"How to fix the Army: Sack all the generals"

[pawnman]

https://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2013/08/overthrow-the-generals/

“To a shocking degree, the Army’s leadership ranks have become populated by mediocre officers, placed in positions where they are likely to fail. Success goes unrewarded, and everything but the most extreme failure goes unpunished, creating a perverse incentive system that drives leaders toward a risk-averse middle where they are more likely to find a stalemate than a victory.”

Is Thom Ricks right, or is he cherry-picking his data to make senior leadership look bad in an effort to generate headlines?

[LJ Driver]

Not sure about the Army, but it seems one might do a find/replace for Army and Air Force and be pretty damn close...

[Warrior]

Ricks' article from 2012 was discussed here wasn't it? My tapatalk-fu isn't good enough to search and paste the link.

BL: I don't think this guy has anything new to say. Not that I disagree with him, just that it's not news. He'll retire and the machine will move on-what happened to the system after the Minot WG/CC who failed his PT test?

Edit: that last post sure makes me sound like part of the problem. I despise the risk averse nature of the current AF. We talk ORM and it results in "ohh, that sounds dangerous. Don't go". It drives me up the wall. In other words, I think Davis and Thom ricks are correct in their assessment but in this case, calling a spade a spade isn't going to fix anything. Catch-22 much?

[tac airlifter]

I'm not an army guy, but I have these talks with our partners on exercises and deployments and they echo the same thing: institutionalized Peter principal on a mass scale. Just finished "bleeding talent" by Tim Kane, focuses on the army but it can all be said of the AF as well. And although I don't think it will change, there's always value in an eloquently stated truth.

[BolterKing]

The senior leadership in Naval Aviation is rife with senior leadership that either "survived" or stood on the backs of their peers... the witchhunt of the post 1991 Tailhook scandal. The culture shift over the last several years is reflective of this. Risk aversion over tactics/success/moral/etc. This article could very well be describing them, or pretty much any Flag/GO leadership in any branch (maybe not the Marines). This is not to say there aren't still some glimmers of hope and warriors in the Flag ranks...

Not only have the GO/Flag ranks swelled to ludicrous levels, their staffs have gotten just retarded as well. We have more Admirals in the Navy than ships. Some how we managed to win WWII with only one Admiral for every ONE HUNDRED THIRTY ships.

Edited August 12, 2013 by BolterKing

[morenoj135]

General Merrill McPeak - Gone but the impact is still with us today - need I say more

[Flaco]

Politicians select risk averse military leaders during times of relative calm.

I don't expect anything to change until the next no-shit shooting match. A lot of what is wrong in the military will change in a matter of months if not weeks at the beginning of said conflict; unfortunately the price for change in American lives will be high.

[pbar]

When the DoD (specifically the General Officer corps) looks into the mirror and doesn't like what it sees, it blames the mirror.

[raimius]

Who do you replace them with? A good portion of the DoD is pretty risk averse, and those who suddenly wind up wearing stars probably won't be able to navigate the system as well as someone who has done so already.

Even then, our whole nation is more risk averse, it seems.

So, basically, we need competent but risk averse to select highly competent people who are not risk averse from a pool that is average and generally risk averse.

[ThreeHoler]

Those who were responsible for the sacking have been sacked.

[tac airlifter]

Who do you replace them with?

I happen to know a number of badass army dudes with a decade long track record of ballsy and successful operations. The problem isn't a lack of competant and qualified people, the problem is a system which views a front line SF team leader with dozens of deployments as less capable of higher rank than a never deployed staff officer with a masters from Harvard. Very similar to our AF problems.

[BolterKing]

I happen to know a number of badass army dudes with a decade long track record of ballsy and successful operations. The problem isn't a lack of competant and qualified people, the problem is a system which views a front line SF team leader with dozens of deployments as less capable of higher rank than a never deployed staff officer with a masters from Harvard. Very similar to our AF problems.

Shack. Tactical badass is not a box to check on the career progression ladder.

[tac airlifter]

I'd prefer my generals to be strategic badasses first and foremost.

As would I in a theoretical world. That said, the only people I've seen with actual strategic mastery are those who've obtained tactical prowess first. And you simply can't do that without deploying. A lot.

[brewskis]

Does that mean F-15C and F-22 pilots are incapable of tactical prowess?

Who knows? What MWS do you fly and how do you rate their tactical prowess?

[disgruntledemployee]

Does that mean F-15C and F-22 pilots are incapable of tactical prowess?

Nope, just you as you have made a grave tactical error in attemping to play the "MWS Race" card in order to stir the pot. Your strategy needs work. Go find some doctrine to read, the last refuge for the unimaginative.

Out

[Buddy Spike]

MWS race card? My strategy? What the hell are you talking about?

