COLLECTIVE MADNESS


“Soft despotism is a term coined by Alexis de Tocqueville describing the state into which a country overrun by "a network of small complicated rules" might degrade. Soft despotism is different from despotism (also called 'hard despotism') in the sense that it is not obvious to the people."

Friday, December 06, 2013

The United States still has an Industrial Age military in an Information Age world. With some exceptions, the focus is more on producing mass strength than achieving precision. Land forces, in particular, need to think less about relying on big bases and more about being able to survive in an era of persistent global surveillance.




Opinions

To improve the U.S. military, shrink it

By Thomas E. Ricks, Friday, December 6, 8:05 PM

Thomas E. Ricks is an adviser on national security at the New America Foundation, where he participates in its “Future of War” project. A former Post reporter, he has written five books about the U.S. military, most recently “The Generals: American Military Command From World War II to Today.”
Want a better U.S. military? Make it smaller. The bigger the military, the more time it must spend taking care of itself and maintaining its structure as it is, instead of changing with the times. And changing is what the U.S. military must begin to do as it recovers from the past decade’s two wars.
For example, the Navy recently christened the USS Gerald R. Ford , an aircraft carrier that cost perhaps $13.5 billion. Its modern aspects include a smaller crew, better radar and a different means of launching aircraft, but it basically looks like the carriers the United States has built for the past half-century. And that means it has a huge “radar signature,” making it highly visible. That could be dangerous in an era of global satellite imagery and long-range precision missiles, neither of which existed when the Ford’s first predecessors were built. As Capt. Henry Hendrix, a naval historian and aviator, wrote this year, today’s carrier, like the massive battleships that preceded it, is “big, expensive, vulnerable — and surprisingly irrelevant to the conflicts of the time.” What use is a carrier if the missiles that can hit it have a range twice as long as that of the carrier’s aircraft?
Indeed, if the U.S. Navy persists in its current acquisition course, it runs the risk of being like the Royal Navy that entered World War II. As ours is today, the British navy then was the world’s biggest and could throw more firepower than any other sea service. Yet it proved largely irrelevant in that war because its leaders had missed the growing significance of submarines and aircraft carriers, not grasping how both had changed the nature of maritime warfare. They thought of carriers as scout ships, providing far-seeing eyes for battleships, when, in fact, carrier aircraft had replaced battleships as the striking arm of the fleet.
Yes, the Royal Navy won the Battle of the Atlantic — but that’s partly because the United States gave it destroyers and other escort ships the admirals had neglected, as well as some crucial long-range land-based aircraft. (One-third of U-boats sunk were hit by aircraft, with another third knocked out by combined air and surface-ship action.)
The issue, therefore, is how to have not the most powerful military today but rather the most relevant military at the point of necessity — a point that cannot be known. To have that, the United States needs a military that is not necessarily “ready for combat” at any given moment but instead is most able to adapt to the events of tomorrow.
The wrong way to prepare is to try to anticipate what the next war will be and then build a military — on land, sea and air — that fits that bill. Guesses about the future will almost certainly be wrong. In 2000, no one thought we would invade Afghanistan the following year. In 1953, Vietnam was a faraway country about which Americans knew little. In 1949, Korea was thought likely to be beyond our defense perimeter. And so on.
The best form of preparedness is to develop a military that is most able to adapt. It should be small and nimble. Its officers should be educated as well as trained because one trains for the known but educates for the unknown — that is, prepares officers to think critically as they go into chaotic, difficult and new situations.
Eugenia Kiesling, a professor of history at West Point, observed that in the period between the world wars, “Smaller forces brought fewer logistical constraints and more rapid adaptation to changes in technology.” That observation is an argument not for a big jack-of-all-trades military but for one that is smaller and optimized through its spending to be nimble.
My point is not to beat up on the Navy. All branches of the U.S. military face the same issue. By and large, the United States still has an Industrial Age military in an Information Age world. With some exceptions, the focus is more on producing mass strength than achieving precision. Land forces, in particular, need to think less about relying on big bases and more about being able to survive in an era of persistent global surveillance. For example, what will happen when the technological advances of the past decade, such as armed drones controlled from the far side of the planet, are turned against us? A drone is little more than a flying improvised explosive device. What if terrorists find ways to send them to Washington addresses they obtain from the Internet?

Imagine a world where, in a few decades, Google (having acquired Palantir) is the world’s largest defense contractor. Would we want generals who think more like George Patton or Steve Jobs — or who offer a bit of both? How do we get them? These are the sorts of questions the Pentagon should begin addressing. If it does not, we should find leaders — civilian and in uniform — who will.

16 comments:

  1. This age old Myth of the Birth of the Hero of our Monomyth of the Coming of A Higher Consciousness is enacted every year many times in SPAIN where the Bull of Ignorance, tough fellow, is finally slain by the Suit of Lights, our Matador, the Hero.

    Since no one remembers the meaning of this rite these illiterate drunken days, we have named our Hero: Quirk, Suit of Lights

    Who is quoted as saying:

    "Life Sucks"

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. And the bull may be thought of as being a professional asshole.

      Delete
    2. And Brett ran way with Romeo or what his name was, our Quirk of the Tight Pants.

      Didn't work out.



      :)

      Delete
    3. He may have beaten the crap out her, can't recall....

      Hemingway scholars?.....

      But the sun, which doesn't give a shit, still rises.......

      Delete
    4. May we be allowed to think of the sun as that higher consciousness?....

      Delete
  2. ObamaCare Horror Story Of The Day coming up now on Fox News...

    ReplyDelete
    Replies

    1. And that relates to military readiness in what way?

      bob

      Delete
    2. ANONYMOUS:
      WARNING WE ARE IN AN OBAMA POLICE STATE



      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uN7KWZwqFw4

      Delete
    3. Working late tonight rat......

      Delete
  3. Looks like this young person may die from ObamaCare......

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  4. Stealth, and modern computer software have changed everything.

    Foreign wars serve only the interests of General Dynamics, and Rockwell, and the 0.01% that own them.

    Just a way to suck up the remaining few cents that the uber-rich missed the first time through.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. The most telling incident to date was the supposed pacifists, Barack Obama, and John Kerry pleading with the American people, "please let us bomb Syria just a little bit - a pin-prick. Please, please."

      Delete
    2. Saved by a couple of "polling" firms.

      Delete
    3. It all worked so well in Viet Nam, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and Kosovo, don’t you know.

      Delete
    4. Small favors that we don’t have a President Romney leading The Conga Line charge into Iran.

      Delete
  5. Dec. 7,

    RIP Unca Rufus

    The West Virginia, Pearl Harbor, 1941

    ReplyDelete