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2006-01-28 Home Front: WoT

Ralph Peters: The Counterrevolution in Military Affairs

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Posted by tipper 2006-01-28 09:14|| || Front Page|| [11127 views since 2007-05-07] Top

#1 ..I rarely agree with Mr. Peters about anything, but I have a chilling suspicion he's right on this one.

Mike

Posted by Mike Kozlowski 2006-01-28 10:02|| 2006-01-28 10:02|| Front Page Top

#2 The present confusion in the civilian mind and the true military mind respecting the purposes of armies and limits of warfare is attributable to many circumstances. Among them, no doubt, is the character of military history as it has commonly been written. Ordinary citizens are lacking in the raw experience of combat, or deficient in technical knowledge, and inclined to leave the compilation of military records to experts in such affairs. Writers on general history have tended to neglect the broader aspects of military issues; confining themselves to accounts of campaigns and battles, handled often in a cursory fashion, they have usually written on the wars of their respective countries in order to glorify their prowess, with little or no reference to the question whether these wars were conducted in the military way of high efficiency or in the militaristic way, which wastes blood and treasure.

Even more often, in recent times, general historians have neglected military affairs and restricted their reflections to what they are pleased to call the causes and consequences of wars; or they have even omitted them altogether. This neglect may be ascribed to many sources. The first is, perhaps, a recognition of the brutal fact that the old descriptions of campaigns are actually of so little value civilian and military alike. Another has been the growing emphasis on economic and social fields deemed normal and the distaste of economic and social historians for war, which appears so disturbing to the normal course of events. Although Adam Smith included a chapter on the subject of military defense in his Wealth of Nations as a regular part of the subject, modern economists concentrate on capital, wages, interest, rent, and other features of peaceful pursuits, largely forgetting war as a phase of all economy, ancient or modern. When the mention the subject of armies and military defense, these are commonly referred to as institutions and actions which interrupt the regular balance of economic life. And the third source of indifference is the effort of pacifists and peace advocates to exclude wars and military affairs from general histories, with the view to uprooting any military or militaristic tendencies from the public mind, on the curious assumption that by ignoring realties the realties themselves will disappear.

This lack of a general fund of widely disseminated military information is perilous to the maintenance of civilian power in government. The civilian mind, presumably concerned with the maintenance of peace and the shaping of policies by the limits of efficient military defense, can derive no instruction from acrimonious disputes between militarists, limitless in their demands, and pacifists, lost in utopian visions. Where the civilians fail to comprehend and guide military policy, the true military men, distinguished from the militarists, are also imperiled. For these the executioners of civilian will, dedicated to the preparation of defense and war with the utmost regard for efficiency, are dependent upon the former.

Again, and again, the military men have seen themselves hurled into war by ambitions, passions, and blunders of civilian governments, almost wholly uninformed as to the limits of their military potentials and almost recklessly indifferent to the military requirements of the wars they let loose. Aware that they may again be thrown by civilians into an unforeseen conflict, perhaps with a foe they have not envisaged, these realistic military men find themselves unable to do anything save demand all the men, guns, and supplies they can possibly wring from the civilians, in the hope that they may be prepared or half prepared for whatever may befall them. In so doing they inevitably find themselves associated with militaristic military men who demand all they can get merely for the sake of having it without reference to ends.

Vagts, Alfred, History of Militarism, rev. 1959, Free Press, NY, pp 33-34.

Posted by Phish Spereper9462 2006-01-28 10:56|| 2006-01-28 10:56|| Front Page Top

#3 that's a really good article, don't miss page 2. I think he's waaaay too pessimistic and ignores what is going right - but here really captures what is going wrong.

Say what you want, but this is a holy war. It's Christ against Mohammed. It's the same exact fight, regardless of what "faith" you believe in. You either embrace the individual ideals of tolerance and forgiveness or you embrace blame and revenge. I know many Jews/atheists who adhere to Christ's teachings better than I.

Islamists/Elites say they are for tolerance and forgiveness but only they want to enforce that OTHERS to embody those traits. Practicing Christians try to dig deep to enforce it in themselves. I hate Joe Smoe because he hurt me in some way. God help me to forgive him v/s I hate Joe Smoe, I'm going to sabotage him to get even. You are on Christ's side of this battle if you think tolerance and forgiveness are something you, yourself have to dig deep for. You are on Mohammed's side if you think that tolerance and forgiveness are something "we all" (ie: others) need to embrace or something that needs laws and juries to enforce.

