Optimizing Military Force Effectiveness

Today, we are in a second Cold War, which is primarily a conflict among economic systems. Success in such a war is measured in the possession of strategic investments and Gross Domestic Product (GDP) per capita. To build and/or continue to maintain a strategic advantage, we need breakthroughs in thinking and innovation. Not only must we preserve our current capabilities, but we need to cement our ability to reliably provide essential food, water and energy for ourselves and in support of an increasingly more stressed global economy.

Today, we are in a second Cold War, which is primarily a conflict among economic systems. Inter-state strategic competition pits the US and its post-industrial service-, investment- and entertainment-based economy against the powers of China and Russia, who are still independently able to manufacture products, mine resources and grow food. Success in such a war is measured in the possession of strategic investments and Gross Domestic Product (GDP) per capita. The successful nation(s) must maintain a strong economy, strategic reserves and deterrence through a capable defense system. To achieve these necessary goals, a competent administration, a capable intelligence system, a multi-purpose force and an industrial capacity, all able to overcome constant change, are vital. Equally as important is to sustain a strategy supported by appropriate forces, equipment and systems. To build and/or continue to maintain a strategic advantage, we need breakthroughs in thinking and innovation. Not only must we preserve our current capabilities, but we need to cement our ability to reliably provide essential food, water and energy for ourselves and in support of an increasingly more stressed global economy.

COL (Ret.) Walter L. Steve Mayew served in the US Marine Corps and the US Army for more than thirty-three years. His service included tours in two of the Army's Special Forces Groups and assignments from Battery to Division Artillery, which provided experience in insurgencies and conventional operations. He also served in the paper trenches of the Pentagon in several assignments before he retired to Niceville, Florida. COL Mayew also wrote Dealing with the Decades, an operator's manual for people from birth to their nineties. The book considered human needs and those predictable events, emphasizing the importance of knowing what to expect in each decade. More recently, COL Mayew wrote Because War is a Failure, which points out that war is an extension of a political process that, today, is likely to become an endless quagmire or end in failure.