Fredwitz on War, Chapter II

Cartoon courtesy of CGTN.

1,190 words

Oh help. As I write, the mumbling eggplant in the White House shovels money and arms into two wars, neither necessary, and he and Lockheed Martin prepare for a third, also unnecessary, over Taiwan, which is none of their business. Since in the Federal Bubble on the Potomac there is chatter at the mental level of water-dwelling marsupials of sending American troops into these, perhaps a bit of thought might be a good idea.

Begin with the dismal record of the American military in actually fighting wars. Go back a way. In Vietnam, American forces, with enormous superiority in air power, artillery, armor, and helicopters — lost. In Afghanistan, with even greater superiority over peasants with rifles and not much else, the American military — lost. Just now in the Red Sea, an aircraft carrier and several destroyers have for months tried to keep ragtag Yemenis from blocking traffic to the crucial Suez Canal — and failed. After more than two years of of pushing the war in Ukraine, America’s puppet army is — losing.

And now Washington wants to fight . . . China.

Why undertake anything so obviously cockamamie? The reasons are several. Start with the insular complacency of a city long accustomed to immense international power and unable to see that it no longer has it. Many who hold the reins in the city are old men who remember the world of decades ago, when an aircraft carrier could intimidate almost any country, including China. This isn’t then, but the old have difficulty noticing. Add a Congress incontinently ignorant of anything but the politics of Washington and of their home states There is nobody on the House China committee who reads, speaks, or writes Chinese. Yet, Congress inveighs fiercely against Beijing like a swarm of feral hamsters.

We have all heard repeatedly that America is the Indispensable Nation, Exceptional, the Sole Superpower, the Shining City on a Hill that other countries want to imitate. I will hope that most of us take this as the forgettable political boilerplate that it is. But there are many in Washington who actually believe it. They are smug, self-assured, and unable to think beyond the walls imposed by belief. Many are highly intelligent, making it easy to ignore the opinions of lesser mortals. They read each other, talk to each other, and drink together.

The sense of superiority, even invincibility, leads to disasters. If you are the Sole Superpower, you don’t really have to ask what other countries can do, think, or want. You don’t have to plan realistically or ask “What if?”

What if, for example, the Russian fleet shows up in support of China? If North Korea seized the chance and invades South Korea, giving Washington two major wars at once? If China sinks tankers going to Japan and Taiwan, neither of which has oil? If Washington insouciantly bombs the Chinese mainland, which it will, and China or Russia hits the Pentagon and Capitol with sub-launched missiles? What does the sole superpower then do?

Consider the war in Ukraine. Washington went into it (the rest of the country didn’t know where it was) sure that losing was impossible. After all, Russia was backward, technologically primitive, and (as we heard over and over) “a gas station pretending to be a country.” If there was an effort to actually understand what Russia could do, no sign of this appeared.

Washington was, however, sure of many things. Russia could not withstand a long war. It has. Its currency would collapse. It didn’t. (Remember Field Marshal Joe in the White House chortling that “The ruble is rubble?” It wasn’t.) The Russian public would rise and oust Putin. It didn’t. The rest of the world would rally around Washington and isolate Russia diplomatically. It didn’t. The sanctions would collapse the Russian economy. They didn’t. NATO’s superior weapons and tactics would crush Russian forces. They didn’t. Russia would run out of artillery ammunition and missiles. It didn’t; NATO did.

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All of this demonstrates a catastrophic failure of the intelligence agencies, and an ignorance of, among other things, Russia’s economic structure and capacity, will to fight, motives, and weaponry. For this we pay billions.

So: Washington has painted itself into a corner. If it negotiates, this will amount to a surrender. The gargantuan inflamed egos will not easily accept that the Sole Superpower has just lost in a war it concocted itself. A loss would disastrously reduce Washington’s military credibility. NATO might realize that it had been taken for a ride and decline to do it again. Taiwan might figure out that it was being set up to fight China, a short distance across the water, as a second Ukraine.

Possibilities Washington didn’t foresee, smugly regarding Russia as an enlarged Guatemala. A desperate Washington is capable of fathomless stupidity. There is talk of provoking a Europewide war, even attacking Russia itself. Oh good.

Here I offer Fred’s Fourth Military Law. Military stupidity comes in three levels: normally stupid; really, really stupid; and invading Russia. It isn’t good for you. Charles XII tried it, as did Napoleon and Hitler. With identical results.

Inside the Beltway, “American boots on the ground” sounds scary, even decisive. No. American weaponry, its chief purpose being to funnel money to the arms industry, has performed poorly in Ukraine. The vaunted M1 tank burns like any other. Russia has a large advantage in missiles, both in numbers and sophistication, including hypersonics. The F-16 fighter, apparently thought of as a sort of hypergalactic Star Wars craft, first flew in 1976, though it is not actually a biplane. The enlisted ranks in particular are rotted by low recruiting standards, diversity hiring, sexual curiosities, and homosexuals. One thinks of the 35th Squealing Demons Regiment, or the frightful Tranny Berzerkers.

Bear in mind that a military is less a fighting force than a psychological condition, an element of this being pathological optimism. An army will not fight if it is told that it consists of mediocre infantry, poorly-trained and -led, and not really as well armed or led as the potential enemy. Consequently they are regularly assured that they are the most formidable, death-dealing troops in this or any nearby universe.

This makes for misjudgment, as does the fact that wars, whatever their alleged causes, are actually consequences of secretions from those parts of men that women say men think with. Countries fight war after war after war after war, not because it is a good idea but because it is what men do, like packs of wild dogs.

This is why wars so seldom turn out as the aggressors expect. In 1914 Germany started the First World War, and lost. In 1939 it started the Second World War, and lost. In 1941 the Japanese attacked America, and lost. After this, the French re-invaded Vietnam, and lost. Then the Americans invaded Vietnam, and lost. The Russians invaded Afghanistan, and lost. Then the Americans invaded Afghanistan, and lost. Then the Americans started a war in Ukraine, and are losing. Now they want a war with China.

I’m going to change my phylum. This one doesn’t look to have much future, and anyway it is embarrassing.

(Original column:  Fredwitz on War)