GEN Petraeus vs. Ralph Peters on Graduate Education for Officers
I just started hanging around here, so apologies if this was already referred to (I haven't seen a reference to it at least).
Enclosed are two links on the role graduate education at civilian universities should (or should not) play in a serving officer's career. The first is a piece by GEN Petraeus, the second by Ralph Peters--the latter includes a thinly veiled and extremely critical reference to LTC Nagl and the current COIN manual:
http://www.the-american-interest.com...?Id=290&MId=14
http://www.the-american-interest.com...?Id=291&MId=14
WWSH
About the time to synthetize information.
While perusing General David Petraeus’ essay, Beyond the Cloister, I spotted in it the following excerpt which struck me.
“What General Galvin meant was that military professionals often live a cloistered existence that limits what we experience first hand. At the same time, we have our noses to the grindstone, which tends to make us unaware of what we’re missing. We don’t pause and look up often enough, because we don’t have the time.”
Actually, my point just aims at putting the emphasis on this pertinent statement. For, I personally experienced it with huge benefits. It applies to civilians and scholars as well!
During some years of my professional career in communication and media I busied myself doing, teaching, writing, meeting, chitchatting, exchanging inormation, going here and there, and, the last but not the least: reading and studying.
Eventually, an event in my life put a sudden end to all this frenzy, and I began to remember: past conversations, readings, people, events. That’s from this moment on that I came to realize and understand many things, many meanings, many important details I totally missed to see until that moment because my mind was overwhelmed at jumping from one event to another and at memorizing; but not synthesizing since I just didn’t have the time and the rest for. I ventured into my mind as I would do while looking in the shelves of a library.
Pursuing on my metaphoric comparison, dusty “books” and “records” and “files” where all here--including the oldest and forgotten ones--painstakingly put side by side, but oten unconnected each with others.
That’s when I began to “read” slowly all of them, one by one, sometimes breaking this “rule” when compelled to jump from one to another located at the farthest end of the “shelf” because a new hypothesis was surging up. Physically, I was doing nothing; I even didn’t read. At best, I could passively watch television, but in an absent-minded manner as anyone could easily notice it. In reality, my mind was truly piecing bits of memory together. That way I retrieved countless unnoticed details, anecdotes and pieces of old readings that now found their relevancy and importance.
I learned a great many things from that new experiment. Things I previously memorized without properly analyzing them. I did it like that, without doing anything; in appearance only.
How enlightening and profitable was this experience to me. Now, I do not exclude the hypothesis that my mind may possibly not have the capacity to read, learn, and properly the flow of incoming information all at the same time. What about you who read me?
When I was in the army I learned that the mind of the soldier must be made busy by all possible means so as to prevent him from thinking. For, it was said, a soldier is not supposed to think, but to execute orders; and discipline is broken as soon as the soldier begins to think.
Does this military rule still prevail nowadays as General David Petraeus seems suggest it?
Does the mailed fist work?
Quote:
Originally Posted by
SteveMetz
That's an interesting argument but also a slippery slope. Using it, we could also argue that Richard Perle and Rush Limbaugh are responsible for the violence in Iraq today.
But flip comments aside, I see an important ethical distinction between advocating aggressive illegal violence (the Interhamwe) and advocating forceful methods against enemies. To the best of my knowledge (and someone correct me if I'm wrong), Ralph's argument has been that we are in a state of war but have imposed restraints on ourselves that states do not normally impose when in a state of war. Now, I personally disagree with that. In the monograph I'm working on now, I argue that "war" is not the appropriate response to the threat we face. But IF one buys the notion that we are at war, I think Ralph's position is at least reasonable.
I read Peters for the first time a few years back, initially liked him a lot, but in the wake of Iraq some of his stuff looks increasingly irresponsible and indeed ludicrous, the article about redrawing the borders of the Middle East being the best example. Saw him speak in DC once about four years ago, did enjoy him and thought he held his own with the likes of Christopher Hitchens.
I agree about the Parameters pieces, especially the one on warriors, prescient for when it was written. But he seems to rely on emotion and instinct far, far more than evidence, as others have noted. I didn't find his piece on the dreams of the Arabs all that persuasive. And I remember a cover story he did on suicide bombings for the Weekly Standard a little while back, was excited to read it but it became virtually unreadable about halfway through.
Here's a question though, bit of a digression from the original thread: does the "mailed fist" even work? Didn't seem to for the Germans in Yugoslavia, nor the Russians in Afghanistan, although us arming the mujahideen changed the playing field obviously. German genocide in Africa pre-WWI did the trick though. The Romans, of course, "made a desert and called it peace." Other historical examples are escaping me at the moment, not sure where you'd put Israeli COIN, certainly not genocide but not hearts and minds either. So even if we were to remove all the media and political consequences, is there a level of violence we can use, short of actual genocide, that would defeat a strong insurgency? I think Bill Lind, for what it's worth, would say the Hama model works, you can be very violent, but it has to be quick.
Does the "mailed fist" really work?
I think an argument can be made that it was pretty effective for Saddam for several years. However, it was at the cost of several mass graves. That is a cost we are not willing to accept. I think the approach that is being suggested by Peters could work without the mass graves, but it would require more troops than we would ever be willing to commit to Iraq. I think the current surge suggest there is a more effective approach using more economy for force.
Lessons civilians can learn
Hi,
I am a civilian that just joined a while ago, but I enjoy reading the Small Wars Forums, because there are many things I can learn and apply to my life. While a librarian isn't a "warrior" per say, I learned many important things like motivation and why knowledge is important in my own professional/educational career.
Sincerely,
Naomi Chiba
