My book The Generals got its first entirely negative review, from Col. Gian Gentile. Why am I not surprised?

Colonel Gentile, a strategic bombing expert who also was a cavalry squadron commander in Iraq in 2006, concludes that I am both simplistic and dangerous: "In one sense Mr. Ricks is right that the American army has not produced strategic thinkers in its higher ranks. But his simplistic solution is also quite dangerous if the policymakers and others who read it come to believe it is true. America at war with Syria, Iran, Yemen, sure -- just relieve a few generals, get the right ones in place, and victory will be assured."

Then, in a really low blow for a historian, he accuses me of having the mindset of a political scientist: "He undertakes a political science approach to the exploration and analysis of history, developing a template and then compelling the past to conform to that template."

He also says the book is a regression from the works of John Keegan. Well, if I have to regress from anyone, I'll take Keegan. I am not as good a baseball player as Derek Jeter, either. 

What I don't get is that he accuses me of failing to show that relief of generals leads to better results. I don't know how he can say that, given that I discuss how Africa went better after Fredendall was ousted, Anzio went better after Lucas was booted and Truscott took over, Korea went better after Ridgway went over there and started cleaning house.

Does he think Vietnam would have gone any worse had any generals been relieved for being ineffective? But then Gentile is a big fan of Westmoreland -- "Westmoreland, I think, was very efficient, very proper, highly intelligent, a good organizer, a good manager, and I think up to a -- and I think a good leader" -- and I am not. 

Also, I'd like to file an objection to the way he uses "narrative" like it was some kind of dirty word. Rather, I think it is what makes us human -- putting together events to try to make sense of the rushing world of reality. We know other animals use tools, but as far as I know, we are the only animal that uses narrative. 

The authorities said the other day that Brig. Gen. Jeffrey Sinclair, the Army's celebrity one star, will face a general court martial and could wind up doing life in prison.

My guess: A plea deal that winds up with him doing a year or two. Then again, I've been surprised before.

(HT to Attackerman)

By Lt. Gen. Bernard Trainor (USMC, ret.)

Best Defense voice of experience

Of course any hierarchical and conservative institution can be resistant to change and unwelcoming of out-of-lane independent thought. But I believe the Marine Corps has a pretty good record of being an exception, i.e. many officers in the chain encourage that sort of thinking and help get a subordinate's message a hearing at a higher level.

I was the recipient of such support from the time I was a new lieutenant and over the years came to expect it. And I don't think I was an exception. Let me cite some milestones in my career:

1952 -- Korea -- 2d Lt. Rifle Platoon Leader -- We were taking unwarranted patrol casualties following prescribed techniques. I proposed some changes to the Bn. CO during a visit to my platoon. He rejected them out of hand, but the S-3, Maj. J.K. Hogan, accompanying him, saw merit in my ideas and successfully went to bat for me and overcame the CO's resistance.

1953 -- 8th Marines -- 1st Lt. At an Officers Call I argued that the USMC triangular organization was less effective than a square formation in the embryonic days of helicopters. The Regt. CO Col. DeWolf Schatzel (one of the notorious "Chowder Society" members in the Unification fight) encouraged me to put my arguments in writing and submit it to the Marine Corps Gazette. It was published as "The Triangle and the Square." It was a voice crying in the wilderness, but I was encouraged, not discouraged by my seniors.

1960 -- 1st Recon Bn Capt. Company Commander -- Upon returning from exchange duty with the Royal Marines, I argued for the adoption of some of the deep penetration recon techniques the Brits were using against the EOKA insurgency in Cyprus as being ideal for Vietnam, which was looming on the horizon. My proposals were opposed by some within the Recon community, but supported by Lt. Col. Hank Woessner, Bn CO and subsequently by the CG, Maj. Gen. Jim Masters. The techniques were expanded, improved, and served as the precursor for the successful Sting Ray operations in Vietnam.

