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Guest aevans
Posted
It's one thing to say "It's not superior." But it's a whole separate thing to say "Here's how we fix it." I don't think there could ever be any way of improving the system we've got UNLESS we make it so that an officer has to have a minimum of (say) two years enlisted service (including Basic and AIT) in order to even qualify to apply to become an officer. That might make it better, but there are no many alternatives to what we've got now.

 

I'm just offering and opinion on one possible alternative. No need to go into kneejerk defensive mode Rocky -- I'm on your side much more often than not, remember?

 

Regardless of the origins of the current system (IIRC, people could but a commission as an officer if they had enough money or were automatically made an officer if the had royal lineage), I have to think that serious brainstorming of the Officer and NCO Corps paths has happened on more than one occasion in the past 50 years and that system is still in place. Therefore, no seriously challenging alternatives to the current must have been discovered.

 

I don't think that statement stands up very well to scrutiny. You yourself have offered the opinion that it's what we've got, so live it and love it. That doesn't offer much encouragement that "...serious brainstorming of the Officer and NCO Corps paths has happened on more than one occasion in the past 50 years..." There has indeed been a lot of thought given to tweaking the system to make it more palatable for an increasingly professional NCO corps, but there doesn't seem to be much evidence that the fundamental arrangement has been examined with much rigor at all.

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Posted
1. I'm just offering and opinion on one possible alternative. No need to go into kneejerk defensive mode Rocky -- I'm on your side much more often than not, remember?

 

2. I don't think that statement stands up very well to scrutiny. You yourself have offered the opinion that it's what we've got, so live it and love it. That doesn't offer much encouragement that "...serious brainstorming of the Officer and NCO Corps paths has happened on more than one occasion in the past 50 years..." There has indeed been a lot of thought given to tweaking the system to make it more palatable for an increasingly professional NCO corps, but there doesn't seem to be much evidence that the fundamental arrangement has been examined with much rigor at all.

 

1. I'm "kneejerk" because some around here make vague "suggestions" that officers are worthless fat-asses not deserving of any sort of respect from the "real soldiers." It's not been specifically said, but the feeling is there hidden within the words. Sure, there are some that fit that mold - just as there are fat-assed and lazy EM and NCOs as well. If the Officer Corps was as lame and worthless as some might suggest, then it would have been done away with long ago. But, it's still here.

 

2. Yes, we do have to live it an love it. Both NCO and Officer career and education paths have been tweaked many times over the years. I see that as an attempt to improve a system that most believe in. Nothing wrong with that - almost any program or idea can stand improvement. But, the wholesale scrapping of what we've got now with no hint of what replaces it is utter foolishness.

 

I wonder what makes people seethe with inner rage when the cagey vet E-6 (or above) has to salute a baby-faced 2LT and call him “Sir.” And, that same E-6 has to crack down on his subordinates if he overhears them making open and disparaging comments about their Platoon Leader – knowing full well that he harbors the same feelings about “LT Numbnuts” but just can’t openly voice those feelings.

 

I’ve only known a handful of LTs and Captains that were just plain idiots and didn’t need to be in uniform at all. On the other hand, I can’t even begin to count the number of times an officer came to me (as an NCO) for advice. That’s how the NCOs help the officers – by actually helping instead of muttering expletives under their collective breaths.

 

Help them while they are LTs and you might see that person again as a wiser Captain or Major down the road. Then, you'll look back and think about how you might have helped that person mature as an officer and it makes you feel good inside.

Guest aevans
Posted

You're definitely swinging way after the bell, where I'm concerned, Rocky. I don't have a problem with officers, military customs and courtesies, or making a show of loyalty (on the rare ocassions that it needs to be show) for the sake of the institution. I'm just suggesting that not everything is sacred, nor need it be. So pop a chill pill, at least where I'm concerned.

Posted
You're definitely swinging way after the bell, where I'm concerned, Rocky. I don't have a problem with officers, military customs and courtesies, or making a show of loyalty (on the rare ocassions that it needs to be show) for the sake of the institution. I'm just suggesting that not everything is sacred, nor need it be. So pop a chill pill, at least where I'm concerned.

 

It wasn't you. You're fine. :)

Posted
Yes - that is policy and has been for a long time.

 

Salute at the beginning of the day, and typically the officer would say, "Carry on, I'll be in the area all day", meaning, "Don't salute me again, do your jobs."

Posted
Those who in the current system might see themselves eventually becoming senior technicians might become lieutenants and captains along the technical track.

 

That's to some extent how it works in the USMC as it stands now, with highly skilled techs or SME's becoming Warrant Officers or LDO's -- For those not of Sam or the USMC: "LDO" is Limited Duty Officer, usually either a senior NCO or a Warrant Officer, given a commission to work only in the field of his expertise. Most officers are expected to do a variety of jobs, from command, to staff work, etc. An LDO stays in his field, typically they only make Captain (I think they're not permitted higher rank). So you might have an exceptionally qualified mechanic be promoted to LDO, to be an officer specializing only in the Mech branch. I saw a couple of LDO's when I was in Aviation Ordnance--also quite a few Aviation Ordnance Warrant Officers. My OIC was a CWO-4, the Captain in charge of the Marine side of the house at AO School was a LDO, former Gunnery Sgt. I'm not sure if he was a Warrant Officer before he was commissioned.

