Nov 23, 2024
Nov 23, 2024
Continued from:
Evolution Of Wings, Calendars, Counting, War, Politics & Society
In modern wars, the side which achieves air supremacy for itself and air denial to the enemy has total air dominance and thus can carry out devastating bombing of the massed infantry, artillery and even surface navy of the opponent as easily as shooting fish in a barrel.
The US has mastered this strategy to perfection by innovation, technology and heavy financial outlay. It has the best stealth technology which makes its F-22 Raptor fighters and the B-2 bombers with extremely low radar cross sections (signature) and supersonic speed even on cruise. It has developed AESA radars which can pick up enemy planes at a greater distance and sooner, even while shifting bands to evade detection of their own radar by reduced on time state and varying frequencies. In addition it has beyond visual range, accurate missiles with multi-Mach (3to 5 times the speed of sound, 2000 to 4000 miles per hour and faster than the Mach2 or lesser speed of most planes). This allows the US to destroy the enemy air-force with minimum or no plane losses of its own. This is what Israel did to the Syrian air-force in 1982.
Another strategy used by the US and Israel is to send in high speed planes at high altitudes to force the enemy to switch on its radar, SAM and anti-aircraft batteries which are then attacked by anti-radar and precision guided missiles and destroyed (HARM or Anti-radiation missiles). This tactic SEAD (suppression of enemy air defenses) was used against Iraq and Serbia. Additionally, laser guided bombs are used by bombers in the second phase of the air war to destroy or disable runways to prevent enemy fixed wing aircraft from taking off and bombing hangars to destroy or disable stored enemy aircraft on the ground.
All these allow complete dominance of the air by the US or similar powers. It was used against Iraq for years to enforce the no fly zone and during the 1991 and 2003 Iraq wars. Israel used it against Lebanon on more than one occasion and NATO is using it presently against Libya. The newest strategy is to use unmanned combat aerial vehicles (UCAV) like Predator and Global Hawk. These planes are operated in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, Yemen while the operator (Electronic pilot) is in Nevada, so even if the plane is shot down, there are no human casualties and these planes are much cheaper than the regular fighters, bombers or interceptors as they don’t need very costly protective technology (see “What US Air Power Actually Does” by Tom Engelhardt at on March17th, 2011).
Once total air superiority is achieved, massed infantry and artillery become easy targets as in the 1967 war between Israel and the Arabs, the Pakistani army in Bangladesh for India in the Bangladesh War, Iraqi army in the 1991 and 2003 wars and the Taliban on the Shomali plain in the Afghan War in 2001-2002. To achieve air dominance over a country far from the attacking country’s airbases, it needs an aircraft carrier. That is why the US has large nuclear powered aircraft carriers and uses AWACS for detection and J-STARS for counter electronic measures. Some of its HARM (anti-radiation) missiles can be released at a distance over 200 kilometers from the target and cruise missiles or Tomahawks can hit targets accurately from a distance of 1000 kilometers or more.
Libya does not have the technology or weaponry to defend itself against the US or NATO and Qadafi is just an idiot and a thug, but other countries are worried about being next. Just as the US attack on Iraq and Afghanistan made North Korea and Iran go for nuclear weapons recently, Russia (USSR) after Hiroshima, China after the Korean War, Israel after the 1956 war and Eisenhower’s ultimatum, Pakistan after the Bangladesh war and India’s foolish and overly late 1974 nuclear test, and India’s idiot leaders after the Panama and Yugoslavia wars, the lights are burning all night in China, Iran, Pakistan and India military headquarters about how to immunize themselves from regime change by no fly zones.
