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The Navy Relives the War of 1812

[ 63 ] May 22, 2012 | Robert Farley

Concerned about its image, the Navy has determined that the War of 1812 is just the thing it needs:

Faced with little public understanding of its modern mission, the U.S. Navy is reaching back 200 years to the War of 1812 in the hopes of bolstering its standing with the American people…

Polling for the Navy by Gallup has shown that less than 9 percent of Americans understand its mission. Equally worrisome, the public ranks the Navy ahead of only the Coast Guard in its importance to national defense, and well behind the Army, Marines and Air Force.

The results have raised alarms within the Navy at a time when the military services face daunting budget cuts.

Although it may seem odd to turn to the Age of Sail to prove the Navy’s modern relevance, senior Navy officials argue that a war fought with a few wooden frigates under the flag of “Free Trade and Sailors Rights” directly relates to the mission of the Navy today, including keeping choke points such as the Strait of Hormuz open against threats from Iran and battling piracy off Somalia’s coast.

Three quick thoughts and one longer thought:

I’m all for celebrating the need to rid the seas of the perfidious Canadians.
I kinda wish I still lived in Baltimore, and I’m curious whether they’ll do some kind of commemoration of the Battle of Bladensburg in DC.
The Navy has created a groovy twitter feed for specifically this project, which should get more interesting as the important anniversaries roll around.

The larger issue is the disjuncture between the modern USN and the USN of 1812. The technological aspect isn’t the biggest hurdle; it’s not difficult to understand the basics of the progression of naval technology in the last 200 years. However, the invocations of Iran and Somalia are very interesting, because in strategic terms the modern USN occupies the same space as the Royal Navy of 1812. Indeed, the most plausible parallels are between the modern Iranian Navy and the USN of 1812, although at least the USN was competitive on a ship-to-ship level with the RN. 1812 can even boast an irregular force of small boats dedicated to anti-access missions, not to mention state-sponsored pirates and fanatical revolutionaries.

Selling the Navy is tough, in large part because it’s difficult to describe what amount to atmospheric benefits. It won’t surprise readers to learn that I believe the Navy is by far the most important service to U.S. security (conceived broadly or narrowly), but explaining the Navy’s contribution in compelling terms can be difficult. Incidentally, I’ll have some thoughts this weekend on Battleship, which was just a touch better than I expected, but not particularly good.

Foreign Entanglements: Egypt Election Edition

[ 1 ] May 21, 2012 | Robert Farley

Matt Duss and Hussein Ibish talk about the election in Egypt:

Dystopic Vision of the Day

[ 16 ] May 19, 2012 | Robert Farley

Thought inspired by a morning of watching reality TV at the gym:

Are we as close as we can be to King’s dystopic “Running Man” vision, or should we expect 4-8 years of President Romney to bring us substantially closer to the phenomenon of working class irrevocably committed to reality TV as a survival strategy?

The Chicago Cubs: No End to Perfidy?

[ 81 ] May 17, 2012 | Robert Farley

On Joe Ricketts:

The New York Times won the morning on Thursday with an A1 story on a new anti-Obama super-PAC, Character Matters, that’s planning on spending $10 million on an ad campaign linking President Obama—a “metrosexual, black Abraham Lincoln”—to the Rev. Jeremiah Wright. Character Matters is hoping to get either Jon Voight or an “extremely literate conservative African-American” to narrate the spots, which would be produced by GOP ad guru Fred Davis (of “Demon Sheep” fame).

The money for all of this comes from Joe Ricketts, the TD Ameritrade founder, Bison Burgers baron, and, with his family, owner of the Chicago Cubs. Ricketts solidified his status as a campaign finance heavyweight when spent $600,000 in the last month of the election to try to take down Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev.) in 2010. Since then, he’s launched a campaign to eliminate earmarks, given $500,000 to the anti-incumbent Campaign for Primary Accountability, and, earlier this month, spent $200,000 helping state Sen. Deb Fischer win the GOP Senate primary in his home state of Nebraska. (Ricketts’ son, Peter, is a former US Senate candidate and a member of the Republican National Committee.) Ricketts is sick and tired of wasteful spending—so much so that the briefing book outlining the Wright ad is actually entitled “The Ricketts Plan to End His Spending for Good.”

But Ricketts’ time with the Chicago Cubs tells a different story. Since the Ricketts Family Trust acquired the team two years ago, they have actively sought to use taxpayer money to expand their own business operations.

Rahm is playing hardball, a sport with which the Chicago National League baseball franchise has only a passing acquaintance:

The most important reaction came from Mr. Emanuel, who, according to the Sun-Times, blasted the proposed ad as “insulting.”

