Hardpoints in the War on Coronavirus

 

President Trump now considers himself a wartime president. Appropriate, I think. The inestimable Victor Davis Hanson thinks that war is a valid metaphor for combatting the COVID-19 virus.

Okay, let’s do that. Later, after we’ve secured ourselves, we can go on the offensive (in this case, that means get proactive) and ensure that we annihilate China’s ability to control worldwide supply chains and production (in this case, the production of medical supplies). First, though, defense. If this is a type of war, why don’t we secure Fortress America the same way we secure our Army posts, our air bases, our Naval stations, and our OCONUS Forward Operating Bases?

All of these installations require varying degrees of security, but we don’t lock down the whole installation all the time. That would be, as the kids today say, unsustainable. So, too, is locking down all of the US.

Too many security impediments to personnel getting to their place of work decrements duty performance efficacy and efficiency. Plus, military dependents (see, I’m no sexist; I didn’t say “wives”) can’t make the school carpools, the soccer practices, the commissary runs. No bueno. So an ID card check at the front gate works to get people with a legit purpose on post the ability to move on and off with a minimum of friction. Visitors without an ID card have the privilege of pulling over for a vehicle search and a paperwork check (if you forgot to renew your registration this year, sorry, you’re not getting on).

But, security appropriate for the front gate is not optimal for those areas that may be targeted by the threat. So, security forces create hardpoints with which to protect vulnerable parts of the installation. It’s easier to get onto base than onto the (military) fuel point. It’s easier to get onto the fuel point than it is to get into the Ammunition Holding Area. You may have access to the AHA, but not the flight line. And you’ll definitely never get into a SCIF without proper ID/credentials etc.

Some hardpoints within installations have dedicated armed security with whole different Rules of Engagement than the bubbas at the front gate.

Establishing social and economic hardpoints crafted to give us maximum protection of our vulnerabilities while permitting those less prone to the vagaries of the virus to go about doing America’s business should be priority one. Our greatest asset in setting up viable, effective hardpoints is the American people themselves. Sure, there’s always some knucklehead that thinks “this rule doesn’t apply to me.” But in this case, I think there would be a cast of action agents willing to say, “Hey, knucklehead, you stupid?  This rule applies to you.”

Right now, our biggest liability to setting up viable, effective hardpoints is our media. The American people would probably go a long way to making this situation safer for everybody if they could get timely, accurate, relevant information from the news (okay, not that chick in Port St. Lucie who called 911 because McD’s had run out of McNuggets, and her ilk). But we can’t, because our media sucks.

First step in any operation — offensive or defensive — is to perform an intelligence assessment. That is difficult to do with garbage media. Sure, most Ricochetti are switched on and have found their go-to sites for reliable intel. Vast swathes of our population, though, have the now-unreasonable idea that they can switch on the news and get what they need to plan their lives accordingly.

The unwieldy military term for gathering the best information possible to develop the most viable plan to reach the optimal achievable end state (sheesh, talk about unwieldy) is Joint Intelligence Preparation of the Operational Environment (or JIPOE). This has four steps:

Define the Operational Environment.

Describe the impact of the Operational Environment.

Evaluate the Adversary.

Determine the Adversary Course of Action (given that particular Operating Environment).

It’s pretty simple, even though there are 19 sub-steps total inside those original four steps.

I’m not an epidemiologist, or a virologist or any other kind of scientific or medical guy, but using any kind of paradigmatic template to observe, evaluate and assess the threat and appropriate countermeasures should be well do-able to get the country back to work.

‘Course, it would have been do-able a lot sooner if the lyin’, dog-eating, bat-soup-slurping CHICOM government had come a lot cleaner a lot sooner. But first, security. Then, we get proactive and ensure those commie bastards can never put us over a barrel again.

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  1. Al French, PIT Geezer Moderator
    Al French, PIT Geezer
    @AlFrench

    I heartily endorse the return of the term “CHICOM”. I wish President Trump would use it.

    • #1
  2. RightAngles Member
    RightAngles
    @RightAngles

    Right now, our biggest liability to setting up viable, effective hardpoints is our media

    This is one of the biggest problems we have.

