Monthly Archives: April 2022

Where has Cyberwar Gone

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As others beside me have noted, one of the most astonishing things about the war in Ukraine is the fact that cyberwarfare does not seem to be playing a major role in it. To be sure, there has been what one source calls “a steady drumbeat of attacks, including disinformation campaigns, distributed denial-of-service attacks that temporarily knock websites offline, and ‘wiper’ attacks, which infect computer networks and render them inoperable by deleting all files. But no question of malware taking the place of bullets, shells, rockets missiles and bombs, small and large. No talk of countrywide water, gas, electricity, communication and transportation systems being knocked out by all kinds of oddly-named devices used by either side. Instead, old-fashioned kinetic warfare seems to be not only alive but kicking out ferociously in every direction at once. Just take a look at images filled with wrecked Russian tanks, or, on the other side, some photographs of what much of Mariupol now looks like.

Why the role of cyberwar seems to be so much smaller than expected I do not know. Judging by some articles on the topic that have surfaced on the Net, neither do others. Based on what decades of study have taught me about the relationship between technology and war, though, personally I think there are several possibilities. First, it may be that the difficulties an attacker faces in effectively penetrating an enemy’s computer network in such a way as to make a difference are greater than many experts had thought. Second, the defenders on both sides may have prepared much more effectively than anyone expected. Third, there is the question of secrecy. Meaning that, if there has ever been a field in which holding one’s cards, whether offensive or defensive, close to one’s chest is vital, this is the one.

Such being the situation, I want to provide a fourth explanation. Many of you will be familiar with the name of Giulio Douhet (1869-30). Douhet was a World-War I Italian general originally commissioned into the artillery. In 1922 he published Il dominio dell’aereo, almost certainly the most famous volume on the topic ever written and a cardinal point of reference for practically everything that has been written on it since. However, it is neither this book nor Douhet’s influence on airpower that I want to discuss here. It is, rather, his theories on the way technology, specifically including technological innovation, and war interact. In 1913 Douhet, while still only a major on the general staff, produced an article on that question. It is that article which I have used as my guide.

So here goes.

Stage A. A new technology is introduced. Normally this is done by the inventors and manufacturers who hope to make a profit and turn to the military as a potentially very large customer; also, perhaps, by all kinds of visionaries out to make their ideas known. The idea meets with skepticism on the part of defense officials and officers who, often not before being repeatedly harassed, are sent to examine it. Having conducted a more or less thorough investigation, they submit their report in which they claim that the new technology is simply a toy and will never amount to much. Good examples of the process are provided by the Zeppelin, heavier than air aircraft, the submarine, the torpedo and the tank, all of which were invented before 1914 and all of which initially met this fate. There is even a story about a British regimental commander who, upon receiving a couple of machine guns, told his men to take the “bloody things” to the wings and hide them.

Stage B. The manufacturers do not give up. Having perhaps enlisted (bribed?) a visionary or two, and directing at least some of their efforts at the public at large, they continue to push. Sometimes by offering their invention to an enemy of the country they first approached. Sir Basil Zaharoff, though not an inventor but a merchant, was the undisputed master in this game, selling warships to both Turkey and Greece. Slowly and gradually, the military undergo a limited shift. They are now ready to find out whether there is any way in which they can incorporate the new weapon or weapon system into the existing organizations without, however, acknowledging the need to change that organization in any fundamental way. At times they even start adopting a new invention in order to prevent change; as the German Luftwaffe did when it developed the V-1 as a counter to the early ballistic missiles favored by the land army and as the US Army did with the Redstone missile during the 1950s. Other good examples of the attempt to pour new weapons into old organizations are, once again, the heavier-than-air aircraft and the submarine. And the aircraft carrier, of course.   

Stage C. Quite suddenly, the wind changes. As older officers die or retire, younger ones—those in charge of the new technologies and in favor of them—start shouting their virtues from the rooftops. The more so if the technologies in question can be shown to have played a key role in some recent war. Military history is making a fresh start! They say. The new technologies are about to take over! Everything else is ripe for the dustbin! And so on and so on. Douhet himself set the example. By the time he wrote his book he had convinced himself that armies and navies were about to disappear and that airpower, like the Jewish God in one of the prayers addressed to him, “all alone would rule in awe.” Similar claims on behalf of aircraft were made in the US by General Billy Mitchel; whereas in Britain another officer, Brigadier general John Fuller, was doing the same on behalf of tanks. Nowadays they are being made on behalf of artificial intelligence and autonomous killing machines among other things,

Stage D. It becomes evident that, useful as the new technologies are, they do not provide answers to all problems. As invention is followed by counter-invention, pilots find that they cannot simply bomb the hell out of whomever they want at any time they want. Submariners discover that, without support from the air (later, satellites), their ability to find their targets is very limited. Tanks are threatened by anti-tank guns and missiles and are, moreover, only useful in certain, well-defined, kinds of terrain. Carriers, even such as rely on nuclear propulsion, have to be escorted by entire fleets of anti- aircraft and anti-missile destroyers, anti-submarine destroyers, and supply ships. And autonomous killing machines have a tendency to break lose and kill indiscriminately. Briefly, the new technologies must be integrated with everything else: strategy, tactics, command and control, logistics, intelligence, doctrine, organization, training and what not.

