Show 66 - Supernova in the East V

Attrition Warfare Through Supply Dominance

Converting logistical superiority into battlefield victory

A framework for winning wars of attrition by systematically controlling supply lines and resupply capacity while denying the same to adversaries. Victory is determined not by tactical brilliance but by who can maintain continuous flow of reinforcements, ammunition, food, and medical supplies to front-line forces over extended periods.

The Leapfrogging Strategy

Attacking weakness by bypassing strength

A strategic framework for advancing toward objectives by identifying and attacking vulnerable points while isolating and bypassing heavily defended strongholds. Rather than directly assaulting entrenched positions, cut off their supply lines and let attrition do the work. This conserves attacker resources while maximizing defender costs.

Negative Incentive Loop Design

Creating self-reinforcing constraints through consequence escalation

A framework for constraining unwanted behavior by deliberately creating negative feedback loops where the consequences of the behavior make future instances more costly or dangerous. This was exemplified by Japanese officers ordering atrocities to ensure their own soldiers would never surrender, knowing they'd face the same treatment. The framework applies to any situation where you want to make certain choices unthinkable by escalating their consequences.

Experience Accumulation Advantage

Converting practice hours into competitive moats

A framework for building insurmountable advantages through systematic accumulation of experience and expertise. Demonstrated by American pilots with hundreds of flight hours massacring Japanese pilots with dozens of hours, despite the Japanese having newer aircraft. The principle: accumulated experience compounds and creates advantages that superior equipment cannot overcome.

History is written from the viewpoint of leaders who don't get shot at with any consistency. There's a vast difference between grandiose logic and what happens on terrain. You could fight in battles and read the history later and not recognize your campaign. Ground-level reality never makes it into books.

In Practice: James Jones on the gap between soldier experience and written history

Demonstrated by Leg-dc-001

When you see someone using resources in ways that degrade future capability, you're seeing their strategic position revealed. Japanese using unrefined crude oil in warship engines was not a choice but necessity. The decision to accept future damage for present operation signals desperation and constrained options.

In Practice: Analysis of Japanese desperation visible in resource management

Demonstrated by Leg-dc-001

Massive resource expenditure can yield minimal strategic value when fundamental asymmetries remain unchanged. Japanese Operation Ichi-Go committed half a million soldiers and achieved little because it didn't address underlying production and logistics disadvantages. Don't confuse effort with effectiveness.

In Practice: Analysis of Japan's largest offensive achieving minimal strategic impact

Demonstrated by Leg-dc-001

When you see resources being used in ways that destroy future capacity, you're seeing desperation. Japanese fueled warships with straight crude oil that fouls boilers and destroys engines. You don't do this if you think you'll have a fleet next year. Resource misuse reveals strategic position.

In Practice: Japanese fleet using unrefined crude oil before Battle of Philippine Sea

Demonstrated by Leg-dc-001

In 1942 the US produced 49,445 planes versus Japan's 8,861. 1942 was America's LEAST productive year; 1943-44 production exploded. Production capacity gaps compound. Willpower cannot overcome industrial capacity differences. This is why the Japanese would be foolish to think they won't be buried. Math wins wars of attrition.

In Practice: Comparison of US-Japan production capacity and trajectory

Demonstrated by Leg-dc-001

When one side produces 5.6x more aircraft annually (49,445 vs 8,861) and that gap is widening, the cumulative advantage grows geometrically not linearly. Year 1 gap plus Year 2 gap plus Year 3 gap equals overwhelming material superiority. Small rate differentials become insurmountable over time.

In Practice: US-Japan production comparison and trajectory analysis

Demonstrated by Leg-dc-001

Training methods don't just teach skills; they fundamentally transform psychology and identity. Japanese bayonet practice on prisoners created soldiers who looked 'mean' to fresh recruits. The training experience shapes what people become capable of doing and how they see themselves.

In Practice: Discussion of Japanese training methods in China and their psychological effects

Demonstrated by Leg-dc-001

You can constrain behavior by deliberately escalating the consequences of that behavior, creating a negative feedback loop where the choice becomes unthinkable. Japanese atrocities against prisoners ensured their own soldiers would never surrender by making capture worse than death.

In Practice: Australian interrogation of Japanese soldier explaining atrocity motivation

Demonstrated by Leg-dc-001

The psychological devastation of reaching what appears to be the goal, only to discover the goal is much farther away. Repeated false summits break morale geometrically, not linearly. New Guinea soldiers would climb for hours, reach the crest in relief, then see identical mountains stretching to the horizon. Some broke down in tears.

