US pilots and hardware embarassed over and over in exercises

It's quite amusing how many flag-wavers automatically think the USA is the best at everything, when in reality that's far from the case. It's just part of the American mentality - Your baseball and basketball league champs are automatically called World Champions despite having never left the continent.

Considering the results of recent joint military exercises with India and Israel, however, it might not be wise to pull out the blue ribbon before the pig show even starts.

Your arses were decisively kicked, period. It's a good thing you pick on nations that can't defend themselves well, and even then, you seem to have a pretty hard time imposing your will.
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Taking air supremacy for granted isn't smart

Not many have heard of Cope India, and even some of us outside the government who have heard of it know relatively little about it. A joint U.S.-Indian air exercise, Cope India took place from Feb. 15 through 27 at Gwalior, India. Among other activities, it included the first air combat exercise conducted jointly by the U.S. and Indian Air Forces, pitting U.S. F-15s against Indian Mirage, MiG, and Sukhoi fighters.

What makes Cope India interesting is that, according to reports, the U.S. didn't fare very well in mock air-to-air engagements, losing the majority of its dogfights against its Indian adversaries.

That isn't the first time we've encountered that problem. Not so long ago, we took a similar beating from the Israelis in a joint air combat exercise. Not surprisingly, both exercises have furnished welcome ammunition to boosters of the Air Force's F-22 Raptor program. Although Raptor since has been modified to incorporate ground strike capabilities, it was envisioned initially as an air superiority fighter, intended to penetrate deep into an enemy's airspace and defeat him in air-to-air combat.

Inasmuch as the chief objection to Raptor has been the absence of an air-to-air threat justifying so expensive an aircraft, the Israeli and Indian exercises have been manna from heaven for F-22's proponents. In response, F-22's critics note that both exercises were against allies, or at very least, nations with which the U.S. is unlikely to find itself at war.

That misses the point. The foreign aircraft that have challenged our own so successfully are readily if expensively available on the international market, and the U.S. has no corner on pilot skill. What Israel and India appear to have done, other less friendly nations also could do if they chose to make the effort.

Whether or not F-22 is the most sensible response may be arguable. Few doubt that it is a superlative airplane, with flight performance, stealth, and weapons management capabilities exceeding those of any current or prospective competitor.

But there's more to air combat than platforms, and whether the cost associated with F-22 might not be better spent elsewhere on better sensors and air-to-air weapons, for example, or more flying hours for U.S. pilots can be debated.

What can't be debated is the threat that a serious air challenge would present, not only to U.S. aircraft, but also to America's joint military operations generally. Indeed, the more the Army and Marine Corps rely on interdependent joint capabilities in lieu of organic air defense, fire support, and armored systems, the more sensitive joint operations will become to a threat to the air supremacy underwriting that interdependence.

Unfortunately, current joint operational concepts largely take U.S. air supremacy for granted. After all, we haven't fought a war against an enemy able to contest the airspace over the battlefield since Korea. Since then, every adversary, real and pretend, has had to contend with virtually unchallenged U.S. freedom of action in and from the air.

Thus, in a recent major Army and Joint Forces Command war game, Red forces confronted with that situation perforce adopted an unconventional warfare strategy not unlike the ones we've seen in Iraq and Afghanistan and saw earlier in Vietnam. They did so not because that was their preferred strategy, but rather because, in the conditions presented by the game, U.S. air supremacy precluded any other.Likewise, all the effort and money currently being devoted to precision attack would be wasted if the aerial sensor and delivery platforms on which that attack depends couldn't count on operating freely at the heart of an enemy's defense. We had a modest preview of that problem in 1999 during Allied air operations over Kosovo.

In that case, the threat was surface-to-air missiles rather than hostile aircraft, but the effects were the same. The more immunity an enemy enjoys from aerial detection and attack, the more difficult and costly it becomes to defeat him on the ground.

F-22 may or may not be the solution. Improved pilot training, unmanned platforms, and better air tactics may be equally important, and the Air Force currently is examining all three. As with any military capability, the more arrows in the quiver, the better.

But whatever the right answer is, taking the retention of U.S. air supremacy for granted is the wrong one. No potential adversary who has bothered to study recent U.S. military operations can possibly have failed to recognize our dependence on continued unimpeded use of the air, or the benefits likely to accrue to any opposing force that can contest it.

