The Counterrevolution in Military Affairs

[SWJED]

6 Feb. issue of the Weekly Standard - The Counterrevolution in Military Affairs by Ralph Peters.

REVOLUTIONS NOTORIOUSLY IMPRISON THEIR MOST committed supporters. Intellectually, influential elements within our military are locked inside the cells of the Revolution in Military Affairs--the doctrinal cult of the past decade that preaches that technological leaps will transcend millennia-old realities of warfare. Our current conflicts have freed the Pentagon from at least some of the nonsensical theories of techno-war, but too many of our military and civilian leaders remain captivated by the notion that machines can replace human beings on the battlefield. Chained to their 20th-century successes, they cannot face the new reality: Wars of flesh, faith, and cities. Meanwhile, our enemies, immediate and potential, appear to grasp the contours of future war far better than we do.

From Iraq's Sunni Triangle to China's military high command, the counterrevolution in military affairs is well underway. We are seduced by what we can do; our enemies focus on what they must do. We have fallen so deeply in love with the means we have devised for waging conceptual wars that we are blind to their marginal relevance in actual wars. Terrorists, for one lethal example, do not fear "network-centric warfare" because they have already mastered it for a tiny fraction of one cent on the dollar, achieving greater relative effects with the Internet, cell phones, and cheap airline tickets than all of our military technologies have delivered. Our prime weapon in our struggles with terrorists, insurgents, and warriors of every patchwork sort remains the soldier or Marine; yet, confronted with reality's bloody evidence, we simply pretend that other, future, hypothetical wars will justify the systems we adore--purchased at the expense of the assets we need.

Stubbornly, we continue to fantasize that a wondrous enemy will appear who will fight us on our own terms, as a masked knight might have materialized at a stately tournament in a novel by Sir Walter Scott. Yet, not even China--the threat beloved of major defense contractors and their advocates--would play by our rules if folly ignited war....

[Strickland]

For once, I completely concur with Mr. Peters assertions. Both Barnett and Freidman make compelling arguments in their books about the failures of the RMA, and the emergence of the "China Threat" in order to provide the USN with a "near peer" competitor to focus.

[Brian B]

If you need bullets or ideas to help understand suicide bombers and why some can't grasp the concept or get their arms around the mentality and drive, this article has some points to it. I had asked about China in replies to several other threads before reading this. Now I'm really thinking hard about our shortcomings.

[NDD]

For once, I completely concur with Mr. Peters assertions. Both Barnett and Freidman make compelling arguments in their books about the failures of the RMA, and the emergence of the "China Threat" in order to provide the USN with a "near peer" competitor to focus.

Couldn't agree more Sir.