History

I'm interested that in all the e-mails I've gotten, and responses posted on this blog about triple-dipping retired generals getting paid to "mentor" the active duty military while at the same time working in the defense industry, and also collecting their pensions, not a single person has contended that, yes, George Marshall would approve of this behavior. As a friend of mine says, this is a good gut-check: WWGMD?

Also, another friend points out that one of the dangers of this whole "mentoring" this is that if you are not careful, you wind up bringing in people who simply reinforce existing prejudices, instead of challenging them. For example, just how well mentored was Gen. Tommy R. Franks in his mishandling of Afghanistan in 2001-02 and then in his bungled invasion of Iraq in 2003? (And while we're on the subject of money, who remembers that Franks charged a group $100,000 to help them raise money for wounded vets-and that it later turned out that the group only delivered 25 percent of its funds to its supposed beneficiaries?)  WWGMD?

Department of Defense

I understand the sentiment in an anti-Karzai campaign, but I find it kind of creepy, reminding me of turning on President Diem, which turned out to be a bad move.

Btw, can you guess what Abdullah Abdullah's favorite band is?

Department of Defense

I know that human flesh and minds are weak, and I am also a first amendment fundamentalist. Even so, my stomach turns at the revelation that the superintendent of the Gettysburg National Military Park was a porn fiend on his official computer. I mean, this is the home of Pickett's Charge, of Chamberlain and the 20^th Maine at Little Round Top, and one of Lincoln's most stirring speeches. It also is where my wife and I had our first great date on a quiet, chilly November day about 30 years ago. We had a lovely picnic at the high water mark of the Confederacy.

I hope he gets re-assigned to Guam or something.

Flickr user: David C. Foster 

The Navy has christened its newest cargo and ammunition ship the USNS Medgar Evers.

Now, how about honoring a Hispanic such as Cesar Chavez? And I'm still waiting to see Nat Turner get his due, perhaps with an escape & evasion course named for him.

I'd also like someday to ride aboard a Malcom X-class destroyer, or the USS Crazy Horse, which would make a cool attack submarine. And USS War Chief Joseph would be a good name for a flagship.  

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I was idly checking some ads for used sailboats and saw that someone in New "Live Free or Die" Hampshire is selling a landing craft. This would be a perfect gift for a serious reenactor, or any fans of "The Longest Day."  

DVIDSHUB/flickr

The essence of strategy, of course, is making hard choices -- figuring out what is essential and what is merely important, one the key distinctions that General Eisenhower made in planning the implementation of grand strategy in World War II.

Krepinevich and Watts make the important point that in order to do so, it is necessary to have some pretty tough arguments. Under President Eisenhower, they note, the members of the NSC's "Planning Board" "sought to deal with disputes among  their principals by emphasizing differences and conflicts rather than by sweeping them under the rug."

So, I think, one of the key measures of a strategic process is this: Does it identify and explore these disputes? On the Iraq war, I think the Bush administration sought to downplay differences (for example, the running feud between the CPA and the U.S. military) and so expensively and sadly wasted three or four years of blood, treasure and power.

Krepinevich and Watts suggest re-establishing the NSC's Planning Board, an idea I think should be explored.

It strikes me that Eisenhower is getting a lot of good press nowadays, coming to be seen as perhaps our only strategically minded president of the last 50 years. In my recent travels (I've moved from subways to airplanes) I've begun reading Dear General: Eisenhower's Wartime Letters to Marshall. In the introduction, Joseph Hobbs, the editor the volume, notes that in 1962, a poll of historians rated Eisenhower "near the bottom third of American presidents." His reputation certainly has risen through the decades.  

Hey, maybe I'm becoming an Eisenhower Republican -- just as the last of them are becoming scarcer than right whales as they are marginalized by the out-of-power and out-for-blood radicalized GOP. One of Ike's most scathing terms of criticism was "hysterical."

Père Ubu/Flickr

It must be a month or more since I've posted a reading list on a national security topic. Here is a great list, and I'd say it even if my books weren't on it. I've read most of the works recommended here. Anyone preparing to appear before the chairman of the House Armed Services Committee might considering checking out this list. 

pushlama/istock

I'll read anything by Andrew Krepinevich, the fine strategic thinker who bears a strong resemblance to Dwight Eisenhower circa 1939. Right now my subway reading is a new essay he has done with Barry Watts titled "Regaining Strategic Competence."

I was especially intrigued by the list of 10 common strategic blunders they attribute to business strategy expert Richard Rumelt: 

1. Failure to recognize or take seriously the scarcity of resources.

2. Mistaking strategic goals for strategy.

3. Failure to recognize or state the strategic problem.

4. Choosing poor or unattainable strategic goals.

5. Not defining the strategic challenge competitively.

6. Making false presumptions about one's own competence or the likely causal linkages between one's strategy and one's goals.

7. Insufficient focus on strategy due to such things as trying to satisfy too many different stakeholders or bureaucratic processes.

8. Inaccurately determining one's areas of comparative advantage relative to the opposition.

9. Failure to realize that few individuals possess the cognitive skills and mindset to be competent strategists.

10. Failure to understand the adversary.

There is a whole book of military history to be written just finding good illustrations of each of those mistakes. I think the United States was guilty of No. 2 and No. 10 in Iraq from 2003 through 2006. I'd say the British tripped on No. 3 during the American Revolution. I think Hitler committed No. 4 when he tackled Russia. No. 10 is probably the most common error.

I'd be interested in other examples that you see.

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