How could the world have missed an entire civilization collapsing before its eyes," asks Jim Lacey. "The simple answer is that no one has ever seen it happen before." In a major article in this month's Proceedings, Lieutenant Colonel Lacey makes a case that Arab civilization is collapsing before our eyes. In the process he takes on academic luminaries Bernard Lewis and Samuel P. Huntington, whose books on Islam have become required reading for military leaders, uniformed and civilian. Professors Lewis and Huntington, for all their admirers in high places, may be wrong, Lacey says. Best to debate the theories openly rather than accept them blindly. The colonel is a new and exciting voice, one willing to go against the grain of conventional wisdom, doing so with wit and intellectual heft.
Joining him this month is Philip Gold, a former Marine officer who looks at the war in Iraq and its possible aftermath. In a staccato style reminiscent of crime writer James Ellroy, Mr. Gold takes us on a dispiriting tour of a world made up of three kinds of people: Those who believe in freedom, diversity, and tolerance and who are happy to live in the 21st century; those who abhor it and want out at any price, such as jihadi and other violent extremists; and those who are so far behind they may never catch up. But Mr. Gold goes further, offering possible remedies for a century whose defining hue so far has been red, the color of blood.
We can't be all things to all people, but we like to think we offer a menu that will tweak the palates of most members of the sea services and the broader national security community. Thus, Rear Admiral Rick Porterfield, just retired as the longest serving Director of Naval Intelligence, leads off this issue with a tale of forces stretched thin but transitioning quickly to the demands of the global war on terror.
Vice Admiral Charles Munns, "The Virginia SSN: Right for the Times," updates us on the Navy's newest attack submarine, which he believes will prove an effective weapon in shallow seas in the war on terror while maintaining a formidable blue-water capability.
The winners of the Armed Forces Joint Warfighting Essay Contest, sponsored by Boeing, offer sound advice for purple forces. First prize winner Major Kelly Houlgate, USMC, takes on the Cold War-era Unified Command Plan; 2nd Prize winner Brigadier General Charles Dunlap, USAF, focuses on the Abu Ghraib debacle and cautions joint commanders to know more about what is going on within their individual components. Our third winner, Lieutenant Commander Chris Rawley, USNR, says that the Navy has much to offer special operations forces and goes on to make some concrete suggestions.
Aviation is our focus this month and Dave North, recently retired Editor-in-chief of Aviation Week & Space Technology—and a longtime friend of the Naval Institute—goes aboard ship for the first time facing aft (he has 550 traps facing the right way) and finds that, while much has changed, the age-old rhythms and colors of the flight deck are the ones he remembers from his youth . . . only yesterday. Lieutenant Colonel Robert Dixon, USMC, looks to the MV-22 and the heavy-lift helicopter to fulfill the promise of true vertical assault and Mark Logan predicts that unmanned aerial vehicles, far from spelling the demise of the aircraft carrier, will make it more important than ever.
Finally, Naval Institute Press author John Lundstrom puts us in the cockpit with the six Wildcat pilots from the USS Enterprise's Fighting Six who bingo'ed into Ford Island on the night of 7 December 1941. Three of them were shot down and lost as they attempted to land through a curtain of antiaircraft fire put up by gunners who thought that the Japanese were attacking again.
Proceedings is delighted to welcome Harlan Ullman to its pages. His column, "Firing On The Up Roll," will appear monthly. The title, he tells us, comes from the only thing he claims he learned and still remembers from his days at the Naval Academy and a tactic he put to use while skippering a swift boat in Vietnam.
Harlan has had an exceptionally broad career. He served in five destroyers (including a Brit), commanded one, and was a professor of military strategy at the National War College. He also served at the highest levels of the Pentagon before retiring.
In the private sector he is a prolific writer and commentator. The Naval Institute Press published Finishing Business—Ten Steps to Defeat Global Terror last October and a compilation of his Washington Times columns, Owls and Eagles—Ending the Flights of Fancy of Hawks, Doves and Neo-Cons, was just released. His columns are meant to provoke debate and comment on issues of singular importance to those with interests in national security and naval affairs.
Editor's Page
By Robert Timberg