China as usual is first off the mark by oil and gas pipelines from Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan and Russia to ensure that a significant portion of its energy supplies are too far from US planes and on the territory of nations friendly to the US or too strong to attack or even bully. It is also developing mobile air defenses and accurate ballistic missiles and their radar or GPS guidance, which can attack US carriers a thousand miles from its Pacific coast which is vulnerable from US carrier based aircraft. It is enveloping Taiwan in such an economic and diplomatic bear hug that within a decade Taiwan will beg to become part of China, adding to China’s foreign exchange reserves and technology and bring with it some newer US military technology of Taiwan’s weaponry (like Aegis system, AESA radar, Patriot PAC SAMs, P3 Orions, Apache and Black-Hawk helicopters, AIM and Hellfire missiles and Hawkeye STARS). It is also rapidly increasing its submarine fleet including nuclear ones and developing its own J-20 stealth aircraft to match the F-22 Raptor. It has already successfully tested its ant-satellite missile in 2007 and its cyber- warfare prowess to neutralize the US satellite, GPS and coordinated net-centric war abilities by coordinating its land, sea and air assets.
Iran is banking on fomenting unrest in Lebanon, Bahrain and its partially purchased equivalent of Russia’s S-300 anti-aircraft system licensed by Russia to China and ultimately on the equivalent of Israel’s Samson option of bringing the house down by closing the Strait of Hormuz. Pakistan probably is banking on Al Qaeda to come to its rescue with purloined nuclear assets. The Indian military has spent five billion dollars buying Israeli Spyders, Baraks and DRDO Akash SAMs because these are mobile air defenses compared to the older static ones the Sa-300 Pechoras of Russian make, but its trump card is to match its politicians and bureaucrats in corrupt practices like the Adarsh housing scam and more recently the 95 golf courses scam on defense properties (see the Indian CAG Rekha Gupta’s report and recent Financial Times article, another feather in the Congress government’s shame and dunce cap after 2G, Hasan Ali, Bofors, Thomas appointment etc.). If these don’t work the last option could be to send all India’s politicians and bureaucrats into space where they will become space debris and disable all of America and China’s space assets and at the same time make India a cleaner nation and a less polluted society.
Once again India will claim the high path like that of Gandhi for its idiot sycophant leaders who are so full of only hot air, as they will have non-violently sacrificed themselves for the good of the world by being hoisted into space by their own petard! The unfortunate consequence of the crippling of all the US space assets is that it would compel the US to fight with troops on the ground, but before any such escalation has bad or undesirable consequences, it will instantaneously turn the Republicans and Democrats, Obama, Bush and all the Republican and Tea Party hopefuls immediately from princes or princesses into oily frogs and they would thus have to seek asylum in Saudi Arabia with their campaign chests, and finally let the US become a democratic republic, which will immediately eliminate its addiction to wars and allow our troops to come home right away and not increase casualties and lastly, even balance the budget.
For having done such a brilliant strategic analysis of such a difficult situation, I have to request each of the readers of my article to send a postcard to the Norwegian Nobel Peace Prize Committee nominating me for the prize. If some of you don’t think I deserve it then you can write the following limerick instead of my nomination.
There was this committee from Norway
Which hung by its heels from the doorway
It said to the Whitehouse man
Who waged wars sitting on his can
You win the prize one more way!
