The truth at any cost lowers all other costs — curated by former US spy Robert David Steele.
In article below, Ricks is oversimplistic. Quality may be more important than quantity, but a certain amount of quantity is essential. We may not have months available for a buildup as in ODS/S and OIF. Capability and capacity are both required.) To improve the U.S. military, shrink it By Thomas E. Ricks Washington Post, December 6, …
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Ladies and Gentlemen: You may want to check out US Army War College Strategic Studies Institute paper at link below and attached: Read with a view to some of the strange things that have been ascribed to FEMA. KNOWN UNKNOWNS: UNCONVENTIONAL “STRATEGIC SHOCKS”IN DEFENSE STRATEGY DEVELOPMENT Nathan Freier Strategic Studies Institute, November 2008 EXTRACTS:
5.0 out of 5 stars Well-Regarded in Afghanistan, A Real Gem, November 22, 2013 This book is in our J-2 Library in Afghanistan, and it is a very well-regarded gem. This is a vitally important book. The author drives the value-proposition home with his Afterword, entitled “Truth as a Casualty of COIN.” His core point: …
Continue reading “Review: Wrong Turn – America’s Deadly Embrace of Counterinsurgency”
Pentagon fiscal chief Robert Hale: ‘I am nervous’ “Frankly, I am nervous,” says Robert Hale, the Pentagon’s comptroller. And with reason. A month and half into the new fiscal year, Congress can’t seem to decide between what are three, wildly different scenarios for Hale’s world in 2014. The House endorsed most of President Barack Obama’s …
Continue reading “Marcus Aurelius: Pentagon Fiscal Chief “Nervous” + DoD Transformation RECAP”
Five Takeaways from a Decade of War Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel, in a keynote address at the Center for Strategic and International Studies this week, signaled to military commanders that they should assume the across-the-board, automatic spending cuts imposed by sequester over the next decade will remain in place indefinitely. “We do not have …
1. Ricks fails to understand that military strategy and policy do not exist in a vacuum. The White House and Congress both have votes that can be decisive. Shinseki and Franks were closer to right w/r/t force requirements for Iraq than was Rumsfeld. Further, Jerry Bremer unbelievably complicated Iraq by de-Baathification and dissolutionn of the …
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1,000,000 dead Iraqis: two decades of US military intervention Big Data Analytics Master’s Degrees: 20 Top Programs Phi Beta Iota: Most big data is crap. You analyze crap, you get crap analysis. Without a holistic analytic model, a deep commitment to true cost economics, and the ability to collect AND PROCESS all relevant data, big …
