Articles by Herschel Smith

On the heels of the report by the Center for American Progress that I posted on (Marine Corps Equipment & Dollars), we see this from North County Times:

The chairman of the House Armed Service Committee said Wednesday there has been no shortfall in money for Marine Corps combat-readiness and equipment needs as was suggested in new report from the liberal Washington think tank, the Center for American Progress.

U.S. Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-El Cajon, said the Marine Corps and the Army are getting all the money the two service branches need and have asked for to repair and replace aging equipment and aircraft. 

“We are funding every dime that the Marine Corps and Army have identified as being needed and we are adding more money than they have asked for,” Hunter said in a telephone interview before a press conference he conducted on the subject in San Diego.

The think tank’s report, released Wednesday, said the Marine Corps had lost 3,500 pieces of ground equipment and 27 helicopters in Iraq since the U.S. invasion in March 2003.

The report said that providing the service with the ground and aviation equipment and restoring those elements to their pre-war level will cost $12 billion as well as an additional $5 billion for each year the U.S. remains in Iraq.

“Because Marine Corps equipment needs have been neglected in the past and the Iraq campaign has proved more protracted than anticipated, stresses are beginning to appear in the service’s capacity to supply its troops with the best war-fighting tools available,” said Larry Korb, co-author of the report and a senior fellow at the center, which bills itself as a nonpartisan research and educational institute.

The report says that war planners did not anticipate a lengthy stay in Iraq, nor the losses of equipment incurred in combat actions.

“Like the strain on its personnel, the Marines’ inventory of equipment exhibits increasing signs of wear and tear,” the report says. “This stress is already eroding the readiness of units outside Iraq and could eventually impede operations within Iraq.”

Hunter said that during classified and public hearings with Marine and Army officials before the House Armed Services Committee earlier this year, the services told lawmakers of their specific equipment needs.

Of the $11.7 billion the Marine Corps said in January that it needed, Congress responded a short time later by allocating $5.1 billion. The remainder of that money and some additional funds is in a 2007 defense appropriations bill now in negotiations between the House and Senate, with resolution expected soon, Hunter said.

In addition, Hunter said he and Senate Armed Service Committee Chairman John Warner, R-Va., have agreed to add $20 billion to an existing $50 billion “bridge” fund established two years ago for the services to draw from to meet immediate equipment needs, the congressman said.

“We have made sure that we won’t run short of the money for equipment that is needed in the war-fighting theater,” Hunter said, adding that funding bills are continually being adjusted as new needs arise.

Similar steps have been taken to assure that the Army has all the money it needs to maintain and replace equipment, Hunter said.

“While the priorities of our military are numerous and constantly changing to meet the challenges of the war on terror, we will continue responding without hesitation to the most immediate needs of the war fighter,” Hunter said.

In an interview with the North County Times on Monday, Lt. Gen. James N. Mattis, the new commanding general at Camp Pendleton, said he is confident that Congress will appropriate the money needed for new armored personnel carriers, aircraft and other major components used to move and protect Marine forces.

“We have to keep pace because this is going to be a long fight,” Mattis said.

Psssst … listen a minute.  Here’s how it works.  The Marines are a little bit scared (well, scared might be the wrong work to use about a Marine).  They are (rightfully) concerned that if you give them more money, then you might just go messin’ with their stuff, meddling in their affairs, and picking apart what they do and how they do it.  After all, Washington has a history in these things, do they not?

Representative Hunter, if you and your colleagues will promise to be wise and circumspect about what you ask them about what they do and how and why they do it, and promise not to meddle too much in their affairs, the Marines would likely be a little more forthcoming to you about what their true needs are.  Just don’t get too nosey.  The Marines don’t like it, and for good reason.

I am sure that the brass could tell you stories until you were tired about their aircraft, troop transports, other aging equipment, and the need to increase salaries (go take a look at the pathetic salaries in the E1, E2 and E3 ranks).  I will leave the heavy lifting to the brass.  Let me mention one thing to you.  Body armor.

