Archive through March 03, 2026
Star Fleet Universe Discussion Board: Non-Game Discussions: Real-World Military:
Archive through March 03, 2026
SVC
Well the US/UK Relationship is not what it was (accepting the Reagen/Thatcher was closer than normal) - but it dees seem that at the momemnt, the relationship I thnk would be considered 'poor'?
On who will replace/a Democracy, I think it will take several generations for a Democracy to occur in that part of the world...
.... therefore is a Benevolent 'Dictator' the best the World can hope for?
There must be someone in history who controlled a nation with a strong arm AND it was good for their people and 'the world' (or region)?
Cromwell - declinend the Crown - not sure if his relgious issues meant he wasn't a good leader?
Simon Boliva - Don't know enough about him?
'Western syle supported leaders' just seem to pocket the nations money (Marco's in the Philippines for example) or Death Squads keep them in power (Pinochet and Chile)
'Eastern Style'/other supported leaders - Pol Pot or Idi Amin are probably not good examples
There must be someone who can give 'Dictators a good name'......???
"Or did you mean it would be difficult for a fleet HQ to run a fleet while literally on fire?"
That, right there.
"I can't help but think this operation would be going better if the USA had gotten with the program on drones."
The reality is that the U.S. military is dependent upon a cumbersome bidding process, supply chain contracts, and Congressional funding authorizations. Nothing gets done quickly in this system.
To give you some idea: when I left the Air Force in '92, the computer centers were still using punch cards and magnetic tape (and on occasion, 5-channel paper tape); hard drives were more accurately hard disk packs: massive and expensive affairs that still had precious little storage space. The Sperry mainframes they were using were considerably outpaced and outpowered by even modest desktop computer systems of the day. Why were these relative antiques in use? Because the procurement process was so long that mid-1980s plans to replace them were still not fulfilled.
Paul: a democracy can work in Iran. They have, surprisingly enough, a democratic tradition...and while the clerics in the Guardian Council have quashed candidates they don't like, they do have relatively fair (for the region) elections for their legislature and president. The problem is that Supreme Leader and his Guardian Council squatting on top of it all with veto power over anything the democratic government does.
The issue with former prince Reza Pahlavi is just that: he's the former prince in what was an absolute monarchy that was thrust upon the Iranians in '53. While he claims to support a secular democracy in Iran, he styled himself as Reza Shah II, which is rather telling. He has a certain amount of backing in Iran; that said, there's a certain amount of backing for restoration of the Czars in Russia, too. There will always be monarchists; the question is whether there's enough of them to get their way (so far, the answer has been "no").
The issue with the Iranian people overthrowing the Supreme Leader / Guardian Council structure is that they have the backing of the Revolutionary Guard, who have profited handsomely from the system and who have a vested interest in aborting any/all attempts at changing the system. Nothing short of the defeat of the Revolutionary Guard by actual boots on the ground would allow the Iranian people to ditch the poison at the top. If those boots are those of the Artesh (the Iranian army), however, it's all too likely that the people will find themselves under a junta instead.
We are not going to discuss sending special forces into Iran
I'd bet high tier SF is already there. Likely in the Kurdish region especially. The Unit, Devgru and ISA all have a long history of very small teams wandering around in denied areas. Dunno about the 24th STS & Raiders.
Jessica, yes the procurement process is obviously an issue. But Administrations should not have acted helpless about that. It would have made sense to go to Congress and say something like:
"We need to get up and running with inexpensive drornes pronto. This is an emergency. We want to work with you to reform the procurement process so that can happen."
Neither Biden nor Trump did that. Nor did a bunch of generals testify to Congress in that way.
Israel just announced that they had bombed the meeting where the supreme council of experts was picking a new leader.
The US embassy in Saudi Arabia was hit yesterday by two or maybe three Iranian drones.
The Lebanese government condemned Hezbollah, something it has never been strong enough to do.
I think Jessica and I just agreed again. This must be a sign of the apocalypse.
The US military procurement process is broken, hoplessly and fatally so.
Hopeless to change a process?
That's an attitude that loses wars.
The Crimea War, 1848 is an example.
The British military procurement process was ancient and rotten with corruption. Weapons, food, uniforms and virtually everything needed to equip an army was hopelessly mired in bureaucratic chaos.
It took disaster on the field of battle, not to mention journalism reporting on the scandals to the general public to force reforms on the system.
There have been massive reforms instituted on the U.S. government by the current administration on immigration, foreign aid and elections processes, is it possible that the POTUS just might get around to reforming U.S. military procurement in his spare time?
