Remembering Shock and Awe

 

Wikipedia: SHOCK AND AWE (technically known as rapid dominance) is a military doctrine based on the use of

overwhelming power,

dominant battlefield awareness,

dominant maneuvers,

and spectacular displays of force

to paralyze an adversary's perception of the battlefield

and destroy its will to fight.

The doctrine was written by Harlan K. Ullman and James P. Wade in 1996 and is a product of the National Defense University of the United States.

 

What especially struck me about this was the locus, the National Defense University. The Dali Bama delivered a speech there less than four months ago:

... I intend to engage Congress about the existing Authorization to Use Military Force, or AUMF, to determine how we can continue to fight terrorism without keeping America on a perpetual wartime footing.

The AUMF is now nearly 12 years old.  The Afghan war is coming to an end.  Core al Qaeda is a shell of its former self.  Groups like AQAP must be dealt with, but in the years to come, not every collection of thugs that labels themselves al Qaeda will pose a credible threat to the United States.  Unless we discipline our thinking, our definitions, our actions, we may be drawn into more wars we don’t need to fight, or continue to grant Presidents unbound powers more suited for traditional armed conflicts between nation states. 

So I look forward to engaging Congress and the American people in efforts to refine, and ultimately repeal, the AUMF’s mandate.  And I will not sign laws designed to expand this mandate further.  Our systematic effort to dismantle terrorist organizations must continue.  But this war, like all wars, must end.  That’s what history advises.  That’s what our democracy demands.

 

 

Comments

[Mannie Sherberg]

Not all of us agree about Obama's motivations or his intellectual capability, but surely we can all agree on this much: He is -- more than any previous president -- a weak-kneed, irresolute, tergiversator ... the farthest thing imaginable from a statesman -- and the closest thing imaginable to a human weather-vane. It will be interesting to watch him in the next few days -- beginning with tonight's speech -- as he attempts to persuade the world, and the history books, that he is a modern-day paragon of courageous leadership -- a re-incarnation of Themistocles or Lincoln or Churchill. Wear your wading boots!