Kwang Hwa VI

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I learned more than ten years ago about a Republic of China (Taiwan) naval project for a 'stealth' missile boat Kwang Hwa VI (~fast attack craft).
It kept me puzzled about its purpose all the time.


Taiwan has two obviously dominant naval requirements:
1) Deter/Defend against an invasion by the PRC
2) Protection of its overseas trade (deter/break a blockade)

Other requirements certainly exist as well, but are of lesser importance
3) cooperate with air power by providing surface-to-air missile coverage over sea
4) land attack
5) protection of naval link with Pratas Islands and Taiping Island (near PRC coast)

I don't see how missile boats would be useful in such a setup. Such boats are much less cost-efficient in an anti-invasion role than coastal missile batteries (on trucks) and also quite useless for convoying.

The only utility seems to be their land attack ability - if their Hsiung Feng II (or III) missiles are prepared for it. Yet, even then it's questionable whether they're worth their cost. It would be much cheaper to launch the missiles from an auxiliary ship (with strategic surprise) or to simply use longer-ranged, heavier missiles. Finally, they've got their islands as forward bases for such land attack missions.

The Taiwanese Hsiung Feng missile family is actually quite interesting, but that doesn't explain the missile boats.

Well, maybe the Taiwanese defence establishment knows a good explanation for the class.

Sven Ortmann
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Plebiscites and a Federal German myth

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Germany has several myths about its history that are, well, historically incorrect.

One such example was the overestimation of the Marshall Plan.

Today is a good day to rip into one more.
I wrote yesterday about petitions "It's the closest thing to a federal plebiscite we got."

We don't have federal/nation-wide plebiscites in part because of a German Federal Republican myth:

The myth that plebiscites are evil because they (allegedly) helped to crash the Weimar Republic and helped Hitler.

I could be lazy and just point at an old newspaper article that already ripped this myth apart.
I'm not THAT lazy, so I'll provide a summary for those readers who cannot read German.

There were only seven nation-wide plebiscite attempts between 1919 and 1933.
(The so-called plebiscites during Hitler's reign were irrelevant propaganda tools, not plebiscites).


Of these seven attempted plebiscites were three ineligible because they were about finance policy, and only the president was authorized to launch a plebiscite on that topic. There was no vote on these three.

Another attempt was accepted, but not executed any more.

Three other plebiscites were executed, but all failed because they didn't reach 50% participation as required for becoming effective. The political strategy of the time exploited this rule by boycotting the plebiscites of political opponents.

There was not a single national plebiscite in the Weimar Republic that had any consequence.
The myth is simply nonsense.

- - - - -

There are in my opinion two reasons for why we don't get federal plebiscites:

1) The politicians don't want to lose their legislative monopoly.

2) Too many people are not really democratic-minded because they don't really trust the voter to vote responsibly in plebiscites. They prefer to have professional politicians and bureaucrats as a filter.

Sven Ortmann
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Too funny to ignore

Obama Axes Pentagon Plan To Build Billion Dollar Tank In Shape Of Dragon

Our democracy evolves...

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The German population is aging in average and median - it's not a disaster, but an important change.


Some have predicted a clash of generations as the elders get a larger and larger share of the vote. Things like high pensions and deficit spending (effectively moving the burden of state expenses on the young) have been used as examples.
The results about this are mixed so far.

Instead, we've got a completely different trend; the elders don't understand the youth and their lifestyle and concerns.
This is no news, ABSOLUTELY NO NEWS. The ancient Greeks already wrote extant texts about this phenomenon.
It's also quite ridiculous because exactly the generation that got in trouble with conservative parents for their rock and Beatles music (born in the 40's and 50's) is now opposing the internet pop culture of the young German generation.

The 'young' Germans (I draw the line at about 35-40 years age for this purpose) seem to have found a tool to resist intolerant (and at times technology-incompetent) elder's politics.
The politicians who try to grab elder votes by representing their views seem to face more and more opposition.


