CHINA CONTROLS UN SECURITY COUNCIL NOW – China assigned the President of the United Nations Security Council for the month of August. China’s Permanent member of the UN, Zhang Jun is the President for the month of August. The new President pledged to safeguard the international system, with the UN in the center.
China has taken over the rotating presidency of the United Nations Security Council for the month of August. China will lead debates aimed at maintaining peace and security across the world, saying it will focus on dialogue and cooperation to build consensus among council members.
In a press briefing on China’s Security Council presidency for the month of August, China’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations, Zhang Jun said that one fundamental goal of China’s approach to international affairs is to safeguard the international system with the United Nations at the center, and to support its central role in international affairs.
NOTE TO THE READER: The following is a necessarily brief overview of a top-tier national military force. The opinions expressed are those of the author, and are based solely on “open-source” research. This is the first of a series on national military forces that may not be well-known to the general reader.
Additionally, a version of this article was previously published online, on May 29, 2017, by this author, at the former “Military Gazette” web page (now defunct). This version has been edited and updated, and is published here with the agreement and consent of the editorial staff, as well as this author.
Introduction
The modern Indian armed forces date from 1947, but trying to write even a general overview of the military history of India is far beyond the scope of an article such as this. Indeed, this article can give only the barest overview; thus, any holes that appear are unintentional, and were left out for the sake of brevity.
Postcard captioned “Gentlemen of India marching to chasten German Hooligans” in English and French, 1914
India did not lack for professionalism in armed forces when it gained its independence from Great Britain in 1947. Indeed, Indian forces had been fighting under British direction for well over 200 years, since at least 1774AD. Interestingly, this makes the modern Indian Army slightly older than its United States counterpart. Indian troops from across the subcontinent have repeatedly proven themselves the equal – if not the superior – to both British and European armed forces. India’s success as an independent state is directly attributable to the professionalism of both its Civil Service, and its Armed Forces, part of the latter being the subject of this article.
At the time of the Partition of India, the various British Imperial Indian forces were divided between between India and Pakistan; other than the inevitable disruption caused to organizational structures, both new countries inherited highly professional forces, as well as school structures and defense industries. As a result, Indian forces performed very well in their firsttests, and ensured India’s continued existence as a nation.
Indian soldiers of the 9th Battalion, Sikh Infantry test-firing a handgun aboard the amphibious assault ship USS Boxer (LHD 4) – US Navy photo
Although there would be missteps later on, India’s national integrity has never been seriously threatened over the course of the last seventy years, in stark contrast to many other former European colonies, who seem continually on the brink of complete and utter collapse.
With a total of over 5.137million troops – counting Active, Reserve and Paramilitary – India possesses the fourth-largest armed force in the world, ahead of even the People’s Republic of China, and the second-largest Active Duty force, overall, ahead of the United States. Below, we will briefly glance at India’s army, and will then assess its strategic capabilities.
Comprising some eighty percent of India’s national forces, the Army is a modern force, striving to upgrade its capabilities to keep pace with the more “public” militaries, such as those of the United States, Britain, France and Germany. However, those states are not India’s adversaries – those slots are taken up primarily by Pakistan and the PRC.
India, by and large, neither starts wars – directly or indirectly – nor seeks conflicts. In the past, however, India has faced attacks from both Pakistan and the PRC; in the former case, several times.
Indian army infantry vehicles move onto the firing range at Camp Bundela, India Oct. 26, 2009 – US Army photo
Like most states, the core of India’s armed forces is its infantry. Indian infantry have long been regarded as among the toughest and most capable in the world. India, like the United States, uses a modified “regimental system” within its army, with regiments such as the Madras, the Gurkha’s, and the Sikh Light Infantry (among many, many more) having long and distinguished histories, but those regiments primarily provide well-trained battalions to the Army’s divisional structures (some forty divisions, in fourteen corps), as part of the seven major commands that the Army is structured into, rather than deploy as complete units on the battlefield. These divisions, except for certain specialized units – such as mountain, parachute and several special forces units – are mingled with tanks and artillery to form cohesive battlefield units.
The Army’s F-INSAS program is a development project aimed at reequipping the individual soldier with an advanced suite of combat systems. This program, modeled on the US Army’s zombie-like “Future Force Warrior” program (that has been killed and resurrected so many times, it is now hard to keep track of the various iterations), is perhaps over-ambitious.
Lance Naik (Lance Cpl.) Fateh Singh, of the 4th Rajput Battalion of the Indian Army confirms the zero of his INSAS assault rifle, Donnelly Training Area, Fort Greely, Alaska, 2007 — US Army photo
However, the Indian Army demonstrated in 2016 that it has the intestinal and institutional fortitude to make choices that would embarrass other forces, in its acknowledgement that its 5.56x45mmINSAS rifle (no relation to the aforementioned program) simply wasn’t working. The Indian Army’s 2016 requirement is one of the clearest signs, yet, that the end of the “intermediate cartridge” ballistic dead-end is near, as the Army requirement acknowledged the need for a “full-power” (in this case, the venerable 7.62x51mm) cartridge for frontline service.
As a result, the Indian Army inked deals to both purchase and manufacture the AK-203 rifle in 7.62x39mm (a total of 670,000 – 70,000 directly from Russia, with the remainder to be manufactured under license) in Uttar Pradesh, while also purchasing slightly modified SIG Sauer 716 G2 Patrol rifles in 7.62mmNATO for more specialized units. Simultaneously, a deal for over 16,000 Israeli-madeNG-7 ‘Negev’ Light Machine Guns – also in 7.62x51mm NATO – was let in 2019, with the first batch of 6,000 arriving in India in early 2021.
While arguments can certainly be made over some of the choices made in the Army’s reequipping strategy, real armies always strive to stay out on the edge of technological development, while also keeping hold of tools and doctrines that have been proven to work, before adopting newer – but untested – concepts. Truly professional forces are able to acknowledge when they have taken a wrong turn, and move forward to fix the issue…That’s a lesson the US military would benefit from remembering.
Army Air
One of the challenges for the Army is its somewhat limited organic aircraft and helicopter assets. As it took the common page from other modern forces, India from the beginning separated its air forces from its ground forces. And, also like many modern armies, the result has been very spotty application of close air support (CAS) to the ground forces. Like all air forces, the Indian Air Force tries, but it is hampered in its efforts by both budgetary constraints and the associated need to focus on that service’s core missions. India is not alone in this issue; the US military discovered the problems inherent in this type of division with its own “Key West Agreement” in 1948, a confused decision that would cause delays and confusions that would impact combat operations well into the 1970’s.
