US Stealth Jet Has To Talk To Allied Planes Over Unsecured Radio 270
Lasrick writes "David Axe at Wired's Danger Room explains: 'For the first time, America's top-of-the-line F-22 fighters and Britain's own cutting-edge Typhoon jets have come together for intensive, long-term training in high-tech warfare. If only the planes could talk to each other on equal terms. The F-22 and the twin-engine, delta-wing Typhoon — Europe’s latest warplane — are stuck with partially incompatible secure communications systems. For all their sophisticated engines, radars and weapons, the American and British pilots are reduced to one-way communication, from the Brits to the Yanks. That is, unless they want to talk via old-fashioned radio, which can be intercepted and triangulated and could betray the planes’ locations. That would undermine the whole purpose of the F-22s radar-evading stealth design, and could pose a major problem if the Raptor and the Typhoon ever have to go to war together.'"
Did they try Chinese? (Score:5, Funny)
type44q (Score:5, Funny)
the American and British pilots are reduced to one-way communication, from the Brits to the Yanks.
That's okay; if the grammar and vocabularly of today's 20 and 30 year old Americans are any indication, our boys need to just shut the fuck up and listen. :p
Re:type44q (Score:5, Funny)
the American and British pilots are reduced to one-way communication, from the Brits to the Yanks.
That's okay; if the grammar and vocabularly of today's 20 and 30 year old Americans are any indication, our boys need to just shut the fuck up and listen. :p
British youth aren't exactly any better. Come to think of it, it would be interesting to see a typical N-American urbanite speaking some street dialect and a cockney speaking Londoner trying to come up with a tactical plan. Headline: "Afghan based British and US aircraft bomb Faroe Islands, Pentagon/MOD reluctant to comment"
Re: (Score:2)
British youth aren't exactly any better.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_CwfCBa6PSM [youtube.com]
'Epic war fail'.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
And I wonder why TFA calls the british jet Typhoon, because here, most people refer to it as Eurofighter.
Because it's called the Typhoon. Eurofighter is the consortium that builds it, which could conceivably build other ones. I've heard it called Eurofighter, Typhoon and Eurofighter Typhoon regularly here in Europe.
Re:type44q (Score:5, Funny)
That's okay; if the grammar and vocabularly of today's 20 and 30 year old Americans are any indication,
No, you've got the reason all wrong.
The reason for the one way communication is that the F22 pilots can't talk back due to having passed out from lack of oxygen.
They're all idiots (Score:3)
the American and British pilots are reduced to one-way communication, from the Brits to the Yanks.
That's okay; if the grammar and vocabularly of today's 20 and 30 year old Americans are any indication, our boys need to just shut the fuck up and listen. :p
It's become clear to me from what I see on various internet forums, including Slashdot, that almost nobody under the age of 30 in any English speaking nation has an education worth having. So I wouldn't hold my breath that the Brits would be any better than Americans.
Re: (Score:2)
What's a moran?
Re: (Score:3)
I don't think the cypher is the problem. (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:I don't think the cypher is the problem. (Score:5, Informative)
F22s can talk to each other, but it requires a special data link that is apparently top secret and cannot be given out to allied aircraft.
Re:I don't think the cypher is the problem. (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
How is this even a problem? Why can an AWACS not simply relay the signal? The enemy already knows where the AWACS is, it's out of range.
Re: (Score:2)
According to news on wired, there's a total of seven aircraft in entire US airfoce that can handle the task. AWACS is incapable of it, they have special retrofitted civilian aircraft with this communications system and standard data link.
Re: (Score:2)
According to news on wired, there's a total of seven aircraft in entire US airfoce that can handle the task. AWACS is incapable of it, they have special retrofitted civilian aircraft with this communications system and standard data link.
If AWACS can't handle it, then either these aircraft were overspecified, or retrofits for AWACS should have been included in the contract.
Re:I don't think the cypher is the problem. (Score:5, Interesting)
I wonder if they are using some form of Ultra Wide Band. UWB is best for short distances in part because 'optical' effects become important, but if it works it is extremely difficult to discover - at every frequency the signal is below the noise floor. It's only detectable if one knows the digital pattern that is being used, and there are a zillion possible patterns. In the sky, away from reflective and refractive distorting obstacles, it is probably usable over longer distances. IANA EE, however.