    • #2
  3. Percival Thatcher
    Percival
    @Percival

    Brian Williams divided half a billion dollars among 327 million Americans and determined that we’d all get one million dollars, to the total agreement of a New York Times editorial board member.

    We need a smarter media elite.

    • #3
  4. OmegaPaladin Moderator
    OmegaPaladin
    @OmegaPaladin

    The problem with the analogy is that we need to reduce the inflow of patients, and I am not quite sure if a good military model applies here.  Locking down the borders was good, but the big problem is that it is difficult to maintain an economy where you need to carefully restrict your contact with people. 

    I am not sure how hardpoints would play out with this kind of threat, except at the border.

    Everything I have read shows the CHICOMs have a lot to answer for. They suppressed evidence and kept this under wraps.  It may have even been a result bad biomedical practice at their laboratory.   After we work on disentangling ourselves, I’d suggest that China hands over some of our bonds that they hold as compensation, directly reducing the deficit, 

    • #4
  5. RushBabe49 Thatcher
    RushBabe49
    @RushBabe49

    And now the Chicoms have expelled the US media in retaliation for our designating their State- owned media as such. Accurate data from China will now be even more difficult to ascertain. 

    • #5
  6. Boss Mongo Member
    Boss Mongo
    @BossMongo

    OmegaPaladin (View Comment):
    The problem with the analogy is that we need to reduce the inflow of patients, and I am not quite sure if a good military model applies here. Locking down the borders was good, but the big problem is that it is difficult to maintain an economy where you need to carefully restrict your contact with people. 

    OP, I think the problem with your problem with the analogy is that all persons who contract the virus are not going to be patients.  Of those who do become patients (from what I’ve read), the vast majority will be treated on an inpatient basis.  Few will need to occupy one of those coveted hospital beds, and fewer still will require a ventilator.

    If I’m right (and if I’m not, I blame the media; I don’t have the luxury of the time to suss all of this out), then we can hard point our vulnerable populations.  Persons with preexisting conditions of A, B, C, and D need to isolate in order to protect themselves.  Those in the age range of x thru y need to isolate themselves.  These vulnerable populations will have the following financial aid and social assistance available to them while they isolate.

    Will the numbers be perfect? Will there be fatalities outside the established ranges?  Sure.  But no plan is going to be perfect and we need to keep the economy from being driven to its knees (or into a dirt nap).

    • #6
  7. Percival Thatcher
    Percival
    @Percival

    RushBabe49 (View Comment):

    And now the Chicoms have expelled the US media in retaliation for our designating their State- owned media as such. Accurate data from China will now be even more difficult to ascertain.

    I’m sure we knew about this a week before word got out. The CIA only appears to be incompetent the closer you get to Langley.

    • #7
  8. Jerry Giordano (Arizona Patrio… Member
    Jerry Giordano (Arizona Patrio…
    @ArizonaPatriot

    Great post, Boss.

    What are your ideas for hurting the ChiComs?  The President seemed to be doing some of this already.

    Unfortunately, it’s hard to hurt a tyrannical regime without hurting the people it is oppressing.  I’ve been thinking for some time now that we need to target the Chinese economy.  I don’t much like the idea of impoverishing the Chinese people, but I don’t see any way that they can become more prosperous that would not give increasing power to the ChiComs.  So, if we can manage it, I think that we need to find ways to keep them poor and make them even poorer.

    As Churchill wrote about the Allied bombing campaign, alas for poor humanity.

    • #8
  9. Randy Webster Inactive
    Randy Webster
    @RandyWebster

    Boss Mongo: Plus, military dependents (see, I’m no sexist; I didn’t say “wives”)

    I was a military dependent without ever being anyone’s wife.

    • #9
  10. Eeyore Member
    Eeyore
    @Eeyore

    Boss, one thing you’ll have to admit is that the media has truly simplified the analytical process in addressing the virus, and, really, all our other problems. You lay out a huge level of complexity in moving forward. But let me alter just one statement and you’ll see why so many people are so prone to turn to the media:

    First step in any operation–offensive or defensive–is to perform an intelligence assessment Orange Man Bad.

