Time's Battleland: NATIONAL SECURITY AirSea Battle: The Military-Industrial Complex’s Self-Serving Fantasy

China's Great Wall: an ancient AirLand Battle plan

NOTE: My post from Saturday, expanded a bit and reposted at Time's Battleland at that blog's request.

Nice Washington Post piece (by Greg Jaffe, of course) on the great COIN counterattack that is the Pentagon’s AirSea Battle.

As scenario work goes, what the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Analysis has done in its war-games has to rank right up there with the most egregiously implausible efforts ever made to justify arms build-ups.

Read the entire post at Time's Battleland blog.

Comments

[Rick Wright]

Remember "The Pentagon's New Map" began as an article in Esquire. At present the U.S. does not really have a "National Security Strategy" and DOD is essentially without strategic leadership. Perhaps the time is ripe for a "Barnett Blockbuster Book" on building a security strategy for the U.S. based on global realities.

[L.Nannetti]

Dr.Barnett, I've recently sent an op-ed to the WS staff that will be posted on the Diplomatic Courier (probably next week) that tackles opportunities instead than confrontation... if people (read: Pentagon and Washington leaders) are willing to be smart enough to see them. They may actually be more powerful than AirSea battle .

[L.Nannetti]

In addition, I never realized until recently how much most US people (and the Pentagon) are scared by China and its moves. That's because of how little they know about it.
Ignorance is a threat. When you're ignorant (meaning: you don't know the other), you start to fear. When you start to fear, you act for maximum defence. When you do that, you become aggressive - and force the other to do just as you feared.
Dangerous.

[J. Ross Stewart]

Lorenzo:

With all due respect, my Wikistrat brother, I am not afraid of China, and I think that I understand the Chinese government and military rather well.

As I have written elsewhere and as you may be aware, my wife is originally from Vietnam, and my in-laws live in Saigon whom we visit annually. Therefore, my analysis of Vietnam is firsthand and very personal, and the disputes in the South China Sea are not simply some sort of academic exercise for me.

And, quite frankly, I find the thought of China's PLAN patrolling the South China Sea off the coast of Vietnam within Vietnam's territorial waters as well as China's recent belligerent actions both repugnant and unacceptable. Therefore, in my opinion, the U.S. intervening to defend our allies and emerging allies in East Asia is simply the right thing to do.

However, I will withhold judgment until I read your op-ed.

Ross