H.R. McMaster Leads New Crop of Generals

The third time is the charm for H.R. McMaster, who is the most recognizable name on the list of new one-star generals selected by a promotion board headed up by none other than David Petraeus. An Army board headed by Gen. David H. Petraeus has selected several combat-tested counterinsurgency experts for promotion to the rank of brigadier general, sifting through more ...

Marines Winning Recruiting Wars

Phil Carter, noting yet another month when the Marine Corps easily exceeded its recruiting goals, asks, "What is the Marine Corps doing that enables it to recruit so well during wartime -- and can the other services do the same?" My immediate answer was although that many of his commenters suggested: The Marine Corps brands itself as a fighting force ...

Pin-Ups for Vets

Chris Short, a blogger and Air Force NCO, put me in contact with Gina Elise, a model and aspiring actress best known in blog circles for the Pin-Ups for Vets project. Inspired by her grandfather, a WWII vet, and news of wounded veterans from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, she has been making 1940s-style pinup photos of herself, dressed ...

SECDEF Condemns ‘Next-War-itis’

Secretary of Defense Robert Gates is working to change a defense culture that looks too much at fighting the next war to justify expensive, cutting-edge systems that may not be justifiable. Or, as the headline writer of Thom Shanker's report puts it, "Gates Wants Weapons to Be Useful in Current Conflicts." Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates issued a clear warning ...

Former Gitmo Commander Denied Pakistan Post

MG Jay Hood's appointment as the top U.S. military officer in Pakistan has been pulled owing to Pakistani complaints about a previous stop in his career as commander at Guantánamo. When the Pentagon announced in March that Maj. Gen. Jay W. Hood would become the senior American officer based in Pakistan, it reflected the military’s aim to put a crisis-tested veteran ...

Zero Sum Wars

Fred Kagan Kaplan makes the argument that, as a matter of practicality, the only way for Robert Gates to move 7,000 more troops into Afghanistan is to take 7,000 troops out of Iraq.Let's look at the numbers. After the last of the five "surge" brigades goes home this summer, the U.S. Army will have 13 brigade combat teams in Iraq (the ...

Discredited Orientalist Texts

Guesting at Crooked Timber, Kathy G argues that the world would be a better place is Edward Said's discredited Orientalism was used as a standard text in our nation's institutions of professional military education rather than Raphael Patai's "racist tract" The Arab Mind. Wouldn't we be even better off if, instead, they used a book that hadn't been widely discredited? ...

Proud to Be an American While Hating the Song with that Lyric

Abu Muqawama's Charlie unleashes a diatribe against Lee Greenwood and, especially, the "miserable, treacly song" for which he is most known. Noting that the old warriors at a weekend Special Forces gathering "stood for it like it was the National Anthem," she asks, "Is this some sort of Army thing? Does graduating from the Q course leave you ...

David Hackworth’s Legacy

Colonel David Hackworth had a legendary military career which he followed with decades as an author, commentator, and advocate for the American grunt. Like a lot of old soldiers who comment on military affairs, his views were eventually colored too much by the past and unenlightened by how modernization had rendered some old dogmas outmoded. And, like most ...

Former Gitmo Prosecutor Testifies for Defense

Air Force Colonel Morris Davis, the former chief prosecutor for Guantanamo Bay, recently testifed for the defense on behalf of a terror suspect. Specifically, he testified to the unwillingness of the Pentagon to hold fair hearings for detainees.Sitting just feet from the courtroom table where he had once planned to make cases against military detainees, Air Force Col. Morris ...

Army’s Caleb Campbell Drafted by Detroit Lions

Caleb Campbell, a safety out of West Point, has been drafted in the 7th round of the 2008 NFL Draft by the Detroit Lions. At 218, he's going to be one of the last players chosen this year but, because of the circumstances surrounding the pick, ESPN has been featuring him heavily in its coverage today. The ...

Dissent in the Army

Phil Carter has an interesting debate with his Slate colleague Fred Kaplan about how the assignment of LTC Paul Yingling (of "A Failure in Generalship" fame) to a non-standard artillery assignment squares with SECDEF Robert Gates' admonition to West Point cadets that "as an officer you don't tell blunt truths or create an environment where candor is encouraged, then you've ...

Petraeus to CENTCOM, Odierno to Iraq Chief

Presuming Senate confirmation, the top Iraq commanders are both moving up one slot, with David Petraeus taking over Central Command, and thus oversight of the Iraq and Afghanistan campaigns, and Ray Odierno picking up a fourth star and the top job in Iraq. Bush will nominate Petraeus to replace Navy Adm. William J. Fallon as chief of U.S. ...

COIN, Armed Nation Building, and Peer Competitors

Joshua Keating reports on some interesting discussions at a high level foreign policy conference. Of particular interest is Anthony Cordesman's contention that the term "counterinsurgency" ought to be abandoned altogether in favor of "armed nation-building" and his unconventional thinking on the way in which the operation in Iraq is impacting what is generally thought to be a more important ...

Are War Crimes Inevitable?

Megan McArdle argues that war crimes are an inevitable part of war and therefore, "when you choose war, you choose war crimes--and that this is true regardless of why you are choosing the war." Her Atlantic colleague Andrew Sullivan says this is "preposterous, uninformed, ahistorical," noting that, "The United States has managed to go to war for two centuries ...