Age old battle - good v/s evil. Christ just had a better way of preventing the wars.

Posted by 2b 2006-01-28 11:13|| 2006-01-28 11:13|| Front Page Top

#4 The problem is neither a lack of will or of the limitations of technology. The problem is the wrong kind of technology.

To start with, if you examine the US Navy, the trend would seem to be that eventually we would have only one ship, of amazing technological advancement, and of immeasureable expense. But how impregnable is *any* ship? If we were to lose just that one, we would be helpless.

But seriously, how many of our highly advanced and expensive ships could we lose right now without compromising our ability to force project? A mere twenty or thirty?

In World War II, the US lost 5 aircraft carriers, 6 escort aircraft carriers, 2 battleships, 7 heavy cruisers, 3 light cruisers, 70 destroyers, 11 destroyer escorts, and 52 submarines. Not including the rest of the ships:

http://www.navsource.org/Naval/losses.htm#bb

We right now have the largest navy in the world, but if that navy was degraded, with many ships lost, how quickly could they be replaced? As in WWII, could we "crank out" expendable combat vessels seemingly overnight, if our enemy did the same?

But from the straightforward to the ridiculous, what if our entire military paradigm, the preservation of as many enemy lives as possible, was turned on its head? That is, if we were forced into a war with an army of such immense size that we would have to cut them down like blades of grass?

China, for example, could theoretically field an army of perhaps 300 million men. And even equipped with swords and knives, how could we fight such an army?

300 million expendable men.

What monstrous state of affairs could lead to this is not the question. The questions is what to do, technologically, to overcome this problem?

Posted by Anonymoose 2006-01-28 12:40|| 2006-01-28 12:40|| Front Page Top

#5 I think RP is wrong though I certainly respect his opinion. He ignores two simple facts: 1) the supply of suicide bombers is limited and 2) it isn't easy to increase that supply.

Consider the experience of the Paleo splodydopes. The men who groom and train the dopes to explode started running out of candidates, to the point that they had to bring into training women (they managed to find a way to square that with their beliefs), then children, then retarded children. As appealing as 72 virgins and the glory of being a shahid were, they couldn't convince the average Mahmoud to give up his pestilent life on earth and strap on a bomb.

We recognize the courage and honor of a Nathan Hale or a soldier who jumps on a live grenade because, in addition to the innate heroism and humanity, it is rare. Not many men or women will do that. Most of us want to live.

So too in the Muslim lands. The Qur'an may glorify death in jihad, but hundreds of millions of Muslims have declined the offer. They have better things to do.

So the supply of would-be suicide bombers is limited. Human nature comes into this, best typlified by the Arab notion of the 'strong horse'. That's another way of saying that most people want to be on the winning side. It's one thing to strap on a bomb in the belief that your action is going to mean something, and another to know that your side is getting its ass kicked, leaving you ONLY with the consolation of 72 virgins in the after-life. Sometimes who's winning and who isn't is unclear (WWII in early 1942, for example), but it becomes difficult to recruit suicide bombers when you're clearly losing (even the Japanese began to run short of kamikazes near the end of the war).

What's interesting to me in all this isn't how many young Muslims are willing to be suicide bombers, but how few. Their impact becomes magnified, at least psychologically and at least for a while, precisely because they are so few. Again, witness the response of Israel -- from shock to horror to grim determination and jocular humor. Did the Paleo splodydopes move the Israelis? At first, clearly yes, and the Oslo accords and the hand-wringing in Israel were evidence of that. Then the Israelis became hardened and elected a leader, Ariel Sharon, who decided to put an end to that nonsense. The result -- the Paleos are further away today from their goal of a 'Palestine' from the Jordan to the Med then they've ever been. Did suicide bombing work in Israel? Not any more.

And that's the problem I have with Mr. Peters. He assumes that the suicide bomber will always be effective, especially when used against a western, democratic state. The evidence says otherwise. We become hardened to terror -- witness the Brits during 'the Blitz' in 1940. Did the bombing of London force the Brits to knuckle under? Did the wave of V-1 and V-2 attacks in 1944 bring about a collapse in morale? Not hardly. The Brits became more determined than ever.

That will be the response of our country, and why, if suicide bombings and terrorist attacks continue, our country will not elect the hand-wringer, the cut-and-run politicans, and the quasi-socialists on the Democratic left. We aren't going to knuckle under, and we won't give power to those who will.

That will be reflected in our military. Perhaps the emphasis on developing high technology is wrong, but our soldiers and Marines have had no problem getting up close and personal with our enemies in Iraq and Afghanistan. The combination of the two is a fearsome, lethal thing to behold, and something the Islamofascists still don't understand.

