Was really posting about a “blunt weapon” strategy, which is easy to observe not just in investments,but with the quick turns in defence strategy & posture
- SR, what is that? Well, it certainly is the opposite of a Global Guardian (if anyone believes in the latter, then they believe in Santa, too)
- the polar opposites were invented to inform the SDSR debate, as it was clear that cuts were coming and understanding in the broader circles had to be created as to what can *not* be done or achieved

… I think I will keep my head down in this one

As I have just posted on another threads and said before, on this site:-I and other like me who could read maps, history, and people, foresaw the total Afgahn omnishambles, predicited it and won bets over it.

Those professionals who did not:- were crap at their job and should have sesigned or been sacked. Really what is trhe point of having stars on your shoulders if some half assed goid botherer like T0ny Blair esq wants to invade Iraq because Sadfam is ‘evil’! (As attested to by one senior civil servant).

As for gulf 2 got drunk with a middle ranking Kevin the day the staue of sdam came down. He was declaring victory, and would I like to come baclk to his place..

I told him ‘ now the real shit starts’

As for gulf 2 got dronk with a middle ranking Kevin the day the staue of sdam came down. He was declaring victory, and would I like to come baclk to his place..

I told him ‘ now the real shit starts’

Really, the writing was on the wall in cases like that. Muslims are VERY emotional, it’s their culture, and I’m not surprised I’m not the only one with the conclusion that the “Coalition” was in for a mauling. Most people I spoke to thought that way too. We’ve been through our own insurgency and we keep a close eye on the ones going on in our neighbours, so anticipating the mess was a real no-brainer. I’m sure the Irish, with their experience too won’t miss the most likely end result either.

Lost count of the number of times my country has been on the receiving end of “diplomatic” death threats from the surrounding Muslim countries. Becomes a yawn after a while really.

@Chris

Predicting Iraq and Afganistan and 9-11 was a no brainer, what was more interesting and profitable was predicting the Economic crisis. I moved my investments to India and China a few weeks before it blew.

Speak as you find. Speak as you find, my friend.

Are you old enough to have been able to fully understand what was going on throughout the entire Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, by the way?

For the Iraq invasion I was living in Dublin, working in a shop. Maybe the Irish know a thing or two about this living under (what they perceive as) occupation lark, and insurgency; but there wasn’t a single customer (totally average folks on the street) or mate that I chatted with who didn’t nail exactly what was going to happen there too, or grimace at that whole ‘Shock and Awe!’ rubbish and the hubris of the entire operation.

ArmChairCivvy: Cheers for the info and linky – might be just what the doctor ordered! I’ll have a good read later.

There are none, apart from the very rare opinion piece here and there, because this was supposed to be a 21st Century war. It was gonna be bombs and a few spec ops, with follow on forces to clean out the last remaining strongholds. When it all worked as planned everyone sat back and patted each other on the back at how well they’d done.

Nobody, not one person, at that point could see the counter insurgency coming because it was all supposed to be over. Now it was just a case of training the Afghan forces to take over and everything would be fine.

On the face of it Afghan appeared to be epitome of success in modern warfare. There was no evidence that it would descend into what we have today. You’re just looking at it with 20:20 hingsight.

Same with Iraq. Iraq was going to be all shock and awe, satellites and lasers, a war of weeks ending in total victory over the enemy. No one had a clue what was going to happen following that. Again, with 20:20 hindsight we know that a lot of things could have been done differently to avoid the problems, but nobody at the time suspected that a counter insurgency campaign was about to kick off.

That’s the big issue with all these fancy air sea battle concepts. They’re just a repeat of the shock and awe, and they’ll end precisely the same way. The difference might be that the UK ends up deploying a single “normal” brigade instead of an over strength brigade. But it’ll still end up deploying brigades to various theatres.

As I have already said time and again, if you couldn’t predict it, you’re not looking hard enough. Or maybe it’s just the region. In almost every country in Asia, there is insurgency or a history of an encounter with insurgency so pardon us if we can see it coming from a mile away. (Thailand-Southern Insurgency, Indonesia-Jemaah Islamiyah, Free Aceh Movement, Phillipines-Moro Islamic Liberation Front, Burma-Karen Rebels).

It’s only in VERY rare circumstance that you do not get rebellions, 1) War weariness as in WWII, 2) Actions of a charismatic pacifistic individual 3) A government system so screwed up that no one benefited or 4) A conquest where anyone who dissented or benefitted from the old system is exterminated.

Iraq and Afganistan did not fit any of these conditions.

Like the “fighting season”, the data is there. You just have to look for it. Starting with Afgan history and habits of A.Q.

I’m sure a no fly zone could just about be managed using a combination of Cyprus, carriers, some further afield bases for all the ISTAR stuff and yeah obviously getting either Israel or Turkey or both on board would be a major boost.

It would defiantly be an overwhelmingly Anglo-American and French effort, probably with a smattering of small contributions. It couldn’t really work any other way, and as you say James any major partner dragging their feet would be a serious spanner in the works!

In a sense though I think all of this chat is fairly pointless, because as you both said it’s very unlikely that anyone has any real appetite for this sort of action. We are weary of war and know how complicated things can become.

