Bringing the War Back Home. “Full Spectrum Operations in the Homeland”: Getting the military to start preparing for the violent repression of its own citizenry. US Army “deep thinker” creates an “enemy” out of the Tea Parties & “extremist militias.” “Red Teaming” from an Ignorance-Inspired Faulty Premise.
Sipseystreetirregulars.blogspot.com
Sunday, August 5, 2012
On an office door at the United States army’s Command and General Staff College someone has scrawled: “You can’t see the forest if you burn down all the trees.”
Alongside is another titbit of advice to the hundreds of officers studying how to wage a counter-insurgency: “It should be obvious that there is a gigantic difference between defeating an army and running a country.”
Fort Leavenworth, a sprawling base on the Missouri River, is in ferment as the army frantically tries to learn the harsh lessons from Iraq. This is the cauldron of a revolution in the US army’s psyche. . .
In the words of a colonel at the staff college, officers during the Cold War era were taught what to think. Now they must be taught “how to think”.
Critical to the army’s hopes is Col Kevin Benson, the head of the School of Advanced Military Studies, also at Fort Leavenworth, which each year picks the army’s top 78 majors to train as war-planners. — US army officers learn harsh lesson in history, London Telegraph, 3 June 2006.
COL Kevin Benson, 2006. (Photo credit, London Telegraph.)
Before we plunge into this column, a little background is in order. The first thing for the reader to understand is where this ill-thought, offensive and dangerous article appeared:
The Small Wars Journal (SWJ) is an electronic journal and website focusing on counter-insurgency. Aside from its online journal, SWJ hosts an accompanying blog and the Small Wars Council discussion board. Other site features include an online reference library, recommended reading and event listings.
Contributing authors to SWJ include Gary Anderson, Matt Armstrong, Robert Bunker, Lieutenant General William B. Caldwell, General Martin Dempsey, Thomas Hammes, Jim Gant, Gian Gentile, Robert Haddick, Frank Hoffman, David Kilcullen, Robert Killebrew, Peter Mansoor, William “Mac” McCallister, John Nagl, Malcolm Nance, John Sullivan, Bing West, Paul Yingling and Michael Yon among others.
The title Small Wars Journal is a reference to the 1940 Marine Corps Small Wars Manual, which used “small wars” as a catch-all term for unconventional and guerrilla warfare, also encompassing foreign internal defense (FID), military operations other than war (MOOTW) and military operations in urban terrain (MOUT). — Wikipedia.
The Rest…HERE
