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Be afraid mine enemies

· Military affairs

There is a new generation coming up through the ranks of the US Air force, one with a steely eyed resolve much like their grandparents back in the days of WWII.

The main article is here.

October 6th, 2002 | 23 comments - (Comments are closed)

Strategic considerations for attack on Iraq

· Middle East & Islamic · Military affairs

Part III of III

The long awaited third part on Iraq and war is different from what I originally intended. Strategic and military aspects remain important but the debate has moved on in a direction where evidence of Iraqi threat on its own does not convince. Strange since it provides the most obvious reason for war on Iraq – self-defence.

Both the US and the UK have maintained that Iraq has breached the provisions of the UN sanctioned ceasefire agreement from the Gulf War and continues to pose a military threat to the region. Prime Minister Tony Blair’s dossier on Iraq says President Saddam Hussein has the military planning to launch a weapon of mass destruction at 45 minutes’ notice.

There are other documents that deal with Iraq’s military capabilities and certainly convince me that self-defence is essential. A CSIS document Iraq’s Military Capabilities: Fighting A Wounded, But Dangerous, Poisonous Snake concludes:

It is both easy and dangerous to be an armchair field marshall. Anyone can assert how easily Saddam’s regime will collapse in the face of the slightest opposition, or produce worst case scenarios that argue against any form of attack. The reality is, however, that no one can firmly predict Iraq’s military capabilities and the uncertainties and intangibles are as important as the numbers. It is also important to remember that one key risk – Iraq’s unceasing efforts to acquire weapons of mass destruction – will grow steadily worse with each year in which the UN cannot conduct effective inspections and take effective action. There are risks in not acting as well as acting.

Perhaps the best way to assess Iraq’s military capabilities, therefore, is to understand that a war might lead to extensive fighting, large civilian casualties, and significant US and allied casualties. It might involve weapons of mass destruction, and it might be far more costly than other recent wars.

This is not an argument for paralysis, but rather to avoid thinking of war as some safe and antiseptic process where other people’s sons and daughters take the risks. It is an argument against facile half-measures like arming a weak and ineffective opposition, and taking the risk that the Bay of Pigs may be followed by the Bay of Kurdistan. It is an argument against trying to do the job with limited amounts of air power or with air power alone, and without coalition allies and access to friendly bases in Turkey and the Gulf. It is an argument against trying to avoid the deployment of “decisive force” and several sustainable heavy US divisions. It is an argument against going to war without announcing clear redlines to prevent Iraq from using weapons of mass destruction, and without preparing a devastating US conventional response if it does. One does not play with poisonous snakes – wounded or not. One either kills them as safely and efficiently as possible or leaves them alone

Good stuff. Another one is IISS Strategic Dossier titled Iraq’s Weapons of Mass Destruction: A Net Assessment, more recent and poignant:

In conclusion, war, sanctions and inspections have reversed and retarded, but not eliminated Iraq’s nuclear, biological and chemical weapons and long range missile capacities, nor have they removed Baghdad’s enduring interest in developing these capacities. The retention of WMD capacities by Iraq is self-evidently the core objective of the regime, for it has sacrificed all other domestic and foreign policy goals to this singular aim. It has retained this single objective, and pursued it in breach of the ceasefire and UN Security Council Resolutions that brought a conditional end to the 1991 Gulf War. Over more than eleven years the Iraqi regime has sought to evade its obligations and undermine support for the sanctions and inspections regime meant to eliminate its WMD capacities and contain its ambitions. Iraq has fought a relatively successful diplomatic war of attrition. It is worth recalling that the international debate 18 months ago was centred on how sanctions against Iraq might be relaxed, and inspections concluded with some dispatch in light of the dwindling willingness to support the containment policy developed in 1991.

Today, after four years without inspections, there can be no certainty about the extent of Iraq’s current capacities. A reasonable net assessment is that Iraq has no nuclear weapons but could build one quickly if it acquired sufficient fissile material. It has extensive biological weapons capabilities and a smaller chemical weapons stockpile. It has a small force of ballistic missiles with a range of 650km, that are capable of delivering CBW warheads, and has prepared other delivery methods for CBW, including manned aircraft and UAVs. Sooner or later, it seems likely that the current Iraqi regime will eventually achieve its objectives.

In compiling this Strategic Dossier, the IISS has sought to put the best available facts on this difficult issue before the wider public. This Strategic Dossier does not attempt to make a case, either way, as to whether Saddam Hussein’s WMD arsenal is a casus belli per se. Wait and the threat will grow; strike and the threat may be used. Clearly, governments have a pressing duty to develop early a strategy to deal comprehensively with this unique international problem.

