New Rules of War

[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.