The Diverse War Machine
3rd August 2019
ZMan is delightfully dyspeptic today.
In his book, At Our Wits’ End, Ed Dutton uses the space program as an example of how general intelligence has declined. It’s not a bulletproof example, but more of a way to think about how declining intelligence impacts a society. Fifty years ago, America had the collective ability to organize a massive project like the moon shot. Today, the country lacks the organizational ability to do a moon shot. That organizational ability is a function of the general intelligence of society.
Can[t say he’s wrong.
One area to watch is the war machine that was created to be run mostly by smart white guys with a sense of adventure. Automation and technology has replaced a lot of human brainpower in the military. The sophisticated computer systems on ships, planes and weapons makes it possible for mediocre people to operate them. No one needs to calibrate machine guns on fighter planes or learn trigonometry in order to serve in an artillery unit. Computers do the heavy thinking today.
When the Navy’s battleships were last brought back into service, they reviewed the performance of the mechanical fire direction calculators to see whether they ought to be replaced with electronic computers. They discovered that the only improvement to be made was a doppler radar to detect the actual speed of the first shot out of the guns so that further shots could be more precisely adjusted.
This story about the problems in the elite services is a sign of things to come. It’s not just that the number of men available to serve in these units is in decline. It is the decline in organizational intelligence that is needed to maintain these units. These units require a leadership stack above them with the skill and ability to keep these types of soldiers on edge, but under control. In the multicultural America, the vibrant and diverse military will not have the human capital to fill these roles.