New Rules of War

[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.