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It's a tragedy, but the current Russo-Ukrianian War shows that modern inter-state warfare can last a long time, just as in the past. Moreover, it shows that army buildups in the years leading up to a war are a thing, just as in the past.*
The tragedy of war is terrible, but there's a good side of the coin; extremely cheap means to deter aggression have become very plausible and also more visible.
1) The ability to grow up the armed forces personnel-wise is now easily recognizable as valuable, and having deterrence value.
2) Artillery munitions stocks are really cheap compared to maintaining a large pool of personnel on active duty.
1,500 € per shell, 500 € per multifunction fuse, 1,000 € for propellant modules, 500 € for packaging and storage at suitable climate sum up to merely € 3.5 bn for a million 155 mm HE shots.
3) The ability to grow up the armed forces material-wise within a year is now a topic as well, and to demonstrate such ability would help to dissuade a wannabe aggressor's attempt to gain an advantage through a two-yer arms race.
This ability is in part about actual economic capabilities, but it's also about legislative and administrative preparation. A law should be on the books (and administrative procedures and forms prepared) for the case of commandeering vehicles and equipment, for forcing the economy to priority-build dictated quantities of equipment (up to the government replacing the top management to force compliance).
Such a law would have helped us greatly to respond to Ukraine's shell hunger. Such a law is FOR FREE.
#1) This means in my opinion that we should have great many men (and women, whatever) who underwent a fine basic military training (3...6 months) and could quickly be called up for specialised training (equipment, doctrine, small unit and unit training) that lasts for weeks.**
Moreover, we should have great many junior non-commissioned officers (active time on duty until going into reserve no more than two years) and great many junior officers (no more than three years).
The Bundeswehr is rather preparing and maintaining a huge quantity of senior officers, which lets the force rot, as there's a lack of reinvestments, spare parts, exercises and an imbalance of personnel (1/3 officers, 1/3 non-commissioned officers, 1/3 enlisted personnel). A wartime German army needs no more than one Colonel, six majors and about 30 captains per brigade. All other officers could be reserve lieutenants, each paired with one experienced senior NCO. Civilian managers conscripted to serve as reserve officers can lead all the kinds of support services in wartime that peacetime armies employ LtCol and Col ranks for.
#2) Germany could easily have stocked up 10 million 155 mm HE shots post-Cold War by saving the money spent on obvious bollocks. A large quantity of NATO standard artillery munitions in Central Europe would have been a huge boon for NATO defence plans (which apparenlty weren't even being prepared until about 2009 IIRC) and it would have given us enough munitions to help Ukraine decisively by now.
The German military budget wasn't too small; it was (and is) mismanaged.
#3) We don't need substantial army rotary aviation. We don't need substantial air force transport aircraft fleets, we don't need more army logistics vehicles other than the ones supposed to carry fuel and munitions within the brigade. We don't need offroad cars (or even MRAPs) to equip resevre brigades. We don't need expensive tractor vehicle for tank transporter trailers in quantities that would enable the entire army to deploy quickly. We can commandeer and conscript. That would enable us to equip 20 reserve brigades on the cheap if we wanted to do so. That's also how the Finns do it; agricultural tractors and civilian motor vehicles are meant for use in their army reserve formations.
I see a lot of talk (writing) that's firmly within the establishment paradigm of paying 99% attention to army peacetime strength (formations, platforms, personnel). This paradigm calls for more and more money, ever more money, for the purpose of deterrence and defence and often produces hollow forces.
This is stupid. There are more cost-effective ways that serve the group thinking senior officer caste's interests and leanings less. We should not waste money on avoidable inefficiencies in deterrence & defence!
S O
*: The arms race in Europe 1933-1939 (for the U.S. extending into 1941) was msot obvious, but there was also a marked increase in military buildup efforts in 1912-1914. The German parliament gave up its resistance to calls for more army corps (to counter the decades-long French army buildup) in 1912, for example.
**: Another inisght from Ukrainians; motivated people can learn specialised military trades and using complicated equipment really quick, mcuh quicker than in ordinary peacetime training courses.
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The ability to grow up the armed forces personnel-wise is now easily recognizable as valuable, and having deterrence value.
ReplyDeleteThis is usually accomplished via conscription. You might have different ideas, I just don't know an example where such an idea other than conscription worked to accomplish this goal. So if you counter that this can get done by means other than conscription, can you also show an example where this is being done?
Look at how late the UK introduced conscription in WW1.
DeleteThe issue I was aiming at was having the pool of personnel that requires long training, while shortening how much training the others need in a quick expansion scenario.
So the point is that some form of conscription is necessary. That's a statement very much at odds with what many professional German soldiers were voicing the last decades. If I understand you correctly, you want a structure that prepares for conscription by putting the time consuming training of NCO and junior officers in place, waiting with the training of the enlisted until necessary. That might work in theory, but in practice the enlisted will need at least some kind of enhanced basic training to be willing to undergo preparation, when things get tough, otherwise I predict they would run away from the unknown introduction into the military and training for an involuntary life threatening job. I'm also critical of the old military conscription system, but maybe a choice of training for a few months to help with military emergencies or disaster relief might work.
DeleteRegarding the UK, it was an island with a poweful navy and a society that supported the war. We have different conditions and I don't see us having the ability to build a fortification that emulates the safety of an island with the leading navy. If war breaks out, we'll need troops faster than that.
DeleteThe point is they built a large army using volunteers. It was small by great power standards of the day, but large by today's standards, even if we look at % of military age men metric.
DeleteI suppose we can build a pool of volunteer reservists that's enough for wartime because we're in a effing huge alliance. A benefit of an alliance is that you need to put LESS effort into deterrence & defence, NOT MORE.
Israel, South Korea, Taiwan, Armenia, Azerbaijan and Iran need conscription.
Thank you. How large would such a volunteer force have to be? Please do me a favour and try to give a range, based on your optimism and my pessimism.
DeleteI'm more on the pessimistic side, because I think our alliances can severely underperform. I assume members less under threat will contribute astonishingly little. Being in an alliance increases security, but there must be capabilities to weather the situation without urgent calls for help. I think, you would rate the utility of our alliances higher. I hope we are such a good ally for others, but I don't expect everyone to be such an ally for us. Just imagine we have an alliance case not involving China under the next Republican US president and a France ruled by the Rassemblement National.
The Russian armed forces number approx. 600k-900k in peacetime, some of them have to be in Asia. Their mobilisation strength was no more than 1.5M before equipment ran out.
DeleteNATO would have been fine with 1.5M mobilised strength in Europe. We had about 1.3M peacetime strength instead, mobilised strength likely around 3M.
Now we might be pessimistic and look at a reformed Russia with Chinese support as a threat scenario 2030. The rail line and air transportation capacity limits how much China can really do in Europe, so that's still less than a 2.5M personnel threat.
This includes navies and air forces.
Germany has about 1/7 of European NATO's population and wages well above average (thus making above average capital-intensive efforts reasonable). Let's say the Americans are busy in Asia. 1/8 of 2.5 M is a little over 300k. Leave some room for a German air force and those 300k look start to look like 3 divisional slices (9 brigades wartime strength) to me. A more lean force might squeeze 12 wartime brigades into this.
BTW, I don't think the French air power is critical vs. Russia, and their army is small. Greece, Turkey and Finland are the NATO members that can provide a huge quantity of troops in wartime to form and hold a line from behind which the air power and artillery of the gold-plated forces would act.
Thank you.
DeleteI propose that you send the woman and the whatevers first to the line. Don't deprive them this time of the historical chance to be first in line!
ReplyDelete