Wednesday, December 12, 2018

Generations Of War, And Where We Are
















You want a master's thesis précis on warfare from ever to right now, but written to understand at the middle-school level?
Here's your guy:

Von Clausewitz talked about war being waged on three levels:
  • Physical – Breaking stuff and killing people and taking land.
  • Mental – Making the enemy think what you want them to think. Confusing them.
  • Moral – You have to believe that what you’re fighting for is right, just and correct.
Oh, and the "right now" part of that equation?
Glad you asked:
 In order to win this war:
  • The aliens must be gently, firmly, and quickly be sent home.
  • We must stop supporting them with cash if they are here.
  • We must make life here so unhelpful that they voluntarily deport themselves.
  • We must not give their nations cash if they keep coming here.
  • We must stop cash flowing from individuals to their home country.
  • We can help their home countries to build industries and meaningful jobs.
  • If the people like, heck, we could come in and run the country for them since they seem to suck at running countries and we seem to be good at it. Is illegal immigration really the best argument for colonization ever?
  • We must win at the mental and moral levels.
We are in a war.  Are we ready to fight?  Because I don’t think that the 5th Generation of war will be quite as nice as the 4th . . . .

Read the whole thing, certainly.
Better yet, bookmark his site.
Then take a day and work your way back as far as you can go.

Somebody who can think well, write clearly, and gets it right. On everything under the sun.
If his site isn't on your daily reads, fix that. Today.
And if P.J. O'Rourke dies, relax.
We've found his replacement.

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

That was a fun hour reading that blog, thank you for the tip! I'm sure I'll get to more entries later. I do wonder about the Pez fixation, but everyone has a thing. ;)

Yours is still going to be my first stop though. Your terse, no-nonsense, no BS style of writing appeals tremendously. That blog is the nicer guy in the cardigan and slippers who knows a lot of stuff and is usually affable. Cold Fury is the guy down the street who's usually grumpy and right about stuff while working on his collection of motorcycles. You're the NCO over at the closest base who's had enough of the crap, will slam down facts like they're thunderbolts, and will brook no bullshit. All enjoyable, but I like thunderbolts the most.

Have a great week!

Anonymous said...

You do evidence-based medicine; let's do evidence-based politics now. What set of individuals are you listing with the word "we"? Does "we" include the government supporters ("voters") who want more Communism (Republicans), and even more Communism (Democrats), which together add up to a large majority of citizens of USA? What evidence leads you to predict the trend towards more government will reverse?

Aesop said...

Comprehension fail:

The "we" in question were words excerpted from the essay at the noted site; note the helpful indentation, let alone had you actually gone there and read the entire essay cited yourself.

If you'd like to ask your questions of the author, i.e. the only person who could answer those questions competently, the link works fine.
Best wishes with that plan.

You might even get to read the entire essay in its published form. Wouldn't that be a hoot!

Aesop said...

And FTR, I do evidence-based thinking, on pretty much any subject.
The medical field is just where I happen to apply that to earning my daily crust.

Anonymous said...

Excellent referral.
I've been reading his stuff for a while; he has an inherent ability for black humour, which we all need these days.
Carry on.

Ned2

John Wilder said...

Thanks so much! I'm a regular reader here (though quiet, I mainly read it on my phone) and have long enjoyed your site. Again, thanks so much - I'm gonna keep writing (and keep trying to get better).

Anonymous said...

Of course I read the original essay, but I'm asking you, because you quoted it and said you agreed. Now back to my question. Your political desires have been massively outvoted for decades; what evidence do you have this trend will change soon?

John Wilder said...

Affable? Absolutely! I'm the kind of guy that says . . . "are you sure that you want to touch that hot stove? Well, okay then, let me know if I can help." It used to be chainsaws and chew (instead of cardigans and slippers) but now I spend too many hours chasing kids around.

PEZ? PEZ is the pinnacle of human accomplishment - only a culture that could allow something as frivolous as PEZ to flourish could put a man on the Moon.

John Wilder said...

The comment down below was *supposed* to be a reply. Operator failure.

Aesop said...

@Anonymous 6:37
1) I quoted it. I did not say anywhere that I agreed with it.
Scroll up.

2) Since you ask, I do agree with the conditional statement, starting with "If we
want to win this war..." That statement works backwards and forwards, btw.
If you don't want to do the things outlined, by definition, you don't want to win the war outlined to that point.

3) My political desires haven't been outvoted for more than a bare few weeks, and that only by outright voter fraud. (120% voter turnout in a precinct is a tip-off there.) The other side, so far, holds precisely 1/6th of the government, in about three weeks. I'm not feeling very outnumbered at the moment.

4) I never said that the trend you described (which isn't happening) will reverse soon.
None of which gets you anything by itself.

Just a thought, but if you're trying to prove a point, start with facts in evidence, and build on that.
Looking at the above, you planted at least three legs of your four-point argument firmly on air.
That will not end where you think it will.

So whatever it is you're attempting rhetorically, you should probably start from what is, and build on that.