Defending the indefensible: a how-to guide

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I'm apparently still in the mod to dump more or less old articles here (only good ones, of course!).

"Defending the indefensible: a how-to guide"

By Stephen M. Walt

Foreign Policy Blog

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Map of population density

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This is a map of the world-wide population density in 1994,

based on NASA data.

A much higher resolution version is here.

It's very impressive in my opinion. The centre of gravity of mankind is obviously in Asia. The "Western" regions of the world appear to have a rather mediocre population density.

I know the figures and many maps, but this kind of map is every time a kind of wake-up call.

It lets me take those people who want to stem against the Western world's loss of influence (beyond its frontiers) less seriously.

We are rich, educated, trained, experienced and have a huge capital stock. The sheer quantity of humans in Asia will likely still trump this in the long run. The benefits of beign influential are doubtful anyway, swimming against a current is rarely advisable - why do that many people insist on maintaining "influence", "reach" and "power" in such distant places that are clearly in the periphery of other powers?

This isn't really about Afghanistan.

It's about the growing quantity of voices which talk of the Indian Ocean as an important area of operations for European navies in the future.

It's also about apparent Western-driven containment policies in Central Asia and East Asia.

Sure, population ain't everything. Yet, as a democratically-minded individual I've got some difficulties grasping the logic behind the idea that we Westerners should (or are entitled to) exercise global, decisive influence. I hope that we won't stumble stupidly into unnecessary great wars because of the insistence on global meddling.

Sven Ortmann
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A flood of irritating quotes caused by a proposed F-15 deal

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(The Defensetech blog has an article about the proposed sale of 84 F-15s to Saudi-Arabia and Israel's reaction, based on a WashPost interview with Israel's secretary of defence. The interpretation of that interview by DT author Greg Grant is one of many possible interpretations of what Barak said.)

My first thought when I saw this

Israel Wants Missile Shield Money, JSF Tech To Not Oppose Saudi F-15 Sale

headline at the DT blog was "Wow, that would be brazen".

I am, of course, accustomed to the idea that a sovereign nation doesn't need the permission of another nation for such a decision.

The article body has more to offer, though. This

In an interview with the Washington Post last week, Barak evoked Israel’s qualitative military edge (QME), suggesting that Saudi Arabia’s acquisition of dozens of brand new F-15 fighters could tilt the regional military balance.

repeats what I read elsewhere. Again, I was a bit irritated that there's actually an acronym worth to mention for this - "QME". That's the only acronym for a foreign nation's national security strategy that I recall at the moment (IRATM).

It's also a bit irritating to see how the "qualitative edge" gets associated with hardware only. Weren't the Israelis supposed to be super pilots, the Israeli industry to be good with EW equipment and Arabs supposed to suck at warmaking in general?

Aren't these supposed F-15 sales simply replacements for worn-out 1980's F-15's of Desert Storm fame?

Quoteworthy material kept coming:

Israel isn’t in a position to dictate who the U.S. sells advanced weaponry to, Barak said; although it really is. If Israel so desires, it can mobilize its powerful allies in Congress to hold up arms sales to Arab nations, especially when it’s something as big as the sale of 84 F-15s.

I guess it'll take a few more years till I can understand how a nation which perceives itself as the sole superpower can treat an issue like this as normal. Another government has decisive influence on your legislative (government?) in regard to specific bills?

Granted, that's not really news in this case. Nevertheless, it's an astonishing tail-wags-dog stunt. The tail isn't even connected to the dog, but thousands of miles apart!

It sure sounds like Israel wants some kind of technology transfer in the deal.

This is also ranging from noteworthy to brazen, considering how often I've heard and read complaints from Americans about how willingly Israel supposedly transferred military high tech to the PR China.

There are surely hundreds of mosaic pieces in the full story and to put

them all together and to filter misinformation out would require a huge effort. The picture as it shows itself in the recent reports (and earlier ones) is nevertheless a quite irritating one.

The greatest human strength and weakness at once is the ability to get used to almost everything. This is such a case where I can only shake my head and turn away, assuming that a couple hundred million people are already used to the documented behaviour and many of them don't see anything disturbing in it.

Israel seems to make great profit in its "special relationship" with the U.S. - unlike the UK. Maybe the Brits should ask Israel for a lesson? Spending blood side-by-side with U.S. G.I.s doesn't seem to buy nearly as much influence on U.S. policy as a few million $ lobbyism money. You might even get the spent money back - hundredfold!

