CHINA UPDATE: Dynasties

…Economic growth continues to decline – it is now under two percent a year and getting worse. That means more unemployment and lower living standards for most Chinese. A decade ago it became clear that the purported years of ten percent GDP growth were ending, assuming they were ever true at all. Not just because economic growth was slowing but because the central government was finally forced to go public, for the first time, about the false economic data that provincial officials had been sending to the central government for decades.

Yes, “the official numbers were doctored.” And “Xi Jinping hasn’t come up with a workable solution…”

INFORMATION COMBAT: Hamas and the Information War

…defeating Hamas in a city fight or even a village often means killing civilians living in the area. The military term is collateral damage. The civilians were not targets, but they were in the battle zone. In death the dead become Hamas information warfare assets.

The latest How to Make War information warfare update.

MEET THE MERKAVA 5 –HAMAS IS ABOUT TO: Barak Does It Better

A year ago Israel introduced the fifth version of its Merkava tank. The Merkava 5 was quietly developed, built, tested and deployed in small numbers during late 2022. This was ahead of schedule because the original delivery date was supposed to be early 2023. Like the earlier Merkava models, Merkava 5 is an improved version of the previous model and proved to be such an impressive upgrade that it was given a name; Barak.

It’s StrategyPage’s latest How To Make War ARMOR update.

RELATED: (1) 2018 photo of a Merkava on a training exercise. (2) 2005 photo of an early model Merkava. (3) 2017 photo Israeli female tankers in front of a Merkava. and (4) Posted in 2018 but the propaganda imagery dates from 2016. Hamas/Hezbollah terrorists celebrate on fake Merkavas. In the lower left photo the tires of a wheeled vehicle are visible beneath the fake tank.

STRATEGYPAGE’S LATEST INTELLIGENCE UPDATE: Hamas Goes Rogue and Beyond : Jim Dunnigan’s “How To Make War” series examines Israel’s intelligence failure.

The lede for Friday the 13th:

The October 7th Hamas attack on Israel was an embarrassing failure of Israeli intelligence services. One reason for the surprise was that the planning did not involve a lot of foreign supporters. It was apparently just Iran, quietly increasing its supply of guided rockets, munitions and training personnel.

Ah but:

The Israeli military is one of the best in the world and not in need of the kind of aid sent to Ukraine. Israel needs more cooperation from its Arab neighbors and further Israeli economic cooperation depends on some Arab diplomatic and intelligence support. The Hamas attack was a major intelligence failure for Israel and the Arab neighbors realize that this was an Iranian intelligence victory. If Iran could do this again it would most likely be used against one of the Arab states that oppose expansion of Iranian influence in the region. Expending Hamas to accomplish this attack on Israel reminds Arab states that it could happen to them. Iran is a common enemy or threat to Israel, Arabs and Turks.

ASIDE: The meaning of “lede.”

STRATEGYPAGE’S LATEST UPDATE ON TURKEY: Erdogan’s government retaliates against Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) terror attacks. Turkey is retaliating for terror attacks launched in Ankara on October 1. The counter-attacks include airstrikes. PKK base camps are often in or near villages. This is relevant knowledge when you hear critics condemn Israeli airstrikes against terrorists. The update also discusses the Turkey-Israel diplomatic rapprochement that has been in the works for over a year (see Sept. 27 entry). Hamas terror attacks have scotched that, at least temporarily. Tehran’s ayatollahs fear Turkish and Israeli cooperation, and fear is not too dramatic a word. Actually, Israel and Turkey have been discussing several economic projects for quite some time, including major energy-related projects.

BUT THE TIME IS SO RIPE AS LONG AS BIDEN’S IN CHARGE: Beijing, Pay Attention: Don’t Let Ukraine-Gaza Lead to WWIII Taiwan

FACT ONE: A major land war rages in Europe. Twenty months ago, Russia invaded Ukraine without provocation and the horror grinds on with mass casualties and World-War-I-like attrition.

FACT TWO: War in the Middle East. An Iranian proxy army, Hamas, launches a complex and well-planned attack on Israel. Mass atrocity by Islamist terrorists shocks the civilized world — at least what’s left of civilization.

…is war in Asia the next explosion igniting World War III?

