Insanity: Doing the same thing over and over, expecting a different result. (Albert Einstein)

France, after losing 1.7 million of their citizens in World War I, finally emerged victorious but traumatized.  They were scared to death the Germans would some day re-militarize and attack again.  To prepare for this eventuality they built a 450-mile-long, 15-mile deep series of interconnected fortifications, known as the Maginot Line, with its fixed-in-place guns pointed toward Germany.  It stopped short of the Ardennes forest as that was considered an impenetrable natural obstacle.  Their only unguarded eastern border was with Belgium, where the French planned to mass their forces if the Germans were to ever attack via that route.  They were feeling pretty secure.

While the Maginot Line looked formidable, a few enlightened military leaders of the time, among them Charles de Gaulle, thought differently.  They preferred a more mobile defense centered around tanks and airplanes.  They knew if the Germans should break through at any one point, they could react and respond quickly.  Their view did not prevail.

On May 10, 1940 France's worst fear came true, in spades.  The Germans attacked, but not directly toward the Maginot Line, which the French were prepared for, or through Belgium, where the French had troops poised to defend, but through the supposedly natural barrier of the Ardennes forest.  The Germans punched through, then swung north to outflank the French and British Expeditionary Force (did you see the movie Dunkirk?), and south where they came in BEHIND the Maginot Line with its immovable guns pointed in the wrong direction.  Game, set, match.  The French defenses folded like a card table. 

Fast forward 78 years and now it's the United States concerned about its southern border, and rightly so.  Drug smugglers, gun runners, human traffickers, and others have their eyes on us.  They want in.  The border security system we have now is only marginally effective.  Those who say we need something more are completely correct.  But as history should have taught us, those who say we need a massive, enormously expensive, fixed-in-place structure are completely wrong.

The Maginot Line didn't work for the French in 1940, and a Trump Wall won't work for the US in 2018.  What we need is security that is maneuverable, strong, and fast reacting.  Imagine, for example, a sizeable fleet of small manned patrol aircraft, and many more drones than we have now, too, backed up with the ability to very rapidly bring in overwhelming manpower anywhere along our border to deal with any intruders.  

Our adversaries are smart.  State-of-the-art security measures that might work today will likely prove to be laughable just a few years from now. That's how fast technology is changing.  The Maginot Line became a metaphor for expensive efforts that offer a false sense of security.  Let's not make that same mistake all over again with a tall, low-tech wall.  Let's be smart for once.

S

Ummm, don't look now, but....

I'd hate to be the one to burst your bubble regarding America's seeming military invincibility, so I'll just let you down gently by pointing out we have several military Achilles Heels.  I recently read an article that points them out which says, basically, that while we are no doubt immensely powerful, we are putting a lot of our eggs in several fragile baskets that we may not have a good grip on.  (You can read the article for yourself here.)

After WWI the world thought of France as one of the preeminent Continental powers, with a large army and navy, only to see it collapse like a house of cards after the Nazi's breached its vaunted Maginot Line in 1940.  The United States today, much like the French with their Maginot Line, puts much faith in just a handful of our weapons systems.  Without getting too geeky, here are our problem areas:

Supercarriers....we currently have 10 nuclear aircraft carriers able to project power around the world. They carry a powerful wallop, but they themselves are huge targets.  In fact, there have been several incidents recently when real-world friendly naval forces, acting as "adversaries", managed to get their (old, not very sophisticated) submarines close enough to an American carrier to shoot virtual torpedoes into it.  (Story here.)  

In other words, it's easier than you might think for a non-state-of-the-art submarine to put a few million-dollar torpedoes into a multi-BILLION dollar aircraft carrier and send it to the bottom of the ocean.  Due to the lack of a worthy adversary after the USSR collapsed in 1991, our anti-submarine warfare skills have noticeably declined.

Should we begin to de-emphasize our carriers, and accelerate building many more, and much more survivable, submarines of our own?  Are we depending on our carriers too much? 

Stealth aircraft....most people don't understand what "stealth" means.  The common perception is that a stealth aircraft is invisible.  NOT true!  Stealth means "low observable".  Instead of showing up on radar as a big aircraft, it shows up the size of a small bird.  It's hard to see, but you CAN see it.  And now our adversaries are developing (and I'm sure we are also) things like "passive radars" that can see stealth aircraft coming from miles away.  Our stealth fleet is still plenty impressive, but it's losing its aura of invincibility.

As much as I like the romanticized idea of a swaggering jet jockey sitting in the cockpit of a $100M+ aircraft, maybe we should consider buying many, many more smaller, simpler, and cheaper unmanned aircraft.  (Much of the complexity and cost of a manned aircraft is due to the need for "pilot survivability" components.)  Look at how well our unmanned, armed drones have done!  As with our carriers, are we depending too much on our "stealth" aircraft?

And finally, our "network-centric warfare" capability....we have developed a superb system linking in real time our command, control, communications, and computers (C4) with their land, air, and sea assets.  This means we can respond almost immediately with any or all of our forces in a highly-coordinated counter-attack.  The problem is, for this to work, everything must be connected, which is currently done through satellites in space. 

Now the Chinese have successfully launched an armed satellite-killer into space and destroyed one of their own to prove its viability, and the Russians have launched a satellite into orbit which they maneuvered into close proximity to one of our satellites, presumably as a test to see if they could get close enough to blow it up.  (They can.)  As our satellites are unarmed and cannot defend themselves, they're sitting ducks!

So maybe we should look carefully into developing weapons and systems that are simpler, cheaper, and more likely to survive an attack by    ?    .  We should study the history of the French Maginot Line carefully to make sure we haven't developed an American Maginot Line. 

We just might have outsmarted ourselves.

S  

The world has turned upside down!

Did you read in the news that France is involved in a military action in Mali (West Africa)?  Let me say again....FRANCE is involved in a MILITARY action.  This from the military juggernaut that most recently flopped at Dien Bien Phu in 1954 and before that saw their Maginot Line fold like a card table in 1940.  Maybe they'll surprise me and whip up on those nasty Malian rebels.  Then Paris can at last have a victory parade of their very own.  I've heard their military marching is one of their strengths.  *wink*

In fairness, France also gave us (their former First Lady) Carla Bruni Sarkozy. (Technically she's Italian, but we're splitting hairs.)  For that reason alone I'm willing to cut 'em some slack.  

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And former New (The Chocolate City) Orleans mayor C. Ray Nagin has been indicted on 21 counts of conspiracy, bribery, and money laundering.  A crooked politician?  In New Orleans?   Nooooooo!  I certainly didn't see that coming!

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And now I learn that President O'bama's big contributors are lining up to see which country they'll get to be the ambassador to.  (The big prize is apparently Great Britain.)  Here's how it works:

"Democratic officials and advisers involved in the discussions revealed some unspoken rules:  Volunteer for more than one country.  Be prepared to serve for only two years, so that a second round of envoys can be appointed before Mr. Obama leaves office.  Don't mention how much money you raised for the campaign (but don't expect much if you didn't raise at least a million dollars)."

I'm thinking O'bama should take the high road and hold out an olive branch to his defeated opponent, Mitt Romney. I suggest he make Mitt the ambassador to....oh, I dunno....maybe Mali.  ;)

S