Over at NRO,
As tensions rise in the Middle East, the Straits of Hormuz, the Mediterranean and off the Somali pirate coast, the Royal Navy, spreading its small ration of jam thinner and thinner, is sending two ships, the new destroyer HMS Dauntless , and, reportedly, a Trafalgar -class submarine, to the Falklands. Now there is no doubt that Dauntless , at 8,000 tons, is a very capable ship, bigger than many World War II cruisers, and with an impressive array of weapons. The reported submarine (its deployment is not confirmed) is also very modern and is reported to carry 30 Tomahawk cruise missiles and Spearfish torpedoes. Meanwhile, an anti-British mob in Argentina has cleverly burnt the HSBC bank, which is Hong-Kong owned, and vowed to attack a new British business every day (perhaps after investing in a primer in geography). There are, however, major problems from the British point of view: Dauntless is one of only 19 major surface combatants in the whole Royal Navy, a situation that Admiral Lord West, the former First Sea Lord and professional head of the Royal Navy, described as “horrifying.” How will the Navy cope if one of the innumerable mishaps possible at sea puts a ship out of commission? The defense cuts under the Cameron government, Lord West says, have been both too severe and incoherent. They have included scrapping the RN’s last dedicated aircraft carrier and the Nimrod long-range aircraft (some broken up before completion), and selling the Harrier force of short takeoff jets — which at a pinch might have operated from other ships — to the U.S. Already these scrapped assets have been sorely missed in Libya. The center of the Falklands defenses is the Mount Pleasant air base, with just four aircraft and rapier missiles. Professional opinion is that taking Mount Pleasant by invasion would be very difficult and costly, but if it were taken then there is no way Britain could now assemble a task force to retake it. And four aircraft does not sound like very many to cover a group of islands about the area of Wales plus the maritime exclusion zone These two ships are obviously a vital card in the game: they are much more modern than anything the Argentineans can put up. However, there is a possible downside here: the design of the Dauntless is impressive-looking but is completely untested in battle. (Seventy years ago HMS Hood was an enormously impressive-looking ship, equipped with mighty 15-inch guns, and the product of hundreds of years of experience, but in its first serious battle blew up with almost all hands). In the first modern Falklands campaign, in 1982, the destroyer HMS Sheffield, then a new ship, was lost after being hit by a missile that failed to explode but ignited high-pressure propellant. Naval history is full of stories of awe-inspiring new ships that proved inadequate — or lethal for their crews — in the event. In World War I armored cruisers, which both sides had thought the coming thing, were frequently sunk with all hands. Three British battle-cruisers blew up at Jutland with enormous loss of life. Past history has shown that in sea vs. air combat the aircraft has the advantage unless the ship concerned has a heavy escort of fighters, which is plainly not going to be possible here. It is true that missiles may have altered the equation but seems to be asking a lot of one ship, no matter how sophisticated, to hold off wave after wave of attacking jet aircraft and missiles from relatively nearby bases. There is another problem, which a layman cannot really assess or know if Dauntless has solved: the more sophisticated ships become, and the more packed with electronics, the more vulnerable they may become. Gone are the days when a ship might be hit with hundreds of cannon balls and repairing it was a matter of calling for the bosun and the carpenter. During Indonesian confrontation a modern British ship was put out of action for some time because an Indonesian sampan dropped a mortar bomb in the water beside it and shook up its electronics. A large modern warship almost approaches a living body in its complexity, and like a living body, the more complex it becomes, the harder it is for it to shrug off damage and carry on. The submarine might also be very useful, but it has an enormous area of sea to patrol, and has to be in the right place at the right time. A further question arises: how long can two of the Royal Navy’s best ships be kept on station with all manner of demands on the Navy’s desperately overstrained resources elsewhere? This is not to say for a moment that disaster will overtake the two British ships in the event of war. They are a mighty powerful force. Many of the ships’ capabilities are secret, but one can hardly escape the thought that the previous conflict showed modern sea power depends on air cover, and that Britain, without naval aviation, is putting all its eggs in two baskets, and untried baskets at that.