I posted some time back on “Heavy Battlefield Weight,” in which I cited reports that showed that the heavy body armor weight not only decreased agility in combat, but was so heavy that some Marines were actually opting to leave it behind when they went into combat in Iraq.

I also posted on “Thermobaric Weapons and Body Armor,” in which it was shown that more research is needed to design lightweight, state-of-the-art body armor that is effective not only against ballistics, but air-fuel weapons as well.

If the brass didn’t tell you these things, then they weren’t being completely forthcoming.

So I told you.

There.  That wasn’t so hard, was it?

Concerning my post “The Decision has no Teeth,” someone named WW writes:

When did you begin hating your own country and everything it ever stood for, anyway?

Concerning my post “Fight them there or fight them here: Get it?” WW opines:

The “fight them there or fight them here

I posted a while back on the fact that I thought that Israel should have invested in THEL (Tactical High Energy Laser) to help against the Katyusha rockets coming across the border.  From Haaretz:

Contrary to the approach of his predecessors, Defense Minister Amir Peretz believes it is of the “utmost strategic importance” for Israel to “come up with an effective solution as soon as possible” to the threat of Katyusha rockets and missiles. Peretz thus appears to be shaping a new security doctrine before the defense establishment has talked about the matter in depth.

Peretz plans to convene a discussion on the matter in the coming days.

Even without the minister’s determination in this regard, senior defense establishment officials agree on one immediate conclusion from the recent conflict in Lebanon: Israel must press ahead quickly with initiatives to protect the home front against high-trajectory weapons – missiles of various kinds, including Katyusha and Qassam rockets.

But even now, the concept has its detractors:

“As a researcher, I believe that the entire notion of developing means to intercept Katyushas or Qassams is superfluous,” says Yiftah Shapir of the Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies at Tel Aviv University.

According to Shapir, a former Israel Air Force intelligence officer, “A Katyusha is in fact an artillery shell, and no one talks about the need to develop means to intercept shells. … With the existing technology, it is difficult to deal with tens of thousands of Katyushas or Qassams or shells. There’s no end to it, and it is not economically worthwhile.”

Well, perhaps.

But it seems to me that the smartest approach is a defense-in-depth concept of security.  Assuming that the money is available — and this is a big assumption — Israel should invest in and deploy a THEL defense system, in addition to working towards the disarming and relocation of Hezbollah.  If the resources are available, it should not be a matter of either-or.  It should be both-and.

The Center for American Progress has this study in “Marine Corps Equipment After Iraq:”

The United States has understandably focused on the tremendous human costs of the war in Iraq, yet there are other costs that must be addressed as well. Earlier this year the Center for American Progress and the Lexington Institute compiled a report examining the impact of the war in Iraq on Army equipment. This report does the same for the Marine Corps, the other service that has borne the brunt of the occupation.

Over the past three years the Marine Corps has maintained 40 percent of its ground equipment, 50 percent of its communications equipment, and 20 percent of its aviation assets in Iraq. This equipment is used at as much as nine times its planned rate, abused by a harsh environment, and depleted due to losses in combat. To maintain acceptable readiness levels, the Marines have been taking equipment from non-deployed units and drawing down Maritime Prepositioned stocks, including equipment stored in Europe, thus limiting their ability to respond to contingencies outside of Iraq.

Resetting and recovering the force will be expensive. The cost of restoring the Marines’ ground and aviation equipment to its pre-Iraq level, as of the summer of 2006, will require $12 billion plus an additional $5 billion for each year the Marines remain in Iraq.

Recovery will also not be easy. The Marine Corps, like the Army, must incorporate the lessons of Iraq into its future procurement plans while upgrading its forces. The Marines may prefer expeditionary operations to acting as an occupying force, but urban counter-insurgency and peacekeeping operations will more likely be the rule rather than the exception in the future.

Read all of the report at the link I supplied above, including near term and long term recommendations.  I have a few observations of my own to make.

