[This article was written for the Unz Review]
Last year I reviewed Andrei Martyanov’s book “Losing Military Supremacy: the Myopia of American Strategic Planning” for the Unz Review. In that book, Martyanov explained why the era of easy US victories over pretty much defenseless countries was over and what that meant for US force planners. This year it is my immense pleasure to review his latest book “The (real) Revolution in Military Affairs“. Let me immediately say that you do not have to read the first book to greatly enjoy the second one, but I still do think that the best “combo” to get a full picture would be to read both books in the order they were published. Still, today I will review only the second book.
First, debunking the many US political science canards
Martyanov begins his book by debunking the so-called “Thucidides Trap” which Foreign Policy summarized as so: “When one great power threatens to displace another, war is almost always the result — but it doesn’t have to be” (with a clear emphasis on the first part of the subtitle). Martyanov correctly calls this (typically “political science geeks”) cliché as very dangerous and misleading. He then proceeds to debunk a who’s who list of US political science cliches, including the latest one, the so-called “hybrid warfare”. He speaks of “unnecessary and pseudo-scholastic confusion” and he adds that the current “Western think-tankdom” is “utterly unprepared” for the realities of modern warfare. As somebody who worked (during my college years) for several US think tanks in Washington DC, I can only agree. I also know for a fact that most think tanks will write anything, no matter how false, just to secure more funding (I even had colleague who worked in “respectable” think tanks laugh about the nonsense they were writing just to get more funding).
Furthermore, in most west European countries, what US think tanks write is considered as gospel, including by folks in important positions in the intelligence and military establishments. So when the latest US-canard comes out, say “hybrid warfare” everybody in Europe feels compelled to use that expression to appear semi-educated in military matters. That I have also seen myself, and many times.
Key thesis: western leaders, especially US decision makers, are out of touch with reality
According to Martyanov , western political leaders are living in a completely delusional pseudo-reality which has no connection to the real world whatsoever. I would remind those who will accuse Martyanov of being too harsh in his critique that no less than Karl Rove, the US political Uber-guru, candidly admitted that “We’re an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you’re studying that reality — judiciously, as you will — we’ll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that’s how things will sort out. We’re history’s actors . . . and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.”
You could say that Martyanov’s entire effort is aimed at one specific goal: to wake up those US Americans who still care and who still have the minimum of critical intelligence left by laying out before them the reality of modern warfare in the 21st century, including against near-peer, peer and even superior adversaries (in 2019 this would only be Russia, but this is also changing very, very fast, and China has made immense progress in her military capabilities).
He begins by showing why political science models, which aim at assessing the global aggregate power of a society, the US, is deeply flawed and gives the western politicians and public a completely erroneous feeling of confidence, power and security. He then proceeds to contrast these models with something which I have not heard since my college years: the so-called “Osipov-Lanchester Laws” (well, since I was in a US college we called it only the “Lanchester equations” because western academia almost never mentions non-western authors or scientists). I won’t summarize the nature of these equations here, Wikipedia does a decent job here, but I will mention that in our military force planning classes we used these (and other) equations to make all sorts of numerical models for attrition, front movement and even nuclear exchanges between superpowers (which,of course, did not use the early 20th century Osipov-Lanchester equations directly, but did use modern equations which have been developed by the US force planning community which were at least inspired by the type of methodology used by Osipov and Lanchester).
Let me immediately reassure the math-averse readers: Martyanov’s writing does not drag the reader through any complicated equations, he just uses a simplified version of these Osipov-Lanchester equations to show that modern warfare is a science which requires a minimum of technical/technological expertise to understand and which has really nothing to do with meaningless political science buzzwords and over-hyped concepts like “A2/AD” or “hybrid warfare”, “network-centric warfare” or even “Revolution in Military Affairs”. The truth is that none of these concepts are new at all. They have existed for decades, and they are all buzzwords whose the primary function to make an otherwise clueless person appear “well-versed in the complex terminology of modern political science” or some other equally insipid purpose, like convincing clueless politicians to spend more money on “defense” thereby making it possible for the proponents of this kind of political science nonsense to fill their pockets with easily earned money.
