Battle "E" Time!

It's that time of year where SUBLANT and SUBPAC send out their "010001Z JAN" messages with the winners of the previous year's Battle Efficiency competition; here are the 2013 results:

First, SUBPAC:

Commander, Submarine Squadron 1 (Pearl Harbor) - USS Greeneville (SSN 772)
SUBDEVRON 5 (Bangor, Wash.) - USS Jimmy Carter (SSN 23)
SUBRON 7 (Pearl Harbor) - USS Cheyenne (SSN 773)
SUBRON 11 (San Diego) - USS Albuquerque (SSN 706)
SUBRON 15 (Guam) - USS Chicago (SSN 721)
SUBRON 17 (Bangor) - USS Nebraska (SSBN 741 739) (Blue and Gold)
SUBRON 19 (Bangor) - USS Ohio (SSGN 726) (Blue)
Submarine Tender USS Emory S. Land (AS 39)
Special Category was awarded to floating dry dock Arco (ADRM-5), Undersea Rescue Command, and the torpedo weapons retriever Devil Ray (TWR 6), all in San Diego.

Next, SUBLANT:

SUBRON 4 (Groton) - USS Missouri (SSN 780)
SUBRON 6 (Norfolk) - USS Norfolk (SSN 714)
SUBDESRON 12 (Groton) - USS Dallas (SSN 700)
SUBRON 16 (Kings Bay) - USS Georgia (SSGN 729) (Blue and Gold)
SUBRON 20 (Kings Bay) - USS Wyoming (SSBN 742) (Blue and Gold)

USS Georgia is the only repeat winner in the Atlantic, while my old boat USS Jimmy Carter joined Ohio (Blue), Emory S. Land, and Arco as repeat winners in the Pac. I was especially happy to see Dallas win as a last hurrah before her decomm. I was also happy to see that my successors as Eng on USS Connecticut (SSN 22) won the Engineering Red "E" for SUBDEVRON 5.

As always, BZ to all the winners!

Update 12 Jan 0411: Added links to the official Navy stories.

Merry Christmas!

Update 1133 26 Dec: My belated Christmas present to you -- the Amazon customer reviews for "How To Avoid Huge Ships". (Yes, it's a real book.)

Home For Christmas

While USS North Carolina (SSN 777) got their turn in the barrel and drew the ever popular "leave on deployment during the week before Christmas" straw, two other boats arrived home in time for the holidays. USS Missouri (SSN 780) returned to Groton from her first deployment - what appears to be a northern run with standard concomitant port calls - on Friday while USS Hampton (SSN 767) earlier returned to San Diego, where their Chop won the internet for the day:

While I never did a Christmas return from deployment, I did return right before the 4th of July once, and I had a 12/23 return from a "that's why you always bring all your gear on board even for weekly ops" adventure on Topeka in 1991 after Chicago turned her diesel into a seawater pump and we had to pick up her Nanoose Mk 50 OpEval.

What kind of world are these Submariners returning to? Well, it's one where an XO and CMC of a skimmer can be fired for "collective discipline" or "hazing", depending on your point of view, for publicly shaming an entire group of female Sailors when some of them didn't understand that you shouldn't crap in a non-working shitter. It's also a world where an Aussie boat with female Submariners assigned had a groping and unwanted sexual advances issue (full link requires subscription) that either didn't happen in the way you expected, or exactly the way that you expected. (Here's an article with better news about the RAN Submarine Force; found it while looking for a non-firewalled mention of the story above, a task at which I was unsuccessful.)

What's your favorite holiday return from deployment story?

"What Kind Of (Submarine Officer) Is Best?"

Lots of links to share since I last posted:

1) USS Providence (SSN 719) launched a UAV! The media made sure to call it a "drone" to scare people.

2) In skimmer news, a Chinese LST violated the Rules of the Road in trying to ward off USS Cowpens (CG 63) from collecting intel of a local OPAREA exercise involving the Chinese aircraft carrier Liaoning. I suggest that since the Chinese PLAN has demostrated a desire to play at the varsity level, we take them up on it. I'm gonna guess that Chinese skimmers will collide with each other before anything bad happens to one of our ships. And, in 10-15 years, once the Chinese Navy gets a lot better, maybe we'll need an INCSEA agreement with them like we had with the Soviets.

