Collateral Murder

This post, I’m going to be performing an analysis of a video that popped up on my Facebook feed earlier this week; but, before I link it, it’s worth giving you fair warning that the content is pretty graphic, and the content is not to be taken lightly. The video in question is nothing especially new (the content was released by Wikileaks in a video entitled ‘Collateral Murder’ back in 2010), and deals with a snapshot of the Iraq war; namely, the killing of a group of apparently mostly innocent civilians by the crew of a US army Apache helicopter gunship.

This particular video tells the story of this events through the words of Ethan McCord, a soldier in the army who was on the ground at the time of the incident. But he begins with some mention of the tactics employed by the army during his time in Iraq, so my analysis will begin there. McCord talks of how, whenever an IED went off, soldiers in his battalion were ordered to ‘kill every mother****er on the street’, issuing 360 degree rotational fire to slaughter every person, civilians and insurgents alike, unfortunate enough to be in the area at the time and how, even though this often went against the morals of the soldiers concerned, a failure to comply with that order would result in the NCOs (Non-Commissioned Officers, aka high-ranking soldiers) in your platoon ‘make[ing] your life hell’. The death toll and slaughter this practice must have caused could hardly be imagined, but McCord does his best to describe it; he talks of ‘the destruction of the Iraqi people’, of normal, innocent people being massacred just for being in the wrong place in the wrong time. McCord also talks about ‘Ranger Dominance’ operations, in which a couple of companies walked unprotected through New Baghdad (a district of the larger city of Baghdad) to perform counter-insurgency tasks. An example he gives are ‘Knock-in searches’ (I think that’s the phrase he uses), in which soldiers knock on doors/break in in order to search for potentially insurgency-related material.

The reason for these missions, for this behaviour, and for the seemingly nonsensical, murderous missions these soldiers were asked to perform comes, basically, down to the type of war being fought. Once Saddam Hussein had been removed from power, many in the US government and army thought the war would be over before very long; just cleaning up a few pockets of resistance. However, what they didn’t count on was that a mixture of their continued presence in the country, their bad behaviour and the sheer dedication of certain diehard Hussein loyalists, and before very long coalition forces found themselves combating an insurgency operation. Insurgencies aren’t like ‘traditional’ warfare; there are no fronts, no battle lines, no easily identifiable cases of ‘good guys here, bad guys over there’. Those kinds of wars are easy to fight, and there’s no way that the military juggernaut of the US army is ever going to run into trouble fighting one in the foreseeable future.

Insurgencies are a different kettle of fish altogether, for two key (and closely related) reasons. The first is that the battle is not fought over land or resources, but over hearts and minds- an insurgency is won when the people think you are the good guys and the other lot are the bad guys, simply because there is no way to ‘restore stability’ to a country whilst a few million people are busy throwing things at your soldiers. The second is that insurgents are not to be found in a clearly defined and controlled area, but hiding all over the place; in safe houses, bunkers, cellars, sewers and even in otherwise innocuous houses and flats. This means that to crush an insurgency does not depend on how many soldiers you have versus the bad guys, but how many soldiers you have per head of population; the more civilians there are, the more places there are the hide, and the more people you need to smoke them out.

Conventional wisdom apparently has it that you need roughly one soldier per ten civilians in order to successfully crush an insurgency operation within a reasonable time frame, or at all if the other side are properly organised, and if that sounds like a ridiculous ratio then now you know why it took so long for the US to pull out of Iraq. I have heard it said that in the key areas of Iraq, coalition forces peaked at one soldier per hundred civilians, which simply is not enough to cover all the required areas fully. This left them with two options; ether concentrate only on highly select areas, and let the insurgents run riot everywhere else (and most likely sneak in behind their backs when they try to move on somewhere else) or to spread themselves thin and try to cover as much ground as possible with minimal numbers and control. In the video, we see consequences of the second approach being used, with US forces attempting to rely on their air support to provide some semblance of intelligence and control over an area whilst soldiers are spread thin and vulnerable, often totally unprotected from mortar attack, snipers and IEDs. This basically means that soldiers cannot rely on extensive support, or backup, or good intel, or to perform missions in a safe, secure environment, and their only way of identifying militant activity is, basically, to walk right into it, either intentionally (hence the Knock-in Searches) or simply by accident. In the former case, it is generally simple enough to apprehend those responsible, but successfully discovering an insurgent via a deliberate search is highly unlikely. It is for this reason that the army don’t take no for an answer in these types of searches, and will often turn a house upside down in an effort to maximise their chance of finding something. In the latter case, identifying and apprehending an individual troublemaker is no easy task, so the army clearly decided (in their infinite wisdom) that the only way to have a chance of  getting the insurgent is to just annihilate everyone and everything in the immediate vicinity.

