No, it’s not the latest crewe of knuckleheads crossing the seas to wage war on their countrymen. They are a blip lost in the noise band of extremism, and at least they were romantic and foolish enough to eschew domestic terror to fight in the field. If they hadn’t gotten swept up by the Pakistani authorities before they could wage jihad, they would very probably have been treated more or less respectfully by the graves registration detail before being shipped home in caskets.
Non, mes amis – we have met the enemy and they are us:
(Decisions) move through the process of risk mitigation like molasses. When the Taliban arrive in a village, I discovered, it takes 96 hours for an Army commander to obtain necessary approvals to act. In the first half of 2009, the Army Special Forces company I was with repeatedly tried to interdict Taliban. By our informal count, however, we (and the Afghan commandos we worked with) were stopped on 70 percent of our attempts because we could not achieve the requisite 11 approvals in time…
The red tape isn’t just on the battlefield. Combat commanders are required to submit reports in PowerPoint with proper fonts, line widths and colors so that the filing system is not derailed. Small aid projects lag because of multimonth authorization procedures. A United States-financed health clinic in Khost Province was built last year, but its opening was delayed for more than eight months while paperwork for erecting its protective fence waited in the approval queue…
Mid-level leaders win or lose conflicts. Our forces are better than the Taliban’s, but we have leashed them so tightly that they are unable to compete.
This isn’t just an Army thing. Naval fleet commanders want live video streamed from Scan Eagle UAVs to fleet headquarters ashore so that a three-star flag officer can look over the shoulder of deployed destroyer or cruiser commanding officers on site and help them fix their problems with a thousand mile screwdriver.
This places the flag officer back in his comfort zone – he was a successful commanding officer, or else he wouldn’t be wearing those stars. But it’s a terribly inefficient to fight a war against a nimble adversary that appears, terrorizes and then melts away.
You can train your people to do their jobs, equip them for the missions you’ve assigned and hold them accountable for their actions. Or you can do their jobs for them.
But if you’re doing that, then who is doing your job?
This is a teleological result of the same model that has impacted law enforcement. “…he was a successful commanding officer…”
The leader has been successfully neutered and transformed into a manager. Cops are more afraid of litigation than they are of losing their lives. This is by design. Many people agreeing to and performing under a shared narrative need not be a conspiracy for the end result to be orchestrated.
Dang, I thought could do a Godwin on the first comment, but it seems I’m second. Hitler used to micro-manage, too. Commanders on the Eastern Front complained that they didn’t dare move a sentry from the window to the door without permission from Berlin. Oh, yeah, and there was that Lyndon Johnson fella, too.
Who had a scale model of Khe San built in the White Situation Room. We make men go through OCS, ROTC and USMA/USNA/USAFA so they have the foundation of what they need to know to make the decisions they are paid to make. When a guy back on the beacg, or CONUS is making the decisions, some one is not needed.
I wonder how much of this is just a symptom of a larger cultural slide rather than an isolated trend in and of itself. It reminds me of the Heritage Foundation’s Index of Economic Freedom and how one of the factors is how quickly you can start a business. In the more free countries starting a business is a perhaps dozen step process that takes maybe a month or two, and no kickbacks. In the economically moribund countries it requires a gazillion steps, takes many months, and seems to be correlated to having to bribe your way through miles of Byzantine red tape.
Recently Michael Medved was also discussing how the average, non-military, federal employee makes somewhere around $70K a year, not counting benefits. This is about double what the average American earns in a job that actually produces something of value. I’m also reminded of how almost all the new “jobs” created by the stimulus have been public sector, and of the near numbing march of new regulatory schemes congress, world institutions, or the already established national bureaucracy seem to be bursting at the seams with nowadays. Bureaucracy’s only bread and butter is paying their employees to say no in more and more circumstances to those who want to do something temselves. I honestly think these trends are all related.
The root problem I think has to do with a culture of control. Not trusting people to live their lives for themselves and suffer or enjoy the moral consequences of their own decisions, thinking you know better, etc. Or more likely just the selfish joy some have of telling others what to do, directing as much activity around them as possible, and how it makes them feel important or intelligent regardless of the outcome. Especially regardless of the outcome given the track record of command economies versus free market systems the world over since time immemorial.