Mi-35 Hind helicopter, Kandahar, Afghanistan, 2009 – US Air Force photo
Arjun Mk II MBT, live demonstration, 2016 – photo by Indian Navy
On the brighter side, the Arjun Mk IIMBT has finally matured. After a rough start to its development cycle, and serious problems in its earlier version, as well as major cost overruns and an epically long (37 years, to be exact) development cycle, the Arjun has matured into a frontline weapon that is in the top tier of combat vehicles. The only real hurdle to its full-scale deployment, as with virtually every army, is money. On the other hand, its deployment, while slow, has finally allowed India to retire its 1940’s-era T-55’s. At the same time, the Defense Ministry settled on a modernizaton and upgrade program for its Soviet-era T-72’s and T-90’s, the better to avoid too unevenly improving systems.
Pinaka MBRL’s on parade, 2011
India’s burgeoning economy, however, has allowed plans to significantly modernize its artillery park to move forward with speed. Systems like the Dhanush howitzer, developed to replace the Haubits FH77/B units acquired from Sweden in the 1980’s; the excellent M1954 (M-46) 155mm model, as upgraded by Soltam, of one of the best artillery pieces ever built, with a maximum unassisted range of 27km/16.77mi, and an assisted range of 38km/23.61mi; rounding off the new purchases is the indiginously developed, truck-mounted Pinaka multiple rocket launcher (similar to the US ‘HIMARS‘), designed to replace the BM-21’s and ‘Smerch’ 9K58’s acquired from the Soviet Union. Something DRDO may want to look at is the EVO-105, which the Freedomist recently reviewed.
A serious problem, however, is in India’s IFV park. The ‘Abhay’ (Sanskrit: अभय, “Fearless”) IFV is still in “development hell” (although the incorporation of the 40mm Bofors L/70 gun is an inspired choice for a main weapon of this type). While DRDO has informed Russia that they intend to pursue an Indian IFV, rather than purchase the BMP-3, the Indian Army is stuck, in the meanwhile, with the abysmal BMP-2. The BMP series, generally speaking, has a well-deserved reputation as the worst of the IFV field: its limited range, cramped compartments, horrible ride and poor armor are legendary…well, perhaps “notorious” is a better term. Armor – as has been decisively proven – cannot operate without infantry support, and infantry need something more than a “battle taxi”, as good as the M113 might be. The original models of the US Marine Corps’LAV-series is another off-the shelf option that would be far superior to the BMP-series.
Combat Support
Ashok Leyland Stallion 4×4’s of the Indian Army, Himalaya region, 2010
India’s motorized military support is firmly anchored on three vehicles: the Ashok Leyland Stallion Mk III & IV, the Maruti Gypsy, and the Tatra 815, although the Tatra 815 is slowly being replaced by newer vehicles. These are all solid, highly capable vehicles, supplemented by smaller numbers of more specialized frames, easily the equal of other nation’s vehicle parks in capacity and reliablity.
As well, mine protected vehicles such as the venerable and battle-tested South AfricanCasspir and the domestically-produced Aditya are entering the vehicle pools in increasing numbers, in ackowledgement of the growing threat of IEDs.
Strategic Forces
India, as is well-known, maintains a nuclear arsenal and an ongoing development plan. This arsenal is currently estimated at between 150 and 300 devices. Currently, the known weapons available to be deployed are the short-range Prithvi-I and the intermediate-range Agni-III, with longer-range land-based weapons and MIRVs under development. The K-15 SagarikaSLBM, now operational, is now deployed aboard the INS Arihant…and awaiting sister ships.
Country’s first under-water- launched Missile B05 (Sagarika) was successfully flight tested from Bay of Bengal off the coast of Visakhapatnam.
This developmental pace is surprising only to people who lack a grounding on India’s regional security situation. A nuclear deterrent is definitely something taken seriously by the People’s Republic of China. But the main focus is India’s long-time enemy, Pakistan. While the nuclear program was originally more of a prestige program than an operational imperative, increasing instability in the Muslim world, coupled to both Pakistan and Iran’snuclear programs, as well as both 9/11 and the 2008 Mumbai attack have transformed the nuclear program into a real and pressing project: India has serious reasons to maintain a nuclear arsenal…which is a very serious range issues that need to be solved, lest they get out of hand.
Tactically, however, the main question is the true state of the Indian military’s nuclear, biological and chemical (NBC) program for allowing individual troops to operate in such environments.
Conclusion
The Indian Army is a highly capable, well-disciplined and professional force, with a very long, and honored history. It has repeatedly demonstrated that it is capable of both making hard decisions, as well as admitting its errors, at least to a greater extent than many other top-tier forces. If the Indian Army has any weaknesses, they lay in procurement, which is something the force does not have full control over, although a critical need for a real airmobile component is its worst issue; there are very cogent reasons why virtually all modern militaries have abandoned parachute infantry as primary “first in” forces, in favor of heliborne formations.
The Army well understands that it needs to modernize its forces – too long tied into less-than-capable (to be polite), Soviet-era systems – a task made significantly easier by the increasingly close relationship to Western militaries, militaries that recognize the danger of an unstable, nuclear-armed Pakistan, as well as an increasingly bellicose China.
Armies exist to buy time through intimidation, for political leaders to avoid conflict. But those forces, for their intimidation strategies to work, must be capable of actually following through on their promise of ability.
Ultimately, the Indian Army succeeds in this quite admirably.
The goal of this column is to present news from around the world that is not often – if ever – covered by more mainstream entities, using local sources wherever possible, but occasionally using news aggregators not used, again, by the mainstream media. Also, please note that we do use links to Wikipedia; while Wikipedia is well-known as a largely-useless site for any kind of serious research, it does serve as a launch-pad for further inquiry, in addition to being generally free of malicious ads. As with anything from Wikipedia, always verify their sources before making any conclusions based on their pages.
This column will cover the preceding week of news.
To make it easier for readers to follow story source links: anytime you see a bracketed number marked in green – [1] – those are the source links relating to that story.
