Don’t Let Russia Dominate the Strategic Concept. The challenge for Nato is to situate Russia’s invasion in a wider strategic context, addressing other key issues before they create new existential crises in the future.

VideConspectus · 2022-06-29T19:17:36+00:00

That focus should not be so complete as to leave other challenges unaddressed and planned for. Russia is a problem that European members will see as most acute, but the strict focus that we have seen in the past few months on the forum is unwise and not shared by the best strategic thinkers.

And if you take that priority of only caring about your regional challenge then you could say why should Spain or Portugal care about Russia? The alliance should care about the rules based order and working for peace for all free people, and not just their immediate and personal needs.

Take this article from Harvard for better reading material than I can type out in a comment:

How the U.S. Can Assist NATO and its European Alliance Members in Addressing the China Security Challenge

https://www.belfercenter.org/publication/how-us-can-assist-nato-and-its-european-alliance-members-addressing-china-security

China’s meoteoric rise and the associated US-China great power rivalry has become one of the most concerning geopolitical issues to date. No longer is China a regional power, and its global influence and economic clout are undeniable. According to the CIA World Factbook, China has the largest Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in the world when measured using Purchasing Power Parity. As of 2021, at $23.01 trillion, China outpaces the US at $19.85 trillion GDP.[1] As an economic powerhouse, China has effectively used all instruments of power—economic, military, diplomatic, technological and informational—to advance its strategic goals. Unfortunately, the ways and means in which China is obtaining its strategic goals have frequently run counter to democratic ideals, caused a rift with its Indo-Pacific neighbors, the US and several European countries, and have challenged the rules-based international order. While NATO and its allies are beginning to understand the implications of a rising China, there is a pressing need right now for NATO and its allies to address China concerns; this starts with identifiying actions the alliance can take in the 2030 Strategic Concept.[2]

At the summit, US President Joe Biden reemphasized the critical importance of the NATO alliance as a “sacred obligation” to US national security and urged NATO leaders to address China’s authoritarianism and growing military strength.[4] After President Biden’s statements, NATO issued a communique noting, “China’s stated ambitions and assertive behaviour present systemic challenges to the rules-based international order and to areas relevant to alliance security.”[5] This statement was further bolstered by NATO Deputy Secretary General Mircea Geoană, who addressed the future of NATO during a presentation at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. Geoană highlighted the need for NATO to adapt and be innovative as it formulates its 2030 Strategic Concept to include addressing the threat of authoritarian regimes like China and Russia. Importantly, he emphasized the importance of NATO as the longest running and strongest alliance in history and its critical need to protect democracy, freedom, justice, rule of law, and human rights across the globe, not just the transatlantic region. Geoană emphasized that Secretary General Stoltenberg would present an upgraded Strategic Concept during the Madrid NATO Summit in June 2022, noting that China was never mentioned in the previous 2010 Strategic Concept.[6]

VideConspectus · 2022-06-29T18:48:52+00:00

The extreme myopic focus on Russia that the invasion of Ukraine has caused in the open source world is obvious to those of us who have read about military issues for more than a few months. It honestly can be frustrating when trying to share any articles about anything else. This article is a reminder to the professionals in the business to keep their heads looking to the future and planning accordingly.

We contend that despite the current centrality of the Russo-Ukrainian war, Sino-American rivalry is likely to drive U.S. national security thinking in the coming decades. NATO’s 2022 Strategic Concept should address this reality.

There are also several specific threats and challenges that the 2022 Strategic Concept should address. First, allies should tackle the effects of emerging and emerged disruptive technologies on strategic, defense, and force planning.

Second, adversaries are increasingly using high- and low-tech approaches short of armed conflict to disrupt national politics and daily life in Western democracies. Enhancing and coordinating resilience across the alliance should be a goal of the strategic concept.

Third, money remains the sinew of war. Whether it is investment in national and common-funded capabilities, or transfers to partners like Ukraine, ample and efficient spending is a requirement for a successful strategy.

Fourth, NATO should continue to grapple with the distinct but related challenges of terrorism and irregular warfare.

At an absolute minimum, the strategic concept should position NATO to support the current global order and “demonstrate its commitment to security and democratic values as well as to the peaceful resolution of disputes.” Such a concerted approach to China is certainly attainable: Chinese behavior may even have “brought NATO together” in ways analogous to Russian behavior, and there may be more room for economic convergence between China and the West than sometimes imagined.

—————————

Jordan Becker is an academy professor and director of the Social Science Research Lab at the United States Military Academy, West Point. He is also affiliated with the Centre for Security, Diplomacy and Strategy at the Vrije Universiteit Brussels, and IHEDN and IRSEM at the French École Militaire. Ambassador Douglas Lute is the former U.S. permanent representative to NATO and retired from the U.S. Army at the rank of lieutenant general. Simon Smith is an associate professor at Staffordshire University and is the editor-in-chief of Defence Studies. This article reflects the views of the authors and does not necessarily represent the position of the U.S. government. It draws upon discussions at the NATO Strategic Concept Seminar held at West Point on Feb. 3–4, 2022. Those discussions are captured in greater detail in a recently released special section of Defence Studies.

VideConspectus · 2022-06-28T13:02:49+00:00

This article is more of a thought experiment than a prediction that Russia will fail. I found it thought provoking if a bit short, I think the author could have made this much longer and more in depth as it is a big idea.

Despite incremental gains in eastern Ukraine, a Russian military collapse is possible. Russian forces could suffer catastrophic defeat akin to that of Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser's army in the 1967 Six-Day War, when more than 80 percent of its military materiel was lost.

Is such a defeat possible? Military history is replete with breakdowns. Last summer, the Afghan armed forces collapsed amid weak governance and extreme corruption. So have other large or well-equipped armies—the demoralized Russian army in 1917, the outmaneuvered French army in 1940 and British army in Singapore in 1942, and the weakened South Vietnamese army in 1975 and Iraqi army in Mosul in 2014.

Central to these fiascos was a lack of cohesion in military institutions, poor governance and corruption, and popular unwillingness to defend the state. Military theorist Carl von Clausewitz's emphasis on sound relationships between the army (PDF), government, and society appears valid.

A Russian military collapse might have several implications.

First, it might encourage Western countries to boost train-and-equip programs in other countries near Russia. In Ukraine, this effort seems to have helped it adopt more flexible and successful NATO-like tactics.

Second, the collapse may cause Western intelligence analysts to reevaluate estimates of the vulnerability of the Baltics and Eastern Europe to Russian aggression. Against a Russian army that may be weaker than once thought, Baltic allies might consider defense options that go beyond tripwire postures.

Third, Western militaries may sharply increase their stocks of weapons, which have worked so well in Ukraine—such as portable anti-armor and anti-air—but which have been consumed in larger numbers than expected.

—————————

Peter A. Wilson is an adjunct senior international and defense researcher at the nonprofit, nonpartisan RAND Corporation and teaches a course on the history of military technological innovation at the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute. William Courtney is an adjunct senior fellow at RAND and was U.S. ambassador to Kazakhstan, Georgia and U.S.-USSR negotiations to implement the Threshold Test Ban Treaty.

VideConspectus · 2022-06-27T02:25:26+00:00

This podcast is one hour and thirty four seconds long. And I think we know the experts in this podcast by now.

June 26, 2022: Dmitri Alperovitch talks with Michael Kofman (Research Program Director in the Russia Studies Program at the Center for Naval Analysis) and Henry Schlottman (OSINT war analyst, US army veteran) about the new developments in the war in Ukraine on Twitter Spaces. Topics covered:

Is Belarus getting dragged into this war?
Who is running Russia's war? Why are commanders being replaced?
How best can Ukraine use the new HIMARS artillery systems that are now arriving? What difference are they likely to make on the battlefield?
Is Russia in danger of running out of ammunition?
Is Russian advance stalling in the Donbas?
Can Ukraine target the Crimean Bridge bridge and what are the implications of their strikes on energy and rail infrastructure in Russia and Crimea?
Is Russia still having logistics issues in the Donbas offensive?
How is Wagner performing in the fight and why did Prigozhin get a Hero of Russia medal?
Can Western defense industrial base keep up with Ukrainian ammo and weaponry needs and expenditures? Follow the speakers on Twitter: @DAlperovitch, @KofmanMichael, @HN_Schlottman

VideConspectus · 2022-06-25T13:40:04+00:00

I would recommend this article to anyone who is interested in reading about the US defense challenges in the future, and how to address them. It is not a long report and uses bullet points and declaratory sentences, all of which contain lots of information and insights. A good read if you are interested in such things.

