Tag: war

In it for the long haul

In the short term, it’s good that ISIS didn’t blow the Mosul Dam. In the long run, that may be indicative of a more serious problem:

Kurdish fighters have recaptured Iraq’s largest dam from Jihadists amid ‘fierce resistance’ from Islamic fighters after support from US airstrikes, according to security officials. The strategically important Mosul Dam – which supplies electricity and water to a large part of the country – was captured a week ago.

An attempt to retake it began yesterday morning with US air strikes before Kurdish Peshmerga soldiers moved into the area.

I thought the seizure of the dam all but guaranteed ISIS dominating the region, because I assumed they would threaten to blow it if there were any attempts to retake it.  It’s a little surprising, because their strategy has been, until now, both ruthless and effective.

But it makes sense for ISIS to refrain from flooding the region if it is seriously intending to govern there. Speaking of ISIS aka ISIL, here is additional information from new Castalia author James Dunnigan, who is also one of the contributors to RIDING THE RED HORSE, and his excellent Strategy Page.

When ISIL overran northern Iraq in early June the Islamic terrorists captured a lot of heavy weapons used by the Iraqi Army. Over the last few years the U.S. has sold lots of used heavy weapons to Iraq at attractive prices. This has included 1,026 M-113 armored personnel carriers, 140 M-1A1 tanks, 21 M88A1 armored recovery vehicles and 60 M1070 tank transporters (which can also carry supplies or other vehicles.) Iraq also bought 24 M-109A5 self-propelled 155mm artillery, and 120 M198 155mm towed howitzers along with thousands of hummers and military trucks, plus infantry weapons, engineer gear and other military equipment.

In June ISIL captured about fifty of those M198 155mm towed howitzers and began looking for someone to operate this stuff. That was not difficult. This was because Sunni Arabs got most of the leadership (officer, senior NCO) and technical (like operating artillery) jobs during the decades of Saddam’s rule. ISIL has a large pool of experienced users of artillery. While most Iraqi artillery was Russian, they also had over a hundred Western 155mm models, like the South African GHN-45. This weapon was not only similar to the M198 but superior in some ways (like longer range). The main reason the U.S. disbanded the Iraqi armed forces after 2003 was the fact that nearly all the key personnel were Sunni Arabs, who had just lost power and access to most of the oil income. That loss of power and privilege made most Sunni Arabs very angry and that’s why to this day most Islamic terrorists in Iraq are Iraqi Sunni Arabs. Thus ISIL knew it had a waiting supply of qualified soldiers who knew how to operate an M198 and many were willing to do it without too much prompting.

In other words, the artillery at which the US air strikes have been primarily aimed are US-supplied howitzers with a 25-kilometer range. I’d say that is a powerful argument in favor of isolationism.

This may cause a problem

Ukraine is attacking Russian vehicles, which may or may not be invading Ukraine

Ukraine said its troops attacked and partially destroyed a column of armed vehicles that had crossed the border from Russian territory, while Russia said it was concerned about an attack on another convoy carrying aid.

Putin clearly needs to study at the feet of the brilliant strategists in Honduras and Guatemala. The correct way to safely cross a border is to send in children, or at least twenty-something armed men you claim to be children. Isn’t it interesting that Glen Beck is not in tears, insisting that every Ukrainians Christian duty is to go to the border and and meet those poor Russian trucks seeking a better life and offer them food and clothing.

The patient game

China is making use of its long-honed method for military dominance on the USA:

What is peculiar to China’s political culture, and of very great contemporary relevance is the centrality within it of a very specific doctrine on how to bring powerful foreigners—indeed foreigners initially more powerful than the empire—into a tributary relationship. Specialists concur that this doctrine emerged from the very protracted (3rd century BCE to 1st century CE) but ultimately successful struggle with the Xiongnú (匈奴) horse-nomad state, just possibly remote ancestors of Attila’s Huns, but definitely the inventors of the Steppe State political system that would be replicated by all their successors, and more adapted than replaced even by the Mongols….

The method forms a logical sequence:

  • Stage One: start by conceding all that must be conceded to the superior power including tribute, in order to avoid damage and obtain whatever forbearance is offered. But this in itself entangles the ruling class of the still-superior power in webs of material dependence that reduce its independent vitality and strength.
  • Stage Two: offer equality in a privileged bipolarity that excludes all lesser powers, or “G-2” in current parlance. That neutralizes the still powerful Other party, and isolates the manipulated soon-to-be former equal from all its potential allies, preventing from balancing China with a coalition.
  • Stage Three: finally, when the formerly superior power has been weakened enough, withdraw all tokens of equality and impose subordination.

