Best Defense
Thomas E. Ricks' daily take on national security.

McMaster’s 4 fallacies of future warfare: vampires, Marlin Perkins, and much more

A neat little essay, summarized here: *The "vampire fallacy": A technological fix such as RMA, Rapid Decisive Operations, etc. *The "zero-dark-thirty fallacy": Making raiding your defense strategy. *The "Mutual of Omaha" fallacy: We play Marlin Perkins and send proxy force Jim Fowler (that is, allies) to fight our wars out in the Wild Kingdom. *The ...

via Wikimedia
via Wikimedia
via Wikimedia

A neat little essay, summarized here:

A neat little essay, summarized here:

*The "vampire fallacy": A technological fix such as RMA, Rapid Decisive Operations, etc.

*The "zero-dark-thirty fallacy": Making raiding your defense strategy.

*The "Mutual of Omaha" fallacy: We play Marlin Perkins and send proxy force Jim Fowler (that is, allies) to fight our wars out in the Wild Kingdom.

*The "RSVP" fallacy: This is a plea for keeping the Army big enough to be a deterrent force.   

Thomas E. Ricks covered the U.S. military from 1991 to 2008 for the Wall Street Journal and then the Washington Post. He can be reached at ricksblogcomment@gmail.com. Twitter: @tomricks1

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