[Fun] Afghanistan War 2001-2013 visualised

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Some gripes concerning the usual pro-submarine talk

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quote:

Submarines provide Australia with capabilities of stealth, reach, endurance and formidable striking power. While operating undetected, they can provide a wide variety of intelligence and enhance the range of options open to the government to protect national interests. [...] they do have unique capabilities, including the capacity to operate in areas denied to other forces. And in a maritime region where submarines are already proliferating, our own submarines have a vital anti-submarine role.

The inclusion of submarines in a maritime strategy is a force multiplier. Operating as part of a balanced, joint, integrated and networked force, submarines will often create the conditions necessary for sea control, allowing other components of the ADF to be effectively employed. These characteristics, coupled with the submarine’s ability to deny the use of the sea to a potential adversary are of significant deterrent value

from "Submarines and maritime strategy - part 1"
The Strategist [blog]
by Capt Justin Jones

This kind of talk about submarines is very widespread, and I understand Mr. Jones is in service of the Royal Australian Navy and represents the typical pro-submarine position, sans the talk about the specialities of nuclear-powered subs. I'll take his take on the matter as a representative of a broader mainstream attitude; I'm not particularly interested in Australia's subs or his person. He merely did a largely fact-free summary of the establishment's usual pro submarine arguments.

For once, I'll even mostly ignore the concentrated buzzword avalanche, save for mentioning it this one time.

Here are my gripes:

(1) "formidable striking power"

Against what? 

Submarines have extremely little striking power against anything but ships unless they make use of nuclear warheads. Their striking power against warships and submarines is probably well short of "formidable" because reliability issues with torpedoes and other equipment as well as countermeasures by surface ships may reduce the quantity of hits very much in comparison to the relatively simple slaughtering of freighters.

NATO ASW forces were deeply concerned about their false alarm rates and that they couldn't respond to all contacts on a single North Atlantic crossing because this would deplete their ships' lightweight torpedo supply. What exactly is the submarine's approach to such a fundamental problem? They cannot even probe the contact with active sonar without giving their location away to hostiles in a huge radius. This false alarm issue puts a further question mark behind the nominal ammunition supply of a submarine (and thus its "formidable striking power", as much of it may be expended prior to the first actual contact with hostiles).

It's fair to say that subs are more likely to cause devastation among surface ship targets than surface ships themselves, for the latter typically only carry a pro forma armament of four to eight anti-ship missiles nowadays and use gun calibres ranging from 57 to 127 mm; fine for causing secondary fires and damaging electronics, not so fine for actually sinking ships [edit: by gunfire]. That's why the primary ship killer has been the combat aircraft for seven decades.

It's also noteworthy that submarines have de facto no striking power at all against boats and will in most scenarios leave small ships alone. Submarines gave their guns off board during the 40's and 50's and ever since lack an appropriate replacement. Subs simply don't blow up a dhow with a 21" guided torpedo.

(2) "they can provide a wide variety of intelligence"

I am convinced that this line of argument is a post-Cold War pseudo justification for silent service budgets. I've never seen references to this purported value for intelligence older than from the mid-1990's.

There are some references to earlier intelligence collection, of course - mostly photographs of coastlines, collection of ships' audio profiles for the silent service's own use and infiltration/exfiltration of agents.

What exactly are these great or "wide variety" intelligence things subs can provide?

They cannot operate as radar picket ship. They cannot operate as ESM picket ship. They can do a lot with their sonar, but all of it is essentially about their primary task, sinking of ships (and thus no really separate strength). Electric field sensors provide no relevant intel, simple imagery of coastlines pales in comparison to what commercial satellite service providers have on offer.

Moreover, submarines cannot report whatever findings they have reliably. To transmit radio messages is inherently dangerous due to the hostile triangulation threat.

The Cold War's submarines were very specialised (not versatile) units and their supporting bureaucracies invented a supposed versatility for them during the early 90's in order to stave off budget cuts. Suddenly, submarines were marketed as intelligence collectors, commando transport vessels and so on. I don't buy it.

