Jocko Podcast 305: The Worst Mistakes are The Ones We Don't See.

2021-10-28T19:14:39Z

0J:00:00 - Opening 0:01:41 - On The Psychology of Military Incompetence Pt.3 1:40:51 - How to stay on THE PATH. JOCKO UNDERGROUND Exclusive Episodes: https://www.jockounderground.com/subscribe Jocko Store Apparel: https://www.jockostore.com Jocko Fuel: https://jockofuel.com Origin Jeans and Clothes: https://originmaine.com/durable-goods/ Echelon Front: https://www.echelonfront.com 1:55:34 - Closing gratitude.

AI summary of episode

the major causes of military incompetence underneath his robust exterior richy like boulder before him an elephant stone before him lack to self confidence and seem more concerned with proving himself to himself than with prosecuting the war the presiding over interminable committee meetings through which the army was run the seeking of advice and then not taking it and the disingenuous way in which he managed to convince the commander and chief that he was protecting tobrook wall in reality leaving it to the mercy of the Germans are the actions of a man beset by inter doubts these doubts were skillfully but not perfectly concealed by his often inappropriate facade of monumental complacency now we go to sing a poor chapter 11 one can sum up by saying that those responsible for the conduct of the land campaign in Malaya committed every conceivable blunder major general woodburn curbsing a poor the chain of disaster in the nine weeks between early December 1941 and mid-February 1942 the impregnable force fortress of Singapore Europe's gateway to the east with its thriving city huge naval dockyard and strategic vital airfields fell lock stock and barrel into the hands of the Japanese the invasion of this island stronghold the complete defeat of the combined British and Australian garrison with its army navy and air force units was the ultimate unconditional surrender of the whole area was so rapid that even the Japanese were staggered indeed one almost might say non-plossed by the ease speed and enormity of their success in the long run the results of this disaster may be deemed incalculable the myth of European supremacy over ageatic peoples was exploded forever and the prestige of competence of the British military endeavor in the eyes of the world in general and American particular were damaged beyond repair in the short run Britain lost her last and strongest foothold in the far east and a polling set back for the global war effort we lost thousands of lives both military and civilian but worse perhaps than the loss of life the military debacle condemned thousands more to three and a half years in Japanese internment camps finally the economic loss ran into hundreds of millions of pounds we forfitted elaborate and expensive dock installations naval and other engineering facilities military stores fuel the major port for exporting urgently needed rubber and two new first class battleships most of these material assets fell virtually intact into the hands of the enemy thus in effect doubling their value the value of their loss to the allies like other cases we have discussed that of Singapore is essentially a human problem a product of human behavior human intellect human character in human error no explanation in terms of geography climate broad political or military considerations can possibly do justice to the facts at bottom and at the top we are confronted with issues that are primarily psychological and which only a reduction to psychological principles can possibly explain so this freaking disaster unfolds in Singapore a disaster and as you're going to see it's not about who was smart and it's not about like the military situation it's the freaking psycho pathology of the leaders let us state the problem in terms of a number of questions why was the impregnable fortress planned and serviced in such a way that while presenting apparently formidable defenses on its southern side its back and northern sure was no more of a resistance than would be invader than the back of Bournemouth why was there an almost total lack of coordination and cooperation between those who had been entrusted with the job of defending the island why was it clear that the Japanese could and would assault the island from its northern side was nothing done to erect defenses in their path why did the general officer commanding Singapore lieutenant general person of all ignore the urgent advice of his subordinate Brigadier Simpson and of his superior general wavel to implement these defenses why on the one hand was so little done to protect the civilian population against air raids and on the other so much done to prevent their knowing the true facts of the situation as these unfolded why did general personal persistent believing the Japanese would attack from the northeast when confronted with overwhelming evidence that their assault would come from the northwest why did the officer commanding the Australian forces on the island forbid his troops to escape while secretly plotting his own get away from the island finally and perhaps greatest of greatest interest how did the men who could perpetrate such colossal errors of judgment ever reach a position where this was possible it's quite the setup in 1925 there's a protracted and acrimonious argument between the army navy and air force chiefs as the housing report should be defended while the older services press for fortifications and heavy fixed guns for repelling attack from seward trenchered for the RAF advocated for a large force of aircraft to repelling attack before it could become come within range of the island need this to say the army in the navy won their case at the expense of more junior service heavy fixed armaments armaments became the order of the day this debate in which the RAF had conceded defeat had three unfortunate consequences firstly the island was left exposed and undefended on its northern side second we seen your army commanders from that time on stubbornly clung to the dog with that no Japanese would ever advance on Singapore down the Malay peninsula finally the bitter inner service quarrel which ensued resulted in an almost total lack of coordination between the three services for future reference let me say this day view have a platoon in europeal tune there's a two different let's call them clicks and they have two different ideas of what you should be focused on and how you should operate and what you do is you sort of negotiate a piece between these two clicks and you sort of compromise and you figure out this is this is where he starts his captivity I think he'd been in the army for like two or three months at this point 19 years old 138,01 event of all the instances of military incompetence considered in this book is the fall of Singapore which most clearly gives the lie to the so-called bloody full theory of military and aptitude personal was in fact highly intelligent and had shown himself in previous years to be a brilliant staff officer what he shared with other earlier military incompetence were pacivity the opposite of default aggressive by the way and courtesy rigidity and obsidency procrastination gentleness and dogmatism 138,2 battleships by the way insane the next chapter is about our name this is when we covered we covered say we covered part of Singapore obviously when we covered Alexander Erhart our then we covered podcast 94 the book was called man at arm and rid my Jeffrey Powell who was there who fought there and I think you know when you read the reading this assessment really puts it really puts that book in the perspective it starts off with this couple quotes all the accumulated evidence confirms that like gallipoli this was a British disaster where naked courage lacked the bodyguard of competent planning competent intelligence competent technology yet wars object is victory not the Victoria Cross and it was shameful that by autumn of 1944 we could still be so amateur the object is victory not the Victoria Cross we don't that's the equivalent of the metal of honor in England here's a private soldiers comments it began to seem to me that the generals had got us into something they had no business doing if it achieved nothing else operation market garden Montgomery's plan to capture and hold the bridge head across the Rhine in northern Holland at least demolishes the myth that military incompetence stems from stupidity for sheer initiative quickness of mind fortitude and selfless heroism the conduct of those who actually fought the battle has never been surpassed by the same token the men who planned and administered the operation were probably as intellectually gifted well trained professionally competent dedicated and conscientious as any military planners have ever been and yet the unfolding of market garden revealed all the symptoms of high-level military incompetence that's like in how would you feel if someone said you know what Dave your intellectually gifted well trained professionally competent dedicated and conscientious but that's what we're looking for in our leaders and yet this thing is a disaster the failure of the operation resulted from a a linked together of the following factors one as a result of his neglect to open up the port of Antwerp by clearing the shell the shell the estuary Montgomery allowed the German 15th Army to escape north into Holland where it was available to defend the approaches to Archnum two the arrival at Arnhem of 30 chord depended upon the advancing across 64 miles of enemy health territory on a one tank front along elevated unprotected highways flanked by a soft and tank and sawed and tank proof landscape interspersed with waterways any delay a blown bridge an enemy ambush a block road and the entire column would be stopped any delay and the Germans would have more time to bring up reinforcements in the event it is hardly surprising that 30 chord never did reach Arnhem that they could not achieve it even in nine days what it had been scheduled to take 48 hours now i'm going to say i know i gave credit to your 12 year old daughter and i'm going to say 12 year old daughter might not be able to figure this one out look you look and I was like hmm hide that with stifle it our second example is rather more complex concerning as it does that major obstacle to military development the horse as a noble if uncomprehending factor in military incompetence this animal was much in evidence between the war this is very interesting if you know anything about horses upon reflection is hardly resupprising that the horse became the cina quanon of military life for a thousand years met had found it in it enormous advantages there was nothing better for transportation and load hauling horses raised morale and enhanced egos horses took the weight off the feet and enabled people to go to war sitting down when they lay down you could hide behind them when it was cold you could borrow their warmth and when they died you could eat them because of the traditionally rural origins of so many army officers military families horsemanship in the context of sports like hunting became one of the preferred preferred leisure activities in such sports as polo pig sticking in an early-aged jelesting not only act out symbolic aspects of real warfare but are also associated with a higher social class there's little wonder that they should find so much favor with those who choose the army as a career all in all is not surprising that the cavalry became the branch of the army with the highest status nor is it surprising that they should have become the most vehement in the denunciation of the tank which was seen as an intrusive junior rather than the air and air apparent so they had this long fascination with the horse they love the horse the people that road horses in the cavalry ended up with a bunch of you know prestigious positions and high ranking positions and they saw the tank not as like hey this is what's going to take over the horse it's trying to it's juniors of the horse it's not as good as the horse nor is it surprising that the desire of the war office to playkate the cavalry was stronger a lot than logic not only did they veto any expansion of the tank or but under the direction among Gummery ruled that the new tank brigade should never be reassembled and this in the mid-1930s with Hitler army to the teeth that's you can't you just you have to have it you have to be a kind of like a psychopath to do this it there's a level of insanity in there it's like how how do you look at a horse in a tank and look at him go make it better that's what they did so thankfully listen we also didn't like falsify stuff all right those that's that's that's now we're moving into the second world war the pre the pre the in between war period is over nothing learned nothing figured out no no one taking blame responsibility for anything second world war there's a quote in here from La Del Hart the German success in May 1940 could easily have been prevented but for the opportunities presented to them by the allied blunders blunders that were largely due to the prevalence of outer-date ideas after an appalling start in which the allies were out fought out maneuvered and outstripped in the quality of their military thinking and equipment the second world war produced a biggest transition in military competence since though days of Wellington it was born of necessity and maybe said to have dated from Dunkirk this jolt to 100 years of military monitoring and 20 years of blind complacency achieved 3 ends within a space of days it shattered many long-held dearly loved illusions about the nature of modern war it hasten the eclipse of the old the reactionary the untalented finally by rendering the armory temporary impotent Dunkirk put the most junior service in the center of the stage Dave Burke is excited now the first time the continued existence of the army and navy became totally dependent upon their protection by the RAF look at this smile on this guy over here as for the bad start this was a legacy of factors that touched on the previous chapters rigidity of thinking over confidence resulting from a pathetic belief and antiquated methods of warfare and refusal to accept that enemy intentions may confound the armchair profits the following examples from the liberal hearts history of second war illustrate these shortcomings on January 10, 1940 a German aircraft carrying the liais on officer of the second air fleet lost its way in crash landed in Belgium by an extraordinary chance the officer was in possession of the complete operational plan for Germany's attack on the west did you hear what I just said by extraordinary chance the officer was in possession of the complete operational plan for Germany's attack on the west he tried to burn the plan but failed to complete this task before he was captured in this way its contents became known to the allies Hitler's response was to devise a new plan which involved attacking France through the Rden's rather than through Belgium as originally intended this episode was damaging to the allies for two reasons first firstly in the belief that the captured plan was a deliberate deception they failed to modify their own plans secondly contrary to advice received years earlier they clung to the belief that the wooded area of the Rden's was impossible to tanks as a result the strongest allied force remained poised for attack through Belgium while the Germans suffered little resistance to their outflanking drive through the Rden's here's another one the French they'll possessing many tanks which were as good as if not better than those the Germans were steadfast and their belief that horse to cavalry could destroy German armor in the Rden's for this reason they refused to accept the suggestion that fel trees might be used to delay the German advance like the poles they were sadly disillusioned about the outcome of a conflict between horse and tanks that's the poles and the French both making the assessment that hey you got tanks and I mean in in aviation I got the fly stealth airplanes like very modern stealth airplanes and to this day despite the insane advantage the insane advantage there is still ongoing debate over so whether or not we should have non stealth this is not this is like in fighters there's reasons I've not said that cargo planes and attack planes like but in this world of like airplane fighting against another airplane or using airplanes to get into a contested space they're still an ongoing debate of hey we should just retrofit like really nice legacy airplanes with cool cool missiles and cool engines and stuff like that my airplane is invisible my airplane is invisible you will not see it it doesn't matter how fast you can go or how much gas you can carry or how cool your weapon is you're going to lose how much longer till pilots are not doing this job fighter pilots I think we are one generation away my opinion is that the next generation which what scary is like it's much sooner it's not like 40 years from now the next generation of airplanes are going to come out in the next 15 20 years and there's going to be no pilots and you remember this is like the good guy when brigadier general simpson the chief engineer went to see major general gordon Bennett commanding the eight australian division he founded impossible to make him realize that there was an urgent need for anti take defenses at first he did not want to discuss the matter at all since he noted after the meeting since it was horrified could not the australian general understand that there was nothing on the long road to prevent the enemy from reaching them apparently gordon Bennett could not for in his diary that night he wrote malay command sent brigadier simpson to discuss with me the creation of anti-tank obstacles for you saw the road personally have little time for these obstacles preferring to stop and destroy tanks with anti-tank weapons no wonder that the japanese never slowed down no wonder that time after time troops were annihilated by skillful japanese enveloping tactics on the british side wrong decisions were made communications broke down whole pockets of troops were caught off first japanese tanks appeared and came as a great surprise to the british who had not won single tank in malaya in a jungle country where the british had insisted that tanks could never operate the japanese tanks moved easily between spacious rows of rubber tree and quote major general gordon Bennett was not to use the appropriate vernacular and isolated pocket of resistance nor did he hold the record of obscenancy in barber's words a tamps by brigadier simpson to move and add to the defenses had been blocked at every turn largely by general person who seemed to have had a fixation against such measures nothing had been done nothing was being done despite previous please a hazard of belonging to any rigidity any rigidly authoritarian hierarchical organization is that from time to time the individual out of dire necessity or from strong personal conviction feels compelled to apply pressures to those above him it is a hazard because the ethos of the organization whether it be a Victorian family and english boarding school or the british army demands that pressure always moves only in one way downwards rather than upwards to buck the system by prodding those above can have unpleasant consequences you're totally freaking rigid situation and simpson is trying simpson is trying i'm a fast for a little bit it seems that simpson was past taking no for an answer for he said to the general sir i must emphasize the urgency of doing everything to help our troops they're often only partially trained they're tired and disperse it they've been retreating for hundreds of miles and please remember sir the japanese are better trained better equipped and they're inspired by an unbroken run of victories and it has to be done now sir once the area comes under fire civilian labor will vanish he's wanting to get these just just get freaking obstacles set up the plea was forceful respectful and logical but amazingly the general remained unmoved simpson in his rising anger said look here general no hey put that thing in the water and it was like seriously like putting the water you know like that event had to occur like in real time whether there's something like hey this isn't going the way we plan let sabotage our experiment to prove our point that we've already predetermined which is planes aren't as good as ships crash that crash that drone will like we're like I Roger that's right so if you think I'm going to figure out some kind of I'm going to figure out what that list is it's like iron to wood and then getting rid of sales for steam and then from steam to what you know diesel and then from and there was people resisted every single 17 out of 20 those advancements there was resistance in nuclear reactor on a boat imagine the world does think you've ever heard right when doing a submarine are you insane can't be done can't be done as for battleships whose future usefulness and indeed very existence was threatened by the advent of aircraft quote two most admels the the respective value of battleships and aircraft was not basically a technological issue but more in the nature of a spiritual issue don't they cherished the battlefield with a religious fervor as an article of belief defying all scientific examination the blindness of hard-headed sailors to realities that were obvious to a dispassionate observer is the only explicable through is only explicable through the through understanding the place that quote ships of the line filled their hearts a battleship had long been to an admiral what a cathedral is to a bishop and you can't walk away from that I don't know if there is an equivalent in the teams if there is let me know but that description is is is is beautiful because in aviation you literally fall in love with your airplane like it's a person like it's a human being and and the degree to which you cannot see the truth is I would say on part of the degree that you can't see the flaws in your own children And if you kind of start to get to this validation like hey what I'm doing is working you know what I should do I should keep doing the same thing and that flies against what you just talked about which is the training and the evolution to think differently from what you did and one of the symbols things we see this is hey if I if I if I'm a really good at a front-line task go to that particular task I'm I'm going to get promoted and I'll be the former and if there's other team and why I'm the former is because I'm really good at the task but my job isn't to do that task anymore my job is to think strategically and lead this team and I have no skills and no training to do that because the criteria for getting promoted is being good at the task and that success and that validation sometimes not always sometimes leads them to a level that they're not capable of doing but the system doesn't allow you to give them any feedback because when you're a general officer I guess what I'm a general officer there's there's something that you said that requires a little bit more exploring and that is you said that when someone gets advanced to you know a general officer or a CEO in many cases it's based on their successes there's something else it's based on their lack of failures so you know

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Episode transcript

[00:00:00] This is Jockel Podcast number 305 with echo Charles and me, Jockel William Good evening,
[00:00:06] echo.
