Well That IS Interesting...

Did you check out the line up in July Proceedings yet? Did you read the article published by Michele Flournoy and Shawn Brimley yet?

Is Tom Ricks right or wrong with this comment?

Pretty near the top they quote Alfred T. Mahan, which seasoned Pentagoners know is a sign that the Navy is getting teed up to get hit long. (This is like when Gorby would quote Lenin, or Marc Antony would praise Julius Caesar.)

Tom Ricks is a CNAS fellow, and those CNAS folks seem to be popping up everywhere these days. For example:

Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates today announced the following new members to the Defense Policy Board: Gen. (Ret) Larry Welch, former Air Force chief of staff ; Stephen Biddle, Council on Foreign Relations; Richard Danzig, former secretary of the Navy; Robert Gallucci, former assistant secretary of state; Chuck Hagel, former senator from Nebraska; Robert D. Kaplan, Center for a New American Security; Andrew Krepinevich, Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments; Rudy deLeon, former deputy secretary of defense; John Nagl, Center for a New American Security; Sarah Sewall, Harvard University; Wendy Sherman, former special advisor to the President.

These members join the following returning members: John Hamre, chairman; Harold Brown; Adm. (Ret) Vern Clark; J.D. Crouch; Fred Ikle; Gen. (Ret) Jack Keane; Henry Kissinger; Dave McCurdy; Frank Miller; William Perry; James Schlesinger; Marin Strmecki; Vin Weber; Gen. (Ret) Pete Pace.

The Defense Policy Board provides the secretary, deputy secretary and under secretary for policy with independent, informed advice and opinion concerning matters of defense policy.

That quote about who gets the last laugh applies to Nagl. It also applies to Gates though, and I really appreciate what he is trying to do. A lot of folks believe Gates is trying to fundamentally change the Pentagon to fit a specific mold. That would not be correct, Gates has proven time and time again he is smarter than that, and it would be accurate to say that is exactly what Rumsfeld was trying to do, and couldn't.

Gates is simply trying to break the mold, because he knows once he gets people off the old road and on to the road, then the thinking will start and good things will happen. Once people realize that resisting change is counter productive, they stop fighting change and begin working within the new framework. In big organizations, particularly government, that process forces some of the most experienced and intelligent folks, who had been conformed to yes men, to now become idea men that the organization capitalizes on due primarily to their experience that has largely been suppressed in the ideas shaping the organization up until that point.

It is the Aristotle approach... If you want happiness, go for virtue. If you want change in the DoD, go for shift in direction, any direction will work as a starting point.