The Military/War Thread

[rms]

Some points take longer to make - so, as Dak said, you have to learn how to read for major claims.

learn to read by.... not reading

college!

 

[Dak]

I don't think it's optimal but it's how things are and have been done.

 

[H.P. Lovecraft]

Yeah, unfortunately they'd sooner you dissect texts with a meat cleaver than understand all the little nuances. Such is life, read it again on your own time when you don't have the professorial intelligentsia mouthbreathing down your neck.

 

[Einherjar86]

That's basically it.

In my experience, most professors assign excerpts from longer secondary texts, but occasionally you get into a seminar in which you have to read the whole thing (history seminars are more well-known for this, actually). Eventually you figure out how to read critically without reading completely.

Always read the introductory chapter, which should clue you in to important terms, concepts, and figures. After that, scope out the index and check out relevant passages, or possibly chapters. Definitely pay attention to sections/chapters that appear to relate closely to other reading assigned for the class, if not for that session. The concluding chapter is probably the least important, but I usually think it's fun to read.

These primers are intended to help you figure out where your interests lie, so that you can, on your own time, read the books that spoke to you the most in their entirety.

Finally, I like how the military thread has turned into a "how to read like a grad student" thread.

 

[Dak]

Finally, I like how the military thread has turned into a "how to read like a grad student" thread.

Yeah, time to get it back on track.

A decent writeup on 4GW. I think there's a lot of discussion fodder there.

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2001/12/fourth-generation-warfare/302368/

In one corner stand advocates for something along the lines of the status quo (whatever they may now say about the need for "flexibility"). In the opposing corner are champions of the late John Boyd, a colonel in the Air Force and an innovative theorist who considered that large, expensive weapons systems that took forever to produce were as much of an enemy as hostile foreign powers. A student of Sun-Tzu and Clausewitz, Boyd advocated reforms—many of which have been successfully adopted by the Marine Corps but have met with resistance elsewhere, particularly in the Army—that stressed a number of interrelated elements. Chief among them: adaptability and agility as the driving forces of combat; weapons that are dependable, simple, and cheap; and decentralization of command and communications, so that fighting units aren't at the mercy of layers of decision-makers.

With Mattis in charge of the military for a while, we may see the Army resistance broken here.

Edit: Related

https://www.theatlantic.com/interna...he-foreign-policy-deal-trump-cold-war/510659/

During the Cold War, Trump wrote, “foreign policy was a big chess game” between the Soviet Union and the United States and its allies, with every other country a “bystander.” But the fall of the U.S.S.R. had changed the game, he argued: “We deal with all the other nations of the world on a case-by-case basis. And a lot of those bystanders don’t look so innocent.” As Trump saw it, “the day of the chess player is over … American foreign policy has to be put in the hands of a dealmaker.”

.............................

For much of its history, from the Louisiana Purchase to the Marshall Plan, and especially during the presidency of Trump’s favorite dealmaker, Franklin Roosevelt, the United States prioritized geoeconomics in its foreign policy, Blackwill and Harris argue. But ever since the Cold War, the U.S. government has mainly employed diplomatic and military tools. It regularly imposes economic sanctions on other countries, but rarely takes other geoeconomic measures.

With this sort of geopolitical outlook, having an agile military is important. Makes sense then why he would put a Marine in charge.

 

[Dak]

At the behest of @rms :

https://www.commentarymagazine.com/american-society/military/nsa-trump-h-r-mcmaster-challenge/

Mattis and McMaster share the following belief:

In more recent years, McMaster has become known for his prescient critique of the technological utopianism that gripped much of the armed forces starting in the 1990s. McMaster has consistently warned that no technological fix will ensure American battlefield dominance and that the lessons of the past have not been rendered obsolete by computer innovations. Few people have thought more deeply about the nature of war based both on extensive reading and personal experience.

Mattis discussed the need for the U.S. military to transform to a "hybrid" force that expands its nonconventional means without sacrificing classic warfighting competence.

Broadly defined, irregular warfare refers to conflict with an enemy that does not organize itself as a traditional military. As in the cases of Iraq and Afghanistan, this type of fighting entails stealthy attacks such as roadside bombings and ambushes, instead of direct military-to-military engagement.

In calculating how to establish greater balance among the two types of warfare, the general said, he noticed a common thread among past armies that morphed to meet a new set of challenges.

"Every military that transformed, that changed, that modernized, did so on the basis of one thing," he said. "They identified a problem and solved it."

These historical precedents are relevant today because the fundamental nature of war is unchanging, he added.

This belief among two students of war and history is unsurprisingly Clauswitzian:

https://warontherocks.com/2014/01/u...ring-nature-alongside-its-changing-character/

Technological advances are driving “changes in the nature of warfare”, according to the New America Foundation’s Future of War program. Few would argue that the tools and methods used to wage war change with the times, but students of Clausewitz are skeptical about supposed changes in what we believe to be war’s enduring nature. According to the Prussian, war’s nature does not change—only its character. The way we use these words today can seem to render such a distinction meaningless, but careful attention to semantics can reveal real problems in how we think about war, society, and the future.