1968 -- MC Command & Staff College -- Maj. Instructor -- I recommended and sold a series of out-of- the-box "creative thinking" initiatives as part of a curriculum change to the senior instructor, who supported it and passed it to Maj. Mike Ryan, the director, who then carried the ball and won over the director of the ED Center and the hated school solution "Yellow" was minimized (I hope it has remained so).

1970 -- Vietnam -- Lt. Col. CO 1/5, Quick Reaction Force -- Over the vehement opposition of the ADC, the CG, Maj. Gen. Chuck Widdecke (a tough SOB if there ever was one) overruled him and supported a new attack SOP/technique that I proposed to introduce.

Needless to say, the more senior I became, the easier it became to have my voice heard. But the point is that throughout my career senior Marine Corps leaders welcomed and were open to new ideas -- and along the way, most of the officers between me and the decision-makers were a help, not a hindrance.

To repeat, I think my experience is more representative than those who have been frustrated by what they categorize as a closed-minded Marine Corps bureaucracy. 

Lt. Gen. Bernard "Mick" Trainor (USMC, ret.) is a veteran of combat in Korea and Vietnam, a former military correspondent for the New York Times, and co-author of several books on the military, most recently Endgame.

By Brett Friedman
Best Defense staying in correspondent

On Friday, you posted one lieutenant's view on how the Marine Corps views new ideas. If I could, I would like to make a quick rejoinder. It's unfortunate that this Marine's experience has convinced him that the Marine Corps, as an institution, does not value new or challenging ideas. Unfortunately, this perception does not match reality. I have found the Marine Corps to be extremely tolerant of ideas both new and critical.

I have been writing publicly about military issues since I was a first lieutenant in 2007, when I wrote an article in the Marine Corps Gazette that was extremely critical of the training package providing to Military Transition Teams deploying to Iraq. Despite its critical nature, my chain of command was congratulatory when the article was published. Advisor Training Group, the target of those criticisms, even offered me a position on their staff based on the article. A later article that was critical of the methods used to train artillery scout observers in the fleet was subsequently assigned to students at the Expeditionary Warfare School. This post on the Marine Corps Gazette blog, where I am now a regular blogger, was both extremely critical of the Marine Corps and widely circulated. Still, I received nothing but laudatory feedback from both within the Marine Corps and without.

I say this not to brag but to make the point that if a Marine is both critical and tactful, there is no danger to expressing new ideas. In fact, there are benefits to doing so. Many of my articles have drawn favorable e-mails from high-ranking Marines, including some that work directly for the commandant. The Marine Corps Gazette even hosts an annual writing contest that rewards the author who best challenges established doctrine or concepts with $3,000. The reality of the modern Marine Corps is that we have fostered an extremely healthy environment for challenging and fresh ideas.

It's unfortunate that the lieutenant feels that his ideas have been ignored, but for anyone else out there who still wants to voice their ideas, here are my tips for doing so in the Marine Corps.

1) "Kiss the Corps:" When I first started writing, a senior Marine told me that every time I wrote about the Marine Corps I needed to "kiss the Corps." Start your criticism out with a paragraph extolling the Corps's virtue to establish yourself as a true believer, then fire away. If your readers perceive you as someone who is disgruntled and angry at the institution, they'll stop reading. Make sure they know you criticize out of love rather than hate and they'll listen.

2) Know your stuff: Marines value tactical and technical proficiency. If you make bad assumptions or factual errors about your subject matter, the rest will be ignored. Every writer makes a mistake at some point, but mitigate it as much as possible. The lieutenant's post has an example. He apparently expects more than tactical direction from a battalion. A battalion is a tactical organization through and through, so the lieutenant's assumptions about where the battalion should be focused may be off. A battalion should absolutely discuss strategy and operations, but that discussion is more appropriate for the commander's PME sessions than the AAR.

3) Courage and commitment: Marines are quite fond of our core values of honor, courage, and commitment. Courage and commitment are relevant for the Marine writer; they're your words on the page, use your name. Marines will respect you for doing so even if they disagree with your ideas.