Hear, hear.

Update: Just noticed Perry’s post below – not only he got there first with Tony’s dossier but also makes a similar point. Oh, well, great minds think alike.

September 24th, 2002 | 2 comments - (Comments are closed)

Military analysis with balls… and beer

· Middle East & Islamic · Military affairs · UK affairs

Insights come in varied and peculiar forms, such as those decanted from the lips of such British sages as Rab C. Nesbit to the north and the Macc Lads from a tad further south.

To be honest I think the Macc Lads are at least as reliable as DEBKA when it comes to military analysis and probably rather better… well certainly more forthright. Read the article and make up your own mind.

If there is war, it will be a clash of experts as well as armies. If Saddam’s forces collapse, and the American-led action has a quick outcome, the Macc Lads will have disproved Field marshal Lord Bramall and most of academe.

Before you read the linked Spectator article, let me proffer some linguistic assistance to our non-British readers… ‘Boddingtons’ is an inexpensive but far from ineffective beer in considerable favour with the broader end of Britain’s socioeconomic pyramid.

September 20th, 2002 | One comment - (Comments are closed)

Just war revisited

· Military affairs · Philosophical

One of the responses to Part II of Libertarians and war, namely the comment by Billy Beck, has puzzled me sufficiently to turn what would otherwise be a rather lengthy comment into another blog. (Part III on Strategic considerations is yet to come…)

“What you have in this is an exemplary waypoint on a logical trail which is consistently extensible toward *validly* including anyone whose productive effort in any way contributes to the efficacy of this so-called “monopoly on the use of force”. And if the logic is consistently extended, then what it means is that your distinction of “civilians” (in your final paragraph, above) is no better than Al-Qaeda’s was on September 11, Adriana.”

It took me a while to work out how anyone could think that the logic of my argument extents to blurring the distinction between combatants and civilians. I came to the conclusion that it must be due to misunderstanding of two other concepts – “monopoly on the use of force” and “collective responsibility” – that I want to clarify.

It is precisely because the state has the monopoly on the use of force that a civilian population can never be a legitimate target. The monopoly on force means that the state usurps the use of force and prevents individuals from using it against external enemies (foreign armies and terrorists) and in many cases, e.g. such as in the UK, internal enemies (criminals). For my part, I resent the state’s exclusive use of force, especially regarding the latter category.

“We were going after military targets. No point in slaughtering civilians for the mere sake of slaughter. Of course there is a pretty thin veneer in Japan, but the veneer is still there. It was their system of dispersal of industry… I’ll never forget Yokohama. That was what impressed me: drill presses. There they were, like a forest of scorched trees and stumps, growing up throughout that residential area. Flimsy construction all gone…everything burned down, or up, and drill presses standing like skeletons.”

The quote above (from Memoirs of Gen. Curtis LeMay) does distinguish between military and civilian installations and makes it explicit that “the veneer was pretty thin in Japan”. It also admits that civilian casualties occurred but the point is specifically made that they were aiming at military targets, never at civilians. Although civilian casualties were to be expected given the [Japanese] system of dispersal of industry…

It is for circumstances like these the double effect doctrine has something to say. The bad effect may be known beforehand but provided it is not the intention and the act itself is required for bringing about the needed good effect, the doctrine of double effect allows waging a war despite foreseeble civilian casualties. I do not see how it opens up a possibility that civilians may ever be a legitimate target just because they have their role in the functioning of the military machine. It is self-evident and blindingly obvious that an army cannot be raised, funded and function without civilian economy and infrastructure supporting it but I fail to see how it can provide a justification for turning civilians into a military target!

It is Al-Qaeda, as Billy Beck correctly points out, and not me, that cannot make the distinction between the effect civilians may have on the efficacy of the military and the moral grounds for turning them into a target for their ‘war’. As I argue in my posting on just war, it is equivalent to taking defenceless hostages – civilians disarmed by the state are targeted by the enemies of that state for its actions.

Here the notion of collective responsibility becomes relevant as it is often implicit in statements of those who hold an individual responsible for actions carried out by a collective entity, such as state merely on the basis of that individual’s membership of such entity. Would you say that all German civilians were equally and personally responsible for the Holocaust and WWII, by virtue of being citizens of the German state or even by virtue of working in one of the armaments factories trying to make a living?! Surely, there is a distinction to be made and one does not need a rigorous moral code to see that.

