The Auron MacIntyre Show - Machiavelli, Technology, and the Soldier ｜ Guest： Lafayette Lee

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00:00:29.760 Hey everybody, how's it going?

00:00:31.460 Thanks for joining me this afternoon.

00:00:33.760 I've got a great stream with some returning guests.

00:00:37.340 Talking about Machiavelli and some of his thoughts about soldiers, technology, the battlefield,

00:00:43.680 and kind of the eternal problem about how infantry and technology interact.

00:00:48.800 And for this discussion, I thought I'd bring on two of my favorite veterans.

00:00:53.540 I've got American Ostracon and Lafayette Lee.

00:00:55.940 Thanks for joining me, guys.

00:00:57.320 As always, Oron, it's a pleasure to be here.

00:01:00.260 Yeah, thank you for having me on.

00:01:02.660 Absolutely.

00:01:03.220 So when I was reading through Machiavelli's discourses on Livy, you know, he talks about

00:01:11.240 all kinds of great stuff, of course, politics and, you know, formations and what binds a

00:01:16.120 city together and all kinds of the stuff that you would expect in political theory.

00:01:20.760 But he also talks a decent amount about the military, which, you know, a lot of people

00:01:25.120 when they come to political theory, they keep these things very separate, right?

00:01:29.300 They don't talk too much about, you know, the military aspect.

00:01:33.320 They think about the political power dynamics, but they oftentimes don't mention the military.

00:01:39.220 But for Machiavelli, of course, in the time he's living in, these things are very inseparable

00:01:44.200 because, you know, these Italian city-states are in constant conflict.

00:01:48.780 And so the thing that a prince would do with his military is as essential constantly to the

00:01:55.600 way that he would rule his people.

00:01:57.320 And one of the things that he kind of opens up with as he's talking about this is artillery.

00:02:03.620 You know, and he says at this time, everyone is very on to this idea that artillery is going

00:02:09.200 to make the soldier obsolete or that warfare is fundamentally changed and you don't need

00:02:14.660 any of the old skills, any of the ancient skills of like the Romans or anyone like that,

00:02:20.040 because artillery has just completely changed the nature of the game.

00:02:23.920 And it's going to more or less put kind of the standard army to the wayside.

00:02:28.160 And it reminded me a lot of conversations that Ostracon and I have had about, you know,

00:02:34.620 people constantly think that technology is going to make soldiering obsolete that, you

00:02:41.900 know, whether it's artillery in Machiavelli's day or planes or nuclear weapons, like there's

00:02:48.960 always this idea that technology is going to come to the forefront.

00:02:52.340 But it's going to eliminate the need for kind of the capable, brave soldier.

00:02:57.220 It's going to change the battlefield entirely.

00:02:59.140 And you're going to not need that kind of element that you've always had in traditional

00:03:04.220 military forces.

00:03:05.400 But it's interesting that Machiavelli was, you know, was interacting with that question

00:03:09.980 in his day.

00:03:10.660 And it's even though we're hundreds of years later, it's one that we still hear constantly.

00:03:15.920 So we'll go through a bunch of different aspects of this.

00:03:19.520 But I just wanted to kind of get your general thoughts on this first.

00:03:24.660 Lafayette, what do you think about kind of this constant struggle between the growth of

00:03:30.840 technology and kind of the assertion that the soldier will be made obsolete or will no

00:03:35.820 longer need the classical skills of a soldier on the battlefield?

00:03:38.460 No, this really resonated with me because coming kind of from an infantry background, I've

00:03:44.220 been hearing this since I was young and then throughout my time in the military is just

00:03:48.260 this idea that technology can make infantry obsolete.

00:03:52.060 And we've been hearing this for a long, long time.

00:03:55.100 And so I'm one of those people who have seen kind of both sides of this coin in a military

00:04:01.700 context.

00:04:02.320 And I just don't ever see that actually happening.

00:04:05.580 I think I think this focus on the virtues of a good soldier, these ancient virtues are

00:04:11.100 as relevant as ever.

00:04:12.740 And I think if we really look back and do some soul searching, we'll see that losing touch

00:04:17.820 with those virtues is often precisely why we go astray and why we lose wars that we believe

00:04:24.380 are winnable.

00:04:25.900 Yeah, that's a really important aspect.

00:04:27.220 And we should definitely explore that more as kind of we get deeper into the talk.

00:04:31.860 But Oshkong, kind of your initial thoughts on technology and obsolescence of soldiering,

00:04:36.220 that kind of thing.

00:04:40.160 I don't know.

00:04:40.880 He might have gotten stuck on mute there.

00:04:42.180 Oh, there he is.

00:04:43.400 Who got lost there?

00:04:44.420 Was it me?

00:04:44.940 Nope, you're there.

00:04:45.620 I got you.

00:04:46.260 Go ahead.

00:04:47.020 Could you ask the question one more time?

00:04:48.760 Yeah, sure.

00:04:49.360 It's just, you know, just getting your initial thoughts on, you know, we'll get deeper into

00:04:53.760 but your initial thoughts on kind of the assertion that we're going to have kind of soldiers become

00:05:00.120 obsolete because we hit that critical threshold of technology where soldiering is no longer

00:05:04.760 necessary.

00:05:05.280 So like I was kind of talking to Lafayette Lee about before we got started is technology

00:05:12.380 is going to make a good soldier better.

00:05:18.020 Technology will not make an ineffective soldier effective.

00:05:22.920 So technology is a force multiplier for the infantryman or for like a, you know, somebody

00:05:30.420 on the ground with a rifle.

00:05:32.480 But at the end of the day, it can't replace that skill set, that ethos, and that warrior

00:05:39.940 mindset, if you want to call it that, that has to be ingrained through training and discipline

00:05:47.700 and, and time.

00:05:49.400 And I would argue, I also argue through, it's a multi-generational effort to get a, an effective

00:05:57.800 soldier.

00:06:00.200 Yeah, that's another good point that I think is really essential is that continuity of,

00:06:06.760 and tradition that's required to actually build that level of discipline.

00:06:11.760 So I guess maybe we could start with that first, you know, in, in the discourses on

00:06:18.480 Levi, Machiavelli specifically gives the example of the Romans and kind of their three tiered

00:06:23.920 system of possible retreat where you had kind of the first level of the infantry would engage.

00:06:32.080 And if they were defeated or needed to, you know, retreat, the formation was created in

00:06:37.780 such a way that they could back into the second line that would then come fresh to the forward

00:06:42.700 and they would be able to reinforce and continue the battle.

00:06:46.560 And there was even, you know, then the third line that could do the same way.

00:06:49.740 And the, you know, the, the infantry was drilled with such discipline that they would

00:06:54.960 constantly be able to bring kind of a new ferocity to the front whenever one line needed

00:07:00.480 to pull back, meaning that really you had to defeat the army three times over due to the

00:07:06.980 ability of them to then bring the rest, you know, the fresh line back up after the original

00:07:12.440 retreat.

00:07:13.280 And he says that in many ways the idea that technologies like artillery in his day, or,

00:07:22.140 you know, we can just sub in, you know, planes or, or whatever, drones, whatever from our

00:07:27.000 current day, that the reliance on this technology and thinking that, you know, we no longer need

00:07:33.200 that level of discipline.

00:07:34.620 And maybe as to Ostrakhan's point, the generational training that comes with it means that, you

00:07:41.800 know, you lose that, you lose that key feature that eventually needs to break through when

00:07:47.380 both sides have the same thing, when both sides have, and, and he says this again in the

00:07:51.600 discourses, he says, you know, the, you know, the Romans are fighting the Latins and

00:07:55.420 really the, they, they seem pretty much like the same people.

00:07:58.480 The only difference is really this, this incredible discipline and obstinance that the Romans have

00:08:04.280 in battle that the Latins don't.

00:08:06.180 And that's due to that drilling, that dedication.

00:08:09.420 And so when you have two sides that have equal levels of technology, the key is going to make

00:08:14.800 sure that you still have those core essential elements of soldiering and that training that

00:08:19.780 you need.

00:08:20.160 Right.

00:08:22.220 So if, if you've got two equally, yeah, if you have two combatants who are technologically

00:08:27.340 equal or, or close, it will come down to discipline and training and, and, you know, to, to determine

00:08:36.000 the effectiveness on the battlefield.

00:08:37.440 But it, you know, on, on very lopsided engagements where, where, you know, look at the, you know,

00:08:46.440 we don't like to talk about this a lot because I'm, I'm sure Lafayette Lee feels like I do.

00:08:51.900 I don't like to lose in any game I play.

00:08:54.320 Um, and, um, and obviously combat is not a game, but it's also, I, I don't like to say

00:09:00.440 this, but we obviously did not achieve our mission in Afghanistan and we failed there.

00:09:04.980 And you have a, an enemy force that is completely technologically inferior to us.

00:09:11.120 And yet they still had that will to endure 20 years of combat to the point where we just

00:09:18.460 kind of went home.

00:09:20.680 So, you know, technology in, regardless of our technological advancements, they were still

00:09:28.000 capable of achieving their goals.

00:09:29.900 Uh, even though they were completely inferior in their technology beyond the most basic

00:09:34.780 of, of rifles and, and improvised weapons for the most part.

00:09:40.780 Yeah, I, I kind of, you know, to piggyback off what you said, something that I think is

00:09:44.280 important is in this day and age, we often talk about how, um, we are becoming more and

00:09:49.240 more disembodied in this, in the modern age with, you know, technology is a major driver

00:09:54.660 of this, but I think kind of returning to what you were saying about how sometimes we

00:09:59.020 try to separate, you know, sex and violence from power, which makes, doesn't make a lot

00:10:05.200 of sense.

00:10:05.580 And this goes for war is that we are becoming disembodied from war making and from violence,

00:10:12.020 which is a major, it's a, it's an essential part of who we are as human beings.

00:10:16.340 It's part of our nature.

00:10:17.200 And I think, I think you're right.

00:10:19.420 I think when you look at these conflicts, the American soldiers becoming more and more

00:10:23.260 disembodied from the art of war or war making.

00:10:28.060 And at the end of the day, if you have two peers, whether they're, it's a, it's a completely

00:10:32.440 symmetrical conflict, or if it's an asymmetrical conflict, I think we're really seeing that,

00:10:37.400 that, you know, what he would call Machiavelli call these ancient virtues of really do matter.

00:10:42.580 And that if you have an end, if you are, have superior technology, but you do not have a

00:10:47.880 cause, you do not have a population support, you know, these other deeper things, if you

00:10:52.740 don't have courage, bravery, discipline, you're not going to win, especially in protracted

00:10:58.060 conflicts.

00:10:59.720 No.

00:10:59.940 And to piggyback off that, I a hundred percent agree with you where we've had this, we're,

00:11:06.740 we're very sterile in the United States, as far as separating our killing for having as many

00:11:14.640 degrees of separation from, from, from killing the enemy.

00:11:19.040 You know, I've often kind of wrestled with this and, and knowing your background, you may have

00:11:23.760 too, you know, why is it that, you know, everyone, when it comes to like a combat pilot who, who,

00:11:31.300 you know, drops the bomb on the enemy and has like more degrees of separation, nobody really

00:11:35.740 blinks an eye when like, you know, talking about, oh, oh, you know, he's got a really

00:11:40.900 cool job and, and what he does is very interesting.

00:11:43.700 You know, I'm talking about like the civilian population, not, not within the military, but

00:11:47.420 like nobody, nobody looks at them strangely.

00:11:50.980 Whereas, you know, you tell them you're, you know, you're somebody who's been in close

00:11:55.300 combat with the enemy and you've, you've, you've killed people and, you know, you know, 50

00:12:00.200 meters away from you or, or closer.

00:12:02.100 And then everyone looks at you and, and thinks you're a bit odd or a bit strange.

00:12:06.820 And it was just, um, that, that was always something that kind of, and it still does bother

00:12:11.060 me a little bit.

00:12:11.620 It's like, was it really just the distance between, you know, the enemy being killed and,

00:12:16.540 and, and the, the technology used is how you're going to judge me as an end of.

00:12:22.020 Visual.

00:12:23.620 Yeah.

00:12:24.060 I, I know this sounds a little, you see what I'm getting at?

00:12:27.040 I know.

00:12:27.280 Maybe I'll explain that particularly.

00:12:28.640 Well, I think, you know, not to interrupt you, but I, something I love is if you look

00:12:32.520 back at like Jim Webb, who Jim Webb was always a hero of mine growing up, um, you know, this

00:12:38.680 is a guy who, who, who led troops in combat in Vietnam and then wound up on the, in the

00:12:44.480 political arena.

