• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

Professional Military Education

Exploring military history, strategy, and ideas through the lens of great books and an awesome podcast!

"The most important six inches

on the battlefield

is between your ears."

General James Mattis (USMC-Ret.)

  • Home
  • Blog
  • Podcast
  • Book Reviews
  • About
  • Contact

Scales on War- Heritage Foundation Video

By PMEComplete on January 4, 2017

As I am currently reading Scales on War The Future of America’s Military at Risk, I wanted to share this video in which he outlines some of the ideas in his book.

General Scales’ book doesn’t hold back in a scathing criticism of what he sees as a failure of politicians and policy makers to adequately equip and invest in the infantrymen, meaning the soldiers and Marines involved in the unpleasant act of “intimate killing.” This means that the infantryman is the man who looks his enemy in the eyes before he squeezes the trigger. General Scales lays out a compelling case for the need to create a more professional and highly trained infantry force that is the “main effort” in terms of Defense Appropriations funding. His book often reads like Smedley Butler’s War is a Racket in terms of how he hints that large defense companies and the bureaucrats that write them checks have an incentive to manufacture conflicts that justify funding for air and sea technology. But, as he asserts, America’s enemies are not engaging us in the air and on the sea. In fact, he is adamant that in the nuclear age, large nuclear powers don’t fight each other conventionally. Furthermore, our fights have been against smaller, irregular forces who use cheap technology in creative ways. Since our infantrymen haven’t received adequate funding, the fights that they have been engaged in have been “too fair.” He asks why America’s infantrymen haven’t been given the resources that they need to have a significant edge over the enemies we have fought in Iraq and Afghanistan. The book is worth reading and the issues are worth discussing and debating. Check out the video and the book.

Share this:

  • Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Tumblr (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window)
  • Click to email this to a friend (Opens in new window)
  • Click to print (Opens in new window)
  • More
  • Click to share on Reddit (Opens in new window)

Primary Sidebar

JOIN THE ELITE

Sign-up for the PME Complete newsletter to get tips, tricks and book reviews.

Follow

  • Facebook
  • Twitter

Copyright © 2022 · Smart Passive Income Pro on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in

loading Cancel
Post was not sent - check your email addresses!
Email check failed, please try again
Sorry, your blog cannot share posts by email.