Guns are sexy. It’s a known fact that linking firearms (as well as many other odd things) to sex increases sales. That’s what keeps good-looking models, both male and female, working.
However, as anyone who has dealt with any kind of military force understands, there is a very great deal of other, non-firearm equipment out there, and most of it can only be sexualized in the grossest of manners. As a result, the ‘zhush‘ tends to get lost in the shuffle when people think about “things military”.
Roof-high shelves of military equipment at the Australian War Memorial’s Treloar Technology Centre, 2012
What do I mean by ‘zhush‘? Simply, the “other stuff”: uniforms and boots, personal load-bearing gear, helmets, gas masks, tools, computers, desks, engineering vehicles…in short, virtually everything you could find in all of an office complex, a clothing outlet, and a construction company, you will find in the organizational table of a light infantry or military police battalion.
The problem for supply officers around the world, especially those serving in armies below the top tier, is how to get at that gear and equipment on a razor-thin budget. Psychologically speaking, it is humiliating for a formally-organized armed force – which relies on the concepts of duty, honor and pride to function reliably and effectively – to accept hand-me-downs from wealthier states, except in the most dire of circumstances; the Free French and other remnants of European forces overrun by Nazi Germany that escaped to Britain after the evacuation at Dunkirk, France, in 1940 come to mind. At the same time, there may well be no real domestic industrial base for an army to draw upon in a small country. Doubly damaging for a small state’s force, is the idea of buying second-, third- or even fourth-hand surplus, and having to mark over the originating nation’s identifying marks from the gear.
A Bolivian soldier armed with a Belgian-designed 7.62 FN FAL rifle, wearing an OG-107 uniform from the United States
For decades, this was the conundrum – small, poorly funded armies had to either swallow their pride and accept handouts, or look like a street gang until either domestic production came online, or money was let from their (often horrifyingly corrupt) governments to contract out production to foreign companies to produce basic equipment to their specifications.
Globalization and the rise of the Internet, however, have radically revolutionized the small-state military supply problem…and leading that charge is the Chinese clearinghouse known as the AlibabaGroup (although Vietnamese competition is coming on strong).
While shopping sites such as Amazon cater to the individual buyer, sites like Alibaba have a far more extensive wholesale section, where buyers can take advantage of the mass production capacities of several dozen Chinese companies, giving them access to at least “good enough” military equipment, as well as expendable supplies and tools that would have been prohibitively expensive for a small army to purchase before about 1999.
The only items not available via Alibaba and other suppliers are actual firearms and larger military weapons, ammunition, explosives and drugs; however, those items are not overly difficultto get with an End User Certificate, even for non-state actors. While a disadvantage for the military buyer, the ability to equip everything else more than makes up for the lack of military-grade weapons on the site.
Unidentified rebel fighters during the Second Liberian Civil War, c.2004
This is an advantage that cannot be overstated. While a rifle, three magazines, a cheap water bottle and a box of breakfast cereal might seem like a workable equipping plan for supplying and army, especially if that force is bereft of money, it is most definitely not. The ability to equip a relatively capable military force for comparative peanuts leaves no excuses for anyone with pretensions of logistical competence – if you have access to the internet and a credit card, there is no excuse for sticking with the abysmal state of the past.
This is a bizarre tale. It is the story of two men, four events, and how the world – after three-quarters of a century – has come to the brink of total war, again…a war that threatens the fabric of civilization, itself.
Qutb was born in rural Egypt, in 1906. By any rational measure, Qutb should have been an inspiring and moving success story. Deeply religious, Qutb held a burning passion for education, yet throughout his life, firmly held that religious studies should be taught only in conjunction with modern, secular studies. In a time where few of his neighbors could afford to send their children to school, Qutb slowly and painfully built up a large – for his village – library of twenty-five books, and forced his way through his own shyness to try and teach other village children (boys and girls, alike) what he had learned.
Egyptian village of Keneh, c.1918. CCA/2.5
This passionate thirst for knowledge and education eventually bore fruit, and Qutb became a teacher, working for the Ministry of Public Instruction, in 1933. Six years later, he took a minor post with the Ministry of Education, itself. Qutb soon became an author in his own right, publishing several novels, and helped several other authors launch their own careers, including that of noted novelist Naguib Mahfouz. Qutb’s first major theoretical work of religious social criticism, Al-‘adala al-Ijtima’iyya fi-l-Islam (“Social Justice in Islam”), was published in 1949.
In 1948, the Ministry of Education sent Qutb to the United States, to study the American educational system. The event changed Qutb’s life.
“Culture shock” is not a good description of Qutb’s reaction to the late-1940’s United States — “horror” would probably be more accurate.
Sodom and Gomorrah afire by Jacob de Wet II, 1680. Public Domain.
While Egypt was Westernizing slowly, Qutb was – to use the Americanism – “a real square”: women had their place (well-treated, but very much under the care of their husbands and fathers) but he also found Americans unhealthily devoted to the most inane things: devotion to materialism paled in Qutb’s mind, to the American obsessions with lawn maintenance and jazz music; the open racism prevalent at the time likely didn’t help. It would not be a stretch to say that Qutb viewed the United States as something in the same category as the Biblical Sodom and Gomorrah, or Babylon. The experience bred in him a horror and hatred of Western culture, and began his slide towards what became Radical Islam.
Upon his return from the United States, Qutb would publish his experiences in “The America That I Have Seen.” He resigned his post at the Education Ministry, and joined the Muslim Brotherhood, swiftly rising through its ranks, and quickly became one of its leading intellectual lights.
Qutb and the Muslim Brotherhood initially welcomed Gamal Abdel Nasser‘s coup d’état against the Egyptian monarchy in 1952, but quickly broke with him when it became obvious that Nasser had no intention of establishing an Islamic state in Egypt. There followed a predictable pattern of plots, prison, torture and radicalization, followed by execution by hanging, in 1966, that made Qutb into a martyr.
However, Qutb’s later, apocalyptic writings – from a brief period of freedom before his final arrest – have lived on, and have come to form the coals of the fire of modern radical Islamic thought.
Anatoly Golitsyn was an officer, specifically a Major, in the KGB, the Soviet Union’s dreaded intelligence service of the Soviet Union. In 1961, Golitsyn defected with his wife and daughter from Helsinki, Finland, and was spirited to the United States, where he was interviewed at length by the CIA. His defection caused an immediate shock wave within the KGB, generating a series of cables to Soviet embassies around the world, with instructions on how to mitigate the possible damage from his defection.
Golitsyn has always had a controversial reputation in the intelligence community. On the one hand, the Britishgeneral, SirJohn Hackett, at one time the commander of the British Army of the Rhine, described Golitsyn as the most valuable defector to have ever reached the West; on the other hand, the official historian of Britain’s MI5 intelligence service described his assessments as questionable, even while acknowledging that his raw intelligence was solid.
The primary reason for this dichotomy was a remarkable claim that Golitsyn made during his debriefings, where he claimed the existence of a long range plan, begun by “elements” within the KGB, to undermine the Western states, specifically the United States, a a plan which would result in an ultimate victory for worldwide Soviet Communism. This plan would revolve around a “seeming” Soviet and Communist collapse on a worldwide scale, that would lull the West into apathy, while allowing the Communist leading states of Russia and the People’s Republic of China to rebuild themselves, bringing about a Communist victory when the West collapsed under the strain. Golitsyn revealed this idea publicly in his 1984 book, New Lies For Old, and later, in 1995’s The Perestroika Deception.
Vladimir Putin (President of Russia), 2018. Public Domain, CCA/4.0
As remarkable as this story was, sounding as it does like the plot of a Robert Ludlum novel, historian Mark Riebling claimed in his book Wedge – The Secret War between the FBI and CIA (Knopf, 1994) that of 194 predictions in New Lies For Old, some 139 had been proven true by 1993, nine were clearly wrong, and the remaining 46 were ‘not soon falsifiable’.
One part of this complicated plot was the infiltration and undermining of Western institutions, such as the Catholic Church, and centers of higher learning. As was proven repeatedly throughout the Soviet Era, idealistic – but impressionable – young people could be turned into rabid Communists by having “agents of influence” prey on their inherent good natures, by convincing them that Marxist-Leninist thinking was the best – and only – way to improve the lives of the downtrodden. This process was outlined in 1954, in the exposé “School of Darkness: The Record of a Life and of a Conflict Between Two Faiths“, by Dr. Bella V. Dodd, at one time a leader of the Communist Party of America (CPUSA). The specific mechanism used in this undermining process is a concept called “strategical diversion“, as outlined to the public by another KGB defector, Yuri Bezmenov, a process which seeks to alter the perception of reality through what we would now term “information overload“.
KGB defector Yuri Bezmenov’s warning to America (1984) (Full interview HERE)
One clear result of this infiltration is the marked reluctance of Western academia to discuss the murderous nature of the Soviet state, not simply under the reign of Josef Stalin, but continuing all the way through the supposed collapse of the Soviet state itself, even while highlighting foibles of western countries that pale in comparison to the wholesale slaughter inflicted by the Communist world.
Another obvious aspect of this plan was the undermining of US influence and image within the Third World. This brings us to the four events of this analysis.
The “Baker” explosion, part of Operation Crossroads, a nuclear weapon test by the United States military at Bikini Atoll, Micronesia, 1946. DoD Photo. Public Domain.
