Cordesman
Tony Cordesman is one of the most prolific national-security analysts working these days. The Center for Strategic and International Studies scholar is important because he doesn’t live in the fringe, as do so many of his contemporaries. He inhabits, generally, a sensible middle, and imbues his work with a gravitas based on his wide travels and deep background in the military arts and sciences. So I pay close attention when he issues pronouncements on current events. Wednesday morning, he’s writing on Libya, and he’s even more upset than normal:
American connoisseurs of schadenfreude can take some comfort in the parallels between this course of action and the equally naïve and dangerous approach used by the Bush Administration in Iraq. After all, watching a French President, a British Prime Minister, and Democratic President of the US repeat the Bush Administration’s failure to plan for the decisive and lasting use of force, fail to plan for the civil side of military operations and to support stability operations, and focus on short term goals without a realistic plan for a successful strategic and post-conflict outcome is not without irony but touches of black humor