(3) "unique capabilities, including the capacity to operate in areas denied to other forces"

Well, this was quite a no_content statement. Guess what? Long range recon patrols can claim the same. Tanks can do. Combat aircraft can do. Hey, artillery can even hit where no friendly one could go. 

Subs can go to places where surface ships can't. So what? They cannot go to many places where combat aircraft can go, and those are not largely blind and extremely specialised during their mission.

(4) "in a maritime region where submarines are already proliferating, our own submarines have a vital anti-submarine role."

Grab a map of Australia and Southeast Asia. Measure how tiny circles with a few nautical miles radius are on such a map. Now try to explain Mr Jones' point about subs being fine against subs to me, for my problem with his assertion is that the subs are unlikely to find each other at all. See the Falklands conflict during which an Argentinian and a few British subs did not come in contact at about the same ratio of area to subs as Australia might face. 

A preferable course of action in regard to a huge theatre of war with few subs is to nail all or most of them at their base(s). Subs might attempt to do so with offensive minelaying, but that's unreliable and may take effect only after weeks (conventional subs cruise slowly). It's much easier to simply call the air force.

(5) "The inclusion of submarines in a maritime strategy is a force multiplier."

Now in addition to "force multiplier" itself being quite often an illusion since the multiplication effect is usually highly specific: No, it's not.

Submarines have a very different effect than multiplying anything. More about that under (6)

(6) "Operating as part of a balanced, joint, integrated and networked force,"

Which they don't, period. 

Subs ditch their stealth when they radiate much, so they need to limit their radio transmissions. They also ditch some of their stealth if they are feeling with antennas beyond the surface of the sea (and reduce their sonar performance and reduce their no-cavitation speed limit to a crawl due to the lower water pressure). There are buoy antenna solutions with a flexible mechanical/data cable connection which reduce this issue a bit, but in practice a submarine needs to give something valuable up for listening much to radio chatter. The only exception are very and extremely low frequency communications, which are known for their very and extremely low bandwidth and relevant only for receiving messages by subs, not for their transmitting messages by subs.

The submarine is the epitome of something being disconnected from any (notionally) network-centric force. It's a loner. A sub is not much joint, not much integrated and certainly not networked much.

He could have written about subs being part of a "combined arms" effort and I would have bought it, but that's probably too much like 1990's army talk and combining things does not require to buy or upgrade them anyway. The latter characteristic is probably why buzzwords like "combined arms" have become backbenchers behind buzzwords that further industrial interests well.

(7) "the submarine’s ability to deny the use of the sea to a potential adversary"

This is yet another fundamental misunderstanding, similar to the force multiplier thing. Subs don't "deny the use of the sea" unless your opposing force is meek or you flood the ocean with subs. Instead, they 'fix a tariff' for this use in form of attrition. Said hostile user of the sea may decide to not pay, which requires some suitable preparation and caution of his own and may reduce his offensive effects a lot. To smuggle something past a tariff is never as comfortable as a straight walk:

The mere presence of a submarine in the theatre of war motivates a hostile commander to be careful; his ships will probably move differently (more silently), use different formations, his helicopters will be employed differently, he may want to avoid staying in one place for long because otherwise the slow subs may approach his fleet etc..

This is a little bit similar to the role of land-based area air defence surface to air missiles, which also tend to first and foremost impose restrictions and costs on the attacker, thus at times justifying their expenses without much actual destructive effect.

 _____________________

Submarines are lone troublemakers. They are not networked or versatile and so on - the only fashionable buzzword that really applies to them is "stealthy".

The lethality aspect of submarines is of great interest to underdog navies, for their stealth and their ability to be somewhat effective even in small numbers benefits the weak.

The "tariff" thing about causing much trouble and provoking much caution is on the other hand of great interest to better-funded navies, as they can exploit these effects with their other forces ("combined arms").

