Relying on Drones Is a Bad Idea

Drones are starting to replace combat jets, but is it a wise decision?

One of the debates in military circles is whether or not manned aircraft have a long term future in combat.  The main idea is that remote controlled drones can be sent to fight without jeopardizing any American lives in the process.  They will be cheaper to manufacture and we won’t ever face an enemy with a significant air force again are parts of that theory.

I have problems with the argument, both on overall cheapness and the idea that all wars will be like Iraq and Afghanistan from now on.  The latter is foolishness because history says the next war will be unlike the previous one you fought, at least as far as the United States goes.  As far as being cheap, the drones have to be as they have an astronomical loss rate.  While that data is over two years old, I highly doubt Predator losses have improved significantly.

Then there is the whole concept of remote control being vulnerable to disruption.  We haven’t seen control of a drone being taken over by hostile forces, but they have successfully hacked the video feed of Predators.  The day will come when there will be a true hack rather than leeching video like a satellite TV pirate and what then?

That photo above is of a Predator pilot and instructor in the control station for the MQ-1.  He sits in a room watching monitors and pilots the drone via satellite. I believe having a human in the aircraft allows for many more contingencies to be dealt with.  You can’t hack a human and they can react much more quickly if they are in a real cockpit rather than a virtual one thousands of miles away. That flexibility simply cannot be replicated.

Then there is the “what if” of satellite jamming and destruction.  China has shown they can shoot down satellites as have we. Getting a replacement up is far more expensive and difficult than getting an airplane in the air.  I fear we are witnessing an over reliance on high technology that could be catastrophic against a powerful opponent such as China or Russia.

A more practical “what if” of facing an opponent with a real air force.  Drones are easy prey for manned jet fighters as the following video shows:

 

The answer to that is to use a stealthy drone as shown by the recently revealed RQ-170 Sentinel.  I find it strange that they are testing it in Afghanistan where there are no radars or fighters to evade.  Perhaps they are hopping over the border into Iran.

Still, there is a lack of flexibility inherent in such a design.  We’ll never see CAS (Close Air Support) effectively carried out by a drone.  Their slowness makes them effective only in environments we completely dominate in the air and their ability to respond to a changing threat is minimal.

Then there is the inevitability of them being hacked some day.  Everything networked gets hacked at some point, it is the nature of our time. The rest of the world has gotten very tech savvy and really are only limited by their budgets.  Just a couple of days ago, Twitter was hacked by Iranians.  While that isn’t a military organization, they do have active security experts protecting the network after some embarrassing lapses.

Lest you think I despise all drones, I don’t.  They have their uses but are too limited to be replacing fighters, bombers, and attack aircraft.  Reconnaissance is their forte and there they excel, but at quite a cost in airframes. 

One day this debate may be looked back at in much the same way the fiasco of going to missile only jet fighters is.  Generals, technicians, and politicians got overly enamored with technology and it failed to live up to exaggerated expectations. Going all remote control will suffer the same judgment in history, but we need to fight for programs like the F-35 Lightning II.

Manned aircraft will never be obsolete as long as the fog of war exists – and that will never go away.  Yes we will lose pilots because the nature of war means casualties.  That is unavoidable and a painful truth.  We can’t afford to lose our ability to fight a wide range of wars from fear of casualties.

The secret to our military’s success is only partly due to technology.  Most of it is due to flexibility and the supreme competency of our troops.  Often they have to make orders given them by isolated generals and politicians work in the field.  To continue doing that, they need to be fast moving and flexible.

Drones are neither fast moving or flexible, so relying on them primarily for an air force will be disastrous for the troops on the ground. Ask someone on the ground whether they’d like a Predator or a Strike Eagle backing them up.  I bet they’ll choose the fighter every time.

Auschwitz Sign Stolen

Poland’s police on the borders are on the lookout for the infamous sign from the main gate at the death camp.  Why would anyone steal the iconic and ironic sign?  My guess it has been stolen for a rich collector or by a neo-Nazi group, but humans being as weird as we are, anything could be behind the motive.  I just hope they retrieve it intact. With the rise of anti-Jewish sentiment in Europe it makes me concerned, considering next month the liberation of the camp is to be commemorated.

Another Debt Crisis or Two

Ran across a few interesting economic pieces last week, but didn’t feel well enough to write about them. Fortunately, or more accurately unfortunately, they still apply. I’ve been warning that bad commercial real estate loans would be the next shoe to drop.  We’ve seen that happen in Dubai, which I’ll write about further on.

