RE: http://www.military.com/opinion/0,15202,176082,00.html
Dangerous stuff here, but as always, a good read. I'm hoping you military history buffs jump on this.

For never serving in the military, Lind sure does spout off a lot about knowing its culture.

I'm not gay or a feminist, but I've served with both homosexuals and women in the military. I guess he forgot women have been at battlefronts since the beginning of history. Heck, I wonder if he knew Alexander the great was a bisexual or that the Trojans dated their squires.

Let the veterans speak of our culture that Lind is so kind to reminisce of.

I have not read the book so my only comments are about the article and not the book.

I quit reading long books. Nietzsche said, "My objective is to say in 10 sentences what everyone else says in a book." Then he added, "What everyone else does not say." While technical writing requiring the inclusion of lots of details needs long writing, opinions do not.

My points are opinions and not meant to prove anyone right or wrong.

1. Writing or reading a book never won any war. Started many though.

2. It is not that Clausewitz is "right or wrong." Opinions are not factual but theoretical. Build upon good theories and ameliorate their flaws rather than attempt to destroy them entirely. I would say that this book lacks some credibility because it is easy to look at at history and find faults being 20/20 vision. We need 20/20 vision for the future, not the past. This is where Clausewitz succeeds and he fails.

3. Soldiers must have more fear of their leaders than the enemy. They do not in this war. I see this parallel in the writing.

4. Leaders without courage who cannot or would not do everything they ask of their follows are useless and dangerous. We have not won a war in over 60 years. I believe this is because of the bunker mentality in Washington. They do not declare war in total wars any more because they do not want to put themselves at risk in wars overseas. By not declaring war, they avoid responsibility and thus do not become part of the war themselves but can put all that that responsibility and blame on the "military." They maintain a sense of detachment and neutrality above the fray, thus avoiding identifying them as part the "war wagers." We must insist that Congress declare wars to make sure than they are part of the war effort. If they are not willing to put themselves in harm's way, then they cannot ask in good faith that anyone else do so. A "limited" war can only produce limited results, not total victories like total war.

5. Leaders lead by example.

6. Leaders lead from the front and not from safely fortified bunkers thousands of miles away. Patton demanded that he officers get up front so that they put their own lives in danger. A general who is a coward cannot lead an army of a million courageous men to victory.

7. The personal beliefs and conduct of leaders will reflect and be projected by extension to the people they lead. Truman fought in the trenches in WWI. When his men hestitated to charge into no man's land, he pulled out his revolver and said he would shoot and execute any man on the spot who did not follow his direct order. We see that this behavior was exactly replicated in his ultimatum given to Japan: Do what I say or you will be killed. He effectively "ordered" Japan to surrender or die. Leaders give orders not because they know the right answers but because they are leaders. If you wait until you get the right answer to step up and lead, then you are looking for someone else to tell you what to do. Leadership has an inherent value unto itself separate and distinct from the cause it supports.

8. We live in a society where generals order other brave men to their deaths but they themselves cower before Congress. What are they afraid of? Congress will not blow them up or shoot them like they men they are sending to their deaths. What a terrible example for the soldiers they command.

9. Win the war first and then worry about what people say about it afterwards.

10. I again emphasize that we have not won a war in over 60 years, so something is very wrong.

11. Reinstate battlefield executions for both our troops and the enemy. Lincoln was known for granting clemency to all the deserters, but that only points out how prevalent executions of our own soldiers have been in past wars.

quote:

If the next administration opens the combat arms to women and also demands the recruitment of homosexuals, the damage to the culture of war may be vast. The kind of men who fight often join the military to validate their manhood. They cannot do that in armed services heavily peopled with women and homosexuals.

"Demands" the recruitment of homosexuals? "They" are already serving in the ranks, women are already serving on the front lines, and we still seem able to field an army of the best and the brightest young Americans anyway. Perhaps the writer doesn't realize that men and women who are secure in their own bodies and comfortable in their own sexuality have been "validating their manhood and womanhood* and serving in the armed forces, since thousands of years before he was even born...?

Then again, perhaps he doesn't.

quote:

10. I again emphasize that we have not won a war in over 60 years, so something is very wrong.

So then, we lost the Gulf War of 1991? We lost the Korean War? I did not know that... perhaps because it is not true?

