Thomas E. Ricks's Blog, page 65

Is there a Chinese window of opportunity for attacking within about 5 to 10 years?

By
Robert Haddick


Best
Defense guest columnist

There is an interesting
question about whether China's military leaders may view their "window of
opportunity," assuming they even think in those terms.

I raise this
because, in addition to China's mounting internal issues, there is the trend in
comparative military modernization over the next 15 years. That is, on the U.S.
side, very little new technology or capacity is slated to arrive out to 2025. For
example, because of its limited combat radius and vulnerable bases, PLA leaders
don't have to worry much about the F-35 A/B/C. China's anti-ship missiles
checkmate U.S. surface naval forces. The United States is adding Virginia-class
attack subs but is subtracting Los Angeles-class subs even faster, resulting in
a net reduction in the sub fleet. At the current pace, the new U.S. bomber
won't arrive until later next decade. And the United States does not have any
missile programs to overcome China's land-based range advantage.

However, past 2025,
the new U.S. bomber will arrive. High-power directed energy defenses may also
arrive at that time, making surface forces relevant again. And investments in
autonomous and low-cost long-range unmanned systems may be a competitive U.S.
advantage later next decade.

On the other hand, China
is leaping forward. While the United States is fallow over the next 10 years,
China's C4ISR networks will fill out, its Flanker inventories will continue to
grow, J-20 long-range stealthy strike-fighter regiments will arrive, and
China's submarine fleet will grow, improve in quality, and outnumber the U.S.
Pacific submarine fleet by more than two-to-one. Most important, China's
land-attack and anti-ship missile forces will continue to expand, areas where
the United States has much less happening.

Adding it up, the
Chinese "window" may open the widest between 2020 and 2025, after
which it may begin to close. Whether China's leaders see it the same way
remains to be seen.

Robert Haddick, a former Marine officer, is the author of a book
on Chinese military technology that is scheduled to be published in September
by the U.S. Naval Institute Press.

Too soon or too lowbrow? Why Fox's new Army comedy 'Enlisted' bombed -- and why it's actually significant that it did

By Jim Gourley


Best Defense chief of military cultural affairs

For those who missed it (and if you couldn't tell
by the headline, pretty much everyone did), Fox recently debuted a new
military-themed comedy, Enlisted, that is based on the antics of three brothers in a Rear-D unit filled
with misfits.

I'm not a good judge of comedy, so when I initially
saw the trailer use a prosthetic leg in a prop gag and call Rear
Detachment a dumping ground for rejects, I asked friends both in the veteran
and active-duty communities if the show had doomed itself with an insensitive
approach. The responses surprised me. A few with severe physical injuries and
PTSD who have struggled with suicidal thoughts actually thought the writing was
helpful. They believed that this kind of comedy would facilitate conversations
about their challenges and make their condition seem more approachable. For
them, humor is the best medicine. Others took offense owing to the belief that
such jokes are only funny when servicemembers who've actually lived through the
experience are telling them, not actors "who's worst day has been when
Starbucks ran out of soy milk." Overall, though, the general consensus
appeared to be, as another respondent wrote me, that "this would have been
too soon five years ago, but it seems okay now."

While this might have been a good year for
uniformed yucks, indications are that the show's casualties are a result of
being deployed to a hostile time slot. It went up against 9 p.m.
heavyweight Shark Tank and lost
miserably. Fox has ordered 13 episodes to be made, but unless things turn
around that may be the end of it. Some reports claim that Fox never anticipated
it doing well to begin with. That's the odd part. If Enlisted gets an "OTHC" stamp on its discharge, it will
join a very small band of military comedies that didn't work out.

