Full steam behind!

There was an interesting article by Konstatin Toropin of the Associated Press in my Sunday newspaper that started like this:

WASHINGTON — U.S President Donald Trump is ordering the U.S. Navy to remove the advanced system used to launch fighter jets from its newest type of aircraft carrier and return to using older steam catapults. The new mandate is likely to cost billions of dollars and revert the Navy’s most advanced ships to a system that takes more sailors to operate and is more difficult to maintain.

The memo directs the Pentagon and the Navy to present Trump with plans to remove the Electromagnetic Aircraft Launch System, also known as EMALS, within two months. It also says the Ford-class carrier’s electromagnetic weapons elevators should be replaced.

The move comes after years of Trump railing against the new, magnetically powered catapult system that shoots fighter jets off the deck of the carriers. It also comes at a time when the U.S. military is trying to find funding from Congress for all the desired equipment and as the Navy is struggling to fill its ships with enough sailors.

Trump’s ire with the new technology goes back to at least 2017 in his first term, when he claimed the new system is “not good” and “doesn’t have the power” of the older steam systems in an interview with Time magazine.

“You’re going to goddamned steam,” Trump said at the time. The topic has frequently come up since then at rallies.

As with most of Trump’s military initiatives — witness the current quagmire in the Middle East which, according to internal Pentagon assessments, has greatly depleted certain critical U.S. missile and air-defence stockpiles,  particularly high-end interceptors like THAAD and Patriot missiles — the decision is utterly boneheaded.

Unless, of course, the real goal is to undermine America’s military preparedness at the behest of ... well, you know. (You remember THE RUSSIA HOAX!!!!!!)

It’s almost a given, based on everything else the world’s biggest grifter has ever done, that sticking a spanner in the works like this will deliver a substantial personal financial gain for Trump and his corrupt cronies.

But this time, there’s more to it than mere filthy lucre. It seems this very stable genius, who is in no way suffering from dementia, has long held the view — which stems from a fundamental misunderstanding that calcified in his brain when he was assing around in school back in 1832 — that magnets don’t work when they get wet.

He has repeatedly assured the cheering goobers who wave signs and drool behind him at rallies that pouring a glass of water on the EMALS system would disable it, often contrasting the new gadgetry unfavourably with heavy-machinery hydraulics used by companies like Caterpillar (in which you can be quite certain that he owns a whole whack of shares).

This is complete bollocks and extremely dangerous, especially with the newest Chinese aircraft carriers now employing electromagnetic catapults. But none of the traitors and quislings on his staff or in his cabinet or the Republican congressional caucuses possesses the cojones or the integrity to contradict the cascading, demotic, idiotic rhythms of this presidential pathology.

And if the Supreme Leader says magnets don’t work under water, that’s chapter and verse for Pistol Pete Hegseth, an exceedingly well-versed faith leader who has been clamouring for more “urgent, necessary” funds for the Pentagon as the official bill for the Iran war closes in on $38 billion US. And counting.

Now there may be some nattering naybobs of negativity out there who think an enfeebled, debilitated American military might not be an entirely bad thing, given the way things have played out on various battlefields, oh, at least since Emperor Hirohito announced Japan’s acceptance of surrender terms on Aug. 15, 1945.

But if indeed the plan is to go boldly forward by retreating moronically into the past, I have a few suggestions for the 2½ years remaining in Trump’s second term, by the end of which the greatest military fighting machine in history could be down to an ever-diminishing arsenal of sticks and stones if it continues to pointlessly squander its might and materiel in a stalemate with a recalcitrant and increasingly confident Iran.

As Charles Boyer never actually said to Hedy Lamarr in the 1938 crime drama Algiers, despite the phrase becoming a venerable staple of pop culture, Come with me to ze Casbah:

Let’s begin by happily acknowledging that there is a certain beauty in technological progress in Magaland.

First, someone invents a complicated war machine to kill other people. Then someone else spends 20 years and hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars on making the machine work. Then, after the machine finally works, a fascistic fossil steam-catapulted into office by misogynistic tech bros and other charter members of the Epstein class proclaims that the old machine had character.

And so the old machine returns.

This is the sort of progressive thinking that could revolutionize the American military!

Consider — and, as we have seen, this is not a drill — the aircraft carrier. For years, engineers have been developing increasingly sophisticated systems to launch aircraft: systems that require fewer people, offer greater control and presumably involve fewer opportunities for a sailor to discover that a very large piece of machinery has just developed a personal grievance.

Obviously, this cannot be allowed to continue. The logical next step is to replace every advanced system with its predecessor. But why stop at catapults rooted in the Age of Steam at the dawn of the Industrial Revolution?

The Return of the Human-Powered Pentagon

The military could begin by replacing computerized logistics with clipboards.