Unlike what many people may be thinking at this point, the list of events does not begin with Vietnam. In the 1950’s and 60’s, the United States as seen as near-invincible. Although the Korean War had ended in a stalemate, and the US and USSR were engaged in tit-for-tat one-upsmanship around the world, no one – least of all the Soviet Union – seriously considered that war at any realistic level with the USA was even remotely winnable. That said, as the 1960’s wore on, it became apparent to anyone paying attention that the United States was stumbling. This was to be expected: no country is ever going to have it all go their way, all the time, and the United States was not immune, despite a c.150-year track record of winning, both internally and externally. No, the triggers in this story begin in a very different place:
From this start, there would be a swift series of seemingly unconnected blows over the following twenty-four months, that would combine to thoroughly undermine the West, and raise the specter of world war, once again, albeit of a very different type…before the old ways appeared to have returned.
Iran – ancient Persia – had spent the 20th Century unevenly trying to Westernize itself. But, the road was rocky. The ruling Qajar Dynasty was overthrown in 1925 by army office Reza Pahlavi, who soon made himself Shah at bayonet-point, and founded the House of Pahlavi. However, endemic corruption, increasing paranoia and very poor choices in foreign policy in the run-up to World War 2 led to the invasion of Iran by British and Soviet forces in 1941. Reza I was deposed, and his young son, Reza II, was installed as a puppet. As the United States’ “Lend-Lease” policy began to shift into high gear, Iran became a vital avenue of supply to a beleaguered Soviet Union.
Official portrait of Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, 1973. Public Domain.
Following World War 2, Reza II worked to repair his house’s reputation, and began a program of modernization. However, the Soviet penetration of Iran had immeasurably strengthened the Tudeh Party, the Iranian Communist Party. This group helped to foment the unrest of 1952-53, which ultimately resulted in the United States overthrowing a democratically-elected government, in favor of an autocratic monarchy.
In the aftermath of Operation Ajax, Reza II worked hard to modernize and and Westernize Iran. Ultimately, the Shah turned into Iran into a bastion of Western military power directly abutting the Soviet Union’s border.
In doing so, he came into conflict with hardline Shi’ite clerics, ultimately led by the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. However, it is increasingly apparent that the Tudeh Party began infiltrating the Shi’ite religious establishment in Iran, in a manner similar to that used in the United States.
Ayatollah Khomeini returns to Iran after 14 years exile on February 1, 1979. Photo by Sajed.ir
Exiled to Turkey in 1965 (where he stayed in the home of a Colonel in Turkish military intelligence), Khomeini moved to the Shia holy city of Najaf, Iraq, where he would remain until October of 1978, when he was expelled on the direct orders of Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein. Khomeini had by then assumed the leadership of anti-Shah sentiment in Iran, following the death “under mysterious circumstances” of the previous acknowledged leader, the revolutionary sociologist and historian Dr. Ali Shariati in a Southampton hospital in 1977.
Iran had become increasingly unstable in the preceding five years, so much so that the Shah – ill with terminal cancer – was completely unable to deal with the unrest. As well, the United States appeared utterly incapable of aiding one of its most important allies in the Middle East. With Khomeini’s expulsion from Iraq, the situation escalated, until the Shah and his family “went on vacation” at the end of January, 1979. Khomeini returned in triumph on the first of February, and officially declared the end of the monarchy and the creation of an “Islamic republic” on the eleventh. The increasingly downward spiral within Iran led directly to an open break with the United States, with the seizure of the US embassy on November 4th.
The appearance of helplessness in its inability to save what appeared to be one of its strongest allies severely – possibly irreparably – damaged the image of the United States as a strong bulwark of democracy in the world. Abandoning South Vietnam to its fate after a bruising, 15-year long war could be written off as a stumble. Likewise, the fall of the Somoza regime in Nicaragua could be viewed as inevitable. But, like the shattering of the public perception of the character of the Vietnam War following the release of the so-called “Pentagon Papers“, the fall of the Shah and the radicalization of Iran came as a brutal shock to many in the West, but especially to many in America. Indeed, the fall of the Shah was the prime reason behind the complete defeat of of President Jimmy Carter’sreelection bid.
But then, a curious thing happened.
Nearly forgotten by the Western public, some two weeks after the seizure of the US embassy in Tehran, a group of men stormed the Grand Mosque in Mecca, Saudi Arabia, on November 20, 1979.
Saudi soldiers wearing gas masks, and armed with G3 battle rifles, fight their way into the Qaboo Underground beneath the Grand Mosque of Mecca, 1979. Public Domain, per “Saudi Arabian Law Royal Decree No: M/41”
The bloody, two-week long siege of the Grand Mosque – Islam’s holiest shrine – seriously undermined the ruling House of Saud, in ways not fully understood at the time. However, within the Islamic world, the stamping out of a “false Mahdi“, and the frantic attempts to blame the Khomeini regime for the attack backfired, as Khomeini (and the KGB) swiftly capitalized on the attack by blaming it on the United States. The resulting uproar caused demonstrations and riots throughout the Muslim world, and led to the destruction by mobs of the US embassies in Libya and Pakistan.
Although the militants were rooted out, and the leader and 67 of his surviving men were beheaded for the seizure, the real aftermath was that the Saudi monarchy was forced to yield more and more authority to the country’s conservative Ulama.
But, there is one final act to this blood-soaked play: The Iran-Iraq War.
An aerial view of the Iranian frigate IS Sahand (74) burning on 18 April 1988, after being attacked by aircraft of U.S. Navy Aircraft Carrier USS Enterprise (CVN-65), during Operation Praying Mantis. Photo by US Navy. Public Domain.
…To review, we have a sequence of four events, spanning some twenty-four months – three of the events happening in the space of a mere eight weeks – that are clearly related to, and feed off of each other, yet which have no real reason to exist separately:
The implosion of the Pahlavi regime, while perhaps inevitable, was noticeably accelerated by the expulsion of Khomeini from Iraq by Saddam Hussein, a known and acknowledged ally of the Soviet state. That implosion and collapse led, swiftly and directly, to the imposition of a brutal regime almost irretrievably hostile to the United States, a regime certainly heavily infiltrated by the Iranian Communist Party.
While no hard evidence exists pointing to Soviet or Iranian Revolutionary involvement with the seizure of the Grand Mosque, both Iranian and KGB sources were surprisingly swift to put out believable stories blaming the United States for a very unique and specific event…which, in the KGB’s case, is even stranger, given what would happen eight weeks after the Grand Mosque was retaken by Saudi forces.
The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan was an act of blinding insanity: it critically damaged the Soviet Union’s image throughout the Muslim world, and virtually guaranteed a steady stream of volunteers to battle “godless Communist dogs” — America might be the “Great Satan“, as Khomeini continually railed, but they were at least nominally Christian, and thus, “People of the Book“. Likewise, there could be no rational view of the invasion by the Western powers as anything but a direct threat to Pakistan, another US ally in upheaval, already facing the regional titan of India – then, a some-time ally of the Soviets – and now facing the might of the Soviet Union hard against their northern border. There was no scenario in which the US could not respond as they ultimately did, arming and training the Afghan Mujaheddin…and waiting in the wings, were the students of Sayyid Qutb. Qutb’s final, apocalyptic tracts, written after the duress of imprisonment and torture, had nowhere to go, and were withering on their poisoned vine…until saved by the revolutionary fervor of an “honest holy war,” against an avowed enemy of all religion.
Some nine months later, Saddam Hussein invaded Iran. While much has been made of Soviet attempts at courting both sides, in reality the long, bloody war worked doubly in the Soviets’ favor: Revolutionary Iran was bled white, losing nearly an entire generation of its young men in the fighting, while its attempts to spread its revolution were severely curtailed with the wrecking of its economy and the utter destruction of its navy. Meanwhile, Saddam’s Iraq was badly weakened, and in his weakened state, he could be counted on to act foolishly, out of desperation, when his neighbors refused to give him leeway with Iraq’s debts incurred fighting revolutionary Iran.
USAF aircraft of the 4th Fighter Wing (F-16, F-15C and F-15E) fly over Kuwaiti oil fires, set by the retreating Iraqi army during Operation Desert Storm in 1991. USAF Photo. Public Domain.
And all the while, the serpent birthed by the United States’ undermining of the Soviets in Afghanistan – Al Qaeda – grew and developed like the cancer that it is, ultimately rising on September 11th, 2001, to strike directly at the heart of the United States, sparking what has become a multi-decade war, rooted in the extremist ideals of “offensive jihad” of Sayyid Qutb…
…Now, there is no reason to connect any of these disparate events – in the absence of Golitsyn’s conspiracy plan. If Golitsyn was wrong, then the events of the twenty-four month period of October 1978 to September 1980 are simply happenstance, nothing more than the Fickle Finger of Fate at work.
But — if Golitsyn is correct, the implications are dire.
This is not simply a matter of ironmongery; buying more “stuff” is not the problem. The United States military lacks the manpower – and has lacked it for almost two decades – and the training to face either former KGB officer Vladimir Putin’s Russia or Xi Jinping’sChina. This is because of a conscious decision to not fully mobilize the nation to fight in the War on Terror. As well, the nature of the conflict in the Middle East that the US fought for nearly twenty years has led to an atrophying of capability to fight “main force” opponents, which Russia – and increasingly China – most certainly are…and, given fundamental – and objectively disastrous – policy changes just before 9/11, that is unlikely to change in the near-term.
The outlook for political leadership within the United States is bleak. With a bitterly divided electorate, trust in government leadership is at an all-time low. The political structure of the United States seems pathologically devoted to attacking everyone and everything at home, instead of watching the borders, and what lays beyond.