Asked whether the flap will affect the Wrigley rebuild, Mr. Emanuel replied, “I’ll have some conversations on that later — comments, rather.”

A source close to the mayor confirms that that remark was indeed Freudian. Mr. Emanuel is “livid” with the family’s “blatant hypocrisy,” that source says. The Ricketts have tried to contact him, my source adds, but the mayor “does not want to talk with them today, tomorrow or anytime soon.”

For my part, the answer is clear. Burn Wrigley, contract the Cubs, and expunge the franchise from the history of baseball. Nuke ‘em from orbit. It’s the only way to be sure.

F-22 Losses

[ 33 ] May 16, 2012 | Robert Farley

Just a couple thoughts on the 60 Minutes F-22 expose. I listened in on a conference call by Sen. Mark Warner and Rep. Adam Kinzinger yesterday, and they seem to be taking this pretty seriously, and more importantly pushing the Air Force to take it seriously. Other pilots have come forward, and the F-22 is now under geographic restriction.

Having read a biography of John Boyd earlier this year, I’m struck by the degree to which tolerance for accidents has declined. Here’s some incomplete data on USAF accident loss rates (rate is per 100000 flight hours):

F-100: 16.25/ 889 aircraft lost
F-102: 13.69 / 259 aircraft lost
F-104: 30.63 / 170 aircraft lost
F-106: 9.47 / 120 aircraft lost
A-7: 3.19 / 107 aircraft lost
F-5: 8.82 / 40 aircraft lost
F-15: 2.42 / 112 aircraft lost
F-16: 3.82 / 305 aircraft lost
F-22: ~1.5 / 2 aircraft lost (this assumes we’re around 150000 flight hours right now, which is a projection from previous usage rates because I can’t find the exact datum)

Moreover, the relationship between aircraft age and loss rate is idiosyncratic. Older aircraft tend to crash because of long-term stress on materials, but newer aircraft tend to crash because of problems that haven’t been discovered, and maintenance regimes that haven’t been optimized. The F-15 and F-16 appear to have been edging slightly upwards, but the F-100 (for example) was substantially safer to fly in later years than in early. There’s a bell curve; newer aircraft tend to crash a lot, then there’s a long period where accidents decline, then they tend to increase again near the end of the service life. However, different aircraft have different service careers (some are pressed into service in large numbers early, some are retired halfway through their projected lives, etc.), and because they undergo different maintenance regimes (Canadian F-104s crashed at a much higher rate than any other country, for some reason), the overall numbers can be difficult to interpret.

However, by the standards of advance fighter aircraft, the F-22 is relatively safe to fly. This doesn’t mean that problems shouldn’t be addressed, or that the pilots were wrong to blow the whistle, or that the USAF pursued an appropriate level of caution, etc. It just means we’re (appropriately) less tolerant of failure in extraordinarily advanced and complex military hardware than we were forty years ago. Hell, the B-58 Hustler suffered a loss rate of 22.4% without ever seeing combat.

INS Vikrant

[ 43 ] May 15, 2012 | Robert Farley

On the connection between aircraft carriers and national prestige…

Abolishing the Air Force, or at Least Give this Guy a Pacifier

[ 67 ] May 14, 2012 | Robert Farley

An anonymous Air Force pilot decides to whine:

As if twelve years wasn’t enough of boring meaningless holes in the sky while our most demanding combat skills atrophied and we prematurely aged our inventory. Now, after a decade of drinking “green” tea and filling “in-lieu-of the Army doing its job” taskings and the “Cult of COIN,” I’m not sure if I’m in the Army or in the Air Force. I’m “all in”: CAS is king, and my Chief publically endorses Gate’s decision to kill the F-22 because Airpower is really just airborne artillery (who needs air dominance in Low Intensity Conflicts?). We’ve instituted two weeks of bivouacking and other mud-infested activities into our basic training so our young enlisted troops are better equipped to integrate and employ with the Army as the Army. We’re all hooah, nation building, and winning hearts and minds. Last I checked, infantry wasn’t an AFSC, and occupation wasn’t part of our 4+1.

