The Recession and Neo-Fascism/Et-al-isms

David Brooks at New York Times had an interesting article up today on the "Formerly Middle Class". His main thesis is that, as these formerly middle class people lose their jobs and their middle class symbols, they will become angry, pessimistic, and vulnerable to extremist messages.

This column reminded me of Today's ISMS: Socialism, Capitalism, Fascism, Communism, and Libertarianism by Ebenstein. In it, Ebenstein said of Fascism that its footsoldiers are of the Lower Middle Class, because they have worked the hardest to move themselves out of the lower class. So they embrace the social conventions and traditions. At the same time, because they are lower on the economic scale, they are more vulnerable to losing their status. Therefore they are more militant against economic redistribution schemes. Fascism exploits their vulnerabilities against Communism, even though both are more similar than different in practice.

With this in mind, we can look at a post-Great-Recession World 10 years from now: In China, India, Brazil, and Russia, (and East Europe), we can expect to see a rise in Nationalistic Fascist groups in their respective countries. They will militate against their traditional enemies: Japan/Korea, Pakistan, Germany/Europe, Paraguay(?), et al. And the United States will be the Public Enemy # Uno in many of those places as well.

As the "Emerging Markets" slide back into 3rd World-ness, we can also expect a re-surgence in Communist philosophies. Both Communism and Fascism are products of the turbulent economic times of the last turn of the century. It seems that the more things change, the more they stay the same.

I may have to order that nuclear fall-out shelter I've been thinking about. With a possibly Islamic-ruled Pakistan and Nationalistic Fascist India facing each other, the Doomsday Clock is edging toward armageddon.

The USAF's Acquisition Crisis and AAMs

Whew! The election is finally over with. Let's hope Obama is more of a Clinton-style triangulator instead of a Carter-ish indecisive vision guy as Todd Zywicki said here.

Regardless, Stephen Trimble yesterday highlighted some great comments from a fighter jock here, that generated a lot of comments. One of the interesting points is the low probability of kill ratio of the AIM-120 against a jamming target. If the USAF is going up against any semi-near-peer competitor, it will not have superiority. Sure, the F-22 is great. But the key to making the F-22, and its Beyond-Visual-Range tactic, work, is the AIM-120. If the F-22 supercruises into the fight, fires the AMRAAMs, and get out of Dodge, he survives. But his target will survive, too, if the missiles fail to lock onto the target due to jamming. And what's that called, if neither side gets a kill? Parity, not Superiority.

This, coupled with the USAF fiscal death spiral that ELP and others have been documenting, means that the USAF needs to change its acquisition strategy right now. If it keeps going down the current path, it will run out of money, people, and fighters. The USAF will get a smaller and smaller slice of the budget pie, along with the rest of the DoD, because that is the American budgetary future. The USAF cannot out-compete the AARP. The USAF is also getting less retention. And it is prematurely retiring its F-teens to bank on the unproven F-35. The USAF will become operationally irrelevant if it keeps going as it is.

The USAF keeps saying that the F-22s (with AMRAAM) will secure the skies and allow the F-35s to do their job, but it doesn't have enough F-22s, and will never get more. The F-35s (and some legacy F-teens) will have to take on air-to-air missions. We know that AMRAAM, as is, doesn't work in a jamming environment. The USAF has to immediately embark on an AMRAAM replacement program right now. Being that even missile programs take more than 4 years to go from the lab to the flightline, the more the USAF wastes its time, the more time it gives semi-near-peers to become peers. The new Advanced AAM Program [doesn't that sound familiar? :] has a simple goal, Give the F-35 a decisive advantage over the current 4.5th Gen fighters (Eurofighter, Su-35+, et al). The corollary effect will give the F-teens and F-22 superiority over everybody else.

In the mean time, the USAF can get some cheap fixes: Put a Sidewinder seeker and an RF homing seeker on the AMRAAM for seeker diveristy in the inventory. Integrate and buy the Meteor to improve the kill ratio and foster cross-Atlantic solidarity. Try the datalink to improve jamming resistance. Or have the AMRAAM talk to other AMRAAMs in its volley to sift through the noise.

Unfortunately, the USAF has been peddling the F-35 as its savior for too long now. Politically, it cannot admit otherwise and change course, without killing many officer careers. The Obama administration seems unlikely to rock the USAF boat, because its focus, and its expertise, is on COIN and the ground fight. The Obama administration may not have the intellectual and political capital to fight the USAF.

