A while ago, I wrote an article on the intersection between science fiction and national security with Crispin Burke of Wings Over Iraq. Now Burke has done me one better and actually applied this framework we wrote about to Transformers II. This is a pretty hilarious review of the movie's many flights of fancy (most significantly of which is the idea that the Chinese would allow us not only infringe their national sovereignty but shoot up a major Chinese city in order to catch two runaway robots). It's also a somewhat biting satire of the current COIN vs. Major Combat Operations (MCO) debate in American defense policy.
I think it also highlights how played out the whole debate is in general. What I'd like to see more in debate are the following things:
- The overall policy set for American security policy. With the QDR released, we have more material to judge this from. The first priority of the armed forces is to accomplish the policy, COIN or no COIN.
- The way the policy is executed through ends, ways, and means.
- The accuracy of the lessons we are supposedly learning through study of foreign conflicts such as the 2006 Lebanon War and the 2008 Georgian War. The way Americans often perceive foreign conflicts is very different from the way the combatants themselves it.
- A realistic assessment of political and material limits we face in crafting strategies.
As Mark Safranski and I pointed out in another article, we can argue until we are well, to take another sci-fi reference, blue in the face about the impact of respective theories. But until we really get to the foundational elements of the Policy we are not really going to go anywhere. I think the wonderful aspect of Burke's post is how it exposes the staleness of the back-and-forth exchange. There's also the Megan Fox pictures, which is a perennial theme of his blog in general.
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