Recommended Reading
Top Billing! “Strategy Wars” – Something must be in the water. A flame war has broken out between different strategic camps…..
In addition to the two Journal of Strategic Studies “Neo-COIN” articles on which I began commenting last week and Thomas P.M. Barnett explains today Why I largely ignore the in-the-weeds COIN debate, LTC. William Astore, USAF (ret.) wrote a completely incoherent and confused, slash-and-burn, attack, “The U.S. Military’s German Fetish” for TomDispatch.com, on a basket of strategic concepts from a variety of sources that he erroneously attributes to the influence of Carl von Clausewitz on the US military.
At Milpub, seydlitz89 correctly eviscerates Astore’s weird jihad against Clausewitz in A Reflection of the State of US Strategic Thought? but then launches a strange volley of his own, essentially blaming Col. John Boyd for George W.Bush’s invasion of Iraq (which would come as news to most of Boyd’s acolytes, almost all of whom have been militant and vocal critics of the Iraq War). Fabius Maximus, his site in re-launch, goes after Dr. John Nagl with Another sad little bit of agitprop, this time from John Nagl and is joined by Dr. Bernard Finel with The Incoherence of COIN Advocates: John Nagl Edition and Visions of Empire with Ventriloquizing Clausewitz.
Not content to allow the ground-pounders to have all of the attention, Gene Myers in Fifth sense for AFJ, bemoans the impact of COIN and ground support missions on the future intermediate range and strategic long-range capabilities of the USAF and Galrahn wonders in AirSea Battle “if the final product becomes anything more a new wine in old barrels?”. On a humorous note, Joseph Fouche, asserts that military historian Martin van Creveld would run over a kitten with his car.
TDAXP – who loves counterintuitive titles for his posts, has When Stalinism is a Good Thing:
….The Scientific management of the economy was a breakthrough, new way of organizing a country, in which a rational allocation of resources would lead to economic growth. Public education rapidly spread this method, and by the early twentieth centuries the bureaucratic power needed to fix this solution had become ingrained in the United States, United Kingdom, France, Spain, Germany, Italy, Russia, and (through educated and westernized bureaucratic elites) most countries in the world. New Deal Liberalism, Socialism, Fascism, Aryanism, and Communism were all modern ideologies that assumed a scientific approach toward growth.
The last significant attempt to turn back this tide began in 1966, during Mao’s launch of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution (GPCR), in which he purposefully destroyed the Party and State apparati which gave him scientific control over his country, and tried to turn back the hands of history.
John Hagel– Reinventing the Sacred:
Stuart Kauffman’s book “Reinventing the Sacred” really got me thinking about creativity and the sacred. The book is an impressive stroll by a deeply thoughtful scientist through many domains from the microscopic to the cosmic, with a particular focus on the common patterns emerging in the universe, the biosphere and human culture. Kauffman observes:
“We live in a universe, biosphere, and human culture that are not only emergent but radically creative. We live in a world whose unfolding we often cannot prevision, prestate, or predict – a world of explosive creativity on all sides. This is a central part of the new scientific worldview.”
Throughout the book he offers a sustained critique of reductionism. Instead, he stresses the importance of emergence as a way to begin to understand the dynamics that we shape – and that in turn shape us. He is also deeply skeptical of universal laws, focusing instead on understanding the situatedness of the objects under discussion. I found it refreshing that, in discussing situatedness, he puts equal emphasis on context, the surroundings at any point in time, and history, the trajectories that have been traveled by the object.
David Ronfeldt – Incidentals (1st of 5): apropos definitions of “tribes” (and TIMN) and Incidentals (2nd of 5): apropos tribes vis à vis the other TIMN forms:
….While wondering about such matters earlier in November 2009, I spotted a post at an unfamiliar blog, Strategic Social, that aspired to define a “tribe” as “any group of people united by their recognition of organizational hierarchy within their group, who share a cultural identity and make up a unique speech community.” At least this blog was trying to raise attention to the significance of tribes in various areas of society. But this definition of the concept seemed misguided, and I blurted as much:
As one who’s interested in concepts about tribes, occasionally scouts the Net to see what others are saying, and finds myself here for a change, I’d like to offer a quick passing comment:
I like the fact you recognize that tribes are a modern as well as ancient form of organization. But in my view, it’s not wise to start a definition of tribes with a reference to organizational hierarchy. That’s not what’s most important about tribes. Tribes may or may not have much hierarchy; hierarchical institutions are a later form to arise from social evolution. I’d suggest moving the other parts of your definition up front. I’d also suggest broadening the “speech” part, maybe make it “symbolic” instead.
That’s it!
March 1st, 2010 at 6:04 pm
Thanks for the link!
