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Further China Reading

From a reader:

“Hello Joseph. I just ordered your book, and I noticed it was short. I would like to know if there is an up to date book on American foreign policy towards China that you could recommend that is well-researched and truthful with good policy suggestions. Thanks!

I know next to nothing about America-China relations and I am looking forward to reading your book.”

My response:

“I wish I could […] the fact I can’t is a major reason I am working on a much longer book focused solely on the evolution of American policy toward China. Thanks for reading!”

So, yes, once the National Debt and You: What it is, How it Works, and Why it Matters is finished (which should be soon), I will begin working full time on the, to date, unnamed project focused strictly on Sino-American relations, a timely topic that no one seems to be able to deal with objectively, whatever their particular bias.

In the meantime, the book should be done by this tine next year, I will be focused on making sure to get out two pieces a month at the Institute focused on a specific aspect of US policy regarding China or an important event in the history of the relationship.

If there is something specific you’d like to see addressed in the coming months, then, please reach out and let me know!

Raptor Woes Continue to Plague the Air Force

f22

More mismanagement and strategic deficit disorder at the Pentagon.

The F22 Raptor is a very capable late 20th century aircraft and arguably superior to the much more expensive and increasingly anachronistic  F35; it is being put out to pasture early because of planning missteps, acquisition problems, maintenance issues, software difficulties and a distinctly dysfunctional strategic environment that is not prepared for the near-peer and peer fight ahead.

Both the F22 and the F35 are maintenance hogs and expensive to maintain over their lifetimes.

If the Air Force and the US Congress don’t find a way to pay for the NGAD program and Congress lets the Air Force retire 32 older F-22s, the Air Force could soon find itself in a dangerous position: with a need to wrest control of the air from a growing and modernizing Chinese air force with a shrinking and aging fleet of F-22s – and with no help on the horizon for potentially decades to come.

Incredibly, those 32 older Block 20s aren’t the only fighters the Air Force wants to retire early. The service also wants to cut half of its Boeing F-15E Strike Eagle fighter-bombers while simultaneously reducing the number of new F-15EXs it buys. 

The cuts might be less worrying if the Air Force’s other in-production fighter, the Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II, weren’t such a disaster. The Air Force is decades behind and hundreds of billions of dollars over-budget compared to its original plan to acquire more than 1,700 F-35s – and hasn’t taken delivery of a new F-35 in a year as it waits for testers to work out kinks in the fighter’s latest software build. 

The Air Force is in a fighter crisis. But it’s not going to solve that crisis by grounding training jets – and shrinking an air-superiority force that’s probably already far too small. 

https://www.msn.com/en-us/travel/news/the-us-air-force-seems-hell-bent-on-getting-rid-of-its-greatest-ever-fighter-jet/ar-BB1plHiE

If they reach 1700 F35s (present strength is 1,000 produced and not many aloft), I will be shocked but I will be even more shocked if they achieve a readiness rate above 30% of air-frames.

In this new era of the 21st century air wars, whenever you hear Western flag officers talk about air dominance, supremacy and superiority; they are speaking to the past with no martial eye to the future. I suspect the perfect record of stalemate and defeat for US arms since 1945 will continue apace.

Here’s the very real strategic error: the era of manned fighter aircraft is over and the sooner the US and the West realize this, it will possibly lead to a complete reappraisal of what air combat looks like in the 21st century.

My Substack

Email me at cgpodcast@pm.me.

Anti-War Blog – What Will You Do On The Day After?

Anti-War Blog – What Will You Do On The Day After?

They did it, finally. The wisdom of the statists, the planet ruined. Desolation, misery, nature blackened to near extinction. The whispering legacy of civilisation. The educated mastery of science and technology used to destroy it all, everything. They called it defence. Hegemonic interests. The fruit of ideology, so poisonous that it’s only cure was for you to be poisoned more. You keep drinking it, gulping and eventually you main veined it right into your blood. Welfare, warfare, so very dependent on the state. You can’t imagine a world without it. A god. Your God.

It’s not real, just an abstract which requires lies, threats, deception and lot’s of debt to pay everyone, debt that’s backed by theft. And what did it get the world? Last century, histories most bloodiest, a history so bloody that the books are inked in death about genocides and extinction. After the long 19th century, when humanity applauded itself for its ability to conquer illness and colonise the savages into servile subjects, world wars. The infection of communism, the plague of fascism, the perfection of chemical and biological weapons, rockets that were meant to take us beyond the moon flattened cities and the physicists and chemists, so loved, split the atom. To be used as bombs.

