Why I am Writing

Now that I have a modest but consistent stream of readers, it is time I say a few words about why I am writing.

This blog is about my intellectual journey as a junior military officer who cares deeply about building a better collective future. I am not writing as a subject matter expert; I am writing as a student of the world. These writings are not my attempt to lecture. They are a record of my efforts to learn, to grow, to prepare myself for the hard work I anticipate in my future. I hope that by sharing them others can benefit as well.

On the evening of September 11th, as a cadet at the Air Force Academy, I staggered to my desk and wrote a brief reflection that was later published in Checkpoints magazine. In it I quoted our commandant, who told us, "I know you're all itching for a fight, but this isn't your war. It's our war. Yours is coming." As hard as it was at the time, I took that message to heart. Later in the essay I wrote, "At the Air Force Academy, cadets are studying. Listening. Watching so that, when it’s our turn, we will give our nation’s enemies something to fear... And when my turn comes, when national defense passes to my generation, we will be ready. I can promise you that."

The essay sounds quaint and naive now. Years of grueling warfare, failed foreign policy, and strategic miscalculation have ground down my triumphant idealism. I was appalled by preventable mistakes our country made. I've written before about my loss of faith in many of my leaders by 2006, which was only salvaged when a new breed of civilian and military leaders took the reins. While I was insulated from the worst of the fighting as a C-17 pilot, I still learned to despise war--even as I recognized its necessity. I flew blood and medical supplies into Afghanistan and Iraq and flew out soldiers so terribly wounded that one nearly died on my aircraft. I gave passage to a young bride who had just learned her husband was killed in Fallujah, and I flew home the remains of numerous soldiers killed in action--one shot by a Taliban fighter who was using his own wife as a human shield. In my International Relations courses I studied humanity's collective moral failure in Rwanda, Sudan, and a dozen other countries most of us can't point to on a map. I learned about AIDS, about boiling ethnic hatred and violence, about leaders who are willing to starve hundreds of thousands to cling to the feeble shards of power left in their shattered countries. I took these issues personally. Rightly or wrongly, I felt the weight of responsibility for them. While I've lost the idealism of my September 11th essay, my personal confrontation with war and foreign affairs crises only hardened my original promise: when my turn came to lead, I wanted be ready.

That promise set me on a journey. I vowed to gain the wisdom, knowledge, and competence necessary to lead effectively in the messy arena of foreign affairs. I earned a Master's Degree in International Relations and worked extremely hard to compete for an scholarship to learn Arabic and live in the Middle East. I immersed myself in news, analysis, and books. I traveled whenever possible and searched out opportunities to cross cultures. I also began this blog as a chronicle of my journey.

That is why I write.

I am not on this journey alone. I'm thrilled beyond words that the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq have forged a generation of intellectually rigorous officers with the determination, competence, and realism necessary to lead in today's world. My own voice is lost in the thriving online community where they learn, debate, and grind out ideas. That is a good thing.

Now, a word on what you can expect from this blog in the future. The blogosphere already has a vibrant counterinsurgency community loaded with experts on Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan. That is not my specialty and I intend to offer something different. I plan to focus on other areas that are of special interest to me.

First: my chief interest is building peace in the broadest sense of the word: integrating national instruments of power to build a stable, prosperous future--for both the United States and the world abroad. Anything even tangentially related to this goal is fair game for the blog.

Second: I have a special interest in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and Western relations with the Arab world. During my 2+ years in Jordan I hope to develop as much expertise as possible in these areas and hope I can offer unique insights here.

Third: I have a deep, personal concern about the moral dimension of statecraft. Moral questions hardly register in the foreign policy community, which largely takes for granted that the pragmatic answer is the moral one. I constantly wrestle with foundational moral questions. To what extent are national and moral interests intertwined? To what extent can the United States realistically use its influence for moral ends?

Fourth: The Air Force is largely disengaged from the counterinsurgency community and has only a small online presence. In fact, as a matter of policy, it continues to firewall blogs entirely. Because of the deficit of Air Force voices online, I will write from time to time about Air Force issues.

Fifth: I am concerned about the limited interaction between various communities that have a stake in foreign affairs issues, such as national security professionals, development experts and NGOs, business leaders, environmentalists, and religious leaders. For example, the COIN community is fantastic, but it is a tight-knit community where most people read the same news, blogs, and books. To whatever extent it is possible, I hope to draw from all these different communities, bringing fresh perspectives into the military. I am less interested in saying anything new than in identifying and propagating the best ideas already out there.