Category Archives: Unconventional Warfare

We recommend that everyone read them in order, including our Russian and pro-Russian readers.

Adams concludes, in the first post, that we probably won’t ever know what is really happening over there. After throwing out some intriguing suggestions, and pointing out something that Russia’s partisans and agents have noted: a chemical attack would be illogical for Assad, since he was winning conventionally. If not Assad, then who?

If faked, by whom? For what reason?

Adams’s “persuasion” prism is a very useful way of looking at things that are caught up in propaganda.

Weapons Usage: The False Lure of Symmetry

Like the proud hammer owner who saw each problem as a nail, we tend to project our own tactical equipment, skills and training on to potential adversaries. Symmetry. But tactically, symmetry is a false pursuit.

Some examples of symmetry as practiced in training and planning:

Fighter pilots train extensively as if their primary mission is to fight other fighters;
Tankers expect to fight tank-on-tank;
Any sniper will tell you the best way to disrupt an enemy sniper is to countersnipe him;
Most armed self-defenders train for the one v one encounter.

But these things “everybody knows” are not necessarily true. For example, fighter-on-fighter combat started because the fighters of each side in WWI wanted to scratch their enemy’s eyes out — in the form of his reconnaissance planes. The canny fighter pilot declines combat with enemy fighters to go after those aircraft that are actually enabling the enemy’s overall war aims. Or as the leaders of The Few insisted, “Go after the bombers!” While tank-v-tank makes a great sporting event, tanks win battles and wars when they blast through the enemy’s armored carapace and run rampant in his innards, or rear area: Patton, Guderian, and Zhukov all instinctively grasped this, as did many others.

Take countersniping. As the Australian Army battled the Japs for the archipelagos north of Australia, their arsenal at Lithgow struggled to make the sniper rifles they needed to countersnipe the Japanese soldiers — who were, the Aussies grimly admitted, pretty good at sniping. Lacking the patience to await Lithgow filling their open orders, the Australians improvised countersniper teams with what they had. One man would use a helmet or other item as a decoy, to induce the sons of Nippon to fire. Rather than plunk a .303 slug into the Japanese sniper’s braincase through his lens set, as Hollywood would have it, they’d simply fill his leafy perch with lead from a BREN Gun. The lack of precise address for their poison-pen letter would be overcome by junk-mailing the entire block, in other words.

If it’s crude and it works, is it really crude? The BREN magdump approach usually resulted in a surprised oriental gentleman tumbling dead from his tree.

Sure, setting a sniper against a sniper can work, but the BREN Gun works even if you only get an approximate idea of where the enemy sniper is hiding.

But people still want symmetry — to match like to like. In the real world, you want to exploit asymmetry, not try to merely match what the enemy is doing. You want to overmatch him. You want to tumble him, deader’n disco, from his tree.

This works at strategic as well as tactical level. Little Japan wasn’t permitted (by interwar arms-reduction treaties) to build as many battleships as England or the USA. So the Japanese went all-in for naval aviation, and surprised not only slumbering America but also the world.

So why do we still match like to like? A lot of this flows from Hollywood single-combat mythos. You know, the way every action movie from before the talkies to the ones in the cinema now, ends just the same way — with the hero squaring off in mortal single combat with the villain. Sometimes, the hero theatrically discards a weapon to put himself on the same level as his opponent — to fight fair.

In the real world, nobody with half a lick of sense fights fair. Or, as the instructors at SF school were inclined to say, “If you ain’t cheatin’, you ain’t tryin’.” This pithy folk wisdom has an important corollary: “If you get caught, you’re tryin’ too hard.”

If you’re ever brainstorming out a combat or self-defense approach, it’s a useful brain housing group exercise to work it out both symmetrically and asymmetrically, and see which one more nearly meets your objectives.

Most of the time, it will be the asymmetric approach — if you dare to use it.

Syrian Sarin Update: Khan Shaykhun à son goût

Here’s the telegraphic version, from PJ Media’s Bridget Johnson. It should answer some of your questions after Friday’s cruise-missile attack.

A “background briefing” is one in which the reporters can use the information but not attribute it by name to the individuals providing it. (There’s often a generic “source” specified, like this report’s “NSC Officials.” For those interested in the mechanics, there are several variations of source/reporter interaction, explained from the j-school point of view here). In the instant case, Johnson reports..

An American View

NEWS: National Security Council officials just held a background briefing with reporters on the declassified intel assessment of last week’s chemical attack on Khan Shaykhun, Syria. Full story coming soon, but a few takeaways:

Sarin confirmed as the nerve agent used via testing on victims as well as symptoms. Secondary responders also suffered exposure symptoms.

Su-22s from Shayrat airfield dropped the sarin on Khan Shaykhun; conventional weapons were dropped about six hours later on hospital treating sarin victims – “no comment” from officials on if Russia did latter.

No ISIS or other terrorists in area have sarin (just mustard gas) – attack was “not a terrorist holding of sarin or a terrorist use of sarin”

WH official on if Russia, present at airfield, knew of sarin attack: “We don’t have information on that per se… still looking into that.” Adding: “We do think that it is a question worth asking” Russians how they were with Syrian forces at airfield “and did not have knowledge” of the attack in planning/prep stages.

“Leakage inconsistent” with Russians saying sarin came from opposition stocks on ground – “we don’t see a building with that chemical residue”

On Syria hoax conspiracy theories: Body of evidence “too massive” for anyone to fabricate. Official added that videos released of attack did correspond with that date, time, location.

A Russian View

So that’s the American spin. Opposed to that, we have the Russian propaganda outlet Anna News getting the Syrian spin on things, on the target airfield. Much of what reporter Sergei Bayduk has to say is bullshit, but the images are interesting. He identifies the same two a/c hulks we have seen as a MiG-23 (presumably the “monkey model” the Soviets furnished to allies) and an Su-22. Swing-wing jets of the 60s and 70s.

Bayduk makes the valid point that the attack did not close the airfield for long. The attack kicked off at oh-dark-thirty, lasted about a half an hour, and after the all clear they quickly repaired the airfield and were flying by daybreak. (Here, the rugged design of Soviet / Russian landing gear pays big dividends, as the planes are designed to land on completely unimproved surfaces, so there’s no problem landing and taking off on a runway that’s only had hasty repairs).