In Practice: Description of the 'false crest phenomenon' in New Guinea mountains

Demonstrated by Leg-dc-001

When you know you're going to die soon, every day has a special, bright, delicious, poignant taste that normal days don't have. Some men like living like that all the time. This is why some soldiers are sorry to come home and see it end. They're dead men walking around breathing. Some never come back completely.

In Practice: James Jones describing the psychological state of frontline combat soldiers

Demonstrated by Leg-dc-001

What annoyed troops was public innocence about the bizarre damage suffered by the human body in modern war. The reality is systematically sanitized for civilian consumption, creating a permanent gap between ground-level experience and public understanding. This makes soldiers' experience incommunicable.

In Practice: Paul Fussell explaining how war was sanitized in photographs and media

Demonstrated by Leg-dc-001

During WWII, 504,000 men were lost from the US fighting effort due to psychiatric collapse, enough to man 50 divisions. At one point psychiatric casualties were being discharged faster than recruits were being drafted. Sustained extreme stress breaks minds at scale, and this attrition can exceed physical casualties.

In Practice: Lt. Col. Dave Grossman statistics on WWII psychiatric casualties

Demonstrated by Leg-dc-001

In low-visibility, high-stress environments, fear causes catastrophic friendly fire. On New Georgia, 24% of American casualties were shot by their own people. Anything that moves gets shot. Jungle jitters made everyone trigger-happy. The combination of fear and inability to identify targets creates disaster.

In Practice: Discussion of friendly fire rates in Pacific jungle fighting

Demonstrated by Leg-dc-001

Roosevelt showed footage of American corpses floating off Tarawa beaches. War bond sales increased. Marine recruitment dropped. Transparency about costs increases support from those not asked to participate while decreasing willingness to participate directly. The effects are opposite but both real.

In Practice: Public reaction to uncensored Tarawa footage

Demonstrated by Leg-dc-001

Propaganda can induce mass suicide. On Saipan, Japanese civilians threw children off cliffs and jumped after them, or held grenades to their bellies, because they believed Americans would rape and murder them. Some mothers killed their own babies in caves on officer orders. Belief systems can override survival instinct at scale.

In Practice: Description of Saipan civilian mass suicide

Demonstrated by Leg-dc-001

Amateurs think tactics, professionals think logistics. In wars of attrition, the side that can continuously supply, reinforce, and resupply their forces wins, regardless of tactical brilliance. This applies beyond military to any sustained competitive effort.

In Practice: General Robert Barrow quote and Guadalcanal/Marianas supply dynamics

Demonstrated by Leg-dc-001

One way to prevent specific behaviors is to make the consequences of those behaviors worse than the cost of avoiding them. This creates a self-reinforcing constraint where the behavior becomes strategically impossible even if tactically available.

In Practice: Discussion of Japanese strategy to prevent soldier surrender through atrocity cycles

Demonstrated by Leg-dc-001

Indigenous knowledge provides decisive advantage in unfamiliar terrain. You want Apache scouts to fight Apaches in the Dragoon Mountains or you won't find any. The fuzzy wuzzy angels on New Guinea carried supplies and wounded that no Western army could move. Without indigenous support, armies die in place.

In Practice: Discussion of New Guinea natives' vital support role

Demonstrated by Leg-dc-001

When fundamental constraints remain unchanged, massive effort produces minimal strategic impact. Japanese Operation Ichi-Go: 500,000 soldiers, 100,000 horses, 100,000 dead Japanese for little decisive gain. Effort and results decouple when system constraints dominate.

In Practice: Description of Japan's largest offensive achieving minimal strategic effect

Demonstrated by Leg-dc-001

Accumulated experience creates advantages superior equipment cannot overcome. American pilots with hundreds of hours massacred Japanese pilots with dozens of hours despite Japanese having newer aircraft. You'd rather have a worse plane with an experienced pilot than a kid who can barely land on a carrier.

In Practice: Great Marianas Turkey Shoot analysis

Demonstrated by Leg-dc-001

A Japanese officer described American strategy: where the Japanese Army preferred direct assault, the Americans flowed into weaker points like water seeking the weakest entry to sink a ship. Don't assault strong positions; isolate them, cut supply lines, and let attrition work. Strategic position is relative, not absolute.

In Practice: Japanese intelligence officer explaining why they hated but respected leapfrogging

Demonstrated by Leg-dc-001

At Tarawa, Marines waded 700 yards under fire because faulty reconnaissance didn't disclose the coral reef was too shallow. Insufficient reconnaissance and faulty maps caused catastrophic casualties. When you don't know the terrain, every error multiplies. Geography is not optional knowledge.

