Mystics & Statistics

Some back-of-the-envelope calculations

Keying off Shawn’s previous post…if the DOD figures are accurate this means:

  1. In about two years, we have killed 45,000 insurgents from a force of around 25,000.
    1. This is around 100% losses a year
    2. This means the insurgents had to completely recruit an entire new force every year for the last two years
      1. Or maybe we just shot everyone twice.
    3. It is clear the claimed kills are way too high, or the claimed strength is too low, or a little bit of both
  2. We are getting three kills per sortie.
    1. Now, I have not done an analysis of kills per sorties in other insurgencies (and this would be useful to do), but I am pretty certain that this is unusually high.
  3. We are killing almost a 1,000 insurgents (not in uniform) for every civilian we are killing.
    1. Even if I use the Airwars figure of 1,568 civilians killed, this is 29 insurgents for every civilian killed.
    2. Again, I have not an analysis of insurgents killed per civilian killed in air operations (and this would be useful to do), but these rates seem unusually low.

It appears that there are some bad estimates being made here. Nothing wrong with doing an estimate, but something is very wrong if you are doing estimates that are significantly off. Some of these appear to be off.

This is, of course, a problem we encountered with Iraq and Afghanistan and is discussed to some extent in my book America’s Modern Wars. It was also a problem with the Soviet Army in World War II, and is something I discuss in some depth in my Kursk book.

It would be useful to develop a set of benchmarks from past wars looking at insurgents killed per sorties, insurgents killed per civilian killed in air operations (an other types of operations), insurgents killed compared to force strength, and so forth.

I Don’t Usually Do Body Counts, But When I Do…

(Photo: Dos Equis)
(Photo: Dos Equis)

Over at Foreign Policy, Michah Zenko, a fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, has taken a critical look at the estimates of Daesh fighters the U.S. has killed provided by various Department of Defense sources since 2015. Despite several about-faces on a policy of releasing such figures, the lure to do so is powerful because of the impact they have on public opinion.

Zenko notes the inconsistent logic in the the numbers released, the lack of explanation of the methodology at how they were derived, and how denials about their validity undermine the public policy value of providing them in the first place. There is also the problem of acknowledging noncombatant deaths but asserting that only 55 civilians have been killed in over 15,000 confirmed airstrikes.

Here is the list Zenko compiled of Defense Department cumulative estimates of Daesh fighters killed in Iraq and Syria by U.S. airstrikes:

January 2015:                6,000
March 3, 2015:               8,500
June 1, 2015:             ~13,000
July 29, 2015:               15,000
October 12, 2015:        20,000
November 30, 2015:     23,000
January 6, 2016:           25,500
April 12, 2016:          25-26,000
August 10, 2016:           45,000

Chris cited an article two weeks ago in the New York Times, that provided an estimate by a Defense Department source that there are currently 19-25,000 Daesh fighters in Iraq and Syria.

Three Presentations

I will be giving two presentations at the October meeting of The Military Conflict Institute (TMCI) and Shawn will be making one presentation there.

On Monday, 3 October, I will be doing a presentation on my book War by Numbers: Understanding Conventional Combat, that is going to published in June/August 2017.  This presentation will describe the book. In addition, I will be discussing four or five other book projects that are on-going or I am considering.

The same day I will being making presentation called “Data for Wargames.” This was a course developed for a USMC White Team for a wargaming exercise.

On Tuesday Shawn Woodford will be presenting “Studying Combat: Where to Go from Here.” As he describes it:

Studying Combat: Where To Go From Here?

With Deputy Under Secretary of Defense Robert Work’s recent call for a revitalized war gaming effort to support development of a new national military strategy, it is worth taking stock of the present state of empirical research on combat. I propose to briefly survey work on the subject across relevant fields to get a sense of how much progress has been since TMCI published The Concise Theory of Combat in 1997. This is intended to frame a discussion of where the next steps should be taken and possibilities for promoting work on this subject in the defense and academic communities.

The Military Conflict Institute (TMCI) Will Meet in October

TMCI logoThe Military Conflict Institute (the website has not been recently updated) will hold it’s 58th General Working Meeting from 3-5 October 2016, hosted by the Institute for Defense Analysis in Alexandria, Virginia. It will feature discussions and presentations focused on war termination in likely areas of conflict in the near future, such as Egypt, Turkey, North Korea, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Kurdistan, and Israel. There will also be presentations on related and general military topics as well.

