Memorial Day 2026– Lives Lost, Monstrous Debt And Citizen Angst - Driving Factors On A Path To Change

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Weapons makers treasure threat-driven economic windfalls. Geopolitical values collide, without negotiation. Soldiers and civilians die in dramatic numbers.

We must recognize the major factors driving warfare today while learning more about each other on a path to change.

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From Vietnam to the Balkans, from Iraq to Afghanistan – and now in Ukraine, coupled with continued Middle East bedlam; we are paying high prices in lives, dollars and citizen angst. We must learn from the past and about those who are different from us before we go to war or support a war.

Our near term future involves weighty decisions regarding fiscal and national security.  There are trade offs during government war-making decisions and incremental funding authorizations. 

The U.S. will soon exceed a National Debt of $35 Trillion with a downgraded fiscal credit rating while carrying the financial burden of ongoing support for NATO and the Ukraine war, the Middle East Gaza conflict, as well as domestic program needs.  

A look over our shoulder at two driving factors of our recent warfare is useful as we consider history when viewing our future while making prudent decisions on the principal contributors to our national debt and security.  

DRIVING FACTOR 1 – GOVERNMENT CONTRACTOR  MOTIVES:

The motives of the U.S. Military Industrial Complex (MIC) and The US Agency for International Development (USAID) contractors have fostered continuing wars.  Ongoing warfare nets billions in sales of weapons plus massive construction and redevelopment dollars for international companies. They often operate fraudulently, fostering waste, fraud and abuse.   

It is common knowledge that many of these corporations have spent more each year in lobbying costs than they have paid in taxes while passing exorbitant overhead and executive pay costs on to the tax payer, thus financing the riches of their operating personnel while remaining marginally profitable to stockholders.

I watched this from the inside of many of these companies for 36 years. You can read my dissertation on the subject at:

Odyssey of Armaments | Ken Larson – Academia.edu

Here is an example of how the lobbying and behind the scenes string pulling worked during the run up and the conduct of the war incursion into Iraq: 

CorpWatch : US: Lockheed Stock and Two Smoking Barrels

DRIVING FACTOR 2 – LACK OF CULTURAL UNDERSTANDING

There has been a complete lack of cultural understanding between U.S./Western decision makers and the middle east culture they have tried to “Assist” by nation building. 

The only real cultural understanding that existed during the period was in the person of General Schwarzkopf who spent much of his youth in the Middle East with his father, an ambassador to Saudi Arabia. He was fascinated by the Arab culture, commanded their respect and, like Eisenhower, led a successful coalition during the first Gulf War to free Kuwait.  

He astutely recommended no occupation of Iraq, went home and stayed out of government. Norman, like General Eisenhower, knew the power of the MIC. 

Eisenhower’s Departing Speech

U.S Tax payers funded billions in USAID and construction projects in Iraq. The money was wasted due to a lack of cultural understanding, waste,  fraud and abuse. The Project On Government Oversight (POGO) has documented that aspect of the Iraq war history, as well as similar motives and abuses in Afghanistan. 

POGO on Iraq

CONCLUSION AND A HOPE FOR OUR FORTHCOMING DECISIONS:

History has been repeating itself here – much like Vietnam and Iraq, the above two factors are deeply at play with a lack of astute learning in our government as we look back over our shoulder.

We must come to the understanding, like a highly respected war veteran and West Point Instructor has, that military victory is dead.

“MODERN WAR INSTITUTE AT WEST POINT”

“Victory’s been defeated; it’s time we recognized that and moved on to what we actually can accomplish.”

Military Victory is Dead

Frank Spinney, a foremost expert on the MIC, spent the same time I did on the inside of the Pentagon while I worked in Industry. You may find his interviews informative.

Inside the Pentagon: 30-Year Insider Chuck Spinney

I have hope these historical factors are useful in considering our future financial and defense security and that every U.S. citizen from the individual voter to the politician will consider them in their decision-making. 

What Can We Learn From People Who Are Different From US

United States Warfare Realities And The Inevitable Changes On The Horizon

In the last 25 years the US has reacted to the 911 tragedy by creating a behemoth machine that knows only killing, demonstrating little understanding of foreign cultural factors in nation building, spawning new versions of our old enemies, creating a dangerous outgrowth of technology in the military industrial complex, then exporting it for profit, while defying financial control, resulting in dire consequences for the nation’s economic future. 

These warfare realities cannot, and will not, continue.

