For those who haven’t noticed, my review of Norman Podhoretz’s World War IV is up on Pajamas. I took more time than usual writing this one because a. I didn’t want to be misconstrued on such an important subject and b. Norman has been a hero of mine since I was a teenager. I used to read Commentary when I was in high school (I know, I know, what a nerd – and we didn’t even have that term then – nerd – and I had never heard of a neocon.)
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A WONDERFUL remark, Roger!
“…The best part of Podhoretz
When I was a girl, my father thought my sister and I knew a lot of boys with intellectual pretensions. He’d ask any boy who came into the house: “Who is Norman Podhoretz?” I married the first guy who knew the answer. OK, we’re no longer married but I don’t blame Podhoretz.
Interesting review on a book I now have to read. From your pointing out a couple key elements of ‘war campaign’ shortcomings that Norman Podhoretz didn’t write on, I would like to add one.
As covered in the news repeatedly over the last three years, our troops are continually challenged in getting the stuff they need in theater. Military leadership can tell you that there we have a crisis in getting technology and equipment out of our military acquisition pipelines and into the field (despite the installation and efforts of the Office of Force Transformation and the US Army Rapid Equipping Force, that are yet at odds with the old order system. You just have to review the Trophy PRG Defeat system issue, for one).
From my view over the last 5 years, you would have little idea we were in a war, much less WWIV. One may say that addressing this is someone else’s job, but the ultimate leadership is the President’s and he has not grasped the gravity of the issue and taken command of getting needed armor and new equipment directly through his military system to assure the speed critical to his success (much like he hasn’t engaged the public in this being a critical war that they must participate in).
As Commander-in-Chief of the US Forces, George W. Bush remains isolated from a tactical development which most addresses his doctrinal words of engagement in the war on restructuring stability in the Middle East, despite repeated efforts over the past three years from varied angles of getting his awareness of this. Being involved in the program, we have only asked him to grasp the capabilities gap he has. He doesn