I called second cousin Pete and he offered to create a commission to revise procurement, to include myself, Jessica Orsini, and Elon Musk. The plan collapsed when Jessica and I each declined to accept a free Tesla Truck. I declined because I thought it was ugly (which it is) and Jessica declined because she thought it was a bribe (which it was).
Trump said that he was convinced that Iran would attack if we did not, and that he had forced Israel to attack early. He denied that Israel forced the US to go along.
SVC? Your 12:02 pm post made me think of the old saying, "Never believe anything until it is officially denied."
Jessica
Iranian Democracy - I stand corrected - I was aware they had a vote and the did vote a moderate President in...but as you said the Supreme Leader overulled evyething.
William, Jeff and Jesscia - Procurement a problem? Simple, just allow my Congressinal District to build what you want and it's solved....
(Jeff - P.S. Crimean War was 1853 to 1856...)
On Trump v Starmer - it seems it has gone from bad to worse?
Spain seems to have equally got the brunt of your Presidents wrath - so no doubt the next NATO meeting will be 'fun'?
Accepting the quality intellligence will be secret - are President Trumps comments OK?
("Iran has had eveything knocked out" - although perhaps worth saying after the 2025 we was told Iran's nuclear program had been destroyed - and we have now been told they was weeks away from a nuclear bomb - so his staff may be being econicmal with the truth**???)
** - Not just a current issue from current staff - who can remember Saddam claiming the West had been smashed in the 1991 Gulf War - one too many yes people he had!!
Wow - just watched the Presidents comments about Starmer...
Anyone else watched/heard it?
Procurement. To fix it, you need to give someone the authority to just go out and buy stuff.
Things like commercial, off-the-shelf drones (or in Jessica's example off the shelf computers). But the USA does not trust federal empolyees enough to let them do that.
Someone, somewhere, might be getting kickbacks or wasting money (someone would be getting kickbacks and lots of people would be wasting money, but it would probably still be cheaper).
Worse, since commercial off the shelf won't do for everything (long range armed stuff especially it just isn't good enough), you need to let someone simply give a reputable builder a contract for up to X dollars to deliver Y drones with Z general capabilities in a year or whatever. WITHOUT knowing in advance exactly how those drones will be built or the full detailed performance envelope, and WITHOUT the government being able to come back with 56 change orders at the drop of a hat and with the charges being accepted unless the product is obviously defective. Build it, ship it, we'll pay for it without insisting on an audit of every penny being charged.
[Edited to add: and this needs to be a non-competative bid, because if it's competative then someone will undercut everyone else and deliver crap. You need to be able to pick a reliable contractor to do this work. Which has obvious avenues for corruption when someone says his wife's company is the perfect company for this work or awards the contract and then quits and gets a consulting job on the board of the company awarded the contract.]
And again, no one high in the government trusts their own people to do that. What Congresscritter is going to run for election on a campaign of "we need fewer controls and to allow more waste, fraud, and corruption in government purchasing."
So, instead we have a horriffically expensive and time consuming process that makes sure no money is being "wasted".
Note: I was in a meeting once, where the only significant subject discussed was that we needed to buy some $10 software licenses. IIRC We needed six, after a dozen people (most of them government) had spent two hours talking this over, everyone agreed to buy 10 licenses rather than the 6 we needed, because we never wanted to freaking do that again, so that $60 in software cost us $100 in licenses with the extra $40 to avoid repeating the roughly $2,000 we had just spent on pay and overhead to decide to do this. But boy was there a bunch of paperwork and meeting minutes (preparation of which added yet more to the circa $2,100 we were already spending) to prove that we weren't wasting money by buying software on government dollars without proper approval and everyone agreeing it was neccessary.
Starmer is an idiot after all, and likely to be replaced any time, but Trump could have been nicer. I would have said:
"I am disappointed in the British Prime Minister, but he's in the middle of his own crisis so I'll cut him some slack ... for now. As for Spain, I'm shocked at their lack of support and will reconsider some things we were going to do for them when I'm not so busy."
SVC
I agree - and please accept my apology if this crosses the politcal line.
We have 'local' elections in May and it is likely unless Starmer can turn things around very quickly - he will resign after them.
(No point in resigning before then, as it is felt a new Prime Minister now would not help Labour's chances).
Politcs 101 and being nice to your Allies (even if you don't want to) though seems to an issue thouugh.