While that was a strategy that may have worked twenty-five years ago, it will not work now.
President Donald J. Trump was clearly a lightning rod of controversy for the course of his Presidency. It is clear that open mainstream media bias contributed to a negative public perception of him. In the aftermath of a questionable election, it is unclear whether the majority of the American people can be motivated to care enough to recall that national unity sometimes requires disciplined collective action, much less that disagreements do not need to be fundamental.
What is abundantly clear, however, is that the current incarnation of the Democrat Party is fundamentally incapable of dealing with the kaleidoscope of problems the nation faces, because their entire political existence is predicated on wooing an increasingly shrinking minority, while desperately trying to maintain control of the narrative via mediums that are rapidly becoming irrelevant.
While it may sound alarmist, there is no fallback position, now – if the United States is unable to “get its act together”, there is nowhere to fall back to. If there is no effective response to the rise of Russian and Chinese aggression, the world will go to a very dark place — and will stay there for a very, very long time.
The Freedomist — Keeping Watch, So You Don’t Have To
In the wake of more violence by perpetrators who happen to use firearms this week, we are once again witness to strident calls to restrict the access to firearms by certain segments of the population, despite there being ever-less appetite for such actions, because most Americans now realize the fallacies and dangers of such calls for restrictions – because they worked so well before – not least, because we witnessed the spectacle, not two months ago, of the Ukrainian government frantically offering to almost literally throw military weapons of all types to a civilian population – few if any, of whom had any prior military experience or training – in preparation to receive a military invasion by a neighboring power that was literally “at the gates”, as it were…no word on how that is working out.
Battles are fought all the time, on every continent, between all kinds of opponents. While it is true that the victors write the history, sometimes, the victors shoot themselves in the foot.
Today is no different.
The Minute Man, a statue by Daniel Chester French erected in 1875 in Concord, Massachusetts; Source: US National Parks Service; Public Domain
On April 19, 1775, a battle was fought outside the city of Boston, Massachusetts. In the aftermath of that battle, a heroic – even Homeric – myth was created, a kind of ‘American Iliad‘, which sought to define a nation and how it fought its wars.
The effects of this myth have killed innumerable American soldiers since it took hold, and has caused a potentially fatal misunderstanding of military force within the United States, a misunderstanding that drives everything from firearms design to national military fiscal policy, to casualty rates and has called into question not only the very idea of taxation itself, but of military training, as a concept. It is a myth that needs to be staked to the ground, and its head struck off.
The myth goes something like this:
“The arrogant, degenerate, and authoritarian British foolishly tried to clamp a tax on their American Colonies without giving them a say in the matter. When the Americans protested, the British tried to throw their weight around — at which point, the rugged, sturdy American farmers “grabbed thar shootin’ ayhrons”, and rose in righteous fury to destroy the vaunted professional army of the British Empire in detail…”
…Which would make for a really great story.
The only problem is that it is almost entirely bogus.
The taxation issue aside – and the British, to be honest, weren’t being unreasonable in any way, about it – here is what actually happened:
On the British side, as tensions rose in Boston, the Crown began to send in more troops. These troops had the cache of “the Regulars” behind their name…the problem being, the vast majority of them were raw, in the extreme. Most had never heard a shot fired in anger, and most of the units involved had been on quiet garrison duty for decades.
In contrast, as much as 40% of the Colonial militia in the region around Boston were not simply veterans, but combat veterans, of the French and Indian War (part of the Seven Years War, for our European readers). As well, most of the senior American militia officers, while not having served as long as their British counterparts, had served all of their time during “active combat operations“, as we would say now.
When it became clear, in 1774, that military action was likely, the Patriot hard-core staged a political takeover of the Massachusetts Militia structure – largely a joke at that point – and began training in earnest and assembling supplies — while lots of historians like to discuss the activities of the Committees of Correspondence, or the Committees of Safety, not many tend to delve too deeply into the actions of the ad hoc Committees of Supply…’logistics‘ are boring drudgery after all.
Right?
General Thomas Gage; oil on canvas; Author:John Singleton Copley (1738-1815), 1788; Source: Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection; CC0/1.0
General Thomas Gage – a very sharp (by the standards of the time) and well respected leader by all sides – tried to carry out his government’s orders, and 1774 became a kind of ‘spy war’, as British and Colonial intelligence teams sparred. (The Founding Father’s were hell on wheels when it came to intelligence operations, but that’s another article, entirely.) There were several small armed confrontations prior to the battle, and every one of them revolved around weapons and/or ammunition stockpiled by the Committees of Supply.
These raids, in fact, convinced the Massachusetts Patriot leadership to concentrate a large portion of their supplies at Concord – over 20 miles from Boston – to (hopefully) place them beyond the easy reach of the British garrison. Very quickly, however, Gage’s intelligence teams located the cache. Gage – who, knowing America and Americans very well, having both an American wife and nearly 20 years of service in America – had tried to take a diplomatic track to defuse the crisis. For his efforts trying to play peacemaker, he learned that he was about to be replaced (“aided and advised” was the term used) by three senior generals, so he fatefully decided to launch a swift raid to try and polish up his image, before he had to testify before Parliament.
Gage selected for the raid the British Army of the time’s equivalent to “special operations forces” – his garrison’s grenadier and light infantry companies; as an afterthought, he detailed his Third Brigade of ‘regular’ troops to act as a reserve force.
By the standards of the time, Gage’s plan was difficult, but it should have worked with little trouble. As it happened, however, Colonial intelligence was on the ball, found out about the details of the raid, and got the alarm out when the raid force began moving to their boats.
By the time the raid force marched into Lexington, the town militia company had assembled, then partially dispersed, to wait for events to develop. The details of Lexington are very well known: a tired, wet, jumpy British force; a confused command structure; and a random shot at the wrong moment, all combined into “the Shot Heard Round the World”…
Cropped version of “The battle of Lexington, April 19th. 1775. Plate I.” In: “The Doolittle engravings of the battles of Lexington and Concord in 1775.”; Date: 1775 Source: New York Public Library Collection Guide: Picturing America, 1497-1899; Author: Amos Doolittle (engraver), Ralph Earl; Public Domain
…Meanwhile, the Colonials had not been idle.
After their political coup to gain control over the militia, the Colonials – in addition to assembling a large amount of supplies – had been training relentlessly, while their senior leadership sorted themselves into a command structure with a speed only seen with veteran officers who have no time for posturing.
The numbers (Galvin) are staggering — nearly twenty-two thousand militiamen were available for combat on April 18th. Perhaps 40% of these troops could be termed “Minutemen“, available to respond to an alarm “at a minute’s notice“, at least in theory. In practice, the Minutemen were usually in the forefront of Colonial action.
LtCol Francis Smith, leader of the British forces at the Battles of Lexington and Concord; 1764; Artist: Francis Cotes (1726–1770); oil on canvas; Collection: National Army Museum (national-army-museum.ac.uk); Public DomainPortrait of Paul Revere, 1768; Artist: John Singleton Copley (1738-1815); oil on canvas; Public Domain
As the well-behaved British troops’ destruction of what supplies they could find spurred the militia units assembled on Punkatasset Hill to march into history at the North Bridge, thinking that the British were burning Concord town, other regiments – summoned by the alarm riders Dawes, Prescott and Revere – were marching down the twisting road network towards the Boston Road. Because of the poor nature of the roads, the Militia units to the northeast of the fighting actually had further to travel than other units to the west, near Worchester.
Fighting began in earnest as the seven hundred or so British troops were swiftly outnumbered by the continually-massing militia forces, as they tried to make an orderly retreat from Concord down the tiny, twisting, sunken road between the two villages. By the time the task force reached Lexington, they were effectively finished as a fighting force; had Hugh, Lord Percy’s 3rd Brigade (summoned by LtCol Smith, the raid force commander, earlier in the morning) not been anchored on Lexington Green, awaiting the raid force, they would have been destroyed in detail.
As a result, after the British column rested and reorganized momentarily in Lexington under the artillery of the 3rd Brigade, they set out for Boston. Along the way, the leading elements of multiple Militia regiments struck the British column with as much force as they could; Brigadier General Hugh, 5th Earl Percy, wisely kept his column moving as quickly as he was able. As the Militia companies fired on the British, and the column continued its retreat, the remainder of the arriving regiments piled into the pursuing Militia column that snaked back along what is now called “Battle Road”.
In the end, of course, the battered, exhausted British column successfully retreated into Boston, while the pursuing Militia regiments fed in around the city to establish siege lines, beginning the American War of Independence…
…Which brings us to — “What’s the point of this article?”
The foregoing should demonstrate the obvious: that the Colonial Militia could never have fought the battle it did on the 19th of April without spending significant time training relentlessly and assembling a real supply base well beforehand — a supply base, incidentally, that shaped the entire course of the battle.
This leads us to several lessons about the “spontaneous uprising of disgruntled farmers”:
Training works. Disorganized rabble goes to war in droves – and dies in droves. Although they might win – will they have a viable population afterwards?
Supplies are vital. Without them, the enemy likely won’t go after you immediately…of course, you can’t go after them, either. For the modern “Patriot” militia in the US, this means that you need to stop being selfish and greedy, and start buying supplies for a unit, with the full knowledge that you are going to give all of that stuff away early, on.
Have a plan. Even if it’s a bad plan, that’s better than no plan at all.
