Getting Strategy Right

[Polarbear1605]

Gentlemen, I apologize, excuse me for the rant. Ken and Bill, thank you for your patience, I can see it in your replies and it is greatly appreciated. I will, however, still stand by my opinion that you will not correct the lack of good US military strategy by changing current DOD structure (or G-N). Please understand I certainly am not a fan of the current national command structure but it does work when generals understand how it operates procedurally and they do not fall back into their service procedures and policies …for example, when they activate their Crisis Action Teams (or whatever buzz word they call it now a days).

In my mind strategy and command structure are two very different things. I recognize this thread is about “getting strategy right” and that’s good…but why introduce it with the Melton article…it’s a rabbit trail that will disappear into more rabbit trails. Melton’s creates the perception that strategy, operations and tactics as three separate things with his “reframes” (great!... another buzz word). Operations (and the Army is still trying to sell that term to the world) and tactics are contained within strategy …they are one thing and taking a step by step process…first strategy…then operations and then tactics… continues the excuse for failures. In Viet Nam we won the tactical war but lost the strategic war (thank you Harry Summers)…that’s “horse-pucky” because it’s an excuse for general officers to hide behind. Strategy is a general officer’s job as is selling it to the national command authority. When Rumsfield went astray with Iraq, we saw a couple replacements as normal retires, but we did not see a general’s revolt over bad strategy or a Vandergrift “bend knee” speech. Why didn’t Pace (your name) throw the bad strategy flag and call for a “reframe”? He could have done that with or without a different command structure. I am not saying we should court martial generals but identifying a problem and taking correctives actions is something all generals can recognize.

Bill Said:

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?

My counter question here is why do you think changing the current command structure a third time will work? … third time is a charm? …if it has not worked in the past why do you thing it will work to produce good strategy with another try? It is a general officer disease; perceived bad command structure is a symptom.

Bill Said:

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.

Strongly disagree with the bear hug theory…check O-6 and general officer promotion results against joint service requirement waivers from G-N to present. And that helps answer the next question: 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 we followed what few promotion policies that G-N initiated? ( I am hoping here that questions adds meaning to my word “wiggle” in my first post)...and will personnel selection and promotion policies ever be a “joint service” responsibility? Let’s follow (or enforce) the current joint promotion requirements…make them work and then enhance with some sort of “produce good strategy” rules. Example: “General…you can be either a combat commander or a service lead…it’s either or… not both.” (even better would be to start that last sentence with LtCol vs general).

Another way to say that is “general do you want to be a war fighter (strategist) or a service administrator? I suspect the Chairman could make that change with a presidential action paper the next time the president calls together a Afghanistan military strategy review committee.

Bill said:

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?

Answer: NO! It’s the generals (leadership). Again: It is a general officer disease; perceived bad command structure is a symptom.

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

That word “societal” is getting too “touchy-feely” for me. When you were talking about “crack pipes” in your response were you talking about mine or …yours? I will say this. US Military is a different society contain with the US society…we (the military) tends to get into trouble when generals try and blur or purposely confuse that line.

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 instill?

Yes!…sure. But if it has not worked on two other occasions why is the third time a charm? Again: It is a general officer disease; perceived bad command structure is a symptom and IMO until you get at least a couple of these folks on your side and leading this effort your peeing up the command structure rope.

The SECDEF's directive for the services to get better at irregular warfare is the correct thing to do in my opinion, but we shouldn't confuse failure at the tactical level as the reason we're in the mess we're in. It can be argued that even expert execution at the tactical and operational level won't win the strategic objective when we don't know what it is.

Could not agree more but why a directive instead of retirement papers? Is a general worth his salt if he does not know how to fight an insurgency? BTW the retirement papers route does not require a command structure change.

Gentlemen, I mean no disrespect in anything I have stated above…I recognize I usually make my points crudely. I also apologize for the length of this response…I surprised myself here. Maybe we should pick teams?!...if we do, I got dibs on JMM99 and WILF.