Expanding War, Contracting Meaning

by Andrew J. Bacevich

A week ago, I had a long conversation with a four-star U.S. military officer who, until his recent retirement, had played a central role in directing the global war on terror. I asked him: what exactly is the strategy that guides the Bush administration’s conduct of this war? His dismaying, if not exactly surprising, answer: there is none.

President Bush will bequeath to his successor the ultimate self-licking ice cream cone. To defense contractors, lobbyists, think-tankers, ambitious military officers, the hosts of Sunday morning talk shows, and the Douglas Feith-like creatures who maneuver to become players in the ultimate power game, the Global War on Terror is a boon, an enterprise redolent with opportunity and promising to extend decades into the future.

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The Personnel System at War…(What have I been saying?)

For nine years, since my chapter “Culture Wars” has come out in Bob Bateman’s Digital Wars in the Frontlines, I have been touting this same theme with ample evidence. It is always nice when others echo what one believes, especially as prominent as Bob Goldich, who I interviewed for Path to Victory back in 1998.

A View from the Generation at the Tip of the Spear by Robert Goldich, Small Wars Journal Five junior officers, all veterans of combat, recently came together for a day-long dialogue with current and former senior manpower and personnel officials from the Department of Defense. Their major assessment was that an “industrial age” personnel system is being used to fight an “information age” war.

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New date for release of America’s Defense Meltdown: Pentagon Reform for the New President and Congress

We have changed the date for the release to November 19th, 2008.

On Wednesday, Nov. 19, the Center for Defense Information will release a new anthology. It is titled “America’s Defense Meltdown: Pentagon Reform for the New President and Congress.” The authors are 13 non-partisan Pentagon insiders, retired military officers, and other defense specialists, including myself. The book is edited by Winslow Wheeler, who as always, has done an excellent job overseeing the project and bringing together a great group of heretics.

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Fading Days of Empire

Jay Soloman and Siobhan Gorman have an interesting piece in today’s WSJ entitled, “Financial Crisis May Diminish American Sway.” 

Your first reaction might be “Ya think?”  followed by “What can we do about it?” I think a better reaction might be “So what?”  Being the world’s only remaining superpower — and $3.75 — will get you a grande latte at most Starbucks nowadays. 

Or put another way, a defense budget the size of the rest of the world’s put together (a point they make) and $3 – 5 trillion (Bilmes – Stiglitz estimate) get you a debacle in the Middle East.  Why is this good for the average US citizen, not to mention those of the rest of the world?

Of course the timing of the Defense reform anthology edited by Mr. Winslow Wheeler of the Straus Reform Project could not be timed better (release on November 12, 2008). Please go back and read the article linked above from the Wall Street Journal. If you have not read Limits of Power by Andy Bacevich, it is worth a trip to Amazon.com to pick it up, but if you don’t like the truth, don’t buy it.

Don

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How We Lost the War We Won

This is Nir Rosen’s new article on Afghanistan.  It relates his trip with the Taliban south of Kabul.  It is rather depressing reading but a unique view of the other side — obtained at great personal risk.  Barnett Rubin and Ahmed Rashin also have a thought provoking article in the Nov/Dec Foreign Affairs but I don’t have the electrons.    It validates what William S. Lind has been saying for years, but also recently in his weekly columns about our 2GW military taking on a 4th GW enemy. We cannot win this type of war, and are spending ourselves into ruin trying to change a culture of tribal rule into a democracy. No way! This column also validates what Andy Bacevich says in his recent book Limits of Power regarding our foolhearty attempt to fight the “long war.”

Don

http://www.rollingstone.com/news/story/23612315/how_we_lost_the_war_we_won

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America’s Defense Meltdown: Pentagon Reform for the New President and Congress

On Wednesday, Nov. 12, the Center for Defense Information will release a new anthology. It is titled “America’s Defense Meltdown: Pentagon Reform for the New President and Congress.” The authors are 13 non-partisan Pentagon insiders, retired military officers, and other defense specialists, including myself. The book is edited by Winslow Wheeler, who as always, has done an excellent job overseeing the project and bringing together a great group of heretics.

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Why Reinforce Failure? How about Reinforcing Success…?

In Maneuver Warfare or a culture of 3rd Generation Warfare, one of the principles is to reinforce success vice what many 2nd Generation militaries do, which is reinforce failure. The old adage is using the reserve to avoid defeat by attacking enemy success head on. A commander in a maneuver warfare force views warfare as biology instead of a engineering project.  His plan is prepared to deal with unexpected changes while always looking for ways to reinforce success by pushing reserves to his subordinates that are being success based on the commander’s intent three levels up.

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Law Enforcement and Security Consulting & Science of Strategy Institute

I am proud to now be associated with two organizations. One is Law Enforcement and Security Consulting (LESC) run by Lieutenant Fred Leland, who has been a Marine and a policeman for 28 years. Fred has taken the work of Col John Boyd and translated it to police and security work.  He has also used my book Raising the Bar and applied it to the cognitive development of police officers in the Walpole, MA, police department.  It is people like Fred that give me confidence that there are behind the scenes leaders out there doing what is right despite the adversity of the bureaucratic hierarchy.  Fred and I have moved our Deciding Under Pressure and Fast workshop to 24 March 2009.  Fred and I also just attended the Science of Strategy Institute (SOSI) workshop held in Las Vegas NV.  The LESC focus is to  adapt and translate the theories of Sun Tzu, who by the way had a great influence on Col Boyd, to the Law Enforcement and Security Fields, and Fred has done an excellent job of translating theory into reality.

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Bailout failure is par for the course with this Congress

This is another great piece from my friend Winslow Wheeler.

Don’t think the fiasco in the House of Representatives on Monday when it voted down the financial bail out package was out of the norm for congressional behavior. Expect more. I explain in a piece that ran in the October 1 “Politico.” Find the piece at here or read it below.

Bailout failure is par for the course with this Congress

By: Winslow T. Wheeler

October 1, 2008 05:56 PM EST The dysfunctional mess that the world witnessed on Monday as the House of Representatives voted down the $700 billion financial bailout bill was Congress not at its worst but, rather, as it is.

Consider what you saw: The president, secretary of the Treasury, speaker of the House, majority leader of the Senate and minority leaders of the House and Senate all agreed the nation was in real peril, even if “only” of the financial sort. With genuine fear overriding their usually ultrapartisan impulses, they put together a bipartisan proposal that not a single member of Congress who has been a regular on the Sunday morning talk shows tried to oppose. The elite of Washington from both parties, the heart of America’s political establishment, were united.

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It’s all about greed and no leadership

Greed has gotten us here in the state of our financial crisis. The House is now preparing the pass the 700 billion bail out of the wealthy greedy bastards on wall street. But where is the accountability and responsibility? Also, as always, Congress added pork to a bill that is going to cost all of us a lot of money in order for a very few to have gold covered toilets and Bentleys in their drive ways from one of 9 houses (I am not referring to John McCain and his wealthy wife?).

This weekend I was in Ireland teaching my leadership course as part of the British Council’s Trans Atlantic Network 20-20. In one of the sessions where the entire group got together for a BBC radio show, they were asked who is responsible for the current financial crisis (Europe is being hit hard as well). Countless, very smart and potential leaders from around the globe gave their numerous answers, but I kept saying to myself, “Well, lets tell the truth, we just have to look in the mirror.” We, the public, keep putting the same politicians in office, we keep allowing them to “strip mine” our nation in order to get grossly wealthy on the promise that this would “trickle down” to us.

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