That’s the reasoning used by the US forces in this situation, and it’s fair to say that in this regard they were rather stuck between a rock and a hard place. However, that doesn’t negate the fact that these tactics are, in the context of an insurgency operation, completely stupid and bull-headed. Remember, an insurgency operation aims, as military officials constantly tell us, to win hearts and minds, to get the civilian population on your side; that’s half the reason you’re not permitting your soldiers to show ‘cowardice’. But, at the same time and in direct contrast to the ‘hearts and minds principle’, this particular battalion commander has chosen to get his soldiers battering down doors and shooting civilians at the first sign of trouble. Unfortunately, this is what happens when wars are badly managed and there are not enough men on the ground to do the job; stupid things becomes sanctioned as ideas because they seem like the only way forward. The results are shown quiter plainly in McCord’s testimony: soldiers of the 1st infantry ‘the toast of the army’, men who ‘pride themselves on being tougher than anyone else’, are getting genuinely scared of going out on missions, fear welling up in their eyes as they wander unprotected through dangerous streets praying they don’t come across any IEDs or snipers.

And that’s just the tactics; next time, I will get on to the meat of the video. The incident that Wikileaks put on show for the world to see…

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War in Three Dimensions

Warfare has changed a lot in the last century. Horses have become redundant, guns become reliable, machine guns become light enough to carry and bombs have become powerful enough to totally annihilate a small country if the guy with the button so chooses. But perhaps more significant than just the way hardware has changed is the way that warfare has changed itself; tactics and military structure have changed beyond all recognition compared to the pre-war era, and we must now fight wars whilst surrounded by a political landscape, at least in the west, that does not approve of open conflict. However, next year marks the 100th anniversary of a military innovation that not only represented massive hardware upgrade at the time, but that has changed almost beyond recognition in the century since then and has fundamentally changed the way we fight wars; the use of aeroplanes in warfare.

The skies have always been a platform to be exploited by the cunning military strategist; balloons were frequently used for messaging long before they were able to carry humans and be used for reconnaissance during the early 20th century, and for many years the only way of reliably sending a complicated message over any significant distance was via homing pigeon. It was, therefore, only natural that the Wright brothers had barely touched down after their first flight in ‘Flyer I’ when the first suggestions of a military application to such a technology were being made. However, early attempts at powered flight could not sustain it for very long, and even subsequent improvements failed to produce anything capable of carrying a machine gun. By the First World War, aircraft had become advanced enough to make controlled, sustained, two-person flight at an appreciable height a reality, and both the Army and Navy were quick to incorporate air divisions into their structures (these divisions in the British Armed Forces were the Royal Flying Corps and the Royal Naval Air Service respectively). However, these air forces were initially only used for reconnaissance purposes and ‘spotting’ for artillery to help them get their eye in; the atmosphere was quite peaceful so far above the battlefield, and pilots and observers of opposing aircraft would frequently wave to one another during the early years of the war. As time passed and the conflict grew ever-bloodier, these exchanges became less friendly; before long observers would carry supplies of bricks into the air with them and attempt to throw them at enemy aircraft, and the Germans even went so far as to develop steel darts that could reportedly split a man in two; whilst almost impossible to aim in a dogfight, these darts were incredibly dangerous for those on the ground. By 1916 aircraft had grown advanced enough to carry bombs, enabling a (slightly) more precise method of destroying enemy targets than artillery, and before long both sides could equip these bombers with turret-mounted machine guns that the observers could fire on other aircraft with; given that the aircraft of the day were basically wire and wood cages covered in fabric, these guns could cause vast amounts of damage and the men within the planes had practically zero protection (and no parachutes either, since the British top brass believed this might encourage cowardice). To further protect their bombers, both sides began to develop fighter aircraft as well; smaller, usually single-man, planes with fixed machine guns operated by the pilot (and which used a clever bit of circuitry to fire through the propeller; earlier attempts at doing this without blowing the propeller to pieces had simply consisted of putting armour plating on the back of the propeller, which not infrequently caused bullets to bounce back and hit the pilot). It wasn’t long before these fighters were given more varied orders, ranging from trench strafing to offensive patrols (where they would actively go and look for other aircraft to attack). Perhaps the most dangerous of these objectives was balloon strafing; observation balloons were valuable pieces of reconnaissance equipment, and bringing them down generally required a pilot to navigate the large escort of fighters that accompanied them. Towards the end of the war, the forces began to realise just how central to their tactics air warfare had become, and in 1918 the RFC and RNAS were combined to form the Royal Air Force, the first independent air force in the world. The RAF celebrated its inception three weeks later when German air ace Manfred von Richthofen (aka The Red Baron), who had 80 confirmed victories despite frequently flying against superior numbers or hardware, was shot down (although von Richthofen was flying close to the ground at the time in pursuit of an aircraft, and an analysis of the shot that killed him suggests that he was killed by a ground-based AA gunner rather than the Canadian fighter pilot credited with downing him. Exactly who fired the fatal shot remains a mystery.)

