It seems that UN missions around the world are being hobbled by a shortage of helicopters. This really seems like something that should be a solvable problem and yet no member states seem willing to let the UN use any. This is classic penny wise, pound foolish behavior. Some UN helicopters to do peacekeeping and peace enforcement missions successfully will prevent situations from spiraling out of control and then requiring much more costly interventions.
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Helicopters
28 Dec 2007 04:08 pm
Comments (23)
The problem is that helos are the most valuable military/civilian commodity out there. Helos have mutliple missions in country, especially disaster relief (i.e. flood, wildfire support) and logistics. Even the U.S. military, with its ginormous budget, has a shortage of helos stateside.
On top of that, helos are valuable technology. It's not just a simple solution of shipping a few helos to wherever they are needed. Any U.S. military helo is going to have classified navigation/anti-radar equipment on board. Ditto for any Russian helo of note, and I suspect the same of the NATO countries.
Add in the fact that helos are incredibly complex and require precision maintenance (for instance, the door on the bell 206 (a.k.a. the "huey" costs $10,000 alone.) - so if you're loaning copters you're going to have to send support staff. Otherwise, you're going to have to straight up sell them.
This is a feature, not a bug. We *like* the more costly interventions. Woudn't it have been cheaper to let the weapons inspectors do their job in Iraq than to invade the place?
Why can't the UN buy and maintain the helicopters it needs?
(I'd read the linked material, but the link isn't working)
Is it possible that whatever helicopter excess that existied has been absorbed by blackwater and the other new "security" providers. Why give it away to the UN...now they can get cash. Maybe...the UN must contract with blackwater if they need helicopters????
First, I'd like you to name a successful UN peacekeeping operation. Then we can discuss the utility of providing helicopters to the UN.
I wonder if there would be any other types of relatively small investments around the world which would for comparatively small amounts improve the lives of those citizens drastically?
If so, I guess the only explanation of why we haven't done these things is that we forgot to think of such things.
After all, no one in power in a big country could possibly be aware that you could save lives or drastically improve lives around the world by doing or not doing some inexpensive thing and then ignore that information, right?
Maybe the donor countries are worried the helicopters will be painted black and used to circle over their cities planning for the one world government.
Well, Mr. Robertson, in 2003-4 there were UN interventions in Liberia and the Congo that ended genocides that were occurring in both countries.
Well, Mr. Robertson, in 2003-4 there were UN interventions in Liberia and the Congo that ended genocides that were occurring in both countries.
Posted by jonas
Incorrect. Liberia was ended by the OAS, headed by Nigeria, whose troops put the fear of God in the Liberians - better to work out our differences than let a pack of Nigerian thieves and rapists in to pillage the country.
As for the Congo, the genocide rages on. It's just that there appear to be no pygmies left for Congolese Bantus to eat.
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Helicopters, as the UN envisions them, are simply useful ways of ferrying UN dignitaries to the nearest 4-Star Hotel after a disaster, then squire them about on "fact-finding" day trips to write their reports for Geneva and NYC.
Without a full logistics train behind the helos to supply them, as the French and Americans can do and few if any others, certainly not the UN - you can't use the helos for rescue mission supplies, military ops - the helos sit basically as just air taxis for UN diplomats to get around in comfort.
The rescue function is best shown by French arriving to fight Greek wildfires with full supply and replenishment, the Coast Guard rescue of the hapless NOLA underclass with 600 private religious charities ready to assist the slumdwellers, by the US Army up in Pakistan hills after a big earthquake while the UN people jet into the Islamabad Hilton to express concern and issue "resolutions", or the US 6th Fleet doing 80% of the initial Tsunami aid while UN people waited for the smell of dead bodies to go away, in nice quarters, in Jakarta and Bangkok.
If the UN wants helos, let them show they can afford to buy some with the 10s of billions they get, afford upkeep, and have a capacity to do more than run an "exhalted UN dignitary" chauffeur service.
Until then, helo capacity should stay in the nations that pay for them and use them on missions those nations can support.
Exactly. Once you give the UN helicopters, the next thing you know they'll be using them to bring the darkies into the U.S.
By the way, we need to have a contest where we all (not just Chris Ford & crew) fake a battle-weary, hardened, "seen it all and done it all" attitude about international military missions using only Wikipedia.
You know, sort of Sgt Rock story writing contest for the Google age.
El Cid gets best post of the day...
As for choppers, that's why Angelina Jolie learned to fly - so she could fly into remote refugee camps herself without relying on the UN.
Of course, she still needs to have UN security around her. She goes into some pretty dangerous places, based on the shots I've seen of her backed by UN soldiers with silenced submachine guns.
A more important issue than UN choppers for the US is the apparent fact that all the US fire-fighting National Guard C-130s are over in Iraq courtesy of Chris's hero.
Helicopters are very good for many roles, but they are also extremely vulnerable to shoulder fired missiles and even rocket propelled grenades. A huge part of Russia's loss of initiative and confidence in Afghanistan was due to the mujahedeen shooting down helicopters with US supplied Stinger missiles, and Russian SA's have proliferated. I can see why using helicopters to patrol Darfur seems like the miracle solution, but soon enough the janjaweed killers would be knocking them out of the sky at a huge cost of lives, expenses and prestige for the UN.