Until the Chinese government decided—very prematurely I believe—to awaken the world to its classically imperial territorial ambitions by demanding the cession of lands, reefs, rocks, and sea waters from India, Japan, Malaysia, the Philippines, and Vietnam (demands that disturb and damage the concurrent Tianxia narrative of an alternative and more harmonious state system, disseminated even within the confines of Stanford University), it was making much progress towards Stage Two, the stage of equality preparatory to the final stage of subordination.

For all its weaknesses, and they are many, one thing that must be kept in mind is that the Chinese always play the long game. The Han have been playing this game and winning at it for a very long time; they are considerably more successful in historical terms than other ancient cultures such as the Greeks, the Romans, or the Jews. China is less than 70 years into its long-term struggle with the USA and has already reached the point where it is able to challenge the USA on a regional level; I very much doubt that its strategists are unaware that it took 147 years to subdue the Xiongnú.

Meanwhile, the USA is sinking into weakness and amalgamation with lesser, non-European cultures. I would expect Stage Two to be reached within the next 20 years. If the USA thought in similar terms, it would go to war with China now, while it still has the advantage. But US leadership doesn’t think further ahead than the next presidential election, or, as the rise of ISIS in the void of conquered Iraq demonstrates, in grand strategic terms.

What West?

With Easterners murdering Easterners again, the cry rises once more: the West must act!

  • The West must face the evil that has revealed itself in the Iraq genocide – Michael Nazir-Ali
  • The West must intervene in Iraq – Lord Dannatt
  • The decision to intervene is almost certainly the right call – Ross Douthat

Why? What possible interest does the West have in keeping Easterners from killing each other? France imported tens of thousands of pro-French Algerians to keep them from being murdered by other Algerians, now their police don’t dare to enter the slums inhabited by the grandchildren of those Algerians. The USA has been importing people from every single one of its post-WWI foreign engagements of the previous century, what benefit has that been to Americans beyond nearly exposing the people of Coon Rapids, Minnesota, to Ebola?

Did Rome concern itself when one Chinese king was slaughtering other Chinese? Did Imperial Japan intervene in the Dutch-Spanish war?

The West is in no position to help anyone now that it has been invaded by more than 30 million Muslims and Africans and 50 million Hispanics. With the center of gravity under assault, nothing at all will be accomplished elsewhere. Considering that the present debacle is the direct result of the last two failed Western interventions, why does anyone believe that a third one will improve anything, rather than make it worse?

Besides, the “West” is already involved. There are presently more than 500 “Britons” fighting with ISIS in Syria and Iraq. Which means the West shouldn’t concern itself with the wars over there, it should be preparing to fight the inevitable one over here.

Community cohesion and its foes

Apparently the new term for freedom of association is “community cohesion”:

A nun in east London climbed to the top of a local building and ripped down a flag similar to the one flown by Jihadist militants in Syria and Iraq.

IB Times reported Friday that the flag was being flown alongside Palestinian flags and slogans in support of Gaza. Community members issued complaints over the flag with local council members, claiming that it was causing tension within the community. When council members went to take the flag down, they were surprised to find, someone had beat them to it.

“The council can confirm that following reports this morning of a
flag erected on the Will Crooks Estate, council officials took steps to
remove it but found it had already been taken down by Sister Christine
Frost, a well-known local activist and promoter of community cohesion,” a
council spokesman said.

Some argued that the black flag with
arabic writing resembling the flags flown by ISIL, also known as ISIS,
was only a symbol of Muslim faith and was not flown in support of
militant groups.

Don’t listen to the taqiyyah. The black flag is a symbol of Islamic supremacy. It is a sad testament to the spineless men of the West that a woman has to act in their stead.

Never forget what ISIS stands for: murdered men, raped women, beheaded children, and the extermination of Christianity.

The Caliphate rises

Possibly on a wall of water:

Sunni militants from the Islamic State group on Thursday seized Iraq’s largest dam, placing them in control of enormous power and water resources and access to the river that runs through the heart of Baghdad. After a week of attempts, the armed gunmen successfully stormed the Mosul Dam and forced Kurdish forces to withdraw from the area, residents living near the dam told The Associated Press.

The Islamic State group posted a statement online Thursday, confirming that they had taken control of the dam and vowed to continue “the march in all directions,” adding that it not give up the “great Caliphate project.” The statement could not be verified but it was posted on a site frequently used by the group.