3) Here's a great 10 minute video on leadership from a Submariner; it's well worth your time.

4) Word on the street is that there are lots of good jobs for former Navy Nukes at the Hanford Vitrification Plant in Richland, WA.

5) The budget agreement will, if it passes the Senate and is signed by the President, reduce the rate of increase for military retirement pensions for those of us under 62 years old and non-disabled. While it'll cost me money and does feel like a "unilateral after-the-fact" modification of the original enlistment contract I signed, I figure that since I support a reduction in the rate of increase of future Social Security payments as part of a "grand compromise" on entitlement reform, it would be hypocritical of me to get too NIMBY with this proposal. YMMV.

6) An article (membership required) in the December issue of Proceedings by a young LT is discussed over at the USNI blog. The article posits that the move to require more (85%) of NROTC scholarships be given to those who will pursue technical degrees is misguided. Excerpt:

The tier system was developed in 2009 as a result of fewer NROTC and U.S. Naval Academy graduates entering the nuclear-reactor community. The Regulations for Officer Development and the Academic-Major Selection Policy direct that a minimum of 65 percent of NROTC Navy-option scholarship midshipmen must complete a technical-degree program before receiving their commissions. A technical degree refers to Tiers 1 and 2, which comprise all STEM majors. Tier 1 includes most engineering majors, and Tier 2 refers to majors in biochemistry, astrophysics, chemistry, computer programming/engineering, civil engineering, physics, and mathematics. All other academic majors are non-technical, or Tier 3.
As a result of the new policy, a high-school senior’s best chance of obtaining a Navy scholarship is to apply for Tiers 1 and 2, since CNO guidance specifies that not less than 85 percent of incoming offers will come from this restricted pool. In fact, an algorithm decides the fate of hopeful midshipmen, balanced in large part with their proposed major selection annotated in their applications.

The post goes on to provide anecdotal evidence of all the History and English and Gender Studies majors who have done fine as Navy Nuclear officers. Most of us know one or two who have done fine. The underlying assumption seems to be that people who get engineering or chemisty or physics degrees only care about science, and are unlikely to be able to find Afghanistan on a map. The good LT goes on to say: "If less than 35 percent of our unrestricted line officers have developed the ability to think comprehensively through critical reading and reflection, what will the force look like in 20 years?"

Despite clear evidence that us guys with technical degrees can read charts and discuss the differences between Shi'a and Sunnism and understand that even though "eye" and "symmetry" don't rhyme it's OK for Blake to pretend like they do, the "we need a critical mass of submarine officers who didn't take Statics and Dynamics in college" mindset is, frankly, silly. I haven't seen the numbers in years, but back in the day the vast majority of Ensigns who made it through Nuke School and got their fish were technical majors, and we've done fine. Yes, there are plenty of Poli Sci majors who made it through, but there's no evidence that they make better overall officers -- they might be more popular with the crew and, when they leave, contribute to the "all the best JOs get out after 5 years" mindset, but that doesn't mean they were the best officers with the most long-term command and flag potential. A young officers job during his or her JO tour is to learn the boat, get qualified, learn something about leadership, and not make any huge mistakes. Based on my experience, officers with technical degrees have an easier time doing the "learn the boat" and "get qualified" parts of those, giving them more time to work on the other stuff. It's not like JOs are going to decide whether the interaction we're watching through the 'scope near the Straits of Malacca is piracy or smuggling based on study of the Dutch colonization of Indonesia in the 17th century; that's up to the Captain. And most of what officers learn about how the world works doesn't happen doing keg stands at some frat house; it happens throughout one's career.

Have dumbass COs slipped through the cracks who were great nukes but were flummoxed by references to Montague and Capulet in a Wilson Phillips song that somehow got played in the wardroom? Sure. Does that mean we need to give up populating our Force mostly with officers who are most likely to be able to get qualified and start down the road through the proven winnowing process that generates the COs and flag officers who run the Navy? I don't think so. But I look forward to the discussion.

7) Go Navy, Beat Army:

The Day That Transformed The Submarine Force

The attack on Pearl Harbor 72 years ago today forced the U.S. Navy to change its perception of how submarines would be used in war, from fleet auxiliary to independent operations. Among the first orders given after the attack was to "execute unrestricted submarine warfare" against Japan. This change in mission resulted in most of the pre-war COs being relieved for ineffectiveness after a couple of patrols, and a new generation of aggressive young skippers was fleeted up; it was these men who established our best traditions. Keep them and the sacrifices of thousands of Submariners in your heart as we face the challenges of the new millennium.

