Jay Bookman, a liberal editorialist for the Atlanta paper (I almost don’t need the adjective), offers a relatively interesting piece on professional military reactions to the public distance (not exactly uninterest, but certainly not intimate involvement) from the Iraq War. He quotes from this article, which strikes me as worth reading. The passages Bookman cites about the importance of involving the populace more directly in any future commitments of military force are sertainly important (and Bookman doesn’t refer to the author’s argument that the inevitable future commitments will be even more complicatd than those in Iraq and Afghanistan).

But this one is also worth noting:

Perhaps the most decisive factor that will determine
who emerges victorious in current and future wars is which side can gain consistent advantage in the holistic information environment that plays out across the globe, near and far from the “front lines.” In short, the commander who prevails in the information war is almost certain to win the war itself. Perception has a nagging tendency of determining how our enemies, our allies, and our own societies view war, often regardless of what is actually happening on the ground. If we are unable to do a better job than our enemies of influencing the world’s perception, then even the most brilliantly conceived campaign plans will be unlikely to succeed.