North America
The ongoing “Strategy of Tension” continued across the United States this week, with a continuing wave of hoax bomb threats being called in to various locations, primarily colleges and technical schools; curiously, several nursing schools were also on the call roster. As noted previously, many of the source links below refer to multiple calls and threats being made to schools in a given area. [1]-[13] In a few cases, actual devices were discovered, and in two cases, arrests were made. [14]-[16]
One interesting aspect of the devices being recovered, is that few, if any of them, were actually triggered. It remains to be seen, if this is a deliberate tactic, or if it is simply poor assembly.
In Nigeria, terrorist and bandit violence continues, as the wave of ambushes, kidnappings, targeted murders, skirmishing and violence continue, seemingly without respite.
In Somalia, heavy fighting was reported in a the villages of Yeed, Aato and Washaaqo along the country’s ill-defined border with Ethiopia. Reports – as usual in the area – remain sketchy, but it appears that Al-Shabaab fighters attacked detachments of Ethiopian regional police operating in that area of Somalia by agreement with Somali authorities, striking directly at the towns of Yeed and Aato, while also launching what appears to be “spoiling attack” on Washaaqo, to pin possible reinforcements.
As in Nigeria, scattered fighting continued apace throughout the Middle East, this week. Turkish forces inside Syriaand Iraq continued to launch drone and artillery strikes on essentially any armed force that is not Turkish. [1]-[3] Further south, in Iraq, several Iraqi troops have been killed in skirmishes with remnant Islamic State terrorists. [4]
In Afghanistan, a local-area Taliban commander was reportedly killed near the city of Kunduz, by unknown gunmen. This comes as a recent UN report concluded that IS-Khorasan and other groups are gaining ground in securing footholds in Afghanistan, as the Taliban’s hold on the country is increasingly shaky. This has the potential to return the world to the situation as it stood in 2001, with Afghanistan becoming a base-area, yet again, for terrorists from around the world.
In Pakistan, scattered attacks were reported, including a bombing of a girls’ school in the port of Gwadar, and a grenade attack on Frontier Corps (FC) police, that wounded a total of four people, including an FC officer.
In India, aside from the long-running violence in Jammu & Kashmir [1]-[6], the only issues of note were a hoax bomb threat against a private school and a bomb attack that injured one woman, being blamed on Naxalite activity. [7][8]
Finally, reports from Myanmar are emerging that the ethnic Arakan Army group has claimed to have killed several government soldiers and captured as many as thirteen more, including at least one officer. Myanmar, ruled by a military juntasince 2021, has seen an increasing number of rebels actively attacking its forces since it’s seizure of power.
Since the Russian invasion of Ukraine on February 24th of 2022, the Ukrainian military has struggled to hold on against enormous pressure. While there have been successes against the surprisingly anemic Russian juggernaut, the fact is that the conflict has seen the return of massed artillery fires, at a scale and intensity not seen since at least the 1990-1991 Gulf War.
Derelict Tank in badly shelled mud area, Europe, 1917.
Artillery, in its many forms, has been a major component of armies since at least the 15th Century. Artillery can cause heavy damage to both attacking forces in an open field, but can also hammer fortifications into a moonscape, if allowed to.
French Caesar self-propelled howitzer fires into the Middle Euphrates River Valley.
Like many armies, Ukraine had allowed its artillery establishment to atrophy – despite armies depending on massed artillery for centuries – and it now finds itself desperately scrambling to replace damaged and lost artillery pieces, and scrape together more ammunition. This has seen the first mass deployments for systems such as the French ‘CAESAR‘ 155mm self-propelled howitzer, the M777155mm towed howitzer and the M142 HIMARS Multiple-Launch Rocket System, among others, all supplied by NATO states trying to shore up Ukraine’s defenses.
But none of these weapons – nor their ammunition – are arriving in the quantities Ukraine needs. There may be at least a partial solution to Ukraine’s problem, however:
The EVO-105, now designated the K105HT.
Improved K105HT during firing drill. Undated photo.
The EVO-105/K105HT uses an assembly of long-proven systems to make a lightweight, self-propelled artillery piece. While originally produced as a cost-saving idea to get the maximum utilization out of old artillery, the basic design could easily be adapted to artillery similar to the M101-series, such as the L118, or the M119. Although having a significantly shorter range than larger-caliber weapons (a maximum of 17.5km (10.9 mi), or 19.5km (12.1 mi) with RAP (Rocket-Assisted Projectiles)), the K105HT is much faster to “shoot-n-scoot“, firing one or two rounds, then rapidly moving to a new firing location, and can do this faster than most other similar systems.
Hindsight is always 20/20, but other states and other forces can take the artillery issue as a lesson from Ukraine’s failure to maintain a well-rounded defense establishment.
Artillery matters. Victory also matters – and artillery wins more wars than gory pictures do.
The goal of this column is to present news from around the world that is not often – if ever – covered by more mainstream entities, using local sources wherever possible, but occasionally using news aggregators not used, again, by the mainstream media. Also, please note that we do use links to Wikipedia; while Wikipedia is well-known as a largely-useless site for any kind of serious research, it does serve as a launch-pad for further inquiry, in addition to being generally free of malicious ads. As with anything from Wikipedia, always verify their sources before making any conclusions based on their pages.
This column will cover the preceding week of news.
To make it easier for readers to follow story source links: anytime you see a bracketed number marked in green – [1] – those are the source links relating to that story.
North America, Central America & the Caribbean
United States
The “Strategy of Tension” continued in the United States this week, with what can only be described as a “swarm attack“, hoax bomb threats were called in to dozens of locations around the country, again primarily to college campuses (including as far out as Hawaii, and another in Canada), but also to businesses and public buildings, repeatedly overloading emergency services in the impacted areas. The focus of the ‘swarming’ this week was the State of Florida – although smaller swarms occurred in Ohio, New Jersey and Virginia – as opposed to the states of Texas and Louisiana, last week. And, also as with last week’s reporting, although there are 21 news links, these represent as many as a dozen additional hoax threats, as some stories report on multiple threats. [1]-[21]
Additionally, an increasing number of actual explosive devices are being disarmed and recovered by police and military bomb-disposal teams, throughout the nation, including three actual explosive devices found in Calaveras County, CA this week, alone. [1]-[3]
In Haiti, reports from the global medical charity Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) (“Doctor’s Without Borders”) are coming out that thousands of residents in the capital of Port-au-Prince’s notorious Cité Soleil slum have been cut off from food, water and medical aid, as rival gangs – some reportedly allied to various factions within the police and military – battle each other in what is rapidly spiraling into a war-zone/collapse scenario. The protests had begun in May of 2022, over a lack of fuel for generators, as Haiti’s electrical grid has never recovered, following a series of massive earthquakes over the last twelve years, due to endemic instability and corruption in the tropical nation, that included the assassination of the country’s President, Jovenel Moïse in July of 2021.
