Army "Future": Invade Azerbaijan

[NoahShachtman]

It's certainly true that the Department of Defense in general sees that as an area of growing strategic concern. It has the combination of instability and growing economic importance. Plus, it's a region where a number of states have conventional military power, thus testing FCS. But wargames simply select regions that are illustrative of future challenges rather than ones in which U.S. military intervention is planned or even likely. It just makes wargaming a lot easier if you have existing geography, demographic, and other information rather than having to make it up.

Makes sense to me. Might there also be some value in picking a place as seemingly "off-the-wall" as Azerbaijan? I mean, is Iran or China discovered to be the model, the mess that gets stirred up is much bigger, right?

Or do these political calculations never come into play...

[SteveMetz]

Makes sense to me. Might there also be some value in picking a place as seemingly "off-the-wall" as Azerbaijan? I mean, is Iran or China discovered to be the model, the mess that gets stirred up is much bigger, right?

Or do these political calculations never come into play...

I've participated in a billion of these things and I've never seen political calculations come in during the scenario development. Gamers are much more concerned with whether the country is "illustrative." Now, there may be real classified planning for operations in any number of places, but that's separate from wargaming which is designed to test concepts.

[SWJED]

This is always a headache - selecting a scenario that does not rile political sensitivities. For those of us that work major unclassified wargames the time and resources saved by using an existing place on our planet is immense.

Creating a fictional country / regional / non-state actor scenario is a major - MAJOR - undertaking. Maps, military, cultural, political, economic, information, etc data all must be built from scratch. Then there is the BS factor. You just do not get the participant interest when wargaming against the Redorians in Redovia...

While there are wargames that of course put contingencies through the wringer - the Title 10 and other concept-based wargames are simply using a spot on the earth to facilitate meeting wargame objectives - not real-world contingency objectives.

[Ken White]

Party pooper. You're telling the truth and absolutely ruining the conspiracy theorists day.

In another life, I got so tired of answering the silly and assinine questions, I created Barfistan and the Barfistanian Armed Forces (BARF) plus our AlliesSouth Laudanum (and the South Laudanumunium Unified Field Force). Ran it over an area map of two States, turned upside down.

Worked great 'til we got in a CG with no sense of humor...

Give Bill a big hug and kiss for me; he got my computer glitch fixed/

[SteveMetz]

I created Barfistan

I'm almost sure I had a flight connection there once. Isn't Hurl the capital city?

[Ken White]

I'm almost sure I had a flight connection there once. Isn't Hurl the capital city?

location of the famous Spitadel of Hurl. SLUFF sluffed and was hurled fom Hurl. terrible debacle.

Hurl is still recovering, they're only served by one airline now LINK.

[120mm]

CGSC students have been using Azerbaijan as the basis for their planning exercise for years, now. It's called the GAAT Scenario. I'd guess they picked it because of the planning headaches involved with that particular location.

[NoahShachtman]

Interesting discussion here...

http://roboteconomist.blogspot.com/2...it-matter.html

In my view, Azerbaijan was picked because its size, terrain, and political environment fit the assumptions that shape FCS. They picked a relatively small country to accentuate the ability of a single FCS Brigade Combat Team to rapidly achieve "decisive maneuver" against a larger opposing force in 48-60 hours. Azerbaijan is also a relatively remote, mountainous area bordered by few U.S. allies. This reflects the Army's emphasis on performing combat operations on short notice and without pre-positioned equipment. Finally, there is the potential (however remote) that the Army may be called upon to one day liberate the Azeris from an encroaching neighbor. Remind anyone of an incredibly successful "left-hook" the Army pulled off a little more than 15 years ago?

My main concern with the Azerbaijan scenarios is that they highlight a fundamental flaw of FCS. This billion-dollar force recapitalization project is focused on refining existing capabilities at a time when the Army needs to develop entirely new capabilities. To me, being able to successfully conduct stability operations campaign the day after a 72 hour blitzkrieg is worth far more than shaving that blitzkrieg down to 48 hours. Does the Army honestly expect a brigade of 4000 troops trained and equipped for maneuver warfare against a modern opposing army to manage 8 million people spread over a country the size of Maine? We have multiple brigades in Baghdad (a city of 7 million) and they can't even keep the peace without support from the Iraqi military.

At the very least, one would hope that as soon as images of the National Carpet Museum in Baku being looted by anonymous brigands are splashed across CNN the hypothetical Secretary of Defense overseeing one of these imagined combat operations would have something more conciliatory to say than 'Stuff happens.'

I'm not saying the Army doesn't need to recapitalize the force and I'm not exactly opposed to the idea of network-centric warfare either. I'm just arguing that the Army's vision of the future force is shackled by a set of overly narrow assumptions about what kind of wars it will fight. As Colin Gray asked in a great monograph published by the Army War College back in 2005, if the Army is putting all of its development dollars into FCS, is FCS robust enough to counter the broadest set of future war scenarios? In terms of fighting a major urban counterinsurgency campaign (Iraq) or managing a fractured, poor state (Afghanistan), I think the evidence is pointing towards 'no.'