The War that has ever been !

Sabotage me this, Batman !

As I sit here writing this, significant shifts are taking place in the theater we live in, thus instead of my favorite approach, highly interconnected, somewhat complex analysis, I will build into it. Especially telling because the more I dug into the subjects I covered, not only did the complexity increase significantly but the sheer level of “conspiracy”— conspiracy as in individuals or groups conspiring towards a common greater goal.

One could say this will possess a fractal perspective, it has multiple sides, that often will look similar, but different dynamics cascade from each face of the fractal perspective. We should start here, at a tipping point that made me say a laudable “Finally, they are waking up”. Better late, than never. A new congressional report published recently states that “The US is not prepared for all-out war with Russia or China”.

In its report, the Commission makes the following findings and recommendations for DoD and Congress:

• The United States faces the most challenging global environment with the most severe ramifications since the end of the Cold War. The trends are getting worse, not better.

• DoD cannot, and should not, provide for the national defense by itself. The NDS calls for an “integrated deterrence” that is not reflected in practice today. A truly “all elements of national power” approach is required to coordinate and leverage resources across DoD, the rest of the executive branch, the private sector, civil society, and U.S. allies and partners.

• Fundamental shifts in threats and technology require fundamental change in how DoD functions. DoD is operating at the speed of bureaucracy when the threat is approaching wartime urgency.

• The NDS force-sizing construct is inadequate for today’s needs and tomorrow’s challenges. We propose a Multiple Theater Force Construct—with the Joint Force, in conjunction with U.S. allies and partners—sized to defend the homeland and tackle simultaneous threats in the Indo-Pacific, Europe, and the Middle East.

• U.S. industrial production is grossly inadequate to provide the equipment, technology, and munitions needed today, let alone given the demands of great power conflict.

• The DoD workforce and the all-volunteer force provide an unmatched advantage. However, recruiting failures have shrunk the force and raise serious questions about the all-volunteer force in peacetime, let alone in major combat. The civilian workforces at DoD and in the private sector also face critical shortfalls.

• The Joint Force is at the breaking point of maintaining readiness today. Adding more burden without adding resources to rebuild readiness will cause it to break.

• The United States must spend more effectively and more efficiently to build the future force, not perpetuate the existing one. Additional resources will be necessary. Congress should pass a supplemental appropriation to begin a multiyear investment in the national security innovation and industrial base. Additionally, Congress should revoke the 2023 Fiscal Responsibility Act spending caps and provide real growth for fiscal year 2025 defense and nondefense national security spending that, at bare minimum, falls within the range recommended by the 2018 NDS Commission. Subsequent budgets will require spending that puts defense and other components of national security on a glide path to support efforts commensurate with the U.S. national effort seen during the Cold War.

Well, this has RANDs and other usual suspect’s fingerprints all over it, so we can't expect a real advisory miracle, but this is a significant and important step in the right direction. If you are a long-time reader, you will be aware that almost every single non-science-related article I have written in the last 3 years is about this exact subject, from a multi-factorial lens.

So if things are changing, why are we here ? To discuss this piece of (good) news ? Not quite so. The biggest problem with the sclerotic thinking of American Defense, an argument I have made a few times, is its retroactive aspect and living off past glory. The West has been at war for 4 years now, and we have been losing, well, everyone is but that comes later.

The following piece of news led me to decide to start what will series of articles. Boar’s Head deli meats recalled over 7 million pounds of its products because of a Listeria outbreak. Listeria is a nasty pathogen, it is very resistant to changes, it can live in the cold for a long, and eating contaminated food can induce symptoms from hours to weeks (time release, quite nice…). Listeria outbreaks are not rare, with some rare cases leading to multi-year outbreaks.

But it does make you scratch your head in contemplation when Europe also experiences a large listeria outbreak in a multi-country manner. What about an outbreak of E. Coli from unknown sources in a Montana ground beef producer ? A large recall of canned coffee products because of botulism ? A large recall (18 states) of produce sold in Walmart and Aldis.

Trace One has made an analysis throughout the last 4 years using data from the FDA and USDA. The trend is telling.

Trace One analysis of 2020–2024 FDA and USDA data

What sparked this was the Formula shortage that has been plaguing the US for the better part of the last 3 years, with persistent recalls and “contamination issues”. To understand not just the point I will be trying to make, but the whole perspective on this, a graph of cascading effects in complex systems.

In any complex system, certain nodes are much more important than others. A food packaging company that packages food for 400 small farms is more significant impact-wise than each of the 400 farms. It is borderline impossible without years of strategic lawfare to hit 400 farms with simultaneous disruption. Hitting that very important packaging company has a disproportionate effect.

An entire scientific field exists to study this phenomenon, with a few mathematics and physics subdisciplines focused on the interpretation and deeper logical understanding of complex systems and their chaotic behavior. And the opposite is happening.

You can not react to war if you don’t even realize you are being attacked. It is an easy critical analysis task. Recency and normalcy bias take control of most people’s minds, because “accidents happen”, the “average number of derailments remains the same”, “recalls increase but are within (abstract) margin”, “it is all effects of the pandemic, and lockdown”. If sabotage at an industrial scale with a long-term goal is the strategy, an adversary would never hit centralized nodes.

Easily spotted by any form of automated system, or a good team of human analysts. You persistently hit nodes outside the margin, and you impact the complex system long-term, by exerting diverse, variable pressure. The system still has “buffers” for everything, yet, some items go through cyclical shortages, and price spikes feeding inflation kick in also in cycles.

As things stand right now, with a small, but real probability of a wider war between Iran and Israel (although in my opinion, Iran is just trying to save face and gain street cred in the region), so at the very least we get the same we did for the last many months. Disruption in the Red Sea, longer trips, higher inflation, and social chaos is spreading (after all revolt is one of the most contagious memes there is).

This opens up more room for shadow (hybrid) war and more significant disruption. And this is a problem. As things are right now, the world quite literally “can’t” afford a war, not merely on the economical side, but on the side that matters, the physical side.

How can you fight multiple large-scale conflicts without the base chemicals that sustain modern life ? And the irony, and the reason of the disparity in publishing time, it is happening globally. Since I don’t speak Chinese (not listening to my communist professor 25 years ago was a bitter mistake) it takes time to scour the Chinese internet and find signals. But they are there, and it is the theme of the next article.

I appreciate the support and sticking with me thus far !