WASHINGTON: The Pentagon is painfully aware the world is changing. What the military’s clearly still struggling with is how we should change to cope.
That’s the less-than-reassuring implication of the new National Military Strategy, released a week ago by the outgoing chairman of the joint chiefs, Gen. Martin Dempsey. (I discuss the strategy and its shortcomings with Richard French of Regional News Network in the video above). While expectations tend to be low for such bureaucratic products, the new strategy make some important insights into new threats — only to prescribe familiar solutions.
“On the positive side the diagnosis is basically correct with regard to the strategic environment, [but] when it boils down to how the military needs to think about it, it becomes very linear again,” said Nathan Freier, an associate professor at the Army War College.