I have heard quite a bit of talk about the proposal of using airpower to disrupt and destroy ISIL and it usually points out how airpower has failed to meet ambitious policy goals in the past. So has landpower. I’ve read articles with people coming out of the woodwork to say what the “limits of airpower” are and I would ask them to consider that they’re really talking about the limits of war. Especially war as we like to think of it.
Superpower: A Personal Theory of Power
A state can exist as poor or rich, powerful or weak, and even very crude military strategies may suffice because a state can appeal to the order provided by alliances with superpowers and international conventions sustained by superpowers to meet their control needs. On the other hand, a superpower must, by definition, remain preeminently powerful and well resourced. This modifies a superpower’s definition of control.
The A-10 & Agincourt: Winning When the Enemy Dictates the Time & Place
There is a lesson from Agincourt for today’s Airmen, specifically vis-à-vis the A-10. There is a difference in forces designed to offensively interdict and achieve superiority (the comparison’s to light and heavy cavalry are obvious), and those whose attack capability provide a distinctly defensive advantage.
Strategy as Fiction
No doubt there will be many executive functions in war, but wars are not over just because one side decides to capitulate, they are over when one side understands that it has lost and the other has won. The role of narrative is to develop that understanding. To that end, the narrative doesn’t have to appeal to our conscious, executive mind — it has to work on our unconscious learning mind. People who poo-poo narrative for want of something a little more calculable have deprived themselves of a powerful tool.
Renken on Carl von Clausewitz's Subjective, Objective, and Trinity
Clausewitz’s great contribution was to “build a snowmobile.” He took the philosophical epistemology of his era, which gave him a means of refining “truth.” He then directed that system to a study of war and availed himself of a Newtonian system to look at cause, effect and engagement. He further located war as a nexus between multiple independent but fused factions. I hope that this is a useful addition to your conception of CvC’s subjective, objective, and trinity.
Renken on Ganske on Wylie
Carl von Clausewitz defines what’s in the “box” of war very well, but Wylie does something truly great by defining the boundaries of the box. When your control crisis reaches a certain point, you go to war. When the control achieved is sufficient, you attempt to end war. In between those two points, with the exception of offering clarifying cumulative versus sequential pathologies, Clausewitz still reigns supreme. It is perhaps fitting that a Sailor defines the fringe while a Continentalist fills in the content.
Strategic Reform: Strategy in a time of more uncertainty or less?
Three fundamentally flawed assumptions dominate the Pentagon’s current “strategy.” The first is that uncertainty in our security environment is growing, requiring us to spend ever more to secure general readiness for a dizzying array of contingencies. The second is that our only reliable guide star is a need to pace China with high-end forces optimized for an eventual force-on-force clash close to their coast. The third is that all other potential adversaries constitute “lesser included” cases, requiring merely diminished application of high-end U.S. strength. All are wrong.
Right Reason, Right Season
Transformation is hard because organizations exist within a market place which is never truly static, yet changes at a pace which usually favors refinement over renewal. Narrow focus on efficiency creates real perceptive and cultural barriers to recognizing the need to transform. Successful transformation requires leaders who can articulate both why and when transformation is necessary—the right reason and right season.
Military as Seminal Agent: Violence as a Vehicle for Destruction and Creation
Ultimately, management of violence is an instrumentality for the military. The end sought is a new reality. The military destroys to create. No serious student of military history misses this point, but too often the focus on destruction blinds us to our responsibility for acts of creation that inevitably ensue.Ultimately, management of violence is an instrumentality for the military. The end sought is a new reality. The military destroys to create. No serious student of military history misses this point, but too often the focus on destruction blinds us to our responsibility for acts of creation that inevitably ensue.