Officers With PhDs Advising War Effort

[marct]

Hi Steve,

What I'm hoping is that this doesn't mark a return to or reaffirmation of the business school mentality that the military saw in the 1960s and beyond. Just substituting the requirement for an Anthropology or International Studies advanced degree instead of business management isn't going to change anything. It may, in fact, just promote intellectual stereotypes and box-checking instead of business ones. Graduate schools can be just as hidebound, if not more so, than service schools and academies.

That is a truly scary thought, especially when it comes to Anthropology . I do feel that the press article does seem to be constructing a Ph.D. as a magic bullet, and that is a BIG mistake. I know too many people with Ph.D.'s who can't think their way out of a wet paper bag, let along think outside of any box .

There's another problem that hasn't seemed to have come up yet, and that is what, exactly, a Ph.D. stands for. There is, really, very little uniformity in it.

Marc

[George L. Singleton]

Hi Steve,



That is a truly scary thought, especially when it comes to Anthropology . I do feel that the press article does seem to be constructing a Ph.D. as a magic bullet, and that is a BIG mistake. I know too many people with Ph.D.'s who can't think their way out of a wet paper bag, let along think outside of any box .

There's another problem that hasn't seemed to have come up yet, and that is what, exactly, a Ph.D. stands for. There is, really, very little uniformity in it.

Marc

Let us not belittle those who have surpassed our education levels and earned their PhDs. True, the school of hard knocks is a great teacher but that school in the main works poorly on job resumes!

Below letter to ed by me may be of parochial interet to you and some of the other PhD comments site readers just now. I have to get moving, worked all weekend, today is my day to work on federal and state income taxes.

George Singleton

PESHAWAR FRONTIER POST (a daily)

Today is:
February 01 , 2007 Thursday 12 Muharramul Haram, 1428 A.H.

George L. Singleton
USA
GSingle556@aol.com

Mr. Noorullah Khan Khattak of Karak wrote in part in his January 30, 2007, letter to the editor of the Peshawar FRONTIER POST: "As Iran has learnt during its painful journey, the South must carve out its own defense, political and cultural world. Keeping the rude and risqué comments of the boastful western elites, how long our enlightened intelligentsia would kid itself that it can integrate into west-controlled international system? This is the time to reconsider our belonging and regional commonality."

Iran today is the worst example of all theocratic nation states. After 80% of the former Iranian Parliament were disqualified from seeking reelection, being found by the ruling mullahs to be "too moderate", just last week over 150 newly elected members of the new Iranian Parliament demonstrated against the new, irrational and hate mongering President of Iran, Mr. Mahmood Ahmadinejad.

At issue is not a simple difference of religion and culture, as Mr. Khattak supposes. At issue is the never will be resolved struggle between warring factions of Islam which began after the death of Muhammad (pbuh), and the subsequent throughout recorded history convoluted disregard for the connectivity of the Judaic and Christian traditions and faiths without which there would not be any form of Islam today.

No, there is no such thing as a violence "gene." But their is taugt and learned institutional religious intolerance and violent bloodshed both among and between various Muslim sects and then against all non-Muslim religions. I for one am a devout Christian who is willing to agree to disagree for us to coexist. A similar tolerant local and world religious view has to exist in Iran, Pakistan, and elsewhere where you have a Muslim majority, no matter what the variance of sects, and in my view can only exist with better, free, non-religious public education throughout all of Iran, Pakistan and the so-called Muslim world.

Turkey is a sectarian nation with a tolerant governmental structure. Turkey's future membership in the European Union is inevitable and will in my view as a former New York City international banker happen.

I, for one, am otherwise fed up with people looking to take offense at any non-Muslims views and comments, while we non-Muslims are abused daily, officially and unofficially by such letter writing hate mongers.

[marct]

Hi George,

Let us not belittle those who have surpassed our education levels and earned their PhDs. True, the school of hard knocks is a great teacher but that school in the main works poorly on job resumes!

BA Sociology and Comparative Religion,
MA Canadian Studies (Cultural Studies concentration)
Ph.D. Sociology (Social Anthropology)

Just an FYI

Marc

[sullygoarmy]

Hey All,
New guy to the forum. Former AST member back in 2004 and currently working for JCISFA where we look at security force assistance issues daily. Stationed at Fort Leavenworth and a recent CGSC grad while it was under LTG Petraeus.

