German / European Syria policy

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The wannabe chancellor candidate of the conservatives in Germany is bungling in Syria policy with a proposal for military protection mission that almost nobody else in Europe appears to want.

The problem right now is that you cannot have a satisfactory Syria policy these days without either having very low expectations or a satisfactory Turkey policy.

There, that's the real issue:

What's the Turkey policy?

Turkey is NATO member, and it appears settled that it won't join the EU in this generation. Its autocratic government is dominated by a nationalist-pseudoreligious party and its undisputed leader.

Turkey clearly chose to have improved and more close relations with Russia, regardless of the incident about a shot down Russian aircraft. 

Turkey's geostrategic role is extremely important. It controls the Bosporus, is in striking distance of Crimea and Suez Canal, is neighbour with Syria, Iraq, Iran and Georgia. It has at least the potential to bridge between Orient and Occident, though not with the current president. The Turks dominated Arab countries for centuries in the Ottoman Empire, and there's a certain justified unease about their changed policies regarding especially Syria, but also northern Iraq.

Meanwhile, Turkey is a multi-ethnic country that oppresses the Kurdish minority, maybe because it cannot afford to accept the notion of not being a nation-state.

https://defense-and-freedom.blogspot.com/2012/10/turkey-and-geostrategy-again.html

So what is the European Turkey policy? I understand the United States have a dysfunctional foreign policy right now that doesn't extend past personal interests and fixations of its president, but what's the European strategy?

(1) Do we try to keep Turkey in NATO at all costs, appeasing it regardless of aggressive actions and sporadic cuddling with Moscow?

(2) Do we try to at least keep Turkey from joining Russia's bloc? We should then neutralize them in NATO; there's no way to kick them out, but they need not be involved in secret affairs. 

(3) Do we try to push for a preferable political leadership in Turkey?

(5) Do we ignore Turkey and its actions?

We need to have and settle on a satisfactory Turkey policy before we can devise a satisfactory Syria policy. Else, we wouldn't know if to wield the power of the UNSC against Turkey, for example. Armed forces protecting the Syrian Northeast make sense only if they are meant to actually protect it, even against advancing Turkish forces of against advancing Turkish proxies supported by Turkish forces.

The current Syria policy appears to be short-sighted, incomplete, and many important actors do not appear to have thought enough about the Syria case.

About the German Minister of Defence: It was a folly that the proposal to send protection troops to NE Syria came from the Minister of Defence instead of from the minister of foreign affairs. A policy trial balloon about protection troops from the minister of foreign affairs with some dissent from the Minister of Defence would have damaged intra-NATO relations less. The military policy origin needlessly puts the military policy question (is Turkey really considered a NATO ally or a great power to be restrained) into the field of view more than if the minister of foreign affairs would have done it.

It's indeed a double folly, for the proposal isn't even national policy; the cabinet is divided about it.

related:

https://defense-and-freedom.blogspot.com/2017/04/europes-defence-in-long-term-in-light.html

S O

defence_and_freedom@gmx.de

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A couple notes

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1)
For the first time ever, I noticed a major news outlet mentioning that Article 1 of the North Atlantic Treaty makes aggressions illegal. Hooray!
Now apply this insight beyond just Turkey.

2)

Not-so-fun game: Try to come up with ways how the' president of the united states' a.k.a. "lying moron" could possibly serve Russian interests better than he already does.

- He drove oil prices up with Iran

- He drives wedges into NATO

- He seems to drive Turkey out of NATO into Russia's arms

- He utterly destroyed U.S. diplomatic capability - there's no ability for actual diplomatic agreements left. That's in part becuase of State Department disassembling, in part because he's not giving real guidance to diplomats (so all negotiations are a mess) and in part because he's proving his country to be utterly unreliable (up to signalling that ratified treaties are merely the starting point for a shakedown for a fictional better deal).

- He worked hard to get Russia sanctions lifted

- He gets an Ukrainian government into trouble

- He withheld arms deliveries to Ukraine
- Did nothing against the threat of election fraud

I think of myself as someone who has a lot of ideas, can improvise and find ways how to unhinge seemingly stable systems. I doubt I could have made up these pro-Russia moves in a week.

I would have insisted on backdoors in network and computer hardware and software to make Western computer networks more vulnerable to Russian attack - which incidentally is something the U.S. government (and politicians in the EU) did want, too.

