The good folks over at AOL Defense have posted another article of mine about the future of the Army, this one about the human dimension:
(Click above for the full story).
Rumsfeld, in fact, cited a National Journal story of mine on the subject at a press conference – back in August 2001. A month later, his mind was on other things, but the Army has still (mostly) solved one of the two big problems I wrote about in ’01. Unfortunately, the other half of my story remains just as relevant ten years on. While the Army personnel bureaucracy no longer routinely sabotages teambuilding (kind of important in combat) by shuffling individuals from unit to unit, it still tries to micromanage military careers in ways that make it hard to develop skills in, say, foreign cultures. National Journal has graciously allowed me to reprint the text of that 2001 piece here, since it’s no longer accessible on their site: Reforming the Ranks – National Journal 2001-08-08.
The current story quotes three servicemembers who participated in oral history interviews with me: Maj. Trent Gibson, US Marine Corps; Capt. Paul McCullough, US Army; and former Army major Christopher Cummings. Also relevant are the personnel (mis)management misadventures of another soldier I had the honor to interview, Army Maj. Shaw Pick; click here for his story.
Readers are encouraged to comment below.
4 Comments
[A note from Sydney Freedberg: James Dubik is a retired Lieutenant General with first-hand experience organizing our efforts to train the Iraqi military. He's been a great source of expertise to me on past articles and emailed me some insightful comments on the personnel issue, which I reproduce below with his permission:]
Thanks for bring this important issue to light and keeping the light on it.
From my perspective, several other issues have to be part of the conversation:
1. The army has too few leaders, and the methodology to determining the leader-to-led ration is outdated. Over the past few years, there have been several leader-intensive requirements. First, making all the staffs 24/7 capable. They are not so staffed in peacetime. Second, staffing all the joint and multinational headquarters–and not just in Iraq and Afghanistan but also elsewhere around the world. Third, expanding the size of the special operating forces. And last, creating all the train, equip, mentor activities.
2. The nation’s policy was not to expand the size of the army. Hence, it has been overused in the past decade. We backed into this. Initially, the false belief was that we would accomplish regime change and leave. When it was clear that wasn’t going to work, we believed–again falsely–we could “train, equip, and transition” quickly, so we could use a rotation policy. When it became clear that wasn’t going to work, there was no political will to expand the size of the army based upon actual wartime requirements because doing so would be a de facto acknowledgement of a war policy that was not working…and now it is unaffordable. So we just keep rotating the same people (leaders mostly) with ever shorter time between rotations.
3. Now, the nation is talking about reducing the size of the army even while it is at war. In war, the future is in two sets of hands–ours and the enemy’s. Further, the policy of “anticipatory force reductions” is based upon another false belief: that our future will not look like our recent past–this even when any uniformed or non-uniformed analyst is saying otherwise. This policy is based upon the nation’s historical bias to offset size of forces with technology. Hence, we see the re-emergence of a naval-air strategy that under-appreciates the role of ground forces–even as we have had a decade of ground force intensive activities. Such a policy reveals the assumption that “we’ll never do that again,” where “that” is fight an insurgency, need a “phase IV” capacity, or develop an indigenous security capability beyond that of tactical training provided by special forces. In the kind of uncertain strategic environment, “never” is doesn’t seem like good defense policy to me.
Thanks for your thoughtful comment, General. I’m particularly struck by the argument that we have too few staff officers, which is counterintuitive amidst all the talk about us having too many officers. (E.g. Senator Webb’s critique of “star creep,” the proliferation of generals and admirals in particular, although I know LTG Dubik is focusing here on mid-grade officers).
Sydney,
I hear all the talk about having too many officers, and the talk contains some cogent arguments. But I ask you only to compare the size of the peacetime staff of a battalion, brigade, division, and corps to its size in theater. The ones in theater are much larger. Those additional officers and sergeants have to come from somewhere. This is a “rob Peter to pay Paul” kind of management scheme. Someone is short leaders to grow staffs…plus the other leader-intensive activities I mentioned.
Then throw in the absolutely correct desire to give our leaders “broadening educational and assignment opportunities.” The number of leaders quickly run out. It’s simply an arithmetic issue.
When a person says we have too many leaders–officer or sergeants–one has to ask, “based upon what standard?”
For further reading, LTG Dubik recommends two of his articles on this subject from ARMY magazine, the publication of the independent Association of the United States Army: “Matching Ends and Means” and “Studying the Future Security Environment” (note there’s some white space at the top of the articles so you may have to scroll down to see the text — rest assured, I’m not linking to blank pages).
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