Army Officer Accuses Generals of 'Intellectual and Moral Failures'

[SWJED]

27 April Washington Post - Army Officer Accuses Generals of 'Intellectual and Moral Failures' (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/26/AR2007042602230.html) by Tom Ricks.


An active-duty Army officer is publishing a blistering attack on U.S. generals, saying they have botched the war in Iraq and misled Congress about the situation there.

"America's generals have repeated the mistakes of Vietnam in Iraq," charges Lt. Col. Paul Yingling, an Iraq veteran who is deputy commander of the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment. "The intellectual and moral failures . . . constitute a crisis in American generals."...

The article, "General Failure," is to be published today in Armed Forces Journal and is posted at http://www.armedforcesjournal.com/2007/05/2635198. Its appearance signals the public emergence of a split inside the military between younger, mid-career officers and the top brass.

Many majors and lieutenant colonels have privately expressed anger and frustration with the performance of Gen. Tommy R. Franks, Lt. Gen. Ricardo S. Sanchez, Lt. Gen. Raymond T. Odierno and other top commanders in the war, calling them slow to grasp the realities of the war and overly optimistic in their assessments...

Armed Forces Journal - A Failure in Generalship (http://www.armedforcesjournal.com/2007/05/2635198) by LTC Paul Yingling.


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...

Key Quote:


"As matters stand now, a private who loses a rifle suffers far greater consequences than a general who loses a war"...

[Ski]

Not a good sign to say the least. I suspect he will be cashiered at the worst, reprimanded or just left to die on the vine.

[milesce]

I'll be very curious to hear the opinions of the professionals on this board to this article. It's fascinating stuff, and it accurately reflects what I've been told repeatedly by the junior and midlevel officers I've talked to say, but being on the "outside" it's tough to know if these are widely held views.

[tequila]

Wow. Hard to believe LTC Yingling wants to stay on AD after this ... hard to imagine the fury he must be feeling to burn his career this way.

[Van]

That LTC Yingling would publish this says a lot of good things about his candor, integrity, and belief in selfless service. His is doing what Patton and Eisenhower lacked the fortitude to do in the '20s and '30s (Forging the Thunderbolt: History of the U.s. Army's Armored Forces, 1917-45, Mildred Hanson Gillie).

It also speaks volumes about his frustration and concern for the future of the country as well as the Army.

What also indictates a systemic problem in the Army is that the most likely response from the senior leadership will be to formally or informally punish him, rather than to consider the statements, decisions, and actions by the senior leaders that caused LTC Yingling to write his book and examine what led up to it. Easier to punish a whistle-blower than to fix what got the whistle blown.

This demonstrates that the senior leaders have not learned a fundemental lesson of the media age; when things go wrong, don't cover up, tell the story early, and tell it yourself. Failure to follow this maxim consistently leads to scandal and public embarrassment.

To be completely fair, I haven't read the book (but will) and I don't know LTC Yingling or if there were circumstances that might have caused him to write from 'less than pure' motives (passed over for promotion, black marks in his record - not saying there are, but that I don't know).

[Steve Blair]

He's echoing some of the things that Don Vandergriff has said (both on and off AD) regarding the Army personnel system. This is also the kind of thing you used to see in the old Army& Navy Journal. IMO it's long overdue.

[RTK]

To be completely fair, I haven't read the book (but will) and I don't know LTC Yingling or if there were circumstances that might have caused him to write from 'less than pure' motives (passed over for promotion, black marks in his record - not saying there are, but that I don't know).

I know the man and that is not the case. LTC Yingling maybe one of the smartest individuals I've ever worked around or with. A BN command selectee and SAMS graduate, LTC Yingling is without a doubt one of a handful of officers I would follow anywhere.

[SWJED]

Here is a link to a Combat Studies Institute interview of LTC Yingling (http://cgsc.cdmhost.com/cdm4/item_viewer.php?CISOROOT=/p4013coll13&CISOPTR=273&REC=4) conducted last September.

[Tom Odom]

if I had to condense [my advice] into a pithy little bullet it would be: don’t train on finding the enemy; train on finding your friends and they will help you find your enemy.”

Love this guy!

Tom

[Tom Odom]

Even better...


RH: The berm was an Iraqi idea?
PY: It was. We got that advice from Mayor Najim and Major General Khorsheed as well as from some Iraqi legislators whom we were in touch with. Although we didn’t quite understand it and it wasn’t something doctrinally that we anticipated doing, it was very good advice. One of the lessons I learned from this was to step outside of my Western skin and see the problem through the Iraqis’ eyes and take their advice when conducting operations because they have a perspective that we just can’t fully appreciate.

[marct]

He is making some very serious accusations but, on the whole, I have to agree with a lot of them. I would hope that he will not end up hanging out in the breeze, but I expect that he will. I'm still digesting the article, but I have to agree with what he says about the personelle selection system.


Marc

[Tom Odom]

My last on the interview...which you really do need to read to get a sensing of where the AFJ article comes from as in this:


PY: The thing the Army institutionally is still struggling to learn is that the most important thing we do in counterinsurgency is building host nation institutions – building security forces, building local government capacity – and yet all our organizations are designed around the least important line of operations: combat operations. There is a real danger in over-determination based on the organization’s design. There’s the old saying, “If you give a man a hammer, he sees every problem as a nail.” Similarly, if you give a unit tanks and Bradleys, they see every problem as a movement to contact. That’s an oversimplification, but it is a problem. I’ve now had two combat tours where I was involved in developing ISF and I’ve been to every Army school you can go to as an officer, and no one has ever talked to me about that challenge. No one has ever given me any classes on how to do that. Thankfully there are a lot of great Elizabeth Hellers (ph) out there and other smart people who are just figuring things out because there are problems and they just have to be solved. The institutional Army, though, has not caught up in either professional education or organizational design with the challenges of counterinsurgency. So as I go into battalion command, I’m going to focus my troops on those tasks and give them the mental models that will allow them to anticipate those problems and solve them. Eventually the institutional Army will catch up and they’ll get that stuff into schools and there will be MTOE positions for security force development and civil-military operations; but until that day I think individual commanders will have to solve that problem on their own, because when we get into theater we certainly have to solve it. Waiting until we get there to understand that those are the problems we have to solve creates a lot of heartache. Our task as senior leaders is to anticipate those challenges and train for them before we have to go fight. That’s my big takeaway on the US side. On the Iraqi side, there’s just no substitute for having great Iraqi leaders whom we were just lucky enough to have. In Malaya the British said, “First you need a man, then you need a plan.” Well, Mayor Najim and Major General Khorsheed were the men and the plan was clear-hold-build, and certainly the most important part of that was the men. We could have done everything exactly as we had done it, but without those two the results would have been very different. In that sense, we were very grateful for their leadership and that was probably the most important part of all this.

[sullygoarmy]

I've got to agree with RTK. Both as a SAMS guys and a future battalion commander, he has some pretty good credentials. I am very impressed with his candor. Since he was involved in Desert Storm, OIF I and most importantly, OIF III with 3 ACR and COL McMasters, he has a broad wealth of experience to call on. I don't see "sour grapes" as the motivation for this article. To be honest, I think he hit the nail on the head.

McMasters and his excellent book, "Dereliction of Duty" does a great job painting the picture of how poorly the General officers of the Vietnam era and the SecDef performed and the resulting diaster for our troops. I'm sure LTC Yingling was influenced by McMasters and felt like his article is highlighting what many junior and mid-level officers see as a major problem today. Take alook at the CSI interview provided by SWJED...its a great read. Alot of good lessons learned in there and you can sense the undercurrent of frustration with the higher ups.

I'm interested to see what the Army reaction is going to be. I'm hoping that cooler heads will prevail and you won't see any repercussions against him. I'd be surprised, however, if he still took command of a battalion this summer. If he is punished in some way, however, it merely proves his point.

Brave man for speaking out like this. I'm finishing up "The Praetorians", the sequal to "The Centurions" and I see alot of the same themes. Generals not wanting to adjust to the new realities of war, unable to demonstrate the mental agility to shift focus and the resulting chaos in which the troops must slog through, paying with blood because of the higher leadership's ineptitute.

[RTK]

If he is punished in some way, however, it merely proves his point.



Exactly.

He's only putting to paper what has been said in most every TOC and chow hall in the last 4 years.

[Merv Benson]

While he is obviously passionate about his point of view I think he would have been more persuasive if he had made his argument based on the competing strategies rather than personalities. Gen. Abizaid and Gen. Casey were believers in the "small footprint" strategy. To some degree that strategy worked in Afghanistan and was a failure in Iraq. The failure was not recognizing that the different battle spaces required different strategies.

While Yingling's passionate argument may effect his career, there have been some generals who have advanced because of their willingness to challenge positions of superiors. Norman Schwartzkopf did it as a young officer in Vietnam and Rifle De Long did it as a field grade officer with General Zinni. When you do it, it is important that you be right, obviously.

[goesh]

Yingling says, "Don't train on finding the enemy, train on finding friends and they will help you find your enemy". Fine, and as a dumb civilian, I ask, what does this friendship cost? What's the payback for them for helping to find enemies? Let me guess, they only want equal participation in Democracy, equal rights, equal opportunity, a purple finger and an Iraqi Thomas Jefferson. Of course they want security and I believe any cultivated friendship with a Sunni will have the payoff of identifying Shia' thugs and terrorists or anyone aiding said Shias. That should get the newly found friend first chance at new infractructure and jobs, right? Finding friends circumvents the dynamics of tribalism and religious sects but doesn't solve the problem, nor the problem of AQ playing each against the other. The cooperation of the Anbar Sheikhs is not a reflection of the democratic process or religious compromise. I can't be convinced to the contrary at this point in time. The selling point of COIN as a dynamic component in unifying Iraq into some homogeneous, cohesive, quasi-democratic entity capable of being a strategic friend to the US is still on the proving grounds. I want and hope it succeeds but you folks remain mission specific at this time and are not at the strategic table of foreign policy. I pray you are given a chair at that table. I presume Yingling will be talking to Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi who should be most receptive to him, and I'm not being sarcastic here either, just bitter.

I see that Yingling deployed again in March O5 for a another year's duty in Iraq. I'm wondering why it took such an obviously intelligent man another year to compile his thoughts and feelings into a report and said report manifests just as efforts are under the way to pull the plug on the whole shooting match. As a former L/Cpl and in going along with the format of openess and full disclosure, I would be interested in seeing a nice published report compiled by the rank and file of the Enlisted Men/Women on the Officer Corps in general serving in Iraq and Yingling in particular. They ain't fragging Officers, I know that much but not a whole lot more.

[Dr Jack]

From LTC Yingling's article:


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…


Civilian policymakers have neither the expertise nor the inclination to think deeply about strategic probabilities in the distant future…

This is somewhat reminiscent of a conversation from the movie Dr. Strangelove –


General Jack D. Ripper: Mandrake, do you recall what Clemenceau once said about war?

Group Capt. Lionel Mandrake: No, I don't think I do, sir, no.

General Jack D. Ripper: He said war was too important to be left to the generals. When he said that, 50 years ago, he might have been right. But today, war is too important to be left to politicians. They have neither the time, the training, nor the inclination for strategic thought. I can no longer sit back and allow Communist infiltration, Communist indoctrination, Communist subversion and the international Communist conspiracy to sap and impurify all of our precious bodily fluids.

[Van]

Dr. StrangeloveGeneral Jack D. Ripper: I can no longer sit back and allow ... international Communist conspiracy to sap and impurify all of our precious bodily fluids.
Generally, I prefer Sam Adams or bourbon.

But this is the dichotomey of being an officer in a system of civilian control of the military. Even if the officer is objectively right, he or she is still subordinate to civilian authority under the constitution.


Civilian policymakers have neither the expertise nor the inclination to think deeply about strategic probabilities in the distant future…

But the civilian policymakers are still in charge. LTC Yingling arrived at the conclusion that the current crop of general officers was failing in their duty to advise the civilian policymakers and took it upon himself to correct the problem. From the snippets I've read so far, he's done a very good job. Now to see what comes of it.

This makes an interesting exercise in game theory. He'll win big or lose big as far as an Army career goes. Do the rewards of success versus the cost of failure justify the strategy? Under what odds? With any kind of recognition for the book, failure in an Army career will be greatly mitigated by public speaking gigs and future writing, but that is also a gamble.

Re: my previous remarks about LTC Yingling's motivation for writing; I was stating my ignorance, not attempting to impugne LTC Yingling's character. No offence to anyone intended.

[RTK]

What's the payback for them for helping to find enemies?

Is it so hard to believe that many of them are sick of going to funerals and figure by helping us out they may actually save their own life or the lives of their family?


I presume Yingling will be talking to Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi who should be most receptive to him.

I doubt that very much.

[J Wolfsberger]

RTK,


I doubt that very much.

They'll be receptive because of the opportunity to collect sound bites they can deploy in the War on Bush. Learning anything from what he has to say, now that's a different matter...

[RTK]

RTK,



They'll be receptive because of the opportunity to collect sound bites they can deploy in the War on Bush. Learning anything from what he has to say, now that's a different matter...

They maybe receptive, but I doubt he'll be going to talk to them.

[dusty]

I read the interview and the 'General Failure' and found both to be very enlightning. The only point of contention for me is the emphasis that he places on congressional oversight of generals. I come from a state that just re-elected a congressman that was found with 90k dollars of bribe money in his freezer ( Rep. William Jefferson, D-LA). I agree that there should be more / better oversight, but laying the issue at congress' feet doesn't seem to be the correct solution.

[AFlynn]

I think the only way you could do it would be to have a small number of congressmen, probably ones on the Armed Services cmte's, focus on the generals as one of their issues alongside procurement, etc. The main body of congress is probably not qualified for sustained oversight, but a small, driven handful can open up some real possibilities.

[Shek]

I presume Yingling will be talking to Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi who should be most receptive to him, and I'm not being sarcastic here either, just bitter.

Should we be concerned about what members of Congress may or may not do?

As a profession, who by definition should be a self-policing body, I think we shouldn't focus too much on what others may or may not do, and instead, concentrate on cleaning our own house. It is nearly four years since signs surfaced that maybe we were being handicapped by some of our own generalship in Iraq. If we had more of an ability for tough, but respectful discourse within the profession, where company and/or field grade officers could offer criticism of decisions made at the GO level, then maybe we might not be at this point where we're concerned about what members of Congress may or may not do.

I think that it is important to note that this piece was published in one of our professional journals, and so my kudos to LTC Yingling for submitting it, and to AFJ for printing it. This wasn't a bitter pill "leaked" to a newspaper for publishing.

[Ironhorse]

But this is the dichotomey of being an officer in a system of civilian control of the military. Even if the officer is objectively right, he or she is still subordinate to civilian authority under the constitution.

<snip>

But the civilian policymakers are still in charge. LTC Yingling arrived at the conclusion that the current crop of general officers was failing in their duty to advise the civilian policymakers and took it upon himself to correct the problem. From the snippets I've read so far, he's done a very good job. Now to see what comes of it.
Many issues here. Policy & policy-making in, hopefully, the national interest -- politics and maneuvering for political power -- civilian control of the military.

All different things. Unfortunately, not different enough these days. Much of our pain is based on the slippery slope of tolerance for their convergence, our short term itis, and machiavellian justifications for compromises in the interest of power in the short run that we never quite get back around to applying for the reason we could justify pursuing.

[milesce]

...was published in one of our professional journals, and so my kudos to LTC Yingling for submitting it, and to AFJ for printing it. This wasn't a bitter pill "leaked" to a newspaper for publishing.

This is a big deal. There are several generals out there who've been very critical of current leadership. But they all waited to get their retirement papers in hand before they went public. Obviously I'm not privy to what goes on inside the Pentagon, but on the face of it a LTC has a whole lot more to lose at that stage in his career than a division commander about to retire. He could have chosen to do exactly what you are suggesting -- sat down with some reporter on an "off-the-record" basis and given his criticism anonymously. Then it would be worth little more than the ongoing partisan bickering in DC.

As it is, there's no way it can't be taken seriously.

LTC Yingling should be commended for putting his reputation and professional future on the line. That's geniune leadership.

[Steve Blair]

LTC Yingling should be commended for putting his reputation and professional future on the line. That's geniune leadership.

Agree completely. The points he's making about the personnel system have been made before by at least one officer. But that doesn't detract from the value or the courage it took for him to submit that article.

And again, kudos to AFJ for running it. Seems like they're going back to their roots, and that is a good thing.

[selil]

Why do I feel these bemusing rumblings of hackworth on 60 minutes so many years ago?

[Culpeper]

"As matters stand now, a private who loses a rifle suffers far greater consequences than a general who loses a war"...

I think the author has some gall. I actually know an enlisted Air Force Vietnam Vet that had to pay for a jeep he wrecked on some airbase in-country. I was shocked to say the least. I also used to know (now deceased) WWII highly decorated enlisted vet that served with the 82nd Airborne that complained bitterly about Patton making people wear ties on their shirts in the field. Nevertheless, I think it is a little unfair to hold generals to the same standards as a private losing his rifle. After all, all the private has to do is not lose his rifle, which is his own personal lifeline. A General losing a war is much more complicated with many aspects to review. With this in mind, a private publishing what this officer has published would be in a lot more trouble than the officer. So, would that make the enlisted man more courageous? I'm not impressed with officers and so-called experts and pundits venting their personal resentments. Truth be told, this officer probably saw some personal writing on the wall and this is his way of getting some payback. Revenge is a dish best served cold. So, if he gets disciplined than that is his own ass. What makes news are officers complaining. What doesn't make news are officers doing their duty, working around Catch-22 by improvising, and getting the job done in their immediate line of sight. Like the nameless C-123 pilot and crew that used chains tossed out the rear door to down a Soviet helicopter over Laos. The author's rant is nothing more than rancor that is getting attention. Very unprofessional and he deserves to get slapped no different than a private losing his rifle. I don't think he is very wise. For one thing the opportunity cost is too high and it is equivalent to some high school brat working at McDonald's and complaining at school about how inefficient the store is without even thinking that the corporation is one of the best in the world. The military is no place for quality circle management. Everybody wants to feel important. But that doesn't make it so.

[Shek]

Truth be told, this officer probably saw some personal writing on the wall and this is his way of getting some payback. Revenge is a dish best served cold. So, if he gets disciplined than that is his own ass. What makes news are officers complaining. What doesn't make news are officers doing their duty, working around Catch-22 by improvising, and getting the job done in their immediate line of sight.

This is an officer that is due to take battalion command in two months. While the article certainly anonymously implicates GOs that are currently currently service by association, it specifically talks about the GO corps in general terms so that people concentrate on the systemic failure of our personnel system, one that is based on equality and not talent and rewards officers who remain on a narrowly tactical path into positions where you must also understand the world and strategy. This is the skill mismatch that LTC Yingling is speaking of. So, you have an officer that has been deemed worthy by the very system that he is criticizing (EDIT: LTC Yingling does have a masters degree in Political Science from the University of Chicago, so he isn't the standard mold rewarded by the system).

I'm finding it hard to believe where the implication that this is payback can be found, as well as the implication that he's not doing his duty given that he's already served on three operational deployments, with his last one being a major cog in the wheel of the most successful brigade to have conducted counterinsurgency operations in Iraq as deemed by the Army itself.

[RTK]

Truth be told, this officer probably saw some personal writing on the wall and this is his way of getting some payback.

I'd recommend reading the rest of this thread on his background...

[Steve Blair]

I find it interesting that whenever an officer writes something like this that goes against the wisdom from higher, the immediate reaction is that he must have some personal ax to grind. We cannot in the same breath expect candor and honesty from our officers and then attack them when they provide what we expect. How can we on one hand look down on the commanders of Vietnam for not speaking out and then try to look down on another officer for speaking out?

From everything I can see, LTC Yingling has a good record. Perhaps serving with COL McMaster opened his eyes and gave him the confidence to put into words what he and other officers are thinking.

Sure, officers and enlisted men work around the "Catch 22s", but that doesn't address the major problem that Yingling and others have brought up: the failure of our personnel system (especially on the officer side) to produce the kind of officers we need to succeed in Small Wars. If those workarounds DID work, we wouldn't be seeing some of the same things we saw in Vietnam. If people aren't willing to put some things on the line when it needs to be done, you'll just waste more privates with rifles in the future. "Shut up and color" may work in some situations, but it sure as hell doesn't work when you're looking at a personnel system that has been broken for years.

[Culpeper]

I respect his background as well as his education. I just don't think his story brings anything new to the table to solve. Just another negative story complaining about the same old tired problems. Only this time it is some officer with a line command. I'm not impressed. We discuss these very same problems all the time on the SWC. And I'm always suspect of any expert that wants to compare Iraq with Vietnam. Vietnam was a bitch. Iraq is a pain in the ass. I suspect some sort of hidden agenda with the author. I realize he is highly respected and I can see how someone would be impressed. But not me. How would this officer handle one of his enlisted men doing the same thing under his own command?

Incidentally, laying his head on the Double E isn't going to solve anything. Getting promoted and changing the system as a career goal is a worthy endeavor. If this article happens to get him there than power to him. Other young officers commending him isn't going to put food on his soldiers' table. It's going to get him a job at CNN wearing a suit.

[Steve Blair]

If they are the "same old tired problems" then why isn't anyone fixing them? Sorry, but I just don't buy that reasoning. If people have to keep bringing them forward, that means that nothing's being done to correct the problem.

He's not alone, either. McMaster has mentioned this, as has Vandergriff and a whole series of officers from the Vietnam era. Still nothing's been done. "Self Destruction" was loaded with similar stories. Still nothing changes.

This sounds like shooting the messenger because you don't like the message. Maybe his personal agenda is that he wants to see the system change for the better and got tired of waiting for it to do it on its own.

I've compared Iraq to Vietnam before; not the ground war itself but the Army's response to the war. That is one comparison I think is valid. Granted the Army has done a MUCH better job adjusting to this war (but in all honesty it would be hard to do worse than it did adjusting to Vietnam), but many of the same institutional problems the Army faced during Vietnam are similar to what it faces in Iraq. The question of tour length, preparation before deployment, competency of the officer and NCO corps, troop levels, unit composition, and ROE all remain. Looking at the way the system responds to a conflict it wasn't prepared for is a valid process, and one that shouldn't be lost because the media wants to draw a direct comparison in all areas (which isn't possible).

That's why I think LTC Yingling's article is both valid and necessary. We may just have to agree to disagree here.

[DavidPB4]

As a civilian I am not qualified to comment on the aspects of the article related to military personnel matters. But on larger strategy Lieutenant Colonel Yingling wrote the following:

"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."

The above excerpt is not what I recall the late Colonel Summers having written. What I believe he said was that the United States should have extended the DMZ to the Mekong river, fortified the line with five divisions, and waged a defensive war along this front. The result he argued would have been (1) to shorten the front and thereby fight the war with North Vietnam on terms more favorable to the United States and (2) to seal off South Vietnam from outside infiltration and sanctuary. This dual strategy may or may not have worked but I do not believe Colonel Summers argued that counterinsurgency and conventional war were mutually exclusive.

In the 1980s, it was our side that was supporting insurgency and it was the other side trying to counter it. We need to study this period as well as the 1960s for guidance on what works and doesn't work.

I can appreciate the dismay of younger officers if US civilian and military leaders have again committed to a war on terms unwinnable or have exhausted the patience of the American people with an ineffective strategy. But I hope Lieutenant Colonel Yingling's article contributes to a serious and open debate of larger strategic issues and the responsibilities of civilians as well as generals.

[Culpeper]

Steve

No problem. We just disagree on the major points. However, I don't disagree entirely with your arguments or anyone else's defense for this officer. If this officer is admired by his men, his commands have a good track record, and he is sticking his neck out for his men than what we have is a maverick. If the opposite is true and he turns out to be a shameful opportunist, as I have seen so often with officers that speak out, than what we have is a future pundit to be seen later during prime time on a regular basis. I hope I am wrong. I want to believe. Things are so convoluted these days that it is always the case that one man's optimism is another man's pessimism though each want to see the same goals accomplished.

As an aside, I don't mean that Vietnam should not be compared to the situation in Iraq. But it should be itemized or put into perspective when done because the casualty rates and destruction in Vietnam far exceeded what is happening in the Middle East. What would make a headline today wouldn't even have been reported during Vietnam. And the military was much larger during Vietnam and the problems with upper level officers was worse than it is today. With the exception of the good officers that fought during the Vietnam Conflict I would have to say that the abuse by officers at all ranks was epidemic. I just don't think people should use the Vietnam bug-a-boo to avoid having to write out a valid argument. Like Mr. Ricks has decided to do by quoting the officer as such in the Washington Post article...


"America's generals have repeated the mistakes of Vietnam in Iraq," charges Lt. Col. Paul Yingling..."

But when you read the actual article by the officer you see this is out of context. I may be guilty of contempt prior to investigation.

[TROUFION]

The LTC took a big risk writing this. I give him credit there.

He has a lot of on the ground experience. His opinion is to be respected.

However, in my opinion, he should not have stated his belief that the war is lost. This was a mistake on his part as it detracts from his message. This statement places his arguments of mis-managment and failure beyond just a critical analysis and into the realm of politics. As an officer he should have stated his facts, his critique and then offered his educated opinion on what the next steps should be. At which point, he like a Dr could have offered his prognosis in an objective manner.

Further, while his commentary on personel assignment, evaluation and promotion is valid in many ways his assertion that congress should gain increased oversight is not. He claims that the GO selection and promotion process is tainted by what some call the 'good ol boy network' , well in some ways he may be right. But giving increased power to select to the Congress isn't the answer. Congress is a political organization we don't need to exchange one form of politics with another. I'll just leave it here.

-T

[Shek]

As a civilian I am not qualified to comment on the aspects of the article related to military personnel matters. But on larger strategy Lieutenant Colonel Yingling wrote the following:

"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."

The above excerpt is not what I recall the late Colonel Summers having written. What I believe he said was that the United States should have extended the DMZ to the Mekong river, fortified the line with five divisions, and waged a defensive war along this front. The result he argued would have been (1) to shorten the front and thereby fight the war with North Vietnam on terms more favorable to the United States and (2) to seal off South Vietnam from outside infiltration and sanctuary. This dual strategy may or may not have worked but I do not believe Colonel Summers argued that counterinsurgency and conventional war were mutually exclusive.

Dave,

COL Summers did argue that the Army failed to concentrate on conventional warfare enough. By concentrating on COIN (although COL Krepinevich's book The Army and Vietnam shows that this concentration on COIN was more lip service than substance), the Army and the nation was fatigued and therefore wasn't ready for the REAL threat, the NVA regiments that rolled south and seized Saigon in 1975. Given this, the appropriate action according to COL Summers was just as you described. In other words, COL Summers argued that COIN was irrelevant and actually harmful, and that the US should have pursued the conventional operations that you described from the start.

Shek

[PhilR]

The "real threat" that the Army had to be prepared for in the 1960's and 1970's were Warsaw Pact formations. Although, now in hindsight, its easy to fault the Army for not "getting it" in COIN, I think we to readily forget where the Army felt its primary duty to the nation (and the free world) lay.
I don't believe that the army set out to merely put Vietnam out of its mind because it was uncomfortable with the type of warfare or the results. I think it emerged into the early 1970s fully realizing that it did not have the training or capability to fight on the European continent. To bend itself to fight another Vietnam would have been to prepare for the last war, not the next.
I think that the Marine Corps faced a similar point in the early 1930s. After an internal power struggle, Marine leadership decided to put their eggs into the basket of amphibious operations, not Small Wars. One wonders what would have been the implications in WWII, and to the Marine Corps, if they had chosen otherwise. (I think its also worthwhile to state that the Marine Corps never went to a Small War with the Small Wars Manual in hand--it was written after the fact, and as Keith Bickel relates in his book, there were significant differences in the Corps about what would work).
The doctrinal and training reforms that were instituted by the Army were initiated by very smart general officers. Starry knew what he was doing (by the way, his official lesson learned on armor in Vietnam is till relevant to what we face today). The turn away from Vietnam was deliberate to allow the Army to face the threat it could not afford to lose to.
As to the general case of junior and mid-grade officers protesting, as a mid-grade officer (LtCol) I'm of two minds. Any criticism, if well founded and thought out, is valuable. Blaming a whole class of officers, however doesn't do much for me. The general officers he takes to task were the colonels and LtCols of the 1980s and 1990s. Maybe that's where the problem lay--in their inproper training and education by the previous set of leadership. I don't think his solution, Congress, will work. Huntington pointed out that one of the downsides of our constitutional seperation of powers is that we force military leadership to become political--they have to answer to both the executive and congress. While not good, Huntington also mentions that the overwhelming good to the society of this seperation probably outweighs the negatives in military matters. I think that getting Congress more into the nuts and bolts of selection would just further politicize the process. We're at war now and congress is starting to ask some of the correct questions. But when we're not at war, in the prep phases, they tend to focus on quality of life, and looking at the military's place in society, not as a warfighting entity.