3)

I don't really share the criticism about the fake Syria withdrawal a.k.a. betrayal of the Kurds. The criticism is too much in opposition (and thus in favour of having troops deployed in Syria) as a matter of principle.

It could have been done in a competent way - there was enough time. The Kurds could have negotiated autonomy with Assad under favourable conditions using the possibility of a U.S. withdrawal as one of the bargaining chips instead of being forced to plea to Assad for help. The Turkish invasion (expansion of invasion) would rather not have happened if the Syrian border guard and army were on the border.

Having troops in Syria is great power gaming nonsense in my opinion. So an actual (not fake) withdrawal would have been fine if done well. I suppose those senators who criticise it just want to continue the great power gaming nonsense. They don't care more about the Kurds than the lying moron does.

The mess was created for practically not gain (there are still U.S. troops in Syria, and expected to stay), at least concerning Western interests.
What now? The U.S. could abstain from protecting Turkey in the UNSC instead of doing childish pseudo-tough talk and embarrassing letters. The UK and France would probably not protect Turkey. Maybe Russia would, but keep in mind Syria would have to appeal to the UNSC to act against the invasion in the first place. Putin would have to choose whether to side with Turkey or Syria.

4)
I didn't write as much as usual lately because I got distracted. Stuff happens.

5)

Right wing extremism may have passed a zenith in several European countries at least for this generation. The right wing extremists in Germany suffer from several problems

- the Austrian right wing radicals' corruption scandal, which exposed the workings of right wing extremists

- it's becoming increasingly obvious that their primary party is more of an Eastern German protest party than anything else

- a court declared it legal and no libel to call one of their far-far-right members a "fascist", which clarified the matter

- their favourite target, chancellor Merkel, it slowly leaving the spotlight since she gave up party chairmanship

- the migration issue has ebbed

Personally, I wonder when and whether ever the nation will pay attention to far right wingers having no working answers to challenges and problems. They're mostly about fear and hate, only in few countries (Hungary, Poland) has the far right wing been smart enough to break from the mold and actually do something for the poor and the middle class.

6)

I'm concerned that there's neither much of a movement for a ban on autonomous lethal drones nor a hurried development of countermeasures against them. This has a "1905" feeling of seeing horse cavalry divisions, but neither armoured motor vehicles nor anti-armoured vehicles guns in the army.

S O

defence_and_freedom@gmx.de

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Strategy changes

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Several of my blog posts were written under the (mentioned) assumption that we should have a division of labour in NATO / EU. The Baltic countries and Poland should focus on self-defence against a strategic surprise attack. Germany should be able to quickly deploy a decisive ground forces strength capable of stopping Russian ground forces, Turkey should be able to close the Bosporus even to submarines, Spain should be able to close Gibraltar Strait even to submarines and so on.

I hinted back in 2017 that such an alliance grand strategy of deterrence by frustrating even strategic surprise attack scenarios might need adjustments if the Turkey situation doesn't develop well.  Strategy changes may be necessary, and this may be a terrible issue given the inertia in the armed services.

A complete change of an air war strategy may take 30...40 years, for that appears to be the life cycle length of combat aircraft and air defences from introduction to disappearance. I doubt it will become much quicker unless there's a major war wearing down the inventory.

Even unspectacular changes of a national defence strategy such as reorganisation of the army (which should be possible in little more than a year including the re-training periods) often last 5+ years nowadays.

This slowness is what seemingly almost everyone has become used to, and has become accepted as normal, if not inevitable.

It's not. 

Remember, Germany built a continent-dominating military based on a 100,000 men army and 10,000 men navy in less than seven years. No computer programs were used, and we should get rid of them if computer programs were slowing down rather than accelerating things. Technology advanced, so we should be quicker, not slower. Whatever technological change made us slower should be dispensed with.

It's a rule of thumb to replace a strategy every about five years in a business. Few large businesses (such as concrete factories) can successfully operate without having and adapting a strategy. Likewise, we should expect strategy changes every five years on the national and collective defence levels. Any longer intervals are symptoms of failure by the executives involved.

An armed bureaucracy that expects to change strategy every about five years has to move to be able to change course every about five years. Such an adaptable armed bureaucracy could dare to react to its environment with more specialised adaptions than a sluggish armed bureaucracy that lives and preserves inertia and conservatism above every thing else. It's a bureaucracy's self-interest to preserve itself and to not change much, so the impetus towards adaptability has to come from the civilian leadership.