Knows Only Killing  

An outrageous explosion of watch listing—of monitoring people and racking and stacking them on lists, assigning them numbers…  assigning them death sentences without notice, on a worldwide battlefield—it was, from the very first instance, wrong,” the source of the documents told the Intercept. “We’re allowing this to happen. And by ‘we,’ I mean every American citizen who has access to this information now, but continues to do nothing about it.” She Kills People From 7,850 Miles Away

Has Little Understanding of Foreign Cultural Factors in Nation Building

Our government has not considered the risks, the indigenous cultural impact, the expense and the sacrifices required to sustain the nation building that must occur after we invade countries in pursuit of perceived enemies and place the burden of governance on military personnel who are not equipped to deal with it or manage USAID contractors who have profit motives in mind and corruption as a regular practice.  Risks, Expenses and Sacrifices in Nation Building 

Spawns New Versions of Our Old Enemies 

An observer of our military actions over the last two decades in the Middle East could in no way have predicted the splintered, irrational, “Turn-Your-Back-And-You-Have-Two-New-Enemies”, scenario the US faces today. Perhaps a look back over our shoulder, examining cause and effect relationships along the road is in order. Cause and Effect Relationships in the Middle East 

Creates a Dangerous Outgrowth of Technology in the Military Industrial Complex and Then Exports It for Profit

The United States remains the leading arms exporter increasing sales by 23 percent, with the country’s share of the global arms trade at 31 percent. Record US Weapons Sales to Foreign Countries – $1.6 Billion in Lockheed Martin Missiles Alone

 Very smart people in the Pentagon believed that connecting sensitive networks, expensive equipment, and powerful weapons to the open Internet was a swell idea. 

This ubiquitous connectivity among devices and objects — what we now call the "Internet of Things" — would allow them to collect performance data to help design new weapons, monitor equipment remotely, and realize myriad other benefits. The risks were less assiduously cataloged.

That strategy has spread huge vulnerabilities across the Defense Department, its networks, and much of what the defense industry has spent the last several decades creating.

The Pentagon Hooked Everything to the Internet 

Defies Financial Control With Dire Consequences for the Nation’s Economic Future

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A law passed in 1994 initially set the deadline for 1997, but the Pentagon’s books were in such disarray that it blew past that date. Then, in 2010, Congress told the Pentagon to comply by 2017.

The next year, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta pledged that the department would by 2014 be ready for a partial account of its finances – a much less detailed accounting than requested of the military services — but the department missed that deadline too.
Pentagon Remains Stubbornly Unable To Account for Its Billions 

These Warfare Realities Cannot, And Will Not, Continue.

The debt is too great a burden for generations of tax payers.

It is too risky in terms of technology that has fallen into enemy hands, either through the "Internet of Things" or by blunders in export management. 

They will be replaced by domestic and foreign relations programs that emphasize global human progress and economic development in lieu of threats.  The result will rely on uplifting, cooperative efforts among nations in lieu of killing. 

The globe has become too small to operate the Military Industrial Machine and the resources that have fueled it will be redirected. 

There simply is no other way. 

The change will be brought about in the following manner:

Facing geopolitical and economic realities, stopping war interventions and investing in relationships within and without our country by offering mutual collaboration.

Ceasing to dwell on threat and building long term infrastructure, education and international development.  The threats will melt away. 

Investing for the long term at the stock holder, company and  national levels based on a strategy dealing with both present day and long term challenges in education, communication and society value transitions.

Communicating  with Congress and The Administration to strike a balance between long and short term actions. Let them know what we think regularly about the risk this huge machine  poses. 

Knowing that most cultures and societies in upheaval today are watching our national model and choosing whether to support it, ignore it or attack it. The Dire Necessity for U.S. Long Term Strategic Vision 

A Different Path to War

 

"WAR ON THE ROCKS" By Christphopher Preble

"Americans today enjoy a measure of safety that our ancestors would envy and that our contemporaries do envy. We generally do not need to wage war to keep it that way.

On the contrary, some recent wars have degraded the U.S. military and undermined our security. Policymakers should therefore be extremely reluctant to risk American lives abroad."

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"The U.S. military is the finest fighting force in the world; it comprises dedicated professionals who are willing and able to fight almost anywhere, practically on a moment’s notice. Any military large enough to defend our vital national security interests will always be capable of intervening in distant disputes. But that does not mean that it should. Policymakers have an obligation to carefully weigh the most momentous decision that they are ever asked to make. These criteria can help.

Any nation with vast power will be tempted to use it. In this respect, the United States is exceptional because its power is so immense. Small, weak countries avoid fighting in distant disputes; the risk that troops, ships, or planes sent elsewhere will be unavailable for defense of the homeland generally keeps these nations focused on more proximate dangers. The U.S. government, by contrast, doesn’t have to worry that deploying U.S. forces abroad might leave America vulnerable to attack by powerful adversaries.