[00:00:07] Good evening.
[00:00:08] Also, joining us again tonight, Dave Burke, Good evening, Dave.
[00:00:12] Good evening.
[00:00:13] We are going to continue the review of the book, the psychology of military incompetence,
[00:00:20] which we started on podcast 303, continued 304, we're going to continue it more
[00:00:26] now. And we got through some examples in the last podcast of the wartime examples.
[00:00:34] We'll get through the rest of these examples tonight. And this is a big set up.
[00:00:41] This is an arduous set up for part two of the book. I don't know if we'll get into part
[00:00:48] two of the book tonight, which actually starts to dive into the psychology of military
[00:00:53] incompetence. But like I said before, those explorations continuously refer back to the examples
[00:01:02] from the beginning, part one of this book, which is what makes the book powerful because it's
[00:01:09] not just theory, it gives you examples that connects the theory to reality. So that's what
[00:01:16] we're doing. If you haven't ordered this book, order it. It's called on the psychology of
[00:01:21] military incompetence written by Dr. Dixon, who is a combat better himself. If you haven't
[00:01:27] listened to podcast 303 or 304 yet, and go back and listen to those first, we're going through
[00:01:32] these military examples. And we're starting, you can see I'm starting to tune in, starting to
[00:01:37] call out some of these psychological pathology that ends up with bad leadership. And with that,
[00:01:44] we're going to go into the book. This chapter is called between war. So we end, we end world war
[00:01:54] one, and this chapter is called between the wars, because what should be happening between the
[00:01:58] wars, what should we be doing? We should be assessing what we did wrong, assessing what we did right,
[00:02:03] seeing what improvements we could make, seeing what new technology we could bring to bear.
[00:02:08] And let's face it, you fight a war like World War One, and there should be an insane amount
[00:02:14] of lessons learned. Unfortunately, this quote starts off with this chapter starts off the quote
[00:02:22] from George Bernard Shaw, and he says, the British soldier can stand up to anything except the British
[00:02:27] war office. What a horrible statement that is. Going to the book, military stock is never
[00:02:36] lower than at the end of a costly war. With a million dead, society's appetite for aggression has
[00:02:43] been a swaged. People were weary of the war, and tired of soldiering for the military, the truth
[00:02:50] was rubbed in by swinging cuts in men and material. We're done. World War One's done, you
[00:02:58] only think about being over it. They're over it. From being the most important members of the
[00:03:04] community, they were now relegated to a very minor role. That's the military. This thinly
[00:03:09] veiled and gratitude at three effects upon the military, with the horse yet self-consoling cry,
[00:03:15] now he can get back to some real soldiering. They withdrew into cocoons of professional
[00:03:21] impotence. In that strange, you get done with the war's arrow, now he can get back to
[00:03:27] soldiering, which for them, what does that mean? In accordance with the principle of that more
[00:03:31] floored aspects of militarism or defenses against threat to self-esteem, there was a falling back
[00:03:38] upon the rights of the barracks square, renewed attention to spit and polish helped to
[00:03:43] expunge the last traces of the mud of flanders. At higher levels of military hierarchy,
[00:03:52] service thinking was now embodied in an extract from a paper on Imperial Defense Data June 22,
[00:03:58] 1926. The size of the forces of the Crown maintained by Great Britain is governed by various
[00:04:07] conditions, peculiar to each service, and is not arrived at by any calculations of the requirements
[00:04:13] of foreign policy nor is it possible that they should ever be so calculated. That's the most
[00:04:20] insane thing I've read in quite some time. Well, I guess since I read the last chapter of this book,
[00:04:24] hey, we're just going to, we're building our military, the size of our military is just based on
[00:04:32] kind of what they think it should be. How nothing to do with what's going on in foreign policy,
[00:04:37] no calculations. That's not what we're doing. In the period between the wars, the shape and the
[00:04:44] equipment, if not the size of the armed forces, were partly determined by a number of curious military
[00:04:50] attitudes, these center peculiar, particularly around three instruments of warfare, tanks, planes,
[00:04:56] and horses. Describing a tank attack, which he had witnessed in 1916, general surritched
[00:05:02] Gail tells how the British command tried to exploit it with cavalry. Apparently, they failed,
[00:05:06] as it was born out by the grim sight of riderless horses returning when they had come.
[00:05:11] Man, that's an eerie image, isn't it? Of this experience he writes, I was impressed by the
[00:05:20] potential of the tank as I was unimpressed by the employment of horse cavalry in modern warfare
[00:05:27] conditions, yet after all our experience in that war it took us further 20 years to mechanize our
[00:05:32] cavalry. The lesson was clear, but the lesson was as clear in 1916 as in 1936, and truth was not
[00:05:40] 1936, but 1941 before the British began to implement lessons of 1916. What happened between these
[00:05:53] wars shows the alarming extent to which reactionary elements can draw the wrong conclusion from
[00:05:59] what to most people would seem quite unambiguous facts. Rather than recognize the potential of
[00:06:05] the tank, they drew the conclusion that innovation and progress are inherently dangerous,
[00:06:08] and therefore to be assured, the symptom is not without precedent nor confined to the army,
[00:06:15] while on naval maneuvers in 1893, Admiral Triand, wished to about face two parallel columns of
[00:06:23] battleships. From his flagship, he ordered that the two columns should reverse course by turning
[00:06:29] inwards. Unfortunately, the combined turning radius of the ships was greater than the distance
[00:06:36] between them. With mathematical inevitability, HMS Victoria was rammed by HMS camper down and
[00:06:44] sank with great loss of life. Other officers had seen what was going to happen, but dared not question.
[00:06:54] The lesson from this disaster seemed fairly clear. Admiral should base their decisions upon
[00:06:59] information supplied by their staffs and junior officers should not be afraid of speaking up
[00:07:04] when their knowledge, for example, the turning circles of naval craft and their special abilities,
[00:07:11] for example, superior eyesight and greater capacity for mental arithmetic, led them to believe
[00:07:16] that a given order would end in calamity. The argument seems sound enough. Indeed, even the
[00:07:23] most junior charlady, which is a cleaning woman, at the Admiralty, had she pondered the facts
[00:07:31] could hardly have failed to draw the same conclusion. But this was not the conclusion reached
[00:07:35] by her lords and masters. For them, Triand's lapse just went to show that it never pays to
[00:07:42] try anything new. No, as the lesson learned. Don't do inward. Don't do. That's the lesson learned.
[00:07:49] Don't do inward turns in a column. To return to the tank, the successive chiefs of the
[00:07:58] Imperial General Staff between 1918 and 1939 with a support of other senior officers did not
[00:08:03] exert themselves to mechanize the army. Some were actively obstructionist.
[00:08:10] Against these reactionary elements stood a handful of progressive army officers and a few
[00:08:14] like-minded civilians, the progressives who would assimilate it incontrovertible evidence
[00:08:21] from the preceding war with Germany and were only two well aware of Hitler's preparations
[00:08:26] for the next made their views known through books, essays, lectures, and by word of mouth.
[00:08:32] These moves were countered by the military establishment in two ways. So you got this whole group of
[00:08:36] people that are saying, hey, bro and bros, we need to make tanks a lot of them. We need to mechanize
[00:08:44] our cavalry. Look what happened. And that's what they're doing. Books, word of mouth, lectures, essays.
[00:08:51] These moves were countered by the military establishment two ways. Firstly, they resisted the
[00:08:58] Semination of Progressive Literature. Hey, stifle that paper. Secondly, they did their best
[00:09:05] to curtail the careers of those who questioned their own obsolete ideas. That's like evil.
[00:09:14] This far as I can see. Guys got a good new idea, curtail their career. For example, when
[00:09:23] Fuller and early protagonist of mechanization won the RUSI gold medal for his essay on tanks
[00:09:30] and later produced a book on the same topic, he was castigated by successive chiefs of staff
[00:09:36] and remained unemployed in the rank of major general for three years and then was forceably retired
[00:09:42] in 1933. In the course of these events, CIS, CIGS, Lord Kevin, whose ideas according to
[00:09:54] Fuller were about 800 years out of date, oh pine that no officer should be allowed to write a book.
[00:10:04] It's like insane. You can't make this up. You can't make this up.
[00:10:07] If you're ever in a situation where your subordinates are coming up with ideas that you don't
[00:10:13] agree with and your reaction is to shut them down, question yourself.
[00:10:25] Not to be outdone, his successor Field Marshal Montgomery delivered himself of a
[00:10:30] diatribe against Fuller's books while admitting that he had never read them because it would
[00:10:34] make him so angry if he did. Equally on ambiguous was the treatment metadout to LaDelle Hart
[00:10:41] a man described by the press as quote the most important military thinker of the age of mechanization
[00:10:47] in any country. This is the guy that we covered on the podcast. I don't know how many episodes
[00:10:54] we did, but it's a lot of them. BH LaDelle Hart over the years LaDelle Hart produced a number of
[00:11:01] articles and books on mechanization on new infantry tactics and on the strategic and tactical use of
[00:11:07] armor. His efforts encountered extreme hostility and resistance from the British general staff.
[00:11:14] When he submitted his essay mechanization of the army for military competition, it was rejected in favor
[00:11:21] of an entry on quote limitations of the tank. The judges were a Field Marshal and a general and a
[00:11:29] Colonel. Unfortunately, LaDelle Hart's entry was not entirely lost to view. Why could that possibly
[00:11:36] be unfortunate? Well, it's because along with other products of his pen, it was enthusiastically
[00:11:41] studied by Hitler's Panzer General Guirdeen and became required reading of the German general staff.
[00:11:48] You can't make this up. You can't make this up.
[00:12:02] Like those of his fellow protagonists, LaDelle Hart's army career was prematurely cut short
[00:12:08] by the military establishment. The cases germane to the thesis of this book. Here is was a man
[00:12:14] who was cultured, fluent, lucid, highly intelligent and that rare combination, a soldier who was also a
[00:12:20] first class military historian, one whose advice on military matters was frequently sought by
[00:12:26] such civilian leaders as Hore, Bolisa and Winston Churchill who in due course became the military
[00:12:33] correspondent of the Daily Telegraph and subsequently the Times chosen by these papers and preference
[00:12:38] to a number of retired generals who applied for the same job. And Hore, Bolisa, by the way, was the
[00:12:44] Secretary of War, prominent figure. Here's a man whose views and writings were eagerly studied and
[00:12:52] acted upon by many foreign powers, including Germany, Russia, France and Israel, whose prophecies
[00:12:57] in the military sphere were born out time and time again and who lived to see his ideas on
[00:13:02] mechanization and tanks tactics used against us by Germany in 1940. But here was a man so deported
[00:13:11] by the British establishment, by the British military establishment that Lord Gortt, chief of the
[00:13:18] Imperial General Staff at the outbreak of the war felt moved to say during a lecture to 400 officers
[00:13:24] of the territorial army, quote kindly remember that LaDelle Hart does not occupy a room at the war
[00:13:31] office. So not only do these people that can kind of play the game, get advanced, people that
[00:13:43] have trouble playing the game, like LaDelle Hart get pushed out. Do I wish he could have played
[00:13:51] the game a little bit better? Absolutely. Do I wish he would have been a little bit more indirect?
[00:13:55] You know, in his book when he talks about if you become a prophet, you get crucified. He became
[00:13:59] a prophet, and he got crucified. It was the same Lord Gortt, the army's top man at the outbreak
[00:14:07] of the war, whom or the leadership described as a, quote, utterly brainless and unable to grasp
[00:14:13] the simplest problem. These are the people that are trying to get rid of LaDelle Hart.
