Martin Van Crevald and US Pussycats

Martin Van Crevald, author of the newly published Castalia House books A History of Strategy: From Sun Tzu to William S. Lind and Equality: The Impossible Quest, writes of the US lacking the will to win here. Again, I find myself reading a lot of things lately, looking up to the heavens, and screaming “r/K Selection – It’s r/K Selection!”

First, some people have taken issue with parts of Van Crevald’s essay. One issue I would point to is lack of specificity. In Somalia, a very small contingent of our forces cut through the massive numbers of insurgents like butter, and were itching to go back in and finish the job once they saw our guys being dragged through the streets. By that point the insurgents had spent most of their ammo, and many were fleeing. It was only Clinton that pulled our forces back and pulled them out. So Van Crevald should have been clearer that our individual men are top-notch lethality-wise. Our hardened veterans are as K as anyone. It is our leadership which is r, and it is r in response to an r-ified population whose K-contingent is not willing to fight to enforce its norms (also due to free resource availability). But his point remains.

From the article:

By far the most important single reason behind the repeated failures is the fact that, one and all, these were luxury wars. With nuclear weapons deterring large-scale attack, for seven decades now no Western country has waged anything like a serious, let alone existential, struggle against a more or less equal opponent. As the troops took on opponents much weaker than themselves—often in places they had never heard about, often for reasons nobody but a few politicians understood—they saw no reason why they should get themselves killed.

r’s fight showy wars of luxury against weaker opponents to gain status without enduring danger. K’s fight lethal wars of necessity where one or the other will be destroyed, because to not fight is to be destroyed. It is as true at the national level as at the individual level.

We are in r-selected times, and the r-strategy rule is, those who gain social status without enduring risk win. The USA is one big rabbit PUA on the international scene. So long as everyone is trying to agree and amplify, and the resources stay free, we can win with that strategy. But once resources come up short, people start killing, and whoever isn’t willing to kill dies. When that arrives we will need to adapt or see our nation sink to the bottom of the heap.

I had an exchange in comments with someone below, pointing out I did not think the Bundy Ranch outcome was a government loss, but rather a strategy. I went on to say I would be surprised if the militia members weren’t buried under covert surveillance coverage now, and prior to any real conflict the militia members would see government agents try to contaminate their food using intel the surveillance is gathering right now.

I though after posting that, “I wonder how many people will think that is crazy?” The bottom line is real K-selection will seem crazy to us, because we have never seen it. Real K-selection means, somebody will die. Once the stakes are that high, the rules change, and the rule changes will change the people. I’ve met men from that world. I’ve stolen looks from the corners of my eye at guys whose steely-eye’d coldness could chill a room. They weren’t technically sociopaths, but let the stakes be death and they might as well have been.

I’m sure much of the Federal hierarchy today is sociopaths, and as the transition occurs, they will have a temporary advantage since kill or be killed favors the killer. No Fed agency is going to encounter a civil war, meet the Bundy Ranch Militia Crew face to face, be as out-numbered and out-gunned as they were, and just get killed – all because poisoning the militia members would be wrong. Mark my words, what is coming will be epic, and we have never seen anything like it. I’d be shocked if the other side isn’t prepared for that.

The amygdala scans the environment in relation to what it has seen. We live in a world where Bruce Jenner, fresh off a boob job, thinks the new female version of himself is going to debut on Dancing with the Stars as he graces the cover of Vogue, because he always wanted to be a supermodel in a bikini – and it all just might happen. This is r-America.

Nobody today could imagine seeing video of our troops gratuitously flame-throwering enemy combatants, or nuking a city, and our entire rabbit nation cheering. That is K-America. But if the collapse is even half of what it appears it will be, we will get all that back and then some – and so will our enemies. The combination will be a civilizational equivalent of Nitroglycerin. It won’t take much to trigger the explosion – just some resource restriction and a little bit of r/K Selection.