"We Have a Deal With Iran. A Good One."

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The Iranian nuclear deal struck Saturday night is a triumph. It contains nothing that any American, Israeli, or Arab skeptic could reasonably protest. Had George W. Bush negotiated this deal, Republicans would be hailing his diplomatic prowess, and rightly so.

by Fred Kaplan, Slate.com

The "bomb, bomb Iran" crowd hates it, but that was predictable. They're missing out on wanking off while the news report that yet another country gets bombarded.

Luckily, this anti-social crowd loses some of its fights, too.

S O

defence_and_freedom@gmx.de

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"Good Luck Everyone"

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Only a country with a comedic tradition of using perpetually struggling characters as main protagonists was able to produce a comedy series (or season thereof) about the trench war in 1916/1917. And even if others would (or could), they would hardly produce such a series finale. The entire conflict left very different marks around the world.

To be honest, I think the war is overshadowed by its 2nd edition in Germany. I wouldn't be surprised if the majority of working-age Germans didn't know more about the First World War than that there has to have been one since there was a Second World War, after all.

 

 

S O

defence_and_freedom@gmx.de

(The character at the beginning is called "Captain Darling", and the Blackadder character mocked this perfumed prince by calling him "darling" only during the entire season.)

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Hit and run vs. find, fix, strike

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The week long focus on bashing interventionists is obviously gone, mil theory posts are back.

This one is going to be about manoeuvre formation level (battalion battle group to brigade) primarily:

Two different approaches to combat are 

(1) hit, break contact, move, recover, rinse/repeat

(2) fix them, manoeuvre, strike/finish, exploit

Typical descriptions for this are "hit and run"/"shoot and scoot" and for the latter "hammer and anvil", but they're not exactly the same as I meant above.

So I thought some about both, and how I intuitively dislike the "fix" part*. I think I came up with ideas for when to prefer which approach.

The force of inferior size or superior agility should likely prefer quickness ("hit and run"), while the superior size or inferior agility force should prefer to fix the opposing force.

Sounds simple so far, except if keeping the opponents fixed is too expensive. That's what my intuitive dislike is in part about. Contact with hostiles may be very lethal to one's force, and if lethality trumps survivability too much during contacts you better know how to "fix" without exposing your force too much.

The best way to do so is probably to substitute actual confrontation and contact with the fear thereof. 

This is similar to the thoughts about repulsion: It doesn't work well if it's overambitious; you should leave the enemy an enticing course of action which you prefer him to take - be lethal to enemies while they move, not while they cower. An overambitious approach would be to hammer them while cowered**, which will entice them to move and provoke costly contact in an attempt to keep them fixed nevertheless.

They shall fear action more than inaction if you want them fixed. That is, unless your survivability is so strong you can stand their lethality easily (but why would we expect them to not withdraw under such circumstances?).

There is a time for quick and also for prolonged contacts. Even forces with superiority in the region may be inferior at some locations temporarily ("economy of force" - strength was gathered for an important action elsewhere). Prolonged contacts without good survivability during contact should be limited to decisive, high pay-out actions, though. 

For this reason I still don't think "Find, fix, strike, exploit" is a good general doctrine.

Some tactical missions don't require you to find the enemy (such as blocking a route), many don't require to fix them and at times to fix them is even too costly. But I wrote about "Find, fix, strike" much more some time ago already.

S O

defence_and_freedom@gmx.de

*: I dispute that it's a necessity. It's more of a nice-to-have that comes at a price.
**: To be done eventually, but only once you're prepared - not while you fix in order to gain time for preparations.

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Mortar bombs and countermeasures

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Today's mortar bombs are almost all very similar in concept to World War 2 mortar bombs, the greatest differences are the proliferation of cargo (submunitions, cluster, ICM, DPICM) munitions and the streamlining of the body of many mortar bomb types for better aerodynamics. Radio proximity fuzes - a WW2 invention - are now rather normal on high explosive mortar bombs as well.

This is the kind of old school mortar bombs which has spawned multiple countermeasures in the meantime.

The oldest countermeasure is the late 40's invention of counter-mortar radars. These radars still employ the same principle; they search the horizon for contacts (mortar bombs in flight) and then collect further data on the contact's trajectory. A bit mathematical interpolation by a computer later the user knows the approximate origin of the contact.
Mortar teams facing such a sensor are very much impaired in their ability to accomplish their mission. Their effectiveness is badly degraded even if they know and apply all the tricks of the trade, knowing about the radar's limitations.

