Starting over

New Year; new president; same war. This duo of articles by two of the military’s most nonconformist thinkers argues for turning current warfare wisdom on its head. Charles Dunlap Jr. proposes we forget the lessons of Iraq, or at least ensure that Iraq’s supposed lessons are thoroughly scrutinized before assuming they apply to future wars. Phillip Meilinger argues that our reliance on the old principles of war condemns us to look backward and forever fight the last war. He suggests a new set of principles of war that take into account warfare’s new era of conditions, enemies and technologies.