Re: (Score:2)
but can't ANY sort of radio transmission be used for triangulating the transmitter? encryption should be irrelevant. what am i missing here?
Re: (Score:3)
That's why it's called top secret technology. It wouldn't be top secret if random people on internet forum such as ourselves would know, would it?
And it does reveal the aircraft (Score:5, Interesting)
The point of the whole secure-comms thing as I understand it is to have one 22 staying well out of range of the hostiles with its targeting radar active (which totally screams HI GUYS HERE I AM LOOK AT ME YAAAAAAAAAAH!), feeding the info unidirectionally to a few more Raptors that are much closer and have all their radio and radar emitters quiet; they receive the data, feed it to their tracking and targeting systems, and fire all without (theoretically) compromising their stealthiness - the bad guys see one fighter 150 miles away and think "ha ha dumbass is lighting us up from out there!" and next thing they know six AMRAAMS appear out of thin air 20 miles away.
Re: (Score:3)
While we don't know the exact specs for obvious reasons, it would take quite a state of art radar to provide accurate fire control data at 200km+. As of typing this, F-22's radar has stated detection range of 100-200km (search radar). Active fire control radar is typically far more limited in range as it has to fire a tight beam and collect far more accurate data. About the only fighter aircraft in existence that can pull off a maneuvre you're describing and is not a dedicated AWACS aircraft with huge radar
Re: (Score:3)
why can't it transmit straight up only?
there is no way to ensure the emissions are entirely (at detectable levels) in the direction away from ground sources?
then you only have interception from countries with enough satellites to track that...
cuts a lot of nations out....
Re: (Score:2)
Re:I don't think the cypher is the problem. (Score:5, Informative)
Incorrect. The F-22 and F-35 have both active and passive seekers, and they're able to determine range, altitude, and bearing with just their passive seeker.
Re:I don't think the cypher is the problem. (Score:5, Informative)
Partly true.
In order to passively seek, there has to be something to be sought.
in other words, it only works if the other guy is actively emitting in some way.
if the other guy is also only passively seeking, neither one can see the other.
basic physics, engineering, logic, or whatever you want to call it.
the only passive seeker that will always remain effective is IR band, because they kinda need the engines to fly. but its also rather short range, wont give real accurate RAB (RAB being only really relevent for BVR) and if you're that close and can pickup his tailpipes, you already know where he's at, and which way hes going.
Re:I don't think the cypher is the problem. (Score:5, Insightful)
In a true air-to-air conflict, there will be radar signals bouncing all over the place, originating from everything from AWACS to SAM sites. There's plenty of emission, just from the defensive ground stations. A really good passive seeker is all you need for target acquisition, especially when your aircraft is equipped with fire-and-forget missiles that have their own active seeker, and require no intervention from the pilot of the firing aircraft.
Re: (Score:3)
Yes. For those who wonder how this works, it is similar to how our own vision works - we see things by the reflected and refracted light (EM waves) off of other objects. The same thing can be done at radio frequencies. Every emitter - cell phone tower, power lines, radio and TV broadcast towers, are essentially shining 'lights' at radio frequencies.
Re: (Score:3)
the only passive seeker that will always remain effective is IR band, because they kinda need the engines to fly.
Plus emissions of tachyons and residual antiprotons.
Re:I don't think the cypher is the problem. (Score:5, Informative)
precisely. its a non-story written by the same idiot at wired who constantly uses every opportunity he can to bash on the F22 and F35, while glossing over or ignoring inconvenient facts.
I'm not saying they arent without their problems...i'm saying the writer has proven in the past he has an axe to grind, much like the that Broder guy at NYT writing about the Tesla last week.
another thing he misses, is that most aircraft are not locked into a single design. it's entirely possible to replace the radios with other radios. you'd have to redraw some tech manuals, and maybe run some more wires. but its not unheard of and actually quite common for hardware to be updated.
Re: (Score:3)
As of the idiot at WIRED... Look a the name... How can you say that he doesn't have an axe to grind? It's probably a pseudonym for that express purpose!