Political leadership may change as well, but ours in Germany exists in four-years legislative cycles, and this fits the five-year rule because we don't really hand over power in four-year intervals. Our governing coalitions last about 5...14 years.

We should be much more adaptable on the strategic level both as nations and as collective security organisations (alliances).

S O

defence_and_freedom@gmx.de

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Link dump October 2019

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Watching the President of Finland begging to be rescued from this insanity was a sight to behold. #TrumpMeltdown pic.twitter.com/aRBk8JZ6Am

— BroadStBoss (@BroadStBoss) 2. Oktober 2019

https://twitter.com/BroadStBoss/status/1179464743528083456/photo/1

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2019/09/26/china-unveils-500-megapixel-camera-can-identify-every-face-crowd/

http://www.igmchicago.org/surveys/inequality-populism-and-redistribution



[German]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_J1dHNtyOLI
(You can generate automatic subtitles and get an automatic English translation for them.)

[German]
https://www.reporter-ohne-grenzen.de/pressemitteilungen/meldung/illegaler-verkauf-von-spaehsoftware-an-tuerkei/

[German]
https://augengeradeaus.net/2019/08/wir-machen-soldaten-finnlands-reservistenarmee-als-abschreckungsinstrument/

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Operational Planning Processes and Tactical Decisionmaking

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I'm still not much in a creative mood, so I present you a slightly modified blog post written in 2014, but not published till today.

The Operational Planning Process (OPP) is a linear, analytic method for planning used by most NATO ground forces. The problems and inadequacies are well-known, and I'm not motivated to provide a list thereof.

I am motivated to push for an alternative approach, though:

This alternative approach is really an approach, not a method.
First, it is important to understand and value the consequences of Moltke the Elder's quote (which I assume to be largely correct based on military history):

"Kein Plan übersteht die erste Feindberührung."

("No plan survives first contact with the enemy.")

Second, it is advisable to take a look at how highly successful commanders actually led their forces tactically in mobile warfare: Many of them commanded in person on the scene - preferably at their Schwerpunkt. This is often ideal for leaders of battalion- to small brigade-sized forces.

Third, it is advisable to keep in mind that war isn't like exercises - especially if there's no front-line. There's often only one starting point (unless invasions happen) followed by campaigning till the end. Exercises have a starting point, few hours or days of action and then rinse, repeat. Many exercises are scripted to have serial phases.

Mobile continental warfare would be different. The phases would run in parallel, and the only starting points that are repeated are the insertions of refreshed reserves into the meat grinder. A staff officer might wake up, go to his folding desk and be confronted with reports of past actions, an ongoing action, a tactical plan for the day, a logistics plan for tomorrow and ongoing logistics planning for the day after - in parallel. He wouldn't be in "the" planning phase.

Fourth, there are great advantages to be found in training officers to the point where they can understand if not anticipate their peers' standard actions without much fuss.
A common doctrine that's good enough to be actually employed by the vast majority of officers is one way to support this - but only to a point, since doctrinal flexibility has its merits.
A personnel system that provides staffs and ground forces in general with enough stability to enable officers to get to know each other well long before they're transferred helps as well.

- - - - -

I'd like to push for a different attitude:

Planning should lose much of its prominence.

Planning should focus on delivering what was known as "Combat Service Support" (~support that doesn't affect the enemy directly; mostly logistics) and moving reinforcements. This is known to be a rather fruitful area of activity for planners.

Updates of (not very specific) missions given to manoeuvre forces on the other hand would be directed in a more "naturalistic" or "artistic" way. The corps or theatre commander or his deputies could make such adjustments right away, in reaction to a change of mind or a change of the situation that happened only minutes ago.

The tactical actions - both preservative and aggressive ones - should be led by commanding officers on the scene, leading from their position among their troops.

This should not sound very unusual, for it happened in many conflicts. My claim is that the way to go is to develop a system of command and control, leadership, coordination, planning et cetera based on the expectation that this is how things could be, should be and will be.

- - - - -

Let's see how this could look in a simple example:

Traditionally, HQ would draw up and consider some plans and finally issue orders to subordinate forces: Team A engages and fixes the enemy, Team B flanks.

