Yes, makin’ mock o’ uniforms that guard you while you sleep,
Is cheaper than them uniforms, an’ they’re starvation cheap;
An’ hustlin’ drunken soldiers when they’re goin’ large a bit,
Is five times better business than paradin’ in full kit.

After some 10 years of warfare, America’s all-volunteer force hasn’t broken; the 1 percent of Americans who served and are serving are heroes in hero families. Of course administration and defense leaders have begun planning for strategic budgetary cutbacks. But when they reached the “uniforms that guard you while you sleep,” rhey decided they could buy them at “starvation cheap.”

Secretary of Defense Leon E. Panetta delivered the military a Valentine’s Day card when he presented the defense budget. See if it sounds like bait and switch.

• The bait: “There are no [military] pay cuts,” said Panetta. “We’ve created sufficient room to allow full pay raises in 2013 and 2014.
• The switch: “However, we will provide more limited pay raises beginning in 2015, giving troops and their families fair notice and lead time before changes take effect.”

• The bait: The budget requests nearly $50 billion for health care costs, he said. “To control the growth of these costs, we’re recommending increases in health care fees — in co-pays and deductibles — that are to be phased [over] four to five years. None of the fee proposals apply to active duty service members, and their families will not pay increased premiums.”
• The switch for retired servicemembers. The new proposal speaks of “tiered” fees that would vary depending on the member’s retired pay and civilian earnings after retirement.

A news release of Feb. 13 by the Military Officers Association of America (MOAA), stated: “The new budget plan would dramatically increase [health care] enrollment fees and deductibles for retired military families younger than age 65. Some will see nearly a fourfold increase over five years; from $520 per family to $2,048. After 2017, annual increases would be tied to a medical inflation index. The new, tiered, annual enrollment fee would rise to $475 by fiscal 2017 for retirees and family members age 65 and older, for whom the military TRICARE plan serves as second-payer to Medicare.”

In a column of Feb. 16, retired Air Force Colonel Steve Strobridge of MOAA wrote: “Let’s recognize this proposal is uniquely discriminatory toward the military community. No other federal health care beneficiary pays income-based premiums.” This includes retired U.S. presidents, secretaries of defense, members of Congress, and all other federal retirees. “Means-testing health care fees also is rare in the private sector,” said Strobridge. “Why? Because it’s a benefit that’s earned by service to an employer or, in the military’s case, to the country.”

Strobridge added that means-testing is for “welfare programs, social insurance programs, and other unearned benefits that are provided as a government gift or “safety net” for those in need of assistance. “Military health care benefits most emphatically are not a gift,” he said.

If Congress accepts the proposal to reduce military pay raises beginning in 2015, troops needed for the all volunteer force might find other employment as they’ve done in the past. If lawmakers break a bond with today’s military retirees by imposing means testing on their health care, the retirees can do little about it. But active-duty troops who see promises broken by their government might leave the service — at the career stage when they are most needed. They will see through the bait and switch.

You talk o’ better food for us, an’ schools, an’ fires an’ all:
We’ll wait for extry rations if you treat us rational.
Don’t mess about the cook-room slops, but prove it to our face,
The Widow’s Uniform is not the soldier-man’s disgrace.

For it’s Tommy this, an’ Tommy that, an’ “Chuck him out, the brute!”
But it’s “Saviour of ‘is country,” when the guns begin to shoot;
An’ it’s Tommy this, an’ Tommy that, an’ anything you please;
But Tommy ain’t a bloomin’ fool – you bet that Tommy sees!
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The Navy would keep its 11 aircraft carriers, 10 air wings and big-deck amphibious ships, but the payback would be brutal. It would scrap seven cruisers and two amphibious transports. It would slow down the shipbuilding program. It would delay replacement of the Ohio ballistic missile submarine (boomer) by two years and construction of a new amphibious assault ship by one year. From the future years defense plan it would scratch one Virginia-class submarine, two littoral combat ships and eight Joint High Speed Vessels. An unknown number of “fleet logistics ships” would be eliminated. All of this would eviscerate the Navy’s stated minimum of 313 ships.

The Air Force would send six tactical squadrons to the boneyard, leaving it with 54. It would retire 27 C-5A heavy cargo transport jets and 65 of the venerable C-130 cargo aircraft. Surviving the cut would be 52 upgraded C-5Ms, 318 C-130s and 222 jet-powered C-17 cargo planes.

