Generational Dynamics World View News

[Cool Breeze]

I disagree that a future conflict will have any real similarity to WWI. That war was essentially the same as wars of the previous fifty years except for the scale. A war with China, the only real war looming, would be a fast-paced kinetic war that would need to be decided quickly. It wouldn't even bear much similarity to the last Gulf War. It will also be a war where you fight with what you got since it won't last long enough to replace losses.

While older generations sometimes have wisdom, mostly they are worse at predicting things, in all categories. Xeraphim I believe exposes this. A war may be coming, but its quality will be unlike what Navigator is generally predicting.

What's more, there is a probability that a truly meaningful war won't happen, and instead a conflict will lead to a one world government scenario, since governments are so keen on enslaving their populations, this much is obvious (if there is no revolt).

[DaKardii]

The ultimate deciders in the upcoming great geopolitical battle are the nine countries of the Eurasian Balkans (Afghanistan, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan), and the six countries surrounding it (China, India, Iran, Pakistan, Russia, and Turkey).

Other important players in this theatre include Bahrain, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Greece, Iraq, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Romania, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Ukraine, and the United Arab Emirates.

[Xeraphim1]

What has happened is basically this: all organizations are on a scale with extreme competence of leadership on one extreme (lets say this side is the right side), and extreme incompetence born of cronyism on the other extreme (lets say this is the left side). An example of extreme competence might be something like those leading Intel in the 1980s. The other extreme would be Maduro's cronies in charge of the Venezuelan oil company. Over time, any organization will move from the right to the left unless EXTREME caution is taken. This is even more so the case in governmental organizations that don't produce any kind of measurable output (hence they are missing the feedback that the organization could get from profit or market share). Over time, competence is less and less valued. What becomes more and more valued are your personal connections and ability at "office politics". Competent people are even removed or pushed aside, as those who are less competent and above them get rid of them as threats.

What has happened in the US Military is that to get to the top you have to belong to a specific "club". This club is Airborne (82nd Airborne specifically) Rangers. Without this background, you have serious difficulty getting to the top. Nothing is done to vet or prepare people for strategic thinking other than sending them to the service schools like the War College, which is a joke because no-one fails. You show up, you write papers, you pass. I personally had to tutor a number of people going through this. Their lack of basic military knowledge was appalling.

I'll argue that there has always been a ruling clique in every military organization. For the current US Army, having the tower of power helps a lot. Previously, it would have been armor. Before that cavalry. Cavalry was traditionally the most prestigious branch of any military because the rich horse owning people tended to go there rather than the infantry filled with peasants and other undesirables... For the USN it used to be the black shoe battleship captains that got to be admirals and a regulation had to be passed to ensure brown shoe aviators could get a ship command. In the US Air Force it's still the fighter mafia that runs things. You seem to be suggesting this is something new when it isn't.

I'll agree that the US military does not put as much emphasis on military history as it should. There is some of that in the ROTC program and more at the service academies, bur little on a formal, ongoing basis. Continuing ed may be a worthwhile addition.

To move on to the examples I gave. Here are better ones (or ones better explained) since I have put more time into thinking about it, and it gets more to your point about "poisoning the well".

<snip>

These may be better examples, but they're still somewhat one-dimensional. Using Sukhomlinov as an example, you're ignoring much of the power dynamics of Russian imperial society. For one, there was a tension between proponents of infantry vs cavalry and fortress artillery, the latter mostly filled with the upper class. Sukhomlinov tried to enhance the former but with only limited success. There were too many competing interests and the Tsar, the only one who could have actually forced a change, was limited by those same dynamics. Also note that Sukhomlinov was replaced as Minister of War by Guchkov, one of the people who denounced him most fiercely. Perhaps that might help explain some of the opprobrium he faced.

There was little Sukhomlinov could have done or not done as an individual that would have drastically changed the road Russia was on. John likes to repeat that history is led by the sentiment of the people, not individual politicians. I think the same applies to the examples you're offering.