00:12:45.180 And I just, I recall back in the, in the 2016 democratic primaries, they were asking it.

00:12:52.420 Like, I think it was like Anderson Cooper was like asking all the candidates on the stage.

00:12:55.980 Like, so, you know, which enemy are you most proud of defeating or something like that?

00:13:01.340 And everybody was like naming things like the NRA or like the very abstract.

00:13:06.600 Yeah.

00:13:07.140 All these like abstract political things.

00:13:09.160 And Jim Webb just was like stone cold.

00:13:11.520 And he just, he said something about like, I would have to say it's probably the enemy

00:13:15.740 soldier that threw a grenade and wounded me, but he's not around to talk about it right

00:13:19.760 now or something like that.

00:13:21.000 And it just horrified everybody in the audience, you know, everybody like mouths agape.

00:13:26.200 And I mean, he got a lot of flack for that, but I think it speaks exactly to kind of what

00:13:30.500 you're talking about is distance, even a cultural distance that we have from this.

00:13:35.720 I just, you know, even like the collapse of Afghanistan, how it went without very much.

00:13:41.060 I mean, there's a lot of anger, I think, of the veterans community, but there was just,

00:13:44.040 it was so, it was, it was just completely like, you know, three weeks later it was over

00:13:49.320 and 20 years of all that was just up in smoke.

00:13:53.120 It was almost like it never had happened.

00:13:54.880 And it was just an incredible moment.

00:13:57.000 And, and to, to even talk about it outside of, let's say the veteran community that served

00:14:02.880 there is, is almost taboo.

00:14:05.900 And it's, it's, it's something that's really, yeah, it's something that I've really kind

00:14:12.160 of had to wrap my head around where, you know, when we're talking about, you know, government

00:14:17.040 waste, but then you mentioned Afghanistan and I was like, oh, we're not going to talk about

00:14:20.100 that thing.

00:14:20.680 It's like, really?

00:14:21.620 Because I spent most of my young adult years dealing with that conflict.

00:14:26.100 And now you just kind of want to sweep it under the rug.

00:14:28.980 Exactly.

00:14:30.100 Yeah.

00:14:30.360 But anyway, we can, we can move on from, from this specific situation, but yeah, I agree

00:14:37.400 with you though.

00:14:37.820 Like the, the levels or the degrees of separation between us and, and, and killing, um, are very

00:14:44.820 much, uh, is something that Americans seem to care very much about.

00:14:50.060 Well, I do think this is important though, because this, I think then speaks into the topic

00:14:55.800 you, you, you kind of mentioned, uh, there about, uh, the generational thing, right?

00:15:01.420 The necessity of kind of having that knowledge, that discipline, that, uh, those values kind

00:15:07.800 of baked into your society so that when you draw soldiers from it, they're not, it's not

00:15:13.960 completely alien to them.

00:15:15.340 Right.

00:15:15.560 And you and I have talked about this so many times, ostracon, how, you know, as you often

00:15:20.060 say, you know, the, the, the army was at war, America was at the mall and America is just

00:15:25.480 so removed from the physical necessity of safety and conflict and those kinds of things.

00:15:32.720 Not just, and not just with the military, but every aspect of life, you know, people

00:15:36.160 have a hard time even understanding, you know, where their food comes from.

00:15:39.260 Cause you can't imagine the idea of killing an animal for, for food, just like these, these

00:15:43.760 basic things about the rhythm of life and the connection to kind of what is necessary

00:15:48.020 for a civilization to continue are really critical because then when you start drawing on a population

00:15:53.760 for, you know, the defense of that nation, you have a generations of people who have been

00:15:59.660 completely removed from this.

00:16:01.480 And this is why I think instances of things like PTSD and such are, uh, are so prevalent now

00:16:08.300 is that people are just completely alienated from the necessity of combat and conflict

00:16:14.020 when it comes to life.

00:16:15.440 And so when they are forced to interact with it, it's even more shocking.

00:16:20.240 And when they come home, there's no one to talk to about it.

00:16:22.980 There's no, there's no one else who shares those, uh, experiences.

00:16:26.560 And when you have a force like that, it's very difficult to train subsequent generations

00:16:31.740 and instill them the value of kind of needing, you know, that, that martial prowess and that,

00:16:36.480 and kind of the honor of it, the necessity of it and the skills that it takes.

00:16:41.900 Yeah.

00:16:42.420 I, you know, something that I, I think you hit on, it's really important is that when

00:16:47.000 you talk to the civilian population, when they float, like when they start discussing

00:16:50.620 something like PTSD, you know, the, the vet veterans that everybody recognizes that this

00:16:56.860 is something that exists within the population and that in varying degrees, depending on the

00:17:02.060 person, depending on their experiences, and there's actually quite a much more broad range

00:17:07.080 of what PTSD is or PTS is some people would say.

00:17:11.320 Um, but one of the things that I think is always overlooked is that it, the problems or

00:17:18.660 maybe the issues that people come back with, which has that broad, you know, variance between

00:17:24.100 people, it is made so much worse when they go into, it's almost like going into a dream

00:17:30.680 world where all the existential realities that you were exposed to in the military, and then

00:17:36.040 you also distributed those, uh, your stress, your, the anxieties, you're solving problems.

00:17:43.600 You, you distributed this within a group, right?

00:17:46.500 You know, whether you were engaging in some difficult, you know, uh, you know, task or whether

00:17:51.900 you were dealing with the trauma of what you're going through together as a group, but then

00:17:56.280 you come out into this very alienated, disembodied plane back in the civilian world.

00:18:01.380 And then the, the, the solution to it is go sit on your hands in a corner.

00:18:06.120 We'll give you a lot of drugs.

00:18:07.600 We'll give you maybe some money every month and you're, and you become, you're just, you

00:18:12.280 know, you kind of just sit in your obsolescence.

00:18:14.280 And, and I think, I think that without understanding how damaging that is, we can't really wrap our

00:18:20.960 hands or, you know, our arms around PTS within veterans.

00:18:24.960 And I think it, it's interesting to me, you know, reading Machiavelli, you see these, these

00:18:30.440 values and virtues.

00:18:31.960 I mean, these are time tested, they're ancient.

00:18:34.400 And, and I, I really think that that is where we are, we are not really grappling with those

00:18:39.340 things.

00:18:40.260 No doubt people in the past warriors in the past develop, you know, they had trauma through

00:18:45.260 their combat or through their experiences.

00:18:47.160 But I would venture to guess that we struggle so much more today with, with those types of

00:18:53.400 things than maybe they did back then, because you're, you're, you're sending these soldiers

00:18:58.700 back into this disembodied plane where the population is so disconnected from existential

00:19:05.660 realities.

00:19:06.280 The culture is, is, you know, treats those things with hostility rather than understanding

00:19:12.120 them.

00:19:12.460 So there's really no place for you when you get back.

00:19:16.220 Oh, that was, I mean, you've hit the nail on the head.

00:19:19.660 This is what I've always been angry about.

00:19:21.660 It wasn't, listen, I knew what I was getting into, right?

00:19:25.700 I, I trained.

00:19:29.900 To engage and destroy the enemy in close combat of the, the enemies of the United States of

00:19:34.220 America.

00:19:34.540 It was never about like, I knew what I was getting into.

00:19:37.880 I knew the risks I would have to take.

00:19:40.720 And I knew that, you know, there was a very real chance that I would have to kill people.

00:19:45.460 And I made my peace with that.

00:19:46.860 You know, we were trained to be soldiers and warriors.

00:19:50.080 What really hit hard is when I came back to the States and everyone looked at me like I was a

00:19:54.700 garbage man or looked at me like I was strange because I had done those things on the behalf of my

00:19:59.680 government.

00:20:00.040 My government says, we need you to be a soldier.

00:20:03.580 We need you to destroy the enemies of the United States.

00:20:05.780 It's like, all right, I'm on board.

00:20:07.220 This is the task and it's a noble task and one that is required for the stability.

00:20:11.720 Well, you can argue against it these days, but, you know, at the time required for the

00:20:16.140 stability of the United States and, um, and its interests.

00:20:19.680 And I was on board with that.

00:20:20.960 It was when, you know, people treated me like I had cancer when I came back home because I had

00:20:25.960 actually done the job required that really bothered me.

00:20:30.300 You know, it was, it was, yeah, okay, fine.

00:20:32.980 The stress and the, the, um, the difficulties of combat were, were hard, but they were nothing

00:20:39.580 compared to being treated like a social pariah when I came back to the United States.

00:20:43.580 And my personal answer was that I never really did come home.

00:20:48.580 And my solution was to continue to work for the government and work for the military.

00:20:54.760 Um, you know, and, and that was, that was the only way, cause it was just all the same

00:20:58.360 people I had served with in Afghanistan or in similar situations because back home is

00:21:03.500 where they, I was rejected.

00:21:05.020 You know, when I went back to the States, that's, that's where people treated me like,

00:21:08.600 like I had a disease and the first solutions that they gave me for my mental issues is,

00:21:14.560 Hey, take a bunch, you know, take a bunch of, of drugs that are going to turn your brain

00:21:18.700 to jelly.

00:21:19.420 You know, I asked the doctor when I first came back, it was like, Hey, what's the primary

00:21:23.760 side effect of, um, you know, these, these antidepressants that you're considering putting

00:21:29.460 me on.

00:21:30.040 And it's like, well, it'll most likely reduce your sex drive by like 50 or 60%.

00:21:33.820 And it's like, brother, you, you think I'm, if you think I'm depressed now, you're going

00:21:39.280 to turn my brain into jelly.

00:21:40.520 And then I can't, you know, perform as like, guess how depressed I'm going to be after

00:21:44.620 that.

00:21:45.840 And it was really coming to the point where what I found out was there, this came from

00:21:54.040 a good friend of mine who I worked with, who was, who was British SAS.

00:21:57.780 And I really had a hard time struggling.

00:21:59.520 And I told him all about this and he said, you know, at the end of the day, you don't

00:22:05.040 have to be like everybody else and you don't really have to conform.

00:22:08.580 You can live a life that, um, where you don't have to seek the approval of these people who've

00:22:15.920 never had any of the same experience as you and never will understand you.

00:22:19.260 And it's okay that they don't, but you don't have to live in that world anymore if you really

00:22:23.980 don't want to.

00:22:25.480 And, um, I never did.

00:22:27.580 I just kind of went back to work and, and lived and, and did jobs where I was with the

00:22:32.260 same community of people, but that's not really an answer for everybody, right?

00:22:36.040 Not everyone who comes back from war can then just completely, you know, choose to reject

00:22:42.360 society or be rejected by society.

00:22:45.320 And then, you know, basically come to an epiphany where they, they can go and completely change

00:22:50.400 their lives to where they can live a life that's completely separate from the society

00:22:54.760 of which they served.

00:22:55.840 And it's also not healthy for, for the overall wellbeing of that society.

00:22:59.960 But that was, you know, that's, that's why my handle is American Ostracon.

00:23:04.740 It's because, um, you know, I, I feel like in an exile from my own country after I fought

00:23:12.660 her wars.

00:23:13.640 Um, and my only way to really keep my sanity was to, to leave and continue to serve the

00:23:20.980 United States, but to serve it in such a way that I wasn't back in the States.

00:23:24.340 Cause those, that was the part I, you know, it wasn't the war that gave me a hard time.

00:23:30.020 It was coming back home.

00:23:31.260 That was the real challenge.

00:23:32.340 Well, and, and like you said there, you know, that's very dangerous for the health of a society

00:23:37.800 for a lot of reasons, one of which being your military force is encouraged basically to

00:23:43.840 separate itself and just not identify with the rest of the, uh, of the populace and the

00:23:50.080 populace, um, you know, isn't, they don't know soldiers.

00:23:53.340 They're not involved with soldiers because such a small percentage of that kind of thing

00:23:56.760 makes it very easy, um, for the government to separate, um, the loyalty of the soldier from

00:24:02.180 from the body of the populace, uh, which is always kind of a recipe for disaster.

00:24:08.640 Um, but, but to kind of pull us back a little bit into the technological aspect, but kind

00:24:12.680 of still pointing to the unhealthiness of the abstraction here, the, the separation of

00:24:18.240 the, of the soldier from kind of the focus of what's going on.

00:24:21.820 Um, one of the issues that I think a technologically based focus of the military does is it tends

00:24:29.700 to abstract the military from kind of the actual effective solutions and wellbeing of the soldier

00:24:36.440 and kind of the, the ability of soldier to do their job.