[00:14:21] LaDelle Hart remarked if a soldier advocates, here's what here's exactly what happens. If a soldier
[00:14:26] advocates any new idea of real importance, he builds up such a wall of obstruction, compounded
[00:14:32] of resentment, suspicion, and inertia that the idea only succeeds at the sacrifice of himself,
[00:14:38] as the wall finally yields to the pressure of the new idea it falls and crushes him. That's what
[00:14:44] happened to him. Some military leaders, even in democracies, have become a depth at manipulating
[00:14:52] their civilian bosses, such as the case over the issue of war minister Horabolisha.
[00:14:57] It seems he was not appreciated by military establishment. Five reasons, relevant to our general
[00:15:03] theory of military incompetence may be advanced for this, for this antipethi.
[00:15:11] Firstly, he was probably brighter than some of the senior officers with whom he had to deal.
[00:15:16] Secondly, his ideas for the army were progressive. Third, he made no bones about using LaDelle
[00:15:21] Hart as his military adviser, Fourthly. He was with every justification, critical of generals who's
[00:15:27] job at was to prepare the British army and France against the German assault on the West in
[00:15:31] 1940, fifthly he was a Jew. It was a for a mixture of these reasons that the general staff persuaded
[00:15:39] Chamberlain to sack the man who had probably done more for the army and defense than any other
[00:15:44] single person during Hitler's rise to power. It's weird how generals, I mean it's not weird.
[00:15:55] It's so prevalent how generals become untouchables. How could you dare say anything about this
[00:16:04] general he served is and that's what's happening here. And look, just because someone served their
[00:16:10] country, just because someone served their country and did a good job as a platoon commander, as a
[00:16:16] company commander, as a battalion commander. It doesn't mean they're going to be awesome as a general.
[00:16:21] In fact, there's some some things might indicate that those are very different jobs.
[00:16:29] Especially when they did good as a company commander or a platoon commander during World War I
[00:16:34] wouldn't do a good job was not disobeying orders and doing what you were told to do and freaking
[00:16:40] scurrying to a position where you don't get killed. Right? Because what happened to the brave
[00:16:46] soldiers? Most of them got freaking killed. We've talked about this thinking tactically and thinking
[00:16:53] strategically are really, really different and it's actually really hard to evolve from a
[00:16:59] tactician to a strategist. And in the military there's kind of a very clear delineation. Your
[00:17:05] tactician is a junior officer and the middle officer is an operational guy with sits between them
[00:17:09] and the generals with the strategic thinkers. But that evolution is really hard. It's really hard.
[00:17:15] You've talked about Peter's principle. I think on the last podcast where you get promoted to your
[00:17:20] level of incompetence that barrier between tactical thinking and strategic thinking is hard overcome.
[00:17:25] Yeah. Well you run into it with companies as well where you get some dynamic person and a
[00:17:30] start up and they're the CEO of the company but there's only 48 employees and they can make things
[00:17:34] happen and they kind of impose it well and they can kind of win the market and talk to people
[00:17:38] in a good salesman and it's a good work out awesome. And then all of a sudden they got you know
[00:17:44] 500 employees and they've got a board and they've got regulatory environment that they don't know
[00:17:49] on a handle and they turn into a disaster. It doesn't always happen but what we fail to do is we don't
[00:17:54] really do a good job of training people and at least making them aware of the situation that they're
[00:17:59] facing. Yeah. The other thing I wrote down was you're talking about this is and I saw this as I got a
[00:18:05] little more senior in the officer ranks and kind of get a little more observation of that general
[00:18:09] officer tier or that flag officer tier for the Navy is what gets them there is a bunch of success. A bunch
[00:18:16] of success and with that success if you're not careful what that success can do and it's not just true
[00:18:24] in the military it's true everywhere is that success is this is equals validation. And if you
[00:18:29] kind of start to get to this validation like hey what I'm doing is working you know what I should do
[00:18:36] I should keep doing the same thing and that flies against what you just talked about which is
[00:18:42] the training and the evolution to think differently from what you did and one of the symbols
[00:18:48] things we see this is hey if I if I if I'm a really good at a front-line task go to that particular
[00:18:53] task I'm I'm going to get promoted and I'll be the former and if there's other team and why I'm the
[00:18:57] former is because I'm really good at the task but my job isn't to do that task anymore my job is
[00:19:01] to think strategically and lead this team and I have no skills and no training to do that because
[00:19:05] the criteria for getting promoted is being good at the task and that success and that validation
[00:19:11] sometimes not always sometimes leads them to a level that they're not capable of doing but the
[00:19:17] system doesn't allow you to give them any feedback because when you're a general officer I guess what
[00:19:25] I'm a general officer there's there's something that you said that requires a little bit more
[00:19:30] exploring and that is you said that when someone gets advanced to you know a general officer or a CEO
[00:19:39] in many cases it's based on their successes there's something else it's based on
[00:19:44] their lack of failures so you know Dave and I go on deployment Dave does four operations they all go
[00:19:54] okay he gets the job done jocco go they were on the same deployment your task you to command
[00:20:00] or on the task you commander my task unit does 170 operations 168 of them go really well
[00:20:07] and have a huge impact two of them are jacked up who gets promoted who gets promoted this is not
[00:20:14] like a theoretical question who gets promoted yeah I'm getting promoted Dave's getting promoted
[00:20:20] because I didn't make any headlines for this screw up I didn't cause all this equipment and
[00:20:24] God forbid somebody got hurt or killed like we're not we're not having conversation with Dave
[00:20:27] Dave no friction no resistance no problem for me no additional paperwork I don't have to
[00:20:33] send an investigation out for what happened so yeah and it's not even that extreme it's really
[00:20:38] not even that extreme like you're you're you're making it really obvious but it's like hey
[00:20:45] you know Dave did four operations they went well good job jocco did a hundred operations
[00:20:51] they had a vehicle roll over right they lost a radio and they had a guy get wounded
[00:20:59] the guy get wounded it's like people understand that but all you know the vehicle roll over
[00:21:03] what kind of what wasn't this it was this really necessary and all of a sudden it's like well you know
[00:21:08] Dave kind of keeps it known as clean he did a good job who's getting promoted Davis so
[00:21:15] that's disturbing the other thing is you took at these these generals who made it who's
[00:21:21] getting promoted the ones that freaking lived how did they live they said oh you know sir maybe
[00:21:27] I could go back to the rear and and help you with your strategic planning you know here's another
[00:21:32] cup of tea hi really like Dave you know he's I want to bring him back with me makes my ego feel good
[00:21:38] so you're a little brown noseer and then you end up getting living through World War One and now
[00:21:45] I put you under my wing and along you go yeah and I'm sticking around the army too after world
[00:21:50] for a while I can stomach that whole thing as opposed all the guys that came back and like
[00:21:54] don't ever call me again yeah I'm that don't don't ever call me again yeah and not to mention
[00:21:59] I come back and I'm like hey look I did my time come and go out be an entrepreneur make money and
[00:22:04] build a business you're like hey I'm gonna come I'm kind of scared to get out I'll be there go
[00:22:07] just stay in here go begin to paycheck three hats in a cot you know I get the uniform
[00:22:13] people's treat me with respect I'm good
[00:22:15] back to the book to understand the psychology of these reactionary elements in the military
[00:22:24] establishment of men who choose to make the army their career painstakingly work their way
[00:22:30] up the hierarchy to the highest positions but then behave in such a manner to ensure that if they
[00:22:34] are remembered and all will be only for their conservatism we needs must have recourse
[00:22:42] to ego psychology thus it seems in that in the present instance military leaders like devil
[00:22:51] Montgomery, millen iron side and gork displayed behavior symptomatic of extremely weak
[00:22:58] egos in this light their behavior typifies the neurotic paradox in which the individuals need to be
[00:23:05] loved breeds on the one hand an insatiable desire for admiration with avoidance of criticism and on the
[00:23:13] other hand and equally devouring urge for power and positions of dominance that's weird
[00:23:21] the paradox is that these needs inevitably result in behavior so unrealistic as to earn for the victim
[00:23:28] the very criticism which he has been striving so hard to avoid consider a few concrete examples of
[00:23:34] this syndrome for those who had disappeared of anyone ever learning anything from the events of the
[00:23:40] first world war 1933 bought brought a belated gleam of hope with the publication of the Kirk
[00:23:47] Committee report which was not uncritical of the high command it could hardly have been otherwise
[00:23:53] but there were those for whom preservation of personal reputations counted for more than the need to
[00:24:00] avoid the repetition of senseless slaughter to which their direction had given rise this is this is evil
[00:24:06] i'm going to say that word this is evil we have a report that comes out that explains what we did wrong
[00:24:13] and some people they wanted to preserve their own reputation instead of trying to save future
[00:24:17] lives from lessons learned one such was field marshal Montgomery whose immediate response to the report
[00:24:23] was to block its dissemination throughout the army while one can wander at a system which would
[00:24:31] make it possible for one man to operate such censorship the precise reason for his behaviors by
[00:24:36] no means obscure Montgomery as he then was happened to be the chief of staff in the fourth division
[00:24:44] during the battle of the song so he's getting ratted out in this report
[00:24:48] and he's like puts the sides the report that'd be like if we had the blue on blue in
[00:24:56] Ramadhi and I was like hmm hide that with stifle it
[00:25:03] our second example is rather more complex concerning as it does that major obstacle to military
[00:25:09] development the horse as a noble if uncomprehending factor in military incompetence this animal
[00:25:16] was much in evidence between the war this is very interesting if you know anything about horses
[00:25:22] upon reflection is hardly resupprising that the horse became the
[00:25:27] cina quanon of military life for a thousand years met had found it in it enormous advantages
[00:25:35] there was nothing better for transportation and load hauling horses raised morale and enhanced
[00:25:39] egos horses took the weight off the feet and enabled people to go to war sitting down when they lay
[00:25:42] down you could hide behind them when it was cold you could borrow their warmth and when
[00:25:46] they died you could eat them because of the traditionally rural origins of so many army officers
[00:25:50] military families horsemanship in the context of sports like hunting
[00:25:55] became one of the preferred preferred leisure activities in such sports as polo
[00:26:00] pig sticking in an early-aged jelesting not only act out symbolic aspects of real warfare
[00:26:05] but are also associated with a higher social class there's little wonder that they should find
[00:26:11] so much favor with those who choose the army as a career all in all is not surprising that the
[00:26:14] cavalry became the branch of the army with the highest status nor is it surprising
[00:26:18] that they should have become the most vehement in the denunciation of the tank which was seen as
[00:26:24] an intrusive junior rather than the air and air apparent so they had this long fascination with
[00:26:29] the horse they love the horse the people that road horses in the cavalry ended up with a bunch of
[00:26:35] you know prestigious positions and high ranking positions and they saw the tank not as like hey
[00:26:40] this is what's going to take over the horse it's trying to it's juniors of the horse it's not as good
[00:26:46] as the horse nor is it surprising that the desire of the war office to playkate the cavalry
[00:26:52] was stronger a lot than logic not only did they veto any expansion of the tank or but under the
[00:27:00] direction among Gummery ruled that the new tank brigade should never be reassembled and this in the
[00:27:07] mid-1930s with Hitler army to the teeth that's you can't you just you have to have it you have to
[00:27:16] be a kind of like a psychopath to do this it there's a level of insanity in there it's like how how
[00:27:21] do you look at a horse in a tank and look at him go well yeah you know it's thinking like
[00:27:27] the bolt action rifle or the automatic machine gun they fire that one I think we're actually talking
[00:27:32] uh sword versus automatic machine gun I'm just trying to force like you gotta go for you gotta go
[00:27:39] harder though yeah it's fair point it's just the the depths of crazier said look at that and
[00:27:43] and carry was talking about this after the last podcast K dog was talking about this was the culture
[00:27:50] of the of the the cavalry and you just said it in there was it a thousand years
[00:27:57] people only use an horses and combat like there's a culture inside there that's going to be kind
[00:28:04] of hard to break into the tank come on man and it's it votes kind of the same frustration that I
[00:28:14] articulate in the very first podcast about the machine no it was before them and when I talked
[00:28:18] about the machine gun of how how long does it take for me to watch a machine gun mode down some
[00:28:22] of my guys where I go time out stop stop I got this one wrong we need to come up with another plan
[00:28:30] as opposed to like no just keep sending them in and do that for four years for four years at the
[00:28:36] risk of literally I mean millions of people but but the horse and the tank and even like old pictures
[00:28:42] of the war the the crazy thing about war war one tank so like the previous era of tanks that they
[00:28:46] be leveraged them they're these giant massive things they're like almost like comedically too big yeah but
[00:28:52] you if you would have just put those two side by side like you said there's a level of
[00:28:57] psychopathia level of of of of of crazy you got to go no the horse yeah give me the horse
[00:29:04] he made the horse dude there was a little bit of maybe even a little bit more than a little
[00:29:10] um when when we started using night vision yeah we talked about that we had guys that were like
[00:29:19] we'd be wearing night vision on patrol and that's because you shouldn't wear night vision like
[00:29:22] what are you insane let's you see in the door yeah you get to fight an enemy that's blind to you yeah
[00:29:30] well I've said this and I mean in in aviation I got the fly stealth airplanes like very modern
[00:29:37] stealth airplanes and to this day despite the insane advantage the insane advantage there is
[00:29:45] still ongoing debate over so whether or not we should have non stealth this is not this is like
[00:29:52] in fighters there's reasons I've not said that cargo planes and attack planes like but in this world
[00:29:56] of like airplane fighting against another airplane or using airplanes to get into a contested space
[00:30:00] they're still an ongoing debate of hey we should just retrofit like really nice legacy airplanes
[00:30:05] with cool cool missiles and cool engines and stuff like that my airplane is invisible my airplane is
[00:30:13] invisible you will not see it it doesn't matter how fast you can go or how much gas you can carry
[00:30:20] or how cool your weapon is you're going to lose how much longer till pilots are not doing this job
[00:30:26] fighter pilots I think we are one generation away my opinion is that the next generation which
[00:30:32] what scary is like it's much sooner it's not like 40 years from now the next generation of airplanes
[00:30:36] are going to come out in the next 15 20 years and there's going to be no pilots no no I think this
[00:30:40] general like they're building this now they're designing and building it now so this yeah and so
[00:30:44] technology one of the drawbacks of airplanes like from conception to development and building it
[00:30:50] takes a long time so this plane has been on the drawing board for 10 years and this is what happens
[00:30:55] when you got the military industrial complex because we gave this to Elon Musk dude I got your
[00:31:00] fighter pilot electric and to his dismay he probably wants and things and understands that
[00:31:07] we should be a generation head but be that as a may even with that I think we've got one more
[00:31:12] airplane in us with a person inside that's my opinion and you know even with that it is met with
[00:31:20] so much resistance so much institutional resistance yeah that's which is crazy right because you take
[00:31:27] the pilot out of the plane and and the other thing is you can you don't have to fight a plane
[00:31:32] with a plane you can fight a plane with 19 unmanned drones that have that cost a fraction of the
[00:31:39] price and can maneuver and don't have to worry about the stupid human in there screwing things up
[00:31:45] and that's why that story of the naval officer going you should buy all these tanks
[00:31:50] because he's got no yes no personal vested interest in the tank he's not inside that whole thing
[00:31:54] he's not a cavalry guy writing horses he's like I'm over here in a boat I'm just telling you
[00:31:58] for my vantage point it's not even close by this thing buy him all right now because he's
[00:32:05] he's detached he's just like oh no I'm not this is not for my personal game I'm not going to be
[00:32:09] in that tank around that horse I'm just telling you from from over here it's not it's not even close just
[00:32:14] do this because he sees it from a perspective and that's what I think that's where that that is
[00:32:22] it the level of frustration of hearing this is really hardest because hey you're there
