Judith Klinghoffer is no fan of thhe President but she's no fan of the latest spate of retiring Generals either. She correctly points out that these guys are supposed to be tough as nails warriors. If they're so afraid of losing their jobs, they're in the wrong job. In From The Cold explains what realy military leaders do and have done in the past. They stand up to the civilian leadership in warfighing matters, not policy matters. They risk the consequences because their first responsibility is to their men, not politics. It seems there are too many that have forgotten. I think we need a greater number of retirements to get rid of the old guard. They do have valueable experience and institutional knowledge but that same legacy is hampering our ability to adapt to low intensity conflict. How many times can we refight World War 2? Large set piece battles are anachronistic. Massed troops equal mass casualties. Massed armor and even massed artiliary is a recipe for destruction. Mobility and tactical command at the unit level is the new way of war. C4I isn't just a whitepaper, it's reality. The outgoing class of officers are not information age warriors. Many of them do not understand the need to control information and how best to distribute that information either domestically or in theater. Domestically, they use the typical MSM channels that actively block their message in favor of body counts and footage of burning wrecks. They need to leverage the direct connection to the citizens. Podcasts, blogs and video produced in house and released virally would go a long way to message management.

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