U.S. to Base Warships in Singapore

Once a great British naval base, Singapore will soon be home to "one or two" of the U.S. Navy's new Littoral Combat Ships (LCS).

Defence Secretary Robert Gates announced plans for the base during his visit to Singapore last week. ... According to the Singaporean Defence Ministry, those steps include deploying to Singapore ‘one or two’ of the new Littoral Combat Ships current under construction in the United States. The 400-foot-long, high-speed warships, optimized for shallow-water operations, would be the first US military vessels permanently stationed in the tiny Southeast Asian country, although the Navy for many years has maintained a support facility there.

The linked article speculates that this might be a response to Chinese naval expansion

Chinese Naval Mines

Over at Strategy Page there is an interesting article called, "Where China is Mighty." It's an interesting historical summary that recounts the effectiveness of naval mines. I was unaware that China currently possesses the world's largest stockpile of naval mines. According to the article, it has 100,000 out of the world total of 250,000.

Mines are not glamorous, but they are deadly weapons, both on land and sea. Unfortunately, capacity to clear mines usually lags behind the ability to manufacture and deploy them.

The U.S., and other major navies, are hustling to improve their mine clearing capabilities. But based on historical experience, and technical advances, the smart money is still on the mines. ... While often ignored, naval mines, in general, are a formidable weapon. But they just don't get any respect. The historical record indicates that admirals should rethink their attitudes.

China ostensibly needs all those mines to protect its long coastline. But as the article points out, mines can also be deployed offensively. And China has a lot of them.

Greatest U.S. Military Victory?

National Review had a poll up yesterday asking readers to vote for the greatest U.S. military victory. I found that interesting, but I have problems with some of the selections and the results. I can't link the poll directly, but this was the list with percentage of votes:

• Trenton 8%
• Yorktown 12%
• Mexico City 1%
• Vicksburg 1%
• Gettysburg 9%
• Manila Bay 0%
• Belleau Wood 1%
• Midway 23%
• D-Day 34%
• The Bulge 5%
• Iwo Jima 5%
• Desert Storm 1%

Given those options, I voted for Yorktown. In my opinion it's difficult to argue with the victory that forced an end to Britain's reconquest attempt, and signaled that the U.S. would be established as an independent country. But looking at the two choices from the Revolutionary War reveals a glaring omission. Where's Saratoga? It was far more significant than Trenton and led to direct French involvement as an American ally, a development that was critical to U.S. success and crucial in the culminating victory at Yorktown.

Then there is the Civil War. I wouldn't nominate any battle of Americans fighting Americans as one of our greatest victories. That being said, 1% for Vicksburg vs. 9% for Gettysburg is ridiculous. In my opinion that just demonstrates that most people don't know much about military history. Gettysburg was a big important battle that turned back a heavy Confederate raid into Union territory. Arguably it crushed any chance for foreign intervention. But Vicksburg was not only a military masterpiece, it effectively severed the Confederacy into two pieces. At the very least it should be given equal weight.

I have no comment on the Spanish-American War or the WW1 selection, but then we come to WW2 and the biggest vote-getters. D-day? With the exception of Desert Storm -- which shouldn't have been included at all, given that it was a victory over a third-rate power that was completely outclassed -- all the other poll options are battles. Do they mean the entire Normandy Campaign, or just the landings? It is also worth pointing out that the Normandy campaign involved a massive British effort, and support from other allies including the Canadians, Free French, Poles and others. I wouldn't claim it as the greatest U.S. victory.

How about the Pacific? At sea, where is Leyte Gulf, the greatest naval battle of all time? If you have Iwo, why not Okinawa or Saipan? And where is Guadalcanal? Unlike Iwo, which for all the savage fighting was a foregone U.S. victory, Guadalcanal was in doubt for a long time and was fought on much more equal terms, on land, sea and air. In my opinion it was our greatest island victory in the Pacific. At sea I would vote for Midway, for similar reasons. The U.S. was actually at a force disparity yet inflicted a crushing defeat on the Imperial Japanese Navy.

Sarah Palin & Defense Spending

There's a story up at the Washington Post by Foreign Policy's Josh Rogin called, "Palin makes exception for military spending." Rogin writes that Sarah Palin is trying to prevent the tea party movement from supporting deep cuts in defense spending.

Sarah Palin is waging a battle inside the "tea party" movement to exempt defense spending from the group's small-government, anti-deficit fervor. ... There's growing concern among Republicans ... that national security spending ... could fall victim to the tea party's anti-establishment, anti-spending agenda.

When I saw the title of the story, my first thought was, why shouldn't she make an exception for military spending? National defense is one of the primary, and arguably the preeminent, functions of the federal government. There's no reason to automatically lump defense spending in with other far less justifiable government expenditures. On the other hand, if your goal is to get the deficit under control, let alone begin to slash the federal debt, there's no way you can exempt the massive military expenditures from potential cuts.

