Mystics & Statistics

Tillerson is the one

More rhyming headlines…sorry. Anyhow, looks like  Rex Tillerson, President of Exxon Mobil Corporation has been selected to be our next Secretary of State. Here is his Wikipedia bio: Rex Tillerson

Not much in the bio….he has been with Exxon for 41 years. It appears that this will be his first job since college that is not with Exxon. The most telling things are:

  1. Close ties to Russia and Putin.
  2. Doesn’t like sanctions (not surprising)
  3. Likes free trade (and the TPP)
  4. Suspicious of global warning (not surprising…considering his company)
  5. According to Wikipedia was recommended to Trump by Condoleezza Rice.

Anyhow, nothing really surprising or earthshaking here considering his business. The ties to Russia pose a problem and the hearings should be interesting. This is worth noting: John McCain: Rex Tillerson and Putin

To quote a couple of lines from McCain:

“But Vladimir Putin is a thug, a bully and a murderer, and anybody else who describes him an anything else is lying.”

and

“What about all the other things–right now, the targeting of hospitals by Russian aircraft with precision weapons in Syria, in Aleppo? Those are the kind of questions that we need to ask [Tillerson] about the relationship with Vladimir Putin.”

Senators McCain and Graham have been supportive of Ukraine and hostile to Russia. The Democrats have 48 seats in the Senate. If McCain and Graham were willing to break with the party and break with Trump, and could bring one more Republican senator with them, then they could actually reject Trump’s Secretary of State appointment. I don’t recall that ever happening for a Secretary of State appointment so suspect it is not very likely.

Over 50,000 killed

OK…latest estimate from DOD is that they have killed over 50,000 ISIL fighters over the last two years: Body count = 50K+

Here is my post on the subject in August when the count was a mere 45,000: some-back-of-the-envelope-calculations

I don’t think I have much more to add to this without getting very sarcastic. Note that they refer to it as a “conservative estimate.”  Something does not add up somewhere (either their loss estimates are way too high or their force size estimates have been way too low).

War Updates

We are not a news site or current affairs site (because it takes too much time)……but…a few things of note in the middle east:

  1. Mosul has still not fallen. Offensive started 17 October….we were on the outskirts of Mosul by the beginning of November, and now in a grind that some said would take 6 to 8 weeks. So far, it appears to be taking longer than that. We are claiming that 2,000 ISIL fighters have been killed or wounded. 2000-Islamic-State-militants-killed-or-injured-in-Mosul-offensive and us-says-2-000-is-fighters-killed-gravely-wounded-in-mosul
  2. The Syrians appear to be pushing hard to take all of Aleppo before the new U.S. president arrives in office. I suspect this is an attempt to get a negotiating advantage in light of what they perceive to be Trump’s attitudes towards Russia and Syria. According to this report, they have at least 85% of the city: thousands-flee-heavy-aleppo-fighting.
  3. ISIL has retaken Palmyra. latest-syria-says-98-percent-east-aleppo-retaken and recaptures-palmyra

The odd claim is the one made in the second article of this link, where Russia Foreign Minister Lavrov claims about the taking of Palmyra by ISIL that: “…it has been staged to give a respite to bandits in eastern Aleppo.” Of course, one person’s freedom fighters is another person’s bandits.

To take a quote from the first article from Lt. General Townsend: “‘At the start of the campaign, we estimated somewhere between at the low end 3,500, at the high end, about 6,000. By our calculations we think we have killed or badly wounded over 2,000. So if you do the math, that’s still 3,000-5,000’ militants remaining in Mosul, Townsend said.”

We assume he is talking 2,000 killed or seriously enough injured to no be able to return to action in the next couple of months….so, maybe 1,000 killed and 1,000 seriously wounded (kind of grabbing numbers out of thin air here). So, total losses are 4,000 – 6,000 if you count all wounded? That is kind of the entire opposing force.

Then there is the estimates that coalition has lost 14,000 killed and wounded since the start of the offensive (see our post at: Casualties in Iraq (November)). Does that mean that trained conventional counterinsurgency forces are losing something like 2.3-to-1 fighting the insurgents. That would be significant if that was the case.

Something if off somewhere in these various numbers. I not sure which number not to believe (although the estimate of insurgent strength has traditionally always been way too low).

Strachan On The Failures Of Western Strategists

Tom Ricks has posted a commentary on recent political events by Scottish historian Hew Strachan. Strachan is one of the current luminaries in field of strategic studies (his recent The Direction of War is excellent). He offers a fairly pungent critique of the failure of strategic thinkers in the West to understand and respond to the forces buffeting the U.S. and Europe that resulted in Brexit and the Trump presidency.

Strategists, for all their pontifications about the future, have failed on two counts. First, they have become too politically aware in their views. Politicians need to buttress current institutions, and in doing so feed the narrative that the institutions are robust and reliable, despite their need for reform and reinvigoration. Strategists need to be tougher, and to speak truth to power. Since the end of the Cold War, geopolitical pressures have taken the common ideologies of the “west” — democracy and liberal capitalism — in divergent geographical directions. Globalization, for all its rhetorical flourishes, has mattered less than regionalism. The United States has turned from the North Atlantic and the Middle East to the Pacific and East Asia. Meanwhile Europeans are driven by an opportunistic Russia and a flood of refugees to look to their eastern marches and the Mediterranean.