You have to wonder what the old Soviet authorities were thinking (back in the Brezhnev days) to transfer biological and chemical weapons to guys like Khadafy, Saddam Hussein and Assad père. They do realize that if these guys used these weapons on their enemy, Israel, the Israelis would most probably respond with their only WMD: nukes. But then again, in Brezhnev’s day they built the reactor at Chernobyl (he was dead and gone when it went FOOM).

We spent some time at a base in Uzbekistan that was, we discovered, contaminated with just about everything imaginable, including chemical weapons, biological toxins and spores, and ionizing radiation from two HASes in which aircraft had been blown up about like the ones you see here. There was a story the Uzbek AF officers told, but we didn’t know whether to credit it or not. There were also Soviet era crash sites all over the field… the first years of jet fighters look like they were just as unsafe in the Soviet Air Force as in its American counterpart.

Of course, Uzbekistan is a different matter, perhaps, as it was one of 15 Republics of the USSR, sovereign Soviet territory, when the A-VMF stockpiled WMDs there.

While the USSR sponsored some real bastards, the US in turn sponsored plenty of bastards of our own. Some of the places that were once dictatorships aren’t, now.

Returning to Syria, it sounds as if President Trump does not want to engage against Assad or make regime change his objective — the purpose of the strike was to send a message: chemical weapons are not OK.

We have our qualms about using the military for message-sending.

An Australian View

Every major nation has its own defense intellectuals, if not its own think tanks, and they often come at problems from new directions. For example, the Lowy Institute for International Policy (Sydney, Australia) has an interesting and deep analysis of the Khan Shaykhoun attack, which it calls out as very different from the attacks which have gone before. Here’s a taste:

Although chemical attacks against the Syrian population have continued over the past four years the Khan Sheikhoun attack is significantly different. After the August 2013 sarin attacks, Syria was compelled to join the Chemical Weapons Convention, declare all its chemical weapons and disarm. Chlorine barrel bombs were used after that, but their manufacture seemed makeshift and they were clearly not part of Syria’s former military chemical arsenal. Chlorine barrel bombs are a violation of the CWC but their possession does not indicate that Syria’s 2013 declaration of its chemical weapons was incorrect. Chlorine, if used for industrial reasons, is excluded.

Over the past few years CWC member states have expressed concern that Syria’s chemical declaration is inaccurate and incomplete. Indeed over the past two years the OPCW has held continuing discussions with Syria to resolve discrepancies, so far without success. Although the nature of these discussions is confidential, statements made by various delegates to the OPCW suggest that although the majority of Syria’s chemical holdings were disclosed, details are missing on a broad range of issues, including on munitions and manufacture.

The Khan Sheikhoun attack now appears to be demonstrable proof that Syria’s CWC declaration, the basis for its chemical disarmament, is inaccurate. At the very least, Syria has retained undeclared stocks of a nerve agent, possibly sarin in binary form, and the munitions to deliver it. What other chemical weapons may be undeclared can only be speculated on, but given the recent event it is reasonable to assume that some exist.

We strongly recommend anyone interested Read The Whole Thing™. We can’t disagree with author Rod Barton’s conclusions:

[I]t is difficult to envisage what measures, political or military, the US could realistically take to bring Syria to account. In all probability, the abhorrent Khan Sheikhoun chemical attack is likely to be lost in the wider Syrian crisis, with its almost 5 million external refugees, its growing internal humanitarian needs and its political complexity.

As depressing and alarming as it is, the world may therefore expect that Syria will continue to use its remaining chemical weapons against its populace, whenever it chooses and with relative impunity.

Special Forces Losses in Southeast Asia Three Weeks: 13 Mar-2 Apr, 1957-75

Here’s another installment of our list of SF casualties, on the way to assisting the USA to the Silver Medal in the Southeast Asian War Games. We haven’t done this in a while so there are three weeks at once to start catching up.

The next couple of paragraphs, before the tables, are the boilerplate that goes with this series of posts.

The list was a life’s work for retired Special Forces Command Sergeant Major Reginald Manning. Reg was beloved for his sharp mind and sense of humor; among other tours he survived one at what was probably the most-bombarded SF A-Camp in the Republic of Vietnam, Katum. (“Ka-BOOM” to its inmates).

There is a key to some of the mysterious abbreviations and codes, after the list.

May God have mercy on their souls, and long may America honor their sacrifices and hold their names high in memory.

After the lists you will find a key to the status codes for the Causes of Death or Missing in Action, and also a decoder for some of the common abbreviations.

In addition, we have some individual comments, that are inserted before the weeks to which they apply.

For the week of 12-19 Mar, no SF soldier was lost on 15 or 19 Mar. Note particularly the loss of Captain William Craig due to a dropped Swedish K. (SF term for the Carl Gustav M45B submachine gun, a favorite for “stylin’ and profilin'” for the crowd, but, like all open-bolt submachine guns, hazardous).

