Building A Clear Vision For A Movement

One of the things that people seeking political change when they are completely out of power do is focus on "movement politics", i.e. long-term, grass roots efforts to chance the views of elites and of the general public.

A key piece of a political movement is to articulate a clear vision for the future. Right now, a key part of that is to articulate a clear vision of it looks like to be masculine.

The MAGA movement is heavily reliant upon white men, especially middle aged Christian white men, and to a lesser extent Hispanic men, especially men without college degrees.

These men feel aggrieved by economic losses in relative status compared to non-white men, to women, and to college educated men. Their incomes have been stagnant relative to inflation since the early 1970s, while everyone else has improved in relative terms to them over the last half-century. They have high rates of unemployment relative to more educated people, which also destroys their credit when they can't pay rent or a mortgage or other bills for a while until they find a new job. They are finding it harder to find someone willing to marry them, and if they do marry face divorce at record rates. They are at great risk of losing contact with their children, either in custody fights, or at the hands of child protective services for abuse or neglect. 

Often, they've worked jobs involving manual labor that they can no longer perform by late middle age, but they lack pensions or large retirement savings or private disability insurance to allow them to stop. So, they are reliant on government disability payments, when they've been taught that it is shameful to receive handouts and this requires bureaucratic efforts that are not their strong point.

They weren't particularly successful in school, academically or (often) disciplinarily. They get tripped up over what they see as "woke" and feminized expectations for their behavior in public. Even if they are married with kids, they are no longer the kings of their own households that they were when patriarchal norms were strong. The establishment has seriously condemned them for using corporal punishment with their children, for using physical force with their romantic partners, and for settling disputes with fists, in ways that half a century ago were at least tolerated, if not expected. Ignoring those changes finds them reported to child protective services for abuse and neglect, to the police for domestic violence or even marital rape, and arrested for assaults that would once have been seen as justified.

The MAGA movement, in its very wording, "Make America Great Again", offers them a vision of a return to this dysfunctional, toxic, vision of masculinity, where they don't have to worry about "woke" etiquette that he has not internalized, where their homophobia and transphobia were mainstream norms, where a man was the unquestioned head of the household and physical force was an acceptable way to protect that prerogative, and where a man was expected to respond to besmirched honor or anti-social behavior or threats to himself, his friends, his family, or is property with physical force and firearms. He sees the economy as a zero sum game where any competition from immigrants, imported goods made by foreign workers, women in the workplace, or minorities in the workplace harms him and welcomes anything that reduces that competition. He feels cheated by the college educated elite that has appropriated all of the increased productivity in the economy for themselves, and doesn't trust them as a result, even about matters where they know what is best better than he does.

The left needs to develop a vision of manhood that is better than this, that is functional in modern society, and that is nonetheless attainable even for men who aren't academic hotshots or particularly good at learning new social scripts.

This is a project that has been successfully managed in the past. The same era known for cowboys in the American West, a beacon of manliness, which was roughly the Victorian era, was also an era in which the notion of the "gentleman" was popularized. 

The ideal of the gentleman was less crass than the vision of masculinity that came before it. A gentleman respects women. A gentleman takes pride in a dignified and civilized appearance. A gentleman is trustworthy and plays fair (at least until adversaries don't). A gentleman refrains from profanity and speaks in a dignified speech register, even if he may not be erudite enough to speak like a highly educated person. A gentleman behaves in a civilized manner in public. A gentleman's behavior earns the respect of his family and acquaintances rather than merely insisting upon it without earning it. A gentleman may be capable of winning a fight, but he avoids fighting when possible.

Many iconic fictional characters exemplified this vision of masculinity, at least to some extent.

A twenty-first century vision of a gentleman that the left can foster won't be the same as the vision of a gentleman a century and a half ago. But if the left doesn't develop a clear, widely understood, and attainable life script and ideal to strive for, for men, then it won't be able to compete with the MAGA right for the hearts and minds of men because it does have a vision for them.

The meme at the start of this post tries to cast the vision of masculinity that Donald Trump exemplifies as weak, insecure, and little. And, there is little reason to doubt that a man like Donald Trump, had he not inherited a real estate fortune worth hundreds of millions of dollars early in life, would have been extremely unsuccessful in modern society and its economy. Indeed, even as things are, he has not exactly been a business genius and would have been much wealthier if he'd simply invested his wealth in the stock market rather than frequently failing or underperforming in his own business investments even when he tries to lie and cheat to attain them.

It evokes as one element of masculinity, security in your own identity and self-worth flowing from personal inner strength, that allows a man to brush off slights to his honor and refrain from habitually putting other people down. It evokes someone who looks beyond himself to the greater good who has concern for the well-being of other people.

Other elements of that vision might include humility and a willingness to learn from others who know more than you do about something, valuing knowledge instead of ridiculing it, a capacity to cooperate with others and be a team player, "servant leadership", and the magnanimity to have empathy and compassion for others as a demonstration of your strength and security. The vision should shed machismo without simply being "anti-macho."

Likewise, the left needs to embrace and support attractive and worthwhile life scripts for people, especially men, for whom the path of going to a four year college, earning a degree, and entering into a white-collar managerial or professional career, isn't a realistic one.

Public schools need to offer better alternatives for students for whom a curriculum designed to prepare them for a liberal arts based college education is not the right one. The paths to careers that take skill and training beyond a high school diploma, but without a four year college degree need to be more widely known. And, we need an economy where those careers are a viable path that can allow people who take it to secure the American Dream.

The "maker" movement has done a lot to rehabilitate the idea that skilled, hands on, physical craftsmanship is honorable and enviable, rather than being just a badge of failure to succeed in more cerebral pursuits.

