Sometimes Right

This is the blog of Jerry Brito. Mostly links to interesting articles with a little bit of commentary. Updated most weekdays.

Sometimes Right

Links to Foreign Affairs

How Iran Changed War by Michael C. Horowitz at Foreign Affairs

In war, it might seem as if wealthy states always benefit from new military capabilities. But the reality is more complicated. If a new system is expensive, it indeed favors rich incumbents. But if it is cheap and demands large organizational changes to adopt, other countries can take advantage just as quickly—if not faster. In fact, the most powerful militaries in the world often struggle in the face of required disruptive organizational change, as their prior success has created bureaucracies and organizational biases that make adaption harder. As a result, they have a hard time integrating new capabilities that cannot be plugged into their existing structures.

Precise mass is just such a capability. The most conventionally powerful militaries are organized around small numbers of exquisite, expensive, hard-to-produce weapons and platforms such as Tomahawk missiles and F-35s. Their units train and plan around these systems. They thus cannot easily adjust to precise mass capabilities, which require different kinds of training and entirely new conceptions of how to fight. Exquisite systems, for instance, are scarce, so units must take great care not to waste systems and to minimize the risk of destruction. With precise mass, by contrast, units are supposed to move quickly and not make the perfect the enemy of the good. This helps explain why the United States has struggled to adapt to precise mass—even though the country invented precision guidance and boasts the best military in the world.

“Precise mass” weapons are low-cost, technologically advanced offensive systems that combine high-accuracy guidance with cheap, scalable manufacturing to overwhelm adversaries with volume. This is a good overview of the challenge the U.S. faces given the advent of these weapons. But I’m shocked (not shocked?) that the article treats it completely as a bureaucratic, organizational, and military-cultural issue. It doesn’t once mention the incentives of the producers and dependents of the “exquisite” and incredibly expensive weapons platforms. |

Europe Can’t Get Out of Its Own Way by Andrew McAfee at Foreign Affairs

The problem is not that the EU and its national governments are not doing enough to spur competitiveness. It is that they are doing too much to impede it. Through the slow accretion of layers of labor and tax policy, red tape, and technology regulation, they have erected barriers to the creation of the kind of large, vibrant startup ecosystem currently thriving in the United States. This ecosystem has been the cradle of many major innovative high-tech companies, as well as those sparking innovation and growth in other sectors. If the EU does not create the conditions for such companies to develop, then the bloc’s decline may become irreversible.

The “slow accretion of layers” bit reminded me of demosclerosis and Mancur Olson’s theory of interest group rent-seeking leading to the decline of nations. So, I wondered who were the groups in favor of the EU AI Act, which the article discusses as a new millstone around Europe’s neck. Who lobbied for it and what are they protecting. Well, it seems that the only groups who were enthusiastically for the law were the European institutions themselves–the Commission, the Parliament, and Brussels-based nonprofits. Incumbent industry, and not just the tech sector, sought to soften the thing. At a certain scale I guess it’s possible the rent-seekers are the bureaucrats themselves. It makes sense that when there’s a deficit of democracy, as in the EU, the stationary bandit can forget how its bread is buttered. |