Year	Mo.	Day	Rank	First	Last	Unit	Code	Nation, Location, Circumstances
1966	03	13	E-6 SSG	James E.	Hughes	05B4S	KIA	SVN; A-302, Mike Force, Phuoc Long Prov., YT132368, 8km north of A-312, Xom Cat, Opn Silver City
1966	03	13	O-3 CPT	Edward D.	Pierce	9301	KIA, fixed wing shotdown	SVN; B-31, 519MI, near Xuan Loc; shot down in an L-19
1968	03	13	E-5 SGT	J. Athan	Theodore	11F4S	KIA	SVN; A-238, Buon Blech, Pleiku Prov.
1969	03	13	E-8 MSG	Willis F.	House	11F5S	KIA	SVN; B-55, An Giang Prov., on Hill 92 at Nui Coto, NCOIC of the flamethrower platoon
1969	03	14	O-2 1LT	James L.	Ripanti	31542	KIA	Laos; CCC, RT New Hampshire, in Juliet 9, SSW of Leghorn Radio Relay Site
1966	03	16	E-7 SFC	William H.	Hubbard	71B4S	DNH, accidental homicide	SVN; B-31, Xuan Loc, shot by friendlies while reentering the perimeter
1967	03	16	E-8 MSG	Kenneth R.	Chadwick	11F5S	KIA, DOW	SVN; Advisors, MACV Team 77 at Trung Hoa Ranger Tng Ctr, was w/ SF in Laos at Thakhet in ’61-’62
1969	03	16	O-2 1LT	Francis E.	Sievers, Jr.	31542	KIA	SVN; 2 MSFC, A-201, at A-244, Ben Het, Kontum Prov.
1969	03	16	E-8 MSG	Robert G.	Daniel	11F5S	KIA, DOW, WIA 03/03/1969, DSC	SVN; 2 MSFC, B-20, Kontum Prov., at A-244, Ben Het, YB871242 1 km S of Ben Het
1969	03	16	O-4 MAJ	Marvin L.	Foster	unk	DNH, BNR, recovered ’00; ID’d ’05	SVN; Command Liaison Det, YC936965, aboard U-21A 66-18007, crashed during approach to Hue-Phu Bai
1966	03	17	O-3 CPT	William H.	Craig, Jr.	9007	DNH, accidental self destruction	SVN; CCN, FOB1, Kham Duc, Swedish K fired when dropped
1969	03	17	E-6 SSG	Benedict M.	Davan	11F4C	KIA, DSC	SVN; 5 MSFC, A-504, 521 MSF Co, at Nui Coto, Chau Doc Prov.
1970	03	17	O-3 CPT	James M.	Gribbin	31542	KIA, DOW	SVN; 2 MSFC, A-204, near A-244, Ben Het, Kontum Prov.
1971	03	17	O-5 LTC	Bryan J.	Sutton	31542	DNH, helicopter crash	SVN; w/ 101st, Quang Tri Prov., w/ SF in Laos in ’61 & w/ A1/232 in ’63; on OH-58 #68-16884
1971	03	17	O-4 MAJ	Ronald O.	Scharnberg	31542	DNH, helicopter crash	SVN; w/ 101st, Quang Tri Prov., was first Cdr of B-40 in 1967 as a CPT, on OH-58 #68-16884
1969	03	18	E-7 SFC	Margarito	Fernandez, Jr.	11F4S	KIA, DOW	Cam; CCS, w/ RT??, XT441912, during BDA 11km due East of A-322, Katum; w/ B. Murphy
1969	03	18	E-5 SP5	Barry D.	Murphy	12B4S	KIA, BNR	Cam; CCS, w/ RT??, XT441912, during BDA 11km due East of A-322, Katum; w/ M. Fernandez

In the week of 20-26 Mar, somebody died on every date… and along with the usual combat losses, there’s two aircraft shootdowns, one taking the lives of a whole recon team (RT Pennsylvania). Destroyed RTs were usually reconstituted with new personnel.

Year	Mo.	Day	Rank	First	Last	Unit	Code	Nation, Location, Circumstances
1968	03	20	O-1 2LT	Franklin E.	Speight	31542	KIA	SVN; w/ C Co, 503rd/173rd, Kontum Prov.; mult frag wounds
1969	03	20	E-7 SFC	Ricardo G.	Davis	91B4S	MIA-PFD	Laos; CCN, RT Copperhead, YC409110, 59k west of A-105, Kham Duc
1966	03	21	E-4 SP4	John F.	Scull, Jr.	unk	KIA	SVN; 5 SFG, Signal Co., at A-233, Buon Ea Yang, Darlac Prov.
1967	03	21	E-7 SFC	Charles E.	Hosking, Jr.	11B4S	KIA MOH	SVN; A-302, Mike Force, Phuoc Long Prov., on BLACKJACK 32
1967	03	22	E-7 SFC	Allen H.	Archer	11F4S	KIA	SVN; B-52, “RT 2”, BS779188, Binh Dinh Prov.
1968	03	22	E-7 SFC	Estevan	Torres	11F4S	KIA, DOW	SVN; B-50, FOB2, Binh Dinh Prov.
1968	03	22	E-7 SFC	Linwood D.	Martin	05B4S	KIA, DSC	SVN; B-50, ST Delaware, FOB2, Binh Dinh Prov.
1968	03	22	E-4 SP4	John C.	Wells	11B4S	DNH	SVN; HHC, FOB3, Binh Dinh Prov., got run over
1969	03	22	E-7 SFC	Richard F.	Salazar	05B4S	KIA	SVN; A-333, Chi Linh, Binh Long Prov.
1963	03	23	O-3 CPT	Lavester L.	Williams	31542	DNH, DWM, drowned	SVN; A5/5, An Long, Kien Phong Prov., WS409854; hit on head by passing VN boat while SCUBAing
1964	03	23	E-7 SFC	Thomas L.	Lewis	11F4S	DNH, accidental self destruction	SVN; A1/334B, Bu Prang (old), Quang Duc Prov., YU520545
1967	03	23	E-8 MSG	Paul A.	Conroy, Jr.	11F5S	DNH, accidental self destruction	SVN; CCN, FOB1, RT Maine, at Kham Duc, WP grenade accident during training
1965	03	24	O-3 CPT	David J. W.	Widder	32162	KIA	SVN; B1/410, at A-106, Ba To, shot on board Caribou during approach to A-106, Ba To
1967	03	24	E-7 SFC	Roger C.	Hallberg	11B4S	KIA, DWM	SVN; A-302, Mike Force, Phuoc Long Prov., YU100305, 3km NE of A-341, Bu Dop
1967	03	24	O-4 MAJ	Jack Thomas	Stewart	31542	MIA-PFD, DSC	SVN; A-302, Mike Force, Phuoc Long Prov., YU100305, 3km NE of A-341, Bu Dop
1968	03	24	O-2 1LT	Michael A.	Merkel	17860	KIA, DOW	SVN; 7th PsyOps Gp, attached to MACV Tm 21, Pleiku Prov.
1969	03	24	E-7 SFC	William M.	Bryant	11F4S	KIA MOH	SVN; 3 MSFC, B-36, A-362, Long Khanh Prov., Opn Centurian V at Rang Rang
1969	03	24	E-5 SGT	John M.	Greene	05B4S	KIA, DOW	SVN; 5 MSFC, A-503, 512 MSF Co, at Nui Coto, Chau Doc Prov.
1970	03	24	O-2 1LT	Jerry L.	Pool	31542	MIA-PFD (remains ID’ed 06/2001)	Cam; CCC, RT Pennslyvania, YB484003 38k SSW of Leghorn, Ratanakiri Prov., on UH-1H #68-15262
1970	03	24	E-7 SFC	John A.	Boronski	unk	KIA, BNR (remains ID’ed 06/2001)	Cam; CCC, RT Pennsylvania, YB484003 38k SSW of Leghorn, Ratanakiri Prov., on UH-1H #68-15262
1970	03	24	E-6 SSG	Gary A.	Harned	05B4S	MIA-PFD (remains ID’ed 06/2001)	Cam; CCC, RT Pennsylvania, YB484003 38k SSW of Leghorn, Ratanakiri Prov., on UH-1H #68-15262
1967	03	25	O-3 CPT	Richard E.	Legate	31542	KIA	Laos; CCC, FOB2, Nung Company Commander
1967	03	25	E-5 SGT	Albert C.	Files, Jr.	91B4S	KIA, fixed wing shotdown	SVN; A-243, Plateau Gi, Kontum Prov., aboard O-1E #56-2509, shot down during takeoff from A-243
1968	03	25	E-6 SSG	Balfour O.	Lytton, Jr.	05B4S	KIA, DOW, DSC	SVN; 2 MSFC, B-20, Darlac Prov., near Ban Me Thout, vic BR248245 on Opn BATH
1969	03	25	E-7 SFC	Joseph C.	Haga	12B4C	KIA	SVN; 3 MSFC, B-36, A-361, Long Khanh Prov., at Rang Rang on Opn CENTURIAN V
1967	03	26	E-5 SP5	Raymond B.	Guarino	12B2S	KIA, DWM	SVN; A-235, Nhon Co, Quang Duc Prov., w/ SFC G.D. Hoskins
1967	03	26	E-7 SFC	Gomer D.	Hoskins, Jr.	11B4S	KIA, DWM	SVN; A-235, Nhon Co, Quang Duc Prov., w/ SP5 Guarino
1969	03	26	O-2 1LT	Robert E.	Sheridan	31542	KIA	Laos; CCC, Hatchet Force, Co B; small arms fire

