Lacking effectiveness is one thing, the ridiculous budgets are another.
Some countries maintain an army, an air force and a navy for the price of the U.S. "intelligence" apparatus.
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Lacking effectiveness is one thing, the ridiculous budgets are another.
Some countries maintain an army, an air force and a navy for the price of the U.S. "intelligence" apparatus.
Too much money. Breeds and attitude of 'throw more money at it' rather than a real effort to get things on track as cheaply and effectively as possible.
That said, none of those nations -- nor several of them -- come near the capability. Carrier battle groups, Nuclear submarines and worldwide requirements (and ability) all cost big money. Some say the worldwide requirement is self imposed and that's correct to an extent -- but a number of nations including yours want some form of commitment... ;)
I am under the impression that the German desire for an alliance with the U.S. and the German desire for U.S. engagement in Europe is more related to avoiding open rivalry (by being official allies) than about securing against other powers.
There are some dumb politicians who buy into everything, even into the myth that the BMD program protects Europe because the bases are in Europe (it doesn't). Those fools believe what they want, but the actual political leaders rather leave the impression on me that they're pro status quo, contra experiments. Allowing the U.S:to turn away from Europe would be an experiment - and our politicians are too lazy, too unimaginative and too unskilled in 19th century-style alliance gaming for this.
I couldn't tell how U.S. military power would contribute to European national security in any way; the Russian army is down, the disunited Arabs have no real armies right now and are beyond the Med and the Turks are still allied (and not going to take on Europe anytime soon again).
I do on the other hand see how U.S. military power degrades European national security, namely its employment in action. I blame most of the (still tiny) Jihad in Europe mess on the militarised U.S. Mid East foreign policies.
There is an obligation in the North Atlantic Treaty about how all members need to deal with international crisis peacefully and in harmony with UN rules. This obligation has a much stronger wording than the actual collective defence obligation, but somehow the U.S., UK and France managed to make almost everyone forget about it.
Regardless of the validity, the desire exists and we tend to support it for our own reasons. ;)
Good luck with that peace and harmony wish and the UN in general... :D
There is the certainty that the CJCS will sometimes like every narrow conduit inadvertently act as an information cutout, upward and or downward. So all-in strategy sessions will hopefully become the norm.
But despite any all-in sessions it would be appropriate for every member of the joint chiefs plus the relevant theatre commander and the joint force commander to be able/encouraged to provide non-interruptible independent dissenting advice in written form, with a concurrent advisory copy to all other such officers.
The European or more accurately the British method of resignation as described in post 51 seems preferable, especially for ABCANZ forces. Any senior resignation closely followed by a public explanation - preferably delivered in forthright language - could be productive. And even a short conga line of resignees would likely be decisive.
Agree all history may be re-visionism. But prefer dictionary definition such as “the academic discipline of understanding or interpreting past events”.Quote:
Originally Posted by MikeF
My comment that “revisionism is a foolish concept” was predicated upon its alternate use as a pejorative term by communists and socialists squabbling over orthodoxy. It is annoying to have a useful word subsumed by idealogues.
But on reflection such people should be encouraged to make frequent and energetic use of the word. So correcting myself: “revisionism can be useful concept” .
Yes but many of yesterday’s active folk have already lost too many teeth to be paid peanuts. :DQuote:
Originally Posted by MikeF
________________________________________
Very true:cool:
I think, when we look at McChrystal down the road, we'll see two stories,
1. The amazing organizational changes that he overcame (1990-2009) to build a small, elite force. I wished that the story stopped there:mad:.
2. Being overwhelmed trying to implement his micro-level changes on the macro-level. Mintzberg provides a good guide to affecting change in the bureaucracy. Charismatic leaders are one way, but it takes time.
Unlikely. Entirely too dependent on circumstances versus personalities in place at the time. A continued mix will probably be the case. All in has its disadvantages in both the group-think and weak consensus variants. We'll continue to muddle along -- as do most other nations.That currently happens in a sense but it is still subject to being ignored or over ruled by a particularly strong CJCS or, far more likely, by the civilian policy makers with whom ultimate decisions rest *. The ideal solution, of course is to always have informed and sensible civilian policy makers. Since those people are always politicians, that's an impossibility...:rolleyes:Quote:
But despite any all-in sessions it would be appropriate for every member of the joint chiefs plus the relevant theatre commander and the joint force commander to be able/encouraged to provide non-interruptible independent dissenting advice in written form, with a concurrent advisory copy to all other such officers.
We can disagree on that. I've seen little evidence that your assertion is true and have seen evidence in both Britain and Canada that such actions accomplish virtually nothing. Canadian resignations and very forthright protestations over the 1964 unification of Canadian Forces, for example, resulted only in the loss of some very good people. It changed nothing. My recollection of similar actions in Britain and Australia is that little real change occurred in such cases. :wry:Quote:
The European or more accurately the British method of resignation as described in post 51 seems preferable, especially for ABCANZ forces. Any senior resignation closely followed by a public explanation - preferably delivered in forthright language - could be productive. And even a short conga line of resignees would likely be decisive.
