{"id":84501,"date":"2023-08-30T03:00:09","date_gmt":"2023-08-30T07:00:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/?p=84501"},"modified":"2023-08-29T11:44:12","modified_gmt":"2023-08-29T15:44:12","slug":"the-endless-search-for-the-easy-mode-in-military-conflict","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/2023\/08\/30\/the-endless-search-for-the-easy-mode-in-military-conflict\/","title":{"rendered":"The endless search for the “Easy mode” in military conflict"},"content":{"rendered":"

CDR Salamander<\/a> on the search for shortcuts to military excellence, despite literal millennia of evidence that there are no such shortcuts:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

As the Russo-Ukrainian War reaches its 20th month, I hope everyone has been sufficiently sobered up to stand firmly against those promoting the “72-hour War” or spin an attractive story about some transformational secret sauce that provides an “easy button” for those tasked to do the very hard work of preparing a nation for war should, and if, it were to come.<\/p>\n

See the Battle of Hostomel<\/a> if you need a recent example of where buying this wishcasting can get you.<\/p>\n

There is a reason we have continually railed against this Potomac Flotilla mindset for the better part of two decades here — it is the self-delusion of faculty lounge theories running up against the Gods of the Military Copybook Headings<\/a> reality what we have thousands of years of experience to reference.<\/p>\n

We are not smarter than previous generations. There is no secret weapon or war winning technology — or magic beans — that will allow us to skip past the hard work of a viable strategy backed up by a properly resourced industrial capacity to build, maintain, deploy, and sustain a fighting force on the other side of the Pacific for years if needed.<\/p>\n

Not 24-hours. Not 72-hours. Think 72-weeks to 72-months and you have your mind right.<\/p>\n

[…]<\/p>\n

We do no one any good allowing free run towards the national security version of the prosperity gospel, a branch of the transformationalist cult, and their “name it and claim it<\/em>” attitude towards solving hard problems.<\/p>\n

From LCS to DDG-1000, to optimal manning, to six-sigma supply nightmares, to 100-hour workweeks, to 72-hour war CONOPS, to the “Deter by Punishment,” to “1,000 ship navy,” to the offset of this POM cycle, to counter-historical excuses for … again … not doing the hard work that takes so long to bear fruit that someone else will get credit for it.<\/p>\n

Every time we have our top leaders — smart hard working professionals with the best intentions — step up to sound more like this guy — the worse we will all be.<\/p>\n

\"Image<\/a><\/p>\n

It degrades them and endangers everyone.<\/p>\n

We don’t need to sell the utility of small drones being used down to the lowest levels of responsibility — it is demonstrated every day.<\/p>\n

What we do need sold is Congress’s need to fund a revitalization of our defense industrial capacity and a focus on the naval and aerospace forces that will do most of the fighting in any expected war west of the International Dateline.<\/p>\n

Supported by swarms of drones of all shapes and sizes.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

CDR Salamander on the search for shortcuts to military excellence, despite literal millennia of evidence that there are no such shortcuts: As the Russo-Ukrainian War reaches its 20th month, I hope everyone has been sufficiently sobered up to stand firmly against those promoting the “72-hour War” or spin an attractive story about some transformational secret […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":35193,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,5,1119,15,663],"tags":[86,156,149,726],"class_list":["post-84501","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-history","category-military","category-russia","category-technology","category-weapons","tag-criticism","tag-fail","tag-uav","tag-ukraine"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/favicon.png","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2hpV6-lYV","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84501","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=84501"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84501\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":84503,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84501\/revisions\/84503"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35193"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=84501"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=84501"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=84501"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}