Losing Military Supremacy

The Myopia of American Strategic Planning

By: Andrei Martyanov

Narrated by: Stefan Rudnicki

Time after time, the American military has failed to match lofty declarations about its superiority, producing instead a mediocre record of military accomplishments. Starting from the Korean War, the United States hasn't won a single war against a technologically inferior, but mentally tough, enemy. The technological dimension of American "strategy" has completely overshadowed any concern with the social, cultural, operational, and even tactical requirements of military (and political) conflict. With a new cold war with Russia emerging, the United States enters a new period of geopolitical turbulence completely unprepared in any meaningful way - intellectually, economically, militarily, or culturally - to face a reality which was hidden for the last 70-plus years behind the curtain of never-ending Chalabi moments and a strategic delusion concerning Russia, whose history the US viewed through a Solzhenitsified caricature kept alive by a powerful neocon lobby, which even today dominates US policy makers' minds.

This book explores the dramatic difference between the Russian and US approach to warfare, which manifests itself across the whole spectrum of activities from art and the economy to the respective national cultures; illustrates the fact that Russian economic, military, and cultural realities and power are no longer what American "elites" think they are by addressing Russia's new and elevated capacities in the areas of traditional warfare, as well as cyberwarfare and space; and studies several ways in-depth in which the US can simply stumble into conflict with Russia and what must be done to avoid it.

Martyanov's former Soviet military background enables deep insight into the fundamental issues of warfare and military power as a function of national power-assessed correctly, not through the lens of Wall Street "economic" indices and a FIRE economy but through the numbers of enclosed technological cycles and culture, much of which has been shaped in Russia by continental warfare and which is practically absent in the US.

©2018 Andrei Martyanov (P)2018 Blackstone Audio, Inc. and Skyboat Media

Russia good, USA bad

With a few minor inaccuracies, and a few major inaccuracies, this is actually a very good read if you are trying to understand how Russia views the US. Which I don’t think was the authors intent. I can’t give it high marks because it is such a one sided representation.

Bold...but seemingly unsubstantiated

Highly contrarian and apolgetic which are not themselves bad things, but when backed up with little more than the author's speculation (precisely when they claim that the object of their criticism is simple speculation) is perhaps too risky and could've used some peer reviewers.

The author certainly does a service in encouraging readers to think more critically about the subject at hand (American military dominance), but is so thoroughly blasé about their own assertions that it's difficult to take the author seriously outside of their critiques of establishment thinking.

Moreover, for all the author's claims of Americans lacking conceptions of war and strategy, he himself appears ignorant of maritime strategy in any sense and nearly conflates continental strategy with economies of scale.

Russian Jingoism With A Side of US Military Facts

Fact-based, practical critique of American military triumphalism undermined by insecure, boastful, and afactual Russian nationalism. The author is correct when he points out—repeatedly and emphatically, in case the reader misses the first few times he shouts it—that Russia bore the brunt of WW2, the US has lost most of its post-WW2 military engagements, and that US military capabilities are overpriced and underperforming.
However, the author loses credibility when he argues from arcane Russian nationalist talking points, excuses away the historically superlative human toll of the Soviet system and Russian way of war before, during, and after the Soviet Union, and dubiously counterargues the superiority of Russian arms and military virtue. Indeed, the author’s rhetorical mode when extolling the virtue of this bit of inspired Russian naval doctrine, or that bit of fearsome Russian high-tech armament, clearly owes a debt to the fetishistic swoons of Tom Clancy or Ralph Peters.
If nothing else, this book provides an introduction to the mindset of Putin and his top national security thinkers, and the reasoning that leads to military adventures in Russia’s near-abroad (Ossetia, Donbas, Ukraine), saber-rattling and cynical alliances in the Middle East, and occasional outbursts of nuclear war talk.
However, the author wasted his opportunity for an authoritative and meaningful critique by replacing one mythology of martial virtue with another, older such mythology, instead of reflecting on whether a mythology of martial virtue is a good thing in the first place.

Finally a good book!

This book is spot on and is a one of a kind delivering truth. All other books are a form of washington propaganda promoting itself.

A worthy read

The author offers several very valid insights, which clearly make sense. While I believe some of the material is biased, the challenge to several commonly accepted American perspectives is well worth considering. We all would do well to consider the worldview we hold, and how we behave ourselves as global citizens. We could use a dose of humility.

Brilliant analysis

If you want to jump from 1990s consciousness into the present Martyanov is your man. He has the facts the formulas and the deeper insights that will get you hooked.

accurate truth

Martyanov is a prime source for understanding the difference between military propaganda and material reality.

Telling the truth

Many people in the USA are living in a world created by Hollywood. Please wake up and stop the craziness.

Wow

I am in awe. Mindblown. Gonna listen again from the top. Wow. Aghast. Humbled. Wow.

A Must Read On Current Russian and U.S.A Relations

Most Americans will not come to the reality that our country is on a downward spiral into irrelevancy on the World stage. If America wants to be respected and salvage whatever dignity we have left; we seriously need to look within and admit the truth to what we have done over the last 50 decades (since WW2) and change course before its to late. A house divided will not stand.