Proceedings and Its Others

[JeffWolf]

Hi,

I was wondering what people think are the equivalent(s) (if any) to USNI Proceedings. I think of AWC Parameters and NWC Review as roughly comparable, to each other, but not to Proceedings; Military Review is less abstract and wide-ranging than each of the three publications already named. Without going through the various other publications, I think of Proceedings as arguably unique with respect to how varied its content - in terms of article length, topics covered, viewpoints published, etc. - is.

I don't ask purely out of curiosity - I'm trying to write a paper on how bureaucracies respond to challenges (such as the collapse of the USSR, or the encroachment represented by Goldwater-Nichols). As such, I'm thinking of using Proceedings as a source for what "the Navy" (yes, I know, it is not a monolith) "thought" about those challenges. I'll probably compare the Navy to one or more of the other services. If people could identify what they thought of as similar publications along some of the dimensions named, that would be very helpful.

And while as noted above, I'm not asking out of curiosity, perhaps the relative merits and features of the various publications might prove interesting fodder for posting.

Regards
Jeff

[Smitten Eagle]

I think Proceedings is fine. I've been getting the magazine since I was commissioned some years ago, and have always thought it worth getting. Back in the day it was devoted entirely to naval issues (including the Marines and USCG), but now it is branded as "The Independent Forum on National Defense."

Still, they focus much on Naval-related issues. They have some gems on small wars/COIN/etc, but also has lots of articles on RMA-related things that, if you ask me, are just large advertisements for defense industry firms and weapons systems projects.

Lots of USN and USMC authors, and to a lesser extent, officers from the other services.

I don't really think there's an equivalent for it, now that it's moved from its naval roots to a more national-defense related journal.

[Ken White]

but let it lapse about five years ago due to what I though was a distressing trend toward political correctness and too many articles 'written' by too many FlagOs. It may or may not have changed since then but they lost me. that said, it is still a unique publication and a valuable one and arguably the best of all the US service journals in my opinion.

Army magazine has been a party line pub for years -- occasionally to an almost sickening extent -- but the last few issues have been better; hopefully, that's an indicator of much needed change.

The Marine Corps Gazette is still a good publication and has been pretty consistent over the years.

[mmx1]

The Marine Corps Gazette is still a good publication and has been pretty consistent over the years.

Indeed, but its scope is much narrower than the Proceedings and focuses heavily on tactical and operational issues. I find the two complement nicely.

[Steve Blair]

I've always liked the Gazette, but let my Proceedings membership lapse for much the same reasons as Ken did.

[mmx1]

I don't know if qualifies as politically correct, but Capt. Kelly's piece in the July Proceedings, "Rewriting the Rules of War" did not endear me to the magazine's editorial choice.

...Maintaining the moral high round may be a popular theme for editorial writers, but it means very little if you lose. Winning is everything.

The last war we actually won was World War II, before political correctness had been invented and before Soldiers were subject to so much second-guessing. We killed hundreds of thousands of civilians in fire bombings and often took no prisoners in battle. Interrogation of prisoners could be rigorous indeed, and maintaining their dignity was not a high priority. No one would dream of referring to such actions as torture. There were few embedded media members, and they were kept rather busy reporting real news, mostly involving the heroic actions of our troops. There was a war on, and we did what we had to do to win.

Today, opponents of this war are attempting to infuse political correctness and civilian ethical standards into our troops who do the fighting for them. If they go to far, they may end up destroying the military warrior culture altogether...

This is something I expect out of the Weekly Standard, not a professional military journal.