First entry: U.S. Army War College Sixth Strategy Implementation Seminar

Hello everyone!  I am not an experienced blogger, but I thought I would open this up to allow myself to share thoughts and analysis on contemporary world political affairs, including matters affecting U.S. national security strategy and policy as well as issues of global significance, still focusing on security/strategic topics in most cases.


I thought I would start the new blog over the next week with thoughts and summaries from the Army War College seminar coming up July 18-22 at Carlisle Barracks, PA.  I was very honored to be nominated, much less selected, to attend this event.  Thanks to LTC Susie Kuilan, Ph.D, for the nomination! Sixty-six civilians were chosen from about 160 nominations.  My fellow participants come from a wide array of professional fields, including academia, journalism, and various corporate associations.  I am looking forward to hearing the speakers, including Gen. Barry McCafferey (USA ret) on the challenges facing national security strategy and policy.  You can view a Powerpoint presentation and/or hear an earlier version of Gen. McCafferey's talk here:  Gen. McCafferey on National Security Challenges   He gave the talk linked here in January, 2011, so I expect some updates to include commentary on the operation to take out Osama bin Laden and post-bin Laden al Qaeda. More about the seminar can be found here: Strategy Implementation Seminar Prospectus

From what I can tell, the 66 civilians will be divided into 22 teams of 3, each of which will be assigned to a team of USAWC students for informal discussions of topics given to us.  I'm very much looking forward to the seminar.  Throughout the week I will try to update the blog with summaries of each day's events.

After the seminar, I will use the blog for analysis and commentary on a variety of topics, mostly matters in the news and links to interesting stories and analytical articles. I am not a fan of ideology, indeed, I think the words "liberal" and "conservative" have been twisted so far from their original meanings as to be meaningless except for the damage being done to our political culture by ideologues who use such shortcuts to avoid critical thinking.  In other words, I do not have a political agenda.  My agenda is academic -- to better understand the world based on systematic analysis.  We'll see how my plans turn out!  Until next time,

Greg