Boondoggle

Here's a story of a Brit Submariner who got caught doing a boondoggle -- a luxury Med cruise with his wife under the guise of "Surface Ship Familiarisation (sic)". Excerpt:

Details of Commander Dunn’s cruise, from October 24 to November 8 this year, emerged after the Ministry of Defence answered a Freedom of Information request, referring to his voyage as a ‘Surface Ship Familiarisation’ mission.
The trip was sanctioned under the Merchant Navy Liaison Voyage Scheme, designed to foster relations between the Navy and commercial vessels. In the past 12 months, 53 Royal Navy and Royal Marines officers have taken advantage of the scheme.
Commander Dunn was the commanding officer of HMS Vigilant, a Vanguard-class submarine that is part of Britain’s Trident nuclear deterrent. He was awarded an OBE in 2009.

This is a pretty good boondoggle, but this was one that had official sanction from higher-ups who knew what was going on; the story says that over 50 officers have done something similar. Some of the better stories I've heard have come from guys who pulled on over on their chain of command and got the sweetest of deals paid for without taking any leave. (One of our riders on the Topeka '92-'93 Westpac ended up staying in Phukett for several weeks after he left the boat and met us on the beach when we showed up for a liberty call; he claimed he paid for the trip, but I wasn't buying it.) My best boondoggle was convincing CENTCOM to send me and my relief as the Individual Augmentee J5 Coalition Financial Officer to Warsaw for a week to work with the Poles, but I actually got a lot of work done on that trip.

What's the best boondoggle you ever got?

Do "Ultra-Heavy" Iranian Submarines Get PUCs? I Think Not.

I was intrigued by the news from Iran that they were deploying an "ultra-heavy" submarine (the old Kilo-class boat Younus) along with a "destroyer" (actually a 1500 ton frigate) and "helicopter carrier" (actually a 4700 ton supply ship) to India and Sri Lanka. The surface ships are both 40 years old, and the submarine is about half that age. I'll admit that I'll be impressed if all three ships actually make it to their destinations and get back home without having to get towed at some point.

It says something about our potential adversaries when when refer to an old Kilo as "ultra-heavy" -- which it kind of is compared to their tiny toy mini-subs -- but real navies recognize that "ultra-heavy" boats are more along the lines of my old boat USS Jimmy Carter (SSN 23), which -- oh by the way -- just had a Presidential Unit Citation posted on the Navy Awards page for operations for the 356 days ending 19 Nov 2012.

Take that, Carter-disparagers!

Completely off topic, this story of the snooping wife, despite a senior officer losing his career, is funny in a way that only Navy people can fully appreciate.

Update 0853 22 Nov: Adding a couple of additional unrelated stories to make this even more of a "compilation" entry. Here's a story about morale issues among the Air Force nuclear weapons forces. I'm thinking the Navy hasn't seen the same kind of issues because the "running a submarine" mission takes much more of the average SSBN Sailor's time than the "nuclear weapons" aspect of the job. Or is the Navy seeing the same issues that we're just better at keeping under wraps?

Every month, the Navy webpage posts a summary of Special and General Courts Martial held in the previous month. The compilation for October had one from Great Lakes that kind of jumped out at me:

At a Special Court-Martial in Great Lakes, Illinois, GMSN [doesn't matter what his name is], USN pleaded guilty to indecent language. On 17 October 2013, the military judge sentenced him to be discharged with a Bad Conduct Discharge, forfeit 2/3 pay per month for 3 months, reduction in rank to paygrade E-1, and confinement for 3 months.

A Big Chicken Dinner and three months in the brig for "indecent language"? Now, I don't know the specifics behind the kind of indecent language used, but I'm assuming it was for really really indecent language of a sexual or racial nature directed at a person who would reasonably be offended by such language. On the other hand, if the Navy is prosecuting Sailors for saying bad words in general, I know a lot of people -- including myself -- would wouldn't have lasted very long in the service.

What's the most ridiculous charge you've ever seen someone brought up on under the UCMJ?