Secondly, strategists have failed because they have allowed their understanding of strategy to be dominated by their commitment to the status quo. Strategy has become obsessed with the mitigation of risk and the minimization of threats, rather than with the exploitation of the opportunities which risk presents. Strategy has to respond to and even initiate contingency, not to be fearful of it. Both the Brexit vote and the election of Trump amplify the risks which we face, but they also — like Hans Christian Andersen’s child — expose the emperor’s nakedness. We shall not master risk if we do not also embrace it.

This criticism applies not simply to the last eight years of the Obama administration, but really, to the international challenges that have manifested since 9/11. The notion that the only constant is change may be a worn cliche, but that does not mean it is not true. Many a great power has foundered due to the inability to adapt and master change.

The Roots of Russian ‘Hybrid Warfare’

Special Forces (spetsnaz) personnel of the Russian Federation federal agencies receiving awards from Russian President Vladimir Putin during an official reception.

On Russian foreign and military affairs, I have a lot of time for British academic Mark Galeotti. I recommend his work to anyone interested in these topics. An expert on Russian history and government, he is currently a Senior Research Fellow at the Institute of International Affairs Prague, and Principal Director of the consultancy Mayak Intelligence.

In a piece at War on the Rocks, Galeotti acknowledges the traditionally cited sources for Russia’s so-called “hybrid war” approach: its relative post-Soviet economic weakness and a military/political inheritance from the Soviet and Tsarist eras. However, he argues that the Putin government’s approach to foreign and military policy is a reflection of the hybrid nature of the current Russian state:

Today, Russia is a patrimonial, hyper-presidential regime, one characterized by the permeability of boundaries between public and private, domestic and external. As oligarch-turned-dissident Mikhail Khodorkovsky put it:

[W]hat distinguishes the current Russian government from the erstwhile Soviet leaders familiar to the West is its rejection of ideological constraints and the complete elimination of institutions.

Lacking meaningful rule of law or checks and balances, without drawing too heavy-handed a comparison with fascism, Putin’s Russia seems to embody, in its own chaotic and informal way, Mussolini’s dictum “tutto nello Stato, niente al di fuori dello Stato, nulla contro lo Stato” — “everything inside the State, nothing outside the State, nothing against the State.” Parenthetically, Mussolini sent what could be called “little blackshirt men” to Spain in the 1930s to fight on Franco’s side during the civil war. All notionally opted to do so of their own volition (as the Voluntary Troops Corps) and initially without insignia.

In Russia, state institutions are often regarded as personal fiefdoms and piggy banks, officials and even officers freely engage in commercial activity, and the Russian Orthodox Church is practically an arm of the Kremlin. Given all that, the infusion of non-military instruments into military affairs was almost inevitable. Beyond that, though, Putin’s Russia has been characterized — in the past, at least — by multiple, overlapping agencies, a “bureaucratic pluralism” intended as much to permit the Kremlin to divide and rule as for any practical advantages.

Galeotti asserts that the Putin regime believes itself in a “geopolitical, even civilizational struggle” with the West, and its approach to the conflict mirrors the way the regime operates, with “blurring of the borders between state, paramilitary, mercenary, and dupe.”

He lays out his argument fully in a newly published study, Hybrid War or Gibridnaya Voina? Getting Russia’s non-linear military challenge right.

GAO: “We’re 26 ships into the contract and we still don’t know if the [Littoral Combat Ship] can do its job.”

In a previous post, I questioned the wisdom of a defense procurement strategy of buying expensive, technologically advanced weapons systems while they are still being developed and before they have been proven combat effective. One of the examples I cited was the U.S. Navy’s Littoral Combat Ship (LCS) program.

(The LCS should not be confused with the Navy’s new guided-missile destroyer U.S.S. Zumwalt, which recently suffered an embarrassing propulsion system failure at sea, necessitating a tow back to port for repairs).

The incoming Trump administration is going to have a decision to make with regard to the LCS. Congress approved procurement of 40 total LCSs in the recent National Defense Authorization Act of 2017. The Navy has already built, purchased, or ordered 28. It intends eventually to build up to a fleet of 52 small surface combatant ships, either LCSs or a modified version it has classified as a frigate. As part of its 2018 budget request, the Navy wants $14 billion for the final 12 authorized vessels and their associated weapons systems to fund a “block” purchase.

However, at a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on 1 December, the General Accounting Office, a Defense Department representative, and various senators criticized the LCS program for “for cost overruns, engineering failures, and more.” They called for reduced, rather than increased, spending on it.

On the campaign trail, President-elect Donald Trump promised to expand the Navy to 350 ships as part of his proposals to “upgrade America’s military.” The Congressional Research Service has predicted the Navy would increase its total request to 56 small surface combatants.

The outcome remains to be seen, but a potential spanner in the works to Trump’s plans may be the recent revelation in the Washington Post of a Defense Department internal report that alleged that it was wasting up to $125 billion annually on poor business administration. Congress is expected to pass a continuing resolution this month to allow for negotiation of a new budget in early 2017.

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