Sven Ortmann

P.S.: Maybe Israel has a similar special relationship with Germany, but that's for sure more sporadic, less institutionalised and less brazen. Germans are used to allow others to influence German legislation - in a multialteral cooperation called the EU that gives us the ability to influence their legislation as well. An open statement from another government that implies the ability to decisively influence a Bundestag voting is as far as I can tell well above the scandal threshold in Germany.

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A yesterday man's confusion on Great Power status

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History has proved that certain grand ideas - once believed to be self-evident - are (or became?) wrong.

One such error was the idea that you need to have a large land mass if your nation has a large population (Germany). Another such error was the idea that it takes a colonial empire for a country to be rich & powerful (UK, France, Spain - falsified by Germany during the late 19th century). Yet another example is the idea that a country needs guaranteed access to natural resources (preferably on its own or its colonies' soil) to be a rich industrial nation. This has been falsified post-WW2 by both Western European and East Asian nations.

Finally, one misconception seems to persist at least among some people: The idea that it takes military might - even the ability of "power projection" (being able to defeat some distant country) to be a Great Power.

There is no doubt that apart from the independent nuclear deterrent, great power status requires independent conventional military capacity.

"We have to be ready for anything"

by Alexander Woolfson

Uhm, no. There IS doubt. In fact, modern lists of Great Powers include several countries which don't even aspire to either an independent nuclear deterrent nor an independent conventional military capacity (of the kind that Woolfson had in mind).

Let's look at an easily accessible example: Wiki

Or let's look at a blog that focuses on Great Power stuff;

greatpowerpolitics.com

I could easily add other sources, but these two should suffice to show that there IS doubt.

- - - - -

Japan was driven into its disastrous WW2 experience by a misguided belief that it needed direct access to foreign resources for prosperity.

Britain, France and Portugal fought series of wars (hundreds!) to build and maintain empires that did little for their prosperity. The same effort spent domestically would probably have yielded better results.

Spain was domestically broken by the economic and political effects of its colonial empire in the 16th to 18th century.

Germany got into WW2 for an asshole's stupid idea that it required a huge territory because its homeland would be too small for its greatness or whatever.

- - - - -

Today, some nations waste resources on inflated defence budgets and risk going to war over marginal topics (because some politicians cannot resits the military big stick once they have it at their disposal).

No, Britain does NOT need an independent nuclear deterrent and it does not need expeditionary forces that can cruise to some distant country and beat it up or occupy it. That's not what it takes to be a Great Power.

Great Powers are about influence, about relevance. Great Powers are those powers who must not be ignored in a large share of global conflicts and political matters. These conflicts and matters are nowadays almost always peaceful - unless certain Western countries launch a war.

Good relations with Commonwealth nations, the permanent UNSC seat, the UNSC veto right, the ability to assist with expertise and money in times of trouble, being leading advocate of mutually beneficial multinational agreements, a "honest broker" reputation in regard to the moderation of international conflicts - that would ensure Britain's Great power status in the 21st century.

A broke country with nukes and an expeditionary military that gets involved in needless wars of choice would not be a good Great Power, if one at all. Most importantly, such a recipe is not going to help the country to prosper socially and culturally.

Sven Ortmann

P.S.: And then there's the question who's luckier; a Great Power or a country like Luxembourg?!

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Gitmo detainees and Germany

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Germany finally seems to have accepted two Guantanamo detainees. The overall reaction was decidedly unenthusiastic if not phlegmatic. Nevertheless, there are the expected negative voices, such as this post on the Weblog Sicherheitspolitik (a German blog mostly on national security policy) or this on another German blog (Deutsche Sicherheits- und Verteidigungspolitik) with a title that would essentially mean the same in English.

That blog post basically follows the well-known pattern from the U.S.:

These-people-are-dangerous-therefore-we-don't-want-them-in-our-country.

I considered this to be ridiculous when hysterical U.S. right wingers used this talking point and it's not much better in Germany as well, although we'll probably not lock 'em up.

- - - - -

I'm still in opposition to accepting Gitmo detainees in Germany, though. My reason is a very different one, and it's *surprise* not exactly a very common one.

This is my point:

The U.S. fell from the level of Western civilisation with Patriot Act, war of aggression against Iraq, torture, kidnapping people even in allied nations and the "unlawful combatant" scandal treatment of what should have been either criminal suspects or prisoners of war. Well, because of that list and a few more points.

