Quote:
Originally Posted by
Germ
...suggests the executive branch read one of the book's messages (ask questions) but not another (encourage healthy dissent).
Always a problem and generally personality dependent -- and an item over which little control is possible.
Quote:
*From the quote above, we could go down the rabbit hole of thinking personalities are a higher-quarters problem we'd like to eliminate. I think the problem stems from a failure to acknowledge that relationships are the biggest enabler of successful command, something to be cultivated, not eliminated...
How can we eliminate personality? No way I can see. Yes, they are to be cultivated; the problem is that some egos get in the way and don't allow that to be done successfully.
Quote:
... I further submit that one can find ample instances of command relationships being altered to suit personalities, and personalities being swapped successfully to suit command relationships.
Certainly. just not enough of either.
Quote:
*Way down there in the posts, one submission posited that aviators should not command ground troops. At the small unit level there's great cause for agreeing with that. The Marine experience in Iraq and elsewhere, however, demonstrates that aviators in tactical/operational command succeeded to the same extent that ground commanders succeeded. Before you say Marines are an exception, you might want to consider Nimitz's campaigning results in WWII, which look to the naked eye to be as good as MacArthur's.
Marines aren't an exception and I were one. Aviators, like normal humans vary. Generically, they do not have the experience on ground combat to be the intuitive fighters they probably are in the air. They can and do successfully command -- whether they are good or great is the issue and I submit that we should strive for the great (with full acknowledgment that is unlikely to be attained). Re: Nimitz -- that's because he was smart enough to let his commanders do their job; in MacArthur's case, much of his success was due to Krueger.
Quote:
*NSC can only do what the President lets (or forces) it to do. Also, be sure to delineate between the NSC written large (cabinet members) from the NSC staff. If a State policy, staffed in front of the assembled cabinet members, doesn't get promulgated to the four corners of the executive branch, then our Secretaries are to blame. If the NSC staff fails to promulgate something, it's because the various Secretaries deny them access to the various branches, not because they won't try to spread the word. Either way, we come back to the Secretaries.
Yep, personality dependent...:D
Quote:
Thanks for allowing me to pitch in to your great discussion!
Welcome. Why not go to this LINK and introduce yourself. Scroll up and see what others have done in that vein.