In Mexico, the long-running drug war continues, as police recovered remains – many beheaded – of drug cartel victims across the country. [1][2] This, as police in Mexico City rescued two kidnap victims being held for ransom, in a furious shootout with cartel members armed with automatic weapons, including a belt-fed machine gun, that freed the victims and resulted 14 arrests, although four officers were wounded in the shootout. [3]
Meanwhile, in the state of Sinaloa, on the country’s Pacific coast, police and military forces conducted a joint operation that resulted in the arrest of Rafael Caro Quintero, co-founder the Guadalajara cartel. Although the 69-year old was found hiding in the bushes by a tracker dog named “Max“, tragically, a Blackhawk helicopter of the Mexican Navy crashed during the operations, killing 14 of the 15 occupants, leaving the survivor in serious condition. Quintero remains on the FBI’s Most Wanted List for the 1985 kidnapping, torture and killing of US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) agent Enrique “Kiki” Camarena, after he escaped custody following a botched court hearing in 2013 that attempted to free him after 28 years in prison on a technicality, but which was dismissed by Mexico’s high court…but not before Quintero was spirited away. [4][5]
In Brazil, authorities responded to a suspicious package discovered following a threatening call to the Russian Embassy in the capitol of Brasilia on the 14th. Authorities isolated the package, then removed it to a secure location and detonated it safely. Examinations of contents and the investigation into the incident continue at press time.
In England, the passport office in Newport, Wales was evacuated after a suspicious package was received that contained a white powder. The building was sealed off, and staff were medically examined. The powder was determined to be non-toxic, and the facility reopened later in the day. [1]
In Leeuwarden, in the Netherlands, several town council members and administrative staff were evacuated following what police termed a “credible bomb threat“. A police investigation discovered no devices, nor suspicious persons, despite an earlier report of a man with a bomb. Investigations continue. [2]
Finally, in Moldavia, the Chisinau International Airport – Moldova’s main international air transit facility – was temporarily closed following an emailed bomb threat against the airport. operations resumed after some three hours, while security checked the airport buildings, but no devices were found. Chisinau International has been the target of several hoax bomb attacks in the previous weeks.[3]
Once more, fighting in Nigeria dominates the African news scene, as repeated violence continues around the country. Gunmen, variously reported as either “bandits” or as “terrorists“, have continued a vicious campaign of bombings, kidnappings, assassinations of state-level politicians and random murders, design to incite fear among the population, even as police try to increase security for targets deemed most at risk, specifically schools and churches. [1]-[12]
In somewhat better news, relatively speaking, Nigerian troops in the northern state of Borno, reacted swiftly to reports of Boko Haram terrorists blocking roads in the state, and kidnapping people. The troops reacted, and drove the terrorists off, reportedly killing at least ten. [13]
Across the border, in Cameroon, Boko Haram reportedly killed two civilians in an attack on a village in the country’s far north, as the government sought to tighten internal security after a bomb blast rocked a crowded market in the nation’s capital. Although no injuries were reported, this is the second such attack in as many weeks.
In Benoni, South Africa, police arrested a “Mozambican man” on charges of possessing explosives on the 13th, as attacks by Islamist insurgents continue to increase in number and violence, even as the Mozambican government insists that it is winning its war with Muslim insurgents that has been raging since 2017. [1]-[4] This is in stark contrast to the assessment of veteran defense journalist John Stupart, Director, African Defense Review, who points out that the current situation is, if anything, worse than it was a year ago. [5]
The ever-shaky ceasefire in Yemen may be about to collapse completely, as a sudden burst of attacks this week threaten to renew fighting on a large scale. Yemen has been trapped in the throes of a civil war since 2014, part of the wider Iran-Saudi Arabia Proxy War.
In Syria and Iraq, scattered skirmishing and assassinations continued this week, as the US State Department warned that the situation in the region would worsen, even including a possible Islamic State “resurgence”, if non-Syrian/non-Iraqi foreign fighters for IS were not returned to their home nations. [1]-[6]
In Afghanistan, Taliban forces clashed with Iranian border guards, as scattered fighting destroyed infrastructure and killed dozens, including religious scholar Sheikh Sardar Wali Saqib. Elsewhere, the increasingly unstable Taliban are beginning to fight amongst themselves, as internal skirmishing killed several, and the Taliban began arresting their own officers because of “internal disputes”. [1]-[6]
In Pakistan, Balochi militants of the Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA) murdered kidnapped Army officerLieutenant-ColonelLaeeq Baig Mirza, as a rescue team closed on the insurgent’s position. The team managed to kill two of the terrorists, but the remainder escaped. LtCol Mirza was kidnapped on the 12th by the militant group. Balochis have been fighting for their independence from Pakistan and Iran off and on since 1948. [1][2]
Elsewhere, Pakistani forces killed a reported dozen terrorists in various operations, with one soldier being killed. [3][4]
Wall relief at Medinet Habu depicting Ramses III defeating the Sea Peoples in the Battle of the (Nile) Delta, c.1200-1150BC
Warfare at sea has been recorded for at least three thousand years, but fighting on the ocean almost certainly occurred long before Ramses fought his desperate battle. As on land, there are a dizzying array of reasons why a nation may fight on the water. However, the challenges of fighting at sea are vastly more complex and expensive than fighting on land, or even in the air. Only the concept of space-based warfare is more expensive.
The crew of the merchant vessel MV Faina stand on the deck after a U.S. Navy request to check on their health and welfare, 9 November 2008. Some of their Somali pirate captors stand above them. US Navy photo.
Like land warfare, naval warfare has tenets and goals. Those are, however, vastly different from those of land warfare. Central to that concept, is the definition of a “warship“. While people usually have some idea of what a “warship” is, that definition is usually shaped by modern entertainment media. A warship, at its core, has two defining characteristics: it is simultaneously, any water vessel that is armed – whether that ship is a bass boat or a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier – and conveys the perception of being under the control of a crew that adheres to both military discipline and a “legal” higher authority. This last, is what separates “pirate ships” from “naval vessels”.
