Mosul
Well, they are finally going to re-take Mosul. I think we heard that before, but this time it is probably true. Link: Mosul They are saying they may take it by the end of 2016 or early 2017. That is…
Excellence in Historical Research and Analysis
Excellence in Historical Research and Analysis
Well, they are finally going to re-take Mosul. I think we heard that before, but this time it is probably true. Link: Mosul They are saying they may take it by the end of 2016 or early 2017. That is…
Caption: Kurdish Cavalry, 1915 The real problem the Russian economy is suffering from is that oil has dropped from $100 a barrel to $30 a barrel. The Russian government budget was once based upon oil remaining at least $80…
OK…..so U.S. has flown more than 55,000 sorties since August 2014 (actually we started our first air missions on 8 August…so almost 19 months). Russian flew 9,000 sorties in 5 1/2 months (see two posts below). 55,000/19 = 2,895…
Nice article in the Economist: The interesting point is that they give stats as to what they are leaving behind (have no idea how they know this): The first is that Russia is not pulling out its forces completely.…
It would be nice to have short, quick, sharp interventions. Basically, go into a troubled country, kick tail, and then leave shortly thereafter with everything resolved. Sort of like we did in Libya in 2011; or that peacekeeping mission in…
If you watch the international news (probably best done by not watching American news channels) you may have noticed a few protestors in the streets of Rio and Sao Paolo, more than a million actually. This is a very big…
Walls are all the rage now. According to various articles, Ukraine is planning on building a wall along its border with Russia. This is some 1200 miles and costs $200 million. It is not a wall, it is a actually…
Not a whole lot of analytical work has been done on third-party insurgencies. A third-party insurgency is a conflict where an external state or trans-national organization played a major role in initiating, sustaining, bringing to victory, or otherwise supporting a…
In case you missed this: Three major actions are called out at the end of the article: Our first initiative, currently underway, is to establish a wargaming repository to better understand and guide existing wargaming efforts and to share…
Continuing the RAND description of their hex boardgame: Ground unit combat strengths were based on a systematic scoring of individual weapons, from tanks and artillery down to light machine guns, which were then aggregated according to the tables of organization…