Maybe Kotkin missed the fact that the US is the only superpower with super responsibilities. The rest are bit players with bit responsibilities. No disrespect intended, just reality. Now imagine the US disengaging with every minor power about a specific region, it adds up to isolationism.
The Captain
And as Kotkin noted in the interview:
You remember when our strategic doctrine was to [have the ability to] fight two major wars in two major theatres simultaneously. Then Obama comes to office, and he reduces that to 1.5 major wars in major theatres. Have you ever seen half a major war? I haven’t.
Then Trump comes along, and he reduces it to one major war and one major theatre. So we have alliance commitments—obligations to allies—in at least three major theatres. Our strategic doctrine is we can do one at any one time.
So, our commitments exceed our present capabilities. If we are to focus on the Pacific, then Europe/NATO needs to pick up the slack in Europe.
Or we need to expand our military.
DB2
The result of believing that the Peace Dividend would last for ever.
Kotkin seems to think that Trump’s unorthodox (undiplomatic) methods will produce the desired results. One must remember that Trump did OK in Mafia controlled NY, that’s his Alma Matter. Putin is just one more Capo. Also remember that the FBI got Scarface on tax violations, not real, notorious Mafia crimes.
Catching Capone: How a Tax Evasion Charge Brought Down Chicago’s Most Notorious Mob Boss
https://www.wttw.com/chicago-stories/al-capones-bloody-business/catching-capone
The Europeans are now talking the talk on boosting their militaries and see defense spending as a way to stimulate their economies. That’s a positive to me.
DB2
Putting subs in the Baltic is a really bad idea. Shallow, restricted, waters make it hard for a sub to hide.
Steve
[quote=“captainccs, post:19, topic:114349”]
Unmanned drones in the air, the sea, on the ground, and in space are replacing boots on the ground but generals and commentators keep fighting yesteryears’s wars.
[/quote
I watched this last night. About AI and military usage. Two things I found most interesting: One, the swarm tactic with drones. Two, and scarier, pharmaceutical research changed one parameter to seek out increased toxicity in drugs and came up with over 40,000 molecules over night with many that were more lethal than VX. Only used a run of the mill desktop iMac, no super computers.
JLC beat me to it, but with an excellent and most interesting summary source document in the form of the trailer video. I was especially struck by the utterly bland terrifying last sentence of the preview vid: “If not used wisely….”
That line at first made me laugh, and then made me very very somber. So much of what is mentioned is, if only weakly and faintly, already here now.
Two things to add, both regarding controlling drones and robots teamed with pilots and soldiers rather than bio-chemical warfare, where I have no expertise. Back in the 90’s I did do some contract research work on “intercommunicating autonomous weaponry” that did not amount to much (I worked on encryption of inter-drone communications), but connected me to some very interesting engineers. Some of them are still cranking away, and what is below reflects some non-classified conversations I have had with a few of them.
First, the USA’s elite military institutions have been quietly cranking on the subject Human Command and Control of Autonomous Units, albeit mainly post hoc rather than front running as Ukraine set everyones hair on fire.
Second, one of the (many) things misunderstood about the complex and insanely expensive F-35 is that it is the first significant test bed for designing, evolving, testing, and actually using inter-“swarm” communication and cooperation of the sort that the drones will need to jump beyond the extremely effective but primitive levels seen in the Ukraine War, so as to reach their full terrifying potential.
The USA now has a significant lead in that tech. Unfortunately the F-35 became an ultimate “everything and the kitchen sink” last gasp piloted fighter plane, and so the brilliant elements have been overshadowed by stupidity and a dose of shoddy, and the program is in danger of being butchered rather than re-focused.
Isaac Asimov’s robots cannot wage war
The Captain
That’s because they were programmed that way. Could just as simply be programmed to kill every human encountered.
The bioweapon research in the Netflix documentary, it was literally changing (at least how they presented it) the programing code line end from a 0 to a 1. Same could be done with robots/drones.
That’s what Asimov wanted to prevent.
The Captain