Democrats such as Barney Frank are currently proposing defense cuts. The problem with such proposals, is that Democrats almost always want to cut defense only -- while blowing ever more money on less necessary government expenditures and raising taxes to spend even more. Defense cuts should be on the table, but only as part of across the board reductions in federal spending.

Sarah Palin represents the opposite extreme from the typical Democratic position of cut defense while taxing and spending. Hers appears to be a reflexive and simplistic defense of military spending, regardless of arguments in favor of certain cuts. For example, here's Palin.

"Secretary Gates recently spoke about the future of the U.S. Navy. He said we have to 'ask whether the nation can really afford a Navy that relies on $3 [billion] to $6 billion destroyers, $7 billion submarines, and $11 billion carriers.' He went on to ask, 'Do we really need . . . more strike groups for another 30 years when no other country has more than one?' " Palin said. "Well, my answer is pretty simple: Yes, we can, and, yes, we do, because we must."

Her answer is simple alright, too simple to consider possible less expensive alternatives. There are naval blogs, such as New Wars, that regularly address such questions, so I'm not going to get into the technical details. But if Sarah Palin is going to address military issues in a substantive way, she needs to get away from knee-jerk defenses of defense systems simply because they are already in place. Big & expensive is not always the best way to go. If we can get more combat power and force projection from a collection of smaller, cheaper vessels than a single nuclear carrier, that type of option should be under consideration. And no vessel in the fleet should be exempt from cost/benefit analysis.

International Law, Blockades & Civilian Status

In the aftermath of the latest incident in the ongoing effort to delegitimize Israel, I thought I'd comment on a few issues that have come up. I rarely have much to say about international law, because -- if it isn't obvious by now -- I regard it as largely a myth, when talked about as if it were actual "law." International law is not binding on states -- unless they voluntarily bind themselves -- except on the weak facing a coalition of stronger states willing to enforce their interpretation. Greater powers not only make international law, they can interpret it to their liking, or ignore it altogether in many instances. Having said that, there are long standing customs & traditions, generally accepted, that form part of what is called international law. Two such areas that fall into that category are blockades, particularly the naval variety, and civilian status.

Blockades are a feature of naval warfare that have not faded into obscurity and disuse. Some may have forgotten, but there was a massive effort to blockade the former Yugoslavia in the 1990s during the NATO intervention. According to the LA Times, NATO naval forces stopped and inspected 74,000 ships during that period. There are two main requirements for a blockade under international law. First, the existence of a blockade must be public. And second, it must be "effective." Effective means that it must be enforced. You can't declare a blockade, not bother to enforce it, and then occasionally & selectively stop some ships. That's harassment of shipping, not a blockade. Israel's blockade of Gaza is public. Under international law it is required to enforce it. If it doesn't do so, and just allows ships to violate it, the blockade itself no longer has legal existence.

Now we come to the always contentious issue of civilian status, which has been blurred by the prevalence of non-state, irregular combatants. Civilians have traditionally had protected status in warfare under international law -- even though that status is sometimes ignored in practice. But that protected designation rests on civilians as noncombatants. Civilians who take up arms against military forces lose their protection and become combatants. Until fairly recently, such civilians were actually labeled as illegal or unlawful combatants, and often subject to savage reprisal, such as summary execution. This is particularly true of civilians who abuse their protected status to ambush military forces.

There has been much howling from anti-Israel types, as well sympathetic bleating from their useful idiots who claim to support the Jewish state, about Israel killing "civilians" in the latest incident. Most of those making such assertions love to whine about international law, yet they ignore it completely as it relates to blockades and civilian status. To maintain a blockade, Israel is required to enforce it. The standard method of doing so is for naval forces to stop ships and inspect them. This requires that naval personnel board the ships in question, as was done 74,000 times by NATO in the 1990s. If the civilians aboard a ship which is stopped ambush or otherwise attack the boarders, they give up their protected status as civilians and become combatants. What weapons they have available or choose to employ are completely irrelevant.  This would be true even if the ship in question was truly neutral, and not filled with terrorist supporters. A legal case could even be made that the Gaza flotilla was not comprised of neutral blockade runners, but rather was an enemy force attempting to break the blockade. In other words, those on board were in fact belligerents on the side of Hamas, and could have been sunk without boarding and inspection. But in any event, by their own actions the occupants of that ship gave up their protected civilian status when they chose to take up arms. The killing was entirely justified under long-recognized principles of international law -- not to mention basic common sense.

India Joins Nuclear Sub Club

Today India became only the sixth country to launch it's own nuclear-powered submarine, joining an exclusive club alongside the U.S., Russia, China, France and the UK.  INS Arihant (which means "Destroyer of Enemy") is the first of a planned class of five vessels. Armament will include 12 nuclear-tipped ballistic missiles, dramatically increasing India's nuclear deterrent capability and ability to retaliate after a first-strike.