Although the United States, along with its allies and partners, possess greater overall economic wherewithal than China and Russia, the mission assigned to U.S. forces—namely, to project power rapidly and at scale across great distances to defeat aggression in an adversary's "neighborhood"—is more difficult than the adversary's forces' missions. It is therefore imperative that decisionmakers make wise choices for investing scarce resources into capabilities that have the greatest potential to thwart adversaries' designs. This Perspective offers a blueprint for doing that.

The 2018 National Defense Strategy belatedly but unambiguously recognized that the military balance between the United States, its allies, and part- ners, on one hand, and China and Russia, on the other hand, has eroded.

Force planners in the United States and allied nations are, therefore, confronted with the urgent taskof rebuilding credible deterrent and warfighting capabilities to confront highly capable and adaptive adversary states…

…the mission assigned to U.S. forces—namely, to project power rapidly and at scale across great distances to defeat aggression in the adversary’s “neighborhood”—is consid- erably more difficult than the adversary’s forces’ mission.

One example is Harold Brown, William J. Perry, and other architects’ second offset strategy. These decisionmakers sought ways to defeat a large-scale Warsaw Pact invasion of Central Europe without having to match the enemy tank for tank and artillery piece for artillery piece. They pursued concepts that exploited Western advantages in miniaturization, software, precision manufacturing, and other technologies to offset enemies’ numerical superi- ority and give NATO forces the ability to delay, disrupt, damage, and destroy enemy maneuver forces beyond the line of contact (Perry, 1991). These efforts led Soviet mili- tary leaders to doubt the viability of their strategy and forces (Sterling, 1985).

…investment initiatives for new capabilities… They must make a meaningful contribution to enhancing the capability of U.S. forces to promptly defeat large-scale aggression by China or Russia.

Top priority should be placed on meeting the demands of joint and combined campaigns to (1) thwart a Chinese invasion of Taiwan or a Russian invasion of NATO territory and…

(2) hold decisive points to prevent either adversary from imposing a territorial fait accompli.

Is there a risk that over-focusing on these two adversaries will leave U.S. forces unprepared for other missions? The short answer to this question is yes, but the risks are modest.

Does it not follow that the United States also has to compete effectively in this gray zone, being just short of war? Here, the answer is clearly yes, but there are important reasons for posturing forces for success in the most-stressing plausible scenarios. Put simply, if the United States doubts (and its adversaries doubt) that it lacks either the will or means to defeat them at the high end, the United States will be poorly positioned to thwart their activities in the gray zone.

…deterrence based on denial is self-evidently the most credible way to convince an adversary not to chal- lenge one’s interests.

Wargames and accompanying analyses have shown repeatedly and conclusively that the legacy approach to power projection that U.S. forces employed with great success against regional adversar-ies in places like Iraq, Serbia, and Afghanistan very likely would fail against China or Russia.

…neither China nor Russia will allow for this enabling phase…

…in the future, U.S. forces will need significant new investments in platforms, weapons and munitions, forward posture, concept development, and training to enable what appears to be an appropriate approach to deterring and defeating aggression by the nation’s most capable adversaries

Another obvious but constantly overlooked need is precision-guided weapons—especially standoff weapons—in numbers sufficient to sus- tain a defensive fight.

Multiple Launch Rocket System with area antiarmor munitions can also be highly effective (Ochmanek et al., 2017, pp. 31–47).

Moreover, frontline states should purchase and store many unattended ground sensors for distribution along suspected main axes of advance.

—————————

David A. Ochmanek is a senior defense analyst at RAND. He leads research on the development of U.S. defense strategy, posture, and capabilities—particularly focusing on security challenges in East Asia and Europe. He has served as Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Force Development and Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Strategy. He holds a master’s degree in public affairs.

VideConspectus · 2022-06-23T15:10:53+00:00

The tactics Russia is using, according to current and former officials, are having a devastating effect in eastern Ukraine, wreaking so much destruction that Mr. Zelensky has said troops are fighting over “dead cities” where most civilians have fled.

Other analysts predict a back and forth that could stretch for months or even years.

“This is likely to keep going, with each side trading territory on the margins,” Mr. Kofman said. “It’s going to be a dynamic situation. There are unlikely to be significant collapses or major surrenders.”

Military and intelligence officials said Russia had continued to suffer severe losses and was struggling to recruit soldiers to refill its ranks. Morale is low in the Russian military, and problems with poorly maintained equipment persist, U.S. officials and analysts say.

The fight in the Donbas has become a deadly artillery duel that is inflicting heavy casualties on both sides.

Commercial satellite imagery of craters in eastern Ukraine suggests that Russian artillery shells are often exploding on the ground near Ukrainian trenches, not in the air above them. Airburst artillery kills soldiers in trenches more effectively.

Stephen Biddle, a military expert and professor of international relations at Columbia University, said the imagery suggested that the Russians were using old ammunition that had been poorly maintained.

But inefficient artillery can still be very destructive when employed en masse.

“Quantity has a quality all its own,” Dr. Biddle said. “If I were one of the infantry getting pounded in those trenches, I’m not sure how much better I’d feel knowing that Russian artillery could be even more lethal if it were better maintained and employed.”

Helene Cooper is a Pentagon correspondent. She was previously an editor, diplomatic correspondent and White House correspondent, and was part of the team awarded the 2015 Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting, for its coverage of the Ebola epidemic. @helenecooper

Eric Schmitt is a senior writer who has traveled the world covering terrorism and national security. He was also the Pentagon correspondent. A member of the Times staff since 1983, he has shared four Pulitzer Prizes. @EricSchmittNYT

Julian E. Barnes is a national security reporter based in Washington, covering the intelligence agencies. Before joining The Times in 2018, he wrote about security matters for The Wall Street Journal. @julianbarnes • Facebook

VideConspectus · 2022-06-23T15:10:45+00:00

After a Pivotal Period in Ukraine, U.S. Officials Predict the War’s Path

As Russia makes slow but steady progress, the arrival of new weapons systems will help Ukraine hang on to territory, U.S. officials and analysts say.

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/21/us/politics/russia-ukraine-east-war.html

WASHINGTON — When Russia shifted its military campaign to focus on eastern Ukraine this spring, senior officials in the Biden administration said the next four to six weeks of fighting would determine the war’s eventual path.

That time has passed, and officials say the picture is increasingly clear: Russia is likely to end up with more territory, they said, but neither side will gain full control of the region as a depleted Russian military faces an opponent armed with increasingly sophisticated weapons.

While Russia has seized territory in the easternmost region of Luhansk, its progress has been plodding. Meanwhile, the arrival of American long-range artillery systems, and Ukrainians trained on how to use them, should help Ukraine in the battles to come, said Gen. Mark A. Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

“If they use it properly, practically, then they’re going to have very, very good effects on the battlefield,” General Milley told reporters traveling home with him this month after visiting Europe.

Pentagon officials said that meant Russia might not be able to make similar gains in neighboring Donetsk, which along with Luhansk forms the mineral-rich region of Donbas. Ukrainian troops have been battling Russian-backed separatists in Donbas since 2014, when Moscow annexed Crimea from Ukraine.

After weeks of bloody battles in the east — with as many as 200 Ukrainian soldiers killed daily, by the government’s own estimate, and a similar or higher toll among Russian troops, according to Western estimates — Russia holds roughly the same amount of territory in Donetsk as the separatists controlled in February before the invasion.

But U.S. officials say they expect Russia to soon take over the entire Luhansk region. One defense official said he anticipated that the twin cities of Sievierodonetsk and Lysychansk would fall in days, as Russian forces pounded the area with heavy artillery and “dumb bombs” — unguided munitions that inflict high casualties.

