THE LATEST STRATEGYTALK PODCAST: Another take on Turkish president Erdogan’s Neo-Ottoman dreams — and his mercenaries in Libya, Syria and Azerbaijan.

NON-COMBATANT EVACUATION: A U.S. Marine Corps MV-22B Osprey prepares to land during a noncombatant evacuation operation (NEO) exercise at Twentynine Palms, California. Photo taken Oct. 16, 2020.

UNMANNED DELIVERY TO A SUBMARINE AT SEA: An unmanned aerial vehicle delivers a payload to the Ohio-class ballistic-missile submarine USS Henry M. Jackson. The submarine is underway (and on the surface) near the Hawaiian Islands. The caption explains that the exercise “was designed to test and evaluate the tactics, techniques, and procedures of U.S. Strategic Command’s expeditionary logistics.”

FIRE MISSION: U.S. Marines fire a M777 towed 155 mm howitzer during an exercise at Fort Bragg, North Carolina. Photo taken Oct. 8, 2020. This Artillery update discusses the “combat proven” M777 and a copycat Chinese howitzer. The M777 was originally developed by the British.

BUFF OVER THE NORTH SEA: A B-52 somewhere over the North Sea. The bomber is flying a Bomber Task Force Europe mission.

SANCTIONS HAVE SLASHED AYATOLLAH IRAN’S WAR-MAKING CAPACITY:

In 2017, the Trump administration re-imposed economic sanctions with the goals of stopping Iran’s nuclear weapons program and penalizing the regime’s malign behavior, such as its vicious oppression of its own people, its waging of proxy wars, its engaging in transnational crime and its seeding violence globally.

U.S. sanctions have the devalued Iran’s currency. StrategyPage.com recently reported that in 2015, one U.S. dollar bought 32,000 Iranian rials (open market rate). In September 2020, 260,000 rials bought a buck. Now it takes 315,000. Note Iranian companies importing food and medicine have a subsidized official exchange rate: 42,000 rials to the dollar.

The regime survived the arms embargo, but 2020 rials don’t buy the guns they did in 2015.

Read the entire essay.

HUAWEI AND THE CCP’S WAR FOR INFORMATION DOMINANCE: The Huawei 5G confrontation is one very important battle in a long-term strategic struggle — the slow systemic war being fought by Communist China and the U.S.

Some 30 years ago, the Chinese Communist Party and its intelligence agencies bet digital-information delivery dominance would be a decisive advantage in a long-term struggle for global dominance. I emphasize delivery, for dominating the material and physical (equipment and infrastructure) means for delivering digital information gives the dominator an edge in providing, denying or subverting content — be it news, opinion or entertainment. Control the system, or be able to easily penetrate, manipulate or corrupt it, and you can secretly collect data on users, spy on users and, if you happen to be a CCP totalitarian, engage in intimate, personal blackmail in order to advance other political and economic schemes.

America is attacking China’s strategy – very Sun Tzu. “What is of supreme importance in war is to attack the enemy’s strategy.” Read the entire essay.

MLRS SMART ROCKET WEEK AT STRATEGYPAGE?: Not quite, though earlier this week StrategyPage featured the Multiple Launch Rocket System’s (MLRS) little brother, the HIMARS. The Instapundit post included background on the weapons systems and rockets. Here’s the Insta-archive link if you wish to review it. The MLRS is a tracked, heavy vehicle. The HIMARS is a truck-mounted system, which is lighter and much easier to move by air. Smart rockets are definitely in demand again.

WINGS OVER HOUSTON: An A-10 Thunderbolt II, an F-35 Lightning II, an F-16 Viper and a WW2-era P-51 Mustang fly in formation over Ellington Airport, Houston, Texas. Photo taken Oct. 11, 2020. The F-16V (Viper) is an upgraded version of the F-16 Fighting Falcon. The manufacturing apparently suggested renaming the upgrade the F-21. That designation shows up in reports and analyses, but it hasn’t “entered standard usage,” so to speak.

