What is it about the U.S. military that tends to produce sound, pragmatic and commonsense ideas about the concrete present yet tends toward illogic, faddish paradigms and hyperbole when dealing with the abstract future? Joint operating concepts for dealing with post-Cold War security problems have proven difficult to get right. This is because they begin from the wrong logical starting point and thus define the problem incorrectly. It is also because of inattention to historical fact, definitional subtlety and the theoretical logic within which military forces must operate.rnThis inattention ignores inconsistencies in documents crafted more to sell the capabilities and programs championed by one military interest group or another to constituenciesrnwithin the Washington Beltway and fails to inform current decisions in the field. When the future becomes the present, the consequences of illogic, faddish paradigms and hyperbole in abstract concepts can pose insurmountable problems for pragmatic common sense. The Irregular Warfare Joint Operating Concept signed by the commander, U.S. Special Operations Command, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and Secretary of Defense on September 11, 2007, deals with the abstract future and exhibits the usual tendencies. We have been here before and are still suffering the consequences.
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