00:24:38.720 So like one, one example that I've read, uh, there was reading one book and they talked

00:24:43.020 about how, you know, kind of with IEDs in the war on terror, you have this situation where

00:24:48.600 obviously you're losing a lot of soldiers to these very cheap, um, you know, uh, mass

00:24:53.600 made bombs.

00:24:54.660 And the solution of the military was to go out and invest, you know, like billions of

00:24:59.960 dollars into some kind of aircraft that could fly above the battlefield and was supposed to

00:25:05.340 in theory, be able to detect these IEDs on the road and provide warnings and everything

00:25:11.140 for this.

00:25:11.740 And they sport, they poured so much time and money into this operation, this technological

00:25:17.520 solution, and it never really worked.

00:25:20.040 So billions of dollars down the drain made, made no real, uh, tangible benefit for the

00:25:24.960 soldier, but we didn't have money to better armor the vehicles, the soldiers were in, or

00:25:30.540 to provide better armor for the soldiers.

00:25:32.420 I'm sure everyone remembers that push to like send body armors to soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan.

00:25:37.420 So we didn't have money to, to properly outfit soldiers on the ground, but we had billions

00:25:43.240 of dollars to pour in a technological solution for something that never really worked when

00:25:47.840 the more practical wellbeing of soldier could have been found in a much more low tech and

00:25:52.500 practical way.

00:25:54.900 Yeah, no, I think that's exactly right.

00:25:56.960 It's interesting how these things echo when it comes to technology.

00:26:00.460 If I'm, if I'm not mistaken, I think, uh, um, I want to say it was, it might've been

00:26:07.420 it might've been David Hackworth from Vietnam, but I believe he said something.

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00:26:17.280 on the barbecue that was carefully selected by an Instacart shopper and delivered to your

00:26:21.500 door, a well-marbled ribeye you ordered without even leaving the kiddie pool, whatever groceries

00:26:27.580 your summer calls for Instacart has you covered download the Instacart app and enjoy $0 delivery

00:26:33.760 fees on your first three orders, service fees, exclusions, and terms apply.

00:26:38.420 Instacart groceries that over deliver.

00:26:41.480 He cited that 60% of all casual air American casualties in Vietnam were either by booby traps

00:26:49.040 or landmines, very cheap.

00:26:51.060 You know, these are, these are very cheap.

00:26:53.360 They're easy to in place, but they do massive damage to soldiers in the, in the field, but

00:26:58.440 they, and then they also strike a great psychological toll as well.

00:27:03.820 And that, and that this was one of the most difficult things for them to contend with in

00:27:07.860 Vietnam.

00:27:08.120 And it's interesting how even after Vietnam and we go through decades later and we, you

00:27:13.540 know, we start talking about air superiority again, and we start talking about how technology

00:27:17.060 will make infantry obsolete.

00:27:18.320 We find ourselves in the same situation in Iraq and lesser extent Afghanistan with some of

00:27:23.620 these things, but where these really cheap improvised weapons, booby traps are being used against

00:27:30.140 soldiers.

00:27:30.580 And it's having, it's having the same disastrous effects.

00:27:34.680 And our answer is, seems to always be trying to remove the soldier out of the equation.

00:27:40.900 You know, we don't double down on discipline.

00:27:42.940 We don't double down on even, look, we might spend a lot of money on training, but we always

00:27:47.180 want to find that quick, easy technological fix.

00:27:49.940 And I think that that's kind of a, to me as a soldier, just now that I'm on the outside

00:27:54.320 of it, I'm not going to go soldier again.

00:27:57.540 It worries me about up and coming generations because I see the same, the same desire to

00:28:02.500 outsource the, the old things, the traditional things, the things that human beings have relied

00:28:08.320 on for a long, long time to just quick and easy technological fixes.

00:28:13.580 We see that all over.

00:28:14.700 And, you know, this kind of tech nerd dominion thing that we're living under now, you know,

00:28:20.180 that that's also taking a toll on the military now, and it's not just going to set us up

00:28:25.160 for failure, but a lot of good people are, are, are going like a lot of good potential

00:28:30.240 soldiers are going to be failed by this approach to solving problems by always trying to resort

00:28:36.800 to a quick technological fix.

00:28:40.900 So, yes, I, here's good news, bad news.

00:28:46.400 So bad news, here's the problem is, is the more we rely on technology and get away from

00:28:51.120 discipline and, and basic soldiering skills, when we reach or we go into a near peer conflict

00:28:58.800 where we actually have, you know, soldiers, fighting soldiers, you know, um, what's going

00:29:05.340 to happen is that first six months to a year are going, we are going to be underprepared

00:29:13.080 for that conflict, whatever that conflict may be.

00:29:16.680 And unfortunately, what's going to happen is those who are currently serving when that

00:29:22.980 conflict arises are the ones who are going to pay the price with their lives.

00:29:26.840 I, I don't think we're so far gone that once, here's the thing, the first conflict or the

00:29:35.600 first battle, let's call it, that we have where we suffer really egregious casualties where

00:29:42.460 a lot of people die, it will be a wake up call to the old ways where the, the basic soldiery

00:29:49.620 skills will be revived, but it won't be until after a lot of people are killed.

00:29:55.340 And that's really what it's about.

00:29:58.160 When we, when we discipline now where, you know, it's the old saying a pint of sweat is

00:30:03.880 worth a gallon of blood and it's true.

00:30:06.600 Eventually, I think we will always flex back and be able to produce capable, effective soldiers,

00:30:13.320 but it's about how long it will take to, you know, how many people have to die in order

00:30:19.660 for, you know, these, these very liberal, high-minded ideals of, of technology, replacing soldiers

00:30:26.800 are still going to, before they finally are put to rest, because it's what we always do

00:30:31.220 in between conflicts.

00:30:32.580 It's like, no, no, we can rely more and more on technology.

00:30:35.480 And then at the end of the day, a lot of people get killed reliant on this technology without

00:30:41.760 much training or discipline.

00:30:42.900 And then you have to go back to these old basic lessons that we have to relearn over

00:30:47.600 and over again at each new conflict until we finally produce an effective combat soldier

00:30:53.340 again.

00:30:54.320 But a lot of people didn't have to die in the interim to, if we just stuck to our guns and

00:30:59.900 actually followed the rules and discipline and the training that we keep seeming to forget

00:31:05.200 between each major conflict.

00:31:06.460 Well, it's interesting too, because, you know, one of the things that Lafayette kind

00:31:11.500 of pointed out was how much the, the things, the problems on the battlefield do mirror kind

00:31:17.240 of our problems in kind of current civil civilization and then how those things kind of reflect each

00:31:23.560 other.

00:31:23.900 One of the things I think about when it comes to these, uh, advancements and the reliance

00:31:29.720 on, uh, you know, complicated, interconnected technological systems is their maintenance, right?

00:31:36.100 One of my buddies, I'm sure you guys have seen harmless yard dog on, on Twitter.

00:31:40.360 You know, he's one of his tweets is, you know, the, the, the regular maintenance of complex

00:31:44.520 systems is their greatest weakness.

00:31:46.980 And, you know, the battlefield is the ultimate stress test, right?

00:31:51.100 This is where, you know, obviously the stakes are insanely high.

00:31:54.980 They're as high as things get their, their life and death.

00:31:57.280 They're, they're the continuation of the nation, depending on the nature of the conflict.

00:32:00.660 Uh, and also this is the place where things break down.

00:32:04.420 This is where obviously, you know, you're, you're, uh, in high degrees of, of stress.

00:32:09.800 You know, you have everything that could be going wrong, uh, you know, shocks to the system,

00:32:13.940 attacks on infrastructure, uh, direct efforts by your enemy to hijack or, or otherwise undercut

00:32:20.220 your technological infrastructure.

00:32:22.080 These are all parts of modern warfare.

00:32:24.700 And so having that underlying discipline seems really important because if you don't have

00:32:30.880 the ability, if you, if you've built this really complex technological machine and you've

00:32:35.240 built all of your training and, and made your military entirely reliant on the application

00:32:41.420 of this, uh, highly complicated technological network, and then it's not properly maintained

00:32:46.760 or it's not properly, uh, rolled out or it's somehow taken out in the middle of the battlefield,

00:32:52.320 all of a sudden, you know, you lose this crutch that has been key to your, your training,

00:32:58.060 the thing that you've been built around.

00:32:59.400 And all of a sudden, if you don't have that level of discipline built in, then, you know,

00:33:03.680 that's a lesson you, you, you learn, uh, very quickly and at a very high cost as Ostracom

00:33:07.700 kind of pointed out.

00:33:09.320 Yeah.

00:33:09.760 I think one, one, you know, you talk about complex systems and the, the, the peers that are,

00:33:16.040 the adversaries that we've had to contend with over the past 20 years, which I think

00:33:21.120 we developed a lot of, of internal knowledge.

00:33:25.580 You have a, uh, a cohort of soldiers who know how to fight in a very nebulous environment.

00:33:32.580 Um, it was always, how do you, how do you navigate your own complex system, but how do you fight

00:33:39.620 an, an, an enemy that is continually adapting to the complexity that you're bringing to the

00:33:44.380 battlefield?

00:33:45.120 And that's something that is going to be, I don't think is going to be lost in a near

00:33:49.720 peer conflict.

00:33:51.100 And this is something that, you know, it's interesting.

00:33:54.380 I always kind of, I like returning to Vietnam because it can be more, it's harder to talk

00:33:58.560 about Afghanistan because most people actually have less knowledge about Afghanistan than

00:34:03.060 they do about past conflicts.

00:34:04.860 We haven't really reconciled with what happened there, but, you know, in, in Vietnam, we had

00:34:09.020 a situation where the American soldiers were demoralized in many units and they were getting

00:34:13.660 killed over and over and over again without ever really fully engaging the enemy, you know,

00:34:18.900 toe to toe.

00:34:20.400 And it took a lot of, uh, innovative field, like field commanders to be able to start

00:34:26.400 forcing, you know, forcing an adaptation to try to break down and kind of out G the G to,

00:34:33.320 to, to adapt a little bit to some of these guerrilla tactics that the Viet Cong were employing.

00:34:39.060 And they were able to do that with a lot of success in certain avenues.

00:34:42.060 But, you know, that's the thing is I always come back to this question because technology is

00:34:46.380 a great tool on the battlefield, no doubt about it, but you become very accustomed to

00:34:51.340 relying on it too much.

00:34:52.680 And if you can't adapt to your own complex system or the complexity that your adversary

00:34:58.180 is bringing to the complex system, you know, this is where the only thing that can fill

00:35:02.660 those gaps is that it's, it's going to be those ancient virtues of those soldiers and

00:35:08.700 commanders that are out there.

00:35:10.040 And if you don't have those, you're not going to be able to adapt no matter how technologically

00:35:14.480 advanced you are.

00:35:16.300 I mean, one of the things that's kind of really shocking when it comes to, you will take the

00:35:23.420 conflict in Afghanistan or you take a Vietnam because it's, the two are comparable, let's

00:35:27.500 be honest.

00:35:28.560 Um, is the tooth to tail ratios that the American military had versus like the Viet Cong.

00:35:35.360 Um, so for example, for, for every soldier, every combat soldier that you have on the

00:35:41.000 battlefield, uh, it was something like eight people were, were behind eight to 10 people

00:35:46.540 were behind that individual, meaning it required for every one on the battlefield, it required

00:35:52.080 10 individuals to maintain everything for that individual to be on the battlefield.

00:35:56.360 So like equipment and, and like the supply lines and everything else.

00:36:00.780 And then you look at like the Viet Cong, um, uh, tooth to tail ratio, and it was actually

00:36:06.080 inverse, meaning they could support two soldiers on the battlefield per, uh, with, with one

00:36:12.520 individual logistically behind them.

00:36:14.600 And that's, that's kind of the other side of the house when it comes to, uh, when you have

00:36:21.600 a new piece of technology, it's not just that that individual piece of technology that's on

00:36:27.200 the battlefield is an effective tool, which it can be.

00:36:30.940 It's also, you have to now look at this massive new logistical supply train that you've created

00:36:36.520 as a result of that one new piece of technology, which is like, when you hear people's like,

00:36:40.960 well, you know, why don't we just all use, uh, you know, uh, a new weapon system or a new

00:36:47.060 rifle on the battlefield, uh, chambered in something heavier or something different than

00:36:51.480 like five, five, six or, or, or, or, you know, seven, six, two, and you have to really look

00:36:56.940 at it.

