Post ground-war strategy

In 1993, I was sitting in on a military-led think tank session over at an ivy league university.

The topic:

Warfare strategy for the modern age

The premise:

Countries have strong defenses. It no longer makes sense, nor is it realistic, to brute force it with ground/air forces.

The solution to be found:

Come up with warfare tactics that we can claim were an "accident" or "due to something else" to create a level of deniability. No hit should be able to be directly attributed to the country or organization making it.

We discussed. We came up with ideas. The session ended.

The result:

When I saw the BP Gulf Oil spill, I had one of those "Oh fuck, they did it" moments.

When I saw Fukushima, I shook my head again.

When I saw resettlement communities and military forces passing as impoverished economic migrants, I gave mad props to whichever university think tank came up with that one, because it wasn't mine.

There have been so many little and large tactics over the past decade or so, all following the rule we were given: use subterfuge and deniability.

I'm sure some of it is due to the assholeness that is completely in the nature of some people.

But a lot of it? It was planned.