Liberty Bristles

Annoying as hell, the passive voice as an impunity finesse might seem like one of those tiny constant bothers, like the Do Not Disturb tag constantly falling off the room lever. It is not a good thing, but it can be a tell. We know not to comment much right after shocking events, what with the normal errors and falsehoods of early reports. Still, a headline aggregated in Citizen Free Press citing the New York Post just really chapped my cheek. Secret Service blames local police, says it was tasked with securing properties surrounding Trump’s Pa. rally (nypost.com) The offending expression appears a few times. For instance, “The Secret Service blamed local police for failing to secure the rooftop from which gunman Thomas Matthew Crooks attempted to assassinate former President Donald Trump, insisting it was outside of the perimeter the federal agency was tasked with protecting.” The whole excuse seems ludicrous on its surface, but the sad tell is the “was tasked” part. Who the heck makes these was tasked things? How does a reporter let a spokesperson get away with such? Secret Service tasks just fall off the doorknob now.

OK, today, Geoff Demarest made an idle comment on the Willy OAM site Russian Troops Tunnel Under UA Lines – CRITICAL Area Under THREAT – Ukraine War Map Update News (youtube.com) Here is what he posted:

“Great job, again, Willy. Significant comment at the end. We too often talk about what little experience some army or other has. NATO countries don’t have that much experience in the kind of war being waged by the Russians, and we have not been doing all that well strategically in the experiences we have had lately. I hate going full-on boring pedant, but I suggest politely that for your part you maybe, kinda be a tad more economical in your use of “attritional war” as though that were a best-fit for this thing. We are the ones who seem to think attrition can be a core winning strategy. The classic strategists don’t suggest that as a winning way overall. Another commenter here suggested to me that any strategic pundit could outline attritional warfare doctrine to me. I don’t think they could. Iam not convinced there is such doctrine. Look again. Attrition is an activity, a way, a means, a thing to do, of course. Plenty of writers (Liddel Hart comes to mind) have railed against reliance or faith in attrition strategies (WWI, mostly), but a “doctrine” of “attrition war?” We might have an electronic warfare field manual or a special warfare manual. Do we have an attrition warfare manual. Is there a chapter I missed on a whole warfare? A ‘doctrine’ of attrition war would outline where, when, how and with what — as the winning leg. [Gosh, maybe you’re right. Maybe some clutch of Victoria Nulands planned this somewhere using one of their master’s theses] The Russians are busy weakening Ukrainian strength in all ways, sure, but the Russian battlefield strategy is one of aggregate tactics to take and hold ground. Their strategic objective is not to weaken the enemy (although of course that is an intermediate goal; in what war is it not?). Theirs is to take ground. Gliding our strategic conversation away from ‘attrition’ and back toward ‘battlefield maneuver’ would be consequential in that it might help us realize that we will not take ground in Russia as a counter. Even our getting lost Ukrainian ground back militarily looks to be costly in the extreme. NATO (or Ukraine, whatever) is slowly losing and is likely to lose more ground, slowly perhaps. But continuing to slowly lose ground in a war of maneuver (in part because of some notion about attrition) is not a wise long-term strategy, is it? What do attritionistas think is ultimately being attrited? Ukrainian resolve? Russian resolve? American attention-span? Ukrainian economic capacity? The Ukrainian army? European resolve? All that maybe yes, but what most importantly is being attrited, and we need to admit it sooner than later, is the size of Ukraine! The Russians are waging a multi-form war, a war by all means of struggle, a war that includes guerrilla actions (including inside NATO), economic actions, diplomatic actions, infrastructure and war capacity attrition, and battlefield maneuver. Our intoning ‘attrition’ all the time makes it seem as though if we just hang in there, the Ruskies will ultimately give up. Hear what Arthur Connan Doyle said of the Boer War. “The deepest instincts of the nation told it must fight and win, or forever abdicate its position in the world.” He was speaking of the British. We do not have a deep instinct about Ukraine. We don’t even have a shallow one. A Russian correspondent or novelist, on the other hand, could repeat Conan Doyle’s quote today with perfect apropos. By the way, we might label the Boer War one of attrition in that the British decided upon wearing the Boers out, including by capturing their families. Maneuver? The Boers could maneuver. The winners get to put the type-label on a war, and the British do not refer to the Boer War as a war of great British maneuver superiority. Maybe I’m wrong, but my bet is that the Russians will come up with something more glorious than a ‘war of attrition.'”

Geoff might be wrong about attrition war doctrine. Maybe there is such a thing. Much larger things have escaped his notice. If you know of something regarding attrition warfare doctrine, please inform. I think there is a book by a fellow named Carter, I think. Not sure if it counts as doctrine. Maybe.

Hope you all had a happy, celebratory, hopeful 4th of July. We sang America the Beautiful in church last weekend and it was poignant more than I can remember it ever being. At Ace of Spades HQ, WeirdDave had “asked AI to generate the most AMERICAN image ever.” Go check it out Ace of Spades HQ (mu.nu) So I thought I’d imitate. I asked Chat GPT to generate an image combining themes from America the Beautiful and from the Pledge of Allegiance. Not bad, Americana-wise. It’s not easy to ask it to make small adjustments without it making an unrequested bunch of its own, so I was stuck with the downtown skyline on the to of the peak, but city on a hill whatever.

