The rise of the ISA is a demonstration of the simple principle Napoleon once summarized as “The moral is to the physical as ten is to one.”
We have seen this for years, and the lesson is never learned by the West.
People who believe in what they’re fighting for, who are willing to both kill AND die are far better soldiers (and pretty much everything else) than those who aren’t.
This has been demonstrated, over and over again. The Chinese in Korea, the Vietnamese, Afghanistan, Hezbollah.
Moreover endless low-grade war is moronic. I once noted that Hezbollah was the perfect Darwinian organization; it had learned all the lessons Israel had taught. It was used to fighting while outgunned and outnumbered. It learned when not to use modern communications, to operate as a secret state, and so on, from Israel.
The modern form of electronic and surveillance warfare that the US practices is all very nice, and it is powerful, but the US and its proxies have been at war with the Islamic world for decades The West, basically, does not learn. Its militaries are not getting better (though many will claim they are), except in terms of equipment.
The militaries of those who fight the West, on the other hand, are improving by leaps and bounds. They move fast, give power to local commanders, isolate and destroy enemies, and regularly surprise their foes. The ISA, to an extraordinary degree, chooses where to fight and when. Of course they are winning. The only people in the Middle East who are almost certainly the ISA troops equal are Hezbollah (and I would expect, their betters. We’ll find out.)
When you fight wars as a superior power, you want to make them quick, over and out. An America which invaded Irak, stayed in Baghdad for only two months, and installed the Colonel of its choice as the new leader would still be a US which terrified the Islamic world.
The ISA, I suspect, has another great advantage over the militaries it faces.
It doesn’t use much in the way of electronic communication (those commanders who do, get dead.) This means that once units are given orders, the local commanders are free to execute those orders as they see fit, rather than being micromanaged by generals in the rear line. No single person, or even staff, can react as quickly as the commanders on the ground can, or as appropriately.
The sheer stupid of Israel, of America, of the West is stunning to behold. “Here, let us teach you how to beat us by engaging you in years of inconclusive warfare.”
The correct policy, from a hegemonic point-of-view (not what I would prefer), is to let them have their governments, let their elites rule, and if they get out of hand, knock them over. Maintain the fear. Let them get a bit soft and fat, let them have something to lose.
Failure to do this, and coddling of Saudi Arabian Wahhabism, has led to the rise of a truly barbaric form of militant Islam, which also happens to be startling effective on the battlefield.
Don’t teach people how to actually fight you. Don’t support barbaric regimes like Saudi Arabia’s in exporting their loathsome ideology. If you’re going to be an imperialist, learn how to actually play the game.
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Syd
What surprises me is that ISIS’ extremism hasn’t made better fighters of the Kurds and the Shias. I don’t care how corrupt your leaders are, you know what that enemy is going to do to your family if they get through your line. We’ve still only seen a few skirmishes, but the poor morale and weak resistance of these forces so far has been shocking.
I don’t think anyone can add much of anything to your larger points. Well said.
OldSkeptic
Too late they know how to fight and win against us. And, for them, it is getting easier all the time.
In the ‘non learning machine called the US Armed forces’ losses are just explained away by some other reason or another. (Read William Lind for some examples)
The tragedy is that, because of its political and economic power, all other western armed forces are now like the US. That is, hopeless at actually fighting.
Once great armed forces like the Australians (best man for man in WW1 and WW2) have been ruined by ‘being all the way with LBJ’. So we have had to drop to their , very poor standards.
The UK hasn’t been bad, but never as good as they have claimed. Their peak was under Montgomery, as the ‘old boys’ got back they declined steadily. Though still better than the US (who isn’t) they are a very, very pale shadow of Normandy and the rest.
But the ‘American way of war’ is dominant in the west. Which, if Iraq and Afghanistan were not enough (plus memories of Vietnam). Israel got totally, completely beaten, thumped, thrashed by Hezbollah in 2006.
But we will still do the ‘American way of war’ in the west…to the very, very bitter end.
And the US claims ‘the best armed forces in the world’, which insiders tell ‘can’t even pull together two combat brigades’ (about 5,000 which ISIS would go through like a dose of salts).
There are only three countries that count in this ME crisis: Iran, Syria and ,,,,,Russia (their backer). The US is now irrelevant. Though, from Iran’s and Russia’s point of view…ISIS taking out more oil production…well not a bad idea actually….Pity about the sanctions…we cant sell you oil now.
From chess player Putin’s point of view: keep and support Syria, keep Iran…let the rest play out. Let ISIS turn on Jordan, the Israelis and the Saudis. Count on the US screwing up (always a good bet) . Use the Iraqi Kurds as a weapon/victim to pull Turkey (which has screwed up the numbers) into line.
Let the US pour more blood and treasure into Iraq, especially into the Kurds at the behest of the Israelis and Turks.
And the Kurds..the Poles of the ME.. who will always screw up by the numbers. Now a smart person, with an IQ above my shoe size, would have come up with a strategy post the US invasion of “We are loyal Iraqis and believe in a one nation with a federal structure” and got enough wriggle room to, within limits, do very well for themselves.
But did they do that..no. American oil companies come in, deals with Israel…many, deals with Israel. Deals with Turkey… The result zero support from anyone when it all hits. The Israelis run away (duh), the Turks run away (again duh)…the US bombs something, somewhere with their F-18s, ISIS on their doorstep.
Screwed. Because Turkey and Iran will not allow a Kurdish Greater State. And both will stand back while ISIS, if it wants, slaughters them all.
Celsius 233
Yep, nothing like an army driven by religiously fanatical troops and messiah-like leaders. And of course, US policy in the ME only adds to the mix.
This is all (ME destabilization) a calculated effort by the US darksiders; I refuse to believe these people are genuinely stupid, but rather, cold and calculating for the end game; full spectrum dominance…
Celsius 233
By contrast; the Israeli leaders are genuinely stupid, driven by an illness bred of racism coupled to a religious fanaticism. Their’s is a truly belief driven fanaticism that defies the reality that totally surrounds them. They are truly doomed, but don’t know it yet.