Interestingly, Australia is in neither position. It's not an underdog due to its alliances and its naval budget isn't exactly overpowering either. Submarines can still be added to the mix, and one really interesting pro-submarine argument in such a case is that they provide essential aggressor training for the surface navy in peacetime exercises. This requires only a few subs, of course.

S Ortmann

P.S.: OK, I mentioned the buzzword thing a few more times. Well deserved.
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Finally, some reason for pride

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Now I'm proud.

symbol picture for "proud".
Don't laugh - find a better one!

I predicted at the Small Wars Council and Blog website (with alias "Fuchs"*) that the Mali intervention would

 

(1) be about the French conducting a quick campaign,

(2) it would rout the rebels,

(3) in the South,

(4) and the French wouldn't be dumb enough to care much about the desert settlements from where the trouble originated, leaving this to the Africans instead.

It seems I was correct (so far)!**

I didn't claim so here, in part because I attempt to keep the small wars theme low on my own blog.

This is about the first time I get a conflict "right", i.e. predicting how it will go. I didn't expect the Kosovo air War to last for so long and turn so much towards stupid, I didn't expect the Taliban to fold so quickly in 2001, I didn't predict the Iraqis to put up no substantial resistance even in closed terrain in 2003, nor did I expect it to turn into a quagmire as it did.

So finally I got something right in advance about an actual conflict, and it really doesn't surprise me that this was a conflict in which light mechanised, armoured reconnaissance-like, troops played a major role. It has turned into my area of speciality since 2008 due to my research.

_______________

To do list for the next decade:

(1) more money
(2) more women
(3) more wine
(4) more songs
(5) more power
(6) get book finished before 2014
(7) parachuting license
(8) learn to anticipate stupid leadership's actions, too.

I'm kidding.One point is out of reach.

S Ortmann

*: Don't expect to find much interesting stuff of mine written there; I have lower standards for posts in forums and comments elsewhere than for my blog.

**: Meanwhile, the usual whining about how the French lack this or that big toy for the intervention or may be overstretched was quite widespread in some places. As if such an intervention was about whether one has big toys or not. The public perception of military affairs has been taken over by the hardware-centric folks.

2013-03-10 edit: By now the French did make me wrong on (4) by actually going to the North, but they're still making relatively easy progress with no soldiers killed in action.

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U.S. Cyber Command is growing, and my take on "cyber"-anything in general

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The U.S. Cyber Command is apparently growing, by 4,000 additional personnel up from about 900.

I'm sceptical about such outfits because I doubt a bureaucracy is a reasonable form of organisation for whatever mission a "cyber command" could have.

My first reaction to the quantity of '+4,000 people' was to consider it a typical Niskanen's bureaucrat; growing at every opportunity if permitted to do so, no matter useful or not. To my surprise, my quick check revealed that Kaskersky has in excess of 2,000 employees, though. 

I may have underestimated the personnel requirements of IT security (or the efficiency of Kaspersky; keep in mind their revenues are global, while their wages are in great part Russian).

Still, I will not consider calling the "U.S.Cyber Command" or anything like it a good idea until they prove themselves. So far, reports indicated that the U.S. Cyber Command learns from public sources if there's a new virus, DDOS attack etc.

A bureaucrat's reaction to a dismal performance is "we need more personnel, budget", of course.

There are actually people with yet other people's microphones in front of their mouths who claim that electronic warfare/crime through civilian infrastructures ("cyber" something) is the next big thing. I doubt this very much. It's not comparable to the advent of submarines, combat aircraft, tanks, smokeless powder, 

"Cyber" warfare/crimes are rather comparable to a high seas blockade; this stuff can create troubles which require adaptation and then one can go on despite it, with certain restrictions and disadvantages.

