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Thread: A Balanced Strategy- Secretary Gates

  1. #1
    Council Member MikeF's Avatar
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    Default A Balanced Strategy- Secretary Gates

    A Balanced Strategy-Reprogramming the Pentagon for a New Age
    - Secretary Gates, Jan/Feb 09 Foreign Affairs

    Yet even with a better-funded State Department and U.S. Agency for International Development, future military commanders will not be able to rid themselves of the tasks of maintaining security and stability. To truly achieve victory as Clausewitz defined it -- to attain a political objective -- the United States needs a military whose ability to kick down the door is matched by its ability to clean up the mess and even rebuild the house afterward.
    http://www.foreignaffairs.org/200901...-pentagon.html

    IMO, Secretary Gates listened to the collective debate/voices of Gentile, Nagl, Bacevich, and others and begun setting forth to define a National Security Strategy with the necessary Ways, Ends, Means to provide a pragmatic, realistic approach to cope with future national security threats and define American foreign policy.

    Personally, it is very uplifting reading his words. I look foward to hearing others opinions as the debate continues.

    v/r

    Mike

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    Default

    I'm a fan.

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    Council Member Rob Thornton's Avatar
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    Thumbs up What Old Eagle said

    Well timed strategic comms with the release of the DoD Dir on IW - provides the right context and additional direction I think. I also liked his use of historical and contemporary examples, illustrating that both the dead Prussian and Gray are relative to our thinking and challenges.
    Regards, Rob

    Note - for those looking to print and read, and who have access to the early bird, there is a more printer friendly version there.

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    Council Member Tom Odom's Avatar
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    Default We CAN now ALL get along, CAN'T we!?!

    Bill should put this one up on the blog:


    We CAN now ALL get along, CAN'T we!?!

    I bet we'd still get dissenting opinions

    I agree with Rob and Old Man (I mean Eagle).

    Tom

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    Moderator Steve Blair's Avatar
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    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by Tom Odom View Post
    Bill should put this one up on the blog:


    We CAN now ALL get along, CAN'T we!?!

    I bet we'd still get dissenting opinions

    I agree with Rob and Old Man (I mean Eagle).

    Tom
    I'm sure we would. Gates makes very good points; points that others should listen to and take to heart. Sadly, given our collective historical record, I'm not sure how likely this is to occur.
    "On the plains and mountains of the American West, the United States Army had once learned everything there was to learn about hit-and-run tactics and guerrilla warfare."
    T.R. Fehrenbach This Kind of War

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    Council Member William F. Owen's Avatar
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    Default

    Bob Gates wrote
    War is inevitably tragic, inefficient, and uncertain, and it is important to be skeptical of systems analyses, computer models, game theories, or doctrines that suggest otherwise. We should look askance at idealistic, triumphalist, or ethnocentric notions of future conflict that aspire to transcend the immutable principles and ugly realities of war, that imagine it is possible to cow, shock, or awe an enemy into submission, instead of tracking enemies down hilltop by hilltop, house by house, block by bloody block. As General William Tecumseh Sherman said, "Every attempt to make war easy and safe will result in humiliation and disaster."
    Nuff said. I can die happy. Common sense at it's best.

    ... but I'll bet the agenda monkeys will still managed to screw it up...
    Infinity Journal "I don't care if this works in practice. I want to see it work in theory!"

    - The job of the British Army out here is to kill or capture Communist Terrorists in Malaya.
    - If we can double the ratio of kills per contact, we will soon put an end to the shooting in Malaya.
    Sir Gerald Templer, foreword to the "Conduct of Anti-Terrorist Operations in Malaya," 1958 Edition

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    Council Member Ron Humphrey's Avatar
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    Thumbs up Ditto et all

    Quote Originally Posted by William F. Owen View Post
    Bob Gates wrote

    Nuff said. I can die happy. Common sense at it's best.

    ... but I'll bet the agenda monkeys will still managed to screw it up...
    Tru enuf but that don't mean we won't try reallllllly hard to kep em from screwin it up tooo bad
    Any man can destroy that which is around him, The rare man is he who can find beauty even in the darkest hours

    Cogitationis poenam nemo patitur

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