Military & Strategic Studies

Russia-Ukraine War: Estimating Casualties & Military Equipment Losses

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by Carl Conetta, updated 02 April 2022

How do the two sides in the Russia-Ukraine conflict compare in terms of personnel and equipment losses?  These seemingly objective measures are subject to an intensive propaganda war. This brief analysis examines multiple sources of data to find that the combatants are actually not far apart in the percentage of equipment attrition they have suffered. And Russian personnel fatalities are likely in the range of 3,500 (April 2). Contrary to the messaging of the two sides, both would seem able to sustain combat for a considerable time longer. Unfortunately, as Russian forces have transitioned to a heavier, more firepower-dominant mode of warfare, Ukrainian civilians and civilian infrastructure are suffering more death and destruction. While this might argue for increased emphasis on war containment and diplomatic efforts, the most evocative messaging on the western side emphasizes Russian miscalculation and fumbling, Ukraine’s adept resistance, and the promise of war termination via increased investment in the war.

Principles for Building Confidence and Stability into National Defenses and International Security – toward sufficient, affordable, robust, and reliable defense postures

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by Charles Knight and Carl Conetta, 01 February 2021 (revised 15 March 2022.)  

Adapted from Carl Conetta, Charles Knight, and Lutz Unterseher, “Building Confidence into the Security of Southern Africa,” PDA Briefing Report #7. Commonwealth Institute, 1996.

balanced & stable

By bringing military structures into line with defensive political goals, the non-provocation standard facilitates the emergence of trusting, cooperative, peaceful political relations among nations. In contrast, any doctrine and force posture oriented to project power into other countries is provocative — unless reliably restrained by political and organizational structures.

Korea versus Korea: Conventional Military Balance and the Path to Disarmament

by Charles Knight and Lutz Unterseher, Lit Verlag, Munster, Germany, April 2020.

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Chapter: “A Path to Reductions of Conventional Forces on the Korean Peninsula” by Charles Knight.

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korea vs korea cover

Varied incremental steps that embody and signal the accumulating commitment to a minimally acceptable common political future for Korea are key to this process. Progressive reduction of cross-border invasion threats through mutual confidence building force restructuring will constitute a virtuous circle of reinforcement for a changed relationship. [Through the] accumulation of the sunk costs of iterative reciprocity North and South Korea will arrive at a point where the demonstrated commitment to smaller restructured military postures is sufficient to allow rapid progress toward a stable level and disposition of arms compatible with a new peaceful political relationship.   ~ Knight

Die Konfrontation auf der Halbinsel, mit offensivir Oreintierung und Bereitschaft zur Praemption, impliziert Stabilitatsrisiken. Diese werden noch erhoht durch Entwicklung und Einfuhrung prazier ballistischer Raketen, welche die Illusion nahren, den Gegner im Konfilktfall ‘enthaupten’ zu konnen.   ~ Unterseher

Sustainable Defense: More Security, Less Spending

Final Report of the Sustainable Defense Task Force of The Center for International Policy, June 2019. ➪ full report  PDF

Carl Conetta contributed analysis of the economic and climate change challenges, details of the threat assessment, the strategy, and the calculation of savings from recommended changes to force structure.

The United States must partner with other nations in addressing challenges like climate change, epidemics of disease, nuclear proliferation, and human rights and humanitarian crises. None of these challenges are best dealt with by military force. Rather, they will depend on building non-military capacities for diplomacy, economic assistance, and scientific and cultural cooperation and exchange which have been allowed to languish in an era in which the military has been treated as the primary tool of U.S. security policy.

Transactional diplomacy isn’t working with North Korea – relational diplomacy might

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by Charles Knight, a version of this article appeared in The National Interest on 19 February 2019. This is a modestly revised version.

Complemented by:

“A Path to Reductions of Conventional Forces on the Korean Peninsula” by Charles Knight, 2020.

➪  full English text:  PDF    or   ➪ Korean auto-translation (DeepL)

DPRK soldiers

The status quo is a failed approach to Korean conflict and tension; a failed policy that is at least partially responsible for North Korea becoming a small but real nuclear power.

Rather than continue to isolate North Korea, the new realities require America to bring nuclear North Korea into as close a relationship as possible—so that there are opportunities to influence the North in regards to responsibly and safely managing its nuclear weaponry. It is hard to imagine such trust between North Korea and the United States at this time, but the United States can encourage China to play a role in persuading North Korea.  Chinese and American interests align very closely regarding nuclear safety and restraint.

Pleasant Lunches: Western Track-Two Influence on Gorbachev’s Conventional Forces Initiative of 1988

by Lutz Unterseher, PDA Guest Publication, August 2018. ➪ PDF

Secretary-General Gorbachev’s astounding and pivotal speech to the UN General Assembly in December of 1988 announced substantial reductions and defensive restructuring of Soviet conventional forces in Eastern Europe.