Burials At Sea

A story about a mystery photo left at the Navy Memorial earlier this year has been making the rounds in Facebook, and it got me to thinking about the time-honored tradition of Burial At Sea. While sometimes we might look at the tasking with a certain amount of maudlin humor (on Topeka, we once had a wind direction/head valve not closed issue where some of the ashes from a Bridge ceremony were sucked back into the boat, and we blamed any subsequent intermittent equipment faults on a haunting for the next couple of years), I generally felt honored to take part in the ceremonies committing a Sailor's remains to the deep.

How do you feel about taking part in old Naval traditions?

Veteran's Day

2013 is one of those rare years where the Veteran's Day holiday actually falls on 11/11. The Navy sent quite a contingent to NYC to celebrate Veteran's Week. Thanks to all veterans and those who love us for all that you've done.

How do you celebrate Veteran's Day?

(If you'd like a more substantive discussion, we can discuss this article which wrongly calls for the U.S. Navy to invest in non-nuclear submarines because Europeans are better than Americans or some such hogwash.)

This Sounds Like It's From The Onion...

...but it's not. From a story on the actual, verified navy.mil webpage:

NORFOLK (NNS) -- In order to generate innovative ideas on how to best maintain the capabilities and capacity of the Navy and mitigate risks in an era of constrained resources, the Navy is hosting an online collaborative event to solicit input from a broad, diverse audience.
cap2con MMOWGLI - or Capacity, Capabilities and Constraints Massive Multiplayer Online War Game Leveraging the Internet - seeks creative ideas to spread mission requirements across the active, reserve and civilian forces to keep "warfighting first."
The game will be played in two phases: Phase I - an idea discovery phase - will take place Nov. 4 - 10. Phase II, which will focus on further refining the ideas from Phase I, will be played Dec. 2 - 8.
cap2con MMOWGLI is sponsored by the Chief of Navy Reserve, Navy Warfare Development Command (NWDC), Office of Naval Research and the Naval Postgraduate School.
"Some of the best ideas come from the deck plate," said Vice Adm. Robin Braun, chief of Navy Reserve. "I believe this exercise will draw out ideas that can help the Navy best leverage the talents of our active and reserve component Sailors."
Results of the game will be used to inform high-level discussions about future Navy force structure, strategies and capabilities across the active, reserve and civilian components.
The internet "card-based" game is easy to play. Root cards start off the game, and players build on, counter, refine or seek further information by placing their own cards on top of root cards.
Promising "card chains" form the basis for action plans that further develop the participants' ideas. Participants can play for as little or as long as they want, 24-hours a day, from any internet browser.
For those competitive "gamers," leader boards recognize players with special achievements and bragging rights, all in good fun.
"Internet crowdsourcing games are gaining traction helping the Navy to address some of its more challenging problems," said Rear Adm. Scott Jerabek, commander, NWDC. "The CNO's Reducing Administrative Distractions (RAD) initiative received nearly 1,500 ideas, had more than 7,600 comments posted on these ideas, and 91,000 votes casted to help easily identify the top ideas. We are looking forward to similar collaboration in cap2con MMOWGLI to address this very serious challenge for all of us."
Interested players can sign up at https://mmowgli.nps.edu/cap2con/signup anytime and will be notified once the game is open for play Nov. 4.

Anyone gonna play this newest version of Buzzword Bingo? They even have a blog so you can learn more! And a portal with a link to a video and a .ppt!

I'm guessing "we need to kill more enemy troops" won't be one of the major conclusions coming out of this one; I've got a sneaking suspicion the game is set up to yield results like "increase acceptance and celebration of diversity" and whatnot.

News From The NSL Symposium And Other Submarine News

With the Naval Submarine League symposium going on last week, there's a lot of interesting submarine news on the web. Here's a roundup:

1) Enlisted women could start reporting to submarines as early as 2016. I expect this will be more problematic that the integration of female officers -- due to berthing and maturity concerns (not wanting to sound elitist, but, c'mon, anyone who's been around Navy female enlisted women recognize that there are, in general, certain differences between them and female officers in various areas relating to self-control and considerations of the long-term effects of decisions they may make...). I hope I'm wrong. (My data set is based on one deployment aboard an aircraft carrier in 2000.)

