Military Ring Info

The good news for us is that our combat mission in Iraq has officially ended. Although our government says that all of our combat forces have left the country there is no doubt that we have some contingency troops there as a fighting reserve if necessary, but for the most part our combat mission in that country has ended.

This is the end of an era for our Operation Iraqi Freedom ring customers and the beginning of an era for the people of Iraq. Al-Qaeda has really ramped up their violent attacks in that country because if they want to topple the government now is the best time. The US departure is bittersweet for the Iraqis because they didn’t want us in their country for the most part and I don’t blame them, but they will have to fiend for themselves now that we are gone and it is a fearful proposition for them.

I believe that they can make it but it definitely not be easy. They are in unfamiliar territory and al-Qaeda will definitely use every trick in their power to trip them up. They will have to learn quickly if they are to survive this super critical stage in their history.

The cost of this campaign to the Iraqi people, the US economy, and our military ring customers has been phenomenal. I don’t know if the cost has been worth the effort but the good thing is that it is over.

The thing that is kind of a mystery to the world right now is why did a North Korean MIG-25 crash in Northern China. There is much speculation and I don’t know if I believe the official story given by the Chinese. They claim that it crashed due to mechanical problems. Well that seems to be what happened based on published news accounts but the Chinese make their news say what they want it to say.

Why in the world was it over China? Why did it have to crash in Northern China of all of the places that it could have crashed. The Chinese say that it was that far off course because of mechanical problems.

The military ring man (me) could very easily come up with another scenario. The speculation is that the pilot was in the act of defecting to Russia which might be true but my mind tells me that if you want to defect from North Korea you would normally go through South Korea. When I think about that, it makes more sense to defect through Russia. Why, because with tensions so high between the Koreas right now he would have certainly been lit up by anti aircraft fire or other Fighter Planes. His own Air Force would have tried to prevent him from reaching the border and there is no doubt that the South Korean Air Force would have taken it as a provocation and vaporized him.

This scenario looks suspiciously like an attempt to escape to me. I think that the pilot took the path that he thought would be easiest. If he was attempting to defect it seems likely from the evidence that the Chinese tracked his progress and fired him up at the last minute in order to prevent his leaving their air space with the MIG. North Korea owes them yet another favor for this one maybe one day their favors will run out.

The Department of Defense has released their report on China’s military modernization. The report states the obvious and I’m sure that the version that we get to see is the sanitized version. It doesn’t really tell much that we don’t already know but it does put some things in perspective.

This is a summary of the report, but let me emphasize it’s in my own words and you all know that the military ring man doesn’t talk much at all like ordinary people. The bottom line is that China’s aim is naval domination and much of its buildup is done with the purpose of intimidating Taiwan and the other countries in the region.

Many of it’s new naval weapons are designed to keep our aircraft carrier ring customers and their carriers at bay. They know that they can’t match the carrier fleet of the US in a force on force engagement so they have concentrated on precision weapons which can take out our carriers at long range. They could effectively inhibit our carrier movement with their long range missiles thus hindering the amount of help that we would be able to provide in the region.

They know that they can’t revamp every piece of equipment in their arsenal so they are revamping the weapons systems which have proven to be dependable in the past. The new technology that they are acquiring is designed to exploit the weaknesses of the proven technology that we have on hand.

Now grasshopper think about what I have just written. The Chinese are countering US technology so in my mind they consider us to be their adversary. Is that the way it looks to you too?

Our top man in Afghanistan has conceded that we will need to come to some sort of peace agreement with the Taliban before we can end the war. He is not saying anything here that he has not said in the past but the best time to make this announcement is now.

Part of the strategy of the troop surge was to let our custom military ring customers put a fair amount of heat on the backsides of the insurgents to make them realize that they don’t want to fight forever. Once this was accomplished the next step was to open the door for negotiations to end the war. I believe that negotiations have been ongoing for a while between President Karzai and some factions of the Taliban.

According to Petraeus there are some factions of the Taliban who are ready to lay down their arms and pledge alleigance to the new government. it is good that we are fracturing the Taliban from within as well as bombing them.

We have probably gotten farther along in this endeaver than the world realizes. We can allow the Taliban to save face by negotiating with them for victory but they need to have no doubt in their minds that we have the power and the resolve to beat them.

Twelve people were killed in a drone attack in Pakistan when our military ring customers used them to attack a known Taliban stronghold in Northern Waziristan Province. The locals and the insurgents are screaming long and hard about the drone attacks which are being conducted in their country and to be honest about it they have good reason.

I have written on this subject many times and those of you who follow this blog know exactly how I feel. If we could get a little more help from the Pakistanis there would be a lot fewer civilians killed by drones because they could take out these targets for us. The fact that the insurgents like to use human beings as shields doesn’t help at all either.

The CIA launched the attack and it is not pubicly known if any of the casualties were civilians.

One interesting thing that I found out while doing the research for this post is that the CIA uses private contractors to help them with these raids. Now my question to you o venerable grasshopper is this? What in the world does a private contractor for the CIA do? Where do these contractors come from? How do they look? If you see one let me know and I will do the same for you.