Re: (Score:2)
Dywolf,
I am aware we agree about the author of TFA.
omitted was an emphasis on the word DOESN'T....
Re: (Score:2)
What about direction? Can you direct the signal towards satellites and away from ground radar?
Re:I don't think the cypher is the problem. (Score:4, Informative)
That sure sounds Really Scary... but technical jargon and buzzwords always do when thrown about by people who don't really know what they're talking about. (Note that the bit about triangulation was added by the submitter - it does not appear in the original article.)
Triangulation against a jet is just barely this side of useless - the damm thing is flying at several hundred miles an hour. A second or two after he stops transmitting, your triangulation solution has lost significant value because he's miles away from the datum point. Your solution just degrades from there and by ten seconds or so you might as well have been using a Ouija board.* Has anyone actually deployed the RDF gear that would be required for high speed tactical 3D triangulation? It's not particularly high tech, but it's also something that can't be cobbled together on short notice out of 'stone knives and bearskins'. To be any kind of useful, you need high accuracy (within +/- a degree or so), which means sophisticated antenna designs and significant signal processing. (Real life RDF isn't a simple as it is in the movies.)
Another problem you face is that you can't use triangulation to fire weapons... you need some way of handing the track off to the radar needed for SAM's or AA guns, or off to the fighter which will then need to obtain radar or IR lock to fire a missile or to obtain visual contact.
So, the real problem isn't triangulation... it's breaking stealth. An unsecured transmission can provide a raid warning. It can warn radar operators to pay really close attention to the 'fluff' on their screens. Etc... etc...
* Yes, I have experience with using triangulation tactically... it was sonar and ASW, so the timescale was longer but the general principles remain the same.
Re: (Score:2)
Is not necessary to be able to decode a radio transmission to know that someone are attacking you, is enough to know where it come from and check if any ally is at the origin of the signal.
Link 16 (Score:5, Interesting)
As someone who once worked a project to implement Link 16 into a laptop on a HUMVEE, Link 16 is very easy to implement. If the Air Force wanted it, they'd have it. In all likelihood, the Air Force is unwilling to share the Raptor's targeting data, as they don't want the operational capabilities of the radar/IFF/command and decision systems to be revealed to anyone, including one of our closest allies. Such data can reveal the range of the radar, the resolution, and the characteristics of the radar when it comes to jamming and clutter. Obviously, all this data is classified as secret or above, and is almost certainly not for release to foreign individuals.
Remember, the F-22 is the only airborne weapons system that the US Government refuses to sell to other countries, because it's an apex predator. There's nothing out there that can rival it, and even the F-35, which is basically a follow-on of F-22 technology, is no match for it. Thus, we'll sell it to allied countries, but the F-22 stays US-only, in the case that if we're ever involved in an air war where we're back to old school air superiority, there are no air forces that can match ours.
That said, I remember reading an article a couple weeks ago, where a new pod is being installed in several US fighters that allow for interoperability with the F-22, over a form of encrypted radio. Basically, the pod allows the fighters to act as a sort of wireless access point, which interfaces with the F-22 and any other fighter with radios that don't talk the same language.
Re: (Score:2)
Obviously, all this data is classified as secret or above, and is almost certainly not for release to foreign individuals.
The USA, UK, Canada and Australia all have the administrative structure in place to share classified data with each other. Naturally not all classified data is to be shared, but classified doesn't imply not for fireigners.
The funny thing is that the NOFORN stuff is an entirely different mechanism done as trade protection, and while you can share it with any 2 bit sleaze bag multiple felo
Re: (Score:2)
Right...it's all about releasability. But again, it's not prudent that the USG allow for the release of some of the most important performance data on its top tier fighter to anyone, including its top tier allies.
Re: (Score:2)
You're obviously a troll, but I'll bite - people given US security clearances have a VERY intensive background check done on them, as well as their friends. It includes inquisitions into their criminal record, their financials, as well as a thorough investigation into their associations, friends, and activities. These types of people are not the types that sell out their nation for a couple hundred bucks, regardless of what Hollywood wants you to believe.
