Viewing From a Different Location

For John, BLUF:  Quality v Quantity is the American Way of War.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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How a Russian Razor Blade Explains American Strategic Culture

This is a look at Defense choices, written by Major M L Cavanaugh, a Non-Resident Fellow with the Modern War Institute at West Point.  This is the hoary Quality vs Quantity argument, without ever mentioning those words.

Shaving habits reflect culture.  And while not all cultures shave the same, most of the daily shaving world uses some type of razor blade.

Right there the analogy starts to diverge from my cultural experience.  I use an electric razor, one which I just recently cracked open and replaced the two batteries with new rechargeable batteries from Amazon.

But, back to the argument, we in the US tend to use three to five blade packs.  In a lifetime shaving blades could cost up to $22,000.  In Russia people tend to still use the single double-edged razor blade, costing around $400 over a lifetime.  It is the same way with military weapons.

Here is the first page of a nine page article, behind a pay way for eight pages.  It goes back to a series of exercises named ACEVAL/AIMVAL, which looked at how complex weapons (F-14 and F-15) did against simpler systems (the F-5E).  And here is a paper by Colonel T X Hammes, "Future War:  Why Quantity Will Trump Quality", in The Diplomat.♠

I admit to being a quality person, as opposed to quantity.  I think TX is wrong.

Regards  —  Cliff

♠  The article is from 2014, so the word Trump does not reference the President Elect.