"Cyber" something on the battlefield should be understood in the framework of well-known electronic warfare. It's subject to intense action-adaptation spirals and any new smart approaches such as infusing malware to read or remote control hostiles' hardware are going to be much, much more difficult in the civilian arena because of much more limited knowledge about the hard- and software involved (excluding very old or export hardware)

S Ortmann
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Islamophobia is just another ideological BS which distracts us from useful thinking

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Islamophobia crept to Germany only slowly. Too many notional Muslims in this country whom you never happen to see praying or doing anything extreme. Instead, they tend to sell you Döner Kebap snacks tailored to German preferences (now even with frites in a box), repair your mobile phone or deliver some postal packages.

Still, there was Islamophobia in the fringes of society. Surprisingly, the semi-organised far right was at first fine with the handful of Muslim extremists in Germany, for they were at least united in their aversion of some others. The Islamophobia showed elsewehre, for example in the comments at the online version of the newspaper Die Welt. Comments at this newspaper are a kind of the society's sewer system anyway. A few dedicated websites popped up as well, but I didn't pay much attention.

Islamophobia and the associated dumbness and intellectual laziness are creeping into the mainstream, though. 

Two examples are definitely stupid and hateful articles in the newspaper Die Welt; one as editorial and the other as an official newspaper comment.

"Der Islamismus ist im Weltkrieg gegen den Westen"

(Islamism is in a world war against the West)*

"Ein Weltkrieg"

(A world war)*

The firebrand is both times a Mr. Herzinger, but the responsibility for this rests on chief editor Peters and publisher Schmid.

Mr Herzinger appears to revive patterns from the Cold War, asserting that 'Islamists' in Mali are part of a global war and not quite isolated or maybe motivated by something other than religious ideology.

This is why I call Islamophobes intellectually lazy; they would have spotted early on that their ideology is crap if they hadn't been too lazy to check its correctness.

A soldier called Cheikna Traore, who is stationed at the garrison and said he hid in the town when it was overrun, showed us the wreckage of his home.

He said it had been deliberately targeted by some of his former colleagues who had swapped sides and joined the militants.

"Yes, I know their names. Lt Col Usman, and there was Cpl Abu," he said. "All these were here before, working with us. But they deserted a year ago."

Maj Traore said the men had apparently gone to join the forces of the MNLA, a Tuareg separatist group which launched a rebellion last year in northern Mali.

"But when they came back here, we found they were with the jihadists, and they wanted to take revenge on us. They want easy money. They think the jihadists have money - that's all. It's not about Islam," he said.

Another soldier, Roland Coulibaly, confirmed that account, claiming that many of the rebels were former army soldiers and declaring: "We will track them down now and kill them all."

It is a stark reminder of the fact that, while Mali may be grappling with international threats, the roots of much of the current turmoil here are home-grown, and highly complex.

quote from: BBC: Mali crisis: Relief in Diabaly as French forces roll in.

by Andrew Harding, BBC's Africa correspondent

Jihadism is an ideology. Ideologies are simplistic answer sets for a complex world. Even stupid people can adopt an ideology and this way get the feeling of understanding the world. The drawback is that due to being simplistic, ideologies are almost always wrong on everything. It's like watching a black/white photo with many shades of grey and then settling on calling it either "black" or "white", disregarding its complexity.

This wrongness leads to horrible governance if ideologues rise to power. Speaking about rising to power; what ideology really does is to serve as a tool to harness the masses in support of a clique which intends to rise to power. Once in power, they're the new elite and no better than their predecessor. In fact, they're often much worse if the power struggle was violent and further corrupting the civility of the new elite and the rest of society.

Jihadism is a mere ideological cover with which some greedy asses were motivated into joining to overthrow the power structure in Mali. It's essentially no different than communism, anti-commuism and other ideologies.

The conflict is global, but it's one between ideology and pragmatism. This means Die Welt and Mr. Herzinger are rather on the troublemaker side, the side of the ideologues**.

Can we now go on and focus on improving what we have instead of getting all exhilarated about some imaginary world war? This political upstart business model of adopting an ideology has been known for 160 years already and had plenty forerunners.

S Ortmann

*: In case you get the paywall popup; don't worry. They're so dumb their paywall is useless.

