Rafe Colburn has been on fire recently, but a recent post on capabilities really hit home for me:
China has deployed its own aircraft carrier. The vessel is a rehabilitated Ukrainian carrier that China purchased in 1998. Unfortunately, China does not have pilots who have practiced landing a plane on an aircraft carrier, nor do they have any planes that are capable of landing on an aircraft carrier.
What’s the point? That it’s a lot more difficult to develop a capability than it is to build something.
I work in an industry where “capability” is a bit of jargon and I work in an organization that likes to bandy the term about willy nilly. The industry is definitely cognizant of the meaning but there are quite a few people I work with who need to carry a printed version of this around.