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Thomas E. Ricks' daily take on national security.

The May issue of Marine Corps Gazette: Incredibly, even historically boring?

I was on riding the Washington, DC Metro finishing the May issue of the Marine Corps Gazette when I realized I had not read more than a paragraph or two into any of the articles. Part of the problem was that the topics of the issue were mainly aviation and cyberwar, which I know are ...

By , a former contributing editor to Foreign Policy.
National Archives
National Archives
National Archives

I was on riding the Washington, DC Metro finishing the May issue of the Marine Corps Gazette when I realized I had not read more than a paragraph or two into any of the articles. Part of the problem was that the topics of the issue were mainly aviation and cyberwar, which I know are important, but are not special interests of mine. But I also got the feeling that they simply took every boring article they had lying around and stuffed them all into one issue.

I was on riding the Washington, DC Metro finishing the May issue of the Marine Corps Gazette when I realized I had not read more than a paragraph or two into any of the articles. Part of the problem was that the topics of the issue were mainly aviation and cyberwar, which I know are important, but are not special interests of mine. But I also got the feeling that they simply took every boring article they had lying around and stuffed them all into one issue.

Even so, the Gazette is better off than the Army’s Parameters, which doesn’t seem to have put out an issue since "Autumn 2012." Maybe it’s going to publish only on an annual basis. Nice work if you can get it. 

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

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