Swiss Army Exercises - Invaded by France?

Look, every exercise needs a premise, and when you have no real enemies, sometimes you just make up weird stuff and go with it.

A bankrupt France tears itself apart into several regions, and one of them marches over the border to Switzerland to get back its stolen money. The Swiss army has this imaginary scenario covered, according to military simulations revealed over the weekend.

Switzerland's army simulated a French attack against their country in training exercises in August, the newspaper Matin Dimanche revealed on Sunday.

The army imagined a scenario in which France was in financial turmoil and had split up into several regional entities.

One of these, "Saônia," was preparing attacks on Switzerland to retrieve money it had apparently stolen from it.

By: Brant

The End of the Cold War Garrisons

The DoD has finally made public the long-expected closures of the last of the big mech units in Germany.

It’s official: The Germany-based 170th Infantry Brigade will be inactivated later this year, followed by the 172nd Separate Infantry Brigade next year as part of a broad restructuring of the military force structure in Europe that also calls for the inactivation of two U.S. Air Forces in Europe squadrons and the eventual elimination of the Army’s V Corps from Wiesbaden, Germany, according to Pentagon officials.

As part of the restructuring, the Army garrisons in Schweinfurt and Bamberg will close no later than 2015, U.S. European Command announced. The 81st Fighter Squadron, an A-10 unit consisting of 525 airmen from Spangdahlem Air Base, Germany, and the 603rd Air Control Squadron at Aviano Air Base, Italy, consisting of 336 airmen, will be inactivated by 2013.

“The [Defense] Department will begin a theaterwide capacity analysis as part of a comprehensive consolidation of its overseas infrastructure in light of these force posture changes,” EUCOM stated in a news release. “The result could be further infrastructure adjustments.”

Last month, the Defense Department announced it would be eliminating two heavy brigades in Europe, but that announcement stopped short of naming the specific units. Still, with only two such brigades in Europe, it was no secret that the 170th, based in Baumholder, and 172nd, out of Grafenwöhr and Schweinfurt, were pegged for elimination.

By: Brant

US Army Bringing 2 Brigades Home From Europe

The plan will be to rotate units rather than permanently station them in Europe.

Ground forces will remain important to the U.S. defense strategy, but the employment of the forces will change, Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta said today.
In an interview on his way to Fort Bliss, Texas, Panetta said that the Army will withdraw two brigade combat teams from Europe, while retaining a strong presence in the region via rotational units.
The change is part of a new, 10-year defense strategy announced by President Barack Obama last week that emphasizes air-sea doctrine to better allow the United States to confront more than one threat at a time, Panetta said. Still, ground forces will remain important, and soldiers and Marines will continue to deploy to Afghanistan and be on the Korean Peninsula and partnering with nations around the globe.
“We will continue to maintain our presence both in the Middle East and Asia,” the secretary said. “Yes, we’ll have the Navy and the Air Force, but in my experience, in any conflict you need to have the potential use of ground forces.”
Panetta said he is excited about the prospect of using Army units on a rotational basis, just as Special Forces and the Marine Corps do. “Getting the Army to deploy to areas conducting exercises providing, most of all, a partnership with countries in Latin America, Africa, other countries where we can show the flag” is important, he said.
Army Chief of Staff Gen. Ray Odierno is particularly excited about the ability to develop that rotational capability, Panetta said. “It will keep the ground forces very meaningful in the future,” he said.
As the Army replaces the two brigade combat teams with rotational units, the Europeans actually will see more U.S. forces because the American forces in Europe have more often than not been deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan, Panetta said.
DOD officials have spoken to European leaders about the withdrawal and they understand why the change will be good for the U.S. military and NATO allies, senior defense officials traveling with the secretary said.

There's only 4 line brigades there now. So yes, that's half the available force, but it's not a lot of troops in raw numbers. One wonders (a) who is coming back, and (b) where are they going to put them - we're running out of space at some of our bases like Ft Bragg and Ft Stewart.

The Army Times has some info on who might be candidates to return.

Lt. Gen. Mark Hertling, commanding general for the U.S. Army in Europe, said in December that he expected the Army to remove one brigade — but not two. He had proposed a brigade for removal, but was waiting for a decision on which brigade would be chosen.

