President Bush is pushing Congress for "robust discussion" regarding a potentially larger roll for the U.S. military in the case of a terrorist attack or natural disaster (Guardian). The goal is to prevent a lackluster response in the case of such an event as was seen last month in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. However, there are many reasons to be against this plan. The Posse Comitatus prohibits the military from being a law enforcement authority in the U.S. Some oppose the plan because of possible violations of states' rights and questions about whether the large federal bureaucracy will be able to handle the aftermath of catastrophes with more success than first responders. Further, the authority to designate the military for assignment under a new law would probably be up to the President. However, legislators may be unwilling to grant this type of power to the President.
Bureaucratic organizations nearly always fall due to scandal or massive failure. The relief effort from Katrina was a disaster. The President is under a lot of pressure to do something to make sure next time won't be worse. I'm just not sure this plan will be effective or politically feasible. Thoughts?
Thursday, September 29, 2005
Is America becoming increasingly hostile to the military?
(Warning: This piece was inspired by back to back music videos on MTV’s After Hours. Specifically Green Day’s “Wake Me Up When September Ends” and Audioslave’s “Doesn’t
Today there are over 120,000 American troops deployed in
It is understandable to debate the reasons for the
Today Americans, especially “Generation X,” take many of these freedoms for granted. We were born into it. We didn’t work for them; they were inherited. I’ve never had to shed blood for this country, up until this point I have chosen not to. Instead “the greatest generation” shed their blood so that I could inherit the world we know. So that I would have a choice.
The war in
Without the men and women of the
Sunday, September 25, 2005
Cyber Dissident
I posted previously about the role the internet is playing in the spread of freedoms and/or democracy. Reporters Without Borders has released a brochure explaining how to be a blogger for the forces of good. It explains how to
create your own blog, remain anonymous and get round censorship.There is even a section comparing the effectiveness of various countries at censoring the internet (China is the "internet censor world champion").
Saturday, September 24, 2005
Friday, September 23, 2005
Readings, 9/29
All,
The copy of Foreign Affairs that includes the Luft article, and the Wayne Hughes Fleet Tactics volume are now in the grad computer room.
For the Hughes, please read pp. 310-348 instead of 266-309.
The copy of Foreign Affairs that includes the Luft article, and the Wayne Hughes Fleet Tactics volume are now in the grad computer room.
For the Hughes, please read pp. 310-348 instead of 266-309.
Thursday, September 22, 2005
FCS: Dead or Alive?
The Wall Street Journal reported today that the US Army recently performed demonstrations of the Army's Future Combat System for members of the HASC. This is an unusual move. While the Air Force relishes in showing off its future toys, the Army is not accustomed to these types of demonstrations. Why then is Army demonstrating FCS? I believe this is an indicator that FCS is in serious trouble.
Some experts believe the Army is living in a fantasy-land when it comes to FCS. Others site the program's vast amount of immature technologies as a sign of major concern. Indeed, FCS is one of the most complex and sophisticated acquisitions the American military has ever undertaken. FCS has already had to restructure its program in order to allow for extra schedule leeway. The Army is still dreaming when it states that Army brigades can be equipped with FCS in a decade. This brings us full circle...What exactly was the Army demonstrating in its show to HASC?
Undoubtedly, the demonstration was not representative of the true capabilities of FCS. Instead, the Army is hoping to sway a suspicious Congress to its side, while also buying time to play catch up in research and development. As the FCS program progresses, we can expect either more pep rallies (like this demonstration) or increased defensiveness/hostility towards those that question the FCS program.
Some experts believe the Army is living in a fantasy-land when it comes to FCS. Others site the program's vast amount of immature technologies as a sign of major concern. Indeed, FCS is one of the most complex and sophisticated acquisitions the American military has ever undertaken. FCS has already had to restructure its program in order to allow for extra schedule leeway. The Army is still dreaming when it states that Army brigades can be equipped with FCS in a decade. This brings us full circle...What exactly was the Army demonstrating in its show to HASC?
Undoubtedly, the demonstration was not representative of the true capabilities of FCS. Instead, the Army is hoping to sway a suspicious Congress to its side, while also buying time to play catch up in research and development. As the FCS program progresses, we can expect either more pep rallies (like this demonstration) or increased defensiveness/hostility towards those that question the FCS program.
