Quote Originally Posted by TheCurmudgeon View Post
I believe you are right, particularly when you say that, while the nature of war may not have change, the nature of politics has. I have been playing with this same concept for some time, and have considered writing on it, although I have not thought through how this actually alters strategy. That would be my interest.

What are you planning on doing with this? How can we help?
Concur, and this is what I'm struggling with in the Strategy in the 21st Century forum section I'm working on occasionally. Will definitely update it in late April when I have some time based on recent insights gained from a number of readings and discussions, but most prominently the book "Connectography," which I just posted a short review of in the what are you reading section. Globalization is changing governance more than local issues in my view, and that change in governance and priorities has implications for strategy. Our current strategy is inept, we're squandering our wealth via military operations that give us little in return. When they don't work we double down and give it another go. If we're not careful we'll find ourselves in a similar situation that the USSR found itself in at the end of the Cold War.

I realize you and AP are playing it safe, because the dogmatic ones who tend to dominate the military education systems love to promote that the nature of war doesn't change, only its character. However, being a little more iconoclastic, I think the very nature of war is changing. Fortunately there are ongoing studies led by non-U.S. academics (thankfully) to honestly explore this argument.

We have impacted the world little since the end of the Cold War, the world has changed, and we don't know how to wield our power to achieve desired ends anymore. Our political system is in shambles, and we're no longer the shinning light on the hill for much of the world. What does it mean? Will we actually evolve, or relying on blind faith, ride our outdated world view until it spins out of control into its death spiral?

The following article is sad, but true. Our government will not fix itself, and electing populists like Trump may seem appealing because he is from outside the system, this approach never works. He isn't a professional in policy any more than the lawyers in Congress. Even if he was a visionary, our system doesn't allow visionaries to make progress. Our system is flawed by design to ensure we have a relatively weak government, well that worked, but a weak government can't address our challenges domestically or internationally.

https://medium.com/@paragkhanna/5-wa...s-dccaa2ce1d0a

5 Ways America’s Government is Much Worse than Other Countries

Donald Trump just won the ultimate reality show: American politics. Since Trump’s shocking election victory, people around the world have been wondering how such a great democracy could so easily come off the rails. Many citizens of foreign countries are even taking pride in how much better their systems are than America’s. Based on my new book Technocracy in America, here are five ways other political systems are more effective than America’s.
(1) Unelected electors indirectly elect our president
(2) The Cabinet is stacked with friends of the president
(3) The government is full of political hacks rather than professional experts
(4) We have two useless chambers of Congress instead of just one
(5) We don’t amend the Constitution even though it is desperately needed