First observation: I believe that we should more radically re-evaluate our deployments around the globe than even Rumsfeld has advocated.  Our NATO presence should be reduced, our bases in Germany should be cut or closed altogether, and our forces moved to the locales in the world where they need to be in order to engage in this 25-year war on radical Islamic facism that we are just now beginning.  Look folks: the cold war is over, and we need to deal with it immediately and radically, not as if we are slow and stolid and dense.  So it doesn’t bother me too much that we are depleting the equipment that would otherwise be used in Europe, for example.  But I seriously doubt that this comprises a large portion of the deployed equipment or Marines, so this might be a moot point.  Either way, Europe is the last thing that should be on our minds right now.

Second, as you might be able to tell from my posts, there are things that I wish I could tell you about Marine training and indoctrination, but cannot because it would get my son into trouble.  They are very clear that the men are not supposed to speak to those outside the “family” of Marines about what they experience.  I have suggested two books in my earlier post: “Making the Corps” and “Into the Crucible.”  I would also suggest a movie: Full Metal Jacket, a sort of cult classic (my son Daniel recommends it).  Note: Get the movie and watch it, but don’t believe everything you read in the Wikipedia link I gave you just now.  Full Metal Jacket begins to tell you what boot camp is like, but still doesn’t do the job.  It just doesn’t.

I have given you hints with the 20 mile humps with 40 lbm of body armor and 100 lbm backpacks, trying to sleep with artillery shooting, pulling leeches off of each other after waking, going two or more days without eating or sleeping, etc., etc.  But these are still just hints.  How the Marines make emotionally, physically and mentally hard men is a story that has not really been told yet, and will not be told by me.  The secrets of Parris Island are haunting and will remain with the boys who have been there.  As one who has only heard these stories, I cannot tell them with honesty.  I think its one of those things where you had to be there.

Where am I going with this?  Just this.  American wants the Marines.  American needs the Marines.  Just trust me on this.  So the thought of a funding cut (or even failure to grant a funding increase) is just not on the radar screen.  Note to Congress: Grant the Corps what they request.  They will request less than they actually need.  That’s the way they are.

Third: The saying goes “The Marines go in first, the Army gets all the equipment and gets to clean up.”  I know, I know, the Marines relish austere conditions, hardship, going without, and having less than you need.  And I know, one reason for this is the feeling that if you actually get funded, you might have to compromise your standards and become like … well, someone or something else.  You need to get past this … sort of.

Listen.  You are the President’s own, you do battle when he says so, and sometimes without the approval of much of the American people or Congress, into strange lands and without clear mandates or charges.  You are accustomed to murky goals and hard conditions, and you have to train your people that way.  But … you need to play the politics of funding in order to get the equipment you need to do the job, right up to the point of compromising and becoming politically correct.

This you will not do.  I know.  But more funding is the order of the day.  You deserve a larger portion of the pie, and unless you are willing to step forward and say so, you will continue to go without, to the detriment of your boys and your mission.

The Center for American Progress has this study in “Marine Corps Equipment After Iraq:”

The United States has understandably focused on the tremendous human costs of the war in Iraq, yet there are other costs that must be addressed as well. Earlier this year the Center for American Progress and the Lexington Institute compiled a report examining the impact of the war in Iraq on Army equipment. This report does the same for the Marine Corps, the other service that has borne the brunt of the occupation.

Over the past three years the Marine Corps has maintained 40 percent of its ground equipment, 50 percent of its communications equipment, and 20 percent of its aviation assets in Iraq. This equipment is used at as much as nine times its planned rate, abused by a harsh environment, and depleted due to losses in combat. To maintain acceptable readiness levels, the Marines have been taking equipment from non-deployed units and drawing down Maritime Prepositioned stocks, including equipment stored in Europe, thus limiting their ability to respond to contingencies outside of Iraq.

Resetting and recovering the force will be expensive. The cost of restoring the Marines’ ground and aviation equipment to its pre-Iraq level, as of the summer of 2006, will require $12 billion plus an additional $5 billion for each year the Marines remain in Iraq.

