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The Pentagon’s Joint Forces Command has released the 2nd edition of “Joint Operations, Insights and Best Practices “, a 55 page doc of explanation and synthesis.  Good evidence of Boyd’s thought making further inroads into current military thinking but John Robb offers some caveats:

“Unfortunately, despite the good thinking in this report, the US military is getting more rigid and centralized by the day. Why? An improper usage of modern technology is enabling the automation of control and EXTREME micromanagement”

Agreed. Bureaucracy and middle level management, whose existence and authority are being marginalized by the leveling effect of information technology and network structures, are fighting a rearguard effort to use tech for panopticon monitoring of subordinates in order to eliminate discretion, paralyze autonomy and initiative while maximizing hierarchical control. Sort of a Taylorism on steroids.

Check out Fabius Maximus on the “books vs. internet” debate with an older set of posts The Internet makes us dumber: the Bakken euphoria, a case study and Euphoria about the Bakken Formation.

and

Selil Blog where Professor Sam has done some cyberwar theorizing “From Information operations to cyber warfare and a new terrain”

Cheryl Rofer pens a thoughtful review General Rupert Smith’s highly regarded The Utility of Force: The Art of War in the Modern World (Vintage):

…So that long-ago post was naïve, but now I’m pleased to find that a military guy agrees with me. General Rupert Smith has written a book about how war has changed in the past couple of centuries. He documents the development of what he calls “industrial war,” the sort of war that mobilizes and destroys entire industrial societies, the world wars of the twentieth century, the mental model of war that we have carried into the twenty-first. Napoleon started it, and the industrial culmination, the utilization of the energy from smashed atoms, finished it.”War no longer exists,” as Smith begins his book.

He distinguishes war from confrontation and conflict. War no longer exists, but confrontation and conflict are very much with us. The Cold War was a long confrontation, and what happened in Georgia was conflict after a continuing confrontation. It’s hard to imagine how or why any country would provoke an industrial war. Even if nuclear weapons had not been invented, the two world wars would probably have convinced us that we can’t do that any more. Nuclear weapons merely provide the emphatic ending.

But we still plan for industrial war, we expect our wars to follow that pattern, and the media reports wars that way. The US military is built around industrial war, as is the military-industrial complex, which, Smith tells us, has removed the flexibility to plan for any other kind of conflict. Industrial war means big, expensive weapon systems with long lead times. Big, expensive weapon systems mean big profits and continuing employment in as many congressional districts as possible. I’ll draw on some half-remembered economics to point out that money spent on weapons doesn’t benefit the economy as much as money spent on roads, schools and other ways to improve things here at home.

Read the whole thing here.

New Yorker in DC has done an excellent region by region breakdown of the effect of the Russo-Georgian War on Russia’s “Near Abroad” as well as neighboring states, some which were formerly part of the Eastern Bloc and others, such as Turkey, that are NATO allies. It’s a very long post with many links but I wanted to highlight one particular section, from the introduction:

The situation in the Caucasus is slowly deteriorating. First, Poland and the United States reached an agreement on the missile shield to include 10 interceptor rockets at a base in northern Poland, and seemingly in response, Russia’s military pushed deeper into Georgian territory. Moreover, Russia also raised the ante by hinting that the US would have to choose, and soon, between what it refers to as its “Special Project” or issues which are more important to the US and the international community; mainly, Iran and North Korea. According to the AP, the US agreed in the deal with Poland, and in defiance of Russia’s recent victory, to include a declaration that the US will aid Poland militarily in case of a threat from a third country, and will establish a permanent American base on Polish soil.

The negotiations regarding missile defense have been ongoing but the sudden agreement with Poland was most likely intended by the Bush administration as diplomatic retaliation against Moscow for failing to adhere to the cease-fire agreement in Georgia.

In one sense, this might be a useful move to demonstrate that Russia’s policy in Georgia will come with a set of costs and that Poland’s swift adherence, after much earlier footdragging by Warsaw, indicates the unhappiness and alram of Russia’s neighbors. Unfortunately, it also represents more “flailing about” by the Bush administration to grab something that was already in the pipeline that the Russians would find particularly irritating in a country that is deeply anti-Russian for very good reasons.

Easy to do but putting an anti-missile unit in Poland really does not accrue us any new diplomatic leverage in the crisis. Or military advantages ( unless we are to believe that Putin intends to attack Poland, a member of NATO, with just one or two nuclear missiles -if so, problem solved!). In terms of reaching a declared goal of getting Russia out of Georgia this move was probably a net loss. But in the absence of any overarching strategy in Washington for Russian-American relations, the best that can be managed are tactical moves in isolation.

I had actually intended to post briefly on the implications of the Russo-Georgian War for State vs. State warfare and 4GW but today’s reactions by the Bush administration and Senators McCain and Obama are a more important concern. The United States has no strategic policy in regard to Russia – and if the statements of the candidates for president are to be believed – we won’t have one in the next four years either.

