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Dishonest doctrine

Fri, 15 Feb 2008 00:00:00 -0800

Armed Forces Journal - By Ralph Peters - Feb. 15 (Opinion) - To wit, the most over-cited bit of nonsense from the manual is the claim that counterinsurgency warfare is only 20 percent military and 80 percent political. No analysis of this indefensible proposition occurred. It was quoted because it suited the pre-formulated argument.

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Dream warriors: Our enemies fight for fantasies, not freedom

Thu, 28 Jun 2007 18:04:54 -0700

Armed Forces Journal - By Ralph Peters - Jun. 28 (Opinion) - Until we are willing to confront the mentality -- the soul -- of our enemies honestly, we can't and won't defeat them. We seek a logical understanding of mass violence, but war and civil strife rarely explode because of rational grievances. Complaints about oppression, poverty or injustice may serve as superficial catalysts, but few wars can be traced to objective decision-making by the dispassionate leaders of cool-headed populations. War is an act of passion, not of policy -- Clausewitz wrote

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A failure in generalship

Fri, 27 Apr 2007 00:00:00 -0700

Armed Forces Journal - By Lt. Col. Paul Yingling - Apr. 27 (Opinion) - For the second time in a generation, the United States faces the prospect of defeat at the hands of an insurgency. In April 1975, the U.S. fled the Republic of Vietnam, abandoning our allies to their fate at the hands of North Vietnamese communists. In 2007, Iraq's grave and deteriorating condition offers diminishing hope for an American victory and portends risk of an even wider and more destructive regional war. These debacles are not attributable to individual failures, but rather to a crisis in an entire institution: America's general officer corps. America's generals have failed to prepare our armed forces for war and advise civilian authorities on the application of force to achieve the aims of policy. The argument that follows consists of three elements. First, generals have a responsibility to society to provide policymakers with a correct estimate of strategic probabilities. Second, America's generals in Vietnam and Iraq failed to perform this responsibility. Third, remedying the crisis in American generalship requires the intervention of Congress.

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