[00:32:28] I said both actor rifle and machine gun and like go harder to you're harder so you know
[00:32:33] which is like a sling shot and a heavy machine gun automatic heavy machine gun that's how big the
[00:32:38] gap is and the only way to not see the machine gun is to be so invested and so committed to your
[00:32:43] point of view that just like we said last time you will dismiss the truth because it doesn't
[00:32:48] align with your preconceived outcome that you've created in your head which is probably to some
[00:32:54] degree the definition of being a psychotic a psychopath by the way there weren't just anti-tank
[00:33:02] and this gets in the Dave Berk territory there are anti-aircrafts too here we go for once the
[00:33:07] for once the usual rival between the two older arms sank beneath their mutual dislike of the new
[00:33:13] upstart if anything the admiral's waxed more rather more negative about aeroplanes than they did
[00:33:19] than did the generals whose minds as we have seen were already discomforted by the issue of tanks
[00:33:24] as mechanization threatened horses so aircraft threatened battleships but unlike horses and military
[00:33:30] minds battleships were only the last succession of obstacles to progressive naval thinking before
[00:33:35] battleships had been wood and before that sale each were link wishing each were licorsement
[00:33:41] and transition had been bitterly resented heavily opposed and productive of such irrational thinking
[00:33:48] as tends to occur when dearly loved objects have been renounced. When this is I've been
[00:33:56] referencing this a lot when I talk to people. When there was talk of iron replacing wood in the
[00:34:01] construction of ship one admiral was heard to remark that the idea was preposterous since iron was
[00:34:06] heavier than water the ships would be bound to sink on this issue has been calculated that and this
[00:34:12] is fascinating of the 20 major technological developments which lie between the first marine engine
[00:34:20] and the Polaris submarine the admiral's admiral team machine has discouraged delayed obstruction
[00:34:27] obstructed or positively rejected 17 17 out of 20 the essential and necessary incorporation of these
[00:34:36] developments in the structure of modernization has been achieved by individual and sometimes
[00:34:42] undisciplined officers by political industrial and industrial pressures or and most frequently
[00:34:49] by their successful adoption in rival navies so if you think I'm going to figure out some kind of
[00:34:56] I'm going to figure out what that list is it's like iron to wood and then getting rid of sales
[00:35:01] for steam and then from steam to what you know diesel and then from and there was people resisted
[00:35:05] every single 17 out of 20 those advancements there was resistance in nuclear reactor on a boat
[00:35:11] imagine the world does think you've ever heard right when doing a submarine are you insane
[00:35:16] can't be done can't be done as for battleships whose future usefulness and indeed
[00:35:23] very existence was threatened by the advent of aircraft quote two most admels the the respective
[00:35:28] value of battleships and aircraft was not basically a technological issue but more in the nature
[00:35:34] of a spiritual issue don't they cherished the battlefield with a religious fervor as an article
[00:35:41] of belief defying all scientific examination the blindness of hard-headed sailors to realities
[00:35:46] that were obvious to a dispassionate observer is the only explicable through is only explicable
[00:35:51] through the through understanding the place that quote ships of the line filled their hearts
[00:35:58] a battleship had long been to an admiral what a cathedral is to a bishop and you can't walk away from that
[00:36:05] I don't know if there is an equivalent in the teams if there is let me know but
[00:36:11] that description is is is is beautiful because in aviation you literally fall in love with your
[00:36:20] airplane like it's a person like it's a human being and and the degree to which you cannot see the
[00:36:26] truth is I would say on part of the degree that you can't see the flaws in your own children
[00:36:33] hey hey jocco you got an ugly baby no I don't that baby is perfect from head to toe everything
[00:36:39] about this thing unique and perfect and special and I can't go and go hey man your kids got some
[00:36:43] flaws here because that is the degree to which pilots fall in love with the equipment matches what
[00:36:50] he described or like the cathedral that's not an exaggeration and you will see people make these
[00:36:56] decisions based on irrational physical attachment to a piece of equipment thank God I flew a
[00:37:03] bunch of different airplanes so I kind of like sort of fell out in love with my first girlfriend that
[00:37:07] first airplane but I still kind of look back finally go man I really love the airplane and to be told
[00:37:14] hey this thing that you have is flawed like deeply deeply flawed and generationally behind
[00:37:20] weren't supposed to be and the end rather than sort of an object or yeah you're right there's some
[00:37:24] things about this it aren't very good oftentimes you get just this hyper irrational emotional response
[00:37:30] like you're talking about like I'm not trying to be critical of your this is a machine right
[00:37:34] we're not right I love with the machine are we well it's pretty spot on yeah that's like when you
[00:37:39] come up with a plan and you fall in love with your own plan and I'm like hey Dave not quite sure
[00:37:42] about your plan and this thing we were talking about talking about speaking of emotional
[00:37:48] depot detachments it was such strong emotional attachment that led admirals to deceive
[00:37:53] their political masters you can it doesn't get need more horrible than this I guess it does but
[00:37:58] the practical issue is whether or not battleships could defend themselves against aircraft
[00:38:04] having formed the opinion that they could the Admiral the Admiralty decided to prove its point in 1936
[00:38:12] while aircraft production by the Axis Powers was getting into top gear the king was invited
[00:38:17] to a demonstration in which naval ships would attempt to shoot down a radio controlled queen bee
[00:38:22] target aircraft unfortunately the demonstration did not go well despite the fact that the
[00:38:28] plane was flimited to flying 80 miles an hour and flew up and down without jinking while the
[00:38:35] ships were given a running start on a parallel course thereby reducing the speed differential to
[00:38:41] something approaching 50 miles an hour not a hit was scored dismayed but resourceful the
[00:38:49] admiral's played their last card deliberately crashing the radio controlled plane into the sea
[00:38:54] thereby proving at considerable cost of the British taxpayer that planes are no match for the
[00:39:00] battleship when these are in the right hands that's like an act of trees that is an act that's an
[00:39:07] act of treason I hate imagining the actual scene where you're like the remote control guy
[00:39:16] and I'm over your shoulder and I do it yet no hey put that thing in the water and it was like
[00:39:20] seriously like putting the water you know like that event had to occur like in real time
[00:39:26] whether there's something like hey this isn't going the way we plan let sabotage our
[00:39:29] experiment to prove our point that we've already predetermined which is planes aren't as good as ships
[00:39:36] crash that crash that drone will like we're like I Roger that's right and you like
[00:39:39] whatever you do you put that thing in the water go see look what happened yeah so let's just
[00:39:43] like essentially on a big scale like what you always say you risk like some people will
[00:39:50] sabotage your plan because they want their plan to be they want to prove you know the
[00:39:55] buck or you know you guys roll player whatever or if you approach the guy in the wrong way
[00:40:00] he'll be like yeah I'll do your plan if you shove the plan down like I threw mm-hmm right and
[00:40:04] then they're like okay I'll carry out your plan and then they might intentionally sabotage it to
[00:40:08] prove to you that hey your plan sucks therefore we should have went with my plan yeah I
[00:40:12] parallel sort of but um this is actually just like like treasonous right to just straight up
[00:40:23] why because you want to protect your little fife dumb and you are putting the security of your
[00:40:30] nation in complete jeopardy because you're so arrogant and stuck in your old ways and in love
[00:40:38] with your piece of equipment that's like that's treason that's treason yeah and it's it's also
[00:40:48] gonna result in your your people dying because the test is actually designed to go hey let's see if
[00:40:56] we can learn some stuff here hey it turns out this airplane thing is a good thing we should it and
[00:41:00] rather than get to the outcome you you will sabotage the outcome to get what you want which is I want
[00:41:06] to show you my my battleship is still supreme and the result is you're killing your own people
[00:41:11] it is not gonna happen for five years or whatever the timing of that was but it's gonna happen
[00:41:15] and we're gonna kill hundreds of thousands of people as a result of that and that's the treason
[00:41:21] I'm trying to remember I had something to happen one time where I was testing some GPS
[00:41:28] full and and it was supposed to be waterproof they're like hey this board this GPS is waterproof
[00:41:34] you don't need to waterproof and I was like trust me how is it like any e4 and e5 and the
[00:41:40] sealed teams going over the beach all the time I was a freaking expert on what was waterproof and
[00:41:46] what wasn't and I looked at this thing and I was like you're saying this thing is waterproof
[00:41:50] like that's what you're saying and they're like yep and I said no but how do you how should I
[00:41:54] prepare it they're like you don't need to and I was like you want me to test this thing and they're like
[00:41:59] yeah it's waterproof and I said okay cool shit was not waterproof you know like not even close
[00:42:06] and brought gave them back they're flooded out crappy GPS but there was there was sort of like
[00:42:13] indications of like you know what did you do you know did you open it well and I was like
[00:42:19] not an open any of these things it's not waterproof but you can see that's the kind of test where
[00:42:23] someone goes hey put it in a plastic bag and then say it's waterproof you know you got some
[00:42:27] contractor that's going to sell all these GPS's to to naval special warfare not on my freaking
[00:42:33] watch you're not this shit is a joke well the quilt any potential concern just that scenario of
[00:42:39] like that word that pre-wold or two you know battleship airplane British thing where it was just like
[00:42:44] hey we're just going to sabotage and and just false about the results I never saw anything to
[00:42:48] that degree I saw some resistance for sure but I never saw anybody or ever hurt anybody hey
[00:42:54] falsify the report sabotage the plan so just so people realize like I in my experience and I
[00:43:01] had some interesting things happened in my career I never saw that I'm sure I don't think I have either
[00:43:08] yeah I'll have to I'll have to think on that one but I'd probably would have stood out so much yeah
[00:43:12] I mean somebody over my shoulder saying hey put that thing in a waterproof bag and call it good like
[00:43:17] what do you know I would have never done that thousand years yeah I love the image
[00:43:21] willing to put that Joan in the water sir what do you mean crash it immediately and tell everybody
[00:43:26] got shot down it looks like we crash some drones as a matter of fact we were in uh we're going through
[00:43:32] through urban combat training and task in the bruiser and we're supposed to be using these
[00:43:37] drones and everything hey I see it was in one of the lace a license was like a drone pilot
[00:43:45] and whatever he was doing like he's like all right I'm going you know we're flying it going to
[00:43:49] look at the target and he's he brings tries to bring it back and this thing came in it like
[00:43:54] why don't I'll fast those things go what would be a realistic speed for a drone 50 knots
[00:43:59] this thing comes in at 50 knots it just way lays into a tree and of course they're like you know how's
[00:44:07] that drone working out I'd be like that drone sucks and the advancement on drones between that time
[00:44:12] frame 2005 and now is like night and day but if I would have been setting up the report or whoever would have
[00:44:18] been something yeah these things are great no we'd be like this thing sucks this thing sucks make it
[00:44:23] better that's what they did so thankfully listen we also didn't like falsify stuff all right
[00:44:30] those that's that's that's now we're moving into the second world war the pre the pre the
[00:44:36] in between war period is over nothing learned nothing figured out no no one taking blame
[00:44:42] responsibility for anything second world war there's a quote in here from La Del Hart the German
[00:44:49] success in May 1940 could easily have been prevented but for the opportunities presented to them by
[00:44:55] the allied blunders blunders that were largely due to the prevalence of outer-date ideas
[00:45:03] after an appalling start in which the allies were out fought out maneuvered and outstripped
[00:45:07] in the quality of their military thinking and equipment the second world war produced a
[00:45:11] biggest transition in military competence since though days of Wellington it was born of necessity
[00:45:15] and maybe said to have dated from Dunkirk this jolt to 100 years of military
[00:45:22] monitoring and 20 years of blind complacency achieved 3 ends within a space of days it shattered
[00:45:28] many long-held dearly loved illusions about the nature of modern war it hasten the eclipse of the
[00:45:34] old the reactionary the untalented finally by rendering the armory temporary impotent Dunkirk put
[00:45:41] the most junior service in the center of the stage Dave Burke is excited now the first time
[00:45:48] the continued existence of the army and navy became totally dependent upon their protection
[00:45:54] by the RAF look at this smile on this guy over here as for the bad start this was a legacy of
[00:46:02] factors that touched on the previous chapters rigidity of thinking over confidence resulting from
[00:46:08] a pathetic belief and antiquated methods of warfare and refusal to accept that enemy intentions may
[00:46:14] confound the armchair profits the following examples from the liberal hearts history of
[00:46:21] second war illustrate these shortcomings on January 10, 1940 a German aircraft carrying the liais on
[00:46:27] officer of the second air fleet lost its way in crash landed in Belgium by an extraordinary chance
[00:46:33] the officer was in possession of the complete operational plan for Germany's attack on the west
[00:46:38] did you hear what I just said by extraordinary chance the officer was in possession of the
[00:46:44] complete operational plan for Germany's attack on the west he tried to burn the plan but failed
[00:46:50] to complete this task before he was captured in this way its contents became known to the allies
[00:46:55] Hitler's response was to devise a new plan which involved attacking France through the Rden's
[00:47:01] rather than through Belgium as originally intended this episode was damaging to the allies for
[00:47:07] two reasons first firstly in the belief that the captured plan was a deliberate deception they failed
[00:47:13] to modify their own plans secondly contrary to advice received years earlier they clung to the belief
[00:47:20] that the wooded area of the Rden's was impossible to tanks as a result the strongest allied
[00:47:25] force remained poised for attack through Belgium while the Germans suffered little resistance
[00:47:30] to their outflanking drive through the Rden's here's another one the French they'll possessing
[00:47:37] many tanks which were as good as if not better than those the Germans were steadfast and
[00:47:42] their belief that horse to cavalry could destroy German armor in the Rden's for this reason they
[00:47:48] refused to accept the suggestion that fel trees might be used to delay the German advance like
[00:47:53] the poles they were sadly disillusioned about the outcome of a conflict between horse and tanks
[00:47:58] that's the poles and the French both making the assessment that hey you got tanks but we got horses
[00:48:07] the British retreat from the Gazale line in 1942 which resulted in the loss of towbrook
[00:48:13] followed by a headlong flight back into Egypt was the second worst disaster of the war after
[00:48:20] Dunkirk tobrook cost Britain 35 thousand casualties and an enormous loss in ground and material
[00:48:28] why did it happen inadequate general ship the army commander major general Neil Richie a fine-looking man
[00:48:35] has been described by his contemporaries in ways strikingly resembling of elf and stone raglan and boulder
[00:48:44] here's what his contemporaries had to say about him Richie was all hey wire by then all for counter-attacking
[00:48:50] in this direction one day and another the next optimistic and not and trying not to believe we
[00:48:54] had taken a knock when I reported the state of the first armor division to him at a time when I was
[00:48:59] planning to use it for a counter attack he flew to see me and almost took the view that I was being
[00:49:03] subversive another one general richie had a great air of the sizeiveness it was really rather
[00:49:10] indecisive according to the same core commander he quote had a tendency to ask your advice
[00:49:17] and having received it acted in the opposite way here's another one richie is not sufficiently
[00:49:22] quick-witted or imaginative another one a fine robust looking man with charm and manner but no aura
[00:49:30] and finally confident and decisive in his speech but one did not always feel he was quite
[00:49:37] so confident and decisive in his mind that's another thing I talked about that I think of the first one
[00:49:40] there's act that you learn you learn to kind of raise your voice a little bit you learn to project
[00:49:47] you learn to fero your eyebrows a little bit and you say hey listen Burke I love doing that right
[00:49:52] because it's something that we experience so much in the military listen up Burke hey
[00:49:56] I don't need your input right now look we need to make a move Burke you know like that thing
[00:50:01] people learn that in the military you learn how to act like that and eventually you can learn
[00:50:06] not a high behind that see that all the time so and people get fooled by civilians get fooled
[00:50:14] like by that but like it's going out of style I mean that's what they're looking for they're
[00:50:18] looking for the type cast kernel the type cast general that first is brow sits up straight with a good
