Quote Originally Posted by carl View Post
Nope Ken, don't buy it to the extent you imply it is.
Don't try to determine what I'm 'implying.' Read what I write and don't add the gospel according to Carl to it.
There are just too many things done that Congress can't affect.
No question and I've never denied that. As I said above, Steve's right. He's more right than you happen to be because he understands it's a mixed bag. What I wrote was this:

""Congress dictates how those who like Powerpoint and Reflective Belts, those who order night raids will be selected, 'educated' and promoted. It approves those who get to Flag rank. Note the words dictate and approve...""

As you acknowledge:
It may approve those who attain flag rank but it doesn't have much to do with selections from O-1 to O-2 to O-3 and on and on. That is the military establishment.
True -- but those FlagOs do make those selections and decisions...

Not only that but Congress acceded to other Politicians to place Troops in a position where 'night raids' were one of the few answers to the tactical problem presented in a combat situation that is artificially constrained by political and not military considerations.

Don't fix the belts and raids, they're only symptoms of a far broader problem. That's the point.
To easy to blame somebody else instead of looking at the military establishment, which is what the original article said must be done.
In reverse order, I was more than likely strongly criticizing the military establishment before you and the author of that article were born. What has happened since then is that I've learned that while much of that criticism was and is well deserved, the Flags aren't the only problem. It is cultural (and much of that is American societally induced) and it is pervasive -- I'm merely pointing out that as is true of much wrong in American society today, a series of well intentioned but poorly thought out laws affect the military in strange and unforeseen ways.

I'm not blaming anyone -- there's enough of that for a whole slew of folks. What I am doing is writing that if you want to fix it, fix all of it or the problems will just reappear. We've done partial fixes before, after Korea and after Viet Nam -- but those fixes attacked the outward manifestations (or some of them...) and did not address the long standing political, systemic and societal problems at the root of the dysfunction.
Nor do I buy that Congress and by extension the Americans are especially risk averse.
Again, read what I wrote. I did not write that, you assumed it as you do many things. I specifically wrote that the Armed Forces were risk averse. They live in fear of Congress -- they don't understand the Congress and it doesn't understand them...

They aren't afraid of the bad guys; they're afraid of Congressional disapproval and 'harmful' media attention. The Talibs don't keep the Troops roadbound or overloaded. The FlagOs know as well as you that those things are wrong but they continue to do them because they're averse to the political consequences of not doing it.
But, again aside from occasional grandstanding, they, and we, are willing to accept losses if they seem to make sense.
Broadly agree -- but that grandstanding has adverse impacts. See MRAP...

We are roadbound party due to those creatures, MRAPs, of the media and Congress -- none of the service really wanted to buy them (sometimes not for the right reasons...) but buy them we did -- at the SecDefs's insistence to placate Congress and hush the uninformed media howling. He did that over the objections of the services.
But it seems quite evident that the star wearing is a risk averse calling.
It always has been to a great extent; fear of strange political maneuvering has always permeated the US Army even back to the Revolution. Many FlagOs avoided it in years gone by but now we communicate too well -- and with visuals...
It being my opinion that that is not to be laid at the feet of Congress, that leaves something else.My forever a civilian uniformed opinion
Civilian or uniformed...
is that military culture changes radically at the very high levels.
that's correct.

Two Stars are the crossover point; almost none escape that.
Maybe their risk aversion at that level has something to do with it being easier to count and make judgments than actually think hard.
Not nearly that simple.
At those levels Congress can only approve what they are presented with.
Not so -- at those levels, the whims and wishes of various Congress creature are made known by discrete letters and phone calls. Those whims are ignored at one's peril and the Two and more Stars know that while few lesser beings get to see it -- and rarely suffer from it.
And I remember that officer McMaster was not originally going to be selected for promotion beyond COL.
Yep, he was a threat to the institution, not because he could and did think and would say things the General's didn't want to hear -- but because he had attracted Congressional attention.
The point of the article is that we have to start looking at the military failures of the military. We do.
What the heck do you think I've been writing here for over five years? Look. No question it's definitely needed -- but an improperly focused look can give you the wrong result.

For examples of that, see DoD, Goldwater-Nichols / Combatant Commands and USSOCOM -- all creatures of the politicians in Congress. All well meaning but all directly contributing to the malaise you see, the bureaucracy you can't and all demanding risk averse thought less Congress meddle some more. A malaise and meddling that some of us had or have to live with and that Michael C illustrates...

You've got to fix the problems, not the symptoms.