Reminds me of Patton’s advice to his troops:

“The point of war is NOT to die for your country. The point is for the other poor bastard to die for HIS country.”

Going down the chain makes being a foot soldier a frustrating and pointless act. The saddest end for a soldier is to die before reaching the battlefield, without displaying courage – a pointless death.

Of course, the classic wisdom is that that middle management is the backbone of an army – the sargents and NCOs. The equivalent are the trainers and handlers. Their job is to communicate and so have a visible profile.

Start killing the NCOs en mass and one both sends a message and reduces the fighting strength.

We do have vulnerablities at the top level. Remember that the Saudis are the underwriters of jihad AND they have a the world’s energy markets by the balls. We must compete and reduce their strengths but without provoking total war with its terrible economic consequences.

This may sound like procrastination but there are tides in human affairs. Modernization is a tide on our side. Economic developmetn is a tide on our side. Technological development of energy is a tide running our way – if Western elites will permit it.

Attrition is a military strategy that the US has been very successful at, at times. It worked on the Indians, it worked on the British, it worked on the Confederacy. It worked against us in Viet Nam.