Military Intelligence is not an oxymoron

In Black Hawk Down, the author notes that his book

"is hardly the version of this battle that would have been produced by some arm of military public relations. It tells of miscalculations and embarrassing inter-unit squabbling....It reveals simple blunders like failing to take sufficient water and night-vision devices on the raid...." Given that, he expected that the brass would ignore him and his book.

He was surprised.

"Instead the military has embraced Black Hawk Down. It is now one of the mandatory books on the curriculum of the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College where I have received three separate invitations to speak."

I bring this up for three reasons.

1. Everyone should read this book. It is a classic. If you want to see courage in action, almost every page will show you an example. (The movie was great as well).

2. Those who worry that the US will be stymied by Saddam's forces in city warfare do not give sufficient credit to the military's ability to learn from its mistakes. Mogadishu turned out to be a costly mistake. American officers did not try to sweep it under the rug. They went to work learning how to avoid those mistakes the next time.

3. This willingness to look at mistakes and learn from them is common in successful military organizations. It is one of the things that most corporations could learn from them.