Does The Pentagon Need More Strategists?

James Joyner, War On The Rocks: Does the U.S. Military Really Need More Strategists?

Former National War College dean and retired Brig. Gen. Paula Thornhill should be commended for kicking off a vigorous round of debate on professional military education institutions in July. Many of my objections to her argument have been ably expressed by others, notably my Marine Corps University colleague Tammy Schultz as well as Richard Andres of the National War College. But none have questioned Thornhill’s central premise: that professional military education needs to produce more strategists. Indeed, several, most notably Tino Perez, have amplified it.

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WNU Editor: Producing strategic thinkers to senior levels in the military takes time and patience. Speaking of strategic leaders in other countries, it is a sad to know that Afghanistan has more top strategic officers than the U.S. .... Afghanistan Has More Generals Than The U.S. Military (December 20, 2016)

The Six Wars That China Expects To Fight This Century

Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA) soldiers. Reuters

China To Engage In 'Six Inevitable Wars' Involving U.S., Japan, India And More, According To Pro-Government Chinese Newspaper -- Michelle FlorCruz, IBTimes

China's announcement last weekend of an Air Defense Identification Zone, which includes disputed areas of the East China Sea, has ratcheted up tensions between China and her neighbors, leading some to believe war is imminent.

The new air defense area includes the airspace above the hotly disputed cluster of tiny islands known as the Diaoyu to China and the Senkaku to the Japanese. International reaction to the ADIZ, particularly from Japan and its ally the U.S., has been uniformly defiant. In addition to official statements from Japanese Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida and U.S. Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel, Reuters reported Tuesday that two U.S. military aircraft have flown around the disputed islands in direct defiance of China’s ADIZ.

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My Comment: This post was published 4 months ago .... but it is still relevant today. The scary thing is that the Chinese are always looking at the long term .... and this long term strategy fits nicely into what Michelle FlorCruz has published in this post.

Pentagon Study: China Is Conducting War Against The U.S. Using Psychological, Media, And Legal Operations

Military delegates from the Chinese People's Liberation Army arrive at Tiananmen Square for a meeting during the annual session of China's parliament, the National People's Congress, in Beijing March 4, 2012. Reuters

China Waging ‘Three Warfares’ Against United States In Asia, Pentagon Says -- Bill Gertz, Washington Free Beacon

China is waging political warfare against the United States as part of a strategy to drive the U.S. military out of Asia and control seas near its coasts, according to a Pentagon-sponsored study.

A defense contractor report produced for the Office of Net Assessment, the Pentagon’s think tank on future warfare, describes in detail China’s “Three Warfares” as psychological, media, and legal operations. They represent an asymmetric “military technology” that is a surrogate for conflict involving nuclear and conventional weapons.

The unclassified 566-page report warns that the U.S. government and the military lack effective tools for countering the non-kinetic warfare methods, and notes that U.S. military academies do not teach future military leaders about the Chinese use of unconventional warfare. It urges greater efforts to understand the threat and adopt steps to counter it.

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My Comment: I would add economic as a fourth component in this war strategy.

How The Pentagon Plans To Defeat China In A War

The People's Republic of China flag and the U.S. Stars and Stripes fly along Pennsylvania Avenue near the U.S. Capitol in Washington during Chinese President Hu Jintao's state visit, January 18, 2011. Credit: Reuters/Hyungwon Kang

To Beat China, The Pentagon Needs More Drones, Missiles & Subs -- War Is Boring

Swarms, subs could complicate Chinese targeting, analyst says

For the first time since China’s rapid ascent as a regional military power, officers in Beijing believe the Chinese army could invade Taiwan or attack a disputed island while also deterring intervention by U.S. Pacific Command.

In other words, top Chinese military planners are now convinced they could defeat the United States. And some American thinkers are coming to believe the same thing.

“U.S. forces in the region are becoming increasingly vulnerable to China’s anti-access capabilities,” David Gompert, a former Acting Director of National Intelligence now working for the think tank RAND, told the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission in Washington, D.C. on Jan. 30.

“This creates the prospect of regional instability, loss of U.S. influence, and heightened threat of conflict,” Gompert warned.

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My Comment: In short .... the Pentagon plan is simple .... spend more money on a lot of smaller things.

Can The U.S. Impose A Naval Blockade On China?

A U.S. Naval Blockade of China? -- Rory Medcalf, The Diplomat

Once upon a time, not so long ago, there was much debate about whether war between major powers in Asia was even imaginable. It is a disturbing sign of how much the strategic environment has deteriorated that analysts are now starting to write publicly about how such a war might be fought.

There is a growing literature on the U.S. concept of Air-Sea Battle, including the question of whether its use of conventional strikes against targets on the Chinese mainland would lead to wider escalation. Presumably this has struck a chord in the Chinese security debate – raising questions about the efficacy of an anti-access strategy against U.S. maritime forces – and perhaps that was the point.

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My Comment: I call this "thinking the unthinkable".

Researchers Turn To Artificial Intelligence And Real Data to Improve War Games

Image: VIRTUAL WAR IS HELL University of Maryland researchers are developing a virtual world designed to help intelligence analysts simulate the consequences of their antiterrorism policies. IMAGE COURTESY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND

From Scientific American:

University of Maryland researchers have created a virtual world they hope intelligence analysts will use to develop antiterrorism policies.

Virtual worlds such as Second Life and World of Warcraft allow players to adopt virtual personas or engage in combat on digital battlefields, but what if similar technology could let government intelligence analysts play out antiterrorism scenarios that would help with better understandings of the consequences of Middle East policy recommendations? A team of researchers at the University of Maryland in College Park, Md., believe they have created just such a virtual world using computational models that mimic terrorist behavior based a variety of factors, including social, political and religious beliefs.

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My Comment: I guess this will be the closest that we will ever come to mimicking real war/conflict/terrorism scenarios.

Building Real Security With Virtual Worlds

Advances in computerized modeling and prediction of group behavior, together with improvements in video game graphics, are making possible virtual worlds in which defense analysts can explore and predict results of many different possible military and policy actions, say computer science researchers. (Credit: iStockphoto/Simon Askham)

From Science Daily:

Science Daily (Nov. 27, 2009) — Advances in computerized modeling and prediction of group behavior, together with improvements in video game graphics, are making possible virtual worlds in which defense analysts can explore and predict results of many different possible military and policy actions, say computer science researchers at the University of Maryland in a commentary published in the November 27 issue of the journal Science.

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My Comment: I thought my simple games of "World Conquest" were cool to play on my computer .... but these war strategies/games must be awesome.