America’s policies are stupid (created by very smart people of dubious ideologies) except for the fact they actually have the power to drive them forward. Look for things to get worse very fast…
JustPlainDave
I’m sorry, but this is such a over-statement of the facts I just can’t let it pass. Look, willingness to kill and die? That’s such a cliché civvie way of putting it – if “it” was willingness to die, there’d be one hell of a lot better armies out there than there are. “It” is a whole lot of things, ranging from willingness to embrace advanced levels of chicken shit in the name of the greater good all the way through trust, integrity, mobilized intelligence, social and intellectual capital, etc., etc. Absolutely, the human is more important than the material, but “it” isn’t any one thing – it’s a whole big stack of things and there isn’t one that someone can point to and say that’s the prime mover (or even a lot more important than the others). One thing to keep in mind as well is that the list of “its” vary significantly with the host culture, the army, the mode of conflict and even the operating environment.
As to western armies not learning, on the basis of what I’ve seen, this is completely untrue. The parts of the military machine that I’m most familiar with are much better than they were 15 years ago. Not just a little better, but a lot better – is in measurable in orders of magnitude better. I don’t know whether that’s generalizable to all other areas, but I would guess that the directionality is common across forces and areas. Where I *have* seen little improvement is with higher level strategy. Again and again, people keep choosing to do things that are really, really hard – that take huge amounts of resources and lots of time – but expect that they are easy and quick. Leaders keep thinking that relative simplicity and lack of development in the technological reflects cultural simplicity, without realizing that the predominant western adaptation, where culture is extremely streamlined in service of other domains, is very far from the norm.
Monster from the Id
Not to mention that all of this skulduggery takes place in order to secure access to petroleum–which is a resource of which we will be compelled to reduce consumption soon, lest my Arkanshire become beachfront property.
Bill H
Something which few dare to say is that part of the failure of our army is that it is not, as it calls itself, an “all volunteer army.” Volunteers work on an unpaid basis out of their love of and belief in the cause. Ours is a mercenary army made up of soldiers who work for pay (and/or benefits) and officers who are careerists rather than believers. Whatever they say, the enlisted ranks are overwhelmingly filled by those who cannot find a job doing anything else or, at best, are attracted by the high pay and benefits promoted by recruiters. Thrown into combat, they are quickly disillusioned. This is not as much fun as they were told it was going to be. There is no adventure and glory to be had, and the pay is not worth it.
Celsius 233
@ Bill H
August 12, 2014
Something which few dare to say is that part of the failure of our army is that it is not, as it calls itself, an “all volunteer army.” Volunteers work on an unpaid basis out of their love of and belief in the cause. Ours is a mercenary army made up of soldiers who work for pay (and/or benefits) and…
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
This is just semantics, “all volunteer army.”, meaning not a draft.
And yes, it’s a possibility for the unemployed. Unfortunately you are far from the first to point this out. This is a result, not a reason.
This is a scenario not even Orwell could have predicted…
Tet Vet
Bill H is right on the money. When my father was drafted during WW2 he was, as all others, in for the duration plus 6 months. You wanna go home, win and get it over with. Now you are “deployed” for varying periods and are sentenced to return to the stalemate again and again. As Bill points out there is no “voluntary” Army but rather a professional Army. From my experience during the Viet Nam police action, you can count on the lifers doing everything in their power to be stationed as far away from the action as possible. Those that fought and died (or were wounded) were overwhelmingly conscripts and those who (mostly) foolishly believed that enlisting was somehow going to be a better option than waiting to be drafted. And again, we were deployed with no connection whatsoever to success of the mission (unless body counts equal success, which has obviously been proven to be untrue!). Whatever can be said about our Viet Nam experience there is one important lesson that has still not been learned. Completely unrelated to our military skills and superior equipment, it was a political debacle. I maintain that the idea of the “professional” or “voluntary” army as opposed to the citizen soldier concept first adopted by the founding fathers is an integral part of the politics that have caused us to constantly lose the “war” while claiming to win all of the battles. While you may say that my position is contradictory with respect to Viet Nam (because the draft was still in effect) I maintain that the draft of that era was a perversion of its proper useage insofar as only those with little in the way of political connections or sensitivity were forced to serve. George W. Bush comes to my mind. Our present system is designed to make a lot of money for the right people and has very little to do with properly fighting a war.
Jeff
This is an excellent little article, and very perceptive. The weird fact is that Cheney, Rumsfeld et al. had no idea of the true nature of power. They didn’t see it as an existing medium they had to sculpt & shape. They saw it as magic waves that flowed out of their fingertips. The first generation of American hegemonists were not so stupid — they grew up in a time when there were other countries with armies who could kick the crap out of you. By the Reagan years, all that was forgotten, and the experience of American leaders was that they simply had to think of something and someone would run out and do it for them. Meanwhile their situation was actually worse than it had been during the High Cold War — now they didn’t have to share the world anymore, but the absolute dominance of the US economy was a thing of the past, and the military just doesn’t offer the same control. It reminds me of observations I’ve read of the Israeli IDF, who argue that nearly 50 years of serving essentially as prison guards over an impoverished subject population has caused them to forget what it is they’re supposed to do in a real fight.
Adam Eran
If you take a look at Jeffrey Race’s War Comes to Long An, you’ll see exactly the same dynamic. The U.S. was supporting what amounted to a re-instatement of the colonial domination of the population, and lost to asymmetrical warfare. That’s 40+ years ago, and we still haven’t learned.
Race is an interesting fellow. He learned Vietnamese, and thought it important to communicate with the population we were fighting, not just our own “strategic hamlets.” Listening…what a concept!
Ben Johannson
JustPlainDave
That we have devoted many trillions in resources to military power while losing every war we have fought since 1945 should conclusively show that American thinking on the subject is hopelessly flawed. No matter how much firepower we can place on a target, or how accurate our weapons become or the strength of our armor we have been unable to effectively counter the irregular warfare practiced by our enemies. Our war instutitions are the problem and that won’t change until a defeat that threatens the very existence of the Republic.
JustPlainDave
Actually, your “war institutions” aren’t nearly as much of the problem as your country’s relative weakness in almost all other areas (i.e., the “hammer and nail” problem). Between that and your population’s desperate desire to see conflict in ways that deliberately obscure reality, it’s a wonder you’ve been a successful as you have.
This is far less an issue of inability to “counter”(in a narrow military sense) irregular forces as it is an inability to do all the other stuff the kinetics is supposed to enable. Without that next step, it’s just endless battles of attrition – and they live there, so they’re not going to run out of resources or will first.