The handful people in Gitmo are quite irrelevant. I do not care about their fate, not any more than I care about the fate of some Papuan village. There are more than six billion people out there and I cannot care about all of them. I can merely insist that life and freedom are rights that must only be violated with really good reasons.

In short: It's about principles. In this case I mean Western civilisation principles.

So why is Germany supposed to take two Gitmo detainees? The reason is simple in my opinion. The U.S. has still not recovered, it is still unable to treat these people right, to admit its error and to correct it. If we can take them, why not CONUS?

The answer is simple; CONUS isn't ready to accept them. It's still in the mad 9/11 shock mode and too much under influence of scaremongers. It's still not back to normal operation, back to the ability to act rationally and coolly.

That's why I am against accepting Gitmo detainees to Germany. The Americans shall do their homework, clean up their own dirt and prove that they're willing to meet the expectations and behave like a civilised nation. I expect them to be able to treat these people either as POW or as criminal suspects - be it in jal or not. I don't care whether they won't be accepted by other countries including their homeland. The Americans catched them - now they got them. Their problem.

Now its their turn to prove that they can do the right, the Western civilisation thing. We shouldn't offer them a cheap way out.

Sven Ortmann

P.S.: It would be possible that some readers use the primitive concepts of "anti-americanism" or "left" as explanations for what I wrote. I can only advise them to take the text more seriously. Even people who don't agree with me usually admit that I have a point.

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Withdrawal deadlines - it depends on the point of view

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The removal of McChrystal from command in Afghanistan has inspired a renewed debate about the Westerners' Afghanistan strategy. It seemed for a while as if a new commander could apply a new strategy, but that doesn't seem to be what's going to happen in the next few months.

- - - - -

One proposal for such a new strategy was to set a deadline for withdrawal.

Well, the pro-War faction didn't exactly prove its intellectual prowess in this debate (surprise!). It seems as if warmongers simply push for war and after war begun they push for more resources (men, money). Pouring more resources into a conflict is the trivial answer to all problems, and as history shows it's not even nearly as promising as it seems. Nevertheless, adding resources and just staying the course seem to be the only two real strategy ideas of pro-war people in the current wars. Oh yeah, that and motivation tricks such as hyping personalities, hyping concepts ("COIN" doctrine) and the "Friedman Unit".


A withdrawal deadline would have numerous consequences, and some of them really do seem to be disadvantageous. One such disadvantage is that in a conflict that was at times portrayed as a staying contest (who can keep fighting longer? Foreign troops or indigenous & foreign insurgents?) you don't want to tell your opponent that he's going to win if he keeps going for just another year or two.

Well, a withdrawal of (most) foreign troops would not actually equal a defeat, and that's where the often omitted complexity comes into play.

- - - - -

Excursion: Let's look at the mayor of Kabul and his regime. This war isn't only about us Westerners, after all!

Huge sums of money are being poured into the country, and de facto the same sum leaves the country (either as payment for exports and transport services or as stolen money that's being moved to safety for potential kleptocratic soon-to-be exiles).

They don't even need to fight against the (few thousand or few ten thousand) Taliban or the almost entirely absent (= less than 50 to less than 200 depending on U.S. intelligence statements) Al Qaida.
The foreigners do the fighting for them. That suffices, for the effects of that civil war in rural areas are of little interest if there's no reconstruction happening where you could steal foreign money.

Actually, more troubles in rural areas can even be an advantage, for one of the foreigners' approaches is to pour resources into the region for civil reconstruction (and bribing), in order to win "hearts & minds" (Thanks, pro-war people. This is where much of your additional funds are going to!).


In short: The mayor of Kabul and his kleptocratic mafia-like organisation (a.k.a. the central government) doesn't really seem to have an incentive to build up military and paramilitary (police) power for an "Afghanisation" of the conflict. This "Afghanisation" is of course the official mission of ISAF and the strategy of most if not all involved Western governments!

"Staying the course" will not succeed; ISAF & OEF-A are not going to defeat the Taliban actively, for the latter can simply switch to even more elusive modes of operation.
"Adding more resources" is not going to succeed either; additional money means happier kleptocrats, additional soldiers means more elusive Taliban and additional trainers means more (yet still unmotivated) indigenous "central government" security forces that will nevertheless not be allowed to become powerful enough to take over much responsibility from foreign troops.