Reorienting America’s nuclear triad will require a delicate balance between international treaties, domestic cost reductions, and pure strategic planning. One opinion comes from a Bloomberg editorial of Jan. 5, which reports that the United States has some 5,000 warheads remaining from an arsenal of 31,225 during the Cold War. About half of the 5,000 are deployed at any one time. The 2010 New Start Treaty will limit the United States to 1,550 strategic warheads by 2018. Most of them are on high-yield weapons whose use against North Korea or Iran would endanger millions of people outside the objective area. In spite of the limitations, planners argue that we should maintain enough strategic weapons to counterbalance peer powers.

Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) would save $79 billion by cutting the ballistic-missile submarine fleet from 14 to 11. His plan, says the Bloomberg editorial, would increase the number of strategic missiles per boat or warheads per missile, thus eliminating 200 of our estimated 500 ICBMs and limiting reserves to 1,100 weapons.

Supplanting the strategic weapons would be low-yield, tactical weapons currently carried by certain aircraft. Such weaponry–if the United States is to deploy tactical nuclear weapons at all–might be used as a deterrent against rogue nations such as North Korea or Iran. Such deployment would be expensive at first because the B-52 and B-2 fleets would require updating. In addition, any nuclear use of future F-16 or F-35 fighters is murky. As an option, the editorial suggests the possibility of deploying tactical missiles on boomers. As a side effect, the Energy Department could save billions in current costs to store and produce plutonium at Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico.

What the Congress wants
Lawmakers face a three-pronged challenge. First, they must decide what they think is best for national security. Second, they must face constituents who will insist that no cuts should affect existing and planned industry in their states and districts. And third, they must confront the job fallout within the slowly recovering economy.

Consider just one aspect–the additional $500 billion sequestration law that will pummel the defense industry if not rescinded. A report issued Feb. 1 by the Center for Security Policy enumerates the potential effects of sequestration for states, counties, territories and the District of Columbia. One state alone — Virginia — would lose 122,770 jobs; $7.24 billion in lost earnings; 10,527 active-duty servicemembers; and 22,428 civilian DoD employees. Fairfax County would lose $4.6 trillion from 2013 to 2021. And the Pentagon’s home of Arlington County would lose $1.6 trillion.

Granted, the study was released to help protect the defense budget, so it should not be viewed strictly as an employment measure. The authors write. “That said, the reality is that there will be real and, as this product illustrates, in some cases draconian impacts on both jobs in and the economies of states, counties and cities across the country and on the viability of various businesses, as a result of the direct and indirect effects of such cuts.”

What the public thinks about it.
As a possible indicator of the public’s attitude, a Gallup Poll of June 21, 2011, revealed that responders attitude toward importance of the Air Force has dropped from 23% in 2004 to 17%. The percentage of Americans naming the Navy as most important has dropped from 17% in 2002 to 11%.

Now consider an article of Jan. 27, 2012 by the Center for New American Security that reviews reader responses to a New York Times budget calculator that allows for ways to trim dollars from the defense budget. The responders could be considered “reasonably informed” because they participated in online defense budget surveys. The article discloses the following:

• The public is more ready to stop building ships than it is to stop buying aircraft or to cut ground forces.
• Half of the public is in favor of removing nuclear weapons from bombers, regardless of the effect on the nuclear triad.
• The public wants to close bases overseas — even though these bases can save money by reducing the cost of getting soldiers in and out of theater.
• The public was very reluctant to cap the pay of servicemembers and wanted to keep the military medical system — TriCare — though it was open to a raise in TriCare premiums.

How do these 21st century views compare with Prussian military philosopher Carl von Clausewitz’s trinity of war from 200 years ago?

1. War is an instrument of policy which the government exercises by reason alone;
2. The commander takes strategic and operational chances; and
3. The people represent a blind natural force of primordial violence, hatred, and enmity..
   In some ways Clausewitz sounds closer to our enemies and potential enemies than to us.
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Carrier Strike Group - Before sequestration

Jan. 28, 2012 – Several readers who receive Crosshairs by e-mail asked how the pending sequester would affect the Navy’s super carriers discussed in the post “The Future of the Flattops.” The sequester of $1.2 trillion is set to begin 2013 with half of it targeted against the Department of Defense. This would be $6 billion on top of the $450 billion that Defense Secretary Leon Panetta has already built into his budget. Here are two ways to look at it:

1. Consider a funeral service for an Air Force pilot where the ceremony includes a missing man flyover. In one variation, four aircraft approach and one veers off to fly into the sunset. In another, only three airplanes make the approach, with a noticeable vacancy for the fourth. Perhaps future combat flights would be reduced by one sequestered aircraft.
2. Or consider visiting the Tomb of the Unknowns at Arlington National Cemetery and finding no guard there, because the Army’s sentinel for that watch has been sequestered.

