Intellectual Garbage at the New York Times

After travel, I am catching up on my NY Times reading and discovered that someone left the editorial keyboard unguarded at the NY Times and a miscreant wrote a budget cutting list for the U.S. military. (Editorial, December 20).

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/21/opinion/21sun1.html?pagewanted=2&hp

I find myself irritated when pseudo knowledge is mixed with decent thinking. The vision in this editorial is to bolster our land forces by shifting funds out of sexy and/or unneeded Air Force and Navy programs. There is a kernel of good in this tome, as it points out the serious imbalance in our land forces investment. Alas, much of the list of cuts (and why these cuts) comes from some ideological cloud formation that isn’t in the METARS training I received in private pilot school. The correct information is available with a little journalistic work and subscriptions to Aviation Week and Jane’s. To have the Times slip to this level of sloppiness is simply disgusting.

For the sake of brevity, one tawdry example, on the production of the F-22 Raptor.

The Times writes:

End production of the Air Force’s F-22. The F-22 was designed to ensure victory in air-to-air dogfights with the kind of futuristic fighters that the Soviet Union did not last long enough to build. The Air Force should instead rely on its version of the new high-performance F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, which comes into production in 2012 and like the F-22 uses stealth technology to elude enemy radar.
Until then, it can use upgraded versions of the F-16, which can outperform anything now flown by any potential foe. The F-35 will provide a still larger margin of superiority. The net annual savings: about $3 billion.

I am heartily tired of said unwashed repeating that a system was designed for the Cold War and that this simple mantra is proof that a system is gold plated, overly complicated and complete overkill for our needs. Let’s deal with some ugly facts.

The F-22 is expensive but has superior stealth to the F-35. Its major flaw is that it took a decade of development to get it into the war fighter’s hands. What was a leap forward avionics package is now only a middling improvement, compared to the F-35. The processor speeds on the F-35 are miles ahead, and its AESA radar performance will be as well. The F-22 already verges on obsolescence in that phase. And I shudder to think of the cost of updating the avionics in the Raptor and how long that might take. The fact is, ultimately, it just doesn’t carry enough ordnance. It will have to be mixed into packages of other missile carrying aircraft, stealthy or not, who can rely on it to front the strike package and use linkage to identify and target. But it has range, more than planned for the F-35. It is a force multiplier. The continuing production decision is complicated but sure as hell not worthy of being decided by the vapidness fronted by this editorial.

Our intrepid editors also confidently inform us that the early 70’s, non-stealthy F-16 is superior to any other airplane flown by our enemies and should be continued to be acquired. I suspect the miscreant/editors haven’t thought about the AESA radars being used by Russian or Chinese aircraft with very effective long range air to air missiles or the threat of double digit Russian SAMs that have 150 mile plus ranges. Or that said planes and missiles are cheerfully and assiduously exported. The list of friendly folks who have acquired advanced Sukhoi aircraft and SAMs include Venezuela and Indonesia. And, India's SU's, participating in Red Flag training, show some superior abilities to our F-15Cs.

The ultimate intellectual bankruptcy of the editor shows up in this final fact. The F-16 is used almost exclusively in air to ground roles and the F-22 is a pure air superiority fighter. Its fourth generation counterpart is the F-15. They couldn’t even get that right.

I want to believe that the amount of fact checking I have to do when reading the Times is somewhat nominal, so I can deal with the ideological differences when reading. I have been abused of that notion. Fool me once….

Michael Chevalier

Comments

[jonst]

Well, I got a proposal for you Michael, and it is a simpler one than the NYTimes proposal. 10% cut, across the board on defense spending. 10% in our geopolitical commitments to go along with the cuts.

[Fred]

This was good for a laugh:
"The United States enjoys total dominance of the world’s seas and skies and will for many years to come." And this: “The services are already talking up remote future threats (most involving a hostile China armed to the teeth with submarines and space-age weapons).”
The entire US Navy has not managed to keep the sea lanes clear near Somalia.

Guess who is deploying ships to the horn or Africa:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/19/world/asia/19patrols.html

Do these guys read your own paper?
Do we need to remind the NYT where China got all that money and industrial know-how to build a blue water navy?

[alnval]

Col. Lang:

Wow! Three posts in a row – Be Careful Out There, Intellectual Garbage, and More Difficult Than Anticipated – that reflect how bad things are getting in the world of clear thinking. Let’s hope they’re not truly representative samples of how things really are. My sense, however, is that they may well be.

