Christopher A. Lawrence

Christopher A. Lawrence

Christopher A. Lawrence is a professional historian and military analyst. He is the Executive Director and President of The Dupuy Institute, an organization dedicated to scholarly research and objective analysis of historical data related to armed conflict and the resolution of armed conflict. The Dupuy Institute provides independent, historically-based analyses of lessons learned from modern military experience. Mr. Lawrence was the program manager for the Ardennes Campaign Simulation Data Base, the Kursk Data Base, the Modern Insurgency Spread Sheets and for a number of other smaller combat data bases. He has participated in casualty estimation studies (including estimates for Bosnia and Iraq) and studies of air campaign modeling, enemy prisoner of war capture rates, medium weight armor, urban warfare, situational awareness, counterinsurgency and other subjects for the U.S. Army, the Defense Department, the Joint Staff and the U.S. Air Force. He has also directed a number of studies related to the military impact of banning antipersonnel mines for the Joint Staff, Los Alamos National Laboratories and the Vietnam Veterans of American Foundation. His published works include papers and monographs for the Congressional Office of Technology Assessment and the Vietnam Veterans of American Foundation, in addition to over 40 articles written for limited-distribution newsletters and over 60 analytical reports prepared for the Defense Department. He is the author of Kursk: The Battle of Prokhorovka (Aberdeen Books, Sheridan, CO., 2015), America’s Modern Wars: Understanding Iraq, Afghanistan and Vietnam (Casemate Publishers, Philadelphia & Oxford, 2015), War by Numbers: Understanding Conventional Combat (Potomac Books, Lincoln, NE., 2017) and The Battle of Prokhorovka (Stackpole Books, Guilford, CT., 2019) Mr. Lawrence lives in northern Virginia, near Washington, D.C., with his wife and son.

10% or 3% ?

Apparently the proposed defense increase by the Trump administration is a 3% increase, vice a 10% increase. The FY2017 Defense Budget is around $582.7 billion. The Trump administration’s proposed budget for FY2018 is $603 billion. This is a 3% increase. It certainly…

Proposed Defense Increases

President Trump has proposed a 10% increase in the defense budget. I gather this means he will request supplementary spending of $30 billion for FY2017 (this year) and a full $54 billion for FY2017. This will put the defense budget at $603 billion and non-defense discretionary…

Iraqi Casualties in Mosul

I don’t think Iraqi casualties in the Mosul operations have been published. This article has a report that the fight to take the eastern half of Mosul cost Iraqi forces 500 dead, with another 3,000 wounded in three months of…

VX Nerve Agent

Apparently North Korea used a VX Nerve Agent to assassinate the leader of North Korea’s older half-brother in the airport in Malaysia: kim-jong-nam-nerve-agent It is this agent: (nerve_agent) Nerve agents are outlawed by the Chemical Weapons Convention of 1993 and the…

Mosul Airport is Retaken

Well, they had the airport in sight two days ago. At least half of it is now in Iraqi government forces hands: Best quote from the article: “It’s not caution, they’ve learned, they’re smarter now.” …… By the way, someone is…

Slowly retaking Western Mosul

But, it is going faster than some World War I fights: iraqi-military-says-troops-consolidate-gains-south-mosul A few highlights: Have taken 50 square miles south of the city in the last two days. Have the airport in sight. Not the same level of violence…