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Rebranding the Asian carp
Generals like to say that no plan survives first contact with the enemy. Units able to improvise and devise alternatives should thus be able to seize opportunities. The notion was important in Iraq and Afghanistan, where small units were often dispersed. It could be even more important in the vast expanse of the Pacific. China’s arsenal of medium and longerrange ballistic missiles makes large permanent bases more vulnerable. American forces are moving towards more flexible, dispersed forms of warfare. That will require the ability to detect enemy targets and strike them across long distances, and to push out supplies to farflung units. It will also require those units to be more autonomous.
America’s Marine Corps is keenest on the trend. Implementation, says Eric Flanagan, a spokesman for its commandant, David Berger, includes training recruits to “go out on a limb, think differently” and not fear failure. In November the marines announced a personnel revamp, Talent Management 2030. It tightens selection criteria to create a smaller, more independent force. The incentives to reenlist have been expanded, with the aim of increasing its median age and therefore, it is hoped, military judgment. The plan also calls for recruiting midcareer professionals.
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The navy, too, sees mission command as central to its “distributed lethality” reconfiguration: as antiship missiles proliferate, the navy will operate in more scattered fashion to avoid radio communications that can reveal its positions. The air force’s chief of staff told officers last year to “push decisions to the lowest competent, capable level”. Even the army is empowering “privates and sergeants at the tip of the spear” to take action “without calling back to the mother ship”, says Mr Crissman.
Control and command The war in Ukraine is a natural experiment in the value of mission command. Ukrainian forces have used it well, partly thanks to three decades of democracy, however fledgling, and years of training provided by Western allies. Some experts thought Russia’s army would embrace mission command with its modernisation, begun after its poor performance in Georgia in 2008.
But the concept has proved anathema to an increasingly authoritarian system, says Nora Bensahel of Johns Hopkins University. Nor does it help, she adds, that many Russian soldiers are conscripts disinclined to give their “creative all”. Russia’s big military exercises seem designed less for cultivating problemsolving than for political signalling and propaganda. Rampant corruption and restrictions on speech dampen, respectively, trust and critical thought—essential to mission command.
What about China? As part of his quest to turn it into a “worldclass” military power by 2049, President Xi Jinping has pressed for the introduction of modern weapons and the recruitment of more talented soldiers. But he also wants to step up their political education. Military commanders must ”ensure rigid adherence to party guidelines”, explains Blake Herzinger, an American naval reserve officer who lives in Singapore.
Should America ever fight China, a more dynamic military culture should offer an important edge. But as the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan showed, there is more to winning wars than effective mission command. What is more, says Jason Brown, a former airforce colonel, defence planners would be wise not to assume that every nondemocracy would perform as poorly as Russia’s army. China’s entrepreneurial spirit, he notes, runs deep. n
Rebranding the Asian carp Copicat
N E W Y O R K To hook diners, an invasive species of carp gets a new name
What’s not to like about Asian carp? Nutritious, mild and delicate in In 2018 the Illinois Department of Natural Resources decided it would flavour, it can be filleted, deepfried or minced into fish cakes—just mind the bones. But Americans do not care for it. For starters, they confuse the fish with the common (or European) carp that is a bottom feeder, a muchmaligned group. Yet tempting people to eat more Asian carp could boost biodiversity in rivers across America’s South and Midwest. With a new campaign, officials in Illinois hope to lure diners.
The carp was brought from Asia in the 1970s to help clean aquafarms in Arkansas. (They clear the water of plankton and algae, earning them the name of “filter feeders”.) From there they escaped into the Mississippi and propagated northward, outcompeting native fish species for food. Now they are abundant in the Illinois River. Ecologists worry they will evade barriers in the waterways around Chicago and enter the Great Lakes, reducing the native fish diversity there. “recast” how Asian carp is perceived. Marketers were brought in. They cooked up a new name, which was released on June 22nd: copi (for copious). Nick Adam of Span, the agency behind the rebranding, says the goal was to shed the fish’s reputation as one only for adventurous eaters. Focus groups described copi as “cute” and “manageable”. Asian carp is not the first to get a makeover. The Patagonian toothfish is marketed in America as Chilean sea bass (it is neither a bass nor native to Chile). The foulsounding slimehead has been much better known as orange roughy since the late 1970s. And managing invasive species by harvesting them is not a novel idea either. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, a federal agency, exhorts people to eat lionfish, which threaten reefs along the Atlantic coast and in the Caribbean. Louisiana’s wildlife department offers recipes for nutria, a semiaquatic rodent with an irrepressible breeding habit. Ragondin à l’orange, anyone? Lionfish is quite wellliked, notwithstanding its 18 venomous fin spines; the toothfish’s new name was such a hit that it arguably contributed to its overfishing. But evidence is mixed about whether harvesting to control an invasive species is effective. With Asian carp, only larger fish are targeted for human consumption. A study by researchers at Michigan State University recommended that fishermen be given incentives to catch small ones too, for use in fertiliser and fish meal. But creating demand also risks impeding efforts to reduce numbers. Prairie Rivers Network, an environmental group, has opposed the copi rebranding because it seems to “incentivise a longterm sustainable carp fishery in Illinois waters”. Much will depend on whether America’s gourmands cop on to copi.
Ceci n’est pas une carpe
