On Thursday, December 13, 2018 at 2:07:49 AM UTC-5, olade wrote:
That is well said and well analysed piece by the author.
Indeed, many generals in the Pentagon never served a single day in
uniform
and many do not possess even basic knowledge of physical principles of which
modern weapons to use and which to operate.
This is because they do not know the changing dimensions that have reflected
by the changing tactical, operational and strategic aspects if war. Even between distance-contact war and close-contact war or invasion war can
make
war dimensions to change and churn and escalate up very fast, sometimes even
in "a blink of an eye".
General should not sit in their air-conditioned Pentagon office. They should
be on the ground to work with the troops on practical and hand-on
aspects of
training with fast changing scenarios of war game plans.
But this is just the symptom. The root cause, if I am to summarize the author's view, is Americans' failure to appreciate Sunzi's opening sentence: 兵者,国之大事,死生之地,存亡之道,不可不察也 because the US has yet to defend the US
nation from foreign invasion/occupation.
"ltlee1" wrote in message news:25532b4c-86ad-43eb-8b72-03e29114b3c2@googlegroups.com...
Andrei Martyanov, the author of LOSING MILITARY SUPREMACY, argues that "American military history is as much a matter of PR spin as it is a
matter
of reality.
All nations, without exception, tend to have their own military
mythologies
and this is normal as long as those mythologies have at least some basis
in
reality. Military historians may argue about the validity of claims
about
the massive armor clash at Prokhorovka on July 12, 1943 during the
Battle of
Kursk, but no serious military historian doubts the battle itself, its gigantic scope and scale, and the massive influence it had not only for
the
war on the Eastern front but on the outcome of World War Two. How can
one
even claim any success militarily for the United States in the last 70 years
when, with the exception of a turkey shoot in the First Gulf War, the United
States as a nation and its much-vaunted military didn’t win a single
war?
The latest massive geostrategic failure in Syria only underscores the
sad
state of American fighting doctrine and of its war technology. As
Geoffrey
Aronson’s title to his article on Syria states: “Washington Relegated to
Bystander Status in Syria Talks. Yet it is still attempting to
manipulate,
and will lose at that, too.”13 Manipulation and PR are no substitute for actual victory which is defined universally as achieving the political objectives of the war, or in Clausewitz’s one liner—the ability to compel
the enemy to do our will. The United States military’s balance sheet on that
is simply not impressive, despite a mammoth military budget, immensely expensive weapons and a massive, well-oiled PR machine. All this is the result of the US military-industrial complex long ago becoming a jobs program for retired Pentagon generals and an embodiment of the neoconservative “view” on war—a view developed by people, most of whom
never
served a single day in uniform and do not possess even basic fundamental knowledge of the physical principles on which modern weapons operate and how
technological dimensions reflect upon tactical, operational and
strategic
aspects of war (they are all tightly interconnected and do not exist separately)."
On Thursday, December 13, 2018 at 2:07:49 AM UTC-5, olade wrote:
That is well said and well analysed piece by the author.
Indeed, many generals in the Pentagon never served a single day in
uniform
and many do not possess even basic knowledge of physical principles of which
modern weapons to use and which to operate.
This is because they do not know the changing dimensions that have reflected
by the changing tactical, operational and strategic aspects if war. Even between distance-contact war and close-contact war or invasion war can
make
war dimensions to change and churn and escalate up very fast, sometimes even
in "a blink of an eye".
General should not sit in their air-conditioned Pentagon office. They should
be on the ground to work with the troops on practical and hand-on
aspects of
training with fast changing scenarios of war game plans.
But this is just the symptom. The root cause, if I am to summarize the author's view, is Americans' failure to appreciate Sunzi's opening sentence: 兵者,国之大事,死生之地,存亡之道,不可不察也 because the US has yet to defend the US
nation from foreign invasion/occupation.
"ltlee1" wrote in message news:25532b4c-86ad-43eb-8b72-03e29114b3c2@googlegroups.com...
Andrei Martyanov, the author of LOSING MILITARY SUPREMACY, argues that "American military history is as much a matter of PR spin as it is a
matter
of reality.
All nations, without exception, tend to have their own military
mythologies
and this is normal as long as those mythologies have at least some basis
in
reality. Military historians may argue about the validity of claims
about
the massive armor clash at Prokhorovka on July 12, 1943 during the
Battle of
Kursk, but no serious military historian doubts the battle itself, its gigantic scope and scale, and the massive influence it had not only for
the
war on the Eastern front but on the outcome of World War Two. How can
one
even claim any success militarily for the United States in the last 70 years
when, with the exception of a turkey shoot in the First Gulf War, the United
States as a nation and its much-vaunted military didn’t win a single
war?
The latest massive geostrategic failure in Syria only underscores the
sad
state of American fighting doctrine and of its war technology. As
Geoffrey
Aronson’s title to his article on Syria states: “Washington Relegated to
Bystander Status in Syria Talks. Yet it is still attempting to
manipulate,
and will lose at that, too.”13 Manipulation and PR are no substitute for actual victory which is defined universally as achieving the political objectives of the war, or in Clausewitz’s one liner—the ability to compel
the enemy to do our will. The United States military’s balance sheet on that
is simply not impressive, despite a mammoth military budget, immensely expensive weapons and a massive, well-oiled PR machine. All this is the result of the US military-industrial complex long ago becoming a jobs program for retired Pentagon generals and an embodiment of the neoconservative “view” on war—a view developed by people, most of whom
never
served a single day in uniform and do not possess even basic fundamental knowledge of the physical principles on which modern weapons operate and how
technological dimensions reflect upon tactical, operational and
strategic
aspects of war (they are all tightly interconnected and do not exist separately)."
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