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Republican Bombs Are Bad, M’kay?
The stakes were upped Thursday when the US military dropped a MOAB on ISIS forces in eastern Afghanistan. Nicknamed the “Mother Of All Bombs,” the MOAB is the largest non-nuclear weapon ever used in combat, weighing 22,000 pounds and filled with 18,700 pounds of H6 explosive.
The MOAB creates explosive shockwaves through overpressure, especially in caves and canyons. Waves of pressure enter the narrow spaces, killing people and collapsing tunnels. This made the bomb ideal to use against the ISIS tunnel complex in the Nangahar province. Gen. John W. Nicholson Jr., US commander in Afghanistan, said, “This is the right munition to reduce these obstacles and maintain the momentum of our offensive.” But what do generals know about military tactics compared to our nation’s journalists?
“The U.S. military has targeted similar complexes and dropped tens of thousands of bombs in Afghanistan, raising the question of why a bomb of this size was needed Thursday.” — Washington Post
“Some national security experts said that Mr. Trump and the Pentagon risked inflaming anti-American sentiment in the Muslim world with their approach to fighting the Islamic State.” — New York Times
“Like the Syria strike, use of the monster munition in Afghanistan is more symbolic than tactical, because it is unlikely to change the course of America’s longest war.” — Los Angeles Times
Progressives’ response on Twitter was even worse:
Dear @realDonaldTrump:
How does dropping #MOAB fit into a larger Afghanistan strategy?
We can’t kill our way to victory.
– The people
— igorvolsky (@igorvolsky) April 13, 2017
It’s grotesque to call a killing device, the “Mother of All Bombs.” The #MOAB is the epitome of lethal patriarchy.
— Eric Stoller (@EricStoller) April 13, 2017
Criticizing a bomb for being too lethal is like criticizing a cherry fritter for being too delicious.
The lefties were fine when Obama was droning Yemeni wedding receptions and US military deaths in Afghanistan quadrupled over the Bush years. But now that President Trump is C-in-C, fighting terrorism is a cruel thing.
The main problem critics have with the MOAB is that it’s a Republican bomb. It was designed under George W. Bush and first used by Donald Trump. SEAL Team Six shooting up Osama’s compound made progressives feel butch, but ordnance that kills exponentially more terrorists is vulgar.
What the left wants is a kinder, gentler bomb, dropped by a thoughtful, sensitive President. A weapon with a streamlined design that looks good staged in a loft between an Eames chair and a midcentury modern liquor cabinet handmade with reclaimed lumber. An explosive that would be dropped ironically as a Wes Anderson soundtrack plays in the background. A bomb that will shower hashtags, emojis, and social justice across Balochistan.
The US military exists to kill people and break things. And if America is ever going to defeat ISIS, the Twitter hipsters shouldn’t complain that they’re doing their job too well.
Published in Military
The British realized that tribal boundaries and national boundaries weren’t the same and basically let the tribes in Afghanistan alone as long as they didn’t raise too much trouble in India (which then included what is now Pakistan.) Trouble being cross-border feuding, but also raids and banditry outside their transborder tribes such as looting and killing, also kidnapping for ransom, kidnapping young women and forcibly converting them to Islam.
After WWI, the British began to use aerial interdiction with small planes dropping bombs; drones are more precise delivery systems.
But the essential piece was a chain of forts on their side of the border. They ran foot patrols over the whole thing, constantly varying the timing and routes so as not to fall into a pattern that the tribes could exploit by setting ambushes. The Indian Army (British officers commanding units of Sikhs or other Indian (again including today’s Pakistan) peoples or of Gurkhas did the bulk of this work.
And the Brits and their “native troops” took casualties at a steady low (and occasionally not so low) level year in and year out for many, many decades. This would be worse today, of course, and not just because word of the casualties gets out in real time. The Afghans were good, and have gotten better.
This is the part I’m a little vague on. How is the single explosion different from all the dynamite going off at once? How is that not a single explosion? (Again, I get that it is. I just don’t get how it is.) Is it necessary for the explosives to be in a more condensed location? I guess I’m really unclear how 18,700 pounds of H6 produces less explosive force than an equivalent weight of dynamite. Seems like a more powerful explosive should really do more.
Not claiming to be an expert, but I think it unlikely you would get a single explosion. Remember the footage from the belly of the B-52’s carpet bombing Cambodia? You’d likely get something closer to that; a bunch of much smaller individual explosions. It’s hard to get that much explosive to actually explode. This is a constant problem in large demolitions, and also with nuclear weapons. It blows itself apart before the entire thing can explode.
The more I read about the MOAB, the more I think dropping it right on the current location of Kim Fat Fat would be a brilliant decision.
It’s more that whole ‘great game‘ thing – with the compulsary truism that nobody has ever won, kicking off with:
And that’s more or less what it still is, except the contested area is growing, or at least moving to include more of Pakistan, and the Russians are for the nonce indisposed – but they’ll be back, I feel. Geography dictates it.
True, except that after 80 years of trying the Brits more or less gave up on controlling Afghanistan and settled for managing things. I’m not sure the U.S. has learned that lesson yet.
While geography may dictate that the Russians will be back, I’m not sure that Russian demographics will support that for long. Of course, that might encourage them to grab what they can while they can.
You raise a good point, and I don’t know that they’re so eager to re-engage post their Afghanistan disaster.
My guess, wrt demographics: they are already a state with a large indigenous (to the Caucasus and parts of South Russia) Muslim minority. And this is being added to by legal and illegal immigration from the Stans. Russia is going to be different from what we imagine, in terms of who is a Russian and Russian culture.
They’ll be pretty busy digesting these changes – and Russifying the migrants (who are already quite Russified, since they’re from the old Russian Empire) – Afghanistan will not be an inviting option. I think they’ll only push in if it looks like Kabul is going to join another camp. (Oh wait…I guess that’s happened…)
No fooling. I can’t see any Russian leader even trying to sell that one.
If they take a leaf from the post Afghan war British book they’ll try to keep things contained to Afghanistan and use the containment effort to keep their troops’ combat skills sharp.
Dear C-130,
That was cute.
Sincerely,
The BUFF
To Progs, if it works it isn’t diplomacy.
(Besides, real Diplomacy requires seven people. It is really lame with only two and even with five it is so-so.)
Seawriter
Some national security experts said that Mr. Trump and the Pentagon risked inflaming anti-American sentiment in the Muslim world with their approach to fighting the Islamic State.” — New York Times
Who are these “experts”, anyway?
The idea that MOAB use will inflame anti-American sentiments is akin to throwing a Zippo lighter into a raging dumpster fire.
Jon: I’m liking the tone of your writing here.
Having nothing to do with what the Left thinks or how they respond, my initial reaction to the news about the MOAB being dropped in Afghanistan was that the United States was offering up way too much military information.
I can only assume there must be some perceived propaganda/political advantage gained by releasing so much information about the MOAB and the location of the bomb strike.
In my opinion the United States should just do what it takes to defeat ISIS, while protecting US troops on the ground, and if that includes dropping a uniquely large munition then just do it without the fanfare.
Uh MOAB 21000 lbs
Hiroshima 25,000 TONS
Math much?
I love the “Party of Science” when it tries to actually count.
same reason big sodas are banned…cuz I said so.
It required him to take off his shoes and socks because it got past ten, and he decided it was not worth it. Besides, what’s a few orders of magnitude among friends?
Seawriter
Anybody interested in what is going on in Afghanistan and Central Asia today (and that should be just about everybody) really needs to pick up this book:
The Great Game: The Struggle for Empire in Central Asia by Peter Hopkirk
It is a fascinating page turner and in my opinion, a modern day classic.
What is the lesson not learned (just try to manage things?), and what is the Taliban’s center of gravity?
I am Facebook friends with WikiLeaks (don’t judge me) and this was their post yesterday.
Evidently, we bombed caves we made in the 80’s. Great example of the incoherence, lack of wisdom and foresight in our foreign policy over the past 40 years.
“…raising the question…”
“…some experts said…”
These are usually signals that a news report has become an opinion piece.
Well, if it’s Russia, we need to get after them.(sarc)
Forty years ago we were fighting the Soviet Union. By that point we had been fighting them for 42 years. Three years before 1946 we had been the Soviet Union’s allies. Forty years ago the Mujaheddin offered a new front against the Soviet Union, which collapsed and disintegrated four years later.
Considering the Soviet Union could have turned the entire United States into radioactive slag (yes, we could have done the same to them, but we would have been slag, too), and the Islamic radicals still cannot (and would not even have a nuclear capability without the last eight years of the Obama Administration) I would say it was a good trade. I am sure the US government of the 1980s expected some level of fecklessness in the future, but certainly not the levels we got over the last eight years.
Seawriter
I’m guessing that million$ were spent putting additives into the explosive mixture that allowed the explosion to be a bit less loud, thus keeping it within local Afghanistan sound ordinances. Also, the orange paint on the air frame was surely a new volatile organic compound (VOC) free coating that was shown in study trials to have no adverse affects on the mating habits of goats in that region.
I guess it fits because it’s a bunker buster and many of these ants live and work underground. Now they know we have a bigger tool box, and so do the world’s other thugs. Why do I feel like a cherry fritter today?
The price tag includes the cost of developing the bomb. Engineering hours cost. Key thing about this bomb is it is a penetrator. It is supposed to burrow deep into the ground, and only explode after it has stopped moving deeper.
That offers a lot of engineering challenges, including ensuring the casing is strong enough not to collapse, that the shape of the casing allows the bomb to burrow in as deep as possible, and create a fusing system that goes off when it is supposed to and not before.
If we build more (assuming we kept the plans and did not throw them away as we did with the Saturn V) we could build more quite cheaply. Had they built 100 instead of 20 the cost per bomb would likely have been between $3-4 million. The explosive isn’t the factor, but building the casing might be, especially if we have to retool.
Seawriter
I think they meant “big” as in “it’s 20 feet long”.
We spent four years in the early 1940s shipping every weapon and truck we could spare to the Soviet Union. We spent the next forty facing off against them.
Situations change.
I am guessing a contract was let in late January to build more…and yesterday was the demonstration for Iran and North Korea that if we know where their underground facilities are we have and are willing to use a non-nuclear solution to deny their operations.
I think that is called peace through superior firepower.
Seawriter
Not everything that goes boom is equal. There are huge differences in different explosives, and they serve dramatically different functions. Dynamite, for instance, is a comparatively “slow” explosive, used mainly to move or fracture masses of material, like soil, or rock. C-4, on the other hand, is extremely fast, and has many uses for which dynamite is unsuited. It produces a much greater pressure wave, over a very short period of time, which is the intent of this device. TNT, sometimes called, “military dynamite,” is much more powerful than “civilian” dynamite. If I find an old FM 5-34 I’ll tell you what the difference is.