The Imperfect Case That The Army Is Too Light

An argument that the Army is too light gets some points right, but others deeply wrong. 

How can we have forgotten the terrible lessons of the early 2000s, when losses in Iraq and Afghanistan prompted a scramble to deploy up-armored HMMWVs and Mine Resistant Armor Protected Vehicles? Today’s Army, far lighter than the one that took such damage in so-called “low-intensity combat,” is ill-equipped to deter or contend with the likes of China or Russia.

Let’s take roll of the Army’s 31 active maneuver brigades. Eleven are heavy brigades equipped with tanks and infantry fighting vehicles—well-protected platforms suited to modern war.

Another six brigades are Stryker formations equipped with their eponymous lightly armored, wheeled infantry carriers. Originally called the “interim armored vehicle,” the Stryker was intended to serve only until the arrival of the Future Combat Systems, which imploded instead. From conception, Stryker units have suffered from doctrinal and conceptual confusion. Stryker units carry more dismounted troops than Bradley units, which are intended to fight primarily mounted. But they are infantry carriers, not infantry fighting vehicles. With poor off-road mobility, they are vulnerable to hand-held anti-armor systems, and their units have towed rather than self-propelled artillery. Repeated National Training Center rotations show they cannot survive when employed against armor.

The remaining 14 active maneuver brigades are light infantry formations, cheaper and easier to deploy but, realistically, unable to compete with today’s threat. Under current guidance, they go to war in “infantry squad vehicles”—essentially, unarmored dune buggies without heavy weapons.

Compounding the problem, the commanders of these light brigades have dramatically less firepower than they used to. The recent decision to eliminate the air cavalry squadron from the aviation brigade in Army divisions removes half of each division’s 48 AH-64E attack helicopters, a massive reduction in combat power. Only slightly less dangerous was the Army’s recent decision to deactivate the cavalry squadron in Stryker and light infantry brigades, with their many wheeled vehicles and heavy weapons. The same directive stripped light infantry battalions of their antiarmor/heavy weapons companies: mounted formations armed with automatic grenade launchers, heavy machine guns and heavy antitank systems. These actions removed much of the brigade’s available firepower.

Meanwhile, light artillery battalions still use the venerable M119 105mm towed howitzer, which has a lower rate of fire, shorter range, and weaker weapons effects than the 122mm and 152mm systems used by Russian and Chinese brigades. They are also slower to displace than self-propelled systems, making them far more vulnerable to counter-battery fire and drone attacks.

Promises to offset all these reductions with “Unmanned Systems and Ground/Air launched effects” raise serious questions, given the lack of specifics provided and DoD’s poor acquisition track record.

A quick look at adversary force structure illuminates the challenge. Russian maneuver brigades (tank, motor rifle, airborne/air assault, naval infantry) are remarkably similar. All include four maneuver battalions; three artillery battalions (both tubed and rocket); anti-tank, air defense and reconnaissance battalions; and an electronic warfare company. Chinese brigades have four maneuver battalions supported by strong artillery, air defense and EW units. U.S. brigades have three maneuver battalions, a single artillery battalion, and no dedicated anti-tank, air defense, or EW units. At higher echelons, adversary artillery, air defense and EW continues to outmatch U.S. capabilities, and both the Russian and Chinese militaries have evinced strong commitments to advance their drones and unmanned systems. Overall, their forces are clearly stronger, a dilemma only exacerbated by repeated moves to lighten or weaken U.S. ground forces.

What should the U.S. Army do? Several things: re-equip light brigades with protected, wheeled transport mounting heavy weapons, as before; restore their antiarmor companies; increase the density of Javelin anti-tank and Stinger air defense systems across light formations; replace towed light artillery with wheeled, 155mm systems like the French Caesar or German RCH-155; reverse the deactivation of divisional air cavalry squadrons; and arm divisional UH-60 assault helos with the Hellfire antitank missile system.

Stryker brigades should be converted into true heavy brigades, perhaps with reconditioned M1 Abrams tanks and M2 Bradley fighting vehicles that are now in storage. Hundreds of earlier variants of the M1, M2, and M109 self-propelled howitzer are stored at Sierra Army Depot in Nevada. Should Stryker brigades be retained, they should include an armor battalion, similar to Russian motor rifle brigades. Heavy brigades should be upgraded with the M1A3 Main Battle Tank and M2A4 Infantry Fighting Vehicle as soon as possible.

Army divisions should field a general support 155mm artillery battalion in addition to the artillery battalions providing direct support to the maneuver brigades. All brigades and divisions should include air defense and electronic warfare units, as well as dedicated drone formations with trained operators at every echelon from company to division.

America has not fought a high-intensity war against heavy forces since the Gulf War, when it enjoyed crushing superiority in all domains. Today that superiority now longer exists.

Touted as a move away from a GWOT-focused Army to one more focused on “lethality” and better suited to the Indo-Pacific region, current changes in fact cut deeply into the Army’s ability to hit hard and mass combat power. An America optimized to fight in only one theater is an America content to be a regional but not a global power—a recipe for decline. In the real world, challenges erupt suddenly and unexpectedly (think December 1941, June 1950, October 1963, August 1990 and September 2001). True national security requires a flexible and adaptive Army trained and equipped for sustained, intense combat at the high end of the spectrum of conflict. This means mobility, protection and firepower in all Army formations.

In a word, light is not lethal. It’s time for a rethink.

From Defense One.

What does this analysis get right?

Sufficient armor to protect troops against small arms fire and IEDs does make sense. The “infantry squad vehicles”—essentially, unarmored dune buggies without heavy weapons, indeed don't make sense. They utterly unprotected against even rain or hail or dust or snow or children throwing rocks. They have no weapons of their own and don't have storage capacity to carry squad scale heavy weapons or medical supplies. And, they concentrate a whole squad in a tiny space where a single grenade or volley of automatic weapons fire or IED can kill all of them in one blow. It isn't particularly capable off-road (unlike, for example, the Humvee). The only thing that recommends an infantry squad vehicle at all is that it is faster than walking. Using that as the core model for 14 of 31 Army Brigades is indeed nuts. Maybe one or two brigades of them for paratrooper type deployments into very lightly armed theaters might make sense, but these are, indeed, far too light for almost any conceivable conflict. 

These units aren't even really heavy enough to take on civilian drug cartels (as President Trump has urged the Army to make a priority). U.S. police SWAT teams routinely use more armor and heavier weapons to take on tiny domestic drug dealing gangs in U.S. cities, and protesters without firearms, or a single violent boyfriend and husband or mass shooter with a handful of small arms none of which is more than 0.45 caliber.

Cutting close air support from helicopters with missiles doesn't make much sense either.

But, how can you think that the future of near peer ground warfare lies with heavy tracked tanks and infantry fighting vehicles after having seen how the Ukraine War has played out. The author of this piece forgets that the U.S. Army deliberate fielded few main battle tanks in Kosovo due to its mountains, and that it took many critical weeks to ship them by boat and train to the front in all of the conflicts in which the U.S. has been involved since the Gulf War, despite the fact that the pace of modern warfare has not gotten slower.

Strykers and MRAPs were adequate in the main U.S. wars since the 2000s, the firepower of the main M1 Abrams tank has not been very useful, tank v. tank warfare is basically no longer a thing, and guided missiles like anti-tank Javelin missiles, Hellfire missiles, and TOW missiles have all delivered much more firepower per pound, with greater precision, at equivalent or longer ranges than the main guns of tanks. Traditional tanks like the existing Abrams and traditional infantry fighting vehicles like the Bradley, have no air defenses and no anti-drone weapons, are challenging to operate in tight urban warfare and mountain warfare settings, and aren't particularly mine resistant.

Another lesson of the wars that the U.S. has fought in the last 25 years is that off-road capabilities, where tracked vehicles are a bit faster than off-road capable wheeled vehicles, are rarely used in practice. But the tracks vehicles slow down their entire units, and because they are profoundly less fuel efficient, require more, completely vulnerable fuel tanker trucks to be sent to supply them (and those tanker trucks can't go to the off-road places that the tracked vehicles can). In wars where the front lines are often ill-defined, this is a huge problem.

