One more reminder, if you pre-order The Battle of Prokhorovka through Amazon.com it is selling for $28.43: Buy from Amazon. The list price on the hardcover is $44.95. I do not know what price it will be listed at on 1 June 2019 (nor do I have any involvement or say in these matters).
The chapters for the book are listed in this post:
The article reports a rate of 1,728 children per 1,000 women, or 1.728 per woman. This is 3.79 million births in 2018. For obviously reasons, replacement rate needs to be more than 2 kids per woman, usually assumed to be 2.1 (which is the figure used in the article, but I don’t know what the actual replacement rate figure is).
So, this is a shortfall of 0.372 children per woman. Now, how significant is such a shortfall? Well, we need a rate of 2.1 and we are getting 1.728 so 2.1/1.728 = 1.215 times the 3.79 million births = 4.61 million births needed. So 4.61 – 3.79 = 820,000 new people needed each year (there is probably a more sophisticated and more correct calculation out there).
Therefore, it looks like we have to accept at least 820,000 immigrants a year to maintain status quo. There are a lot of economic reasons why this is probably needed and I don’t know a whole lot of people who dispute this. This of course, assumes the birth rate remains constant and right now it is declining, Currently, the U.S. accepts 1.2 million legal immigrants a year (2016). It appears that the United States receives around 300,000 “permanent” illegal immigrants a year (see this blog post):
With 1.3 to 1.5 million immigrants coming in each year, this means we do have a 500K – 700K surplus, which will cause the U.S. population to grow. There is also a certain number of people that migrate from the U.S. The U.S. population growth rate is currently around 0.8% a year.
On the other hand, I am sure some businesses and economists would argue that the United States needs a positive immigration flow to maintain and expand the labor force and to expand the economy. I am not sure of the specifics of this, but there certainly has been work published on this.
I am very much out of my lane here, in that I have not invested any significant time in examining these issues. I am sure there are more rigorous calculations efforts out there. But still, it does indicate that the U.S. does need to maintain over 800,000 migrants a year to sustain its population, and probably several hundreds of thousands above that to maintain its labor force and economic growth.
But this is a op-ed worth reading. There are few points of significance here:
“Instead, what I see is the mother of all quagmires: a conflict that would make the Iraq War — which I now deeply regret supporting — seem like a “cakewalk” by comparison.”
“Air attacks are usually decisive only when combines with ground attacks.:”
“Unfortunately, the United States lacks a realistic ground option in Iran…”
“Iran could employ a combination of antiship cruise missiles, drones, submarines, small boats and mines to “swarm” U.S. naval ships in the confined waters of the Persian Gulf.”
“In response, the United States would do…what?
I do note that Iran could probably also shut down the flow of oil from the Persian/Arabian Gulf for a while. This will certainly affect oil markets worldwide. Still, there is no question that the Saudi Arabia (with the other Gulf States) and/or the United States could establish air superiority over the Gulf. In the long run, that will work to our advantage. There will be a cost to this.
Saudi Arabia has the third largest defense budget in the world. A lot of that has gone to aircraft. Their air force currently consists of 844 aircraft and 81,000 personnel. Combat aircraft include:
Between these seven nations, this is something like 595 air superiority and multi-role modern aircraft, plus another 100 or more ground attack aircraft. Certainly enough to patrol the Persian/Arabian Gulf, which is about the size of the state of Wyoming.
On the north side of the Gulf is Iran. It has an air force of 37,000 (2011 estimate) consisting of:
MiG-29:……………20
F-7………………….17 (a Chinese MiG-21)
F-5E………………..25
F-4 Phantom II…….47
F-14…………………24
Mirage F1……………9
Su-22……………….10
Su-24……………….23
So, 142 air superiority and multi-role Iranian jets compared to 595 controlled by the seven Arab states lining the Gulf. In most cases, the Arab nations have better quality aircraft…and 33 Ground Attack aircraft vice 100+. No question who will be able to establish air superiority if there is a hot war.
A number of states in the Persian/Arabian Gulf have navies. These include frigates and other significant warships. It also includes submarines in the case of Iran.
