William S. Lind :collection (merged thread)

[jcustis]

I've got my issues with DO as well, but Mr. Lind demonstrates once again a certain degree of ignorance through his writing, which is a pity.

Sea Dragon was a concept experiment, not merely a justification to fund new programs. It was also not developed with small wars in mind per se, which undoubtedly do need lots of light infantry.

I think Mr. Lind is simply barking up the wrong tree. DO depends on tactical mobility, whether one wants to admit it or not, and that mobility has to have a relative advantage over the enemy's mobility. When operating in the hinterlands of Afghanistan, Jaeger tactics won't amount to crap unless you can move.

Across the spectrum of distributed operations, light infantry might not even be the answer. Although they had an infantry core, the British SAS and Long Range Desert Group (built from Commonwealth formations) didn't look like light infantry at all. They operated behind enemy lines, usually without mutual support, but relied on cavalry tactics to a degree, and a whole lotta vehicles to do it.

LAVs can offer a degree of tactical mobility required for distributed operations, but I guess it is pointless to look a their further development because they are from "a long list of the usual big-bucks programs—"MRAP, EFV, JLTV, LAV, V-22, CH53K," L-70 class Zeppelins etc.—which distributed ops supposedly justifies."

From the Wikipedia article on Lind (who by the way never once rucked up):

Lind has authored and co-authored a number of monographs on behalf of the Free Congress Foundation attempting to persuade American conservatives to support government funding for mass transit programs. He was a co-host of an NET program on light rail called The New Electric Railway Journal.

Maybe we should just move about the battlefield on light rails. Give me a break...Maybe Mr. Lind needs to be given a whole lot of books on the history of the N. Africa Campaign in WWII.
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Edited to add: As I step back and think about it, I think some of the confusion on DO may stem from the historical examples used. I strongly believe that the Long Range Desert Group is actually a markedly better case study to use when discussing DO. Anyone from MCWL and MCCDC listening?