00:36:57.380 Well, it's not just that you can't put that rifle in the battlefield, you can, but now

00:37:02.160 you're talking about an entirely new supply chain of logistics to get ammunition and replacement

00:37:07.620 parts and oil and every other little widget that you need to support that rifle.

00:37:14.080 And that's like a really relatively easy piece of equipment to interchange compared to some

00:37:20.260 larger pieces of equipment with much more complex supply chains.

00:37:24.300 So we, we have this really bad habit when the American military of coming up with this cool

00:37:29.080 new toy, but then not always, um, recognizing everything behind it required in order to support

00:37:36.180 that new toy on the battlefield.

00:37:39.620 So one thing I wanted to get to, and we've, we've kind of, uh, talked around the edges of it,

00:37:45.740 but I want to go ahead and, and, uh, address it head on here.

00:37:48.820 Uh, you know, technology in many ways is supposed to stand in for these, the disability to the

00:37:55.240 soldier.

00:37:55.820 Um, that that's what a lot of people, I think we're all kind of in agreement erroneously

00:37:59.980 believe is possible, but I think this is something that especially the American military is kind

00:38:05.120 of actively engaging in.

00:38:07.160 And I think one of the reasons is that kind of the, the current regime has, well, you know,

00:38:12.660 let's be honest, purged, uh, especially with kind of their VAX mandates, which are now gone,

00:38:18.320 but I think the damage is done to large part.

00:38:20.680 They, they sent the message and they were very effective in their targeting.

00:38:24.820 Uh, they, they've removed a large percentage of people who they don't think fit their political,

00:38:30.740 uh, profile.

00:38:32.120 Uh, they, they've eliminated a large section of kind of the historically central part of

00:38:38.800 the American military, specifically when it comes to combat arms, they don't want kids

00:38:43.480 from Appalachia in the military.

00:38:45.140 Uh, and they're, they're pretty clear, I think about that by the targeting of their political

00:38:50.400 purge.

00:38:50.960 And because of that, that means that they're relying on very different populations to be

00:38:57.540 part of the military.

00:38:59.220 And I think, you know, the, from the way that they've changed their standards, you know, the

00:39:04.760 way that they've changed, uh, different admission, uh, you know, and, and now that we look at the

00:39:09.540 kind of recruitment numbers and the impact that it's had, I think in many ways, they're planning

00:39:15.160 on making up for the lack of effectiveness of new troops with a technological, uh, aid,

00:39:23.180 right?

00:39:23.480 Like, well, we don't have to have hard charging infantry guys because at the end of the day,

00:39:28.100 drones are going to win this for us.

00:39:29.660 And so it's okay for us to kind of purge populations that might have been the core of our frontline

00:39:36.160 guys, you know, our rough and ready guys, because at the end of the day, we can always backfill

00:39:40.760 that with a bunch of, you know, kind of woke drone pilots or something.

00:39:44.500 And I was wondering what you guys thought about kind of the shift in the military, uh, the

00:39:50.080 shift on their recruiting, their shift on, you know, the, their politics inside and how

00:39:54.420 that interacts with what they, I think is this, this idea that they can just rely on technology

00:40:00.200 to make up the gap there.

00:40:02.560 Yeah, I, you know, this is, it's something that keeps me up.

00:40:06.200 It, it, it frustrates me a lot to watch this happen because I think you're exactly right.

00:40:10.260 I think they're taking a, we're going through that, that, that cycle where you're getting

00:40:14.860 these, these managerial types that are, are driving our military, like our policy on, on

00:40:21.220 training, on how we get, on how we get soldiers, what we do with them on the battlefield.

00:40:26.260 I mean, they're, it's infecting every part of the, every aspect of the military and it's

00:40:30.640 having, and what it's going to do that I don't think gets enough attention is it's going

00:40:36.200 to corrupt, it's going to corrupt the military in a very personal way, in an intimate way

00:40:41.780 between soldier and soldier, between their teams, their platoons.

00:40:45.380 It's going to, it's go, it's going to drive a dagger into the heart of the kind of cohesion

00:40:52.840 that you have to have, that the kind of truly meritorious, um, the, the merit that kind of

00:41:00.980 that ethos of merit and of sacrifice and those kinds of, and they're more ancient in origin.

00:41:06.880 I would say those are very important to holding a team together in difficult times and having

00:41:13.480 them do a mission that is, you know, every, every part of your, every part of your psyche

00:41:18.780 is screaming at you not to do right.

00:41:21.220 You're having to overcome a lot, not only yourself, but you're having to build a team.

00:41:25.700 You're having to build like a, a true functional unit that can perform in these kinds of conditions.

00:41:31.640 If you, if you drive this middle management corporate gobbledygook that, that throws off

00:41:39.040 that, that really fragile balance that you need for good leaders to be able to lead men

00:41:45.080 in, in battle, you're, you're going to have serious problems and it's not just going to

00:41:50.380 be at like a smaller, like unit level.

00:41:52.880 This is going to permeate throughout the whole force.

00:41:56.100 You know, we, we've seen this.

00:41:57.520 I don't think it gets enough attention, but it's like, we, we've seen this in the past where

00:42:02.100 this sense of corruption that takes place, that spreads in the military, you know, we've

00:42:07.260 been talking a lot about Vietnam.

00:42:08.260 That's a good example of this is that there was a, the, you know, when, when our, when our

00:42:13.240 military is focusing so much on body count.

00:42:15.320 And I think this relates back to technology because you could, you could really up your body

00:42:19.240 count with all sorts of, you know, with air cover with, you could, you could, you could,

00:42:25.220 you could, if you were able to engage the enemy directly with superior firepower, you

00:42:29.640 know, you could rack up the body count.

00:42:30.960 And then if, as long as you reported back the body count to hire, and then they broadcasted

00:42:35.900 that as evidence that you were winning, you know, this was how the war started to proceed.

00:42:40.160 So not only do you rely too heavily on body count, which is not a good metric for winning

00:42:45.640 a war, but number two, then you're also encouraging people to lie.

00:42:50.180 You're encouraging a sense of dishonesty that there is a level of honesty and integrity

00:42:54.780 you have to have in these kinds of conditions at the very least with the people that you're

00:42:58.980 with.

00:42:59.380 When you start driving these other, these, these things that we have now in corporate

00:43:03.540 America, you know, when you start pushing the diversity agenda, when you start, you know,

00:43:07.400 you're throwing off this balance, this cohesion, this sense of integrity that you have to have

00:43:12.200 within the unit.

00:43:13.180 And I really think that this like type of corruption, it's hard to measure.

00:43:17.100 It's hard to really understand unless you've been in it, but by throwing that off, it will

00:43:21.040 have devastating results.

00:43:23.060 Oh, it's, it's poison to the officer core.

00:43:26.040 You know, it's, it's, it's all once, once you make it to, to, you know, O3 or above, like

00:43:35.340 you're, you're so metrics driven and whether or not you're considered successful, um, where,

00:43:41.300 you know, have you, have you met the metrics for number of soldiers trained?

00:43:45.820 Yes.

00:43:46.720 Um, did X amount of soldiers, uh, score this well on this, um, on this shooting range event?

00:43:53.160 Yes.

00:43:54.060 Did all your soldiers, um, attend these six training events that they were required to attend

00:43:59.960 to include, you know, like your, uh, suicide prevention, regardless of the effectiveness

00:44:05.480 of the training?

00:44:06.240 Uh, did they attend their LGBTQ training?

00:44:10.360 Yes.

00:44:10.960 Did they attend their, um, you know, did they go to their medical appointments?

00:44:15.080 Yes.

00:44:15.400 It was like, okay, cool.

00:44:16.420 You've checked all of these blocks and you've spent this amount of money by these metrics.

00:44:22.280 We now deem you worthy to become an O4 or a major in the army because you've, you've checked

00:44:27.900 all of these blocks and you've gone to school and you've done all of these things.

00:44:31.820 And never once has anyone looked at maybe not subjectively by their peers or very rarely.

00:44:38.480 And, uh, as long as you've met those metrics, you're going to get to the next level of promote.

00:44:43.840 You're going to be promoted really without any sort of, you know, subjective views.

00:44:48.840 Like, is this an effective leader, which is, can be a nebulous question, which is why they

00:44:54.260 shy away from asking it.

00:44:56.200 They just look at the numbers, but that numbers alone, which I'm not saying you shouldn't have

00:45:02.340 these metrics to be judged by.

00:45:04.260 Cause I think it keeps, it shows you the rails or the left and right limits of what you need

00:45:09.740 to be doing, but to only be judged solely on these metrics, which is what most people are,

00:45:14.900 um, is a disservice to, uh, to the military community and the people that you're leading.

00:45:21.760 And I think that's a lot of, that's the very corporate America, um, uh, aspect of the U S

00:45:28.080 military that I find really, you know, really disappointing.

00:45:33.280 Okay.

00:45:33.780 This, this is fascinating because I hadn't even considered this, but yeah, that makes so much

00:45:37.660 sense, right?

00:45:38.340 The, we talk about this a lot on this channel, you know, the, the quantification, the need

00:45:46.100 for everything to fit on the spreadsheet, the need for everything to be itemized and, and

00:45:51.840 that kind of stuff.

00:45:53.520 It has, everything has to be shaved down.

00:45:55.920 Everything has to be put into the same mold, everything you need to be able to apply the

00:45:59.500 exact same process.

00:46:00.640 No one can actually make decisions because everything needs to be able to be justified

00:46:06.900 through kind of this managerial corporate type system.

00:46:10.340 And of course that's deleterious to all kinds of human endeavors because there's so much that

00:46:15.360 isn't caught in between, but this is particularly true in a military sense, because like your

00:46:20.900 ability to like properly prepare a slideshow or check off a number of boxes or fit as a corporate

00:46:27.740 widget, um, is not a reflection of your ability to lead men in combat.

00:46:32.760 Like these, this is a skill that has all kinds of intangibles, things that no person can, you

00:46:39.580 know, write down on a best practices list.

00:46:43.080 And by trying to manage the entire military in this way, by trying to make it fit into this

00:46:49.440 professional managerial mold, you necessarily destroy all kinds of things.

00:46:55.840 You crush out, uh, ingenuity, you crush out dynamic leadership, you crush out, uh, certitude,

00:47:03.180 the kinds of things that matter on the battlefield.

00:47:05.080 You don't want someone to just always have to check down the force org chart or, you know,

00:47:10.760 go to the best practices list in the middle of a firefight.

00:47:13.300 You need people who can inspire.

00:47:15.280 You need people who have discipline.

00:47:17.000 You need people who have courage.

00:47:18.140 You have people who all kinds of things that you just cannot put together on some kind of

00:47:23.180 monthly evaluation form.

00:47:25.520 And that, yeah, that's, that's an absolutely corrosive thing to do to, uh, the combat effectiveness

00:47:30.920 of, of military leaders.

00:47:33.020 So what it's done to the officer core is it's a, it's, we've talked about, it's the rush towards

00:47:39.260 the middle, right?

00:47:40.440 If you are a mediocre officer, you will never fail.

00:47:43.620 You may not be very successful, but you're always going to check the next block.

00:47:47.980 You're going to get your promotion and you're going to get your retirement, assuming something,

00:47:52.400 you know, out of the ordinary doesn't happen.

00:47:55.500 So if you tow the middle path, you will have a safe, effective career.

00:48:01.360 If you choose to innovate, if you choose to change, or if you choose to be different in

00:48:08.340 some way, a different style of leadership than what's written down on paper, if you're

00:48:13.040 successful, you may get away with it for a while.

00:48:15.800 But the first time you fail and you will fail because everyone does, but the first time

00:48:20.440 you fail and you weren't following the defined path, they're going to yank you and they're

00:48:25.680 going to sideline you or they're going to kick you out.

00:48:28.660 That's exactly right.

00:48:29.860 That's, that's been my experience as well, is that you, you have this, you have situations

00:48:34.740 where you're dealing with, especially in the last 20 years, you're dealing with an enemy

00:48:37.880 that is really very resourceful.

00:48:39.840 They're constantly adapting.

00:48:41.280 Uh, they're able to exploit your weaknesses and vulnerabilities.

00:48:45.260 And what ends up happening is that you, you will have types that are very innovative.

00:48:50.020 You will have types that want to win.

00:48:51.860 They also want to protect their friends.

00:48:53.580 You know what I mean?

00:48:53.980 There's, there's, there's a very human component here that gets lost, but it's, I want to win.

00:48:59.440 I want to bring all my guys home.

00:49:01.260 I want to actually defeat the enemy.

