GIZMODO: The True Odds of Airborne Terror Chart

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hat tip: http://gizmodo.com/5435954/the-true-odds-of-airborne-terror-chart

(I didn't fact-check the figures, but it looks about right. It's similar to rational risk assessments I've seen before.)

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Forged documents...

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POLITICS: U.S. Intelligence Found Iran Nuke Document Was Forged

By Gareth Porter*

WASHINGTON, Dec 28 (IPS) - U.S. intelligence has concluded that the document published recently by the Times of London, which purportedly describes an Iranian plan to do experiments on what the newspaper described as a "neutron initiator" for an atomic weapon, is a fabrication, according to a former Central Intelligence Agency official.

Philip Giraldi, who was a CIA counterterrorism official from 1976 to 1992, told IPS that intelligence sources say that the United States had nothing to do with forging the document, and that Israel is the primary suspect. The sources do not rule out a British role in the fabrication, however.

The Times of London story published Dec. 14 did not identify the source of the document. But it quoted "an Asian intelligence source" - a term some news media have used for Israeli intelligence officials - as confirming that his government believes Iran was working on a neutron initiator as recently as 2007.

The story of the purported Iranian document prompted a new round of expressions of U.S. and European support for tougher sanctions against Iran and reminders of Israel's threats to attack Iranian nuclear programme targets if diplomacy fails.

(...)

Stories like this remind me of many, many problems of modern policy and politics.

* Uncertainty. Even governments need to distrust sources, for disinformation is common.

* Tails wag the dog with information campaigns.

* It's often a good idea to ignore breaking stories and wait for weeks or months with the formation of an own opinion.

* Some parties are waging camapigns, using a salami slice tactic to erode opposition to their intent. Only interested parties with firm character and independent intent can provide a suitable counterforce.

* To be befriended with a power does not mean that it won't mislead you.

* Not all bad stories about the usual suspects are true.

* Don't trust papers, photos or videos. Everything that can be produced can be forged. You really need trustworthy agents to vet info - and I don't mean only intelligence officers. It's great intelligence collection to send personnel for international observer teams. Information and opinion multipliers (politicians, officials, journalists) need to build a reputation. The prospect of losing this reputation would need to be a personal loss of unacceptable proportions to them.

* Never ever even try to justify a war with "intelligence" reports, documents, photos or videos. The possibility of being fooled into mass killing is unacceptable.

* Forgeries need to be sanctioned. An attempt to fool another power into a war should be punished no less than an actual war of aggression. It should be a war crime and powers found guilty should be sanctioned harshly till the responsible individuals were adequately punished. That would be an ethical standard, of course. You would most often be unable to trust evidence about their guilt, after all.

The prevention of war is a honourable and important task of the national security agencies of states. This goes well beyond deterrence; it's also about suppressing warmongering as much as is legal in a free society.

Regrettably, many (most) people in national security-related jobs tend to have a political bias that makes it rather difficult to get involved in the political vicinity of usually leftist peace activists.

Sven Ortmann

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Great power games

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Something has changed in great power gaming rules.

I used to look like soccer with great powers kicking small power balls again and again until one great power had scored decisively or the game had ended.

Well, that somehow stopped to be true - we seemed to have a kind of rule change, and this seemed to have coincided with the writing of the United Nations Charter (albeit I see no direct link).

Today it's more like small powers kicking great power balls. And I don't mean insurgents kicking conventional militaries, I really mean small powers.

Some examples:

Cuba played and plays as if it was a great power in Latin America and Southern Africa.

Egypt played the U.S. and USSR to get the highest bidder for support.

Kosovo's UCK fooled NATO into waging its war against Yugoslavia

Afghanistan's government - supposed to be a Western puppet - plays Western powers to fight its war indefinitely.

- - - - -

On the other hand, the success ratio for the great power's games has been astonishingly poor since WW2. It's even poor if we ignore the many disastrous decolonialization wars.

France was able to exercise some influence and stabilize friendly governments of some former French colonies, and it did so with relatively little effort (no major war). That's probably the biggest success story.

The USSR and U.S. competed for influence in the Third World (especially in the context of decolonialization), but this influence was very often limited to symbolic gestures. Regimes pledges allegiance to capitalism or socialism, but the actual benefits for the great powers were usually marginal. Many such allies of the West were simply dictatorships that merely had to declare to be anti-socialist to get away with almost everything, including weak forms of fascism.