When you see the popup simply click on the URL, press Enter, click on the "X" on the top right of the popup, next hit the "Back" button of your browser. Article revealed. Google translation should work fine, too.

Ridiculous.

**: Die Welt is clearly ideologically biased, as is its entire publishing house. I didn't go into the details about this here, though. It's well-known to all politically interested Germans.

edit: Related article from FP: "Mali is not a Stan"

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A rather belated post on how the essence of the 'close fight' changed long ago

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Back during the era of Frederick the Great, infantry combat was much about enduring artillery fire (gory, but short-ranged and slow-firing) and fearing cavalry so much entire infantry battalions changed formations to be able to survive a cavalry assault whenever they saw cavalry.

Muskets had incredibly short effective ranges and even within these the inaccuracy was so great there was little point in adding sights to a musket. You couldn't see much after the first few shots anyway - same blackpowder smoke issue as every year on January 1st, 0000 to about 0300 in many cities of Germany (just even more of it).

Military theoreticians of the time (= Generals and Field Marshals) often advocated to get over with it quickly; march to the enemy, fire one salvo, then assault with multiple battalions using the bayonet.

It was simply and in some cases reasonably effective, for such battalion on battalion fights often ended with a rout of the less resolute battalion.

You could rarely stop a resolute battalion with musket fire, so placing much emphasis on the close fight was a necessity even for the tactical defence.

Illustration of a scene during the Battle of Mollwitz, 1741

The close fight was considered decisive, while the stand-off exchange of lead balls was rather frustrating. This was rather misleading for the decision isn't always once it's there; the preparations and circumstances for a fight may be decisive without making such a spectacular impression as did masses of troops advancing till one line dissolves in a rout. Still, entering close combat clearly helped to accelerate the battle.

This was then, when ranged weapons were still quite frustrating.

It changed later on, as ranged fire lethality multiplied insanely while close fight lethality was not developing much and melée lethality even declining.

Army leaders began to value firepower more after the invention of the powerful smokeless powders, and it became more preferable to seek decision in ranged combat - at least if you had the heavy weaponry and logistics to see promise in this path. Some armies were more enthusiastic about it than others. By the mid-20 h century the close fight was considered messy and the long-range fight (albeit claiming more lives) became more inspiring to many.

Just look at the 'visions' of future (or modern) combat; how often are they about two men crawling into position to throw a hand grenade through a window? I recall a lot of visualisations of soldiers shooting stuff through windows instead. The close fight - that has become the messy thing which you cannot influence as much as you want.

__________________

Today (and ever since at the latest 1950 in my opinion) we may see two kinds of armies in a given conflict; those which believe it's safe to stay at a distance and those who believe the opposite.

Staying at a distance is obviously relatively safe if your enemy hasn't much heavy weaponry or generous logistics. Staying close was relatively safe when your enemy had, for many heavy ammunitions cannot be employed at short range without much risk to friendlies. This applies to a nuke as much as to mortar fire. The Soviet Union didn't expect to lack heavy weapons or logistical support, but it still divided combat into a zone of at most 300-400 metres and another zone beyond. The reasoning was that within 300-400 metres there could not be much indirect fire support applied on a regular basis. Infantry armament was thus required to cover this range spectrum.

Infantry-centric armies of the post-WW2 era have often 'hugged' superior firepower opposition; within rifle range, but preferably with cover against rifles.

This pattern may disappear soon, for guided ammunitions reduce the safe zone by a lot, especially if the better-equipped force is serious enough to keep its safety requirements low.

__________________

Close combat on a battlefield is often understood to be especially lethal (and the kill ratio difficult to influence). This assumption is in my opinion one of the drivers behind the unease with which the close fight is being treated, in addition to the problem that long range fires superiority doesn't count so much at short combat ranges.

I would like to point out a different problem or strength of close combat, tough. It's no earth-moving discovery for sure, but I feel it's rarely being taken into account.

Let's say there are two villages with each adjacent woodland, separated by a few hundred yards of open agricultural area. Two units face each other, both have some sensors, some indirect fire support and their infantry weapons at hand.

