Quotulatiousness

July 7, 2011

The end of Canada’s combat deployment in Afghanistan

Filed under: Cancon, Military, USA — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 11:44

Matthew Fisher reports on the handover ceremony:

Canada’s first war in more than half a century ended at 11:18 a.m. local time Thursday, about 300 metres away from where the first Canadian combat troops set foot in Kandahar on Jan. 19, 2002.

The seventh and last Canadian to command Task Force Kandahar, Brig.-Gen. Dean Milner, signed over responsibility for Canada’s battle space to Col. Todd Wood of the 1st Stryker Combat Brigade, 25th Infantry Division, as NATO’s senior officer in the south, U.S. Army Maj.-Gen. James Terry, presided.

Milner repeatedly returned to the close friendships he had forged with Afghan security forces during a sometimes emotional address at the “transfer of authority” parade. In particular, he singled out his Afghan partner, Brig.-Gen. Ahmed Habibi for “leading from the front.”

July 4, 2011

More on the British MoD shake-up

Filed under: Britain, Bureaucracy, Military — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 10:26

Lewis Page has more on the British government’s major re-organization of the Ministry of Defence:

In outline, the three single services — and their chiefs — will lose massively in power and influence: and there will be an attempt to create a Joint Forces Command which will be the first step towards a future in which the services actually expect to work together as routine, rather than only when forced to or when there’s a war on.

The Levene report says that the First Sea Lord, the Chief of the General Staff and the Chief of the Air Staff — heads of the navy, army and air force respectively — should be booted out of MoD Main Building on Whitehall and made to go and sit in their service headquarters outside London. They will be allowed to leave behind only a small number of staff types to fight their Service’s corner in the corridors of power, and these rump contingents will be headed by mere two-star officers: a rear-admiral, a major-general and an air vice-marshal. If they commanded combat formations, such officers would be important indeed — the entire British Army can put into the field only one or two formations worthy of being commanded by a major-general — but among the mandarins of Whitehall, many of whom are equivalent to three-, four- and even five-star military officers, they will be insignificant small fry.

[. . .]

Or in other words, the Service heads may retain their headquarters, maps etc but in fact they will almost never be in charge of what their people are doing: another blow to their prestige, and another boost for that of the Joint Force Command.

If all this happens, it will be a fairly seismic shift at the MoD: the Joint way of doing business might actually gain ascendance, as any smart officer would have his sights set on an interesting career at PJHQ and the Joint command in Whitehall, actually involved with operations and action, rather than boring routine work in his Service HQ out of town sorting out training and recruitment and leave rosters etc.

It’s probably a good thing, as anyone who knows the MoD would admit that foolish interservice squabbling is one of the main factors paralysing it. That said, any such knowledgeable person would enter the caveat that Joint could be a disaster if it turned out merely to mean one Service achieving dominance over the other two (which would be the most disastrous varies with the commentator).

Britain’s overdue defence reforms

Filed under: Britain, Bureaucracy, Military — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 09:30

Britain has, proportional to American forces, four times the number of general officers. This is a visible sign of an unbalanced force. The current government has announced some changes that may begin to correct this problem:

George Osborne, the chancellor of the exchequer, reportedly observed that the defence budget was “the most chaotic, the most disorganised, the most overcommitted.” In addition to the 8% cut in its funding (over four years) demanded as part of the government’s fiscal-austerity plan, the Ministry of Defence (MoD) has somehow to close an unfunded liability of £38 billion ($61 billion) up to 2020. This week, just before announcing a major shake-up of the way his department and the armed forces are run, Dr Fox said: “The future defence programme was worse than a delusion — it was a deliberate lie.”

