Comments on: The Russian Bear is a Punk

By: ACR

ACR — Mon, 10 Mar 2014 20:47:00 +0000

In reply to JLM. Only too true.

By: JLM

JLM — Mon, 10 Mar 2014 19:48:00 +0000

In reply to ACR.

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I do not think there is a single thing that is remotely “loose” about Putin.

The guy has been in the leadership for 15 years. He was a top level spook for 15 years before that.

The dismantling of the USSR was the worst blow to him as he has often said.

He has bided his time and he has picked his place carefully.

He has left almost nothing to chance.

All the bets he has laid out have come to his side of the table.

BRC
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By: ACR

ACR — Mon, 10 Mar 2014 19:37:00 +0000

In reply to JLM.

Hi BRC – well, I was thinking of the threat within the threat. Nobody wants a wider war, but starting a limited war is sort of a way to threaten a general war in a believable way. To be a loose cannon suits Putin’s book.

Agree with you 100 percent on American small unit leadership.

By: JLM

JLM — Sat, 08 Mar 2014 16:25:00 +0000

In reply to ACR.

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Book you’re quoting is from the 1960s. Studied it in school. It is apropos of the highest level of strategic thinking such as the likelihood of a continental nuclear exchange as an outgrowth of an otherwise local conflict.

The game is a bit more complex when you mix in theater nuclear weapons.

Strategy is initially executed by Second Lieutenants and First Lieutenants and Captains. Thank God for Captains.

D Day was won by small units without leadership above the Battalion level simply heading East and killing Germans. Not a single Division fought a coordinated battle for more than a week.

The Airborne units devolved into a pickup game before the first paratrooper landed — they were almost all dropped in the wrong places. Strategy is hard to execute when you are in the wrong zip code.

A huge testament to the American soldier is the ability to fight and win when confronted with chaos. As a professional soldier and a product of the system — Army Brat, VMI, Airborne, Ranger — I saw it right up front.

I was a company commander more than once and the apprenticeship I served and the improvement in my personal ability to command troops was phenomenal. Wet lump of clay hardened in a very hot fire.

BRC
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By: JLM

JLM — Sat, 08 Mar 2014 16:18:00 +0000

In reply to pointsnfigures.

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As it relates to investing and markets, your comment is brilliant. I cannot believe the number of times that a simple contrarian view of the “current wisdom” has resulted in huge profits.

I recall some of those huge dips in the Dow. If you just bought the big losers when the blood was ankle level, literally within weeks you were waist deep in profits.

BRC
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By: pointsnfigures

pointsnfigures — Sat, 08 Mar 2014 16:15:00 +0000

In reply to JLM. It also works in trading markets. If a market creates chaos in your personal central nervous system, you make bad decisions. Lose money....

By: JLM

JLM — Sat, 08 Mar 2014 16:13:00 +0000

In reply to pointsnfigures.

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As a trade school guy yourself, you have a keen appreciation for how complex the business of war can be and how critical leadership decisions made under fire are to the outcome of every fight.

Many times these decisions are being made by 22 year old second lieutenants what have received exquisite training and are the pick of the litter but still combat performance is not something you can test for very well. Some guys have it and some don’t. Give me a point guard any time.

When we were planning how to defeat the Russians on the northern German plains in the late 1970s, we were completely focused on knocking out any BMP with an antenna. Decapitate the leadership.

Chaos always favors the offensive minded army. In the chase of the Germans after the breakout from the bocage country, the history is replete with stories of small American units capturing big German units because the Germans couldn’t believe they were being attacked by such small unit.

Patton was America’s best “pursuit” General for just this reason. He kept driving forward in the face of desperate opposition because he knew that if he got to the Division or Corp HQ and killed everyone, the battle was over.

Leadership is always the secret sauce. Same can be said for the entrepreneurial startup ecosystem.

BRC
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By: pointsnfigures

pointsnfigures — Sat, 08 Mar 2014 15:57:00 +0000

Interesting what you say about the professional soldier. Dr. Andrew Menaker has worked with some pro soldiers. Here is one thing he says. “when confronted with a force that has more firepower than you, the only way to win is NOT to inflict harm and death on the opposing force. First thing to do is create chaos so they are unable to communicate and make decisions. Chaos brings confusion, which clouds the ability to make good rational decisions”

By: ACR

ACR — Fri, 07 Mar 2014 20:09:00 +0000

“It seems likely that, for both human and mechanical reasons, the probability of inadvertent war rises with a crisis. But is not this mechanism itself a kind of deterrent threat? …
“Even if the Russians did not expect deliberate retaliation for the particular misbehavior they had in mind, they could still be uneasy about the possibility that their action might precipitate general war or initiate some dynamic process that could end only in massive war or in Soviet withdrawal. They might not be confident that we and they could altogether foretell the consequences of our actions in an emergency, and keep the situation altogether under control. …
“… the threat to engage in limited war has two parts. One is the threat to inflict costs directly on the other side, in casualties, expenditures, loss of territory, loss of face, or anything else. The second is the threat to expose the other party, together with one’s self, to a heightened risk of general war. …
“The analogy for our limited-war forces in Europe is not, according to this argument, a trip wire that certainly detonates all-out war if it is in working order and fails altogether if it is not. What we have a is graduated series of trip wires, each attached to a chance mechanism, with the daily *probability* of detonation increasing as the enemy moves from wire to wire. The critical feature of the analogy, it should be emphasized, if that whether or not the trip wire detonates general war is – at least to some extent – outside our control, and the Russians know it. …
“Brinksmanship is thus the deliberate creation of a risk of a recognizable risk of war, a risk that one does not completely control. It is the tactic of deliberately letting the situation get somewhat out of hand, just because its being out of hand may be intolerable to the other party and force his accommodation.”

Thomas Schelling, The Strategy of Conflict, pp 188-191, 200

By: JLM

JLM — Fri, 07 Mar 2014 01:52:00 +0000

In reply to David Semeria.

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Fabulous story, David. Thank you.

I am convinced that PEOPLE are not the problem. It is the leadership.

As an example, I think Pres Obama is an incredibly incompetent person and yet the American people are damn good at whatever they set their minds to do. We are not an incompetent people. We went to the freakin’ moon.

I also think that at the elemental level we all just want to be peaceful and happy. I don’t hate anyone. I do resent bullies.

BRC
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