Recovery will also not be easy. The Marine Corps, like the Army, must incorporate the lessons of Iraq into its future procurement plans while upgrading its forces. The Marines may prefer expeditionary operations to acting as an occupying force, but urban counter-insurgency and peacekeeping operations will more likely be the rule rather than the exception in the future.

Read all of the report at the link I supplied above, including near term and long term recommendations.  I have a few observations of my own to make.

First observation: I believe that we should more radically re-evaluate our deployments around the globe than even Rumsfeld has advocated.  Our NATO presence should be reduced, our bases in Germany should be cut or closed altogether, and our forces moved to the locales in the world where they need to be in order to engage in this 25-year war on radical Islamic facism that we are just now beginning.  Look folks: the cold war is over, and we need to deal with it immediately and radically, not as if we are slow and stolid and dense.  So it doesn’t bother me too much that we are depleting the equipment that would otherwise be used in Europe, for example.  But I seriously doubt that this comprises a large portion of the deployed equipment or Marines, so this might be a moot point.  Either way, Europe is the last thing that should be on our minds right now.

Second, as you might be able to tell from my posts, there are things that I wish I could tell you about Marine training and indoctrination, but cannot because it would get my son into trouble.  They are very clear that the men are not supposed to speak to those outside the “family” of Marines about what they experience.  I have suggested two books in my earlier post: “Making the Corps” and “Into the Crucible.”  I would also suggest a movie: Full Metal Jacket, a sort of cult classic (my son Daniel recommends it).  Note: Get the movie and watch it, but don’t believe everything you read in the Wikipedia link I gave you just now.  Full Metal Jacket begins to tell you what boot camp is like, but still doesn’t do the job.  It just doesn’t.

I have given you hints with the 20 mile humps with 40 lbm of body armor and 100 lbm backpacks, trying to sleep with artillery shooting, pulling leeches off of each other after waking, going two or more days without eating or sleeping, etc., etc.  But these are still just hints.  How the Marines make emotionally, physically and mentally hard men is a story that has not really been told yet, and will not be told by me.  The secrets of Parris Island are haunting and will remain with the boys who have been there.  As one who has only heard these stories, I cannot tell them with honesty.  I think its one of those things where you had to be there.

Where am I going with this?  Just this.  American wants the Marines.  American needs the Marines.  Just trust me on this.  So the thought of a funding cut (or even failure to grant a funding increase) is just not on the radar screen.  Note to Congress: Grant the Corps what they request.  They will request less than they actually need.  That’s the way they are.

Third: The saying goes “The Marines go in first, the Army gets all the equipment and gets to clean up.”  I know, I know, the Marines relish austere conditions, hardship, going without, and having less than you need.  And I know, one reason for this is the feeling that if you actually get funded, you might have to compromise your standards and become like … well, someone or something else.  You need to get past this … sort of.

Listen.  You are the President’s own, you do battle when he says so, and sometimes without the approval of much of the American people or Congress, into strange lands and without clear mandates or charges.  You are accustomed to murky goals and hard conditions, and you have to train your people that way.  But … you need to play the politics of funding in order to get the equipment you need to do the job, right up to the point of compromising and becoming politically correct.

This you will not do.  I know.  But more funding is the order of the day.  You deserve a larger portion of the pie, and unless you are willing to step forward and say so, you will continue to go without, to the detriment of your boys and your mission.

Commentary from Ynet:

Professor David Menashri, head of the center for Iranian studies at Tel Aviv University, tried to explain in an interview to ynet what the Iranians really mean when they say they are “interested in entering a dialog.”

It appears that no one really believed that Iran’s response to the package of “unspecified incentives,” in exchange for suspending uranium enrichment would be positive.

The only potent question was how would the Iranian “nay” be said – would it be vague or clear. Iran’s goal to gain as much time as it can for its nuclear ambitions and to avoid international sanctions as much as possible, is clearly evident.

