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DeM Banter: can you have a strategic rethink without a strategy? I will need to Google the five think tank reports that rethink fundamental U.S. strategy. Another BUR? Hummmm.... ForeignPolicy.com March 8, 2013 The time for a strategic rethink at the Defense Department has arrived. It is signaled by the third straight year of declining …
Continue reading "Military Review How Chuck Hagel can show the generals who’s boss. By Gordon Adams"
DeM Banter: interesting..but are we not missing the point? Where's the trend line? Who is on the rise and who is in decline? By no means a done deal...but we have to be careful in what we choose to ignore. As my good friend Obi Wan Kenobi used to say "....but, there are alternatives to …
DeM Banter: does this bother anyone else? We really don't know what strategy is anymore...do we? National Security Strategy....really? Do we have one? 90% of all government plans should stem from there...at least on a foreign policy level...although one could argue...THAT is a primary job of the Federal Government and perhaps an NSS would in …
Continue reading "Don’t Let Strategy Become Planning by Roger Marti"
DeM Banter: Great piece from a bi-partisan group of leaders... remember bi-partisanship? Very fortunate to have met and worked with these stellar gentlemen at Hoover...also where much of the concepts behind the "Quantum Look" strategy in Wondering Where the Lions Are came from. The gotcha line...."It will take leadership, creative approaches and thoughtful understanding of …
New York Times March 5, 2013 SAN DIEGO -- EVERYONE talks about getting out of Iraq and Afghanistan. But what about Germany and Japan? The sequester — $85 billion this year in across-the-board budget cuts, about half of which will come from the Pentagon — gives Americans an opportunity to discuss a question we’ve put …
Continue reading "Come Home, America By Elizabeth Cobbs Hoffman"
I was glancing through a book this AM... The Top 10 Mistakes Leaders Make by Hans Finzel, and came across a chapter titled "No Room For Mavericks," and of course if got me to thinking...Many of today’s most inspiring businesses were created by maverick leaders who colored outside of lines and thought outside of the …
DeM Banter: A good conversation to have...too bad we can't do that as a nation. Many poor assumptions below, but that would all come out in a deeper convo... was it wise to cut 30+% after WWII, Vietnam, and the Cold War? We recovered, but it seems in hindsight it might not have been wise. …
Continue reading "How Much Should We Be Spending On The Military? By Jeannette Steele"
DeM Banter: Important piece here...need to ponder for a couple of days... great question at the end..."And if the future of power lies in disruption and interference, not management and consolidation, can we expect to ever know stability again..." Time to think different... things have shifted...we are just now beginning to comprehend and maybe understand. …
Continue reading "Why The Powerful Seem So Powerless By Moises Naim"
DeM Banter: so it would appear...not much has changed since leaving "The Building" in 2010 (been out of this game for a good while, so I really don't know). This was our "portfolio" in the J5...and trying to get the interagency to work, and it seems it definitely can...but it needs a system that will …
Continue reading "In A Crisis, Who Should Take Charge? By David Ignatius"
DeM Banter: Options? Sequester Iran? Not sure the world is getting any safer... Wall Street Journal March 2, 2013 Pg. 13 The Weekend Interview Veteran weapons inspector Olli Heinonen on how the U.N.'s 'Stockholm Syndrome' has aided Tehran's drive for the bomb--and why an unsettling secret may be lurking in the Iranian desert. Cambridge, Mass.--It …
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