Let me review, at his challenge, the ten themes Scales set forth about future war in 1999. Mind you, it speaks well of him to predict the future and then stand by them when the future approaches. As he notes, predictions about future war shouldn't be about getting the future right, it is about not getting it too wrong to win.
I'll do them one at a time in separate posts. Let me preface this effort with my warning from my 2002 Military Review article (starting on p. 28) about the projected FCS that was the primary weapons system envisioned by those planning efforts:
Barring successfully fielding exotic technologies to make the FCS work, the Army must consider how it will defeat future heavy systems if fighting actual enemies and not merely suppressing disorder becomes its mission once again. The tentative assumptions of 2001 will change by 2025. When they do, the Army will rue its failure today to accept that the wonder tank will not be built.
The first theme from 1999 is:
1. Increase the Speed of Operational Forces as a National Priority
If future wars are to be won at minimum cost, they must be won quickly. The strategic speed of an early-arriving force is best achieved by lightening the force sufficiently to allow it to be projected principally by air.
Two things.
One, speed of deployment can conflict with power to win. That essay fell through the cracks of an abandoned ten-year anniversary contest and was not published. But the Army did note it after I put it on my blog on Stand-To! in the what's being said in blogs section (TDD? Really? TDR, please)
Two, fear of casualties which restricts efforts to win a war fast can extend a war which will increase casualties in the long run.
So I clearly didn't buy this theme on the assumptions of the age. No Army that can be airlifted can win a war.
But the fact is--and this is actually a good fact reflecting on our geography--potential battlefields are far from America, and getting to them and sustaining forces there until they win make us grapple with the conflicting factors of power and speed; as well as the facing the dilemma of winning far from home in wars that don't threaten our existence, which reduces tolerance for casualties.
I'm grateful America doesn't have to plan to stop an invasion and doesn't have to be willing to endure 30 million military and civilian dead to achieve it.
More to follow. I hate committing to a series when the events of the day flood by demanding (well, from me, admittedly) my attention. But this seems important.
