Two more cents;

I like the idea of having specialised NCOs (junior NCOs still learning on the job, senior NCOs expected to be the mainstay of training, motivation and supervision) which are practically bound to their branch and accumulate lots of specialised expertise*.

I also like the idea of having the officer corps divided into staff (planning, management) and combat (leadership, combined arms tactics proficiency, independent of branch) careers.


Many armies are close to this, but it appears to me that they somehow lost focus of it or forgot the purpose of their designs and allowed it to rot away.

It's an indication of 'rottenness' if rank inflation (or trust in junior leaders) has eroded so much that a LtCol leads a platoon-sized checkpoint, if you need to be a NCO to become an AFV driver or if even a company leading-captain isn't trusted in his small unit tactics proficiency (much less in understanding the co-operation of a combined arms formation).


This is not only about the initial selection of officers (or NCOs). It's about how they are being used, about getting rid of discovered duds- it's first and foremost about high expectations and the energy to pursue them.
An army is a bureaucracy and as such by default satisfied with its performance, unsatisfied with its size and budget.
This is what needs to be broken; we cannot cure the basic principal-agent problem of a bureaucracy, but we can make it critical of its own performance and institutionalise dissatisfaction with its own performance.

There's always a reason for being dissatisfied; this reason needs to be exposed and utilised. Free-play adversarial (similar or dissimilar) challenges should be the rule and be used to make shortcomings obvious. Persistent failure in getting rid of problems should not only end careers, but end careers in dishonour, with public exposure.



How could we expect that the bureaucracy correctly identifies the duds in a few days right at the beginning if it allows duds to serve and be promoted to high ranks?



*: Believe it or not, the Bundeswehr is nowadays crazy enough that a navy NCO can serve as tank driver instructor.