Is The U.S. Navy Being Truthful With Its Report On Recent Crash Incidents?

Authored by Duance Norman via Free Market Shooter blog,

Recently, Free Market Shooter (as well as the US Navy) questioned the cause of a string of crashes involving Navy destroyers and cruisers... all occurring this year:

Recently, the US military, unable to come up with a cause for the incidents, began investigating something else – “compromised computer systems”:

 

The military is examining whether compromised computer systems were responsible for one of two U.S. Navy destroyer collisions with merchant vessels that occurred in recent months, Vice Admiral Jan Tighe, the deputy chief of naval operations for information warfare, said on Thursday.

 

Naval investigators are scrambling to determine the causes of the mishaps, including whether hackers infiltrated the computer systems of the USS John S. McCain ahead of the collision on Aug. 21, Tighe said during an appearance at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.

 

The presumption that has been made is that these vessels are being hacked, China is the responsible party, given the proximity of the vessel crashes to the nation, as well as recent incidents where the US and China have butted heads.  But it is worth asking; are these vessels being hacked?  More importantly, if they are being hacked, who is hacking the vessels, and why?

However, this author did not discount other possible causes for the incidents, including complacent Navy sailors…

It is also worth noting that US Navy vessels do not broadcast an AIS signal (which can be seen on www.marinetraffic.com) with their respective position, like nearly all other vessels, due to obvious security/defense reasons. You almost never hear news of large commercial ships crashing into each other, which is due not just to AIS, but due to the fact that they actively try to broadcast their position by other means, such as running lights.

 

Which brings in the possibility of simple human error from US Navy operators as being the cause of these crashes.  Could it be that simple complacency and/or lack of proper training has resulted in these incidents? Given the professionalism of our military, that seems unlikely, but it wouldn’t be the first (and almost certainly won’t be the last) time it has happened.

…a theme which was commonly brought up in responses to this article after it was posted on The Burning Platform:

• Here’s a more likely scenario – its driven and manned by a bunch of incompetent sailors, who very well may have gotten there through some kind of affirmative action nonsense, or social promotion, where pople get qualifications on things they aren’t competent enough to handle because no CO wants to get accused of racism or sexism for failing a black/women/whatever person on the oral board for underway watches. I’ve never been in the Navy, but I’ve seen it, many times. People given way more responsiblity that they are competent to handle, and you just sit back and wait for them to do something stupid, while hoping no one gets hurt. Also, they are probably spending more time doing mandated training on SJW type nonsense than learning how to sail their boat.


• Never attribute something to highly complex malice when it can easily be contributed to stupidity and/or incompetence. Thats how Occam would slice it.


• A complete breakdown in seafaring culture, from top to bottom. The lookouts either failed or had their reports ignored. The radarmen failed to kep track. The bridge lookouts failed, the officer of the deck failed, and the C/O failed by not ensuring that he had competent people at every position. His C/O failed because he knew that the ship captain was incapable of taut management, and likely knew that many of the junior officers and petty officers were untrained and incompetent.


• A complete failure of culture. God help them if they become hard targets in a shooting engagement.


• I’ve worked on vessels in the oil field my whole life and have seen the decline in discipline and accountability. With so many wireless devices it’s almost impossible to keep people focused on their task. If they would disconnect the internet from these vessels and keel hull a few of the captains most of the problem would go away.


• Hacking, GPS spoofing, etc are all things that should be investigated. However IMO they are unlikely. What seems more likely to me is there is a breakdown of operational discipline.


• However this was brought on is open for much debate. A large factor that I think contributes, is the shift away from the military from being an instrument of death to our enemies to a global force for good and social engineering experiments.

And in the case of the USS Fitzgerald and USS John S. McCain, the Navy has ruled that incompetence was indeed the cause of the incidents:

The collision between Fitzgerald and Crystal was avoidable and resulted from an accumulation of smaller errors over time, ultimately resulting in a lack of adherence to sound navigational practices. Specifically, Fitzgerald’s watch teams disregarded established norms of basic contact management and, more importantly, leadership failed to adhere to well-established protocols put in place to prevent collisions. In addition, the ship’s triad was absent during an evolution where their experience, guidance and example would have greatly benefited the ship.

 

The collision between John S. McCain and Alnic MC was also avoidable and resulted primarily from complacency, over-confidence and lack of procedural compliance. A major contributing factor to the collision was sub-standard level of knowledge regarding the operation of the ship control console. In particular, McCain’s commanding officer disregarded recommendations from his executive officer, navigator and senior watch officer to set sea and anchor watch teams in a timely fashion to ensure the safe and effective operation of the ship. With regard to procedures, no one on the Bridge watch team, to include the commanding officer and executive officer, were properly trained on how to correctly operate the ship control console during a steering casualty.