[00:50:25] posture and then speaks in a clear effective manner that people are going to listen to
[00:50:32] and the politicians love to take that guy and put him out there to put out the word you know
[00:50:37] well you know what I'm saying they did they take that guy that put him out there
[00:50:41] hey we know what we got willing willink willink you know like put on an act
[00:50:45] no one's gonna mess with willing but willing on this down put willing on the stand
[00:50:49] willing gets and he puts his uniform on freaking puts his shoulders back chest out and then
[00:50:56] says I'm going to tell you this one time here's how it is going to happen boom people aren't
[00:51:00] questioning that fast forward a little bit under the ineffectual leadership of this big
[00:51:08] kindly courteous on imagine if apparently complacent yet occasionally touchy general the army
[00:51:13] suffered a decline in organization discipline and drive if he came flabby instead of taught
[00:51:17] sluggish instead of agile once again that fatal amalgam of overconfidence and under
[00:51:23] estimation of the enemy produced a doling of military endeavor rommel himself in his diary
[00:51:30] ascribed success to the British pre-delection for frontal assaults brave but costly charges by
[00:51:38] small groups in which the attackers banged their heads time and time again against the whole down
[00:51:44] German panzers hold down yeah let's do a frontal assault against a tank yep and a whole that's
[00:51:54] yeah that's whole down the meaning meaning they've positioned themselves where the whole is you can't
[00:51:59] see the tank you can only see the turret that's whole down echo tross hold down defilei you
[00:52:05] park that thing in a little berm in a little ravine and you can't see it only thing you see is
[00:52:10] this like the gun yeah and guess when you see the turret you know about five seconds before it
[00:52:14] lights you up yeah just walking right up on that thing it's hard to picture that because you know
[00:52:22] you know the story of the hey the French gonna dig this hey you know what you should do a deeper
[00:52:28] longer wider trench and a force that's impossible by armor like that's the plan yeah
[00:52:33] hey what do we learn hey I got an idea hey remember the trench we didn't older one not good enough
[00:52:38] let's dig a deeper trench and they're 100% sure that the armor can't go through this forest so
[00:52:43] we're good and we all know that story so you're just waiting to hear this this be revealed
[00:52:48] which is the idea of hey the horses you know this this this this force is impossible by equipment
[00:52:56] so you don't you need some horses yeah you know what I had when I had some trees when I had been
[00:53:00] miligan on from from his book um by water beneath the walls one of the interesting things the
[00:53:06] like the marine's had issues at Tarra and their solution like hey we are tracks didn't make it through
[00:53:13] and some of our Marines didn't make it to the beach because they hit um you know hit the the
[00:53:18] reef 800 meters out marine solution was okay you guess what real simple we need more more Marines
[00:53:25] and more tracks we need you know 80 tracks to make it through and half them don't make it cool
[00:53:32] 160's the number yeah and the the the the navy was like how about we go and you know try and
[00:53:41] figure out where those reefs are hence you deities
[00:53:48] if you didn't listen that podcast I think it's 298 with Ben Milligan and get that book get that book
[00:53:56] that freaking book is outstanding by water beneath the waves talk about a
[00:54:00] going into depth and figuring out and understanding why things are the way they are it's an outstanding book
[00:54:08] from the standpoint of human behavior human feelings leadership and decision making the events of
[00:54:14] 1942 in North Africa exemplify in microcosm the major causes of military incompetence underneath his
[00:54:22] robust exterior richy like boulder before him an elephant stone before him lack to self confidence
[00:54:30] and seem more concerned with proving himself to himself than with prosecuting the war
[00:54:37] the presiding over interminable committee meetings through which the army was run the seeking of
[00:54:43] advice and then not taking it and the disingenuous way in which he managed to convince the commander
[00:54:50] and chief that he was protecting tobrook wall in reality leaving it to the mercy of the Germans
[00:54:55] are the actions of a man beset by inter doubts these doubts were skillfully but not perfectly
[00:55:02] concealed by his often inappropriate facade of monumental complacency
[00:55:08] now we go to sing a poor chapter 11 one can sum up by saying that those responsible for the
[00:55:24] conduct of the land campaign in Malaya committed every conceivable blunder major general woodburn
[00:55:30] curbsing a poor the chain of disaster in the nine weeks between early December 1941 and mid-February
[00:55:37] 1942 the impregnable force fortress of Singapore Europe's gateway to the east with its thriving
[00:55:44] city huge naval dockyard and strategic vital airfields fell lock stock and barrel into the hands
[00:55:49] of the Japanese the invasion of this island stronghold the complete defeat of the combined
[00:55:55] British and Australian garrison with its army navy and air force units was the ultimate
[00:55:59] unconditional surrender of the whole area was so rapid that even the Japanese were staggered indeed one
[00:56:06] almost might say non-plossed by the ease speed and enormity of their success
[00:56:15] in the long run the results of this disaster may be deemed incalculable
[00:56:20] the myth of European supremacy over ageatic peoples was exploded forever and the prestige of
[00:56:26] competence of the British military endeavor in the eyes of the world in general and American
[00:56:30] particular were damaged beyond repair in the short run Britain lost her last and strongest
[00:56:36] foothold in the far east and a polling set back for the global war effort we lost thousands of
[00:56:42] lives both military and civilian but worse perhaps than the loss of life the military debacle
[00:56:48] condemned thousands more to three and a half years in Japanese internment camps
[00:56:54] finally the economic loss ran into hundreds of millions of pounds we forfitted elaborate and
[00:57:00] expensive dock installations naval and other engineering facilities military stores fuel the major
[00:57:06] port for exporting urgently needed rubber and two new first class battleships
[00:57:12] most of these material assets fell virtually intact into the hands of the enemy
[00:57:17] thus in effect doubling their value the value of their loss to the allies like other cases we have
[00:57:27] discussed that of Singapore is essentially a human problem a product of human behavior human
[00:57:33] intellect human character in human error no explanation in terms of geography climate
[00:57:38] broad political or military considerations can possibly do justice to the facts
[00:57:42] at bottom and at the top we are confronted with issues that are primarily psychological
[00:57:48] and which only a reduction to psychological principles can possibly explain
[00:57:54] so this freaking disaster unfolds in Singapore a disaster and as you're going to see it's
[00:58:02] not about who was smart and it's not about like the military situation it's the freaking
[00:58:07] psycho pathology of the leaders let us state the problem in terms of a number of questions why
[00:58:15] was the impregnable fortress planned and serviced in such a way that while presenting apparently
[00:58:20] formidable defenses on its southern side its back and northern sure was no more of a resistance
[00:58:25] than would be invader than the back of Bournemouth why was there an almost total lack of coordination
[00:58:32] and cooperation between those who had been entrusted with the job of defending the island why
[00:58:36] was it clear that the Japanese could and would assault the island from its northern side was
[00:58:43] nothing done to erect defenses in their path why did the general officer commanding Singapore
[00:58:49] lieutenant general person of all ignore the urgent advice of his subordinate Brigadier Simpson
[00:58:55] and of his superior general wavel to implement these defenses why on the one hand was so
[00:59:01] little done to protect the civilian population against air raids and on the other so much done to
[00:59:06] prevent their knowing the true facts of the situation as these unfolded why did general
[00:59:11] personal persistent believing the Japanese would attack from the northeast when confronted with
[00:59:15] overwhelming evidence that their assault would come from the northwest why did the officer
[00:59:20] commanding the Australian forces on the island forbid his troops to escape while secretly plotting
[00:59:25] his own get away from the island finally and perhaps greatest of greatest interest how did the
[00:59:32] men who could perpetrate such colossal errors of judgment ever reach a position where this was possible
[00:59:39] it's quite the setup in 1925 there's a protracted and acrimonious argument between the army
[00:59:47] navy and air force chiefs as the housing report should be defended while the older services
[00:59:51] press for fortifications and heavy fixed guns for repelling attack from seward
[00:59:55] trenchered for the RAF advocated for a large force of aircraft to repelling attack before it could
[00:59:59] become come within range of the island need this to say the army in the navy won their case
[01:00:04] at the expense of more junior service heavy fixed armaments armaments became the order of the
[01:00:09] day this debate in which the RAF had conceded defeat had three unfortunate consequences
[01:00:14] firstly the island was left exposed and undefended on its northern side second we seen your army
[01:00:21] commanders from that time on stubbornly clung to the dog with that no Japanese would ever advance
[01:00:25] on Singapore down the Malay peninsula finally the bitter inner service quarrel which ensued resulted
[01:00:31] in an almost total lack of coordination between the three services for future reference
[01:00:42] let me say this
[01:00:42] day view have a platoon in europeal tune there's a two different let's call them clicks
[01:00:54] and they have two different ideas of what you should be focused on and how you should operate
[01:00:59] and what you do is you sort of negotiate a piece between these two clicks and you sort of
[01:01:05] compromise and you figure out hey like we'll do a little bit of this click and a little bit of that
[01:01:08] click and you kind of you kind of bring these forces to a compromise you get them working together
[01:01:15] you get them to like take these things that they could be arguing about you you give one here
[01:01:20] and give the other side one here and so you you end up with a team that although they're not
[01:01:24] perfectly in sync they're at least sort of working together
[01:01:30] my platoon I have two clicks and what I do is I get mad at them because they don't get along
[01:01:40] and then I agree with one of the clicks actually a little bit more and so I give them favoritism
[01:01:45] and now we end up with this you know head buddy who's got a better platoon right so
[01:01:52] if you think about this in a large strategic view and you look at a place called the United
[01:02:01] States of America right now and you look at how miraculously or strangely we've become
[01:02:09] super divisive about all kinds of things to the point where we are banging against each other's heads
[01:02:17] and we don't get along and we've got people that sit so far apart in their beliefs not only do they
[01:02:25] sit so far apart in their beliefs they can't find common ground on anything on anything
[01:02:33] and we've got known known actors in the world that make moves to increase the division
[01:02:44] between the sides of people that we have in America and the people in America don't even recognize
[01:02:51] that all of this fighting is making our platoon weak it's very interesting isn't it it's very
[01:03:02] interesting that we know that there are actors that are there are state actors that are
[01:03:09] creating divisiveness in our own country and yet instead of saying hey you know what actually
[01:03:15] we shouldn't argue about that stuff you know a day you got your opinion on that I got my opinion
[01:03:19] but you know there's a bunch of stuff we agree on let's focus on that okay you know what that
[01:03:23] makes sense we can go execute the mission now instead no you know what day if you don't agree with me on this
[01:03:28] we'll screw you I don't even want to work with you now we can't operate we can't get anything done
[01:03:33] so obvious yeah it's so obvious it's hard to look at too because not only you're going to disagree
[01:03:41] you think you're going to actively sabotage my effort hundred percent and and the hardest part
[01:03:48] about that is that the reality is we are on the same team those two those two platoons in your
[01:03:55] task unit they're on the same team they're very disturbing yeah I've been sure I've got to think
[01:04:04] of way to articulate that a little bit more clearly and in present it in a way that people can see it
[01:04:11] but it's very difficult because when you present it if I present it to vupiltoon and say hey guys
[01:04:16] I think it looks like we're we're actually we're actually not helping here we're not moving this thing
[01:04:23] forward you know what one size is oh so you're trying to take their side are you yeah that's exactly
[01:04:28] what happens that's and that's the point I was thinking when you said that when you you know you you
[01:04:32] were sort of overt like I showed a little bias towards this one team which is all the other side
[01:04:38] needs to go oh I see what's up you're on oh yeah I see what you're doing you want to them yeah
[01:04:44] I see what you're getting at so I've got to think of a way to articulate this properly in
[01:04:48] people because right now but we don't understand it as Americans we are in this sort of trap
[01:04:55] where there's a total lack of coordination between the different sides yeah our government can't even
[01:05:00] get anything done they're they're they're they're losers they're just not not making any progress
[01:05:09] and all the doing is fighting with each other and not realizing that while we're fighting each other
[01:05:13] number one there's other state actors that are that are feeding this fight and while they're
[01:05:21] while they're feeding our fighting we're having these invites guess what these other state actors are doing
[01:05:26] growing their economy unifying their people growing their military strength
[01:05:34] growing the will of their people and we are being divided I'll think of a way to try and
[01:05:47] communicate this so people will hopefully start to understand it I haven't done a good job thus far
[01:05:56] meanwhile back on Singapore there's a total lack of coordination between the three services
[01:06:00] the the reason this is such a fitting thing is because you're going to see what happens in Singapore
[01:06:04] when you don't work together and when you're ego oh yeah by the way Dave I think I know everything
[01:06:11] and so therefore how can you possibly be right on anything at all yeah you certainly know you're right
[01:06:16] oh I definitely know I'm right the RAF began constructing airfield without consultation
[01:06:24] with the army who would have to defend them so there's a great move
[01:06:27] uh Japanese military machine was oh yeah this was the belief was look the Japanese they're
[01:06:34] primitive they're not going to be able to we shouldn't even take them seriously
[01:06:39] thus and now fast forward a little bit thus when the melee tribune published the news that
[01:06:45] Japanese transports had been cited off the southern tip of inno china the editor was immediately
[01:06:50] castigated by the commander and chief of the far east air chief marshal sir robber brook ponom
[01:06:57] popham who said I consider it most improper to print such a larmist views at a time like the
[01:07:03] present the position isn't half so serious as the tribune makes out this is such a great little section
[01:07:11] he says this form of complaint is not without interest firstly he did not deny the truth of the
[01:07:17] press release he hardly could since it originated in report by roiders which had been passed by
[01:07:23] the sensor and which undoubtedly was true secondly he managed to imply all in one breath that the
[01:07:31] situation was both not serious and yet likely to cause a alarm like why are you causing a alarm like
[01:07:37] this Dave and by the way there's nothing to be panicked about
[01:07:39] uh his words exemplified a tendency seen all too often to talk down to a civilian population as
[01:07:47] a group through some weakness of intellect or lack of moral fiber oh sorry who through some
[01:07:54] weakness of intellect or lack of moral fiber could not be trusted with information held by
[01:07:58] their elders and better's meaning the military's like you don't really know what's going on here
[01:08:03] you need to worry about that the guardians of Singapore were prime exemplars of this motivation
[01:08:08] after a long history of wrong thinking they could not afford to be found mistaken the more events
[01:08:13] prove them to be wrong the stronger their defenses became against admitting this to be the case
[01:08:20] and this is very important as Hitler's administration demonstrated in its darkest form
[01:08:26] man this is important suppression of the truth involves two procedures on the one hand
[01:08:32] censorship and on the other hand official communicates the high command and Singapore employed
[01:08:40] both measures take the order of the day released to the melee tribune a bear two months
[01:08:46] before Singapore capitulated it reads we are ready we have had plenty of warning and our
[01:08:54] preparations are made and tested we are confident our defenses are strong and our weapons efficient
[01:08:59] whatever our race we have one aim and one only it is to defend these shores to destroy such
[01:09:06] of our enemies as may set foot on our soil what of our enemy we have seen before us Japan
[01:09:12] drained for years by exhausting claims of our want non-slot of China let us all remember that
[01:09:18] we here in the far-reast form part of the great campaign in the world of truth and justice and freedom
[01:09:23] as the editor of the tribune said it was hard to believe that anybody could deliberately tell
[01:09:30] some any lies on Monday the 18th 1941 general headquarters issued its first war
[01:09:38] communicate it stated that the Japanese had failed in their attempt to land at Kotabaru
[01:09:44] this was followed shortly after by a second communicator which stated all surface craft are
[01:09:48] retiring at high speed and the few troops left on the beach are being heavily machine gun.
