Afghanistan: When we don’t like being in a war, we turn it over to contractors?
That apparently is Defense Secretary Panetta’s plan for war termination in Afghanistan. That’s what I take away from this Request for Proposals. The Army recently did a good book on how wars end, and I’m currently reading Gideon Rose’s book on the same subject. But I suspect that what we are seeing in Afghanistan (and ...
That apparently is Defense Secretary Panetta's plan for war termination in Afghanistan. That's what I take away from this Request for Proposals.
That apparently is Defense Secretary Panetta’s plan for war termination in Afghanistan. That’s what I take away from this Request for Proposals.
The Army recently did a good book on how wars end, and I’m currently reading Gideon Rose’s book on the same subject. But I suspect that what we are seeing in Afghanistan (and to a degree in Iraq) is something altogether different: The privatization of our conflicts, at least on the ground. In the air, the trend is more from manned to unmanned aircraft — could we call this the de-personification of the air war?
Thomas E. Ricks is a former contributing editor to Foreign Policy. Twitter: @tomricks1
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