Mr. Peters misses it also.

Posted by Steve White">Steve White 2006-01-28 12:41|| 2006-01-28 12:41|| Front Page Top

#6 One of the worst things Peters has ever written. For one thing, he buries the conclusion in the middle of the article and then throws it away:

our revolution in military affairs appears more an indulgence than an investment. In the end, our enemies will not outfight us. We'll muster the will to do what must be done--after paying a needlessly high price in the lives of our troops and damage to our domestic infrastructure. We will not be beaten, but we may be shamed and embarrassed on a needlessly long road to victory.

Exactly the same can be written about any other war we have been forced into. We are not an inherently martial people. And peacetime defence expenditures in democracies have more to do with spreading appropriations to the maximum number of constituents than with military efficiency. But that's a minor issue by the time the drums begin to roll.

Peters also goes on to confuse the war of faith with Islam with a war of commerce with China.

Before 9/11 I thought China would be our next great adversary. But, I have come to realize that we are not destined to combat with China as we are with Islam. Just as the rational among us recognize we could not conquer the Chinese ("Never get involved in a land war in Asia"), so the rational in China recognize they could never conquer us. So we'll settle into trade tiffs with them while everybody gets rich and more Chinese and Americans become rational. For nothing makes a man so rational as profit.

But the war with Islam is an irrational war of faith versus toleration as best described in The Cousins' Wars: Religion, Politics, and the Triumph of Anglo-America. The Anglosphere has been fighting these wars since 1642. (That's about the time the Muslims started their losing streak.) The Anglosphere has yet to lose one, though they do like to make them close, at first. The Islamists have not studied our history anywhere near as much as we have studied theirs; had they done so, they would be treading with greater trepidation.

The Revolutionary hero relevant here is not Nathan Hale, but John Paul Jones, "I have not yet begun to figtht." But when we do begin to fight, the Islamists, full of futile faith, will face the implacable and remorseless foe of rationality and tolerance that, when left no other alternative, will fight for its life more viciously than any man of faith with far greater efficiency and lethality. We simply are not yet agreed that we have exhausted all the alternatives. When we are, the Islamist evil will be destroyed as utterly as fascism, slavery, bonapartism or divine right royalty. It is the length of time to reach this consensus that is so frustrating to Peters, and so many others, especially those who have seen the cost of delay. But that seems to be one of the requirements for the Anglosphere to reach its full potential for destructiveness. Whether any Muslims or Islam survive this destruction will be inconsequential by then.

Posted by Nimble Spemble 2006-01-28 13:11|| 2006-01-28 13:11|| Front Page Top

#7 The Islamists have not studied our history anywhere near as much as we have studied theirs; had they done so, they would be treading with greater trepidation.

good points above. But I disagree with this point that you make, Nemble. The number one rule of warfare is know your enemy. The point he touches on that I think we ignore at our own peril is the part where he talks about the similarity between Islamists and "elites".

I disagree with him about technology, but I think we can all agree that if we are to lose this battle, it will not be lost on the battlefield. We could conclude it tomorrow with the technology we have today. But it is indeed a test of wills - and we have not proved that we have the will to win it. This war is not like any other we have ever fought. Our enemy's don't have defined uniforms or characteristics.

We are fighting anti-Americanism. With the media, elites, communists and Islamists all working against us, we could lose this battle much the same way we lost in Vietnam. This is much more like a civil war than a battle against Islamists. Remember, if only 600,000 votes in Ohio went the other way, the world would be a very different place today. And all of that technology could be in the hands of John Kerry and thus the UN. And that could easily happen in a few years.

We don't know our enemy. And worse, too many are terrified to get to know him. Good for Peters for approaching the subject. All who pride yourself in being above the discussion of faiths in this war are kidding yourself. The topic terrifies people. Mention it and you can see people scramble from the room like cockroaches when you switch on the light. It's as if to discuss the matter, you will be mugged by a group of blue haired grannies, cheered on Pat Roberts and dragged to an altar. All I can say is that we better get over that if we want to win.

You can't fight a war if you can't talk about the reasons it is being fought. Good for Peters for having the guts to discuss it. Nobody else does.

Posted by 2b 2006-01-28 13:47|| 2006-01-28 13:47|| Front Page Top

#8 This war is not like any other we have ever fought.

