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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   36198 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of October 24, 2022

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From the Military Times 9/2021: The future of special operations may look a lot different than the GWOT aesthetic we’ve come to know

The article is old at this point, but I've seen recent discussion about it in various Twitter/YouTube areas and while that discussion was definitely one-sided, it was very much culture war.

The days of the burly, bearded dude in Oakleys as the face of special operations might be waning. Special operations forces need a different focus, the director of strategy, plans and policy for Special Operations Command Central said Monday

...

This following section got attention interpreted as saying that SOCOM was going to prioritize diversity hiring over meritocratic hiring

The other part could reflect SOCOM’s recent commitment to diversity and inclusion, which most notably, aims to recruit more women and minorities into SOF organizations.

“... but I think it is difficult for them to promote and bring on talent that looks different than them,” Crombe said of existing leadership, who came up not only in the time of the burly, bearded operator, but in a time where combat deployments meant more than any other measure of skill or leadership.

When someone has taken time out of the deployment churn to further their education or take a position outside the prescribed pipeline, “it just, it doesn’t compute somehow in these [selection and promotion] boards,” she said.

...

Emphasis added below, has been interpreted in the context of SOCOM as meaning people dying.

To do that, SOCOM will have to put people it wouldn’t normally select into leadership positions, but also learn to be okay with the results if it doesn’t all go smoothly.

“And I think that that’s probably the biggest diverse takeaway,” Haver said. “It’s going to look different than probably a lot of people are comfortable with, and we’re going to have to be uncomfortable moving forward. The goodness and that is that it’s a team effort.”

The article does a bad job of contextualizing it, but SOCOM historically was not just direct-action combatants. US Army Special Forces (Green Berets) got their start as the eponymous "military advisors" working with and training various US friendly guerilla groups or US friendly governments dealing with US unfriendly guerillas/rebellions across Asia and South America. During GWOT (global war on terror), something like extracting/apprehending intelligence targets became much more common1 and the need for highly trained door kickers to do that work grew. In a post-GWOT environment, there could be an argument for going back to roots, deemphasizing combat experience and emphasizing ability to integrate with local forces but this is not that.

It's notable that the main thrust of the article is that what has been considered one of the more meritocratic parts of the military will need to go the DEI route and seems to try to caveat that any potential reductions in effectiveness are acceptable costs. This in the background of a looming recruitment crisis.

1: linking only as a point of reference on operational tempo, rest of that story is a whole different iceberg. The related increase in operational tempo at the bottom of the pyramid and pulling in other MOSs to meet demands is where the "basically infantry" meme comes from.

Seems like a part of a general trend within the US Armed Forces.

Two days ago the secretaries of the Army, Navy, and Air Force have jointly published an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal. Since it's behind paywall, I will quote the entire thing and boldface the part that stands out to me as relevant to this conversation:

An all-volunteer military has defended the U.S. for nearly 50 years. America’s soldiers, sailors, airmen, Marines and guardians stand shoulder to shoulder with allies and partners to defeat tyranny, prevent war and defend the freedom that allows democracy and prosperity to thrive.

As the U.S. refocuses on rising challenges from China and Russia, the armed forces are confronting a generational recruiting shortfall. As global threats loom, our respective services face a shrinking pool of qualified and willing applicants. Military communities are increasingly isolated. A strong U.S. job market in which there are nearly two open positions for every person seeking work increases the difficulty of attracting recruits. But the nation needs defending, even when the job market is historically strong.

As the civilian leaders of the Army, Navy and Air Force, we join to ask every young American to consider serving in the U.S. military. If you seek a life of purpose and passion, if you hope to invest your talents in a cause bigger than yourself, if you want to belong to a community of people who also choose to serve, you can find that connection and more in the armed forces.

