Strong Recommendation from MajGen Robert Scales, USA (Ret)
September 27, 2010
General (and PhD) Robert Scales strongly recommended this movie to an audience at the Brookings Institute today. He used it as a backdrop to his official remarks on how 4% of the total force (the engaged infantry) suffers 80% of the total casualties, but less than 1% of the total Pentagon budget is spent on training and equipping them.
My trip report on his remarks is at Phi Beta Iota the Public Intelligence Blog, search for <Robert Scales> without the brackets.
General Scales is the author of three books, one of which I have reviewed that remains a classic, on the disconnect between the needs of the infantry and the pie in the sky $75 billion US national intelligence community that prefers to build expensive satellites that do not work and whose collection cannot be processed.
Firepower in Limited War: Revised Edition
Yellow Smoke: The Future of Land Warfare for America's Military
The Iraq War: A Military History
To understand the continued corruption in US military management, see also:
War is a Racket: The Antiwar Classic by America's Most Decorated Soldier
Defense Facts of Life: The Plans/Reality Mismatch
The Fifty-Year Wound: How America's Cold War Victory Has Shaped Our World