Broadly speaking, there are three basic kinds of naval forces. Sometimes, there may be aircraft of various type associated to each force; there may be marines/’naval infantry’ (ground troops attached to the naval force) and there may be some form of “special operations forces” as well. The three basic types of forces we will briefly examine here are categorized as “blue water“, “green water“, and “brown water“.
First, however, we need to address the two basic schools of thought, regarding naval warfare.
Mahan’s central theory argued that control of the sea was vital to a nation’s greatness, and that a navy’s main focus should be on controlling the seas by destroying an enemy nation’s main fleet at the earliest stage of war possible, instead of worrying about a more nuanced approach.
German Imperial High Seas Fleet at sea as at the Battle of Jutland on 31st May 1916.
The naval aspect of World War 1 was inconclusive as to whether Mahan’s theory was correct or not, as there were few fleet actions, and those few were inconclusive draws. However, Mahan formed the basis of both Imperial Japan’s, and the United States’ naval doctrine in World War 2. For the Japanese, Mahan formed the core of their doctrine against Imperial Russia in the Russo-Japanese War, resulting in the decisive fleet action at the Battle of Tsushima in 1905.
Admiral Tōgō Heihachirō on the bridge of the Battleship Mikasa during the Battle of Tsushima, 27–28 May 1905.
Murderer’s Row: U.S. Third Fleet aircraft carriers at anchor in Ulithi Atoll, 8 December 1944. US Navy photo.
However, Mahan’s theories were not foolproof. In fact, they masked serious problems.
Sir Julian Corbett came to naval strategy as a civilian, in mid-life. Already a well-regarded historian, Corbett made friends in the Royal Navy with his more limited and nuanced approach to naval strategy, which offered a more realistic application of naval power projection that suited Britain’s needs as an Imperial power, even in its waning days. While agreeing with Mahan about the importance of sea power to a nation, Corbett took a completely opposite view of how to maintain this, arguing that control of the sea did not necessarily have to depend on smashing the main enemy fleet. He went further, arguing that “control of the seas” could be maintained if the fleet could ensure the security of the nation’s maritime commerce while inhibiting, if not outright halting, that of the enemy. German Grand Admiral and Secretary of State of the German Imperial Naval OfficeAlfred von Tirpitz, dismissed any sort of “commerce raiding” naval strategy (Corbett’s main view, in its most basic form) during World War 1, opting to do his best to use Mahan’s theories against Britain.
By 1945, it was clear that Corbett was the more correct of the two theorists.
Very briefly, a nation’s “fleet” is the total number of warships it has in current service, along with such vessels it might have “in reserve“, which can be quickly brought into service. For some time, during the late-19th Century, there was an idea that a nation’s “fleet” consisted of all of its major ships, operating en masse, in accordance with Mahanian principles.
The United Kingdom largely attempted to adopt this strategy, keeping the bulk of its main battle fleet massed in British home waters, while dispersing a mush smaller portion of its fleet to stations around the world. The United States, however, faced the harsh reality that due to its geography, it would be forced to split its fleet in any major conflict involving a war in both the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. This was proven true in 1941, as the USN was forced to fight in both oceans, simultaneously.
Physical map of the World, from CIA The World Factbook in 2021.
What everyone generally thinks of when hearing the word “navy”, blue water forces focus on three basic missions: projecting national power well beyond the shores of the home nation, defeating enemy fleets, and “maintaining the SLOC.”
Two US cargo ships docked at Bombay Harbor, 1948
The ‘SLOC‘, or ‘Sea Lines Of Communication‘, are the maritime conduits through which food,
World War II U-boats of Nazi Germany’s Kriegsmarine following their surrender at Lisahally, near Londonderry, Northern Ireland, UK in May 1945. Public Domain
fuel, raw materials and finished goods flow. Very few countries are truly self-sufficient, and a nation under attack has a desperate and immediate need to keep the sea open to merchant vessels funneling supplies to them. It was for this reason that winning the Battle of the Atlantic was so vital to the Allied war effort, because losing it would have forced Britain to surrender; world history would have been fundamentally different had that occurred.
The Battle of Trafalgar (21 October 1805), by Clarkson Frederick Stanfield, 1936
Russian Black sea Fleet conducting an amphibious landing exercise, near Crimea, Ukraine, 2012
While there have been very few naval battles, as such, in the modern era (and haven’t been since the end of the Napoleonic Period), projecting power is still necessary, as was recently demonstrated by the international anti-piracy patrol off the Horn of Africa, and most famously, by the frequent deployments of the US Navy throughout the world — parking a carrier battle group – containing more fighting power on its own, than the total combat power of most national armed forces…before adding the potential of several thousand US Marines to the mix – off the coast of a restive country is a serious statement, sufficient to give all but the most delusional leader and their supporters serious pause.
While the USN is the only navy currently capable of doing this on any large scale, other countries such as Britain, France and India can deploy smaller but still very powerful forces to trouble spots, actual and potential. The Chinese “People’s Liberation Army Navy“, while large, is not well-practiced in “expeditionary operations“, as yet, and – despite certain breathless reporting – has yet to demonstrate more than a rudimentary capability.
Amphibious assault vehicles from the forward-deployed amphibious dock landing ship USS Tortuga (LSD 46) land on the beach during Exercise Cobra Gold 2012.
However, while some seventy percent of the Earth’s surface is covered by water, the remaining thirty percent is land. This may seem like a throwaway statement, but according to the United Nations, an estimated 60% of the Earth’s population live within 100km (62 miles) of an ocean coastline…it is for this very reason, that the United States maintains the largest “naval infantry” force in the world. While marine units are certainly capable (or should be) of seizing a section of hostile shore or a port area, their primary function is to hold that space just long enough for reinforcments to be landed, or some other limited mission completed. This is because – in a similar manner to airborne forces – most naval landing forces (short of a massive assault landing, such as D-Day or Okinawa) are very light in combat power, relying far more on confusion, fear and intimidation…which only works for a short time.
Green Water operations – taking their name from the shift in color from the deep blue of the open ocean to the “sea green” of coastal regions – primarily involve either getting troops ashore (“over the beach“), or finding and suppressing coastal anti-ship defenses, whether troops are going to be landed or not. It is here, that most naval mines are laid, to restrict access to vital coastal regions. This is also where most “coast guards” operate, whether under wartime missions, or during peacetime, conducting customs and safety inspections, police functions, and the occasional search and rescue operation.