Is the Navy being truthful in its assessment of these incidents?  More than likely, yes.  But it should be acknowledged that the Navy could be “covering up” another cause of the incident, which could be anything from the aforementioned hacking, to problems with the Navy’s Aegis system, as was previously stated on Free Market Shooter:

A far more likely scenario is that there is a problem with the Aegis system and/or other navigation systems on US naval vessels. The US Navy, known to cover up all sorts of problems in the past, would have every reason to mask the true reason behind these collisions if they are tied to a defective weapons system. Notably, the unreliable nature of the US ground-based interceptor program under questionable test conditions has led many to believe that the system is just another failed defense project sucking up billions of taxpayer dollars.  It is not far-fetched to believe that one of our deployed systems is operating with a serious defect that has been swept under the rug by the DoD.

It is also worth acknowledging that if hacking indeed was to blame, the Navy would not acknowledge it publicly.  If hacking was the culprit, the Navy would not want the enemy to know that it had isolated the issue and corrected it, allowing the enemy to go along in the belief that they could continue to compromise Navy vessels.

However, in the cases of all of these US Navy crashes, the simplest explanation is likely the correct one, and the simplest explanation is the one that the Navy provided – a complete breakdown in seafaring culture.  Still, it has to be acknowledged that the Navy could be covering for a far larger problem. 

Chief Of Naval Operations "Looking Into" Possibility Ships Were Hacked

Authored by Mac Slavo via SHTFplan.com,

Tragedy struck the USS John S. McCain on Monday, when the destroyer collided with a merchant ship off the coast of Singapore, leaving 10 sailors missing and five injured. The US Navy is still struggling to find all of the remains of the missing sailors, and has ordered an operational pause for all naval fleets around the world as investigators try to figure out exactly why this terrible accident occurred.

Among the possible causes that are being looked into, one has a raised a few eyebrows. Over the summer there have been two accidental collisions involving the 7th fleet, and a total of 4 similar incidents this year. This has led some Navy officials to suspect that a cyber attack may have been responsible for the crash, as well as other recent Naval accidents.

The Navy has not ruled out an intentional action behind the latest deadly collision between a Navy destroyer and a merchant ship, the chief of naval operations told reporters Monday.

“That’s is certainly something we are giving full consideration to but we have no indication that that’s the case—yet,” Adm. John Richardson, the CNO, said at the Pentagon.

“But we’re looking at every possibility, so we’re not leaving anything to chance,” he said.

Asked if that includes the possibility the electronic defenses on the guided missile destroyer USS John S. McCain were hacked in a cyber attack, Richardson said investigators will look into all possible causes.

“We’ll take a look at all of that, as we did with the Fitzgerald,” the four-star admiral said, referring to another Navy warship collision with a merchant ship in June near Japan.

So far the Navy has made it clear that there currently isn’t any evidence that the neither USS McCain, nor any other naval vessel, has suffered from a cyber attack. However, there are quite a few top notch cyber security experts who think that all of these collisions probably have something in common.

“There’s something more than just human error going on because there would have been a lot of humans to be checks and balances,” Jeff Stutzman, an ex-information warfare specialist in the Navy, who now works at a cyber threat intelligence company, told McClatchyDC.

 

“When you are going through the Strait of Malacca, you can’t tell me that a Navy destroyer doesn’t have a full navigation team going with full lookouts on every wing and extra people on radar,” he said.

 

Itay Glick, the founder of cyber security firm Votiro, told news.com.au that the possibility of cyber interference was the first thing that came to his mind when he heard about the incident.

 

“I don’t believe in coincidence,” Glick told the website.

 

“Both USS McCain and USS Fitzgerald were part of the 7th Fleet, there is a relationship between these two events and there may be a connection,” he added.

The only other question that remains is, if these collisions were caused by cyber attacks, who is responsible? One likely culprit seems to be China. For years the Chinese government has complained about the US Navy’s presence in the South China Sea, which they claim as their territorial waters. In fact, following the USS McCain’s accident, the Global Times, which is effectively a mouthpiece of the government, claimed that Chinese citizens were celebrating the collision.

It’s also important to consider the fact that many US Naval vessels are riddled with counterfeit parts from China. A Senate led investigation in 2012 found that our ships contained over a million counterfeit parts, mostly of Chinese origin. Obviously, this raises the possibility that the Chinese government may have used black markets to secretly funnel parts to the US Navy, which contain backdoors that are easily exploitable.

But perhaps what’s most telling, is how a state-run Chinese media outlet responded to the USS McCain collision, by suggesting that the US Navy has become a dangerous presence for commercial shipping in the South China Sea.

BEIJING (Reuters) – The U.S. navy’s latest collision at sea, the fourth in its Pacific fleet this year, shows it is becoming an increasing risk to shipping in Asia despite its claims of helping to protect freedom of navigation, an official Chinese newspaper said…

 

…The state-run China Daily said in an editorial on Tuesday that people will wonder why such a sophisticated navy keeps having these problems.

 

“The investigations into the latest collision will take time to reach their conclusions, but there is no denying the fact that the increased activities by U.S. warships in Asia-Pacific since Washington initiated its rebalancing to the region are making them a growing risk to commercial shipping,” it said.

There’s no proof that China has been hacking our ships, but the possibility can’t be ruled out.