In any event, the traditions differ and are unlikely to change. :cool:
* US examples include both Viet Nam and Iraq, military advice was ignored by Kennedy and Bush 43 and the various policy wonks hired by those two. Interestingly, amid much pressure from Congress and the media to intervene earlier in Viet Nam, then President Eisenhower listened to the then Army Chief of Staff General Ridgeway and refused to commit troops to Viet Nam. Much as George H.W. Bush listened in 1991 to his military advisers with reference to not entering Iraq. The key is an informed and sensible decision maker. Hard to find and retain...
FWIW I agreed with Eisenhower on Viet Nam, it was a stupid and unnecessary war in which I partook. However I disagreed with Bush 41 on Iraq. I was only peripherally involved in that one but it was obvious that we were going to leave a festering wound that would require later action -- it would have been difficult in 1991 but still far easier than it worked out to be in 2003.
Again, for me this comes back to decisions on where and when to engage.
For a war to succeed, large or small, the goals have to be clear, specific, practical, and - with the resources and time we are prepared to commit - achievable. We have to be clear on what we propose to achieve, how we propose to achieve it, and why it's important. That last point is critical, because even if resources are available, the will to allocate them will quickly fade if the conflict is not seen as essential.
If we chose to involve ourselves only where and to the extent that we really have to, we'd avoid a lot of problems, and a lot of wars.
You hear a lot of talk these days about complexity, and the mantra holds that the world and its conflicts have become more complex than they used to be. I'm not sure that's the case at all. A lot of the supposed "complexity" is something we impose with our own uncertain, vacuous, and ephemeral goals and limited commitment to those goals, which in turn is a function of the perception that those goals are not critically important to us as a nation. If you're not sure what you're trying to achieve or why or whether it makes any difference, everything looks complex. When you're messing in a situation you don't understand and where your need to be there is doubtful, things suddenly seem complex. If you know exactly what you want and why, the same situation becomes simpler.
One of the reasons we find these fights challenging and our opponents so resilient is simply the difference between involvement and commitment. We all know the old saying about the difference. Think of bacon and eggs: the chicken is involved, the pig is committed. We're the chicken, they're the pig. We can walk away with no great loss; they can't. This is not implicit in the situation, it's a function of where, when, and how we choose to involve ourselves.
Certainly there's infinite space for better strategy, better tactics, better understanding of the situation and the antagonist... but ultimately the first step toward getting small wars right is in re-evaluating the decision to get involved and the selection of the goals to be pursued. Get those wrong and it will be very difficult to dig out of the hole.
Have read several of the books on your list but not as yet Consequences of Failure by Corson. Here somewhat late is a carefully written reply to your question.
Sun Tzu and Clausewitz were each achievers and renowned military scholars and original thinkers. Like to believe that both would have preferred the cadence of pipes and drums to the stridency of a brass band.
Sun Tzu wrote mainly in the context of military success and failure rather than victory and defeat. That can be seen especially in his frequent mention of threatened and conceivable use of military force as a means to influence the general psyche and preparedness, and the specific planning and actions of an actual or potential adversary. The following interpretation uses more modern language and is based mainly on the views of Clausewitz, Liddell Hart and Wylie.
Military campaigns and armed conflict are said to be politics pursued by other means. Ignoring electoral campaigns and party politics, the politicians in power at any time are generally concerned with the success and failure of their policies. Sun Tzu’ perspective correlates better with those concerns than could any discussion predicated on victories and defeats.
So what is success ? In the simplest case success can be the achievement of a single objective. And that objective might be a negative, as in defensively preventing an adversary from achieving – or deterrently dissuading him from seeking - something that is potentially or actually damaging to one’s own or an allied concern.
Generally it is good practice to objectively plan to achieve success and avoid failure rather than to focus on victory and avoidance of defeat. In other words it is better to think about how to structure or re-structure a contest so as to move it onto favourable ground. Put more simply to get beyond a bound rather than how to get onto it and when there to think about what to do next. That sounds a lot like a Wylie version of Liddell Hart’s indirect approach. And that’s essentially what it is. And also what is commonly needed: an analytic rather than a blunt force approach to problem solving. Hence good practice ....
So what distinguishes the tactical from the operational, and in turn the operational from the strategic level of conflict ? At the tactical level: freedom of action may often be constrained and sometimes demand a short sighted focus on victory at a specific location. At the operational level: freedom of action will sometimes be constrained but it is always appropriate to plan for success rather than victory. At the strategic level: it is necessary to use cumulative and sequential techniques and to carefully pursue success for all politically and militarily determined objectives.
This interpretation is pretentiously brief but it can serve as a skeleton of reasons for always using the terms success and failure in preference to victory and defeat. Am looking forward to reading critical and contrary comments.