As for howitzers, either towed or self-propelled, tracked or wheeled, there are also problems. Their range is only 12-24 miles. They are very heavy relative to their firepower. And, they aren't very accurate, so its takes multiple rounds to destroy a target. Mortar systems are even worse in basically every respect. Guided missile systems like HIMARs, or like or Hellfire and Javelin and TOW missiles, produce equal or greater results, with much more accuracy, at longer ranges which enemy artillery can't reach.

We need a middle ground. Yes, Army units should have heavy and lethal weapons like grenade launchers/canons, heavy machine guns, anti-tank missiles, and anti-aircraft missiles. But, for just about anything more than 50mm rounds, guided missiles or handheld recoilless rifles (e.g. for breaching bunkers or fortifications) are superior to tank shells and artillery shells.

Also, yes, they should mostly have sufficient armor to protect against shrapnel and small arms fire, and provide force protection to resist land mines and IEDs. But trying to use heavy armor to protect military vehicles against dedicated anti-armor weapons is generally futile. In Ukraine, every single type of armored tank or infantry fighting vehicle, former Soviet and Western alike, has taken extremely heavy losses no matter how strong their armor was. Against these threats, the options are to either run and hide so as not to get hit, or to employ active defenses like Israel's Trophy system, or lasers, or ground based versions of the Navy's Phalanx close in weapons system, or electronic warfare tools that disrupt the guidance systems of cruise missiles and drones.

And, finally, except in extremely niche roles in very small numbers, wheeled vehicles are superior to tracked vehicles. They are lighter. They can still handle many off-road condition. They are much faster. And, they are much more fuel efficient.

A new off the shelf JTLV, which weighs about half of the original M2 Bradley (which means that you can deploy them in twice the numbers in the same time and with C-130 aircraft that can't transport a Bradley), has about the same fire power as the Bradley, and is similarly or more protective against forces without anti-armor weapons. Both are equally vulnerable to forces with anti-armor weapons. And, the JTLV is 50% faster and has a much lighter logistics trail (it needs much less fuel per mile than a tank or a tracked infantry fighting vehicle) and is cheaper. Yes, it carries fewer infantry to dismount, but this is made up for by allowing units to field twice as many of them.

Looking at how Strykers perform against armor is a straw man argument. Strykers aren't meant to primarily be tank destroyers, any more than it makes sense to send masses of dismounted infantry up against a machine gun nest for no cover. Their carried soldiers need anti-armor weapons (like the Javelin missile, or TOW missiles) that have a range longer than the range of a tank, or other systems to support them, like helicopters or drones armed with anti-tank weapons need to be deployed as tank destroyers.

Current U.S. military doctrine is based upon the assumption that U.S. forces will quickly gain air superiority, and will then use that air superiority to destroy enemy armor and artillery, before U.S. ground forces move in. Strykers aren't supposed to enter the field of battle until the armor, that they indeed don't fare well against head to head, are dispatched, and especially not a close range without at least anti-tank weapons for their dismounted infantry.

The Ukraine War, Houthi attacks on shipping, and recent clashes between Israel and Iran, however, have demonstrated that gaining air superiority and dominance may not be possible in every case, particularly against longer range guided missiles and one way armed drones. Traditional anti-aircraft weapons, meanwhile, are optimized against manned helicopters and fixed wing attack aircraft, not numerous cheap, deadline guided munitions that blur the line between armed drones and guided missiles. Against a "near peer" force, slow and heavy main battle tanks and infantry fighting vehicles, with big, vulnerable logistics trains are targets and not assets.

The U.S. Army does need to increase air defenses and drone defenses across the force. And, the U.S. military should seriously consider switching out more vulnerable and slower attack helicopters as close air support providers, for more robust and faster dedicated close air support aircraft to replace the A-10, and drones, in addition to traditional fighter aircraft designed primarily for air to air combat, and bomber aircraft, at high altitudes, dropping "smart" bombs.

The U.S. Marine Corps has learned these lessons. It has ditched its tanks and howitzers, but kept integrated fixed wing fighter aircraft and armed helicopters to support them. 

The U.S. Army hasn't yet fully woken up to these realities and is still trying to fight World War II and the Korean War.

The Foreseeable Conflicts

It also bears noting that wars against China and Russia, which the author identified as the threats against which the U.S. Army needs to be prepared, are two very different things. 

Plausible Russian Scenarios

The Ukraine War has given us a sneak preview of what a war in Europe with Russia would look like. The Ukraine War also means that Russia's resources to fight a large scale conventional war will have been profoundly reduced. And, any plausible conflict with Russia would be fought not by the U.S. alone, but with all of its European NATO allies. 

Tanks have been destroyed at high rates by both sides in that conflict and their main guns have been very unimportant in that fight. 

Conventional howitzers received heavy use early on, because that is what was available to Russia and Ukraine at first. But now, 70%-80% of the damage is done with armed drones, missiles, snipers, and machine guns do a fair amount of the rest of the damage, and while artillery does still play a significant role in that conflict (because the supply of drones and guided missiles is more limited) it is steadily decreasing as artillery batteries are destroyed (the Russian's have lost more than two-thirds of their's so far and lose more almost every day), while supplies of drones are being replenished (since replacing lost howitzers is much more difficult). Further, artillery resources have not given either side enough of an edge to budget the current territorial front lines for years. 

And, if the U.S. and NATO, unlike Ukraine, were able to overwhelm and defeat Russian air defenses (which their guided munitions, satellite intelligence, stealth aircraft, and medium range artillery missiles would all help facilitate), Russia would be in a much worse position in terms of conventional warfare. Still, one might try to argue despite this for heavier U.S. Army forces.

Plausible Chinese Scenarios Don't Heavily Implicate The Army

In contrast, there is no sensible scenario in which U.S. forces invade any significant part of mainland China with a plan to hold it and rule it for any significant length of time.

The U.S. missions in the Indo-Pacific theater, vis-a-vis China, are to (1) protect Taiwan from being invaded, (2) protect the Philippines from maritime harassment or subjection by China, (3) to protect Hawaii, Alaska, and the U.S. territories in the Pacific (e.g. Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands) from invasion or embargoes, and (4) to protect Japan and South Korea and other allies in the region from Chinese attacks or intimidation.

A threatened invasion of Taiwan is the dominant concern among those possibilities. And, mostly, the U.S. role would to be employ the U.S. Air Force, the U.S. naval aviation, U.S. surface combatants with anti-ship missiles, U.S. attack submarines, and naval and air force resources from Japan, South Korea, and Australia, and possibly other U.S. and Taiwanese allies, to sink as many invading Chinese ships and destroy as many Chinese aircraft as possible, in support of Taiwanese forces on the ground, and to destroy the facilities on the coast of China from which those forces are deployed without occupying them on a medium or long term basis. 

The U.S. Marine Corps, based in places like Okinawa and Guam would play the leading role in reinforcing Taiwanese ground troops on the island of Formosa and nearby islands. In part, this is because the U.S. Army with the help of U.S. Air Force  and allied transport planes going into a contested airspace, and painfully slow U.S. Navy transport ships going into a contested maritime space, wouldn't be able to arrive in meaningful numbers in sufficient time to make a difference (especially their heavier forces which would have to come from South Korea, Hawaii, Alaska, and the West Coast of the mainland U.S.). 

And, invading Chinese forces that did manage to make it to Taiwan, would most likely be light infantry, because all or almost all of the ferries carrying heavy Chinese armor would likely be sunk by a barrage of air, sea, and land sources missiles, torpedos, and sea mines while crossing the 100 mile straight to Formosa from the Chinese mainland. U.S. special forces or Marines might briefly set foot on the Chinese mainland to destroy an airport or a port or a military base or to disrupt the supply chain of the Chinese forces, but they would most likely bug out as soon as their narrow and destructive mission was accomplished.