I couldn't disagree more. The weapons are different but how different are the Islamists from the communists, fascists, slave owners and divine right kings? No anti-Americans there. Men of faith and fanatics all. And where was the unity of purpose among the Anglosphere natins before their backs were pressed to the wall? No, there's far too much deja vu again.

Ultimately, we don't need to know our enemy. We only need to know how to fight him and destroy him. We do not seek to conquer our enemies. We do not seek to convert them. We seek to utterly destroy them until they unconditionally surrender. Then the understanding and conversion begins.

Posted by Nimble Spemble 2006-01-28 14:01|| 2006-01-28 14:01|| Front Page Top

#9 The Islamists have not studied our history anywhere near as much as we have studied theirs; had they done so, they would be treading with greater trepidation.

Most people in the "west" have neither studied Islamic history nor Western history.

And they are most of the way down the road towards convincing themselves that the US is the second coming of Nazi Germany and the suicide bombers are all brave heroes.

OTOH, while it's all fine and good for Col. Peters to point this out, and that technological solutions _in general_ may be the wrong approach to the problem, he appears to shy away from what would be needed to counteract the whole passive-aggressive "death of a thousand cuts" approach the axis of chickenshit wishes to inflict on us.

Industrial policy? Import tarriffs? That we stop pretending we can have free trade with people who still approach foreign policy as "the game of princes" and think they're playing Civilization?

That we actually apply the sort of press controls we had in WW2, or some fraction thereof? Most of the ignorant retards in what passes for the citizenry of the West (i.e. most of them) would take this as evidence of our absolute evil.

Col. Peters maintains that we don't have a technical solution to suicide bombers attacking our troops, and that the likely response on their part to such a development would be to target more civilians.

(Actually, that part has already happened, and groups that kill many more Iraqi civilians than US soldiers are lionized as "freedom fighters" while the US is blamed for the deaths of civilians. And the people doing the lionizing go to bed at night not only telling themselves that they're more moral than everyone else, but that they're more intelligent as well. And we accept it.)

Posted by Phil 2006-01-28 14:09|| 2006-01-28 14:09|| Front Page Top

#10 The weapons are different but how different are the Islamists from the communists, fascists, slave owners and divine right kings? No anti-Americans there.

I believe you have missed my point. First of all, I resent the comment about "converting people". I never said that and to imply that was my goal is exactly the reason that no one can discuss this in a rational manner. Besides, I think it is the good Muslim people themselves who do understand the enemy who will ultimately help us win this war. That's how it is working out in Iraq.

Furthermore, my point is that - it IS the same as communist, Islamism, fascism etc. It is dejavu all over again. It always is. There is a Satan (take your pick) that needs to be fought against. Have faith and fight for me only then can utopia be achieved. It's always the same.

In THIS war that "we" are fighting, it is "anti-Americanism". We could quibble over the semantics of that, buy I feel certain you know what I mean and I'd like to spare 6000 words describing exactly what I mean.

Moose made the point about how we don't know Islam, and I'm making the point that many war planners don't understand faith - be it communism, fascism, Islam etc. Not only do they not understand it - they are terrified to discuss it.

I think you do need to know your enemy - especially in this war, where our own elites are on exactly the same page as the Islamists.

Posted by 2b 2006-01-28 14:25|| 2006-01-28 14:25|| Front Page Top

#11 Too lengthy the comments; so little time.

Peters is right. But the manifestations of machine enabling warriors is awesome. Extremes on either side of the spectrum is dangerous.

Posted by Captain America 2006-01-28 14:34|| 2006-01-28 14:34|| Front Page Top

#12 Moose made the point about how we don't know Islam, and I'm making the point that many war planners don't understand faith - be it communism, fascism, Islam etc. Not only do they not understand it - they are terrified to discuss it.

I think you do need to know your enemy - especially in this war, where our own elites are on exactly the same page as the Islamists.

Precisely. You can find people on "our" side of the conflict at mosques in the Muddle East and people on "their" side of the conflict at your local branch of the Anglican Church.

Now, how do you draw the civilizational dividing lines?

Posted by Phil 2006-01-28 14:46|| 2006-01-28 14:46|| Front Page Top

#13 From the article:

"We have reached the point (as evidenced by the first battle of Falluja) where the global media can overturn the verdict of the battlefield. We will not be defeated by suicide bombers in Iraq, but a chance remains that the international media may defeat us. Engaged with enemies to our front, we try to ignore the enemies at our back--enemies at whom we cannot return fire." (Emphasis mine)

"Cannot" would be more aptly replaced by "are not yet willing to." I'm beginning to wonder whether it is even possible for us to win the war against Islamic extremism without doing something about that domestic enemy sniping at our backs.