The most educated of nations, even for a time the most progressive, whatever that means, perfected mass slaughter. Industrial genocide. With a gladius they hacked the Celts in a genocide, Carthage obliterated, the Roman empire so adored conquered in an age of conquests. It’s still admired to this day. Mongolian hoards on horseback, their arrows and swords taking all before them, aboriginal peoples on continents ‘to be discovered’ vanished, a man who claimed to be the brother of Christ led his followers through massacres across China, millions died. And to quote Hitler, “Who remembers the Armenians” or the Herero or Namaqua for that matter. Yet, the 20th century was bloodier. The century of democracy and grand government was the one with too many genocides and wars, yet post 1945 when most occurred, it’s known as a period of peace. Peace meaning, not a world war. That is the standard. War in Peace, a 20th century publication with thousands of pages of war in peacetime.

US presidents now are defined by how few wars they start. Trump’s single virtue being that he apparently hasn’t started any new wars. The voter indifferent to the fact that the military they fund, mostly love and which apparently is constrained by a government they elect has eight hundred bases the world over and is killing and dying as it’s manifest destiny to do so. War is so common, so readily available to observe, the narratives skewered. Whose the goodies, whose the baddies? ‘Which team should I barrack for in the Sudanese conflict?’ ‘I empathise with the Palestinians but the Israeli’s were pretty good at the last Eurovision.’ ‘We don’t commit war crimes, only they do that!’

Assassinations, starvation, dogs eating the disabled to death, prisoners sodomised, the race for Africa. Mark Twain once said that, “History doesn’t repeat, but it often rhymes.” Though in his time, all of that was occurring too. With less technology, one had had to read about it, hear of it or see grainy images in the paper. Now we can see it in 4K. Yet, still the Congo is being raped. Then it was for rubber, the Belgian empire called it a “Free State”. Millions died, limbs hacked from them. Europe needed rubber. Bicycles were a popular thing. Eco friendly transport that helped to stop the pollution of horse manure from clogging up the streets. The Congolese be damned. The curse of Africa is that it’s full of resources and so close to Europe. Now, rare Earth is desired, ripped from the ground, poisoning those who mine it. The poor regions choke in pollutants so that wealthy yuppies in the West feel good about their consumerism. Most recycling meaning it gets sent to a poor country, feels good though doesn’t it. For you I mean, not them. Africa is slowly becoming a patchwork of foreign powers again, this time they are not Western.

Remember when people were scared about nuclear war? When Television movies frightened families to sleep at night. Steve Gutenberg withering away from radiation sickness after he ‘survived’ the blasts of atomic detonations. So scary that President Reagan, in silk pyjamas climbed from the oval office bed and rang his rival in Moscow. “We need to end this thing.” Then they did. Well kinda. At least pulled back some. Now the politicians you all seem to love and vote for are shit posters. Talk of war, sabre rattling, gunboat diplomacy are certainly not new, but now, it’s done without envoys or diplomatic maturity. Nukes are no longer feared, just another toy in the tool box. Like dropping bombs on refugee tents or tomahawk missiles fired into the sands of far away places to kill children with names you can’t be bothered pronouncing. It’s what they do. Blow things up.

So, what will you do in the day after? Will you still love them? Will you pretend that you were not in part responsible? You do support the state? You ignore the violence, erosion of liberty, the human rights violations, the killings when done in your name. Isn’t the whole religion of democracy that thing where you vote for some stranger who then has power over other strangers so that unelected strangers can do what they always do regardless of the newly voted in strangers that the mob decided should now be in positions based on their popularity or how well they lie? Strange ritual. Best system we got, I am told by those who need to be ruled, who need violence to enforce their ideology. LOL who am I kidding, ideology… money. Bribery. Silver coins used to betray and buy your soul that were taken from others, or the status quo satiates, because the unknown feral waters of liberty are uncharted. Never fear, they have nuked the oceans as well. Judas has his silver, dead children matter not.

The privilege that permeates the West is that ‘we’ are always over there. War, is always distant. It’s an accepted right to wage it far away, killing, destroying places that become synonymous with war. Then when it’s over, to the next place. Soon they will be able to reach you, the embargoes, the air raids, the dead children. That may be for you to experience soon, not through a screen. But you wanted that right? I mean you do love the war masters. It’s not like peace or liberty is ever really on the cards when you look to the state. It’s usually more laws, regulations, welfare, subsidies, where did you think it would lead? So, if you are there in the day after, rejoice because history tends to rhyme so chances are the very people who caused it will tell you that they should lead, and fix it. And you probably will believe them, or they will just bribe you with Nuka cola bottle caps, and you will do whatever they want…again.

 

Is the Medal of Honor Now Subject to Woke Revisionism?

moh6

Note: We just returned from a short vacation visiting new grandchildren hence the brief interregnum of posting.

