The Best Trained, Most Professional Military...Just Lost Two Wars?

[Madhu]

Ken - you wrote (and I've searched the thread a couple times and don't see it right now but it was there, it's there I tell you! ) that Pakistan looks after their interest just as the US does.

The words you used and the way you put them together created an equivalency it seemed to me but I'm not entirely fair on this subject around here. (Doesn't help when I scan a thread and can't find the quotes now does it? Maybe I'm just nuts....)

Anyway, I apologize for assuming an intent that wasn't there.

I read the use of words like "merely" and "rightfully so" (Pakistan looks after its own interests, rightfully so) as approval or at least a "benign understanding".

At any rate, there is no point engaging me on this topic because I've got knee jerk qualities, major knee jerk, on the subject. The emotional well is poisoned on this subject, I'm not fair on it, it's better to ignore me.

During the Cold War, and as a younger person, it was painful, personally painful, to watch many people forget the US' anti-colonial and revolutionary history and to lose all feeling for a people struggling toward something other than colonialism simply because it was outside a Western context and because their choices with regard to the Soviet Union were, IMO, often foolish.

The well is emotionally poisoned and it won't be unpoisoned. It's not your fault, it's not anyone's fault, it's just what happened.

And I loathed the Soviet Union. My book shelves have plenty of Soviet dissident books on them. To read about those camps or the security states and what it did to the people!

But other people mattered, too. I agree with everything Bob says about self-representation.

Anyway, I apologize. You are experienced enough and savvy enough people to know what is happening. You've worked with various diaspora and other nationals. You know sometimes it's all uphill because of trust issues.

I am sorry.

[Madhu]

The US military is an awesome, almost too amazing to contemplate, instrument when used appropriately.

It's also a wasteful overly bureaucratic and weirdly managed (within and without) machine.

Both are true at the same time. It's possible for both to be true and that complicates discussion.

I was studying for my medical specialty boards when 9-11 occurred. I never gave a thought to the military in any way in my entire life up to that point. I had cut off my cable television in order to study and never saw any images contemporaneously. Never, until years and years later. Just never wanted to watch or look. I heard everything on radio.

Prior to toppling the Taliban, there was a huge argument, that the US would get bogged down. But what people meant is that we would never initially topple the Taliban. I remember those articles and pundits talking on the radio like yesterday because I happened also to be intensely studying and it all stuck, the genodermatoses and quotes of various officials and military, all in my magpie brain.

The initial removal of the Taliban did shock and amaze, it happened so quickly. To say otherwise is to rewrite history. To completely rewrite it.

But what happened afterwards? That's a group effort, Iraq, complacency, NATO and ISAF and the US military and governance and public opinion, American and otherwise, and the whole messy lot of it.

All that the "international system" had built up intellectually after world war II came out in the desire to re-wire an entire society, it came out from the UN and aid agencies and Brussels and DC and various international capitals....

Like I said, a different kind of Marshall Plan.

So, used appropriately, you are beyond gifted as a military. The trick is to do it properly.

Fuchs makes a good point about "tricking" bureaucracies and this is where the whole disruptive thinkers debate comes in and my comments about lobbies are not entirely inappropriate.

But how?

[Madhu]

@ Ganulv, Steve Blair and others. I'll try and check them out. That is exactly what I wanted.

Carl - A Col. Tunnell's article is making its way across the web, on Michael Yon's website and on zenpundit's. There are people who spoke up behind scenes, it appears. That letter won't make you entirely happy though, because he appears skeptical of the way we did things with our ISAF Karzai Pakistan NATO everyone else alliance pop-COIN-iess (er, not comments on policy, but on the way this affects day to day tactics. I think. My lack of military knowledge hurts me in interpreting things).

No one is really in charge, it seems from my outsider viewpoint.

From my vantage point, I can't know what happened behind closed doors, who stood up for what, who protested, and how it went down.

