The Warden Collection (merged thread)

[slapout9]

pvebber, will have to break my response into 2 sections, this "system" dosen't like long responses for some reason.

The most recent movie version being an excellent counter-example. The desired end-state may not be about "being anywhere", but what you believe your capability to act is when you decide to accept the role of protangonist in a confrontation. You may not have a clear understanding of what the outcome of the confrontation may be, just a moral understanding that if you do not decide to act, bad things will happen.

Don't really see the conflict with Warden here?

Warden appears to be saying that taking no action in such circumstatnces is preferrable to taking action that is not directly linked to achieving a desired end-state. In a moral vacuum this may be the most efficient, but the world does not exist in a moral vacuum.

In other words, building on your analogy (always dangerous ) the Warden theory presupposes a known destination, a map, and the existance of roads that take you from where you are to where you want to be. That is indeed one subset of military problem.

Yes, he is saying that.

But it is not the totality of military (or policy) problems in general. The paper on "mudlding through" (above) explains this quite well. Sometimes there is only a vast desert and the knowledge that if you stay where you are, you will likely die. Going ANYWHERE is preferable to going nowhere.

You are right Warden would never say that.

(with an interesting anecdote in tax policy in the case of Reagan lowering taxes and getting a beneficial economic result and Clinton raising taxes and getting a benficial economic result. One view is that the act of making a decision in each case bouyed public confidence well above what the economic mechanics of the specifc decision would indicate.)

Didn't think much of the article. Read David Stockmans(Reagans budget director) new book. It was a failure and they new it, so they switched on purpose and applied Keysian economics for the DOD, and Reagan became the best Democrat the Republicnas ever elected.

The question is: "given that the 'ends drives the means' is only one of many strategic methods, why should all others be ignored?"

Other methods provide multiple options as well, arguably superior ones when the "end" or the "problem" is not clearly defined (the pesky complex or 'wicked' problems).

What evidence is there for ruling the others out?

None, as I said ASCOPE is a dialect of the Ring-a-nese language and is sometimes easier to understand. There are other examples.

What mission? In this case establishing the no-fly zone WAS 'the mission'. That the politicians have not yet reached concensus on the 'desired endstate' is immaterial to the military which is supposed to give a "jolly aye-aye and how high" when politicians give them a job to do.

You are basically saying that the military should tell their civilian bosses to go stick it when the task they are given does not meet a very narrow set of criteria. That violates our cherished tradtion of civilian control of the military.

Admiral Mullen had know problem expressing his opinion to McCain about Gays in The military, why not say what that he thought about the operation being ill conceived and needed more refinement? And then if the President ordered action do something.