Re: (Score:2)
people given US security clearances have a VERY intensive background check done on them,
Well, except members of congress who can get clearances of any level necessary for an investigation, regardless of their level of criminality and dodgy financials.
Actually, these days it's pretty unusual to have a congrescritter without dodgy financials.
Re: (Score:3)
Personally, I don't think most of those in Congress deserve a clearance, and only those on the Armed Services committees should have one. But hey, that's just my opinion.
Re: (Score:2)
The only problem is that if the US would ever start a serious war with say China, or one of China's allies, all China has to do is stop supplies of anything to the US.
That would quickly ground most equipment due to lack of parts.
And it would kill the rest of the population who would die from starvation, as after a while no more working microwaves to heat up their junk food.
Re: (Score:2)
The military doesn't use components that originate in China, and has specific guidelines for where componentry can originate, given very strict information assurance controls, as well as anti-tamper controls. Sure, there are likely some low end semiconductors that come from China, transistors, capacitors, and the like, but if World War II taught us anything, it's that the US can quickly, and efficiently, ramp up its industrial production, even after a decade of decline, due to recession/depression.
Relative speed of technology (Score:4, Insightful)
All this means to me is that the technology of the data network and the doctrine for using that network is evolving faster than the aircraft themselves.
The F-22's design is over 20 years old [wikipedia.org]. Think about what data networks looked like 20 years ago compared to today. Considering that the F-22 is an air superiority fighter and the current war is against an enemy who has no air force, I can see how the F-22 might not be at the top of the priority list for a comms refit.
Re: (Score:2)
The F-22's design is over 20 years old [wikipedia.org]. Think about what data networks looked like 20 years ago compared to today.
Ah, so all the Tornado needs to do is watch the skies for a trailing Cat 5 cable, plug it into an ethernet port, and they're good to go!
Nothing new; ammo incompatabilites pre-date (Score:2)
When the US gov't gifted Chrysler with the M1 "designed for the European theater" contract to a facilitate THAT bailout, it used a 105 mm main gun, while the "NATO Standard" was 120 mm, which the Abrams later adopted. Really silly to have to carry a completely different set of ammunition: "We've got 10,000 rounds of main battle tank main gun ammo, Sir, but none of it fits the tanks that happen to be near our ammo carrier, so should we just throw the rounds at the Russians?".
I just hope the Saudi crews pe
Doesn't fit the intended role (Score:5, Interesting)
A good question is how much radar data from passive only F22 is to a typhoon that has its active radar powered up. F22 essentially cannot fire up its radar and stay stealthy for obvious reasons, so its passive radar only. The major part of data link is sharing targeting data. F22 is designed to feed off allied aircraft's search and fire control radar data for both target acquisition and weapon guidance.
Not having proper communications link is a bitch, that's certain. But F22 is just not designed to be fighting alongside aircraft it needs to talk to in the first place. It's the silent hunter that doesn't really see anything on its own, and just listens to what allied aircraft tells it via datalink or what it can scrounge up from passive sensor data, and then performs interception based on that data. It apparently can also occasionally fire up its own fire control radar in short pulses to minimize risk of detection, but it's simply not intended to be an actively radiating aircraft.
The stupidity here is that it has no standard NATO datalink for cases where it has to perform other roles. It's one of the reasons why F22 hasn't seen any combat to date. There are no pure air superiority missions in the modern world for US airforce, and F22 is pretty incapable of doing anything properly else because of the way it was designed. Lack of common data link is just one of the design choices that hurts that aircraft really badly when it comes to doing anything else.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
While the F-14's original intended role was fleet air defense and air superiority, it was adapted in the 90s to carry the LANTIRN pod, which allowed it to perform the ground attack role. So, maybe research before making asinine comments?
Re: (Score:2)
I don't think you know how RADAR works. To get a "lock on" you need radio illlumination. To illuminate, someone, you or someone else needs to radiate energy towards the target. That is what fire control radar does - it fires a thin, concentrated beam of energy at the target in a certain pattern, and tracks the reflections. That is something that F22 cannot use when stealthed. Unless someone else illuminates the target for it, in which case it will need exact data on how illumination was done, or unless targ
Re: (Score:2)
That is how radar works, but the weapons that the F-22 carries are not dependent upon illumination from their source aircraft, because they have active homing devices and can direct themselves to destroy incoming aircraft without pilot intervention. The F-22 only needs to use the passive radar array to utilize the radiation being emitted from other radar sites to determine range, altitude, and bearing, then fire the missile, which handles the intercept and terminal homing on its own.
