I started reading The Sling and the Stone: On War in the 21st Century
Cyberwar envisions a high-technology, short-duration war where technology is vital and essentially machines fight machines. This is the prevalent view in the Department of Defense. It justifies the expensive weapons systems in use today and planned for the future. Unfortunately, it has no basis in history or current events…
(The DOD’s “Transformation Planning Guidance”) goes on to discuss the types of forces we will field and the types of enemies we will fight. It is interesting that the threats DOD plans to be ready to defeat by the end of the decade have no resemblance to the actual enemies we are fighting today. Although DOD may argue that the types of forces we are fighting today will not exist by 2010, the long timelines of past 4th generation wars indicate that nor only will they still exist, we will still be fighting them…
Perhaps the most disturbing aspects of these official publications are that they are so inwardly focused and that the focus is not open for discussion. It has already been defined. It is technology. These publications simply disregard any action taken by an intelligent, creative opponent to negate our technology. In fact, they seem to reduce the enemy to a series of inanimate targets to be serviced. He who services the most targets the fastest must win. The wide range of other factors that directly affect warfare are not even considered.
But what really caught my eye was this analogy:
The French, in contrast to the British, conducted an intensive study of World War I, seeking doctrinal and organizational lessons. Unfortunately, the institutional bias toward “methodical battle” ensured that the study was limited to battles that “proved” that a tightly controlled, centrally directed battle, emphasizing firepower, was the key to victory. Reinforcing the institutional bias was the requirement that “all articles, lectures, and books by serving officers had to receive approval by the high command before publication.” The uninspired interwar army leadership, the stifling of discussion, and emphasis on the “methodical battle” ensured that the French army completely missed the evolution that drove blitzkrieg.
It is interesting to note the similarities in the French interwar “discussions” and our current DOD “discussion” of future war. The French general staff defined the discussion and then ensured that all “experiments” adhered to the definition. Currently, DOD has defined the future as technology and is driving all experiments and developments in that direction. Much like the French, DOD has not seen the evolution of war taking place in our lifetime but instead insists war is evolving according to its preconceived vision.
DOD :: The generation of French military that built the Maginot line.
Dang. How is it that we’re not reading CNS/ Howard Kurtz columns about whether he faked all of his Purple Hearts?
(For a more serious look at counterinsurgency, take a look at the outstanding Arms and Influence blog. More to come.)
{ 41 comments }
MQ 01.18.06 at 2:27 am
That “Arms and Influence” blog is fantastic. Incredibly comprehensive and thoughtful in its discussion of the U.S. military and our grand strategy. It’s like a Bizarro World version of Steven Den Beste if he had actually been intelligent and sensible (only old time political blog addicts will get that reference…).
fifi 01.18.06 at 3:16 am
“Much like the French, DOD has not seen the evolution of war taking place in our lifetime but instead insists war is evolving according to its preconceived vision.”
What a shame. Let us hope it stops evolving before martial superpowerdom goes extinct.
Z 01.18.06 at 3:50 am
I believe there is also a commercial dimension in this drive towards technology. This can be easily seen in the design of fighter jet planes. As a massive air war is in all likelihood ruled out, jet planes are deisgned to be sold. From my personal experience, few french pilots would deny that an important part of their mission is to advertise for Dassault. In fact, this was the explicitly stated goal of the french detachment in PSAB Saudi Arabia : “Sell Mirages to the Saudis” (a quote from a high-ranking intelligence officer, that one).
Fancy technological refinements are then a bit like fancy radios in cars: completely unrelated to the real purpose of the object sold but they can help grab a sell.
Doug 01.18.06 at 4:38 am
Have they stopped reading Clausewitz? Is the presumption now that there are two states — war and not-war — rather than a contiunuum of politics by many different means?
aaron 01.18.06 at 7:48 am
It’s a little bit scary to see how easy it is to ignore the real, on the ground conditions. It seems like the military is primarily a subsidy for the development of technology that will end up being used in the private sector. While I don’t mind this, we also need to be able to address real conditions.
Zephania 01.18.06 at 8:23 am
Yawn, you crookedtimber types are quite amateur at this sort of analysis …
For your education, google ‘van Ripen’ for an example of “The French general staff defined the discussion and then ensured that all “experiments†adhered to the definition.” and while your at it; have a look at the warnerd; have a look at DNI, and global guerrillas. (Links not provided just to be mean).
