Stardate 20020425.2236

(On Screen via long range sensors): There's a famous military maxim that says that whichever side's generals wear the fanciest uniforms will lose. That's been true far more often than you might think, and there's a good reason for it.

You basically got two kinds of armies: those which are intended to look good, and those which actually expect to fight. A lot of armies exist mostly to impress the neighbors (or the citizens). Far more rare are those which really train and really expect to mix it up with other armies and truly intend to win. That's very expensive and very difficult, and there really aren't more than about ten of them right now which are very large, with the US military now the most powerful. Show-armies, on the other hand, are the norm in the Third World.

Anyway, fancy uniforms are cheap and easy and make everyone look really cool. Real generals in real armies don't obsess so much on image because they're more concerned with producing an organization that can win.

Another sign of a show-army is rank-inflation and organization-inflation. There are a number of standard terms for army formations of various sizes which go back a long way. The most important of these are as follows: platoon, company, battalion, regiment, brigade, division in rising order of size. There's nothing that forces any of these to be a particular size, but in real armies there's a pretty standard range of sizes which expected in the regular forces. Platoons tend to be 40-60 and are commanded by a lieutenant (second or first). A company will be 150-300 men and will be commanded by a captain or major. A battalion will be 600-1000 men and will typically be commanded by a major or lt. colonel. Above this point it gets a bit less well defined; for a long time the US army didn't use brigades, for instance, and a division was made up of three regiments. Now I believe that regiments are formed on an as-needed basis but the next level up is usually a brigade, typically 3000-5000 men and commanded by a brigadier general. (Regiments traditionally were also commanded by brigadiers; it's pretty much a name change.) A division in the US army tends to run somewhat above 15,000 men and is commanded by a major general.

Formations at each level not only include a certain number of those at the lower level (typically two-four) but in addition will have a headquarters unit and some attached units. What those are will depend on the level, and they might make up half the total. For instance, the 10th Mountain Division not only has three six battalions of infantry, but also attached units at company or battalion strength of intelligence, air defense, medical, supply, military police, engineers, artillery, organic air (helicopters), and communications. The individual battalions also have organic engineers and artillery and armor and supply and a small amount of medical support.

But a sign that a military isn't really serious is when they inflate these terms. If your "brigades" are battalion strength, then you're probably going to get butchered in a real war because it means your officers are more interested in looking good than in being good. They probably also have really pretty uniforms.

So when I heard that the Saudis were moving 8 brigades of mechanized infantry to their NW frontier (near to Israel), I got a bit worried. When I found out that it was only 8,000 men, I started laughing. In the US army, 8000 men would be one reinforced brigade, and there'd only be one brigadier general there instead of eight of them.