They wouldn't see much of their opponents. A few dumb or ill-disciplined soldiers will demonstrate their comrades the hazards of stupidity and then there will effectively be an empty battlefield. The ranged fires - sniper shots, machinegun fire, shells or mortar bombs - is not going to do much. Sure, it would if they met on an open field, but that's why they don't.

Now assume one commander decides to attack, arranges for some smoke on the agricultural area and rushes with his men across to seek a close fight. Most of his firepower would become almost unusable; rifles, the infantry's grenade ammunitions and bipod machineguns would form the mainstay of the firepower now. That's a far cry from the impact of a sophisticated 155 mm DPICM MRSI or similar* fire mission, for sure.

Still, losses would mount and if the troops don't get bogged down (which does happen often) in the woodland they will reach a rather quick conclusion of this tactical encounter.

Why? Well, it's easy to hide from people from afar, but very hard to do so close up. You can pull it off (with foxholes, discipline and camouflage), but hardly as an entire battalion in daylight.

The close fight's ability to counter the enemies' hiding capability (which became a necessity in face of modern heavy weaponry) is rarely emphasised in statements about the close or the stand-off fight (as far as I can tell, which is anecdotal evidence).

To me it appears as if we've come full turn in regard to the need to appraise the close fight as the kind of fight which reveals who loses more (and who "wins"), and relatively quickly so.

The reason for coming full circle in regard to the close fight is a different one than during the age of muskets and bayonets, though; it's not the lack of stand-off firepower, but the inability to aim it at opponents who have long since been forced to drop their colourful regimental uniforms in favour of disappearing in the landscape.

It is understandable that many become obsessed with making those enemies visible again - there are fortunes to be made in related businesses - but whatever is accomplished in this field will first and foremost provoke countermeasures.

Maybe we should look at this much less in terms of sensors and radio networks in pursuit of being able to aim stand-off weaponry well again.

Maybe we should pay more attention to

(1) proficiency in the close fight (ours and theirs)

(2) exploiting the restrictions imposed by existing stand-off firepower and sensors on the enemy's repertoire (such as relatively low mobility, for you don't tend to move much while hiding)

(3) pursuing the decision prior to the tactical engagement, on the operational level**

I'll never be hired for 'strategic communications' by an arms maker, ever.

S Ortmann

*: Translation from Milspeak to English: "Hell breaks loose on an area as large as multiple football fields for about ten seconds."
**: My personal focus.
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[Fun] Now that's an impressive carrier

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H/T China Defense Blog

I'm not really fearful.
Spiders, errorists, brown people looking funny - not impressed. I have no Germanophobia either. ;)

OK, heights. Working on that one and making progress.


Still, if the Chinese were building THIS thing for real, in full size, I would be impressed!




Not fearful. Impressed.
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Aerial laser weapons, probably around the corner

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150 kilowatt lasers will be installed in US Fighter planes as early as 2014

(Next Big Future blog)

Well, judging by the illustrations known, "Fighter planes" is not exactly accurate. It's more like bombers and gunships; I remember concept drawings about such intents from the 80's.

100 kW laser output has been considered the threshold for an effective destructive* combat laser for a while; a 150 kW laser would be effective against a wide range of targets. That is, unless said targets employ countermeasures.

Destructive combat lasers would force lots of thoughts and lots of new dynamics onto the tactical level and also onto measures-countermeasures spirals in military tech R&D and procurement.

To be honest; I'm not particularly interested in destructive lasers. 

The attention and thought they would attract would divert from addressing more fundamental and less sexy problems in military theory and security policy. I can already imagine the voices which will claim that the force with the better lasers will dominate the battlefield. *Sigh*

S Ortmann

*: I wrote this to point out the difference to lasers for ranging, beam rider guidances, illumination, obstacle detection, 3D sensor functions and dazzling.

