Voices on Grand Strategy, or Lack There of.

This past week saw China send it's first aircraft carrier out for sea trials. The reaction ranged from outright calls to a return to a Cold War footing to this inquiry from our State Department, which prompted this comment from CDR Salamander.

This is not helpful.

The PRC is a sovereign nation with legitimate maritime security requirements that are easily understood by anyone with an even rudimentary understanding of where maritime strategy and commerce come together.

The fact that the DOS would ask this in public does too things; it insults the Chinese through its patronizing tone and it makes our nation look like it is led by arrogant imperialists at best, simpletons at worst.

The good CDR goes on to suggest how the Chinese should respond.

"Here are our plans for our follow-on carrier development. Also, the Chinese people would like to know what plans the United States government has to bring its credit rating to back AAA. Our people worry about their investments. Until the Americans do that and assure worries in the investments by the Chinese people in the sovereign debt of the American government, we do not see the reason for their continued spending on such an unnecessarily large and offensively-minded military.

We have had concerns about the American ability to service their debt for some time and we've been quite open with them with regard to the lack of transparency from the Americans regarding their capabilities to ensure their own economic stability."

CDR Salamander is not one to trifle with defense issues, as having spent considerable time serving his country and continues to write astute and biting comments about the eroding state of our naval centric defense posture.

Read more:
State Dept. Makes Us All Look Stooopid

The bigger problem that looms before us, is when issuing a bumbling statement, the Dept of State, which speaks for our current leadership; reveals a dangerous lack of a grand strategy for managing the rise of a great power. Bryan McGrath offered up this next post on Information Dissemination where he argues that being prepared for war is the best way to avoid one.

I submit that while we are sometimes surprised by events (or appear to be), we have also been astoundingly and dramatically right in our prediction of the future on occasion. Put another way, if we are so bad at predicting the future, the entire concept of deterrence—conventional and otherwise—must be questioned. Because deterrence has at its heart—the animating impetus of an event or events yet to come which one does not desire to see. And I for one am not ready to make that leap. My case will be supported with only one vignette, but it is an important one. And then, it leads to a recommendation or two.

We must as a nation, face the possibility that the United States will someday fight a war with China. We must recognize that the way of human existence seems to presuppose conflict between a rising power and the status quo power where interests intersect. We must recognize that this conflict would be ruinous to China, to our nation, and potentially to much of the world. We must recognize that the central tenet of our national security strategy must be to ensure that such a war never happens. Unfortunately, this is currently not the case.

McGrath lays out a strategy that in an effort to discuss all possibilities, deserves a careful read.
On Predicting the Future

More on Chinese naval intentions can be found at.
Andrew Erickson

To put this all in prospective, here is a list of the current aircraft carriers in service in the world. China's would be joining India, South Korea and Thailand, other Asian nations who feel compelled to have an aircraft carrier.
World's Aircraft Carriers

Joining the discussion about the critical importance of having a "Grand Strategy" is Great Satan's Girlfriend Courtney Messerschmidt who posted this epistle in a style described as Dixie fried Esperanto by Carl Prine.of Line of Departure which hosted  this post. Here is a teaser to encourage you to check it out as well as the links to support her astute argument.

Uniquely powerful — the only one of her kind!

Hegemonic unipolarity and the “Off Shore Balancing” act are facing off at the highest (almost) levels of Great Satan’s Academic and Actualizing apex.

As best understood, the Offshore Balancing fans are frightened that gap shrinking, global orderliness and reinforcing desired myriad nation state behavior will become more dangerous, more difficult and more expensive. Control of and over the internat’l system should shrivel as Great Satan radically redefined her interests to maintaining home turf integrity and maybe might sorta try to prevent a massive near field competitor from commanding enough resources to threaten North America.

Off Shore Balancing by def means Great Satan would ease up on military commitments to NATO, Nippon, SoKo and Taiwan in general — though there are good cases to be made that Offshore Balancing would look a lot like hyperpuissance’s overbearing preponderance in PACRIM.

Read the whole post:
Courtney's Complaint

Crossroads of Global Economy

Closing out the post today, comes this from Thomas PM Barnett who serves up this evidence that the "Grand Strategy" that has guided the United States for the past half century and in complete hindsight, going back to Theodore Roosevelt, has led to a world order  that has seen the rise of a truly global middle-class. His comments are brief enough to post in full, but to get the full vision click on the link to view his parting comments and the link to the article and graphs.

