Other folks have already pointed this out, but the new Army field manual (FM3-0) is here. The gears continue to grind…

Nice to see that Henrik’s back. Points to an updated CRS report on Instances of United States Armed Forces Abroad 1789-2007, which offers the sort of data set that makes social scientists rub their hands with glee.

The latest issue of the Defense Acquisitions Review Journal has an intriguing article by Jan P. Muczyk On the Road Toward Confirming Augustine’s Predictions and How to Reverse Course [PDF]

Norm Augustine’s tongue-in-cheek laws have been a staple of program management and defense acquisitions culture for decades (as indicated by the multiple editions of his most famous book). One of his more famous satirical calculations was that, based on linear extrapolations of procurement trends:

In the year 2054, the entire defense budget will purchase just one aircraft. This aircraft will have to be shared by the Air Force and Navy 3- 1/2 days each per week except for leap year, when it will be made available to the Marines for the extra day.

One can spend too much time indulging the cynicism and defeatism that often accompanies references to Augustine’s Laws. There is enough wrong with DoD acquisitions that one can make an entire career pointing out the flaws, provided one is intelligent enough to season his or her criticisms with some fresh historical analogies and novel examples. Actually making a difference, however, takes some meta-analysis of what the most important problems are and what should be done about them.

For Muczyk’s part, he concludes his article with the following:

The belief by our civilian and military leaders that technology will negate numerical superiority has led to a reliance on transformational technology which, in turn, has resulted in staggering product development costs and unprecedented product development life cycles. This approach perforce mandated small quantities of weapon systems at outlandish unit costs. Unless this situation is reversed, the military will bankrupt itself with little in return, since these systems lend little to asymmetric warfare such as fighting terrorists and waging counterinsurgency conflicts- today’s contemporary and near-term threats. According to some estimates, the U.S defense budget exceeds the defense budgets of all of our allies combined and some of our adversaries. Critics maintain that such a situation cannot be sustained indefinitely, especially if a serious attempt is made to balance the federal budget.

Short product development cycles are the key to large numbers of affordable weapon systems. Toward that end, recommendations have been proffered to redress the problem of long product development cycles by relying on the development of weapon systems from low- hanging fruit and off-the-shelf commercial components instead of military specifications.

…For this evolutionary approach to be viable, the United States must continuously grow a robust technological fruit tree by adequately funding the research and development community, and relying on technology developed by our allies through joint ventures and other mutual defense-industry partnerships.

Nothing particularly wrong with that; then again, all of this has been pointed out before and hasn’t seemed to have changed anything, so…

Incidentally, there is a school of thought that cost overruns and the plague of extra requirements is simply an inescapable part of large acquisitions projects, whether in the private sector or public. A common example is that the USS Constitution’s final cost of $303,000 was more than double the $115,000 originally budgeted for the ship.

Just finished Ikle’s Annihilation from Within. Others have already reviewed it extensively; I’m focusing on posting some connections.

First, Ikle’s scenario of an aspiring dictator pursuing a “dual-power stratagem” including the use of covertly detonated nuclear weapon evoked images from the V for Vendetta graphic novels (not to be confused with the overwrought Wachowski brothers film) - though in V the fascist regime didn’t cause the nuclear war.

Second, Ikle’s reference to Nietzsche (”When you stare into the abyss the abyss stares back at you.”) made me think of those prototypical scifi nihilists - the Reavers from Firefly:

The darkness. Kinda darkness you can’t even imagine. Blacker than the space it moves in.
— Mal Reynolds, describing Reavers

Some groups don’t need a strategic logic to try to tear the system down.

Lastly, Ikle’s exploration of the dynamics that would follow a system perturbation of a covert nuclear detonation has a lot in common with Barnett’s Y2K study, especially how the aspiring dictator could set himself up to play the role of “Answer Man.”

Lind’s latest essay looks at rogue actors through the lens of isolation and alienation. These traits characterize modern society more than ever before in human history, which leads to significant problems when combined with modern technology.

That progression has now gone so far that never before in human history have so many people lived isolated lives. I sometimes visualize a conversation between a Modern man and a Medieval man, where the proud Modern says, “You poor man! It must have been terrible living without air conditioning, automobiles, washing machines and hot showers.” The Medieval man replies, “You poor man! It must have been terrible living so alone.”

Isolation and the alienation, anomie and rage that proceed from it fuel both lone gunmen and a broad sense of detachment from the state. Why give loyalty to the state if the society if governs offers nothing but alienation? In turn, alternatives to the state, such as gangs, offer alternatives to isolation as well.

