The Glade 4.0

Wired



Probably one of the stupidest moves ever in terms of defense funding. This is the democrat-controlled Senate trying to kill hi-tech defense projects simply because they're high-tech defense projects to appeal to the peaceniks in their base.

Aside from the fact that the amount of money spent on these projects is pretty trivial in terms of defense spending, the argument that this is an 'austerity' measure is one of either colossal stupidity, or simply hoping the taxpayers and press don't notice (and they most likely won't). Like the admiral says, this has the potential to significantly reduce the dominance of missiles - and missiles are expensive. Cheap ones cost tens of thousands of dollars, expensive ones cost hundreds of thousands or over a million in some case, per shot. A laser or a railgun, on the other hand, costs practically nothing on a per-shot basis. Even if the railgun is firing GPS-guided projectiles, these are still vastly cheaper than a missile.

The laser is less problematic than the railgun simply because there are other lasers that are further along in development - none as potentially effective as the free-electron laser, but closer to making a useable weapon. The railgun, on the other hand, really has only a counterpart in the Army, and that's intended for tanks.

This is yet another case of Congress pretending to save money on defense to curry favor with voters who know nothing about defense, except that they don't like it, when, in the long run, this is likely to cost more. Hopefully the projects will be retained since this is hardly a final decision.

By the way, this is not a "superlaser". It has potentially greater effectiveness than other lasers, but the appelation "superlaser" is a tad dramatic.

_________________
"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

This reminds me of the proposed huge cuts to NSF and NIH funding.

None of these funding agencies as a whole are anything more than a drop in the bucket! We've spent nearly a third of the 3 billion in Navy defense R&D dropping bombs in Libya... And which is more important, a few bombing runs in a country where we're not even leading the efforts? Or developing our offensive and defensive weapons to keep a position of power?

And yeah, lets cut back the NIH budget... We don't really need new medicines, new antiviral drugs, new screening systems for cancer or any of that. Nor do we need to fund research into the spread of pandemic disease, or really anything related to medicine. Never mind that it's a tiny fraction of what we spend in healthcare subsidies for individuals.....

Things are on a downward spiral once you start cutting research. You need research funding to bring you *out* of a spiral... No research just kills your future prospects.

_________________
Darksiege: You are not a god damned vulcan homie.

I don't think the new Navy guns would ever be used in combat. Just my 2 cents. We haven't had naval battles since WW2 - approaching a century ago.

I agree.

In defense terms, this is a lot like the Seawolf debacle. The Seawolf was a large, advanced successor to the Los Angeles submarines. At the end of the cold war, 3 were built out of a planned 21, then 12. However, like practically everything else in the Clinton years, it was axed as being a "Cold war relic".

Of course, there was still a need for nuclear attack submarines because the end of the Cold War didn't make the Russian, Chinese, or anyone else's submarines vaporize by magic.

So we ended up with the Virginia class : smaller, slower, and generally less-capable, but just as costly because we had to start over again with R&D, despite "cost saving" measures. The program was, at one point, so poorly managed that Congress eventually became concerned that the Navy did not have enough attack submarines despite the cost because of a 2-yard approach to building them (which was only sensible; without that one or the other yard would shut down and competition would be totally eliminated from the submarine procurement process).

Now, the Virginia class is still an advanced, modern design, and recently the direct production costs have been largely controlled - USS New Hampshire was delivered 54 million under budget. Still, it was never necessary. It would have made more sense to just keep building Seawolves and let the natural attrition of older classes reduce the number of submarines after the end of the Cold War. But no, between Clinton, who hated the military when he had to spend money on it and loved it when he wanted to deploy it, and peacenik idiots who think smaller = cheaper = better we ended up spending totally unnecessary money on a totally unnecessary submarine, which will in the end, probably be built in the same total numbers: 18 Virginias + 3 Seawolves = the original 21 Seawolves, and the **** peaceniks would have gotten their precious cuts in spades anyhow: there were 62 Los Angeles class submarines plus Permit and Sturgeon class subs and we weren't going to replace them on anything like a 1-for-1 basis.

If I had my way there'd be a Constitutional amendment stating that the budget A) had to be balaned B) after debt servicing and at least 10% of income going to pay down the debt C) 50% of all other money had to be spent on defense. Period. Not law enforcement, not Social Security or medicare, or salaries or anything else. Defense.

_________________
"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

You aren't aware of how frequently naval gunfire and naval cruise missiles have attacked shore targets?

