Mystics & Statistics

A blog on quantitative historical analysis hosted by The Dupuy Institute

War Stories-The Podcast for Military History Nerds

Angry Staff Officer says, "Safety is paramount in all things. Terrorists fear safety glasses that are also reflective."
The Angry Staff Officer says, “Safety is paramount in all things. Terrorists fear safety glasses that are also reflective.”

If you like military history and podcasts, then I would like to recommend that you give War Stories a listen. It is a new production from two members of the Military Writers Guild, Adin Dobkin and a serving Army National Guardsman who posts publicly under the nom de guerre, Angry Staff Officer. Seeking to bridge the gap between military history that focuses on engagements or battles, and broad sweeping analysis, Dobkin and ASO tell stories that link specific instances with a broader narrative arc. In doing so, they hope to “engage the human interest angle while also tracing broader trends in warfare, through balancing narrative and dialogue.”

The first season of the podcast is tracing the development of modern tank warfare from its dawn on the battlefields of France in the First World War, through the present day. The result is Basil Liddell Hart meets This American Life. Dobkin and ASO both have engaging personalities and military history nerd-wit in abundance. They bring a youthful perspective leavened by recent military experience and the perceptive eye of today’s well-trained and highly educated military officer corps.

The first four episodes begin with doomed British cavalry charges on the Somme battlefield in 1916, to George Patton’s first combat experiences at the St. Mihiel salient in 1917, to the clash of Russian and German inter-war tanks in the Spanish Civil War, to the baptism of fire of the American tank destroyer corps in Tunisia in 1943.

The results are both informative and quite entertaining. My only (minor) quibble is that it would help to have some maps and photographs to go with the narrative to help pin down places, faces, and tank silhouettes. If you appreciate the fact — as Dobkin and ASO do — that the Soviet T-34 tank owes its existence to the American engineer  J. Walter Christie, this is the podcast for which you have been searching.

World War IV

One of Roger Mickelson’s TMCI briefings is on-line at the Xenophon Group site: World War IV

Don’t know the date of this briefing, but it was fairly recent. I never quite bought into Roger’s construct that World War III was the Cold War….and now we are in World War IV. But I do find it to be an interesting categorization.

The Fatwa on “Jihad Against Jews and Crusaders” dated 23 February 1998 is worth reading. It is on slides 16 and 17.

The Xenophon Group is run by John Sloan, a retired Sovietologist and historian. He used to work with Trevor Dupuy’s HERO (Historical Evaluation Research Organization) and played a major role in getting the Kursk project started (which turned into my book Kursk: The Battle of Prokhorovka). His site is here: http://www.xenophon-mil.org/xenophon.htm

The index to his site is here: http://www.xenophon-mil.org/xenindex.htm

This is worth trolling through. There are all kinds of interesting bits and pieces here. There is a review of my book America’ Modern Wars here: http://www.xenophon-mil.org/politicaleconomy/lawrencemodernwars.htm

Roger Mickelson (Col, USA): “Final Change of Command”

A compatriot of ours, Roger Mickelson, the President of The Military Conflict Institute, passed away on the 26th of November. He was 80 years old.

His obituary is here: obituary

The Military Conflict Institute (TMCI) was founded by Trevor Dupuy and Don Marshall in 1979. Roger was involved with it from the beginning. As its leader, he helped keep TMCI going these last few years.

Always positive, upbeat and inclusive, he was able to smoothly lead the institute meetings through some contentious issues with little drama. It was always a pleasure to work with him. We will miss him.

Mattis’ Reading List (2007)

Here is a 2007 copy of James Mattis reading list, courtesy of the Small War Journal: ltgen-james-mattis-reading-list

Nothing really earthshaking here, except I have not read most of the books on this list. Hard for me to evaluate it.

No Trevor Dupuy books, but Ali Jalali is on the list. He used to be a consultant to Trevor Dupuy’s old company HERO (Historical Evaluation and Research Organization). He was doing Sovietology work for us in the early 1980s along with John Sloan and others. He later became the Interior Minister of Afghanistan: Ali_Ahmad_Jalali

The Warrior Monk

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“Warrior Monk” is a cool nickname. Like it better than “Mad Dog”….which brings up another image:

md20-20

Anyhow, don’t want to be pre-mature, but the rumor has it from a very good source (Donald Trump) that retired General James Mattis is going to be our next Secretary of Defense.

Wikipedia article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Mattis

My last post on the subject:

Too busy to read

Andrew Bacevich comments on the subject (the link to the long article is in my previous post):

Yet Pres. Trump is also likely to double down on the use of conventional military force. In that regard, his promise to “quickly and decisively bomb the hell out of [Islamic State]” offers a hint of what is to come.

Trump’s appointment of the uber-hawkish retired U.S. Army Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn as his national security adviser and his rumored selection of retired U.S. Marine Corps Gen. James “Mad Dog” Mattis as defense secretary suggest that he means what he says. In sum, a Trump administration seems unlikely to reexamine the conviction that the problems roiling the Greater Middle East will someday, somehow yield to a U.S.-imposed military solution.

