ALASKAN GALAXY BENEATH THE MOON: Gibbous moon, frost covered tees and a C-5 Galaxy on the flightline at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson, Alaska, January 10, 2020. Yes, it’s cold.

BARREL VIEW OF A HOWITZER: A USMC photographer at Twentyninepalms snaps a creative photo of an M777 howitzer with its breech open as the howitzer is prepared for a fire mission. Here’s some background on the M777. Scroll down to the third and fourth paragraphs.

AIRCRAFT COMPATIBILITY TESTING ON USS FORD: A U.S. Navy T-45 Goshawk lands aboard the USS Gerald R. Ford. The new carrier is undergoing a range of tests, to include its controversial Electromagnetic Aircraft Launch Systems (EMALS) — a new catapult. Here’s some background on the Ford‘s teething problems. Scroll down to the second paragraph. “…in February 2018 the navy confirmed that it had major problems with the design and construction of its new EMALS (Electromagnetic Aircraft Launch System) catapult…” The post dates from May 2019 but is a thorough sketch of the situation.

FLYING BOOMERANG ENGINE INTAKE: It’s a B-2 over Britain.

PUTIN’S POWER GRAB IN CONTEXT.

IRANIANS ATTACK THE AYATOLLAH REGIME — THEIR REAL ENEMY: My latest Creators Syndicate column.

Since December 2017, deeply aggrieved Iranian citizens have publicly denounced two blatantly linked injustices perpetrated by the corrupt ayatollah regime: the clerical dictatorship’s hideous corruption and Iran’s acute economic deterioration.

Iran’s Islamic revolutionary dictatorship is a case study in repeated failure, incompetence, corruption and mass murder.

The Iranian people are now responding with splendid ferocity.

Voice of America News reports that instead of chanting, “Death to America,” Iranians in Tehran chant: “You are tyrants. Don’t call us seditioners.”

According to the Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty Persian language broadcast unit, Radio Farda, on Jan. 13, protesters in Isfahan Industrial University chanted, “Execution and imprisonment no longer scare us.” Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty is funded by the U.S. government. Radio Free Europe is definitely not a Cold War relic.

Protestors in Tehran and western Iran have been heard chanting, “Death to the dictator,” meaning Ayatollah Khamenei.

He is the IRGC’s mob boss.

A Twitter video clip shows protestors in Tehran chanting: “They are lying that our enemy is America. Our enemy is right here.”

Peruse the entire essay.

LIGHTNING LINEUP: F-35A Lightning IIs taxi during an exercise at Hill Air Force Base, Utah, Jan. 6, 2020.

DIVISION TACTICS EXERCISE AT SEA: The littoral combat ship USS Detroit and the guided-missile destroyer USS Gridley perform division tactics maneuvering exercises somewhere in the U.S. Southern Command’s area of responsibility. The caption notes that the USS Detroit has a U.S. Coast Guard law enforcement detachment aboard.

IRANIANS ATTACK THEIR REAL ENEMY: The Ayatollah Regime, of course.

STRATEGYTALK: 2019 in review. If you like it, subscribe via youtube.

MISSILE’S RED GLARE: An unarmed Minuteman III ICBM launches during an operational test at Vandenberg Air Force Base, California. Photo taken Oct. 2, 2019.

SOLEIMANI’S FATAL ARROGANCE REVEALS A FOOL’S CONTEMPT FOR HIS ENEMIES:

Understand these facts first and foremost: Qassem Soleimani was a career state-sponsored terrorist whose financial, ideological and strategic sponsor was the Iranian theocratic dictatorship the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini founded in 1979.

Another fact: In 1984, the U.S. State Department placed Iran on its list of state sponsors of terrorism.

Check it out.

LEAVING SAN DIEGO: The USS America departs its homeport of Naval Base San Diego.Photo taken November 13, 2019.

FIRE SCOUT IN THE SOUTH CHINA SEA: U.S. Navy sailors assigned to Helicopter Sea Combat Squadron 23 prepare an MQ-8B Fire Scout unmanned helicopter on the flight deck of the USS Gabrielle Giffords. The ship is deployed in the South China Sea. Here’s some background on the MQ-8B and MQ-8C Fire Scout variants.

STRATEGYPAGE’S ANNUAL WARS UPDATE: Empires Versus The Rest Of Us.

This is our annual (formerly twice-a-year) summary of current war zones and an overview of where it is all heading. Doing this once a year rather than twice is a reflection of the decline in the number and severity of wars since the 1990s. After the overview there is the alphabetical list of the war zones and a quick summary of how the local mayhem has been proceeding.

The report includes an overall global assessment and regional or country assessments, from Afghanistan to Yemen.

