Tag NATO

Forecasting U.S. Casualties in Bosnia

Photo by Ssgt. Lisa Zunzanyika-Carpenter 1st Combat Camera Charleston AFB SC
Photo by Ssgt. Lisa Zunzanyika-Carpenter 1st Combat Camera Charleston AFB SC

In previous posts, I highlighted a call for more prediction and accountability in the field of security studies, and detailed Trevor N. Dupuy’s forecasts for the 1990-1991 Gulf War. Today, I will look at The Dupuy Institute’s 1995 estimate of potential casualties in Operation JOINT ENDEAVOR, the U.S. contribution to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) peacekeeping effort in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

On 1 November 1995, the leaders of the Serbia, Croatia, and Bosnia, rump states left from the breakup of Yugoslavia, along with representatives from the United States, European Union, and Russia, convened in Dayton, Ohio to negotiate an end to a three-year civil war. The conference resulted from Operation DELIBERATE FORCE, a 21-day air campaign conducted by NATO in August and September against Bosnian Serb forces in Bosnia.

A key component of the negotiation involved deployment of a NATO-led Implementation Force (IFOR) to replace United Nations troops charged with keeping the peace between the warring factions. U.S. European Command (USEUCOM) and NATO had been evaluating potential military involvement in the former Yugoslavia since 1992, and U.S. Army planners started operational planning for a ground mission in Bosnia in August 1995. The Joint Chiefs of Staff alerted USEUCOM for a possible deployment to Bosnia on 2 November.[1]

Up to that point, U.S. President Bill Clinton had been reluctant to commit U.S. ground forces to the conflict and had not yet agreed to do so as part of the Dayton negotiations. As part of the planning process, Joint Staff planners contacted the Deputy Undersecretary of the Army for Operations Research for assistance in developing an estimate of potential U.S. casualties in a peacekeeping operation. The planners were told that no methodology existed for forecasting losses in such non-combat contingency operations.[2]

On the same day the Dayton negotiation began, the Joint Chiefs contracted The Dupuy Institute to use its historical expertise on combat casualties to produce an estimate within three weeks for likely losses in a commitment of 20,000 U.S. troops to a 12-month peacekeeping mission in Bosnia. Under the overall direction of Nicholas Krawciw (Major General, USA, ret.), then President of The Dupuy Institute, a two-track analytical effort began.

One line of effort analyzed the different phases of the mission and compiled list of potential lethal threats for each, including non-hostile accidents. Losses were forecasted using The Dupuy Institute’s combat model, the Tactical Numerical Deterministic Model (TNDM), and estimates of lethality and frequency for specific events. This analysis yielded a probabilistic range for possible casualties.

The second line of inquiry looked at data on 144 historical cases of counterinsurgency and peacekeeping operations compiled for a 1985 study by The Dupuy Institute’s predecessor, the Historical Evaluation and Research Organization (HERO), and other sources. Analysis of 90 of these cases, including all 38 United Nations peacekeeping operation to that date, yielded sufficient data to establish baseline estimates for casualties related to force size and duration.

Coincidentally and fortuitously, both lines of effort produced estimates that overlapped, reinforcing confidence in their validity. The Dupuy Institute delivered its forecast to the Joint Chiefs of Staff within two weeks. It estimated possible U.S. casualties for two scenarios, one a minimal deployment intended to limit risk, and the other for an extended year-long mission.

For the first scenario, The Dupuy Institute estimated 11 to 29 likely U.S. fatalities with a pessimistic potential for 17 to 42 fatalities. There was also the real possibility for a high-casualty event, such as a transport plane crash. For the 12-month deployment, The Dupuy Institute forecasted a 50% chance that U.S. killed from all causes would be below 17 (12 combat deaths and 5 non-combat fatalities) and a 90% chance that total U.S. fatalities would be below 25.

Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General John Shalikashvili carried The Dupuy Institute’s casualty estimate with him during the meeting in which President Clinton decided to commit U.S. forces to the peacekeeping mission. The participants at Dayton reached agreement on 17 November and an accord was signed on 14 December. Operation JOINT ENDEAVOR began on 2 December with 20,000 U.S. and 60,000 NATO troops moving into Bosnia to keep the peace. NATO’s commitment in Bosnia lasted until 2004 when European Union forces assumed responsibility for the mission.

