Shock and Awe Made Empire Feel Like a Game

The immediate question is not whether Trump would want war with Iran. Source trail 0:01 Let's start class. So, last week, we discussed the possibility that Trump will become president, and we discussed that if he does become president in a second term, there will be a very strong likelihood that the United... The question is whether the military would go along. The Pentagon must implement the war, and if the military resists, the political desire for war becomes much harder to execute. The answer offered here is that the military will go along because its imagination was reorganized by what happened in Iraq in 2003.

The older Pentagon model is concrete and material. Source trail 1:172:40 and his people, Vice President Dick Cheney, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, and his deputy, Paul Wolfowitz, they want this war. And they go to the Pentagon and say, listen, we want this war, give us a plan. And th...So you need to advance, but you also need to hold territory, as well as resupply your troops and have reserves, okay? So the general rule of thumb is that if your enemy has 300,000 soldiers, you need about a million, ok... To invade a country, you need mass forces, protection from encirclement, and supply lines. You do not merely advance; you hold territory, resupply soldiers, maintain reserves, and keep oil, fuel, weapons, and food moving. If the enemy has hundreds of thousands of soldiers, the old rule says you need overwhelming numbers.

That is why the Rumsfeld-Wolfowitz demand looked insane to the generals. Source trail 3:44 Pentagon for a plan, the Pentagon went to the drawing board and said, to invade Iraq properly, we need about a million soldiers, okay? And Donald Rumsfeld, who was Secretary of Defense, and his deputy, Wolfert, said, no... The Pentagon's experience said Iraq required something near a million soldiers. The civilian leadership kept telling planners to go lower until the war plan used roughly 100,000 to 130,000 troops. In conventional terms, this meant fighting outnumbered, exposed to encirclement, and unable to protect the basic logistics of occupation.

Shock and awe begins as an anatomical fantasy of command. An army is imagined as a hierarchy with a head, a body, arms, and legs. If the head can be cut off, the whole army falls apart. Source trail 5:01 the way, professional soldiers, they've never really fought a war before, they're like, well, we have this theory, a new theory of war called shock and awe. Okay? And the idea of shock and awe is that all militaries are... Air supremacy controls the sky. Technological omniscience sees and hears everything on the ground. Source trail 5:016:19 the way, professional soldiers, they've never really fought a war before, they're like, well, we have this theory, a new theory of war called shock and awe. Okay? And the idea of shock and awe is that all militaries are...They can see everything on Earth. They can see everything on the Earth. We have technology that allows us to eavesdrop on all electronic communications. When you talk on the phone, we can hear exactly what you're saying... Special forces enter enemy territory and point air power where it should strike.

The promise is not only military success. Source trail 6:197:31 They can see everything on Earth. They can see everything on the Earth. We have technology that allows us to eavesdrop on all electronic communications. When you talk on the phone, we can hear exactly what you're saying...Okay? And the Pentagon was like, you guys are insane. This is not going to work. This is a theory, guys. Whereas this idea, mass forces, avoid encirclement, protect supply lines, we've been doing this for like thousands... It is war without the old burden of war: quick, cheap, and decisive. To the Pentagon this sounds like fantasy because mass, encirclement, and supply are not theories; they are hard historical experience. But the civilian leadership insists that the fantasy be tried.

Then the dangerous thing happens: the fantasy appears to work. The war lasts three weeks. The United States destroys a much larger Iraqi army with far fewer troops. U.S. casualties are low, while Iraqi casualties are enormous. The thunder runs through Baghdad look like domination so excessive it becomes performance, like a fighter so bored by his opponent that he does a backflip. Lens point strategy-material-test Shock and awe becomes strategic fantasy when a spectacular success is treated as proof that performance, precision, speed, and godlike visibility have replaced mass, terrain, supply, duration, and enemy adaptation. Source trail 8:55 Okay? It was accidental. This is insane. This has never happened before. Only 200 American soldiers died, at most, whereas tens of thousands of Iraqi soldiers died. Okay? And the third thing that was most impressive is...

The lecture does not deny that shock and awe was effective in Iraq. Source trail 9:5911:16 Thunder runs. Okay? So these three things show the incredible superiority of this doctrine of shock and awe. Okay? So how is America able to achieve all this? Well, I mean, the first thing is the idea of air supremacy....And it was true. So what was happening was that special forces could drive around and look for military installations by themselves. Okay? We're talking like a few people. And then they could order in an airstrike. Okay... Cluster bombs, GPS-guided submunitions, air supremacy, and small teams directing airstrikes did real work. The reversal is that effectiveness in one war does not make a general doctrine. Iraq looked like a revolution in warfare because nobody asked why Saddam Hussein was uniquely vulnerable.