Not all clipboards, of course. That would be reckless. The first phase could involve one clipboard per battalion, guarded by a lieutenant who has been specifically trained in the ancient military art of knowing where the clipboard is.

Supply requests would be submitted in triplicate and carried across bases by personnel who say things like, “Sir, I believe Radar gave it to Colonel Potter. Sir!”

Eventually, the system would achieve its highest expression when an entire aircraft wing waits for a replacement component because Form 17-B was filed using blue ink instead of black.

This would be called resilience and crisply saluted by Pistol Pete, just as soon as he’s finished giving that troublesome tube of Brylcreem what for.

Computers: A Dangerous New Trend

The next obvious reform would be to reduce dependence on computers.

Computers are also troublesome because they permit enormous amounts of information to move very quickly, which is exactly the sort of thing that makes a bureaucracy nervous. They are also vulnerable to coffee spills, presumably because of the hidden magnets inside.

Therefore, battlefield information should once again be printed.

If something important happens, it can be faxed. If something extremely important happens, a courier can bring a folder. If something catastrophically important happens, the courier can be given a bicycle.

Nothing says “command and control” like a man pedalling furiously toward headquarters with a folder marked URGENT.

(Only real men need apply. No fugos, no fatties, no facial hair, no body hair!)

For redundancy, every digital map could be backed up with a paper map stored in a filing cabinet whose key is held by someone who retired in 2009.

The Infantry of Tomorrow, Yesterday

The U.S. Army could also revisit the exciting world of equipment standardization by making everything heavier.

Modern materials have produced lighter equipment, improved mobility and reduced the physical burden placed on soldiers.

This is clearly dangerous. A soldier carrying less weight might become overconfident. Or put on weight himself. (Notice I didn’t say herself or, God forbid, themself; we’re working on that, rest assured). Far better to restore the principle that every piece of equipment should weigh approximately as much as a small refrigerator.

The new doctrine could be called Load-Bearing Patriotism.

Training manuals would explain that fatigue is merely readiness that has become more patriotic.

Communications: Because Letters Are Secure

The military should also reconsider instant communications. After all, what did people do before satellites, encrypted networks and portable radios?

They waited. And they liked it, by gar!

Waiting has several advantages. It gives everyone time to reflect. It reduces the possibility of making rash decisions. Most importantly, it creates a healthy information gap between the people who know what is happening and the people who desperately need to know what is happening.

A particularly advanced version of this doctrine would restore the military pigeon. Not because pigeons are superior to modern communications technology. They are not.

That is precisely why they would be ideal.

(Unless that homing instinct has something to do with magnetism inside the tiny bird brain, of course. What if it rains while the little buggers are in flight? Mission aborted. Might have to rethink this one. Stop! In the name of doves.)

Maintenance: More Is More

Another useful reform would be to ensure that every major weapons system requires as many specialists as possible.

If a machine can be maintained by four people, redesign it until it requires 17.  If it can be serviced in 30 minutes, make the procedure involve six hours, three ladders and a ceremonial torque wrench.

This would create jobs. It would also create something even more valuable: paperwork.

And paperwork, as every great military civilization has understood, is the most durable form of national defence.

Also, as the Department of Justice has illustrated with the Epstein files, you can redact the crap out of paperwork and postpone its release as long as you care to, defying whatever rulings those Radical Left activist judges care to issue. After all, we can always rely on the Supremes to keep us hanging on.

Innovation Must Be Stopped Before It Starts

Finally, the Pentagon should establish a new office: the Bureau of Historical Equipment Preservation and Forward-Looking Regression.

Its mission would be simple.

Whenever an engineer proposes an improvement, the bureau would ask: “But what did we do before?”

If the answer is “something much worse,” congratulations: funding approved. If the answer is “something much better,” further review required. If the answer is “we don’t have a clue,” excellent. That means the system is innovative and therefore dangerous.

Within 10 years — assuming Putin or Xi or both, acting in concert, take that long to invade Alabama — the American military could achieve a magnificent state of technological purity.

Aircraft carriers would launch aircraft using methods remembered by retired sailors. Steam and waterwheels ahoy, matey! Wait. How about trying out some really big elastic bands? Those suckers can fire paper clips at warp speed.

Logistics, meanwhile, would move at the speed of paperwork. Communications would be immediate, provided someone was standing beside the appropriate radio or Pony Express post. Maintenance crews would be large enough to constitute a small town.

And every new weapon would come with an accompanying team whose primary responsibility was explaining why the previous weapon had been perfectly adequate.

There would be only one remaining problem.

Some other country might notice. Maybe even whoever the hell is running Iran these days. In fact, maybe they already have.

But fortunately, we can address that too. We could establish a committee to study the matter. The committee would meet every Thursday.

Unfortunately, its conference room would be on the other side of the building, and nobody would know who had the key.

Has anyone seen Benedict Arnold lately?