Low-intensity training
Dr. Farley noted in last weeks class that low intensity combat breeds where conventional confrontation is out of the question. I think that principle stands as evidence that DoD ought to pursue better training in non-conventional ops. Particularly, we should expect to face almost exclusively non-conventional combat in the future as long as we spend more on defense (naturally, I understand that spending isn’t everything, but it is also more than nothing) than the next eight closest competitors (Nye, The Paradox of American Power). We have four times the personnel of any single would-be competitors, with the exceptions – Russia, China, and India (Nye). I’m not saying we can take up the complacency that seems to be plaguing numerous American institutions. I’m suggesting that preparations should take more seriously the fact that we have and will continue to face vastly outmanned bands of combatants, pressing the need for low-intensity skill beyond its current priority level. We are big enough that most conceivable enemies will choose guerilla or insurgent tactics over a head to head confrontation.
When space-aliens come we may, conversely, need to employ guerilla skills…
There is, of course, history to suggest that relatively half-sized armies have confronted bigger opponents, but not without being attacked or having an otherwise desperate cause. I admit a developing memory for historical battles so please comment with mentions of battles that evidence to the contrary. I refuse to accept, anyway, that America will declare a war on any opponent soon of sufficient size to justify conventional combat. Steer clear of the brinkmanship diplomacy that Secretary Annan warned about (http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory?id=1135087) and we won’t get into a mess with a big power or alliance.
Thus, I would never advocate a mitigation of the training and development of conventional strategies, but I’m gonna have to express my assurance that drastically improving our techniques and training for low-intensity combat ought to be a top priority.
Biddle’s reading for this week claims that neither the air protection nor indigenous fighters were most important, but rather, the coordination between human intel, ground troops, and air support in the approach in Afghanistan. I was convinced, Biddle-haters, that fine-tuning our skilled force employment, smart soldiers connected to accurate weapons and wise air and human intelligence, is the way to go. Oh, and I read about Stryker-team success in northwest Iraq today. Let’s keep building those while we strategerize.
When space-aliens come we may, conversely, need to employ guerilla skills…
There is, of course, history to suggest that relatively half-sized armies have confronted bigger opponents, but not without being attacked or having an otherwise desperate cause. I admit a developing memory for historical battles so please comment with mentions of battles that evidence to the contrary. I refuse to accept, anyway, that America will declare a war on any opponent soon of sufficient size to justify conventional combat. Steer clear of the brinkmanship diplomacy that Secretary Annan warned about (http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory?id=1135087) and we won’t get into a mess with a big power or alliance.
Thus, I would never advocate a mitigation of the training and development of conventional strategies, but I’m gonna have to express my assurance that drastically improving our techniques and training for low-intensity combat ought to be a top priority.
Biddle’s reading for this week claims that neither the air protection nor indigenous fighters were most important, but rather, the coordination between human intel, ground troops, and air support in the approach in Afghanistan. I was convinced, Biddle-haters, that fine-tuning our skilled force employment, smart soldiers connected to accurate weapons and wise air and human intelligence, is the way to go. Oh, and I read about Stryker-team success in northwest Iraq today. Let’s keep building those while we strategerize.
I (heart picture goes here) Iran
Once again, the EU has buckled under pressure. Russia and China have stated that they do not want Iran reported to the Security Council for nuclear transgressions. And so far Britain, Germany, and France after two years of negotiations with Iran, are not taking a stand. Will the U.S. allow an infamous state sponsor of terror to acquire nuclear weapons? Pollack thought that Iran would not give them to Hezbollah, but what does he really base that assertion on? Do we invade, bombard, negotiate, or send in a corporate military? Just wanted to pose some questions and here what ya'll think. Want to read a little about it...
Tuesday, September 20, 2005
Those Sneaky SAS Operators!
Everyone,
I thought recent events in Iraq might be of relevance to Thursday's topic. You can read about the SAS jailbreak here
I thought recent events in Iraq might be of relevance to Thursday's topic. You can read about the SAS jailbreak here
North Korea Blog
For those interested in more analysis and commentary on the Six Party Talks (as it appears to be a popular topic), might I recommend a blog named DPRK Studies. Particularly worth reading are Hell Freezes Over (1 and 2) on the reaching of the agreement and Hell Thaws (1 and 2) on North Korea almost immediately trying to change the terms of the deal.