- - - - -

Now let's look at what a withdrawal deadline would cause:

a) A "short" withdrawal deadline
The central government would probably not have enough time to pull its act together and get real about security forces. There's a real possibility that the central government's forces would collapse as it happened a while after the Soviet withdrawal. This would most likely mean that some generals would turn into warlords (again?) and keep fighting the Taliban (dependent on foreign assistance and/or drug money).

b) A "far" withdrawal deadline
The central government would begin to do its best (aside from additional looting of riches) to get the security forces ready for taking over from the foreigners. It would be their only chance to stay in their extremely advantageous (power, riches and certainly also enough women and if they want booze) positions.
They could as well fail despite the best possible motivation to succeed and enough time; and resources. In this case we would have the evidence that they would almost certainly fail in every scenario. "Staying the course" and "adding more resources" would therefore have failed as well.

The border between "short" and "far" is probably about two years, maybe three. Maybe it' as little as six months..
The Western forces should have left Afghanistan in 2002, but even with the stupid nation building (=despised by Neocons as Clinton-like until they did it themselves!) the Western troops should have been reduced to almost none by 2005. It's such a waste.

- - - - -

In short; I dislike the non-intelligent pro-war stance that relies on simple slogans. I'm on record for being against the whole stupid war, but a (long) withdrawal deadline should bode well even for a pro-war guy! Well, it should work out like that at least if pro-war people did thought much about the war instead of typically clinging to slogans and primitive, superficial ideas.

Sven Ortmann

P.S.: A "deadline" in this context means to me that more than 90% of the troops would be out of the country by that time.
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ACTA

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The ACTA (copyright) treaty negotiations have been criticized a lot, and I think the latest allegation justifies an entry here:

The leaked document shows that the EU Member States are willing to impose prison sanctions for non-commercial usages of copyrighted works on the Internet as well as for 'inciting and aiding', a notion so broad that it could cover any Internet service or speech questioning copyright policies.

Hat tip to Boing Boing.

Sven Ortmann
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"Punishing Turkey by Philip Geraldi

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"Punishing Turkey"

by Philip Giraldi

It's worth to be read and I agree 95%.

Sven Ortmann

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Köhler resigned

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The President of the Federal Republic of Germany Horst Köhler (mostly representative head of state) has resigned because of the strong reactions to an interview he gave just a few days ago (transcript).

www.faz.net article

The interview has been interpreted as championing the aggressive use of military force to further national interests (= in my opinion a possible interpretation of his words).

The reactions pointed out that this would be way beyond the constitutional limits and that the Federal Republic of Germany has military forces for self defence, not for Banana Wars.

Federal presidents tend to have more integrity than common top politiians and it's to be respected that he resigned that quickly because he felt that he hadn't enough respect and support anymore.

I interpret his speech as the latest step of an multi-party salami tactic that was employed since about 1993 in order to increasingly get used the Germans to distant and even offensive use of military power. A normal politician would have proposed a stupid mission, got resistance and have postponed the accustomization till a later date.

I wrote in 2009/11:

(...) Then came the end of the Cold War.

German politicians proceeded with a salami slice tactic for so-called "out of area" missions of German troops, one step at a time. It began with a field hospital in Cambodia, then logistical support troops in a safe place in Northern Somalia and so on. Peacekeepers here, peacekeepers there, finally some purely anti-radar missions of Tornados in the 1999 Kosovo Air War and then more peacekeeping in Afghanistan coupled with up to 100 commando soldiers on AQ hunt.

Well, now we're in the stupid business of small wars - with a strong popular majority rejecting this policy and at the same time re-electing the conservatives for domestic policy reasons.

Sven Ortmann

photo: Roosewelt Pinheiro/Agência Brasil
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Those irrational, misled, conspiratorial Muslims

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"Those irrational, misled, conspiratorial Muslims"
By Glenn Greenwald

I recommend it. Excerpts:

[...]Of all the myths identified by the NYT article, the implicit one conveyed by that photograph -- Pakistanis harbor anger toward the U.S. only because of false conspiracy theories they're being fed -- is easily the most extreme. [...]

[...]There is a lot of propaganda, paranoia and myth in Pakistan, along with most places in the world. But the American media's fixation on pointing to it and deriding it has the principal effect (if not intent) of obscuring the role we play in enabling (and even justifying) those sentiments, along with at least our own equal share of such propaganda and our own media's central role in bolstering it.[...]

