Category Archives: National Security

Strategic Insanity Off the Coast of Virginia

Posted on April 18, 2023 by | 36 comments

by James C. Sherlock

As I warned in three columns in late December, the Pentagon has now objected to Department of the Interior plans to develop offshore wind farms along the central U.S. coast.

It has warned that almost all of the areas planned for development of the huge turbines conflict with current military operations.

That is the public pronouncement.

DOD also knows that, because the wind farms are designed to provide a high percentage of the electric power on the East Coast grid, it will be charged to defend them against attack.

And it knows that defending those sitting ducks clustered together in fixed positions in international waters against modern weapons is not just a problem, but as a practical matter impossible.

But DOD apparently won’t admit that publicly. Yet. It is not clear that the Department of Homeland Security, with oversight of the Coast Guard, has even thought about it.

But if the turbines are built, DOD and the Coast Guard will be tasked to try to protect them. Their defense can’t even be attempted without a cost to the defense budget that will dwarf both in acquisition and ongoing operating costs the cost of building and operating the fields themselves.

The Navy and Coast Guard will need far more ships and the Navy more submarines, and the personnel to operate them, than they currently have.

The additional resources will need to be used for defense of the wind farms, not to meet our under-resourced national defense obligations overseas.

And the attempt will still fail against modern weapons. Continue reading →

36 Comments

Posted in Central planning, Defense, Energy, Infrastructure, National Security, Threat Assessment

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Offshore Wind Turbines and Submarine Warfare

Posted on December 24, 2022 by | 54 comments

Courtesy U.S. Navy

by James C. Sherlock

Upon investigation of open source literature, I find that offshore wind turbines are less noisy than I imagined. But they present obstacles nonetheless, both physically and acoustically.

United States submarine and anti-submarine efforts, operationally, in Navy labs, and in industry are led by some of our best and brightest.

That is true also, unfortunately, of most navies, including those of China and Russia.

The primary vulnerability of submarines is the noise they make, however minuscule. Submarine and antisubmarine technical and operational efforts are a constant cat-and-mouse game to minimize noise on the one hand and exploit it on the other.

The frequencies of the noise in the water from sea life, from shipping, from submarines and now from enormous turbine blades and the vibrations they cause in their supports are relatively discrete. That can help, or hinder, both submarine and anti-submarine warfare.

Weapons use against submarines presents other challenges. Attacks require targeting quality solutions, often from brief active-sonar transmissions. Again, noise.

Offshore wind turbines have complicated both offensive and defensive submarine operations.

Turbines are typically grouped about 500 meters apart in wind farms and generate noise in the water from individual turbines and group effects. As a rule of thumb, the bigger the turbine blades, the higher the noise generated. Bad weather exacerbates noise conditions.

The waters off of Norfolk and the nation’s other major commercial and military ports are of primary concern here. We expect and hope that the Navy is at the table in the design and location of each turbine field. Continue reading →

54 Comments

Posted in Defense, Energy, National Security, Threat Assessment

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Virginia Needs Better Information Sharing to Provide Mandated Public Services to Illegals Efficiently and Effectively

Posted on August 3, 2022 by | 15 comments

by James C. Sherlock

I am on record as a persistent advocate of improving the quality of both schools and medical services for poor and minority citizens. It has been the main focus of my work for years.

In a directly related matter, we read, with different reactions depending upon our politics, of the struggles with uncontrolled immigration on border states on the one hand and D.C, New York City and Los Angeles on the other.

We are treated to the public spectacle of the mayors of sanctuary cities deploring massive new influxes of illegal border-crossers and asking for federal assistance. It provides one of the best object lessons in being careful what you ask for in recent public life.

All of that is interesting, but Virginians know that the problem is increasing. They know Virginia can’t fix it, and they want to know how Virginia will deal with it.

By law we owe illegals services. And we need to provide them efficiently and effectively both for humanitarian reasons and to ensure that citizens are not unnecessarily negatively affected.

There is work to do. Continue reading →

15 Comments

Posted in Budgets, Charity and philanthropy, Children and families, Demographics, Education (K-12), Efficiency in government, Entitlements, Immigration, National Security, Planning, Social services, Virginia Law

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Virginia Republican Congressmen Do It Again

Posted on July 29, 2022 by | 87 comments

Rep. Bob Good (5th District)

Rep Morgan Griffith (9th District)

Rep. Ben Cline (6th District)

Virginia’s Republican representatives in Congress have again embarrassed the Commonwealth.