Kieran Healy 01.18.06 at 8:44 am
Yawn, you crookedtimber types are quite amateur at this sort of analysis …
Yeah, that’s why Ted said he’d “just started” reading the book and had only looked at “a small portion” so far. Apart from lazily insinuating that you’re Carl von Clausewitz, what’s your point?
soru 01.18.06 at 8:53 am
Key phrase from the _arms and influence_ blog: ‘ To win in Iraq, we need fewer Americans there.’
Incidentally, what’s with the sudden popularity of the bullshit Pentagon-speak ‘4th generation warfare’? That’s like calling walking ‘4th generation personal transport’.
It’s called counter-insurgency, you can buy textbooks and be taught courses on it. I guess the textbook publishers don’t have as good lobbyists as the plane-builders.
soru
JK 01.18.06 at 9:38 am
The technological determinists in the Pentagon who believe in a “Revolution in Military Affairs” really have stopped reading Clauswitz. The Tofflerised (see their book War and Anti-War) approach is identified with Rumsfeld, but it owes a lot to Clinton-era internet-society mania too (see also e.g. Arquilla and Ronfeldt, The Advent of Netwar)
As an outsider it looks to me like Clauswitz is sadly neglected by both academics and the military. Instead of politics, war is understood to be driven by terror, genocide, fundamentalism, or technology. I’m not saying that nothing has changed but I do think we would do well to look again at Clauswitz. I actually think there’s a good case for saying that (at least parts of) On War should be part of any good general education.
JK 01.18.06 at 9:41 am
After saying which not being able to spell Clausewitz is more than a little embarrassing.
Zephania 01.18.06 at 12:06 pm
“ so far. Apart from lazily insinuating that you’re Carl von Clausewitz, what’s your point?”
more Pope than Clausewitz, Kieran. (Drink deep or taste not etc etc).
Moving beyond the Kieran wants a bitch fight because ‘cos I’ve upset his pal. The point is … stick to what you’re good at.
ps Clausewitz is the antithesis of 4GW btw
Ted 01.18.06 at 12:19 pm
Zephania,
I’m not upset, but I’m also not going to apologize for (a) trying to learn more about a subject that I’m ignorant about, (b) finding some passages that I thought were interesting, and (c) sharing them.
The web is full of fascinating, deeply informed military blogs. I linked to Arms and Influence above, for example. I can’t replicate that level of expertise; if that’s what you’re here for, get used to disappointment.
jet 01.18.06 at 12:25 pm
Zephania,
If you’re such a know-it-all military badass, where’s your military blog?
DS 01.18.06 at 1:23 pm
“Perhaps the most disturbing aspects of these official publications are that they are so inwardly focused and that the focus is not open for discussion. It has already been defined. It is technology.”
Sounds like Military Keynesianism to me.
Grand Moff Texan 01.18.06 at 1:32 pm
ps Clausewitz is the antithesis of 4GW btw
No shit. Finished reading the post yet?
It justifies the expensive weapons systems in use today and planned for the future.
Which is why it will have political support, which is why officers hoping to cash in on consulting jobs will support it (both officers and congressmen being bought and paid for), which is why all “serious” participants in military funding will support it, yadda yadda yadda.
If you insist on selecting for meaningless criteria, you’re screwed.
.
Zephania 01.18.06 at 2:04 pm
“I’m not upset,”
Good.
“but I’m also not going to apologize for (a) trying to learn more about a subject that I’m ignorant about, (b) finding some passages that I thought were interesting, and© sharing them.”
Good. Did you find any van Ripen links? Here is one. I would argue that you should’ve known that sort of thing before posting.
Nothing wrong with trying to better yourself etc … It’s just that I thought that the crookedtimberites were experts in their field. I thought being able to post here meant that you had some sort of expertise. My mistake. Someone (above), in some sort of round-about defence, asked, ‘Zephania, where’s your blog’. He’s expressing my point – because you’re posting here I thought that you had some sort of expertise. Is your level of expertise typical of the level of expertise of all of the crooked timber contributors?
Kingdaddy 01.18.06 at 2:28 pm
Counterinsurgency has gone through a lot of name changes. In the 1980’s, it was part of low-intensity conflict (LIC). Similarly, “4GW” is meant to encompass more than insurgency/counterinsurgency.