It is THE amazing achievement of US grand strategy that we've created the conditions by which the chart of the direct left unfolds. If ANYBODY tells you that globalization is bad or unfair or says similar things about US "empire" since WWII, then simply show them the slide on the left, because it knocks those lies right out of the ballpark.

Or to be more succinct: the US-created and -enabled globalization process never replicated the dynamics of colonialism - i.e., kept the poor down. It did the exact opposite. The rest is just whiny bullshit propagated by little minds who refuse to accept it. We built a world order that enabled the rise of a global middle class, which means near-universal democracy is in the works (there will remain bedroom communities for the nonviolent rejectionists - we'll just ask them to put orange reflector signs on their buggies). 

Read more:
Chart of the day: Filling in the gaps on emerging economies = economic dynamic of century

New Roundtable: Defeat in Afghanistan? The View from 2050

Marines protecting Afghan father and son

Forward thinking blog friend Lexington Green, contributor to the Chicago Boyz Blog has announced an important upcoming blog roundtable this summer that will discuss a topic that for several months has been lurking in the minds of many people. Here is Lex's proposal for Defeat in Afghanistan? The View from 2050.

Voices from many quarters are saying dire things about the American-led campaign in Afghanistan. The prospect of defeat, whatever that may mean in practice, is real. But we are so close to the events, it is hard to know what is and is not critical. And the facts which trickle out allow people who are not insiders to only have a sketchy, pointillist impression of the state of play. There is a lot of noise around a weak signal.

ChicagoBoyz will be convening a group of contributors to look back on the American campaign in Afghanistan from a forty year distance, from 2050.

40 years is the period from Fort Sumter to the Death of Victoria, from the Death of Victoria to Pearl Harbor, from Pearl Harbor to the inauguration of Ronald Reagan. It is a big chunk of history. It is enough time to gain perspective.

This exercise in informed and educated imagination is meant to help us gain intellectual distance from the drumbeat of day to day events, to understand the current situation in Afghanistan more clearly, to think-through the potential outcomes, and to consider the stakes which are in play in the longer run of history for America, for its military, for the region, and for the rest of the world.

The Roundtable contributors will publish their posts and responses during the third and fourth weeks of August, 2010.

The ChicagoBoyz blog is a place where we can think about the unthinkable.

Stand by for further details, including a list of our contributors.

Cross posted at zenpundit


Many of those already signed on; represent a broad range of thinkers who will be bringing a convergence of ideas from all political, diplomatic and military points of view. One might question what a group of bloggers without political or military power can do that would influence policy or drive the discussion. That friends, is the power of this medium, to drive public discourse, something the mainstream media and the halls of Congress and the White House seems ill prepared to conduct.

Anabasis of Cyrus Roundtable

This is my first contribution to the ongoing roundtable discussion hosted at Chicago Boyz where several of my most esteemed blog colleagues have assembled to discuss The Anabasis of Cyrus.

The opening phase of this discussion of Greek soldier, historian Xenophon’s account of the expedition to unseat Artaxerxes King of Persia by his brother Cyrus, has touched on several important elements. First, most important to any great undertaking was logistics, aptly covered in the first post by Fringe. Next, Steven Pressfield introduced the route and how it influenced Alexander the Great, who used the Anabasis of Cyrus as a guidebook in his conquest of Persia decades later. Lexington Green then offered up an overview of the each chapter, laying out the story line in concise detail. Most recently, Joseph Fouche took pen to point out important distinctions between Xenophon’s writing style and that of Herodotus.

The book that most of us have chosen to base our discussion is the translation by Wayne Ambler. In the introduction, Eric Buzzetti writes, “The Anabasis has the makings of a great Hollywood movie.” This statement along should stimulate the most benign reader to pursue the book further. Inside, they will not be disappointed; the story unfolds like a travel log detailing distance traveled, people encountered, battles fought and the unfolding loose republican democracy that formed after the death of their generals at the hand of Artaxerxes. Then becomes what could be described as the one of the great epics combining battles with political intrigue and lessons in leadership.

