The Opportunity of Failure

[marct]

Hi Bill,

In any type of war leadership with talent is the key, and potential leaders are not identified at 18 years of age. Following up on Steve’s points about getting officers with life experiences, it would be nice if we could break the mold from picking kids that have a decent GPA in high school and a desire to be an officer, to picking men who have a proven ability to lead, then educate them appropriately.

I have to agree with you here, although it may be a chicken and egg type distinction. "Leadership" ability isn't always transferable between different areas of endevour since it is partially conditioned by the culture of the organization in which it is embedded and the environment in which it operates.

Marc said our human resource management is a relic of the industrial age, I would argue that our officer corps is a relic of our British legacy (our military was influenced equally by the Germans and French, but our cultural heritage e.g. caste system, more so by the British) prior to our Revolution.

I certainly don't disgree with your point of where that heritage comes from . My point was more along the line of retaining a professional corps with a levee en masse mentality, and that derives from both the French Revolution and the beginnings of the Industrial Age which drew most of its social organizational forms from the Dutch military anyway (e.g. the reforms of William the Silent).

Part of the reason I raised the issue was to try and address the problem of skilled people leaving or not joining in the first place. Honestly, the levee en masse model just doesn't work in the current threat environment, and I think we have to look towards other models - hence the pointer towards the early militia model. Another one that might prove beneficial is the Roman concept of the cursus honourum, but that would be trickier to implement.

I see too many talented NCOs leave the force because they know they can contribute much more outside the military. It is a shame, we need entrepreneur spirits with proven leadership ability, life experiences, etc. to lead our force into a very complex 21st century.

Too true. Still, I have to wonder how well today's officer corps, to say nothing of the politicians, would react to an entrepreneurial spirit in the armed forces <wry grin>.

Marc