Another countermeasure are hard-kill defences; autocannons and even lasers (a German 40 kW laser has been successfully tested on mortar bombs, for example). These depend on the radar for fire control data, of course.

HE mortar bombs employ kind-of-radars themselves for fusing at a most 'promising' height over ground. The very first such fuzes were meant for HE grenades fired at aircraft, so as to make a direct hit or difficult time fusing unnecessary. The inventors were huge fans of the approach and claimed it's reliable. Someone else (engineer of physicist, I forgot) was sceptical and his team improvised an effective jammer within two weeks with the benefit of knowing the fuze. Such jammers were not introduced during WW2, but became rare specialised equipment during the Cold War and are now more common; "Shortstop" was and is a famous such tool.

Finally, electromagnetic pulse emitters could be used to counter guidance or electronics-dependent fuze types of mortar bombs.

And this is where countermeasures to the countermeasure come into play:

Proximity fuszes on optical principles have been developed to maturity two decades ago, and more old-fashioned methods such as point detonation super quick fuzes, jumping-back-on-impact mortar bombs and time fuzes (now better thanks to electronics and electronic maps) negate the protection by usual jammers. Cluster munitions were (and are) easily used with time fuzes, since small errors of a few metres don't influence their effect much. The electronics-free approaches are even resistant to microwave-based hard kill defences.

Spin stabilised mortar bombs (such as the French 120 mm of the very much proliferated MO-120 RT mortar) are troublesome for lasers because the laser effectively faces the whole circumference instead of one side only. This is only a problem if the heat capacity of the mortar bomb's shell isn't the limiter, of course. After all, heat disperses quickly in steel.

But what if the mortar bomb is an insensitive munition, with a much higher cook-off temperature than usual? The laser might need too long to reach this temperature.

There's also the possibility of highly reflecting surfaces, which would degrade the laser's effect initially.

But let's not fixate on laser countermeasures. After all, the really troublesome countermeasures appear to depend on the fact that mortar bombs have a tendency to be ballistic projectiles; this enables the interpolation of their origin. Now what if the mortar munition is not a ballistic munition, but rather a guided or course correcting one (sometimes called 'quasiballistic')? It may manoeuvre on autopilot early on and then fake a trajectory which lures counterfire to some unoccupied area.

Manoeuvring munitions also make the hard kill approach much more difficult, albeit the low velocity of mortar bombs (usually less than 280 m/s; subsonic) means that this doesn't nearly help as much the mortar teams as it helps the howitzer teams against hard kill defences.

Finally, why tolerate detection and tracking by radar at all? Even moderate changes of the shape of mortar bombs could reduce their radar cross section by a factor of ten and make detection much less likely at least for the mortar teams which are rather distant from the radar. A polygonal surface would be a cheap approach for radar stealth, albeit it would require some discarding sabot in order to achieve a decent sealing for the propellant gasses in the tube. That's tricky because of the tail fin section. It's still likely practical.

And these were merely the hardware counter-countermeasures. The "tricks of the trade" of the mortar teams are probably still more powerful.

Military tech journals feature high-tech countermeasures occasionally. We shouldn't forget that some of these are (still) impractical, others will rarely face fine conditions for employment and all of them will sooner or later face counter-countermeasures and de-valuing new tactics (tricks of the trade).

I wish there was more written on the potential employment of new tools, not just a presentation of the mere technical performance.
No doubt many, many novelties will disappoint in (hopefully distant) future wars, just as it happened in past wars.

S O

defence_and_freedom@gmx.de

related:  2012-03 The missing information on equipment

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North Korean defence options

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It's interesting to think about how North Korea could (not) defend itself. The tactical challenges it faces are in part challenges a great power's military would face as well if it's at war with another great power.

(c) Sadalmelik

Navy:

Forget about it. A few fishery protection police boats may make sense and might be able to drop some mines in the vicinity of harbours during the prelude to a hot war, and that's about it. All other naval assets are fodder or inconsequential. Effective and survivable coastal defences would be too expensive.

Air Force:

Same. Maybe a few helicopters with unusually skilled or lucky pilots might skim the valleys for a while and avoid destruction, but the fixed wing aircraft are mere targets. North Korea might maintain a squadron of attack aircraft for an uprising scenario and a squadron of interceptors for air policing as well as a few semi-civilian transport aircraft for sensitive international freight.

Area air defence does almost inevitably depend on radars and would thus be subjected to sophisticated anti-air defences campaigns. A few such (mobile!) systems may make sense purely in order to degrade hostile offensive air power potential by forcing some caution on them (including prevention of persistent drone patrols), though.