The thing I like about Ricks' article is that we're bringing in what many consider the best of the best on COIN and SFA. Most guys know that Kilcullen's work is widely floated around military schoolhouses as a framework for good COIN principles from Leavenworth to Knox. I think using him as an asset, adds a valuable tool to the General's kit bag.

Glad that I found the SWJ website and probably wouldn't have done so had Ricks not mentioned it in his article. Looking forward to the discussion!

[Jimbo]

Mike,

It is freezing cold hear in D.C., but it beats the automated planning tools class. I am having too much fun on this inter-agency thing. Your CGSC and fellow 6 month hold classmate.

Jim McD

[Shek]

As a point of reference for what the Army personnel system currently produces, it is nowhere geared towards producing leaders that have an incentive to attend advanced civilian schooling. Despite the press that Petraeus, McMaster, Chiarelli, etc. have garnered for their graduate schooling, they are the exception that chose to do something outside the normal career path and were probably told by many that they were wasting their time.

http://www.strategicstudiesinstitute...les/PUB731.pdf

As for the comment that the social science degrees cannot be tested in the real world, I think it is fair to say that someone like GEN Petraeus performed better than LTG Odierno did back in 2003 when it came time to test what advantage a degree could provide. While theoretical, having a framework to be able to fit the real world into to try and make sense out of events is better than nothing, plus having the critical thinking skills to be able to approach a problem from multiple angles.

[Jimbo]

The 101 vs. 4ID comparison is a false one. The situations that 4ID faced were very different from the 101st. There were things done well in both areas of operation and some things that needed to be fixed.

[marct]

Hi Shek,

As a point of reference for what the Army personnel system currently produces, it is nowhere geared towards producing leaders that have an incentive to attend advanced civilian schooling.

Love the oped piece!

As for the comment that the social science degrees cannot be tested in the real world, I think it is fair to say that someone like GEN Petraeus performed better than LTG Odierno did back in 2003 when it came time to test what advantage a degree could provide. While theoretical, having a framework to be able to fit the real world into to try and make sense out of events is better than nothing, plus having the critical thinking skills to be able to approach a problem from multiple angles.

Let me just clarify that for a second. I didn't say that the degrees couldn't be tested in the real world, I said that often you aren't allowed to test it. This goes back to he academic institutions of ethics review boards that pass on all academic research. What that has come to mean, in a lot of the social sciences, is that you are not allowed to test your theories in the real world from inside the academic environment. Because of his test ban, the academic environment in, say, Sociology or Political Science or Anthropology, tends to reinforce a concentration on what you are allowed to do, which is either "theory" or "approved" testing. In the case of Anthropology, that means you can "test" your ideas in some very limited, real world applications - mainly advocacy work. If you aren't operating within the academic environment, that is an entirely different matter.

I certainly agree with you about the value of having theoretical frameworks and, more importantly, the ability to modify theoretical frameworks to match observed reality. As for "critical thinking skills", the have been a major topic of discussion in pedagogical circles up here for the past decade or so. I've been following that debate, and one of the things that struck me most about it was that there didn't really seem to be a coherent definition of what the term meant . I had always assumed that it meant looking at a problem, picking it apart into its component pieces, and then trying to find a solution. Once I hit Grad school, I realized that I was being incredibly naive as a number of my peers proceeded to tell me .

Marc

[George L. Singleton]

Hi George,



BA Sociology and Comparative Religion,
MA Canadian Studies (Cultural Studies concentration)
Ph.D. Sociology (Social Anthropology)

Just an FYI

Marc

One of our still in graduate school daughters has double undergraduate majors in Spanish and Sociology (statistics side of same). Your degrees and academic focus sound good and logical to me.

Cheers,
George Singleton

[Bullmoose Bailey]

Hi George,



BA Sociology and Comparative Religion,
MA Canadian Studies (Cultural Studies concentration)
Ph.D. Sociology (Social Anthropology)

Just an FYI

Marc

Very good exchanges here.

Friends, do not be drawn into the MSM trap of saying "ooh lookey those dumb soldiers got them some edjumacating ", this is really just demeaning to all military professionals.

Actually the US Army expects all its leaders NCOs & Officers to be college educated eventually, on paper, I know of no other institution that forces so much learning.