Next, a crash course in modern warfare for beginners
The rest of the book is what I would call a ‘crash course in modern warfare for beginners’: Martyanov does an absolutely superb job explaining some (not all, of course!) features of modern warfare to a reader which is assumed to be only a curious amateur whose intellect can be persuaded by fact-based and logical arguments (as opposed to delusional, imperial hubris and feel-good flagwaving and self-worship). As a matter of fact, Martyanov’s book could be an ideal “introduction to military analysis” or a “planning military forces 101” course.
Martyanov is clearly deeply frustrated with the willful ignorance shown by a lot of US academics, politicians and other talking heads and he places the blame on the US educational system which, according to Martyanov, teaches nonsensical theories which are not just useless, but actually self-deceiving and outright dangerous. In all fairness to US colleges and academies, I think that Martyanov is just a little unfair: while it is true that most “political science” and other “conflict and peace studies” schools mostly teach nonsense, there are other US colleges and academies – both civilian and military – which, at least in the 80s and 90s – did teach real military analysis and force planning. Those courses were typically taught by adjunct teachers taken from military personnel who taught evening classes while still working in their regular DoD positions. Furthermore, many students had a military rank (typically First Lieutenant and Captains). I don’t know how good these schools are now, but in the 1980s-1990s some of these schools had superb curricula, “heavy” on technical analysis and computer modeling. I can also say that most of the US officers I studied with were very competent specialists and honorable men who were all acutely aware that being an officer in a superpower’s military, places upon you a double burden: that to protect your country by deterrence, but also to avoid a conflict at almost any cost because this is the only way to really protect your country!
By the way, at that time a senior officer of the DoD’s Office of Net Assessment openly told us “no US President will ever sacrifice Boston or Chicago for the sake of Berlin or Paris; but we will never admit that publicly“. In my experience, US Cold War officers were very competent, cautious and acutely aware of the immense responsibility placed upon their shoulders. Furthermore, I will say this: during the Cold War both the USSR and the USA acted responsibly, even during major crises. Finally, in spite of Reagan’s (stillborn) idea of “Star Wars” aka “SDI” – I never met a single US officer who believed, even for a second, that the US could ever stop a Soviet retaliatory second strike (nevermind a first one!).
During the Cold War – deterrence worked and both sides played by the same rulebook. This is not the case anymore, and that is very frightening.
Likewise, while the official USN posture was that it needed 600 ships to then “forward deploy” and “bring the war to the Soviets” (by, for example, striking the Kola Peninsula). Yet, all the USN officers whom I met and who served on US carriers told us that this was all propaganda and that due to the “extreme” missile threat from Soviet Bears, Backfires and Oscar-class SSGNs the navy would immediately pull back south of the so-called GIUK Gap. Keep in mind that this was long before the advent of long range hypersonic anti-ship missiles!
At the time (late 1980s) what I typically saw in US military oriented schools was very competent military specialists who, when indeed, did give the obligatory lip-service to the official flag waving propaganda, but who never, not for one second, took all that silly propaganda seriously. Not one. As for the folks whom these military specialists typically called “political science geeks” – nobody ever took them seriously and there was a great deal of dislike between the political science departments faculty and students and the “security studies” or “national security studies” schools (a lot of proto-Neocons amongst these political science geeks, by the way).
Is that still true today? I don’t know, but my fear is that the Neocons have gutted DoD from its most competent specialists, leaving only “political generals” (really political clowns à la General “Betrayus” whom Admiral Fallon openly called an “Ass-Kissing Little Chickenshit”). And, frankly, the (rather credible) rumor that General Jim Mattis aka “Maddog” was the (lone) voice of reason in the Spring of 2017 in Trump’s otherwise wall-to-wall Neocon Cabinet is outright frightening. Especially since Mattis eventually was shown to the door…
But the reality might be even worse.
What happens when the “third A” is gone
During one of these courses, I don’t remember which one, I remember an officer telling us that the process of intelligence can be summarized by what he called the “three As”: acquisition, analysis and acceptance. The first ‘a’ is simply about getting the raw data by whatever means, technical or “human”. The next ‘a’ is the analysis of the obtained data by specialized folks who are supposed to be the experts in parsing and evaluating that data and its source, and then working on a readable summary to be presented to decision makers. The third ‘a’ is simply acceptance, or lack thereof, by the decision makers of the reports presented to them. Judging by the kind of language now used by almost all US politicians (except Ron Paul and Tulsi Gabbard and maybe a very few others), the process of intelligence in the USA appears to be completely broken, whether at the level of the first, second or third ‘a’ makes very little difference. Why?