 

Oh yeah--this meant that the good Captain was permitted to tack on rank and blood stripes of junior Marines...the "rule" was you can only tack on rank etc, if you once held the rank yourself. Since the Captain had gone all the way up to Gunny...."Striking a Subordinate", anyone? ;)

Posted

[quote name='Jim Martin' date='Mon 27 Aug 2007 1926' post='487030'

 

Oh yeah--this meant that the good Captain was permitted to tack on rank and blood stripes of junior Marines...the "rule" was you can only tack on rank etc, if you once held the rank yourself. Since the Captain had gone all the way up to Gunny...."Striking a Subordinate", anyone? ;)

 

I've never done "blood rank" on anybody. I've had it done on me three times. It's bullshit and was never a part of the Army I knew from 1973 to 1985, but was an integral part of the one I knew from 1997 on.

Posted
[quote name='Jim Martin' date='Mon 27 Aug 2007 1926' post='487030'

 

Oh yeah--this meant that the good Captain was permitted to tack on rank and blood stripes of junior Marines...the "rule" was you can only tack on rank etc, if you once held the rank yourself. Since the Captain had gone all the way up to Gunny...."Striking a Subordinate", anyone? ;)

I've never done "blood rank" on anybody. I've had it done on me three times. It's bullshit and was never a part of the Army I knew from 1973 to 1985, but was an integral part of the one I knew from 1997 on.

 

 

I never put on rank when it wasn't tacked on. I made meritorious Lance Cpl on graduation from AO School, and by the end of the day, my roommate had to help me take off my Dress Blues tunic, I couldn't raise my arms to remove it. :P

 

Didn't help that I'd gotten shots in both arms that morning before school.

 

A Gunny I knew said when he made Cpl, he had to use a screwdriver to pry the chevrons out of his collarbone. :P

Posted
[quote name='Jim Martin' date='Mon 27 Aug 2007 1926' post='487030'

 

Oh yeah--this meant that the good Captain was permitted to tack on rank and blood stripes of junior Marines...the "rule" was you can only tack on rank etc, if you once held the rank yourself. Since the Captain had gone all the way up to Gunny...."Striking a Subordinate", anyone? ;)

I've never done "blood rank" on anybody. I've had it done on me three times. It's bullshit and was never a part of the Army I knew from 1973 to 1985, but was an integral part of the one I knew from 1997 on.

 

Blood Rank? WTF is that???

Posted
Blood Rank? WTF is that???

What a barbaric way of promotion.... thank god we use slip ons

Posted

Seems relevant. S/F....Ken M

 

A failure in generalship

By Lt. Col. Paul Yingling

"You officers amuse yourselves with God knows what buffooneries and never dream in the least of serious service. This is a source of stupidity which would become most dangerous in case of a serious conflict."

- Frederick the Great

 

 

For the second time in a generation, the United States faces the prospect of defeat at the hands of an insurgency. In April 1975, the U.S. fled the Republic of Vietnam, abandoning our allies to their fate at the hands of North Vietnamese communists. In 2007, Iraq's grave and deteriorating condition offers diminishing hope for an American victory and portends risk of an even wider and more destructive regional war.

 

These debacles are not attributable to individual failures, but rather to a crisis in an entire institution: America's general officer corps. America's generals have failed to prepare our armed forces for war and advise civilian authorities on the application of force to achieve the aims of policy. The argument that follows consists of three elements. First, generals have a responsibility to society to provide policymakers with a correct estimate of strategic probabilities. Second, America's generals in Vietnam and Iraq failed to perform this responsibility. Third, remedying the crisis in American generalship requires the intervention of Congress.

 

The Responsibilities of Generalship

 

Armies do not fight wars; nations fight wars. War is not a military activity conducted by soldiers, but rather a social activity that involves entire nations. Prussian military theorist Carl von Clausewitz noted that passion, probability and policy each play their role in war. Any understanding of war that ignores one of these elements is fundamentally flawed.

 

The passion of the people is necessary to endure the sacrifices inherent in war. Regardless of the system of government, the people supply the blood and treasure required to prosecute war. The statesman must stir these passions to a level commensurate with the popular sacrifices required. When the ends of policy are small, the statesman can prosecute a conflict without asking the public for great sacrifice. Global conflicts such as World War II require the full mobilization of entire societies to provide the men and materiel necessary for the successful prosecution of war. The greatest error the statesman can make is to commit his nation to a great conflict without mobilizing popular passions to a level commensurate with the stakes of the conflict.

 

Popular passions are necessary for the successful prosecution of war, but cannot be sufficient. To prevail, generals must provide policymakers and the public with a correct estimation of strategic probabilities. The general is responsible for estimating the likelihood of success in applying force to achieve the aims of policy. The general describes both the means necessary for the successful prosecution of war and the ways in which the nation will employ those means. If the policymaker desires ends for which the means he provides are insufficient, the general is responsible for advising the statesman of this incongruence. The statesman must then scale back the ends of policy or mobilize popular passions to provide greater means. If the general remains silent while the statesman commits a nation to war with insufficient means, he shares culpability for the results.