The Medal of Honor is the highest citation for combat action in the US military.

dod moh memo

It’s premature to say exactly what direction this is going because the DoD is being hazy and coy about what this is all about. If it turns out the reassessment is determining whether extraordinary single combat actions on the part of soldiers was exaggerated, it may hold water but if it is the curious chronological conceit that haunts the historians in academia today, the woke virus may reach back because of the identity of the antagonists but that is a supposition with inadequate information now.

The war on history continues to take bizarre turns.

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin directed the Pentagon to review the 20 Medals of Honor awarded to U.S. troops for their actions at Wounded Knee in 1890, when soldiers killed and injured between 350 and 375 Lakota men, women and children.

Austin ordered the creation of a special panel to determine whether to retain or rescind the medals, the Department of Defense announced Wednesday. In a July 19 memorandum ordering the review, Austin said the panel would investigate “each awardee’s individual actions” and also “consider the context of the overall engagement.”

https://www.militarytimes.com/news/pentagon-congress/2024/07/24/pentagon-to-review-20-medals-of-honor-from-wounded-knee-massacre/

Nothing new here.

In 1917, based on the report of the Medal of Honor Review Board, established by Congress in 1916, 911 recipients were stricken from the Army’s Medal of Honor list because the medal had been awarded inappropriately. Among them were William Frederick “Buffalo Bill” Cody and Mary Edwards Walker.

Defense officials noted that the department regularly reviews awards for upgrades. The Executive Branch has also conducted reviews to determine whether previous awards should be rescinded, including one in 1916 [and 1917] that led to 911 Medals of Honor being revoked.

https://www.defense.gov/News/News-Stories/Article/Article/3848583/austin-orders-review-of-wounded-knee-medals/

There was a reckoning that rescinded one third of all medals issued to that point.

Of the 2,625 Army Medals of Honor reviewed, the Board chose to rescind 911 of them. Most of those were from two large groups: the 27th Maine Infantry and President Abraham Lincoln’s funeral guards.

The 27th Maine Infantry had been stationed in Washington, D.C., as the Confederates advanced nearby in 1863. The regiment’s enlistments were just coming to an end. The Army offered a Medal of Honor to those who stayed to defend the Union’s capital. About 300 out of 800 soldiers agreed to remain. However, no one kept good records of which soldiers stayed and which went home. As a result, Medals were issued in the name of all the soldiers and Lieutenant Colonel Mark Wentworth was put in charge of distributing the Medals to those who stayed. Due to the confusion, the 1916 Review Board determined that the basis for the awards were suspect and rescinded all 864 awards.

The second large group of Medals revoked were ones that went to the members of President Abraham Lincoln’s funeral guard. This group of 29 soldiers ceremoniously protected the president’s remains as they toured the country. The Review Board decided that those Medals were not awarded for valor and therefore erroneously bestowed.

My Substack

Email me at cgpodcast@pm.me.

6 Hours of Scott Horton: On with Smith, Murphy, Woods & Russell

Scott’s been making the libertarian podcast rounds with our friends Dave Smith – the very failed comedian – the great economist and successful comedian (on Twitter) Bob Murphy, historian and email marketing master Tom Woods, and Clint Russell of the Liberty Lockdown show.

Got 6 hours to burn? On an airplane? Stuck at the DMV? Sorry that’s happening to you, but watch this:

Part of the Problem – The Failed Assassination Of Donald Trump w/ Scott Horton

The Bob Murphy Show – Scott Horton Gives the Full Story of October 7

The Tom Woods Show – Iran in the Crosshairs Again?

Unfortunately I can’t seem to find an embeddable version of Clint’s episode, so you’ll just have to click this photo of Scott skating vert.

Liberty Lockdown – Time for Joe to GO: Biden to Step Down … w/ special guest Scott Horton

scottvert

Restricting Production

“At the bottom of the interventionist argument there is always the idea that the government or the state is an entity outside and above the social process of production, that it owns something which is not derived from taxing its subjects, and that it can spend this mythical something for definite purposes. This is the Santa Claus fable raised by Lord Keynes to the dignity of an economic doctrine and enthusiastically endorsed by all those who expect personal advantage from government spending. As against these popular fallacies there is need to emphasize the truism that a government can spend or invest only what it takes away from its citizens and that its additional spending and investment curtails the citizens’ spending and investment to the full extent of its quantity.

“While government has no power to make people more prosperous by interference with business, it certainly does have the power to make them less satisfied by restriction of production.”

Ludwig von Mises, Human Action

Ford Follies: The Carrier Grift That Just Keeps Giving

uss ford u.s. navy aircraft carrier

Stop building these things.

Even the corporate/access defense media is starting to sound the alarm bells on the multi-billion carrier fiasco that is the USS Ford which is probably causing plenty of public relations professionals in the Navy to go apoplectic.

