Blog 29 | The Libertarian Institute

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New WarNotes Podcast Episode is Live Monday 16 December 2024

by Bill Buppert | Dec 15, 2024 | Blog

Ep 005 “Fixing Fight Club: 21st Century Nuclear Renaissance”

In this episode, a complete reassessment of American nuclear weapons has to be done.

In the future near-peer and peer fight, nuclear weapons will be an option in the 21st century and no one can predict how they will used.

In concert with the emerging Revolutions in Military Affairs (RMA) such as robotics, autonomous targeting and hyper-velocity weapons systems that are earth shattering and millennial bending, it is time to calibrate and reassess expectations and the dust off the war-gaming illusions that created the system of planetary suicide hovering over the world today.

What happens with the advancement of space weapons which is now in the near future; what about the impact of these weapons dilemmas on a multi-planetary human evolution?

Stop the madness.

You can find the episodes on your favorite podcast vendor.

Notes: cgpodcast.substack.com/notes

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I want to thank my listeners and readers for your continuing solicitude. Please leave reviews if you find the time at your podcast vendor.

How Far We’ve Come

by Sheldon Richman | Dec 15, 2024 | Blog, Economics

“The conditions under which modern man of the capitalist West must act are different from those under which his primitive ancestors lived and acted. As a result of the providential care of our forebears we have at our disposal an ample stock of intermediate products (capital goods or produced factors of production) and of consumers’ goods. Our activities are designed for a longer period of provision because we are the lucky heirs of a past which has lengthened, step by step, the period of provision and has bequeathed to us the means to expand the waiting period. In acting we are concerned with longer periods and are aiming at an even satisfaction in all parts of the period chosen as the period of provision. We are in a position to rely upon a continuing influx of consumers’ goods and have at our disposal not only stocks of goods ready for consumption but also stocks of producers’ goods out of which our continuous efforts again and again make new consumers’ goods mature.”

—Ludwig von Mises, Human Action

The Vulnerable Capitalist

by Sheldon Richman | Dec 14, 2024 | Blog, Economics

“Popular literature attributes enormous ‘power’ to the capitalist and considers his owning a mass of capital goods as of enormous significance, giving him a great advantage over other people in the economy. We see, however, that this is far from the case; indeed, the opposite may well be true. For the capitalist has already saved from possible consumption and hired the services of factors to produce his capital goods. The owners of these factors have the money already for which they otherwise would have had to save and wait (and bear uncertainty), while the capitalist has only a mass of capital goods, a mass that will prove worthless to him unless it can be further worked on and the product sold to the consumers….

“[C]apital goods are not independently productive. They are the imputable creatures of land and labor (and time). Therefore, capital goods generate no interest income…. [No] income accrues to the owners of capital goods as such.”

—Murray N. Rothbard, Man, Economy, and State, Chap. 5, secs. 6 & 7, 1962

Winter is Coming to an American City Near You

by Bill Buppert | Dec 13, 2024 | Blog

It is much worse than Shawn Ryan thinks per his reactions during the interview.

Sarah Adams discusses a forecast of an attack on the US from 1:12:00 to 1:25:00.

There will be far more than 1k fighters (think train the trainer) because the aQ et al planners will coordinate with auxiliary forces on college campuses and other anti-Israeli cadres to facilitate the clogging of 911 phone lines with false calls, create traffic accidents on major arterials, conduct information shaping on the Coprophile Media networks and provide logistics support to the fighters among other things to include shelter and aid.

Since October 2023, the domestic alignment of millions of sympathizers to the anti-Israel coalition has created a de facto homegrown support infrastructure for attacks on the US homeland by Sunni and Wahhabi fanatics.

This will take place over days with different target sets every 24 hours to make the slow response by the government at all levels play whack-a-mole and fail to anticipate movement of the target sets from public venues to residential areas to infrastructure to direct hits on emergency response modalities like police & fire departments and then lower priority targets until they burn themselves down (HT to William Forstchen).

Hostile drones will be used to target any flashing lights they see (police & fire vehicles) and electric vehicles; the former to stymie emergency response and the latter to create massive fires on arterials.

The unintended consequences and chaos avalanches that will follow this attack by the US government response will make things even worse.

I cover this in detail in the Storming America episodes 37, 41-43 and 49-50 in my Chasing Ghosts podcast.

Email me at cgpodcast@pm.me

Ruminations on War in the 21st Century

by Bill Buppert | Dec 13, 2024 | Blog

Agreed, Armchair Warlord nails the paper tiger posing as the US military.

My additions:

There is no Auftragstaktik in the modern western militaries despite their “embrace” of Mission Command.

Carriers are the crossbow and chariot of the 21st century. A tremendous waste of capital and humans that will be neutralized and destroyed in the first 72 hours of a peer conflict.

No admission that the era of manned tanks and combat aircraft is over for the remainder of the 21st century.

There is zero ability for the entire west to intercept and neutralize incoming IRBM/ICBM after warhead bus release at apogee. In the US in particular, it presently has the ability to possibly intercept 11 incoming warheads [see Ground-Based Mid-course Defense (GMD)].

