Jets or GIs?

[Rob Thornton]

I read the Kaplan piece this morning in the earlybird. I'm still not sure what to make of it. When you read it - it sounds like Kaplan is not even sure what he thinks about it.

To me, he is basically saying what everybody else is - the world is an uncertain place with lots of potential for conflict as resources get more scarce and become more important to the heavy weights requires a strong enough conventional force to deter and prevail if it should ever come down to it; while Barnett's "non-integrating gap" (one of many ways to describe it) along with Non-State Actors and the global jihad/global insurgency/global how we describe it next week, require a different skill set - we got that one - no arguments from me.

This all means more stuff for us to have to go do - and its across the full range of military operations - OK - got that one too. If Kaplan is arguing for more "means" to cover down on all the possible contingencies so we can do them all well - that is a hard uphill sell I'll bet. If he is talking about well defined policy goals that make tough choices and perhaps figures out ways to grow and employ soft power tools to achieve goals we might have had to use military force for - well, that sounds good too - but I'll bet that means growing some of the other departments and agencies to accomplish that - $$$.

What I am wondering about is the bouts of the COIN/SSTRO/LIC pushback I'm hearing about from some in the FG (field grade) ranks in all of the services. I heard from a Navy 05 who gave me his opinion of why he thought the navy should not invest in littoral ships to support "brown water" operations. While debate is healthy, and reminds us of things we might otherwise overlook - the stuff I've heard is darn near polar in terms of position - where folks refuse to acknowledge the concerns of the other side. Shows that this is a complicated issue for sure.

While we do have a responsibility to develop, acquire and train the capabilities we'll require for the future - we also don't get to choose our fights - people in pinstripes must decide that. In a very bare bone sense of things - fmr SEC DEF Rumsfelt was correct - when the bugle sounds - "you do go to war with the military you have" - its the only one we'll have at the time when somebody else makes the decision, and we won't be able to change it much.

More and more I believe this is why we should invest in people and leadership above all other DOTLMPF areas. All of those choices about how we proceed and why we should develop this, buy that or reorganize something are pushed forward by leaders - the better the leaders, the better choices I believe we'll make, the better advice we'll be able to provide in civil-military relations, and the more flexibility we'll have built into our choices - they'll simply be able to get more out of them as the future we saw 10-20 years ago, evolves differently in ways that could not have been anticipated. Leadership is the best mitigator to risk I know of, because it is the dynamic which helps shape the future - an absence of, or weak leadership leaves you a ship with no rudder.

Best regards, Rob