From the July/August issue of The Atlantic: Robert Kaplan - What Rumsfeld Got Right
A description of Donald Rumsfeld's latest tenure as SecDef and a discussion of what he did right and wrong from the author's perspective.
Robert Kaplan - What Rumsfeld Got Right
From the July/August issue of The Atlantic: Robert Kaplan - What Rumsfeld Got Right
A description of Donald Rumsfeld's latest tenure as SecDef and a discussion of what he did right and wrong from the author's perspective.
"In times of change learners inherit the earth; while the learned find themselves beautifully equipped to deal with a world that no longer exists." - Eric Hoffer
American experts confuse me again and again.“Rumsfeld got war and transformation only half-right,” says Richard H. Shultz Jr., the director of international security studies at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy near Boston. “He was right that the lethality and speed of a military advance could be transformational, but he didn’t realize that the enemy might have an answer to that in the form of a war after the war.”
How can this person be cited (obviously implying that he's an expert on the matter) if he is so clueless?
Manstein advanced 300 km in the first three days of Operation Barbarossa in 1941, with tanks that did at most 40 km/hour and Soviet opposition that was decidedly more serious than the Iraqi appeared to be. The terrain was much more complex and much more often a closed one. The availability of air support was much smaller, as his corps was only one of dozens.
Other examples of advances like 80-110 km/day existed throughout 1940-1942.
So if the advance speed of the U.S./coalition forces in 2003 was decidedly inferior to a 1941 advance speed - wouldn't his comment imply that the transformation would be a "Back to the past" move at best?
No, this Mr. Shultz is just clueless.
He's talking about the obvious without sufficient background to value the achievements correctly. Don't ask lawyers about anything else than law...
Last edited by Fuchs; 06-24-2008 at 07:33 AM.
FuchsOriginally Posted by Fuchs
If you expect "experts" to know history, especially military history, then you are going to be sorely disappointed. Look at how all the experts (their self-annointed title, not mine) did in offering what have become classics in the realm of off-target predictions in 2002 and 2003.
It was transformational to Mr. Schultz because he wanted it to be...
Tom
In Germany we have three types of military affairs experts who are being interviewed:
1)
Active officers, colonel and higher = buzzword fountains, news content probably one line per interview (if three column layout), no commenting, spineless loyalists
2)
Retired generals = statements and comments on operations and strategy, possibly also about conscription or major procurement projects
3)
Peace researchers and international law experts, almost always critical of political decisions (operations)
We don't have lawyers making statements about military art/technology revolutions (I don't doubt that they could be qualified, but that would be an extreme exception).
Unnecessarily calling Dick Schulz "clueless" is an ad hominem attack, not a reasoned analysis. Prof. Schulz is a respected member of the security academia. Just because you don't have non-military security experts doesn't mean that other countries can't.
I would also point out that the faculty at Fletcher are by and large not lawyers. Schulz certainly is not. Furthermore, as a proud graduate of Fletcher, I consider myself neither a lawyer nor a diplomat.
It also appears to me that you glommed on to a part of his quote without considering it in its entirety.
This quote, in particular, stuck out:
That conveys a pretty good point about the attitude toward Rumsfeld while he was in office. The media did such a horrible job of questioning the run-up to the war in Iraq. Instead, they were focused on simply observing it and being the first to announce the latest hurdle being cleared in the race to war. There was little to no critical reporting. Did anyone regard Colin Powell's testimony at the UN to be convincing? Once things did not go as swimmingly in Iraq as the initial invasion of Afghanistan, then the media jumped on the public opinion pendulum and rode it all the way to the opposite extreme. Rather than passively reporting, they became overly criticial without reason. Nothing that Rumsfeld did could be right.... just because Donald Rumsfeld believed something, didn’t mean it was wrong.
This quote also stuck out.
If true, that is pretty remarkable. The DoD bureaucracy is a force to be reckoned with. He might have slayed a few dozen dragons.Rumsfeld reduced the more than $3 trillion of improperly recorded, unaudited Pentagon transactions to hundreds of billions. He created a defense business board, and reformed the national-security personnel system to take into account considerations of merit.
Given the track record of Pentagon transactions in the past 6 years that is certainly debatable, especially when considering contracts for support in Iraq and eslewhere.Rumsfeld reduced the more than $3 trillion of improperly recorded, unaudited Pentagon transactions to hundreds of billions. He created a defense business board, and reformed the national-security personnel system to take into account considerations of merit.
As for NSPS (the reformed system), that is not a done deal either. The AF has gone to it in total. The Army is partially through it; as one looking at it for my future--and working with folks already under it--such laudatory comments are superficial and premature at best, rather like his "transformational efforts.".
Tom
Posting Permissions
Bookmarks