Steve is right, absolutely
Ken:
Steve is able to say the thing well and more clearly than I in many fewer words. Well and ably said.
I do read what you write and what you imply too. There was a plainly implicated suggestion that I responded to..
I hope Flag Os don't make decisions about promoting from O-1 to O-2. They should leave those decisions to people lower down. I don't see how a Flag O could possibly know enough about an individual not on his immediate staff to know if that person should go from O-2 to O-3.
Nope Ken, don't buy it when you say "Not only that but Congress acceded to other Politicians to place Troops in a position where 'night raids' were one of the few answers to the tactical problem presented in a combat situation that is artificially constrained by political and not military considerations." Night raids are the solution chosen. And it is the solution stuck with even when it doesn't work well and hasn't for years. That is a failure of military imagination, a failure of the military. The civilians may put the military in difficult situations, sometimes even impossible. But those Flag Os get paid to use their noodles and adapt in imaginative ways. They don't seem to do that very well. And no sympathy for the Flag Os if they want to complain about political constraints. That is the way it has always been.
The mortal enemy of good enough is perfect. An ally of perfect is "fix the whole thing and not just part of it." Mostly. Often you gotta do what you can do when you can do it. If you don't because you are waiting for the opportunity to do the whole thing, nothing gets done because that opportunity may not come in time or ever. It would be much better to fix "the long standing political, systemic and societal problems at the root of the dysfunction.", but that is a pretty tall order and not likely to happen. If all that isn't done, problem will likely return, but not for a while and during that while things may be a bit better.
This is what you wrote about Congressional risk aversion "Again, speak to your Congress. The Armed forces are risk averse; all those things you cite would entail risk of more casualties and lost careers. It's not a 'risk averse' calling, so why are they so risk averse?" It seems quite reasonable to view that as a powerful statement about how risk averse Congress is. But I was wrong. Good. We are in agreement that Congress isn't all that risk averse.
If the Flag Os won't do what they know is the right thing because "they're afraid of Congressional disapproval and 'harmful' media attention", that is moral cowardice. No sympathy nor absolution for what is plainly a lack of strong moral character.
In the end it doesn't matter why we are so tightly bound to the road. We are. That is a bad thing. The Flag Os of an army that is road bound probably can't be judged in a favorable light.
I disagree about the MRAPs. They were developed and fielded because the Humvees couldn't take the hits. It was pretty apparent that the choice wasn't between getting off the road or going MRAP. The military establishment wasn't going to get off the road. So that left the MRAP as the only out. That was a perfectly rational response to the situation. And it was caused by a military failure.
What I said was "My forever a civilian uniformed opinion". What I meant to say was 'My forever a civilian uniNformed opinion'. Oh what a difference an n makes. I mostly lose my hat while wearing it on my head too.
Granted that Congress creatures make their wishes known. But that is late in the process. Most of the winnowing out has been done by then I would guess, done by the military establishment.
I don't understand why McMaster having attracted Congressional attention would matter unless he was espousing things that the establishment didn't want to hear. It would seem to me that if merely having attracted attention was the sin, then the sin is actually jealousy by the establishment. And besides, you said at those levels the whims and wishes of Congress are made known so the people become known to Congress anyway.
You are right about a Congress trying to fix things and getting it wrong. But the Congress tries fix things because nothing will get done otherwise. The military establishment won't do it, refuses to do it so Congress tries, poorly but at least they try. I agree too that in order to fix it you have to see it in focus but the people who can see it most clearly, won't do anything. But they are more likely to do something, a little tiny bit anyway, if they don't have dopey statements about being the best in world history ringing in their ears.
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