I wonder how much taking production, in an increasingly service oriented economy, for granted, and taking high standards of living for granted are at play in the rise of this culture in American institutions. To say nothing of teaching our children self-esteem and how great they are no matter what and thus, in their undeveloped minds, unwittingly or not stoking the fires of the ideal that they should be in charge. And now we have people with the unquestioned ideology of children and people who were stunted in their development as teens in the highest halls of national power.
Man, does your 3rd paragraph sure hit the nail right on the head. I think the joy of control over others is the prime reason people become progressives. Even the most cursorey examination of how the left has behaved for the last 40 to 50 years confirms your statements.
Part of the problem is that there is so little instruction on the art of higher command.
A high-level commander MUST resist the temptation to play lieutenant. That’s the lieutenant’s job. Patton claimed that a general should know the positions of units two levels down…but should command only one level down.
It’s a particular problem today because we STILL have not shifted to a wartime mindset. SECDEF Gates is right about that. We still have staffers obsessed with form over function. I deal with it every working day. And don’t get me started on UAV scope-dopes.
It makes one wonder what sort of disaster it will take to jar things loose.
Mike M – I hope no disaster because of course it will be here on domestic soil that it will have to happen. And I fear that you are right – it will take a massive disaster that will eclipse 9/11.
I thought we sort of learned that was not a good way to fight or win a war back in Vietnam.
Strange that the NY Times would print this story, they usually only print stuff that hurts our forces. But, then again, perhaps they intend this to demoralize our military and civilians.
A sure way to lose a war.
Of course we would all agree that they are a bit more than a “crewe of knuckleheads.”
Unfortunately, there appears to be a startling and growing number of “home-grown terrorists” who will eagerly leave the US for foreign lands to train in the horrific ‘art’ of killing Americans (or Brits, Canadians, etc.), either overseas or here… sometimes by means of sensational and worldwide newsworthy terrorist acts. This poses a major and growing threat that is most difficult to counter.
The old and hollow bromide of, “We fight them over there so we don’t have to fight them here,” was always a bit too disingenuous, I believe.
flit, haven’t seen you for a while, welcome back. And I second your post, too.
Well, two points, neither of which are very original, but might give a tad bit of historical perspective–not that anyone here really needs it–we all pretty much know the score…
First, I had an O-6 I worked for as a FAC at DaNang after my F-4 stint tell me that “we won’t be satisfied until we have a TV camera in the cockpit looking over the shoulder of every pilot in the AF.” This was in late 68.
Second, a few years back at the dawn of the Power Point era, some wag, observing the trends it already was engendering and the manner in which it was quickly shaping/distorting ops to fit IT”S profile parameters, said: “The quickest way to defeat the enemy is to ensure that everyone in it’s command is totally equipped and trained in Power Point usage from top to bottom.” Truer words were never spoken….
1. Every power point jockey ought to just once push himself off the keyboard, grab a weapon, a weapon platform, or lead a group that is under fire, for just a bit. The enemy is the best teacher. (Did Patton use PP?)
2. A TV camera in the cockpit of every pilot in the AF – although an outrageous and absurd idea – would nevertheless have provided scenes of uncommon heroism and expertise, unknown to many of those who lacked the experience, yet ruled. Better yet, a camera underground at Offutt, chronicling some of the incompetence at the Air Force top.
Some are warriors, some are staff, some are leaders, some are intellectuals, some are dreamers, some are statesmen, some are advocates, some are engineers, and some are salt of the earth. But it is too rare to find any who possesses all these traits.
Flit, sadly, a lot of the PP jockeys were guys that used weapons until they got promoted up, and wish to Hell they were using weapons again, but now they are giving their bosses what they want. PP is just a tool, but not surprisingly, we’ve confused the medium with the message. Not having a message, in fact, we’ll just pump the Hell out of the medium and maybe one will pop up.