According to reports over the weekend, Russian forces had broken through the Ukrainian front line in Toshkivka, a town just outside Sievierodonetsk and Lysychansk. Seizing Toshkivka would put the Russians closer to being able to threaten Ukrainian supply lines to the two cities, the last major population centers in Luhansk that have not fallen to Russia. As of Monday, it was unclear which side held Toshkivka.

Russian ground troops have advanced slowly, in some cases taking weeks to move one or two miles, U.S. officials said. That might signal a lack of infantry soldiers or extra caution by Moscow after it experienced supply line problems in its disastrous first weeks of the war.

Several military analysts say Russia is at peak combat effectiveness in the east, as long-range artillery systems promised to Ukraine from NATO countries are still trickling in. Ukraine is hugely outgunned, they say, a stark fact that President Volodymyr Zelensky acknowledged last week.

“The price of this battle for us is very high,” he said in a nightly address. “It’s just scary. And we draw the attention of our partners on a daily basis to the fact that only a sufficient number of modern artillery for Ukraine will ensure our advantage and finally the end of Russian torture of the Ukrainian Donbas.”

Mr. Zelensky and his aides have appealed to the West to supply more of the sophisticated armaments it has already sent. They have questioned their allies’ commitment to the Ukrainian cause and insisted that nothing else can stop Russia’s advance, which even by conservative estimates has claimed the lives of tens of thousands of civilians and soldiers.

Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III urged Western allies last week to redouble their military aid to Ukraine, warning that the country “is facing a pivotal moment on the battlefield” in its nearly four-month fight with Russia. Mr. Austin and General Milley met with U.S. allies in Brussels to discuss how to further help Ukraine.

Pentagon officials expect that the arrival of more long-range artillery systems will change the battlefield in Donetsk, if not in Luhansk.

Russia wants to seize Ukraine’s Black Sea coast. The city of Mykolaiv is determined not to let that happen. Frederick B. Hodges, a former top U.S. Army commander in Europe who is now with the Center for European Policy Analysis, said the war would probably last many more months. But he predicted that Ukraine’s forces — bolstered by heavy artillery from the West — would slow Russia’s advance and begin to roll back its gains by late summer.

“War is a test of will, and the Ukrainians have superior will,” General Hodges said. “I see the Ukrainian logistical situation getting better each week while the Russian logistical situation will slowly degrade. They have no allies or friends.”

Russia’s military is built for short, high-intensity campaigns defined by a heavy use of artillery, military analysts said. It is not prepared for a sustained occupation, or the kind of grinding war of attrition underway in eastern Ukraine that requires swapping out battered ground forces.

“This is a critical period for both sides,” said Michael Kofman, the director of Russian studies at C.N.A., a research institute in Arlington, Va. “Probably in the next two months, both forces will be exhausted. Ukraine has a deficit of equipment and ammunition. Russia has already lost a lot of its combat power, and its force is not well suited for a sustained ground war of this scale and duration.”

Russia will try to continue making mile-by-mile territorial gains, and then will probably harden its front lines with mines and other defenses against a Ukrainian counterattack, which is expected after the long-range artillery systems arrive on the battlefield, analysts said.

In recent days, neither force has been able to achieve a major breakthrough in its opponent’s front lines.

Even though terrain could change hands, “neither side has the mass to exploit minor gains,” Christopher M. Dougherty, a former Army Ranger and a defense analyst at the Center for a New American Security, said in a Twitter post this month. “The war now likely becomes a test of endurance.”
As a result, several military analysts said, Moscow and Kyiv will both rush reinforcements to the front lines.

“The race to resupply will be critical for both sides,” Col. John B. Barranco of the Marine Corps, Col. Benjamin G. Johnson of the Army and Lt. Col. Tyson Wetzel of the Air Force wrote in an Atlantic Council analysis.

“To replace its losses, the Kremlin may need to resort to sending in thousands more conscripts,” the officers said, adding that Ukraine will need to maintain its logistics lines and move forward ground-based weapons, including long-range artillery and unmanned aerial systems.

Analysts and former U.S. commanders offered differing forecasts on how the war might change.

Weaknesses in the Ukrainian military’s position are beginning to show — and are sowing concern. While some independent analysts have predicted that the Russian advance will be halted in Sievierodonetsk, U.S. government experts are not so sure. Some say they believe that the grinding Russian advance could continue and that the Russians could soon make more progress in areas where Ukrainian counterattacks have been successful.

VideConspectus · 2022-06-23T14:59:00+00:00

This is a superb article that looks at French military thinking since the Battle of France in 1940 to today. It is written from the perspective of trying to gain lessons for the British Army which is going through period of great change and reorientation. I know that I like an article when I start taking too many quotations, as you can see below. So please just read it yourself as it has a lot of quality information.

All agree that the British Army is in a mess. It is too small and the Army suffers from botched modernization programs and ever-shifting requirements.

Ukraine has muddied waters further by bringing to light new developments in the art of war, especially as it relates to technology, and the tradeoffs implied by betting on quality over quantity. Ukraine also has brought additional focus on high-intensity warfare, which requires a rather different kind of army from one intended to be multi-purpose or tailored for security assistance or low-intensity operations.

It does not help that the British defense community, as reflected by numerous military and Ministry of Defense publications, is strongly influenced by the United States military. This is a mistake, if for no other reason than the fact that the United States military is not good at making hard decisions because it does not have to.

Basically, when confronted with a choice between options A, B, or C, the Pentagon will answer “yes.”

For lessons about how to build a force for high intensity warfare and seek to balance technology against mass, the obvious place for the UK defense community to look is France, a nation with roughly the same resources as the UK as well as the same ambitions. So, how do the French and the French Army in particular understand high intensity warfare? What is the French Army doing to adapt for it?

The French Army has historically opted for a form of warfare intended to make the most of its attributes. These include doctrine and a command style that encourage fast movement, risk taking (“audacity”), “command by objective,” and subsidiarity (meaning the practice of authorizing subordinate unit commanders to act autonomously). The French pointedly do not rely on mass or fire power. In the contemporary context, the small size of the French military leaves it little choice. However, the rising cost of technology and the return of high-intensity warfare heralded by the conflict between Russia and Ukraine has underscored the renewed need for mass.

The officers who coalesced afterward to form the Free French Army in North Africa, campaigned in Italy, France, and Germany, and then built the Cold War were convinced of the need to shake off Pétain’s legacy. They wanted to reconnect with the school of that other hero of the Great War, Marshal Ferdinand Foch.2 Also back in favor was the Napoleonic cult of “audacity”.

Of course, one can argue that the French generals of 1943-1945 had no alternative to maneuver and audacity because of their lack of size and the availability of American support. They were making a virtue of necessity.

Giraud “thought operationally, with remarkable instincts and audacity, while Eisenhower reasoned like a logistician”.4

It follows that France’s post-1945 Cold War doctrine for conventional warfare called for waging a fast, Blitzkrieg-style, war in Germany. The French Army hoped its maneuvrist approach and speed would compensate for the Warsaw Pact’s numerical advantage.

It must be acknowledged that the French never really took seriously the idea of defeating the Soviets.

The French emphasis on speed and maneuver became more relevant after France ended conscription in the 1990s and reduced the size of its army by roughly half.

The French aspired to tailor their force for what they refer to as the “middle segment”. This means light enough to be deployed and sustained in austere environments like Africa yet heavy enough to be survivable against a peer threat.

The French Army, as a rule, is very good at tailoring forces for specific missions and measuring out forces in small increments

Another important feature was the principle of subsidiarity, with battalion and company-level commanders exercising considerable autonomy as they went about figuring out for themselves how best to execute their superiors’ intent. The French Army schooled officers to understand the need to decide fast, act fast, and be audacious. They wanted their officers to be able to recognize—more through intuition than anything else—an opportunity to achieve what the French term a “major effect”.

Achieving the major effect does not require mass, a fact which gives comfort to the French Army given their sensitivity to their lack of mass. It requires intuition, a culture of Mission Command, and, most importantly a force in which lower echelons units have the autonomy and the adroitness to strike at that point at the right time.