By the time the Second World War rolled around things had changed somewhat; in place of wire-and-fabric biplanes, sleeker metal monoplanes were in use, with more powerful and efficient engines making air combat faster affair. Air raids themselves could be conducted over far greater distances since more fuel could be carried, and this proved well suited to the style of warfare that the war generated; rather than the largely unmoving battle lines of the First World War, the early years of WW2 consisted of countrywide occupation in Europe, whilst the battlegrounds of North Africa and Soviet Russia were dominated by tank warfare and moved far too fluidly for frontline air bases to be safe. Indeed, air power featured prominently in neither of these land campaigns; but on the continent, air warfare reigned supreme. As the German forces dominated mainland Europe, they launched wave after wave of long distance bombing campaigns at Britain in an effort to gain air superiority and cripple the Allies’ ability to fight back when they attempted to cross the channel and invade. However, the British had, unbeknownst to the Germans, perfected their radar technology, and were thus able to use their relatively meagre force of fighters to greatest effect to combat the German bombing assault. This, combined with some very good planes and flying on behalf of the British and an inability to choose the right targets to bomb on behalf of the Germans, allowed the Battle of Britain to swing in favour of the Allies and turned the tide of the war in Europe. In the later years of the war, the Allies turned the tables on a German military crippled by the Russian campaign after the loss at Stalingrad and began their own orchestrated bombing campaign. With the increase in anti-aircraft technology since the First World War, bombers were forced to fly higher than ever before, making it far harder to hit their targets; thus, both sides developed the tactic of ‘carpet bombing’, whereby they would simply load up as big a plane as they could with as many bombs as it could carry and drop them all over an area in the hope of at least one of the bombs hitting the intended target. This imprecise tactic was only moderately successful when it came to destruction of key military targets, and was responsible for the vast scale of the damage to cities both sides caused in their bombing campaigns. In the war in the Pacific, where space on aircraft carriers was at a premium and Lancaster Bombers would have been impractical, they kept with the tactic of using dive bombers, but such attacks were very risky and there was still no guarantee of a successful hit. By the end of the war, air power was rising to prominence as possibly the most crucial theatre of combat, but we were reaching the limits of what our hardware was capable of; our propellor-driven, straight wing fighter aircraft seemed incapable of breaking the sound barrier, and our bombing attacks couldn’t safely hit any target less than a mile wide. Something was clearly going to have to change; and next time, I’ll investigate what did.

Scrum Solutions

First up- sorry I suddenly disappeared over last week. I was away, and although I’d planned to tell WordPress to publish a few for me (I have a backlog now and everything), I was unfortunately away from my computer on Saturday and could not do so. Sorry. Today I would like to follow on from last Wednesday’s post dealing with the problems faced in the modern rugby scrum, to discuss a few solutions that have been suggested for dealing with the issue, and even throw in a couple of ideas of my own. But first, I’d like to offer my thoughts to another topic that has sprung up amid the chaos of scrummaging discussions (mainly by rugby league fans): the place, value and even existence of the scrum.

As the modern game has got faster and more free-flowing, the key focus of the game of rugby union has shifted. Where once entire game plans were built around the scrum and (especially) lineout, nowadays the battle of the breakdown is the vital one, as is so ably demonstrated by the world’s current openside flanker population. Thus, the scrum is becoming less and less important as a tactical tool, and the extremists may argue that it is no more than a way to restart play. This is the exact situation that has been wholeheartedly embraced by rugby league, where lineouts are non-existent and scrums are an uncontested way of restarting play after a minor infringement. To some there is, therefore, something of a crossroads: do we as a game follow the league path of speed and fluidity at the expense of structure, or stick to our guns and keep the scrum (and set piece generally) as a core tenet of our game?