Anyone who sets out to read this book would do well to prepare themselves by carefully reading the introduction. Then turn to the back and make one’s self familiar with the Historical notes and the Glossary where they will find not only a definition of terms, but an explanation of the scale of measurements which is elementary to follow the journey up country and the escape to safety.The opening pages of book I, contain two maps tracing the journey into Persia, the retreat north to the Black Sea and back across the Hellespont to Greece. The maps are simple, but can be enhanced, courtesy of Google Earth and 21st century techonlogy, for a true look at the lay of the land. Here are some of the highlights to be discovered when perusing the route in this manner.

As one looks at the first part of the journey up country across today’s Turkey, they will note that the land contains sustainable resources that Cyrus’s expedition could harvest by trade or pillage. Each stage, five parasangs, (3.3 miles) of the journey is logged in the text, giving amateur geographers a chance to demonstrate their skills. Rivers are noted for their width and potential bounty of fish, and towns, for their accommodation or resistance.

Tracing the journey with the help of Google Earth allows for a birds eye view of the challenges that awaited the Ten Thousand. For example, the five stages, (115 miles) that led from Araxes River across the Syrian Desert to the Mascas River were described as barren and devoid of life. The view today reveals that little has changed in 2500 years. The Euphrates River, a dam now blocking its upper reaches, still stretches like a green ribbon across the breadth of western Babylon. The route soon to be followed by the Ten Thousand up the Tigris traces a green line of irrigated farmland. This land along the Tigris was the lifeline that the Ten Thousand followed as they fought north to the relative safety of the mountains, home of the Carduchoi, ancestors of today’s Kurdish people.

Looking down on this route, one sees the logic of why Xenophon convinced the army to take this route. Going back across the desert would expose them to two dangers. The land just traversed was still feeling the footprints of all who traveled with Cyrus, 110,000 strong, (including the 10,000 Greek hoplites). Second, it was a flat table land that gave the advantage to the Persian cavalry. The mountains however unknown, offered the Greeks a chance to alter their tactics by changing the formation to a hollow square to guard their baggage train. They added more sling throwers, (peltastai) who used lead pellets, for longer distance to stave off the approach of the Persians. As they entered the mountains most of the Persian army stopped pursuing in the belief that the winter would destroy the Greek army.

Looking down on those mountains today from the lens of Google Earth, one can zoom into observe the valleys and gain an appreciation of the challenge of finding a route across the mountains to the sea and the Greek Colonies along its shore. Scouting parties were formed to range ahead to find routes and warn of potential enemies. The army was beginning to resemble what we today would call a combined arms force, with heavy infantry, cavalry, scouts, artillery (sling throwers) and support (camp followers) all arrayed together to accomplish their goal.
The Greek colonies found along the Black Sea offered no sure guarantee of safety, since feeding and supporting ten thousand uninvited soldiers strained even the most affluent colonies larders. The unfolding story of this part of the journey waits to be discussed.

Stepping back to the first book, understanding the tone of the author requires the reader to know that it is being written in the voice of Theopompus, the pseudonym for Xenophon. His viewpoint, although detailed in matters of logistics, geography and military matters is that of a Greek who views all others as Barbarians whose social habits fall below the station of any Greek. The author’s note that Theopompus means “God-sent” is a sign that Xenophon holds his own self-worth in the highest degree, even when writing in the third person.

As we prepare to leave book I, the Greek Hoplites and their generals, basking in the tactical victory of the Battle of Cunaxa are unaware of the fate that awaits them. Book II will open the reader’s eyes to new dangers, tales of audacity and examples of oratory that still echo down through the ages.

Cross posted at Chicagoboyz.com

Xenophon's Anabasis, Schedule for Roundtable This Fall

Xenophon’s Anabasis, Schedule for Roundtable This Fall posted by Lexington Green at Chicago Boyz

Posted using ShareThis

A Post That Should Worry All Americans

My fellow blogmeister Mark of Zenpundit has published A Call For Radical Transparency in Politics a post by Bruce Kesler of Democracy Project.

The post is a must read for all those who worry about the undue influence that comes when large contributions are made to political leaders and institutes of learning and culture by wealthy interest groups. In the past the concern was big business, and labor unions, it now appears that foreign entities, governments and others, have bought their way into American politics and many of the institutes that shape our culture. I think that this is so pervasive that I am going to do what Zenpundit and Chicago Boyz* have done, and reproduce it in full with Mark's comments.

