Military Review back issues from May 2008:
Addendum: Anbar awakens.
May 01, 2008; ... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] You old guys need to get over that s--t. Young Marine to Marine sergeant major when asked how he felt about fighting alongside an Army unit in Al Anbar, Iraq. In the March-April 2008 issue of Military Review, Major Niel Smith and I ...
Master at arms second class Michael A. Monsoor, United States Navy awarded the Medal of Honor.(Brief article)
May 01, 2008 ... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] The family of U.S. Navy SEAL Master at Arms Second Class Michael A. Monsoor accepted the Medal of Honor, awarded posthumously, during a ceremony at the White House on 8 April 2008. On 29 September 2006, Navy SEAL Michael A. Monsoor was serving ...
The most important thing: legislative reform of the national security system.
May 01, 2008; ... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Don't confuse enthusiasm with capability. --General Peter J. Schoomaker, Commander, USSOCOM, 2000 The national security system that the president uses to manage the instruments of national power, and the manner in which Congress ...
The story behind the National Security Act of 1947.
May 01, 2008; ... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Harry Truman was at Washington D.C.'s National Airport on Saturday, 26 July 1947, waiting impatiently to fly home to Missouri to see his dying mother. First, however, he wanted to sign a long-delayed bill reorganizing the government to deal with national ...
Money as a force multiplier in COIN.
May 01, 2008; ... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Before Operation Al Fajr, the second battle of Fallujah (in November-December 2004), an estimated 4,000 insurgents roamed the streets of Fallujah, Iraq, killing government soldiers and policemen and essentially turning the city into a rebel stronghold ....
Reforming the madrasah: a disregarded dimension in the war on terrorism.
May 01, 2008; ... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] All battles are first won or lost in the mind. --Joan of Arc The global war on terror is a war of ideas." We have heard this and similar statements repeatedly over the past five years. We read it in the papers and blogs. We listen to ...
From enduring strife to enduring peace in the Philippines.
May 01, 2008; ... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] With the exception of a brief period of American control in the first half of the twentieth century, conflict has persisted in the Mindanao, the southern island group of the Philippines, for 500 years, since the first acts of resistance towards Spanish ...
Title 10 domestic humanitarian assistance: New Orleans.
May 01, 2008; ... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] On Thursday, 1 September 2005, the 2d Brigade, 1st Cavalry Division, was alerted to deploy to New Orleans to assist in humanitarian relief operations following Hurricane Katrina. Coming out of a year-long deployment in Iraq, the Black Jack Brigade had lost ...
The Taliban: an organizational analysis.
May 01, 2008; ... If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.--Sun Tzu (1) ...
The Al-Qaeda media machine.
May 01, 2008; ... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Like an aging rock star who has dropped out of the public eye, Osama bin-Laden occasionally decides to remind people that he's still around. He makes video appearances that first appear on Arabic television channels but which the world quickly sees on ...
Transition teams: adapt and win.
May 01, 2008; ... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] It is perhaps only a slight exaggeration to suggest that, on their own, foreign forces cannot defeat an insurgency; the best they can hope for is to create the conditions that will enable local forces to win it for them. --John Nagl, Learning ...
Constructive engagement: a proven method for conducting stability and support operations.
May 01, 2008; ... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] In the Iraqi theater of operations (ITO), successful conduct of stability and support operations (SASO) requires an imaginative combination of lethal and nonlethal methods. For the U.S. Army's 1st Cavalry Division, the combination is known as constructive ...
Will the Army ever learn good media relations techniques? Walter Reed as a case study.(Walter Reed Army Medical Center controversy)(Case study)
May 01, 2008; ... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] The views expressed in this article are the author's and are not necessarily those of the Industrial College of the Armed Forces, the National Defense University, or the Department of Defense. If you ever wanted a near-perfect case study of how ...
Through an Arab cultural lens.(INSIGHTS)(Report)
May 01, 2008; ... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Retired Major General Robert H. Scales has described how in today's world, military victory "will be defined more in terms of capturing the psych-cultural rather than the geographical high ground." (1) It is in this spirit that we look at the Arab Middle ...
Islam and symbolism.(INSIGHTS)
May 01, 2008; ... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Islamic culture is resplendent with symbols containing historical, religious, and mystical elements. Persons working in the Middle East are advised to become familiar with them. Symbols resonate throughout Islamic cultures, from high art and ...
The Swordbearers: Supreme Command in the First World War.(MR Classics Revisited)(Book review)
May 01, 2008; ... THE SWORDBEARERS: Supreme Command in the First World War [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Officers in positions of high-level command have often found their responsibilities to be a heavy and lonesome burden. Dwight Eisenhower, who knew a few things about such command, once ...
Dying to Kill: The Allure of Suicide Terror.(Book review)
May 01, 2008; ... DYING TO KILL: The Allure of Suicide Terror, Mia Bloom, Columbia University Press, New York, 2007, 280 pages, $17.95. In Dying to Kill: The Allure of Suicide Terror, Mia Bloom lays out a theory of suicide bombing as a modern, non-Islamic phenomenon used by groups "when other military ...