00:49:02.720 And what ends up happening is that these, these types, these innovative types are viewed

00:49:08.260 in a very similar way that you, you see in complex systems, maybe in the corporate environment

00:49:13.080 or maybe over in the public bureaucracy, but it's an immediate signifier of a problem.

00:49:19.700 It's somebody that everybody watches more closely.

00:49:21.880 And when they mess up or if they have to, because when you're innovating, you have to, you have

00:49:26.460 to change things.

00:49:27.240 You have to do things slightly different.

00:49:28.760 And what it does is it ends up putting a target on your back.

00:49:32.900 And what I worry about too, in the sense of what, when we talk about these like diversity

00:49:37.160 and inclusion initiatives you know, the, the kind of the, the pushing the, the transgender

00:49:42.900 agenda in to the military, we're finding that very mediocre piss poor leaders are able to

00:49:50.300 signal what the regime wants to hear or see.

00:49:54.140 And that there are, that they are, they're able to make up for their mediocrity by signaling

00:49:59.720 allegiance to an agenda that the regime is now, you know, endorsed.

00:50:04.060 And so you kind of see this play out.

00:50:06.460 I don't know if civilians noticed it as much, but you might jump on Twitter and notice that

00:50:10.140 so many people in the military that have, you know, they use their face and name and everything

00:50:13.560 that they, that they just, you know, are constantly celebrating these, these, you know, new diversity

00:50:19.800 initiatives or transgenderism or whatever it is.

00:50:22.540 Now that's not reflective of most, most soldiers, sailors, Marine and airmen at all, not even

00:50:28.020 close, but notice you never hear from them.

00:50:30.860 And part of this is it's the same corruption that you see in other complex systems.

00:50:35.880 It's just playing out in the military where mediocrity, not being a team player, maybe not,

00:50:41.900 you know, all the things, these old martial virtues, people that lack those tend to rally behind

00:50:47.740 these causes because it allows them to accelerate their careers or jump through some of the same

00:50:53.860 barriers that we all have to deal with in the military, because they're able to kind of use

00:50:57.980 like a cheat code and move through some of those same things.

00:51:01.440 And what that does is it might, it might accelerate your career.

00:51:04.300 You know, we've seen officers do this.

00:51:06.140 I'm senior officers do this a lot.

00:51:08.720 You can see it on social media, but what that does to the regular soldier, what it does to

00:51:12.880 junior officers is it starts to break the trust and confidence down.

00:51:17.200 It starts to kill the cohesion.

00:51:18.860 It starts to signify that we're not in this to win anything.

00:51:23.120 We're, we're really strictly operating just like you would a large corporation or a bureaucracy.

00:51:29.720 Yeah.

00:51:30.360 It's when you, especially when you see like those sergeants major, or you see those, you

00:51:36.360 know, you see the 07s or the 08s, the general officers touting, you know, so the, the, the

00:51:42.800 regime talking points.

00:51:44.700 And you know that this man who, or, or woman who's been in the military for, you know, 30

00:51:52.660 years or 25 years, didn't have any of these opinions when they first joined the military

00:51:58.200 and they're only doing it to advance their careers.

00:52:01.400 And it's just like, ah, dude, you're just, you, you, and you see them with the young

00:52:06.440 soldiers.

00:52:06.820 And my first thought was like, God, you're just such a trash human being.

00:52:10.480 Aren't you?

00:52:11.320 That you're willing to sell out all your beliefs just to make sure you make it 30 years and

00:52:16.260 you pull your, you know, what it would be 75% retirement.

00:52:20.820 And it's just like, I'm just like, dude, I, I, I hate everything about what you represent.

00:52:26.340 Are you telling me that Mark Milley wasn't worried about white rage 20 years ago?

00:52:30.500 Yeah, that's the thing that always kills me is like, dude, you, you, you really going

00:52:36.000 to sit there as, you know, as a old white man and tell me that you've always held these

00:52:42.100 beliefs.

00:52:42.920 You're so full of it.

00:52:44.940 Yeah.

00:52:46.000 Well, and that's, you know, that's something that happened to me in early on in my career

00:52:49.220 as I was being trained by these, I, I had the, I mean, it was tough and it was difficult.

00:52:54.640 I would never want to do it again, but many of the cadre and folks that were training me

00:52:58.140 early on in my career were guys who had just come back from some of the roughest years

00:53:03.500 in Iraq.

00:53:04.780 I mean, these guys were really like, they were tied, tried and true, you know, battle

00:53:10.100 tested.

00:53:11.560 And they, they kind of, they gave me a, a good start, I would say.

00:53:16.480 But, you know, what was interesting is all those guys who had all that incredible

00:53:19.780 institutional knowledge and experience, they were quickly pushed out.

00:53:23.480 And they were, a lot of them were sidelined, their career stalled.

00:53:28.700 And you, you start to see this throughout the global war on terror where, you know, the,

00:53:33.380 the, the types that really have what it, they really have the experience necessary to train

00:53:39.500 good soldiers and help us to win some of these conflicts that we're engaged in.

00:53:44.260 They don't make it very far and they get sidelined very quick.

00:53:47.760 They turned into some crusty, salty individuals with, with, uh, well-earned and very strong

00:53:55.340 opinions about conflict and the nature of conflict.

00:53:59.160 And then to be coming back to the, to, to the schoolhouse and being told by somebody who

00:54:04.280 never went there in the first place that actually the lessons you're teaching them are a bit

00:54:08.800 insensitive or wrong or incorrect.

00:54:11.460 And they're not going to take it.

00:54:13.140 There's like, you're full of it.

00:54:14.220 I'm not going to listen to you.

00:54:15.240 You didn't go through what I went through and I'm not going to lie to these young soldiers,

00:54:19.520 uh, about what the realities of what they're going to face are because I'm setting them

00:54:24.040 up for failure.

00:54:25.280 That's exactly right.

00:54:26.380 And yet, and you see that, that where you have this, you, you know, it's been interesting

00:54:30.680 because we talk a lot about this, like managerial, you know, the managerial regime and, you

00:54:35.220 know, managerial revolution, but, you know, we're, we're kind of seeing this a lot more

00:54:39.160 visibly in the U S military over the past 20 years where you're seeing, even though there

00:54:43.820 were, there were this same problem existed, pre-existed the global war on terror, but it,

00:54:49.380 it really started to seize the institution in a way that I just don't think it's, it's,

00:54:56.020 it's just egregious.

00:54:57.900 And where you have middle management and you have the political considerations are now shaping

00:55:04.580 the, the way that we train, the way that we even conduct the wars themselves.

00:55:10.100 And I mean, by the end of it, I think every soldier I knew, we've all, we all knew what

00:55:16.420 was going to happen to Afghanistan.

00:55:18.020 I, you know, I don't know if that was a secret to any of us, right?

00:55:22.020 We, it was just a matter of time and it all comes back to the same.

00:55:26.300 You cannot, you cannot replace leadership with a manager.

00:55:30.860 You can't manage a war, you know, and this is, this is something that I think all these

00:55:36.100 trends that we're talking about and technology drives this.

00:55:38.860 It makes us feel very confident that we, all we need to do is get the right tool and then

00:55:43.340 manage it and we'll, we'll be able to produce the results we want.

00:55:47.840 But that's the problem.

00:55:49.160 I think that I, you know, I, if we're going, I think you're totally right.

00:55:53.020 When you brought this up about how we've gone through these phases before, we're going

00:55:57.000 to learn the hard way and there's going to be a lot of good people that are going to

00:55:59.900 get killed, but it's going to have to drive a major change and it's going to be returning

00:56:04.020 back to this, you know, the, those existential realities we talked about on re wrapping

00:56:10.940 our arms around human nature once again and understanding like what it is to make violence

00:56:15.540 upon somebody else.

00:56:16.980 We're going to have to change.

00:56:18.240 I just, I hope that we can do that quickly rather than slowly because a lot of good people

00:56:23.400 are going to lose their lives because of this.

00:56:26.400 No, a hundred percent.

00:56:27.780 We will find effective leaders.

00:56:30.640 It's unfortunate that we're, what's going to happen is we will only find these effective

00:56:36.220 leaders after we've burned through the ineffective ones, which means people will die.

00:56:40.940 And that's just, that's the fact that's, that's what it really comes down to when we don't

00:56:46.100 maintain the warrior ethos in between major conflicts.

00:56:51.780 We pay for it on the battlefield in the first six months to the year in young men's deaths.

00:56:58.760 That's what happens.

00:57:01.400 Yeah.

00:57:01.940 And I think you guys are absolutely right.

00:57:04.180 And the thing that really struck me again, just reading Machiavelli just hundreds of years

00:57:08.660 ago in a very different world, but having the exact same problems, right?

00:57:13.900 Like this is a perennial thing.

00:57:16.860 It's a cycle that it seems like, you know, civilizations go through.

00:57:20.140 It's a lesson that we have to keep learning over and over again.

00:57:22.780 And you hate to see your civilization have to pay that cost because as you both pointed out,

00:57:28.300 the cost is in the lives of brave young men.

00:57:31.820 And it's a, it's a terrible thing, but it might be unfortunately the only thing that,

00:57:36.160 that wake people's up to the reality that technology will never supersede the importance

00:57:41.840 of, of kind of brave men who are willing to defend a country and all the other virtues

00:57:47.780 that kind of come with a warrior.

00:57:50.180 And it's a, it's a horrible lesson to have to learn, but I think you guys are probably

00:57:54.280 right about that.

00:57:55.260 I think the lesson has been learned.

00:57:57.000 And I think the, the, the government solution is that that's just the price we're going to

00:58:01.500 pay.

00:58:02.360 Right.

00:58:02.920 Sure.

00:58:03.500 Nobody's that stupid, right?

00:58:05.200 We've learned this lesson multiple times now.

00:58:07.460 It's just that nobody wants to talk about it.

00:58:10.140 And so therefore, you know, when it happens again, everyone's going to throw their arms up

00:58:14.480 and claim, Oh, Oh, Oh, what putiful fools we were, but really you always knew you were

00:58:21.260 just going to pay that price in American lives because you really don't care.

00:58:26.440 Yep.

00:58:27.080 Unfortunately, I think that that's probably exactly correct.

00:58:30.180 All right, guys, well, we have stacked up a large amount of super chats, so we probably

00:58:34.200 have to get started here if we want to make it out of here at a reasonable time.

00:58:38.620 So let's go ahead and move over here before we do.

00:58:41.580 Actually, uh, Lafayette's got, uh, uh, stuff he does Lafayette.

00:58:46.140 Can you, uh, tell people where to find your work, your writing, everything else you're

00:58:49.700 doing?

00:58:50.700 Yeah.

00:58:51.280 Um, you could find me on, on Twitter.

00:58:53.440 I'm at partisan underscore O.

00:58:57.000 And then I also run a sub stack called ruins of Corotomon.

00:59:00.560 So it's just ruins.substack.com.

00:59:02.860 I've got some analysis on, uh, apocalypse now coming out shortly.

00:59:07.160 So sorry for all those who've been waiting, but yeah, you can find me over there.

00:59:11.580 Excellent.

00:59:11.760 Excellent.

00:59:12.320 Make sure you're checking out his stuff.

00:59:13.600 He, his stuff, he writes great stuff.

00:59:15.180 All right.

00:59:15.480 So, uh, Jimmy Bones here for 499 have told, uh, Lee personally, but a reminder, uh, reminder

00:59:23.200 is in order.

00:59:23.580 Lee has done more than he knows for the, uh, global war on terror generation as we reconcile

00:59:29.860 service in the global American empire.

00:59:33.020 So kind words from Jimmy Bones for Lafayette Lee, which I think are probably very well

00:59:38.060 earned.

00:59:39.900 Yeah.

00:59:40.300 Thanks, Jimmy.

00:59:40.960 I appreciate that.

00:59:41.720 I, I just, you know, a lot of us out there, I just say that we've all been in the same

00:59:46.260 thing.

00:59:46.520 We've all done different things.

00:59:47.560 We've, but we were part of something and I think there's a lot more to learn from it

00:59:50.960 and to gain from it.

00:59:52.200 It's not just a failure.

00:59:53.700 We don't have to make this our failure.

00:59:55.620 Uh, I think this can be the beginning of something better.

00:59:59.320 We have JS here for five pounds.

01:00:01.740 Thank you very much, sir.

01:00:03.240 Following, uh, Wagner success.

01:00:05.340 I now think Elon Musk should start his own, uh, professional military corporation, uh,

01:00:11.200 to draw talent away from military and make USG even more dependent on him.

