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The result of this was terrible unpreparedness, all over again, for the next big hot war, Vietnam. At the beginning Navy pilots were in for a shock -- the now-famous Top Gun school resulted directly from an unacceptably unfavorable dogfight friend-versus-bandit kill ratio. Precision-guided weapons (smart bombs) made their debut in profusion, yet the number of bullets and tons of munitions needed per enemy soldier killed actually skyrocketed -- so badly that there were temporary shortages even of dumb iron bombs. Worst of all, perhaps, the mindset of the enemy was misunderstood. For North Vietnam, the fight was about reunification and liberation against a decades-long series of foreign meddlers, of which the U.S. simply happened to be the last. I'd argue that Ho Chi Minh and General Giap used the USSR as much as, or more than, the Kremlin used them.
The situation in America now is alarmingly similar, in today's terms, to some of these red herrings and pitfalls and pratfalls of battles and campaigns past. I use "campaign" as an intentional double meaning, covering both the military and the political spheres, because just as in World War II, and exactly as Clausewitz said two hundred years ago, warfighting and politics are inextricably intertwined.
Which would seem to suggest that we're setting ourselves up to be blindsided all over again. We didn't see the Cold War coming, though Churchill and Patton did. North Korea's attack, and then Red China joining in, were completely unexpected. Vietnam was tragically underestimated. The prelude events to al Qaeda's assault on September 11, 2001 were lying in plain sight.
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So, what major threat are we failing to notice this time? In what ways are the fundamental changes in our military structure and manning, now underway, undercutting us inadvertently going into the future? If we optimize to fight terrorists, will opportunist, ambitious Third-Generation nation-states see our vulnerabilities and become our next mortal foes? And if so, who will it be that launches the next blindsiding attack on our soil or on our vital interests abroad? If history is any guide, the culprit might not be on the present list of "usual suspects." Democracies don't start wars, and the fledgling spread of democracy is terrific indeed, but democracy can be one phase of a pendulum that swings -- look at Russia and South America, or the Weimar Republic for that matter.
I name our next major nation-level war opponent "the undiscovered country." They might be watching and scheming already, preparing, seeking an edge. Across the entire past century, the end of big war forever has been proclaimed with fanfare, often. The announcement was later proven wrong too frequently to be convincing now. And I'm not into conspiracy theories for sport or paranoia. The incredibly vast extent of Dr. Khan's nuclear underground is a real-world conspiracy if ever there was one, its full reach probably still not unmasked.
When clearing a minefield, it's wise to assume that the first booby-trap you find will not be the last. When checking your basement floor joists for termites, odds are the first sign of damage you see is only the beginning. If your cell phone drops the connection in the middle of a call, experience shows that it's likely to again once you redial.
The same goes for enemy states, conspiracies, and wars: Things that occur, recur. And complacency kills -- always.
We as a nation need to put a higher premium on searching for and deterring that undiscovered country; better intell gathering, and special operations forces aplenty, must perform key roles in this indications and warnings task. We also need to lift our gaze beyond the Fourth Generation wars we're currently fighting.
Fifth Generation War will be the most dangerous combat ever, for our way of life and possibly for the survival of humanity, precisely because we don't yet know what shape it will take or where the threat will come from. It will almost certainly break out as a come-as-you-are surprise party held entirely on the enemy's terms. Superb jets and missiles and dangerous subs are for sale in numbers on the world arms market. Tactical nukes are fast becoming the Great Equalizers against Uncle Sam. Robots and information warfare alone won't beat a determined adversary. Thomas Jefferson's blunder of going for cheap coastal gun boats instead of expensive ocean-going battleships was a direct contributor to America having to fight the War of 1812 -- are our naval acquisition plans, so much in flux inside the Beltway and up and down the Northeast Coast, setting us up for a War of 2012? Non-lethal weapons represent a major advance for civilization, but non-lethal war is a hollow promise, a myth.
Shakespeare's Hamlet used "the undiscovered country" to mean death itself. Think about this hard, because Macbeth said that "when troubles come they come not singly, but in battalions."
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© 2005 Joe Buff. All opinions expressed
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