Time to hold the US generals accountable for Afg. and Iraq

[davidbfpo]

Actually the sub-title for a FP Blog piece, written by its editor and the title is 'A New Challenge for Our Military: Honest Introspection':http://www.foreignpolicy.com/article..._introspection

The second opening paragraph will suffice to start:

Yes, certainly there has been national debate about whether we should have been involved in those wars, one that has belatedly delivered the message to our political leadership that it is time to bring our troops home. But about one crucial array of issues concerning our involvement we have been stunningly silent: the competence of our military leaders, the effectiveness of the strategies they have employed, and the very structure and character of our military itself.

His last sentence is:

Let's do our duty to ourselves and show our military that we respect it enough to know that it can stand up to the scrutiny it deserves.

There are a few signs here in the UK that our own civil-military leadership are uncomfortable with the two wars and the debate is in similar terms:

the competence of our military leaders, the effectiveness of the strategies they have employed, and the very structure and character of our military itself.

When I say civil-military leadership in the UK I do not mean political leadership, rather the senior permanent civil servants and the senior military officers.

From this distant vantage point there is already a debate about these issues, but it appears not to resonate with the winder public nor amongst elected representatives.

[Ken White]

We really need more than introspection. A very thorough relook and recasting of effort is long overdue. That's a belief held by a great many inside and out of the armed forces. The real issue is what form such a deep look and recasting might take. The important question, around really since World War II, is why has such a deep look not occurred. The answer to that lies in part with the services but about 80% of the problem is blatantly political and predicated not on the defense of the US, not in relation to our foreign affairs but rather on our domestic politics. That factor means design inefficiencies for political preference reasons...

That said, what David Rothkopf has also done is write a well crafted political hit piece that touts all his beliefs. That's a perfectly acceptable thing to do though I suggest that a more honest approach would achieve better results.

He's been around enough -- worked for Kissinger Associates, the Carnegie Endowment and was in the Clinton Administration so he's being rather facile in gently and subtly blaming the Armed Forces for things 'they' have done or not done while not really doing more than aiming a few minor sideswipes at the many shills and ills of the politicians and of Congress who like the way things now operate. Those are the folks who established and support the current system -- and who prefer a degree of ineptitude on the part of the armed services. Mr. Rothkopf is correctly saying the service need to take a deep honest look and begin some fixing. He is quite wrong in not holding the several Administrations and Congresses accountable for not forcing such a fix -- a fix that will never occur unless it is forced. Why should it be otherwise...

Established is a good word. He's part of the Establishment -- they're 80% of the problem and he wants the 20% to do better...

[Fuchs]

Ken, some problems are about the president and the advice he gets.

I remember a recount from a WH meeting where (supposedly) the Biden plan and a 'surge' were discussed. Obama was undecided so far. He said (supposedly) something along the lines of 'either the military can win this in 18 months with a surge or it won't at all, so we'd need to leave'. Petraeus jumped in and confirmed exactly this; 18 months time to turn AFG around or else it would be the right thing to withdraw after 18 months. Obama accepted and pushed the smaller CT/TF Ranger-style plan aside.

18 months later Petraeus had left of the mess to his successor and the surge (or whatever it was; maybe "double down"?) failed (obviously!?).


The military is to blame for much on the political level (same in other countries), for it simply did not do its job at the high level. It did not advise well, it did not overcome its primitive 'can do' attitude, it did not overcome its bureaucratic instincts.


edit: It did not move quickly enough against its incompetent or even toxic leaders either.

[Dayuhan]

If we're going to apply scrutiny to and question the competence of generals who failed to achieve the objective of transforming Afghanistan, shouldn't we apply equal or greater scrutiny to the politicians and policymakers who elected to pursue that rather bizarre objective in the first place?

[Fuchs]

That is supposed to happen in about 4 year intervals.

[Dayuhan]

That is supposed to happen in about 4 year intervals.

One of those intervals approaches, so you can expect to see everybody who might be held accountable demanding that somebody else be held accountable.

[Bill Moore]

We gave our military virtually everything it asked for.

Yet, in the wars we have just been through, we are left with a troubling track record.

Some senior military leaders may have failed, but as others have pointed out our civilian leaders are the real blame for developing policy end states that were not and are not achievable through the application of military force.

The only people who speak positively about our current strategy are our senior leaders, so it appears our public affairs propaganda actually has more impact on our leaders than the intended audience and they have simply followed their own deception, or worse they're lying to the American people. Missteps are understandable and should be always be expected in war, and should be forgiven, but failing to learn and adapt is not. More stupid rarely works, recognizing something is stupid and then trying something else is more likely to succeed.

Leaders must be encouraged to generate independent ideas and then have the moral courage to voice them. Responsibility, moral courage, and competence are all intermingled and should be part of this discussion for both civilian and military leaders. I rarely see debates anymore, our leaders should deeply debate strategies and only salute and move out once the final decision is made, but now we're very quick to default to group think. Why? What has changed?

We have also lost our ability to judge our actions or their consequences with a critical eye.

The author may be right, but it is due more to a culture that prohibts being self-critical rather than having lost our ability to do so. Mistakes are common in war, that is why the credit belongs to the man in the arena, but the man in the arena is expected to be a thinking man capable of adapting, not something less than a man who blindly follows doctrine or a plan.