More needs to be done to prevent men from fleeing well-paying occupations that our economy urgently needs, that have long been seen as, or are becoming, "pink collar" jobs, like nursing, social work, and being a school teacher. And a lot of that takes efforts that are more cultural, cosmetic, and social than it does actual changes to the jobs or what it takes to secure those jobs.

The Fit Between A Military Force And Its Missions In Israel

Analysis

Accomplishments

Israel has a world class military that has had an immense amount of combat experience, and an advanced domestic defense industry that arose due to international sanctions. It has had many stunning military victories and few defeats. Only North Korea has mobilized a comparably large share of its population including many female soldiers, into military service. Israel also has a national system of air raid shelters. It has faced and defeated multiple developing nation military forces in the region over the years and mostly Iranian backed paramilitary forces and insurgents with similar grade weapons.

It's air/anti-missile defense system (the "Iron Dome") and armored vehicle active defenses (the "Trophy" system) are the most advanced in the world and have been proven repeatedly. 

Israel's 63 ton tracked Namer armored personnel carrier (with combat engineering variants) has very heavy armor and advanced active defenses, making it the most heavily armored and protected armored vehicle in the world. It also has well-regarded 65 ton Merkava main battle tanks of its own design.

Its modern Air Force has carried out more air to air kills and produced more fighter aces than pretty much any other Air Force in the world. It carries out air strikes, pretty much with impunity, in the region from Syria, to Iran, to Yemen. Its small navy has advanced offensive capabilities but has seen little action.

Israel's intelligence agency and special forces have conducted some stunning operations, although they suffered a major defeat on October 7, 2023 when it failed to prevent a Hamas attack from Gaza that killed more than a thousand Israelis despite having some intelligence hints that it was coming. The quality of its commercial air travel security is also unparalleled and is far more than "security theater".

Caveats

On the other hand, Israel's forces are tailored to its needs. 

Aside from some regional airstrikes and rare commando and assassination missions all involving small numbers of personnel at the "tip of the arrow", almost all of its operations have taken place in or near Israeli territory, and predominantly in one of several anticipated hot spots within it (the northern border with Lebanon, the West Bank, and Gaza and regions adjacent to it). So, Israel's ground forces haven't had to worry about logistic supply chains, rapid deployment over great distances, or speed. Even at the slow speed of tracked vehicles (ca. 40-45 mph on roads), Israel's heavy armored forces are rarely more than an hour or two away from where they are needed. 

Similarly, because of Israel's geography, the IDF doesn't have to worry about steep mountains with narrow passes, cliffs, thinner air at high altitudes, landslides, bridges that can't carry heavy vehicles, jungles, thick forests of stout trees, sustained seasonal endless rain and oceans of mud, major swamps near battlefields, major river crossings, moving forces between islands, major roads too narrow for its military vehicles to use, tornados, hurricanes, deep sustained fog, or ice, snow, and cold.

Because it has been constantly at war, Israel has been able to design its infrastructure and regulate land use to accommodate its heavy armored forces, facilitate military logistics, and provide safe spaces for its people. Palestinian insurgent forces have lacked access to most regions not subject to Palestinian control since the West Bank and Gaza were walled, making it difficult or impossible to place land mines that could impair the travel of Israeli military supplies and military vehicles, or make those areas treacherous for soldiers and civilians alike. This has facilitated easy and safe logistics for IDF troops for all but the last few miles, and has allowed the IDF to pick its battles.

Its counterinsurgency (mostly from the Palestine Liberation Organization and then Hamas) and Hezbollah adversaries have had small arms, tanks, lighter anti-tank weapons (like rocket propelled grenades and IEDs), artillery rockets and shells, and suicide bombs. But the IDF's opponents in greater Israel, have not had advanced guided anti-tank weapons, air to ground missiles, opposition naval ships and submarines, or until very recently, armed drones. The Palestinian insurgents also haven't been able to train openly in large formations and at large bases, and has had to resort to building tunnel systems to hide its movements and provide bunker-like safe havens for them.

As highlighted in the fighting in Gaza since October 7, 2023, Israel has nearly total control over the Palestinians' access to water, food, medicine, fuel, and any other form of international trade, and has had a highly effective, although not perfect, capacity to limit the Palestinians' access to military grade arms and ammunition.

Even Hezbollah, in Lebanon, which is organized and outfitted more like a traditional national army, has had very limited access to the advanced guided missiles, and no access to armed manned aircraft.

Palestinian insurgents have not had tanks, infantry fighting vehicles, howitzers (mobile or towed), armored personnel carriers, fixed wing aircraft, helicopters, advanced radar systems, or anti-aircraft weapons more sophisticated than man-carried anti-aircraft missiles (MANPADS) and small arms. The Palestinian insurgents have little or no ability to conduct signals or electronic intelligence or obtain satellite or high altitude aerial surveillance. The insurgent's most advanced military vehicles have been "technicals" (i.e. pickup trucks mounted with small arms) and motorcycles. The insurgent's most potent weapons have mostly been rocket propelled grenade launchers, recoilless rifles, unguided Katusha rockets, and a small number of more powerful surface to surface missiles and suicide drones. Almost all of their arms and ammunition have had to be smuggled in through tightly controlled borders.

Unlike the armies contending in the Ukraine War, the IDF has conducted its ground operations with air superiority and air support. Its troops haven't had to worry about being attacked by enemy aircraft, and have been able to call in close air support when needed. The last time it faced a serious attack by manned fighter aircraft, or a strike on its navy, was half a century ago, although it has faced attacked from outside its borders from missiles, rockets, drones, and shells on a regular basis with a particularly intense bout in the last year.