The House of Representatives recently approved a resolution supporting the applications of Sweden and Finland to join NATO.  The vote was 394-18.  Three of those 18 “no” votes were from Virginia Republicans:  Morgan Griffith (9th District), Ben Cline (6th District); and Bob Good (5th District).  The other Republican member of the delegation, Robb Wittman (1st District), supported the resolution.

Virginia had more members opposing the resolution than any other state.  Griffith, Cline, and Good joined such luminaries as Matt Gaetz (Fla.), Marjorie Taylor Greene (Ga.), Madison Cawthorn (N.C.), and Lauren Boebert (Colo.) in what Charlottesville’s The Daily Progress has dubbed “the crackpot caucus”.

Good explained that his “no” vote was “a ‘no-confidence’ vote in the Biden Administration’s failed foreign policy.”  It is hard to see how strengthening NATO in the face of Russian aggression is a failure in foreign policy.  Griffith said that he was not opposed to Sweden and Finland joining NATO, but he thought the House of Representatives was “overstepping its bounds.”

Even 176 of their fellow Republicans in Congress disagreed with them.

87 Comments

Posted in National Security, Politics

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America’s Petroleum Refining Capacity in the News – What is Going On?

Posted on June 15, 2022 by | 135 comments

By James C. Sherlock

This is a note about perhaps the highest profile national inflation issue, the price of gasoline and diesel.

The President is demanding more supply from U.S. refineries.  Headlines like this one blare at us today:

Biden threatens oil companies with ’emergency powers’ if they don’t boost supply amid inflation spike.

The letter behind such headlines, which is exactly what it seems to be, was sent to the largest refiners in the country.  Among other things, the President wrote:

My administration is prepared to use all reasonable and appropriate Federal Government tools and emergency authorities to increase refinery capacity and output in the near term, and to ensure that every region of this country is appropriately supplied.

I looked up the data on oil refining that Mr. Biden’s Energy Information Administration has published.

From the numbers on American refinery input and capacity, Mr. Biden will need more than “emergency powers” to increase refining output.

He will need a a genie.

Continue reading →

135 Comments

Posted in Business and Economy, Energy, Environment, Governance, Government Oversight, Inflation, Infrastructure, National Security

The Defense Production Act as a Political Tool to Boost Solar Farms

Posted on June 7, 2022 by | 37 comments

Courtesy Dominion Energy

by James C. Sherlock

We have had multiple discussions, good ones, on the issues surrounding solar farms in Virginia.

Jim Bacon wrote an excellent column about it in February of 2021 titled “The Political Economy of Solar Farms.” It was good then and prescient as of yesterday.

He wrote another one two days earlier.  From that piece:

With the enactment of the (Virginia Clean Economy Act) VCEA, Freitas wrote in the press release, Virginia is experiencing extensive land leasing and acquisition by solar developers. More than 180 solar projects accounting for 140 million solar panels are in various stages of approval or construction. Full implementation of the ACT would consume 490 square miles of Virginia’s forests and farmland, an area twenty times the size of Manhattan.

Thanks to President Biden’s new political/industrial policy, those solar farms just got cheaper. And Chinese solar stocks just got more expensive.

Both of which were made to happen because the President removed the tariffs on Chinese solar panels. Readers rationally can be for that action or against it. But the left has settled on the Defense Production Act as a favored service animal.

So, the President, in addition to removing the tariffs, invoked that act as a national emergency response to mandate additional domestic production of solar panels.

Let’s try to pin down the nature of the emergency and the unintended consequences. Continue reading →

37 Comments

Posted in Culture wars, Elections, Energy, Infrastructure, Land use & development, Manufacturing, National Security, Political Influence, Politics, Utilities

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Virginia’s Greens Need an Epiphany

Posted on March 3, 2022 by | 18 comments

Green Party leader and German Economy and Climate Minister and Vice Chancellor Robert Habeck

by James C. Sherlock

Headlines from the war in Ukraine have raised exponentially the interest in natural gas and the extreme price volatility caused by supply constraints.

It is perhaps useful to understand the uses of natural gas, the prices Virginians pay relative to West Virginians, the decline of production in Virginia, and the costs and risks of supply constraints by the actions of green energy absolutists.

Not the enthusiasts, but the come-hell-or-high-water absolutists, who get way out in front of the thoughtful left. In Europe, greens let slip the dogs of war.

Putin thought Europe, with its far too early and thoughtless response to green pressure, too dependent upon Russian energy to oppose him.  He proved wrong, but now both free Europeans and Russians will suffer. Ukrainians and Russians are dying for that miscalculation.

Virginia greens need to reconsider the value of natural gas and the risks of insufficient supply. And, like the German Green Party this week, get over their opposition to gas until real renewable alternatives at the scale of the economy are, well, real.