   Sound ridiculous? That’s just the tip of the sequestering iceberg. Secretary Panetta wrote Nov. 14 to Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), that reductions would require “equal percentage cuts in every weapons program, research project, and military construction project.” Panetta added, “You cannot buy three quarters of a ship or a building.”Panetta concluded that, after 10 years of sequestration cuts, the United States would have the smallest ground force since 1940, the smallest number of ships since 1915, and the smallest tactical fighter force in the history of the Air Force. Because there is no flexibility, sequestration could eliminate the ICBM (intercontinental ballistic missile) leg of America’s nuclear triad of air-, sea- and land-based delivery weapons.

   Air Force Gen. C. Robert Kehler, who leads U.S. Strategic Command, spoke Oct. 19, 2011, of the triad which currently comprises strategic missiles deliverable by 76 Air Force B-52s and 20 B-2s, ballistic and cruise missiles carried by 18 Navy Ohio-class submarines, and 450 land-based ICBMs. He suggested that all three legs of the triad must be sustained to accommodate the U.S.-Russia strategic arms reduction treaty (New Start) that took effect this year. With only two legs, the United States would have a hollow nuclear force.

   Placing the flattops somewhere between a missing sentry at Arlington Cemetery and a debilitated nuclear force, where does that leave us? By law the Navy must have 11 carriers but the sequestration law could preempt that. Think of a carrier strike group setting sail without enough supporting vessels to be more than a carrier defense group. Or think of a United States Navy strangled by sequestration when the president asks during a developing emergency, “Where are our carriers?” and is told, “Sir, two and a half are preparing for deployment, one and a half are returning from deployment, two are in overhaul, and one is deployed on the other side of the world.” Thus run the outrageous mathematics of the sequestration law.
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Loaded for Bear: USS Ronald Reagon CVN-76 (Courtesy USN)

Jan. 21, 2012 – Although naval warfare technology has changed, the same type of administrative budgeting decisions that occurred in the 1920s and 1930s are creating the U.S. Navy of the future. Back then, battleship advocates were fighting tooth and nail against proponents of aircraft carriers (flattops). An airplane, after all, was simply a reconnaissance device to be launched from a battleship. Then came Dec. 7, 1941. Six Japanese carriers launched 360 aircraft against Pearl Harbor, sinking or rendering useless eight American battleships, three destroyers, and three cruisers. Three American aircraft carriers and seven heavy cruisers not at Pearl Harbor remained unscathed to spearhead American counterattacks in the Pacific. The “day of infamy,” as President Franklin Delano Roosevelt called the surprise attack, foretold the emergence of the carrier as a replacement for the battleship.

During the ensuing 70 years, the American aircraft carrier became the president’s strategic signature, projecting America’s might from shows of force, to reconnaissance, to aerial interdiction and suppression, to tactical and operational warfare. But what happens next?

Some say the Navy’s fleet of 11 active aircraft carriers is safe from budget slashers because it is codified in law. They add that the mandated cut of $488 billion from the Pentagon within 10 years will not require scrapping a single carrier because the president’s military strategy focuses on two regions that will demand carrier deployment: Asia, to counter China’s emergent navy, and the Persian Gulf, where Iran threatens to block oil shipping through the Strait of Hormuz.

Nevertheless, the days of the super carrier may be numbered. Sources say that, although the fiscal 2013 budget may show 11 carriers, the Navy will be fielding only 10 or even nine in the next five years. In fact, the Navy will be operating with just 10 carriers between the time the USS Enterprise is retired in November this year and the USS Gerald Ford joins the fleet in 2015. Congress authorized the Navy to waive the law for this 33-month hiatus.With only two regions of strategic interest, why 11 carriers? According to a Washington Times article of Jan. 15, Rowan Scarborough reports that the Navy normally has three carriers deployed, three returning from deployments, three preparing for deployment, and two in overhaul. A carrier generally carries some 80 aircraft and leads a battle group of 7,500 sailors, a guided-missile cruiser, two guided-missile destroyers, an attack submarine and a supply ship. The carrier’s payroll alone, not counting its air wing, runs about $225 million annually. Do the math and it becomes obvious that the super carrier is an expensive option even before it faces an enemy.