Iranian Drone Flies Within 100 Feet Of U.S. F-18 In Persian Gulf

While the US government is busy deciding how to tag and track the millions of drones flying over populated areas, potentially jeopardizing aircraft as they take off and land, the US military just had a close encounter in the Persian Gulf, where Reuters reports that an Iranian drone came within 100 feet of a U.S. Navy warplane as it prepared to land on the USS Nimitz aircraft carrier off the coast of Iran in the Gulf. The officials said the drone forced the US aircraft to take evasive action.

As AP adds, the drone came within 100 feet below the aircraft and 200 feet to the side of the aircraft. The F/A-18 was in a landing pattern several thousand feet off the deck of the ship waiting to land.

The F/A-18 maneuvered repeatedly to avoid the Iranian QOM-1 drone. The drone did not appear to be armed.

The officials said the drone encounter was considered unsafe and
unprofessional. The US used an emergency radio frequency in the
immediate area to warn those operating the drone to back away. It did
eventually move off.

Since there is no rain over Bedminster, NJ today and Trump is out golfing, we will have to wait at least 3-5 hours before there is an official White House tweet response.

Navy Unveils World's First Active Laser Weapon In Persian Gulf

Three months ago we introduced China"s "silent hunter" experimental laser gun, and now, as CNN reports, in the waters of the Persian Gulf looms the US Navy"s first - in fact, the world"s first - active laser weapon.

The LaWS, an acronym for Laser Weapons System, is not science fiction. It is not experimental. It is deployed on board the USS Ponce amphibious transport ship, ready to be fired at targets today and every day by Capt. Christopher Wells and his crew.

CNN was granted exclusive access to a live-fire test of the laser.

For the test, the USS Ponce crew launched the target -- a drone aircraft. Immediately, the weapons team zeroed in.

"We don"t have to lead a target," Hughes explained. "We"re doing that engagement at the speed of light so it really is a point and shoot -- we see it, we focus on it, and we can negate that target."

In an instant, the drone"s wing lit up, heated to a temperature of thousands of degrees, lethally damaging the aircraft and sending it hurtling down to the sea. The strike comes silently and invisibly.

"It is more precise than a bullet," Wells told CNN.

"It"s not a niche weapon system like some other weapons that we have throughout the military where it"s only good against air contacts, or it"s only good against surface targets, or it"s only good against, you know, ground-based targets -- in this case this is a very versatile weapon, it can be used against a variety of targets."

LaWS begins with an advantage no other weapon ever invented comes even close to matching. It moves, by definition, at the speed of light. For comparison, that is 50,000 times the speed of an incoming ICBM.

"It is throwing massive amounts of photons at an incoming object," said Lt. Cale Hughes, laser weapons system officer.

"We don"t worry about wind, we don"t worry about range, we don"t worry about anything else. We"re able to engage the targets at the speed of light."

All the $40 million system needs to operate is a supply of electricity, which is derived from its own small generator, and has a crew of three. No multi-million-dollar missile, no ammunition at all.

The cost per use? "It"s about a dollar a shot," said Hughes.

President Trump"s military budget problems solved?

Container Ship Was On Autopilot When It Struck USS Fitzergerald

A deadly collision between the Philippine-registered container ship ACX Crystal and Navy destroyer USS Fitzgerald that left seven sailors dead earlier this week occurred while the ACX was on autopilot, according to a report in the Washington Free Beacon.

While investigators say they’ve found no evidence the collision was intentional, that the ship was relying on its computerized navigation system at the team of the collision means hackers could’ve infiltrated into the ship’s navigation system and steered it into the Navy ship – though the collision off the coast of Japan could’ve just as easily been caused by a malfunction, or human error if the system’s warning signals were ignored.

“The Philippines-flagged cargo ship ACX Crystal was under control of a computerized navigation system that was steering and guiding the container vessel, according to officials familiar with preliminary results of an ongoing Navy investigation.

Investigators so far found no evidence the collision was deliberate.

Nevertheless, an accident during computerized navigation raises the possibility the container ship"s computer system could have been hacked and the ship deliberately steered into the USS Fitzgerald, an Arleigh Burke-class guided missile destroyer.”

The ship’s tracking data, particularly a part of the record showing how the ship reacted after the collision, is the most telling piece of evidence that it was on autopilot, sources told the Free Beacon that it’s clear the container ship was on autopilot.

Commercial ship autopilot systems normally require someone to input manually the course for the ship travel. The computer program then steers the ship by controlling the steering gear to turn the rudder.

The system also can be synchronized with an electronic chart system to allow the program to follow courses of a voyage plan.

Tracking data broadcast from the Crystal as part of the Automatic Identification System (AIS) shows the ship changed course by 90 degrees to the right and slightly reduced its speed between around 1:32 a.m. and 1:34 a.m. After that time, the data shows the ship turned to the left and resumed a northeastern coarse along its original track line.

Private naval analyst Steffan Watkins said the course data indicates the ship was running on autopilot. "The ACX Crystal powered out of the deviation it performed at 1:30, which was likely the impact with the USS Fitzgerald, pushing it off course while trying to free itself from being hung on the bow below the waterline," Watkins told the Free Beacon.

The ship then continued to sail on for another 15 minutes, increasing speed before eventually reducing speed and turning around. 