Because speaking the truth about modern warfare or about the dismal state of the US armed forces is an instant “career killer” in the modern US political context. Anyone who breaks this taboo is instantly destroying his or her prospect of being heard, never-mind listened to. In the modern political culture the knee jerk response to any such “crimethink” is a typical combination of accusation of “anti-Americanism” or “lack of patriotism” or some other ad hominem which skillfully avoids any discussion of the actual reality of the topic being discussed. So let me address this attitude frontally and state the following:
I strongly believe that any US American who loves his/her country should carefully read BOTH of Martyanov’s books!
Furthermore, far from being anti-US, Martyanov’s books represent a herculean effort to try to wake up the comatose US public about the reality of modern warfare and to show that a continuation of the flagwaving delusional imperial hubris which is so pervasive in the US political discourse could lead to an absolute disaster: a full-scale war between Russia and the USA, China and the USA or, even worse, Russia and China against the USA. And that is a war which, for the first time in history, will devastate the US mainland with both conventional and even nuclear weapons.
Finally, if you really could never wrap your head around the new Russian weapons announced by Putin in his now famous speech, you can also think of Martyanov’s book as a study-guide for curious civilians in which he will explain not only what these weapons can do, but what their introduction into the Russian armed forces really means for the USA.
With this book, you will get your third ‘a’ back again
The biggest benefit from Martyanov’s two books is that they give you, the reader, all three As: you are presented with the real-world “hard” data about what new weapon systems and tactics of the 21st century are, then Martyanov presents you with a simple but extremely convincing analysis of what all that data means and, finally, Martyanov spells out why all this is crucial for every US citizens who wants his or her country to be peaceful and prosperous. As such, I can only repeat that I consider both of Martyanov’s books as a “must read” for any member of the Saker Community or for anybody wanting to understand the real nature of the current Revolution in Military Affairs unfolding before our eyes.
The book is very well written and pretty short (193 pages). My only regret is the very poor index at the end (such a seminal book really ought to have a full index).
This is a great read and I urge you all to get a copy of this book.
The Saker
ANDREI MARTYANOV: is an expert on Russian military and naval issues. He was born in Baku, USSR in 1963. He graduated from the Kirov Naval Red Banner Academy and served as an officer on the ships and staff position of Soviet Coast Guard through 1990. He took part in the events in the Caucasus which led to the collapse of the Soviet Union. In mid-1990s he moved to the United States where he currently works as Laboratory Director in a commercial aerospace group. He is a frequent blogger on the US Naval Institute Blog.
He also blogs at Reminiscence of the Future…
Thanks for the book review, Saker.
We want the best information we can get, and your review indicates there is none better than Martyanov’s books.
The Best of West Point has given us Pompeo.
Then there is Bolton
Then there is Kerry & Cain war hero’s
Top of their class, a class act all of them
As they say in Taxus “All book and no gun”.
I read both books. I liked the first book better than the second, but both are good. I had wished the second book had more technical analysis of how electronic countermeasures work and more technical discussion of the other systems and counter systems discussed. Maybe we will see that in the next book.
A most interesting review, thanks very much.
”He speaks of ’unnecessary and pseudo-scholastic confusion’ and he adds that the current ’Western think-tankdom’ is ’utterly unprepared’ for the realities of modern warfare.”
Very true. Western think-tankdom and its gems about Novichok, Pindo election meddling, the Syrian regime and the latter’s chemical warfare amount to little more than boring, unintelligent slander; no doubt adapted to the, ahem, prevalent sophistication of Western audiences.
“…unnecessary and pseudo-scholastic confusion”
Hint:
aggressive, or like I like to call it, autistic militant pseudo-scholastic discourse is an integral part of the by-way-of-deception art of war and as such a defining characteristic of all Jewish Mafia social engineering narratives, from Bolshevism to Greta, from the Torah to Wikipedia.
Just one sentence. All the headlines you need to know….
Both books are very good and should be read by all the readers of this blog. Sadly the hardline nationalists will denounce any serious criticism of the military, so it is a very difficult struggle to get opinion makers (and the generals who push the BS) to take a critical look at today’s military, Sadly in congress and the MSM, the rah rah Hollywood view predominates.
