Deep Thought - Military

I was at the gym yesterday. It's one of those big box structures, and they have a row of big-screen TVs facing a lineup of treadmills and workout bikes. One of the TVs was tuned to Fox News, and I could tell from the video that they were having vapors over Russia's new hypersonic cruise missile. Now, said missile sounds formidable, and I have no idea if the hype is real. I note that, especially when budget time comes, there is a tendency to declare your enemy 8 feet tall and bullet-proof. But here's my deep thought, and it applies to militaries in general.

The US Navy is like a football team that always practices but never plays a game. It's been so long since they played, in fact, that even the coaches haven't coached a game, and only a handful of them have been in a game as players. It's the inexperienced leading the inexperienced.

In the US's case, the last time we did play a game (WWII), we won it by long passes and field-goal kicking (carrier aviation and landing Marines). So that's what we practice. Since the last big game, we've occasionally entered a long-pass contest or a field-goal contest (wars where we bombed stuff from carriers and/or landed Marines).

To make matters worse, the enemy has seen our practices and been to some of these contests. They get to write their plays specifically to oppose us.

Here's the good news. They haven't played a game in a long time either! In both the Russian and Chinese cases, their naval experience is very slim to non-existent.

As somebody said, everybody has a plan until you get hit in the nose. Or as somebody else said, the plan in the first casualty on contact with the enemy.

Here endeth the lesson.