Some extracts. From the global assessment, comments on overall violence:

Since the end of the Cold War in 1991 deaths from wars and large scale civil disorder (which is often recorded as some kind of war) have led to a sharp (over 20 percent so far) drop in violence worldwide. This occurred despite increasingly active and lethal Islamic terror groups. While the terror attacks themselves were news, the current and historical causes of Islamic terrorism were not. Examining that would have revealed that Islamic radicalism has a large anti-technology component, which is why Islamic terrorist violence tends to be low tech and disorganized. Thus most war deaths are not caused by terrorists and even in 2014 (a peak year for Islamic death cults seeking to revive the Caliphate), terrorism-related deaths (mostly Islamic terrorism) accounted for 20 percent of all war-related deaths. Islamic terrorism gets the most publicity but less glamorous disputes do most of the killing.

An extract from the Iran summary:

Since late 2017 Iran suffered continuing nationwide outbursts against the religious dictatorship running the country. There was similar activity in 2009 to protest the lack of fair elections. The 2009 protests were put down with force as were the recent ones (with over a thousand dead in 2019). What started in late 2017 was different, with the protestors calling for the corrupt religious rulers to be removed, even killed if necessary. Some protestors called for a return of the constitutional monarchy the religious leaders replaced in the 1980s (after first promising true democracy). Even more disturbing was that some of the protestors are calling for Islam to be banned and replaced with something else, like Zoroastrianism, the ancient Persian religion that Islam replaced, violently and sometimes incompletely in the 7th and 8th centuries. Right before the late 2017 unrest, the religious rulers saw Iran on the way to some major victories in Syria, Iraq, Lebanon and Yemen. The optimism turned out to be premature. The good times were supposed to begin in the wake of a July 2015 treaty that would lift the many sanctions Iran operated under. That did not, as many financial experts pointed out, solve the immediate cash crises because oil prices were still low. This was because Saudi Arabia refused to cut production to keep oil prices high. This was made worse by the continued use of fracking in North America which triggered a massive (more than 70 percent) drop of the price of oil in 2013. Iran made their situation worse by trying to avoid complying with the 2015 treaty while still getting most of the sanctions lifted and for a while, that seemed to be working. That deception turned out badly as the U.S. accused Iran of violating the 2015 deal and by the terms of that agreement the American could and did withdraw. That meant many of the sanctions returned in 2018. Even before the American action foreign economists believed the Iranian economy wouldn’t get moving again until the 2020s. Now it is going to take even longer and Iranians, in general, are not pleased with that at all. The 2017 protests are continuing and intensifying. The violent reaction to the demonstrations has not halted them. The protests keep reviving. The senior clerics are worried and openly seeking a solution that does not include them losing their power. Few Iranians are willing to accept that kind of compromise. The religious dictatorship is not only hated but also seen as corrupt and untrustworthy.

And there’s much more. Check out the whole thing.

UTILITY TASK VEHICLE WORKOUT: Marines drive a Utility Task Vehicle during a tactical vehicle driving course in Kuwait.

STRATEGYPAGE’S ANNUAL WARS UPDATE: Empires Versus The Rest Of Us.

This is our annual (formerly twice-a-year) summary of current war zones and an overview of where it is all heading. Doing this once a year rather than twice is a reflection of the decline in the number and severity of wars since the 1990s. After the overview there is the alphabetical list of the war zones and a quick summary of how the local mayhem has been proceeding. Since we have been covering this sort of thing for twenty years now there are some war zones that have gone quiet. We left most of those in summary, with a note that those wars had gone dormant, and maybe extinct. History shows that dormant is more common than extinct. Forever (at least multi-century) wars are an ancient tradition.

A sample:

Since the 1980s China adopted a market economy and shed most of its socialist responsibilities. So with the presence of a nationalist dictatorship government you actually have a repeat of what happened nearly a century ago. China has a self-appointed “leader-for-life” running what is officially known as a socialist dictatorship. Back in the 1930s Germany had a free market economy run by the NSDAP (“National Socialist German Worker’s Party”) or, Nazis. Spain had a similar government with a dictator technically acting as regent for a deposed monarchy. Japan had a market economy but its constitutional monarchy had been usurped by a military coup that put a military dictatorship in power that ruled “in the name of the emperor.” Italy was run by a dictator who was a lifelong socialist but also a nationalist dictator promising to revive the Roman Empire on the cheap. That did not end well. But that was then, today the fascists are the same but a bit different.

Fascist China now and Fascist Germany in the 1930s were very similar but there were some key differences. In the 1930s the U.S. had the largest GDP in the world and Germany’s was second. But back then the American GDP was more than twice the size of Germany’s while today the Chinese GDP is about 64 percent the size of the American one.

Check out the whole thing.

POWERLINE’S YEAR IN PICTURES: Post-impeachment syndrome – snowflakes shocked to find their lives still suck after Trump impeachment…and lots more.

KIM JONG UN, CHOOSE YOUR FUTURE: Christmas came and went, and he didn’t set off fireworks.

