Posts Tagged ‘Navy Grade 36’

What does a 355 ship Navy mean?

Posted: February 8, 2020 by ng36b in Uncategorized
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The Carl Vinson Carrier Strike Group, from NavyTimes.com

The US Navy is locking horns with Congress and the other services, trying to build to 355 ships, which it needs to fight China and Russia in any sort of future conflict. Despite the recent claim about rebuilding our military at the State of the Union, the current Navy is in a bit of disrepair, mainly from being run ragged around the world without enough shipyard time to make repairs. 355 ships would make a huge difference, but its not achievable with the current budget structure.

But when we say 355 ships, what does that mean? Currently, the US Navy has 10 aircraft carriers, 34 amphibious ships, 22 cruisers, 12 littoral combat ships, 68 destroyers (including Zumwalt class), 52 fast attack submarines and 4 SSGNs, plus 14 SSBNs. That brings us to 102 surface warships and 70 submarines. On the support ship side, we have 78 ships. Navy official website says 294 “Battle Force Ships” and 338,114 personnel.

If we look at the last time we had 355 ships, it would be 1997. Back then, we had 20 more surface ships, 21 more submarines, 2 more carriers and 7 more amphibious vessels. Back in 1997, we had 398,847 personnel. Doing my napkin math based on the current way we man ships, that isn’t far off from what we would need.

Image captured from Navy History Website

I put battle force ships in quotes because the Navy came under fire for counting ships differently. When ship count dropped a lot, Congress got (rightfully) concerned that we didn’t have enough vessels to do our tasking. Navy came back with some new counting that made Common Core math look good. So, if you think 355 ships means 355 warships, then we need to flash back to 1992.

I count 343, including amphibious ships but excluding mine warfare, patrol and auxiliary ships. Back in 1992, the Navy had 576,047 personnel.

We’ve gained some efficiencies in how we man ships, but not orders of magnitude more. The crew size on a current DDG is 329 personnel. A Spruance Class destroyer from the 90’s had a complement of 335 personnel. Other ships are similar, and in many cases need more personnel to run the advanced equipment onboard.

If we think war with China is a coming reality, we need to start expanding our Navy now, or there is little hope to stop China from walking all over countries in their first and second island chains. Representative Carl Vinson saw that in 1934, we had lost too much ground to the Japanese Navy, and pushed through a number of bills to authorize what would eventually become a two ocean Navy. Japan’s Navy went from one of the largest in the world to utter destruction in only 4 short years, thanks to Congress’ foresight in building new warships quickly. We need that same foresight today.

This post represents the views of the author and not those of the Department of Defense, Department of the Navy, or any other government agency.

Why Agnostics Hate Prayers

Posted: February 1, 2020 by ng36b in Uncategorized
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What people would pay for prayers, from PNAS study by Linda Thunström and Shiri Noy.

Would you pay someone to pray for you? That was the focus of a recently published study, which asked this very question to almost 500 people in the wake of Hurricane Florence. The study separated Christians from atheist/agnostic people, and presented each person with the option to pay for prayers and/or thoughts from different people. On average, Christians would pay more for prayers, and specifically from prayers from a priest, while atheists and agnostics would pay for Christians to NOT pray for them.

While we might comically imply there is a new income source for priests, the paying to not pray is disturbing and highlights two issues. First, atheists don’t believe in the power of prayer. While that’s not a surprise in itself, it does mean we (specifically Catholics) have done a terrible job advertising how prayer works. The second, and more troubling side, is it highlights that atheists and agnostics simply don’t like Christian people.

Contrary to what the media would tell you, prayer does in fact change things. The Catholic Church has been rigorously testing for miracles, and especially for medical miracles (the ones most people think of), most don’t survive scrutiny. For the Catholic Church to declare a miracle, prayers have to be offered to one Saint or person, the condition has to have no chance of healing on its own, and the condition must quickly be cured (as in, it can’t take a long time to heal). A good recent example was the miraculous curing of Dafne Gutierrez, who prayed to St. Charbel and had her sight restored.