[jcustis]

A pretty darn insightful post Phil.

[Culpeper]

"" Ditto.

Good post, Phil.

[Shek]

Phil,

Thanks for the cogent post. However, I do have a few quibbles with some of your points.

1. I totally agree that the services must make sure that they prepare for the next war and not the last. Thus, the decision of the Army to make Fulda Gap the focus of its rebuilding efforts in the 1970s was right on target. However, the issue that I have is the fact that the Vietnam experience was deleted from the hard drive as if it were a virus. No more Vietnams! You can see this in the catharsis that COL Summers' book provided, as well as the Weinberger and Powell Doctrines (ODS was an opportunity as well to try and eliminate the pale of Vietnam, with Bush 41's pronouncement that we've slayed the Vietnam demon).

Heck, how many officers were happy when Governor George W. Bush became president elect in December 2000 because he had stated "we don't do nation building" (I know that I was happy that we would jettison the Bosnias and Kosovos and get back to what we should be focusing on, which was warfighting - a reaction that I think was a product of the professional sentiment that we didn't want our jurisdiction to include the low end spectrum of full spectrum operations). So, I think that the decision to prepare for the Fulda Gap and to delete the institutional memories and lessons should be separated into two separate actions.

2. I think the criticism of actions many of the generals Vietnam is on target. This falls into the fight the war you have and not the war you want. I still agree that the concentration should have been on the more immediate risk to the national security, the Soviet threat, but if the policy makers decide on committing US forces, then we need to make sure we fight the war we have to the extent possible.

I think the following quote is quite interesting on the ability of the general officer corps to adapt to the COIN environment of Vietnam, http://www.wooster.edu/history/jgates/book-ch5.html#fn16


General James L. Collins, Jr., has been quoted as saying that, "had we had an organized body of literature" dealing with the Philippine campaign, "we would have saved ourselves a good deal of time and effort in Vietnam." General Bruce Palmer, Jr. made a similar comment in 1989, saying "I wish that when I was the deputy chief of staff for operations at Department of the Army in 1964-1965, we had studied the US Army's campaigns in the Philippines during the insurrection." They may be correct, but one suspects that the availability of such a history would have made little difference, for it would have told Americans no more about successful counterinsurgency campaigning than the literature already available in the writings of the 1950s and 1960s. Palmer claimed that a 1988 article about the Philippine war in Military Review "would have been of tremendous help to us in sorting out our thoughts [on the situation in Vietnam]."[16] Palmer apparently had no knowledge of an excellent 1964 article on the war, also printed in Military Review.[17]

The American problem in Vietnam was not a lack of information, historical or otherwise; it was the frequent failure to act upon the sound information, useful ideas, and valid suggestions that were readily available. A detailed and candid study of the French experience in Indochina seems to have been totally ignored, for example.[18] One suspects that nothing one might have written in the mid-1960s about the earlier war in the Philippines or the ongoing war in Vietnam would have convinced U. S. Army leaders of the importance of the non-military aspects of irregular warfare and the counterproductive effects of the use of massive firepower. People in high places rarely listen to what they do not want to hear.

3. You are totally on target with the following statement.


The general officers he takes to task were the colonels and LtCols of the 1980s and 1990s. Maybe that's where the problem lay--in their inproper training and education by the previous set of leadership.

However, this only highlights the fact that the problem is the GO corps as a body, as they are the ones making the decisions and grooming these leaders. In other words, as a body, the GO corps in a sense is "the system," and this is the dynamic that needs to be transformed.

To close, let's separate Congress from the equation and look at his proposals and whether they have merit.

1. A 360 degree evaluation system.
2. Advanced Civilian School and a foreign language.
3. The need to publish to demonstrate one's intellectual prowess.
4. The need to talk means, ways, and ends during confirmation hearings, akin to an oral examination.
5. Retire GOs at the rank at which they last demonstrated competence (you're promoted based on potential and then demoted based on performance).

(Given that #4 and #5 must involve Congress since they hold the necessary hearings, I understand that we can't fully separate them out of the equation)

So, what are the merits of these proposals. If we deem that there is merit, then the question becomes why hasn't the Army adopted those proposals with merit within the profession, as they have been on the table as options for at least a decade. If we can't adopt the proposals, then who outside should get involved to make sure that improvements in the system are adopted?

[Merv Benson]

There is a tendancy in arguing strategy to make it personal. As I have noted before Gen. Abizaid pursued a small foot print strategy in Afghanistan and Iraq. It has worked tolerably well in Afghanistan and it has not worked well at all in Iraq. Rather than argue about the officer selection process, it seems more productive to have a debate on when counterinsurgency warfare should be done with a small force and when it should be done with a greater force to space ratio. I have always favored the latter and I think that is what the current surge is finally doing in Iraq.

It seems to me that recognizing when each approach is appropriate and reacting accordingly should be our greatest concern.

[SWJED]

There is a tendancy in arguing strategy to make it personal. As I have noted before Gen. Abizaid pursued a small foot print strategy in Afghanistan and Iraq. It has worked tolerably well in Afghanistan and it has not worked well at all in Iraq. Rather than argue about the officer selection process, it seems more productive to have a debate on when counterinsurgency warfare should be done with a small force and when it should be done with a greater force to space ratio. I have always favored the latter and I think that is what the current surge is finally doing in Iraq.

It seems to me that recognizing when each approach is appropriate and reacting accordingly should be our greatest concern.

Merv,

I am of the opinion that if we had a larger 'footprint' early on - vacuum period post-May 2003 - then maybe we would not be facing the degree of insurgency we face now. Of course, the CPA foul-ups did not help things either. Still, the number one priority should have been security for the Iraqi population - we most certainly did not have enough boots-on-the-ground to provide that security.

Dave

[Culpeper]

Well, that puts the blame on the Secretary of Defense and perhaps General Franks for buying into it.

[SWJED]

Well, that puts the blame on the Secretary of Defense and perhaps General Franks for buying into it.

That is a start in the 'blame game'. Moreover, the CPA - Bremer - worked for the President via Rumsfeld. DoD shut out State and others of the interagency community and, even then, shut out those who were not of the party (GOP) line. Tom Ricks got it right when he picked Fiasco (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/159420103X/smallwarsjour-20/104-0563752-4865514?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&link&#37;5Fcode=xm2) as the title of his book on this sad state of affairs.

[DavidPB4]

Shek - Your two posts following mine make a good point, ie. the difference between what Summers actually wrote and what the Army thought he wrote. Summers wrote that isolation of the battlespace of South Vietnam should have been followed by counterinsurgency within the country, not that counterinsurgency could work without first isolating the battlespace or that conventional war alone was sufficient. If Summers became shorthand for downgrading counterinsurgency, then he became a symbol for something that he did not in fact favor.

On points two and three in your summary of Yingling, I can see some virtue in the intellectual discipline that publication requires, and specialized knowledge is vital to anyone serving in a sensitive region or technical field. But a blanket requirement for advanced civilian education and peer-reviewed publication worry me if they are meant as a way to make the armed forces more like other professional peer groups in which academic credentialism is growing.

There is also the question of whether more civilian education of officers will further widen the gray area between civil and military responsibility. The real need I see is for civilians to have more military content in what they learn of American history and civics, not for officers to spend more time in advanced civilian study. Civilians need a better understanding of military history and military institutions, and what these institutions can and cannot do, if they are to uphold the civilian end of the civil-military partnership. Civilian leaders need a basic military education more than military officers need more civilian education.

The greatest need is for civilian leaders (and generals insofar as they need to give advice) to be able to relate military commitments as means to long-range national or grand-strategic ends. We do not do a very good job of relating means and ends at this level, and those who define advanced study need to do a better job of relating them before making generals or anyone else undertake study with clarity in such matters as the intended purpose.

[Culpeper]

Should those of us sitting on the fence read, "Fiasco (http://www.amazon.com/Fiasco-American-Military-Adventure-Iraq/dp/159420103X/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/102-0553824-0734559?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1177889799&sr=1-1)"? I tend to read neutral or sanitized books. At least in my opinion. For example, right now I'm reading, "A Table In The Presence (http://www.amazon.com/Table-Presence-Dramatic-Battalion-Experienced/dp/0849918235/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/102-0553824-0734559?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1177889879&sr=1-1)", by Lt. Carey H. Cash, though I'm not particularly a right wing religious person (I just haven't seen anything like it published), "The Middle East (http://www.amazon.com/Middle-East-Bernard-Lewis/dp/0684832801/ref=pd_bbs_2/102-0553824-0734559?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1177889932&sr=1-2)", by Bernard Lewis, and "Among Warriors In Iraq (http://www.amazon.com/Among-Warriors-Iraq-Special-Fallujah/dp/1592287328/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/102-0553824-0734559?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1177889977&sr=1-1)", by Mike Tucker. I tend to shy away from books that appear at least to be taking a critical viewpoint on either side of the fence. That may be a shortcoming on my part. Nevertheless, these sort of books seem to become obsolete due to current events and other facts coming out later. I don't know but I'm open to advice and suggestion because this is an important topic. I may not be getting a well rounded picture due to being stubborn to some extent.

[jcustis]

As I have noted before Gen. Abizaid pursued a small foot print strategy in Afghanistan and Iraq. It has worked tolerably well in Afghanistan and it has not worked well at all in Iraq. Rather than argue about the officer selection process, it seems more productive to have a debate on when counterinsurgency warfare should be done with a small force and when it should be done with a greater force to space ratio. I have always favored the latter and I think that is what the current surge is finally doing in Iraq.

Whatever chance the small footprint model had, it was dashed when the need (or was it silly desire?) to provide internet cafes, dry cleaning, and barbershops, drove us into super FOBs. I don't think the FOBs came first. The amenities (or at least pursuit of them) were a contributing factor in the rise of the FOB, and it killed us.

From a historical perspective, I offer this excerpt from a threat report signed by the Commander of the Army, Commissioner of Police, commander of the Air Force, Director General of Intelligence, and Commander of Combined Operations of Country X, and delivered to the leader of X, roughly 3 years before a political settlement was finally arrived at in one of the nastiest "small wars":

Military and Police. The continued and rapid construction of protected villages is essential if food is to be denied to terrorists and steps should continue to be taken to control the terrorist ability to obtain goods and cash internally.

Classical War. It is not anticipated that the (country X) Security Forces will be involved internally in classical war during this quarter, but transborder operations could escalate the situation towards a classical war.

Of over-riding concern is the present inadequate and diminishing force level with the resultant urgent need for additional manpower to even contain the situation, let alone prevent its inevitable deterioration.

No successful result can be attained by purely military means. It is now more vital than ever to arrive at an early political settlement before the point of no return beyond which it will be impossible to achieve any viable political or military/political solution.

[Mark O'Neill]

From a historical perspective, I offer this excerpt from a threat report signed by the Commander of the Army, Commissioner of Police, commander of the Air Force, Director General of Intelligence, and Commander of Combined Operations of Country X, and delivered to the leader of X, roughly 3 years before a political settlement was finally arrived at in one of the nastiest "small wars":

Military and Police. The continued and rapid construction of protected villages is essential if food is to be denied to terrorists and steps should continue to be taken to control the terrorist ability to obtain goods and cash internally.

Classical War. It is not anticipated that the (country X) Security Forces will be involved internally in classical war during this quarter, but transborder operations could escalate the situation towards a classical war.

Of over-riding concern is the present inadequate and diminishing force level with the resultant urgent need for additional manpower to even contain the situation, let alone prevent its inevitable deterioration.

No successful result can be attained by purely military means. It is now more vital than ever to arrive at an early political settlement before the point of no return beyond which it will be impossible to achieve any viable political or military/political solution.

Rhodesia 1976?

[jonSlack]

I am of the opinion that if we had a larger 'footprint' early on - vacuum period post-May 2003 - then maybe we would not be facing the degree of insurgency we face now. Of course, the CPA foul-ups did not help things either. Still, the number one priority should have been security for the Iraqi population - we most certainly did not have enough boots-on-the-ground to provide that security.

I agree, with one caveat. An increased number of troops would have helped as long as there had been enough leaders with a good understanding of COIN who were able to create and implement effective strategies. Whenever I see the quote from former CSA GEN Shinseki about the level of forces required, I always wonder if they would have been used effectively or if senior leaders were merely reaching for a bigger hammer.

Andrew J. Bacevich - What's an Iraqi Life Worth? (09JUL06) (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/07/07/AR2006070701155_pf.html)


Gen. Tommy Franks, who commanded U.S. forces when they entered Iraq more than three years ago, famously declared: "We don't do body counts." Franks was speaking in code. What he meant was this: The U.S. military has learned the lessons of Vietnam -- where body counts became a principal, and much derided, public measure of success -- and it has no intention of repeating that experience. Franks was not going to be one of those generals re-fighting the last war.

Unfortunately, Franks and other senior commanders had not so much learned from Vietnam as forgotten it. This disdain for counting bodies, especially those of Iraqi civilians killed in the course of U.S. operations, is among the reasons why U.S. forces find themselves in another quagmire. It's not that the United States has an aversion to all body counts. We tally every U.S. service member who falls in Iraq, and rightly so. But only in recent months have military leaders finally begun to count -- for internal use only -- some of the very large number of Iraqi noncombatants whom American bullets and bombs have killed.

Through the war's first three years, any Iraqi venturing too close to an American convoy or checkpoint was likely to come under fire. Thousands of these "escalation of force" episodes occurred. Now, Lt. Gen. Peter Chiarelli, the commander of U.S. ground forces in Iraq, has begun to recognize the hidden cost of such an approach. "People who were on the fence or supported us" in the past "have in fact decided to strike out against us," he recently acknowledged.

In the early days of the insurgency, some U.S. commanders appeared oblivious to the possibility that excessive force might produce a backlash. They counted on the iron fist to create an atmosphere conducive to good behavior. The idea was not to distinguish between "good" and "bad" Iraqis, but to induce compliance through intimidation.

"You have to understand the Arab mind," one company commander told the New York Times, displaying all the self-assurance of Douglas MacArthur discoursing on Orientals in 1945. "The only thing they understand is force -- force, pride and saving face." Far from representing the views of a few underlings, such notions penetrated into the upper echelons of the American command. In their book "Cobra II," Michael R. Gordon and Gen. Bernard E. Trainor offer this ugly comment from a senior officer: "The only thing these sand niggers understand is force and I'm about to introduce them to it."

Such crass language, redolent with racist, ethnocentric connotations, speaks volumes. These characterizations, like the use of "gooks" during the Vietnam War, dehumanize the Iraqis and in doing so tacitly permit the otherwise impermissible. Thus, Abu Ghraib and Haditha -- and too many regretted deaths, such as that of Nahiba Husayif Jassim.

Thomas E. Ricks - 'It Looked Weird and Felt Wrong' (24JUL06) (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/07/23/AR2006072300495.html)


Today, the 4th Infantry and its commander, Maj. Gen. Raymond T. Odierno, are best remembered for capturing former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein, one of the high points of the U.S. occupation. But in the late summer of 2003, as senior U.S. commanders tried to counter the growing insurgency with indiscriminate cordon-and-sweep operations, the 4th Infantry was known for aggressive tactics that may have appeared to pacify the northern Sunni Triangle in the short term but that, according to numerous Army internal reports and interviews with military commanders, alienated large parts of the population.

The unit, a heavy armored division despite its name, was known for "grabbing whole villages, because combat soldiers [were] unable to figure out who was of value and who was not," according to a subsequent investigation of the 4th Infantry Division's detainee operations by the Army inspector general's office. Its indiscriminate detention of Iraqis filled Abu Ghraib prison, swamped the U.S. interrogation system and overwhelmed the U.S. soldiers guarding the prison.

Lt. Col. David Poirier, who commanded a military police battalion attached to the 4th Infantry Division and was based in Tikrit from June 2003 to March 2004, said the division's approach was indiscriminate. "With the brigade and battalion commanders, it became a philosophy: 'Round up all the military-age males, because we don't know who's good or bad.' " Col. Alan King, a civil affairs officer working at the Coalition Provisional Authority, had a similar impression of the 4th Infantry's approach. "Every male from 16 to 60" that the 4th Infantry could catch was detained, he said. "And when they got out, they were supporters of the insurgency."

If the level of forces requested by GEN Shinseki had been deployed in 2003 would the result have been more Mosuls (under the 101st) and Tal Afars (under 3ACR) or more EOF incidents and indiscriminate cordon and searches knocking Iraqis' off of the fence over to the other side?

Successful military operations, COIN or kinetic, take both the right amount of forces and the right leaders with the right training, education, and an accurate understanding of the fight they are in.

[Bill Meara]

I say three cheers for LTC Yingling. He speaks the truth. But it is (as he indicates) an old truth, an old story.

During my relatively brief time in the Army, while working on counterinsurgency in Central America most of the problems of the personnel system discussed by Yingling were glaringly apparent. Even to a lowly Captain.

Several of us are helping to fill library book shelves with detailed descriptions of the in-the-field consequences that this kind of folly had in previous conflicts. Sadly, it seems that little has changed.

[120mm]

Whatever chance the small footprint model had, it was dashed when the need (or was it silly desire?) to provide internet cafes, dry cleaning, and barbershops, drove us into super FOBs. I don't think the FOBs came first. The amenities (or at least pursuit of them) were a contributing factor in the rise of the FOB, and it killed us.

Part of this was caused by the "What Soldiers Want" theory of (non) leadership. The Army corporate leadership knuckled under to soldiers refusing to drink ROWPU water, and started ordering huge amounts of bottled water to satisfy their tastes and prevent heat-related injury. Soldiers would rather die of heat stroke than drink water from the purification units. As a result, LSA ANACONDA started to grow into a "super-FOB" to handle bottled water distribution.

Talk about your "want of a horse-shoe nail" scenario.

My critique of the "360 degree" evaluation is that it will be corrupted into a "What Soldiers Want" tool for non-leadership by those who don't understand leadership. But that's another issue.

[jcustis]

Rhodesia 1976?

Bingo. It was actually '77, but plus or minus a year, it was still a crappy situation.

[jcustis]

Part of this was caused by the "What Soldiers Want" theory of (non) leadership. The Army corporate leadership knuckled under to soldiers refusing to drink ROWPU water, and started ordering huge amounts of bottled water to satisfy their tastes and prevent heat-related injury. Soldiers would rather die of heat stroke than drink water from the purification units. As a result, LSA ANACONDA started to grow into a "super-FOB" to handle bottled water distribution.

You know what 120? as I wrote my first reply about amenities and FOBs, I was about to say something about an Armor Magazine article were a former HHC commander had critiqued logistics during the march up. A lack of enough bottles of water per man was one of the critique points, and I almost blew a f_cking gasket. Bottled water right?

The only reason why I cared for bottled water was because I could refill a bottle with ROWPU water, and cover it with a dirty, wet sock to try to cool the temp down. Cold water would have been nice, for sure, but not at the expense of getting the job done.

This would be a great subject for a book. An army lives on its stomach, and can lose a war because of it.

Don't get me wrong, this was not just an Army thing. The Corps is just as culpable in many areas. Ever hear the self-licking ice-cream cone expression?

[marct]

On points two and three in your summary of Yingling, I can see some virtue in the intellectual discipline that publication requires, and specialized knowledge is vital to anyone serving in a sensitive region or technical field. But a blanket requirement for advanced civilian education and peer-reviewed publication worry me if they are meant as a way to make the armed forces more like other professional peer groups in which academic credentialism is growing.

I'd like to pull this apart if I may, since this point is really talking about the philosophy of science.

1. Publications, in academia, are not in and of themselves as sign of intellectual discipline. Rather, they are a sign of communications skills whereby the author is able to "match" their article to the sub-cultural expectations and requirements (the genre[s]) of the publication venue. By way of example, compare an appreciation that might have been submitted to R.E. Lee in 1863 with today's PowerPoint presentations. You will find that the general style is the same - fairly sparse (expanded point form), and laid out in a linear logical manner.

2. The publication process relies on "peer review", but peer review, in all to many cases, comes to be a measure of how close the author's position is to that of the people doing the reviews. This is something that Thos. Kuhn pointed out in The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (http://www.amazon.com/Structure-Scientific-Revolutions-Thomas-Kuhn/dp/0226458083/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/103-6031495-5193427?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1177938168&sr=8-1) when he was talking about the operation of "normal science". One of the observations he made is of especial important to an analysis of the military, and that is that only a single discipline" has ever managed to hold two mutually contradictory paradigms - physics (particle theory and quantum mechanics). Since we are seeing a conflict between two paradigms, State vs. State and COIN, we can all learn a lot from how physics, as an institution, has managed to hold these two.

Back to peer review for a second, peer review operates within a paradigm but, when you have paradigm conflicts, you also end up with a situation of peer review conflicts. In order for this to be a workable model for the military, it may well be necessary to develope parallel publishing venues.


There is also the question of whether more civilian education of officers will further widen the gray area between civil and military responsibility. The real need I see is for civilians to have more military content in what they learn of American history and civics, not for officers to spend more time in advanced civilian study.

Hmmm. I don't disagree with you, but I also think that it is important for the military to learn more about the so-called "civilian" areas. I use the term "so-called" advisedly: the military already overlaps the civilian population in a number of professions (e.g. engineering, medicine, etc.) and, to my mind, can only benefit from a further overlap if for no other reason, and here are other reasons, that the military is being required to take on more varied tasks.

Let me use one example, my own field of Anthropology. I have now read a number of articles that are, broadly, "anthropological" (mainly ethnographic coles notes type products). Some are great and some are just junk. What almost all of them share in common is that they are too focused on the "now" and on specifics, rather than on general laws. Obviously, there are exceptions to that statement but, on the whole, it is true. One of the effects of this focus is that it "freezes" perceptions at a point in time and space. Now if that point is relatively close to the operational "now" that can be fine, but the further it gets away from it the worse the information gets. In effect, this genre teaches people what to perceive and not how to perceive.

Now, within a State vs. State conflict this can work (sort of); the adjustments tend to be minimal. In a COIN setting, however, the adjustments can be huge. This is one of the reasons why an article like COL Pat Lang's "How to Work with Tribesman (http://council.smallwarsjournal.com/showthread.php?t=2721)" is so god - it outlines the how (a set of generic rules) as well as the what (for a specific time-space locus).

This is the type of paper that, if it were to be handed in in my Introduction to Anthropology course, would probably get a B+/A-. Does that sound harsh after all the nice things I've said about his paper? Well, the reasoning is simple: despite how useful the paper may be to individuals, it does not match the genre of the discipline of Anthropology (that old "normal science" thing). Could he do it? Certainly, and he could easily extrapolate the observations in that piece to make it publishable inside Anthropology (except for the anti-military bias of the discipline :)). Would such a rewrite be "useful"? Probably, especially if he were to focus it on the development of training.

Which, in my usual roundabout way, takes us back to the question of the military getting more civilian education. I suspect that if COL Lang took an advanced degree in Anthropology he could produce material that would be very useful. Having said that, I also suspect that he could have got the same benefit by working / collaborating with an Anthropologist for a 3 - 6 week period.


The greatest need is for civilian leaders (and generals insofar as they need to give advice) to be able to relate military commitments as means to long-range national or grand-strategic ends. We do not do a very good job of relating means and ends at this level, and those who define advanced study need to do a better job of relating them before making generals or anyone else undertake study with clarity in such matters as the intended purpose.

While I don't disagree with you, I will just make one observation: liberal democracies elect their leaders and none of them have ability tests for anything except getting elected. Just to give one example, several years back, the Province of Ontario had a Minister of Education who was a high school drop out... 'nough said abut that!

Marc

[sullygoarmy]

JCustis,
I wish I could have taken pictures of the massive FIELDS of bottle water scattered throughout Iraq. I'm talking dozens of football sized fields with bottled water pallets stacked six feet high. Its nuts that we spend all those resources in lives and national treasure to bring bottled water in versus ROWPU water. I agree with you 100%

I won't even start on the super-fobs, the line-dancing lessons at Camp Anaconda or "Salsa" night at Camp Victory.

Anywho, hoping that LTC Yingling survives the storm and takes his battalion.



You know what 120? as I wrote my first reply about amenities and FOBs, I was about to say something about an Armor Magazine article were a former HHC commander had critiqued logistics during the march up. A lack of enough bottles of water per man was one of the critique points, and I almost blew a f_cking gasket. Bottled water right?

The only reason why I cared for bottled water was because I could refill a bottle with ROWPU water, and cover it with a dirty, wet sock to try to cool the temp down. Cold water would have been nice, for sure, but not at the expense of getting the job done.

This would be a great subject for a book. An army lives on its stomach, and can lose a war because of it.

Don't get me wrong, this was not just an Army thing. The Corps is just as culpable in many areas. Ever hear the self-licking ice-cream cone expression?

[slapout9]

Marct, you make a very important point about education from the standpoint that we are busy teaching people WHAT to think instead of teaching them HOW to think:wry:

[Shek]

Shek - Your two posts following mine make a good point, ie. the difference between what Summers actually wrote and what the Army thought he wrote. Summers wrote that isolation of the battlespace of South Vietnam should have been followed by counterinsurgency within the country, not that counterinsurgency could work without first isolating the battlespace or that conventional war alone was sufficient. If Summers became shorthand for downgrading counterinsurgency, then he became a symbol for something that he did not in fact favor.

Dave,

Thanks for the response. As I was checking out the book today, I was having a hard time finding where COL Summers didn't downgrade COIN for US forces. He specifically states that COIN, as an internal problem, should have been assigned to Vietnamese forces. In doing so, I think he portrays that not only should the US not have adopted COIN as a primary mission (although Krepinevich takes this conclusion to task), but that it shouldn't have even been a secondary mission - it should be sourced to local troops. He references this in the context of Korea first and then later in the book applies this to Vietnam (where he grants that assistance could be given to the local troops). Also, as I was going through some old SWJ Magazine editions, I came across this on the subject, http://smallwarsjournal.com/documents/swjmag/v3/collins.htm.


There is also the question of whether more civilian education of officers will further widen the gray area between civil and military responsibility. The real need I see is for civilians to have more military content in what they learn of American history and civics, not for officers to spend more time in advanced civilian study.

I totally agree that the military should not try to expand its professional jurisdiction a la "if [fill in the blank] won't do their job, then we need to be prepared to do it for them." However, there is value in being exposed to other professional expertise, as sometimes [fill in the blank] may not be available to do their job because of the security situation, etc. So, I think it is important to have some rudimentary knowledge outside the traditional jurisdicational lines. However, I think an area that is often overlooked is the experience that civilian graduation schooling can provide, even if it is on topics that the current officer education system provides.

An officer could take a year of classes at the Army War College/Naval War College/Air War College/etc., and take the exact same classes at a top tier university, and while it may be a wash in terms of the overall quality of faculty and material presented, the experiences will be completely different. Surrounded by fellow military peers at the war colleges, one's views may not be challenged, and drastically different and competing view points may or may not be introduced. However, at a civilian university, the officer will be exposed to many different and varying viewpoints. Furthermore, these conversations will continue outside of the classroom.

I'll close with posting a link that I know I've posted here in the past, but I think this oped uses a perfect metaphor to deliver its message:

http://www.strategicstudiesinstitute.army.mil/pdffiles/PUB731.pdf

[Tom Odom]

Thanks for the response. As I was checking out the book today, I was having a hard time finding where COL Summers didn't downgrade COIN for US forces. He specifically states that COIN, as an internal problem, should have been assigned to Vietnamese forces. In doing so, I think he portrays that not only should the US not have adopted COIN as a primary mission (although Krepinevich takes this conclusion to task), but that it shouldn't have even been a secondary mission - it should be sourced to local troops. He references this in the context of Korea first and then later in the book applies this to Vietnam (where he grants that assistance could be given to the local troops). Also, as I was going through some old SWJ Magazine editions, I came across this on the subject, http://smallwarsjournal.com/document...v3/collins.htm.

