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The Bazaar of War
The Bazaar of War

@bazaarofwar

21 tweets 40 reads Aug 31, 2022
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CASTLE DOCTRINE
Advances in weaponry have the paradoxical effect of shifting the advantage to the defense: crossbows & castles, cannons & star forts, artillery & trenches.
We’re now seeing the same with UAVs & guided artillery. What does this mean for the near future? Thread.
CASTLE DOCTRINE Advances in weaponry have the paradoxical effect of shifting the advantage to the d...
In every age, attacking forces must expose themselves to the defenders' fire in order to close with the enemy. Longer-ranged, more accurate, and more lethal weapons make it easier to kill soldiers in the open, shifting the incentive to stay put behind protection.
In every age, attacking forces must expose themselves to the defenders' fire in order to close with...
In every age, attacking forces must expose themselves to the defenders' fire in order to close with...
In every age, attacking forces must expose themselves to the defenders' fire in order to close with...
That can mean crossbows behind castle walls, cannons and massed musketry behind ramparts, machine guns and artillery behind trenchlines—or the dug-in positions we saw in the Donbas for the past eight years.
That can mean crossbows behind castle walls, cannons and massed musketry behind ramparts, machine gu...
That can mean crossbows behind castle walls, cannons and massed musketry behind ramparts, machine gu...
That can mean crossbows behind castle walls, cannons and massed musketry behind ramparts, machine gu...
In the combined arms era, the defense also allows maximum employment of mutually-supporting fires. SAM radars are vulnerable to anti-radiation missiles/drones, requiring local AD for protection, which are in turn vulnerable to ground-based fires, requiring air coverage…
In the combined arms era, the defense also allows maximum employment of mutually-supporting fires. S...
…which militates in favor of a minimum density of forces. Any assets not integrated into the combined-arms phalanx can be picked off one by one.
But this in turn presents an economy of force problem.
…which militates in favor of a minimum density of forces. Any assets not integrated into the combine...
Only the total mobilization of industry and society in WWI allowed powers on the Western Front to construct dense trench systems over 100s of miles.
Likewise, modern weapons allow a more-or-less continuous front in Ukraine despite low troop densities. However...
Only the total mobilization of industry and society in WWI allowed powers on the Western Front to co...
Only the total mobilization of industry and society in WWI allowed powers on the Western Front to co...
…that won’t always be the case. As recently as March, there was no true front in northern Ukraine. Instead, the Ukrainians defended cities such as Kiev, Chernihiv, Sumy, and Kharkov, while mobile teams attacked the Russians’ supply lines.
…that won’t always be the case. As recently as March, there was no true front in northern Ukraine. I...
Airpower theorist John Warden used the metaphor of “castles” to describe airfields defended by air defenses, allowing aircraft to make sorties from protection like knights charging across a drawbridge. This can easily be extended to include ground forces.
Airpower theorist John Warden used the metaphor of “castles” to describe airfields defended by air d...
Airpower theorist John Warden used the metaphor of “castles” to describe airfields defended by air d...
Like the boxes of the North African campaign, for instance: separate fortresses a few miles wide, protected by minefields, wire, trenches, and gun emplacements. Can be bypassed by the attacker, but only at risk of being cut off by sorties by mobile forces.
Like the boxes of the North African campaign, for instance: separate fortresses a few miles wide, pr...
Like the boxes of the North African campaign, for instance: separate fortresses a few miles wide, pr...
Longer-ranged precision weapons mean modern “castles” will be much larger. Cities and their surroundings are always natural units of defense, both because of their political importance and because they provide a lot of cover and concealment.
Longer-ranged precision weapons mean modern “castles” will be much larger. Cities and their surround...
The defender always has to be able to hit the attacker from the protection of a combined arm array. This means the defensive perimeter has to be large enough to encompass C2, ballistic missile launch sites, and IADS—tens of miles wide at a minimum.
Unlike Warden’s castles, these don’t necessarily need to include airfields of their own, except in a conflict on the scale of the WW2 Pacific—supporting aviation merely needs a clear path to its objectives.
An overall defensive advantage does not mean that there’s no room for maneuver, however. The three possibilities are to attack on a broad front, a narrow front, or try to bypass the strongpoints altogether.
Only the first two options are probably viable now.
An overall defensive advantage does not mean that there’s no room for maneuver, however. The three p...
(Of course a chain of several strong positions effectively creates a front, not unlike the lines of 18th-century warfare: lightly-defended lines anchored by strong fortresses at several points)
(Of course a chain of several strong positions effectively creates a front, not unlike the lines of...
This is not an easy problem. Sieges are hugely expensive in terms of time, ammunition, and manpower. Advanced weapons are exorbitantly expensive & suffer from production bottlenecks, giving the attacker a very narrow window to take any prepared position.
These problems were on full display outside Kiev, which is why I don’t believe the Russians were ever serious about taking the city, barring the outside possibility of a quick capture:
Likewise, Ukraine selected the narrowest possible front for its counteroffensive.
The straightforward conclusion is that wars between forces of even very rough parity are bound to be very limited in scope.
There’s a broad consensus that even if Ukrainian resistance collapses, Russia will only end up with the Donbas and parts of southern Ukraine.
It’s also noteworthy that in 2020 Azerbaijan agreed to a negotiated ceasefire in Nagorno-Karabakh, despite maintaining complete superiority throughout and cutting of Armenia’s lifeline to Stepanakert with the capture of Shusha.
It’s also noteworthy that in 2020 Azerbaijan agreed to a negotiated ceasefire in Nagorno-Karabakh, d...
Who knows what other conflicts will flare up in the near future, but it’s very likely that peer adversaries will design their OPLANs around the possibility of only limited lines of advance.
But as soon as the pendulum gains momentum in one direction, countervailing forces emerge to oppose it. What new developments might turn things back in favor of the offense? We’ll take a look at that in the next thread.

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