Quotulatiousness

July 19, 2010

Canada well known to Afghan would-be refugees

Filed under: Asia, Cancon, Economics, Military, USA — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 12:01

Strategy Page updates the story about the 17 Afghan military trainees who disappeared from their assigned quarters in Texas while on a language training course:

Now the air force has carefully checked their records and found that at least 46 foreign troops had walked away from their training courses in the last five years. All but two (one from Iraq, another from Djibouti) were Afghan.

These men had disappeared from a U.S. Air Force language school, where they learned enough English so they could attend U.S. military training courses. The media coverage implied that some of these guys could be terrorists, who joined the Afghan military, qualified for training in the United States, and then disappeared once you got there, so they could carry out attacks. But it appears the reason behind the disappearances was economic, rather than ideological or religious.

That does make a lot of sense, from their point of view: going from one of the poorest countries in the world to one of the richest, the temptation to stay must be considerable. Of interest to Canadians:

After the first 17 missing Afghans was revealed, American immigration officials went looking for them. They soon reported that they had tracked down at least eleven of the missing Afghans, using just Facebook. These men had gone to Canada, using the military ID the U.S. provided them while in the United States. It’s easier to claim asylum in Canada, a fact widely known in Afghanistan (and often exploited by those leaving the country for a better life in the West.) U.S. officials believed they had located all but two or three of the missing seventeen Afghans, and expected to track down the rest soon.

In spite of the fears of pacifists in Canada, apparently our “warmongering” hasn’t seriously damaged our pre-existing reputation as a soft-touch for refugee claimants.

July 17, 2010

Control of the Middle East, historically and graphically

Filed under: History, Middle East, Military — Tags: , , , , , — Nicholas @ 20:31

A graphical presentation like this necessarily simplifies, but it’s still quite informative at the macro level (Maps of War):

H/T to Ghost of a Flea for the link.

July 12, 2010

Even the US Army can’t escape the past

Filed under: Books, History, Military, USA — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 09:28

StrategyPage looks at recent updates to the US Army’s training doctrine, and their need to re-learn from the past:

Over the last few years, the army has been revamping its training and operating manuals to reflect what was learned (or, often, relearned). The army has dozens of manuals, pamphlets and other documents detailing how the troops should be trained, and how they should fight. All these are being brought up to date with what has been learned in Iraq and Afghanistan. Most of what is being lost is speculative stuff added in the 1990s, after the Cold War ended, and the army foresaw a future in which technology would change everything. Tech did bring many changes, but not always as anticipated. Combat and a live (not imaginary) enemy imposes a reality that often cannot be predicted.

For example, five years ago, the army completed a revision of its counterinsurgency (COIN) manual, for the first time in twenty years. The army has a long history of success fighting guerillas. Even Vietnam, which conventional wisdom counts as a defeat, wasn’t. The conventional wisdom, as is often the case, is wrong. By the time the last U.S. combat units pulled out of South Vietnam in 1972, the local guerilla movement, the Viet Cong, was destroyed. North Vietnam came south three years later with a conventional invasion, sending tank and infantry divisions charging across the border and conquering their neighbor the old fashioned way.

[. . .]

The main problem with COIN is that the American armed forces takes it for granted. U.S. troops have been defeating guerilla movements for centuries. Through all that time, COIN has been the most frequent form of warfare American troops have been involved with. But COIN has always been viewed as a minor, secondary, military role. It never got any respect. Even the U.S. Marine Corps, after half a century of COIN operations, were glad to put that behind them in the late 1930s. All that remained of that experience was a classic book, “The Small Wars Manual,” written by some marine officers on the eve of World War II. That book, which is still in print, contained timeless wisdom and techniques on how to deal with COIN operations, and “small wars” in general. Much of the work the army has done in the last five years, to revise their manuals, could have been done just by consulting the Small Wars Manual. In some cases, that’s exactly what was done.

The basic truth is that COIN tactics and techniques have not changed for thousands of years. What has also not changed is the professional soldiers disdain for COIN operations. This sort of thing has never been considered “real soldiering.” But the U.S. Army and Marines have finally come to accept that COIN is a major job, something that U.S. troops have always been good at, and something that you have to pay attention to. So when you see more news stories about the COIN manual, keep in mind the history of that kind of warfare, and how long, and successfully, Americans have been doing it.

