tdaxp

Robb, J. (2007). Unleashing the dogs of war. Global Guerrillas. September 2, 2007. Available online: http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/globalguerrillas/2007/09/unleashing-the-.html (from ZenPundit).

John Robb has an excellent piece on the Sysadmin-Industrial-Complex, the institutional support needed to expand and defend globalization against terrorism, socialism, and stupidity:

If you think the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan will end with this US presidency, think again. These wars will likely outlast the next several Presidents. The old Vietnam era formulas don't apply anymore. The reason is that the moral weaknesses that have traditionally limited the state's ability to fight long guerrilla wars have dissipated, and modern states may now have the ability and the desire to wage this type of war indefinitely. Here's what changed:...

[T]he military and its civilian leadership still don't have the ability to garner wide domestic support for guerrilla wars beyond the initial phases. However, they do have the ability to maintain support within a small but vocal base...

The current degree of corporate participation in warfare makes the old "military industrial complex" look tame in comparison.

If this Long War really came down to a "war of ideas," we would lose. Fortunately, it won't. However, it's still useful and helpful to have a "small but vocal base" to distract and wear down opponents as the broader structure of the Military-Industrial-Sysadmin-Complex fights on.

"Full Spectrum Struggle Is Not MBA Struggle," by Dan, tdaxp, 8 May 2005, http://tdaxp.blogspirit.com/archive/2005/05/08/full_spectrum_struggle_is_not_mba_struggle.html.

"QDR: China Tops Iraq, Osama?," by Noah Shachtman, Defense Tech, 23 January 2005, http://www.defensetech.org/archives/002110.html (from DNI),

"The Counterrevolution in Military Affairs ," by Ralph Peters, The Weekly Standard, 6 February 2006, http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/006/649qrsob.asp (from TPMB).

Months ago, I wrote:

Whether you are an army or a movement, you are attacked where you are weakest by someone else where they are strongest. They will exploit their advantage over you where they chose. Over and over again, this is how wars start. It's how battles start. It is how any conflict starts.

It's still true. Even if it means agreeing with the QDR and Rumsfeld. Even if it means disagreeing with Shactman and Peters

In celebration of Chirol's Dr. Seuss cartoon, I present it with a Barnettian riff