According to Prof. Menashri “it would have been quite unlikely for the Iranians to have provided a clear ‘yes’ but instead it was obvious they would give a vague answer. As is typical of the Iranians, they close the door but at the same time they open a window.

They say the package is ‘a good basis for continuing dialog’ and they try to discuss trivial matters rather than the core issues, and this was definitely not the intention when the proposal was offered. 

Of course.  But here is the really interesting thing.  I predicted that there would be calls to “dialogue” and “negotiate” with Iran.  Indeed there have been.  And does the world believe that the U.S. has the will finally to confront Iran, or does the world believe that the U.S. will buckle under the collective weight of international pressure?

Well, the price of oil dropped today upon news of a slight rise in the U.S. oil and gas supply.  Prices would not be dropping if the commodities brokers and traders believed that the U.S. was going to finally deal a blow to Iran.  They are betting on the U.S. “negotiating” with Iran, and this is a big time bet.  This is no poker game at the local yokel hardware store.  These are oil traders — who have a lot of money — and whose livelihood depends upon being right.

In other news about the Iranian intentions, Thetrumpet.com reports that:

In yet another sign of Iran’s far–reaching ambitions, an Iranian general recently revealed a plan to form a global axis of major powers against the United States.

In a meeting with the leaders of the Basij militia in Tehran on May 9, Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps commander Maj. Gen. Yahya Rahim Safavi said, “China, Russia, India and Iran are capable of establishing a pole of major powers in Asia, opposing the policies of America

From deseretnews.com, another example of Marines fighting for truth, justice and the American way:

A man who had just been released from jail was sent right back Monday after police say he picked the wrong store to attempt a robbery. 

The 30-year-old man was in line at a 7-Eleven, 2175 E. 9400 South, just before 8 p.m. When he got to the counter he asked the female clerk for a carton of cigarettes, said Sandy Police Sgt. Victor Quezada. But after he received them he walked out without paying, Quezada said.

The clerk told another female clerk who followed him outside the doors and told him to stop.

Instead, the man turned around and punched the clerk in the face, Quezada said.

James Sjostrom was standing in line right behind the man who took the cigarettes and saw the entire thing unfold.

“He just turned and clocked her,” Sjostrom said. “He pounded her face. It was pretty vicious.”

That’s when Sjostrom went after the man who assaulted the store clerk.

As he went outside, Sjostrom said he saw the man standing over the clerk, who was kneeling over on the ground, as if he were going to punch her again. When the man saw Sjostrom coming at him, he took a swing at him, too.

But the attacker quickly found out he was no match for the bulky Sjostrom.

Sjostrom is a former Marine who taught hand-to-hand combat and currently teaches a course on Russian kettlebells, or the martial art of strength training, at the Sports Mall in Murray.

“I grabbed him, threw him on the ground, put his hands behind his back, sat on him and waited for the cops to come,” Sjostrom said.

In just a matter of a few seconds Sjostrom had the man pinned. When the man realized he had no chance, Sjostrom said he became “pretty quiet.”

“Anybody would have done the same thing,” he said. “Another guy in the store said he was in the Army and asked if I needed any help.”

With a grin, Sjostrom replied to the man, “The Marines got here first.”

This isn’t the first, and will not be the last time that a Marine defends himself or others.

There is indication that Hezbollah used thermobaric weapons against the Israeli Army in the recent conflict, as asserted and discussed by Defense Tech.  On the other hand, the comments to this post at Defense Tech are interesting, one of which profers another explanation for the collapse of the building:

Nine elite IDF unit soldiers were killed, seven troops have been seriously injured, and 10 sustained light to moderate wounds after a building they were staying in collapsed as a result of a missile strike in the Lebanese village of Dibel.

Shortly after 1 p.m. Hizbullah gunmen fired several missiles at a structure in which the soldiers were staying. One missile hit the building, causing an arms cache to explode. Several soldiers were hurt as a result. A short while later, the structure partially collapsed, and a few other troops were hurt as well.

