It took a year for Abe Lincoln to give George McLellan the old heave-ho and go in search of a fighting general for his army. In retrospect, this seems lightning fast by today’s standards. But fighters – smart fighters – have in fact emerged. And now they have been empowered to choose their replacements:
This year, (General David) Petraeus wasn’t the only unusual general on the board. Another panelist was Lt. Gen. Peter Chiarelli, Defense Secretary Robert Gates’ senior military assistant, who was also a corps commander in Iraq and the author of several articles in military journals calling for an overhaul of the Army’s personnel policies. Others included Lt. Gen. Stanley McChrystal, commander of the Joint Special Operations Command, who, like Petraeus, was called back from Iraq to serve on the board; Maj. Gen. John Mulholland, commander of special operations for U.S. Central Command (which covers Iraq and Afghanistan); and Lt. Gen. Ann Dunwoody, commander of Materiel Command and a former parachutist in the 82nd Airborne Division, who, as the Army’s top-ranking female officer, is well disposed to the idea of opening doors.
Any officer looking at the names on this panel—and the ones I’ve listed aren’t the only ones—would very clearly get the message: The Cold War is over, and so, finally, is the Cold War Army.
About time.
Wow, I’ve worked for two of them! Cutting edge, I am!
Thank GOD. Now we just get to wait for that “trickle down” effect to the unit level…
May I pimp my blog here? I was actually asked for my opinion, and of course I gave it:
http://xbradtc.wordpress.com/2008/08/05/star-power/
Army people should bridle at that “Cold War Army” tag. The simple fact of the matter is that America needs an Army that can do a lot of things-not just one mission very well. COIN will be a big part of the Army’s bag of tools-but one cannot just jettison the other things in the bag, just because this is the war du jour.
There are still a whole lot of things to prepare for-including the Chinese and Slavic hordes who are still out there-and growing.
Plus I think its a slap in the face to a lot of people who have worked hard to make sure the army is what it should be-a multi mission force.
It is like saying we don’t need blue water ships or ASW just because the nation is involved in riverine warfare. I think I can safely say that every one knows that is a fallacy-or at least it will remain so till the Russians and the Chinese stop building submarines.
Skippy, the shift in the promotions isn’t so much away from the Cold War to the COIN guys, but rather a shift from the staff weenies to the guys with successful command time. McMaster was VERY successful in his brigade level command and he did it with a heavy “Cold War” designed unit. That he got passed over twice showed there was a deep flaw in the selection for GOs. Hopefully, that’s a solved problem. No longer will the guy with the prettiest PowerPoint get “waterwalker” OERs while a guy who fought in Iraq for 15 months gets told that the door will hit him in the fanny at 26 years.
Yeah, looking at the previous years seems to me many Army EAs without time in theater got the nod while the guys in the soup didn’t.
We did something a bit similar in terms of time in theater with our company grades doing IAs, I would argue.
And what’s the surest billet en route to flag in the Nav? EA, I’m betting. I think that it would be useful to for someone, in an appropriate place to do something about it, think about this Army criteria change in terms of whether a similar tweak would be good for Navy–at least in the areas where we’re clearly on track for big failure.
I submit to you that old habits die hard and Petreaus will sit on no more selection boards as a CINC. In my current job I working around a lot of Army and Air Force guys-the breed of Powerpoint ranger is not dead by a long shot.
Surest route to Flag in the Nav? Go Nuke if you are an aviator, if you are a shoe-Acquisition professional. Most EA’s in my experience already had their preferred customer cards before entering the job.
General P may not sit on any more boards, but I think the message may soak in a little. I hope anyway. I’ll defer to you guys, Chap, Skippy, Lex as having far more experience in the officer selection and promotion side. We let the occasional Wes Clarke through, but we get plenty of Petreaus’s as well.
Skippy speaks truth. Example: For years, may still be, it’s been easier numerically to make flag as an AP bubblehead than as an 1120 bubblehead.
I’ve noticed since my first shore tour that who we designate as Anointed doesn’t necessarily harmonize with which jobs really are the most important ones.
A suggestion if you ever find the time. A list of acronyms would be great for those of us who wouldn’t know an AP bubblehead if they introduced themselves. Kaboom (LT G) used to have a list that was very handy for translation purposes. I can usually muddle my way through but today might as well have been Greek.