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Britain Puts All Its Eggs in Two Baskets
In an interview with the Today show’s Matt Lauer recorded on Superbowl Sunday, President Obama said that “Our preferred solution (to the Iranian efforts to develop a nuclear weapon) is diplomatic.” Although he also stated “we’re not taking any options off the table,” it’s hard to imagine the mullahs who rule Iran thinking that military action by the US has ever been on the table during this president’s administration. So it’s hard to believe that Obama thinks he is accomplishing anything of significance with his Monday order to freeze all financial assets (which are under American control) of the Iranian government or Iranian banks. A British attorney quoted in a Bloomberg News article on the policy shift said “It’s a declaration of economic warfare, to the extent that it’s not already been declared.” But do the mullahs actually care about “warfare” that doesn’t include weapons capable of destroying their uranium enrichment or missile production capabilities? Iran might rattle some sabres regarding disrupting shipping in the Strait of Hormuz, but they probably won’t go far enough to start actual fighting because they know that as long as Obama feels like he’s doing something, or fooling people into believing he’s doing something, they can keep on working full-speed-ahead on a weapon intended to turn a major Israeli city into rubble. Furthermore, everybody talks about how much oil goes through that ocean passageway, but it must also be remembered that Iran is a large importer of gasoline. Thus interrupting shipping through the Strait would not be without major domestic economic and political consequences. The only reason they might pick a fight on the ocean is to rally internal support for their regime, creating the external enemy to blame for the nation’s problems. It’s a time-tested tactic, but one I doubt the mullahs will use. David A. Harris, president of the National Jewish Democratic Council, is also quoted by Bloomberg as saying that Obama’s move “should end any doubt about the president’s singular commitment to ensuring Iran does not obtain a nuclear weapon.” Actually, Harris has it exactly wrong. Obama’s move, while welcome, coming in the context of his reiteration that he wants and expects a diplomatic solution where it is increasingly obvious that none is possible, ends any doubt that the mullahs are laughing at the reign of Jimmy Carter II. The mullahs reaction will be “Obama just pulled the biggest weapon he’s actually willing to use. He is now toothless. We’ll pretend to be perturbed, but we feel little worse about this than Br’er Rabbit felt about being thrown into the briar patch.” Their view is all the more accurate given this president’s internationalist mindset, wanting to use the UN for every hard decision, now that we have seen Russia and China defend the indefensible Bashar al Assad, the murderous dictator of Syria. Barack Obama is out of his depth, and the world is a much more dangerous place for it. Israel is indeed, as Jed Babbin explained so well yesterday, sadly and perilously alone.
The rest is here:
Jimmy Carter II Plays into Iran’s Hands
I like Rick Santorum. My former senator, whom I voted for three times and have written about here and here is conservative, a great family man, smart and passionate about his beliefs. So… I hate to say this, but at the moment: what a disappointment. What in the world is Rick Santorum thinking? Bad enough that Newt Gingrich and Rick Perry briefly put themselves out there to appear as the anti-capitalist candidates. In this corner, the instant reaction to that mercifully short epidemic of conservative Bain bashing was that if that’s where Newt and Perry were headed on such a major conservative principle that Reagan so exemplified — they should withdraw. Gingrich, typically, candidly admitted a mistake and stopped. His Super PAC ads vanished. Perry hung on to the idea, lost the support of a prominent South Carolina backer on the eve of the South Carolina primary, and withdrew. Now, for whatever reason, Rick Santorum is singing the same anti-conservative, anti-Reagan song — just a different verse. This is his strategy to be The Conservative Alternative to moderate Mitt Romney? By joining Romney in rejecting the Reagan space legacy? Just as everybody is reminded both of Ronald Reagan’s 101st birthday and the late January 1986 Challenger tragedy? Oh my. Instead of Bain bashing, Santorum is attacking Gingrich over the ex-Speaker’s vow to return America to space exploration with a vengeance — in the form of a moon colony. An obvious intent to carry forward with the Reagan space legacy made all the more potent by the Obama administration’s deliberate halt to the very idea of a serious 21st century American presence in space. Appallingly, if predictably, Gingrich’s decision to carry forward with Reagan’s vision has already been mocked by the Obama-lite Romney. But Rick Santorum? The would-be “Authentic Conservative”? Bashing Ronald Reagan’s vision? Sadly, yes . Call me gobsmacked, but now running out there on radio airtime is this