There is another factor that explains the United States’ propensity to go abroad in search of monsters to destroy: Americans are a generous people, and we like helping others. We have often responded favorably when others appeal to us for assistance. Many Americans look back proudly on the moments in the middle and latter half of the 20th century when the U.S. military provided the crucial margin of victory over Nazi Germany, Imperial Japan, and the Soviet Union.

But, in recent years, Americans have grown more reluctant to send U.S. troops hither and yon. There is a growing appreciation of the fact that Washington’s willingness to intervene abroad – from Somalia and the Balkans in the 1990s, to Iraq and Afghanistan in the 2000s, to Libya and Yemen in the present decades – has often undermined U.S. security. We have become embroiled in disputes that we don’t understand and rarely can control. Thus, public anxiety about becoming sucked into another Middle Eastern civil war effectively blocked overt U.S. intervention in Syria in 2013, notwithstanding President Obama’s ill-considered red line warning to Bashar al Assad.

But while the American people are unenthusiastic about armed intervention, especially when it might involve U.S. ground troops, most Washington-based policy elites retain their activist instincts. They believe that U.S. military intervention generally advances global security and that the absence of U.S. leadership invites chaos. The essays in this series, “Course Correction,” have documented the many reasons why these assumptions might not be true. The authors have urged policymakers to consider other ways for the United States to remain engaged globally – ways that do not obligate the American people to bear all the costs and that do not obligate U.S. troops to bear all the risks.

But the authors do not presume that the United States must never wage war. There are indeed times when it should. Policymakers should, however, keep five specific guidelines in mind before supporting military intervention, especially the use of ground troops. Doing so would discipline our choices, would clearly signal when the U.S. military is likely to be deployed abroad, and could empower others to act when the United States does not.

Vital U.S. National Security Interest at Stake

The United States should not send U.S. troops into harm’s way unless a vital U.S. national security interest is at stake. Unfortunately, the consensus in Washington defines U.S. national security interests too broadly. Protecting the physical security of the territory of the United States and ensuring the safety of its people are vital national security interests. Advancing U.S. prosperity is an important goal, but it is best achieved by peaceful means, most importantly through trade and other forms of voluntary exchange. Similarly, the U.S. military should generally not be used to spread U.S. values, such as liberal democracy and human rights. It should be focused on defending this country from physical threats. The military should be poised to deter attacks and to fight and win the nation’s wars if deterrence fails.

The criterion offered here is more stringent, for example, than the Weinberger-Powell Doctrine, which held that U.S. troops should not be sent overseas “unless the particular engagement or occasion is deemed vital to our national interest or that of our allies.” By effectively equating U.S. national interests with those of our allies, it allowed for a range of interventions that would not be considered automatically valid under the guidelines spelled out here.  Policymakers should not risk the lives of U.S. troops to protect others’ interests as though those interests were our own.

Clear National Consensus

The American people must understand why they are being asked to risk blood and treasure and, crucially, they must have a say in whether to do so. The U.S. military should not be engaged in combat operations overseas unless there is a clear national consensus behind the mission.

Although modern technology allows constituents to communicate their policy preferences easily, traditional methods are just as effective in ascertaining whether the American people support the use of force. We should rely on the tool written into the Constitution: the stipulation that Congress alone, not the president, possesses the power to take the country to war.

As Gene Healy notes in this series, Congress has regularly evaded its obligations. Although the U.S. military has been in a continuous state of war over the past 15 years, few in Congress have ever weighed in publicly on the wisdom or folly of any particular foreign conflict. Some now interpret Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty or United Nations Security Council resolutions as obligating the United States to wage war without explicit authorization from Congress. This is unacceptable. The president may repel attacks against the United States, but the authority to deploy U.S. forces abroad, and to engage in preemptive or preventative wars of choice, resides with Congress — and by extension the people — of the United States.

Understanding of the Costs—and How to Pay Them

We must also understand the costs of war and know how we will pay them before we choose to go down that path. We cannot accurately gauge popular support for a given military intervention overseas if the case for war is built on unrealistic expectations and best-case scenarios. There is no such thing as a free lunch, and there is certainly no such thing as a free war.

Deficit spending allows the federal government to pretend otherwise. Politicians make promises, with bills coming due long after they’ve left office. But we should expect more when it comes to the use of force. Advocates for a military intervention should be forced to frame their solution in relation to costs and benefits. The debit side of the ledger includes the long-term costs of care for the veterans of the conflict. Hawks must also explain what government expenditures should be cut – or taxes increased – to pay for their war. The American people should have the final say in choosing whether additional military spending to prosecute minor, distant conflicts is worth the cost, including the opportunity costs: the crucial domestic priorities that must be forgone or future taxes paid.