Quote from the Warplanes update:

The changes in the V model are considerable. The airframe is upgraded and strengthened to enable 12,000 flight hours per aircraft. The electronics undergo an even more extensive upgrade which involves replacing the mechanical radar with an AESA (phased array) radar, an upgraded cockpit, a Sniper targeting pod, a Link 16 digital data link and upgraded navigation gear. The newly redesigned cockpit is all digital and flat screen touch displays that replace dozens of gages and switches and makes it much easier to fly the aircraft.

More data at the update.

CHINA’S ASPIRATIONAL ARMY: StrategyPage’s latest Forces update examines the Peoples Liberation Army’s modernization program. The conversion of divisions to brigades is well underway.

From way down near the end of the update:

While China wants an army that can perform as well as Western forces, they won’t get it until they convert to an all-volunteer force and upgrade initial combat training to Western standards. China is switching to Western training methods but is not yet willing to spend what it takes to pay all the troops what they are worth.

Well worth reading.

VERY RELATED: Quad deterrence.

WARTHOG IN A VIRTUAL AIR SHOW: An A-10 Thunderbolt II flies over Naval Air Station Oceana, Virginia’s flight line. The A-10 participated in a virtual air show held by NAS Oceana and broadcast on Live Air Show TV. Photo taken Sept. 18, 2020.

HIMARS IN ACTION: Soldiers from the U.S. Army’s 1st Infantry Division fire missiles from the M142 High Mobility Artillery Rocket System. Their unit is participating in a Decisive Action Rotation at the National Training Center, Fort Irwin, Calif. Photo taken Sept. 14, 2020. Here’s a photo from 2017 that shows the launcher firing a rocket from a beach in South Korea. For background on the HIMARS, see this Artillery update from 2017. The HIMARS is a very useful weapon system. It can fire precision-guided rockets and the 12 ton truck-launcher can fit into a C-130 transport plane. Here’s a photo of a U.S. Marine HIMARS landing on a beach. The Army and Marines have both experimented with using advanced sensors to spot targets for the long range, precision-guided rockets HIMARS and its the larger MLRS (Multiple Launch Rocket System) can fire. An Air Weapons update from 2018 reported the Marines discovered the F-35B is a very good forward observer for the HIMARS. The Marines fired HIMARS from the flight deck of an amphibious assault ship — a clever way to give the assault ship the ability to provide gunfire support for Marines ashore. The 2018 article includes some of the data in the 2017 update.

UPDATE: When the Marines use the F-35B as a forward observer the plane remains in stealth-mode, as best it can. The plane detects targets and relays target information — to the ship though I understand it could be sent directly to the HIMARS launcher. In some ways it’s comparable to a hidden spotter providing information to a sniper. The rockets are accurate out to 70 kilometers and there are longer range versions. In stealth mode the F-35B does not carry external weapons. The plane could be detected if the data transmission were intercepted, but given the plane’s capabilities, it’s difficult for an enemy to quickly turn that into targeting data (ie, target the F-35B). In comparison, if the jet were conducting the attack or even carrying external weapons it would almost certainly reveal its presence and position.

GETTING READY FOR A DAWN PATROL: A B-1B Lancer sits on the ramp at Eielson Air Force Base, Alaska, preparing for a sortie in support of a Bomber Task Force mission. Photo taken Sept. 18, 2020.

OBAMA, HILLARY, BRENNAN AND THE RUSSIA RUSSIA RUSSIA BIG LIE: Links to this Powerline post by John Hinderaker have already appeared on Instapundit. But the post is particularly thorough and incisive. Moreover, the Clinton campaign’s and the Obama Administration’s smear of Donal Trump continues. This link will take you to an essay I wrote for the New York Observer in July 2016: Tail Gunner Hillary and the Putin Hack. I wrote the essay shortly after Hillary’s campaign manager Robby Mook, in an interview with George Stephanopoulos, “yoked Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump to Russia’s neo-Czar Vladimir Putin: “I think that what’s troubling is how he (Trump) praised Vladimir Putin,” Mook said.” Mook’s innuendo — an insinuation of disloyalty– absolutely stank. Unsubstantiated accusations of treason was pure Stalinist Russia, but Joe McCarthy’s 1950 “Enemies Within” speech also came to mind. The accusation also struck me as highly suspicious. Four years later, we see hard proof that it was a conspiratorial crock.