The problem with correcting long-term issues like those in the MoD is that you have to maintain the active forces at a minimum level of effectiveness while addressing issues that may have been developing for a generation. I’ve mentioned in earlier posts how the most effective arm of the British forces in the last ten years has clearly been the Royal Air Force — not so much for their performance of their military duties, but for the skill with which they outmatched the army and the Royal Navy in bureaucratic infighting. The RN has been gutted, losing their force projection capabilities (the aircraft carriers), the army has been left over-extended and lacking airlift capabilities, while the RAF has kept their core anti-Soviet flying white elephants almost completely untouched by budget cuts.

At the heart of Lord Levene’s plan is a new slimmed-down Defence Board, the MoD’s senior decision-making body, which will be chaired by the secretary of state and will no longer include the three service chiefs. There will be a fresh emphasis on integrating the armed forces through the establishment of a Joint Forces Command led by a four-star officer. That will bring together capabilities such as logistics, planning, intelligence, cyber and some equipment purchases. Dr Fox sees the Joint Forces Command as both an important organisation in its own right and a symbol of the ethos of co-operation and flexibility he wants to cultivate.

One consequence is that the role of the three service chiefs in influencing departmental strategy and resource allocations will be sharply reduced. They will be kept busy by being given greater responsibility for managing their own budgets. Lord Levene also wants to see a halt to the merry-go-round of staff changes that undermines accountability by insisting that senior military and civilian staff should stay in their posts for at least four years.

July 3, 2011

Women now being recruited for US Special Forces work

Filed under: Military, USA — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 10:01

Strategy Page has the details:

Earlier this year, the U.S. Army Special Forces began recruiting women for the first time. The women were needed for “Cultural Support Teams” (CST) for use in Afghanistan. There, it has been found that, if you send in female troops to an area, you are much more likely to get useful information from Afghan women. This was a technique that was developed, and worked, in Iraq. The U.S. Marine Corps pioneered the use of these all-woman CSTs.

The Special Forces does it differently, by using the same selection and training routines (in abbreviated format) for the women as they do for the men. Thus the Special Forces Assessment for CST volunteers is nine days, rather than 24 for the men. About half the volunteers do not pass this, a bit higher than the third of male volunteers who don’t make it. That’s probably because Special Forces recruits mostly infantry and other troops in combat jobs (where there is constant training to prepare you for the stress and physical demands of combat). The year-long Special Forces basic training has been cut to six weeks for CST members. That’s because the women are not expected to do a lot of the training and combat operations the male operators must be prepared for. For the women, selection is mainly concerned with intelligence and adaptability. The CSTs, after all, specialize in intelligence work and forming relationships with Afghan women. But the women do get a lot of weapons and special skill (like roping down from a helicopter) training during those six weeks.

So far this year, 30 CST operators have been sent to Afghanistan and their performance has been outstanding. Special Forces commanders want more CST troops, and want them fast. As word gets around about the success of the program, more women will volunteer. The actual work of each team (of 3-6 women, attacked to a twelve man ODA or “A Team”) is providing health care to women and children, collecting intelligence and participating in raids (where they can more easily search women for weapons and other contraband).

June 30, 2011

US Army declares war on “toe shoes”

Filed under: Bureaucracy, USA — Tags: — Nicholas @ 15:50

Apparently the toe shoe is too unmanly and detrimental to a proper military appearance for American soldiers:

Vibram, one of the leading makers of the trendy footware, claims that its FiveFingers shoe “allows our anatomy to work naturally and move more freely.” FiveFinger fanatics claim that the shoe strengthens muscles in the feet and lower legs and improves their range of motion, balance and agility.

But in the military, it seems to come down to image, not performance, reports the Washington Post.

“Effective immediately, only those shoes that accommodate all five toes in one compartment are authorized to wear” because toe shoes “detract from a professional military image,” states the military notice.

I have no idea if Vibram’s claims are true, but I do rather agree with Thomas Ricks, who wrote “An army that is more concerned with looks versus results IS a matter of national security”.