Jagger
—–Our war instutitions are the problem and that won’t change until a defeat that threatens the very existence of the Republic.—
I don’t think the problems lie with the war institutions, I believe the US military would be unbeatable at home in direct defense of the United States. I think the problem is the US political leadership which puts the military into impossible or unwinnable wars of aggression. And no one wants to die in the middle of nowhere for Israel, the military-industrial complex, Exxon or corporate global freedom but the politicians insist the military go over the top again. One day, the military will get tired of it.
adrena
“One day, the military will get tired of it”.
Yes, wholesale mutiny is the ticket.
S Brennan
Great host, great comments…thanks all
“If you’re going to be an imperialist, learn how to actually play the game.”
“I maintain that the idea of the “professional” or “voluntary” army as opposed to the citizen soldier concept first adopted by the founding fathers is an integral part of the politics that have caused us to constantly lose the “war”
“I maintain that the draft of that era was a perversion of its proper useage insofar as only those with little in the way of political connections or sensitivity were forced to serve. “
Spinoza
Could it be that the West doesn’t have the stomach for the level of brutality necessary to defeat their opponents? And didn’t courage or “elan” die in the trenches WWI?
Everything else makes sense. Been reading up on some 4GW stuff and your post, Mr. Welsh, seems to parallel some of the stuff I’ve come across.
Ian Welsh
Elan died on the treches — and was reborn in WWII. It was a specific period where doing specific things was a bad idea.
In the other thread a commenter mentioned a single sniper holding back the Kurds for 2 hours, allowing the rest of the ISA force to retreat in good order.
Elan doesn’t let that happen. And notice the sniper was willing to die.
In terms of counterinsurgency, to be sure, one way to win is to use huge levels of atrocities (see Chechnya or the Phillipines.) The West isn’t willing to do that. But that sort of thing also takes a lot of boots on the ground, bombs alone won’t do it.
VietnamVet
I want to emphasize a couple of points already mentioned. Without the draft; the American people are cut out of the game. We are only suckers; to be ripped off by Western Plutocrats. Winning or losing wars is beside the point to those making gambles for more wealth and power. Second, the volunteer army is way too small and worn out. The war to destabilize Russia is being fought with surrogates, Ukrainian Nazis. This is why 2014 is so much more dangerous than 1962 or 1983. The USA is fighting a war with out-of-control thugs against a nation with nuclear weapons whose policy is to use them if facing a defeat.
Bill H
@Celcius233
It’s a great deal more than mere semantics. It’s the difference between a citizen soldier holding off the enemy at the gate and a guy working for a paycheck and free healthcare. The former will walk into the face of death to kill the enemy, the latter will sit back and call in the artillery and airstrikes.
Lee Doran
Hi to all,
As usual, Ian had it pegged, if only on one side of the argument this time.
Scott Atran has documented how ‘sacred values’ trump everything else — including economic cost/benefit decision making (they even use different parts of the brain).
And in the end it comes down to what the fighters are willing to die for… and that comes down to their buddies in combat.
As a couple of commenters hinted at, the ‘West’ (ha) and the cutting edge of human values (including many many people in the US — though not yet a majority) no longer hold winning a war as their single dominant all-encompassing sacred value. Nor , IMHO, was the US ever entirely comfortable with its imperial role — and arguably, never will be.
Nor is fighting (as in physical combat fighting) a legitimate means of resolving disputes in increasingly many places. (Look at how many truces they’ve tried in the Middle East recently. It would be laughable if it weren’t so desperate … but its also very good news. At last they aren’t giving up on talking — the only true route to ‘winning’. Have faith: they will get there.)
So the fighting folks on that side of the battle (‘West’) have a tough row to hoe (see how frustrated some of the commenters here are at not being able to pursue those values resolutely, to the exclusion of all else).
Let’s flip it on its head: What are the sacred values of the West, then? Well, we have a few who do believe in the war stuff, but declining and aging and not much stomach for it, now. We have the fundamentalists of all religious stripes who keep losing all the domestic battles so have resorted to working in Africa: the new colonialism. I mean who would have thought the whole gay marriage thing would be resolved over here in less than a couple of — or even a few — generations?
What’s left? We have to move down a notch and that brings us to the economy. It too has its psychopathic leaders (unfortunately many male leaders are psychopath-wannabes; others just give in to conforming with the system’s psychopathic demands) who also pursue relentlessly their win at all cost mantra everywhere on the planet now. Imagine how the others feel when confronted with the most massive physical/military might the planet has ever seen backed up by an economic system that is equally universally ruthless?
Well, of course we don’t have to imagine because that’s the whole point of the discussion isn’t it? ‘We’ have to find a way to squash the ‘them’ gnats once and for all. Except they have to-die-for sacred values that we insult on the face of it — and inflame even further (Scott Atran again) — by making them money offers or using money actions such as sanctions which send them to new levels of commitment/rage …
Bottom line: Ian was right it comes down to values (he calls it belief). One side is clear and totally connected to and committed to its relatively simple values — defend us vs them (and they die for them everyday). The other is dithering and confused and in transition. And all the weaponry and political clout — all themselves in the pockets of the economic psychopathic system (and some would argue even including the highest levels of ‘justice’) — can’t buy you sacred values.
Until we get to the spot where there is something approaching a majority consensus on that front somewhere that matters, we’ll continue to deal with the contradictions of ‘modern’ peoples confronting ‘ancient’ values… in proxy wars of juvenile proportions and video game execution for the masses watching at home.
Once we do get there, things will change … big time. Humanity will sense — even catch a glimpse of — its road to survival. And act…in the interests of the species. Who of us will live to see it? Even we might be surprised…
Cheers from here,
L.
PS. Apologies for the shameless self-promotion but my “Curating Sex, Briefly” explains how this all fits together in a short-ish read. It’s a Kindle Select book at your Amazon store.
JustPlainDave
There’s a time and a place for élan, but advancing into a stay behind to no good purpose isn’t one of them. In substantially all cases, what you get with “élan” here isn’t worth the risk or the resources. If the guy’s even a little good, you lose people, won’t get him and still get bogged down with the casevac. If he’s no good at all and you manage to get him – congrats, you got one talentless guy, and he *still* slows you down and achieves his objective. It’s a classic tactic and the classics are classics for a reason – they work well in a wide range of circumstances against a wide range of opponents. Successfully countering this tactic isn’t about élan – it’s about having the correct resources, battlefield awareness and TTPs.