The U.S. Compared

In contrast, the U.S. military has very different missions that demand very different resources. 

Almost all modern U.S. military operations have been expeditionary and conducted far from its territory. Logistics supply lines are a critical concern for U.S. forces on expeditionary missions and forward operating bases have to be established from scratch while armed opponents are nearby. It can take the U.S. weeks to deploy heavy armored military equipment in large quantities which must be done by ship, train, and road convoy, if this equipment has not been pre-placed at foreign military bases or supply caches. The U.S. has more foreign military bases on a larger scale than any other country and a considerable capacity for sea basing of forces as well, but these resources are more abundant in some areas than other.

Once they arrive in theater, their area of operations is usually larger than that of the Israel Defense Force and thus requires more maneuver for longer distances making speed more critical.

To gain air superiority, the U.S. often has to create it, in an preliminary air campaign, like the ones seen in the Gulf War and Iraq War, that can take weeks, before other forces can move in knowing that the air is secure.

In a near peer conflict, the U.S. has to count on its opponents having access to sophisticated air defense missiles, guided anti-tank missiles with ranges greater than a tank's main gun that are pretty much one-shot, one-kill in the absence of active defenses, heavy artillery, and modern medium range anti-ship missiles (possibly hypersonic), naval mines, and torpedo equipped submarines.

In many or most conflicts to which U.S. forces deploy they also lack the "home field advantage", even if they are supporting allies in territory that those allies control. Only a tiny share of their troops speak the local language or can read local road signs. They aren't familiar with the territory. They aren't familiar with local hazards from wildlife to poisonous plants, which are threats to which locals have adapted. They have a hard time distinguishing friends from foes, or just different groups of friends with different sensibilities, among the local populations. R&R time is infrequent and requires epic travel. Even in guarded bases, they are never far from the front lines and are never really in secure safe havens. U.S. military forces need to have everything necessary to sustain the day-to-day physical needs of their troops in addition to maintain and supporting their military equipment.

The U.S. has more money to spend on military systems than any other country in the world, and does so, so its can afford to spend more to have systems better suited to expeditionary warfare. And, with 45 times more people who likely to side with it rather than opponents to its forces, the U.S. military has about seven times as many active duty forces despite being far less mobilized than Israel, although perhaps only a couple times as many reserve forces, in addition to its much large budget, than Israel does. So, the U.S. can effectively have multiple separate military sub-forces designed to carry out radically different missions from each other, instead of having to focus on one or two main missions.

The bottom line of all of this analysis is to recognize Israel's military successes, while also cautioning against over learning from the IDF's experience because that IDF has very different missions, very different opponents, and very different constraints and circumstances under which its missions must be carried out, than U.S. forces. 

So, the IDF can make wise choices that are tailored to its particular specific favorable circumstances and set of opponent capabilities, which would not be wise for U.S. forces. Nowhere is this more the case, than the IDF's utilization of heavily armored ground forces, where the IDF does not face constraints and concerns that loom heavy for U.S. forces.

Geography

Israel is not a particularly big country. 

It is about 60 miles across at its widest, and about 240 miles from north to south. The total area under Israeli control, including the Golan Heights and West Bank, is 10,733 square miles. There are six small islands in shallow waters less than a half a mile off Israelis far northern Mediterranean coast which are a nature preserve.

About 8.5% of its land is forest and the rest of desert and shrub desert, although it is fertile enough to grow crops on the coast and in the Jordan River Valley. Its highest point, Mount Meron is 3,963 feet, and its highlands, which are described as hills rather than mountains, average about 2,000 feet. It rarely gets below freezing, although short lived snow can fall in the highlands, and even the parts of the country that get rain get it in thunderstorm bursts in the winter and are dry most of the year. 

Its primary water features are the Mediterranean coast, the freshwater sea of Galilee, the salt water Dead Sea, and the Jordan River that flows through both of them for 199 miles and makes up most of the eastern border with the Kingdom of Jordan (which isn't actively hostile to it). The northern tributaries to the Jordan River are the Dan, Banias, and Hasbani. Only the Dan is within undisputed Israel; the Hasbani flows from Lebanon and the Banias from territory captured from Syria in the Six-Day War (in 1967). The Sea of Galilee a.k.a. the Kinneret) is about 14 miles (north to south) by 8 miles (east to west) for a total of about 64 square miles that is 679 feet below sea level and 151 feet deep. It has an area known as the Hula marshes to the north. The salt water Dead Sea (which is also part of the Israel-Jordan border) is 42 miles from north to south and 10 miles wide and is 1,371 feet below sea level (the lowest water surface on Earth). It has a maximum depth of 978 feet, an average depth of 618 feet, and  south of the peninsula that juts into it from the eastern shore, it is less than 20 feet deep. Israel also has about ten other small lakes. The Great Rift Valley, with the mostly uninhabited Negev desert to the west and Jordan's arid highlands to the east, continues another 110 miles or so from the Dead Sea to the Gulf of Eilat where Israel has about half a mile of a coast.

Israel has a major earthquake roughly every 400 years (with four in known history, in 31 BCE, 363 CE, 749 CE, and 1033 CE), and is overdue for another of magnitude 7.4 or so. An earthquake of a magnitude sufficient to cause loss of life every 80 years or so. Not quite half of its buildings are built to modern building code standards that could survive a major earthquake, while the rest,  including 50,000 residences are expected to collapse in the event of a 400 year earthquake.

Gaza and the West Bank (outside the seam zone) are walled off.

The Seam Zone is in blue-green and separated from the rest of the West Bank with a wall.