June 8, 2011

Canadian troops complete last combat mission before withdrawal from Afghanistan

Filed under: Asia, Cancon, Military — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 07:31

Susan Sachs reports on the conclusion of the last planned combat mission for Canadian troops ahead of withdrawal this summer:

More than five years after taking charge of security in one of the most violent regions in Afghanistan, Canadian troops wrapped up their final combat operation with a two-week sweep through a rural swath of Kandahar that was undisputed Taliban territory just a year ago.

The offensive, conducted with a bulked-up Afghan National Army brigade in the lead, marks Canada’s last days in the long and deadly war. All combat troops are set to withdraw this summer, 5½ years after the mission in Kandahar began.

Until the last soldier leaves, the danger that has stalked Canadian soldiers in Kandahar, the birthplace of the Taliban and still one of its strongholds, remains.

Members of the Royal 22nd Regiment will still be patrolling the volatile area, risking death by improvised explosive devices and operating isolated outposts up to the day they hand off their positions to U.S. soldiers.

May 30, 2011

Formal review for Canadian defence policies?

Filed under: Cancon, Military — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 08:46

David Pugliese has word that the “fully funded” Canada First Defence Strategy is going to be reviewed starting in late June:

Some are calling this a “Canada First Reset.” This review would look at what by how much this strategy is underfunded and how should DND proceed in the future on CFDS, according to sources. It was described to Defence Watch as a “step-back to look at the strategy” and an examination of what aspects of the plan — mainly within procurement — need to be dropped (something like….maybe JUSTAS) because of the lack of money.

My reaction? It’s all very interesting to say the least. That’s because the basis of this review team goes against what has been a DND/CF mantra for three years now: that is the Canada First Defence Strategy is fully funded.

Numerous generals and DND bureaucrats are on record stating that in no uncertain terms. No question about it. Period, full stop.

You may remember that a few defence analysts suggested the strategy was not proper funded and that the many projects outlined in the document wouldn’t see the light of day.

But those claims were dismissed outright.

Will a CFDS review committee even get off the ground considering that it has the potential to embarrass the government?

If the minister had been replaced, this might make some political sense: it’s a good opportunity to get in some significant change and the previous minister gets the “blame” for the change being necessary. Peter MacKay stayed on at the ministry, so that’s not the answer. It’s possible that the government, now in safe majority territory, can bear the burden of critically reviewing the CFDS without feeling the risk of triggering an election.

The CFDS was originally drawn up as a plan to address impending retirement of much of the Canadian Forces’ major equipment:

Over the next 20 years, six of the CF’s core equipment fleets will reach the end of their operational lives and will need to be replaced. These include destroyers, frigates, maritime patrol aircraft, fixed-wing search and rescue aircraft, next-generation fighter aircraft, and a new family of land combat vehicles and systems.

The question about whether the CFDS is fully funded, therefore, is key to addressing the real equipment replacement schedule. If the money isn’t there, something has to give.

May 12, 2011

Afghanistan isn’t a “state”

Filed under: Asia, Military, Politics — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 10:01

Much of the problem with current expectations about the eventual outcome of the Afghan mission rest on the notion that Afghanistan is a country in the same way that Hungary or Denmark is a state. It’s not a state:

While the foreign troops are in Afghanistan to deal with international terrorism and the heroin (90 percent of it comes from Afghanistan), most Afghans see all this foreign intervention as a splendid opportunity. It’s as if Afghans were saying to foreign troops, “to you it’s a war, to me it’s an opportunity.” This is an ancient Afghan attitude. Afghanistan may appear to be at the corner of no and where, but it is actually astride the primary invasion route from Central Asia to India (including Pakistan which is still, historically and culturally, part of India). The Afghans have long since learned to step aside as the foreign invaders move through. Actually, many Afghans would join the invaders, so much so that these invasions, and the loot and stories the survivors brought back, have become a major part of the Afghan collective memory. Most Westerners have not got a clue about this cultural tradition, and how much it influences the behavior of most Afghans. Such culture shock is not unusual, but because of the greater isolation of Afghanistan from the rest of the world, there is more of it.