July 8, 2010

“Flying jeep” proposal

Filed under: Military, Technology — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 09:09

The Register looks at the “Tyrannos” flying jeep:

Who remembers the “Transformer TX” flying-car project, intended to equip the US Marines with a small four-seat vehicle able to drive about on the ground like a jeep, hover like a helicopter, or fly like a plane? The first team to publicly offer a contending design has now stepped forward.

That design is the “Tyrannos” from Logi Aerospace, allied with other companies and organisations including the South West Research Institute and Californian electric-vehicle firm ZAP.

The Tyrannos is nominally intended to provide Marines with the ability to leapfrog over troublesome roadside bombs, mines, and ambushes while remaining able to drive on the ground as they normally might. However, it promises to be much quieter than ordinary helicopters in use and far easier to fly and maintain.

If the Tyrannos can do all its makers claim, it really does have the potential to become the flying car for everyman.

That last sentence really does wrap up the situation: if it can do all that is claimed, it’ll be a fantastic new toy for the military and (eventually) lead to the flying cars we were promised forty years ago. The specs seem hopelessly optimistic, but perhaps I’m just jaded because I don’t have a flying car of my own yet . . .

Reader beware, however. The Transformer TX project is being run not by the Marines themselves but by DARPA, the Pentagon crazytech agency which won’t even touch a project unless it is extremely unlikely to succeed.

“Give us ideas that probably won’t work,” that is DARPA’s motto: and the Tyrannos team assembled their design specifically to DARPA requirements. And, let it be noted, they have yet to satisfy even DARPA’s very relaxed rules on what kind of ideas should get taxpayers’ money spent on them.

June 30, 2010

Coming to the small screen soon: “Modern Spies”

Filed under: Military, Politics, Russia, USA — Tags: , — Nicholas @ 12:59

It’s a perfect media pitch: modern spies in America! It’s bound to be a mid-season replacement on Fox in 2011!

Charles Stross wonders why this is a surprise:

The only thing I’m startled at is that anyone would find this surprising. Pre-Glasnost, the KGB was heavily into the economic and corporate espionage business — not simply trying to suborn politicians and penetrate rival intelligence and counter-intelligence agencies, but actively trying to gain competitive advantage for the Soviet Union’s big industrial enterprises. From the early 1980s on, it was a huge priority for them — and indeed, Vladimir Putin was allegedly employed by the KGB directorate concerned with economic espionage. And human intelligence operations, even long-term infiltration ones, are comparatively cheap to engage in — given that agents need to work to maintain a cover identity, it takes relatively little money to maintain them in the field and to maintain a management structure at HQ: the cost of a single spy satellite would cover a hundred spies and their controllers for a multi-decade mission.

Looking at this, it’s hard to disagree with Jim Geraghty “I hope some creative casting director is signing Jewel Staite to play the alleged Russian spy Anne Chapman.”

June 26, 2010

The ungentlemanly art of reporting

Filed under: Media, Military — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 12:39

Paul Wells looks at the methods employed by now-famous reporter-to-the-generals Michael Hastings:

Hastings is blunt about the fun a reporter on short-term assignment can have when he doesn’t have to worry about the repercussions of what he writes. “My job was basically: Ride the buses and planes with the candidates, have big lunches and dinners on the expense account, get sources drunk and singing, then report back the behind-the-scenes story.”

Then there is this paragraph. The sentence with the bad word is the most interesting to me as it will be to you, but the whole paragraph, with its tensions and contradictions, is worth considering:

   The dance with staffers is a perilous one. You’re probably not going to get much, if any, one-on-one time with the candidate, which means your sources of information are the people who work for him. So you pretend to be friendly and nonthreatening, and over time you “build trust,” which everybody involved knows is an illusion. If the time comes, if your editor calls for it, you’re supposed to fuck them over; and they’ll throw you under a bus without much thought, too. (I should say that personal friendships can actually develop, despite the odds.) For the top campaign officials and operatives, seduction and punishment of reporters is an art. Write this fluff piece now; we’ll give you something good later. No, don’t write it this way, write it that way. We’ll give you something good later.

This deserves to stand as one of the great bits of journalistic self-flagellation and revelation, only a notch below Janet Malcolm’s famous confession that “Every journalist who is not too stupid or too full of himself to notice what is going on knows that what he does is morally indefensible.”

H/T to Taylor Empire Airways for the link.

