Thread: Clausewitz's Trinity of War

Carl von Clausewitz is among the most widely known and cited (if not widely read) theorists of war. His signature work, "On War" (published in 1832) is the source of many commonplace expressions and terms that permiate the modern lexicon. (1) Clausewitz was the originator of concepts like "friction", "culmination", "the fog of war", and more. His comment that "war is the continuation of policy with other means" has been endlessly quoted. Like a Shakespeare, he undergirds much of our modern vocabulary of war. (2)

Thread: Verdun and the Lure of Attrition

This December 18th marks the 108th anniversary of the end of the Battle of Verdun - an infamously bloody episode of the First World War which killed over 700,000 French and German troops over nearly ten months of fighting. (1) Verdun in many ways was the seminal First World War battle, in that it churned up dozens of divisions fighting for apparently meager gains of just a few kilometers. It appears at first brush to be entirely senseless, but the strategic conception deserves close scrutiny. (2)

Robert Drews book on the Bronze Age Collapse is one of my absolute favorites, and it's one that I find myself thinking about a lot with the advent of cheap FPV drones as a military expedient, as seen in Ukraine. (1) Drews basic argument is that the collapse of rich and stable late bronze age societies was due to the advent of new technical and tactical methodologies which made the aristocratic chariot armies of the day obsolete. (2)

Maybe instead of arguing online about Columbus/Indigenous Peoples Day, you read this excellent book? This dismisses the myth of the helpless native and presents a coherent story of the European encounter with North America. The key theme here is that Europeans didn’t encounter a virginal land occupied by naïve peoples. North America already had a scheme of geopolitics, with diplomatic protocols, alliance systems, and warfare.

So, the Russians hit Ukraine with one of the largest strike packages of the war - over 200 launches including drones and a wide spectrum of missiles. It looks like they mostly hit power generation and transmission, with a few military facilities sprinkled in. (1) A few notable things that stand out against other strikes (besides the size) were hits on three separate 750kv substations in western Ukraine, including one in Vinnytsia. (2)

To the extent that there is an over-arching strategic logic in Ukraine, I think they are trying to "prove" that NATO forces can enter into direct combat with Russia without a colossal escalation. This is the thread that links their more random strategic choices. (1) "Look, we invaded Kursk and they didn't nuke us. We shot a missile at their early warning radar and they didn't nuke us. We launched a drone at the Kremlin and they didn't nuke us. It's all a bluff - feel free to deploy a French armored brigade to Kharkov." (2)

Stalin was an ethnic Georgian from Gori. His mother was a devout Orthodox Christian who desperately wanted him to become a priest. His father was an alcoholic shoemaker. The big "secret" of Stalin is that he was a true believing communist with exceptional political skills.

https://twitter.com/IImpartialTruth/status/1823868412344590556

The Soviet regime did perpetrate horrible crimes against the Orthodox church in Russia, but they did this because the church was a pillar of the parochial peasant civilization which they wanted to shatter, not because Stalin had a secret blood vendetta against Christians. Sorry.

Thread: Mahan's War with England

Alfred Thayer Mahan is one of the most prominent thinkers in the American naval tradition. His seminal book "The Influence of Sea Power Upon History" (1890) became a global phenomenon that shaped the naval strategies of the global powers. (1) Mahan's theses were twofold. First, he argued that far reaching naval power projection was a uniquely self-sustaining tool for global power, because it protected the shipping and commerce which made such a navy financial viable. (2)

🧵 Starting a thread of random books that I like and recommend that people might find interesting. This is comprehensive look at how the Soviet Union’s unparalleled systems and rules of state secrecy shaped the powers of the state. Harrison frames secrecy as the pivot of a tradeoff which gave the USSR a high degree of security at the expense of state capacity.

The problem with bluffing is getting called. Nothing about this threat even makes sense. If you think that Ukraine is worth fighting a war with Russia, you wouldn't set some weird redline where you pledge to intervene *after* Ukraine has been defeated.

A quick note on combat engineering: Over the last few months, we started to hear Ukraine talk about ramping up the construction of fortifications as they faced a pivot to a strategic defense, in some cases specifically calling for a corollary to Russia's "Surovikin Line." This will likely be very difficult for Ukraine, for a few reasons. At the core is the dearth of dedicated combat engineering in the AFU, in contrast to the Russian Armed Forces.

