War is a Highway

Just Drive Straight You Idiots

Generation Kill, HBO, 2008

For my entire adult life, I’ve been hearing senior military officers extol the virtues of things like “synchronizing” and “phase lines” or creating these stupid things called “OPORDs.” Oh, I’m sure you’re convinced that drones or something is going to be the next “big thing” in warfare too huh?

I’m sorry, you’re all wrong. I’m introducing my novel theory of Highway-centric warfare.

The SAA collapse has shown conclusively that war is just driving in a straight line down highways, and HTS has decided to ride the M5 all the way to Damascus.

What did we learn here?

If you just go fast enough, and you keep going, an enemy force collapses. It appears to be as simple as that. It turns out then when you do stuff quickly while shooting guns, people are really bad at coping with that. Just really don’t know how to handle it.

They’re setting up defensive positions? No, keep going. Preparatory fires are for cowards. Just go around them. It’s that easy. Highly choreographed Breaching Operations? No, thank you, simply just keep going.

Do you think you should consolidate your position so you don’t overstretch your supply lines? What do you think? Have you even been listening to anything I’ve said?

You might say at this point oh but what if an opposing force has fires they can bring to bear against my formations! It’s like you’re not even grasping the fundamentals of Highway-centric warfare. You go really fast and they can’t hit you. By the time they can relay your position, you’ve already overtaken their artillery pieces. Hell, you’ve probably taken their airfields too.

Or say maybe you’ll point out some sort of glaring flaw in my idea like “an adversary can just mine the roads or set up obstacles.” While that appears compelling at first glance, it fails to grasp the essence of a successful highway-centric campaign—if you go fast, how are they gonna have time to set up obstacles?

You might also point out these things called “cities” and “urban warfare.” That’s easier, you just go around them, what are you even talking about? You’re driving towards the capital. Not some sideshow.

It’s incredible that nobody has thought of this before.

Look at it this way. Try to think of a military campaign that isn’t just driving down a highway at someone’s capital. What was Operation Iraqi Freedom if not driving down some highways towards Baghdad? Operation Barbarossa? Yeah, buddy, that was just driving towards Moscow.

When Prigozhin went on his grand adventure what did he do? Yeah, you guessed it. He drove straight down a fucking highway towards Moscow. It’s all just guys driving towards capitals.

Now an attentive reader might stop here and say but James, what about before cars were invented huh?

Oh, how else would you describe Napoleon’s Grande Armée if not going straight down a road right at Moscow? What else was Lee doing at Gettysburg huh? What do you think the Spartans were doing in the Peloponnesian War?

The island hopping campaign in the Pacific? Yeah, what else is a “sea lane” if not a maritime highway? Let me tell you, it’s all highways. The NATO intervention in Serbia? Yeah, that was an aerospace highway.

Now you might stop here and say what about positional warfare like in WWI James? I’d say that you lack reading comprehension. Those were forces that failed to follow the basic precepts of Highway-centric warfare, and they were bogged down until the 100 days offensive when they rediscovered the power of—you guessed it—driving straight at Berlin.

War is all just highways and how fast you can go down them. Stop overthinking it.