Brilliant article. I find the current conservative push to model the US military after Russia dispiriting, particularly as one only has to look to Ukraine to see how the "warrior ethos" and "commander knows best" attitude has faired in combat. This attempt is also clumsy and seems intended to generate friction not just within the institution but within the individuals hearing these commands. One can only hope it does not leave a corrosive mark in the long term should this ethos be passing.
If I may, I'd like to add a phrase to your repertoire. In the first para, you talk about the desire of Cynical Publius' to enforce Soviet-style political correctness, but MAGA's own style.
There is a superior term for the Right's version: patriotic correctness.
On the subject of "lethality" being a poor strategy and beneath any commander in chief worthy of the name is think the Vietnam war is very illustrative. If I remember, and understand, correctly, US strategy in the war largely amounted to killing as many of the enemy as possible while limiting our own casualties. And by that metric the war was going swimmingly. Hundreds of north Vietnamese and Vietcong for each Amerivan casualty. Even the (in)famous "Tet offensive" was a spectacular tactical victory with American forces successfully holding all major objectives and slaughtering vast numbers of enemy combatants. And yet, the war was lost.
More importantly, there was no actual plan for converting these tactical succes into strategic outcomes. As far as I can tell the strategy on the ground really did amount to nothing more than killing the enemy until they gave up. Amy time some fool says that lethality is the most important metric for the US military they should be directed to the spectacular failure of this policy in Vietnam.
Quite simply what passes for "strategy" in contemporary US military terms is just layers of tactics. Strategy is inherently political, the military is just a tool to achieve a political objective via force of arms that cant be achieved via other means.
The reason why the US hasn't won any conflicts since ww2 is because they failed to understand or focus on realistic and achievable political goals and a strategy of how to achieve them.
Instead they try to impose military / tactical solutions. Tactics without strategy as Sun Tzu said is just the noise before defeat. No matter how many tactical victories they had, they couldn't convert them into strategic victory.
In ww2 after the military tactical victories over Japan and Germany, they co-opted both the emperor, and bureaucracy and elites including many nazis and Japanese elites into their new government. These had support of most of the people, and thus translated into political control and strategic success.
In Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, cuba etc they tried to work with puppets and outliers to build an artificial power base. Of course it Failed.
All these countries had/ have political centres of gravity that the US refused to make strategic concessions to in order to co-opt. They instead thought they could create their own power base via force of arms.
But without legitimacy in the eyes of the people this failed.
Hence rice farmers and goat herders with AK's prevailed.
The biggest issue facing the US on the tactical level is the proliferation of cheap technology that can now be manufactured at enormous scale by much smaller opponents. The US procurement system is just a giant scam selling overpriced boutique products with the primary aim of enriching the vested interests.
Hence why the US was literally bested by the Houthis and are now making copies of the Iranian Shahed drone at 10x the price and hailing it as a bargain because its cheaper that the even more over priced missiles they normally use. Even Palmer Lucky's stuff just seems cheap in comparison to the established MIC but very expensive when looking at equivalent from strategic rivals
Unfortunately, I suspect that Cynical Publius' insistence that the people who best know how to educate future generals are officers in the captain-to-colonel space will prove irresistibly flattering to Hegseth, who ended his military career as a major.
The Prussian army before Clausewitz had these type of officers the author from X seems to like. Didn't Leopold I, Prince of Anhalt-Dessau actually make a bit of a human experiment and had one of his sons educated only in military matters?😅
Brilliant article. I find the current conservative push to model the US military after Russia dispiriting, particularly as one only has to look to Ukraine to see how the "warrior ethos" and "commander knows best" attitude has faired in combat. This attempt is also clumsy and seems intended to generate friction not just within the institution but within the individuals hearing these commands. One can only hope it does not leave a corrosive mark in the long term should this ethos be passing.
Glad to see Decoding Clausewitz quoted. It is one of my favorite Clausewitz books.
Excellent!
If I may, I'd like to add a phrase to your repertoire. In the first para, you talk about the desire of Cynical Publius' to enforce Soviet-style political correctness, but MAGA's own style.
There is a superior term for the Right's version: patriotic correctness.
https://www.cato.org/commentary/right-has-its-own-version-political-correctness-its-just-stifling#
https://www.routledge.com/Patriotic-Correctness-Academic-Freedom-and-Its-Enemies/Wilson/p/book/9781594511943
But of course, its only always only patriotism to the Confederacy, the segregationist South, and the Lost Cause.
Everything else is woke and therefore treason.
Excellent analysis and use of Clausewitz!
On the subject of "lethality" being a poor strategy and beneath any commander in chief worthy of the name is think the Vietnam war is very illustrative. If I remember, and understand, correctly, US strategy in the war largely amounted to killing as many of the enemy as possible while limiting our own casualties. And by that metric the war was going swimmingly. Hundreds of north Vietnamese and Vietcong for each Amerivan casualty. Even the (in)famous "Tet offensive" was a spectacular tactical victory with American forces successfully holding all major objectives and slaughtering vast numbers of enemy combatants. And yet, the war was lost.
More importantly, there was no actual plan for converting these tactical succes into strategic outcomes. As far as I can tell the strategy on the ground really did amount to nothing more than killing the enemy until they gave up. Amy time some fool says that lethality is the most important metric for the US military they should be directed to the spectacular failure of this policy in Vietnam.
Quite simply what passes for "strategy" in contemporary US military terms is just layers of tactics. Strategy is inherently political, the military is just a tool to achieve a political objective via force of arms that cant be achieved via other means.
The reason why the US hasn't won any conflicts since ww2 is because they failed to understand or focus on realistic and achievable political goals and a strategy of how to achieve them.
Instead they try to impose military / tactical solutions. Tactics without strategy as Sun Tzu said is just the noise before defeat. No matter how many tactical victories they had, they couldn't convert them into strategic victory.
In ww2 after the military tactical victories over Japan and Germany, they co-opted both the emperor, and bureaucracy and elites including many nazis and Japanese elites into their new government. These had support of most of the people, and thus translated into political control and strategic success.
In Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, cuba etc they tried to work with puppets and outliers to build an artificial power base. Of course it Failed.
All these countries had/ have political centres of gravity that the US refused to make strategic concessions to in order to co-opt. They instead thought they could create their own power base via force of arms.
But without legitimacy in the eyes of the people this failed.
Hence rice farmers and goat herders with AK's prevailed.
The biggest issue facing the US on the tactical level is the proliferation of cheap technology that can now be manufactured at enormous scale by much smaller opponents. The US procurement system is just a giant scam selling overpriced boutique products with the primary aim of enriching the vested interests.
Hence why the US was literally bested by the Houthis and are now making copies of the Iranian Shahed drone at 10x the price and hailing it as a bargain because its cheaper that the even more over priced missiles they normally use. Even Palmer Lucky's stuff just seems cheap in comparison to the established MIC but very expensive when looking at equivalent from strategic rivals
Hope someone brings this to Hegseth's attention!
Unfortunately, I suspect that Cynical Publius' insistence that the people who best know how to educate future generals are officers in the captain-to-colonel space will prove irresistibly flattering to Hegseth, who ended his military career as a major.
The Prussian army before Clausewitz had these type of officers the author from X seems to like. Didn't Leopold I, Prince of Anhalt-Dessau actually make a bit of a human experiment and had one of his sons educated only in military matters?😅