A Brief Response to Modern War Institute’s “Getting Competition Wrong: The US Military’s Looming Failure”

On 3 December 2021, USMA’s Modern War Institute published the above-titled essay decrying American military strategy.??While I wholeheartedly agree that U.S. strategy, and for that matter tactical and operational arts, have been broken since the end of the Cold War, the article is?so full of gobbledegook, new age words and doublespeak?that a critical thinker would?have no clue what concrete goals, objectives, changes and actual methodologies they are proposing.

Our Strategic Plan must be based solely on self-defense and the National Interest, not some Globalist’s pipedream.?It is not in our national interest to "Marshall Plan" the whole world. We cannot afford to do that and the likelihood of success in culturally dissimilar societies is zero.?See, Afghanistan.? It worked in post-war Germany because we defeated them and they were of similar Christian background. And, even without the Christian factor, it worked because of our shared cultural values and belief systems based on work ethic and private property rights. For these latter reasons, our occupation of Japan also worked, as did our occupation of South Korea (albeit we intervened to save them from the commies and they feared falling into that abyss). But, Japan and Germany worked because we thrashed them.

Strategy?concerns employment of forces in furtherance of national interests. The?Operational?level of war is the planning and conduct of military campaigns and operations. The Tactical level of warfare is?where the individual battles and engagements are fought. At first blush, the issue of rules of engagement or tactical directives seems to rest squarely in the “Tactical” camp.??However, when those rules or directives are overly restrictive, confusing and unevenly applied, they become strategic blinders that dilute military efficacy. [ See, Bolgiano & Taylor, "Can't Kill Enough to Win?" Proceedings, December 2017 https://www.usni.org/magazines/proceedings/2017/december/cant-kill-enough-win-think-again ]

As so wisely observed by Sir Winston Churchill in a speech in 1927,?“I decline utterly to be impartial between the fire brigade and the fire.”??So, too, should any citizen?when weighing the value of American lives – especially against an enemy who are murderous unlawful combatants as faced by US service members since 9/11.??Yet, after over two decades of combat, too many commanders and their military lawyers are woefully, if not willfully, ignorant of the lawful authorities and circumstances by which we can and ought to kill this enemy. As a result, American military personnel are both unnecessarily exposed to maiming and death unable to fight back effectively due to the fear of the inevitable investigations that have become witch hunts against small units that use deadly force and actually kill the enemy. Against Third World brigands who are unlawful combatants fighting in violation of the law of war, this posture is morally untenable; against near-peer competitors such as Russia or China it poses an existential threat to the United States. Three cups tea my ass!

Human operating system Version 1.0 as not changed in all of recorded history. Accordingly, neither has the basic tenets of war.??It still takes those that “get thar fustest with the mostest”?and those willing to kill with blinding speed and effect to win a war.??This notion that we can win with “precision strikes” is pure fantasy.??Even our great “victory” in Operation DESERT STORM was a bloody killing field. Just ask the remnants of the?Tawakalna?Division of the Iraqi Army and those retreating on the highway of death.

During the First World War we killed enough Germans to set conditions where they understood battlefield defeat and regime collapse was the logical outcome if they continued the fight on the western front against the Allies. During our own Civil War, the Union literally bled the Confederacy dry of men of fighting age.??Grant’s Army of the Potomac killed their fellow Americans by the tens of thousands until finally Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia was so small that it couldn’t effectively resist. It was that pressure that led Robert E. Lee, arguably the greatest tactician on either side, to surrender. Grant was determined to literally bleed the South dry… in other words “kill his way to victory.” He had the manpower advantage as well as both the economic and industrial power to do so at the time.??I wonder if this still holds true?

This country’s “Greatest Generation” killed enormous numbers of the enemy’s military and civilians in order to secure the liberties we enjoy today.?Curtis LeMay, the architect of the Allied bombing campaign against Imperial Japan, knew that if he killed enough Japanese they would finally quit.??While seemingly “brutal” by 2017 standards, his approach yielded lasting results, a productive peace that has lasted since 1945. The legal justification then – the sneak attack on Pearl Harbor – is exactly the same tactic and?casus belli?as the one in the recent war: a sneak attack on 9/11.