If I was Russia and Ukraine - I am surprised they haven't come to a deal this week - to avoid getting the President on a Good Day (or Bad Day, depending on your point of view) and being on the wrong end of that outcome.
(i.e. - Sorry Ukraine... we are too busy to help you now v Putin - did you see what we did to Iran - and the support we can now give the Ukraine....?)
"Procurement. To fix it, you need to give someone the authority to just go out and buy stuff."
Supply chain security is something that would need to be back-checked by a 3rd party, I'd think. Just ask the Iranians.
"the authority to go out and buy stuff."
Absolute power corrupts absolutely.
Important Conflicts You Rarely Hear About
March 3, 2026: There are a lot of wars and insurgencies going on around the world. These violent situations cause regional problems and provide unpoliced areas for local or international criminal organizations to operate from. These current locations for this sort of thing include the Algeria Terrorist Insurgency, Angola Terrorist Insurgency, Bangladesh Terrorist Insurgency, Benin Terrorist Insurgency, Burkina Faso Terrorist Insurgency, Cameroon Terrorist Insurgency, CAR/Central African Republic Civil War, Chad Terrorist Insurgency, Congo Terrorist Insurgency, Ecuador Civil War/Drug War, Haiti Civil War/Gang War, Ivory Coast Terrorist Insurgency, Libya Terrorist Insurgency, Mali Terrorist Insurgency, Morocco Terrorist Insurgency, Mozambique Civil War, Myanmar Civil War, Niger Terrorist Insurgency, Rwanda Terrorist Insurgency, South Sudan Ethnic violence, Tanzania Terrorist Insurgency, Thailand Terrorist Insurgency, Togo Terrorist Insurgency, Tunisia Terrorist Insurgency, Uganda Terrorist Insurgency. Most civil war deaths are due to Islamic terrorism, which has been the case for over half a century.
Many critical military conflicts never get much publicity. Sometimes it's because they involve espionage, often it's because the media never really gets interested. Here are ten in alphabetical order you should at least be aware of. They are all more important than you realize:
1. Bureaucrats vs. the military. Increasing government regulation, which long avoided the military, now goes after the troops as well. Environmental regulations limit training and how weapons are built. Equal opportunity rules have brought calls to allow the disabled to join the military. Lawyers strive for the right to sue the armed forces for real or imagined injuries. Some armed forces have been allowed to unionize. The bureaucrats know little of how the military operates, so they charge ahead with the best of intentions and often disastrous results. In many countries the military is little more than a bunch of poorly trained but heavily armed civil servants with guns. That becomes painfully apparent only on those rare occasions when the troops are called out to fight. Some politicians know this and that at least makes them more reluctant to get into a fight.
2. Intelligence Operations. Oh, sure, you hear about this in the news but never in detail. And it's the details that make or break intel ops. A lot of the effort is plain old detective work. There are a lot of stakeouts electronic and physical and many interviews with suspects or their friends, family, neighbors or enemies. Even more underground are the electronic operations bugging terrorist email, phone calls, and internet use and crypto breaking secret codes used on phone calls and e-mail. All this work is very expensive and if the FBI, CIA, NSA, etc. decide to shift their resources elsewhere, you won't see it in the news. You will see, months or years down the line, an increase in successful terrorist attacks because the intel weenies got distracted or reassigned.
3. Jointness Games. Sailors the world over have more in common with each other than they do with soldiers in their own country. Most nations just accept the fact that their army, air force, and navy don't get along much. But in the United States there has developed a minor religion called Jointness. The American military takes war seriously, so much so that they acknowledge the need for real cooperation between the three services. Making this cooperation a reality is another matter. You don't hear much about jointness, which is just as well. It's more of an ideal than a reality. But efforts are being made and their success or failure will be known the next time there's a war.
4. Media Wars. Most of us know what putting spin on a story means. What we don't know is how much of this goes on all over the world and then filters back to us as news. All the two or three dozen wars going on at the moment have layers of media spin and distortion surrounding them. This makes it hard to find out exactly what's going on. The situation has become more complex in the last few decades with the growing use of spin by NGOs/Non-Governmental Organizations like the Red Cross, UN, and Oxfam. This has a big impact on how wars are reported or misreported. At least now you know you’re being spoofed.
5. Military Pork Barrel. Most of the $2.3 trillion spent each year on defense worldwide comes with political strings attached. For obvious reasons, politicians like to keep quiet about the political horse-trading that goes on when the defense budget is carved up. That’s because defense generally takes second place to how this can help me get re-elected, rich, or both. The battles over military pork largely take place in the shadows. But the outcomes of these conflicts eventually have an impact, usually catastrophic, on the battlefield.
