Stewing–Bumped; see newer posts below.

My anger has been stewing. The honor of the the officer corps has been weakened.

Over the weekend, Galrahn at Information Dissemination broke the news that the new DDG-1000 Zumwalt class of destroyers were designed without capability for area air defense, a fatal flaw in the design of the ship. I have been silent on this topic for a couple of days, hoping my anger to settle somewhat, but it hasn’t.

This is a massive failure of the American officer corps.

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Doing as the Essence of Strategy (Updated)

Danger Room has a piece on Soft Power that’s worth reading.  It’s not terribly revelatory, but does make a necessary point:  A mere increase in Soft Power assets and capabilities does not amount to a strategy.

The Secretart of Defense, Robert Gates, recently said:

“We must focus our energies beyond the guns and steel of the military,” Gates said in his speech at Kansas State University last year. “There is a need for a dramatic increase in spending on civilian instruments of national security — diplomacy, strategic communications, foreign assistance, civic action, and economic reconstruction and development.”

SE’s Reading Program – With Update

I have written on the nature of Professionalism.  An element to true Professionalism is the maintenance of a course of independent, continual study.  Here I will speak to my personal reading program, which is a core part of my Professional military education.

On Professionalism

Col Mike Wyly, of the Marines, has written a piece in Armed Forces Journal on the nature of Professionalism, using Boyd as the exemplar of the subject.  The article is completely correct, and is worthy of reading by all military men.

One of my pet peeves regarding “Professionalism” is the supreme misunderstanding of what the term implies.  On the eve of my first deployment in 2004, my detachment Officer-in-Charge, a Major, took the 43-Marine detachment aside and told us his expectations, which he said could be summarized on two words:  “Be Professional.”  Unstated were what his ideas of what professionalism entailed.  To him, Professionalism meant keeping the appearance of a Marine, combined with a touch of CYA:  Keep hair short, uniforms serviceable, be tactful, and do what you need to do to keep the detachment out of trouble.

This conception of Professionalism is wrong.