The online petition against internet censorship addressed one concern of the young Germans that most elders didn't even understand. This petition got a record-breaking participation without being significantly supported by mainstream offline media.

Now there's another one. That's also against a pet project of intolerant conservative politicians (conservative, but not just CDU/CSU): Their campaign against violence in video games.
Their argumentation gets rebuked by scientific experiments all the time, but they persist because the elder generation has its firm prejudices.
The new petition is only one week old and already reached the critical 50,000 signatures mark that forces the parliament committee to listen to the petition initiator.

American politicians are scared of nipples - German politicians are scared of guns. Even on screens.


The political parties attempt to wage their campaigns for the federal elections in the internet as well. The most conservative parties are apparently failing the worst in this terrain.
A new party - Piratenpartei - that focuses on fighting exactly against these conservative policies gets surprisingly much support (and a similar party won actually a seat in the European parliament in the Swedish elections).

I doubt that the new party will have a lasting impact. The new ability of grass-roots ad hoc mobilization of voters and future voters is much more impressive.

The German political world was similarly challenged by the environmental-friendly movement of the late 70's that eventually led to the establishment of a substantial green party.
The reaction of the established parties was to counter by adapting most of their messages, just a little bit weaker. The green party was kept small (typically five to little more than ten per cent of the vote) and German policies became more environmentally friendly.

That's a well-proven approach, probably introduced by Bismarck (a somewhat ruthless, but most likely the greatest German politician of all time) to German politics when he invented obligatory social insurances in response to the rise of socialists in the 19th century. The worker's life quality was raised, and the left was stopped in its advance.

Something like this may happen again - especially if some key politicians are much smarter than I usually assume.
The Piratenpartei may eventually be absorbed by the liberals, but the e-petition campaigns, the Piratenpartei and all the other resistance may have a lasting impact and may defeat the conservative populism/ignorance.

The new ability of near-spontaneous mobilization for e-petitions will most certainly last as well. The youth has (almost) no representatives in the parliament, in the top leadership of parties, in the boards of the public television stations, in church leadership and it lacks a lobby.
Nevertheless, its voice can now be heard.

It's the closest thing to a federal plebiscite we got.

Sven Ortmann
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Nuclear Non-proliferation treaty violations

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source : en.rian.ru

The NNPT has been violated many times by its signatories.

You do likely think of Iraq, Iran and North Korea, right?

Well, that's the kind of (alleged) violations that made the (Western) news.
The whole picture is different, and full of hypocrisy (as often in Western security policy).

Article I (no assistance to non-nuclear powers for nuclear weapons programs) was likely violated by the PRC with its help for the nuclear program of Pakistan.
I do also recall an erratic proposal by President Sarkozy made to Chancellor Merkel that could have amounted to shared control of nukes - in violation fo the treaty.

Article VI

Each of the Parties to the Treaty undertakes to pursue negotiations in good faith on effective measures relating to cessation of the nuclear arms race at an early date and to nuclear disarmament, and on a Treaty on general and complete disarmament under strict and effective international control.

This is a most interesting article, and no doubt one that was violated by most nuclear powers - for decades.
The few nuclear arms reduction treaties of the 80's and later are a poor excuse.
President Obama hinted at possible disarmament and raised significant domestic protest - as if the U.S. hasn't committed itself (by its own free decision and in its own interest) to pursue that goal for more than four decades already.

Non-nuclear powers didn't only join this treaty for preventing a world-wide nuclear arms race; they also did so because this treaty had article VI, and gave them the moral right to demand nuclear arms reductions among the nuclear powers.

The PR China and India both pursued a minimal deterrence strategy with nuclear arsenals not much larger than the nuclear armament of a single 80's or later U.S. or Soviet SSBN (now about 96 and 48 warheads respectively).