Learn about “things military”. The myth of the “Armed, Righteous Farmer” (or “Worker”, take note) translates both to people feeling that they do not need to know much about “military stuff”, but also – dangerously – that it can’t be overly complicated. This, in turn, usually prevents people from asking things like, “Why are we spending US$148million for an airplane that doesn’t have an engine?” See: A, B & C
“Professionals’ are predictable, but the world is full of amateurs.”
Truer words have never been spoken.
There is a dangerous – and frankly, bizarre – notion that has been creeping into the Western psyche for the last twenty or so years. This particular pearl of twisted, acrobatic logic goes something like this:
Standing armies are dangerous to Liberty, are ridiculously expensive, encourage “foreign adventures”, and really aren’t all that capable, when it comes to winning wars. After all, that was the view of America’s Founding Fathers, and they were generally right, more than they were wrong, so this must be the case. Therefore, we just need to forget about standing forces, and rely on Citizen militias, like in the early days of the American and French republics – after all, the Swiss and the Israeli armies are all or mostly militias, and they do just fine…
…Now, this argument is rightly laughed at openly by anyone with anything more than the most cursory knowledge of military history or science — but the problem in both the United States, and increasingly in the other Western powers, is that few people study either subject. Indeed, it can be argued that the study of these subjects by anyone outside the professional military establishment is actively discouraged, with many institutions of higher learning being openly hostile to the very idea of devoting resources to such classes.
As a result, what had been the occasional comedic relief and internet meme fodder provided by certain political figures breathlessly ranting about the evils of bayonet lugs, “magazine bullet clips“, and “shoulder things that go up” has now taken on a far more serious dimension, as people who should know better are increasingly making dangerous attempts to use badly flawed historical references or simple dismissals and assumptions to prove their case.
While it is clear that armies can be dangerous liabilities to their home countries, as of the earlyearly-2000’s, few states in the world can be accurately described as being “military dictatorships”. Nor has this been the case for many years. However, given the history of the past hundred years, a tyranny enforced at bayonet-point is a valid fear.
The willful disregard of history, technology, economics, logic and psychology in certain quarters, especially in hyper-unstable times such as these is a direct result, in most Western countries, of two or more decades of confused missions, “mission creep“, and shocking levels of mismanagement in defense expenditures and policies; the United States is unique only in the scale of its own issues.
This attitude is typified – to cite just one example – among adherents of former US Congressman Ron Paul (R-TX), who infamously suggested (supposedly as a joke) pursuing every enemy from Osama bin Laden to Somali pirates using mercenaries operating under Congressionally-issued “Letters of Marque” — in apparent ignorance of how such documents worked in the past, what the ramifications (legally, as well as internationally) could be, nor even the simple fact that there is painfully little incentive for anyone to pursue or attack such targets.
But that sidesteps the real issue, that being where these prospective privateers got their training and equipment in the first place…but that is a digression from the point.
To grasp this problem in full bloom, this author had it explained to him by a person, via Facebook (with, apparently, a completely straight face) that standing armies – and presumably, their training – were pointless, because all that training and equipment failed to prevent the slaughter at Omaha Beach, on D-Day, and that likewise, all the training and equipment in the world failed the US Army Rangers in Mogadishu, as well as the lack of victory in both Afghanistan and Iraq, and now in Syria, to say nothing of Vietnam…
…It is truly difficult to attempt to argue at such a level of “un-knowledge” (hooray for adding to the English language?).
To demonstrate this problem, let us engage in a thought experiment.
I propose a situation where two thousand people are assembled in a parking lot. We will divide them into two equal groups. These two thousand people are uniformly aged 18 – 25; are 90% male/10% female; are all in what could be generally regarded as “good physical condition“; and finally, all of whom are capable of reading to at least the eighth grade level.
These two units together, equal the manpower of two slightly large light infantry battalions. We will train each battalion for one year, at the end of which, they will fight. Battalion A will be trained the way citizen militia aficionados think they should be trained. Battalion B will receive a more conventional training regimen. Both battalions will have access to the exact same weapons and equipment.
Both battalions will be provided with teams of experienced instructors; but here is the first difference: Battalion A’s instructors will be a grab bag of prior service veterans from various armed forces, while Battalion B’s instructors will be a dedicated and experienced team of professional soldiers, working from a minutely planned schedule. (We’ll leave aside how Battalion A’s instructors actually got their training, for the moment.)
Neither group of instructors will accompany their battalions into the coming fight in a year’s time.
How will this play out? We’ll begin with Battalion A.
Firstly, Battalion A’s troops will have to purchase their equipment from their own pockets. This will significantly degrade their individual supply situation, because they are from a cross-section of the economic spectrum. Modern military equipment is expensive — it takes roughly US$3,000, as of 2016, to equip one person as a light infantry soldier with the most basic level of gear.
This also impacts their weapons: modern crew-served weapons (machine guns and mortars) are significantly expensive; the US military currently pays c.$25,000 for every 81mm mortar it buys – and there are anywhere from four to eight in an infantry battalion. Machine guns – from M249 SAWs to M2HB .50’s – are no cheaper. And those prices are only for the weapons themselves – ammunition not included. Battalion A might be able to pass a collection hat, but they won’t get more than a few military-grade automatic weapons. On top of this, Battalion A must purchase their own ammunition, for both training and combat.
Then, we get to training.
Battalion A’s recruits are completely untrained. Their instructors all have experience, but both they and their recruits — being unpaid — all have day jobs. This means that they will train when they can, usually between two and four days each month. That applies to both instructors and students. As a result, only fifty to sixty percent of the unit will be training at any given time, because that is all that will likely be able to show up.
As well, Battalion A will need to rely on charity to find places to train, where they can actually learn how to maneuver around in the field. Also, Battalion A must rely on their private vehicles for both training and combat – $25,000 for a mortar is a lot of money, but that’s only half of what a decent pickup truck capable of functioning as a “technical” costs, new.
Actual, “military-grade” vehicles are almost certainly out of Battalion A’s reach.
Because of the loose structure of the unit, the troops will choose their own officers and NCOs – sometimes, they will pick competent people, most times…not.
Meanwhile…..
Soldiers in a Niger army unit stand in formation while a dignitary visits their outpost during Operation Desert Shield. The men are armed with M-14 rifles; Date: 14 May 1992; Author: TECH. SGT. H. H. DEFFNER; Public Domain
Over at Battalion B, things are radically different.
Battalion B’s instructors started by herding them all aboard buses. They then trucked them to a large, remote base in the countryside. There, they began a punishing, 12-week long training cycle, learning as much of the basics of soldiering – which is far more than simply pulling a trigger – as they can. Battalion B will probably wash out 10-15% of their recruits during this period, mainly because a certain percentage of the population simply doesn’t mesh well with that kind of environment.
At the end of this 12 week cycle, the instructors give the troops a week off, to blow off steam. When they return, they begin a three week long advanced infantry course, where they fine tune the very basic infantry training they were given earlier.
This is also where the instructors begin identifying those with real leadership potential — with only a year to get ready, there is no time for a service academy, nor even full-length officer or NCO training schools. The leaders the instructors choose will be cracking eighteen hour days, while their troops will be running sixteen.
British Army Lt. Col. Alistair Aitken, commanding officer, Combined Forces Lashkar Gah; Date: 16 July 2011; Source: http://www.defenseimagery.mil/imageRetrieve.action?guid=d27d4312dd0f5f1534d9ac33ad07a4b5ff92c737&t=2; Author: Cpl. Adam Leyendecker; Public domain photograph from defenseimagery.mil.
After this, the recruits will enter a grueling, four month long training cycle, to learn the ins and outs of specific job fields. Finally, there will be four months of field maneuvers, trying lock down the specifics of complex operations, before going up against Battalion A…
So — how will our hypothetical battle play out?
A lot, obviously, depends on the mission of each unit: realistic orders and goals from the unit’s respective higher authorities will have an enormous impact on their actions.
But in most plausible scenarios, even if Battalion B performs badly, Battalion A is going to get used like a floor mop: if they’re lucky, perhaps sixty percent of their force will even show up. Those troops will have little coordination, as not everyone will have radios. Night fighting will be problematic, at best, since few of Battalion A’s people could afford night vision equipment. Battalion A’s casualty recovery and evacuation processes will haphazard to non-existent, exacerbated by many of its people not being able to afford even minimal body armor or basic medical gear.
In contrast, Battalion B – showing up with everyone who had not washed out of training – will likely be advancing rapidly, coordinating the movements of its subordinate units via radio. While many of its troops will be hit, their injuries will be greatly ameliorated by having everyone in body armor, and prompt medical processes. Some of Battalion A’s squad elements might have some level of success (and, being fair, possibly spectacular success), but nowhere near enough to affect the outcome: Battalion A gets creamed, ninety-nine times out of a hundred…
Battalion B was equipped, trained, housed and paid by a government that took in enough money to make this happen. Just how much money are we talking about?
Conservatively speaking, somewhere in the neighborhood of $50-100 million dollars for the battalion…and that’s running on an extremely tight budget.
As of 2007, it cost the United States Marine Corps approximately $52,000 to “basically train” a single recruit over an eighty-six day training cycle. Add in an additional nine months of training, plus meals and graduated pay for troops and instructors, as well as replacing expended training materials, and you can easily multiply that by six — in excess of $300,000, per person…
…On top of the $50-100 million for the minimal amounts of arms, vehicles, equipment and expendable items a battalion would need to enter combat with.
Troops buying their own gear, and providing their own training, simply doesn’t work for any but the most basic of military functions, and hasn’t, since at least the year 1900.
