Getting Strategy Right

[Bill Moore]

Ken White has mentioned this several times, and I think this author provides accurate supporting fires that our current structure for developing effective strategies is deeply flawed. More later, but wanted to post the article so the community of interest could start thinking about it.

http://www.ndu.edu/press/war-and-its-aftermath.html#

Wars must be won first at the strategic level, then at the operational level, and then at the tactical level. Our strategic-level lodestones—the National Security Act of 1947 and Goldwater-Nichols Department of Defense Reorganization Act of 1986—have created cross-purposes at the strategic level of war and have proven inadequate in producing victory in war. These laws must be rewritten to ensure strategic unity of command.

[jmm99]

in other threads. Cavguy started a thread on Melton's book,The Clausewitz Delusion, titled Wilf Bait: The Clausewitz Delusion (10-11-2009).

The last Melton mention seems to have been by one JMM99, LTC Melton - Cavguy comments, where I cited but did not discuss the 2011 article:

Here is not the place for me to comment on LTC Melton's article, Conceptualizing Victory Anew (2011), which is subtitled "Revisiting U.S. Law, Doctrine, and Policy for War and Its Aftermath" - thus, entering my ballpark.

The article looks like a good takeoff point for discussion.

Bill: thanks for the post - I'd forgotten about this one.

Regards

Mike

[Pete]

In what was more a matter of semantics instead of substance, during Rumsfeld's recent tenure as SecDef the regional combatant commanders stopped being called CINCs.

[Ken White]

As Bill M. notes, I have long decried both the !947 amalgamation of War and Navy to form DoD and Goldwater-Nichols, contending both are deeply flawed and have harmed national defense and the conduct of foreign affairs. I'll have to read the article tomorrow but in the process of saving it, saw this picture, long a favorite. Note the posture and gaze of Admirals King and Leahy, General Marshall and the USAAF guy whose name escapes me now.

None of them are gazing at their illustrious leader much less each other. Note the gaze of all three Russians has a target. A picture is indeed worth a thousand words...

[Pete]

I wasn't born yet in 1947 so the National Defense Act can't be blamed on me. However, in regard to the other act of Congress I'm nearly positive that in 1964 one of our members had a bumpersticker on his car that said "In Your Heart You Know He's Right."

[jmm99]

How did you know that ?

But, you missed the plastic dashboard Curt LeMay cigar holder:





Mike

[Ken White]

People that mention them may not be but the stickers are...

Whoops -- caught again with two finger typing. Mike's bumper stickers would never have been tacky. Never...

[Polarbear1605]

Originally Posted by Bill Moore

Ken White has mentioned this several times, and I think this author provides accurate supporting fires that our current structure for developing effective strategies is deeply flawed.

http://www.ndu.edu/press/war-and-its-aftermath.html#

Could not disagree with that statement more (not the Ken White part, but). Mr Moore, if that is your definition of “adequate supporting fires” then I have this vision of you providing a box of rocks to a private and ordering him to go prep a combat LZ. Throwing PC rocks at the current command structure LZ is not adequate prep fire for solving the "strategic" issue.
LTC Melton’s article is fundamentally flawed. To blame bad strategy on the current Joint Goldwater Nichols Command structure is the PC way of avoiding the issue. Bad strategy comes from bad generals and bad generals exercise bad strategy when they practice service sub-optimization to the detriment of combat operations. Service sub-optimization is one of the major reasons for the establishment of the current joint command structure. My opinion is that Melton has not done his research…he can START by reading “Victory on the Potomac” after he puts down “Unrestricted Warfare”. Bad Strategy comes from bad generals and no one is willing to admit it in the US Military. How many different generals touched Iraq from the invasion until the surge…Franks, Sanchez, Abazaid, Fallon, Casey, Chiarelli…that is just a start on that list without even including Afghanistan. How many of those generals have been held accountable for things like Abu Ghraib, catch and release, and an occupation strategy that allow a full and bloody insurgency to grow and almost succeed. General Chiarelli is the current Army Chief of Staff for “crying-out-load”.
The general officer corps fought Goldwater-Nichols and never studied it nor embraced its purpose. Instead they continue to wiggle in their service loyalties that undermines and dominates their own combat command structure. In order to be Chief of Staff you need to be PC…and Combat Command is nothing more that a stepping stone to service chief. Being a good strategist has been left to the individual general and college professors. Fixing that issue does not start with the command structure; it starts with the general officers.
Give me a break! ….JMM99, I am with you…Cheers and where is the beer?