For the week of 3/27-4/2, no SF soldier was lost on 29 or 31 March, or 1 April. In addition, a SOG veteran has informed the community that “the remains of Alan Boyer, line 6, were returned to CONUS and were formally buried at Arlington 6/12/16, with his sister Judi and several SOA/SFA brethren, LTG John Mulholland and many SF men from 5th SFG in attendance.” While Boyer’s teammate George Brown was recovered in 2002, the remains of their other teammate on RT Asp, Charles Huston, have not yet been recovered and/or identified.

Year	Mo.	Day	Rank	First	Last	Unit	Code	Nation, Location, Circumstances
1966	03	27	E-7 SFC	Alden B.	Willey	11C4S	KIA	SVN; A-222, Dong Tre, Phu Yen Prov.
1968	03	27	E-7 SFC	Johnny C.	Calhoun	05B4S	KIA, DWM, DSC	Laos; CCN, FOB3, YC422918, 5k South of Ta Bat
1968	03	27	O-3 CPT	Mac W.	Speaks	31542	KIA	SVN; A-102, Tien Phuoc, Quang Tin Prov.
1968	03	28	E-8 MSG	George R.	Brown	11F5S	MIA-PFD (Recovered 02/2000)	Laos; CCN, FOB4, RT Asp, XD434574 40k WNW of Khe Sanh, w/ Boyer & Huston
1968	03	28	E-6 SSG	Charles G.	Huston	05B4S	MIA-PFD	Laos; CCN, FOB4, RT Asp, XD434574 40k WNW of Khe Sanh, w/ G. R. Brown & Boyer
1968	03	28	E-6 SSG	Alan L.	Boyer	05B4S	MIA-PFD (Recovered 03/2016)	Laos; CCN, FOB4, RT Asp, XD434574 40k WNW of Khe Sanh, w/ G. R. Brown & Huston
1968	03	30	E-5 SGT	John F.	Link	12B4S	KIA, DOW, WIA 29 March, DSC	SVN; B-52, 91st Ranger Bn Advisor, vic YD554037 18k NE of A Luoi on Opn Samurai IV
1967	04	2	E-5 SGT	William P.	Martin	91B4S	KIA	SVN; A-241, Polei Kleng, Kontum Prov.
1968	04	2	E-5 SP5	Ingo J. R.	Wiskow	12B4S	KIA	SVN; B-36, A-362, Rapid Fire VIII, Phuoc Long Prov., YU322138, 14km ENE of Song Be
1970	04	2	E-7 SFC	Donald G.	Armstrong	11F4S	KIA	Laos; CCC, FORD DRUM during a low-level photo mission; aircraft managed to return to base

SVN SF KIA Status Codes:

BNR – Body Not Recovered. (Known to be dead, but his body was left behind).
DOW – Died of Wounds. (At some time subsequent to the wounding, days/weeks/months).
DNH – Died Non-Hostile. (Accident, disease. There’s a couple suicides among them).
DWM – Died While Missing. (Usually implies body recovered at a different time during the war).
KIA – Killed In Action.
MIA – Missing In Action.
PFD – Presumptive Finding of Death. (This was an administrative close-out of all remaining MIAs during the Carter Administration).

Common Abbreviations

A-XXX (digits). SF A-team and its associated A-camp and area.
AATTV – Australian Army Training Team Vietnam. Their soldiers integrated with SF in VN.
BSM, SS, DSC, MOH: Awards (Bronze Star, Silver Star, Distinguished Service Cross, Medal of Honor).
CCC, CCN, CCS. Command and Control (Center, North and South). Covernames for the three command and support elements of the Special Operations Group cross-border war.
MGF – Mobile Guerrilla Force, indigenous personnel led directly by US.
MSFC – Mobile Strike Force Command, indigenous personnel led directly by US. Aka Mike Force.

We’ll cheerfully answer most other questions to the best of our ability in the comments. Note that (1) it’s Reg’s list, and we can’t ask him any more, and (2) it was Reg’s war, not ours, and all our information about SF in the Vietnam war is second hand from old leaders and teammates, or completely out of secondary sources.

Attack on Syria: Knowns and Unknowns

TLAM launch from USS Ross DDG-71. There are no lights on deck; that illumination is all from the rocket booster.

As we write these words, the US responded to a Syrian escalation in the Syrian Civil War with a series of cruise missile strikes on a single Syrian air base.