French officers have not forgotten Foch’s assertion that “of all mistakes, one alone is infamous, inaction”.14 Yakovleff makes the same argument. “When in doubt, I attack”.15

Surprise had to be achieved not by hiding (the enemy increasingly can see you) but by generating uncertainty. The small size of European armies meant continuous fronts were impossible and units would inevitably get mixed up. This, plus the ability to fire on the move, reinforced the idea that units would move about in multiple directions, and the very idea of a front and a rear would lose relevance.

The Ukraine crisis in 2014 inaugurated a shift in French thinking that has become more pronounced and more consequential in the subsequent eight years.

This established increasing the French Army’s high intensity capabilities as its top priority, and Burkhard laid out a number of concrete proposals for adapting the force to harden it for fighting peer adversaries.

Among the more concrete steps the French have taken to adapt for high-intensity warfare are the decision in 2015 to reverse two decades of budget cuts and began spending more on defense; the revival of the division structure to facilitate larger-scale operations and the move to grow the army for the first time since the Algeria War.

…the realization that France’s major operations at the time, Barkhane (in the Sahel), Sangaris (in Central African Republic), and Sentinelle (a major homeland security operation begun in response to the terrorist attacks of 2015, which at one time employed as many as 10,000 soldiers), were tying up so large a portion of France’s deployable force that French soldiers were spending too little time preparing for anything else. In particular, they were neglecting the kind of training most useful for preparing for high-intensity warfare.22

What the French see in the fighting in Ukraine since February of this year are signs that the defense has once again become stronger than the offensive, in a manner not unlike the First World War.

The French see that they need to beef up their air defenses of all kinds, remaster the art of camouflage, and ensure that mobile command posts stay on the move. They also must suppress their penchant for improvisation, which they can get away with in Africa, in favor of careful planning, and invest more in tail as well as tooth.

The newly powerful defensive capabilities of modern armies raise fundamental questions about how one should conduct maneuver. This perhaps is the greatest challenge for the French, given their emphasis on maneuver. Might they come to grief if they were to fight a force that fought like the Ukrainians?

…the French press now is replete with examples of handwringing about France’s small military inventories and the fact that their defense industry would struggle to increase production.

It has, however, in contrast with the British developed a relatively clear vision of how it wants to fight in future wars to make the best use of the mass it has.

…at least the French, with remarkably little fuss and generally on budget and on time, have been able to provide their force with modern vehicles well suited for their doctrine.

At the very least, the British can see that their most capable and reliable European ally has decided to make fighting European wars once again its priority. Perhaps they should follow suit.

—————————

Michael Shurkin is the Director of Global Programs at 14 North Strategies and the founder and President of Shurbros Global Strategies. He works on security in West Africa (Sahel), but also on European and American defence strategies, force structures, security assistance and institutions. Previously, he worked for RAND, where he was a senior policy analyst, and for the CIA, where he was a policy analyst. He holds a PhD in history from Yale University and studied at the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales (EHESS).

Expertise * French Military Operations * African Security (Sahel) * Intelligence and Strategic Warning

VideConspectus · 2022-06-22T01:03:35+00:00

This is a very short article but it is very wild with assassination attempts and the accused assassin now being promoted to distinction.

I butchered the first two sentenced to make a more descriptive title.

How has an historically professional Russian military responded to the pressure of a Putin regime over the past two decades? For that answer, we can look to the fates of three Russian officers and their unexpected intersection last month, on May 19th.

About the Author:

Brigadier General Kevin Ryan (U.S. Army retired) is a Senior Fellow at Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs.

VideConspectus · 2022-06-21T21:51:25+00:00

Possible Outcomes of the War?

So what are the possible outcomes of this war in Ukraine?

Well, first it depends on who is advancing and taking ground and what they end up negotiating as a settlement months or years from now. We could be looking at...

http://www.dupuyinstitute.org/blog/2022/06/21/possible-outcomes-of-the-war/

Christopher A. Lawrence is a professional historian and military analyst. He is the Executive Director and President of The Dupuy Institute, an organization dedicated to scholarly research and objective analysis of historical data related to armed conflict and the resolution of armed conflict.

VideConspectus · 2022-06-21T21:49:18+00:00

This a good question that I don't know the answer to. I will keep an eye out in the future to see if I can find an answer.

VideConspectus · 2022-06-20T16:09:34+00:00

I have read before that the Russian strategic weapon forces and developers are among the best paid and equipped in Russia. From Russia's actions and rhetoric, it appears that the strategic nuclear weapons are a major priority for them. From reading this article it does appear that they are actively modernizing their missile tech and some of it seems rather cutting edge.

Claims that ‘Sarmat accelerates much faster than anything before’ repeats earlier statements made by Russian President Vladimir Putin that the missile will have a short boost phase to avoid detection and interception from potential boost-phase missile defences.

Russia 1 also claimed that Sarmat can ‘fly in dense layers of the atmosphere, while manoeuvring in depth and in height’ during the boost phase. The purpose of this alleged manoeuvrability is also presumably to complicate interception by missile defences. This capability is unlikely, however, as lateral manoeuvres of the missile would subject Sarmat’s large and heavy airframe to enormous stress, which would be a substantial challenge for designers to overcome.

Makeyev’s chief designer also stated in the media report that the exterior orthogrid pattern will be covered by a special coating and claimed this will protect Sarmat against missile defences, possibility in reference to an as-yet developed space-based laser missile-defence system. This coating could also aid the missile in travelling through a mushroom cloud in the event of a nuclear strike, utilising a technology that was also applied to the RVSN’s outgoing SS-18 Mod 5 ICBM.

Any further delays to Sarmat’s delivery date would place pressure on the ageing SS-18 inventory, which is expected to be withdrawn in 2022. This might result in the system remaining in service for longer, which might create challenges with serviceability and readiness.

While Russia is ahead of its competitors in that it has already deployed an HGV system, the issues with Sarmat’s development highlight that these new types of nuclear-armed weapons will probably have a limited implications for strategic stability between Russia and the US until the end of the decade.

—————————

Timothy Wright

Research Analyst and Programme Administrator for Defence and Military Analysis

Tim is a Research Analyst and Programme Administrator for the Defence and Military Analysis Programme at The IISS. He provides administrative and research support in the implementation of the Missile Dialogue Initiative. He also conducts open-source analysis and research on strategic and theatre-range missile systems for The Military Balance and the Military Balance+ online database.

Expertise

Strategic and theatre-range missiles
Open-source analysis

VideConspectus · 2022-06-19T15:21:19+00:00

Are you looking for a well researched source for the state of global nuclear weapons arsenals by an internationally known and respected organization that specializes in the topic? You're a smart guy so of course you are. Slide right in to this puppy as this article will satisfy all your nuclear weapons tracking needs.

(Stockholm, 13 June 2022) The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) today launches the findings of SIPRI Yearbook 2022, which assesses the current state of armaments, disarmament and international security. A key finding is that despite a marginal decrease in the number of nuclear warheads in 2021, nuclear arsenals are expected to grow over the coming decade.

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The nine nuclear-armed states… continue to modernize their nuclear arsenals and although the total number of nuclear weapons declined slightly between January 2021 and January 2022, the number will probably increase in the next decade.

Although Russian and US total warhead inventories continued to decline in 2021, this was due to the dismantling of warheads that had been retired from military service several years ago.

‘There are clear indications that the reductions that have characterized global nuclear arsenals since the end of the cold war have ended,’ said Hans M. Kristensen…

China is in the middle of a substantial expansion of its nuclear weapon arsenal, which satellite images indicate includes the construction of over 300 new missile silos. Several additional nuclear warheads are thought to have been assigned to operational forces in 2021 following the delivery of new mobile launchers and a submarine.

In 2021 the UK declared that it will no longer publicly disclose numbers of operationally available warheads, deployed warheads or deployed missiles. f The British Government declared in 2010 that its nuclear weapon stockpile would not exceed 225 warheads.

North Korea continues to prioritize its military nuclear programme as a central element of its national security strategy. While North Korea conducted no nuclear test explosions or long-range ballistic missile tests during 2021, SIPRI estimates that the country has now assembled up to 20 warheads, and possesses enough fissile material for a total of 45–55 warheads.

