Brian Linn weighs in on Gentile vs. Nagl
Thanks for posting that. The take away:
Yes..."A final word. The Army is unlikely to win a particular war, much less all wars, unless it starts thinking a lot more seriously about war and a little less about process and procedure."
Excellent contribution
Brian Linn does a great job of taking the "personal" out of this debate and keeping it "professional."
Regardless of the endstate, I don't like reading personal attacks on either Nagl or Gentile.
Both are veterans who have showed moral and physical courage in two ways:
1. Leading soldiers in battle.
2. Voicing their concerns to make sure the Army gets it right.
v/r
Mike
I'm not familiar with him or is work (but I think that will change). It occurs to me that it takes (has taken) all three of these types to prevail.* Guardians: “war is best understood as an engineering project in which the outcome is determined by the correct application of immutable scientific principles.” Exemplar? Colin Powell.
* Heroes: “war is simply battle–an extension of combat between individuals on both the physical and the moral plane.” Exemplar? George S. Patton.
* Managers: “war is fundamentally an organizational (as opposed to an engineering) problem–the rational coordination of resources, both human and materiel.” Exemplar? George C. Marshall.
John Wolfsberger, Jr.
An unruffled person with some useful skills.
There's a fourth category that Linn either missed or was to polite to cite.
Survivors. Those who got there frequently having contributed little and who are determined to take no risks but put their name on something. Exemplar: I can think of several who are still alive that I will not name but Charles A. Willoughby (1892-1972) comes to mind...
No doubt they are there but
are they worth mentioning as they contribute little or nothing to discussion and debate?Originally Posted by Ken White
"Law cannot limit what physics makes possible." Humanitarian Apsects of Airpower (papers of Frederick L. Anderson, Hoover Institution, Stanford University)
Not just the Army, sadly...Quote:
"A final word. The Army is unlikely to win a particular war, much less all wars, unless it starts thinking a lot more seriously about war and a little less about process and procedure."
Penalty of suffering and travail visited upon those in a democracatic
society that is essentially not war like -- most do not want to think about war (including a surprising number in uniform...) until they have to and thus they'll put it off as long as possible.
Apparently the DSB Summer 2008 Report report LINK discusses how well we do 'own goals.'I particularly like the 6th and 3rd in that order..."One of the most revealing parts of the study is a top ten list of why the U.S. gets surprised at the strategic level.
* Thought we could respond without doing anything new
* Knew it was likely, understood the magnitude of the implications, but didn’t pursue it appropriately
* Did it to ourselves
* Believed they were not up to it
* Believed they wouldn’t dare
* Knew it might happen, but were trapped in own paradigms
* Didn’t imagine or anticipate the strategic impact
* Lost in the ’signal to noise’ of other possibilities
* Imagined it, but thought it was years away
* Were willing to take the risk that it wouldn’t happen. "
Which gets to the glaring omission from Linn's list: the Leader. The guy (or gal) who accepts the responsibilities of achieving a goal, formulating a plan, building a team, inspiring their efforts, and so on. All the Guardians, Heroes, and Managers in the world are going to exert a lot of effort with little return until the leader steps up and provides focus, a plan, and most of all, inspiration (or aspiration) to achieve the goal. (I'm omitting the Survivors since they don't contribute anything.)
Rumsfeld, since the 70s, has been an advocate for "Easy Button" warfare. He's the classic systems analyst who views humans as a messy, unpredictable part of the any system to be designed out at any opportunity. I don't know whether he distrusts leadership because he can't reduce it to numbers, or whether he simply doesn't believe it exists. But he seemed to play whack a mole any time leadership began to emerge (as it will in any group of people organized to complete a task or achieve a goal).
I'm reading Rick's book, "The Gamble." It wasn't until Keane took on the responsibility of leadership that the necessary step one of removing Rumsfeld took off. It wasn't until Petreus took command that the leadership was in place to uniformly apply the principles that had already been proven (McMasters, et.al.).
John Wolfsberger, Jr.
An unruffled person with some useful skills.
Clarification
I really appreciate the comments, but please keep in mind that the terms used in ECHO OF BATTLE (Guardians, Heroes, and Managers) refer to intellectual traditions within the US Army. They apply to how officers THINK about war in peacetime, not how they practice war. This typology is NOT a personality profile or a way to predict performance in combat. Someone who believes that martial virtues are the key determinant in warfare (a Hero) might behave like a Manager when in command (George C. Marshall might be an example). Thanks.
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