Army Officer Accuses Generals of 'Intellectual and Moral Failures'

[SteveMetz]

Interesting article in the WSJ today "Critiques of Iraq War reveal Rift among Army Officers" - converges multiple SWC topics into one article, but this seemed the best one to post it to.


You can also get to it in today's E-bird.

Also ref. in the same article are:

The creation of an Army Advisory Corps

Comments from USAF MG Dunlap

Future of COIN and Nation Building Like missions as core competencies

Civil Military Relations

Lots of other good stuff

What I liked was this line from Greg's story:

"...Many young officers complain that the Army, which is desperately short of captains, treats them like interchangeable cogs. "As long as I don't get a DUI or fornicate on my boss's desk, I will be promoted with my peers," Col. Burton's memo quotes one officer as saying."

I sent that to my two LTCs and told them I was always looking for new bullet comments to put on their OERs and I thought I'd borrow the ones from the unnamed captain.

I was also struck by Greg's use of Charlie Dunlap. Dunlap submitted a version of that essay to the Strategic Studies Institute to publish but I personally thought that it totally missed the point of counterinsurgency. It was one more attempt to extrapolate the "Afghanistan" model of warfighting to other types of conflict.

[Shek]

This portion of Jaffe's article struck a chord, as it reminded me of a friend's story of a similar experience during a GO address to his ICCC (artist formerly known as IOAC) course right ahead of me back in 2000 during the great captain's exodus that also coincided with all the negative small group survey remarks out of CGSC.

During the address, when the advanced course students started questioning what the Army was going to do about fixing the exodus problem, the lecturer (a one-star) spoke about how the Army was better off without those officers that were leaving, disparaging the officers as lacking a sense of duty. Instead of addressing the problem, what was conveyed by this senior leader of the Army was that the concerns of company grade officers weren't important and that the Army was more interested in blaming the victims of senior leader decisions instead of fixing the problem.

I hope that we aren't facing a similar situation here, but the red herring thrown out that only generals can judge generals concerns me.

At Fort Hood, Maj. Gen. Jeff Hammond, the top general at the sprawling base, summoned all of the captains to hear his response to Col. Yingling's critique. About 200 officers in their mid- to late-20s, most of them Iraq veterans, filled the pews and lined the walls of the base chapel. "I believe in our generals. They are dedicated, selfless servants," Gen. Hammond recalls saying. The 51-year-old officer told the young captains that Col. Yingling wasn't competent to judge generals because he had never been one. "He has never worn the shoes of a general," Gen. Hammond recalls saying.

The captains' reactions highlighted the growing gap between some junior officers and the generals. "If we are not qualified to judge, who is?" says one Iraq veteran who was at the meeting. Another officer in attendance says that he and his colleagues didn't want to hear a defense of the Army's senior officers. "We want someone at higher levels to take accountability for what went wrong in Iraq," he says.

[Steve Blair]

All this is sounding very much like what the Army saw during and immediately after Vietnam. The fleeing captains was another issue there.

[Rob Thornton]

Hey Shek, how is the baby?

At Fort Hood, Maj. Gen. Jeff Hammond, the top general at the sprawling base, summoned all of the captains to hear his response to Col. Yingling's critique. About 200 officers in their mid- to late-20s, most of them Iraq veterans, filled the pews and lined the walls of the base chapel. "I believe in our generals. They are dedicated, selfless servants," Gen. Hammond recalls saying. The 51-year-old officer told the young captains that Col. Yingling wasn't competent to judge generals because he had never been one. "He has never worn the shoes of a general," Gen. Hammond recalls saying.

The captains' reactions highlighted the growing gap between some junior officers and the generals. "If we are not qualified to judge, who is?" says one Iraq veteran who was at the meeting. Another officer in attendance says that he and his colleagues didn't want to hear a defense of the Army's senior officers. "We want someone at higher levels to take accountability for what went wrong in Iraq," he says.

Makes you wonder how wide the gulf is? Since I was not there, and the article sounds like second or third party info, I have to wonder how it went. It seems things like that go one of two ways. Way one might be - "OK - listen up, its like this...." Way two might go, "Hey I think we have a problem, and I need you guys to help me understand it so I can help to solve to it....."

