Maximus and Safranski On Barnett
Nice dialog between Maximus and Sarfranski in these comments.
Fabius:
Barnett advocated aggressive international action, but with full knowledge of our National Security systems (State, Intel, DoD). If they did not meet the requirements of his Sys Admin etc forces, he should have protested strongly BEFORE the invasion.
It’s useless telling us far after the fact that the military we went to war with did not meet his theoretical requirements. I doubt any real world force does or will in our lifetimes.
Mark responds:
However, my best recollection is that Tom wrote that he expected that if Iraq turned into a debacle, it would ultimately force the military to commit to the structural transformation to deal with failed states/4GW/Sys Admin that they were avoiding with all their strength.
Which brings us back to one of my arguments regarding Barnett’s vision, which basically states that building a better mousetrap is not the right approach when the mice can innovate. Doing so implies that the enemy stays static while we propel forward, which we know is simply not the case.
-Shlok
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