There were six U.S. casualties from all causes and no combat deaths during JOINT ENDEAVOR.

NOTES

[1] Details of U.S. military involvement in Bosnia peacekeeping can be found in Robert F. Baumann, George W. Gawrych, Walter E. Kretchik, Armed Peacekeepers in Bosnia (Combat Fort Leavenworth, KS: Studies Institute Press, 2004); R. Cody Phillips, Bosnia-Herzegovina: The U.S. Army’s Role in Peace Enforcement Operations, 1995-2004 (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Army Center for Military History, 2005); Harold E. Raugh,. Jr., ed., Operation JOINT ENDEAVOR: V Corps in Bosnia-Herzogovina, 1995-1996: An Oral History (Fort Leavenworth, KS. : Combat Studies Institute Press, 2010).

[2] The Dupuy Instiute’s Bosnia casualty estimate is detailed in Christopher A. Lawrence, America’s Modern Wars: Understanding Iraq, Afghanistan and Vietnam (Philadelphia, PA: Casemate, 2015); and Christopher A. Lawrence, “How Military Historians Are Using Quantitative Analysis — And You Can Too,” History News Network, 15 March 2015.

The Military Budget Wars Are Headed Back to the Future

When I mused over how much new strategic debates are sounding like old Cold War strategic debates, I really had no idea. The U.S. national security debate really is going Back to the Future.  Mark Perry has an article in POLITICO exploring arguments being advanced by some U.S. Army leaders in support of requests for increased defense budget funding, and the criticism they have drawn.

In early April, a panel comprised of several senior Army officer testified before a Senate Armed Service subcommittee on modernization.

[They] delivered a grim warning about the future of the U.S. armed forces: Unless the Army budget was increased, allowing both for more men and more materiel, members of the panel said, the United States was in danger of being “outranged and outgunned” in the next war and, in particular, in a confrontation with Russia. Vladimir Putin’s military, the panel averred, had outstripped the U.S. in modern weapons capabilities. And the Army’s shrinking size meant that “the Army of the future will be too small to secure the nation.”

These assertions are, predictably, being questioned by, also predictably, some in the other armed services. Perry cites the response of an unnamed “senior Pentagon officer.”

“This is the ‘Chicken-Little, sky-is-falling’ set in the Army,” the senior Pentagon officer said. “These guys want us to believe the Russians are 10 feet tall. There’s a simpler explanation: The Army is looking for a purpose, and a bigger chunk of the budget. And the best way to get that is to paint the Russians as being able to land in our rear and on both of our flanks at the same time. What a crock.”

Perry boils the debate down to what it is really about.

The fight over the Army panel’s testimony is the latest example of a deepening feud in the military community over how to respond to shrinking budget numbers. At issue is the military’s strategic future: Facing cuts, will the Army opt to modernize its weapons’ arsenal, or defer modernization in favor of increased numbers of soldiers? On April 5, the Army’s top brass made its choice clear: It wants to do both, and Russia’s the reason.

Perry’s walk through the various arguments is worth reading in full, but he accurately characterizes the debate as something more than an ecumenical disagreement among the usual Pentagon suspects.

The argument over numbers and capabilities might strike some Americans as exotic, but the debate is much more fundamental—with enormous political implications. “You know, which would you rather have—a high-speed rail system, or another brigade in Poland? Because that’s what this is really all about. The debate is about money, and there simply isn’t enough to go around,” the Pentagon officer told me. “Which is not to mention the other question, which is even more important: How many British soldiers do you think want to die for Estonia? And if they don’t want to, why should we?”

Those looking for a sober, factual debate over the facts and the implications of these issues are likely to be disappointed in the current election year atmosphere. It will also be interesting to see if strategic analysts will offer more than chum for the waters and warmed over versions of old arguments.

Is The Fulda Gap Rhyming or Echoing?

Probable Axes of Attack of Warsaw Pact. Taken from Graham H. Turbiville, "Invasion in Europe--A Scenario," Army, November 1976, p. 19.
Probable Axes of Attack of Warsaw Pact. Taken from Graham H. Turbiville, “Invasion in Europe–A Scenario,” Army, November 1976, p. 19.

