Technology entrepreneur and communications professional. Experienced in 3D illustration, video production, motion graphics, and UX design.
Drayton Valley, AB
Joined April 2011
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Right now, only Russia and Ukraine understand what hideous, inhumane, nightmarish and curiously personal weapons drones are. The whole world will come to understand it, until these are eclipsed by the greater horror of autonomous weapons.
Interesting and compelling analysis by Cynical Publius.
I tend to agree with him.
RE: Trump Battleships
Everybody on Mil X is giving their opinions on the new Trump battleships (“BBGs”), so I guess I should join in.
Although I love reading about the history of naval warfare, I am admittedly far less knowledgeable on the subject in the modern day than my USN/USMC/CG/MM brethren. My area of expertise lies in land warfare and logistics, but I have a passable knowledge of naval warfare and overall national strategy, so I will add my 2c.
John Konrad has a great breakdown as to why the BBG will fill important roles. I’ll link to his post on that one below. I had been concerned that the BBG was a bad idea in terms of putting all of our eggs in one sinkable basket, but he convinced me that the BBG has a vital role to play based on certain immutable facts of geography, such as sea lane choke points.
My focus instead for this post is on how all the usual suspects in the Democrat/Media Complex are decrying this as a Trump vanity project. Their arguments trace back to WWII where the battleship saw its preeminence vanish in the face of carrier-based aircraft. These detractors point out that in a peer-to-peer fight with a nation like China, the BBGs would be as vulnerable and useless as the gigantic Japanese battleships that the US Navy sent to the bottom in WWII before they could ever even join the fight.
I believe this is a wrongful application of military history.
As John Konrad points out, the BBG provides a unique capability that is especially useful in modern naval warfare against non-peer adversaries, and represents a deterrent against piracy-like operations that are more related to the Barbary Pirates than Guadalcanal.
Further, I doubt we would ever deploy a BBG in any environment where the USA did not possess air supremacy. Moreover, the air defense capabilities of modern naval warships eclipse WWII capabilities by several orders of magnitude, even with respect to aerial and sea-based drones. Finally, the survivability features of modern warships are greatly better than those WWII vessels that so many see as the exemplar of battleships. This is not going to be the USS New Jersey or the IJN Yamato—these will be modern designs with survivability capabilities far in excess of historic equivalents. For these reasons, I consider the WWII analogies to be invalid.
In practical application, the BBG would be an arsenal ship that can stay on station for extended periods of time without replenishment, securing vital choke points such as the entry points to the Red Sea or the Persian Gulf.
Additionally, as an Army guy I appreciate the ability of a BBG to conduct sustained, uninterrupted fire support to land operations in a way that even a carrier air wing cannot. (Does this mean the Army gets the same ANGLICO support it once enjoyed? Will ANGLICO stop focusing on CAS and now restore the emphasis on indirect fires?) Most of America’s land battles are in the littoral, not just for Marines but for the Army as well. IMO its has been a failure of US naval doctrine to limit the role of naval gunfire in support of land operations. The BBG will fix that shortcoming.
Next, as a matter of strategy and not tactics, consider the “Great White Fleet.” If you are not familiar with that fleet, it was a fleet of battleships and cruisers that Teddy Roosevelt sent sailing around the world in the early 20th Century that signaled the emerging naval preeminence and national power of the USA. Roosevelt saw this not as a tactical imperative, but as a strategic one, signaling “Don’t mess with the USA.” The power of that message is incalculable, as it serves as a deterrent that means those ships never need fire a shot in anger. I believe Donald Trump views the BBG in the same light, and he is right, IMO.
Consider the famous image of the USS New Jersey floating off the coast of Lebanon back in the ‘80s (below). Something about a gigantic, invulnerable, firepower-laden warship floating off one’s coast tends to have a dramatic strategic effect on bad actors and other adversaries. Trump intends to replicate that capability, which, CVNs notwithstanding, America’s naval forces have lacked for a very long time.
Finally, consider the bolster this will provide to America’s strategic industrial base. Countries like China and South Korea long ago eclipsed the USA in terms of shipbuilding capacity. The days of the USA turning out a Liberty ship in four days are long past. We have much catching up to do if we are going to ever try to go toe-to-toe with China in an extended conflict. The BBG will provide a great learning experience for our shipbuilding industry, it will help us grow that capability, and it will provide lessons learned and capabilities that can be applied to a great variety of other US warships and support vessels. This reason alone may justify the construction of BBGs.
