There Are No Songs About Tea

The Army marches to the cadence of coffee, literally. You know the one. "They say that in the Army, the coffee’s mighty fine." From the first day of basic training soldiers learn that breaking for coffee provides warmth, camaraderie, and, sometimes, a brief respite from the insanity. Ours is a coffee army. So, why have recent articles suggested that the military leadership in Afghanistan was overly influenced by tea, specifically, Three Cups of Tea, the beleaguered book by Greg Mortensen? Because it this is a good story, and if the Army runs on coffee the American media runs on scandal. Nonetheless, the criticism of the military leadership is not entirely unfounded. There are several reasons that the Army has recently migrated towards a lighter caffeine source.

No Exit, No Problem

“♫Nowhere to run to baby, ♪ nowhere to hide. ♫” Those quintessential Vietnam -era lyrics from Martha and the Vandellas in 1965 describe well the passion with which the baby boomers assiduously avoid becoming stuck in political situations with “nowhere to run.” Being associated with a political quagmire akin to the Vietnam War is the kiss of death for political support for any contemporary military action. Accordingly, when the first U.S.-fired ordinance hit the ground in Libya, the question, “What is the exit strategy?” immediately exploded across the U.S. airwaves. The public wants to know, “Where can we run, baby?”

Read more at http://smallwarsjournal.com/blog/2011/04/no-exit-no-problem/

War by any other name is War

In Starship Troopers, Robert Heinlein wrote that, “War is controlled violence, for a purpose.” After the recent military intervention in Libya there has been a rush in some circles to distinguish the purpose of this most recent episode of ‘controlled violence’ from those military offensives launched by the United States against Iraq and Afghanistan in 2003 and 2001, respectively. Analyst aplenty, have published observations on the normative use of military force and even provided frameworks for analyzing the latter half of Heinlein’s quotation. However, to better inform ourselves on the context of the question of whether or not to initiate ‘controlled violence’, we, as citizens, must also be certain that we have a common understanding of what is meant by war.

Read more at http://smallwarsjournal.com/blog/2011/04/war-by-any-other-name-is-war/