Quote:
Originally Posted by Bluesman
Sorry y'all didn't get out of it the same things I did. Couple points:
He didn't miss anything about the Northern Alliance. SWORDLESSNESS. He got it.
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Blues,
If you search the article, there is
nothing about the Northern Alliance. And if you reread it, SWORDLESSNESS as he defines it doesn't describe the Northern Alliance at all. However, I think this example among many is emblematic of the piece. Some good insights (although many are recycled) coupled with either no context, poor context, or just the wrong context.
In the case of Afghanistan, the take away based on his piece is that SOF coupled with precision airstrikes can topple a regime. This is an air power friendly conclusion, and one that is greatly misleading. Without the Northern Alliance working as a proxy side by side, you wouldn't have seen the toppling of the Taliban in such short order with such a relatively smooth transition to local power. To not mention this, whether an error of omission or comission, is just plain dangerous.
Now, back to SWORDLESSNESS. I could have gained the exact same insight by reading Sun Tzu, but without faulty context clouding the point. In the time it took to read this piece, I could have re-read Sun Tzu, and I would have gotten to SWORDLESSNESS while this piece was still talking about desert.
In the end, the piece's context in trying to apply Boyd's insight is too distracting.