Holding a PhD is pretty much so normal in the Army that it only guarantees commissioning as a 1LT typically today.

Although my PhD is in Comparative World Religions it is beneficial to my present work in Iraq. So the group the title of this thread addresses is much larger than might be expected. PhDs are not just white jackets & staff advisers. Some of them are actively leading troops like me.

Most importantly, our Army puts a priority on lifelong learning. We should be proud.

[emjayinc]

Piled higher and deeper? Actually, a good point in modern times,when degree granting institutions can be accredited by any Tom, Dick or Harry who wants to do so. However, in the case of these Ph.D officers, I'm sure they all got theirs from top rank universities.

[Bill Moore]

Wm,

You are one of the few that implies that our interagency process is functional. They still teach us about the country team, and I have it seen it work well for missions in Liberia, Senegal, Philippines, etc.; however, there was no country team in Iraq or Afghanistan. There is a "huge" difference in scale from advising a government, to standing one up; advising a gov on economic models, to standing up a working model, etc.

The State Department (and this is only one agency) still can't mobilize enough resources to perform their functions in Iraq. The military is the only organization in the U.S. government that is robust enough to execute the DIME/MIDLIFE tasks in a situation like this. It would be worthwhile for me to see what the military's role was in post war Japan and Germany for reference.

If we are going to take those missions on, then I would argue we need a cadre of PhD (forget the PhD, we guys and gals educated on how to do this) advisors to enable us to perform these functions at an acceptable level.

Obviously State needs more funding, but just throwing money at the problem won't solve the problem, it will also require a significant culture change. Second, do we want to throw that much money at State for this type of venture? If we make that investment, it would imply we're signing up for a few more regime changes down the road. I don't think that is cost effective. The military will always provide the bulk of the doers in hostile situations.

By no means am I taking taking anything away from the country team, I seen it function well when the "right" personalties were in place.

We have all seen the result of what happens when the military waits for an alleged capability. I'm not faulting State, I understand some of the beltway politics that led to this. None the less, I think we need this capability in the military.

[marct]

Hi Bill,

The military is the only organization in the U.S. government that is robust enough to execute the DIME/MIDLIFE tasks in a situation like this. It would be worthwhile for me to see what the military's role was in post war Japan and Germany for reference.

I think that one of the underlying problems goes back to a perception that derive from the nation state model and the functional differentiation between "politics", "military", "economics", etc.

First off, most nation states have developed bureaucracies around these functional areas which tend to produce institutional mindsets that are rather narrowly focused. Increasingly, nation support / building activities and humanitarian protection actions (e.g. Darfur, etc.) in partial states require a totally integrated approach that is at odds with any of the functionally defined institutions.

Second, there appears to be a very poor definition, including debate, on what the actual missions are. Part of this stems from the functional splitting, but some of it also stems from the requirement to achieve some form of international consensus on the action. Another part appears to stem from a reluctance to state in unequivocal form a desired end state for the action in a flexible enough form that the mission can adapt to changing conditions. For example, the public "spinb" on the end state of OIF was that there would be a popular uprising into a democratic state - n debate, and not much flexibility either.

If we are going to take those missions on, then I would argue we need a cadre of PhD (forget the PhD, we guys and gals educated on how to do this) advisors to enable us to perform these functions at an acceptable level.

...None the less, I think we need this capability in the military.

While I don't think we should conflate PhD with experience (I think both would be useful), I do agree that it is important a) to have the capability in the military and b) to us that capability in the initial mission definition stages as well as in the operational planning stages.

Marc

[Bill Moore]

