“What’s needed is fighting spirit. But you’re not going to find too much of that among people who, typically, hold several post-graduate degrees. People who end up with those sorts of “credentials” are, typically, uniquely unsuited to fight wars, particularly in the present environment.”
Not true.
We need more officers with these credentials to be able to think through and anticipate the secondary, tertiary and quarternary effects of actions taken in this environment.
We also need officers who understand the true nature of the Enemy’s IO capability and ways which we can counter that that and in fact prosecute an aggressive offensive IO campaign against them.
This is NOT how most our current crop fo SR. GO/FOs think. It is a completely NEW paradigm for them and they are very uncomfortable here. We are also hobbled by the laws under which we operate in this arena as well.
WE officers in the O4/O5/O6 realm know waht to do, and how to do it - we are just not ENABLED to do it because of our leadership’s old way of thinking.
Strategic IO is on its ass. One of the ways IO-aware officers could facilitate IO in denied target audiences would be to enlist the support and assistance of people to whom that target audience is not denied.