Learn Craftsmanship
Practice Operational Art
A General Staff and Field Commanders capable of achieving Operational Art are the nexus of a nation’s sovereignty. Policy must be informed by Reality.
Information Stream
Analytical Capacity
Authority To Act
There is craftsmanship and then there is artistry. Operational art is the practice of native, from birth, artistic ability fortified by learned craftsmanship in the profession chosen. An artist must be a skilled craftsman before they can produce high art. Most artists are never more than craftsmen, some more capable than others, but still, craftsmen. Few craftsmen are capable of artistry, of operational art, of high art, in their field of endeavor, whatever that is. Yet, on these few the rest of humanity depend for their very lives.
In the military, there are many Officers. The most valuable are those whose craftsmanship serves a native — from birth — ability to achieve operational art at whatever is their level of staff or command. In the musical profession, craftsmanship is called talent and operational art is called musicianship or musicality. There are many musicians, vocalists, instrumentalists, conductors. Few of them have musicianship. Most are craftsmen. In the theological profession, craftsmanship is called learning and operational art is called inspiration. There are few theologians to begin with. The inspiring ones are rare and sometimes difficult to find. Yet, like Great Captains and Great Statesmen, the finest of whom are also Great Captains, Providence seems to provide such as are needed when they are needed and where, to some countries apparently more so than to others, depending on the task Providence has in mind to bring into existence.
- Paul Tillich, along with such as St. Augustine, Martin Luther, and St. Bonaventura, is a master of operational art in the profession of theology and also well-known.
Operational art may be compared with a term of mostly military usage coup d’œil. Levant once complained to Gershwin that he, Oscar, always had the bottom bunk in the Pullman car whereas he, George, always took the top bunk. George answered something along the lines of, Well, Oscar, that’s the difference between talent and genius. Harsh, but it makes a point. Bach was asked why he was a finer musician and composer — meaning master of operational art — than were his contemporaries. He answered something along the lines of, Well, I worked harder. Point taken. Superior craftsmanship enables true artistry [if the latter is there from the start, the part Bach didn’t mention because that would have been boastful].
Sy Hersh is right — about DIA providing fugazi (fougasse) information about Russia and the SMO — but for an ignoble reason. He is deflecting blame onto DIA and away from CIA, for whom he is and always has been a mouthpiece. The Daily Presidential Briefing (DPB) is the source of US policy, such as it is. The DPB is information, background, and recommendation generated, curated, and metered daily by CIA to White House, Congress, think tanks and other NGOs, and media. The PDB is what accounts for everyone in the Administration, Congress, think tanks, schools, and media using the same wording at the same time and place in lockstep.
- This makes it look like a single-party federal government in Washington D.C. It is. Call it The Langley Party. It’s sometimes called the UniParty or D-R UniParty. The Langley Party is more refined and to the point. They don’t bother with elections anymore. They install some of their own to keep out the generality.
By throwing the 404 debacle on DIA — which deserves the bad rep, for more reasons even than I’m sure Sy realizes or knows — Sy shows his CIA sponsorship. He always has been their asset, even when he publishes something embarrassing about [but not to] them, at their request, of course.
Vietnam got pinned on DOD — not to say they didn’t deserve it — by specifically Sy Hersh, working quietly for CIA, who, as again here today, were the real culprit in that heartbreaker because they generated, curated, and metered the information stream as well as engineered the false flags and then made the recommendations on which Kennedy’s, Johnson’s, Bundys’, McNamara’s, and Rusk’s decisions were hung.
IIRC, it was Reagan’s CIA Director, Bill Casey, who said something like, We’ll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false. Likely every CIA Director starting with Allen Dulles and including Mike Pompeo has had that attitude and goal. John Kennedy was right to want to at least throttle the agency. He realized he was not in control of the Executive Branch, CIA were. Of course, neither did he enter the White House free of consequential electoral fraud. There is that.
CIA, for their part, respond to the wishes of the huge tax-exempt foundations and schools, none of which today has the interests of Americans or their political sovereignty at heart. When Director Burns seems to be a quasi-adult in an otherwise jumping psychiatric ward, remember, he is feeding generated, curated, and metered information meant to hide realities of his agency’s or someone elses’ activity. Real reality may be different even from the reality CIA want to hide, but still, whatever makes it into the PDB and The News is generated, curated, and metered by CIA for a calculated effect here and abroad.
- They call it promoting freedom and democracy, our values, and, the rules-based global order. Others call it being full of yourself.
Prioritize Craftsmanship
Jean-François Geneste: to the effect that, what comes out of the computer is as good as what goes into it. So, if you can’t figure it out with pencil and paper, your culture of engineering skills atrophies and you cannot take care of yourself. No one respects you, and you don’t respect yourself.
Every situation in life and history is novel and unique. None is replicated or replicable. A constant of life and history is the need to cope with each new situation as it emerges and arrives. Life is engineering or nonexistent.
A life and its culture are weakest at the point of entry, plus a few years, and then again, a few years before the point of exit. Among the duties of a national government — including to justify their authority as a national government by winning the consent of the governed — is to bear the total cost of every citizen’s life from conception to age @22 and from age @65 to death. In return, a national government is justified to (1) require loyal and selfless service for the nation’s safety and welfare from every citizen regardless of age or gender, (2) impose fair taxation, of income and for services, on citizens between the ages of @22 and @65, and (3) own and manage the natural resources, engineering schools, and military and industrial organizations which provide for the national defense.
In military schools we study the handiworks of Great Captains. In theology schools we study the handiworks of Great Exegetes, Theologians, and Historians. In drama schools we study the handiworks of Great Writers, Actors, Producers, and Directors. In music schools we study the handiworks of Great Musicians. In engineering schools we study the handiworks of Great Builders. In mathematics schools we study the handiworks of Great Visionaries.
We study these handiworks not to be able to replicate them. That cannot be done, and no artist would even think of trying to replicate them. What can be done, and is done, in the great professional schools, albeit today in Euro-American versions very little, is to scrutinize and imbibe the lessons in craftsmanship which the great practitioners of a profession — that is, manifestations of their operational art — illustrate and codify in their handiworks.
In their day, Katukov against Guderian and von Manstein, MacArthur at Inchon, and Hannibal at Cannae practiced an operational art of their profession at peak perfection. Their illustrations of artistic ability are unique to their time and place, never to come again and thus never to be replicated. However, these same accomplishments in operational art become then for later generations examples of craftsmanship which can be scrutinized, imbibed, experimented with, and practiced as part of a soldierly skill set, but in fresh circumstances which are unique to themselves.
This is why we have schools for the professions. Not to train up great artists to practice a profession’s operational art — that ability is inherent, or not, to the artist, the professional, and cannot be transferred or replicated — but to train up fine craftsmen from among whom will spring the few great artists who encourage and lead craftsmen in their profession to execute on responsibilities their society, their nation entrusts to their professional competence. This is culture. The practitioner of operational art is also the teacher of craftsmanship, but not of operational art, because that, like the situation itself, where and when their artistry is made manifest, is unique.
An artistic conductor to lead an orchestra of fine craftsmen in the production of beautiful music to please a grateful audience, so to speak, is the ideal configuration of every profession. This is accomplished by prioritizing craftsmanship.
- Suvorov meant this when telling his Officers and Men, Train hard [learn craftsmanship], fight easy [practice operational art].
Prioritize Craftsmanship
Principle I
Principle II
Principle III
By Artists M and F Graham
At Puttaparthi, Andhra Pradesh, India
