2015/08/20

The return of conventional warfare (II)

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Yesterday I looked at the superficial, easy things about the current re-orientation. Today is the time for the 'backoffice' and non-hardware activities. Sadly, I'm not nearly as confident that these changes will actually happen.

* more combined arms training

* more deployment training

* "rapid deployment" may equate "administrative marches by road and rail" again, not by "airlift"

* pre-positioning of artillery ammunition stocks and a few brigade sets in Eastern Europe

* infantry training looking at assault/raid and ambush/delaying actions much more, less at counter-IED, counter-sniper

* more training in woodland

* some more winter training, more rarely combined with 'alpine' training

* more training in radio emissions-restricted mode, less emphasis on items such as blue force tracker

* less dependency on satellite navigation

* new approaches to AFV identification friend or foe; both radio-based approaches and markings in the infrared spectrum won't do the trick any more

* renewed attempts to accelerate headquarter decisionmaking processes and to shorten orders

* more air combat training

* changed civ-mil training; expecting motorized civilian refugees to produce traffic jams, less interest in civilians as intel sources or as potential insurgents

* efforts to streamline political decisionmaking processes, to be imprinted in the foreign policy bureaucracies (because the political masters aren't there to stay as much as are bureaucrats)


One thing that I totally do not expect are any preparations for taking hostages bargaining chips in case of some crisis. NATO could keep Moscow's pet projects in Abchasia and South Ossetia hostage, or even occupy Kaliningrad Oblast in the event of violent Baltic border violations. I suppose this would both be too politically incorrect for a consensus among so many (notional) democracies.

S O
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