I mostly picked WW1 commanders as a consequence of my opinion that our next war will be similar to that. That is because WW1 was a shock due to rapid technological advances which were not understood (though they should have been). For us now, there has not been a force on force conflict with competent forces on both sides since the Arab Israeli War of 1973. Technology has obviously advanced a LOT since then, but no one knows for sure how it will influence the battlefield until it gets used in a major power vs major power conflict.

Every major conflict since the Civil War was supposed to "end quickly". The experience of world history is that they don't, and then they turn into giant attritional affairs that take years before one side is completely spent.

I don't expect to have changed your mind on any of this, but it is good to get both sides out there. No one is going to be able to "prove" anything until we actually experience what is coming. I just hope I have done a better job of explaining my position.

There were some rapid technological advances in WWI, but they didn't radically change the course of war on land; the differences were more in scale than in type. The big failures in leadership were in not examining what had happened in the US Civil War and Franco-Prussian war. Submarines, while not new, did achieve a exponentially greater lethality than previous versions and that was a major change. Aircraft also developed rapidly, but other than reconnaissance were not significantly useful yet.

For a modern war between great powers+, operations cannot last for long at high levels due to the fact that supplies of munitions are not large enough to do so and production time is too long. A LRASM looks to be a great anti-ship missile, but at $4 million a pop we're not buying many of them and it could take months to fill a new order. Once they're all fired off there are only inferior alternatives left. China is in the same boat plus the fact that, while is is modernizing its forces rapidly, a lot of its equipment is old and needs replacement.

On top if this is the fact that nuclear weapons do make a difference. I do believe that the leadership in China values their comfortable lives quite highly and wants to enjoy them for a long time. Despite some of the bluster in announcements, I don't think they'd use WMD unless facing utter defeat because the US would be sure to respond to any use and it has more weapons with longer ranges and better accuracy.

[Xeraphim1]

Adding a few more things, ran out of time earlier.

I agree with Trevor that Westmoreland was a disaster for the Army. He fought in WW2 and Korea, so he thought the same things would work in Vietnam (firepower overwhelms enemy). Johnson would have followed whatever advice Westmoreland gave. In fact, its why over 500K soldiers ended up there at the height of the war. The whole bodycount thing was misplaced thinking, again, that you win by attrition (WW2/Korea). Yes, I know people will say WW2 was not attrition, but it kinda was. We were able to get into Germany because they ran out of quality soldiers.

Yes, Westmoreland's running of the Vietnam war was not distinguished, but you can't place all the blame on him. I agree the body count policy was misplaced, but that is exactly the kind of policy that appealed to McNamara who was his boss. Westmoreland actually wanted different strategies but was overruled by Johnson who had various political constituencies he had to appease.

I also agree with Trevor that Aircraft carriers are obsolete. They would have been in the Falkands too if the Argentinians had a modern submarine. They are basically a handy airfield when you need one, but with air to air refueling, you can base your aircraft in the general area and be ok. Carriers are vulnerable both to submarines and to being overwhelmed by missiles. Yes they have escorts, but they too can be overwhelmed by missile swarms. Missiles with multiple targeting (infrared/active radar/passive radar) flying in at Mach 2+. Hypersonic are even deadlier (almost no time for anti-missile missiles to react).

And yet increasing numbers of countries are building new carriers. Either all these countries are stupid or the "experts" are getting it wrong. I think the latter is more likely. Aerial refueling is and will remain a necessity, but tankers are extremely vulnerable targets. They are slow, unmaneuverable and almost too important to lose. While a European war would have a lot of airbases to work out of, the situation is quite different in the Pacific which is the area of concern now. The closest US base to China (excluding Okinawa which may or may not be available in a crisis) is Guam. The next closest US base is Wake, 1,500 miles away. That's within ferry range for combat aircraft, but barely. The USAF actually started upgrading Wake last year. After that you have Midway, 1,200 miles away with even more limited facilities and than Hawaii, 1,100 miles further east. You're seeing the problems here?