I bring examples of these up with my friends who are agnostic, and it surprises them, which means that Catholic media is failing to promote these instances. How do we not have a repository of images, miracle stories and the like? How do we not have social media accounts pushing these stories out for the world to read? Catholic miracles are called out in our Catechism to inspire us, and yet we act like the man who buried his master’s talents. Given the prevalence of platforms like Twitter and Facebook, this is inexcusable.

Worse still is the image that agnostic people have of Christians in general. Ask an agnostic person what their image of a Christian is, and you will likely get some flinching. The media has been bashing Christianity forever, and while Christians might ignore it, the effects are playing out now. More people than ever are identifying as atheist or agnostic, and worse, more agnostic people say they won’t associate with Christians. This, despite the fact that many of the same people know lots of good Christians that they see every day. We are, again, poorly advertising ourselves and our lives, allowing the media to make us out to be the boogey man for atheists and agnostics everywhere.

Christianity, and specifically Catholicism, can in fact die out if we don’t fight for it. The media will gladly hide our miracle stories so that prayers become nothing more than good thoughts in most people’s minds. Worse still, the media will continue to incite violence against Catholics, like the attack on St Patrick’s Cathedral in 1989. It’s not enough for us to live good lives, but we must also show those that have no faith that our lives are worth living.

This post represents the views of the author and not those of the Department of Defense, Department of the Navy, the Catholic Church, or any other government or non-government agency.

The Pro-Life movement needs to expand

Posted: January 25, 2020 by ng36b in Uncategorized
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President Trump at the 2020 March for Life. From denvercatholic.org

The March for Life, despite featuring President Trump as the main speaker, was nearly buried in the Google News Feed this morning. While I was digging details out of the different articles, it became very obvious that different language was used by different sides to describe each other.

For example, NPR’s headline reads:

Trump Speaks At March For Life, An Anti-Abortion Rights Demonstration

A local ABC station out of Pennsylvania had:

Locals Head to Historic March for Life in Washington D.C.

It wasn’t hard to see why. The NPR article linked Trump and being “anti-abortion.” Its deliberately linking him to opposing something, which is a negative. We are hard wired to have issues with negative people. If you sit around someone who is whining a lot, you get tired of it. The ABC station has a positive link, with people headed to something “historic” that features “life.”

It’s not just these two headlines. A search of CNN revealed the top headline as:

At March for Life, Trump shows he gets the power of abortion issue

…focused here on Trump wanting power. And Huffpost, never dissapointing me, posted this:

Trump To Attend Anti-Abortion March For Life In Person, Group Says

…insisting on inserting the “anti” portion, removing the President’s title and only saying he’s “attending,” a passive action.

This sounds like semantics. And who cares what others say? But its important, because it frames discussions we have with people. I see it when my kids tell me what their teachers push at their classrooms. I hear it when people bring up different subjects. Every conversation starts from a person’s level of understanding, and that, too often, comes from how they read an article. The article’s title often primes a reader to read it in a certain way. And if the person simply browses the title, even worse.

Although pro-life movements have made a lot of ground, they have an uphill battle against the media. They will have to change to continue to expand, especially when President Trump eventually leaves. Conveniently, Democrats have made abortion a binary issue to be in the party, and essentially no Democrat can openly support the pro-life movement. But abortion, which is a key issue for many conservatives, isn’t so for many liberal voters.

To change that, the pro-life movement should frame its movement as a scientific one, add adoption reform and also push for expanded maternity leave.

Any browsing of pro-life pictures will inevitably feature a christian cross, and likely reference the Catholic Church. That’s not a bad thing, but with so many young people not identifying with a religion, it will only serve to put the movement in a corner. Pro-life organizations should focus on adding lots of scientists to their numbers. Focus on how advances in science enable us to save babies when they are tiny. The fact that babies at the 22-24 week point can live outside the womb is a powerful scientific advancement that nobody can argue with. Seeing pictures of these children in the NICU is powerful imagery. An ultrasound picture can never compare to this. Doing this begins to make the pro-life movement the movement best linked to science, and adds further legitimacy.

