Washington, D.C. – Today, House Armed Services Committee Chairman Ike Skelton (D-Mo.) announced the appointment of Major General Robert Scales (USA, Ret.) and Dr. Richard Kohn to the Department of Defense’s independent panel to assess the 2009 Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR).

 

“I am honored to appoint General Robert Scales and Dr. Richard Kohn to the independent panel on the Quadrennial Defense Review. The Quadrennial Defense Review plays an important role in Congress’ development of national security priorities.  General Scales and Dr. Kohn have the analytical backgrounds and practical military experience to help Congress evaluate the results and recommendations of the QDR,” said Skelton.  

 

Section 1061 of the FY 2010 National Defense Authorization Act (P.L. 111-84) establishes provisions for the Chairmen and Ranking Members of the House and Senate Armed Services Committees to appoint 8 additional members to DOD’s independent panel to assess the QDR.  The law allows Skelton, in his capacity as Chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, to appoint 2 members to the panel. 

 

            The 2009 QDR is expected to be released in February 2010.  The independent panel’s report on the 2009 QDR must be submitted to the Secretary of Defense and to the Congressional defense committees no later than July 15, 2010.

 

            Biographies of General Scales and Dr. Kohn are attached:

 

Major General Robert Scales (USA, Ret.)

 

Retired General (Dr.) Robert Scales is a graduate of West Point and earned his PhD in history from Duke University. Dr. Scales served over thirty years in the Army, retiring as a Major General.

 

Scales commanded two units in Vietnam, winning the Silver Star for action during the battles around Dong Ap Bia (Hamburger Hill) during the summer of 1969. Subsequently, he served in command and staff positions in the United States, Germany, and Korea and ended his military career as Commandant of the United States Army War College. In 1995, he created the Army After Next program, which was the Army’s first attempt to build a strategic game and operational concept for future land warfare.

 

Immediately after retirement from the Army, Scales was appointed President and CEO of Walden University. He is currently President of Colgen, Inc., a consulting firm specializing in issues relating to land power, war gaming and strategic leadership.

 

Scales is the author of two books on military history: Certain Victory, the official account of the Army in the Gulf War and Firepower in Limited War, a history of the evolution of firepower doctrine since the end of the Korean War. He has also written two books on the theory of warfare: Future Warfare, a strategic anthology on America’s wars to come and Yellow Smoke: the Future of Land Warfare for America’s Military.

 

Scales is a frequent consultant with the senior leadership of every service in the Department of Defense, as well as Congress and many allied militaries. He is also a frequent commentator for the American and international media on issues relating to military history, future warfare and defense policy.

 

Dr. Richard H. Kohn

 

Dr. Richard H. Kohn is Professor of History and Adjunct Professor of Peace, War, and Defense at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.  Kohn was educated at Harvard (A.B. magna cum laude, 1962) and the University of Wisconsin (M.S. 1964, Ph.D. 1968).  He has taught military history and national security affairs at City College of the City University of New York, Rutgers University-New Brunswick, Dickinson College, and the US Army and National War Colleges. 

 

From 1981 to 1991, Kohn was Chief of Air Force History and Chief Historian for the United States Air Force, responsible for providing historical advice and services to the Air Staff and Secretariat, and functional management of history as a staff function throughout the world wide Air Force.

 

From 1992 to 2000, Kohn headed the Triangle Institute of Security Studies, and from 1992 to 2006, he chaired the Curriculum in Peace, War, and Defense, an undergraduate major in the field in UNC’s College of Arts and Sciences.

 

            Kohn served two terms as president of the Society for Military History, served on the Advisory Board of the U.S. Air Force's Gulf War Air Power Survey and the Air University Board of Visitors, and served as a member of the National Security Study Group, which assisted the US Commission on National Security/21st Century (the Hart-Rudman Commission).  

 

            A specialist in American military history and civil-military relations, Kohn is the author, editor, or co-author or co-editor of some ten volumes in the field, including Eagle and Sword:  The Federalists and the Creation of the Military Establishment in America, 1783-1802 (1975) and The Exclusion of Black Soldiers from the Medal of Honor in World War II (1997).  His most recent book is an edited volume with Peter D. Feaver, Soldiers and Civilians: The Civil-Military Gap and American National Security (2001). He is currently working on a study of presidential war leadership in American history.

 

 

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