Bruce Lee bragging in order to spur himself to greater efforts to back up the brag was a great stratagem, for Bruce Lee. Anything will work for an individual who is driven from within as he was; elite athletes and spec ops types too for that matter. I am not so sure that works for large organizations. Given the frailties of human nature, I think it much more likely that continually crowing about being the best makes such organizations complacent and keeps them in the same old groove. Why change what has made them the "best"? There is more than one factor that keeps us from adapting, but I think that firmly believing we are the "best" is one of the factors.
Blaming the politicians is something the military establishment has done for years. I'll bet it is something they teach at the secret multi-star school that exists in the basement of the MGM Grand in Las Vegas. It is true to an extent, but only to an extent. To give two examples of things the military does to itself, flip ones but they do go to the point, the politicians haven't created and inflicted the cult of powerpoint nor that of the reflective belt upon the military. The politicians don't much care if the military is FOBed up or not. They have proved that. The politicians are only partially responsible for constructing the temple of the night raid. The military doesn't adapt at military things they way we would hope. That is partially the fault of the military.
We have gone on doing the same thing for ten years, or one year at a time 10 ten times. That is the sense I get from bits of reading. Are we still road bound? I get the sense that we mostly are. Have we lightened the soldiers load in the 10 years we've been walking those sere hills and mountains? Have we cut down on the night raids? Do very high ranking military officers still go along with the fantasy that the Pak Army/ISI is useful? Is the date when the F-35 will be combat ready still unknown? Do we have a new tanker in the sky yet? Does the LCS have anything but a 57mm gun to fight with yet?
Reading On Violence I believe the authors well understand the value of high tech weapons. What they mostly object to is high tech that isn't worth the cost and weapons that don't seem to work. The F-35 example is mine, the little light bomber that can't-be all things to all men at least not until the year 2035. I can't speak for them on the need to maintain an industrial base but I understand the need for it. And I also see that we are very close to having only one, count it, one fighter mfg.
Competent is as competent does. It doesn't matter if most of the multi-stars know what they are doing if the corps of general officers produces inferior results, which it can be argued, they do.
You don't mean I have to give up selling material to Leno do you?
Bookmarks