Modern Military Procurement

[Strike For The South]

Keegan's single volume on WWI is fantastic. I haven't read the faces of battle yet. I do own it though.

[Montmorency]

Keegan's single volume on WWI is fantastic.

Haven't read it, but Keegan has a very bad reputation when it comes to understanding the relevance of Clausewitz to European military thought.

[Strike For The South]

Haven't read it, but Keegan has a very bad reputation when it comes to understanding the relevance of Clausewitz to European military thought.

I haven't read his book (the history of war?) that sparked that bit of historical controversy. I know a German translation combined with a healthy Anglo distrust of all things continental certainly shaded the English language Clausewitz historiography until the recent past. However, as interesting as that may be, I don't think his misinterpretation (perhaps simply a difference of opinion?) of Clausewitz is so egregious that it derails what is an introductory overview of WWI.

of course you may. in which case I need to get to a desktop because phone typing is hard.

[Montmorency]

I hope it has humorous tidbits like Norman Stone's recent Anglocentric review of WW1:

It is one of the stupidest documents ever put together by a clever man, and hardly worth even parodying. Every step in the argument was wrong

I hear you like that kind of talk.

Or, an Anglo-American criticizing Keegan on Clausewitz in this vein (they're good at it):

I am intrigued by two questions. The first is: Insofar as Keegan's treatment represents an intellectual failure, what is it, exactly, that he has failed to understand?
Keegan's treatment represents something more, however, than an intellectual failure. More, that is, than a mere inability to comprehend Clausewitz's arguments. Keegan is, after all, a very bright and creative fellow, and an accomplished writer. The three core chapters of his 1976 book, The Face of Battle, constitute one of the glories of English-language military historical literature. And, for those who actually read On War, Clausewitz is not all that difficult to fathom. Three minutes thought is usually sufficient to clarify any one of Clausewitz's many interesting propositions. Unfortunately, as A.E. Housman once said, "thought is irksome and three minutes is a long time." It seems painfully apparent that, at root, Keegan's problem with Clausewitz stems from irrational sources...
No, Keegan is less unable than simply unwilling to grasp the ideas of On War. So my second question, inevitably a speculative venture, is Why?

[Strike For The South]

I see the first result on google sucked you in too :). I don't read too may WWI book reviews, I pick up mainly what my trusted university presses recommend. I'm really only picky about my ACW stuff

[Seamus Fermanagh]

As organizations are constructed based on the legacies of the past, most of our "defense" departments/ministries (and defense is in quotation marks is it is somewhat asinine to use it as a replacement for war or military) conform to this truism.

Post-modern warfare -- which is more likely to be a series of ephemeral post-modern "pastiche" efforts than set-piece "battles" -- is bifurcated into two VERY different macro missions: Traditional Battle, and Shadow War.


Traditional Battle is the acme of NATO and, to a lesser extent, the other "great" powers. So much so that it will seldom occur again and when it occurs, absent a direct clash between great powers, it will be over very quickly (as Saddam's defeat shows). This is the classic battle of the Total War series, the Great Captains of military history, and the like. It's literature is Clausewitz, Tzu, Keegan, et al.

PROCUREMENT CONCERN: To achieve this acme of Traditional Battle excellence is expensive and requires lavish equipment, training, and technology development. This restricts it, functionally, to the great powers and can even beggar one of them if other factors pile on top. One big drawback here is, unless an ally shoulders the burden for you, you have to maintain these high costs to retain your ability to be prohibitively dangerous to face in Traditional Battle.

NOTE: Guerilla war, while the classic example of asymmetric warfare, is NOT the Shadow War, but a particular subset of Traditional Battle. The goal of the guerilla, of course, is to exhaust the opponent until they quit (US portion of Vietnam Conflict*) OR until resources can be acquired to meet and defeat the "larger" force in traditional battle (US Revolution). While far more frustrating to be the dominant power facing the guerilla, most guerilla efforts fail because, however difficult and annoying they may be, they cannot make the essential transition to success (The Syrian revolution is in the process of failing currently). A good piece on this is Max Boot's Small Wars. He is an American apologist, but clearly notes how the combination of suppressive force, a local constabulary and hearts/minds buy-in can truly counter guerilla advantages. For all its grandiose talk and horror campaign, ISIS is losing the fight against NATO, Kurdistan, and Iraq. The Syrian revolution is failing as well, since it has been unable to secure the resources needed to meet Assad's forces straight up.

PROCUREMENT CONCERN: Winning this sub type requires more boots and less technology, and requires buy in by the locals over time. This is both cheaper in absolute treasure cost than the classic Traditional Battle, but more likely to have a higher casualty cost. It also requires procuring lots of low tech weapons coupled with specialized high tech systems in a particular mix in order to do it well. This does not always blend well with the bigger ticket tactical and strategic procurement requirements of the classic form of Traditional Battle.