Having retired generals as the National Security Advisor and as Secretary of Defense does not necessarily indicate only a kinetic solution to all problems, but there is always a concern with “groupthink,” to use a still valid term from the 60s. One only has to look at the early recommendations made to President Kennedy during the Cuban Missile Crisis to appreciate the dangers of this.

The interesting thing is that Trump himself on multiple occasions has expressed a desire to disengage from various areas of the world. I for one, still have no idea what our National Security Policies are going to be, and am not sure we can determine anything from these cabinet picks. I wonder if the incoming administration has decided what our National Security Policies are going to be.

All we need is generals who know how to win?

There was an article just published in the blog War is Boring by Andrew Bacevich called “American Generals Have Forgotten How to Win Wars”: american-generals-have-forgotten-how-to-win-wars

It is a long article with three completely different sections. The first section is that somehow or the other, all we have in Iraq and Afghanistan is generals who don’t know how to win. Really? Was that the problem in Korea when General MacArthur was in command and got driven out back from the Yalu and out of North Korea by the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA)? His replacement was Matthew Ridgeway, who in World War II was commander of the XVIII Airborne Corps. He did not win in Korea either. Same for the next commander in Korea: Mark Wayne Clark.

Was that the problem with Vietnam, where a succession of generals, Harkins, Westmoreland, Abrams and finally Weyand, commanded? Was Abrams, who relieved Bastogne in World War II and had a tank named after him, one of these generals that did not know how to win? We did win the Gulf War in 1991, we were able to conquer Afghanistan in 2002 with few forces, and we were able to conquer Iraq in 2003. So, since World War II, we have been able to win under the right situation. I don’t think the issue is a “winning” versus a “non-winning” general. Bacevich gives a listing of the 17 commanders in Iraq and Afghanistan since they started. Of the 17 commanders listed, not a single one is a “winning general”? What are the odds of that being the case?

The second part of the article, starting with “Draining which swamp?”, actually makes a lot more sense and it would have been a better article without the first part. It is the nature of the war that is the problem. Napoleon, probably the winning-est general in history (over 60 battles fought), could never figure out how to solve the Spanish ulcer. That ulcer generated a new word: guerilla. It is the nature of guerilla wars and insurgencies that they generate a lack of clear wins.

The British seem to have a reputation as being counterinsurgency experts. They won in Malaya and Kenya in the 1950s. Yet, when it came to Northern Ireland, the conflict went on for over 30 years and was resolved by a settlement that included the political arm of the provisional IRA as a legitimate political party. Would we consider an arrangement in Afghanistan that included the Taliban as part of the government as a victory? Would we consider including ISIL or Al-Qaeda in a future Iraqi or Syrian government? It is kind of the same thing.

Anyhow, a clear win is sometimes elusive in guerilla wars, even for the British. Not only did they fight for over 30 years in Northern Ireland, but their victory in Malaya included giving the country independence. Seven years after they defeated the Mau Mau in Kenya, they also gave that country independence.  Their results in Palestine in the late 1940s, Cyprus in the 1950s and Aden in the 1960s were even less successful. In the case of Cyprus, the guerilla force leader also became the head of a Cypriot political party. So, the British appear to have a winning problem also.

In our original work on insurgencies, part of what the Center for Army Analysis (CAA) wanted us to do was analyze different tactics and approaches and see what worked and what did not. This become difficult to do analytically, for eventually in almost every single extended guerilla war, most of the counterinsurgents ended up developing over the course of years of fighting many of the same answers, whether they were British, American, French, Portuguese, Soviets, Rhodesians, etc. We could not connect the tactics to the outcomes. The end result we ended up looking at the bigger issue questions, like grand strategies and size of forces involved. This was where we could get an analytical result (marketing alert: See my book America Modern Wars: Understanding Iraq, Afghanistan and Vietnam).

Bacevich picks up some of these questions in the second part of his article, where he states “The truth is that some wars aren’t winnable and no one should fight them in the first place.” He then concludes “In sum, a Trump administration seems unlikely to reexamine the conviction that the problems roiling the Greater Middle East will someday, somehow yield to a U.S.-imposed military solution.”

Not sure I agree with that conclusion, but I would strongly argue that understanding and defeating an insurgency is much more complicated than just changing a general. We have certainly changed enough generals in Iraq and Afghanistan that by happenstance one should have won, if it was possible. Some argue that Patreaus did win in Iraq (but he clearly did not in Afghanistan). Did Patreaus forget how to win when he went from one war to the next?

Anyhow, to win these wars requires a combination of proper professional approaches, proper resources, and proper engagement times. Our continued attempts to win these wars on the cheap, or shorten the commitment to them, or to find some magic trick (like a surge) that will win it…..have not really worked out. It is time to get serious.

