Originally Posted by Remington 1858

Okay, nobody wants to deal in specifics, and I don't blame them. Let's talk generalities. The hot topic and new military buzz term is "Hybrid Warfare'. A current example is the Donbass war. There you will see a mixture of conventional forces, irregular forces ( militias, guerrillas, mercenaries, special forces), political subversion and cyber warfare.
Who knows anything about this? Can you site examples such as the Israeli incursion into lebanon in 2006 when Hezbollah was even hacking individual cellphones of Israeli soldiers and gleaning information as well as tapping into Israeli communications.
In order to operate in this venue regular forces will have to be capable of a broad range of options ranging from conventional punch-up operations to counter - guerrilla warfare.
Few conventional forces can do this and I maintain that a conventional force can only do it on their own soil, not on the soil of another nation.
Example: The North Vietnamese Army was capable of shifting between conventional combat into guerrilla operations and back again like throwing a switch! American generals had never seen anything like it. However, it's obvious that the Viets were operating on their own turf, knew the ground, knew the people and knew the score.
So, how many members of this forum have received guerrilla or counter-guerrilla training as part of conventional training? I don't mean a one hour lecture. i'm talking about a full multi-day exercise playing the part of either the guerrillas or the counter force. I'll bet none. Well, maybe U.S. Marines cause they love all that b******t.

The Swedish army used the same concept during the cold war. Not being a guerrilla but being an army using the same doctrine as a guerrilla. The Finns used more or less the same tactics against the Russians.

Originally Posted by Sara

Well... I know you're dying to tell your secrets for doing this so spit it out ,I3, How do you cast your spell on the women? This should be interesting, I've always wondered how the male mind works.... do you wooo us with your knowledge of how many books you've read or do you simply pretend to truly and honestly care about our feelings while we whine continuously about our frustrating lives? ... (or both?)

I will never tell about the operational concepts I implement to be successful. The male mind is pretty simple, we all have four basic interests; food, sex, booze, and sleep. Maybe not in that order, but.....

If I care about females emotions, of course I do. I'm always listening to what women tells me.....can you repeat that? I was thinking about a cold beer.

I think it will be very difficult for a conventional force to shift gears into a guerrilla or counter - guerrilla role. Even the German Army of WWII. one of the best trained, led and disciplined armies of all time couldn't do it. Their counter- guerrilla operations just made more guerrillas. The U.S. has similar experience on it's on-going World Tour of Shitholes.

Originally Posted by Remington 1858

Okay, nobody wants to deal in specifics, and I don't blame them. Let's talk generalities. The hot topic and new military buzz term is "Hybrid Warfare'. A current example is the Donbass war. There you will see a mixture of conventional forces, irregular forces ( militias, guerrillas, mercenaries, special forces), political subversion and cyber warfare.
Who knows anything about this? Can you site examples such as the Israeli incursion into lebanon in 2006 when Hezbollah was even hacking individual cellphones of Israeli soldiers and gleaning information as well as tapping into Israeli communications.
In order to operate in this venue regular forces will have to be capable of a broad range of options ranging from conventional punch-up operations to counter - guerrilla warfare.
Few conventional forces can do this and I maintain that a conventional force can only do it on their own soil, not on the soil of another nation.
Example: The North Vietnamese Army was capable of shifting between conventional combat into guerrilla operations and back again like throwing a switch! American generals had never seen anything like it. However, it's obvious that the Viets were operating on their own turf, knew the ground, knew the people and knew the score.
So, how many members of this forum have received guerrilla or counter-guerrilla training as part of conventional training? I don't mean a one hour lecture. i'm talking about a full multi-day exercise playing the part of either the guerrillas or the counter force. I'll bet none. Well, maybe U.S. Marines cause they love all that b******t.

I'd say the Army has been on board with flushing this out for a while now. There are now 4 areas of operational art that are focused on in our doctrine 1. Attack 2. Defense 3. Counter Insurgency 4. Stability Operations. The new Army operating concept also acknowledges that the future is absolutely uncertain and the Army and its' leaders must be fully adaptive to whatever challenges lay ahead. A normal deployment train up now consists of training in full spectrum operations from low intensity to high intensity combat and the Training Centers at NTC, JRTC, and Graf have been running 30 or more day simulated combat environments with varying degrees of intensity ranging up and down the LIC/HIC spectrum for at least ten years now...

