Over the weekend, a leaked memo from the four star Air Force General in command of the Air Mobility Command caused quite a stir. Here is the memo. The memo has elicited a good deal of comment in the echo chambers of social media, and so this addition to that din will likely not create any new understanding or insight. That said, I have some thoughts for Conservative Wahoo readers to chew on.
Why the hell would you HOPE you're wrong? You're a USAF General, you have legions of intelligence resources both locally and from all respective allies abroad, likely the greatest combined effort of military intelligence on Earth, you don't deal in hope about these kinds of things, should you find yourself in a position where you don't have access to these vast internal resources you sure as hell don't broadcast your uncertainty to the world. Holy shit, dude.
Does nobody above this guy like him enough to brief him on what's going on, it sounds like simmering paranoia in the face of the unknown got the best of him and this incoherent turbo cringe is the result.
He could certainly do with some creative writing classes and possibly lay off the weed/booze, but this in part sounds like it's his superior's fault for not appropriately bringing him into the fold on available intelligence.
This letter isn't the result of one guy's f*ckup this is the result of a chain of f*ckups, this is a group effort.
The self-aggrandizing, chest thumping rhetoric thinly wrapped in this goal setting memorandum makes clear that this guy (Minihan) has lost his perspective. Ward Carroll's analog to General Jack Ripper of Dr. Strangelove was spot on. The challenges of an ascendant China are serious. Effective motivation and planning don't require bluster, it gets in the way.
When I first saw it when it was emailed to me by a reader, I thought it was not real, but a spoof. Why? Because in addition to the "shoot them in the head" (as a gun guy I can tell you is incredibly hard to do with a moving target under stress by anyone but those who spend four days a week at the range, that is why 98% are told to shoot for "center mass"), but his use of "clip." No sidearm or long arm in the US military has a "clip." The correct term is "magazine." It is like calling a set of boots flip-flops. Otherwise, I'm in alignment with your overall comments.
"I hope I am wrong."
Why the hell would you HOPE you're wrong? You're a USAF General, you have legions of intelligence resources both locally and from all respective allies abroad, likely the greatest combined effort of military intelligence on Earth, you don't deal in hope about these kinds of things, should you find yourself in a position where you don't have access to these vast internal resources you sure as hell don't broadcast your uncertainty to the world. Holy shit, dude.
Does nobody above this guy like him enough to brief him on what's going on, it sounds like simmering paranoia in the face of the unknown got the best of him and this incoherent turbo cringe is the result.
He could certainly do with some creative writing classes and possibly lay off the weed/booze, but this in part sounds like it's his superior's fault for not appropriately bringing him into the fold on available intelligence.
This letter isn't the result of one guy's f*ckup this is the result of a chain of f*ckups, this is a group effort.
Saw your YouTube with Ward Carroll.
My theory, he read Danger Zone over the holidays
The self-aggrandizing, chest thumping rhetoric thinly wrapped in this goal setting memorandum makes clear that this guy (Minihan) has lost his perspective. Ward Carroll's analog to General Jack Ripper of Dr. Strangelove was spot on. The challenges of an ascendant China are serious. Effective motivation and planning don't require bluster, it gets in the way.
This was so disappointing. Hard to believe we’re still getting the easy things wrong at the highest levels.
When I first saw it when it was emailed to me by a reader, I thought it was not real, but a spoof. Why? Because in addition to the "shoot them in the head" (as a gun guy I can tell you is incredibly hard to do with a moving target under stress by anyone but those who spend four days a week at the range, that is why 98% are told to shoot for "center mass"), but his use of "clip." No sidearm or long arm in the US military has a "clip." The correct term is "magazine." It is like calling a set of boots flip-flops. Otherwise, I'm in alignment with your overall comments.
Good stuff, as usual, Bryan. I absolutely agree with the classification comment. And calling it CUI would not have been sufficient either.