New Rules of War

[zenpundit]

I happy with expensive, as long as its effective. You cannot use business words and norms to try and understand military power.

Economics, not business.

You can only fight to the degree and for so long as you can afford to pay for the kind of fighting that you are doing. Different kinds of fighting incurs different sets of costs. Paying enormous costs for marginal strategic results is not "winning". Ignoring fundamental economic trade-offs in selecting military tactics and operational approaches is simply stupid. This is not an argument for doing nothing, but to do it with eyes open and with a long-term perspective.

Burning a giant pile of money sheds light and heat and looks impressive but if it damaging your economy rather than your enemy then you are working hard to defeat yourself.

[marct]

Hi Zen,

You can only fight to the degree and for so long as you can afford to pay for the kind of fighting that you are doing. Different kinds of fighting incurs different sets of costs. Paying enormous costs for marginal strategic results is not "winning". Ignoring fundamental economic trade-offs in selecting military tactics and operational approaches is simply stupid. This is not an argument for doing nothing, but to do it with eyes open and with a long-term perspective.

In general, I would agree. The devil, however, is in the details and, let's face it, the details in both Iraq and Afghanistan morphed into the construction of "democracies" which was not part of the original, political calculus of cost; neither were the "insurgencies" .

Could the initial, "conventional" political objectives have been met with smaller groups? Sure, they were initially in Afghanistan. Unfortunately, he is forgetting about other potential competitors and about the time lag (and cost!) on retraining and re-equipping. You fight with what you have, and only modify to the point that it doesn't negatively impact your global position (that negative ROI point).

Burning a giant pile of money sheds light and heat and looks impressive but if it damaging your economy rather than your enemy then you are working hard to defeat yourself.

Agreed, and that is one of the constants on how to attack the US over the past 50 years or so. That being said, then why has the response to the economic "warfare" of various and sundry financial institutions not been dealt with in a similar manner? Why is he not advocating swarming by accountants which, IMHO, would have far more effect!

I'm going to stick with my initial interpretation of his economic argument as a red herring. He has included it only in a "rhetoric of rectitude" and excluded the broader systems in which it is embedded. as a piece of rhetoric, it's a moderately telling point, but as a piece of rational analysis it is trivial.

[Firn]

I'm going to stick with my initial interpretation of his economic argument as a red herring. He has included it only in a "rhetoric of rectitude" and excluded the broader systems in which it is embedded. as a piece of rhetoric, it's a moderately telling point, but as a piece of rational analysis it is trivial.

I share this point of view just as the accusation of cherry picking. The author commits one of the biggest sin in science, trying to build a case fitting his premediated option by a very biased (and even erroneous) selection of interpretations. I also miss context, context and context.

About the bits about training, initiative and more liberty of movement for the lower levels. This reminds me a bit of a trend in the Germany army doctrine before WWII or I'm wrong Fuchs?

Firn

[Fuchs]

About the bits about training, initiative and more liberty of movement for the lower levels. This reminds me a bit of a trend in the Germany army doctrine before WWII or I'm wrong Fuchs?

I observed how clubs, amateur sports teams and the like organize. Natural leaders who want to lead and have enough respect to do so (without being able to send someone to jail for disobedience) can easily be identified in these environments.
It seems that this 'natural' method of identifying or choosing leaders may be superior to some extent and in some cases to the "this is Lt XY, salute your new platoon leader!" approach.

I did also observe how almost no-one is a natural born leader. Most people have a high tolerance for crap and don't intervene to fix problems*. Almost no-one is interested in training others to enable the team to perform better as a whole. Few dare to push forward and raise the mood when things go wrong.

On several occasions I grew tired of some chaos I spotted and organized teams. The reactions were about 10% overtly positive, 85% followed and 5% disagreed. Many noted that they were relieved that finally someone brought some plan and organization into the affair. I didn't organize because someone authorized or even commanded me to do so - it simply worked because someone in the crow suddenly was accepted as leader & coordinator.


Having observed many inexplicable cases of idiots in NCO or officer rank, I grew quite skeptical about the "let's select men with potential and teach them to be leaders" approach. It's slow at best.

That's where my interest in self-organisation comes from.


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*: And I say this based on observations among Germans who have - as I learned recently from a foreigner - the reputation that they police each other to maintain order.