As my readers know (Podcast Episode 034 and Dispatch # 006 on my Substack), I am a long-time critic of the carrier forces thinking that they are the chariot and crossbow of the 21st century in the Earthly realm of war craft.

It’s sad that the tens of billions the US Navy has utterly wasted on these homages to WWII naval combat continue to take center stage in the martial gaze of nostalgic navalists and the gullible public that bought into the charade.

The acquisition has been a constant shift to the right for delivery of the flawed and failed ship.

The first vessel was ordered by the government on Sept. 10, 2008. It was scheduled for delivery eight years later, but because of all the new technologies involved, it could not be deployed on time.

Currently, the ten Nimitz class aircraft carriers are the largest warships in the world, each designed for 50 years of service life with one mid-life refueling. The USS George H.W. Bush (CVN 77) commissioned on Jan. 10, 2009, and is the final ship of the Nimitz class of nuclear-powered aircraft carriers. The last Nimitz-class aircraft carrier is to be decommissioned in 2058.

Aircraft carriers are simply the most expensive missile sponges in the modern age.

The Navy is stuck in a strategic rut. The maritime branch seems to think it is still 1996, and that U.S. carriers can travel unmolested and dominate any distant target the Navy desires. 

That is not the case. 

The advent of anti-access/area-denial (A2/AD) systems complicates the old American view of carriers as the ultimate – and easiest – form of power projection. 

Even oversight entities are raising alarms bells, in this case the technical problems with launching and retrieving aircraft which seems to be a reasonable expectation for an aircraft carrier:

Tellingly, the Navy’s new reliability metric indicated “improvement in the reliability of the catapult and arresting gear systems” but it somehow lacked a direct tie to carrier performance.The Navy, when pressed for clarification, said, it “has addressed EMALS and AAG issues via a reliability growth plan that has resulted in an average Operational Availability of ~0.98 for the last 5,500 (~45%) launches and recoveries across both systems.” And yet, somehow, the carrier, despite great operational availability scores, struggled to qualify pilots. This gets at the root of the problem. Essentially, the Navy seems content to merely field something that looks and acts like a carrier. And by introducing another metric, the Service is refusing to even acknowledge the launch-and-recovery problems exist, effectively discrediting Pentagon weapons testers by muddying their very real concerns about the USS Ford’s ability to accomplish the platform’s central mission—generating more aircraft sorties faster than any previous U.S. aircraft carrier….

The Navy, in a statement that took nine days to generate, focused on the DOT&E’s primary measurement of EMALS and AAG reliability, or, in the technological lingo, “Mean cycles Between Operational Mission Failures”. The unsophisticated measure tallies the number of launches and recoveries that occur between system failures, and then averages them. As a mean, the Pentagon’s testing measure isn’t perfect, and can be overly influenced by
outliers.

There is some even more alarming details in the latest Congressional Research (2023) document here.

The USS Ford has a displacement of 100,000 tons.

Let me geek out on visualization for a moment.One billion dollar bills weighs one billion grams = 1 million kilograms = 2,204,622.62 lbs = 1102.31 us tons. One billion worth of 100 dollar bills = 22,046.22 lbs = 11.02 tons.

It would take over 14,000 tons of one dollar bills to pay for one carrier and the US Navy accepted a carrier that doesn’t reliably launch and retrieve aircraft (you had one job).

14,000 tons.

BTW, no urinals since the berthings are built gender-neutral. Only toilets for blue water cruising. Those of you who have been at sea know how problematic this is. Virtue signalling that every sailor on board will pay for when in any seas that aren’t smooth and glassy in aspect.

Stop building these things.

My Substack

Email me at cgpodcast@pm.me.

“Capitalism” Is about Freedom, Not Capital

“Why ‘capitalism’? Words have an unfortunate tendency to confuse. Free market capitalism is not really about capital, it is about handing control of the economy from the top to billions of independent consumers, entrepreneurs and workers, and allowing them to make their own decisions about what they think will improve their lives. So careless talk about ‘taking control of capitalism’ actually means that governments take control of citizens.

“But it doesn’t sound like it, does it? One of my intellectual heroes, Deirdre McCloskey, complains that the word capitalism gives the misleading impression that it is about the rule of capital, rather than liberating people to make their own economic decisions, which is really what the free market is about: ‘Capitalism’ is a scientific mistake compressed into a single word, a dramatically misleading coinage by our enemies, and still used by the sadly misled among out friends.’ So why do I use it? Because, no matter what we think of it, and no matter which word we would prefer for a system of private property and free markets, this is the word that has become inextricably linked to it, and if its supporters don’t fill that word with meaning, its opponents will.”

–Johan Norberg, The Capitalist Manifesto, 2023

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