That “sniper” he’s not so willing to die – he’s got himself a good set of cards. If this was all about willingness to die, he’d bang off his rounds, freeze in place, let them get close and then touch off a suicide vest – as a tactic, if you’re feeling particularly motivated to expend your life, that works even better than harassing rifle fire.
As to the notion that there’s some huge difference between volunteers and draftees in their use of supporting arms, I have to say there was one hell of a lot of European architecture “redeveloped” by draftees who didn’t want to work up close and personal. From where I’m standing, any differences are driven primarily by how much capability you have (and how short the command loops are) and whether your officers will let you use it.
JustPlainDave
Lee, this isn’t one side having clarity and commitment to its values and the other not. This is about us not having the same degree of knowledge of the “other side’s” controversies around values, etc. as we do of our own. In the absence of this knowledge, we tend to paint simple pictures with broad brushes. A lot of the time the pictures aren’t just excessively broad, but also completely wrong.
Ian Welsh
It really depends on the specific geography of the location. In many cases allowing one sniper to hold you back and allowing the enemy to withdraw in good order is stupid. In others, it is not.
Anon
What bothered me about this is that you made ISIS look so noble and superior organization than it actually is. Let me be blunt most of those are well funded thugs. They had more money weapons and support than any of the people they are killing now. My guess Obama reluctance to destroy them is because they are doing his biding( at least to some degree). If Muslims really cared much about their faith they would have united against those criminals who bastardized the faith. I don’t understand how could the world stand by and let them do what they are doing. The scale is different but I don’t see them different from the Nazis. Watch out, the way they are funded it may becomes more obvious very soon.
Ian Welsh
Sigh.
See, now, this is the Western sickness. You cannot give people their actual virtues (courage, military skill, belief) because they’re ethically bad.
Sure, ISA is well funded. So what? So is the Iraq army, which had/has far better equipment, more men and so on. If it was just about funding, ISA would be crushed.
Tom
Some history is needed to know why the Peshmerga failed.
First thing, the KRG was formed in 1970 under the then unknown Baathist functionary Saddam Hussein after the Kurds got schooled. Saddam convinced his uncle that a little autonomy to the Kurds would go a long way to avoid having to spend a lot of money putting the Kurds down every few years. It quickly fell through and the Iraqis easily crushed the Kurds.
This arrangement largely held till the Iran-Iraq war when the Kurds first revolted. Saddam easily crushed the revolt, then pardoned all the Peshmerga for their revolts and appointed a Kurd to his cabinet.
1991, the Kurds again revolted and were again easily destroyed and routed, Saddam again pardoned them and because of the embargoes, decided to allow the Kurds more autonomy to use them as a smuggling route, and began to play the two main Kurdish Parties, KDP and PUK against each other as they fought a civil war. Saddam for his part supported KDP along with Turkey making KDP a joint Turkish/Iraqi Puppet, the Northern No Fly Zone was not to stop Saddam from killing Kurds but to prevent Iran from bombing KDP in support of its PUK puppets. During this phase KDP helped Turkey fight PKK, Saddam helped KDP take Erbil, did the dirty work for KDP so it claim clean hands to PUK when Saddam executed 800 PUK members, and Saddam even helped KDP temporarily take Sulaymaniyah before a joint Iranian/PUK force retook it.
Finally in the late 90s Bill CLinton shotgun wedded those two Kurdish parties together. Ansar al-Islam then arose in Halabjra and for the next several years defeated all attempts by the Peshmerga to defeat them before 100 SOFs came in and cleaned them out just before the 2003 invasion.
During 2003, the Kurds despite heavy air support were barely able to advance against the Iraqi Army and paid in blood for ground gained. Then the US forced them at gunpoint back to KRG.
Peshmerga’s history is that of getting schooled in combat and being propped up by others. Its officers are appointed for political loyalties rather than merit, its staff work is appalling, and their fighters while motivated, are amateurs with divided loyalties.
ISA showed very well last week what happens when it decides to push an offensive. Even with the air strikes, had they decided to do so, they would have seized Erbil, Assad and Maliki have been pounding them harder than America with air strikes and they still took a lot of ground.
ISA had two main objectives last week:
1. Secure the Mosul Dam to restore electricity to Mosul which will serve as their main hub in Iraq just as Raqqa does in Syria, plus a buffer
2. Gain full control of Iraqi Highway 47 to the Syrian Border which they have built a connection to it from the Syrian Road Network which improves road communication to Mosul
3. Gain a stretch of Highway 1 to the Syrian Border Crossing into Hasakah Province which is partially accomplished as YPG and Pesh are still fighting to hold the Rabiah/Yarubiyah Border Crossing which would allow ISA to then use Syrian M4 and M6 Highways to outflank YPG and SAA forces.
Secondary Objectives:
Secure foot holds to enter KRG- Which they have abandoned to focus elsewhere now that USN is bombing them and they still need the Rabiah/Yarubiyah Border Crossing.
ISA has a master strategic/economic plan which they are following that enables them to fund, arm, and grow its forces without breaking the bank. They know they can’t really import stuff, so they focus on getting an internal industry going and are calling on professionals such as skilled worker and engineers to emigrate to their state as they need such professionals to help build their war machine so its self-sufficient and builds their economy.
They say amateurs study tactics while professionals study logistics. I say amateurs study logistics, while professionals study real world economics. Caliph Ibrahim certainly understand economics is the key to securing his rule and keeping the people on his side.
Taking the Islamic State down means helping Assad in Syria which means we got to cut Israel and Saudi Arabia loose, especially as those two are fueling instability in the region.
OldSkeptic
Tom, “Taking the Islamic State down means helping Assad in Syria which means we got to cut Israel and Saudi Arabia loose, especially as those two are fueling instability in the region.”
Plus Iran of course.
But the US won’t ‘cut Israel and Saudi Arabia loose’, politically and economically impossible for them in the short to medium term at least, though tensions must be building up.
