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The last two podcasts have been about what war is. The bottom line is that there are two almost entirely separate notions about war. The first being a legal status between two countries. This is the idea of declared war. We have not declared war since 1941 and we haven’t been in the state of a declared war since 1951. The other is the practical concept of an armed struggle between two parties. In the podcast, I proposed a practical definition based on Clausewitz: War is an act of violence, in concert with other elements of national power, creating conditions intolerable to our opponent thereby compelling him to accept our terms for a lasting peace consistent with our national interests and values. 

From that comes what I think of as the “natural laws of war.” Those rules derived from observation and reason. and which seem to be applicable at all times and in all wars. They are not what we wish, but war is. We need to carefully consider these in participating in any national debate about the use of violence to achieve our national interests and values:

Young men die. The enemy’s young men and your young men (and in this century, young women, too

Noncombatants and other civilians also die. 

Overwhelming force will achieve a decision sooner and is therefore more humanitarian

The means and methods used in war are not unrestricted 

Only the enemy knows when he is defeated. 

There is no such thing as a purely military solution. 

The result in war is never final 

Most of these are very Clausewitz, with some Machiavelli and even GEN Colin Powell. The overriding thought is actually expressed by Mao Tse Tung in his Problems of Strategy in China’s Revolutionary War:  He wrote, “Unless you understand the actual circumstances of war, its nature and other things, you will not know the laws of war, or how to direct war, or to be able to win a victory.”

The podcast posted last night addresses the real threats Russian posed by private military companies and some things that can be done to mitigate that threat. I will post some additional references if you are interested in reading more about that.

In summary, we need to be concerned about these Russian sort-of-private and not-quite commercial enterprises. Some of the problems associated with these companies include:

1. They are a component of the Russian Hybrid War model, where non-state entities provide training and operation of weapons systems to countries as the first step of establishing firm Russian military presence and control of a developing state.
2. The PMC role in hybrid warfare also affects more developed countries. They are also being used in Russia’s near-abroad regions to de-stabilize neighboring democracies, especially when those countries show pro-Western tendencies.
3. The presence of Russian PMCs can be assumed to be authorized by the Kremlin, but their activities may not be under the control of the Kremlin. There is also the question of who in the Kremlin is controlling any particular PMC. It is possible that, in the pursuit of securing national resources for the Russian kleptocracy, that they could be used to suppress political opponents or even conduct cross border operations. Because the Russian government has no legal accountability for these organizations under international law. The risk of Russia allowing such activity is very low.
4. Because responsibility, accountability, and even authority and control over these organizations is murky, it could delay or inhibit any effective response to acts of aggression by these PMCs.
5. The lack of accountability under the law, actions counter to human rights law and the law of war, the deliberate effort by Russia to equate their PMCs with Western PMSCs, and the willingness of Western media to accept this as true can undermine the legitimacy of Western PMSCs and international efforts such as the Montreux Document.

There are things responsible governments can do. These include, but are no means limited to:

1. Education and public statements promoting the Montreux Document and the international initiatives that flow from that document.
2. Encouraging governments to require PSCs used in that country or which operate from that country to conform to the recognized international standards for private security company operations.
3. Assist other governments in fulfilling 2., above.
4. Enforce sanctions on Russian PMCs and those who control them. Publicize the sanctions, including citing specific reasons why these persons and entities are under sanction and remain under sanction.
5. Consider sanctioning those who use the services by sanctioned PMCs
6. Leverage the recent resolution passed by the parliament of the Oragnization of Security Cooperation in Europe on PMSCs. This resolution calls for opening a dialog on PMSCs and including PMSCs in its annual information sharing on member state armed forces.
7. Continue to be open and transparent about the use of Western, Montreux-compliant PMSCs

These mutually supporting actions can serve to isolate or contain the spread of Russian quasi-mercenary organizations, weaken their utility as part of Russian Hybrid Warfare, preserve freedom of action for Western governments and Montreux compliant PMSCs, and maybe – just maybe, improve the stability, security, and respect for human rights in fragile states and regions.

Fifth episode is now posted. This one is longer that I would have liked, coming in a 12 minutes, but it was hard to decide what to leave out. This is a high level view of some of the major initiatives governing the use of private military and security companies. It includes an introduction to the Montreux Document, the Work of the UN Working Group on Mercenaries, the Quality Assurance Management Standards developed by the Defense Department, and the International Code of Conduct with its Association. It concludes by mentioning the new resolution by the Organization for Security Cooperation in Europe. These initiatives will lay the groundwork for identifying the real threat Russian combat provider organizations present and methods and means in developing a strategy for containing that threat. Over the next few days I will make posts here expanding on the information in this new podcast. I can only cover so much in 12 minutes.