I think senior leaders should be personally engaging their company and field grades on a number of issues. For me, even if a guy can't give me the answer I want to hear, his acknowledgement of the problem, the useful dialogue that accompanies it, and the ensuing dialogue of the 06 crowd and below is very important. It creates the conditions to solve not only the problem at hand, but to identify and solve future problems the organization faces.

We can't hide from this problem any more then the civil military-relations one, or the Inter-Agency one, the officer attrition problem, or the future shape of the Army one, or the host of others – which is why I’m glad somebody finally put them in one article. They are all related in that they stem largely from the post 9/11 operating environment and the problems that has engendered. We can either get through this together, with our volunteer Army intact and adapted to meet these long term new problems, or we can polarize our views, risking irrelevancy and the type of stumbling that is hard and painful to recover from. While we can absorb a great deal of pain, I’m not sure we can absorb that much at this rate.

I believe that both ends need to listen. The seniors have a problem set with responsibilities that more junior leaders really can't comprehend. Conversely, this post 9/11 world has created challenges and pressures at the most tactical end of the rank structure that senior leaders probably find difficult to put in the perspective of their previous experiences. Any useful dialogue has to start by acknowledging things are different, and that the concerns of both are relative to the health of the Army.

We can't afford an "us and them" set of camps, there are too many of those on the battlefield right now that illustrate the danger in that, but we also can't afford to ignore the problem since the war cannot be put on hold.

[Rob Thornton]

The line in the article from the CPTs who said

"they treat us like inter-changeable cogs"

- that is almost a direct lift from Machiavelli's "The Prince".

Do CPTs see GOs and senior leaders as being "Machiavellian" in their attitudes toward junior leaders and war in general?

How about examining if we suffer from organizational narcissism to some degree?

What would that perception be based on, and what would it take to change it?

[120mm]

I think the most telling comment vis-a-vis the arrogance, ignorance and incompetence of the O-6 and above crowd in the army today is encapsulated in the phrase: "You can't judge us, because you aren't one of us." I see the same attitude among Urinalists and the NEA-type teachers.

With the exception of a few GOs, most of them live apart from the soldiers who serve under them, have incredibly huge staffs that insulate them from "work" or (gasp) "leadership" and have no idea what their jobs are really supposed to be, or what units are assigned to them.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again. The typical O-6 and above relies COMPLETELY on powerpoint slides and surveys to try to get to know their units. And if an LTC or below cannot look at that and see something wrong, then it's time to fire all the worthless bastards and start over again.

[Cavguy]

I think the most telling comment vis-a-vis the arrogance, ignorance and incompetence of the O-6 and above crowd in the army today is encapsulated in the phrase: "You can't judge us, because you aren't one of us." I see the same attitude among Urinalists and the NEA-type teachers.

On the money. I thought it was telling that MG Hammond gave that speech, if his tone was as characterized as the article (and that he was threatened enough to call an "all officers" brief to rebut).

I'll just paraphrase a passage I faintly recall from Lewis Sorely's "Thunderbolt", a great biography of GEN Abrams. (execuse all the inaccuracy in the below, it's from memory, but has stuck with me through the years)

Near or just after the end of Vietnam, when GEN Abrams was the Army Chief of Staff, he visited a service school (Leavenworth, if I recall), and basically got abused by the audience of junior officers with pointed questions about the failings of the army and general post-Vietnam issues.

His aide (I believe it was LTC [later GEN] Reimer) commented to him afterwards "The thing with these young officers, they're so idealistic, they don't understand...."

GEN Abrams replied, "Yes, and it's my job to keep them that way."

Food for thought. I have always hated to watch senior officers patronize and dismiss the junior ones who have valid concerns.

[Rob Thornton]

Somebody mentioned to me today the idea of a generation gap between GOs and CO Grades/FGs. There is something to that I think.

[Lastdingo]

Somebody mentioned to me today the idea of a generation gap between GOs and CO Grades/FGs. There is something to that I think.

Such a gap always existed. But the symptomms that were described in this thread and elsewhere did not always exist, in other armies.

And there were examples where the old guard adopted the ideas of reformers once those ideas proved their worth in battle. The German army of 1940 is such an example - it turned from an army with few believers in mobile warfare with Panzer spearheads well in advance of infantry divisions into a true believer army. Some Panzer and Stuka sceptics turned into very successful Panzer/Stuka leaders in less than two years.

[SteveMetz]

Somebody mentioned to me today the idea of a generation gap between GOs and CO Grades/FGs. There is something to that I think.