Three conditions made 2003 a one-off. Saddam had no serious air defense because the 1991 Gulf War taught him that America could destroy him from the air but probably would not overthrow him. Iraq was a desert, so satellites, aircraft, and special forces could see and move. And surprise mattered: no one had fought a war like this before, so Iraqi commanders misread where the main attack was coming from. Source trail 11:1612:3813:3514:53 And it was true. So what was happening was that special forces could drive around and look for military installations by themselves. Okay? We're talking like a few people. And then they could order in an airstrike. Okay...He didn't have weapons to counter the enemy. So he was really focused on fighting against America's air supremacy. And the reason why is that in 1991, Saddam Hussein fought a war against America called the first Persian...

America draws the opposite conclusion. Source trail 16:0817:4218:54 expression this was Unfortunately, the Americans don't know this, okay? Right? The Americans are like, well, all this does is prove our theory to be correct, okay? So after 2003, America focused its military doctrine, i...Now, traditionally, militaries have been very strict hierarchies, and there are good reasons for this, okay? You have to enforce order and discipline, right? But you're also concerned about the military overflowing the... Instead of treating Iraq as a special case, it treats Iraq as proof. Special forces expand. Their budget expands. Their black-ops world expands beyond public supervision. The institutional problem is already visible: militaries need hierarchy to maintain order, but special forces are valuable precisely because they can act outside normal hierarchy.

The people selected for this system are not ordinary soldiers with slightly better training. They are selected through ordeals that push toward the edge of body and mind: mountain marathons with bricks Source trail 20:06 And you're like, okay, that's hard. Oh! One more thing. You're running the marathon on a mountain, okay? You understand? You have to run six marathons in five days with a backpack of bricks, and you have to do it on a m... , torture resistance, and exercises where comrades shoot near them. The point is not simply that they are tough. The point is that a military increasingly organized around them is also organized around a different relationship to risk and violence.

That is why the lecture turns shock and awe from a theory of war into a theory of empire. Special forces let America be everywhere at once and almost nowhere in public. Libya becomes the model: violence directed from the background, air power called in, regime change presented without the public seeing the imperial machinery. This is empire without guilt Source trail 22:30 So it's good for America because now what shotgun all allows America to do is be everywhere at once. And you'll never see them, okay? So for example, the example is when Gaddafi was overthrown in the 2011 Libya war, oka... , because the work of empire is hidden from the people who benefit from it.

The origin story for this hidden empire is Vietnam. Source trail 25:1726:3927:5229:16 And so a lot of the resources were shifted into special forces and that allowed more people to enter special forces, okay? Does that make sense? Okay, all right. Any more questions before I move on? All right. Now the q...58,000 US soldiers died in this war. Three million, at least three million, Vietnamese died in this war. Two million of them were civilians, innocent civilians, okay? Over 300,000 US soldiers were wounded, okay? They we... Mass-force war required a draft, casualties, journalists, protest, and visible civilian killing. The military experienced that not only as battlefield failure but as betrayal by democracy. The public, the press, and elected politicians refused to make the sacrifices empire required. The Pentagon Papers then gave the public proof that leaders had expanded and continued a war they knew was unwinnable.

Vietnam is unwinnable in this telling because the enemy is not where conventional force needs it to be. The insurgents move through tunnels, disappear after attacks, pick up dropped ammunition, turn unexploded bombs into land mines, and receive weapons through corruption. It is as if they can swim underground. Source trail 30:3531:42 You couldn't win this war, okay? And the reason why is that these Vietnamese peasants, they were unbeatable. Because what they were doing was they were digging tunnels underground. And then when American soldiers were c...You're now arming the enemy, right? Because these peasants would pick up these ammo and use it themselves. That's the first thing. Second thing is that the U.S. military dropped more bombs on Vietnam than in World War I... More force does not solve the problem because the force keeps feeding the system it is trying to destroy.

The motive that remains is credibility. Leaders stay because leaving would mean admitting that peasants in pajamas can beat them. Source trail 33:54 from Vietnam, if we admit that peasants in pajamas can beat us, Soviet Union would laugh at us. China would laugh at us. The entire world would laugh at us. We don't want to be laughed at. So that's why we're staying in... That is the humiliation they cannot tolerate. When the Pentagon Papers become public, the anger is not just about failure. It is about deception, purposeless war, and a state continuing violence to avoid being laughed at.

Shock and awe is the response. It minimizes U.S. casualties, hides enemy casualties by blowing bodies apart or keeping them offscreen, moves quickly enough that protest cannot organize, and uses special forces without the consent of the people. It is the empire escaping the shackles of democracy. Source trail 36:35 Shock and awe means that America no longer has to make any sacrifices. You no longer need the consent of the people to fight the war. You don't even need congressional approval to fight the war. You can now escape the s... The problem is not only tactical. It is constitutional: the war machine wants to protect empire without letting democracy interfere.