June 25, 2010

Internet access forces retirement of military TV network

Filed under: Europe, Germany, Media, Military, USA — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 09:18

Strategy Page notes the imminent demise of two media staples: Armed Forces Network (AFN) broadcast television and the traditional base newspaper:

U.S. military television stations in Europe are halting the broadcasting of their signals. Not because so many American troops have left Europe since the end of the Cold War, but because everyone has cable. A few broadcasting towers will keep operating, for the few areas where barracks are not yet wired for cable. The big losers are American retirees and military families living off the base. In addition, a lot of locals enjoyed the availability of the “American Channel” and the military oriented content. It was something they could not find on the largest local cable plans. AFN often broadcast American TV shows before they were bought by local networks for broadcast in dubbed format. The dubbing is often poor, and many Europeans speak English, and like to get American TV shows as soon as they come out. But now that’s all history.

[. . .] the technology tidal wave is also destroying the oldest form of American military media; the base newspaper. Four years ago, U.S. Air Force bases began to scrap a century old tradition; the base newspaper. Some bases later brought the papers back, because they found there were a significant minority of base residents who did not use the Internet (which was supposed to replace the newspaper.) But that is not going to last long.

These weeklies were almost standard on military bases, mainly as a vehicle for getting out information of use to all those who lived or worked there. There were administrative announcements, as well as social ones. The base newspapers served a morale function, as well as a practical one. But the news papers cost money, some $3,000-$5,000 a week. The papers were distributed for free, and now there’s a trend towards eliminating the papers, and just putting out all the information on the base web site. All bases now have web sites, and troops, especially younger ones, find these more useful than newspapers. Surveys indicate that most junior troops don’t even read newspapers (nor do their civilian peers). But all these young troops rely on the web for news, and other information. The troops also note that, when they are deployed overseas, or just away from the base for a few days, they only way to stay in touch with what’s happening on the base is via the web site. But many older NCOs and officers, along with their spouses, do still read newspapers. It’s a generational thing, so the base newspaper is still doomed.

June 10, 2010

Enough with the camel jokes!

Filed under: Europe, France, Military — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 10:05

The French Foreign Legion has a storied history of bravery, endurance, and inappropriate relations with camels extraordinary fighting skills. They do, however, also have some less-savoury attributes:

The Legion has a lot of dirty laundry that almost never gets exposed due to the unit’s notoriously secretive nature. For one thing, desertion is, and always has been, rampant in the Foreign Legion. As far as modern, 21st century armies are concerned, the Legion has some of the worst desertion rates in the world. This is the reason why small arms and light weapons are ALWAYS kept under lock and key under the watch of armed guards 24/7 when they are not being used at the range, training, or combat. French Army authorities know that, given the high rates of desertion, it’s too much to risk having renegade soldiers running around the French countryside with loaded assault rifles.

Furthermore, substance abuse, particularly alcoholism, is even more of a problem in the Legion than in other armies. It is not hard to see why, considering that the Legion has often sent its men to isolated duty stations in some of the most inhospitable and violent regions on earth. Finally, unlike the U.S. Marine Corps, U.S. Army, or British Army, corporal punishment (e.g., punching) is still very much alive and in practice in the Legion, and often comes in the form of sometimes savage beatings administered by NCOs as a means of instilling “discipline”. The Legion’s notorious military police section possesses an even more sinister reputation for brutality and mistreatment. Much of this abuse is directed towards captured deserters and the grim reputation of Legion stockades is well-deserved indeed.

QotD: Historic first

Filed under: Cancon, Military, Quotations — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 09:50

In defiance of 143 years of tradition, the government plans to replace our aging CF-18s before they enter their third or fourth decade of obsolescence.

Chris Taylor, “Canadian defense procurement shocker”, Taylor Empire Airways, 2010-06-08

June 7, 2010

Suddenly, the decision makes less more sense

Filed under: Cancon, Military, Politics — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 12:13

Kelly McParland connects the dots on Mayor Miller’s surprising conversion to honouring the fallen (original post here):

As Sun columnist Joe Warmington points out, there’s already a Highway of Heroes: It’s the route along the 401 that leads from CFB Trenton, where the bodies of Canadian soldiers killed in Afghanistan are brought home, to the coroner’s office near Queen’s Park in Toronto. Canadians spontaneously line the route each time a fallen soldier is returned. It’s not officially organized or directed — it’s just patriotic people showing their respect for the men and women who gave their lives to serve their country.

David Miller is about eight years late in recognizing that. Choosing a name that is similar but slightly different from the Highway of Heroes just confuses the issue: why does the route have to change names once it enters Toronto? Toronto is the city that couldn’t bring itself to allow fire trucks and ambulances to carry decals saying “Support our Troops”, and Miller was among those who wanted them taken off, in case someone got the mistaken impression Toronto actually supported the mission in Afghanistan.