Not to knock McMaster, but his success only lasted while he and the bottomless purse were in place. When he left and the purse bottomed out (I understand his successor chose not to buy his peace), the AOR sank right back into its old ways. Not that there’s anything inherently wrong with buying off your enemies, sometimes it’s cheaper and smarter, and McMaster might well have chosen the wiser course. I just don’t know if it was the success he’s touted it to be.
concur with Skippy re: Cold War tag
concur with XBradTC re: staff vs warrior
..but…. HR is year group 84. He hit the list for BG at the 24 year mark. he was below zone (and well deserving of it) all along the path. but bottom line is 24 years to BG, and that ain’t bad at all, by any measure of time passing by. he earned it (the hard way), in right about the “right” amount of time. why all the talk of passing over and getting the board process fixed??
Zane: the purse was for whatever the grounds commander determined to be in need of some quick spending (versus time-wasting bureaucratic spending channels). HR evidently determined that was the wisest way to spend it, others determined that other things were cash worthy. it WAS the success he touted it to be, just as other areas had there successes in whatever they chose to throw their money against.
further than that, i shall not say, since i’m myopic on the issue (and if i was a betting man, my money still stays on HR (as it has since the summer of ’80))
Skippy is quite right about the current bad press for the Cold War – it might do well to remember we actually won that war, nyet? It is awfully frustrating to hear people opine that counter-insurgency is now the end all and be all, so we can scrap concerns over air superiority, sea control, heavy armor etc. and for precisely the reasons Skippy says – not all our would-be enemies (esp. the most important ones) in the world specialize in IEDs, terrorism and guerilla forces. It is also worthwhile to remember that in the Cold War we acquired the tools and habits of thinking and praciticign a global strategy as a global/grand strategy and not just regional strategies/operational approaches stitched together. The last major army that got obsessed with operations over strategy was the German army, and frankly they are not a model, what with having lost two world wars and getting their country cut up into little bits and all.
Of course we shouldn’t “fight the last war”, but we are allowed to learn from it. And it seems to me that Americans have a very dangerous susceptibility to both historical amnesia and tunnel vision that sees what is happening NOW as the next big thing. Along that path lies many nasty surprises.
ps: And by the way Skippy – six of so months back I took umbrage at something you said and stated something to the effect that I didn’t think engaging in discussion with you would be worthwhile – I want to apologize for that. I spoke wrongly and rashly. I’ve spent some time in the real blogg void over at the Atlantic and realize that whatever disagreements I might have with you are as nothing compared with some on the loony-toons/troll brigade left.
I don’t think it’s necessarily the ability to adapt to COIN so much as the ability to adapt that’s being rewarded.
You hardly ever fight the war you’ve prepared for – it’s the force that can quickly adapt to the fight they’re actually in that will win, all other things being equal. OODA, and all that.
Dear Lex,
Fair enough – and I gind as a scholar that it is challenging to try to think through what it means to be in a post Cold War situation (and Vlad is making it awful hard to stay with that perception esp. with blasts from the pasts such as… http://www.themoscowtimes.com/article/600/42/369557.htm ). I get the idea of bureaucratic rut, and especially that in the military it is necessary to fast track the achievers in combat. And it is not that I feel any nostalgia for the CW at all, but I simply am concerned that the GWOT not become THE model of how we think about the mission of the armed forces.
It’s not just the Army, folks. I just left Afghanistan and saw and met (served with) Many NAVY “warriors” who were on second or third deployments with stagnant or dead careers BECAUSE of their deplolyment and service. Pretty PowerPoint slides still play in the deep blue. I hope a house cleaning is on it’s way. A Navy admin message that is unenforcable and ignored by senior line commanders and promotion boards was not the answer.
Danger,
I think the Navy issues with folks who have been to Iraq and Afghanistan are unique to the Navy and have more to do with the fact that the “preferred customers” get opted out of being in the gene pool for IA’s because they are having to meet the requirements of command at sea /Joint to make the wickets for the next higher command. As a result the folks that get sent into the IA pool at higher pay grades are those that are no longer part of the “beautiful people” ( with some exceptions). Now units that havbe done ILO (in Lieu of) deployments, their personnel have faired no better or worse than anyone else in their respective communities. Some communities just make more flags-twas always thus.
A URL officer still has to make the milestones required by his particular community and the Navy should not have to apologize for that. Guys have to do their time at sea.
The real issue it seems to me-is whether because of the timeline to a particular career event that either makes you a preferred customer or not (e.g. Squadron Command Screen in aviation) if the Navy is trying to stuff too much into one sock…..and perhaps just perhaps, it needs to allow more time to do all that is expected these days.
don’t pack away your Cold Warrior gear just yet…
http://www.stratfor.com/geopolitical_diary/geopolitical_diary_decision_time_south_ossetia#top