"This shows the autopilot was engaged because nobody would power out of an accident with another ship and keep sailing back on course. It’s unthinkable," he added.

Speaking at a news conference earlier this week, Vice Admiral Joseph Aucoin said the impact crushed berthing cabins below the waterline and ripped open a large hole in the vessel. Bodies of the missing sailors were found in the berthing cabins. Aucoin declined to say how many of the seven missing sailors had been recovered, but Japanese media said all had died.

Commander, US 7th Fleet, Vice Adm. Joseph Aucoin, answers questions about #USSFitzgerald Full video available here https://t.co/14zqjOWfJZ pic.twitter.com/FMwputRfVJ

— DVIDSHub (@DVIDSHub) June 18, 2017

The damage to the ship was significant, Aucoin said.

“There was a big gash under the water," Aucoin said at Yokosuka naval base, home of the U.S. Seventh Fleet, the docked Fitzgerald behind him. "A significant portion of the crew was sleeping" when the destroyer collided with the Philippine-flagged container ship, destroying the commander"s cabin, he said.

The Fitzgerald is salvageable, he said, but repairs will likely take months. "Hopefully less than a year. You will see the USS Fitzgerald back," Aucoin said.

The rarity of such crashes has also raised questions about what caused the collision, and who might be at fault.

As the WSJ notes, collisions at sea involving Navy ships are extremely uncommon, according to Bryan McGrath, a former destroyer captain, who said they occur only once or twice a decade, if that. He said he couldn’t remember a recent collision that was this consequential.

“There are 275 ships in the Navy and 100 are under way all over the world,” navigating “millions and millions of miles” every year, said Mr. McGrath, who retired in 2008 and is now a consultant. “This is very, very rare.

US naval history includes a few notable accidents. In 2005, the USS San Francisco, a Los Angeles-class submarine, hit a seamount or underwater mountain, injuring dozens of crew. In 2001, the USS Greeneville, another Los Angeles-class sub, performed an emergency ballast blow for special visitors aboard the vessel, surfacing quickly and hitting a Japanese fishing ship on the surface near Hawaii, killing nine crew members of the Japanese vessel.

In one of the Navy’s worst incidents, the aircraft carrier Wasp in April 1952 collided with the destroyer Hobson in the North Atlantic, killing 176 men.

Mr. McGrath declined to speculate as to what occurred or who or what might be to blame in the Fitzgerald incident. The collision occurred in darkness in a high-traffic area of the Pacific, he said. The most concerning aspect of the collision, from the destroyer’s point of view, is the damage to the Fitzgerald’s starboard side below the waterline, resulting from the container ship’s construction and the way its bow hit, he said.

the Fitzgerald collided with the merchant vessel, which was more than three times its size, some 56 nautical miles southwest of Yokosuka early on Saturday. Three people were evacuated to the U.S. Naval Hospital in Yokosuka after the collision, including the ship"s commanding officer, Bryce Benson, who was reported to be in stable condition. According to Reuters, Benson took command of the Fitzgerald on May 13. He had previously commanded a minesweeper based in Sasebo in western Japan.

The Fitzgerald limped into port on Saturday evening, listing around 5 degrees, a U.S. Navy spokesman in Yokosuka said. The flooding was in two berthing compartments, the radio room and auxiliary machine room, he said. There were 285 crew onboard.

F-18 Fighter Jet From Carl Vinson Carrier Crashes Off The Philippines

With the USS Carl Vinson finally on its way to North Korea after some initial "miscommunications" between the White House and the Pentagon, on Friday the aircraft carrier suffered another embarrassing moment when a F-18 pilot was forced to eject during an attempted landing on the deck of the Vinson in the Celebes Sea, south of the Philippines, the US Navy said in a statement. The pilot was recovered safely.

According to the US 7th Fleet Command, the incident occurred as the fighter jet was on final approach after "conducting routine flight operations" and is currently under investigation. The pilot is being assessed by the medical team on board USS Carl Vinson and there are no apparent injuries at this time. Full statement below:

USS Carl Vinson Pilot Ejects Safely at Sea

A pilot safely ejected and was quickly recovered by a helicopter assigned to HSC-4 aboard USS Carl Vinson while conducting routine flight operations during a transit in the Celebes Sea.

The incident occurred as the F/A-18E assigned to Carrier Air Wing 2 was on final approach to USS Carl Vinson. The incident is currently under investigation. The pilot is being assessed by the medical team on board USS Carl Vinson and there are no apparent injuries at this time.

The carrier group, currently located in proximity to the Philippines, is “steaming out toward the Sea of Japan” the White House said earlier this month. On April 15, however, the Navy posted a photograph on Flickr with a description placing the Carl Vinson in the Sunda Strait, several hundred miles south of Singapore. The Carl Vinson battle group was deployed in East Asia in January. According to the US Navy, the carrier is accompanied by the missile cruiser USS Lake Champlain, and destroyers USS Wayne E. Meyer and USS Michael Murphy.

