The Rumsfeld Legacy

Robert D. Kaplan tries his hand at a video documentary in this piece in the Atlantic on Donald Rumsfeld. Embedding in this post not possible, so check it out here.

Of course, the video is for your online enjoyment—in the hard copy of the magazine is Kaplan’s piece on Rumsfeld’s legacy, and which reads kinder that the video above:

“Parts of the world were unassigned when Rumsfeld came into office; he assigned them. He created Northern Command for the defense of the continental United States and put Canada and Mexico inside it. He assigned Russia to European Command and Antarctica to Pacific Command. Out of part of European Command, which was responsible for much of Africa, he created Africa Command—a potentially pathbreaking bureaucratic instrument that incorporates other agencies like the State Department and emphasizes bilateral training programs and indirect, humanitarian-affairs-oriented approaches over combat. As obvious as all these choices seem, they weren’t when Rumsfeld made them.”