In Practice: Tarawa landing disaster due to coral reef ignorance

Demonstrated by Leg-dc-001

On Guadalcanal: 12 hours a day the Allies are under siege; the other 12 hours the Japanese are under siege. At night Japanese ships resupply; by day American planes rule. The side that can maintain continuous resupply wins. This is the essence of attrition warfare.

In Practice: Richard B. Frank's description of Guadalcanal as mutual siege

Demonstrated by Leg-dc-001

The difference between hundreds of hours and dozens of hours in the cockpit creates not linear but geometric advantage. American pilots with hundreds of hours massacred Japanese pilots with dozens. Experience accumulation curves are non-linear: small absolute differences in practice time create massive performance gaps.

In Practice: Great Marianas Turkey Shoot pilot experience differential

Demonstrated by Leg-dc-001

Thermopylae: 300 Spartans holding mountain pass against Persian hordes

The Kokoda Track defense parallels Thermopylae in the archetype of small defending force holding terrain advantage against overwhelming numbers. But unlike Thermopylae where Spartans were elite troops, the Kokoda defenders were reservists dismissed as 'Chocos' who would melt under heat. This inversion makes the accomplishment more remarkable: ordinary soldiers exceeded all expectations under extraordinary conditions, whereas Spartans met expectations.

Comparing Australian reserve forces on Kokoda Track to famous last stands in military history

Water seeking weakest entry to sink a ship: fluid dynamics and path of least resistance

A Japanese intelligence officer described American island-hopping strategy using a water metaphor: where the Japanese Army preferred direct assault after the German fashion, the Americans flowed into weaker points and submerged them, just as water seeks the weakest entry to sink a ship. This captures the principle of exploiting system vulnerabilities through path of least resistance rather than confronting maximum strength directly.

Japanese officer explaining why they hated but respected the American leapfrogging strategy

Apache scouts in the Dragoon Mountains: indigenous knowledge as strategic resource

The observation that you want Apache scouts if you're going to fight Apaches in the Dragoon Mountains, or you won't find any. This principle applied to New Guinea where indigenous peoples provided decisive advantage through terrain knowledge, transport capability, and navigation skills. The fuzzy wuzzy angels carried wounded on cots jumping rock to rock in streams. Without indigenous support, no army could survive in that terrain. Local knowledge is a strategic resource.

Explaining the vital role of New Guinea natives in supporting Allied operations

Plane crash of hundreds: first responder perspective on war dead

Paul Fussell suggested that a better comparison for what combat soldiers saw in WWII would be what a plane crash of hundreds of people in a jet aircraft looks like if you're the first one on scene. Most people don't know what that looks like either. This comparison captures the gap between sanitized public understanding and ground-level reality by using a civilian catastrophe parallel that civilians can potentially imagine.

Explaining why soldiers felt their experience was incommunicable to civilians

Walt Whitman on US Civil War: the real war will never make it into the books

American poet and journalist Walt Whitman's observation about the Civil War became the title of a chapter in Paul Fussell's book on WWII. The phrase captures the permanent gap between historical narrative and ground-level reality. Combat troops know their experience is fundamentally incommunicable because the history is written by and for people not in foxholes. This applies beyond war to any extreme experience.

Discussing how war sanitization prevents true understanding of combat experience

Churchill's 1940 speech: we shall fight on the beaches, we shall never surrender

Churchill's famous 1940 speech when Britain faced potential German invasion included: 'We shall defend our island whatever the cost may be. We shall fight on the beaches, on the landing grounds, in the fields and streets and hills. We shall never surrender.' He quipped that every Briton could take one German with them, which would eat up the whole German army. By 1944-45, the Japanese were implementing this exact playbook with bamboo spear training for civilians. The Japanese were like everyone else, only more so.

Comparing Japan's final defense preparations to Churchill's rhetoric about British defense

American soldier and author

Japanese soldier and author

American Army officer and author

US Marine Corps General

Lieutenant Colonel and psychology professor

US Navy Admiral

President of the United States

Chocos

Slang for Australian reserve soldiers (chocolate soldiers), expected to melt under pressure

“The Australian regulars contemptuously called the reservists defending the Kokoda Track Chocos, short for chocolate soldiers.”

Japanese WWII soldier and author of Human Beings in Extremis on New Guinea fighting

US Marine Corps General who coined: amateurs think tactics, professionals think logistics

American WWII combat veteran and author who examined war reality vs historical narrative

WWII veteran and author of Wartime examining how war is sanitized for public

Lt. Col. and West Point psychology professor who wrote On Killing

32nd US President who led America through Depression and WWII

US Navy Admiral and Pacific Fleet commander during WWII

Tit-for-tat strategy

Reciprocal action pattern where one party mirrors opponent behavior to shape future interactions