Trouble at the Army War College

Ezra highlights Tom Ricks’ post on trouble at the Army War College. The Army War College, like its Navy counterpart, employs primarily civilian academics to produce research and to furnish senior officers with a strategic perspective. The Naval War College, for example, was an important cog in the project to produce the Cooperative Maritime Strategy. The Strategic Studies Institute at the Army War College, has provided space for excellent scholars such as Steven Metz, Stephen Biddle, and Jeffrey Record. Record in particular has produced work bitterly critical of the Bush administration, including its misuse of the Munich Analogy.

In response to critical coverage of the Iraq War, Metz apparently warned his colleagues at SSI against speaking with Ricks. Metz was apparently motivated by genuine concern for the future of SSI, after “several members of SSI had been verbally flogged” for giving interviews. I do sympathize with Metz; he wanted to save the Institute, and it’s fair to say that Rumsfeld and his allies have never taken concerns about academic freedom seriously. As Ezra notes, it’s not a question of tenure; the entire institution was at risk. Nevertheless, the story is deeply disconcerting.