{"id":142,"date":"2009-04-24T11:22:42","date_gmt":"2009-04-24T12:22:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/barrystrauss.com\/blog\/?p=142"},"modified":"2022-04-27T22:25:05","modified_gmt":"2022-04-28T02:25:05","slug":"giant-steps","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/barrystrauss.com\/giant-steps\/","title":{"rendered":"Giant Steps"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>\u201cPitiful, helpless giant,\u201d anyone? Richard Nixon\u2019s salty description of American impotence comes to mind at this week\u2019s news.<\/p>\n

The Wall Street Journal reported that hackers broke into the Pentagon\u2019s most expensive and confidential program \u2013 the Joint Strike Fighter \u2013 and made off with a treasure trove of data. So much for the security system of the F-35 Lightning, the aircraft set to be America\u2019s most advanced and versatile fighter plane. Fingers pointed to Chinese cyberspies, but the Chinese government refuted the charge. A cynic might recall the journalists\u2019 adage, \u201cnever believe a rumor until it is officially denied.\u201d
\n<\/p>\n

What is it about empires that makes them vulnerable to smart and nimble attack? Cyberspies, nineteen terrorists armed with box cutters and airplane tickets, seventy-four gladiators wielding kitchen knives and skewers, a small but shrewd Greek navy lying in wait for its massive foe, a wooden horse outside the gates: from the Joint Strike Fighter to the 9-11 attacks to the Spartacus War to the Persian Armada of 480 B.C. to the legendary Trojan War, it is all of one piece. Top-heavy and institutionalized, empires \u2013 or, if you prefer, great powers \u2013 convince themselves that size is the only thing that matters. Their smaller rivals try harder.<\/p>\n

Sometimes, the empire strikes back with success. Rome, for example, managed to defeat Spartacus and his ragtag band without making fundamental changes to its military doctrine. Rome made little use of the convoluted tactics of today\u2019s counterinsurgency warfare. Instead, Rome reverted to form: it raised a big army, built massive, fortifications, and cut off potential allies by waging war from one end of the Mediterranean to the other. These giant steps required huge amounts of money and manpower, but the Roman people were willing to pay the price because, in the ancient world, conquest offered the best path to prosperity.<\/p>\n

We live in a different era. Nowadays, when commerce pays much better than conquest, giant steps won\u2019t work. Our ethos is more humanitarian, our instincts more peaceful. The American public won\u2019t support war unless it is cost-effective and efficient. In order to compete with clever, hungry military competitors, the United States will have to fight smart. \u201cIt takes a thief\u201d is a better motto for the U.S., as it responds to cyber-attack, than \u201cFee, fie, fo, fum.\u201d Americans need to think like insurgents, not like an empire.<\/p>\n

In that sense, at least, we are not Rome.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"excerpt","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"sync_status":"","episode_type":"","audio_file":"","castos_file_data":"","podmotor_file_id":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"","filesize":"","filesize_raw":"","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":"","itunes_episode_number":"","itunes_title":"","itunes_season_number":"","itunes_episode_type":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[392],"tags":[260],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/barrystrauss.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/142"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/barrystrauss.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/barrystrauss.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/barrystrauss.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/barrystrauss.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=142"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/barrystrauss.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/142\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/barrystrauss.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=142"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/barrystrauss.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=142"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/barrystrauss.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=142"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}