A stupid bully full of hubris is heading towards getting his ass kicked. That’s my “sophisticated” analysis of the present world situation.
yes a special kind of bully – this is a century old quote but even more accurate today:
“The American is marked, in fact, by precisely the habits of mind and act that one would look for in a man insatiably ambitious and yet incurably fearful, to wit, the habits, on the one hand, of unpleasant assertiveness, of somewhat boisterous braggardism, of incessant pushing, and, on the other hand, of conformity, caution and subservience. He is forever talking of his rights as if he stood ready to defend them with his last drop of blood, and forever yielding them up at the first demand.”
–George Jean Nathan and H.L. Mencken, The American Credo, 1920
WoW! Thats some good sweet short summary of the 250+years of USSA…
and was penned in 1920?
How then it is possible they are still into ‘war crime as most profitable business’ on earth?
How is it possible we the rest of collective whole allow all that to happen in our history?
sigh
then we are here today… wondering if tomorrow will still come…
p/s will we get use to the new buzz coming in the headlines of all MSM – a strong 300million US refugee diaspora?
be safe there
Already bought it and read it as everything Saker recommends. You cannot stop reading once you start.
“How dare the Russians actually make things that do the (barbaric– and thermobaric) things that they are supposed to do? Where are the erudite references to ancient Greek Literature? Someone obviously didn’t get an Ivy League education.”
Is the above the thought process, of the elites — the artists– who expect nerds to do the actual math produce perfect black boxes, so that they could be the architects of the world order? The nerds, I am afraid, have brains addled with fluoride, high fructose corn syrup, and video games and have neglected their differential equations.
Is the entire system optimized to maximize profits of the transnational contractors?
Cue the sad violin music.
Perhaps the real enemy never was “the Russians,” with whom the anointed ones would eventually come to some kind of an agreement –however humiliating (they are perverts) — even if the world is destroyed in the process. Why an entire granite tablet is devoted to the Russian Language in the Georgia Guidestones (Sorry guys, no Ukrainian). Their real enemy are the deplorables which includes most Americans, most Russians, most Indians, most Arabs…. The US healthcare system, GMO’s, blue emiting LED lights, globalization, and various and sundry ways indicate this is so.
Saker, when you mentioned concern about the 3 ‘a’s I thought it sounded like a concern that the leadership, both political and military had adopted the view of Carl Rove. Maybe they have! Trump appears to believe the military is invincible. I won’t say he is delusional. Only that he isn’t the noninterventionist he appeared to be on the campaign trail. Carl Rove is so arrogant but this creating of reality doesn’t admit that they never win any wars. They only destroy countries and kill millions. Thus far there has not been direct push back which seems to embolden them. I would be willing to bet some military leaders and think-tankers do not believe the Russian weapons systems are as formidable as claimed. On the other hand, I’ve seen plenty of references in Alt-right media referring to the so-called space-based weapons of the U.S. which apparently have been kept a secret from the Russians and everyone else except them who are reporting this. They seem to believe the U.S. has been cruising about the galaxy for years, like going for a Sunday drive.:)
The Carl Rove mentality still rules the day. The empire is still determined to do as they please, now having moved or moving 14,000 more troops to the area near Iran because ‘we have credible evidence Iran plans to attack our interests’. They aren’t going to stop. Watch for a false flag coming up. Trump needs the stock market to keep rising and that means they need a higher oil price. This is their created reality. A cabal of murderous criminal thieves. If Europe would grow a spine the worst might be avoided. I don’t think they have it in them.
The last three years of his reign, Obama purged the company level and lower field grades of experienced veterans, making if nothing else life in uniform so unbearable that they left the moment they got their twenty and I know more than a few who left before that magic number. Those who are the top dogs today well remember those purges and most, if not all, actively supported and/or participated in them. After all, SSSR was dead and gone and the only thing left was a huge and sparsely settled country that was nothing but a gas station with a decrepit, ill equipped and demoralized army, a rusting navy and an air force full of outdated airframes.
I participate on occasion in discussions on a particular platform that often delves in to current and near current events, force levels and the abilities to project such forces. One lad semi active on the platform for a short while tried to pass off that he was currently serving in Syria near Der Azor and had the latest intel. I suckered him in to proving that he ain’t serving and during the process I mentioned his ‘mommy’s basement computer’ hubris. My last words to that fool were thus:
Never underestimate your enemy. Never. He will surprise you every time with the breadth of his imagination and his ability to clean your clock with weapons that many regard as obsolete and ineffective. An antique T34/76 or /85 will kill you just as dead as the latest and greatest T72/Leo/Abrams. Dead is dead in the war business.
