IN PRAISE OF TRUMP ADMINISTRATION TRANSACTIONAL DIPLOMACY:

Until the Trump administration began its experiment in 21st-century American transactional diplomacy, “intractable international problems” dismayed, vexed and bamboozled establishment diplomats, whether they hailed from Washington’s Beltway morass, U.N. agencies or cachet townhouses in European capitals.

Wait…trying to recall the Glenn and Ed phrase…ah…yes..read the whole thing.

BACKBLAST: U.S. Marines fire a Mark 153 shoulder-launched multi-purpose assault weapon during a combat exercise at Twentynine Palms, Calif. This Weapons update has background information on the SMAW and similar light anti-tank and assault weapons.

A NEW YEAR, BUT THE B-52 REMAINS: A BUFF flies a mission somewhere over southwest Asia.

SUDAN RETIRED: It’s the last regular StrategyPage Sudan and South Sudan update. This is good news. StrategyPage has covered war-riven Greater Sudan since 1999 — 21 years. But in the last 18 months the situation has improved. StrategyPage editor Jim Dunnigan added this note to the update: “Since StrategyPage began in 1999 we’ve retired more wars than we’ve added. As we have noted frequently, the trend since the 1990s has been fewer wars.” He’s right, but tell that to the superficial media. I added an analysis of the significance of the Sudan update of February 26, 2003. Remember Darfur?

VALKYRIE LAUNCH: An XQ-58A Valkyrie unmanned aerial vehicle launches at the U.S. Army Yuma Proving Ground, Ariz. According to the USAF caption “The flight successfully demonstrated the ability of new communications data to exchange information with an F-22 Raptor and F-35 Lightning II…” Photo taken Dec. 9, 2020. Note the caption also says the Valkyrie is cheap — cheap in comparison to a manned aircraft. We’re already in the age of drone and robot warfare.

CHINA’S BIO-ECONOMIC WORLD WAR: Communist China Lied; Millions of Human Beings Died.

The Chinese Communist Party’s COVID-19/Wuhan virus disinformation campaign (cover-up) rates as 2020’s biggest Big Lie. By any measure, especially body count, the CCP committed 2020’s most consequential and deadliest falsehood.

Read the whole thing. (bumped)

CHINA’S BIO-ECONOMIC WORLD WAR: Communist China Lied; Millions of Human Beings Died.

The Chinese Communist Party’s COVID-19/Wuhan virus disinformation campaign (cover-up) rates as 2020’s biggest Big Lie. By any measure, especially body count, the CCP committed 2020’s most consequential and deadliest falsehood.

Read the whole thing.

TAKE OFF IN THE INDIAN OCEAN: A USMC F-35B Lightning takes off from amphibious assault ship USS Makin Island. The USN task force is operating off the coast of Somalia. Photo taken December 22. The aircraft on the flight deck are MV-22 Ospreys. Here’s an MV-22 approaching the flight deck of the USS Wasp. It’s a decent snapshot of the aircraft but the background, the pastel sky above the the Philippine Sea, is fabulous.

RELATED: Here’s another photo of an F-35B “thrust-vectoring” at take-off. The supersonic F-35B typically uses a “short roll” to take-off. It can land vertically. Of course there’s an acronym for this type of aircraft, V/STOL –Vertical, Short Take Off and Landing. Here’s an essay of mine from 2017 discussing the renaissance of light aircraft carriers. A USN assault ship isn’t a classic light carrier, at least in the WW2 sense of the term (a CVL). However, “…A dozen F-35Bs give an assault ship a small but credible multi-mission aircraft squadron, capable of intercepting enemy aircraft and enemy cruise missiles and conducting strike missions.” In December 2020 off the Somali coast the USS Makin Island is an amphibious assault ship doing double duty as a light aircraft carrier.

INDIAN OCEAN, OFF SOMALIA: A USMC F-35B lands on the amphibious assault ship USS Makin Island. According to the caption, the naval task force is covering the withdrawal from Somalia. Photo taken December 18.

HE’S MAKING A SMART GUY’S COCKTAIL: The Enemy Is Fragility. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s thoughtful new strategy. (Bumped — but with a present.)

Planet Earth, for worse and occasionally better, is a world of neighborhood existence — many neighborhoods at peace, many (most?) neighborhoods uneasy and facing tenuous circumstances, too many neighborhoods experiencing outright anarchy and war.

Blame the level of perception, of easy aggregation, for missing this truth. I’ll illustrate with an anecdote. Six years ago, an obstreperous type saw me at a private reception. From across the room, he bellowed: “Austin Bay! Is there any hope for Africa?”

My reply to the bellower — and the 15 or 20 so others present, who were surprised by the bellowing and puzzled by the question: “Which Africa? There are 6,000 Africas. Some Africas are doing quite well.”

The bellower blinked — an encouraging response. By George, he got it.

More:

The term “failed state” had its day in D.C. Beltway discourse. It translated — roughly — as a region that could not or did not protect humans living within its political boundaries. On the ground, it meant scores, if not hundreds, of neighborhoods convulsed by violence.