I like 4GW better than LIC, because it has actual meaning: a revolution in modern warfare in which the methods of engineering political outcomes have been sophisticated. (In contrast, “3GW” perfected conventional military strategy and technology, culminating in the “mass and maneuver” strategies of WWII combatants.) Still, I have my issues with the concept as it’s currently being used.
LIC was always a bit of a negative definition: “Here are the things most of us in the military don’t want to give much attention.” Counterinsurgency, peacekeeping, you name it, it got thrown into the LIC bucket.
abb1 01.18.06 at 3:02 pm
The ‘counterinsurgency’ thing – does it always fall under the rubric of ‘warfare’? The urban kind, specifically; incidents like Warsow ghetto uprising, French resistance, battle of Algiers, the Sunni triangle. I don’t think so. It’s more like ‘subjugation’.
John Emerson 01.18.06 at 3:44 pm
Zephania, you’re drunk again. Go home.
There are various interesting things you might have said, but after three tries you haven’t said any of them, and we suspect that you’re not going to.
Yawn.
bloop 01.18.06 at 3:55 pm
This series of posts might be of interest, offering a historian’s take on 4GW.
http://warhistorian.org/blog/index.php?entry=entry051117-070016
http://warhistorian.org/blog/index.php?entry=entry051118-105247
http://warhistorian.org/blog/index.php?entry=entry051123-172329
Also making the analogy that DOD :: The generation of French military that built the Maginot line
seems a little too simple for me.
There are many interpretations as to why the French were defeated in WW2 and ascribing their defeat solely, or even primarily, to a doctrine based on fighting the previous war, seems questionable or at the very least something that cannot be proven conclusively.
That said, I have not read The Sling and the Stone so maybe Colonel Hammes made these qualifications, but from reading this it seems Hammes is sacrificing historical analysis to fit his facts into a very constricted narrative.
jet 01.18.06 at 4:04 pm
Holy crap, I agree with John Emerson. What a remarkable day.
Zephania probably has some knowledge on this matter, yet instead of adding to the dialogue he chose to gloat that a CT author had dared to post about a subject he was not an expert in. As we all know, this site has never had anyone write a post that didn’t involve their own expert knowledge. And let me tell you, I’d sure hate it if this site turned into a semi-serious mix of eccletic posts rather than the quite popular semi-serious mix of eccletic posts it currently is. I’m with you brother Zephania.
Daniel 01.18.06 at 4:28 pm
The Maginot Line gets a bad press. It was actually an excellent series of fortifications that was never breached and in all probability couldn’t have been. A blitzkrieg attack would almost certainly have ended in bloody failure as soon as it reached the Maginot Line. The mistake was to assume that either a) tanks couldn’t be taken across the Ardennes because it was too wooded (the world seemed to be quite full of incorrect assumptions about tanks and trees; the British were still making this mistake by the fall of Singapore) or b) the Germans would respect the neutrality of Belgium. Both of these were fairly silly assumptions but they don’t really have all that much to do with the Maginot Line.
jet 01.18.06 at 4:37 pm
Daniel,
I think you make Ted’s point. The US is making a really good military. But you could say that the F-22 is to fighter craft as the Maginot Line was to static fortifications.
Shelby 01.18.06 at 5:02 pm
Ted:
Thanks for alerting us to the book; it looks interesting.
The Maginot Line worked. It was so clearly going to defeat an attacking force, that it was never attacked. The French error lay in assuming that by creating it, they had blocked the only feasible access route. (There were of course political considerations re arming the Belgian frontier, etc.)
The analogy to the US military would be that nobody on earth is willing to gamble on a conventional war against it. Even Saddam Hussein planned for his military to collapse and revert to 4GW. However, the Pentagon as a whole still fails to recognize that, as nifty and useful as that wall is, opponents have found effective routes around it.
Dan Simon 01.18.06 at 5:08 pm
There are two quite separate questions at issue here:
1) What will the next war (or the next three or five wars) look like?
2) For each type of war, what kind of armed forces should be prepared?
If the model for future wars is Afghanistan and the (initial) Iraq campaign, then the ideas behind “fourth generation warfare” (4GW) hold up very well. In both places, in fact, a fairly small, light, technologically advanced force routed a national army remarkably quickly and painlessly (for the attacker).
On the other hand, if the model for future wars is the occupation of Iraq, then 4GW is obviously not the right paradigm. But then, I doubt it claims to be, either.