On the whole, military-themed comedies have a
pretty successful track record. Of course, the king of them all is M*A*S*H, which dominated the Nielsen
ratings and collected Emmys like bottle caps during its 11-year run. But there
are in fact several military-themed shows that did outstandingly well. Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C. regularly drew more
than a quarter of all television viewers during its time slot in the course of
its run from 1964-1965. And while The
Phil Silvers Show (a.k.a., "Sergeant Bilko") and Hogan's Heroes only went four and six
seasons, respectively, they both managed to crack into the top-25 shows in the
Nielsens in the early days and embed themselves into the consciousness of pop
culture long afterward. Even less successful entries like McHale's Navy and Major Dad
made it through four seasons. Within that historical lineup there's also a blueprint
for success. With the exception of M*A*S*H
(which broke many of the rules), the shows went to great lengths to avoid
actual combat activities or to discuss the fighting or politics of the wars
they were set in. The improbability of Gomer
Pyle's success during the height of the Vietnam War is matched only by the
audacity of its concept as a military show affording people an escape from
their everyday problems. Yet that's the underlying formula to all of them.

History may also show a well-worn path to failure.
When you compare the crusty exterior of
Enlisted's protagonist and his abrasive interactions with his caricatured
subordinates to failed shows like C.P.O.
Sharkey and Private Benjamin,
maybe it's more than just a time slot sending Enlisted to the same fate.

What's even more curious is that, if the show
fails, it will add to a pretty dismal streak for military-themed shows in
recent years. ABC's drama Last Resort
tanked after just 13 episodes last year, as did FX Network's 2005 attempt, Over There. NBC's E-Ring only made 22 showings in 2005, despite Jerry Bruckheimer's
best efforts. The services haven't even been able to gain traction in that most
banal refuge, known as reality television. Stars
Earn Stripes had more problems at launch than the F-35, Survivor cast alum and Navy SEAL Rudy
Boesch couldn't make USA's Combat
Missions mission-capable, and G4's Bomb
Patrol Afghanistan made it only a single season.

The two standouts are JAG and NCIS. JAG ended an impressive 10-year run in
2005. NCIS is still one of the most
popular shows in America 11 years after it spun off from JAG. Both shows owe their success to creator Donald P. Bellisario,
who has said explicitly that he doesn't do comedy, so there's probably little
hope for Enlisted on that front.

Maybe in the end it's not too soon for a comedy.
Maybe a sergeant who can laugh about his misfortune to hit an IED -- and make
us laugh with him -- is exactly what we need right now. But maybe what those
veterans and servicemembers who wanted a comedy so much need is a show that is
daring enough to contextualize that humor with the reality of our military's
disposition.

Again, I'm not a comedy writer. But I did spend a
couple of nights at the Holiday Inn Express in Tikrit, and I know that the
underlying basis of all things funny about the military is the surreal level of
absurdity bred of its seriousness. An appreciation of that is what made M*A*S*H and Gomer Pyle a few good shows, and a lack of it is perhaps what
keeps Enlisted from being all it
could be.

Mr. Gourley can write
about anything he wants, because he is the chief cultural correspondent for the
Best Defense. And yes, I asked him to include F Troop in this commentary.

To boldly read what no service chief has recommended before: Thoughts on sci-fi

By Michael Clauser


Best Defense guest literary critic

Want to think
about the future? Try science fiction. The scientists, engineers, and
mathematicians only come after to solve the inevitable technological challenges
posed first by the writers.

After all, it was
Jules Verne's Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea (1870) that
envisioned the submarine and his From the Earth to the Moon (1865) that
articulated a coherent vision for space travel. Mary Shelley's Frankenstein
(1818) suggested the interoperability and regeneration of body parts (BTW: Are
you an organ donor?). What are the iPhone or Android smartphones other than
early attempts at the "tricorder" from Gene Rodenberry's Star Trek (1966)? Speaking of androids, Karel
Capuk's R.U.R. (1920) introduced the very word "robot" into the English
lexicon -- though today we call the type that flies over certain countries
"drones" and the type that sweeps your floors Roombas. H.G. Wells's The War
of the Worlds (1897) featured a "heat ray" weapon, well before Boeing's YAL-1
Airborne Laser or Raytheon's Active Denial System. The recent controversy over the NSA's bulk collection of telephone
metadata has engendered comparisons to George Orwell's dystopian 1984 (1949). Big data makes the Nest thermostat self-learning, though
not self-aware -- yet -- but when the glowing red circle does, it
might rename itself "HAL" from Arthur C. Clarke's 2001: A Space Odyssey
(1968).