For the moment, North Korean brink-breaching detonations are speculation. Indeed, at the latest North Korean communist party conclave, Kim mouthed tough-guy phrases like taking “positive and offensive measures” that usually signal confrontation with Washington and Seoul.

Yet Trump administration officials suggest that Kim has reconsidered his violent gift-giving. If Kim has had second thoughts, why, prospective condos on the beach and South Korean K-pop girl bands playing Pyongyang gigs definitely have more diplomatic and psychological impact than the wildest optimists imagined.

We will see, but let’s concentrate on what is. Serious, factual events matter, and several verifiable events in December 2019 demonstrate that thoughtful U.S. and allied North Korean denuclearization diplomacy continues, as do efforts to address a global task with which de-nuking North Korea entwines: strategic defense measures to counter enemy ballistic missiles.

The December diplomacy was intricate — and under-reported. So read the entire column.

NEW YEAR’S UPDATE: I wrote the column Monday morning, December 30. Two days later we have 2020 hindsight, so to speak. Now Kim says North Korea is no longer “”unilaterally bound” to its commitment to halt nuclear and inter-continental ballistic missile tests” and will unveil a “new strategic weapon.”

GRIFFIN LAUNCH IN THE ARABIAN GULF: The coastal patrol ship USS Hurricane test fires a Mark 60 Griffin guided-missile. Note the Pentagon caption reads Arabian Gulf, not Persian Gulf. Here’s a photo of the coastal patrol ship USS Tempest in Bahrain’s port.

2019’S YEAR OF GLOBAL PROTESTS: This is a sampling — the list is by no means complete.

ANOTHER REMEMBRANCE OF THE BULGE: From a column written in December 2014, “A 14thCavalry Surgeon’s Battle of the Bulge.”

“I was in the 14th Cav,” he said. “You know where we were Dec. 16 (1944)?” Yes … Losheim Gap. He said: “I survived The Bulge.”

“Of course, it wasn’t really quiet,” Kreisle told me, after I read his letters and his tragic account of the Battle of the Bulge: “we thought we were close to winning the war. 14th Cav, in the Losheim Gap, scattered from Vielsalm (Belgium) to Germany (border). …We had the 106th Infantry Division on a flank — very green. On the German side, Sixth SS Panzer Army was assembling. We didn’t know it. Until December 16th.” Bulge “was a psychological about-face.”

A bit more:

Jim Kreisle’s Bulge was escaping under fire in an ambulance. “One sensed an atmosphere of suppressed panic,” he wrote. He commanded a surgeon’s retreat over forest trails, west from Herresbach — through snow, mud and sporadic artillery fire.

Heckuva story.

SUPERSONIC SLEIGH: Santa Claus visits the South Carolina Air National Guard.

LAUNCHING IN THE PACIFIC: Vapor ahoy. An F/A-18E Super Hornet launches from the flight deck of the aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt. Photo snapped December 12 in the eastern Pacific. Meanwhile, back in New Mexico: A U.S, Army 1st Armored Division M109A6 Paladin responds to a call for fire. The self-propelled howitzer is participating in a Joint Strike Fighter Integration exercise. The exercise series tests multiple communications links between a U.S. Air Force aircraft and a U.S. Army artillery. What the DOD caption implies but doesn’t say is this. The Army and Air Force have been using USAF stealth platforms (think F-35A) to spot targets for Army artillery (tube and rocket/missile artillery, like the GMLRS. the GPS guided MLRS, multiple launch rocket system). Same trick the USMC is doing with its F-35Bs and GMLRS rockets. Here’s a background post on the tactics that Jim Dunnigan wrote in late 2018.

UPGRADING THE WEISEL: Germany’s remarkable little Weisel armored vehicle gets another life extension — and will serve at least until 2030.

The vehicle was designed in the 1970s.

Wiesel is smaller and lighter than armored American hummers. Moreover, Wiesel is very small with a height of 1.9 meters (six feet) and 3.55 meters (11.4 feet) in length. The small size makes it easier to conceal itself behind terrain obstacles. This is extremely important considering the fact that its armor provides protection only against rifle (7.62mm) fire and shell fragments. Furthermore, Wiesel is famous for its excellent cross-country capabilities provided by special tracks and an 87 HP five-cylinder Volkswagen turbodiesel engine. Wiesel 1 top speed is about 70 kilometers an hour on roads but it can keep up with infantry in rough terrain. This is what made it so useful in Somalia, the Balkans and Afghanistan. Irregular troops found the 20mm autocannon armed Wiesel demoralizing and often fatal because the 20mm cannon was accurate and fatal when fired from two kilometers away. Another advantage was that Wiesel would often show up in remote areas where the enemy did not expect to see armored vehicles. Wiesel was air transportable using CH-47 or CH-53 helicopters. Both can accommodate two Wiesels one internally and one via sling load under a helicopter. In this way, they could be sent to assist special operations troops in remote areas.

This is an informative post in StrategyPage’s How to Make War section.