These are some topics planned for August/September:
Waffenexporte
(for the German arms exports debate, this should soon be published)
The Economist: "The humble hero"
(still looking for an excuse to link to this old economics article on containerization and trade)
Campaign volunteers
(on foreign fighters / mercenaries)
Battlefield missile artillery from the blackpowder age to the 21st century - Part I
(big topic)
Affordable combat aircraft
(an overview with few conclusions)
Aggressive/preemptive defence
(tactical and operational mil theory and history topic)
Specialised reinforcement formations
(mostly mil history and theory)
The fusion of battlefield AD, C-RAM and field artillery
(big one, but rather ambitious concerning technology)
Future land campaigns for defence
(war and peace topic)
Our addictions
(about irrational, bloating and weighting down requirements)
Drones in theory (Part 3: Naval drones)
(as if I had a clue)
Dolchstoßlegende, assault infantry and modern personnel affairs
(held back becuase the topic is dislikable)
Basic training catch up considerations
(essentially calculations)
Future of Warfare in low GDP countries
(big topic)
Will the Marine Corps APC racket ever end?
(held back because enough U.S. bashing already)
S O
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Hello, long time reader, first time poster here - I am really curious about what you have in store for the "Future of Warfare in low GDP countries" topic. Will that article be focused on the poorer half of the EU, or in the third-world countries? By the way, if about the EU countries, how will/would you address the problem? Pooling/Sharing, a move towards some sort of permanent EU QRF... what should be the capabilities of the smaller european nations, such as Austria or Portugal?
ReplyDeleteThere are two kinds of modern warfare:
Delete(1) Rich countries using state of the art, including very expensive gear and huge quantities of supplies.
(2) Poor countries (armies) using what's most available, and trending towards what's giving the most bang for the buck. This results in a completely different force design due to the different economic restrictions.
The draft looks at what a country like Tanzania or Ghana could set up as a military these days (without any prestige components).
The small or economically troubled European countries should focus their defence spending on training NCOs and officers and keeping/building competence in the different branches and in combined arms formations. They should maintain corps-level staff experience in multinational staffs, but only if the partner hasn't a rotten, bloated concept of such staffs.
Thank you for your answer. Looking forward to reading your article, especially your view on the "more bang for your buck" concept. I would assume that the proliferation of technicals in Africa, or South Africa's AHRLAC are good examples of "bang for buck": cheap equipment, well adapted to specific defense needs.
DeleteSO,
ReplyDeleteAs an American I welcome your bashing of American weapon systems - you make thoughtful criticisms that are worthy of consideration by any open minded professional.
I say bash away, but please leave the politics out.
I hope that you might also consider topics in modern combat engineering and logistics.
GAB
I don't care about politics, but policies - particularly defence policy - are fair game.
DeleteI noticed something weird about combat engineering in the late Cold War period and plan that other article about containers with some remarks on MULTI/PLS/DROPS, but there's not much else planned.
Looks like a pretty good lineup of posts, especially about the reinforcement formations. Knowing you, there will probably be a focus on combat agility and span of command.
ReplyDeleteI have become very interested in how some armed forces try to translate their manpower into useful combat formations, like the luftwaffe field divisions and whatnot.