In general, green water fleets are small in total hull numbers, as well as overall tonnage, but their functions are, comparatively, much more complex than those of blue water fleets. However, because the ships are orders of magnitude less expensive – at least, for the strictly defensive functions – this is what most navies in the world are composed of.
Humankind’s first water forces were riverine – they operated on those rivers deep enough to take hulls carrying significant numbers of occupants. In a word, those ships were able to carry enough people to both operate the boat, and fight from it.
Special Warfare Combatant Crewmen (SWCC) demonstrate the new Special Operations Craft-Riverine (SOC-R) while training at the Stennis Space Center. U.S. Navy photo
Riverine warfare involves the control of waterways away from the ocean shore. Any waterway – natural or man-made – that can be used as a highway to transport people and goods, is a vital conduit for a nation. Good examples are major rivers, such as the Mississippi, the Rhine, the Amazon, the Nile and the Mekong; the list can continue, running into several pages.
Members of U.S. Navy Seal Team One move down the Bassac River in a Seal Team Assault Boat (STAB) during operations along the river south of Saigon, November 1967.
Ships operating in rivers and delta’s are almost always significantly different in design from their sea-going cousins, but are no less deadly. It is here, where many countries first “dip their toes“, so to speak, in nautical operations. Speeds in rivers and estuaries are generally slower, as is the draft the ships must deal with.
A U.S. riverboat (Zippo monitor) deploying napalm during the Vietnam War
The vessels used in riverine operations can range from shallow-draft, high-speed boats – including small high-speed craft, with a machine gun mount bolted on – to large-scale, heavily-armed, river monitors. These ships are capable of both direct fire as well as indirect fire support missions, forcing enemies ashore to consider their distance to waterways, as well as roads.
Naval Special Forces
Russian commando frogman of the Caspian Flotilla during exercises
Above, we briefly touched on marines/naval infantry. Here, even more briefly, we will touch on naval special operations forces.
The idea of non-marine special operations forces, while not new, has never before reached a level comparable to that of today. This is largely driven by technology, but parochialism also plays a role.
US Navy Seals securing the beach. (Promotional image)
SEAL team member moves through deep mud in South Vietnam, May 1970. US Navy photo.
Like all special operations forces, however, these forces are difficult to employ to their full potential. Their training – of necessity, long and arduous…and expensive – means that they are extremely susceptible to poorly-thought out missions. The numbers of politicians capable of understanding how and when special forces in generally – and naval special forces in particular – should be deployed, is thin indeed.
Conclusion
Naval forces are generally the most expensive sector of a nation’s armed forces. Purpose-built warships represent a very significant investment for any nation, even (perhaps especially) the United States. It is also easy to forget, amid a slew of video games where real people do not die, that even the smallest modern destroyer carries a crew of well over one hundred people…and potentially a crew of thousands.
Anyone talking about naval policy needs to keep that foremost in their minds.
The goal of this column is to present news from around the world that is not often – if ever – covered by more mainstream entities, using local sources wherever possible, but occasionally using news aggregators not used, again, by the mainstream media. Also, please note that we do use links to Wikipedia; while Wikipedia is well-known as a largely-useless site for any kind of serious research, it does serve as a launch-pad for further inquiry, in addition to being generally free of malicious ads. As with anything from Wikipedia, always verify their sources before making any conclusions based on their pages.
This column will cover the preceding week of news.
To make it easier for readers to follow story source links: anytime you see a bracketed number marked in green – [1] – those are the source links relating to that story.
This assassination, however, overshadowed by a staggering wave of hoax bomb threats made to college campuses around the nation, in what The Freedomist is now terming a “Strategy of Tension,” given it’s stark resemblance to similar events in the past. The only question, at this juncture, is who, exactly is behind this strategy, which began at least as far back as early 2016. In one instance, however,, one person was located and arrested after calling in a hoax threat. [1]-[25]
In a possibly related incident, police in Altus, OK recovered an IED that was discovered by a citizen taking trash to a dumpster. [26] In New York state, meanwhile, two persons were observed setting a live incendiary device against the crescent monument outside a mosque in Ronkonkoma, which caused minor damage to the monument. [27]
In war-torn Burkina Faso, suspected Islamist militants have killed at least 22 civilians and wounded numerous others in an attack on a farming commune in Kossi province on the night of July 3-4, according to the provincial governor. [1][2]
In neighboring Niger, a group of Boko Haram terrorists launched the second attack in three days on a Niger Army outpost near the country’s border with Chad. Niger Army forces beat back the attack, killing at least 17 terrorists, while suffering a reported 14 dead and 6 more wounded. [3]
Turning to Nigeria, the nation’s President – Muhammadu Buhari – survived an attack on his motorcade while en route to his home region of Katsina due to the swift reactions of his bodyguards. Officials are describing the attackers as “bandits“, rather than one of the various Islamist terror groups plaguing the country. Banditry in Nigeria has taken a dramatic upswing in recent years, as the nation’s security forces focus on combating the Islamic terror groups striking throughout the country. [1]
Elsewhere in the country, attacks on police and civilians continue, including the kidnapping of another Chinese ex-patriot worker and an officer of the Nigerian Navy visiting his home, as well as arson attacks around the country. Additionally, sometime-allies Boko Haram and ISWAP stormed a prison on the outskirts of the nation’s capital, Abuja, freeing over 400 hardened prisoners, along with many Islamist terrorists captured by the military and security forces. After some 27 were re-arrested, Boko Haram and ISWAP issued death threats against the families of the officers who had led the operations to capture the terrorists, as well as the officers responsible for recapturing the escapees. [2]-[10]
On the other hand, in a curious turn, the Somali terror group Al-Shabaab has reportedly denied that it funds Islamist terror groups in Mozambique and Nigeria. The Freedomist is investigating these claims at press time. [2][3]
Scattered violence in Afghanistan continues, with Taliban forces clashing internally, while also launching a campaign to forcibly displace families in the Panjshir Valley, the center of NRF resistance to their control of the country. [1]-[7]
Finally, turning to Myanmar, guerrilla’s resisting the nation’s military junta staged three simultaneous attacks in Mandalay City, the country’s second-largest urban center. The attacks may mark a dangerous shift in the philosophy of the resistance groups towards a more terror-focused approach, risking their credibility and legitimacy if the descend to the junta’s level, by attacking civilian targets.