Mark begins:

My friend Bruce Kesler, who keeps a sharper eye on the fine details of American politics than I do, is dead square right in a recent post at Democracy Project that I reproduce here in full:
Hidden Foreign Contributions Affect US Elections


US election law forbids non-Americans to contribute directly to federal candidates, and qualified donations above $200 are available to public scrutiny. There is a huge loophole – or, more correctly, shroud – over contributions by foreigners to US non-profits, who heavily shape public discussion affecting our elections – and other policies. (There’s, also, some indication that the $200 cut-off for full disclosure of contributions to our campaigns may be another loophole being exploited by some foreigners.)


IRS Form 990 generally requires that non-profits list contributors and their addresses who give $5000 or more. However, non-profits are not required to publicly divulge who they are (with the exception of private foundations and 527’s).


Non-profits include 501(c)(4)’s, which are estimated to spend in 2008 well more than the $424-million that 527’s spent to influence the 2004 elections.

Another area of concern is donations made by foreigners to our universities. Although New York State requires that such contributions be revealed, there is no enforcement and filings are often not made.

In Britain, it is estimated, more funding comes from the Mid East for Islamic Studies departments than from the government.

Ministers labelled Islamic studies a "strategic subject" and said the "effective and accurate teaching" of it in universities could help community cohesion and counter extremism.Similar concerns have been raised in the US about the influence of Mid East contributors on our universities’ curriculum's, and the faculty who influence public discussion. See here and here, for examples.

Former presidents Carter and Clinton have received tens of millions in donations, and more, from foreign sources for their foundations, yet the public knows very little about from whom or how much. Meanwhile, Carter and Clinton take frequent public stands on public policy and candidates for office.

A draft has been released of a revised IRS Form 990. It increases exposure on governance issues, but retains the shroud over contributors to non-profits. At the very least, foreign contributors should be revealed publicly, at least for amounts over the $200 of election laws.
You can send your comments to the IRS during the comment period. It’s as simple as an email to Form990Revision@irs.gov

Mark writes:

Bravo to Bruce for highlighting this important but generally unrecognized problem.

One of the ironies of Beltway incumbent preferred campaign finance regulation like the odious McCain-Feingold law is that it manages to combine restrictions of the political activities and free speech rights of American citizens while granting opacity to wealthy foreigners who seek to influence political discourse here through generous donations to foundations, educational organizations, think tanks, universities, presidential libraries and other institutions that shape our intellectual life. It is completely understandable, given the potential impact of American policies on the rest of the world that other states and their sundry notables would seek to make their voice heard here. To a certain extent, when it’s above board public diplomacy and cultural exchanges, it’s even a good thing. What’s unacceptable is that foreign interests can often buy such influence - which is what they are really doing - under the radar or even behind the shield of legal secrecy. If some of our finest universities were people then they would have already had to register as foreign agents a long, long, loooooooong, time ago.


The same might be said of some former presidents. Or of presidential candidates.


The answer here is not to go on a fruitless legal jihad to ban foreign money, which at times does get turned toward humanitarian or genuinely educational purposes but to require radical transparency of our think tanks, universities, charities and other institutions enjoying tax deductible status but are dedicated to indirectly influencing the political process or policy formation. If an American institution or scholar wants to shill for the Wahabbi Lobby by working for a tank on the take from a senior Saudi prince, or accept grants from PLA-affiliated Chinese corporations, Japanese billionaires, mobbed-up Russian “businessmen” or other foreign sources, fine, but a highly visible disclaimer to that fact ought to be mandatory. If Carnegie or AEI or Harvard departments are advising presidential candidates on Mideast policy then contributions emanating from that region are relevant to the discussion.

If accepting the check in public is cause for dismay then there’s a word for what’s really going on:

Graft.

This revelation comes during former President Carter's trip to the Middle East where he spent most of his time cozying up to Hamas and Hezbollah, after denouncing Israel for the past several months. It would also call to mind recent policy changes in universities in Great Britain and the U.S. making special accommodation for Islam, as they decry any demonstration of faith by other religions as violating the separation of church and state.

