It’s also tax day in the US. But I’m going to approach it as a “glass half full day,” even as the federal and Arizona state treasuries debit my account.
Analysis
(h/t Claudio) CIMSEC – In January 1991, Chinese military officers watched CNN footage of the United States dismantling the Iraqi Army and experienced what one People’s Liberation Army (PLA) analyst later called a “psychological nuclear attack.” Desert Storm displayed every capability the PLA lacked, and China had no choice but to begin remaking its military from the ground up. Two years later, China’s Central Military Commission codified these lessons in the Military Strategic Guidelines, centered on “Local Wars Under High Technology Conditions,” and acknowledged that the PLA had been preparing for the wrong war. The Gulf War didn’t just scare China; it gave it direction.
In 1991, China’s Desert Storm lesson was almost entirely about its capability gap. The maritime domain barely registered because the Gulf War was largely a land-air campaign. The 2026 crisis is fundamentally a maritime crisis, and China is learning a new lesson: chokepoints do not just threaten an enemy, they threaten anyone who depends on them.
A nation that does not control its own supply lines does not truly control its own strategic fate.
For PLA planners gaming a Taiwan contingency, the lesson is immediate: any conflict that triggers a disruption at the Malacca Strait could strangle China’s economy before a single shot is fired. The US Navy has the immediate capability to mine the Strait of Malacca, but the insurance industry could do it for them.
The roughly 750 vessels stranded in the Persian Gulf are a preview of what the South China Sea could look like 48 hours into a Taiwan crisis. Commercial shipping frozen, supply chains severed, and the PLAN unable to restart them regardless of how many ships it deploys.
In a Taiwan contingency, the PLAN’s ability to move troops across the Strait may matter less than whether China’s commercial fleet can continue to feed, fuel, and supply the mainland economy under wartime conditions. The Hormuz crisis is the first live demonstration of how quickly commercial architecture can collapse.
If you’re interested, you should read the entire article (not long) that I’ve summarized above.
In addition to the analysis, how many submarines would it take to begin sinking Chinese commercial vessels that try to skirt the Malacca Straits? I know that’s an “act of war,” but in a Taiwan Scenario with Japan and the Republic of Korea coming in on the side of Taiwan, it’s not just US submarines that the Chinese should be concerned with. Yes, some will be sending components of the invasion fleet to the bottom, but the submarines that begin to mine Chinese ports and approaches will cause them even more difficulty, as would mines laid from the air. And with no external oil or food coming in, China would have to accept a new reality, no matter how large its fleet and land army are. (The oil pipelines connecting Russia and China would be destroyed on day one.)
DEI and the Pentagon
President Pedo Joe Biden’s Executive Order 14035 mandated that every agency make DEIA a priority in strategic planning. The DoD Human Capital Operating Plan for FY 2022–2026 embedded demographic targets across recruiting, retention, and promotion. The Pentagon’s Strategic Management Plan devoted one of every six pages to diversity initiatives. This shaped every general officer promotion board during its effective period.
The problem Secretary of War Hegseth confronts is mathematical before it is political. When promotion boards operate for years under demographic weighting, the senior ranks reflect those inputs. Any correction toward merit-based evaluation will produce demographic outputs that differ from the managed outputs. Critics will call those new outputs evidence of racial and gender bias. They are evidence that racial bias previously existed in the other direction and is now being removed.
This is the core dishonesty in the current discourse. Commentators who defended race-conscious personnel management now describe its reversal as bigotry. If demographic outcomes are the product of selection criteria, then changing the criteria will change the outcomes. Calling the new outcomes racist while defending the old criteria as enlightened is not an argument. It is a political maneuver designed to make merit restoration impossible by ensuring that any reform outcome becomes evidence against the reformer.
Bullet Points:
** California’s Assembly Judiciary Committee just voted 𝟏𝟏-𝟐 to pass AB 2624—a bill that would effectively 𝐨𝐮𝐭𝐥𝐚𝐰 the kind of investigative journalism that exposed mass fraud at taxpayer-funded immigrant service centers. Here’s what the bill does: (1) If a journalist records an employee or owner of a fraudulent operation, they face a 𝐦𝐢𝐧𝐢𝐦𝐮𝐦 $𝟒,𝟎𝟎𝟎 𝐟𝐢𝐧𝐞. (2) A 𝟒-𝐲𝐞𝐚𝐫 𝐢𝐧𝐣𝐮𝐧𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 banning them from recording that person again. (3) Fines 𝐭𝐫𝐢𝐩𝐥𝐞 if they refuse to take down the video. (4) If prosecutors claim “doxing” or “threats,” the journalist faces 𝐜𝐫𝐢𝐦𝐢𝐧𝐚𝐥 𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐫𝐠𝐞𝐬 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐚 $𝟏𝟎,𝟎𝟎𝟎 𝐟𝐢𝐧𝐞.