    It may not lead to any outcome you or I might consider efficacious, but I think you’ll have to agree that the clarity that proposition offers is going to be extremely attractive to many millions.

    • #10
  11. GrannyDude Member
    GrannyDude
    @GrannyDude

    The post reminds me of the time my USMC/writer son explained to his ol’ Mother what a Tip Fiddle is. To this day, my husband and I talk about “sticking to the Tip Fiddle.” 

    Total Planned Force Deployment…Something Something Something….

     

    • #11
  12. Randy Webster Inactive
    Randy Webster
    @RandyWebster

    GrannyDude (View Comment):
    Total Planned Force Deployment…Something Something Something….

    Looks like Bertie Wooster reciting poetry.  Except I think you left out a “tum” in there somewhere.

    • #12
  13. GrannyDude Member
    GrannyDude
    @GrannyDude

    The Wuhan Woo-Hoo challenges and thus, at least potentially,  reveals the mental models we use when responding to risk (actual or perceived). Some of these are more applicable than others.

    Just for the record, I’d be good with having Boss Mongo design and execute the Tip Fiddle, but he’d have to cope with a lot of untrained personnel, namely Us. We’re not just talking fatheaded college “students” on Spring Break who have, it seems, spent their lives learning to bleat “the rules (of biology! of chemistry! of physics!)  don’t apply to me!”

    Their enablers are now refusing to concede that an abortion is elective surgery (what is it about the word “choice” that they don’t understand?  They demand to remain open, so as to provide “care” (think surgical gowns, gloves, masks)  so those entirely predictable (EDIT: and preventable, if you’re not binge-drunk) post-Spring-Break pregnancies can, after an extremely brief consultation between “a woman, her family and her doctor” be terminated.

    But all of us have parts of our lives that seem so important that surely the rules  -should be suspended.

    I can feel it as an almost physical sensation: it’s a crisis, so I’m supposed to show up. I’m so used to using my physical presence— hands, body, voice, face— to assist those to whom bad things have happened. It’s difficult for me to get my head around this new equation: Helping=NOT showing up. Surely you don’t mean me? 

    My daughter, an ICU nurse, strongly advised against my plan to drive down to the city today to hang out with my grandson. Yes, his parents had errands to do, but ones they would otherwise take him along on—this isn’t an emergency, but an attempt at ordinary life and ordinary life has been suspended.

    As my daughter pointed out, I’d probably stop at the gas station. Manipulating the nozzle of the gas pump,  pushing the buttons on the credit card touch screen to pay,  gripping the windshield squeegee, picking up the germs left behind by the last customer, leaving my own germs for the next. And that’s before we get to the purchase of a drink, or the use of the bathroom(s) along the way.

    In her state, there’s a  shortage of ICU beds, of ventilators, of PPEs for medical personnel like her. In my state, the local first responders have put out a call for donations of masks and gloves, should civilians happen to have these around, left over from something or other or the result of an early-Pandemic panicked shopping spree.

    But I love my grandson! It’s important that I get to see him…surely you don’t mean me?

    So strange.

    • #13
  14. Stad Coolidge
    Stad
    @Stad

    Boss Mongo: President Trump now considers himself a wartime president. Appropriate, I think. The inestimable Victor Davis Hanson thinks that war is a valid metaphor for combatting the COVID-19 virus.

    Trump has been a wartime President the moment he took the Oath of Office.  The enemy is the left and its propaganda machine, the MSM . . .

    • #14
  15. Boss Mongo Member
    Boss Mongo
    @BossMongo

    Randy Webster (View Comment):

    Boss Mongo: Plus, military dependents (see, I’m no sexist; I didn’t say “wives”)

    I was a military dependent without ever being anyone’s wife.

    See, that’s what I’m talking about.  There’s a reason I’m referred to as “The Enlightened One.”