Here is what we know:

More than 14 hours after the attack (which took place at 0440 local on Sharyat Airfield, 2040 EDT) the US has not released any BDA of the target, despite presence of real-time ISR assets in the theater. The implication is that the strike’s effects were relatively inconsequential.
59 Tomahawk Land Attack Missiles (ship-launched cruise missiles) struck targets. As this is an odd number, it seems probable that there was one or more launch or guidance failures. (In case of a guidance failure, SOF may be hunting an errant missile deep in enemy territory).
Targets were, per the only Pentagon statement yet, “aircraft, hardened aircraft shelters, petroleum and logistical storage, ammunition supply bunkers, air defense systems, and radars,” but…
“Russian forces were notified in advance of the strike using the established deconfliction line. U.S. military planners took precautions to minimize risk to Russian or Syrian personnel located at the airfield.” By notifying the Russians and Syrians in advance, planners ensured an ineffective strike. Aircraft are highly mobile, and it’s probable that airworthy machines were scrambled to other sites.

USS Porter, DDG-78, launches TLAMs

One thing that was not struck was the Syrian chemical weapons storage facility, almost certainly because it is Russian-staffed. Syria has long stockpiled and employed chemical and biological weapons, but has no indigenous development capability and relied on the world’s leading exporter of these pariah weapons, Russia, for the capability and the materials. It’s quite unlikely that Assad conducted the 4 April chemical attack on civilians in Khan Sheikhoun, Syria, without Russian aid, guidance and approval. It is also possible that Russian airmen and chemical officers actually led and conducted the attack.

Since World War II, Soviet and Russian, and Soviet or Russian-sponsored regimes, have been the primary if not sole employers of prohibited chemical and biological weapons. Generally, in accordance with Soviet and Russian doctrine, they have used them to exterminate civilian populations in insurgent regions.

There have also been a number of mishaps within Russian and former Soviet territory from slipshod handling of these weapons.

The Justification

According to statements from DOD and President Trump, the attack was in response to the most recent of many Syrian chemical attacks on population centers. (See graphic). 79 people, most if not all civilians, including 20 children were killed in the attack. The US had threatened counterstrikes for chemical warfare use before, but Assad and Russia called then-President Obama’s bluff, and he did nothing.

There are essentially three factions remaining in the Syrian Civil War, all of which are hostile to the United States. There is the Alawite de-facto monarchy of Bashar Assad, who inherited the country from his father and is a lifelong Russian client. His support comes from those of the elite who have not left, from ethnic and religious minorities, and from moderate Moslems. There is the ISIS faction, whose objectives and motivations are well-understood. And there are anti-Assad, anti-ISIS rebels, almost all of whom are Islamists whose differences with ISIS are more a matter of “who, whom” than policy or religion. The original moderate “Arab Spring” resistance, never numerous on the ground (but easily accessible to Western reporters via Twitter), was quickly and ruthlessly exterminated by Assad during a period of characteristic Obama dithering, which meant that by the time the US was arming rebels, they were arming al-Qaeda affiliates who are considerably worse for Syria and the world than Assad — and he’s the guy who gases his own people.

The Politics

Democrats are already lining up against the strikes and the forces that carried them out; lost to memory is the Red Line of Obama days (which Democrats may have tolerated because it was always empty bluster). The Democrats have done something uncharacteristically smart for either of our blockheaded political parties, in using Massachusetts Congressman Seth Moulton, a very very rare infantry combat veteran in Congress, as their spokesman on the issue.

The Slippery Slope vs. the Ineffectual Pinprick

Moulton did say one thing that rings true:

“War doesn’t get any easier than what he did last night, throwing a few Tomahawks at a foreign country,” Moulton said Friday on CNN’s “New Day.”

“We don’t really know what we’re fighting for in Syria. And fundamentally, that’s just not fair to our troops.”

Moulton implied that boots on the ground may be required, and if so, why? His implication is that we are embarked upon a slippery slope to yet another war, and further, that he and other ~~Copperheads~~ Democrats will, characteristically, oppose and undermine the effort.

As far as that goes, he is probably right about the weakness of the attack. (Reuters says Syria reports six killed on the airbase; it was a bad night to be SDO). It’s reminiscent of the pinprick attacks that then-President Clinton launched on Afghanistan and Sudan to drive Monica Lewinsky out of the news cycle, which wound up only encouraging Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda.

It is extremely unlikely that it will deter despots from using their Russian-supplied weapons of mass destruction on their own or neighboring populations, and the probability is approximately zero that it will deter the Russians from continuing to produce and supply these weapons to the world’s pariah regimes.

What We Don’t Know

Here are a few questions that we don’t know the answers to right now:

How will the Russians react? Probably in something approximately howling rage, especially if any of their nerve gas techs were whacked.
Did the missiles actually hit anything of value? We know they can’t have hit anything of more value to Assad than his Russian alliance, the only thing keeping him from the fate of Qaddafi at this time. But have they disrupted any of his war-making capability? Lack of traffic from the Pentagon suggests no. Instead, they were parallel to the Clinton strikes, blowing up empty mud huts and bleachers and calling it a “terrorist camp.” (Terrorist camps don’t kill people. Terrorists kill people.” Likewise, targeting Hardened Aircraft Shelters that don’t have aircraft in them is a waste of multimillion-dollar missiles.
Is this a one-off strike (in which case Moulton may be right about ineffectual) or the start of a campaign (in which case he may be right about “quagmire,” a Washington term for quagmires in a Republican administration).
What’s next? That’s the question nobody knows the answer to.

We do live in interesting times.

Update

World reactions are pouring in and the New York Times published this graphic of who’s in favor and who isn’t.

Not surprisingly, the opponents are Bashar Assad and his two allies, Putin and the ayatollahs. North Korea is probably opposed too, but this isn’t the day they have Internet.

Let’s Play Army-Marine Juxtaposition

OK, let’s start with a story from Army Basic Training. An official story from Army.mil, no less.

A bedtime snack for basic trainees? Nutrition experts with the Military Health System say it’s not coddling; it’s a way to make sure the nutritional needs of new recruits are met, preventing injury today and promoting healthy warfighters tomorrow. The problem is many recruits arrive with poor vitamin D status, which might make their bones vulnerable, leading to fractures and subsequent high dropout rates.

“Stress fractures occur after unaccustomed activities or overuse, such as wearing boots or carrying heavy loads — common during basic training,” said James McClung, Ph.D., deputy chief of the Military Nutrition Division at the U.S. Army’s Research Institute of Environmental Medicine in Natick, Massachusetts. “Up to 18 percent of recruits suffer from these stress fractures. Women beginning training with poor vitamin D status are particularly vulnerable.”

McClung said about 60 percent who suffer these types of injuries end up dropping out of the military altogether, and those injured who make it through can suffer long-term health effects. A new fortified snack bar developed at Natick boosts calcium and vitamin D levels, making trainees less vulnerable to the fractures.