It's my impression that the PR China is the only official nuclear power and NNPT signatory power that did not violate article VI (yet). It was and is already at a minimum deterrence level (rumored to be about 150-200 nukes) and can legitimately wait at that level till the other nuclear powers of the NNPT have reached that level and are ready for a disarmament treaty as well.

The French and British are significantly above a "minimal deterrence" level, and this is in part a result of their SSBN-based strategy. The have one or at most two SSBN at sea (and therefore likely to survive a first strike) at any time. This requires additional nuclear weapons in docked SSBNs. Their SSBNs have nevertheless more nuclear warheads than necessary (UK Vanguard class "up to 128" but more likely 64, French Le Triomphant class "up to" 96 warheads).

Article X

1. Each Party shall in exercising its national sovereignty have the right to withdraw from the Treaty if it decides that extraordinary events, related to the subject matter of this Treaty, have jeopardized the supreme interests of its country. It shall give notice of such withdrawal to all other Parties to the Treaty and to the United Nations Security Council three months in advance. Such notice shall include a statement of the extraordinary events it regards as having jeopardized its supreme interests.

The NNPT has been presented to the public as a kind of holy international law when Iraq, Iran and North Korea were under criticism (strangely, rarely so Israel - Israel is still no 'official' nuclear power because that would illegalize U.S. military aid due to a U.S. law).
It isn't. It's possible to leave the treaty on relatively short notice, and being bullied by a conventionally superior nuclear power counts as a valid reason.


There's a general problem with the slow and half-hearted nuclear arms reduction steps. Other nations with no or much less nuclear arms can reasonably and legitimately ask why they should stick to the NNPT and have no nuclear weapons when the conventionally quite unassailable nuclear power assert their need to have thousands or hundreds of nculear weapons. It's this hyprocrisy that damages the credibility of Western non-proliferation policies.


Whatever nation insists that another nation shall follow its obligations from this treaty should follow its own NPPT obligations, or be exposed as a nation of hypocrites.

Sven Ortmann

edit: OK, the arsenals of UK and France may be 'small' enough to be OK (preliminarily) under article VI.
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Another paradox of war

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I think I mentioned Luttwak's "Strategy: The logic of War and Peace" before. It's a great book, and really helps in regard to the (seeming) paradoxes in warfare.


Warfare is tricky and complex, a superficial idea is very often 180° wrong because some tiny factor was ignored or misunderstood. That's especially difficult for politicians because they have usually not enough background on their own to detect such problems.

- - - - -

Here's one paradox about which I thought recently:

Let's consider all military action as a mere method of demonstrating the enemy the disadvantage of further resistance. It's not meant as total disarmament (that's impossible in many conflicts due to geographical barriers or guerrilla warfare anyway). Instead, the military is tasked to create the conditions in which the war can be concluded satisfactorily in negotiations.


The spontaneous assumption would be that more military success (destruction, dead, wounded, prisoners, terrain under control) advances the cause.

Think about it. Does it really advance the cause?

Imagine this scenario: An enemy island nation has an air force, an army, an industry and a navy. You destroy the air force, then the navy and the industry. Only the army and its unassailable control of the enemy country is left.
Did this preliminary result help to convince the enemy that they should accept your conditions?

I don't think so. They have (almost) nothing left to lose. They will certainly mourn over what they lost, but considering the past losses as relevant for decisions about the future would mean to fall prey to the sunk cost fallacy. The enemies may fold if they're irrational, but they would not be particularly motivated (by the destruction) to fold.


It may be a better idea to play the "threat" card as much as possible and as long as possible in support of the policy. Mere destruction of military force is not necessarily advantageous. That's not intuitive, but this is a (seeming) paradox of war, after all.
You cannot threaten to destroy an industry any more if you already did so. The only major ace left in the scenario are the opportunity costs of a delayed recovery from the war.