** Paying down the national debt? A portion of the profits needs to be applied to the debt. President Trump has done a lot to reorder how the US does business – tariffs are as old as time, but the way the US uses them to form bilateral relationships beneficial to the US bothers the globalists. Should the US defend the Eurozone for “free” as we have done? Should the US create a new version of OPEC? It’s all on the table. Venezuela is happy. They’re selling oil at full price on the spot market, not deeply discounting it to China…
** Back to oil shipments to China – briefly – Shipping data confirms the immediate impact. At least two oil tankers headed for China reversed course near the strait shortly after the blockade kicked in at 10 a.m. EDT. The Malawi-flagged Rich Starry, signaling China as its destination, turned back within minutes of approaching the chokepoint after leaving Sharjah anchorage. The Botswana-flagged Ostria, a partial load of oil with Chinese links, did the same. China, which relies heavily on Iranian crude, just got a sharp reminder of who controls the world’s most critical energy chokepoint. Their tankers are turning around instead of testing the US Navy. Sources: Reuters, CBS News, Anadolu Agency, MarineTraffic shipping data, US Central Command announcements, April 13-14, 2026 reports.
** The U.S. Air Force has now ended the training of new A-10C Thunderbolt II pilots, in another step towards retiring the aircraft.
On Apr. 3, 2026, the 357th Fighter Squadron graduated the last class of A-10 student pilots at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base, Arizona. I have only one question for the USAF. What will you replace the A-10C with? And if you say the F-35, you’re delusional. Which aircraft can undertake the “Sandy” CSAR mission? I’d be thrilled if USAF could/would answer that question. I know they hate the Hawg. I wish they’d transfer them to the Army, which would embrace the aircraft – but it’s about turf. And they hate the idea of the Army encroaching even more than they hate the A-10C.
** Will AOC be POTUS in 2028 (or ’32)? VDH delves.
** Negotiating with the Iranian mosaic.
Identify the Armor
1
This could lead to a complicated answer.
2
3
Identify the ship/class
4
Not an LL favorite. Subs were better for ASW, and it was too lightly armed.
Only one rail (usually down for maintenance). If you’re going to put a ship in harm’s way, make it capable.
It was part of the NATO reforger package and was designed for convoy escort. Then the USSR folded, and the intended utility was diminished.
Parting Shot
End
(1) Stridsvagen M-37 / AHIV variant.
(2) Turan.
(3) Hetzer.
(4) FFG OHP. On the bright side, they were better armed than most of everyone else’s DDGs…
– Kle.
Outstanding, Kle. #4 – They were designed to hunt submarines, and to that extent, the SUBROC coming off the rail, the helicopter, and the Prairie/Masker that could “hide” that single wheel/screw was not bad.
The Mark 13 could only fire Tartar/Standard AA or Harpoon SS missiles. The Mark 26 twin rail on the early Ticonderoga-class (among others) could fire ASROC as well as Standard. SUBROC was strictly a submarine-fired weapon.
Yes, I’ve had my morning coffee. Thank you for noticing.
I stand corrected. I thought that the MK 13 could rail an ASROC (I meant ASROC, not SUBROC – early in the morning).
That’s why I try to sleep in.
Smart
Identify the Armor:
1. Stridsvagn m/37
2. Hungarian Turán I
3. Jagdpanzer 38
Identify the ship/class:
4. Oliver Hazard Perry-class frigate USS Curts after the Mark 13 missile launcher had been removed.
Excellent. A friend’s only son died on the Curts (accident on the flight deck aft). It underscores the dangerous nature of military missions even during peacetime. When you look at the age of the KC-135s and B-52s (as examples) that are still flying combat missions, it boggles the mind that everything still works as well as it does.
>Nikon D850, AF-S NIKKOR 28-300mm f/3.5-5.6G ED VR
Glass_snob=ON: The optical equivalent of a Hi-Point. A consumer-grade zoom? Feh.
Glass_snob=OFF: Of course a wide-to-telephoto slow zoom is not gonna be great. But the convenience of a single-lens set up is sometimes worth it, when documentation is more important than absolute image quality.
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>A nation that does not control its own supply lines does not truly control its own strategic fate.