I was first struck by the post Intellectual Garbage and thought, “Good grief. Here we go again. No one anywhere is doing due diligence anymore. They’re all speaking ex cathedra as if they’re truly infallible. Fact checking is not only passé but nobody knows what it is. At least in my line of work, when folks ask ‘How do you know that?’ they expect an explanation if not a citation or two.”

We saw that just yesterday with Joe Scarborough (whom I really enjoy on Morning Joe) and his exchange with Zbigniew Brzezinski in which Brzezinski called Joe’s position re the Israeli-Palestinian conflict ‘stunningly superficial.’ I don’t know whether it is, having no real expertise in the area, but it was certainly delightful to have Joe called out. He didn’t take the opportunity to defend his position but instead just took umbrage at having his intellectual position (and his intellect) skewered.

Is the Age of Enlightenment really dead? As has been discussed elsewhere on SST have we truly reached the point in our cultural development in which we as a people are willing to ignore accountability and passively tolerate stupefying incompetence? I’d like to say ‘No,’ but the jury appears to be still out.

[Patrick Lang]

All

Mike Chevalier is my cousin and will be posting here from time to time as he wishes. pl

[srv]

Well, other than the F-35 is supposed to reach IOC before most of the testing phase is over, we'd probably be better off with more F-15Es or F-16s (should have built the F-16XL, IMHO).

What's the payload/range difference air-to-ground between them? What's the point of a stealth F-35 with all that ordinance hanging off the wings?

Just build a couple more squadrons of F-22s and restart the F-15E line. Save us 100 Billion.

[Michael Chevalier]

For jonst:

Not a bad suggestion, 10% cuts might be greatly appreciated, in the geopolitical sense. But, which ones?

I would love to truly be educated on the why of American forces in Korea in 2009. No sarcasm intended. I can't imagine the ROK land force is not a fiercely effective group. They have certainly performed well in out of country deployments. The F-15K acquisitions are superior to anything they would likely face from the North. I would intuit their military equipment is likewise, from reading Jane's.

Is the continuing deployment in cooperation with China, using our troops as a fulcrum point to leverage influence with Pyongyang? We have no doubt that, to put it in unsophisticated terms, the Dear Leader is psychotic. I has to be self preservation that holds him back, yes? All, please respond on this, to further my education.

I will outright disagree with a 10% cut in defense funding until we get the Army reequipped with hardware and other technology that gets it right for the next 20 years. (and that includes far more air transport capability) That would include a rise in manpower. That, given the gift of our current economy, would not be a hard thing to accomplish.

Michael Chevalier

[Michael Chevalier]

SRV,

Not to get too techno but we are probably 10 years out from having an F-22 head up an air to air package of stealthy UCAVs. Their sensors and weapons will just be an extension of the Raptor. That, I suspect, will make planners ruing the lack of a two seat F-22. Ditto the air to ground element.

Not sure the cranked arrow winged F-16XL would have given the capability of the F-15E, particularly range. Nice looking bird, though.

Fred, I was amazed at the lack of reaction to China's deployment. One reflection, having served on a hydrofoil, is that the Navy made an error retiring the Pegasus class boats. They would have been perfect to deal with guys, particularly if retrofitted with Hellfires.

Mike Chevalier

[J]

Colonel,

The F22 should remain in U.S. hands ONLY and NOT given to the Israelis!

[Donald Johnson]

Not being able to attack Venezuela is a plus in my book. But that's an ideological point--I'll happily take your word for it that the NYT editors don't know what they're talking about. It doesn't come as a great surprise.

[Michael Chevalier]

J:

I would give the Japanese the F-22 in exchange for updating the avionics packages. I believe we need to start sharing costs in that manner, despite the geopolitical &n security risks. All we have done now is to stimulate then into developing their own 5th generation stealth platform.

Interestingly, the Aussies wanted the Raptor. After a political change over, partially driven by the failure to get the U.S. to release the F-22 to them, they decided to purchase the Super Hornet, with its advanced AESA radar. The newly elected head of government, who berated his predecessor for this decision during his run for election, promptly changed his mind when given a private briefing on the FA-18Es radar capability.

Think about this. Your opponent is driving a late model Sukhoi (read Indonesia) and suddenly his airplane 'turns off', like a car when the key is removed. No one says you can do this but, then again, no one says you can't. Just remember that the IDF AF essentially told the Syrian anti-aircraft system to go to sleep and sallied through with their strike package to hit their target.