This false paradox was probably at work in many wars.
* It may have delayed the Japanese surrender in 1944/45 (although that was no war with moderate U.S. war goals).
* It would have been a problem for Hitler if he had continued to focus on the UK in 1941 (that case wold have come very close to my hypothetical scenario).
* The paradox may also have been a prolonging factor in the 1999 Kosovo Air War when NATO air strike planners ran out of good targets.
* Finally, it's probably always at work against underground forces (guerrillas), who after all, have very little to lose besides their lives (unless the have to fear the 'Hama' tactic).
It has generally a great potential of prolonging wars.

There's a difference between warfare that pursuits the unconditional surrender of an enemy and warfare that aims for a moderate, negotiated peace. The unconditional surrender version is relatively rare, but was most prominent in WW2 - exactly the war that coined many (most?) people's understanding of a conventional war.
An unconditional surrender can best be achieved by actual or guaranteed disarmament.
A moderate, negotiated peace treaty can best be achieved by threatening to inflict additional damage to the opponent.

Sadly, WW2 skewed our understanding of conventional war with its absoluteness and totality. The mad Cold War, especially in its "mutually assured destruction" phase, added to this distortion.

We (actually, first and foremost our foreign and national security politicians) need to re-learn the dynamics that lead to successful limited wars.

I don't advocate limited wars of choice, of course.

Sven Ortmann
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Afghanistan: A messy year 2009

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This screen capture of a recent presentation of Petraeus (video) shows how the quantity of "Security incidents" changes in cycles and grows in strength. This statistic does not seem to include combat initiated by ISAF/OEF/ANA/ANP forces.

It's going to be a messy year.

- - - - -

The loss of blood and treasure in Afghanistan hurts us, but the duration of the war may hurt us in the long term even more.
It's undeniable that the Western forces engaged in Afghanistan adapt themselves to some degree to this conflict. The theater's conditions change these forces, and we might end up being much better prepared for yet another Iraq or Afghanistan conflict than for the real next conflict. Some people even claim that we'll be more often engaged in this kind of conflict in the future decades than in conventional conflicts and "peacekeeping" military missions.

One answer might be to pull out, another would be a delicate balance between the ongoing mission and preparing for realistic future missions.
Sadly, the latter becomes ever more difficult as the intensity of the war in Afghanistan increases.

Sven Ortmann
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About counterinsurgency theory

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I dislike counter-insurgency (COIN) theory (and practice) because of my fear that the gained expertise might some day be used against legitimate (maybe even domestic) resistance.
I'm therefore quite reluctant to contribute anything to or about COIN theory.

Nevertheless, I want to share this* as a frame for the understanding of what's going on in regard to COIN theory.

The methods for bending or breaking an opposing or neutral will can be violent and non-violent.

Guerrillas first bend/break the will of the population to get access to what they need for their own survival and to attempt to break the will of organized armed opposition with a chance of success.

This leaves several opportunities for the organized armed opposition:
1) be determined and fight (no-brainer)
2) protect the population (COIN's fashion of the day)
3) bend/break the will of the population yourself (hearts & minds, "Hama" method)
4) deport the population (Stalin's strategy)
5) establish militias and possibly move rural people into defensible settlements

Strategy (1) is the minimal requirement. There's no way of succeeding against guerrillas than to stay active and keep fighting till the end of the hot conflict. This is the no-brainer and the starting point for those officers who are/were not educated on COIN.

(2) is the current fashion of the day in counterinsurgency theory. The reason is probably simply that ISAF and OEF are failing in it due to lack of quantity. There aren't enough troops to really protect the population, and I strongly suggest that there will never be enough for it.
nevertheless, the need to 'protect the population against insurgents' is the talking point de jour.

(3) has been the great fashion of the day among COIN theorists for a while now. They emphasized the non-violent "hearts and minds" style. "Hearts and minds" isn't much different from "divide et impera" in a conflict.
The proponents of (1) resist the idea of (3), and it's really about the right balance. Great military theorists and leaders have warned many times in history about the dangers luring behind the idea of winning without fighting. Most of them criticized primarily ideas about defeating armies by out-maneuvering them without a final battle, of course.