Auslander
“you will get your third ‘a’ back again”
I often wonder if this shouldn’t be applied to what the bible teaches about climate change? I mean given what occurred with Bravo Company during the Iraq War and how they were stopped dead cold by a series of storms that came up from nowhere and it should be? As Fox tells it:
“According to a radio newscast I heard while in my car during the Iraq war, a lone Moslem in the city of Baghdad had been screaming, “Hey, look what God is doing to the U.S. Forces.” Upon hearing this, I scoured the newspapers for any news about what this gentleman was talking about and came across a report about Bravo Company when they were some twenty-five miles from Baghdad. They were stopped dead by a series of storms that sprung up out of nowhere. The day had begun calmly enough, clear and sunny, but as they neared the city, they encountered a windstorm so fierce that it obscured the sun, turning the desert black. The wind was strong enough to batter and shake their tanks and personal carriers. After several hours, the sandstorm turned into a hailstorm with accompanying thunder and lightning. It turned the sand into mud, bogging down their vehicles and stalling their advance. They had to deal with the forming of a lake which almost swamped their vehicles.
This is typical of how God Almighty works. The conditions of the Old Testament are literally coming back in the Middle East. Sadly, it took one lone citizen of the city of Baghdad—a Moslem, no less—to recognize it for what it was: an act of Almighty God. He, of all people, could see what others could not. No doubt this was due more to his acclimatization to that environment than his education in matters of the Bible or the Koran (assuming there’s anything in that book regarding the weather). In the desert, no one ever lives to see a hailstorm, in so abrupt a manner and over an army.”
In the bible there are hundreds of scriptures which testify to this being the work of God but I will post one from Isaiah and thee other by Job:
“The Lord will cause people to hear his majestic voice and will make them see his arm coming down with raging anger and consuming fire, with cloudburst, thunderstorm and hail.” (Isaiah 30:30}
“Have you entered the storehouses of the snow or seen the storehouses of the hail, which I reserve for times of trouble, for days of war and battle?” (Job 38:22–23)
Now isn’t this interesting especially the one from the book of Job!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
God is a military commander with his own weapons????????
Does this then explain what occurred at Fort Carson???
https://youtu.be/Gi7GOcwUwQg
Raises some serious questions does it not?
Further to this a more serious question needs asking and that is given the scripture in the Book of Revelation about the coming war against God:
“They will make war against the Lamb, but the Lord will
overcome them because He is Lord of lords and King of
kings-and with him will be His called, chosen and faithful
followers.” {Rev. 17:14}
could it be possible that with our amazing military someone will think to take on even God or what purports to be god by way of aliens which is all the rage today?
Take for example the S-500 which could be used against meteorites. As I blogged about here meteorites will be used by God
http://www.thetruthseeker.co.uk/?p=198548#comment-940486
it again raises some serious questions or should!!
And so this third “A” Acceptance wow if only military schools and colleges taught this maybe the fear of God as taught in Proverbs would go a long way to solving all of the sin and killing throughout the world? Perhaps then we would learn or experience the truth of the words:
“It is a dreadful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.” (Hebrews 10:31)
milan,
Jer. 5:21
“Hear this now, O foolish people,
Without understanding,
Who have eyes and see not,
And who have ears and hear not”
There are many similar verses, some in Isaiah, Ezekiel, Matthew, Acts, and Romans. The Bible tells us exactly God’s will, and this is a God that determines, and does no coincidence.
I think these scriptures and Romans 1:24 (God gave them over in the desires of their hearts) are key to understanding these days of lawlessness, (as in Biblical lawlessness).
Happily judgement will come, but before it does there will be terrible suffering and brutality as those unable to see or hear God’s word are given over to lawlessness, to insatiable appetites and desires, whether that be money, or power, or children, or… take your pick.
But there is always hope:
“For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved.”
Amen
Milan– very very interesting. Thank you for sharing this. Kind of reminds me of “Ozymandias, King of Kings, look on my works, you mighty, and despair. Nothing beside remains……the lone and level sands stretch far away”.