Sven Ortmann
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Allensbach poll on Germans in Afghanistan

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The Institut für Demoskopie Allensbach has published a new poll on the German ISAF mission.

www.FAZ.net article (in German)

(The article has additional interesting results for other questions.)

They asked Germans the question "Würden Sie rückblickend sagen, dass es ein Fehler war, sich an der Schutztruppe in Afghanistan zu beteiligen?"

("Would you say that, in retrospect, it was a mistake to participate in the protection force in Afghanistan?")

"Es war ein Fehler" ("It was a mistake") answered

59% of the group 'whole population'

48% among CDU (social conservatives) voters

59% among SPD (social democrats) voters

46% among FDP (liberals) voters

70% among Grüne (greens) voters

85% among Linke (socialists) voters

This confirms older polls (here and here); a majority is against the German participation.

Especially interesting and wicked is the situation for the greens; the SPD and greens were in power and led by decidedly centre/moderate top politicians (now retired) into both the Kosovo Air War and the initial Afghanistan mission.

Green party top politicians still paint the ISAF mission as a kind of women's liberation and human rights mission and dream about building schools and such. The party supports the ISAF mission.

The green voter base thinks differently; the greens were (until their loss of pacifist principles in 1998) THE German peace party. The socialists try hard to fill the gap.

Obviously, many - indeed most - green voters didn't buy into the green party leadership's delusions about the ISAF mission.

Sven Ortmann

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Defence policy thoughts for (very) small powers

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An acquaintance suggested that I write about the defence of a small country facing a less than very friendly, much larger neighbour.

Most texts here were written because of a spontaneous idea of mine (that may have been old at the time of writing, though). I'm not sure how good a "by request" text may be, but I'll give it a try.

- - - - -

The first idea is to obviously avoid conflict. The small nation should not only avoid violent conflict; it should also avoid political conflict, maybe even ally with the larger power.

Regrettably, this option is not available in his (Estonian) case.

To seek other, sufficiently powerful, allies is another option. Sadly, even a written alliance treaty may ultimately fail to deter. Nevertheless, such a treaty pretty much ends the political challenge.

Next, the small nation should decide what form of armed resistance it wants to be able to put up. It signed an alliance treaty, after all - and that's a two-way commitment unlike a unilateral guarantee of sovereignty. This means also that even a small ally is supposed to be ready to help others. The minimum commitment would in my opinion be a readiness to deploy rear security troops and troops for handling prisoners of war.

Next, let's think about the military defence strategy and the suitable force structure.

There's a "miniature military" trap; some small armed forces attempt to mimic large ones, with a full set of capabilities ranging from simple infantry to heavy artillery, armoured forces, multi-role fighters, air defences and naval forces.

Israel is probably the only example that really worked well. Many militaries that adopt such a course fail and cannot reach good quality and readiness.

A tailored approach to national defence - coupled with some thought about the potential contribution to alliance defence elsewhere - looks more promising.

The defence of a very small alliance member against a much superior potential invader is quite a challenge without very suitable terrain and without forward deployed allied forces.

The first problem is the budget. Both its likely small size and the necessity of very efficient spending pose some tough challenges. Compromises are necessary - even compromises that say "no" to certain standard capabilities of bigger militaries.

Cost-efficiency is extremely important and this forces the usage of older and used equipment for most purposes. Only very, very influential key equipment can justify high procurement and operating costs.

Examples of such key equipment could be encrypting jam-resisting radios, capable anti-tank missiles, (very) short range air defence systems and possibly also equipment that's necessary for key actions. The latter could for example be some equipment for the destruction of the tunnel that connects South Ossetia with Russia (in the case of Georgia).

The defence of a given area against numerically superior invaders is a tough job. It's especially tricky if no continuous front line can be established for a lack of forces. Even a fortified front line wouldn't hold indefinitely, though. An army needs no overall numerical superiority in order to achieve a local 3:1 or 6:1 superiority. A breakthrough attempt with such a local superiority tends to lead to mobile warfare (just as the case without a continuous front line).

Success in mechanised mobile warfare requires skills and equipment that's unlikely to be found in small armies. There's nevertheless a temptation to add an armour battalion, regiment or brigade to the army.

The biggest advantage of doing so is probably the training effect for those who're supposed to resist enemy armour.

