Is Public Will at odds with Public Sacrifice?
This morning on the Earlybird I saw a WSJ article where the CSA announced plans to look at acceleration of adding the additional troops to meet the objective of 2 years at home station for every one year deployed. There is concern that the 15 month deployments may cause additional attrition of experience. Mentioned was the usual prescritpion of enlistment/re-enlistment bonuses and promotions to support expansion.
Several other articles recently have caught my attention since I've been back. Some were on who serves, who wants to serve, who does not want to serve, why, etc (one of my favorites pointed to the small minority of congressional and other political leaders here and in the UK who have current familial ties to the military). Retired General Scales has been a huge proponent of drawing attention to readiness issues, and I think gets at it as a fundamental strategic problem. So here are a couple of questions I think would help us design a Human Resourcing Strategy to meet not just the military's increased personeel needs - not just in quantity, but also in quality (Quality in the categories of both the very best for public service & in terms of filling the ranks - a buddy was just flash PCS'd to Riley amid reports of soldier disturbances and the need for officers and NCOs on the ground immediately):
Does our Public Will support the required Public Sacrifice in the context of a emerging global power struggle amongst resurgent states, emerging non-state organizations (runs the gammut of groups here) which will compete on many different levels for limited resources (could be energy resources, water, minerals,etc) in an worl that is increasingly at risk to pandemics, global warming, and other environmental accelorators?
OK - I know that's a mouth full, but trying to frame the question show's how difficult captuing the public will to sacrifice their leisure time and cable T.V. can be. Short of an overwhleming cause that has a persitant gravitational theme that is politician proof, the only other recourse I see is to invest in people in such a way that it attracts and retains them. It becomes a standard of living and quality of life for not just them, but their families. Our Political culture seems to have a problem with this - people are risky and expensive (long term costs), and re-elections often require playing to somebody's bottom line. The Heinlein concept of public service for full citizenship (with the caveat of military or some other public service prior to holding office) is probably a non-starter.
Thoughts?
The Real Shock and Awe of High Tech
The Public isn't much buying into the notion of military service and boots on the ground, regardless of mission and intent, regardless of COIN applications or more traditional operations. Send a robot, send a drone, you don't need me. This isn't as much an issue of personal will and character uniting and morphing into a collective mechanism of action as it is a philosophy of more high tech is better than more manpower. Go to any mall on any given Saturday and see the wonderous cell phones people have, then note that is all many of them have and ever will have.
A Draft with some Standards is a good start
Hi Old Eagle !
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A coupla us took the Army through the last transition and it was butt ugly. My first draft-age platoon contained one trooper with an MS in biology and another who functioned at the third grade level. The -10 manuals for his track meant nothing because he couldn't begin to understand the words, let alone the meaning. The remainder of the platoon fell somewhere in between on the spectrum. Communicating at a level that everyone understood and providing motivation that spanned that broad a spectrum was a huge challenge.
I totally agree. We need set standards, even for the draftees. My time in the 70's was horrific. Tests were based on D.C. 'standards' and a 70 percentile was barely 8th grade. They forced most in the 80s to retake the test and several ended up with lower scores than they had at basic service entry.
Still, that weeded out what would end up being needed to reduce the Army's overall end strength.
I indeed do not want to see gang members, drug and racial problems, so some means of setting the benchmark are in order, but bring on the draft anyway and let those folks see "independence at a price".
Regards, Stan
No historical rants, I promise...
Hi Goesh,
You know, you remind me a lot of a good friend, drinking buddy and fellow PhD (12 years in the Canadian Navy). His nickname is "Crusty" :D.
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goesh
There is an ancient fear over men of action taking control and remaining in control that keeps the Public on the curb waving flags on Memorial Day but prevents them from fully engaging with warriors once the parade is done.
Of course here is a fear of this happening! Societies controlled by their militaries have, historically, been amongst the most repressive, abusive and stagnant regimes in existence. At the same time, societies that do not have a fairly heavy component of ex-military people involved in their governance end up getting run over by barbarians, either internal or external.
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Originally Posted by
goesh
It simply is safer and easier to keep at a distance because civilization has about completely dulled the hunting instinct in human beings and technology enables that need. That's my 'long' view of it. Warriors pretty much exist to kill enemies and the view of warriors as other than that is a tough sell to the species in general. One would think the Liberal camp would embrace COIN but that is not the case.
The Liberal camp, at least in it's US incarnation, is unlikely to embrace COIN unless it is "sold" to them as a moral imperative from a Liberal, ideological perspective. My wife, who describes herself as an old style, Yankee Democrat Liberal (and also says she would never have married me if she knew my political views beforehand :D) has come around to the point where she views COIN ops, and the current surge, as such a moral imperative. It's been an interesting transformation on her part...
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Originally Posted by
goesh
I don't think the military is really capable of informing the Public of the need to commit and ultimately fight and impliment COIN and traditonal tactics...
I agree but, respectfully, why in the Hades is it the militaries responsibility to do so? This is supposed to be the job of the politicians and the press.
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Originally Posted by
goesh
I think the current military recruiting strategies are simply excellant. Those Ads on tv are spot on in which service is requested based on the need for serious, intelligent people willing to learn and develop and commit to the military for a few years in return.
I'd be interested in what you, and Rob, think about the Canadian Forces latest ad campaign. Personally, I think it's brilliant given the Canadian audience.
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Originally Posted by
goesh
Incidentally, this forum is about as innovative as you can get, breeching the gap between civilian and military/defense and generating interplay.
Gotta agree with that :D!
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Originally Posted by
goesh
Your comment about people under 40 not realizing the necessity of government and defense is spot on but two things come to mind when the needs of dire necessity crop up and we are faced with bitter necessity....
I've seen similar things myself, and this is one of the reasons I am ore likely to say that the responsibility of getting the message out is the job of the politicians and the media, not the military. I must say, that I have been heartened immeasurably by a number of my students asking really hard hitting questions about the Long War (aka GWOT) and what they can do. Many of them are Left wingers, but they show a good an understanding of the corrosive effects on our society of a long, drawn out war and they want to limit those effects by winning the war.
Marc