01:00:16.020 What do you think guys?

01:00:16.780 Uh, you know, goose that private army for the Twitter CEO.

01:00:21.180 He can, he can start stealing the best and brightest for Elon land.

01:00:24.680 Yeah.

01:00:24.920 That's, that's a terrible idea.

01:00:27.840 Um, yeah, a, a, a giant privatized, uh, a paramilitary.

01:00:31.740 Um, that's at the behest of a single individual would lead to some very interesting situations.

01:00:39.380 Yeah, that's probably true though.

01:00:41.160 At some point you have to ask that equilibrium point about when, you know, depending on how

01:00:45.320 the U S military gets, but I hear you.

01:00:48.020 Let's see.

01:00:48.560 The U S military is brought to you by McDonald's.

01:00:51.120 Exactly.

01:00:51.960 Right.

01:00:53.220 Uh, glow in the dark, uh, for $10 here to be fair, Afghanistan could have been a win,

01:00:58.020 but, uh, too many were using it for money laundering and no one actually had a plan other than

01:01:03.800 democracy, capitalism and liberal ideas.

01:01:06.520 I mean, I know both of you guys probably have quite a few thoughts on that, but, you know,

01:01:11.180 what do you think about, uh, the, the loss of military, military missions and effectiveness,

01:01:18.140 as opposed to individual interests when it comes to, you know, or ideological interests,

01:01:24.880 you know, we're spreading democracy or capitalism, not we're not that, Hey, we're here because

01:01:28.760 we protect Americans and this is what it takes.

01:01:33.040 Um, are you asking how we could have won Afghanistan?

01:01:35.980 No, no.

01:01:36.780 Just, just more kind of the, the, the thought about this approach of, uh, the justification

01:01:43.040 for these things being, we're here to, we're, we're in Afghanistan for the liberty and the,

01:01:49.060 and the free market and the, the, the right of Afghans to vote in elections, as opposed

01:01:53.400 to we go to war because it's for American and America's interests.

01:01:56.900 We get in, we solve that problem that we get out.

01:02:00.580 I don't think we did either.

01:02:02.380 No, I, I, I don't either, but I think that's kind of what the question is.

01:02:06.060 Sure.

01:02:06.700 Um, I, I don't know.

01:02:10.400 That's okay.

01:02:10.860 Um, you know, I'm, I'm not an Afghanistan hand, but I would just say that my experience,

01:02:18.780 I would say that if we had an actual mission, um, which it, it continually evolved while

01:02:25.040 we were over there, but if we had started out with the original mission and that we

01:02:28.160 called it a day after that mission had been accomplished, you could call that a win.

01:02:32.080 And I, but I think that, I think that the powers that be were never really intending just

01:02:36.840 to make that the sole mission.

01:02:38.140 So I do think that was possible to win in that respect, but you're, I think he's exactly

01:02:44.260 right.

01:02:44.560 Like when it comes to building a nation, you can't build a nation in a place that there

01:02:48.640 never was a nation to begin with.

01:02:50.720 Yeah.

01:02:51.160 I mean, absolutely.

01:02:52.260 You could do it the Roman way or you could do it the, the, the Alexander way, right?

01:02:56.360 If you, you want to do Afghanistan, right?

01:02:58.860 You send, you train soldiers, you learn the language, you really learn the languages, you

01:03:05.700 send them over there for 10 plus years at a time, or you intermarry them.

01:03:11.200 I mean, I mean, we're talking way outside the box here, right?

01:03:13.900 This is none of this is going to be happening in today's world, but you, you literally, you,

01:03:18.840 you blend the two cultures together, you, you have your soldiers intermarry into, into

01:03:26.540 the culture and you, you have kind of what Alexander did in Egypt and a lot of other places

01:03:31.380 where we're basically the, the two cultures became one.

01:03:34.220 And now you look at the, the legacy left behind by Alexander and you have all this Hellenic

01:03:39.520 influence and all of these other places outside of Greece or you do it the Roman way where

01:03:44.340 you just burn everything to the ground and salt the earth and, and call it a win.

01:03:48.520 So you could, you can integrate in Afghanistan or you can annihilate in Afghanistan, but that's

01:03:56.360 almost every conflict, right?

01:03:57.880 Those are the only real ways you win any conflict is you integrate the two cultures together

01:04:02.880 together and you, you come up with something new or you just burn it all to the ground

01:04:08.400 and, and, you know, destroy everything.

01:04:11.080 If you, if you're going to do imperialism, then do imperialism, but don't just don't

01:04:15.540 have measures.

01:04:16.340 Yeah.

01:04:16.560 Right.

01:04:17.020 Like doing, if we're going to be imperialist, let's just, you know, call it what it is and

01:04:21.220 be imperialist, but don't, don't do this soft imperialism where we, where, you know, we burn

01:04:26.440 through billions of dollars and, and, you know, and tens of thousands of lives.

01:04:31.960 Uh, and then at the end of the day, we have nothing for it.

01:04:34.800 Like if we're going to be imperial, let's be imperial or let's not be imperial.

01:04:38.560 I'm not saying we should be, I'm saying either, you know, for lack of a better term, shit

01:04:43.760 or get off the pot, but don't do both.

01:04:45.980 Yeah.

01:04:46.500 You gotta, gotta pick one or the other sitting around and trying to be the kinder, gentler

01:04:49.820 hegemon doesn't work.

01:04:50.840 Uh, so the lauriest here for 10 Bounds, uh, how's your British accent?

01:04:56.520 Terrible.

01:04:57.140 Uh, so don't worry.

01:04:57.960 I will not attempt to read this in, in a British accent, but, oh, it's, uh, oh, it's Tommy.

01:05:03.580 This and Tommy that, and chuck him out the, uh, out the brute.

01:05:07.180 Uh, but he's a hero of his country when the guns begin to shoot.

01:05:12.420 If Kipling were alive, he might not even say that.

01:05:16.400 I love that.

01:05:17.420 I, yeah.

01:05:18.140 Big fan of Kipling.

01:05:19.240 I love that, uh, that poem.

01:05:21.600 It's, and I think that that's exactly right.

01:05:23.880 Uh, you know, I, I've been posting a lot about this on the timeline recently, just dealing

01:05:28.840 with Vietnam and how I see a lot of similarities to today, but, you know, these are, these conflicts

01:05:34.260 that we go through.

01:05:35.140 There's been this real bifurcation between our social and professional elites and then kind

01:05:40.860 of the rest of us, many of us come from in the military.

01:05:43.540 There you'll find, you know, there are definite exceptions to this and great soldiers that

01:05:47.200 come from, uh, you know, more elite backgrounds, but most people come from that middle to lower

01:05:51.940 middle class.

01:05:52.560 That's just your backbone.

01:05:54.140 And it's, it's just interesting that we have been living through decades of what I would

01:05:59.140 call the elites, you know, warring upon us.

01:06:02.360 Uh, and then we do all the heavy lifting in these, in these conflicts and it's always

01:06:08.020 at the, our own expense.

01:06:09.440 And I, I think that's exactly right.

01:06:11.960 I'd have nothing new under the sun, but Kipling nailed it then.

01:06:14.620 And I think we're seeing it today.

01:06:16.940 I, I really, really like Kipling and his works.

01:06:21.620 And, um, yeah, it's, this is, this is also one of kind of my favorite quotes from Kipling.

01:06:28.260 Kipling, I'm also, uh, quite a big fan of, of A.E.

01:06:32.240 Hausman, um, who is, uh, was he a contemporary of Kipling?

01:06:37.240 Uh, I think he was, he was more of a, um, he was more of a scholar than a poet, but he

01:06:42.760 released some poetry that was, uh, very much, uh, I would, I would call it, I would call

01:06:49.640 it like good veteran poetry because it's, it's grim, but, but also patriotic, but, but,

01:06:56.320 but also faces the realities of war.

01:06:58.640 And I just really love his stuff.

01:07:00.620 But, uh, yeah, all these, all these turn of the century, English poets and scholars are

01:07:05.660 usually what I turn to when I, when I look to, uh, my, um, my, my poetry and my quotes

01:07:11.980 and whatnot, when it comes to conflict.

01:07:13.480 Cause I think they had it spot on being in that time period in the, in the waning of

01:07:20.840 the British empire where it was attempting to, uh, continue it's in, you know, it's imperial

01:07:28.020 legacy, but it was, it was slowing down and living in what, you know, we could argue is

01:07:34.360 kind of the waning of the American empire in a lot of ways.

01:07:37.040 Um, those same poets and, and scholars, what they talk about really rings true to me.

01:07:46.860 Got glow in the dark here for $5.

01:07:48.900 And he says they have no, uh, plan to help grunts after combat more, uh, other than more

01:07:54.720 dependency on government.

01:07:55.800 So they don't rebel or something anti-establishment.

01:07:59.980 And yeah, I think that's something that, uh, both Ostrakhan and Lafayette have, have both

01:08:05.020 expressed as just that lack of.

01:08:07.040 Of understanding and, and getting people back on their feet and surrounding them with

01:08:11.800 support.

01:08:12.300 And instead, like you said, just, just that dependence to keep, to kind of quiet people

01:08:16.640 and shove them in a corner rather than deal with any of those issues of people coming

01:08:21.340 home.

01:08:22.800 Yeah.

01:08:23.380 Something that's interesting about that too, is that I think I found it really, it shocked

01:08:28.180 me that, you know, our current administration would paint with such a broad brush and pretty

01:08:34.320 much a lump, but many global war on terror veterans and identify them as terrorists and,

01:08:41.280 you know, subversive and all these other things that we've seen.

01:08:44.100 It, to me, it's kind of a risky move in this, you know, in this strange place that we're in

01:08:49.600 to take this population of people who've kind of been disenfranchised in some way.

01:08:53.420 And then instead of trying to scoop them up and pull them back into the regime, they're

01:09:00.220 trying to push them out and marginalize them even more.

01:09:03.360 Yeah.

01:09:03.520 You know, that's a large population of people that have, you know, interesting skill sets

01:09:07.760 and, uh, have a deep loyalty to the country to try to create that separation.

01:09:12.180 So I didn't think it was a very wise move, but I could be wrong.

01:09:16.440 Yeah.

01:09:18.280 Glow in the dark here for $20 again.

01:09:20.900 Thank you very much, sir.

01:09:22.240 Our military is in the same mindset as Germans when it came to tech, bigger tanks mean more

01:09:27.720 good.

01:09:28.180 America has more tech means more good.

01:09:31.220 This is, uh, this is Wes, uh, over idealization of tech as a solution and our money dominance allowed

01:09:38.180 this.

01:09:38.600 I mean, sure, if, if, if you've got that kind of money dominance, if you've got that kind

01:09:42.940 of material wealth, then the tendency is to kind of think you can always outspend and out

01:09:48.820 develop, uh, others.

01:09:50.460 But I think as, as both of these gentlemen, again, have pointed out, uh, the Afghans didn't

01:09:55.640 need to develop a whole lot of new technology to kind of outlast a, uh, American leadership

01:10:02.240 that was far more focused on technology and, and their own political ends as opposed to

01:10:08.580 actually winning combat and having effective, uh, units and, and fighting a war effectively.

01:10:14.600 Yeah.

01:10:15.020 This is all just like weapon engineers fever dream of sending, you know, soldiers into

01:10:19.480 combat and Gundam suits one day.

01:10:21.060 This is all what it really is about.

01:10:22.800 They just, they, they liked the anime when they were growing up and like, no, we can do

01:10:26.640 this.

01:10:27.060 It'll, it'll work.

01:10:28.340 No, not really.

01:10:29.380 I like the idea that, uh, that all of our foreign policy is driven by weebs in, uh, in

01:10:34.700 the defense industrial complex.

01:10:36.540 I do like that.

01:10:37.020 A bunch of, a bunch of nerds coming up with cool widgets in the dark room somewhere thinking

01:10:41.540 it's going to be effective on the battlefield.

01:10:43.440 Some of it is, uh, you know, there are some cool, it's funny though, you know, most, most

01:10:48.000 of the effective tools that we ran into were, were battlefield innovations.

01:10:53.120 Um, they was, uh, uh, what was it?

01:10:57.740 They, they put them on the front of, of vehicles.

01:11:00.340 Um, it was a, it was, uh, it wasn't called a rhino.

01:11:04.920 It was basically just, it was a way.

01:11:07.380 So part of the way that the enemy would detect when to launch, um, when to launch their weapons

01:11:14.640 was like the heat signature of vehicles.