The only "benefit" in these games was the denial of access influence to the rival. The Eastern Bloc had no great raw material shortage (mostly coffee and other non-industrial commodities), so it couldn't have absorbed the raw material exports of the Third World even if it had been 100% "socialist". The West would likely have been able to import enough from slightly socialist Third World countries (as it indeed did) even without any competition for influence efforts of his own.

The UK's great power games were little more than keeping close relations with former colonies, shadowing the U.S. and recapturing a group of island that a small power had dared to grab in expectation of no reaction. Oh, and of course there was also the political disaster of the Suez crisis.

It's not exactly obvious what kind of real benefits Britain gained by its great power status post-WW2.

The PR China has had a great power status for a while - and achieved little more than protection of its supposedly communist regime against a counter-revolution.

Luxembourg and Singapore are tiny, yet rich states. What is it exactly that creates the drive for being a great power and playing great power games? Are politicians and journalists bored?

Maybe the great powers should learn to anticipate their action's effects by reading the new rule book?

Sven Ortmann

edit:

A few hours later the Sic Semper Tyrrannis blog published a text on Yemen, including this very fitting quote:

The Yemenis are crafty folk. In the Cold War they were adept at getting free money and weapons from the USSR, USA, Saudi Arabia, and East Germany. They hired the French, Taiwanese and Italians to do odd jobs for them using other peoples' money.

Salih is particularly good at that. He delights in "screwing" the big guys by playing on their fears.

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Kunduz affair, RumINT and the leaked report

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The Financial Times Deutschland has published a good article about the dysfunctional inner workings of the BMVg (German ministry of defence) in the past four years. The FTD doesn't deserve much praise for it; they should ask themselves "WHY DIDN'T THEY INFORM THE PUBLIC PROPERLY AS LONG AS Mr. JUNG WAS IN OFFICE??".

About 100,000 Germans - officers, journalists, lobbyists, officials and others with interest in military affairs - knew about the irresponsible situation in the BMVg. The general public wasn't informed in time. There's a similar lack of press aggressiveness hurting our nation in regard to our federal economic policy. Merkel gets away with having several extremely lousy and at best worthless ministers.

Anyway; I'd like to point out one especially worrying detail that fits well to FTD's story:

RumINT says that the OEF/ISAF leadership in AFG (McChrystal) pays much attention to a quite questionable tool of damage control in regard to civilian/non-combattant/illegal target casualties: They mobilize local/regional Afghan puppet officials who quickly deny such casualties or declare them to have been Taliban fighters.

RumINT further tells that this approach was given as advice to the Germans and that this tactic was employed in regard to the Kunduz bombing affair.

A certain German MilBlog with hawkish tendencies has been repeating the claim that the Afghans around Kunduz were happy about the air attack and that Afghan officials had declared all casualties to be guilty of being TB or supporting them.

Well, the leaked Kunduz air attack report (if it's the real one) seems to confirm this assertion. There's still a very uneasy feeling, though.

The Afghan national authorities in the Kunduz area are all dominated by the local majority (non-Pashtuns) and said majority is quite at odds with the Pashtuns (which seem to conspire with the TB). It's obvious that the regional authorities - and likewise the police, army and many civilians who appeared to celebrate the attack - do not represent all 'Afghans' of the area.

The worries about popular reactions to the attack centre on the idea that the casualties might motivate additional 'accidental guerrillas'. Well, there's nothing less meaningful in regard to this worry than the opinion of said authorities, army soldiers, policemen and non-Pashtun civilians.

The reaction of the Pashtun populace is of interest - and neither said hawkish blog nor the leaked report give any meaningful info about it.

Let's jump back to the rumoured McChrystal PR tactic; it's meant to disinform and to cover up (IF RumINT is right).

The leaked report - which was not meant for the public - looks as if it got a full treatment with said alleged McChrystal PR tactic. There are statements by officials on several pages (even conflicting ones for completeness' sake), but there's no real indication of negative reactions.

That fits very well to the poor BMVg culture of the last years - and is a damning omen for the future. Let's hope that the new German SecDef reverses the corrupted system and enables the officer corps to turn back to a much more honest, effective mode of operation.