[01:09:54] In fact the communicator was essentially untrue and deliberately misleading within a space of a few
[01:09:58] hours from the time of the Japanese landing Kotabaru's firmly in enemy hands.
[01:10:05] There's a couple battleships as a desperate metal measure two battleships the Prince of Wales
[01:10:10] and the repulse were sent to Singapore to create an 11th hour presence they were under the command
[01:10:15] of admiral Sir Tom Phillips in the words of one who met him quote a real old sea dog
[01:10:22] bluff and tough unfortunately he lacks a fishing vision despite strong warnings that he could not
[01:10:31] expect adequate air cover he was soon off with his two ships in search of trouble.
[01:10:36] At first all went well as the ship steamed reassuringly up the east coast
[01:10:40] I'm here that there was weather so he thought he'd be okay his ships both the weather lifted
[01:10:47] his ships were spotted by Japanese air force torpedoed in sunk with a total loss of 8040 officers
[01:10:51] in men by all accounts filled so the boys of brave and conscientious officer but his
[01:10:55] braveness bordered on full-heartedness and his errors of judgment not only had a devastating effect
[01:11:00] on that much cherished commodity but the morale of the Singapore civilians also sealed the fate of
[01:11:06] their city so much for the navy and their chosen field the senior command of the RAF acquitted
[01:11:12] themselves the little better better. It has already been seen how air chief marshal broke
[01:11:18] pompom underestimated jab japan's air strength in comparison with his own ills assorted
[01:11:24] group of obsolete aircraft the same 63-year-old officer whose most notable characteristic was a
[01:11:30] tendency to fall asleep on the slightest pretext showed such disastrous hesitancy and indecision
[01:11:38] in his capacity is commander chief that as the official history was moved to state quote
[01:11:43] it is possible that he did not fully realize the importance of speed the need for quick decision
[01:11:48] was not apparently realized at headquarters malaya command and this is something I talked about earlier
[01:11:54] the first night raid they get a warning 30 minutes early that there's japanese inbound
[01:12:03] and they didn't do anything it seems the japanese had committed the unforgivable foe
[01:12:08] pava tacking at night unforgivable because it conflicted with the official dogma that the
[01:12:12] japanese were unable to fly their planes during the hours of darkness this idea cost Singapore 61 dead
[01:12:20] and 133 injured but the recklessness of the addonals and the did the ring of the air marshals would nothing
[01:12:27] as to the uncompromising of the generals it seemed that nothing could move them not even
[01:12:34] pleading of their fellow officers as noo barber says in his book sinister twilight quote
[01:12:41] when big brigadier general simpson and you remember this is like the good guy when brigadier general
[01:12:46] simpson the chief engineer went to see major general gordon Bennett commanding the eight
[01:12:50] australian division he founded impossible to make him realize that there was an urgent need for
[01:12:55] anti take defenses at first he did not want to discuss the matter at all since he noted after
[01:12:59] the meeting since it was horrified could not the australian general understand that there was nothing
[01:13:05] on the long road to prevent the enemy from reaching them apparently gordon Bennett could not
[01:13:11] for in his diary that night he wrote malay command sent brigadier simpson to discuss with me the
[01:13:17] creation of anti-tank obstacles for you saw the road personally have little time for these
[01:13:21] obstacles preferring to stop and destroy tanks with anti-tank weapons no wonder that the
[01:13:26] japanese never slowed down no wonder that time after time troops were annihilated by skillful
[01:13:31] japanese enveloping tactics on the british side wrong decisions were made communications
[01:13:36] broke down whole pockets of troops were caught off first japanese tanks appeared and came as a great
[01:13:42] surprise to the british who had not won single tank in malaya in a jungle country where the
[01:13:48] british had insisted that tanks could never operate the japanese tanks moved easily between
[01:13:53] spacious rows of rubber tree and quote major general gordon Bennett was not to use the appropriate
[01:13:59] vernacular and isolated pocket of resistance nor did he hold the record of obscenancy in
[01:14:04] barber's words a tamps by brigadier simpson to move and add to the defenses had been
[01:14:09] blocked at every turn largely by general person who seemed to have had a fixation against such
[01:14:17] measures nothing had been done nothing was being done despite previous please a hazard of belonging
[01:14:23] to any rigidity any rigidly authoritarian hierarchical organization is that from time to time the individual
[01:14:31] out of dire necessity or from strong personal conviction feels compelled to apply pressures to those
[01:14:36] above him it is a hazard because the ethos of the organization whether it be a Victorian
[01:14:43] family and english boarding school or the british army demands that pressure always moves only
[01:14:48] in one way downwards rather than upwards to buck the system by prodding those above can have
[01:14:54] unpleasant consequences you're totally freaking rigid situation and simpson is trying
[01:15:04] simpson is trying i'm a fast for a little bit it seems that simpson was past taking no
[01:15:07] for an answer for he said to the general sir i must emphasize the urgency of doing everything to help
[01:15:12] our troops they're often only partially trained they're tired and disperse it they've been
[01:15:16] retreating for hundreds of miles and please remember sir the japanese are better trained better equipped
[01:15:21] and they're inspired by an unbroken run of victories and it has to be done now sir once the
[01:15:27] area comes under fire civilian labor will vanish he's wanting to get these just just get freaking
[01:15:34] obstacles set up the plea was forceful respectful and logical but amazingly the general remained
[01:15:41] unmoved simpson in his rising anger said look here general i've raised this question time after
[01:15:46] time you've always refused what more you've always refused to give me any reasons at least tell me one
[01:15:52] thing why on earth are you taking this stand who's like what what the hell aren't you want me
[01:15:57] build obstacles wrong with you why not at long last the general officer commanding muleia gave
[01:16:03] his answer quote i believe the defenses of the sword you want to throw up are bad for the morale
[01:16:08] of the troops and civilians and quote since it was quote frankly horrified and remember standing
[01:16:16] there in the room suddenly feeling quite cold and realizing that except for a miracle
[01:16:20] Singapore was as good as lost as you put on his sam brown since could not for beer to make one last
[01:16:27] remark quote sir it is going to be much worse from a while if the japanese start running all over
[01:16:32] the island you can't make it that is so hard to listen to and for whatever sense of
[01:16:43] validation in my head of as soon as he said it's bad from rallin for stallus you know what's
[01:16:47] worse from rall and of course you know i don't know he's gonna say but i understand that that's
[01:16:52] what this guy is seeing or thinking and you saying that doesn't make me feel any better because
[01:16:57] it's just i'm not just getting repetitive at this point it's just a you have to be crazy to not except
[01:17:06] to not accept the facts that don't align with the world v the created in your head yeah
[01:17:11] and i'm only reading chunks of the book it's even worse than it's worse than i'm making it sound
[01:17:17] and i have the distinct disadvantage of seeing how much of this how much of this is going to be
[01:17:22] a gone through and go wow there's chunk i mean big big chunks which i can only assume
[01:17:28] just as we enforce over and over again another example another example another example another
[01:17:33] example and this dude is a good writer and he's a good writer and you and i'm glad that in the
[01:17:38] very beginning you set this up this this isn't a researcher this isn't like a theorist or or a
[01:17:47] you know an academic he has all those categories this guy fought this guy fought in this
[01:17:52] board so he was a warrior he ever assumed it yes yes by his own incompetent but
[01:17:57] he was on admission by the time he was like he's humble yeah which is awesome so
[01:18:02] yeah this is this is rough and and i think what i'm still adding to this is just i think it's
[01:18:07] at a point of repetition of just it's really hard to accept that these are real stories from
[01:18:15] real people in real leadership positions leading up to what was just people getting slaughtered
[01:18:26] you know like you said he was a soldier but he's also a psychologist and so he gives the
[01:18:31] psychological assessments to so here's here's one of them in the case of personal and Gordon
[01:18:36] Bennett to erect defenses would have been to admit to themselves the danger in which they stood
[01:18:42] in other words their professional anxiety about civilian morale was really displaced anxiety
[01:18:48] about their own morale looking further into the story of Singapore want to struck by the
[01:18:54] compulsive element in this refusal of the military to defend itself such compulsive behavior is typical
[01:19:01] of many who present an authoritarian personality and are reared in an organization which traditionally
[01:19:08] deals with fear and danger by ritualistic means i.e. bullshit, chicken shit, drill and parades etc.
