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Home Front: WoT
Strategic Collapse at the Army War College
2009-01-15
Originally posted 1/14, carried over a day for more commentary. AoS.
Assessing the academic state of affairs at the War College, Mark Perry informed Tom Ricks:

It's worse than you think. They have curtailed the curriculum so that their students are not exposed to radical Islam. Akin to denying students access to Marx during the Cold War.

This intellectual and strategic groundwork for the "long war" against Islamic terrorism will never be accomplished as long as our senior service schools and military academies continue to neglect this vital area of strategic study. Regardless of what one might think about the relation between Islamic theology and jihadist justifications for terror, it is a fact that they believe they are operating in accordance with Islamic tradition. Islamic war doctrine ought to be studied on that basis alone.

But returning to Sun Tzu's maxim, perhaps the root of our military's strategic schizophrenia is not so much about our refusal to understand our enemies as much as it is a failure to understand ourselves. As a nation, we no longer have a sense of who we are, what we believe, or even why we fight. At the height of World War II, would a faculty member at the Army War College have even considered attempting to defend Nazi fascism or Japanese imperialism, as War College professor Sherifa Zuhur has now done with Hamas? That is a fitting testimony of how far we are from both aspects of Sun Tzu's counsel.
Posted by:Nimble Spemble

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