 

However much it is influenced by passion and probability, war is ultimately an instrument of policy and its conduct is the responsibility of policymakers. War is a social activity undertaken on behalf of the nation; Augustine counsels us that the only purpose of war is to achieve a better peace. The choice of making war to achieve a better peace is inherently a value judgment in which the statesman must decide those interests and beliefs worth killing and dying for. The military man is no better qualified than the common citizen to make such judgments. He must therefore confine his input to his area of expertise — the estimation of strategic probabilities.

 

The correct estimation of strategic possibilities can be further subdivided into the preparation for war and the conduct of war. Preparation for war consists in the raising, arming, equipping and training of forces. The conduct of war consists of both planning for the use of those forces and directing those forces in operations.

 

To prepare forces for war, the general must visualize the conditions of future combat. To raise military forces properly, the general must visualize the quality and quantity of forces needed in the next war. To arm and equip military forces properly, the general must visualize the materiel requirements of future engagements. To train military forces properly, the general must visualize the human demands on future battlefields, and replicate those conditions in peacetime exercises. Of course, not even the most skilled general can visualize precisely how future wars will be fought. According to British military historian and soldier Sir Michael Howard, "In structuring and preparing an army for war, you can be clear that you will not get it precisely right, but the important thing is not to be too far wrong, so that you can put it right quickly."

 

The most tragic error a general can make is to assume without much reflection that wars of the future will look much like wars of the past. Following World War I, French generals committed this error, assuming that the next war would involve static battles dominated by firepower and fixed fortifications. Throughout the interwar years, French generals raised, equipped, armed and trained the French military to fight the last war. In stark contrast, German generals spent the interwar years attempting to break the stalemate created by firepower and fortifications. They developed a new form of war — the blitzkrieg — that integrated mobility, firepower and decentralized tactics. The German Army did not get this new form of warfare precisely right. After the 1939 conquest of Poland, the German Army undertook a critical self-examination of its operations. However, German generals did not get it too far wrong either, and in less than a year had adapted their tactics for the invasion of France.

 

After visualizing the conditions of future combat, the general is responsible for explaining to civilian policymakers the demands of future combat and the risks entailed in failing to meet those demands. Civilian policymakers have neither the expertise nor the inclination to think deeply about strategic probabilities in the distant future. Policymakers, especially elected representatives, face powerful incentives to focus on near-term challenges that are of immediate concern to the public. Generating military capability is the labor of decades. If the general waits until the public and its elected representatives are immediately concerned with national security threats before finding his voice, he has waited too long. The general who speaks too loudly of preparing for war while the nation is at peace places at risk his position and status. However, the general who speaks too softly places at risk the security of his country.

 

Failing to visualize future battlefields represents a lapse in professional competence, but seeing those fields clearly and saying nothing is an even more serious lapse in professional character. Moral courage is often inversely proportional to popularity and this observation in nowhere more true than in the profession of arms. The history of military innovation is littered with the truncated careers of reformers who saw gathering threats clearly and advocated change boldly. A military professional must possess both the physical courage to face the hazards of battle and the moral courage to withstand the barbs of public scorn. On and off the battlefield, courage is the first characteristic of generalship.

 

Failures of Generalship in Vietnam

 

America's defeat in Vietnam is the most egregious failure in the history of American arms. America's general officer corps refused to prepare the Army to fight unconventional wars, despite ample indications that such preparations were in order. Having failed to prepare for such wars, America's generals sent our forces into battle without a coherent plan for victory. Unprepared for war and lacking a coherent strategy, America lost the war and the lives of more than 58,000 service members.

 

Following World War II, there were ample indicators that America's enemies would turn to insurgency to negate our advantages in firepower and mobility. The French experiences in Indochina and Algeria offered object lessons to Western armies facing unconventional foes. These lessons were not lost on the more astute members of America's political class. In 1961, President Kennedy warned of "another type of war, new in its intensity, ancient in its origin — war by guerrillas, subversives, insurgents, assassins, war by ambush instead of by combat, by infiltration instead of aggression, seeking victory by evading and exhausting the enemy instead of engaging him." In response to these threats, Kennedy undertook a comprehensive program to prepare America's armed forces for counterinsurgency.

 

Despite the experience of their allies and the urging of their president, America's generals failed to prepare their forces for counterinsurgency. Army Chief of Staff Gen. George Decker assured his young president, "Any good soldier can handle guerrillas." Despite Kennedy's guidance to the contrary, the Army viewed the conflict in Vietnam in conventional terms. As late as 1964, Gen. Earle Wheeler, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, stated flatly that "the essence of the problem in Vietnam is military." While the Army made minor organizational adjustments at the urging of the president, the generals clung to what Andrew Krepinevich has called "the Army concept," a vision of warfare focused on the destruction of the enemy's forces.

 

Having failed to visualize accurately the conditions of combat in Vietnam, America's generals prosecuted the war in conventional terms. The U.S. military embarked on a graduated attrition strategy intended to compel North Vietnam to accept a negotiated peace. The U.S. undertook modest efforts at innovation in Vietnam. Civil Operations and Revolutionary Development Support (CORDS), spearheaded by the State Department's "Blowtorch" Bob Kromer, was a serious effort to address the political and economic causes of the insurgency. The Marine Corps' Combined Action Program (CAP) was an innovative approach to population security. However, these efforts are best described as too little, too late. Innovations such as CORDS and CAP never received the resources necessary to make a large-scale difference. The U.S. military grudgingly accepted these innovations late in the war, after the American public's commitment to the conflict began to wane.