The doctrines of just war and double effect mean to provide guidance in situations where our moral instincts are torn between two ‘unacceptable’ options. They are meant to provide a moral template, not definitive or comforting answers, for those who want to know right from wrong even in the most difficult situations. They still leave plenty of room for formulation of policy and strategy…

September 18th, 2002 | 8 comments - (Comments are closed)

Just when you thought it was safe to sleep

· Military affairs

In case there is one person in the world who doesn’t read Instapundit… you really have to read this.

We can only hope the error was due to Soviet era inflated production numbers. I’d much rather believe the 200 “missing” nukes were never actually built than imagine them in the hands of the Russian Mafia. That just does not bear thinking about.

Real Estate on isolated Pacific desert islands is a good investment possibility with an expectation of a very high near term ROI. Samizdata’s cracked investment advisory team also gives a strong buy recommendation on abandoned hard rock mine shafts in the Rocky Mountains…

September 17th, 2002 | 4 comments - (Comments are closed)

Just war and libertarians

· Best of Samizdata.Net · Military affairs · Philosophical

Part II of III

What would be the requirements of a libertarian just war? Libertarianism permits the killing of another if it is an act of reasonable self-defence. Nothing in libertarianism precludes the possibility of a collectively exercised right to self-defence. This has been accepted by most libertarians as one of the few valid functions of a ‘night-watchman’ state. As long as every individual in a society agreed to be defended by a state and the state acted against only those individuals who were actual aggressors, e.g. an invading army, on what grounds could a libertarian object?

Given that it is not practically possible to fulfil the above conditions, especially the first one, it seems to me that many of those who engage in the debate about war on Iraq for genuine and morally inspired reasons are trying to choose between two evils. Their side in the debate usually depends on which of the two evils seems more morally unacceptable to them. There are also those who find it impossible to choose, their instincts oscillating between the need for self-defence and protection, and fear of compromising their fundamental principles by condoning killing of innocent civilians. One of those is Chris Newman whose comment captures the agony of such moral choice.

The statement ‘as long as harming innocents is not the objective, if a given use of force is justified then innocent bystanders are often just a regrettable consequence’ is based on the acceptance of the doctrine of double effect. It is a useful rule, often used in moral dilemmas that can be summed up as “damned if you do, damned if you don’t”. An act with both good and bad effects is morally permissible if and only if the following conditions are all met:

  1. The action itself is not forbidden by a moral rule.
  2. Only the good effect is intended.
  3. The bad effect is proportional to the good.
  4. The bad effect is not a direct means to the good effect (e.g. bombing cities to demoralise a population and hence hasten a war’s end).
    And since Michael Walzer’s influential book Just and Unjust Wars (1971), in the context of war it is common to see added the following condition:
  5. Actions are taken to minimise the foreseeable bad effects, even if this means accepting an increased risk to one’s own combatants (e.g. one’s own soldiers)

In modern warfare the principle of the double effect is frequently applicable. In waging a just war a nation may launch an air attack on an important military objective of the enemy even though a comparatively small number of non-combatants are killed. This evil effect can be compensated for by the great benefit gained through the destruction of the target. This would not be true if the number of non-combatants slain in the attack were out of proportion to the benefits gained, as is clear from the fourth condition. Furthermore, if the direct purpose of the attack were to kill a large number of non-combatants, so that the morale of the enemy would be broken down and they would sue for peace, the attack would be immoral because the third condition for the lawful use of the principle would not be fulfilled. It would be a case of the use of a bad means to obtain a good end.

Chris Newman takes a similar route but ends up with a different point and in the utilitarian camp:

“…our moral calculus has at least three variables: the importance of the objective, the efficacy of a given type of force in achieving that objective, and the cost in innocent lives of using that type of force. Presumably, for any given values of the first two variables, there will be a point at which the value of the third becomes too high, so that the action cannot be justified…”

There appears to be a conflict between a moral justification for waging a just war and a strategic aspect of it. But does exploiting the advantage of superior military capabilities amount to using incommensurate or disproportionate force? It doesn’t because force is defined by effect on the enemy including the civilians, not by the amount of firepower. You can use superior fighting force and technology in order to shorten the war and ensure you destroy enemy fighting forces rather than civilians. → Continue reading: Just war and libertarians

September 17th, 2002 | 7 comments - (Comments are closed)

Tyranny and civilians at war

· Best of Samizdata.Net · Military affairs · Opinions on liberty

Part I of III

Arguments over war in Iraq and its justification, recently fuelled by emotions running high over the first anniversary of the Sept 11th attacks, have been plaguing the libertarian camp. Samizdata decided to summarise its contributors’ positions on war in general and Iraq in particular and received some interesting responses. There are many strands of arguments for and against war on Iraq and it is impossible to even mention them all in one posting. There are several interesting points I wish to add to or stress in the debate.