In the same Washington Times article, Loren Thompson, who heads the Lexington Institute defense think tank, said, “Over the long run, it’s likely the cost and operating concept will gradually shift the Navy away from carriers.” He added that today’s carriers face three basic challenges:

1. They have become extremely expensive to build and operate;

2. Some countries, such as China, are developing the capacity to target and disable them from long distances; and

3. The advent of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter and unmanned aircraft will make it easier to accomplish air missions from other sea-based platforms.

Unfortunately, nobody can create a time line comparing total power projection capabilities of U.S. carriers with, say, the emerging power of China’s navy, factor in all the other technology, and tell us what will happen when a downward line reflecting U.S. carrier supremacy drops below a rising line showing China’s hegemony.

Nonetheless, for the near future, in times of crisis anywhere in the world we can expect the White House to ask where our carriers are. Let’s hope we have one or two tucked away somewhere like we did during the Pearl Harbor attacks. Otherwise the future of the flattops looks flat.
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Strait of Hormuz

Jan. 13, 2012 – The goals of this nuclear poker game are straightforward: Iran wants nuclear capability, while the United States, Israel and other powers want to delay Iran without an all-out shooting war that could engulf the region.

Iran has two aces and a joker. Its first ace consists of threats to shut down the Strait of Hormuz, where one-fifth of the world’s oil shipments pass. The second ace is a strategy that would employ small naval attack craft. Using “swarm” tactics, even one boat could seriously damage or sink one or more U.S. warships. Think of commanding from the bridge of the USS Carl Vinson (CVN-70) while transiting the 34-mile long Strait of Hormuz to join the USS John C. Stennis (CVN 74), and being in the Vinson’s moving blind spot of 300 meters ahead. The strait itself is only 21 miles wide and the width of the shipping lane is only two miles, separated by a two-mile buffer zone. Teheran plans to flesh out this strategy within a year.

The Iranian joker cannot be measured by logic. Teheran’s leaders seek to regain the grandeur of the Persian Empire it lost centuries ago. They look across the Persian Gulf, beyond the Strait of Hormuz, and see Saudi Arabia, an arch enemy. Directly across the land frontier they see Iraq, the country with which they fought a bloody war for more than eight years.

The United States and allied countries carry an ace and several jokers. The ace consists of sanctions against Iran which are beginning to work, now that other countries are coming on board. The Iranian currency has plummeted, commodity and import prices are spiking, and Iranian banks are suffering runs. Stopping Iran from selling oil to its traditional customers in Europe and Asia could create a global crisis worldwide by crippling already shaky economies and alienating key U.S. allies that depend on Iranian oil. The price of oil could jump from about $100 a barrel to $150 or even $200 a barrel if the West’s sanctions should even appear to create an interruption in gulf traffic. If Iran should close the Strait of Hormuz, financial chaos would erupt.Iran also is facing parliamentary elections in March. The 2009 elections highlighted the failing economy and high unemployment as major reasons for protest after President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s reelection was confirmed.

And the sanctions are increasing. The European Union, a consumer of almost 20 percent of Iran’s exported oil, agreed in principle last week for an embargo on Iranian oil. Moreover, President Obama signed legislation on Dec. 31 that could exclude from the U.S. economy any foreign companies that buy oil through the Iranian central bank. Japan already has agreed to come onboard, and U.S. and allied diplomats are working on South Korea.

The United States even has a hole card standing by in Kuwait — nearly 15,000 troops from two Army infantry brigades, and a helicopter unit. But the joker hand is asymmetrical warfare. One tool of asymmetrical warfare is cyberwarfare. It has become reasonably certain that the United States and Israel succeeded in an attack against Iran’s nuclear facility using a computer worm called Stuxnet. One part of the worm’s code speeds up nuclear development centrifuges until they eventually destroy themselves, while another part assures the system that all is going well. Stuxnet was programmed against 984 centrifuges, and in mid- to late 2009, technicians had to take exactly 984 machines, or one-fifth of the array, out of action.

