'We've forgcrtten what an existential threat is.'

摘要

Q: What are you calling for? What's your manifesto?A: I wrote this book because I was angry. I've lost good friends in Iraq and Afghanistan. As a taxpayer, we've flushed six trillion dollars down the toilet. And as a vet, it hurts me to see our national image tarnished. Yet we have the best military in the world-even our adversaries know that. So what's the problem? It's not the military-we have a great military. The problem is that our strategic IQ is low. War is won and lost at the strategic level-not the tactical level, not the operational level. So where do you send people to train to think strategically to win? We have a dearth of that. We get lucky, not smart.Q: What do you mean?A: Why are we doing things like buying more Ford-class aircraft carriers, orF35s? That stuff should be slashed. I would cut away the expensive conventional weapons, and beef up the things that are very effective in modern war: political warfare, strategic influence, law-fare, economic might, and deception. Want to blunt Russian encroachment in the Baltics? Forget shows of force-military deterrence is obsolete. Instead, start a "color revolution" on their border.Moscow is paranoid and would shift resources to squashing it. Want China out of the South China Sea? Stop throwing carrier groups into the region. Instead, covertly support the Uighur insurgency. Internal regime security will steal Beijing's attention away.