One of the great historical “what if’s” of recent memory was the imagined clash between the military forces of the U.S.-led North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and the Soviet-led Warsaw Pact in West Germany. This scenario – particularly a highly anticipated massive tank battle in the Fulda Gap on the north German plains – dominated the imaginations of U.S. military members, politicians, academics, strategic theorists, think tankers, and wargame nerds from the 1950s through the 1980s. Endless amounts of attention and effort were spent examining, debating, and thinking through a hypothetical war that seemed terribly real and imminent to so many at the time, but which also abruptly evaporated from the popular consciousness with the end of the Cold War in 1991. For many who came of age in the 1970s and 80s, however, merely mentioning the Fulda Gap evokes a collective nostalgic recollection of the prospect of a handful of plucky and resourceful NATO divisions battling it out with hordes of Soviet tank armies under the specter of global thermonuclear annihilation.

With this in mind, it has been rather fascinating to watch the unfolding debate over what is becoming an imagined clash between the military forces of the U.S.-led NATO and a resurgent Russia in Eastern Europe. Strategic analysts, doing what strategic analysts do, wargamed a hypothetical scenario involving a Russian invasion of the Baltic States and a NATO military intervention. The results of the wargame suggested that the current balance of forces highly favors the Russians.

So, what should we make of this? Well, the designers of the Baltic scenario wargame don’t want to scare anyone, but…

It seems unlikely that Vladimir Putin intends to turn his guns on NATO any time soon. However, the consequences should he decide to do so are severe. Probably the best outcome — if the phrase has any meaning in this context — would be something like a new Cold War, with all the implications that bears. A war with Russia would be fraught with escalatory potential from the moment the first shot was fired; and generations born outside the shadow of nuclear Armageddon would suddenly be reintroduced to fears thought long dead and buried.

Wait, a new Cold War? Are you sure? Well, for some, the logic certainly points in a specific direction:

This means that the United States and its NATO allies need to be prepared for such an eventuality — and, better yet, prepared to such a degree that Moscow will recognize that pushing on the alliance will be too costly and risky to be worth trying. The U.S. defense budget request for next year (and accompanying commitments to further deployments in Europe), which is currently being used by the relevant House and Senate committees to inform their markups of the Fiscal Year 2017 defense authorization and appropriations bills, represents a major step forward in achieving this goal. It appropriately concentrates on the threat to U.S. and allied security posed by “great power” potential adversaries. It plusses up investments in key next-generation technologies in areas like space, unmanned systems, and cyber, while also preserving funding for the modernization of the nation’s nuclear deterrent. And it allocates $3.4 billion for the European Reassurance Initiative, while committing to reestablishing the permanent presence of an armored brigade combat team in Europe to strengthen the American posture there in the face of the most serious near-term threat to U.S. and allied interests — a resurgent and revisionist Russia.

For those of us old enough to remember, Baltic States is starting to sound an awful lot like Fulda Gap.

The Meaning of Military Expenditures II

In response to my last blog post I basically threw out a menu of possible conclusions. I received a very nicely thought out response to that post from Mike Johnson, which I felt was deserving its own blog post. His response is below (with his permission, of course):

With regard to the 20 April 2016 blog entry about military expenditures, I appreciated the list of possible conclusions and thought I would throw discussion points.

The comparison between US and other country defense spending is interesting, including the often mentioned statement that the US spends as much on defense as the next 10 countries combined.  I remember, from when I was in OPNAV N80 a couple of decades ago, that our NATO allies had twice as many active duty personnel and twice as many reservists as all the US Services combined. Yet, their combined defense budgets were less than what we were spending on our people in our military personnel and reserve personnel appropriations. Of course, back then Germany and France and many others still had conscription and less is usually spent on conscripts. But, it still leads to some serious questions about how to compare defense budgets when our allies could have twice the personnel and their total budgets were less than what we spent just on our personnel.  Several factors come into play. First, we have retirees being paid starting around age 40 or even earlier.  I don’t know of any other country that pays retirees before the mid-50s if not the 60s. Second, the retirement and a lot of the heath care are paid by other departments in most other governments, but in the US DoD pays into these programs.  Base pay for British military, by comparable grade, is actually more than in the US military; but we then add BAH and BAS on top (tax free); in the UK, the MOD subsidizes housing, but the serviceman has to pay a part. It isn’t clear whether the UK or the US serviceman of comparable grade has more “take home pay” so I don’t think the difference is that we pay our servicemen significantly more than other countries.