The US, Israel and Saudi Arabia are fairly happy about ISIS and what it has done. The only thing that concerns them is the Kurds. US, Turkey, Israel and US oil companies are up to their necks there and oil is being shipped to, at least, Turkey and probably indirectly Israel. Their pointless air attacks are just a ‘shot across to bows’ to go no further in that direction.
In this they are in conflict with Saudi Arabia, which would like to see them exterminated too and ‘their’ ISIS’ grabbing all that area and using it as a staging post to attack Iran as part of their Jihad to eliminate everyone from the ME except Wahhabi Sunnis.
Of course, the US and Israel would prefer that ISIS stop wasting their time in Iraq and go for Syria and Lebanon. Israel for some strange reason seems to want an aggressive, militarily competent, heavily armed Jihadist force right on their border and whatever Israel wants, then so does the US. The US seems to be trying a ‘stick and carrot’ approach, a few bombs in Iraq, promised money (etc) if they get back to attacking Syria.
So do I wonder how this ‘axis of the ugly and stupid’ will hold together over time. As I said I think it is rock solid for the immediate future, but the future?.
How long can US politicians keep ‘tap dancing’ between meeting Israel’s and SA’s demands? They need SA to keep the petrodollar going and their politicians need to keep Israel happy (or be fired).
But ISIS has slipped its leash and none of them are in control of events any longer, though they still think they are. If I was a Saudi prince I’d make sure my Gulfstream is always fueled up and ready…….
OldSkeptic
Meanwhile a bit under the radar things are heating up in the China Sea. This is starting to move towards a rather nasty potential conflict.
I recommend Peter Lee (appears often in the Asia Times) and his own site is: http://chinamatters.blogspot.com.au/
What we are seeing is a global showdown between the US and Russia and China (etc), while is tries to control/influence/appease Japan, Saudi Arabia and Israel. After working endlessly to take the shackles off of Japan, this is starting to look like not such a good idea after all.
The sheer complexities and interrelationships of all these conflicts is so far beyond the intellectual capacity of the DC establishment it is not funny. Unfortunately this makes the probability of ‘the big mistake’ rather high. Economic/military showdowns with Russia and China, with rogue players all over the place? Stuff of nightmares.
Tom
Iran is not the problem, everything they have done is to keep the US from vassalizing them. Iran doesn’t start wars, nor does it seek to vassalize states. Hezbollah while an ally is not a vassal and has its own agenda independent of Iran. So does Assad and Maliki. As long as they are neutral to Iran, Iran cares little about them.
Hell Iran had every reason to go to war with the Taliban in 1998, but refrained themselves to destroying the Taliban Border Posts and passing weapons to the Northern Alliance, but otherwise let the murder of their diplomats slide as not worth an open ended war over.
Iran understands unlike the US that starting wars is easy, ending them is not and if you go to war it has to be for a very good reason that is worth potentially massive loss of Iranian lives.
Lets remember Iran didn’t start the war of words. Israel and the US did.
Gaianne
Just Plain Dave–
Although this essay is not about tactics, your comments make me wonder how well you understand tactics. You are right that stay-behind snipers (a.k.a. covering your retreat) are classic tactics–which means if you are retreating you want to do them well, and if you are advancing you want to overcome them, and sometimes you can. Normally, you would never give a sniper a suicide vest: As a trained sharp-shooter he is much too valuable to throw away, and the damage he could do as a human bomb far too inadequate. He takes his shots and holds out for as long as he can. How long is that? That is where the risk comes in: Nobody knows. But the goal is not to rack up a body count (which in itself does not matter), rather it is to impede the advance and thus save ones own forces and then get him out so he can fight again–possibly even to keep covering the same retreat.
So if you are advancing, you need to overcome these guys. Inevitably, it will cost you. Is it worth it? It depends on whether you can advance sufficiently far and fast to rout the retreating force–which in turn can be the difference between indecision and victory.
An army that cannot accept costs cannot fight.
An army without a deep reason to fight cannot accept costs.
Wars-of-choice routinely fail.
–Gaianne
OldSkeptic
Celsius, your earlier comment “Yep, nothing like an army driven by religiously fanatical troops and messiah-like leaders” is true but is only a part of the story.
Monsters they may be, but they have shown great tactical and technical competence. Some of them have been studying Guderian (etc).
They have mastered mobile warfare, something the west had never really managed (except the Wehrmacht of course) . They are obviously using their own version of ‘mission command’, again something the west has never achieved (again except the Wehrmacht in WW2 of course).
They have also show great strategic ability. Their move into Iraq has been masterful, their choice of targets brilliant, showing a competent intelligence network. They have gone for economic resources, which gives them independence from their old wannabie ‘puppet masters’ and gives them the resources for a ‘long war’ if it happens.
They have also struck quickly and ruthlessly to consolidate their power in captured territory, killing and expelling Christians, non compliant Sunnis, Shias, etc any who might become a centre of resistance to them in the future. Brutal and cruel but if you want to hold that territory you have taken it is an effective tactic. The other side of that tactic is giving all the stolen property to loyal supporters, which doesn’t hurt either.
So 8 or even 9 out of 10 to them from a purely military point of view. No western force would have done nearly as well and any that go up against them in the near future will probably be slaughtered.
Only thing that surprises me at the moment is that no US plane has yet been shot down. Given that ISIS almost certainly has fair low/medium level anti-air equipment it means that US planes are bombing far away from them, using the Ukrainian aircraft losses against the Federalists as a guide. More evidence that the US is just trying to ‘put a shot over the bows’ of ISIS rather than any real engagement to try and get them to leave the Kurdish areas alone.
However the evidence is that if ISIS wants those areas then they will take them. They will incur heavier losses than they have had to date, but win they will.
It will be interesting to observe their strategic calculations and see what they will do. The biggest risk to them is actually Turkey and/or Iran coming into play if they do (the US is irrelevant). There are easier targets with potentially far greater political/economic gains on offer. So will they succumb to ‘victory disease’ and overreach themselves and take on some real hard cases (Iran and Turkey)?
Their greatest potential prize, though it is out of their reach at the moment, is of course Saudi Arabia. Though the leaders of SA are probably getting a bit nervous they are sitting on a tinderbox of young unemployed Wahabbi Sunni males, who I would expect to a man support ISIS.