President Bush, speaking today:

….As I have made clear, Russia’s ongoing action raise serious questions about its intentions in Georgia and the region. In recent years, Russia has sought to integrate into the diplomatic, political, economic, and security structures of the 21st century. The United States has supported those efforts. Now Russia is putting its aspirations at risk by taking actions in Georgia that are inconsistent with the principles of those institutions. To begin to repair the damage to its relations with the United States, Europe, and other nations, and to begin restoring its place in the world, Russia must keep its word and act to end this crisis.

The President is alluding to Russia’s G-8 membership, the WTO, the OECD and similarly prestigious diplomatic entities. The strong emphasis Bush placed upon the need for Russian adherence to the cease-fire agreement and extending humanitarian aid was very well placed from the perspective of a moral level of conflict. The cancellation of  American participation in a scheduled Russian-NATO meeting was also appropriate ( no allies signed on to that very minor reprimand). Though we need to be honest here, the dispatch of U.S. military personnel to deliver humanitarian aid is meant as a “tripwire” against a resumption of a full-bore Russian onslaught into Georgia, not just to hand out MRE’s and bottled water to displaced villagers. It’s a very serious move ( and unaccompanied as far as I am aware by German, French or other NATO troops – if I am wrong, please correct me).

Let’s be perfectly clear: the Russian Army’s invasion of Georgia was carried out in trademark Russian fashion, brutally with obvious disregard for civilian casualties and reports of casual murders and looting by Russian soldiers. The only noteworthy exception to their usual, thuggish, performance here has been the swift accomplishment of all military objectives and total rout of the enemy army. Not since special KGB commandos seized the Tajbeg Palace in Kabul and assassinated a Prime Minister in 1979 has a Russian military operation been carried out so flawlessly. 

As a result, many people in European capitals, the State Department, the IC and the Pentagon have egg on their faces right now.  A lot of serious VIPs have been embarrassed by a client ( Saakashvili and company) who performed so poorly in this debacle – at every level that matters – that much of their previous professional advice and opinions regarding said client in retrospect look like hopelessly incompetent bullshit. These VIP’s are faced with two choices: circle the wagons around their naked emperor and try to find some kind of bow to put on this disaster or candidly admit that they horribly misjudged the entire situation to their superiors and reassess the policy in regards to Georgia from scratch.

Guess which route we are going today ?

Now to be fair, many of the actions taken by the President are sound and wise ones. Russia needs to feel significant pushback here and Bush is doing that very firmly and responsibly – and without much help from our allies other than President Sarkozy. The problem is that these are ad hoc reactions – flailing about frantically because in truth the United States has had no strategic policy toward Russia or any objective that gets much further than pleasing insider interests who are squealing loudest to the administration or the Congress. Not decommissioning Russian nukes fast enough ? Look no further than American uranium company lobbies. In regards to Kosovo or Georgia, that would be the EU. What? Isn’t Saakashvili America’s “special project” ( to quote Russia’s Foreign Minister – some Putin toady, name unimportant, he warms a chair). Well, not really. My friend Dave Schuler has an outstanding post on Europe’s stake in Georgia. It’s a lot larger than is ours:

….Germany’s ties with Georgia are, if anything, closer. Georgia is Germany’s fifth largest trading partner. I presume that much of this trade is a consequence of Georgia’s two pipelines. Energy independence is as much a political hot topic in Germany as it is here but the term means mostly not being so terribly dependent on Russia. The path to greater energy independence for Germany lies through Georgia.

….In 2007 FDI in Georgia exceeded the $1 billion mark. A substantial proportion of that was EU countries.

[ Ed. Note: The above quote is in error – Georgia is not Germany’s fifth largest trading partner – thank you to b and Annie for the correction] 

Would any reader care to hazard a guess as to the number of German troops expected to be standing next to American soldiers in Georgia delivering humanitarian aid ? This is not to knock the Germans per se as to point out that the United States carrying all of the water for Europe and absorbing all of the friction in return for nothing doesn’t make a whole lot of strategic sense.  Europe is safe,  wealthy and grown-up and not shy about pressing their collective economic interests but slow to accept all of the responsibilities they ask of the United States and our own State Department is a reflexive enabler of the extended European adolescence. Leadership in an alliance does not always mean being the other guy’s doormat.

Deciding what our long-term interests are in the region and what our relationship with Russia should be is something seventeen years overdue and presidential candidates who have no clue, left to their own devices, of what to do or, who take foreign policy advice from a paid agent of a foreign government, worry the hell out of me.

UPDATE:

Fabius Maximus had some recommended posts on Russia-Georgia worth sharing that I’d like to add here along with a few others I caught this morning:

Stratfor   War Nerd   Helena Cobban  Joshua Foust   Glittering Eye   Coming Anarchy   Robert Kaplan (Hat tip CA)

Whirledview   SWJ Blog    Global Guerillas   Selil Blog   Andrew Sullivan