Capo-militaries, by their diverse portfolio of activities, such as the use of sophisticated weapons, logistics, and tactics, have become threats to national and international security.
Times of crisis can be a brief window of opportunity for large institutional bureaucracies to overcome jurisdictional boundaries and make changes to business as usual.
Military historian Martin van Creveld argues that women’s presence in the military is little but an expensive charade.
The New York Times reviews Tim Kane's new book Bleeding Talent: How the U.S. Military Mismanages Great Leaders and Why It’s Time for a Revolution. Dr. Kane is a former Air Force officer and now a PhD economist at the Hudson Institute. He argues that the military's all-volunteer force attracts a population more talented than their private sector peers and that the armed forces are a leadership factors, producing a high number of future CEOs, for example. But when it comes to retaining and managing that talent, we have a problem.
According to the review, Kane sees some of the major issues are that talented members have no control over their careers and that the seniority-based up-or-out system is largely talent blind. Kane argues that an internal labor market would help to rationalize the system. That is, if you have to compete for jobs like those in the private sector, the market would do a better job of managing talent than the bureaucracy which, frankly, makes no effort to manage talent.
This is likely to be a frustrating read for almost everyone. If you agree with it, it will frustrate you with the inanity of the system. If you don't, well, you'll still be frustrated. I hope that it sparks some serious soul searching in the Pentagon, though. Well...
Current strategic guidance documents rely upon catchphrases and hyperbole to defer tough national security decision-making.
Gian Gentile provides an intelligent dissection of Tom Ricks' The Generals: American Military Command from World War II to Today at the New York Journal of Books, deeming it "highly readable but flawed."
Tom Ricks’s new book The Generals regresses from Keegan and takes us back to a less complicated form of military storytelling in which wars’ outcomes were determined solely by the performance of army commanders.
The main argument to the book is simple: Relieve American army generals in war for poor performance and victory will be more attainable.
Read it here.
Ongoing changes in tactics and organization presage a near-term transformation to battalion-based Battle Groups.
An interview with Janine Davidson.
People and culture are important – but they are not the only important things. Their importance is relative to the mission and the operational environment.
The US Army is finding itself in the difficult position of attempting to redefine itself in a climate of reduced resources. It shouldn't pin its future to peer-to-peer battle.