Israel is home to about 11.7 million people, of whom about 7.5 million are Israelis and 4.2 million are Palestinians.

The area west of the "Green Line" that was Israel's 1948 boundary (controlled for 76 years), has about 6,674,000 Israelis and 110,000 Palestinians. 

Israel has controlled the rest of its territory, which is home to 742,000 Israelis and 4.1 million Palestinians since 1967 (controlled for 57 years). There are about 42,000 Israelis in the Golan Heights. East Jerusalem and an area known as the the seam zone are east of a West Bank barrier wall, but west of the "Green Line": East Jerusalem has about 455,000 Israelis and 225,000 Palestinians, while the remainder of the seam zone has about 188,000 Israelis, and 35,000 Palestinians who live in walled off village enclaves. Israeli settlements and military zones in the West Bank beyond the barrier have about 57,000 Israelis and 115,000 Palestinians. The Palestinian controlled part of the West Bank has about 2,085,000 million Palestinians. Gaza has about 1,510,000 Palestinians. 

The Israeli Defense Force

History and Overview

The main mission of the Israeli Defense Force (IDF), which has had an exceptionally great number of actual military engagements since 1948 (about 76 years ago) when the country was founded, it to protect Israel from attacks from outside its borders and from predominantly Palestinian insurgents within it. In the 1967 Six-Day War (57 years ago), Israel conquered the Sinai Peninsula, Gaza Strip, West Bank (including East Jerusalem) and Golan Heights from the surrounding Arab states. It was preceded by paramilitary organizations of Jews in Palestine.

The IDF has fought ten international wars, as I count them, against other nation-states or foreign Iranian proxy forces: (1) the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, which saw neighbouring Arab states attack; (2) the 1956 Suez Crisis, in which the IDF captured the Sinai Peninsula from Egypt, which was later returned; (3) the 1967 Six-Day War, Israel conquered the Sinai Peninsula, Gaza Strip, West Bank (including East Jerusalem) and Golan Heights from the surrounding Arab states, (4) the Yom Kippur War, (5) the War of Attrition against Egypt in the Sinai, (6) a border war against the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) in Jordan culminating in the Battle of Karameh, (7) the Lebanese Civil War, initiating Operation Litani and later the 1982 Lebanon War, where the IDF ousted Palestinian guerrilla organizations from Lebanon, (8)  Hezbollah has also been a growing threat, against which the IDF fought an asymmetric conflict wiht Hezbollah in Lebanon between 1982 and 2000, (9) a full-scale war with Hezbollah in 2006, and (10) a multi-front war with Hezbollah, Iran, Hamas in Gaza, and the Houthis in Yemen starting with the October 7, 2023 attack on Israel.

The IDF has fought an almost uninterrupted Palestinian insurgency against Israel from 1948 onward, which has included relatively hot and relatively cool periods. The hot periods have included two Intifadas (i.e. uprisings) in both the West Bank and Gaza (1987-1993 and 2000-2005), and five periods of more intense conflict in Gaza since then in 2008-2009, 2012, 2014, 2021, and 2023-2024.

The IDF has also been engaged in a small number of isolated military actions involving small numbers of personnel outside its territories and the immediate vicinity of its borders (especially a security zone in South Lebanon), including the 1976 Operation Entebbe commando raid to free hijacked airline passengers being held captive in Uganda, air strikes and missile attacks in Syria, in Iraq (to destroy its nuclear reactor), in Iran, and in Southern Yemen, and some assassinations in places including Lebanon and Iran.

The IDF has 169,500 active duty military personnel and 465,000 reservists, and the lion's share of adult Israelis (men and women alike) are military veterans who served for a significant period of time. Israelis with military experience in the IDF, armed with assault rifles, are ubiquitous in every town, village, and urban neighborhood. The quality of Israeli military training, despite Israel's high level of mobilization, rivals that of any other country in the world. A common ethnicity, adopted language, and a lifetime of constant threats, also unites Israelis as a community.

Ground Forces

Israel's ground forces, apart from a few missions with small numbers of commandos and assassins, rarely venture further than into the southern tip of Lebanon or a few miles beyond its border with Egypt, and very rarely goes to the east of the Great Rift Valley through which the Jordan River flows. Israeli ground forces have 126,000 active duty soldiers and 400,000 reservists, organized into six infantry brigades (including one brigade of paratroopers), four armored brigades, an artillery corps, a combat engineering corps, and a military intelligence corps.

Air Force

The Israeli Air Force has 34,000 active duty airmen, 55,000 reservists, and 613 aircraft spread over at least ten major air force bases in the small country. It has 280 modern capable fighter jets (39 with stealth), 48 modern helicopter gunships, 25 surveillance, intelligence and control planes and many surveillance drones, 14 tanker aircraft (7 long range and 7 smaller and short range), 4 VIP transports, 10 C-130 transports (3 of which have SAR features), 53 utility helicopters, 22 heavy lift helicopters, 4 SAR helicopters, and 159 trainer aircraft. 

No Air Force has shot down more planes and produced more fighter aces since WWII than Israel. 

Israel has no long range or heavy bombers, and no long range transport or reconnaissance aircraft, although its 7 long range tanker aircraft that can extend the range of its fighters and C-130 transports. It has no carrier based fixed wing aircraft and no VTOL fixed wing aircraft.