The great challenge to the BBG will not be its employment. Its greatest challenge will be to get it built in the first place. For decades the USA has invested billions of dollars in the design and prototype production of weapons systems that are never actually fielded. For the BBG to succeed, we must see it through to full scale production. Which means electing MAGA Republicans to Congress and JD Vance as President, because without that follow-through from a supporting Congress and Presidency, the BBG will never sail.
So basically we have yet another reason to vote MAGA in 2026 and 2028.
Here’s to the battleship—Merry Christmas.
(I’ll explain some of the acronyms in follow-on posts below.)
No, methane isn’t responsible for 30% of global warming.
And this has nothing to do with protecting Canadians, and everything to do with taxing them.
The economic fallout from this will be disastrous for farmers.
Methane emissions are responsible for about 30% of the global rise in temperature to date.
Canada’s new government is taking action to reduce those emissions — to cut pollution, fight climate change, and protect Canadians.
ALT A screenshot of an article by Reuters with a headline that reads: Canada unveils new rules to lower oil and gas methane emissions.
When judges start basing judgement on the color of someone's skin, we have a problem. In this case, the judge took into account that in addition to being black, the perp was "feeling stress". I wonder what degree of stress his victims were feeling. archive.ph/UGFVg
The CBC really, really wants you to watch this video. They (by that I mean we), are paying a lot of money to put it in front of Canadian viewers on every platform that supports YouTube video. This is abject propaganda. I expect the other shoe to drop soon.
youtube.com/watch?v=g8hMJeSX…
If there are any Canadian who believe that over 12 thousand of them will be given jobs to support a fleet of 70 30-year-old aircraft, I’d like to talk with you about a bridge I have for sale.
No one in Canada - not even the most rabidly “elbows up” liberal boomer - believes that the United States is going to annex Canada. They just like saying it because it kindles a tiny flame of smug moral superiority in their cold hearts. It’s the only identity they have left.
For all of X’s claims to being a platform for free expression, that’s not the case in Canada, where conservative voices are stifled, while pro-government posts are boosted to scores or even hundreds of times their organic reach. I no longer see any posts from accounts I follow.
Canadians were told for years that digital ID and currency were a conspiracy theory, then that they weren’t happening, but were a good thing. Now Canada is quietly rolling it out in partnership with the globalist scum in the EU:
armstrongeconomics.com/inter…
Apparently, working for foreign policy Canada involves both a complete lack of a sense of self-awareness and irony, and a high tolerance for cognitive dissonance.
Dissenting voices disappearing from your feed? It might not be an accident. Some foreign regimes silence critics through takedowns, legal threats and intimidation campaigns.
Learn their tactics and #ThinkBeforeYouShare
Readers added context they thought people might want to know
The Canadian government is currently in the process of drafting bill C-9, which would criminalize forms of protected speech and protest.
ccla.org/press-release/…
As a toddler, I grew up in the same building as Ugandan refugees. The first children I played with were all black. I never once hated myself for being white. I simply figured it was normal that people were different colors. What happened to us?
Striking Starbucks workers in New York. I want to know who paid to design and produce the slick signs and giant coffee cups (expensive) Not the workers, that’s for sure.
m.youtube.com/watch?v=nhmqY7…
What does “Canadian” mean now? Our culture and heritage is deprecated and repressed. Our demographics have been utterly transformed. You can’t deplore and despise millions of people in one breath, then insist they are part of an inviolable whole in the next.
We will never address the problem of homelessness until we understand that "housing" isn't the solution, and that building encampments of tiny homes will only exacerbate the problem. Oakland, CA is an example of this.
You may disagree with this man's perspective. I do. But he's right. The Alberta/Ottawa MOU means nothing.
Except an increase in carbon pricing on Alberta oil production.
Personally, I’m far more inclined to believe the Campbell’s Soup executive who was… canned for saying mean things about the product and employees than the communications twerps who denied what he said.
If I understand the MOU signed between Smith and Carney correctly, Albertans start paying carbon tax right away, and in return we MAY be allowed to build another pipeline sometime in the next 15 years.
Alberta's oil industry will collapse long before then, and this is by design.
Canada's DND spent $379K on fuel, and $200K on office chairs.
... and apparently nothing at all on teaching recruits how to distinguish their left and right feet when marching.
torontosun.com/news/national…
youtube.com/shorts/vfyB0D96N…
