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

Busted in Bahrain

The Navy continues the tradition of relief, ousting the commander of its base in Bahrain just two weeks before he was scheduled to leave. Ouch. I think the Army could benefit from looking at this Navy tradition. The Army used to oust a lot more people — George Marshall’s first division commander in World War ...

By , a former contributing editor to Foreign Policy.
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576165_091130_ricks312.jpg

The Navy continues the tradition of relief, ousting the commander of its base in Bahrain just two weeks before he was scheduled to leave. Ouch.

The Navy continues the tradition of relief, ousting the commander of its base in Bahrain just two weeks before he was scheduled to leave. Ouch.

I think the Army could benefit from looking at this Navy tradition. The Army used to oust a lot more people — George Marshall’s first division commander in World War I got the hook, as did one of his commanders in China during the interwar period. And during WWII he certainly didn’t hesitate to throw overboard division commanders and even corps commanders — at least 20 all told. The difference is that relief back then was not necessarily a career-ender.

Flickr/Harold Laudeus

Thomas E. Ricks is a former contributing editor to Foreign Policy. Twitter: @tomricks1

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