Armed Combat Aircraft

• 66 F-15E
• 175 F-16C
• 39 F-35I (an Israeli variant of the F-35A)
• 48 Apache AH-64A/D attack helicopters

Intelligence, Surveillance, and Control

• 2 Boeing 707 based early warning and control aircraft
• 2 Gulfstream G550 based early warning and control aircraft
• 18 Super King general aviation aircraft signals and electronic intelligence aircraft
• 3 Gulfstream G550 based signals and surveillance aircraft
• An unspecified number of at least five kinds of surveillance drones

Tankers

• 7 Boeing 707 based tankers
• 7 KC-130J based tankers (for fixed wing aircraft, helicopters, and ground vehicles)

Transport/Utility

• 4 Super King general aviation transports (2 of which are also used for training)
• 3 C-130E/H transport and search and rescue
• 7 C-130J tactical airlift
• 4 Bell 206 utility helicopters
• 49 UH-60 utility helicopters
• 22 CH-53 heavy lift helicopters
• 4 Eurocopters AS565 search and rescue

Trainers

• 30 M-346 Lavi
• 20 F-15B/D
• 49 F-16D
• 20 T-6 Texan II
• 16 Grob G-120
• 18 Bell OH-58 helicopter trainers

Navy

The IDF Navy has 9,500 active duty sailors and 10,000 reservists who operate 69 vessels out of four main naval bases on its Mediterranean coast, and some other shipyards, a training school, and some headquarters facilities. They primarily guard Israel's coast. 

Its most significant engagements were in the 1973 Yom Kippur War where it sunk 5 Syrian naval ships (the first naval battle between naval ships with surface to surface missiles) which kept the Syrian navy in port for the rest of the war, and 3 Egyptian missile boats without suffering casualties. In 2006, a IDF Navy corvette was struck in a surprise missile attack by Hezbollah from Lebanon that killed four Israeli sailors. It appears that the IDF Navy has never left the Mediterranean sea (some of its ships have a range of up to about 4,000 nautical miles) or even "shown the flag" far from Israeli waters. Given its narrow area of operations, along roughly 120 miles of coastal plain with several naval bases along the way, a sustained high cruising speed for its ships and boats is not a priority for Israel's Navy.

They operate:

• 7 corvettes: Sa'ar 5 class (1275 tons), Sa'ar 6 class (1900 tons) with missiles
• 8 missile boats: Sa'ar 4.5 class (498 tons) with missiles
• 5 submarines: Dolphin class (1900 - 2050 tons) armed with torpedos
• 45 patrol boats (8.5 - 85 tons) armed with cannons up to 30mm, machine guns and on 13 of them 4 Hellfire missiles
• 4 support ships (2 are 500 ton supply ships and 2 are 4,199 ton transport ships with 816 tons of cargo capacity)

Israel hasn't had to content with hostile naval forces for fifty years, despite one minor stray attack from land on one of its ships. But the Mediterranean sea is full of nations with modern naval forces and air forces that could attack naval ships. And, Ukraine's very successful campaign against the Russian Black Sea fleet in the Ukraine war without having a real navy of its own, has also demonstrated the potential threat to its navy from land based attacks like the 2006 attack from Hezbollah.

Israel's navy is very powerful for a small navy without even a true frigate class ship, and its submarine force is also impressive for this small country. It could probably resist a significant sea based attack on Israel and its navy. But it also isn't an expeditionary force designed to serve for extended periods of time far from its navy's home ports.

The Next Generation Hellfire Missile And Better Explosives

A Much Improved Successor To The Hellfire Missile

A Hellfire missile has a similar size (a little over 100 pounds), explosive capacity (20-24 pounds), and range to a 155mm Howitzer round. The guided missile is more accurate, hitting targets within a 10 foot radius about 50% of time, but has a 7 mile range, while the unguided artillery round has a 12 mile range but is much less accurate, hitting targets within a 180-900 foot radius about 50% of the time (which is about 324-8100 times more area than the Hellfire strike zone). 

Both pack more punch than the 70 pound shell launched from a 5" naval gun (the largest naval gun in service on any U.S. warship), a 120mm tank shell, a 120mm mortar round, a 105mm tank shell, a 105mm artillery round, a GUB-44/B Viper Strike guided bomb, or any kind of anti-tank missile, rocket, or recoilless rifle round in wide use.

But it is less powerful than a torpedo, a U.S. Army Standard MLRS artillery missile, a Naval Strike missile, and ATACMS missile, a missile launch from a naval vertical launch system (VLS), or any fixed wing aircraft dropped bombs bigger than a Viper Strike.

The Hellfire missile needs only minimal launching apparatus (which allows it to be used from helicopters, light aircraft, drones, and even a slightly modified Humvee), while a howitzer requires a heavy and slow artillery system, about four tons towed, or almost 28 tons for an armored tracked Paladin mobile artillery system (with a peak speed of only about 35 mph, slowing down the force, whose poor fuel efficiency adds to the logistics trail of the force). 

The Hellfire missile is much more expensive (around $150,000) than an artillery round (around $2000 with inflation), however. But, the missile's greater accuracy means that far fewer rounds are necessary to reliably destroy the same target, and that it produces far less collateral damage. 

As noted in a previous post (emphasis added):

155mm M795 U.S. high explosive howitzer shell (103 pounds) The 155mm (about 6") M777 howitzer, used by the U.S. Marines, has a 90 pound shell, weighs four tons, and has a range of 12 miles with conventional shells and 24 miles with guided shells (Excalibur) which are more accurate as well. Existing Paladin M109 mobile howitzers used by the U.S. Army has a range of about 30 kilometers (18 miles); the design requirement for the existing systems was a target zone of 180 feet radius to about 900 feet depending upon range and other factor; it weighs 27.5 tons (and thus can't be carried in a C-130) and has a maximum speed of 35 mph. The Crusader mobile howitzer, which was cancelled, was going to cost on the order of $24 million or more per one howitzer vehicle. A standard 155mm howitzer shell costs about $1,500 per round.

