Sen. Tom Cotton studies the fighting posture of the U.S. Navy and what he finds should leave you with a sinking feeling. After several high profile accidents and crises, what do sailors think is going on among the brass and aboard ships? Hint: diversity training seems unlikely to win sea battles against the Chinese armada.
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22 replies on “Listing Left: Can Diversity Training Help U.S. Navy Win Sea Battles with Chinese Armada?”
A lot of the “training” that is required of federal employees is strictly CYA. When I was a federal employee, we had to go through ethics training, which was completely ridiculous. You cannot teach ethics, each person has his/her own set of rules. You know when you’re doing something unethical. This was purely for the higher ups to be able to wash their hands and say “it’s not our fault” if there was a problem.
DUE to fulfilling Albert Einstein’s definition of INSANITY, Engaging in the exact SAME over and over again and then doing it AGAIN expecting to9 get a very different result BUT ALWAYS getting the exact same result i8s INSANE. Not learning from History dooms an individual, group and/or Nation to once again to experience the exact same RESULT.
I’m a veteran. I hate to say it, but the next time we get into a war (or even a “conflict” — Taiwan, anybody?) we’re going to get our/ asses kicked. It won’t result from the excellent action of our sailors/marines/grunts — it will result from the Admirals, Generals, Colonels, Captains who are “woke.” I recommend that IF it happens that way, that they HANG for their disservice.to our nation.
Several great points there, Scott!
Can anyone give one good reason not to assume we have a startlingly effective and widespread Fifth Column operating throughout every institution vital to our national survival? The perspectives each of you could contribute to a show or series of shows on the book Unrestricted Warfare by Qiao Liang and Wang Xiangsui would be invaluable.
One good reason: Philosophy. Taught from the Highest Educational Universities that has been Given over to secular Marxist roots. It is the top Rot that Bill is referring to…It Rots slowly down hill infecting education and then all else. And the Military Education is a long way down, so you know how far it has infected our society. You don’t need a Fifth Column when everyone is convinced we’re bad to the Core.
You’re right, the rot runs deep. Curious though, that the manifestations all seem to slant in China’s favor and obey their very specific bidding. True, it could simply be the affinity of fellow travelers plodding the same steps, but the peculiarities seem beyond random chance. Every bit of the WuFlu fascism for example – the unprecedented house arrest of the healthy, the ventilator protocol, the censorship of medical science, the suspension of free-markets, the near-total revocation of human rights, etc. – those prompts all originated there and were successfully disseminated world-wide. But maybe I’m asking too much to expect our totalitarians to come up with a unique, American-flavored Marxist tyranny. They’ve offshored nearly everything else, perhaps they’re even too lazy for that.
We are staring down the barrel of a gun from adversaries that wish to distroy us, while we fret about social issues. Our terrible country must be so special that we have the time to nit pick every item that upsets a subset of our population, while our enemies plot our demise. Makes me sick.
I spent 20 years active duty in the U.S. Army and retired not quite 27 years ago. I am absolutely appalled at the direction in which the so-called “leaders” (Austin, Milley, and McConville, et. al.) are shoving their woke crap — right down the throats of those who will be killed because of “wokeness”.
And when those fine soldiers/sailors die, these worthless “leaders” will say that it was because they weren’t ‘diverse enough’, or some such bile.
Anyone who knows someone serving in the Navy, knows that esprit de corps has already been damaged by these ridiculous policies! So, if you want to render the mightiest military toothless, destroy the teamwork.
Just crossed my mind as I heard Steve wax poetic about history of war. I’d like to suggest a recurring show or podcast even with Steve and Bill focused on retelling, discussing, educating all on war history, American war history, world war history. Bring on past service men, historians etc. Essentially a running discussion in podcast format that maybe keeps that history alive and allow time to discuss the smaller unknown details of most battles. I could see a Victor Davis Hanson as a recurring guest. That guy is a living history encyclopedia.
If you want a guy as in demand as VDH as a recurring guest, you will probably have to treble or quintuple our annual BWDC dues! 🙂
This episode reminds me of what happened to the Russian army just before WW II. The politicalization meant the army was incapable of performing its missions despite having more and better equipment than the Germans. The first two years of Barbarrosa and Case Blue cost the Russians millions of lives and untold treasure and we are headed that way. Our shores won’t be invaded but our freedom and economy no longer will be under our control. When one asks how is it possible for us to have leaders who allow this to happen, as usual one needs to know history and understand its lessons.