MCC

[confusedponderer]

Whenever I see the F-16XL I think of how far it would fly with conformal fuel tanks, - lengthened ones for that, the fuselage is ~1,4m longer already, for ~80% more internal fuel - the dorsal spine and evolutionary avionics improvements and a more powerful engine. It would certainly rival the F-15E, and probably have super cruise capability, unlike the F-15E. And it would not only be a useful, but beautiful aircraft as well. Alas, the decision for the F-15E had iirc more to do with the USAF wanting to keep the F-15 production lines open than with design shortcomings of the F-16XL.

http://www.f-16.net/f-16_versions_article1.html

The F-22 Raptor could use a two seater version as a command and control or even reconnaissance variant. The F-35 in the air-to-air role is inferior to the F-22. Iirc it's wing limits transonic performance. The F-35 is from the onset designed as a fighter bomber. In my understanding, due to its design limitations, the F35, without extensive rework, cannot replace the F-22 as an air superiority fighter. Stealth aside, it is likely that contemporary European fighters outmanoeuvre and outperform the F-35. The F-22 was from the onset designed as a long range air superiority fighter. IMO there is nothing wrong with single role aircraft. In my amateurish opinion, all the multi-role capability got the Eurofighter was two to three tons of extra weight at the expense of dogfight performance. The F-22 has it's role to play and in that is is unsurpassed. It outperforms even the extremely agile 'Euro canards', and then it also has the additional benefit of superior stealth.

So, prudently, the interesting question is the one for the right force mix. It's not about abolishing the F-22, but the question of how many the US does really need, or can afford, in sufficient numbers. That said, would there be a lighter, cheaper, yet still capable stealth air-superiority fighter as an alternative - go for it - it might well be 'good enough'.

Another thing: Don't buy so many F-35 but re-open the production line for the A-10. A practical aircraft that is currently in high demand and a lot cheaper to operate than either the F-35 or the F-22, and in many respects it might prove more useful.

[Cold War Zoomie]

Just remember that the IDF AF essentially told the Syrian anti-aircraft system to go to sleep and sallied through with their strike package to hit their target.

Was this using traditional electronic warfare methods or something new and exciting?! This sounds nifty!

BTW - my background is in SIGINT collections way back in the 80s to mid 1990s, not EW.

[Michael Chevalier]

Confused:

The whole F-16, A-10 scenario is looking backwards, despite the strong attachment to manned planes. While in the pop literature range, Dale Brown, taken as a futurist, has the vision.

The F-35 will probably be the last major manned combat aircraft produced in the western world. Unmanned Combat Aerial Vehicles, UCAVs, will be the wave, even if accompanied by stealthy manned craft in a control mode. They are still maturing but they are orders of magnitude cheaper to build. They will be landing on carriers in the near future. They will have significantly higher endurance, the ability to maneuver without the limitation of a pilot's G limit and the ability to be controlled from many nodes. And, they have the political benefit of not having an American on board to kill or be captured. -- And, that means more tempting to use, eh? Another branch of conversation to explore.

An USAF strike package in 15 years will be primarily UCAVs and a few stealthy manned mission command aircraft.

Michael Chevalier

[Michael Chevalier]

Zoomie:

It would take a big answer to get it right but... the Israelis used network invasion to more or less confuse, take control and fubar the connected Syrian air defense, which was tightly linked. And, they certainly had American consulting to do plan this. They hacked into this system and attacked and/or took over.

The source of this invasion comes from emissions from the attack aircraft or other broadcast nodes. I know I keep on harping on AESA radars but they are not really radars anymore. They are an airborne Swiss Army knife weapon that can transmit gigabytes of data to a good guy or into a bad guy network, jam, perhaps issue EMP, etc. Other emitters on the aircraft can be more specialized for network attack.

A couple of examples might help. Good old Saddam stopped using even cell phones, right? Even that network can now be invaded. Also, the Georgians had luck plucking Russo attack aircraft and even a Backfire, using their Russian built SAMs and they were not linked into a network, but free standing. Harder by magnitude to attack many different independently operating SAM sites.

One last somewhat non sequitur thought. One significant compromise on the F-22, F-35 choice is that the Raptor can generate twice as much electrical power. That directly correlates to the broadcast ability and effective range of all these wonderful new systems.

MCC Comment: Edited to correctly identify the Georgians, rather than Ukrainians. Humble pie for moi!

MCC

[R Whitman]

Michael Chevalier

With regard to UCAV's, a ready supply of warfighters already exists in most countries. They are called videogamers and would be easily trainable to run UCAV,s. The first country that builds extremely cheap unmanned vehicles and trains part-time college students to run them will change power relationships around the world. Think "Disruptive Technology".