A proposed next generation successor to the Hellfire missile is similar in size and weight to the existing Hellfire missile, but has twice the amount of explosives (40 pounds) and an 138 mile range with undiminished accuracy, which would hit a tank sized target in Cheyenne, Wyoming (101 miles), Vail (97 miles), or Pueblo (113 miles) from Civic Center Park in Denver. 

The main difference between the successor and the existing Hellfire missile is that instead of using a solid fuel rocket, it uses a disposable jet engine. It may actually end up being cheaper than the Hellfire missile when produced in quantity.

California-based Anduril Industries has been scooping up defense contracts left and right in recent years. And now the firm, which is primarily known for its advanced and highly autonomous drone systems, is looking to apply that expertise to precision-guided munitions in a new line of air-breathing cruise missiles they call the Barracuda M.

The Barracuda M line is made up of three different weapons: the M-100, M-250, and M-500 cruise missiles. . . . the M-100 significantly outclasses the weapons it could feasibly replace. The M-100 was designed to be carried by rotorcraft like the AH-64 Apache gunship or the AH-1 Cobra, in very much the same way these platforms carry Hellfire missiles today. (Although it could feasibly be launched by any of the long list of other platforms that carry Hellfires.)

Indeed, the M-100 is very close in size to the long-serving AGM-114 Hellfire, and even closer in size to the AGM-179 Joint Air to Ground Missile (JAGM) that’s meant to replace the Hellfire.

The M-100 is about 70 inches long with a six-inch diameter and weighs roughly 110 pounds. In comparison, the AGM-114 is 64 inches long, with a seven-inch diameter and a total weight of around 104 to 108 pounds; and the new AGM-179, which is 70 inches long with a seven-inch diameter and an undisclosed total weight. 

 

(Graphic by Alex Hollings)

But while the M-100 is about the same size as the Hellfire or the JAGM, it packs a much bigger punch.

The Hellfire missile carries a roughly 20-pound high explosive warhead and the JAGM is expected to carry about the same. In our original story, Anduril initially told Sandboxx News that their M-100 would carry a 35-pound warhead, but that has since been increased to 40 pounds – twice the size of the Hellfire’s and JAGM’s warhead.

The Hellfire missile usually has a maximum range of between four and 6.8 miles, depending on launch conditions – though some variants, like the AGM-114R-4 long-range Hellfire missile that saw testing in 2022, can reach as far as 21 miles. The AGM-179 JAGM, meanwhile, started its journey to service with a stated range of roughly five miles, but has since doubled that figure to 10. 

 

Comparing the maximum ranges of the AGM-114 Hellfire (yellow), the AGM-179 JAGM (green), and the Barracuda M-100 (red). (Graphic by Alex Hollings)

The M-100, on the other hand, can carry its 40-pound warhead to targets 138 miles away – or 20 times the Hellfire’s range. This is possible because the weapon carries a completely different type of propulsion system than you’ll find in weapons like the Hellfire which are powered by a solid propellant rocket motor. The M-100 is powered by a very small, air-breathing turbojet engine, the same sort of propulsion system you’d find powering a tactical aircraft or other long-range cruise missiles.

The only place the M-100 would fall short of the Hellfire is in maximum speed, as the Hellfire is known to top out at around Mach 1.3, while the M-100 is limited to high subsonic speeds, according to Anduril.

Depending on the iteration, Hellfire missiles have a per-unit price of around $150,000, while the newer JAGM costs about $320,000. Although we don’t know how much the M100 will ultimately cost, Anduril focuses on streamlined and simple production. The company says that the entire weapon can be assembled using fewer than 10 simple hand tools, which will make it very easy to train personnel in assembling it. Because of that simplicity, the company claims it can double its production capacity anytime the U.S. needs a surge of precision-guided munitions.

This weapon . . . has already seen testing in-house at Anduril and now the company is shopping these weapons to the Department of Defense in hopes of securing a production contract.

In a war like the currently pending Ukraine War, where Russian troops feel secure stationing weapons systems and bases outside artillery range from Ukraine's front lines, widespread availability of these missiles could push back the front lines by 130 miles into Russian territory. 

Similarly, this makes it possible to strike at another country (e.g. Israel), or into international waters, from deep inside sovereign territory of the person making the shot.

The larger version of this new missile (the M-250 and M-500) are more comparable to full sized HIMARs, M270, and navy cruise missiles, and to other intermediate range, larger missiles which the Marines, Army, and Air Force are all actively developing.

The greater range also makes real time forward reconnaissance much more important. 

A forward observer with a device about the size of a satellite phone, a small reconnaissance drone (ideally with a long range), spy planes, high altitude airships or balloons, or spy satellites, could all provide real time imagery that could direct missiles from distant launch sites to a target.

The Case For A Canon Artillery Substitute Missile

Another possibility would be to develop a missile similar in concept to the M-100, but smaller, with a warhead size similar to a Hellfire missile or 155mm artillery round (20-24 pounds), and perhaps only a fifth as much fuel for a 28 mile range, that is significantly lighter (perhaps 60-75 pounds) than the 90-103 pounds of a 155mm artillery round or the 104-110 pounds of a Hellfire missile or an M-100, as a canon artillery substitute missile. 

This canon artillery substitute missile could be fired from a variety of platforms, e.g., a pickup truck mount, a JTLV, a Stryker, an ATV sized ground based drone, an air based drone, a helicopter, a light plane, an AC-130, an A-10, an F-35, a patrol boat, a corvette, or a frigate. Faster, lighter platforms, operating at a greater distance from opposition forces, would be better suited to the modern scoot and shoot tactics of modern artillery forces. Its lighter weight would allow more to be carried on any given platform.