Taiwanese forces would be doing the heavy lifting to fight any Chinese forces that managed to cross the straight and in dealing with inbound Chinese missiles and armed drone with whatever anti-drone and anti-missile defenses they could muster. In any conflict where U.S. Army ground troops were doing more than just tipping the balance slightly in an evenly matched fight between invading PLA troops and Taiwanese defenders, their role would be a lost cause, and would need to happen in a matter of days, before PLA victory became a fait accompli. Artillery or tank duels between the U.S. Army and the PLA are highly unlikely.

All of which is to say that the Army's case that its forces need to be heavy armored forces to engage in a ground war with China doesn't stand up to close scrutiny. Even if the Army is able to secure the long range fires with a 1,000 mile range that it is seeking in defense procurement fights, that wouldn't matter. Hawaii is about 5,250 miles away from Taiwan. Alaska and the U.S. mainland are farther away. 

South Korea is about 830 miles away from Taiwan (about 28 hours or more by U.S. Navy transport ships once at sea through highly contested waters) and this distance would put it barely within striking distance with missiles with ranges almost three times as great as its current longest range option (which is in short supply). This is also too far for the Army to deliver its troops by helicopter without midair refueling in the face of very vigorous Chinese air defenses.

Okinawa, which has mostly Marines and Air Force and Navy personnel, is 400 miles away from Taiwan (which is still 13 hours away on an amphibious assault ship through hotly contested waters). Guam is about 2,750 miles from mainland China and has naval and air bases, but no meaningful Army or Marine Corps presence.

There are no U.S. military based on Taiwan itself, so it has almost no prepositioned troops or heavy military equipment there, and it doesn't have the depth of a relationship with local military forces that it does in Japan and South Korea either.

Plausible Scenarios Against North Korea

Really, the only plausible scenario in which U.S. Army forces would be engaged in ground combat with heavy opposing forces in Asia would be in North Korea, defending South Korea together with its own forces and with support from Japan and from other branches of the U.S. military. This would be a profoundly different kind of conflict than the conflicts against China or Russia that the author references.

North Korea may be armed to the hilt, but it is still a small country and its forces are hollow. And, it would be facing adversaries who had been planning for this moment for decades.

The Second Division of the U.S. Army, which is the main U.S. combat force stationed in South Korea (in addition to about 8,000 airmen), is divided between an artillery brigade with armored, tracked M270 multiple rocket launchers, and a combat aviation brigade with a mix of Apache AH-64 gunships, an assault regiment of troops deployed in UH-60 Blackhawk helicopters, and a regiment of general support transport helicopters, as well as some larger reconnaissance and armed drones.

The Seventh Air Force stationed in South Korea consists of two fighter wings with three squadrons of F-16 fighter aircraft and one squadron of A-10 attack aircraft.

There are about 300 sailors at a U.S. naval base in Busan, which is about 4,860 miles from Hawaii (about 162 hours by naval transport ship, in addition to time to travel from Busan to the DMZ over land). So, it would take more than a week to get more U.S. Army soldiers and equipment to South Korea that could not be air lifted (although the Marines in Okinawa would be much closer, about 25 hours by ship to Busan plus addition time to the front over land).

There are about 100 Marines and about 100 special operations forces and 20 Space Force "guardians" at the Army base there (Camp Humphreys) that also houses the 20,000 U.S. Army soldiers who are not special forces, and the U.S. Air Force base with 8,000 airmen.

Camp Humphreys is 40 miles (64 km) south of the former base in Seoul and about 60 miles (97 km) from the Demilitarized Zone that divides North and South Korea. That puts the base about twice as far from North Korea as its predecessor, one of the main reasons for the move. While the new location moves the bulk of U.S. troops out of the range of North Korean artillery, the North Korean military has developed large caliber rockets and ballistic missiles, as well as a nuclear capability, capable of reaching Camp Humphreys.

Camp Humphreys is 143 miles from Busan Naval Base, which is less than three hours away for wheeled vehicles (or by train) and less than four hours away for tracked vehicles by road. It would take another hour to the DMZ for wheeled vehicles and another hour and twenty minutes for tracked vehicles by road. So, it would be a full seven days of travel from Hawaii to the front by sea, assuming that no detours were necessary to avoid attacks in contested maritime waters, and however long it took to load and unload the forces onto their sealift, to make sealift arrangements, and to decide to deploy them. 

The Marines from Okinawa make take a couple of day to arrive by sea with heavy equipment and reach the front.

The B-2 Is Rarely Used

Despite the small size of the U.S. B-2 bomber fleet, it isn't a heavily used resource despite its immense cost.

The U.S. bombing yesterday of five bunkers where Houthi rebels in Yemen stored weapons (which killed no civilians) was carried out by a B-2 bomber.

The last time that this class of bomber was used in combat before this week was seven years ago in 2017 in a January 18 strike on an ISIS training camp by two B-2s. 

Before that it was used to strike targets in Libya in March of 2011. 

They were used 49 times in the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq in 2003. 

It was first used in combat in the Kosovo War in 1999 (where it was used heavily), two years after it entered military service in 1997. The first B-2 bomber flew thirty-five years ago on July 17, 1989, eight years before it entered military service.

The B-2's global range (6,900 miles, which can be greatly extended with aerial refueling), stealth capabilities, and heavy bomb payload (20-25 tons) is a combination unmatched in the world. It has a crew of two. 

Just 21 were built (driving up the per unit cost immensely) and 17 remain in service, while four had accidents or crashes that removed them from service. This is quite unimpressive for such a small number of aircraft when the number of combat missions it has flown in the 27 years it has been in military service is so small. 

The U.S. is in the process of fielding a replacement B-21 bomber which is quite similar in design and capabilities to the B-2. 

More Discussion Of Tanks

The first new armored vehicle in the U.S. Army in 40 years, the M10 Booker Mobile Protected Firepower a.k.a. Light Tank is about to enter service. The Army wants to buy 504 of them. 

This is still basically a bad idea. The number of units of the M10 should be greatly reduced as it provides a brief interim respite until a better alternative that is better suited to the realities of modern warfare can be fielded.

* The Ukraine war has demonstrated that tanks with a large main direct fire gun firing a dumb shell, tracks, and only minor secondary weapons, no matter how advanced, are generically sitting ducks in modern conventional warfare that provides little offensive capabilities that other military systems can't provide equally well or better. Other recent conflicts involving tanks tend to reaffirm this conclusion.

* The M1 Abrams was ill-suited for the Iraq War, was ill-suited for Kosovo, was ill-suited for Afghanistan, is ill-suited for the Ukraine War, and is ill-suited for any kind of war in the Pacific with China or North Korea. It isn't fit to fight in cities with narrow streets, in mountains with narrow passes, in jungles or other muddy terrain, and in countries with rivers crossed by bridges that can't hold 73 tons, although it performs adequately on plains and in deserts outside major cities that aren't broken up by canyons or rivers. It is also generically ill-suited to any kind of rapid response expeditionary mission where they cannot be prepositioned, because so few of them can be delivered by air and delivering tanks by sea is far slower than the pace at which modern warfare proceeds. 

* But the M10 Booker solves too few of the M1 Abrams' flaws. It doesn't solve the limited ability of crews to see their surroundings, and limited angular range of fire issues that make the M1 vulnerable to mines, IEDs and infantry with short range anti-tank weapons when it lacks dismounted infantry support. It doesn't solve the M1s vulnerability to drone and missile attacks. It doesn't solve the weak top armor problem. It doesn't solve the problem that its direct fire main gun has a shorter range than artillery rounds and anti-tank missiles. It doesn't solve the M1s slow speed that denies it a capacity to flee attackers moving at even modest speeds and slows down units that could otherwise move faster. It doesn't reduce the number of soldiers in harm's way in the tank. It is basically just an M1 Abrams with a smaller tank shell and somewhat less strong armor, that is more fuel efficient and 32 tons lighter, which is a pretty unimpressive improvement after 45 years on a tank that has consistently proven how ill-suited it is for most of the missions where its use might potentially be considered.