The whole process takes a lot of time and the enemies don't play along. A and B often need to adapt themselves on their own on the spot, since HQ issued new orders with too much delay.

Now instead, HQ would tell Teams A and B to deploy into respective mission areas, with respective levels of ambition regarding tolerance for hostiles' presence there.

Hostile forces close with A, but A is not meant to fight decisively yet (dictated through the set level of ambition) - A ambushes and delays if the hostiles come really close. 

The deputy commander (commander is sleeping) at the HQ re-appraises the situation and tells A and B to cooperate with an increased level of ambition for their combined areas. A and B become authorised to update their common area border bilaterally without specific HQ orders.
A and B manoeuvre, and after a series of skirmishes their leaders sense an opportunity to strike, agree and execute a pincer attack.

Pay attention to the choice of words here; "level of ambition" and "mission area". The deviation from conventional doctrines here is to not give a mission about what to achieve, but to order an area to be (similar to the positions assigned to a patrol line of wolfpack submarines) AND to set a level of ambition. Level of ambition could range (in steps) from "do not engage under any circumstances" to "find opposing forces and inflict maximum casualties". The extreme levels of ambition would be suitable in a guerilla war only, of course. Typical continental warfare in Europe would rather have levels of ambition ranging from "deploy to detect and report movements of hostile units, but avoid losses" to "destroy hostile forces when conditions aren't disadvantageous".

- - - - -

I mixed a good dose of horizontal cooperation into this scenario. The same is true for area-centric missions and ambition levels. These favourite topics of mine are parts of the tool bag that could replace planning where the latter doesn't work anyway.

So in the end, there are ways to avoid the well-known inadequacies of the very bureaucratic processes. Such processes have their times and places, but I am in the mainstream when I assert that they're being used for too many purposes. The decision-making on the scene by leaders among their men - an almost alien thought in a computerised staff exercise - deserves to destroy many planners' claims relevance in regard to manoeuvres and combat.
We should also get away from trying to predict things. This does not work, period. Missions given by higher commands should be limited in detail by even higher command's orders. Any too detailed corps HQ orders should be outlawed and thus ineffective, period. A corps commander who pinpoints the timing of an action down to the minute shall go to prison as a private, period. "When you're ready, preferably before 1230" is accurate enough.

S O
defence_and_freedom@gmx.de

Written by someone who is really into improvisation and never liked planning much for activities where plans don't last anyway.

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Business as usual

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Germany got a new minister of defence, said minister has no background in military, military policy, security policy, or even only good experience in foreign policy.

A few weeks into the term, said minister publicly claims that the budget is inadequate.

A budget that grew extraordinarily over the past couple years.

The real problems are different ones, but the minister has already 100% failed on the job by doing the usual thing. Minister and bureaucracy now share interests. The minister is pursuing the bureaucracy's self-interest. There's no hope that this minister (or any, really) will steer the bureaucracy off the course towards self-interest and onto the course towards public interest.

The German armed bureaucracy will NEVER have enough money, and will NEVER become swift enough to do its job properly unless it gets yanked off its course by a proper reformer. There's no reason to expect a conservative minister to do meaningful reform, of course.*

It's depressing.

S O

defence_and_freedom@gmx.de

*: Conscription was deactivated under a CDU (conservative party) minister, but a very strong case can be made that he was no conservative, but a person with 80% show, 20% thirst for power and 0% substance.

Link dump September 2019

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- - - - -

- - - - -

wsj.com/articles/more-russian-nuclear-monitoring-stations-went-silent-days-after-blast-test-ban-officials-says-11566232680

- - - - -

thedrive.com/the-war-zone/29439/navy-ships-look-to-wwii-era-message-filled-bean-bags-to-communicate-without-radios

- - - - -



- - - - -

twitter.com/joshnorthsouth/status/1164196802750554112

I'm glad that religion plays very little role in German elections, despite the major churches' improper influence on public TV and radio.

- - - - -

nextbigfuture.com/2019/08/us-military-will-use-big-brother-monitoring-technology-to-track-all-movement-in-the-usa.html

- - - - -

Sadly, this is true of other countries as well. It's just not THAT obvious there.

- - - - -

washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/08/12/president-trump-has-made-false-or-misleading-claims-over-days/
 12,019 "false and misleading claims" (lies) in 928 days

Those were only the public lies.

