The Fleet Admiral Chester W. Nimitz Memorial Lecture
Thomas E. Ricks is a Senior Fellow at the Center for a New American Security (CNAS). Concurrently with his duties at CNAS, Ricks writes an online blog for ForeignPolicy.com called, “The Best Defense,” serves as contributing editor for Foreign Policy.
http://nimitz.berkeley.edu/
..It’s worth mentioning that General Shinkseki was fired for being a pessimist. But it turned out his pessimism was deeply warranted. Perhaps Marshal was mistaken when he imagined us as being forever unprepared for the next war in the sense that we’re more than prepared for any conventional war, but that we no longer fight conventional wars. During the conventional Gulf War we suffered no defeats and hardly any losses. Perhaps in a situation like Iraq or Vietnam, the pessimists should be given a chance to challenge the holders of orthodox views.