2) VADM Connor warns of a submarine shortfall due to the upcoming retirement of Los Angeles-class boats. The "we might have to extend the service life of some boats" suggestion always worries me, since a LID boat has obvious tactical liabilities -- unless they've got more engineering data that says they can increase hull life safely or have figured out a way to anneal the hull.

3) A very good .ppt presentation of the future direction of the Virginia class and Ohio Replacement can be found here. Here's a cool slide from the presentation:

Here's an article discussing this slide.

4) Yesterday marked the 10th anniversary of the grounding of USS Hartford (SSN 768) off La Madd. As I've mentioned before, that one was kind of personal for me.

5) Interesting story from Down Under about an O-Boat Cold War mission that almost went very bad.

6) Topside watchstanders in Norfolk reportedly are now required to wear life jackets at all times as a result of the tragic loss of a USS Boise (SSN 764) crewmember in July. Not sure if the change is being implemented Forcewide.

7) Lastly, in Meridian, Idaho, local retired Submarine Officers are still able to reduce property values throughout their neighborhood but putting up gaudy decorations for Halloween, although with their sons off at various schools they don't feel the need to put up roof inflatables anymore:

Humevac Video And Other News

Here's some IR video of a Coast Guard HUMEVAC from an unidentified 688i about 160nm west of San Diego:



Speaking of SSNs, here's a story about which two boats are going to be the first attack submarines to get female officers. Am I correct in assuming the Virginia's have 4 WRSRs? (I left EB before that module showed up on Virginia so I'm not sure.)

Odd Surface Ships

With today being the 13th anniversary of the terrorist attack on USS Cole (DDG 67), I was looking through some material and saw this picture of Cole being carried home by MV Blue Marlin:

Other pictures of Blue Marlin show it carrying lots of interesting large loads that would be fairly unusual to see through a periscope. Probably the most unexpected thing I saw was when I was on USS Topeka (SSN 754) doing a Mission Vital to National Security off the coast of Country Orange. We were taking over from the previous watchsection that was led by the Nav, who had notoriously bad eyesight. He was on the 'scope, and turned over to me to look at the "trawler" that was our only visual contact; he had assigned it a masthead height of 50 feet, giving it a range of about 6000 yards. I took a look and realized it was a very small powerboat, and the "mast" was a guy sitting on a bench in the middle of the boat -- MHH ~ 5 feet. You do the math.

What's the strangest thing you've ever seen through the periscope?

Tacking On Dolphins -- A "Good" Tradition?

Check out this letter to Navy Times decrying the "death" of Navy Tradition due to the influences of PC thought. Excerpts:

He made sure that promotions were celebrated with an appropriate “wetting down”; crows, dolphins and wings were tacked on as a sign of respect from those already so celebrated; chiefs were promoted in solemn ceremony after being “initiated” by their fellow brethren; and only those worthy were allowed to earn the title “shellback.”...
...In lieu of flowers, the family of Navy Tradition has asked that all sailors who have earned their shellback and drunk their dolphins; who remember sore arms from where their crows were tacked on and were sent on a search for “relative bearing grease” or a length of “water line”; who’ve been through chiefs’ initiation or answered ship’s call in a bar fight in some exotic port of call, to raise a toast one more time and remember Navy Tradition in his youth and grandeur.

What do you think? Are the various "hazing" rituals that many of us old-timers went through an important part of establishing and maintaining unit camaraderie, or just a way for us to bully the NUBs? I went through a "real" Shellback initiation in on USS Topeka (SSN 754) in 1991 (and was on the other end of one in 1993 where we shaved the letters "XO" into the XO's back and several Wogs lost portions of eyebrows), and thought the ridiculous PC one I saw on USS John C. Stennis (CVN 74) in 2000 wasn't worth anything, but a case could be made that the "old way" didn't really add anything to a boat's efficiency. As I've said before, Submariners are very good at welcoming those who fit in as brothers (and now, sisters), but we're pretty ruthless at getting rid of those who don't really fit in with the culture -- or at least we used to be. Personally, I think that the various "tests" we did to discover if the new crew member would really make a good Submariner, or might be better off exercising his particular talents on a surface vessel, were worthwhile. On the other hand, making someone risk alcohol poisoning to get his dolphins maybe wasn't as useful. YMMV.