If I was them (after taking lot of monster pills and having my empathy and conscience surgically removed) I’d go for consolidation and building up their forces while doing enough ‘deep strikes’ all over the place to keep everyone off balance and in a state of panic, while also building a resistance within SA. Then the big fast push. This would be aided by the SA ruling class Gulfstreaming out of the place as soon as they crossed the border, effectively decapitating their Govt right at the beginning. I think you could safely bet on the SA military forces crumbling nearly as fast as the Iraqi ones did.
One way of ending the petrodollar I suppose.
Now, here is where it gets interesting, if I was Putin, and given his Govt’s hatred of SA after the famous Bandar’s threats…and reportedly Putin ordering his military people to draw up a plan to take SA out…..well I smell an interesting opportunity, which I am sure the smart people in the Kremlin have already noticed…long before I did. Not to control things, which is impossible, but maybe just to nudge them in the right direction from their point of view?
Strategically, from their point of view, Turkey, Iran and Syria matter (and hence the Shia areas in Iraq). The Kurds do not. SA is a self declared enemy of them and an economic competitor and the lynchpin of the US dollar.
The game is afoot Watson.
Ian Welsh
The core fighters in ISA are Chechens. Putin is not stupid enough to cut a deal with the ISA, because the ISA cannot be trusted to keep it. When they can, they /will/ go after Russian held areas with Muslims. Now, he might be able to nudge them, as you say, but that’s a dangerous game. You want the ISA controlling Saudi Arabia?
As for US air, the pilots are, actually, bad (I have inside sources who have attested to this.) In part because of overuse of go-pills (use them too regularly and they /will/ burn you out). In part because the air force is a colony of the religious right.
In any case, in NATO ops, the close bombing ops are generally done by other nations, in particular the Brits, not by Americans. American pilots are, as a group, simply not skilled enough.
OldSkeptic
Ian I don’t want ISIS controlling anything, except a hole in the ground. But from Russia’s point of view better them going after SA than Iran, Syria and Lebanon, which is what SA, Israel and the US wants them to do.
Again perspective, if they they take over or even just damage and cause panic in SA then oil prices go through the roof…good for Russia.
China is partially protected by its fixed price contracts with Iran, Russia, etc.
The west overall ..screwed. Europe doomed.
So, given the west’s unrelenting move towards war with Russia and China…not a bad move ..if possible to pull off.
Why should ISIS go head to head with hardcases like Iran or Turkey, when there is a weak link right in front of them? Heck Kuwait is also totally open if you are a mobile army.
Ian Welsh
A lot of their funding did come from Kuwait. But of course the Caliphate should control everything, and definitely it should control Mecca.
But if the Caliphate gets SA, people will have to buy oil from them. That money/power will be used, hard, against Russia. I’m not sure any major power really benefits from the ISA. Even China has an ethnic Muslim problem its West.
Canada would do fine, though, or at least, our Oil Barons would. So hey, go for it! (And some parts of US society would benefit big time, or think they would (if they want to rule an America that’s a complete shithole, which they do). Those parts are very powerful.)
JustPlainDave
Gitanne, I understand enough about these specific tactics to know that if the reporting is accurate, whoever was behind the rifle on that fine day wasn’t really a trained sniper. This guy wasn’t that high value an asset and what he was doing doesn’t require terribly uncommon amounts of skill – nor was it as risky as folks on the outside make out. As to the use of suicide vests and the exchange calculus, we’re in rampant agreement – my point is that this isn’t just about willingness to die. It’s about a much, much broader (and long established and, perhaps most importantly, commonly held) set of qualities.
Urbanized terrain, which is what the reporting says this was, has such a high multiplier for the defender that dismounts (particularly these one) are never going to move to contact through it in good order fast enough to catch even a minimally competent, minimally prepared defender. Only way to do this I can see is to bypass and, by definition, that means not attacking into the teeth of the stay behind. That they didn’t bypass says to me that for some reason they couldn’t or they didn’t think it was going to get them anything. The answers with this type of thing are always “it depends” but the reported circumstances are so weighted that there would have to be something unknown to us that was really exceptional before running up the middle at this guy was a good move.
One of the things that I have noted about élan over the years is that it is most clearly seen in retrospect and universally associated with success. Conversely, its cousin recklessness – also most visible in retrospect – seems exclusively to be the handmaiden of failure.
JustPlainDave
More broadly, guys, some perspective here. A lot of “they’re psychic, evil genius giants” going on here. We have very little real insight into how brilliant this strategy is. Yes, it *looks* successful – over the short term – against some adversaries that range from internally conflicted to pretty incompetent. It’s another matter entirely how this is going to play out over the long term over a broader theatre than Iraq. My bet is that their true composition is quite a bit different and more complicated than is being “assume-reported” and that in the long run they are going to have significant internal cleavages that are going to be real problematic for them.
My apologies for misspelling your name Gaianne, wasn’t looking closely enough.
OldSkeptic
Ian, “But if the Caliphate gets SA, people will have to buy oil from them. That money/power will be used, hard, against Russia. ”
And the Great Satan will not be first? I think Russia will be well down the list of enemies that they will go for first.. And the economic benefits to Russia, a massive oil exporter…and Iran…sanctions will disappear overnight.
Hard to see the downside to Russia in all this. Even if ISIS, in charge of SA gets all snarky with Iran and it does a shutdown of the Straights..what is the downside to Russia? Watching ISIS ruled SA taking out US carriers will be a fun time on TV for them.
Plus because of sanctions lots of Iranian oil/gas now goes through pipelines….to China.
Russia can survive, because it has gone though an economic collapse. What will the UK do when the food ships don’t arrive? What will will Europe do when the oil and gas doesn’t arrive?
Golden rule: when your enemy screws up by the numbers..leave them alone. But if you can nudge them to screw up even more..all to the good.