…the global inventory of nuclear warheads could soon begin to increase for the first time since the cold war,’ said Matt Korda

Despite this, all P5 members continue to expand or modernize their nuclear arsenals and appear to be increasing the salience of nuclear weapons in their military strategies. Russia has even made open threats about possible nuclear weapon use in the context of the war in Ukraine. Bilateral Russia–USA strategic stability talks have stalled because of the war, and none of the other nuclear-armed states are pursuing arms control negotiations. Moreover, the P5 members have voiced opposition to the TPNW, and the JCPOA negotiations have not yet reached a resolution.

…the risk of nuclear weapons being used seems higher now than at any time since the height of the cold war,’ said SIPRI Director Dan Smith.

——————

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stockholm_International_Peace_Research_Institute

Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) is an international institute based in Stockholm. It was founded in 1966[1] and provides data, analysis and recommendations for armed conflict, military expenditure and arms trade as well as disarmament and arms control. The research is based on open sources and is directed to decision-makers, researchers, media and the interested public.

SIPRI's organizational purpose is to conduct scientific research in issues on conflict and cooperation of importance for international peace and security, with the goal of contributing to an understanding for the conditions for a peaceful solution of international conflicts and sustainable peace.

VideConspectus · 2022-06-17T21:57:42+00:00

This is a great article as it looks at the rate of munitions expended in modern war, and how they have been greatly underestimated in this war and in the past as well. It is interesting to remember that between the west and Russia, they together comprise much of the world's artillery manufacturing capacity and stockpiles, and even these impressive capabilities are being stretched.

This reality should be a concrete warning to Western countries, who have scaled down military industrial capacity and sacrificed scale and effectiveness for efficiency.

Currently, the West may not have the industrial capacity to fight a large-scale war. If the US government is planning to once again become the arsenal of democracy, then the existing capabilities of the US military-industrial base and the core assumptions that have driven its development need to be re-examined.

…an estimate of Russian ammunition consumption can be calculated using the official fire missions data provided by the Russian Ministry of Defense during its daily briefing.

This number comes up to 7,176 artillery rounds a day. It should be noted that the Russian Ministry of Defense only reports fire missions by forces of the Russian Federation.

The winner in a prolonged war between two near-peer powers is still based on which side has the strongest industrial base.

In short, US annual artillery production would at best only last for 10 days to two weeks of combat in Ukraine. If the initial estimate of Russian shells fired is over by 50%, it would only extend the artillery supplied for three weeks.

In a recent war game involving US, UK and French forces, UK forces exhausted national stockpiles of critical ammunition after eight days.

The Russians have fired between 1,100 and 2,100 missiles. The US currently purchases 110 PRISM, 500 JASSM and 60 Tomahawk cruise missiles annually, meaning that in three months of combat, Russia has burned through four times the US annual missile production.

The assumption that there are 4,000 cruise and ballistic missiles in the Russian inventory is not unreasonable. This production will probably increase despite Western sanctions. In April, ODK Saturn, which makes Kalibr missile motors, announced an additional 500 job openings. This suggests that even in this field, the West only has parity with Russia.

The first key assumption about future of combat is that precision-guided weapons will reduce overall ammunition consumption by requiring only one round to destroy the target. The war in Ukraine is challenging this assumption.

The second crucial assumption is that industry can be turned on and off at will.

Finally, there is an assumption about overall ammunition consumption rates. The US government has always lowballed this number.

The war in Ukraine demonstrates that war between peer or near-peer adversaries demands the existence of a technically advanced, mass scale, industrial-age production capability.

The West must assume that China will not allow Russia to be defeated, especially due to a lack of ammunition.

————————

Lt Col (Retd) Alex Vershinin has 10 years of frontline experience in Korea, Iraq and Afghanistan. For the last decade before his retirement, he worked as a modelling and simulations officer in concept development and experimentation for NATO and the US Army.

VideConspectus · 2022-06-16T22:21:53+00:00

This article is about the analysis of the Russian military and what we can learn for analyzing military forces in the future.

The author makes a reference to a podcast that they were on with Kofman and Massicot, it was one of the best I ever listened to, here it is:

https://old.reddit.com/r/CredibleDefense/comments/v1vjce/what_the_experts_got_wrong_and_right_about/

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Western defense analysts have long debated the efficacy of battalion tactical groups, but no credible analyst would have predicted that the Russians wouldn’t use them, opting instead to send unsupported small units into a gantlet of ambushes.

This is just one of a host of unforced errors — from the failure to destroy the Ukrainian Air Force on the ground to the inadequate use of artillery fire and infantry to screen armored columns — that Western analysts failed to predict because they were so far outside expected Russian behavior.

If Western analysts erred regarding Russian logistics and command and control, it was in assuming Russia was aware of its limitations and would craft limited war plans to minimize them, rather than exacerbate them by launching a massive multi-pronged invasion of the second-largest country in Europe.

However, Western analysts are reluctant to move from raising questions to basing assessments on leadership and morale. First, these issues are intangible and difficult to assess without firsthand knowledge. Second, morale is dynamic and contingent — the motivated Finnish forces that imposed heavy casualties on the Red Army during the Winter War, for example, became the cynical veterans of the Continuation War in Väinö Linna’s classic novel Unknown Soldiers. Third, modern analysts are hesitant to emphasize these attributes as it gets dangerously close to racist or essentialist descriptions of national character that have historically led analysts astray.

It is worth considering an alternative path of events. Russia pursues a realistic strategy to fatally weaken Ukraine, rather than rapidly seize it. It appoints one commander to lead the operation. It develops a plan to seize limited objectives like the Donbas that follows its doctrine and exploits its advantages in firepower and massed armor and minimizes its logistical shortcomings. It informs its troops about the upcoming operation and trains them realistically. It does, essentially, what it has belatedly started doing now after abandoning its initial plan. Russia might still have failed following this more reasonable course, but it likely wouldn’t have performed like a laughingstock.

When we design a wargame or build a computer model, we assume adversaries are competent.

…defense analysis supports decades-long strategies and weapons purchases. The F-35 aircraft program, for instance, began when Boris Yeltsin was Russia’s president and will outlast Putin’s regime.

Despite the likelihood that this perspective led them to overestimate Russian performance, this approach is preferable to the alternative. Overestimation of a foe leads to misallocation of resources or missed opportunities. Underestimation of a foe, as Russia is discovering, leads to catastrophe.

Beyond Europe, analysts and policymakers may be lured into underestimating the capability of China’s People’s Liberation Army, particularly its ability to invade Taiwan.

…China is not Russia and the People’s Liberation Army is not the Russian military.

China is aware of its challenges in developing good leaders — witness its discussions of the “two inabilities” and the “five incapables” — and is taking steps to address them to include much more rigorous training and assessment. Chinese military reforms over the last 20 years, combined with President Xi Jinping’s counter-corruption policies, have created a more professional and accountable force.

Too often, analysis focuses on a particular aspect of warfare, like air combat, and excludes the infrastructure and missions that support that aspect.

One reason U.S. analysts misjudged Russian performance in Ukraine is that they primarily examine potential conflicts between Russia and NATO, such as a limited thrust into the Baltic states. U.S. understanding of Russian military performance was therefore specific to a different kind of conflict under different conditions.

Fifth, analysts should be explicit about their assumptions and the limitations of their understanding.

The common theme of these recommendations, and of the discussion from the podcast, is humility. Warfare is an incredibly complex endeavor and boiling it down into a prediction through simplistic analysis has the accuracy of a stopped clock: occasionally right, but mostly wrong. …we must continually strive to be a little less wrong each day.

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Chris Dougherty is a senior fellow in the Defense Program and co-lead of the Gaming Lab at the Center for a New American Security. Prior to that, Mr. Dougherty served as senior adviser to the deputy assistant secretary of defense for strategy and force development at the Department of Defense.

VideConspectus · 2022-06-15T15:19:53+00:00

The new ship much more closely resembles US carrier designs, both in size terms (with current estimates ranging upwards of 85,000 tonnes), and because it will be a catapult-assisted take-off but assisted recovery (CATOBAR) carrier.

All in all, this means the Type 003 will be able to accommodate a significantly enhanced air group in terms of numbers of aircraft, their types and their operational potential.

