What is trending

[..] Everyone might be running away from COIN ( COunterINsurgency – VB) but they better run faster because the insurgents are catching up. They are catching up in Eastern Ukraine where we see a very complex hybrid war using sophisticated weaponry and intelligence assets provided by Russia in support of what it is essentially a guerilla warfare campaign fought by semi-uniformed irregular proxies. In Syria and Iraq, ISIS is using some of the same techniques, including intimidation and coercion in addition to the weapons captured in the Sunni provinces. War’s changing character continues; we are seeing an increased move away from the so-called conventional state on state war to the mixed hybrid threats that are using conventional weaponry in support of irregular subversive campaigns to achieve political objectives. I see no sign of that changing anytime soon; in fact there are a lot of indications that this trend will accelerate.

Dr. John Nagl, author of Knife Fights: A Memoir of Modern War in Theory and Practice, The Penguin Press, New York, 2014.

vara bungas: Teicami definēts: “Lai līdzsvarotu NATO convencionālo spēku pārākumu, citas varas izaicinās Eiropas drošības sistēmu nekonvencionālā ceļā, izmantojot terorismu, partizānu kara un informācijas kara operācijas.”

Bet šeit (sk. tekstu zemāk) atliek aizstāt vārdu “american” ar “NATO” un var līmēt iekšā ikvienā  NBS plānošanas dokumentā.

• American conventional military superiority will drive our opponents to irregular warfare:  insurgency and terrorism.
• In conventional war, identifying your enemy is comparatively easy, but killing him is hard.  In irregular warfare, the converse is true:  finding is hard, but killing or capturing is easy.
• In conventional war, politics stops until the war is over.  In irregular warfare, politics and economics continue throughout the war, and are in fact key weapons of war.  This combined political/economic/military challenge is what makes irregular warfare “the graduate level of war”.
• In conventional war, the civilian population is essentially an obstacle to progress.  In irregular war, winning the support or at least the acquiescence of the civilian population is key to winning the war; their safety and long-term support are essential to the success of whichever side wins.
• For a number of reasons including American conventional military superiority and the existence of nuclear weapons, conventional war has been on the decline since the 20th century.  That’s the good news.  The bad news is that irregular warfare has been a growing challenge over the past two centuries, and the information revolution, demographics, and resource scarcity make it likely to be the kind of war the United States is most likely to face for the rest of this century.  It’s hard, and it’s not going to go away, so we’d better get better at it if we want to win.

 Vispār profesors atstāj labu iespaidu, viņš atklāti saka  (sk.zemāk interviju), ka 2003.gada Irākas kampaņa bija kļūda, bet nākamā kļūda, kas pasliktināja iepriekšējo, bija ASV kaujas vienību izvešana no Irākas un tagad abas šīs kļūdas tiek atkārtotas Afganistānā.

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