Here's two complimentary ideas.
1. We (military) need to operationalize and codify what we did right over the last ten years (Techniques at clearing and pacification top the list).
2. We (Americans) should stop trying to counter colonial insurgencies and start trying to understand revolution as a process not an event.
Revolutionary conflict is a byproduct of the relentless advance of globalizing capital, which erodes traditional political and cultural boundaries. This is driven by the raw and limitless desire for "prosperity", which translates directly into unending resource consumption. Dorronsoro's analysis of the Afghan conflict in Revolution Unending implies that interventions to support globalist-compliant regimes will be a mainstay of future policies. Afghanistan has at least $1 trillion in raw materials and transit access to the Caspian basin's energy resources for resource hungry Pakistan and India, bypassing, China, Iran, and Russia. The Taliban government was an anomaly in the international system; isolated from the modernizing force of globalism due in part to ideology, regional political circumstances, and Afghanistan's civil war. As global consumption increases, the competition will only become more bitter.Quote:
Originally Posted by MikeF
On the other hand, Mike...
If you accept the fact that you will wrestle with a pig and know you are going to get dirty, you are less likely to be surprised.
But, because we naively think we can go to the wrestling match with our rules we are doomed to fail and get really dirty.
Jungle rules apply :D
A preview to my forthcoming contribution to Foreign Policy Magazine next month, 17. True or false: Americans are safer today than when Obama took office.
True, but this is a false choice. Worrying about being safe is simply fear and insecurity. It is time to stop pondering safety and security and start dreaming about living again. When my daughter goes to sleep at night, I don’t ask her what she fears most. I ask her to imagine what she will be doing in twenty years. Will she be the first woman to land on Mars? Will she travel deep into the heart of the Congo researching some undiscovered plant that will provide a cure for cancer? Will she write the next great American novel? This is the type of thinking that we desperately need. These are the type of questions that we must ask our children. It is time for us to overcome the fear and the hurt and the pain from 9/11 and move on with life.
It takes posts such as yours to remind me again that people re still under the after-effects of an event which happened a decade ago and killed 1/100,000th of the population. That is, less than all annual flu waves!
That's an absolute statement and completely unjustifiable. Revolutions emerge for lots of reasons, and people are as likely to revolt because they feel government is keeping them out of the global economy as they are because the government is pushing them into it. Each revolution has to be understood for what it is, and blanket statements about a global cause for revolution are pointless.
It's become fashionable in certain circles to see "revolution" generically as a conservative backlash against imposed change, but historically revolution has more often been a tool people use to achieve change and modernization when governments obstruct it.
Sure they do. But we're not talking about the liberal/nationalist revolutions of the 19th century or the national wars of liberation in the 20th. We're focused on contemporary revolutionary conflicts for the next, say, 10 - 30 years, and really only those that interest the United States, which narrows the field further. Right now there exists a global regime governed by the "laws" of capitalist relations and dominated by the West who are challenged by the leaders of the developing world. These relationships are largely determined by Western institutions; i.e. the United Nations, World Bank Group, IMF, and so on which augment the West's political, economic, and military power. Islamism is one of the few half-way viable alternatives, though its political and economic foundations are weak because it does not have appeal in any of the great or secondary powers. As a political organizing principle, it challenges the Western conception of power directly, rearranging (or destroying) the relationships established by the West. That is the definition of revolution, whatever concrete event triggers it. You say such a universal understanding of revolution is "pointless". On the contrary, it provides just the context needed for understanding the security implications of global political economy: revolutionary conflict is inevitable and the US must be prepared to engage in it on one side (i.e. anti-Mubarak forces in Egypt) or the other (preserving the status quo in Saudi Arabia and the Gulf Kingdoms).Quote:
Originally Posted by Dayuhan
I got a comment on my blog; it had this link:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HGpXHYtkOS8
Seriously, what's wrong there? How can warmongering, on other occasions also executions and the like, be cheered for? Isn't it about time to reign in here and stop this insanity?
There gotta be some levers for civil society to reign in against such inhuman extremism.
I could make some really, really shameful comparisons to really, really bad governments / political cultures who never managed to produce such a warmongering crowd response in absence of a world war.
This crowd even decided to go pro-warmongering AGAINST the speaker!
In my book, the U.S. should immediately forget (what little it knows) about the rest of the world and clean up the domestic mess ASAP. It really needs a dozens of Baceviches as national pundits RIGHT NOW.
Herra Majuri Karhu; wait till it gets really partisan ! :D It's all part of our Quadrennial Freak Show. Surely, you've watched American politics before.
And then we have the leadoff comment to the video:
Yup, that's the new threat posed to the US by Fox - half live KKK; and half KKK zombies. Three fingers pointing down; one head pointed up.Quote:
Half the crowd probably belong to the KKK or decedents from them
Thanks for the unintentional humor.
Mike