Army artillery:

It's largely a political weapon (threat to Seoul). I suppose the heavy artillery would be consumed almsot in its entirety by the first 48 hours of warfare and the vast majority of other artillery would be gone within a week.

A few heavy (= long range) multiple rocket launcher systems, optimised for camouflage, might remain useful (especially with scatterable AT mines). Their use would depend on the ability to tell when the skies are clear, though. This requires at least local air surveillance (possibly by upwards-looking infrared and UV sensors as well as passive radars).

South Korean air bases and civilian airports would probably be overcrowded and might be enticing targets for bomblet munitions, too (to be released before C-RAM systems can intercept).

Army engineers:

I'd focus entirely on defensive tasks; build underwater and pontoon bridges, lay minefields, blow up roads, cause debris avalanches and the like. Forced river crossing and clearing of minefields under fire would be pointless.

Army armour: 

Similar to artillery, this would be consumed really quick. Some armour is still invaluable for representing the armour threat during training for the infantry.

Army infantry:

The classic North Korean infantry of 1950 was exceedingly impressive at infiltration attacks - even support troops pressed into infantry missions. They were willing to risk much and it paid off.

Infiltration attacks are now exceedingly difficult because the cover of the night was largely lifted by night vision devices.

Still, the infantry is the most elusive force component and needs the least supplies. It would be the most promising (though not the most impressive to civilians) force for strategic defence.

The next part will be exclusively about how to set up a respectable North Korean infantry.

______________

First, ensure morale is adequate. You cannot fight without adequate morale, especially not with duel (line of sight combat) troops. The people of NK need to see improvements in their lives. Every quarter some progress. Some more relectricity, some more or better food, some more clothes, somewhat higher misdeamor requirements for being sent to labour camps. The troops would be very unreliable if they cannot be motivated. Reallocate resources from the useless air force and navy towards consumption and economic investments to create progress.

Second, ensure the NCOs and officers understand Western sensors and the camouflage requirements. Visible / near IR / IR camouflage against ground forces, Visible / IR / radar camouflage against aerial threats. Same for concealment and deception. This is about training, discipline and also equipment.

Third, they need night vision; mostly cheap passive near IR (low light, starlight), but also some passive IR (thermal) sensors for officers and mortar forward observers. Also enough munitions to provide illumination to near IR night vision devices if there's no moonlight.

Fourth, they need to be able to take on main battle tanks. British and American forces have demonstrated how demoralising and irresistible de facto immune MBTs are in ground combat. They depend on them, too. South Korea has comparable MBTs which are a little better optimised for Korean terrain.

Infantry battalions should probably get the Chinese 120 mm battalion recoilless guns for taking on MBTs and for line of sight fire support during local (counter) attacks. The regular infantry squads should be able to make do with the Russian 105 mm warheds for RPG-7 (PG-7VR series), which would be dangerous to IFVs all around and to MBTs from flanks, rear or high ground. The fuzes would need to react to bar (cage) armour in time, keeping the warhead from being deformed prior to ignition.

Fifth, at least reliable VShoRAD (very short range air defence) is a necessity. They would get shot up even by circling Apache helicopters and their 30 mm guns if there's no reliable VShoRAD. Passive infrared is the typical guidance method, but it's insufficient. Countermeasures are numerous and IR-based VSHoRAD ("ManPADS") have lost a lot of respect during the last 10-15 years. Laser beam riders are the way to go, preferably with impact fuze instead of jammable proximity fuzes. The launcher needs to have night vision and support by a passive early warning device. An IFF (identification friend/foe) component is unnecessary.

Sixth, they need mortars dedicated to survival. The hilly and mountaineous Korean landscapes are very difficult terrain for mortar radars, but it still takes skill (education) and possibly some dedicated mortar bombs to manage the risks. The relevant mortar bomb radar cross sections should be kept small, and trajectories need to be kept low. The typical 82 mm mortars and Chinese 'Jet Shot' commando mortars could be used a lot. 120 mm mortars could be used preferably for guided munitions (which make interpolation of origin difficult if they manoeuvre early on already). It may be that mortar teams would still be forced to shoot primarily from within settlements (which is no war crime as long as the civilians are free to leave), as the South Korean government would probably not want many North Korean civilians massacred..

Seventh, they need communications. Motorcycle couriers, improvised cable and fibre-optic land lines, and digital radio relay networks using many dispersed nodes (too many to shoot at with artillery after triangulation) might work. The best approach would probably to simply keep the distances short and the dependence of bandwidth minimised. One-time pads should be used for most radio communications within regular networks (along the ordinary chain of command from company upwards).