The "Hama" option is the other extreme of option (3); it's about breaking will without even trying to bend it. An excessive employment of violence can instill so much fear and organizational shock that the resistance collapses. The Hama massacre was one of the most recent examples and is often used as a representative for a millennia-old strategy ("Alexander the Great" was 'great' at it).

(4) deprives the guerrilla of all support by taking away the population like taking away water from a fish. Stalin was a ruthless master of this strategy; that's how he handled and broke the resistance of small nationalities in the USSR.

(5) is obviously a two-edged sword. The loyalty or at least neutrality of the civilians is critical to the success of any program that seeks to protect them by arming them.
It may be necessary to force rural population into defensible and controllable compact settlements. This has the potential of provoking even mroe unrest, so it's a good idea to provide a superior living standard and acceptable access to agricultural areas in the new settlements. The strategy of armed and resilient population that keeps the guerrillas away with only minimal army support (at minimum a radio for calling help in every settlement) is a way to go for numerically weak armies.
The American "Sons of Iraq" program of auxiliary militias was a version of (5), British indirect rule in its Empire was another, more distantly related, version.

This framework should dispel the 'magic' from every fancy and supposedly great counter-insurgency strategy. Counter-guerrilla activities are always about resisting/confronting the violent opposition and/or depriving it of its support. It becomes easily visible that the ideas used are new only in detail and all have their difficulties attached.

There's no easy solution, and that's a good thing. I wouldn't want to live in a world where state governments could quell any (even armed) opposition.

Sven Ortmann

*: It's mine, not really a quote. I like the format for the purpose.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Either blogger has some issues or I keep releasing unfinished blog posts by clicking on the wrong buttons. This was probably the fifth blog text that went online before it was finished.

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Our fiscal policy is scary

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Our government (grand coalition) promised to get the debt growth under control. They failed (not because of the economic crisis; they didn't get their expenses under control).

They launched a law to limit the ability of future governments to add net debt ... and I had hope.

This new F.A.Z. graphic is outright scary.

It shows the projected rise in official public debt 65.9 to 82 % BIP (~ GDP).

I'm not sure about their definition of public debt (especially not about the "verdeckte Schulden" - concealed debt, on the right side), but the general direction is realistic.

History has proved again and again that fiscal health is important. States that spend several per cent of their GDP on servicing debt are weakened in social, economic and defence matters.
Sun Tzu already wrote about the importance of state finances, and the Romans regularly struggled with the financing of their army.
European wars depended more on money than anything else from about the age of Crusaders till the French revolution. national population and industry became important afterward, but those aren't exactly great strengths of ours any more as well.

Public debt equal to 82% GDP would cost us much more annual interest payments than we've got defence expenditures. The economic arguments about public debt are split, but even the pro-debt faction doesn't advocate such massive amounts of debt.

- - - - -

Public debt is the most visible phenomenon of a more general problem:
Organizations (like states) accumulate problems and restrictions over time. They become more and more rigid. Only major events can break this trend till it makes itself felt again.

That's one of the reasons why large companies change their strategy and re-organize so often.
States don't reform themselves in a five-years rhythm - they keep accumulating problems.

Public debt is such an accumulated problem, and the debt levels are quite distressing.

- - - - -

The response of Britain and France to Hitler's re-armament was in part so slow because these states were still weakened by the burden of the Great War debt. Germany had been relieved of that huge debt by a disastrous hyper-inflation in the 20's.

Such a surprise inflation might actually happen soon as well, but that's another topic.

The public debt situation is deteriorating, and I consider that as a more distressing problem for national security than those misguided assholes who can't even match random lightning strikes in lethality statistics.

Sven Ortmann
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Is Germany at war because of ISAF?

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Our politicians (well, those in power) resist the notion that we're at war or that at least the Germans in Afghanistan are waging a war.