Re: (Score:2)
Officially F-22 is designed to be used with AIM-120 AMRAAM which is not capable of what you're describing in any of its current or known planned variants. I assume you have some sort of classified information available, as most missiles known to be used in US Air Force today require data from aircraft they're being fired from for both initial and mid life course updates. Their own radar is typically very short range terminal stage one, designed for terminal guidance purposes.
Dare I ask for a source?
Please stop. (Score:2)
The "writ large" subtext of the headline is that "somebody or somebodies in defense procurement is an idiot."
Not so fast there.
1. there are coordination costs and possibly size/weight penalties associated with installation of additional equipment.
2. the act of installing additional equipment and sharing the necessary protocols is itself a security weak spot.
3. it is hard to imagine where the two aircraft would be operating together and need direct ship to ship communications...
4. especially as they always h
Triangulation (Score:2)
This sounds as though the encryption is capable of evading triangulation. Don't know how they want to do that...
Re: (Score:2)
Encryption can make the signal look like normal background noise. You can bounce things of a sat with a tight upwards beam. You can compress it down and frequency hop all over he place. Hell you can do all of the above at the same time. But the signal that you cant tell is a signal and/or cant find quickly enough can not be triangulated in near real time.
Re: (Score:2)
You can't frequency hop very far, though. If you do, you'll run out of the passband of your aerial and the efficiency will suck. If you use a suitably wide front-end on your receiver then you can tell that *something* is there, well enough to triangulate it.
Re: (Score:2)
What about ultra wide band (UWB)? I don't know if it's usable at the distances involved in fighter engagements, but from what I understand it is essentially undetectable unless you know the carrier pattern. It might look a bit like a black body radiator, is all.
Easy solution (Score:2)
RAF and USAF pilots just need to use cockney rhyming slang. enemies will die laughing and the war ends quickly.
Re: (Score:2)
Because "I have a bogey on my tail" is any less obscure. Personally, I'd be checking my Aristotle if someone said that.
Signed,
A Genuine Cockney.
Re: (Score:2)
pffft (Score:2)
Can you hear me now? (Score:3)
An easy problem to solve... (Score:2)
Just give me $350 Billion dollars --- said greedy defense contractor.
Vector Potential communciations (Score:2)
You have to use vector potential communications [mcmaster.ca] if you want to be able to transmit from a stealth fighters / bombers without the use of a conventional radio signal.
There are more variables in electromagnetism than you learned about in Maxwell's equations. They were edited out by Heaviside because they don't normally have any measurable effect in real world experiments. They only show up in things like a SQUID (Superconducting QUantum Interference Device) used to detect faint magnetic fields. (The SQUID actu
Stryker (Score:2)
My favorite High Cost Military Equipment With Low Cost Achilles heel story is about the Stryker armored vehicle. The Pentagon spends ~$200,000 to put the M151 remote machine gun mount [army-guide.com] on the Stryker APC to avoid a crewman being exposed to enemy fire while operating the .50 cal machine gun. But if that solider runs out of the standard load of 200 rounds of ammo they have climb outside vehicle and expose themselves to enemy fire to reload the weapon.
Say what???? (Score:2)
Are you kidding me? Are we to believe that encrypted radio transmissions can't be triangulated? Give me a break.
Re:Ironic (Score:5, Funny)
No, the Romans had it (hence their successful invasion of Britain).
Surely they could solve this using a verbal code.
From now on, frog is me, sandwich means you and lemon means rocket. So, come on, sandwich, build me a lemon â(TM)cause froggy wants to come home.
Re:Ironic (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Ironic (Score:4, Informative)
public key cryptography (invented in the 1970s, mostly down to the RSA authors) was not among this work.