Part of the culture shock is the realization that Afghanistan is not a country, at least not in the Western sense of the world. In Western terms, Afghanistan is a feudal monarchy. That means that the “king” (president Karzai) serves, and survives, at the sufferance of the local barons (warlords, drug gang leaders, provincial governors, tribal leaders). Until the last few centuries, this was how things worked in the West. But in many parts of the world, and especially in Afghanistan, the medieval mind, and form of government, is alive and well.

While many residents of Kabul (the capital and largest city) would like a modern (efficient and much less corrupt) Western style government, the “rural aristocracy” (corrupt local leaders) have no interest in this kind of central control. Thus the rural leaders do whatever they can to prevent an the creation of efficient national army or police force. Local leaders will attempt, often successfully, to corrupt the military and police units in their neighborhood. National level politicians also like to “own” army or police units, and if they can’t do that, they will try to steal money meant for the security forces. So NATO commanders have come to evaluate the effectiveness of Afghan police and army units based on the honesty of the commander, and his ability to deal with all those officials who want to buy him off. There are not many Afghan unit commanders who make the grade. To do so means you must behave in a decidedly unconventional manner.

This is why the whole notion of “nation building” is the right title for the wrong idea. Afghanistan needs a nation to be constructed, but it will take much more than just suppressing the Taliban and the heroin trade. No nation can go from a feudal/tribal level to nation-state in a generation — at least, no nation ever has, and there’s no chance that Afghanistan will be the first to do so.

May 4, 2011

Britain’s SAS victims of their own success

Filed under: Britain, Military — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 07:32

Strategy Page has an interesting article about the recruiting problems facing Britain’s elite Special Air Service as the regular army slims down:

The SAS has to recruit and train 20 or more new commandos a year just to maintain its current strength. Several thousand British troops apply to join the SAS each year, but the SAS is very selective in who it takes. Some SAS members felt that expanding to 480 troops would dilute the quality. This is not necessarily so, but the debate over the issue continues within the SAS. Another ongoing dispute has to do with how the SAS is sometimes used. There have been several actions in the last decade where an entire Sabre Squadron was used in one action. As one SAS officer observed, an infantry company would have been more suitable for these operations. But other SAS officers believe that only SAS men could have gotten to scene of the action and launched these attacks in time. Regular infantry may have been able to do the fighting effectively, but the SAS are the best trained force for getting to difficult locations, scouting them out adequately and then quickly coming up with an effective attack plan.

[. . .]

In peacetime, most SAS missions are at the request of the Foreign Ministry, and are usually to solve some problem overseas that does not require a lot of muscle, but must be done quietly. In these situations, the SAS will spend a lot of their time operating as spies, even though all they are doing is reconnaissance for some mission. In peacetime, the SAS rarely operates in groups of more than a dozen men. But the war in Afghanistan found British military planners realizing that the troops that could be moved to that isolated country most quickly were the SAS. For a while in Afghanistan, the only British combat troops available there were SAS. So anything that British commanders wanted to do had to be done by SAS. In effect, the SAS were victims of their own success in being able to get anywhere, anytime, in a hurry.

I posted about my own brief encounter with the SAS on the old blog.

April 29, 2011

Toronto Star: War crimes investigation possible for Canadians in Afghanistan

Filed under: Cancon, Law, Military — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 15:52

The International Criminal Court seems to think that Canadian officials may be complicit in war crimes over the Afghan detainees:

Prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo says in a documentary soon to be aired on TVO that Canadian officials are not immune to prosecution if there is evidence that crimes were committed by handing over detainees to face torture.

When Toronto filmmaker Barry Stevens asked Moreno-Ocampo in his film, Prosecutor, if the ICC would pursue a country like Canada over its role in Afghanistan, he replied:

“We’ll check if there are crimes and also we’ll check if a Canadian judge is doing a case or not . . . if they don’t, the court has to intervene. That’s the rule, that’s the system, one standard for everyone.”