This is why the U.S. State Department’s new document “U.S. Strategy to Prevent Conflict and Promote Stability” is worth reading and implementing.

The new strategy identifies fragility as the key strategic issue, not failure. “Failed state” implies static rubble that requires centralized rebuilding.

Fragility frames the problem as a dynamic where small changes — neighborhood by neighborhood — can ultimately produce systemic improvement.

Kicker: “Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is a comprehensive thinker. For that reason alone, superficial media will ignore the new strategy. So download the department’s PDF and read it for yourself.”

A present for you — the link to “United States Strategy to Prevent Conflict and Promote Stability.” Yes, I should have linked to it yesterday. Merry Christmas.

RELATED: The cocktail reference. It’s a dynamic way of analyzing complex problems.

THE ENEMY IS FRAGILITY: Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s thoughtful strategy.

FROZEN MARINE IN ICE AND SNOW: My old squadron XO called it “practicing suffering.” May you enjoy your warm Christmas Eve.

RELATED: Here’s what the Marine is preparing for — winter war. The XO’s quip was gallows humor for inuring soldiers and entire units to the cold weather so they could conduct sustained combat operations in snow, ice and mud. From the history photo file, an example, The Battle of the Bulge. (1) GIs on a Battle of the Bulge patrol, Dec. 30, 1944; (2) Army tankers enjoy a late Christmas dinner in the Bulge, Dec. 30, 1944; (3) In Belgium and Germany the winter fog is cold — Bulge Dec. 20, 1944; (4) 75th Infantry Division soldiers in the drifts, Dec. 23, 1944; (5) GIs and a horse marching in the snow; and (6) Marching to St. Vith — one of my favorites. In color, too.

ASHEVILLE ON THE SURFACE: The U.S. Navy fast-attack submarine USS Asheville steams off the coast of Guam during a photo exercise with the French Navy’s nuclear powered submarine FS Émeraude. As the caption says, FS Émeraude is not pictured. The two subs were practicing what the Navy calls “high end maritime skills.”

“High end” translates as a war with a peer or near-peer adversary. This recent column, The Navy’s Robot War in the South China Sea, discusses a fleet battle problem designed to test unmanned combat systems and integrate them with manned warships.

…for years, USVs (unmanned surface vessels) and UUVs (unmanned underwater vessels) have served the Navy well in jobs like sweeping mines, anti-submarine warfare and intelligence gathering.

But now the Navy is experimenting with more complex unmanned systems. A sub like the Asheville could deploy with its own squadron of autonomous and semi-autonomous USVs and UUVs. Here’s a photo of an early version of a UUV (circa 2012). This is a 2016 photo of an experimental USV, the Sea Hunter. The caption notes it was a DARPA program.

The 2021 fleet battle problem will be held somewhere in the Pacific Ocean, but “no matter where the Navy conducts the exercise, the target audience and target adversary is China.” Read the entire column.

UPDATE: An article on unmanned aerial vehicles that are disguised as birds. The air is already a domain of drone and robot warfare. Jim Dunnigan wrote it last night and I’m just now reading it. He mentions the “silence” (low noise signature) and “invisibility” (low visibility) of the UAVs. The Navy wants to deploy unmanned vessels with these characteristics. For that matter, manned vessels as well. Submariners understand — low noise signatures and hiding are the submariners’ game.

ANATOMY OF NARRATIVE WARFARE: China’s Fake Photo Propaganda Attack On Australia.

A Chinese foreign ministry official recently tweeted a photo showing an Australian special operations soldier in Afghanistan holding a knife to the throat of a child.

The picture was digitally altered, a contrived visual lie spread via the internet with the linked goals of provoking shock and anger in viewers worldwide — and then politically manipulating those human emotions to the benefit of the Chinese Communist Party.

Sky News Australia anchor Rowan Dean called the propaganda a communist Chinese attack on the Australian military, one intended to destroy military morale. From an adversary’s perspective, soldier morale is always a psychological-warfare target. The vile image also targeted the Australian government, which opposes China’s territorial claims and criticizes its dismal human rights record.

Though the dateline is December 19, the column dates from December 7.

SOMEWHERE OVER SOUTHWEST ASIA: Two U.S. Air Force F-16s fly in formation with two Royal Saudi Air Force F-15E Strike Eagles. A KC-135R tanker has just refueled the planes.

TARGET ACQUISITION: A U.S. Marine fires at targets during a live-fire machine gun exercise with Netherlands Marines on a range near Netherlands Marine Barracks Savaneta, Aruba. Photo taken November 23.

JUNKED IN SPACE: China has a rocket launcher reliability problem.

Five percent of Chinese launches fail, more than twice the rate of American launchers. Worse, the Chinese solution for this; developing improved models of its main launcher, the Long March rocket, are progressing slower than expected.

Perhaps the CCP’s Long March missile engineering team will hire Hunter Biden — to speed up progress!