Saudi Arabia has 7 frigates, 4 corvettes, 9 patrol boats and 3 minesweepers (needed for the Gulf). This is not an insignificant force (See: Royal Saudi Navy).
The United Arab Emirates have 9 corvettes and 9 fast attack craft and other larger patrol vessels (See: United Arab Emirates Navy)
Little Bahrain (which is majority Shiite, even though the royal family is Sunni) has 1 frigate and 6 patrol craft of note (See: Royal Bahrain Naval Force).
Iraq has 2 corvettes and 6 patrol vessels of note (See: Iraqi Navy)
These seven nations have an interest in either keeping the Persian/Arabian Gulf open or at least remaining neutral in such a conflict. Still, it appears they could muster together 8 frigates, up to 20 corvettes and up to 59 larger patrol craft. There are also a lot of smaller patrol craft which I have not listed.
And then there is Iran, one of only three nations in the world with a Shiite majority (the other two being Iraq and Bahrain). It has the largest navy in the area with around 18,000 personnel (2011 estimate). They have 3 large submarines (2325 tons), 4 smaller submarines (350 to 1200 tons), 27 really small submarines (90 to 120 tons) and 5 mini-subs (10 tons) They have 1 destroyer planned (7,500 tons), 6 frigates (1,500 to 2,000 tons), 3 corvettes (580 to 1,135 tons), 32 fast attack craft (205 to 447 tons), 97 coastal patrol boats (up to 148 tons), 83 smaller patrol boats (14 to 82 tons), 14 hovercraft, 3 submersible boats, 74 fast attack craft, 200+ miscellaneous small craft, 3 mine layers, 2 mine countermeasure ships, 26 landing craft, and 28 support ships. (See: Islamic Republic of Iran Navy). This is a lot of little ships and some significant big ships. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps also maintains a large number of small craft (See: Navy of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps). Some/most are counted above.
Anyhow, it is clear that the Iranian Navy is probably capable of shutting down traffic in the Gulf and this probably cannot be halted by the other Gulf navies. And then there are the air forces (subject of a post tomorrow).
A modern military costs money, especially if one is developing a capable air force and navy. This are big ticket items. Let of us for a moment look at what is being spent by states bordering the Persian/Arabian Gulf, as this seems to be the flashpoint “de jure.”
Saudi Arabia is the big spender there with 67.6 billion spend on defense in 2018 (source: SIPRI 2019 fact sheet). This actually makes it the third largest defense budget in the world, ahead of India, France, Russia, UK, Germany, etc. It spends 8.8% of its GDP on defense.
Some other Gulf states are also spending heavily. Oman spends 12.1% of its GDP on defense, although its GDP is small. Bahrain spends 4.1% of its GDP on defense. In comparison the U.S. spends 3.2% of its GDP on defense, China 1.9%, Russia 4.3%, Iraq 3.9%, Ukraine 3.4%, France 2.3%, UK 1.8% and Germany 1.2%.
In contrast, Iran spends 13.2 billion (or 19.6 billion in 2019 according to IISS). This is 3.1% to 4.6% of Iran’s GDP. This is around 20% to 30% of what Saudi Arabia spends and around 2% to 3% of what the U.S. spends.
Just a reminder, if you pre-order The Battle of Prokhorovka through Amazon.com it is selling for $28.43: Buy from Amazon. The list price on the hardcover is $44.95. I do not know what price it will be listed at on 1 June 2019 (nor do I have any involvement or say in these matters).
The chapters for the book are listed in this post:
Urban Legends is the title of Chapter 16 of my book War by Numbers. It is one of two chapters in the book that discusses our three urban warfare studies.
“First, in what kinds of urban operations will the U.S. military be involved?
“Second, in irregular urban combat what will be the role of U.S. forces?
“Finally, in thinking about deterring and fighting peer adversaries is enough attention being paid to defensive urban operations…”
It then states:
This leads to a larger point. Much of the area in Eastern Europe where U.S. forces could play a key roles in deterring Russian aggression has no large urban centers….Thus, before going all-in on optimizing for urban operations, the U.S. military should take a deep breath for a moment and think carefully about future operations within the context of the National Defense Strategy.
