Dust and Drones
Anything written by John Bolton normally goes directly to the bottom of my pet vulture's cage. He was one of the loudest howlers for the Iraq war and later, as President Trump's National Security Advisor, he sabotaged the President's promising attempt to normalize relations with North Korea. But Mr. Bolton actually wrote something useful in an op-ed, “Negotiation Won't End Iran's Nuclear Threat,” in the April 28 Wall Street Journal. He said something I did not know, namely that Iran has, besides its stock of enriched uranium, enough plutonium to make about 200 nuclear weapons. He also wrote something he may not have intended to say. He writes, speaking of Iran's uranium, “which he (President Trump) insists on calling ‘nuclear dust.’”
Plutonium is one of the most poisonous substances known to man. Could President Trump perhaps have been referring to Iran's possession of plutonium dust, mounted on some of Iran's best missiles and aimed at Israel as a deterrent to Israel's own nuclear weapons? A warhead of plutonium dust exploded over Tel Aviv could kill thousands of Israelis and make that city uninhabitable for, oh, a few thousand years. That deterrent to Israel's nukes, if it exists, coupled with Iran's threat to hit the desalinization plants the Gulf states depend on for their drinking water, may explain why we are not eager to restart air attacks on Iran. Iran has said, “check.”
Another thought recently came to mind, one related to the drone problem. The proliferation of drones over the battlefields of the Russian-Ukrainian war may, I think, duplicate what faced the armies of Europe in 1914. Those armies went to war looking and fighting very much like the armies of 1814. The result was casualties so catastrophic that they brought most movement on the Western battlefields to an end. By the close of that fell year, everyone on the Western Front was in the trenches and all an observer saw was “das Leere des Gefechtsfeldes,” the emptiness of the battlefields.
The prime cause was artillery, especially artillery used for indirect fire on battlefields, not just in sieges. Is this not similar to what drones have brought to the armies in Ukraine? The problem in both cases was how to restore movement, both tactical and operational. In World War I, the two sides eventually solved the problem. The Allies' solution was the tank, a technological approach. The Germans' answer was new tactics, infiltration tactics, which when combined with tanks in the 1930s yielded what is commonly known as “Blitzkrieg” in World War II. Infiltration tactics restored tactical movement in late World War I, but the defender still had an operational advantage because he could shift reserves laterally by rail while the Germans were advancing on foot. Only the combination of the tactical and technological restored movement at both levels.
Does that offer some clues to how to approach the drone problem? Probably, although I am not certain at present what they are. Tactically, it may mean maneuvering your opponent into a situation where he has to attack, much as Moltke maneuvered the French into their defeat at Sedan in 1870. At the tactical level, Kesselschlacht may still have a role to play, especially if technology can give a drone-clear battlefield for even a short time, time in which tactical maneuver becomes possible. Operational maneuver with armor still faces huge hurdles because drones and improved targeting can follow operational thrusts with armor, in effect never permitting a breakthrough. There is no enemy rear area free of drones.
It's no wonder people have compared the trench lines in Ukraine to those in World War I. It looks like deja vu all over again, with casualties to match.