GEN Petraeus vs. Ralph Peters on Graduate Education for Officers

[Dominique R. Poirier]

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?

[Mark O'Neill]

From where I sit, I think attitudes like Peters' account for why there has been so much trouble in some folks 'waking up' to what was wrong in Iraq.

Much of his writing appears unnecesarily polemical. If I had a junior officer or intern who wrote in such a style I would do my utmost to change it.

I have never met the guy, but to my mind he writes like he might have a few 'roos loose in the top paddock. This in turn obscurates any good points that he might actually have.

I think his article in The American Interest lacked rigour, justification and intellect - in fact, it was the perfect argument against what he was arguing for.

Shame that he is not still serving. I would love for him to try and implement some of his ideas in the AO and see how far he got before his chain was pulled tight. My bet is it would not be too far at all... Then again, I think that thoughts like his are the last thing we need in Iraq or Afghanistan at the moment.. He has probably found his niche in monday morning quarterbacking...

[SteveMetz]

From where I sit, I think attitudes like Peters' account for why there has been so much trouble in some folks 'waking up' to what was wrong in Iraq.

Much of his writing appears unnecesarily polemical. If I had a junior officer or intern who wrote in such a style I would do my utmost to change it.

I have never met the guy, but to my mind he writes like he might have a few 'roos loose in the top paddock. This in turn obscurates any good points that he might actually have.

I think his article in The American Interest lacked rigour, justification and intellect - in fact, it was the perfect argument against what he was arguing for.

Shame that he is not still serving. I would love for him to try and implement some of his ideas in the AO and see how far he got before his chain was pulled tight. My bet is it would not be too far at all... Then again, I think that thoughts like his are the last thing we need in Iraq or Afghanistan at the moment.. He has probably found his niche in monday morning quarterbacking...

Ralph's position is that he doesn't need speaking or writing fees to make a living, so he feels he can say exactly what he thinks. If people don't like it, they shouldn't read or listen. He truly is free. And I'm pretty sure he has no inclination to be a policymaker and implement his ideas. I think there is an important place for people who don't want to exercise power but simply to challenge and provoke those who do.

I personally wish that he would tone things down a bit so that his ideas had more impact. (And I myself have had to write letters of apology to people insulted by a talk he gave at an event I organized). That said, I just filter out the bluster and focus in on his core ideas. Even when I disagree with them (as, for instance, his insistence on a "mailed fist" approach to counterinsurgency), I always find them worth considering.

I am also extremely envious of his immense talents as a prose stylist and speaker. As I mentioned in another thread, I HATE to follow him on stage.

[Old Eagle]

1. Military thinking. Had a 4-star boss once who told all of us in the office that for at least 15-30 minutes every day, we should prop our feet up on our desk, look out the window, and think about the good of the Army. It was some of the best advice I ever received, and I attempted to practice it for every subsequent assignment. Mind you, he had an E-ring office that looked out on verdant lawns and Arlington Cemetary, whereas we had interior offices that looked out on the ventilation system and the offices in the next ring over. Not much scenery, except when the secretary changed clothes on the way to the gym... but I digress. Free thinkers are the biggest boon the Army (or any organization) has.

2. Ralph. I love Ralph. I loved him when he was on active duty and I love him now. His original pieces about the devolution to "mad max" scenarios in some parts of the world were critical, but essentially overlooked. Even when I disagree with what he's saying, he makes me think. You too, I guess, or you wouldn't be commenting.

[Tom Odom]

Ralph's position is that he doesn't need speaking or writing fees to make a living, so he feels he can say exactly what he thinks. If people don't like it, they shouldn't read or listen. He truly is free. And I'm pretty sure he has no inclination to be a policymaker and implement his ideas. I think there is an important place for people who don't want to exercise power but simply to challenge and provoke those who do.

Steve where Peters goes wrong for me is in his polemical calls to hate and kill on a scale that would make Attila smile. He is free to voice his opinion and he is free of the consequences; that makes him at best irresponsible and more probably uncaring. It does not, however, render him free of guilt in stoking hate. I have seen first hand what happens when the type of murderous forces Peters often advocates are unleashed. In that regard, Peters is very much like a Western version of a fundamentalist fanatic; he is articulate. He polarizes and paralyzes rational thought. And above all, he offers his position as the only true choice, a page right out of Eric Hoffer.

Best

Tom

[Mark O'Neill]

Steve where Peters goes wrong for me is in his polemical calls to hate and kill on a scale that would make Attila smile. He is free to voice his opinion and he is free of the consequences; that makes him at best irresponsible and more probably uncaring. It does not, however, render him free of guilt in stoking hate. I have seen first hand what happens when the type of murderous forces Peters often advocates are unleashed. In that regard, Peters is very much like a Western version of a fundamentalist fanatic; he is articulate. He polarizes and paralyzes rational thought. And above all, he offers his position as the only true choice, a page right out of Eric Hoffer.

Best

Tom

Point well made Tom.

Often the only difference between folks like the Interahamwe and people who casually espouse violence and killing as if it had no more consequence than a transaction at the commissary is opportunity. How else can we account for things like you witnessed, or the actions of so many otherwise 'regular' folks who committed so many atrocities during the Holocaust or the ethnic cleansing in the FYRP?

We let people who espouse theories regarding violence and killing off the hook in 'peacetime' if we do not call them to account for their 'thoughts', by saying 'that is their right to free speech'. This, in my opinion, makes us complicit in any evil that follows.

[SteveMetz]

Point well made Tom.

Often the only difference between folks like the Interahamwe and people who casually espouse violence and killing as if it had no more consequence than a transaction at the commissary is opportunity. How else can we account for things like you witnessed, or the actions of so many otherwise 'regular' folks who committed so many atrocities during the Holocaust or the ethnic cleansing in the FYRP?

We let people who espouse theories regarding violence and killing off the hook in 'peacetime' if we do not call them to account for their 'thoughts', by saying 'that is their right to free speech'. This, in my opinion, makes us complicit in any evil that follows.

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.