The fourth episode, on the difference between Russian mercenary-like organizations and Western PMSCs. My guest is Dr. Jovana J. Ranito, Post Doctoral  Fellow with the University of Porto, Portugal. Her most recent book is Regulating US private security contractors, published by Palgrave Macmillan: New York. I strongly recommend reading that book if you want to get a pretty good idea about what regulations exist that cover private military and security companies and how they came into existence.

I know that all four podcasts so far have dealt with Russian private military companies in one way or another. Bear with me for a couple more and then I will go back to top level on warfare in the modern era and how little has changed in what we do — just how we do it. Even there it is just old wine in new wineskins.

Nonetheless, the privatization of many military support functions and the potential commercialization of war is a subject that I will come back to over and over. Contractor support of the military is both changing warfare AND a return to pre-20th century methods. Almost every aspect of modern war involves contractor support. The surprising thing to me is not how prevalent contractors are, it is how few people understand that there is nothing new in this at all.

Words mean things. Socrates and Confucius both maintained that is was important to use the right words to discuss the reality behind those words This basic tenet of logical thought is rarely practiced today. Instead of Socrates and Aristotle, we seem to taking our cue from Lewis Carrol, whose character, Humpty Dumpty, said that words mean precisely what he wants them to mean. Even that is being over generous. If you ask people involved in making or applying policy they would probably not be able to articulate what they mean by any of the words they use. The most recent podcast described Hybrid War. Other words or phrases that seem to be used without a firm definition include,

Drone

Mercenary

Private Military Company

Private Military and Security Company

Cyberwarfare

Law of War/Law of Armed Conflict/International Humanitarian Law

Rules of Engagement

and, the definition of WAR, itself

and probably other words and phrase that don’t immediately come to mind. Future podcasts and blog posts will address these topics. This will include why there is confusion, the resistance to definition, and — of course, my proposal for working definitions. I would like to start with “war” but given recents events I will have to address “drone” quite quickly.

I started thinking that it was one of those major events that everyone knows exactly where they were when it happened. But the reality is that it was 18 years ago. None of the new voter class for election year 2020 were even born then. The new college grads weren’t old enough to remember. Similarly, the overriding reality I grew up under… the Cold War, is for them absolutely ancient history. And there is the ongoing effort to rewrite history…all of our history. A couple of weeks ago I spoke with a staffer for one of the standing executive committees. He remarked to me that only in America is the phrase, “That’s history,” considered a disparaging comment. Everywhere else the idea attached to that history carries great importance.

Robert Heinlein wrote: A generation that ignores history has no past…and no future.

This post is up now. It includes an interview with Col Robert Waring, USA RET, who is an instructor at the Army War College. The theme, like the them of the Blog and Podcasts in general, is that although Hybrid Warfare –also called “New Generation Warfare” by the Russians — applies new technologies in an asymmetric fashion — the tenets of warfare remain the same. Clausewitz and Sun Tzu would not be surprised at any of this.

The second podcast is now up. You can access it through the podcast menu item above. It is also available on Linked In. (The only social media website I use.) I also want to embed a player on this website. The first four planned podcasts are listed in the previous post, I have a tentative plan for the first ten episodes, but that is subject to change. There may be developments in the news that will suggest that the sequence change, some products may be expanded or entirely new subjects need to be addressed. Kind of like this Blog. It is up and available to the public, but it is only in its initial stage and subject to some change before I announce it as being operational.

Welcome to my Blog on the Ancient Art of Modern Warfare. (I wanted to call it the “Ancieunt Arte of Moderne Warfarre” but my wife said no one would ever find it.) 

In this blog I want to discuss and explore the technical and tactical developments that indicate warfare is undergoing a fundamental change, an ongoing revolution in military affairsrendering all previous forms of warfare, with its theories, strategies, and tactics obsolete. Autonomous weapons systems, hypersonic missiles, cyber-warfare, contractors on the battlefield, the rise of mercenaries, and the ever popular “hybrid-warfare” and more all promise to upend our notions of armed conflict and place the United States and it partners at a strategic and maybe even an existential disadvantage. My position on this is that although these developments are changing the application of national power the basic principles of strategy and warfighting remain unchanged. The nature or substance of war is unchanging while the characteristics – or “accidents” – are constantly changing.

This blog supplements my podcast of the same name (found at https://www.podbean.com/site/Search/index?v=mayhemxpc). At least for now, I intend to upload new podcasts about once per week and each one will be about 9 to 12 minutes long. That is really only enough time to introduce a topic or idea. The blog exists to provide additional information, including references for things mentioned in the podcast, and to provide an opportunity for others to join in the conversation.

Subject to change, the topics of the first few podcasts will be:

1. Introduction, teaser for Russian mercenaries
2. Russian Mercenaries part 1
3. Intro to Hybrid Warfare: the role of Russian mercenaries
4. The difference between Russian mercs and U.S./Western PMSCs and why that is important