Monday, September 19, 2005
Back to the DPRK
At the beginning of the semester, I posted about North Korea and its "nuclear program." The point that I was making was that North Korea is just using the threat of developing nuclear weapons to get what it wants, i.e. aid, a seat at the table, more regional influence. But, also that NK wouldn't actually use nuclear weapons against Japan or South Korea, because it would be suicide and therefore highly irrational to do. I think that the recent development in the North Korea talks show this to be the case. The New York Times and The Washington Post have stories covering this development. I still think my hypothesis remains true...and Stephen Walt at Harvard agrees with me in the current issue of Foreign Affairs page 4 (online). (If you aren't on campus, it's Foreign Affairs Sept/Oct 2005, p. 115.)
Friday, September 16, 2005
G.Carlin, J. Stewart, E. Cartman, B. Saget, W. Goldberg...
This has nothing to do with class, but I watched "The Aristocrats" last night at the Kentucky Theatre and I highly recommend it to all. It's way better than "Red Eye."
Thursday, September 15, 2005
Democracy or Baywatch?
The Guardian has an interesting article on whether or not the Internet is the great force for democracy that many have claimed entitled "Thanks to corporations, instead of democracy we get Baywatch."
It discusses just a few cases where companies have bowed to government demands in order to maximize profits. Check out what Cisco, Microsoft, Yahoo, etc. are doing in China.
It discusses just a few cases where companies have bowed to government demands in order to maximize profits. Check out what Cisco, Microsoft, Yahoo, etc. are doing in China.
Tuesday, September 13, 2005
Ananconda
I read this article in the Financial Times this morning (www.ft.com). Since it is a subscription only article I just pasted the text below. This article is about the Sean Naylor book we had to read this summer, "Not A Good Day To Die." I found it interesting in how it relates to preponderance vs. technology vs. force employment.
In the weeks before the March 2003 invasion of Iraq, I made a call to a retired general who had served in the first Gulf war seeking information about General Tommy Franks, the head of US Central Command who would run the upcoming campaign.
The retired officer was still well connected with his former colleagues, and I asked what the uniforms were saying about Gen Franks. “A lot of senior military in the Pentagon don’t have a lot of confidence in him,” he harrumphed. “If you look at Tora Bora and Anaconda, you have the same leaders making the decisions now [who] did in that debacle.”
The comment surprised me. Tora Bora, the mountain complex in eastern Afghanistan that served as a redoubt for al-Qaeda fighters, was emerging in the public mind as the battle where US forces, overly relying on their Afghan allies, let hundreds of al-Qaeda operators slip away, perhaps including Osama bin Laden himself. But Operation Anaconda, a large-scale battle in the nearby Shahikot Valley three months later, was supposed to be just the opposite: a successful engagement in which US troops killed hundreds of enemy fighters.
Sean Naylor’s impeccably reported new book on the battle, Not a Good Day to Die, will lie to rest any residual belief that Anaconda was anything but a horribly planned mess of an operation in which commanders sent US troops into a battle they had not been prepared for, against enemies they did not know existed, without the weapons they needed. In the end, eight Americans would die and hundreds of al-Qaeda operators, some of them senior leaders, would escape into Pakistan.
Mr Naylor, a reporter for the Army Times who was embedded with US troops during Anaconda, has produced a gem in the mould of Black Hawk Down, Mark Bowden’s account of an ill-fated US operation in Somalia. But, at a time when the Pentagon is in the midst of one of its most important rethinks of military policy in a generation – the congressionally-mandated Quadrennial Defence Review, due to be issued in a matter of months – the book should be required reading for another, more important reason.
Mr Naylor’s account is a cautionary tale for those, including Donald Rumsfeld, US defence secretary, who believe that advanced weapons technologies can transform the US military into a smaller, lighter force using futuristic reconnaissance and communications equipment in place of heavy guns and boots on the ground. If Mr Naylor’s book illustrates one thing, it is that no amount of intelligence, satellite imagery and precision air strikes can take the place of a well-armed artillery unit when a battle begins to go wrong. It is a lesson that the Pentagon is still struggling to grasp in Iraq.
