On Sat, Jun 21, 2008 at 8:10 AM, David Ritchie
<ritchierd@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Does warfare tend to produce better commanders than military
academies in peacetime? Are tennis players who only have a
theoretical knowledge of the game likely to be good tennis
players? I can't see that Hanson is telling us much.
The analogy warfare:military academies in
peacetime::practical:theoretical misses, I believe, the
extraordinary amount of practical training that an academy
education includes. The amount of such training my daughter
received at Annapolis was one of the major elements differentiating
her experience from any that I enjoyed at Michigan State or
Cornell. Of course, that training was largely restricted to things
a junior officer should know. It was, however, far from purely
theoretical.
A better tennis analogy might be someone who has trained for a
while with a good coach and plays a decent amateur game, who has
now, however, played in a major tournament.
John
--
John McCreery
The Word Works, Ltd., Yokohama, JAPAN
Tel. +81-45-314-9324
http://www.wordworks.jp/