Willy OAM, who has a popular website discussing the Ukraine war, often say something like, “According to attrition warfare doctrine…” Could anyone out there remind me where such doctrine is written down or who is the supposed attrition warfare guru? I’m uncertain there really is such a thing, or if there is, it is pretty thin gruel. Yes, attrition is a method generally mixed with other ways of going about battles, campaigns, wars and so on, but a whole doctrine on ‘attrition warfare’? Educate me. For some reason I ignored it, missed it, dismissed it. I dunno. Even the greatest living military strategy theorist (the current GLMST) can suffer gaps. Don’t want that. Please speak up.

Even the dullest ends-ways-means strategerist admits the basic wisdom of balancing one’s capacity to fight with whatever he wants to do and how. There is no separate section on capacity to fight in On Multiform War, but maybe in the 2025 update. It’s efficient for the purpose of discussion to divide war-making capacity into four broad categories – capacity to create lethal mass; capacity to visit that lethal mass on the enemy; capacity to create influential ideas; and capacity to deliver those ideas to the right audiences. I usually don’t count resolve (morale, will, diligence) as a separate category. I prefer to keep that quantity aside as the psychological motor of the other four categories. No big deal, we could make resolve the fifth category, and we could even add deterring the other guy’s capacities as a sixth. Secrecy and spying might be a useful seventh category. With all that as a preface, let’s consider what Arthur Conan Doyle said of British resolve during the Boer War: “The deepest instincts of the nation told it must fight and win, or forever abdicate its position in the world.” Seems applicable. What do I really know about Russian resolve as to the war in Ukraine? Meh. You could easily have better information and insight. My just reading what Putin has to say is a sorely slim slice of input. Still, it seems that for Russia — that is, Russia the nation, the Russians of Russia writ large — losing the war is not an option; whereas for the nascent inchoate nation of Ukraine, losing sooner than later might be the preferred solution. (No, I don’t presume to speak for the Ukrainian nation any more than for the Russian.) What is the NATO level of resolve? It feels sketchy to even lend NATO enough person status as to assign it a level of unified will. As for battlefield morale, some units on the Ukraine side have excellent morale and discipline. Many do not. (Sadly, among the ones that do are some straight up Nazis. Odd that.) Russian battlefield morale has improved generally. So… looking at capacities overall, the Russian side can create more lethal mass and can move that mass. It has excellent spying capacity. Moreover, the Russians appear to have greater resolve at every level. As for ideas and the ability to deliver them to the right audiences, is there really any NATO advantage? What seems to be the NATO plan, execution now impending – is a summer offensive surge against the Russian lines.  It does not appear balanced with capacity, unless the ends are quite limited. The Russians have to see that. They know the means do not exist to kick them out entirely.

It seems that just now the question of whether the United States is a democracy has come to the public conversational fore. I think that’s great, as any among you who for whatever sad reason might have read what I’ve written on the subject would suppose. We as a country had some time ago been led by Democrats in the Democratic Party, Democrats in academe and Democrats in media to intone over and over that the United States was a democracy, that we fought for democracy, should spread democracy and that the word democracy was synonymous with good. Meanwhile, the Democratic Party of the United States succeeded in federal court arguing that the party was not a democracy and could pick its leaders in any way they wanted. (Wilding, et. al. v. DNC Services). The Democrats were in court on a related democracy issue (white primaries) in the 30’s and 40s ( Grovey v. Townsend and Smith v. Allwright). Owning words and their public meaning is big strategy for Democrats, but it gives us a lot of tell, a lot of clues as to the who’s who. I just saw a clip of a CNN huff piece in which George Bush the younger is shown saying “Democracy remains the definition of political legitimacy.” Political Scientists love the word legitimacy. Political Science likes hollow words. All Democrats are Political Scientists. It’s science. Political Scientists are not legit scientists. That’s science too. Democrats are not democrats. George Bush was Republican but not republican. America is not a democracy, it’s (supposed to be) a republic, but our government is Democratic, not the least bit democratic, and not republican, even when Republican. You get it. Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting about what to have for din-din. That said, the founders thought elections could help kick the bums out. Vote.

Nah, no punchline. In Mother Russia, joke make you. Taibbi and Kirn host a show called ‘America This Week’ on substack. Back on June 9th, the title of their discussion was “The Grand Inquisitor” by Fyodor Dostoevsky. It’s a stand-alone (more or less) short story at the beginning of The Brothers Karamazov. Yeah yeah, I know, I didn’t either. But some guys in my old office at Ft. Leavenworth probably did. Summarized summary: Dostoevsky explains the nearly inexplicable by imagining Torquemada in a conversation with Jesus Christ. The former mansplains to Jesus why the latter got it all wrong, and immorally so at that. I highly recommend reading the short story and listening to the discussion Walter and Matt have about that story. You might have to pay their fee. According to the discussants, Fyodor anticipated the Russian Revolution, or at least its fundamental justifications. The story does more than that. For those of you who would like to see a long-form explanation of propaganda of the deed, or of why the Faucies and Schwabs of the world are so flippant about killing lots and lots of folk, well — Dostoevsky.