Your Brain In Combat

[Ken White]

Selecting officers based on their responses in realistic training...other measures that generic nothing in the way of a leadership metric.

Unfortunately, the incompetent will always be with us -- at all ranks and grades. The system catches many but can never catch all and the number of shoddy leaders that slip through varies, it's cyclical. A good CofSA has his effect 15-20 years down the road. Conversely, a bad one does the same thing. The Personnel system rewards conformity and mediocrity so that has been true since WW I and the Army thus waxes and wanes.

It also reflects civilian society...

However, as we rush to close theaters and begin an age of austerity...That said, I think we need to suck it and find a way to sustain (assuming it's already done) good training.

That's the been there, done that. All you mention and more has occurred before and the Army survived. There were times in the late 50s-early 60s and again in the late 70s and the 90s when all those things were problematic -- even to the extent of inadequate funding for fuel causing vehicles to stay in the motor pool for entire fiscal quarters.

Good news is there is an unintended benefit. In austere times, people learn literally to do more with less and one has to innovate and use initiative. Those latter two things get stifled all too often in periods of excessive money being available.

There's also the benefit that less funding is available for the micro-managers to stick their nose into things.

Consider that the 'broke' Army of the 1930s did okay when committed after a few minor bubbles and the almost equally relatively poorly funded Army of the early 60s did okay in Viet Nam -- until the money kicked in, the second team got hired and the politics got overly intrusive. The American solution of throwing money at things that do not work rarely really succeeds in fixing the problems. Making do has its merits...

At the risk of being a heretic, I think the CTCs are also inimical to good training and they are ungodly expensive in all aspects including travel and equipment. They have some merit but having seen Army units before their inception and after, I'm not convinced the results justify the significant expense. Just the opposite, in fact. Aside from the CTCs, the Task, Condition and Standard solution of BTMS severely and adversely affected Army Training.

Dump both those and the picture ahead may not be nearly as bleak as one might think.

Got so busy being philosophical I lost the thread -- in austere times, you can't just buy stuff and do things by rote or even afford running shoes, you have to THINK and not waste money on inessentials. That in itself is what they call "good trainin'." Great exercise for the brain...