If science fiction
literature is so vital to pushing the envelope on "what could be" in future
technological advances, why does the genre feature so dismally in the myriad
military reading lists published by Pentagon brass? In fact, the number of
science-fiction books -- if
they appear -- barely number more than the number of Harlequin romances. Look
for yourself:

Chairman Joint Chiefs of Staff List




Army Chief of Staff List 2014




Marine Corps Commandant's Professional Reading List 2013




Chief of Naval Operations Professional Reading Program




Air Force Chief of Staff Reading List 2013

When science
fiction does appear on service chiefs' reading lists, it's usually Robert
Heinlein's Starship Troopers (1959) or Orson Scott Card's Ender's Game
(1985), two volumes that present stark, stylized, and idealized notions of
leadership, statesmanship, strategy, or virtue useful for leadership development.
Both are stellar works -- as are Frank Herbert's Dune (1965) and Isaac
Asimov's Foundation (1942) -- two of my favorites. But the technological
speculation in these books, like their futuristic settings, is secondary to
their narratives on leadership and strategy.

This leaves the
question: Which works of contemporary science fiction should young military
officers read for a glimpse into the future of military technology? If drones,
cyber, biotech, nukes, lasers, subs, and commercial space travel are all now --
then what's next? Invisibility? Nanite warfare? Cyborgs? Teleportation?
Telekinetics? Time travel? Cryogenics? What science-fiction predictions of
today would make even DARPA giggle?

One colleague
suggested titles like Jon Scalzi's Old Man's War (2007), Joe Haldeman's The Forever War (2012), Charles Stross's Accelerando (2005), Ian MacDonald's The
Dervish House (2010), and Mark
Jacobsen's Lords of Harambee (2012). Another suggested Alas, Babylon (2013) by Pat Frank, Nevil Shute's On
the Beach (2010), A Canticle for Liebowitz (1984) by Walter M. Miller, and The Sten Series (2010) by
Allan Cole and Chris Bunch.

Unable to vouch
for many of these myself, I leave it up to readers of the Best Defense to
suggest today's science fiction titles for tomorrow's military technology. What do you
think?

Michael Clauser works in tech, but sure didn't
major in science, technology, engineering, or mathematics at Penn State. He
served in the administration of George W. Bush in the Pentagon, on Capitol
Hill, and is an officer in the U.S. Navy Reserve. He thanks his Dad for
introducing him to science fiction at a young age. The views and opinions of
the author expressed herein do not necessarily state or reflect those of the U.S.
Navy, the U.S. Government, or Starfleet Command.

The Future of War: An interim roundup of CNAS, Horowitz, and Allenby, plus some questions and an update on the contest

Dunno why, but it
seems like everyone suddenly is talking about the future of war.

My FoW/FP teammate Rosa
Brooks is thinking of
bravely challenging the Clauswitizian doctrinaire view that the nature of war
is never-changing. Sooner or later she will post it.

Meanwhile, my old
homies at CNAS are strongly, pragmatically, and principledly thinking about "Preparing for War in the Robotic Age." They worry that "the preeminence enjoyed
by the United States ... is starting to erode." Unlike Cold War technology
advances, they warn, the great leaps forward of the robotic age are going to
come from the commercial sector, not the old "military-industrial complex."

As for me, I found
the CNAS study a bit too in awe of the work of Andrew Marshall's Office of Net
Assessment. I am as much a fan of Marshall and the ONA as the next wonk -- I
wrote a nice page one profile of him for the Wall
Street Journal about 20 years ago -- but I don't think Marshall has as high
a betting average as the CNAS co-authors, Robert O. Work and Shawn Brimley,
seem to believe. For example, I think Marshall badly missed the centrifugal
weaknesses of the Soviet Union back when they were evident to others, such as
Murray Feshbach. (I remember editing a piece by Murray in 1979, when I was a
junior editor at the Wilson Quarterly,
that predicted the Soviet Union would collapse. Sorry, no link! This was before
the Internet, kids.) I also suspect he is overestimating China's future
strength.

