For those people who do not get my message on this issue I will reiterate--even today there are some remnants of the US and Republic which I love dearly, together with people who share those values, even in the midst of a catastrophe we all observe and live through, with the US circling the drain with a very few prospects of stopping this motion before being removed as a threat from the global arena. But having said all that, it has to be also said that the US was always "provincial" in its foreign policy and, especially so, in its military posture which was based primarily on outdated concepts and, frankly, serious operational rigidity--a euphemism for illiteracy, a product of America's confabulated history of WW II and steady intellectual and academic decline, now accelerating tremendously, of American military-political elites.
Behold the piece from The Hill which demonstrates this process in full. It is an "opinion" piece, of course, but it is very indicative of military illiteracy of even those who are supposed to have a clue. They don't. Here are the authors: Mark Toth writes on national security and foreign policy. Col. (Ret.) Jonathan Sweet served
30 years as a military intelligence officer and led the U.S. European
Command Intelligence Engagement Division from 2012 to 2014.
Well, we know that, but it is what these guys base their conclusion upon, and, boy, do they go full Monty parading their incompetence.
In 1860, Buchanan, fearing escalation, refused to sufficiently
reinforce the strategic fort guarding the entrance to Charleston Harbor.
Although such a move likely would not have changed the trajectory of
the war, it would have drawn a much-needed red line for the Southern
secessionists. Instead, Buchanan did the bare minimum, just as the Biden
administration is now doing in Ukraine, the Indo-Pacific and in the
Middle East. Defending U.S. allies is not enough, just as minimally
defending Fort Sumter proved futile.
The fact that US cadre military officers goes for such analogy tells you immediately that he has no clue what he is talking about, because US military history in general is barely applicable to continental warfare as any historic analogy, let alone lesson, with Civil War being interesting merely as a first truly industrial war. That's about it. Dragging here some example from 1860 and, under the guise of solid "scholarship", trying to project it onto the military realities of the XXI century is a fool's errand. In fact, it is for amateurs. It is also cringe-worthy in purely strategic sense, which, as even authors admit wouldn't make much difference in the end. Thus the question--why use it as an example? But confusion abounds...
“Defending” must no longer be the watchword of the day in Biden’s
White House, but “winning.” Winning this increasingly kinetic global
ideological war is our only way forward if liberal democracy is to
prevail against Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping’s shared vision of a so-called multipolar world, militarily and economically dominated by Russia and China and anchored by BRICS. Biden’s escalation fears must also end. As evidenced by Oct 7.,
Bakhmut, Avdiivka, Iran’s April 13 attacks on Israel and now the Bastogne-like battle
for the Kharkiv Oblast, fears of escalation have only led to vacuums
being filled by our nation’s enemies — and the enemies of our allies in
Eastern Europe and the Mideast.
Bastogne? Is this the extent of these writers' historic literacy? The US Army is not even in the same league with combined arms operations and investing all kinds of cities and towns by Russian Armed Forces be that in WW II, with gargantuan scale of operations on the Eastern Front, which make Western Front, bar Normandy Landing and Battle of the Bulge look rather timid in comparison, or be that later in the XXI century. So, authors suddenly discover that Russian Army can take cities. They also are very badly informed on the issue of Kharkov so called "offensive" in 2022 because it had nothing in common, in fact, it was antithetical to the Battle of the Bulge, because there was NO objective of taking Kharkov in 2022 and it was at best probing, in reality recon in force by Russian Army, which never lost operational initiative, unlike it was with under equipped and lacking gas Wehrmacht which was already defeated in the East and by the end of Battle of the Bulge started transferring divisions to the Eastern Front. And, I guess, authors drank too much of 404 Kool Aid and lack basic understanding of modern warfare and how political objectives shape military ones. Not surprising, the US Army never fought anything like this in the last 80 years.
Obviously both authors have zero understanding of how resources are mustered and how required force is composed based on operational and strategic requirements. Not surprising. And both, evidently, cannot come to grips that the United States and its NATO chihuahuas simply have neither economic nor force wherewithal to talk about any kind of "winning" against Russia. Different leagues militarily. Moreover, referring to US National Security Strategy documents of the last 30 years is also a fool's errand--America doesn't DO strategy, because it cannot DO it due to people who write those documents having zero skills apart from nauseating propagandizing of what is not there--America's ability to fight real war without being annihilated--in developing strategy which is not a wet dream based on the delusion of grandeur. Now, these two are coping really hard not understanding that they should have studied better and avoided using their "experiences" as a yardstick--they are irrelevant to modern war.
I know, it hurts to be a loser, but that's life in which you win some, you lose some, but for "intel" people in the US to even grasp what they observe, they should concentrate not on spreading military amateurish BS in media but concentrate on educating themselves on REAL war and military history, not hunting down Afghan weddings or studying IDF "experiences" in genocide. Of course they are not going to heed my humble advice but US strategic incompetence is shocking. I knew it was bad, SMO exposed it as absent altogether. These two illustrated my point really well. But then again--I just finished thesis on that.