“The Mosul dam is now under Islamic State control,” Hisham al-Brefkani, a member of the Nineveh provincial council, said in a phone interview. “We call on the United Nations, the Security Council, the U.S. and the European Union to help.”

A dam employee, who was on site and asked that his name be withheld for safety reasons, confirmed that Islamic militants had overrun the installation.

It looks as if within a week, ISIS will control the two largest dams in Iraq if it can take control of the Haditha dam as well. They’ve already used flooding as a weapon, and it is reported that “Mosul could be completely flooded within hours and a 15-foot wall of water could crash into Baghdad.”

I doubt ISIS will try to drown Mosul and Baghdad as long as it looks like they’re winning, but this could mean serious problems even if someone in Iraq manages to get their act together and defeat them.

I had to laugh at Michael Ledeen’s take on the rise of the Caliphate. “When you ponder President Obama’s decision to (maybe) intervene against
ISIS in Iraq, keep in mind that such a move would please Tehran.  At
least for the moment.”

Sure, Mr. “Faster, Please”, the Iraqi invasion is turning out so well, obviously the US should have invaded Iran too. Ledeen even tries to blame Iran for ISIS’s success; never mind the fact that they are predominantly armed with weapons supplied by the USA. Rather like the mujahideen in Afghanistan, and we all know how well that turned out.

Failing to note the connection

I thought this passage by Max Hastings about Archduke Franz Ferdinand was interesting for several reasons:

The Archduke’s political and social views were conservative and vigorously expressed. After attending Edward VII’s 1910 funeral in London, he wrote home deploring the boorishness of most of his fellow sovereigns, and the alleged impertinence of some politicians present, notable among them ex-US president Theodore Roosevelt. It is sometimes suggested that Franz Ferdinand was an intelligent man. Even if this was so, like so many royal personages into modern times, he was corrupted by position, which empowered him to express opinions unenlightened even by contemporary standards.

He loathed Hungarians, telling the Kaiser: ‘the so-called noble, gentlemanly Magyar is a most infamous, anti-dynastic, lying, unreliable fellow’. He regarded southern Slavs as sub-humans, referring to the Serbians as ‘those pigs’. He hankered after recovering Lombardy and Venetia, lost to Italy in his lifetime, for the Hapsburg Empire. Visiting Russia in 1891, Franz Ferdinand declared that its autocracy offered ‘an admirable model’. Tsar Nicholas II recoiled from Franz Ferdinand’s intemperance, especially on racial matters. Both the Archduke and his wife were strongly Catholic, favouring Jesuits and professing hostility towards Freemasons, Jews and liberals. Such was Sophie’s religious fervour that in 1901 she led two hundred fashionable women on a Catholic march through Vienna.

The Archduke nonetheless cherished one prudent conviction: while many Austrians, notably including army chief of staff Gen. Conrad von Hötzendorf, detested Russia and welcomed the prospect of a battlefield showdown with the Tsar, Franz Ferdinand dissented. He was determined, he said repeatedly, to avoid a clash of arms. Desiring a ‘concord of emperors’, he wrote: ‘I shall never lead a war against Russia. I shall make sacrifices to avoid it. A war between Austria and Russia would end either with the overthrow of the Romanovs or with the overthrow of the Habsburgs – or perhaps the overthrow of both.’

He once wrote to Berchtold: ‘Excellency! Don’t let yourself be influenced by Conrad – ever! Not an iota of support for any of his yappings at the Emperor! Naturally he wants every possible war, every kind of hooray! rashness that will conquer Serbia and God knows what else … Through war he wants to make up for the mess that’s his responsibility at least in part. Therefore: let’s not play Balkan warriors ourselves. Let’s not stoop to this hooliganism. Let’s stay aloof and watch the scum bash in each other’s skulls. It’d be unforgivable, insane, to start something that would pit us against Russia.’

I find it remarkable that 100 years later, so many people are still more troubled by the idea that one man might consider a group of people to be scum than by the deaths of tens of millions. The notion that progressive politics and equalitarian sensibilities somehow equate to world peace, or even regional peace, simply do not stand up to historical scrutiny.

That “nonetheless” is false. Hastings fails to see the connection between Ferdinand’s racial intemperance and his reluctance to go to war, just as today’s multiculturalists and diversity advocates fail to see how their policies are leading to bloodshed that may make the trenches of World War I look mild in comparison.

It is the idea of inevitable progress that has reliably led to these massive blood-spillings. One notes that presently, in America, it is the neocons and the left-liberals who are keen to start a war with Russia, ignoring the mistakes made by the archduke’s peers a century ago.