@ Chad
love that, thanks so much
@ Paulskiy
Yes indeed, and I like Daniel 12:3:
“Those who are wise will shine like the brightness of the heavens, and those who lead many to righteousness, like the stars for ever and ever.”
Reminds me of the Orthodox icons and that circular ring above the head which I believe represents the light of Christ if not this very scripture. Strange did some actually experience this that icons would be made?
That’s one thing to about the garden of Eden, Adam and Eve were not naked, they like God were clothed in His light and God wants to return us to that. What we lost in the fall, if only we knew really.
O, what pain Adam and Eve must have lived with to be separated from that? Talk about falling short?
Cheers
Please stop going off-topic. Any further will go to trash – the MFC is available for off-topic conversations. Mod.
Pensacola shooting: 2 killed & 11 injured at Naval Air Station… days after deadly Pearl Harbor rampage
https://www.rt.com/usa/475203-active-shooter-pensacola-base/
“A shooter at the Naval Air Station in Pensacola (US Navy base in Florida) is dead, the Escambia County Sheriff’s office said. The Navy later confirmed another two people were killed.
The incident comes just two days after a US sailor opened fire at at Pearl Harbor Naval Shipyard in Hawaii, killing two civilian employees and himself.”
Given the Pindos’ colossal dexterity with firearms and somewhat lacking sense of geography, maybe these accidents simply testify to 100% correct action in the 100% wrong location. Florida and Hawaii instead of Sevastopol and Caracas — shit happens.
America’s problem is that it is still run by the heirs and succesors (often literaly) of the 19C robber barons. They invented the CIA as their instrument of state capture. In the 1980s the West approached ever more rapidly the present condition of wall to wall delusion in the MSM and the psudo-academic think tanks that were created as a propaganda channel.
“I even had colleague who worked in “respectable” think tanks laugh about the nonsense they were writing just to get more funding” but who is funding them and to what end? It looks like a kind of parasitic gangsterism where everywhere ends up like the Lebanon (and the Ukraine) before it falls apart, including America. The people doing it understand the nature of their buisness model but they cannot stop in time to avoid killing the host.
Meanwhile an army of propagandists is just tlaking shit and picking up their pay cheques.
One can see the stuff you’re talking about in The Sisters Brothers. On one side there are oligarchs such as this character Commodore with his psychos and henchmen reluctant or not and on the other side there are real progressives such as Mr Warm and Morris. The US and most of the western world are exhausting the last benefits of the FDR’s New Deal. The New Deal sent ripples across the world and made the world a better place. Roosevelt was poisoned because he dared to help the common man. The same did the Soviet Union with its programs of education of the world’s ignorant and poor. New type of oligarchs such as the Gates, Gores, Clintons, Soroses et al and an even more ruthless lot of the 90’s Russia are reversing the clock and are bringing hell back to Earth.
The US and Russia in my opinion have populations that are very similar. I’m talking about the “flyover country” people in the US. Both the US Americans and Russians are entrepreneurial and resourceful, love their countries and have a pioneering spirit. It is sad to see the US infected with an evil empire virus that threatens all of us.
Very well said…. However, the only thing I would qualify is in regards to the deteriorating aspects of FDR’s New Deal programs.
On the one hand, the New Deal program was vehemently opposed by Republicans in the 1930s, though Bismark had demonstrated that such a program could be successfully introduced when he did so in Germany in the 19th century (I believe it was in the 1880s or 1890s when he did this). As a result, New Deal programs were quite watered down from what the original intent was; at least that is the prevailing opinions on the matter.
FDR either couldn’t or wasn’t able to fight the Republicans all that much on their resistance to the New Deal since FDR’s real intent was to save Capitalism from itself, which the Republicans at the time were the worst antagonists to such a system causing it to careen more violently than had the Republicans put some actual thought into what they were doing with the US economy instead of doing what they narmally did; stripping it of its wealth (now we have both parties doing that).
The result was that the New Deal could have become a self-sustaining program as the US reinvested profits from its own investments into US infrastructure. However, this could not be as a result of all the impediments placed on how the US economy was to be managed by Congress. And these impediments remain as a result of a completely dysfunction US federal system of government…
Outlandish and lying think-tanker Dr. James Derleth indoctrinates West Pointers:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AzXlpPTLEXg
At about 5:30 this U.S. official declares that war with Russia is currently ongoing!