 

America's generals not only failed to develop a strategy for victory in Vietnam, but also remained largely silent while the strategy developed by civilian politicians led to defeat. As H.R. McMaster noted in "Dereliction of Duty," the Joint Chiefs of Staff were divided by service parochialism and failed to develop a unified and coherent recommendation to the president for prosecuting the war to a successful conclusion. Army Chief of Staff Harold K. Johnson estimated in 1965 that victory would require as many as 700,000 troops for up to five years. Commandant of the Marine Corps Wallace Greene made a similar estimate on troop levels. As President Johnson incrementally escalated the war, neither man made his views known to the president or Congress. President Johnson made a concerted effort to conceal the costs and consequences of Vietnam from the public, but such duplicity required the passive consent of America's generals.

 

Having participated in the deception of the American people during the war, the Army chose after the war to deceive itself. In "Learning to Eat Soup With a Knife," John Nagl argued that instead of learning from defeat, the Army after Vietnam focused its energies on the kind of wars it knew how to win — high-technology conventional wars. An essential contribution to this strategy of denial was the publication of "On Strategy: A Critical Analysis of the Vietnam War," by Col. Harry Summers. Summers, a faculty member of the U.S. Army War College, argued that the Army had erred by not focusing enough on conventional warfare in Vietnam, a lesson the Army was happy to hear. Despite having been recently defeated by an insurgency, the Army slashed training and resources devoted to counterinsurgency.

 

By the early 1990s, the Army's focus on conventional war-fighting appeared to have been vindicated. During the 1980s, the U.S. military benefited from the largest peacetime military buildup in the nation's history. High-technology equipment dramatically increased the mobility and lethality of our ground forces. The Army's National Training Center honed the Army's conventional war-fighting skills to a razor's edge. The fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 signaled the demise of the Soviet Union and the futility of direct confrontation with the U.S. Despite the fact the U.S. supported insurgencies in Afghanistan, Nicaragua and Angola to hasten the Soviet Union's demise, the U.S. military gave little thought to counterinsurgency throughout the 1990s. America's generals assumed without much reflection that the wars of the future would look much like the wars of the past — state-on-state conflicts against conventional forces. America's swift defeat of the Iraqi Army, the world's fourth-largest, in 1991 seemed to confirm the wisdom of the U.S. military's post-Vietnam reforms. But the military learned the wrong lessons from Operation Desert Storm. It continued to prepare for the last war, while its future enemies prepared for a new kind of war.

 

Failures of Generalship in Iraq

 

America's generals have repeated the mistakes of Vietnam in Iraq. First, throughout the 1990s our generals failed to envision the conditions of future combat and prepare their forces accordingly. Second, America's generals failed to estimate correctly both the means and the ways necessary to achieve the aims of policy prior to beginning the war in Iraq. Finally, America's generals did not provide Congress and the public with an accurate assessment of the conflict in Iraq.

 

Despite paying lip service to "transformation" throughout the 1990s, America's armed forces failed to change in significant ways after the end of the 1991 Persian Gulf War. In "The Sling and the Stone," T.X. Hammes argues that the Defense Department's transformation strategy focuses almost exclusively on high-technology conventional wars. The doctrine, organizations, equipment and training of the U.S. military confirm this observation. The armed forces fought the global war on terrorism for the first five years with a counterinsurgency doctrine last revised in the Reagan administration. Despite engaging in numerous stability operations throughout the 1990s, the armed forces did little to bolster their capabilities for civic reconstruction and security force development. Procurement priorities during the 1990s followed the Cold War model, with significant funding devoted to new fighter aircraft and artillery systems. The most commonly used tactical scenarios in both schools and training centers replicated high-intensity interstate conflict. At the dawn of the 21st century, the U.S. is fighting brutal, adaptive insurgencies in Afghanistan and Iraq, while our armed forces have spent the preceding decade having done little to prepare for such conflicts.

 

Having spent a decade preparing to fight the wrong war, America's generals then miscalculated both the means and ways necessary to succeed in Iraq. The most fundamental military miscalculation in Iraq has been the failure to commit sufficient forces to provide security to Iraq's population. U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) estimated in its 1998 war plan that 380,000 troops would be necessary for an invasion of Iraq. Using operations in Bosnia and Kosovo as a model for predicting troop requirements, one Army study estimated a need for 470,000 troops. Alone among America's generals, Army Chief of Staff General Eric Shinseki publicly stated that "several hundred thousand soldiers" would be necessary to stabilize post-Saddam Iraq. Prior to the war, President Bush promised to give field commanders everything necessary for victory. Privately, many senior general officers both active and retired expressed serious misgivings about the insufficiency of forces for Iraq. These leaders would later express their concerns in tell-all books such as "Fiasco" and "Cobra II." However, when the U.S. went to war in Iraq with less than half the strength required to win, these leaders did not make their objections public.

