Monthly Archives: September 2024

By Michael F. Duggan, Ph.D.

All periods of history are transitional, intermediary. This has been especially true in modern military history in regard to the development of weapons technology in great powers wars (and sometimes of high-intensity civil wars in powerful nations). This demonstrates the reality of scientific and technological progress (but not necessarily social progress).

The American Civil War and German Wars of Unification saw the shift from muzzleloader to repeaters (one can see the full transition from the Crimean War to the end of the Franco-Prussian War, with the added developments of smokeless powder and modern machine-guns following in the 1880s). Tactics were slow to catch up to the new technologies. World War I began as a 19th century war of mobility at the First Battle of the Marne, quickly transitioned into “trenchlock” and attrition as the modern Defensive Revolution arrived at tis apex, and arguably ended with something like a nascent combined arms campaign during the last 100 Days.

The Second World War saw the first jet combat aircraft (compare the fastest plane in the world in 1938 with the fastest planes in the world in 1948), the first cruise missiles (the V-1), the first long range ballistic missiles (the V-2), and assault rifles (the FG-42, MP-43 and MP-44).¹

A new defensive revolution has been introduced in the Russo-Ukrainian War–a digital and drone revolution–that has rendered the sweeping “big arrow” offensive operations of WWII and Cold War planners all but obsolete (or at least problematic between powerful state-of-the-art armies), and has apparently reintroduced attritional impalement offensives vis-a-vis entrenched defense in depth. It has also seen the use of small unit tactics and raids, and the grinding “bite and hold” advances reminiscent of the First World War.

Note
1. The Russian Federov Model 1916, or “Automat,” is possibly first assault rifle (i.e. a selective-fire military rifle), but it was not produced in quantity. It was further developed by the Soviets as the Simov Model 1936, which proved to be unsuccessful. The German FG-42, MP-43, and MP-44 by contrast, are configured like modern assault rifles, and the MP-43-44 was produced in numbers. See W.H.B Smith and Joseph E. Smith, Small Arms of the World, 10th edition., New York, NY: Galahad Books, 1960, 1975. 420-427, 583.

By Michael F. Duggan

Remember when progressives were pro-organized labor? Believed in a vigorous domestic manufacturing economy? Believed in protecting vulnerable domestic markets and their workers? Acted on behalf of ordinary Americans in “flyover country”? Believed in actually talking to potential adversaries and people we didn’t like (e.g. Stalin, Khrushchev, Brezhnev, Mao) in order to prevent great powers conflicts? Embraced a foreign policy based on diplomacy rather than on undeclared wars? Were critical of Wall Street and the Military Industrial Complex? Were antiwar?

Why the hell did the Dems let someone like Trump co-opt these things, and in doing so, make them disreputable to modern liberals?

By Michael F. Duggan

One can only assume that Western foreign policy makers and diplomats these days are not poker players.

If news stories from the past few days are correct, it is likely that US-made, long-range, tactical ballistic missiles fired from Ukraine, will soon be hitting targets deep inside Russia. The Kremlin is warning that this would be regarded as a direct attack by the United States and NATO on Russia and therefore, an existential threat. They are saying that it would mean a great powers war between the US/NATO and Russia.

In other words, the West would be pursuing a policy that could result in World War III based on the assumption that the other side, which has until now been portrayed as an unreasonable, murderous aggressor, will now act with caution, moderation, reason, restraint, and perhaps timidity. It assumes that all of the warnings coming from Russia are just bluffs. Thus the decision of whether or not to go to war is being surrendered to the discretion of a potential adversary.

But as any competent poker player will tell you, the problem with a strategy that assumes the opponent is always bluffing, is that it only works until it doesn’t. It only works if the opponent is bluffing. As the great Prussian realist, Otto von Bismarck, is supposed to have observed, “Russians are slow to saddle, but fast to ride.” If Western policy is based on the “rational choice” assumptions of game theory, then Western policymakers would do well to examine how well such theories served the US during the Vietnam War. Meanwhile, and unlike the Cuban Missile Crisis, there is little conspicuous evidence that the US and Russia are even talking to each other. What could possibly go wrong?

At this point, with Russia winning the war in eastern Ukraine, they may not retaliate directly and disproportionately against the West (especially, as other have noted, in light of the many other ways they can retaliate less dramatically). Why upend the chessboard if you are winning? But again, this assumes that people are predominantly reasonable, and as some commentators have observed, we now stand closer to thermonuclear war than at any other point in history. The US and Russia have a little under 6,000 nuclear warheads each, with 1,419 and 1,549 (respectively) deployed on land based missiles, submarine launched ballistic missiles, and on strategic bombers.

The relevant question to those who believe that Russia is bluffing is: What if you are wrong?