Eighth, jamming and decoying should be rampant and be based on many cheap items instead of few expensive ones.

Ninth, bulletproof plate inserts need to be defeated. They defeat AK-pattern assault rifles and that's going to be both unsatisfactory and persistent. Assault rifles still have their place in the infantry, but riflemen with powerful-enough semi-auto long cartridge weapons and quality AP bullets are required, too. This is a must-have for morale, if nothing else (you can also shoot legs, after all).

Tenth, I suppose their army would be most resilient if it was based on battalion battlegroups. A small HQ element, a signaller/courier platoon, a VSHoRAD platoon, sniper platoon, engineer platoon, mortar company, MI/MP platoon, gun company, supply company (no trucks), three or four rifle companies and one replacements/training company.

These battalion battlegroups would receive the definition of their area of operations, orders for their activity there and one-time pads and other information for cooperation with neighbouring battlegroups. At least three different battalion battlegroup types might make sense; militia (settlement defence), regular army (countryside) and strategic army reserve (trained for offensive actions, not the least against paras).

This kind of army forces would not "win" a war, of course. South Korea and Mainland China are both superior to North Korea on their own. They could only make it bloody*, relevant foreigners might be able to anticipate this and this in turn might keep the peace ceasefire. Or such an army might buy enough time till allies arrive.

________________

I wrote years ago about how military forces seek to minimize the active tactical repertoire of their enemies. The incredibly poor opposition in Iraq and Afghanistan demonstrated failures to maintain the very basics of tactical repertoires. Effective anti-tank defence, effective short range air defence, adequate morale, defeat of NIJ level IV body armour by at least some small arms, uncompromised basic communications, basic night vision and sufficient camouflage are not negotiable. An army hoping to resist sizeable Western-style forces for more than a few weeks needs to possess and maintain these capabilities. It's possible and depends on relatively few expensive hardware items. Reliable VShoRAD missiles are probably the most difficult to come by, for many of the known examples are from Western sources. The Russians use the technology as well, though (SOSNA system, SOSNA-R missile).

S O

defence_and_freedom@gmx.de

related: 2012-08 North Korea's military capabilities and defence (about the impression-focused defence strategy which they actually employ)

*:  The regime would probably need to relocate to Hyesan, a Northern border town which is in the mountaineous region that's relatively suitable for defence by light forces.

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[Fun] U do it wrong

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They used to be better with camouflage. :)

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[Fun] Authority

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Securing maritime trade in faraway places

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Another German Milblogger (or 'security policy' blogger) published a piece about how we should have more naval activity in the East to secure maritime trade. I had to mobilize my self-discipline and patience in order to not start a blog war. Seriously, this guy annoys me with his primitive bullocks.

Kudos to him for mastering the facade, the style, of a very serious person. At least he's got a 'serious' style. We diverged on this; he went with style, I went with substance and have my fun. Style is reserved for and added only when I get paid for writing stuff.

Anyways; the topic is about the role of navies in securing maritime trade in peacetime; the 'showing the flag', 'forward deployment' business. Back in imperial times, this was considered self-evident. Nowadays one might dare to task one's brain to think about whether it's a good idea. Most people trust primitive instincts instead.

First step: Vital trade

Think about how vital (and I mean "vital") maritime trade is for your country. Do this for the various routes (through Panama Canal, through Suez Canal, in Persian Gulf, through Strait of Gibraltar et cetera) separately to identify really vital maritime trade (if there's any)*.

And I mean vital. Let's assume the Suez Canal would be shut down as in 1956. Maritime shipping would need to go around Africa. Industry associations would complain about it and some corporations would make less profit, mabye our inflation would even rise by 0.x % and economic output would be reduced by 0.y%. That's not the symptoms of a vital trade route being cut. That's merely an annoyance. A scratch.

The same goes for when maritime trade becomes a bit more expensive or if trade needs to be re-routed from one harbour to another.

The description of vital maritime trade route being lost sounds more like 'Our powerplants are projected to run out of coal by summer. Power rationing can be expected during peak demand times.'

Many people who talk and write fast and loose about how navies should do this or that are using words such as "vital" inaccurately and prefer to produce strings of assertions without real foundations in order to sound alarming and 'serious'. Healthy, normal people don't run around and scream about problems, so most people assume that there's actually a problem if someone claims there's one with all the elements of alarm. Some people with an agenda exploit this.**

Back to the first step: It's also important to have basic competence in reading statistics.