4) Tact: It's a Marine Corps leadership trait for a reason. Above all, avoid ad hominem attacks against anyone, not just senior leaders. Don't just complain, offer solutions.

Stick with those rules, and keep writing, and people will eventually start listening.

Captain Brett Friedman, USMC is currently a student at the Expeditionary Warfare School in Quantico, VA. He blogs at the Marine Corps Gazette blog and Grand Blog Tarkin.

A friend comments on some of the differences between Afghan tribes and those in Iraq:

Iraq Tribes:

• Obviously Hierarchical

• Easily Mappable

• Ordered

• Objective Hierarchy

Pashtun Tribes:

• Not Obviously Hierarchical

• Not Easily Mappable

• Not Necessarily Ordered

• Subjective Hierarchy

Tom again: His interpretation of what this means is that Petraeus got it wrong when he tried to apply Iraq to Afghanistan -- and that al Qaeda got it wrong when it tried to apply Afghanistan to Iraq:

One of the reasons that bin Laden and the other Arab Afghans were able to work their way into the local Pashtu networks is because there the hierarchical power is not transmitted by descent type of kinship arrangements. When these guys tried to export the model to Iraq, specifically in Anbar, but also in Sunni enclaves that were more tribal in other places, all they did was piss off the actual guys with authority -- the sheikhs. And because so much of tribal/familial and religious leadership is combined in Iraq, they managed to piss off two institutions at once: the tribal and the religious leadership at the same time. And there are almost no purely Sunni or Shi'a tribes in Iraq. So the anti-Shi'a message, combined with not understanding the societal dynamics, cost them. It wasn't the only reason that the tribal guys wanted to come in from the cold, but it was a contributing factor.

By Rebecca Frankel

Best Defense Chief Canine Correspondent

On November 10, Tygo, a Specialized Search Dog on deployment in Afghanistan, was killed by an IED. On December 4, Fort Leonard Wood kennels held a memorial service for their fallen comrade that included "a ceremonial rifle volley and the playing of taps," as well as the customary sharing of memories to honor the dog's service.

Though his career was cut short, Tygo had a solid reputation for detection work. Earlier this year, he and his handler, Spc. Seth Rodenberger, won first and second place for endurance and explosive detection challenges during the 2012 Hawaiian Islands Working Dog Competition.

Tygo was known for his laid back temperament and was a dog who, according to a base press release, possessed a "fierce tenacity for detection" and was "always steadfast and ready." Even during Tygo's brief three months of his deployment, the four-year-old Irish setter earned a formidable reputation among the Special Operations teams.

In his closing remarks at the Specker Chapel service at Fort Leonard Wood, Rodenberger (who seems not to have been injured in the attack that killed Tygo) thanked his former partner for "keeping the team and especially me out of harm's way. You're my battle buddy, my friend and my hero."

As one other sergeant remarked while they will all miss Tygo, "his loss will only make us more determined to succeed in our mission."

Tygo's recent death is hopefully the last in a year that has claimed a relatively high number of lives from the MWD community -- both canine and handler. As we near the close of 2012, it's perhaps a sad ending note but I think one worth dwelling on, especially considering the pointed remarks of Engineer Canine Company Commander Capt. Patrick McLain, who eulogized Tygo on December 4.

When it was McLain's turn to speak, he talked first of Tygo's role in keeping soldiers working outside the wire safe. But then he asked those gathered to view the dog's death not only as a tragic loss but also "as a very hard and sad reminder that the Engineer Canine Company currently has 43 soldiers in harms way." Of those 43, McLain continued, 18 are in combat arms. Those "military working dogs [and their handlers] have the most dangerous job that the military has to offer," he said. And that job is "finding casualty producing devices that cause so much damage in today's operational environment."

