THE NAVY PLANS TO RETIRE THE FIRST FOUR LITTORAL COMBAT SHIPS: “…the oldest of the vessels was commissioned just 12 years ago, the youngest a mere six years ago.” Why retire relatively new ships? Too many “troublesome” problems. Here’s StrategyPage’s take from 2019, a “Leadership” post entitled “It Seemed Like A Good Idea At The Time.”

The U.S. Navy is trying to salvage what it can from its ambitious but poorly implemented “Littoral Combat Ship” (LCS) program…From the beginning, there were two different LCS designs and some of both were built and put into service. Problems were encountered and that was expected. The much smaller crew required some changes in how a crew ran a ship and how many sailors and civilians were required back on land to support a LCS at sea. It was found that the interchangeable mission modules take far longer (2-3 days instead of 2-3 hours) to replace. The LCS has still not seen combat and the Navy wants the first violent encounter to be successful, or at least not disastrous. It is expected that there will be surprises, which is about all that can be guaranteed at this point.

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In the last few years, the LCS design has been found to have structural and other flaws. The first LCS, the monohull USS Freedom, entered service in 2008 and over the next five years suffered major problems.

The StrategyPage post suggests the LCS might (might) make it as a mine warfare ship and might be able to hunt diesel-electric enemy subs in “coastal waters.” But that was 2019.

In 2017 I weighed in on the Navy’s need for a new blue water frigate and the need to “get a ship designed to do the job.” This is a photo of a U.S. Coast Guard Legend-class National Security Cutter, the USCGC Bertholf. Several Navy officers have argued that a more robust variant of this ship would be a cost-effective solution to the Navy’s frigate problem.

Here’s a photo of the LCS USS Coronado on patrol. The ship is an Independence-class LCS variant. Here’s the USS Freedom, obviously a Freedom-class variant. Pretty pictures? Sure, but the LCS program is not a pretty picture.

LTG MIKE FLYNN’S SENTENCING DELAYED — AGAIN: Powerline’s Scott Johnson stays on the sordid story of the man set up by dirty cops Comey and McCabe. There’ve been a lot of courtroom twists and turns. So stay tuned.

TRAINING FOR PERSISTENT ATTACK: An MQ-9 flies over the Nevada Test and Training Range.

CHINESE ASTROTURF: Narrative fail in Canada.

China recently discovered how astroturfing, creating fake “grassroots” support, loses its impact when the deception aspect is revealed. A recent example (late January 2020) occurred outside a western Canada (Vancouver) courthouse as demonstrators assembled to protest efforts to extradite a Chinese telecommunications executive. This was a big deal in China because this defendant worked for Huawei, the largest telecom company in China and the world. A crowd gathered carrying signs demanding the release of the Huawei executive. One sign even made reference to a pair or Canadian diplomats arrested in China and charged with espionage. That was relevant because the diplomats were actually taken as hostages to pressure the Canadian government to release the Huawei executive. Soon after the demonstrators began their protest things took a turn for the bizarre.

Read the entire post.

RELATED: My review of Chinese Communist Espionage.

SNEAK PEEK AT THE B-21 RAIDER BOMBER: An artist’s “rendering” of the new strategic bomber, with the plane shown in a hangar at Dyess Air Force Base, Texas.

SEARCHING FOR THE MA DEUCE SUCCESSOR: SOCOM is trying out the new Sig Sauer 338 (8.6mm) Machine Gun, which uses the 338 Norma Magnum.A long but informative post. Here’s a photo of twin-.50s on the USS Boxer and another with a .50 caliber machine gun inside a CH-53E Super Stallion flying over Afghanistan’s Helmand province,

CHINESE EXPORT FIGHTER FAIL:

Shot:

China is again making a major effort to sell its J-10 jet fighter to export customers. The J-10CE, the export version of the Chinese Air Force J-10C was on display at a November 2019 air show, along with eager sales reps looking for customers. There were some nibbles but nothing serious.

Chaser:

What the J-10 sales reps did not want to discuss was what most potential customers already knew; the F-16 had an exceptional service and combat record and was the most widely exported post-Cold War fighter. In contrast the J-10 first flew in 1998 and entered service six years later. Less than 500 J-10s have been produced so far and none have been bought by export customers.

