Old Age & Treachery: QMN045

Martial Mental Models: The Quartermaster, Wednesday, 26 June

(Today’s report is a 4 minute read)

NEW SUBSCRIBERS: Thank you. For a greatest hits list of our most popular posts, check out our 10 June Report. Also key are the Quiet Professional Report, The SOF Targeting Cycle and of course SMARCH. As always, if anyone’s got anything they’d like to see but don’t yet, please let us know by email at thequartermasternews@gmail.com. (BJM)

BLUF: In his book Late Bloomers, Rich Karlgaard cites anecdotal, scientific, and statistical evidence showing that early achievement – or at least the cultish reverence paid to it – isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. KSA finds that Karlgaard’s take on quitting - that it can be an assertion of will against self-destructive inertia - particularly vindicating.

KSA here. You know what David Mamet said about old age and treachery, right? Well, there’s more to that than you might have thought, at least according to Forbes publisher Rich Karlgaard in Late Bloomers, The Power of Patience in a World Obsessed with Early Achievement, his new book about success after our metabolisms have betrayed us. 

“Our culture’s obsession with early achievement,” he writes, “has become detrimental to the majority of the population––to the multitudes of us who develop in different ways and at different paces. It pushes the message that if you haven’t become famous, reinvented an industry, or banked seven figures while you’re still young enough to get carded, you’ve somehow made a wrong turn in life.” Karlgaard continues along this line throughout his book, citing anecdotal, scientific, and statistical evidence showing that early achievement – or at least the cultish reverence paid to it – isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. Brady brought Karlgaard’s book to my attention a few weeks ago and I’ve since shared some of my thoughts on it on LinkedIn as well as with my father, who, at 84, continues to educate himself on everything from the finer points of civil litigation to the latest in neuroscience discoveries. 

One of the things I most appreciate about Karlgaard is his nuanced approach to what I’ve long held with my own brand of cultish reverence: the taboo of quitting. Without getting into detail, I am notoriously stubborn. That has, to some degree, made me who I am, but it has also caused a hell of a lot of unnecessary drama and pain in my life. That is not to say that Karlgaard is taking some kind of iconoclastic stand against tenacity: he is not. For Karlgaard, quitting can be an assertion of will against the self-destructive inertia that masquerades as some higher value like loyalty. “Quitting that is an affirmation of our true selves and talents requires us to take personal responsibility,” Karlgaard writes. “It recognizes that we are aware of our own limits as well as our potential.” Under certain circumstances, then, quitting is an act of self-interest and self-realization: it is about changing tack, taking another road. 

Karlgaard is wise in that he doesn’t try to answer the question of what those circumstances might be: he leaves that intellectual task to the reader. What he does note is that “the ability to ‘fail quickly’ and to pivot nimbly” are as virtuous as the kind of patience invoked by the stubborn who insist on going down with the ship… even when the ship isn’t theirs. That type of thinking may be lost on those still blessed with youth and exuberance, which, of course, is just fine by me. (KSA)

SINCE I HAVE YOUR ATTENTION: I’d like to give a quick nod to my dear friend Sarah Solomon, an exceptionally talented writer and satirist whose first book, Guac Is Extra but So am I: The Reluctant Adult’s Handbook has just been published. Although I question the wisdom of her decision, Ms. Solomon was kind enough to ask me to add some advice reaped from the desperado years of my 20s and 30s and generous enough to include it. My meager contribution aside, it’s a fantastically funny and unexpectedly kind book and I recommend it without reservation. (KSA) 

RE: YESTERDAY - MAKING PROGRESS: Outranged: New Army Artillery Doubles Ranges - Outguns Russian Equivalent (5 min) “This concept of operations is intended to enable mechanized attack forces and advancing infantry with an additional stand-off range or protective sphere with which to conduct operations. Longer range precision fire can hit enemy troop concentrations, supply lines and equipment essential to a coordinated attack, while allowing forces to stay farther back from incoming enemy fire. A 70-kilometer target range is, by any estimation, a substantial leap forward for artillery; when GPS guided precision 155mm artillery rounds, such as Excalibur, burst into land combat about ten years ago - its strike range was reported at roughly 30 kilometers. A self-propelled Howitzer able to hit 70-kilometers puts the weapon on par with some of the Army’s advanced land-based rockets - such as its precision-enabled Guided Multiple Launch Rocket System which also reaches 70-kilometers.” (BJM)

BEHOLD, WE COUNT THEM HAPPY WHO ENDURE: Do Generals Matter? (12 min) “I suspect the deepest problem in the way of our understanding modern war is very old-fashioned: vanity. The vanity of civilian elites who make short-term policy and call it long-term strategy. The vanity of generals (and admirals) who implement flawed or inept war plans knowing the means they have cannot achieve the goals for which they reach. The vanity of nationalists and historians (too often one and the same) who misrepresent how wars actually are won and lost, so that the old pattern repeats. But above all, the vanity of nations and empires. All that pride in our short-war capability, our superior moral virtue, our sublime doctrine and the fighting quality of our army (or navy, or air force), cometh before a fall into unplanned wars of attrition. Civilian leaders promise too-eager publics a “short and lively” (kurtz und vives) war, hand off the problem to their military, then are surprised by and lament a rough parity among the great powers that conduces to protracted war. This is one of the major patterns of history that ensured long wars of attrition followed from short war delusions, including, after 1945, proxy guerilla wars of attrition.” (BJM via @paryshnikov)

Remarks Complete. Nothing Follows.

KS Anthony (KSA), Chris Papasadero (CPP) & Brady Moore (BJM)