SOUND ECONOMIC MANAGEMENT AS AN IMPORTANT COMPONENT OF A PRUDENT DEFENSE POLICY.

SOUND ECONOMIC MANAGEMENT AS AN IMPORTANT COMPONENT OF A PRUDENT DEFENSE POLICY.

The defense policy of a nation cannot in practical terms be separated from the economic policies of the nation. There is an intrinsic link between a healthy economic state in a nation and its ability to defend itself on the long run both from internal and external enemies. The soundness of one’s defense infrastructure cannot ultimately be separated from the financial policies and health of the nation enunciating those policies.

The 20^th century revealed in no small measure the link between the depth of your pocket and your ability to win in any conflict particularly when it is protracted as modern conflicts amongst major powers are tending to be. Using the two major conflicts of the 20^th century as a case study, it is obvious that the nations that had the capacity to maintain a staying power in a protracted conflict tend to come out the winners.

Chinese communist leader Mao Tse Tsung once enthused that ‘God is on the side of the bigger battalion’ in any conflict; but the nations that were soundly defeated in both WW1 and WW2 started the wars with the Bigger Battalion mentality and were roundly defeated by the nations with deeper pockets and ultimately staying power. The goal and key is not the quantity of the  outlay to start with but the power and ability to not only sustain your outlay no matter how small it may appear to start with, but the ability to grow the outlay on an exponential basis as the conflict becomes protracted.   

If your ability to sustain and grow your outlay on an exponential basis is compromised by your present posturing, then defeat is around the corner in the long-run as the conflict becomes protracted and ultimately is decided in the theater of attrition. Better a small that becomes big on the long-run than a big that becomes small on the long-run.   No country enunciated this principle better than the US in her outings in the two conflicts of the first half of the 20^th century.

 None of the countries that engaged the US in the First and Second World War would have welcomed the US as an adversary had they known the true strength of America’s production capacity. Both Germany and Japan were first defeated psychologically before their battle field defeats simply because they found themselves tangoing with an adversary that seemed to have unlimited resources.

By 1944 it had become obvious to both Germany and Japan in WW2 that they had made a wrong choice in picking adversaries by betting against the United States of America. President Franklin Roosevelt knew during the Depression years that America’s great security lay not in the protection offered by the two great oceans but in the unlimited capacity of the American nation and workman. When he announced in 1941 his plans to build 100,000 aircraft for the US Army air force and 80,000 tanks for the army, his adversaries thought he was bluffing. Well time showed he was not bluffing.

President Roosevelt is my personal role model for a leader who knew how to balance the security of a nation in terms of the relationship between the bread basket and the arsenal. In the second half of the 20^th century, it seemed the Great Powers except for Great Britain had learnt the lessons of the immediate past in the reverse. Both the US and the Soviet Union went on an arsenal building spree that did not necessarily accrue to great victories as observed in the Vietnam War for the US and in Afghanistan for the Soviet Union.

All it succeeded in doing was to put America into a cycle of indebtedness which seems to be on the upswing, and to take the Soviet Union into the drain pipe. In this first half of the 21^st century, the same cycle is about to repeat itself as the bigger battalion mentality has engulfed the Great Powers once more, resulting in the committing of Billions of Dollars into Defense procurements that may never be used in reality while the nation in reality is sinking into a deeper debt sinkhole that ultimately limits your capacity and flexibility for exponential growth in defense capability when you sincerely need it.

Great Britain, Germany and France are the only major powers today that are pursuing a pragmatic policy in defense spending and plans that wisely put butter before guns.  Because common sense will tell you that if the economic capacity of a nation is well harnessed its productive powers will be released when truly needed.

THE PARADOX OF UKRAINE : DATELINE YALTA 1945, THE CHALLENGE TO AMERICA'S GLOBAL HEGEMONY

THE PARADOX OF UKRAINE: THE CHALLENGE TO AMERICA’S GLOBAL HEGEMONY.

DATELINE:  YALTA CONFERENCE, FEBRUARY 1945.