What could an armour brigade be worth? It adds primarily some offensive striking power, gives some headaches to invasion planners.

Those invasion planners would have much more severe headaches in other scenario planning, though. A single armour Bde isn't exactly a large force even by modern standards. NATO has dozens and even Germany's shrunk army has five active armour and mechanised brigades.

The failure of such a expensive and high profile component of the defender's arm would furthermore risk to break all defenders' morale.

It's reasonable to expect that the potential invader will prepare properly and have at least one very good answer for every obvious challenge.

The not-so-obvious, unpredicted obstacles would have less political deterrence value (not that this would make a difference when you're already allied with great powers), but they would cause unanticipated problems for an invader. It would be a good idea to strengthen the defence with something that poses an unmitigated challenge to the invader. Strengths that he doesn't know about, doesn't understand, cannot counter due to his own restrictions or doesn't want to counter due to arrogance might work.

Let's face it; main battle tanks are the last thing that an invader is not prepared to defeat. The necessary air defences alone could furthermore easily double the costs of the tank force.

Air and naval forces are often a waste of budget money as well. A fighter squadron or fighter wing would not stop an invasion. It might be crushed or stuck in its own base - or be defeated by superior air power in the air. Taiwan's air force gets a good share of their national defence budget, but its position is quite hopeless against the only realistic threat, the mainland Chinese air force.

Navies - well, let's recall the utterly irrelevant role played by the Polish navy in September of 1939. Navies are sometimes mere toy ship collections. Some nations really should limit themselves to simply blocking their harbours with some demolition experts in order to prevent their usage by the enemy.

- - - - -

A quite fine example of a successful defence against a powerful neighbour is the Vietnamese defence against the Red Chinese punitive invasion in 1979. Vietnam - then unified only for a few years - had decided to put an end to the excesses and border violations of the crazy Red Khmer and sent its field army into Cambodia. The PR China was not amused and invaded Vietnam. This invasion got stuck quickly even though it faced only second-rate defence forces.

Invasión de China sobre Vietnam, 1978 - 1979

(Fuente: Nam, Crónica de la guerra de Vietnam)

The Vietnamese did not use high-tech tools, expensive weapons, much ammunition and as far as I know they did not desperately open dams to flood the terrain.

They had instead a kind of militia defence with many local defence networks (including underground networks) and a partially war-experienced light infantry force. The Chinese army on the other hand stumbled in part because of incompetence and previously unknown training deficiencies.

I don't want to suppose that this kind of defence would work in many or most cases world-wide, of course.

Well, I'm not exactly an expert on this particular conflict, but I'd suggest to small army planners to look more closely at it.

- - - - -

It could also make sense to look at the bigger picture. I consider Estonia to be indefensible against a Russian invasion if the latter is well-prepared. Russia would most likely not want to annex only Estonia, though. A complete grab of the three Baltic countries is a more likely scenario. Estonian defence planners could therefore ask themselves how to spoil such a bigger invasion instead of a small invasion of only their country. (No matter how unlikely the scenarios are; preparing is what they get paid for, after all.)

larger map

Time would be a critical component of any such invasion plan. They would need to create a strong signal that discourages invasion planners by indicating that a quick invasion is too difficult.

This might lead to consider the defence of the Southern neighbour and ally Latvia instead of the own defence. This may sound strange, but waging a war abroad instead of at home does make sense. The French learned this thoroughly during the first World War.

An Estonian readiness to defend Riga (the Latvian capital and traffic node) could improve its own national security more than greater efforts to secure its own border and capital. Just food for thought.

The speed of an invasion could also be hampered by small and large landscape-shaping and infrastructure projects. The terrain can be shaped to be more of a problem to an invader (although trees grow slowly, for example) and the road network could be modified to be more easily blocked along possible invasion routes.

Settlement projects could be located with the creation of defensible closed terrain along invasion routes in mind.

Intra-alliance politics could also be important. NATO could invest in much better road connections between the Baltic states and Poland (to enable a quicker reinforcement and thus cut the invader's time table even more).

The richer, bigger allies could also subsidise Baltic armies in order to create army strengths way beyond the capability of the small countries themselves. That's certainly cheaper than forward deployment of allied brigades.

I do usually prefer to think about peer, 1-on-1 conflicts because these provide the kind of ceteris paribus scenario that allows for rather clear thinking about how to gain advantages purely by military skill.

