RPMA/Revolution in Political and Military Affairs: A blueprint for BFEE?

During President Clinton's era the neo-conservatives began to dominate many think-tanks in and out of the Pentagon.

For whatever reason, many of our military leaders became politicized.
Donald Rumsfeld and his advisors in DoD are committed to what they call "force transformation", as well as the Revolution in Military Affairs/RMA-the streamlining of our military for the 21st century.
RMA link (from 1994)
http://www.datafilter.com/mc/rmaWarCollege.html

I've been intrigued, for years now, how an occasional paper from the USAF written (in 1996) as a futuristic speech to graduates of an officer's training program after a military coup in the US seems to describe the unfolding of world events since the sElection of George W. Bush aka The War President.

For example: "...RPMA-Fourth Epoch war theory perception that a revolution in political and military affairs (RPMA) is taking place.
Far larger than a revolution in military affairs (RMA), this historical transition will result in the eventual demise of the nation-state, the blurring of crime and war, and the rise of new polity forms."

Sheesh, that sounds a lot like today imho.

Here is a link to Revolution in Political and Military Affairs/RPMA
Occasional Paper 11 of USAF Institute for National Security Studies (INSS) titled "Melancholy Reunion: A Report from the Future on the Collapse of Civil-Military Relations in the United States" by Charles J. Dunlap, Jr.
http://www.guerrillacampaign.com/coup.htm

I, for one, would be interested in hearing comments about RPMA, which seems to be about the efficacy of military coup.

imo.

I hope the first actions that Kerry takes will be to fire the current military heads, Meyers and Eberhardt, in particular.

officials in the military, intelligence and FBI after George W. Bush took office.

I think it was a "purge" by the neo-conservative elements-hell, they even call themselves "the shadow government". They took over key supervisory slots within a very short period of time with their own "team players".
:scared:

It is a theoretical construct which was created for the purpose
of making PNAC look feasible. It originated in the period after
the collapse of the USSR, when the US MIC was in the midst of a
search for a new mission, a new raison d'etre, I remember
the sense of panic at the time, and the ultimate aim was to
fend off defense downsizing.

The only really suitable mission for a military organization of
the size of ours is ruling the whole world, or at least a large
portion of it. The fact that that mission is not feasible for
the USA in the 21st century is of no account in the defense business,
they stopped worrying about making real-world sense a long time
ago, and they have gotten away with it for a long time because of
the massive economic and military advantage that we once enjoyed.

So anyway, the underlying idea is simple, we will - by use of our
soi disant "overwhelming technical advantage" - circumvent the
facts: that we do not have the support of the American people for
the enterprise (still!), do not have the troops, do not have the
economy, and do not have a suitable collection of allies for the
enterprise. All will be made well by our "shock and awe". It is
a desire to return the situation of overwhelming technical and
economic advantage we once enjoyed WRT the native populations of
N. America, and it is almost pure make-believe.

The technical advantage is real, but far from sufficient for the
intended purpose, as we are now finding out in Iraq, and this has
always been clear to those whose business it is to make things work
and to students of history, as this sort of hubris and insular
group think is far from new in ruling classes that become insulated
from reality.

as force-multipliers by this crew.
But that hasn't stopped them from making fortunes for contractors they are linked to.

I'm all for the ways and means to defend our nation, but not this unilateralist PNAC bullshit-that seems a major blunder--euphemistically speaking.

It is a crime to misuse our military for any other purpose than defense. I feel they have used our GI's to further some hidden agenda, based on lies and the 9/11 attacks-which were warned about from many sources, as we are only now beginning to hear about.

All empires that relied solely on superior technology and militarism have failed.

I don't want that to happen to our nation. It is what our veterans of all our wars have fought against. It is betrayal imo.

in this country for a bit over one hundred years. McKinley
started it with the Spanish-American war, the colonies in the
Phillipines and Hawaii, Puerto Rico, etc. It's main function
is to distract from domestic political agendas and unify the
nation with a jingoistic foreign policy agenda. The rhetoric
and political routines have changed very little since then, and
it is an agenda that the Republicans and Democrats share, while
they sometimes vary on the details. Mr. Bush and his minions
fall squarely within the past historical record both in terms of
agenda and methodology. These are the same people pursuing the
same agenda as in VietNam, but with much diminished resources, and
they seem to be even more incompetent than in the 60s and 70s.
We almost had a successful third party movement in the VietNam
period.

I personally think this is their last gasp, the fat days are gone
and they will have to rule competently or be removed, and they
are intellectually and morally incapable of ruling competently,
and that has been repeatedly demonstrated, so they will have to
be removed, there will have to be a political revolution, new
political parties with new leaderships and mechanism to prevent
this sort of hijacking of the political system by a ruling oligarchy.

"The technical advantage is real, but far from sufficient for the
intended purpose, as we are now finding out in Iraq, and this has
always been clear to those whose business it is to make things work
and to students of history, as this sort of hubris and insular
group think is far from new in ruling classes that become insulated
from reality."

What you said! Bravo, bemildred! The Project for a New American Century appears to have overestimated our influence by 99 years.