The battle for global hegemony among the Great Powers which is really the bone of contention in Ukraine has a throwback to events that went as far back as to the Yalta conference in the closing days of World War 2. At Yalta the shape and face of the post- 1945 world was basically determined by the political and military horse-trading that ensued between President Franklin Roosevelt of the US, Joseph Stalin of the USSR, and Winston Churchill, Prime Minister of Great Britain.

 Although the Axis partners in World War 2 did not expressly declare their war aims, it was pretty obvious watching their political and military strategy that the destruction of the pre- 1939 world order and the re-establishment of a new world order was their primary war aim. The Axis powers Germany, Italy and Japan were obviously determined to end the global primacy of Great Britain and France and re chart a new world order. 

Though the Axis partners emerged losers in the war, they however succeeded in orchestrating events that led to the dethronement of Great Britain and France from Global hegemony in 1945 and replacing them with the duo of the United States and the USSR as the world’s two Super Powers that dominated global politics for another half a century before the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 and the emergence of the Russian Federation as the successor state to a USSR legacy that was measured more in terms of liabilities than  assets, except of course for the nuclear stockpile which was then the world’s largest.

Perhaps both President Bush and Clinton were disarmed by the post cold war friendly posture and disposition of Russian Federation’s President Boris Yeltsin who in any case in the political chaos and economic collapse of the aftermath of the Soviet Union and the chaotic end of the ill-fated Common wealth of Independent States had little choice but to embrace whatever support the West had to offer.

The interesting development was that the United States insisted that independent Ukraine surrender its nuclear stockpile inherited from the erstwhile Soviet Union to Russia as a pre-condition for guaranteeing Ukraine’s Independence and friendship. That was a grave mistake by American policy makers who did not take time to reflect on the fact that the USSR’s claim to Super Power status rested mainly on that arsenal.

 Had the US offered its friendship and strengthened Ukraine’s power as a nuclear but friendly power, the present crises would not only have been prevented but the world would have been racing to a global nuclear arms disarmament program by now.

Russia’s greatest incentive for nuclear disarmament would have been a passionate desire not to share a common border with a nuclear armed Ukraine. The West in 1992 did not see Ukraine then in that light. In an agreement that smacked of Czechoslovakia in 1938, also known as the Munich agreement, independent Ukraine was compelled by the Great Powers to unilaterally hand over its only buffer against future Russian aggression to Russia under Boris Yeltsin.

 American policy makers of the post World War 2 era and even till date unfortunately have a tradition of making policies that are basically designed to satisfy short term rather than long term interests and many times to satisfy a domestic political audience without considering the long term implication.

I believe it all started in Yalta in February 1945 when President Franklin  Roosevelt anxious to get the European phase of the war over with and confront Japan resolutely began an appeasement policy towards the USSR that succeeded in handing over Eastern Europe over to the Russian leader over and above the objection of Winston Churchill who could clearly see even then the future negative consequences of Roosevelt’s appeasement policies towards Stalin.

 Yalta and ultimately Potsdam conference concessions by the West sold to the Russians the idea that Eastern Europe was their preserved sphere of influence where the ideas of democracy and human rights were solely in the preserve of the Russian state to define as it saw pleasing to its leaders. 

The Russians bought onto the idea that while Western Europe was the preserve of the United States and Great Britain, Eastern Europe particularly the nations  Russian forces had helped to liberate in WW2 were going to be  theater of Russian politics and domination until somebody could abolish that world order. The price that President Roosevelt was willing to pay to Stalin to get Soviet support in the defeat of Japan in 1945 is the main reason why Eastern Europe is still feeling insecure till date and the Korean conflict continues to fester.

It was pretty obvious that the United States did not anticipate nor prepare for global leadership in 1945. The Russians were obviously better prepared to benefit from the spoils of war and the victory of 1945.Churchill a politically shrewd man who could read Stalin’s intentions better was overruled many times by his stronger American partner whose devotion to the ending of British imperial rule globally, clouded his judgement regarding Churchill’s anxieties. 

