Planning for Conflict in the Twenty-First Century

Brian Hanley is Associate Professor at the U.S. Air Force Academy. He received his M.Litt from Oxford University and is the author of Samuel Johnson as Book Reviewer: A Duty to Examine the Labours of the Learned (2001), as well as over a dozen articles in such military journals as World Defence Systems, Joint Forces Quarterly, and War, Literature, and the Arts.

"Brian Hanley....presents a strongly argued case for reforming both the mentality and the structure of the education of American officers away from narrowly defined professional learning and a system of systems approach toward a broader education based in the humanities, especially the study of history....Hanley's work deserves to be read by those interested in the future of Professional Military Education. In the wake of all that has gone terribly wrong in Iraq, the United States will need to take a serious look at its military's strengths and weaknesses. Not all of these answers will involve adding new generations of weapons and communications technologies. We will also have to begin to rethink how we prepare our officers for the battlefields of the future. Hanley's thesis and his proposals for reform deserve to be a part of that discussion." - Proceedings