We Just Lost the Initiative.....

Battles over military force structure and how the military evolves will continue for the foreseeable future. Yet to make informed decision, military leaders need to assess what long term risks and adversaries may be and anticipate potential tactics these adversaries may engage. For the most part, the military gets hung up on the last conflict and addresses the issues that created the past operational environment. Taking a napkin assessment of potential geopolitical environment, there are potentially two conventional style warfare scenarios, consisting of a large force-on-force engagement starring conventional forces. The first scenario is armed conflict with China across maritime, territory, space, and cyber-space domains. The other possible scenario is what we now call hybrid warfare with the Russians, to include direct action on a limited scale for chunks of territory. But outside of those two scenarios, and to be honest I do not even see all out warfare with China, future combat w

It is my opinion that the Department of Defense has become an over-bloated top heavy organization. As an organization the military is unable to nimbly react to new and developing threats. Instead, the default position is to set up a new office, a new command, a new organization within the hierarchical structure to deal with the specific threat. Yet, except in very rare cases like the disestablishment of Joint Forces Command, these new organizational structures continue even if they can be folded elsewhere. And in the case of Joint Forces Command, the senior officials and offices were farmed out to other organizations. We are seeing an evolution in warfare where adversaries are small, mobile forces that use a mix of conventional, unconventional, terrorist, and cyber tactics to achieve specific objectives or a stalemate in a limited operational environment. So how does the U.S. Government (USG) combat these new and developing threats? Well let's take a look at a specific example. I

With morbid fascination the world has been watching a complicated and unpredictable geopolitical play unfold right in front of our collective eyes. The actors in this play are familiar but with new set pieces. No longer is it the Soviet Union versus the United States, instead a hyper-nationalistic Russia has risen from Soviet ashes. Are we witnessing a re-kindling of the Cold War or Russian "schizophrenic" gestation as it tries to regain its prominence as a super-power? I do not believe we will see Russia rival the military might of the old Soviet Union. Russian economics are too dependent on the commodities market (in particular oil and extractive minerals) to sustain a large military in the style of the old Soviet Union. But overwhelming military might is not needed in this day and age to compete on the global stage. Vladimir Putin has repackaged elements of Russian national power (for example: the military -  particularly the special forces, information/propaganda resour