Aw shucks
: See my warblog for the new name of our bombing campaign, thanks to an avid commenter here.
5 responses to “Aw shucks”
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I like what I had earlier … “Scare and Confuse”
Scare the Iraqi military.
Confuse the media. -
While writing today about the Language of War, I came across this Department of Defense document on using “shock and awe” to achieve “rapid dominance.” Is this where Rumsfeld got the term? Is it normal militaryspeak?
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Cool. Now…can we talk royalties?
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For our French friends:
OPERATION SERIOUS CONSEQUENCES -
Yeah, that Harlan Ullman paper is where the term came from. It doesn’t seem to have been standard military jargon before then, though of course similar concepts go back a long way.
It’s a risky strategy in a city. Reid Stott said he got the impression that people could see how the strikes were targeted and didn’t feel like they were going to be next. I hope he’s right. If a lot of uninvolved civilians die, and the general population gets the sense that they’ve been targeted, then (short of World War II-level devastation) you don’t break anyone’s will to resist. You instead create effects that will be familiar from Sept. 11, 2001: the will to wipe the attacker off the face of the earth.
I hope these guys know what they’re doing. Mistakes would be very, very costly.