While our new enemies are so-called “non-state actors” they have no trouble with their identity and moral agency. We still have not told our young men and women, “It’s okay to kill.”??Moreover, we do not celebrate their victories.??How many ticker-tape parades have we had for our Medal of Honor recipients in this war???What sacrifices have our Presidents, of both parties, asked the American public to make? Lastly, when our individual warriors are adjudged to have killed the “wrong” target, they are looking at terms of imprisonment, rather than being given the benefit of the doubt, as were so many during WWII. It is no wonder that PTSD and suicide levels are so high. Instead of praising our victors, we browbeat them about civilian casualty numbers.?How does any of this strengthen?our?moral agency??

We?ought to?be respected and feared.?If a nation state or terrorist surrogate attacks America or her national interests,?go in?with “weapons free” ROE, kill?or?destroy?the threat, salt the earth so nothing will grow, place heads on pikes, and leave with warning that we will come back unless they tow the line. Kill enough to make it hurt.?Badly. People will eventually get the idea?not to fuck with us.?

Once clearly stated, both our adversaries and our allies will know our intent and resolve.??The result is a not so fragile peace and a more secure world marketplace for commerce, ideas, and freedom.

National Interest

It is her National Interest that gives America the will and legal authority to fight.??Sun Tzu observed that national unity was an essential requirement of victorious war.?(Tzu 1963)?Many in the European Union (EU) and the United Nations (UN) derisively refer to America as a nation of “cowboys.” America’s economic and social strengths derive from precisely the fact that it is not a parliamentary European Union-like entity, but rather a free market society unafraid of being a cowboy.

If America cedes its core values and security to a conglomerate of diverse, international interests, our Country risks diminishing its power and sovereignty to the point of becoming a second-tier voice in a parliamentary aggregate slouching toward socialistic mediocrity. America’s economic engine must run on the fuel of free market economics, respect and integrity of private property rights, and security from external threats.??The primacy of these national interests as the foundation of our societal will to go to war is enduring.??

While international organizations like the UN have utility in reaching accords concerning aviation, laws of the sea, and similar treaties and agreement relating to free trade and commerce, they should?neverreach a level of primacy over America’s core Constitutional principles. As Churchill sagely advised, “Do not let spacious plans for a new world divert your energies from saving what is left of the old.”

Right of Self-defense

Consistently, since at least 60 B.C., laws and customs have recognized individuals’ inherent right to reasonably defend themselves from an attacker threatening to inflict death or serious bodily injury. Historically, the right of self-defense has been viewed not as a statutory or legal right, but as a divine natural right permanently bestowed upon all persons by virtue of existence.??Over 2,000 years ago Markus Tullius Cicero wrote:??

"[t]here does exist therefore, gentlemen, a law which is a law not of the statute-book, but of nature; a law which we possess not by instruction, tradition, or reading, but which we have caught, imbided, and sucked in at Nature’s own breast; a law which comes to us not by education but by constitution, not by training but by intuition—the law, I mean, that should our life have fallen into any snare, into the violence and the weapons of robbers or foes, every method of winning a way to safety would be morally justifiable."

A strategy based on self-defense will help ensure that the will of the American people will remain steadfast behind any war effort undertaken.??War itself is to full of chance and uncertainty to embark upon without such strong support. Again, Winston Churchill understood this when he said:

“Never, never, never believe any war will be smooth and easy, or that anyone who embarks on the strange voyage can measure the tides and hurricanes he will encounter. The statesman who yields to war fever must realise that once the signal is given, he is no longer the master of policy but the slave of unforeseeable and uncontrollable events. Antiquated War Offices, weak, incompetent, or arrogant Commanders, untrustworthy allies, hostile neutrals, malignant Fortune, ugly surprises, awful miscalculations — all take their seats at the Council Board on the morrow of a declaration of war. Always remember, however sure you are that you could easily win, that there would not be a war if the other man did not think he also had a chance.”?