Now, a charge of bias could be leveled, here, in that the author – a product of, and firm believer in, standing professional forces, supplemented by properly trained and equipped citizen militias – deliberately weighted the results of this hypothetical battle in favor of the big-government supported force. That is a valid concern, which I will now address.
When the “small government/citizen militia” advocates seriously suggest measures like what produced Battalion A, they invariably cherry-pick data, and cite examples well out of context to prove their points. Favorite examples include the US Army Rangers’ disaster in Mogadishu, and the examples of the Swiss and Israeli use of largely Citizen militia forces.
What they avoid mentioning are things like the lopsided numbers (90-odd Rangers vs c.3,000 Somali militia, with the Rangers inflicting at least 500 casualties, or more), as well as the fact that the Swiss and Israeli economies both stop dead if any large-scale call-up occurs. As well, the fact that both nations employ compulsory service for most of their citizens, in addition to maintaining comparatively large standing bodies of troops, is rarely mentioned.
Even in the United States, the various State National Guards do not operate this way: their recruits attend Regular Army basic training and schools, just like Regular Army recruits — although there may be long delays between schools.
In point of fact, no one outside of Third or Fourth World tribal militias even attempt to train forces using the weekend method…
…Because, again, it just doesn’t work against any serious opponent.
The point must be driven home, that this dangerous set of beliefs is not merely a beer and pretzel thought experiment, nor a set of hypotheticals discussed over gallons of coffee in a cafe.
Gary Hart was wrong to promote it in 1998, Ron Paul was wrong to imply it, and their adherents are wrong to promote it, today.
The Universe is not static; things change. You adapt the the changes or you get run over.
We’ve all seen them — whether picturesque castles, grim fortresses, chaotic and open firebases, or grimy underground tunnel warrens — most people know a “fort” when they see it. Most people, however, also assume that such things are passe, obsolete ideas long overcome by technology.
But – are fortresses obsolete?
From mankind’s earliest days of social interaction, we have been building defensive structures. At first, defense against the weather – mainly, the rain and the cold – was the major concern, mostly because caves could be hard to come by. Over time, however, it became readily apparent that sturdier defenses were needed, to protect us from large predators. Eventually, though, someone realized that improving those structures made it difficult for the raiding party from the next valley to steal all the women and goats. Thus, the first real walls were built…causing, consequently, the first arms race.
As time went on, attackers began figuring out how to get over, under, around or through walls. In response, walls got taller and thicker, and foundations sank deeper into the ground. Covered parapets began to appear. Then, someone built a tower, and someone else extended walls away from it…
This spiral continued for unknown millennia, until – in Western Europe, at least – the early 14th Century. Then, black powder appeared in concert with cannon, and with increasing speed, castles that had withstood multiple sieges began falling, as their inflexible stone battlements were blown apart by stone – followed by iron – shot.
Martello Tower, Shenick Island, County Dublin, Ireland (Source: Pixabay)
It took until the middle of the 17th Century before one man brought fortifications back from obscurity: Vauban.
Sebastien le Prestre de Vauban (1633-1707), Maréchal de France; Artist: Charles-Philippe Larivière (1798–1876)
Starting with the basis of the “trace italienne” designs, Vauban revolutionized the entire science of military engineering, developing a system of both attack and defense from modern fortifications – now, fortresses became more or less impervious to all but the most massive bombardment, and became offensive weapons in their own right. Vauban’s designs were applied around the world for the next two hundred and fifty years. And then, of course, technology caught up.
The advent of high explosiveartillery in the late 19th Century spelled the end – for a time – of Vauban-style fortresses, as the high explosives could obliterate the intricately laid out constructions at will.
But then, an odd thing happened.
Following World War 1, France was left with the stark reality that nearly an entire generation of its young men had been wiped out in the trenches. Needing what we would now call a “force multiplier“, France turned to its military engineers, and built the “Maginot Line“, named for the war veteran and War minister of the time, Andre Maginot.
Ligne Maginot – Schoenenbourg. CCA/2.0
This enormous complex was a series of self-contained concrete fortresses, all of which were built around multiple pieces of heavy artillery. For most of its length. the forts in the defensive belt that ran from the Swiss border to Luxembourg could cover their neighbors with overlapping artillery fires, making any attempt at assault costly to even contemplate. Only the sections beginning at the Ardennes Forest – rough, heavily-forested terrain – were more thinly spread out.
French leaders were convinced that the Maginot Line would force Germany into a repeat of their World War 1 strategy of striking though Belgium, while slowing the attack further south, but that this time France would be ready, and could slow the German war machine down long enough to give France time to assemble allies to once again batter Germany into defeat.
But, when war finally came, French and British troops sat and stared at Germany, until the Nazis smashed through the Low Countries, and forced France to surrender in six weeks.
The hideously expensive Maginot Line, it seemed, had failed completely. Coupled with the other spectacular surrenders of heavily and expensively fortified places in World War 2, it seemed that fortresses were finally dead.
Lieutenant-General Percival and his party carry the Union flag on their way to surrender Singapore to the Japanese, February, 1942. Public Domain.
In fact, only one of the fortresses of the actual Maginot Line ever fell to the Nazis. The most famous fortress built on the Maginot model to fall – that of Eben-Emael, in Belgium – was neither part of a cohesive defensive network, nor was fully manned or supplied, and was not designed to defend against a glider assault, something built into the layout of the Maginot network.
However, the public – and unfortunately, most of the military – perceptions were that the concept of a fortress, as such, was dead, especially with the advent of atomic and nuclear weapons.
A B-61 thermonuclear weapon, showing its major components; Source: US government DOD and/or DOE. Public Domain.
And yet…countries still built versions of fortresses, a practice which continues into the present day.
C-RAM 3 air defense system; Source: US government; Public Domain
One of the chief arguments against a modern fortress is its supposed vulnerability to “smart munitions“, primarily bombs and missiles. However, this dangerous assumption presumes two things to exist: complete command of the air, and a lack of effective anti-missile systems on the part of the defenders in the fortress. The North Vietnamese Armed Forces, like the modern Islamic State, would have happily bombed and shelled US and South Vietnamese fire bases and FOB’s out of existence from afar; however, lacking any effective way to contest the airspace over those bases, those forces were forced to rely on infiltration, suicide bombertactics and human wave assaults. Similarly, although Saddam Hussein’sIraq was capable of buying effective anti-missile systems, he declined to do so, because that would have required a level of technical ability and professional competence to operate that he was loathe to allow in his fragmented military forces.
Another argument against a modern fortress is its susceptibility to attack by conventional ground forces, such as artillery and tanks, as well as infiltration attacks by various types of special forces. This argument ignores the fact that while a modern fortress can indeed be severely damaged by modern high explosives, the amounts of artillery ammunition needed are staggering; in fact, it is questionable if modern armies possess the firepower necessary to reduce a position like Verdun – even with no modern updates – and the fact that infiltration has been tried against fortresses throughout history.
As a result of these factors, no one has attempted to design an actual “fighting fortress“, as such, for almost a century. This begs the question: What would such a fortress look like?
In order to be functional, the fortress would have to be sited to guard a specific location, like its predecessors. It would need an array of offensive weapons, of both tactical- and theater-level, and both active and passive defensive systems, as well as a mobile garrison which could launch conventional attacks against enemies attempting to lay siege to it.
In the offense, the fortress would need batteries of tactical- and theater-level conventional missiles, likely stored ready-to-fire in vertical-launch units; these types of missiles have been in use for decades. Our hypothetical modern fortress would also have an array of emplaced conventional artillery. These weapons, most with ranges in excess of 15km or more, have been in common use worldwide for over a century. The modern fortress could also have some form of armored cavalry unit secured in underground revetments, ready to launch rapid counterattacks if necessary.
A Tomahawk Cruise Missile launch form the USS Farragut (DDG-99), August, 2009. U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 1st Class Leah Stiles. Public Domain.
Defensively, our modern fortress would have passive defenses in the form of Vauban-style approaches, as well as barbed wire and defensive landmine barriers, designed to channel and slow conventional infantry attackers, and making armored attacks on the fortress problematic. Active defenses would include various radars, as well as defensive missiles like the Rolling Airframe Missile and rotary cannon anti-missile turrets, but could also employ more advanced systems, such as “Iron Dome” or a THEL-type system.
Tactical High Energy Laser/Advanced Concept Technology Demonstrator, 2005. US Army Photo. Public Domain.
The penultimate argument actual fighting fortresses in the modern age, at the end of the day, is one of expense: in an era where countries are paying well in excess of US$100million for a single fighter plane, constructing a fighting fortress could be staggeringly expensive.
In 2016, among many other incidents, there was an “attempted coup d’état” in Turkey, in an attempt to unseat Recep Tayiip Erdogan. The quotation marks are there for the simple reason that the Turkish coup was a scam, played for a Turkish audience, only.
Why would a leader – popular or otherwise – take such a dangerous course, as to stage a fake coup d’état against themselves? It doesn’t seem to make sense, even in spite of prepared arrest lists.
In the bizarre world of ‘realpolitik’, however, it makes perfect sense.
Erdogan has survived conspiracy plots before, but he and his nation’s military had come to some level of truce. However, as has become increasingly clear, Erdogan has big dreams, and is willing to take big risks to do it, including actively aiding one of the most savage and brutal terrorist groups seen in the last century.