Shek,

That is my recollection of Summers in a debate with Krepnevich at CGSC in 1989.

Tom

[DavidPB4]

Marc,

"1. Publications, in academia, are not in and of themselves as sign of intellectual discipline. Rather, they are a sign of communications skills whereby the author is able to "match" their article to the sub-cultural expectations and requirements (the genre[s]) of the publication venue."

I agree. But I think the discipline of writing clearly and well can still be a benefit if it is more than just parroting jargon.

"2. The publication process relies on "peer review", but peer review, in all too many cases, comes to be a measure of how close the author's position is to that of the people doing the reviews. This is something that Thos. Kuhn pointed out in The Structure of Scientific Revolutions when he was talking about the operation of "normal science". One of the observations he made is of especial importance to an analysis of the military, and that is that only a single discipline" has ever managed to hold two mutually contradictory paradigms - physics (particle theory and quantum mechanics). Since we are seeing a conflict between two paradigms, State vs. State and COIN, we can all learn a lot from how physics, as an institution, has managed to hold these two."

The issue I think is not the existence of different paradigms but whether particular paradigms are correctly applied. In the military sphere, state vs. state conflict and counterinsurgency are really two different answers to two different problems, not different answers to the same problem. Conventional war is appropriate where the problem is to isolate an insurgent battlespace. Counterinsurgency is appropriate where the need is to separate a civilian population from insurgents. There is only a conflict when we try to use conventional war to defeat insurgents, or internal counterinsurgency to deal with a threat that persists because of external reinforcements and sanctuaries.

"I also think that it is important for the military to learn more about the so-called "civilian" areas. I use the term "so-called" advisedly: the military already overlaps the civilian population in a number of professions (e.g. engineering, medicine, etc.) and, to my mind, can only benefit from a further overlap if for no other reason, and here are other reasons, that the military is being required to take on more varied tasks."

I'm glad the military has the skills to do so many things. But I don't think the military should assume more civilian roles by default. We need to strengthen the civilian side of the relationship.

"Now, within a State vs. State conflict...the adjustments tend to be minimal. In a COIN setting, however, the adjustments can be huge. This is one of the reasons why an article like COL Pat Lang's "How to Work with Tribesman" is so good - it outlines the how (a set of generic rules) as well as the what (for a specific time-space locus)."

If the larger aspects of a counterinsurgency are aligned properly, then insights such as those in the Lang paper are excellent guides for the level of relations directly with tribesmen. But the value of COIN skills depends on first getting the larger picture right, eg. isolating the battlefield, and having sufficient troops so that improvement in any one sector of an insurgent country can be sustained. It is when we sub-optimize by trying to get the mid-level things right while the high-level things are wrong that we run aground.

"I will just make one observation: liberal democracies elect their leaders and none of them have ability tests for anything except getting elected."

Yes, but I think voters do look for knowledge and experience on some level, and civilians who advise elected officials especially could benefit from better education in strategic and military matters. The problem is that those who provide this education need to do a better job of formulating what to teach.

[DavidPB4]

Shek and Tom Odom,

"Thanks for the response. As I was checking out the book today, I was having a hard time finding where COL Summers didn't downgrade COIN for US forces. He specifically states that COIN, as an internal problem, should have been assigned to Vietnamese forces. In doing so, I think he portrays that not only should the US not have adopted COIN as a primary mission (although Krepinevich takes this conclusion to task), but that it shouldn't have even been a secondary mission - it should be sourced to local troops."

I stand corrected on this point. My understanding of Summers was based on pages 169-172 of the paperback edition of On Strategy (1982). He does not in fact argue that the US should have done both conventional war and counterinsurgency; he argues that the latter was for the South Vietnamese to do. But his main point was that only if the North was sealed off from the South was counterinsurgency in the South really possible, and that is what I took from his book.

"An officer could take a year of classes at the Army War College/Naval War College/Air War College/etc., and take the exact same classes at a top tier university, and while it may be a wash in terms of the overall quality of faculty and material presented, the experiences will be completely different. Surrounded by fellow military peers at the war colleges, one's views may not be challenged, and drastically different and competing view points may or may not be introduced. However, at a civilian university, the officer will be exposed to many different and varying viewpoints. Furthermore, these conversations will continue outside of the classroom."

I would agree from my experience as a grad student in history at a state university in Texas, where there were a couple of Army captains in my adviser's seminar during my time there. I don't think they took classes in which they would have had to argue with for example post-modernists. But in our seminar they benefited from getting into the subject matter of things like decolonization, getting criticism of their writing, and interacting with the foreign students as well as with us, including outside class. And there were certainly a multitude of views. I should note that the benefit went in both directions too.

Having officers go to civilian universities for master's degrees is good for both civilians and the military, and officers with the ambition and ability should go on for doctorates. I would even have officers serve as visiting faculty to give courses to civilian students on a country or war that they know a lot about. My concern is that more broadly educated officers cannot take the place of civilians who have a better understanding of military affairs and larger strategy. And while it is impressive to have an Army capable of a vigorous internal debate about itself, I hope civilians do not conclude that the difficulties in Iraq and elsewhere have been the result of a purely intra-military set of problems.

[Shek]

Shek,

That is my recollection of Summers in a debate with Krepnevich at CGSC in 1989.

Tom

Tom,

That must have been a very interesting debate to see. I've never heard either man speak, but given the fundamentally opposed positions, I could see sparks flying. :D

Shek

[Rob Thornton]

Most of this thread focuses on the implication of the GO's and LTC Yingling's motivations and prospects for the future (personally I empathize with the idea that his motivations were done in the best interest of the Army - those of you who truly care about something can understand.) As a man with something to lose - that which he cares deeply about - his need to share his thoughts outweighed any concerns about self preservation. This is what we'd call leadership by example.

I think LTC Yingling's writings can also serve as a catalyst to serious debate on our own organizational & command structure we require in the decade(s) ahead vs. soley a critique of the last four years. He makes a lot of good points that we'd be wise to apply towards our understanding of the fight as it is now at a critical time (given politics), and how best to prepare for the years to come. We may get a break in the future (although I would not count on it), but I don't think it will last long.

I think it'd be a great idea to ask LTC Yingling to the blog or the discussion board to discuss not his recent writtings, but to expand on the idea he touched on about where his train up will focus, and how those ideas might challenge some of the fundamental notions we have about our military.
Regards all, Rob

[Tom Odom]

Tom,

That must have been a very interesting debate to see. I've never heard either man speak, but given the fundamentally opposed positions, I could see sparks flying. :D

Shek


It was a different time. Andy K was like me at the time, a Major, who had written a book. Harry Summers was well Harry Summers and he knew it. Andy presented his arguments and Harry presented Harry, as seen on 60 Minutes and a number of other shows using the conversation with Giap to set the tone. I am sure that today the debate would look much differently.

I felt at the time that Andy won on message and Harry won on theatrics.

Tom

[marct]

Hi David,


"1. Publications, in academia, are not in and of themselves as sign of intellectual discipline."

I agree. But I think the discipline of writing clearly and well can still be a benefit if it is more than just parroting jargon.

Oh, I totally agree with that. I spend a lot of time trying to teach people how to write clearly in academic contexts. One of the key problems I have found since I have been teaching in Interdisciplinary Studies, is the variance in both specialized jargon and in assumed models of reality (the logic behind conceptual inter linkages) is so large between disciplines that even if the writing may be clear, the text will not communicate well to certain audiences.

So, it strikes me that we are talking about several different skills here:

the ability to communicate, which is composed of
the ability to gauge an audience, and
the ability to write for that audience
the ability to "think" clearly, which may or may not be defined as "thinking" in the "normal science" manner (i.e. pre-defined though sequences).On this second point, which is where we took off from in he first place, aka "intellectual discipline", there are, to my mind, three distinctly differing forms of "thought":

"approved", "disciplinary", or "normal science" type thought - i.e. the type of thinking and "practice" that one learns in any discipline;
"cross" disciplinary thought, which usually involves taking types of thinking or practice from one discipline and applying them to another discipline (Organizational Culture is an example of his); and
"inter" (or, possibly, "trans") disciplinary thought that moves beyond "normal science" boundaries to create unified theories or perceptions.Now, it strikes me that having military officers attending civilian universities would encourage the development of #1. In order to get the full advantage of #2, however, they would have to be enrolled in disciplines that would be considered as "non-traditional" for the military (which, BTW, up until a couple of years ago included Anthropology). Getting #3 is much harder,and would probably require a type of schooling that is pretty rare along with a "talent" for thinking unconventionally.


"2. The publication process relies on "peer review", but peer review, in all too many cases, comes to be a measure of how close the author's position is to that of the people doing the reviews."

The issue I think is not the existence of different paradigms but whether particular paradigms are correctly applied. In the military sphere, state vs. state conflict and counterinsurgency are really two different answers to two different problems, not different answers to the same problem.

Actually, David, I'm going to disagree with you here - I think that it is a single "problem space", how best to apply force to achieve policy objectives. As such, the State vs State and COIN are not paradigms in reality only in perception - actually closer to "schools" in the Kuhnian sense.

To my mind, saying that they are two different problems is a dangerously flawed, albeit institutionally supported (:D) viewpoint. I can't think of a single major war in the past 3 centuries that has not had at least a component of asymmetric warfare where COIN style operations would not be better than "Conventional" operations and vice versa.


"I also think that it is important for the military to learn more about the so-called "civilian" areas."

I'm glad the military has the skills to do so many things. But I don't think the military should assume more civilian roles by default. We need to strengthen the civilian side of the relationship.

I agree that the civilian side definitely needs to be strengthened. Should the military assume more civilian roles? I would honestly prefer not but, having said that, I want to make two points. First, the military often has to assume these roles because the civilian side cannot. Second, even if the civilian side does fulfill all of their roles, the military side should have people who are able to "interface" or "translate" between them - think of the "Sales Engineer" as an exemlar "profession".


If the larger aspects of a counterinsurgency are aligned properly, then insights such as those in the Lang paper are excellent guides for the level of relations directly with tribesmen. But the value of COIN skills depends on first getting the larger picture right, eg. isolating the battlefield, and having sufficient troops so that improvement in any one sector of an insurgent country can be sustained. It is when we sub-optimize by trying to get the mid-level things right while the high-level things are wrong that we run aground.

Again, I agree with you, but I think that this is moving over into the "civilian" side of things, at least to some degree. Who ecided the initial force levels for OIF? We could probably argue about specifics until the cows come home, but I think we can both agree that it was pretty much a joint civilian-military "decision". The military has much more "control" over these "mid-level" things than it does over the "high level" ones <shrug>.


"I will just make one observation: liberal democracies elect their leaders and none of them have ability tests for anything except getting elected."

Yes, but I think voters do look for knowledge and experience on some level, and civilians who advise elected officials especially could benefit from better education in strategic and military matters. The problem is that those who provide this education need to do a better job of formulating what to teach.

You may be correct about the voting public, although I have my doubts. Certainly the advisors role could do with more education of military matters - personally, I would be in favour of reinstating the Roman cursus honourum, but I doubt that will happen :wry:.

I would, however, like you to expand on your last comment. Speaking as one of those people who provides a civilian education, what would you have me teach?

Marc

[Jimbo]

Civilian schools vs military schools.

Bottom Line: Faculty Dilution

In the US there is no equivalent of Kings college in London. The issue you run into, is that with such a large collegiate eductaion base, where do the experts come from. The military run schools are the best manner to collect the best talent available for the faculty. Evne with the umpteen different DoD run schools out there, there are issues with dillution of the talent base as far as faculty availability. Often the civlian faculty experts are on loan, fellowships or visiting faculty. This enables some experts to bwe available to both demographics. In the US this problem is manifested in higher eductaion in various academic programs and how many quality instructors you can get. I am a historian by training, and I know where the stronger military history programs are. However, that does not mean that for certain niches there are better programs. For example, when I was at West Point, Duke and Ohio State were the two big general purpose miliatry history graduate programs that the military history guys went to, with Texas A&M coming on strong late in my time at USMA. However, the Napoleonic guys were starting to come out of Florida State because there was some expertise at that school in that area. Texas Tech made a decison to have the Viet Nam studies program, and many faculty were coming from there. Universities will look for a niche that is not filled, and usually attempt to develop something that will fill it if they see the long term financial viability of the program. That is just in history, the fine arts have the same problem, so my question is where do you go? The current fellowship program that military offers is a good program for senior level officers to either go to the war college, or go to certain civillian institutuions and get war college credit. As the son of an academic and an educator, I think the system the US militayr has isn't bad, now whetehr or not people utilize it is another question, and it is one based on individual choices not systemic ones.

[sullygoarmy]

I think Rob hit the nail on the head. As a SAMS grad, LTC Yingling did what we want good officers to do: lead by example and generate a healthy discussion. This how we a) gain a better understanding of ourselves (know yourself) and b) look at ways to better our organization for the welfare of our soldiers (seek self improvement). I'd like to think that our SAMS guys will pose more questions to generate discussions among peers, superiors and subordinates alike.

I think we need to make sure the discussion stays "healthy". How many people/officers do you know that looked at the title and said either "That's Crap" or "He's done" without ever reading it, considering his points, or trying to understand his viewpoint. A healthy dicussion will not get anyone fired, lose the war, or is immoral, illegal or fattening. :)

[Shek]

Civilian schools vs military schools.
Bottom Line: Faculty Dilution


Jimbo,

I think that your conclusion will very much depend on the particular concentration/major you're looking for. As someone who wanted a blend of IR, strategic studies, and economics, I doubt that the war college or the artist formerly known as CGSC could replicate the caliber of faculty that I had at SAIS, to include both tenured and adjunct professors. Also, I've now got classmates who are working DIA, CIA, State, DOD, NGOs, a network that I think is a great benefit that the various military colleges would be hard pressed to replicate. Now, my experience may also be just as unique as yours was (but on the other side of the spectrum), but I think the experience beyond the classroom may be one of the biggest positives of civilian schooling.

I am not advocating that we ditch our field grade officer education system, but I do think that we should supplement it much more than we do currently.

[Tom Odom]

the artist formerly known as CGSC

That made me laugh and also made me sad for lack of a better word...

I see much of what Yingling discussed as issues parallel to the emasculation of CGSC

Still there are some signs of returning life; CSI has in the past couple of years started producing excellent products again.

And please don't take offense those who still fight the fight to open minds, meaning those folks who still teach at CGSC/ILE

Best

tom

[DavidPB4]

Marc,

"Getting #3 is much harder,and would probably require a type of schooling that is pretty rare along with a "talent" for thinking unconventionally."

The way you would do this is by teaching how to recognize situations in which more radical thinking is required.

"I can't think of a single major war in the past 3 centuries that has not had at least a component of asymmetric warfare where COIN style operations would not be better than "Conventional" operations and vice versa."

Sorry to be unclear. By different paradigms for different problems, I meant to include wars in which both conventional and unconventional operations were involved as different aspects. The need is to match conventional war with the conventional aspect and unconventional operations with the asymmetric aspect.

"Who decided the initial force levels for OIF? We could probably argue about specifics until the cows come home, but I think we can both agree that it was pretty much a joint civilian-military "decision"."

Yes and it is for this reason that we need better performance on the civilian side.

"I would, however, like you to expand on your last comment. Speaking as one of those people who provides a civilian education, what would you have me teach?"

I am a researcher (history of engineering), not a teacher. But if I taught I would focus on teaching students how to recognize situations in which normal thinking is no longer appropriate. This can best be done through the study of historical examples.

[Old Eagle]

1. Each educational experience fulfills multiple roles. Some classroom, some socialization. Meeting and keeping in touch with peers from various walks of life is important to being effective; it creates an automatic networking system.

2. Trade schools but particularly in DC offer huge insights that are unavailable in schoolbook courses filled with students fresh out of undergrad, looking for a coupla extra letters behind their names. I used my GI Bill to study in both DC and Boston in "mid-career" programs, and I wouldn't have traded the experience for anything.

3. There is a culture in the military, unhealthy to my way of thinking, that denigrates education, military or civilian. The Army is pretty good about playing up PME, but I have actually heard officers from sister Services bragging about their avoidance of resident PME in order to spend more time in the cockpit/bridge.

4. Yingling is right in saying that we have to broaden the educational base of our GOs. At the GO level, tactical talent won't get you very far.

[Shek]

And please don't take offense those who still fight the fight to open minds, meaning those folks who still teach at CGSC/ILE

Best

tom

Tom,

Thanks for mentioning that, as my intent is certainly not to try and imply that faculty who teach at our military colleges are somehow substandard. Heck, probably my favorite book on OIF thus far has been Ahmed Hashim's book, http://www.amazon.com/Insurgency-Counter-Insurgency-Iraq-Ahmed-Hashim/dp/0801444527/ref=pd_bbs_1/102-0438121-3920159?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1178040894&sr=8-1, published a year ago.

As I stated before, I think the inherent advantage of civilian schooling is that it takes the military officer out of his/her home turf and immerses them into a "foreign" culture. It took me a semester to deprogram myself from using acronyms every possible sentence and to see that PowerPoint is usually an inept tool at portraying complex issues, and that it can skew decision making. So, while I still have mad PowerPoint skills, I can proudly state that I avoid it at every possible opportunity. However, I'm not sure how long that will last once I'm actually back on somebody's staff :o

Shek

[slapout9]

I will jump in here with a somewhat different perspective that I was very nearly involved in. During the early 1980's the CIA was short in it's HUMINT capabilities due to the massive cuts in the 70's. Because of this they decided to "WAIVE" the college degree requirement and recruit detectives from Florida and New York cities that spoke Spanish. The program was apparently very successful. The point being it's not the quantity of education but the quality. The number of degrees a person has or even if he has one, doesn't mean they are necessarily more qualified. It is the special type of education that often determines a persons competence. It goes to what Kilcullen said "Talent is more important than rank." My 2 cents.

[marct]

"Getting #3 is much harder,and would probably require a type of schooling that is pretty rare along with a "talent" for thinking unconventionally."

The way you would do this is by teaching how to recognize situations in which more radical thinking is required.

Hmmm, that would get you the recognition hat such a type of thinking is required, but it wouldn't produce the thinking. A recognition might be enough...


"I can't think of a single major war in the past 3 centuries that has not had at least a component of asymmetric warfare where COIN style operations would not be better than "Conventional" operations and vice versa."

Sorry to be unclear. By different paradigms for different problems, I meant to include wars in which both conventional and unconventional operations were involved as different aspects. The need is to match conventional war with the conventional aspect and unconventional operations with the asymmetric aspect.

Ah, much clearer - thank you. I think it would be also useful to change the terminology so that "conventional" and "asymmetric" are poles rather than separate categories. That would probably allow for a faster recognition of which type of approach, and in what proportions, would be best in any given situation.


"Who decided the initial force levels for OIF? We could probably argue about specifics until the cows come home, but I think we can both agree that it was pretty much a joint civilian-military "decision"."

Yes and it is for this reason that we need better performance on the civilian side.

I agree totally, although I will continue to think that the military side also needs to pick up more as well :D.


"I would, however, like you to expand on your last comment. Speaking as one of those people who provides a civilian education, what would you have me teach?"

I am a researcher (history of engineering), not a teacher. But if I taught I would focus on teaching students how to recognize situations in which normal thinking is no longer appropriate. This can best be done through the study of historical examples.

I do that right now in a course I'm teaching, although I focus more on epistemology, and I would agree that it is probably the best solution. My experience with trying to teach that, however, is mixed. I find that, all to often, students thinking has been cannalized into "normal science" modes of thought, and there is a serious lack of historical (and religious/philosophical) knowledge. I can make a dent but only rarely do I manage to get a Jamesian "A HA!" experience out of them :wry:. I keep trying...

Marc

[slapout9]

I posted this on another thread awhile back but I think it has bearing on this discussion. It was the address delivered to the 1974 graduating class of the USMA at West Point. It was given by Ayn Rand and the title is "Philosophy Who Needs It?" She was once asked by a reporter why she choose to study Philosophy? Her reply was "Because it is the fundamental force that moves the world." A link to the address is posted below.

http://fare.tunes.org/liberty/library/pwni.html

Isn't this what a General needs to know more than anything else?

[marct]

Isn't this what a General needs to more than anything else?

In short, yes.

Thanks, Slap - that was a great read and it will be going on my classes reading list.

Marc

[Merv Benson]

I think this thread has drifted enough to ask this question. Can someone tell me what is taught at the US Marine Corps University and who is eligible to attend?

[jcustis]

I think this thread has drifted enough to ask this question. Can someone tell me what is taught at the US Marine Corps University and who is eligible to attend?

Uhhh...Marine Corps stuff...:cool:


It's late, but tomorrow I'll try to describe my Amphibious Warfare Class (and the last before the transition).

[selil]

I’ve been watching the topic wobble a bit and to Marct I would mention an excellent book for his undergraduates (and anybody else who’s interested) called “The Craft of Research”. It discusses many of the issues we’re holding here to the light of day. Research and writing for journals is a learned process. Simple principles as the structure of an academic paper are difficult to grasp until you get that scathing review back in the mail.

As an academic I truly believe in science and as an avid reader and student of Thomas Kuhn, John Dewey, and Karl Popper I look to science for process and structure in my research. We often talk about science as a “thing” when it is actually a process. We put a framework around the structure of how we do this thing called science and how we report that work to a body of peers so it is accepted as science. Science isn’t test tubes, or capacitors it is dialog.

In any way attempting to rate the military colleges with civilian counterparts is to forget the most important aspect of the United States Military Academy, The Naval Academy or The Air Farce (<- intentional!) Academy. My University has the mission to provide the finest engineers and scientists on the planet. My students go on to work for many of the TLA’s agencies in the belt and nation. The military academies produce O1’s. They produce basic lieutenants for front line command on day one. My graduates go to work on day one in their discipline or profession. A military academy graduate won’t see their discipline or profession for four to six years. I kind of like it that way.

Many of my professors when I was getting my masters in computer science were from the Air Force Academy. They were retired O6’s and O5’s with 20+ years that had done in many cases two or more tours at Colorado Springs. They all had advanced degrees (doctorates) and were dedicated professionals. Why weren’t they teaching at the Academy as retired officers? My only clue is that they weren’t needed.

There are systemic issues that plague the dust coated ivory halls of academia. I had dinner on Sunday night with a young guy who is a former Army drill sergeant (E-6), and here he is finishing an intense interdisciplinary masters degree program and nobody returns his phone calls for jobs. He is in a program called scholarship for service that is intense to get into, they pay for him to attend school, and he’s been vetted already for any level of “clandestine” service. This gives a good look into the intense disconnect between the military, government, academia, and the rest of the world. Even when things should be working they often go astray.

[120mm]

1. Each educational experience fulfills multiple roles. Some classroom, some socialization. Meeting and keeping in touch with peers from various walks of life is important to being effective; it creates an automatic networking system.

2. Trade schools but particularly in DC offer huge insights that are unavailable in schoolbook courses filled with students fresh out of undergrad, looking for a coupla extra letters behind their names. I used my GI Bill to study in both DC and Boston in "mid-career" programs, and I wouldn't have traded the experience for anything.

3. There is a culture in the military, unhealthy to my way of thinking, that denigrates education, military or civilian. The Army is pretty good about playing up PME, but I have actually heard officers from sister Services bragging about their avoidance of resident PME in order to spend more time in the cockpit/bridge.

4. Yingling is right in saying that we have to broaden the educational base of our GOs. At the GO level, tactical talent won't get you very far.

On your #3, I would remark that there are good reasons for this. First of all, what is offered in military schools should not really count as "education." "Training", yes. "Indoctrination", most definitely. Military "education" is an oxymoron, imo. And military people rightfully understand that, and avoid it like the plague. Now, if only MBA candidates would do the same....

[120mm]

There are systemic issues that plague the dust coated ivory halls of academia. I had dinner on Sunday night with a young guy who is a former Army drill sergeant (E-6), and here he is finishing an intense interdisciplinary masters degree program and nobody returns his phone calls for jobs. He is in a program called scholarship for service that is intense to get into, they pay for him to attend school, and he’s been vetted already for any level of “clandestine” service. This gives a good look into the intense disconnect between the military, government, academia, and the rest of the world. Even when things should be working they often go astray.

One of the main issues I have faced, and will face, is that civilians consider most advanced degrees carried by military people to be a sham. A product of some of the "diploma mills" which target military folks, perhaps?

My MA from Boston U. is a real MA, but when academics find out I got it while on Active Duty, their eyes get "that look", so I neglect to mention it.

[selil]

One of the main issues I have faced, and will face, is that civilians consider most advanced degrees carried by military people to be a sham. A product of some of the "diploma mills" which target military folks, perhaps?

My MA from Boston U. is a real MA, but when academics find out I got it while on Active Duty, their eyes get "that look", so I neglect to mention it.

Likely the issue is "Active Duty" and not the location of the degree.

That's a topic for another day though.

The military is targeted by the diploma mills, and the get a Doctorate in three months programs.

There is also an obsessive hierarchy of universities rated in tiers and by many a degree from anything not ivy league is looked down upon. The private "commercial" colleges are suspect, and private religious schools are only marginally better.

There is also the "research" focus. A degree from a college that values teaching over research can be denigrated by academia. This is a sad state when you think that teaching is taking a back seat to research.

[tequila]

"To the Point" radio program (http://www.kcrw.com/news/programs/tp/tp070501are_americas_top_mil)on Yingling's article. Thomas Ricks, Robert Gard, Jr., Everett Dolman, and Stephen Biddle. Program starts at 12:07. There an immigration segment before it, but it's short and most of the show is about the article.

[Jimbo]

Great Tom Ricks, it just made my do not listen list.

[Old Eagle]

120 --

Not sure what colored your view of PME, but as a product of both world class civilian grad programs and Army PME, I can tell you that CGSC, AWC and the Defense Strategy Course all challenged me just as much as the high speed grad schools did.

[Jimbo]

I have seen a lot of ILE bashing. I am curious how many of those peopel went through it, I am not going to say it is end-all, be-all, but give it credit for trying, and as some will point out if you just had over 100 guys graduate early due to needs of the Army, it might be the current answer. So as great as it would be for more options for PME "credit" be it Operational/MiTT/Grad School, but there is a huge need to gte guys back into the field.

[120mm]

120 --

Not sure what colored your view of PME, but as a product of both world class civilian grad programs and Army PME, I can tell you that CGSC, AWC and the Defense Strategy Course all challenged me just as much as the high speed grad schools did.

CGSC/ILE is a hoop that you jump through. While there is the occasional student who does serious research and academic work, for the great majority it is an "achieve the 70&#37; solution and move on". The only people I've ever met who think it's "great" tend to be CGSC/ILE instructors, and they will defend it tooth and nail. I kind of like the interaction between the branches, but the rest of it, I could've done without. Massive waste of my time and energy.

I judge the AWC not by actual knowledge of it's content, but by the drooling idiots it sometimes produces. "How the hell did THAT guy get through?" has become something of a mantra, here. Again, YMMV.

In addition, up through CGSC/ILE, you are graded on the "school solution". Which everyone with more than two functioning brain cells knows is crap. But you do it that way in order to graduate.

[PhilR]

I see that that is moving to a discussion of formal PME. I can only speak of the Marine Corps, but I think that, internal to the schools themselves, there is great potential for good. There is always quibbling about content and process, but in general, the instructors are of the capability to challenge, and the content--war and peace, and things in between--is certainly worth investigating for the students who will practice it.
What 120mm points out, to my mind, is that the military has not provided enough incentive on why the students should care or really try. I don't know how many generals, in discussing their military school experience to subordiantes say "The education's alright, but the important thing is to 1) connect with your peers and/or 2) reconnect with your family." So why not just give us a reading list and send us all to the O club every day from 0900-1600?
What brings out a useful experience is where the students come wanting to learn and to challenge the instructors. To my knowledge, that happens regularly in the 2d year programs (SAMS/SAW/SAAS) because the student officers have indicated a desire to learn. It happens less frequently in other PME because the students do not necessarily think what the school has to offer is really important or applicable--they have been chosen to be there. Its a "hoop to jump through". And without any real grades or, in the Marine Corps, an observed fitrep to worry about, its not something you have to try real hard at.
We need to find a way to make officers realize the value of the PME--not to their career, but to their ability to perform in their profession. That is not a problem for the schools, but for the service culture and leadership. The fact that we are at war, strangely enough, does not produce this desire by students. As exemplified by the post-WWII Army, its officer corps thought they had learned all they needed to know in combat and that a school had nothing to teach them. That's a fear I have of today's military.