I believe in the back of my military mind that we are at a critical point in the war in Afghanistan. As a matter of fact we are at the most critical place possible. I am a tactician of sorts and I believe that I am right. There has been heavy fighting in the Kandahar Province as we continue to fight the insurgents in that part of Afghanistan. They don’t want to give up that part of the country to our control and we are obligated to the Afghan people to take it and get it under Afghan control. The outcome of this battle is crucial.

The latest news from the region is that Afghan forces have conducted a raid which resulted in the deaths of at least twenty of the Haqqani Taliban members. The Afghans conducted the assault in an area in which the Taliban forces were well entrenched in fortified positions. Both sides are deadly serious and the consequences are deadly also.

The good thing about this raid is that it was conducted by the Afghan Army with US forces backing them up. This indicates to me that the Afghan forces are improving in their ability to take control of their country and hopefully to remain in control once our military ring customers leave. Our military ring customers in all branches of service are no doubt the best trained in the world and if anyone can help the Afghans to become proficient enough to secure their country our troops can.

The bad news in this case is good news to me. What the press is publicizing as bad couldn’t be better but you have to have a military mind to understand it. So grasshopper sit back and listen and allow the military ring man drop some knowledge on you.

The news is that heavy fighting is taking place in the vicinity of Kandahar Province in Afghanistan. When the plan for the summer offensive was made it made the assumption that the Taliban would choose to not engage our forces directly but the exact opposite has happened. Kandahar is the birth place for the Taliban so who ever owns it will get a major propaganda victory. We did not know that keeping this area would be so important to the Taliban. They are throwing everything but the kitchen sink into the battle so it will take us a while longer to take control of the area.

All of our custom military ring customers are aware that plans are made to be changed and that very few things go according to plan during combat. In order to win you must be flexible, innovative, and able to adapt and change quickly. You also need to recognize opportunities when they arise and take advantage of them. This is a grand opportunity to eliminate a large number of the enemy without having to chase them all over the country. It actually makes our job infinitely easier.

It just isn’t possible for them to win in this kind of combat. Yes it will take more time to gain control of Kandahar, but once we do we will take control of the other areas very quickly. The prediction of the military ring man is this; Once we take Kandahar the Taliban will quickly lose control of the other areas that they control. Kandahar will be the first domino in the chain to fall. Once we take Kandahar we will have taken out most of their assets. If you are an opportunist you will see that they are playing right into our hands.

The Chinese now have their own version of this air plane. It is called the KS-2000 AWACs and should give them a big boost in aerial warning and control. They will initially field four of these aircraft These aircraft can be used for defensive battle but they have an offensive capability also. The reason that I mention this is because the Chinese have been steadily upgrading their military equipment. They claim that they are bolstering their ability to protect their territorial waters but many of the weapons that they are acquiring are offensive in nature.

The Chinese are disputing with every other country in the South China Sea and they want to claim all of the waters of the sea as their own. They are looking at the resources contained in the Sea and its fisheries. They need a way to feed the super massive population that they have.

I’m not sure how the Chinese AWACs compares to the craft thay our US Navy and Air Force ring personnel operate but it is a definite good move for them and a leg up in their quest for military parity.

Equipment used in warfare as a necessity must evolve and change to fit the changing situation. The essence of winning depends on who can adapt to the situation and overcome it. All of the weapon systems that we have today are what they are because they had to evolve with changing times.

The drones that we are using in Afghanistan are doing a wonderful job. The biggest reason for this is they are relatively new to the battlefield and our enemy has not had a chance to adjust to them. You can rest assured that our potential enemy is studying why they are having the success that they are and that he is devising ways to defeat them. The enemy in this war does not have access to the sophisticated technology that he needs to combat them better so he has to learn how to hide.

In a future conflict in another place things may be totally different and the factors which allow the drone to be a success now may be be changed completely. A future enemy may have sophisticated air defense technology which it could modify to use to shoot down our drones.

Our defense personnel have taken this into account and with the development of the Predator C/Avenger our Air Force military ring customers who operate it will have a craft which will have some stealth characteristics. This craft will use radar absorbing materials ahd its shape will be modified to refract radar rather than reflect it. It will be more maneuverable and faster to help it evade enemy air defenses and it will be able to fly at a 50,000 foot ceiling. It will also carry a 6,000 pound payload and fly for up to 20 hours at a sustained speed of 400 knots. Hopefully these changes will make it a fit weapons system for a future war.

If there were a motto to this post it would be darned if you do. The reason that I make this statement is because Tariq Aziz who many of you might remember from the days of the first offensive of Operation Iraqi Freedom is critical about the US withdrawal. Now I’m a bit confused here because I thought the Iraqi people wanted us out of their country. This just goes to show that no matter what you do someone won’t be pleased.

Mr Aziz thinks that we are leaving Iraq to the dogs. In his opinion we have torn the country down and left it in a demolished state. He went on to say that Saddam Insane spent many years building the country before we came in and destroyed his work.

He goes on to say that the Iraqi people are the victims of the US and the British and that President Obama is a hypocrite because he isn’t leaving the troops longer. Well I don’t think that he would have been able to say those things to Saddam and live if Saddam were still the President of Iraq.

You know my military ring customers some people would complain even if we had passed out one hundred dollar bills so what can you do?