More progress toward equality in the US Navy

Filed under: Military, USA — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 12:09

Strategy Page reports on two recent developments:

For the first time, a female officer will serve as CAG (commander of the air group on an aircraft carrier.) This is no surprise to those in navy. It’s a situation that’s been developing for decades. In the mid 1970s, the U.S. Navy began letting women into Annapolis (the Naval Academy) and flight school. Some 35 years later we have women commanding combat aircraft squadrons, cruisers, an amphibious task force (expeditionary strike group) and a strike group (a carrier task force.)

The newly appointed CAG, recently promoted captain Sara Joyner had, two years earlier, as F-18 pilot, Commander Joyner, completed a tour as the first female commander of a navy combat squadron (VFA 105). This included a seven month cruise to the Persian Gulf aboard the USS Harry S. Truman, where her dozen F-18Cs flew about 412 hours each. The squadron had 245 officers and sailors, including pilots and maintenance personnel. The squadron commander flew combat missions, in addition to running the squadron.

[. . .]

Another female Naval Academy graduate (Class of 1985) recently received an even more senior naval aviation command. This year, Rear Admiral Nora Tyson took command of Task Force 73 (CVN USS George H W Bush and escorts). This was another first.

Probably the most hopeful thing about these two appointments is that they’re pretty clearly not token appointments for political reasons: both women have earned their promotions and are deemed fully qualified for their new roles. That’s a far more positive thing for all women in the armed forces than attempting to meet arbitrary criteria based solely upon gender balance concerns.

June 4, 2010

Toronto finally accepts DVP “dual name” proposal

Filed under: Cancon, Military — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 09:38

I thought that this proposal was finished when the current Toronto city government turned it down a few years back, but according to this article by Adrian Humphreys, the Don Valley Parkway will also be known as the “Route of Heroes.”

In a sweeping gesture to honour veterans and fallen soldiers, the city of Toronto is designating the Don Valley Parkway — where the flag-draped caskets of all soldiers killed in Afghanistan travel when returning to Canada — as the “Route of Heroes.”

The city-owned, six-lane expressway will be dotted with prominent signs featuring the ceremonial name, other signs reading “Lest We Forget,” and pictures on exit ramps of the red poppy [. . .]

The move comes three years after Mayor David Miller rebuffed veterans who asked to rename the DVP. The new plan, supported by the Mayor, keeps the DVP designation in a “dual name” system.

The ceremonial change is similar to the provincial designation of “Highway of Heroes” to the portion of Highway 401 stretching from the military base in Trenton to the top of the DVP.

Given the strident portion of Toronto’s political class who are against the mission in Afghanistan in particular, and the military in general, I’m surprised and pleased that this gesture is being made.

June 2, 2010

Litany of problems with new NH-90 helicopters

Filed under: Australia, Europe, Germany, Military, Technology — Tags: , — Nicholas @ 09:25

Strategy Page reports that new NH-90 helicopters delivered to Australia are showing similar problems to the laundry list of issues the Germans reported when their NH-90s went into service:

The German Army conducted an evaluation of their new NH-90 helicopters, and were not pleased. Their conclusion was that, for combat missions, another model helicopter should be used whenever possible. A particular problem was the lack of ground clearance. The NH-90 can’t land on a piece of ground with any obstacles higher than 16 cm (6.4 inches). That makes many battlefield landing zones problematic. That assumes you can even get on a NH-90 and find a seat. The passenger seats cannot hold more than 110 kg (242 pounds). Combat equipment for German troops weighs 25 kg (55 pounds), meaning any soldier weighing more than 85 kg (187) has to take stuff off, put it on the floor, than quickly put it back on before exiting. Then there’s the floor, it’s not very sturdy, and combat troops using the helicopter for a short while, cause damage that takes the helicopter out of action for repairs. Worse, there is the rear ramp. It cannot support troops carrying all their equipment, making it useless for rapid exits of combat troops. There is not enough room in the passenger compartment for door gunners. There are no strap downs for larger weapons, like portable rocket launchers or anti-aircraft missiles. The passenger compartment also does not allow for carrying cargo and passengers at the same time. The winch is not sturdy enough for commandoes to perform fast roping operations. And so on. The Germans were not pleased with the NH-90.

I’ve never specced out a new helicopter design, but these complaints sound like issues that should have come up during the initial design review, not things that appear once you’ve taken delivery. It sounds like the military equivalent of buying a new car without taking a test drive or checking the specifications for how well the vehicle matched your actual requirements.

