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On CNN tight-lipped SECDEF Robert Gates just announced the resignation of Admiral Fallon as commander of CENTCOM over Tom’s recent profile in Esquire, who then snapped that it was ” Ridiculous!” that Fallon’s removal signaled potential war with Iran ( as claimed in the article).

Of course, while the idea of imminent hostilities might be “ridiculous” you don’t often have a senior 4 star flag officer who has held two combatant commands removed simply over press reports that are legitimately categorized as “ridiculous”. These are dismissed out of hand, everyone chuckles and then they move on.

UPDATE:

Galrahn at Information Dissemination has an outstanding post that I believe nails some troubling aspects of this episode:

Think Long and Hard as You Contemplate What This Means

….I might be mistaken, but I believe we are witness to Bush fire his first General/Admiral of the war. Think long and hard as you contemplate what that means.

There has been a political split in the Pentagon since 2005, when those who wanted to move forward under the cooperative model as opposed to the unilateral model for military action were able to shift the Pentagon position through the release of official strategic papers. Under Gates, the Pentagon has tried to shift to a cooperative phase from what has been a unilateral phase of military action. The cooperative approach is championed by Rice, Gates, and people like Adm. Fallon. Many neo-conservatives, which unfortunately includes a bunch of big blue Navy folks I won’t name specifically, form up the unilateral military action side.

….If you didn’t read the Esquire piece, or didn’t read my earlier response, you may of just missed what could in fact be a signal of war to Iran. I know one thing, if I was Iran, that is the only way to read this. There was a message for Iran in the Barnett article:

Admiral William Fallon shakes his head slowly, and his eyes say, These guys [Iran] have no idea how much worse it could get for them. I am the reasonable one.

Are we assuming the Bush administration can’t read, Barnett is saying that, Barnett makes all the cuts at the Bush administration in the article, not Fallon. Barnett appears to have been dead right though. Reasonable people who do nothing wrong don’t quit because a reporter writes an article bad about a politician, but unreasonable people can make that person quit. I really am stunned, I have never really believed the US was going to strike Iran until today.

“Unilateral” or ” Near Peer Competitor Faction” is probably a better descriptor in my view, than is “neo-conservative”, which is now a term of abuse that has wandered far from it’s original meaning but I’m not a Navy-watcher. Maybe there is a William Kristol book club or something at Annapolis that I’m not aware of; regardless I agree that it’s likely the White House hit the roof over Tom’s Esquire story on Fallon and insisted that Fallon’s head roll.

Dr. Barnett is letting his article speak for itself. Good for him

Critt is grazring the Fallon story

 I finally started reading Nassim Nicholas Taleb’s  The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable today and I’m already impressed with it. Taleb’s very straightforward in attacking the limitations of Bell Curve assumptions and the common assumptions regarding the extent of uncertainty ( most people, unless they are futurists or, say, design computer models, seldom contemplate questions of deep uncertainty that might be in play). The book is really a tutorial on epistemology.

I’ll review this one when I’m finished.

Doing some site maintenance, working on an IO post and attending to misc. blog related details. More later today.

Overdue, overdue. Here it is: 

Top Billing!  Arms and Influence – “Everyone misses his saving roll eventually”

On a lighter note: This one is for every GenX’er who has a Chaotic Good Half-Elven Ranger skeleton or two in their closet.

SWJ Blog – “Misreading the History of the Iraq War”

The COIN – Big Army online civil war continues unabated as Mansoor takes Gentile to task.

Thomas P.M. Barnett -“A reasonable take on the Fallon piece by–of all people–Gareth Porter”

I think I used to occasionally spar with Gareth Porter on H-Diplo. Funny how I see names from that Listserv all over the net now.

Eide Neurolearning Blog – “Visual Thinking, Imagery, and the Brain”

The internal imagery mindscape may be a key to unlocking the reasons for individual differences in processing, comprehension, problem solving and formation of concepts.

Counterterrorism Blog – “Now The Fun Begins With Russia Over Bout’s Arrest”

Question: Is Viktor Bout simply a deep cover GRU guy the way Bob Denard worked for French intelligence or is he a gangster arms dealer with good connections?

Edge Perspectives – “Shift Happens – The Future of Advertising

Relevant lessons here for anyone with a message to spread.

That’s it!

After my Two Quite Reasonable Observations post, I had some uncharacteristically swift and well-informed feedback that pointed to IC amd military working groups, quietly engaged in the very kind of strategic futurism that I hoped to see the USG explore. As I cannot share confidential correspondence, I was delighted that the gents at Kent’s Imperative took up the same cudgel in public.

Vision and error

The recurring debate regarding such matters has once again surfaced in a series of blog posts at Global Guerrillas, Fabius Maximus, Zenpundit, and Opposed Systems Design.We must take exception with John Robb’s comment that there “isn’t a single research organization or think tank that is seriously studying, analyzing or synthesizing the future of warfare and terrorism”. Such statements, of course, are a common enough type of criticism which stems from what is also unfortunately a common error – the assumption that because one is not aware of a particular effort, then it must not exist. While not every shop which concerns itself with the problems of contemporary asymmetric conflict looks up from the current fight, there are a number of efforts which have attempted to answer the question of “what next” alongside the other work exploring the “what” and “so what” which tends to dominate current publications. Among just a few of the recent public aspects of such efforts that we can name off the top of our heads are the Proteus project, JFCOM’s Deep Futures project, and several of the publications authored by folks at the USMC’s Center for Emerging Threats and Opportunities, the Naval War College and Army War College, the Naval Postgraduate School, the Air University, West Point’s Combating Terrorism Center, the National Defense Intelligence College, and many other elements within the khaki tower. Of course, to this we should also add the Global Futures Forum effort where it touches upon related areas of interest.

….We would also argue that this is already occurring to some extent within the intelligence community itself, particularly given the emerging style of smaller, more specific papers circulated in an almost academic fashion as discussion points. Indeed, we see this beginning to reshape coordination efforts prior to more formalized, and more visible assessments for major publications. We certainly see a greater role for outside subject matter experts and other thinkers in the process, but while far from perfect, this is quickly evolving given recent emphasis on analytic outreach.In short, the there that these gentlemen appear to be reaching for is already there – just not evenly distributed….”

This is certainly good news, from my perspective. Hopefully, those readers out there – and there appear to be more than I had realized – who have their hands in this process on ” the inside” will continue to push the USG’s intellectual range and bureaucratic boundaries. We are all well-served by their sub rosa efforts and I offer a hearty “Huzzah!” in their honor.