Damn, the navy won again! That hurts.
When one is compelled to brief at 7 different levels of classification to the various officials in the country, it does take time, requires the strictest of compliance with ppt strictures and does take even more time merging the SA with some losers that don’t have the right level of enthusiasm – particularly when you have to so brief the Af CDR et al, staff, Country Team, Host Nation, plus the CENTCOM FWD team plus CENTCOM rear plus the various Departments such as State et al each of whom demands compliance with their stupid ppt slide masters…. now that you know, you know that we’ve entered the bureaucratic war of our fathers. This war is almost that old and look what democrats did in that war in the endgame. I don’t doubt that our “friends” in Iraq and Afghanistan know what it means now that the democrats are once again in control of funding for their wars. Cooperate with US and die in 2 years when the funding vanishes or start working the angles.
My little question about our young jihad enemies now resident in Pakistan, all from Northern VA is, how many of them attended that Saudi funded school for Jihad in Northern VA that doesn’t seem to make the news all that often? There are 1800 students there funded by the Kingdom last I heard, all learning the proper precepts of being a good muslim, which is to say, a fanatic of the first water. Of those 5 in Pakistan, how many attended that school?
Oh, viz first para, contrast with CIA OODA loop in Pakistan with their Reapers. No ppt. No umpteen levels of shared knowledge, no outside injects from non-players. Sort of like the way the war began for the military in Afghanistan. This too shall pass. Oddly enough, we’re not at war in Pakistan. It does make you wonder doesn’t it?
Y’all have probably noticed how each time we upgrade our information dominance and awareness the wars take longer to resolve and have less significant outcomes. Some of these conflicts just keep on going given our info superiority and last forever thanks to the domain awareness we have.
It is almost like the NCA are totally blind to history, culture and religion.
Moderation? I knew I should have used semi-colons. What was I thinking.
Yeah, Curtis, those semi-colons will f**k ya up every time….
John, VX, Flit, et. al.
A lot of the micromanagement crap like this was set aside by the core of officers that remained in the Army after Viet Nam. These were the guys that were Majors thru Colonels when I came in as an infantry LT in the late 70s that has suffered thru the bullshit as LTs and CPTs. Guys with names like Sullivan (a former Bde Cdr of mine), Shinseki, Powell, Schwartskopf, the other Franks) etc. We were given a lot more flexibilty to do our jobs where we were given a mission statement and intent or task and purpose and held accountable for the results. The First Gulf War was run by these people and we saw the results but as they retired and left the next generation, those commissioned in the 70s, began to take over. This group went thru the “Peace Dividend” draw-down and the hyper-inflated OER system where one boo-boo or less than stellar report cards killed your career. My take on is that change in the paradigm contributed to a stovepipe leadership and micro management which has a tendency to grow stronger, particularly after the fight stablizes and is less fluid. Technology like blue force tracker now lets every GO/Flag and their staff weenies become the equivent of the infamous two-star Squad Leader in the overhead UH-1 C2 Bird. Waiting 96 hours to get authorization to act outside your orders is reminiscent of a Soviet Block style military than the military I spent most of my adult life in.
Dust
Good points. With luck, in 5-10 years the Iraq and Afghanistan field-grade officers will be in a position to effect some reforms.
This is nothing new. My husband was an F16 pilot involved in the war over Kosovo. When he came home he told me how the missions were run (he planned a great many of them). They were generally not given discretion to fire at enemy forces unless it was preplanned (exception being anti-aircraft that was firing at them directly, of course). They had drones back then, too.
So they’d fly over homes and watch Serbians roll in and burn the things to the ground, unable to do anything until they brought the tapes back and had them analyzed and the targets approved. By that time, everything was destroyed and the culprits gone of course.
Just adding that patrolling the no-fly-zones during the 90s over Iraq were even worse. In those cases, they often couldn’t fire back at anti-aircraft directly firing at them…because it was always located near a busy road or school building.