Sven Ortmann

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Opportunities

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Much has been written about manoeuvre and attrition tactics. The emphasis of military theory usually seemed to be on firepower and movement in regard to this topic. I'd like to present one specific perspective; a look at "opportunities".

- - - - -

The manoeuverist tactician seeks to dislocate an enemy strength before he engages the enemy in final close combat. A classic example is a flank attack or even encirclement in which at least a strong frontal disposition of the enemy is being de-valued.

The attritionist tactician seeks to first weaken the enemy (preferably by stand-off fires) before he engages in final combat. A classic example were the preparation bombardments of enemy defences in WW2 and during the 1991 Gulf War.

Both seek an unfair advantage. The Manoeuverist invests in movement, the Attritionist invests in ammunition. Both styles can be mixed and both styles have their utility - the discussion that rages since at the latest the early 80's (rather 40's) was merely about the proper mix of both.

A different perspective tells much more, though.
The Manoeuverist seeks to exploit opportunities while the Attritionist creates opportunities.

This shows clearly why the attritionist method is the more expensive approach and at the same time much less demanding in regard to command quality.

Those who seek to exploit opportunities as they arise succeeds the most against less competent, slower enemies and he needs to put a premium on rapid understanding and exploitation of the situation. He cannot plan days ahead - opportunities are fleeting and only the quick leaders (with quick units) can exploit them in time.

The attritionist method does not place such a premium on command quality and quick forces; it's focused on firepower and logistics (to feed the firing units) instead. That works fine if you've got the material strength, a vulnerable opponent and most important: An opponent who doesn't exploit weak spots of the attritionist before the firepower has taken too much toll.


I wrote it before; it's all about the right mix. This right mix is even more difficult to achieve than mastery in either extreme, though. You need both the Attritionist's strengths (firepower, logistics) AND the Manoeuverist's strength (quickness) to master the 'golden' middle road.

- - - - -

That's of course a huge challenge. It's very difficult to train for excellence in both approaches and to unite both mind sets and keep them in the right balance (timing!).

Modern army training involves neither much firing nor much manoeuvring in comparison to wartime efforts. There's not enough effort being invested into maximising quickness, for example.
A warship's crew has several drills per day to minimise their reaction times in regard to certain hazards or even mere alarms. How often do brigades and battalions train to break contact rapidly, to relocate and execute a hasty attack (seriously 'hasty', as in less than an hour!!)? Some training is done, yet not till the achievement of real minimum lags.

Recent reports from Afghanistan tell about opportunities for defeating enemies being missed because about a dozen permissions were necessary and not all were available in time. That's attritionist bureaucracy at work.

Long story short: Western armies are powerful, but there's nevertheless a huge potential for improvements of their tactical and operational competence.

That's - admittedly - a trivial remark. We' haven't been in a major modern war for decades, after all. How could we be fit for one? That combination is pretty much impossible.

S O

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Goodbye Michael Forster, Goodbye Geopowers

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Michael Forster, the author of the most successful German MilBlog geopowers, has died today.

I loved our discussions. He will be badly missed by many people.

S O
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The oil well affair

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I encounter many sources the same news; some Iranian combatants have allegedly seized an oil well in Iraqi territory.

That's interesting news; most news sources who report that accepted the Iraqi version of the story by 100%, about 95% didn't even mention an Iranian side of the story. That's quite a slant, considering how difficult it is to really *know* about who's right and if any side is *right* at all.


The anti-Iran bias isn't the most interesting part, of course.

First two historical examples:

(1) Remember the March 2008 Basra operation where the Iraqi security force took control of the city? That was a signal event; it turned the Iraqi prime minister al-Maliki into a strong politician and signaled that the government was about to assume control of the country.
The previous loss of power in the city by British and Iraqi government forces turned out to be more of an opportunity than a problem.

(2) Remember the Checkpoint Charlie face-off between U.S. and Soviet tanks in October '61 (or a history book text about it)? That face-off served demonstrated who was at power in Berlin; the occupying powers, not the German governments (especially not the Eastern German one).

