America’s highest-ranking military officer painted a picture of a dark future with great power wars fought in urban environments. Speaking to graduating cadets at the United States Military Academy, General Mark Milley forewarned of death tolls for US soldiers in the tens of thousands.
Milley identified Russia and China as the growing powers America will face in the next generation. "We are facing right now two global powers, China and Russia," he said. "As we are entering a world that is becoming more unstable. The world you are being commissioned into has the potential for significant international conflict between great powers, and that potential is increasing, not decreasing."
During the commencement speech, he noted the importance of America confronting Russia in Ukraine. "Yet again in Ukraine, we are learning the lesson that aggression left unanswered only emboldens the aggressor," the general said.
After recalling the massive American casualties in World War I and World War II, the general explained future great power conflicts would likely cause tens of thousands of deaths for US soldiers. "26,000 soldiers and marines were killed in only six weeks from October to November 1918…26,000 US troops were killed In the eight weeks in the summer of 1940… In the summer of 1944, 58,000 Americans were killed in action in the air, at sea and on land in five theaters of war and only eight weeks. That’s the human cost of great power war."
Milley laid out how he believed warfare would evolve over the next quarter-century. The general said new technologies will shape the battlefield, including robotic tanks, ships, and airplanes. He referred to artificial intelligence as "the mother of all technologies" and said, "machines are actually developing the capacity to learn and to reason these rapidly converging developments in time and space or resulting in that profound change."
The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs assesses future conflicts will be fought in cities. "The battlefield will be highly complex and almost certainly decisive in urban areas," he said. If Milley is correct, the coming wars will exact high tolls on civilian populations.
Kyle Anzalone is the opinion editor of Antiwar.com, news editor of the Libertarian Institute, and co-host of Conflicts of Interest.
Okay, to be clear. Do something that gets 10’s of thousands killed — so do it again. Train up for it; buy big for it; talk it up. Whatever you do, do not talk to the “enemy,” because without an “enemy” the whole Zeppelin deflates.
Compared to 27 Million each for Russia and China, those numbers are minuscule. There won’t be any Battles like that in Russian Cities because Mr Sarmat will leave his Calling Card in American and British Cities.
Why r u guys keep making this ridiculous statements. Granted new Russian nukes can’t be stopped by the us but old us nukes can’t be stopped by Russia either. Mad still applies.
Bizzare. War in cities will not be necessary UNLESS an enemy has took the city hostage, and the enemy myst be disliodged. Even then, unless the enemy is brutal to the population, it will be wiser to prosecute the war until it becomes clear to one party or the other that losing is inevitable. Where does he envision taking cities? Defending Americans in our own cities taken iver by an enemy? Or going tens of thousands miles away from home to battle in streets of foreign countries?
It is true that artificial intelligence is important. The question is — why planning for offence only. Defense may be rhe best offence after all.
If I’m getting this right, one thing that will not change is the high toll on the civilian population.
The change is that it will increase that toll.
White Rage Milley Vanilley is so out of touch with the real world it is laughable. Just stay inside the beltway and feed the defense firms Mr. White Rage.
Okay CT:
Now that was funny!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! And poignant…
WW2: Yes, Hitler tried to avert fighting in cities and trenches. Then came Stalingrad, Warsaw, Koenigsberg, Danzig, Aachen, Berlin.
And that’s why the US has military bases as close to Russia and China as possible. Odd that there are no Russian or Chinese bases near the US. The US is pushing the world toward WW III right now.
The Russians and Chinese ought naturally to do the same back at the US. So far they have not, but it is a real question why. The overall situation so invites that it almost demands it.
“Yet again in Ukraine, we are learning the lesson that aggression left unanswered only emboldens the aggressor,” the general said.
Indeed. Look in the mirror.
He’s describing the world they intend to lead us into if we let them.
Milley is a pathetic joke!
Does he require the grads to be “woke” and pursue the understanding of “white rage” as he evidently does. What is the path for success in the current army?
“The world you are being commissioned into has the potential for significant international conflict between great powers, and that potential is increasing, not decreasing.” Cha-ching- a-ling- ding w’ere gonna make some $$$$$$$$. American dollars! Soon i’ll be joining Lockeed-Martin or Raytheon, either way, im in for some killer[pun intended.lol] profits as the revolving door turns for me in a big way!
I use to own some of those stocks but then I had the thought that not all money is ‘Green’ but some is ‘Red Blood Money’ so I sold all of mine years ago. Some things matter more than money, at least I hope so.
they do and what we choose to do matters
It is the United States that makes the world unstable.
That’s why it was so easy for Miley to predict.
Yes, it is self fulfilling prophecy!
Yes and no. The proximate cause is the economic ascendancy of Asia and simultaneous decline of The West. The military is the West’s lone advantage; and it seeks every opportunity to employ it, the goal being to make all nations subject to Washington diktat -like Japan and W. Europe after WWI & II- global hegemony. It’s the only feasible course of securing US power. It’s primal desperation time in Washington and Wall St.; which in the present world circumstance makes it dangerous in the extreme.
However Washington would prefer Russia, China, nso on would just bend the knee.
The Chinese military owns a good amount of the companies and economy. Both sides suffer from too much testosterone.
Both suffer from the Will to Power. China’s strong suit is business economics. Wall St., on the hand, is now leased out with inky blots and rotten parchment bonds; and Washington has naught but guns to contest with.
And thank you General Milley, for brightening our day… I’d like to think of a future based on peace, not military (dysfunctional) complexes… Though, if one thinks about it from his point of view, it seems to be exactly what you’d get…
You folks have had eons to evolve and broaden your horizons, in peaceful ways but you just cannot seem to get there…
You are intensely indoctrinated.
Rage against the machines!
Yep, the “Offense Industry’ over at the Pentagon is loving the stooge in the White House. Billions and billions for Lockheed, Northup Gruhman, General Dynamics, Raytheon, etc., and of course the politicians and the ‘Big Guy’ get theirs as well.
During the peak of the Cold War, this question of urban combat was much discussed. Western Germany presented a very urban landscape to war.
One of the major lines of thought was the exact opposite of what Milley just said. It was that urban areas are not self sufficient. They can be bypassed. Then they will collapse from lack of everything that normally flows into them. It was a variant of siege warfare, in which the defended point is bypassed and isolated until it falls.
We saw the Russians doing this in Ukraine. They sent in an initial 65 battle groups, of which only 22 were anywhere near Kiev, and not one of those made a direct assault on the urban area; they all just tried to surround it. It was the exact opposite of the Stalingrad/Mariupol approaches to urban combat.
There is every reason to think that the Cold Warriors were correct about that, and that Milley is wrong.
If the Russians make another attempt on Kiev, it will very likely be to cut off its water, power, food, fuel, and tightly surround it until desperation sets in. The experience of the vastly smaller Mariupol steel complex just reinforces this idea.
I fear Milley is falling into Ukraine’s wishful thinking, rather than our own understanding of how such things are done. The US cut off and choked Fallujah in Iraq, and only moved on it when some 90% of the population had fled. So see what we have done, not what Ukraine imagines in its heroic fantasies.
A further step on that path was seen in sieges since Medieval times — don’t let the civilians out. Make the civilians a logistic burden on the defenders. We saw the Russians do some of that even in Mariupol. How much worse could they do to the population of Kiev?
Russia has no interest in Kiev. If the US was smart, neither would the US.
General Milley Predicts Grim Future of Deadly US Civil Wars Fought in Cities
When WASN’T it decisive in cities????? DUH!
Even Genghis Khan had to sweep into cities to find the palaces… Power has always lain in urban centres.
Let’s hope AI can help out at the military top end sometime soon…