As showed yesterday, the current active deployment of the US naval fleet is as follows:

"Rotating Carousel Of Prostitutes" For Defense Contracts; 9 Navy Officers Charged In Bribery Scandal

The ironically named Rear Admiral Bruce Loveless (so many potential one-liners here but we"ll let you create your own), along with 8 other senior Navy officials, including four retired captains and a retired marine colonel, have been arrested today in the so-called "Fat Leonard" bribery scandal and charged with bribery, conspiracy to commit bribery, honest services fraud, obstruction of justice and making false statements to federal investigators. 

According to a federal grand jury indictment unsealed today, the Navy officers worked together to help Singapore-based defense contractor Leonard Glenn Francis (a.k.a. "Fat Leonard") and his company, Glenn Defense Marine Asia (GDMA), pull off a "colossal fraud" that cost the Navy – and ultimately U.S. taxpayers – tens of millions of dollars.

The indictment alleges that, among other things, "Fat Leonard" and his associates repeatedly bribed Navy officials with "meals, entertainment, travel and hotel expenses, gifts, cash, and the services of prostitutes." Per RT:

The indictment also alleges that Francis frequently sponsored sex parties for many officers assigned to the ‘USS Blue Ridge’ and other warships.

The indictment mentions two port visits by the ‘Blue Ridge’ to Manila, the Philippines. During one, in February 2007, "Fat Leonard" "paid for a lavish party and the services of prostitutes," during which "historical memorabilia related to General Douglas MacArthur were used by the participants in sexual acts."

Another port visit to Manila in May 2008, saw Francis host "a raging multi-day party, with a rotating carousel of prostitutes" at the Shangri-La Hotel. The navy officers allegedly drank all the Dom Pérignon champagne the hotel had, and the room and alcohol charges stacked up to $50,000 – all of which was apparently covered in full by Francis.

In addition to the sex parties, the DOJ"s press release highlights lavish dinners complete with all sorts of fancy food, $2,000 bottles of Cognac and expensive Cuban cigars.

During the U.S.S. Blue Ridge’s port visit to Sydney Australia on June 17, 2007, Francis hosted and paid for a dinner event at the Altitude Restaurant within the Shangri-La Hotel. Some of the defendants dined on saute of scallops, foie gras, and beef loin for a cost of $11,898. During dinner, defendant Gorsuch handed Francis two floppy disks containing classified port visit information for many U.S. Navy ships, according to the indictment.

During one port visit in Singapore on March 9, 2006, Francis seduced the leaders of the Seventh Fleet with foie gras terrine, duck leg confit, ox-tail soup, roasted Chilean sea bass, paired with expensive wine and champagne, followed by digestifs and cigars. The extravagance included $600-a-bottle Hennessy Private Reserve, $2,000-a-bottle Paradis Extra and $2,000-a-box Cohiba Cigars.

Federal prosecutors say that in exchange, the charged officials provided "Fat Leonard" with classified or inside information that allowed GDMA to extort nearly $35 million from the U.S. Navy. The leaked data includes ship movements and confidential contract information.  In some cases, commanders steered ships to ports where GDMA could charge fake tariffs and fees, according to prosecutors cited by AP.

According to the indictment, the group of officers referred to themselves using various terms, such as “the Cool Kids,” “the Band of Brothers,” “the Brotherhood,” “the Wolfpack,” “the familia,” and “the Lion King’s Harem.” The officers tried to conceal their corrupt relationships by using fictitious names to create email addresses using foreign-based email services.

“This is a fleecing and betrayal of the United States Navy in epic proportions, and it was allegedly carried out by the Navy’s highest-ranking officers,” said Acting U.S. Attorney Alana W. Robinson. “The alleged conduct amounts to a staggering degree of corruption by the most prominent leaders of the Seventh Fleet – the largest fleet in the U.S. Navy - actively worked together as a team to trade secrets for sex, serving the interests of a greedy foreign defense contractor, and not those of their own country.”

“The defendants in this indictment were entrusted with the honor and responsibility of administering the operations of the U.S. Navy’s Seventh Fleet, which is tasked with protecting our nation by guarding an area of responsibility that spanned from Russia to Southeast Asia and the Indian Ocean,” said Acting Assistant Attorney General Kenneth A. Blanco. “With this honor and awesome responsibility came a duty to make decisions based on the best interests of the Navy and the 40,000 Sailors and Marines under their care who put their lives at risk every day to keep us secure and free. Unfortunately, however, these defendants are alleged to have sold their honor and responsibility in exchange for personal enrichment.”

Navy officials have said that about 30 admirals are currently under investigation, though only a handful have been named publicly.

The scandal is one of the worst corruption cases in US Navy history and has plagued the military since "Fat Leonard" was arrested in 2013, after an international sting operation lured him from Singapore to San Diego. 

In other news, Navy enlistments soared today...

The US Navy: A History Of Waste And Corruption

The growth of US military power has rarely, if ever, been the result of legitimate concerns about defensive strategy, let alone about the national welfare. Instead, it’s more often a consequence of a waste, corruption, and imperial ambition that together have produced the modern military-industrial complex. This history receives some well-deserved attention in Paul Pedisich’s book Congress Buys a Navy: Politics, Economics, and the Rise of American Naval Power, 1881-1921, which offers an in-depth look at the history of Congressional involvement with the US Navy. I’ve written a more general review of the book for those interested (here), but in this post I want to focus on some of the economic implications of US naval history over these four decades.