“I have made an offer on which brigade that should be to the Department of the Army,” Hertling told Army Times. “I have also made an offer in terms of the timing of it, which could be sooner than they were asked for, 2015.”

The smart thing to do, Hertling told Army Times, would be to begin the drawdown process as the units come home from deployments. The 170th is in the process of redeploying and the 172nd will redeploy in late spring.

Hertling would not say which brigade he proposed removing, but all signs pointed to either the 170th or the 172nd. Both brigades were scheduled to begin conversion to the modular heavy brigade combat team upon redeployment. The DoD announcement make it likely that both the 170th and 172nd would be brought home.

Initially, both conversions were delayed. But in December, the Army announced that the 172nd would go ahead with conversion in 2013. The 170th conversion remains on hold.

By: Brant

Random Friday Wargaming: Warsaw Pact

From an old issue of Jadgpanther, Warsaw Pact includes scenarios from the 60s to the 80s, across all of Europe.





There's not just one, but two CSW forums here...


Master links/images from Boardgamegeek.com; message boards linked to Consimworld. Other links to the actual game pages...


By: Brant

Patriot Missiles to China?

DefenseTech is all over this story, so you can read the rest there, but here's a quick excerpt:

No one seems to know how 69 of the U.S.’ prized air defense missiles ended up on a ship bound for China but this kind of movement can only happen with the approval of someone in high places.
Keep in mind that Germany has a bunch of Patriot missiles and has sold its older Patriots to South Korea during times of high tension with North Korea. Finnish authorities couldn’t say if the ship was planning on making any stops before it arrived in China. It’s plausible the missiles found aboard the Thor Liberty are a German shipment bound for South Korea but you’d think we’d have heard about the deal; you’d also think they wouldn’t be “badly stored” and marked as fireworks.

Now, it turns out the Germans have claimed them as a part of a legit shipment, but something just really smells wrong here. We're going to keep an eye on the one as it develops. Track it over at DefenseTech, and watch for their RSS headlines in our left-hand sidebar.

By: Brant

Sound Off! Dutch or Belgians!

Another of our classic national throw-downs...

Is the better military heritage the

Belgians! Rulers of central Africa and small-but-mighty power in a variety of European land wars!

Dutch! Sailed the great oceans, settled far Eastern colonies, and still own Aruba!

Pick one, piss off the other, and duck for cover in the comments below!

By: Brant

Cutting Back to a Minimal Military?

The guys over at Defence and Freedom have another great column today, with some pretty robust examples of how a training military might work for a medium-sized, modern, Western country.

The thing is, this plan really isn't all that different that the way the US military operated for a long time, as chronicled in A Country Made by War by Geoffrey Perret.

By: Brant

Here's a Baaaaaad Idea

And the Oscar for Best Unintentional Destruction of the Human Race goes to the Dutch researcher who created a super-influenza virus that contains multiple mutations, and could wipe out billions (yes, with a 'b') if it ever escaped into the wild. Yay, science!

A Dutch researcher has created a virus with the potential to kill half of the planet’s population. Now, researchers and experts in bioterrorism debate whether it is a good idea to publish the virus creation ”recipe”. However, several voices argue that such research should have not happened in the first place.

The virus is a strain of avian influenza H5N1 genetically modified to be extremely contagious. It was created by researcher Ron Fouchier of the Erasmus Medical Center Rotterdam, Netherlands. The work was first presented at a conference dedicated to influenza, that took place in September in Malta.

Avian influenza emerged in Asia about 10 years ago. Since then there were fewer than 600 infection cases reported in humans. On the other hand, Fouchier’s genetically modified strain is extremely contagious and dangerous, killing about 50% of infected patients. The former strain did not represent a global threat, as transmission from human to human is rare. Or, at least, it was before Fouchier genetically modified it.

Fouchier and his team used a pair of ferrets for testing because they react in similar ways as humans, when exposed to the flu virus. Researchers transmitted the deadly virus from one ferret to another, in order to make the virus more adaptable to a new host. After 10 generations, the virus has mutated allowing it to spread through air. The result was that ferrets could get sick just being near another infected animal.

A genetic study showed that new virus strain presented five mutations, and all could be also observed in nature - but only separately, not all five combined. Fouchier’s strain is as contagious as seasonal human influenza, which kills tens of thousands of people, just that, much more lethal.

