Compass Points - Ninja Theory
Theorists again predict end of the ARG/MEU.
Compass Points - Ninja Theory
Theorists again predict end of the ARG/MEU.
August 15, 2024
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What would Billy Mitchell say?
Multiple news sources report that China's aircraft carrier CNS Shandong (17) sailed back into the South China Sea.
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Chinese aircraft carrier CNS Shandong (17) sailed back into the South China Sea on Tuesday after spending less than two days in the Philippine Sea. Meanwhile the Russian Navy Pacific Fleet cruiser RFS Varyag (011) and frigate RFS Marshal Shaposhnikov (543) are back in the Indo-Pacific having earlier completed a deployment to the Mediterranean.
On Wednesday, Japan’s Joint Staff Office issued a release stating that at 8 pm on Monday, carrier Shandong (17) was sighted with cruiser CNS Yan’an (106), destroyer CNS Zhanjiang (165) and frigate CNS Yuncheng (571) were sighted sailing in an area 329 miles south of Yonaguni Island and a total of 20 take-offs and landings had been carried out by Shandong’s embarked fighter jets and helicopters.
-- USNI News
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But how can this be? How can a large, slow aircraft carrier sail the oceans? And why would China have spent so much time, renminbi, and effort over the last decade rapidly building so many warships that their fleet now surpasses the US Navy? Obviously, China is not paying attention to the warning from Billy Mitchell.
In the 1920s Billy Mitchell confidently predicted that new technology -- the airplane -- made both ships and ground combat impossible and unnecessary. On July 21, 1921, Brig Gen Billy Mitchell and the First Provisional Air Brigade accomplished what everyone at the time said was impossible: they used bombs dropped from airplanes to sink the legendary battleship Ostfriesland.
Billy Mitchell and many other theorists predicted the sinking of the Ostfriesland, marked the end of military ships and ground combat. Mitchell was quoted “we must relegate armies and navies to a place in the glass case of a dusty museum…we must not entrust our national defense to these honored but obsolete services….” According to Billy Mitchell, now war would be decided by new technology, airplanes.
Later, in the 1960's the US Army began dismantling its infantry divisions. Why? Theorists predicted that the atomic bomb made ships and ground infantry battles impossible and unnecessary. Now war would be decided by new technology, atomic bombs.
Today theorists warn that satellites and precision weapons will provide such a blanket of anti-access, area denial that ships and the ground combat forces are impossible and unnecessary. Now war will be decided by new technology, satellites and precision weapons.
Those who believe that satellites and precision weapons mark the end of the Marine Corps' global combined arms, crisis response MAGTF, argue the Marine Corps must become something far different from the 911 force that has served the Nation so well. One commentator says, "We, the Corps, need to be a combination of Commando, Massad, ninja, Cyber spook, CIA analyst, and Ambassador."
This Ninja theory argues that the Marine Corps needs to discard amphibious ships, discard combined arms, crisis response, discard amphibious assaults, and discard massed ground assaults of any kind. Where the Marine Corps once went into battle with robust units built around infantry, armor, air, and artillery, now, by using the Ninja theory, all the Marine Corps needs is a bunch of cyber, a few missiles, and some special operators.
Is the Ninja theory correct?
Billy Mitchell sank the Ostfriesland and claimed he had proven that Navy ships and ground forces were no longer useful in future wars.
Unfortunately for Billy, a century of war has disproved his theory. Navy ships and ground forces are still important in war.
If ships are no longer important, why is China building so many new ships? If amphibious assaults are laughably antiquated, why are so many worried about a Chinese amphibious assault on Taiwan?
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The battles of the future are being fought today.
-- Israel has not been able to use the Ninja theory to avoid going block by block and tunnel by tunnel in Gaza.
-- Ukraine has not been able to use Ninja theory to throw out the Russians.
-- The Philippines have not been able to use Ninja theory to stop China's aggression in Philippine waters.
-- The US Navy has not been able to use Ninja theory to stop the Houthis.
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Billy Mitchell's aviation was a powerful anti-access, area denial weapon, but the importance of ships and ground forces continued.
In the 1960's, atomic bombs were powerful anti-access, area denial weapons, but the importance of ships and ground forces continued.
Today, satellites and precision weapons are powerful anti-access area denial weapons, but the CNS Shandong (17) is still sailing the seas to project power around the globe.
The Navy and Marine Corps ARG/MEU is an incredibly powerful, flexible and useful force. The ARG/MEU is small but when it can be rapidly augmented and reinforced with pre-positioning ships and fly in echelons, it provides an unmatched, ability to arrive at a crisis and deter, assist and fight. The ARG/MEU continues to provide US policy makers with crisis response options. Discard the global combined arms, crisis response ARG/MEU built around infantry, armor, air and artillery? Not today, Billy.
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USNI News - 08/14/2024
Chinese Aircraft Carrier Shandong Back in South China Sea
By Dzirhan Mahadzir
The individual wolf is a formidable creature. The wolf pack is far more formidable than the sum of the individual wolves. To analyze individual weapons platforms in a stand alone capacity is the height of intellectual dishonesty. The introduction of a single weapon system is not critical. Systems of multiple, supporting weaponry operating in synergy have, and always will prevail when under the command of a talented leader.
The most fearsome Great White Sharks are no match for a Killer Whale Pod. It is exceedingly frustrating to see senior leaders tout a weapons system as either on
Obsolete or a game changer. As no plan survives contact with the enemy no single platform working in synergy with others becomes obsolete if properly utilized intelligently at the right place, at the right time, the right way. The often overlooked factor the amateur reformers fail to mention is Mass. DOD persistently dismisses mass while seeking technological solutions that should additive and not a substitute. Often forgotten is that the Battle of the Bulge had four elements one of which was the exhausted Luftwaffe attack on allied airfields in Belgium and Northeastern France. Over a five day period they destroyed or heavily damaged over 450 allied aircraft. While those attacks eventually proved to be futile, it was allied mass that made them so. Ninjas, commandos, disrupters, wonder weapons, eyes and ears, niche weapons do not win wars. We should remember that the 300 Spartans bought time.