“Our test soldiers eat these bars each evening,” he said, “and we are seeing marked improvements in their nutritional status and their bone health. An added benefit may be better performance during physical training before the next morning’s breakfast.” McClung said eating the bars reinforces education for choosing the right foods and learning when to consume them for the best performance.

On the one hand, they’re tuckin’ ’em in with a chocolaty licky-chewy these days in Army Basic. Lord love a duck.

Perhaps with smoke breaks gone, they can introduce… recess?

On the other hand, the docs argue that when they tried to provide nutritional supplements in their native state, recruits wouldn’t ingest the nasty stuff. The only way to get Recruits Joe Tentpeg and Jane Snuffy to choke the stuff down was to wrap it in chocolate, disguising it as something edible.

Then again, on the gripping hand, if there’s an organization on the planet that could make chocolate unappetizing, it’s the Army. Look at that package again, especially its distinctive [adjective] brown color. Yes, the Army can wreck chocolate. Anyone remember John Wayne Bars?

Now, if you’ve read this far, and you’re a Marine, you’re gloating at the soft, coddled doggies who don’t go to a real man’s boot camp that puts hair on your chest (which is, incidentally, why women Marines have uniforms with high collars). But wait: here’s another story, from the very same source:

Best practices for training: Marine drill instructors review Army training methods

Can the Lean Mean Marine Performance Bar be far off?

Enjoy your chocolate, kids. And get off our lawn.

Chief of Staff on the Future: Smaller Units, Smarter Soldiers?

General Mark Milley spoke recently at a conference on what the Army of the Future might look like.

Urban warfare is the next battlefield frontier, and the Army will have to rethink both its command structure and soldiers themselves in order to adapt, the service’s top general said Tuesday.

This is nothing new. We’ve been saying for 30+ years that an increasing urbanized world means changes for both the traditional culture of fight-em-in-the-wilderness, and the special operations culture of sneak-by-when-they’re-not-looking. For special ops, it probably means more clandestine operations and tradecraft. (Something to learn from Russian use of SOF in the war to undermine Ukrainian independence, here).

However, it’s encouraging to see a general, the guys we pay to think big, indulging in some big-picture thinking. All the rest of the Army is off the clock when they’re thinking big, not that it stops us.

The Army isn’t going to an all-special operations model, but there’s some inspiration the conventional Army can take from that culture, Army Chief of Staff Gen. Mark Milley said at the Future of War Conference in Washington, D.C.

“I think you’ll have smaller organizations, in 10 years and beyond,” he said.

That might look like company- or battalion-sized operational units, he added, but it wouldn’t mean doing away with brigades and divisions.

There’s a limit to how much span of control one individual has, whether he’s directing men or directing drones.

“The fighting element will probably end up having to be much smaller,” he said. “Think of special operations — that may be a preview of how larger armies operate in the future.”

One future factor that seems to be not overly considered is the increased lethality of fires. The same sorts of reasons that once militated against massing in the Pentomic Division days of battlefield nukes now apply to anyone fighting a conventional military. The artillery fires of the 21st Century are not like anything we’ve seen before, and while we developed much of the technology, we haven’t developed doctrine to support it, and we haven’t fielded it in quantity.

Meanwhile, regional and near-peer powers retain and make technical progress in non-nuclear WMD.

The future will also bring more unmanned capabilities and, as a result, possibly a lower risk for loss of life.

“We’ve lost a lot of soldiers in the past 15 years who were driving convoys, from point A to point B, and were attacked by [improvised explosive devices], and they were delivering food or ammunition,” Milley said. “Think about, if you could, a logistics convoy delivering the required supplies to a forward unit, but there’s no drivers in the convoy.”

And this also moves your war into the electronic and cyber domain, where the US military has not displayed world-class aptitude.

That technology already exists with driverless cars created by Google and others. It will take some time to make something that can negotiate rough battlefield terrain, Milley said, but it will happen.

Of course, lefties dread and fear the Army, which goes back to their ancestral memories of pogroms in the night, or worse, a draft notice to be evaded.

To those on that end of things, any change in the military brings us further down the slippery slope to overt Francoism, and means that Doctor Strangelove will be immersing us in nuclear Armageddon just for the sheer atavistic joy of hearing the bang.

Then the question becomes whether that lowers the bar for risk when deciding to go to war, said Anne-Marie Slaughter, president of the New America think tank and moderator of the session with Milley.

via Milley: Future conflicts will require smaller Army units, more mature soldiers.

Then, there’s this:

Soldiers will have to be highly trained in discriminating fire, able to quickly and effectively tell who is a combatant and who is a bystander. Leader development will be key, Milley added, and lessons could come, again, from the special operations community.

“We’re probably going to have to have more mature, more seasoned leaders at lower levels than perhaps the organization design calls for now,” he said.

For example, special operations companies are led by majors instead of captains, as they are in the conventional Army. But special operations also often has the benefit of older, more experienced soldiers rather than brand new, 19-year-old privates.

“Our leaders at the pointy end of the spear are going to have to have very, very high degrees of ethical skill and resilience to be able to deal with incredibly intense issues in ground combat,” Milley said.

So the next task, over the following 10 to 15 years, Milley said, is figuring out how to recruit and quickly train the type of people who can take that special operations-style expertise and bring it to the regular Army.

SOF Maturity for General Purpose Forces?

Hard to do. And not because GPF guys are bad (after all, who’s the recruiting pool for most SOF?) But because there is no royal road to maturity, and no short course to combat and tactical judgment.

Basically, you can’t make privates into SF or SEAL type guys in the time you have for training a private. Truth be told, it takes ten years to make a versatile, well-rounded SF guy. You get some good work out of him during those ten years of seasoning, sure, but it takes that long just to be exposed to a significant percentage of the mission sets that come with the job. (We’d guess something similar applies over in the Teams — a 3-year or 5-year Frogman is a pretty good asset in most missions, but he’s still learning more than he’s teaching. But that’s just a guess; we don’t pretend to grasp SEAL culture or to speak for our web-footed friends).

You can make privates into Rangers in about double the time it takes to make them nugget infantrymen, but (1) you need a wide recruiting base and (2) you absolutely need attrition in your pipeline. You can’t make everybody SF-like (and we’re aware of the important limitations on what the Chief was saying) for the same reason all the kids can’t be above average. Indeed, the stuff the Chief was carving out from SOF that he wants to see in the regular forces — the maturity, the low level leadership — are just the things that take longest to inculcate.

