When I Talk About...

... inability to plan operationally and strategically on the part of Washington in general and Pentagon in particular, I do not mean it as a figure of speech. I really mean it in terms of actual planning. Six years ago I called the lack of this ability "the myopia". 

The definition must be changed. With myopia one at least can see near oneself. This IS NOT the case with Washington--it cannot see what is immediately in a front of its eyes and the issue is not myopia but what some people, yours truly included, begin to increasingly assertively state--there is NO strategic planning in Washington at all. It is not just the inability to strategically plan, it is a complete absence of such in principle. 

It is a systemic problem and it cannot be addressed without rebuilding the system from the ground up and the good first step would be throwing out all those Ph.Ds in "strategy" who infest US "academe" and think-tankdom while having no fucking clue about what they preach. Studying military and political history in and of itself does not represent "strategic studies" due to inherently complex nature of modern warfare and a required accuracy in description of the object of study, such as a country, in our particular case--Russia. The US in general, and combined West in particular, DO NOT have the tool kit to handle all that, we can say it now with confidence. So, the issue is multifaceted and pseudo-academe and "experts" who dominate decision-making chain in the US are incapable of correcting the course. It is too late now anyway. 

And that is my point, the US is so deep in lies, about itself, about the world, about history, about military et al, that I don't see how can one reasonably debate those people, those masters of discourse who pretend that learning several stratagems and abstract "strategic" constructs makes them masters of "strategy". As was stated numerous times--enough to look at the version of WW II by those "masters" to understand how hollow and ignorant they are. E.g. Mearsheimer's quip about liberal democracy "defeating Nazism" while quoting Fukuyama. So, I can sit here and produce one example after another for days, but that's not the point. The point is--US "strategic planning" is non-existent category and anyone who pushes the idea that it exists today should be disqualified as a scholar, since doctrine and strategy-mongering is not strategic planning, especially when done by people who are lost in the complexities of the modern world. 

The existence of people here and there who do understand this fallacy does not change the issue that the problem is systemic and cannot be addressed from within--the critical mass of thinkers with integrity and intellectual tool kit are simply not there. And even the US military is losing remaining ability extremely fast--not surprising considering a catastrophe in military education. And here we are today:

How do you even deal with that? I don't know yet. But I was warning about this for many years. Once this whole myth is exposed, as it was in 404, where do you go from here, when the whole house of cards is built on lies. How can you talk to any Ph.D in "international affairs" or in "strategy" when most of them do not know basic facts of history and have zero military professional apparatus to pass judgement on the foundation of geopolitics which is not geography but balance of power? I don't know, I just know that they cannot hide anymore the scale of a catastrophe. Ideas?