The nature of war describes its unchanging essence: that is, those things that differentiate war (as a type of phenomenon) from other things. War’s nature is violent, interactive, and fundamentally political. Absent any of these elements, what you’re talking about is not war but something else.

The character of war describes the changing way that war as a phenomenon manifests in the real world. As war is a political act that takes place in and among societies, its specific character will be shaped by those politics and those societies—by what Clausewitz called the “spirit of the age.” War’s conduct is undoubtedly influenced by technology, law, ethics, culture, methods of social, political, and military organization, and other factors that change across time and place.

 

[H.P. Lovecraft]

Couldn't agree more. Sun Tzu, Clausewitz, Rommel, Caesar, all of wartime's greatest commander/writers and their guidance and observation cannot be outdone by some computer chip or laser-guided weapon. There's no substitute for tactical acumen and good, even great soldiers. Mattis and McMaster have the nail dead and boarded into the casket on this one.

 

[rms]

I guess Clausewitz is defining 'interactive' as human on human interaction? (not a military-history scholar at all, sadly =/) Not sure about the short term future on that premise

 

[H.P. Lovecraft]

I guess Clausewitz is defining 'interactive' as human on human interaction? (not a military-history scholar at all, sadly =/) Not sure about the short term future on that premise

What Clausewitz refers to with war being "interactive", are the subjective human elements of it, for instance policy on war crime, what is morally acceptable, the odds of victory or defeat in relation to combatants' resolve, etc.

 

[Dak]

I haven't read On War, but based on the things I have read about the Clausewitzian approach, I would more or less agree. As the other article I linked noted, the idea is that although technological, technical, and local changes and specifics may alter warfare over time and space, *war* is relatively unchanging in so far as humans are relatively unchanging.

 

[TechnicalBarbarity]

Interesting read. Russian SS-18 Satan...

https://in.rbth.com/blogs/2014/05/2..._going_ballistic_over_a_russian_missile_35461

http://www.military-today.com/missiles/ss18_satan.htm

"The SS-18 Satan is a very capable missile, mainly because of its high speed and extremely high throw weight. It can carry up to 10 MIRVs and up to 40 penetration aids. So this missile is hard to intercept. According to Western intelligence data from late '80s, Soviets were able to destroy 70-80 percent of US ICBM silos during first strike, and after that, they would have 1 000+ warheads left to attack other US targets. Some sources report that a single SS-18 missile with MIRVs can completely destroy 3 US states, such as Maryland, Vermont and Rhode Island."

 

[H.P. Lovecraft]

Beastly little things, remember reading up on them during the Cold War, I'd be shocked if the U.S. doesn't have something equally deadly hidden away in the Rocky Mountains or the like though. That's an appallingly biased website too.

 

[TechnicalBarbarity]

i have more than one site there. And you can pick and choose from hundreds of them(sites with similar info on it) anyway.

 

[H.P. Lovecraft]

I know, I just meant the "Russia & India Report" article.

 

[rms]

According to Western intelligence data from late '80s, Soviets were able to destroy 70-80 percent of US ICBM silos during first strike, and after that, they would have 1 000+ warheads left to attack other US

That's an appallingly biased website too.

you don't say?

 

[TechnicalBarbarity]

let me guess, bias because its RUSSIA and India Report? Any news source from out here that includes our countries/cities names should be discredited?

Beastly little things, remember reading up on them during the Cold War, I'd be shocked if the U.S. doesn't have something equally deadly hidden away in the Rocky Mountains or the like though. That's an appallingly biased website too.

the Russian are much better at keeping secrets though. Something we're not too good at.

 

[TechnicalBarbarity]

you don't say?

that quote isnt from the website he claims is bias. You're idiocy/illiteracy has caught up with you once again.

 

[H.P. Lovecraft]

let me guess, bias because its RUSSIA and India Report? Any news source from out here that includes our countries/cities names should be discredited?
the Russian are much better at keeping secrets though. Something we're not too good at.

What are you on about? I read the article, it's slanted like a motherfucker. I don't care if the website is entitled "Hot GILFs For Sale", that shit reads like a propaganda reel. The Russians are better at hiding things than we are, true enough.

 

[TechnicalBarbarity]

.. but you were acting like you were so familiar with that "appallingly biased website"

Anyway, you can pick and choose through hundreds of very similar articles. they must all be "appallingly biased" though

 

[H.P. Lovecraft]

.. but you were acting like you were so familiar with that "appallingly biased website"

Anyway, you can pick and choose through hundred of very similar article.

Should've said "article", that's just my first impression of them after reading that article.