Sunday, August 29, 2004
‘If you're in a fight with a fly ...’: Strange. Yesterday I finished reading a biography on John Boyd and his career-long struggle to change the old bigger-is-better Pentagon mentality. Then I read this NYT article on who fought best at Najaf: The Army or the Marines? Don’t have a clue who fought best. But if the so-called reformers are really denying troops the rational use of tanks, then their ‘transformation’ ideas have become silly, similar to not sending the right equipment to Somalia or not sending enough troops to Iraq in the name of proving ‘light warfare.’ Doctrines too closely held can be dangerous. ... An obnoxious colonel is running around in Najaf saying how the Army won the battle with heavily armored tanks, proclaiming, ‘If you're in a fight with a fly, use a baseball bat.’ ... Oh, great. Thank goodness the colonel wasn’t in charge of the Afghan campaign. And thank goodness he's not running around my apartment fighting flies. ... FYI: A certain Carl Conetta, director of the Project on Defense Alternatives, a Boston-based research group, is mentioned prominently in the article. ...
... And by the way: It’s not clear who won the battle in Najaf. Sadr got away. He’ll be back. Maybe that’s all we need to know. So maybe the Army shouldn’t be bragging too much. The tanks ran up against the same progaganda obstacle the Marines confronted: Imam Ali Shrine. ...
... Did I like ‘John Boyd: The Fighter Pilot Who Changed the Art of War’? Yes. Definitely. The Pentagon is more screwed up than I ever imagined. Incredible stories of pettiness, ignorance, bureaucratic ineptness, lies, out-of-control egos, budget-driven strategies etc. It’s scary. The Pentagon’s flaws will never go away as long as genes are in humans. Among others, though, Dick Cheney comes across in the book as a smart, intense, forward-looking person who bucked the military norms in the first Gulf War and, probably, Afghanistan (but not in Iraq). ... As for the validity of Boyd’s ‘maneuver warfare,’ well, again, I’m just a history buff. But while liking the book and generally agreeing with Boyd's concept of warfare, I’m disappointed the author, Robert Coram, never really SHOWED how ‘maneuver warfare’ works. He had golden opportunities to give concrete, blow-by-blow examples of its use by Marines in Grenada and the First Gulf War. He didn’t. Just quick generalizations. Coram also pronounces at the end: ‘Boyd was the greatest military theoretician since Sun Tzu.’ And denies Boyd has become a cult figure while subtly chastising Boyd’s hometown of Erie, Pa. for not having a statue of him. Jeez. ...
Boyd was clearly a brilliant, brilliant man who took on the Pentagon and moved it away from its old view of massed attacks with fancy weaponry that often don’t work. The Pentagon is still resisting some of Boyd’s greatest ideas, judging by the above colonel’s baseball-bat rhetoric. Yet I’m still wondering whether Boyd really advanced or brilliantly codified Sun Tzu’s theories on deception, swiftness, flexibility etc. I’m definitely on Boyd’s side but ...
... And by the way: It’s not clear who won the battle in Najaf. Sadr got away. He’ll be back. Maybe that’s all we need to know. So maybe the Army shouldn’t be bragging too much. The tanks ran up against the same progaganda obstacle the Marines confronted: Imam Ali Shrine. ...
... Did I like ‘John Boyd: The Fighter Pilot Who Changed the Art of War’? Yes. Definitely. The Pentagon is more screwed up than I ever imagined. Incredible stories of pettiness, ignorance, bureaucratic ineptness, lies, out-of-control egos, budget-driven strategies etc. It’s scary. The Pentagon’s flaws will never go away as long as genes are in humans. Among others, though, Dick Cheney comes across in the book as a smart, intense, forward-looking person who bucked the military norms in the first Gulf War and, probably, Afghanistan (but not in Iraq). ... As for the validity of Boyd’s ‘maneuver warfare,’ well, again, I’m just a history buff. But while liking the book and generally agreeing with Boyd's concept of warfare, I’m disappointed the author, Robert Coram, never really SHOWED how ‘maneuver warfare’ works. He had golden opportunities to give concrete, blow-by-blow examples of its use by Marines in Grenada and the First Gulf War. He didn’t. Just quick generalizations. Coram also pronounces at the end: ‘Boyd was the greatest military theoretician since Sun Tzu.’ And denies Boyd has become a cult figure while subtly chastising Boyd’s hometown of Erie, Pa. for not having a statue of him. Jeez. ...
Boyd was clearly a brilliant, brilliant man who took on the Pentagon and moved it away from its old view of massed attacks with fancy weaponry that often don’t work. The Pentagon is still resisting some of Boyd’s greatest ideas, judging by the above colonel’s baseball-bat rhetoric. Yet I’m still wondering whether Boyd really advanced or brilliantly codified Sun Tzu’s theories on deception, swiftness, flexibility etc. I’m definitely on Boyd’s side but ...
