-Caveat Lector-
Begin forwarded message:
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: January 14, 2007 9:58:39 PM PST
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: In-Depth Look at a Typical Neocon "Expert"
Frederick Kagan is an Unqualified Fraud:
Read His CV Here
by The Angry Rakkasan
Sun Jan 14, 2007 at 06:29:00 PM PST
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2007/1/14/21715/7058
Frederick Kagan is the neo-conservative scholar to whom
George W. Bush listens. Working for the conservative think tank
AEI, Kagan supposedly gives the Bush administration intellectual
cover — as he is one of the few academic "experts" who supports the
President’s ideas. He can often be found on C-SPAN, sitting on a
distinguished-looking panel, articulating his views on the Iraq
insurgency. He is admired by neo-conservatives around the world as
being highly knowledgeable in this field, and he is said to have
the ear of the President.
So what are Kagan’s credentials if he’s such an expert on
the Iraq insurgency? Well, as it turns out, he’s actually
completely unqualified, to a point that borders on fraud. Let’s
take a look at his CV....
If you’re still not sure who Frederick Kagan is, he is the
author of the following oft cited articles that directly refute the
Iraq Study Group Report:
Choosing Victory: A Plan for Success in Iraq
The Right Type of "Surge": Any Troop Increase Must Be Large and
Lasting
Send More Troops to Baghdad and We’ll Have a Fighting Chance
A neo-conservative of the highest order, Kagan is an
influential member of the Project for the New American Century.
So the question is, if Kagan is such an expert on military
affairs and the Iraq insurgency, where did he get this expertise?
But before we address that question, I would like to note that I
believe there are two primary means for obtaining information that
would qualify one as an "expert." These are: 1.) Substantial
personal experience and 2.) Conducting scholarly research. Thus,
as an "expert," we could assume Kagan has one or both of these
concerning our current foreign policy predicament.
So let’s start from the top, using information that comes
from Kagan’s own Curriculum Vitae, as provided by his employer, AEI:
Experience, specifically, relevant military experience:
None. Frederick Kagan has never donned a uniform or led
troops in combat.
Okay, that’s no big deal. Lots of people who’ve never
served in the military are experts in the field of military
strategy. So let’s turn to Kagan’s education.
Education:
Kagan graduated in 1991 from Yale University with a B.A. in
Soviet and East European Studies. After graduating, he took on a
position as an "unsalaried intern" at the Department of Defense,
working for the Assistant Deputy Under-Secretary for Russian,
Eurasian, and East European Affairs. He worked on projects
concerning the Russian army, Russia’s relations with the other
former Soviet republics, and the development of the armies of those
republics. Kagan then headed back home to Yale for grad school,
which he completed in 1995 by being awarded a Ph.D. in Russian and
Soviet Military History.
Okay, so there’s not a lot there. No study of the Middle
East and no practical experience in the areas of Arab history or
insurgencies. As a student, it is clear that Kagan was focused
primarily on the Cold War.
But of course, many scholars eventually specialize in fields
they didn’t study in school. They do this through scholarly
research after they’ve taken a position as a researcher or
instructor at a university. So maybe Kagan did the same after
1995. Let’s take a look at his body of work—his research
publications:
Publications
If you haven’t already looked at it, Kagan has a seven-page
CV that lists his education and all of his publications. This is
fairly common for academics. What makes Kagan’s different, is that
virtually all of his work is not peer-reviewed (or, refereed). For
those who haven’t suffered through graduate school, this means that
his work has little to no academic merit. On Talking Points Memo
today, reader PS offers an analysis of Kagan’s CV:
From what I can tell, he has no serious background studying the
issues that are at the core of his "surge" plan. So I am
completely baffled by the extent to which the media has given him
credibility as a "military expert".... His CV reveals no
publications in refereed history or political science journals in
the last decade. Basically the intellectual architect of the surge
is an op-ed/Weekly Standard writer whose only substantive expertise
is on Napoleon.
For the most part, PS is correct. However, I’ve gone
through Kagan’s CV line-by-line and found some mistakes and some
interesting points.
