Armchair Generalist

Jane Austen's Fight Club

Hat tip to Kung Fu Monkey.

Cynefin Framework

Chris Bellavita has an interesting post over at the Homeland Security Watch talking about the Cynefin framework. I've never heard about it, but I want to learn more. It seems like a very good process to understand management decision making and risk management.

UPDATE: Applying the Cynefin framework to the BP crisis.

Hawaiian Munitions Are No Threat

And in the "no kidding" news, researchers from the University of Hawaii are declaring, after three years of work with submersibles, that the World War II chemical munitions in 1500 feet of water are no threat to the environment or to people in the area. Nothing like solid science to confirm what we all suspected.

The School of Ocean Earth Science and Technology, which did the study for the Pentagon, reported that although even the best-preserved munitions casings are deteriorating, the observations and data collected "do not indicate any adverse impacts on ecological health" in the study area, known as HI-05, the university said yesterday.
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Sediment, water and biological samples were analyzed at UH and independent laboratories on the mainland for munitions components, including TNT, chemical agents and metals.

The analytical methods used to detect munitions components "were effective," UH said.

"With the exception of one unconfirmed detection of mustard, neither chemical agents nor explosives were detected in any samples," the university said in a release.

The risk to human health from the consumption of fish and shrimp collected near the HI-05 Study Area was within Environmental Protection Agency "acceptable risk levels," according to UH. 

The munitions aren't coming up out of the water. It would be more risk to the people recovering the munitions and to the undersea environment if the munitions were unstable and started leaking because of the movement. The activists aren't happy, but it's unrealistic to do otherwise.

Here's one of the first posts I had about Hawaii's chemical history in February 2006.

UPDATE: The Associated Press picks up the story. The Army official quoted in the AP article works for the Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Army for Environment, Safety and Occupational Health.

Stewart Has a Point

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Best Leak Ever
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Tea Party

In reference to WikiLeaks, Jon Stewart remarks, "I'm not reacting to the 'newness' of it, I'm reacting to the fucked-up-ness of it..."

Hans Blix: "The Iraq War Was Illegal"

Dr. Hans Blix, former chief of the UN Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC) between 1999 and 2003, was called to testify at the British Iraq War Inquiry board. He was discussing the findings of the inspection teams in Iraq before the US invasion in 2003 - findings that weren't released until June 2003, months after the invasion began.

Asked about the inspections he oversaw between November 2002 and 18 March 2003 - when his team was forced to pull out of Iraq on the eve of the war - he said he was "looking for smoking guns" but did not find any.

While his team discovered prohibited items such as missiles beyond the permitted range, missile engines and a stash of undeclared documents, he said these were "fragments" and not "very important" in the bigger picture.

"We carried out about six inspections per day over a long period of time.

"All in all, we carried out about 700 inspections at different 500 sites and, in no case, did we find any weapons of mass destruction."

Although Iraq failed to comply with some of its disarmament obligations, he added it "was very hard for them to declare any weapons when they did not have any".

It's a popular meme for the conservatives in our country to claim that Saddam didn't allow the inspectors back into the country prior to the 2003 invasion, but in fact he did. The teams had a little over three months before they withdrew, and they only withdrew because they were warned that Iraq was about to become a war zone. It's also a popular meme for the conservatives to even deny that WMDs were the principle justification for the US invasion. The record shows otherwise.

I'm not particularly thrilled by Blix's behavior in 2002-2003. I think he was extremely passive, that he could have done much more prior to the invasion to alert the media and other countries that Iraq really had no WMD program to either threaten Western interests or to arm terrorists. But, like many scientists, he preferred to wait until all the data were in and a full report could be staffed for the United Nations. Now he spends his time trying to make up for that lapse in judgment.

Interestingly, the New York Times covers the same Blix testimony without using the words "weapons of mass destruction" at all. The editors there must have forgotten the paper's history in that department. Or maybe they're just embarrassed by it all.

So DOD Wants to Save Money?

Building on yesterday's post about SecDef Bob Gates looking for dollars to save, here's this story about how well DOD manages the money it has.

An audit of a $9.1 billion fund of Iraqi oil proceeds showed that most American military agencies entrusted with spending the money on reconstruction projects failed to adhere to U.S. rules on how such money must be tracked and spent, the inspector general found.

