A new U.S. Army Field Manual presents an introduction for soldiers to “the warrior ethos” (large pdf).
“Modern combat is chaotic, intense, and shockingly destructive,” the document states. “In your first battle, you will experience the confusing and often terrifying sights, sounds, smells, and dangers of the battlefield–but you must learn to survive and win despite them.”
“The Warrior Culture, a shared set of important beliefs, values, and assumptions, is crucial and perishable. Therefore, the Army must continually affirm, develop, and sustain it, as it maintains the nation’s existence.”
The warrior ethos (or any other) is not instilled simply by reading about it. But the new Army publication provides a common vocabulary and framework of reference for the aspiring warrior, along with basic survival and combat techniques.
See “The Warrior Ethos and Soldier Combat Skills,” U.S. Army Field Manual FM 3-21.75, January 2008 (316 pages in a very large 28 MB PDF file).
January saw us watching whether the government would fund science. February has been about how that funding will be distributed, regulated, and contested.
This rule gives agencies significantly more authority over certain career policy roles. Whether that authority improves accountability or creates new risks depends almost entirely on how agencies interrupt and apply it.
Our environmental system was built for 1970s-era pollution control, but today it needs stable, integrated, multi-level governance that can make tradeoffs, share and use evidence, and deliver infrastructure while demonstrating that improved trust and participation are essential to future progress.
Durable and legitimate climate action requires a government capable of clearly weighting, explaining, and managing cost tradeoffs to the widest away of audiences, which in turn requires strong technocratic competency.