Correction and Apology

I make a humble apology to the readers of this Clublog. Ever since I posted the last entry over two weeks on "Strategy, Escalation, and Quagmire," I have been bothered that I had one fact wrong. When facts are wrong, the analysis is less credible. I stated in the entry that Georgre Ball had originated the idea of the "enclave strategy " during the Vietnam War as an alternative approach to America policy in 1965 in South Vietnam. The truth is, US Army Chief of Staff Johnson in March 1965 brought forward the idea of the enclaves, or strategic cantonments as I called them. The idea was strongly endorsed by former Chairman of the JCS and U.S. Ambassador to Vietnam, Gen. Maxwell D. Taylor (USA, Ret.). The proposal was never given a chance for operational experiment before US policymakers decided on a more aggressive strategy with commitment of major ground units of the US and South Korea. At the time of March 1965, US Marine Corps battalion landing teams had just deployed to Danang, South Vietnam in a limited role of airbase security.



While that one very important fact about the authorship of the strategy was wrong, the general analysis of our blog entry, I feel, is fairly solid. Yet, getting something so wrong, having written the entry in haste, without proper fact checking, was due to both intellectual sloth and arrogance. I had been planning on updating the entry and expanding it for the next issue of The Cepia Club Strategy Gazette, coming up next Thu., Feb. 1st. The newer version was going to incorporate some regular scholarly quotation, notation and references, with source notes and a Works Cited section. It has always been intended that the Gazette would take a more serious approach to intellectual rigor and honesty by using such principles of research and writing. Well, after this problem with the last blog entry, we cannot delay.



Blogs are a curious thing. If the blog is not updated and kept new and fresh, readers will diminish or visit less often. This has consequences for the entire Club website. I fell into a publish or perish paranoia common to academia in writing the last entry. People who know me also know that I, unlike many people who are "history buffs," am a trained scholar in the discipline of history. I hold a degree in it, albeit a measely bachelor of arts. Still, I know better what is the proper way to do research and analysis and the correct method for explaining it. My skills over the years got to the point I said above, "lazy and 0ver-confident." I have a sincere desire to make this Clublog, Club publications and other things credible, accurate, reliable, influential and effective.



With this, I may not always be correct, or even "right" in my opinion. However, I promise Club participants, the public, clients and customers that I will make every effort to make our work a thorough effort, not lazy and arrogant.

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