Of course, political and military opinions start getting entwined at this point. Supporters of the 4GW concept are implicitly saying that America’s future wars will be more like the Iraq and Afghanistan campaigns, and perhaps even that America’s future wars should be of that type–that is, that the US should concentrate on invading and removing “bad” regimes (for some definition of “bad”), rather than on occupying and rebuilding their nations. Conversely, those who use the Iraq experience (primarily post-overthrow) to argue against 4GW are implicitly arguing that America’s future wars will involve–perhaps even should involve–lots of nation-building and suppression of nonconventional quasi-military organizations.
There’s lots of middle ground, of course, for those who believe that future conflicts will require some of both. Personally, though, I’m closer to Rumsfeld, believing that the US should concentrate on toppling monstrous dictators and their dangerous armies, and not so much on remodeling their entire countries. How odd that so many people here at a left-wing blog like Crooked Timber seem to disagree so strongly with me….
abb1 01.18.06 at 5:40 pm
I seem to remember 4-5 years ago a parallel quite often being made between the Maginot Line and the so-called National Missile Defense system. Aah, Good Old Days.
J Thomas 01.18.06 at 6:08 pm
Dan Simon, there are more choices than that.
Like, third-world national armies are mostly conscripts. Why kill them? If we want to destroy the army, find a way to kill the officers and let the troops go home to their families.
But then, if we want to destroy third-world dictators, we’d do better to find a way to destroy their secret police. Leave the secret police intact without an occupation and the secret police will probably just pick a new dictator. Destroy them and the dictator has to rely on favorable public opinion to stay in power.
Anyway, people keep talking like the big threat in the next 5 years is china. I don’t know whether that means we’re supposed to invade them or if they’ll come across alaska, but if they’re the big threat we need to find a way to deal with them.
Or is it a modernised russian army we’ll face? In russia? That’s more like what we’re ready for, assuming they stand and fight. Russia, china, third-world dictators, it really doesn’t matter who we fight as long as we get to just defeat their regular armies and go home. The trouble is, if we just defeat an army and go home, what have we accomplished?
Dan Simon 01.18.06 at 8:47 pm
Dan Simon, there are more choices than that.
Sure–I just focused on the ones Hammes juxtaposed, according to Ted.
The trouble is, if we just defeat an army and go home, what have we accomplished?
In some cases, not much. In many others, a great deal. It all depends on who takes over next. In my view, it’s generally not worth taking down a government if subsequent governments can be expected to be just as bad. However, my notion of “just as bad” is somewhat more exacting than some others’.
For example, I don’t think Vladimir Putin–thuggish autocrat that he is–is “just as bad” as whoever would have replaced Gorbachev following the 1991 coup. Nor do I think that Ahmed Karzai is as bad as Mullah Omar. Finally, I find it highly unlikely that anyone as bad as Saddam Hussein will rule Iraq anytime soon. I therefore consider the Cold War, the Afghan operation, and the Iraq war each to have accomplished something quite substantial.
J Thomas 01.18.06 at 10:48 pm
Dan Simon, it appears you are thinking in terms of the top leader.
I figure the character of whoever winds up on top is going to be something of a tossup. Look at US presidential candidates, the range goes from the integrity of Barry Goldwater all the way down to Bush.
More important is structural changes. If you could somehow destroy the secret police, you’d have a big change. Whoever winds up on top without a secret police is *much less* on top.
Similarly, in a democracy if you can get into the files of the secret police and publish all the blackmail material, you’re close to a structural change. Show the public how the representatives have been blackmailed in mass, and they’ll surely reconsider something or other.
If somehow all of J Edgar Hoover’s blackmail material had been exposed, then not only would Hoover have been dumped immediately, but the various legislators who still had to the end of their terms might have shown what they could do when they had initiative. And maybe we’d have tended toward rituals to encourage legislators to come clean and have some chance for some forgiveness, so they wouldn’t be such blackmail targets.
If a nation has been using its conventional army to threaten its neighbors and you get rid of that army, then the threat is gone. A structural change, coming just from beating the army.
