True, yet military duty does not equate to blind obedience
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Originally Posted by
William F. Owen
OK, but Armed force serves policy. The Army has to provide what the Policy maker requires - NOT provide what would work if the policy was easier to fulfil by military means. Armies are contractors, not clients.
Take the following quote from a General following his command tour in Afghanistan for example:
"We have nothing to fear from Afghanistan, and the best thing to do is to leave it as much as possible to itself. It may not be very flattering to our amour propres, but I feel sure I am right when I say that the less the Afghans see of us the less they will dislike us. Should Russia in future years attempt to conquer Afghanistan, or invade India through it, we shold have a better chance of attaching the Afghans to our interest if we avoid all interference with them in the meantime.
When General Frederick Roberts published that statement upon his return to Britain from the 1879 campaign it was because British policy toward Afhganistan was a matter of tremendous debate, and I suspect that as the recent commander on the ground there he felt he had some worthy insights for the policy types to take into account.
It is a bit chilling at how easy we could replace "Russia" with "AQ" and this insight would remain quite valid today.
The military's role in foreign policy
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Originally Posted by
marct
Have you noticed that all of these areas / sources of uncertainty are political and not the purview of the military (with the possible exception of #3)? I'll also note that the uncertainty contained in these points is derived from uncertainty about the actions of US politicians....
While these areas are political, they are very much the purview of the military in the operational environment in Iraq and Afghanistan (whether they should be or not is another topic - see ADM Mullen's comments to KSU http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/04/us...html?ref=world). US military commanders oversee the Gov of Iraq up through the Provincial level, and the MNF-I commander has considerable influence and responsibilty at the Iraqi national level (though he does have an Ambassador beside him).
I'm not sure that is necessarily true...
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Red Leg
While these areas are political, they are very much the purview of the military in the operational environment in Iraq and Afghanistan (whether they should be or not is another topic...)...
That it is another topic. If one accepts that as true and the default position, perhaps. OTOH if one accepts that much of that 'default position' is due to budget and turf battles in DC as opposed to what makes sense in the wider world or even in Afghanistan and Iraq -- which I do -- then one might come to the conclusion that the priorities AND the developmental and implementing authorities are skewed.
While you're correct that the US Armed Forces are directly involved in making political policy (domestically and internationally), I think the question ought to be "should they be doing that?" Many would say that's an immaterial question, they are.
However, I ask why they seem to want to continue to make policy in a realm that is not and should not be theirs. I don't like the answer I keep coming back to... :eek:
A picture worth a thousand words
http://www.meander.ca/wp-content/upl.../harris-01.jpg
This cartoon pretty much sums up what I see as design and my issue with FM 5.0. And, by the way, the cartoon also shows what it will take for the folks who should be making national foreign policy decisons to actually make them and then express the requirements in a way that will enable the the "contractors" in DoD to fufill them.
The answer I keep coming up with is the one mentioned earlier.
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Originally Posted by
Red Leg
The military commanders with whom I have had contact (up through division) never seemed like they wanted to make policy, foreign or domestic.
I generally agree with that - but as you get to the Army MaComs and DA -- not to mention the CoComs and DoD proper -- they are quite concerned with policy and politics. Excessively so, some say.
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Not sure which answer you come back to Ken, but the answer I keep coming up with is: because nobody else will.
There's a bit of nobody else will -- or wants to -- but there's also a lot more of nobody else has the reach and the capability. That goes back to my recurring answer "OTOH if one accepts that much of that 'default position' is due to budget and turf battles in DC as opposed to what makes sense in the wider world or even in Afghanistan and Iraq -- which I do..."
Thus my belief that the priorities AND the developmental and implementing authorities are skewed...:(
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Wilf is correct...though our contract is fairly open-ended. The issue comes back to "what do the policy makers require?"
The answer is that they too often require things that DoD purposely has elected to not give them, therefor they must use ad-hoc solutions that are at least nominally within the capability that DoD can and will provide. We've seen since 1950 how that's worked out for us -- my take is not at all well...