Now that Russian forces are in Syria, we will see how they handle 'hybrid" warfare. At first, it appears that they are limiting their activities to air strikes. However, there are unconfirmed reports that they have or will have 150,000 troops on the ground. That's far more troops than are required for an air support campaign.
I'm interested in seeing if they will attack the various opposition websites, their communications, command and control sites. They also need to knock out the sources of funding of those groups. Since some are funded by the U.S., that's going to be tough.
The Russians will be the crash-test dummies to try out this new generation of combat.

Originally Posted by brinktk

I'd say the Army has been on board with flushing this out for a while now. There are now 4 areas of operational art that are focused on in our doctrine 1. Attack 2. Defense 3. Counter Insurgency 4. Stability Operations. The new Army operating concept also acknowledges that the future is absolutely uncertain and the Army and its' leaders must be fully adaptive to whatever challenges lay ahead. A normal deployment train up now consists of training in full spectrum operations from low intensity to high intensity combat and the Training Centers at NTC, JRTC, and Graf have been running 30 or more day simulated combat environments with varying degrees of intensity ranging up and down the LIC/HIC spectrum for at least ten years now...

I don't want to sound sarcastic but do you think points 3 and 4 are working because from a laymans point of view the last 14 years of American involvement in world affairs only appear to have destabilised things more.

Insurgencies in Iraq and Afghanistan are not losing their steam and the regions are so far from being stabilised that the chaos has spread throughout the region.

Also perhaps a mod could split this thread and move things to a more appropriate forum?

Well, MontyB I think that what you are talking about is more in the area of strategy than tactics. Admittedly, the U.S. hasn't been noticeably successful in either Afghanistan or Iraq, but that has been in the absence of anything that could even be remotely described as a strategy. Tactics would deal more with how forces kill the enemy while minimizing their own losses.
In terms of strategy, at this date, i doubt that many Americans even know who we are fighting or why! That includes the people in the White House.
Now that the Russians are back, after having been off-line for several years, we can go back to the good old days of hating them. That worked out pretty well for decades. We glared and snarled at each other without having a major war. They make a much better enemy that a billion Muslims.
The Russian may have better luck in the Middle East than the U.S. They have a brute force approach that is hard to beat, although it didn't work out for them in Afghanistan, probably because they didn't kill enough Afghanis or they didn't kill the right ones.

Originally Posted by MontyB

I don't want to sound sarcastic but do you think points 3 and 4 are working because from a laymans point of view the last 14 years of American involvement in world affairs only appear to have destabilised things more.

Insurgencies in Iraq and Afghanistan are not losing their steam and the regions are so far from being stabilised that the chaos has spread throughout the region.

Also perhaps a mod could split this thread and move things to a more appropriate forum?

No, they aren't...I'd say the military has shown that we CAN deliver the goods in these fights...however, if our politicians ignore the advice of our generals out of political interest then it completely defeats the purpose of the strategy in the first place. Of course, that is what happens when political dogma drives the hands of professional military action. I'm a Michael Shauer type of guy though so I try to deal in reality.

Politicians want concrete answers on short timelines...something that simply isn't going to happen in these types of fights.

I think our military has taken an important step in finally recognizing the reality that we will likely be fighting in small, ugly, etherial wars in the future and we are trying to prepare accordingly...IMHO I don't think we have gone far enough to change our doctrine and how we think...but at least we are trying to move in that direction...unfortunately, at least in the US Army, there seems to be an ongoing purge of experienced combat vets that know how to do this type of fight...so how seriously is the Army taking this new doctrine if they're doing this purge?...hard to say.

What I can say is that when I left Iraq in 2011 it was on its way to stability. Almost every Iraqi I worked with wanted us to stay because we were the stabilizing force in that country. We didn't want to leave at the time either. The Syrian civil war was begining and I specifically remember talking to other vets on how it was all going to go downhill as long as Syria was essentially a vacuum looking to be filled. If I could see that as a 28 year old 1st Lieutenant at the time...how the hell did the elites miss it? I digress though...