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Alliances in East Asia

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Allies Offer US Strong Advantages, And Some Risk, In China Rivalry

by David Axe, 9/2012

I wrote about a similar topic already. Let's be serious; China would not attack the U.S. unless the U.S. is engaged in (South) East Asia.

The still U.S.-occupied Philippines were the reason for the attack on Pearl Harbour. Without them, the Japanese could have felt secure trying to focus on the British, Dutch and Australians (Dutch for their oil in SE Asia, British because it had the dominant base of Singapore on the way, Australians because they would fight with the British and could have set up a dominant base at Rabaul).
 

Alliances in East Asia do not serve the U.S.'s national security; they serve its great power gaming potential ("advantages") and the East Asian allies' national security.

It would likely better for (South) East Asian peace if the small powers in the region and Japan form one or two treaty-based collective defence alliances instead of being in some more or less binding alliance with the U.S. which appears to be more about some kind of containment than defence.

Well, I can be fine with it as long as Germany doesn't get involved by either war or its fallout.

S Ortmann
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Thinking about Mali and mobilisation in general

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Mali's southern people could easily fend off the Northerners. A single small city's population of unemployed, unwed military age males and a few dozen useful NCOs as well as a few million bucks for guns would suffice. They don't do it.*
Meanwhile, the troublemakers appear to originate from only a 1% share of the North's small population. It looks as if this one per cent knows how to mobilise.

It's always amazing to me how some societies fail to mobilise their population for war. Afghanistan's economy could easily sustain (=feed, clothe) a million men army with AKMs for years. It just fails to pull it off. They simply don't do it.**

Just as the late Roman Empires weren't able to raise more than 30k non-mercenary troops for a field army after the much smaller Roman Republic of the Punic Wars raised 80k men armies out of nothing within months. Another example; the late imperial China wasn't able to deal with a division-sized expeditionary force from Europe.

I believe it either takes a culture in which males are considered part-time warriors or an effective bureaucracy to mobilise the war-making potential of a country.

The great advantage of Europe over the rest of the world was probably that it survived the transition from one to the other (the Middle Ages).

This topic is probably about THE solution for Third World "national" defence: Any Third World country which is understood to be able to mobilise several per cent of its population into a lightly armed, effective militia or army would be effectively save from invasion (think of Rwanda, Eritrea). It's the conventional deterrence equivalent of having nukes in such regions.

I suppose the often multi-ethnic population and the often exploitation-oriented governments are unlikely to prefer the ancient warrior society approach. It's too much of a risk to their power.
On the other hand, they typically fail at setting up and maintaining an effective bureaucracy because they corrupt it top-down.

This - and not hardware arsenals or Gross Domestic Product - is probably the main reason for the great military weakness and fragility of almost all Third World countries.

The result are ridiculous conflicts such as the LRA surviving for decades, tiny Rwanda treating Congo as if it was a great power itself, Southern Mali being unable to fend off a handful of Northerners or a large country like Afghanistan falling to a few thousand resolute invaders.

I suppose if one wants to "stabilise" in the Third World, one should probably help the elites to enrich themselves with natural resources so they can somehow be kept from corrupting the bureaucracy and then one should rebuild the bureaucracy in order to create an indigenous war-making capability. Set up a few government-overseen workshops capable of small arms and ammunition production and no-one would want to invade them or start a guerrilla war, ever.

The other challenge would be to keep this war-making capability from being used on neighbouring countries - especially if they've become capable, too. Nobody wants an African World War I replay, after all. The utterly inept Gulf War '80-'88 was already too much of that sort.

Again, it would probably be advisable to address the indigenous elites who run and exploit the country. They need to have a vested interest in peace because war would be (made) bad for their business of extracting the fruits of others' labour.

S Ortmann

*: A country with a city this big (1.8 million people!) needs foreign help to fend off a handful poorly armed warrior-mercs from a semi-arid region. Ridiculous. It's about time for them to man up.

**: (In case of Afghanistan likely so because stealing from the Western cash cow is so much more profitable to the "government").

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