Santorum-sponsored anti-Reagan space legacy commercial being presented as an attack on Gingrich. Mocks the Santorum commercial as reported in the Hill : “Reckless spending has led to $15 trillion of national debt,” the voice-over in the ad says. “And what does Newt Gingrich suggest? Spending half a trillion dollars on a moon colony.” “Gingrich’s example is fiscal insanity,” the ad continues. The ad goes on to argue that Santorum is the most authentic conservative in the GOP presidential field. Santorum has focused his attacks on Gingrich recently in an effort to win over conservative Republicans who favor the former Speaker. Santorum and Gingrich are fighting to be the conservative alternative to front-runner Mitt Romney. While campaigning in Florida before its primary on Jan. 31, Gingrich proposed putting a base on the moon. His suggestion was widely criticized by his opponents. Doubling down, Santorum wrote an op-ed on the subject, mocking the Reagan beliefs by comparing them to the cartoon character George Jetson. Earlier he’d said : “I promise you: no moon colonies, I promise.” So let me see if I understand this. The week that the nation is be celebrating Ronald Reagan’s 101st birthday — that would be February 6 — Rick Santorum has selected that exact moment to present himself as the anti-Reagan? With the nation still recalling the tragedy that was the explosion of the Challenger space shuttle 26 Januarys ago, Rick Santorum sides with… Barack Obama and Mr. Obama-Lite Mitt Romney? But says he’s the most “authentic conservative”? Well. As the former president might say. If this is what passes for genius in the Santorum campaign to be The Conservative Alternative — wow. And, in the spirit of fairness, since I suggested Gingrich get out of the campaign if he continued his Bain bashing (which he stopped) — the sauce for the Gingrich and Perry geese should be ladled to the Santorum gander. If Rick Santorum is going to try and become The Conservative Alternative at the expense of the Reagan space legacy — he should stop and get out of the campaign right now before he inflicts any more damage to himself and the conservative cause. Is there a Reagan space story here? Of course. One particular morning in January of 1986, a man named Michael Smith got up and went to work. On the bureau dresser, he left a file card with a note to his wife, Jane. And off he went. What did Michael Smith do? He was an astronaut. In fact, he was a crew member of an American space ship. Long before dawn, Michael Smith, along with his fellow crew members, was being suited up. The names of his fellow crew members were, in alphabetical order: Greg Jarvis Christa McAuliffe Ronald McNair Ellison Onizuka Judith Resnik Dick Scobee The name of their space ship — a shuttle captained by Smith’s fellow astronaut Dick Scobee? That’s right: Challenger. In the White House that morning of January 28, it was busy. I was there. That night the President would make the famous ride up to Capitol Hill to deliver the traditional State of the Union Address. Anyone with a job in the various precincts of the president had their individual tasks, and I had mine. And then… and then. President Reagan would write it in his daily diary as follows: A day we’ll remember for the rest of our lives. Started off with a staff meeting & then a session with the Cong. Leadership of both parties. Had a go around with Tip (then-Speaker of the House Thomas P. O’Neill, a Democrat) — think I came out pretty good…….. Then I was getting a briefing for the meeting I was to have with network anchors — an advance on the St. of the Union address scheduled for tonight. In came Poindexter (the national security advisor) & the V.P. with the news the shuttle Challenger had blown up on takeoff. We all headed for a TV & saw the explosion re-played. From then on there was only (one) subject — the death of the 6 crew & 1 passenger — Mrs. McAuliffe, the teacher who had won the right to make the flight. There is no way to describe our shock & horror. We cancelled — I should say postponed the St. of the Union address til next week. Abruptly, everything that was “normal” that day — in the White House and America — stopped in its tracks. The great American adventure that was space exploration was faced with a highly visible, globally televised tragedy. The images of the Challenger soaring into space, then literally exploding in a clear blue sky as the parents of school teacher-civilian astronaut Christa McAuliffe watched from nearby stands in dawning horror, were everywhere. Everywhere. What Americans who were alive that day remember is the President’s speech to the nation that night. But there is another story, much unremembered today and obviously not recalled by Rick Santorum. Three days after the tragedy that was the Challenger explosion there was a memorial service in Houston at the NASA Space Center. The President and Mrs. Reagan departed the White House at 8:45 to board Air Force One and be there with the families. Some 14,000 people were in attendance. All those Americans who worked directly for NASA, along with the families of the seven astronauts who died that terrible day.