But there will be a Future Army, and it will be Different

There’s a line from an Al Stewart song (a song about smuggling guns, actually):

In the village where I grew up nothing is the same
But still, you never see the change from day to day

When we cynically dismiss Big Think conferences and the brainstorming of senior generals and their horse-holders, we forget that, even though we never see the change from day to day, the Army that holds your retirement parade isn’t the Army you were sworn into a generation earlier. Otherwise we’d still be this Army:

…or this Army:

US Army Tank Destroyer patch, never official but very widespread.

And we think you’ll agree that, for better or for worse, we’re not that Army any more.

Everything we take for granted today, such as attack and utility helicopters, anti-tank missiles, and satellite communications, was once somebody’s crackpot idea that caught the imagination of some general and took off.

Bolton: Korea Can Unify Peacefully. Here’s How

John Bolton, former US Ambassador to the United Nations, is known for blunt, straight talk. But people forget he’s also a career diplomat with an instinct for diplomatic solutions — even if he’s more practical and less deluded than the median for the breed. Bolton has written an interesting essay, arguing that the best outcome for almost all stakeholders in the Korean peninsula — the US, China, the Republic of Korea, and the Korean people themselves, north and south — would be a deal.

Bolton, almost uniquely among foreign service officers and think-tankers, recognizes the futility of the last 70 years of negotiations, and the futility of more of the same stupid thing. But he thinks something might work.

Do any diplomatic avenues remain open? Only one offers any possibility of a lasting solution, as opposed to resuming talks with North Korea in the diaphanous expectation that the 26th year of such negotiations will produce results not discovered in the first 25. That possibility — peaceful reunification of the Korean Peninsula — Washington has all but ignored these last decades, although the upside of potential success is enormous.

The case for Korean reunification is not an appeal to China to help America. It is an argument for China to look to its own national interest, and to act accordingly. Consider these postulates:

First, the Korean Peninsula will be reunified. Its division in 1945 was purely expedient, intended to be temporary, and just as unnatural as Germany’s contemporaneous partition. The only questions are when and how Korean reunification will occur: Will it be through war or the North’s catastrophic collapse, or will the United States, South Korea, China and others manage the South absorbing the North coherently?

Second, China may actually believe what it says in opposing a North Korean nuclear-weapons capability because it destabilizes East Asia and therefore harms China’s own economic development. For years, however, Beijing’s behavior has been schizophrenic, fostering, for example, the inevitably doomed Six-Party Talks, while disingenuously arguing that the real solution had to be found between Washington and Pyongyang.

In fact, China, through its massive economic power over North Korea, could itself quickly remove any Pyongyang regime. Communist ideology, embodied in the unappetizing metaphor that their respective Communist parties are as close as lips and teeth, has for years impeded Beijing’s leaders from contemplating Korean reunification. Today, however, younger Chinese leaders understand and talk openly about the ugly piece of baggage the North represents for China itself.

Skeptics believe China will reject reunification principally on two grounds. Beijing dreads with good reason that Pyongyang’s collapse could produce a refugee flood across the Yalu River into Manchuria, a humanitarian emergency taxing China’s resources and also risking political and economic destabilization. (Seoul fears a similar refugee tide into the Demilitarized Zone.) In response, Washington and our regional allies should pledge full cooperation with Beijing to avoid massive refugee flows from North Korea as its prison-camp structures dissolve.

via Reunifying Korea a possibility – Washington Times.

China’s bigger objection, Bolton explains, is strategic: they like the USA as a trading partner but they don’t like the idea of the US Army right across the Yalu. But that’s a concession that we, and the Republic of Korea, can give them.

Bolton is right to ignore the Nork government. Never legitimate, it’s an inbred, decaying monarchy in a world that left monarchies behind (or boiled them down into tourist attractions) a century or more ago. It only gets away with what it gets away with because it has a big brother that covers for its bullying. The trick, then, is to get China to cut Nork loose.

And here’s the trick within the trick: it must be done without China losing face, or creating a perception that China is an inconstant ally.

Finally, China is not a monolith. There are many shades of opinion in Chinese leadership, and that leadership includes people that truly believe in all the Communist nonsense. Bolton dismisses it, for the same reason that the stranger’s religion always looks to adherents of other faiths like a stupid superstition. Indeed, Communism is a stupid superstition, but there are important people in China for whom it is their religion; and others who, for reasons practical or convenient, go along with the idea it’s their religion. Reason has no access to the psychological sphere where religion and/or superstition live.

Still, while Bolton’s suggestion is not easy, and its results are not guaranteed, we know what the State Department career staff are going to suggest: cycles and cycles of negotiations about the terms of potential negotiations, always held on an expense account in someplace very pleasant to visit. The results of those sorts of negotiations are guaranteed, and Bolton, among others, predicted them prior to the last round of gossamer negotiations.

Some Sense on Somali Pirates, from a Former Opponent of Theirs

This article about the Somali pirate seizure of a tanker appeared in a bit of an out-of-the-way place, but we were tipped to it — not least because the author is an old Ranger buddy with whom many a German beer was hoisted, back in the day.

“Those khat-chewing thugs are at it again,” I thought, recalling my maritime-security job almost 5 years ago off the east coast of Africa. Somali piracy, though, had seemed to have died off since then…

The online story elaborated: Pirates have hijacked an oil tanker off the coast of Somalia, Somali officials and piracy experts said Tuesday, in the first hijacking of a large commercial vessel there since 2012. … The area where the hijacking occurred is overseen by the U.S. Navy’s 5th Fleet, which is based in Bahrain. … It was not immediately clear what the pirates’ intentions are, but it may become one of the Trump administration’s first international tests.

The journalistically cautious “not immediately clear what the pirates’ intentions are” made me laugh. Intentions? Hijack then occupy (for as long as necessary) this non-US ship with grunt pirates while the clan’s CEO negotiates a high-dollar ransom of vessel, cargo, and crew—a big business deal via satphone from Mogadishu. It’s relatively easy money, too, if the targeted merchant vessel has no armed security personnel aboard.

We Americans are, I think, guilty of viewing too many world events through “It’s about US” lenses. Sure, it’s possible Somali pirates decided to test the new American president. After all, the US Navy has ships in the area….