There’s a lot of analysis after the chaser.

BUFF WITH A FLOCK OF FRIENDS: A USAF B-52H and six F-16 Fighting Falcons conduct bilateral joint training with four Japan Air Self-Defense Force F-2’s off the coast of Northern Japan, February 4, 2020.

DEEP BACKGROUND ON CHINA’S CORONAVIRUS EPIDEMIC: StrategyPage’s StrategyTalk podcast China Battles the Democracy Virus (bumped). Though recorded January 31, the podcast has the history and context for understanding the origin, spread and political implications of the epidemic. If you like it subscribe.

RELATED: My review of Chinese Communist Espionage. Since the column was written (February 4) Dr. Li has died after he contracted the virus. I’ve asked the webmaster to add an update sometime today.

This paragraph remains accurate, for he was indeed a political victim of the dictatorship:

Li was a victim of China’s Ministry of Public Security and its Social Credit Rating system. The system accumulates data on individuals using cellphones, video, internet and travel activity, and gossip. Security clerks cull the data for niggling signs of anti-government behavior.

Li’s anti-government behavior was using a private internet chat group to tell a handful of doctors and medical students that he was seeing signs of a viral epidemic.

HUNTING VIPERS: Two USMC AH-1Z Viper attack helicopters maneuver towards a target at the Marine Corps Air Ground Combat Center, Twentynine Palms, California. Photo taken Dec. 18, 2019.

COASTAL RIVERINE SQUADRON 1: Three patrol boats from the U.S. Navy’s Coastal Riverine Squadron 1 conduct anti-terrorism force protection operations in the Gulf of Tadjoura. The squadron is forward-deployed with Combined Task Group 68.6 at Camp Lemonnier, Djibouti. The small boats carry a variety of weapons, including .50 caliber machine guns. This photo shows sailors (aboard a cruiser) firing a .50 caliber machine gun in a live fire exercise.

A RESOURCE FOR UNDERSTANDING THE U.S.-CHINA CLASH: My Creators Syndicate column this week is a review of Chinese Communist Espionage: An Intelligence Primer by Peter Mattis and Matthew Brazil (Naval Institute Press, 2019).

The review, however, doesn’t lead with the book. The review begins with current news that has global significance:

Sometime in December 2019, Dr. Li Wenliang decided he must act. His clinic in the Hubei province capital, Wuhan, had too many patients with viral pneumonia symptoms. In a private online chat, he warned a few other doctors that analysis indicated a “SARS coronavirus.” The SARS epidemic erupted in 2002 and still embarrasses Beijing.

On Jan. 1, the local Public Security Bureau arrested Li and seven other doctors, alleging they spread vile rumors. Major Chinese media outlets reported the arrests. Media shaming did its job: repressing information that embarrassed Chinese Communist Party officials. It also short-circuited the sharing of medical data, but in China, the CCP reigns supreme.

The book goes into great detail about the Public Security Bureau and the Ministry of State Security — and China’s relentless, pervasive spying in the U.S. So, read the entire essay.

RELATED: Communist China Battles The Democracy Virus (bumped). This is the latest StrategyPage.com podcast. Yes, it discusses the novel coronavirus and what the epidemic “exposes” about the Chinese police and surveillance state. Give it a listen and if you like it, subscribe.

MORTAR SUPPORT IN AFGHANISTAN: Soldiers from the 48th Infantry Brigade Combat Team (IBCT) fire a mortar in support of operations in Laghman Province, Afghanistan. Photo taken March 5th, 2019. The Pentagon’s caption doesn’t tell you that the 48th is a Georgia Army National Guard unit that can trace its history back to 1825.

SINGAPORE OPTS FOR STEALTH: StrategyPage examines Singapore’s decision to buy twelve F-35B VTOL (vertical takeoff and landing) stealth fighters. The price for the dozen planes, associated equipment, spare parts, training and technical assistance: $2.75 billion U.S.

