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Sunday, Nov 8, 2009
quickstrategy
Published Letters: 397
--- apologies to everyone else is the number of following posts seems excessive, there's just too much good discussion going on in here and I'm trying to keep track and engaged ... ---
Thanks for bringing up the point about this being part of a much larger thing. To me, there are multiple big-picture dangers converging ... and I'm sure that compared to reality, the view that seems to me expansive is hopelessly myopic.
You mentioned the creeping (now barrelling) militarism. I wrote an essay about this back in 2000, when it was already a brow-furrower. I got it wrong, then, because I thought that the 'inputs' then (cultural ones like veneration of 'the Greatest Generation, usually only narrowly for WWII; high-special effects-budget movies that made a videogame out of combat --- including harrowingly 'realistic' movies like 'Saving Private Ryan' or 'Pearl Harbor'; the videogames themselves, etc plus ideological ones like 'liberal interventionism', nationbuilding, etc) would combine with demographics to produce a public desire to seek out a new 'generational challenge' through warfare. The essay's point (aside from calling out the danger) was to argue for another more constructive outlet like national service, expansion of VISTA/Americorps, a Green Manhattan Project, or something similar to soak up those energies. It makes me want to cry, thinking back to those halcyon days when the cultural trend was still just a ripple ...
Another component is a 'negative space' of institutional gaps created by decades of neglect in essential services (mostly publicly provided), oversight of industry, civic education, and so forth ... all of which seem to be mutually reinforcing so that, e.g. the media, suffering under harsh and unregulated economic conditions and rising professional expectations in the ranks, and poor decisions by management, ceases to exercise the functions we expect of them. (To say nothing of various resulting govt failures)
Finally, we have the culmination of a political and ideological movement (i.e. merging of many movements), decades old now and composed of many parts, with a very long view of their objectives, that skillfully knits together a range of fringe interests to game the system for their own benefit and the accumulation of their own power. They take advantage of the gaps and the cultural trends, exacerbating them along the way.
Or, um, did you mean something else? :>
(sorry for the long post, but I hope it's worthwhile)
Pedinska, you are off on other adventures at the moment, but ... thanks for your appreciation, and your thoughtful comments generally. Cavalry is on standby, 24/7. Just let hubbie know we're on your side, when we show up ...
Cabbie - you raised good points, incl. what may seem like small change, i.e. the way journos covering the military sometimes even get the small details wrong: ranks, chain of command, what a unit actually does, misquoting NCOs, etc. It contributes to uniformed military (especially enlisted) souring on the media, having a dim view of their professionalism, and adding one more brick to the wall, behind which they sometimes come to feel beseiged (illegimately, but understandably). I've had a lot of contact over the past 5 years with current or former embeds, some whom appreciate this.
A couple important differences. First: the stab-in-the-back syndrome re the media isn't the whole story. It wasn't even as prevalent as all that by the end of Vietnam ... for all the bitterness about early reporting, I heard a lot of respect and praise for reporters like Halberstam, Neil Sheehan, and so forth, from the officers I learned from.
The official post-Vietnam line in the army, as taught in service schools (for officers), was articulated first by Col. Harry Summers, who was tasked by the army to write the official 'lessons-learned' document after Vietnam that became a course text, 'On Strategy' (purposefully referring to Clausewitz): it wasn't the media, it wasn't the protestors, it was us, the uniformed military --- 'we' did it to ourselves. See my sig for an article about the MA scandal by an active duty LTC who doesn't get the point, but still says this line unambiguously.
Twenty-something years of papers, articles in professional journals, after-action reports concerned with 'media relations', etc, show that the uniformed military --- army, marines and navy, at least, I defer to RMP about USAF --- took this as an assumption in planning media relations, up to Iraq.
Just the same, the stab-in-the-back story seems to have gotten new momentum the past few years. I think it always has that potential. If you're dealing with someone who takes that line, the strongest counterargument is to throw the official doctrine back in their face.
Second: You said the military needs the 'consent' of the people to wage war. The doctrine put in place by Creighton Abrams, post-VN, and reflecting the constitution, was stronger than that.
The military doesn't need the consent, it needs the explicit orders of Congress before going to war: the big black hole in this, which doesn't apply to Iraq, is for 'contingency operations' which the executive is deemed to have authority under the War Powers Resolution to enact subject to congressional review (but this is a much bigger discussion). The point is, under the Abrams doctrine --- which stood until the Bush administration, the military does what it's directed to do by law under the national command authority, not go looking for fights for which it seeks the consent of the people.
Rumsfeld explicitly dismantled large swaths of these doctrinal protections, and jumped into the promotion process to ensure that there wouldn't be a fight over it. Another casualty of the Bush regime.
Much of the initial coverage about Fort Hood turned out to be wrong. Is there anything wrong with that?
The accountability imposed by another country for the CIA's kidnapping and torture reveals much about our own.
Fox News' morning show plays to type, talking about whether Muslims in the Army should face "special debriefings"
The survivor and author is upset about comparisons some on the right are making to genocide
Once seen as a lunatic fringe, reactionary anti-women groups are courting respectability
Salon headlines in your mailbox