[JMA]

Leaders must be encouraged to generate independent ideas and then have the moral courage to voice them. Responsibility, moral courage, and competence are all intermingled and should be part of this discussion for both civilian and military leaders. I rarely see debates anymore, our leaders should deeply debate strategies and only salute and move out once the final decision is made, but now we're very quick to default to group think. Why? What has changed?

Because the moral courage to speak out and pension stability are incompatible. Soldiers who need/rely on their military pension will fold under pressure.

As is said, pension slavery makes (moral) cowards out of (physically) brave men.

My suggestion is that instead of borrowing billions from China to give to the Afghan kleptocracy who turn move it to Dubai (and other places)... why not look after your soldiers who have given the best years of their lives to the service and provide them with bullet proof pensions (safe from the despicable influence... and grubby paws of your politicians).

[Dayuhan]

Leaders must be encouraged to generate independent ideas and then have the moral courage to voice them. Responsibility, moral courage, and competence are all intermingled and should be part of this discussion for both civilian and military leaders. I rarely see debates anymore, our leaders should deeply debate strategies and only salute and move out once the final decision is made, but now we're very quick to default to group think. Why? What has changed? .

Are the debates not happening at all, or are they just not happening in public?

Because the moral courage to speak out and pension stability are incompatible. Soldiers who need/rely on their military pension will fold under pressure.

As is said, pension slavery makes (moral) cowards out of (physically) brave men.

My suggestion is that instead of borrowing billions from China to give to the Afghan kleptocracy who turn move it to Dubai (and other places)... why not look after your soldiers who have given the best years of their lives to the service and provide them with bullet proof pensions (safe from the despicable influence... and grubby paws of your politicians).

How many officers have lost their pensions for giving advice that politicians don't want to hear? Obviously generals, like (for example) ambassadors, are expected not to publicly challenge decisions, but are there really such severe repercussions for dissenting opinions expressed through accepted channels? If a senior officer had expressed the opinion that occupying Afghanistan and trying to democratize it was a perverse enterprise destined for failure no matter what strategies were adopted, would he have been stripped of his pension, or would he simply have been ignored?

Maybe the fault of the people who voted for him knowing well that his background was law theory and short legislature service (history science, as minimum some deputy governor service and a more versatile -thus necessarily longer- legislative track record would have been preferable)?

The policy commitments in question were made by the President before this one... and in both cases they were elected by people with very little concern for foreign or military affairs, which are generally not the basis on which elections are decided in the US.

[Ken White]

Ken, some problems are about the president and the advice he gets.

Yes to both. However, he has or should have (but does not -- that's another thread...) People who serve as a cross check to the military advice. If he or she accepts bad military advice, whose fault is that? The bad advisor's or his / hers for accepting it?

The military is to blame for much on the political level (same in other countries), for it simply did not do its job at the high level. It did not advise well, it did not overcome its primitive 'can do' attitude, it did not overcome its bureaucratic instincts.

I agree. That's why I wrote this: "He is quite wrong in not holding the several Administrations and Congresses accountable for not forcing such a fix -- a fix that will never occur unless it is forced. Why should it be otherwise..." (emphasis added / kw)

Instead of saying "why should it be otherwise" I probably should have written "We'd be foolish to expect otherwise..."

[Fuchs]

Yes to both. However, he has or should have (but does not -- that's another thread...) People who serve as a cross check to the military advice. If he or she accepts bad military advice, whose fault is that? The bad advisor's or his / hers for accepting it?

Maybe the fault of the people who voted for him knowing well that his background was law theory and short legislature service (history science, as minimum some deputy governor service and a more versatile -thus necessarily longer- legislative track record would have been preferable)?

Maybe the fault of more competent people who did not run against him in the primary?

Maybe the political system's fault which led to the aforementioned factors?


The military is a bunch of institutions / bureaucracies. You can identify duds, you expect that the institution / bureaucracy removes them.
The failure can more easily be diagnosed than in the political system.


edit: Of how many generals and colonels got Marschall rid of in WW2 because of their incompetence? IIRC it was about 500. In the midst of a huge force expansion (multiplication) with a huge scarcity of formally qualified officers.

[JMA]

Maybe the fault of the people who voted for him knowing well that his background was law theory and short legislature service (history science, as minimum some deputy governor service and a more versatile -thus necessarily longer- legislative track record would have been preferable)?

Maybe the fault of more competent people who did not run against him in the primary?

Maybe the political system's fault which led to the aforementioned factors?

Their own Thomas Jefferson is credited with saying “The government you elect is government you deserve.”

The military is a bunch of institutions / bureaucracies. You can identify duds, you expect that the institution / bureaucracy removes them.
The failure can more easily be diagnosed than in the political system.

In war time yes. Less so in peace time. The longer the peace the more the military 'adjusts' itself to the needs of peacetime at the expense of keeping the military at a constant state of readiness (or near readiness).

edit: Of how many generals and colonels got Marschall rid of in WW2 because of their incompetence? IIRC it was about 500. In the midst of a huge force expansion (multiplication) with a huge scarcity of formally qualified officers.

There lies the inherent weakness in most militaries (which have to rely on mobilisation in time of war). You can produce soldiers in a matter of months from scratch but not so with senior NCOs and senior officers. The inability in peace time to 'test' officers on the way up also contributes to those able to 'game' the system to get promoted to senior officer level.