6. Resurrecting the Red Army. Many Russian officers, young as well as older Soviet era men, are keen to make the Russian armed forces mighty once again, as they were in the days of the Soviet Union's Red Army. The Russian Air Force still uses the red star on their aircraft. The glory days of the Red Army are honored and hailed as a force to be emulated. Until the last few years the money wasn't there to rebuild the Russian armed forces, but the desire was there, and for a while the money was too. The problem is that there is also a lot of corruption and that ensures that a third or more of the $145 billion a year was stolen or wasted. Then there are the problems with conscription: few Russians want it, morale low, and capabilities also low. Despite all this, the goal remains the same, although achieving it might take a lot longer than anticipated. The ongoing war in Ukraine pretty much ended all attempts to procure new equipment, but the government still talks about doing so sometime in the future.
7. The Bug Race. Information warfare, centered on the Internet, is, more than anything else, a battle to find and patch for the good guys, or exploit flaws for the bad guys, in the enormous amount of computer software that runs the net. Much of this software is open source, the original instruction in plain text and available to anyone. The black hat hackers’ pore over this code looking for flaws. If they find a bug before the white hat good guy hackers, mischief, damage, major crimes, or creation of weapons grade malware that can do a lot of damage via the Internet will result. There's no magic involved. In fact, the major source of serious net crime remains insiders going over to the dark side. But for anyone else, it's a matter of who gets to the bugs first.
8. The People's Liberation Army, Inc. Since the 1950s, China's armed forces, the People's Liberation Army have fought a losing battle against corruption. Some of it has been outright theft; most of it was diversion of military resources for commercial gain by senior officers. The government ordered the generals to get rid of all their businesses in the 1990s. The generals have gone through the motions of complying, but the struggle continues over exactly where the money goes. This hurts the ability of the Chinese military to fight, but this is never discussed in China, for obvious reasons. Note that this has been a problem in China for several thousand years.
9. Tribal Warfare. Many of the smaller wars, and some of the large ones, are basically tribal conflicts. It's not politically correct to dwell on this aspect of global disorder. But until we do these wars won't go away or be addressed effectively.
10. Who's Ready for What? The size of armed forces usually is reported in terms of quantity, not quality. This is odd, since most wars are decided by the quality of the troops, not how many of them there are. Readiness is the term most often used to describe this, and you rarely get a straight answer when looking for the readiness of any armed forces. But it's how much readiness a force has, not how many troops or weapons that says it all regarding fighting power.
FYEO
Finland Using Roads For Landing Aircraft
March 3, 2026: Finland has joined India, China, Taiwan and several other countries in using highways for operating combat aircraft. After testing the concept in 2015, India decided to adopt the increasingly popular practice of training pilots and ground crews to use designated sections of highways as temporary air strips. This practice became popular during the Cold War, particularly in Europe where most countries either regularly used the practice or had the procedures available in case needed. In Asia, North Korea has been a long time user of this practice while Pakistan and China have revived the use of highway airstrips.
In 2014 China held air force training exercises involving the use of designated stretches of highway for emergency airfields for fighters and transports. This technique had not been used since 1989 and now at least ten stretches of highway in Liaoning, adjacent to North Korea, Shandong, facing South Korea across the Yellow Sea and Fujian, opposite Taiwan provinces were designated for such emergency use. There may be others that have been designated but not practiced on, so their location has been kept secret.
China is following the example of Taiwan which began regularly practicing using highways as emergency air strips for fighter aircraft back in the 1970s. Then that sort of thing was halted for 26 years as Taiwan tried to make peace with China. In 2004 the highway landings were resumed, and now it's done every few years. There is some preparation involved, at least for the peacetime drills. Troops walk down the length of highway to be used and remove any rocks or other objects that the aircraft wheels might hit or their jet engines might ingest. Then cars go down the road, honking their horns, to flush out any birds which might be sucked into the jet's air intakes. At that point, the F-16s can come in and land. And then turn around and take off again. China apparently follows the same drill as the Taiwanese.
Taiwan resumed these drills in 2004 and included actual use of superhighways as secondary airfields for combat aircraft in their military exercises. For example, in one publicized event two Mirage 2000 fighters landed on a highway which were serviced, including refueling, rearming or minor repairs, and took off again. Parts of Taiwan's system of superhighways were designed just for this purpose but actual use of the highways during training exercises lapsed for over two decades because the Defense Ministry did not want to block traffic or annoy China. The resumed training exercises on highways were done more for diplomatic reasons; to remind China that Taiwan had many defensive capabilities. In 2007, the highway drill was carried out once more, and again in 2011.