Like Red in that recent war game, enemies with no alternative will continue to seek ways to diminish the effects of U.S. air supremacy. But at some point, some potential adversary smarter, richer, or simply more determined than the others will seek a way to dispute it directly, not simply evade its consequences.

Cope India was just a mock air battle. But we don't ever want to suffer its results in a real one.
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Lawton's Richard Hart Sinnreich writes about military affairs for The Sunday Constitution.

 

interesting...im not an american but i'd find that post mildly offensive if i was. it seemed kinda america bashing to me...im not saying america has the best air force, i just mean some words chosen came off as a lil harsh.

 

Oopie, was I bashing??? Surely we can all understand anti-US sentiment in the world's current state of affairs!

But some consolation to the crap US pilots, those high altitude remote control mass murderers are nowhere near as crap as the US navy. Ask Osama or the UK navy personnel who had to provide CAP in the Balkans for the worlds biggest, hardest carriers. Yes the ones who couldnt defend themselves if visibilty was poor, the seas choppy, or the enemy erm ...'unfair'.

And the bombers are far and away the best in the world are they??? what the ones who cant hit the right country. They can precision bomb the planet but anything more accurate causes all sorts of problems.

Can anyone remember when Harrier jump jets were introduced?

The worlds biggest experts with the most experience had an exercise with some novices who had just received their planes ...

Game result : US experts 1 : UK novices 22.

How we pissed ourselves folks!!!. Even more so when the yankees complained that UK tactics were unfair .

I'm surprised I had a bladder left after that!

 

I'm from the states and I have anti-US Gov sentiments. Bash the men involved, but no need to bash the citizens here who hate the people running this country as much as you do.

 

Sorry Tom, I absolutely agree ^^^^

Would like to begin by making a disclaimer: I do NOT in any way hate americans. I don't really hate anything but I feel an extreme dislike, bordering on hatred, for the policies, actions and words of your current government - and those which have gone before. This is not anti-americanism; in fact, if anything, it's pro-americanism, because despite the best efforts of the govt. & media to argue otherwise, the process of dissent, debate & protest is about as central to the american national ideology as you can get.

I have studied america, from its inception to vietnam via its foreign policy doctrine in the 19thc, the construction of its constitution, and the civil rights movement. I don't hate america. Also, you must remember that my vitriol - for example over arms sales, or Iraq - is not directed solely at the US; I will & do criticise the government of the country I'm in (britain) and the country I'm from (australia) along with many others, from russia to uzbekistan to zimbabwe via south africa.

So, if we can put aside for a second the pointless finger-pointing and bland hyper-paranoid ranting about 'anti-americans' and 'pro-saddamites', it's time for a detailed look at why the rest of the world feels so strongly about the actions of the US government.

Here goes:

1) the US govt. (which will from now on in this post be abbreviated to US for reasons of brevity - this does NOT mean all americans!) has consistently worked to intervene in the affairs of a huge number of foreign countries, with blatant disregard for international law, democracy, human rights and the wishes of the local populace. it does so mainly for reasons of economic and political self-interest. this selfish interventionism is conducted within a framework of 'free trade' and 'humanitarian intervention', which attempts to legitimise otherwise inexcusable behaviour.

for example: in Chile, in 1973, the US intervened to overthrow a democratically elected Allende government & installed one of latin america's worst dictators, General Pinochet, whose war crimes are well known. in the 1980s, the US fought a long war against the Sandinistas in Nicaragua, using profits from drug trafficking to pay for guns that murdered children. this is all freely available information & fact. thousands of people in Chile were assasinated - including women and children - with the assistance of the US. in Nicaragua, the US supported thugs which murdered thousands; here's one lovely example: a female body was discovered in a pile of garbage. she was pregnant, but the foetus had been ripped out & the severed head of her partner was placed inside her womb.

The US has intervened in some 134 cases since the turn of the 20th C - from bolivia, brazil, colombia, cuba, dominica, ecuador, nicaragua, el salvador, guatemala, haiti, honduras, jamaica, mexico, panama, peru, uruguay, cambodia, laos etc. etc. and very rarely have these interventions produced anything beneficial for the 'host' country - launched on the pretence of securing freedom, democracy or human rights improvements, they have more often than not resulted in violations, dictatorships, and destruction - at best, the result has been crippling US-centric trade agreements and economic vested interest impositions that suit the US, but no-one else.