The chain of events that led to the failures in Anaconda started well before the battle was even conceived when Mr Rumsfeld ordered what Mr Naylor calls a “force cap” in Afghanistan, keeping the number of conventional troops in the country low. The rationale was that the army could, through modern technology, do more with less, a central tenet of Mr Rumsfeld’s transformational agenda. Senior commanders managed the Afghan campaign “under extraordinarily close supervision by Rumsfeld”, Mr Naylor writes, “who took it upon himself to ensure that not a single soldier was deployed to Afghanistan unless the defence secretary considered that soldier’s presence there absolutely necessary”.
The result was that battalions of the 101st Airborne, the first conventional army forces used in Afghanistan, were sent into Anaconda with almost no artillery – equipment that would have come in handy when it turned out that hundreds of al-Qaeda fighters, most of whom had not shown up on satellite imagery and spy plane reconnaissance, were waiting in the Shahikot with plenty of artillery of their own.
Under the doctrine advanced by Mr Rumsfeld, precision bombing from aircraft can make up for a lack of artillery. But soldiers found it difficult, sometimes impossible, to find available fighters and bombers. “For every air strike called in by [ground troops] that resulted in destroyed enemy position, there was a bombing run that couldn’t be arranged before the target had moved, that missed the target completely, or, in some cases, that hit right where it was supposed to, but failed to kill the enemy,” writes Mr Naylor.
Senior US commanders also displayed a disturbing over-reliance on intelligence gathered by satellites and spy planes – another favourite of Mr Rumsfeld’s. Not only would the soldiers who arrived in the valley find a landscape far more mountainous than the imagery led them to believe but they would also find about 1,000 enemy fighters when they had been told to expect 200 at most. Just as importantly, while the imagery suggested al-Qaeda fighters were housed in small valley villages, they were up in the mountains, the perfect position from which to rain down missiles on the US soldiers piling off Chinook helicopters.
In almost every respect, the doctrines and technologies pushed by Mr Rumsfeld’s transformationalists let down the men who fought in Anaconda. Communications gear failed, electronic intelligence misled planners, air support took hours to arrive, lightly armed men could not defend themselves. As Pentagon planners push on with Mr Rumsfeld’s revolution, they would do well to take to heart the lessons of an actual war.
The writer is the FT’s defence correspondent
In the weeks before the March 2003 invasion of Iraq, I made a call to a retired general who had served in the first Gulf war seeking information about General Tommy Franks, the head of US Central Command who would run the upcoming campaign.
The retired officer was still well connected with his former colleagues, and I asked what the uniforms were saying about Gen Franks. “A lot of senior military in the Pentagon don’t have a lot of confidence in him,” he harrumphed. “If you look at Tora Bora and Anaconda, you have the same leaders making the decisions now [who] did in that debacle.”
The comment surprised me. Tora Bora, the mountain complex in eastern Afghanistan that served as a redoubt for al-Qaeda fighters, was emerging in the public mind as the battle where US forces, overly relying on their Afghan allies, let hundreds of al-Qaeda operators slip away, perhaps including Osama bin Laden himself. But Operation Anaconda, a large-scale battle in the nearby Shahikot Valley three months later, was supposed to be just the opposite: a successful engagement in which US troops killed hundreds of enemy fighters.
Sean Naylor’s impeccably reported new book on the battle, Not a Good Day to Die, will lie to rest any residual belief that Anaconda was anything but a horribly planned mess of an operation in which commanders sent US troops into a battle they had not been prepared for, against enemies they did not know existed, without the weapons they needed. In the end, eight Americans would die and hundreds of al-Qaeda operators, some of them senior leaders, would escape into Pakistan.
Mr Naylor, a reporter for the Army Times who was embedded with US troops during Anaconda, has produced a gem in the mould of Black Hawk Down, Mark Bowden’s account of an ill-fated US operation in Somalia. But, at a time when the Pentagon is in the midst of one of its most important rethinks of military policy in a generation – the congressionally-mandated Quadrennial Defence Review, due to be issued in a matter of months – the book should be required reading for another, more important reason.
Mr Naylor’s account is a cautionary tale for those, including Donald Rumsfeld, US defence secretary, who believe that advanced weapons technologies can transform the US military into a smaller, lighter force using futuristic reconnaissance and communications equipment in place of heavy guns and boots on the ground. If Mr Naylor’s book illustrates one thing, it is that no amount of intelligence, satellite imagery and precision air strikes can take the place of a well-armed artillery unit when a battle begins to go wrong. It is a lesson that the Pentagon is still struggling to grasp in Iraq.