Keep it Simple, Stupid (KISS) often has worked for me—the simplest theory often is the right one. This week’s hijack probably wasn’t about Trump; rather, Somali pirates simply saw an opportunity to score, after a long dry spell, and acted. Maybe the maritime industry had let its guard down in the HRA. You can bet DVDs of the “Captain Phillips” movie have been passed around in coastal areas of Somalia; pirates in 2017 probably won’t make the mistakes—exploited by our Navy and its SEAL marksmen—others made in 2009.

You’ll be better informed about Somali pirates and countermeasures if you Read The Whole Thing™. It’s written by a guy who’s been in those very waters on private MARSEC missions, deterring those very pirates.

What would actually work for the pirates of the 21st Century is what worked for the pirates of the 17th and 18th Centuries: a good dose of hanging at the yardarm, along with a thorough bombardment of the towns and harbors that emit them.

Pirates still are hostis humanae generis and ought to be treated that way. You don’t break a malaria epidemic by negotiating with the mosquitoes.

How Does the Partition of Korea End?

North Korea has a large military but few other trappings of civilization.

We humans tend to believe that the life we experience today is “normal” and that it will go on like this indefinitely. Evolutionary psychologists probably have some pat explanation for this, but we don’t know what it is. We do know, however, that many things thought permanent were anything but.

In the late 1960s, a Soviet historian named Andrei Amalrik wrote a prescient essay: Will the Soviet Union survive until 1984? At the time, it seemed laughable, but the KGB didn’t think it was funny, and Amalrik did a couple of stints at the Kolyma concentration camp before being exiled to the Netherlands. He was dead by 1981, in a car crash that, although certainly convenient for the KGB, was probably just a car crash.

In 1984, grinning KGB goons told Scharansky, “It’s 1984, Amalrik’s dead, and we’re still here.” The eternal workers’ and peasants’ revolutionary state, like the thousand-year Reich that was modeled upon it, seemed destined to last forever.

Amalrik admitted that he had nothing in the way of evidence. Just observation and logic. And he said logic guaranteed that a state built on terror and oppression could not stand forever. As it happened he was off by only a few years, although he was thwarted in his desire to live to see “the end of… the Russian Imperial state.”

I have been hearing and reading a great deal about the so-called “liberalization” of Soviet society. This idea may be formulated as follows The situation is better now than it was ten years ago; therefore ten years from now it will be better still. I will attempt to show here why I disagree with this notion. I must emphasize that my essay is based not on scholarly research but only on observation. From an academic point of view, it may appear to be only empty chatter. But for Western students of the Soviet Union, at any rate, this discussion should have the same interest that a fish would have for an ichthyologist if it suddenly began to talk.

The fish had this to say about the long-term prospects of his fishbowl:

I have no doubt that this great Eastern Slav empire, created by Germans, Byzantines and Mongols, has entered the last decades of its existence. Just as the adoption of Christianity postponed the fall of the Roman Empire but did not prevent its inevitable end, so Marxist doctrine has delayed the break-up of the Russian Empire, the third Rome, but it does not possess the power to prevent it.

Carrying this analogy further, one can also assume that in Central Asia, for instance, there could survive for a long time a state that considered itself the successor of the Soviet Union, a state which combined traditional Communist ideology, phraseology and ritual with the traits of Oriental despotism, a kind of contemporary Byzantine Empire.

For all that Amalrik and other dissidents, exiles and refuseniks experienced the USSR as a nightmare regime, that was not the experience of most Soviets. Especially Russians. They lived their lives, they did their best, they loved their country and its culture and some of its institutions, and they cultivated a healthy sense of humor about the unloveable parts. Most of the fish loved the fishbowl. Many today are nostalgic for it, because it wasn’t all KGB guys with coshes and steel-toed shoes: it was a proud, strong nation, and for some Russians today the USSR with all its flaws has the same appeal as the Lost Cause of the Confederacy (with all its flaws!) had to generations of American southerners.

Yet it still came crashing down; Amalrik, almost alone of the tens of thousands of historians, economists, and other experts in the USSR, had it right.

An Army with a nation. Will fight for food.

Which brings us back to the starvation state, North Korea,

The division of a single nation into separate states is a force like the chemical bonds between atoms in a molecule. It is stable right up until the moment that it is not stable.

Then, the bonds break with a great release of energy, and reform in new ways.

In chemistry, this reaction is predictable with mathematical certainty. In statecraft, it is not.

What, then, are the beliefs and guiding ideas of this people with no religion or morality? They believe in their own national strength, which they demand that other peoples fear, and they are guided by a recognition of the strength of their own regime, of which they themselves are afraid. ….

Under this assessment it is not difficult to imagine what forms and directions popular discontent will take if the regime loses its hold. The horrors of the Russian revolutions of 1905-7 and 1917-20 would then look like idylls in comparison.

…

It should be noted, however, that there is another powerful factor which works against the chance of any kind of peaceful reconstruction and which is equally negative for all levels of society this is the extreme isolation in which the regime has placed both society and itself. This isolation has not only separated the regime from society, and all sectors of society from each other, but also put the country in extreme isolation from the rest of the world. This isolation has created for all from the bureaucratic elite to the lowest social levels an almost surrealistic picture of the world and of their place in it. Yet the longer this state of affairs helps to perpetuate the status quo, the more rapid and decisive will be its collapse when confrontation with reality becomes inevitable.

Amalrik, in that last paragraph, is predicting the exact sort of preference cascade that actually occurred in the USSR and Eastern Europe in 1989-92. As it happened, restraint by Soviet and particularly Russian leadership ensured that the transition was largely peaceful.

But Amalrik saw coming for the USSR what no one had seen coming for Rome:

Evidently, if “futurology” had existed in Imperial Rome, where, as we are told, people were already erecting six-story buildings and children’s merry-go-rounds were driven by steam, the fifth-century “futurologists” would have predicted for the following century the construction of twenty-story buildings and the industrial utilization of steam power.

As we now know, however, in the sixth century goats were grazing in the Forum just as they are doing now, beneath my window in this village.

The USSR, unlike North Korea, had many strengths in natural and human resources; there is a lot of ruin in a nation, and a lot more in a large and forward-looking nation than there is in a small, isolated and regressive land.

One wonders if the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, as the world’s most backward and inbred absolute monarchy styles itself, can survive until 2024. And what terrors will be unleashed by its long-delayed expiration.

Amalrik’s essay is available online:

WeaponsMan

Quiet Professionals, Noisy Machinery