--Freddie Widgeon
It was actually invented over a hundred years earlier than that, and GCHQ developed an RSA equivalent with Diffie-Hellman key exchange several years before RSA was created or before Diffie and Hellman published their work. Occasionally the UK does manage to keep something secret :)
Re: (Score:3)
The fact that USB sticks, laptops, hard disks and CD-Rs were not yet invented helped here I guess.
I mean it is pretty hard to lose a filing cabinett in the tube or in a taxi.
Re:Ironic (Score:5, Funny)
So this is what happens when trolls collide
Re: (Score:3)
Surely they could solve this using a verbal code.
I guess "secure" means more than "secret" in the context of TFA. As it is mentioned that regular radio can be triangulated, hence I am assuming that "secure radio" should be protected from that. Which might mean serious frequency hopping and probably bouncing signal from big birds flying above etc...
Re:Ironic (Score:5, Funny)
You clearly failed to triangulate the humour as it flew over.
Re: (Score:2)
Since when does encryption prevent radio signals from being triangulated? (Hint: it doesn't).
Re:Ironic (Score:4, Informative)
Spread spectrum and frequency hopping are two different things. You seem to be mixing them up or considering them the same thing.
Re:Ironic (Score:5, Interesting)
You just triggered a thought. It is possible to build an emitter (transmitter + antenna) that simulates a completely different emitter, including a diffuse one. This is done by working backwards from the far field equations. This was originally done (AFAIK) to develop a sonic equivalent of a laser that worked underwater - the scientists worked backwards from the far field equation for a coherent sonic beam, and successfully came up with and built a sonic emitter that resulted in the desired coherent beam. Another recent related example of working the equations are the successful experiments in 'invisibility cloaks'. So by determining what the far field of a diffuse emission would be, it should be possible to build a radio transmitting system that was essentially invisible in the sense of determining where it came from, at least from a significant distance.
In fact, a similar methodology might be effective in countering the latest threat to stealth - reading the disturbances in the milieu of the many terrestrial radio sources such as cell towers and power lines. As early as the Kosovo war, experimenters successfully located stealth planes by measuring the distortions in the field that is generated by the cell tower network. This is somewhat like seeing the distortions of ocean waves caused by islands or other fixed objects. So, by continuously monitoring those fields, a stealth plane could compute the necessary interference to make its own distortions of the fields disappear.
Star Republic (Score:3)
Well even the Romulans had to decloak their warbirds from time to time. Seems the F22 Raptor is no exception.
Re:Ironic (Score:4, Informative)
Don't forget French and Poles. Credit where is due.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cryptanalysis_of_the_Enigma
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Ironic (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
"So by the time America came in - ‘cause you were watching a U.S. cavalry film, ‘cause the U.S. cavalry always comes in right just towards the end of the film - ( sings charge melody ) "Ok, let's go America!" ( charge melody ) "I love the smell of Europe in the morning! So, how're you doing?", we were going, "Fucking ‘ell, where've you been?" "Ah, having breakfast. So, what's going on, hey?'" - Eddie Izzard (Dress to Kill)
Re:Nobody goes to war anymore. (Score:4, Insightful)
Africa is still full of old school wars. We just don't see them talked about on news because it's not really in interests of anyone to have voting sheep know that real wars are still fought, and as a result start thinking that wars aren't about sexy hardware and war heroes and supporting your troops (several from safety of at least one ocean away). Not having modern weaponry, good support base far away from conflict and hatred for your neighbour that can only be born from cohabiting for millenia makes for a wonderful pot dish of war.
Re: (Score:3)
The wars in Africa are old school, in the sense that it's a bunch of people fighting a bunch of people with somewhat decent weapons, on the ground. For the most part, they don't have fighter jets, they don't have close air support, they don't have forward air controllers, they don't have long range artillery, just a bunch of people with Kalashnikovs shooting each other. These are the types of wars that really haven't been fought by the developed world since about World War I.
Re:Nobody goes to war anymore. (Score:5, Interesting)
Far more importantly, these are wars fought where people involved actually live. There is a massive disconnect in the Western countries about the entire concept of war, largely driven by mass media.
