You didn’t mention his name in your post. I assume that his new book - he’s had a half dozen major books on wars earlier - is getting him attention because he directly addresses recent and possible future U.S. foreign policy in it. (Letting China get the technological lead is stupid and self-defeating.)
He’s down on every president since Bush 1. All the Democratic administrations disappointed him, consistently overrating Russia. Of course, compared to the utterly catastrophic failures of Republican administrations, they appear to me as shining beacons of sanity.
Oddly, the Navy fired the first LUCAS (Low-cost Unmanned Combat Attack System) drone on December 16th. Which was, ironically enough, reverse-engineered from the Iranian Shahed-136 drone of Ukrainian War fame.
I maintain that carrying out a successful naval strike with equipment named something as whimsical and deprecating as “Sea Baby” is in itself a caustic comment on Trump’s childish grandiloquent attempts at “impressive branding” of government initiatives.
The production of uncrewed surface vessels (USVs) successfully used by Ukraine to attack the Crimean Bridge and Russian vessels was set up at an underground production facility in Ukraine.
Source: Vasyl Maliuk, Head of the Security Service of Ukraine, in a comment to CNN …
The USVs that damaged the Crimean Bridge in July 2023 were named Sea Baby [Maliuk’s surname means “baby” in Ukrainian, so there is an intentional play on words with naming the drones Sea Baby – ed.].
Well, I didn’t intend to imply that I thought the Sea Baby was called that for the purpose of making such a caustic comment. Just a serendipitous outcome.
Perun cranked out a video on the Defiant class. Which yes, he refers to as the Defiant class, so added bonus for that.
Nothing really said that hasn’t already been said since the issues are so obvious, but he breaks things down with his usual skill. Including comparisons of building the Defiants vs building equivalent numbers of DDG(X), Burkes, Zumwalts or Chinese Type 55s based on equivalent cost, tonnage or manning requirements. I don’t think I have to elaborate where the Defiant winds up in such comparisons.
There’s also an interesting chart he uses from CSIS that’s here from 2024 about halfway down the page titled The PLAN Could Surpass U.S. Navy Firepower by 2027 showing the diminishing ratio of the number of VLS missile cells in a US vs China comparison. Any guesses on what the effect of producing 1 Defiant instead of 2 DDG(X) or 3 Burkes is going to do to the number of VLS cells? That’s right, produce far less and have them concentrated on far fewer ships.
Oh wait, I almost forgot, he also mentioned that the navy has already decided on a new FF(X). The latest plan announced December 19th to go along with the Defiants is that they’re going to be based on the US Coast Guard’s Legend-class cutters. Which, considering how poorly suited they are going to be for the mission they are going to be tasked with, I’m willing to bet they get cancelled after 3 ships as well, if they are ever approved. They are massively under-armed compared to the Chinese equivalent, the Type 54 frigate, have exactly no VLS cells, and no listed ASW capabilities.
I could be mistaken, but is the military really serious about following Trump’s orders? Might they just be pretending to build a new battleship class to make Trump happy until Trump leaves office, then they can promptly trash the plans and say “Yeah, the pretense is over.”
Considering that he’s been firing the leadership and replacing them with his toadies? They probably are. That’s what they are there to do; not to do a good job, but to pander to Trump.
They’re obviously not going to be anywhere near starting to build one of these before his term ends, and whoever succeeds him, of whichever party, is unlikely to be a senile buffoon obsessed with obsolete tech and big tacky showoffishness, so in all likelihood they’re humoring him.
I agree. Even if we pretend that the US military bends all efforts to design and build this ship it will take years to just draw up the plans. More years than Trump will be in office and then whoever is next as president, even a MAGA one, is likely to see the folly and stop it.
I don’t think that will happen. One thing we see from the MAGAs is a fundamental lack of understanding of what it actually takes to build or create things. Everything to them is “easy”, “simple”, “two weeks”. New battleships? They’ll be afloat before 2028. New Ballroom? It’s a lock to be done before the big 250th party this July. New healthcare? We’ll cancel Obamacare and then whip up a new, better plan before the dust settles.
They keep making the same mistakes, over and over and over, and none of them seem capable of stepping back and realizing that huge, hundreds of billions of dollars projects are actually difficult. That the “wasteful” government employees running these programs aren’t all just sitting around drinking coffee and earning pensions; they’re actually doing real work.
