This story could almost serve as a textbook example of the consequences of American post-9/11 unipolar hubris. And it is strange writing this story at this time, perhaps almost ironic, for as I write it, one hundred years ago, at this approximate time, the Allies and Germany were locked in two of the bloodiest, and stupidest, battles of World War One: Verdun, and the Somme. The massive French, British, and German casualties and bloodletting accomplished next to nothing militarily, and the trench warfare deadlock of the Western front continued for two more bloody years. We'll get back to World War One in a moment, because it holds an ominous lesson for today's article, shared by Mr. V.T., and which appeared on Russia's Sputnik English language online magazine:
Losing Their Edge: US Army Studies Russian Military
The crux of the article, which cites U.S. Army Lieutenant General H.R. McMaster, argues that while the USA was busily confronting the world powers of Afghanistan and Iraq and their sophisticated military machines, the Russians were quietly modernizing their military to the point that many of its most modern weapons technologies exceed America's (and therefore, by implication, its NATO allies') in conventional capabilities:
"It is clear that while our Army was engaged in Afghanistan and Iraq, Russia studied US capabilities and vulnerabilities and embarked on an ambitious, and largely successful, modernization effort," Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster told Politico.
A leading figure in the US Army, McMaster is currently overseeing a "high-level government panel" formed to decide how the Pentagon "should adapt to this Russian wake-up call."
Known as the Russia New Generation Warfare Study, the panel is concerned, in part, with Moscow’s success in Syria, and partly with imagined Russian aggressions in Eastern Europe.
"Russia possesses a variety of rocket, missile and cannon artillery systems that outrange and are more lethal than US Army artillery systems and munitions," he said.
To be sure, the Russian intervention in Syria was quick, efficient, and a patent demonstration that in spite of the fond hopes and wishes of the unipolarist neocons, Russia's military is still quite effective, and quite capable.
So where does World War One fit in?
At the end of this article, I was stunned when I read the following:
While Moscow appears to have US military strategists in a panic, General Donn Starry stressed that victory lies in soldiers’ attitudes, not necessarily technical superiority.
"It is strikingly evident," he said, according to Politico, "that battles are yet won by the courage of soldiers, the character of leaders, and the combat experience of well-trained units."
Notwithstanding those noble sentiments,, the US Army probably won’t be shutting down its study any time soon.
Reading this was like having been transported back one hundred and two or more years, through some sort of military history wormhole, to the period when France, so confident in its "soldiers' attitudes" and "the courage of its soldiers, the character of (its) leaders" and the good training of its units, actually wrote military treastises about this mystical doctrine of elan vital and the need for the offensive: in the face of new technologies like the machine gun, it was the French army' elan that would carry it triumphantly from Alsace-Lorraine into Baden, Bayern, and thence, on to Berlin. I am reminded too of Conrad von Hoetzendorff, the Austro-Hungarian chief of staff, who espoused similar ideas: training, elan, morale, "spirit", and the "eternal offensive" would overcome any enemy and technology, and carry the Kaiserliche und Koenigliche Armee to victory. The effects of these ideas, as we now know with the bloody hindsight of World War One, proved nearly disastrous both for France and Austria-Hungary in 1914, as niether country had adequately prepared with the new technologies - heavy artillery - nor trained in a manner appropriate to their use. Infantry tactics remained almost unbelievably locked into an essentially Napoleonic framework: waves and waves of infantry ranks charging entrenched Russians, Serbs, or Germans, and... well, you can imagine the rest. It wasn't French elan, nor its confidence in the rightness of its cause and democratic institutions - a confidence eerily reminiscent of contemporary American attitudes, at least, at the "elite" level - that saved France; it was Marechal Joffre's recognition that the doctrine, and plan, had failed, and it took some brilliant maneuvering on his part, and some blunders on German Colonel General von Bulow's part, that brought about the "Miracle of the Marne" in 1914.
So with respect to General Starry, elan vital is not to be counted upon, especially in an era when US foreign policy and political institutions are under such cynical scrutiny by the general population, and when the people comprising your army are already demoralized from decades of unwon wars, bombed out countries, huge and debilitating expenditures to support the same, and expensive weapons systems that underperform. (F-35 anyone?) I would wager that Sputnik's assessment that the U.S. Army won't be shutting down its study any time soon is quite true. And I would also wager that the study might, indeed, be calling into question the whole military-industrial complex establishment and doctrine since Vietnam, and possibly even Korea. After all, the US military has not participated in winning a war since World War Two. Unlike Marechal Joffre, we appear not to have learned any lessons.