* The speed and lower fuel consumption and maintenance costs of wheeled armored vehicles make them superior to slower and more expensive tracked vehicles, in exchange for only minor reductions (if any) in their off road capabilities. Attacks on supply conveys were major military issues in the Ukraine, in Afghanistan, and in Iraq, as modern warfare no longer has clearly defined front lines, so any vehicle located anywhere in the theater of conflict, including lightly armored and unarmed diesel fuel tankers, can be attacked.

* Anti-tank missiles deliver the same punch, with greater accuracy and range, with vastly less weight than a main gun on a tank. Tank shells are less expensive,  but the less expensive delivery devices for anti-tank missiles make up for that, unless the number of shells fired in anger is far greater than post-WWII combat history suggests are usually needed. And, the prices of anti-tank missiles can plummet as their tech goes out of patent.

* The M10's fairly heavy armor which is second only to the M1 main battle tank is virtually irrelevant, because it doesn't appear to have a V-shaped hull to deal with mines and IEDs, it lacks active defenses against drones and anti-tank weapons, and it appears to share the flaw of having thin top armor relative to front and side armor of most tanks that have increased their vulnerability to drones and anti-tank missiles. It also doesn't have its own drones to provide situational awareness and/or sniper capabilities at greater ranges that it can without drones.

* Unlike the Russian "Terminator", it doesn't have a versatile and numerous enough set of weapons to take on large numbers of infantry effectively in all directions and at all angles in an urban setting, where many future wars with a need for protected firepower are likely to be fought.

"The Russian army’s three-person, 53-ton BMPT Terminator tank support vehicle combines the thickly-armored hull of a T-72 tank with an unmanned turret packing twin 30-millimeter autocannons and launchers for four anti-tank missiles.", via Forbes magazine.

* There is no reason that a light tank entering service in the year 2024 should have the same sized four person crew as the M1 Abrams tank that entered service in 1979, 45 years earlier. It should have been possible with modern automation technologies to reduce the M10s crew to two, if not to make it optionally unmanned. The M2 Bradley which entered service in 1981, and has proven the equal of the M1 Abrams in actual combat, has a crew of three (commander, driver, and gunner) and could function with two.

* The M10 is still too heavy for an expeditionary armored vehicle meant to deploy rapidly with infantry by air. It is similar in weight at 41 tons to many other countries' main battle tanks. If the weight could be brought down by 14 tons to 27 tons, three of them could be deployed per C-17 sortie, instead of two, which would be huge in terms of its ability to get more systems in the field quickly, even if it didn't get down to the 19 tons of the Stryker that can be deployed four to a C-17 and one per C-130 sortie. More than tripling deployment rates is much better than more than doubling deployment rates.

* Getting to 27 tons for a light, wheeled missile tank is very technically feasible. The M2 Bradley's initial version was 27 tons and it had to carry six infantry and three crew while a new armored vehicle should only need a driver and a gunner. The other suggested changes, like wheels and losing the main gun in favor of anti-tank missiles (with the same punch and more range and accuracy), would also help achieve that weight goal. It would also be feasible to trade some of its passive armor capabilities for active protection systems and a drone of its own that weigh less.

Key observations about the M10 Booker:

Mobility, Deployment, and Training

* The 41 ton M10 is too heavy to be transported on a C-130. But a C-17 can carry two of them on a roll on, roll off basis, while a C-17 can carry only one 73+ ton M1 Abrams main battle tank and some assembly is required with heavy equipment (such as an M-88 tank recovery vehicle) after a C-17 drops off an M1 resulting in considerable delay in it being battle ready. It is comparable in size to the most fully extra-armored and kitted out M2 Bradley, a design that started in its base model at 27 tons, and is heavier than many M2s.

* An M10 can travel far more miles per gallon of diesel fuel than an M1, so they are less of a logistics burden. Every diesel fueled vehicle implies a caravan of tanker trucks that must follow not too far in their wake. 

* The M10, M1 and M2 Bradley are all tracked vehicles that travel at similar speeds (about 40 miles per hour). They are all considerably slower than wheeled vehicles on roads (where most tanks end up operating most of the time) like the Stryker and JLTV, and the cost of maintaining the tracks is more expensive per mile and harder to maintain than the wheels of wheeled armored vehicles. The M1, in particular, has proven expensive to maintain.

* An M10 can operate on narrower roads and cross weaker bridges than an M1. The M1 has had problems dealing with narrow urban streets, narrow mountain roads, weak non-U.S. road and train bridges, and mud, due to its great weight and great width.

* Operating an M10 is very similar to operating an M1. Minimal retraining is necessary for crews trains on an M1. Both have a crew of four.

Weapons and Defenses

* The M10 has a 105mm main gun, while the M1 has a 120mm main gun.

* A 105mm tank shell, a 120mm tank shell, and a 105mm howitzer shell (with a 7 mile range), are all in the 33-48 pound range and an order of magnitude cheaper per round than guided weapons systems (ca. $800-$2,500 each) This is comparable in size to the Chinese HJ-12 anti-tank missile (37 pounds), the BGM-71 TOW missile (42 pounds), the FGM-148 Javelin missile (49 pounds), and the AGM-176 Griffin missile (45 pounds), and Viper Strike guided bombs. An M2 Bradley with weight and deployability comparable to the M10, typically has a 7.62mm machine gun, a 25mm canon, and TOW missiles, giving it comparable or superior firepower (but fewer rounds of anti-tank class ammunition) to a tank, in addition to carrying six infantry passengers.

The 105mm and 120mm tanks rounds are significantly larger than rocket propelled grenades, bazookas (a.k.a. recoilless rifles), mortar shells (up to 120mm), 2-3" naval gun shells hydra rockets, and Bofors RB56 anti-tank missiles. 

But these tank rounds are smaller than 5" naval gun shells (70 pounds), 155mm howitzer shells (90-103 pounds), and heavier anti-tank missiles such as Israeli Spike missile (75 pounds), Chinese HJ-10 missile (94-95 pounds), U.S. AGM-114 Hellfire missile (108 pounds), and British Brimstone anti-tank missile (110 pounds). 

Airplane launched bombs other than the Viper Strike bombs, Army MLRS missiles, and naval ship missiles and torpedos (250 pounds to 3,900 pounds for everything but bunker buster bombs and ICBMs) are all much larger than tank shells.

Stinger and French Mistral man carried surface to air weapons are in the same overall weight range as tank shells, but pack much less punch (6-6.5 pound warheads) because their weight is devoted to achieving guided supersonic speeds to take on jet fighters. 

* The M10 has a secondary 7.62mm machine gun and a secondary 0.50 caliber machine gun, which is similar to an M1.

* The M10 has lighter armor than the M1, although its armor is still heavier than an M2 Bradley Infantry Fighting Vehicle, a Joint Light Tactical Light Vehicle (JLTV) or a Stryker armored personnel carrier. The need to fill this gap has not been demonstrated:

During the two decades of largely counter-insurgency operations in Afghanistan and Iraq, there was little need for a vehicle that could bridge the gap between the Abrams and armored vehicles like the Bradley Fighting Vehicle or the Stryker Armored Vehicle. A mobile gun system Stryker variant had a 105mm gun, but the Army divested that in 2021 because of problems with its dated cannon and autoloader. That platform was also far less protected than the Booker and its wheels meant it could not get to the same places as easily as the M10 can.

At present, Infantry Brigade Combat Teams (IBCTs) just have light tactical vehicles – Humvees that are now in the process of being replaced by Joint Light Tactical Vehicles (JLTV) – armed with .50 caliber M2 machine guns, 40mm Mk 19 automatic grenade launchers, and TOW anti-tank missiles, for organic mobile fire support.