Either way, this post and the followup discussion point to a need in the U.S. defense capabilities that seems at the present to be unmet.

You can read about thermobaric weapons here and here.  The U.S. Marines used thermobaric weapons against the Iraqi army in the war with great success, although it appears that these weapons were used to knock selected walls down and were usually followed up by conventional fragmentation explosives (Marines Quiet about Brutal New Weapon).  Apparently the Hezbollah had some degree of success against the IDF using thermobaric devices, killing nine reservists in one structure by causing the structure to collapse.

One of the truly problematic things about thermobaric weapons — and one of the reasons the U.S. should designate the monies to get out ahead of the curve — is that they render body armor useless, and possibly even detrimental, to the Solider or Marine.  There is indication that the use of body armor in a thermobaric blast simply creates a larger surface area on the body with which the pressure wave has to work, thus causing more internal injuries.  There is also some indication that the use of body armor changes the loading function on the thorax.

There is a proliferation of these weapons, and while some attention has been paid to creating body armor that is different from the conventional ballistic body armor (multiple layers of composites that are of different densities), little has been published, and no such body armor is in service.

The U.S. needs to devote the time, energy, money and research resources to countering the effects of these weapons, or the battlefield casualties will be much higher during the next urban war.

Every once in a while you get the gift of peaking into the future just a bit to get prepared for it.  This is just such a time.  We see the effects of the use of thermobaric weapons against the IDF.  Now, can we prepare our troops in advance of the next urban war, please?

Courtesy of LGF, here is Ahmadinejad on the future of U.S.-Iranian relations:

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad: When they talk about a “New Middle East,

Hat tip to my friend Knighthawk at Polipundit, this from USA Today:

“I am shocked,” said Jürgen Lesch, 56, a Dresden software developer. “Now it looks like terrorism has reached us, as well.”

Germany’s refusal to take part in the U.S.-led war in Iraq once had Germans thinking Islamic terrorists would focus elsewhere, said Lesch’s wife, Marita, 52, a teacher. “We didn’t fight in Iraq, and until now we assumed that if we behaved well in the world, nothing would happen to us,” she said.

Michael Lüders, a Middle East expert and government policy consultant, said, “Germany is reorienting its (foreign) policy. It did not call for an immediate cease-fire (during Israeli attacks) in Lebanon, and that was disappointing in the Arab world. Some radical forces now think Germany should be punished,” he said.

I have always found that I can talk to liberals because at least you know where each other stands.  Most often I cannot persuade the liberal to see things my way, but at least there is a clash of world views, and eventually one will be proven correct.

The most difficult times I have when conversing with people who do not yet understand the war that radical Islam has declared against the U.S. is the “conservative” thinker, the isolationist who, like Pat Buchanan, believes that it is U.S. presence and intervention in the affairs of other nations and the existence of our troops in other parts of the world that has “caused” the radical Islamicists to hate us so.  If it had not been for our hegemony and colonialism, they say, none of this would have happened.

I find it so difficult to talk to these people because there is almost nothing to say to them.  The fact that history denies this view is irrelevant.  In other words, it is fairly well known that the so-called Crusades were primarily defensive struggles against Islam as it came north into Europe (or at least we can say that it began that way).  At the time that Islam began to assert itself militarily, there was no colonial presence of Europe into Africa or the Middle East.

And yet the Islamicists still attacked, didn’t they?

Folks, we could fold our tents in Iraq, remove all U.S. troops from everywhere in the world, and declare that we will never again have U.S. troops on foreign soil for any reason under the sun.  And the Islamicist response?

To cheer their victory and then begin planning their all out attack on the U.S. homeland.

So here are a couple of questions for you: Do you want to fight the terrorists on foreign soil or U.S. soil?  Do you want to have IEDs blowing up in the streets of Ramadi, or the street on which you live?

As my friend Knighthawk says of the Islamicist approach: “Conform or die.  Get it?”  And as I say, fight them there or fight them here.  Get it?