If we’ve reached “peak China”, remember “A fading power can become a risk-taking power.” So read the entire essay.

RUN SILENT, RUN DEEP: More Women On Crews. StrategyPage’s latest Submarines update (from Jim Dunnigan’s How To Make War series). Buried halfway through the post: “One compelling reason for allowing women to serve was the growing shortage of men willing to do so.” The statistics quoted support that observation. The long duration of nuclear submarine patrols discouraged lots of sailors. Buried even deeper: “But the wives of American submariners have been openly hostile to the idea of mixed male/female crews and have not been reluctant to make their concerns known.” Seems they’ve gone nuclear.

RELATED: USS Key West fast-attack sub underway.

THE WAGES OF BIDEN’S INCOMPETENCE AND CORRUPTION: (1) The Biden Administration’s Afghanistan Bug-Out Continues to Have Disastrous Consequences and (2) The Biden Administration’s Destruction of American Soft Power. Remember, leftists are big advocates of “soft power.”

From the second essay:

Quiet encouragement, demonstrating responsible behavior (leading by example), cultural attraction and generosity have always been U.S. diplomatic tools. The Eisenhower administration, pursuing a policy of “contact with the captive peoples,” sent American athletes and jazz musicians to Soviet-dominated Eastern Europe. Dizzy Gillespie and Dave Brubeck were both “jazz ambassadors.” Ike himself understood America’s and the West’s cultural attraction was an instrument of power in a struggle with communist tyranny. No contest. Rock ‘n’ roll beats lifeless socialist realist art.

More:

U.S. diplomats argue the rule of law forwards genuine internal stability. Fragile developing countries seeking internal stability should emulate America’s judicial system of honest courts and police forces. Eliminating corruption will strengthen all domestic institutions. The U.S. and other donor nations often demand countries receiving economic assistance confront and reduce internal corruption. Ukraine is the most notable example, while Congo is another.

My point: Joe Biden’s personal corruption in Ukraine “…undermined a U.S. soft-power diplomatic operation.” Read both essays and ponder.

STRATEGYPAGE ARMOR UPDATE: Revival Of The Assault Gun.

In Ukraine Russia has revived the WW2 assault gun concept using older T-55 and T-62 tanks as mobile artillery for infantry units.

ELIZABETH STAUFFER: Unlike the Trump indictments, the case against Biden is straightforward.

The average American understands bribery, greed, and lies, concepts that are as old as mankind.

And

The straightforwardness of the Biden family’s influence peddling operation makes it easy for all but the most rabid Democrats to understand.

Indeed. Read her entire post.

FROM THE COMMENTS: I was impressed with Stauffer’s post and began wondering about Insta-reader reaction. Glad I did. Context: I recall commenting on a couple of Insta-reader comments seven or eight years ago. Googling fact-checkers, check it out. Which leads to this reader comment. I think this comment expresses the media-legal situation succinctly and with the Watergate reference provides relevant historical context: “In the Trump case, vast amounts of resources are needed to “prove” ephemera. Joe Biden’s former allies, like Devon Archer, are at a late-Watergate stage of confession. Only the presence of a man with less legal objectivity than Roland Freisler, aka Merrick Garland, is keeping the Biden regime away from major criminal investigations.” Congrats to the commenter. Garland is a corrupt actor and among fact-based historians will likely go down as one of the worst attorney generals in American history — vying with Eric Holder and Mitchell Palmer. But in the “worst AGs” evaluation I defer to legal historians like Glenn.

THE KREMLIN’S DONE IT BEFORE: Putin’s Russia Turns To Ethnic Cleansing In Ukraine

Russia has practiced ethnic cleansing for centuries. This involves moving one ethnic group and replacing it with another. Most Western nations now consider this a war crime though it still occurs and often goes unpunished. A current example is the Russian occupation forces in Ukraine who are now trying to ethnically cleanse the remaining Russian-occupied areas after outright failing to pacify the locals, who were remarkably uncooperative and often violently opposed to the Russian occupation. This was made worse by Russian efforts to get local Ukrainians to cooperate in accepting the fact that Russia now considered them Russians, by trying to take away Ukrainian identity documents, including passports, and replace them with Russian documents. That did not work and, worse, many local Ukrainians joined the armed partisans and that included killing Russian-appointed officials. Russia, per its centuries-old ethnic cleansing solution to troublesome minorities, believes the easiest way to get rid of the partisans is to send all the Ukrainians to Russia and replace them with Russians. Russia calls this “filtration” but this is a war crime according to the Geneva Convention. In March 2023: Vladimir Putin was indicted by the ICC (International Criminal Court) for war crimes.

