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It is a little bit of a frustrating article, because Military Review is exactly the publication he recommends, and it’s DePuy Writing Contest is the contest he recommends. It makes me a little concerned with the lack of awareness of Military Review among non-Army academia.

I wish he would have instead have made recommendations about the value of military observers. He highlights the lack of observers sent to the Balkan Wars, but he does not really diagnose why there were less there. I would assume that the US sent less observers to the Balkans due to its Pacific orientation in the early 1900s, that Russia and Japan were great powers, and that the two Balkan Wars were relatively short.

It would have been interesting to discuss the value of revitalizing the practice of observer missions and how they can feed official studies and professional writing. We largely have to rely on open source information, reporters, and a few intrepid academics for information on modern conflict, but those sources do not bring the same lens of analysis as professional military observers would.

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