That said, the CNAS
study is especially significant because the lead author, Mr. Work, is in the
chute to be the next deputy secretary of defense. Given that the current sec
def appears rather weak and detached, Work is likely to be unusually
influential.

Next up, Michael
Horowitz, whose Diffusion of
Military Power was recently and enthusiastically reviewed in the blog, has a similar piece, "Coming next in military tech," in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. This is a bit of dueling
Pentagon offices: Just as the CNAS guys are in thrall of Andy Marshall,
Horowitz seems to be relying in part on work done by the Pentagon's acquisition
office and its many allies. He emphasizes that the race is not to the swift,
that "the global winners when it comes to these new technologies will not be
those who prototype the first new gadget, but those who figure out how to use
it best to generate military power." Like the CNAS guys, he worries more that the
United States will lose its current technological lead. He seems especially
concerned by the lack of work done on autonomous weapons systems.

In the same issue,
Braden Allenby, a name new to me, asks, "Are new technologies undermining the laws of war?" As it happens, I have on hand an entry
in the Future of War essay contest that addresses that question, and intend to
run it soon. In the meantime, Professor Allenby's answer is "yes" but he is not
sure how. Aside from that, the article provides a good overview for the
newcomer, but it is not in the same league as the papers by Horowitz or Work
& Brimley.

As I read all this,
I find myself wondering about two things:

Is the current
debate over whether
drone pilots deserve combat decorations, as covered by the
distinguished Gordon Lubold, really a discussion of the future of war? I think so,
because it turns on two questions: What is war today? What is a
combatant? 




And what will we
do the first time an autonomous weapon violates the laws of war? Do we
discipline its programmer?

Finally, keep those
Future of War blog submissions coming. I already have about 15 publishable ones
on hand, from everyone from a retired Army major general to a retired Marine
master sergeant, from NASA to the Naval Academy, from California to Alabama. I
already see a kind of consensus on some points emerging, though also some sharp
disagreements. I also am surprised how many Navy entries there are -- more than
from the Army and Air Force combined. One request: Please, no more footnotes!
They screw up the formatting process.

OK, here is how to cut off zipper problems once and for all -- end their jobs, too

By Capt. John Byron,
USN (ret.)


Best Defense department
of harassing sexual harassers

The
other day, the Washington
Post tallied over two dozen cases of
general and flag officers who've recently gotten across the breakers for
conduct not worthy of an officer. The article notes that two defense secretaries
in a row have called for thorough investigations of the situation and doubtless
there will emerge a call for more ethics training and sterner punishment of the
miscreants. No argument these measures are worthwhile, but they've been applied
before and the situation gets worse. 

I've a more practical solution to add to these commonplaces. And
in addition to attacking the primary problem, my proposal will also help solve
a second and perhaps related issue, that of too many flags overall. Let's do
this: Whenever a general/flag officer is removed from his position (damned few
women, if any, in this corps of cads), the position also be eliminated. That's right: body and
billet both be gone. 

Sure, this might leave a hole in a unit that must be refilled. OK.
The service involved can fill behind, but only if the body that goes in brings
with him a billet from somewhere else in the service; every flag/general
officer that gets fired reduces the total flag/general officer billet count in
his service by one.

Thus we weed out both useless officers and pretty much useless
billets, either where the guy was serving or from elsewhere in the big outfit.
Not only will this draw down the list of bad flags, it will also reduce the
number of excess flag officer jobs in our bloated and top-heavy services. 

It also will create in the chain of command above the potential
lowlife internal pressures to better police the flag ranks and prevent the loss
of a flag billet from the organization. If the bad guy's boss knows he's going
to lose both the bad guy and his job slot, maybe he'll pay more attention and
be less likely to turn a blind eye to what is, in almost every case, common
knowledge within the bad guy's organization.

Capt. John
Byron (USN, ret.) commanded submarines.

WDotW: Is this the ideal military unit?

An NCO who takes care of his unit, another member stands on
the lookout, and two guys in the background are just loafing and watching the
passing scene.

NDU professor faces homicide charges, former Canadian commander in Kabul jail

You turn over a rock and things come out. I learned
late yesterday that a professor at NDU, Jaime Garcia Covarrubias, was indicted
for homicide in November.

