Army Officer Accuses Generals of 'Intellectual and Moral Failures'

[marct]

"Getting #3 is much harder,and would probably require a type of schooling that is pretty rare along with a "talent" for thinking unconventionally."

The way you would do this is by teaching how to recognize situations in which more radical thinking is required.

Hmmm, that would get you the recognition hat such a type of thinking is required, but it wouldn't produce the thinking. A recognition might be enough...

"I can't think of a single major war in the past 3 centuries that has not had at least a component of asymmetric warfare where COIN style operations would not be better than "Conventional" operations and vice versa."

Sorry to be unclear. By different paradigms for different problems, I meant to include wars in which both conventional and unconventional operations were involved as different aspects. The need is to match conventional war with the conventional aspect and unconventional operations with the asymmetric aspect.

Ah, much clearer - thank you. I think it would be also useful to change the terminology so that "conventional" and "asymmetric" are poles rather than separate categories. That would probably allow for a faster recognition of which type of approach, and in what proportions, would be best in any given situation.

"Who decided the initial force levels for OIF? We could probably argue about specifics until the cows come home, but I think we can both agree that it was pretty much a joint civilian-military "decision"."

Yes and it is for this reason that we need better performance on the civilian side.

I agree totally, although I will continue to think that the military side also needs to pick up more as well .

"I would, however, like you to expand on your last comment. Speaking as one of those people who provides a civilian education, what would you have me teach?"

I am a researcher (history of engineering), not a teacher. But if I taught I would focus on teaching students how to recognize situations in which normal thinking is no longer appropriate. This can best be done through the study of historical examples.

I do that right now in a course I'm teaching, although I focus more on epistemology, and I would agree that it is probably the best solution. My experience with trying to teach that, however, is mixed. I find that, all to often, students thinking has been cannalized into "normal science" modes of thought, and there is a serious lack of historical (and religious/philosophical) knowledge. I can make a dent but only rarely do I manage to get a Jamesian "A HA!" experience out of them . I keep trying...

Marc