A comment from Dr. Cohen piqued my interest: "I think the Ukrainians innovate from the bottom up and the Russians tend to innovate from the top down. The Russians have a very top-down command system, so they can be flexible and learn and so on."
The Russians have a top down command system, so they can be flexible and learn???
This fallacy of "top-down C2 that knows best" has consumed our think tanks and our senior leaders lately. As we trained and equipped against the Soviet Union, the doctrine of Maneuver Warfare was developed knowing it would target their weakness, specifically, their top-down C2 and lack of initiative among the NCO and junior officers. Indeed, we quickly saw through the propaganda as the central planning system began to buckle. How did our officers come to admire the PRC model?
I have recently heard several...no, actually MANY senior officers speak semi-favorably about the PRC system, its centrally-managed economy, modernization programs, and military hierarchy. To loosely paraphrase, they seem to wistfully imagine that we would be able to keep pace, if only we had a similar centrally-managed system. Capitalism and republican democracy, tactical initiative, and bias for action are, to them, unfortunate impediments to military modernization and technological parity.
Of course, they insist in the same speech that ours is the best system, but we must recognize that our system makes it difficult to keep pace.
How have our leaders fallen under this insidious lie that top-down C2 is more effective against a thinking enemy with a free will?
It may seem like a tangent from this article, but this senior leader thinking, incentivized by the NCR think tanks that benefit, fuels the drive for big tech at the expense of training Marines that can adapt, improvise, and overcome. A drive for systems, missiles, and technicians, means that procurement, recruiting, and warfighting focus are pointed in those directions. If you budget for and focus on one thing, the other thing suffers. This is why Combined-arms and maneuver warfare are quickly becoming passe'.
The slow movement away from the maneuver warfare philosophy has been obvious to those who stay in touch with our Corps. As the holder of a teaching chair at MCU for 11 years I watched as the curricula in the schools was undermined by the increasingly mechanistic thinking of the military and civilian faculty. Theory took a back seat to practical skills, which meant students learned how things worked but not why; the schools were preparing them for their next assignments rather than the rest of their careers. A sad state of affairs. Today's Corps needs a giant like General Al Gray to get it back on the right track but no such leader has come forward. Let us hope one does and soon.
As to the Soviets and the Russians, I served with Soviet officers in the late 1970s in the UN Truce Supervision Organization in Palestine and saw first-hand what the the centralized mode of decision making does to officers. On more than one occasion I witnessed a Soviet officer lie rather than seek assistance; an example being a patrol where clearly we were lost but the Soviet leader continued to report we were hitting our checkpoints when we were not. This was particularly worrisome because we were near a minefield and in the desert the wind can cause mines to float considerable distances from their original sites. Reports on the performance of Russian officers in the war in Ukraine indicates this deviant behavior is still prevelant.
We must diligently train without using space-based communications and navigation systems. We must always be able to fight and win independent of both. We must also plan to fight in an EMP, HEMP environment.
My experience with Russian Officers 1995-98 mirrors what Gen Van Riper observed. Underlying their entire command structure is fear and a lack of trust. Hence a one way, dictatorial process of micro management, deception and careerism through deceit and fabrication. Sadly, I saw similar trends slowly developing at the highest levels in DoD. Honesty and integrity can irritate some leaders while others welcome it. The trend is in the wrong direction.
We unilaterally declared we would not weaponize outer space. At the time I thought that was as idiotic as the effort to outlaw the crossbow. As Stalin said: “ Treaties are not worth the paper they are written on.” A smarter nation develops the capability but does not deploy it. When an adversary knows you can act, it is less likely they will act.
A comment from Dr. Cohen piqued my interest: "I think the Ukrainians innovate from the bottom up and the Russians tend to innovate from the top down. The Russians have a very top-down command system, so they can be flexible and learn and so on."
The Russians have a top down command system, so they can be flexible and learn???
This fallacy of "top-down C2 that knows best" has consumed our think tanks and our senior leaders lately. As we trained and equipped against the Soviet Union, the doctrine of Maneuver Warfare was developed knowing it would target their weakness, specifically, their top-down C2 and lack of initiative among the NCO and junior officers. Indeed, we quickly saw through the propaganda as the central planning system began to buckle. How did our officers come to admire the PRC model?
I have recently heard several...no, actually MANY senior officers speak semi-favorably about the PRC system, its centrally-managed economy, modernization programs, and military hierarchy. To loosely paraphrase, they seem to wistfully imagine that we would be able to keep pace, if only we had a similar centrally-managed system. Capitalism and republican democracy, tactical initiative, and bias for action are, to them, unfortunate impediments to military modernization and technological parity.
Of course, they insist in the same speech that ours is the best system, but we must recognize that our system makes it difficult to keep pace.
How have our leaders fallen under this insidious lie that top-down C2 is more effective against a thinking enemy with a free will?
It may seem like a tangent from this article, but this senior leader thinking, incentivized by the NCR think tanks that benefit, fuels the drive for big tech at the expense of training Marines that can adapt, improvise, and overcome. A drive for systems, missiles, and technicians, means that procurement, recruiting, and warfighting focus are pointed in those directions. If you budget for and focus on one thing, the other thing suffers. This is why Combined-arms and maneuver warfare are quickly becoming passe'.
The slow movement away from the maneuver warfare philosophy has been obvious to those who stay in touch with our Corps. As the holder of a teaching chair at MCU for 11 years I watched as the curricula in the schools was undermined by the increasingly mechanistic thinking of the military and civilian faculty. Theory took a back seat to practical skills, which meant students learned how things worked but not why; the schools were preparing them for their next assignments rather than the rest of their careers. A sad state of affairs. Today's Corps needs a giant like General Al Gray to get it back on the right track but no such leader has come forward. Let us hope one does and soon.
As to the Soviets and the Russians, I served with Soviet officers in the late 1970s in the UN Truce Supervision Organization in Palestine and saw first-hand what the the centralized mode of decision making does to officers. On more than one occasion I witnessed a Soviet officer lie rather than seek assistance; an example being a patrol where clearly we were lost but the Soviet leader continued to report we were hitting our checkpoints when we were not. This was particularly worrisome because we were near a minefield and in the desert the wind can cause mines to float considerable distances from their original sites. Reports on the performance of Russian officers in the war in Ukraine indicates this deviant behavior is still prevelant.
We must diligently train without using space-based communications and navigation systems. We must always be able to fight and win independent of both. We must also plan to fight in an EMP, HEMP environment.
My experience with Russian Officers 1995-98 mirrors what Gen Van Riper observed. Underlying their entire command structure is fear and a lack of trust. Hence a one way, dictatorial process of micro management, deception and careerism through deceit and fabrication. Sadly, I saw similar trends slowly developing at the highest levels in DoD. Honesty and integrity can irritate some leaders while others welcome it. The trend is in the wrong direction.
We unilaterally declared we would not weaponize outer space. At the time I thought that was as idiotic as the effort to outlaw the crossbow. As Stalin said: “ Treaties are not worth the paper they are written on.” A smarter nation develops the capability but does not deploy it. When an adversary knows you can act, it is less likely they will act.
You Tube Scripps News …Ukrainian Drone Operator”In Real Life Darwin’s War”.