Another tool of asymmetrical warfare is assassination, and at least four Iranian nuclear officials have been assassinated. The latest was on Jan. 11, when Mostafa Ahmadi Roshan, who ran the Natanz nuclear enrichment center in central Iran, was killed by a motorcycle team that clamped a magnetic bomb on his car and sped away as it exploded. Possibly in response, Iran was involved in a failed plot to kill the Saudi ambassador to the United States — in our country. (See my post of Oct. 15, 2011)

Iran’s ambassador to the United Nations, Mohammad khazaee, sent Secretary General Ban Ki-moon a letter accusing “certain foreign quarters” of “terrorist acts” intended to disrupt Iran’s “peaceful nuclear program.” Khazaee also complained of sabotage, perhaps referring to the Stuxnet worm, and a covert “military strike on Iran.” The latter probably referred to a explosion that destroyed much of an Iranian missile base on Nov. 12, and killed Gen. Hassan Tehrani Moghaddam, who was chief of Iran’s missile program.

Asymmetrical warfare also includes defection. In 2006, a former deputy defense minister, Ali-Reza Asgari, disappeared in Turkey, and is believed to have defected.

The more Iran blusters about closing the Strait of Hormuz, the more it appears that our asymmetric attacks are succeeding. Nevertheless, as Adm. Jonathon Greenert,  Chief of Naval Operations, says, the Strait of Hormuz keeps him up at night. But meanwhile the United States has played its game-stopper card. The administration, using an undisclosed communications channel, warned Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei that closing the Strait of Hormuz would be considered crossing a “red line” that would not be tolerated.
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Kim Jong Un

My posting of Dec. 23, 2011, listed five possible scenarios for North Korea’s new 20-something dictator, Kim Jong Un:

1. The elites circle the wagons to protect the wagon master and their gold from the peasantry.
2. An older official takes Kim Jong Un under his wing.
3. The military attempts a coup.
4. The people attempt to impose a government of law.
5. Massive numbers of North Korean refugees attempt to escape the totalitarian state.

The elite already have circled the wagons, anointing Kim Jong Un as “supreme leader” of the state’s 1.2 million armed forces, and head of the Central Committee of the Workers’ Party.

And as expected by many, he appears to be under the tutelage of his uncle, Jang Song Thaek, and his paternal aunt, Kim Kyong Hui. Jang Song Thaek heads party administration and overseas the intelligence arm and other military-related agencies, according to the Sejong Research Institute in South Korea.

A 5,000-word New Year’s message published by North Korea’s state media called on “the whole Party, the entire army and all the people” to “possess a firm conviction that they will become human bulwarks and human shields in defending (Kim Jong Un) unto death.” The message continued to deify the new dictator’s father by calling his death “the greatest loss our nation had suffered in its 5,000-year-long history and the bitterest grief our Party and people had experienced.”

A coup is not on the horizon at present; the elite are busy circling the wagons around the wagon master, the protector of their gold and guarantor of their way of life.

There appears to be little chance of a people’s revolution or even of a massive outflow of refugees. To the contrary, a Los Angeles Times article of Jan. 5 reports that border guards reportedly killed three people trying to flee across the Yalu River into China. The killings came in response to Kim Jong Un’s order of  “immediate executions when people are caught trying to cross the borders.” In addition, North Korea has continued its pledge to hunt down and imprison or kill three full generations of family members left behind by escaped refugees or attempted escapers, according to Seoul’s Joongang Daily newspaper. The starving populace is continuing to starve.

So what should American policymakers do?Remain aware, apprehensive, and defensive. The Seoul-based Korea Economic Research Institute said Jan. 4 that in 2011 North Korea had an army of more than 1-million and an impressive number of tanks, air defense artillery, and warships. South Korea’s armed forces number under 700,000, plus some 28,000 U.S. troops. The numbers indicate that the North’s offensive posture would give it an early edge in a war, but U.S. and South Korean airpower could tip the scales later in favor of South Korea. American reinforcements for the South could come from aircraft carriers, Marine expeditionary forces, and Army and Air Force assets.

