Military Reformers - It was the day after Suzy died. Ike Skelton's favorite congressman was gone, and Ike's call to me that night was heartbreaking. Our annual trip to the House Armed Services Committee was the next day, so I thought Ike called to cancel. After expressing my condolences, I suggested that we postpone the event until next year. Ike said no. We met as usual in front of the Russell building at 8.00 sharp. Then depart from Antietam. At the time I wondered why.
Suzy died in the summer of 2005, a time when Ike, by his own admission, became a tortured soul. He feared that his military reform, the Goldwater-Nichols Act of 1986, would fail. Ike's passion for education reform in the 1980s was born out of the belief that the military had done poorly during the 1983 invasion of Grenada because the services had not learned to fight together. To use the language, Ike was convinced that the services must learn to fight "together." He recognized that individual resources can fight in their own environments - land, sea and air - but fail when combined to fight as a multi-resource group. While others in Congress sought federal solutions to the problem, Ike believed that true "cooperation" could only be achieved by changing the culture of the military, and the culture could only be changed by adjusting the way officers were taught.
Military Reformers
And just a few years after Goldwater-Nichols passed away, it became clear to Ike that his reforms were working. He was convinced that the success of Operation Desert Storm was due to some degree to the intellectual gifts of the "Jedi Knights" - Gen. Schwarzkopf of the Army's School of Advanced Military Studies (SAMS) at Ft. Leavenworth, Kansas. Ike's main interest was military schools. My relationship with Ike began when I was commandant of the Army War College in the mid-1990s. We are committed to our shared passion to make a good system better.
Buy Elina Pilates Elite Wood Reformer
Then came 9/11 and the wars it caused. By 2005, Ike had concluded that the work of generals and admirals was not up to the task of controlling at the strategic level—the area where war tactics and operational art meet political authority. At that time, the military leaders had learned to fight "together", but they seemed unable to swim in the sea of political sharks, those who eat politics inside the Pentagon and Congress, who always showed a level of historical belief and cultural discord that frightened us both. .
Out of respect for Ike's grief, most of the house staff declined our invitation to attend. The bus was mostly empty. Only Ike's staff and a few members of his immediate family accompanied him. So our conversations were deep and profound. We stopped for a while at the cemetery on the battlefield. Antietam is one of the few national park cemeteries from the Civil War era that holds the remains of soldiers killed in recent wars. Ike's tortured soul began to manifest there.
At the grave of Patrick Howard Roy, a sailor who died on the USS Cole in 2000, Ike commented under his breath that this sailor's death was senseless and unnecessary. In fact, the soldiers can fight "together" because of his reforms. But Cole's tragedy set the tone for what military leaders at the time expected, envisioned or responded to when faced with an adversary as flexible as al-Qaeda. Most importantly, Ike lamented the inability of uniformed leaders to shape and influence their leaders' policy-making. At the time, Ike was at odds with Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld over the wisdom of the Bush administration's strategy in Iraq. He believed that most of the generals could not resist what was a foolhardy and dreamy strategy. I remember his words: "They agree in my office, but they fall when they face Rummy's wrath."
The education system that has created today's generation of top managers is deeply rooted in the culture of managers. Before 9/11, no officer could be promoted to the rank of general or admiral without attending a special or joint war college. The rules have since been relaxed because of the urge for our wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Many officers gain their first access to advanced military careers and tactics at "staff college," essentially an intermediate level education offered to officers around their eleventh year of service. Both schools are selective. In the Army, the Command and General Staff College takes about half of those who qualify, and the Army War College takes less than a quarter. Each service has its own middle school and high school. Ike's biggest change was to change the curriculum and student body at these schools from single-service to "co-ed" institutions.
The Ukrainian Military Has Defied Expectations. Here Is How U.s. Security Aid Contributed
It was at Antietam that Ike and I concluded that participation was not enough. We needed another revolution, based on the goal of creating a body of high-ranking officials with extraordinary intellectual abilities. Ike's favorite revolutionary model at the time was SAMS. We both believed at the time that the secret to professional military education (PME) reform was to create a new program using SAMS's proven teaching success as a model. The reforms would focus on selecting the best and brightest and preparing them to swim with the political sharks.
Ike and I continued to meet after he retired from the house. The Metropolitan Club was his favorite place. Much of what followed came from those sweet conversations. But Ike died in 2013. Members of Congress carefully trained them to replace him as PME reformers gradually left Congress, unconverted. Interest in reforming education is growing within the services. Well-intentioned efforts by ministries to select and train a new generation of strategic thinkers have backfired or failed. Unfortunately, too many of today's three- and four-star generals were too busy fighting to attend military schools. They do it without higher education. So why would they push the model that made them successful?
But times can change. Gen. Joe Dunford, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, was my student at the War College. Over the years, he has been a big supporter of the education reform. I suggest that the enthusiasm of Gen. Dunford's recent revelations may be the catalyst for a revision of Ike's original ideas, many of which I have internalized and expanded over the years in numerous ministry and trade publications. A chapter in my latest book,
Entitled "Strategic Genius" is dedicated to PME reform. Again a lift from my many years of conversations with Ike.
Overhauling The Draft System: Hard Times For The Reformers
So now we have an opportunity to transform PME. Let's start by repeating Ike's idea, which was presented to me objectively:
Development of a robust program of joint selection and training that will produce a team of highly qualified strategic leaders capable of anticipating, planning and directing future wars.
How can changes be made? To answer, let's start with what doesn't need to be changed. Military academies today do a good job of introducing senior officers to the strategic level of warfare. They offer a "survey" course with a strategy that brings together experts from all services, government agencies and the allied military to meet in a fun place with time to think, learn and connect with neglected peers and families. To be sure, military schools could use a facelift. In many cases, the curricula are outdated and some faculties do not have the proper credentials. But major efforts to change curricula in the past have resulted in big gains, a lot of energy and political capital expended with very little return. Recent efforts to reform the War College's personnel and organizations have also been unsuccessful. Unfortunately, most of the top leaders of the war college are not trained in educational matters and often resort to removing the deckchairs. Very little, if anything, comes from these structural reform efforts.
As suggested by Ike, meaningful change must be based on need. What's the problem? In short: the recent experience of the war strongly suggests that those who climb to the top of the strategic decision-making tower are often ill-suited for the job. The military has no shortage of strategic talent. The problem is that military promotions and rewarding officials often fail to clear the way for great talent to reach the top. Well-trained, tactically gifted officers often become four-star advisers or faculty at service schools. But when senior generals are not themselves well-versed in the art of strategy, thoughtful advice from colonels on the staff often falls into the dustbin of meaningless wisdom.
Bradley Fighting Vehicle
A sure way to ensure the success of PME reforms would be to limit the size and scope of the company. Each service has its own academic culture, bureaucracy, funding and service-specific teaching needs. Trying to change the giant bureaucratic hydra will require more time, political capital, and total effort than the Department of Defense. I suggest that Gen. Dunford recently expressed the excitement about the changes can be
Military drone range, laser range finder military, military range bags, military range targets, long range military radio, military radio range, military range finder, military long range binoculars, range rover military discount, military range rover, range of military drones, military range bag
0 Comments