Posted on 12/29/2021 9:36:08 AM PST by elpadre
2021 showcased the inability of the West to win small, long wars, and now, on the eve of 2022, the perils of far more existential big, fast wars loom over East-West relations.
These risks pose grave questions.
In the wake of the US humiliation in Afghanistan, and with fears rising of a potentially apocalyptic conflict breaking out over the flashpoint Taiwan Strait, how can conflict be better managed – or even better, effectively obviated?
In a world in which state-run militaries seek ever-bigger budget allocations, while generals and their staffs war game with expensive conventional weapons and deadly strategic arms, conflict management tends to fall within the realm of deterrent strategy.
But what if conventional weapons and tactics fail – as happened in Afghanistan? What if deterrence falters – as it may do over Taiwan?
Unconventional thinkers argue that there are better ways to operate.
These ways include containing – and mastering – conflict at the tactical level; deploying local and/or proxy forces with maximal efficiencies; and transitioning conflict from conventional battlegrounds into the hybrid space.
One such thinker is Prince – perhaps the most aggressive advocate of private sector militaries in the Western hemisphere. Not coincidentally, he is also an outspoken critic of the Pentagon’s conventional warfighting, processes and policies.
Those policies – of prioritizing US forces and tactics over local forces and tactics; of big-war, conventional-unit primacy; and of dollar overspend and related bureaucratic bloat – have led to military defeats and foreign policy disasters for Washington, ranging from South Vietnam, to Somalia to Afghanistan.
Prince insists that conflict can be more effectively conducted using a hybrid model that deploys smaller, nimbler and more localized units. This style of warfare, he reckons, is best managed and fought by unconventional players – be they intelligence agencies, special operations ...
(Excerpt) Read more at asiatimes.com ...
Prince admires Israel’s Mossad model currently implemented in Iran.
Hardly an unbiased observer.
Doesn’t mean he is wrong, but he is a merc.
Problem with using mercs is they go where the money is.
and more:
“...Private forces are “as old as warfare,” Prince noted. Indeed, looking back over centuries of conflict, many of the most famed units fought for profit, rather than for tribe, kingdom or state.
Their numbers include: The Norse “Varangian Guard” who protected the Byzantine emperors, the “Free Companies” and “Free Lances” of the 100 Years War; the Condottiere and the Landsknechte who followed them; the Papal Swiss Guard; the European privateers and corsairs who conducted economic warfare on the high seas; the pirate fleets of Japan, southern China and the southern Philippines who raided and slave raided across Asia; and the armies of the Honourable East India Company that secured an empire in South Asia....”
Mercenary armies from the U.S. waging war against foreign sovereign states. What could go wrong?
Maybe we’ll see a scenario unfold right here in the U.S. where the Amazon Army squares off against the Boeing Air Force.
The private sector is efficient when there is free market competition. The privatization of government functions, however, has not resulted in efficiencies, just profiteering, which is the hall mark of crony capitalism.
This is not to take a position on the argument, but just dealing with a false premise used to introduce the argument. It is a nice shiney object but it is nothing but cheap plating on a base metal.
this is a good article to read in its entirety.
And when Amazon wins they will force the Boeing Air Force to carry Amazon packages at reduced rates.
Does this clown really expect to be taken seriously?
As I recall an operation the CIA carried out in Vietnam was to arm local villagers with M-1 Carbines and organize them to resist the VC infiltrators. This was apparently having some success. And then LBJ sent in the US Army and all these villagers got drafted into the ARVN. And thus disaster ensued as the US Army and ARVN used WWII tactics to fight a small unit insurgency. I used to chuckle at the diminutive ARVN troops lugging the giant M1 Garands around. Seriously. Most Vietnamese men were about 5’4” or 6” and weighted maybe 110 lbs and were given Garands.
So I think there is merit to this idea. But since it reduces the need for giant multi-billion dollar weapons systems it’ll never fly.
And that’s only until the Apple Space Force uses an EMP to shut down all of Amazon’s global communications. :-P
Does - or could - this mean: "False Flag" ???
Perfect for using against your own citizens.
Letters of Marque and Reprisal.
Not a new idea.
L
They'll work for the fascist global guilds - an army for Amazon, another for Blackrock, another for Soros...what could go wrong?
He may be all of that, but I like to see people of consequence who think out of the box. I hate taking a plan before a group, as I have many times in the military, in industry and in church councils, only to have it discarded because “we never did it that way before!!!”
I thought that four Special Forces riding on horses won the war in Afghanistan?
They even made a movie about it.
First, American “leadership” would have to have as its priority “defense of our sovereign country”.
I thought we had Special Forces over in Afghanistan the whole time we were there?
What Divisions went to Afghanistan?
Princes’ view of Pentagon Generals, must take masses of troops in country,supported by more massive support structures here and on the way to the objective.
Trimming down,using resident forces who will follow a cadre
who stays in the field.Small groups are nimble,large groups move s l o w l y.
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