Originally Posted by brinktk

No, they aren't...I'd say the military has shown that we CAN deliver the goods in these fights...however, if our politicians ignore the advice of our generals out of political interest then it completely defeats the purpose of the strategy in the first place. Of course, that is what happens when political dogma drives the hands of professional military action. I'm a Michael Shauer type of guy though so I try to deal in reality.

Politicians want concrete answers on short timelines...something that simply isn't going to happen in these types of fights.

But is there an answer to that?
I am not sure I would be confortable letting the military loose to get a job done as it would just be a giant bloodbath, as much as I do not like politicians I do believe that in a democratic/free (whatever term you want to use) society the military must be controlled by the people.

If anything I have a tendancy to believe that both the military and politicians have failed to take into account the digital world we live in.

What I can say is that when I left Iraq in 2011 it was on its way to stability. Almost every Iraqi I worked with wanted us to stay because we were the stabilizing force in that country. We didn't want to leave at the time either. The Syrian civil war was begining and I specifically remember talking to other vets on how it was all going to go downhill as long as Syria was essentially a vacuum looking to be filled. If I could see that as a 28 year old 1st Lieutenant at the time...how the hell did the elites miss it? I digress though...

In 2011 you may well have realised these things but as early as 2002 much world from common folk to French politicians were predicting this outcome.

In December 2002 I spent the day with the New Zealand contingent of UN weapons inspectors who had just returned from Iraq and they all said the same things, there is nothing there and in 10 years we will be back cleaning the mess Bush is determined to make.

I really do not know what the answer is anymore and I will be honest and say that I do believe that the current surge in instability is the direct result of US actions over the last 14 years and I believe that the only answer to this is either for China to become a beligerant super power or Russia to resume that role to keep you guys in check.

Originally Posted by MontyB

But is there an answer to that?
I am not sure I would be confortable letting the military loose to get a job done as it would just be a giant bloodbath, as much as I do not like politicians I do believe that in a democratic/free (whatever term you want to use) society the military must be controlled by the people.

If anything I have a tendancy to believe that both the military and politicians have failed to take into account the digital world we live in.





In 2011 you may well have realised these things but as early as 2002 much world from common folk to French politicians were predicting this outcome.

In December 2002 I spent the day with the New Zealand contingent of UN weapons inspectors who had just returned from Iraq and they all said the same things, there is nothing there and in 10 years we will be back cleaning the mess Bush is determined to make.

I really do not know what the answer is anymore and I will be honest and say that I do believe that the current surge in instability is the direct result of US actions over the last 14 years and I believe that the only answer to this is either for China to become a beligerant super power or Russia to resume that role to keep you guys in check.

I'm not saying give the military carte blanche. Yes we absolutely belong to civil authority. However, too often the military advice is simply ignored for political reasons that don't serve the long term interests of the country. The military was well aware that what Bush and friends were saying would happen in Iraq was not based in reality and the generals pushed for a half a million troops for Any invasion of Iraq, only to be shut down at every turn...hard to deliver reasonable solutions when the boss is playing a different game altogether compared to us...


Honestly, as for China and Russia, I'm inclined to let them. Seems we are damned either way, may as well be their blood and booty that is wasted.

Although I agree we haven't helped the middle east, I'm of the belief that the bloodbath was a long time coming. Islam needs an age of reason before they can really move forward into the modern world much like Christianity did. That is always going to be a bloody transition. We can't fix that for them, they need to wrestle through it themselves and we need to try to contain any collateral that will happen as a result.

I've noticed Americans are tired of trying to keep things stable. World police is something we have never really embraced. It was a reluctant role that was assumed because the alternatives were bad, badder, and baddest. I think my generation is seeing the writing on the wall and we are very much willing to hand over the torch because it simply isn't worth it anymore to do this. Again, if we do nothing we are bastards, if we do something, we are bastards with money and lives spent. So what is the point? I say let the Chinese, Russians, and Europe figure it out...or at least try to...I'm positive after they all spend hundreds of billions and thousands of lives they will reach similar conclusions I have...this is a Muslim problem that needs to be fixed by Muslims.