You have to love accidental biological warfare. And from the Dutch no less!

By: Brant

Random Friday Wargaming: Third Great War

Wow. Even the Japanese published a NATO-WarPact game, The Third Great War






Master links/images from Boardgamegeek.com; message boards linked to Consimworld. Other links to the actual game pages...


By: Brant

Refuting the Idea of Ethnic Nation-States

In addressing a controversial and topical issue, Small Wars Journal tackles "The Most Dangerous Dumb Idea that Will Not Die" with a solid article. The money graf:

One problem with the idea of the ethnically-based nation-state is that it is a-historical—based on a false understanding of the creation and nature of the nation-states of Western Europe. France is usually held as a model of the natural nation. But France was hardly more natural than the Austro-Hungarian Empire. At the outbreak of the French Revolution in 1789, a minority of subjects of Louis XVI could be described as ethnically French—an ethnicity created over many centuries through a combination of various Germanic, Gallic, and Roman peoples—who were settled over a large oval in northern France centered on Paris. Most subjects of Louis were, and if they thought about it at all, considered themselves to be, Provencial, Breton, Norman, Alsace-Deutch, Flemish, Italian, or a host of smaller identities. The borders of France in 1789 were the result of a millennium of wars and marriages, wars fought and marriages arranged to expand territory, not out of any consideration for the language or culture of the people who lived in those territories. France became French in the century after the Revolution, when the secular public schools and the conscripted army forced, to borrow a phrase from the historian Eugene Weber, “peasants into Frenchmen.” Spain and England, the other two examples usually given as proto-typical nation-states, are even more artificial. Spain was created in 1469 by the marriage of the king of Aragon, Ferdinand II, and the queen of Castile, Isabella. Spain achieved religious unity by royal proclamation requiring all Jews to convert, leave, or be killed, in 1492, with a similar ban on Muslims added. Yet even after five centuries of political unity, significant sections of the population remain non-“Spanish,” as Catalonians and even more so Basques are quick to point out. That Portugal is a separate state while Catalonia is part of the Spanish state has no more basis in natural borders or ethnicity than any border in the Middle East or Africa. England, to ignore the other parts of the United Kingdom, is a stew of the descendants of various Germanic tribes (Anglos, Saxons, Jutes), Danes, (descended from Viking raiders and settlers) Normans (themselves descended from Viking setters mixed with Gallic people of northwestern France), on top of earlier inhabitants who were what today we call Celtic, plus a smattering of Romans. None of these nation-states, France, Spain, or England was the result of ethnic or tribal borders.

The other details of the article are equally fascinating. And for some reason the spacerbaronmykeyboardseemstobestickingalottoday.

By: Brant

Random Friday Wargaming: Sixth Fleet

Not to ignore our naval brethren, this week we're checking out another VG product, Sixth Fleet, covering action in Med.

Sixth Fleet is a simulation game of near-future combat for control of the Mediterranean Basin. As commander of the U.S. or Soviet fleet and respective allies, you must form your ships into Task Forces and attempt to cripple the enemy’s capital ships and submarines. Your limited air assets must be carefully assigned to defensive and offensive missions. Commando, parachute and amphibious assault units stand at the ready to capture vital objectives. Most important, you must protect your supply and replenishment ships, or your fleet will be unable to maintain combat momentum. Sixth Fleet is a comprehensive simulation of the myriad elements involved in future naval confrontation.

Each 8 hour game turn is broken into 3 distinct phases (sub, surface, and air) and each player takes turns choosing which phase they wish to conduct. Ex. if the US player chooses "Air", they conduct all bombing, shipping strikes, anti-sub, and interception actions for all their aircraft.
Players also use their units to attempt to "detect" enemy forces so that an attack can be made. Ships and aircraft are always detected once a unit moves close enough to them, but players have to roll to try to detect subs.

The entire "Fleet" series of games shares one thread at ConSimWorld.


Squids unite! Give us your thoughts below.

Master links/images from Boardgamegeek.com; message boards linked to Consimworld. Other links to the actual game pages...