 

Given the lack of troop strength, not even the most brilliant general could have devised the ways necessary to stabilize post-Saddam Iraq. However, inept planning for postwar Iraq took the crisis caused by a lack of troops and quickly transformed it into a debacle. In 1997, the U.S. Central Command exercise "Desert Crossing" demonstrated that many postwar stabilization tasks would fall to the military. The other branches of the U.S. government lacked sufficient capability to do such work on the scale required in Iraq. Despite these results, CENTCOM accepted the assumption that the State Department would administer postwar Iraq. The military never explained to the president the magnitude of the challenges inherent in stabilizing postwar Iraq.

 

After failing to visualize the conditions of combat in Iraq, America's generals failed to adapt to the demands of counterinsurgency. Counterinsurgency theory prescribes providing continuous security to the population. However, for most of the war American forces in Iraq have been concentrated on large forward-operating bases, isolated from the Iraqi people and focused on capturing or killing insurgents. Counterinsurgency theory requires strengthening the capability of host-nation institutions to provide security and other essential services to the population. America's generals treated efforts to create transition teams to develop local security forces and provincial reconstruction teams to improve essential services as afterthoughts, never providing the quantity or quality of personnel necessary for success.

 

After going into Iraq with too few troops and no coherent plan for postwar stabilization, America's general officer corps did not accurately portray the intensity of the insurgency to the American public. The Iraq Study Group concluded that "there is significant underreporting of the violence in Iraq." The ISG noted that "on one day in July 2006 there were 93 attacks or significant acts of violence reported. Yet a careful review of the reports for that single day brought to light 1,100 acts of violence. Good policy is difficult to make when information is systematically collected in a way that minimizes its discrepancy with policy goals." Population security is the most important measure of effectiveness in counterinsurgency. For more than three years, America's generals continued to insist that the U.S. was making progress in Iraq. However, for Iraqi civilians, each year from 2003 onward was more deadly than the one preceding it. For reasons that are not yet clear, America's general officer corps underestimated the strength of the enemy, overestimated the capabilities of Iraq's government and security forces and failed to provide Congress with an accurate assessment of security conditions in Iraq. Moreover, America's generals have not explained clearly the larger strategic risks of committing so large a portion of the nation's deployable land power to a single theater of operations.

 

The intellectual and moral failures common to America's general officer corps in Vietnam and Iraq constitute a crisis in American generalship. Any explanation that fixes culpability on individuals is insufficient. No one leader, civilian or military, caused failure in Vietnam or Iraq. Different military and civilian leaders in the two conflicts produced similar results. In both conflicts, the general officer corps designed to advise policymakers, prepare forces and conduct operations failed to perform its intended functions. To understand how the U.S. could face defeat at the hands of a weaker insurgent enemy for the second time in a generation, we must look at the structural influences that produce our general officer corps.

 

The Generals We Need

 

The most insightful examination of failed generalship comes from J.F.C. Fuller's "Generalship: Its Diseases and Their Cure." Fuller was a British major general who saw action in the first attempts at armored warfare in World War I. He found three common characteristics in great generals — courage, creative intelligence and physical fitness.

 

The need for intelligent, creative and courageous general officers is self-evident. An understanding of the larger aspects of war is essential to great generalship. However, a survey of Army three- and four-star generals shows that only 25 percent hold advanced degrees from civilian institutions in the social sciences or humanities. Counterinsurgency theory holds that proficiency in foreign languages is essential to success, yet only one in four of the Army's senior generals speaks another language. While the physical courage of America's generals is not in doubt, there is less certainty regarding their moral courage. In almost surreal language, professional military men blame their recent lack of candor on the intimidating management style of their civilian masters. Now that the public is immediately concerned with the crisis in Iraq, some of our generals are finding their voices. They may have waited too long.

 

Neither the executive branch nor the services themselves are likely to remedy the shortcomings in America's general officer corps. Indeed, the tendency of the executive branch to seek out mild-mannered team players to serve as senior generals is part of the problem. The services themselves are equally to blame. The system that produces our generals does little to reward creativity and moral courage. Officers rise to flag rank by following remarkably similar career patterns. Senior generals, both active and retired, are the most important figures in determining an officer's potential for flag rank. The views of subordinates and peers play no role in an officer's advancement; to move up he must only please his superiors. In a system in which senior officers select for promotion those like themselves, there are powerful incentives for conformity. It is unreasonable to expect that an officer who spends 25 years conforming to institutional expectations will emerge as an innovator in his late forties.

 

If America desires creative intelligence and moral courage in its general officer corps, it must create a system that rewards these qualities. Congress can create such incentives by exercising its proper oversight function in three areas. First, Congress must change the system for selecting general officers. Second, oversight committees must apply increased scrutiny over generating the necessary means and pursuing appropriate ways for applying America's military power. Third, the Senate must hold accountable through its confirmation powers those officers who fail to achieve the aims of policy at an acceptable cost in blood and treasure.

 

To improve the creative intelligence of our generals, Congress must change the officer promotion system in ways that reward adaptation and intellectual achievement. Congress should require the armed services to implement 360-degree evaluations for field-grade and flag officers. Junior officers and noncommissioned officers are often the first to adapt because they bear the brunt of failed tactics most directly. They are also less wed to organizational norms and less influenced by organizational taboos. Junior leaders have valuable insights regarding the effectiveness of their leaders, but the current promotion system excludes these judgments. Incorporating subordinate and peer reviews into promotion decisions for senior leaders would produce officers more willing to adapt to changing circumstances, and less likely to conform to outmoded practices.