[01:19:18] or is what i think he referred to earlier is like the real business of soldier and we're going to
[01:19:24] get back to you know drill and ceremonies so there's there's a there's an admiral that comes along
[01:19:30] or so yeah who was it supreme commander of allied forces in the far east this guy archbilled
[01:19:38] wavel and he he shows up and it's kind of like what the hell's going on bro so then next thing
[01:19:46] it happens is a direct from Churchill giving detailed instructions on how to defend the north shore
[01:19:51] the measures listed were precisely those which had been advocated by Simpson but despite these pressures
[01:19:58] persevolts still did nothing when he eventually issued a plan it was already too late for the
[01:20:03] necessary civilian labor was no longer available just as Simpson is at it was going to be on the
[01:20:07] disposition of his forces' personal thinking seemed no less deranged rather than hold a force in
[01:20:13] reserve that could could be rushed quickly to wherever the Japanese eventually chose to land he
[01:20:19] decided to spread his troops thinly over a long front in other words he decided now because it
[01:20:26] would be good for morale just exactly what he had refused to do early because it would be bad from
[01:20:32] morale in this battle of Singapore and they put that in quotes order of the day,
[01:20:36] first of all made it made great play of phrases like the enemy within our gates loose talk and
[01:20:43] rumor mongering all calculated to alarm civilians and this from the man who had laid such stress
[01:20:50] on the importance of civilian morale of this period barbarites in all the catalog of ineffectual
[01:20:57] leadership nothing is quite so public puzzling as the virtual absence of any deterrent action
[01:21:05] during the last precious hours of daylight before the Japanese attacked it is hard to believe that a
[01:21:10] modern general could so easily ignore what was happening around him that's I've never heard quite
[01:21:19] as bold of the statement as in all the catalog of ineffectual leadership that's a bold one yeah that's
[01:21:26] a big catalog says for the allies it was a week of chaos and confusion unreleave by any
[01:21:37] vestiges of competent leadership or general ship thanks to the absence of defenses including a
[01:21:44] failure to use search lights which had been assembled to blind and make targets of the attackers
[01:21:49] as they paddled in a way across the johor straits the Japanese landed almost unmolested
[01:21:57] despite a devastating barrage from Japanese artillery British guns instead of pounding the
[01:22:03] enemy's point of embarkation remained mute awaiting orders that never came despite weeks of warning
[01:22:11] allied ground forces were speedily outflanked and circled caught off or routed in the event
[01:22:22] 138,78 British Indian and Australian soldiers either died or went into captivity
[01:22:31] this is the beginning of few fliss and applaud cast number 12, Alistair O'erhart the forgotten
[01:22:41] highlander this is this is where he starts his captivity I think he'd been in the army for like
[01:22:48] two or three months at this point 19 years old
[01:22:51] 138,01 event
[01:23:05] of all the instances of military incompetence considered in this book is the fall of Singapore which
[01:23:10] most clearly gives the lie to the so-called bloody full theory of military and aptitude
[01:23:15] personal was in fact highly intelligent and had shown himself in previous years to be a brilliant
[01:23:21] staff officer what he shared with other earlier military incompetence were pacivity
[01:23:29] the opposite of default aggressive by the way and courtesy rigidity and
[01:23:35] obsidency procrastination gentleness and dogmatism 138,2 battleships by the way
[01:23:52] insane
[01:23:57] the next chapter is about our name this is when we covered we covered say we covered
[01:24:09] part of Singapore obviously when we covered Alexander Erhart
[01:24:13] our then we covered podcast 94
[01:24:16] the book was called man at arm and rid my Jeffrey Powell who was there who fought there
[01:24:22] and I think you know when you read the reading this assessment
[01:24:31] really puts it really puts that book in the perspective it starts off with this
[01:24:36] couple quotes all the accumulated evidence confirms that like gallipoli this was a British
[01:24:42] disaster where naked courage lacked the bodyguard of competent planning competent intelligence
[01:24:47] competent technology yet wars object is victory not the Victoria Cross
[01:24:55] and it was shameful that by autumn of 1944 we could still be so amateur
[01:25:04] the object is victory not the Victoria Cross we don't that's the equivalent of the metal of
[01:25:09] honor in England here's a private soldiers comments it began to seem to me that the generals had
[01:25:17] got us into something they had no business doing
[01:25:23] if it achieved nothing else operation market garden Montgomery's plan to capture and hold
[01:25:29] the bridge head across the Rhine in northern Holland at least demolishes the myth that military
[01:25:34] incompetence stems from stupidity for sheer initiative quickness of mind fortitude and
[01:25:41] selfless heroism the conduct of those who actually fought the battle has never been surpassed
[01:25:48] by the same token the men who planned and administered the operation were probably as intellectually
[01:25:55] gifted well trained professionally competent dedicated and conscientious as any military planners
[01:26:01] have ever been and yet the unfolding of market garden revealed all the symptoms of high-level
[01:26:09] military incompetence that's like in how would you feel if someone said you know what Dave
[01:26:17] your intellectually gifted well trained professionally competent dedicated and conscientious
[01:26:22] but that's what we're looking for in our leaders and yet this thing is a disaster the failure of the
[01:26:33] operation resulted from a a linked together of the following factors
[01:26:45] one as a result of his neglect to open up the port of Antwerp by clearing the
[01:26:50] shell the shell the estuary Montgomery allowed the German 15th Army to escape north into Holland
[01:26:56] where it was available to defend the approaches to Archnum two the arrival at Arnhem of
[01:27:05] 30 chord depended upon the advancing across 64 miles of enemy health territory on a one tank front
[01:27:13] along elevated unprotected highways flanked by a soft and tank and sawed and tank proof landscape
[01:27:21] interspersed with waterways any delay a blown bridge an enemy ambush a block road and the
[01:27:29] entire column would be stopped any delay and the Germans would have more time to bring up reinforcements
[01:27:35] in the event it is hardly surprising that 30 chord never did reach Arnhem that they could not achieve
[01:27:43] it even in nine days what it had been scheduled to take 48 hours now i'm going to say i know i gave
[01:27:49] credit to your 12 year old daughter and i'm going to say 12 year old daughter might not be able to
[01:27:55] figure this one out look you look and you got to go 60 what is it 60 4 miles 67 miles 64 miles
[01:28:02] but pretty much any land corporal mhm ring court sees a channelized 64 mile road that's completely
[01:28:16] exposed to the enemy and doesn't like this plan yeah if i'm hearing it correctly what you're
[01:28:23] describing is a one essentially a one it's it you called it a single tank approach so one lane
[01:28:28] highway which on either side is impossible yeah due to you know canals and and and deterring whatever it is
[01:28:34] it's impossible you have a one lane highway and your entire formation is going to be single file
[01:28:38] this is going to work and he mentions we might get ambushed right or or we might get a blown bridge
[01:28:45] how about this a broken down tank how about how about we have a freaking crash
[01:28:51] oh yeah number three as might have been expected from what is known of English
[01:28:59] autumn's the mist if not the mellow fruitfulness of the of an English slate September
[01:29:03] delayed the departure of subsequent gliders and pair troopers for the reinforcement of the first
[01:29:07] armor division like we didn't think there might be fog in the morning wearing England market garden
[01:29:14] perhaps more than most military operations in the cessated good communication between the various
[01:29:19] units and commanders of the attacking force but here technology failed them
[01:29:25] though it was now 50 years since marconi its exceeding sending messages by wireless the radio sets
[01:29:30] carried by the invasion force proved useless unless within air shot of each other no one knew
[01:29:36] what anyone else was doing and look you can say technology failed them if i'm a freaking military
[01:29:42] planner and i'm's relying on the communications in 1944 that's what's going to make us successful
[01:29:53] you're an idiot we can barely rely on communications 10 years ago we can rely on them up a lot more now
[01:30:01] maybe okay not 10 years ago sorry uh 20 years ago 20 years ago
[01:30:05] your barely your barely like to the year 2000 your barely thing oh yeah we don't we will get
[01:30:13] comms we had backup comms all the time backup communication plans we had all the time
[01:30:19] and you know what we had them in romatti as well of course yeah so to think that your comms are
[01:30:23] going to be good to go in 1944 that's not technology fail that's a freaking lack of planning yeah
[01:30:30] a single point of failure probably the most critical thing you're able to do is talk yeah more
[01:30:37] than employ your weapons even more than moving your ability to talk is probably the most critical
[01:30:42] thing that you have to coordinate all these different assets all these different things going on
[01:30:48] i can't say can't bury and we had i remember when i was in romatti because as an angle go marine
[01:30:54] comms was my was really the number one thing you was secondary to the utilization of the aircraft
[01:30:59] number one was comms we had this incredible comms we didn't every brief was hey let's
[01:31:03] hire let's create the prioritization of how we're going to communicate and it was based on where
[01:31:07] we were how far away we're going to be what assets were available if i have a home be cool i got
[01:31:11] a vehicle it's powered i got this high powered antenna i've got these cool powered radios
[01:31:15] and if i got to get out of that home be in start walking i don't have that thing and no i can't
[01:31:18] have a backup plan no and every single mission i went on me and my radio operator talked about
[01:31:23] if this doesn't work what are we going to do and guess what stuff eat the nicest best
[01:31:29] high step tech's it didn't work routinely yep and by the way what are you doing then you're getting
[01:31:34] out your signal panel right we're marking our position to put a big orange panel
[01:31:44] number five since the airborne assault was to take place in daylight and because it was vital
[01:31:49] that thirty core should complete their journey within 48 hours 64 miles and 48 hours on the
[01:31:55] single track the whole enterprise depended upon the absence of strong German forces both in rnm
[01:32:03] area and on the approach route from the south hence it came with something as a jolt
[01:32:08] when they received reports from the Dutch underground that two SS Panzer divisions which had
[01:32:13] mysteriously disappeared sometime previously had now reappeared along sa almost alongside the
[01:32:19] dropping zone this information passed on among gummery received support from the British
[01:32:24] aerial photography of German tanks in the arnm area meanwhile forward troops in the British
[01:32:30] second army reported a buildup of German forces along their intended line of advance
[01:32:38] hmm might want to reconsider this is the moment to reassess the risks involved but since these
[01:32:44] ugly facts did not accord with what they had planned they fell upon a succession of deaf airs
[01:32:51] taking the lead from Montgomery who described the report as ridiculous British second army headquarters
[01:33:00] were quick to discount it also when one of his intelligence officers showed him the aerial photographs
[01:33:05] of a German armor general browning at first British airborne headquarters reported I wouldn't
[01:33:11] trouble myself about the use of fire were you they are probably not serviceable at any rate
[01:33:15] if there is any stronger form of just straight like denial and idiocy than that right there
[01:33:25] you get shown the first you get intel reports and then you get shown photographs of the armor
[01:33:31] tanks the German tanks on the ground and you're like they're probably not serviceable you can't
[01:33:37] make this shit up you also know that there are two divisions there that are gone it's it's they didn't
[01:33:44] appear out of nowhere you know these divisions existed yeah that's the intelligence officer was
[01:33:54] then visited by the core medical officer who suggested he should take some leave because he was so
[01:33:59] obviously exhausted and at first allied army headquarters the chief intelligence officer
[01:34:07] British British Lieutenant Colonel decided there was no direct evidence that the
[01:34:10] Arnum area contained quote much more than the considerable flag defenses already known to exist
[01:34:16] as Ryan puts it quote all down the allied line of command the evaluation of intelligence on the
[01:34:22] panzers in Arnum area was magnificently bungled finally just in case there were any residual doubts
[01:34:31] the intelligence staff for the second army came up with the reassuring opinion that any German
[01:34:35] forces in the Arnum area were quote weak demoralized and likely to collapse if confronted with a
[01:34:43] large airborne attack that geek that's insane the freaking Nazis the Nazis are trying to defend
[01:34:56] their like they're fighting for their lives they're fighting for their country they know what happens
[01:35:07] if they lose they're some of the finest fighting forces in the world and yet we're just going
[01:35:13] to go ahead and catalog them as weak demoralized it likely to collapse and by the way randomly
[01:35:18] it just if they're confronted with a large airborne attack like that's the thing
[01:35:22] because hey when you're an airborne attack because that means you you you even have anti-tank weapons
[01:35:27] barely you've got no armor this is ridiculous
[01:35:35] market garden went ahead but not so quite as planned instead of encountering a few old men
[01:35:41] who collapsed a ran away first airborne division fell upon a horn it's nest of German armor
[01:35:46] far from being demoralized the enemy fought like tigers to defend the gateway of their homeland
[01:35:53] and far from sweeping across Holland to aid the hard pressed pair troops the tanks of the
[01:35:58] second armies 30 court were reduced to a crawl by the combination of unsuitable terrain and determined
[01:36:05] opposition
[01:36:07] and this is going to finish out the section the book defeat was absolute and terrible
[01:36:18] short on everything but courage the men of first airborne division held on
[01:36:24] until their numbers had been reduced from 10,000 and five to less than a quarter of that figure
[01:36:29] total allied losses and killed wounded and missing exceeded 17,000
[01:36:39] some 5,000 more than those who became casualties on day
[01:36:43] so there you have it defeat was absolute and terrible and that despite the fact that for the
[01:37:03] beginning of this section sheer a niffed initiative quickness of mine fortitude and self
[01:37:08] selfless heroism the conduct of those who actually fought the battle has never been surpassed
[01:37:13] and and this we want to talk about disturbing
[01:37:19] field marshal Montgomery described the mission as a 90% success
[01:37:25] that's that's how he presented it 90% success
[01:37:31] I think to be clear of anything in the aftermath of everything that has he considered it yeah
[01:37:36] he reported considered told people that this was a 90% success
[01:37:48] actually there's a little quote and there I got to read based on that
[01:37:54] there's this he so he says this is a 90% success and there's a Prince Bernard of the Netherlands
[01:38:05] said my country can never again afford the luxury of a Montgomery success yeah
[01:38:14] so that's what we've got it's insane it's weird how you and I are to loss for words over and over
[01:38:21] over again if you're listening to this and you've got some free time I think I mentioned it last
[01:38:30] time we're talking about some of the characters but band of brothers covers this and market garden from the
[01:38:35] American you know airborne troopers and and our now there's a cool
[01:38:42] replaying and retelling of this and what we saw in the combination of that but this is revealed there
[01:38:46] it's it's very well done but it does not it does not
[01:38:53] expose the depths of the why behind it it looks at it looks like it looks at it from a tactical point of
[01:38:59] view and it's it's very good to see it's really you should watch it it's not the band of brothers is awesome
[01:39:04] but this takes it and reveals it on a level that that for me the reason I can't I don't know what
[01:39:10] to say it's really hard to just it's this is this is 1944 yeah we aren't new we we we are not
[01:39:18] experienced yes indeed is behind us like this isn't figuring out how do we get our footing here
[01:39:26] things are not going though this isn't Singapore this isn't Pearl Harbor this isn't the invasion
[01:39:31] of Poland it isn't even the battle of Britain this is 1944 it's it's it's it's crazy you know that
[01:39:39] you can see I guess the British the British generals but they they have a different little character
