Quote Originally Posted by Ken White View Post
society that is essentially not war like -- most do not want to think about war (including a surprising number in uniform...) until they have to and thus they'll put it off as long as possible.

Apparently the DSB Summer 2008 Report report LINK discusses how well we do 'own goals.'I particularly like the 6th and 3rd in that order...
Which gets to the glaring omission from Linn's list: the Leader. The guy (or gal) who accepts the responsibilities of achieving a goal, formulating a plan, building a team, inspiring their efforts, and so on. All the Guardians, Heroes, and Managers in the world are going to exert a lot of effort with little return until the leader steps up and provides focus, a plan, and most of all, inspiration (or aspiration) to achieve the goal. (I'm omitting the Survivors since they don't contribute anything.)

Rumsfeld, since the 70s, has been an advocate for "Easy Button" warfare. He's the classic systems analyst who views humans as a messy, unpredictable part of the any system to be designed out at any opportunity. I don't know whether he distrusts leadership because he can't reduce it to numbers, or whether he simply doesn't believe it exists. But he seemed to play whack a mole any time leadership began to emerge (as it will in any group of people organized to complete a task or achieve a goal).


I'm reading Rick's book, "The Gamble." It wasn't until Keane took on the responsibility of leadership that the necessary step one of removing Rumsfeld took off. It wasn't until Petreus took command that the leadership was in place to uniformly apply the principles that had already been proven (McMasters, et.al.).