What should American policymakers not do?
Policymakers should not decide to treat the United States as the world’s policeman. They should not be seduced into an attempt to liberate the North Korean masses. They should not take steps to introduce “democracy” into a tyrannical state that doesn’t know the meaning of the word. And they should not forget what happened in 1950 when the United States dispatched a patchwork of troops to “save” South Korea. American soldiers were pushed into the Pusan Perimeter in the south of the peninsula, and U.N. forces later were thrown back by Chinese forces that invaded from the north. Ultimately the war ceased with an armistice restoring the border at the 38th parallel.

But today’s American military is a different force. North Korea could easily make a tragic mis-step, but that would not presage a replay of 1950. For now, North Korea remains a rogue nation that could directly endanger our national security, but not unless it ignites a regional conflict. Until then it’s business as usual.
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Dec. 23, 2011 — The anointment of 20-something Kim Jong Un as the “Great Successor” to North Korea’s deceased “Dear Leader,” Kim Jong Il, has the U.S. intelligence community scrambling to answer “What if?” The following five scenarios could play out separately, or together, or not at all in that secretive, totalitarian country.1. The elites circle the wagons to protect the wagon master and their gold from the peasantry. This already is occurring, which could mean continued starvation in a country where one-quarter of its 24 million people have suffered food shortages. Gold? According to some accounts the late Kim Jong Il ran up a cognac bill of half a million dollars a month. Meanwhile, in spite of one of the longest food relief efforts in history, North Korea’s famine, caused by allocating funding to the military and nuclear arms, has created a higher death toll than occurred in the USSR under Stalin, or China under Mao. Labor camps hold some 200,000 men, women and children accused of crimes against the state. By some estimates, between 400,000 and 1 million North Koreans have died in these camps.

2. An older official takes Kim Jong Un under his wing. The most likely player would be Kim Jong Un’s uncle, Jang Song Thaek, who would operate behind the scenes while Kim Jong Un grows into the job. Kim, a designated four-star general, has never served in the military and is not a member of the National Defense Commission, which controls the military. He is certainly no Alexander the Great.

3. A faction of the military attempts a coup. If a coup fails, a totalitarian, nuclear-powered North Korea that loses its central leadership to civil war could become a more dangerous rogue than before, using nuclear weapons indiscriminately, or selling them to other powers.

4. Following the lead of several Arab countries, the people commence a North Korean “Spring,” attempting to impose a government of law. Such an uprising could become either a threat or a challenge to the United States, depending upon its speed and strength, and perhaps outside intervention.

5. Massive numbers of North Korean refugees attempt to escape over the DMZ into South Korea or across the Yalu River into China. The United States, with nearly 30,000 troops poised at the DMZ, has certain contingency plans to contain refugee flows and to make an incursion into the north to neutralize a nuclear weapons threat. China, North Korea’s chief supplier and benefactor, might see a confrontation at the Yalu as a springboard to unify North and South Korea and eliminate the nuclear risk. We must not forget China’s intervention in the Korean War when American combat forces approached the Yalu in 1950. Today, Chinese boaters already have reported that North Korean police ordered them not to give rides to tourists, and warned them that they would be fired on if any cameras were seen.

What is happening in this pariah nation will present the United States with great opportunities and grave threats.
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The following is my response to an e-mail asking for comments about Scenario 4, since cell phones and social media are severely restricted in North Korea:

As you noticed, I couched the article in terms of what might or might not happen, so I didn’t believe I should omit the possibility of an uprising or at least an attempted uprising. Of course we don’t know how much information gets to the North Korean people, but some does. For example, according to a Washington Times article of Dec. 21 (http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2011/dec/21/youth-inexperience-of-kim-jong-ils-son-triggers-co/?page=all#pagebreak), Caleb Mission is a South Korea-based Christian group that gathers information by cell phone and digital cameras inside North Korea, and helps would-be defectors escape. That sounds a bit optimistic as a springboard for an uprising. For more, see http://www.voanews.com/english/news/asia/Small-South-Korean-Church-Strives-to-Expose-North-Koreas-Secrets–103267869.html. The same Washington Times article says that Radio Free North Korea maintains a network of contacts inside the country. For info (although dated) on satellite phones in North Korea, see http://blogs.rnw.nl/medianetwork/free-north-korea-radio-correspondents-use-satphones. If scenarios three and/or five should occur, outside intervention for regime change could become a factor influencing scenario four.
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Dec. 11, 2011 — Some 2,400 years ago a Chinese military theorist known as Sun Tzu wrote that if you know your enemy and know yourself, you will never be in peril. He added that if you are ignorant of the enemy but know yourself, your chances of winning or losing are equal. But if you are ignorant both of your enemy and of yourself, you invite defeat in every battle. Too many Americans fall into the third category concerning radical Islamism.