We are well on the road to the point of having “political officers” deployed throughout our military. Oh, they might not be called that. They might be called something like “Equity Supervisors” or some such doublespeak, but they’ll be Political Officers no matter what the title.
In the fiction I read when an author wants to cue the decline of a military body, be it Interstellar Marines or near-future organizations, the first thing they do is introduce Political Officers to “supervise the troops and be sure they’re following the guidelines of their political masters”. That is the first most obvious symptom that the leadership does not trust the military.
As you point out, that’s also what happened in the Russian Military.
In a Soviet style military the troops are merely cogs in a machine. They have no responsibility other than to follow orders from higher up authorities which are under control of the Political Officers. One way to really mess up that kind of military is to interdict its command and control structure. This leaves troops in the field at a loss regarding who is actually in charge and fearing taking the initiative because a misstep can mean the end of a career or worse. Even if the “misstep” is the right thing to do at the moment.
Conversely and traditionally the American military services have a clear command structure all the way down to just two people. Smaller units are highly flexible and adaptable because if comms are cut to command and control, the smaller unit will continue on its mission and is encouraged to exploit advantages and seize initiatives as the battle space changes.
This is one of the great, innate strengths of American military power.
Political Officers sap that strength.
The way things are going, I’m thinking that Biden-esque views on the military are slanted towards the implementation of Political Officers. The Left does not trust the largely Right nature of military personnel, and rightly so. If the current trend continues the military will become a threat to the ambitions of Leftists in American politics. Look for the creation and deployment of Political Officers, that will be the indicator that things are past the point of no return.
You make important points. The trajectory is not encouraging and the excuses offered by the top brass are hollow and dangerous. While I personally am hopeful we won’t fall into the trap you describe, we certainly are on that path.
Steve gave a pretty succinct reason for needing and having a strong naval fighting force. I wonder if someone posed this question to President-ish Biden, what would he respond as the purpose of our Navy (or any other branch of service).
That’s easy …
“It’s the thing. You know. C’mon man!”
Delivered in an angry voice of course. That’s his stock answer. His addled brain cannot get to the root of the question to address it. He can only think as far as “this is bad for me” and then the circuit breaker blows and out pops the above.
How fitting that Scott (or whoever) picked a fouled anchor for the title graphic of this show.
For you non-salty types, when you see an anchor with a chain or rope wrapped around it, that is not just an aesthetic image. That represents a “fouled anchor”.
If you look at the official U.S. Navy emblem or seal, the anchor is not fouled. Conversely the USMC EGA, the Eagle, Globe and Anchor emblem everyone is familiar with does depict a fouled anchor. In the days of sailing ships with Marine complements on board, guess whose job it was to go over the side and clear a fouled anchor?
A fouled anchor is a problem on a ship or a boat. The anchor is a vital, indispensable piece of gear on any vessel. It’s not just “something heavy” you chuck over the side, it’s a mechanism that digs into the bottom and holds fast. A ship’s anchor and anchor rode (which is what the rope/chain or full chain that connects the anchor to the vessel is called) is sometimes the only thing that prevents the destruction of the vessel and loss of the crew*. When an anchor is fouled by being bound up in its rode it doesn’t work properly. Instead of digging in and holding it slides on the bottom.
Thus a fouled anchor was a very good graphic for this episode, I’m just curious if it was chosen for the symbiology or for the aesthetic?
(*I don’t own a ship but I do own a boat. I have three separate sets of “ground tackle”, which is what the anchor/rode/connecting system is called. If I need to I can put a lot of iron on the bottom. That’s how important the anchoring system is.)
I always remember the line “if you can take a ship and put it on another ship, it isn’t a ship, its a boat” and the other “a ship has a captain, a boat operates by mutual consent”.
I hadn’t thought about the image of a rope around an anchor, but that does make sense. It seems heraldry isn’t dead yet after all.
Those are good kind of “rule of thumb” mnemonics for differentiating a ship from a boat.
