History

Senate Technophobia, 1930 Style

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In 1930, U.S. Senator Carter Glass (Virginia) introduced the following resolution:

Whereas dial telephones are more difficult to operate than are manual telephones; and

Whereas senators are required since the installation of dial telephones in the Capitol to perform the duties of telephone operators in order to enjoy the benefits of telephone service; and

Whereas dial telephones have failed to expedite telephone service; therefore, be it

Resolved that the sergeant-at-arms of the Senate is authorized and directed to order the Chesepeake & Potomac Telephone Co., to replace with manual telephones, within 30 days after the adoption of this resolution, all dial telephones in the Senate wing of the United States Capitol and in the Senate Office Building.

The resolution passed.

(source: Visions of Technology, edited by Richard Rhodes)

Reflections on the Boyd 2007 Conference

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Recently, I was fortunate enough to be invited to attend the Boyd 2007 Conference held at the Gray Center at Quantico. Dedicated to the memory and strategic theories of the late Colonel John Boyd, the conference was organized by a number of his former associates, notably Dr. Chet Richards and attracts primarily defense scholars and military personnel (active/reserve/retired) who are professionally interested in counterinsurgency, counterterrorism and unconventional warfare.

I have been to many conferences and seminars, primarily historical or for educational issues in my time but few approached this one in terms of intellectual seriousness and lack of pretense on the part of panelists and audience. The ideas clearly mattered most, not ego; four star generals mixed easily with graduate students, bestselling authors with bloggers, scholars with Iraq war veterans. The Marines and civilian employees I met at Quantico could not have been more cordial or helpful to the many visitors in their midst.

I strongly encourage those interested in military history, strategy or 4th generation warfare to consider attending next year ( and reserving a slot early – they go fast). It was a wonderful experience from which I learned a great deal and met many interesting people.

A selection of links that provide more background on Boyd 2007:

DNI Report

SWJ Blog – Frank Hoffman

Dreaming 5GW

tdaxp

Rob Patterson

Simulated Laughter

Shloky: Overview, Osinga and Boydian influences, Boydian Influences,Gudmundsson On The ANG,Lind on Barnett and IR, Hammes on 5GW, Hoffman on Modern/Future COIN

Zenpundit: Part I., Part II. and Some Things I Missed

Can the USA successfully engage in 4GW? (Or even 5GW whatever that may be?)

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Who was it who said “how can I know what I think until I say it?” Substitute “say” with “blog”.

I had a comment on my own post about Iran recently. I said something off the seat of my pants, which I have been mulling since then:

The United States has suffered at the hands of what are called Fourth Generation Warfare opponents for some time now. Iran presents us with the opportunity to wage 4GW ourselves. John Boyd said that war is fought on the moral, mental and physical planes, and that the physical is the least important and least decisive. The Mullah regime is morally and intellectually bankrupt. It needs to be attacked on that level. The end game is something like 1989, where there are no NATO troops on the street, but the Warsaw Pact evaporates. A strong background military threat is imperative.

Now, what I mostly see about 4GW is stuff from William Lind or his spiritual father Martin van Creveld, in which the nation state is basically doomed to lose to 4GW opponents, assisted by knowingly or foolishly complicit people in civil society who are duped and coopted by the 4GWarriors. John Robb seems to think the global guerrillas will get more and more powerful until our current political organization crumbles and is replaced by something networked and post-Westphalian. Thomas X. Hammes at the end of his book suggests at least the possibility of a 4GW type of military which could be networked and agile, but it is more of a sketch than a full-blown set of proposed reforms. Other writers suggest various sensible reforms the military might adopt — e.g. Donald Vandergriff, and sometimes Ralph Peters.

But what I want to know is this: Can the US military, with or without the engagement of other parts of the government, with our without the assistance of other countries, initiate, wage and win a 4GW campaign? More narrowly, what would a U.S.-led 4GW campaign against the Iranian mullah regime look like? or, rephrased, can the “soft kill” or the “non-kinetic kill” be a set of actual policies with a viable chance of success, rather than (potentially) a mere cover for inaction? And finally, whatever set of policies, strategies, tactics and tools are employed to do the non-kinetic kill against the Mullah regime, does the 4GW or 5GW terminology add anything of value? Does it lend clarity, cause confusion, or do nothing at all?

Millennial Boyz

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I’m on a mission from Lex. On Thu 12 Jul at 5:34 PM CDT, he wrote me:

> Are the Millennials Different?
>
> I know you are a fan. Any response must be cross-posted on CB!

I can think of nothing better to do on a fine Bastille Day evening — having missed the concert by virtue of being 400 miles to the southwest — than consume modest quantities of ethanol in the form of Boulevard Lunar Ale and compose a rambling post for infliction on the readership here. By way of my usual thinning out of my prospective audience, graze on over to Arcturus for what has become known as the Baby Boomer Apocalypse post, which will 1) impart what I think is the most important aspect of Strauss & Howe’s model and 2) very likely cause you to decide you’ve got better things to do than read the rest of this.

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What We Lose When We Lose Winston

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Your heroes will help you find good in yourself

Your friends won’t forsake you for somebody else.

They’ll both stand beside you thru thick and thru thin

And that’s how it goes with heroes and friends.

from “Heroes and Friends” by Don Schlitz and Randy Travis.

My heroes say Brian Lamb and Denis Dutton help me become more tolerant and curious. Franklin’s example helps me work a bit harder; the loving generosity of a woman in my Sunday School class encourages me to be more gentle with my tongue. Kids need heroes but so do adults. We make better choices because our imagination has been stretched with the sense of heroic possibilities. If we assume that we share with others a common humanity, a common human nature, and each of us has the potential to act in a way that transcends our baser selves, then stories of heroism resonate (no matter who nor where the actor). Those we admire may be consistently virtuous or consistently heroic, but often they are not; still, in an act of nobility and purpose we see something that makes our breast swell with pride because we have seen the potential of our common humanity. We come to know that the hero at the Alamo drank too much, that Thomas Jefferson owned slaves, Abraham Lincoln took a long while to reach the ideas of the Emancipation Proclamation, Faulkner wasn’t always faithful. But we also know that, in the end, they made heroic choices, probably because they, too, could draw from narratives of others they nurtured within their hearts. Narratives give us strength; that the founders were willing to risk fortunes, reputations and even lives is admirable. They are like us; but they delved into themselves and found courage, wit, perseverance, nobility.

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