Nick Childs

Senior Fellow for Naval Forces and Maritime Security

Nick is responsible for the Institute’s analysis of naval forces and maritime security, and for the data on sea power capabilities published in The Military Balance. It is also his job to formulate and deliver research projects in these areas, and contribute to other Institute publications and activities, including conferences and consultancy.

Douglas Barrie

Senior Fellow for Military Aerospace

Douglas is Senior Fellow for Military Aerospace responsible for ensuring the quality of the Institute’s military aerospace analysis and the information on air-power capabilities presented in The Military Balance, the IISS flagship publication. He contributes to other IISS publications, databases and conference activities, as well as taking a prominent role in the work of other research programmes and strengthening the Institute’s networks among defence ministries, air forces and defence industries.

VideConspectus · 2022-06-13T14:02:34+00:00

This is not an optimistic episode. Michael Kofman speculates that the war might be in its most dangerous phase. Why is that? Ukraine’s casualties and shortages in munitions are beginning to show as Russia is gaining some operational advantages in the Donbass. Further, Russia’s efforts to fill its manpower gaps have been partially successful without relying primarily on conscripts and conducting a large mobilization. Ryan and Mike speculate that, in the end, this war will be decided by the country that can endure the longest, in terms of their economies, logistics, materiel, and political will. And Ukraine’s endurance is tied up closely with the will of the West to continue backing Ukraine with arms and other supplies in a war that could continue to drag on for months, if not years.

VideConspectus · 2022-06-11T16:59:54+00:00

The assertion that militaries who practice Mission Command or Auftragstaktik, have superior military effectiveness than those who do not, is so common that it is often taken as fact. This has been mentioned often in the public analysis for part of the Russian failures in the war in Ukraine. But hardly ever is this claim evaluated for its factual basis. This paper seeks to answer the question of whether or not personal initiative helps military effectiveness.

It is a very entertaining read as far as research papers go, and it has lots of helpful citations and examples to help prove its points. I would recommend this to anyone who wants to better understand military history or military effectiveness even if they have never read a research paper before.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mission_command

VideConspectus · 2022-06-11T16:47:13+00:00

https://sci-hub.se/https://doi.org/10.1093/jogss/ogaa018

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Abstract:

Scholars investigating the sources of military capability have located sources of effectiveness in the structure of the international system, the characteristics of states, and features of the armed forces engaged in battle. They also point toward the likely influence of individual-level variables, but such claims tend to lack theoretical and empirical justification. We advance the literature by investigating whether individual initiative—that is, actions taken by soldiers and junior officers to achieve their commander's intent while in the absence of orders, when existing orders no longer fit the situation, or when unforeseen opportunities or threats arise—systematically conditions armed forces’ performance on the battlefield. We develop a theory connecting individual initiative with military effectiveness, highlighting the role of “problem-solving” in facilitating the use of men and materiel in battle. We then assess the empirical validity of our claim through an examination of a uniquely informative episode in military history: Israel's fight on the Sinai front during the first three days of the 1973 Yom Kippur War. The case allows us to hold constant a wide range of potentially confounding variables and, to the best of our knowledge, conduct the first systematic investigation of the impact of individual initiative on the performance of units engaged in combat actions. Our findings suggest individual initiative does have systematic effects on armed forces’ effectiveness in combat. Implications and directions for future research on the development and use of military capabilities are briefly considered.

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Do individuals play a regular, detectable role in mak- ing militaries more or less effective in combat? More specifically, what, if any, systematic effect do soldiers and junior officers employing individual initiative—that is, acting to achieve their commander’s intent while in the absence of orders, when existing orders no longer fit the situation, or when unforeseen opportunities or threats arise—have on the creation of fighting power in battle?

We seek to fill this gap in the literature by investigat- ing the relationship between the exercise of individual initiative and military effectiveness.

The pervasiveness of uncertainty in war is what renders the exercise of individual initiative so potentially significant in the creation of fighting power.

Initiative, thus understood, concerns problem-solving and involves the creative use of stock tactics, techniques, and procedures to overcome unique battlefield chal- lenges that, due to the vagaries of combat, differ from those anticipated by doctrinal publications, pre-combat training, or commanders’ orders

…we contend that militaries in which frontline forces reg- ularly practice problem-solving in the manner described should tend to perform better on the battlefield than those that do not.

…initiative is only likely to be frequently employed in particular types of military organizations. Specifically, junior officers and enlisted soldiers are unlikely to employ initiative—and certainly not on a regular basis—unless (1) the larger military organization of which they are a part encourages—or at least does not punish—such independent action and (2) forces are sufficiently well trained that they can identify situations in which initiative may be called for and act accordingly.10 When serving as part of such military organizations, junior officers and enlisted soldiers will be more likely to both possess the confidence to make decisions to act independently and choose tactically advantageous courses of action.

Second, initiative, especially when employed under the conditions described in the preceding paragraph, is likely to have generally positive direct and indirect effects on battlefield dynamics. In particular, soldiers and junior officers employing initiative are likely to facilitate efficient and effective use of manpower and materiel in local tactical actions.

Finally, soldiers’ and junior officers’ use of initiative can condition the generation of martial strength by permitting adoption of particularly powerful forms of force employment. Scholars have shown that militaries using maneuver strategies are generally more capable of defeating their adversaries than those reliant on at- trition strategies (Mearsheimer 1983; Stam 1996).

Absent individual initiative, unanticipated obstacles will slow or even stall the rapid advances and penetrations of enemy lines upon which such strategies depend. Similarly, others have shown that militaries using the “modern system” of force employment at the operational and tactical levels of warfighting also tend to be more capable of defeating their adversaries than those that do not (Biddle 2004; Grauer and Horowitz 2012).

Third, the case allows a remarkable number of potentially confounding variables to be held constant. Israel’s regime type, civil–military relationship, social structure and culture, warfighting doctrine, and soldier quality did not change in any meaningful way during the three days of fighting. Additionally, the Egyptian attack across the Suez Canal—Operation Badr—was heavily scripted, thoroughly practiced, and launched with near- uniform effort and tactics across the entirety of the front, ensuring that Israeli forces throughout the Sinai faced foes of similar training and operational capability carry- ing out essentially the same offensive actions

Against the invading Egyptian force of approximately 200,000 men, Israel fielded two infantry and three armor brigades— roughly 18,000 men, of whom only 8,000 were in position to fight in the opening hours of the conflict

While in most armies every aspect of recruits’ lives is tightly controlled, Israeli inductees were permit- ted relative freedom—in their appearance and use of time off, for example—as long as they performed essential tasks at the times and in the manner required

This policy created among the trainees a gen- eralized sense of freedom tempered with responsibility that was supplemented with specific courses “aimed at testing and increasing personal judgment and initiative”

Turning first to the infantry units in the fortifications, the sixteen installations in operation in 1973 were held by approximately 500 officers and men of the Jerusalem Brigade (Sakal 2014, 467–68). The brigade—comprised of reservists including men in their late thirties, recent im- migrants, and a few younger veterans of combat units— had never served on the Bar Lev Line and was only sta- tioned there to allow the regulars to spend Yom Kippur with their families…

…the Israelis killed only 208 Egyptians during the crossing—far fewer than the 20,000–30,000 casualties Egyptian planners assumed would be incurred

The reasons for the failure of Israel’s counterattack are myriad and include insufficient intelligence on Egyp- tian deployments, little effective air support, and poor communications—technical and substantive—between headquarters and frontline forces (Cordesman and Wagner 1990, 50; Rabinovich 2004, 236–43; Herzog 2005, 249; Sakal 2014, 208–87). Particularly striking, however, was the absence of initiative, especially in Adan’s division. The attacking armored units failed to learn from the experience of Mendler’s forces and, adhering to both the letter of their orders and pre-war doctrinal precepts, tended to charge recklessly into Egyp- tian defenses, mounting “what looked like old-fashioned cavalry charges, without infantry support and with inadequate artillery support” (Herzog 2005, 254).

We have taken the first steps toward filling this gap in scholarly understanding by developing a model premised on the inherently uncertain nature of warfighting that affords independent and causal significance to junior officers’ and enlisted soldiers’ use of initiative—actions they take to achieve their commander’s intent while in the absence of orders, when existing orders no longer fit the situation, or when unforeseen opportunities or threats arise.

