Milstack Saturday (15 February 2025)
The best of what I watched, read, or listened to last week
In the three days since the posting of the ‘Snowy Day Special’ of 12 February 2025, two videos and an article challenged paradigms that I had depended upon for a very long time.
Appearing on Maiden, Mother, Matriarch, David Betz predicted ‘The Coming British Civil War’ and, in doing so, caused me to rethink the way that I imagined the setting of the stage for an internecine conflict. (The second episode of By the Sword DividedBC does a good job of illustrating my old model, which rested upon the role played by pre-existing military organizations.)
Austin Caroe compared leadership to driving a ‘Zamboni’, thereby calling into question my decades-long tendency to emphasize the innate qualities of leaders over things that can be taught.
Long Warred, a longtime friend of The Tactical Notebook, encouraged me to watch ‘How AI is Changing Warfare’, a video which reduced, if only for a moment, my pessimism concerning the ability of the American defense establishment to adapt to the new world of fighting robots.
Note on Links
YT marks a link to a video on YouTube.
BC indicates a link to a video on Bitchute.
Links without superscripts will take you to a page elsewhere on Substack.
Oldies but Goodies
To subscribe, share, or support:
‘AC compared “leadership to driving a ‘Zamboni’, thereby calling into question my decades-long tendency to emphasize the innate qualities of leaders over things that can be taught”.
I don’t know about that, nor will I question your innate quality emphasis - I agree actually. What is STRONG must be emphasized.
Here is the tangent I bought up on Austin Caroe’s Zamboni post;
WHO? Who emphasizes the quality or for that matter teaches it to a platoon leader. The US Army has a very systemically bad personnel system and lack of training for LT/Platoon leader, that is 2LT/O1. It’s teach at school, throw them in see who floats.
This is the only job I know- besides sales and perhaps office bee worker where this is done.
Considering the dangers, it should be an apprentice/senior mentor or Senior Pilot/ Junior Pilot type learning. I know other armies don’t do this, in the British army the Platoon Commander is a Captain, Company Commander a Major and they learn from the Senior Officer. We the army need to get away from the industrial mindset of people are cogs.
I gather the Marines may be different, certainly other militaries.