Maj. Mark Glaspell recounts this episode from his time commanding a company of the 101^st Airborne in 2010-2011 near Gardez, Afghanistan:

MG: . . . The Soldier was a female and the interpreter was a male. Of course, the interpreter was immediately fired; kicked off the post and he's gone.

Q: How do you confirm those types of allegations, especially when it's a lot of "he said/she said?"

MG: What she ended up getting in trouble for was that she was caught in the interpreter's room. She got caught red-handed by her supervisor.

AH: Okay, so that was the confirmation.

MG: Yeah. We knew what was going on but we couldn't charge her with that because there was no direct witness, but we knew what was going on. He was out and the colonel basically threw the book at her as much as he could for being in that room. She was married. It was just bad all the way around. He actually sent her home because with her job she immediately lost her security clearance and she couldn't do her job without her clearance so they sent her back home.

This ran as a comment a few days ago. I think it is a powerful meditation on personal sacrifice in public service. If you missed it then, read it now. If you read it then, please do so again.

This subject goes to the heart of all I (now) believe. I'm wrong to spit anger your way.

Brotherhood and respect for the Fallen are two very romantic notions that I believe in fully, but I still question them. I'm afraid these days that I question just about everything. My notions when I was a young Midshipman are far from where I am now. Hell, I even voted for Ronald Reagan twice. In my twenties, I quite enjoyed one year when I received 4 pay raises: annual COLA, promotion to Captain, going over 4 years, and a Reagan COLA kicker. I look at politics and economics differently now.

The profession that you are about to enter is an honorable and, dare I say, very enjoyable one. But as you progress, you will view things differently. Maybe you won't question things -- you state that you will subjugate yourself to the government. But to subordinate yourself totally and blindly to the actions of said government is to denigrate yourself. Hogwash to think that everything your government does is the correct thing. If you so believe that, you have lost all your undergrad education to wasted time.

I do not advocate government overthrow, but I do plead for citizen and soldier participation in formulation of legal, moral and honorable actions of the government. I won't preach to you about the sins of the last decade. Whether the USA was correct or not in wars upon Iraq and Afghanistan is yours for personal analysis.

I saw wrong when I stood at the upstream end of TSA one day with tears in my eyes watching my son walk away never to be seen alive by his mother and me again. Some in this forum say I wear my heart on my sleeve, because of my personal loss, in my comments. No, my son's signature is tattooed on my right bicep for all the symbology that is probably obvious with that. My heart on my sleeve is for my country and our lost way since 9/11/01.

I understand the essence of brotherhood -- I served 7 years on active duty as a USMC officer. I hated the Iraq War, but allowed pride of service to guide me as I watched my Marine son walk toward combat. I understood that he had to follow orders; I would expect nothing less of him. I didn't protest the war until he died, out of respect for him and his platoonmates, many of whom I had already met and today treat like sons. Afterwards, I took to the streets (literally) and joined the failed attempt to stop the Iraq war. As it was, the war drifted off to some "honorable" withdrawal, nearly 3,300 American KIA's after my son later. For what was it all for I will continue to search and reflect until I die.

It was not foreseen in 1997, the year my son enlisted, that the USA would be committing itself to multiple ground wars in Islamic countries. I have in-laws who still spout shit: "He signed the papers himself didn't he? He knew what he was getting into didn't he? He wasn't drafted was he?" Superficially, these inane comments are true. But, in my opinion, none of us signed up for Executive Branch stupidity. Blindly following immorality is not service or courage, it is stupidity.

Politics, professional soldiering and parenting ARE all pushed together. We live in that world. I hope you can incorporate that notion in your future studies. Love is hard. Strange to see those two words in the same sentence but it is true. And there is nothing selfish about demanding that the country shows the same duty and honor and service as does the soldier.

Like I said, I generally don't think that the military should use business as a model. But there are exceptions in specific cases, especially on leadership of large organizations.

Peter Drucker, one of the great thinkers about how corporations really work, in describing the Generals Motors of the 1940s, mentions that 95 percent of all decisions were left to the heads of the company's various divisions. "Hence central management refrains as much as possible from telling a division how to do its job; it only lays down what to do."