I'm quite sure that Afghanistan is a country at war; there's a civil war between the "national" and foreign forces on one side and a decentralized collection of Taliban groups plus some other armed fores (smuggler clans, for example) on the other side.

This doesn't mean that we or our soldiers there are at war - not in itself.
Combat itself is not necessarily war.

So let's have a closer look at it:

- - - - -

The German ministry of defence writes on its website:

Seit Dezember 2001 ist die Bundeswehr – gestützt auf ein breites Mandat des Bundestages – in Afghanistan präsent. Im Rahmen der International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) unterstützt sie die afghanische Regierung bei Herstellung und Wahrung der Inneren Sicherheit, solange einheimische Kräfte dazu noch nicht vollständig in der Lage sind. Außerdem wirkt sie beim Wiederaufbau des Landes mit.

Translation:
Since December 2001 is the Bundeswehr - resting on a broad mandate of the Bundestag - in Afghanistan. It supports in the framework of the (...) ISAF the Afghan government in the establishment and maintenance of the internal security as long as indigenous forces aren't fully capable to do this. Furthermore, it helps in the reconstruction of the country.

-> Official national (BMVg/government) position:
ISAF supports the Afghan government as long as it cannot do its jobs on its own.



The ISAF website says

NATO’s main role in Afghanistan is to assist the Afghan Government in exercising and extending its authority and influence across the country, paving the way for reconstruction and effective governance. It does this predominately through its UN-mandated International Security Assistance Force.

Since NATO took command of ISAF in 2003, the Alliance has gradually expanded the reach of its mission, originally limited to Kabul, to cover Afghanistan’s whole territory. The number of ISAF troops has grown accordingly from the initial 5,000 to around 50.000 troops coming from 42 countries, including all 26 NATO members.
(...)
In accordance with all the relevant Security Council Resolutions, ISAF’s main role is to assist the Afghan government in the establishment of a secure and stable environment. To this end, ISAF forces are conducting security and stability operations throughout the country together with the Afghan National Security Forces and are directly involved in the development of the Afghan National Army through mentoring, training and equipping.
(...)
ISAF is a coalition of the willing - not a UN force properly speaking - which has a peace-enforcement mandate under Chapter VII of the UN Charter.

Nine UN Security Council Resolutions relate to ISAF, namely: 1386, 1413, 1444, 1510, 1563, 1623, 1707, 1776 and 1833 (on 23 September 2008). A detailed Military Technical Agreement agreed between the ISAF Commander and the Afghan Transitional Authority in January 2002 provides additional guidance for ISAF operations.

NATO took command of ISAF in August 2003 upon request of the UN and the Government of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan and soon after, the UN gave ISAF a mandate to expand outside of Kabul.

-> Official multinational (ISAF/NATO) position:

"ISAF’s main role is to assist the Afghan government in the establishment of a secure and stable environment. To this end, ISAF forces are conducting security and stability operations (...)"


Now let's look at the international stage (United Nations);
ISAF was authorized by the UNSC, after all.

It began with
S/RES/1386 (2001)

Authorizes, as envisaged in Annex 1 to the Bonn Agreement, the establishment for 6 months of an International Security Assistance Force to assist the Afghan Interim Authority in the maintenance of security in Kabul and its surrounding areas, so that the Afghan Interim Authority as well as the personnel of the United Nations can operate in a secure environment;

It got extended (duration) by S/RES/1510 (2003).

S/RES/1563 (2004) extended ISAF again and added

Calls upon the International Security Assistance Force to continue to work in close consultation with the Afghan Transitional Administration and its successors and the Special Representative of the Secretary-General as well as with the Operation Enduring Freedom Coalition in the implementation of the force mandate;

S/RES/1623 (2005) extended again...

