The Burden of Command

There's a WWII incident I think about periodically, though in looking it up there may not have been any truth to it (assuming this is the one I'd heard about).

The Allies had cracked the code and were able to read German transmissions, so they knew that the Germans were going to bomb the village of Coventry (though apparently this is not so? They knew an attack was coming, just not the specific location).

The part I think about, the dilemma, was that if they acted on that knowledge it would give away the fact that they'd cracked the code, so in order to defeat the Germans they chose not to... and let the village get attacked without warning them in advance.

Although it may never have happened, I think about situations where that may occur. Where you, as a leader, have to decide between using that advantage to save the village or strategizing to use it to win the war.

World War II...

Well, deception operations happened on a level we rarely think of these days. Like sidelining General Patton in order to make the Nazis think D-Day was a feint.

Or using inflatable tanks and sound tracks to create a pretend army.

Or hiding false information on a corpse, and leaving the body where the Germans would find it.

I think about it, because on the one hand we need leaders to make the tough calls in war, and sometimes distancing yourselves from the effects allows you to think through strategy better. To think of it like a game of chess, and not worry about the loved ones the pawns leave behind.

And yet, on the other hand, it's the type of thinking that leads to horrible results... where people lose sight of what they are fighting for, and why they're fighting, growing callous and harsh and wasting lives needlessly because they've successfully distanced themselves from the human suffering left behind.

It's part of why 'the greater good' is such a dangerous concept.

Go back to World War I, for example, when guns had improved to the point where charging them led to slaughter... in previous wars guns were less reliable, had less thoroughput, and even though a few soldiers would die in the attempt you could still take a position (and ultimately win the war)... except circumstances changed, and the awareness of it hadn't, so leaders kept telling their people to charge forward only to have most of them die in the attempt.

Soldiers know, going in, that they are risking their lives. They each have their reasons for signing up, motivations as varied as people themselves.

And so I conclude that the obligation, as an officer... as a leader... is to use what they are giving you wisely and well.

Not to waste their lives stupidly, but to risk them when it's called for.

You know, have a sound strategy.

I was reminded of all this because, well.... Iran has been in the news  a lot lately. That's a big ol' tangled mess that I could write a bunch of other posts on, but that wasn't what I wanted to get at today.

See, here's the thing. In Vietnam our leadership lost the trust of the people. The belief was that they weren't using the lives of their soldiers wisely and well...

I remember being in Iraq in 2004, 2005, 2006. Remember the screw ups made (like the way the Sunnis were handled), and I know such decisions led directly to unnecessary loss of life.

'Stay the course' irritated me no end, especially if I dwelled on it, because even though stubbornly outlasting the enemy can lead to victory... it's not really a strategy.

Of course, then came the surge, and COIN operations, and things changed. As one soldier told me, we seemed to be putting our resources in the right place.

And then... well, then the gains made were not capitalized on. You could argue that our leadership failed to live up to the trust bestowed on them by those willing to serve.

That comes out harsher in writing then I really feel, and yet I think I need to emphasize that to make my point.

Because Iran? Yeah, our relationship with them is complicated. The Iranian revolution, the Iranian hostage crisis, their extreme remarks on Israel, etc...

Maybe a case could be made for more direct action, but I haven't seen much of an indication that our leadership really learned their lessons.

It's sort of like... we need a scalpel wielded with surgical precision, and instead they're wielding machetes and blundering about. I'd rather we don't get involved, tbh, not unless there's truly an existential threat, because these yahoos are trying to play chess with people's lives.

Sure, soldiers will do as their ordered. I'm not advocating disobeying or anything. But as a voting and engaged citizen?

These are not the people I want making those sorts of decisions.

Marketing, Influence Operations, Etc.

I almost forgot.  A few weeks ago I had a discussion with one of my brothers (Kawphy) that spurred some thoughts I wanted to capture here.

What I kind of liked about philosophy classes is that we all can read the famous philosophers (Plato, Aristotle, Kierkegaard, Sartre) and draw on our own experiences to debate their thoughts and ideas.  That is, there's no 'right answer' handed down from on high.  When you debate topics - like justice, or virtue - we all have our own personal experiences that we can draw on.  The best philosophers make sound arguments, make us look at things in a new light, make us think things through more deeply than we otherwise would have...but ultimately we're still the ones who have to decide for ourselves whether what they're saying matches our own experiences. 

I don't like how focused they get on technical details (like spending an entire chapter defining a specific word), though I get why they do that.  Still, there's something sort of fun about coming up with your own answers to the questions posed.

Why did I bring that up?  Because comparing what you are taught to your own personal experience is a pretty useful skill.  It's part of why I think you should have a healthy sense of skepticism towards economics, for example.  I'm not criticizing the field as a whole, but when I consider my own personal experiences as a consumer, I don't think it quite fits the model of rationality and utility they describe (or you have to expand the notions of 'utility' to include things like 'how pretty is the package').  I brought that up in a previous post where I discussed how I'd select a bottle of wine. 

The same process holds true when you consider the impact of marketing, information operations, and possible Russian influence on our democracy.  Or, conversely, our influence on Latin American countries during the Cold War.

Consider commercials for cars.  The thing is, if I'm not in the market for a car then those commercials are pretty much wasted on me.  I'm not buying a car, they're too expensive to do casually, there's not much point to it unless I'm at the point where its time for a new one anyway.  (And when it does come time, I generally look up cars by the traits I want first...and consider deals such as family or company discounts.  My last two cars were Fords, and that's mostly because I have an aunt who worked in a Ford factory and can get me a discount...and my company had a deal with Ford so I could get a discount through them.  I could go with whichever deal was better at the time.) 

