Fangs of the Lone Wolf Is About Combat Experience in Urban, Mountain and Fairly Open Terrain
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The views expressed in this book are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the official policy or position of the Department of the Army, Department of Defense, or the U.S. Government. © 2012 Combat Films and Research. All rights reserved. The Foreign Military Studies Office (FMSO) at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, is an open source research organization of the U.S. Army. Founded as the Soviet Army Studies Office in 1986, it was an innovative program that brought together military specialists and civilian academics to focus on military and security topics derived from unclassified, foreign media. The results were unclassified articles and papers that provided new understandings and broad access to information from a base of expertise in the U.S. Army, Department of Defense, and foreign and U.S. defense communities and universities. Today FMSO maintains this research tradition of special insight and highly collaborative work. FMSO conducts unclassified research of foreign perspectives of defense and security issues that are understudied or unconsidered but that are important for understanding the environments in which the U.S. military operates. FMSO’s work today is still aimed at publication in unclassified journals and its research findings are taught in both military and civilian venues in the United States and around the world. FMSO is organized in the U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command under the TRADOC G-2. Foreign Military Studies Office 731 McClellan Avenue Fort Leavenworth, KS 66027 [email protected] Foreword The mission of the Foreign Military Studies Office (FMSO) is to research and present understudied or unconsidered, foreign perspectives in order to better understand defense and security issues. Although FMSO analysts have an impressive track record of important research and publications that spans decades, FMSO is also keen to recognize and promote the unique insights and expertise of other American and foreign specialists. Dodge Billingsley is an American analyst with exceptional qualifications and unparalleled connections. He has covered the wars in Afghanistan, Iraq and Chechnya extensively. In particular, he has spent nearly two decades examining the Chechen conflict from the perspective of the Chechen combatants. He has written many articles for such publications as Jane’s Intelligence Review and produced two documentary films on the topic, Immortal Fortress: A Look Inside Chechnya’s Warrior Culture and Chechnya: Separatism or Jihad. This book draws on his intimate experience with that conflict and unique interviews with Chechen combatants. Les Grau is a FMSO analyst, whose classic work with co-author Ali Jalali, The Other Side of the Mountain: Mujahideen Tactics in the Soviet-Afghan War, serves as the engaging style for this book, appreciated by Soldiers and Marines at all ranks. Fangs of the Lone Wolf is about combat experience in urban, mountain and fairly open terrain. It is not a comprehensive history of the conflict. It is not about right and wrong and has no political dimension to it. Rather, this book is a series of snapshots —— of vignettes —— describing the difficulty, the hardship, the victories and the defeats of the participants. It is an examination of the raw data of combat in a foreign land, and is aimed to advance the professional military study of conflict. Tom Wilhelm Director, Foreign Military Studies Office Fort Leavenworth, Kansas Foreword United States Marine Corps A successful U.S. Marine is a resolute student of military tactics and history. From the early days of basic training, he becomes obsessed with Marines like Major Smedley Butler, who led his band of Marines through a drainage pipe into a Haitian fort to achieve surprise, and other Marine tactical masterminds. The combat Marine has read The Art of War by Sun Tzu, and Command or Control by Marin Samuels, and every other good source he can get his hands on. He has studied U.S. Civil War battlefields, Erwin Rommel’s offensives, and Napoleon’s march on Moscow, using every resource available in a relentless search for the next bit of wisdom that could help him become a stronger Marine, a better leader, a proven warrior. This book is certain to become an integral component of any earnest warfighter’s tactical library. Fangs of the Lone Wolf is a book on Chechen tactics during the long Russian-Chechen War. It provides the guerrillas’ perspective as an outnumbered, poorly-equipped force pitted against a larger, mechanized enemy. The questions it addresses are timeless and have troubled warriors throughout history in every clime and place: How does a band of guerrillas using only discipline, unit cohesion, and “field smarts” match wits with a modern, conventional, methodical