Video commenter: “The so called ‘Gerasimov Doctrine’ that discusses different types of modern warfare, which could be loosely termed as ‘hybrid war.’ [Gerasimov] was actually ruminating on how the West conducts operations, not Russia. To portray that essay as what Russia is doing against the West is dishonest and deceptive….”
War makers are on display at this ‘Modern War Institute’.
The Portuguese translation is here:
https://www.resistir.info/eua/resenha_martyanov_saker_05dez19.html
Ich denke die Bücher werden wohl nicht ins deutsche übersetzt. Schade.
Translation. Mod:
I think the books are probably not translated into German. It’s a pity.
I have Andrei Martyanov’s second book and have been reading parts of it sporadically.
I have found nothing so far that I can disagree with as far as his analysis is concerned when it comes to western military thinking (the US in particular). However, I am already familiar with many of the author’s contentions and as such, find all of them quite credible.
That being said, there are at least two things I have not liked in the book so far. One, the initial chapters are horribly edited where I found often enough grammatically incorrect sentence structures that made reading an understanding the concept being discussed a chore.
I understand that Andrei Martyanov would most likely have English as a second language so why not have a decent editor go through the transcript and smooth out such issues? Given the numerous services available to authors today, this should have been a no-brainer of a decision.
The second issue I had a problem with was the inclusion of the mathematical constructs used to determine variables in a conflict. I have already informed the author that using such presentations would only slow the reading progress of a lay reader.
But most importantly, what I didn’t say, was that battlefield commanders do not use calculators or simulations once the bullets start flying. And though such mathematical constructs may help in understanding the capabilities of an opponent, good common sense would do the same just as easily.
Such constructs, though originally based on primitive understandings of battlefield variables converted into more modern mathematical models, are now simply outgrowths of technologies that have done more to harm critical tactical and strategic thinking skills (at least in the US and the West) than aid them. This has been long known and understood by good western military thinkers who have been against the US’ (in particular) adoption of technology for every thing instead of far more common-sense approaches. Theresults of such an adoption have been more than obvious.
One begins to get a completely different view of the author and his credibility when corresponding with him within a forum on a site in which he is published.
And though there is no doubt that Andrei Martyanov has a lot to offer those in the West who want and need an alternative viewpoint to current western military thinking, he falls short in terms of his own refutation of views that he disagrees with demonstrating that he could be just as narrow minded as any in the West he accuses of being so.
In recent discussion with him, in which I had mentioned some of the events that occurred in the Eastern Front during WWII, I happened to use John Mosier’s 2010 book, “Death Ride – Hitler vs. Stalin: The Eastern Front, 1941-1945” as a source for these specific comments I was making.
Andrei Martyanov’s response to such a source was less than welcoming. And I could have accepted his view had he refuted Mosier’s contentions with his own alternative source information. But he didn’t. He simply derided my own abilities as an analyst for even considering such material.
Now I have to agree with Andrei, Mosier’s book may not have been the best source material I could have used to make my case but it was the one I was most familiar with at the time. In addition, Mosier’s work is corroborated on various levels by other historians if you comb through the available information regarding the Eastern Front in WWII. One non-professional historian who has been studying the events of WWII for over 50 years and was fairly familiar with the situation on the Eastern Front found Mosier’s book a very informative read even though he himself found areas that he believed could be disputed.
After my first response to Andrei Martyanov’s comments to me I decided to look up as many reviews of this book I could find as I do have it in my own personal library as well. The majority were quite favorable, though practically all of the positive reviews all had their qualifiers. The most in-depth review with a good bit of detail to chew on was from an author on the site, Inconvenient History, which is another site in the compendium of sites that promote what people erroneously call, Revisionist History. All history is open to modification as understandings of events change as a result of new research and data and\or new viewpoints that have a basis in logic, or both. So there is nothing revisionist about an alternative viewpoint that is presented credibly. Such a term is merely used to denigrate those who attempt to provide an understanding that differs from the accepted, mainstream view on a subject.
Hell, this entire site could be considered revisionist then given that what The Saker is attempting to provide are both articles and forums that attempt tor provide such an alternative understanding of events that are currently ongoing in our world.
As a military historian-analyst myself (non-professional), I have always been open to viewpoints that counter my own. And though I am like anyone else who wants to read materials that support their own developing viewpoints, I am more than willing to change them if I can find good material that can counter them. This recently happened with my views towards the War for Southern Independence where my sympathies began to lay with the South’s point of view. However, I did notice a major weakness in the authors who promoted such views; they did not discuss actual policy development that led up to the conflict.