Continued to: Evolution of Politics & Society
02-Apr-2011
More by : Gaurang Bhatt, MD
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India isnt the problem, Pakistan is the problem |
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Those who read my writings know my views on the sins and follies of imperialism and the curse of religions. The current series of articles is on the evolution of various things and it is not possible to emphasize every detail. It should be obvious that the only article I referenced was the scathingly critical one by Tom Engelhardt and not the spurious lies of the president, secretary of state, the Pentagon or the generally genuflecting American media. The sinful atrocities and torture by imperial powers are something I have railed about frequently in my writings and concluded that these are the inevitable paths of a lust for power. See my seven part article - Random Thoughts US History - Lesser Known Facts, Analogies & Surmises The whole idea of smart bombs and pinpoint targeting from the air at a height of 20,000 feet is a lie and propaganda used to sooth our consciences, while sweeping the slaughter of innocents under the rug. Equally the idea of civilizing the natives and spreading Christianity is a subterfuge to colonize, exploit and by such means oppress and enslave the weak and enrich the strong. While Paul had a broader vision and sympathy for non-Jews and others, he was nevertheless a brainwashed individual and a creature of an era of the gullible and the superstitious, to believe in resurrection, immaculate conception, the father, son and holy ghost and such sundry mumbo jumbo nonsense, like gods with faces of elephants, monkeys, crocodiles, jackals, lionesses, cows, trichophilia or tyrannotheos prepucephilus. Religion Parentage of ignorance and fears, Deprived of milk of human kindness, Gorging on blood, sweat and tears, Promising all, delivering less and less. A Ponzi scheme at its very best, Concocted by scheming priests, To intimidate the masses, lest, They intrude upon elitist feasts. Denuded of reason or even sense, Intoxicated by a fanatical brew, Luring the deprived and the dense, Hindu, Moslem, Sikh, Christian, Jew. What relegates does also choke; Freedom does leave room to fail; Faith channels minds with a yoke, Hate looms large in its terrible tale. I am sick to death of preachers And prophets, who always prey, What merciful god, O teachers, Created the kind Ichneumonidae. I am realizing that arguing with someone who is guided by faith and not reason and beliefs but not facts is a pointless waste of time and effort. I only hope and consolation is that it helps to inform other readers and stimulates their thinking. gaurang bhatt |
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You mention at the end of a classic demonstration of not being able to see the wood for the trees that brevity is the soul of wit. One cannot deny your cramming in of so much information, but is it relevant to the point I made that you do not mention human error or indeed the potential to error of execution in all this acquistion of weaponry by all and sundry? Ah, apparently you do by reference, and by implication, quoted in full: "These planes are operated in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, Yemen while the operator (Electronic pilot) is in Nevada, so even if the plane is shot down, there are no human casualties and these planes are much cheaper than the regular fighters, bombers or interceptors as they don’t need very costly protective technology (see “What US Air Power Actually Does” by Tom Engelhardt at on March17th, 2011)." I don't see it, and I am told I don't connect the dots to get a full picture. Rather, it is I who remind you of the reference to collateral damage in TE's article, which by any law of good journalism you should have made explicit. As to your comment on Christ it is not prudence but ignorance that held your peace, which you unwisely decided to break exposing the ignorance. It is St Paul's own words, 'I live not I but Christ lives in me' that rebuts your claim of Christ being 'parochial'. It is ignorance of the Trinity that draws a distinction between Christ and the Holy Spirit whom Christ sends to continue his mission on eart after his ascension. |
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At first, prudence kept me from commenting on Christ and Christianity, but on second thought, I think it is worth sharing truth and knowledge. Christ was a good man, but still in some ways pro-establishment as in his early phase -- “Render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar’s, and unto God the things that are God’s”. He was one of the latter day obsessed reform minded Jews and his religion like all others was and is an opiate for the masses. Christ was too parochial and there would be no Christianity with only Christ. The genius behind Christianity was its marketer, Paul. He was Jewish too, but he sensed the deep dissatisfaction of the times and was not only more ecumenical, but also his mirror neurons saw the pain of humanity, not only oppressed or misguided and exploited Jews. Thus on the road to Damascus, he had his Eureka moment and the rest is history. But the time had to be