Nevertheless, the defence policy problems of small alliance partners or even non-allied, isolated countries offer much food for thought as well. It's a much more refreshing case than the budget-busting high technology orgy fantasies that often pass as military thought in the Western World.

There's the case of indefensible nations, though. These nations depend on others and no military skill will ever change that.

Sven Ortmann
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A quote of "Omar"

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This is a quote of a comment left by someone who called himself "Omar" (and signed a previous comment with "Sincerely, A Proud Muslim" at another blog:

...there are many in the Islamic world that view the United States as a natural enemy, The greatest fallacy is to attribute this to a question of religion. It really is all about the distinct perception held by the Islamic population at large that US foreign policy is to their detriment. Religion plays a role in the way it is used as a rallying cry and a banner under which to fight against the perceived enemy. Naturally, the Islamic world is not homogenous and things vary to some degree from place to place, but rightly or wrongly, US foreign policy is viewed as a threat and that is the reason why the Islamic world is at loggerheads with the US. To reinforce the issue, do you see the same level of antagonism directed at China? A land of polytheism and therefore the most anathema to monotheistic Islam.

I felt this was worthy of repetition.

It's really about foreign policy, history, respect, reputation, interests - a poor combination can yield a needless hot conflict. It's the job of foreign politicians and the diplomatic corps to prevent this from happening.

Shit happens at times, but you really should repair the damage once there's a needless conflict - and you cannot do so until you get the diagnosis right.

Sven Ortmann

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The military spending free riding discussion

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There's again a public discussion about whether allies of the U.S. have a free ride on its military spending. Many comments and contributions in this discussion are charged with faulty logic, ignorance, disinformation, prejudices, domestic partisanship or emotions.

One example of this discussion is here.

Bigger graphic file here. Hat tip to P.a.p.-Blog.

I think the "answers" in this decades-old discussion can be grouped like this:

(1) Yes, they do. They should spend more.

(2) Yes, they do. The U.S. should spend less.

(3) Yes, they do. It's what the U.S. wants; be ahead of all other's military capabilities.

(4) No, they don't. It's no free ride if you pay billions as well.

(5) The greater U.S. expenses are due to its need for greater logistical and forced entry capabilities.

(6) No, the Europeans don't, for there's no problematic threat to them in sight.

(7) It depends. About which ally are we speaking?

Now I'd like to comment on these generic answers:

(1) Yes, they do. They should spend more.

What for should Germany spend more on the military, for example? It could modernise its military a bit quicker, that would feel better for military fans - and few else. There's no present threat we'd need to build our military up against. Equipment shortcomings are more a problem of suboptimal procurement than caused by budget limitations.

The answer may be correct in regard to Japan and Taiwan, but I suspect that Taiwan simply has a different grand strategy than an utterly hopeless arms race with mainland China.

(2) Yes, they do. The U.S. should spend less.

The "Yes, they do" part suffers from the same problem as (1). The "spend less" part makes sense, but it depends of course on the preferences of the U.S. electorate.

(3) Yes, they do. It's what the U.S. wants; be ahead of all other's military capabilities.

Again, same problem as (1) with the "Yes, they do" part. The later part is a reasonable attempt of an explanation in my opinion.

(4) No, they don't. It's no free ride if you pay billions as well.

It's a reasonable perspective, but it doesn't really answer what the critics mean; the different efforts in %GDP.

(5) The greater U.S. expenses are due to its need for greater logistical and forced entry capabilities.

This is again a reasonable explanation for a significant part of the difference in military spending. Let's again take Germany as example; there's simply no reason why we should have a forced entry Marine Corps and a full-fledged amphibious fleet or strategic sea-lift ships. There was a discussion about one amphibious landing ship (enough for a battalion of ground troops) in the 90's and the idea was dismissed.

(6) No, the Europeans don't, for there's no problematic threat to them in sight.

This is a major part of my answer to the question as well. See my explanation in (1).

(7) It depends. About which ally are we speaking?

That's a smart answer - and apparently too smart for many participants of the discussion.

South Korea faces a clear threat and has a strong military (the U.S. forces in South Korea are very small by comparison). It's lacking a modern fighter force to face the PRC's air power, but they have no chance to change this anyway because of their much smaller economy.

Taiwan has a quite 'suboptimal' army and seems to orient its military spending at the scenario of a military air/sea blockade by the mainland Chinese.