I was right there with Lind until the end. Talk about uncovering your lack of knowledge. WHat an outsider, how can he know my culture. That's right up there with " some of my friends are black".
My wife has been in the Army 20 years and retires in DEC. I have served two tours of Iraq and have cleared houses with a female as my #2 man in the stack. Homosexuals have always and will always been in the military. If you fight and take orders, I have no problems with you.
If you think and whine about "why are we here?" and " I don't agree with this war" Then go away and get out of my culture. Give me two homos and a chick and as long as all three want to fight and take orders and maintain disipline, I'l win every time.

Wow, I was a big fan of Lind until this one. His BS about homos and women makes me question everything else.

OX said it better than I could.

Lind just sounds like one of those "I swear i have never met a F*g so I assume they ALL act like the ones in the movie 'Birdcage" with Nathan Lane" kinda guys. I bet if we hooked him up to a "repressed homo detector" the needle would peg into the red.

quote:

Originally posted by 5116676:
Wow, I was a big fan of Lind until this one. His BS about homos and women makes me question everything else.

OX said it better than I could.

Lind just sounds like one of those "I swear i have never met a F*g so I assume they ALL act like the ones in the movie 'Birdcage" with Nathan Lane" kinda guys. I bet if we hooked him up to a "repressed homo detector" the needle would peg into the red.

Mr. Lind is an extreme Conservative. He makes no secret about this. His writings when he sticks to purely military topics are usually on the money. This was not a military piece - It was an iteration of his extremely backwards social views.

Such is life...

Dave

Good stuff, Ladies and Gents. Agree that Lind and the follow-up discussion seem to make more sense sticking to the tactics and strategy stuff. I was wondering if he crossed some lines here and wandered beyond his expertise. That has been anwered. Thanks.

Well, even if we let Lind talk about tactics and strategy, where does he get his expertise from? Books and historical conferences? C'mon!

Lind has never even sat on a listening/observation post, let alone led a fire team/squad/platoon; even in a training environment. How could he even phathom the intracacies of a strategy of an army without knowing what makes a servicemember tick?

Hell, just because I've read Sun Tzu doesn't make me an expert on the everything, but I do know the culture of the US military.

quote:

Originally posted by yanqui69:
Well, even if we let Lind talk about tactics and strategy, where does he get his expertise from? Books and historical conferences? C'mon!

Lind has never even sat on a listening/observation post, let alone led a fire team/squad/platoon; even in a training environment. How could he even phathom the intracacies of a strategy of an army without knowing what makes a servicemember tick?

Hell, just because I've read Sun Tzu doesn't make me an expert on the everything, but I do know the culture of the US military.

John Keegan, one of the most influential men in the British Army, has never done any of the above either. Never been in combat, never been on a front line - Yet he was in charge of Sandhurst, respected, listened to, etc, etc.

Lind does indeed attend conferences - Of Military men. Listened to and respected - By military men. Served his entire life - On questions dealing with the military.

It's also a hobby of mine, and if I start writing on tactical military questions, you would be correct in your criticism.

Because I fix boilers for a living, and take photographs for a living. The military IS Mr. Linds living.

Dave

Good counterpoint, but I still dissent on the basis of no practical experience to state he is an expert. We have too many university scholars and academia who have never been in the field to get some experience and basis for their opinions which they base as truth.

Lind has not had to make any real-time military decisions. From what I've seen, he's only studied and opined on what has happened. There is a big difference between the two. Lind is a historian, not a military leader. He can only assume things from the evidence at hand or what others have told him, not with his experience. Call him a backseat driver or an armchair quarterback is what I say. I do not know why he did not serve in the military, so I will refrain from degrading him on that comment.

Mr. Lind remains obsessed with the idea that present and future wars will be conducted more like urban gang warfare within nation-states than between nation states. To him the ideal military tactical unit would be more like a police S.W.A.T. team than an infantry company or a armored company, comprised of tanks, IFVs, and supporting elements. He is very wrong about this; but remains convinced that he is right.

"War Is Politics By Other Means." Just look what we are doing in Iraq, Afghanistan, and (by proxy on land with air and naval support) in Somalia, Pakistan, and Iran. Such wars require hundreds of thousands of boots on the ground for sustained periods of time. But we prefer to blow things up there,so that we can continue to shop here.