And guess what, land bases don't move so they're even easier targets to hit with missiles. Oops! Guam is the only defended island with a THAAD battery and an Aegis ashore site planned but not under construction yet. For carriers you first have to find them and then get past the aircraft it carries and 2-3 Aegis ships full of missiles designed expressly to defend carriers.

Of course this debate will only end when it comes to a US vs China war. And I bet the Chinese have a warstart strategy that involves taking out carriers before their defenses are primed and ready.

That would difficult since only 1-2 would typically be within range of Chinese forces.

Carriers equipped with F-35s would be the bad guys dream, as this plane is an out and out disaster. Any research online will show that. But again, for absolute proof, we have to wait and see a real combat test. Anyone building a carrier right now is making a giant budgetary mistake. Much better to put the money into modern submarines.

You are completely wrong here. The F-35 is currently the best aircraft flying with the possible exception of the F-22 for certain roles. You need to understand that there has been more information published about the F-35 than any other aircraft and that there are people with interests in portraying it in the worst possible way to suit their agendas. There are some 12 countries already operating the F-35 with more to come. it just today was announced as the winner of the Switzerland contest and Finland is due to announce a winner later this year.

Submarines can deny territory, but not control it. They also are poorly suited to attacking land targets. Carriers excel in those two tasks. Again, there are an increasing number of countries building carriers and they seem to believe they are good ideas.

Next topic: We will need millions of infantry replacements once a real war starts. This has been the case in every major power vs major power war. We will have to take all of the people that cannot enlist right now. It will take at least an extra month or two to get them into shape. The Army will take the drastic measures it needs to to get people into shape. This will have to include almost starving those overweight and running them through a longer bootcamp that is much more strenuous than the current program. They know how to do this.

Last topic: China imports a lot more than oil. Most important to them is going to be food. In the end this is how I predict we win. The Chinese will starve their population in the prosecution of the war.

We won't need millions of infantry because no one will ever have that many infantry again. Even China has been downsizing its military over the post decade or two. Modern infantry simply cost too much and need too much support to be used en masse.

China will run out of fuel before food. Any war would result in a complete halt in tanker deliveries to China and pipelines are inadequate to make up that lost volume. At the same time military operations take a lot of fuel.

[Xeraphim1]

The ultimate deciders in the upcoming great geopolitical battle are the nine countries of the Eurasian Balkans (Afghanistan, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan), and the six countries surrounding it (China, India, Iran, Pakistan, Russia, and Turkey).

Other important players in this theatre include Bahrain, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Greece, Iraq, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Romania, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Ukraine, and the United Arab Emirates.

You keep pushing this theory without any real proof. I'll argue that most of those "Eurasian Balkans" are almost completely irrelevant on a geopolitical basis. China, India and Russia are certainly important, especially the first two since there is a better chance of war between those two than in most other areas. The "other important players" you list are also mostly unimportant in any military or geopolitical sense.

[tim]

I agree with Trevor that Westmoreland was a disaster for the Army. He fought in WW2 and Korea, so he thought the same things would work in Vietnam (firepower overwhelms enemy). Johnson would have followed whatever advice Westmoreland gave. In fact, its why over 500K soldiers ended up there at the height of the war. The whole bodycount thing was misplaced thinking, again, that you win by attrition (WW2/Korea). Yes, I know people will say WW2 was not attrition, but it kinda was. We were able to get into Germany because they ran out of quality soldiers.

You once again fail to apply the most basic facts of Generational Dynamics.

Why were nuclear weapons dropped on Japan but not Vietnam? Why were no nuclear weapons used in the Korean War?

You are over analyzing military history while ignoring what the 80 year cycles tells us. Its why you continue to believe that when we go to war with China American cities will not be targeted with nuclear weapons.

I still don't understand why intelligent people can't grasp the most basic concepts of Generational Dynamics.

Vietnam was in a generational crisis era during the Vietnam War while America was not. This explains the "Vietnamese disregard for human life" during the war.