01:11:16.640 And there was like, it was like sensors that they would use to like know when to launch the,

01:11:20.900 the actual weapon system.

01:11:22.620 And the solution to it was to basically just create a box in front of the vehicle with

01:11:27.440 like spark plugs or heat plugs in it to mirror, uh, to, to, to, to mirror the, uh, the heat

01:11:32.960 signature of the vehicle so that it would go off too quickly or would go off ahead of

01:11:36.860 time.

01:11:37.140 And that was just something that somebody came up with, you know, in a, um, you know, in

01:11:41.780 a tent somewhere is like, well, fine, if the, if they're dealing, that's kind of like

01:11:44.860 the, the back and forth of battlefield technology development where some of the most effective

01:11:50.380 innovations were actually just made by somebody who was already on the battlefield and like,

01:11:55.000 well, this is the problem.

01:11:56.040 Let's come up with a solution.

01:11:57.200 Like, uh, in world war two, when the Germans started putting up piano wire in between or

01:12:02.720 wire between trees, uh, in order to like when vehicles rolled by or when they rolled by in

01:12:07.700 jeeps, it would like decapitate people.

01:12:09.660 And the solution was just a piece of metal placed on the end of the, or in front of the

01:12:14.300 jeep, uh, with, with a little wire cutter, uh, uh, notch so that when they did run through

01:12:20.080 the forest and there was wire between the trees, it would just catch on that notch and

01:12:23.780 snap in two.

01:12:24.900 And that was something that they just basically came up with on the fly and started welding

01:12:29.100 on the vehicles.

01:12:30.020 So I'm not saying that's a replacement for military technology development, but a lot of

01:12:36.080 the most effective tools are just built around the pieces of equipment that we already had.

01:12:42.180 Yeah.

01:12:42.620 That kind of flows into his next point glow in the dark.

01:12:45.480 Thank you again, sir.

01:12:46.320 We waste money on toys, which you need men to win a fight.

01:12:49.780 The more complex a toy is, the harder it is to maintain.

01:12:52.240 Bureaucracy has made us inflexible.

01:12:54.480 And that kind of, you know, speaks to what you're talking about.

01:12:56.420 Those battlefield innovations are often very practical things created by people who are getting,

01:13:02.700 you know, have direct experience and not by those, you know, sitting at the

01:13:05.740 defense contractor working out the most complicated way to kind of deploy a weapon system here.

01:13:12.700 Real quick, sorry.

01:13:13.860 Just one joke about NASA spending all that money and all that technology to create a pen

01:13:20.060 in the working space.

01:13:21.600 And then the Soviets just used a pencil.

01:13:23.740 The pencil.

01:13:24.240 Yes.

01:13:24.580 That's a great story.

01:13:25.800 One of my favorites.

01:13:27.320 Charby Zhu, I guess, would be the right way to say that for $10.

01:13:30.800 Thank you very much.

01:13:31.480 If China were to engage in large-scale war, the casualties will be devastating on society

01:13:37.560 due to the one-shot policy.

01:13:39.380 What are the demographic problems the U.S. may face in a similar situation?

01:13:43.020 That's a really interesting question, actually.

01:13:45.100 You know, the very few nations have really thought, there are a lot of nations, China is

01:13:50.820 one of them, running into very interesting demographic problems at this point.

01:13:54.720 Modernity seems to be perhaps the great filter when it comes to this in a lot of ways.

01:14:01.100 But one thing people haven't thought about, I think, is the near-peer conflict and its

01:14:05.820 impact on populations.

01:14:08.480 Because, of course, we know, you know, many of European towns and like France and stuff

01:14:13.280 between World War I and World War II, basically, they just died because they lost all of two

01:14:19.240 generations' worth of young men through those conflicts.

01:14:24.360 I'm not sure what the answer to this is, but that is an interesting thing to contemplate.

01:14:28.200 You know, if we did have a near-peer conflict and you have all these countries that are already

01:14:32.180 currently undergoing a bit of a demographic crisis when it comes to childbirth and that

01:14:37.500 kind of thing, what would, you know, how would a war affect that or how would war be affected

01:14:42.040 by that?

01:14:42.460 Yeah, I think one of the things that a lot of folks sleep on is that China does have a

01:14:48.100 demographic looming on the horizon for various reasons.

01:14:53.100 They just hit it.

01:14:53.800 I think they hit their inflection point.

01:14:55.200 Sorry.

01:14:55.440 That's exactly.

01:14:56.160 No, no, you're right.

01:14:56.980 That's exactly right.

01:14:57.840 And I think it's just going to get worse from here on out.

01:15:00.880 So I think that throws a real problem towards China.

01:15:05.360 But I do think in the United States, and I've seen this being floated, I think that there's

01:15:10.280 been a lot of talk about using, you know, recent arrival, like immigrant, you know, immigrant

01:15:16.700 folks to try to staff our military.

01:15:20.080 And I think that that would be, I think that that would not only create a major strain on

01:15:25.540 U.S. society and the social fabric, but it would really change the way in which we confront

01:15:30.760 war and then the effects back home.

01:15:32.780 So I think either way, if we had to go to a near-peer conflict, I think the demographic

01:15:37.700 question for both us and our enemies would be, you know, a really important consideration.

01:15:43.380 It would be very devastating to both sides.

01:15:46.660 Yeah, I think that's right.

01:15:50.360 Brigitte of Roosevelt here for $5.

01:15:53.300 Thank you very much.

01:15:54.640 Knowing what you know now, would any of you fight for the regime, i.e. against Russia and

01:16:01.380 China, I guess it would matter a whole lot on kind of the circumstances around that.

01:16:09.340 Both of you gentlemen are kind of out of the service now, but what would you, maybe a better

01:16:14.000 way to say this is, what would you advise to young men considering service, knowing what

01:16:20.120 you know now and the possibility of a conflict with one of these adversaries?

01:16:25.180 Um, for me, I would, I get this question all the time.

01:16:31.260 It's a tough one, isn't it, buddy?

01:16:32.280 That's why I let you go first.

01:16:36.840 I'll jump on this.

01:16:38.320 It's hard.

01:16:39.600 I, uh, I am going to get a lot of hate.

01:16:41.920 I think either answer would get a lot of hate, but I'm, I'm just be honest with you.

01:16:45.840 Um, I, I am definitely salty about some things, uh, mostly pertaining to the way in which,

01:16:51.660 you know, knowing that good people were killed for no reason that, you know, people I knew

01:16:55.920 that's hard for me to reconcile.

01:16:57.860 Right.

01:16:58.440 A lot of this abstract stuff kind of, I mean, it matters, you know, I've read the Afghanistan

01:17:02.980 papers, like that stuff matters to me.

01:17:05.280 Um, but at the end of the day, what really hits hard to me is that, that, that, that near

01:17:09.520 and dear component.

01:17:10.920 Um, and then when I think about my own sons, you know, do I want my sons to serve?

01:17:16.740 It's a tough question.

01:17:17.760 I will say this though.

01:17:18.960 I would never change it for anything in the world.

01:17:21.200 I'm so glad I did it.

01:17:22.500 I loved it.

01:17:23.240 I don't, you know, and I, I know that, you know, there's good and bad that come along

01:17:26.640 with that.

01:17:27.020 It was not a cakewalk, but I am grateful for that experience.

01:17:31.040 It made me into the man I am today in a very good way.

01:17:34.200 And I can see the value that it brings to people on an individual level.

01:17:39.500 So that said, when someone says they're going to join the military, I don't, you know, I,

01:17:45.300 I can't tell them that they shouldn't, you know, I understand the, the need that many

01:17:51.180 young men feel to go prove themselves, to go be tested, to go on an adventure, to do

01:17:56.240 something, you know, that's difficult to learn those skills.

01:17:59.440 I think those things do still matter.

01:18:02.180 Unfortunately, we can't really trust our regime right now.

01:18:05.480 And we haven't really been able to for a very long time, but then if I were to, if I were

01:18:10.540 to, to go and tell somebody, no, I would really have to be telling myself that same thing years

01:18:16.440 before.

01:18:17.100 And I just can't say I could do that.

01:18:19.040 So I think it's an individual thing.

01:18:21.580 Obviously, like if we were attacked, I would probably find myself right back to the, in

01:18:27.040 the same place with or without those reservations.

01:18:29.940 It's a really complex question.

01:18:32.420 You know, my, my ancestry goes back to 1605 in this, in this, you know, in this land.

01:18:37.800 And, you know, my ancestors have fought in every conflict.

01:18:41.140 It's something that's really deeply, it's, it's a powerful thing to me as an individual.

01:18:46.840 So I think it's an individual question.

01:18:49.520 I don't, I don't look down on people who have too many reservations with the way things

01:18:54.200 are.

01:18:54.520 Uh, but I also don't look down on people who want to go and sign up, but that said, just

01:19:00.520 know what you're getting yourself into, right?

01:19:02.680 Uh, you're an adult, you're a big person, you go forward and you, you have your reasons

01:19:07.640 and you take the good and the bad that come along with that.

01:19:11.160 But I do think there's good.

01:19:12.540 It's not all bad.

01:19:14.820 It's, it's hard not to love a young man or woman who's, who's willing to step forward

01:19:21.480 and put on the uniform, you know, even that's, that's so, it's so primal to me.

01:19:30.740 It's a, it's such a, it's such a, a scary thing to do to say that I don't know what's

01:19:38.760 going to happen, but I'm going to do this and, and I'm going to, to, to take on these

01:19:46.600 responsibilities now we can look back on it later in life and say, oh, well, I wish this

01:19:53.020 had turned out different.

01:19:54.000 Um, or I wish that had turned out different.

01:19:56.480 And Oron, as you well know that my military career did not end the way I wanted it to.

01:20:02.240 Um, but I would have a very hard time not wanting to be there for a young man or woman who says

01:20:12.280 they want to serve and doing everything in my power to, to, to help them.

01:20:17.740 And at the end of the day, soldiers don't get to choose the conflicts of which they serve

01:20:22.920 in.

01:20:23.120 And just because maybe personally, I got a raw deal would not make me want to discourage

01:20:32.320 somebody from, from having that adventure and having that experience.

01:20:36.980 Cause objectively, if you look at my military career, uh, you would say this was maybe not

01:20:44.340 a good thing to go do because it took a lot from me.

01:20:47.520 And I also didn't get to finish it how I wanted to.

01:20:49.760 Um, but at the end of the day, my personal experience is not necessarily what, uh, another

01:20:56.620 person is going to experience and to, to dissuade somebody from, from having that opportunity,

01:21:03.380 I think is, is wrong.

01:21:06.180 Um, because there's so few people left who still want to.

01:21:10.720 And so at the end of the day, I, I never, I never cared.

01:21:15.440 It was, it was always the, the ones I was in charge of.

01:21:18.140 And especially the young ones that I, I would go above and beyond for, because that's the

01:21:25.360 ones I always cared about.

01:21:26.160 It was, it was the young, it was the young men and women, the young soldiers, because

01:21:29.300 they're, they're looking to you to, to be, you know, not just their leader, but to, in

01:21:34.820 a lot of ways, you're, you're the replacement mother and father, as, as we've discussed before.

01:21:38.940 It's like, I talked to you one time or on, and, and I, and you said, I was really frustrated

01:21:44.060 because I was like, God, all of my soldiers just complaining constantly about me.

01:21:49.240 And, and they're just, they're, they just give me acres of crap.

01:21:52.600 And like, nobody, nobody, you know, everyone looks at me like they know better.

01:21:57.320 But then as soon as something bad happens or the shit hits the fan, they all run to me

01:22:02.060 and ask me, it's like, what do we do now?

01:22:03.880 Like, what, what, what's, what's the solution?

01:22:05.780 And I says, I didn't understand it at the time or on, and you were telling me, it's like,

01:22:09.880 why is it that only when things are bad or only when things are critical that they can

01:22:15.240 then rush to me and listen to whatever I say and they trust my judgment.

01:22:18.660 And you look at me, it's like, yeah, you're, you're dad.

01:22:21.280 That's what you are.

01:22:22.300 And so, um, it kind of clicked after that where it's like, oh yeah, I, I feel I'm still young,

01:22:30.920 but you know, in a way like, like the title of the book, I've become the old breed and now

01:22:36.420 I'm no longer the young soldier, even though I was not old by a civilian standard, by a military

01:22:42.300 standard, I was the old man.

01:22:44.540 And, um, regardless of what's above you to, to discourage somebody from,

01:22:52.280 joining or, or for me to say it wasn't worth it is for me to say, it wasn't worth it to me

01:22:57.880 invest in these young people's lives, regardless of the outcome.

