Best Defense
Thomas E. Ricks' daily take on national security.

Which teaches officers more, engineering or the humanities?

Comment of the day goes to “Rubber Ducky,” who made this observation in the discussion earlier this week of the Naval Academy: It’s a long time since the US was out-engineered in a war (like never), but one can point to Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan as three examples of a failure of human understanding, the ...

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The U.S. Navy Blue Angels aerobatic team forms the four-plane Diamond Formation over the United States Naval Academy Graduation and Commissioning Ceremony at the Navy-Marine Corps Stadium May 23, 2008 in Annapolis, Maryland. Founded in 1845, the academy will graduate 1037 1st Class Midshipmen, more than a thousand of which will go on to commissions in the armed forces.

Comment of the day goes to "Rubber Ducky," who made this observation in the discussion earlier this week of the Naval Academy:

It's a long time since the US was out-engineered in a war (like never), but one can point to Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan as three examples of a failure of human understanding, the subject of the humanities.

Comment of the day goes to “Rubber Ducky,” who made this observation in the discussion earlier this week of the Naval Academy:

It’s a long time since the US was out-engineered in a war (like never), but one can point to Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan as three examples of a failure of human understanding, the subject of the humanities.

I’ve studied military education some, but had never quite heard that thought expressed so well.

Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

Thomas E. Ricks covered the U.S. military from 1991 to 2008 for the Wall Street Journal and then the Washington Post. He can be reached at ricksblogcomment@gmail.com. Twitter: @tomricks1
Tags: Academia, Education, Military

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