* The M10 does not initially have an explosive reactive armor add on, although it is designed to be able to receive one, or a "skirt" designed to protect against fire from the side at its tracks.

* The M10 does not have active defenses against anti-tank missiles or drones or a current plan to add these active defenses, while the Army's goal is to upgrade M1s with this capability. As noted here:

Initially . . . Bookers will not have a Modular Active Protection System (MAPS). . . . That system, designed to be adaptable to future threats, helps guard against anti-tank guided missiles and infantry anti-tank rockets by combining radar with launchers that shoot out blasts of metal pellets, intercepting the incoming round.

“The initial M10 Booker design is complete and vehicles are in low-rate initial production now,” Norman told us. “The M10 does not include an integrated Active Protection System. The Army is consistently evaluating best-of-breed APS from domestic and foreign sources and may elect to equip M10’s with one of those systems in the future but that is not currently programmed.” . . . In addition to not having APS, the M10 will not have anti-tank guided missiles or drone capabilities, at least at first.

Anticipated Use

* The M10 will be deployed in Army infantry brigades, which deploy more quickly and are more expeditionary, while the M1 is deployed in Army armor brigades. The Army also has Stryker brigades that will have neither M10s nor M1s. 

* The M10 is being pitched as providing a way to allow infantry to take on medium strength fortifications and armored vehicles that don't have weapons effective against tanks at beyond its direct fire range. Cheaper ammunition seems like a weak reason to use tank shells rather than missiles for this purpose.

* This means that M10s and M2 Bradleys (if any) in infantry brigades, plodding along at 40 miles per hour on their tracks along the roads that they actually travel on the vast majority of the time, will slow down the advancement of the wheeled vehicles in the brigade that could otherwise advance at least 50% faster, thus degrading the mobility of the unit as a whole, which can move no faster than its slowest member. Nothing else in an infantry combat brigade is tracked and limited to 40  miles per hour. Yet time is of the essence in war, and  this undermines scoot and shoot tactics.

* The M10 still doesn't have the range to take out artillery positions or anti-tank missile units with its main gun before it is within range of these threats, and doesn't have the speed to outrun these threats even if they are mounted on slow tracked vehicles themselves. In the vicinity of enemies with anti-tank missiles or artillery that has a range of at least three miles and can move at 40 miles per hour or more, the members of an M10 crew are dead men walking if they don't abandon their tank.

* Tanks v. tank engagements have always been uncommon and remain rare (under 5% of destroyed tanks). Artillery shells, armed drones, helicopters, loitering munitions (i.e. one way drones), ground attack fighters, anti-tank land mines and IEDs, anti-tank missiles, rocket propelled grenades, and 20-40mm cannons all destroy more tanks than the main guns of other tanks. As explained here:

Hundreds of expensive tanks of both sides are being destroyed on the battlegrounds of Ukraine by cheap UPV drones. These include the Russian T-90MS Tank (worth about $4.2million) and the German Leopard 2A6 Tank (about $6.3 million). They are being destroyed by ubiquitous Chinese UPV drones, and their local variants, that sell for about $3000. The U.S. has also supplied Ukraine with 155mm howitzer rounds known as Remote Anti-Armour Munitions (RAAM). Each shell scatters nine 2.3kg magnetically activated mines. Tanks with limited vision, especially Russian tanks, often hit these mines, damaging their tracks, and making them sitting targets. They are all then finished off by precision artillery and antitank guided missiles.

It also notes the massive losses of tanks in the Russian-Ukraine war (very few of which come from other tanks). More than 60% of tanks fielded by Russia and the Ukraine have been destroyed in the first year and a half of the war, with tanks every kind from the most advanced to the most out dated destroyed.

The same article also has interesting discussion of future tanks:

In the short term:

Tanks that are lighter in order to ease the logistic, with V-shaped floors, crewless turret, with minor heat signature, APS systems against drones (like Trophy or light Droneguns), more equal armor thickness all around since now top hitting kamikaze drones and missiles are the main enemy, not other tanks anymore.

They would all be armed high-trajectory indirect-fire weapons like rockets, missiles, or mortars. Many tank models would also have additional secondary weapons like rotary multi-barrelled autocannons, machine guns, anti-infantry explosive strips on the sides, side-firing ports for internally carried soldiers or crew, etc. They would also have various types of advanced computer brains, communications, systems, and sensors.

Increasingly they sound like the relatively inexpensive M3 Bradley and the variants America are about to produce.

In the long term:

Tanks will be AI controlled and/or remotely controlled, crewless vehicles, with light armor and focus on mass production and low maintenance.

Kosovo's Independence Acknowledged

The highest court of the United Nations, the International Court of Justice, has recognized the legality of Kosovo's February 17, 2008 Declaration of Independence from Serbia. Since then, sixty-nine countries, including the United States, Canada, Japan, Australia and most of the countries of Western Europe, have recognized Kosovo an a sovereign independent state over Serbia's objections supported mostly by Russia and other formerly communist countries.

Saudi Arabia and many other predominantly Muslim countries have recognized Kosovo's independence, in part because they feel that Kosovo is defending a Muslim population which was minority in Serbia.

The International Court of Justice ruling could help Kosovo win recognition from other countries, which covets a United Nations membership.

The U.N. ruling also gives heart to those separatist regions who would like to unilaterally declare independence. Previously rulings on the circumstances in which a subdivision of an existing state may unilaterally declare independence consistent with international law, such as a Supreme Court of Canada ruling addressing the conditions under which Quebec could become an independent country, have tended to require either consent from the country that the region used to belong to, or widespread international recognition. (As an aside, the United Kingdom long ago formally recognized the legality of the separation of the United States from it in a treaty.)

Kosovo isn't the only country of disputed sovereignty where sovereignty is recognized by some states but not others, in the world. Most are unsettled fallout from the collapse of the Soviet Union in the Caucuses or are Cold War hold overs (North Korea and South Korea, Taiwan and the People's Republic of China). Israel-Palestine, Cyprus-Northern Cyprus, Morocco-Western Sahara, and Somalialand-Somolia disputes also remain outstanding.

Of the currently live disputes, those in the Caucuses, in Somolia and in Kosovo, however, are the only situations likely to be in flux in the near future. The Chinese, Korean, Israeli, Cyprus and Morocco situations all appear to have reached stalemates for the time being.

Notably, Turkey has recognized the independence of Kosovo, despite the possible relevance of that recognition of a unilateral declaration of independence by an ethnic minority region to its own dispute with the Kurds.

Some of the notable European states that have not yet recognized Kosovo are Spain and Greece. In the case of Spain, this may be motivated by concerns about declarations of independence by its only ethnically distinct autonomous regions (Basque and Catalan communities, for example).

Kosovo On My Mind

Kosovo unilaterally declared independence from Serbia on Sunday, nine years after it gained de facto autonomy under the supervision of a U.N. Force. The United States is recognizing Kosovo's autonomy, some European nations are expected to follow the American's lead.

The Associated Press summarizes the current situation:

Serbia made clear it would never accept Kosovo's statehood. On Monday, Serbia said it would seek to block Kosovo from gaining diplomatic recognition and membership in the U.N. and other international organizations.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has argued that independence without U.N. approval would set a dangerous precedent for "frozen conflicts" across the former Soviet Union, where separatists in Chechnya and Georgia are agitating for independence.

European Union nations have stood deeply divided over whether to recognize Kosovo's independence as their foreign ministers gathered in Brussels, Belgium, to try to forge a common stance. Britain, France, Germany and Ireland indicated they would push ahead with recognition. But Spain, which has struggled with its own separatist movement in the Basque region, called Kosovo's declaration illegal.

The international community, with the exception of Russia, has strongly pushed Serbia to recognize Kosovo's independence in years of negotiations, but it refused. It has been willing only to grant broad autonomy within Serbia.

Unilateral autonomy is a last resort in diplomacy, because it often leads to war, or barring a hot war, the constant threat of war. Ask Taiwain what can happen. Also, recognizing a unilateral autonomy declaration opens the door for restive regions across the world to follow suit.

