The air ops are nothing but a reason to exist and consume a federal budget.
A make-work dole program for the RAAF.
The enemy is stateless. This means that there is no peace treaty to sign.
The war coalition is just doing it all wrong.
There is no way to bomb our way to victory. Look at these metrics.
RAAF ATG stats to Sept 13
F/A-18F Super Hornets completed 209 missions, releasing 278 weapons;
F/A-18A ‘classic’ Hornet aircraft have completed 199 missions, releasing 237 weapons;
The KC-30A tanker has conducted 394 missions, offloading nearly 32 million pounds of fuel to Australian and coalition aircraft; and
The E-7A Wedgetail AEW&C has conducted 135 command and control missions.
All for nothing.
Iraq. The U.S had this figured out up until the time Obama gave up on it and made things worse. I am not a fan of the Iraq invasion but once you commit to something like this it will take tens of years for any hope to pacify a country.
Now, without credible land forces, there isn't a way to push out the enemy. An example of how to let this kind of enemy know you mean business is the 2nd battle of Fallujah. That...ugly. But, it works. Rinse and repeat, then police up what is left.
I wouldn't expect Americans to volunteer to be ground troops in any more wars like this. Thousands of American (and other coalition) ground troops killed. Thousands more injured and maimed. And then an American president wants to score some political points and give up all of the work that was done. That is a contract of blood that has been broken.
For at least a generation or however long those veterans are alive.
Syria. First, we should have never been involved. Assad before the great unpleasantness looks great now. So in phases of worst to best "solutions" what do we do?
Use the method of Executive Outcomes. Don't hold ground, Hit them with ground force raids.
Use drones to have persistent ISR (and immediate strike when needed) over a piece of road that is important but not overly occupied by civilians. Use the persistent ISR to track some conveys of interest. Have special forces show up via CH47 and setup a road block and/or ambush. Quick and get out. Kill if needed. Take prisoners if needed. Photograph, finger-print and take DNA samples of everyone: dead or alive.
As can be seen from the air strike video, destroying a lot of buildings doesn't help the cause. Those buildings were probably built for a reason, to support a civilian population. That is too much destruction. But the little boys in senior Defence leadership have their strike videos and can pretend they are doing something useful to justify their pay. "Look! Our strategic vision goes about as far as an ill thought out plan from Washington D.C. ...but not any further."
In the few times that buildings have to be bombed, use low collateral bombs. For example the U.S. Navy came up with a BLU-111 (think Mk82) that takes some of the explosive filler out and replaces it with ballast: becoming the BLU-126/B. It still flies nice when mated to a a GBU-12 but the explosive blast is much less. Even with this smaller blast you can kill so many kinds of targets given the accuracy involved. USAF did a similar concept for a low collateral bomb with the BLU-129/B.
Also when bombing buildings, if practical, use every advantage to have a special forces team come in right after and take video and photos of everything. Take DNA samples too. Look through the rubble for REAL bomb damage assessment. This keeps pre-strike intel honest (feedback) and can provide valuable post-strike intel. It also is a record in case someone claims civilians have been killed and/or if it really is a screw up...and civilians have been killed a record is made.
With that, I don't think Australians need this operation in their name. Our small military needs to be ready for war and other-than-war operations, in our own region.
What is going on now in the Middle East should be called Operation: BOONDOGGLE.
As is, the air efforts are not going to stop the violence and are themselves, just more misery for innocents on the ground.
Plinking a mortar, vehicle or destroying private property at $40,000 per precision weapon, cost per flying hour (and wear) of all aircraft involved along with other associated spending won't win this kind of war.
It will be interesting to see what kind of advice the new Defence Minister passes on to the PM. It will be interesting to see what kind of public statements the new Defence Minister will make in regard to these wars.
Will this Defence Minister be her own person? How will she evaluate and respond to advice from the uniformed senior leaders which historically has been bad?
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