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| Image: Wiki Commons |
By SYDNEY J. FREEDBERG JR.
ARLINGTON: Military officers and analysts are increasingly worried that if a war breaks out with a major power — meaning China, Russia or both — the conflict would escalate faster, spread more broadly, and drag on longer than anything in recent history. Think World War II on speed, with no front lines or clear demarcations between the European and Pacific theaters.
“The history of short-war predictions is one of repeated disappointment, and it would be profoundly unwise to risk our security by preparing only for wars of limited duration,” warned Vice Adm. Frank Pandolfe, assistant to Gen. Joseph Dunford, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. (Pandolfe represents the chairman on interagency bodies and particularly to the State Department). Dunford has pushed for a new trans-regional planning staff that transcends the current geographic combatant commands, arguing that new threats — like the Islamic State — sprawl too broadly in space for the current structure. Pandolfe is arguing threats may extend too long in time as well.
Since 9/11, policymakers and the American people have learned to endure a long war against global terrorism, Pandolfe said, but a long war against well-armed great powers would be very different. Sophisticated cyber and electronic warfare attacks would precede large salvos of smart weapons, “an unprecedented blending of mass and precision,” he said. Instead of the steady movement of front lines that gave America time to mobilize in World War II, fighting would leap like a wildfire over a firebreak, from one theater into another. Instead of World War II-era censorship or even Vietnam-era nightly newscasts, he said, leaks, propaganda, and fake news would pour over the Internet, “a torrent of real and false information transmitted in near real-time,” to attack the American people’s will to fight.
Read the full story at Breaking Defense