Quote Originally Posted by Tom Odom View Post
If you have to go to overstatement to make your point in a preface then your analysis is most likely bent. McGregor is great on some issues; on others he is in left field. I would put the plan to take Baghdad with 50,000 troops over the fence in leftfield.
That would be the proverbial pot calling the kettle out...
That is hardly a constructive comment, and a little snide considering the usual professionalism of this forum. To be fair, MacGregor has backed off that particular logic path a lot since the time that was published (1998-9ish?) and you can see that in how his concept has evolved over time. Note the increase in infantry, the gradual inclusion of other services, and greater acknowledgment for the possibility of needing longer then 6 month deployment times. Yep, he still uses bad Clancy like "hypothetical scenarios" to help visualize the concept, but then again, look at the end audience. Both Wilf and I had serious reservations about your small unit concept, but we don't discount your input in all other areas because of it. Keep your mind open, it is pretty well acknowledged that he has some very sound concepts, he just tries too hard to wrap them into an all encompassing concept. Seeing how it has been evolving, I think he may someday succeed.
Reed