3,000 GALLON AIRBORNE FIRE BUCKET: A commercial CH-47 Chinook heavy-lift helicopter drops water on Los Alamitos Army Airfield, California, during a fire fighting demonstration. The caption claims the helicopter is the world’s largest helitanker. The chopper isusing the Army airfield as a base for fighting wildfires in Southern California. Photo taken September 30, 2020.

CHINA CONFRONTS THE QUAD’S DIPLOMATIC AND MILITARY DOUBLE WHAMMY: The Quad — shorthand for the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue –Australia, Japan, India and the U.S.

For Beijing, the Quad’s formation and solidification is a nightmare — and China’s communist government has only itself to blame.

The column includes a short history of the The Quad’s formation and its solidification following the initial and very informal meeting in 2007.

This week The Quad held a foreign ministers meeting in Tokyo. SecState Pompeo’s opening remarks about the Chinese Communist Party’s “exploitation, corruption and coercion” were dead on.

THE LATEST STRATEGYTALK PODCAST: Russia is a broken country but still a dangerous adversary. Assassins and special forces can still cause havoc, and Putin routinely threatens nuclear war. However, Putin didn’t factor in frackers. The link goes to youtube, you can find MP3 download here. If you like it, please subscribe.

FOR CHINA THE QUAD IS A DIPLOMATIC AND MILITARY DOUBLE WHAMMY

RUSSIA IS BROKEN, BUT STILL VERY DANGEROUS: The latest StrategyTalk podcast. If you like it, please subscribe.

THE IGUALA MASSACRE INVESTIGATION CHALLENGES IMPUNITY: Mexico’s President Versus Beyond-the-Law Elites.

Impunity — that’s the deep issue. For disenchanted Mexican citizens, “impunity” means injustice embedded within their nation’s governing institutions and society. It expresses deep disgust with political and economic leaders who escape responsibility for their crimes.

Impunity directly connects to the Iguala mass murders. The students were slaughtered. Bodies and human remains kept appearing — but only low-level actors were arrested.

But the latest investigation is different and the indictments include “the intellectual and material authors” of the massacre.

LINE OF FIRE: U.S. Marines fire an M240B medium machine gun during a night shoot aboard dock landing ship USS Germantown.

CHINOOK SUNSET: A U.S. Army Chinook on a mission at sunset. Here’s some background on the CH-47F and CH-47D models. It includes this observation: “CH-47s will still be at work in the 2060s. The CH-47 will end up serving about 100 years.” Additional photo: A CH-47 in action with the 82nd Airborne in Afghanistan.

UPDATE: I’m told the StrategyPage certificate issue was fixed as of 12:15 pm CDT. It was not a hack. Thanks to the commenters who noted the problem.

THE IGUALA MASSACRE INVESTIGATION CHALLENGES IMPUNITY: Mexico’s President Versus Beyond-the-Law Elites.

BUFF GETTING A DRINK: A B-52 flies below a KC-135 tanker after refueling above the Mediterranean Sea. You can see the tanker’s fuel probe has not disengaged. The B-52 is flying a Bomber Task Force Europe mission. Photo taken Sept. 16, 2020. Here’s a photo from 2017 of a B-52 being serviced at Minot AFB, North Dakota, just as a storm strikes. Superb lightning display in the background. A fine photo taken by a Senior Airman. This B-52 photo from 2019 is a classic — a B-52 taken out of service in 2008 and stored at Davis-Monthan AFB, Arizona is being returned to service to replace a B-52 lost in 2016. This StrategyPage Procurement update from May 2019 mentions the plane and discusses the Aerospace Maintenance and Recovery Center, also known as the “boneyard,” at Davis-Monthan. Good background on the AMARC.

STAYING SHARP: Marines from the 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit (MEU) fire a .50-caliber machine gun during a crew served weapons shoot aboard dock landing ship USS Germantown. This second photo (from 2009) shows sailors in a fifty caliber live fire exercise. Here is an excellent background article from 2015 on the Ma Deuce (the fifty cal’s nickname). “The M2 has lasted so long because it proved to be the most reliable and durable machine-gun of any caliber ever produced.” Finally, here’s a recent article on a possible Ma Deuce successor. We’ve heard that before. The fifty cal is the tank commander’s weapon. My old M60A1 had the M85 version of the Ma Deuce.