Almost never do our military schools, academies, and colleges put students in situations where they have to think through how to fight a battle or a campaign, then get critiqued not on their answer but the way they think. Nor does American military training offer much free play, where the enemy can do whatever he wants and critique draws out why one side won and the other lost. Instead, training exercises are scripted as if we are training an opera company. The schools teach a combination of staff process and sophomore-level college courses in government and international relations. No one is taught how to be a commander in combat. One Army lieutenant colonel recently wrote me that he got angry when he figured out that nothing he needs to know to command would be taught to him in any Army school.If this is true (and I sure hope it isn't, but it has a certain ring of truth to it), a likely explanation is 70 years of Cold War budget battles selecting for flag officers who can get appropriations out of Congress.
The promotion system reinforces professional ignorance. Above the company grades, military ability does not count in determining who gets promoted. At the rank of major, officers are supposed to accept that the “real world” is the internal world of budget and promotion politics, not war. Those who “don’t get it” have ever smaller chances of making general. This represents corruption of the worst kind, corruption of institutional purpose. Its result is generals and admirals who are in effect Soviet industrial managers in ever worse-looking suits. They know little and care less about their intended product, military victory. Their expertise is in acquiring resources and playing the military courtier.
Tuesday, June 4, 2013
Is the US military Officer Corps institutionally incompetent?
Isegoria finds a quite damning analysis:
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As with most generalities I think that this is a bit broad. That said, it is certainly true far more often than it should be.
I think it's also important to point out that victory has become a pretty nebulous concept. The NCA sets the terms of victory; except when it doesn't. Clearly stringing a "Mission Accomplished" banner up doesn't equal victory. How is a modern general, or brigade commander, supposed to "win" in A'Stan? Victory above the tactical level is essentially impossible in the contemporary operational environment.
Even more disturbing, is the reality that this bureaucratic lack of batllefield thought and leadership is deeply entrenched in the NCO corps. Without question, it is more disastrous and deadly in hamstringing enlisted leadership; creating a perfect storm of failure for translating theory and tactics into battlefield leadership and victory.
There is likely some institutional bias that has existed far longer then the cold war. Otherwise, George Marshall would not have felt it necessary to reach down and pull up Col. Dwight Eisenhower.
It's always been there, so long as we have had professional armies. Even the Romans practised fairly scripted training battles.
Ask the NCO Corps... We've been saying Officers have been making simple shit hard since 1775.
It also help to explain the recent thinning of the flag ranks. Apparently the general officers (and admirals) who are actually good at warfighting are being phased out in favor of the ones good at ass-kissing.
Yes, it's a generalization, but I've been screaming about this for years as an Air Force pilot who got out of active duty last year to go teach flying at Fed Ex - we're not training warriors anymore.
When I was a first lieutenant the guys in my squadron I really looked up to were the 20 year majors who were EXPERTS at how to drive the Herk - they could go anywhere and do anything with that airplane, from dirt strips in Africa to frozen glaciers in Antarctica. I wanted to BE one of those guys, and you can't get there anymore.
Once you hit Major or so, you're now expected to be an office type - learning about budgets and paperwork and how to properly prepare a performance report. Being able to become a 20 year veteran of a type of flying (airlift, close air support, etc) in order to someday lead it in real combat is secondary at best. Of course you need generals who can work the halls of power to ensure we have what we need, but that should always take a back seat to leading a division or wing into battle. Very few of the general officers I have been around ever felt like combat leaders, they usually felt like office managers.
Also, it's a loss of institutional knowledge of warfare that will get our teeth kicked in the day we fight a technological enemy capable of fighting back.
We're back in 'that' cycle... after Vietnam, we had good leadership until about late 70's, then the bureaucrat/admin types started promoting because they were attending the 'right' schools/training (e.g. budget/admin) and allowed the higher ups to put lipstick on the pig that readiness was becoming...
This is because we as a nation have lost sight of what winning a war means. We worry about collateral damage and international public opinion more than we worry about protecting American lives and interests.
Our military isn't fighting a war and defeating a nation. Instead, they are acting like cops and trying to arrest and try individuals.
Reminds me of the satirical alternate lyrics to "Airborne Ranger":
I wanna be a chairborne Major.
I wanna live a life of ease.
I wanna stay away from danger.
I wanna do just what I please.
It's a cycle that happens in every army throughout history. In times of relative peace the paper pushers and chair warmers are in charge and promote accordingly.
It used to be that when the shooting started the fighting officers took over but the relatively low intensity wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have allowed even the paper pushers to cycle through "combat time" and collect the requisite "I was there" medals.
Was it not true that more officers were killed by their own men in Vietnam than by the enemy, purely because they were so incompetent they were going to get everyone killed they were commanding.
Someone pointed out recently that the British army generally sucked for the first two years of both world wars until all the useless officers had been killed or captured, then talent was allowed to rise through the ranks and real leadership appeared.
Elgin01 -- That's one of the reasons I've long said that aviators (like other highly specialist like JAG, chaplains, physicians, etc., who we've decid should be "officer" types due to required education, etc., but who also do not necessarily command) ought to be primarily warrant officers. So they can focus 100% on their specialty if they want, and only the ones who actually want to command units need get a commission. Note that warrants traditionally are restricted to billets that are either in their field (so an aviator might get a non-flying tour in a slot that requires an aviator, but he wouldn't even be tapped to go command a Mess Kit Repair Company or be assigned as Assistant Deputy Vice Public Affairs Officer for NATO HQ for "jointness" requirements).
It seems to work for Army Aviation just fine. . . we could perhaps streamline the transition from W to O grades for those who wanted to move into a "command track". Old NFO can pipe up -- as I understand it, this is basically how the Navy handles their LDO program, no?
Anecdotally, it seems that we lose a lot of active duty USAF pilots around the time they are getting major. Because suddenly, this guy who has only wanted to horse hot jets around the sky, is told that he needs to get out of the cockpit and go get some "jointness" time for "breadth". So, they can get off active duty, go make good money flying United, and get nearly the same "hot jet" hours in the ANG (which, as I understand it is WAY more tolerant of leaving good, high time, pilots in their cockpits). Thus, retention bonuses that seem unbelievable to a ground pounder, just to try and stop the areterial spurting of experience that happens at the senior O3/junior O4 level.
I think that Divemedic is right. The military is supposed to break stuff and kill people. Winning hearts and minds has never gone well for us and should be removed from the mission profile. Leave the aftermath to the State Department and IGOs/NGOs.
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