The better part of valor for me may be to do just what I said: wait for declassified materials and proper study at a distance.

Not much help for today's issues but I won't be a help. "Stay out of it mostly" is not a message that resonates much outside places like this.

[carl]

[B]No one is really in charge, it seems from my outsider viewpoint.

From my vantage point, I can't know what happened behind closed doors, who stood up for what, who protested, and how it went down.

The better part of valor for me may be to do just what I said: wait for declassified materials and proper study at a distance.

Not much help for today's issues but I won't be a help. "Stay out of it mostly" is not a message that resonates much outside places like this.

Sometimes what you write sounds like you are apologizing for what you write. Knock that off! You call 'em like you see them and you KEEP calling them like you see them. Your good sense, honesty and the work that is behind what you write is apparent to all. Don't shy away any more. If you do I might get peeved.

I haven't read Tunnell's article yet but I will.

[Ken White]

Ken - you wrote (and I've searched the thread a couple times and don't see it right now but it was there, it's there I tell you! ) that Pakistan looks after their interest just as the US does.

I meant that all nations look after their own interests; the US and Paksitan do not differ on that predilection even if their interests are vastly different and their methods are equally so.

I read the use of words like "merely" and "rightfully so" (Pakistan looks after its own interests, rightfully so) as approval or at least a "benign understanding".

No approval nor a benign understanding, simply acceptance that is reality. Accepting the fact that all Nations have a right, even a responsibility, to look after their own interests does not equate to nor imply approval of their interests or methods. I disagree with some of our interests and methods; I disagree with some of those of Paksitan. My disagreement does not change the fact that the governing powers in all nations are going to take care of themselves in the manner(s) they choose...

At any rate, there is no point engaging me on this topic because I've got knee jerk qualities, major knee jerk, on the subject. The emotional well is poisoned on this subject, I'm not fair on it, it's better to ignore me.

We all have our soft spots and you are far to sensible to be ignored.

During the Cold War, and as a younger person, it was painful, personally painful, to watch many people forget the US' anti-colonial and revolutionary history and to lose all feeling for a people struggling toward something other than colonialism simply because it was outside a Western context and because their choices with regard to the Soviet Union were, IMO, often foolish.

At that time and as an older person, I shared those emotions. That shortsighted approach was foolish and has done the US more harm than would adhering to our principles have done. That is one of my disagreements with our approach to protecting our national interests. The Puritans have a lot to answer for. City on a hill indeed...

...You know sometimes it's all uphill because of trust issues.

Is that ever the truth...

No apology was necessary, really -- sorry for my poor choice of words.

[Dayuhan]

I meant that all nations look after their own interests; the US and Paksitan do not differ on that predilection even if their interests are vastly different and their methods are equally so.

If nations had and looked after clearly defined interests, the world would be a simpler place than it is. Within any given nation at any given time there are multiple competing perceptions of national interest. Policy may oscillate among those perceptions depending on who's in power at any given moment, or there may be an effort to balance those perceptions, or the multiple parties involved may independently and simultaneously pursue their own perceptions of interest.

It all gets very sloppy, and very unpredictable.

[Bob's World]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NQUmk...eature=related

'nuff said.

[davidbfpo]

Imagery Bob may be effective, I still think words win and slightly edited:

it is entirely possible that a lot of our current generals stink for whatever reason.. but surely the key reason for our failings in recent military campaigning is that the policy being served is misconceived.

Hat tip to David Betz on KoW, which refers to this topic via a review of Tom Ricks latest book:http://kingsofwar.org.uk/2012/11/oh-history-you-bitch/

[Fuchs]

Ken, you blame a lot of problems on politicians and top brass, or the system.

I'd like to throw some more into the ring; I suppose the U.S. military personnel is poor at learning, adapting and improving.

My strongest supporting evidence is that the vast majority of those I got in contact with are amazingly thin-skinned and react allergic to criticism, direct approaches against inadequate state of affairs and the like.
I have yet to find a professional group that's as defensive.


