Me contemplating the Herculean task before me…

I will be pausing Chasing Ghosts from its fortnightly cadence of issuance for the remainder of the year.

I am taking the time to regroup and focus on the new occasional podcast, WarNotes: A Conflict Podcast as a companion podcast focusing on conventional conflict and strategic thought. My first WarNotes series will be a comprehensive survey of how to fix the broken, shattered and most expensive paper tiger in the history of the world, the US military complex.

The Fixing Fight Club series will be weekly until I finish the survey.

I think the new election results may be the time for the western military complexes to take a knee and refocus and re-calibrate strategic and grand strategic opportunities in addressing the real-time shortfalls in facing Revolutions in Military Affairs (RMA) that are littering the battlefields of the 21st century.

The US is at a crossroads: continue to invest and spend on exquisite platforms that will simply be missile sponges in the emerging salvo competition landscape or retool a more thoughtful application of military power in concert with rationally extrapolating second and third order effects to stymie the pristine track record of military failure and stalemate since 1945.

I suggest the American military complex has a mere generation to reset its arthritic, sclerotic and top heavy platforms and stratagems before irrelevance and abject systemic military failure becomes the sole avenue left.

You can find the WarNotes podcast at my substack or look for it on your podcast vendor of choice.

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Email me at cgpodcast@pm.me

In the first episode of The Kyle Anzalone Show, I explore global conflicts, focusing on the ICC’s war crimes charges against Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu and the worsening humanitarian crisis in Gaza. I question whether justice will be served and highlight the U.S.’s role, particularly President Biden’s support for Netanyahu.

I also examine escalating tensions in Ukraine, where the U.S. approved long-range missile use against Russia, despite nuclear risks, and discuss a proposal for Ukraine to develop nuclear weapons. This episode critiques U.S. foreign policy and its role in intensifying conflicts, setting the stage for deeper analysis in future episodes.

Subscribe to the new channel.

The South African National Defense Force (SANDF) is in tatters.

The SA Navy is also in the hazard. One glaring example is the MTU 1163 propulsion engine. Grimms was paid R55 million for a W6 engine overhaul, yet the engine has still not undergone a dyno test or no measure reports are made available as per OEM specifications. Ironically, Grimms claims to operate the largest dyno testing facility in Sub-Saharan Africa. The engine, sarcastically dubbed the “22-ton anchor,” is prominently displayed on their shop floor. For context, a brand-new 1163 engine at that time would have cost just R32 million.

Why hasn’t Grimms been investigated for such blatant corruption? The answer seems clear: the issue is being suppressed at the highest levels, and Grimms continues to secure lucrative contracts. For example, Grimms is poised to win the submarine contract, having earlier this year accompanied Armscor Dockyard and senior Navy officials on a trip to Turkey, where they were hosted by the Turks and who paid for this trip and was it approved by the DOD? If this isn’t corruption at the highest level, then what is?

“Whether on ground, in the air or at sea, the SANDF sits helpless,” is National Council of Provinces (NCOP) member of the Select Committee on Security and Justice (SCSJ) Nicholas Gotsell’s summary of the current state of the SA National Defence Force (SANDF).

He notes in a statement that the Department of Defence (DoD), home to the SANDF, spends over 68% of its R51 billion budget on salaries and wages “yet sits with aged and unskilled personnel”.

According to him the SA Air Force (SAAF) cannot defend South Africa’s skies as only two of 26 Gripens are operational and none of its C-130BZ Hercules are airworthy. (Four Gripens were, however, operational at the September Africa Aerospace and Defence exhibition.) In the wake of last week’s oversight visit to Simons Town “our maritime defence capacity is also shocking”. The SA Navy, he maintains, has one frigate and a lone MMIPV (multi-mission inshore patrol vessel) operational with none of the three Heroine Class Type 209 submarines functional. (Two MMIPVs have been accepted by the Navy, and a third is due for handover this year.)

SANDF fleet at ‘all-time low’ as the military ‘sits helpless’

Russians play chess and the West plays Naked Twister.

ICBMs and IRBMs have been hyper-sonic since the 1950s.

Replace the warhead with a terrestrial-launched Rod from God and you have a very effective non-nuclear option to reach anywhere in the northern hemisphere with no nuclear fallout at terminus.

The west evens refers to the Soviet/Russian SS-18 as Satan.

Email me at cgpodcast@pm.me

COL Douglas Macgregor shows the stark choices ahead a defense establishment in the US and the west that is inexorably grinding to a halt in effectiveness and incompetence.

The incoming President has three choices:

1. Allow service bureaucracies or external events to drive outcomes, resulting in few or no savings. This is akin to letting the ship drift aimlessly, at the mercy of the storm.

2. Make marginal adjustments to the defense status quo, avoiding conflicts but achieving little change and only modest savings. This is like rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic—it won’t save the ship.

3. Leverage the fiscal crisis to reduce overhead, streamline defense investment, and reset the force structure, increasing capability and promising major savings. This is the bold course correction needed to navigate the storm safely.

The senior ranks have become so bloated and filled with ineffectual leaders that organizational entropy is inevitable.

It is now painfully obvious that American fighting forces have declined in strength and numbers, but four-star overhead has grown out of all proportion to the nation’s security needs. Reducing the numbers of serving four-star generals and admirals along with their large and expensive headquarters is more vital than ever. In a perverse way, the expansion of general officer headquarters overhead follows Boyle’s gas law (also referred to as the Boyle–Mariotte law). When contained, gas will always expand to the limits of the container. So will headquarters and the flag officers they serve.

He concludes:

Compelling change in U.S. national defense is tantamount to war. Bold, new initiatives can succeed. Moving to the point of least resistance leads to failure and no change. There is no time to lose. The Department of Defense is cannibalizing itself to meet operational demands, and, in the process, we are getting older faster and destroying our most precious resource—human capital. Bold changes are necessary now.

If the American People are ever to rectify the abysmal record of the American military in action in the last three decades, shrink, then replace the senior ranks. Change in organization and culture will not result in streamlined unified military command structures and more fighting power without new senior military leadership. Modern warfare will demand much more than PowerPoint slides or dominating weak opponents with overwhelming firepower.

The clock is ticking and the point of no return is fast approaching.

I have embarked on a multi-part series on my new podcast, WarNotes, to offer a plan to stop the madness and re-frame the DoD to military sobriety.

Stay tuned.

https://ronpaulinstitute.org/navigating-the-fiscal-storm-a-new-course-for-u-s-national-defense/

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Email at cgpodcast@pm.me