Delete comment from: Elements Of Power
Hi Guys,
Yeah, I'm obviously not too impressed with Pournelle on this either, and some of it may have to do with his health so I'm not going to keep picking at him any more than it's required. He's got a good defense background that is pretty broad, but as he has also spent about all his time getting that background by thinking about defense--after he left the Army as a young man anyway--at pretty much the 50K-foot level, he's got little grasp of the nuts and bolts of the technology infrastructure he ponders. He co-wrote a little book once about "The Strategy of Technology" that I can't fault on concept. but I have a hard time dealing with it when it comes to details. For instance, he avoids reciting the TFX (F-111) myths on the one hand, but on the other hand he doesn't get it (the story) quite right -and in important ways-either. There's a world of 'big thinkers' out there that couldn't perceive a viable course of action to turn their big ideas into reality to save their souls, but seem to think they have it all solved just by pondering it in the first place: the "Policy Guys". Pournelle strikes me as a Policy Guy, and even though I probably agree with 90%+ of his politics and principles, his ideas for 'executing' same usually leave me cold. He may have a wonderful grasp of the human condition, but none at all about the state of modern military technology and their capabilities. One of the most frustrating things in dealing with people who think we rely too much on technology is that they tend to underestimate the degree to which what is important about the tech is the way humans leverage it. We KNOW the 'Ultimate Weapon is the Mind of Man' and we just work to give them the best tools for those minds to use. Most of the disconnect among people who disagree on 'defense' in good faith has nothing to do with doing either what's best or not -- it's about what's best in the first place. The Faux Reformer's major mission in life seems to be ensuring meaningful dialog about what is best never happens, and so churn out a lot of noise that even guys like Pournelle lap it up.
Well, I'm rambling so its best to quit while I'm behind. (Long Day)
Almost forgot. Yeah, powers in the Army have on more than one occasion made it clear they really don't want 'fixed wing' aircraft in numbers because the care and feeding requires significant fixed base operations and complex supply lines. The Army finds it ever so cheaper to place a claim on Air Force budget and overhead. Read Tolson's "Airmobility" http://history.army.mil/html/books/090/90-4/index.html, and enjoy the agonization just over the basing and drain on resources the Army had to deal with keeping their Caribou, the 'angst' over not being able to forward deploy them, and the ultimate transfer to the AF where they were forced to 'coordinate' with another service, yet had still to admit the AF did a good job in the end.
Jan 30, 2015, 11:35:05 PM
Posted to Pournelle CAS Fail