Sadly as the Yalta conference came to an end it was pretty obvious that Roosevelt had come to trust Stalin and his submissions more than that of Churchill. America’s experience as a former colony of Great Britain did not help matters when it came to assessing Great Britain in matters of national independence and nations rights to freedom and choice in 1945, particularly with Great Britain’s brutal suppression of India’s independence aspirations in the years leading to WW2.

The only person who came out of Yalta with a smug smile on his face was Stalin. Harry S Truman feeling a need to defend the legacy of his great predecessor and benefactor was quick to uphold all concessions the visibly ill Roosevelt made at Yalta during the Potsdam conference, where he was more concerned with the defeat of Japan than the fate of Eastern Europe and its people.

 Russia therefore came out of World War 2 feeling that Eastern Europe is its allotted backyard where it holds sway and dominates issues. After over half a century of playing that role unchallenged by any power it is going to take time for the Russian people to come to see things differently and that is what the West must come to understand.

No matter amount of sanctions will make Russia give up its position overnight. It will take time, a lot of dialogue and peaceful posturing by the West to get Russia to accept the concept of a sincerely independent Ukraine. The concessions that created the perception were made by the Western leaders of 1945 and after over a half century of enjoying that impunity it will surely take time for Russia to peacefully let go of its past ‘conquests’.

 Trying to fastrack the process through a regime of sanctions will not change Russia’s position any faster than the League of Nations sanctions on Japan in 1931. All the League succeeded in doing then was to fastrack its own demise as NATO also seems to be doing now. It took time to get to where we are and it will take time to get to where we ought to be.

WW2: BATTLE OF THE BULGE, 70 YEARS BEYOND AND LESSONS LEARNED AND STILL APPLICABLE TODAY.

 

December 16^th 2014 marks 70 years since the German Ardennes offensive also known as the battle of the Bulge was launched by Adolf Hitler the German Dictator in a last ditch effort to stop the advancing Allied armies from overrunning Germany in the late autumn and winter of 1944 as the Allies were hoping to bring the war in Europe to a close in early 1945.

Beginning with the D-Day invasion over six Allied Armies had landed on both the northwest and south coast of France and had linked up and were pushing their way across France towards the Low Countries and ultimately Germany.

 

The Allied landing on D-Day had been the culmination of American policy upon its entry into the War based on a meeting between US President Franklin D Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Winston S Churchill as far back as on 9th August 1941 when they met on the Atlantic Ocean near Newfoundland, Canada on the US Navy's heavy Cruiser The USS Augusta and eventually issued the Atlantic Charter on the 14th of August 1941 which came to articulate the war aims of the Western Allies and their view of a post war world.

The two leaders had agreed among other things that should the US enter the war, Europe was to receive priority attention in terms of manpower and material resources in prosecuting the war. It became known as the Europe- first policy and it was to guide American policy makers in the planning and prosecution of WW2. The policy was the brain child of Roosevelt who differed to the request of Winston Churchill on the need to come to the rescue of the United Kingdom which was bearing the brunt of the European war as it then was before the Pacific war erupted on December 7, 1941.

President Roosevelt with the firm support of General George C Marshall then Army Chief of Staff therefore set about ensuring that the defeat of Germany was going to be the chief pre-occupation of the American military, while offering enough resources for a containment of Japan in the Pacific front until the fighting in Europe was brought to a successful end. In the aftermath by late 1944 more than ninety percent of the American army was committed to France where over six armies had been deployed to the frontlines by November 1944.

Amongst the Armies on the field was the US First Army whose heroics had been detailed in my earlier writing on the “US First Army the forgotten heroes of WW2’’ under the command of Lieutenant General Omar N Bradley who later passed on Command to Lieutenant General Courtney C Hodges, when he was promoted to the command of the US Twelfth Army Group comprising the First and Third Army under the command of Lieutenant General George S Patton. Thereafter the US Ninth Army was also activated under Lieutenant General William H Simpson.

