Ideas Count
Abstract
Welcome to Joint Force Quarterly. I look forward to thinking about the ideas that will appear in these pages. Ideas count. Someone once said that the Cold War was a contest of ideas, and in the end the idea of freedom won out. Armed conflicts are also often contests between ideas, between concepts of what will and will not work on the battlefield. The most memorable victories have featured the introduction, on one side or the other, of a new, better, winning idea. Of course, we all understand that ideas alone are not enough. Early armored vehicles offered both sides a potential war winner in World War I, but many of the best minds in Europe gave their time not to imagining how the internal combustion engine could be combined with a gun and armor plating, but to developing gas masks for horses. So, ideas must be iterated, argued, discussed, debated, experimented with, and finally put into practice. We have sometimes been lucky in this regard. In the 1930s George Marshall chose to spend precious Army dollars on professional military education. Shortchanging other "must have" requirements, he kept the schools at Leavenworth and Maxwell alive and so laid the intellectual foundations for victory in World War II. It is in this spirit that I invite all comers to sharpen their pencils and their thoughts, and to use this journal to propose, develop, and debate military concepts,the inventory of ideas the Nation must have to win in the next century.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Jan 01, 1993
- Accession Number
- ADA528785
Entities
People
- Merrill A. Mcpeak
Organizations
- National Defense University