Near the end of WW I, British Maj Gen JFC Fuller, a tank officer and military theorist, as part of his “Plan 1919” introduced a concept, which he called “Brain Warfare.” The idea was to disable an enemy by attacking command-and-communications infrastructure rather than by focusing on troop attrition. This was a form of psychological paralysis because mechanized troops and tanks would cut into the enemy area on a narrow front, drive deep into the rear areas, bypassing combat troops and destroy HQ, and communication centres.

Sound familiar? This is very much what Heinz Guderian achieved (either by plan or by accident) once he forced his forces across the Meuse River in 1940. The end came when Wehrmacht Kampfgruppen (combat teams) came within sight of the Atlantic Ocean at a small town called Dunkirk. Luckily for the Allies, Guderian was ordered to halt by the German “stable genius” Adolf Hitler. The French Army was not destroyed in the field; its combat effectiveness was made irrelevant by a paralyzed French General Staff with reports of troops weeping in their positions because they were told to lay down their arms without fighting. Colonel Charles de Gaulle along with some others refused and kept fighting, escaping to England as the Armée française de la Libération.

Anyone familiar with Colonel John Warden, USAF and his Five Rings Theory, which was the basis of the Air Sub-Campaign Plan during the “Shock and Awe” phase of Gulf War I will quickly realize the intellectual debt that Warden owes to Fuller and that both men owe to Sun Tzu (The greatest victory is the one which requires no battle.)

As some readers will be aware, each country has its own “Way of War.” Professor Russel Weigley first articulated the American way of war in his seminal 1973 book The American Way of War: A History of United States Strategy and Policy. 

Flash forward several decades. The American Way of War — massive use of firepower and hi-tech — is well established. It is in many ways commendable because it prioritizes bullets instead of bodies. But is this way of war effective, when viewed against the backdrop of JFC Fuller’s theory or even John Warden’s modern variant? The US-led coalition in Afghanistan collectively spent over a trillion US dollars defeating the Taliban. Who controls Afghanistan now? Yup. You guessed it …

The enemy country in the news today (no not Russia) is Yemen, which is controlled by Houthi rebels, supported by the ayatollahs in Iran. The US Defense Department is amassing a huge amount of firepower in the region — those of you on Pete Hegseth’s Signal already chat know this. According to the New York Times today, the bill is rising: Two carrier strike groups, each of which costs over US $6 million per day to operate are parked off the coast of Yemen. B-2 bombers, which cost almost US $100,000 per flight hour are conducting multiple bombing runs, and in the first month have dropped (along with fighters) over a quarter of a billion US dollars in the first month of bombing.

From the NYT: “One of the deadliest attacks of the campaign came last week, when the United States bombed an oil terminal and killed at least 74 people, according to the Houthis. The next day, the Houthis shot down a $30 million MQ-9 Reaper drone and yet another on Tuesday night — the fifth and sixth since the mission began in March. The bombing raids, called Operation Rough Rider, show the United States has yet to establish air dominance above the country, despite hundreds of airstrikes that put pilots at risk as they routinely conduct attacks against Houthi militia forces.”

Let me be clear. War is expensive, especially if you are using technology instead of meat grinder attacks like the Russian Army. But one has to wonder if modern military thinking has actually made any progress from 1918 ….