Stalinism is counter-intuitive? You wouldn’t have survived a Purge, buddy
March 1st, 2010 at 8:28 pm
I think someone described this before…."fog of war," he said…
March 1st, 2010 at 8:36 pm
[…] links to noted Clausewitzian seydlitz89’s article refuting YAMAOC but points out that seydlitz […]
March 2nd, 2010 at 4:45 am
Dan, I’m pretty sure I’m on some kind of list already if "they" take power
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Cheryl, it is more Fog of Brain
March 3rd, 2010 at 7:58 am
Let the enemy’s own spy sow discord in the enemy camp: Undermine your enemy’s ability to fight by secretly causing discord between him and his friends, allies, advisors, family, commanders, soldiers, and population. While he is preoccupied settling internal disputes, his ability to attack or defend, is compromised.
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Yep, definitely SOMETHIN’ in the water. Hhmm, al-qaeda or the Chinese? Maybe Russian chemical warfare?
March 3rd, 2010 at 1:22 pm
Zen-
Thanks for commenting on our blog. Thanks also for the kind works in regards to my rebuttal of Astore.
The one thing I got out of Astore’s piece was perhaps that he was on to something in regards to a "cult" that had been used for internal policy/propaganda purposes. Btw, the subject of Boyd’s influence on the Iraq War was brought up by myself in a "debate" that Dr. Chet Richards and I had six years ago on sonshi.com . . .
http://forum.sonshi.com/showthread.php?s=18af667f2cbfbf27c47359f35cb58dc3&postid=21366
There were other interactions on sonshi with Chet Richards, and of course he was gracious enough to publish two of my papers on his website. I think we have a high degree of mutual respect between us and no, I don’t put myself at his level . . .
I’m not attacking Boyd here, but rather questioning what his legacy is. I have not implicated any of the acolytes in support of the Iraq war or Dick Cheney. If anything I have pointed out something that the "Boydians" ought to address. . .
You say that Cheney was not a "acolyte". I say that he was more important that an acolyte since he was a very influential political figure with a close relationship with John Boyd, who in turn was highly influenced by Boyd’s thought. Coram goes into this repeatedly.
The title of Coram’s book is, "Boyd, The Fighter Pilot Who Changed The Art of War".
What allowed for this "change" was the influence that Boyd was able to exert through Cheney in his supposedly "war changing" campaign during the First Gulf War. Without Cheney there would be no hype as to Boyd’s accomplishments, he would have been just another strategic thinker . . .
Coram’s book came out in 2002, while the debate concerning Bush’s Iraq invasion was at its height. Coram interviews Cheney, Cheney tells Coram that he wishes that Boyd were still alive to oversee the military transformation he has in mind. Cheney obviously had every reason to promote his connection with Boyd – who had died in 1997 and could not disagree with it – in the promotion of his policies. Coram is a willing medium in getting this message across. Coram was convinced that Cheney knew more about strategy then most of his generals, what better partner for the theorist who can change the art of war itself?
As I have said, it is not difficult to find many war supporters in 2003 who were looking at the war through a Boydian lens – in many cases courtesy of Coram’s book.
I have question on a recent post of yours. Did the Jones and Smith article that you linked to (the attack on COIN) include any mention of Patrick Porter’s book "Military Orientalism"?
-also posted at milpublog
March 3rd, 2010 at 5:23 pm
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March 4th, 2010 at 5:17 am
hi seydlitz89
Patrick Porter is listed in the bibliography for Jones and Smith for his Security Dialogue article, "Shadow Wars: Asymmetric Warfare in the Past and Future". Not seeing Military Orientalism cited anywhere.
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You wrote:
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"I’m not attacking Boyd here, but rather questioning what his legacy is. I have not implicated any of the acolytes in support of the Iraq war or Dick Cheney. If anything I have pointed out something that the "Boydians" ought to address. . .You say that Cheney was not a "acolyte". I say that he was more important that an acolyte since he was a very influential political figure with a close relationship with John Boyd, who in turn was highly influenced by Boyd’s thought. Coram goes into this repeatedly."
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Boyd did have influence on Dick Cheney, that is a fair point. However, Boyd was hardly alone in that respect. So did Fritz Kraemer, so did Andrew Marshall, so did, in particular, Richard Perle. Possibly, Art Cebrowski (not sure there). Donald Rumsfeld was an important mentor figure to Cheney, as was an obscure college professor back home. Cheney was, we should keep in mind, a skillful insider politician and strong-willed bureaucrat who is, in my estimation, less inclined to be a puppet than a puppeteer. Boyd’s influence, while Cheney was VP/Prime Minister is harder to disaggregate than when Cheney was SECDEF and Boyd was alive and talking to him. I would also add that Dick Cheney of 2001 was a much harder-edged and more secretive figure than was the Dick Cheney of 1991.
March 4th, 2010 at 3:02 pm
Zen-
Thanks for the info on Porter. I think his book about the best Clausewitzian response so far to the "anthropological turn" in strategic thinking that dates back to 1991 and van Creveld’s TTW. . .