Covarrubias, a retired Chilean
brigadier who is listed in an NDU document as a "professor of national security
affairs," was charged three months ago with being involved in the deaths of
seven political prisoners in Temuco, Chile, in 1973. Apparently he is
still on the faculty of NDU. He is now in Chile, where he recently told a judge
that he needed to return to NDU, as he was still under contract, but the judge denied him permission to leave the country.

I queried the powers that be at NDU about this last
night. The spokesman responded:

Dr. Garcia Covarrubias is not
an employee of the National Defense University. He is a Title X (Department of
Defense civilian) employee of the Office of the Secretary of Defense with the
Defense Security Cooperation Agency serving as the Executive Agent. His current
appointment ends on February 25, 2014.

Please refer all future questions about Dr. Garcia Covarrubias's employment to
the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy, Public Affairs.

Tom again: I've asked for clarification -- are they
saying the alleged killer is an NDU faculty member but not an NDU employee?
That strikes me as quibbling. I will update if they respond.

In other unusual foreign military crime news, the Toronto Star reports that retired Brig. Daniel Menard, a former commander of
Canadian forces in Afghanistan, has been held in a jail in Kabul for the last
three weeks. So far no charges, the Star
says. As a former resident of Kabul, I have to wonder if this is a classic
Afghan shakedown. Menard, who got the boot from his military command for
boffing a female corporal, had been working for a security company. While in
(or out) of uniform, he also got in trouble over another kind of negligent
discharge, with his weapon.

However, Tawfiq Aziz, a current resident of
Kabul, reports on Michael Yon's Facebook page that he
called a friend at the interior ministry and was told that the issue is forged
papers for the movement of arms.

Comment from an NDU insider: MG Martin is a good guy but in over his head

Below is note I got this morning from an NDU insider.

Speaking of notes, I've had many from outraged NDU
faculty members (and others) unhappy with the broad Guamanian brush I used to
describe them yesterday. I apologize for that. I should
have been clearer that I was talking about some, not everyone. In addition to
the entrenched mediocrities, there are some great faculty members, too. I guess
I am just sad to see a once-great institution tarnished, losing enough lustre
to threaten its accreditation, and now facing what appears to be a crisis in
leadership or morale, or both.

Anyway, here is the note.

I can say from firsthand
knowledge that the problems you describe are accurate, but only scratching the
surface. General Martin is a truly friendly and
unbelievably enthusiastic individual ... but those traits are overshadowed by
his admittedly horrid personal time management abilities and nearly utter
disregard for his senior staff's time, a frustrating inability to prioritize
effort, inconsistent focus and vision, paralyzing personal indecisiveness, and
a shocking level of paranoia over many on his staff (to the point that he often
referred to some as "The NDU Taliban").

His actions were
often characterized as an ADHD child on a sugar-jag, or a Mr. Magoo
in uniform by some at the top echelons of the NDU's colleges. And
then there were the pettiness and ethical grey areas from the general that has
tarnished the reputation of the NDUP in the eyes of those who work with him on
a daily basis.

Good folks opted to leave rather
than work under the unstable an unpredictable leadership coming from the NDUP
and his Exec. Others have just hunkered down to wait out the current
administration. The staff alienation was palpable. Some of his senior staff
have gone so far as to cynically comment that the J7 must have brought general
Martin to the NDU as a "fall guy" during this difficult
transition time in the university's history, knowing that he would
set a new and lower leadership bar for his successor to build from in the
future. BG Martin is not a toxic leader in the traditionally abusive or amoral
manner of many other officers, but the leadership he delivers is
poisoning the NDU nonetheless.

This note
represents the views of the writer, and are not necessarily those of the
Defense Department or the U.S. government.

Why the plans to change NDU worry me

By Janet Breslin-Smith


Best Defense guest columnist

The issue here is
the growth of NDU as a mass of new centers, institutions, et cetera. With
each new president of NDU, there is a new initiative, a new center, a new
mission. Over the decades of this growth, the original idea, formulated by Dwight
Eisenhower and Hap Arnold, tends to get lost. 