right. The Roman republic was dying or dead and the Roman empire was troubled for the first 100 to 150 years AD, then had good 150 years and when it hit its second cataract, a gullible and superstitious Constantine in the Byzantium had his epiphany. The way Christianity was embraced by the Slavs is a really funny story (almost a joke like the Greek myth of the Judgment of Paris). Anyway if you are really interested read Robert Wright's book -- "The Evolution Of God" As three of the better presidents said in reference to wars, alliances and foreign entanglements, 1) "With malice towards none ------"--Abraham Lincoln 2)"[America] goes not abroad, in search of monsters to destroy. She is the well-wisher to the freedom and independence of all. She is the champion and vindicator only of her own. She will commend the general cause by the countenance of her voice, and the benignant sympathy of her example. She well knows that by once enlisting under other banners than her own, were they even the banners of foreign independence, she would involve herself beyond the power of extrication, in all the wars of interest and intrigue, of individual avarice, envy, and ambition, which assume the colors and usurp the standard of freedom." --- John Quincy Adams 3) Against the insidious wiles of foreign influence (I conjure you to believe me, fellow-citizens) the jealousy of a free people ought to be constantly awake, since history and experience prove that foreign influence is one of the most baneful foes of republican government. But that jealousy to be useful must be impartial; else it becomes the instrument of the very influence to be avoided, instead of a defense against it. Excessive partiality for one foreign nation and excessive dislike of another cause those whom they actuate to see danger only on one side, and serve to veil and even second the arts of influence on the other. Real patriots who may resist the intrigues of the favorite are liable to become suspected and odious, while its tools and dupes usurp the applause and confidence of the people, to surrender their interests. -- George Washington Ridicule and sarcastic humor sometimes illuminates the fog of confusion more clearly than serious dialogue because it reveals that pretentiousness and pomposity are but ineffective masks to hide innate worthlessness and America, unfortunately has had a lot of worthless presidents like most countries, but fortunately a few good ones who have steered it right. gaurang bhatt |
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I will try to counter your many statements as briefly as I can. You are confusing my ridicule of the prize and its recipients with making jokes. It is an insult to the intelligence and a mockery of humanity to award Nobel Peace Prizes to terrorists like Arafat and Begin, war criminals like Teddy Roosevelt, Kissinger, Shimon Peres and such others. The award to Obama in the hope and anticipation of sensible and humane behavior compared to the anencephalic warmonger vegetation of a shrub (W), was undeserved and showed how inane, naive and non-deliberative the Norwegian Peace Prize Committee is. Obama continued the wars of W and has started new ones, hence the cartoon by Prof. Bhavsar at my request to use his graphics talent and the tongue in cheek request and limerick. The technical elaboration of air wars was to inform the general reader of the not so obvious implication and the consequences of not only collateral damage but also the natural consequences and counter-strategy of the bombed which snowball into a vicious cycle. That is why the reference to Tom Engelhardt's article which emphasizes the new meaning of air wars as safe turkey shoots and thus lead to terrorists, insurgents, freedom fighters whichever they may be, using civilians as decoys, shelters and hostages, with even more collateral damage to innocent civilians. Of course there are the Osama Bin Ladens and his western doppelgangers who espouse that those who silently connive at tyranny and injustice (like civilians in the occupied or exploited middle east) and Western citizens (who benefit economically from the exploitative policies of democratic governments which oppress the Muslims and which the citizens freely voted for and elected) should all be considered combatants, not immune from attacks. That is why in part one I emphasized the changing nature of war starting from the Peloponesian War to the Nazi blitz of London and the Allied bombing of Dresden and Tokyo or US bombing of Korea, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Iraq, Serbia as a specific means to intimidate and terrorize the civilian population of an enemy during war merely to break their morale and the will to fight of the opponent nation. Those who think like you are unable to connect the dots and cannot understand that Iran's anger stems from its exploitation by the Czarist Russia and Imperial British India which nullified its 1906 constitution, occupied it during WW!, overthrew its elected Mossadeq government in 1953 and trained the Shah's secret police SAVAK to torture ordinary Iranians and then as a quid pro quo gave the Shah asylum for medical reasons, but this was naturally misinterpreted by the Iranians as the beginning