U.S. officials failed to create bank accounts for $8.7 billion in the Development Fund for Iraq, as mandated by the Department of Treasury, creating "breakdowns in controls [that] left the funds vulnerable to inappropriate uses and undetected loss," according to the report, which is scheduled to be released Tuesday.

The audit is the latest probe to fault the U.S. government for mismanagement of Iraqi funds in the years following the U.S.-led invasion in March 2003, which led to an insurgency and a years-long occupation.
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 The United States also has spent more than $50 billion in taxpayer money for reconstruction projects in Iraq.

Yeah. Come after USJFCOM and us contractors to save money. It's the easy thing to do. Ignore the billions of lost funds from the more obvious, but politically embarrassing sources. Forget about the obvious issue of fixing DOD's ridiculously broken financial system. And by all means, don't look at the operations and sustainment costs of major defense acquisition programs. We wouldn't want to try to address any systemic, long-term problems that might actually result in real cost-savings.

Real Face of Bioterrorism

George Smith scouts out reality from fiction:

The US government — specifically the Defense Threat Reduction Agency — paid to find out the level of threat that might be posed by oversees black market botox production being taken over by terrorists. And it was all over the news recently.

It’s worth noting the inspiration for analyzing such a problem — the diversion of botox to bad people — was minted here in the US, courtesy of the biodefense research industry. First.

In fact, mundane reality may reproduce the American model — the incidental poisoning of a few people here or there overseas, lining up for black market de-wrinklings, overdosed by the careless and incompetent greedy wanting a piece of the beauty industry action. 

Check out the post. It's a little long, but interesting.

RED Movie Trailer

Dame Helen Mirren: "I kill people, dear." More films like this, please.

The Absurd Discussions at OSD

There's been constant chatter around the Beltway about when the day comes where the Defense Department is going to get wacked. Some day, and this will not be tomorrow or next year or even before 2012, the defense budget will have to fall from its incredible rise. All things must eventually return to the norm. This NYT article notes the sentiments.

Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates has sought to contain the budget-cutting demands by showing Congress and the White House that he can squeeze more efficiency from the Pentagon’s bureaucracy and weapons programs and use the savings to maintain fighting forces.
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Mr. Gates is calling for the Pentagon’s budget to keep growing in the long run at 1 percent a year after inflation, plus the costs of the war. It has averaged an inflation-adjusted growth rate of 7 percent a year over the last decade (nearly 12 percent a year without adjusting for inflation), including the costs of the wars. So far, Mr. Obama has asked Congress for an increase in total spending next year of 2.2 percent, to $708 billion — 6.1 percent higher than the peak under the Bush administration.

Mr. Gates is arguing that if the Pentagon budget is allowed to keep growing by 1 percent a year, he can find 2 percent or 3 percent in savings in the department’s bureaucracy to reinvest in the military — and that will be sufficient money to meet national security needs. In one of the paradoxes of Washington budget battles, Mr. Gates, even as he tries to forestall deeper cuts, is trying to kill weapons programs he says the military does not need over the objections of members of Congress who want to protect jobs.

I don't quite agree with that assessment. DOD is going through some "efficiency drills" and forcing agencies to examine what they're doing and to give money back to OSD, but it's to reinvest in other weapon systems, other modernization efforts, so that no one has to make the tough decision to allocate funds for either modernization or combat operations in the Middle East. So SecDef Gates goes to the Defense Business Board and says, hey, help me out here with overhead costs. There's got to be some waste in overhead - there always is, right?

So I read in the Defense News that the DBB study group has some recommendations:

• disestablish the OSD Networks and Information Integration Office, because they have no authority to mandate anything to anyone
• Freeze all hiring actions for OSD, Joint Staff, or any combatant commands, because they're all fat enough from previous hiring actions over the past decade
• Eliminate the US Joint Forces Command, because they've got the most contractors of all of the combatant commands. Yeah. Really sound logic there.
• Curtail all "indirect spending" like duty station moves, business travel costs, and conferences, because those are all silly, unproductive things, too

Now I'm all for "efficiency" but this is just silly. In an attempt to find easy, fast ways to reduce defense spending, they'd rather carelessly cut into the muscle instead of looking for the real cost drivers - health care costs, recruitment and training costs, the ever-climbing costs of developing new equipment, and, oh, yeah, committing to unending combat operations in Afghanistan. Cutting back on hiring actions and travel and conference costs are only going to hurt the organization in the long run by reducing govvies and military staff to unimaginative drones handcuffed to their desks.