Clear and Obtainable Military Objectives

We cannot compare the costs or wisdom of going to war if we do not know what our troops will be asked to do. The U.S. military should never be sent into harm’s way without a set of clear and obtainable military objectives.

Such considerations do not apply when a country’s survival is at stake. But wars of choice — the types of wars that the United States has fought in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, and elsewhere — are different. Advocates for such wars must demonstrate not only that the fight is necessary to secure vital U.S. interests, that it has public support, and that it has funding, but also that the military’s mission is defined and attainable.

Military victory is rarely sufficient, however, as our recent wars and interventions demonstrate. In the case of regime-change wars, ensuring that a successful transition to a stable, friendly government occurs can take a considerable amount of time and resources. Whatever replaces the defeated forces must represent a marked improvement in order for the war to advance U.S. vital interests. U.S. leaders, therefore, must not only define the military objective, but also detail what the resultant peace will look like, and how we will know the mission is complete.

It is easy for Washington to start wars, but we cannot leave U.S. troops on the hook for ending them. Policymakers must account for the tendency of war to drag on for years or more, and they must plan for an acceptable exit strategy before committing troops.

Use of Force as a Last Resort

The four criteria above are not enough to establish a war’s legitimacy, or the wisdom of waging it. After all, modern nation-states have the ability to wreak unimaginable horror on a massive scale. That obviously doesn’t imply that they should. Thus, the fifth and final rule concerning military intervention is force should be used only as a last resort, after we have exhausted other means for resolving a foreign policy challenge that threatens vital U.S. national security interests.

This point is informed by centuries-old concepts of justice. Civilized societies abhor war, even those waged for the right reasons while adhering to widely respected norms, such as proportionality and reasonable protections for noncombatants. War, given its uncertainty and destructiveness, should never be entered into lightly or for trivial reasons.

America has an exceptional capacity for waging war. U.S. policymakers therefore have a particular obligation to remember that war is a last resort. Precisely because no one else is likely to constrain them, they must constrain themselves.

Conclusion

U.S. foreign policy should contain a built-in presumption against the use of force. That does not mean that war is never the answer, but rather that it is rarely the best answer. Americans today enjoy a measure of safety that our ancestors would envy and that our contemporaries do envy. We generally do not need to wage war to keep it that way. On the contrary, some recent wars have degraded the U.S. military and undermined our security. Policymakers should therefore be extremely reluctant to risk American lives abroad.

The U.S. military is the finest fighting force in the world; it comprises dedicated professionals who are willing and able to fight almost anywhere, practically on a moment’s notice. Any military large enough to defend our vital national security interests will always be capable of intervening in distant disputes. But that does not mean that it should."

A Different Path to War

“Odyssey of Armaments” A Veteran’s View Of 36 Years In Warfare And Weapons

 "Rose Covered Glasses" By Ken Larson 

"I hope this account of my 36-year military and industry experience in warfare and weapons supplies useful insights into the US Government Defense Industrial Complex. I learned that the only thing wars decide is who is left over and who must then pay the bills..

Perhaps it is time for our country to consider the above, before the risks promulgated by our annual  trillion dollar warfare activity, geopolitical and economic, take us to a very dark place"

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"In 1968, I came home from serving two US Army tours in Vietnam, having been awarded five medals, including a Bronze Star. During my second tour I acquired Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and Depression. Treatment would not become available for either ailment until the mid to late 70's. Returning to the University of Minnesota at Morris, I found that most of my former classmates were either facing the military draft or were violently against the war. I was not their favorite person.

Feeling isolated and alone, I was unable to relate to my family due to untreated Depression and PTSD. Disillusioned with school, I moved to Minneapolis Minnesota and began a career in the Defense Industrial Complex that would span over three decades from 1969 through 2005. I thought that through working on defense systems, I could contribute to the quality and quantity of weapons that the next generation would take to war. Given a clearly defined mission and the best armaments and systems in the world, I believed that another Vietnam could be avoided for the American Soldier. In pursuit of this goal, I participated in the design, development and production of 25 large scale weapons systems under Federal Government and Foreign Military Sales Contracts. I worked in several different disciplines for the companies that produced these weapons, negotiating and controlling the associated contracts with procurement agencies in the US Armed Forces and in 16 allied countries.