01:23:01.240 Like I can take it.

01:23:03.080 Um, you know, this is, this is getting a little deep here and you may, um, you, you, um, I'm

01:23:11.000 sorry, uh, Lafayette, you may have had a similar experience to me, but I'm going deep.

01:23:18.020 Uh, when did you have to go through Sears school?

01:23:21.500 Yeah.

01:23:22.620 It was never, it was never about them hurting me that, that made it that, that was hard

01:23:31.640 for me.

01:23:32.900 They could, they could hurt me all day.

01:23:35.160 It's, it's when, it's when they, the, the way that I learned that I was really could get

01:23:40.440 hurt is when they did it to my friends.

01:23:42.720 And that's the way I, that's what I learned about my time there.

01:23:46.620 And I think it was a really good lesson to learn was that it was never about my pain and

01:23:50.900 suffering.

01:23:51.240 It was about protecting those that I was in charge of.

01:23:55.140 And that was, that's a really, in a really kind of grim way, I learned that, but that's

01:24:00.340 what really clicked with me there is like, it's never, it was never about me.

01:24:04.780 It was always about the people that I was supposed to take care of.

01:24:07.960 And I was okay with that.

01:24:10.120 Um, and that's what was so important to me.

01:24:14.060 And you'll never get that experience anywhere else.

01:24:16.680 You will never get that experience in a civilian world or corporate America where somebody else,

01:24:23.620 multiple people put, you know, their ultimate trust in you.

01:24:27.660 And to, to, to go against that or, or to say that's not worth it is to say, for me, it's

01:24:35.140 like saying life isn't worth living.

01:24:36.980 Sorry.

01:24:37.420 I got real deep there.

01:24:38.720 No, do you mind if I jump in on that real quick?

01:24:41.360 I'll keep going for it now.

01:24:42.940 I love what you said, because I think I don't want to speak for you.

01:24:46.040 I imagine that you'd probably have the same experience in some way.

01:24:49.400 Cause everyone I talked to who was involved in the last 20 years would say this is that

01:24:53.820 there comes a time when you peek behind the curtain, you realize that it's just not what

01:24:58.340 you thought it was, but it's the people that you're with that you realize that you even

01:25:05.060 knowing everything that you come to know about what you're doing, why you're doing it, uh,

01:25:10.640 who's managing it and mismanaging it.

01:25:13.140 You know, you lose people that you care about for no good reason sometimes, but at the end

01:25:17.940 of the day, you end up doing it for the people that you're with and you couldn't ever let

01:25:21.600 them down no matter what, no matter what it was.

01:25:24.820 And you know, some people will look down on that and that that's fine.

01:25:28.480 They can think what they want.

01:25:29.920 I wouldn't trade it for anything though.

01:25:31.460 And I don't think that, you know, on a, I'm looking forward, I don't think we can get out

01:25:36.620 of this mess and secure something for ourselves and for the people that we live around, the

01:25:41.100 people we care about.

01:25:42.220 If we don't have that backbone that we got in that kind of experience, there are many people

01:25:47.300 who know exactly what I'm talking about.

01:25:49.120 You saw behind the curtain, you saw it wasn't what you thought you, it wasn't what you signed

01:25:54.200 up for.

01:25:54.820 You realized that you were not, it was not what you thought, but the people you were

01:25:59.200 with and what you were, what you were gaining along the way mattered.

01:26:04.120 It was real.

01:26:05.020 It was probably the most real thing that, that you experienced during your entire time.

01:26:09.460 And to me, I don't think we can move anywhere to a good place without that.

01:26:14.620 And I feel in a way that it's a blessing.

01:26:17.620 And for those guys who didn't make it back, you know, if that sacrifice or the people that

01:26:22.320 we lost, whether you can say it was needless or meaningless or whatever, the end of the

01:26:27.060 day, like I look at that and I say, I have a gift of life.

01:26:31.740 I have that experience that is invaluable to me.

01:26:34.540 I wouldn't trade it for anything.

01:26:35.560 Like, what am I going to do with it now?

01:26:37.900 What am I going to do with it here?

01:26:39.080 Knowing everything I know, like the way things are going, the way our social fabric is, the

01:26:43.520 way our country is trending, the kind of leaders, the piss poor leaders we have, that can't be

01:26:48.480 all for naught.

01:26:49.440 There's something very valuable there.

01:26:51.140 And I think we can move forward with that.

01:26:52.780 And to agreed and to basically say that all of my experiences shouldn't have happened or it would

01:27:01.960 have been better if it didn't, or you get those people who never served to sort of collect their

01:27:07.800 tongues as like, oh, all these people died needlessly.

01:27:11.120 It's like, you know, I never saw you pick up a rifle and get out there.

01:27:14.300 How clever you were to, you know, live, eat, breathe and die under my protection and then have the

01:27:20.980 audacity to, to judge in the manner in which I, in the manner in which we gave it to you.

01:27:26.680 Sorry.

01:27:27.080 I know it really does come down to that.

01:27:31.580 You know, he's not the villain in that story.

01:27:33.860 He's absolutely right.

01:27:35.260 The entire, his entire speech.

01:27:38.840 And so mostly I just say, I never really engaged those people in conversation because they, they

01:27:46.880 were never really looking to have an actual conversation.

01:27:49.500 They were just looking to validate an opinion of which they already had, but you know, I

01:27:56.260 never did it for that guy.

01:27:57.800 I did it for the people who I was responsible for and my friends, because my friends were

01:28:03.980 there, right?

01:28:05.140 My friends were in Afghanistan and I didn't do it because of, you know, any sort of at the

01:28:11.020 end, even after I peeked behind the curtain, I never did it for any high-minded idealism for,

01:28:16.820 for, for, for that.

01:28:17.900 It was just that, no, we're in a bad situation and I want to get my boys home as best I can.

01:28:24.580 And I'm going to do everything I can to get them there so they can go back home and complain

01:28:29.800 about paying taxes and, you know, and about girlfriends cheating on them and, and their

01:28:35.040 parents complaining that they're not doing exactly what they should be doing in life.

01:28:38.460 Because that's my job is to get them back home in as best mental and physical shape as

01:28:45.180 possible to go back and live their lives as they choose to live them.

01:28:49.060 They could stay in the military or they could get out of the military, but it's my, my right

01:28:55.280 and burden to bring them home in one piece as best I can.

01:28:59.100 And that's all that I really cared about at the end.

01:29:01.080 And there were other officers and other soldiers who probably were a little more gung-ho than

01:29:06.800 I was.

01:29:07.540 And they, they probably earned a few more medals than I, I know they did.

01:29:11.020 They, one of them had a high school named after him.

01:29:13.080 That's kind of cool.

01:29:14.240 But he was also a really hard charging dude who put his men at more risk.

01:29:19.020 Maybe it was justified risk.

01:29:20.980 Um, looking back on it in the grand scheme of things, you know, objectively can say he probably

01:29:25.860 wasn't justified, but at the time, you know, I understand he wasn't a bad leader by any

01:29:31.160 means.

01:29:31.740 He was just a more direct leader who was willing to, to engage, uh, uh, you know, the enemy

01:29:38.700 and, and, and, you know, send his men into more high risk scenarios than maybe I was.

01:29:43.960 Uh, I was usually the guy who was just like, listen, we got all this love, this kind of dovetails

01:29:48.460 into what we were talking about.

01:29:49.480 We've got all this lovely technology, you know, let's let, let's let them, you know, uh, let's

01:29:54.940 let them use an aircraft on them, or we can call for fires or something like that.

01:29:59.240 We don't necessarily have to engage them directly.

01:30:01.800 Um, you know, we probably won't win as many awards and we won't have as many cool stories,

01:30:05.840 but ultimately, you know, let the mortar men take care of it or let the pilots take care

01:30:09.580 of it.

01:30:10.520 Um, and I guess that's, that was always my mantra or that was always what my code, my personal

01:30:18.380 code was get them home safe as best you can.

01:30:21.540 Yes.

01:30:21.720 Let's do the mission, but once you're out there, like, like Lafayette said, we, we knew

01:30:26.580 it was not going to be, and it's, it was never going to be a winnable situation.

01:30:30.640 So why put my boys at more risk than is required than, you know, to check the block?

01:30:36.380 Uh, if I know at the end of the day, the mission, we're, we're not going to, we're not going

01:30:41.000 to solve Afghanistan.

01:30:42.640 Let's just survive it and get them home as best I can.

01:30:45.820 And that was, you know, I can say that now that I'm out, but it was more about getting

01:30:51.060 them home than anything else.

01:30:52.980 And that's, that's not anger.

01:30:55.360 I think that's, that's, that's, that's love at the end of the day.

01:30:57.780 And, and, you know, that's a great quote, you know, a true soldier doesn't fight for

01:31:02.120 what he hates in front of them, but what he loves behind him.

01:31:05.680 And I, I loved my, my soldiers and I wanted them to get home.

01:31:09.960 And that's what I cared about.

01:31:10.940 Well, Roosevelt, it's a very complex issue, but I think you got a very thorough answer.

01:31:16.480 So thank you.

01:31:17.080 You got your five bucks worth.

01:31:18.200 That's for sure.

01:31:18.700 You sure did.

01:31:19.400 Sure did.

01:31:20.420 All right.

01:31:21.020 Uh, glow in the dark here says, uh, we, uh, we abstracted being an effective soldier or

01:31:26.500 military away from reality and placed it with spreadsheets, uh, Vietnam style.

01:31:31.440 And yeah, that was, that was a really good point by Ostracan again, something I hadn't thought

01:31:35.440 enough about, but of course is absolutely true.

01:31:38.260 And it's had a big impact on, uh, the battlefield.

01:31:41.620 It sounds like, uh, glow in the dark here again for $2.

01:31:44.500 Thank you.

01:31:45.320 Multiple choice answers on combat exams.

01:31:48.220 When, uh, yeah, I don't, I don't think that is an option.

01:31:52.500 And I think we've got one more.

01:31:57.400 Um, got, uh, glow in the dark, uh, for $2.

01:32:00.340 Thank you.

01:32:01.160 Uh, we're going, Sylvia and Russia is going more American.

01:32:05.300 Um, I'm not sure.

01:32:06.940 I don't, I don't, not sure.

01:32:08.620 I guess it would depend on the context of kind of how you look at that question.

01:32:12.500 Um, Russia is certainly in a very different conflict.

01:32:16.340 I don't want to get deep into Ukraine.

01:32:19.500 You could spend a lot of, a lot of time talking about that.

01:32:22.980 And many people have, um, but, uh, we do appreciate that, uh, glow in the dark.

01:32:27.840 All right, guys, I think we got to all of these.

01:32:30.900 Just, let me just double check real quick to make sure we didn't miss anyone, but I think

01:32:34.360 that's all of them.

01:32:37.240 Yep.

01:32:37.640 That's everything.

01:32:38.380 All right.

01:32:38.880 Well, we got everything from, uh, Lafayette.

01:32:44.160 Uh, let's see.

01:32:46.300 Yep.

01:32:46.880 Hit all the, all right, guys.

01:32:48.020 Well, thank you so much for joining, uh, me, both, uh, Oshkhan and Lafayette Lee.

01:32:53.860 Make sure you're checking out all of Lafayette's work.

01:32:56.280 He's got the sub stack.

01:32:57.600 He's got his Twitter.

01:32:58.820 Make sure you're checking out his stuff there and want to say thank you to everyone for

01:33:03.580 coming by.

01:33:04.100 We had a lot of questions, a lot of really good audience questions, obviously, uh, some,

01:33:08.900 some deep thoughts from the guests on those.

01:33:10.720 So we really appreciate your question, guys.

01:33:12.240 That's always a great part of the discussion.

01:33:15.380 If it's your first time here, of course, really appreciate a subscription to the channel.

01:33:19.640 And if you want to listen to this in just, you know, the audio format, you just want

01:33:23.400 a podcast, do remember you can get this on all your major podcast platforms.

01:33:28.720 If you do do go over to iTunes or Spotify or something like that, just make sure to leave

01:33:33.380 a rating or review.

01:33:34.360 That really helps out a lot.

01:33:35.660 It helps get everybody the word out to everyone.

01:33:38.620 Really appreciate that for everybody.

01:33:41.200 All right, guys, thanks for coming by.

01:33:43.560 And as always, we'll talk to you next time.

The Auron MacIntyre Show - January 23, 2023

Machiavelli, Technology, and the Soldier ｜ Guest： Lafayette Lee ｜ 1⧸22⧸23

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