Disclaimer: This is not an apologia for anything taking place east of the Dnieper River today, but a reminder of “how the war began,” at the end of the Cold War, when PNAC (the folks who deserve much of the “credit" for bringing us the Iraq War, et al., while simultaneously calling for ever greater US military spending, and NATO expansion to the Russian border, in about 1997, when Russia was prostrate before us). Nor is this not to say, Russia out of Ukraine. But it’s to call for “genuine” diplomacy, and not Thomas Schelling’s “Diplomacy of Violence,” which has always been US policy.
Wash, rinse, dry, repeat! How many US instigated wars since Vietnam have we gone through now, and we never seem to learn a fucking thing! Each build-up is a brand-new experience for Americans, including much of the so-called “Peace Movement.” From past experience, I know not much reading/research goes on here, generally, with having attained all the "answers,” (with some exceptions).” Plus, I know in all humans there is a “recency bias,” so that when “history” rears its ugly face, we avert our eyes, and don’t want to know, or remember, that the US has its own “network” of war celebrants who would be called “fascist” in any other country, for their love of war, militarism, and military expansionism as an ideology. One can call it the “Ideology of the Offensive” as described in the attached article below: "Civil-Military Relations and the Cult of the Offensive, 1914 and 1984," if they prefer that name to fascism, and are smart enough to know that the “fascist” spirit of Mussolini was not based on an economic system, but in the celebration of war.
As an Army Officer, I routinely read the DOD’s “Early Bird News,” and still do, for an indicator of where our Perpetual War is going next. So I am quite aware of what the US Commanders of our “NATO Command” were up to when they began losing interest in the Mideast, in about 2012, and the big play was moving to the perimeters of Russia and China (Near-peer Competitor Warfare,” as if together, they were anything resembling a “near-peer.”)
General Philip Breedlove was this generation’s answer to General LeMay, General Stavridis following in the same mold. Add-in our insane civilian war enthusiasts like Victoria Nuland, and we have the war against Russia that began in 2014, as a system of US moves in what the military now calls “Phase 0” Warfare, conditioning the “Cognitive Battlefield,” etc. (DOD has moved a long way from Vietnam, believe me.)
So between the 2014 coup conducted by “Fuck the Europeans” Nuland, and General Breedlove working for regime change in Russia itself, only a totally stupid intelligence analyst could fail to see that the US was serious about the Cheney/Wolfowitz Doctrine that the US now ruled the world, through its military, as first articulated as the 1992 “Draft Defense Planning Guidance:”
This became “Official" as the 2002 NSS, under Cheney. It was articulated for the military in a document which crossed my desk in about 2003, as in essence, “we will not tolerate any country to even have the ability to cause us (DOD) to hesitate in our decision-making.” That’s doctrine yet today. If a country doesn’t go along with that, they’re deemed, per DOD, an “Anti-Access Threat.” And there you have Russia, China, Iran, Cuba, Venezuela, plus a couple more less openly.
So who run’s this country? Breedlove and his fellow Flag Officers and CIA officials would say they do. And when they get agreement with their “Cognitive Campaigns,” why would they not be correct? Wash, rinse, dry, repeat.
For the “wisdom" of General Breedlove, go here:
Attached is a paper explaining our actual “Ideology,” with excepts below:
EXPLAINING THE OFFENSIVE BIAS (from attached paper)
Several explanations for this offensive bias have been advanced. A number of them are consistent with the evidence provided by the German case. A particularly important explanation stems from the division of labor and the narrow focus of attention that necessarily follows from it. The professional training and duties of the soldier force him to focus on threats to his state's security and on the conflictual side of international relations. Necessarily preoccupied with the prospect of armed conflict, he sees war as a pervasive aspect of international life. Focusing on the role of military means in ensuring the security of the state, he forgets that other means can also be used towards that end. For these reasons, the military professional tends to hold a simplified, zero-sum view of international politics and the nature of war, in which wars are seen as difficult to avoid and almost impossible to limit.