By: Brant

Random Friday Wargaming: NATO: The Next War in Europe

This Friday's wargame? Here's a great old hit from the 80s - NATO: The Next War in Europe. It was one of VG's greatest hits and is still alive and well all over the web. There's a ton of support for it all over the place, variants, new artwork, online gameplay, and more.





Discuss it over on ConSimWorld

Any of you ever played this one? Thoughts? Impressions? Memories? It was a great game that lots of folks loved for years.

Master links/images from Boardgamegeek.com; message boards linked to Consimworld. Other links to the actual game pages...


By: Brant

Europe Continually Awaiting US to Ride to Their Rescue

The Economist ran this column a whole back, but it's still worth discussing that Europe has been more than happy to let the US lead with their military and their wallet, and that in the long-term, that's unsustainable.

...if the European taxpayers do not want to pay to preserve their own security, why should Americans shoulder the burden? Only five of the 28 NATO allies meet NATO’s recommendation that countries should spend at least 2% of GDP on defence: America, Britain, France, Greece and Albania. Today America’s key security interests are in the Middle East and in Asia. Europe will be the obvious place for America to cut expensive overseas commitments.

Europe has more soldiers than America, but can deploy far fewer of them on overseas operations. This is partly the result of history: in the cold war European armies were built to hold the line in Europe, while awaiting reinforcement by American forces which, by definition, had to be designed for expeditionary warfare. Another is that “Europe” is not a sovereign state, but a collection of small- and medium-sized countries. Its considerable defence spending is hoplessly fragmented among a multitude of armies, air forces and navies.

Specialisation, pooling and sharing equipment is the obvious way forward. Defence experts across Europe have known this for a long time and, here and there, countries have embarked on some important experiments. A recent paper by the Centre for European Reform, and think-tank in London, makes some sensible recommendations (PDF). But what is rational in terms of defence accounting too often falls foul of political and operational reality. Many smaller countries have little interest in international commitments. And the bigger states that still retain some kind of global vision, like Britain and France, do not want to be dependent on smaller states for their military capability.

By: Brant

Missile Warheads Stolen from Romanian Train

And not just a few, either... 64(?!)

Authorities say they are investigating the theft of 64 missile warheads from a train transporting military equipment to Bulgaria.
Interior ministry spokesman Marius Militaru said Sunday the components are not dangerous on their own — only when integrated into missile systems. Prosecutors said Monday they are investigating the theft.
Railway workers on Saturday noticed the seals on a carriage door were broken, and it was not properly closed when the train reached Giurgiu, a Danube port that borders Bulgaria.
Tohan Zarnesti, the Romanian company that was shipping the warheads, produces artillery ammunition, ground to ground missiles and air to ground missiles and warheads for 122mm missiles.

By: Brant

Anniversary: 20 years of Slovenian Independence

Today marks the 20-year anniversary of the end of Slovenia's Ten-Day War of independence.

This was the first domino to fall in the breakup of Yugoslavia, and triggered one of the more protracted conflicts in recent European history as the fallout continues today.
You can read the Slovenian government's version of the history here.

Slovenia has actually emerged from the conflicts relatively unscathed. As the US State Department notes:

As a young independent republic, Slovenia pursued economic stabilization and further political openness, while emphasizing its Western outlook and central European heritage. Reflecting its success in these goals, Slovenia became a member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and the European Union (EU) in 2004. Today Slovenia is a stable democracy that is increasing its international engagement. Though small in size, Slovenia enjoys a growing regional profile and plays a role on the world stage that is out of proportion to its size.

US sports fans, of course, remember the phantom whistle from suspended/disgraced referee Koman Coulibaly that cost the US a winning goal, when he somehow determined there was a foul on the Americans in the following action:

By: Brant

Gates to NATO: Put Up Or Shut Up

Here's your money quote from Secretary Gates recent speech to NATO.

"Future U.S. political leaders - those for whom the Cold War was not the formative experience that it was for me - may not consider the return on America's investment in NATO worth the cost," he told a European think tank on the final day of an 11-day overseas journey.

Ouch. There's more.

"The blunt reality is that there will be dwindling appetite and patience in the U.S. Congress — and in the American body politic writ large — to expend increasingly precious funds on behalf of nations that are apparently unwilling to devote the necessary resources or make the necessary changes to be serious and capable partners in their own defense," he said.
Without naming names, he blasted allies who are "willing and eager for American taxpayers to assume the growing security burden left by reductions in European defense budgets."