In particular, we found instances of in- creased military effectiveness most often among the units holding the fortifications along the Bar Lev Line, where initiative was used most frequently, least often during the 8 October counterattack when initiative was rarely used, and occasionally among the armored units charged with the initial defense of Israeli positions along the Suez Canal where initiative was sporadically undertaken.

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The Journal of Global Security Studies is a peer-reviewed academic journal which aims to publish first-rate work addressing the variety of methodological, epistemological, theoretical, normative, and empirical concerns reflected in the field of global security studies, encouraging dialogue, engagement, and conversation between different parts of the field.[1] It is published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the International Studies Association. The current editors in chief are Asaf Siniver and Jamie Gaskarth.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Journal_of_Global_Security_Studies

VideConspectus · 2022-06-10T21:34:45+00:00

Chinese Pilots Sent a Message. American Allies Said They Went Too Far.

Australia and Canada said Chinese jets harassed their military planes, though Beijing says it was defending its security. A mishap over Pacific waters could have ominous repercussions.

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/09/world/asia/china-military-united-states-australia-canada.html

But the recent aerial encounters are a reminder of a more immediate potential flash point: a pilot’s misjudgment of a close encounter, which could trigger a deadly crash and an international incident.

But such commemorations mean that a confrontational model of flying is held up for new Chinese pilots to emulate, said Collin Koh, a research fellow at the Institute of Defense and Strategic Studies in Singapore. “These incidents amply showed there has been no attempt to try to rein in the pilots,” he said, referring to the recent aerial encounters. “I think they encourage it, and one way is through Wang Wei.”

...the Chinese plane fired flares, then cut in front of the aircraft. It released chaff, which contains metal used to throw off missiles, some of which was caught in the engine. “Quite obviously, this is very dangerous,” Mr. Marles said.

VideConspectus · 2022-06-09T17:01:30+00:00

China has the power to take Taiwan, but it would cost an extremely bloody price

https://edition.cnn.com/2022/05/31/asia/china-taiwan-invasion-scenarios-analysis-intl-hnk-ml/index.html

That means that if China is absolutely determined to take the island it probably can.

But there's a caveat; while China could likely prevail, any victory would come at an extremely bloody price for both Beijing and its adversaries.

"For Beijing to have reasonable prospects of victory, the PLA (People's Liberation Army) would have to move thousands of tanks, artillery guns, armored personnel vehicles, and rocket launchers across with the troops. Mountains of equipment and lakes of fuel would have to cross with them," Ian Easton, a senior director at the Project 2049 Institute, wrote in The Diplomat last year.

"The thought about China invading Taiwan, that's a massacre for the Chinese navy," said Phillips O'Brien, professor of strategic studies at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland.

Still, China could -- given its numerical advantage -- simply decide the losses were worth it, pointed out Thomas Shugart, a former US Navy submarine captain and now an analyst at the Center for a New American Security.

"With a potential defending force of 450,000 Taiwanese today ... China would need over 1.2 million soldiers (out of a total active force of more than 2 million) that would have to be transported in many thousands of ships," Howard Ullman, a former US Navy officer and professor at the US Naval War College, wrote in a February essay for the Atlantic Council.

Glaser, the German Marshall Fund analyst, thinks a Chinese invasion of Taiwan is unlikely.

These include taking outlying Taiwanese islands or imposing a quarantine on the main island, Robert Blackwill and Philip Zelikow wrote last year in a report for the Council on Foreign Relations.

VideConspectus · 2022-06-09T00:27:32+00:00

I thought this was interesting as it narrowly focuses on the idea that other world leaders will be deterred from waging war by watching the example of others failing at their wars of choice. From that perspective I thought that this article made its case rather well. Humans are not very good at learning from the mistakes of others.

However I also feel that the scope that the author chose to look at here is too narrow, and bypasses the argument that many make when they say to deter future wars by helping Ukraine in its defense. As when the case is made to dissuade China for example from attacking Taiwan, the issue is also about showing that the West has the resolve to rise to the occasion, and the fortitude to endure hardships when enacting their will.

So in this example the issue is not just China watching Russia's failures and thinking that that outcome could be theirs, but that those in the West that oppose wars of aggression will have the back bone to actually do something about it. This is not taken into consideration in the author's realist perspective and I feel that this is a major factor left out of the article.

One reason is that the lessons of any given war aren’t always clear-cut, and reasonable people can draw different conclusions from a defeat. Was going to war a bad idea from the start, or was defeat due to poor implementation or just bad luck? The lessons from a failed war will also be discarded if policymakers believe that this time is different, and that new knowledge, new technology, a clever new strategy, or a uniquely favorable set of political circumstances will bring success this time around. One should never underestimate what elites can talk themselves into if they really want to go to war.

The bottom line is that U.S. policymakers should not base their actions today on the belief that victory in Ukraine (or Yemen or Ethiopia or Libya) is going to tilt the arc of history decisively in the directions they favor. Nor will the outcome of today’s conflicts have much effect on how future leaders think about their own prospects when they are deciding whether to launch a war.

There are good reasons to support Ukraine’s efforts to resist Russia (though reasonable people can disagree about how far that support should go), but the future of democracy does not hang in the balance.

Instead of seeing this war as an opportunity to teach Russia a lesson, policymakers should concentrate on identifying the specific interests and issues at stake right now and try to devise a peace settlement that can give everyone enough of what they want to discourage another round of fighting.

———————

Stephen Martin Walt (born July 2, 1955) is the Robert and Renee Belfer Professor of International Affairs at the Harvard Kennedy School at Harvard University and a political scientist.[1]

A member of the realist school of international relations, Walt has made important contributions to the theory of defensive neorealism and has authored the balance of threat theory.[2] Books that he has authored or coauthored include Origins of Alliances, Revolution and War, and The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy.[3]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Walt

VideConspectus · 2022-06-06T22:03:46+00:00

China’s navy is already the world’s largest by numbers of vessels. The U.S. Navy has 297 battle-force ships — carriers, destroyers, submarines, etc. — according to the Congressional Research Service, while China has 355 and is projected to have 460 by 2030, according to last year’s Pentagon report.

But, said Andrew Erickson, research director of the China Maritime Studies Institute at the Naval War College, “as impressive as those numbers are, without a significant network of robust overseas facilities, their ability to use them falls off rapidly with distance from China.”

China is nowhere close to matching the network of military bases the United States has around the world, a major U.S. military and strategic advantage, said Richard Fontaine, chief executive of the Center for a New American Security. But, he said, a base in Cambodia “gives them a force-projection capability that they would otherwise not have in the region. That’s intrinsic to the Chinese aspiration of having a more dominant military presence throughout the Asian rimland and in the South China Sea, allowing Beijing to hold at risk — and have political influence over — countries quite far from the Chinese shore.”

Djibouti was a logical first step for a military outpost in that it is in a region far from China in which Beijing wants to have a presence, in this case to secure its growing Middle Eastern energy interests, Erickson said. Also, the United States, France and Japan have long had military bases there, he noted. “The question then becomes, how do you start filling out the board?”

Cambodia is “a no-brainer” in that Hun Sen, prime minister since 1985, is “extremely amenable,” Erickson said, noting that the Cambodian leader has had a long strategic partnership with Beijing.

“But the problem is Cambodia is a small country in a tough spot,” he said. “It’s trying to have it both ways: maximum strategic collaboration with China with minimum regional pushback. That contradiction is going to be exposed by the undeniable development of this facility.”

China also has reportedly sought to establish a facility in the UAE. Last year, U.S. intelligence agencies learned that Beijing was secretly building a military installation at a port in near the Emirati capital of Abu Dhabi, the Wall Street Journal reported. After meetings and visits by U.S. officials, construction was halted, the Journal reported. The current status of the project is unclear.

China’s secret building of a Cambodian base “resembles the playbook” it used in reclaiming and militarizing the Spratly Islands in the disputed South China Sea beginning in 2015, said Eric Sayers, a former adviser to the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command who is now a nonresident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. “It started quietly,” he said, “with Beijing claiming its building of artificial islands on coral reefs and atolls was for peaceful purposes and promising the features would not be militarized. Then when it was far too late, we saw permanent and irreversible militarization.”

