An Army of Riflemen

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Phil Carter cites to an Army Times story about how the Army is going to require everybody to be a competent warrior first, and do whatever other specialty they are assigned, second. This is something of a novelty in the Army, but much less so in the Marine Corps.

Carter is a real Army guy, and I’m an armchair warrior only. But I have been doing a lot of reading lately and a thought occurs to me which Carter did not address.

The Army, and all the services, have in recent years talked about manouever warfare, and reconnaisance pull rather than command push, and Sun Tzu and deception, surprise and indirection, and blitzkreig and aufstragtaktik, and moving away from attritional warfare. This is all good stuff. Tommy Franks ran Gulf War II on these principles, to excellent effect.

But. This approach creates its own unique burdens. If you make an effort to attack where the enemy is weak, like the German stosstruppen of 1918, and you bypass enemy strongpoints, and leave the follow-on wave to mop up, then you necessarily make all elements of the Army into front-line elements. If the tanks and heavy units are supposed to race past the enemy like water flowing around rocks to make deep penetrations, then the columns of trucks behind them are not going to be pulling up behind a trench line with a “front” toward the enemy, and unloading their supplies in a safe zone. Rather, these logistic elements will be operating in a fluid situation where (hopefully) discombobulated but still armed and alive elements of the enemy are still running around. Or, as someone put it, if you attack where the enemy is weak, then it must mean that your own weakest forces are going to come into contact with the enemy where he is still strong. The Germans in World War II faced this problem, with their armored spearheads leaving large partisan formations operating in their rear throughout the war. It occurs to me that the training and expectations of “rear echelon” troops will have to change. This raises two further issues. One, will we need to give up on the idea that women in the military are in “non-combat” roles. That seems inevitable. Two, will we need to equip our support services with more robust, combat-worth equipment, i.e. tracked and armored vehicles rather than soft-skinned trucks? This one I haven’t seen anybody write about. The Army leadership seems to be trying to take these challenges seriously. Good.

Warrior Bunnies, Chicom Astronauts

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Dudes, I just noticed that Anna’s Bunny Blog is back up and running — since last month. Good stuff, and I missed the war stuff so much I almost missed the bunnies, too. And I’m just not a bunny kind of guy.

She’s got a good post about the Chinese putting a man into space: “Communists in space again? Oh great. ” But she concludes on a happy note, pointing out that Arsenal of Democracy — or AoD in her usual parlance — “the AoD owns space and can bring down whatever the enemy may send up.”

Yeah, I knew that. I wrote a post last night which I didn’t put up because it was way too ranting and angry and negative. See, I care about our readers’ feelings. I don’t always post every darn thing that I dredge out of my id.

In my first version of the post I said I wanted the Chicom astronaut to die. Kinda harsh. I don’t so much want him to die as I want the Chinese communists’ space program to fail. So, unlike Glenn Reynolds, I don’t wish them well. Bottom line, China is our long-term enemy. I think this space effort is them laying the foundation for a challenge to our control of space. (See the fascinating essay “Unrestricted Warfare” — part 1 here and part 2 here.) Nothing personal. If I were the Chinese, that’s what I’d be doing. They want to control their region, which means we have to leave. And we won’t leave if we are asked nicely, so they are going to push us. That’s how it is going to go. Stripping away our command of space is something they are working on doing. And they are very, very smart people. And they are very serious about beating us when they take us on, a process which is already underway.

This space launch isn’t the United Federation of Planets, a peaceful joint exploration of the natural wonders of unknown space. It is the instruments warming up in the orchestra pit before the curtain rises on Cold War II.

John B. Alexander‘s book Winning the War: Advanced Weapons, Strategies, and Concepts for the Post-9/11 World has got me all fired up about the need to control space. He predicts that there is going to be a collapse in the cost of getting into space and working there, and that market forces will drive this process in the near future. This will change the parameters, and be a threat to our current ascendency in the military use of space.