[Jimbo]

Well, I never heard any of my mentors tell me that CGSC was a great moment in that they became some kind of mini-Clausewitz/Jomini/Sun-Tzu able to synergize these theories into a tactical plan. It never did that, hell in WWII, it did even less. Currently, ILE has gotten off of doctrine because it is all being rewritten, so it turns into wht people have seen work (as of right now). As far as people who think being a CGSC instructor is an end all be all, then I am going to assume you are talking about the IT division "ILE/CGSC" battalions. In which case, you are making an apples and oranges comparison. Most of the faculty at Levenworth are civilians (recently retired O-5's).

[MASON]

Yingling is looking with candor at the system that produces our military hierarchy. A system which focuses its officers to work for the fit rep and awards required for advancement with a known short rotation schedule.--- And at the High end with an obvious retirement bail out on or near the top philosophy ( Did IKe, Patton, Halsey, Bradley retire while the war continued?) It is only due to the multiple war rotations that this comes to light (only so many sugar coats can improve the taste of dry desert cake)

Ironiclly the first few responses to this very post confirm the pervasive mentality in the DOD that the subordinate will pay for speaking the truth.

"Proceedings" did a great peice on this topic a few years ago called Between Schilla and Carbdis --Odeseuss's Monsters on right and left---The Machine that directs an individual to WAR and the Enemy found there. Their conclusion --Few messengers to congress or the Pentagon will get wine from the table most get vinegar but that is why US Officers take an Oath to defend the Constitution as Primary allegance and obeying superior officers comes second or third if people are looking at the unlawful orders thing.

If Yingling does get parked it only confirms part of his point.

[MASON]

I do not think he effectively made the case that a second language and or advanced degrees are infact what wins wars since his central fulcrum for failure is lack of integrity

As Duke and the academies have recently proven undergraduate and advanced degree programs have the integrity of the social fabric they attract.

[sullygoarmy]

In addition, up through CGSC/ILE, you are graded on the "school solution". Which everyone with more than two functioning brain cells knows is crap. But you do it that way in order to graduate.

School solutions went the way of the jeep...there aren't any school solutions, yellow sheets, or whatever floating around anymore. I think CGSC has shifted more to an open thought process than a "give me the school solution" process.

In my opinion, you get out of CGSC (or any military school for that matter) what you put into it, just like any other school. You can go to CGSC/Duke/Rockland Community College. If you don't assert yourself, do the readings and approach education with an open mind, you'll get nothing out of the program regardless of where you are. If you, however, try to suck as much knowledge, personal reflection and self improvement as you can during the courses, than you've just made yourself a better officer/civilian/person, whatever.

I'm not a pro-CGSC guy by any means. There are some courses, instructors and programs I'd like to see revamped or scrapped. However, I will say I learned a ton about the other end of the Army, the side I rarely got to see as a tactical focused company grade officer. I loved the strategy blocks, enjoyed learning about some of the great theorists, and had first rate instructors who gave as much to you as you gave to them. It was a great experience which also gave me the time to improve on my writing/research and briefing skills...all valuable tools for a field grade going back into the fight.

I'll argue that you can either jump blindly through the hoop taking nothing away from the experience other than "I'm glad its over" or learn as much as you can about the hoop, how you jumped through it, and how to improve because the next "hoop jump" you do may cost the lives of US soldiers. If you don't then you've not only wasted a valuable opportunity to better yourself as a professional (that what professionals do...they continue to learn and self improve) but demonstrated that it may be time to find another career path, one that doesn't involve professional self-development.

Oh yeah, back on topic...Go LTC Yingling!

[Jimbo]

I am not a fan of the Yingling article because he took the GO's to task on the wrong issues. A majority of the areas he criticises the GO's on, are really filures in the civilian leadership in the NSC and the Defense Department. If those guys don't want to listen to their SME's, then what do you do. I mean Yingling could come out and be specific. I mean I guess that only answer would be to call a press conference and air it all out. Personally, I beleiev there is a better article on all of this in the current issue of Foreign Affairs called Bush and the Generals. It actually sets up how and why the system is out of balance. It is pretty good in my opinion.

[Culpeper]

An Army Colonel's Gamble (http://www.military.com/NewsContent/0,13319,134179,00.html?ESRC=iraq.RSS)


Pentagon officials say the encouraging episode in Ramadi is a poignant reflection of shifting leadership tactics within the U.S. military, which is trying to develop a generation of officers who can think creatively and are as comfortable dealing with tribal sheiks as they are with tank formations on a conventional battlefield.

This article may be an indication that Yingling's paper might be a day late and a dollar short?

There is always the other side of the coin. This is why I am always suspicious of one side that is too critical, which requires further research to avoid over inflated recommendations as well as contempt prior to investigation.

[120mm]

School solutions went the way of the jeep...there aren't any school solutions, yellow sheets, or whatever floating around anymore. I think CGSC has shifted more to an open thought process than a "give me the school solution" process.

In my opinion, you get out of CGSC (or any military school for that matter) what you put into it, just like any other school. You can go to CGSC/Duke/Rockland Community College. If you don't assert yourself, do the readings and approach education with an open mind, you'll get nothing out of the program regardless of where you are. If you, however, try to suck as much knowledge, personal reflection and self improvement as you can during the courses, than you've just made yourself a better officer/civilian/person, whatever.

I'm not a pro-CGSC guy by any means. There are some courses, instructors and programs I'd like to see revamped or scrapped. However, I will say I learned a ton about the other end of the Army, the side I rarely got to see as a tactical focused company grade officer. I loved the strategy blocks, enjoyed learning about some of the great theorists, and had first rate instructors who gave as much to you as you gave to them. It was a great experience which also gave me the time to improve on my writing/research and briefing skills...all valuable tools for a field grade going back into the fight.

I'll argue that you can either jump blindly through the hoop taking nothing away from the experience other than "I'm glad its over" or learn as much as you can about the hoop, how you jumped through it, and how to improve because the next "hoop jump" you do may cost the lives of US soldiers. If you don't then you've not only wasted a valuable opportunity to better yourself as a professional (that what professionals do...they continue to learn and self improve) but demonstrated that it may be time to find another career path, one that doesn't involve professional self-development.

Oh yeah, back on topic...Go LTC Yingling!

I don't disagree with you, in principle. But your last paragraph implies that the military education system is the end-all to "professionalism". Question: Could I have dropped courses from my ILE curriculum to study something else I thought would be more valuable to "saving soldiers' lives?" The implication that the "military education system" has cornered the study of war and any who disagree with it are "killing soldiers" is ridiculous, and reflects the kind of "mind-numbed robots" who appear to inhabit, and even scarier, believe in the system.

BTW, I'm a former ROTC instructor and current Reserve ILE instructor and I am underwhelmed by either "professional development" curriculum. Mostly because the great majority of the courses appear to be geared toward the non-professional. After all, shouldn't the "professionals" already know this stuff? And how does taking "professionals" away from the practice of actual war make them better at waging it?

I have received much better learning opportunities from forums like Small Wars Council than I ever have from any of the Army schools.

[Tom Odom]

In my opinion, you get out of CGSC (or any military school for that matter) what you put into it, just like any other school. You can go to CGSC/Duke/Rockland Community College. If you don't assert yourself, do the readings and approach education with an open mind, you'll get nothing out of the program regardless of where you are. If you, however, try to suck as much knowledge, personal reflection and self improvement as you can during the courses, than you've just made yourself a better officer/civilian/person, whatever.

Amen. You can go to an Ivy league university, do the minimum required, and later stun the world with inept foreign policy.

But on topic. I taught at CGSC and I later attended CGSC. It was the same as it was in elementary schol---those who want to learn, learn. Those who do not, regardless of reason or rationalizing do not. I hate dumbing material down--the instructions to use PPT style bullets in place of prose because "busy" leader need it short and sweet. Leaders need it accurate. I hate it when some PPT ranger sticks a slide show on that has embedded rock music on it because the message is so thin he has to cover it with a higher decibel level. I do not accept the common excuse "I am too busy to read." It really means I am too lazy to read; the same folks tend to give guidance like a blind man painting by the numbers.

If you are reading this, you are obviously on SWJ. That means you have a thirst for knowledge and you are motivated enough to seek a high quality source.

You are a minority

For God's sake keep reading because you are reading for the majority

Tom

[Shek]

I hate dumbing material down--the instructions to use PPT style bullets in place of prose because "busy" leader need it short and sweet. Leaders need it accurate. I hate it when some PPT ranger sticks a slide show on that has embedded rock music on it because the message is so thin he has to cover it with a higher decibel level. I do not accept the common excuse "I am too busy to read."

Tom,

Amen! Here's two fun links dealing with this topic. The first is the Gettysburg Address in PowerPoint, and the second is Edward Tufte raging against the PowerPoint machine.

Shek

http://norvig.com/Gettysburg/
http://www.scribd.com/doc/5557/Edward-R-Tufte-The-Cognitive-Style-of-PowerPoint

[sullygoarmy]

BTW, I'm a former ROTC instructor and current Reserve ILE instructor and I am underwhelmed by either "professional development" curriculum. Mostly because the great majority of the courses appear to be geared toward the non-professional. After all, shouldn't the "professionals" already know this stuff? And how does taking "professionals" away from the practice of actual war make them better at waging it?



120mm: As an instructor, isn't the onus on you to enhance the system to make the "professional development" more in tune with where you think our officers need to go? Like Tom said, you get out of it what you put into it. Half my small group was purely interested in playing golf or going out drinking...not that I don't mind either. But there is a time to FO and a time to work. While at CGSC, why not try and develop yourself further professionally while enjoying some well needed time off. In my personal opinion, if you don't try and get something out of it, you're wasting time. It doesn't have to be cirruculum specific. I learned more from discussions with my peers, from forums like this or from personal reading that I did from some of my instructors. Bottom line is the professional development cirriculum is not the "be all end all" of military education. The good ones throughout history, sought other opportunities to build on what they learned.

I never said in my earlier comments that the military education system has the corner on the market...far from it. While I think its great that we still do bridge crossing operations as part of CGSC, I'd rather spend more time on COIN and SSTR operations than how to cross the Kura River. I think my comments merely pointed out that those who choose to not seek self improvement when presented with the time and resources to do so are suspect in my book. You make your own opportunities for self improvement. My time at CGSC presented numerous chances to further my self-development. Sorry to here that the ILE you are teaching fails in that regard.

[fernando761]

Hello--I'm new to this site, but my name's Fernando and I'm an active duty Special Forces officer attending grad school at Harvard. Some quick comments I'd written earlier:

I think the Paul Yingling is dead on. But what makes his article so interesting is not necessarily its content–though insightful and accurate, the criticism is not new. Many others have written similar accounts in newspaper articles or books such as “Fiasco” and “Cobra II.” What is so striking about the article is that it was written by a successful active duty officer and then published in a military journal. If Yingling isn’t immediately fired or blacklisted, this will mark a clear change in the military’s internal climate. Public sentiment may be so negative over Iraq that military officers can dare to say “the emperor has no clothes” and still keep their jobs. If this is the case, expect the floodgates to open soon–dozens of similar articles by military officers will follow. The change will be both postive and negative: Positive because the American public will have greater insight into the real dynamics of the war as seen by those fighting it. Negative because the insight will be bleak and feed the frenzied call for immediate withdrawal.

Regardless of the potential outcomes, we should all be watching the career of Paul Yingling very closely. The stakes are much higher than we can imagine.

For more, check out our new national security blog at www.roguelystated.com

[Ski]

Couple of things

I haven't been to ILE/CGSC yet, but am probably going within the next 12-18 months. I've heard it's similar to CAS3, where you have officers who care and get the most out of the course and then you have those who are just looking for 10 months of school and a sheepskin. I'm planning on going to get the strategist identifier and a second master's - I'll be halfway through my first by August 07.

What I'd really like to do is go to SAMS, as I have three friends who have gone and said it's night and day compared to ILE in terms of intellectual interest. I figure I have a fighter's chance of meeting the requirements...

As far as the military culture changing, well, I sincerely hope it does. It will take wide ranging reform for it to occur, and if Yingling's article is the tipping point, that will be significant. But I just have that sneaking feeling that the points made by him will fall by the wayside like Don Vandergriff's books on the culture of the Army. I guess we just have to wait and see.

[Culpeper]

Hello--I'm new to this site, but my name's Fernando and I'm an active duty Special Forces officer attending grad school at Harvard. Some quick comments I'd written earlier:

I think the Paul Yingling is dead on. But what makes his article so interesting is not necessarily its content–though insightful and accurate, the criticism is not new. Many others have written similar accounts in newspaper articles or books such as “Fiasco” and “Cobra II.” What is so striking about the article is that it was written by a successful active duty officer and then published in a military journal. If Yingling isn’t immediately fired or blacklisted, this will mark a clear change in the military’s internal climate. Public sentiment may be so negative over Iraq that military officers can dare to say “the emperor has no clothes” and still keep their jobs. If this is the case, expect the floodgates to open soon–dozens of similar articles by military officers will follow. The change will be both postive and negative: Positive because the American public will have greater insight into the real dynamics of the war as seen by those fighting it. Negative because the insight will be bleak and feed the frenzied call for immediate withdrawal.

Regardless of the potential outcomes, we should all be watching the career of Paul Yingling very closely. The stakes are much higher than we can imagine.

For more, check out our new national security blog at www.roguelystated.com

That is beyond ridiculous. You're talking about a man's career as if it is some sort of experiment to allow officers the right of insubordination based on an outcome that won't end up in your file. Why wait to see what happens to Paul? If you got a set than get on the fence next to him right now. It's nice seeing young officers, such as yourself, patting Mr. Yingling on the back but staying far enough away to avoid having to feed him any belts. Sure, let's give a blank check to our young "officers". These same young officers that wouldn't put up with half this nonsense from their own enlisted men. You may need a Come to Jesus meeting with your nearest experienced Master or Gunnery Sergeant.


Some quick comments I'd written earlier...

Earlier? That is from your first post on the message board. The one I'm responding to.

[Mark O'Neill]

That is beyond ridiculous. You're talking about a man's career as if it is some sort of experiment to allow officers the right of insubordination based on an outcome that won't end up in your file. Why wait to see what happens to Paul? If you got a set than get on the fence next to him right now. It's nice seeing young officers, such as yourself, patting Mr. Yingling on the back but staying far enough away to avoid having to feed him any belts. Sure, let's give a blank check to our young "officers". These same young officers that wouldn't put up with half this nonsense from their own enlisted men. You may need a Come to Jesus meeting with your nearest experienced Master or Gunnery Sergeant.



Earlier? That is from your first post on the message board. The one I'm responding to.


Good Call.

[Shek]

That is beyond ridiculous. You're talking about a man's career as if it is some sort of experiment to allow officers the right of insubordination based on an outcome that won't end up in your file. Why wait to see what happens to Paul? If you got a set than get on the fence next to him right now. It's nice seeing young officers, such as yourself, patting Mr. Yingling on the back but staying far enough away to avoid having to feed him any belts. Sure, let's give a blank check to our young "officers". These same young officers that wouldn't put up with half this nonsense from their own enlisted men. You may need a Come to Jesus meeting with your nearest experienced Master or Gunnery Sergeant.

This was a professionally sanctioned format to air questions about the profession (because of the professional format and approval process for publishing, I would argue that it cannot be insubordinate by definition). Since you keep wanting to use it as a strawman analogy implicating the young officers that support LTC Yingling's article, let's examine what the true analogy really is.

As I look at it, some professionally sanctioned ways in which enlisted soldiers can air their frustrations/constructive criticism about their command include: sensing sessions, open door policy, command climate surveys, and IG complaints. The previous methods are all formal methods, and better commanders/staff officers will find opportunities to talk with soldiers and NCOs to get the same type of feedback in an informal manner. While I cannot speak for others on this board, I would find it hard to believe that those who are open to LTC Yingling's professionally published article would then turn around and deny their soldiers the ability to provide their thoughts and feedback through the above professionally sanctioned forums.

Now, I agree that I wouldn't tolerate insubordination, such as refusing to execute legal orders, using inappropiate forums to air criticism that hadn't been brought to the chain of command first so that they could have handled the situation, or just plain complaining and/or malingering that is destructive rather than constructive to the unit. None of this applies to LTC Yingling's piece, as it was published in a professional forum designed to foster and stimulate discussion about the profession.

Lastly, I would offer up that I know of a similar piece to LTC Yingling's that was submitted a year ago to Military Review that was not accepted for publishing. So, from my corner of the world, LTC Yingling is not the sole voice willing to sally forth with constructive criticism in the open.

[selil]

Earlier? That is from your first post on the message board. The one I'm responding to.


Culpeper,

What you are seeing here on SWC is Fernando posting his complete personal blog entry in his SWC post. He basically cut and pasted it.

[sullygoarmy]

Couple of things

I haven't been to ILE/CGSC yet, but am probably going within the next 12-18 months. I've heard it's similar to CAS3, where you have officers who care and get the most out of the course and then you have those who are just looking for 10 months of school and a sheepskin. I'm planning on going to get the strategist identifier and a second master's - I'll be halfway through my first by August 07.

What I'd really like to do is go to SAMS, as I have three friends who have gone and said it's night and day compared to ILE in terms of intellectual interest. I figure I have a fighter's chance of meeting the requirements...

As far as the military culture changing, well, I sincerely hope it does. It will take wide ranging reform for it to occur, and if Yingling's article is the tipping point, that will be significant. But I just have that sneaking feeling that the points made by him will fall by the wayside like Don Vandergriff's books on the culture of the Army. I guess we just have to wait and see.

Ski,
Shoot me a PM or e-mail. I did the 6Z track...it was great! I start SAMS at the end of June plus I'm doing the SAMS-driven KSU Master's degree in Security Studies. I finished my first master back in 02.

Sully

[Culpeper]

This was a professionally sanctioned format to air questions about the profession (because of the professional format and approval process for publishing, I would argue that it cannot be insubordinate by definition). Since you keep wanting to use it as a strawman analogy implicating the young officers that support LTC Yingling's article, let's examine what the true analogy really is.

As I look at it, some professionally sanctioned ways in which enlisted soldiers can air their frustrations/constructive criticism about their command include: sensing sessions, open door policy, command climate surveys, and IG complaints. The previous methods are all formal methods, and better commanders/staff officers will find opportunities to talk with soldiers and NCOs to get the same type of feedback in an informal manner. While I cannot speak for others on this board, I would find it hard to believe that those who are open to LTC Yingling's professionally published article would then turn around and deny their soldiers the ability to provide their thoughts and feedback through the above professionally sanctioned forums.

Now, I agree that I wouldn't tolerate insubordination, such as refusing to execute legal orders, using inappropiate forums to air criticism that hadn't been brought to the chain of command first so that they could have handled the situation, or just plain complaining and/or malingering that is destructive rather than constructive to the unit. None of this applies to LTC Yingling's piece, as it was published in a professional forum designed to foster and stimulate discussion about the profession.

Lastly, I would offer up that I know of a similar piece to LTC Yingling's that was submitted a year ago to Military Review that was not accepted for publishing. So, from my corner of the world, LTC Yingling is not the sole voice willing to sally forth with constructive criticism in the open.

Oh, I agree with you completely. But what I saw in Fernando's post was nothing less than inciting young officers to rebel once Yingling's "outcome" has been settled in a certain way. I have seen a lot of praise for Mr. Yingling but rarely anything posted along with it to clarify his actual goal. I'm getting or comprehending young officers basically getting excited over what amounts to a title of a forum thread and nothing more. I don't see anything professional with those types of responses. Using the insubordination bug-a-boo is probably over the hill on my part but it is a fine line. Otherwise, why would certain young officers being willing to wait on the fate of Mr. Yingling before they too wish to follow him. It's utterly ridiculous and does nothing to help the cause Paul Yingling is promoting.

[Shek]

Oh, I agree with you completely. But what I saw in Fernando's post was nothing less than inciting young officers to rebel once Yingling's "outcome" has been settled in a certain way. I have seen a lot of praise for Mr. Yingling but rarely anything posted along with it to clarify his actual goal. I'm getting or comprehending young officers basically getting excited over what amounts to a title of a forum thread and nothing more. I don't see anything professional with those types of responses. Using the insubordination bug-a-boo is probably over the hill on my part but it is a fine line. Otherwise, why would certain young officers being willing to wait on the fate of Mr. Yingling before they too wish to follow him. It's utterly ridiculous and does nothing to help the cause Paul Yingling is promoting.

Sorry, I had completely missed the thrust of your post. Thanks for setting me straight.

[Culpeper]

Shek

Not a problem. We all want to see the same goal achieved. I think it is blessing that this forum doesn't suffer from groupthink (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Groupthink). Somebody is doing something right.

[MASON]

LTC Yinglings article seems to be at its core an honest question about how the DOD grows leaders. I think many of the posts have focused far to much on career effect of bringing up the question. If we are all wondering about what his future is then I think we are missing the point and sadly missing a great strength in our foundation as a country and its military.

The Oath

"I will support and defend the Constitution of the United states against all enemies foreign and domestic."

This is not an oath to a king or a queen nor is it an oath to an office or any person who temporarily holds office or appointment. This is not an oath to an association or a tribe or a nationality. The Constitution has primacy over persons and the offices defined in it.

Captain Randal G. Bowfish, USN penned and excellent article for USNI Proceedings. I cannnot link to it since it is not on line via Proceedings home page or by google :) but for those interested the title is "Between Scylla and Charibdis: Discussion and Dissent in the Navy " May 2004 vol 130/5/1215

[marct]

Hi Mason,


LTC Yinglings article seems to be at its core an honest question about how the DOD grows leaders. I think many of the posts have focused far to much on career effect of bringing up the question.

I think you are right about focusing too much on the effects on his career :). I would, however, disagree with you on the key question - at least as I read it. I would certainly be interested in hearing his thoughts on it too.


If we are all wondering about what his future is then I think we are missing the point and sadly missing a great strength in our foundation as a country and its military.

The Oath

"I will support and defend the Constitution of the United states against all enemies foreign and domestic."

This is not an oath to a king or a queen nor is it an oath to an office or any person who temporarily holds office or appointment. This is not an oath to an association or a tribe or a nationality. The Constitution has primacy over persons and the offices defined in it.

I think that this is the key point behind his article, rather than DoD growing its own leaders. As I read it, I took his article as questioning the constitutional basis of the current political "reality" regarding the roles of he executive, congress and military leadership. I believe that he was thinking along the lines of what "should" be operational reality vs. what is operational reality.

As a not so side note, I would point out that the oath to the Constitution is, actually, very similar to the Oath to the Crown in the British (and Canadian) tradition. We swear an oath to the Crown "in the person of" rather than to the "person as". As such, should it be necessary, we can, and have, eliminated individuals (consider, by way of example, Charles I or Edward VIII). The "Crown" is not the person in a manner similar to the way that the Constitution is not the President.

Marc

[Paul Yingling]

Friends,

I've recently joined Small Wars Journal and I want to express my thanks for the terrific debate on my recent 'generalship' piece.

I thought I would share some common questions/comments about the piece, as well as my responses.

Most of the response has been very positive, and some of it has been intensely personal. I've received some very disturbing emails from Soldiers and family members describing how bad leadership has impacted their lives. To be honest, I was not prepared for that response and I'm very troubled by what I've heard.

The most common criticism of the piece is that I did not address the role of civilian authorities more explicitly. While I don't think a serving officer should publicly criticize civil authorities, there is a more substantive question here. Who does society hold responsible for the application of non-military instruments of power to achieve the aims of policy? That's a much larger question than the one I took on regarding the responsibilities of general officers. However, it's a fair question that I would like to take a stab at eventually. Any thoughts on this topic are very much appreciated.

Many people have asked me what impact this piece will have on my career. I don't know the answer to that question, and I don't mean to be dismissive or overly stoic, but I don't think it's a very important issue. There are Soldiers and Marines and family members who have risked and sacrificed much more than promotion to full colonel over the last six years.

What I hope will happen: increased Congressional oversight of the systems that produce our senior leaders. Also, that junior leaders believe that our system of governance is capable of self-correction on even the most important issues.

What I fear might happen: inaction by political and senior military authorities, coupled with growing resentment and disillusionment by our junior leaders. I'm very worried about the communication gap between stars and bars, and I hope that my article does not make matters worse. As I said, I've been surprised by the emotional intensity of some of the responses I've received.

An interesting observation. The Vietnam generation did not fully assimilate their experiences until after the war was over. In units and service schools, the captains, majors and lieutenant colonels discussed their experiences, drew conclusions and argued for reform. In the information age, this dialogue happens in real time. Junior leaders are able to compare what senior leaders say with what's happening on the ground in a matter of minutes. I don't think our organizational models and leadership theories have caught up with the impacts of the information age. That's probably a statement of the obvious to most, but came as a revelation to a Luddite like me.

I welcome your questions and comments and am very honored to be part of SWJ.

V/R

Paul

[Steve Blair]

Welcome LTC Yingling! We've been having a heck of a good time talking about your article...glad to have your comments and hope you find some other threads here of interest.

[VinceC]

Who does society hold responsible for the application of non-military instruments of power to achieve the aims of policy? That's a much larger question than the one I took on regarding the responsibilities of general officers.

I would say, in the broadest sense, the elected administration. However, there should also be a debate on just where the instruments of military power end. Through U.S. military history, the U.S. Army has been involved in missions that were not strictly military in character. George Marshall concluded, at the start of U.S. involvment in World War II, that victory would result in the Army being an occupation force, and he began detailed training and preparation to that end.

[jcustis]

Welcome sir.

[Maximus]

Very glad to have you onboard Sir! Semper Fi!

[marct]

Welcome Sir,


The most common criticism of the piece is that I did not address the role of civilian authorities more explicitly. While I don't think a serving officer should publicly criticize civil authorities, there is a more substantive question here. Who does society hold responsible for the application of non-military instruments of power to achieve the aims of policy? That's a much larger question than the one I took on regarding the responsibilities of general officers. However, it's a fair question that I would like to take a stab at eventually. Any thoughts on this topic are very much appreciated.

That really is the $64k question :wry:. Honestly, I didn't see your piece as "criticizing" so much as "reminding them of their Constitutional responsibilities" - which is certainly within the purvue of a serving officer.

As a suggestion, for an intermediate examination, it might be more useful to reformulate your question as "When does society hold the military responsible for the application of non-kinetic instruments of power?" This would at least give you a mandate to explore the more general question you originally asked.


An interesting observation. The Vietnam generation did not fully assimilate their experiences until after the war was over. In units and service schools, the captains, majors and lieutenant colonels discussed their experiences, drew conclusions and argued for reform. In the information age, this dialogue happens in real time. Junior leaders are able to compare what senior leaders say with what's happening on the ground in a matter of minutes. I don't think our organizational models and leadership theories have caught up with the impacts of the information age. That's probably a statement of the obvious to most, but came as a revelation to a Luddite like me.

It s certainly an issue with most organizations these days - specifically the immediate access to "uncontrolled" information and the ability to contact almost anyone in real time. For many people, it's sited at the (dis) juncture between "lived reality" (what I see everyday), what the official spokesmen "say" in the formal communicative media (either internal or external), and what is being said in the non-formal media. When you add in the potential for "anonymity" available in forums, you just increase the likelihood that people will speak freely and, often, at odds with the "formal" statements coming out.

Marc

[slapout9]

GUYS, You might want to check your facts. Below is a link to the current Oath for Officers and Enlisted men according to the CGSC CMH You swear an Oath to Obey !!!!!the President.
Link is listed below.


http://www.army.mil/cmh-pg/faq/oaths.htm

[Ski]

Greetings sir. I applaud your moral courage for writing this article. I hope that is indeed the harbringer of change that is sorely needed within the Army's culture.

You are totally correct when you state "I don't think our organizational models and leadership theories have caught up with the impacts of the information age." Not only that, but the leaders, probably from the rank of 06 and up, either ignore this or are ignorant to the effects of the information age upon the traditional organizational and leadership models. Why else would there be such a foolish new policy towards blogs?