As for Naval battles, familiarize yourself with Operation Praying Mantis, actions against North Vietnamese torpedo boats, actions against Libyan missile boats, not to mention naval combat between India and Pakistan, the Falklands war, and the naval actions between Israel and Arab navies. Naval combat does occur, and if the cold war had ever gone hot it would have made WWII naval battles look like a joke.

Russia doesn't maintain nuclear powered battlecruisers for the hell of it, you know.

_________________
"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

Once you factor in the cost of R&D, both weapons have a huge (but decreasing) per shot cost. If you're going to do any sort of cost-benefit analysis, you must factor in the "cost of compliance" as it were, in this case the costs to produce the weapons. Also bear in mind that the cost of missiles has already been paid in the case of missiles that are already on our ships.

There is no doubt that defense has to be cut like everything else. (That we are not cutting everything else is a separate issue). While this certainly could be dems cutting defense to appeal to their peacnik base that doesn't like defense spending, I can't say that much of the opposition isn't in the same vein - military nuts wanting to spend on defense because they like defense spending.

Now, both projects have their application in many other places besides shooting people. That is what our congress critters don't understand. This is not a case of throwing good money after bad. The laser, specifically, is probably going to end up ushering in a major breakthrough in medical technology. The railgun is likely to bring about major breakthroughs in building efficient power generators. These are not projects that are being carried out purely for their applications in defense, and then lead scientists involved are well aware of that.

So there are major benefits that are being willfully ignored in the cost benefit analysis.

_________________
Buckle your pants or they might fall down.

The issue with this is most people do not view Russia and China as threats, and then ask the question of why we need lasers and railguns to squash terrorist cells.

While that is true, that ignores the basic fact that the individual missiles require upgrades, maintenance, and have limited lifespans. The same applies to lasers and railguns, but only to the weapons themselves, akin to the missile launchers - individual shots do not. Missiles maintain a sunk cost, but we are not talking about complete replacement of missiles, simply reducing reliance on them, so in that regard the sunk R&D costs in missiles would still be useful. However, laser and railgun technology has potentially unlimited future development potential. Looking at the "per shot" cost is problematic because it artificially increases apparent short-term cost at the expense of future savings.



Frankly, pratically no one wants defense spending for the sake of defense spending at the level we're talking about. It may appear that way, but a large part of that is the press and congress simply handwaving away the more complex realities of the situation, and a portion of the public only too happy to eat that up. You can find the rare person (other than kids that think weapons are toys, because.. well, they're kids) who simply mil-wanks, but those are not the people making policy. On the other hand, you can cerainly find irrational peaceniks making policy.

Furthermore, while defense cuts may be necessary in t he current financial situation, this is the wrong thing to cut. Cuts really need to be made more to the portion of the defense establishment that has little to do with defense and provides little or no combat power. On top of that, there is the fact that defense cutting does not address a basic problem - defense has been subject to cuts over and over throughout history but social programs practically never are. Any defense cutting at this point is unwise until serious cuts to other programs are made simply because defense cuts represent the same failure to accept that there is not a bottomless pit of money with which to buy votes.



That is true. However, the fact remains that they will be necessary for defense in the future - not "shooting people". A large part of defence is deterrence, and having vast technological superiority contributes to that. They may indeed have other benefits, and those are also good reasons to produce them, but even without these benefits, we should still be researching more advanced weapons.

_________________
"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

That's not an issue with the weapons. First of all, railguns can partially replace missile which people do know we use against terrorists. Second, it illustrates the short-sightedness of the average person and their lack of understanding of strategic realities.

China and Russia are a lot less likely to become threats if they realize they cannot reasonably catch up. To a great degree, they are threats, not in the "tanks in the Fulda Gap" sense, but more in the sense that they maintain cast potential to affect our access to markets and resources, and that if we did not have sufficient defense, they would have a grand opportunity to fill the power vaccuum.

_________________
"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

There are serious conversations to be had about reducing the military budget.

We could afford to develop a lot of railguns and superlasers if we were allowed to close Rammstein and Okinawa and make those countries defend themselves.

Also I don't like a constitutional requirement to spend so much on the military. It ignores the realities of any given day. I don't think we spend that much now and there is certainly room to cut.

_________________
I prefer to think of them as "Fighting evil in another dimension"

I like the ideas of reducing our presence overseas and making Europe pay its own way if they want defense.

_________________

Holy shitsnacks!

That sure is like lots of nations out there - always preparing to fight the last conflict.

_________________
"...but there exists also in the human heart a depraved taste for equality, which impels the weak to attempt to lower the powerful to their own level and reduces men to prefer equality in slavery to inequality with freedom." - De Tocqueville

Where would DE reduce military spending?