Advanced Energetic Materials

Another way to reduce the weight, without sacrificing explosive power, would be to introduce a new generation (paywalled WSJ article) of "advanced energetic materials - chemicals that propel or explode" which have advanced little since the RDX and Torpex used as TNT replacements which were about 50% more powerful per weight than TNT towards the end of WWII.

For example, an explosive material called CL-20, first identified in 1993 which is currently the subject of research by China and Russia's defense scientists, has been basically stalled in the R&D phase for the last thirty-years, during which it wasn't a priority because counterinsurgency operations in Iraq and Afghanistan were the priority. It is supposed to be 10 times more powerful than TNT (video) making it the most powerful non-nuclear explosive known to man.

Candidate Support By Church Attendance And Race

 

Two days before the election (from here).

Civil Forfeiture Tools Don't Impact Crime Rates

Nearly a decade ago, New Mexico all but eliminated civil forfeiture, ending the practice of taking people's stuff without convicting them of a crime. And then what happened? Did the state descend into lawlessness? On the contrary, crime rates were not impacted. So says a peer-reviewed study newly published in the Criminal Justice Review that used nine years of monthly data and compared against control states.

From here. 

Abortion Law Status By U.S. State

This map (from here) reflects the outcome of ballot initiatives in this year's general election.

How Close Were The Close States?

The 2024 Election Results

Electoral vote: Trump 312, Harris 226, Others 0. Five states had a margin of less than 3 percentage points. Trump won 30 of 51 jurisdictions (states plus DC).

Popular vote: Trump +2.0 (preliminary may drop to Trump + 1.5 when all votes counted). Others 1.9% (Green 0.5%, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. 0.5%, Libertarian 0.4%, all others 0.5%). The electoral college bias was pro-Trump by 0.1 percentage points, although this could grow to pro-Trump by 0.6 percentage points when all votes are counted.

The closest Presidential election results (all states or districts with separately won electoral votes with a margin of less than 10 points):

ME-2 (1) Trump + 9.0
AZ (11) Trump + 5.5 Flipped
NC (16) Trump + 3.4
NV (6) Trump + 3.1 Flipped
GA (16) Trump + 2.2 Flipped -- Others 0.7%
PA (19) Trump + 2.1 Flipped --- the marginal state -- Others 1.0%
MI (15) Trump + 1.4 Flipped -- Others 1.7%
WI (10) Trump + 0.8 Flipped --- the closest state -- Others 1.2%

NH (4) Harris + 2.8 -- Others 1.0%
MN (10) Harris + 4.2
NE-2 (1) Harris + 4.3
VA (13) Harris + 5.2
NJ (14) Harris + 5.5
NM (5) Harris + 5.9
ME (statewide) (2) Harris + 6.7
IL (19) Harris + 9.6

Realistically, no states were flipped by third-party spoiler effects in 2024. This was theoretically possible in MI and WI, but in MI 0.5% of the third-party vote went to RFK, Jr. who dropped out and endorsed Trump, and in WI the same was true. The remaining third-party votes in these states were split between the Green candidate (0.8% in MI and 0.4% in WI) and the Libertarian candidate (0.4% in MI and 0.3% in WI).

Both images are from Wikipedia.

Bottom line: 2024 was a much less close election than 2020 in terms of the marginal state electoral vote margins, but was more close in terms of the popular vote.

The 2020 Election Compared

In 2020, the electoral vote was 306 Biden, Trump 232, Others 0. Biden won 27 out of 51 jurisdictions (states plus DC). The marginal state was AZ was Biden + 0.3. Five states had a margin of less than 2 percentage points, and seven states had a margin of less than 3 percentage points.

The popular vote in 2020 was Biden + 3.4. Others 1.8% (Libertarian 1.2%, Green 0.3%, all others 0.4%). The electoral college bias was pro-Trump by 3.1 percentage points.

Selected state by state results in 2020 were as follows:

Several states may have been flipped by third-party spoiler effects in 2020, which may have even flipped the overall outcome.

More Exit Poll Analysis By Race And Religion

One of my previous posts had some exit poll data that didn't seem to add up (it has far too many black voters in the sample). Maybe it was preliminary and biased towards southern states. I'm updating some of the key results in this post, mostly from here, which has exit poll data limited to "ten key states". The "key states" in the exit poll sample are: Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Texas, and Wisconsin. The questions on religion were not broken down by state.

Smaller subsamples from these exit poll data, however, such as the much less than 1% who identified as non-white Jewish, should be taken with a grain of salt as they are subject to greater sampling error. The total sample size is 22,914 respondents.

One of the core conclusions of the previous post, that white Evangelical Christians (who make up 14% of the general population but 22% of voters) were critical to Trump's win, still holds true, however. Without them, this election wouldn't have been close. It could also be that white Evangelical Christians are a larger percentage of people in the "key ten states" in the sample, than they are in the general U.S. population.

The number in parentheses is the percentage of the total exit poll sample, and the numbers that follow are the percentage of that group voting for Trump and Harris respectively.

• White Evangelical Christians (22%) 82-17.
• White Catholics (15%) 61-35
• White Mainline Protestants (8%) 51-45
• Non-White Catholics (7%) 49-49
• White Religious "Something Else" (5%) 43-52
• Non-White Protestants (12%) 40-60
• Non-White Religious "Something Else" (5%) 32-66
• White Nones (17%) 27-71
• Non-White Nones (7%) 25-72
• White Jews (2%) 20-80

Making Sense Of The Exit Poll Sample

About 69% of voters in the exit poll sample were white. The U.S. as a whole is about 58% non-Hispanic white, but historically, non-Hispanic whites have been overrepresented among voters, so this isn't far out of line with expectations (particularly because the "ten key states" in the exit poll sample probably don't include majority-minority jurisdictions like the District of Columba, California, and Hawaii).