We are trying to crush the will of a people who resist our occupation. We are fighting them in their very homes! In such circumstances, we encounter women and children in greater numbers and with more frequency that we do male guerilla fighters and saboteurs of "military age" (which I guess starts around 15 and runs to 60). For that reason alone, we need women in the military at the front and in sufficient numbers, who can deal more effectively with the indigenous women and children, who are naturally terrified and humiliated by the rough treatment that they get from our soldiers during all those night raids which we seem to favor.

The U.S., NATO, and Israeli military planners -and certainly the Georgians- were surprised that the Russians could deploy 2 armored brigades and advance 100 miles in 3 days on a moment's notice. This, of course is no where near the scale of the takeover of Czechoslovakia in 1968, when the Soviets deployed 280,000 men in the same amount of time; but it is still a clear demonstration of what a modern military force must be skilled at doing. If we can't, then all this emphasis on "stability operations" will prove as pointless as those Prussian battalion drills, which Lind justly derided. Presently organized, our land forces will prove to be just as incapable of fighting a land war against a modern mechanized force as the Prussians proved to be against Napoleon at the battle/slaughter of Jena in 1806.

van Creveld is too close to the ongoing oppression of Palestinians and with the tactics which are most effective in dealing with them. He has lost his perspective on war as it is and will be for a long time to come.

quote:

Originally posted by AGBrina:
Mr. Lind remains obsessed with the idea that present and future wars will be conducted more like urban gang warfare within nation-states than between nation states. To him the ideal military tactical unit would be more like a police S.W.A.T. team than an infantry company or a armored company, comprised of tanks, IFVs, and supporting elements. He is very wrong about this; but remains convinced that he is right.

This is not quite accurate. Mr. Lind believes that much of the future of warfare will take place between States, and non State players. And if you go to Mexico or Brazil, the criminal gangs are indeed major players. Because of his cultural insensitivety, he draws the conclusion that the street gangs of the US, are comparable to Mexico and Brazil.

But there's a grain of truth even in that. American Gangs, violent as they have been, were ALSO American citizens - whereas some of the present gangs, are illegals, who are subject to arrest and deportation at any time. Why should they be loyal to the American State?

Second, Mr. Lind more or less wants to disband much of the Army, but Retain the Marine Corps.

He believes future wars will have no front lines, no need for the military structure which we now have. The Marines are capable of fighting both kinds of wars, and having a few divisions of the Army left will be enough.

Is he right? Maybe.

quote:

Originally posted by AGBrina:
"War Is Politics By Other Means." Just look what we are doing in Iraq, Afghanistan, and (by proxy on land with air and naval support) in Somalia, Pakistan, and Iran. Such wars require hundreds of thousands of boots on the ground for sustained periods of time. But we prefer to blow things up there,so that we can continue to shop here.

We are trying to crush the will of a people who resist our occupation. We are fighting them in their very homes! In such circumstances, we encounter women and children in greater numbers and with more frequency that we do male guerilla fighters and saboteurs of "military age" (which I guess starts around 15 and runs to 60). For that reason alone, we need women in the military at the front and in sufficient numbers, who can deal more effectively with the indigenous women and children, who are naturally terrified and humiliated by the rough treatment that they get from our soldiers during all those night raids which we seem to favor.

Lind would agree with the above except the "women" part. An example of his cultural conservatism. Man was definitely NOT a part of the sixties...

quote:

Originally posted by AGBrina:
The U.S., NATO, and Israeli military planners -and certainly the Georgians- were surprised that the Russians could deploy 2 armored brigades and advance 100 miles in 3 days on a moment's notice. This, of course is no where near the scale of the takeover of Czechoslovakia in 1968, when the Soviets deployed 280,000 men in the same amount of time; but it is still a clear demonstration of what a modern military force must be skilled at doing. If we can't, then all this emphasis on "stability operations" will prove as pointless as those Prussian battalion drills, which Lind justly derided. Presently organized, our land forces will prove to be just as incapable of fighting a land war against a modern mechanized force as the Prussians proved to be against Napoleon at the battle/slaughter of Jena in 1806.