Recep Tayyip Erdogan, President of Turkey, 2018. Photo Credit: Mikhail Palinchak. CCA/4.0
But, why? What prize could be so valuable, as to risk wars on multiple fronts, with some of the largest, most powerful nations in the world? In simple terms, Recep Tayyip Erdogan is trying to become the first Sultan of a restored Ottoman Empire.
The case for this is fairly straightforward.
Erdogan began injecting Turkey into Levantine politics as far back as 2010, with Turkey’s tacit support of the Palestinian relief flotillas. No one with any experience in the region expected those flotillas to accomplish much, but its tacit support reintroduced the world to Turkey as a significant political player.
This was followed by the appearance of the so-called ‘caliphate’, also known as the ‘Islamic State’. Although ISIL had its genesis from many authors, as the video above clearly demonstrates, its major bases and overland supply corridors originated in southern Turkey.
But again, why? How does active support for ISIL lead to Turkey reforming the Ottoman Empire? The secret is revealed in an ISIL video, since removed by YouTube. The video’s emphasis in its monologue is almost exclusively about destroying the Sykes-Picot Agreement. The Sykes-Picot Agreement, drawn up during World War 1, created the modern map of the Middle East as we know it today. The modern nations of Turkey, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Kuwait, Jordan, Israel–Palestine, and Saudi Arabia were all the children of that agreement.
“Destroying” Sykes-Picot would result in absolute anarchy — an anarchy into which a “strong leader on a horse” could step, bringing unity, stability and ultimately, peace. Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, no matter how legitimate a candidate for Caliph he may have been, would never have been able to bring that peace and stability; the idea that he could bring any kind of unity to the region was simply laughable on its face.
However, a restored Ottoman state, headed by a Turkey with a comparatively untainted reputation, would fit the bill, as it could make the claim that Sykes-Picot was imposed on the region illegally.
But, as possession is always 9/10th of the law, how was this supposed to play out in the military arena? Refer to the map video above, one more time: the main targets of this Turkish ‘grand plan’ were Syria and Iraq. None of the nations in the region would be willing to jump into Turkey’s bed ‘just because’, so some ‘motivation’ needed to be applied to those countries’ peoples.
As Syria collapsed into civil war, Iraq consequently fell into even more instability. Two years later, as ISIL exploded out of obscurity, both nations were so badly weakened, they could do little against the terrorist tsunami.
As the IS gained ground, rolling over all the opposition before them, they began to edge southeastward, as if attempting to surround Baghdad, but they never seemed able to close the pincers. Doing so was the logical military move, as it would have cut Baghdad’s only route of ground supply, and would have forced a major battle with Iraq’s Shiite-dominated government — a battle the weak Iraqi government was in no way guaranteed of winning, given the state of its military forces at that time.
ISIS (Grey) Territory Change 2014-2016 Legend: grey: ISIS light/dark yellow: Syrian/ Iraqi Kurdish forces dark red: Iraqi government forces light red: Syrian government forces. Green: Syrian rebel forces. 2016. CCA/4.0
The impending collapse of Shiite-dominated Iraq would, so the thinking went, have drawn in Shiite Iran, which should have sent the main-force heavy units of the Artesh (the Iranian Army) in a US Army-style assault all the way to Baghdad, riding like the cavalry to the rescue in a John Wayne movie, with Arabic subtitles…which would, naturally, have allowed IS to scream for help to rest of the Sunni world against the heretic Shiite aggressor…
That is, of course, not what happened.
Iran Army in 2018; Date: 28 May 2019. Photo Credit: Amir Hossein Nazari. CCA/4.0
The Iranians – the Persians of Biblical and Greek history – have been in the war business for several millennia, and saw that trap for what it was. Their response was — to do nothing. When things got very tight for Shiite Baghdad, the Iranians sent in their “Quds Force” (the Iranian version of special forces), because the Quds Force is seen as an advisory group, not a garrison force.
This left ISIL withering on the vine, as no one could openly support such a savage and bestial regime as al Baghdadi’s. Worse, for ISIL, at least, was first Iran’s and then Russia’s not-very-covert aid to the Assad government. Hardening resistance by Kurdish groups like the Peshmerga and the YPG began to slice away ISIL gains, resulting in increasing repression by Erdogan’s regime. Then, everything almost came completely off the rails when the Russians intervened, an event that nearly caused NATO to choose between Turkey – an event that could have caused World War 3 – and dissolution, if it failed to back a member nation under attack.
This failure of ISIL to fulfill its role as sacrificial lamb to the Iranian lion also exposed the dark underbelly of the world of realpolitik, revealing Turkey’s clear role of support, and implying support (tacit or direct) from other countries. In this atmosphere, it would appear that at least some of Erdogan’s military commanders began to whisper about the possibility of a coup. From the stunted development of the coup, it is clear that the coup plotters in the field had little to no direction. In the end, the instant Erdogan put in an appearance, the foot soldiers began giving up.
As a result, Erdogan has now cemented his position within Turkey, as the “hero” who stood up to the military, and prevented the return of military rule…and, of course, disrupted the desultory Allied air campaign against ISIL.
But what about the possible “other” actors? Those foreign powers that may have been – or may be – supporting ISIL directly? Why would they back something like this? Simply: the myriad of Middle Eastern nations are too fractious and chaotic. Replacing them with one state is easier to manage…and take advantage of.
Top officials from the world’s two largest democracies held ministerial-level talks in Washington after their leaders from India and the United States discussed their differences over the Ukraine war.
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.
North America
This week, the wave of bomb threats against schools continues, with schools across the country alternatively being evacuated or ordered to ‘shelter in place‘ across the country. Most of the bomb threats against schools this week were delivered by phone, but only one was definitively an automated voice call threat. Interestingly, the targets included a school in the city of Grande Prairie, Alberta in Canada, and a Muslim private school in Worcester, Massachusetts. In the Canadian case, school officials specified to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) that the caller was from the United States.
In Texas, meanwhile, a suspected pipe bomb was disabled at the Ector County courthouse in the county seat of Odessa. As this involved an actual device at a government facility, it falls under the purview of the FBI and the BATFE.
In Mexico, gang violence related to the country’s ongoing drug war continues to erupt in popular tourist destinations, with a beach-side assassination in the west coast city of Acapulco that resulted in a police chase and shootout among sunbathers, and an abrupt uptick of killings in the Yucatan Peninsular state of Quintana Roo.
Three soldiers of the Colombian Army were killed by a roadside IED on the 8th, in the rugged and mountainous Antioquia Department, according to the Army’s 7th Division. Army officials believe the IED was planted by members of the so-called “Structure 18” group, yet another of the kaleidoscope of dissident and breakaway factions that splintered away from the disbandment of the FARC, which had disbanded in 2016 following peace talks with the Colombian government.
In neighboring Venezuela, army troops in rural Apure State reportedly disarmed an IED reportedly laid by the mysterious (and possibly fake) TANCOL group. The Venezuelan government claims that the mystery group was created by the Colombian government to undermine Venezuela and facilitate drug trafficking, while Colombian sources counter that the group is yet another FARC offshoot. Whichever the case, Venezuelan farmers in Apure and next door in Colombia’s Arauca Department are caught in the middle…as usual.
In the Peruvian capital of Lima, protests against the curfew ordered by left-wing President Pedro Castillo turned violent on the 4th. Castillo had ordered the curfew in an attempt to break a strike and demonstrations by Peruvian truck drivers against skyrocketing fuel costs. The strike, which began on March 28th, has begun to seriously impact the Peruvian economy. Various factions within the Peruvian government – including some of Castillo’s allies, slammed the curfew as unconstitutional and “unenforceable.” Protesters reportedly stormed the Supreme Court building, even attempting to set it ablaze, but instead satisfied themselves by looting computers and furniture and burning records. The Freedomist will keep an eye on this situation.
The Polisario Front has suspended contacts with the government of Spain, after Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez recognized Moroccan control over the former Spanish colony of Western Sahara. This move marks a sharp reversal of long-standing Spanish policy towards the region, which backed a United Nations call for the self-determination of the Sahrawi people, which Morocco has ignored in its efforts to exploit the mineral-rich region. This move comes after Morocco loosened its border controls on Spain’s only remaining African continental possessions of Ceuta, opening the way for the unauthorized crossing of thousands of young Moroccans and migrants from other African countries into Spanish territory, after Spain allowed a Sahrawi leader into the country for treatment for Covid-19. This is a matter of serious concern, as it could breathe new life into the Polisario Front, which could lead to a further destabilization of the region, and a possible expansion of operations by groups such as Al Qaeda in the Maghreb and potentially even the Islamic State in Libya, or their associates, the Islamic State in the Greater Sahara.
To the south, the Malian Army went on the offensive in the central part of the country, reportedly killing some 22 suspected terrorists. However, the United Nations and some human rights organizations have claimed that the offensive may have seen excessive uses of force, and that civilians may have been killed instead.
In neighboring Burkina Faso, an army outpost in Namissiguima was overrun in a “complex attack“, which left twelve troops dead and another 21 wounded. Although the group conducting the attack was not specifically identified, it was likely the Islamic State in the Greater Sahara, who remain the greatest threat in the region.
In a potentially-related event, unidentified gunmen abducted an 83-year old American nun, Sister Suellen Tennyson of the Catholic congregation Marianites of Holy Cross, from the congregation’s house in the parish of Yalgo, part of the diocese of Kaya.