My wish list looks like this. I want the U.S. to invest massively in militarizing space. I want us to tear up any treaty that purports to block our doing so. I want us to deny the use of space to our enemies, including France and China. I want us to establish a permanent military presence, manned and unmanned, on the moon and at the LaGrange points. Space is the military high ground of the present and future. I want us to seize, hold and control it, and deny it completely and permanently to all enemies actual and potential.

I am glad that Anna is confident that we can do this if we need to. I’m worried that we will fail to invest, now, during the inter-war period. It will be a lot harder to take the high ground back by force at some later date. For now, I will take her word for it that the AoD can handle any challengers. I sure hope she’s right.

Email from Northern Iraq

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I was recently forwarded some email from an American soldier in northern Iraq. I removed personal comments and information indicating his identity. I thought our readers would be interested:

I cannot wait to be home. I think I am all deployed out for awhile. It’s one of those things you’re glad you did it, but do not want to do it again. I guess that’s war. …Really, getting home is all that motivates me right, and of course, beating the bad guy. We’re beginning to see a lot of foreign fighters coming in, and I wonder how long Saddam’s influence will last as more and more of these guys pour in. They are for the most part fanatic types. I guess they and Saddam will be allies as long as we are here. Of course, that begs the question: do we go after them in their own countries? That is something only the American electorate can decide. Frankly, I do not think they have the stomach for that. Where does that leave this whole thing? Hopefully, the Iraqi’s can get their act together to make themselves a more viable state. Many are more than willing, and that is a good sign. Still, it is not a done deal. Let’s hope it ends soon.

Mosul is an interesting place. It is old, like many of the cities here. (Nineveh is here-capital of the Assyrian Empire) At the same time, it is in better shape than Baghdad. In fact, of all of the Sunni cities, it is probably in the best shape. How it works here is this — the Shiite cities, mainly down south around As Nasiriyah and An Najaf, they are in terrible shape. Saddam never really gave them anything. Hence, they are the farthest behind, infrastructure wise. Then comes the Sunni cities, which are mainly around Baghdad and north of the city. That is Mosul and Tikrit and those places. Generally, the infrastructure is better in those places. Finally, you have the Kurdish cities way up north like Dahuk and Irbil. Those places, free from Saddam’s influence for nearly twelve years, are much nicer, almost up to European standards. They understand capitalism and have bought into it.

In one of our towns, they had a wedding, and they bring weapons to the weddings and shoot them in the air as part of the celebration. One guy got a little crazy, probably drunk, and he shot and killed the bride and injured and the groom. The usual solution: the perpetrator pays the bride’s family for the loss. No jail. OJ should have gone here to commit his crime. (And since Goldman was Jewish, he would have been lauded as a hero.)

We have a long way to go, but we are on the right track. We’ve introduced town hall meetings here, and the local sheiks and muktars love it. They are thrilled that they can voice their opinions in a forum such as this. Let’s not kid ourselves here. We are imposing our culture on another one. I guess when you are out here, you begin to realize who we are and what we represent and why so many fear us. Our ideas are addictive. Many of these people do not want us to leave. I guess that is nice. The people who are committing these atrocious acts are few, but they are mainly foreigners and ex Baath. Baath party is like the Nazi party. It has to be expunged, its remnants destroyed. The foreigners are a different story. Their motivation centers on the fear of American culture. They fear what that means for them and their people. They are not poor. In fact, many are well off. Granted, they hire poor locals once they get here. And loyalties are easily bought here. Money is the ammunition of this conflict.

The foreign jihadis sound like the real problem. Will we allow Iran and Syria and Saudi become the Laos and Cambodia of this war? Or will we find a way to prevent enemy infiltrators from getting in? Or will we be able to create an Iraqi army and police force that can secure the border? That may be the key to the whole thing right there.

Top o’ the world, Ma!

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In August Germany was the world’s biggest exporter, with an export volume of 62 billion Dollars. The United States had the second biggest export volume and Japan the third biggest.

(Sniff!) I’d like to take this opportunity to personally thank all those American consumers who helped to make this possible.

Germany had been the world’s biggest exporter for several years in the 80’s but lost this status after reunification. According to Der Spiegel first signs for a return to the top already showed up in the statistics early this year.