When it comes to Russia and China, in particular, conversions using market rates understate what is spent for most of the defense spending.  I had a colleague over the years–an expert on the Soviets–who would argue that Russian Federation soldiers had to be underfed, and suffering from malnutrition, because of the amount they were paid and given for meals.  I pointed out that meals certainly should use PPP and not market rates to convert and at the time the ratio between the two was about 7 (PPP converted into about 7 times as many US dollars compared with what market rates; it is less dramatic today but still to be of consideration). Anything internal to the Russian or Chinese economies should, in my opinion, use PPP for the exchange (which compares the cost of comparable items in each system).  This is particularly true of personnel pay, messing, accommodations, and most of logistics.  I am not sure about weapon systems. These are paid for internally, but they do have a connection to the outside world.

The way we count is different.  For example, funding is appropriated to the Services and to agencies in OSD as a top line that can be obligated.  How that is paid for may come from many sources including revenue collected by the Service.  In European budgets, we routinely see factors like total resource and then they subtract from that number expected receipts amounting to several percent of the budget.  In other words, they spend more because they can spend their revenues (such as payments made by service members for their housing) for whatever they want, but they are deducted from the top line used for comparison.

The US military does spend a lot more than any other country, despite the above factors.  Part of that is what it takes to maintain 6 regional combatant commands. Part of it is maintaining a constant level of forces around the world.  A war with most of our enemies is much more likely to be in their front yard and not ours.  We spend a lot on R&D and a lot on keeping equipment modern. And we spend a lot on training personnel.

PPP is purchasing power parity, which is a comparison between the currencies of two countries at which each currency when exchanged for the other will purchase the same quantity of goods as it purchases at home. So, for example, when the ruble dropped from 30 to 60 to a dollar, the Soviet defense budget suddenly did not really drop in half. So a direct comparison of exchange rates between countries often de-values the defense expenditures of less developed countries, where good and services are relatively cheap. Comparing countries based upon PPP tries to adjust for that.

The Meaning of Military Expenditures

My last post was a data dump without a conclusion. I probably need to add one, although I usually avoid providing opinions. There is no shortage of opinions in the American blogosphere and political landscape. I think a little less opinion and a little more data has value. If you want opinions, there are plenty of services out there who specialize in that, and from any perspective and viewpoint that you like.

From the previous Military Expenditures posting one could draw a number of conclusions:

  1. That the American allies in NATO and Asia are not carrying their weight…or…
  2. The threat from Russia and China is grossly overstated
    1. Russia’s defense expenditures are $51.6 billion while NATO (not including the U.S.) is around $300 billion.
    2. China’s defense expenditures are $145.8 billion (or is it $215 billion) while Japan, South Korea and Taiwan’s combined are $85 billion.
    3. The U.S. is spending $597.5 billion.
    4. …or….
  3. The U.S. is spending too much on defense.
    1. Beware of the “military-industrial complex?”
    2. …or….
  4. This is the cost of being the world leader (3.3% of GDP on defense)….or…
  5. The higher U.S. defense expenditures are certainly justified because:
    1. We are covering against Russia ($51.6 billion)
    2. We are covering against China ($145.8 billion)
    3. Then there is ISIL….and….
    4. Iraq, Afghanistan and Somalia
    5. We have other missions, like nuclear deterrence, that adds to our cost.
    6. We need to continue to develop and maintain our technological edge, and that costs money.
    7. …or….
  6. The U.S. is spending too much on the wrong things…or….
  7. Maybe defense budget is not really a good measurement of military power….or…
  8. Maybe Russia and China are getting more “bang for the buck” then the U.S. and its western allies….or…
  9. Whatever else I forgot to mention….or….
  10. Some or all of the above.

Anyhow, one could interpret the figures in my previous post a number of different ways depending on their own political leanings and biases.

And…..I still didn’t really add a conclusion.

