Team Infidel
Forum Spin Doctor
Washington Post
November 22, 2006
Pg. C1
Midshipmen Study War With Crowe
By Linton Weeks, Washington Post Staff Writer
It's a timeless scene: The old salt talking to youngsters, laying out his views about the lessons of war, about its cost and its sacrifices.
In this case, the salt is retired Adm. William J. Crowe Jr., who at 81, with hearing aids and stooped shoulders, is passing along his sea of wisdom to a classful of intense and intrigued midshipmen at the U.S. Naval Academy.
But rather than telling the class that he has all the answers, Crowe says, "I don't know the answer about how to get out of Iraq."
He does have some notions on how to avoid getting into another Iraq-like complication. Amid a growing chorus of antiwar pronouncements from the left and the right, presidential acknowledgment that the war is not going well, a pending report from the Iraq Study Group and a major Pentagon review, Crowe believes it's the perfect moment to craft guidelines that might be used the next time around.
Getting into just about everything -- from sports cars to marriages -- is easier than getting out of them. And Crowe (rhymes with wow), who has been teaching in the academy's political science department since 1999, hopes to engender a sense of caution and reason in the next generation of commanders and help keep the United States from entering unjust -- and unjustified -- interventions.
He knows something about military leadership. A 1946 graduate of the academy, he rose to the top shelf of service in the Navy. In the early 1980s, he was commander in chief of Allied Forces Southern Europe, then of the U.S. Pacific Command. From 1985 to 1989, he was chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff -- under Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush. He retired in 1989. He says he is politically independent. He supported John Kerry in 2004.
His eyes are a wintry blue. His mind keen and quick. Distinguished in a green tweed jacket and gold-rims worn low on the nose, he is teaching "Security Decision Making," a popular upper-level seminar. It's a small class today -- 10 men and women are gathered around a table in a drab, windowless room in the Nimitz building on the waterfront campus in Annapolis.
His concern, he tells the students in their dark uniforms, "is what we are going to do in the future, when you people are going to be involved."
In most international rivalries, he says in a soft voice, "the supporting arguments of both sides normally have merits and flaws."
The factions are "driven by history and intense emotions and reason has little to do with resolving such issues."
But, Crowe believes that reason should have a lot to do with such issues. When a nation steps into another country's affairs, he says, there is a price to pay. "Bending another culture to your will can't be done on the cheap. Our resources are not unlimited and we should not be led to believe otherwise."
Every administration "underestimates the cost in time, money and casualties," Crowe says. "Voters should be die-hard cynics when evaluating such predictions."
In order for international interventions "to be successful in a reasonable amount of time, the whole republic should be involved," he says. "We may be dealing with small countries, but to them the stakes are big time and they are willing to make astounding sacrifices."
It's an idealistic approach. But he also knows he is preaching to idealists.
Michael Deboer, 24, of Cleveland, will be graduating in the spring. He hopes to be working on a submarine -- as Crowe once did -- in a couple of years. Deboer says Crowe has taught him that "interventions don't always go the way planners planned."
Deboer says, "I'm a detail-driven guy. He makes you look at the bigger issues."
Crowe "rewards careful thinking," says junior Fiona McFarland, 21, of New York. McFarland's mother, Kathleen Troia "KT" McFarland, was a Pentagon spokeswoman under Reagan and recently ran unsuccessfully as a Republican candidate for the Senate. Fiona McFarland wants to be a pilot. "He loves it when we take opposing sides," she says of Crowe. "He gets a little grin and a glint in his eye."
November 22, 2006
Pg. C1
Midshipmen Study War With Crowe
By Linton Weeks, Washington Post Staff Writer
It's a timeless scene: The old salt talking to youngsters, laying out his views about the lessons of war, about its cost and its sacrifices.
In this case, the salt is retired Adm. William J. Crowe Jr., who at 81, with hearing aids and stooped shoulders, is passing along his sea of wisdom to a classful of intense and intrigued midshipmen at the U.S. Naval Academy.
But rather than telling the class that he has all the answers, Crowe says, "I don't know the answer about how to get out of Iraq."
He does have some notions on how to avoid getting into another Iraq-like complication. Amid a growing chorus of antiwar pronouncements from the left and the right, presidential acknowledgment that the war is not going well, a pending report from the Iraq Study Group and a major Pentagon review, Crowe believes it's the perfect moment to craft guidelines that might be used the next time around.
Getting into just about everything -- from sports cars to marriages -- is easier than getting out of them. And Crowe (rhymes with wow), who has been teaching in the academy's political science department since 1999, hopes to engender a sense of caution and reason in the next generation of commanders and help keep the United States from entering unjust -- and unjustified -- interventions.
He knows something about military leadership. A 1946 graduate of the academy, he rose to the top shelf of service in the Navy. In the early 1980s, he was commander in chief of Allied Forces Southern Europe, then of the U.S. Pacific Command. From 1985 to 1989, he was chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff -- under Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush. He retired in 1989. He says he is politically independent. He supported John Kerry in 2004.
His eyes are a wintry blue. His mind keen and quick. Distinguished in a green tweed jacket and gold-rims worn low on the nose, he is teaching "Security Decision Making," a popular upper-level seminar. It's a small class today -- 10 men and women are gathered around a table in a drab, windowless room in the Nimitz building on the waterfront campus in Annapolis.
His concern, he tells the students in their dark uniforms, "is what we are going to do in the future, when you people are going to be involved."
In most international rivalries, he says in a soft voice, "the supporting arguments of both sides normally have merits and flaws."
The factions are "driven by history and intense emotions and reason has little to do with resolving such issues."
But, Crowe believes that reason should have a lot to do with such issues. When a nation steps into another country's affairs, he says, there is a price to pay. "Bending another culture to your will can't be done on the cheap. Our resources are not unlimited and we should not be led to believe otherwise."
Every administration "underestimates the cost in time, money and casualties," Crowe says. "Voters should be die-hard cynics when evaluating such predictions."
In order for international interventions "to be successful in a reasonable amount of time, the whole republic should be involved," he says. "We may be dealing with small countries, but to them the stakes are big time and they are willing to make astounding sacrifices."
It's an idealistic approach. But he also knows he is preaching to idealists.
Michael Deboer, 24, of Cleveland, will be graduating in the spring. He hopes to be working on a submarine -- as Crowe once did -- in a couple of years. Deboer says Crowe has taught him that "interventions don't always go the way planners planned."
Deboer says, "I'm a detail-driven guy. He makes you look at the bigger issues."
Crowe "rewards careful thinking," says junior Fiona McFarland, 21, of New York. McFarland's mother, Kathleen Troia "KT" McFarland, was a Pentagon spokeswoman under Reagan and recently ran unsuccessfully as a Republican candidate for the Senate. Fiona McFarland wants to be a pilot. "He loves it when we take opposing sides," she says of Crowe. "He gets a little grin and a glint in his eye."