Jump back to today, a stupid oil well somewhere in the Middle East:

The affair is a great opportunity for the Iraqi state to demonstrate sovereignty by addressing it on its own (and a great chance for the U.S. to finalize the nation re-building by staying invisible and mute on the issue!). Photos of how an Iraqi battalion f(of unidentified ethnicity) faces the Iranians with no foreign troops in sight would be a huge boost for Iraq's sovereignty.

The affair might also serve as a unifying moment - an external threat is always great to rally your people behind the government. It's of course questionable to what extent that works in the deeply divided Iraqi society. Maybe it helps at least to reduce the tensions between Arabs and Kurds a bit.

The whole affair is a huge opportunity for Iraq's government.
Now let's hope that the Western powers involved in the region don't do anything stupid.

Sven Ortmann
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Field fortifications: Angle bastion, Parfox and the MG4(2)

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The German infantry squad of the 30's and WW2 was built around a multi-role machine gun (medium machine gun, MMG); the MG34 or MG42 or another machine gun if the unit was poorly equipped with an old or captured machine gun. The other guns were mostly bolt action rifles, K98 - with a practical rate of fire of about 15 rpm under training conditions. Submachine guns were quite rare until mid-war and didn't influence the infantry doctrine very much. The result was that the machine gun made up about 80% of the squad's firepower. Squad fire tactics had to ensure a maximum exploitation of its potential.

Now think of the combination one 80% firepower weapon plus almost a dozen 2% firepower weapons. It was obviously necessary to site the machine gun for the best possible field of fire to avoid fatal quasi-dead angles.

This consequence of a specific squad TO&E defined the infantry tactics, especially tactics in regard to field fortifications. It became imperative that the machine gun had a great angle of fire. A restricted field of fire (like only 90%) was only tolerable in the context of a platoon position, not in the context of a lone squad position.

The introduction of the G3 battle rifle (7.62x51mm, 20 cartridges magazine, about 30 rpm practical rate of fire with single shots) didn't change the German practice very much because the MG3 (a modified MG42) was still the centrepiece of the squad. Many of the Wehrmacht's quite proven infantry tactics were re-introduced during the late 50's.

The Bundeswehr adopted the maxim "Wirkung vor Deckung!" (effect over cover; effect of fires is supposed to be more much important than cover) and placed a strong emphasis on a great field of view and fire. That was in regard to the infantry - again in part a consequence of having only one machine gun in the squad (despite its reduced share of the squad's firepower).

- - - - -

The U.S.Army developed the parapet fire position for infantry during the Vietnam War and had pretty much proved its potential superiority in 70's experiments (summary here).


A frontal parapet provided frontal cover, reduced the suppressive fire effect on the defender and in net effect reduced defender casualties greatly ("Parfox" position). The effect was further increased as thermal sights became common main battle tank equipment during the 1980's and all-round defensive positions were easily identifiable due to their lack of cover and concealment against frontal observation. The parapet/flanking fire design also turned on its head the theory behind aggressive ambush reaction drills, but that's another story.

This parapet defence uses a centuries-old principle that was especially visible in the late 15th century Italian invention of the angle bastion (Renaissance age).

This fortress design protected the defensive guns from direct fire by setting them up for flanking fire only. One tower's (or bastion's) guns were defending the neighbouring tower/bastion with flank fire. The guns were meanwhile protected against frontal fire by strong walls.

The disadvantage of such a (pure) parapet defence is that positions depend on each other. That's obviously a very risky affair if you've got only one machine gun. The Americans introduced the relatively lightweight M249 SAW light machine gun and were able to field two per squad - almost a necessity for the effective use of parapet defences on the squad level.

The German army (Heer) doesn't place nearly as much emphasis on flanking fires with frontal parapet in its doctrine (although both elements are in some use) because it stuck to its maxim "Wirkung vor Deckung!".

It has finally and belatedly moved from a single MG3 per squad to the 80's concept of two 5.56mm MG4s per squad.
The development of a 7.62mm MG4 version and recent small own and allied wars experiences may change that again, though.

Variations of the Parfox position are often preferable and this is one of many reasons why the Bundeswehr's maxim "Wirkung vor Deckung" needs to be ditched in favour of a less simplistic understanding of infantry survivability, suppression and firepower.