The IRBM/ICBM with conventional warheads leveraging high velocity for tremendous non-nuclear blast destruction is real.

The entire nuclear triad in the US must be brutally reexamined. Unknown whether the Pantex Plant in TX could handle the retirement and dismantling of increased and accelerated reduction of the nuclear weapons holdings.

The US and western acquisition systems are existentially rotten from stem to stern coupled with a manufacturing throughput lag that is deep and wide. US fabbing capability and manpower is in a competency crisis that is close to doom-loop entropy.

For the first time in human warfare, it is reasonable to employ an affordable mass (small and cheap drones) modality to kill individual soldiers on the battlefield. Robotics is the future whether you like it or not.

Autonomous targeting is not optional anymore because humans in the loop for the targeting cycling for servicing incoming hypersonics munitions are out of time.

Enough for now.

Check out the OP from Armchair Warlord:

https://x.com/ArmchairW/status/1866706379584545203

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USS Liberty Incident Rises from the Ash Heap of Inconvenient History

by Bill Buppert | Dec 12, 2024 | Blog

Medal of Honor citation for Commander William L. McGonagle, USN, Commanding Officer, USS Liberty (AGTR-5)

Thanks to Candace Owens for lifting this incident from the dead.

One receives the Medal of Honor for engaging in a fight in enemy action.

“For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty as Commanding Officer, USS Liberty (AGTR-5) in the Eastern Mediterranean on 8-9 June 1967. Sailing in international waters, the Liberty was attacked without warning by jet fighter aircraft and motor torpedo boats which inflicted many casualties among the crew and caused extreme damage to the ship. Although severely wounded during the first air attack, Captain (then Commander) McGonagle remained at his battle station on the badly damaged bridge and, with full knowledge of the seriousness of his wounds, subordinated his own welfare to the safety and survival of his command. Steadfastly refusing any treatment which would take him away from his post, he calmly continued to exercise firm command of his ship. Despite continuous exposure to fire, he maneuvered his ship, directed its defense, supervised the control of flooding and fire, and saw to the care of the casualties. Captain McGonagle’s extraordinary valor under these conditions inspired the surviving members of the Liberty’s crew, many of them seriously wounded, to heroic efforts to overcome the battle damage and keep the ship afloat. Subsequent to the attack, although in great pain and weak from the loss of blood, Captain McGonagle remained at his battle station and continued to conn his ship for more than seventeen hours. It was only after rendezvous with a United States destroyer that he relinquished personal control of the Liberty and permitted himself to be removed from the bridge. Even then, he refused much needed medical attention until convinced that the seriously wounded among his crew had been treated. Captain McGonagle’s superb professionalism, courageous fighting spirit, and valiant leadership saved his ship and many lives. His actions sustain and enhance the finest traditions of the United States Naval Service.”

Here’s an excellent nut and bolts history:

An excellent book on the subject:

If you wish to reach some of the survivors, try here: https://ussliberty.org/

Natural Economic Law Can’t Be Repealed

by Sheldon Richman | Dec 12, 2024 | Blog, Economics

If the government restricts supply and subsidizes demand, out-of-control prices, resource shortages, and unpleasant ad hoc coping restrictions will follow. That is the natural (economic) law. The government cannot repeal it. But it can stop its attempt to plan.

Dumpsters Afloat: The Zumwalt Chronicles Continues

by Bill Buppert | Dec 12, 2024 | Blog

The weapons system removed from the Zumwalt

They were going to build 30 and ended up building three of these dysfunctional monstrosities. Commissioned in 2016, it has only taken them eight years to retrofit the weapons system.

The Navy’s priorities have changed since the post-9/11 era, and shore bombardment no longer figures prominently, especially in an era of high-tech competition in the Indo-Pacific. China and Russia both possess antiship missiles that greatly outrange Zumwalt’s cannons, even if shells were available. Recognizing this reality, the Navy is repurposing the high-end Zumwalt-class with the high-end weapon of the 2020s: hypersonic missiles.

Huntington Ingalls is in the middle of modifying first-in-class USS Zumwalt at Ingalls Shipbuilding, and the extra-sized destroyer went back in the water again last week. While in drydock, Ingalls replaced the twin 155mm Advanced Gun Systems on the foredeck with new tubes for the Conventional Prompt Strike system. Zumwalt can now carry four all-up round CPS canisters, each containing three hypersonic missiles. This will augment her small arsenal of 80 conventional Vertical Launch System (VLS) cells.

Initial plans called for leaving one of Zumwalt’s nonfunctional guns intact on deck; however, aerial drone photos obtained by the AP appear to show that both guns have been removed.

Second-in-class USS Michael Monsoor will be next in line for conversion, and the work will be performed at Bath Iron Works. The total program cost for the upgrade is estimated at $1.1-2.0 billion.

https://www.maritime-executive.com/article/ingalls-removes-uss-zumwalt-s-iconic-guns-installs-hypersonic-missiles

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