By the time treatment for PTSD and Depression became available, I had such high security clearances that had I been treated for these disorders, the US Government would have revoked my clearances and my career would have ended or would have been sharply curtailed. This quandary led to my journey through the Defense Industrial Complex. I found that accepting extreme challenges and succeeding at them became a way to displace PTSD and elevate depressive moods. For extended periods of time this method of self-management led to a satisfying, although somewhat adventurous and diversified life. However, down periods always occurred, especially after the latest challenge had been met. A new challenge was then required. Family, friends and acquaintances were often puzzled by the frequent changes in my job sites and locations. Two marriages fell by the wayside.

I became known in the industry as a front-end loaded trouble shooter on complex projects, installing processes and business systems required by the Federal Acquisition Regulation. These systems included estimating and pricing, proposal preparation, contract administration, cost and schedule control, program management, design to cost, life cycle cost, export management and other specialties unique to US Government Contracts. Getting through government source selection boards and surviving audits during competition was a significant challenge for defense contractors. Installing required business systems after contract award, under ambitious cost, schedule and technical conditions, was an even more difficult undertaking. I became a leader in the problem solving and creative processes necessary to win contracts and successfully fulfill them. When my mood demanded it, there was always a new job, with a new challenge and a subsequent elevated feeling from success. It was not unusual for a career professional in the Defense Industry to move regularly with the ebb and flow of competitive procurements and associated government funding shifts.

I came to know many of the career military and civil servants who managed the government procurement process. These individuals never went away, regardless of elections or politics. They developed the alternatives from which elected officials must choose. The American Public rarely heard from these powerful insiders, while the insiders slanted the choices supplied to elected officials in a self-perpetuating manner. I recognized the mirror image way in which procuring agencies and defense contractors organized their operations on the largest systems acquisitions. Key executives regularly moved back and forth between government and industry. I often observed the short, happy life of a defense company program manager. Appointed by the powerful insiders to head a single project, he had no authority over company resources, he perpetually competed with other program managers for the same talent pool and he always took the heat from management when things did not go well. His counterpart in the government quarters had similar experiences. I often supported several program managers at the same time. They all were desperate to achieve success. They each believed they had the most important program in the company.

In early 2005, approaching age sixty, I found myself unable to self-manage an extremely deep depressive episode. The journey had simply wound down. This situation nearly resulted in an end to my life. Recovering with help from my family and the US Veteran's Administration, I now reside in a veteran's home, volunteering to Small, Veteran-Owned, Women-Owned and Minority-Owned businesses that are pursuing contracts with the Federal Government. I provide advice, alternatives and business examples based on my experiences. It is refreshing to witness the successes of small, motivated and flexible companies. I believe they deserve every special consideration they have achieved under our system of government.

After thirty-six years in the Defense Industrial Complex my greatest satisfaction came from watching "Stormin Norman" and his Gulf War Forces defeat the Iraqi Army in Operation Desert Storm. They used the Abrams Main Battle Tank, the Hellfire Missile and an array of communications and other systems on which I worked. I have had the privilege of meeting several young soldiers coming back from current conflicts in the Middle East who have praised these systems for their life saving performances.

Operation Desert Storm had a clearly defined mission to liberate a small country from an aggressor. We accomplished the mission utilizing the best weapons in the world. Unfortunately, we did not leave the area. The lessons of Vietnam have not been remembered and once again political factors govern our presence in several countries. This time it is the European Theater and Ukraine. We are poised to return, yet again to the African Continent. A Future Combat System (FCS) is under development geared for urban warfare with unmanned vehicles, state of the art sensors and remote standoff capabilities.

How much longer can we afford to be the "World's Policeman"? We are on the road to spending $ Trillions per year for defense, homeland security and nation building. The largest corporations selling to our government are no more than extensions of our government in the cloak of industry. They are not in the business of making money for the stockholder. They are in the business of spending money for the government. Recent consolidation in the Defense Industrial Complex has dramatically reduced competition. Only public laws mandating a twenty per cent allocation of Federal Contract Funding to small business have kept diversification in the mix. Even then, much of the moneys that flow to small business go through a select group of large business prime contractors who add their respective overhead and general administrative expense to the small business cost and pass it on to the government.

I hope that this account of my experiences has supplied useful insights into the US Government Defense Industrial Complex. My odyssey was driven by a need to manage illnesses acquired in warfare. I found a way to deal with the maladies for years by spreading myself thin and accepting every new challenge. I thrilled at success and moved on after defeat, pursuing a misguided goal. Out of necessity I have now been forced to look inward, wind down to a smaller perspective, take care of my health - begin serving the little guy.

Perhaps it is time for our country to consider a similar transition."