It's probably even too late for a simple update with Parfox - we have likely missed an entire generation of field fortification (infantry defence) tactics and are likely in serious need for a large step ahead in order to compensate for the increased performance of sensors and accuracy of support fires, but that's a blog post for another day*.

S O

*: I broke the field fortifications stuff into manageable pieces because there's really too much to write about for a single post.

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How to get killed in combat against competent enemies

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These two videos contain short episodes of German ISAF soldiers in firefights in Northern Afghanistan. I don't want to especially single out individuals or the Bundeswehr, but I'll use these videos to illustrate a point:

This is how you get killed in combat against competent enemies. The Taliban are NOT competent enemies. They're the bottom-of-the-barrel enemies; capable only of the most simple forms of combat with low performance. The talk about increased competence and "adaptive" TB is a joke in comparison to modern warfare of the European or East Asian league.

A competent enemy would have killed several of these soldiers with aimed fire because they exposed themselves in a small arms fire fight for several seconds at a predictable place. That's survivable in face of enemy scoped rifle riflemen (almost) only if the latter are not interested in killing. Body armour and medics didn't change that.
Let's not even mention what a competent enemy mortar team with European 1930's training and equipment could 'achieve' if it joined the TB!

- - - - -

There's of course the "benefit of the doubt" faction that insists that such short video clips don't show anything. Well, the short clips are terrible enough. A 5.56mm AR with 3.5x scope and a bipod 7.62mm iron sights machine gun were firing. That was either stupid or the enemy was assumed to be in their effective range. That in turn means that these soldiers' exposure time was enough to allow for an aimed 80-95% probability of kill shot at their heads by a WW2 quality sniper or a trained man with a cheap hunting rifle. They were lucky that the TB are fifth class shots.

There's a reason why the wars between modern armies yielded six to eight digit KIA figures instead of mere three or four digit KIA figures.

- - - - -

How to do it better:

(1) Don't get into such a situation: A wall needs firing slits and observation (peri)scopes. You don't shoot over a wall like that - that's Russian Roulette.

(2) Don't get into such a situation, again: Infantry does neither fight nor secure on open terrain. That's AFV terrain.

(3) Do not use a firing position repeatedly. A patient marksman would wait for you to pop up again and kill you.

(4) Don't use a position that exposes your silhouette in front of a very different background. Seriously, that's ZDV 3/11 basics.

(5) Prefer a firing position behind a net. Yes, it's even possible to erect one as temporary concealment in a ten-minute firefight. Think of an umbrella - such tools have been used successfully in past wars!

(6) Stay behind cover if you don't intend to shoot immediately. That's the same as with the firearm safety.

(7) Use a periscope to observe from behind cover.

(8) Expose yourself only for a very short period (~3 sec).

(9) Don't stick to a known position for long. Support fires can kill you. OK, TB mortar teams are obviously not competent enough, but you don't want to be the first to know about their first competent team.

(10) Move only with concealment or cover if in a firefight. Use smoke. Suppressive fires are unreliable.

(11) Assume an enemy sniper to be in range if nearby comrades are firing.

(12) Keep in mind that a firing position close to a solid object (as a stone wall, paved road or metal) may be hit by ricochets in addition to direct hits.

In other words; be invisible almost all the time! Visible = target = offering your life at a bargain price to the enemy.

Finally, there should never be a lone platoon or squad; tactical movements should always happen in pairs or trios. That provides the option of an effective counter-attack if one part is being pinned down. It does also make the situation much more difficult and risky for the enemy. Your leaders should be competent enough to enable such a dispersed movement.

- - - - -

Seconds. The videos showed seconds only and I felt compelled to mention a dozen points! Other nationalities' ISAF/OEF videos aren't much better either.

- - - - -

I hope that we don't learn completely wrong lessons from these "small wars". There was no such incompetent and forgiving enemy as the Taliban in European military history 1914-2009.
There's no reason why our soldiers could ever expect such an incompetent enemy in the core constitutional mission of the Bundeswehr; national and alliance defence.

S O
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Thanks to Wikileaks for the Kunduz air strike report

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Wikileaks proves its worth again and published an incomplete version of the investigative committee report on the Kunduz air strike affair plus additional material yesterday (100% German):

link

I didn't read it yet, it's really fresh news.

Maybe we'll get more informed news about the affair in the next weeks.

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