You see, even modern wars fought by West, like Iraq and Afghanistan are fought on the ground. The main difference is that one party only has army living out the realities of the war, while its civilian population is far away and doesn't have to experience any of the harsh reality of wars. Wars like Iraq and Afghanistan, only the enemy civilians are exposed to the war.
And yes, I know that official propaganda line is that they're not the enemy. It doesn't change the fact that they are treated like enemy civilians of occupied enemy nation, and the fact that they react like such civilians, by widely supporting local guerilla freedom fighters who are fighting asymmetric war against far more powerful invader that has no non-mercenary civilians of its own exposed to the war.
Personally I recommend BBC's Bomb Alley.
Re:Nobody goes to war anymore. (Score:4, Insightful)
I don't disagree with you there, at all.
That said, I personally disagree with the decoupling of civilians from enemy aggressors, as well as the focus on eliminating collateral damage. Sure, it makes you look nice in the papers, but if you're going to war with someone, it should be all-out war. Bring everybody in, decimate the aggressors, and be done with it. I'm tired of this line that we need to make sure that we're sensitive to the people that live there, when any one of them could strap a bomb on and kill twenty American soldiers.
Also, while I was and am a supporter of what the US did in Iraq, both from a 'remove Saddam' and 'build a relatively healthy, friendly nation,' I've become wholly unsupportive of our action in Afghanistan. We're just spinning our wheels in a country where we'll never be able to implement a healthy government, spending a metric crapload of money on people that will never support us, and overextending our active duty military (and reservists) such that we're now going to furlough them or lay them off, further reducing our expeditionary capabilities.
Re: (Score:2)
I will say there is something 'unchivalrous', unfair and perhaps war-crime-worthy in using weapons that do not expose one's own fighters to some level of risk. Such as people in Kansas City or wherever driving drones over another nation. I think this is something intuitively understood by most people, as demonstrated by the terroristic aspects of various 'robot war' movies such as Terminator et al - viewers intuitively feel something worse than plain fear when the enemy personnel are beyond reach or are c
Re: (Score:2)
I'm tired of this line that we need to make sure that we're sensitive to the people that live there, when any one of them could strap a bomb on and kill twenty American soldiers.
It's always a bad idea to lose support in the local population, even if it tires you.
Fighting a war without local support means that most of your army has to stay behind in occupied territory busily fighting local insurgents, and as you rightly said, they can just strap a bomb on and kill twenty American soldiers.
Re:Nobody goes to war anymore. (Score:4, Insightful)
That said, I personally disagree with the decoupling of civilians from enemy aggressors, as well as the focus on eliminating collateral damage. Sure, it makes you look nice in the papers, but if you're going to war with someone, it should be all-out war.
Also, while I was and am a supporter of what the US did in Iraq, both from a 'remove Saddam' and 'build a relatively healthy, friendly nation,'
Well then you have a problem because while it may be argued that the ends justify the means, that argument falls apart when the means contradict and thus prevent the ends.
All-out-war is over because the political goals of war have changed. You simply cannot fight a war of "liberation" without respecting the civilians. And this was self-evident in the years of complete and utter failure in Iraq. Sure, we didn't engage in "all out war" against a poorly understood collage of insurgent forces because that's a completely ineffective way to fight an insurgency unless you're willing to go the Roman or Mao Tse Tung route and use genocide. Which would have resulted in us "winning" for a definition of "winning" completely different than what we started with. The warfare equivalent of flipping the chessboard. Good job. You "won". Slow clap.
So instead we tied our soldiers' hands with rules of engagement while simultaneously maintaining a flippant attitude toward colateral damage -- enough to "look nice in the papers" back home, but definitely not the ones in Iraq. This was because the people in charge, like you, really would have rather engaged in all-out war but knew they couldn't because of politics at home.
The result was unsurprisingly ineffective as the ranks of insurgents swelled with angry former-civilians (many of whom were former-army, but don't get me started on that).