Think he's done? Hardly. The math that he lays down is astounding.

"Despite more than 2 million troops in uniform, not counting the U.S. military, NATO has struggled, at times desperately, to sustain a deployment of 25,000 to 45,000 troops, not just in boots on the ground, but in crucial support assets such as helicopters, transport aircraft, maintenance, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, and much more," Gates said.

By: Brant

(Another) Major Force Reduction in Europe

The DOD has announced that they're bringing home another 2 brigades from Germany.

The Department of Defense announced today that it is revising its 2004 plan to withdraw two of its four brigade combat teams (BCTs) from Europe. Based on the administration's review, consultations with allies and the findings of NATO's new Strategic Concept, the department will retain three BCTs in Europe to maintain a flexible and rapidly deployable ground force to fulfill the United States' commitments to NATO, to engage effectively with allies and partners, and to meet the broad range of 21st century challenges. This decision will be implemented in 2015, when we project a reduced demand on our ground forces.

The three BCTs remaining in Europe after 2015 -- the Heavy, Stryker and Airborne BCTs -- offer capabilities that enable U.S. European Command to build partner capacity and to meet interoperability objectives while supporting the full range of military operations, including collective defense of our NATO allies under Article 5 of the Washington Treaty.

This BCT mix will be complemented by other capability enhancements, including the forward deployment of Aegis ships, land-based missile defense systems in Poland and Romania as part of the European Phased Adaptive Approach, forward-stationing of special operations aircraft, and a permanent aviation detachment in Poland. Taken together, these measures will enhance and rebalance the U.S. force posture in Europe to make it more capable, more effective, and better aligned with current and future security challenges.

By: Brant

Cold War Fence-Sitters Now Having Splintered Butts

They're poking their heads up out of their prairie-dog holes, and the Cold War "neutrals" are starting to pick sides in today's conflicts.

Swedish fighter jets are roaring into action over Libya under NATO command. Ireland is offering itself as a transit hub for U.S. military deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan. Even famously independent Switzerland has peacekeepers in Kosovo.
For Europe's once-staunchly neutral countries, much has changed in the two decades since the Cold War ended. With no East-West conflict as a reference point, the concept of neutrality has been redefined to the point that some would say it's lost its meaning.
"There's total confusion. People have forgotten the concept of neutrality, which means don't take sides in a military conflict," said Swiss peace researcher Daniele Ganser.
Switzerland is considered the only truly neutral nation left in Europe. But it, too, has compromised its goal of staying out of other nations' troubles.
Switzerland finally joined the United Nations in 2002 and since 1999 has about 200 peacekeepers in Kosovo. It recently allowed allied forces to drive through and fly over Switzerland on their way to missions in Libya. The government said Swiss neutrality was intact because the Libya operation was authorized by the U.N. Security Council.
"To my mind that is not compatible with complete neutrality," Ganser said.

By: Brant

US Naval Forces Currently in the Med

The US is rotating warships in the Med. (See earlier story: GrogNews: US Navy Ships Entering the Med Carrying the Marines)

The United States is deploying additional warships to the Mediterranean to support possible United Nations-approved military action in Libya, the US Navy said Friday.
The USS Bataan, a helicopter-carrying amphibious assault ship, and two other vessels were deployed ahead of schedule, the navy said after the UN Security Council approved action to stop Libyan leader Moamer Kadhafi's offensive against rebels.
The Bataan will relieve the amphibious assault ship USS Kearsarge and the transport docking ship USS Ponce, which have been in the Mediterranean for several weeks.
The Bataan has a fleet of helicopters and medical facilities that can be used to treat injured military forces or for humanitarian missions. The ship has six operating rooms and hospital facilities for up to 600 patients.
It is scheduled to depart from the state of Virginia on Wednesday along with the Mesa Verde, a transport dock ship, and the USS Whidbey Island, a dock landing ship.

Also in the Med are the USS Barry and the USS Stout.


By: Brant

COA Analysis: NATO-Russia Cyber-Faceoff

So which way might it go if there's another Russian attack on Estonia? NATO involvement? Article 5? Or willful avoidance of the "attack" so as not to provoke Russia?

By: Brant