I know I'd cut out Iraq/Afghan/Libya operations and reduce our garrisons around the globe by like 100%. I don't see any of those things happening. They'll start cutting veteran benefits first.

_________________
"...the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?" -Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

I'd pull back almost anything overseas, and focus on defensive spending, keeping a strong domestic navy and airforce, and on R&D.

It would cut the defense budget by a ton, and focus it where it does us the most good.

_________________
Darksiege: You are not a god damned vulcan homie.

I've gone over where I think military spending should be cut before, more than once. However, since some people think it's easier to just think "DE wanks off to expensive military toys" rather than actually pay attention to my position, I'll explain again - at length.

In order to understand what I'm talking about, there are 4 major strategic errors since WWII that have continuing aftereffects I would like to remedy. I beleive these errors have cost both lives and money and left us with a military more expensive relative to its capability than it strictly needs to be.

1) Involvement in Viet Nam. The reasons this was a strategic error I really should not have to relate. It had tremendous lasting effects, because, much like Iraq, it diverted focus from defense of the nation and its strategic interests to trying to sustain a democracy in a nation where that simply wasn't going to happen, and where it really got us pretty much nothing to do so. In Afghanistan there was a strong case to be made for going in and punching out the Taliban and getting out, a weaker case in Iraq, and in the case of Viet Nam.. all I can say is the reasoning was a product of the times.

2) Horrendous strategic decisions regarding ABM systems and nuclear deterrence in general. Much of this can be laid at the feet of Robert McNamara, quite possibly the worst Secretary of Defense in our history. Donald Rumsfeld approaches him in sheer imbicility, and I think it's no coincidence that both attempted to run the DOD as if it were a business and ended up making terrible decisions because the things that make you a profit in business do not make you a winner at strategic gamesmanship or at restoring democracy to shitholes.

3) Neglect of the military under both the Carter and Clinton administrations that approaches dereliction of duty, followed by spending decisions under the Bush administration that attempted to remedy the problem while at the same time exacerbating it by repeating the Viet Nam mistake of focusing on a couple of shitholes at the expense of larger national interest.

4) Excessive concern with making the military do things that are really not the province of the military in order to be politically acceptable to others. A certain level of this capability is needed, but the aggregate effect has been to have large facets of the military that do not contribute to combat power.

Now, where would DE go?

Well, there are two ways to answer this. Where would I go now, and where would I go if we weren't already in a **** sandwich of expense both military and otherwise? Either way, DE has a few goals

1) Extricate the nation from current, lengthy conflicts. Regardless of what our goals and reasons for going into Afghanistan and Iraq were, they should have been accomplished by now, and if they were going to take this long, we should have had better goals

2) Pursue a policy of deterrence, both conventional and nuclear. We should maintain forces of both types such that a potential adversary would think it unwise or of little benefit to challenge us.

3) Foriegn involvement should be a policy of massive retaliation for attack, and short, sharp involvement with potential threats to our foriegn economic interests or our non-CONUS states or posessions. Essentially, if they aren't a threat, we don't need to be there, and if they are a threat, they won't be there.

All of the above is predicated on the political will to make it clear that we are not concerned with the sensibilities of other nations.

As such, here is how I would re-align our military:

1) Recall of most foriegn land-based forces, not because of some naive "why do we need to be there?" question like a teenager asking mom why he can't borrow the car, but because the time has passed where these are of benefit to us. Forces in Okinawa, Korea, Europe, and of course deployed forces in Iraq and Afghanistan would be removed to the U.S.

2) Re-negotiate any defensive treaties we are in such that allies such as Japan, South Korea, and NATO nations can expect U.S. aid if directly attacked, but are obligated to provide for their own defense without U.S. forces being permanently stationed there.

3) End the nuclear-sharing agreement with some NATO nations. No nuclear weapons will be stored outside U.S. territory other than aboard ships of war or their embarked aircraft.

4) eliminate all ICBMs over the next 20 years. Sell off land ICBMs are presently leased on and as much other associated equipment as possible.

5) Withdrawl from all arms control treaties of any kind. This would be done in conjunction with a unilateral promise to Russia that we will voluntarily allow inspection of what nuclear arms we are using as a sign of good faith.

6) Retirement of the W-76 and W-78 warheads. If compatible, the W-87 would replace the W-76 aboard SLBMs; if not it would also be retired and a new warhead developed, or the W-88 production would be re-opened. These older warheads are of questionable reliability and safety. Eliminate other unused stockpiles of nuclear warheads and close some storage facilities. Basically, no more than 10% of the total arsenal should be sitting around unmated to a delivery system.