Continue reading →

18 Comments

Posted in Business and Economy, Consumer protection, Culture wars, Defense, Energy, Environment, General Assembly, Governance, Infrastructure, National Security

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The President Had Somewhere Important to Be

Posted on August 31, 2021 by | 72 comments

Credit: Getty Images

by James C. Sherlock

The caption of the photo:

“US President Joe Biden looks down alongside First Lady Jill Biden as they attend the dignified transfer of the remains of a fallen service member at Dover Air Force Base in Dover, Delaware, August, 29, 2021, one of the 13 members of the US military killed in Afghanistan last week.”

I watched.  I am sure I had lots of company.

  • Virginia Veterans — nearly 730,215 — one out of 10 adults.
  • Virginia active duty (89,303) and reserve military (25,977) = 115,280
  • Virginia Army National Guard 7,500 soldiers and 46 armories
  • Virginia Air National Guard 192nd Fighter Wing at Langley AFB Hampton – approximately 200.

In an unblinking story for The Washington Post, Matt Viser exposed a failure of leadership and understanding of the moment that was a direct insult to all Americans.

The President was there to representing us all. He shamed us. Continue reading →

72 Comments

Posted in Defense, Governance, National Security, Virginians at War

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Virginia Beach and Afghanistan

Posted on August 14, 2021 by | 84 comments

by James C. Sherlock

It was never a Navy war.

But in this Navy town, it was brought literally home to us again and again. We are home to nearly half of the Navy SEALs, including SEAL Team 6.

Something like 4,000 to 5,000 total plus their families.

SEALs are America’s special operations forces specially trained for undersea, coastal, river and swamp operations. They train on our beaches, in our swamps, bays and ocean. Some of us can hear their live gunfire at night.

Folks in the Navy flight paths hear big transports take off at 4:00 in the morning, guess that’s them going God knows where, wish them well, and try to go back to sleep.

About 15 years ago, I went through physical rehab in a civilian facility here with one of them, a Chief Petty Officer who you would not have recognized as a sailor. He and I were there for different types of injuries.

I was retired and rehabbing a knee operated on for arthritis. He was rehabbing muscle damage from a bullet wound. Affected his trigger finger. Continue reading →

84 Comments

Posted in Children and families, Defense, National Security, Virginians at War

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Mark Zuckerberg, Call Your Lawyer

Posted on January 11, 2021 by | 60 comments

by James C. Sherlock

“You don’t need a Weatherman To know which way the wind blows.” — Bob Dylan, Subterranean Homesick Blues.

Consider this:

“Facebook was hit with twin lawsuits by the Federal Trade Commission and attorneys general from dozens of states on Wednesday, in one of the most serious challenges ever to the Silicon Valley giant. The cases could potentially result in Facebook being broken up.

Here’s what you need to know.

The FTC and the states accuse Facebook of abusing its dominance in the digital marketplace and engaging in anti-competitive behavior.

“Facebook’s actions to entrench and maintain its monopoly deny consumers the benefits of competition,” Ian Conner, Director of the FTC’s Bureau of Competition, said in a statement. “Our aim is to roll back Facebook’s anticompetitive conduct and restore competition so that innovation and free competition can thrive.”

And that story was dated Dec. 11, 2020. 

Maybe last week was not the best time for Facebook to kick that hornets’ nest with another potential antitrust violation. Continue reading →

60 Comments

Posted in Antitrust, Business and Economy, Courts and law, Culture wars, Media, National Security, Science & Technology

Why Are We Educating Citizens of Hostile Nations in Advanced Math, Science and Engineering?

Posted on December 16, 2020 by | 37 comments

by James C. Sherlock Updated Dec 16 at 1:55 PM

The title poses a reasonable question.

China and Iran are two of America’s greatest national security threats.

Yet we continue to educate their citizens in the most security-sensitive programs of instruction at the highest levels of American higher education.

Chinese and Iranian students are nearly exclusively enrolled in fields that are needed for the use and development of military and espionage technology, including both national security and business espionage, to be employed against the United States and our allies.

We didn’t educate Soviet scientists during the last cold war. What is different this time?

On Dec. 9, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo urged universities in the United States to scrutinize China’s assistance and students, warning that Beijing was set on stealing innovation.

I checked available National Science Foundation (NSF) data to try to gauge the impact of America’s advanced graduate education of Chinese and Iranian nationals.

I use here the awarding of doctoral degrees, especially in math, science and engineering, as the measure of the threat. Continue reading →

37 Comments

Posted in Education (K-12), National Security

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