The Counterrevolution in Military Affairs

The Weekly Standard ^ | Ralph Peters

[Cannoneer No. 4]

There is, in short, not a single enemy in existence or on the horizon willing to play the victim to the military we continue to build. Faced with men of iron belief wielding bombs built in sheds and basements, our revolution in military affairs appears more an indulgence than an investment. In the end, our enemies will not outfight us. We'll muster the will to do what must be done--after paying a needlessly high price in the lives of our troops and damage to our domestic infrastructure. We will not be beaten, but we may be shamed and embarrassed on a needlessly long road to victory.

[SevenMinusOne]

The suicide bomber may be the weapon of genius of our time, but the crucial new strategic factor is the rise of a global information culture that pretends to reflect reality, but in fact creates it. Iraq is only the most flagrant example of the disconnect between empirical reality and the redesigned, politically inflected alternative reality delivered by the media. This phenomenon matters far more than the profiteers of the revolution in military affairs can accept--the global information sphere is now a decisive battleground. Image and idea are as powerful as the finest military technologies.

We have reached the point (as evidenced by the first battle of Falluja) where the global media can overturn the verdict of the battlefield. We will not be defeated by suicide bombers in Iraq, but a chance remains that the international media may defeat us. Engaged with enemies to our front, we try to ignore the enemies at our back--enemies at whom we cannot return fire. Indeed, if anything must be profoundly reevaluated, it's our handling of the media in wartime. We have no obligation to open our accounts to proven enemies, yet we allow ourselves to be paralyzed by platitudes.

So much of this article is spot on - A worthy full read for everyone -

[reluctantwarrior]

Stalin...quantity has a quality all its own or words to that effect

RW

[wildbill]

Tell me how an arsenal of smart bombs and nuclear rockets will provide deterrence for religious fanatics with bombs strapped to their chests or briefcases full of germs or nuclear devices.

That's what Peters is discussing--the failure of the old forms of deterrence and war-strategizing to deal with the new asymetrical warfare.

[gr8eman]

I do not buy it. Neither do the gooners taken out in Pakistan by the JDAM last week!

[wildbill]

The total deaths in Hiroshima and Nagasaki are probably less than the average daily BIRTH rate in China.

The traditional strategy for China over the millenia has been the 'pillow'. Invaders strike into the interior and become surrounded by the pillow effect of the huge population.

Mao and his collegues used to boast they were capable of surviving a nuclear exchange that would kill hundreds of millions because their populatiion could withstand those losses and their undeveloped infrastructure was not as dependent on maintaining their infrastructure and technology as the West. Not much has changed.

[SevenMinusOne]

They can never beat our military, and now largely don't even try. They go straight for the political will.

This is very true.....but just as the old Western saying goes..."war is just an extension of politics"....our enemies see "politics as just an extension to their war"....

They see fighting through the political prism (attacking our political will) as simply another military front in their cause. To this extension for them (though it will not be successful...IMO) the suicide bomber and the IED have been true innovations in the since that our enemies have used both more vigorously then in any other time in modern history.

I don't agree with all of Peters takes within this article....but he does provide a number of very accurate points within it.

Regards,

[SevenMinusOne]

in the since

"since" should read "sense" (long night last night).

[wildbill]

I have nothing against taking out the leaders of a radical group--but how many times do you have to take out "the #3 leader in Al Queda" (as we have in the past) to realize that the cost of one JDAM is a lot more than a couple of a few .35 cent bullets directed by Spec. Ops guys?

One of Peters' sub-theses is that we will soon run out of expensive multi-million dollar technology used against a few 'gooners' in a tent. It's not a smart way to wage war and meet the threat.

[Cannoneer No. 4]

ping

[LS]

Well, then in that case they didn't invent anything: the Japanese kamikaze attacks had no real battlefield value. Even if "successful," they weren't going to stop an invasion. Instead, they were totally directed against political will, making the American public so casualty-averse that they said, "Forget it."

[gr8eman]

You are right. Point taken...the defense industry is way out of control...but so are most gov't programs. My thoughts follow the line of military=technical advancement. It is ugly but true. All the most significant technical advances have come from the military for the sole purpose of killing people and blowing sh-t up. If there is any program that should be bloated it is the military. We just need a sensible defense dept. One can dream.

[John Jorsett]

I'm unclear on what the author actually wants to do. Improve our "strength of will," boost the size of the military, freeze out media that we perceive to be inimical to our purposes, or what?

[archy]

We even considered using atomic bombs as beach clearing weapons. If that operation would have gone forward, it would have been nothing short of hell on earth.

In 1945 only 17 B-29s had completed the *Silver Plate* modification program that enabled them to carry/arm/drop the atomic weapons; even as late as as the close of 1948 the Air Force had modified only 60 of the fleet of some 4000 B29s built to carry the atomic bomb.

Neither was there any overabundance of atomic weapons for immediate use; by the end of the war there were probably six devices in various stages of completion usable for support of an eventual invasion of Japan, and when the USAF was established as a seperate armed service in 1947 there were still only 13 in the entire arsenal; 56 in 1948; 298 not until mid-1950.

The idea of atomic weaponry reducing enemy strongholds prior to beachhead landings may have been a happy story intended to boost troop morale, but it's almost certain that the third U.S. atomic weapon would have been delivered to Tokyo... offering the possibility that there would have been no surviving national authority that could order a surrender.

Though the idea of a demonstration strike atop Mt. Fuji certainly offers a certain charm.... Whoops! There go all the cherry blossoms!

[colorado tanker]

One begins to wonder if the bomber's suicidal impulse isn't matched by a deep death wish affecting the West's cultural froth.

Western Civilization is in decay. Most in Europe and too many in America feel it's no longer worth fighting for.