But another debt problem is brewing and it will dwarf the real estate bubble.  That debt problem is the debt of sovereign nations, with the United States poised to be in major trouble.  Earlier in the year, the federal government had problems with some of its bond auctions not selling.  Now a new complication has entered the picture.

Ralph Benko’s op-ed at The Washington Examiner lays out the details of our debt servicing problem.  I was surprised to find out that we are only giving 1-2% interest on treasury bonds.  What country would want to buy those from us when inflation could easily turn them into losses rather than investments?  Something has got to give.

Quote of the piece:

The federal government currently pays, according the article, $202 billion a year in interest. White House estimates that interest payments will rise to $700 billion a year in 2019.

That doesn't count the projected catastrophic increases in entitlement costs in Medicare as the baby boomers retire. And you thought the American people were already shellshocked!

I don’t know, I think there is a point where the barrage of bad news ceases to register emotionally.  How low can we go is the question I ponder reading the news anymore.

Meanwhile, Greece is in a financial meltdown that is spooking investors in Europe.  Credit agencies have been making noises about what’s going on, even lowering ratings for Greece.  Quote of the article:

Analysts and credit-rating agencies are warning that countries with already high debt levels have rung up historically large deficits during the financial crisis, with tax collection plummeting even as public spending has soared.

The same principles that apply to individual debt apply to nations as well, duh!  Yet the idea of more spending by governments has taken such a firm hold on policy that increasing deficits are the norm rather than the exception.  But when it is someone else's economy they have no trouble in telling them to make cuts.

Instead, most officials in Europe are pushing the Greeks to clean up their own mess by making tough cuts.

"Considering the gravity of the situation, I am confident that the Greek government will in the near future take the courageous and necessary measures required," European Central Bank President Jean-Claude Trichet told the Belgian economic dailies L'Echo and De Tijd this week.

I can’t decide if it perverse hypocrisy or an indication the other European countries don’t have any capital they can infuse into the Greek system.

The Dubai financial crisis has been a problem that rippled out all the way to Scotland.  Now their neighbor, Abu Dhabi has come to a short term rescue to the tune of $10 billion.  It looks like a temporary solution that doesn’t address the long term defaults that may happen. After all, it a $80 billion debt that still need to be addressed. 

Buying time is a scary part of solutions offered by debt ridden governments and is becoming all too common. I think the truth is that nobody knows how to deal with what is happening world wide and domestically. 2010 is going to be interesting.

Navy Starting to Growl

One of the more esoteric missions in military aviation is that of electronic warfare.  While most people are familiar with the ideas of fighters, bombers, reconnaissance and attack planes, they will draw a blank when you mention “jammer planes.” The latest US design is the EA-18G Growler and it finally has been declared operational.  Deployment will begin next year.

A modification of the F/A-18F two seat Super Hornet, the Growler is replacing the much older EA-6B Prowler design.  The Prowler is a four seat derivative of the A-6 Intruder attack jet that served so well from the Vietnam War to Desert Storm.  The main advantages of the new design are the youth of the airframes, ease of maintenance, and ability to defend itself from aerial threats. 

So the Navy has their new jamming bird, but where does this leave the Air Force?  One of the more boneheaded decisions made was to get rid of the EF-111A Raven’s that did a bang up job in Desert Storm.  They had many years left in them and were a perfect match in performance to the F-15E Strike Eagles and F-16’s they escorted.  Since 1998, the Air Force has been dependant on the Navy Prowlers to do the same job and now they will have nothing.

Meanwhile, the Prowler isn’t done yet.  The Marines are keeping theirs and I haven’t run into a retirement date for them yet. 

While I’m not a fan of the Super Hornet (or Super Bug), I do like the Growler as a platform.  My chief complaint about the F/A-18E is its limitations as an interceptor/fleet defender compared to what an upgraded F-14 Tomcat could have been. Thankfully, AEGIS cruisers have only gotten more capable in taking out incoming attacks. Then there is the range problem. 

But what is done is done and cannot be undone. Hopefully the F-35 won’t be cancelled and I believe it will give air superiority back to the carrier wings in any future engagement.