And I'm beginning to suspect the answer is "no."

Posted by Dave D.">Dave D. 2006-01-28 15:08|| 2006-01-28 15:08|| Front Page Top

#14 This war is not like any other we have ever fought

For insightful reading of events which have meaning today may I recommend, Frontier Regulars: The United States Army and the Indian 1866-1891 by Robert M. Utley. The perspective of a small and overtaxed military establishment conducting operations in a demanding environment, physically and politically, while bringing civilization to the vastness of the west can be related to the contemporary operations on the world stage today. Of particular note would be chapters three: The Problem of Doctrine, four: The Army, Congress, and the People, and eighteen: Mexican Border Conflicts 1870-81.

Some excerpts:
Chapter 3: The Problem of Doctrine. Three special conditions set this mission apart from more orthodox military assignments. First, it pitted the army against an enemy who usually could not be clearly identified and differentiated from kinsmen not disposed at the moment to be enemies. Indians could change with bewildering rapidity from friend to foe to neutral, and rarely could one be confidently distinguished from another...Second, Indian service placed the army in opposition to a people that aroused conflicting emotions... And third, the Indians mission gave the army a foe unconventional both in the techniques and aims of warfare... He fought on his own terms and, except when cornered or when his family was endangered, declined to fight at all unless he enjoyed overwhelming odds...These special conditions of the Indian mission made the U.S. Army not so much a little army as a big police force...for a century the army tried to perform its unconventional mission with conventional organization and methods. The result was an Indian record that contained more failures than successes and a lack of preparedness for conventional war that became painfully evident in 1812, 1846, 1861, and 1898.

Chapter 4. The Army, Congress, and the People. Shermans frontier regulars endured not only the physical isolation of service at remote border posts; increasingly in the postwar years they found themselves isolated in attitudes, interests, and spirit from other institutions of government and society and, indeed from the American people themselves...Reconstruction plunged the army into tempestuous partisan politics. The frontier service removed it largely from physical proximity to population and, except for an occasional Indian conflict, from public awareness and interest. Besides public and congressional indifference and even hostility, the army found its Indian attitudes and policies condemned and opposed by the civilian officials concerned with Indian affairs and by the nations humanitarian community.

Posted by Hupereck Grinenter5653 2006-01-28 16:09|| 2006-01-28 16:09|| Front Page Top

#15 Now imagine this if the Indians had hundreds of billions of petrodollars' worth of profits each year, and a population base larger than the US, and BTW, the US is just another fish in a very short-communication-time 5 billion person pond...

Posted by Phil 2006-01-28 16:35|| 2006-01-28 16:35|| Front Page Top

#16 Now imagine this if the Indians had hundreds of billions of petrodollars' worth of profits each year, and a population base larger than the US, and BTW, the US is just another fish in a very short-communication-time 5 billion person pond...

First of all let's remind that Muslims outnumber Americans only four or five to one. And that Americans are far, far more letal. In addition theree are lots of populations who are only nominally Muslims , or even who are increasinly seeing Islam as an instrument of Arab domination. An effort of propaganda and some support could let them to reject Islam. Our main weakness is that are not fighting the propaganda war and in fact we are letting people see America through Michael Moore's and Chomski's drivel

Posted by JFM"> JFM 2006-01-28 17:38|| 2006-01-28 17:38|| Front Page Top

#17 Hard to believe the country that invented Hollywood is losing a propaganda war, but it is.

Posted by Nimble Spemble 2006-01-28 17:45|| 2006-01-28 17:45|| Front Page Top

#18 Nimble Spemble: I think there's either a cause-and-effect relationship there, or a disconnect between "Country" and "Hollywood."

Posted by Phil 2006-01-28 20:27|| 2006-01-28 20:27|| Front Page Top

13:29 Redneck Jim
13:27 Fred
13:03 Fred
20:35 Master of Obvious
20:31 Sock Puppet O´ Doom
20:27 Phil
18:32 Captain America
18:15 DMFD
18:13 RD
18:13 DMFD
18:10 Halliburton: Earthquake/Tsunami Division
18:10 Captain America
18:05 HV
18:02 mom
17:58 Grunter
17:51 Frank G
17:46 Nimble Spemble
17:45 Alaska Paul
17:45 Nimble Spemble
17:43 Nimble Spemble
17:38 JFM
17:14 Frank G
17:12 Frank G
17:11 RD