WarNotes: A Conflict Podcast

• Ep 012 "Fixing Fight Club: Closing Thoughts on War in the 21st Century"

  After nearly twelve hours of a blistering and unapologetic critique of the American military, I wanted to post a conclusion where I can tie a bow on the jeremiad and offer some cogent and abbreviated recommendations on the road forward.In this new venture, I wanted to expand my portfolio of investigation and elucidation on war in the broader scope. I wanted to leave the more arcane and less well-known milieu of the other warfare to examine conventional war and the emerging tableau of near-peer and peer fighting that I am dead certain will raise its bloody hand in this century because humans simply can't help themselves.I think theWarNotes series has been 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.I have purposely not done an episode on either Space Force or the special operations forces complex in the US and allied armories that is near and dear to my heart; there is plenty of other larger items to attend to for now.I have painted a dim and shabby picture of the state of American and western arms in this series and taken a deep dive in the succeeding episodes of what America can do to create a more effective military in the remainder o the 21st century; maybe the defense intellectuals and personnel at the Pentagon and the halls of western military power can pause to reassess, re-frame and find a more realistic means to exercise martial power.Despite what you may think, the US conventional forces are in terminal collapse and completely unprepared for 21st century peer conflict.I'll offer some more recommendations and a path forward.References:Sun Tzu The Art of WarCarl von Clausewitz On WarMiyamoto Musashi A Book of Five Rings: The Classic Guide to StrategyH. John Poole The Last Hundred Yards: The NCO’s Contribution to WarfareChristian Brose The Kill Chain: Defending America in the Future of High-Tech WarfareQiao Liang & Wang Xiangsui Unrestricted Warfare: China's Master Plan to Destroy AmericaMy SubstackEmail at [email protected]

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• Ep 011 "Fixing Fight Club: The Death of Manned Air Power"

  The US Air Force is at a turning point in 21st century warfare and in danger of whistling past the graveyard if they fail to take notice and action on the emerging Revolutions in Military Affairs (RMA).The era of manned combat aircraft is coming to a close.The era of manned bombers with gravity bombs is over.The era of fixed site nuclear missiles is in great peril.The era of hyper-velocity missiles whether high parabola of IRBM/ICBM or Fractional Orbital Bombardment System (FOBS) glide vehicles.If the pilot mafia doesn't do something about what is coming, the result will be cataclysmic.The Pentagon will not do the right thing, regretfully.References:A Concise History of the U.S. Air ForceJeffrey J. Smith Tomorrow's Air Force: Tracing the Past, Shaping the FutureDavid Hambling Swarm Troopers: How Small Drones Will Conquer the WorldGarrett Graff Raven Rock: The Story of the U.S. Government's Secret Plan to Save Itself--While the Rest of Us DiePaul Ozorak Underground Structures of the Cold War: The World BelowDaniel Ellsberg The Doomsday Machine: Confessions of a Nuclear War PlannerNassim Taleb Incerto: Fooled by Randomness, The Black Swan, The Bed of Procrustes, Antifragile, Skin in the GameMark Gunzinger & Bryan Clark Winning the Salvo Competition: Rebalancing America’s Air and Missile DefenseChristian Brose The Kill Chain: Defending America in the Future of High-Tech WarfareMy SubstackEmail at [email protected]

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• Ep 010 "Fixing Fight Club: Naval Warfare in the 21st Century"

  In the future near-peer and peer fight, salvo competition and missiles will be the preeminent means by which one country will kinetically overwhelm the other in a fight. I discuss the way the US Navy is in an existential hazard of being woefully under-prepared to meet the threat if Western forces go toe toe with regional hegemons in the East or West.Let’s anticipate the disasters now that are the Spanish in the English Channel in 1588, the British Royal Navy at Jutland in 1916, and the discovery in WWII all these battleships were not really capital ships, or had adequate armaments, yet their political dimensions compel not only their continuous construction but are the most devastating when lost.The aircraft carrier has been a signature component of US naval power and prestige for more than a century. The utility has continued to diminish since the end of WWII. The tremendous disadvantage of putting so much manpower and treasure into these single use leviathan systems in the modern world of distributed missile and PGM systems, emerging near-peer & peer adversaries and concentration of power in vulnerable systems is a recipe for future disaster.The US Navy surface fleet is in tatters and shattered by readiness, maintenance and armament issues that are critical indicators of a navy totally unprepared.More on the carrier dilemma in Chasing Ghosts Episode #034 and Dispatch #006.References:Gregory Vistica Fall from Glory: The Men Who Sank the U.S. NavyMichael Junge Crimes of Command: in the United States Navy, 1945-2015Gerry Doyle Carrier Killer: China's Anti-Ship Ballistic Missiles and Theater of Operations in the early 21st CenturyDavid Lee Russell Early U.S. Navy Carrier Raids, February-April 1942: Five Operations That Tested a New Dimension of American Air PowerJeff Vandenengel Questioning the Carrier: Opportunities in Fleet Design for the U.S. NavyJeff Vandenengel interview on Midrats with CDR SalamanderIvan Gogin Fighting ships of the PEOPLE LIBERATION ARMY NAVY 1949 - 2023Jerry Hendrix Retreat From Range: The Rise and Fall of Carrier AviationMy SubstackWrite me at [email protected]

