A Thinking and Writing Military Is a Better One

It is time the services stop cutting the budgets and staff of the professional journals and military presses that allow Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, Marines, Guardians, and civilian contributors to discuss and the debate the future of the services, the profession of arms, and how the American military can remain the best in the world. Such cuts are short-sighted and do far more harm than good. Let us explain.           

Military presses play a vital role in the life of the services and the joint community, allowing each service to discuss and debate tactical, operational, and strategic issues internally and with the broader professional community. For less than 0.000025 percent of the defense budget (roughly $20-25 million), the services can fully fund all seven presses.

Service presses publish not only on the profession of arms, but broader topics that matter to the military. Indeed, the military’s best and brightest can be found in the pages of military journals and books. Key service doctrinal innovations were developed and honed in military publications, including Air Force Colonel John A. Warden’s Five Rings, Army General Don Starry’s AirLand Battle, and Air Force Lieutenant Colonel John Boyd’s OODA Loop.

Professional military presses serve as a critical repository and history of the military’s intellectual development, providing Americans a window into the proclivities, trends, and concerns of a subordinate military.

While outstanding civilian journals are actively engaged in the various and important debates that arise from the military profession, service presses do not report to private entities. They are publicly funded and open access, allowing service presses to publish on topics that are important to their service, but not necessarily commercially viable.

Military presses and their publications date back seven decades or more. In the March 1947 inaugural issue of Air University Quarterly Review, the editorial board noted the now-familiar disclaimer that accompanies all publications of military presses, that the content therein represents authors’ opinions and may not “coincide with” that of the military service or department.

General Colin Powell, established Joint Forces Quarterly in 1993, admonishing readers not to “read the pages that follow if you are looking for the establishment point of view or the conventional wisdom. Pick up JFQ for controversy, debate, new ideas, and fresh insights—for the cool yet lively interplay among some of the finest minds committed to the professional of arms.”

Military presses shape global perspectives. Western militaries—bureaucratic and technocratic in nature—rigorously examine failures and debate fixes. Eliminating the venues where those discussions take place is a bad idea. Contributors and readers create a larger intellectual commons where dialogue shapes the effective execution of politics by other means. Air University Press’s four journals have an annual audience of well over one million readers globally, with over 99 percent of its readership and over half of its authors external to Air University. JFQ has close to one million readers annually. Ally, partner, and adversary militaries read and respect American military publications.

Military presses are an unrivaled record of military thought, especially post conflict. Military Review was first published in 1922 in response to World War I. The 77-year-old flagship journal of the Air Force, currently represented by Æther and Air & Space Operations Review emerged following World War II. Naval War College Review serves as a central repository for discussion and debate concerning seapower’s role during the Cold War. Parameters was largely a response to the US Army’s performance in Vietnam.

Writings of field grade officers who later became general and flag officers pepper the pages of military press publications, including then-Major David H. Petraeus, then-Major Kenneth F. McKenzie Jr., then-Captain James Stavridis, and then-Lieutenant Colonel B. Chance Saltzman. Leading civilian scholars of the military also have contributed.

While military publishing is an attractive budget target, it actually saves little money. Eliminating AUP saves the Air Force .0014 percent of its total budget of about $217 billion. Rather than severely underfunding or effectively defunding their presses, the services and DoD should fund these long-standing institutions to a level where each function as the test bed for the very ideas that will allow the military to be successful when the next conflict comes.

Dr. Laura Thurston-Goodroe is the editor of Æther and Air & Space Operations Review. Dr. Adam Lowther is the Vice President of Research at the National Institute for Deterrence Studies. The views expressed are their own.