JOINT MILITARY MISSION IN THE CARIBBEAN SEA: A U.S. Army CH-47 Chinook helicopter takes off from the flight deck of the amphibious dock landing ship USS Comstock. The U.S. Southern Command forces were engaged in Hurricane Iota relief efforts in Central America. Photo taken November 27.

ONE FOR MISSILE DEFENSE DENIERS: Merry Christmas, Hawaii: U.S. Missile Defenses Just Improved.

Anyone who dismisses Hawaiians’ fear of attack should revisit the January 2018 false missile-attack alert issued by the Hawaii Emergency Management Agency. When the agency announced an attack was underway, many Hawaiians panicked. The public fright demonstrated rational people fear nuclear-armed missiles, especially when malign regimes threaten ICBM attacks.

Perhaps dismissive sophisticates have also forgotten the Dec. 7, 1941, attack on Pearl Harbor.

The column analyzes the impact of the Missile Defense Agency’s successful November 16 anti-ballistic missile test. In that test an SM-3 Block IIA missile fired by a Navy guided-missile destroyer hit and killed a target ICBM as it plunged toward Hawaii. Plus Christmas and Pearl Harbor!

RELATED: A photo from 2013 of an SM-3 IB interceptor (earlier version) launched from a guided-missile cruiser.

BUFF, WITH FRIENDS: A B-52 flies in formation with F-16 Fighting Falcons and F-15E Strike Eagles during a Bomber Task Force mission in CENTCOM’s area of responsibility. Photo taken Nov. 21, 2020.

CHINA PREPARES FOR ‘INFORMATIONIZED’ WAR:

China’s 2019 Defense White Paper argued, “War is evolving in form towards informationized warfare, and intelligent warfare is on the horizon.”

Intelligent warfare seems to include autonomous decision-making systems and autonomous weapons. That suggests Chinese strategists think Informationized War is a concept and system that trains military planners to integrate autonomous, unmanned systems into full-spectrum warfighting operations — say, a battle for control of the western Pacific that includes hidden, pre-positioned swarms of robot boats, robot submersibles (capable of knocking out a U.S. Navy nuclear attack sub), autonomous missile systems and autonomous electronic warfare assets.

At the moment, that war scenario is science fiction warfare.

China, however, is trying to move from concept to capability.

“Informationized War” is a clunky term, but remember it’s an English translation. China’s senior leaders take concept quite seriously. It’s my latest Creators Syndicate column.

FRESH WATER BELOW THE SEA?: Scientists uncover billions of gallons of hidden fresh water off Hawaii.

Using a new technique that relies on tracing electrical resistance, a team of geohydrologists has discovered a never-before-seen way the islands’ volcanic soil collects and hides away freshwater beneath the ocean’s salty surface.

Accessing this freshwater could give Hawaii and other volcanic islands a more sustainable and future-proof solution to collecting water during times of need.

The next move? Drill baby, drill, and find out if the potential reservoirs really hold 900 billion gallons of fresh water.

COMBAT CRAFT ASSAULT, MEDITERRANEAN SEA: Sailors aboard a Combat Craft Assault (CCA) pull alongside the Expeditionary Sea Base USS Hershel “Woody” Williams. Photo taken Nov. 23, 2020. The second and third paragraphs of this Special Operations update has background information on the CCA.

SUBMIT OR SUFFER: StrategyPage’s latest CHINA update.

Two things are impeding Chinese efforts to achieve superpower status; economic stability and a network of powerful and reliable allies. The problems with economic stability are linked to the more serious problems with establishing stable relationships with other countries. Chinese tradition prevents both of these because China traditionally recognizes only enemies and subordinate foreigners.”>Two things are impeding Chinese efforts to achieve superpower status; economic stability and a network of powerful and reliable allies. The problems with economic stability are linked to the more serious problems with establishing stable relationships with other countries.Chinese tradition prevents both of these because China traditionally recognizes only enemies and subordinate foreigners.

This update, written by StrategyPage editor-in-chief Jim Dunnigan, includes a report that Chinese troops used a microwave weapon in a Himalayan skirmish with Indian forces earlier this year. See the November 15 entry in the update.

UPDATE: Block quote fixed.

CHINA PREPARES FOR ‘INFORMATIONIZED’ WAR:

In March 2012, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao, speaking to the National People’s Congress, declared that the Chinese military’s most important mission was “to win local wars under Information Age conditions.”

…military analysts pointed out that Wen specified a violent (kinetic) action somewhere near China that must be won. Information Age warfare required integrated electronics and weapons hardware as well as highly trained personnel. National People’s Congress delegates knew the People’s Liberation Army was no longer an infantry army. China’s defense ministry was spending billions to digitize communications, surveillance, and command and control systems. It was also integrating advanced smart weapons into the mix.

For at least two decades, Chinese military leaders have debated the idea that electronic information equipment has become the primary warfighting platform — not tanks, missiles or ships but the information equipment that connects and directs them.

Sun Tzu said you must know your enemy. It’s my latest Creators Syndicate column.