See you on the flip side...
btw,
– off topic but quite on topic for all who know the back story well enough –
did anyone hear yesterday that hastert got sentenced over his bribery to cover up his decades long child molestation before and probably during tenure as speaker of the house under (and i do mean under) w?
the resonant part was where the judge called him a serial child molester.
for those interested in how it ties into this, sibel edomnds and james corbett have tied in enough that it gets to the franklin scandal and the bush clan and turkey and foreign businessmen owning ussa legislators over sexual secrets such legislators can’t afford to let through.
kinda like bill clinton hanging out with obvious child sex trafficking billionaires and the royals hanging with brit child molester celebrities like jimmy saville?
besides the heinous nature of it all, the secrecy is how their souls are perceived as sold to their devils. it’s their leash on each of these bums. it’s why some get offed instead of outted. x, rfk, jfk, jfk jr, michael hastings, wellstone, tons of other celebrities,….
some are more virtuous than others. some are folk who thought they sold their soul and tried to take it back. either way they went off leash and got removed for the effort. kinda doubt wellstone or x were ever much on a leash. used to think kucinich and sanders were off leash until they conformed at various points – specifically over obama care getting rammed through.
either way it’s part of the domestication program described below. it’s all part of the mk ultrathon on personal as well as societal levels. makes me want to not drive an automatic transmission like hastings and mclendon. otherwise why go to the bother and craziness to kill an old woman like joan rivers over outting obama and michelle as trans and gay?
Now gosh, robert and roger,
you gotta sit back in awe of this not getting awaited in moderation.
back to work now. see you guys when i can, unless of course they decide to hastings/mclendon me over such open conversation.
moments like these make me glad to feel like the fly on the wall. at least they think we’re inconsequential enough to let me see or imagine i see reality.
wonder if this is how tesla felt decades after wycliffe
upon further review:
jesu bless us all. it’s all just so much directly out of frank herbert. talk about cia run predictive programming and literature. how many harkonnens can ya fit on the head of a pin? or planet?
and with further review, i forgot which one of you got me to read childhood’s end last year. either way, this all smacks of a long drawn out multi-generational twisted version of childhood’s end right?
Thanks for the interesting comment Joseph.
What I would like to say is that since Korea, U.S. military failure has been the motive, to destroy another generation of Americans. Actually WWI and II, would go along with the is category of generational slaughter, for those who came out were in many respects mind controlled to various levels. Of course there are many who credit their time in the service for kicking them in the butt to be active in their lives, but then that is how the whole gung ho warrior class on their assess watching sports, supported the crap of Vietnam….etc.
Now we have the suicide epidemic among recently returned soldiers…..which is what the establishment wants, rather then a class of young, militarily trained, pissed off people who might well take down the whole fucking system, but they are either too shattered or still too brainwashed, though many are awake, but just trying to get on with their lives in an honest way.
Putin was damn smart to take action in Syria, then pull out.
word. gm. word.
I cant access the article but this has been a problem going back to the revolution and beyond. Merchants gaming the military and governments fifth columnists in every thing but name probably more of a menace than any adversaries any government would face on the field of battle.
Let’s see, does “elan vital” require a functioning oxygen mask? Perhaps when the F-35 pilots pass out, they are expected to access “the Force.”
Apparently, no one learned much about victory through “elan vital” in combat from the Boxer Rebellion.
Sad, silly humans.
ha jon,
ya made me read a bit more about the boxers. perhaps this is what ben fulford was ranting about a year or two ago when he blathered about the white dragon society and all the martial arts dojo on the planet uniting and taking over the central banking system with one of their own. it was at the same time as the 33billion in old bearer bonds showing up in italy or some such?
so given fulford’s obvious ties to rockefeller (he was granted a long personal interview with david around the time of fukushima) was he doing the soros ngo tactic and trying to foment their version of color revolution or occupy asia in asian countries?
“Your comment is awaiting moderation.” Over the target. goshawks – April 28, 2016 at 4:39 pm.
Russia has noted how dependent the US has become on digital technology. Hence, their emphasis on jamming and spoofing. Not to mention, combo radars that can see AND target stealth aircraft. It is remarkable what you can come up with, when your nation’s survival is at stake…
Here is how the US (and allies) will be taken-down at home, from an article by a controversial website author whose name sounds like ‘Gem Stone’:
“A computer virus at a German nuke plant: This plant – which, as far as I can find out, was using SCADA at the time of Fukushima – ripped those systems out because of Fukushima and DEFINITE: Is now using 100 percent old school analog industrial systems without an ounce of computer code to manage everything that generates power and runs the reactors. This nuclear facility is 100 percent immune to a StuxNet type attack. Good. Perhaps the Fukushima report made a difference.
Since Germans are at the forefront of practically everything, it would be logical for them to be the first to go back to analog. And believe me, there is NOTHING wrong with analog; I have worked with both analog and digital industrial systems and quite frankly, the analog ones are better.