Military Expenditures

The American political campaign has ended up discussing NATO recently, including one candidate who states that NATO is “obsolete.” The sense is that America’s allies are not pulling their weight. Let us just look at some comparative defense budgets for a moment. Most figures below are estimates for 2015 from the International Institute of Strategic Studies (IISS), a private UK based organization. I cannot vouch for their accuracy, but they have been doing this for a while.

United States: $597.5 Billion or 3.3% of GDP

Now, our NATO allies are spending much less. The big spender is the United Kingdom at 56.2 billion or 2% of their GDP. This is followed by Germany at 36.6 billion which is only 1.1% of their rather large GDP (largest economy in Europe). France is at 32.0 billion or 1.9% of their GDP (note that the SIPRI figures are much higher for France). Other large NATO countries include:

Turkey…..….22.6….2.2% (these are 2014 SIPRI figures)

Italy….…..….21.1….1.1%

Canada………14.0…..0.9%

Spain…………10.7…..0.9%

Poland…..…..10.3….2.1%

Netherlands…10.1.…1.2% (these are 2014 SIPRI figures)

Total NATO expenditures (not including United States) for 2014 was $310 billion (SIPRI figures). I gather it is now somewhat less. It was the goal once that every member of NATO spent 2% of their GDP on national defense. Many NATO members are far below that goal.

So, it would appear that the U.S. spending 3.3% of its GDP on defense, while no major country in NATO is spending much more than 2% of its GDP on defense. In contrast Russia is spending $51.6 billion or 4.1% of GDP. So certainly between England, Germany, France, Italy, Turkey, Spain, Poland and the Netherlands they are spending at least $195.2 billon on defense, which is almost four times what Russia is spending.

If one looks to the Pacific, one sees the same pattern. The United States spends 597.5 billion on defense or 3.3%. Our ally Japan spends 41.4 billion or 1.0% of GDP. South Korea, sitting opposite the very unstable and dangerous North Korea, spends 33.4 million on defense or 2.4% of GDP. Taiwan, still claimed as a province by China, spends 10.2 billion or 1.9% of GDP.

In contrast China is spending 145.8 billion on defense or 1.2% of its GDP.

 

Now these are mostly IISS figures, there are somewhat different figures provided by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI). For example they have the U.S. budget figures at 596.0 (vice 597.5) but this makes up 3.9% of GDP (vice 3.3%). Not sure why there is such a big difference in the figures for percent of GDP. They have a much higher figure for China (215 billion at 1.9% of GDP), Russia (66.4 billion at 5.4% of GDP) and France (50.9 billion at 2.1% of GDP). They have a world total figure of 1,676 billion (of which the United States spending makes up 35.6%) while the IISS has a world total figure of 1,563 billion (of which the United States spending makes up 38.2%).

Of course, this does not address how much “bang for the buck” people are getting.

Wargaming the Defense of the Baltics

RAND Wargame
Source: David A. Shlapak and Michael Johnson. Reinforcing Deterrence on NATO’s Eastern Flank: Wargaming the Defense of the Baltics. Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation, 2016.

RAND has published a new report by analysts David A. Shlapak and Michael Johnson detailing their assessment of the threat to the Baltic republics of conventional invasion by Russian military forces. The conclusions of the study are sobering — that NATO could do little to prevent Russian military forces from effectively overrunning Latvia and Estonia in as few as 60 hours. Their analysis should provide plenty of food for thought.

Just as interesting, however, is that Shlapak and Johnson used old-style paper wargaming techniques to facilitate their analysis. The image above of their home-designed wargame above should warm the cockles of any Avalon Hill or SPI board wargame enthusiast of a certain age. As to why they chose this approach, they stated:

RAND developed this map-based tabletop exercise because existing models were ill-suited to represent the many unknowns and uncertainties surrounding a conventional military campaign in the Baltics, where low force-to-space ratios and relatively open terrain meant that maneuver between dispersed forces—rather than pushing and shoving between opposing units arrayed along a linear front—would likely be the dominant mode of combat.

While they did state that they used rules and tables governing movement and combat based on “offline modeling,” it is very curious that they did not find any of the many sophisticated Defense Department computer models and simulations available to be suitable for their task. They outline their methodology in an appendix, but promise to provide a fuller report at a later date.