4GW and Gaza II

First, I will note that the IDF estimates concerning the difficulty of conquering and de-militarizing Gaza were not dissimilar to my own observations:

The Cabinet was reportedly shown a presentation in the course of the war, outlining the IDF’s prediction of what taking control of Gaza would involve. According to the military’s estimates, conquering Gaza would take months and ridding it of all weapons would take five years. The cost would be hundreds of soldiers killed and 10 billion shekels.

That’s why the Hama model, where speed is of the essence, was never a serious option for Israel. That leaves the de-escalation model. The problem? How to de-escalate with a seemingly implacable enemy mixed in amongst a hostile population.

  1. Stop providing the non-combatants with more reasons to fight. I don’t know the exact ratio, but every single time a civilian is killed, that generates between one and ten new enemy combatants. Israel says it has killed 453 Hamas militants out of 1,498 Palestinian fatalities; that ratio means it is almost certainly creating more future combatants than it is killing current ones. That means no more airstrikes or artillery. They are counterproductive.
  2. Outsource the occupation. Egypt desperately needs food and money, and it has no shortage of Arab soldiers who are not in the least bit sympathetic to the Muslim Brotherhood or Hamas. That’s where some of those 10 billion shekels should be spent. Establish a number of outposts with well-paid Egyptian soldiers to provide basic policing and human intelligence. Support those outposts with rapid response IDF teams who will go in at night to act on the operable intelligence gathered in a manner essentially invisible to the local population. Immediately send those soldiers who are corrupt or show an inclination for violence, indiscipline, or being subverted back to Egypt and a big reduction in pay.
  3. Flood the civilian population with food and consumer goods, preferably distributed by the Egyptians and Fatah.
  4. Bring the civilian wounded to Israeli hospitals, give them first-rate care, and financially compensate the families of all civilian casualties.
  5. End the siege. Yes, Hamas will claim victory. See #7.
  6. Convince Egypt to accept small groups of families of those who are working with them the right to settle in an area of Egypt for which Israel will pay for the development. Deputy Speaker Feiglin wants to build another Jaffa, and his instincts are right, but it cannot be within Gaza itself. A place of refuge from Hamas will be needed, and it must be outside Israel. Protect it with Iron Dome.
  7. Ignore the militants. Don’t seek to talk to them, don’t pay any attention to their ceasefires or requests, don’t complain about their actions, and don’t respond to their PR salvos. The war at the moral level is won by actions, not words.

Remember, the idea of the de-escalation model is not to defeat the enemy, but rather to convince the bulk of the population it has no reason to fight and thereby isolate the militants, who can then be gradually picked off and made weaker over time. Due to the Israeli-Arab issue, the IDF probably can’t ever hope to win over the population by itself, but its Arab proxies could reasonably expect to do so. Israel probably can’t ever “win” in the medium term without resorting to measures the world would deem absolutely unacceptable, but it can hope to achieve relative safety and security for both sides.

It may sound counterintuitive, but Israel cannot achieve this relative peace as long as it is unwilling to accept more casualties than it causes. There are admittedly numerous flaws with this plan, chief among them the ability of the Egyptian soldiers to remain calm and disciplined in the face of the inevitable provocation. But it is much more likely to lead to success than the futile 2GW pound-and-ground approach.

Because 4GW is a process that resists conclusive engagements, 4GW counterinsurgency tactics must accept that reality and abandon any notion of seeking them. Such efforts are not only doomed to failure, but will usually make the situation worse in the long term. 4GW is based on the death-by-a-thousand-cuts model, so the correct way to fight back is to increase your ability to cut the other guy while reducing his ability to cut you.

Anyhow, those are just some thoughts from a complete military non-expert. And I think that’s enough about Zion for the time being. It’s time to turn our attention to the more serious conflict brewing in Eastern Europe.

4GW and Gaza I

I’ve been editing a book on Fourth Generation War theory, so it has been fascinating to see how some of the principles it expounds are being put into action, while others are ignored, by both sides in the Gaza Tunnel War. Before offering my requested take on the situation, I think it would be useful to first look at the current IDF strategy:

After withdrawing the bulk of its ground troops from the Gaza Strip in a “new phase” of its counter-terror operation, Israel declared a unilateral humanitarian ceasefire for seven hours starting 10 a.m. Monday, Aug. 4 to facilitate the entry of humanitarian aid and for displaced Palestinians to return to their homes. Eastern Rafah was not included. The IDF would respond to any attacks during that time.