I only thank gawd that Bush did not have the diplomatic skills of Clinton, who might have been a far more effective President in making this pipedream come true. It is amazing the strength and reach of American influence that Clinton gave America....yet only a handful of soldiers died during his 8 year term.

:kick:

Disappearing the DeadIraq, Afghanistan, and the Idea of a "New Warfare"


Project on Defense Alternatives Research Monograph #9
Carl Conetta
18 February 2004

Among those endeavors that a state or a people may undertake, none is more terrible than war. None has repercussions more far-reaching or profound. Thus, a grave responsibility to one's own nation and to the global community attends any decision to go to war. And part of this responsibility is to estimate and gauge the effects of war, including the collateral damage and civilian casualties that it incurs.

As the experience of both the Afghan and Iraq conflicts suggest, estimating the casualties of a war can be as controversial as the war itself -- although this should not be the case. The number of casualties incurred in a war does not by itself decide the strategic meaning or wisdom of that war. It is only one variable among others in an equation that includes, for instance, an assessment of the ends that a war is meant to secure and the threat that it is meant to address. An estimate of collateral damage is critical in one sense, however: without it, a true cost-benefit analysis of a war is impossible.

In some circumstances, attention to collateral damage is more urgent than in others. Its importance may vary inversely with the perceived necessity of a war, for instance. When war is literally forced on a nation -- as it was on the Alliance powers in the Second World War -- the prospect of suffering casualties and adding to collateral damage may not be pivotal in the decision to take up arms. A threat to national survival trumps all other considerations. But when a prospective threat does not immediately imperil national survival, or when a contest turns on the need to broadly win hearts and minds (as does the war on terrorism), then the issue of collateral damage (as well as other war costs) may loom larger in debates about how to proceed.




Project on Defense Alternatives Research Monograph #9
Carl Conetta
18 February 2004


Table Of Contents
Introduction
1. War and perception: the battle to enable American power
1.1 The evolving American calculus of war
1.2 The media, casualty intolerance, and asymmetric warfare
1.3 The public information battlespace after 9/11
1.4 Perception management in support of Enduring Freedom and Iraqi Freedom
2. Shaping the public discourse on civilian casualties: case studies
2.1 Spinning the Iraqi market place bombings
2.2 Framing the air attack on Baghdad
Waging lawfare
Strategic bombing and the illegality of air defense
3. Framework propositions on war casualties and collateral damage
3.1 Claims about "precision attack" and the "new warfare"
3.2 Claims about damage limitation efforts
3.3 Assessing the claims
4. Precision attack and the new warfare
4.1 Have America's recent wars been "low casualty" events?
US personnel attrition
Adversary casualties
4.2 Results may vary: How measures of accuracy mislead
Errors: systematic and contingent
A 2,000 pound scalpel?
Closing the precision gap: the continuing relevance of brute force
"Precision warfare": A triumph of branding
5. Damage limitation and "military necessity"
6. Casualty agnosticism
6.1. A failed news frame: "it's not our fault and it's not a story"
6.2. A more effective frame: casualty agnosticism
What does the World Trade Center bombing teach us?
Casualty agnosticism in the Iraq war
Media impact
6.3. Assessment of casualty agnosticism
Leveraging uncertainty
The most intensively reported wars in history
The quality of media coverage
Managing uncertainty
Making policy in an uncertain world
7. "We don't do bodycounts": the irrelevance of enemy combatant casualties
8. Conclusion: The strategic significance of the casualty issue
8.1. Acceptable casualties
8.2. Effects on the ground
8.3. Impact on world opinion
8.4. Strategic consequences
8.5. Filler for the precision gap
8.6. America's damaged discourse on war

http://www.comw.org/pda/0402rm9.html

such as the expectation that our military being used in roles they aren't trained or equipped for would lead to dissent by command.

I'm willing to bet that that is a rationale being used to hire mercenaries today.

Another valid point would be the rise of post-modern militarism, something the neo-cons are exploiting imo.

the usually locked and hidden doors of the shadow government for US to enter, figuratively.

Even if you've signed a secrecy contract, it's ok to speak out about national security issues being mismanaged by the George W. Bush administration and the neo-conservative criminals that have gotten another 10 US GI's killed and dozens more wounded today.

Silence could lead to a real collapse of civil-military relations imo.

it is not hard to believe that the radical neocons included not only the executive branch, intelligence services, the Congress and the judiciary. They clearly have enjoyed overwhelming support in the military leadership as well.

If this is true, then it is too late for our country and perhaps the world. Orwell was right.

which was reprinted in today's (4-5-04) Common Dreams

The Architects of Bush's War
http://www.commondreams.org/views04/0405-02.htm

of our fine US officers in the Pentagon. We saw one example from last June with more stacking of the deck, ideologically and politically, rather than basing promotion on real merit, in his choice for the Army Chief of Staff.

I'm sure the feuds are continuing.

intelligence instigated by the neo-conservative element in Rumsfeld's DoD, The Office of Special Plans/OSP, against the CIA. This seems to conform to RPMA.

Seymour Hersh profiled OSP last May.
http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/?030512fa_fact