[Leila Abu-Saba]

Dear Michael:

I learned here at SST about Hizbullah's use of cell phone networks to hack into the Israeli communication system in the '06 war.

If the Israelis are so smart (your Syria example) what happened in 06 then? I am trying to put the picture together of the invincible IDF putting Syria's radar to sleep, and the "invincible" IDF stumbling around Bint Jbail with their underwear showing. Chasing after shopkeepers and ex-shepherds holed up in caves, who were themselves tracking the IDF cel phone communications.

[Michael Chevalier]

Leila:

I am probably out of my depth but I believe there is as much a non-monolithic nature to the IDF as there is to the U.S. Armed Forces.

My readings tell me the land component is less inclined towards this new frontier than their air force is. I may be speaking from ignorance on that, to my regret. I know that their air force is the glamor and they, at one point, seriously ignored tube artillery in favor of air to ground weaponry. And, contrary to that, I know they are superbly capable in Elint, Sigint and EW as a country. I think your email points to a gross underestimation of how a seemingly irregular force like Hizbullah (seemingly, for sure) could be so sophisticated.

This links into R. Whitman's line of thought about gamers and communications geniuses the GLOBE is producing. Systems like cells have an open architecture, on purpose. They are designed for plug and play and a hot war doesn't change that.

I also want to comment that I linked into your site. You have my admiration. Blessed be the peacemakers.

MCC

[Minnesotachuck]

I'm interested in your views, Col., as well as your cousin's, on the recently published coordinated colleciton of essays entitlesd America's Defense Meltdown. The authors are veterans of the military reform movement that flowered briefly in the late 1970s and early 80s, and their intellectual progeny. It is edited by Winslow Wheeler, one of the contributors, and is available for free download in PDF here:
http://tinyurl.com/62usrz
Especially pertinent to this discussion is Chapter 7, "Reversing the Decay of American Airpower", by Cool. Robert Dilger, USAF (Ret.), and Pierre Sprey, a civilian protege of the late Col. John Boyd and an instrumental player in the forcing of the A-10 development and deployment down the throat of a kicking and screaming Air Force establishment.

[Fred]

thanks for the insight; I served on submarines myself. I don't know what the navy is up to strategically in dealing with piracy. Certainly small craft like hydrofoils would be far more effective than a carrier group. We have plenty of other options and ships available if some creativity were used in forming a task force to deal with the problem of piracy on a tactical level.
Fred

[David Habakkuk]

Michael Chevalier,

You write:

'Also, the Ukrainians had luck plucking Russo attack aircraft and even a Backfire, using their Russian built SAMs and they were not linked into a network, but free standing. Harder by magnitude to attack many different independently operating SAM sites.'

I was not aware that the 'the Ukrainians' has been involved in a war against anyone recently -- certainly not in a war against Russia.

Certainly, there have been Russian claims that the Georgian attempt to reincorporate South Ossetia by terror bombing was facilitated by arms shipments from the Ukraine.

Are you endorsing these? If so, do you have evidence?

But perhaps I have misunderstood you!

MCC Comment: OUCH!!!

David, as my twins would say, MY BAD!!!!!!! I meant the Georgians and just was not paying enough attention to my edit. My apologies to everyone on this. I guess I did an NYT.

MCC

[alnval]

Col. Lang/Michael Chevalier:

Michael writes:

“I want to believe that the amount of fact checking I have to do when reading the Times is somewhat nominal, so I can deal with the ideological differences when reading. I have been abused of that notion. Fool me once….”

The commenters’ responses to this issue suggest that the pile of information that is NOT being incorporated into the thinking of the NY Times Editors is a big one. Moreover, that it is readily available, accessible and pertinent to better informing their opinions and those of their readers about the realities of budget cutting decision-making in the military than the data they’re currently using.

Question:

How do we get this information inside the Editors’ decision-making loop? Is this a job tailor made for A Committee of Correspondence?

[Michael Chevalier]

Fred:

My Dad worked for several decades at Portsmouth NSY in Kittery, Maine. My brother is still there, welding as my Dad had done. I can remember what I fondly call "The Runt Tour", circa 1950's, being escorted around the yard by my Dad and this being far enough back to see the Seawolf in dry dock. We saw the Abraham Lincoln go down the ways as well.

This whole piracy thing is really evocative, eh? I hear Stephen Decatur in the wind. The thing about the Pegasus class boats is the effectiveness at low cost. Small, efficient, cheap and I wonder what the average pirate Somali would think of one of them bearing down on them at 60 plus knots.