The Battle of Midway By Craig L. Symonds (Oxford University Press, 464 pages, $27.95) As Branch Rickey famously put it, “Luck is the residue of design.” In The Battle of Midway , Craig Symonds, who teaches American Naval History at the U.S. Naval Academy, shows how that resounding American victory during World War II was the product of design and its residue, which historians might call contingency. Symonds’ book is another in Oxford’s series on “pivotal moments in American history.” In an introductory note for an earlier entrant in that series, Washington’s Crossing , by David Hackett Fischer, James McPherson explained that such pivotal events were the product of “decisions and actions by people who had opportunities to choose and act otherwise,” and that opportunity “introduces a dynamic tension into the story of the past.” Properly addressing the “dynamic tension of contingency and choice” calls for a combination of new scholarship “with old ideas of history as narrative art and traditional standards of sound scholarship, mature judgment, and good writing.” Symonds book succeeds on all counts. The battle of Midway is a remarkable story, and Symonds tells it well. On June 4, 1942, “in little more than five minutes,” aided by heroic but unsuccessful attacks by American torpedo bombers, American dive bombers destroyed three Japanese aircraft carriers. Later that day, they followed up by putting four bombs onto the flight deck of the fourth. The Americans lost the carrier Yorktown and a destroyer, aircraft, and brave pilots and sailors, but victory was complete. Symonds doesn’t just tell the story, he also describes the culture and equipment of the American and Japanese pilots and naval personnel, showing how the differences worked in context. Nineteen forty-two started badly for the United States and its Pacific allies, much the way 1941 ended. The Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, and, while they inflicted great damage on the American battle fleet, they missed the American aircraft carriers. Before 1941 was over, the Japanese had taken Hong Kong and Wake Island and invaded the Philippines. By mid-April 1942, they had taken Singapore, bombed Darwin, Australia, raided British bases on Ceylon, sinking a number of warships, and forced the surrender of the American forces on Bataan. That “dizzying string” of successes “fed what historians later labeled ‘victory disease’ in Japan.” After the American forces in the Philippines retreated to Bataan, the Americans began to fight back. In January, American carriers raided Japanese bases in the Marshall and Gilbert Islands, inflicting “little more than a pinprick,” while sinking a transport and a sub chaser, damaging six other vessels including a cruiser, and destroying a number of aircraft. In March, American carrier aircraft attacked Japanese shipping off Lae and Salamaua on New Guinea with greater success, “savag[ing] Japanese sealift capability” in that area. Finally, in April, B-25s under the command of Colonel Jimmy Doolittle took off from the Hornet and bombed mainland Japan. In early May, the Americans achieved what historians view as a strategic victory even if it was a tactical success for the Japanese at the Battle of the Coral Sea. The Americans went into battle knowing “more about the Japanese movements than they did about” ours because we had made progress in breaking the Japanese naval code. Symonds explains that this gave Admiral Fletcher, the American commander, “an indisputable advantage” but didn’t guarantee success. In the fighting, the Lexington was sunk and the Yorktown damaged. The Japanese lost only a small carrier, but the larger Shōkaku was damaged, and it and the Zuikaku lost a sufficient number of aircraft and experienced pilots that neither could participate in the upcoming Midway operation. The “complex timetable” of the Japanese operations was “irredeemably wrecked.” The battle of Midway in June 1942 resulted from design, in that both the Japanese and the Americans planned for conflict. The Japanese plan was complicated; four “different and independent” groups of ships sailed independently in the direction of Midway with the goals of taking the island and luring the American aircraft carriers into a decisive battle. (The Japanese fleet that headed for the Aleutian Islands in the Northern Pacific off Alaska was a “separate initiative unrelated to the Midway Operation apart from its timing.”) The Japanese planned to use six large carriers to both establish air superiority over and support the landings on Midway and engage the American carriers, an arrangement that “created the opportunity