Then there’s the author’s whole problem of taking operational doctrine and claiming it represents some tectonic shift in U.S. policy …

That’s not at all what Brownlee says. Nor is his argument what you think it is:

Perhaps, though, someone could object: “But the stability-operations field manual and the counterinsurgency field manual can be used to justify imperialism.”

His argument is much more straightforward, although he doesn’t say it bluntly enough. ‘Stability operations’ is just another term for imperialistic occupation and it is something that the U.S. Army has no business doing. Exum almost gets it when he writes:

In spite of it all, the author raises a good question that has absolutely nothing to do with operational doctrine. Should the U.S. Army be doing stability operations in the first place? Well this is indeed a good question. But that’s a question for the politicians, not the military.

Unfortunately, that’s a copout. Let me rewrite Exum’s comment so that the problem is a little clearer:

In spite of it all, the author raises a good question that has absolutely nothing to do with operational doctrine. Should the U.S. Army be torturing detainees in the first place? Well this is indeed a good question. But that’s a question for the politicians, not the military.

You can’t throw all the moral and ethical questions back on the politicians and claim that you were just following orders and looking out for the junior officer corps.

Let me make this as explicit as possible. There is no nation on this planet that is going to start a conventional war with the U.S. From that inarguable fact, you should make the following logical deduction. If the Army is engaged in ’stability operations’, then it has committed a war crime (a war of aggression). That, in a nutshell, is why it is wrong to plan for them.

Now, to the folks who will bring up U.N. operations, etc., I will say this. Somebody else will be doing the nation building, not the U.S. Army.

“The outgoing president leaves his successor a bureaucratic apparatus and ideological leitmotif for rationalizing vast military spending and foreign adventurism.”

Seems to me that where we have allowed countries to fail and turn into for lack of a better word, crap, we and the world in general have paid a steep price.

Afghanistan, Somalia, Iraq, Lebanon.

What happened to France’s promise to send 1500 troops when the hostilities flared up again – yeah – they may have sent troops but only to evacuate their citizens from the mess, not to help stabilize it.

The world has no guts to take on Tirany and other crap, we seem to be the only ones that do. It is a bad job, but do we just let the Sadaams use chemical bombs on their own citizenry, do we let terrorists have training centers in afghanistan and Somalia?

Do we stand back, close our borders and talk for peace.

Or, do we take action.

Who in the World will take a stand, the French, Germans, the Chinese, the Russians.

Do we build walls or build Nations?

With great wealth comes great responsibility.

My buddy rescued those at Ashwitz in WWII. He does not call it a rescue, they walked into the Death camp to no guards and decimated people.

They/he nursed many back to life over the coming weeks and months. They then took 50 trucks full of sorta healthy russians to the russians.

As they left from behind the large building they had turned to Death camp survivors over to the Russians, once they turned the corner and were driving away.

THEY HEARD MACHINE GUN FIRE. They killed them all.

We need to go into Somalia, Rwanda, maybe the border of Pakistan. Problem is, we are it, who else will help – those that do, except the brits and canadians, only do it half heartedly, taking up rules that restrict their action to a mere token of help.

If we had adventured to Rwanda, could we have saved 500,000?
If we kept the adventure in Somalia going and equipped our forces properly in Somalia with Armored vehicles the military wanted, could we now have a stabile Somalia, instead of an economy that is based on piratism?

The word adventure is really a bad pick, would not you say?
I’ll read the rest this evening and ponder it more.