Strategy for Competing with the Soviets in the Military [pdf] (1976) | Hacker News Reader

Strategy for Competing with the Soviets in the Military [pdf] (1976)

americawar.wordpress.com

10 pointsbaxtr14 comments

> We frustrate ourselves in attempting to acquire "maximum" capability in our deployed systems. Although we use the words, we have not internalized the reality that we can no longer indulge in the "rich man" strategy of insuring against all possible adverse futures.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Full-spectrum_dominance

> As early as April 2001 the United States Department of Defense defined "full-spectrum superiority" (FSS) as:[1] The cumulative effect of dominance in the air, land, maritime, and space domains and information environment, which includes cyberspace, that permits the conduct of joint operations without effective opposition or prohibitive interference.

With just the direct quotes here, I’m not sure what your claim is. Are you saying that the US _still_ was attempting to achieve maximum capability as of April 2001? If so, I’m not sure that is implied by the quotes provided. “The cumulative effect of dominance in…” does not imply that every deployed US system is the best, imo. I read it as saying the US dominates in all the listed regimes — not that each individual system is the best, but that the US is the best in each regime as a whole. There’s a subtle difference between the two

I just found it funny that there was a sense in this paper that America could no longer afford to be #1 across every domain, and that all of that seemed to go out the window as soon as the Soviet Union collapsed.

Ah I see, lol

I haven't read this. I did used to read documents like this when I worked on dod/nsa projects. The software (basically command and control) we write was very idealistic and I'm 100% sure would have broken down now that I see how Russia is fighting in ukraine and just sending meat into a grinder non-stop without end. It wouldn't have been predicted.

You have the sides reversed:

Russia pulled back on both flanks (Kharkiv and Kherson) to preserve men, while Ukraine grindered men in Bakhmut and Kursk and the “summer offensive”.

One of the interesting aspects of this war is that Russia has a much better understanding of attritional war than either Ukraine or NATO.

Russia is losing 1000 men daily. Sure that is still 10 times less than in second world war, but I would not call that a strategy to preserve men.

The lesson in Ukraine seems to be the same one we failed to learn in Vietnam, Afghanistan, and Iraq: major powers absolutely suck at asymmetric wars that the adversary considers matters of national or cultural survival. It turns into a meat grinder for the major power until domestic pressures force some sort of climbdown. Vietnamization and pacification became bribes to afghan militias and COIN. I cant think of a hot war that the West has won since Desert Storm. But what wars are like that now?

1976: Andrew Marshall and James Roche.

Legends. I wish today’s national policies had the same analytical rigor and clarity of thought.

> The U.S. desire a stable world where change is evolutionary rather than evolutionary

The US could now power the entire continent by just the conservatives rotating in their graves.

Is that quote correct? It's either paradoxical or I can't read.

+1, I think the quote is probably meant to be “evolutionary rather than revolutionary”

Haha yes, copy paste failed me so I tried (and failed) to type

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