    • #15
  16. Boss Mongo Member
    Boss Mongo
    @BossMongo

    GrannyDude (View Comment):
    The post reminds me of the time my USMC/writer son explained to his ol’ Mother what a Tip Fiddle is. To this day, my husband and I talk about “sticking to the Tip Fiddle.” 

    Oh, yeah.  In the Army (and the Joint world) it’s called the tip-fid (TPFDD).  Time-Phased Force Deployment Data.  That’s the first step in planning your RSO&I (Reception, Staging, Onward movement and Integration).  And the Army said I’d never make a good bureaucrat.  Sheesh.

    • #16
  17. Percival Thatcher
    Percival
    @Percival

    Boss Mongo (View Comment):

    GrannyDude (View Comment):
    The post reminds me of the time my USMC/writer son explained to his ol’ Mother what a Tip Fiddle is. To this day, my husband and I talk about “sticking to the Tip Fiddle.”

    Oh, yeah. In the Army (and the Joint world) it’s called the tip-fid (TPFDD). Time-Phased Force Deployment Data. That’s the first step in planning your RSO&I (Reception, Staging, Onward movement and Integration). And the Army said I’d never make a good bureaucrat. Sheesh.

    How could they guarantee that you wouldn’t show up armed for status meetings when your entire body is a weapon?

    • #17
  18. Boss Mongo Member
    Boss Mongo
    @BossMongo

    Percival (View Comment):

    Boss Mongo (View Comment):

    GrannyDude (View Comment):
    The post reminds me of the time my USMC/writer son explained to his ol’ Mother what a Tip Fiddle is. To this day, my husband and I talk about “sticking to the Tip Fiddle.”

    Oh, yeah. In the Army (and the Joint world) it’s called the tip-fid (TPFDD). Time-Phased Force Deployment Data. That’s the first step in planning your RSO&I (Reception, Staging, Onward movement and Integration). And the Army said I’d never make a good bureaucrat. Sheesh.

    How could they guarantee that you wouldn’t show up armed for status meetings when your entire body is a weapon?

    Uh, ye see, that’s a very technical situation.

    • #18
  19. Goldwaterwoman Thatcher
    Goldwaterwoman
    @goldwaterwoman

    RightAngles (View Comment):

    Right now, our biggest liability to setting up viable, effective hardpoints is our media

    This is one of the biggest problems we have.

    I wish the media at large would do more reporting on what is actually taking place within the scientific community instead of arrogantly asking Trump what he’s done for us lately. They could also report on the entire world’s response where other leaders are doing their utmost to combat the climbing numbers. Why, for example, are the numbers so low in Russia?

    • #19
  20. The Reticulator Member
    The Reticulator
    @TheReticulator

    Goldwaterwoman (View Comment):

    RightAngles (View Comment):

    Right now, our biggest liability to setting up viable, effective hardpoints is our media

    This is one of the biggest problems we have.

    I wish the media at large would do more reporting on what is actually taking place within the scientific community instead of arrogantly asking Trump what he’s done for us lately. They could also report on the entire world’s response where other leaders are doing their utmost to combat the climbing numbers. Why, for example, are the numbers so low in Russia?

    You’re asking the media to quit being xenophobic and to look past their narrow concerns. They are like colonialists who think that the only thing that matters is what the U.S. does.  

    • #20
  21. Viruscop Member
    Viruscop
    @Viruscop

    OmegaPaladin (View Comment):

    The problem with the analogy is that we need to reduce the inflow of patients, and I am not quite sure if a good military model applies here. Locking down the borders was good, but the big problem is that it is difficult to maintain an economy where you need to carefully restrict your contact with people.

    I am not sure how hardpoints would play out with this kind of threat, except at the border.

    Everything I have read shows the CHICOMs have a lot to answer for. They suppressed evidence and kept this under wraps. It may have even been a result bad biomedical practice at their laboratory. After we work on disentangling ourselves, I’d suggest that China hands over some of our bonds that they hold as compensation, directly reducing the deficit,

    China hardly holds US debt anymore. The idea propagated by Paul Ryan that China would sell treasuries and crash the US economy unless we cut entitlements was always an absurd one. 