I cannot imagine heavily armed or other bureaucracy that runs very well without its individuals being able to bear criticism unless it comes from a superior.

[Ken White]

Ken, you blame a lot of problems on politicians and top brass, or the system.

I'd like to throw some more into the ring; I suppose the U.S. military personnel is poor at learning, adapting and improving.

I agree with that -- but is that not a function of the political factors that shape the institution (and they are pervasive...) and select the top brass? Serving individuals bear some responsibility, of course but the "system" shapes all the factors you cite, it selects the Brass based on very political criteria and they shape the system...

The US forces are comprised of individuals who can learn adapt and improve -- or improvise -- as well as any grouping of people anywhere in the world. However, they are constrained by a system, a set of institutions, that deliberately constrain those attributes in a flawed effort to obtain uniformity, consistency and nowadays, to not embarrass anyone. That's a systemic flaw, not a human failing. That "system" is designed by those politicians and that brass.

My strongest supporting evidence is that the vast majority of those I got in contact with are amazingly thin-skinned and react allergic to criticism, direct approaches against inadequate state of affairs and the like. I have yet to find a professional group that's as defensive.

In addition to that defensiveness, there are few professional groups that are as distrustful of subordinates as the US Army. Is it possible both those shortcomings are introduced by the fact that the members of the institution really know that their training and education are not totally adequate? That they know they're not as good as the common wisdom (or lack of it...) states; they're not really as good as they would like to be?

I cannot imagine heavily armed or other bureaucracy that runs very well without its individuals being able to bear criticism unless it comes from a superior.

Heh. They don't take that well, either...

Two points:

Americans are admittedly thin skinned in the non-acceptance of criticism -- it's not just the Armed forces and it's partly a result of a lot of boosterism and rather foolish promotion of self esteem (at a cost to self respect and self confidence). IOW, it's true and it is as much or more a societal thing is it is a military peculiarity. The Military peculiarity added to that -- fighters tend to see everything as a challenge of some sort -- just compounds it.

US military people, like all groups can be defensive and band together if attacked, verbally or otherwise. Also like all groups, while they may reject the slams of outsiders, internally they can be quite self critical and discerning. I've met those in the services that are unthinking boosters and who are hyper defensive. My rough guess is that they're about 20% of all. Another 20% are self critical and truly concerned with getting it right. Then there's the 60% in the middle who tend toward both ends and meet in the center with a cluster of 20% or so that hew to neither side. I suspect that is pretty much the human norm in most organizations or groups.

What all that effectively gives you is a bunch of overly sensitive and combative Americans wherein about a third are blind to the flaws and prone to boosterism, another third who are well aware of shortcomings and work, usually not publicly, to improve things as much as they can within a system that is excessively heirarchial and which is often politically manipulated for non-military purposes. Then there's yet another third that are really just sort of there, they don't do much either way. It's noteworthy that the "system" is a creature of the Politicians and the Brass so they tend to be over-represented in the Booster category, publicly anyway -- hard for the folks in charge to admit they've screwed things up...

Sounds like any other grouping of persons from most anywhere in the world to me -- except many if not most are thin-skinned, defensive Americans.

[Bob's World]

Imagery Bob may be effective, I still think words win and slightly edited:

Hat tip to David Betz on KoW, which refers to this topic via a review of Tom Ricks latest book:http://kingsofwar.org.uk/2012/11/oh-history-you-bitch/

Dave,

Clearly we have policy issues. But this does not let Generals off the hook for matching those polices with equally flawed campaigns.

We all need to own this, because we all worked together to build it.

[BushrangerCZ]

this is why:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1X6HnOA88vw

[JMA]

We all need to own this, because we all worked together to build it.

OK, so what should the individual consequences be?

Thereafter what and how long would it take to replace with those who built it with those without guilt or blood on their hands?