2) The US has a habit of launching wars based on ideological, reductionist propaganda, and then fighting them in the dirtiest & most abhorrent way possible. everyone knows about vietnam; knows that it was a bullshit, unnecessary conflict that was dragged out into america's longest war. the US used chemical weapons on its own troops in vietnam; they covered up mass murder and rape of civilians; they authorised the use of chemical weapons in far greater concentrations than was legal, let alone recommended; they carpet-bombed cambodia with such ferocity that death counts for the period AFTER the war had officially ended are still impossible; they refuse to pay any compensation to victims of US chemical warfare who still grow up, to this day, without limbs or eyes or with terrible deformations; and yet the US was spending over $15,000 per day in the 80s looking for dead US soldiers in vietnam.

The iraq war is a case in point; where are those WMD? how much of a threat was saddam? the only real basis for war now is saddam's terrible human rights record. and although it was undoubtedly an evil regime, let's just pause to remember who sold iraq the chemical weapons, who supported him during the iran / iraq war, and who gave him tactical advice when he gassed the kurds at hallabja; that's right, the US. why is nothing being done about zimbabwe? or uzbekistan? is it because there's no valuable commodities to be found there? how hypocritical does it seem that the reason for invading iraq without international consent was that it had refused to comply with the wishes of the UN, when in fact the US is by far the worst offender as far as UN co-operation is concerned?

3) The US has a consistent policy of sticking two fingers up at the rest of the world & insisting on unilaterally acting wherever it deems it necessary. let's take the UN as a starting point:

Thus sayeth william blum, in 'rogue state': 'washington has found itself - often alone, sometimes joined by one or two other countries - standing in opposition to the General Assembly resolutions aimed at furthering human rights, peace, nuclear disarmament, economic justice, the struggle against south african apartheid & israeli lawlessness'.

There have been 150 - that's one hundred and fifty - incidents between 1984 - 1987 when the US alone voted against UN resolutions. the US refused to pay its UN membership dues for years, then when it did agree to pay, backed out of the promise. the UN's ECOSOC judged that the US was to be excluded from the 53 member Human Rights Commission in may 2001.

The US is one of only two countries which has not ratified the 1989 UN convention on the rights of the child. guess what the other country is? iraq.

The US has consistently acted in violation of the World Convention against Torture, in vietnam, western europe, trained the iranian SAVAK secret service, and trained and equipped intelligence outfits in methodology of torture in Bolivia, Brazil, Uzbekistan and Israel, amongst others. in 1982 - 83, the US alone voted against the declaration that education, work, healthcare, nourishment and national development are basic human rights. in 1996 the US disagreed that it is 'the right of everyone to have access to safe and nutritious food'. in 1998, the US maintained sanctions against 75 countries, which constituted some 52% of the world population.

In 1986 the US was judged by the World Court to have used 'unlawful force', and then vetoed a resolution demanding all states adhere to international law.

The US has refused to sign up to the Kyoto protocol, alone apart from its pet toy australia. 'this is the US position because it's right for America' declared George Bush Jr.

The US has refused to sign up to the International Criminal Court, because it is afraid that US citizens might be tried for war crimes.

The US has created a special non-existent legal status for the detention and trial of the terror suspects in Guantanamo Bay. this violates the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the European Convention, and the Geneva Convention. the suspects are being held without trial, without access to outsiders, and indefinitely; and their propose trials will take place in front of a specially created military tribunal.

The US, whilst insisting that democracy is the overriding concern of the world, and more specifically that its brand of democracy is the only acceptable one, has intervened in the democratic process in the following countries: Italy, Lebanon, INdonesia, Vietnam, Guiana, Japan, Nepal, Laos, Bosnia, Mongolia, Russia, Bulgaria, Haiti, Nicaragua etc. etc.

The US has refused to comply with biological and chemical weapons agreements. it hold the largest stockpile of anthrax, smallpox & other pathogens. it has 30,000 tons of chemical weapons, and refuses to allow UN inspectors to visit its biowarfare facilities.

The US tries to force other countries to sign the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, yet has refused to sign up itself, and again refuses to allow inspections of its nuclear weapons programs and stockpiles.