Just 52% were Christian. The 52% of voters who were Christian is far out of line with other estimates of the percentage of the adult U.S. population that identifies as Christian, which is about 63%. The only age group of American adults who are 52% Christian or less are 25-29 year olds. Gallup, as of 2024, estimated that 68% of Americans are Christian.

People who identified as religious but "something else" accounted for 7% of whites and 16% of non-whites. Pew and the General Social Survey (as of 2022) and Gallup (as of 2024) estimated that the number of Americans who are religious but not Christian to be 6-7% including Jews. This exit poll has a percentage twice that high (12% of voters including "something else" and "Jews"). Muslims and Hindus are also probably underrepresented among voters compared to their share of the general population, because a larger share of them than the general population are immigrants who are not yet U.S. citizens. So among voters, non-Jewish "something else" ought to be closer to 2-4%.

I suspect that most of the 10% who are "something else" (perhaps 6-8% of the total), especially among the half of them who are white, are mostly "generic" Christians not actively involved with a particular church or denomination, or are part of a denomination that is not a good fit to the Protestant-Catholic divide (e.g. Jehovah's Witnesses, Messianic Christians, Orthodox Christians, and Mormons). This interpretation fits the similarity in voting patterns between white mainline Christians (especially those who attend church less often who would support Trump less than mainline Christians overall), and religious whites who identify as "something else."

Non-white Jews were less than 0.5% of the total exit poll sample, so it isn't possible to estimate their vote in the exit poll survey with any precision, although non-white Jews were more pro-Trump than white Jews, as discussed below.

Analysis

Non-white Protestants Hispanics (mostly Pentecostal) are significantly more pro-Trump than black Protestants, and may even be more than 50% pro-Trump. Generally speaking, Protestant Hispanics in the U.S. are more conservative than Catholic Hispanics in the U.S. This may be pulling down Harris support among non-white Protestants (far more than 60% of black Protestants supported Harris, probably more like 80%+). 

But pre-election polling found, in line data from previously elections, that Catholic Hispanics favored Harris over Trump 65-34, compared to a roughly 49-49 split inferred from exit polling, while white Catholics supported Harris and Trump respectively in almost exactly the percentages shown in the exit poll (i.e. 61-38). This discrepancy is puzzling, particularly because the subsample is still fairly large and the discrepancy is too large to be plausibly due to anti-Trump bias in pre-election polling generally (which was roughly three percentage points in this election).

Jews in the exit poll were predominantly white, but the small percentage who are non-white were significantly more pro-Trump than Jews who identified as white. I suspect that these are Jews who consider being Jewish/Middle Eastern to not be white and who feel that Trump would be more pro-Israel than Harris. Pre-election polling predicted much stronger Jewish support for Trump with a predicted 65% for Harris and 34% for Trump. The small sample size, and a sample in the ten "key states" that is unrepresentative of the nation as a whole, may be a factor in this discrepancy.

Pre-election polling showed more support for Trump among Evangelicals and white Catholics who attended church more often (relative to those who attended church infrequently), and less support for Trump among white mainline Christians and black Protestants who attend church more often (relative to those who attended church infrequently). Regardless of the absolute numbers supporting Trump in the actual election, this is probably true of the actual results as well.

The results by race were more or less what you would expect, with stronger support from Trump among black and Hispanic voters than in past elections, apart from an anomalously high level of support for Trump from Native American voters. This may be due to a small sample size and a sample made up mostly of whites with trace Native American ancestry and little connection to Native American culture who nonetheless chose to identify that way in the survey (something that is fairly common, especially in parts of the South that may be among the "key ten states" in the sample).

There is a slight discrepancy between the percentage of the sample that is white in the race specific figures (71%) and in the data broken out by religion (69%) which is probably simply due to rounding errors.

As expected, all non-white categories (except Native Americans and "other") favored Harris, although the Harris lead over Trump was modest among Hispanics, and whites favored Trump.

Usually, in surveys, "other" is mostly made up of mestizo Hispanics, although it might also include Middle Easterners or Jews who doesn't identify as "white." It also may include people of mixed race.

Notably, about 31% of whites in the exit poll sample identify as Evangelical Christians.

CNN breaks out the religion data by race beyond whites (but also doesn't have state by state breakdowns on religion):

Black voters:

Hispanic voters:

White voters:

White college graduates:

Whites who are not college graduates:

All Men:

All Women:

All voters:

A few gratuitous extra statistics from the overall exit polls.

Unsurprisingly, urban voters favored Harris and rural voters favored Trump. The suburbs, as always, were in between and narrowly favored Trump:

It is stunning that even 13% of LGBT voters backed Trump. About 8% of voters identified that way:

Single ladies were for Harris, single men and married people voted for Trump:

Women preferred Harris, men preferred Trump, the eight percentage point gap was smaller than many people expected it to be:

The dividing line between Trump supporters (who are older) and Harris supporters (who are younger) is in the low 40s, but senior citizens were actually evenly split:

Married people like Trump more, single people like Harris more:

Union status was a pretty minor factor.

Generally, more educated voters favored Harris, while less educated voters favored Trump. But associates degree holders were more pro-Trump than people with "some college" (I suspect that this may be a gender effect, with more associates degree holders being men and more some college voters being women):