Marc,

Exactly, and I'll borrow a concept I saw on a discussion thread on the Global Guerrilla site, where the commentor made reference to the "Red Queen" hypothesis, which is in short is, "for an evolutionary system, continuing development is needed just in order to maintain its fitness relative to the systems it is co-evolving with". Since the author was obviously better educated than I was, I couldn't follow it all, but he appeared to be making parallels to organizations as biosystems. The thoughts that I developed off that was that networked organizations (if they are organizations) adapt on an open feedback system. To me that means they adapt to changes "outside" of their organization. Bureaucratic organizations adapt based on input from within their organization, thus they actually be living in a parallel reality that isn't reality at all. I think you touch upon this point when you address the State Department, it is organized to deal with other nations, not non-state actors, and I have seen little change (as an outsider, beyond words and concepts) that are they adapting to this new player in the global arena. I think the State Department is much more bureaucratic than the military. They have several highly educated employees who are company men, but very few intellectuals capable of accepting and adapting input from outside their closed feedback loop. Their leadership, for the most part, wants to protect the status quo. Read the "Ugly American" and you'll see things haven't changed that much. Unlike the State Department, the CIA, Commerce, and assorted other agencies, the military must achieve results, and is far and away the nation's leader (outside of niche industries) for change. We have wars and conflicts to win, we can't wait on the rest of the government to catch up. We need educated, experienced, and men and women with the courage to be objective enough to understand the true cause and effect nature of the conflict, and not blindly rely on doctrine. PhD is a misnomer, but we should encourage our officers and select NCOs to pursue this type of liberal education (not liberal politics, don't confuse the two). More courses should be made available for free on-line, etc. When I was trying to stand up a local government in a region in Iraq I sure as heck which I had that knowledge at my finger tips.

I'll drag part of this conversation/thread into the interagency section eventually, because I want to pursue organization structure and roles in more depth. However, I don't think we strayed too far off course from the underlying issue of this thread, which is PhD's in the military. I think I am building a case on why we need them.

[wm]

Wm,

You are one of the few that implies that our interagency process is functional. They still teach us about the country team, and I have it seen it work well for missions in Liberia, Senegal, Philippines, etc.; however, there was no country team in Iraq or Afghanistan. There is a "huge" difference in scale from advising a government, to standing one up; advising a gov on economic models, to standing up a working model, etc.

The State Department (and this is only one agency) still can't mobilize enough resources to perform their functions in Iraq. The military is the only organization in the U.S. government that is robust enough to execute the DIME/MIDLIFE tasks in a situation like this. It would be worthwhile for me to see what the military's role was in post war Japan and Germany for reference.

If we are going to take those missions on, then I would argue we need a cadre of PhD (forget the PhD, we guys and gals educated on how to do this) advisors to enable us to perform these functions at an acceptable level.

Obviously State needs more funding, but just throwing money at the problem won't solve the problem, it will also require a significant culture change. Second, do we want to throw that much money at State for this type of venture? If we make that investment, it would imply we're signing up for a few more regime changes down the road. I don't think that is cost effective. The military will always provide the bulk of the doers in hostile situations.

By no means am I taking taking anything away from the country team, I seen it function well when the "right" personalties were in place.

We have all seen the result of what happens when the military waits for an alleged capability. I'm not faulting State, I understand some of the beltway politics that led to this. None the less, I think we need this capability in the military.

Bill,
I do not believe I implied the country team was still functioning. I said that it seemed it was no longer in use and suggested that we ought to revitalize it. I also suggest that we need to do a much better job of planning post-hostilities activities before we ever get around to crossing the old line of departure.
As the only real "world" power left, America has only one real reason for engaging in war--to establish a better state of peace. To that end we need to make sure that our planning and execution are designed to facilitate that state. Anything less coming from the workld's leading civilized demnocracy is just unacceptable

[John T. Fishel]

The whole interagency process, both in Washington and in the field at the Country team level, is dependent on the quality of leadership being exercised. It also depends on the resources made available. Planning for post-war Germany and Japan actually began in 1942 concurrent with the fielding of Civil Affairs units. Although it was George Marshall's intention to transfer them lock, stock, and barrel to DOS, that never happened and the capability to stand up governments remained in the military, where it still resides. Unfortunately, the AC Civil Affairs is tiny while the RC is far smaller than we need. That said, planning for Phase IV, as stated by none other than Tommy Franks in his memoir, AMERICAN SOLDIER, was something that was left to USD Policy which thought that "hope [really was] a method."

Summary statement: although the military has more of the necessary assets than any other agency, it is both short handed and fails to use what it has as well as it should.