Core ISIS fighters are “Chechens”…hmm. Makes me think because some of the core Federalist fighters in the Ukraine are also ‘Chechens”.
markfromireland
@ OldSkeptic August 14, 2014
I don’t think you’ve thought this through at all. Near enemy, far enemy, always attack near enemy first. Not hard to see a downside for Russsia you can drive> to there from pretty well anywhere in the Levant. The something in the order of 1,000 experienced Chechen fighters in Syria and Irak apiece don’t have problems making the commute and I use that word advisedly. Russia continues to have greater problems with Salafi Jihadi Movement fighters than it’s publicising.
mfi
markfromireland
Ian,
In my experience military men are not frightened of death, we’re frightened of being captured, debilitating pain or wounds, and torture.
mfi
markfromireland
Finally I note with what would be disbelief were such incompetence not par for the course that the pundits, and commentariat do not appear to have noticed that Da’ash has successfully seized not only a goodly proportion of Irak’s wheat growing land but have also managed to seize in the order of 20% the total stocks of wheat siloed wheat for the country. They’re busy selling it at inflated prices for hard currency to any takers including the Iraki government which has let the national stock of siloed wheat get dangerously low.
mfi
JustPlainDave
Of interest – section of al-Akhbar’s recent long interview with Seyyid Hassan Nasrallah touching on ISIS:
http://english.al-akhbar.com/content/hezbollah-leader-warns-isis-growing-threat-region-must-be-defeated
Celsius 233
@ JPD
Thanks, great and very interesting read.
JustPlainDave
Section of interview touching more on involvement in Syria:
http://english.al-akhbar.com/content/hezbollah-leader-claims-battles-would-have-reached-beirut-if-party-had-not-intervened-syria
OldSkeptic
MFI, I picked that wheat article up as well. Another sign of Da’ash’s strategic competence.
Lets list their military attributes:
Greatly motivated.
Mastered mobile warfare, which, apart from anything else significantly reduces the importance of air power, unless there is a heck of a lot of planes. A single carrier is not going to cut it.
Mastered Mission Command.
Great tactical competence.
Impressive strategic competence.
Masters of the attack.
Clearly mastered their equipment, with enough spare for all those new recruits they keep getting (everyone loves a winner).
Clear logistic/economic targets, they have now won significant resources.
Brutally ensured captured areas will be loyal (at least for immediate period that is).
The only thing they haven’t demonstrated yet is how good they are at defensive warfare which at some point will be required.
Using Boyd’s measure:
Morale – 5 stars (out of 5)
Mental – 5 stars
Physical – 5 stars
So they are powerful force and now a big player in the ME. As a theoretical exercise what sort of US force would be required to beat them and win back all their territory? 100,000. 200,000, 250,000 troops with massive air support (no A-10s though)? Me I’d go with 250,000 and even then it would be very doubtful and the US losses horrific.
And what next for them? They can go for more territory/economic targets and/or go for destabilising deep strikes. Kurdish Iraq, Turkey, Iran, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, more of Syria and the Shia areas of Iraq, Lebanon? Heck even a faint and an attack on Kuwait just to ruin the oil market.
The US/Israel/SA/Turkey will of course be wanting them to go for Syria and Lebanon. Russia/Iran/Syria will want them to go for SA and Jordon.
Da’ash will make up its own mind. Provided they don’t get caught up with ‘victory disease’ and don’t do something really stupid (like attacking Turkey or Iran), then you can depend on their power and territory growing for some time yet, while continually spreading death and panic in the ME.
God help everyone of they manage to get some airpower together.
OldSkeptic
Interesting report from VICE news inside the Da’ash Caliphate.
https://news.vice.com/video/the-islamic-state-full-length
JustPlainDave
It’s worth remembering that lots of stuff can reverse to cut both ways – as an example, the reporting that I’m seeing says farmers haven’t been paid for that wheat. That’s something that will have to be managed.
Ghostwheel
Anybody else here thinking of the Fremen from Dune?
Tom
Well ISA is falling back again.
They fell back towards Tikrit in June under heavy air attacks, ISF walked into a trap.
They fell back under heavy air attacks again in July, ISF fell into a trap and ISA took a swathe of more territory.
Early August, Iraqi Air Attacks and Peshmerga counter attacks hit them in Mosul and Sinjar. They repulsed them and took Mosul Dam and nearly Irbil itself.
By its own admission, the US is still bombing ISA formations around Irbil, and in Diyala Province ISA has launched a new offensive and another south of Baghdad.
This is despite the fact Iraq is not ISA’s main theater of War, Syria is and ISA has been methodically cleaning out SAA bases and going after the Rojava Cantons, and hitting FSA.
OldSkeptic
Good comments Tom, shows they are prepared to trade ground for position and set up a following counter attack. Very, very few armed forces have ever managed that skill. In fact I struggle to think of many.
Australia on the Kokoda trail, Hezbollah have, Wehrmacht in WW2 might have but Hitler kept over riding them. Like the US he was infamous for holding ground even when it made no sense. Pretty much no one else ever has that I know of.
However, good as that is, they still have to show they can mount an effective defence against heavy odds. They have not yet (unlike the Ukrainian Federalists, see comments below) suffered under heavy air attack and artillery bombardments.
Tell you this I am getting more and more impressed by the Ukrainian Federalist forces. Tremendous morale, mobile, fast, excellent artillery usage, great anti-air, steadfast in the defence, great at the attack and ambushes, indirect fire and deep strikes too. Tactically smart and strategically pretty good. Unlike ISIS, they have faced heavy airpower and artillery used against them all the time.
Again they have obviously mastered mobile warfare and mission command. These people are seriously good. And they totally destroy the (endless) myth that you have to be a monster like ISIS to be good militarily, as they are pretty humane (except against the nazi militias that is) and follow the rules of war.
My god, just had a wicked thought. Many, at least at the officer, NCO level) are ex, some sort of still (of course) Russian forces (inc Ukrainians have trained/served in the Russian forces). I think the west has to do a fundamental reevaluation of the effectiveness of the Russian armed forces. If, overall, the whole of the Russian forces can operate at even 50% of the level shown by the Ukrainian Federalists ones, they would burn through anything the west has in days.
Still surprised we are not seeing US planes bring shot down in Iraq though. If you look at a comparable conflict the Ukrainian Federalists have shot down heaps of Ukrainian planes and choppers. Even in Syria ISIS has managed to shoot down a fair few of the Govt planes.
So what really is going on? I mean these are carrier based (and must be near their limit of range) F-18s, not exactly the best ground hitting plane around. So they must be hitting from 30,000ft or so. What effect will that have? Sod all I expect.
Friendly fire issues as well. Maybe ISIS is just moving ground a bit to let the Kurds (etc) be hit by the US bombs?