Of course, there are many other alternatives for a lonely, alienated person to turn to, but let’s give Lind the benefit of the doubt and assume he’s not trying to characterize the entire system. Rather, even if 99.9999% of people don’t turn to gangs and anti-state groups for meaning, in a world population in excess of 6,000,000,000, that means there would still be more than 6,000 lone wolves. Empower those lone wolves with modern tech, and you’ve got problems.

So goes the narrative sketch, at least.

I explored many of these theme a few years ago in a meditation on Fight Club and Marc Sageman’s work on al Qaeda. I’m also reading Fred Ikle’s Annihilation from Within, which is also bringing up these themes.

Regarding the discussions of institutional learning…

What was of key importance in [the process of bringing German reserve units up to the standards of the regular army] was that the German army in its ‘lessons learned analysis’ did not use its studies to support existing doctrine. Rather it used its after-action reports to improve doctrine and military standards throughout the army.

The critical element in the German evaluation process was the system of after-action reports. Nearly all military organizations use similar systems, but German reporting methods were unique because they worked. Unlike many armies where the reporting system is disorted by what commanders wish to hear, the German system was both highly critical and honest within tactical and operational spheres. The higher the headquarters, the more demanding and dissatisfied were commanders with operational performances… This willingness to criticize itself was to be a major factor in the German army’s high level of competence throughout the Second World War.

Williamson Murray. The Change in the European Balance of Power, 1938-1939: The Path to Ruin. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1984, 338-9.

Haven’t had time to pull together a proper post in response to Adam’s prompt, so here are some slightly expanded thoughts.

While discussing Secretary Gate’s attempts to get more NATO troops for OEF, Adam writes the following:

…as Andrew Bacevich notes in today’s Los Angeles Times, NATO itself is structurally unsuited to this kind of war. Many European nations lack the military reserve, equipment, and public will to commit to expeditionary guerrilla warfare. And for good reason, as NATO’s original role was to deter Soviet aggression and build a common European defense architecture. Trying to force it into the role of Eurasian counterinsurgent is wrong-headed.

We need to distinguish between two related issues: (1) European anti-guerilla capabilities and (2) NATO anti-guerilla capabilities.

NATO’s anti-guerilla capabilities (or lack thereof) is dependent upon the underlying military capabilities of its members. In a perfect world, perhaps NATO could have been a forcing function to get European nations to develop COIN capabilities.

This gets us into an interesting question of institutions - to what extent is NATO a vehicle for American influence (setting the rules of the game)?

Then again, perhaps all of this is a symptom of NATO free-riding on American military power and not confronting the operational environment it needs to face. European states occupy the same geostrategic environment as the US. If the US is guilty of having bought one military and operated another during the 1990s, then what judgement can we render on Europe?

Or, is this representative of a different grand strategic response by Europe to the threat of unstable and ungoverned regions in a networked world? Perhaps European states adapted their military capabilities to less activist and intervention-based foreign policies.

Ultimately, though, we will need new international institutions for the 21st Century (just as we need new bureaucratic arrangements domestically). These could happen incrementally (as in Barnett’s vision of building the Core’s “Functioning Executive” on the foundation of the G-20) or more abruptly (though creating a new organization out of whole cloth would require some compelling, commonly recognized crisis that required the organization).

A beautiful tour of the 21st Century street as platform. While not revelatory for technically inclined readers, it is an excellent synthesis. (H/T Gibson)

Haven’t gotten to read Chet Richards latest yet, so I am indebted to Tdaxp’s provocative review.

And, as an added bonus, there is an excellent ongoing exchange between Dan and Chet in the comments.

Came upon an excellent summary of why public policy analysts need mathematics:

…if you are smart enough to be a Nobel-prize winning economist maybe you can do without the math, but the rest of us mere mortals cannot. We need the math to make sure that we think straight–to ensure that our conclusions follow from our premises and that we haven’t left loose ends hanging in our argument.

In other words, we use math not because we are smart, but because we are not smart enough.

On a related note, I recall reading a discussion in a computer science journal discussing why many CS grad programs require applicants to have taken advanced mathematics (beyond those subjects, like discrete math or mathematical logic, that directly related to CS). The conclusion: the CS programs wanted to see evidence that the applicants could handle rigorous, abstract thinking and advanced mathematics courses offered a good way of checking that.