Boy, that doesn’t put the US in a good situation then. Where do we get our steel? Or our pharma drugs (or the precursor chemicals to make them, even on the rare occasion they’re US made)? What about the most advanced chips supporting this AI boom/bubble? But not to worry, the very kind of Private Equity people who have done the most to asset strip while hollowing out our industrial ability to actually, like you know, MAKE stuff, are running the government as well. I for one am reassured that, for example, the founder of Cerberus Capital is running the DoD, or DoW or whatever they are calling it these days. In Energy, Paul Singer has his mitts all over Citgo and Venezuela. And the Ellisons are taking control of ever yet more infotainment media. O Brave New World that is owned by such people!
The steel production issue is a major problem in the US, given the price differential between domestic and foreign steel. Tariffs alone can’t fix that. Big Pharma is another significant problem. We have improved the supply chain, but we’re decades from getting it under control (as you point out, that we want to).
We have nothing that fills the role of the A-10 as well as the A-10 fills it. And the A-10 is the only plane that got near the capability of the A-1 Skyraider (the A-10 has never had a passenger compartment capable of carrying 2 people, 4 in a crunch like the Spad.) If the Spad was still flying today the only things the A-10 would do better would be to carry more weight overall and that wonderful 30mm rotary gun system.
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The Super Tucano and the other prop COIN aircraft can’t even do what the A-1 did, let alone the A-10. But then again they aren’t designed to.
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We also lost capability from getting rid of the OV-10 Bronco, which could carry 4-5 passengers, fly out of bad fields or off an aircraft carrier’s deck sideways or. well, yeah. I was hoping that the OV-10X, a really upgraded Bronco with even more capabilities and better performance, would win the COIN contest but since the contracts were for a single-engine aircraft, well, that truly sucked.
The A-1 was 1940s tech. And while I’m a fan, the A-10 has a significantly longer range. The A-1 Skyraider was famous for its ability to loiter for extremely long periods, sometimes exceeding 6 hours depending on payload. While the A-10 is also a superior loiterer, the piston-powered A-1 was more fuel-efficient at slow speeds. The A-10 has a maximum speed of around 420–450 knots (Mach 0.56–0.75). The A-1 is much slower, with a maximum speed around 280–322 mph (approximately 250–280 knots). It’s apples and oranges. The A-10 is more survivable, and an updated A-10 is possible, though the Pentagon seems to want unmanned aircraft – and I think that we’re a long way from an automated (drone) version of an A-10.
It’ll be a sad day when the A-10s are missing over the skies of Southern Arizona…..
X2
I think they moved to Michigan.
As to California and the ‘No Nick Shirley Act,’ gee, you’d think a bunch of lawyers would realize how very unconstitutional such an act is. I don’t even think the 9th Circuit would defend the NNSA.
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Seriously, the way it reads anyone doing cell-phone video for posting on tik-tok or farcebook or whatever would qualify as a ‘journalist’ under said act, of course only if the target is a dem.
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Can we just un-state California and put it under military governorship while we break it up and fix it? Please?
There is a possibility that the next CA governor will be a Republican, but the legislature is evil, and Sacramento is as rotten as NYC. Fixing the place may be possible with honest elections and decades to repair the damage. Eliminating DEI in government would be a great start.
California’s rulers once again protecting ‘the hive’, this time actual fraudsters, while running roughshod over The Constitutional rights of individuals. It’s not anymore complicated than that. The problem is, ‘what California does, so goes the rest of the nations Democrat run [into the ground] urban locales.
VDH – for the Daily Signal – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8UbMDzYjvuc
I have read that the USA only gets about 3% (max) of its oil from the mideast. If this is correct why are gasoline prices through the roof? OMB should slap this down as it appears to be price gouging, no?
The U.S. market doesn’t reflect the availability of domestic oil. It reflects the best price the market will bear, and regardless of our supply, foreign countries are willing to pay more, and domestic consumer either pay the higher price, or do without. I went through the same market fluctuation with reinforcement steel, when the Chinese were building in the hope of attracting business. As a supplier stated: “You either buy it now, or it will be shipped overseas.” The market price made all construction prices increase, and with fixed contract projects, the additional costs were absorbed by contractors to honor the contract. The same goes for U.S. oil. Either we buy it at the higher price, or the oil will be shipped overseas.
X2 – Oil is auctioned and brings whatever the price is. It’s also traded (Chicago Board of Trade) in the futures market. Jess is correct.
And there’s the refining capacity.
The refineries are set up to process specific grades and types of oil. It’s not like any refinery can process any oil.
I’ve only seen an A-10 In Real Life a couple of times, but all of the stories and photos I’ve seen of them completing missions while looking to have been torn to shreds have made me a very devoted fan. When the news last week was saying one had been shot down around the same time as that F-15, I actually thought “has an A-10 ever been shot down?”