The full book, "Odyssey of Armaments", published in 2006, can be read online or downloaded FREE in pdf format at the site linked below. Many of the weapon systems are in full use today.

It is important to note that at the time the book was published in 2006 the U.S. Defense Budget was $500 Billon per year. As of this writing it is approaching $1 Trillion and forecasted to exceed $1.5 Trillion per year.

  Academia.edu-Odyssey of Armaments

“Like” War – The Weaponization of Social Media

 

Art:  istock

"NATIONAL DEFENSE MAGAZINE" By P.W. Singer and Emerson T. Brooking

"A comparatively tiny physical conflict, fought in an area the size of Portland, Oregon, became a global engagement, prompting the exchange of more than 10 million heated messages on Twitter alone.

The lesson was clear: Not only did modern war require a well-planned military campaign. It required a viral marketing campaign as well... "

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"The following is an excerpt from the new book LikeWar: The Weaponization of Social Media and reprinted with the permission of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. 

To many Palestinians who live in Gaza City, Ahmed al-Jabari was a hero: the commander of Hamas, the militant wing of resistance to the Israeli occupation. To Israelis, he was a villain: a terrorist who exploded bombs on packed school buses and rained mortar shells down on cities. But most of all, Jabari was a survivor. He’d lived through five assassination attempts and boasted that he no longer feared bullets or bombs.

His reckoning came on November 14, 2012, as Jabari and his bodyguard were driving down a residential street in Gaza City. High above them, an Israeli Heron drone loitered. Its high-powered camera zoomed in as Jabari’s car sped past a packed minibus and onto a stretch of open road. Then the drone fired a missile.

Jabari never saw the explosion that ended his life, but millions of other people did. Even as his body smoldered, the IDF’s official Twitter account spun into action. “The IDF has begun a wide spreadcampaign on terror sites & operatives in the Gaza ,” declared @IDFSpokesperson. Then came an info graphic that listed Jabari’s crimes in bullet points, with a big red box reading “ELIMINATED” slapped across his glowering face. After that came the YouTube clip. “In case you missed it—VIDEO—IDF Pinpoint Strike on Ahmed Jabari, Head of Hamas Military Wing.” You could watch Jabari’s car trundling down the street before it exploded in a ball of fire. You could watch him die as many times as you wanted (the video has since been viewed nearly 5 million times) and share it with all your friends.

Within a few hours, IDF aircraft had destroyed dozens of missile caches hidden across Gaza City. “We recommend that no Hamas operatives, whether low level or senior leaders, show their faces above ground in the days ahead,” @IDFSpokesperson taunted. The challenge didn’t go unanswered. “Our blessed hands will reach your leaders and soldiers wherever they are,” a Hamas spokesperson, @AlqassamBrigade, fired back. “(You Opened Hell Gates On Yourselves.)”

The Israelis called it Operation Pillar of Defense. IDF air strikes perforated the buildings in which suspected Hamas fighters gathered, killing militants and innocent families alike. Hamas fighters responded with hundreds of unguided rockets, eager to kill any Israeli they could. Few reached their targets. Israel had a new, U.S.-provided trump card, the Iron Dome, a missile shield that could intercept the projectiles in midair. The result was an eight-day, one-sided campaign. The IDF hit every intended target; Hamas, almost none. Two IDF soldiers and four Israeli civilians were killed, and another 20 Israelis were wounded. On the Palestinian side, roughly 100 militants and 105 civilians were killed, and another thousand were wounded.

But this wasn’t the only fight that counted. There were now three fronts at work in the conflict, Israel’s chief information officer explained. Two were predictable: the “physical” fight, which Israel easily dominated, and the “cyber” fight, in which the IDF just as easily beat back the efforts of Palestinian hackers. But there was a third front, he said, “the world of social networks.” This front would prove more troublesome, and impossible to contain, soon seeping into every corner of the internet.

The IDF deployed a Twitter account, Facebook pages in multiple languages, Tumblr blog pages, and even a Pinterest page. There were slick infographics and a stream of videos and statistics.

Maximizing follower engagement, the official IDF blog offered small digital rewards for repeat users. Visiting the blog ten times got you a “Consistent” badge; searching the website got you recognized as a “Research Officer.” Memes were fired off in volleys and tested for engagement, the best ones deployed extensively. The IDF’s most widely shared image showed Hamas rockets bearing down on cartoon versions of Sydney, New York, London, and Paris. “What Would You Do?” the caption asked in bold red letters.

By contrast, the propaganda efforts of Hamas’s militants were less structured. Most of its social media response came from millions of unaffiliated observers around the world, who watched the plight of Palestinian civilians with horror and joined the fray. The Twitter hash tag GazaUnderFire became an unending stream of images of atrocities: bombed-out buildings, dead children, crying fathers.

