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

Giambastiani: War plans are an unrecognized driver of force structure

Retired Adm. Edmund Giambastiani, a former vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said that people trying to understand how the U.S. military works should pay more attention to the formulation and conclusions of the war planning process. "I don’t think a lot of people understand the importance of war plans," he said. He ...

Kommando Kraus/flickr
Kommando Kraus/flickr
Kommando Kraus/flickr

Retired Adm. Edmund Giambastiani, a former vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said that people trying to understand how the U.S. military works should pay more attention to the formulation and conclusions of the war planning process. "I don't think a lot of people understand the importance of war plans," he said. He added that, "They define force structure," and so, of course, shape spending on personnel, weaponry and other gear.

Retired Adm. Edmund Giambastiani, a former vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said that people trying to understand how the U.S. military works should pay more attention to the formulation and conclusions of the war planning process. "I don’t think a lot of people understand the importance of war plans," he said. He added that, "They define force structure," and so, of course, shape spending on personnel, weaponry and other gear.

I don’t think you’d get very far trying to get people to talk about current plans, but I think a historian could have fun looking at declassified plans from decades ago and trying to link them to major decisions about weapons and force structure decisions.

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

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