More:

So far no Russian civilians have appeared to replace the Ukrainians kidnapped into Russia. Apparently filtration works both ways and the armed and unarmed Ukrainians are trying to filtrate the Russians out of Ukraine.

Read the entire post.

THE HULL DEFICIT AND DAVIDSON WINDOW OF VULNERABILITY: Time for Beltway Admirals to Think About War 2025, Not Paper Fleet 2045

Part 2 in a series. Here’s a link to Part 1: Confronting China’s Rising Strength on the Seas

Insightful people like Dr. Andrew Marshall thought about communist China’s emerging threat in the 1990s. From Part 1:

In late 1992 I was serving as a strategic war-gaming consultant in the Secretary of Defense’s Office of Net Assessments. Net Assessments director, the great Andrew Marshall, gave his consultants a long-term thought experiment: How could the U.S. fight and win a war for national survival against China circa 2020 or 2025?

The hull deficit is real.

UPDATE (FROM GLENN): It’s troubling when bloggers are talking logistics and force structure, while actual generals and admirals are talking pronouns and diversity.

COMMUNIST CHINA’S NAVY KEEPS GROWING IN SIZE: Confronting China’s Rising Strength on the Seas

Donald Rumsfeld got scorched by media rubes for saying:”You go to war with the army you have, not the army you might want or wishto have at a later time.”

But he was right, and his instant maxim certainly applied to America’s response to 9/11’s surprise attacks.

You certainly go to war with your navy as it is, not what it could be in eight to 12 years. Building warships, training naval ship and air crews, modernizing fleet support facilities and maintenance operations: The complex enterprise of creating a war-winning fleet has a very long lead time.

First column in a series of two. Maybe three. Or more.

KOREAN ARMISTICE 70 YEARS ON: July 27, 1953. An iffy anniversary. America’s longest war? (bumped)

The Korean War Armistice – 70 Years And Counting: Iffy Anniversary: Korea Is a Forever War

South Korea is a huge success, North Korea remains a communist basket case. South Korea has the 12th highest GDP according to some statisticians. This website has South Korea as Number 10, ahead of Russia. So maybe the Korean War’s a successful forever war?

POWERLINE COMPILATION: “All Roads Lead To Joe.” Joe Biden is the Rome of government and Democratic Party corruption. Scott Johnson’s post links to the best commentary (Turley, Devine, NY Post, Free Beacon) and videos of House testimony by whistleblowers. The witnesses have credibility and backbone.

STRATEGYPAGE RUSSIA UPDATE:Twilight of the Generals

As the Wagner revolt collapsed Prigozhin blinked first but:

…Putin was revealed as vulnerable because many of his senior generals regard the Ukraine invasion as a mistake that will tarnish Russia’s military reputation while also crippling the army and forcing budget cuts for the navy and air force in order to replace what was lost in Ukraine. The government is spending money it doesn’t have on the military operations in Ukraine. To make that happen, Russia has to diminish support for its navy and air force. The financial strain has been considerable. The Russian national budget increased by $80 billion (to $480 billion) since 2021, its defense budget has nearly doubled, going from $57 billion to $83 billion, and the budget for the national police and other internal security forces has gone from $47 billion to $77 billion. Before 2022 little of this was spent in Russian-occupied Ukraine, especially Donbas and Crimea. These two areas were illegally annexed and have growing problems with local security, not all caused by Ukrainians. Then came the invasion, which was taking over $10 billion a month out of the military budget. This defense spending growth was made possible by borrowed money. These loans had to be made at very high interest rates because the domestic and international financial industries agree that Russia is currently a bad credit risk from massive international sanctions and its military defeats in Ukraine.

The post discusses in detail Russia’s economic strains.

RELATED: The Wagner Revolt Leaves Losers Worldwide.

