Alan W. Dowd is a Senior Fellow with the American Security Council Foundation, where he writes on the full range of topics relating to national defense, foreign policy and international security. Dowd’s commentaries and essays have appeared in Policy Review, Parameters, Military Officer, The American Legion Magazine, The Journal of Diplomacy and International Relations, The Claremont Review of Books, World Politics Review, The Wall Street Journal Europe, The Jerusalem Post, The Financial Times Deutschland, The Washington Times, The Baltimore Sun, The Washington Examiner, The Detroit News, The Sacramento Bee, The Vancouver Sun, The National Post, The Landing Zone, Current, The World & I, The American Enterprise, Fraser Forum, American Outlook, The American and the online editions of Weekly Standard, National Review and American Interest. Beyond his work in opinion journalism, Dowd has served as an adjunct professor and university lecturer; congressional aide; and administrator, researcher and writer at leading think tanks, including the Hudson Institute, Sagamore Institute and Fraser Institute. An award-winning writer, Dowd has been interviewed by Fox News Channel, Cox News Service, The Washington Times, The National Post, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation and numerous radio programs across North America. In addition, his work has been quoted by and/or reprinted in The Guardian, CBS News, BBC News and the Council on Foreign Relations. Dowd holds degrees from Butler University and Indiana University. Follow him at twitter.com/alanwdowd.

ASCF News

Scott Tilley is a Senior Fellow at the American Security Council Foundation, where he writes the “Technical Power” column, focusing on the societal and national security implications of advanced technology in cybersecurity, space, and foreign relations.

He is an emeritus professor at the Florida Institute of Technology. Previously, he was with the University of California, Riverside, Carnegie Mellon University’s Software Engineering Institute, and IBM. His research and teaching were in the areas of computer science, software & systems engineering, educational technology, the design of communication, and business information systems.

He is president and founder of the Center for Technology & Society, president and co-founder of Big Data Florida, past president of INCOSE Space Coast, and a Space Coast Writers’ Guild Fellow.

He has authored over 150 academic papers and has published 28 books (technical and non-technical), most recently Systems Analysis & Design (Cengage, 2020), SPACE (Anthology Alliance, 2019), and Technical Justice (CTS Press, 2019). He wrote the “Technology Today” column for FLORIDA TODAY from 2010 to 2018.

He is a popular public speaker, having delivered numerous keynote presentations and “Tech Talks” for a general audience. Recent examples include the role of big data in the space program, a four-part series on machine learning, and a four-part series on fake news.

He holds a Ph.D. in computer science from the University of Victoria (1995).

Contact him at stilley@cts.today.

Securing the Peace Guarantees a Total Win

Monday, April 2, 2018

Categories: ASCF News Bipartisianship

Comments: 0

By Gen. Frederick J. Kroesen, U.S. Army retired

One of the most important contributions of the U.S. Army in the conduct of international affairs has been the respect and reputation developed by the units and soldiers that have been deployed around the world in the past century. There has been no doubt about the combat capabilities of the forces that have demonstrated their dominance whenever they have been committed. But there should also be no doubt that those serving in peacetime deployments, particularly when families have accompanied the troops, have been almost equally responsible for long-term impact.

 

Convincing Testimony

I have many times maintained that World War II was won only after long years of occupation of Germany and Japan, years in which our military government detachments brought about the change of governments of those nations. Their steadfast alliance with us through now at least three generations is convincing testimony that we did it the right way.

 

It was Gen. George C. Marshall, learning from our occupation of the Rhineland in Germany after World War I, who initiated the teaching and training of those detachments, even before Pearl Harbor and along with the earliest steps toward building the Total Army we would need to win on the battlefield. Marshall never received the public approbation accorded the World War II battlefield commanders, but his understanding and management for solving the strategic requirements of that war, almost singly arrived at, were a vital contribution to the final success.

 

From the beginning, that success required the defeat of the enemy armed forces, but success was finalized only by our military government detachments and by the soldiers and families who changed the occupation from a conquering Army to conditions of friendly partnerships. From the earliest days, the children of those countries came to know our soldiers as generous, compassionate members of their communities. Their parents in those destroyed and destitute countries were soon to follow. The numbers of German-American and Japanese American marriages that resulted testify to the development of trust and friendship. In succeeding years, the number of Vietnamese-American families and the cordial and enthusiastic welcome experienced by our war veterans who have returned to Vietnam as tourists is further testimony that our soldiers have a positive impact.

 

It was not always easy or acceptable to the suffering populations as we confiscated buildings and private homes without compensation to the owners and renters who were displaced and had to be accommodated by their neighbors or some local community organization, but in time we built our own living quarters and other facilities and helped restore the normal functioning of the populations. Throughout those years, personal relationships developed and a popular recognition of the security aspects of our presence grew. Over time, the tolerance of the German and Japanese people for maintaining facilities for foreign armies, for the annual exercises and the damages inflicted on their roads, bridges and buildings by less-than-careful military units, was quite remarkable, but it was a tolerance fostered and cultivated by the soldiers and families of the occupying forces.

 

Not Without Fault

This is not to claim that all was without fault or misunderstanding or disagreements. The words My Lai and Abu Ghraib establish that we have made some serious mistakes, fully deserving of harsh criticism. Our stockade populations testify that our soldiers included the normal complement of bad actors who required police and disciplinary activities, but we also suffered an occasional attack on our personnel and facilities.

 

There are also examples of failures to achieve normality that should have been sought, usually because we presumed a short military campaign would be followed by a quick return to normality. The most glaring such failure might be the invasion of Iraq when the capture of Baghdad was to be sufficient for our purpose. For the first time in our history, we went to war without an increase in the structure of our forces. When asked what size Army would be needed, our chief of staff estimated 300,000. He was derided, ignored and banned from further discussions of strategic needs, but the years following that campaign do not prove any success in what our intent might have been. There were no military-government detachments to deploy, no forces to occupy the critical locations and inadequate means to create and sustain a friendly, cooperating government.

 

The Army today is contemplating a future in which technology will provide the means for a smaller force to conduct military campaigns. Pre-eminent in that quest is the use of robots that can reconnoiter fire weapons, provide security alarms, deliver supplies and more. But they cannot replace the humans needed to occupy critical objectives, control the population and cultivate a culture and cooperating government that can secure a peace. Our post-hostility ambassadors must be included in the force needed for a total win.

 

Gen. Frederick J. Kroesen, USA Ret., served as vice chief of staff of the U.S. Army and commander in chief of the U.S. Army Europe. He is senior fellow of the Association of the U.S. Army’s Institute of Land Warfare.

This article originally appeared in ARMY magazine, April 2018, VOL. 68, NO 4. Reprinted by permission. 

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