Planning to fight a war is universally seen as aggressive. After all, “planning” to fight a war means that the planner intends to do serious violence to the people their war plan defines as “the enemy”, right? And violence is bad — therefore, war planning must be a bad thing…right?
Well – no.
Countries fight wars. If the reader learns nothing else from History class, it should be that. Now, wars are fought for many reasons; sometimes, those wars are fought for all the wrong reasons, for mistakes and errors of judgement, sometimes for loot or religion, and sometimes, just for the “doing” of conquest.
German troops crossing the Soviet border during Operation Barbarossa, 1941
But, what about “just” wars? Suppose that Country X has “stuff”. Country X is willing to share…but their neighbor, Country Y, doesn’t want to simply share – they want all the stuff. Country X has two options: they can blare a prerecorded message saying “We Surrender!” over loudspeakers scattered throughout the country, as Country Y’s forces march in (this was actually proposed by Leftist politicians in the Scandinavian country of Denmark in the 1980’s; the Danes – being Danes – declined), or Country X can resist.
Insert four and a half thousand years of recorded battle, army creation, training and support history here.
Ramses II at the Battle of Kadesh (relief at Abu Simbel)
Over the millennia, those who study war have been able to agree that certain aspects of warfare are universal. While this is not the venue to discuss all of those common aspects, one of the central tenets is that having a plan – almost any plan – when sharp, pointy objects start flying, is infinitely better than having no plan at all…as the US Army has rediscovered, as it frantically tried to reorient from twenty years of counterinsurgency operations back towards a more “traditional” scope of warfare, especially as the Russo-Ukrainian War grinds onward.
Now, it’s important to define what we’re talking about, here: we are talking about national-level plans. We are nottalking about what the British Army calls “Small Tactics“, the methods of maneuvering small groups of troops in direct combat with an enemy. Neither is it the maneuvering of larger units, such as regiments and brigades, or even divisions and corps‘.
What we are talking about here, is the planning at the national level. Let’s look at the best-documented modern example: the development of the so-called “Rainbow Plans” of the United States of America, in the first half of the 20th Century.
For countless generations after the collapse of the Roman Empire in Western Europe, common thinking on the mechanisms of warfare was usually limited to a very narrow spectrum of people, in any given place and time. It was only improvements in communications and the wider movements of people between states and cultures that opened the door to that interchange, beginning in earnest in the 15th Century: the walls of Constantinople – capital of the Eastern Roman Empire (often called the ‘Byzantine Empire‘) – had stood, impregnable, for over a thousand years before falling to Ottoman cannon fire…and those cannons were largely designed by a Christian Hungarian military engineer.
Foreign Officers and Correspondents after the Battle of Shaho, Manchuria, 1904.
By the 19th Century, it was entirely possible to find many foreign officers serving their respective states as observers in wars their state was not involved in: Prussian officers observed Federal forces during the American Civil War, while their counterparts from England observed the Confederate forces. These officers neither advised, nor took part in the fighting; they merely observed operations. The information and experiences they brought home, frequently helped shape their own armies’ future policies.
Still, however, war planning was generally a very nebulous exercise; it was usually done “on the fly“. Information was usually scarce, and commanders in the field largely had to guess at the situation they were walking into…And, if this sounds like a disaster waiting to happen, it frequently was. This was taken as a “cost of doing business” by commanders, because no one saw an alternative.
Detail from Charge of the 24th and 25th Colored Infantry, July 2nd 1898.
Then-US Secretary of State John Hay might have called it a “splendid little war“, but in point of fact, the performance of the forces of the United States was abysmally bad. It is in no way a stretch to say that the United States won the war more because Spanish forces were even more incompetent than those of the USA were. Once the stirring sounds of marching bands and the cheers of the crowds faded in the war’s aftermath, the US Army and Navy faced the cold, hard fact that their respective on-scene commanders both pursued separate and uncoordinated theater strategies, and neither had either the information or support – intelligence or logistical – to properly execute the separate and mutually exclusive campaigns they had been assigned to pursue. Where the United States had been able to project military power beyond its shores fifty years before, and to effectively coordinate continent-spanning joint operations forty years prior, something had gone badly wrong.
The result, in 1903, was the formation of a Joint Army and Navy Board.
HMS Argus, 1918. US Navy photo
The Board’s mission was to plan for potential wars that the United States may need to wage. Since the 1870’s, the United States – like many European powers before it – had become increasingly tied to foreign trade; instability in a foreign land had the potential to cause significant damage to the US economy, if not start an actual shooting war. US military power at that time was nowhere near what it is today – the prospect of a hostile navy conducting a devastating shelling of US coastal cities was a very real concern.
Red guard unit of the Vulkan factory in Petrograd, October 1917
Much has been made, over time, about the Joint Board and its supposedly isolated and insular nature, operating outside the reality of geopolitics. In fact, the Joint Board began by only acting on information fed to it from the civilian State Department. In the aftermath of the Russian Revolution of 1917, pre-planning major-war operations assumed new urgency. Like Iran some sixty years later, an ally quite literally changed from a friend to a potential enemy overnight.
As well, the context of the times must be understood. The United States had treated the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans as very large “moats” for most of the preceding 125 years…Yet, in the space of barely 17 years – from 1891 to 1904 – the United States has seen not only technological advances that saw massive vessels crossing the Atlantic in barely a week, but had also seen a near-war with Chile that would have required sending naval reinforcements all the way around South America with no guarantee of bases and possible hostile state’s navies in the way, as the strategic shortcut of the Panama Canal had not yet been built; the aforementioned Spanish-American War; the Second Boer War, where great Britain had deployed nearly half a million troops from around its world-spanning empire to a theater that defined the term “remote”, and introduced the term “concentration camp” to the modern English language lexicon; the Boxer Rebellion and the joint-international Peking Relief Expedition; the Philippine Insurrection; and the Russo-Japanese War, best thought of as the beta-test for World War 1, as it was only missing the poison gas and airplanes. The United States was now facing a serious threat of possible invasion from non-Western Hemisphere industrial powers, who were capable of matching US military power.