Even those nations, such as Spain and Russia, which have declared Kosovo's declaration to be illegal are unlikely to aid Serbia in retaking it militarily, and given Spain's open trade borders with the E.U. many of whose members approve of the split, it seems unlikely that even a trade embargo of Kosovo by Spain or other dissenters is feasible. The U.S., in contrast, is quite likely to use military force to defend Kosovo should Serbia try to retake Kosovo with military force.

In war, probably the single biggest factor in the outcome is who allies with whom.

Kosovars, of course, have no reason to believe that the Serbians, who committed genocide against Bosnian Muslims, will treat them any better, and also have the fresh memories of harsh Serbian rule and destruction of their democratic institutions fresh in their minds. Kosovo has strong ethnic ties with Albania. Strong ties with Albania are certain, and a merger with Albania is not out of the question. Of course, Albania is not exactly the most wonderful nation to have as an ally.

Until the death of Enver Hoxha in 1985, Albania made a point of existing in an aburdly primative state. Since the 1992 rise of post-Communist rule, the nation has been best known in international circles for being buffuddled by pyramid schemes and international car theft rings.

The dismantling of Yugoslavia along ethnic lines continues. Bosnia is the only part of former Yugoslavia that has not balkanized completely. But, the central government that binds the Bosnian Serb Republic and the Muslim-Croat federation (with strong cantonal government) is weak. Indeed, a Bosnian Serb Republican unilateral declaration of independence or declaration of merger with Serbia seems one of the possible piece of fallout from the Kosovo declaration.

The divide in Bosnia is both ethnic and religious:

According to 2000 data from the CIA World Factbook, Bosnia's largest ethnic groups are Bosniaks (48%), Serbs (37.1%) and Croats (14/3%). Likewise, 46% of the population are (Sunni) Muslims, 36% are Orthodox Christians, 14% are Roman Catholics, and 5% are not interested in religion.

There is a strong correlation between ethnic identity and religion in Bosnia and Herzegovina. as is shown by the fact that 95% of Bosniaks are Muslims, 95% of Croats are Catholics whilst 95% of Serbs are Orthodox Christians.

The greatest virtue of the dismantling of Yugoslavia (itself a larger piece of the fall of the Soviet Union, the Austro-Hungarian Empire and the Ottoman Empire) is that it has allowed most of the resulting nations to transition to Western style democracy with fewer political and bureacratic impediments and to distance themselves from the Soviet style communism and dictatorial habits of the former Yugoslav regime.

In the wake of the Yugoslav breakup, Slovenia (independence declared June 25, 1991), Croatia (June 25, 1991), Macedonia (September 8, 1991), Bosnia and Herzegovina (April 6, 1992) (the Muslim-Croat federation part, anyway), Montenegro (June 5, 2006), and Kosovo (February 17, 2008) have emerged as Western allies. Serbia (including the Serb Republic part of Bosnia and Herzegovina and the ethnically similar autonomous region onf Vojvodinia within it) are the only parts that have remained to carry out Yugoslavia bad image.

One former Yugoslava republic is already part of the European Union and others are likely to follow:

The first former Yugoslav republic to join the European Union was Slovenia, which applied in 1996 and became a member in 2004. Croatia applied for membership in 2003, and could join before 2010. Republic of Macedonia applied in 2004, and will probably join by 2010–2015. The remaining three republics have yet to apply so their acceptance generally is not expected before 2015. These states are signatories of various partnership agreements with the European Union. Since January 1, 2007, they have been encircled by member-states of EU.

In 2010, almost of all of Western Christendom in Europe will be united by the European Union which has shown reluctance (with the exception of Greece) of including Orthodox or Muslim countries. Turkey's application for membership has been star crossed, and the historically Orthodox Christian nations of Eastern Europe have also received go slow treatment.

Religiously, Kosovo is an anomoly. It represents perhaps the only time in U.S. history were the United States has decisively taken the side of a Muslim ally vis-a-vis a Christian country (with the exception of the related plight of the Bosnian Mulsims aka Bosniaks).

Kosovo is certainly far more worthy of the honor than Kuwait, which had been wiped off the face of the Earth by an Iraqi invasion before a U.S. led coalition in the first Gulf War restored its sovereignty. Kosovo has a grass roots democracy. Kuwait was and remains a slave holding monarchy, although Kuwait has finally made some marginal political reforms. Kosovo we saved for humanitarian reasons to prevent a genocide (under President Bill Clinton). Kuwait we saved for oil (under the elder President Bush).

Indeed, one of the notable feature of modern geopolitics is that some of the most democratically governed Islamic nations, relatively speaking, such as Kosovo, Palestine, Kurdistan and Afghanistan have been those that are least secure and internationally marginal. Then again, modern Turkey and Indonesia also seem to break from that pattern, and even Iran is considerably more democratic than U.S. allies such as Saudia Arbia, United Arab Empirates, Jordan and Morocco, and is at least as democratic as U.S. ally Pakistan.

Kosovo Coming Ready Or Not

A senior European diplomat . . . said, "The talks end on Dec. 10. If there is no sense then that Serbia and Kosovo can agree on the province's future, then Kosovo will make a unilateral declaration of independence," and the U.S. and the Europeans will back the move.

On Monday, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice told Reuters news agency: "There's going to be an independent Kosovo. It's the only solution that is potentially stabilizing for the Balkans rather than destabilizing for the Balkans."

From here.

This marks a decisive break from statements made this August in which Western powers has insisted that any partision be consentual.

Serbia, backed by Russia, has been willing to grant broad local autonomy to Kosovo, but not independence. Last week it was reported that:

Belgrade's new proposal includes giving the independence-seeking Kosovo Albanians "95 percent competence" in running the province.

"The Serbian proposal is new and specific and offers a form of maximum autonomy not seen in the world today," [Serbia's diplomat] Samardzic said, adding that Kosovo would maintain "weak and minimal" links with Serbia.

A little more than a week ago:

Serbian President Boris Tadic, at a meeting with Czech President Vaclav Klaus in Prague, repeated Monday that Serbia would use all legal and diplomatic means to prevent independence.

“Serbia cannot have conditions imposed on itself that affect its sovereignty and integrity,” he told reporters.

“We will use all legal and diplomatic means to prevent this (independence) from happening.”

It isn't clear what military or other action Serbia make take if it is dissatisfied with a unilateral declaration of independence.

The fear is that if Russia intervened on behalf of Serbia, while the U.S. and E.U. took the side of Kosovo in a military conflict, that the traditional World War III scenario could break out. The latest firm statements from the U.S. and the Europeans appear caculated towards pushing Serbia to back down from its demand for nominal, but meaningless sovereignty, possibly in exchange for some other, less symbolic concession. Without military support from Russia, Serbia would be powerless to defeat entrenched Kosovar, NATO and U.S. forces allied against it.

Russian opposition has prevented unilateral independence for Kosovo from being sanctioned by the United Nations.

The Births Of Nations On Hold

At least two new nations are on the verge of being born.

New Sudan

One, South Sudan (possibly to be named "New Sudan") is likely to come into being around 2011. It is essentially full autonomous already and is acting like its own country, developing its own diplomatic ties via Kenya, and strong economic ties with Uganda. Final details largely concern its control over White Nile water and division of oil wealth. The largely Christian and animist region with relatively fertile farming has been autonomous since about 2005, after a long and deadly civil war that killed about 2 million people. It has sought autonomy from the military influenced, largely Islamic leadership of Sudan.

The Darfur region in the West of Sudan, which has provoked international outrage over genocidal efforts by local Arab militias and collusion with the national government is not part of South Sudan and poses separate issues. The Arab Muslim v. Christian/animist dynamic is essentially the same. But, ethically, Darfur is more mixed (or was before genocidal campaigns killed 200,000 people and sent another 2,000,000 into refugee camps), and economic survival in relatively barren Darfur is a dicey proposition in the best of times.