 

Congress should also modify the officer promotion system in ways that reward intellectual achievement. The Senate should examine the education and professional writing of nominees for three- and four-star billets as part of the confirmation process. The Senate would never confirm to the Supreme Court a nominee who had neither been to law school nor written legal opinions. However, it routinely confirms four-star generals who possess neither graduate education in the social sciences or humanities nor the capability to speak a foreign language. Senior general officers must have a vision of what future conflicts will look like and what capabilities the U.S. requires to prevail in those conflicts. They must possess the capability to understand and interact with foreign cultures. A solid record of intellectual achievement and fluency in foreign languages are effective indicators of an officer's potential for senior leadership.

 

To reward moral courage in our general officers, Congress must ask hard questions about the means and ways for war as part of its oversight responsibility. Some of the answers will be shocking, which is perhaps why Congress has not asked and the generals have not told. Congress must ask for a candid assessment of the money and manpower required over the next generation to prevail in the Long War. The money required to prevail may place fiscal constraints on popular domestic priorities. The quantity and quality of manpower required may call into question the viability of the all-volunteer military. Congress must re-examine the allocation of existing resources, and demand that procurement priorities reflect the most likely threats we will face. Congress must be equally rigorous in ensuring that the ways of war contribute to conflict termination consistent with the aims of national policy. If our operations produce more enemies than they defeat, no amount of force is sufficient to prevail. Current oversight efforts have proved inadequate, allowing the executive branch, the services and lobbyists to present information that is sometimes incomplete, inaccurate or self-serving. Exercising adequate oversight will require members of Congress to develop the expertise necessary to ask the right questions and display the courage to follow the truth wherever it leads them.

 

Finally, Congress must enhance accountability by exercising its little-used authority to confirm the retired rank of general officers. By law, Congress must confirm an officer who retires at three- or four-star rank. In the past this requirement has been pro forma in all but a few cases. A general who presides over a massive human rights scandal or a substantial deterioration in security ought to be retired at a lower rank than one who serves with distinction. A general who fails to provide Congress with an accurate and candid assessment of strategic probabilities ought to suffer the same penalty. As matters stand now, a private who loses a rifle suffers far greater consequences than a general who loses a war. By exercising its powers to confirm the retired ranks of general officers, Congress can restore accountability among senior military leaders.

 

Mortal Danger

 

This article began with Frederick the Great's admonition to his officers to focus their energies on the larger aspects of war. The Prussian monarch's innovations had made his army the terror of Europe, but he knew that his adversaries were learning and adapting. Frederick feared that his generals would master his system of war without thinking deeply about the ever-changing nature of war, and in doing so would place Prussia's security at risk. These fears would prove prophetic. At the Battle of Valmy in 1792, Frederick's successors were checked by France's ragtag citizen army. In the fourteen years that followed, Prussia's generals assumed without much reflection that the wars of the future would look much like those of the past. In 1806, the Prussian Army marched lockstep into defeat and disaster at the hands of Napoleon at Jena. Frederick's prophecy had come to pass; Prussia became a French vassal.

 

Iraq is America's Valmy. America's generals have been checked by a form of war that they did not prepare for and do not understand. They spent the years following the 1991 Gulf War mastering a system of war without thinking deeply about the ever changing nature of war. They marched into Iraq having assumed without much reflection that the wars of the future would look much like the wars of the past. Those few who saw clearly our vulnerability to insurgent tactics said and did little to prepare for these dangers. As at Valmy, this one debacle, however humiliating, will not in itself signal national disaster. The hour is late, but not too late to prepare for the challenges of the Long War. We still have time to select as our generals those who possess the intelligence to visualize future conflicts and the moral courage to advise civilian policymakers on the preparations needed for our security. The power and the responsibility to identify such generals lie with the U.S. Congress. If Congress does not act, our Jena awaits us.

Posted

The author fails when writing of the Army after Vietnam and, especially about COL Summers.

 

COL Summers so correctly identified why we lost in Vietnam by comparing each and every aspect of the strategic prosecution of the war with Principles of War as defined by Clauswitz (Unity of Command, etc.) that it became required reading in CGSOC with a graded writing assignment on the book afterwards. Summers was correct - the war was treated as an in7ssurgency in the South when the real reason for the instability was continual encroachment by the North into the South using North Vietnamese Regular Army troops and equipment.

 

Counterinsurgency budgets were reduced after Vietnam because the budget and focus of training has to be tailored for the most obvious threat (even a moron should know this) and, from the end of our involvement in Vietnam in 1973 to the end of the Cold War, the number one perceived threat was the Warsaw Pact with China pulling a close second place.

 

But, the author correctly states (as did COL Summers) that if a nation's heart is not fully supportive of the war effort, it will ultimately fail (laid out by both Clauswitz and Sun Tsu). Nearly all enemies of the US know that the general US public has no patience. The American public thought there was going to be a quick victory like Desert Storm. However, occupation/rebuilding is a slow process. So, if the enemy knows that if they can make the war drag on for more than one television season in the US, they will eventually win out. So, let's just give up and end it now, and prosecute the entire leadership at Division level and higher for Dereliction of Duty so we that can get back to watching American Idol in relative peace (until the next 9/11).