for confusion and uncertainty.” The Battle of the Coral Sea intervened, however, depriving Admiral Yamamoto of two of those aircraft carriers. At Midway, the Americans “knew what was coming, where it was coming from, and more or less when it was coming.” Admiral Nimitz, the American naval commander in the Pacific, planned to meet the Japanese with two or three carriers. In the end, Nimitz had three after the Yorktown , which had been hit by one bomb and damaged by several near misses, was repaired in a remarkable three day round-the-clock blitz. While “eager to confront the Japanese,” Nimitz “was not a gambler.” Rather, he “reviewed all the available information, weighed the odds carefully, and planned accordingly.” Nimitz stationed the American carriers to the northwest of Midway Island, where they lay in wait, hoping to hit the Japanese carriers before they were found. Significantly, in the war games conducted by the Japanese in preparation for the operation, Admiral Ugaki, the chief judge, ruled “that such a move by the Americans was so improbable that it could not be allowed.” Ugaki also overruled a roll of the dice that had two Japanese carriers sinking, holding that one was damaged, not sunk, and the other removed from the table to return later. Symonds concludes that the war game exercises were “all but useless.” On the fateful day, the Japanese began by sending 108 bombers, torpedo planes armed with bombs, and fighter cover drawn from all four carriers to attack the facilities at Midway. When those planes were gone, the crews began outfitting the next wave for attacks on the American carriers. At about 7:00, Admiral Nagumo, the commander of the carrier group, received word that another attack on Midway was needed. Nagumo ordered that the planes held in anticipation of an attack on the American carriers be rearmed with fragmentation bombs for that second attack. As Symonds notes, arming and rearming the planes was a labor intensive task; the Japanese had to lower the torpedoes from the planes onto bomb carts with a hand crank and lift them by hand onto holding racks on the bulkheads. Nagumo learned of the presence of American ships, then an American carrier by about 8:20, and ordered the dive bombers on the Hiryū and Sōryū to prepare for that attack. He was unable to send those planes off, though, for several reasons. First, American aircraft based on Midway attacked his carriers in a “haphazard,” uncoordinated way. Even though Nagumo’s carriers were unharmed, they had to maneuver to avoid the attacks, making it impossible to rearm the planes for an attack on the carriers. Second, Nagumo also put all of his remaining fighters aloft to defend against the attacks. He needed to recover and rearm those fighters, as well as the Midway strike force which was returning. He decided to do that and send his entire strike force against what he thought was one carrier. In the meantime, American torpedo planes, followed by dive bombers, arrived. The torpedo planes were all but annihilated, but they pulled the Japanese combat air patrol and antiaircraft weaponry down to sea level. When the dive bombers arrived, they put bombs on the Akagi , the Kaga , and the Sōryū , turning each into an inferno as the bombs found hangar decks full of Japanese aircraft gassed up and bombs and torpedoes in the process of changeover. While the Japanese later found the Yorktown , and the Americans got the Hiryū , the “tipping point” had been reached. It wasn’t just big decisions, like those of Nimitz, which contributed to the outcome. Symonds tells the story of an American submarine, the Nautilus , which was in the right place at the right time and sparked a duel with a Japanese destroyer, the Arashi . The Arashi kept the Nautilus underwater until the carrier group passed, then hustled to catch up with the other Japanese ships. American dive bombers from the Enterprise spotted the Arashi’s bow wave and followed its line to the Japanese carriers. As Symonds notes, the inconclusive duel between the Arashi and the Nautilus had a “profound effect” on the outcome, illustrating the way in which decisions, big and small, can affect history. Symonds concludes, “June 7 was a Sunday morning, and it dawned on a changed world.” Six months after Pearl Harbor, the “instrument” of the Japanese attack “had been smashed beyond recovery.” A long and difficult slog remained, but the battle of Midway was the hinge on which the war in the Pacific turned. Its story deserves retelling, and Symonds’ book does a wonderful job of it.
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Five Minutes That Changed the World