Lutz Unterseher, living at that time in Bonn, West Germany, was a leading developer of the concepts of the confidence-building restructuring of armed forces intended to reduce East-West military tensions and improve crisis stability. There is no doubt that some of these concepts were influential with Soviet officials in Gorbachev’s closest circles. This article is Lutz Unterseher’s recollection of some of his most consequential interactions with Soviet analysts and diplomats in the several years before Gorbachev’s announcement of the force reductions and restructuring.

Not a common global home, but a fine mess

Presentation by Carl Conetta on the “World Security Situation – Russia, Iraq, Syria, and Beyond” panel of the Economists for Peace and Security (EPS) symposium in Washington, DC, 17 November 2014. The panel included Richard Kaufman, Bill Hartung, and Heather Hurlburt.

 
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panel one EPS 1114

Reasonable Defense: A Sustainable Approach to Securing the Nation

by Carl Conetta, PDA Briefing Report #21, 14 November 2012. 9 tables. The appendix provides an additional 18 tables and charts addressing personnel, force structure, and budgets.
➪ PDF  ➪ summary PDF  ➪ appendix of tables and charts PDF.

sustainable defense Argues for a new balance among the various instruments of national power reflecting today’s strategic conditions.  Taking a realistic view of security needs, the report advocates a military 20% smaller than today’s. It advances a “discriminate defense” strategy that would focus the military on cost-effective missions and save $550 billion more than official plans over the next decade.

Helicopters in America’s post-9/11 wars

Carl Conetta, Project on Defense Alternatives, Sep 2008   HTML |  PDF

This article is a chapter in Lutz Unterseher, Military Intervention and Common Sense: Focus on Land Forces (Berlin-Greifswald: Ryckschau, 2008.)

Drawing on the experiences of the Afghanistan and Iraq wars, the article assesses the role played by helicopters, reviewing their strengths and limits. The author suggests that a dilemma shadows the use of these aircraft. On the one hand, they offer a unique combination of mobility, flexibility, and agility in working closely with ground forces, providing reconnaissance, fire, maneuver, and logistical support. However, helicopters prove acutely sensitive to environmental conditions, are relatively fragile, and can be countered by multiple, relatively-inexpensive weapon systems.

These problems can be partially mitigated, but only in ways that substantially increase costs while narrowing the scope of the crafts’ usability. This has undercut notions of using helicopters in deep attack roles and large-scale helicopter assaults.

The article concludes by examining cost-effective roles for helicopters in combat. And it asks, Do tilt-rotor aircraft offer a viable alternative?

 

Military Intervention and Common Sense: Focus on Land Forces

by Lutz Unterseher, Berlin-Greifswald: Ryckschau, 2008. Foreward by Charles Knight. Includes a chapter by Carl Conetta, Helicopters in the US wars since 9/11.   PDF  |  order paperback

book cover

[from the Foreward]
“This book…makes a major contribution to undoing the confusion for one class of increasingly likely 21st Century uses of military force. That is, internationally sanctioned military intervention using greater force than traditional peace-keeping and less than ‘war-fighting’.”

Pyrrhus on the Potomac: How America’s post-9/11 wars have undermined US national security

(printable PDF version) (HTML version) by Carl Conetta, PDA Briefing Report #18, 05 September 2006.  A net assessment of America’s post-911 security policy shows it to be “pyrrhic” in character: although progress has been made in disrupting Al Qaeda, the broader effect has been to increase the threat to the United States, while weakening the nation’s capacity to respond effectively.

Dissuading China and Fighting the ‘Long War’

by Carl Conetta, World Policy Journal, 01 July 2006. ➪ PDF

The 2006 US Defense Review advanced two new strategic vectors for the US armed forces – one targets a putative “global Islamic insurgency”; the other puts America on a collision course with China.

(A longer version of this article was published in November 2006 under the title The Near Enemy and the Far: The Long War, China, and the 2006 US Quadrennial Defense Review.)

A Few Thoughts on the Evolution of Infantry: Past, Present, Future

by Lutz Unterseher, Guest Publication, Studiengruppe Alternative Sicherheitspolitik, Berlin, Germany, May 2006.  PDF  | HTML 
Subduing resistance and guarding the peace in modern interventions requires high-quality infantry, but it is erroneous to think the job could be done by elite SOF forces because there can never be enough of these. The vast majority of the all-volunteer armies in the industrial West face a problem when it comes to attracting sufficient personnel: relatively few recruits are good enough to receive the more demanding training needed — creating a dilemma that has rarely been addressed and one that certainly is yet to be solved by today’s armies.

We Can See Clearly Now: The Limits of Foresight in the pre-World War II Revolution in Military Affairs (RMA)

by Carl Conetta, PDA Research Monograph #12, 02 March 2006.  ➪   PDF  ➪ HTML
“Military transformation” and the idea of a “Revolution in Military Affairs” are prominent themes in US defense planning. However, the example of revolutionary change during the Second World War suggests that forecasting such revolutions poses a daunting, if not insurmountable challenge.