Most times, that isn’t enough. We didn’t install Putin or Karzai by defeating an army and going home. We didn’t catch Saddam that way either. I guess the point of defeating the army is that it lets you do other things. If you wanted to walk into the FBI headquarters and look at the files, they’d stop you. If you brought enough force they couldn’t just stop you, they could call the police. Bring enough force to get by the police and … the mayor calls out the National Guard? I’m not clear how that works for DC. It builds up until you have to beat the US Army before you can do the one simple thing. Beating the army means the army doesn’t stop you from doing stuff. But then usually you need to occupy them to do the stuff their army can’t stop you from doing.
T-Bone 01.19.06 at 1:35 am
Zephania,
If you’re going to be an ass, at least spell the name correctly-it’s Van Riper, not Van Ripen. Yeah, your source got it wrong too. As for the book, Col Hammes is a smart guy, but the 4GW construct has a lot of problems and is a little too gimmicky. If you want a good source on counter-insurgency, read The Army and Vietnam by Andrew Krepinevich.
In any case, our military is completely unsuited to the challenges facing it and led by people who don’t understand the nature of the problem that confronts them. As Robert Kagan said to me a couple of months ago (not that I’m much of a fan of his), we just need to let this generation of military leaders move on, it’ll get better in five or ten years. Sucks, but there it is.
Dan Simon 01.19.06 at 3:38 am
I figure the character of whoever winds up on top is going to be something of a tossup. Look at US presidential candidates, the range goes from the integrity of Barry Goldwater all the way down to Bush.
More important is structural changes.
This sounds intuitively correct, but I believe that the distinction you emphasize is much less significant in practice than in theory. The very worst regimes—the ones worth toppling by military force—are generally either personality cults or party/oligarchy-based totalitarian governments. In either case, the foot soldiers—the secret police and so on of which you speak—are directly loyal to the person or group at the top, not to the government as a whole, much less the nation. Cut off the top of the pyramid, and the tyranny collapses, making “structural changes” inevitable.
Mind you, that’s no guarantee that what emerges will be North Atlantic-quality liberal democracy. But between “removing a brutal tyrant, and changing nothing else” and “establishing a Scandinavian-style parliamentary system”, there’s a lot of room for intermediate outcomes that are none the less welcome for being less than perfect.
abb1 01.19.06 at 4:35 am
For example, I don’t think Vladimir Putin—thuggish autocrat that he is—is “just as bad†as whoever would have replaced Gorbachev following the 1991 coup. Nor do I think that Ahmed Karzai is as bad as Mullah Omar. Finally, I find it highly unlikely that anyone as bad as Saddam Hussein will rule Iraq anytime soon. I therefore consider the Cold War, the Afghan operation, and the Iraq war each to have accomplished something quite substantial.
A foreign leader is a-OK, if approved by Dan Simon. That’s the ultimate criterion. Otherwise – regime change. That’s what I call ‘democracy’!
Tim Worstall 01.19.06 at 9:23 am
One little factoid about the French inter-war. (This is from memory, apologies if it’s a little out).
There was an excellent book published by a French serving officer on the implications of combined tank/infantry/air/artillery (which is sort of another name for Blitzkrieg) and various German officers have stated that they learned a lot from it to aid their own planning. Written by Charles De Gaulle.
soru 01.19.06 at 10:34 am
If the model for future wars is Afghanistan and the (initial) Iraq campaign, then the ideas behind “fourth generation warfare†(4GW) hold up very well. In both places, in fact, a fairly small, light, technologically advanced force routed a national army remarkably quickly and painlessly (for the attacker).
I think that’s incorrect use of the terminology.
In the 4GW model, there are three, not two, camps:
2GW: Pentagon and most of the US military, as best expressed in the Powell doctrine of deplying overwhelming force, pinning the enemy down, blowing them up, and advancing over their corpses.
This is really WWI tactics done right, with artillery and air support that technologically can do the job those tactics require of them.
3GW: Rumsfeld and his pet generals, as realised in the advance on baghdad. This is basically Blitzkreig, and seems to be what you are confusing with 4GW.
4GW: british-style counter-insurgency, presented in Pentagon-friendly buzzpeak to make it seem like a new thing.
About which Captain Blackadder would have had something to say.
soru
soru 01.19.06 at 11:51 am
Missing link from last post:
http://homepages.tesco.net/~neilhelen/ArchiveBlackadder2003.htm
soru
Grand Moff Texan 01.19.06 at 2:33 pm
I thought being able to post here meant that you had some sort of expertise.
Keiran and I thought that commenting here meant you’d read the post.
