how do you hold a moonbeam in your hand
Quote:
Originally Posted by
slapout9
Colonel Warden's been saying that for years.
I liked the COL Warden article you posted recently that was advocating a moral approach to strategic paralysis. He seems like a beautiful dreamer (in a good way).
My pedestrian observation is that systems targeting seems to be inhibited when the system doing the targeting and the system being targeted are operating in different conceptual realms.
So-called Eastern "systems" may be said to float ephemerally within subtly-defined interpersonal relationships between human-type beings conducted in a usually opaque and indirect manner bordering on the incomprehensible. A direct approach is more often than not skipped around and using "Western" style indirectness to understand "Eastern" style indirectness seems to further add to the chaos and potential for misinterpretation.
History suggests that the resulting frustration on both sides tends to end up with a system response that defaults to targeting the people themselves. Sort of a cross between Kipling and Phung Hoang.
Possibly the same can be said of any systemic collision characterised by conceptual differences and a lack of symbolic sympathy.
The "Home Front" impact: latent and actual
Mike Few has touched upon this subject, in a SWJ link on 'Solitude and Leadership':http://smallwarsjournal.com/blog/201...nd-leadership/
Thanks to a RCP mailing, from a similar article 'How Little the U.S. Knows of War' in the WaPo by Richard Cohen, I only cite the last paragraph:
Quote:
The Great Afghanistan Reassessment has come and gone and, outside of certain circles, no one much paid attention. In this respect, the United States has become like Rome or the British Empire, able to fight nonessential wars with a professional military in places like Iraq. Ultimately, this will drain us financially and, in a sense, spiritually as well. "War is too important to be left to the generals," the wise saying goes. Too horrible, too.
Link:http://www.realclearpolitics.com/art...ar_108425.html