After the commencement of the Allied landing on the south coast of France in the Marseilles region in August 1944 the US Seventh Army under the command of Lieutenant General Alexander Patch also became operational and all these armies had by November 1944 been deployed along a front in western Europe stretching from Belgium and Luxembourg to the south coast of France bordering Switzerland as the Allies pressed towards Germany on a broad front. The US Seventh and French First Army were to become part of the 6^th Army Group under the command of General Jacob L Devers

 On the British side, Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery commanded the British 21^st Army Group comprising the British Second Army under General Miles Dempsey and the Canadian First Army under the command of General Henry Crerar which was deployed along the Belgian-Dutch borders to a point linking with the US Ninth Army in Luxembourg which eventually together with the US First Army came under the command of Field Marshall Bernard Montgomery in the heat of the battle.

Following the Allied landing in Normandy and the advance inland into France, it had become clear to all observers that the American Army and resources were becoming predominant in the field in Western Europe. Out of the seven armies on the field including the newly activated French First Army, four were American by November 1944 and even then the only French army was fully equipped and supplied with American materials. Following Operation Cobra and the breakout from St Lo into Brittany and the activation of George Patton’s Third Army, the Americans had become the dominant players on the field in Europe employing a bravado spirit on the battlefield that baffled the German Army.

Patton’s awesome armored strikes and breakthroughs led to the belief among the German Generals that the Americans had become the more dangerous foe and desperately needed to be stopped in a massive counter offensive employing the strategy of Blitzkrieg that had served the Germans so well in their earlier campaigns in the war. Hitler reasoned that he could break the American fighting spirit if subjected to a full blown German Blitzkrieg attack led by the awesome Tiger and Panther tanks.

By early December 1944 as the Allied armies had become bogged down by supply problems and the fatigue caused by a long and whirlwind advance of over 500 miles from the Seine River to Luxembourg, Belgium and in some places the German border. They had paused to regroup and rest in the cold and deep winter of 1944 which made motorIsed warfare difficult. As the Allied advance ground to a halt, Hitler felt he now had a good opportunity to launch his much vaunted counter offensive.

 For this, he had amassed three armies totaling over 24 Divisions, six hundred thousand men in all and over 1500 tanks and tank destroyers aimed at the line held by the US First Army in its weakest sector where tired and fresh troops were being refitted in the hilly Ardennes forest between Monschau (southwest of Aachen) and Echternach (northwest of Trier).

 

The German 5^th Army under the experienced Russian front veteran General Hasso Manteuffel was to launch a drive on the Meuse River at Namur cross it and head to Brussels, while SS Sepp Dietrich’s 6^th Panzer army was to lead an armored drive to the important supply city of Antwerp with a view to splitting the British-Canadian 21^st Army Group from the American First Army and subsequently crush them. He believed that at the end of the operation, the defeated Allies would be willing to accept a negotiated settlement of the war.

 

It was an ambitious plan that was meant to be accomplished within the four days of 16^th -20^th of December 1944 when complete weather overcast was predicted to preclude the Allies from employing their vast air power. With eight armored divisions in the lead the Germans achieved a penetration of the Allied lines 65 miles deep and some units of the 6^th Panzer Army came within sight of the Meuse River before the offensive ran out of steam as the skies opened up on Christmas eve and Allied fighters began to interdict the German lines and destroy the supply convoys.

The Germans ran into resistance stiffer than expected from the GI’s who gave a good account of the American fighting spirit as they denied the Germans vital gains by mounting road blocks, destroying bridges, fuel dumps and everything that could be of significant help to the Germans.

 The American resistance was particularly crucial at Bastogne and St Vith where the American 101^st and 82^nd Airborne Divisions respectively held the two vital junction towns that forced the German armor and supply convoys to the use of secondary roads that considerably slowed and hampered the advance.

By Christmas day in 1944 when the clouds fully cleared and Allied air power was in full swing, General Patton’s Third Army had sent in a relief column that had relieved the beleaguered city of Bastogne which never fell into German hands even though encircled for close to a week.