Americans bragging about lend-lease always strikes me as rather funny, because you're basically taking pride in the fact that FDR was a naïve idiot with a communist-compromised administration who gave away hundreds of billions worth of equipment for free. In real time, American officialdom and army leadership was actually extraordinarily upset about FDR's profligate generosity, when he started shipping off American readiness stocks while they were trying to prepare for war.

At the moment, Russia is grinding forward almost everywhere on the front, creating a bit of ambiguity as to their intentions. The overall operational trajectory in Donetsk Oblast, however, is fairly clear. With Marinka captured, they will advance up the N15 line to Kurakhove. (1) Kurakhove as an important center of support for Ugledar - artillery based in this area was critical in helping Ukraine hold Ugledar last year. Advancing up this line puts Ulgedar into a severe salient. (2)

Thread: Manpower and Force Generation Choices

The ongoing wars in Ukraine and Gaza have resurrected debates around old concepts like mobilization and force structure. A few years ago, these were just esoteric topics for military historians to chew on, but now they are back. (1) Force generation and structure seem like a simple question of demographics - a question only of squeezing fighting aged males out of the population pyramid and getting them into uniform. It *feels* like all that should matter is the overall size and age of the population. (2)

Think about the fact that Putin got indicted by the International Criminal Court for evacuating children out of active combat zones, but Israel basically has a blank check to bomb civilian areas with impunity. Complaining about the hypocrisy of such institutions is always lame. The "Rules Based Order" doesn't exist to be an impartial agent of the law, it exists to enhance the power of the Atlantic bloc. "Hypocrisy" as such isn't a bug, but a feature.

US deterrence is based on so-called "tripwire forces" - the idea that American forces can be forward deployed around the world, and a serious attack on these forces can bring the whole US military apparatus down on your head.

https://twitter.com/KanekoaTheGreat/status/1717072618053107761

The problem is that if someone thinks you're bluffing and they call you on it, the entire system of deterrence falls apart unless you respond. That's been the basis of America's limited ("proportional") actions in the Middle East over the years.

The widespread perception in the non-western world that the US Military and the IDF are paper tigers is just as delusional as the belief that the United States is an unbeatable force without rival. Unfortunately, the simultaneous existence of these myths is a recipe for conflict. The Cold War was strangely stable because both the USSR and the USA took each other seriously as competent military powers and understood what a war would mean. Tragically today we have an unstable admixture of hubris and contempt.

Thread: Russia, Ukraine, and NATO's doctrinal reversal

Ever since the Ukrainians began their counteroffensive in the south, a theme has emerged; namely, that the Russians are fighting in a manner eerily similar to that dictated by NATO's late cold-war doctrine. (1) Let's start by going back to some very rudimentary basics. In warfare, there are really two types of combat assets: maneuver elements and fires. Coordinating the interplay of various maneuver assets and ranged fires is the foundational task of military operations. (2)

Britain wants to openly send personnel to Ukraine to provide training and support. They are almost certainly going to die.

dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1… And no, there will not be an Article 5 invocation after their facilities inevitably get smacked by the VKS.

On this day in 1683, a combined Polish-German army defeats the Ottomans at the Battle of Vienna. The city had been besieged by the Ottoman force for two months when the Christian relief force arrived. The battle is famous as the scene of the largest cavalry charge in history. After an indecisive infantry engagement, the Christian leaders ordered a massed cavalry charge of nearly 18,000 horsemen, led by the Polish king and his heavy lancers - the famous "winged hussars". The charge broke the Ottoman formation and forced a full retreat.

There are lots of people suggesting that the war in Ukraine proves we've returned to a WW1 style of warfare where attacking successfully is almost impossible, and that this makes future wars less likely due to the poor odds of success.

I actually think the opposite is true. (1) The ostentatious failure of Ukraine's counteroffensive (and Russia's own slow advance in other parts of the Donbas) proves that advancing on a 21st century army fighting from a prepared position with adequate ISR and fires will be an extremely difficult task. (2)