Casualties in Iraq (November)

Have some casualty figures for Iraq: tally-shows-spike-casualties-Iraq

The source is the U.N. To summarize (with my comments added):

  1. 1,959 Iraqi security forces killed in November across Iraq.
    1. At least 450 wounded….this is obviously low and I would expect it to be at least 8,000 based upon the number killed (see point 1.c.ii below).
    2. This total includes army, police engaged in combat (interesting distinction), Kurdish Peshmerga, interior ministry forces, and pro-government paramilitaries (so includes everyone except maybe Iranian forces)
    3. The Peshmerga claims that 1,600 of their fighters have been killed since the start of the offensive on Oct. 17. Does this mean that the Peshmerga have been doing over half the fighting?
      1. Almost 10,000 Peshmerga fighters were also wounded……meaning they have around a 6.25-to-1 wounded-to-killed ratio, which makes complete sense to me.
      2. 1,959 times 6.25 = 12,244 total wounded for November if I apply the same ratio to the November estimates of killed.
  2. 926 civilians were also killed. This is less civilians killed then soldiers killed in combat. There are some wars where this has not been the case.
  3. Now, this was a force of around 100,000 coalition troops. They have now suffered over 14,000 casualties over a month, or 14% of the force? This seems high.
  4. They are supposedly facing 5,000 – 6,000 ISIL fighters. These guys have caused 14,000 casualties and are still going strong?

Tanks and Russian Hybrid Warfare

tanks-russian-hybrid-warfareU.S. Army Major Amos Fox, currently a student at the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College, has produced an insightful analysis of the role of tanks in Russian hybrid warfare tactics and operations. His recent article in Armor, the journal of the U.S. Army Maneuver Center of Excellence at Ft. Benning, Georgia, offers a sense of the challenges of high-intensity combat on the near-future hybrid warfare battlefield.

Fox assesses current Russia Army tactical and operational capabilities as quite capable.

Russia’s contemporary operations embody the characteristic of surprise. Russian operations in Georgia and Ukraine demonstrate a rapid, decentralized attack seeking to temporally dislocate the enemy, triggering the opposing forces’ defeat. These methods stand in stark contrast to the old Soviet doctrine of methodical, timetable-and echelon-driven employment of ground forces that sought to outmass the opposing army. Current Russian land-warfare tactics are something which most armies, including the U.S. Army, are largely unprepared to address.

Conversely, after achieving limited objectives, Russia quickly transitions to the defense using ground forces, drones and air-defense capabilities to build a tough, integrated position from which extrication would be difficult, to be sure. Russia’s defensive operations do not serve as a simple shield, but rather, as a shield capable of also delivering well-directed, concentrated punches on the opposition army. Russia’s paradoxical use of offensive operations to set up the defense might indicate an ascendency of the defense as the preferred method of war in forthcoming conflicts.

These capabilities will pose enormous challenges to U.S. and allied forces in any potential land combat scenario.

Russia’s focus on limited objectives, often in close proximity to its own border, indicates that U.S. Army combined-arms battalions and cavalry squadrons will likely find themselves on the wrong end of the “quality of firsts” (Figure 4). The U.S. Army’s physical distance from those likely battlefields sets the Army at a great disadvantage because it will have to hastily deploy forces to the region, meaning the Army will arrive late; the arrival will also be known (location, time and force composition). The Army will have great difficulty seizing the initiative due to its arrival and movement being known, which weakens the Army’s ability to fight and win decisively. This dynamic provides time, space and understanding for the enemy to further prepare for combat operations and strengthen its integrated defensive positions. Therefore, U.S. Army combined-arms battalions and cavalry squadrons must be prepared to fight through a rugged enemy defense while maintaining the capability for continued offensive operations.

Fox’s entire analysis is well worth reading and pondering. He also published another excellent analysis of Russian hybrid warfare with a General Staff College colleague, Captain (P) Andrew J. Rossow, in Small Wars Journal.

Too busy to read

A reposted email by retired General Mattis, who is being considered for Secretary of Defense. This is worth reading: general-james-mattis-email

Opening sentence:

“….The problem with being too busy to read is that you learn by experience (or by your men’s experience), i.e. the hard way. By reading, you learn through other’s experiences, generally a better way to do business, especially in our line of work where the consequences of incompetence are so final for young men.”

and

“Ultimately, a real understanding of history means that we face NOTHING new under the sun. For all the ‘4th Generation of War’ intellectuals running around today saying that the nature of war has fundamentally changed, the tactics are wholly new, etc, I must respectfully say….’Not really’…”

and

“‘Winging it’ and filling body bags as we sort out what works reminds us of the moral dictates and the cost of incompetence in our profession.”

What will be our plans for Afghanistan?

I gather it is still somewhat unknown what we will doing in Afghanistan after 20 January 2017. This concern, among many others, was flagged in my post of 9 November: Questions

It is also discussed in depth in this article: Afghanistan is All Ready to be Donald Trump’s First Foreign Policy Disaster

This article is worth reading. Major points:

  1. Afghanistan is failing.
  2. “More troops? more money? withdrawal?”

Anyhow, we do have a new category in the blog called “National Security Policy”…..as I am very curious as to what we are actually going to do.