
The Most Effective Weapon on the Modern Battlefield Is Concrete (2016) - jspencer508
https://mwi.usma.edu/effective-weapon-modern-battlefield-concrete/
======
peterwwillis
Although this article highlights soldiers as building barriers, the majority
of base construction on the modern battlefield is done by contractors.

This article from 2013 is, well, "interesting" to put it lightly:
[https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2013/05/contractors-385...](https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2013/05/contractors-385-billion-
military-bases/)

A company controlled by Dick Cheney made the most money in the Iraq &
Afghanistan wars. It's probable that those wars would have been logistically
impossible otherwise, considering how many contracts they held and how vital a
role they played.

Someone said that control of a superior supply chain wins wars [or at least,
delays their resolution]. But private contractors, not the US Military,
control the supply chain. They supply virtually every aspect of the temporary-
cities that are U.S. wartime bases. Without them, we can't have these wars.
And the people who run them work in the highest levels of government. It's
less conspiracy theory than blatant war profiteering.

I think this brings up two interesting points. (1) If you control the
corporations that profit, and you influence the government's war policy as
well as budget, you can create wars for profit. Would we even have these wars
if contractors weren't involved? And (2), if the contracting companies "went
away" tomorrow, would we still have the military might we imagine we have?

~~~
manigandham
If there are no private contractors then the US Military would just takeover
those duties itself.

~~~
alistairSH
I believe that was the OP's point. If these roles are filled by soldiers
instead of contractors, the profit motive for war goes away. At the time, the
VP's company was providing billions of dollars of support for the war in the
Middle East. While he had divested himself while in VP, to think there was no
influence would be naive.

~~~
manigandham
To rephrase: lack of private contractors would not affect military might.

As far as profits, there will always be contractors and vendors to buy stuff
from. The military is not going to be making everything from scratch.

~~~
peterwwillis
As of 2016, there were 3 contractors for every 1 military personnel in
Afghanistan, which is a titanic inversion from a few decades ago. Removing
contractors would limit the availability of our military to fight in other
engagements. We also get less recruits these days, in poorer condition. The
states where we normally recruit the most soldiers has also had the highest
incidents of accidents incurred during basic training, due in part to steadily
dropping physical fitness rates in trainees.

We rely on contractors to buffer our ranks not just logistically but also
politically. Due to a lack of reporting on contractors and their budgets, we
don't know exactly how much we spend on our wars, nor how many people get
killed (more contractors have died than U.S. personnel in past 2 wars). Our
military may not be able to wage wars of tacit public approval without the use
of contractors to hide the true cost.

Of course we will always contract for things the military isn't specialized
in, such as manufacturing. But this isn't about manufacturing, it's about a
logistical supply chain and service industry, in addition to [what appears to
be] an approaching mercenary army. Without these services, the military would
probably take years to build up the same specialization, and would have to use
less money than the contractors use, with more volunteers.

~~~
kakwa_
Indeed, there are more contractors than US personnel in Afghanistan and
formerly Iraq.

These are not only used in logistic and services but also as combatant troops.

And this not always has been the case, during the first Golf War, the
percentage of contractor was much lower at 10 to 20%.

This is a recent evolution (around the 2000s).

It also raises a number of questions like:

* legal loopholes when atrocities are committed (one example is the Blackwater case in 2007)

* the very damaging conflict of interests that arise from privatizing war (conflict of interests in a public contract for let say a bridge can cost money to the collectivity, a conflict of interest in for waging war can destabilize a region, kill a lot of people and damage a country reputation for decades).

* This can be also be liked to the fact that contractors have an incentive to have their contract extended ie not ending a war quickly but pouring gas on the fire.

In my opinion, privatizing wars is really dangerous. War is a kind of violence
that only a state should be able wage and preferably with a lot of checks from
outside (UN) and within (governments, public opinion, votes and laws).

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cpmsmith
Archive:
[https://web.archive.org/web/20181210211633/https://mwi.usma....](https://web.archive.org/web/20181210211633/https://mwi.usma.edu/effective-
weapon-modern-battlefield-concrete/)

~~~
NegativeLatency
Thanks, wasn't loading for me.

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adolph
See also the Hesco bastion

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hesco_bastion](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hesco_bastion)

~~~
metaphor
Hesco's drag-a-container-to-deploy product[1] is quite clever.

[1] [https://www.hesco.com/products/mil-
units/raid/](https://www.hesco.com/products/mil-units/raid/)

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lixtra
> In response to the situation, the US forces basically engaged in siege
> warfare. But atypical to historic examples, instead of attacking to break
> through fortified wall, they imposed the siege on the enemy by building
> walls.

This concept is about 2000 years old. [1]

[1]
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Alesia](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Alesia)

~~~
azernik
So common there's even a word for it: circumvallation.

