Open Thread – Which US DoD Dinosaurs Would You Slay?

[SWJED]

After 30-plus years in this business; I’ve come to the conclusion many, many times along the way; that the Department of Defense, the Joint Staff, the Services, and associated activities have an abundance of antiquated and dysfunctional commands, organizations, offices, programs, and processes. Go figure. With two-plus wars, an ungodly optempo and shrinking resources we really cannot afford the excess baggage anymore.

I’d like to highlight some specifics in a potential Small Wars Journal article and SWJ Blog posting. I’d like this to be a Council effort and therefore asking our members to lay it out in this thread.

The ground rules are:

• Antiquated and/or dysfunctional commands, organizations, offices and processes that hinder progress and are high-impact. Not General Joe Blow “who didn’t get it” or a dysfunctional battalion in Operation ABC. Think big, critical, and long term.
  
• Identify the problem, cite, and provide recommendations to correct – and be reasonable.
  
• "Write" - don't ramble or bulletize.
  
• For those who wish to remain anonymous – e-mail or PM me – as long as I can verify your authority to make such commentary and recommendations you can rest assured your identity “goes to the grave”.

That is all.

[Entropy]

Quick question:

Are you asking only for things that we should be rid of completely or things that can be done better/reformed, or both?

[John T. Fishel]

My first follows from CPT Crispin Burke's op-ed in the Journal. He is railing there at an outdated education system coupled with a dysfunctional personnel system. My candidate for dinosaur is the latter in its OPMS XXI guise. While single tracking served to give more predictability to a career - FAOs, for example, could expect to retire as O5 or O6s rather than as Majors - but they will never again see stars. Surely, we can develop an officer personnel system that allows for dual tracking without destroying a career and gets some unique and desirable skills/experience into the GO ranks.

My second candidate for dinosaur is the USAR (and by extension the AFR) - event though I was a USAR officer for 28+ years. The problem is that there is a significant redundancy in higher HQs. Why do we need a National Guard Bureau and an Army Reserve Command? COL (ret.) Charles Heller would argue that the USAR is a Federal Reserve while the NG is the state militia updated. But that argument has been proven false by the post-DS/DS use of the RC as operational reserves (if it ever was true). Merging the Guard and Reserve would be appropriate and, since the NG has constitutional status while the Reserves do not, then any merger must be into the NG. Might just get rid of a whole bunch of unneeded senior officers....

Cheers

JohnT

[SWJED]

Quick question:

Are you asking only for things that we should be rid of completely or things that can be done better/reformed, or both?

Both.

[reed11b]

First, I second John T. on the OPMS and would further it to include all "up or out" or "zero defect" policies. I could not find the exact orders (Ken??) but many of the orders stating that training, manning and fitness (readiness) are the responsibility and priority of the individual as opposed to the unit's responsibility. How we PTS and man units should be looked at from a clean slate as well. See, I don't ask for much!
Reed

[Ken White]

I came up with several things when I read his fist post in the thread this morning. My problem with all of them is that -- like OPMS and the USAR / ARNG problem (and I very much agree both are major problems) they're things that DoD or the service has had to based on either law or significant Congressional pressure.

I'm not saying that all the inefficiencies can be laid at the feet of Congress; the Services are quite capable of doing some strange things but the really big things that immediately popped to mind are all Congressionally driven. I suspect that will make them difficult to change. I'd guess that, given the right rationale, change to OPMS would be attainable; change to NGB and the USARC are so deeply political I'm not sure they're adjustable.

Difficult, however, is not impossible. Many things need to be changed and Congress can be strange but they also are not totally unreasonable. I think when we proffer a problem, the issue(s) that make(s) it a problem and recommend solution(s), we need to bear in mind that if the item has interest from the Hill, we'll need to give a rationale that they can or will accept and that accords with the legislative cycle.

That is going to be time dependent. For example, many items in OPMS were pushed by Congress in an effort to be very fair to all concerned; to be fair to the point that they accepted degradation of effectiveness and officer competence and capability that resulted; that and the effort to be 'objective' in evaluations as opposed to subjective (as if that were possible...). Point is , a Republican majority just might revisit that 'fairness' angle, a Democratic majority is less likely to do so.

I could cite some things in the Army enlisted promotion system but my spies tell me that is in flux right now. So the status of a system or process -- and very current knowledge of it -- and whether it's embedded or in flux can have an effect on what one recommends...

I mention all that only as a mild caution...

[Entropy]

I'm not saying that all the inefficiencies can be laid at the feet of Congress; the Services are quite capable of doing some strange things but the really big things that immediately popped to mind are all Congressionally driven. I suspect that will make them difficult to change.

A lot of the stuff that immediately popped into my mind falls into that category, so I'm going to spend some time thinking about things that are politically realistic.

[Steve Blair]

I would slay the basic personnel assignment system. It's clearly broken, and has been so for MANY years. Up or out doesn't work, and neither does a system that rotates commanders so frequently that they never really get a chance to become familiar with their troops. It undermines trust, encourages careerism, and generally works to the detriment of the military.

I'd replace it with something that harks back to the original branch system with a healthy dose of regimental identity thrown in. Maybe this is a bit "bigger" than the original intent of the question, but I do feel that the majority of our problems stem from this system.

Barring that, I'd make the Air Force adopt an NCO promotion system more in line with that of the other services. Not meeting a board until you're up for Senior Master Sergeant (they test for all other ranks) just doesn't make sense.

[Ken White]

on a large number of promotion boards at unit and DA level, I'm here to tell you the Board process is far from an all encompassing solution...

Testing for promotion has merit -- as do boards if properly structured but when things occur as they did at one DA Board I was involved with where the President told us what parameters the then-OPM Personnel Actions chief told him HAD to be applied to all potential selectees and the prime criteria was the picture...

However, your point that the current systems are archaic, out of touch, seem to exist to serve the personnel managers rather than the services is well taken.

[marct]

However, your point that the current systems are archaic, out of touch, seem to exist to serve the personnel managers rather than the services is well taken.

Too true, Ken. What bothers me is the ad that's been showing up for me on this thread after your post...

[Entropy]

Actually, the Navy doesn't use boards either until E-7. I've seen some units use a local board at the unit level to screen candidates for E-7 in the Air Force, but that seems pretty rare.

I had a big pretty post all typed up on the topic of this thread and somehow I lost it. Very frustrating. I'll try to get it back together later so I can make a substantive comment to this post.

[reed11b]

Ranger School.
Reed