[01:39:45] that they play you know when they get up and they need to convince people you can see like Monty right
[01:39:49] you know getting up but Jens is a rough fight but we've got 90% success right you know you can like
[01:39:56] that they're doing a different thing but it's the same it's a different accent but it's the same bullshit
[01:40:05] chest out for old eyebrows a little bit more a little bit more hotty from the brits from Montgummery
[01:40:14] but he's playing that same role and you gotta ask yourself why does this happen why why is this
[01:40:22] happening why are we going through these historical examples it's not from technology it's not
[01:40:29] from lack of fighting spirit it's not the terrain that's bad leadership and where does this bad
[01:40:38] leadership come from where is it rooted well it is rooted in the psychological the psychological
[01:40:46] minds of these leaders and there's plenty of great ones and we're not talking about them on this
[01:40:53] podcast we're talking about the psychopaths and we will dive into that on the next podcast
[01:41:03] until then echo Charles yes you know we're we're trying to not be psychopathic types of leaders
[01:41:10] we're trying to be better not we're trying to be better in all ways you know
[01:41:16] yeah gonna be recommendations for us how does your better we're trying not to have monumental
[01:41:21] complacency that's definitely we're trying not to do that I think those is the thing yeah
[01:41:28] so yeah let's not do that come about that okay well let's start with ourselves right you start
[01:41:33] with yourself I'm not gonna put your oxygen mask on before my own okay yeah otherwise I cannot
[01:41:39] breathe the point you know well I guess technically speaking if I was in charge of a group of
[01:41:47] soldiers and I was I had gout I was overweight I was unhealthy I was mentally unstable
[01:41:58] I don't think I'm gonna do a good job leading my soldiers it's gonna be very hard yeah
[01:42:01] gonna be difficult yeah so let's to your point let's make sure we got our shit together
[01:42:08] yes sir I agree and yeah here's some ways to do it look we're working out we're reading
[01:42:13] we're reading we're definitely reading we're listening oh yeah that's what I do
[01:42:19] I listen work out yeah I work out and I listen you know and I'm reading here in there either way
[01:42:27] when we work out we do things we got to put our bodies through little something
[01:42:32] so they can adapt to be ready for a big something hopefully hopefully hopefully
[01:42:36] okay on this path we're gonna take some beatings it's okay we got some supplementation okay
[01:42:41] let's talk about energy drinks first energy drinks the good energy drinks actually now I think
[01:42:48] nowadays when we talk about energy drinks where I haven't talked about the matter when's anymore
[01:42:51] well unless we indicate so we need to make sure that we tell people that when we talk about energy drinks
[01:42:57] we're talking about a certain type of energy drink that's good for you in all aspects that's what I'm saying
[01:43:02] exactly okay there are energy instead of all of them for you yes sir but now for now from now on
[01:43:07] we're gonna indicate that we're talking about that kind either way I got you okay jocco displing go
[01:43:14] energy drinks if you don't know that's that's a healthy energy drink got a little bit of caffeine in
[01:43:18] now 95 milligrams like a cup of coffee yes sir um a bunch of other healthy stuff
[01:43:24] it's an energy drink that is literally healthy for you's new tropics vitamins boom there you go
[01:43:29] yeah it's basically everything that you've come that you come to energy drinks for without the
[01:43:34] the backside what it called tab you got to pay with your health have you ever do you like the taste of
[01:43:39] any fast food well you know depends on like and yeah let me clear the path for you let me
[01:43:45] you know you bring me to a Wendy's which I used to work at I'm going ham in Wendy's right
[01:43:52] I just love like I would I really enjoy the taste of Wendy's probably two years ago
[01:43:57] let's think one of my kids went and got McDonald's you familiar with this place I
[01:44:02] I hear things yeah I had a couple fries and let's face it dude I mean these things are
[01:44:10] engineered by doctors and physicists and chemists to satisfy your taste buds and your dopamine's
[01:44:21] fire and right all the stuff is going on so now imagine this all that goodness imagine if you had
[01:44:27] all that goodness and there was zero downside right you know it's funny I had this mental
[01:44:33] excess because that's what you get with with with the go you get all that you get all that goodness
[01:44:39] you get all that goodness everything and now that for yeah exactly no now that you just go
[01:44:43] at just go ham you literally you're horrible you're not gonna see that I know I actually
[01:44:51] probably am well maybe I don't know either way I signed up for all that seems to be yeah the McDonald's
[01:44:58] thing I talked to my kids before they go on the Wendy's Burger King what you're go to well
[01:45:04] I don't have a go I haven't legitimately had fast food in years like I haven't okay like I had a few
[01:45:12] fries wait a second checkfully well during last things he's doing rest in season it's not
[01:45:18] like as greets let's face okay so we we talked about this actually briefly but I went when I was
[01:45:23] my way to Greg Jane's house and I had some McDonald's straight up and I went kind of hard to
[01:45:30] I didn't need anything all the it was week it was very very week oh that's the time you got like
[01:45:35] taunted by it was right on the side of the road right on the side literally like
[01:45:39] I don't know where you're to get the great chance as if you went through the McDonald's drive
[01:45:43] through it's it's what you convince yourself that is what it felt like yes oh you know there's
[01:45:48] that Wendy's right by victory I'm an infinite yeah oh yeah that's another one that's another but
[01:45:52] I felt for the trap of Wendy's one time I told you this I think I told you this where after training
[01:45:56] I was like I was a wood for Wendy's for like 48 hours and I was like oh man look there's the
[01:46:02] Wendy's on the way to training I'm like there's the Wendy's it's today's the day I can't be with
[01:46:06] this feeling yeah anymore I go train like kind of hard after training I go boom right into the
[01:46:12] Wendy's right out of the Wendy's drive through boom go eat it and I felt completely like shit after
[01:46:17] oh yeah completely after training Wendy's boy it like it jams you up oh yeah you shouldn't do that
[01:46:23] from then on Wendy's is easier to resist check this out imagine if you could go to Wendy's
[01:46:28] and you ate and it was delicious and made you feel great yeah yeah help you recover that's what this
[01:46:32] drink is yeah that's what this drink is oh it's a miracle it's a miracle it's a miracle that you
[01:46:40] can have all upside in no downside that's a miracle right am I wrong you were not am I wrong good you
[01:46:45] are correct actually all right well so there you go you want to try some of that yeah yes so now
[01:46:49] everyone's fired up I get it a similar vein mock yeah similar vein mock yeah because the same thing
[01:46:56] you're fired up to have something that tastes really good you're fired up for a milkshake yeah
[01:47:01] but you can you know you can if you go got bomb a milkshake bro like you feel like insulin coming
[01:47:07] out of your eyes it's a disaster but you go to milk you're your insulin levels freaking flatlined
[01:47:16] yeah there's no spike sweet with monk fruit no no he's gonna go kill yourself no he's gonna be
[01:47:22] drink poison no no he's in the drink poison it's another miracle it's true so
[01:47:26] two premieres are you by jockel fuel yeah while you're at it take care of your joints you got
[01:47:33] joint work for a super krill oil why you got it take care of your immunity cold war
[01:47:37] in vitamin D3 sometimes I don't get out in the sun as much as we need to that's bad you know
[01:47:42] that is bad but the the sun provides vitamin D but if you don't get it from the sun boom vitamin D3
[01:47:48] you don't have to go to out in the sun if you don't want to do my dog goes out and in in my
[01:47:53] uh on the lounge chair like a chair what is it called like a deck chair he discusses there he
[01:48:00] gets vitamin D all he goes sunbathing all this sunbathing dog okay all right this good we
[01:48:06] yeah so he might need this but for those of us who may not hit the sun as often as your dog or
[01:48:11] whatever yeah vitamin D3 all good where where where we to get these miracles jockel fuel back
[01:48:16] yeah also at the vitamin shop vitamin shop also for the energy drinks wow wow wow wow wow okay yeah
[01:48:23] you know what we're working on ready to drink milk you just roll it and you just pull it off
[01:48:31] and you're slamming a milkshake that's good for you oh yeah this is like another miracle
[01:48:39] dish and up miracles it's good but yeah so yeah also you can get a subscription to this stuff if
[01:48:44] you don't know that you you get free shipping and you get you're gonna gonna remember to order it
[01:48:49] because sometimes when you order you take one two three four I don't know how to know where you live
[01:48:53] so I don't know how long it's gonna take to get your house but sometimes there will be that lag time
[01:48:57] that you don't want especially with the joint stuff actually pretty much with all the stuff so you
[01:49:01] get on the subscription boom you get it reliably boom free shipping by the show also
[01:49:08] origin USA oh yeah you're gonna want to get on that you want some American made stuff especially
[01:49:13] the denim in the boot so then again I guess you know depends on what you like what you're into
[01:49:17] well denim and boots aren't gonna do you any good if you're looking to train geesejitsu you know
[01:49:21] but boom we got some geese american made the riff geek by the way when i'm
[01:49:26] talking about the riff geek but that's one that's like depends on who you are but you can
[01:49:30] sleep in that thing like pajamas for sure if we made a long one like a long jacket you could
[01:49:36] be straight up in a robe you'd be straight up in a robe yeah I might even exercise my right to
[01:49:43] wear that robe to from time to time looks good but yeah a lot of good stuff all made it America
[01:49:49] yeah like from from the beginnings of the materials probably even from the thoughts of the
[01:49:54] beginnings of the materials all made it America so you want to support American economy
[01:49:58] yes you want and you do want to support the American economy yes you do want to do that
[01:50:04] yeah yeah it's true again origin USA dot com if you like something on there yeah get something
[01:50:10] you support a lot actually also speaking of supporting a lot jocquist or it's called jocquist
[01:50:17] you're gonna represent support yourself support the cause support the path
[01:50:23] represent of the path get a shirt get a jacket get a hat something like this we have a
[01:50:29] subscription situation to call the shirt locker if you're interested in creative artistic yet
[01:50:36] representative nine sure luck for you good feedback on that one I'm telling you but yeah looking
[01:50:42] to that one jocquist or if you're subscribing to stuff subscribe to this podcast subscribe to
[01:50:46] jockel unraveling with Darrell Cooper grounded podcast warrior kid podcast also you can subscribe
[01:50:53] is that the right word for the underground yes jockel underground dot com you can subscribe sure
[01:50:59] but more important that you can support a methodology that we can turn to should there be
[01:51:07] problems what kind of problems banning shadow banning censorship those kind of things
[01:51:16] we're we're not saying that that's gonna happen but what kind of preparation would it be if we
[01:51:21] didn't have a contingency scenario so we got that jockel underground dot com cost $8
[01:51:28] and $18 a month if you want to be a part of that we do another little podcast called jockel
[01:51:31] underground where we talk about different topics we answer your questions we bring up some adjacent
[01:51:37] things complain come come come come come what's the word that what it contemplate contemplate
[01:51:44] contemplation yeah good no contemplative if okay thoughts of jocgos that's what I can kind of
[01:51:52] discern from it you're gonna have thinking about this and you're like this is this is this is
[01:51:56] a little outlet yeah yeah outlet for a little deeper dive in a various subjects little discussions
[01:52:03] some good Q&A on that too so there you go we also have a youtube channel where we put up
[01:52:08] the videos of this podcast we've been putting up the unraveling podcast so we'd be sure
[01:52:15] yeah maybe some more of those could get up there yeah if we are not taking this we're working hard
[01:52:21] on that one for sure some other clips that echo trials puts together what do you think Dave what's
[01:52:28] your favorite jockel podcast youtube channel video not the one of him talking trashed me and as
[01:52:37] I think the framing ones my favorite one was that a new yeah for sure framing up yeah
[01:52:44] framing up yeah yeah wait do you think it's just on the ground no no yeah the long
[01:52:50] tour the longer ones are on youtube yeah yeah you're right you're right you're right if you want to see
[01:52:53] so what's that called behind the scenes yeah which is basically me talking shit yes yeah hard
[01:53:00] you're hard deserved well many cases you know not always sometimes go a little too
[01:53:05] maybe your black guys deserve oh no maybe also do we can a youtube uh uh channels you origin
[01:53:12] USA they have a good youtube channel origin HD you want to see how the inner workings of an American
[01:53:18] factory resurrect in manufacturing by the way you want to see how that works man that's a good
[01:53:23] that's a good outlair American factories we got multiple factories now we're growing yeah
[01:53:29] we're going to bring it back to manufacturing to America yeah yeah that's a good one also psychological
[01:53:34] warfare is an album with tracks jockel tracks of him telling you how to get through moments of
[01:53:39] weakness these are weaknesses that I experience literally I experience the told jockel make this
[01:53:45] little thing it's recording you listen to it boom no more moment of weakness a moment of strength really
[01:53:53] at the end of the day flip side canvas if you want something to hang on your wall that's cool
[01:53:57] Dakota Myers making it for you go to flipsidecampus dot com got a bunch of books you know what they
[01:54:02] are final spin look final spin coming out November 9th what are you shaking your head at day just
[01:54:08] not wait for you come out i'm just freaking it's rad um super stoked on it and looking forward to
[01:54:16] that coming out then everything else you know leadership strategy in tactics code evaluation protocol
[01:54:20] discipline because freedom field manual way the warrior kid one two three and four
[01:54:24] mic in the dragons about face by hack worth extreme ownership and the dichotomy of leadership
[01:54:30] echelom front is our leadership consultancy we saw problems through leadership that's what we do
[01:54:36] leadership is the solution go to echelom front dot com if you want details on that we have live events
[01:54:42] we also have an online training academy because leadership isn't something you learn in one shot
[01:54:48] it's something you have to work on just like going to the gym just like jiu jitsu
[01:54:53] so either's a bunch of courses on there you can take there's live sessions that we're doing
[01:54:58] two three times a week where if you want to ask me a question you can ask me one last day of
[01:55:02] a question you can ask Dave go to extremownership dot com if you want to get involved in that and
[01:55:08] also if you want to help service members active and retired you want to help their families go
[01:55:12] to our family check out mark least mom mommily she got a charity organization helping out in so many
[01:55:16] different ways if you want to donate or you want to get involved go to america's mighty warriors dot org
[01:55:21] and if you want more of my repetitious reciting or you need more of echoes unattached assertions
[01:55:30] or Dave's exploratory explanations you can find us on the inner webs on twitter on the
[01:55:38] Graham on facebook davis at david our book echoes at echo tross and i'm at jockelwillink
[01:55:43] and thanks to everyone out there in the arm services who step up and execute and get the job done
[01:55:50] even when leadership is lacking and also thanks to our police and law enforcement firefighters
[01:55:57] paramedics and mt's dispatchers correctional officers board patrol secret service and all first responders
[01:56:03] thank you for standing duty here on the home front and keeping us all safe and everyone out
[01:56:08] out there there's a common theme in this book that like i said it's really not in this book and that
[01:56:14] is a failure to detach and as we read these blunders and errors and catastrophes it's so easy to
[01:56:24] see these mistakes being made but they're not obvious to the people that are caught up in making
[01:56:32] these mistakes they can't see the tactical errors they can't see their emotions they can't see their
[01:56:40] ego and it wrecks them and it causes these disasters so don't allow that to happen to you
[01:56:51] the worst mistakes we make are the ones we don't see and we don't see them because we're too close
[01:56:57] so step back detach see what you're supposed to see and that will allow you to do what you are
[01:57:06] supposed to do and until next time zade an echo and jockel out