Mission command, anyone?

By Col. Hank Foresman (U.S. Army, ret.)

Best Defense guest columnist

In the December 7 Washington Post there is an interesting opinion piece by Generals (Retired) Reimer and Chiarelli, where they urged that Congress repeal a provision of the 2011 National Defense Authorization Act that prevents commissioned and non-commissioned officers from talking with their troopers about their gun ownership. 

One of the most effective measures of suicide prevention is to ask those perceived to be under duress: "Do you have a gun in your home?" If the answer is yes, we might then suggest that the individual put locks on the weapon or store it in a safe place during periods of high stress -- things that any responsible gun owner should do.

Unfortunately, that potentially lifesaving action is no longer available to the military. A little-noticed provision in the 2011 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) has had the unintended consequence of tying the hands of commanders and noncommissioned officers by preventing them from being able to talk to service members about their private weapons, even in cases where a leader believes that a service member may be suicidal.

I commanded three companies for a total of 54 months. I did not have to talk to my soldiers about their gun ownership because I did not have to deal with the epidemic of suicides that face the military today. But, if I had, I would have wanted to know about gun ownership so if I thought a trooper was suicidal I could do something to help him.

I know how important this is. A few years ago, shortly after I retired from the Army, I experienced several weeks of acute vertigo. As a result of being carted out of the Pentagon on a stretcher, I experienced a very serious episode of depression to include having suicidal thoughts. When I realized what was happening I had my wife gather the pistols which we each keep near the bedside and had her lock them up in the gun safe; on top of that I had her change the combination of the gun safe and not to give it me. Why? Because I wanted to take away any access to weapons that would allow me to do something stupid.

I got help; the doctors were able to address not only the vertigo, but also the underlying depression. I now know the combination to my gun safe, and I regularly go shooting. In fact I am doing so today.

Generals Reimer and Chiarelli are right, commissioned and non-commissioned officers need to have every tool available to them to battle our epidemic of suicide to include asking soldiers about their gun ownership. Despite what some in Congress think, this is not an attempt to circumvent the Second Amendment of the U. S. Constitution. Rather, it is a tool to our soldiers.

The author served 33 years in the U.S. Army, retiring as a colonel. He deployed to Kosovo, Iraq, and Kuwait. 

For the most part, I do not believe that the military should imitate business. The differences are too big, especially the risks: In wartime you risk lives, while in business you generally risk filing for bankruptcy. Hence the inclination in business to go for the 51 percent solution, which I think is generally too dangerous in military operations. 

That said, there are some parallels that illuminate situations. For example, Alfred Sloan, in his autobiographical history My Years With General Motors, which I just finished, makes a sharp distinction between what General Motors did every day and what it sold. What it did was cut and bend metal. What it sold was not basic transportation (from the mid-1920s on, he said, that was the job of the used car market, and so not his business), but instead a form of more expensive transportation -- a new car that offered style, speed, and comfort. This is the departure point in strategy: Figuring out you who are.   

One thing that struck me reading it is that Flint and Detroit in the 1910s were a lot like Silicon Valley in the 1980s, with Sloan hanging out on weekends with Walter Chrysler, Charles Nash, and the like.

Sloan placed an enormous emphasis on running the company with centralized policy and de-centralized execution. This strikes me as another way of saying "mission orders." It is a lot harder than it looks. Much of the book depicts how he went about implementing this.  The line guys had genuine power, the staff guys only the power to make recommendations.

As part of that, he developed the sense of a corporate need for what military people call "doctrine." In explaining the structure he devised for General Motors, he writes, "The Operations committee was not a policy-making body but a forum for the discussion of policy or of need for policy. . . . In a large enterprise some means is necessary to bring about a common understanding." That's a good layman's explanation of doctrine, in a military sense.