[archy]

Tell me how an arsenal of smart bombs and nuclear rockets will provide deterrence for religious fanatics with bombs strapped to their chests or briefcases full of germs or nuclear devices.

The certain knowledge that if a briefcase full of germs or a nuclear device is used in this country, their religious center at Mecca will become radioactive glass would at least cut down attendance at next year's haj. Or maybe not, in which case, no problem.

That's what Peters is discussing--the failure of the old forms of deterrence and war-strategizing to deal with the new asymetrical warfare.

New asymetrical warfare? Hahahaha! Do the name Jacob W. *Hellroarin’ Jake* Smith ring any bells? Asymetrical warfare is nothing very new to Americans, just ask Aguinaldo's Phillipinos, Haiti's Charlemagne Peralte, or any surviving member of one of the near-extinct aboriginal American tribes-the Pine Ridge Oglala, for instance.

American troops have no problem playing the game hard, if that's what's called for, though most prefer to be more sporting. But we have an excellent history of being the wrong folks to get really mad.

General Smith instructed Major Littleton Waller, the commanding officer of the Marines assigned to cleanup the island of Samar, of the methods he was to employ: "I want no prisoners. I wish you to kill and burn; the more you kill and burn the better it will please me." He directed that Samar be converted into a "howling wilderness." All persons who have not surrendered and were capable of carrying arms were to be shot. Who was capable? Anyone over ten years of age, according to Smith. At this point he became better known as Jake "Howling" Smith.

What followed was a sustained and widespread killing of Filipino civilians.

The basic elements of his policy were few. Food and trade to Samar were to be ended to starve the revolutionaries into submission. He instructed his officers to regard all Filipinos as enemies and treat them accordingly until they showed conclusively that they were friendly by specific actions such as revealing information about the location of revolutionaries or arms, working successfully as guides or spies, or trying actively to obtain the surrender of the guerrillas in the field. He gave his subordinates carte blanche authority in the application of General Order 100. (Abraham Lincoln’s 1863 General Orders No. 100, in brief, authorized the shooting on sight of all persons not in uniform acting as soldiers and those committing, or seeking to commit, sabotage.)

General Smith's "grand strategy" on Samar involved the use of widespread destruction to force the inhabitants to cease supporting the guerrillas and turn to the Americans from fear and starvation. He used his troops in sweeps of the interior in search for guerrilla bands and in attempts to capture Lukban, but did nothing to prevent contact between the guerrilla and the townspeople. American columns marched all over the island destroying habitations and draft animals.

Major Waller, for example, reported that in an eleven-day span his men burned 255 dwellings, slaughtered 13 carabaos and killed 39 people. Other officers reported similar activity.

[91B]

I generally agree with the thrust of the article, but Peters overstates his case somewhat.

For example, he tells us that the Chinese are developing alternative means to gain access to fuel if we embargo them in wartime. But the devil is in the details and Peters is vague at best on how they will accomplish this.

He gets an A for trying to talk sense to the Pentagon brass and an A+ for his understanding of what drives the Jihadis, but no better than a C- on the risks we face in the future.

[Zeroisanumber]

William Calley was ahead of his times.

Hugh Thompson, a true American hero, stopped Rusty Calley's madness back in 1968. I know that there are men of honor in the military who would stop any contemporary madmen of his stripe.

[GSlob]

Maybe you should read - and understand, which is important - the chapter on identity wars in Huntington's "Clash".

[JasonC]

"our rational models of analysis cannot explain."

Of course they can. Our enemies foreign and domestic are upset that our power prevents them from ruling the world. There is remarkably little there.

The writer thinks getting hysterical is an argument, it isn't. So do our enemies, and that is why they are losing.

We don't care about the "soaring wills" of our enemies because we aren't trying to convince them of anything. When men abandon reason you kill them. Very simple, too simple for the author of this piece to understand. This is not a way of trying to persuade them of something. It is a means of living in a world from which they are concretely and individually absent.

As for the unanswered flood of lies, it has brought the liars nothing. They lose power everywhere, slowly but inexorably. Similarly, the terrorists in their paradise have accomplished nothing. They die in squalor, our civilization hums along. They've elevated the ambient noise level slightly and underlined the importance of various perennial virtues - so what? We have them, in any desired quantity.

The media can't win the battle for Fallujah. In case everybody forgot, the "insurgents" of Fallujah were slaughtered, and nobody blinked an eye.

Of course our own strength of will is important in this or in any other war. But strength of will comes from justice, not from blatant disregard of it. The author thinks the suicides are stronger and winning, when the facts on the ground clearly show otherwise. Our soldiers are not daunted by them. Their numbers do not dwindle. They stand their posts and shoot down all comers, as fast as those choose to come.

The terrorists and their make believer communists expect to stop the greatest military empire in history and the juggernaut of capitalism with vain gestures of defiance, spitballs, and leading editorials. They might as readily try to knock down a brick wall by playing tennis at it. It hasn't moved us an inch, while they have lost 50 million souls, several countries, tens of thousands of combatants, etc.

We are supposed to be scared of this? At least the Germans actually had a chance, if they had done everything ten times smarter than they did. The only hope these have is that one lot group of our enemies is willing to surrender to another group of our enemies.

The instant they realize we will take the pacifism of the first lot at its face value, and therefore defy them whatever they do, they will begin to notice how comprehensively they have been defeated. What is a pacifist going to threaten me with? Another stern leading editorial? ("Electoral defeat", they will say. And when I ignore their imaginary laws as readily as our foreign enemies do, what then? Will they write more stern leading editorials?)

[JasonC]

They were not even seriously directed against US political will. They were simply dying to show they preferred death for their emperor to the disgrace of living with defeat. Which was pointless, and in which we indulged them as much as they liked, until they were no more.