It Takes More Than Sex Appeal to Beat China in a War

Alexandra Daddario

Speculation is rife that U.S. and China will eventually at war.
I mean real bloodshed war. Not pussy trade war created by Donald Trump which is likely to kill folks rather than soldiers.

It Takes More Than Sex Appeal to Beat China in a War

Mariners must disentangle the passions they feel toward their platforms from cool calculation if they hope to design fleets fit to execute strategy.

by James Holmes

With apologies to Nassim Nicholas Taleb : never underestimate the impact—and value—of the highly mundane.

Seafaring folk, including yours truly, have a habit of falling in love with glitzy armaments and platforms such as aircraft carriers, stealth fighters, and destroyers festooned with sensors and missiles. The reasoning goes something like this: frontline vessels and aircraft do battle for command of sea and sky. Without them the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps may never win command. And if they cannot win command they cannot leverage command for operational and strategic effect. The sea becomes a bulwark against U.S. and allied strategy rather than an avenue into embattled zones. Maritime strategy falters.

Alessandra Ambrosio

By that logic it follows that top-end hardware should hold pride of place in budgetary deliberations and fleet design. The services should procure lesser implements on a not-to-interfere basis with capital ships. They should forego acquisitions of, say, unglamorous diesel attack submarines for fear of siphoning finite shipbuilding resources from nuclear-powered attack boats.

But there’s more to it than objective reckoning of priorities. A majesty and allure enshrouds major platforms beyond their strictly military value. They conjure up affection, and affection colors debates over force structure and strategy. Heck, sailors live on board our ships. Ships become home—and home is where the heart is. Or as strategist Edward Luttwak maintains, aircraft carriers, destroyers, and nuclear submarines exude “ sex appeal .” Hence the throngs of visitors that descend on New York, San Francisco, and other seaports during Fleet Week . Mariners must disentangle the passions they feel toward their platforms from cool calculation if they hope to design fleets fit to execute strategy.

A prime way to do that is to distinguish between “platforms” and “capabilities,” undertaking the basic linguistic hygiene beloved of thinkers from Confucius to George Orwell . Naming things with precision cleanses the language used in debates over fleet design and in turn makes for dispassionate analysis. I seldom have much use for joint publications, but in this case the definition of capability put forth in the Defense Department Dictionary of Military and Associated Terms illuminates. A capability, says the dictionary, is not a whizbang. It is “the ability to complete a task or execute a course of action under specified conditions and level of performance.” It’s the ability to do a job—not the tool used to do it.

Viewed in that light, choosing which particular tool to add to the toolkit becomes a secondary matter. In fact, the wise handyman selects the cheapest, simplest, least sexy implement adequate to his task. Doing so saves money while getting the job done. The artisanal approach—or as the amphibian pundit CDR Salamander puts it , mariners’ ingrained preference for “ Tiffany” ships, planes, and armaments—wastes resources while self-imposing heavy opportunity costs. Heaping excess capacity on a platform costs money, manpower, and other resources that might go to likewise vital purposes, or to buying more widgets and thus adding mass to the fleet. Quantity, after all, boasts a quality all its own.

Nicki Minaj

Describing implements as capabilities, then, obscures the distinction between hardware and the purposes hardware exists to serve. For instance, it’s fair to say that “the ability to render humanitarian and disaster assistance” comes second to capabilities aimed at defeating foes. It’s an important capability. But in a zero-sum competition for resources, it must yield to capabilities that help the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps win maritime command and project power onto land afterward. These are the sea services’ topmost functions and must take precedence over desirable but less pressing priorities. Platforms specially designed for HA/DR must rank behind capital ships or ships that police the sea in the pecking order.

But by the same token certain mundane capabilities should rank high in the pecking order—and so must the humdrum platforms deployed to carry out missions deriving from those capabilities. Some everyday capabilities act as enablers, helping glamour platforms fulfill their potential. Others advance strategic purposes in their own right.

In the former category consider a capability we might describe as “the ability to sustain fleet operations in distant theaters for X weeks or months in the face of opposition from a peer competitor.” Underway replenishment has been a core U.S. Navy competency at least since World War II. Prominent historical figures have attested that it was decisive to American success in the Pacific. Without that capability—without the bullets, beans, and black oil delivered by unassuming supply ships—the battle fleet quickly wilts under combat conditions. It may as well go away once it runs low on fuel or food or expends its ordnance. Without logistics the fleet is little more than a collection of glorified yachts or merchantmen puttering around off enemy coasts for no apparent reason.

I don’t know… If you are interested in warefare, check out the rest of the article HERE.
I say make love, not war.
Ana De Armas