It is time for Americans to demand that institutions and all government officials past and present be held accountable as private citizens in their receiving foreign contributions. Some politicians pander to the fear of losing jobs offshore and some universities pretend to be enlightened, while in reality those who we have entrusted to educate our young and govern our destiny, line their pockets with gold from silent masters.

OODA Loop: An Idea Heard Around the World

Earlier this year I was priviliged to be invited to participate in an online discussion entitled: Roundtable on: Science, Strategy and War: The Strategic Therory of John Boyd. The forum was hosted by Zenpundit and the Chicago Boyz.

The reason I return to the subject today is because one of the blogs I frequently read, Asia Logistics wrap took up the subject of using the OODA loop strategy for something other that war fighting. In a post entitled Establishing a Global IT Roll-Out Rule Set, Shawn the host, sees the OODA Loop as a tangible asset in reducing mistakes in implementation of global IT deployment. He offers up suggestions of how the strategy would make sense to IT deployment managers.

The key here is that the OODA concept can act as the foundational approach to a global IT deployment; it should be ingrained so deeply in the minds of the implementation team that it drives subconsciously the continuous improvement and adaptability of strategy and tactics throughout every phase of a project--sales to support, support to upgrades, upgrades to support and so on.

Shawn goes on to write:

Such a template would not lock an implementation team into a fixed set of practices--rather, it would contain an always evolving set of best practices geared towards enhancing OODA Loop and empowering the full talents and capabilities of the implementation team.

Reading this post supports my view in later posts that the OODA Loop theory is applicable to a cornucopia of fields where planning and thinking are paramount to success and survival.
Japan in the OODA loop, Metacognition on OODA and Innovation, and Final comments on the Roundtable on Science, Strategy and War all point to applications other that strictly war.

Shawn next post delves further into how the OODA Loop can be implemented. Global IT Deployment: Principles to Remember. He offers an excellent road map to explain and guide those interested in using this theory in setting up best practices in a global enviornment. He says in part:

...... I believe an ingrained OODA loop discipline builds bridges to bring these regional or local pieces into synch as a global technology deployment progresses.

This will be a developing series and well worth following as Shawn details how John Boyd's OODA Loop can be a vital template for global supply chain management.

Japan in the OODA loop

Yesterday, I posted a review of Col/Dr. Frans Osinga's book:Science, Strategy, and War: The Strategic Theory of John Boyd" as part of an on going roundtable discussion. Today, Tom Barnett posted a link and comments about Japan's changing business strategy, Japan gets more American, around the edges .

The Economist article Tom links,Going Hybrid: describes how Japan, faced with a 15 year drop in GDP, has begun to recover by being innovative, and creating a hybrid economic system based on both the Japanese and American systems.


The thing that struck me as I read Tom's post and the article is what Japan did was in line with John Boyd's OODA Loop theory . On a grand scale countries, can not react like fighter pilots and turn on a dime. But just for a momment, consider what Japan did.

Faced with a dropping GDP, they first "O" observed their situation, then they "O" oriented themselves to the options available, and made a, "D" decision to "A" act, and create a hybrid economic model to begin to turn things around and survive.

Anyway, just a brief example to feed into the discussion taking place over at Chicago Boyz about the above referenced book by Dr. Frans Osinga.

Roundtable on: Science, Strategy and War: The Strategic Therory of John Boyd

This post is written as part of an ongoing roundtable on Frans Osinga’s Science, Strategy, and War. over at Chicagoboyz.net and cross posted on zenpundit.

Col/Dr Frans P.B. Osinga of the Neatherlands Air Force wrote this work as his doctoral thesis. It is a supurb, clearly written journey into the mind of a great thinker. For myself, someone who is seeped in the essence of history that for the most part took place before John Boyd's time, I found the book a stimulating read.

John Boyd, known as 40-second Boyd, for always being able to defeat an opponet in air combat within that time constraint, was a maverick, who left no great written treatsie to explain his theories. What was left behind after his death were lecture notes and vu-graphs. Dr. Osinga carefully ginned those notes into a readable text and gave even the most un-military minded, a window on how not only John Boyd thought, but how humans and on a broader scale, all organisms adopt and survive.