- - - - -

[German, 2019] heise.de/newsticker/meldung/Klingeltoene-und-WhatsApp-EU-Staaten-fuer-maximale-Vorratsdatenspeicherung-4498291.html
[German, 2016] heise.de/newsticker/meldung/Europaeischer-Gerichtshof-bekraeftigt-Anlasslose-Vorratsdatenspeicherung-ist-illegal-3578920.html

Angesichts des offensichtlichen Willens zum Rechtsbruch braucht es vielleicht drastische Rechte, um  solche nicht verfassungstreuen Bürokraten aufzuhalten. Wie wäre es mit einem Organklagerecht hierzu, damit die höchsten Gerichte auch staatliche Institutionen als kriminelle (bzw. illegale Zwecke verfolgende) Organisationen identifizieren und auflösen können?

- - - - -

uebermedien.de/41162/das-verbot-von-linksunten-indymedia-ist-zweifelhafter-denn-je/

Die Achtung der Verfassung und von Bürgerrechten ist ein tendenzielles Problem bei der CDU. Das belegen auch die vielen von Verfassungsgerichten aufgehobenen, von der CDU lancierten Gesetze. Bei der illegalen Vorratsdatenspeicherung versuchen sie es sogar immer wieder, obwohl schon höchstrichterlich entschieden wurde, dass sie illegal ist.
Zwischenzeitlich dhat das die CDUler schon so geärgert, dass sie die lästige Durchsetzug von freiheiten durch das Bundesverfassungsgericht beschränken wollten. Den Angriff auf hinderliche Richter hat nicht der lügende Schwachkopf aus Amerika erfunden.

www.spiegel.de/politik/deutschland/cdu-will-rechte-des-bundesverfassungsgerichts-beschraenken-a-962804.html (2014er Link)

Eine andere Tendenz ist, dass sich Innenminister als "Law and Order" Kraftmeier aufspielen. Doch statt "Law" haben die dann vorwiegend "Staatsgewalt" im Sinne und ordnen der möglichst allmächtigen Staatsgewalt dann allzugerne Recht und Gesetz unter.
Zur "Law and Order" Masche gehört leider auch, dass solche Typen viel auf Show und Effekthascherei wertlegen. Uniformierte Streifen mit Schutzweste und MPi usw..
Die wirklich wirksamen Maßnahmen sind in der Regel kaum für die Öffentlichkeit wahrnehmbar und daher für solche Selbstinszenierungen nutzlos. Dazu gehört zum Beispiel, dass auch bei kleinen Verbrechen anständig kriminaltechnisch ermittelt wird und es nicht bei Einbrüchen mit geringen Schäden bei einer oberflächlichen Beschau durch Streifenpolizisten bleibt.
Die Aufklärungsquoten sind bei Morden geradezu unfassbar hoch, weil da viel Aufwand betrieben wird. Es braucht für die Strafverfolgung undd en Schutz der Öffentlichkeit vor Verbrechern nicht mehr Rechte oder selbstdarstellerischer Innenpolitiker, sondern einen besseren und konsequenteren Einsatz der vorhandenen Möglichkeiten.

- - - - -

https://twitter.com/romangrabolle/status/1165829463499825152

Ich werde hier ausnahmsweise die CDU in Schutz nehmen:
Meines Wissens nach macht diese Ungenauigkeit wohl so gut wie nichts aus wegen dem zweigliedrigen Wahlsystem mit Direkt- und Listenstimme (wie auch beim Bundestag). Letztere gleicht Gerrymandering aus. Die einzige relevante Ausnahme wäre wohl, wenn die Wahlkreisgrenzziehung einer Partei ein zweites Direktmandat verwehrt, die an der 5% Hürde scheitert. Von der Regel halte ich allerdings ohnehin wenig. Wir sollten die Hürde einfach bei allen Wahlen in Deutschland runtersetzen auf 2% und die Direktmandatregeln abschaffen.

https://www.wahlrecht.de/landtage/sachsen.htm

Im Übrigen spricht schon lange nichts mehr dagegen, die Abgeordneten mit einem (ungleichen) Stimmgewicht zu versehen, dass 1:1 ihrer erhaltenen Stimmenzahl entspricht. Das bisschen Kompliziertheit ertragen wir locker.