The main emphasis of the book is on a series of Congressional battles over appropriations for the Navy, and how these disputes influenced its growth and change. This process, Pedisich argues, was not driven by strategic questions of national security, but by a wide range of political interests. Pedisich provides a wealth of information about Congressional voting blocs and committees, as well and the personal and professional ties between politicians, the Navy, and the war industries. These consisted most often of conventional rent-seeking: members of Congress wanted appropriations channelled to their own constituencies, and the Navy’s budget provided an excellent opportunity for those states that stood to gain from the Congressional spoils system (pp. 28-29, and throughout).

Shockingly, the Navy consistently recommended its own expansion, and eventually focused on becoming the dominant seagoing force in the world. For a long time, however, this goal remained out of reach. Typically, its suggested appropriations far outstripped what Congress was willing to allow, and competing factions in the Legislative Branch fought viciously for control over funding decisions. Coastal states lobbied for shipyards and other naval installations, while landlocked states tended to favor other public spending programs that would benefit them more directly.

However, political ambitions for the Navy were not limited to narrow pork politics: they also had global implications. Throughout the decades leading up to the First World War, the US began to cast its eye on numerous foreign territories with a view to building an empire. Naval experts theorized that this required a strong fleet (p. 77), but the concept of a more powerful Navy was a tough sell for the public. It was especially difficult in peacetime, when there were no obvious threats to US commercial or political interests to justify building a Navy with an international reach. To get the Navy it wanted, Congress opted for deception: for years it concealed its true intentions by funding the construction of long-range armored battleships while referring to them in official reports as “coastline” vessels, implying defensive uses even though they were offensive vessels (pp. 80, 131).

Eventually this trick became unnecessary, and the Navy grew more rapidly during the Progressive Era. This was especially the case during periods of crisis and war, when government power increased significantly across many margins through what Robert Higgs refers to as the “ratchet effect.” The Navy’s growth was justified to the public on grounds of national security and the need to protect international commerce. Yet the real goal of expansion was to keep up with the (British and French) Joneses and thereby establish the US as a global, imperial naval power (pp. 75-76, 79).

Pedisich shows in some detail that Congressional politics was responsible for the organization, composition, and growth of the Navy more than any strategic considerations. But the message we should draw is not that an inept Congress disrupted rational strategic planning by the Navy. The underlying problem is that both Congress and the Navy lacked the ability to allocate resources to their most socially valuable ends because political and military organizations suffer from the same economic calculation problems that socialist governments do (see here, here, and here).

The title of the book notwithstanding, Pedisich doesn’t devote much space to discussing economics. But many of the examples he studies do hint at the calculation problems that faced Congress and the Navy. Basically, the same story played out year after year from 1881 to 1921. Each year, the Navy would request funding specific numbers of specific types of ships, and Congress would authorize a different, smaller number of ships of other classes. It’s clear from Pedisich’s narrative that both sides adjusted their recommendations to suit their momentary political needs.

This can be seen most clearly in the frequent debates over funding for steel plate. Rather than pay a market price for steel, Congress insisted on setting the price it was willing to pay. At the same time, monopolist steel contractors tried to hold prices at artificially high levels. Without genuine market prices to rely on, neither side was able to determine a price for steel that actually reflected its value in alternative uses. The result was years of bickering about what the price of steel should be and attempts to determine the “actual cost” of its production (pp. 100-101, 103, 126-127). But of course, such costs are revealed only through economic calculation, not political negotiations.

In an effort to make its operations more efficient, the Navy even introduced “scientific management” to its shipyards (pp. 190, 193). Basically, this involved studies of the technological efficiency of different workers and production methods in order to find which ones were most useful. This method too ended in failure. The reason is that management and technical efficiency are not substitutes for market entrepreneurship. They are merely, in Mises’s words, “playing market.”

Whenever economists explain military decision-making with reference to economic calculation, someone is sure to object that this criticism is too harsh. Instead, good military strategists, unhampered by an inefficient legislature, can make wise decisions about the resources they need to complete their objectives. The trouble with this objection is that it misses the point of the calculation problem, which is not about logistics or battlefield tactics, but about production.

Underlying the practical decisions of the military are an enormous array of economic questions: where should naval shipyards be located? How many ships should be built? What should their capabilities be? Should they be made of steel alloy or some other material? Which combinations of raw materials should be used? How much is too much to spend on a new warship? There’s no way to answer these questions without understanding the true cost of each decision. And the only way to do that is to make the different choices commensurable by establishing a money price for them.

The conclusion we can draw from this is simple, but it can’t be emphasized enough: when entrepreneurs risk their own necks in the market, they help to create a flourishing commercial society. But when politicians and bureaucrats play market without bearing the consequences, they create a bloated and destructive network of economic privilege that begins with bribes and ends with bombs.

VeTeRaN'S DaY 2016...

Today is veteran"s day.