[marct]

Hi Slapout,


GUYS, You might want to check your facts. Below is a link to the current Oath for Officers and Enlisted men according to the CGSC CMH You swear an Oath to Obey !!!!!the President.
Link is listed below.

Thanks for posting the link...


"I, _____, do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; and that I will obey the orders of the President of the United States and the orders of the officers appointed over me, according to regulations and the Uniform Code of Military Justice. So help me God."

Hmmm, I would read this as obeying the orders of the President according to regulations and the Uniform Code of Military Justice. Given the way it is worded, I would read it as the constitution as the primary source of sovereignty while the President runs second limited by regulations, the UCMJ and, above all else, the Constitution.

Marc

[SWJED]

Thanks much for joining the SWJ and SWC.

Just put up LTC Yingling's SWC post to the blog (http://smallwarsjournal.com/blog/2007/05/reflections-on-generalship/).

Sean Meade over at Tom Barnett's blog was quick to pick it up (http://www.thomaspmbarnett.com/weblog/2007/05/yingling_as_soon_as_could_be.html).

Dave D.

[slapout9]

Hi Marc, according to the US Constitution Article 2, Section 2, the President is the Commander in Chief of the Armed forces. Sooooo how can you support the Constitution and not obey the President??

[Shek]

Hi Marc, according to the US Constitution Article 2, Section 2, the President is the Commander in Chief of the Armed forces. Sooooo how can you support the Constitution and not obey the President??

If the President ordered you to seize Congress. A highly unthinkable prospect these days, but one not so far fetched probably when the Constitution was being drafted, and illlustrative of the fact that the ultimate oath is to the document and not the person.

[marct]

Hi Slapout,


Hi Marc, according to the US Constitution Article 2, Section 2, the President is the Commander in Chief of the Armed forces. Sooooo how can you support the Constitution and not obey the President??

When is the President not the President? Answer: when s/he breaches the Constitution.

Let's just take the example of illegal orders: would it be lawful to obey the order of the President to commit an act that contravened the Constitution? A second point is that the President derives his/her authority from the Constitution and not vice versa, so sovereignty derives from the Constitution and not the President.

Marc

[Culpeper]

Hi Slapout,



Thanks for posting the link...



Hmmm, I would read this as obeying the orders of the President according to regulations and the Uniform Code of Military Justice. Given the way it is worded, I would read it as the constitution as the primary source of sovereignty while the President runs second limited by regulations, the UCMJ and, above all else, the Constitution.

Marc

Yes, and the UCMJ is a lot tougher than civilian law. For example:


933. ART. 133. CONDUCT UNBECOMING AN OFFICER AND A GENTLEMAN

Any commissioned officer, cadet, or midshipman who is convicted of conduct unbecoming an officer and a gentleman shall be punished as a court-martial may direct.

934. ART. 134. GENERAL ARTICLE
Though not specifically mentioned in this chapter, all disorders and neglects to the prejudice of good order and discipline in the armed forces, all conduct of a nature to bring discredit upon the armed forces, and crimes and offenses not capital, of which persons subject to this chapter may be guilty, shall be taken cognizance of by a general, special or summary court-martial, according to the nature and degree of the offense, and shall be punished at the discretion of that court.

This is just A COUPLE OF ARTICLES. You guys starting to see the risk Mr. Yingling has taken upon himself?

Also, you left out the part about the President being the Commander-in-Chief of all the United States Armed Forces. The State of New Mexico has a New Mexico Defense Force. Its Commander-in-Chief is the Governor. You are an officer in this branch of service at the will of the Governor. Commander-in-Chief means exactly what it conveys. He can fire anyone he wants. Ask the ghost of Douglas MacArthur. "MacArthur was relieved of command by President Harry S Truman in April 1951 for insubordination and failure to follow Presidential directives."



FIRED!
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/9/92/MacArthur_Manila.jpg/220px-MacArthur_Manila.jpg

[slapout9]

Hi Culpepper, I didn't leave out about the commander and chief??

Hi Shek, The way I feel right now about Congress I would not have a problem with it:wry: but I get your point.

Hi Marc, illegal orders, thats a good question. Here is my problem with the way everything has been worded it sounds as if the duties of the President are contained in a separate document as opposed to being part of the "higher standard" in this case the Constitution. I don't see them as being separated, they are all part of the same whole. That said I think the question of his issuing legal or illegal orders would have been solved in a large part if we had a debate "before a war" and if Congress issued a formal Declaration of War to include proper manning,money,equipment and so forth as was done in WW2.

[Culpeper]

Hi Culpepper, I didn't leave out about the commander and chief??



No problem. I was quoting Marc's response to you.

[marct]

Hi Slapout,


Hi Marc, illegal orders, thats a good question. Here is my problem with the way everything has been worded it sounds as if the duties of the President are contained in a separate document as opposed to being part of the "higher standard" in this case the Constitution. I don't see them as being separated, they are all part of the same whole.

I agree with you about them being part of the same document; basically an integral part of the whole as it were. Still and all, they are only a part: established by it.


That said I think the question of his issuing legal or illegal orders would have been solved in a large part if we had a debate "before a war" and if Congress issued a formal Declaration of War to include proper manning,money,equipment and so forth as was done in WW2.

Again, I agree with you. A lot of the problems could have been averted in that case.

Marc

[BScully]

The most common criticism of the piece is that I did not address the role of civilian authorities more explicitly. While I don't think a serving officer should publicly criticize civil authorities, there is a more substantive question here. Who does society hold responsible for the application of non-military instruments of power to achieve the aims of policy?

LTC,

Welcome and thanks for posting. As a civilian working in a non-DoD agency, I agree that this is a critical question. I would say there is a lot of blame to go around on this one. From various past administrations, to Congress, to the bureaucracy, and in some ways the general public themselves.

However, moving beyond the blame game, I would say that right now we need to identify who should be responsible for fixing the problem.

Rudy has his answer as has been discussed in another thread on this forum, which Newt apparently agrees with, despite the lack of details. NSPD-44 and the State Department's Office for the Coordinator of Reconstruction and Stabilization were the administration's attempt to wrestle with the issue. The NSC is now looking for a War Czar...with no luck. And I don't recall hearing anything out of Congress recently on this issue.

Personally, I don't think anything will change on the civilian side until both Congress and the President reach agreement on how to proceed. And more importantly, how to proceed in a serious manner. Hopefully Rudy's proposal starts a real dialogue on how to structure the federal government to ensure the civilian agencies fully support U.S. National Security (though I'm not holding my breath).

Thanks again,
Brian

[Dr Jack]

Although LTC Yingling’s article is entitled “A Failure of Generalship,” the remedies he proposes indicate that there are two institutions that have not fully lived up to their Constitutional obligations – the General Officer Corps and the United States Congress. According to the Constitution, there are significant war powers that reside solely within the Congress:


Article I, Section 8 (excerpts).

The Congress shall have Power … (to) provide for the common Defence…

To declare War, grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal, and make Rules concerning Captures on Land and Water;

To raise and support Armies, but no Appropriation of Money to that Use shall be for a longer Term than two Years;

To provide and maintain a Navy;

To make Rules for the Government and Regulation of the land and naval Forces;

To provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions;

To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining, the Militia, and for governing such Part of them as may be employed in the Service of the United States, reserving to the States respectively, the Appointment of the Officers, and the Authority of training the Militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress…
LTC Yingling’s article does not criticize any particular General Officer, which could be a violation of Article 89 of the UCMJ, Disrespect toward a superior commissioned officer. He also does not offer any criticism of the senior civilian leadership or of Congress as an institution, which could be a violation of Article 88 of the UCMJ, Contempt toward officials. He has carefully walked the tightrope in his article.

What he has clearly done, IMHO, is to provide an argument for the General Officer Corps and Congress to work closer together in the execution of warfighting – in line with each respective group’s Constitutional obligations. The General Officer Corps should be more forthcoming with their professional opinions in consultation with Congress, and Congress should be more forthcoming in their oversight and engagement.

Even though I don’t fully agree with all of LTC Yingling’s recommendations, his article is consistent with the officer oath of office (my underline for emphasis):


Oath of Office (USC Title 5, Sec. 3331)
… I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic, that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter, so help me God.

[Jimbo]

Slapout: Top oath is for enlisted soldiers, bottom oath for commisioned officers. Note that there are differences in the language.

Culpeper: having served in one organization you mentioned, and currently serving in another you reference, apples and oranges. So the difference between the governor of New Mexico as the state commander-in-chief (also C-in-C for the NG when not on federal duty) and the President of the US as Commander-In-Chief have different hire and fire powers that diffentiated in tehir roles by their respective constitutions. So your illustartion is somewhat off the mark.

[Culpeper]

Culpeper: having served in one organization you mentioned, and currently serving in another you reference, apples and oranges. So the difference between the governor of New Mexico as the state commander-in-chief (also C-in-C for the NG when not on federal duty) and the President of the US as Commander-In-Chief have different hire and fire powers that diffentiated in tehir roles by their respective constitutions. So your illustartion is somewhat off the mark.


Not to disagree with you but to illustrate why I'm somwhat off the mark, the New Mexico Defense Force is not the New Mexico National Guard and cannot be "federalized" by the President of the United States, which I know you are aware of but want to clarify. You provide no examples of the differences for a state governor as a commander-in-chief compared to the President as commander-in-chief. The governor can fire his personnel at his discretion and the President can fire his personnel at his discretion during times of armed conflict and by trial during peacetime. My example of using the New Mexico Defense Force and the Governor was an attempt to simplify the subject matter of the powers for a commander-in-chief.


Section 20-5-3 NMSA 1978. Composition; enlistment; appointment.

B. The officers of the state defense force shall be appointed by the governor and serve at his pleasure. They shall be chosen from the public and private leadership bases within local communities so as to best enable the community to efficiently muster and lead its people and protect its assets and well being.


Section 20-1-4 NMSA 1978. Governor to be commander-in-chief; enforcement of New Mexico Military Code.

A. The governor shall be the commander-in-chief of the military forces, except so much thereof as may be in the actual service of the United States; and may employ the military forces for the defense or relief of the state, the enforcement of its law, and the protection of life and property therein.

As for the President as Commander-in-Chief and dismissal of officers...


The President's power to dismiss an officer from the service, once unlimited, is today confined by statute in time of peace to dismissal ''in pursuance of the sentence of a general court-martial or in mitigation thereof.'' But the provision is not regarded by the Court as preventing the President from displacing an officer of the Army or Navy by appointing with the advice and consent of the Senate another person in his place. The President's power of dismissal in time of war Congress has never attempted to limit. (http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/data/constitution/article02/08.html#f191)

So, as you suggested there are some differences. But the ends to the mean is still at the discretion of the President. The loopholes are in place.

[slapout9]

Jimbo, Why are there two different Oaths? That just leads to the confusion. One wants to make it a point to obey the President, the other almost leaves a way out ??

[VinceC]

The separate oaths of enlistment and commissioning date back to the Revolutionary War.

http://www.army.mil/CMH/faq/oaths.htm


The wordings of the current oath of enlistment and oath for commissioned officers are as follows:

"I, _____, do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; and that I will obey the orders of the President of the United States and the orders of the officers appointed over me, according to regulations and the Uniform Code of Military Justice. So help me God." (Title 10, US Code; Act of 5 May 1960 replacing the wording first adopted in 1789, with amendment effective 5 October 1962).

"I, _____ (SSAN), having been appointed an officer in the Army of the United States, as indicated above in the grade of _____ do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign or domestic, that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservations or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office upon which I am about to enter; So help me God." (DA Form 71, 1 August 1959, for officers.)

[selil]

Marct,

I was always taught that the power went this way...

people --> Constitution --> civilian leadership --> military/bureaucracy etc..

Some people try and say that the Constitution is the law of the land (restricts people and gives power to the government), but it is actually about restricting the rights of government and empowering people instead of government. Specifically the 9th amendment (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ninth_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution) , and 10th amendment (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tenth_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution) limit government power to only those given in the Constitution and put "The People" as the top dog.

Of course we could also say that the Officers oath has a direct violation of the Posse Commitatus (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Posse_Comitatus_Act) act in it "I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign or domestic".

[tequila]

The President can deploy U.S. armed forces in the case of domestic insurrection. Also Posse Comitatus is largely invalidated under the new Insurrection Act (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Insurrection_Act)that was modified in by the 2007 Defense Authorization Bill.

[slapout9]

Per the constitution the President can commit federal troops in case of rebellion or INVASION by declaration of martial law.

[Jimbo]

One:

The Presidnet nominates officers for rank and congress confirms them in their rank. The President can "fire" commanders which means he can relieve them from command, but cannot fire them from their rank. Officers get relieved of command often enough, but they are not resduced in rank. The American Civil War and WWII provide ample examples of this.

Culpeper,

I know that the state defense forces and the NG are not the same, but when the ARNG/ANG is not mobilized they fall under the same structure with the governor serving as the C-in-C. The big difference for guard officers is that they get promoted by position and time. If there are no major coded slots available in your unit, then you have to go find a unit with a major slot available to get promoted. Furthermore, if you get moved out of that slot the governor can demote you. For example when I was training the 39th BCT out of Arkansas, there were E-6's who had been Captains, that lost their slots because they did not contrbute to the re-elect the governor campaign in 1990 or something like that. Furthermore, the guard officer shave to do federal recognition paperwork. This paperwork is an "agreement" between the U.S. Army/DoD/ Federal Government and the state/individual that certifies that the officer meets minimum federal requirements to hold their rank, that the governot appointed them in, when they are mobilized and placed under federal command. For example, when I was training the 39 BCT (Arkansas, again), the Brigade recon troop commander showed up at FT hood wearing railroad tracks. He never did his federal paperwork. When the unit left FT Hood he was wearing E-6 rank because that was the last level of training that he could prove. There are very different systems as far as appointment into rank and such.

[marct]

Hi Sam,


I was always taught that the power went this way...

people --> Constitution --> civilian leadership --> military/bureaucracy etc..

I've seen the same thing. Still, there is a difference between "power" and "legitimacy" in the sense of the legitimate social use of power. From my reading of it, your constitution legitimizes popular power and constrains its social forms and some of the procedures of its application. For example, you do not directly elect your President and it is quite possible that the one elected under the constitutional strictures actually loses the popular vote.


Some people try and say that the Constitution is the law of the land (restricts people and gives power to the government), but it is actually about restricting the rights of government and empowering people instead of government. Specifically the 9th amendment (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ninth_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution) , and 10th amendment (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tenth_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution) limit government power to only those given in the Constitution and put "The People" as the top dog.

Maybe - there have always been limits on the franchise which restricts who "The People" actually are. Also, I would argue,that you fought a civil war over this issue, and "The People" lost when the federal government was empowered to supersede individual states rights. I think that the tensions go back right to the founding of your country.


Of course we could also say that the Officers oath has a direct violation of the Posse Commitatus (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Posse_Comitatus_Act) act in it "I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign or domestic".

That's always been an interesting loophole to my mind, since it never really defines what "defend" means; is it political defense? Military defense? Media releases? Then again, the oaths go back before the posse commitatus act.

Marc

[wm]

The tension between states' rights and Federal power predates the Constitution. In fact, I seem to remember that The Federalist Papers were written to try to justify a Federal government at the expense of states' rights. Initially the US was run under the Articles of Confederation, not the Constitution.

I am no Constitutional law expert. But when it comes down to it, I always look at the Preamble as the source of understanding what the document is all about.
(We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States
of America.)
It is rather like a combination of the mission and the statement of the commander's intent in an Op Order. All of the rest of the Constitution's articles and amendments equate to the remainder of the execution paragraph, paragraphs 4 and 5 and and the various annexes and appendices. BTW, I think the Declaration of Independance serves as the situation (Paragraph 1 of the OpOrd). We might also choose to view the amendments to the Constitution as fragos after the intial order was issued.

In closing, I'd just like to say that the real issue, as far as I am concerned, has nothing to do with all this legalese. Instead, we need to consider what is the morally right thing to do. I applaud LTC Yingling for having the moral courage to publish his thoughts.

[Steve Blair]

In closing, I'd just like to say that the real issue, as far as I am concerned, has nothing to do with all this legalese. Instead, we need to consider what is the morally right thing to do. I applaud LTC Yingling for having the moral courage to publish his thoughts.

I agree 100%. Now if we could only get MAJ Vandergriff to comment on his ideas for changing the personnel system...:)

As I've said before, it's also good to see AFJ going back to its roots and running articles like LTC Yingling's. Good discussion in print is always helpful, and if nothing else can stimulate others to think and hopefully write.

[VinceC]

The Insurrection Acts date to the Civil War. Even with Posse Comitatus, the President has always had authority to use federal forces to uphold U.S. law if civilian law-enforcement officials are unable or unwilling to uphold the law. Under the Insurrection Acts, the President must issue a "cease and desist" order, usually via presidential proclamation, then may deploy federal troops if that order is not followed. In practice, this is how Eisenhower deployed elements of U.S. Army airborne forces to force the desegregation of schools in the late 1950s. It is not complicated and does not require a general declaration of martial law.

[Uboat509]

Call me cynical if you like but I don't think that increased congressional oversite is the answer to ANY problem. Every issue is viewed though a number of partisan filiters and the decisions are made based on what is best for the party rather than what is best for the country. How many sh*t sandwiches has the military had to swallow because they were made in a powerful congressman's district? I am all for the civilian leadership of the military in so far as they tell us which wars to fight. But I have a problem with someone who has little or no practical military experience and a partisan agenda telling us how to fight those wars or who is best suited to lead us when we do.

SFC W

[Old Eagle]

I'm with Uboat on this one. I thoroughly enjoyed Paul's article. I think that it will spark healthy debate, as it has here. I disagree, however, with the prescription of more congressional interferrence in DoD. Already, the workload of congressionally mandated reports, many that nobody reads, is abusive. I was in the bureaucratic process that forwarded promotion lists to congress for advice and consent in the days after Tailhook. Their intrusive micrimanaging of the promotion process served no one well, and trashed the careers of several great officers. Some oversight.

[NDD]

Well, at the risk of over-stating the obvious, the problem is a 900-pound guerrilla (get it? :) ) and the Colonel has addressed but part of it. He stayed in his lane and didn't go off on a tangent.

Sir,
Being an old SF soldier, I loved the article. I disagree about your proposed solutions, but can't offer anything better without hurting myself thinking.

As has been said, I salute your for your integrity. Would there were 1,000 such. In each division.

Sorry I've been gone so long, anybody miss me?:cool:

[Culpeper]

Well, at the risk of over-stating the obvious, the problem is a 900-pound guerrilla (get it? :) ) and the Colonel has addressed but part of it. He stayed in his lane and didn't go off on a tangent.

Sir,
Being an old SF soldier, I loved the article. I disagree about your proposed solutions, but can't offer anything better without hurting myself thinking.

As has been said, I salute your for your integrity. Would there were 1,000 such. In each division.

Sorry I've been gone so long, anybody miss me?:cool:

Yeah, where have you been?:o

[SWJED]

Sorry I've been gone so long, anybody miss me?:cool:

... welcome back.

[NDD]

Many thanks. Working hard, trying to do the right thing. Looks like things are going well...

[Tom Odom]

Many thanks. Working hard, trying to do the right thing. Looks like things are going well...


Sorry I've been gone so long, anybody miss me?

I did now that you're back...:wry:

Welcome back!

Tom

[Sargent]

"....don’t train on finding the enemy; train on finding your friends and they will help you find your enemy."

As was pointed out to me recently, the Coalition forces in Fallujah had hit or found over 50 IEDs in a period of a month/six weeks -- for the local population the number was zero. Obviously they have info, and obviously they are not passing it along. They don't trust the Coalition forces or the Iraqis being trained up... yet. Whether they ever will is another question. That outcome seems in serious doubt as now, in a move similar to the one that killed the CAP in Vietnam, the advisory/transition mission is being squashed in favor of the "security" mission -- read that as the let's kill a lot of insurgents plan.

I wish someone would learn what real counterinsurgency was, because that's what this larger, global fight is about. We should have "hospital bombs" (an air-dropped hospital in a box with a telephone number to call for personnel, supplies, and assistance) not bunker busters, "subtlety and nuance" not "shock and awe." This is a battle for the great undecided -- the true believers will never change their minds, but they are irrelevant. What we need to do is make the context in which the insurgents (both in Iraq and elsewhere) operate utterly untenable. Making the locals happy -- wherever they are -- is how you do that. Making the locals trust you is the key.

As harsh as this is to say, the fact that so many fewer Americans are dying than Iraqis is a problem. I get to say that because I've got a loved one in the crosshairs as I type this. And if it meant changing the minds of one Iraqi family, I'd sacrifice him. Because that family would tell their relatives, and you'd start to see a snow-ball effect. The fact that so many (but certainly not all -- don't get me started on _that_) American troops are leading a life of luxury compared to the Iraqis is another huge problem. Unfortunately, you can't care more about your own people than the locals in an insurgency, not in this day and age. If Americans can't stomach that, then we need to stay out of these things.

At some point I'll share my completely unorthodox view of counterinsurgency.

[Tom Odom]

"....don’t train on finding the enemy; train on finding your friends and they will help you find your enemy."

As was pointed out to me recently, the Coalition forces in Fallujah had hit or found over 50 IEDs in a period of a month/six weeks -- for the local population the number was zero. Obviously they have info, and obviously they are not passing it along. They don't trust the Coalition forces or the Iraqis being trained up... yet. Whether they ever will is another question. That outcome seems in serious doubt as now, in a move similar to the one that killed the CAP in Vietnam, the advisory/transition mission is being squashed in favor of the "security" mission -- read that as the let's kill a lot of insurgents plan.

I wish someone would learn what real counterinsurgency was, because that's what this larger, global fight is about. We should have "hospital bombs" (an air-dropped hospital in a box with a telephone number to call for personnel, supplies, and assistance) not bunker busters, "subtlety and nuance" not "shock and awe." This is a battle for the great undecided -- the true believers will never change their minds, but they are irrelevant. What we need to do is make the context in which the insurgents (both in Iraq and elsewhere) operate utterly untenable. Making the locals happy -- wherever they are -- is how you do that. Making the locals trust you is the key.

As harsh as this is to say, the fact that so many fewer Americans are dying than Iraqis is a problem. I get to say that because I've got a loved one in the crosshairs as I type this. And if it meant changing the minds of one Iraqi family, I'd sacrifice him. Because that family would tell their relatives, and you'd start to see a snow-ball effect. The fact that so many (but certainly not all -- don't get me started on _that_) American troops are leading a life of luxury compared to the Iraqis is another huge problem. Unfortunately, you can't care more about your own people than the locals in an insurgency, not in this day and age. If Americans can't stomach that, then we need to stay out of these things.

At some point I'll share my completely unorthodox view of counterinsurgency.


Please do and soon! So far what you have to say is pretty damn good.

Tom

[slapout9]

Tom,Sargent,Better still fire the Generals and put some Strategic Sargent's in charge and we would Win!!

[Steve Blair]

Please do and soon! So far what you have to say is pretty damn good.

Tom

I second that call. Although I'd call it more common sense than unorthodox. Then again...common sense sure isn't that most of the time.:wry:

[jcustis]

I sense that another of the "1/3rd guys" has joined the ranks.

[Sargent]

I sense that another of the "1/3rd guys" has joined the ranks.

I don't know about the 1/3d guys, but I do have a theory I call The Rule of 4/6ths. It comes from a quote given by a Marine, wounded at Chosin. He was asked by a reporter (a lady, no less) what the most difficult part of the campaign was. In his drug induced haze he replied, "Getting 4 inches of [grocery store muzak] out of 6 inches of clothing" to urinate. [One thing I love about being a military historian is that I get to quote the profane -- we deal in such a harsh subject, it's only right that we get to have fun with something.] Anyway, it occurred to me as I read it that this was a pretty good metaphor for the battlefield -- that you'll only ever get 4/6ths of what you needed, and the art in war was in making up the difference so as to get the job done.

[Culpeper]

Chosin Reservoir was a cold motherf***er.

[SWJED]

From the U.S. Army Combined Arms Research Library - Generalship: Its Diseases and their Cure - A Study of the Personal Factor in Command (http://www.cgsc.army.mil/carl/resources/csi/Fuller/Fuller.asp) by Major-General J.F.C. Fuller (1936).


GENERALSHIP

'For what art can surpass that of the general?--an art which deals not with dead matter but with living beings, who are subject to every impression of the moment, such as fear, precipitation, exhaustion--in short, to every human passion and excitement. The general has not only to reckon with unknown quantities, such as time, weather, accidents of all kinds, but he has before him one who seeks to disturb and frustrate his plans and labours in every way; and at the same time this man, upon whom all eyes are directed, feels upon his mind the weight of responsibility not only for the lives and honour of hundreds of thousands, but even for the welfare and existence of his country.'

A. von BOGUSLAWSKI

[Culpeper]

From the U.S. Army Combined Arms Research Library - Generalship: Its Diseases and their Cure - A Study of the Personal Factor in Command (http://www.cgsc.army.mil/carl/resources/csi/Fuller/Fuller.asp) by Major-General J.F.C. Fuller (1936).

Some of my favorites:



Should the general consistently live outside the realm of danger, then, though he may show high moral courage in making decisions, by his never being called upon to breathe the atmosphere of danger his men are breathing, this lens will become blurred, and he will seldom experience the moral influences his men are experiencing. But it is the influence of his courage upon the hearts of his men in which the main deficit will exist. It is his personality which will suffer - his prestige.


Many Generals in the day of battle busy themselves in regulating the march ing of their troops, in hurrying aides-de-camp to and fro, in galloping about incessantly. They wish to do everything, and as a result do nothing.


These, then, are the three pillars of generalship--courage, creative intelligence and physical fitness; the attributes of youth rather than of middle age.

[Sargent]

LTC Yingling wrote: "I'm very worried about the communication gap between stars and bars, and I hope that my article does not make matters worse."

First, it's entirely refreshing to see the author of a serious piece join a public discussion thereof. Thanks.

Second, I doubt your piece could worsen what is an already gaping chasm.

When I read memoirs of the Revolutionary War, of such junior officers as Bloomfield (Citizen Soldier: Rev War Journal of Joseph Bloomfield) or Thacher (Military Journal of the Am Rev), what is remarkable is the easy social interaction between these fellows and the high ranking officers of the war. For example, these junior officers dined with general officers regularly, had easy and frequent social contact with them. This was a result of the social background the officer corps shared as a whole. However, over the course of American history, the social background for an officer became less relevant -- at the same time, the vertical hierarchization of the officer corps became more rigid. Besides those officers or personnel who might work on the general's staff, today there are very few officers who get the opportunity to interact with generals on a relaxed, social basis. Generals (and Colonels, to a certain extent) have become the rock stars of the military, and have increasingly isolated themselves from the rest of the officer corps. Have you ever tried to take a walk up the west side of the green at Fort McNair? You can't -- it's kept off limits by security guards. What sort of professional communication can we expect when there is a strong socio-cultural barrier between general officers and the rest of the officer corps? In my opinion, not much. And there is no way to solve the problem at this point without a serious effort at reach-down by the generals. However, as you've pointed out in your article (eg, the point about subordinate review), there is absolutely no imperative for the general officers to pursue such efforts, because it has no professional benefit to them.

The social aspects of military service are not given much consideration these days -- they're viewed as a nice to have, not a need to have. However, if this aspect of military service were reconsidered as a matter of utmost importance to inter-rank communications, you might begin to see an increase in General officers talking and listening to their subordinates. Until then, I fear the communications piece will not be much improved.

JSR

[120mm]

From my personal experience, I can tell you that even as I have grown in rank in the last 25 years, Generals, and even Colonels have become more and more withdrawn from contact. As a 2LT, I was sitting in a fuel blivet turned into a hot tub on Monteith Barracks in my skivvies, when a guy in civilian clothes stopped and asked me if the water felt as good as it looked. We chatted for about 15 minutes about various things and he left. Someone later asked me what General Tilelli had to say to me. Same thing with Donn Starry. I was Adjutant to a former subordinate of his, and he would call every couple of months, and chat with me for several minutes before asking to talk to "that slave-driving boss of yours".

Fast forward to the present, and as a MAJ(P), I see BGs and COLs who are surrounded by huge personal staffs, with multiple MAJs working in SGS. I can't even imagine talking to one of them, unless I was flipping slides, and is that really communicating?