Here is the question: We sailors know that we are charged with keeping the sea lanes open for American interest commerce. Is this at that level? I would appreciate someone to inform us if, other than the obvious oil tanker travel, this is really important to us.

MCC

[Andy]

I agree that the NYT opinion is a piece of garbage, but disagree with some of your points Michael.

To begin with, delays in development of the F-22 spurred the decision to begin production with only incremental improvements to the electronics and radars. However, there is already a planned upgrade path and the block 40 variant should be in service before the F-35 reaches IOC. So I don't think it's really fair to compare the electronics of an aircraft that is currently 2/3 of the way through production with one that is still in development and won't even reach IOC until 2013 at the earliest. IOW, by the time the F-35 enters the fleet, the F-22 won't have an "obsolete" radar and electronics package.

For ordnance capacity, it depends on what you're talking about. If you're strictly talking internal capacity (to maintain stealth), then the F-22 blows the door off the F-35 for air-to-air ordnance. It's principle limitation in air-to-ground ordnance is that the F-22 can't carry 2000 pound class weapons, but it can carry an equal number of SDB's and a variety of 1000# and smaller ordnance. But none of that is really surprising since the aircraft are intended to be complementary. You can see some side-by-side comparisons between the two aircraft here.

[Michael Chevalier]

Andy, thanks for the push back.

I agree that the F-22 has more capacity and range than the F-35. Air to air, it will still lack enough ordnance and sheer numbers of available aircraft. Think about the larger numbers that a Sino or Russian package would normally contain, based on their thinking. Your stealth isn't useful if you run out of ammo. Think about those birds being SU-35s, with their own AESAs and a lot more air to air weaponry. And, I'm not sure how you can dispute how long it has been since the prototypes were built and the first combat squadron commissioned. We are talking the 18 year range. By F-15 standards, the Raptor is not obsolete but by F-35 standards, it will be. And not every air to ground situation will be solved by an SBD. Loitering persistence and volume of ordnance have high value. You get some persistence with the Raptor but not the volume. You get neither with the F-35. I believe the lesson is being repeatedly taught in Afghanistan as we write back and forth. If I were an Army Brigade, I think I'd prefer having a rotating B-52 presence overhead, with lots and lots of JDAMs.

And, given the performance of the DOD, who is going to bet that an avionics upgrade will be funded? I believe that there will continue to be some very ugly choices made in the coming years regarding funding. Don't mistake me. I would double the F-22 production run and plan for an avionics update. What my main line of contention was that the Raptor isn't gold plated and is not to be dismissed as Cold War overkill technology.

MCC

[Michael Chevalier]

Response to Minnesotachuck:

I hope someone else in the community contributes to this but here is my take. Please, this is IMHO and I've been unable to download the collection to scan it.

I thought we had DOD acquisition process fixed in the 80s. The first indication that things were quickly deteriorating, for me, was the Navy's A-12 debacle. It was like a giant bungee cord had pulled everything back to the bad old days. Outright deception was one phrase I heard used. A briefing gives the program a giant up check just before Dick Cheney cancels the program for being a disaster.

I will say that it may be obvious that the move away from fighting a massive land war with the Soviets didn't really sink in with acquisition processors, but it was more profoundly resisted than we probably realize. There certainly were other issues with judgment, greed, and a huge dose of Hubris. The disasters started to pile up on each other. Anyone seen a new AF tanker fly by lately? The Army's latest self-propelled howitzer was canceled. The F-22 took over a decade to be issued.

I've read a lot on Col. Boyd and have viewed Pierre on various TV shows. This is a very dynamic environment to wade into. We might pick the F-4 as an example. I've heard Pierre be very disparaging of it. I think his points are well taken but they should be understood with this caveat. The Phantom was designed to be the Navy's forward defense against Soviet Maritime Interdiction air assets. A big radar, Beyond Visual Ranges missiles, long legs. And emphatically not a dog fighter. We have to then thank the Bomber Barons of the Air Force and the high prince of ego, Robert McNamara, for forcing it on the Air Force. And that lead to the F-15 and F-16 and the F-14.

I guess their point is that any multi-role aircraft will be a compromise. I believe that is true. We should not repeat the sins of the past. The F-22 is optimized for air to air, as it should be. I would also say it will be too rare and precious an asset to use an air to ground asset. However, with the retirement of the F-117, what other stealthy asset do we have to go downtown on some future Baghdad? Until the F-35 is IOC, do we want to risk a billion dollar B-2 for a two JDAM salvo? And so it goes.

MCC