S O

defence_and_freedom@gmx.de

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Dolchstoßlegende, assault infantry and modern personnel affairs

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During the Inter-War Years, many Germans (mostly centre and right wing) believed in the "Dolchstoßlegende": The idea that the German army hadn't been defeated by enemy armies at the front; the problem in 1918 had supposedly been those socialists who stabbed the army in the back by causing trouble at home.

It was utter bollocks. The supreme army command had strongly urged the civilian government to plea for peace after the army had badly failed on the Western Front on August 8th, 1918; the successful beginning of the Western powers' offensives of 1918.

The army in the field had failed to hold the front lines because it was exhausted.

__________

The problem was relatively simple, but rarely appreciated by authors: A robust defence isn't only about men, guns and terrain. It requires effective counter-attacks. Some losses of positions are bound to happen if dangerous hostiles launch an offensive against you. These need to be counter-attacked to save the position unless you're willing to trade land for blood. The German generals in August 1918 were not willing to trade land for blood; they knew that later lines of defence farther to the back (behind the main line of resistance) would have much worse field fortifications. It was less horrible to fight where they were.

The only way to hold a line for long without counter-attacking successful break-ins is to make the line strong up front. This means many - not few- men far forward. Far forward; that's where the hostiles observed the best, where their artillery was the most powerful and where their tank attacks still had cohesion and most tanks were still mobile. It had been understood long before summer 1918 that having many men far forward was too bloody and the resulting defence was brittle in face of powerful offensives and an eventual failure of such a stiff, brittle defence would be much worse than the failure of weak forward elements of an elastic defence.

The problem by August 1918 was that there was war. 

Another problem - which concerned almost exclusively generals and politicians - was that there had been a bloody war for such a long time that the ability of the army to counter-attack locally had been diminished too much. The elastic defence had failed as well.

Now how had the ability to counter-attack locally been diminished precisely? In addition to the battles of 1914-1917 (the pre-War troops below rank of battalion staffs had been 'spent' by 1916 at the latest), lots of losses had been suffered earlier in 1918 during German offensives of unprecedented 'success'. (Malnutrition and the flu epidemic were other problems.)

In order to achieve the required breakthroughs, Germany had mustered in addition to the usual means a couple tactical and organizational innovations, most notably Bruchmüller's artillery plans and some of the first (finally) seriously trained modern infantry. These German infantry units were similar to Russian and Italian efforts at creating specialised assault infantry in that they finally trained properly and equipped properly for the task. The German assault troops were quite numerous; many were raised in order to enable breakthroughs in many places simultaneously. German army formations and basic training units had to send the best infantry for the attack to this training and employ them in breakthrough attacks.

The tactical success was striking, but so were the losses. The German army had exposed its best assault infantrymen to fire and burnt them. They weren't left for local counter-attack any more.

__________

So what kind of troops are 'the best' for assaults? The junior officers of the time knew this by observation, but the 20th century was bloody enough to teach us a lesson or some and we can actually make some general observations about who is likely better-suited for assaults than average troops are.

(a) Men who are married with children (or simply very much in love) tend to have more survival instincts. This means they're not as aggressive as single men. They do not tend to give up easily under pressure, which makes them suitable for tactical defence.

(b) Stupid men do stupid mistakes and die too easily.

(c) Smart men are smart enough to understand dangers, and thus to avoid them. Dangers such as assaulting entrenched infantry.

(d) Older men are typically not fit enough (especially a hundred years ago) for much infantry action.

(e) Men older than something around 30 tend to be less daring than young men.

(f) Men from rural background did tended to be superior to urban men for warmaking that involved close combat. This was a recurring theme from late Roman antiquity till sometime after WW2. It was likely about better nourishment and cleaner water and may no longer be relevant.

So the ideal assault infantryman of 1918 came from a rural area, had normal intelligence, was adult but not older than late 20's, single and had no children.

The First World War consumed these men at an astonishing pace, and several warring countries fell once they had lost too many of them (Russia, Austria-Hungary, Italy, Germany, France only almost in 1917). The same happened to Germany in WW2 and even to the Soviet Union in WW2; that's why the Red Army of late WW2 had to emphasize artillery and tanks in their assaults so very much: Artillery and tank troops required fewer troops for combat power. Infantry was still employed in great numbers, of course - but it was the weakest pillar of Red Army combined arms attacks by 1944.