COMMUNIST CHINA BATTLES THE DEMOCRACY VIRUS: The latest StrategyPage.com podcast. Give it a listen and if you like it, subscribe.

SEA HAWKS RETURN HOME: MH-60S Sea Hawk helicopters assigned to the carrier air wing aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln return to Norfolk, Virginia from a ten-month deployment.

COMMUNIST CHINA BATTLES THE DEMOCRACY VIRUS: Hear it all. And subscribe.

ROOSEVELT IN TRANSIT: The aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt transits the Pacific Ocean. Photo taken Jan. 25, 2020. The Roosevelt is a Nimitz-class aircraft carrier. It entered service in 1986 so it’s not a new warship. But you can’t judge a carrier on age alone. The Roosevelt has undergone “upgrades and refurbishments.” From 2010 to early 2013 the ship underwent Refueling and Complex Overhaul (RCOH). This post from 2012 discusses the process and the price of U.S. Navy nuclear carrier upgrades and operations.

SECURING THE LZ: U.S. Marines provide security for UH-1Y Venom helicopters during an exercise on San Clemente Island, Calif. Photo taken January 15.

XI JINGPING CALLS THE CORONAVIRUS EPIDEMIC A “DEMON”: It’s bedeviling his dictatorship, that’s for sure.

While meeting with a World Health Organization official in Beijing, Chinese President Xi Jinping conceded that the coronavirus epidemic presented “the Chinese people” with a struggle. “The epidemic is a demon, and we cannot let this demon hide,” Xi said. Xi added that the Beijing communist government would “release information on the virus in a ‘timely’ manner.”

Read “timely” as “judged politically convenient by a Communist Party dictatorship confronting economic contraction and political resistance from Hong Kong and Taiwan that Beijing fears could spread to mainland China.”

More:

The coronavirus and its potential consequences of mass death expose the dictatorship’s brittleness. If you prefer, substitute “incompetence masked by police intimidation and lack of free expression” for “brittleness.”

Brutal authoritarian political control exacts overt and covert systemic costs. Western commentators — The New York Times’ Tom Friedman is a particularly smarmy example — admire authoritarian China’s alleged skill at solving major problems that dithering Western democracies cannot. What really dazzles Friedman and his ilk is the regime’s one-command-solves-it pose. Information control, especially control of dissent, bolsters this fraud.

It’s my latest Creators Syndicate column. Check it out.

WARTHOGS ON A SNOWBIRDS EXERCISE: Ten A-10 Thunderbolt II fighters, flown depart Selfridge Air National Guard Base, Michigan. The A-10s are participating in a Snowbird winter training exercise. Photo take Jan. 21, 2020.

POWERLINE STAYS ON THE TRAIL OF A BULLY, MAKING HASH OF HASHI: Scott Johnson continues his series of posts on Ilhan Omar’s pet hardboy, Guhad Hashi. Hashi has street mouth, reeks attitude, makes vicious threats. But…he’s almost as stupid as Don Lemon. I mean, the boys at Powerline got Dan Rather, an even bigger punk than Hashi. Maybe Hashi’s gettin’ wise — or gettin’ scared. According to Scott’s latest post, Hashi’s wiped his Facebook page, trying to scrub his social media threats. Has he learned to wipe elsewhere? Of course, Minnesota’s leftist media continue to ignore Ilhan’s illicit escapades. So I urge you to read the entire Hashi series.

BARK WITH BITE FROM A MARK 45: The guided-missile cruiser USS Normandy fires its forward Mark 45 5-inch gun during a live-fire exercise in the Arabian Sea. In June 2005 I spent a day and a half aboard the USS Normandy. The ship was operating in the Arabian Gulf (what the Pentagon now calls the Persian Gulf).

XI JINGPING’S VIRUS DEMON BEDEVILS HIS DICTATORSHIP:

Yes, “demon” is a metaphor for a pathogen capable of killing millions. However, it is a demon the dictatorship’s repressive policies animate and tolerate in lieu of free communication.

Read the entire column.

STRATEGYTALK PODCAST: A preview of 2020…Troubles, challenges, fragile states, brittle dictatorships.