The student objections sharpen the model. If shock and awe works only in Iraq, the answer is terrain: much of the recent U.S. war record has been in Middle Eastern deserts, while Iran is mountainous. If America lost Iraq and Afghanistan because of insurgency, the answer is design: shock and awe is not meant to stabilize countries. It is meant to topple and destroy them Source trail 39:22 Okay, so, okay, that's a great point, okay? You can make the point that America for the past 20 years have lost all wars in Iraq and Afghanistan because they have not been able to control the insurgency, okay? But the p... so no regional power can challenge American supremacy.

The first theory of empire appears after the Soviet collapse. Source trail 42:1843:4144:48 Does that make sense? Okay, but this is something we will discuss later on, okay? In another class, okay? All right, all right. Let's now move to the last topic. Which is the theory of empire. So this is not the first t...Whereas in the Persian Gulf War, led by the father, right, George Herbert Walker Bush, the first and only goal was to remove Saddam Hussein from Kuwait. That's it, okay? We're not gonna go to Iraq and topple Saddam Huss... America is the only hegemon, but in the 1991 Gulf War it limits the objective to removing Saddam Hussein from Kuwait, works through partners, and operates under U.N. authority. Its language is responsibility: power should show humility, discipline, and restraint so the rules-based order remains legitimate.

The second theory is shock and awe: unlimited strategic goals, unilateral action, and rule-making by force. Source trail 46:04 We will only do so with partners. And we will only do so under the umbrella of U.N. authority, okay? So this is the first theory of empire. When you think about it, wow, great! What a wonderful world, right? Here's a qu... It does not ask how to rule forever by appearing restrained. It asks why the greatest power in the world should accept restraints at all. That is why the transition needs an analogy about inheritance.

Empire is imagined as a fortune left to a son. The father built it through intelligence, work, corruption, and competent advisors. The heir is promised effortless income if he listens to the people who know how the machine works. But inherited power produces contempt for the discipline that created it. The first thing he does is fire the advisors. Source trail 48:33 And you know what? They're going to give you every year, Jack, $100 million to do whatever you want. You want to go buy an airplane? Do that. You want to go buy an island? Do that. You want to party with movie stars? Do... The second is hire his friends.

The heir does not want stewardship. He wants fun. That is the answer to why America abandons humility, discipline, and restraint. What is the point of having an empire if you cannot blow things up for no reason? Source trail 50:47 Why did they get rid of this and move to shock and awe, which is like, we'll do anything we want. Why? Why? Why would they do that? Because it's fun. Okay? Do you understand? What is the point of having an empire if you... The question is obscene because it is meant to be obscene. It names the pleasure of unconstrained inheritance.

The doctrine then produces three failures. It overcommits because it believes shock and awe allows America to be God, everywhere at once, fighting all wars. It lacks strategy because maintaining empire replaces any specific objective. And it becomes hubristic because it cannot imagine challenge or defeat Lens point strategy-material-test Shock and awe becomes strategic fantasy when a spectacular success is treated as proof that performance, precision, speed, and godlike visibility have replaced mass, terrain, supply, duration, and enemy adaptation. Source trail 50:4752:0253:13 Why did they get rid of this and move to shock and awe, which is like, we'll do anything we want. Why? Why? Why would they do that? Because it's fun. Okay? Do you understand? What is the point of having an empire if you...Okay? So you don't actually have a strategy in place. Okay? And the third thing is hubris. You don't think anyone can challenge you. You don't think you can lose a war. Okay? And so, the idea of hubris is this. Right no... , even as the Navy shrinks, the military is smaller than in 1991, and manufacturing capacity no longer matches imperial ambition.

That returns the lecture to Iran. Source trail 37:5753:13 And what would happen in other words? Okay, so the thing about America for the past 20 years, it's been mainly fighting wars in the Middle East. And it turns out the entire Middle East is a desert, okay? All right, so t...Okay? It's not, it doesn't have any factories anymore, which means that if it fights a war, it can't fight a war for a very long time. So, the example is that for every, for every ship that America makes, China can make... The military will agree to the war because it is overcommitted, strategically empty, and arrogant. But shock and awe will not work in Iran. This is left for the next class, but the warning is already clear: the doctrine born from a desert one-off is being carried toward terrain and conditions it was not built to master.

The final student question asks what separates believers in the first theory from believers in the second. The answer is war memory. The older generation fought World War II and the Cold War and knew war was bloody and terrible. The 2003 generation saw war as explosions on a screen, not bodies dying in front of them. Source trail 54:2455:28 What's the difference between the people who believe in the first theory and the second theory? Okay? Okay. And the answer is this. The people who believe in the, in the first theory came from an older generation. Okay?...It was just like, things being, getting blown up. Okay? You don't actually see the people dying. And again, only 20 people died, 20 soldiers died in the, in 2003. Okay? So, in other words, unfortunately, America is head... They inherited a lot of money and wanted to enjoy it. That is why America is headed toward disaster.