…
This German nuclear facility is 100 percent StuxNet proof because it is 100 percent analog. … All that happened was employees got a few computers infected with viruses and malware from flash drives they carried in. There was no way for anything to ‘phone home’ because there was no connection available. This means that there was no way ‘ISIS’ could have exploited this situation. In short, there was no situation.
They shut the reactors down anyway. That order definitely came from ‘common core’ in the front office, who did not understand what an analog system is. Anyway, you can go back to bed, now. There is no doom possible, and there never was. Good for Germany.
And, as a final point, just because they are using analog ‘brains’ does not mean there are analog needles everywhere; everything will go to digital displays and controls, so the systems will still look digital. But, the digital readouts are only readouts; the digital portion of the controls are only brainless buttons and there is no computer code in them. It is better to go digital with that portion of the process because it works better and is still virus proof.”
How many US (and allies) facilities are still SCADA controlled?
thank you.
an idea to try?
title each entry and refer to it in the comments you make about the other comments awaiting moderation. that way we can see the title at the heading of the comment that gets through moderation. perhaps dating and timing each comment in the heading too?
funny what we learn to work around as the ai throws up it’s tricks
War is a RAKKKKET
Can anyone say “missile gap”?
In capitalism, Warfare’s purposes are Profit$$$!!!
An added benefit was to put bayonets in workers[wobblies of WW1 era] hands and have them go at each other.
Today, in digital capitalism, the human is becoming more & more obsolete: mere cannon fodder. Worse, those humans may begin to question digital capitalism’s use.
…and what about private power’s military?
The owners of the money system have infinite money if they choose to type that symbol into their private account balances. It’s just one of many strategic population control mechanisms they put in place. It’s also how they punish naughty and rogue puppets. The beasts have many tools to maintain control over the sheeple and to cull their herds. The only way to break this cycle is for the sheeple to stop agreeing to be sheeple and start exercising their Creator given gifts of self determination.
Basically true Roger.
Since the Bretton Wood agreement and the U.S dropping two shock 7 awe weapons on Japan, the U.S power apparatus has basically stood on two pillars: the Wall Street/U.S. world reserve currency and the Right Makes Right U.S. military.
Might Makes Right U.S. Military Foreign Policy.
Those are being challenged by the New Silk Road and the Russia/Chinese alliance – united in military/commerce fronts.
Also, the currency is bein challenged on several fronts including the Bitcoin protocol blockchain; which could be the wedge that cracks open the overly concentrated financial sector. Because Bitcoin allows developers to build on top of the blockchain protocol, it enables countless new uses of the underlying technology. Just as Apple’s iOS platform created a world where “there’s an app for that”, we may soon be in a world where “there’s a Bitcoin app for that.
Also Roger,
In digital capitalism, the digital is not a realm without boundaries. The instability of digital capitalism that creates collapse[and the movement towards necrosis] is fundamentally the imbalance predicted by the Ponzi model of accumulation: the inability of production to meet the demands posed by capital. Semiotic manipulation characterizes this immaterial production. Values are generated through cycles of exchange, creating asset bubbles, they are a function of the semiotic reassembly and transfer of derivative[secondary and tertiary] immaterial commodities. This is a system haunted by the attempt to expand towards infinity inherent to capitalism in general. The shift to fiat currency [as much as the use of rentier currency] appear, much as the aura of the digital does, as solutions to this inherent paradox.
All do to the ideological blindness of those who have obscenely profited from this farce as tragedy, as much as the emergence of a purposed ignorance as culture, that enables this shift towards immaterialism through the aura/illusion of the digital and, thus, the rise of digital capitalism.
True, but the fiat money system is really a weapon, one of many to conquer the world. What is explained to the sheeple about the purpose of the money supply compared to what it is really intended to do is two separate things. When the creators have a secret financial bank account with the sum of infinity at their disposal all their transactions instantly become off the books because any amount subtracted from an account with a balance of infinity still equals infinity. Thus the unlimited expendatures of the creators of this economic weapon to gradually buy up all the world’s influence and resources never effects the economic munjo jumbo accounting that determines the perceived value of the money supply. The perceived value of all the other perceivable public accounts with their finite amounts do however have an effect upon one and another as you describe and thus the money owners must keep developing new ways of manipulating this in their favor to keep their illusion going long enough for them to conquer the world with their secret off the books infinite account that always equals infinite no matter how much the owners create and spend towards their real off the books goals.
The inventors of the money weapon knew once they neared their goals the realization of their deceit and true purpose would become obvious to more and more people. By that time, which is now, they hoped to have purchased and corrupted enough influence and infrastructure to be able to keep their spoils with brute force. We shall soon find out if they indeed do have enough force and loyalty to fully enslave or destroy us once and for all.
