@@TheRedLinePod hey thanks for responding! I’d love to see you guys talk about Wagner again, an update on it since last year when you talk about it. Or potentially East African Community and the idea of unification or greater cooperation there. Finally Mali seems to have had a lot of new stuff happen to it this year.
@@JamesSmith-fm6pd You are in luck, we did a panel on Wagners finances this week which you can check out. Otherwise, if you scroll back to our "PMCs in Africa" episode, there is another 90 minutes of Wagner info there. That piece was from pre-2022 though, so we will have to look at doing another big Wagner piece sometime soon. :-)
Can the history of fighting wars we didn't design our forces for be attributed more to those planned scenarios being prevented by deterrence? Most of the time, particularly since the end of WW2 it feels like much of the planning has focused on the worst case scenario, but that scenario never materialised because it was exactly what the opposing side was geared up to fight against. The worst case Cold War scenario for Europe was tanks rolling down the Fulda Gap, but the USSR never pulled the trigger on that because of the high likelihood of failure and perceived guaranteed lose-lose outcome...
Agreed. It’s the wars we prepare to fight that our enemies don’t dare to start. It’s why a Chinese invasion of Taiwan is much less likely than a China-India border scuffle or a Chinese land grab in Siberia.
The problem with "cheap and cheerful" is that Ukraine has no choice but use quantity over quality. They don't have the capability to use high quality equipment and they are already paying for this in the amount of casualties being reported. Is the US ready to pay such a high casualty rate? From a value perspective, it may very well be that the exorbitantly expensive military system is 3-5x more expensive, but it could generate more than 3-5x in value. That 6th gen fighter might cost 5 or even 10x more than 4th gen fighters, but maybe it can kill 20x 4th gen fighters or completely neutralize air defenses to strike at targets worth way more than the cost of that single fighter. Maybe that USS Enterprise can completely intercept and neutralize all nuclear threats, doesn't that make it nearly priceless? Hopefully people can avoid overlearning Ukraine. You shouldn't look at overall Ukraine success and exactly emulate the Ukrainians. Otherwise you'll be asking the US military to scrap all aircraft, ships, and even nuclear capability to focus on a massive ground force, which is clearly preposterous.
I fully agree. There will always be a place for top-end gear, and always a place for lots of average gear. The debate for me doesn't seem to be between one or the other, but more about how far to one side or the other you want to push the needle. Even if you only move the needle 5 or 15% in the other direction, that is still a change in how your overall plans will be paid out.
I think the idea of “preparing for the wrong war” is a bad way of looking at it. It’s survival bias. It’s judging the strategy based on the one time it failed instead of all the other times it was deemed so successful it became a deterrent and that type of war never happened.
![European Rearmament (Are We Preparing for the Wrong War?) - (Part 3) - [feat. @PerunAU ]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/5gncQ3x9_lo/mqdefault.jpg)
great guest! came here for perun - stayed for more. Greetings from Poland!
Same for me! All 4 parts in one go listened to.
Excellent!
Amazing coverage of the topic this week. I love your podcast and have shown all my friends who are interested In this kind of stuff
Glad you enjoyed it! Let us know if you have any ideas for future topics.
@@TheRedLinePod hey thanks for responding! I’d love to see you guys talk about Wagner again, an update on it since last year when you talk about it.
Or potentially East African Community and the idea of unification or greater cooperation there.
Finally Mali seems to have had a lot of new stuff happen to it this year.
@@JamesSmith-fm6pd You are in luck, we did a panel on Wagners finances this week which you can check out.
Otherwise, if you scroll back to our "PMCs in Africa" episode, there is another 90 minutes of Wagner info there. That piece was from pre-2022 though, so we will have to look at doing another big Wagner piece sometime soon. :-)
Can the history of fighting wars we didn't design our forces for be attributed more to those planned scenarios being prevented by deterrence? Most of the time, particularly since the end of WW2 it feels like much of the planning has focused on the worst case scenario, but that scenario never materialised because it was exactly what the opposing side was geared up to fight against. The worst case Cold War scenario for Europe was tanks rolling down the Fulda Gap, but the USSR never pulled the trigger on that because of the high likelihood of failure and perceived guaranteed lose-lose outcome...
Agreed. It’s the wars we prepare to fight that our enemies don’t dare to start. It’s why a Chinese invasion of Taiwan is much less likely than a China-India border scuffle or a Chinese land grab in Siberia.
The problem with "cheap and cheerful" is that Ukraine has no choice but use quantity over quality. They don't have the capability to use high quality equipment and they are already paying for this in the amount of casualties being reported. Is the US ready to pay such a high casualty rate? From a value perspective, it may very well be that the exorbitantly expensive military system is 3-5x more expensive, but it could generate more than 3-5x in value. That 6th gen fighter might cost 5 or even 10x more than 4th gen fighters, but maybe it can kill 20x 4th gen fighters or completely neutralize air defenses to strike at targets worth way more than the cost of that single fighter. Maybe that USS Enterprise can completely intercept and neutralize all nuclear threats, doesn't that make it nearly priceless? Hopefully people can avoid overlearning Ukraine. You shouldn't look at overall Ukraine success and exactly emulate the Ukrainians. Otherwise you'll be asking the US military to scrap all aircraft, ships, and even nuclear capability to focus on a massive ground force, which is clearly preposterous.
I fully agree.
There will always be a place for top-end gear, and always a place for lots of average gear. The debate for me doesn't seem to be between one or the other, but more about how far to one side or the other you want to push the needle. Even if you only move the needle 5 or 15% in the other direction, that is still a change in how your overall plans will be paid out.
I think the idea of “preparing for the wrong war” is a bad way of looking at it. It’s survival bias. It’s judging the strategy based on the one time it failed instead of all the other times it was deemed so successful it became a deterrent and that type of war never happened.