Arms Control in an Age of Strategic and Military Revolution

(printable PDF version) (HTML version) by Carl Conetta, Presentation to Einstein Forum, Berlin, 15 November 2005. Changes in the nature of warfare, military technology, and the global strategic environment pose new challenges for arms control. The article critically examines new forms of strategic warfare, cyberwar, so-called “precision” conventional warfare, and less lethal weaponry.

The Bush Doctrine: Origins, Evolution, Alternatives

(printable PDF version) by Mark Gerard Mantho, PDA Guest Publication, April 2004. The Bush administration’s national security doctrine represents the most sweeping change in U.S. foreign policy since World War II and was the conceptual underpinning of the President’s decision to invade Iraq. Yet few Americans realize where the policy came from, who crafted it, or even what it is.

Disappearing the Dead: Iraq, Afghanistan, and the Idea of a “New Warfare”

by Carl Conetta, PDA Research Monograph #9, 18 February 2004.  ➪ PDF ➪ summary PDF  ➪ HTML  ➪ summary HTML

 

Collateral in Iraq
Examines the Pentagon’s treatment of the civilian casualty issue in the Iraq and Afghan wars, reviews the “spin” and “news frames” used by defense officials to shape the public debate over casualties, and critiques the concept of a “precision warfare” as misleading.  Case studies include the Baghdad bombing campaign. An appendix provides a comprehensive Guide to Surveys and Reporting on Casualties in the Afghan and Iraq Wars.

Saving General Shinseki: on the future of wheeled armor

(printable PDF version) (HTML version) by Lutz Unterseher. PDA Guest Publication, February 2004. Presents the specifications for a ‘hybrid’ combat vehicle featuring: considerable, versatile firepower (kinetic energy and fragmentation) without the weight penalty of a main gun system; a high degree of crew protection; better strategic mobility than current tracked armor; superior operational mobility; and acceptable tactical mobility.

European Armed Forces of Tomorrow: A New Perspective

(printable PDF version) (HTML version) (Leicht gekuerzte deutschsprachige Fassung der Studie) by Lutz Unterseher. PDA Guest Publication, 20 October 2003. Models an integrated European Armed Forces. Details the conceptual framework, strategic orientation, key functions, posture, resources, personnel, and budget of a viable all European force, as a complement to a foreign policy of reconciliation.

Catastrophic Interdiction: Air Power and the Collapse of the Iraqi Field Army in the 2003 War

(printable PDF version) by Carl Conetta. PDA Briefing Memo #30, 26 September 2003. Examines how air power helped bring about the collapse of the Iraqi Republican Guard and regular army in the 2003 war. Compares the air campaigns of Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Desert Storm, and estimates combatant casualties due to air interdiction in the 2003 war.

9/11 and the Meanings of Military Transformation

(HTML version) (PDF version) by Carl Conetta, Project on Defense Alternatives, 06 February 2003. This article examines a ten-year failure to adapt US security policy to post-Cold War realities and assesses how well three different concepts of military transformation correspond to these new realities. Originally published in Security After 9/11: Strategy Choices and Budget Tradeoffs by the Security Policy Working Group, January 2003 (.pdf file). A compilation of eight articles that gauge the cost and effectiveness of post-9/11 US security policy offering assessments of counter-terrorism, homeland security, and military transformation policies in light of alternative options and budget tradeoffs. Executive summaries and author contact information included.

The “New Warfare” and the New American Calculus of War

(HTML version) by Carl Conetta, PDA Briefing Memo #26, 30 September 2002. US methods of warfare have changed substantially since the Cold War’s end. So have the norms governing the use of force. Since 11 September 2001 there has been an increased impetus to more fully exercise US military primacy and test the promise of the new warfare. Unfortunately, this impetus has not been matched with adequate analysis of either the new methods or the new norms of war.

The Pentagon’s New Budget, New Strategy, and New War

(HTML version) by Carl Conetta. PDA Briefing Report #12, 25 June 2002. Examines the new US military strategy as codified in the September 2001 Quadrennial Defense Review and practiced in the Afghan war. The report contrasts the new QDR with its 1997 predecessor, paying special attention to the Bush administration’s “new concept of deterrence.” Published in Hegemonie oder Stabilität: Alternativen zur Militarisierung der Politik, edited by Volker Kröning (MdB), Lutz Unterseher, and Günter Verheugen (Hrsg.) Bremen: Edition Temmen, August 2002.

What Justifies Military Intervention?

(HTML version) commentary by Charles Knight, 27 September 2001. Examines the problems for international security associated with U.S. military intervention abroad. Includes a Postscript on the “war on terrorism” (revised 01 March 2002) and Selected Readings on the doctrines of Just War, Total War, and Strategic Bombing (revised 01 March 2002).