Comments on: Visionaries point the way to success in the age of 4GW

By: Jason

Jason — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 16:39:33 +0000

Guilio Dohet (and later Brig Gen Doolittle) was an air power visionary, and many analysts tried to develop doctrine and material based on his views. I don’t think air power took the turn that he thought it would. I honestly don’t understand your point with the five characteristics of visionaries - if they use any one of those steps (let alone more than one), in my opinion, it’s almost doomed to mistrust and derision. Visionaries are certainly a part of the process, but not a necessary part. Lots of bland doctrine and concepts are successfully made the process while ignoring the visionaries.

Minor point, you say “Premature use of Barnett’s ideas led us into Iraq.” Nooooo, I would suggest you mean “Premature beliefs in Barnett’s ideas led the Bush administration to believe it could succeed in a preventive attack against Saddam’s regime.” I think there’s a difference between the desired situation and endstate that led “us” into Iraq and the belief that “we” could actually suceed by ignoring the Weinberg/Powell doctrine.
.
.
Fabius Maximus replies: The visionaries kickstart the process. The actual development probably seldom follows their vision (that would be expecting too much). I think air power fits my model quite closely. Visionaries like Billy Mitchell, Sir Hugh Trenchard, and Giulio Douhet were “prophets”, and did the heavy work of selling the vision of air power. Their work hardly fits your alternative of bland doctrine and concepts. Doolittle was a fine example of the pioneers who take visions and make them work.
.
I do not understand your second paragraph. I could take my phrase and add in all the intermediary links, but that was not my point. It’s a flaw in English that a sentance can be written without an actor — I hope it was obvious that the actors of the sentence, those who used Barnett’s vision, were the senior civilian and military leaders in the Bush Admin (Barnett had, probably still has, many fans in DoD).

By: Joshua Foust

Joshua Foust — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 03:45:20 +0000

Fabius, you’re right about that. I’m not saying visionaries are worthless, just overvalued. There is a very bad wheat to chaff ratio, in part because everyone knows being one is very profitable. Many shucksters try to become one.
.
.
Fabius Maximus agrees: Yes, the pay is better for successful visionaries than analysts and it requires mostly imagination. Made to order for hucksters and geniuses. Like whole milk: the cream and scum rise to the top.
.
My primary point was that visionaries are a necessary part of the process.

By: Adrian

Adrian — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 02:36:03 +0000

Barnett is a visionary, it’s just…. not everyone agrees with his vision. Some (me) might argue that we need a different vision, one that isn’t nakedly imperialist. Very Boydian solutions to 4GW - toys, ideas, people. In reverse order!
.
.
Fabius Maximus: Exactly. That is the point of this series. There are analysts and visionaries, the foundation of the process. Then solutions of the first, second, and third kind.

By: Joshua Foust

Joshua Foust — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 01:22:38 +0000

Do you really think the problem in Iraq is that Barnett’s ideas were good but just prematurely implemented? Barnett, recall, thinks Kosovo represents a repeatable model for toppling recalcitrant regimes and building news states in their place. He thinks the biggest problem facing Iraq was that we didn’t somehow convince China, Russia, and NATO to each contribute 30-40,000 troops (”you just need more diplomacy” was his explanation). He ascribes to a toxic view of economic determinism that thinks the way to solve terrorism is wealth creation. In “Blueprint for Action” he made competing lists of which countries in which order he would like to invade and conquer.

Sorry for the rant, but while I would call Barnett a visionary, I would also call him a classical example of why the ideas of visionaries should be held at arm’s length and examined thoroughly for B.S. before buy-in.
.
.
Fabius Maximus: I doubt there are any solutions not first described by visionaries.

As for Barnett, would the invasion and occupation of Iraq been different if we had the super-duper System Adminsitration force advocated by Barnett? It is, as described in his books, very wonderful. I think we can plan to run the world … after building and financing such a force..
.
To cite a quote from my article “The Myth of Grand Strategy“:
.
“With that out of the way, man has turned to the only challenge yet. Conquering other men. That’s our problem. If you knew, you could defeat any army in the world today with a smaller army. You might say it is a simple little plan to conquer the world, which I am sure any politician or militarist would delight in.
.
“…Is there a plan to conquer the world? Yes, of course. You could conquer the world with 150,000 men. Provided, the rest of the world wanted to be conquered. Hah. You see, it takes the cooperation of the losers. A brilliant plan that was impossible. Generals like those sort of thing. ”
“The Destroyer # 2, Death Check”, by Richard Sapir and Warren Murphy