This is an exciting time to serve. Since the end of the draft gave way to the all-volunteer military in 1973, new technologies have emerged that shape how we engage with those who seek to do us harm. Today more than ever, the armed forces need data scientists, coders and engineers as much as we need pilots, submariners and infantry. If you join, you’ll get the chance to change lives, use technology and develop skills that the private sector can’t match. You’ll serve in every part of the world, protecting freedom and responding to crises with the skills to make a difference. Our goal is to recruit and build a force that looks like America, and so we are working to strengthen and support diversity, equity and inclusion for all who serve. Whether you serve three years or 20 years, there are ample opportunities for tailored professional and personal development. You’ll do work that matters.

We know that there are misperceptions about the military that might keep people from joining. We are providing unparalleled training and educational opportunities for our service members and investing billions of dollars in housing and quality of life, while also changing policies that are more in step with what this generation has come to expect from the best institutions. We are finding new ways to help young Americans meet our necessarily high standards.

To do all these things, we are counting on policy makers, schools, religious institutions, and families to reinforce the importance of service and the opportunities it provides. Members of Congress, we ask for your support as we work on solutions to the recruiting challenge. We ask civic leaders and educators to open your communities to active-duty military and veterans, especially in places where we haven’t adequately invested in the past. To parents and families, we ask that you give us the opportunity to share all that we’re doing to make the military even more of a place for the next generation to grow and thrive, including our unprecedented commitment to making the military a place where all who serve can be free from harassment, discrimination or abuse.

To our veterans, we ask that you tell your stories of service to the greatest nation in the world. Most of all, we ask young Americans to join us—and to write your own stories of service to our nation.

The military can and must do more to recruit and retain America’s finest, but we need America behind us. We must ask ourselves how we can help ensure that there is a new generation able and inspired to carry on the nation’s proud, selfless and distinguished legacy of service. You can write your own story of service to the country.

Ms. Wormuth, Mr. Kendall and Mr. Del Toro are, respectively, secretary of the Army, Air Force and Navy.

Maybe this is good (actually, hear me out).

There is definitely a place for the 6'5", 300lb psychopath with a 140IQ who can skydive into a warzone, storm a compound, and save the proverbial princess/kill Osama Bin Laden.

That is some version of "most scariest war fighter imaginable".

But there might be another version of "scariest warfighter imaginable" that looks more like a stinky overweight hacker who can build anything out of scraps and could take the bus into conflict zone and demo a bridge using materials he can find at the grocery store. Or who can build improvised drones out of things at the toystore.

I think there is a place for elite hackers in the military, too. Having known what some of the military's hackers look like, they aren't anywhere close right now. It seems like Tier1 guys get a lot of leeway in the way they want to work, so long as they provide the results that are asked of them.

I think the CIA is sortof kindof trying to fill this role right now, but unfortunately the problem is that the stinky annoying autistic genius hackers I'm talking about would never, ever, ever pass the interview.

None of this should come at the expense of the 6'5" pipe hitters. We should have both.

There always has been room for the elite hacker in the military, their spot was military intelligence, R&D (DARPA has been similarly prestigious), or Psychological Ops. This seems like another step intended to spread SOCOM's prestige across the broader military (similar to making berets part of the standard Army uniform a few decades ago).

stinky overweight hacker who can build anything out of scraps

Most of the actual competent techies aren't stinky, aren't overweight (that's a low class thing) and had you paid attention in chemistry you'd know you can't blow up a bridge without explosives that aren't sold in a grocery store. At least not in this century, before 1950 you could probably buy dynamite in rural stores all over the US.

Also, why are you talking about hackers in context of army special forces ? Hackers belong to NSA, CIA and maybe some airforce intel and EW units, not 'special forces' which typically means doorkickers (i.e. assault troops), enemy territory recon forces and such.

You actually could but it would be very difficult/dangerous (you would need several grocery stores worth of acetone and peroxide)

TATP is not going to be practical for taking down a bridge. Skip that and just make nitroglycerin, you'll only probably kill yourself doing it.