The scourge of war left nothing untouched —including video games and fast-food chains. The IDF hijacked the hashtags for the World Cup, a new James Bond movie, and even the same Call of Duty franchise that Junaid Hussain would weave into his own recruiting (“Playing war games on Call of Duty last night? Over a million Israelis are still under REAL fire#BlackOps2”). Meanwhile, pro-Hamas hackers took over the Israeli Facebook page of Domino’s Pizza, using the opportunity to threaten a merciless reprisal of “more than 2000 rockets” against Israeli cities. When Domino’s regained control of the account, it had a message of its own: “You cannot defeat . . . the Israeli hunger for pizza!”

Even as the missiles flew, the IDF and Hamas continued to narrate the conflict, each posting nearly 300 messages: alerts, updates, and a steady string of taunts. “Warning to reporters in Gaza,” wrote @IDFSpokesperson. “Stay away from Hamas operatives and facilities. Hamas, a terrorist group, will use you as human shields.” @AlqassamBrigade couldn’t let this stand. “Stay away from Israeli IDF,” the Hamas spokesperson mimicked. “We are just targeting Israeli soldiers, fighter jets, tanks and bases.” It was a remarkably juvenile exchange. But these taunts couldn’t be dismissed as easily as the ones you might hear in a kindergarten classroom. After all, they were salvos lobbed by two combatants in a real, shooting war.

There was a temptation, after the sides had settled into an uneasy cease-fire, to dismiss this weird internet flame war as a bunch of digital noise. After all, the angriest tweets were still just tweets — literally, “short bursts of inconsequential information.” But that would have been a mistake. Years after Operation Pillar of Defense had slipped from the public mind, American University professor Thomas Zeitzoff conducted a painstaking study of hundreds of thousands of tweets, which he then mapped across each hour of the physical side of the eight-day conflict.

What he found was shocking. In the case of Israel, a sudden spike in online sympathy for Hamas more than halved the pace of Israeli air strikes and a similarly sized leap in Israel’s own propaganda efforts. If you charted the sentiment (pro-Israel or pro-Palestine) of these tweets on a timeline, not only could you infer what was happening on the ground, but you also could predict what Israel would do next. IDF commanders hadn’t just been poring over battlefield maps. They’d also been keeping an eye on their Twitter feeds — the battlefield of the social network war.

Taking place in 2012, Operation Pillar of Defense offered a glimpse of an emerging way of warfare. It was a conflict in which each side had organized to taunt and troll each other online, even as they engaged in a life-and-death struggle in the real world. Their battles drew in millions more international fighters. Some were passionate supporters of one side; others had just stumbled upon the war while looking for video game news or pizza. They shaped the fight all the same, strengthening the voice of one faction or another — and, by tiny degrees, altering the course of events on the ground."

LikeWar - The Weaponization of Social Media

ABOUT THE AUTHORS:

P. W. Singer is a strategist at the New America think tank. Emerson T. Brooking is an expert on conflict and social media and a former research fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations.

 

US Troops Left Vietnam Over 50 Years Ago - Key Questions Must Be Asked Today Regarding Military Interventions

 

"THE HILL" By Bill Rivers

"Are we as a people — all 330 million or so of us, with all our divergent opinions, economic needs and aspirations, and beliefs about America’s role in the world — willing to resource the military arm of a fight commensurate with our political objectives?

If we are not, then the political objectives must be scaled back. This requires something more than just appetite-control; it requires statesmanship — both in dealings in foreign capitals and in committee hearing rooms at home."

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"U.S Military personnel left Vietnam 53 years ago. 

America’s two decades of involvement wouldn’t officially end until 20 months later, when the last civilian advisors from the most powerful country on earth were airlifted from the roof of their embassy in Saigon, literally chased out of the country by communists.

Numbers alone fail to capture the war’s true cost to the United States. Still, we must look: 1 trillion in inflation-adjusted dollars; 150,000 wounded; more than 58,000 Americans killed.

Fast forward now to the present era, and the U.S.-Vietnam relationship is dramatically different. Vietnam was America’s 10th largest goods trading partner in 2020. According to the Department of Commerce, that same year, U.S. goods exports to Vietnam were nearly $10 billion, up 270 percent from the a decade prior. Today, Vietnam is a top ten market for U.S. food and agricultural products.

On the security front, in stark contrast to the 1960s and 1970s, Vietnam now seeks to bring America into southeast Asia — to counterbalance China. One salient example among many: In 2018, Vietnam issued an unprecedented invitation to U.S. aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson to make a port visit to Cam Ranh Bay — the first since the war ended in 1975.