But on the quiet, the IDF was on the process of conducting a major strategic operation, carving out a buffer strip or cordon sanitaire just inside the Gaza border, designed to be controlled from outside by special forces and armored units on round-the-clock alert, to bar hostile infiltrations. They are equipped with a battery of firing posts, sensors and drones.

This sterile strip runs 65km from Beit Hanoun in the north to Khan Younis in the south, roughly following one of Gaza’s only motorways, Highway 6 (see map). All the territory east of this line up to the Israeli border has been cleared of buildings and vegetation to a depth of 1 km in the north and center of Gaza and 2-3 km deep in such areas as Khan Younis.

Retreat and fortify. This is a classic 2GW response by a state actor to a non-state actor. Build fortresses, isolate your troops from the enemy, and prepare for massive responses of steel-on-target when incursions take place. It’s based on the same principle as the USA’s Green Zone strategy used in Baghdad and other places. The problem is that while the response is perfectly sensible and psychologically comforting to the troops, it is not going to work against a 4GW opponent who is attacking on the moral and mental levels as well as the conventional Clausewitzian levels. As Debka has noted, this means the Gaza war has now entered an attrition phase. Meanwhile, the Washington Post describes the new tactics of Hamas, Hezbollah, and ISIS:

We see these newly formed pseudo-armies emerging across the Levant as well. The Darwinian process of wartime immersion has forced them to either get better or die.

Some observers of the transformation admit that Hezbollah now is among the most skilled light infantry on the planet. And now there is Hamas. Gone are the loose and fleeting groups of fighters seen during Operation Cast Lead in 2008. In Gaza they have been fighting in well-organized, tightly bound teams under the authority of connected, well-informed commanders. Units stand and fight from building hideouts and tunnel entrances. They wait for the Israelis to pass by before ambushing them from the rear. Like Hezbollah and the Islamic State, they are getting good with second-generation weapons such as the Russian RPG-29 and, according to as-yet-unconfirmed reports from the fighting in Gaza, wire-guided anti-tank missiles.

These fighters are now well-armed, well-trained and well-led and are often flush with cash to buy or bribe their way out of difficulties. 

Until you read the Handbook, you can’t understand how hair-raisingly familiar the words such as “light infantry”, “flush with cash”, “ambush”, and “tightly bound teams” are. These new “pseudo-armies” have not only clearly read van Creveld and Lind, they are actively putting the military principles those strategists have outlined into action. And since we know that newer generation warfare reliably defeats older generation warfare, the Israeli defeat in Gaza, (or, if you prefer, the IDF’s inability to achieve its stated objectives) was predictable, if not inevitable.

What struck me most from the most recent round of fighting is that the 4GW Hama model is not really an option for Israel. Gaza is simply too big, Hamas is too prepared, and the IDF is too small and casualty-averse. Keep in mind that the Germans threw 270,000 troops at Stalingrad, 100,000 more than exist in the entire IDF, and still couldn’t take it in five months. In nearly one month of action, the IDF ground offensive went no further than three kilometers into Gaza. That’s not to say that it couldn’t have gone deeper, or that Hamas has even a fraction of the 187,000 troops at its disposal that the Red Army did at Stalingrad, but it is obvious that doing so would have cost a lot more than the 63 lives already lost and caused even more civilian casualties.

That leaves the 4GW de-escalation model. But how do you de-escalate in the face of a seemingly implacable enemy who is often actively seeking escalation? That is a matter for the next post on the subject.

ISIS defeats Kurds

Iraq may be turning into a bigger problem than initially anticipated:

Islamic State fighters seized control of Iraq’s biggest dam, an oilfield and two more towns on Sunday after inflicting their first major defeat on Kurdish forces since sweeping through the region in June. Local officials said militants with the extremist group Islamic State took control of the towns of Zumar and Sinjar near the city of Mosul on Sunday, waging fierce clashes with Kurdish forces. The French news agency AFP quoted a United Nations spokesman saying 200,000 people have fled Sinjar and said there are grave concerns for their safety.

The Kurds are considered reasonably respectable fighters, even if, as Tom Kratman can attest, they don’t always fight fair. But if ISIS is able to not only defeat the feeble state forces, but the Kurdish peshmerga as well, this would appear to indicate that they’ll be able to take Baghdad soon and use it as the center of their new caliphate.

And that is without taking the strategic effect of the dam into account. That being said, it was a fairly small skirmish, so may indicate nothing concerning the two parties’ relative capabilities.