H&I* Fires, 20 MAY 2007

Re: Barnett I admit to being very attracted to his way of thinking. Partly because things seem to be going that way even if I dont like it and a lot of it proves out over time. However, I prefer things clear and plain - unfortunately the world isnt. Barnets view does deals with this fact. My major turnoff with Barnets's strategic view; the domestic political situation may not support it no matter how perfect it may be. Regardless of the "truth" of the situation, todays politicians and the citizens themselves are not up to the price of or the commitment to "finishing what we start." IE: Embrase Sys admin as a real need. And, our enemies know it. We the country and military did not loose the war. We the people are losing the peace and we just dont deem to be learning from our political setbacks (I do believe the military is fast at adapting). Which makes us look, feel and be - pretty stupid.

My take on it is a tad different. We have a populace to carry the job's, what we don't have is corporations willing to pay the work base. So instead of seeing advancement, opportunities, and raises, we see jobs that used to pay $15 and $17 per hour (such as sheet rockers etc) being dragged down to $10 and $9 per hour. Thus creating a whole new list of people in the unemployment line: American citizens. Who then because of the focus on migrants, immigrants and specialized social service systems can not get 85% of the benefit programs our, and previously their tax dollars went too. A third aspect is number. "To fill jobs, Spain looked abroad. Immigration rose from 57,000 in 1998 to more than 600,000 for each of the past two years. The biggest influx, about 800,000 since the mid-1990s, came from Ecuador, followed by Morocco and Romania. Spain, unlike France and Germany, places no restrictions on immigration from the EU's new members in the old Soviet Bloc. Many from other countries arrived under the radar: An estimated 25% to 35% of the current immigrant population is illegal. But Spain has been generous with amnesty, granting legal status since 2000 to more than 1 million who could prove that they were employed." We have twice those numbers in illegal immigrants alone. I doubt Spain would have been so charitable with their borders had they also seen the 50% DWI Arrest rate we have regarding immigrants. Kinda makes you wonder why our friends South of the Border don't go back to Spain instead of coming here. Heh. /cynical sarcasm.

Ask Barnett John. That was a paraphrase of the man himself from his brief on C-Span(should be available via their on-line store). The Corps goes to Sys-Admin. Army gets shrunk a bit and is totally Leviathan(go in, kill, break stuff, in a very netwarfare centric fashion.) The Marines become the slightly more trigger puller oriented element of Sys-Admin force, since it isn't the Koombaiya peace corp. What gets pared off the Army gets funneled into the new Dept of Everything Else(the MOOTW jobs nobody in the Services really wants) to go along with the Corps. I'm not mainlined into Barnett's mind. If I had to guess I'd say it comes down to the difference of how he wants the SysAdmin force peopled----older sheepdogs with families--- vs how Leviathan is peopled(younger people with a tendency to go kinetic as first option that work real well in that role when it's Clobberin' Time.). I tend to agree with that a bit. I'm not real big on Swiss Army knifing the Army. Sure, people are capable of doing it. But people are also lazy and don't realize their potential at times. Look at the resistance we're seeing on many fronts. It's that resistance that forces us, creates the necessity, to avoid that---how many Academy grads, and secondary mil(like staff and command or war college) grads, still think in terms of attrition?). It's a rare guy/gal who has the temperament to do COIN stuff well at a young age, IMO(dataless facts in Barnettian language). Older dawgs tend to get it. So we go that way. We just roll with the demographics, akido style, to get the results instead of going agro in restructuring and dealing with the confusion of what the job is in a good number of the rank and file. But that's mostly my guess of what's rattling around Barnett's head. He does have comments enabled people. You may not get him, but you will get one of his 'gradstudents/devotees' to explain it. And books and the brief(try C-Span, or failing that try NDU since he's been there a couple of times) that largely lay this out. Or bug Dan over at TDAXP or Zenpundit. They've got better grasps than I do. I've been emphasizing more on China, InfoWar, and Operations level stuff than his Grande Strategy stuff lately(so that explains some of my schizoness of late, but not all. Is there anything that explains my odd behaviour? Proll'y not. Oh, a shiny rock.(Bliss)).