of de ja vu and cunningly exploited by Ayatollah Khomeini to take our diplomats hostage and control the Iranian government. This led to the failed Carter rescue and instigating our megalomaniac puppet and creation, Saddam to attack Iraq (It was the CIA which brought Saddam to power by engineering a coup). The ruthless Ayatollah Khomeini used the war to engineer a theocratic coup and the war created our worst opponents like the Revolutionary Guards and Basij in Iran, just as our foolishness in Afghanistan created the Mujaheddin and then and now the Taliban. Subsequently we gave Saddam the means to produce chemical weapons and turned a blind eye to his use of them on the Iranians in dereliction of our duty as a superpower with a Permanent seat and veto in the UN Security Council. We then armed Saddam, gave him food aid and provided reconnaissance satelite data of Iranian troop movements and shot down an Iranian civilian airliner. No wonder the Iranians, like the North Koreans want nuclear weapons to resist regime change pressures like we are putting on Qadafi. Those who cannot see the whole picture and due to their amnesia or tardiness saw the movie only from the point of diplomats being taken hostage, naturally see it all as solely and initially Iran's fault. Similarly Hitler was a demon, but until one knows about the unfair treatment by Britain of Germany before WW1 and the egotistic idiocy of Woodrow Wilson (which led to sinking of the League of Nations) which allowed crazy France and conniving Britain to impose cripplingly ruinous sanctions and indemnities on Germany at the Treaty of Versailles (which John Maynard Keynes the British economist involved in the Bretton Woods, New Hampshire agreement predicted). It was the idiocy of Woodrow Wilson that led eventually to the Vietnam War as he propounded that every nationality should have its own nation and government but only if they were European. He therefore gave no audience or time to the Vietnamese (Ho Chi Minh) and the Kurds, but listened to the representative from India, who happened to be an Englishman! The British and French signed Sykes-Picot agreement dividng the Ottoman Empire and would have colonized Turkey itself but for Mustafa Kemal (Ataturk). It is a good thing that we beat Hitler and Germany lost, but we were still unwilling to let Korea and Vietnam become independent. Under our obsession against communism, our idiot leaders could not understand the inscription written at our Statue of Liberty and others yearning to breathe free. It was at the behest of J.P.Morgan and his buddies who had loaned huge sums of money to Kaiser's Germany and Britain, but larger ones to Britain. Thus to salvage the larger loan and the usurious profits from it, which sent Britain down the slippery slope to its current near third world status, that the US first clandestinely and surreptitiously helped Britain with supplies and arms and then joined the war despite the opposition of the American public by whitewashing the sinking of the Lusitania (just like sinking of the battleship Maine in Havana harbor to start the Spanish American War and the Tonkin Gulf Resolution to bomb Hanoi; Lusitania was carrying arms, ammunition and Americans into the war territory of British waters despite Germany's explicit warning to neutral nations to avoid British waters and aiding Britain's war effort). Read the book by Kevin Philips on the role of Prescott Bush in WW1 (father of George H W Bush and grandfather of W). While brevity may be the soul of wit, some topics, though not Muslim women, really need (chador or abaya) to be fully covered. Gaurang Bhatt |
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The only drawback about making jokes is that no none takes you seriously. If Christ had joked even once, the whole of Christianity would have been a non-event. Even G W Bush for all his laughter inducing aphorisms did not intend them as jokes. No president can afford to be a joker by intention. I once defined a joke as a lie that reveals itself; the effect a joke has of inducing laughter is as of a herald of the truth, so no one will be fooled. But there are jokes that exceed their remit of truth by default, and are best defined by the term 'tacky' - simply because the laughter induced expresses derision in the same breath, derision of something that is apparently aspired to beyond the joke that it is, as in the mention of a Nobel prize: as if this is supposed to be a joke. With reference to your 'brilliant strategic analysis', however, it puts forward a lot of very sophisticated weaponry capable of pin-point accuracy, but omits the record of human error in deployment, that is contained within the definition of collateral damage in any offensive, most recently in the NATO bombing of a rebel convoy in Libya. One can extrapolate to a scenario where an error of judgment can trigger off a major catastrophe, such as haunted the world from the commencemnt of the US - USSR Cold War till its conclusion in the last century. True, nothing happened, there was no nuclear holocaust; but the possibilities of a mistake were deemed impossible, and were of entertainment value in Hollywood films like 'Dr Strangelove', where the reality supported the fiction. |