And while the partnership between Hanoi and Washington has endured several recent missteps, that any partnership exists at all would have been unimaginable to the men fighting in the cities, jungles, and rice paddies 50 years ago.

Viewing the sacrifices of those men through the lens of today’s near-complete reversal of the strategic situation, perhaps it is only natural to ask now, five decades later, a hard question: “Was the war worth it?”

The answer depends on how we read history.

Two general camps can be described.

For the first camp, the answer is a clear “no.” While honoring the service of those who fought and died in Vietnam, the key lesson, they argue, is to remember how the dominos didn’t fall after U.S. military forces left in 1973. All of Southeast Asia didn’t turn communist. Decision-makers in the U.S. national security firmament should have given more than short shrift to inconvenient reports that contradicted calls for American involvement, like, for example, the 1964 National Board of Estimates report commissioned by the CIA, which concluded Domino Theory was flawed; “a continuation of the spread of Communism in the area would not be inexorable” should Vietnam fall.

For the first camp, the primary rationale for engagement was proved false. For them, the war was terrible mistake.

The second camp holds that while deeply painful and divisive, the war nevertheless bought strategic time for countries across Asia, newly emergent from colonialism, to develop the institutions and civil society they lacked and so avoid falling to communism.

For this camp, the dominoes stayed standing precisely because America sacrificed so many of her sons in Vietnam. America drew the fire, demanding resources and attention from regional communists and their Soviet backers. Those other nations were able to develop free economies which eventually became markets for American farmers and manufacturers. They also developed more or less open democratic societies with whom the United States could work on the international scene to ensure more favorable conditions for American interests. The primary rationale for fighting in Vietnam was to signal western resolve, both to friends and foes alike.

This camp answers that the war was indeed worth it — and believes that millions of free people across Asia would agree.

Which camp is right?

In philosophy, counter-factual hypotheticals hold no truth value — they are neither right nor wrong. If this holds for both politics and war, then, because the dominoes didn’t fall, we must ask different questions.

Here are three questions that national security deciders, from the E-Ring of the Pentagon to the West Wing of the White House, should consider as they assess the complicated international security landscape 50 years after American soldiers departed Vietnam:

First, are we as a people — all 330 million or so of us, with all our divergent opinions, economic needs and aspirations, and beliefs about America’s role in the world — willing to resource the military arm of a fight commensurate with our political objectives?

If we are not, then the political objectives must be scaled back. This requires something more than just appetite-control; it requires statesmanship — both in dealings in foreign capitals and in committee hearing rooms at home. Americans are still capable of this. They must remember it — and act accordingly.

Second, what consequences will foreign action have at home?

The war may have bought time for Asian countries to develop institutions and grow societal connective tissue, but it cost a rising generation of Americans their trust in their nation’s institutions and tore painfully at their social fabric. Amid the cultural chaos of the 1960s — including racial strife, assassinations, and bitterly contentious elections — the war deepened a divide, opening fault-lines within families, something I explore in my novel of the Vietnam War era “Last Summer Boys.”

On the economic front, it has been argued the billions spent on the war drove the inflation of the 1970s — which carried tectonic consequences all its own.

Walking by history’s lamp-light, today’s decision-makers must assess the impact of foreign intervention on the home-front. One area especially worth considering amid the current recruitment crisis is the impact on attitudes towards America’s military itself.

A the third and final question: How can we be worthy of the sacrifice?

Over nearly 20 years, what began with a few hundred “military advisors” under presidents Eisenhower and Kennedy swelled into a bitter contest that would see more than 2.5 million American service members deployed in-country over the course of America’s involvement in the conflict.

Honoring the courage and sacrifice of America’s Vietnam War veterans means being better leaders for the young men and women serving today. And this means being exceptionally careful about committing America’s warriors to a fight.

The world is a far, far better place when Americans hold the preponderance of hard power. It is better still if their leaders use it only in gravest need, after sober analysis of their people’s true national interest. Because, when lawfully ordered, America’s men and women in uniform will unleash devastating power against the country’s enemies. And they will do so at enormous personal sacrifice.   

This is the most important question of all, and the true test of whether America gets Vietnam right. It may be 50 years late.

Better late than never."

US troops left Vietnam 50 years ago: Here are 3 key questions defense leaders must ask today

Bill Rivers served as speechwriter to U.S. Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis from 2017-19. He is a fellow at the Yorktown Institute and the author of “Last Summer Boys,” an Amazon Kindle #1 bestseller in historical fiction.