War College is a
face-to-face, intensive course focused on presenting dilemmas to senior
military, diplomatic, intelligence community, and other national security
officials. Ask any graduate and they will attest to the quality of the
experience.

This assertion about NDU, that
it must be "one university," is a concept that baffles me. I now sit
on a board of a university in New England, and there is no talk about making
the graduate school of education the same core as the school of business or
engineering. Harvard would not combine the Kennedy School with its Medical School.
Where did this idea come from?

I am familiar with
core programs, online education, and traditional settings. National War
College is unique, with the other war colleges, in making an interagency
student body grapple with national security challenges. Centralizing the selection of faculty, the curriculum, and
decisions on programs is a mistake. There should be autonomy, and those
decisions should reside with the college. The "one university" idea only
seems to enhance the centralization of headquarters, management by those
not in the classroom and not involved in the program. 

Again, this is an
old story. More stars trump fewer stars. Cost-saving arguments cloud the growth
of NDU. This is a normal bureaucratic phenomenon. But to me -- a person not on the faculty, not trying to
protect a job -- I feel I can say that the college and NDU need more
oversight. Active involvement by the new Ike Skelton, whoever that might
be.

I can make a longer
argument for better strategy, more content and area studies at the school, but
those really are decisions for the leadership and faculty of the individual
schools to make. Not a centralized command structure that, according to Tom's article, does not allow for debate.

I am worried. The
idea, the concept, for the college cannot be delivered online, homogenized, or determined
by those not involved in teaching and evaluating. My two cents.

Dr. Breslin-Smith
was a member of NDU's faculty for 15 years, and was the first female to chair
one of its departments. She is the co-author, with Clifford Krieger, of The National War College: A
History of Strategic Thinking in Peace and War .
She recently returned from four years in Saudi Arabia, where her husband was the U.S. ambassador .

Life at NDU: Gen. Martin said to threaten to fire anyone who questions his plans

Army Maj. Gen. Gregg Martin, the president of the
National Defense University, announced -- not proposed -- to his senior
subordinates last Friday a series of abrupt and sweeping changes in the structure
of the institution. To top it off, by some accounts, he then threatened to
terminate anyone who even questioned the changes.

At the meeting, General Martin
said that he was laying out the way forward. He then emphasized that everyone
working at NDU needed to support his effort. He continued, according to some
NDU insiders, to threaten to move to terminate anyone who did not "get on
board."

In an e-mail to me
last night, Martin neither confirmed nor denied making such statements. Nor did
he seek to apologize for or retract them. Rather, he stated that his comments had
been "misinterpreted by some."

The general wrote that, "it
has come to my attention that some were concerned by my remarks on the
importance of moving forward as one team on the curriculum revision. It was not
my intent to cause concern for anyone's position at the University, but rather
to build a team approach to this important transformational effort. I regret
that my intent was misinterpreted by some."

But his comments seem
pretty clear to me. Martin's frustration with NDU's faculty is evident, and
somewhat understandable. Academics are naturally jealous of their turf, and
resistant to most changes. And academics on the federal payroll sometimes combine
the worst of both worlds -- academic snobbery swaddled in bureaucratic civil
service rules. Most of all, I support anything that improves the academic rigor
of NDU, and I am not sure that entrenched-for-life faculty members are
naturally on the side of the angels in this fight. Sometimes they resemble
Japanese holdouts on Guam, determined to fight to the last paycheck.

That said, Martin's
my-way-or-the-highway approach doesn't strike me as the way to go about it
either, especially in an institution that purports to teach strategic
leadership. This is not a commander taking a hill in combat, nor even a college
football coach preparing his players for the big game. The note below from one
person at NDU about the top-down changes being imposed alleges that Martin's
remarks amounted to "an unlawful threat." I'm no lawyers, so I'll leave that
issue to the DoD IG.

I also suspect that
the general's intimidating stance may be seen as impinging on academic freedom.
You'd think the leadership of NDU would have some concern with that, having
only recently gotten relief from the "warning letter"
issued in 2012 by its academic credentialing overseers. That statement of its
accreditation being in jeopardy was lifted last November, according to the
credentialing group's website. All this will no
doubt interest the Senate Armed Services Committee staffers who have been
sniffing around NDU lately.