One of the objections to Perry’s position on the destruction of tyranny and libertarian opposition to it comes from Julian Morrison (a comment on the above linked article):

There are many ways and means of destroying tyranny, but the only ones that are “libertarianly correct” are those which do not involve harm to innocents. Assassination is far preferable, for example, to war – and hand-to-hand war is preferable to blanket bombing. There exists no right to murder, regardless of how convenient it might be.

Here justification of war is reduced to the effects it may have on the civilian population or innocents. This makes opposition to tyranny impossible. For example, makes it impossible to fight anybody ruthless enough to use human hostages.

Ignoring for a moment the other important conditions of just war, which I will deal with in Part II, I want to look at Nazism and communism as examples of historical tyrannies that were accepted as evil to be justifiably eliminated. Opposing Nazism by force was justified as self-defence and the war against Hitler and Germany has been accepted as a just war. The WWII experience proves appeasement wrong on both grounds – moral (fails in self-defence) as well as strategic or practical (gives the enemy opportunity to accumulate weapons and pose a greater threat).

Although during WWII the distinction between a dictator and the nation he lead was blurred, the Cold War made abundantly clear that there is a difference between a dictator waging a war with the country behind him and a dictator with the civilian population being at his mercy and under the same threat as his opponents.

Perry mentions Czechoslovakia as a case in point and I will merely add to his voice. During 1968 Prague Spring civil resistance the Warsaw pact used military threat on the civilian population and in the early days of the Velvet Revolution of 1989 there was in our minds a real threat that the communist government would use the army on the demonstrators. How could an attack by the West make the situation any worse in a country where the state is ready to use ‘military force’ (not just law enforcement) on its citizens? Whether I die being run over by a T-55, shot by AK-47 or by a stray ‘Western’ bomb does not make much difference to me as an individual in such situation. In fact, young and idealistic as I was in those days, I’d probably prefer the latter, given that being killed during a ‘Western liberation’ would at least serve a purpose I agreed with, whereas being killed by communists wouldn’t.

We know Saddam has used military force and chemical weapons on Kurds and will not hesitate to use such force again… Those who oppose war on Iraq on ‘moral grounds’ will find it hard to wriggle out of agreeing that it was right for the West to fight Nazism and wrong to leave the nations of Eastern Europe under communism. The problem is that Nazism and communism are obviously wrong ex-post and the current debate is about determining the moral and strategic position ex-ante.

To be continued…

Doctrine of Just war and libertarians (Part II)
Strategic considerations for attack on Iraq (Part III)

September 15th, 2002 | 6 comments - (Comments are closed)

British Fashion

· Military affairs

Eager to exploit the growing market for British fashion across the pond, British designers have launched this sexy little number:

“The British Royal Air Force has developed and tested its own conventional warhead able to generate an electro-magnetic pulse. Some of the tests were done in the US, and US officials have said that the British weapon works better than the one they are trying to develop.”

Dahhhlings, this is simply the must have addition to the armoury of every serious anarcho-militarist this season.

September 15th, 2002 | One comment - (Comments are closed)

More for the Naval historians

· Military affairs

I actually can’t blame the whole two nights on Pearl Harbour. I must admit that the following had a bit to do with the lack of sleep as well:

  1. The excavation of the interior of the first submarine to sink an enemy ship (the second was a German boat in WWI), the Confederate CNS Hunley has been completed and conservation is in progress.
  2. The entire turret of the Union ironclad USS Monitor has been raised and is undergoing excavation. It is the very first such turret in naval history.
  3. A salvor company with rights to the Titanic is carefully recovering and conserving items for public display – but is under legal attack from statist minded sorts who are destroying its’ financial viability to do with private funds what would cost far more with public funds.
  4. The sinking of the Battleship Hiei at Guadalcanal in one of the more violent classical naval engagements of the war. This bit of historical writing uses logs and reports from both sides.
  5. The Scapa flow wrecks from the massive German fleet scuttling after Jutland; diving on the Prinz Eugen in the Pacific and information on many other wrecks is to be found here

With little effort you can find a lot more information on the many warship wrecks around the world. ones that can be dived on; ones that are being conserved for historical value and ones that are off limits war graves like HMS Royal Oak at Scapa Flow.

Go forth and lose thy sleep!