If Dr. Gates stays on as DefSec, he might be able to turn the USAF around, due to his USAF background as a missileer and his distance from the F-35 game. However, he is planning on leaving, and there are other people that want the job. All in all, the future looks bleak for the
USAF.

On the other hand, the USN faces a similar issue with its underpowered F-18. The USN Tomcat association has long lobbied for an AIM-54 Phoenix replacement. The USN aviation budget is in much less trouble due to its volume buy of the F-18E/F, and is in a better position to advocate a new AAAM program. If the USN succeeds in deploying the AAAM, you can be sure that the USAF will jump on board.

It is a sad day when the USAF has to depend on the USN to rescue it from air-to-air irrelevance. However, this analysis is yet another piece of vindication for Inter-Service Rivalry and support for duplication in Roles and Missions.

Sorry for the html. Has to use email submission.

Edit: fixed the html.

Edit 2: I saw the Joint Dual Role Air Dominance Missile. I hope that the Air to Air requirements are sufficiently robust, and that the ARM/AGM requirements take a back seat, as they should be. However, with an in-service date beyond 2020, it is clear that the USN and USAF needs an interim solution, as I've outlined above.

The Upcoming LMG Replacement and Infantry Operations

The Marine Corps Times reports that USMC is working on a SAW replacement. At the same time, the US Army will probably stay with an upgrade to the FN Minimi/M249. The Marines are looking for a magazine-fed-only automatic rifle to serve in this role. The Army, on the other hand, is sticking with belt-feed, and will possibly eliminate the magazine well on the SAW.

This is an interesting development and serves to highlight the historical role of the light machine gun. Most people, including many in the military, have little understanding on what a machine gun is supposed to do. Everyone agrees that a machine gun, including an LMG and automatic rifle, needs to shoot lots of rounds, but outside of that, there's quite a bit of confusion.

Man invented the Machine Gun because it was a great engineering problem, to make the gun automatically load and continuously fire. But after the invention, militaries struggled for years to build up an organization around the technology. Eventually, in the meatgrinder of World War I, they settled on the missions of the machine gun as:
1. In the Defense, to anchor the defensive line, and to build a wall of lead to stop the enemy advance.
2. In the Offense, to isolate the objective (a bunker, foxhole, house) so that the enemy cannot reinforce the target, and to occupy the objective's attention while the rest of the squad/team approaches the objective.

The light machine gun attempts to meet these two missions for the infantry squad, while the medium machine gun does the same for platoons and companies. To keep up with the soldiers on foot, the LMG needs to be small and light enough so that one soldier can carry it and bring it into action, yet still fulfills the above two missions.

The current debate in LMG design is, What are the necessary features to meet the missions?
-Does it require a belt-feed mechanism so we can give it a 200-round belt in a sustained-fire mode, or would the current 30-round magazine be sufficient since machine gun operation usually has enough time to allow a quick magazine change? Can the current 90-round and 100-round drum magazines work as well as the battle-proven belt-feed mechanism? The American BAR served throughout WWII in the LMG role with only a 20-round magazine.
-Does it require a quick change barrel so that the squad can fire thousands of rounds in a defensive engagement against overwhelming odds? Without changing out the barrels in this scenario, the machine gun barrel will melt/deform from the firing stress, rendering the weapon useless.
-Does it need a tripod mount so we can mount it on a Humvee, and to provide accurate, long-distance(600m+), automatic fire from a static position? Or is that a role for medium machine guns and heavy machine guns, but not light machine guns?

These questions are important because modern assault rifles such as the AK47 and M16 provide automatic fire mode to the individual soldier. The soldier no longer has to rely on the squad LMG to be the sole provider of automatic fire. The LMG does not have the overwhelming advantage in automatic fire to offset its disadvantage of weight, size, and logistical and training requirements (as a result of its belt-feed, barrel, and tripod). And without the above three features of belt-feed, quick-change barrel, and tripod mount, the LMG looks suspiciously like any other assault rifles. Witness the RPK and the L86 LSW variant. In fact, the British Army now employs the L86 LSW as a designated marksman rifle, rather than an LMG.

[The Steyer AUG LMG variant is an LMG design that has the quick-change barrel, but no belt-feed nor tripod.]