Apparently we were all wrong.
.
tcdowc 01.19.06 at 5:31 pm
Zephania,
Your post was generally correct about the Millenium Challenge, but the link you provided has several of the details wrong. van Riper was given command of the Israeli forces, not the Iranian or Iraqi. After all, if the next decade’s warfare is going to be technology vs. technology then we should practice against (mostly) technologically advanced forces. And in comparison, the Israeli fleet is a collection of small boats. I believe van Riper only sank something like 1/3 of the US fleet, but the crucial difference (and the thing that makes this a serious critic of DoD theory) is how he did it. He launched all of the cruise missles at his disposal at the same time. The ammount overloaded the defensive survailance devices and ended up sinking a significant portion of the fleet, thereby demonstrating rather effectively that the Pentagon’s superior technology strategy was in fact not very good against technologically advanced opponents, which was who it had been designed to work against. The rest is fairly accurate. The commanders of the Challenge declared a do-over, and started sending van Riper instructions on how he was to conduct his part of the war, at which point he resigned his post. My source is an interview van Riper gave for a documentary produced by TheNewYorkTimes for ZDF (German TV) called “Perfect War”. All-in-all, there seems to be very little evidence that Transformation produces effective forces.
Dan Simon 01.19.06 at 8:07 pm
A foreign leader is a-OK, if approved by Dan Simon. That’s the ultimate criterion. Otherwise – regime change. That’s what I call ‘democracy’!
For the record, I don’t support the use of military force to overthrow functioning democratic governments. That sets me apart from, among others, Abb1.
I think that’s incorrect use of the terminology.
Very well—I’m not going to get hung up on terminology. I believe my two original questions translate into, in Soru’s terms, “is 2GW or 3GW the best approach to conventional military conflict against large, organized national military forces?”, and, “is the US more likely in the future to be fighting large, organized national military forces, or the type of ad hoc irregular force that 4GW was designed to combat?”.
soru 01.20.06 at 6:38 am
is the US more likely in the future to be fighting large, organized national military forces, or the type of ad hoc irregular force that 4GW was designed to combat?
That’s an answerable question, using the Maginot line principle. If the US gets into a war with an enemy smart enough to be dangerous, it will be fought on whichever of the different terms is most advantagous to the enemy.
soru
yabonn 01.20.06 at 11:30 am
Mexico and Canada being rather unthreatening, the u.s. army is reasonably geared towards wars of choice, on other continents.
So these not-for-your-life wars have to be electorally compatible – i.e. low casualties : the infantry is trained to vaporize everything in a 1.5 km radius if they hear a firecracker, shelling, bombing are liberally used, etc.
Planning for conterinsurgency is planning to make the army close to an hostile environment. For the military, it goes against the “war is applying-overwhelming firepower from far away” mindset; for the politic it is accepting that soldiers will be more vulnerable, and that the war will last a long time.
I’m rather ignorant of military matters, but maybe that’s why they are discovering insurgency, again.
Blame Canada, i say.
paul 01.20.06 at 3:30 pm
During the Reagan Administration, a fair number of the usual suspects criticized what they called the “sharpshooter myth” — the idea that a few good men armed with the best weapons on the planet could always defeat a technologically inferior force. In those days it was the USSR, and the defense procurement types were trying to explain how extra whizbang would offset a 5:1 or 10:1 soviet advantage in the number or planes or tanks or whatever. It seems that the argument hasn’t changed much. It enables the US to support enormous dollar purchases of defense hardware with a relatively small force of servicemembers to actually use them, and is an excellent peacetime way of funneling middle-income welfare dollars to states with lots of defense contractors. In wartime, if the weapons don’t see action because they were designed for the wrong war, it’s just stupid.
(The original sharpshooter myth explained US success in the revolutionary war with the claim that US soldiers typically used long rifles, which were much more accurate than the muskets used by british forces, so that a revolutionary could kill at longer range and with less expenditure of ammunition. The myth was recast to explain allied success in WW2 as a victory due to wonder weapons, even though for much of the war US ships, aircraft and tanks were distinctly inferior to the ones that the Axis was using. The real wonder was the industrial machine that cranked out tens of thousands of aircraft, tanks and so forth every year while still leaving enough population to raise food and send millions of soldiers overseas to fight. Late in the war, technical superiority did play a role, but not the overwhelming one of myth.
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