The chain of events that led to the failures in Anaconda started well before the battle was even conceived when Mr Rumsfeld ordered what Mr Naylor calls a “force cap” in Afghanistan, keeping the number of conventional troops in the country low. The rationale was that the army could, through modern technology, do more with less, a central tenet of Mr Rumsfeld’s transformational agenda. Senior commanders managed the Afghan campaign “under extraordinarily close supervision by Rumsfeld”, Mr Naylor writes, “who took it upon himself to ensure that not a single soldier was deployed to Afghanistan unless the defence secretary considered that soldier’s presence there absolutely necessary”.
The result was that battalions of the 101st Airborne, the first conventional army forces used in Afghanistan, were sent into Anaconda with almost no artillery – equipment that would have come in handy when it turned out that hundreds of al-Qaeda fighters, most of whom had not shown up on satellite imagery and spy plane reconnaissance, were waiting in the Shahikot with plenty of artillery of their own.
Under the doctrine advanced by Mr Rumsfeld, precision bombing from aircraft can make up for a lack of artillery. But soldiers found it difficult, sometimes impossible, to find available fighters and bombers. “For every air strike called in by [ground troops] that resulted in destroyed enemy position, there was a bombing run that couldn’t be arranged before the target had moved, that missed the target completely, or, in some cases, that hit right where it was supposed to, but failed to kill the enemy,” writes Mr Naylor.
Senior US commanders also displayed a disturbing over-reliance on intelligence gathered by satellites and spy planes – another favourite of Mr Rumsfeld’s. Not only would the soldiers who arrived in the valley find a landscape far more mountainous than the imagery led them to believe but they would also find about 1,000 enemy fighters when they had been told to expect 200 at most. Just as importantly, while the imagery suggested al-Qaeda fighters were housed in small valley villages, they were up in the mountains, the perfect position from which to rain down missiles on the US soldiers piling off Chinook helicopters.
In almost every respect, the doctrines and technologies pushed by Mr Rumsfeld’s transformationalists let down the men who fought in Anaconda. Communications gear failed, electronic intelligence misled planners, air support took hours to arrive, lightly armed men could not defend themselves. As Pentagon planners push on with Mr Rumsfeld’s revolution, they would do well to take to heart the lessons of an actual war.
The writer is the FT’s defence correspondent
Conceptualization Problem
The readings this week try to help us see guerilla warfare as a different type of war than 'traditional' attrition warfare. Nagl proposes that instead of trying to annihilate the enemy, we should focus on trying to turn the loyalty of the people, also known as winning their hearts and minds.
Krepinevich explains why this was so hard for Americans to do:
This is quite similar to the notion of a tooth-to-tail ratio, or the ratio of combatants to total forces. Most pundits would agree that a 1:6.88 ratio is poor. For Krepinevich's mission of protecting the population from the insurgents, the more ground-pounders the better. For Nagl's mission of turning the population, teeth per tail is a meaningless ratio.
I would like to propose an alternate measure: the ratio of people assisting the locals (whose hearts we seek to win) to the number assisting our own soldiers. Soldiers who are actively working to up the friendly count would include doctors operating on locals, engineers building schools, etc. Soldiers in the second category would include those protecting American soldiers, those providing services to American servicemembers, etc. The numbers will be somewhat imprecise because of difficulty determining if a soldier providing security is securing them or us. Some imprecision, however, does not reduce its relevance.
Nagl speaks to the importance of the economical use of manpower (40). Additionally, in a situation like Vietnam (or Iraq), the smaller footprint the less likely it is to alienate the locals. Therefore the more positive benefits reaped by the local population (represented by the number of troops actively engaged in helping them) per the size of the American footprint (represented here by the others), the more efficient our force.
Tooth-to-tail ratios may be relevant to attrition warfare, and possibly even to an oil-spot strategy, but it isn't helpful to analyze the efficiency of a force with a hearts-and-minds mission. Maybe this Helpers-per-footprint approach will be more clear.
Krepinevich explains why this was so hard for Americans to do:
Attrition is a product of the American way of war: spend lavishly on munitions, materiel, and technology to save lives... U.S. military leaders believed in the morale-raising and life-saving value of massive firepower whose success they had witnessed in World War II and Korea. [164]Krepinevich goes on to show how the American strategy and tactics were completely inappropriate for a real counter-insurgent strategy, but instead were designed and implemented in such a way to achieve a maximum enemy bodycount. He also depicts America's force mixture as inappropriate for the type of war being waged. America's 'foxhole strength' of 80,000 out of a total force of 550,000, Krepinevich believes, illustrates an inefficient force mix (176, 197).