OldSkeptic
Warming to this theme, ISIS (or whatever they are called this week) compared to the Ukrainian Federalist (UF) forces.
From a purely military point of view I think that the UF forces have shown superior capabilities, from a humanitarian point of view there is no contest of course.
Massively outnumbered (10:1, 20:1 etc) against a force that does fight, albeit badly. The Ukrainian Govt force do attack and don’t run away until they are destroyed. Unlike ISIS they have never had an easy victory where all the force against them run away from them and drop all their weapons. They have had to fight at every turn to win their battles.
Under constant air and artillery attack (something ISIS has experienced a bit in Syria but not in Iraq). The ‘other side’ has full access (obviously) to US satellite and recon plane data, so they can’t just dash about the place without careful movement control.
Vastly outnumbered and bad as they are, the Ukrainian Govt forces are incomparably better than the Iraqi Govt forces.
Yet they are holding their own…and have a good chance at winning back control of their areas over the next few months as the Ukrainian Govt exhausts/bankrupts itself.
Plus, they do follow the rules of war. No atrocities (all too common for ISIS, or the Ukrainian Govt forces), though I expect nazi militias caught have zero pows.
Perhaps we have all allowed ourselves to be a bit too dazzled by ISIS (as good militarily, though monsterous, as they are) and not really seen yet another ‘military revolution’ on Europe’s doorstep.
Formerly T-Bear
That group (ISIL/ISIS/ISA/¿ISF? – the ones from Syria founded upon CIA-Mossad-KSA and Gulf funds) has fulfilled its purpose in Iraq. It has rearmed itself from captured Iraqi stocks, it has replenished its funding from Iraqi oil revenues and it has induced the overthrow of the Iraqi administration that had become an albatross to the Wall St./Washington/London axis of evil. Now they can return to try to finish off Assad having trained and bloodied their recruits and await their next assignment, maybe 9/11 v. 2.0 (you’ll recall how that went).
JustPlainDave
Guys, geez, a whole lot of conclusion based on not a lot of data. Mostly from some ISW summaries (produced, near as I can tell, by the interns) one concludes that ISA are masters of war. Call me nuts, but I think that’s maybe pushing the data too far.
There’s a whole lot of unknowns here, chief among them the composition of the ISA. Sheer numbers tell me that it’s got to be something bigger than just transnationals. I would guess that it has to include a significant leavening of folks whose loyalties are tribal and folks who are more loyal along lines that are more pre-invasion Iraqi state, though probably pretty much exclusively the Sunni part of that. To what extent are all of these guys on board with a specifically Islamist project, particularly one that spans across two countries? This is only the most basic stuff – if prior history is any indications the complexities and tensions are going to be damned near fractal (i.e., have many layers). It’s just not very likely to be as simple as ISA this, Kurds that, ISF this other thing over any reasonable span of time.
As an aside, reporting indicates that the main workhorse here is B1s flying out of the Gulf somewhere.
Tom
http://www.dailysabah.com/mideast/2014/08/18/kurdish-military-says-peshmerga-forces-in-full-control-of-mosul-dam
“An employee at the site, however, said ISIS militants still held the Mosul Dam, giving them control over power and water supplies and where any breach of the vulnerable structure would threaten thousands of lives.
U.S. fighter, bomber and drone aircraft took part in the strikes on ISIS positions near the dam, the Pentagon said. The strikes damaged or destroyed six armed vehicles, a light armoured vehicle and other equipment.
The U.S. military said it believed the air strikes around the dam had been effective in holding Islamic State militants in place so Iraqi and Kurdish forces could manoeuvre against them.
But Army Colonel Steve Warren, a Pentagon spokesman, said operations around the dam were “ongoing” and he was not prepared yet to say whether it had been retaken by Iraqi forces.
As fighting intensified, ISIS militants were said to have killed dozens of Kurdish fighters and captured 170 of them, according to a Twitter site that supports the group.”
They also posted the pictures too before Twitter suspended the account.
Obama wasn’t being truthful when he said the dam was captured.
OldSkeptic
“Obama wasn’t being truthful “…nah..really Tom? Lol….
JustPlainDave
I’m skeptical. The source is a rewrite of a Reuters piece that buried the quote from the dam employee and specifically noted that he could provide no further info. It’s somewhere around 30 hours old and I’m not seeing any “actually the dam is still contested” stories – I’d sure expect to were that the case given how high profile this is.
jayackroyd
I’m reading 1453, the story of the fall of Constantinople. Same story–willingness to die for the cause is crucial.
Tom
http://news.sky.com/story/1321234/iraq-conflict-fighting-resumes-at-mosul-dam
Still fighting. Looks like the Iraqi Golden Division (Brigade actually) did the bulk of the fighting.
Considering the Kurds abandoned the Dam without a fight and they needed the ISF best troops and heavy firepower from a combined US/IrqAF/IRGCAF airstrikes to just retake a Dam in several days of heavy fighting from just a hundred ISA Fighters, doesn’t speak well. Around Sinjar, YPG/PKK is increasingly forming the Kurdish Resistance because the Peshmerga just ran away from ISA. Also IS twitter feeds before they were banned were showing hundreds of Peshmergas taken prisoner in the past week. I managed to save one picture. However, Twitter is really banning IS accounts now on site, so much so its hampering US intelligence gathering to where they are asking Twitter to stop.
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-28858601
Fighting is still ongoing and other sources state the regulatory Dam is still held along with other parts of the complex in the Dam itself.
Its also telling that while this was going on, Kragol District south of Baghdad fell to ISA and they launched a new offensive into Diyala province that is still ongoing and not being covered as it puts the lie to these airstrikes turning the tide.
In Syria ISA just stormed Tabqa Airbase and fighting is currently ongoing, but the base is expected to fall soon along with a good portion of Assad’s MiG-21s that haven’t been able to escape.
Lighter news: http://www.cbsnews.com/pictures/israeli-palestinian-wedding/ A sign of hope, sadly they’ll be forced to leave Israel like the last couple that married.
JustPlainDave
This WSJ piece is worth reading. Two analytical precepts: 1) if the Pesh and ISF/SF get to fighting over who took the dam while standing on top of it, it’s probably taken, and 2) if everyone looks as clean as they do, it was probably supporting fires that did most of the work.