Learning under fire: Progress and dissent in the US military

Survival

Volumn 51, Issue 4, 2009, Pages 31-48

  Rotmann, Philipp ^a   Tohn, David ^a   Wharton, Jaron ^a  

^a HARVARD UNIVERSITY   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 77950779079     PISSN: 00396338     EISSN: 14682699     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1080/00396330903168824     Document Type: Article

References (34)

1. Thomas Ricks, 'Rumsfeld Gets Earful From Troops', Washington Post, 9 December 2004, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/A46508-2004Dec8.html.
2. During Operation Iraqi Freedom, US forces moved 560 kilometres in 16 days.
3. The closest two campaigns were the taking of Minsk by Nazi Germany during Operation Barbarossa (June 1941), when German forces moved 480 kilometres in 8 days, and the Smolensk Offensive (July 1941), when they moved 640 kilometres in 25 days.
4. Douglas Lovelace, Jr, 'Foreword', in Antulio J. Echevarria II, Toward an American Way of War (Carlisle, PA: Strategic Studies Institute, US Army War College, 2004), p. iii.
5. George Friedman and Meredith Friedman, The Future of War: Power, Technology, and American World Dominance in the 21st Century (New York: Crown Publishers, 1996).
6. United States General Accounting Office, 'Report to Chairman, Subcommittee on Military Personnel, Committee on National Security, House of Representatives: Military personnel - High Aggregate Personnel Levels Maintained Throughout Drawdown' (Washington DC: GAO, 1995), p. 11.
7. See Richard D. Downie, Learning from Conflict: The U.S. Military in Vietnam, El Salvador, and the Drug War (Westport, CT: Greenwood Publishing Group, 1998).
8. John A. Nagl, Counterinsurgency Lessons from Malaya and Vietnam: Learning to Eat Soup With a Knife, 2nd ed. (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 2005)
9. Thomas Rid, War and Media Operations: The US Military and the Press from Vietnam to Iraq (London: Routledge, 2007).
10. Philip Smucker, 'How Bin Laden Got Away', Christian Science Monitor, 4 March 2002, http://www.csmonitor.com/2002/0304/p01s03-osc.html.
11. See also Susan B. Glasser, 'The Battle of Tora Bora: Secrets, Money, Mistrust', Washington Post, 10 February 2002.
12. Sean Naylor, Not a Good Day to Die: The Untold Story of Operation Anaconda (New York: Berkeley Publishing Group, 2005), p. 48.
13. Gregory Peterson, French Experience in Algeria, 1954-1962: Blueprint for U.S. Operations in Iraq (Fort Leavenworth, KS: US Army School for Advanced Military Studies, 2003), p. 4.
14. Marc Hecker and Thomas Rid, War 2.0: Irregular Warfare in the Information Age (Santa Barbara, CA: Praeger, 2009).
15. Thomas E. Ricks, Fiasco: The American Military Adventure in Iraq (London: Allen Lane, 2006), p. 418.
16. Peter W. Chiarelli and Patrick R. Michaelis, 'Winning the Peace: The Requirement for Full-Spectrum Operations', Military Review, vol. 85, no. 4, 2005, p. 15.
17. See, for example, Gordon Lubold, 'How U.S. Army Trains for a Different Kind of War', Christian Science Monitor, 20 June 2007.
18. Peter Maass, 'The Counterinsurgent', New York Times Magazine, 11 January 2004.
19. Paul Yingling, 'A Failure in Generalship', Armed Forces Journal, May 2007, http://www.armedforcesjournal.com/2007/05/2635198.
20. Jason Blindauer et al., 'The Real Iraq We Knew', Washington Post, 16 October 2007, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/10/15/AR2007101500841.html.
21. This concept, coined by Don Snider, is discussed in F.G. Hoffman, 'Dereliction of Duty Redux?: Post- American Civil-Military Relations', Orbis, vol. 52, no. 2, 2008, p. 15.
22. Ibid., p. 15.
23. Ibid., p. 13.
24. Ricks, Fiasco, p. 65.
25. Mark Thompson and Michael Duffy, 'Pentagon Warlord', Time, 14 April 2006, http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1004099,00.html.
26. Gregory Newbold, 'Why Iraq Was a Mistake', Time, 17 April 2006, pp. 42-3.
27. Perry Bacon, Jr, 'The Revolt of the Generals', Time, 16 April 2006, http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1184048,00.html.
28. Don Snider, 'Dissent and Strategic Leadership of the Military Professions', Foreign Policy Research Institute E-Notes, February 2008, http://www.fpri.org/enotes/200802.snider.dissentleadershipmilitary.html.
29. Yingling, 'A Failure in Generalship'.
30. International Crisis Group, What Can the U.S. Do In Iraq?, Crisis Group Middle East Report No. 34 (Amman/Baghdad/Brussels: International Crisis Group, 2004), pp. 10-11.
31. An unpublished Pentagon study on irregular warfare, commissioned in preparation for the 2005 Quadrennial Defense Review, comes to the same conclusion, as quoted in Nigel Aylwin-Foster, 'Changing the Army for Counterinsurgency Operations', Military Review, vol. 85, no. 6, 2005, p. 5.
32. 'Defense Management: Army Needs to Address Resource and Mission Requirements Affecting Its Training and Doctrine Command', GAO report number GAO-03-214, 10 February 2003.
33. Donna Miles, 'Future Leaders Must Follow Conscience, Gates Says', American Forces Press Service, 22 April 2008, http://www.defenselink.mil/news/newsarticle.aspx?id=49649.
34. Cf. John A. Nagl, Counterinsurgency Lessons from Malaya and Vietnam: Learning to Eat Soup with a Knife, 2nd ed. (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 2005), pp. 6-10.