Thursday, August 4, 2011

A Static Display of Impotence


--Dollar Operation, Arend van Dam

How can I bear unaided the trouble of you,

and the burden, and the bickering!

--Deuteronomy 1:12


It is part of the general pattern of misguided policy

that our country is now geared to an arms economy
which was bred in an artificially induced psychosis
of war hysteria and nurtured upon
an incessant propaganda of fear
--Gen. Douglas MacArthur


There can be economy
only where there is efficiency
--Benjamin Disraeli
___________________


The recent debt ceiling debate and budget cut proposals led Ranger to think about the Principles of War and how they were violated in the last several weeks.

Ticking off the list:


MASS:
This fight could not place the combat power at the decisive place and time; it was an exercise in futility. The decisive battle should not be about caps and cuts but rather, how do we stem the economic assault on our defensive position? We are re-acting when we should be acting. The entire debt limit discussion was an admission of defeat.

OBJECTIVE:
There was not a clearly-defined, decisive or attainable objective. Just as with the present U.S. Counterinsurgency (COIN) policy, the negotiation gave more credence to politics than to attainable objectives. The objective was not reached because it was obscured by smoke.

OFFENSIVE:
Neither political party maintained or achieved the initiative.

SURPRISE:
Both parties put all their assets forward, leaving them with nothing in reserve (which also affected their maneuver plan.)

ECONOMY OF FORCE:
Ditto above regarding surprise. Additionally secondary efforts were ignored and never prioritized. Not discussed were balance of trade, loss of jobs, balance of dollars leaving our shores, loss of industry and weak economic white papers. Nope -- we just focused on borrowing more, slashing and burning more.

MANEUVER
:
Both sides were totally dug-in defending in zone with no demonstrable mobile warfare. Neither side possessed the combat power essential to overrun the opposing side. It was a static display of impotence.

UNITY OF COMMAND:
One would assume the President would be the responsible commander, but this oversimplifies the situation. Obama should have stated his commander's guidance, but allowed the maneuver commanders to formulate their respective Operations orders. By placing himself on the battlefield he ignored the subordinate chain of command. In addition, his presence stiffened the opposition to an unacceptable intransigence.


SECURITY:
There can be no unexpected advantages in this altercation because we had already lost our freedom of movement and would win or lose with the forces committed. This hardly describes the concept of security.

SIMPLICITY:
Simplicity was violated because the principle of objective was ignored. The leaders preferred to ignore this principle to the detriment of the goals of the operation.

In a recent Time essay, "How Today's Conservatism Lost Touch with Reality," Fareed Zakaria bemoans the intransigence of today's conservatives, saying they have lost their touchstone of "reality" in exchange for reactive policies which ignore the truths on the ground. For instance, they failed to recognize that, "(t)axes — federal and state combined — as a percentage of GDP are at their lowest level since 1950":

"The U.S. is among the lowest taxed of the big industrial economies. So the case that America is grinding to a halt because of high taxation is not based on facts but is simply a theoretical assertion. The rich countries that are in the best shape right now, with strong growth and low unemployment, are ones like Germany and Denmark, neither one characterized by low taxes."

So the can has been kicked down the road; Ranger hasn't any faith that the next group of mutton-heads will apply the simple and infallible Principles to their effort.

Everyone says they love the military, yet they cannot apply some simple procedures to their policy-making processes.

37 comments:

  1. FZ, PudNit At Large:

    So the case that America is grinding to a halt because of high taxation is not based on facts but is simply a theoretical assertion.

    Soooo, that's what we're calling lies now?

    Fuckin' "Theoretical Assertions"?

    I love the military.

    I'm gonna drink me some Miller Beer and send you guys the bottle caps.

    So you can drink beer at a ball game and send yourself more bottle caps.

    http://tinyurl.com/3wujd6e

    Fenway Park, Boston, July 4, 2011. On this warm summer day, the Red Sox will play the Toronto Blue Jays. First come pre-game festivities, especially tailored for the occasion. The ensuing spectacle -- a carefully scripted encounter between the armed forces and society -- expresses the distilled essence of present-day American patriotism. A masterpiece of contrived spontaneity, the event leaves spectators feeling good about their baseball team, about their military, and not least of all about themselves -- precisely as it was meant to do.

    bb

    ReplyDelete
  2. Tony Montana:

    The only thing in this world that gives orders... is balls.

    bb

    ReplyDelete
  3. BB,
    I cannot decode your comments.
    I fear we are on different signal instructions.
    jim

    ReplyDelete
  4. There's a Miller beer commercial on Tee Vee that says send in your beer bottle caps and make vets happy.

    You've got to watch more Tee Vee, Ranger.

    ;)

    bb

    ReplyDelete
  5. http://www.millerhighlife.com/index.aspx

    ReplyDelete
  6. jim-

    Nice post.

    The purpose of theory when we use it with praxis is to tell us something of the situation we wouldn't see otherwise . . . so what is it? That they're screwing up . . . ? We knew that.

    . . .

    Have you clearly identified the two sides?

    Demos and Reps? Cons and Libs? Bush and Clinton? China and Israel? bought corp. Stooges and "crazy" corp. Stooges?

    ReplyDelete
  7. Seydlitz matches my thoughts on Jim's post. I suspect Jim would find that the politicians actually employed most of the Principals of War in pursuit of their goals, but not their publicly stated goals.

    Sun Tsu emphasized hiding your intentions and forces to achieve total sudden victory. I would be surprised if that strategy was not heavily used in Congress these days.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Pluto-

    Agree, or we can see it simply as they've borrowed Maskirovka from the Soviets/Russians and use it as their first principle which in turn influences everything that follows . . .

    ReplyDelete
  9. seydlitz,
    The supreme irony imo is that whoever makes up the 2 sides they are shooting friendlies rather than forces outside the wire.
    jim

    ReplyDelete
  10. I'd say the Principle of War involved in this case was the notion of the "Law of War". The political infighting in a democracy is supposed to be a limited or cabinet war of the Fredrician variety, the notion being that while you gain or lose a province or two you end up with both sides still viable, and the state continuing to function. While scorching the earth and destroying everything might be effective it is always rejected just because it will result in a greater harm to both the factions.

    But while the Dems are still thinking and fighting like Little Mac the GOP has gone all Bill Sherman and shown that it is willing to destroy the village in order to save it for Ayn Rand and the "free market"...

    So instead of little professional armies marching to and fro the levee en masse is coming, and eventually someone smarter and more cunning than Michelle Bachmann will take the example of this idiocy and smash the remnants of the putative "republic" and it will become the Empire.

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