    • #21
  22. Viruscop Member
    Viruscop
    @Viruscop

    Goldwaterwoman (View Comment):

    RightAngles (View Comment):

    Right now, our biggest liability to setting up viable, effective hardpoints is our media

    This is one of the biggest problems we have.

    I wish the media at large would do more reporting on what is actually taking place within the scientific community instead of arrogantly asking Trump what he’s done for us lately. They could also report on the entire world’s response where other leaders are doing their utmost to combat the climbing numbers. Why, for example, are the numbers so low in Russia?

    That would take valuable airtime from holding the Trump administration accountable.

    • #22
  23. Basil Fawlty Member
    Basil Fawlty
    @BasilFawlty

    Quartered Safe In Here?

    • #23
  24. Skyler Coolidge
    Skyler
    @Skyler

    Isn’t an epidemic bad enough?  Why would one need to compare it to war?  Too many things are compared to war nowadays.

    War, Famine, Pestilence, and Death.  Those are the Four Horsemen.  One’s as bad as the other.  There’s no need to call a Pestilence “War” and there’s no need to call War a “Famine.”

    We’re in a pandemic.  That’s bad enough.  No one is actively shooting at us or blowing us up.  That’s a different kind of bad.  We don’t need a counter attack, spies, reconnaissance, or the like.  We need planning, hygiene, social distancing, and whatever else, not heavy artillery, tanks, or attack aircraft.

    • #24
  25. Unsk Member
    Unsk
    @Unsk

    China has effectively declared war on us. They have said they will swamp us in a “sea of CoronaVirus”, they have withheld from us critical materials and drugs to fight this pandemic and have declared that they are out to buy all the critical American companies that have been laid low by this Pandemic so they will control and manipulate the entire world.

    Many of our politicians and almost all our Big media and Internet companies are heavily invested in China. Many of those investments have come with heavy strings attached that compromise their allegiance to America. I  think it’s long past due that all Media companies of whatever stripe and all politicians if they have investments in China need to register as an Agent of a Foreign Country ,  and when they are speaking, engaging in media of any kind or broadcasting note that fact very clearly to the American public on each and every piece they do.

    We’re talking about you, Traitor ChiCom Joe Biden, Hillary, Obama, Cocaine Mitch, Pierre Delecto Romney, Nancy Pelosi, Diane Feinstein, the Bushes, Bloomberg, Apple, Google, Facebook. Amazon. Microsoft, Intel, Disney/ABC, NBC / Universal/Comcast and a whole bunch of other companies and interests.

    • #25
  26. Boss Mongo Member
    Boss Mongo
    @BossMongo

    Unsk (View Comment):
    We’re talking about you, Traitor ChiCom Joe Biden, Hillary, Obama, Cocaine Mitch, Pierre Delecto Romney, Nancy Pelosi, Diane Feinstein, the Bushes, Bloomberg, Apple, Google, Facebook. Amazon. Microsoft, Intel, ABC, NBC and a whole bunch of other companies and interests.

    Stop beating around the bush, man.  Speak truth to power.

    • #26
  27. Eeyore Member
    Eeyore
    @Eeyore

    Goldwaterwoman (View Comment):
    Why, for example, are the numbers so low in Russia?

    It’s because there is an even more deadly disease in Russia, with a 100% fatality rate. It seems that those who report Things Unpopular universally become highly disoriented and walk through doors into empty elevator shafts. Tragic.

    • #27
  28. JimGoneWild Coolidge
    JimGoneWild
    @JimGoneWild

    Boss, I’m just itching to cut loose with this Daisy Cutter. Where should we drop it?

    • #28
  29. Boss Mongo Member
    Boss Mongo
    @BossMongo

    JimGoneWild (View Comment):

    Boss, I’m just itching to cut loose with this Daisy Cutter. Where should we drop it?

    Area code 202?

    • #29
  30. Percival Thatcher
    Percival
    @Percival

    Boss Mongo (View Comment):

    JimGoneWild (View Comment):

    Boss, I’m just itching to cut loose with this Daisy Cutter. Where should we drop it?

    Area code 202?

    Need more than one.

    • #30
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