Chaitanya Jyothi Museum Opening, 2000
RAMANAM
In the Name of The Father, and of The Son and of The Holy Spirit, Amen.
Countrymen,
ORBIS NON SUFFICIT
SOLUS DEUS SUFFICIT
The primary strategic cultural factor is terrain features, and the second most important terrain feature, after mountains, is, rivers. Culture is directly proportional to commo (communications). Mountains block commo, rivers enable it. Those two are the bases of all else in a culture, more determinative, even, than language, families and religion. Geography is the great strategic factor and that means what blocks and what enables commo. Commo of every kind. What cannot move cannot exist. What can move can.
Culture is organized movement that reproduces to expand itself.
Therefore, the first consideration is what blocks movement (mountains) and the second consideration is what enables it (rivers and later, based on rivers, roads and rail). Air partially overcomes the hinderance factor of mountains and partially facilitates the helpfulness factor of rivers. But only partially. Air is expensive and of far less capacity than either boat or rail, or even truck. Ground movement and domination is and will remain the key strategic consideration, whether restricted or enabled.
Electronic commo is, if anything, even less capable than air. How many cell towers, satellites, need to be disabled in order to fatally disrupt vital commo? Or power stations/sub-stations? Not many.
The internet/space/electronics-in-general will never replace the river, the road, the rail, the sea or the air as the vital gold standards of strategic capability and therefore analysis and sit reps. One sees this on any road trip. Electronics, like air and sea, are supports for ground assets: river, road and rail. In military operations, air and sea power are ground combat’s forward intelligence and artillery.
Ketch Strait links the Black Sea with the Sea of Azov, and, therefore, together with the Volga-Don Canal, much of interior Russia with the open sea. Russia has great, legendary rivers but they do not connect well and she is really transpo poor with respect to the first basic of culture: rivers. Also, her great rivers do not alluvium well and so do not make a huge crop land. USA in contrast is super wealthy because of well-connected rivers that alluvium huge, huge crop lands, especially in two great areas, the Mississippi Drainage and the California Central Valley. Mid-Atlantic and Southeastern Coastal US also have some fine crop land due to rivers’ alluvia.
All of these considerations point out the existential flaw of the Air-Sea Battle that seeks to minimize the role of decisive ground force in national defense and offense. The aide is not superior to the principal and cannot replace him.
Update 1: DOD’s non-classified A-SB document.
Update 2: 0 Speaks, The Heart Sinks
Update 3: On 27 January 2015, Marine GEN (Ret.) James N. Mattis addressed the United States Senate Armed Services Committee on the subject A New American Grand Strategy. At Hoover Institution, who published an adapted version of General Mattis’ address, I commented — with edits here — as follows:
Not that it matters, but, I both appreciate and despond over General Mattis’ address here. Appreciate because (1) as a genuine warrior he says what he sees and eloquently and (2) his heart is unalloyed courage and compassion. Despond because (1) his address reflects lack of situational awareness — half his auditors at least regard the nation state, including USA, as obsolete and perishing — and (2) his address, although latterly specifying or implying serious tactical weaknesses of current operations, transits the periphery of his title: grand national strategy.
It is rare for a military leader to grasp and execute the several strands — principally diplomatic, economic and military, but others as well — of grand national strategy sufficiently to create a rational grand national strategic *goal* that is also inspirational. It is rare for anyone to be able to do that. General David Petraeus has that ability, which is why the Anti-American, Globalist-partisan US Justice [so-called] Department is persecuting/prosecuting him. Asking Congress or a bureaucracy to develop that ability and execute with it compares with asking a herd of cats to organize an expedition to summit Annapurna. Distilling and serving a happy grand national strategic *goal* is a personal, leadership thing few can do, but some definitely can and do accomplish. Their thoughts merit discovery and attendance.
The cynosure of a nation is not her grand national strategy. It is her grand national strategic *goal.* Given what we see now, project and anticipate — always expecting the unexpected, as General Mattis mentions, thankfully, in his address — where and what do we want to be as a nation three, five, ten, etc. years hence? What is our goal? What do we really, truly — as a nation — want for and of ourself to be, to do, to think? What is our inner necessity as a nation? What are we on this earth to accomplish as a national presence? And why do members of Congress not live in the states from which they were selected for office?
Related: On 04 March 2015 Marine GEN (Ret.) James N. Mattis wrote for Hoover Institution under title Using Military Force Against ISIS. I commented:
I am content that GEN (Ret.) Mattis’ thinking, clear and compelling, be expressed in public. Thank you, General! Our countrymen are working their way towards how they will think and what they will do when they are quit of the hag riding their back. And they will be that. This exercise in preparation for the restoration of national sovereignty and wealth flowing from national moral and intellectual strength is what should be happening and what is happening. I am content.
Update 4: Mark Moyar: Lurching Without Direction
Update 5: [The Fraud’s] New Middle East
Update 6: 6 Reasons Why Starship Troopers Is The New The Art Of War
Update 7: Why It’s Time for the Carrier Battle Group
Update 8: Contemplating Positions On Chinese Flanks
AUM NAMAH SHIVAYA