Even AirSea Battle is a setback for the Air Force. Tell me how AirLand Battle, a linear, sequential, and attrition based doctrine in which Airpower is subordinated to Land maneuver, is a good inspiration for AirSea Battle? Tell me how the Navy has the necessary expertise to have input and a vote regarding the requirements and design of our new bomber, or anything else in our portfolio? Tell me how AirSea Battle exploits the inherent asymmetric, parallel, strategic, and effects-based advantages of Airpower, and how USAF senior leadership is championing Airpower so we can do what is needed in this pivot to the Pacific? Joint does not mean the same or subordinate, but we’ve clearly forgotten that over the last decade. We’ve bent over backwards to prove that we’re “all in,” eviscerating our unique, core capabilities in order to prove that we’re good joint team players. I have no trust that AirSea Battle will end up any different.

Awww… he’s sad because he doesn’t have any MiG-29s to shoot down. Maybe we should start a war that doesn’t involve either the Navy or the Army, just so USAF fighter jocks can feel good about themselves. Any ideas?

Foreign Entanglements: The Entangling Euro

[ 17 ] May 11, 2012 | Robert Farley

On this week’s Foreign Entanglements, Yglesias and I chat a bit about the EU:

See also this, on restrictions in the German labor market. When I made the same case here a couple of years ago, commenters reacted aggressively, but to my mind unconvincingly. To be fair, what’s the best case for labor rules that prohibit businesses from opening in evenings, on Sundays, etc.? Seems to me that they’re built around outmoded conceptions of the family, of gender relations, and “what workers want,” but I’m curious to see if there’s a more compelling argument.

Back to the F-35B!

[ 28 ] May 10, 2012 | Robert Farley

The Royal Navy, after deciding last year to switch from the STOVL F-35B (short take off vertical landing) to the CATOBAR (catapult assisted takeoff barrier assisted recovery) F-35C, has now switched back to the F-35B. There are three apparent reasons; first, the F-35B has been doing relatively well in testing, making the British more confident that it will actually be built in numbers; second, the process of converting one of the new British carriers to fly CATOBAR aircraft would have been enormously expensive; third, the F-35B will be able to fly off both RN carriers (the British only ever considered modifying one for CATOBAR).

Advantages of going STOVL:

Cheap (not the planes, but the carriers)!
Flexiblish (F-35B could also potentially operate from other RN platforms, like HMS Ocean or HMS Illustrious)!
Experience (F-35B kinda like the Harrier, only much better)!
Interoperability (maybe with the Spanish or Italians or Australians)!

Disadvantages of going STOVL:

Can’t fly heavier AEW planes like the E-2 Hawkeye, which cuts down on overall airgroup capability.
F-35B is range and payload deficient compared to CATOBAR aircraft.
Can’t decide to go with an alternative aircraft (unless you want to convince Russians to restart Yak-38 line).
Slower pace of carrier ops.
No interoperability with the French.

For my part, I think that if you’re going to build a couple of 65000 ton carriers that’ll be the centerpiece of your navy for 75 years, you might as well do it right. I’d have shelled out the cash for the CATOBAR conversion and tried to save money by buying F/A-18s, or some other appropriate CATOBAR plane. But then I’m no David Cameron.

Steve Kerr: It’s Only Business

[ 98 ] May 8, 2012 | Robert Farley

Steve Kerr says several true things about the notion of bumping the NBA age limit up to 20:

“The league would obviously benefit by its rookies arriving with a little more seasoning, both on and off the court, armed with a little more life experience to prepare them for the oncoming challenge. A more mature workforce means a stronger league.”
“Having an extra season to assess the potential of college players would cut down on the personnel mistakes that teams inevitably make in the draft, something that could potentially save the league tens of millions of dollars every year.^“
“Do you think Tim Duncan or Ray Allen ever looks back at his career and says, “Man, I wish I’d skipped college and gotten my max contracts started earlier!” I’d bet anything that they look at it the other way — without college ball, they wouldn’t have been as good (and would have earned less money).”
“Why should NBA franchises assume the responsibility and financial burden of player development when, once upon a time, colleges happily assumed that role for them?”

Tossing in the bit about Duncan and Allen because Kerr doesn’t seem to understand that the 19 year old rule doesn’t force players to leave college; it gives them the opportunity to do so if they tire of playing for free. There’s also a bit of union bashing towards the end; why would an organization like the National Basketball Player’s Association care about protecting the rights of basketball players? But in general I quite agree with Kerr; it is to the advantage of the NBA owners to force players to work for peanuts/free while they develop, rather than to pay them a reasonable salary for their services. It’s unclear, however, why anyone other than NBA owners should be all that concerned with protecting the profits of NBA owners.

America’s Oldest Ally

[ 64 ] May 6, 2012 | Robert Farley

Congratulations to new French President Francois Hollande! Let’s hope Hollande can help pull Europe back from the disastrous lurch into deeper austerity.