There is no denying that our modern play style, centred around fast rucks and ball-in-hand play, is certainly faster and more entertaining than its slow, sluggish predecessor, if only for the fans watching it, and has certainly helped transform rugby union into the fun, flowing spectators game we know and love today. However having said that, if we just wanted to watch players run with the ball and nothing else of any interest to happen, then we’d all just go and play rugby league, and whilst league is certainly a worthwhile sport (with, among other things, the most passionate fans of any sport on earth), there is no point trying to turn union into its clone. In any case, the extent to which league as a game has been simplified has meant that there are now hardly any infringements or stoppages to speak of and that a scrum is a very rare occurence. This is very much unlike its union cousin, and to do away with the scrum as a tool in the union code would perhaps not suit the game as well as it does in union. Thus, it is certainly worth at least trying to prevent the scrum turning into a dour affair of constant collapses and resets before everyone dies of boredom and we simply scrap the thing.

(I know I’ve probably broken my ‘no Views’ rule here, but I could go on all day about the various arguments and I’d like to get onto some solutions)

The main problem with the modern scrum according to the IRB concerns the engage procedure- arguing (as do many other people) that trying to restrain eight athletes straining to let rip their strength is a tough task for even the stoutest front rower, they have this year changed the engage procedure to omit the ‘pause’ instruction from the ‘crouch, touch, pause, engage’ sequence. Originally included to both help the early players structure their engagement (thus ensuring they didn’t have to spend too much time bent down too far) and to ensure the referee had control over the engagement, they are now arguing that it has no place in the modern game and that it is time to see what effect getting rid of it will have (they have also replaced the ‘engage’ instruction with ‘set’ to reduce confusion about which syllable to engage on).

Whether this will work or not is a matter of some debate. It’s certainly a nice idea- speaking as a forward myself, I can attest that giving the scrum time to wind itself up is perhaps not the best way to ensure they come together in a safe, controlled fashion. However, what this does do is place a lot of onus on the referee to get his timing right. If the ‘crouch, touch, set’ procedure is said too quickly, it can be guaranteed that one team will not have prepared themselves properly and the whole engagement will be a complete mess. Say it too slowly, and both sides will have got themselves all wound up and we’ll be back to square one again. I suppose we’ll all find out how well it works come the new season (although I do advise giving teams time to settle back in- I expect to see a lot of packs waiting for a split second on the ‘set’ instruction as they wait for the fourth command they are so used to)

Other solutions have also been put forward. Many advocate a new law demanding gripping areas on the shirts of front row players to ensure they have something to get hold of on modern, skintight shirts, although the implementation of such a law would undoubtedly be both expensive and rather chaotic for all concerned, which is presumably why the IRB didn’t go for it. With the increasing use and importance of the Television Match Official (TMO) in international matches, there are a few suggesting that both they and the line judge should be granted extra responsibilities at scrum time to ensure the referee’s attention is not distracted, but it is understandable that referees do not want to be patronised by and become over-reliant on a hardly universally present system where the official in question is wholly dependent on whether the TV crews think that the front row binding will make a good shot.

However, whilst these ideas may help to prevent the scrum collapsing, with regards to the scrum’s place in the modern game they are little more than papering over the cracks. On their own, they will not change the way the game is played and will certainly not magically bring the scrum back to centre stage in the professional game.

For that to happen though, things may have to change quite radically. We must remember that the scrum as an invention is over 150 years old and was made for a game that has since changed beyond all recognition, so it could well be time that it began to reflect that. It’s all well and good playing the running game of today, but if the scrum starts to become little more than a restart then it has lost all its value. However, it is also true that if it is allowed to simply become a complete lottery, then the advantage for the team putting the ball in is lost and everyone just gets frustrated with it.

An answer could be (to pick an example idea) to turn the scrum into a more slippery affair, capable of moving back and forth far more easily than it can at the moment, almost more like a maul than anything else. This would almost certainly require radical changes regarding the structure and engagement of it- perhaps we should say that any number of players (between, say, three and ten) can take part in a scrum, in the same way as happens at lineouts, thereby introducing a tactical element to the setup and meaning that some sneaky trickery and preplanned plays could turn an opposition scrum on its head. Perhaps the laws on how the players are allowed to bind up should be relaxed, forcing teams to choose between a more powerful pushing setup and a looser one allowing for faster attacking & defending responses. Perhaps a law should be trialled demanding that if two teams engaged correctly, but the scrum collapsed because one side went lower than the other then the free kick would be awarded to the ‘lower’ side, thus placing a greater onus on technique over sheer power and turning the balance of the scrum on its head. Would any of these work? Maybe not, but they’re ideas.

I, obviously, do not have all the definitive answers, and I couldn’t say I’m a definite advocate of any of the ideas I voiced above (especially the last one, now I think how ridiculously impractical it would be to manage). But it is at least worth thinking about how much the game has evolved since the scrum’s invention, and whether it’s time for it to catch up.