[Bill Moore]

John,

Concur with your summary statement, especially where we failed to use what we had. The Civil Affairs folks in my sector during the phase III/IV transition period were paralyzed initially. They were reservists with a variety of skills, but I remember their commander told me they weren't prepared for this, they were trained to assist struggling governments, not stand governments up. None the less, once they got past the shock they started making head way into the unknown with no guidance from higher, to include DoS. Interesting TTP, the combat arms commander assigned a combat arms officer to each CA function to provide the Type A personality leadership needed at that point to overcome the inertia. The combat officer would have the CA officer/NCO explain the problem, what needed to get done, find out what resources he needed, then help him develop a plan to execute. The CA effort was the primary effort, so my hat is off to the Commander for organizing the force this way, it worked out great.

Wm, our planning for OIF was the worst I have ever seen. You're absolutely correct that we shouldn't cross the LD if we don't have a feasible plan to make a better peace.

I'm not sure I follow your comments on the country team. Country Team's exist where there are embassies, and some do great work. My point was when you do a regime change, there is no country team in the lead. I may be the only naysayer in this council, but I don't consider OIF a counterinsurgency like El Salvador, Philippines, etc. It is a post war reconstruction project that got off to a slow start, and now has evolved into a state of anarchy. COIN strategy probably won't work.

[wm]

Wm, our planning for OIF was the worst I have ever seen. You're absolutely correct that we shouldn't cross the LD if we don't have a feasible plan to make a better peace.

I'm not sure I follow your comments on the country team. Country Team's exist where there are embassies, and some do great work. My point was when you do a regime change, there is no country team in the lead. I may be the only naysayer in this council, but I don't consider OIF a counterinsurgency like El Salvador, Philippines, etc. It is a post war reconstruction project that got off to a slow start, and now has evolved into a state of anarchy. COIN strategy probably won't work.

Bill,
I suggested earlier that we revitalize the country team concept. I was not real clear as to what I meant. Revitalize implies more than just taking an old concept off the shelf and using it again. I am not proposing a return to the status quo country team that I learned about in the early 80's at CGSC.
We are no longer in the kind of world that such a construct supports. A new team structure might not restrict itself to a single country. In fact in light of the globalizing of today, a regional approach is probably even more apropos. At a minimum, it ought to include State, Commerce, Energy, and Defense reps in its management structure. Depending on where and what is being contemplated, other Federal agencies also get pulled into the planning and execution process.
You may very well be correct that the uniformed services own the hands-on work for a large part of the time. That, however, mandates some serious reconsideration of what our AC/RC force mix looks like. It probably also requires that a whole lot more of the Federal civilian workforce be subject to deploying to an AOR.

To bring this back on thread, we need smart people (some of whom may be Ph.D.s) from a wide range of "nation-building" disciplines to be more than just advisors. We need them to be active particiapnts in the planning and execution of any expedition that the US chooses to consider or launch.

[selil]

Piled higher and deeper? Actually, a good point in modern times,when degree granting institutions can be accredited by any Tom, Dick or Harry who wants to do so. However, in the case of these Ph.D officers, I'm sure they all got theirs from top rank universities.

I'd like to know where you get that just anybody can accredit a degree granting institution. The national and regional accrediting authorities like North Central are far from just anybody. There are groups who give bogus degrees but those are ferreted out rather quickly.

[Stan]

Greetings WM !

Long ago and far away in the Land of Ahs (the marketing campaign used by the Kansas department of tourism when I lived there in the mid 80s), the Army taught me during CGSC about a thing called the "country team." I guess that hummer is passé now.
One would think that DoD and DoS should be joined at the hip throughout the planning and execution process whenever the US gets ready to involve itself in some OCONUS adventure. Likewise, one would think that a similar relationship would exist between DoD and DHS for a CONUS-focused operation.
It is not clear to me that we need a bunch of Ph.D's in uniform to solve the problem in Iraq.

Having served in 9 embassies in various capacities I can tell you that the CT is a good example why DoD and DoS will never be joined at the hip. There were indeed folks with PhDs and some who even thought they were PhD material.

That meant precious little during civil wars and upheavals. It would be that very same PhD (know to some as JJJ) who sent my boss on a hopeless mission only to later disregard factual reporting. JJJ would later show to have his passport stamped crossing the Rwandan border, and ask "Tom, what's that smell?" "That would be death Jon" Tom replied. JJJ never returned on our watch

DoD and DHS had difficulties, but far less than with State. Most surrounded personnel. The majority of the NCOs are "on loan" and now outside of their environment and PMOS. So if DHS was trying to retain and at times reward her personnel, I didn't see it.

Regards, Stan