Not to paint with too broad a brush, though, MG Wodjakowski lives like a monk and requires very little support, and GEN Petraeus talks to everybody. Even when they're taking a leak in the Leavenworth Club.

[Steve Blair]

For those of you who might be interested, LTC Yingling's article has now surfaced as recommended reading in at least one AFROTC Region. It was also recommended as "a useful tool for your classes."

[SWJED]

16 May Slate commentary - It's Patriotic To Criticize (http://www.slate.com/id/2166215) by Fred Kaplan.


Since Donald Rumsfeld's departure from the Pentagon, American military officers are starting to speak their minds again—and what some of the best of them are saying is even darker than expected.

The latest outburst of frankness came on May 12, when Maj. Gen. Benjamin "Randy" Mixon, (http://www.latimes.com/la-fg-iraq12may12,0,6940484.story?coll=la-home-center) commander of U.S. forces in northern Iraq, told reporters, via teleconference from Tikrit, that he didn't have enough troops to stem the growing violence in Diyala province, east of Baghdad.

Under Rumsfeld's reign, commanders were effectively under orders not to request more troops in private, much less in front of the press.

Yet in the scheme of things, Gen. Mixon was merely filing a complaint. Two weeks earlier, a lower-ranking officer, Lt. Col. Paul Yingling—deputy commander of the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment—issued a jeremiad.

In a blistering article (http://www.armedforcesjournal.com/2007/05/2635198) in the May issue of Armed Forces Journal, published on April 27, Yingling likened the debacle in Iraq to the disaster in Vietnam and blamed them both on "a crisis in an entire institution, America's general officer corps."

Yingling's essay is the most stunning—and maybe the most fiercely intelligent and patriotic—public statement I have ever read from an active-duty officer...

Yingling's essay has received scant attention in the mainstream American press. (Several papers and magazines printed a couple of sentences about it, but, as far as I can tell, only Thomas Ricks (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/26/AR2007042602230.html) in the Washington Post devoted an entire article to its contents and significance.) But the essay has been avidly discussed in military blogs and, very much for the most part, endorsed. One typical entry (http://council.smallwarsjournal.com/showthread.php?t=2724&page=2), from a soldier at Fort Knox: "He's only putting to paper what has been said in most every TOC [tactical operations center] and chow hall in the last 4 years."...

Much more at the link. The last link in the quoted excerpt leads back to this discussion thread.

[Tom Odom]

Man I feel old...Randy Mixson and I were lieutenants together in 2-505 just slightly less than 3 decades ago. He was never one to mince words then, either.

Tom

[sullygoarmy]

Hey Ryan...your famous in an unknown kind of way!!! Congrats!

[emjayinc]

PB4 - Good job. The thread here seems to ignore that it wasn't the VC we fought at Easter 1972, nor was it the VC who rolled into Saigon -- nor was it the VC who governed the RVN after April 1975. My opinion, we and the south Vietnamese won the COIN/IW, but lost the strategic center of gravity, US public opinion, certified by Congress in 1973 and 1974, and hence lost to conventional forces in a very conventional way. Regards, Mike

[RTK]

Hey Ryan...your famous in an unknown kind of way!!! Congrats!

I'm getting out my bottle of Windex to look through my self-imposed glass ceiling....

[Tom Odom]

From the Washington Times



A skewed perspective (http://washingtontimes.com/op-ed/20070529-085333-2199r.htm)
TODAY'S COLUMNIST
By Gian P. Gentile
May 30, 2007

A recent article by active Army Lt. Col. Paul Yingling published in a reputable military magazine argues that general officers in today's American military have failed miserably at their job. If the job of the general is to see accurately the nature of current and future wars, determine and construct military resources to deal with the nature of war and make truthful -- if often unpleasant -- recommendations to civilian authorities to conduct those wars, then America's generals receive an "F" grade from Col. Yingling.
In concluding his article, the most egregious criticism that Col. Yingling makes toward today's American generals is that they have lacked the moral courage to stand up to their higher leaders and tell them the truth about the reality of war and what is needed to fight it.
Making such a sweeping generalization of the failure of American generals (Col. Yingling does not mention the names of any specific generals whom he has in mind) demands a perspective -- or a view to the subject matter. Unfortunately, Col. Yingling does not, and never did, have that perspective yet he uses his position as an active army officer to suggest to his readers that he does.

[sullygoarmy]

I think there are going to be some interesting command and staff meetings at Fort Hood since LTC Yingling is supposed to take command of a battalion there. Oh to be a staff major at those meetings!

[Steve Blair]

I was disappointed by the Op-Ed piece, frankly. Yingling makes very valid points, and I didn't get the impression that he was tarring ALL general officers with the same brush. Anyone with an ounce of historical knowledge and background SHOULD know that there were good generals (and O-6s) in Vietnam along with the bad. But the bad tended to have an influence that was in some cases out of proportion to their positions. That, I feel, is Yingling's point now regarding some generals.

But I guess if someone wants to be the defender of them all...:D

[Tom Odom]

I was disappointed by the Op-Ed piece, frankly. Yingling makes very valid points, and I didn't get the impression that he was tarring ALL general officers with the same brush. Anyone with an ounce of historical knowledge and background SHOULD know that there were good generals (and O-6s) in Vietnam along with the bad. But the bad tended to have an influence that was in some cases out of proportion to their positions. That, I feel, is Yingling's point now regarding some generals.

But I guess if someone wants to be the defender of them all...:D

My take exactly. But I thought it appropriate to put here; I have wondered what forms "push back" might come in and from whom. Sully is certainly on target with his comments about the command and staff sessions at Hood.

Best

Tom

[Steve Blair]

My take exactly. But I thought it appropriate to put here; I have wondered what forms "push back" might come in and from whom. Sully is certainly on target with his comments about the command and staff sessions at Hood.

Best

Tom

I was waiting for it, too, Tom. Damn shame, too.

[Rob Thornton]

If there was ever a time to examine our views from top to bottom, I can think of no other. War is with us, and will be for some time to come - so climbing on board and grabbing an oar and pulling to you reach land might be a long trip. The current climate change in terms of intellectual investigation allows us to reconsider important "what", "why" and "how" questions. The answers may make all the difference in terms of matching ends with means. Questions which challenge us to consider ourselves and our accepted views are among the hardest.

I agree with Steve, I tended to see LTC Yingling's article as constructive. How many JR leaders (and for that matter civilians) really considered what generalship entails prior to that? How many used some grey matter to consider what generalship might require for next 10 years? LTC Yingling's framing of the question during a period "in between" deployments seems healthy, not disrespectful. I think considering what leadership is, is fundamental to becoming a leader. I don't think the piece is going to incite a rash of condmenations of our GOs, nor jeapordize military discipline. Repression might accomplish that, as well as lowering standards - by creating an air of apathetic resignation. In terms of comparrison of negative consequences of inviting discussion about relative issues and other indicators of problems, I'm far more concerned about the incident I heard about from a neighbor at Knox who said she'd been solicited by a company grade officer in uniform in the PX parking lot while her husband was deployed (incidentally she said it had happened at Hood & she was with her kids). To me, a pattern of acceptance of poor morals & ethics is far more dangerous.

[Steve Blair]

I agree, Rob. Some of the things I hear from our prior-enlisted cadets makes me a touch nervous about the ethical standards currently existing in some corners of the military. What I worry about is (again...my pet rock) seeing something like what happened immediately after Vietnam when some of the more dynamic leaders were pushed out by careerists who were more interested in their promotion jackets than they were the welfare of their men or the art of fighting wars (of all sorts, not just the one they'd practiced for somewhere). Yingling's piece was more critical of the thought process and system that creates sub-par generals than he was the generals themselves. Pretty obvious he struck home with some of the yelping we're hearing now.

[Sargent]

It might be worth considering where Gentile's criticisms can be taken, and what they might mean for follow-on. Bear in mind, the guy is a historian by training, and he expects things to be done in a certain way, for arguments to proceed according to a particular set of rules before conclusions can be made. (I threw a fair few wild hypotheses at him which he had no problem shutting down with vigor, which only served to spur my thinking to deal with the ideas in a more rigorous fashion.) So, one is left with either slinging mud back at Gentile in punishment for whatever "push back" machinations it is assumed he is spearheading, or looking at the criticisms as a challenge to pursue Yingling's thesis further, this time using an historical model to give it more meat and structure.

The only problem for Yingling is that he is an active duty officer, and it is doubtful he can treat the subject with the sort of specificity it would require.

Anyway, I just thought I'd offer the perspective -- as a historian you don't necessarily read criticism as a pure negative, sometimes it's really a fuel for forward momentum.

[goesh]

Yingling made the statement, "Our generals are not worthy of their soldiers." Why does he stop at the top shelf? Why the cut-off at 1 star? He references Viet Nam. Well, it wasn't generals getting fragged in the bush there, now was it? It used to be a law of Physics that sh** flowed down hill. When did it quit? Until I hear from the EM corps, I'll hold judgement on our Generals as a group and I would like to hear from the EM that served under Yingling in Iraq, otherwise as a former enlisted man, he sounds like another dime-a-dozen political hack, especially with his contention that Congress needs to be more involved in this business of having so many bad generals. But hey, that's just one man's civilian opinion here. I guess I would like to hear his opinion on ROE in Iraq, interrogation, COIN, gays in the military as much as I would like to hear his opinion on our bad generals. Yes, that's OUR generals, not your generals, ours, and be advised, I am not hearing oohs and ahhs and wows coming from the civilian side over his revleations and expose'. The man has the ideas, all he needs to do is tie himself to the coattails of the next occupant of the White House and he may find himself on the fast track of promotion. The sky has been falling on our heads because of the Military every since Washington crossed the Delaware, yet we persist and keep moving forward. We keep prevailing over our enemies. I am encouraged to see the military folks here taking him seriously and doing some soul searching but that's what we are paying you for.

[Steve Blair]

It might be worth considering where Gentile's criticisms can be taken, and what they might mean for follow-on. Bear in mind, the guy is a historian by training, and he expects things to be done in a certain way, for arguments to proceed according to a particular set of rules before conclusions can be made. (I threw a fair few wild hypotheses at him which he had no problem shutting down with vigor, which only served to spur my thinking to deal with the ideas in a more rigorous fashion.) So, one is left with either slinging mud back at Gentile in punishment for whatever "push back" machinations it is assumed he is spearheading, or looking at the criticisms as a challenge to pursue Yingling's thesis further, this time using an historical model to give it more meat and structure.

The only problem for Yingling is that he is an active duty officer, and it is doubtful he can treat the subject with the sort of specificity it would require.

Anyway, I just thought I'd offer the perspective -- as a historian you don't necessarily read criticism as a pure negative, sometimes it's really a fuel for forward momentum.
As a historian I understand that as well. Like I've said before, what concerns me is institutional reactions repeating themselves. Perhaps Gentile means his comments in the manner you suggest, Sergeant, but it's also very possible that others will take them in the context of "the opening shots of the counter-revolution."

And Goesh, it depends on what civilian side you're listening to for the oohs and ahhs. I'm a civilian, and I found much of what Yinging said to be accurate in many ways when compared to the historical example of our development of general officers since World War II. He's simply the latest in a line of very bright field grade types who've been writing and talking about this sort of thing for years now. I don't happen to agree with the idea of increased Congressional involvement, but perhaps his ideas could be expanded by some of Don Vandergriff's ideas about reforming the military personnel system (and don't tell me it isn't broken....).

[Tom Odom]

Sargent,

I would not categorize looking at Gentile's remarks as a form of push back as "slinging mud". As Steve suggested, I look at these comments in a greater context. Overall I see Gentile's criticisms as missing that greater context. Yingling is taking a broader view, one that perhaps in Gentile's application of historical rigor he cannot see. If that is the case, he just made Yingling's point.

You may be correct that Gentile's training as a historian structures his thinking; I can relate to that. But offering an anecdote concerning his own ride with a couple of generals does not constitute historical analysis nor does it prove Gentile's thesis that Yingling had no access to GOs and could therefore not evaluate, much less criticize generalship, while Gentile with his ride in the jeep could.

Regards,

Tom

[Rob Thornton]

Hey Sargent,


The only problem for Yingling is that he is an active duty officer, and it is doubtful he can treat the subject with the sort of specificity it would require.

I'm not sure lack of specificity on LTC Yingling's part was not by design. For me the value is in looking at the system and what good and bad it produces. Overall, I've known some incredibly talented senior leaders - I may not always agree with everything they say, but I try and understand their decisions from the perspective of their responsibility - a tall order unless you have that responsibility.

The questions I think are most pressing right now from LTC Yingling's piece are:

1)What are the civil-military responsibilities of U.S General officers?

2) Where do they they place their loyalty first (the President, the Congress, the Public, the men they lead)?

3) Do we (that means Americans) have a system that will produce the types of GOs (and senior leaders) we require for a protracted (or call it generational) war where information moves at mouse click speed.

The first I think is important because it represents the nature of our Armed Forces that they are subordinate to policy

The second because the nature of this war and our own political system seem so divided and in competition for the American Will. Congress does not have its picture on the CoC wall, but it does play a major role in authorizing war and providing the means to wage it. Since they are elected from districts and states, they are accountable to the public. Caught up in this are the men and women who serve and who require decisions that support the mission they have been given - they have a much nearer reality grounded in combat with immediate and severe consequences.

The third because leaders' cognitive attentions are divided probably every waking hour - there is no latency and no let up from answering results - the "system" goes beyond the discussing career path and education - but those probably do have someting to do with ability. The immense scope and duration of GWOT and the hyper-speed of Information require not only thinking in strategic depth, but simultaneous crisis management. Its a tall order.

I've met some incredible COLs and GOs - they have always taught me something I could take away just by coming into contact with them.

I think the discussion brought about by LTC Yingling's article speaks to the question of "what is the nature of the war are we fighting?" If we can answer that, we can start to get to the types of means we'll need to wage it.

[Sargent]

But offering an anecdote concerning his own ride with a couple of generals does not constitute historical analysis nor does it prove Gentile's thesis that Yingling had no access to GOs and could therefore not evaluate, much less criticize generalship, while Gentile with his ride in the jeep could.

What his anecdote demonstrates, however, is that without a rigorous analytical framework, anecdotes can be used to prove or disprove Yingling's thesis. It's actually a neat trick from that perspective.

Again, I only mean to suggest that Gentile's critique is not a show-stopper.

[wm]

As a person trained both as an historian and as a logician, I would like to weigh in with a few thoughts. Persuasion takes many forms. Sometimes one persuades with the facts, that is, by an appeal to the rational processes of the human mind. Other times, persuasion takes aim at the heart, persuading by an emotional appeal. I suspect that the Yingling piece falls more into the former category while Gentile’s op-ed fits the latter. Moreover, this is, I believe, as it should be, given the venues of the two articles. Gentile wrote an op-ed piece as a guest columnist for the Washington Times. Op-ed means opinion and editorial, remember? As such, we do not normally hold the op-ed column to strict canons of reasoning. Yingling chose to write a feature article for Armed Forces Journal. This choice implies a different standard of presentation and a different standard of evaluation.

A somewhat famous old German thinker named Hegel posited a process called the dialectic. He noted that usually when we approach a subject, we sequentially present two different positions—a thesis and an anti-thesis. Both of them contain some truth. However, neither of them contains the whole truth. We can attain a greater truth fusing or synthesizing these two positions into a new position.

It seems to me that both Yingling and Gentile have something worthwhile to say. Nevertheless, I submit that the greater truth will be something that subsumes both of their points of view. I hope this greater truth will move us to a better understanding of what we need our leaders to be. I suspect that understanding will show that our flag officers must be selfless, clear thinkers who are technically competent in the profession of arms. They will show a strong sense of duty to both their superiors and their subordinates.

However, we must also understand that these senior military leaders are human, subject to being moved by passion as well as by reason. With every Patton, we need a Bradley. It would be wonderful if we could routinely find that combination in enough persons to meet our senior leader requirements. I am not too confident that the odds are in our favour though.

[120mm]

I've come to the conclusion that competence in generalship is a coincidence, independent of professional development. And, amazingly, I am becoming more and more at peace with that. There just isn't a "system" that can possibly reliably produce generals. There will always remain those who do and do not "get it".

If there were one thing I could change in the current crop of generals, I would remove their dependence on Powerpoint Briefings, the current trend toward "entitlement" vis-a-vis bennies and staff, and make them more "responsible" for everything within their AO and AI.

[Tom Odom]

Although I don't care for his often neo-con like thinking, Boot has some valid points (in my opinion of course) in this one:


Los Angeles Times
May 31, 2007

Fire The Incompetents, Find The Pattons (http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oe-boot31may31,1,377151.column?coll=la-news-columns&ctrack=1&cset=true)

Our armed forces need to do a better job of punishing failure while rewarding those who succeed on the battlefield.

By Max Boot

THE NAVY IS ON a tear. Last week, for the sixth time in six weeks, a skipper was relieved of command. The latest to get the sack was Cmdr. E.J. McClure of the guided missile destroyer Arleigh Burke, which had a "soft grounding" while heading back to port in the well-charted waters off Norfolk, Va.

These firings have sparked debate in military circles, with some critics from the other services charging that the Navy is guilty of a "zero defect" mentality that would have robbed it of such distinguished leaders as Adm. Chester Nimitz, the World War II hero who grounded his first command in 1908. But even if the Navy is going, so to speak, overboard, there is a good case to be made that the ground-combat arms go too far in the other direction by not holding their commanders responsible for a lack of results.

This was the essence of a complaint made recently by Army Lt. Col. Paul Yingling, who wrote in the Armed Forces Journal that "a private who loses a rifle suffers far greater consequences than a general who loses a war."

Ed. by SWC Admin - LA Times link, unfortunately requires a sign up to view.

[wm]

Although I don't care for his often neo-con like thinking, Boot has some valid points (in my opinion of course) in this one:

In the original excerpt that Tom posted, I thought that Boot might be on the right track. But his article self destructs when he calls for more leaders like George Patton and Curtis LeMay. Those are the kind of guys we need to execute what we used to call high intensity conflicts. However, we are not faced with that type of engagement in a counter-insurgency (or what we used to call low intensity conflict). Grant did a fine job orchestrating victories on the battlefields of the Civil War. But, as a President managing Reconstruction, he was about as successful as the CPA in Iraq. Alexander the Great's operational and tactical skills produced a huge empire before he was 30, but it fell apart almost immediately after his death.

I view Boot's article as like El Toro Ferdinand's horns. A point here; a point there; an awful lot of bull in between. I guess Hegel never had to deal with Neo-Cons in his understanding of the inevitable progress of the dialectic.

[Tom Odom]

WM

Good points all, especially the neo-con dialectic gap. I agree that Patton and LeMay are not the guys for today. I figure Max was looking for a couple of icons his average reader might actually relate to.

Where I think Max scored points was in his assessment that we have forgotten or seemigly abandoned the standard of success must have a measure of accountability.

Best

Tom

[wm]

Where I think Max scored points was in his assessment that we have forgotten or seemigly abandoned the standard of success must have a measure of accountability.


I agree that his call for accountability is a strength of Boot's piece (even though he gets sidetracked on what I consider the petty criminal foibles of the Steeles and Karpinski). However, I submit that his closing quotation from Viscount Slim somewhat misses the mark. Accountability is a two way street--up the chain and down the chain. It is a false dichotomy to say we must choose between the mission and the welfare of the troops. Part of every mission is the welfare of the troops. We cannot fail to seize the objective because we value our soldiers' lives more. But we also cannot choose a path to victory that squanders those lives, especially when we can successfully reach the objective by a means that puts fewer of our troops at risk. I suspect that Boot's understanding of success stops with the radio message "Objective taken. Mission accomplished. Out." The numbers of toe tags, body bags, medevac flights, and limb prosthetic devices required probably do not figure into his calculations of success.

[sullygoarmy]

WM

Good points all, especially the neo-con dialectic gap. I agree that Patton and LeMay are not the guys for today. I figure Max was looking for a couple of icons his average reader might actually relate to.

Where I think Max scored points was in his assessment that we have forgotten or seemigly abandoned the standard of success must have a measure of accountability.

Best

Tom


Couldn't agree more Tom. I'm pretty sure Boot realized that a Patton or LeMay in a COIN environment wouldn't be a great fit, especially if you read his book, "The Savage Wars of Peace". He seems to be one of the few newspaper writers that has a much better understanding of a COIN fight than most. On that note, I suspect that he was looking for some easily recognized leaders people could relate to.

His main point, and one that I wholeheartedly agree with, is there needs to be more accountability up the chain. WM, I suspect there is a lot more accountability down the chain than up. I've personally know about a dozen company/junior field grade officers either relieved or quietly put out of the Army because of (non-UCMJ) issues. However, how rare is it to see the removal of an O-6 or higher due to a failure to accomplish their mission? We have a military culture where no one wants to do the harder right and tell someone they are NOT a good officer and would be better off finding a new career path. Its not mean or vindictive, just honest. No one wants to hear it and no one wants to say it. As a result, you have a system that keeps advancing people up the chain that never should have made it past 1LT.

Of course I probably fall into that category as well. I can't tell you how many mistakes/stupid decisions I made as a LT/CPT only to have good leaders a) explain how jacked up I was and why, b) set down a path for improvement, c) and hold me accountable to improvement. I have no doubt that had I not improved I'd be sitting somewhere in a civilian suit right now, versus wearing my ACUs. I tried to follow that same model as a company grade leader with my LTs. All officers are leaders, even if not in a leadership job. As leaders, we need to be brutally honest with our subordinates and superiors. We owe it to the troops we lead. Sucess needs to be graded on more than completion of a command, your PT test scores and who your wife sings with in the post church choir (mine doesn't sing so I guess I'm screwed!).

[wm]

WM, I suspect there is a lot more accountability down the chain than up.

Accountability encompasses much more than being the fall guy for mistakes. I probably should have explained the sense in which I used the term. I think it squares with LTC Yingling's call for a 360 degree eval of leaders. For me, leaders must be accountable to their superiors for making an argument about how best to accomplish their mission and then for doing what those superiors order to the best of their abilities. This is accountability up the chain. Leaders must also be accountable to their subordinates--that is, they must do their best to take good care of those subordinates and treat them with the dignity and respect each deserves. This is accountability down the chain. An effective use of the MDMP takes both into acount. Part of the requirement to respond to the superior's proposed plan with a mission analysis and arguing for alternative courses of actions to accomplish that mission is the requirement to "do right" by one's subordinates.

With that 20-20 hindsight that blesses most of us, I suspect 'accountability' may have been the wrong word choice. Perhaps 'loyalty' better captures what I was trying convey by my comments.

[mmx1]

AF LtCol Brian Hanley penned an affirmative response in July's Proceedings

Now Hear This: Send the Best and Brightest (http://www.usni.org/magazines/proceedings/story.asp?STORY_ID=414)



In his recent Armed Forces Journal essay, “A Failure in Generalship,” U.S. Army Lieutenant Colonel Paul Yingling delivers a closely argued rebuke to what he sees as the intellectual and moral poverty of senior military leaders.

Combat is predominantly a physical activity. The strategy that gives combat a purpose—what precisely is the better peace we seek, and have we the means to achieve it?—is a purely intellectual pursuit. The summit of the military officer’s calling is, or should be, to serve as a strategic adviser to civilian authority. Colonel Yingling rightly calls attention to our neglect of this aspect of our profession. His assertion that Congress should initiate reforms on how we educate officers for senior command is worth further examination. Restructure the senior war colleges and their admission criteria and we will have taken a big step toward correcting the problem that Colonel Yingling has illuminated.


Have there been other responses in professional journals?

[MASON]

Accountability in fast combat rotation schedules (2 months, 4 months , 6 months 9 months 12 months out to 15 months after extension) amounts to a snap shot and there are some stand outs at either end but with only low intensity conflict it all looks level.

The Navy only dumps when metal gets bent just like the non combat Air Force.

Senior evaluators have little experience with the problem too as the few with combat experience had it in junior grades.

An obvious answer is Go to War and Stay in Theatre Until It Is DONE rotating on and off line but always in theatre. I know very draconian and WW2 like. I realize this answer is likely as unpalatable to the volunteer force as the draft is to the public but I have not seen a better answer yet. If we are all in this thing 10-14 years or we leave and soon have to return for years things may become palatable we do not even fathom yet.

[Tacitus]

I am all for the civilian leadership of the military in so far as they tell us which wars to fight. But I have a problem with someone who has little or no practical military experience and a partisan agenda telling us how to fight those wars or who is best suited to lead us when we do. SFC W

This sounds alot like the sort of thing that Union General George McClellan vented at President Abraham Lincoln. Who is this pipsqueak civilian Lincoln telling me how to run a war? He didn't like Lincoln telling him "how to fight the war", namely to get moving.

It turned out that Lincoln had a better understanding of what it would take to win the war than alot of the generals. He just had to keep firing them until he found some who could get it done (Grant, Sherman, Sheridan, etc.) The inital crop just wasn't cutting it.

I just always bristle a little bit when I hear this "leave the war to us, the professionals" line. That is not a proven strategy for success, any more than completely disregarding the advice of the generals. Wisdom and good judgment are not predestined by God almighty to automatically reside in a man wearing some stars, or a man sitting behind a desk in the oval office.

[Uboat509]

I just always bristle a little bit when I hear this "leave the war to us, the professionals" line. That is not a proven strategy for success, any more than completely disregarding the advice of the generals. Wisdom and good judgment are not predestined by God almighty to automatically reside in a man wearing some stars, or a man sitting behind a desk in the oval office.

The battlefield is no place for partisan agendas. I have a HUGE problem with interference by politicians, most of whom have no practical military experience. Wisdom and good judgment are not predestined by God almighty to automatically reside in a man who has the initials MD after his name but that is still who I am going to see when I am sick. A doctor can most certainly be wrong but he is still more likely to be right than someone who has little or no medical training. Part of the reason we are where we are now is because the political leadership refused to admit that the strategy we were using was not working, and quashed any military member who said otherwise. There are few absolutes in life, a politician can be military genius and a general can be a political hack but that is probably not where you want to put your money.

SFC W

[Steve Blair]

The battlefield is no place for partisan agendas. I have a HUGE problem with interference by politicians, most of whom have no practical military experience. Wisdom and good judgment are not predestined by God almighty to automatically reside in a man who has the initials MD after his name but that is still who I am going to see when I am sick. A doctor can most certainly be wrong but he is still more likely to be right than someone who has little or no medical training. Part of the reason we are where we are now is because the political leadership refused to admit that the strategy we were using was not working, and quashed any military member who said otherwise. There are few absolutes in life, a politician can be military genius and a general can be a political hack but that is probably not where you want to put your money.

SFC W

But you saw a fair number of partisan agendas within the higher military ranks in Vietnam, and they sure slipped onto the battlefield. Westmoreland's vision of the war was incorrect in many ways, but that was allowed to stand. The military fought most of JFK's ideas regarding unconventional warfare.

Personally, I am deeply suspicious of anyone on either side (political or military) claiming to have the one true answer. We'll have to see how the current generation of captains and field-grades grow up, but it's worth remembering that many of our general officers have precious little battlefield experience...but that's also not a guarantee of success or failure. Many of the Vietnam-era generals had combat experience in Korea or even World War II and many of them misread that situation as well.

Experience is one thing...it's another thing completely to be able to understand and apply that experience. Grant was good at that...McClellan was not. And Grant was considered the failure before the war.

[Tom Odom]

Personally, I am deeply suspicious of anyone on either side (political or military) claiming to have the one true answer.

Ditto here. See Eric Hoffer for further explanation. :wry:

Tom

[Lastdingo]

Experience is one thing...it's another thing completely to be able to understand and apply that experience. Grant was good at that...McClellan was not. And Grant was considered the failure before the war.


I believe it#s OK nto to foresee enought o do everything right from the beginning of a new kind of conflict.

Burt it's not tolerable when generals repeat mistakes that were already done in comparable, earlier conflicts. This happens today - they had enough time to learn and to adapt, but many still seem to fail.
It's tie to fire generals - not only in those armies that are engaged in Iraq, but also in other NATO armies as well. It should be possible to find a lot of duds in the general ranks.