The USJFCOM hit is particularly annoying. The study group sees 14 subcommands and organizations in USJFCOM and finds out that there are more contractors than there are govvies, and so there must be something wrong. I wonder if they've considered that there is a cap on government strength and joint military billets, and given a stressful wartime environment, everyone (even USJFCOM) is being asked to do more with less. So of course it hire contractors - that allows a flexible approach to getting work done, then you can dismiss the contractors.

Here's the thing - if you want to get rid of USJFCOM, fine, but someone else is going to have to pick up the work. USJFCOM does a great deal of work for OSD and the Joint Staff, but since you've recommended to stop hiring for those agencies, the other combatant commands don't want the work, and the services sure as hell don't need the extra work, exactly who picks up the work? I know it may look like a lot of ash and trash, but someone thought this work had to be done. The DBB or OSD better have a transition plan, and if they transfer the work, they better supply bodies to the new organization - and then you haven't really saved any money, have you?

I'm not disparaging the DBB - they appear to have looked at a lot of business issues for OSD and they even have suggested priorities for the senior defense leadership. The problem is, as it always is, implementation - actually forcing bureaucrats to do their jobs, to become more far-looking, more efficient, more serious about addressing strategy and budget issues. And because our political process forces a turnover of all its political appointees every four to eight years, it does make it hard to envision success here. But honestly, DBB members, a little more creativity? A little more "truth to power" would be nice.

UPDATE: I missed another recommendation - the DBB suggests firing 15% of the civilian work force, pushing the numbers back to 2003 levels. This would mean about 111,500 people out of work. Yeah, good luck with that one.

The Challenge of Massenvernichtungswaffen

Two weeks ago, Defense News ran an article about the German military - the State Secretary had released an eight-page "Guidelines for the Planning of the New Bundeswehr." What caught my attention was that the guidelines said that "traditional and asymmetric threats, including weapons of mass destruction and their delivery systems, will not emerge in geographically limited areas." That's the Defense News interpretation. I didn't quite understand that. 

Curious, I called on Sven Ortmann at "Defense and Freedom" to help out. He suggested that the translation was a little off. The document was noting trends for the next decade. These would include "a rising risk of proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and their carrier systems" - and separately - "a increasing number of players from whom a mixture of traditional and asymmetric risks emanates, who may not manifest themselves geographically in their own country or elsewhere" or in short form, hybrid threats. Also a nod about the threat of nicht-staatliche Akteure, or non-state actors.

This is not to say that the German military is overly concerned about the threat of terrorist WMDs. The guidelines seem to be more of a justification for how the government intends to shrink the military and reduce its commitments rather than expand to meet limitless and nebulous threats, as the US military prefers. 

WMDs - Massen (large) Vernichtungs (annihilation) Waffen (weapon). So that's my language lesson today. 

WikiLeaks Update

If you want a recap of the op-eds discussing the WikiLeaks release of 92,000 documents, see the Small Wars Journal here. But don't expect any new, astonishing relevations, lots of yawns from the usual Afghan watchers. But there's something else here - the fact that the dog didn't bark. These are routine situation reports, but they show a staggering loss of momentum in that nothing in Afghanistan has really changed in the six years of documented reports. As Spencer Ackerman notes, the recent news "conceals what’s really valuable about the leaked logs: they’re a real-time account of how the U.S. let Afghanistan rot."

Adam Weinstein points out that the numbers of action reports pick up in 2008-2009, reflecting more boots on the ground:

Probably the most significant thing about the SIGACTS is that they're counted and graphed by the military as a metric of how we're doing, and the obvious thing about the Afghan War Diary is that there are tons more entries for recent months in 2008 and 2009 than there were in previous months through the war. That's also a function of numbers of US and coalition forces; just as crime goes up when you put more cops on the street, SIGACTS probably should go up when you put more boots on the ground. And bear in mind, it's not an apples-to-apples comparison; more SIGACTS may mean more good things, like arrests and caches found, rather than civilian and coalition casualties. Even so, the most recent numbers are pretty sobering.

To me, this just refocuses the attention on the "lost years" between 2004-2007 when the Bush administration basically did nothing to improve the situation in Afghanistan. And maybe there was nothing to improve - but it calls into question the basic assumption that military manpower is the only means to implement the Afghan strategy - such that it is - and whether keeping US ground forces in Afghanistan for four years or ten years or even twenty years is ever going to make a difference. And if it isn't going to make a difference, then there's no reason for the Obama administration to do anything but start the withdrawal of forces after the mid-term elections.

UPDATE: Also see Fred Kaplan's excellent summary of the situation. "If any of this startles you, then welcome to the world of reading newspapers. Today's must be the first one you've read."

UPDATE 2: Rebutting Kaplan, Exum, et al, James Fallows goes past the "everyone knows this" and points out "yeah, but the leaks point out the absurdity of suggesting we're going to 'win' this conflict - so what the hell exactly are we doing?"

Karl Rove is the Asshats of all Asshats

No one will ever be able to topple Karl "Turdblossom" Rove from his championship position of the asshat to beat all asshats. His constant attempts to rewrite the CheneyBush administration's history as a benign, gentle period of progress is a continuous blight on American culture. About a week ago, he placed an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal decrying the Democratic politicians' attacks on the CheneyBush record, in particular accusations that the CheneyBush administration lied about the WMD justification behind the Iraq invasion. If only he had led a counterattack against that wicked, wicked lie...

At the time, we in the Bush White House discussed responding but decided not to relitigate the past. That was wrong and my mistake: I should have insisted to the president that this was a dagger aimed at his administration's heart. What Democrats started seven years ago left us less united as a nation to confront foreign challenges and overcome America's enemies.

We know President Bush did not intentionally mislead the nation. Saddam Hussein was deposed and eventually hung for his crimes. Iraq is a democracy and an ally instead of an enemy of America. Al Qaeda suffered tremendous blows in the "land between the two rivers." But Democrats lost more than the election in 2004. In telling lie after lie, week after week, many lost their honor and blackened their reputations.

Unfortunately, our memories go deep, and the written record is pretty clear. On March 17, 2003, in a televised speech to the nation, President GW Bush stated:

Intelligence gathered by this and other goverments leaves no doubt that the Iraqi regime continues to possess and conceal some of the most lethal weapons ever devised. This regime has already used weapons of mass destruction against Iraq's neighbors and against Iraq's people. The regime has a history of reckless aggression in the Middle East. It has a deep hatred of America and our friends. And it has aided, trained, and harbored terrorists, including operatives of al Qaeda. The danger is clear: using chemical, biological, or one day, nuclear weapons, obtained with the help of Iraq, the terrorists could fulfill their stated ambitions and kill thousands or hundreds of thousands of innocent people in our country, or any other. ... Saddam and his sons must leave Iraq within 48 hours.

Always fun to note how the past administration used the term "WMD" instead of just "chemical weapons" when referring to Halabjah and the Iraq-Iran war. It's hard today to find senior defense officials who consider chemical weapons in the same phrase as "WMD." But of course, I don't expect any mainstream media talking head to call Turdblossom on his lies in this article. That would be contrary to their policy of "fair and balanced" reporting.

Who Leaked The WikiLeaks' Documents?

I haven't had time to review or reflect much on the WikiLeak's disclosure of 92,000 classified documents to the NY Times, the London Guardian newspaper, and the German magazine Der Spiegel. After taking a cursatory cursory look at some of the news articles, I can't say that I'm surprised at all. At best, it only reflects the lack of good reporting that we've seen to date on the war in Afghanistan - adequate reporting perhaps on the surface of things, but no in-depth analyses resulting in a good understanding of the conflict. The NYT says:

The documents — some 92,000 reports spanning parts of two administrations from January 2004 through December 2009 — illustrate in mosaic detail why, after the United States has spent almost $300 billion on the war in Afghanistan, the Taliban are stronger than at any time since 2001.

As the new American commander in Afghanistan, Gen. David H. Petraeus,tries to reverse the lagging war effort, the documents sketch a war hamstrung by an Afghan government, police force and army of questionable loyalty and competence, and by a Pakistani military that appears at best uncooperative and at worst to work from the shadows as an unspoken ally of the very insurgent forces the American-led coalition is trying to defeat.

The material comes to light as Congress and the public grow increasingly skeptical of the deepening involvement in Afghanistan and its chances for success as next year’s deadline to begin withdrawing troops looms.

The dialogue runs directly counter to the military's positive spin on the conflict, as leaders such as Petraeus stubbornly insist that "victory" in Afghanistan is still possible. Just give it another four years or so. As I said, I don't think the reports will tell you anything particularly new (Charli Carpenter agrees). But what I find more interesting is trying to determine who might have sent these documents to WikiLeaks - 92,000 classified documents, mostly tactical level reports, over a six-year period. Is this person a military officer who has seen one too many operations go south? A low-level DOD civilian, secretly frustrated at the mismatch between reality and the manufactured news on the television? A poorly-screened defense contractor, taking advantage of stressed out defense personnel to slip messages out to other confederates?

Who is this modern-day Daniel Ellsberg?

UPDATE: Noah Shachtman points to a WikiLeaks document that notes a chemical weapons scare in Afghanistan around mid-February 2009. I didn't know about that one, but I  will stress the point "scare," that it wasn't a chemical weapon. Nor should you assume that the Taliban or al Qaeda has a WMD program when the best it can do is use small amounts of industrial chemicals to attack the unprotected public.

Kudos to Kings of War

The posts and discussions on defense strategy are always excellent over at the blog "Kings of War." While I have the rather low bar of providing commentary and general observation on US defense issues, their community is much more consistent at discussing a higher level of academic views on various strategic defense topics. In particular, I just wanted to point out these two recent posts.

David Betz talks about the lack of strategic planning by the United Kingdom as it enters its sixth year of combat operations in Afghanistan:

In 2009, six years after going to war there was still no strategy and really no one in charge. Insane? No, it’s childish; it is as though a child having pestered and begged for a complex and expensive toy realizing after having removed it from the eye-catching packaging that it was beyond its meagre ability shoved the unassembled bits into the back of the closet to be forgotten. It is to be hoped that henceforth our wars will be directed by grown-ups.

Yeah, we're hoping for the same over here. Doesn't look so good, though. David Ucko talks about the rise and fall of military doctrine concerning counterinsurgency operations:

A powerful reason why counterinsurgency today is so unpopular is because its principles are looked upon as strategy in their own right. As should be clear, the principles and theory of counterinsurgency are only relevant as a means toward a strategic end, which itself may be more or less realistic: to help a country recover from protracted conflict; to bolster the legitimacy and reach of a government, etc. Even then, the theory is not a silver bullet but mere guidance – a collection of lessons learned – that may help in the design and implementation of an effective campaign plan, a plan that must, as counterinsurgency theory clearly stipulates, be adapted for specific environments.

Afghanistan muddies the water here, because the link between the stated strategic goal (to ‘disrupt, dismantle and defeat al-Qaeda’) and the operational tenets of counterinsurgency is difficult to discern, not just because of the practical difficulties of ‘state-building’ in Afghanistan, but also because al-Qaeda is not limited to Afghanistan, or even to Pakistan, but would subsist even if the region turns into Central Asia’s answer to Switzerland (there are some parallels).

I think the same issues plague our discussions on combating/countering WMD strategy. We have "principles" that are considered strategy in their own right, often disassociated with the main purpose of the military combat operations or irregular warfare underwway. So the best we get right now are people who spend their time worrying about the Taliban getting nukes from Pakistan and giving them to al Qaeda, who intend to turn our major metropolitan cities into radioactive wastelands. Meanwhile, serious capability gaps continue in our military capabilities to address the use of nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons on the battlefield.

Anyway, don't miss out on these excellent topics. A day without "Kings of War" is like a day without sunshine.

Making War More Civilian-Friendly

Charli Carpenter identifies some "good news stories" relating to the use of military weapons in urban settings. First of all, as noted by the Danger Room, the US military is pulling its "less-than-lethal" Active Denial System out of Afghanistan after just deploying it there a short while ago. This is due more to policy and perception issues than technical issues. I, for one, am very supportive of the decision to return to the previous "population-centric COIN approach" of authorizing our troops to shoot up busses and cars with old-fashioned lead ammunition as the preferred way to stop potentially hostile vehicles (/snark off).

In other news, the Israeli military is revising its operations playbook to restrict the use of white phosphorus munitions in urban areas, following its brutally one-sided armed conflict with Gaza more than a year and a half ago. From the official report, I note this paragraph on page 24:

The use of smoke-screening munitions containing phosphorus during the Gaza Operation was also addressed in a special command investigation dedicated to the issue. This investigation determined that the policy of using such munitions was consistent with Israel’s obligations under the Law of Armed Conflict. Nonetheless, following that investigation, the Chief of the General Staff ordered the implementation of the lessons learned from the investigation, particularly with regard to the use of such munitions near populated areas and sensitive installations. As a consequence, the IDF is in the process of establishing permanent restrictions on the use of munitions containing white phosphorus in urban areas.