The US has so far refused to drop its steel sanctions that enrich american steelworkers at the expense of the rest of the world, despite the fact that they have been deemed illegal by the WTO, and despite the fact that it constantly pressurises for 'free trade' for america.

 

4) the US maintains that its aid spending is the greatest, and many americans are living under the illlusion that their country is the most generous. unfortunately, this is bullshit. the proportion of foreign aid as GDP ranks the US as bottom of the 22 most developed countries; over 50% of its aid budget goes to middle-income mid-eastern countries, israel being first amongst equals; and further, the USAID website makes clear that 'The principle beneficiary of America's foreign assistance program has always been the United States'. 80% of USAID contracts and grants are given directly to US firms.

US aid is often tied to provisions, such as those being enacted in africa at the moment. thanks to Bush, sub-saharan and continental african aid recipients must ensure that abortion clinics are closed down. because of the precious sensibilities of the american moral majority, africans are denied the right to try and control their population, especially in areas where up to 30% of the population is born with HIV. think about that for a moment; whilst simultaneously denying the distribution of generic AIDS drugs, the US is ensuring that many thousands of children are brought into the already impoverished african life, born with a viral death sentence, while US citizens ('bug chasers') deliberately contract HIV, safe in the knowledge that their subsidised drugs will keep them alive for decades. when paired with the despicable Africa Growth & Opportunity Act of 2001, it makes for unsettling reading.

5) The US continues to sponsor repressive regimes. Take for example Uzbekistan, where the ruling party have been condemned by Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, and the UN. Political prisoners in Uzbekistan have been boiled to death – this is in 2003 – yet the US gave over $50 million to the regime in the past 12 months alone. The US openly admits that $40million of this was specifically given to the state security apparatus, which is responsible for the torture & murder of political and civilian opponents. The Colombian security forces, although part of that huge coalition in the war on terror (nb: sarcasm!) are responsible for the disappearance and deaths of thousands of innocent civilians.

The fallout from the sponsorship of individuals or parties at the expense of morals is clear and apparent. Saddam Hussein and Osama Bin Laden are two prominent examples of how US policy has ensure the rise of bad people; the US trained and sponsored Bin Laden in the era of Soviet war in Afghanistan, knowing that he was a fundamentalist authoritarian with terrible intentions. Without US support, who can say that OBL or Hussein would have risen to such prominence?

6) The US has officially endorse the doctrine of pre-emption, i.e. attacking countries without necessary provocation on the basis that they constitute a threat. This is a particularly dangerous and destabilising policy; the very reason NATO was formed in the aftermath of WWII was to prevent pre-emptive attacks from ever being acceptable policy. If we disregard for a moment the immediate implications of pursuing such a policy, then the danger to the world at large becomes apparent. What is to stop the Chinese govt. from claiming the same pre-emptive right and invading Taiwan? What about Chechnya? What if Robert Mugabe decided that neighbouring Zambia was a ‘rogue state’ and invaded it pre-emptively? Pre-emption is a dangerous, revisionist policy, and one which has no place in the modern world.

7) The US is particularly ineffective at inspiring democracy or even stability in the countries it has invaded. Iraq remains in a terrible state, but it’s still too early to judge; Afghanistan is slipping slowly back under taliban control. Given that colin powell authorised $43 million in aid to the taliban in 2001, and the structures through which US aid is passed, it seems incredible that the situation is still ongoing. The taliban are resurgent, the Afghan authority under Karzai has virtually no power outside Kabul, and many of the provinces remain under the control of local warlords, many of whom are noted for war crimes – yet in the fight against the taliban, the US is happy to co-operate with warlords responsible for burning people to death. This ‘whomever is my enemy’s enemy is my friend’ policy has been responsible for so many terrible outcomes for the people of latin America, the middle east, central & south east asia, that you’d think the US had learnt from its mistakes. Yet it blunders on.

Almost all US interventions have resulted in substantial profitmaking for American companies, be they arms manufacturers or civilian infrastructure companies. The US is currently in the process of illegally tampering with the economy in iraq; the US gave out many contracts to companies such as Bechtel and Halliburton without competetion. It stinks, and the world knows it does.