 

Note Clauswitz' principle to "gain public support:"

 

http://www.clausewitz.com/CWZHOME/PrincWar/Princwr1.htm#III

Posted
Blood Rank? WTF is that???

 

Using "pin-on rank," the promoted individual is called before the Company Commander to be promoted in front of the entire unit (which is standing at attention in formation). As the promotion orders are read, the Commander places the "pin-on rank" on the lapels of the promoted soldier's uniforms but omits putting the pin-backs (or tits as they are referred to) onto the sharp pins (usually two per rank insignia). The Commander then straightens out the lapels of the promoted individual and ensures that the exposed pins on the lapels are lying flat and then he pounds them into the promoted soldier's chest/collarbone with his fists. I'm a small person and every time this happened to me, the force of the blow knocked me backwards. But, I never received anything more than a small flesh wound from this (besides maybe huge bruises on my collarbone).

Guest aevans
Posted
What a barbaric way of promotion.... thank god we use slip ons

 

Silly and sophomoric, but hardly barbaric.

Posted

A few considerations:

 

It seems to me obvious that the class-based roots of a dual/parallel career path within the same branch/specialty/army have largely subsided. Even from an educational standpoint, many more enlisted (especially senior NCOs) have college degrees. You can always drag in post-grad titles but at some point the military payoff from further formal education ahs got to be negligible (and that’s where the analogy to engineers or doctors evaporates).

 

I think the best mix would be to have a single career path from Private to 5-star but allow for specific training and educational precedents to result in different entry points.

 

For instance:

- High-school grad, no experience fresh outta boot = private

- West-point Grad with all the ancillary courses = straight to 2lt or at least Platoon second in command/plt sgt.

- Some guy with a degree in history from Kansas State and a 90-day course?? = private (ok, squad Sgt.).

 

After all, if the extra age/education really matter in performance, the KS guy gets promoted faster than the high-school chap, right? Right…

Guest aevans
Posted
Note Clauswitz' principle to "gain public support:"

 

http://www.clausewitz.com/CWZHOME/PrincWar/Princwr1.htm#III

 

That would be fine, except that his prescription for gaining public opinion (not "support", as you misquoted), is:

 

"4. Public opinion is won through great victories and the occupation of the enemy's capital."

 

An insurgency provides no opportunity for great victories, and an insurgent enemy has no capital.

Posted
That would be fine, except that his prescription for gaining public opinion (not "support", as you misquoted), is:

 

"4. Public opinion is won through great victories and the occupation of the enemy's capital."

 

An insurgency provides no opportunity for great victories, and an insurgent enemy has no capital.

 

Right - but it was, after all, written more than a century ago.

 

But - remember the relative euphoria that followed the Coalition's capture of Baghdad.

Guest aevans
Posted (edited)
Right - but it was, after all, written more than a century ago.

 

And it is mostly still very good advice -- if not taken too literally. You can find a lot of stuff on the linked page that would be of as much use to the insurgents as to us, expecially in the tactical section where it talks about maintaining a reserve, hitting the enemy at a weak point, selling out in non-critical sectors to get decisive concentration at the critical point, etc. Just don't take the advice as limited to considerations of conventional combat in a defined physical space.

 

The fundamental problem with quoting Clausewitz is not that it's bad advice, but that none of it is magick. (Remember, On War was written as a primer for a prince, by a military academy dean whose entire active service was on staffs.) Yet people invoke Clausewitz as if his work was the ultimate trump card. It's not, and it has to be taken as a whole, because it is so dense in many places that short quotes are almost always out of context. On War is something every serious student of history should read, but not the place to look for simple, cliche answers.

 

But - remember the relative euphoria that followed the Coalition's capture of Baghdad.

 

With all due respect, that was the war against Saddam Hussein's regime. We won that one handily, very much in the manner that Clausewitz prescribes. Then we found ourselves in another war, one that requires taking Clausewitz, where we do take him, in a mcuh more holistic fashion, looking for a philosophical gestalt of meaning, not for prescribed measures.

Edited by aevans
Posted
And it is mostly still very good advice -- if not taken too literally. You can find a lot of stuff on the linked page that would be of as much use to the insurgents as to us, expecially in the tactical section where it talks about maintaining a reserve, hitting the enemy at a weak point, selling out in non-critical sectors to get decisive concentration at the critical point, etc. Just don't take the advice as limited to considerations of conventional combat in a defined physical space.

 

The fundamental problem with quoting Clausewitz is not that it's bad advice, but that none of it is magick. (Remember, On War was written as a primer for a prince, by a military academy dean whose entire active service was on staffs.) Yet people invoke Clausewitz as if his work was the ultimate trump card. It's not, and it has to be taken as a whole, because it is so dense in many places that short quotes are almost always out of context. On War is something every serious student of history should read, but not the place to look for simple, cliche answers.