Stage E. Following the usual logistic curve, shown above, the process of reorganization has been driven as far as it will ever be and is now flattening out. Advanced, even revolutionary, weapons and weapon systems have become an integral part of the forces. Perhaps, as in the case of carriers from 1941 on, their lynchpin. By this time most of those who initially opposed the changes are gone. A new generation of officers has risen and takes things as they now are for granted.

Judging by what little is known of the role cyberwarfare is playing in Ukraine, we seem to be taking leave of stage C. Could it be that we are now entering stage D? And if so, what new gizmos will the future bring?

What Putin Wants

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First, a disclaimer. President Putin has neither been whispering in my ear nor appearing in my dreams. Nor did his advisers, senior or junior, civilian or military, official or unofficial. Nor, on the other hand, do I necessarily trust any of the usual sources mentioned by Western media. Meaning, their own countries’ intelligence services, the reports of their journalists and cameramen on the ground, tales told by Ukrainian soldiers, tales told by local Ukrainians, tales allegedly originating in Russian POWs, and so on. All these different sources, and many others besides, have their limits. Many also have an ax to grind: either to deny Russian atrocities or to emphasize them as much as possible.  It is as people say. In war, any war without exception, the first casualty is the truth.

That said, and taking into account not merely Putin’s utterances but some knowledge of Russian history—as gained, among other things, by researching and writing my just-published book, I, Stalin—it seems to me that, in invading Ukraine, Putin and his advisers may be credited with a number of objectives. Here they are listed in what I think is an order of ascending importance.

First, wresting the Donbas away from Ukraine and establishing full control over it. As Lenin himself pointed out during his last years, the Donbas by virtue of its vast reserves of coal and iron ore has long had the potential to turn into a first-class industrial zone. To put those reserves to use, all that was needed was organization—Bolshevik organization.  Under Stalin, and starting with the adoption in 1928 of the First Five Year Plan, the wheels began to turn. Except during World War II, when the Germans occupied the region and razed it almost to the last brick and last metal pipe, they have kept turning right down to the beginning of the present conflict. Of all Putin’s objectives, this is the most likely to be achieved.

Second, establishing a land-bridge between Russia and the Black Sea. Long ago, it was Prussia’s Frederick the Great who said that a province to which one had access by land was worth ten times as much as one to which no terrestrial link existed. Russia’s difficulties in reaching a year-round, ice-free port are a matter of historical record. Occupying the corridor between Mariupol and the Crimea will go a considerable way towards solving the problem. It will also greatly complicate any future Ukrainian attempt to regain the Crimea, which back in 2014 the Russians annexed. I consider it just possible that Putin will achieve this objective.

Third, on the way to achieving these objectives, making sure that any future Ukrainian regime will always serve Russian interests first and foremost. Presumably this would mean a. Some kind of collaborationist government in Kiev; and b. Setting up military bases within the country so as to better control it if necessary. Briefly, something similar to the system the Soviets used between 1945 and 1989 in order to govern their East European vassals. As things look at present, this objective almost certainly will not be achieved.

Fourth, never forget that Russia without Ukraine is a country; Russia with Ukraine is an empire. As Putin has said many times, his objective is to reverse the “catastrophe” of 1989-1991 when the Soviet Union, lost its security zone to the west as well as vast other territories. Nor is this a trivial matter. During the Cold War the distance from the River Elbe, which marked the border between East and West, and Moscow was around 2,000 kilometers. With the former East Germany, the Baltic Countries, Poland, Slovakia, Hungary, Romania and Moldavia all having escaped Moscow’s control, that distance was cut by half; should the Ukraine too become part of NATO,  it will be down to about 850. Now a security zone 850 kilometers wide may seem plenty to most non-Russians. Certainly it does so to an Israeli who grew up in a country only 16 kilometers wide at its narrowest point. But perhaps the Russians, who twice during the twentieth century saw their country invaded and who suffered tens millions of dead as a result, may be forgiven for thinking differently. Certainly Putin is not the only one to think in such terms. Surfing the Net, just recently I came across an alleged American plan to occupy Mars as a necessary step towards protecting the U.S against a combined Russo-Chinese attack launched from the moon. Or was it the other way around? Anyhow. This objective, too, almost certainly will not be achieved.

