Letter from the Editor
Col. Andrew Steadman, U.S. Army
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The need to change will ever be with us. We may have analyzed the process, framed in its essential parameters, and made some considerable progress toward arming ourselves with systemic mechanisms to permit change to take place. But that in no way ensures either that change will occur or that it will be an easy, orderly process. And so the intellectual search, the exchange of ideas and the conceptual maturation must continue and be ever in motion.
—Gen. Donn Starry
Gen. Donn Starry provided a roadmap for transformation when he published “To Change an Army” in March 1983. Recognizing the increasing complexity of war, he challenged the Army to exert intellectual stewardship and “learn how to change our institutions from within instead of creating the circumstances in which change is forced upon us.”1 Starry recognized the changing environment at a moment when the profession needed new perspective, then he shared his ideas.
Then–Maj. Gen. Peter Chiarelli and Maj. Patrick R. Michaelis wrote about the 1st Cavalry Division’s 2004 deployment to Iraq in “Winning the Peace: The Requirement for Full-Spectrum Operations.” They stated, “What also became clear was that the traditional phased approach, grounded in U.S. doctrine, might not be the answer; rather, an event-driven ‘transitional’ approach might be more appropriate based on a robust set of metrics and analysis.”2 Their article handed the Army a recipe for fighting the growing insurgency and helped countless leaders guide their units through the conflict.
More recently in “The Graveyard of Command Posts,” Lt. Gen. Milford Beagle, Brig. Gen. Jason Slider, and Lt. Col. Matthew Arrol presented the grim realities of the Ukraine war alongside unit rotation data from the National Training Center.3 The article took aim at the Army’s affinity for tent-based, static command posts and triggered a widespread change in tactics.
These three articles exemplify how even the best ideas and practices become stale and outdated as the character of war evolves, and they reinforce that the Army must continually reevaluate itself to maintain an advantage over its adversaries.
This edition of Military Review features several authors who challenge long-held beliefs and offer fresh perspectives. Retired Col. Paul Munch addresses one of the riskiest operations in warfare with “Tactical River Crossings: Is It Time to Reconsider the Current Doctrine’s Tactics and Procedures?” Lt. Col. Ryan C. Van Wie reimagines our global force presence in “Forward Presence at What Cost? Rethinking U.S. Armored Brigade Rotations in Europe.” And Air Force Lt. Col. Jahara Matisek and coauthors Alexander Noyes and Robert Schafer make the case for reinvesting in the advisor mission with “Penny Wise, Dollar Stronger: Why the Pentagon Should Reform, Not Cut Military Advising Missions.”
It is an invaluable pillar of the U.S. military’s professional dialogue that leaders have the intellectual curiosity (and the freedom) to reevaluate tactics, equipment, systems, programs, and doctrine, and Military Review has been a medium for such dialogue for over one hundred years. I encourage our readers to continue to critically assess our Army, put their thoughts on paper, and submit their work to Military Review, Parameters, or any of the professional journals on the Line of Departure website.4
Notes 
- Starry, “To Change an Army,” 27.
- Peter W. Chiarelli and Patrick R. Michaelis, “Winning the Peace: The Requirement for Full-Spectrum Operations,” Military Review 85, no. 4 (July-August 2005): 7, https://cgsc.contentdm.oclc.org/digital/collection/p124201coll1/id/169/rec/5.
- Milford Beagle et al., “The Graveyard of Command Posts: What Chornobaivka Should Teach Us about Command and Control in Large-Scale Combat Operations,” Military Review 103, no. 3 (May-June 2023): 10–24, https://www.armyupress.army.mil/Journals/Military-Review/English-Edition-Archives/May-June-2023/Graveyard-of-Command-Posts/.
- Line of Departure, accessed 2 March 2026, https://www.lineofdeparture.army.mil/.
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