Our first urban warfare study is dated 11 January 2002 and has been on our website since that time (see: http://www.dupuyinstitute.org/tdipubs.htm). To quote from page 78 of this study (bolding not in original):
The primary result of urban terrain…is to reduce advance rates significantly, reduce casualties to some extent and, as a result, to extend the duration of combat….the vast majority of urban terrain encountered will be flanked by non-urban terrain. Operations in these non-urban flanks will potentially advance at a pace two to four times that of the urban operations…This will, of course, result in either the defender withdrawing from the urban terrain, which is what traditionally had occurred, or an assault and eventual mop-up operation by the attacker of the enveloped defenders….
On the other hand, it is possible that one could encounter a situation where the urban terrain could not be bypasses or securely enveloped. The most notable example of such a scenario would be in South Korea, where Seoul, anchored to the west (left flank) by the sea, extends for some 25 kilometers inland and is then flanked east (right) by a substantial mountain range. While this is an important case of US defense planning purposes, it is one of the few hot spots in the world where this situation is found. An examination of an atlas shows few other cities in the world that cannot be bypassed or enveloped.
This discussion, naturally, is repeated in my book War by Numbers, on pages 251-254 in a section called “The Impact of Urban Terrain on Operations.”
“…last Thursday, Acting Defense secretary Patrick Shanahan presented an updated military plan that envisions sending as many as 120,000 troops to the Middle East….
“…should Iran attack American forces or accelerate work on nuclear weapons, administration officials said.”
“They do not call for a land invasion of Iran, which would require vastly more troops, officials said.”
“More than a half-dozen American national security officers….agreed to discuss them with the The New York Times….”
Now, this really cannot be an invasion force for Iran. Iran is a country of 82 million people with an armed force of over 500,000. Of that force, the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps makes up 120,000 (about 100,000 in their ground forces) while the Iranian Army consist of 350,000. They also have a 37,000 person air force, 18,000 person navy and 15,000 air defense force. Their army budget is 2 trillion, which is about 0.3 percent of what we spend. All this data is from Wikipedia.
We occupied Iraq in 2003 with an initial invasion force of 75,000 U. S. ground troops, and that ended up not going too well. Iraq had a population of 24 million at the time. Also, Tehran is a long way from the Persian Gulf. Assuming we have learned something in the interim, this probably means we would be looking for an invasion force of several hundred thousand. So, this is probably not an invasion force.
I assume a significant portion of this force is air and naval.
We did previously intervene in the Persian Gulf during the “Tanker War” between Iran and Iraq. These two nations had been at war since 1980. It is estimated that during their “Tanker War” (1984-1988) 430 civilian sailors were killed. The U.S. became involved on 23 July 1987 with Operation Earnest Will. This operation, which including escorting tankers in the Persian Gulf, led to a U.S. build up of over 30 warships. The biggest loss of American life was an incident that occurred before the tanker escort operation was declared when on 17 May 1987 an Iraqi (not Iranian) F-1 Mirage plane accidently fired two Exocet missiles at the USS Stark, with 37 sailors killed and 21 wounded. The U.S. also lost 2 U.S. Marines killed during Operation Praying Mantis on 18 April 1988 and 10 U.S. Navy wounded on 14 April 1988 (from the USS Samuel B. Roberts hitting a mine). U.S. ships were fired upon, struck mines or took other military actions on July 24 1987, September 22-26, October 10, October 15, October 18, April 14, April 18, July 3 and July 14 1988. There were at least 18 U.S. civilian seamen injured by (Iranian) mines.
During Operation Praying Mantis Iran lost the frigate Sahand (45 crew killed), a gunboat (11 crew killed) and 3 speedboats. They also lost 5 killed in a U.S. raid on Iran Ajr on 22 September 1987 and three other Iranian boats were sunk shortly afterwards. There were some other losses, but I have not tracked them all.
Then there was the USS Vincennes which on 3 July 1988 sunk two Iranian gunboats and then accidently shot down Iran Air Flight 655 for the loss of 290 civilians.