First, Kagan has actually authored four peer-reviewed
journal articles since earning his Ph.D., though this is a paltry
number for any respectable academic. Three have been published in
the last decade, but none have been published in the last nine
years. Here they are:
"The Evacuation of Soviet Industry in the Wake of ‘Barbarossa:’ A
Key to the Soviet Victory," The Journal of Slavic Military Studies,
Volume 8, Number 2, pp. 387-414.
1997. "Army Doctrine and Modern War: Notes toward a New Edition of
FM 100-5," in Parameters, Spring 1997.
1998. "Star Wars in Real Life: Political Limitations on Space
Warfare," Parameters, Vol. XXVIII, No. 3, Autumn 1998, pp. 112-120.
"Back to the Future: NSC-68 and the Right Course for America
Today," The SAIS Review, vol. XIX, no. 1 (Winter-Spring 1999), pp.
55-71.
Of course, these have nothing to do with insurgencies, Iraq,
or the Middle East in general. It should also be noted that,
though they made it through the peer-review process, Kagan’s
articles in Parameters are very poorly researched and cited. See
for yourself.
Kagan has also written chapters for several peer-reviewed
books including The Military History of Tsarist Russia in which he
wrote chapters on the Napoleonic Era and the reign of Nicholas I
(2002), The Military History of the Soviet Union in which he wrote
chapters on Soviet Operational Art and World War II after
Stalingrad (2002), and Reforming the Tsar’s Army, in which he wrote
a chapter called "Russian Military Reform in the Age of
Napoleon" (2004).
That is the extent of Kagan’s scholarly work. [The rest is]
non-scholarly magazine articles (mostly for [Rupert Murdoch's]
Weekly Standard) and newspaper opinion pieces.
Kagan is also relatively well known for his recently
published book on Napoleon called The End of the Old Order:
Napoleon and Europe, 1801-1805. Now, to me, that sounds academic.
Right? Da Capo Press publishes it and they probably focus on
military history. Right?
Wrong. Da Capo is not an academic press and it’s not associated
with any scholarly institution. In fact, here are some of Da
Capo’s latest titles on their web site:
Some of our recent bestselling highlights, include Sport's
Illustrated's #1 football book of all time, H.G. Bissinger's Friday
Night Lights, Alex Kershaw's The Bedford Boys: One American Town's
Ultimate D-Day Sacrifice, Toby Young's How to Lose Friends and
Alienate People, Pier Paul Read's The Templars, Michael Flocker's
The Metrosexual Guide to Style and The Hedonism Handbook, and Kind
of Blue: The Making of the Mile's Davis Masterpiece.
Da Capo Lifelong Books features a wide array of authors and
books on pregnancy, parenting, health, fitness, and relationships,
including: Your Pregnancy Week by Week, Dr. Susan Love's Breast
Book (called "the Bible for women with breast cancer" by the New
York Times), the Take Care of Yourself series, Mari Winsor's
Pilates bestsellers, Dr. T. Berry Brazelton's Touchpoints and
Touchpoints Three to Six, The Children's Hospital Guide to Your
Child's Health and Development, Dr. Stanley Greenspan's The Child
with Special Needs, Dr. Mike Riera's popular Field Guide to the
American Teenager and Staying Connected to Your Teenager, Bill
Bridges's "Transitions" bestsellers, and the entire range of Your
Pregnancy guides by Dr. Glade Curtis, and many more.
I invite anyone skeptical of anything I’ve written to check
out the links I’ve provided, especially the one to Kagan’s CV.
Frederick Kagan is a fraud in that he espouses knowledge on
military matters in Iraq that he does not have. He has never
served in the military and he has never conducted scholarly
research on the Middle East, much less Iraq or Iraqi society. And
still, AEI maintains that Kagan
"specializes in defense issues and the American military. In
particular he studies defense transformation, the defense budget,
and defense strategy and warfare."
Yet I would like to see proof. Where? Where has Frederick Kagan
ever specialized in defense issues and the American military? I
want to see it. Young Americans are dying for it. Where and when
did he study defense transformation and strategy? Was it during
his "unsalaried internship" in 1992? I want to know.
This is who the President of the United States listens to on
Iraq -- a student of Russian and Napoleonic history.
This is madness. Frederick Kagan is an amateur who should
be exposed and run out of Washington on a rail for all the damage
he is doing to our nation.
I welcome comments from anyone who may have further
information on this subject.
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