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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On defensive power

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People seek security in an uncertain, not exactly safe world. The consequences can be self-defeating.

One such example is an arms race. One state is a bit superior to his neighbour - the neighbour can't stand it and strives for superiority as well. Thus they spiral into an arms race, in worst case till they go beyond the sustainable strength. Inevitably one power realises that its strength isn't sustainable - but probably doesn't dare to accept inferiority. The result may be a war - the attempt to exploit a fleeting moment of unsustainable superiority that promises a better end than inferiority.

The situation in 1912-1914 and especially after the first mobilizations in 1914 was similar.

A theoretical way out is to build up military strength that's not of use in strategic offence. This way one power could be at strength "200" if defending itself and "100" if it's an aggressor - with a similar neighbour. Neither power would need to fear inferiority in war and no arms race would be necessary to feel safe.

Fortifications used to provide exactly this; military utility in strategic defence that's not directly useful for strategic offence. Permanent fortifications have lost their strategic utility, though. Even the fortifications along the Korean border don't come close.

Medieval fortresses are popular among tourists and generally capture the attention and imagination of people. These visitors don't reall understand how bad it really was when fortifications lost their strategic relevance.

Burg Hochosterwitz, photo: Johann Jaritz

There's a general problem on the tactical level that makes it difficult to buy exclusively "defensive" weapons (even anti-tank missiles have offensive uses!) for modern ground warfare: Operational defence neccessitates offensive actions on the tactical level. In fact, even stationary defensive concepts don't work without tactical counter-attacks.

Battlefield air defences are probably the only exclusively defensive combat component of ground forces and even they are of greater use during mobile (potentially offensive) operations than during static phases (= never offensive).

A competent operational defence with mobile forces is usually offensive on the tactical level, too: It's mostly about giving some ground in exchange for a good opportunity to counter-attack.

The power of mobile combined arms operations disqualifies the concept of "slow" (and therefore not much "offensive") ground forces such as infantry-centric forces. A total defence concept is not worth its budget if it cannot withstand a smaller and balanced offensive concept.

Finally, strategic defence is rarely exclusively defensive and successful at once. Successful examples that came close to total defence depended very much on geographic obstacles.

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For clarification; defence is supposed to be the superior form of combat on the tactical level, but only with an at least similar degree of combat readiness. Real warfare tends to be tricky in this regard.

Defence is strong, but it's not decisive. History knows many example of two forces of about equal total strength clashing and the defensive one lost. This tragedy has hit many army commanders on the field of battle and modern European warfare had also several extremely impressive examples.

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The only realm where a total defence concept seems to have the potential of success is the political level. The invention of defensive alliances (where members are not supposed to support an aggression of an ally) was ground-breaking.

The Cold War has taught us that this doesn't suffice to avert wasteful arms races. The problem was that NATO was perceived as one bloc by the Kremlin.

The Kremlin did indeed believe that all important NATO members would participate in a hypothetical aggression, even though they would not have been legally obliged to.

The post-Cold War NATO shows an even worse side-effect: Bored by the peace and relative lack of tensions among members, their attention became focused outward on minimal to ridiculously marginal problems. The defensive alliance became quite extrovert and asserted the right to keep the neighbourhood (not jsut its members) safe.

A focus on tactical to strategic defence was and is enticing for national security planners who want to make do with an affordable or even small budget. Sadly, there doesn't seem to be the right technology to make it work.

The good thing about all this is of course that we Europeans are productive enough to afford a degree of military superiority over our neighbours that discourages even the attempt of an arms race against us. This strategy for preserving peace and providing security does of course only work if your power/alliance can sustain a vastly greater military might.

Asia might not be able to rely on this concept. It might instead depend on geographical barriers (Himalaya, Pacific Ocean). The defensive alliance concept could help Asia as well - but they should avoid NATO's mistake and not appear too united. That is of course one of my rather "twisted" ideas and extremely unlikely to ever gain much ground among pundits ...

Finally, one more remark: The invention of "how to build a defensive army" - be it hardware, tactic or operational art - such an invention would be worthy of a Nobel Peace Prize and easily the greatest thing of the century.

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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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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