My Final Military World View

All my work in the Pentagon demonstrated that a major form of future wars for the United States would be prolonged, often costly, Insurgenciesm in which the economic, social, political Development was as, and sometimes more, important than the cumulative effect of just military firepower and numbers of troops. Secretary McNamara gave that thesis legs in ways I could never have,

That led to my thoughts at the Army War College about a new portrayal of the Spectrum of War to make is easier for people to grasp the relative importance of the Insurgent form of War - particularly its costs-over-time.

But another major realization happened in my mind. And that is that the 3d World can wage protracted Insurgent war because of those countries populations - large fractions of which can be recruited to wage war against their regime. While advanced nations have to rely on few numbers of trained military men in uniform fighting. That the asset of PEOPLE is what 3d world nations can rely on, to offset the superiority of costly weapons and the funnelling of money into the war effort.

So, using World Bank statistical data I arrived at this new World View, of people, power, and wealth.

This chart in which the Gross National Product - GNP - of a nation, which is a measure of its Wealth, and its Per Capita Income, which is a measure of its economic strenght, gave a lot of Washington Policy Makers to whom I sent this chart, and the accompanying explanation of what is shows and means, a new way to look at the world.

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With that new view of the World's Power, Population, and Wealth, my effort at the Army War College to provide the world, and Army Military Planners fresh ways to see how the world has changed since WWII as a War, was finished.

US Naval Institute Proceedings

I also, besides trying to influence Washington War Planners,  submitted a 12 page article to the prestigious United States Naval Institute Proceeding - read by Naval Officers world wide. They accepted it. It was titled "Contingency Planning:A New Perspective." It was the lead and major professional article in the November 1968 Issue, together with all its Spectrum of War Cost/War Charts. I was long gone to war in Vietnam before it was printed. You can read it as a PDF file at

Gone from the Pentagon  

I was on orders to Vietnam. So our family chapter at the Army War College ended. And we all packed to go back to the house we owned in Annandale Virginia, where my wife and children would live, while I went, again, to fight a War.

To continue with my Military Years click… NEXT, Vietnam War (1)