Following Tuesday"s election result, I received a thank you email from, Ray Jason, a regular Zero Hedge reader who blogs under the nom de plume, the Sea Gypsy Philosopher.

He is also a Vietnam veteran.

Ray said a few very nice things and mentioned that he had written a post on Phan Thi Kim Phuc the "Napalm Girl" for which she later thanked him.

Many of you will recall my Napalm Girl mashup with the Droner in Chief blowing up in the background. 

Naturally, this drew my immediate attention and I read the post. Although he wrote it three years ago when Obongo and the Neocon circus started banging on the Syria war drums like on MTV, it remains timely.

Timely because our newly minted President elect has held out the promise of exiling the Neocon war mongerers.

We mustn"t let him forget that many of us were initially attracted by this among other good reasons.

And we sure as hell should be asking why that Necon jackass John Bolton"s name has been showing up in reports of potential candidates for UN representative!

I asked if I could share Ray"s post here on Veteran"s Day and he was kind enough to consent. So here it is.

Thank you Ray.

And a Banzai7 hat tip to all you veterans out there, including you Dad.  

by Ray Jason 

The Sea was mild and soothing as I sailed alone in the western reaches of the Caribbean.  It had been four days since my last human contact.  Such exile does not disturb me - it comforts me.  The wind was light, and the waves were small and melodious - like the cello phrase in a string quartet.

          Although quite relaxed, I was also vigilant, because my position was near the busy shipping lanes between the Panama Canal and the Yucatan Channel.  Suddenly, I sensed a nearby hazard.  My first scan of the horizon revealed nothing.  On my second, more careful sweep, I saw her – a gray smudge of a ship, still half below the undulating cusp of the Earth.  I took my binoculars from their rack and focused them.  What I saw slammed me backwards - both physically and emotionally.   She was one of them – a gray, military transport vessel that was all too familiar to me.  I had served aboard one - a U.S. Navy ammunition ship in Vietnam.

 
          

                                    *******

I had not willingly done so.  I had been drafted just after receiving my bachelor’s degree.  My first decision was whether to flee to Canada, as my courageous college roommate had done, or to let them take me.  My next choice was between a two year Army enlistment or the four-year Navy sentence.  Wishing to neither kill nor be killed because of anyone’s insipid “domino theory,” I chose the USN.  As someone who survived higher education with my capacity for critical thinking still intact, I already knew that war was horrible and this particular one was senseless and despicable.  I was not an ideal recruit.

          The toughest part of my service was being a closet pacifist aboard a ship full of gung-ho, pseudo-warriors.  And these were the worst kind - the swaggering, macho types, who had the luxury of never facing any real combat.  I kept my secret to myself, just as I kept my self to myself.  In fact, I do not have a single friend from that chapter of my life.  When I would go ashore and meet actual soldiers, they were not gung-ho at all.  They were beaten down and regretful and frightened - and wanted only to be away from there…to be home…to be far from all that madness.

          I never talk about this with my friends.  And it rarely enters my consciousness.  But that dark ship on the horizon, transporting munitions and mutilation to who knows which target this time, just staggered me.  To ease my anguish, I tried the comfort of my favorite classical music.  It didn’t work, and neither did dousing myself with buckets of sea water.  Although I resisted, I knew that the only way out of my agony was to burrow deeper into it.  

          

                                   *******

So I brought out her picture.  I keep it protected in an envelope hidden in one of my favorite books.  I unfolded it tenderly, and gazed one more time at all the evil, meaningless terror of war captured in a single frozen instant from 40 years ago.  I spoke to her once more as I had done many other times down the decades, when I needed solace: 

“Hello again, Napalm Girl.  Keep on running!  There must be some place, somewhere, free from this horror and insanity.  You must find that place.  You deserve that place.  Never stop running!!!”

          She is crying out, “Too hot!  Too hot!” as she flees.  Grotesque flaming jelly from the sky has burned most of the little dress from her nine year old body.  The rest she ripped off herself as she kept running and screaming “I’m dying!  I’m dying!”  

When the heroic photographer got to her, she was whimpering, “Water, water.”  He emptied his canteen on her.  With ferocious determination, through insane traffic, he managed to get her to a hospital in Saigon.  They said she was so badly burned that she would never live and they would not accept her.  He flashed his Associated Press photo credentials and said, “Don’t let this child die or everyone will hear about it!”  They took her in.  And they saved her.  

That Vietnamese photographer, Nick Ut, deeply understood the ravages of war.  His older brother, who was his personal hero, had already died photographing the misery of combat.  When Nick answered the call of basic human decency, and rescued that terrified little girl, he had no idea that on the film in his camera was one of the most profound and powerful photographs of all time.  He was only 19 years old.

Even though the immortal Napalm Girl picture touches me in my core being, it is the one with her mother sitting beside her in the hospital that truly haunts me.  The woman’s quiet dignity as she comforts her innocent frightened child overwhelms me.  In her noble, image, I can see what an almost unbearable burden but blessing it is to be a Woman, and to be a Mother, in this world of torment.  And it sickens me to realize that it is almost always men that cause this needless anguish.