Shadow War: This is a war of ideology. While it adopts guerilla tactics in many instances, it is about individuals in pursuit of an ideological objective using any means. It is promulgated in cyberspace, uses terrorism against undefended targets, has ill-defined and often in-defined participants, and has less discernable connection to any "place" than does even a guerilla conflict. The mistake is to assume that it is not war, but criminality. Crime, for all we decry it in our societies, is actually pretty logical and is devoted to acquisition of resources and wealth using unacceptable means. It is rather logical on one level**l, especially if the social system precludes your "getting ahead" in normal and acceptable ways. The Shadow War is one of ideological identity and establishing the supremacy thereof. Because of this, it has all of the "unlimited" characteristics we associate with classic religious wars, but does not have boundaries, fixed participants etc. Cyber attack on Monday followed by a student self-radicalizing and executing the patrons of a trendy coffee shop to prove the power of their ideological cause on the following Thursday. Authorities track the cyber attack to its source, arrest them, and the Shadow Warriors respond by blowing up a school on another continent in retaliation for the crackdown on the cyber warriors. The coffee shop shooter is cornered and suicides by cop, but snapchats her final act of defiance to encourage others to claim fame for themselves and promote their ideology.

All of you know this version of warfare -- you live in it along with me -- and we know how truly vexing it can be.

PROCUREMENT CONCERN: Great computer defenses are a must to protect infrastructure. But what else is needed? Sadly, we don't even have good rubrics for fighting this war -- only for handling little pieces of it. How do you counter a pastiche of ideas semi-coagulated on a theme with no support structure to attack, no resources to cut off, and no set group of opponents to face? We don't even know all of what is needed.

YES, this is the point where many point to Spec Ops. Sadly, Spec Ops is mostly really good at winning the Guerilla War version of Traditional Battle. SEALS have no more skill than the next person at combatting an ideology.

So Edz' it is not the asymmetrical warfare that is the issue -- it is difficult but the basics on confronting it have been know for some time.

But, as the old saw suggests, armies always prepare to fight the last war. Their procurement systems develop to support the same. I don't think we have our heads around the newest iteration of war yet...and I don't think we are in a position to win it. We are currently just coping.



*The USA had FINALLY gotten to the point of winning the damn war; we'd finally stressed the NVA out enough for them to launch the Tet Offensive and bring their VC forces out into the open for a climactic battle -- and we beat them like a drum. It was then announced by our sagacious press corps that we couldn't win in Vietnam because this massive effort showed that they would not quit. Our military had been working hard to bring it about...but had no clue how to win the PR battle back home and lost outright as a result. Source Bui Than interview at end of piece (No Giap did not assert this as is sometimes claimed). There are even some claims that the Soviets aided Western peace movements to help foment this sentiment/defeatism.

**It has been suggested that the lowest rates of violent crime and petty theft in Las Vegas were during the 1950s and early 1960s. Supposedly, the Mafia wanted everyone to spend lots of money at the casinos, so they "persuaded" petty criminals and anyone else they found annoying to leave town. While good for the tourists, mafia methods for crime prevention probably did not follow due process.

[Montmorency]

Traditional Battle is the acme of NATO and, to a lesser extent, the other "great" powers. So much so that it will seldom occur again and when it occurs, absent a direct clash between great powers, it will be over very quickly (as Saddam's defeat shows).

The last great war of this nature was the Iran-Iraq conflict of the 80s, and it has plenty of scope to reoccur. The best opportunity (not Ukraine) for its return is Mesopotamia now, once the regional powers can no longer pretend to be toying with a defunct IS.

*The USA had FINALLY gotten to the point of winning the damn war; we'd finally stressed the NVA out enough for them to launch the Tet Offensive and bring their VC forces out into the open for a climactic battle -- and we beat them like a drum. It was then announced by our sagacious press corps that we couldn't win in Vietnam because this massive effort showed that they would not quit. Our military had been working hard to bring it about...but had no clue how to win the PR battle back home and lost outright as a result. Source Bui Than interview at end of piece (No Giap did not assert this as is sometimes claimed). There are even some claims that the Soviets aided Western peace movements to help foment this sentiment/defeatism.

We've covered this before, but it's not really true. Nixon didn't see it this way either, and by the time the Paris Accords were signed in 1973 his efforts to attain a strong military landscape from which to bargain left both sides more or less where they were after Tet, albeit even more fatigued. Both the North and Nixon's administration made and rejected numerous overtures over those years, because the game was still well underway.

Crime, for all we decry it in our societies, is actually pretty logical and is devoted to acquisition of resources and wealth using unacceptable means.

In this way it is hardly logically different than ideological conflict, and anyway there is much more to crime than larceny or fraud. Whether and how you want to fit all of that into the a logico-rational framework or what that is supposed to be has deeper implications...