Military thoughtlessness in 4-star charge?

© 2017 Peter Free

 

31 March 2017

 

 

By their silly language shall ye recognize them

 

During recent decades, I have read many thousands of pages of American military-originated writing. Every additional year seems to produce enhanced meaninglessness.

 

It is as if American leadership is engaged in a race to produce the most unremittingly reality-avoiding thinking that is humanly possible.

 

 

Fashionably saying nothing

 

The following representative skull diarrhea comes from the United States' CENTCOM website.

 

I am not picking on CENTCOM. It's just that the website's writing is representative of the blather I've been reading year after year. And being on a website, it is easily accessible to the public:

 

 

Our strategic approach is focused on protecting our national interests and those of our partners. It is designed to reflect our values, align our behaviors, and support the National Military Strategy.

 

It is proactive in nature and endeavors to set in motion tangible actions in a purposeful, consistent and continuous manner. Each aspect of our approach - Prepare - Pursue - Prevail - enables the next and collectively contributes to the successful achievement of our goals, objectives and our overall mission.

 

The volatile nature of the Central Region, often characterized by civil wars, insurgencies, terrorism, failed states, and humanitarian suffering requires that we be well-postured to protect our enduring national interests.

 

"Well-postured" means that we are ready to execute military tasks; are physically and virtually present in the AOR [area of responsibility]; integrated in all our actions; responsive to the needs of our partners; and able to provide options for our leadership.

 

Proper preparation in advance of crises creates decision space for leaders and allows for responsible and effective employment of available resources and forces.

 

Our overriding objective, despite these challenges, is to prevail. Prevailing means winning - coming out on top of our adversaries.

 

We prevail when our national interests and objectives are preserved; when we maintain decision-space for our leaders, and, when we maintain and sustain our access, postures and relationships with our vital partners.

 

We choose to prevail "by, with, and through" our partners. Prevailing in this AOR requires resolve and resiliency - and it requires continued momentum. While we prevail over near-term challenges and win the current fight, we also need to prepare for the next set of challenges and conduct planning to win the next fight.

 

© 2017 U.S. Central Command, Command Narrative, www.centcom.mil (at "About Us") (visited 28 March 2017) (excerpts)

 

 

The quoted blurb uses lots of words to say nothing relevant

 

Nothing in the quote is pertinent:

 

 

(a) to the deadly instability that the United States has disastrously created in the Middle East — the region that CENTCOM is supposed to deal with

 

or

 

(b) to an American post-World War II record that clearly demonstrates that we have lost every major strategic engagement that we have been involved in.

 

 

Central Command's statement of purpose acts as if History never happened.

 

The quoted paragraphs (and others) are blind to the fact that the United States has been disastrously tripping over its own anatomy for the last 70 years.

 

 

Of what value is such vacuity?

 

CENTCOM, for example, is still spreading the bloody strategic idiocy that the United States began with its poorly thought out Afghanistan and Iraq wars. We have now added Yemen to the pile of chaotically inclined regional corpses.

 

 

We can tentatively conclude that

 

American leadership is either:

 

 

(a) too witless to recognize that the United States' combative presence alone seeds and fuels the violent disorder that we pretend to detest

 

or

 

(b) too enamored of supporting war profiteers to see the strategic and moral evils that we commit in the process.

 

 

The problem is systemic

 

It reflects a cultural lack of strategic thinking. And an indifference to performance analysis.

 

Former Army colonel, Professor Andrew Bacevich agrees:

 

 

What are we to make of this charade of proconsuls [see definition here] parading through Washington to render false or misleading reports on the status of the American empire's outer precincts?

 

Perhaps the time has come to look elsewhere for advice and counsel. Whether generals . . . are deluded or dishonest is ultimately beside the point.

 

More relevant is the fact that the views they express -- and that inexplicably continue to carry weight in Washington -- are essentially of no value.

 

So many years later, no reason exists to believe that they know what they are doing.

 

To reground US national security policy in something that approximates reality would require listening to new voices, offering views long deemed heretical.

 

© 2017 Andrew Bacevich, Prepare, Pursue, Prevail! Onward and Upward with U.S. Central Command, TomDispatch.com (21 March 2017) (excerpts)

 

 

Why this matters

 

Stupidity is a cause of self-destruction.

 

Once dumbed (in the blathering fashion just quoted), military and imperial institutions tend to stay that way — until:

 

 

(i) a foreign power stomps all over them

 

or

 

(ii) painfully applied pressure forces rethinking and rebirth.

 

 

The moral? — We are terminal Rome on a bad day

 

Will we continue to blither our over-armed and under-brained way to perdition?

 

Cogent minds wonder.