FYEO
Chinese Missile Armed Merchant Ships
March 2, 2026: In 2025 China revived its practice of arming cargo ships with cargo containers containing anti-ship or land-attack missiles. This new version had several containers welded together so they could be equipped with VLS/Vertical Launch System cells for the missiles. Other containers contain radar and electronic countermeasures systems, and even a CIWS/Close In Weapons System similar to the American Phalanx. A dozen or more cargo ships equipped with this system could be part of a surprise attack on Taiwan.
Eight years ago, China became the third nation to reveal it had developed a system to fire missiles from a standard 40 foot\12.3 meter shipping container. The Chinese version is apparently designed to handle the YJ-18C missile. This is the latest version of the YJ-18, which is normally used as an anti-ship missile and is very similar to the Russian Klub. The C version is said to have a longer range and meant mainly for land-based targets.
The Chinese containerized missile system is very similar to the one a Russian firm began marketing in 2010. That one fired a version of the 3M54 Klub cruise missile. This system was called Pandora’s Box and designed so that missiles were carried in and fired from a 40 foot shipping container. The launcher and the missile have to slide out of the container before firing, thus limiting where it can be placed on a ship, particularly your typical container ship. Each container contained a small compartment for the two-man firing crew. You could get two or three of these shipping container Klubs, plus the crewed firing container, on most cargo ships, turning the vessel into a warship. The Klub missile is a key weapon for the Kilo class diesel-electric submarines. Weighing two tons and fired from a 533mm/21 inch torpedo tube, the 3M54 has a 200 kg warhead. The anti-ship version has a range of 300 kilometers and speeds up to 3,000 kilometers an hour during its last minute or so of flight. There is also an air-launched and ship-launched version. A land attack version does away with the high-speed final approach feature and has a 400 kg warhead or a longer range of 500 kilometers. This is what the YJ-18C sounds like. The basic YJ-18 is used on Chinese destroyers, launched from VLS cells. This is what the U.S. Navy has long been using for firing Tomahawk cruise missiles.
In 2012 a new version of Pandora’s Box was announced. This one used a smaller, slower, and presumably cheaper cruise missile. This unidentified weapon is described as weighing 520 kg, having a 145 kg warhead, and being 3.8 meters long. Max range is 130 kilometers. The version cost about $4 million per container while the original version with Klub cost $6 million. There is not a lot of high-tech involved with systems like Pandora’s Box or the Chinese version, but manufacturers believe there is a market for this sort of thing.
Meanwhile in mid-2017, Israel conducted a successful test of a new version of its LORA\Long Range Artillery Rocket system that can be mounted and fired from standard shipping containers. The test involved a truck hauling a shipping container parked on a ship deck. The containerized LORA uses a minimum of two containers; one containing four missiles each in the standard sealed container, and the standard electric system to point the missile skyward so it will be fired without the rocket blast damaging the ship. Another container contains the control center and some maintenance and test equipment. In the original ship-launched version, the launch center electronics were installed in the ship CIC/Combat Information Center like other fire control equipment. A ship could carry four or more containers with launchers, and the container version could also be used on land with the containers mounted on any heavy truck or tractor-trailer designed to carry those containers. The new container system also makes it easier to add more firepower to existing warships or even unarmed naval support vessels.
FYEO
Special Operations: Ukrainian Assassinations of Russian Generals
March 2, 2026: One of the many unusual tactics employed by Ukraine against Russian invaders is a large number of decapitation operations. This has resulted in the deaths, so far, of thirteen generals and over 300 lower ranking officers. These included 42 colonels, who often command brigades or serve as senior staff officers and planners. The rest of the dead were lieutenant colonels and majors.
Russia had to deal with the threat of American decapitation attacks during the 1948-91 Cold War. In 1983 the United States sent highly accurate Pershing II missiles to West Germany. These missiles had a range of 1,700 kilometers and the 5 kiloton nuclear warhead was designed to reach underground bunkers before detonating. The guidance system used a mechanical inertial guidance system that used a targeting radar during final approach. In tests this regularly had the warhead landing within 15 meters of the aiming point. The Americans could eliminate all major Russian headquarters in eastern Europe and western Russia. Russia agreed to remove all their ballistic missiles from eastern Europe and return them to Russia if the U.S. would withdraw the Pershing missiles. Russia still believes the Americans are planning to launch extensive decapitation attacks on them in the event of a war.