Details also matter, and understanding your process. One of the biggest problems in the automobile industry is managing inventory, even now. It used to be that one of the slow points in moving inventory was waiting an average of three weeks for paint and varnish to dry and cure. It also took up a lot of real estate. Du Pont (a major investor in GM) invented a new lacquer process that allowed a car to be finished in one eight-hour shift.

Finally, the book reminds me of war in that it consists of long boring sections interrupted by points of brilliance.

Two WWII bonus facts: I didn't know that the tail fins of Cadillacs and other automobiles of the 1950s were directly inspired by the P-38. Nor did I know that the price of a GM-made .50 caliber machine gun fell from $689 on Dec. 7, 1941, to a low of $169 in the fall of 1944. (As production numbers were cut after that, the price rose $5.) So I guess that the better we were doing, the cheaper the .50 cal usually was. 

By Rebecca Frankel 

Best Defense Chief Canine Correspondent

At eleven years old and after a long career of detecting explosives and no fewer than two deployments behind her, Hexa is hanging up her working leash. She is leaving her home station kennel at the Marine Corps Air Station in Yuma, AZ (not to be confused with the Yuma Proving Ground) for life as a housedog with former MP Staff Sgt. Neal Moody.

It seems that Hexa is suffering from a neurological disease that will ultimately leave her blind; Even now you can see that her eyes are coated with the telltale milky glaze. The article also reports that Hexa is suffering from Canine PTSD, though it doesn't hint at a specific trauma or how deeply affected her day-to-day life is by either affliction. Still while life as a working dog wears on any animal (as do multiple deployments), Hexa's handlers report that her keen sense of smell is very much intact and the article makes special mention that she still goes wild for tennis balls.

Back in her heyday Hexa, a large Shiloh Shepherd, was a force to be reckoned with. In 2010 she helped lead a demonstration aimed to prepare the Combat Logistics Regiment 15 for their upcoming deployment to Afghanistan -- the special lesson being how MWDs could be used in a hostile combat zone. They are not only there to help find bombs or drugs but can be used to chase down and detain a suspect. The "suspect" Hexa detained in this tutorial was Sgt. Jay Parales who described the experience (seen in the photo above) as "pretty intense" and "scary but fun."

"That dog," Parales said then speaking of Hexa, "Took me down like I was a little toy."

War-Dog Aside: In last week's post I wrote that Marine canine handler Sgt. William Sutra was going to be awarded the Navy Cross for the heroics he (and his dog Posha) displayed in Afghanistan. You can watch Sutra receive the Navy Cross here. The comments offered during this ceremony give a far better account of what happened on that fateful day than any report I've read elsewhere. (Hat tip: Mike Dowling.)

Rebecca Frankel, on leave from her FP desk, is currently writing a book about military working dogs, to be published by Atria Books in September 2013.

Here at Best Defense we've never really gotten into VUCA, an acronym apparently developed at the Army War College to describe the "Volatile, Uncertain, Complex, Ambiguous" environment that many think we will face in coming decades. It actually brought to mind a woman I dated in my senior year of college for a few crazy weeks. It was a learning experience, OK?

But I think the acronym-makers missed a chance here. If they added "Lethal" in the middle and "Novel" at the end, then we could face a "VULCAN" challenge.

By Luke Hutchison

Best Defense department of military education reformation

When West Point was founded over 200 years ago, it was created to fix a key problem in the Army, the lack of officers with engineering skills. Without officers who knew how to build roads, construct forts and fire artillery accurately -- the Army would be completely ineffective. With no engineering programs at other American universities and a problem that required more than basic training, Colonel Thayer set out to make a rigorous academic program based on an engineering curriculum. Today, West Point needs to assess just like Colonel Thayer did over 200 years ago, what is required of its graduates so that they will best contribute to the common defense.

