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2014-03-05 Home Front: WoT

Militarys top general offers grim outlook on nations defense

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Posted by Uncle Phester 2014-03-05 13:21|| || Front Page|| [7 views ] Top

#1 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.

Yep, call me when you get your General Officer to enlisted ratio back to WWII levels. There are places to cut, but uniform services special interests and Congressional/Executive obstructions protect things that should the primary targets.

Posted by Procopius2k 2014-03-05 18:40|| 2014-03-05 18:40|| Front Page Top

#2 See RELATED DEFENCE.PK/FORUMS > CAN THE US AFFORD THE ASIA PIVOT? | SENIOR US DEFENSE OFFICIAL SAYS ASIA PIVOT CAN'T BEGIN IFF BUDGET CUTS CONTINUE.

Obama "Pivot" to Asia may be no longer feasible or realistic.

Assistant US SecDef for Acquisition Katrina McFarland.

More not-good-news = geopol shennanigans for Guam-WESTPAC.

VERSUS

* JAPAN TIMES > US REASSURES AFTER [USDOD] OFFICIAL'S [anti-] PIVOT GAFFE.

Also from JAPAN TIMES = US SEEKS TO BOLSTER NAVAL PRESENCE IN JAPAN, DEFENCE REPORT SAYS.

QDR = Quadrennial Defense Review.

* FREEREPUBLIC > CHINA UPS MILITARY SPENDING BY 12% [12.2%] [ostensib to maintain regional peace-n-security]. ARE THE GLOVES COMING OFF?

Yuuup.

What part of "post-US", "Mahanist", "future World#1", "Manifest Destiny", "Rising China" AKA Globalist-desired "OWG Co-Superpower" China did we not understand????

Ditto as per IRAN.

Again, either the OWG Globalists keep their promises, OR THERE'S GONNA BE ALL SORTS OF GEOPOL TROUBLES.

RELATED CHINESE MILITARY FORUM > POSTER THREAD: CHINA SHOULD MOBILIZE TROOPS FOR POLICE ACTION OVER UKRAINE, lest China lose any credibility as a reliable International or World ally = self-proclaimed US Geopol/Global Successor.

SAME > POSTER THREAD: CHINA SHOULD TAKE OVER THE MONGOLIAN REPUBLIC VIA JOINT SINO-RUSSIAN MILITARY CAMPAIGN, in fair exchange for China's assent or acquiescence allowing Russia to take over the Crimea andor Ukraine widout challenge.

* INDIAN DEFENCE FORUM > TAIWAN'S REUNIFICATION WID CHINA IS INEVITABLE [as China's MilPol/Geopol Power rises], SAYS US SCHOLAR.

RELATED DEFENCE.PK/FORUMS > SAY GOODBYE TO TAIWAN.

Posted by JosephMendiola 2014-03-05 20:20|| 2014-03-05 20:20|| Front Page Top

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