Moreno-Ocampo could not be reached for further comment about the case Thursday when attempts were made by the Star.

Update: Adrian MacNair is underwhelmed:

As one who has actually been to Afghanistan and seen how the military cares for and treats detainees, it’s a little difficult to swallow the news that the International Criminal Court could investigate Canada for so-called war crimes. I’m not sure what that would accomplish, but it certainly would do nothing to help with the main problem in the country: the insurgency.

I’m unsure as to how or why anybody believes that Canada’s role in Afghanistan is anything more than a humanitarian mission buttressed by security. We’re in the country to provide stabilization for the democratically elected (though admittedly corrupt and fraudulent) government with whom we have specific agreements and rules we must follow.

In providing security to Afghans we are not allowed to hold Afghan nationals for more than 96 hours in our custody, though at the time of the allegations (pre-2007) this was 72 or 48 hours.

It doesn’t seem reasonable to me to expect a foreign military with finite resources to ensure absolute humanitarian oversight of detainees after they’ve been handed over to the Afghan government. That’s like expecting a police officer in Canada to ensure proper oversight of a prisoner he has arrested and brought to justice. Is a police officer morally culpable if a prisoner is raped in prison?

April 24, 2011

No 21-gun salute for royal wedding due to “health and safety” concerns

Filed under: Britain, Bureaucracy, Health — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 13:41

Ah, those “elf’n’safety” goons strike again:

When Prince William and Kate Middleton leave Westminster Abbey on Friday, there will be no 21-gun salute to mark their union. Mandrake can disclose that plans for such an honour in Hyde Park were abandoned because of fears over “health and safety” and “noise pollution”.

One of the Prince’s pals tells me: “We thought it would be a fitting tribute for the wedding, but we were told that, because of health and safety, and noise pollution concerns, it would involve too much red tape to get a new salute authorised.”

Twenty-one gun salutes in Hyde Park and Green Park are a traditional military honour, carried out by the King’s Troop, Royal Horse Artillery, to mark important royal occasions including Coronation Day and the official birthdays of the Queen, the Duke of Edinburgh and the Prince of Wales. Queen Victoria and Prince Albert’s wedding in 1840 began with such a tribute.

April 23, 2011

Another fake war hero emerges

Filed under: Military, USA — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 11:28

This time, it’s a 20-year-old woman in Minnesota:

The town of Cass Lake embraced Elizabeth McKenzie last month when she arrived at the high school in her Army uniform for a welcome home ceremony.

Though she isn’t a tribal member, the Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe Honor Guard gave her a blanket and an eagle feather to honor her as a woman warrior for her service in Afghanistan. There was a tribal drum ceremony and a reception line. Accepting the town’s gratitude, McKenzie talked about the close calls she’d had and a war injury that brought her home. She led the march in the high school gym, carrying the American flag, and the local newspaper documented the hero’s return.

But none of it was true. The 20-year-old McKenzie was never injured in combat, had never been to Afghanistan, never been deployed anywhere. In fact, she’s never been in the military.

Now the 2009 grad of Cass Lake High School has been cited for impersonating an officer, which in Minnesota includes the military. And the people of Cass Lake are trying to recover from feeling duped by their own good intentions.

April 19, 2011

WikiLeaks exposes Chinese espionage unit

Filed under: China, Military, Technology, USA — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 09:15

Strategy Page points out that it’s not just American and allied secrets that have been exposed by WikiLeaks:

Chinese Cyber War units have been plundering foreign government and military online data for over five years now. But thanks to Wikileaks, and several other sources, the identity and location of the main Chinese Cyber War operation is now known. The Chinese Chengdu Province First Technical Reconnaissance Bureau (1st TRB) is a Chinese Army electronic warfare unit located in central China (Chengdu), and is the most frequent source of hacking attacks traced back to their source. The servers used by the 1st TRB came online over five years ago, and are still used. The Chinese government flatly refuses to even discuss the growing pile of evidence regarding operations like the 1st TRB.

