Thursday, February 25, 2010

New Rules Of War

Am Pow's Dr Douglas shares some intell on the cat that's sure to "shake, shake, shake it" up among the militarized mindsets

"When John Arquilla came to UCSB to give a job talk, back in the 1990s, one thing sticks out in my memory: He was the only prospective faculty hire who flirted with the female graduate students during a colloquium!"

"He was quirky and extremely knowledgeable."

Dang. Straight!

As one of the Vulcans enablers - that helped to advise and guide Great Satan's 30 in the future military - it's no surprise that Dr A is still looking into the future.

And he blings forth a massive caveat:

The New Rules of War

It's a hefty - but fast read - and fully crunk with money shots, a concise history of how warmaking got to this point and fuel for thought.

"Indeed, it is ironic that, in an era in which the attraction to persuasive "soft power" has grown dramatically, coercive "hard power" continues to dominate in world affairs. This is no surprise in the case of rogue nations hellbent on developing nuclear arsenals to ensure their security, nor when it comes to terrorist networks that think their essential nature is revealed in and sustained by violent acts.

"But this primary reliance on coercive capabilities is also on display across a range of countries great and small, most notably the United States, whose defense policy has over the past decade largely become its foreign policy.

"From the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, to simmering crises with North Korea and Iran, and on to longer-range strategic concerns about East Asian and Central European security, the United States today is heavily invested in hard-power solutions.


"And it will continue to be.

"But if the radical adjustments in strategy, organization, and doctrine implied by the new rules of war are ignored, Americans will go on spending more and getting less when it comes to national defense. Networks will persist until they have the capability to land nuclear blows.

"Other countries will leapfrog ahead of the United States militarily, and concepts like "deterrence" and "containment" of aggression will blow away like leaves in the wind.

"So it has always been. Every era of technological change has resulted in profound shifts in military and strategic affairs. History tells us that these developments were inevitable, but soldiers and statesmen were almost always too late in embracing them -- and tragedies upon tragedies ensued.


"There is still time to be counted among the exceptions, like the Byzantines who, after the fall of Rome, radically redesigned their military and preserved their empire for another thousand years.

"The U.S. goal should be to join the ranks of those who, in their eras, caught glimpses of the future and acted in time to shape it, saving the world from darkness.

Pic - "The fact that slaughter is a horrifying spectacle must make us take war
more seriously, but not provide an excuse for gradually blunting our swords in the name of humanity. Sooner or later someone will come along with a sharper sword and hack off our heads."

5 comments:

Render said...

There prolly should be a law against paintball guns, painted women, and the term "money shots" all in the same blog post.

But I'll have to dig in deeper for the answers to that.

CALL
MY
HOLDS,
R

Anonymous said...

JA is genius. The more I read here, the more I'm convinced that you are as well. And, that I love you... Well, at least badly blog-smitten.

courtneyme109 said...

Thanks Render! You may be correct

courtneyme109 said...

LOLZ! A'mous - am reliably informed i'm only '...tolerable in small doses..."

Anonymous said...

you sometimes stop being innovative and just go for an accepted solution without Interesting… I might try some of this on my blog, too. It’s quite interesting how actually trying to improve it… you make a couple of good points.

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