Japan could clearly spend more on its military and shape up, especially back in the 90's when it was pouring fortunes into stimulus projects anyway. Japan is on the other hand not in serious conflict with any threat country and might be well-served by a neutrality policy with a defensive military strategy.

The European allies could overpower both the Russian threat and the Arab threat at once. There's no real need for any U.S. military strength for the defence of Europe. It has two nuclear powers, guaranteed air dominance based on European air forces alone, vastly superior ground forces (due to higher quality) and vastly superior naval power. It takes a huge prejudice or ignorance to think that Europe's defence wouldn't be ensured without an unusually high level of U.S. military spending.

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I've sometimes read the opinion that the Europeans would spend more if the U.S. spent less. The opposite may be true.

Some of the European army modernisation efforts are aimed at interoperability; compatibility of communications equipment. Many other costly projects are about buying "modern" equipment ; the old equipment has at times only become outdated due to newer U.S. equipment, not due to threat equipment. The Javelin ATGM with its lock-on infra-red sensor is a good example. TOW could still be considered to be modern and on par with all threats if Javelin wasn't introduced. Some European armies have bought Javelin or the similar Israeli Spike missile.

A U.S. military procurement low tide could contrary to some expectations even reduce European military spending.

The military needs of the East Asian partners of the U.S. are being driven by the increasingly more powerful Chinese military. It's reasonable to say that the latter's growth is at least in part due to the threat posed to China by the U.S.. A great power like China cannot be expected to accept naval and air superiority of a distant great power in its coastal waters. The same can be said about air superiority of the same distant great power over China's territory (in the event of conflict). It's only natural that China invested in a large modern fighter force - and this created the fighter procurement shortfalls of Taiwan, South Korea and Japan in the first place.

A U.S. national defence policy that's more about defence and less about force projection would be less threatening to China and would likely reduce, not increase the military strength needs of Taiwan, South Korea and Japan (although not necessarily their budgets).

The "free ride on U.S. military power" discussion suffers from a U.S. bias. It seems that most voices heard are of American origin. The discussion rarely takes into account that allied and befriended nations often have entirely different expectations for their military, different preferences, different strategies, different threat perceptions ... or the ability to think of threats first and military requirements second.

The ability to deploy 10,000 to 20,000 more troops to Afghanistan, an amphibious invasion fleet or an aerial tanker fleet would have little value to most allies. The idea that they're somehow free riding because the U.S. does things (like the Iraq invasion) that its allies don't want to do is quite fallacious at times. The Iraq invasion was against the political will of most allies, for example. So how would they "free ride" on the U.S. capability to pull off such invasions? The U.S. itself doesn't seem to benefit much of its "force projection" capabilities except some extremely nebulous "global stability" or "dominance" advantages.

It's also noteworthy that the U.S. military spending isn't so high because allied countries asked the U.S. to spend more and more. It's that high due to domestic U.S. political culture and habits. Being "strong on defense" is somehow being regarded as a plus for a national level politician. There's no such (assumption of) preference for military power in most other countries. Republicans boast that they're strong on "defense" and democrats don't dare to be labelled "weak on defense", leading for example to military budget increases under the Obama administration for no other apparent reason.

The reaction to a "I'm strong on defense" statement in a European election campaign would look approximately like this: "Huh? What do you mean? Anyway - what will you do to create more jobs?"

Last but not least, there is a desirable free-riding in regard to non-conventional forces. Taiwan, South Korea and Japan could build up nuclear arsenals if they weren't kinda protected by the nuclear-armed great power USA. The latter doesn't want such nuclear proliferation, so this free ride in terms of nuclear forces is entirely intentional.

It's illogical to accuse others of a "free ride" after raising the own expenditures for domestic reasons to almost half of the global expenditures and without being able to point out against which problem the others should spend more.

Show me a threat that Europe cannot meet on its own or together with a hypothetical 2% GNP military spending U.S. ally and I'll agree that we're not pulling our weight (having a "cheap", albeit not "free" ride).

The greatest concern is Europe's ability to ramp up its military power within 2-6 years in response to the emergence of a real major threat. Demands for more expeditionary capabilities and U.S. forces don't help in this regard. Only U.S. R&D on military tech is helpful, and that's a rather inefficient contribution because U.S. military R&D is extremely cost-inefficient.

Sven Ortmann

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