7) Retirement of all B-52 aircraft. The B-1B would be converted to the B-1R standard and a new, mach 2 strategic bomber would be procured on the order of 120 aircraft in order to retire the B-1 and B-2 fleets as theit airframes reached the end of their service life.

8) A new SRAM-III program to replace the cancelled SRAM-II of the early 90s. To be armed with existing W-80 or W-84 warheads.

9) Eliminate roughly 25% of the Army Reserve entirely

10) Convert the National Guard to a 1-Brigade-per-state model (on average, obviously different states can support different sizes) with a reduction in tank units, but with each state having, at minimum, 1 battery of PAC-3, THAAD, or land-based SM-3 ABM run by its national guard and intended to protect that state against ballistic missile attack. Cut overall National Guard end strength by 10% by focusing on units not part of combat brigades.

11) Cut the active army from 44 brigades to 38, and eliminate field headquarters above Corps level; retain only 2 Army level HQs: First Army, Third Army. Eliminate HQs like the Joint Forces Command the Gates was already trying to kill that serve no real purpose other than to provide jobs for officers. Cut overall officer strength by 10% exclusive of other cuts.

12) Move non-combat-oriented Engineer projects out from under the DOD; the domestic Army Corps of Engineers would become a civilian agency under the Department of the Interior and as much of its work as possible would be handed over to the states along with the property and employees. Cut an equivalent number of soldiers from the Army.

13) Sale of most Strykers to whatever foreign customers can be found and restoration of most of these units to either heavy or light configuration from existing vehicle stores. No more that 3 stryker brigades.

14) Sale of any remaining "war stocks" of construction equipment and other vehicles not already on an unit MTOE, or disposal as scrap

15) End the Littoral Combat Ship program; sale to foreign customers, or transfer to the Coast Guard

16) Retire all remaining Perry-class frigates; offer for foreign sale on favorable terms including an option to purchase upgraded electronics and combat systems, such as an 12-cell (or more if it will fit) VLS to replace the removed SAM launcher; this would allow a capacity of 32x ESSM and 4 x Harpoon.

17) Retire all remaining EA-6B Growler aircraft; do not accelerate deployment of the EA-18G replacement.

18) Foreign sale of the 3 remaining decomissioned non-VLS AEGIS cruisers, if in a condition to permit this.

19) Resinstatement of the requirement that all future cruisers and carriers be nuclear-powered. Extend this requirement to any destroyers after the Arleigh Burke and Zumwalt classes. End the Zumwalt class at 3, as planned, and the Burke class at DDG-115. Begin development of a new destroyer class, nuclear powered, with a design goal displacement not to exceed 10,000 tons. Any future amphibious ships that will operate fixed-wing aircraft should also be nuclear-powered.

20) Restarting of the CG(X) cruiser program, but with a smaller design goal; on the order of 17,000 tons rather than the original 27,000, and with 256-384 VLS cells rather than 512. A goal of 17 ships should be met. In addition, a larger class comparable to the original CG(X) should be built and designated a "Battleship" starting at hull number BB-73. This ship should still not have the previously desired 512 VLS cells; rather it should have a number in the range of 384 like its smaller counterpart, but should be designed with room for at several future railgun and laser systems. Existing gun systems can be employed until they are ready, but this class of ship should not begin construction for at least 10 years anyhow. Note that the term "Battleship" here reflects the displacement of the ship and its role as the center of a task force; it is not intended to be some sort of WWII-style battlewagon. It could easily be called a "Battlecruiser" as well.

21) Along with 20, accelerate retirement of the oldest Nimitz-class carriers after USS Enterprise is retired; set a goal of 9 active carriers groups, but with full-size air groups rather than the cut-down air wings they currently employ. See below regarding Marine aviation assets.

22) Retire and sell or dispose of the 11 remaining non-VLS Los Angeles class attack submarines. Keep the option open for additional Virginias to replace them, down the road, but do not accelerate planned procurement of Virginias

23) As converison to nuclear power permits, retire oilers.

24) Continue to produce and fund PAC-3, THAAD, SM-3, and GBI ABM systems.

25) De-activate the headquarters and division-level support elements for the III MEF/3rd Marine Division. Move its 2 infantry regiments to the other 2 MEFs administratively. Deactivate it's artillery regiment (12th Marines). De-activate Combat Logistics Regiments 3, 35, and 37; if necessary move some of their subordinate elements to the 1st and 2nd Marine Division logistics elements to support the additional regiment; de-activate the remaining subordinate elements.

