I would be more impressed if rather than reading only the arguments of extremists the college were interested in the opinions of those who had no interest in defending or defeating the US, but only a more disinterested curiosity about our place in the world. The subdivision of the human world into "us" and "them" may be foundational to the state but not to intellectual discourse.

It's an unacknowledged truism that military philosophy tends towards the Manichaean more out of psychological necessity than reason. And extremists, at least those who are as extreme as we like to imagine, are self-created caricatures of the opposition, easier to dismiss as claimants to anything resembling morality.
But of course I'm writing these comments on the website of a magazine with "Foreign" in it's title, so nationalism is a founding principle.

Is anyone teaching Robert Vitalis? America's Kingdom: Mythmaking on the Saudi Oil Frontier

Not to turn this into an Army vs USMC thing, but both the Marine Command & Staff College and Marine War College (affectionately known as McWar) have gone out of their way to have provocative speakers in the two years I've been at CSC. Nir Rosen, Ralph Peters, Bob Woodward, Dave Kilcullen, Les Grau, Sir Rupert Smith. We've also done screenings of No End in Sight and The Battle of Algiers each year.

The point isn't that the Marines are mavericky iconoclasts, rather not all of PME is quite as pigheaded (and shortsighted) as the AWC appears in this instance. I know LTG Caldwell has been trying to improve both curriculum and morale at C&GSC in Leavenworth, as well.

Perhaps the climate was different 3 and 4 years ago. But there is a deliberate and concerted effort to expose our students to reasoned and serious dissent now.

Find it troubling that Mark Perry was not given the courtesy of a response.

Have found that a letter written in good faith will receive a response if good faith exists within the recipient.

Interesting posts...

I'm speaking in Carlisle on April 22, not at the AWC but the Army Heritage Foundation, http://www.armyheritage.org/education/symposium.html

The most serious problem is that Academic Freedom is essential to the critical analysis required to institute critical policy changes efficiently. The battle plan changes as soon as the first shot is fired. This requires UNFETTERED, precise criticism, and prompt institution of effective policies for beneficial outcome.

This "succumbing" to political pressure by critical points of analysis only defeats us in the end, i.e. Bush finally had to fire Rumsfeldt.

Hasn't the AWC pretty much always been a retirement home for the "chosen" few flag officers.

The military failures of the U.S in the post WWII era are from a direct lack of the lack of proper analysis and lack of institution of proper policies by the "status quo" elements at crucial adminstrative positions.

We still haven't learned counter-insurgency techniques. Maybe with the policy change in Iraq ( which I refuse to call " The Surge" because that is a misnomer) is a beginning.

But what enabled this policy change? Well besides getting rid of Rumsfeldt, it was due to in country elements properly analysing the socioeconomic conditions and strata within Iraq.

We must know the enemy. We must know their language, culture, religion and important social divisions.

People at the WC's think that they can reanalyze Caesar's Conquest of Gaul and formulate policies that will win in Pakistan and Afghanistan.

We must attack the root cause of our enemies. Islam funadmentalism is rooted in the vast POVERTY of the Middle East. Almost NONE of those countries have free public education. Social services are provided by religious based NGO's! This lack of social services drives the poor to the madrassas! Governments fund the religious NGO rather than fund secular GO's. Good government and effective social services are in the long run going to provide the death knell to Islamic terrorism. Not a never ending war with the United States.

Certainly was not the case at National. Sometimes being manichean comes from reason :) ( See Oriana Fallaci (sp))

I've never attended the Army War College, but have been a student in a few other military PME settings. All the war colleges feature the tension between notions of academic freedom/non-attribution and adherence to the prevailing culture of one's service (to include its orthodoxies).

Appointments for Lieutenant Colonels (Army, Air Force and Marines) and/or Commanders (Navy/Coast Guard)to attend the various schools are competitive (I don't know the current figures, but the Air Force used to send only about one in five of its Lieutenant Colonels to these schools to study full-time), and iconoclasts clearly have at least one strike against them when the choices are made about who will attend these institutions. When it comes time to select a just few flag officers from a large pool of Colonels/Captains, those chosen are the survivors of a couple sets of such selection processes.

In short, the students and especially the folks running these places are "company men" who rose through a highly-competitive hierarchy by being selected repeatedly by the very people who established the "corporate culture" some commenters are so eager to have them repudiate. It's hardly surprising that people who have spent 30 years being told they are exceptional to believe that people like them are also the "best of the best" and should be the leaders of the future.

Making the war colleges the kind of laboratories of innovative ideas some commenters are advocating requires changing how students are selected. Rather than choosing only those being groomed for senior command, it is necessary also to choose at least some who enter the college on the basis of their unconventional ideas. These students will also have to be willing to argue strenuously, knowing that their ideological antagonists will soon be their superiors (if they remain in the military). The trick is identifying these would-be inconoclasts in an evironment that tends to punish non-compliant thinking.

Not dislike, admiration as a prescient Cassandra. (Though I suppose that is saying the same thing, sort of).

And oh yes, iconoclasts and shibboleth-tumblers were most welcome and encouraged. If fact, if your whole-body POV XRay showed any evidence of Huntingdon's Disease you were doomed.