aircraft in US and allied inventories except the F-15 and the F-22 (but superior to the F-35). It possesses the newest Russian radar, the Irbis-E, superior to every American aircraft radar but the APG-63(V)3-4 and the APG-77, possesses jammers and an infra-red search and tracking system (which the F-22 and older F-15 models lack), and can carry 12 missiles (the F-15 can carry 11; the F-22 can carry 8 in stealth more, but 12 if stealthiness is not a must). It is also armed with a 30mm gun.

The Su-35′s thrust/weight ratio, 1.13:1, is slightly superior to the F-15′s (1.12), but inferior to the F-22′s (1.26:1), and it outclasses all American fighters in the rate of climb: 280 m/s. However, its wing loading ratio, at 408 kg/sq m, is worse than that of the F-22 (375) and F-15 (358), meaning it turns slower than these two American fighters. Its speed of flight, at Mach 2.25, is also worse than theirs, and at a 59,100 ft max ceiling, it is outclassed by these two USAF fighters, which can fly at up to 65,000 ft.

The Al-31F117s engine produces over 80 kN of dry thrust, or 142 kN at afterburner. Each Su-35 is, and each J-20 fighter will be, equipped with two such engines, producing  a total of 284 kN of thrust at afterburner. These engines are intended for the J-20, a stealthy long-range fighter/striker which China is developing and first flew in January 2011. There are two flying prototypes: one uses AL-31F engines, and the other uses WS-10A engines. Development of China’s own turbofan thrust-vector-control-capable engine, the WS-10G, is lagging, hence Russia has stepped in to aid Beijing.

The Lada class is the newest, 21st century class of Russian conventional attack submarines. Ultra-quiet, the class is equipped with air-independent propulsion and will join China’s already-large (67-68 boats) submarine fleet, consisting mostly of very quiet, AIP-equipped conventional submarines ideal for operations in the Western Pacific, especially its noisy parts close to China, and for executing China’s Anti-Access/Area-Denial strategy of denying the US the ability to operate in the WESTPAC. (China calls the strategy “shashoujian”, i.e. “assassin’s mace”.)

Russia practices bomber strike on US missile defenses

China is hardly the only country planning to use the Tu-22M. A Russian Tu-22M bomber recently carried out simulated “practice” strikes on US missile defenses in Asia, including Japan. The incident occurred on February 26th; the Tu-22M bomber simulated an attack on American Aegis-type BMD ships deployed near Japan. A second mock attack was conducted the next day, also by a Tu-22M bomber, against a US missile defense site in Japan.

The incident was reported recently by Washington Free Beacon/WaTimes reporter Bill Gertz, who only recently received the information from US officials. It is probable that had Gertz not found out and reported the story, the public would have never known about it.

This is the fourth simulated Russian bomber strike against US missile defense assets in less than a year. Last June, as President Obama was meeting with President Putin in Mexico, Russian Tu-95 bombers, escorted by fighters and also accompanied by tankers and AWACS aircraft, practiced striking US installations in Alaska. Then, on July 4th, Russian bombers flew very close to California’s shore and practiced strikes on military installations there. Then, in February 2013, Russian bombers practiced strikes on Guam. This is the fourth incident, and as stated above, it also occurred in February. Bill Gertz was the first journalist to report all four simulated Russian attacks.

US officials have agreed to talk to Gertz about these incidents only on the condition of anonymity. In public, US officials continually refuse to say anything about it, in line with the Obama administration’s established policy of not saying anything critical of Russia and China.

Hagel speech on defense issues

On Wednesday, April 3rd, at the National Defense University, new Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel delivered his first significant speech as Pentagon chief, which revealed the direction of the DOD reforms he intends to undertake and his defense priorities.

Hagel announced that DOD reforms must, first and foremost, tackle growing personnel, overhead and acquisition costs, which, if left unchecked, will bankrupt the DOD and make it impossible for the DOD to procure modern equipment for the military, maintain it at an appropriate size, maintain its current equipment and bases, and train it adequately.

He said that while the DOD must care for America’s troops, the cost of caring for them and of the DOD retirement program must be reduced. A complete overhaul of military retirement and healthcare programs is therefore needed.

Hagel’s warnings are nothing new: his predecessors have also warned about these spiralling costs, as have think-tanks such as the CSBA, which has warned that by FY2039 the entire defense budget will be spent on personnel, absent significant cost-cutting reforms.

The DOD must also tackle overhead, Hagel says. It employs almost 800,000 civilian staffers, hundreds of thousands of contractors, and between 700 and 900 generals. It has too many offices, agencies, and commands, and too many too senior generals commanding too few troops.

Hagel will unveil the FY2014 defense budget proposal next week.

We at ConservativeDailyNews want to make sure that you, our Readers, receive regular, up-to-date, credible information on the defense issues facing the United States.

Accordingly, starting tomorrow, CDN will begin publishing a weekly column dedicated to this subject, titled Defense Issues Weekly. The column will be researched and written by yours truly.

See you tomorrow at 8AM EST on CDN!

Zbigniew Mazurak

Defense Issues Correspondent

ConservativeDailyNews