[Tacitus]

Greetings U-509,

I am by no means defending the competency of the civilian management of this war. Far from it. Our republic is founded on the idea of civilian control of the military. If war is the continuation of politics by other means, I’m not sure how you would go about removing politics from the conflict. Politics here, abroad, in the Pentagon, in foreign capitals, you name it. The fighting is not an end in itself, there is some sort of ultimate political objective being sought, and men will naturally disagree on that.

If you have a problem with this kind of civilian interference, then I guess you have to fault Madison, Hamilton, Washington and the rest of the Founding Fathers who set this system up. Short of a military coup, I’m not sure how this would be altered.

So what should the generals do, given civilian supremacy in our republic? If the military leadership feels their considered judgment is being ignored, and they can’t in good conscience carry out a policy they have no confidence in, then if they want to make a statement I suggest the joint chiefs resign en masse explaining their actions in a letter to the American people.

I guess that is the sort of moral leadership that Colonels Yingling and McMaster (at least in Viet Nam) feel is missing. Instead, I guess generals on active service think “you deal with the political masters you have, not the ones you’d like to have,” and blame it on the politicians later if things go south. Sounds like a political calculation on the generals’ part to me, so they can’t claim to be as pure as Caesar’s wife when the branches of our government engage in their own political activities.

This is a frustrating war for many reasons. But it is a little self-serving for our military to just blame our problems on civilian interference. You'd think after losing a guerilla war in Viet Nam, our military would have given alot of thought about how to deal with this kind of war in the future. That doesn't appear to have happened. Most military reforms come after losing wars. If Viet Nam didn't get the military's attention about guerilla war, I'm really not so sure Iraq will, either.

[Uboat509]

I'm not saying that there are not problems within the military. On the contrary I deal with the frustration every day of dealing with commands that do not understand the situation on the ground. I am fully aware of the problems within our own military. I just believe that there are no problems within our military that cannot be exacerbated by partisan meddling.


So what should the generals do, given civilian supremacy in our republic? If the military leadership feels their considered judgment is being ignored, and they can’t in good conscience carry out a policy they have no confidence in, then if they want to make a statement I suggest the joint chiefs resign en masse explaining their actions in a letter to the American people.

I have always felt that this was a strawman argument. Has this ever worked? Look what has happened to Shinseki. Granted he was not resigning in protest, but he was speaking out against policy he had no confidence in and he was publicly vilified for it. The same has happened pretty much any time in recent history that I can think of that an officer spoke out like that. This whole concept is built around the idea that John Q Public will see the resignation and realize that only the most dire of situations could make a professional like that resign. It never works that way. Whoever resigns will find themselves now on the outside vilified by whichever party they spoke out against and largely unable to effect things, at least not they way they could have had they remained. And they will be replaced by someone who is more amenable to the policy who will then explain to John Q Public how their predecessor was wrong and nothing will change. In that situation I feel it is better that they remain and try to change the things that they can change rather than resign and become largely irrelevant.

Keep this in mind. Most of our fellow Americans have never served a day in their lives in the military. Many don’t even know anyone who has. Let’s say a general does resign in protest. He will give his reasons why and the policy makers he resigned in protest of will give their reasons why he is wrong and John Q Public will have no idea which argument is more plausible precisely because they have not served. They simply do not have the knowledge to make an informed decison.


SFC W

[Bill Moore]

I think the heart of the problem isn't so much incompetence, but rather our political and military culture. While not wanting to sound disloyal, I think our concept of loyality in politics and the military is putting our nation at risk. Would we be where we're at in Iraq if dissenting opinions and rational debate were allowed, and better yet encouraged? The same could be said about Vietnam.

Unfortunately, our political system is partisan to the extreme, even in the time of war. This led to wise independents and democrats being left out of the planning and decision making process to some degree, and in the extreme case left competent democrats and independents out of Bremer's organization, where political reliability was valued more than competence. It made us look like a corrupt third world nation. I imagine JFK and LBJ demonstrated similiar behavior.

Mr. Rumfield said he encouraged intellectualy debate, but several articles and books apparently that were professionally researched seem to refute that. GEN Shinseki is a perfect example. He had the moral courage to offer a dissenting opinion that should have led to a rational debate, but instead his comment was casually dismissed, and Mr Rumfield did not attend a true hero's retirement, which obviously sent a message to the force. We could have had mass resignations of senior officers across the force, but what would that have accomplished? More talking heads on Fox and CNN? Would Rumfield have been fired? Unlikely, because President Bush is extremely "loyal" to his men. Wouldn't we all like to have a boss like that? However, at what cost to the nation?

I don't know this to be true, but I think we may have seen a different outcome at this point and time if the administration and the military welcomed and rationally debated the merits of a particular course of action strictly based on the merits of the projected outcome, instead of political advantage or perhaps ego. Imagine if we really had a political and interagency concensus on post war Iraq that was well thought out, and had branch plans and sequels?

Loyality within the military is a double edged sword. It is absolutely required for a disciplined unit, and for that special trust that is essential, but it unfortunately it can also have a corrupting influence when loyality to the boss (your career) supercedes loyality to the nation. Unfortunately, I don't think we'll find ways around social/organizational behavior challenge anytime soon, but maybe self awareness of it is a start.

[Ken White]

"Keep this in mind. Most of our fellow Americans have never served a day in their lives in the military. Many don’t even know anyone who has. Let’s say a general does resign in protest. He will give his reasons why and the policy makers he resigned in protest of will give their reasons why he is wrong and John Q Public will have no idea which argument is more plausible precisely because they have not served. They simply do not have the knowledge to make an informed decison."

Well said and totally true. I'd even say that the Pols will win that spin battle. Not to mention that he who resigns in protest will likely be replaced by someone of less competence who will go ahead and do what the political masters want anyway -- probably less well than the guy who fell on his sword. No easy choices.

It's an imperfect system, we're lucky that it works as well as it does in spite of all the impediments foisted upon it by an uncaring and unknowing public, a pathetic Congress which meddles in things it does not understand and the 10% of poor and marginal performers that exist in all grades from E1 to O10 (just as they do in all fields of civilian endeavor).

Will also add that in addition to the vast majority who have not served, there are some who served but didn't like it for a variety of reasons. That is perfectly understandable and certainly alright but some of them seem to want to carry a chip about it for a long time afterwards. What fascinates me is that some of them -- William Arkin comes to mind among others -- presume a few years service showed them all there is to know about the Green Machine. I've never understood either the chip or the presumed 'knowledge.'

But then, I'm old and slow, can no longer take two salt tablets and drive on... :)

Keep the faith.

[wm]

I heard, anecdotally, that everyone selected for 07 and 08 during FY04/05 went in for a personal interview with the SECDEF himself before they were nominated to Congress. If this anecdote is true, I believe that such an event was the first of its kind in the history of the American military.
It also makes one pause to reflect on the nature of the senior leadership we have been left with?

[Rob Thornton]

Interesting article in the WSJ today "Critiques of Iraq War reveal Rift among Army Officers (http://online.wsj.com/article/SB118306191403551931.html?mod=hpp_us_pageone)" - converges multiple SWC topics into one article, but this seemed the best one to post it to.


Critiques of Iraq War Reveal Rifts Among Army Officers
By Greg Jaffe
Word Count: 2,075
Last December, Lt. Col. Paul Yingling attended a Purple Heart ceremony for soldiers injured in Iraq. As he watched the wounded troops collect their medals, the 41-year-old officer reflected on his two combat tours in Iraq.

He was frustrated at how slowly the Army had adjusted to the demands of guerrilla war, and ashamed he hadn't done more to push for change. By the end of the ceremony, he says, he could barely look the wounded troops in the eyes. Col. Yingling just had been chosen to lead a 540-soldier battalion. "I can't command like this," he recalls thinking.

He ...
You can also get to it in today's E-bird.

Also ref. in the same article are:

The creation of an Army Advisory Corps

Comments from USAF MG Dunlap

Future of COIN and Nation Building Like missions as core competencies

Civil Military Relations

Lots of other good stuff

[SteveMetz]

Interesting article in the WSJ today "Critiques of Iraq War reveal Rift among Army Officers (http://online.wsj.com/article/SB118306191403551931.html?mod=hpp_us_pageone)" - converges multiple SWC topics into one article, but this seemed the best one to post it to.


You can also get to it in today's E-bird.

Also ref. in the same article are:

The creation of an Army Advisory Corps

Comments from USAF MG Dunlap

Future of COIN and Nation Building Like missions as core competencies

Civil Military Relations

Lots of other good stuff


What I liked was this line from Greg's story:

"...Many young officers complain that the Army, which is desperately short of captains, treats them like interchangeable cogs. "As long as I don't get a DUI or fornicate on my boss's desk, I will be promoted with my peers," Col. Burton's memo quotes one officer as saying."

I sent that to my two LTCs and told them I was always looking for new bullet comments to put on their OERs and I thought I'd borrow the ones from the unnamed captain.

I was also struck by Greg's use of Charlie Dunlap. Dunlap submitted a version of that essay to the Strategic Studies Institute to publish but I personally thought that it totally missed the point of counterinsurgency. It was one more attempt to extrapolate the "Afghanistan" model of warfighting to other types of conflict.

[Shek]

This portion of Jaffe's article struck a chord, as it reminded me of a friend's story of a similar experience during a GO address to his ICCC (artist formerly known as IOAC) course right ahead of me back in 2000 during the great captain's exodus that also coincided with all the negative small group survey remarks out of CGSC (http://permanent.access.gpo.gov/lps11415/00271.pdf).

During the address, when the advanced course students started questioning what the Army was going to do about fixing the exodus problem, the lecturer (a one-star) spoke about how the Army was better off without those officers that were leaving, disparaging the officers as lacking a sense of duty. Instead of addressing the problem, what was conveyed by this senior leader of the Army was that the concerns of company grade officers weren't important and that the Army was more interested in blaming the victims of senior leader decisions instead of fixing the problem.

I hope that we aren't facing a similar situation here, but the red herring thrown out that only generals can judge generals concerns me.


At Fort Hood, Maj. Gen. Jeff Hammond, the top general at the sprawling base, summoned all of the captains to hear his response to Col. Yingling's critique. About 200 officers in their mid- to late-20s, most of them Iraq veterans, filled the pews and lined the walls of the base chapel. "I believe in our generals. They are dedicated, selfless servants," Gen. Hammond recalls saying. The 51-year-old officer told the young captains that Col. Yingling wasn't competent to judge generals because he had never been one. "He has never worn the shoes of a general," Gen. Hammond recalls saying.

The captains' reactions highlighted the growing gap between some junior officers and the generals. "If we are not qualified to judge, who is?" says one Iraq veteran who was at the meeting. Another officer in attendance says that he and his colleagues didn't want to hear a defense of the Army's senior officers. "We want someone at higher levels to take accountability for what went wrong in Iraq," he says.

[Steve Blair]

All this is sounding very much like what the Army saw during and immediately after Vietnam. The fleeing captains was another issue there.:wry:

[Rob Thornton]

Hey Shek, how is the baby?


At Fort Hood, Maj. Gen. Jeff Hammond, the top general at the sprawling base, summoned all of the captains to hear his response to Col. Yingling's critique. About 200 officers in their mid- to late-20s, most of them Iraq veterans, filled the pews and lined the walls of the base chapel. "I believe in our generals. They are dedicated, selfless servants," Gen. Hammond recalls saying. The 51-year-old officer told the young captains that Col. Yingling wasn't competent to judge generals because he had never been one. "He has never worn the shoes of a general," Gen. Hammond recalls saying.

The captains' reactions highlighted the growing gap between some junior officers and the generals. "If we are not qualified to judge, who is?" says one Iraq veteran who was at the meeting. Another officer in attendance says that he and his colleagues didn't want to hear a defense of the Army's senior officers. "We want someone at higher levels to take accountability for what went wrong in Iraq," he says.

Makes you wonder how wide the gulf is? Since I was not there, and the article sounds like second or third party info, I have to wonder how it went. It seems things like that go one of two ways. Way one might be - "OK - listen up, its like this...." Way two might go, "Hey I think we have a problem, and I need you guys to help me understand it so I can help to solve to it....."

I think senior leaders should be personally engaging their company and field grades on a number of issues. For me, even if a guy can't give me the answer I want to hear, his acknowledgement of the problem, the useful dialogue that accompanies it, and the ensuing dialogue of the 06 crowd and below is very important. It creates the conditions to solve not only the problem at hand, but to identify and solve future problems the organization faces.

We can't hide from this problem any more then the civil military-relations one, or the Inter-Agency one, the officer attrition problem, or the future shape of the Army one, or the host of others – which is why I’m glad somebody finally put them in one article. They are all related in that they stem largely from the post 9/11 operating environment and the problems that has engendered. We can either get through this together, with our volunteer Army intact and adapted to meet these long term new problems, or we can polarize our views, risking irrelevancy and the type of stumbling that is hard and painful to recover from. While we can absorb a great deal of pain, I’m not sure we can absorb that much at this rate.

I believe that both ends need to listen. The seniors have a problem set with responsibilities that more junior leaders really can't comprehend. Conversely, this post 9/11 world has created challenges and pressures at the most tactical end of the rank structure that senior leaders probably find difficult to put in the perspective of their previous experiences. Any useful dialogue has to start by acknowledging things are different, and that the concerns of both are relative to the health of the Army.

We can't afford an "us and them" set of camps, there are too many of those on the battlefield right now that illustrate the danger in that, but we also can't afford to ignore the problem since the war cannot be put on hold.

[Rob Thornton]

The line in the article from the CPTs who said
"they treat us like inter-changeable cogs" - that is almost a direct lift from Machiavelli's "The Prince".

Do CPTs see GOs and senior leaders as being "Machiavellian" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Niccol%C3%B2_Machiavelli) in their attitudes toward junior leaders and war in general?

How about examining if we suffer from organizational narcissism (http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&rls=GGIC,GGIC:2006-51,GGIC:en&defl=en&q=define:Narcissism&sa=X&oi=glossary_definition&ct=title) to some degree?

What would that perception be based on, and what would it take to change it?

[120mm]

I think the most telling comment vis-a-vis the arrogance, ignorance and incompetence of the O-6 and above crowd in the army today is encapsulated in the phrase: "You can't judge us, because you aren't one of us." I see the same attitude among Urinalists and the NEA-type teachers.

With the exception of a few GOs, most of them live apart from the soldiers who serve under them, have incredibly huge staffs that insulate them from "work" or (gasp) "leadership" and have no idea what their jobs are really supposed to be, or what units are assigned to them.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again. The typical O-6 and above relies COMPLETELY on powerpoint slides and surveys to try to get to know their units. And if an LTC or below cannot look at that and see something wrong, then it's time to fire all the worthless bastards and start over again.

[Cavguy]

I think the most telling comment vis-a-vis the arrogance, ignorance and incompetence of the O-6 and above crowd in the army today is encapsulated in the phrase: "You can't judge us, because you aren't one of us." I see the same attitude among Urinalists and the NEA-type teachers.

On the money. I thought it was telling that MG Hammond gave that speech, if his tone was as characterized as the article (and that he was threatened enough to call an "all officers" brief to rebut).

I'll just paraphrase a passage I faintly recall from Lewis Sorely's "Thunderbolt", a great biography of GEN Abrams. (execuse all the inaccuracy in the below, it's from memory, but has stuck with me through the years)

Near or just after the end of Vietnam, when GEN Abrams was the Army Chief of Staff, he visited a service school (Leavenworth, if I recall), and basically got abused by the audience of junior officers with pointed questions about the failings of the army and general post-Vietnam issues.

His aide (I believe it was LTC [later GEN] Reimer) commented to him afterwards "The thing with these young officers, they're so idealistic, they don't understand...."

GEN Abrams replied, "Yes, and it's my job to keep them that way."

Food for thought. I have always hated to watch senior officers patronize and dismiss the junior ones who have valid concerns.

[Rob Thornton]

Somebody mentioned to me today the idea of a generation gap between GOs and CO Grades/FGs. There is something to that I think.

[Lastdingo]

Somebody mentioned to me today the idea of a generation gap between GOs and CO Grades/FGs. There is something to that I think.

Such a gap always existed. But the symptomms that were described in this thread and elsewhere did not always exist, in other armies.

And there were examples where the old guard adopted the ideas of reformers once those ideas proved their worth in battle. The German army of 1940 is such an example - it turned from an army with few believers in mobile warfare with Panzer spearheads well in advance of infantry divisions into a true believer army. Some Panzer and Stuka sceptics turned into very successful Panzer/Stuka leaders in less than two years.

[SteveMetz]

Somebody mentioned to me today the idea of a generation gap between GOs and CO Grades/FGs. There is something to that I think.

Have you seen the work Lenny Wong of the Strategic Studies Institute has done on that?

[Dr Jack]

Have you seen the work Lenny Wong of the Strategic Studies Institute has done on that?

Here's the monograph by Dr Wong:

GENERATIONS APART:XERS AND BOOMERS IN THE OFFICER CORPS by Leonard Wong, October 2000

http://www.strategicstudiesinstitute.army.mil/pubs/display.cfm?pubID=281

I would also recommend reading Mark Lewis' response to the monograph:

http://www.d-n-i.net/fcs/lewis_gen-x.htm

[Rob Thornton]

I remember reading DR. Wong's piece, but I had not seen Lewis' piece. Funny thinking back to 2000 and those in my 96' YG who left. 2000 seems like a long time ago for only being 7 years. Dr. Lord had a neat chart he pitched to BSAP showing growth challenges for the Army in light of attrition.

[Dr Jack]

I would also recommend reading Mark Lewis' response to the monograph:

http://www.d-n-i.net/fcs/lewis_gen-x.htm

Mark Lewis is a player; he's a Professional Staff Member and Senior Policy Advisor to the Chairman of the House Armed Services Committee (HASC):

http://armedservices.house.gov/staff_contacts.shtml

[Rob Thornton]

What are his thoughts as of late on Army attrition, or health of the Army in general? It'd be great to get his thoughts on the atmosphere in Congress about Army issues. I'm not sure there are any staffers who currently comment on the Council??

[Steve Blair]

Lewis' piece is quite good, and cuts right to the heart of many issues. I'm an early X'er, and have seen many of those Boomer "it's not our fault" reactions on many levels and in many places.

Lastdingo, the generation gap idea is in many ways a recent US social phenomenon. I think you'd see the European equivalent in countries after World War I (although there may be other examples as well). It tends to happen when there's a sudden spike in the population for one reason or another. It's a difference in social and personal perceptions that people bring to the Army, not something that happens in the Army.

[Jimbo]

I think Lewis and Wong have pin-pointed some areas, and come up short in some others. I think the slide in Lewis' article probably had he top three things that really drove people up the wall (at the time it was published). as an x'er, the surveys, in my opinion often had over simplified mutliple choice questions that one could extrapolate a multitude of different conclusions. I would some it up with the old revolutionary causation of raised expectations met an underwhelming reality equals dissatisfaction. Most of my peers who left the Army left because they were disappointed in what they experienced. Realistically, you know you aren't going to live the TV ad every day, but once in a while would have been nice, and that is what people wanted at the time. This was a also coupled with the NTC/JRTC "report card" along with the transition from doctrine to dogma. As an LT, I emember my battalion winning a battle at NTC, but we were hammered in the AAR because the proper MDMP was not followed. So when you are 22 to 30 year old officer with even marginal common sense, you start to assess what is going on around you, you begin to wonder if anybody still has the bubble on what core competencies are. About the time you have identified that problem, you are at your "should I stay or should I go" point, you realize, hey if I had been given a little mentoring on lieutenantdom (meaning more than life sucks for LT's suck it down) and the opportunity to plan and execute some training at platoon level that enabled a lieutenant to really get a good sense of he his men can and can't do botht as individuals and as a team (without having to worry about the BN CDR or CO evaluating him on what his platoon was doing), I think retention wouldn't have been as big of a problem. The other problem was the continuation of seperation incentives beyond 1995, such as the LT's into the guard after 2 years. That continued to send the message that Army was still downsizing. So a lot of guys bolted. A lot of this is no moot because of the current situaion we are in. retention is still a concern, but the issues are different. I would say that the bigger problem now is experience is not just time based. I believe that Wong's premise on authority is more true today than it was when he did his monograph. The disconnect between what company grade officers have been through since 2001 (today's senior capatains and majors) compared to senior leaders (O-6+) is night and day. The positions, authorities, and responsibilities might not have changed much, but the experiences, even within the saem battalion, are vastly different.

[SWJED]

14 July USA Today commentary - General Failure (http://www.usatoday.com/printedition/news/20070724/oplede24.art.htm?loc=interstitialskip) by Ralph Peters.


There is only one test for a generation of generals: Did the men with stars on their shoulders win or lose their war? No matter the mitigating circumstances and political restrictions military leaders face, there is no "gentleman's C" in warfare. The course is pass-fail.

Despite including many fine combat commanders, our military leadership could fail in Iraq, defeated by terrorists, rough-hewn insurgents and shabby militiamen who understood America's limitations better than the generals did.

The generals point out that they don't control the strategic decisions, that all they can do is to follow orders, that then-secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld wouldn't listen to anyone, that Congress undercut the military, that the media's behavior has been pernicious, and that Iraq's political leaders have failed their country.

Each claim is true. Even so, as the Army taught me, "The maximum effective range of an excuse is zero meters." Our generals must shoulder their share of the blame for the mess in Iraq.

Our current system of selecting generals produces George Pattons in bulk. But it hasn't produced another George Marshall, the general who had the ethical force to disagree — respectfully — with his president when victory was at stake...

[MikeGreene]

I ran across this counterpoint to LTC Yingling's commentary on the AFJI website.

It's entitled "The 20/20 Hindsight Gift (http://afji.com/2007/07/2779405)" by LTC John Mauk.

A brief excerpt that kind of shows the tone of the rebuttal:


Yingling knows and apparently ignores that our military trains for both unconventional and conventional warfare. He now appears to enjoy unimpaired hindsight and preaches the merits of counterinsurgency as though he experienced a bolt of bright light from the heavens on the road to Damascus.

Not that I'm an expert in linguistics or anything, but this just sounds flip and condescending. I agree with his call for a cultural change, but it's kind of lost on me because of the chosen method of refuting LTC Yingling's commentary. That being said, I didn't agree with some of LTC Yingling's recommendations, and am still on the fence about some of his assertions. But when you couple this with the recent discussions around COL McMaster's non-selection, the conspiracy theorist in me comes out. Dissent is not welcome, is it?

So what is the "right" way to challenge the Sacred Cows that need to be grilled? How do you push for change with a giant hammer hanging over your head?

Not that I plan on leaving until they drag me out, but I can certainly understand why so many may be looking for the door.

Regards,

Mike.

Major, MAARNG

[Ken White]

"Yingling knows and apparently ignores that our military trains for both unconventional and conventional warfare. He now appears to enjoy unimpaired hindsight and preaches the merits of counterinsurgency as though he experienced a bolt of bright light from the heavens on the road to Damascus. The reality is that before the war, the services operated as we do now, in a resource-constrained world that forces each to make difficult strategic choices about the scope and types of training they undertake. The Army balances our mix of conventional and unconventional training based on consideration of frequent threat assessments and the limitations of our resources. Before Sept. 11, our leadership was rightly focused on the most likely national threats and the difficult task of positioning our forces to counter them. The slowness with which we transitioned to the unconventional environment we now find ourselves in is purely the result of having to shift operational gears in the middle of a fight."

That's one the nicest apologias for strategic planning incompetence I've ever seen. :rolleyes:

I do believe that, prior to 11 Sep 01, it had been obvious for ten years at an absolute minimum that countering insurgency was likely to be the Army's lot, like it or not. I'd really say that was true for over 20 years but I'm feeling charitable this morning...

He's correct that the Army does train for both unconventional and conventional warfare -- today. He's almost certainly aware that was not the case prior to 2003 for by far and away the vast majority of the Army.:mad:

Mediocre try, no cigar. He's correct about only one thing IMO, getting Congress involved is not a good idea...:D

[Tom Odom]

That's one the nicest apologias for strategic planning incompetence I've ever seen.

I do believe that, prior to 11 Sep 01, it had been obvious for ten years at an absolute minimum that countering insurgency was likely to be the Army's lot, like it or not. I'd really say that was true for over 20 years but I'm feeling charitable this morning...

He's correct that the Army does train for both unconventional and conventional warfare -- today. He's almost certainly aware that was not the case prior to 2003 for by far and away the vast majority of the Army.

Ken,

You are correct and too charitable. The paragraph you copied is pure bovine excreta. I had a thesis advisor speak on future wars in 1989 and he talked of small wars, distant from the public eye, and heavy on COIN. Certain CGSC classmates of mine thought COIN was unthinkable even as guys like Kalev Sepp were hip deep in El Salvador. Dan Bolger and I as Majors in 1992 debated via Parameters on whether large scale armor battles would ever occur. He offered they were as extinct as the 21st Lancers at Omdurman in 1898. I countered that one should never say never when it comes to warfare.

The author would have been somewhat correct if he had said the US military had concentrated on the most dangerous threats prior to 9-11. I say somewhat because an unforeseen (or ignored) threat can be more dangerous than one you prepared for. I am reminded that some folks would do well to get a peep hole implanted in their navels...


Best

Tom

[Rob Thornton]

From Ken:

He's correct about only one thing IMO, getting Congress involved is not a good idea...

Part of me wonders about that though - how involved do we want the policy makers involved in strategic direction?

If the military had prepared for only the most dangerous threat vs. the most likely, are there other reason besides defense industry lobbyist and competition for program $$s?

Could it have something to do with a lack of coherent foreign policy that is reflective of 21st century threats? How do we translate and ensure that the guidance is codified in the QDR and various strategic documents?

Without the Executive and Legislative branches getting involved, are we letting them off the hook for their responsibility in the process?

I heard today that services are going to have to start laying out roles and missions to OSD - that would seem to me to be the opportunity for an ugly dialouge, but one we need to have in order to move forward. I'd also say that left to ourselves, large scale change (such as how we define our mission) will happen more slowly and more reluctantly as we weigh risk against existing documents and our interpretation of them.

This is not to say that we should be told "how", but I do think we need a better left and right on "what" that sets us up to be resourced, provides direction for DOTLMPF issues and otherwise supported.

Good article in Foreign Affairs here (http://www.foreignaffairs.org/20070701faessay86406/charles-a-kupchan-peter-l-trubowitz/grand-strategy-for-a-divided-america.html) entitled Grand Strategy for a Divided America by Charles A. Kupchan and Peter L. Trubowitz
From Foreign Affairs, July/August 2007 that speaks to the quest for a 21st Century American foreign policy.

[Ken White]

Ken,

You are correct and too charitable. The paragraph you copied is pure bovine excreta... I countered that one should never say never when it comes to warfare.

... I am reminded that some folks would do well to get a peep hole implanted in their navels...

Best
Tom

(is that a word... ;) ) which I frequently use as a cover for my irritability -- your bovine comment is, of course, right on the money and led to said irritability; I walked outside for a bit before I came in to write my short missive.

The article reminded of me of the apology for the Eagle Claw foul ups that some USAF guy wrote in the Naval Institute Proceedings back in '81 or so. Apologies are a way to delay fixing a problem, IMO...

Speaking of navels, there was this Belgique Stewardi I met in Tehran... :cool:

[SWJED]

I heard today that services are going to have to start laying out roles and missions to OSD - that would seem to me to be the opportunity for an ugly dialouge, but one we need to have in order to move forward. I'd also say that left to ourselves, large scale change (such as how we define our mission) will happen more slowly and more reluctantly as we weigh risk against existing documents and our interpretation of them.

HASC announced Roles and Missions panel (http://armedservices.house.gov/apps/list/press/armedsvc_dem/skeltonpr072507.shtml) last Wednesday. I'm sure as the panel plugs along and services circle the wagons we will have a lot to discuss here at the Council. As a Marine I get very nervous when people start with the 3 Air Forces and 2 Armies talk...

On edit: Started a Roles and Missions thread (http://council.smallwarsjournal.com/showthread.php?t=3591) so as not to derail this one.

[Ken White]

From Ken:


Part of me wonders about that though - how involved do we want the policy makers involved in strategic direction?

If the military had prepared for only the most dangerous threat vs. the most likely, are there other reason besides defense industry lobbyist and competition for program $$s?

Could it have something to do with a lack of coherent foreign policy that is reflective of 21st century threats? How do we translate and ensure that the guidance is codified in the QDR and various strategic documents?

Without the Executive and Legislative branches getting involved, are we letting them off the hook for their responsibility in the process?

