My friend Drew is at it again. I love him like a brother, which is probably why he can get me so agitated. Drew’s web journal is a daily dose of “useless market insights” (his words not mine), mixed with a dollop of anti-U.S., anti-Bush/Rove/Rumsfeld/Wolf/Rice/Etc. diatribe. Today’s topic is the Lt. Cl. Charles Dunlap essay and Sidney Blumenthal’s column insinuating that this essay is currently circulating among top US military strategists. I trust that most of you are familiar with the Dunlap piece, a fairly fantastic work of fiction. Reading it today, I was struck by how dated the work seems despite having been written only 12 years ago.
However, there are some nuggets, one of which is particularly paradoxical:
advocates of “political correctness” succeeded in driving ROTC from the campuses of some of our best universities.{117} In many instances they also prevailed in barring military recruiters from campus.{118} Little thought was given the long-term consequences of limiting the pool from which military leadership is drawn.{119} The end result was much more homogeneous military elite whose outlook was progressively dissimilar to that of the nation’s more broadly-based civilian leadership.
In sum, an entertaining read, though in my opinion, not all that long on foresight.