MINES, ANTI-TANK MINES, OBSTACLES AND FORTIFICATIONS: Perspectives and Realities facing Ukraine’s summer counter-offensive. It’s StrategyPage’s latest Armor update in Jim Dunnigan’s How To Make War section.

Extract:

…Historically, most tank and armored fighting vehicle (AFV) losses come from mobility kills. The Ukraine War was unique because top attack ATGMs (anti-tank guided missiles) were able to destroy Russian-designed tanks and AFVs by causing the turret to explode and kill the entire crew. Now the Ukrainians are on the offensive and have to devote a lot of men and resources to removing anti-tank and anti-personnel mines. At the same time the Ukrainians use anti-tank mines to protect quiet sectors of the front line from surprise armored attacks.

The update has detailed analysis of Ukraine backed by historical perspective. (Link problem fixed.)

RELATED: An M1A2 Abrams tank and two Leopard 2A6 tanks participate in a NATO live fire exercise in Poland.

ESTONIA RESPONDS WITH GUNS AND MONEY: Estonia Prepares for the War After Ukraine

Estonia is getting serious. Money buying guns.

Estonia plans to spend $14.5 billion over the next ten years. This will increase annual defense spending to three percent of GDP. Current spending is 2.85 percent of GDP. The recommended NATO goal is two percent. This is all about learning the lessons of the Ukraine war. That means spending over a billion dollars to increase ammunition supplies. Large quantities of Israeli Harpy loitering munitions and Spike ATGMs (Anti-Tank Guided Missiles) are on order. Blue Spear land-based anti-ship missiles are also on order and will arrive in 2024. These have a range of 290 kilometers and Estonia is launching them from trucks.

More perspective:

Estonia is a small country with a population of 1.3 million and a GDP of $41 billion. That means per-capita GDP is $31,000. Poland and the Baltic States made an extraordinary, in terms of financial cost, effort to assist Ukraine during the first six weeks of the war. For example, tiny Estonia spent about 0.8 percent of its annual GDP to support Ukraine during those six weeks. Most of the aid went to processing and hosting Ukrainian refugees fleeing the Russian attacks on their homes. By late 2022 Ukrainians and their NATO supporters were planning for what comes after the war. The Russian troops were on the run and Russia has few options left. Estonia is convinced that Russia will try again and the next time Estonia might be the target.

Sorry Warren Zevon, no mention of lawyers, just guns and money. This is a detailed StrategyPage “Forces” update, in Jim Dunnigan’s How To Make War section.

PUTIN AND PRIGOZHIN’S BROW-WRINKLING ARRANGEMENT: The Wagner Revolt Leaves Losers Worldwide

…here’s Putin’s short-term payoff: The brow wrinkling arrangement has the appearance of strength and stability.

The arrangement enables these Putin-desired events. The Russian Army absorbs the Wagner mercenary corps. The glorious war to absorb Ukraine in Putin’s reviving Russian Empire continues.

But it ain’t all over. The Wagner Revolt fizzled, but it left a lot of dead and wounded soldiers and several political losers.

MORE:

…I distrust mercenary organizations. In August 2000 I recorded an NPR Morning Edition commentary expressing skepticism about the UN’s proposal to hire mercenary peacekeepers. In the 14th century, Italian Condottieri (contractors) mercenary companies often disregarded the contracts with city-states and took power to themselves. Wagner has done that in the Central African Republic. Fair bet Prigozhin’s Wagner trainers — while working for Russia — have made some money from filched CAR natural resources.

Mercenary organizations are another loser. With Wagner kaput the Kremlin has lost its “plausibly deniable” military and economic actor in Africa.

Check it out.

MY LATEST COLUMN: Turkey Chooses Dictatorship, to the Detriment of the Free World. Erdogan won the May 28 run-off.

Related: Column from May 3, prior to the May 14 election. Why Turkey’s May 14 Election Really Matters.

THE LATEST STRATEGYTALK: F-16s For Ukraine. Jim Dunnigan and I discuss the belated decision by the Biden Administration to supply Ukraine with F-16s. I think it should have happened a year ago. If you like the podcast, please subscribe. MP3 download available here.

NATION DIVIDED? Memorial Day In Contemporary America. My latest column.

THE LATEST STRATEGYTALK: China versus Taiwan.