Charlie Olvera: A Blog

December 7, 2011

We underestimated Japanese military power. So far as military and naval estimates were concerned, Japan had to be judged largely on her past record. Power cannot be gauged solely on strength reports, even if actual strength be known. Japan’s war record was not impressive. She had fought but one great power (if the Russia of 1904-1905 can be so rated), plus a push-over against an isolated German Colony. Most indicative of all were the four years before Pearl Harbor in which she had waged active warfare in China. We knew pretty accurately China’s deficiencies in modern equipment, resources, and training. Our maps and time scales, as we followed the war, clearly indicated a low rating for Japanese military prowess when judged by modern standards.

We had a yardstick. No better measure exists of what a power plant can do, if you cannot put your own gauges on it, than what it has done. We had no reason to doubt our yardstick’s approximate accuracy. Yet it was wholly false.

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Sherman Miles, former Army chief of intelligence, reflects on Pearl Harbor in a 1948 issue of The Atlantic. Read more. (via theatlantic)

This is perhaps the strongest argument for flexible, actionable, current intelligence that I have ever seen. Basing our strategic policies upon past history is akin to setting ourselves up for the kind of domestic-soil terrorist attacks we experienced in 1941, and again in September 11 of 2001. It’s encouraging that Leon Panetta is now in charge of the defense budget- one can only hope that he will slash the kind of wasteful ordinance development programs that prevent the military from moving as a streamlined, effective force, and promote flexible squad-level intelligence, spec-ops, and COIN forces.

6:19pm | URL: http://tmblr.co/ZM1HayCy3X9X

(Notes: 27)