Kosovo

The other is Kosovo. There, about 90% of people in this autonomous region of Serbia are ethically Albanian Muslims, and only U.S. led NATO intervention and U.N. peacekeepers have prevented Serbian massacres (Serbia, of course, sponsored genocide largely directed as Bosnian Muslims in the Bosnian civil war, and is largely Orthodox Christian religiously).

Serbia has based its claim to Kosovo largely on a desire to protect sites important to Serbia historically and to protect a Serbian minority in Kosovo, but as much as anything else, it is a matter of national pride to hold onto Kosovo, as Serbia has been willing to cede almost everything be sovereignty in interminable negotiations over the province's status. The international community has held off on granting Kosovo independence over Serbia's objection essentially entirely due to Russia's objections. But, the international community is manuevering diplomatically to circumvent Russia's objections and give Kosovo the independence that its residents overwhelmingly desire.

Montenegro recently left its nominal federation with Serbia.

The situation in Bosnia, by the way, while stabilized for now, is still unfinished business. The U.N. still keeps the peace, and in practice, Bosnia is essentially two countries -- a Serbian region (mostly to the East and North), and a Muslim-Croat federation (mostly to the West and South). This division has religious dimensions as well. Croatia is largely Roman Catholic.

From an outsider's view, the obvious thing to do seems to be to grant Kosovo independence, while permitting the Bosnia Serb autonomous region to merge with contiguous Serbia proper (possibly merging a couple of islands of isolated Bosnian Croat federation territory on the Croatian border with Croatia). But, apparently, it isn't that easy, as the international community doesn't want to open the cauldron of changing national borders without mutual consent or appearing to reward genocidal tactics.

Iraq

One reason that the situations in Sudan and Kosovo matter in the larger world is that they create precedents for the international community that are relevant in the Middle East.

The Kurdish region of Iraq is in a similar de facto autonomous, but legally non-sovereign state to Kosovo and South Sudan, and like these two other regions would very much like to be its own state. Also, like South Sudan, water and oil right negotiations are relevant to its autonomy.

Independence for these regions would strengthen both the Kurdish case and the argument that the rest of Iraq ought to be partitioned as well.

Elsewhere

These aren't, of course, the only restive autonomous regions in the world.

In the developed world, politics seem to have calmed a number of autonomous areas by granting them sufficient autonomy. Quebec, Puerto Rico, Basque Spain, Castille, Galacia, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland all seem willing to accept their lot for now. Taiwan's love-hate relationship with China seems to be swinging towards the love side, and Hong Kong seems to be managing despite the restoration of Chinese sovereignty over it. Cyprus, however, still seems to be taking baby steps towards harmony.

This isn't to say that all is well in the world. Columbia's central government and the region controlled by the FARC seem to be in a standoff. The last that I heard, Muslim majority areas in the Southern Philippines were as committed to a violent struggle for independence as ever. Strife between Muslims and non-Muslims also appears to be at the root of autonomy motivated strife in Thailand and Nigeria. Other West African nations have also experienced civil war and regional tensions rooted in splits between those in the Muslim North and those in Christian/animist Southern regions, but with civil wars reduced to a simmer or ended in Senegal, Sierra Leone, Liberia and Ivory Coast, and averted in Mali, these fracture lines may not emerge again for some time. Of course, Israeli-Palestinian tensions continue unabated as they have for many decades now.

Kashmir in Northern India is not at peace, nor are the "tribal" regions of Pakistan content with their status vis the central government although political approaches have softened their usual disregard for central authority. And, the Kurds of Turkey still want out of the nation to form their own Kurdish country.

Somolia is largely a country without a government but seems to be well along in the process of reconsolidation with Ethiopian backing of a weak national government. Regional and religious separationist movements in Algeria and Morocco-Western Sahara seem to have quieted down lately. Unrest in independence minded Aceh, Indonesia is apparently easing, but I've heard no indications that Sri Lanka is near the end of its long standing bloody civil war.

Maoist insurgencies in Northeast India also appear to be alive and well, and while not an issue of national boundaries, the Maoist insurgency in Nepal also appears to be in full swing. Tibet appears irrevocably conquered by China with insurgency and independence efforts their crushed and migration from the East underway in part in an effort to wipe out the region's distinct identity.

Then, there are other messes left behind in the wake of the Soviet Union's dissolution. Russia appears to have strong designs on Belarus. Ukraine is deeply divided, largely on an East-West axis. Moldova also appears to be divided on similar lines, despite the fact that it is itself tiny. Chechnya still longs to be free of its Russian yoke. And, the other splinters of division in the Caucusus are too complicated to follow without a program. As Wikipedia explains:

The nation-states that compose the Caucasus today are the post-Soviet states Georgia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan; and various parts of Russia. The Russian divisions include Krasnodar Krai, Stavropol Krai, and the autonomous republics of Adygea, Kalmykia, Karachay-Cherkessia, Kabardino-Balkaria, North Ossetia, Ingushetia, Chechnya, and Dagestan. Three territories in the region claim independence but are not generally acknowledged as nation-states by the international community: Abkhazia, Nagorno-Karabakh and South Ossetia.

I'm sure I've missed a few restive autonomous regions here and there. This isn't to say that there aren't consolidating influences afoot as well. The European Union is increasingly becoming a nation, rather than a mere alliance between fully autonmous nation-states. The Caribbean, Latin America and parts of Africa are trying to emulate the European Union's success on that score. But, on the whole, it seems like there are more pressures for division than national union afoot in the world.

The History and Future of Kosovo

Daily Kos diarist Sirocco offers the fullest history of Kosovo that I have ever read. Near the conclusion of his thorough, illustrated and hyperlinked account, Sirocco sums up the current situation in the wake of a concluded U.S. lead NATO military campaign that had just been resolved in 1999:

Upon the end of hostilities in June, Kosovo Albanian refugees started to return; but at the same time, Serbs fled or were chased out by Albanians in equally large numbers. By July 20, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees estimated that 150,000 Serbs were flooding into Serbia, which already harbored half a million refugees from the other ex-Yugoslavian wars. The total number of refugees from Kosovo rose to some 230,000, most of them Serbs. Of these, over 200,000 remain Internally Displaced Persons in what is Europe's biggest refugee problem. A hundred thousand Serbs stayed put among approximately 1.8 million ethnic Albanians, among whom little love was lost on Serbs.

This minority now dwell in KFOR-guarded enclaves, with limited freedom of movement and high unemployment even by the standards of a dysfunctional UN protectorate where only the black economy flowers. The Serbian apartheid state has effectively been inverted. More than 4,000 Serbs worked at the public electricity service in 1999; today around 30 do so, out of 8,000 employees. Meanwhile, barbed wire and armed KFOR troops protect those medieval monasteries that remain recognizably intact.

Independence is, however, finally in the offing, mostly because the Western powers acknowledge once again that the majority would never settle for less. Serbia, impoverished and demoralized, is unable to do more than strut and fret at the impending loss of its "historical heartland."

I recently discussed more recent events related to Kosovo. U.N. sponsored talks in Vienna aimed at mapping out Kosovo's future are ongoing. As I summed up then, the U.N. and by extension NATO which has committed to following its lead:

will be pushing hard for Kosovo's independence, if ratified in a referendum whose outcome is largely a foregone conclusion. But, the U.N. will also likely push to have independence for Kosovo limited by provisions of Kosovo's own constitution and/or international treaties with Serbia, which would provide the human rights protections and protections for cultural and religious heritage which Serbia has sought to retain jurisdiction over in an autonomous state (the flexibility referred to by the U.N. representative), but not foreign policy, currency or border control for Serbia.

The international community would very much like Serbia to consent to Kosovo's independence, however, because it fears "opening up the can of worms associated with the notion of unilateral declarations of independence by a portion of an existing sovereign state."