Reading Locklain Seabrook’s treatise on Lincoln for example, “Lincoln’s War”, provided a fresh interpretation of southern views on the conflict by providing many excerpts of lofty speeches by southerners regarding slavery and the like that would become a major factor in the conflict. However, in not one area in this book written by a supposed acclaimed historian was there any information regarding the support and passage of actual policies that would have reflected what such speeches were intimating. In fact, what I would ascertain would be just the opposite.
It would not be until I started reading James McPherson’s 1988 magnus opus, “Battle Cry of Freedom”, that such political history would come into focus making the southern viewpoints on the matter I had been studying moot. However, despite this, southern historians make quite a number of valid points on their behalf,the most crucial being that the war was never about slavery but instead about a clash between two rising powers centers in the US where slavery just happened to be a crucial power point in the South.
For us that study military history and attempt to understand military analysis that surround such events as well as current day situations, one must be humble enough to accept the fact that all of us are limited in the information we can access to the degree of our language limitations as well as what our stations in life can afford in the way of actual access to historical documents.
Non-professionals such as myself and I would surmise many of the readers to this site are thus limited to varying extents as to how we can form our opinions on such matters. This does not mean we are stupid or ill-informed but more so that we have maybe not come across the materials as of yet that can change our views to something than that which we currently believe.
Andrei Martyanov’s replies to my postings did not demonstrate the requisite humility of one who understands the limitations of those who do not have access to such material as he may have and nor as a result, was he willing to afford alternative sources to substantiate his claims regarding (in this instance) either Mosier’s works or his comments regarding the Eastern Front in general. Mosier was just a stupid, weak source and that was that.
So though Andrei Martyanov may provide refreshing and very accurate insights in his current books on US and Western military thinking in general (which he is correct to think of as an abomination), my question has become can he be a trusted resource if his own views are presented in such a narrow minded fashion.
For example, many have studied the famed Russian patriotism that supposedly ensconced itself in Russian Forces on the Eastern Front (another aspect of the discussion with Andrei Martyanov regarding the Eastern Front). This is surely something I came to understand a long time ago as a driving aspect of Soviet successes in WWII. And yet new research out of Norway from a Russian military historian there has found new documentation that suggests Russian patriotism was more of a mirage to propagate cohesion among Soviet military units while being quite abstract and pragmatic in the rural areas where contending military forces would traverse through. Rural Russian peasants actually changed their loyalties simply to survive as one or the other’s military forces entered such areas.
Though this particular historian has so far limited his research to a certain Russian rural area of the Eastern Front, it does nonetheless provide a view that could be attributed to a good part of the rural areas of the Soviet Union during that part of the WWII conflict.
In closing, Andrei Martyanov does provide western students of military history and analysis with a very good foundation to understanding the sheer stupidity in western senior military leadership thinking and policy development. However, for those that have been following such trends over time, none of this should come as a surprise making Andrei Martyanov”s information rather redundant.
To see such an example of narrowly focused US military thinking in action, I would recommend readers here go to the site, “War on The Rocks”, and read through several of the articles. Any open minded, rationally thinking analyst would immediately come away from such pieces as formed by very narrow thinking individuals. And since the site promotes the fact that all of their authors come from the US national security agencies as well as the US military services it becomes almost frightening to see how such people think in terms of their own interpretations of various subjects.
One example that stood out for me was the article regarding the US Marine Corp’s use of a war game called, Memoir ’44”, to train young Marine infantry recruits in the arts of tactical thinking. Having played a number of such simulations myself over the years, I looked up this game to find that it is recommended for ages 12 and up. And many positive reviews of the simulation were from parents of children who were saying how much their youngsters enjoyed the game.
And yet, the US Marine Corp is using such a game for tournament level competition, which is the height of such involvement and in the real world of simulations, the most sophisticated aspect of them.
My god, I was playing more sophisticated simulations back in the 1960s before I graduated from high school.
All of my points here is to remind people that sources, as good as they may be, all have their flaws. Andrei Martyanov’s responses to me has shown that he is just like the rest of us, with limitations and imperfections, making none of us able to rush to judgement with some panacea for the way we think or come to form our opinions on such matters…