Do you mean to tell me that the UN does not have enough black helicopters left to take over the US? I find that hard to believe. Just wait till Hillary becomes president, you'll be hearing about whole fleets of UN black helicopters hidden away in Canada ready to descend on the US!
A more important issue than UN choppers for the US is the apparent fact that all the US fire-fighting National Guard C-130s are over in Iraq courtesy of Chris's hero.
Posted by Richard Steven Hack | December 28, 2007 9:07 PM
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Are you misinformed or do you just like to make stuff up?
http://www.af.mil/photos/index.asp?galleryID=280
Ready to go
C-130's at Channel Islands Air National Guard Station in Southern California stand ready Oct 30 for another day of service in support of suppressing the California wildfires. The aircraft, equipped with the Modular Airborne Fire Fighting System have come with crews and pilots from four states. (U.S. Army National Guard photo/Master Sgt. Ron Raflik)
As for the Congo, the genocide rages on. It's just that there appear to be no pygmies left for Congolese Bantus to eat.
Ding ding ding! So Ford recognizes lower levels of violence in the Congo may be due to ethnic cleansing, rather than the efficacy of UN forces, but assiduously avoids admitting that the lowered levels of violence in Iraq may be due to sectarian cleansing, rather than the efficacy of the surge. Blue-helmet bias indeed...
Mr Ford above is mostly residing under the bridge, but he has a point about one thing.
Most complex military hardware is worse than useless if you do not have the logistics and technical support staff to maintain it. Even a single one of the most basic of helicopters is pricey when compared to a fleet of good trucks, and helos have a nasty tendency to fall out of the sky even when full resources are available.
Recent UN missions that are considered unqualified successes within the limits of their mandates would include Namibia, Mozambique, Western Sahara, East Timor and El Salvador. South Sudan is looking promising, but it's too early to tell. Agreed, there have been other failures.
Chris Ford's ignorant and racist comments above start with a fairly glaring misattribution... the West African intervention in Liberia was led by ECOWAS, not OAS. It was ratified and flipped into a UNPKO mission by the UNSC, using the same troops on the ground, one month after their arrival.
Chris rants about UN helicopters being nothing but limos for UN bigwigs.
How about THIS wonderful story out today?
Flying Potlatch
http://www.antiwar.com/orig/werther.php?articleid=12128
Money quotes:
Does one American in a thousand know that the Federal government is buying 23 VIP helicopters, each one of which will cost more than the extravagantly expensive F-22 fighter aircraft? A half-billion dollar helicopter – a half billion dollars each! – to ferry political hacks to their campaign events?
The helicopter in question, the VH-71, is the government's planned replacement for its current allegedly deficient presidential helicopter fleet. (One might well ask why even an elected monarch like the U.S. president needs twenty-three helicopters. At most, he might require one helicopter, a backup or two, a couple of training machines, and a pair to act as operational decoys. Rational math cannot count beyond 6 or 7, but the president's vast retinue of hangers-on, coat holders, and post-pubescent appointees [the U.S. attorney scandal revealed what a sorry lot of inferior religious seminary graduates they typically are] is always raptured, so to speak, by the experience of getting VIP treatment several cuts above that experienced by the common herd of U.S. taxpayers on a Carnival cruise. Thus we are stuck with 23 flying palaces to transport the courtiers of the American emperor.)
Eat it, Chris! Bwahahahahahahahah!!!
Meanwhile Campesino can eat THIS article:
http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/local/article/0,1299,DRMN_15_4750881,00.html
Fire copters gone
11 Guard aircraft on way to Iraq, leaving some worry behind
Ann Imse, Rocky Mountain News
Monday, June 5, 2006
Even as Colorado is facing a dangerous wildfire season, 11 of the 12 large Colorado National Guard helicopters that can be used for backup firefighting are on their way to Iraq.
Their departure comes on top of problems with the nation's fleet of heavy planes used to drop slurry on leaping flames. Only 16 of the country's 46 heavy air tankers are flying this year following a series of crashes and maintenance problems.
The Guard has sent its huge double-rotor Chinooks and medium- sized Black Hawks to Texas, where crews are training for a deployment that will keep them away from Colorado for this fire season and the next.
The UN should use the thousands of black helicopters operating out of Area 51 in their secret program to take away our guns.
Fire copters gone
11 Guard aircraft on way to Iraq, leaving some worry behind
Ann Imse, Rocky Mountain News
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So you claim all fire-fighting C-130s have been sent to Iraq and when shown you are totally wrong, you *prove* you're right by citing an article stating that some fire-fighting helicopters have been sent to Iraq. How lame
I guess you are just too dumb to know a C-130 isn't a helicopter.
Comments closed January 11, 2008.
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Heads in the Sand
Will these helicopters be black?
Posted by Ross Perot | December 28, 2007 4:25 PM