Army "Future": Invade Azerbaijan

[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.'

[Adrian]

Bill Lind coined a great phrase (at least I read it at d-n-i first):

FCS - Future Contract System

[SteveMetz]

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.'

I'm neither a defender nor an opponent of FCS but as I told Colin Gray when that manuscript was in draft, I don't think that simply because the Army is putting most (not "all") of its development dollars into FCS that it ever intended for FCS to be optimized for every time of military operation. The general thinking is that counterinsurgency is not a mode of conflict where new technology is the answer. In other words, you might be able to get a sense of Army priorities by its spending, but you have to look at ALL spending, not just R&D.

[NoahShachtman]

I'm neither a defender nor an opponent of FCS but as I told Colin Gray when that manuscript was in draft, I don't think that simply because the Army is putting most (not "all") of its development dollars into FCS that it ever intended for FCS to be optimized for every time of military operation. The general thinking is that counterinsurgency is not a mode of conflict where new technology is the answer. In other words, you might be able to get a sense of Army priorities by its spending, but you have to look at ALL spending, not just R&D.

Actually, FCS planners have been pretty explicit that it's "optimized for offensive operations in Major Combat Operations."