August 30th, 2002 | Comments are closed

Iraq or the €uro

· Military affairs

I’ve been unsure about this war in Iraq that hasn’t yet happened but which everyone says will, Real Soon Now. Am I a de Havillandite ‘Get In There And Liberate Everybody’ libertarian, or a Cato Institute/Rothbardian ‘Don’t Mess With Them And Then They Won’t Mess With Us’ libertarian? Both positions seem to me to have major merits.

But now here’s an argument that has really impinged upon the Micklethwait cranium. In yesterday’s Sunday Times (Aug 25 – no links but the thing summarises itself well), at the end of the leader article on Page 1.16 headed “It’s Iraq or the euro”, the ST says that Blair …

… could not unite the Labour party behind both a war and a referendum. He will have to choose between the two. Since there is no compelling reason for Britain to join the euro, it is clear where his priority should lie.

So go for it President George W. Drag Tony away from his hideous plan to turn Britain into a bunch of European provinces. Win the war, but give the British army things to do in it which are chaotic, embarrassing, trivial, ridiculous, which expose the sorry state of the kit they now have to make do with, but which, although daft, are nevertheless entirely safe. Don’t get them killed in any big numbers. That would be too solemn, not farcical enough, not silly enough. Keep them all alive, so that they can then come home and tell everyone what a twat Tony is, and make him unable to drag us into Europe, ever. I know you can do this.

This Europe business is horrible. The natural state of an intelligent Englishman is to be telling the world what it should be thinking and doing, with no thought for the mere narrow interests of England. These can be taken care of as the separate and smaller matter that they are. How else is the world to know what it should do, if not guided by intelligent Englishmen such as me? Yet now I find myself deciding the fate of the world entirely according to whether its plans will or will not suit England. Dreadful. Utterly, utterly dreadful.

August 26th, 2002 | Comments are closed

On this day in 1940

· Military affairs

August 20th 1940, and the fate of western civilisation hung in the balance. As the Battle of Britain was still being fought out between the Luftwaffe and RAF to determine if Nazi Germany would be the uncontested master of western Europe, Winston Churchill gave one of his most stirring of many memorable speeches in the House of Commons:

Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few

August 20th, 2002 | Comments are closed

Why the US fights the way it does

· Military affairs

There is a lengthy article on USS Clueless about why the US military is the best practitioner of high initiative warfare, tracing it to the empowering influence of the First Amendment of the US Constitution. I disagree on many levels starting with the fact I do not think the US military is the best (or even particularly remarkable) at ‘high initiative warfare’.

The US military does not achieve its results as Steven Den Beste suggests, by empowering individual soldiers and harnessing their brains and initiative more than any number of armies I could mention, but rather it achieves results by maximising its true advantages: firstly a huge economy and therefore sheer firepower (it can afford to shoot more bullets/drop more bombs) and secondly, its advanced technology (it can make its aeroplanes hard to shoot down and therefore safely drop smart bombs on people they don’t like from 20,000 feet). In simply wins by dumping large numbers of expensive smart bombs and cruise missiles on the enemy where it hurts most, followed by precise massed artillery if required. The job of America’s infantry and tank jockeys is to pick their way through the crater pocked remnants to what gets left over after the aerial (and maybe artillery) bombardment. Factor out the high tech long range bombardment capabilities, which is unique in the world at the moment, and whilst the US army is a fine one, it is not particularly exceptional in the way it fights compared to many other armies.

There are many armies in the world who are better than the US at the sort of small unit tactics that rely on ’empowered’ soldiers at low level (such as Israel, Britain, Germany, Australia, New Zealand). Frankly France’s 2eme REP is probably more optimised for what Steven thinks is a “new approach” to fighting than the much higher firepower US 82nd Airborne, precisely because it has less firepower and thus is forced to rely on élan et cran as well as to fight smart… and with very little help from 20,000 feet. It is in the ‘big stuff’ that no one can match the US, i.e. when it comes to the Godzilla-like ‘grid square removal’ that characterized the Gulf War.


This is not to denigrate the US military, far from it actually: that is a highly rational way to fight if you can afford it. But please realise that the way the USA fights is just the confluence of technology and economy, added to a particularly American political horror of friendly casualties, rather than some emerging ‘First Amendment Powered’ super soldiers. The German Fallschimjägers landing on Crete in 1941 displayed all the characteristics of low level high initiative fight smart upward info-flow empowerment yet it would be safe to say they were not benefiting from the First Amendment of the US Constitution or democracy.

August 15th, 2002 | Comments are closed
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