IIRC it's nontrivial to buy large amounts of nitrate these days without a documented need, precisely because nitric acid's required to make nearly all the good explosives (not just nitroglycerin; nitric acid + easily-available stuff would also suffice for RDX and TNT). That's part of why crazy shit like TATP gets used; the terrorists know it's ludicrously unsafe, they just can't get dynamite (the other part is that counter-terrorists have scanners for nitrogen - I think it's either NMR or X-ray - and again TATP's one of few options that won't show up).

Most peroxide in stores is hopelessly dilute. Plus, even if you got the good stuff we used in lab in university you'd kill yourself before accomplishing anything.

A home freezer suffices for getting arbitrarily-dilute peroxide to 20% or so (the first eutectic's at around 45%, but I don't think most home freezers get cold enough).

you'd know you can't blow up a bridge without explosives that aren't sold in a grocery store

Pool supply store and sporting goods before we are able to buy from a construction supplier. Not a grocery store but also not controlled.

Being plain looking in much of the world now is also being slightly overweight, would not be surprised if many CIA field people were.

Manufacturing something like a person's weight in high explosives exclusively from 'pool supply store' is .. kinda difficult.

Remember that every normal country locks down nitric acid supply down fairly tight, you have to either do something crazy dangerous like TATP or start with sulphuric acid and work up from there.

Why would the US need a militarized McGuyver? They have the world's largest defence budget! They're supposed to have the best of everything, it's the Taliban and Al Qaeda who are building things out of scraps, in a cave. If worst comes to worst, they can facilitate some deniable AKs or Eastern Bloc weapons from some recently vacated Libyan military depot (that was what they did in the Arab Spring for Syria) or buy things on the black market.

Elite hackers would be useful though, I saw this unsourced but believable complaint about DoD computers being garbage. There is a need for cultural change, as expressed by their other cyberczar who left complaining.

(long) https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/42733/ex-air-force-software-chief-eviscerates-pentagon-for-already-having-lost-the-ai-race-against-china

(short) https://www.breitbart.com/national-security/2021/10/11/pentagon-software-chief-resigns-warns-we-have-no-fighting-chance-against-china-in-a-i-wars/

/images/16667629962590604.webp

But there might be another version of "scariest warfighter imaginable" that looks more like a stinky overweight hacker who can build anything out of scraps and could take the bus into conflict zone and demo a bridge using materials he can find at the grocery store. Or who can build improvised drones out of things at the toystore.

Somehow I doubt this is the endgame that these initiatives envision.

Yeah I know. I think it’s more that they see “special forces operator operations operative” as high status, and therefore a prize to be won.

I was just having fun steelmanning it.

The overweight part and other medical issues can complicate things pretty quickly. But it's not like the military community is allergic to weird nerds. Mike Vining joined the Army to do two things, climb mountains and play with explosives and he ended up a founding member of Delta. Not the typical image of an operator operating operationally at least.

I'm sure a lot of people knew this but the bottom left picture instantly made it obvious to me that Jeffrey Donovan's character in Sicario and Soldado is based on Mike Vining.

I'm mostly kidding about the overweight thing. Most of the really good hackers I know are also in really good shape (they see their body as another thing to hack).

We should have both.

I'm sure the autistic geniuses can explain party-based specialization dynamics to the brass.

Perun seems to have taken off by doing just that. Though maybe less autistic, and more defense-economist-turned-strategy-game-youtuber-turned-defense-economist-youtuber.

But the overlap between build-strategy and force generation strategy is actually pretty strong.

I'm really enjoying the idea of a Special Forces operative whose main job is maximizing GDP because MOAR ECO means trivial investments in the future results in disproportionate Dakka Dividends.

Kronan Da Kunnin has interesting things about the implications of loot distribution matricies in a teef-based economy.

Now I'm imagining a really smart goblin trying to explain that concept to Ghazghkull Thraka without getting immediately eaten.

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