Fifth, securing for Russia the kind of respect to which, by virtue of its size and power and development and cultural achievements, it feels it is entitled. The West’s chronic underestimation of, and contempt for, Russia, which it perceives as a backward country lacking both good government and many of the amenities of civilized life is also a matter of historical record. Starting some three hundred years ago, the Russian intelligentsia—roughly translatable as that part of the population which has some education and is interested in ideas beyond those directly tied to people’s own daily worries—have been aware of it and resented it. This objective, too, will not be achieved; if anything, to the contrary.

Sixth, as a direct result of all these, securing for Putin personally what he sees as his rightful position as the heir of Alexander Nevsky, Ivan the Dread (not the Terrible, I am told), Peter the Great, Catherine the Great, and Stalin. Nevsky, for beating back the Estonians, Swedes, Danes, and the Teutonic Order. Ivan, for defeating the Livonians and the Tatars as well as effectively founding the Russian State with its center in “The Third Rome,” as Moscow is sometimes called. Peter, for beating back the Swedes and the Persians as well as his heroic efforts to pull up a recalcitrant Russia and modernize it. Catherine, for annexing the Ukraine (it was under her rule that Russian power first reached the Black Sea) as well as the lion’s share of Poland. Stalin, because it was under his regime that Russia/the Soviet Union reached the peak of its power, making the rest of the world tremble in front of it. Of all Putin’s objectives, this one is the least likely to be achieved.

A final point. Seen through Western eyes, these and all other Russian rulers were autocrats of the worst kind whose most important instruments of (miss) rule were the knout, the labor camp, and the hangman’s noose.  But that is not how Putin himself sees things. According to him, Russians do not need either liberalism or democracy. The reason being that, unlike Westerners, they trust their leaders.

So, he claims, it has been in the past. And so, no doubt, he hopes it will be in the future.

Goodbye, Corona*

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A few days ago someone asked me whether our children will ever be able to imagine a world without corona virus. In response, I told him about an American lady who has two children. One nine, the other eight. Neither of them is able to remember the pre-corona world. For them, as for as many as a billion others of similar age, life with the “pandemic” is normal.

Being almost 76 years old, I can remember some things many others have forgotten—if, indeed, they knew them in the first place. Back in 1980 I spent two months in Washington, DC, where I lived not far from Capitol Hill. Entering the Library of Congress, which I did almost every day, security was practically nonexistent. They checked your briefcase on the way out—you might have stolen a couple of books. But never, never, on the way in. Nor was there any question of having to put your things away in some locker, etc.

The same applied to other buildings. Right next to the Library is the House of Congress. Being a dedicated jogger, I used to run the stairs up and down almost every afternoon. Right at the top were the doors—which yes, you guessed it, were completely unguarded. No previous appointment with a Congressman (or staff member) needed. No telephone numbers to be called, IDs to be presented. No one to frisk you or check your bag. Believe it or not, all this even applied to the Pentagon where, at that time, I was a fairly frequent visitor. Four decades later I am no longer certain just how it worked. I do, however, remember that you could enter the building on your own without either going through a magnetometer—that only came some years later—or being assigned an escort.

Fast forward to the present. The Library of Congress is not a terrorist’s priority target, or so I would think. As to the other abovementioned buildings, though, anyone trying to enter them without following the proper procedures first would be quickly arrested at best and shot dead at worst. The same is true at airports and countless other public buildings across the country, which have been turned into veritable fortresses. In many cases even schools and clinics are not exempt. And yet we live with this kind of security. Not only do we live with it but, having long forgotten its origin, we take it for granted. So much so that, should it be suddenly lifted, some of us might feel surprised, annoyed, or even frightened.

Now let’s look at it from the other end of the question. Sooner or later this pandemic—which, by the way, so far has killed fewer than 1 in 1,000 of the planet’s human population, hardly enough to make a real demographic difference—will go away just as all previous ones did. Whether due to natural circumstances or changing habits or medical advances or some combination of all three, who can say? To be sure, some of the changes it did bring about will stay, at least for a time. Fewer and smaller crowded indoor meetings, perhaps. More people working from home and, as a result, a rise in the prices of large houses and apartments as opposed to those of smaller ones; that extra bedroom is going to come in just handy. More online, as opposed to ordinary, shopping. A little less traffic, commuter traffic in particular, leading to less crowded roads and a modest decline in gasoline prices. Less air pollution, especially in the cities. More parents who prefer homeschooling for their offspring. More—even more—government interference in people’s lives, including their right, or lack of it, to do with their bodies as they please. An increase in the size, power, and, not least, cost of the medical establishment.