With all due respect, that was the war against Saddam Hussein's regime. We won that one handily, very much in the manner that Clausewitz prescribes. Then we found ourselves in another war, one that requires taking Clausewitz, where we do take him, in a mcuh more holistic fashion, looking for a philosophical gestalt of meaning, not for prescribed measures.

 

I brought up Clauswitz because COL Summers (who was maligned in the quoted article) was instrumental in identifying the problems done by the US in Vietnam (on a strategic level), comparing US actions to the very simplistic Principles of War, and then discussing where we went wrong and what we should have done to win. He was an outstanding instructor at the War College and his works were so revered that reading his book was required. And I do happen to know (and you should, too) that the senior leadership DID learn and not repeat the lessons of Vietnam during Desert Storm. So, in that respect, maybe what Summers wrote was remembered to some degree.

 

It's obvious that Clauswitz (for the most part) does not fit the unconventional warfare mold very good. However, certain tenets of his still apply in those situations (speed, maintaining the initiative, etc.).

Posted
The author fails when writing of the Army after Vietnam and, especially about COL Summers.

 

Not just there. The author believes that the heads of the Armed Services should have gone to Congress when their advice wasn't listened to.

 

Now, maybe I'm just not into double standards, but if Pfc Snuffy turns around to his superior in the chain of command and says "you're not following my advice, I think I'll make a noise in the Press" then I suspect that his platoon sergeant will have a word or two to say on the matter. While CSM Jones decide that the CO is a moron, he will still carry out his mission to the best of his ability.

 

So, why should it be any different from the Generals who report directly to the Executive Branch? At the end of the day, the Executive decides on Grand Strategy involving diplomacy, economics, and military power. The armed services have their part to play. To demand that the Joint Chiefs should be insubordinate as soon as they disagree with a mission is unrealistic.

 

I may have my doubts about the USA's Executive branch, but it's still in charge - and so it should be. From this side of the Atlantic, though, it's interesting to see that for all the sh*t that Shinseki took on this grate site (about how he was Clinton yes-man, or that his ideas on the subject of wheeled mobility were just plain wrong) the Stryker brigades appear to be doing the business.

 

I don't know what the answer is. Perhaps Congressional oversight, and their ability to question General officers would be a good thing (it's always better to see the CGS in front of a Commons Defence Committee here than our rather uninspiring ministers) but the author's suggestion that Congress should be able to punish Generals with whom it disagrees seems a bit daft. Y'all can't stop Congress from slopping pork onto every bill, why should they be trusted not to be a vindictive bunch of SOBs when it isn't called for? What happens when a Democrat-controlled Senate comes to review the reserve rank of a General who implemented Republican policies? No man can serve two masters (Executive and Legislative), so I fail to see how adding sticks to beat Generals will magically make them more competent. As the engineering saying goes, you can't "inspect in" quality - you have to build it in from the start.

 

Rather than call for moral courage on the part of Generals, I think that the author would be better demanding moral courage on the part of those within the Executive and Legislature.

Posted
.....Army after Vietnam focused its energies on the kind of wars it knew how to win

 

That is inaccurate. Army GOs concentrated on preparing to fight the war they wanted to fight. This is what happens with the royalist officer system. Arrogant GOs with their own agenda doing what they want instead of what they should.

Guest aevans
Posted
That is inaccurate. Army GOs concentrated on preparing to fight the war they wanted to fight. This is what happens with the royalist officer system. Arrogant GOs with their own agenda doing what they want instead of what they should.

 

Incorrect. The Army at every rank concentrated on the preparing for a war they expected to fight, against the enemies that were apparent and most threatening. IOW, they did their jobs.

Posted

Army brass tried to bury the Small Wars Manual all through the seventies and eighties.

Guest aevans
Posted
Army brass tried to bury the Small Wars Manual all through the seventies and eighties.

 

A few of things:

 

1. It wasn't their product, it was a Marine Corps publication.

 

2. The political climate after Vietnam was such that the US Army could legitimately expect not to get involved in an insurgency any time soon, at least as long as the Soviet Union existed.

 

3. Since that very same Soviet Union was considered the primary threat, the Army concentrated on the primary threat. Gee, what a bunch of incompetents...

 

It was a case of putting first things first. Yes, there were probably a large number of officers that didn't think much of counterinsurgency warfare, but it was much more a situation of benign neglect rather than outright denial. Remember, news of the services' supposed animosity towards counterinsurgency warfare post-Vietnam is brought to us by self-styled "reformers" that need an ax to grind.

Posted
A few of things:

 

1. It wasn't their product, it was a Marine Corps publication.

 

2. The political climate after Vietnam was such that the US Army could legitimately expect not to get involved in an insurgency any time soon, at least as long as the Soviet Union existed.

 

3. Since that very same Soviet Union was considered the primary threat, the Army concentrated on the primary threat. Gee, what a bunch of incompetents...

 

It was a case of putting first things first. Yes, there were probably a large number of officers that didn't think much of counterinsurgency warfare, but it was much more a situation of benign neglect rather than outright denial. Remember, news of the services' supposed animosity towards counterinsurgency warfare post-Vietnam is brought to us by self-styled "reformers" that need an ax to grind.

 

IIRC during the 80s there was COIN training going on in Panama and Honduras, specially for the light forces. And the Army developed the Light divisions for that kind of conflict.

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