For example, someone might claim that we trade XYZ billions € per year with an exotic country. The sum may look impressive, but how much of it is left for justifying a naval mission if a huge chunk is actually air freight?*** A large chunk of our trade is always services traded, and services surely don't get traded on container ships. Some more trade is inevitably import of raw material which could usually be imported from somewhere else about as easily. 

People with an agenda (and I'm not focused on aforementioned blogger here) at times deliberately use the biggest figure available (which is correct, but irrelevant) in order to 'support' their case. And then there's usually nobody dissecting the argument and separating relevant from irrelevant, much less sanctioning the offender for misleading others intentionally.

You should be able to determine whether or not maritime trade on a certain shipping lane is actually vital for your country (or at least form a substantiated opinion about it). But it's laborious, requires thought and it's inevitable dependent on guesswork.

Step 2: Is the naval approach useful?

Next, think about whether tasking the navy makes sense. Yes, "think". This is not as self-evident as other milbloggers would assume. You're at Defence and Freedom here, after all. So "think".

Whatever threat to maritime trade exists, naval assets are not necessarily able to secure much trade. Think of Taiwan, for example. They have the scenario that mainland China may want to impose a naval blockade. Who's stpid enough to think that Taiwan's navy could do much about it if mainland China was serious? They would be hard-pressed to escort a single convoy out and in per month, and would likely not even accomplish this.

Likewise, Germany could not fool itself into thinking that it could secure its maritime trade through the Strait of Malacca if Malaysia and Indonesia decided to have an air/sea skirmish. A forward deployed frigate squadron wouldn't even be sent into the fray, no matter how much shipping goes through that strait in normal times. The shipping would simple have to use a longer route.

And then there are the gunboat diplomacy (re-branded into "showing the flag") nonsense talkers. I have a large, eight centimetre thick chronicle of the 20th century in my cupboard. I want to smash it repeatedly on the head of such nonsense talkers till they understand the uselessness of the Panthersprung and similar actions****. They obviously can't read history books by themselves. Nobody needs to see a ship to know that there's a navy somewhere. To show the flag is about killing time for seamen, not about accomplishing anything. Don't confuse it with warning shots. Sometimes showing the flag is even terminally stupid.

Step 3: Non-vital maritime trade with potential effectiveness of navies

There is a possibility that a navy (or navies) may actually be useful in securing maritime trade. The combination of this and non-vital maritime trade yields a modestly interesting scenario.

 

The way to go is then to look at costs and benefits. Is it reasonable to believe that the naval effort (minus the sunk costs such as procurement and normal operation of units which you already have) can pay off? Will the benefits be greater than the disadvantages?

This isn't only about additional kerosene costs and hundreds of private lives ruined by separation of young couples for months. Foreign countries may get seriously antagonised if you keep patrolling just barely outside their territorial waters, after all. You may also need to accept shady deals with some dictator in order to secure some naval base somewhere.

Choose the action with the greatest advantage of benefits over costs, but beware of overoptimism. It's better to err on the side of history which preferred non-violence.

- - - - -

 

Unsurprisingly, I'm too uninterested in the expeditionary bullocks to make a thorough calculation myself, and any such attempt to determine which trade is vital and which not, how much naval presence would cost additionally and what effects - beneficial and worrisome - it may have is bound to be dominated by guesswork anyway.

I did arrive at a conclusion, though. 

This conclusion is that we should not slavishly follow the obviously unsuccessful or excessively expensive approaches. We shouldn't use the classic Western approach in a world which changed a lot since the late 19th century.

The Royal Navy patrolled the Indian Ocean a lot with its cruisers when it had an empire to guard, but all this patrolling achieved little and there were actually no non-European navies in existence which could have secured the area.

Nowadays the strait of Malacca is an important bottleneck for maritime shipping. I suppose it's the responsibility of the countries in the region to secure it. I wouldn't want Chinese frigates to patrol the Baltic Sea in order to secure the export of Chinese wares to St. Petersburg, after all. Americans regularly like to see their navy patrolling along the territorial waters of distant countries many of them cannot find on a globe, but they also freak out when a fishing boat  shows the Chinese flag near Hawaii.

So why should we patrol in SE Asia?

The Northern Indian Ocean is India's backyard (Who'da thunk it?). They have a navy, and I think to secure maritime trade there is their job by default. Germany: Western Baltic Sea and German Bight. Russia: Eastern Baltic Sea. Spain: Strait of Gibraltar. Saudi-Arabia and Iran: Persian Gulf. Egypt: Red Sea. South Africa: Cape of Good Hope. Colombia and USA: Vicinity of the Panama Canal. Argentine and Chile: Cape Horn. Et cetera.