John Boyd's legacy has been his OODA loop (Observe, Orient, Decide, Action), some would conclude that his contribution is revolutionary, or that it was based on selective cherry picking to support his thesis. The contributions of John Boyd are important because they draw from a vast store house of specialties, such as history, science, and behavior for support. He mulled these concepts over in his great mind and shared them in marathon lectures lasting up to 18 hrs.

The benefit of this work is to draw attention to Boyd's theory and stimulate thinking, something that in a modern technology centered universe, is often left to pre-concieved notions.

Boyd defined the Art of Success as:

Appear to be an unsolvable cryptogram while operating in a directed way to penetrate adversary vulnerabilities and weaknesses in order to isolate him from his allies, pull him apart, and collapse his will to resist;
yet;

Shape or influence events so that we not only magnify our spirit andstrength but also influence potential adversaries as well as the uncommittedso that they are drawn toward our philosophy and are empathetic toward our success.

Boyd concluded with:

The first sentence is an advice to remain, in the words of Sun Tzu, unfathomable to the enemy, yet operate coherently in several levels of war and across different dimensions.

Multi-sylable words for a simple concept, survival.

Today, strategists debate what generation of warfare we have now evolved too. I am no expert in those fields and would be treading on frozen celophane to try and cross that river. This book helps us understand the changing environment of both war and peace. In a historical prospective, we can reach back into earliest time, or to the remote jungles of New Guniea fifty years ago, when two men would meet in the forest; they would first, observe, then, orient to get best posture for survival, make a decision, kin or enemy, take action, fight or break bread. In the simplest terms, these decisions have played out in ever complicated scenarios ever since.

Dr. Osinga's book may turn out to be more read than any biography on John Boyd because he addresses the meat of what Boyd was trying to say in hundreds of lectures. He does this by providing the reader with Boyds ideas to ponder:

Categories of conflict:

Three kinds of conflict

Based on his ‘panorama’ of military history, Boyd argues that one can imagine three kinds of human conflict:

Attrition Warfare – as practiced by the Emperor Napoleon, by all sides during the 19th Century and during World War I, by the Allies duringWorld War II, and by present-day nuclear planners.

Maneuver Conflict – as practiced by the Mongols, General Bonaparte, Confederate General Stonewall Jackson, Union General Ulysses S. Grant, Hitler’s Generals (in particular Manstein, Guderian, Balck, Rommel) and the Americans under Generals Patton and MacArthur.

Moral Conflict – as practiced by the Mongols, most Guerrilla Leaders, avery few Counter-Guerrillas (such as Magsaysay) and certain others from Sun Tzu to the present.

In a historical sense looking back to draw from the examples of strategies that worked or failed are most helpful when one realizes that a saying frequently used by an old soldier I once knew, that the Army suffers from CRS, IE, can't remember scat, (my word to keep it cleaner) and it is still the norm today.

By using the above example of Attrition conflict and then compare it with Manuever conflict, one gets an image of how innovation can overcome conventional wisdom to win.

Spartans vs Thebans led by Epaminondas,who adopted the following strategy at Leuctra. The strong left wing advanced while the weak right wing retreated.
Or: Patton's end run manuever around the Germans and across France, vs Hodge's attrition warfare in the Battle of Hurtgen Forest.

And Moral, verus Attrition and Manuver conflict;

Going to Vietnam ready to fight WW III, and finding ourselves fighting a stealthy foe, reminicent of our own colonial indian wars.

Dr. Osinga concludes that John Boyd's work serves a greater purpose that his OODA loop idea.

Boyd’s ideas involve much more than exclusively the idea of ‘rapid OODA looping’ or a theory for maneuver warfare. Contradicting those who categorically dismiss the validity of the OODA concept, the idea was found to be deep and rich in ideas,explanations, hypotheses, propositions, concepts and suggestions concerning conflict in general. These concepts are firmly based on a thorough study of military history and informed by insights on learning and the behavior of social systems derived from various disciplines.

What this book serves to tell us is that in order to survive, one has to be ready to adapt. This is illustrated in our current strategy in the so called long war. The understanding of Boyd's strategy also relate in every aspect of life from the mundane to profound.

I would highly recommend this book to everyone.
"Science, Strategy, and War: The Strategic Theory of John Boyd"