Have you seen the work Lenny Wong of the Strategic Studies Institute has done on that?

[Dr Jack]

Have you seen the work Lenny Wong of the Strategic Studies Institute has done on that?

Here's the monograph by Dr Wong:

GENERATIONS APART:XERS AND BOOMERS IN THE OFFICER CORPS by Leonard Wong, October 2000

http://www.strategicstudiesinstitute....cfm?pubID=281

I would also recommend reading Mark Lewis' response to the monograph:

http://www.d-n-i.net/fcs/lewis_gen-x.htm

[Rob Thornton]

I remember reading DR. Wong's piece, but I had not seen Lewis' piece. Funny thinking back to 2000 and those in my 96' YG who left. 2000 seems like a long time ago for only being 7 years. Dr. Lord had a neat chart he pitched to BSAP showing growth challenges for the Army in light of attrition.

[Dr Jack]

I would also recommend reading Mark Lewis' response to the monograph:

http://www.d-n-i.net/fcs/lewis_gen-x.htm

Mark Lewis is a player; he's a Professional Staff Member and Senior Policy Advisor to the Chairman of the House Armed Services Committee (HASC):

http://armedservices.house.gov/staff_contacts.shtml

[Rob Thornton]

What are his thoughts as of late on Army attrition, or health of the Army in general? It'd be great to get his thoughts on the atmosphere in Congress about Army issues. I'm not sure there are any staffers who currently comment on the Council??

[Steve Blair]

Lewis' piece is quite good, and cuts right to the heart of many issues. I'm an early X'er, and have seen many of those Boomer "it's not our fault" reactions on many levels and in many places.

Lastdingo, the generation gap idea is in many ways a recent US social phenomenon. I think you'd see the European equivalent in countries after World War I (although there may be other examples as well). It tends to happen when there's a sudden spike in the population for one reason or another. It's a difference in social and personal perceptions that people bring to the Army, not something that happens in the Army.

[Jimbo]

I think Lewis and Wong have pin-pointed some areas, and come up short in some others. I think the slide in Lewis' article probably had he top three things that really drove people up the wall (at the time it was published). as an x'er, the surveys, in my opinion often had over simplified mutliple choice questions that one could extrapolate a multitude of different conclusions. I would some it up with the old revolutionary causation of raised expectations met an underwhelming reality equals dissatisfaction. Most of my peers who left the Army left because they were disappointed in what they experienced. Realistically, you know you aren't going to live the TV ad every day, but once in a while would have been nice, and that is what people wanted at the time. This was a also coupled with the NTC/JRTC "report card" along with the transition from doctrine to dogma. As an LT, I emember my battalion winning a battle at NTC, but we were hammered in the AAR because the proper MDMP was not followed. So when you are 22 to 30 year old officer with even marginal common sense, you start to assess what is going on around you, you begin to wonder if anybody still has the bubble on what core competencies are. About the time you have identified that problem, you are at your "should I stay or should I go" point, you realize, hey if I had been given a little mentoring on lieutenantdom (meaning more than life sucks for LT's suck it down) and the opportunity to plan and execute some training at platoon level that enabled a lieutenant to really get a good sense of he his men can and can't do botht as individuals and as a team (without having to worry about the BN CDR or CO evaluating him on what his platoon was doing), I think retention wouldn't have been as big of a problem. The other problem was the continuation of seperation incentives beyond 1995, such as the LT's into the guard after 2 years. That continued to send the message that Army was still downsizing. So a lot of guys bolted. A lot of this is no moot because of the current situaion we are in. retention is still a concern, but the issues are different. I would say that the bigger problem now is experience is not just time based. I believe that Wong's premise on authority is more true today than it was when he did his monograph. The disconnect between what company grade officers have been through since 2001 (today's senior capatains and majors) compared to senior leaders (O-6+) is night and day. The positions, authorities, and responsibilities might not have changed much, but the experiences, even within the saem battalion, are vastly different.

[SWJED]

14 July USA Today commentary - General Failure by Ralph Peters.

There is only one test for a generation of generals: Did the men with stars on their shoulders win or lose their war? No matter the mitigating circumstances and political restrictions military leaders face, there is no "gentleman's C" in warfare. The course is pass-fail.

Despite including many fine combat commanders, our military leadership could fail in Iraq, defeated by terrorists, rough-hewn insurgents and shabby militiamen who understood America's limitations better than the generals did.