What Makes a Terrorist: Economics and the Roots of Terrorism.(Book review)
May 01, 2008; ... WHAT MAKES A TERRORIST: Economics and the Roots of Terrorism, Alan B. Krueger, Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ, 2007, 180 pages, $24.95. As a company commander during Operation Iraqi Freedom, I was responsible for the security of a small but well-to-do neighborhood in ...
Hog Pilots, Blue Water Grunts: The American Military in the Air, at Sea, and on the Ground.(Book review)
May 01, 2008; ... HOG PILOTS, BLUE WATER GRUNTS: The American Military in the Air, at Sea, and on the Ground, Robert D. Kaplan, Random House, New York, 2007, $27.95, 428 pages. In Hog Pilots, Blue Water Grunts, Robert Kaplan continues his journey as an embedded reporter that began with Imperial ...
The Real All Americans: The Team that Changed a Game, a People, a Nation.(Book review)
May 01, 2008; ... THE REAL ALL AMERICANS: The Team that Changed a Game, a People, a Nation, Sally Jenkins, Doubleday, New York, 2007, 343 pages, $24.95. Sally Jenkins's The Real All Americans is a fascinating history of the U.S. Army-founded Carlisle [Pennsylvania] Indian Industrial School and ...
The Long War: A New History of U.S. National Security Policy Since World War II.(Book review)
May 01, 2008; ... THE LONG WAR: A New History of U.S. National Security Policy Since World War II, Andrew J. Bacevich, ed., Columbia University Press, NY, 2007, $75.00. Books sometimes promise more than they deliver. Despite the contemporary hook in its title, The Long War is not about the global ...
Danger Close: Tactical Air Controllers in Afghanistan and Iraq.(Book review)
May 01, 2008; ... DANGER CLOSE: Tactical Air Controllers in Afghanistan and Iraq, Steve Call, Texas A&M University Press, College Station, TX, 2007, 272 pages, $29.95. Service parochialism and institutional bias often degrade the role of close air support (CAS). Leading up to and during Operation ...
Nixon and Mao: The Week that Changed the World.(Book review)
May 01, 2008; ... NIXON AND MAO: The Week that Changed the World, Margaret MacMillan, Random House, New York, 2007, 404 pages, $27.95 For the American military, China is an old story reaching back to Treaty Port days and the Boxer Rebellion, and yet today Pentagon planners ponder the perplexing ...
Nato's Gamble: Combining Diplomacy and Airpower in the Kosovo Crisis 1998-1999.(Book review)
May 01, 2008; ... NATO'S GAMBLE: Combining Diplomacy and Airpower in the Kosovo Crisis 1998-1999, Dag Henriksen, Naval Institute Press, Annapolis, MD, 2007, 304 pages, $24.00. In Nato's Gamble, Dag Henricksen, a European airpower expert, analyzes Operation Allied Force, the confusing brawl that ...
Perfect Spy: The Incredible Double Life of Pham Xuan An, Time Magazine Reporter and Vietnamese Communist Agent.(Book review)
May 01, 2008; ... PERFECT SPY: The Incredible Double Life of Pham Xuan An, Time Magazine Reporter and Vietnamese Communist Agent, Larry Berman. HarperCollins, 2007, 328 pages, $25.95. Pham Xuan An was a stringer and then reporter for several important news organizations, ending with Time ...
Stalin's Wars: From World War to Cold War 1939-1953.(Cold War Books)(Book review)
May 01, 2008; ... STALIN'S WARS: From World War to Cold War, 1939-1953, Geoffrey Roberts, Yale University Press, New Haven and London, 2006, 468 pages. FROM ROOSEVELT TO TRUMAN: Potsdam, Hiroshima, and the Cold War, Wilson D. Miscamble, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2007, 393 pages, ...
General Walter Krueger: Unsung Hero of the Pacific War.(Book review)
May 01, 2008; ... GENERAL WALTER KRUEGER: Unsung Hero of the Pacific War, Kevin C. Holzimmer, University Press of Kansas, Lawrence, 2007, 329 pages, $39.95. Kevin C. Holzimmer's biography of General Walter Krueger fills an important gap in the history of fighting in the Pacific during World War ...
Rekindling U.S. holistic power in the 21st century.(MR Letters)(Letter to the editor)
May 01, 2008 ... Captain Charles Chao Rong Phua, Singapore Armed Forces--Secretary of Defense Robert Gates's article, "Beyond Guns and Steel" (Military Review, January-February 2008), seeks to rekindle the holistic power that the U.S. possessed and applied after World War II, but gradually forgot about ...
The man he killed.(Poem)
May 01, 2008; ... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] <Pre> THE MAN HE KILLED Had he and I but metBy some old ancient inn,We should have set us down to wetRight many a nipperkin! But ranged as infantry,And staring face to face,I shot at him as he at me,And killed ...