Civil-Military Relations I 119
When the hostility of others is taken for granted, prudential calculations are slanted in favor of preventive wars and preemptive strikes. Indeed, as German military officers were fond of arguing, the proper role of diplomacy in a Hobbesian world is to create favorable conditions for launching preventive war. A preventive grand strategy requires an offensive operational doctrine. Defensive plans and doctrines will be considered only after all conceivable offensive schemes have been decisively discredited. Under uncertainty, such discrediting will be difficult, so offensive plans and doctrines will frequently be adopted even if offense is not easier than defense in the operational sense. The assumption of extreme hostility also favors the notion that decisive, offensive operations are always needed to end wars. If the conflict of interest between the parties is seen as limited, then a decisive victory may not be needed to end the fighting on mutually acceptable terms. In fact, denying the opponent his objectives by means of a successful defense may suffice. However, when the opponent is believed to be extremely hostile, disarming him completely may seem to be the only way to induce him to break off his attacks. For this reason, offensive doctrines and plans are needed, even if defense is easier operationally. Kenneth Waltz argues that states are socialized to the implications of international anarchy.20 Because of their professional preoccupations military professionals become "oversocialized." Seeing war more likely than it really is, they increase its likelihood by adopting offensive plans and buying offensive forces. In this way, the perception that war is inevitable becomes a self- fulfilling prophecy. A second explanation emphasizes the need of large, complex organizations to operate in a predictable, structured environment. Organizations like to work according to a plan that ties together the standard operating procedures of all the subunits into a prepackaged script. So that they can stick to this script at all costs, organizations try to dominate their environment rather than react to it. Reacting to unpredictable circumstances means throwing out the plan, improvising, and perhaps even deviating from standard operating procedures. As Barry Posen points out, "taking the offensive, exercising the initiative, is a way of structuring the battle.” 21 Defense, in contrast, is more reactive, less structured, and harder to plan. Van Evera argues that the
International Security 1 120
military will prefer a task that is easier to plan even if it is more difficult to execute successfully.-
. . .
Civil-Military Relations 1 121
Another possibility, however, is that this argument for the offensive was used to justify a doctrine that was preferred primarily on other grounds. French military publicists invoked such reasoning more frequently, for example, during periods of greater threat to traditional military institutions.26 Other explanations for the offensive bias are rooted even more directly in the parochial interests of the military, including the autonomy, prestige, size, and wealth of the organization.27 The German case shows the function of the offensive strategy as a means towards the goal of operational autonomy. The elder Moltke succinctly stated the universal wish of military commanders: "The politician should fall silent the moment that mobilization begins."28 This is least likely to happen in the case of limited or defensive wars, where the whole point of fighting is to negotiate a diplomatic solution. Political considerations-and hence politicians-have to figure in operational decisions. The operational autonomy of the military is most likely to be allowed when the operational goal is to disarm the adversary quickly and decisively by offensive means. For this reason, the military will seek to force doctrine and planning into this mold. The prestige, self-image, and material health of military institutions will prosper if the military can convince civilians and themselves that wars can be short, decisive, and socially beneficial. One of the attractions of decisive, offensive strategies is that they hold out the promise of a demonstrable return on the nation's investment in military capability. Von der Goltz, for example, pushed the view that "modern wars have become the nation's way of doing business"-a perspective that made sense only if wars were short, cheap, and hence offensive.29 The German people were relatively easy to convince of this, because of the powerful example provided by the short, offensive, nation-building wars of 1866 and 1870, which cut through political fetters and turned the officer corps into demigods. This historical backdrop gave the General Staff a mantel of unquestioned authority and legitimacy in operational questions; it also gave them a reputation to live up to. Later, when technological and strategic circumstances challenged the viability of their
International Security 1 122
formula for a short, victorious war, General Staff officers like Schlieffen found it difficult to part with the offensive strategic formulae that had served their state and organization so effectively. As Posen puts it, offense makes soldiers "specialists in victory," defense makes them "specialists in attrition," and in our own era mutual assured destruction makes them "specialists in slaughter. “30
THE EVOLUTION OF GERMAN WAR PLANNING
The foregoing arguments could, for the most part, explain the offensive bias of the military in many countries and in many eras. What remains to be explained is why this offensive bias became so dogmatic and extreme in Germany before 1914 (and in the US since 1990 -TP). The evolution of the General Staff's strategic thinking from 1870 to 1914 suggests that a tendency towards doctrinal dogmatism and extremism may be inherent in mature military organizations that develop under conditions of near-absolute autonomy in doctrinal questions. This evolution, which occurred in three stages, may be typical of the maturation of uncontrolled, self-evaluating organizations and consequently may high- light the conditions in which doctrinal extremism might recur in our own era.31”
As it has: wash, rinse, dry, repeat.
Attachment:
Civil-Military Relations and the Cult of the Offensive, 1914 and 1984 .pdf
Description: Civil-Military Relations and the Cult of the Offensive, 1914 and 1984 .pdf