Similarly, the German army of 1944 had to emphasize artillery fires as the main pillar of defence because the thinned-out infantry was only capable of maintaining a thin screen.

__________

I'm totally in favour of not doing any experiments about total warfare ever again, but there's still an interesting facet to this: The usual notion is that we have now a youth that's much less suitable for warfare than earlier generations. Yet I cannot see a great many married men with children below age 30 here. It was common to be married by the mid-20's (for life) and have children early in the 20th century. This isn't normal any more. Instead, relationships of young men are rather temporary in nature.

The advantage of "rural" recruits certainly waned, so the entire description of the ideal assault infantryman is now much more representative of young men age 18-29 in Western Europe than ever before. Obesity is rare in that age group.


You may think that we have few men in the relevant age group due to demographic change. I assure you, that's nonsense. Germany has more than 10 million men of military age, more than five million men in their 20's and roughly four million are citizens. I doubt anyone knows a plausible scenario for war in which we would run out of men to draft (unless one assumes that a catastrophe have already killed tens of millions of Germans).

 

S O

defence_and_freedom@gmx.de


related literature: http://cgsc.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/ref/collection/p16040coll3/id/122

 

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Greenland

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I'm asking for a show of hands:
Who expected Russia to be a threat to Danish sovereignty over Greenland?

Who expected the U.S. to be a threat to Danish sovereignty over Greenland?

I remember a lot of articles and blog posts about the Arctic and how there could be conflicts over it in the near future. Those articles were written with a distinct perspective and more or less implied idea of who would be the threat. They seem to have been a bit off.

- - - - -

Worth mentioning when mentioning Greenland:

S O

defence_and_freedom@gmx.de

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Unreliable partners

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(I had nothing prepared for this Saturday, so I present you a text that was finished, but apparently not published in March 2017. I think it aged well. The rather pro-conservative but not pro-fascist Washington Post recently published that the lying moron had passed 12,000 falsehoods and misleading claims since inauguration.)

Trump made a speech that was hailed as this best in a long time, kind of "presidential", literally unpresidented.

The problem with this is that fact checking found him false on up to 51 of 61 claims made in 61 minutes.

examples:

www.indy100.com/article/donald-trump-statements-fact-check-congress-address-work-unemployment-latest-checking-7605351

www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/donald-trump-speech-fact-check-lies-claims-joint-address-congress-jobs-immigration-pipeline-a7604861.html

There's a controversy about a few of those, so I play it safe and say he said 40+ falsehoods in one hour of speech to the legislative branch of government. That's the speech that was widely considered his best.
Now think about this for a while. 40+. Maybe you like Trump and are inclined to claim that there were maybe only 20+ or 10+ falsehoods. That would still be 10+ falsehoods in an hour. With previous presidents of the post-WW2 era (save for maybe GWB and Nixon) 10+ falsehoods would have been considered be outrageously much and the speech to be their worst - not the best as with Trump. That's how normal the constant lying has become in U.S. politics since Trump appeared on the stage.

It's difficult to come up with 40+ falsehoods of Chancellor Merkel over the entire course of her Chancellorship since 2005, and I write this despite disliking her and many CDU policies.

Thus it's established (once again, as if any further proof was needed) that the president of the United States is a liar, likely a pathological liar or what was called a "bullshit artist".

The conclusion is that the United States have a very powerful president whose statements are worthless because of the high frequency of falsehoods and who bases his policies on ideas that don't stem from reality, but from fiction.

The United States have essentially become an unpredictable random factor in global affairs.

It's pointless to talk to the United States' president unless the plan is to manipulate the president. Nothing he says can be considered a reliable statement of fact or a promise.

This is a stark contrast to the immensely stable 'Washington rules' establishment foreign policy which had its flaws, but rarely did anything unpredicted. Reagan's nuclear arms reduction negotiations were among the most unpredictable policies under the old paradigm, and they were a pleasant surprise.

Today, form a German perspective, the #1 partner in national/collective security should be France. I chose France over the UK because the UK hasn't made up its mind about whether it's a European or a North American country. The executive branch leadership of the U.S. is a near-worthless partner as of now, unpredictable and living in a fantasy world of "alternative facts".

S O

defence_and_freedom@gmx.de

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