The Insurgents by Fred Kaplan5/24/2023 ![]() ![]() ![]() From their perspective, there was more to fighting and winning wars than military power- which was traditionally defined as who could bringing the most modern and destructive weapons on the battlefield. Once established, it increasingly attracted culturally sensitive military officers who served on its faculty. The key to the plot to change military thinking was the Social Sciences Department at the US Military Academy at West Point. The latter, with its emphasis on the importance of cultural factors in the outcome of Britain's successful effort to put down the insurrection in Malaysia, had a profound impact on the evolution of the debate over how to fight and win wars. It incorporates works by a number of writers such as John Nagel's now classic work, Learning to Eat Soup with a Knife. This title is one of the most important books published on the US Army in the last ten or twenty years. Indeed, he essentially argues that this approach to military affairs is like a house of cards. However, Kaplan maintains that this new approach has limits. In some very important ways, it has changed how the army thinks and plans to fight and carry out military operations. Those who have not followed internal developments in the US Army may be surprised to learn that a revolution consciously led by General David Petraeus and a group of culturally conscious officers has taken place. ![]()
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