The TDS website says of Lt. Gen. William B. Caldwell that "The military strategist gives Jon a frank update on the situation in the Middle East." And I'm sure that'll be the topic. But Google found me two other items that I think dKos folk will find of interest (And maybe I'll check later on to see if they've been covered here already).
Caldwell was chief spokesman and Deputy Chief of Staff for Strategic Effects in Iraq until last June, when he was promoted to his current rank. He's now Commanding General for the Combined Arms Center at Fort Leavenworth, where
he has responsibility for the Command and General Staff College and 17 other schools, centers, and training programs throughout the United States.
The Combined Arms Center is also responsible for: development of the Army’s doctrinal manuals, training of the Army’s commissioned and noncommissioned officers, oversight of major collective training exercises, integration of battle command systems and concepts, and supervision of the Army’s Center for the collection and dissemination of lessons learned.
As such, he's responsible for the new Army operations manual (first new edition since 2001). Here are some interesting clips from the NYTimes article about that:
The Army has drafted a new operations manual that elevates the mission of stabilizing war-torn nations, making it equal in importance to defeating adversaries on the battlefield.
...But some influential officers are already arguing that the Army still needs to put actions behind its new words, and they have raised searching questions about whether the Army’s military structure, personnel policies and weapons programs are consistent with its doctrine.
..."Army doctrine now equally weights tasks dealing with the population — stability or civil support — with those related to offensive and defensive operations," the manual states. "Winning battles and engagements is important but alone is not sufficient. Shaping the civil situation is just as important to success."
..."There is going to be some resistance," General Caldwell said. "There will be people who will hear and understand what we are saying, but it is going to take some time to inculcate that into our culture."
Even as they welcomed it, other Army officers said there were inconsistencies between the newly minted doctrine on how to wage war and current practice. Army brigades in Iraq have too few combat engineers to support civil programs, they said. Also, they added, the Army does not promote officers who advise the Iraqi and Afghan security forces as readily as battalion staff officers and needs to improve their training.
General Caldwell said the manual would influence Army education and training by stressing the sort of skills that are needed to bring stability to conflict-ridden states with weak governments.
"There will be people who naturally will say, ‘If I can do high-end offense and defense, I can do any lesser kind of operations,’ " he said. "What we have found through seven years is that is not the case."
There's more in there, for those who like that kind of thing. The other topic that's probably of interest to blogfolk is this:
The Air Force is tightening restrictions on which blogs its troops can read, cutting off access to just about any independent site with the word "blog" in its web address. It's the latest move in a larger struggle within the military over the value -- and hazards -- of the sites. At least one senior Air Force official calls the squeeze so "utterly stupid, it makes me want to scream."
..."A couple of years back, I fought this issue concerning the Counterterrorism Blog," one Air Force officer tells Danger Room. "An AF [Air Force] professional education course website recommended it as a great source for daily worldwide CT [counterterrorism] news. However it had been banned, because it called itself a blog. And as we all know, all blogs are bad!"
He's joking, of course. But blogs and social networking sites have faced all sorts of restrictions on military networks, for all sorts of reasons. MySpace and YouTube are officially banned, for eating up too much bandwidth. Stringent regulations, read literally, require Army officers to review each and every item one of his soldiers puts online, in case they leak secrets. And in televised commercials, screensavers and fliers, troops are told that blogging is a major security risk -- even though official sites have proven to leak many, many more secrets. Now there's the Air Force's argument, that blogs aren't legitimate media outlets -- and therefore, shouldn't be read at work.
Caldwell, a blogger himself, disagrees.
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