Serbia is trying to leverage that fear into an agreement to broad autonomy short of sovereignty, that would permit it to salvage its national pride and would leave open an opportunity to restore greater control some time in the future when it is not in a world spotlight. This is the approach that it took in 1989 when it attempted to roll back autonomy status granted to the region in 1974 by Yugoslavian leader Tito, precipitating the crisis in Kosovo that lead to international military intervention.

The assessment of the situation on the ground provided by Sirocco, where the current population is almost 95% Albanian Kosovar, and the Serbian minority lives in segregated, economically depressed compounds at the sufferance and protection of international forces (and more would probably leave, if international forces ceased to protect them), suggests that the Serbian bid to retain sovereignty is unlikely to succeed.

Self-Determination and Kosovo's Future

Serbia asserted its independence today, in the same breath accepting Montengro's independence. This leaves on the table two main issues in the Balkans, the desire of the Serbian Republican with Croatia's federal system (the Republika Srpska) to achieve independence on one hand, something forbidden by the Dayton Accords, and the desire of Kosovo to achieve independence from Serbia.

The U.S. and the E.U. a month ago firmly opposed an independence bid for the Republika Srpska.

Talks over the final status of Kosovo are in progress in Vienna. There are genuine differences over details like divisions of property and internal debt. There are also deep differences over the big issue of whether Kosovo should have greater autonomy within Serbia, which is the Serbian position, or full independence, which is Kosovo's position. The U.N. official leading the talks seems to favor Kosovo's position.

Belgrade's platform for the upcoming Kosovo status talks envisions broad, internationally guaranteed autonomy for the province as an alternative to full independence. . . . Serbia favours an international agreement with Pristina, for a term of 20 years. Such an agreement would be signed by the UN and Serbia . . . . Kosovo would have a constitution and independent jurisdiction in most areas. However, Belgrade would retain jurisdiction in foreign policy, border control, human rights protection, monetary and customs policy and the protection of religious and cultural heritage. Kosovo would have full financial autonomy. It would conduct its public finance policy independently, with the possibility of taking out loans with international financial institutions and acquiring direct foreign investments.

The Kosovo Albanian side, however, has said it will not settle for anything short of full independence. . . . . "If Serbia continues to be destructive, the international community has another option, under which it will simply proclaim Kosovo an independent and sovereign state," Berisha told Radio Free Europe.

UN deputy envoy Albert Rohan, who has been chairing the direct talks, has said Belgrade is advocating "unrealistic positions", although he also called on the Kosovo Albanian side to show more flexibility.

Ahtisaari has said he expects discussions on the status issue to begin in mid-July.

NATO has committed to backing up any U.N. decision.

It looks like the U.N. will be pushing hard for Kosovo's independence, if ratified in a referrendum whose outcome is largely a foregone conclusion. But, the U.N. will also likely push to have independence for Kosovo limited by provisions of Kosovo's own constitution and/or international treaties with Serbia, which would provide the human rights protections and protections for cultural and religious heritage which Serbia has sought to retain jurisdiction over in an autonomous state (the flexibility referred to by the U.N. representative), but not foreign policy, currency or border control for Serbia.

Simply put, the rest of the world righly believes, given Serbia's recent history, that it can't be trusts to have authority over Kosovo and is in no position to claim the high ground on human rights.

International opposition to Kosovo's independence is not really true opposition to the idea of an independent Kosovo, but the fact that the international community has pushed hard and continued to do so to obtain Serbian consent is really a reflection of concern about opening up the can of worms associated with the notion of unilateral declarations of independence by a portion of an existing sovereign state.

If Kosovo and East Timor can have internationally recognized independence, why not Transdniestria, and South Ossetia? Why not the Republika Srpska? Why not Iraqi Kurdistan and Iraqi Sumer? Why not Islamic Northern Nigeria? Why not Chechnyia and Abkhazia? Why not Aceh? Why not Northern Ireland and Scotland? Why not Quebec? Why not Taiwan? Why not Palestine? Why not Kashmir? Why not Tibet? Why not the interior of Columbia? Why not Southern Sudan?

The better share of civil wars in the world are independence struggles, and an international precedent of a right to unilateral self-determination who give hope for international support to all of them. The hope of the U.N. negotiator is that this could be distinguished because it would involve consent of the sovereign state giving up the territory, and that Serbia might give consent because it is effectively a defeated part in an international war (which put NATO in Kosovo) and because it might face harsh international sanctions if it insisted on continuing an undemocratic rule of Kosovo. If this strategy works, the Vienna talks will have effectively put of the question of when unilateral self-determination is valid to another day. But, ultimately, leaving that question unresolved, as this choice does, also fosters war, but leaving no clear yardstick to determine whose self-determination bids are valid, and whose are not.

It isn't clear to me that drawing a line that determines which claims for self-determination should be honored, and to what extent, have to be as standardless as they seem. Most plausible claims for self-determination have a number of characterists in common, all of which should generally be present prior to international recognition of a new state:

(1) The boundaries of the proposed region involve a contiguous region with (a) the current boundaries of a semi-autonomous region within an internationally recognized sovereign state, (b) the boundaries of a previously sovereign state which lost its autonomy through non-consentual means, (c) a long standing, i.e. several decades old, at least, de facto boundary established by military means or by a consentual treatment after autonomy is lost by non-consentual means, or (d) the de facto boundaries are widely acknowledge by all parties to the dispute.

(2) The proposed region is very distinct politically, ethnically or culturally from the larger sovereign state, and has a strong regional identity.

(3) Those seeking separation are willing to use violence, non-violent mass protest, or the powers granted to them in their capacity of legitimate leaders of an existing semi-autonomous region to express an unwavering commitment to independence.

(4) The leaders of the independence movement do not need to rely on the central government to maintain order or conduct governmental affairs, and the proposed independent state is large enough to function on its own. The proposed region is capable of establishing all institutions of a sovereign state and protecting their own borders militarily once recognized with their own financial resources.

(5) The rump of the sovereign state left after the proposed independent region leaves is capable of functioning fiscally and conducting normal governmental affairs.

(6) Independence has the genuine democratic support of a majority of people in the region which seeks independence.

(7) Independence would not open the door to a great likelihood human rights abuses by the newly independent nation of the population at large or an ethnic minority within the newly independent nation, or the rump of the sovereign state remaining after independence is granted. Independence is likewise favored if it is likely to end human rights abuses by an existing central government, and is disfavored if it is likely to end genuinely effective measures to protect human rights of a central government, in any of the resulting countries.

These factors should generally be evaluated by proponents of independence, opponents of independence and the international community through its individual members and the relevant general purpose international institutions such as the United Nations and any other general purpose regional institutions like NATO or the EU, in Europe, for example.

These tests decidely favor self-determination. Many of the independence movements identified above would be entitled to independence under this formula. Thus, the notion that are ever circumstances when unilateral independence is justified suggests strong that in many of the current civil wars plaguing our world, that the proper course of action is for the sovereign state facing the civil war to give up and grant independence to the restive region, giving into the demands made by the insurgents.

But, by requiring that all seven factors be present, sufficient limitations are established that fear of a slippery slope that would lead to endless devolution is largely defused. It has the mixed impact of providing a road map to insurgents and consolidators alike, to achieve their ends. Colonizing a region, a la West Bank settlements in Israel, make autonomy less justified. Ethnic cleansing, a la Bosnia, encourages it. Violent may be favored as a tool to escape domination, while repression of opposition and denial of half-measures like regional autonomy may be favored as a way of keeping a nation together. The human rights condition mitigates these incentives, but does not end them.

Still, these conditions are largely ways to measure a fait accompli, and encourage all involved to recognize an already achieved reality in legal arrangements, rather than an artifically set of guidelines to govern international conduct. We got our current set of international boundaries through means no less ugly. But, perhaps, if the de facto rules of the game were publicly stated, we could, as an international community, at least forshorten the period of civil war and bloody conflict that often preceeds independence and goes on for miserable decades for all involved.