When the Senate confirmed Eric Shinseki as the first Asian-American chief of Staff of the Army in June 1999, Bill Clinton’s “politically-correct” general had four years to leave his mark on the service. In a speech made on October 15 of that year, Shinseki stated. “In order to become more deployable and maintain lethality, the Army must field a prototype brigade-size force. The intent is to establish brigades in the next few months that will use off-the-shelf systems, as resources permit and as quickly as possible, to jumpstart development of concepts and doctrine, organizational design, and training.” It appears that...