Back in the 80’s, I was working with a bridge crew pouring the deck on a bridge over the Sabine River. We reached a point where we were waiting for a concrete truck, and I had the opportunity to just sit and enjoy the view.
I was looking upstream, when I spotted two jets flying low, and approaching fast. Within seconds they were upon the bridge, and the roar of their engines arrived shortly before they crossed overhead. They climbed immediately after passing overhead, and banked away out of sight. At the time, I didn’t know what they were, but now know they were A-10’s on a practice bombing run on the bridge we were working on. At the time, they were stationed in the now closed England Air Force Base in Alexandria, Louisiana. I can only imagine the horror of anyone in the same situation on an actual bombing run.
It was shot up, flew back to Kuwait, and the landing gear wouldn’t come down, so the pilot ejected, and the A-10 went into the ocean. Not “shot down”. There were some very badly damaged during the Iraq wars. I didn’t look it up, but I think that we lost one to ground fire. The pilot was able to fly away from the people he had just bombed before he had to eject and had CSAR ready to scoop him up.
Capt. Paul Johnson’s (later Maj. Gen.) story starts at 25:40 mark–
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ulMN22sQGWk
Thanks for that! Great story.
The plane is so well designed to deal with damage that it can land with the wing-mounted wheels in the up position, and they’ll still roll. An incredible plane. And the AF sicks for not wanting to keep it.
It doesn’t seem to be expensive enough to buy or operate to satisfy USAF sensibilities.
The Hog is an amazing aircraft. I’ve seen numerous ones at air shows, and even talked to a couple of pilots.The pilots like it, and the ground pounders love it, too.
Congress needs to get involved in the A10 and mandate crew training, aircraft mtce and utilization telling the AF to do it. It’s a sly move to stop training crews as they can shrug shoulders and claim… can’t fly em. Next will be move them to storage while removing critical no longer made parts, so it will take ten years to bring one out of mothballs.
*
I had the privilege of being a moving ground target for adhoc A10 training on a highway in Nevada. Only car on the road. They made several passes while I changed lanes, faster, slower, hide on curves, so forth to give them some tracking fun. They got me on a small hill where when I crested they had timed it to fly past me on both sides right on the deck, wing dipped, poof, gone. Good fun.
You’re lucky they weren’t cleared hot…they obviously didn’t know who you were… (haha)
🙂
AB 2624 – obviously unconstitutional, but that’s no different from many Cali laws passed
in the last half century. Lots of other States too, including my own, sadly.
*
A-10 – when I was a kid, they would fly down from Otis on the Cape and do passes over the pond
at my Boy Scout Summer camp, low enough to kick up a wake. Sometimes they would do some
aerobatic tricks, too. The cheering was always almost as loud as the engines.
– Kle.
A-10. History rhymes. I am reminded of the IJN vs. the IJA in WWII. Not that our side was immune either.
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Armor. Here’s a 600 hp M-5 Stuart.
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3-uHYOBRL8o
Also have on of these standing on my desk–
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https://www.amazon.com/Warthog-Avenger-Fairchild-Republic-Thunderbolt/dp/B07X9PNJJD
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Decades ago, I think I traded for it at our local gun show. Shootin’ buddy and I had our tables there side by side for 20 years running.
A-10 and related problems has a solution. Go back to the Army Air Force. Leave the Space Force as a separate branch.
I stumbled across a really cool photo of a Fairchild promotional advertisement for the A-10 back in the day. The plane is in camo too. I wish i could figure out how to post a photo here…sigh. Im a luddite in that dept. i fear.
This is the core dishonesty in the current discourse. Commentators who defended race-conscious personnel management now describe its reversal as bigotry. If demographic outcomes are the product of selection criteria, then changing the criteria will change the outcomes. Calling the new outcomes racist while defending the old criteria as enlightened is not an argument. It is a political maneuver designed to make merit restoration impossible by ensuring that any reform outcome becomes evidence against the reformer.
I believe it was Thomas Sowell that said something to the effect of “Those used to privilege feel it is discrimination when equality is applied”
I like the title of this post, “Light And Space.”
Right on.
The A-10 is hated in the USAF, but there is no way they will give up control of it. Dammit… And yes, the sturm and drang out of the Pentagon over ‘promotions’ is not going away any time soon. Basically 12 years of DEI promoting has ‘salted’ the upper ranks with non-performers who were promoted based on their ‘score’, not merit… That is not going to be fixed overnight, or even in 4 years. 8-12 years minimum to get back on a merit promotion schedule, IMHO.