I'll Give 5:1 Odds This Admiral Retires Soon

Rather than the O-5s and E-8s that normally make the news for getting relieved of their duties for some moral failing we're used to seeing, we've now got an O-9 making the news: Submariner VADM Timothy Giardina is being prohibited from doing any part of his duties as Deputy Commander of STRATCOM that require a security clearance, reportedly due to a problem with counterfeit chips being used at a western Iowa casino. Vice Admiral Giardina previously commanded USS Kentucky (SSBN 737)(Gold) and SUBRON 17, and was XO on USS Hyman G. Rickover (SSN 709).

While this investigation seems to be focused on the felonious nature of the alleged charges, it got me to thinking about the various reasons people can get their security clearances denied or pulled. I've always figured that anything that left someone open to possible blackmail (adultery, puppy molesting) or more likely to sell secrets (really bad indebtedness, being philosophically predisposed to support an adversary's political system) was fair game, but I wondered what they'd do in the case where someone was clearly a moral cesspool but everyone knew about it. ("Yeah, he's a whoremonger on deployment, but everyone including his wife and girlfriends know about it, so he's good to go for that TS/SCI"...)

While I hope it's all a big misunderstanding and Admiral Giardina can clear his name, it's a cautionary tale for everyone in the military -- if you're ever accused of making a mistake, expect it to be splashed all over the front page.

Update 1030 10 Oct: VADM Giardina was relieved of his post yesterday.

Foreign Submarine Articles

Here are some recent articles from the international press about submarines:

1) An interesting article on the Israeli submarine force.

2) A discussion on the future of the Australian submarine force, along with a report of some problems with their existing boats.

3) Another submarine shipyard fire, this time in Russia.

4) The 70th anniversary of one of the great British submarine exploits during WWII.

Who are your favorite foreign Submariners?

Update 1802 26 Sep: Once again, I completely forgot about my blogiversary. TTSBP started 9 years ago this month with this post. Thanks to all the commenters for making this community what it is. Hopefully I won't forget my 10th next year.

Update 1903 29 Sep: In U.S. submarine news, CDR Richard N. Massie, Commanding Officer, USS Maine (SSBN 741)(Gold) was named the PACFLT winner of the 2013 Stockdale Award.

Navy Yard Attack

While we don't have all the information yet, including the full list of the victims or a motive behind the attacks, our prayers to out to all the families of those hurt in the cowardly attack at the Washington Navy Yard yesterday.

It was almost surreal seeing my friends -- including one old shipmate who works in the next building over -- checking in safe on Facebook. When we joined the Submarine Force, we knew there was inherent danger in what we did; we just didn't figure that working in an office building could be one of the dangerous things.

I don't want to get started on the politics of the situation too soon, but I'm hoping that this, along with the Ft. Hood terrorist attack, will start a movement towards an understanding that active duty military personnel should be allowed to be armed at all times when on active duty during wartime.

Submarine Funding

Yesterday was Submarine Day at the House Armed Services Committee; some stories about the testimony given by RADM Breckenridge (N87) and RADM Johnson (PEO SUBS) are here and here. Highlight:

“With the accelerated retirement of Los Angeles-class submarines, our nation will drop below the 48-boat goal starting in 2025,” said Rep. Randy Forbes, R-Va., chairman of the HASC Subcommittee on Seapower and Projection Forces. “We need to ensure strategy drives our budget and that we give a voice to our combatant commanders. We need to be sure that we provide them with every resource.”
The Navy’s current fleet of 55 attack submarines, or SSNs, will drop down to 42, Rear Adm. Richard Breckenridge, director of undersea warfare said in written testimony . Four guided missile submarines, or SSGNs, will retire and the Navy’s current fleet of 14 Ohio-class ballistic missile submarines, or SSBNs, will drop to 10, Breckenridge wrote.
“The total submarine force will drop from 73 to 52 ships — a cut of 29 percent – before rebounding in the 2030s. The vertical strike payload volume provided by the undersea force will drop by well over half. This trough is borne of the submarine shipbuilding hiatus of the 1990s, and no realistic build plan could now prevent it,” said Breckenridge.

Other discussion centered on how the Navy was basically assuming Congress would come up for the money for the Government-Furnished Equipment (GFE) for new submarines in time, rather than paying for it up front.