Actually the Russians were all set up and waiting. They provoked this crisis and were ready for this crisis. All things considered not an impressive show. But then again, they did win...

quote:

Originally posted by AGBrina:
van Creveld is too close to the ongoing oppression of Palestinians and with the tactics which are most effective in dealing with them. He has lost his perspective on war as it is and will be for a long time to come.

Well, this goes to the heart of the dispute. Van Crevald believes the Palestinians are winning. And he's right, they are.

But you underestimate Lind and Fouth Generation warfare proponenets. It's no where near as cut and dried as you make out. A US military of five Marine Divisions, and some Army divisions, backed by a numerous, if lower tech air-force, and a strong navy, has little to fear from any opponent.

Technology has one again advanced and the tank is almost as obsolete in formal warfare as the horse. Sure they're impressive against an unarmed opponenet in Iraq, but keep in mind, that in todays warfare, one man with a hand held missle launcher, costing 1K, can take a 50 million dollar tank out from miles away.

In a real war, these missle launchers will be a dime a dozen, and like the calvery in WW I, tankers will only be fit to cook dinner for the infantry.

Dave

Grachus:You have made good points and the overall reply is well-constructed in both style and content.

If one looks at the battle between Hizbollah and the IDF, it would be difficult to disagree with your contentions. The Israelis used their tanks as slow-moving fortresses instead of fast-moving destroyers. Still, were I a company commander in that war, I would rather have matched each of my squads with a Merkel tank as we took on each bunker at a time. Combat in built up and fortified areas is a gradual and time-consuming process. Also, I believe that the Marines made good use of armor, when they crushed the Sunnis at Fallujah in November 2004.

I had limited experience encountering North Vietnamese armor at Lai Khe in 1972. They were using PT-76s and we (The ARVN did the fighting. I was not much help.) had LAWs (about evenly matched, I would say). Today's missiles are more powerful and lethal at greater ranges, of course; but so are the modern tanks with their reactive armor and thermal/night sights.

The point is that mechanized forces can take over large swathes of land and seize strategic objectives in the face of heavy resistence. A Special Forces A team (or a S.W.A.T. team) cannot. Furthermore, we will not be able to assure our soldiers and marines safe transport by air nor tactical air support, in a battle against the Russians, Chinese, and Indians. In fact, I doubt that we could hold ground against the Pakistanis with the forces we have in Afghanistan.

quote:

Originally posted by AGBrina:
Grachus:You have made good points and the overall reply is well-constructed in both style and content.

If one looks at the battle between Hizbollah and the IDF, it would be difficult to disagree with your contentions. The Israelis used their tanks as slow-moving fortresses instead of fast-moving destroyers. Still, were I a company commander in that war, I would rather have matched each of my squads with a Merkel tank as we took on each bunker at a time. Combat in built up and fortified areas is a gradual and time-consuming process. Also, I believe that the Marines made good use of armor, when they crushed the Sunnis at Fallujah in November 2004.

I had limited experience encountering North Vietnamese armor at Lai Khe in 1972. They were using PT-76s and we (The ARVN did the fighting. I was not much help.) had LAWs (about evenly matched, I would say). Today's missiles are more powerful and lethal at greater ranges, of course; but so are the modern tanks with their reactive armor and thermal/night sights.

The point is that mechanized forces can take over large swathes of land and seize strategic objectives in the face of heavy resistence. A Special Forces A team (or a S.W.A.T. team) cannot. Furthermore, we will not be able to assure our soldiers and marines safe transport by air nor tactical air support, in a battle against the Russians, Chinese, and Indians. In fact, I doubt that we could hold ground against the Pakistanis with the forces we have in Afghanistan.

I have no military experience. Studying war and history is a "hobby" with me. You've probably met such persons as I am, debating what this general or that general should have done at Falaise or Stalingrad. You know, Bozo the clown lectures on war...

But certain sayings have made an impression on me. One of them is that the military always prepares to fight the next war with the tactics of the last. And didn't France prepare to fight Germany with the tactics of WWI in WWII?

Yet they had as many tanks as the Germans...

What are the implications of new technology on tanks? We see that the insurgents in Iraq, can occasionally take out a tank with an RPG - But these insurgents have no mass access to the latest technology - It's a bloody war, but it's not a formal war. Even Hezbollah was not armed with the latest and best.