These responsibilities may be neglected, but that's no reason to go crazy and maintain a naval squadron in very distant waters for decades. Instead, diplomacy and cost/benefit analysis shall rule. Maybe the shit hits the fan sometime; then again, analyse and consider cost/benefit. Maybe the freighters can simply go a longer route.

The idea that "maritime trade => navy shall protect it => let's build an expeditionary navy and send it to the end of the world !" is primitive bullocks. It's not serious thinking; it's non-thinking. It's instinctive, a reflex. A failure of contribution to discussion.

But some people just seem to need this"power" thing. Maybe they're privately insecure and need to have something national to be proud about. Maybe they just need to have this idea that their tribe is strong.

We better don't let such people influence our allocation or national resources.

S O

defence_and_freedom@gmx.de

*: Greeting to my Hungarian readers.

**: They deserve to be treated like a child that yells "help" a hundred times a day.

***: Air freight has an enormous share of the value of exports of Germany, for example. German air freight trade was 4.3 million tons in 2012. That's 2% of tonnage, but 30% of goods trade value.

****: Or at least shut up, which would be the more likely the more passionate I'd be about applying the book.

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Sunk costs / Principal-agent problem / How not to

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Communicated with another blogger, found out he agrees and actually planned to write about the very same conclusion. Now I need to hurry in order to save whatever originality my thought might have had. :)

Cuts of procurement problems programs usually yield surprisingly little savings. Well, experience alleviates the surprise, for there's really a pattern.

Assume a procurement program was about 200 aircraft and after delivery of 60 aircraft something changes and the program shall be cut down to 160 aircraft - a cut of remaining deliveries by 40%. The price for the remaining deliveries usually drops by far less than 40%, usually more as 10-15%, and this is not only due to lost economies of scale.

The reason for why it may even happen that such cuts don't save anything or no substantial sum is in the existing contracts; there's usually a penalty clause saying that if the government cancels or renegotiates the contract, a certain substantial penalty shall be paid.

Why would governments agree to such a clause in the first place? They're in a position of strength at the during the bargaining (assuming there's any bargaining at all). Sure, they want that piece of kit, but they can buy elsewhere, while the supplier likely needs the development money and order to get an exportabel product in the first place.

The answer is that bureaucrats and politicians in office want to rig the contract so fast that it makes cancellation difficult. This rigging is meant to reduce the freedom of action of governments in the future and doesn't serve the interests of the people at all. It merely serves the personal preferences of the bureaucrats and politicians in favour of 'their'  project. They exploit the 'sunk costs' issue to suit their personal preferences.The more the program advances, the less costs are not sunk and depending on the contract text it's even possible that a point approaches at which the contract penalty is as large as the remaining regular order. The program would then be immune to cuts because cuts would not save any funds at all.

illustration principal-agent problem, (c) "MisterX000", wikipedia

This is yet another example for how bureaucracies (and politicians) as agents of the citizens (principal) don't truly represent the interests of the people, but their own ones. It's an example for a principal-agent problem.

The solution is simple, and may actually help not only in military procurement, but in governance in general: Outlaw contract penalties and anything which has the same effect in government procurement of goods or services. Make it plain illegal and ineffective. This wouldn't neutralize penalty clauses retroactively (because of the rule of law), but it could save a country such as Germany billions of Euros per year on average.

S O

defence_and_freedom@gmx.de

Edit: There's an additional and substantial benefit in this proposal for countries with a tendency to cancel big programs often. An example would be the U.S.Army and USMC, which appear to be almost totally unable to bring an all-new combat vehicle or helicopter program into the production phase.

The example is that while the costs for cancellation are not initially high-profile, the corporations would likely seek to get a fixed and lower revenue as a substitute for it. This would be hig-profile, visible from start as costs.

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It's a wonder there are not more dead civilians in Syria

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Hat tip to ELP

Outright crazy civilians and something between crazy and inept soldiers. It's difficult to keep in mind how low you can go in regard to military skill, but such videos help. The initial movement of the AFV team to the entry point was already done stupidly. It only got worse afterwards.
 

This reminds me of what flabbergasted Americans said to Israelis in 1991, the meaning was approximately:

'So you bragged all these years about defeating these Arabs?'

S O

defence_and_freedom@gmx.de

edit: Video was removed, this article sums it up.

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