The Joint Board thus began examining as many potential conflicts as it could realistically foresee, as evidenced by the list of plans they produced at some level, between 1904 and 1945:
Some of these plans are well known, such as ORANGE (the war plan to defeat the Empire of Japan), and RED (the war plan to fight Great Britain, the subject of a somewhat breathless documentary by Britain’s Channel 5, in 2011). But the rest of the plans reflected the reality of the United States’ strategic situation in the first four decades of the 20th Century.
One aspect of these plans were the so-called “Rainbow Plans“, begun in the 1930’s, that postulated potential wars against alliances of multiple states on the list.
So — what goes into a war plan at this level?
The primary purpose of a nation’s strategic war plan against a potential enemy, is to present a realistic assessment of that potential opponent’s capabilities. Assessing the strategic intent of an enemy is not usually a concern for the war planner, because – as in the case of both Russia and Iran – those intentions can change with surprising speed. A war plan focuses on the actions of the “friendly country” once war has been declared, or (as was the case after the Japanese attack on the US naval base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii) once combat operations have commenced.
A war plan is a theoretical blueprint. It seeks to present “best options”, based on the best available assessments of the potential enemy in question:
What resources does the enemy possess? What are the points of entry into their country?
What targets and systems need to be attacked, in what order?
What forces and facilities of the enemy need to be attacked immediately, and which can be bypassed, and dealt with later?
What are the enemy’s capabilities to strike your country and its forces?
These are not questions that can be addressed on the fly. The information takes time to assemble, and planners are only human – the cycle of information intake, assessment and employment cannot be accelerated at short notice. A war plan, then, uses the most accurate information available to make general plans. Those general plans are far easier to alter based on current information flowing in, than starting from scratch. Broad operational orders can be disseminated to commands beforehand, to get the right forces moving, in the right order, in the shortest possible time.
But…Why is this important?
German women doing their washing at a water hydrant in a Berlin street.
No one profits from long wars. The faster the decision cycle, the faster that decisive, war-winning dominance can be gained by one side or the other, the faster the war ends, and the fewer people die…And therein lays the secret that anti-military people hate to acknowledge: the best militaries always seek to win as quickly as possible, with the fewest number of deaths to the “friendly” side — and, more likely than not, fewer deaths on the “enemy” side. That requires states to quite literally spend money on guns, instead of butter: to plan, prepare, stockpile equipment, train troops, maintain ready forces and update all of those things as necessary, against the day when they may be needed.
The core of the war plan, then, is a clear understanding of what the planning force is to accomplish, in the shortest possible time, with the most effective expenditure of people and resources.
Failure to plan effectively, inevitably leads to complete failures of strategy, and long, bloody wars, that can last interminably, wrecking the economy of the country and killing entire generations of youth.
Would, that leaders of the first part of the 21st Century had listened to the leaders of the first part of the 20th.
The goal of this column is to present news from around the world that is not often – if ever – covered by more mainstream entities, using local sources wherever possible, but occasionally using news aggregators not used, again, by the mainstream media. Also, please note that we do use links to Wikipedia; while Wikipedia is well-known as a largely-useless site for any kind of serious research, it does serve as a launch-pad for further inquiry, in addition to being generally free of malicious ads. As with anything from Wikipedia, always verify their sources before making any conclusions based on their pages.
This column will cover the preceding week of news.
To make it easier for readers to follow story source links: anytime you see a bracketed number marked in green – [1] – those are the source links relating to that story.
North America
The security news in North America was dominated this week by a huge wave of telephoned-in bomb threats, mostly against college campuses, being made across the nation [1]-[8], with a wave of threats across the breadth of North Carolina. [9]-[13] Elsewhere, similar threats were received by an abortion clinic in Victorville, CA [14], and by the Public Defender’s office in Miami-Dade County, FL. [15] In Rochester, MN, a woman picked up a device she believed to be an possible explosive device she had found in a park, and transported to the local police station, a highly dangerous and irresponsible action which we commented on in last week’s World Situation Report. [16] In Germantown, TN, meanwhile, police safely recovered the second of two IED’s, after responding to one of the devices detonating, although no damage was reported. [17]
By comparison to North America, Africa this week was comparatively quiet, given the pace of violent activities in recent weeks. Thankfully, the rest of the world – the Russo-Ukrainian War being the obvious exception – also remained largely quiet this week, to the point that we will be ending this Report on that continent.
Beginning in Burkina Faso, terror attacks killed a dozen people – all believed to be civilians – in two attacks in the central part of the country. [1][2] Meanwhile, Islamist insurgents severely damaged a critical bridge linking the towns of Kaya(just to the northwest of the nation’s capital of Ouagadougou) and Dori, approximately 120miles/193km to the northwest. [3][4] This appears to be a fresh offensive by jihadists to isolate the capital from the northern part of the country, as there are reports of jihadi’s effectively blockading towns along the contested roadway. The central government currently controls only an estimated 60 percent of the country. Burkina Faso, one of the poorest nations in the world, has been battling a festering Islamist insurgency since 2015, primarily against movements linked to the Al-Qaeda and the Islamic State groups. More than 2,000 people have been killed and 1.8 million displaced.
In Nigeria, Islamist jihadi’s reportedly kidnapped a number of medical personnel while murdering numerous civilians in the neighboring states of Kaduna (which also saw the reported kidnapping of a police officer) and Zamfara, in the country’s northwest, while some 13 people were reported killed by terrorists on a mining site in Niger State (not to be confused with the nation of the same name), and reportedly kidnapped two Chinese nationals working on the site. The kidnapping of medical personnel is significant, indicating that repeated operations by Nigerian police, military and civilian militia’s are exacting a heavy toll on the terrorist groups. [1]-[4]
In the southeast, attacks killed at least three people, and resulted in several homes being burned down. [5] In the country’s northwest, meanwhile, Islamic terror groups have begun attacking the national power distribution infrastructure, resulting in increasing strain on the country’s power grid. [6]
Across the continent, Ethiopian officials are blaming the deaths of some 338 people – mostly ethnic Amhara’s – in the Oromia Region on the Oromo Liberation Army (OLA) rebel group. The group has denied any involvement in the killings. The Oromo conflict has been waxing and waning in intensity since 1973, which has been aggravated by the ongoing Tigray War in the northern part of the country.
It seems more and more certain that another election is about to take place, with Benjamin Netanyahu, the leader of the past record-setting 12 years, possibly attempting to return once again even as he faces his own legal issues.
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