Quote Originally Posted by Tom Odom View Post
I would have to assume that you feel my debating the clarity of these two authors' writing is defensive.
True -- but only in that you caught their flaw in assigning blame to 100-5 and went to work on that, thus ,IMO, missing the broader points that you acknowledge are a problem -- and the point that we have become very (dangerously???) doctrinaire.
Hardly the case as if one is going to write something and publish it hinged on a weak point, my criticism is neither defensive nor is ad hominem. It goes to the heart of their argument--the negative influence of the 1986 version of FM 100-5 and the term operational level of war. They state it is causal. I would argue that at best it may be symptomatic and at worst it is a red herring.
Herring perhaps. Sympotomatic? I'd say absolutely. We adopted 'the operational level' for a variety of reasons -- none particularly compelling, IMO (YMMV) and we tend to try to apply it where it is inappropriate because we're slaves to the book...
Our national leaders have found it more convenient to contract strategy to think tanks than to actually think strategically.
I sadly suggest that truth is partly due to the fact that the Armed Forces (as a result of mutual distaste) have not attempted (deigned?) to give strategic advice to a DoS and several Administrations who were, umm, not particularly friendly, toward the Services. I'm not sure how to fix that but I think we need to try...
In agreement on the issue, if not the cause:

Finally as for the need to fix over-centralization, no argument from me as I am firmly in that camp...we are as you know doing just the opposite.
We've beat this stud to death but I don't disagree with a thing you said -- other than your first line on the thread:
I judge such works by how the authors form their argument. They lost me with this:...
I understand that but at my age, I've found out that I neglected a lot of good ideas due to having the same attitude and I've lately become inured to putting up- with some often specious arguments to still extract some idea with a bit of merit. I even look up dumb stuff to see what people are up to. The old bit about even a stopped clock being right twice a day sort of applies.

I'd say they arrived at the right destination by the wrong route and that happens often.

Keep on pushin'