What you describe above is not tank warfare, but a highly portable piece of artillary. All well and good. But in todays world, a few men armed with relatively cheap weapons can take them out.

All of this presuposes that there will be those who shift the focus of their tactics to these new weapons. Nor do these new weapons necessarily mean that mobility is dead along with the tank.

Interesting times ahead, and proponents of 4GW want to get a jump on these changes, much as some visionary soldiers in the twenties wanted to get a jump on Those changes in their time.

Nothing stands still. Only the principles of warfare remain the same.

Dave

Grachus:Your lack of experience is not important in this venue. It is your intellectual integrity that matters more. After all, we are sounding off in a forum dedicated to Mr. Lind, who had no military experience either.

Just a few points to ponder:

If the Russians had relied on heliborne infantry, they could not have overwhelmed the Georgians. Maybe the U.S./NATO/Israel might have had time to stabilize the Georgian positions before the Russians had cut the country in half.

If ISAF/OEF forces had sufficient armored forces in Afghanistan, maybe they could occupy strategic points without blowing up the civilians and their structure beforehand. Occupying towns and villages rather than destroying them would probably win over hearts and minds more often than airstrikes.

But, let's not forget that what was missing in 2002 was not armor but air mobile formations , which could have cut off OBL and his loyalists before they escaped Tora Bora. Armor isn't always the answer. But large conventional military formations can do a lot of things that A-Teams, S.W.A.T. teams cannot. Musharraf reportedly told Bush's emissaries in 2002 that they would need 60,000 men to effectively cut off Taleban from using Pakistan as a safe haven. But we thought B-52s and Predators could do the job instead. Again, the opportunity was missed because we were in a mind set that large military formations are unnecessary in 4G warfare.

quote:

Originally posted by AGBrina:
Grachus:Your lack of experience is not important in this venue. It is your intellectual integrity that matters more. After all, we are sounding off in a forum dedicated to Mr. Lind, who had no military experience either.

Just a few points to ponder:

If the Russians had relied on heliborne infantry, they could not have overwhelmed the Georgians. Maybe the U.S./NATO/Israel might have had time to stabilize the Georgian positions before the Russians had cut the country in half.

I don't know enough to respond.

quote:

Originally posted by AGBrina:
If ISAF/OEF forces had sufficient armored forces in Afghanistan, maybe they could occupy strategic points without blowing up the civilians and their structure beforehand. Occupying towns and villages rather than destroying them would probably win over hearts and minds more often than airstrikes.

My impression of our conquest of Afghanistan is that it worked quite well, and with minimal deaths of innocents. My impression is that our problems occured because we didn't have the manpower to finish them off, and instead relied on paying unreliable tribesmen to be surrogates for the manpower that was being taken away to invade Iraq.

Lind would say, that this was indeed a job, not for Swat teams, but for the Marines, or Marine like military formations.

But Lind would also go on to say (as he has said) that the failures are political, not military. Just why did we pick Karzai and the tame fundamentalists to create a new Islamic State? Why did we rely on dope dealing warlords instead of the secular forces in Afghanistan?

quote:

Originally posted by AGBrina:
But, let's not forget that what was missing in 2002 was not armor but air mobile formations , which could have cut off OBL and his loyalists before they escaped Tora Bora. Armor isn't always the answer. But large conventional military formations can do a lot of things that A-Teams, S.W.A.T. teams cannot. Musharraf reportedly told Bush's emissaries in 2002 that they would need 60,000 men to effectively cut off Taleban from using Pakistan as a safe haven. But we thought B-52s and Predators could do the job instead. Again, the opportunity was missed because we were in a mind set that large military formations are unnecessary in 4G warfare.

B52's are the opposite of 4GW theory. 4GW war doesn't preclude large military formations, it only asks that they be flexible. Not tied down to heavy weapons, that air power be expressed in more numerous, and cheaper planes and helocopters. Predators are simply another tool, and far more flexible than a B52...

4GW theory IS flexibility. A large armoured formation is no longer useful for anything but impact on the imagination, or impact on those with little or no access to modern anti-tank weapons. Even then, what good would they have been at Torabora?

OBL got away not because the military relies on 4GW thinking, but the opposite - Our conventional military is simply too burdened down with technology to go rambling through that kind of terrain - Not to mention that we simply didn't have enough men on the ground.

Dave