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.Is it? Or could it be a significant part of the problem that causes this: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.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:Bad strategy comes from bad generals and bad generals exercise bad strategy when they practice service sub-optimization to the detriment of combat operations.That's partly true and the reverse is also true, so we have a Chicken-Egg situation. This:Service sub-optimization is one of the major reasons for the establishment of the current joint command structure.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...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.Chiarelli, BTW is the Vice Chief of Staff of the Army. Not an inspired choice, I know...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 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.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?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.
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.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.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!
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?
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