Even the mighty USA would indeed think twice before committing to yet another foreign intervention that has a far from clear outcome.

“Having seen the body bags coming back from Iraq and Afghanistan it would be a no brainer for Labour to realise that opposing ground troops in Syria will be a vote winner,”

– Not if we see more videos and pictures of piles of syrian bodies. Listen to the people in attendance at any BBC Question Time when the issue of Syria comes up. The public is frustrated that we can’t simply repeat Libya (obviously without realising the differences). If there is anything the British public seems to hate more than British deaths, it’s standing by and watching others get slaughtered when they know we could be doing something about it. No party wants to get tagged as the one that was too cautious and didn’t have the balls to act.

@ Observer,
“Ok Chris, I’ll throw you a freebee on this one. There is going to be an increase in attacks in Afganistan starting this month till the end of maybe November”
– So you’ve predicted the fighting season. Well done. Now go and show me the place where you predicted prior to the invasion of Afghanistan that it was going to turn into a bloody counter insurgency. Show me where all the experts were lining up to condemn the invasion, warning that the west would get bogged down in Asia again?

UK forces had it relatively light compared to the current status quo precisely because they didn’t deploy large numbers or try to get involved in a large nation building campaign. It wasn’t on the agenda at the time.

You can’t have a counter insurgency campaign without the insurgency, and you never know where the insurgency is going to come from. Nobody goes to war thinking they’re going to get involved in an extensive counter insurgency battle. It gets forced upon them, usually because of their own success in the first place.

Alternatively I guess we could completely scrap the army except for one or two commando units and a special forces company. Spend all that extra cash on ships and planes. We’ll look sexy as fuck on the recruiting posters, but anytime somebody really needs our help we’ll be reduced to just flying around and sailing up and down watching as the enemy are permitted freedom of movement on the ground, among the civilian population, offering us nothing worthwhile to shoot at.

To be honest I don’t know as I haven’t actually watched any of the Falklands 30 stuff. Not really interested in yet more 2 Para at Goose Green, Black Buck, and Bluff Cove.

Presumably, all of the C3 / ISTAR / AAR stuff would fly from Italy or Crete to allow the FJ to concentrate in Cyprus.

The US might put up 2 carriers with the embarked air wings – 6 total FJ Squadrons. France and Italy the same, but only 2 more Squadrons. The 2 Cyprus airbases might be able to host 5 more squadrons each, of which the Brits put up total 3. 18 FJ Squadrons (6 US, 1 French, 1 Italian, 3 British, presumably the rest from Denmark, Norway, Germany, etc). Is that enough for the campaign? It sounds as though it could be.

The problem comes with just one nation from the P5 not putting up any FJs, or only volunteering C3 assets. As soon as that happens, everyone else will sit on their hands. So, as with Libya, it looks like it’s a US/UK/France push, and I’m not sure there’s the appetite.

We’ll see in the 3 weeks to follow, but I am predicting, no NFZ.

I know the RAF base in Cyprus is sizeable, but surely their is a limit to what it can accommodate, as in not anything near enough for the campaign as a whole.

If Turkey drags it’s heels then what else is their? I’m guessing US and French carrier groups in the eastern med?

Syria is a different ball game altogether from Libya, needing a firm and large scale effort to have any meaningful effect. Dealing with their air defence capability alone, before anything else occurs would take a show of strength beyond what we saw last year.

A UK commitment would have symbolic value but I’m not sure how decisive anything could be without serious US capabilities in the vanguard.

I confess i am at a disadvantage here as i don’t have a tele, but no doubt you are right.

You may well be right about the no fly zones – they seem to be an automatic first step. I’m sure some country will ask for them and there’ll be debate and consideration. But I wonder what good they will do? I don’t know anything at all of course about what’s really going on in the country, but from what has been on the news it seems the biggest threat to the people is from tanks and artillery, not the Syrian AF.

Also, enforcing a NFZ may be very problematic. Syria has an extensive AD network*** which is fully operational, so that would need to be taken out first, and that means an air effort much bigger than Libya. I suspect it’s doable if the west can mobilise enough top end FJ, Cyprus is close enough, the Turks may offer facilities, and so on, but to me it sounds a lot more crunchy than Libya.

*** Shameless cut and paste from Wiki. hope it’s accurate!

“The Syrian Air Defense Force controls twenty-five air defense brigades, each with six SAM batteries. It is equipped with 650 static SA-2, SA-3 and SA-5 launchers, 200 mobile SA-6 and SA-11 launchers and over 4,000 anti-aircraft guns ranging from 23mm to 100mm in caliber. There are also two independent SA-8 and SA-10 SAM Regiments, each with four batteries of 48 mobile SAMs.”

Elsewhere it states that they also have SA-15 and SA-22, and are 40,000 strong.

I don’t know. This year how many documentaries have you seen about the RN’s orbat in 82? And how many have you seen on a set of particular RAF missions? How many documentaries do you see on the RM’s actions compared to Parachute actions at Goose Green or Guard’s action on Tumbledown? Everything to do with the RN that is shown is about ships sinking.