So armies across the globe continue to grapple with the design of the LMG/Automatic Rifle. The lessons of OIF are now feeding into this debate. In OIF, most of the fighting is done in built-up areas. In such close quarters, the machine guns primarily serve to isolate the objective, firing down alleyways to keep people from entering and leaving. The LMG's length means that it is of limited utility inside houses, going from room to room. The LMG's range is useful as a marksman rifle, but its sustained fire is rarely used due to collateral damage. To the dismounted patrol, then, the LMG extracts a weight penalty for a limited tactical utility.

On the other hand, the LMG was crucial in the early days of OIF phase 4. At the time, units across the country scrambled onto Humvees to maintain security on the lines of communication, and to provide security coverage in the cities. During this mad rush, there was a critical shortage in medium machine guns (M240) and heavy machine guns (M2) to arm the Humvees. The SAWs in the pintle mount bridged the shortage then, and has continued in the role to this day as a vehicle weapon. Therefore, an LMG may be important to the infantry squad not for its dismounted utility, but as a hedge for the days of the Dragoons.

In conclusion, the Light Machine Gun, as it exists today, will probably fade away. In the assault-rifle world, the LMG does not possess enough of an advantage over the assault rifle to continue on as a dedicated platform. Instead, we will see more assault-rifle derivatives such as the Steyer AUG LMG, which shares much in common with the individual rifle. The automatic rifle of the future would ideally have a quick-change barrel and the tripod mount (to get on the pintle). Drum magazines and regular magazines will carry the ammunition for the automatic rifle, enabling the SAW gunner/Automatic Rifleman to share ammo with his squadmates.

Thanks to Noah's Five for Fighting 9/16/08 for the heads up.

Edited for spelling, grammer, and formatting

Army Open to New PDW Ideas

The US Army is now open to other Personal Defense Weapon ideas.

For years, the NATO program on PDWs have focused on weapons designed to meet the PDW requirements, instead of current weapons, such as subcompact carbines. This focus has derailed PDW programs due to budgetary concerns with new weapon systems and their dedicated ammunition. However, the new US small arms RFI could signal a change.

This RFI is looking for what is out there in the carbine and subcompact carbine market. Subcompact carbines such as the Close Quarters Battle Receiver; or AR pistol generally serve the SOF community in the US military. However, subcompacts can satisfy the PDW requirements quite well.

Subcompacts are small and light, which is the main requirement for PDWs, whose users have to carry a weapon while performing their daily jobs of maintenance, commo, etc. An AR subcompact would also ease the training requirements, because they share the same operation and maintenance procedures. An AR subcompact can also share the same ammunition as the M-16/M4 system, or their follow-ons. The AR subcompact shares many parts with its larger carbine sibling, making it cheaper to develop and acquire.

The various piston upper receivers are also available for subcompact AR carbines, so we have piston alternatives.

The many virtues of the subcompact carbine/pistol makes it a politically and militarily viable solution to the PDW requirements. Now if only they can do something about the subcompact's muzzle blasts...

China Finally Responds to Ossetia

A belated update to my previous post on Ossetia: China, through the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, has taken a stand on the Ossetia conflict. The SCO will support the current ceasefire and the conflict resolution.

As predicted, China has taken the neutral third party stance. Words are cheap. We'll have to wait to see if China will back up words with deeds, ie Deploy peacekeepers to replace the Russians, etc.

And we're still waiting on India to make a move here.

Thanks to Galrahn for noting this first.

The Asian Geopolitical Implications of the Ossetian War

Figured I should put in my 2 cents about the Ossetian War here. I don't have anything to add to the news out there. But this conflict is glaring in the absence of some major players.

China and India aspire to super power status. The Ossetian War presented many opportunities to a power looking for good press: Russia took a side, America the other. A third way to mediate the crisis, as a semi-neutral third party, is an obvious opening. At the end of hostilities there will be a need for peacekeepers/observers to enforce the ceasefire, for which China and India has plenty of bodies to deploy, and which will be a great occassion for photo ops in a low-risk environment. The role of a mediator does not require any commitments and has a great return on international good will.

Both China and India are for "Non-intervention", "territorial integrity", etc. China in particular can use another friend to face off Russia. At the same time, both countries have a huge diaspora population abroad and can use that to relate to Russia.

Of course, France took the diplomatic opening and is working to mediate a ceasefire. India and China should have been jumping on the bandwagon and everything. Yet there is nary a peep from either of them. One wonders why.

Thanks to The DEW Line!

Thanks to Stephen Trimble's The DEW Line for the shout out!