As an ideology, radical Islamism is a blood brother of Fascism and Nazism. It is important to separate the ideology of radical Islamism from the religion of Islam, yet, some U.S. leaders still refuse to identify radical Islamism as one of America’s most dangerous enemies in the homeland. Note the following points.Point 1. They have targeted uniformed service members.

Carlos Leon Bledsoe is serving life in prison after pleading guilty to shooting Army Privates Andrew Long and Quinton Ezeagwula in June 2009 outside their recruiting station in Little Rock, Ark. Long died shortly after the shooting. The killer’s father testified at a House Homeland Security Committee hearing in March that his son, Carlos, was raised as a Baptist in Memphis but converted to Islam. The son became radicalized and changed his name to Abdul Hakim Muhammad.

In spite of the killer’s admission that he intentionally targeted the two recruiters in order to kill uniformed Americans, the killing was ruled a crime instead of a wartime attack by a radical Islamist. Thus Pvt. Long, as well as many other casualties, has been denied a Purple Heart Medal.

During a special joint House-Senate hearing December 7, Rep. Peter T. King, (R., N.Y) chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, said, “The Department of Defense considers the U.S. homeland the most dangerous place for a G.I. outside of foreign war zones — and the top threat they face here is from violent Islamist extremists.” We must accommodate our laws and regulations to the radical Islamists’ form of guerrilla warfare.

Point 2. They have placed the military services themselves under attack.

During the hearing, military officials testified about the homeland terrorist threat at U.S. military bases in the wake of several attacks, including the November 2009 shooting rampage at Fort Hood, Texas, that killed 13 people and wounded 29 others. Army Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan has been charged in the attack.

“The Fort Hood attack was not an anomaly,” said Rep. King. “It was part of al Qaeda’s two-decade success at infiltrating the U.S. military for terrorism — an effort that is increasing in scope and threat.” He was referring to 54 homeland plots and attacks by radical Islamists since Sept. 11, 2001, that were identified by the Congressional Research Service. Of those, 33 targeted the U.S. military, said Sen. Joe Lieberman, (I., Conn.), chairman of the Senate Governmental Affairs and Homeland Security Committee. A report published Dec. 7 by King’s staff stated, “There is “reason to believe that the actual number of radicalized troops is far more than publicly realized or acknowledged.”

Point 3. Some spokespersons, particularly in the administration, still dance around the need to identify the enemy as radical Islamism.

This obfuscation began when President George W. Bush blamed the 9/11 attacks on “terrorists” and proclaimed a “war on terrorism.” Of course other groups and lone wolves have committed acts of terrorism, but radical Islamists have declared war on America, our system of government, and our way of life. They in effect are conducting guerrilla warfare in the homeland. Remembering Sun Tzu, how can the American people be expected to fight a war if they don’t know the enemy?

During the joint hearing, Rep. Daniel E. Lungren, (R., Calif.) repeatedly asked administration official Paul N. Stockton about his refusal to use the word “Islamic” or “Islamist” when describing al Qaeda. Stockton, assistant secretary of defense for homeland defense, said branding terrorists as Muslims supports their ploy that the United States is at war with Islam itself. “Sir, with great respect, I don’t believe it’s helpful to frame our adversary as ‘Islamic’ with any set of qualifiers that we might add, because we are not at war with Islam,” he said.

Sen. Lieberman expressed frustration by this refusal “to identify violent Islamist extremism as our enemy.” He added, ” To understand this threat and counter it, we must not shy away from making the sharp distinction between the peaceful religion followed by millions of law-abiding Americans and a twisted corruption of that religion used to justify violence.”

As Sun Tzu said long ago, if we do not know our enemy and ourselves, we have given the enemy leverage for success.

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Dec. 4, 2011 — Prior to his court date this month, Scott Allan Bennett wrote a 120-page letter to U.S. District Court Judge Virginia Hernandez Covington, stating that he was “just confused” by a bureaucracy that he had manipulated to suit himself.