More recently Israel has used decapitation attacks against Iran in June of last year. These air strikes killed dozens of key military personnel and scientists working on nuclear weapons projects. Earlier Israel had eliminated or hospitalized most of the Iran-backed Hezbollah militia leaders by using pagers these key personnel carried. All at once the pagers exploded, because Israeli operatives had modified these devices by adding a small explosive charge and a detonator activated remotely by Mossad, the Israeli foreign intelligence agency.
For more than three decades the United States has been eliminating the senior ISIL/Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant leadership and this effort has been successful. The second most senior ISIL leader Abd al-Rahman Mustafa al-Qaduli died when his vehicle was attacked by American commandos in helicopters. The U.S. troops had been tracking Qaduli for several days waiting for an opportunity to capture him. Qaduli’s vehicle was attacked in an uninhabited area on the Syria side of the Iraq border. Qaduli and his three companions fought back and all were killed. The commandos did recover cell phones, computers and other electronics. But the American really wanted to interrogate Qaduli, who was noted as a good strategist, manager and leader. This was why he was next in line to be supreme leader of ISIL.
It takes more than drones and commandos to carry out these decapitation and kill the leaders' efforts. Cash rewards also help. In 2015 the U.S. announced $20 million in rewards for information leading to the capture or killing of four senior ISIL leaders. These included Abd al Rahman Mustafa al Qaduli a former al Qaeda-in-Iraq leader who joined ISIL in 2012, Abu Mohammed al Adnani the official spokesman and face of ISIL, Tarkhan Tayumurazovich Batirashvili a senior combat commander and Tariq Bin al Tahar Bin al Falih al Awni al Harzi commander of all suicide bombing operations as well as forces in northeastern Syria. Adnani was badly wounded by a missile attack. The other three were killed. Details of how the cash rewards work are not revealed because it is widely known that those who inform on their leaders are often hunted down and killed, along with their families. That, like cash rewards or bribes, are ancient practices that still work.
Going after senior leaders, especially those with unique skills like organizing and training suicide bombers, has been shown to be one of the most effective tactics for crippling and destroying an Islamic terrorist organization. Decapitation tactics proved successful in Iraq before U.S. troops left in 2011, and earlier in Israel where it was developed to deal with the Palestinian terror campaign that began in 2000. The Israelis were very successful with their decapitation program, which reduced Israeli civilian terrorist deaths within five years from over 400 a year to less than ten.
Actually decapitation tactics are an ancient practice. American troops have used similar tactics many times in the past in World War II, 1960s Vietnam, the Philippines over a century ago, and in 18th century colonial America, but tend to forget after a generation or so. Some things have to be relearned. So successful has decapitation been that in 2013 Islamic terrorists in Afghanistan and Pakistan openly called for supporters to help develop methods, electronic or otherwise, to deal with the American drones that constantly patrolled terrorist sanctuaries in Pakistan’s Waziristan and Afghanistan’s border area and constantly found and killed Islamic terrorist leaders with missiles. This has led to the deaths of hundreds of key terrorist personnel and, despite the heavy use of civilians as human shields, few civilian deaths. The Taliban were increasingly frustrated at their inability to deal with this.
For a long time the U.S. either denied these drone missile attacks were going on or refused to comment. The impact of these attacks on terrorist operations and the morale of terrorist leadership led to the United States to openly admitting the attacks and confirming that they would continue. They work and are a weapon unique in military history. Wars have always included attempts to gain victory, or at least an edge, by going after the enemy leaders and other key people. This has always been difficult because the enemy leaders know they are targets and take extensive precautions to protect themselves, the royal guard, food tasters, and all that. This no longer works and terrorist leaders are scrambling to find ways to avoid this lethal retribution for their wickedness. Islamic terrorists also use decapitation but their favored weapon is the suicide bomber.
Islamic terrorism is disrupted not destroyed by these decapitation tactics. The problem is that Islamic terrorism and attacks on non-Moslems are encouraged in Islamic scripture, which makes it unique among major religions. That is another problem that a growing number of Moslems are finally confronting. Meanwhile the Islamic terrorists keep killing. Most of their victims have always been Moslems but modern technology, cheap international travel and global news media and all the oil money in the Middle East have led to some damage in the non-Moslem world. As in the past, the non-Moslems react and defend themselves. The cure is always temporary for only Moslems themselves can cure the disease.
FYEO