Another one is that a ship’s captain gets annoyed if you call his ship a boat but a boat captain is not offended in the least if you call his boat a ship. Also a ship has a commander and crew but a boat has whoever is on it at the time. Etc.
I’ve seen a definition of a “ship” as being anything meant to be transoceanic regardless of size. I’ve seen ships differentiated from boats by their hull type. One definition says a planing hull is a boat and a displacement hull is a ship. One definition says a flat bottomed hull is a boat and a deep V hull is an ocean going ship. However, many displacement hulls have flat bottoms.
But … You could certainly put a Viking Long Ship on an aircraft carrier’s deck. A PT Boat of WWII had a Commander and crew but it was still a “boat”. Submarines, regardless of size, are always called a boat and you can’t pick up a 500+ foot long boomer and put it on the deck of another ship.
Except at extreme ranges of the spectrum it’s pretty ambiguous what makes a ship a ship or a boat a boat. There are many traditional conventions that apply but there really is no hard and fast rule. Even the Navy has a problem with this distinction.
Funny thing though — You would probably never think of a canoe as a ship but you might think of an aircraft carrier as a boat … Just don’t think that out loud around any Navy vets.
Any vessel underway has a “Captain”. Someone is in charge of the vessel, even if it’s not a formal thing or the people involved are unaware of it. The vessel’s master is called “Captain” regardless of rank military or otherwise. In the case of Naval military vessels the “Captain” could be any officer rank. For instance, if a Lt. Commander is in command of the vessel, he’s still “Captain” and if an officer of the rank “Captain” is aboard he’s called “Commodore” to avoid confusion about who is actually in charge.
I’m the owner of my boat and I’m the legal and moral Captain of it too. When that boat is in the water, I’m in charge of it; the seaworthiness, welfare of the boat and crew/guests is my responsibility. In waters under Coast Guard jurisdiction those responsibilities carry the force of law. In international waters, International Maritime Law applies.
My instructions are law*, as long as they do not contradict codified law or exceed my authority as the vessel’s master, while my vessel is afloat with me on it. When I approach a lock or bridge and call them on the radio, the lockmaster or bridgemaster calls me “Captain”. It’s not just a courtesy, he’s giving the Captain of the vessel legal instructions regarding his lock or bridge. As the vessel’s master, technically I can be prosecuted if I don’t follow those instructions and it would be me and no one else on board that got in trouble, prosecution or not. Even if the problem were due to someone else at the helm, I’m responsible. With responsibility comes command and vice verse.
So I have every right to expect that people will do as they’re told on my boat regarding the safety and operation of the boat. I also consider myself under the authority of the Captain if I’m on any other boat.
Here’s an example — I was on Lake of the Woods on the American side (Coast Guard Waters) fishing on someone else’s boat with the owner operating it. The fishing was GREAT and it was right before a storm hit, which is often the case. The Captain was watching the weather, as were the rest of us. When he decided he had lingered as long as he dared for safety sake, he gave the “order” to reel in because we were leaving. One of the other fishermen didn’t want to comply because the fishing was so good. This put the Captain in a conundrum because he doesn’t want to be rude but he is responsible for the safety of his vessel and those aboard.
So I stepped in and said to the balky fisherman “When the Captain says reel in, you reel in. This boat is headed towards the dock, at maximum speed, dragging your line if necessary.”
As far as this kind of thing pertains to human powered craft like canoes or kayaks … I don’t have a clue.
(*This is mostly common sense. I can’t order someone to stick their fingers in their nose and jump up and down. If I order everyone to don life jackets in foul weather, that would be a good example of the authority of a vessel’s master. Prosecutions are very, very rare for disobeying the orders of the Captain of a private pleasure craft. Rare does not mean non-existent. If you’re on a boat with the owner or his designee, just do as he asks, please.)
Based on an old joke about lawyers (to follow after) I think the first thing we should do is fire the “woke” brass at the enemy in the first salvo. (Warning shot) whether they survive or not, we dont care. ( if they do, either the enemy kills them, or they introduce rot there. Win win.) Now to the lawyer joke.(Which I got from a now retired lawyer relative) When bombing the enemy, we should use lawyers as the bombs. If that doesn’t work, give them parachutes. (Trouble is, that would probably be considered a war crime.)