War College’s Identity Crisis

Marrying the professoriate to America’s fighting force is a marriage even a Las Vegas official wouldn’t bless yet such a union is taking place right now in Pennsylvania.

Last summer, Philip J. Crowley stepped down from his post as a State Department spokesman before stepping into a War College fellowship in conjunction with Penn State. What preceded his exit from Foggy Bottom were some undiplomatic comments that he made about the Army’s treatment of Private Bradley Manning, who leaked classified documents to WIkiLeaks.

“The unauthorized disclosure of classified information is a serious crime under U.S. law,” Crowley stated in his resignation letter on March 13, 2011. “My recent comments regarding the conditions of the pre-trial detention of Private First Class Bradley Manning were intended to highlight the broader, even strategic impact of discrete actions undertaken by national security agencies every day and their impact on our global standing and leadership.”

“ The exercise of power in today’s challenging times and relentless media environment must be prudent and consistent with our laws and values.”  He had not parsed his words nearly so carefully at MIT, where he made his initial observations.

“I just heard an extraordinary remark from State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley,” BBC journalist Philippa Thomas recounted in a blog that appeared on March 10, 2011, three days before Crowley tendered his resignation. “He was speaking to a small audience at MIT on ‘the benefits of new media as it relates to foreign policy,’ an event organised by the Center for Future Civic Media.”

“Around twenty of us were sitting around the table listening to his views on social media, the impact of the Twittersphere, the Arab uprisings, and so on, in a vast space-age conference room overlooking the Charles River and the Boston skyline. And then, inevitably, one young man said he wanted to address ‘the elephant in the room.’ What did Crowley think, he asked, about Wikileaks? About the United States, in his words, ‘torturing a prisoner in a military brig?’ Crowley didn’t stop to think. What’s being done to Bradley Manning by my colleagues at the Department of Defense ‘is ridiculous and counterproductive and stupid.’ He paused. ‘None the less Bradley Manning is in the right place.’ And he went on lengthening his answer, explaining why in Washington’s view, ‘there is sometimes a need for secrets… for diplomatic progress to be made.’”

Crowley came to his State Department posting after a stint at the George Soros-funded Center for American Progress, never known as a defense think tank, at least by those who think about defense.

Crowley’s War College appointment is of a piece with other recent developments at that institution. A teacher at the National Defense University told Yale lecturer Charles Hill, who teaches a course in Grand Strategy, “I take my class up to Yale just to hear your talk.”

“Why aren’t you teaching it at the War College?” Hill asked.

“Oh,” came the response, “It’s too hot.” Hill points to Ronald Reagan, who he served, as a model of an ideal presidency which emphasizes both diplomacy and a strong defense in the conduct of foreign policy.

Malcolm A. Kline is the Executive Director of Accuracy in Academia.

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