So it may be surprising to read that I’d like the USAF to consider buying the EA-18G instead of thinking drones will do the job.  This looks to be a very capable platform for electronic warfare and there will be a need for it before all is said and done.

Best PSA Ever

Thanks to the wonders of YouTube I’ve found a public service announcement I used to see as a kid.  The local TV stations would dump PSA’s onto the early hours of the morning but there were two that stuck out:  the crying Indian and the one that always made me laugh – Tennessee Trash.  It didn’t hurt that I hated litterbugs, but this is a classic.

Nobody Knows (2009)

The Untold Story of Black Mormons

I ran across mention of this documentary on the Net and and tracked down the website dedicated to it.   After seeing the trailer, I knew I had to own the DVD.

The documentary by Margaret B. Young and Darius A. Gray is utterly fascinating and often deeply moving as it follows the history of African American’s in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.  Much has been made of the Church’s past prohibition against men of color holding the priesthood and this film does not flinch from the hard questions around this.  Being a lover of the truth, the absolute candor of Nobody Knows impressed me no end.

Highlights include accounts of Elijah Able and Jane Manning James.  Able was a member of the LDS Church from the early days and a priesthood holder.  Ordained an Elder and a Seventy, he even served as a missionary when that wasn’t that common. Jane Manning is better known in Church history as she was taken in by Joseph Smith in Nauvoo, Illinois.  Her faith and trials showed what an amazing person she was in holding on to her faith.

Also standing out are all the interviews with members and nonmembers alike.  For me, Darius Gray and Paul Gill’s conversation at the end is simply wonderful and the best. That’s not to short change the others, they are all interesting and inspirational.

Topics covered are the beliefs of the Latter-day Saints, the restriction on the priesthood, the “seed of Cain” theory, the “fence sitters” theory, efforts to seek revelation to remove the restriction, Genesis Group, lifting of the restriction in 1978, and what it is like to be black in a predominantly white church.

Rather than go into detail about the documentary, I encourage you to buy or borrow the DVD.  I think it is one of the most amazing things I’ve ever watched and highly recommend it.  The extensive extras are all worth watching.  If you don’t feel your heart touched after watching it, you need to see a cardiac specialist to see if you have a heart.

 Nobody Knows should be seen by everyone in the Church, but especially those who still hold on to prejudice. Sadly, there are still racists in this modern age but if they watch this I think they will be forced to face the truth – that we are all children of a Heavenly Father Who loves us.

Personally,

I want to thank everyone who made this beautiful documentary for they have done us all a great service.

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Big Business & Big Government

One of the refrains I’ve seen of late is how capitalism failed and that’s why we are in an economic crisis. Something I’ve tried to explain to people in the past is that real capitalism is rarely seen in America these days.  What we have is huge corporations that dearly wish to be monopolies.  Monopolies don’t want competition, they want total control and are big believers in centralization.

So I’ve found it interesting how Republicans have been labeled the party of big business when so many big businesses mainly contribute to Democrats.  When big government and big business conspire, you get what we have these days.  What I am is a believer in competition of the free market which is different than being pro-business.  Jonah Goldberg has an excellent piece on this that everyone should read.

At Blogmocracy, Rodan has a post based on Goldberg’s op-ed that connects the union of progressives and big business with the policies of fascism.  In it, he uses a term I’ve used for years, Neo-feudal to describe the attitude of those wishing control through making everyone beholden to them. I have to point out that the ever increasing number of “czars” in the Obama administration accentuates the impression of feudalism to me.  Having people with cabinet level power who directly report to the President is all too much like vassals reporting to their lord, in my view.

I will say that the video in the post is annoying, it has some good content on socialism and George Orwell, then completely goes off the rails with the cartoony stuff at the end.

I think a fundamental human mistake is to vest power in one organization and then have all the decisions be made at the top.  This is the essence of centralization and history shows that it leads to inflexibility, inefficiency, and corruption every time.  This applies to businesses, organizations, political parties, and governments equally.

But here we are, repeating the same mistakes and being shocked when it goes wrong. While I think people are starting to wake up and see what is happening, I wonder if it is too late.  The consolidation of power by the federal government and large corporations has been going on for some time now.  The ACTA shenanigans are a good example of how it works, with the US government doing the bidding of the entertainment industry.

The solution is smaller government and small business.  A focus on these things will lead to better economic and political health in the country.  But will the American people do what is needed to bring reform about?  That’s the multi-trillion dollar question.