Today education in Strategic Studies -- understanding how to develop and execute strategy in complex and protracted conflicts that go far beyond just tactical symbols -- is seriously lacking. The U.S. Army in Iraq had to pull a complete 180 degree turn in strategy, scrapping up a "victory" by the skin of its teeth -- losing many more lives in the process and fixing American combat power in Iraq while the insurgency in Afghanistan regrouped. Today in Afghanistan, as over one hundred thousand ISAF soldiers fight on in their 11th year in that country, they find themselves in a much harder and far longer fight than anyone anticipated. How was a better trained, better equipped, and more numerous army ensnared twice in a decade and nearly defeated by poorly trained and equipped insurgents? A lack of Strategic Studies education at West Point certainly may be a place to start. Just as Colonel Thayer identified engineering as the key area of study graduates needed 200 years ago to provide for the common defense, today it is Strategic Studies that needs to be focused on.

West Point's faculty have done a tremendous job adding relevant Strategic Studies related courses such as: Advanced International Relations, Counterinsurgency Operations, Terrorism and Counter Terrorism, Information Warfare, Winning the Peace, and Negotiation for Leaders. Yet outdated policies bar the vast majority of cadets from taking courses such as Counterinsurgency Operations, which has space for less than 10 percent of cadets. In particular, West Point still requires all cadets who are not engineering majors to take an additional three course Engineering Sequence, adding an additional 120 class hours. Cadets complete this watered-down engineering minor with no additional credentials, except being more "aware" of engineering. I am hardly the first to question this Engineering Sequence. West Point's dean from 2000-2005 attempted to remove the Engineering Sequence, but was only successful in trimming it from five courses to the three it is today. 

Replacing the Engineering Sequence with three required courses in Strategic Studies could have real tangible benefits to mission success. Had more cadets taken Counterinsurgency Operations, perhaps the chaos in Iraq could have been avoided. Instead of requiring an insurgency of officers within the Army to make an about-face in strategy, the counterinsurgency concepts would have already been broadly understood. Advanced International Relations would allow graduates to better explain to our allies why the United States is "tilting" to one region of the world instead of another and critically assess the strengths and weaknesses of such a shift. The Conflict Resolution, Analysis, and Negotiation course would help officers understand that the conflict in Afghanistan is probably driven much more by regional forces than by internal ones. Negotiation for Leaders would have made an effective Key Leader Engagement second nature, instead of being awkward and counterproductive. Or a platoon leaders' first time visiting a mosque wouldn't have been in Iraq, but in Winning the Peace, where they would have already visited a mosque and learned about the intricacies of other world religions.

Organizations outside of West Point have already embraced West Point's robust Strategic Studies courses. The FBI, NYPD, and members of Congress rely on the Combating Terrorism Center at West Point for some of their education on terrorism. Navy SEAL teams and Special Forces groups fly teams from the West Point Negotiation Project across the country to teach them how to improve their negotiation ability. How is West Point missing this great opportunity right under its nose?

The world has changed a lot in 200 years, and so has what is required of Army officers -- it is time that West Point catches up. Removing the Engineering Sequence requirement, and replacing it with courses on Strategic Studies, seems like a good place to start.

Luke Hutchison is a cadet in the class of 2013 at West Point. The opinions expressed herein are his alone and do not represent the official position of the Department of Defense, United States Army, or the United States Military Academy.

Sources

ISAF Troop Numbers

Engineering Sequence requirement

• Latest USMA policy found in the USMA academic guide the "Red Book"

Counterinsurgency Operations course #s

• This academic year there are 74 openings (Red Book). Spread over four years this would be a total of 296 openings for the 4,624 cadets enrolled at West Point, or 0.064 percent. There are many ways to calculate it but I think that is about as hi-balled as a number as you could make, giving West Point the benefit of the doubt.

Dean from 2000-2005 attempting to remove requirement.

• Email from a USMA professor

No other engineering programs at West Point founding.

Existing Courses at West Point.

• USMA academic guide the "Red Book."

Winning the Peace course visiting a mosque.

FBI and intelligence community using Combating Terrorism Center.

Navy Seals and Special Forces using West Point Negotiation Project.