This is not to say that all car commercials are useless.  For those looking to buy, they can be very useful.  You'd have to get into the statistics on how many people they want to draw in with their commercials to get some sense of why/whether the cost of advertising pays off.  Plus, even if I'm not in the market for a car, the brand or image presented might have a role in my decision when I am ready to make that purchase.  1-10 years down the road, that is. 

But do I see a commercial for a new car and immediately rush out to buy one?  Not at all.  Or only if I already know I want a new car. 

Things are slightly different with food commercials.  See, most people don't buy a new car every year...but everybody has to eat.  And we all have to eat multiple times a day.  Which means that food commercials are more likely to work, as I might see an ad and think to myself "I haven't had that in a while, okay."  Next meal I'm ordering pizza, or getting tacos, or whatever.  (Though it's not necessarily from the company doing the advertising.  Taco Bell might remind me of tacos, but then I'll go to a local Mexican restaurant instead of Taco Bell.)

The point I want to make here is that attempts to influence people are...well, complicated.  They work best when someone is already open to being influenced (i.e. if I'm not in the market for a new car the car commercials are mostly wasted on me.) 

Though it's not quite as black and white as that, either, as good salespeople can persuade us even when we don't think we're in the market for something.  (I think we've all had the experience of purchasing something we had no intentions of buying originally.)

Anyways, the same things hold true when you're trying to conduct information operations, influence operations, etc.  Russian accusations of Western meddling, for example, deny the fact that Western 'meddling' wouldn't have any sort of impact at all if there weren't disgruntled Russians with unaddressed grievances.

And vice versa - Russian meddling in the recent 2016 election would not have been possible if they weren't tapping into our own domestic fault lines.  It's like a car commercial targeting someone who's realized they kind of want a new car.

You can focus on those outside influences, I suppose.  It's not completely wrong.  Yet I think we'd all be better off focusing more on why our people are susceptible in the first place.  What problems are being unaddressed, that people would rather believe x or y or whatever?

Also - don't overestimate the threat.  Thinking you can somehow make another nation do the things you want is about as likely to lead to disaster as success.  Just consider our attempt to reinstate the Shah of Iran.  The 2016 election might make Russia think they've got a good thing going, but if they misunderstand the source of success they're just as likely to make their own mistakes - like ours in Iran - as they are to have future success.

National Security, Current and Historical Events

Due to current events, I've been rethinking how I was going to write my next few posts.  It seems that (much though I was planning to avoid it) I actually have to write about some of my  underlying thought processes. 

Take the current situation with Russa, regarding Syria and the US elections.  There are some Americans arguing that we need to be firm, that Russia sees anything less as a sign of weakness and will keep pushing unless or until we do stand firm.  Others see the potential for the situation to escalate out of hand, and do not think we should risk starting World War III over Syria.

Historically, there's merit to both arguments.  For a while there, some Americans thought Saddam Hussein misinterpreted a discussion with our State Dept as an indication that the US would do nothing if he invaded Kuwait.  (Reading up on it now, clearly more information has developed since I heard about this in college...and it looks like this isn't actually what happened.)

On the flip side, historians say that Germany helped create the conditions for World War I because they had lost almost all their allies except Austria, and so had to demonstrate their firm commitment to their ally...which helped expand what could have been a much more local conflict into something global. (Otto van Bismarck allegedly believed that Germany was at risk of encirclement, and worked hard to maintain good relations with his neighbors.  Kaiser Wilhelm wasn't quite so adept at foreign policy, and managed to alienate almost everyone.) 

Given the articles I posted a couple of days ago, I decided to check around a bit online.  One article said that Russia had to support Assad, because if Assad is overthrown then Iran is the only ally they have left in the region.

What's funny is that this article is discussing the decline of Russian influence (and paints the support for Assad as a sign of that weakness, much like Germany supporting Austria), whereas a lot of other articles are basically saying that Russia is standing strong and making the United States look weak and ineffective.

I don't know enough about the situation to say what's truly going on, unfortunately.  It seems like there are two (or more) ways of analyzing the situation, and the recommended course of action for one scenario is the absolutely worst thing you could do if the second is closer to reality.  And vice versa.

Anyways.  The point of this post was to say I'm changing up what I was going to write about.  I planned to discuss our relationship with Iran - I don't think anyone can say that our policies towards Iran have made  us more secure over the past thirty or forty decades.  Our involvement with the Iranian coup in 1953 was a factor in our hostile relations since the revolution.  What's funny is that according to Wilsonian ideals we should never have done gotten involved like that. 

Were the American individuals who supported the coup the realists?  Or should they have expected and predicted the backlash we received?  After all, we were once a colony ourselves.  We fought our own revolution against imperial rule.  If any great nation should have understood how resentful a nation can be when outside powers appear to be in control, it was the United States. 

(What's funny is I came across an article that had the exact opposite take on Iran.  That it wasn't our heavy-handedness in installing the Shah that hurt, so much as our making the Shah weak by pressuring him to liberalize.  I didn't find the source very credible, especially considering they claim the West instigated the revolution against the Shah as well.  I think the United States lost out too much to justify that theory...but I'm including it because I wanted to highlight how completely different historical analysis can be.  FYI - the source has ties to the John Birch society, and I felt the article drew on the all too common 'realist' notion that ideals make us weak.)


Instead of delving into these topics more deeply, I'm considering what underlying beliefs are necessary to create a sound national security policy.  I don't have anything solid yet, so I'll either wait until the ideas develop more or start writing a stream-of-consciousness type post to see what bubbles up.  Haven't decided yet.