Not just that, but it's also fairly common for the besieging army to also have
to worry about an enemy field army trying to relieve the besieged area, and so
have to build a contravallation - another wall facing _outwards_ outside of
the circumvallation.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Investment_(military)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Investment_\(military\))

The only really new and interesting part is the challenge of besieging a
single neighborhood within a larger conurbation - historical examples usually
include a large open space between the defender's fortifications and the
circumvallation.

~~~
lixtra
> The only really new and interesting part is the challenge of besieging a
> single neighborhood within a larger conurbation.

Ghettos in the third reich come to mind. They were less an element of
conventional warefare but definitely an element of extermination warefare.
Without the ghetto the killing would have happened less orderly. Sick.

~~~
azernik
Tactically, the "element of extermination warfare" made the character of that
fighting very different than what's going on in Iraq.

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kawera
North Korea uses concrete traps in the DMZ:
[https://99percentinvisible.org/article/hostile-terrain-
tank-...](https://99percentinvisible.org/article/hostile-terrain-tank-traps-
fake-towns-secret-tunnels-korean-borderlands/)

------
wging
See also:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12962776](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12962776)

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beginningguava
>At over $600 a barrier, the cost of concrete during the eight years of the
Iraq War was billions of dollars

Does anyone have any insight as to why resistance forces are seemingly so much
more effective today compared to the past? Rebels were able to bleed the US of
billions with the threat of a cheap car bomb

In the past there didn't seem to be situations like Vietnam and the middle
east with guerrilla warfare being able to drag things out for years and making
things so costly.

Is it because the US isn't willing to go total war and massacre civilians
until they give up Mongolian style or what?

~~~
fake-name
> Is it because the US isn't willing to go total war and massacre civilians
> until they give up and stop aiding rebels or what?

Or maybe because we did stuff like that, and it lead to _more_ resistance.

You can't murder your way to peace. Killing for peace just leads to everyone
being dead.

~~~
blackstrips
> You can't murder your way to peace. Killing for peace just leads to everyone
> being dead.

(Assuming “everyone” includes the attacker here.)

The Mongolians did. You just had to be willing to thoroughly finish the job.
Fear of guaranteed annihilation kept the rest in check.

~~~
craftyguy
And we all know the Mongolian Empire lasted for centuries using this method
(Hint: they collapsed relatively quickly)

~~~
etrevino
The Mongolian Empire lasted for centuries as a series of successor states. It
wasn't a collapse. It was just divided among the family. Those states stayed
stable for quite awhile, with one of them taking over China.

~~~
craftyguy
I'm not sure I would classify "disintegration into competing entities" as a
"stable" empire.

0\.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mongol_Empire#Disintegration_i...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mongol_Empire#Disintegration_into_competing_entities)

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dssu
Probably shouldn't have enjoyed an article on concrete this much

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jhallenworld
Hedgerows served the same purpose in the past. I thought one of the
justifications for the English enclosure acts was national defense, but now I
can't find a reference. In any case, French hedgerows certainly made the D-day
invasion difficult.

~~~
masonic
French hedgerows were a typical property-boundary mechanism long before
retreating Germans utilized them for defense.

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mrnitrate
Interesting Rebuttal:

Concrete Barriers: A False Counterinsurgency Idol (2017)

[https://mwi.usma.edu/concrete-barriers-false-
counterinsurgen...](https://mwi.usma.edu/concrete-barriers-false-
counterinsurgency-idol/)

------
yread
Previous discussion with 192 comments:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12962776](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12962776)

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timoth3y
General Smedley Butler's "War Is A Racket" is every bit as relevant today as
it was when he published is it in 1935.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_Is_a_Racket](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_Is_a_Racket)

For those of you who have never heard of Smedley Butler, he was a rare kind of
American hero. WWI commander, advocate for veteran's rights, and single handly
thwarted a Fascist coup in the United States.

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ohiovr
The title made me think of the killdozer.

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trhway
so, an autonomous self-propeller 3d printer using sand and solar to build the
walls is the weapon of the future.

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cphoover
Wouldn't AI be cheaper, With recognition + automated interdiction likely being
more effective in the long run?

This is what I don't understand about Trump's "border wall", aren't there more
effective means like drones and advanced surveillance of the border?

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gbolcer2
The most effective weapon on the modern space battlefield is boron-nanotube
foamed concrete, though it'll probably work on earth too. (PhoamBCon)

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v_lisivka
Currently, the most effective weapon is false news, and other tools of
information war. Facebook, Twitter, and Youtube will spread them almost for
free.

~~~
v_lisivka
Can anybody explain why this comment has so much downvotes, please?

~~~
matchbok
Because this article is about concrete.

~~~
v_lisivka
Article is not about concrete. It's about effectiveness of concrete on modern
battlefield (especially in guerilla-like war), with false claim that it's most
effective weapon.

As officer of army at war, I know that concrete will not help much at
battlefield. Hard concrete causes ricochet, soft concrete spreads fragments.
Concrete is not movable. Concrete is hard to recycle. Concrete is hard to
destroy in case of retreat.

In case of guerilla-like war, propaganda, agents, double agents, and false
news are much more effective, about thousand times more effective than
concrete. Make double agent in a guerilla, then spread false news about his
glory, then shot in the back everybody who will join him. Problem solved.