Decades later, I can still imagine their likely conversation as the child asks the mother, “What was that horrible fire that fell from the sky?”  

And the mom might reply, “It was some terrible new weapon - like a bomb, but different.”  

“But why did they drop it on us?” asks the little girl.  “We were just children and old people hiding in the temple from the planes.  We didn’t hurt anybody!”

My guess is that the heroic mother, overwhelmed with grief by the sight of her incinerated child, might have said something like this.  “I do not know the answer, my beautiful daughter.  But I do know that you survived this horrible thing, and your pain will go away and you will heal.  And someday, life will be sweet and sensible again.  Now, try to go to sleep, and when you awake, I will be right here beside you.”              

                               *******

Kim with one of her children.

The dark gray death ship passed a few miles ahead of me, and has now disappeared beyond the horizon.  But even though it is no longer visible, its malignancy still torments me.  I stare again at little Kim’s photo in my hands, and ask myself, “How can I best honor her suffering?”  And then I realize that what makes her pain-wracked image so universal and so immortal is that it lays bare the true nature of war.  And that the best way to repay my gratitude, is to use my power as a writer, to further expose this loathsome evil.  

                              *******

Tragically, as I type these words, the war drums are beating again.  The Deceiver-in-Chief has scheduled a national address in which he will knowingly lie about the need for this latest “regrettable but necessary action.”  Then the commentators will babble on about “sufficient justification” and “reprisals” and “surgical strikes.  But they will never discuss what war actually is.  And that is because, at its core, it is sick and perverted and senseless.  

If someone invades your home and threatens your family, it is your right and your responsibility to protect them, even if it necessitates violence.  This type of personal duty is decent, courageous and just.  But war is the killing of human beings with whom we have no personal grievance.  War is Mass Psychotic Hypnosis.  But it is never initiated by ordinary people. One morning at breakfast, a million Norwegians do not spontaneously decide that it would be a good idea to invade Ireland that afternoon.  

No, this type of insanity can only be seeded and nurtured by certifiable sociopaths.  Unfortunately, we don’t call them lunatics, and banish them to asylums.  Instead we anoint them as political and religious leaders.  These diseased power addicts use cold-blooded manipulation to convince enormous groups of people that other groups of people are their enemies…and so they must go forth…and annihilate them.    

Nick and Kim at the Vietnam Vets Memorial

.

Here is another truth about war that the self-righteous, talking heads deliberately avoid.  Those who make the wars never have to fight the wars.  The Great Deciders will never be in a night ambush, where the fear is so overpowering that their bodily control abandons them, and they shit themselves.  And the defense contractors, engorged on obscene profits, will never have to kick open a mud hut door after strafing it with automatic weapons fire, and discover a heap of dead children beneath a wounded mother, who is so traumatized that she cannot even scream.  And the media tycoons cheerleading for more carnage, will never rush to the flag-draped coffin of a dead son or daughter and wrap themselves around it in fury as the military band tries to sound heroic.

And here is yet another profound truth that the acceptable, credentialed pundits never state:  War doesn’t work!  It never makes the world a better place.  For thousands of years, humanity has waged hundreds of wars, but they never achieve their supposedly noble ideals.  They never “end all wars” or “bring everlasting peace” or “insure self-determination” or any of the dozen other excuses that are used to incite people to massacre one another.  What it does succeed at doing is bringing misery, murder, mutilation and madness to ordinary, decent people.   

So listen carefully as the highly paid military and political analysts parade across your television screens, proclaiming the need for this latest “kinetic action.”  Observe how these shrewd distorters evade the three paramount characteristics of war that I have just discussed.  None of them will address what war really is.  Nor will they mention that those who benefit from war do not suffer its horrors.  And finally, they will not admit that war never brings good into the world and is actually a plague that sickens the human project.

                              *******

                   

Recognizing that war is Mass Psychotic Hypnosis, how do we overcome those who mesmerize us?   How do we break free from their spell?  Certainly our liberation will not come from those at the top.  War rewards them too handsomely.  

We must rely on our numbers.  We are many, they are few.  When the chant from the anti-Vietnam protests, “Hell, no…we won’t go!” became a reality and not just a slogan, the war machine sputtered and died.  Refusal is our best strategy.  We must refuse to serve in their militaries or in their terror cells.  We must refuse to resolve disputes through violence.  And if they incarcerate us for our resistance, that is a better fate than killing someone who is not an enemy.  And when enough of us refuse, their prisons are not large enough to hold us.  

I am perfectly mindful that such thinking is idealistic and foolhardy, but perhaps it will inspire others to come forth with better options for ending war.  Yet, even if such ideals are useless, we must try - if for no other reason than to honor Kim Phuc, the Napalm Girl.  We must sculpt a world where an innocent little girl does not have to race down a road with the flesh peeling off her body, trying to outrun her own death! 

I urge you to visit www.kimfoundation.com.  Dedicated to helping other children who are victims of war.

Almost every day something utterly insipid "goes viral" on the World Wide Web.  Perhaps we can help spread this little essay at this critical time when the war drums are again thundering Inside the Beltway.  By doing so, we can all honor the Napalm Girl.