Major defense firm says decoupling impossible.

Greg Hayes, chief executive of Raytheon, said the company had “several thousand suppliers in China and decoupling . . . is impossible”.

Insanity. Basically the outcome of a war with China will rest on whether China decides to supply us with ammunition.https://t.co/kk3EFdDeLg

— Matt Stoller (@matthewstoller) June 20, 2023

Interesting.

It might be price prohibitive but it isn't impossible.  This ladies and gentlemen is the weak underbelly of our defenses.

We have corporations that are not interested in a possible conflict but only interested in profit and the bottom line.

Maybe that is how it should be.

But considering the public/private partnership that many of these firms have with the DoD, a little strong arming might be necessary and even called for.

The reality?

If our domestic firms refuse to play by our rules then we should open it up to the S. Koreans, Japanese, and EU countries.  If they're willing to play by our rules of the road then they should be given access.

Is it possible that the "buy America" act is actually hamstringing us now?

The Turks are gonna rage about this.

Pentagon Deputy Press Secretary Sing: (Why Türkiye is sanctioned for the S-400 air defence system purchase but India is not)

There are two different cases here.

We support India to diversify its military equipment. pic.twitter.com/H3FAHB5RK6

— Clash Report (@clashreport) June 20, 2023

Open Comment Post. Ukraine-Russia War. 20 June 23

YUSHAN 1401

 

Taiwan commissioned its first home-built large amphibious warship 19 June at Kaoshiung. The YUSHAN 1401 is the first of a projected four 10,000-ton LPD amphibious dock dock ships under the Hongyun Project https://t.co/6rsf6tmbN9 pic.twitter.com/eaNumoRzkR

— Chris Cavas (@CavasShips) June 20, 2023

Open Comment Post. 20 June 23

 

Modest Proposal. Send Army & Marine Corps pilots to the US Coast Guard for a 6 month rotation to perfect flying in bad weather

See this Instagram video by @airplanetechnology https://t.co/EKdoDrBcGX

— Solomon (@SnafuBlogspot) June 20, 2023

Name the military service that flies helos in the filthiest weather on a consistent basis.

It ain't the Army, Navy or Marine Corps.  Its the US Coast Guard. If combat is coming in the Pacific and if distributed operations are gonna be the way to go, with the added drama of having to evacuate people that are injured or in the water in all kinds of weather than making flying in bad weather is gonna part of the process.

Risk is easily assumed when it comes to our own gear and how much we have.  Risk is assumed in these new battle plans.

Not being able to evacuate personnel or save people in the water in bad weather is something that should not be risked. To keep the faith it needs to be worked on in peace instead of ad hoc solutions during war.

China to build training facility in Cuba

 

China negotiating with Cuba to build new military training facility, raising the prospect of Chinese troops near the U.S. - WSJ

— BNO News (@BNONews) June 20, 2023

What will we soon see?

We'll see Chinese jets flying up and down our east coast and all over the Gulf Of Mexico.

Should we be alarmed?  Nope.  WE have troops stationed a stone's throw (metaphorically) from China, sail our ships near their coasts etc.

Just part of the superpower games.  Congress will wig out but its nothing special.

Kyiv’s forces may be temporarily halting their operations to ‘re-evaluate their tactics’

 via Evening Standard

The Wall Street Journal similarly reported on 17 June that Ukrainian forces “have mostly paused their advances in recent days” as the command in Kyiv re-examines tactics.

Washington-based think tank the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) said in its latest update on the war that these reports are consistent with their recent observations of the scale and approach of localised Ukrainian counterattacks in southern and eastern parts of the country.

It added that “Ukraine has not yet committed the majority of its available forces to the counteroffensive operations and does not yet appear to have launched its main effort.”

Here 

They go on to add that we haven't see the majority of available forces.

Why?

Because they're trying to keep morale up in the West.

The reality from my chair?

You don't piss away limited resources even in probing attacks.  You have a finite number of tanks, apcs, etc.

I posted a tweet from a politician that said the Ukraine ran into a steel wall.  MANY ON THIS BLOG said all kinds of nonsense.  He was right and so was I.  This counteroffensive has been feeble as fuck.  Pausing is the right thing to do.  Men die in war.  We understand that.  Wasting their lives on fucked up strategy is sinful. 

Ukrainian special ops assault Russian trench system

Ukrainian SOF has approached from the rear to the enemy’s positions on Southern direction and destroyed 10 russian occupiers. pic.twitter.com/cp5nX5WChs

— SPECIAL OPERATIONS FORCES OF UKRAINE (@SOF_UKR) June 19, 2023

Interesting. I wonder if Western special ops would do this type work. To be honest I hope not. I would expect them to be carrying out deep attacks, destroying depots far behind the frontlines, guiding missile strikes etc.

Everyone is searching for lessons from this war.  Is one of them that Special Ops takes a back seat to conventional forces on this big stage?

Lastly I have to wonder if US special ops in particular has seen an erosion of certain skill sets during the last 20 years.

Everything became raids, raids and more raids.  Except for the Rangers and MARSOC (being the designated raid units) the rest of the community has (or had) well defined roles without much overlap.  That changed, will it change back now that peer vs peer conflict is here?

We need an order of battle for the Ukraine - Russia war

We need an order of battle for this war. A certain Twitter guy became the go-to for info on vehicle losses (did a great job too) but in my opinion that is just a modified throwback to the old Vietnam "body count" metric to see who's winning the war.

An order of battle would give us a better view of info that would actually tell us the current state of fighting.

How many Russian/Ukrainian units have become combat ineffective, reconstituted?  How many have been formed from foreign volunteers or built out of members of units that have been destroyed.

Logistics guys are focused on the number of vehicles destroyed, ammunition used etc.  Its an essential part of understanding the fight and keeping their forces in it.  Intel guys are focused on the units, where they're at and how they're equipped.  They're sweeping social media to get a peek at the moral.  Finally they're watching the fight to see which ones are effective and which ones appear vulnerable.

TLDR.  Anyone doing an order of battle for this war?