In Nigeria, some 17 troops were reported dead, and another 40 were wounded, after “gunmen” believed to be part of the Ansaru group (a splinter faction of Boko Haram) overran an outpost in the state of Kaduna in a swift and violent attack, mounted on motorcycles, came in armed with AK-47s and RPGs. The attack reportedly destroyed as many as three armored personnel carriers (APC), although precise details remain sketchy.
Violence continues in Israel, as Palestinian protests and terror attacks by various groups continue throughout the region. Two of the attacks were claimed by the Islamic State. The recent wave of violence has killed and injured dozens, in the ongoing, and seemingly never-ending violence.
Scattered, low-level fighting continued throughout eastern Syria this week, with Syrian government soldiers being killed in the southern Daraa region, as Israel reportedly targeted several Assad government military sites in the central part of the country with missile strikes. Elsewhere, Turkish units launched drone and artillery strikes against suspected targets across the northern part of the country. This, as several US troops were injured in an “indirect fire” attack on their base in the oil-rich Deir al-Zor region, reportedly by Iranian-backed militias.
More US forces came under attack in Iraq’sAl-Diwaniyah, capital of Iraq’s Al-Qādisiyyah Governorate, and in Dhi Qar, when their logistics convoys were attacked by roadside bombs. These attacks have been happening frequently, often several times a week, as local groups demand that the Iraqi government enforce a resolution it passed in January of 2020, to expel all foreign forces from the country. Given Iraq’s track record on the subject of expelling foreign forces like the Islamic State in the last eight years, the question of “how” is begged.
Elsewhere in Iraq, scattered military and police actions resulted in arrests of suspects, and several Iraqi security forces killed and wounded.
In Pakistan, the US State Department issued a travel advisory on April 4th, urging US citizens to reconsider travel to the country, due to rising levels of terrorism and sectarian violence. This comes after the March 4th attack on a Peshawar mosque that killed 62 and wounded 196.
India was surprisingly – and thankfully – quiet in general, this week. The only items of real interest were a series of bomb threats against several schools in Bengaluru/Bangalore, made via email, on the 8th. Interestingly, police officials stated that they believed that the emails came from the United States. As we noted above, in our North American section, a school in Canada also received a bomb threat believed to have originated in the US.
Also, two Indian Army soldiers were reported wounded by a bomb blast in the Khunti District, in central Jharkhand State, on the 6th. The device was reportedly of “low power”, and only caused light injuries.
Finally, the US State Department issued another travel advisory, this time for the nation of Sri Lanka, citing elevated COVID-19 risks, fuel and medicine shortages and terrorism.
To quote the advisory in part:
“…There have recently been protests over the economic situation and queues at gas stations, grocery stores and some pharmacies. Protests have occurred throughout the country and have mostly been peaceful. In some instances, police have used water cannons and tear gas to disperse protesters.
“There have also been daily planned power outages across the island, as well as some unplanned power outages, as fuel for backup generators is increasingly scarce. Public transportation in some instances has been limited or curtailed. Travellers should monitor local media for updates on the ongoing situation…”
If I were to ask the average reader, “What is the most popular combat vehicle of the last c.100years?”, most people would say something like the World War 2 US M4 Sherman tank…or, perhaps, the SovietT-34 series, from the same conflict (both of which remain in limited service). Some might even say the Cold War-era Soviet T-55 – which also still soldiers on, around the world — but, like virtually everyone else, they would be wrong.
In fact, the most prolific and widely-deployed combat vehicle in modern history is — the humble “Technical.”
An improvised fighting vehicle armed with a ZU-23 autocannon.
The Technical – a term whose etymology is generally believed to have originated in the nation of Somalia during that country’s civil war, which began in 1991 (and which included the disaster that is now known as “Blackhawk Down“), when various NGO’s – unable to legally hire armed private security (i.e., “mercenaries“), instead used “discretionary funds for ‘technical services’” to hire “local security” who were, in fact tribal militiamen, who formed the core of the warring tribal/clan armies of the various warlords vying for control of the failed state.
A “technical” in Mogadishu at the time of the UNOSOM mission (1992 or 1993)
There is no single model of Technical. In general, a ‘Technical’, as such, is a civilian vehicle – usually a light pickup truck or some sort of 4-wheel drive vehicle, repurposed as an armed combat vehicle, although such vehicles used solely for troop and logistics transport are still considered Technicals. There are a special class of technicals, the “Gun Truck“, that are actual military vehicles, such as WW2 ‘Willys’ Jeeps or M35-series, M939, M809 and later 2.5ton trucks that have been used since WW2, but especially during the Vietnam War. Until very recently, the closest the US military came to deploying a Technical, was the occasional arming of various CUCV-type vehicles, beginning in the 1970’s (but read on to the end). While certainly improvised for combat, such vehicles were not – at those times – generally available to the public; debate on the term continues.
This was not, however, the first use of vehicles that could be classified as “Technicals.” Initially, almost military vehicles were “technically” (no pun intended) ‘Technicals’, simply because there were few “military vehicles”, as such, anywhere in the world. The first truly extensive use of such vehicles came during World War 2, with the British Army’s “Long Range Desert Group (LRDG)“, one of the predecessors of the famed “Special Air Service (SAS)“. Using whatever light civilian trucks they could scrounge up in Egypt at the time, the LRDG conducted deep raids and reconnaissance against Axis forces and installations during the Desert Campaign of 1940-1943. While this model was copied by a few other units during the war, most armies quickly scrapped the idea after the war was over. The reasons are many, but the primary one is that armies are conservative – even reactionary – by nature, and dislike “ad hoc” solutions to problems, unless there is an emergency situation.
“T10” a T Patrol Long Range Desert Group 30 cwt Chevrolet, during WW2. Public Domain.
The public’s first real exposure to Technical-type vehicles, however, was the Great Toyota War of 1986-1987, part of the Chadian–Libyan conflict. The nation of Chad – perpetually poor and fractious – needed a way to counter the heavy, Soviet-supplied combat vehicles of the Libyan army of dictator Muammar Gaddafi. Using the only vehicles readily available (mostly Toyota Hilux’s and Land Cruisers) in a manner similar to light cavalry, as well as the WW2 LRDG, the Chadians almost literally “ran rings” around the Libyans, inflicting an estimated 8,500 casualties (dead, wounded and missing), and capturing or destroying an estimated 800 tanks, APCs and other vehicles, as well as around 30 aircraft, wildly out of all proportion to their perceived abilities as an army, French intervention notwithstanding.
While the scale of this defeat brought on pithy jokes and comments about the Libyan Army’s prowess, more sober-minded observers started paying attention to the concept, although little actual work was done during this period.
As the Somali Civil War increased in intensity, the widespread use of technicals was increasingly studied. As the 1990’s evolved into the early-2000’s, and with wars erupting around the world in the wake of the 9-11 attacks in the United States, regular militaries increasingly found themselves facing – and occasionallyusing – such vehicles, a few salient point became apparent.
Chadian soldiers on a Toyota Land Cruiser pickup truck in 2008. Photo credit: Czech Ministry of Defense. Public Domain.
Technicals, by their very nature as lightweight civilian vehicles, are simultaneously cheap,
commonly available, easy to work on, have a ready supply of spare parts, and generally get far better gas mileage than comparable military vehicles. They can also mount a variety of very powerful weapons, from the BGM-71 TOW Missile and other types of ATGMs, to heavy-caliber recoilless rifles, multiple-launch rocket systems such as the seemingly-immortalType 63, as well as heavier and longer-ranged rockets, and a variety of other improvised rocket launchers and anti-aircraft cannons. (For a much more in-depth study, please see the excellent Tank Encyclopedia article on Techincals, YouTube video linked below.)
IRGC Ground Force loading a Type 63 MRL, 2017. Photo credit, Tasnim News, CCA/4.0
For many national armies faced with tight military budgets – and guerrilla and terror groups – around the world, Technicals are increasingly the first choice when swift formations are needed for attack and/or defense. However, the above comes with a very significant caveat: Technicals, as a class of combat vehicle, typically have little or no armor — which is why casualties among Technical crews meeting determined opposition tend to be very high, compared to more heavily-protected units…a consideration that seems to be an acceptable option for the US Army, given its recent adoption of the Infantry Squad Vehicle (ISV) — all at a staggering cost of nearly $330,000 — per vehicle.
Infantry Squad Vehicle; 24 January 2020. Public Domain.
Or, Once More With Effort, “Professionals Are Predictable, But The World Is Full Of Amateurs”
It seems that “everyone” has an ax to grind, these days. After over 4000 years of recorded history, it seems that we humans just keep getting more adept at this whole “war thing“.
And – just to be clear – no, this article is not a “how to” do anything. You’re on your own, there.
There are as many reasons to “go to war“, as there are human groups in existence; anytime two or more people decide that they agree on an issue enough that they are willing to do violence – if not agree to lay down their very lives – in that goal’s furtherance, “war” at some level becomes a distinct possibility. And by this, we’re talking about “war” in the sense most people are thinking – replete with dead people, lots of violence, destroyed cities, etc., as opposed to a more figurative example…like, say, “the war on poverty“.
However, most people simply don’t “get” war. From an external view, they do not grasp the intricate web of minutiae that goes into “war”; it’s not simply swinging a sword, or pulling the trigger of a firearm, or pushing a button to launch a missile. It is not only knowing whento do so, but also is knowing how and whento do these things, as well as understanding the systems that enable these actions.
While the individual “spear carrier” does not need to understand the intricacies of the industrial base that created his sword or rifle, his leaders most definitely do. The real challenge for any prospective leader or groups of leaders, though, has always been how to teach some kid – who may even agree with their goals, as far as they can understand them – how to swing that sword, or shoot that rifle.