This might be a good thing for the US Army and Marine Corps to consider as well. I don't say this believing that armed forces ought to "prioritize humanitarian concerns over tactical considerations," as Dr. Carpenter suggests this trend indicates. I think these actions are being taken strictly out of concern that the US and Israeli militaries really don't want the bad press, not that they are overly concerned about civilian casualities while engaging enemy forces. But I'm a cynic. I agree with the sentiment, but don't believe it to be any admission that there's anything wrong with the use of the Active Denial System or white phosphorus munitions. War will always be hell.

Run Away, Run Away! (Int'l Aspect)

Chilean government officials had to deal with a suspicious package marked "ANTHRAX" just a week ago... it was sent to their foreign ministry office in Santiago.

After testing the parcel, the Institute of Public Health ruled out the presence of any infectious agents associated with bioterrorism, according to the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

The government temporarily closed the ministry building to visitors Tuesday when the package was discovered.

Every nation has their nuts, I guess. Still no sign of the G-T comedy team's mass casualty bioterrorist incident.

Phishing Line

Got this in the email today.

Hello.

I am in need of your assistance, Am Sgt John Brown. The Sergeant of the Army of the United States, I have about 15.7 million US dollars that i want to move out of Iraq. I need a good  partner,someone i can trust to actualize this venture. The money is from oil proceeds and legal.

However, I want to move it by diplomatic means to your house directly or a safe and secured location of  your choice using diplomatic security services and my personality as the Sgt. Can I trust you? Once  the funds get to you, you take your 20% out and keep 80% for me. Your part of this deal is to find a  safe place where the funds can be sent to and my part is sending it to you.

If you are interested reply and I will furnish you with more details. Kindly treat this email  confidential as i won't want anything that will jeopardise my image as the Sgt.
Urgently awaiting your response.

Yours sincerely
Sgt John Brown.
U.S Army.

Strangely enough, the reply goes to a yahoo email address and not to the John-Bl@usarmy.com address. Should I help out Sgt Brown? It certainly sounds legit.

Casual Fridays

Courtesy of Andrew Sullivan.

Why Do Tea Partiers Hate America?

Remember the good old days when all Americans had the freedom to worship as they wished, where they wished? Why do Newt Gingrich and Sarah Palin hate American values?

UPDATE: Other similar stories across America pour in.

Putting the DADT Surveys in Perspective

Igor Volsky at the Wonk Room has a good post discussing the Defense Department's ongoing survey of military personnel as to their opinions on the open integration of homosexuals and lesbians into the armed forces. Interestingly, a similar survey was conducted prior to the integration of blacks into white military units in the 1940s. Segregated black units had served with distinction in the two world wars, and President Truman was determined to integrate them into the mainstream.

I traveled to the National Archives and recovered some of the surveys the military conducted about the troops’ attitudes towards black people between 1942 and 1946. At the time, the military — along with the overwhelming majority of the country — opposed integrating black servicemembers into the forces and preferred a ’separate but equal’ approach that would have required the military to construct separate recreation spaces and facilities. One month before Truman’s order, a Gallup poll showed that 63% of American adults endorsed the separation of Blacks and Whites in the military; only 26% supported integration.

These surveys show that the same attitude pervaded the military: 3/4 Air Force men favored separate training schools, combat, and ground crews and 85% of white soldiers thought it was a good idea to have separate service clubs in army camps.

While smaller, these racial polls share some common questions with the DADT survey. In fact, in some instances one can even replace “negro” for “gay” and end up with today’s questionnaire. Both polls ask servicemembers if they objected to working alongside minorities, how they felt serving with minorities, how effective minorities are in combat and if their feelings have changed about the minority after serving with them. (Interestingly, 77% of respondents said they had more favorable opinion).

I kind of wonder if there were political conservatives back then who were decrying the use of the armed forces as "social experimentation" as some do today. I don't know who in the DOD is running this survey, but I think it's been poorly handled as a strategic communication issue. It appears that a majority of troops, in particular the enlisted, aren't going to have many issues at all. It's also clear that there will be a significant portion of the military (albeit a minority) who do have issues, whose conservative values will conflict with their professional views. What history ought to inform us is that it's certainly possible to overcome these narrow, personal views and that there will be no decline in effectiveness, as long as we have strong leaders and professional execution of responsibilities. So let's get on with it.