Countering Lind-dinistas - if the mission is impossible, don't blame me

[wm]

wm,

My point is there is more than one dimension in analyzing the conditions of civil-military relations and the appropriate boundaries for the behaviors of senior military officers.

Should it turn out that officers are not able to support these two rules of conduct, then they ought not continue to serve. One would hope that they would end their service voluntarily, but sometimes, as in MacArthur's case, they must be removed. Some others may take what I call the Speer defense (after German Armaments Minister Albert Speer) and stay because they believe that their replacements would do even more damage.

They 'should' but why don't they? As it appears, they attempted to fulfill your two 'rules of conduct' without regard for the consequences. And with the exception of a few senior officers relieved for one reason or another, they all benefited handsomely from their activities irregardless of the outcomes. Is this a question of incentives? Opportunities?

AP:
Your initial sentence speaks to more than one dimension in analysis. What are the dimensions you have in mind? Your ultimate paragraph seems to suggest that "it is all about the Benjamins" for these senior folks, which is a single dimension.

I am willing to acknowledge that this may be true for some of them. However, based on my experiences with many senior leaders, a variation of the Speer Defense that I mentioned before seems much more the case. If it were really just about money and power, then I submit that most of these leaders would have left before the magic 10 year mark, when many officers realize they are half way to a chance to get a pretty nice pension. Or, they would not have joined at all because they could have made much more in the private sector. BTW the pension piece , in my day, was still iffy until 18.5 years of service. You could be bounced at 18yrs, 5 months and get nothing after a third passover for promotion.

[TheCurmudgeon]

I am a horrible example, but I don't think you can find a single answer. There were those who stayed for the Benjamins, and there were those who stayed based on the Speer defense. Many of us simply stayed because we knew the nation needed leaders and the bench was not deep. We knew that many of those on the bench sucked. We may not have been the best players on the field, but we had the interests of those who worked for us and those at home who paid our salaries at heart.

But I don't think that answers the question. It might be best if we move further comments to the "William S Lind and the US Officer Corps" thread on how to deal with the problems our current system presents to the officer corps.

Moderator adds: discussion thread referred to is:http://council.smallwarsjournal.com/...ad.php?t=20590

[AmericanPride]

wm,

I don't think it's "all about the benjamins" for all of them (maybe not even most of them). Some may be driven by your so-called "Speer effect" - others because they perceive they have no other options within or outside the Army. Some might genuinely agree with the prescribed policy despite significant public or institutional criticism. In the specific case of Iraq, I think after Shinsheki was fired, a combination of passivists and opportunitists subordinated themselves to Rumsfeld's wizardry about a fast, quick, and cheap war.

If something is known to be 'impossible' beforehand by the technical experts designated to implement it, and the cost of implementation is measured in human lives, is there not an ethical responsibility to protest?

[TheCurmudgeon]

If something is known to be 'impossible' beforehand by the technical experts designated to implement it, and the cost of implementation is measured in human lives, is there not an ethical responsibility to protest?

Some, although not in the administration, did protest. The quote in post #5 is from one voice arguing against Larry Diamond, one of the architects of the Bush administration’s plan. But that plan was built largely on the belief that we won the Cold War because democracy is the best system in existence and everyone wants to be like us, not that Communism had inherent economic detriments. It was largely blind faith*:

Pundits, policymakers, and presidential candidates have offered opinions on the pace of political change in Iraq, but they have cited neither wellestablished theories of democratization nor rigorous social science evidence to
support their views.4 Scholars have an obligation to address such policyrelevant questions as how long it will take for Iraq to democratize, but thus far comparative, theoretically informed empiricism has been notably absent.

The result is confusion about both Iraq’s present accomplishments and its future course. Elections are lauded as symbolic of the arrival of democracy, but every democratic theorist agrees that there is far more to democracy than elections.
The voter turnout of the courageous Iraqi people is said to signal the triumph of democracy, but history shows that it has never been the unwillingness to vote that has prevented democracy, but rather the failure to honor
the results of those elections.5 An Iraqi-headed government may embody sovereignty, but scholars of democracy are unanimous that the tricky part of maintaining the monopoly on the legitimate use of force lies not in creating instruments
of power, but in constraining its illegitimate exercise. That requires a web of respected institutions, mobilized interests, and deeply rooted values, not foreign armies. Immediate problems—forming a government, holding an
election, or maintaining security—have been addressed as if their resolution would be decisive in engineering a democratic Iraq, without consulting the historical record of democratization elsewhere.

Long Time Coming: Prospects for Democracy in Iraq

I suspect that if there were those in the adminstration that disagreed with the potential for success they met the same fate as GEN Shinseki.

*Interestingly, it is the same blind faith that people everywhere think and act just like Americans are currently using when examining the crisis in the Ukraine or how to deal with Syria. For some Americans, the idea all people are created equal equates to all people have the same morals and values we do. It is part of the American myth.

[slapout9]

So eveything about Lind no matter what is supposed to go to the other thread? Is that correct? Cause I got some stuff I want to say

[TheCurmudgeon]

Slap,

Yes please.

[Bob's World]

Much of what the military has been asked to do, and how the military has opted to do it clearly fails the "Acceptable, Suitable, Feasible" test.

I believe the following position is on point:

“Democracy, good governance and modernity cannot be imported or imposed from outside a country.”Emile Lahoud, President of Lebanon, 1998-2007

[TheCurmudgeon]

Paper completed, submitted to WOR.