This is quite similar to the notion of a tooth-to-tail ratio, or the ratio of combatants to total forces. Most pundits would agree that a 1:6.88 ratio is poor. For Krepinevich's mission of protecting the population from the insurgents, the more ground-pounders the better. For Nagl's mission of turning the population, teeth per tail is a meaningless ratio.
I would like to propose an alternate measure: the ratio of people assisting the locals (whose hearts we seek to win) to the number assisting our own soldiers. Soldiers who are actively working to up the friendly count would include doctors operating on locals, engineers building schools, etc. Soldiers in the second category would include those protecting American soldiers, those providing services to American servicemembers, etc. The numbers will be somewhat imprecise because of difficulty determining if a soldier providing security is securing them or us. Some imprecision, however, does not reduce its relevance.
Nagl speaks to the importance of the economical use of manpower (40). Additionally, in a situation like Vietnam (or Iraq), the smaller footprint the less likely it is to alienate the locals. Therefore the more positive benefits reaped by the local population (represented by the number of troops actively engaged in helping them) per the size of the American footprint (represented here by the others), the more efficient our force.
Tooth-to-tail ratios may be relevant to attrition warfare, and possibly even to an oil-spot strategy, but it isn't helpful to analyze the efficiency of a force with a hearts-and-minds mission. Maybe this Helpers-per-footprint approach will be more clear.
Evaluation
Because I've received a lot of questions on the assignment, I will try to clarify.
What I'm looking for is a five page paper in general memo format. The paper should present a policy problem associated with the readings for the week in question. In addition to presenting a problem, the paper should posit at least two options for dealing with the problem, and conclude by advocating one.
This is a lot to do in five pages, so brevity and economy of language are virtues. I have no specific format requirements, so you should proceed with whatever format you are most comfortable with. The use of outside resources and citation will likely strengthen your paper, but is not required. It is up to you to determine how most effectively to marshal and use evidence in support of argument.
If you can get the paper to me more than a day in advance, I would be happy to take a look at it and note any major problems. I won't grade a draft, but I will tell you if I think there's anything seriously wrong with it that needs to be fixed.
I expect, of course, a strict adherence to rules of grammar, spelling, and professional forms of writing. While I strongly prefer a hard copy, I'll accept an electronic copy if no alternative exists. You are free to turn in the paper for this Thursday (9/15) electronically if you wish. I expect turn-around time on the papers to be one week.
If there are any questions, let me know.
Finally, as a reminder, we're having class today in the Van Room from 4:30-6:00.
What I'm looking for is a five page paper in general memo format. The paper should present a policy problem associated with the readings for the week in question. In addition to presenting a problem, the paper should posit at least two options for dealing with the problem, and conclude by advocating one.
This is a lot to do in five pages, so brevity and economy of language are virtues. I have no specific format requirements, so you should proceed with whatever format you are most comfortable with. The use of outside resources and citation will likely strengthen your paper, but is not required. It is up to you to determine how most effectively to marshal and use evidence in support of argument.
If you can get the paper to me more than a day in advance, I would be happy to take a look at it and note any major problems. I won't grade a draft, but I will tell you if I think there's anything seriously wrong with it that needs to be fixed.
I expect, of course, a strict adherence to rules of grammar, spelling, and professional forms of writing. While I strongly prefer a hard copy, I'll accept an electronic copy if no alternative exists. You are free to turn in the paper for this Thursday (9/15) electronically if you wish. I expect turn-around time on the papers to be one week.
If there are any questions, let me know.
Finally, as a reminder, we're having class today in the Van Room from 4:30-6:00.
Friday, September 09, 2005
Readings
The readings for Tuesday are available in an envelope on my office door.
UPDATE: Now back in the grad computer room.
UPDATE: Now back in the grad computer room.
Thursday, September 08, 2005
Tuesday, September 06, 2005
Arabs at War
Coming out of last week's lecture on the Biddle readings I left with some ambivalence. Having no military background I just naturally accepted Biddle's argument since it seemed well-formed and Michael O'Hanlon likes him; but Devon (sorry for misspelling) made some good points in his "cross examination" of Biddle's thesis leaving me conflicted.