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• Ep 009 "Fixing Fight Club: Just Say No to NATO"

  ***Just discovered there was an another audio synchronization problem that truncated from 59:00 to 50:00; it is now fixed.***It is time for America to completely reassess alliances and partnership around the world starting with NATO and then working its way down the list of useless and toxic relationships and promises to commit American blood and treasure to flashpoints planet-wide.NATO insisted after the wall 1989-91 fell that the NATO blob would NOT expand eastward.It did.America should take a non-interventionist pause and get its internal house in order before standing astride the world again and lighting fires that never go away and continuously make things worse.Stop the madness.References:Winning The Salvo Competition: Rebalancing America’s Air And Missile DefensesThe Russian Reconnaissance Fire Complex Comes of AgeNyet Means Nyet (William Burns 2008)Pat Buchanan Where Does NATO Enlargement End?DoS Cable: NATO ENLARGEMENT: RUSSIAN ASSERTIONS REGARDING THE TWO-PLUS-FOUR AGREEMENT ON GERMAN UNIFICATIONNavy Matters Get the US Out of NATOBooks:Sevim Dagdelen NATO: A Reckoning with the Atlantic AllianceMatt Kennard The Racket: A Rogue Reporter vs The American EmpireDaniel Ellsberg The Doomsday Machine: Confessions of a Nuclear War PlannerScott Horton Provoked: How Washington Started the New Cold War with Russia and the Catastrophe in UkraineNassim Taleb Incerto: Fooled by Randomness, The Black Swan, The Bed of Procrustes, Antifragile, Skin in the GameMark Gunzinger & Bryan Clark Winning the Salvo Competition: Rebalancing America’s Air and Missile DefenseChristian Brose The Kill Chain: Defending America in the Future of High-Tech WarfareMy SubstackEmail at [email protected]

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• Ep 008 "Fixing Fight Club: Reimagining Land Warfare or Else"

  ***Just discovered there was an audio synchronization problem that truncated from 1:11 to 0:50; it is now fixed.***I take the time to discuss some of the conventional ramifications of modern warfare and book & article recommendations that have given me a deeper and more nuanced understanding of why wars begin and end as they do.Robotics, autonomous targeting and hyper-velocity munitions are democratizing the battle field in a way heretofore unimagined. Drones are the new "low tech" answer to the First World's exquisite military platform that are over priced and have the same provenance of battleships planet-wide in January 1942.The electronic emissions environment in future conflicts will be a two-way street that will put any active acquisition sensors and attached effectors in the hazard if they emit and remain in one place.Autonomous targeting will become more and more relevant as the speed of munitions increases and the salvo competition costs are driven down.Hyper-velocity munitions are here to stay.The US Army and all land forces in the allied nations in the first world are in for a dramatic wake-up call.The life of the light infantryman will change significantly since for the first time in human history, the cost of hunting individual soldiers and small groups of soldiers in an effective fashion has reached a cost in concert with technology."Quantity has a quality all of its own." - Thomas A. Callaghan Jr.** I cover these issues in detail on my Chasing Ghosts podcast in Episodes 19, 24, 33-34, 47-48 and 53-54. **References:The 2024 Army Force Structure Transformation Initiative (CRS)A Retrospective on RMA, 2000-2020.The Russian Reconnaissance Fire Complex Comes of AgeArmy Futures Command Concept for Fires 2028Christian Brose The Kill Chain: Defending America in the Future of High-Tech WarfareLester Grau & Charles K. Bartles The Russian Way of War: Force Structure, Tactics, and Modernization of the Russian Ground ForcesGeorgii Samoilovich Isserson G.S. Isserson and the War of the Future: Key Writings of a Soviet Military TheoristSun Tzu The Art of WarCarl von Clausewitz On WarH. John Poole The Last Hundred Yards: The NCO’s Contribution to WarfareQiao Liang & Wang Xiangsui Unrestricted Warfare: China's Master Plan to Destroy AmericaMy SubstackEmail at [email protected].

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