Why do the Alumni Get The Pentagon's Plum Jobs?

[SWJED]

In all seriousness, the Army's chickens are coming home to roost. For several decades strategic acumen has played no role in its selection of general officers. Hence you have people like H.R. McMaster being passed over while there are a number of three stars who are--in the words of my esteemed colleague Ed Filliberti--"CAT IV generals." There are three stars who were my students at Leavenworth in the 1980s and unless they had a brain transplant after they left CGSC, they have no business being senior strategic leaders. The result is that the Army's talent pool at the four star level is shallower than the other services.

From the article:

Institutional culture. In recent years the Army and Air Force have followed the example of the Marine Corps in posturing themselves as expeditionary warfighters. But the part of the Navy Department run by admirals doesn't really see itself that way. It views its forward-deployed aircraft carriers and submarines as instruments of foreign policy as much as combat systems -- in other words, as versatile tools in a global strategy. Because the Navy thinks strategically rather than tactically, its leaders are more comfortable with the nuances and ambiguity of political processes than warfighters in other services. So Navy leaders get along better with political appointees, ascending to the top jobs.