The US has a long tradition of launching prolonged and unwinnable wars in order to maintain its massive military industrial complex. First there was the war on communism, which could count amongst its victims the left-wing government in latin America, the innocent Vietnamese who were prevented from democratically choosing a government by the US, and many more. Then there was the war on drugs, whereby Bolivian and Peruvian and Colombian people suffered unnecessarily, all whilst the US itself was running drugs to pay for more anti-communist activities in latin America. Now we have the war on terror, which is equally disingenuous. The problem with fighting a war against a non-specific entity, like ‘drugs’ or ‘terror’ or ‘communism’, is that it can never truly be won; there is no one country that can be invaded to stop it, there is no solution, just continual expenditure and hostility, which American tax dollars subsidise.

Tied to all these specific complaints is the overall picture and image of the US which is being exported by its government. The US is despised by lots of people, from the impoverished steel workers of Bangladesh to the chemically deformed children of northern Vietnam; and yet the government continues to act in self-interest only, holding the rest of the world and its international organisations in thinly-veiled contempt. President Bush has been responsible for the awful and absolutist ‘You’re either with Us or against Us’ division, which stifles debate and discussion. Reducing real, serious issues to ‘you’re either on our team or not’ playground bullshit is threatening for democracy and America. This is a real problem, and one which can only be solved by Americans.

I think this explains a lot of people’s anger – they feel, as I do, that the good, honest and hardworking compassionate citizens of America are being railroaded by the post-9/11 hyperpatriotic, nationalist fever that has allowed the Bush government to pass the Patriot Act & stifle opposition to its policies under the cloak of McCarthyist anti-american actions. Americans, it looks to us like you are being betrayed; that your outpouring of national grief following a terrorist attack has been wilfully manipulated by a controlling cabal of government spokespeople and officials in order to further subjugate ordinary Americans, and to irreparably divide the country. Outside the egotistical and US-centric media (perhaps the most insular media in the world) America is not seen as a great democracy anymore. Your president – the son of a president - was elected based on the decision of a panel of judges chosen by the Governor of the State of Florida, who is a member of his immediate family. People outside America are saddened by the trampling of individual rights – of assembly, of protest, and even (though not through direct intervention) free speech. We see Americans locked up for 20 years for possession of two ounces of cannabis; we see the firebombing of abortion clinics and the persecution of doctors willing to help people terminate unwanted pregnancies; we see the repulsive flag-waving patriotism that inspired people to randomly attack arabs in 2001; we see massive tax cuts that affect only the top 1%, the richest of the rich, and we are saddened.

I am saddened because the majority of Americans didn’t vote for this, didn’t approve this, or wasn’t told about it. Americans, just as much as Iraqis, Uzbeks, Zimbabweans, Polish or Russians, are people first and foremost. People like me & you and everyone around us, people who deserve to be safe and happy and secure. So why, America, are you allowing this cohort of pure evil, the wolfowitz/ashcroft/cheney/rumsfeld/rove/perle coalition (which incidentally has over 10 times the wealth of the Clinton administrative team – just look at how many of the Bush administration are deeply involved with oil companies), to dominate your international and domestic policies? Why allow such cruelly manipulative and inhuman fuckwits to be your representatives? Why allow sinister pressure groups such as the Project for a New American Century (which detailed how & why the iraq war 2 would be fought way back in 1999???) to actually have a real influence on your lives? Why allow your government to further alienate the world population? Why allow these oil-soaked backroom-dealing buddies cause greater poverty, injustice, hostility, war and cruelty in your name?

 

This is an appeal, an appeal to all the decent Americans out there. Please get out there and vote, please deny these filthy rich bastards the opportunity to further deface the world, to further ruin your good name, to further trivialise all the wonderful things America has done for the world for the sake of a quick buck for Bush’s buddies. Remember that every empire, no matter how vast, how powerful, how influential, will fall. What were Osama Bin Laden’s aims in 2001? To divide America and Europe – success. To get US troops out of Saudi Arabia – success. To foster anti-americanism across the arab world and the rest of the world – success.

Please America, take back what is rightly yours, what you fought for & hold precious.

Take back your country.

 

We are trying. Everyday, I see more positive poll results that show Bush's support deteriorating. I believe that the closer we get to November, the more his poll numbers will drop. Unfortunately, there will always be an element of crazed conservatism in this country -- groups that allow their fundamental religion to run their lives and try to impose their beliefs on the rest of the country. I hope these types are weeded out some day and shipped off to their own island so they can cannabalize each other (my personal dream for the good of the world).