“Combat commanders are required to submit reports in PowerPoint with proper fonts, line widths and colors so that the filing system is not derailed”…reminds me of something written by French general Andre Beaufre, talking about his experience as a young Captain on the staff during the interwar period:
“I saw very quickly that our seniors were primarily concerned with forms of drafting. Every memorandum had to be perfect, written in a concise, impersonal style, and conforming to a logical and faultless plan–but so abstract that it had to be read several times before one could find out what it was about…”I have the honour to inform you that I have decided…I envisage…I attach some importance to the fact that…” Actually no one decided more than the barest minimum, and what indeed was decided was pretty trivial.”
…and we all know how *that* turned out…
Yep, trashed by what was reputed to be the most proficient Army int he world. The Prussian ideal was flexibility and movement towards the goal. They knew that acting outside of your orders might be required to do just that. In the end they were overwhelmed by superiors numbers and material, but look what it took. In spite of Hitler, look what it took. Makes you wonder what they could have done without him in the way.
A method for evaluating potential leaders, supposedly from von Moltke the Elder:
When assigning tasks to officers, one must consider four basic types of personality:
1) stupid and lazy – these men can be used for simple repetitive tasks that are not challenging. You always need someone to do the paperwork.
2) intelligent and energetic: these men are capable, but prone to micromanagement and overcomplicated schemes. Thus these men make decent lower level officers but are unfit for high command.
3) stupid and energetic: these are the most dangerous men of all, far more dangerous than the 1st group. Because of their energy they will set themselves to constantly creating messes far faster than they can be cleaned up, and the entire organization will soon be focused on simply repairing what these men destroy. They are walking, talking, disaster creators and must be dismissed as soon as they are identified.
4) intelligent and lazy: this is the man fit for overall command of any organization. Why? Because he is smart enough to see what needs to be done but is also motivated by laziness to find the easiest, simplest way to succeed. And, of course, such an officer would never sully his hands with details, vastly preferring to delegate those concerns to the eager beaver types.
And this is how candidates for leadership are to be evaluated.
Would there be any hope to the following ROE?
Upon informing higher authority, a delay in permission to proceed by said authority within [a given amount of time] constitutes consent to proceed as planned. Wouldn’t this pin responsibility where it belongs? Then the discussion could be brought out into the open of what constitutes acceptable delay in receiving permission so as to keep our OODA loop shorter than that of the enemy.
that’s UNODIR…. “unless otherwise directed”. what’s his name, the disgraced SEAL, used to write about doing that in VN. i’m pretty sure it’d get yer butt in a crack these days.
Once upon a time there was “its easier to beg forgiveness than to ask for permission”. Saved many JO careers more than once. Seems to me that we’ve grown a population that views war as the ultimate video game – no Xbox required. Had some friends in the H60 community involved in the FLIR/weapons integration. Ship community just had to have the FLIR data linked back to ship so CO could authorize engagement, or forward the vid up the chain to get permission. Giving an aircrew direction when they’re 100 miles away with no other support is not realistic. We’ve all seen some of the footage from air support missions in Iraq. half the feed is “are we cleared to engage, target moving”. “Negative, waiting on Sierra Buster to get back from crapper”.
Let’s pack up and come home early. Give Peace a chance.
G-man/
This stuff has a long pedigree. Take the “Pueblo” incident, for example. The ROE “on-the-scene commander” with the sole authority to authorize wpns expenditure by F4s (out of Pusan IIRC in that case), Cong. testimony revealed was
some joint task force in Yakota, Japan. It never ends…just gets worse with each increase in technical comm. capability…
Virgil, tech comm advances (which should be for the better), and lack of front-line military experience at the White House.
The wall around the Jdgdalak clinic was delayed for money, not approval of paperwork. Title 10 versus title 8 money. A lack of timliness to release CERP fubds… Fraud with many imbeded NGO’s. I signed the papers. End of discussion.
Two more points:
1) That would be “CERP funds” If I could type better when angry.
2) The clinic was open and providing health care to the locals and the “grand opening” was just a show for the press. No delay in healthcare… until the Taliban put a RPG into the building three months later.
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Just finished which gives quite an exciting account of what the silent service did with no ROE.