However, after reading Pollack's piece this week I'm at least beginning to give the edge to Biddle. Pollack seems to argue the same thing as Biddle but substitutes the term "force employment" for "military effectiveness." In Pollack's argument "military effectiveness" basically encompasses: unit cohesion, tactical leadership, morale, training, cowardice, logistics,k technical/weapon skills, and information management.
In the breakdown of the 6 Day War, Pollack traces the misteps back to Egypt's military effectiveness, primarily their unorganized retreat, unclear mission objectives in the Sinai, bad intelligence on Israeli forces, and lack of quality generalship. As Pollack says on page 81, "The Egyptians probably had the best strategy; they just did not execute it very well." Essentially the case for why force employment is imperative to modern combat.
This seems to be a classic case to support the theory. Egypt had numerical preponderance, technology was roughly equivalent between the two sides, but Israel was better trained and therefore prevailed. Even a defeated Egyptian general looking back "developed the conviction that the human element-the quality of the fighter-and not the weapon was what counted in victory" (100).
We also see the big difference that disciplined training and professional leadership made for the Egyptian army between the 6 Day War and the Yom Kippur War. Egypt performed well in taking the canals (even with Israeli numbers low-but hey, thats part of the excellent planning) and establishing a defensive front. Events after that they did not perform well, but that was because they still weren't properly trained for mobile combat, and thus were defeated.
On a side note if anybody has actually read to this point, I thought I'd give links to my favorite mlitary blogs that I recently discovered in a Wired magazine article:
http://avengerredsix.blogspot.com/ talks life in a tank squadron and about day-t0-day events. There's also detailed entries on the Battle of Falluja, as well as videos that the author has made.
http://thunder6.typepad.com/365_arabian_nights/ is not so much detail about actual combat, but the quality of the writing is extremely impressive, almost poetic. Check out the archive for the author's musings on everything from sandstorms to his wife. Good stuff.
However, after reading Pollack's piece this week I'm at least beginning to give the edge to Biddle. Pollack seems to argue the same thing as Biddle but substitutes the term "force employment" for "military effectiveness." In Pollack's argument "military effectiveness" basically encompasses: unit cohesion, tactical leadership, morale, training, cowardice, logistics,k technical/weapon skills, and information management.
In the breakdown of the 6 Day War, Pollack traces the misteps back to Egypt's military effectiveness, primarily their unorganized retreat, unclear mission objectives in the Sinai, bad intelligence on Israeli forces, and lack of quality generalship. As Pollack says on page 81, "The Egyptians probably had the best strategy; they just did not execute it very well." Essentially the case for why force employment is imperative to modern combat.
This seems to be a classic case to support the theory. Egypt had numerical preponderance, technology was roughly equivalent between the two sides, but Israel was better trained and therefore prevailed. Even a defeated Egyptian general looking back "developed the conviction that the human element-the quality of the fighter-and not the weapon was what counted in victory" (100).
We also see the big difference that disciplined training and professional leadership made for the Egyptian army between the 6 Day War and the Yom Kippur War. Egypt performed well in taking the canals (even with Israeli numbers low-but hey, thats part of the excellent planning) and establishing a defensive front. Events after that they did not perform well, but that was because they still weren't properly trained for mobile combat, and thus were defeated.
On a side note if anybody has actually read to this point, I thought I'd give links to my favorite mlitary blogs that I recently discovered in a Wired magazine article:
http://avengerredsix.blogspot.com/ talks life in a tank squadron and about day-t0-day events. There's also detailed entries on the Battle of Falluja, as well as videos that the author has made.
http://thunder6.typepad.com/365_arabian_nights/ is not so much detail about actual combat, but the quality of the writing is extremely impressive, almost poetic. Check out the archive for the author's musings on everything from sandstorms to his wife. Good stuff.
Just a thought
As came up often in the last class, it still seems impossible to say that skill or tactics or technology alone is the defining advantage for our military. In the Desert Storm chapter, Biddle can't avoid acknowledging to some degree the importance of technology over tactics. Press also shows that Marine skill overcame a brief equality in firepower with the Iraqis, but in the end technology ended the battle. It's the combination of all facets of battle that determine the victor.
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