TMCI was founded in 1979 by Dr. Donald S. Marshall and Trevor Dupuy. They were concerned by the inability of existing Defense Department combat models to produce results that were consistent or rooted in historical experience. The organization is a non-profit, interdisciplinary, informal group that avoids government or institutional affiliation in order to maintain an independent perspective and voice. It’s objective is to advance public understanding of organized warfare in all its aspects. Most of the initial members were drawn from the ranks of operations analysts experienced in quantitative historical study and military operations research, but it has grown to include a diverse group of scholars, historians, students of war, soldiers, sailors, marines, airmen, and scientists. Member disciplines range from military science to diplomacy and philosophy.

For agenda information, contact Roger Mickelson TMCI6@aol.com. For joining instructions, contact Rosser Bobbitt rbobbitt@ida.org. Attendance is subject to approval.

Ambling

11tb-horse02-master675

This is not related to anything we are doing, although I found it interesting:  Vikings Possibly Spread Smooth-Riding Horses Around the World

  1. Apparently the ability of a horse to “amble” (as opposed to walk, trot, canter or gallop) is limited to certain breeds of horses and is tied to a single gene mutation.
  2. These “mutated horses” existed in the Danelaw area of England in the 9th century.
  3. Therefore (and this is the weak link in their argument), they may have been spread by Vikings across the world (or maybe they were transported by Vikings to England from another place in the world).

Anyhow, I have not figured out how this is relevant to modern combat, but I still find it interesting.

Kennedy and Vietnam

163480-wubefgwrg

No quantitative analysis here, but a decent and balanced look at Kennedy’s thinking on Vietnam in 1963, when we had more than 16,000 advisors committed but had not yet put in combat troops: Kennedy and Vietnam

A couple of salient points:

  1. His ruminations on a Congo intervention are particularly interesting: “I assume this probably won’t be successful. Nothing ever seems to be….”
  2. Concerning the Congo: “He also reiterated the need for an expert military assessment ‘of the chances of its [US military intervention] success'”
  3. Conclusion: “My view, rooted in the documents and tape recordings at the JFK Library, does not support the conclusions of either Kennedy advocates or critics.”

The U.S. at the end of 1960, under Eisenhower, the U.S had 685 troops in South Vietnam. Under Kennedy, at the end of 1961 it was 3,164, in 1962 it was 11,326 and in 1963 it was 16,263. Under Johnson, it continued to grow to 23,210 in 1964 and 184,314 at the end of 1965. At the end of 1968 it was at 536,040 (source: DISS — Dupuy Insurgency Spread Sheets).

War by Numbers Release Date

University of Nebraska Press (which owns Potomac Books) just posted the following announcement on War by Numbers: War by Numbers: Understanding Conventional Combat

It is part of their spring/summer releases. The book may be in the warehouse and available for sale by mid-June.

According to U. of N. Press, the book is 498 pages, 231 tables, 2 charts and 49 graphs. Not sure that this is the final page count as my manuscript is only 342 pages and 121,094 words. I have not seen the final edited manuscript.

I have developed a course from this book called “Data for Wargames.” Will be giving presentations on the book and the course in early October at The Military Conflict Institute (TMCI) meeting in Alexandria, VA (more on this later).

The Great Russian Recession

The Russian Recession has dragged on for 18 months now: Russian Recession

A few significant points:

  1. Economy shrunk 3.7% in 2015
  2. Expected to shrinking 1.2% this year.
  3. Expected to start growing again in 2017.
  4. Russian parliamentary elections are next month. Probably not going to be very earthshaking.
  5. Just for comparison, the “Great Recession” in the U.S. lasted 18 months, started in December 2007 and ended in June 2009.
    1. Or is that 12-months, from Q3 2008 to Q2 2009?
    2. In 2008 it was a 0.3% drop in GDP
    3. In 2009 it was a 2.8% drop in GDP.
    4. In 2010 GDP grew 2.5%
    5. Date source: Annual Growth Data

Not much more to say on this, just kind of waiting to see what happens.

We Have 4,000+ Troops in Iraq Now

Another Iraq article: Airstrikes

A couple of things that caught my attention:

  1. 9,400 coalition airstrikes (in Iraq and Syria?) since August 8, 2014
    1. 55 civilians killed by airstrikes in Iraq and Syria, or 1,568 depending on who you wish to believe.
  2. 3,800 U.S forces currently in Iraq
    1. not including hundreds who are on temporary duty
    2. not including 560 additional troops approved last month?
    3. Are we going to be over 5,000?

Does anyone know what the current Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) is?