Bennett was so confused that he passed himself off as an aide to Adm. Eric Olson, chief of U.S. Special Operations Command (SOCOM), who he identified as commander of U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM), both headquartered at MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa, Fla., in order to hitchhike on a military airplane to fly to the base.

He was so confused that he used his fake status to obtain housing at MacDill, claiming that he was an active-duty reserve officer under emergency classified orders.

He was so confused that he earned a master’s degree in international commerce and obtained a direct commission as a lieutenant in the Army Reserve.

He was really confused when he stashed 10 guns and almost 10,000 rounds of ammunition at his illicit on-base apartment.

And he was most confused when he was caught at the MacDill gate at 2 a.m. on April 23, 2010, appearing to be intoxicated, carrying a loaded pistol in his pocket and another loaded gun in the car.

In July 2011 a federal jury convicted Bennett of lying to the government, wearing a uniform without authorization, and two counts of violating security regulations by keeping guns without registering them with the base. In December, Judge Covington sentenced Bennett to three years in prison.

Much punditry abounds in the press about nations such as China and Russia using advanced-technology to conduct cyberwarfare against the United States. Scott Allan Bennett crashed through the SOCOM and CENTCOM barriers using pure old-fashioned con artistry. It appears that the bureaucracy didn’t confuse Bennett; he confused the bureaucracy.

For more, see my earlier post,CENTCOM/SOCOM base housing infiltrated: Apartment converted to an illicit armory.

Nov. 25, 2011 — The Military Officers Association of America (MOAA) has labeled the Congressional so-called super committee’s failure to act “an appalling and disgusting abdication of their collective responsibilities for rational governance.” A legislative update of November 22, titled “Super Committee Opts to Whack Military People,” explained that the super committee’s inaction will cause a sequester of $1.2 trillion in funding cuts, with half of that slashed from the defense budget. Coming on the heels of $450 billion in cuts already in the works, MOAA says the result will “devastate” both weapons and personnel programs.

Zeroing in on the effects upon service members and their families, the MOAA update concludes that the 12 super committee members essentially have targeted a military force that “already has endured 100 percent of the America’s Nation’s wartime sacrifice with a new round of unfair and disproportional sacrifices through force cuts, more family separations, pay and benefit cuts and more.”Even before the committee admitted its failure, Army Vice Chief of Staff Gen. Peter Chiarelli had warned House lawmakers October 27 that the stage was being set for ignominious military defeats such as have happened in the past. He cited the Army’s drawdown after World War I that led to its defeat at the Battle of the Kasserine Pass at the outset of World War II, because unorganized American troops were committed with substandard equipment. He added that the hollowing of the Army after World War II resulted in deploying an under-strength and unprepared Task Force Smith into action in Korea, which resulted in a disastrous debacle.

Moving from military catastrophes, House Armed Services Committee Chairman Rep. Buck McKeon (R-Calif.) turned to the home front. He warned that slashing the defense budget so deeply could send the U.S. unemployment rate to 10 percent or higher because of a million or more jobs lost.

Meanwhile, a committee staff memo concluded that, if the super committee failed to reach an agreement, the Marine Corps would be forced to cut its strength below 150,000. In response, Gen. Joseph Dunford, assistant commandant of the Marine Corps, said that, with such a strength, the Marines could neither fulfill their mission during a major war, nor respond adequately to international crises and humanitarian disasters. He emphasized that such a cut “would put us below the level that’s necessary to support a single contingency.” Thus the Marine Corps, like the Army and the other services, would become as feckless as the super committee.

On November 10, Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta warned of the results of the super committee’s failure. Sequestration, now scheduled to take effect in January 2013, would lead to a “hollow force,” he said. “Obviously, that which is hollow retains a shell, but lacks a core,” he said. “A hollow military has the organizational structure, but lacks the people, the training and the equipment it needs to actually get the job done.”

“It’s a ship without sailors. It’s a brigade without bullets. It’s an air wing without enough trained pilots. It’s a paper tiger,” he said.

A hollow force has low morale, poor readiness, and is unable to keep up with potential adversaries. “In effect, it invites aggression,” he said. “A hollow military doesn’t happen by accident. It comes from poor stewardship and poor leadership.”

It seems that everybody concerned with national security — except the lawmakers on the so-called super committee — knows the hole that is being dug. Are the lawmakers our most dangerous enemy?
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For information about my books, visit my Author’s Page at amazon.com.