Design fail, manufacturing fail, or ordering fail?

June 1, 2010

Media emphasis distorts extent of conflicts

Filed under: Media, Military — Tags: , , , , , — Nicholas @ 07:53

Strategy Page points out one of the baleful aspects of modern media coverage of wars and other conflicts:

Worldwide violence continues to decline, but most people are unaware of this because the mass media will feature whatever wars and disorder they can find. This is an old journalistic technique, and it’s good for business. But not so helpful if you are trying to keep track of what’s really happening out there. Oddly enough, the most bloody conflicts (like Congo) get the least media coverage. Reporting tends to be distorted by how accessible wars are, as well as how easily your viewers could identify with the combatants. The media also has a hard time keeping score. For years, Iraq was portrayed as a disaster until, suddenly, the enemy was crushed. Even that was not considered exciting enough to warrant much attention, and that story is still poorly covered by the mass media. Same pattern is playing out in Afghanistan, where the defeats of the Taliban, and triumph of the drug gangs, go unreported or distorted. If you step back and take a look at all the wars going on, a more accurate picture emerges.

Worldwide, violence continues the decline is has exhibited for most of the decade. For example, violence has greatly diminished, or disappeared completely, in places like Iraq, Nepal, Haiti, Sri Lanka, Nigeria, Ivory Coast, Chechnya, Congo, Indonesia and Burundi. Even Afghanistan, touted as the new war zone, was not nearly as violent this past six months as the headlines would deceive you into believing.

All this continues a trend that began when the Cold War ended, and the Soviet Union no longer subsidized terrorist and rebel groups everywhere. The current wars are basically uprisings against police states or feudal societies, which are seen as out-of-step with the modern world. Many are led by radicals preaching failed dogmas (Islamic conservatism, Maoism), that still resonate among people who don’t know about the dismal track records of these creeds. Iran has picked up some of the lost Soviet terrorist support effort. That keeps Hezbollah, Hamas, and a few smaller groups going, and that’s it. Terrorists in general miss the Soviets, who really knew how to treat bad boys right.

The flotilla incident

Filed under: Middle East, Military — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 07:25

I’ve seen lots of posts about yesterday’s boarding of the Mavi Marmara from both pro- and anti-Israeli viewpoints. Adrian McNair has one of the most even-handed summaries:

When I first got wind of the news that Israeli Defense Forces had attacked a Turkish flotilla headed for the Gaza Strip on the Mediterranean Sea, it was accompanied by the words “massacre”, describing the death of 10 pro-Palestinian demonstrators aboard one of the ships. But as Jonathan Kay wrote about the incident in the National Post, if Israel truly had wanted to “massacre” the Hamas sympathizers aboard the flotilla, they could have simply sunk them to the bottom of the Sea with torpedos.

The “massacres” and “genocide” on Gaza continues to go very poorly indeed, given the available firepower of the Israeli military. In fact, like all international incidents involving the IDF, once the fury dies down and the seas calm a little bit, we usually learn the true story of what really happened.

As a humanitarian effort, the flotilla was a waste of resources. As a propaganda tool, however, the flotilla was quite successful: most media reports will concentrate on the casualties and ignore the fact that Israeli forces clearly tried to avoid causing those casualties.

Several different videos seem to corroborate statements by the IDF that troops came under attack by the passengers, who were clearly enraged at having been boarded by the Israelis. To further avoid violence, the soldiers had been armed with paintball guns. If that sounds like something a military command would order with the intent to “massacre” civilians, it could not have been less effective.

After coming under attack, the commandos requested permission for the deployment of lethal force, which they were granted. Up to 10 activists are believed to have been killed in the ensuing melee, with some reports stating that the activists had got a hold of weapons from the soldiers and were firing at them.

Update: Kathy Shaidle advises the “this is terrible PR for Israel” conservatives to back off:

The raw anti-Semitism making the rounds yesterday certainly disturbed me.

However, more sinister (all the more so because it was well intentioned) was the tsking and moaning about how the flotilla incident was “bad PR” for Israel — five minutes after the news broke, no less.

“Who cares about the facts?! Think of how this looks!“

You sound like the leftists on the boat.

So-called pro-Israel “conservatives” who’ve read a couple of books and articles — and certainly have never been commandos, or even been on a boat that wasn’t shaped like a swan — really have no business debating the finer points of hand to hand combat at sea.

And they simply polluted the conversation yesterday with their tiresome, showoffy “tsk tsk” tweets and posts about “PR” and “optics.”

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