In a 1998 interview for George magazine, Westmoreland criticized the battlefield prowess of his direct opponent, North Vietnamese general Võ Nguyên Giáp. "Of course, he [Giap] was a formidable adversary", Westmoreland told correspondent W. Thomas Smith Jr. "Let me also say that Giap was trained in small-unit, guerrilla tactics, but he persisted in waging a big-unit war with terrible losses to his own men. By his own admission, by early 1969, I think, he had lost, what, a half million soldiers? He reported this. Now such a disregard for human life may make a formidable adversary, but it does not make a military genius. An American commander losing men like that would hardly have lasted more than a few weeks." In the 1974 film Hearts and Minds, Westmoreland opined that "The Oriental doesn't put the same high price on life as does a Westerner. Life is plentiful, life is cheap in the Orient. And as the philosophy of the Orient expresses it: Life is not important."

[tim]

I disagree that a future conflict will have any real similarity to WWI. That war was essentially the same as wars of the previous fifty years except for the scale. A war with China, the only real war looming, would be a fast-paced kinetic war that would need to be decided quickly. It wouldn't even bear much similarity to the last Gulf War. It will also be a war where you fight with what you got since it won't last long enough to replace losses.

While older generations sometimes have wisdom, mostly they are worse at predicting things, in all categories. Xeraphim I believe exposes this. A war may be coming, but its quality will be unlike what Navigator is generally predicting.

What's more, there is a probability that a truly meaningful war won't happen, and instead a conflict will lead to a one world government scenario, since governments are so keen on enslaving their populations, this much is obvious (if there is no revolt).

Older generations have wisdom for the times they lived in. Somebody who lived through the Great Depression and World War II would have wisdom for the near future. A baby boomer that was a hippy in the 60's will be completely blindsided by the coming crisis. This is the basic problem with humanity, that wisdom does not transcend a person's own experiences.

I remember eating dinner in a restaurant with some friends of the family. An older woman did not finish her meal and was putting leftover meat from the dinner plate into her purse. I asked her why she was doing this and she said she remembered what it was like not knowing the next time she would be able to eat meat. She was in her 80's at the time and this seemed crazy to everybody younger who did not suffer through the Great Depression.

[tim]

One possibility I could think of, given most of the population is physically unfit for service, is recommended and later mandatory exercise programs once war breaks out. Assuming this WWIII occurs, I wouldn't expect nuclear weapons to be used until one side or the other feels pushed into a corner and sees no alternative but to use them.

And this is why everyone will be so shocked when the Chinese attack comes.

Think of a modern day Pearl Harbor surprise attack.

While we argue about gender, diversity, equity, and inclusion, the Chinese continue to prepare to remove America from the gameboard.

When the Chinese move on Taiwan is when I begin the final steps of my preparations. This is the time that I predict the Chinese attack will occur - shortly after they attack Taiwan.

[DaKardii]

The ultimate deciders in the upcoming great geopolitical battle are the nine countries of the Eurasian Balkans (Afghanistan, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan), and the six countries surrounding it (China, India, Iran, Pakistan, Russia, and Turkey).

Other important players in this theatre include Bahrain, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Greece, Iraq, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Romania, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Ukraine, and the United Arab Emirates.

You keep pushing this theory without any real proof. I'll argue that most of those "Eurasian Balkans" are almost completely irrelevant on a geopolitical basis. China, India and Russia are certainly important, especially the first two since there is a better chance of war between those two than in most other areas. The "other important players" you list are also mostly unimportant in any military or geopolitical sense.

The "Eurasian Balkans" are important for three reasons. First, they are extremely rich in natural resources. Second, they are "up for grabs" among larger powers. And third, they are right in the center of the Eurasian supercontinent, where the European, Middle Eastern, and Asian civilizations (and with them the national interests of their dominant powers) converge.

[Tom Mazanec]

Cool Breeze, do you think there will be a revolt or will the Bad Guys take over completely?