 With sufficient reinforcement pouring into the American lines, the German advance was soon brought to a halt in some of the heaviest fighting of the Second World War on the European front. With the Allies in early January threatening a counter encirclement of the German bulge in the Allied lines, the Germans had no choice but to withdraw their forces lest they be encircled in the resulting Allied pincer move.

 

By the middle of January the battle had shifted in favor of the Allies who had immediately launched a counter attack that threw the Germans into a full blown retreat back into Germany where the Allies subsequently began the great pursuit that led to the end of the war in May 1945.

The Battle of the Bulge was Nazi Germany’s last great offensive in WW2 and it resulted in the squandering of Germany’s last military reserves that was needed to stave off the Soviet Union’s great offensive launched on the 12^th of January 1945 in Poland that brought the Soviet armies to the door steps of Berlin.

THE UNITED STATES AND RUSSIA THE ALPHA PAIR BEHIND THE PEACE OF 1945

THE UNITED STATES AND RUSSIA THE ALPHA PAIR BEHIND THE PEACE OF 1945

The great Allied military victory of 1945 that has kept the world in peace for close to seventy years now and had created the world order that we live in today albeit refashioned after the end of the Cold war in 1989 is a treasure that must be preserved  because the dynamics of the world we live in today and the revolutionary technological changes that have swept the world since 1945 have made it clear that the 21^st century world can no longer afford the expense of another global military conflict as being the basis of fashioning out another world order as recorded in 1918 and 1945.

All through the ages violent conflicts as wars have tended to be, have been the preferred option of men in dealing with situations that seriously need to be addressed especially where nations are concerned. Wars have always been the method of last resort diplomacy where peaceful change is deemed impossible. A notable Prussian General/ statesman of the 19^th century Carl Von Clausewitz wrote that ‘war is the continuation of politick (diplomacy) by other means’.

That was in an era in the 18^th and 19^th century when wars were glorified as being a necessary instrument of national and political transformation.

 Healthy nations were expected to embark on wars from time to time keep a healthy national and political frame and ethos. The 20^th century Dictators in both Germany and Italy saw wars as a revolutionary means of both national and political transformation that was deemed to be good for the health and well being of society in general and encouraged their citizenry to think in such terms.

 The Japanese leaders in the 1930’s and 40’s preached the same message in their societies and generally encouraged their populace to embrace war as a necessary evil for political and social transformation. All this was before the great defeats suffered by these nations in 1945. These same groups of nations have today become the most pacifist and peaceful nations in the world today and ironically some of the most prosperous.

The great victors of the enterprise called the Second world war the United States and Russia however have however come to a different set of conclusion on the need to maintain huge armies and a massive military/industrial complex for the sake of deterrence and basically to ensure that the world order created by the peace of 1945 is not threatened by either party or any other nation.

 While both nations have engaged in saber rattling grandstanding and bluster for the past seventy years it is surprising that the leaders and citizens of both nations have not seen any reason to enter into a formal alliance that disregards their different ideological and political posturing to ensure that the world order that the victorious powers of 1945 created is assiduously maintained.

I believe both nations have enjoyed the luxury of being pride masters for over seventy years without the hazard of any viable challenge to their dominance and hegemony over the world stage and that is why they have engaged in incessant bickering.

 However in the last decade a new power, China has arisen to challenge and if possible displace the Alpha pair of global hegemony and other powers are also rising including the erstwhile losers who are watching the unfolding scenario with great interest.

Instead of Russia and America coming together to seal a pact to protect their hegemony as is found in a genuine Alpha pair in the animal world of felines, the two nations are jostling with each other with a view to tripping one another to the great delight of the wanna- be ambitious rivals anxiously waiting on the sidelines to displace the aged pair of 20^th century pride masters and Alpha pair.

If only the US and Russia realise that the greatest beneficiary of their incessant quarrels will be China and other upcoming powers anxiously waiting in the wings to upstage them the sooner they will realise that they need to ignore and settle their differences and make up a strong alliance to confront the strong challenge that is brewing like a storm in front of them from the nations that are also hungry for global hegemony.

 A word they say is enough for the wise. I don’t think that either the US or Russia will relish life as a displaced pride master. Thanks