26) De-activate the 3rd Marine Air Wing; use the existing planes and pilots to help increase the strength of the airwings aboard the carriers.

27) Complete review of procurement and spending rules

28) Complete review of DOD activities that are not easily identifiable big-ticket items. There are thousands of money-wasting little activities going on. Each and every one of these should be closely scrutinized to see if its value to the support of actual combat is justified compared to its cost, and if not eliminated. Everything from the cranky retired Sergeants Major at Range Control to the old ladies that quit half an hour early at the chow hall to..well, and so on. I'm not even going to try to summarize this bullshit here; I could only scratch the surface.

Basically, we need to cut stuff that is about us going around trying to police everything, and retain stuff that is about us bringing the hammer down on anyone that either attacks us, or **** with our strategic interests in materials, energy, and commerce. We do not, for example, need to retain 4100-ton frigates (larger than most WWII destroyers) that have been stripped of their main offensive system because of its obsolescence in order to chase **** pirates around; we can do that with destroyers that are also useful for a hell of a lot of other things. We do not need to retain 70 year old bombers or ICBMs from the 1960s; we need to look forward to new ideas that are more reliable, more versatile, less vulnerable, and which do not involve us keeping 3 types of heavy bomber in service because we didn't buy enough of 1, we squandered the usefulness of 1 with an idiotic treaty, and the other one is soldiering on because we **** the other 2 up so badly. We do not need endless headquarters full of officers that sit around and do nothing but make powerpoint slides and brief generals who themselves do not actually command anything besides their staff.

The goal is not to cut the defense budget in and of itself; some cuts are necessary because of the financial situation we are in but those can mostly be made by eliminating war spending. Other cuts need to come from practically everywhere else; Congress needs to feel the pain politically of having to cut popular programs and the public needs to feel the pain of having to live life without a government program for every damn thing. The goal is to get actual defense for our money; our defense establishment should be such that, ideally, we never have to employ it because anyone seriously contemplating **** with us is afraid of the hammer that will hit them. We should not be focusing on more ways to go around playing whackamole with shithole dictators and terrorists; we should be focusing on ways to make it not worth it to attack us in the first place. After 9-11 Kabul should have been a **** crater, not a garrison.

_________________
"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

On 10. Aren't National Guard units under state jurisdiction or control? As such shouldn't it be wrong for the federal government to limit their size? If I'm wrong please correct me.

I'd vote for the rest of it.

_________________
I prefer to think of them as "Fighting evil in another dimension"

And this.

_________________
I prefer to think of them as "Fighting evil in another dimension"

Not really, since the Federal government is picking up part of the tab for them. It would be more accurate to say, eliminate Federal funding equal to 10% of the total cost of the National Guard (that's not 10% of the Federal share; it's 10% of the total) If the states want to pick up the slack, they're welcome to.

_________________
"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

I can live with that.

_________________
I prefer to think of them as "Fighting evil in another dimension"

Have they solved the heat/friction issues with the rail guns? Last time I did a little looking on the topics, the typical rail gun was only useful for a dozen or so shots before all the rails had to be replaced. The hope at the time was that advances in other tech, such as super conductors or electro-magnetic levitation would alleviate the wear on the rails, but that was all speculation, and solving the friction problem with those technologies greatly increased the demands for overall weapon systems on the boat (energy needed, space, etc).

Yeah, I don't see that happening until we are forced to make such changes unfortunately.

_________________
"...the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?" -Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

I can dream. You would think that the right charismatic conservative leader would and could convince the powers in the military that this reorganization is in their best interests and the true doves would be happy at any kind of military spending cuts, even those proposed by "the right"

_________________
I prefer to think of them as "Fighting evil in another dimension"

Both Rs and Ds agree on the current use of the military as a part of foreign and economic policy. He/she would have to be charismatic and able to go against his/her party. In our political system, without support from the political class, you can't get anywhere. Support means playing their game, which doesn't mean doing anything outside the norm or seeking honest-to-god changes. Whether you like Ron Paul or not, he's a good example. The GOP won't even let him go to their parties.

_________________
"...the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?" -Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

I like Ron Paul. He's the best rep I've ever had. Jim Jordan, My current is a close second (Jordan for Senate 2012!) I'm just not sure Dr Paul is Presidential. A President needs to be able to brigde those gaps like Reagan did Voted for him in the Primary in 08 cause he was the best of the crop.

_________________
I prefer to think of them as "Fighting evil in another dimension"

Not yet. This is still a developing weapon, and that's one of the major problems that still needs to be overcome.

_________________
"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."