[Ken White]

Originally Posted by Polarbear1605

Throwing PC rocks at the current command structure LZ is not adequate prep fire for solving the "strategic" issue.

Take standing broad jumps at potentially wrong conclusions often?

I'm not at all sure that Bill Moore is being PC -- I do know that would be quite unlike most of his peers I know and that he has shown no such tendency here to date.

LTC Melton’s article is fundamentally flawed. To blame bad strategy on the current Joint Goldwater Nichols Command structure is the PC way of avoiding the issue.

Is it? Or could it be a significant part of the problem that causes this:

Bad strategy comes from bad generals and bad generals exercise bad strategy when they practice service sub-optimization to the detriment of combat operations.

I for one do not question that and I have so written a bunch of times. We have a sort of disconnect here, I think:

Service sub-optimization is one of the major reasons for the establishment of the current joint command structure.

That's partly true and the reverse is also true, so we have a Chicken-Egg situation. This:

Bad Strategy comes from bad generals and no one is willing to admit it in the US Military. How many different generals touched Iraq from the invasion until the surge…Franks, Sanchez, Abazaid, Fallon, Casey, Chiarelli…that is just a start on that list without even including Afghanistan.

is a list similar to one I could pull out that I have been complaining about for years. Every one of those plus McChrystal, Eaton, Myers, Pace and a few more. Not that it's done much good, they still did the damage that they did...

How many of those generals have been held accountable for things like Abu Ghraib, catch and release, and an occupation strategy that allow a full and bloody insurgency to grow and almost succeed. General Chiarelli is the current Army Chief of Staff for “crying-out-load”.

Chiarelli, BTW is the Vice Chief of Staff of the Army. Not an inspired choice, I know...

The answer to your question is none of the above, though Sanchez did get forced into early retirement (as have a few others) -- that seems to be the standard punishment of the Gen-Gens who embarrass the system. Question: Was that true prior to G-N?

Another question is how much of that ease into retirement rather than Courts Martial or other action is due to the JAG saying "It's not worth the trouble?" I ask that not to pick on the JAG types but to point a finger at Congress and the UCMJ -- and human nature.

The general officer corps fought Goldwater-Nichols and never studied it nor embraced its purpose. Instead they continue to wiggle in their service loyalties that undermines and dominates their own combat command structure. In order to be Chief of Staff you need to be PC…and Combat Command is nothing more that a stepping stone to service chief.

That's true on all counts and the political and stepping stone parts have always been true and are likely to remain so. I think that's human nature thing thus is unlikely to change. What would you change it to?

As for embracing its purpose, it got embraced; a bear hug -- on all the items that allow prerogatives and perks while evading responsibility. It was and is a good idea, it's just flawed and does not accept the vagaries of humans. It needs to be adjusted.

Being a good strategist has been left to the individual general and college professors. Fixing that issue does not start with the command structure; it starts with the general officers.
Give me a break!

Nah -- on the break issue. While I agree with your point that we've wrongly left strategy to the professors, that is largely a function of deeply flawed personnel policies imposed by Congress in the interest of 'fairness' (It does little good to yet again mention that I continually harp on the fact that war isn't fair...) and that is partly a result of the unintended consequences engendered by the creation of DoD and by G-N.

You have identified a problem. More correctly, you have served up the latest iteration of a problem that has been surfaced by many on this board, to wit, the relatively poor quality of Flag Officers. Others here including me have recommended improved military education, significant change to the OPMS (noting that most of its appalling ideas are Congressionally mandated), identifying and selecting innovative thinkers, rewarding initiative -- a lot of things that we now pay lip service to but in actuality stomp on to insure compliance and conformity. If you have anything to add to that list, that would be great.

You raise a good point. Your point also raises questions:

Are our current personnel selection and promotion problems better or worse as a result of the invention of DoD, Goldwater Nichols and Nunn-Cohen?

Have those acts and the accompanying plethora of micro managing efforts from Congress and DoD been causative in the development of the current environment and its concomitant promotion of predominately truly faceless bureaucratic types to 'high command?'

Has the broader American societal change been instrumental in the trend you identify and, if so, what can be done to ameliorate that?

Would or could a change to our organization for the defense of the nation, specifically by adjusting the National Security Act of 1947 as amended and both Goldwater-Nichols and the Nunn-Cohen amendment, be beneficial to achieve your aim of better and more competent strategies and strategists and my aim of less politically inclined, innovative Flag Officers who are not risk averse and who encourage and accept initiative by the simple expedient of reversing the diffusion of responsibility (and thus accountability) those Acts all instil?