The generals point out that they don't control the strategic decisions, that all they can do is to follow orders, that then-secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld wouldn't listen to anyone, that Congress undercut the military, that the media's behavior has been pernicious, and that Iraq's political leaders have failed their country.

Each claim is true. Even so, as the Army taught me, "The maximum effective range of an excuse is zero meters." Our generals must shoulder their share of the blame for the mess in Iraq.

Our current system of selecting generals produces George Pattons in bulk. But it hasn't produced another George Marshall, the general who had the ethical force to disagree — respectfully — with his president when victory was at stake...

[MikeGreene]

I ran across this counterpoint to LTC Yingling's commentary on the AFJI website.

It's entitled "The 20/20 Hindsight Gift" by LTC John Mauk.

A brief excerpt that kind of shows the tone of the rebuttal:

Yingling knows and apparently ignores that our military trains for both unconventional and conventional warfare. He now appears to enjoy unimpaired hindsight and preaches the merits of counterinsurgency as though he experienced a bolt of bright light from the heavens on the road to Damascus.

Not that I'm an expert in linguistics or anything, but this just sounds flip and condescending. I agree with his call for a cultural change, but it's kind of lost on me because of the chosen method of refuting LTC Yingling's commentary. That being said, I didn't agree with some of LTC Yingling's recommendations, and am still on the fence about some of his assertions. But when you couple this with the recent discussions around COL McMaster's non-selection, the conspiracy theorist in me comes out. Dissent is not welcome, is it?

So what is the "right" way to challenge the Sacred Cows that need to be grilled? How do you push for change with a giant hammer hanging over your head?

Not that I plan on leaving until they drag me out, but I can certainly understand why so many may be looking for the door.

Regards,

Mike.

Major, MAARNG

[Ken White]

"Yingling knows and apparently ignores that our military trains for both unconventional and conventional warfare. He now appears to enjoy unimpaired hindsight and preaches the merits of counterinsurgency as though he experienced a bolt of bright light from the heavens on the road to Damascus. The reality is that before the war, the services operated as we do now, in a resource-constrained world that forces each to make difficult strategic choices about the scope and types of training they undertake. The Army balances our mix of conventional and unconventional training based on consideration of frequent threat assessments and the limitations of our resources. Before Sept. 11, our leadership was rightly focused on the most likely national threats and the difficult task of positioning our forces to counter them. The slowness with which we transitioned to the unconventional environment we now find ourselves in is purely the result of having to shift operational gears in the middle of a fight."

That's one the nicest apologias for strategic planning incompetence I've ever seen.

I do believe that, prior to 11 Sep 01, it had been obvious for ten years at an absolute minimum that countering insurgency was likely to be the Army's lot, like it or not. I'd really say that was true for over 20 years but I'm feeling charitable this morning...

He's correct that the Army does train for both unconventional and conventional warfare -- today. He's almost certainly aware that was not the case prior to 2003 for by far and away the vast majority of the Army.

Mediocre try, no cigar. He's correct about only one thing IMO, getting Congress involved is not a good idea...

[Tom Odom]

That's one the nicest apologias for strategic planning incompetence I've ever seen.

I do believe that, prior to 11 Sep 01, it had been obvious for ten years at an absolute minimum that countering insurgency was likely to be the Army's lot, like it or not. I'd really say that was true for over 20 years but I'm feeling charitable this morning...

He's correct that the Army does train for both unconventional and conventional warfare -- today. He's almost certainly aware that was not the case prior to 2003 for by far and away the vast majority of the Army.

Ken,

You are correct and too charitable. The paragraph you copied is pure bovine excreta. I had a thesis advisor speak on future wars in 1989 and he talked of small wars, distant from the public eye, and heavy on COIN. Certain CGSC classmates of mine thought COIN was unthinkable even as guys like Kalev Sepp were hip deep in El Salvador. Dan Bolger and I as Majors in 1992 debated via Parameters on whether large scale armor battles would ever occur. He offered they were as extinct as the 21st Lancers at Omdurman in 1898. I countered that one should never say never when it comes to warfare.

The author would have been somewhat correct if he had said the US military had concentrated on the most dangerous threats prior to 9-11. I say somewhat because an unforeseen (or ignored) threat can be more dangerous than one you prepared for. I am reminded that some folks would do well to get a peep hole implanted in their navels...


Best

Tom