foe that is closing in on their cities? Should a commander accept outside help even if it will change his force’s basic ideology? Is victory imperative, or is it enough to escape and survive to fight another day? This book is about conventional and guerrilla warfare as it was fought in the urban areas, mountains, and occasionally the open areas of Chechnya. It makes no value judgments about who is right or wrong. It has no political ax to grind. Men fight and die for causes, beliefs, and less-noble reasons. The combat Marine is interested in not only the “why,” but more so in the “how.” Dodge Billingsley is an analyst and historian who understands Marines. He has covered many conflicts —— including Afghanistan, Iraq, and Chechnya —— on his own and through his company, Combat Films and Research Inc. Dodge was embedded with a platoon from India Company, 3rd Battalion, 7th Marine Regiment during Operation IRAQI FREEDOM. His resulting film, Virgin Soldiers, tells a good story about the Corps. In Chechnya, Dodge covered the fighting from the Chechen perspective, from which he produced some great documentaries. He has continued to follow the fighting in Chechnya over the years and interviewed many of his Chechen contacts for this book. The Marine Corps Studies and Analysis Division is proud to partner with the Army’s Foreign Military Studies Office (FMSO) to sponsor this book’s publication. Preface My first trip to the Caucasus occurred on the heels of the Georgia-Abkhaz War of 1992-1993. I was surprised at how much I heard about these “Chechens” by both Georgian and Abkhaz combatants. I was intrigued by descriptions of the battle for Gagra (late summer/early fall 1992) and the role Shamil Basaev and his Chechen volunteers played. I have been on their trail ever since. Two years later I was sitting in graduate school studying former Soviet successor states when the conflict in Chechnya erupted. A couple of years later I entered Chechnya to see the place for myself and to make a documentary film, Immortal Fortress, about the Chechen warrior culture and the combatants who had won de facto independence from Moscow. Getting there was harrowing. My cameraman and I were detained in Derbent and then Makhachkala trying to reach Grozny via Dagestan. Eventually we entered Chechnya through Vladikavkaz. The capital city was still a pile of ruble but the community was coming back. Groups of fighting-age men gathered together on street corners, perhaps waiting for the next round of conflict to begin but more likely holding on to the power that the gun provided them. I met dozens and dozens of former first war combatants, including Shamil Basaev and Salman Raduev. Each village showed its own unique scars of war. While Vedeno was more or less intact, Batumi was largely destroyed The Arab al Khattab would not talk to me because I was “an American, an infidel, and should be beheaded.” After a couple false starts and the events of 9/11, I sat out the second Russian-Chechen war, being pulled more and more to cover the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. However, and maybe because of these conflicts, I remained committed to studying the conflict in Chechnya and staying in touch with combatants I knew. A book regarding the battlefield exploits seemed appropriate, and I began reaching out to various former Chechen combatants abroad. Most of the combatants I met in the 1990s are dead or in exile. Those in exile are battered and bruised. Many of these men are maimed or suffering from the effects of years of combat and post-traumatic stress. I decided that they had a story that should be told and I traveled to find them and to record their experiences. After I finished my interviews and wrote the thirty vignettes contained in this book, I enlisted the help of an old friend, Les Grau, who has written extensively about the Soviet-Afghan War.*1 Les and I kicked around Afghanistan together and separately. Les is a Vietnam vet who knows guerrilla tactics and has also written extensively about the Russian-Chechen Wars. He and I tweaked my vignettes and provided commentary and context for our reader. Les also helped me find a publisher. He is someone I trust. The content of this book was reconstructed through first person interviews with the participants indicated in each individual scenario. In every case the names of the Chechen combatant veterans have been changed for their own security concerns. There is still considerable fear of Russian reprisal among the veterans interviewed. In many instances we were never told the interviewee’s real name. In most cases I was allowed to record the interviews and even show their hands on a map, but was not allowed to photograph or videotape the participants’ faces or distinguishing scars or features. Interviews typically lasted many hours and even days. In every case, the interviewee was asked to draw on a map the action he was explaining for clarification.