Fantastic explanation and analysis, thank you! I am old enough to remember the Vietnam War as a military/ political ‘adventure’/ disaster when a little kid learning to read the newspapers. Another good example of key combatants having completely divergent time horizons, scope of war theatre, and objectives strategies. Which on the part of allies, turned out to be unrealistic. Am very troubled that, right now, so many lessons from living memory have been forgotten.
Hi Lucy, thanks for taking the time to read this and write this. Your comment on divergent time horizons is really important. It is one area where politicians, strategists, the business community and citizens need better alignment! All the best, Mick Ryan
Thank you. This retired academic of very little brain, albeit with three years experience as an NCO fifty years ago, finds it incredibly informative. The only thing I find missing is an appreciation of human limits: how fast can people act? how long can they endure? how often can they go into the breach?
Mick, this is a magnificent of the concepts of time and so well researched! Thank you for continuing to break this down for non-experts.
Going back to duration, you can look at western democracies and know that short duration wars are preferable, but the US is the poster child for the need for short duration. Unlike Europe, which has unfortunate experience with long duration conflicts going back hundreds of years, the longest war the US fought was really against itself (4 years, US Civil War) and even it’s time in WWI and WW II were shorter and far less costly in human terms.
One could argue Vietnam was longer, and in calendar time it certainly was, but it was not the intense short of conflict on a frequent basis that was WW I or WW II, and did not come close in the US causalities that other wars experienced. Iraq and Afghanistan as you note fit into the category of long duration and low intensity conflicts, but these also included “nation building” exercises that did not pan out so well.
With all that being said, time is one dimension, but the idea idea in intensity, which I define as high frequency AND high impact (commitments of mean and materiel) also matter. Ukraine is involved in a high intensity conflict...they are fighting for their existence, but the West, because they are not experiencing the intensity and urgency, treat this on a different time scale and thus clearly have a different set of objectives or wider objectives.
Would be curious to get your thoughts on these ideas!
Fantastic explanation and analysis, thank you! I am old enough to remember the Vietnam War as a military/ political ‘adventure’/ disaster when a little kid learning to read the newspapers. Another good example of key combatants having completely divergent time horizons, scope of war theatre, and objectives strategies. Which on the part of allies, turned out to be unrealistic. Am very troubled that, right now, so many lessons from living memory have been forgotten.
Hi Lucy, thanks for taking the time to read this and write this. Your comment on divergent time horizons is really important. It is one area where politicians, strategists, the business community and citizens need better alignment! All the best, Mick Ryan
Thank you. This retired academic of very little brain, albeit with three years experience as an NCO fifty years ago, finds it incredibly informative. The only thing I find missing is an appreciation of human limits: how fast can people act? how long can they endure? how often can they go into the breach?
Great insights Mick, you are next level mate - keep stretching us mere punters :-)
Mick, this is a magnificent of the concepts of time and so well researched! Thank you for continuing to break this down for non-experts.
Going back to duration, you can look at western democracies and know that short duration wars are preferable, but the US is the poster child for the need for short duration. Unlike Europe, which has unfortunate experience with long duration conflicts going back hundreds of years, the longest war the US fought was really against itself (4 years, US Civil War) and even it’s time in WWI and WW II were shorter and far less costly in human terms.
One could argue Vietnam was longer, and in calendar time it certainly was, but it was not the intense short of conflict on a frequent basis that was WW I or WW II, and did not come close in the US causalities that other wars experienced. Iraq and Afghanistan as you note fit into the category of long duration and low intensity conflicts, but these also included “nation building” exercises that did not pan out so well.
With all that being said, time is one dimension, but the idea idea in intensity, which I define as high frequency AND high impact (commitments of mean and materiel) also matter. Ukraine is involved in a high intensity conflict...they are fighting for their existence, but the West, because they are not experiencing the intensity and urgency, treat this on a different time scale and thus clearly have a different set of objectives or wider objectives.
Would be curious to get your thoughts on these ideas!