What do you fly? Pretty simple question.

[HeloDude]

Simple, but irrelevant.

So you make a comment about pilots in regards to what different kinds of aircraft they fly, but then when asked what aircraft you yourself fly, you refuse to answer?

...noted.

[busdriver]

This annoys me, I agree with Joe1234.... Deployment count does not equal tactical prowess. That said, if you're gonna be a strategic badass you need to at least grasp the tactical level.

[tac airlifter]

This annoys me, I agree with Joe1234.... Deployment count does not equal tactical prowess. That said, if you're gonna be a strategic badass you need to at least grasp the tactical level.

Bus driver, you're correct that deployment count doesn't equal tactical prowess; I was speaking more with my current small corner of the AF in mind and there are some unique things going on here. But I don't know how anyone can truly be superior at tactics without having at least put them into practice a few times. And no, being superior at tactics isn't a prerequisite for strategic excellence, but as you mentioned its at least a fundamental that must be fully understood.

Overall I think this article is correct; both the army & USAF are prohibiting people with demonstrated tactical success who are capable of higher level thinking from competition to higher ranks because they lack a certain academic pedigree.... One that is impossible to obtain when stuck in the daily grind. We're essentially disqualifying a large pool of highly qualified individuals, and the solution lies in changing our paradigm of qualification.

[BolterKing]

Sigh. Is reading comprehension going out of style these days? I asked the guy a simple question, whether pilots of those two airframes need to deploy to gain tactical prowess. If the answer is no, it's an obvious inconsistency of something that he said. Show me where I "made a comment", please.

What I'm trying to get at is that here's a world of possibility between merely grasping tactics, and being a tactical badass or mastering it. I don't think that mastering the art of being down in the weeds tactically is a prerequisite for upper echelon combat leadership. What is a prerequisite, however, is dealing with a bunch of moving pieces, many of which you may only have a tenuous, at best, grasp on. Thats why they have a staff and liaisons.

You don't hire the best engineer at GE to be the CEO. You hire the best businessman. If that guy happens to have an engineer background, then that's even better, as long as he's also still the best businessman. At the end of the day, nobody cares how well the 3/4 star can fly a jet with their seeing eye IP. They will, however, care if you needlessly lose money/lives and extend a war by months because your strategy sucked.

Spoken like someone whose never been down range, under the leadership of someone whose never been down range.

As for the F-15C/F-22 question, what is their back ground? If they did one tour, and the next 20 years of their career on a staff, going to grad school, planning retirement and Christmas parties, then no. If we're talking a guy that spent his entire career in the cockpit, is a patch wearer, and has gone from flying tour to flying tour, whose number was just never called to go down range then ya I'd say they still get the big picture.

[Buddy Spike]

Simple, but irrelevant.

Not really. You consistently prove that you have very limited knowledge (beyond perhaps a few ROTC or ASBC courses) of how the Air Force works from an operator level. You avoid the question every time it's asked, but yet you call out MWS's (like the Eagle and Raptor) while having no credibility.

So either post up what you fly or sit down and shut the fuck up while the adults talk.

[OverTQ]

Given the length of time it takes to make General, I cannot imagine any Generals in the next 5 years that do not have multiple deployments. Maybe a couple years ago there were still some floating around, but not anymore. Also given the cuts we are about to undergo (anybody else remember the 90's), no deployments will put your first in line for the door. At least speaking for the Army where you can look at someone's uniform and tell if they have deployed. I don't really worry about the bad Generals, they seem to be self eliminating at a fairly rapid pace these days.

[tac airlifter]

I don't think that mastering the art of being down in the weeds tactically is a prerequisite for upper echelon combat leadership.

You'd be wrong and the entirety of military history would be against you. Generals leading wars need not be current tactical experts, however, having that background is essential in knowing what can and cannot be done. Business comparisons sometimes work on a micro scale but always fall short on the macro. Besides that, you're entirely sidestepping the point: with current unofficial requirements for specific academic pedigrees we're rendering unqualified a large mass of people who have already proven themselves in combat, while simultaneously allowing only those with hardly any tactical experience through. There hasn't been a single successful military managed this way in all of history, and we seem to have stumbled into this practice rather than methodically reasoning our way here. Your whole discussion is tangential.

If you want to be taken seriously, you need to offer something about your qualifications other than "it doesn't mater, I'm an officer."

[matmacwc]

Yeah, what does he fly?

[brewskis]

And I didn't call anyone out, in fact I was defending the ability of Eagle and Raptor drivers to have tactical prowess yet not be deployed, at least to the desert. Do you guys even read shit or do you just skim and jump to wild conclusions?

Your comment was tongue-in-cheek, and you know it.