LtGen Jim Mattis to US Joint Forces Command
On the Small Wars Journal Blog - LtGen Jim Mattis to US Joint Forces Command.
A rumor we have been hearing since May was reported on yesterday in the North County Times – Lieutenant General James Mattis (USMC) has been nominated for his fourth star and slated to take over US Joint Forces Command in Norfolk, Virginia...
If we're lucky, his first official order will be to disestablish that useless command.
Ten or more flag spaces? Unlikely.
OTOH, maybe it's a valid organization and some service peculiar subordinate (nominal, of course...) commands are unnecessary...
Mattis Takes the Helm at JFCOM
Mattis Takes the Helm at JFCOM - SWJ Blog - video of and article on the change of command...
A Command is
what you make of it. If'n I were a betting man I'd wager that JFCOM (and the rest of us) will be well served with him leading it.
Best, Rob
Watch JFCOM closely
This assignment will be very telling in many ways -- for General Mattis' future, for the future of IW and for the futures of the Services. In this battle of man vs beauracracy, there is a lot of hope riding on Mattis, but the smart money is probably on the bureaucracy. Hope I'm wrong.
Good Call Old Eagle...
Ingrained bureaucracy – read GS (especially 15’s and FOGO equivalents) plus the extraordinary numbers of embedded contract workers now prevalent in many major commands - has a habit of ignoring active duty commanders – with an attitude of “waiting it out” until the next change of command. Their stonewalling is both unconscionable and criminal in my most humble opinion.Originally Posted by Old Eagle
JFCOM is one of the worst offenders - I wish General Mattis the best and hope he can make a difference... It is sorely needed to say the least.
That is why I wish active duty commanders were given something kind of reverse of the Taft Hartley Act (forcing people to work) and could fire anybody much like Regan fired the "un-fireable" air traffic controllers on strike in 1981.
Last edited by selil; 11-12-2007 at 05:29 AM.
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DoD has been trying. Unfortunately,
AFGE has more votes in Congress...
Had an employee illegally absent for over 76 days in one year. Took three letters, another 18 months (with more absences) and two hearings to get that person fired.
Tossing the Muskets.....
I for one don't have any qualms about my tax dollars being spent by a "warrior monk" - has bin laden and his followers acclerated us this much or is this all just in the course of natural evolution? Does war really put a bump in the curve or do we just keep grinding along? "Warrior monk" got me to thinking about Ia Drang and the implementation of air mobile tactics and in about 2.5 decades we had the high tech stuff of the Gulf War, man riding the missle in cyber space. Maybe it boils down simply to great men just happening along and stepping up to the plate devoid of collective evolution and the lessons of history.
Heh. As the Brits say, "Spot on!"
As a former one of the former silly villian types, You are regrettably correct. However, there is a solution. One such who opposes that practice simply need find one kindred soul of like grade (and my experience is that there are always a couple of good ones to battle the four to ten less concerned types in every big hindquarters) and join together to flank, circumvent and befuddle the recalcitrant.
That's not hard to do because those "wait 'em out" types are mostly Turtles, not willing to stick their necks out for anything. Easy to shortstop 'em, baffle 'em, go around them and get things done.
Lacking that, it takes only a Chief of Staff with testicular fortitude -- he can make their lives miserable with little effort -- all he has to do is divert the Bonus money. They'll quickly leave unless they're dedicated and good guys.
This can be the case. However, on the GS side (actually note that in most of the DOD, and soon all of it, "GS" is finished, having been done away with in NSPS - we converted earlier this year), the personnel system has changed greatly, so that the days of the un-fire-able civil servant are past (though there was always some amount of myth to that, a determined commander could can a civil servant, many found it easier to just move them on. Of course this happens on active duty, too). It is now much easier to get rid of troublesome civil servants, though of course same protocol follows just as if you want to chapter a bad soldier: document, document, document.
But speaking from inside the belly of the purple beast, it is not that simple, uniformed military on a 2 or 3 year tour vs. civil servants waiting them out. For every JFCOM Sir Humphrey, there is an active duty officer armed with dubious ideas and a willingness to waste the taxpayer's dollar, all to get his star. This place often feels to me like a bunch of little feudal fiefdoms, squabbling over agendas and resources. I've seen one O6 build a shadow organization to another O6's directorate, and so try to steal his rival's portfolio and resources.
Just wanted to point out that there are more mischief makers here than just the guys with ties. When you get right down to it, money and ambition - they ruin everything. There is a lot of both here and that fuels the craziness.
I have not much experienced the stonewalling you described, except in one case. And in that case, the two-star flag who got waited out, gave in my opinion all the opportunity for his underlings to do so; there was an impression from my lowly POV at least that he was just marking time and waiting for his next post. He had a very "hands off" leadership style... His successor was of a different sort entirely, and he has since taken a very active interest in his organization and has even asked to extend his tour one year to make sure that his changes will stick.
I am very excited that Gen. Mattis is our commander - there are many of us who are hoping for great things from him. A man like him is a breath of fresh air from the series of gizmo-centric commanders we've had prior to him. Let's all pray for him that he makes a difference.
PS - Rob, nice suggestion, will have more to say about whither JFCOM, when it's not such a late hour.
Last edited by Stevely; 11-13-2007 at 06:35 AM. Reason: and another thing...
He cloaked himself in a veil of impenetrable terminology.
Lets use this as an opportunity to talk about
why we are interested in JFCOM as an organization
What I hope JFCOM can do is become the joint engine of leader agility and adaptation that looks far enough forward in sufficient breadth to help us get it more right than wrong.
A tall order in itself. JFCOM has in the past been billed as an engine of Joint "Transformation" - a term that was ambiguous enough and which appeared to emphasize everything but the people who make up the military. It has been perceived as being techno-centric, deservedly or not - and its embracing of EBO in Joint Doctrine generated some well articulated fights by the opposition (part of this probably has to do with how the services perceive the value of EBO in terms of strengths and limitations)
A large challenge will be overcoming entrenched mindsets (both within and on the outside) to achieve a balance that entices the services and commands out of our kung-fu stances. Fostering a Joint culture of innovation required to identify and understand ourselves and our adversaries (current and future) operating across the broad spectrum of war vs. being perceived as a gear which grinds out flavors of the month is no small task. The collective "we" must come to grips with the limitations of DOTMPF to fix our shortfalls. Wherever we adjust these aspects to answer hard, but specific questions, we paint ourselves into corners.
These are the science pieces, whereas Leadership is the art piece. We don't like to rely wholeheartedly on that one because it seems to leave too much to chance - not everybody is going to be as good as the next guy or gal - so we seek to even the odds with the science. We can't even agree on where "born" ends and "made" begins in the quest for leaders - its too vague and too suspicious - and hits too close to home for many to ponder.
You can give the same tools under like conditions to different leaders in complex organizations operating in complex environments and the odds are at least equal that they will not reach the same outcome - even if their experience set up to the time appears to be the same. One may succeed and the other may fail simply because one has the right innate mixture of courage, character and intellect (be they born to, or developed) equal to the task at hand. That is hard for us to swallow.
This is why putting the right person in the right command matters so much. JFCOM can be about helping us get over ourselves by providing a framework for common discussion that helps us take what we have vs. what we wished we had and jointly solving the strategic, operational or tactical problem set (be it the one now or the one on the horizon). Its success in doing so will depend as much on the folks outside JFCOM as those inside.
Best Regards, Rob
Last edited by Rob Thornton; 11-11-2007 at 10:03 PM.
He is heavy duty into simulations. His thinking is that sims are a better investment then $400k SGLI. He has been pushing us since his time at MCCDC.
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