Reply To: Debt Rattle September 4 2023

[John Day]

Emergent Threats https://drjohnsblog.substack.com/p/emergent-threats

Sasha Latypova, More on Peculiarities of Lahaina Fire
​ Today’s post is short and comes from another reader. This is an interesting video from a Lahaina resident who was allowed to go to his house in the mostly unburned neighborhood of Kahoma Village. It is in the middle of the area that burned completely, so it is a miracle of sorts.
https://sashalatypova.substack.com/p/more-on-peculiarities-of-lahaina

​ This particular Navy laser weapon is mounted on the USS Portland, which is docked in San Diego. The Navy has not had much to say about lasers and microwave directed energy weapons recently. They would light different things on fire. The lasers are typically near infrared, especially commercial lasers, so invisible. They make things get hot and burn. The microwaves don’t heat dry grass, cardboard, or ceramics but do heat polar molecules. Different microwave frequencies/wavelengths could act differently on materials. They would and do heat up flesh.
​ The AN/SEQ-3 Laser Weapon System or XN-1 LaWS[1] is a laser weapon developed by the United States Navy. The weapon was installed on USS Ponce for field testing in 2014. In December 2014, the United States Navy reported that the LaWS system worked perfectly against low-end asymmetric threats, and that the commander of Ponce was authorized to use the system as a defensive weapon.[2] …
..The LaWS is designed to be used against low-end asymmetric threats. Scalable power levels allow it to be used on low power to dazzle a person’s eye non-lethally to turn away a threat, and to be used at high power, up to 30 kilowatts, to fry sensors, burn out motors, and detonate explosive materials. By lasing a vital point, LaWS can shoot down a small UAV in as little as two seconds. When facing small boats, the laser can target a craft’s motor to disable it, then repeat this against other boats in rapid succession, requiring only a few seconds of firing per boat.​..
..Against a larger aircraft like a helicopter, LaWS can burn through some vital components to cause it to crash.[3]​ …
​..With tests going well, the Navy expected to deploy a laser weapon operationally between 2017 and 2021 with an effective range of 1 mi (1.6 km; 0.87 nmi). The exact level of power the LaWS will use is unknown but estimated between 15–50 kW for engaging small aircraft and high-speed boats. Directed-energy weapons are being pursued for economic reasons, as they can be fired for as little as one dollar per shot, while conventional gun rounds and missiles can cost thousands of dollars each. The Navy has a history of testing energy weapons, including megawatt chemical lasers in the 1980s. Their chemicals were found to be too hazardous for shipboard use, so they turned to less powerful fiber solid-state lasers. Other types can include slab solid state and free electron lasers.[6] The LaWS benefitted from commercial laser developments, with the system basically being six welding lasers “strapped together” that, although they don’t become a single beam, all converge on the target at the same time. It generates 33 kW in testing, with follow-on deployable weapons generating 60–100 kW mounted on a Littoral Combat Ship or Arleigh Burke-class destroyer to destroy fast-attack boats, drones, manned aircraft, and anti-ship cruise missiles out to a few miles.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AN/SEQ-3_Laser_Weapon_System

​The expert battlefield mercenaries that did not get killed went home already.
Failed Counter-Offensive: Is Ukraine Losing Because Foreign Fighters Are Walking Away?
https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/failed-counter-offensive-ukraine-losing-because-foreign-fighters-are-walking-away

​Moon of Alabama has this, but I would like to point out that once a soldier or general is trained, he may well think for himself. (The military men I know think for themselves)
​ The U.S. used its training of African officer to subtly find and train people it could work with. An astonishing number of these officer were later involved in coups which often turned out to be anti-French and pro-American:
​ [S]ince 2008 U.S.-trained officers have attempted at least nine coups, and succeeded in at least eight in five West African countries alone: Three times in Burkina Faso; three times in Mali; and once each in Guinea, Mauritania, and the Gambia.
​ U.S. training and support to the region flows through the State Department and Africa Command, an arm of the Department of Defense, in charge of military operations across the continent.
​ Since the above was written Niger has followed:
​ Brig. Gen Moussa Barmou, the American-trained commander of the Nigerien special operations forces, beamed as he embraced a senior U.S. general visiting the country’s $100 million, Washington-funded drone base in June.
​ Six weeks later, Barmou helped oust Niger’s democratically elected president.
https://www.moonofalabama.org/2023/09/france-can-only-be-an-independent-power-if-it-learns-to-push-back.html#more