S/RES/1659 (2006) was a bit more creative extension:

3. Affirms the central and impartial role of the United Nations in Afghanistan, including coordination of efforts in implementing the Compact; and looks forward to the early formation of the Joint Coordination and Monitoring Board, co-chaired by the Afghan Government and the United Nations, and with a secretariat function to support it;
4. Welcomes the interim Afghanistan National Development Strategy (iANDS) presented by the Afghan Government and the political, security and financial pledges made by participants at the London Conference; notes that financial assistance available for the implementation of iANDS has now reached $10.5 billion; further notes the intention of the Afghan Government to seek debt relief through the Paris Club;
5. Recognizes the risk that opium cultivation, production and trafficking poses to the security, development and governance of Afghanistan as well as to the region and internationally, welcomes the updated National Drug Control Strategy presented by the Afghan Government at the London Conference, and encourages additional international support for the four priorities identified in that Strategy including through contribution to the Counter Narcotics Trust Fund;
6. Acknowledges the continuing commitment of NATO to lead the
International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), and welcomes the adoption by NATO of a revised Operational Plan allowing the continued expansion of the ISAF across Afghanistan, closer operational synergy with the Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF), and support, within means and capabilities, to Afghan security forces in the military aspects of their training and operational deployments;

S/RES/1707 (2006) extended.

S/RES/1776 (2007) had this as creative part:

Stresses the importance of increasing the effective functionality,
professionalism and accountability of the Afghan security sector in order to provide long-term solutions to security in Afghanistan, and encourages ISAF and other partners to sustain their efforts, as resources permit, to train, mentor and empower the Afghan national security forces, in particular the Afghan National Police

S/RES/1833 (2008) adds another extension to 13 October 2009 and has this

Stresses the importance of increasing, in a comprehensive framework, the functionality, professionalism and accountability of the Afghan security sector, encourages ISAF and other partners to sustain their efforts, as resources permit, to train, mentor and empower the Afghan national security forces, in order to accelerate progress towards the goal of self-sufficient and ethnically balanced Afghan security forces providing security and ensuring the rule of law throughout the country, welcomes in this context the progress achieved by the Afghan Authorities in assuming lead security responsibility for Kabul, and stresses the importance of supporting the planned expansion of the Afghan National Army;

-> Official international (U.N.) position:
ISAF is a mission to assist the Afghan government under NATO leadership in consultation with an UNSecGen representative and OEF.

- - - - -

These statements are lacking an important part or a war mission: They do not tell that ISAF's mission was to defeat an enemy or to at least force warring parties to end warfare. ISAF is by official design not meant to win or end the war, but to add security and stability to Afghanistan till the Afghan government takes over.
It was meant to be an Afghanization project from day one (unlike OEF-A).

The clausewitzian understanding that war is about breaking the will of an enemy (if necessary by disarmament or death) is completely missing in ISAF's mission.


The job of ISAF is - as I read it - not to defeat the Taliban or any other group, but to assist the government (forces) and to provide security. It's a kind of policing job.

ISAF is more about buying time than about defeating an enemy.

- - - - -

Well, is ISAF at war, is Germany at war?

It's certainly a strange situation - it would be a very unusual level of violence for a war with German participation, for sure.

My take is now that we're in fact not at war. The official documents about the ISAF mission, the political intent, the intensity of violence and the art of war tell me that we're not at war.

We're instead in what could be called a peacekeeping mission gone wrong. ISAF doesn't really succeed to keep war away - it merely succeeds in keeping the Taliban mostly in the underground and in suppressing large-scale violence. Yet, we don't pull out either.

I was changing between the "it's war" and the "it's no war" position for a long time, and now I think that -unless we see great changes- it's not a war. It's another kind of mess.


ISAF is a peacekeeping mission gone wrong.
I stick to my opinion that we should have no more than maybe a dozen soldiers (military observers) in Afghanistan. The investigation of the topic's question was nevertheless interesting. I also recovered a little bit of my respect for our SecDef. Just a bit.

Sven Ortmann
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