On Monday afternoon I sent
an e-mail asking General Martin
and the spokesman for NDU for comment. He wrote
back Tuesday evening. FWIW, here is his entire note to me, which reads like it
was written by a committee:

Dear Tom,

Almost exactly two years ago (Feb 6, 2012), GEN Martin Dempsey, 18th CJCS, gave
NDU its refined Mission Statement, renewing our focus on our core area of
education and leader development by providing rigorous JPME to members of the
U.S. Armed Forces and select others. In his recently released 2nd Term Strategic
Direction to the Joint Force, the CJCS also said, "Education will serve as
a hedge against surprise, much as it has during previous interwar periods. Professional
Military Education should adapt to meet those dynamic needs. As we continue to
advance "One University" initiatives at National Defense University,
we will update joint PME curriculum across the force to emphasize key leader
attributes. We will also explore how best to adapt our learning institutions to
serve a global Joint Force, evaluating degree accreditation and distance
learning delivery methods."

As a result of this guidance converging with the current fiscal reality, it is
quite clear that business as usual is no longer sustainable. Thus, the Academic
Affairs Department, led by our Provost, has put forward an innovative concept
-- still in its 'vision' or 'commander's intent' phase.

There are three working groups led and populated by the faculty, exploring
implementation considerations to more effectively and efficiently leverage and
focus all of NDU's resources in a "Whole of NDU" application to our
core Mission, enabled by a common academic calendar. This will allow teaching, research,
and outreach across NDU to be more mutually supportive. It dedicates more time
for professional development and scholarship by the faculty. It concentrates
college resources on college-specific missions, so they can maintain and deepen
their comparative expertise. And, perhaps most important to the crucial role of
educating and developing the future leaders of Joint Force 2020, it is
student-centric with greater attention to student needs, professional
interests, and learning objectives.

Finally, it has come to my attention that some were concerned by my remarks on
the importance of moving forward as one team on the curriculum revision. It was
not my intent to cause concern for anyone's position at the University, but
rather to build a team approach to this important transformational effort. I
regret that my intent was misinterpreted by some.

In line with NDU's policy of
academic freedom and its promotion of critical thinking, I enthusiastically
invite and welcome all NDU employees to engage and ask those tough questions
about the direction the University is moving -- it is through this open and
dynamic exchange of ideas that we all learn and get smarter.

I extend my personal invitation to you to come visit NDU and engage with us on
this vitally important endeavor.

Wishing you all the best!

Respectfully,

Gregg

Gregg F. Martin, Ph.D.

Major General, U.S. Army

14th President

Tom again: Meanwhile,
here, below, is the note that set me off looking into this. I am told that
technically the deans and commandants (and there is a raftload of them) may not
have opposed the revisions -- because they actually weren't asked for their
opinions.

I work at the National Defense University.

Over the past several weeks it has become clear
that we are facing a crisis at the University.

In opposition to ALL of his Deans and
Commandants, the President of NDU, MG Martin, has decided to implement a
dramatic revision of the curriculum across all the War Colleges and degree
programs.

The "reforms" are not well-conceived.
But worse is the process. It is top-down and rushed. Components are going to be
required to restructure their curriculum in fundamental ways in a matter of
weeks. Even if there were support for these reforms -- and there is not --
there is not enough time to do it properly.

Realizing the flaws in the process, MG Martin
has issued a directive that anyone who raises concerns about the changes --
even within the chain of command, that is to the CJCS or J7 -- will be
immediately terminated.

Many of us believe this is an unlawful threat.

Furthermore, it seems clear that the imposition
of massive curriculum changes from the top down, in the face of opposition from
Deans, Commandants, and Faculty violates standards set by our accrediting
bodies and, if made public, would surely result in the loss of accreditation
for NDU.

Finally, it is not clear to me that MG has the
statutory authority to impose these changes which have the effect of
de-establishing the Eisenhower School and National War College as independent
entities.