I heard today that services are going to have to start laying out roles and missions to OSD - that would seem to me to be the opportunity for an ugly dialouge, but one we need to have in order to move forward. I'd also say that left to ourselves, large scale change (such as how we define our mission) will happen more slowly and more reluctantly as we weigh risk against existing documents and our interpretation of them.

This is not to say that we should be told "how", but I do think we need a better left and right on "what" that sets us up to be resourced, provides direction for DOTLMPF issues and otherwise supported.

Good article in Foreign Affairs here (http://www.foreignaffairs.org/20070701faessay86406/charles-a-kupchan-peter-l-trubowitz/grand-strategy-for-a-divided-america.html) entitled Grand Strategy for a Divided America by Charles A. Kupchan and Peter L. Trubowitz
From Foreign Affairs, July/August 2007 that speaks to the quest for a 21st Century American foreign policy.

Little bit of a Progressive tilt but that's to be expected. Not much to quarrel with in their five proposals. I would posit that the Second idea will on occasion require a military component and, at least in the SOF arena, we aren't there yet and the inherent caution of senior military leaders is probably likely to impede employment even if we get the capability.

As to your questions, IMO:

The policy makers have to be involved in strategic (in the broad sense) direction it would seem to me. They need to be involved to an extent in strategic execution because of the financial and fiscal aspects but they, once the plan is approved, should not be involved in the strategic military effort. Unfortunately, they probably will be ...

I'd add that they will be involved in that final effort as well as in Opertaional -- and possibly even Tactical -- matters unless the Service get their acts together a little better... :(

There are a number of other reasons but the two you cite are, IMO, the big pair. Other factors are tradition (in the "we've always done it this way" mode), caution (combination of very excessive emphasis on force protection and the 'not invented here' syndrome), an emphasis on the technical rather than the people side of every program (caused by your two big items plus a reluctance to trust subordinates, a legacy of Robert Strange McNamara, either a man so brilliant the rest of couldn't keep up or the USSR's highest placed mole, not sure which), the parochial battles between conventional and SOF, branches and arms as well inter service competitions and a dysfunctional personnel management system among others. We really need to get back to trusting each other. I find it strange that I was more trusted as an 18 year old Corporal in the Marines in 1950 than I was as a fairly senior DAC in 1990. We have GOT to bring that trust back; that and a tolerance for human screwups.

The lack of a coherent foreign policy is a function, I think, of the fact that most shakers and movers, in uniform and not, are cold war relics and they long for that very artificial period of phony 'peace.' There is also the fact that a lot of mediocrity rises to the top in our nominally meritocratic system and for the 1991-2001 period, a lot of "Gee, what do we do now" floundering was going on.

Foreign policy problems are compounded by the politicization of both State and the Intel community, the more bitter political divisiveness nationwide that started in the 60s and the increasing tilt toward Progressive values nationally (worldwide, actually) as well as a perfectly normal and understandable desire for peace and tranquility. That desire of course is opposed to the reality that it's an unkind world out there and the majority of it doesn't wish us well (only a minority are for harm, but a lot like to see the Big Guy stumble...). Those factors are likely to get worse before they get better. The QDR and other documants are going to have to do what DoD and its predecessors did for years outside the 1947-1991 (+ or - 10 years) period of reasonable coherence -- flounder and cope. That, frankly, is the least of my worries... :cool:

Those two branches of Government both have to be involved in the sense I think you mean; I only meant that excessive (read: hardly any) Congressional involvement in military personnel polices and promotions is not, IMO, desirable.

I agree that the layout of roles and missions is long overdue; there will be a lot of gamesmanship and turf protection involved but Gates has a window of opportunity and my sensing is that he's level headed and he has no parochial axe to grind; Rumsfeld's Navy and aviator background did not do the Army any favors. I hope for the best. Also hope for the best on the HASC Committee on Roles and Missions. It is overdue and, hopefully, it will clobber Goldwater-Nichols... :D

Good comments, Rob. Thanks.

[dusty]

Regarding the exodus of the company grade officers from the active Army, I'd like to offer a bottom-up viewpoint. I work with 4 Captains who have each mentioned they will most likely be leaving after our next deployment. We all have at least one deployment to Iraq or Afghanistan - I'll leave the list of qualifications at that, though I will mention two were selected to attend SF's selection course, but were told by the BN that they couldn't be spared. The disconnect between company grade officers and say, 05's and above, is enormous. Anything done at the BDE level is inherently viewed as the COL shooting for his star by the guys down at my level. Several mentioned the catalyst was a cancelled four day, we were recalled (the entire BDE) to undergo safety training such as how to properly light a BBQ pit, proper procedures for typhoons and the like due to the death of two soldiers on pass. No one really cared about the four day, but the consensus was the commander was just performing a knee jerk CYA action. I know that many of you gentlemen are looking from the top down, and I wanted to speak up for the LT and CPT viewpoint. The empty promises (more time with families while you're CONUS) and apparent lack of common sense, have not gone unnoticed.

[Ken White]

Our recurring failure to absorb and process lessons is, to say the least, distressing. That same comment could've been written by a company grade officer during both Viet Nam and Korea (the latter to a lesser extent).

Same syndrome precisely, times may be a bit different but our inability to learn from our mistakes is mind boggling.

All us old guys can say is, "Hang in there, it'll pass." Always does -- but that makes it no easier to accept, I know.

The disconnect between senior Field Grades and Company Grades has existed more often than it has not, it's not total but in my observation, it's been entirely too common. I understand why it's there but do not understand why the system does nothing to fix it.

Goes back to that inability to trust I mentioned among other things. Most Lieutenants can command companies and many a PSG has led a platoon quite well but fear of failure intrudes...

Dumbb -- with two 'b's...:(

[wm]

Goes back to that inability to trust I mentioned among other things. Most Lieutenants can command companies and many a PSG has led a platoon quite well but fear of failure intrudes...

Dumbb -- with two 'b's...:(

I do not want to disagree, but you might want to consider that it is hard for senior leaders to trust/forgive the youthful mistakes of their subordinates when even more senior leaders are in their knickers because political leaders and legislators are pushing for answers to questions asked by E3s, E4s, or their relatives, whose continued support is the basis of said politicians re-electability.
In this vein, I remember having to respond, as a 2LT, to a Presidential inquiry that managed to come down through the entire chain of command (a few 4-stars, a 3-star, 2-star, etc) because one of my PFC's wrote to ask the POTUS why she could not be joint domiciled with her Navy husband half way around the world. Needless to say, she never chose to ask why at my level before firing off her letter to President Carter.

Today's members of Generation M are probably even more likely to jump the chain than my young troops were in 1977. (In fact, I think Gen M attitudes and values have much to do with the bloggers' issues about clamping down on such. But that is grist for a different thread.)

Additionally, the state of technology is now such that the most senior leadership can (and sometimes does)get up close and personal with everything a squad or fire team leader does or fails to do.

Is it any wonder that almost everyone in the chain is engaged in micromanagement? Not to say that this right, only that a lot of folks out there may seem to feel it is necessary for survival.

[Ken White]

Spent way too much time dealing with it. :wry:

I understand the why -- I just rabidly disagree with the philosophy. I have seen it over the past 58 years, 45 of 'em employed and the last 12 retired but alert and with one or two serving sons during the time. It didn't get heavy until Viet Nam, been downhill ever since. The LTCs who got there in 68 found out they had a lot of 2LTs and SGTs, great kids, do anything but didn't know much and required detailed instructions. "Engineering success" as a minor in Military Science got its start.

I can also sympathize with your time wasting letter from on high; seen a few of those -- the best one involved explaining why a Red Star Cluster was fired at a beach resort by a mildly inebriated troopy who didn't believe the outdoor waiter was serving him promptly. I did get to respond that "EM has been advised that the possession while off duty and the discharge of pyrotechnics in a civilian jurisdiction is a violation of the UCMJ and State Law. Appropriate disciplinary action will be taken." I told him not to be stupid again and I thought that was appropriate; know what? He didn't ever do that again.

The chain needs to be jumped on occasion. I agree these kids today are probably more prone to do that but if the chain of command functions decently and the troops aren't afraid to ask questions, a lot of that can be precluded. The attitude too prevalent in the Army that Privates (or, even worse some places, Lieutenants) aren't paid to think is abysmally stupid and needs to go. Drill Sergeants should get a decompression and retraining period before going back to a TOE unit.

The state of technology is indeed awesome and possesses that capability. However, there's a solution to that sort of stuff and the Troops will find it. For example, at one time, Satellite link digital cameras were issued to the LRS Companies so that images could be sent back for analysis. When the troops discovered that said images caused a bunch of really dumb questions from some analyst or his boss back in the rear, an amazing number of those probably expensive cameras were lost on jumps...

I found out at age 18 that a radio had an on-off switch and I never hesitated to use it. Bad Batteries are such a pain. :D

Still, I have seen a number of commanders, perhaps 20% of all I've known, over those years who did not succumb (or successfully sidestepped) all the factors you cite and the others that we both know. The micromanagement you cite has always existed in every Army, nature of the beast. However, it was minimal in ours before about 1962. The introduction of the USR had a great many unintended consequences.

Post 1962, in Viet Nam a number of commanders were noted for doing squad Leader stuff, too frequently from circling helicopters. I had two Brigade Commanders, one per tour. The first left standing orders in the TOC to be awakened if all three Battalions were in heavy contact and he refused to accept from or make a radio call to anyone below a Battalion CO or S3. Two of the three Battalion commanders were similarly inclined and operated the same way. Bde Cdr in the second tour was equally trusting and hands off.

Everyone doesn't succumb to the disease. All the system has to do is pick those for advancement. Instead, it seems to try, too often, to force those guys out and pick the birds at the water glass types.

I've known a number of senior people who wanted someone they knew (even if the guy was marginally competent) in critical positions, known some who had an entourage they took with them from job to job. Those entourage people were generally in the "do whatever the Boss wants" mode as opposed to the "Do what's right mode." Been my observation and experience that if you're good, you can do what's right and convince the Boss that it is right (or is his idea; deviousness never hurts...). The difference between those two types, also in my observation, is very simple. Lack of, or possession of, self confidence.

The point is of course, that it need not be as we both know it too often is. It is that way due to a systemic problem -- and Congress is at the head of that chain that can be remediated. All that's required is the self confidence to select tough,smart people for promotion, trust people, let them do their jobs and take the flak when subordinates screw up as they're prone to do on occasion. That works. Works even today in good units (and all units are not created equal, anymore than are all commanders or any other kinds of people)

Oh, and to get Congress to back off? Easy. As one of my favorite gen-gens used to say, "This is an easy life, all you have to do is know your job, do your job and be fair." I submit that if the Army did its job better -- or all the Services did theirs; all have the same sorts of flaws -- and stopped trying to tap dance to Congress that, dumb as I think they are, they'd probably back off a bit.

For today, Nah, it's no wonder -- but it flat isn't right. It needs to be fixed.

[Armchairguy]

I read one post and think, "He's got a good point". Then I read a point counter to the first and say the same thing. This site is excellent. As a civilian with absolutely no credentials other than as someone who played wargames with his brother for 20 years and gobbled up books on warfare, I find it pretty neat to be able to learn from and talk with people who know their stuff.

It would be great if we had some generals in here as well. From what I've seen this would be a great way for them to get some good ideas, to get the pulse of their subordinates, and to get into some lively discussion without the (I expect) usual bull. If there aren't any standing generals around maybe we could convince some retired ones to join in.

Somewhat earlier in the discussion there was a lot said about improving education for officers. I think it would be equally useful to give the enlisted ranks a chance at languages and other courses. One thing that has come up in science articles as a way to keep peoples minds flexible is to keep them using their minds in a variety of ways (use it or lose it). This might even have the benefit of making the armed forces a more attractive career choice. That together with more pay (did I hear a cheer?) would attract more people who would otherwise turn to the private sector. Another benefit might be to have a larger number of officer candidates coming out of the ranks.

Anyway, I'm kind of meandering now, so I'll quit.

[SWJED]

... so you can read this:

Challenging the Generals by Fred Kaplan (http://smallwarsjournal.com/blog/2007/08/one-reason-to-subscribe-to-ny/)


On Aug. 1, Gen. Richard Cody, the United States Army’s vice chief of staff, flew to the sprawling base at Fort Knox, Ky., to talk with the officers enrolled in the Captains Career Course. These are the Army’s elite junior officers. Of the 127 captains taking the five-week course, 119 had served one or two tours of duty in Iraq or Afghanistan, mainly as lieutenants. Nearly all would soon be going back as company commanders. A captain named Matt Wignall, who recently spent 16 months in Iraq with a Stryker brigade combat team, asked Cody, the Army’s second-highest-ranking general, what he thought of a recent article by Lt. Col. Paul Yingling titled “A Failure in Generalship.” The article, a scathing indictment that circulated far and wide, including in Iraq, accused the Army’s generals of lacking “professional character,” “creative intelligence” and “moral courage.”...

[Rank amateur]

Regime change was accomplished quickly. Only after that, did problems arise. Powell prevented mission creep in the first Gulf War. It can be done. I think the military, and the country, misses Powell.

[Ken White]

Actually, I suspect both were involved. Wrongly in my view; it would have been far easier then than it was in 2003. Same problems, just fewer of them. Mission creep avoided or mission failure incurred?

However, what occurred is history...

Powell and the other senior leaders of the Army from 1980 until 2004 -- and that includes Wesley Clark and Tommy Franks -- are with rare exceptions guilty of deliberately avoiding any effort to train units and commanders to deal with occupation, nation building and counterinsurgency. The so-called Powell doctrine was the Weinberger doctrine and it was and is a fallacious idea that was an attempt to sell a thought process designed to protect, not employ the institution.

In a sense, there's nothing wrong with that but situation dependent it can be -- and it was -- a trap. We put ourselves in a box in spite of all the indications post 1989 that the probability of a "big war" was remote.

To be sure there's plenty of blame for a slew of politicians as well but I suspect that the 1979-2001 period is going to be viewed by historians as one of little glory (with very few exceptions) reflected upon the US government and one that produced few "heroes" -- whatever a hero is with respect to senior leaders...

[Ski]

This thought process is alive and well in DC, I'm afraid to say. Not good at all.



The so-called Powell doctrine was the Weinberger doctrine and it was and is a fallacious idea that was an attempt to sell a thought process designed to protect, not employ the institution.

[Stevely]

Regime change was accomplished quickly. Only after that, did problems arise. Powell prevented mission creep in the first Gulf War. It can be done. I think the military, and the country, misses Powell.

Regime change means more than toppling a government, unless of course the desired change is to put anarchy where there was once order. God help us if senior leaders think "only after that" amounts to mission creep.

[Rank amateur]

e with rare exceptions guilty of deliberately avoiding any effort to train units and commanders to deal with occupation, nation building and counterinsurgency

I agree.


not employ the institution.

Some of the Iraqi troops who invaded Kuwait might disagree with the idea that Powell wasn't willing to deploy the institution.;)

[Ken White]

This thought process is alive and well in DC, I'm afraid to say. Not good at all.

serving up there. Maybe I'm wrong but I am sniffing a change at levels below echelons above reality. :)

We can always hope it'll percolate upwards...

The Vice Chief asking a room full of Captains what they thought about their Generals is good. My sensing is that he is sharper than some of his contemporaries so maybe he can get their attention.


Well said by Stevely, too...

[RTK]

Top U.S. Generals at Odds Over Iraq War Strategy (http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,294421,00.html)


America's top military brass appeared at odds Friday over the course of the Iraq War as outgoing Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Peter Pace reportedly stood ready to recommend a major reduction next year in troop strength while a key ground commander warned that such a move would be "a giant step backwards."

Maj. Gen. Rick Lynch , who commands the central sector of Iraq, told reporters Friday via video link at the Pentagon that such a drawdown would cause the military to lose all the gains it has made since the beginning of the buildup earlier this year.

"In my battlespace right now, if soldiers were to leave, coalition soldiers were to leave — having fought for that terrain, having denied the enemy of their sanctuaries, what will happen is the enemy would come back," Lynch said.

This is interesting.

Perhaps this shows a shift in mindset and that LTC Yingling's article has had an impact on overt disagreement in the active force.

[Ken White]

those who hew to the protect the institution line as opposed to the "I've got a job to do" line...

We can but hope... :wry:

[jonSlack]

Full text of Fred Kaplan's article at Riley Professional Reading Group (http://rileyprofessionalreadinggroup.blogspot.com/2007/08/what-this-is-all-about.html)

[jonSlack]

NY Times - At an Army School for Officers, Blunt Talk About Iraq (http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/14/us/14army.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1&hp)


Here at the intellectual center of the United States Army, two elite officers were deep in debate at lunch on a recent day over who bore more responsibility for mistakes in Iraq — the former defense secretary, Donald H. Rumsfeld, or the generals who acquiesced to him.

...

Much of the debate at Leavenworth has centered on a scathing article, “A Failure in Generalship,” written last May for Armed Forces Journal by Lt. Col. Paul Yingling, an Iraq veteran and deputy commander of the Third Armored Cavalry Regiment who holds a master’s degree in political science from the University of Chicago. “If the general remains silent while the statesman commits a nation to war with insufficient means, he shares culpability for the results,” Colonel Yingling wrote.

[goesh]

Being neither fully enmeshed with the civilian world nor fully separate, those who bear arms will not and cannot be given the same Public ear when from within the ranks malfeasance is exposed and rears its ugly head. When guys like Yingling and Sanchez, ex post facto, start speaking out, the Public simply doesn't want to hear too much of it. To lend full ear is to entertain the possibility that the Nation can't be defended. It's that simple. In short, don't expect much support or sympathy from us and don't get too smug and prideful when the *(^&* politicians get on the band wagon over issues raised by guys like Sanchez and Yingling. Rummy fell on his sword a long time ago. How involved do you really want civilians to be in your lives? You need to ask yourselves that and keep the #### in the ranks where it has always belonged - deal with it and straighten it out.

[Norfolk]

When officers (and while at Leavenworth) get to the point where a number of them not only criticize both generals and politicians openly, but both raise the spectre of refusing to obey the orders of their superior officers and the civilian leadership, and then other officers not only debate, but begin to think about it, then it is clear that something is gravely wrong, not just a major problem. And when much the same thing has been going on over in Britain, with all ranks from Private straight up to the Chief of the Defence Staff criticizing their civilian leadership publicly, it is also clear that this is not an isolated case. This a critical issue that has been left fester for soem time now within the civilian-military relationship in the English-speaking world.

The stresses, strains, and overstretch of the military forces of much of the English-speaking world while both the civilian political and senior military leaderships are reaching, or have now reached, a perhaps critical point. The one officer who responded to strong suggestions that generals should have said "No" to the politicians by calling that a "coup d'etat" is taking it a little too far. A coup d'etat is when the troops physically overthrow or eject the lawful government or elements thereof. That is not what is going on here, or even being suggested. If a general resigns in protest against what are immoral, unlawful orders, that is not bucking the supremacy of the civil authority. It may even not be unlawfully defying civil authority for the generals to say "No" to an war that they believe to be immoral and unlawful.

The problem here though, is twofold. First of all, in concrete cases, where is the dividing line between moral, lawful rejection of an immoral, unlawful order, and insubordination and even mutiny? Second, and this is particualry pertinent in the present situation, is when civilian leaderships not only reject the military advice of the generals, but are seen to effectively expell those whose advice they reject, the civilian-military relationship is put under stress; when that already stressed relationship is subjected to the strains of an over-stretched military engaged in a prolonged and difficult war, and serious political divisions back home exacerbate the situation at almost every turn, it should not come as a surprise that a breach is developing between much of the officer corps on one side and the civilian leadership together with the generals who have acquiesced to that leadership on the other.

The civilian leadership and elements of the general officer ranks have brought this upon themselves and the rest of the military. But now the officer corps to an extent that it has probably never been, is politicized, angry, and many of them are no longer afraid to show it. It will be very interesting to see how this plays out over coming years.

[Cavguy]

When officers (and while at Leavenworth) get to the point where a number of them not only criticize both generals and politicians openly, but both raise the spectre of refusing to obey the orders of their superior officers and the civilian leadership, and then other officers not only debate, but begin to think about it, then it is clear that something is gravely wrong, not just a major problem. And when much the same thing has been going on over in Britain, with all ranks from Private straight up to the Chief of the Defence Staff criticizing their civilian leadership publicly, it is also clear that this is not an isolated case. This a critical issue that has been left fester for soem time now within the civilian-military relationship in the English-speaking world.
....

The civilian leadership and elements of the general officer ranks have brought this upon themselves and the rest of the military. But now the officer corps to an extent that it has probably never been, is politicized, angry, and many of them are no longer afraid to show it. It will be very interesting to see how this plays out over coming years.

First, I think the author of the story was being somewhat sensational in reporting what amounted to an academic BS session here at the college regarding the state of relations. I have never heard in uniform anyone seriously suggest a coup against the government.

Second, this same thing happened following Vietnam. I recalled this anecdote (http://council.smallwarsjournal.com/showpost.php?p=20029&postcount=207) in a prior thread about a thrashing GEN Abrams received in the 1970's from disgruntled Fort Leavenworth Majors. (Most of whom became the officers who rebuilt the army in the 80's). I would say it is neither unprecedented or a risk to the republic.

Yes, trust in the officer corps is strained and many are angry on what they perceived was a mismanaged war. The officer trust gap was well documented before 9/11 with several leadership surveys (http://permanent.access.gpo.gov/lps11415/00271.pdf) and had built up in the 90s "zero defect" army. The events of 9/11 allowed the army a "hall pass" on resolving the cultural and institutional issues due to heightened patriotism and service drive. Our senior leadership issues in OEF/OIF are directly related to the causes identified in the studies from 2001. Micromanaging, careerism, work hours, deployments, bad leaders promoted, etc.

Now that the debate is beginning on "Who lost Iraq", all the chickens are coming home to roost, captains are fleeing the army (a senior officer told me 66% of the 2002 West Point class had submitted resignations at the end of their obligation this year), and someone is to blame. The army has tried a band aid through bribery with bonuses and grad school, but has thus far failed to entertain addressing the structural issues causing the exodus.

Bottom line, the Army's problems with trust and morale really began following Desert Storm, and the effect culturally of the 90's drawdown.

[selil]

First, I think the author of the story was being somewhat sensational in reporting what amounted to an academic BS session here at the college regarding the state of relations. I have never heard in uniform anyone seriously suggest a coup against the government.


Actually a really good read about military relations, something I've been suggesting a few colleagues read it.

The Origins of the American Military Coup of 2012, CHARLES J. DUNLAP, JR., LINK (http://www.carlisle.army.mil/usawc/Parameters/1992/dunlap.htm)

[Ken White]

The same sorts of discussions took place during Korea and Viet Nam -- as well as afterward. At all ranks. Not new with the Brits either -- or with Canadians. During Korea, we had 42 RM Cdo attached for a while and were adjacent to the Black Watch and visited 2 RCR. Soldiers gripe. Even about their own Army to others, given a little alcoholic easing of natural tension and reticence. :wry:

Amazing number of senior folks were unhappy about the firing of MacArthur (though not all of 'em :) ). Many were unhappy that Eisenhower ran on the end the war ticket. Kennedy, Johnson and Nixon -- as well as the senior leadership -- were all routinely denigrated during Viet Nam. There were those who complained about the cessation of Desert Strom in 1991 and you wouldn't believe some of the things said about the senior leadership and the Prez in the 1990s.

Foolishness and incompetence in high places has always been a favorite topic. Regrettably, too often deservedly so. :(

Nor have I ever heard any serious discussion about coups and refusal of orders. Civilian control is hard wired. So, in the US, is not resigning -- that's as much due to the depth of the bench as anything. If one resigns in protest, one knows the system will simply keep appointing replacements until it finds someone to do whats wanted. Plus, there's the ego trip of getting the job, no matter how unappealing, finished and the belief that one can do it better than some second or third choice -- and with less damage to the institution than said incompetent might inflict...

The departure by resignation of massive numbers of Officers at the earliest possible date during a war is also not new. Wives get upset, Captains and some Majors leave -- also happened during Korea and Viet Nam.

There's no news -- or anything to be concerned about there...

[Norfolk]

First, I think the author of the story was being somewhat sensational in reporting...[]...here at the college regarding the state of relations. I have never heard in uniform anyone seriously suggest a coup against the government.

Second, this same thing happened following Vietnam. I recalled this anecdote (http://council.smallwarsjournal.com/showpost.php?p=20029&postcount=207) in a prior thread about a thrashing GEN Abrams received in the 1970's from disgruntled Fort Leavenworth Majors. (Most of whom became the officers who rebuilt the army in the 80's). I would say it is neither unprecedented or a risk to the republic.

Yes, trust in the officer corps is strained and many are angry on what they perceived was a mismanaged war. The officer trust gap was well documented before 9/11 with several leadership surveys (http://permanent.access.gpo.gov/lps11415/00271.pdf) and had built up in the 90s "zero defect" army. The events of 9/11 allowed the army a "hall pass" on resolving the cultural and institutional issues due to heightened patriotism and service drive. Our senior leadership issues in OEF/OIF are directly related to the causes identified in the studies from 2001. Micromanaging, careerism, work hours, deployments, bad leaders promoted, etc.

Now that the debate is beginning on "Who lost Iraq", all the chickens are coming home to roost, captains are fleeing the army (a senior officer told me 66% of the 2002 West Point class had submitted resignations at the end of their obligation this year), and someone is to blame. The army has tried a band aid through bribery with bonuses and grad school, but has thus far failed to entertain addressing the structural issues causing the exodus.

Bottom line, the Army's problems with trust and morale really began following Desert Storm, and the effect culturally of the 90's drawdown.

The first problem though, is that the war is very unlikely to end anytime soon, along with all the stresses and strains that that imposes. Secondly, as so many of the junior officers leave, they take their training and experience with them, and that's hard to replace; it also means that those who stay are either dedicated and hard-core (good), or alternatively mediocre (bad) - perhaps resulting in a sharper split within the officer corps between doers and posers. Third, even though the new SecDef appears to be a good man, he's gone in a year-and-a-half, and there's no guarantees that a new incoming Administration and SecDef are going to be any better than Gates' recent predecessors were; depending upon who forms the new Administration in 2009, civil-military relations may end up heading south again.

Yeah, I very much agree that the tone of the article was a little shrill, but it didn't help that one of the officers compared the criticism of the civilian and senior military leaderships by other officers as something that might be considered a coup if suggestions of refusing to carry possibly immoral and unlawful orders were in fact carried out under certain circumstances.

If the incoming administration, whoever that might be, doesn't carry on along Gates' lines, there's going to be real trouble in the future, at the very least another "Hollow Army" situation.

[Norfolk]

The same sorts of discussions took place during Korea and Viet Nam -- as well as afterward. At all ranks. Not new with the Brits either -- or with Canadians. During Korea, we had 42 RM Cdo attached for a while and were adjacent to the Black Watch and visited 2 RCR. Soldiers gripe. Even about their own Army to others, given a little alcoholic easing of natural tension and reticence. :wry: There's no news -- or anything to be concerned about there...

Good to hear then; but I still wonder a little, especially come 2009.

Ken, my uncle fought in Korea, and was a Bren Gunner in 2 RCR.

[Ken White]

Actually a really good read about military relations, something I've been suggesting a few colleagues read it.

The Origins of the American Military Coup of 2012, CHARLES J. DUNLAP, JR., LINK (http://www.carlisle.army.mil/usawc/Parameters/1992/dunlap.htm)

and the logic of that essay by Dunlap... :)

He's slick and a smart guy no question -- and here, from your link, is his bottom line:
"Resist unification of the services not only on operational grounds, but also because unification would be inimical to the checks and balances that underpin democratic government. Slow the pace of fiscally driven consolidation so that the impact on less quantifiable aspects of military effectiveness can be scrutinized."

Smart guy with a strong agenda.

He's also still at it; LINK (http://council.smallwarsjournal.com/showthread.php?t=3901).

[selil]

We can debate the utility and the logic of that essay by Dunlap... :)

I've found that it's a great discussion topic generator. It's got a lot of meat in it.

[Ken White]

I've found that it's a great discussion topic generator.

Does indeed have some good thoughts in it.


It's got a lot of meat in it.

Also has some potatoes -- and turnips -- in it... :wry: