After almost 15 years we have decided to replace our Honda Accord as one of our primary vehicles. It was a good run. We originally purchased her to escort my wife and soon to be oldest child around but, since 2014 she has not been able to hold the entire family, a power steering and brake issue and just over 387,000 miles, we needed to get something else. We are still keeping her but not to drive every day. I will have a Tuesday terror update later today, until then bullets…
- Once again, the article of the day goes to Joseph Trevithick at The Drive. He writes about a New Team Pitches South Africa’s Bronco II Light Attack Plane To American Special Operators.
U.S. defense contractor Leidos has partnered with the American subsidiary of South Africa’s Paramount Group to offer the latter company’s Bronco II light attack and surveillance aircraft to U.S. Special Operations Command, or SOCOM, for its Armed Overwatch program. SOCOM announced this effort earlier this year and hopes to buy as many as 75 light attack aircraft in total.
The things you could do…There is so much there. Almost no limits to the potential, only our imagination, I guess. If you have time to click one link, this should be it and just dream.
- Also at The Drive, Tyler Rogoway details Everything We Learned From Boeing About Its Potentially Game-Changing Loyal Wingman Drone.
Boeing sees the combination of artificial intelligence (AI) and a certain level of autonomy to be key in really creating a revolutionary capability that can work as a huge force multiplier for existing manned combat aircraft. These drones don’t fly with a pilot remotely at the controls in a traditional sense, like say an MQ-9 Reaper drone. They will be directed in more of a point-and-click desktop or screen-top style interface. With the help of AI, they can automate much of this process, leaving their human overlords to concentrate on the big tactical picture instead of on constant small navigation and tactical tasks. Even being in the right place at the right time before a major tactical decision is made by the operator, which would be flying in a nearby aircraft, could be a huge help in an air combat situation.
This is a really good article that describes how this drone could revolutionize the Air Force. Rogoway details how the drone is more economical than manned airframes and how they can compliment them. This is really good stuff and the type of thing that is definitely in our future of warfighting.
The Long War Journal has three articles that are well worth your time.
- Joe Truzman has two articles: Saraya al Quds reminds Israel that COVID-19 hasn’t slowed jihadist activity and Israel steps up military campaign against Iran’s military entrenchment in Syria.
In the first he discusses a video released by Saraya al Quds, a Palestinian terror group, which describes their current activities despite the coronavirus (oddly enough you can find a link to the group on Facebook…here:
The video, titled “Our struggle continues” was released on the group’s official Telegram channel yesterday. The video featured SaQ fighters using hand sanitizer and wearing medical gloves as they conducted various jihadist related activities.
The video began with one of the group’s core military assets: an underground tunnel. Fighters in personal protective equipment were filmed descending into a shaft to excavate earth during the construction of a tunnel.
In the second article he describes Israel’s recent airstrikes in Syria:
The latest round of airstrikes started March 31 when Israel Defense Forces’ (IDF) jets purportedly struck the Shayrat airbase located 15 miles southeast of the city of Homs. Post-strike satellite imagery of the airbase revealed the base’s runways were targeted in the attack. It is believed the intent was to temporarily disrupt Iran’s weapons transfer operation at the airbase.
Truzeman goes on to discuss Israel’s role in the Syrian conflict and how the military pressure has not deterred Iranian influence there.
“We have moved on from blocking Iran’s entrenchment in Syria to muscling it out of there, and we shall not stop. We won’t allow further strategic threats to sprout just across our borders without taking decisive action,” Israel’s outgoing Defense Minister Naftali Bennett stated April 28.
I wonder, who will blink first. For Israel, the threat is existential, for Iran, its religious, so I cannot imagine either side ever giving up…
- Also at the Long War Journal, Thomas Joscelyn provides his Analysis: The Islamic State’s ideological campaign against al-Qaeda, a video released by ISIS that discusses Al Qaeda’s and the Taliban’s Islamic purity.
On April 29, the Islamic State’s “province” (wilayah) in Yemen released a lengthy video that is intended to undermine al-Qaeda’s ideological legitimacy within the jihadists’ ranks. The 50-plus minute production, titled “A Documentary Shedding Light on Al-Qaeda Organization’s Deviation Following What Is Known as the Arab Spring,” repeats many of the same doctrinal accusations the Islamic State has made for years. The would-be caliphate’s ire is directed at Ayman al-Zawahiri and his lieutenants, as well as al-Qaeda’s regional branches and their allies. The Islamic State’s central charge is that al-Qaeda betrayed its own Salafi-jihadist ideology in the wake of the Arab uprisings in 2011 and 2012.
The article is very good and there is so much to get into that it should probably be its own article. It seems that these two groups are destined for a major clash. Joscelyn discusses the “institutional hatred” between the groups and goes into great detail about working with apostates, supporting Turkey and properly implementing Sharia. It’s really good stuff.
“Living fighters will gradually begin to be replaced by their robotic ‘brothers’ who can act faster, more accurately and more selectively than people,” Vitaly Davydov told RIA Novosti on April 21. Davydov is the deputy director of Russia’s Advanced Research Foundation, its DARPA analog.
The article is fairly light on the details, other than they are not there yet and they are considering “swarm” type strategies but it is still worth keeping an eye on. I am surprised Atherton didn’t mention Russia’s declining population as a key driver for this technological push.
- There are several really good articles over at com. Again, it’s all premium content so I will only post the headlines but they are well worth the read.
Indonesians Fear Democracy Is the Next Pandemic Victim
The U.S.-Iraqi Relationship Is Coming to a Head—and That’s a Good Thing
In Rural Afghanistan, Taliban Gingerly Welcome Girls Schools
Lessons From the Malaysian-American-Chinese-Australian-Vietnamese Naval Standoff
- Kyle Mizokami at Popular Mechanics has three articles, the first is about The X-37B Is Gearing Up for Its Next Mission and it classified mission. If you a bit of a space junkie like me, if only I could have joined the Space Force, you will enjoy this brief overview of the X-37B’s most-likely more than two-year mission.
- The second, New Engines Will Keep the B-52 Bomber Flying for 100 Years, discusses how new engines could extend the B-52 mission to 2050 and beyond.
The U.S. Air Force’s fleet of B-52H heavy strategic bombers are on track to becoming a fleet of flying centenarians. The service wants to purchase over 600 new engines for its B-52s, ensuring that the “Big Ugly Fat Fella” can fly on to 2050 or later. This will practically ensure that some bombers, delivered in the early 1960s, will still be dropping bombs in the early 2060s.
The article details the versatility and crazy longevity the B-52 has shown. If it actually makes the 2050 mark could an argument be made that it is one of the most important military platforms in our arsenal? Could you already make that argument? Regardless, it is pretty amazing.
- You know what’s also amazing, also at Popular Mechanics, 45 Years Later, The B-1 Bomber Has Still Got It.
A U.S. Air Force B-1B bomber conducted a marathon 30-hour mission, flying from South Dakota to Japan and back. The mission is part of the Air Force’s shift away from stationing bombers overseas at vulnerable air bases to training crews for the kind of long distance flights necessary during a wartime scenario.
The entire article is really interesting and discusses the longevity of the plane, the evolving mission and its eventual replacement.
- The Economist (premium content alert) has several articles that are worth discussion: the first, Colombia cools on Venezuelan refugees. Mostly due to the coronavirus but what is interesting and relevant to me is how this outlet of people works as a ‘pressure release’ that diminishes the likelihood of political change. Just a thought.
Also, Khalifa Haftar is losing ground and lashing out in Libya. At least Special Operations will continue to have work…
There are others also, again, I wish it was not premium content and we could discuss them more but they are still well worth your time.
- Most Thought Provoking: Benn Steil at GetPocket.com, (the article was originally published at Foreign Policy) challenges the way I believe most of us think in Russia’s Clash With the West Is About Geography, Not Ideology. It is my belief that this is the sort of article that a Cognitive Warrior should read. Having the ability to look at a problem from another perspective is crucial and I love geography. Again, I am not endorsing this line of thought only placing it here to provoke thought. After a brief history of post-WWII Russia and the carving out of the boundaries of the Soviet Union Steil brings us to the 1990s:
By early 1990, the East German Communists, imploding under the weight of popular revulsion and infighting, were a spent political force, and Soviet General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev had begun to reconcile himself to German unification. What he still demanded was that a reunified Germany not be part of the Atlantic alliance. Continued German membership of NATO, Gorbachev told German and Soviet journalists, must be “absolutely ruled out.”
The expansion of NATO has no doubt been a problem for the Russians and is detailed in the article. He then used Mackinder to explain the geographic not ideological conflict at play:
Halford Mackinder, the father of geopolitics, would have scoffed at this view. Mackinder, who died in 1947, the year the Truman Doctrine and the Marshall Plan were launched, drew policymakers’ attention to the strategic centrality of the vast Eurasian “Heartland,” which was dominated by Russia. “Who rules East Europe,” he famously wrote in 1919, “commands the Heartland; Who rules the Heartland commands the World-Island; Who rules the World-Island commands the World.” It was the ideas of Mackinder, and not Marx, that best explained the Cold War.
This argument is detailed greatly in The Revenge of Geography by Robert D. Kaplan. But what about the Russian aggression in Georgia and the Ukraine?
In the cases of Georgia and Ukraine, the timing of the Russian interventions coincided with those countries’ achievement of tangible benchmarks on the path to NATO membership. The combined separatist territories, under effective Russian control, now form a valuable protective arc along Russia’s western and southwestern border. Just as Stalin strengthened the Soviet Union’s buffer zone in response to the Marshall Plan, which he expected Washington to supplement with military force, Putin has strengthened Russia’s buffer zone in response to NATO expansion.
The article is very good and is supposed to be thought provoking. Let me know your thoughts. Should we even discuss these sorts of things? How is the author wrong? What can be done about it?