Someone who's seen the defense policy package that will appear in the May/June issue of FA tells me it looks something like this...
Rumsfeld argues that the Afghan campaign demonstrated both the extent to which the US armed forces have been changing and the need to continue those changes. Some interesting stuff, but not as forthright as his reputation suggests in addressing the problems he's had trying to generate reforms.
Eliot Cohen contributes a wonderful essay analyzing the new truism that Rumsfeld has been a bad secretary of defense but a good secretary of war. He basically argues that the reason lies less in Rumsfeld personally than in the fact that the first job--SecDef--is much tougher, because of all the forces that resist change.
Michael O'Hanlon offers a workmanlike recap of the Afghan campaign, confirming the general picture you get from, say, close reading of the NYTimes or the Washington Post. He argues that transformation is critical and that more needs to be done.
Steven Biddle, finally, analyzes the Kosovo campaign in retrospect, and finds that we still actually don't know all that much about the most important questions--such as why Milosevic caved, what kinds of air power can do what, and so forth.
Apparently no one of the pieces covers everything, but together they provide a good, serious take on important subjects, from people (unlike most journalists) who actually know what they're talking about...
tb@we'llsee.com |