However, the spread and eventual decline of corona is only one out of a vast number of processes that shape social life. As time passes, telling them apart so as to determine the impact of each one will become increasingly difficult, indeed impossible. As time passes, too, memories of the old normal will fade. If only because more and more people will experience the new normal as normal, normalcy will return.

Albeit that it will not be the same.

* Thanks to Prof. Sofia Simitzi, from the University of Ioannina, whose email, coming out of nowhere, inspired this post.

Guest Article – The Ghost of 1914

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By

Bill Lind*

World War I ended with a global pandemic.  Has the next world war begun with one?  I pray not, but no historian can look upon the war in Ukraine and not see the ghost of 1914 rising wraithlike from it – a ghost which, I fear, bears a striking resemblance to Conrad.  When was Przemsyl last in the news?

When we think back to World War I, to its origins, its course and its consequences, the parallels are frightening.  The first is that, in 1914, no one expected war or wanted war – at least a general European war.  Kaiser Wilhelm II certainly did not.  On the contrary: as soon as he realized, too late, where events were leading, he made desperate efforts to head them off.  He ordered a cable sent to Vienna telling Austria to take Belgrade and then stop, but the German Foreign Office did not send it.  Tsar Nicholas only approved the order for mobilization with great reluctance; his war and Foreign Ministers acted before he could change his mind.  The Kaiser even halted his army on the Belgian frontier when the British Foreign Secretary hinted Britain might stay out – but then Grey pushed the British cabinet in.

Are events today again running away from those who seek de-escalation?  Russia expected a quick victory (like everyone in 1914), but now finds herself bogged down in a stalemate with no clear exit.  As wars go on, they tend to spread.  The West is upping the ante in the help it is extending to Ukraine.  At what point does Russia start hitting Western weapons shipments while they are still on NATO’s soil?  How long can China remain on the fence when Russia is her principal ally?  If Russia uses chemical weapons in urban combat, does the U.S. wrongly declare them “Weapons of Mass Destruction” and thereby open the nuclear Pandora’s box?  There are a lot of ways for this conflict to get bigger, fast.

The parallels do not end with the merely military.  In 1914, the world had a global economy.  Only in the last decade did the value of global trade reach 1914 levels, as a percentage of the global economy.  But even before Russia invaded Ukraine, America’s use of economic sanctions as weapons was swiftly undermining Globalism, as did the Coronapanic and its effects on global supply chains.  Now, every country is striving to “re-shore” whatever it can, in a security-driven race towards autarky.

World War I ended with the destruction of three great, Christian, conservative empires, the Russian, the German, and the Austro-Hungarian, with ongoing consequences for Christendom.  What states may fail as a result of the war in Ukraine and its potential expansion?  Then, the old empires reformed as republics.  But now, we live in a time when the state is in decline and non-state entities are rising.  Fourth Generation War theory says that a defeated Russia might break up still further, as the Soviet Union did, to become a vast stateless region with lots of nukes and delivery systems floating around.

What then, Russophobes, which is to say the Blob, the neocons, and the neo-libs?  You destroyed states such as Iraq, Syria, and Libya and have not been able to put them back together.  What is your plan for a stateless region running from the Polish border to the Pacific Ocean?

The political establishments in Washington and the EU would be wise to remember that World War I brought a wholesale collapse of establishments.  The monarchies in Russia, Austria, and Germany were swept away, replaced in the first by Bolshevism and the latter two by socialism.  Shortly after the war, in 1922, the Italian political establishment was replaced by Fascism, and in 1933 in Germany by National Socialism.  Do the cultural Marxist elites that now rule in Washington and most European capitals think they are likely to survive a cataclysm they created? (I promise them their replacements will come from the right, not the left.)

If those establishments want to survive, they need now to bend every effort to de-escalate the war in Ukraine, to build a golden bridge Russia can withdraw over without humiliation, one where the Kremlin can claim some sort of victory (i.e., Ukraine will never join NATO and Crimea is recognized as Russian) and all Western sanctions are quickly removed.  The U.S., the E.U., and Russia then join to rebuild Ukraine.

In 1914, the post-1815 European order sleepwalked itself into a world war that swept it from the board.  In 2022, the post-1945 world order is on the verge of doing the same.

 

* William S. Lind is a long-time American defense analyst and social critic. This article has been previously published in Traditional.Right.