Military training and military science have evolved over time. Even in the days when muscle power was the definitive factor in combat – swinging a sword is a very physically demanding job, when done for any length of time – it was an understood fact that the person who worked from a regularized system of actions (“drills“, or even “kata’s“, in modern parlance) in combat had a much better chance of winning the fight than someone who simply ran up and tried to smash their opponent in the face with a bat.
However, that kind of training has always been hard to come by – either there simply were not enough people with the knowledge to teach it, or the teaching took too long — it was said of the dreaded English and Welsh Longbowmen, that “if you wanted to train the archer, start by training the archer’s grandfather.” This is why projectile weapons were continuously evolving, much faster than swords and polearms.
The reason for this, militarily speaking, is quite simple: maneuver is a very powerful tool, and if you can hurt your opponent at long range and still stay on the move, that is definitelywhat you want to do…However, this brought on other problems: horses are faster than humans, but they require a large and intricate infrastructure to obtain and support, complete with specialized fields of labor, such as the farrier; specialized saddle-makers; special armor and weapons to maximize fighting from horseback, and on and on…
This translates across virtually every conceivable field – the never ending quest to “tweak” the equipment you have, and to find The Next Big Thing.
These all contribute to the training problem – “training, techniques (or ‘tactics’) and practices (or, ‘procedures’)” (TTP) – since the TTP’s for any given concept or field are in a constant state of flux.
What this translated to, as recently as the 1980’s, was getting some people together, teaching them how to march, then handing them each a rifle and a few rounds of ammunition to practice, then sending them out to do battle for the “glory” of whatever…with usually predictable results. And make no mistake – this phenomenon was in no way limited to guerrilla bands of former farmers and shopkeepers who had never held a weapon in their hands with lethal intent. There were plenty of armies around the world who did exactly this — and in some places, still do, as of this writing.
But today, things have largely changed. With the advent of the internet, the World Wide Web and digital file sharing, it is now possible to create the core of a training program – at almost every level – simply by searching out the appropriate files and videos. Nothing, obviously, can replace actually running around an assault course with a real weapon, but it is entirely possible to locate acceptable-quality videos and training manuals online to show a person exactly how to run the course – it is up to the searcher to then put into practice what the videos and manuals teach them (see the second video, below).
People love to share; that’s a feature of human interaction. Whether it’s cooking recipes, flower arrangements, tips on fixing your car or what have you, chances are, someone out there has not only written something about it, but may have a video to teach you how to do it for yourself. What’s more, their advice is likely free…whether they intended it that way, or not.
Military training is no different. Finding information in the form of .PDF manuals – everything from the basics of plumbing, to field food service, to how to build a fortified bunker, to just exactly how to go about “taking that hill” – whether created in a government printing office, or written by a private person (whether they are a professional soldier or a gifted amateur), is ridiculously easy, in most parts of the world.
Military training video courses – some of them quite extensive, as in the first video, below – are equally accessible for most people with the acumen to navigate LiveLeak, YouTube or Vimeo. For the raw, untrained amateur, the sheer wealth, depth and breadth of information available is staggering, so much so, that it can overwhelm them. For the experienced trainer, however, there is a vastArchive of tools to study, that anyone who knows what they’re looking for can access for their training program, for free, between their morning Lifer Juice and lunch.
For the aspiring totalitarian, this is a terrible, terrible thing, because it undermines the State’s monopoly on the application of force as a tool of control — if every Tom, Dick and Harriet in your country knows how a military force operates (even if only in the crudest, most basic manner), your loyalist military will be facing a staggering number of enemies, far more than they have ammunition to deal with, and possibly so many that they will begin to desert, rather than try to plant your boot for you…Much more so, when the enemy is literally at the gates, and you find yourself begging and press-ganging your citizens into your army, handing them weapons for free that you previously prevented them from owning — that’s the realtakeaway from Ukraine, but I digress…..
Of course, if you are a Libertarian with the proper outlook on the world in general – and human civilization in particular – this is probably the closest to heaven that you are going to get to, since The People now have the means to stand up to those professional armies that you are so worried about. (We’ll leave talk about casualties another time…)
So — the next time a politician starts talking about limiting the availability of, or the access to, information – of whatever stripe – remember that information is the realroot of all power, and if a politician doesn’t want you to have it, you should probably be seriously worried about why they don’t want you to have it.
Faced with the horror of the unfolding war in Ukraine a young linguist of my acquaintance decided to conduct a bit of “man in the street” polling, 21st-century style. The original post featured a screen shot of a Russian language post: her notes and translation appear below.
I speak a little Russian, so I’ve been reading the Russian-language side of Reddit. Selection bias since it’s Russians posting on Western media, but since it’s *in* Russian it should be mostly free of trolls. Most of them are really not happy with Putin. Again, my language skills are rough but my translation:
Title: Jesus Christ, where we’re headed is completely insane
Text: Fucking hell, it’s already been six days of this shit. Six days of following this clusterfuck and I can’t believe this isn’t a simulation, that it’s not some experiment on hamsters. I’ve already gone stark raving mad, I can’t sleep from the panic. What’s next? How can we live like this? Why are the war hawks yelling “this is what Ukrainians deserve, our fight is righteous!” Why the fuck does anyone support this goddamn regime? God fucking fuck dammit HELP
Translator’s note: hard for me to translate the vast arsenal of curse words in the Russian language, the post was peppered with them.
The official line, of course, is different. State-controlled media portrays it as a “special military operation,” “de-nazification,” or “protection of Russian-speaking peoples. But as Sean Illing reports in Vox dissenting journalists have fled and we know Russians are protesting the Ukraine invasion. The state has imposed draconian penalties on dissent. (Fifteen years in the slammer for using the “w” word!) This expletive-laden cri de coeur really brings it home.
Good news is hard to find. As Kyle Smith observes in The New York Post, journalism suffers when “what neutral principles do we stand for?” is replaced by “which side are we on?” Either you live in an authoritarian country like Russia where government controls the media, or you live in an authoritarian country like the U.S. where the media controls the government. Ironic, isn’t it, since technology empowers anyone with internet access and a keyboard to reach the world. You have to hunt, and peck. Fortunately there are clever youngsters out there who know how to bypass parental/governmental controls through social media.
Forget war crimes, treaties, the UN, and international tribunals. War is a crime against humanity. Killing people and destroying their homes is bad, and wrong. Pious accords and laws on the conduct of warfare don’t make it right, or better. An exceptional article by Dexter Filkins in the September 8, 2021 New Yorker asks, “Did Making the Rules of War Better Make the World Worse?” Our obsession with rules has attempted to persuade us that wars can be legally waged in accordance with them. No fair targeting civilians, okay?
Filkiins focuses on Humane: How the United States Abandoned Peace and Reinvented War, by Samuel Moyn, a professor of history and of jurisprudence at Yale. Moyn evokes Clausewitz and Tolstoy, Sherman, Afghanistan, and the My Lai massacre, and identifies a turning point in 1977 when the Geneva Convention was updated to impose rules on combatants where hitherto only destructive force had prevailed. Moyn bemoans such legal niceties for damping the public outcry that should induce politicians to end such conflicts: “”Humane” war [i]s a consolation prize for the failure to constrain the resort to force in the first place.” (extra quotation marks mine.) Protest is how a population responds to war and strives to end it. See above.
It’s far from clear that having military lawyers second-guess generals has produced less war, or a safer world. In the end, force will out. As Joseph Stalin reportedly asked, how many divisions has the Pope? I’ve got to believe Putin is familiar with that line.
Filkins takes issue with some of Moyn’s conclusions, but agrees in the end that “efforts to curb the cruelty of military force may have backfired.” Fleets of drones and “smart bombs” and oceans of intel haven’t kept us out of armed conflicts. For all its military might the United States hasn’t really “won” a war since 1945. And, having just concluded two “forever wars” – Iraq and Afghanistan – Filkins cautions that the U.S. may be on the brink of a new cold war. Or a hot one.
Conventions about how to wage war within limits have reduced the incentives to stop fighting. I can only hope that the players moving these lethal chess pieces around the Kievan Rus will stop and think a minute. Assuming, of course, that they can gain access to reliable news about it.
Because, to echo the Russian post, what the fuck? We can’t live like this.
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Guns are sexy. It’s a known fact that linking firearms (as well as many other odd things) to sex increases sales. That’s what keeps good-looking models, both male and female, working.
top tier, is how to get at that gear and equipment on a razor-thin budget. Psychologically speaking, it is humiliating for a formally-organized armed force – which relies on the concepts of duty, honor and pride to function reliably and effectively – to accept hand-me-downs from wealthier states, except in the most dire of circumstances; the Free French and other remnants of European forces overrun by Nazi Germany that escaped to Britain after the evacuation at Dunkirk, France, in 1940 come to mind. At the same time, there may well be no real domestic industrial base for an army to draw upon in a small country. Doubly damaging for a small state’s force, is the idea of buying second-, third- or even fourth-hand surplus, and having to mark over the originating nation’s identifying marks from the gear.
While shopping sites such as Amazon cater to the individual buyer, sites like Alibaba have a far more extensive wholesale section, where buyers can take advantage of the mass production capacities of several dozen Chinese companies, giving them access to at least “good enough” military equipment, as well as expendable supplies and tools that would have been prohibitively expensive for a small army to purchase before about 1999.