Scary thought Roger,
All those slaves believing…
they are truly free.
roger and rb,
not so scary. not so new either. you’re right about the inventors of money weapon knowing about events as they near their goal.
you’re wrong about they’re hoping to have purchased and corrupted enough. they know that as they proceed slowly and surely enough, they guage and adjust to be sure they have enough. this ain’t their first time around this block apparently.
it’s how animals are domesticated and trained. no social animal (pack or herd) ever fights submission so universally and uniformly throughout the herd that the hunter kills them all (and so remains a hunter instead of a farmer).
granted, it’s harder to milk a zebra or a buffalo than it is to milk a goat. just the same genghis khan’s forces lived primarily on tea, the occasional mutton and alot of mare’s milk. it’s what let them travel fast and far where ever pastures were available. ever milk a horse?
i guess we’re the horse. my goal here is to first be the horse that survives this apparent long slow culling (and sometimes not so slow). another goal is to move somewhere on the food chain better than the horse.
i think it goes to viewing knowledge as power. i think it’s more than knowledge that counts. i think it’s health and imagination too.
I’d put my money on America’s diverse army of minorities, women, gays and transgenders any day over Russia’s army, made up of predominantly white cisgender males. I mean it is the 21 Century and the Russian military still believes in fat shaming its recruits for lord’s sake.
I would honestly pay money to see that carnival parade beach on any enemies shores!!
I think the wind of laughter alone can defeat that oncoming parade!
neru,
killing is hardly gender specific. laughter is hardly a weapon. and being gay is hardly a hinder to being strong. think of all the lads and lass’ you have ever known. now know that some 5% of them are gay. now know that some of the toughest in that group are gay. and they chose to not let you know it.
i’ve trained in martial arts 3+ decades. the friends who came out of the closet in the last 15 years angered and baffled me. not because they’re gay. because they did not tell me sooner. and because i never would have guessed. my gadar is useless. came to realize, the only time my gadar works is when someone wants me to get that signal.
please keep in mind the source here. i still disagree with these friends more than i ever have with any other friends. i feel in my core it’s wrong. my respect for these friends in how they deal with it and how fair they are to me and mine is higher than most though. it’s no wonder to me that military leaders have in past intentionally incorporated gay couples into their units.
it’s not like this is a new or unprecedented historical concept in military science. and every truth cuts at least two ways. someone has and is using this somewhere.
There are always good people even amongst minority groups. I know, I myself belong to one of those groups but 99% conduct themselves in a atrocious way totally removed from reality. I perfectly understand one keeps that fact to him/herself exactly because of todays world which is all but free thinking.
vb, i guess i missed that earlier. fat shaming? love the white cisgender male descriptor. thank you zdb
fat shaming. hilarious.
i dated myself. had to look that up. apparently you missed the link on an earlier blog doc did. i posted a link to a systema instructor named ryabko. he’s a colonel in russian spetnaz (special forces?). he doesn’t seem too worried about fat shaming. nor do some of his rail skinny students nor his much heavier students. they really don’t care what they’re moving, they work on how they move.
Ever sense our army was feminized we lost the edge of proper warrior spirit. Can you imagine a majorly feminized army going up against a better equipped totally masculine army? Who would you bet on?
Does this mean that the US Army does NOT have control or access to all that wonderful hidden hardware from the defense contractors??? Or, could this mean that the defense contractors will be the new “actors” on the fields of battle? Or, are they just blowing smoke….you never tell your potential foe what your true capabilities are?? Just food for thought.
For fear of a military coup, none of the world’s militaries are allowed to possess any of the truly game changing high tech bio and chemical warfare agents, extra-super sonic drones, upper atmosphere, floating, cloaked super energy weapons capable of microwaving entire navies, battlefields, and cities. Only the elite’s kill switch micro-chipped, bio-engineered super soldiers are trusted with these platforms in my high octane speculation.
I’m not able to access anything at the link near the beginning.
This reports omits the NE Navy and it’s capabilities. IMHO, all known forms of surface defense capabilities are now passe`. Unless and until the Ruskies have similar space based weapons systems(Off World / Teslarian Tech). We still hold the high ground. What’s interesting is, this appears to be a push for the 2nd coming of the Cold War funding mania. Obviously, they are planning for Raygun II /Star Wars continued under a Trump / Clinton II presidency. War w/o End Amen is their primary planetary harvesting method. There is continued talk of re-instating the Draft.. Interesting how they send US MAMs (military aged males) to never ending wars overseas and import MAMs from 3rd world countries illegally and surreptitiously into the Europe and the AngloSphere. Smells like more War w/o End Amen prep to me.. However, this warfare will be on our shores.