Where do you see the Submarine Funding wars going? Are we Congress will generate more funding to be able to stay above the 45 boat threshold, or will we actually bottom out at 42?

USS Minnesota (SSN 783) Joins The Fleet

Welcome aboard, USS Minnesota! Here's a link to the video of the commissioning ceremony.

Should We Attack Syria?

With an American submarine reported to be among the assets on standby for a possible attack on Syria, and the President announcing that he'll ask Congress for authorization for such an attack, I figure we should discuss how Congress should vote.

Normally, I would be in favor of any excuse to reduce the military capabilities of a Ba'athist dictatorship, but I've got some serious concerns about this one. For one thing, we'd be intervening in a civil war in which the side we'd be aiding in our attacks aren't necessarily people we want to be helping. Also part of the discussion is whether the U.S. even wants to be the "world's policeman" any more, like we were in the '90s. I'm leaning towards "no" on that last question.

There's no doubt that using chemical weapons against civilians is a dick move, and while I wouldn't put it past the al Qaeda-linked portion of the Syrian insurgency to use chemical weapons against civilians in areas under their control in an attempt to get a Western military response against the regime, I think there's a pretty good chance the Syrian government launched this most recent attack. So, while it's definitely not nice to gas people, is it that much of a worse action than blowing them up with high explosives that it defines a "red line" requiring American intervention? For this mindset, I blame the previous Administration.

In coming up with a justification for attacking Iraq, the Bush Administration settled on the possession of "weapons of mass destruction" as a causus belli. I always thought they should go with either 1) the Iraqis are continually shooting at our planes enforcing the UN-authorized "no-fly" zone in southern Iraq, or 2) we got attacked on 9/11, and therefore we, as a sovereign country and the baddest-ass dude on the planet, claim the right to overthrow the governments of 1-3 countries we don't like whenever we get attacked, and if the rest of the world doesn't like it, they can suck it. [Note: (1) would probably be the easiest to justify.] I'm guessing they focus-grouped the potential reasons and came up with WMDs as the one that polled best, and, let's face it, it was a "slam dunk" that Iraq had chemical weapons. (The last line was clearly writ ironical, as subsequent history has shown, but at the time everyone "knew" the Iraqis still had chemicals and nerve agents -- they had used chemical weapons in the '80s against Iran and still had them in 1991, based on the evidence we found when we went into southern Iraq in the First Gulf War. It took us some time after the war to get our intelligence assets into place, but we figured that we had confirmation in 1995 from the Kamel defection. Since we didn't see any indication that any weapons were being destroyed after 1995, when we had assets in place, and since we didn't believe Kamel's public statements that everything had been destroyed before that, we were pretty sure they still had WMDs.)

If we do attack with a previously-stated restriction that there won't be "boots on the ground", would this be enough to "deter" other states, or even Syria, from continuing to use chemical weapons? What if a tyrant is willing to trade having $100 million worth of crappy Russian weapons and a few empty buildings destroyed in exchange for us using $250 million worth of Tomahawks, especially if the tyrant gets the support of the "America is always wrong" crowd to boot? Suppose we were to say "You Arabs don't like chemical weapons being used in your part of the world? Let the Arab League handle it."? While I'm adamantly opposed to the isolationist/Ronulan view that we need to bring all our troops home, why can't we just let two groups who both hate us continue to kill each other while we stand aside?

For the upcoming Congressional debate, there is one thing of which I'm sure -- I really want the debate to be over "should the U.S. intervene in Syria and, in general, be the world's policeman" and nothing else. I really hope the House doesn't attach some dumb-ass "repeal Obamacare" amendment that would turn the debate into a cheap political stunt, but I'm not very hopeful on that score. I want to see Congress do their job and debate this important issue. And I kind of hope they reach a consensus that it's not our job to intervene unilaterally. (Note that if Turkey, a NATO ally, goes to NATO with a request to intervene since they fear the Syrian chemical weapons will be used against them, we should eagerly join in a NATO effort. Since, as I mentioned above, I almost always support an opportunity to blow up Ba'athist air defense and command-and-control infrastructure.)

[Also, kind of off-topic, I've been really disappointed in the "amateur hour" nature of the Administration's response to the whole thing. I don't think the new SecState is really up to the job.]

What do you think? Should we attack Syria?