The 1st TRB is part of the Chinese Army’s Third Department, which is responsible for all sorts of electronic eavesdropping. But given the praise showered on the 1st TRB, a lot of valuable data has apparently been brought to Chengdu, and then distributed to the appropriate industrial, diplomatic or military operations. The hacking operation has been so successful, that it has obtained more staff and technical resources. As a result, in the last five years, detected hacking attempts on U.S. government and corporate networks has increased by more than six times. Most of these hacks appear to be coming from China. Not all the hacking is done by 1st TRB personnel. A lot of it appears to be the work of Chinese freelancers, often working for pay, but sometimes just to “serve the motherland.”

Reuters has a special report on “Byzantine Hades”:

According to U.S. investigators, China has stolen terabytes of sensitive data — from usernames and passwords for State Department computers to designs for multi-billion dollar weapons systems. And Chinese hackers show no signs of letting up. “The attacks coming out of China are not only continuing, they are accelerating,” says Alan Paller, director of research at information-security training group SANS Institute in Washington, DC.

Secret U.S. State Department cables, obtained by WikiLeaks and made available to Reuters by a third party, trace systems breaches — colorfully code-named “Byzantine Hades” by U.S. investigators — to the Chinese military. An April 2009 cable even pinpoints the attacks to a specific unit of China’s People’s Liberation Army.

Privately, U.S. officials have long suspected that the Chinese government and in particular the military was behind the cyber-attacks. What was never disclosed publicly, until now, was evidence.

U.S. efforts to halt Byzantine Hades hacks are ongoing, according to four sources familiar with investigations. In the April 2009 cable, officials in the State Department’s Cyber Threat Analysis Division noted that several Chinese-registered Web sites were “involved in Byzantine Hades intrusion activity in 2006.”

April 15, 2011

How not to celebrate Anzac Day

Filed under: Australia, History, Military, Pacific — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 12:59

An elderly driver of a retired military vehicle either lost control of his vehicle or (as the article implies) took his hands off the wheel to take a photo just before the crash:

A 64-year-old man who drove his World War II truck into a group of veterans marching in Melbourne’s Anzac Day parade last year has been charged with dangerous driving causing serious injury.

Eight members of the Ceylon Ex-Serviceman’s Association were injured, two critically, when the vintage truck lurched forward into them on Saint Kilda Road.

All the veterans survived but some are still recovering from injuries ranging from broken bones to internal injuries.

A picture obtained by the ABC in May last year allegedly showed the driver using both hands to take a photograph moments before the accident.

H/T to Chris Greaves for the link, and for the explanatory material he provided to give some context on the story:

Two things you may not realize as background to this:

(1) Australia is HUGE on Anzac day; My indoctrination started as a 10-year old in Southern Cross WA. A large portion of the town’s population was drunk by the start of the dawn service at the war memorial, and it just got worse after that. Every year. I mean, every year, the DAY just got worse.

Anzac day is the day when old diggers get maudlin about their mates who fell in The Great War, even though the maudlin diggers are too young to have HAD mates in The Great War.

(2) I feel deeply about the origins of The Third Balkan War, read up on it frequently, have 6 bookcases (not bookshelves) of books on the subject, and am deeply moved by the stories. I see 19-year old kids in the elevator and think “You died for us”, for that was most probably the average age of the soldier, sailor and airman.
So I don’t resent “dwelling on the past”; I do it daily.

See also here and here.

April 6, 2011

XM-25 video released

Filed under: Military, Technology, USA, Weapons — Tags: , — Nicholas @ 07:14

XM25 from PEO Soldier on Vimeo.

If the field trials in Afghanistan go well, this could be a very useful addition to the US Army’s armament collection. As the video shows, however, firing a 25mm round means there’s quite a kick to the soldier firing the weapon. The capability the weapon provides, however, isn’t available at the squad level any other way, so just hand it to your biggest trooper . . .

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