Adoption reform would be an easy add to the pro-life movement. I know several people that have navigated the adoption process, and it is sad when its easier to adopt a baby from Africa than from the US. How can we call ourselves a modern society when we run good families through the ringer, especially financially, to adopt a child that needs a good home? Making adoption easier complements the pro-life movement, removing one more reason to kill a growing child. This is an easy vilification of an antiquated process, a reform that is needed, and a chance to add people who are on the fence about abortion into the pro-life movement.

While the media continues to paint pro-life as the “anti-woman” movement, the last easy win for the pro-life movement would be to advocate for maternity leave reform. More women are working outside the home, but struggle to balance having a family with a career. Children should be breast feeding for at least six months and require a lot of attention during that time. Giving women that opportunity, and finding a way to not punish businesses for that (perhaps some tax incentives?) is another great way to both remove pro-life opposition and bring more people to the pro-life side.

It’s sad when our modern society has to fight for basics like the right to live, but its a fight that should be fought.

This post represents the views of the author and not those of the Department of Defense, Department of the Navy, or any other government agency.

Russia’s next move: Belarus and Turkmenistan

Posted: January 18, 2020 by ng36b in Uncategorized
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The media is laser-locked on the non-war with Iran and impeachment. In typical Russian fashion, Russia has been able to fly under the radar and stay out of the news. But the recent resignation of the government showed that its not quiet in Russia.

Putin continues to make moves to solidify his power in Russia. We already knew that. Putin’s larger goal is to recreate the USSR. He wants the Russian empire to extend again from the Pacific to Lithuania, the Arctic to Kazakhstan. While he’s made moves, successfully, in Ukraine, its come at a cost. The Russian economy shrank considerably, suffering under pretty severe sanctions, sparking protests in Moscow. Putin isn’t stupid, so his next moves will come in Belarus and Tajikistan, and they’ll look vastly different.

Yup, that’s a nasty drop. From Wikipedia.

Belarus has always been close to Russia, and as the next door neighbor to NATO, gives Russia a way to intimidate the nearby countries of Poland, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia. But Belarus has been happy with its independence. It’s ethnically different from Russia, has its own currency, and is relying more on European Union support. A Ukraine-style invasion isn’t likely.

Instead, expect to see Putin setup Belarus as a failed state and use legal agreements to bring them into the fold. Putin has tried to get Belarus to rejoin Russia, using a 1999 Union Treaty to start discussions, but this hasn’t worked. But Putin has more levers, especially economic ones. Since most of Belarus’ oil and gas comes from Russia, Russia will no longer give Belarus a discount, worth about 10 billion dollars a year, unless it walks down the path of Belarus/Russia unification, including a single currency and unified government. President Trump’s warning about Russia using oil as an economic weapon will likely get played out in Belarus in 2020.

Turkmenistan is different. Bordering Russia and Afghanistan, it is landlocked except for a coastline on the Caspian Sea. With large natural gas reserves, Turkmenistan needs export routes, and has been pursuing a pipeline under the Caspian Sea. More importantly, much of its oil and gas is purchased by Russia or China, making it vulnerable to Russian economic measures.

Putin will likely pursue a different path with Turkmenistan. Turkmenistan’s border with Afghanistan remains dangerous, and an IS affiliate known as the Islamic State in Khorasan is continuing to cause problems. Russia has kindly offered military assistance, giving it a legal way to move military forces into the country. Over time, this will give Russia more influence in the region, especially as the United States removes troops from Afghanistan.

Putin will likely first pull economic levers to get Turkmenistan back into the Commonwealth of Independent States, a treaty that Turkmenistan hasn’t ratified yet. Then, expect there to be multiple “terrorism” problems that require Russian assistance. Over time, this will turn Turkmenistan into a larger version of Belarus, with an eventual goal of unification.

It’s not all hopeless. The US can use its export of petroleum to wean these countries off of Russian oil dependence. Cheap, safe nuclear power could be exported to eliminate the need to burn oil or gas for electricity. Media, hospital care and technology, all areas that the US and Europe are leading on, could make these regions profit and want to more align with democratic ideals. It’ll require us to care about an area of the world that most people can’t find on a map, but if we do, it could stunt Russia’s world domination desires.

This post represents the views of the author and not those of the Department of Defense, Department of the Navy, or any other government agency.

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