A lot of people credit The Surge with turning Iraq around, but while a component it was actually the least important part of what changed. Petraeus' real genius was in not only using force even more judiciously than before -- the opposite of what you would do -- but also in fully engaging the civilian population. He didn't treat them as though they were basically the enemy that he couldn't shoot because it looked bad on CNN. He treated them as if they were already allies that required help. He took "winning hearts and minds" seriously, and it worked. When the area of Iraq Petraeus was in charge of stabilized like none of the rest of Iraq had, they put him in charge of the lot so his demonstrably effective (and not coincidently completely unlike your) strategy could benefit everywhere. And it did. Only in the environment created by this new strategy could the additional troops put in have been effective.
You know what the REALLY sad part is? The part that really causes comments like yours make the bile swell up in my throat?
It's that when we began in Afghanistan, the people did support us. Unlike the Iraqi people who felt betrayed by us after Desert Storm, the Afghan people still thought of us as the folks who helped them kick out the Russians. With no love lost for the Taliban, they were actually on our side. At first.
Thanks to years of idiotic management, that flippant attitude towards collateral damage you embody, and years of neglect due to being focused on Iraq, we lost both literal and figurative ground in Afghanistan. We squandered our advantage. Pissed it away. Turned the people against us.
And then some dweeb comes along and says the people "will never support us". As if it was always this way. As if it's their fault, instead of ours. Gee, maybe we should just stop worrying about killing them. That would probably fix it.
So fucking sad.
Re: (Score:3)
I don't disagree with you there, at all.
That said, I personally disagree with the decoupling of civilians from enemy aggressors, as well as the focus on eliminating collateral damage. Sure, it makes you look nice in the papers, but if you're going to war with someone, it should be all-out war. Bring everybody in, decimate the aggressors, and be done with it. I'm tired of this line that we need to make sure that we're sensitive to the people that live there, when any one of them could strap a bomb on and kill twenty American soldiers.
Also, while I was and am a supporter of what the US did in Iraq, both from a 'remove Saddam' and 'build a relatively healthy, friendly nation,' I've become wholly unsupportive of our action in Afghanistan. We're just spinning our wheels in a country where we'll never be able to implement a healthy government, spending a metric crapload of money on people that will never support us, and overextending our active duty military (and reservists) such that we're now going to furlough them or lay them off, further reducing our expeditionary capabilities.
I think there are a few issues at play here, and you have hit on one of the fundamental contradictions of American military and foreign policy. The American people see themselves as the Good Guys. And the Good Guys don't decimate entire populations. They don't kill women and children and old men. So you can't just do all-out war on civilian populations because it runs counter to modern morality and the nation's self-image. But as you point out, that leaves your forces open to insurgency and guerrilla w
Re: (Score:2)
There is no western interest in the areas mainly due to lack of oil in the ground. Or other sufficiently valuable resources.
No I say that wrong, as there are valuable resources in Africa. It is more that as long as those wars are fought, no-one is able to actually keep track of what western companies - who secure their installations using private-hire armies - remove from their lands. And that's a win for the western world, who as a result are not really interested in stopping those wars.
Well, also not en
Re: (Score:2)
Actually the main reason was because our multinationals controlled these just fine until recently, and wars were often used by said multinationals to improve their extraction terms with locals.
And nowadays we cannot really go to open war with China that uses its state companies to do the same thing.
Re: (Score:2)
"Go to war together", not "go to war with each other".
Re: (Score:3)
Against who? Anyone who can field anything that could even shoot in the general direction of a single F-22 also have nukes.
Re: (Score:2)
Europe, according to the grandparent post.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3)
TFA mentions that F22s would have been used in Lybia, if not for these communication issues. So there you have your answer.
Just like the B2 was used against Saddam in Iraq. Weapons the enemy doesn't have an answer to - that at least makes kinda sure your plane will come back unharmed, and that the mission will be accomplished. That doesn't mean a lesser aircraft could also have done the job, it's just making extra sure the job is done.
Re: (Score:2)
Go to war together... meaning fighting on the same side. Such as a squadron of F-22's and Typhoons working together during an op / firefight / etc.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
For the same reason that the world MMA champion doesn't go around picking fights with enraged crocodiles: being the best of your species doesn't mean you're invincible. In this case, you want to avoid surface to air missiles.
Re: (Score:3)
the world MMA champion doesn't go around picking fights with enraged crocodiles
Although I have to say, I'd pay good money to watch a match like that.