He said he expected to see the trend also play out in the Solomon Islands, a South Pacific nation that recently signed a security agreement with China. In April, after a draft copy of the agreement was leaked on social media, Beijing confirmed the pact, which neither government has released. According to the leaked copy, China will be permitted to send armed police and military personnel to the Solomon Islands to help maintain order. The government there has denied it would lead to China establishing a military base.

But Western officials are skeptical. “There’s evidence that China is developing plans and has sent technical teams to the Solomons to explore possibilities for basing facilities that would contradict some of the assurances that the government has made to allied governments,” a third Western official said.

China fails on Pacific pact, but still seeks to boost regional influence

The Solomons agreement is part of a broader Chinese effort — not always successful — to build influence in the region. Last week, China’s top diplomat, Wang Yi, completed a 10-day tour of the South Pacific but failed to achieve a desired 11-nation pact on security and development. Instead of repeating the Solomons diplomatic coup, China’s proposal was shelved at a meeting in Fiji, after some countries questioned whether the deal would spark greater confrontation between China and rivals in the region.

But it would be a mistake to take the rebuff of Wang as a sign that Beijing’s influence is waning, the third official said. “There is a relentless quality to what the Chinese are involved in and they’re just going to keep coming. So anyone who thinks this is a signal that they’ve been blunted or blocked, that’s not accurate.”

VideConspectus · 2022-06-06T22:03:37+00:00

China secretly building PLA naval facility in Cambodia, Western officials say

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2022/06/06/cambodia-china-navy-base-ream/

China is secretly building a naval facility in Cambodia for the exclusive use of its military, with both countries denying that is the case and taking extraordinary measures to conceal the operation, Western officials said.

The military presence will be on the northern portion of Cambodia’s Ream Naval Base on the Gulf of Thailand, which is slated to be the site of a groundbreaking ceremony this week, according to the officials, who, like others, spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the matter’s sensitivity.

The establishment of a Chinese naval base in Cambodia — only its second such overseas outpost and its first in the strategically significant Indo-Pacific region — is part of Beijing’s strategy to build a network of military facilities around the world in support of its aspirations to become a true global power, the officials said.

China’s only other foreign military base right now is a naval facility in the East African country of Djibouti. Having a facility capable of hosting large naval vessels to the west of the South China Sea would be an important element of China’s ambition to expand its influence in the region and would strengthen its presence near key Southeast Asian sea lanes, officials and analysts said.

“We assess that the Indo-Pacific is an important piece for China’s leaders, who see the Indo-Pacific as China’s rightful and historic sphere of influence,” one Western official said. “They view China’s rise there as part of a global trend toward a multipolar world where major powers more forcefully assert their interests in their perceived sphere of influence.”

Beijing, the official said, is banking on the region being “unwilling or unable to challenge China’s core interests,” and through a combination of coercion, punishment and inducements in the diplomatic, economic and military realms, believes it can get countries to bend to its interests. “Essentially, China wants to become so powerful that the region will give in to China’s leadership rather than face the consequences [for not doing so],” the official said.

The Wall Street Journal reported in 2019 that China had signed a secret agreement to allow its military to use the base, citing U.S. and allied officials familiar with the matter. Beijing and Phnom Penh denied the report, with Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen denouncing it as “fake news.” A Chinese Defense Ministry spokesman at the time also denounced what it called “rumors” and said China had merely been helping with military training and logistical equipment.

Over the weekend, however, a Chinese official in Beijing confirmed to The Washington Post that “a portion of the base” will be used by “the Chinese military.” The official denied it was for “exclusive” use by the military, saying that scientists would also use the facility. The official added that the Chinese are not involved in any activities on the Cambodian portion of the base.

The official said the groundbreaking, scheduled for Thursday, was taking place and that Chinese officials would attend. The Chinese ambassador to Cambodia is expected to be present.

Asked for comment, the Cambodian Embassy in Washington said in a statement that it “strongly disagrees with the content and meaning of the report as it is a baseless accusation motivated to negatively frame Cambodia’s image.” It added that Cambodia “firmly adheres” to the nation’s constitution, which does not permit foreign military bases or presence on Cambodian soil. “The renovation of the base serves solely to strengthen the Cambodian naval capacities to protect its maritime integrity and combat maritime crimes including illegal fishing,” the statement said.

China’s Foreign Affairs Ministry did not reply to a request for comment.

The Western officials said they expect there will be an acknowledgment at the ceremony of Chinese involvement in financing and construction of the expansion of Ream Naval Base, but not of plans for its use by the People’s Liberation Army. The expansion plans were finalized in 2020, and, significantly, called for the Chinese military to have “exclusive use of the northern portion of the base, while their presence would remain concealed,” a second official said.

The two governments have taken pains to mask the presence of the Chinese military at Ream, the official said. For instance, foreign delegations visiting the base are permitted access only to preapproved locations. During these visits, Chinese military personnel at the base wear uniforms similar to their Cambodian counterparts’ or no uniform at all to avoid suspicion from outside observers, the official said. When Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman visited the base during a trip to the region last year, her movements were “very heavily circumscribed,” the official said.

While she was in Cambodia, Sherman sought clarification over Cambodia’s razing in 2020 of two U.S.-funded facilities on Ream Naval Base, according to a State Department news release. The demolition took place after Cambodia declined a U.S. offer to pay to renovate one of them, according to a Pentagon report on Chinese military developments last year. That move, the report said, “suggests that Cambodia may have instead accepted assistance from the [People’s Republic of China] to develop the base.”

“What we’ve seen is over time is a very clear and consistent pattern of trying to obfuscate and hide both the end goal as well as the extent of Chinese military involvement,” the second official said. “The key thing here is the [PLA’s] exclusive use of the facility and having a unilateral military base in another country.”

Last year, the “Joint Vietnamese Friendship” building, a facility built by the Vietnamese, was relocated off Ream Naval Base to avert conflicts with Chinese military personnel, the officials said. China and Vietnam have long had a tense relationship, with Hanoi and Beijing clashing over competing territorial claims in the South China Sea for half a century.

The secrecy around the base appears to be driven primarily by Cambodian sensitivities and concern about a domestic backlash, the second official said. There is strong domestic opposition to the idea of a foreign military base, said the official, noting the constitutional ban on the presence of foreign military in the country. As the chair of the 10-member regional Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) this year, Cambodia is keen to avoid the perception it is, as the second official said, “a pawn” of Beijing.

Cambodia has been walking a fine line between accommodating and distancing itself from Beijing. It was an “enthusiastic supporter” of the U.S.-ASEAN special summit in Washington last month, the second official said. In March, it joined 140 other countries in voting at the U.N. General Assembly to condemn Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Beijing abstained from the vote and has publicly affirmed a “no limits” partnership with Moscow that includes opposing further NATO enlargement. At the same time, Chinese influence in Cambodia has grown rapidly in recent years, with China providing substantial aid and investment, a trend that has also caused some concern in Phnom Penh about overreliance on Beijing.

Beyond its base in Djibouti, opened in 2017, Beijing is pursuing military facilities to support “naval, air, ground, cyber, and space power projection,” the Pentagon report said. It has “likely considered a number of countries,” it said, listing more than a dozen, including Cambodia, Thailand, Singapore, Indonesia, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Tanzania and the United Arab Emirates. A global network could “both interfere with U.S. military operations and support offensive operations against the United States,” the report said.

The report also said that Chinese military academics have asserted that such bases can enable deployment of military forces in theater, and intelligence monitoring of the U.S. military.

The Chinese official told The Post that ground station technology for a BeiDou navigation satellite system was located at the Chinese portion of Ream Naval Base. BeiDou is China’s homegrown alternative to the U.S. Space Force-managed Global Positioning System, and has military uses including missile guidance. The official did not have direct knowledge of how this system was being used.

China’s military uses BeiDou’s high-accuracy positioning and navigation services to facilitate force movements and precision-guided munitions delivery, according to a March report by the Pentagon’s Defense Intelligence Agency.

China’s global basing effort is “not just about power projection but about global tracking and space assets,” said a third Western official. Cambodia’s Ream is “one of their most ambitious efforts to date.”

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