The U.S. military officer corps faces an ever-increasing array of challenges. With current conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan and a complex global environment, the United States is relying on its armed forces to perform an ever-widening variety of functions. CNAS's latest report, Keeping the Edge: Revitalizing America's Military Officer Corps, analyzes the changing nature of military officership and provides recommendations for how the U.S. military officer corps can keep its edge in a new strategic environment.
The Center for a New American Security (CNAS) will launch Keeping the Edge at an event today from 5:00-6:30 p.m. at the Willard Intercontinental Hotel followed by a reception. The event will feature a keynote address by U.S. Joint Forces Commander General James Mattis, USMC, and a panel discussion with top experts including: Vice Admiral Ann E. Rondeau, USN, President of National Defense University; Lieutenant General David Barno, USA, (Ret.), Director of the Near East South Asia Center for Strategic Studies at National Defense University; Major General Charles J. Dunlap, Jr., USAF, Deputy Judge Advocate General at U.S. Air Force Headquarters; and Dr. John A. Nagl, CNAS President. Find out more about the event here and RSVP for the event here.
In Keeping the Edge, the authors -- Dr. John Nagl, Brian M. Burton, Dr. Don M. Snider, Frank G. Hoffman, Captain Mark R. Hagerott, USN, and Colonel Roderick C. Zastrow, USAF -- argue that the military must provide a broader range of educational and professional experiences to military officers, essential components of training agile minds how to think rather than what to think, and cultivate new skill sets that are more relevant to 21st-century challenges.
"The profession of officership will continue to require physical, moral, and mental excellence, but the rapidly changing strategic environment of the 21st century will place an increasing premium on agility and flexibility," write Nagl and Burton. "The emerging strategic environment will provide both challenges and opportunities to those who have the tools necessary to handle the unexpected, and to do so with honor and integrity."
Download the full report here.
Comments
the last section of the report ex-sum.. Promoting the right people with the right skills.. IMO, will take a generation to correct, just like fighting Joint took a congressional mandate, several wars, and a generation of officers to work. The officers promoted under the old system won't want to let go of a system that helped them succeed.
i can't find it but there was a discussion between Representative Ike Skelton and LTG Caldwell about this very topic and LTG Caldwell took the position that the Strategy functional area is a good place for officers that understand strategy but didn't make the cut because their tactical report card wasn't good. the problem with this approach is it puts the Strategic minded at the mercy of a tactician that doesn't "get it". i've seen this first hand in iraq and the Strategic team tends to just tell the boss what he wants to hear and they all get on the bus to Abilene. i spent 5 months trying to get the boss to look at the bigger picture and nothing worked. he was incapable and he needed to continue doing what worked for him so he could hopefully get promoted. honestly, i don't think he ever considered 2nd and 3rd order effects of anything he did. he just wanted to "do something". that is a dangerous situation to be in and the Army has self-inflicted itself with it.
Although officer retention and officers who only serve their bosses are a concern, Redleg is spot on- that is not the point of the CNAS study. I recommend reading the entire report. I am still going through it, so I cant claim to represent it in its entirety.
The report deals with how we develop our officers so they are prepared to lead at multiple levels of command- tactical, operational and strategic.
We clearly need officers who are masters of tactical operations to ensure units can accomplish their objectives and give our Soldiers combat smart leaders. I was able to attend the CNAS round table last week where general officers from each of the services commented on the report and more broadly the issue of officer development in a changing strategic environment. One of the them brought up the problem Redleg identified. There is already so much to do, when do we fit in these other opportunities (grad school, tours with other government agencies, cultural immersions, etc).
I think the solution is that not everybody takes part in these programs. Ideally officers would have numerous career paths available. I believe there is a balance in the first 10-15 years of a career between developing expertise in the application of force and broadening horizons so they understand how to execute other elements of counterinsurgency operations (economic, collaborating in an interagency environment). Hopefully, this report is sparks a debate on what that balance is - ensuring we have leaders who understand how to operate above the tactical level and care about more than "how to make their bosses happy."
Incidentally, part of the report addresses the possibility of changing our promotion process. So this report is not really about officer retention, although some of the suggested treatments for this problem are similar to those being used for officer retention (grad school). If you are interested in the officer retention issue, I suggest you hit the Strategic Studies Institutes Virtual Conference: The Future of the U.S. Army Officer Corps - Retaining Talent @ http://www.strategicstudiesinstitute.army.mil/events/details.cfm?q=127. A number of senior army leaders are a part of this, and they need to hear your voice.
I am a major with 15 years of service, and for those guys who have only worked with field grades who care about getting promoted, I am saddened. I have seen plenty. I hope you decide to stay in and change that. We definitely need officers who understand loyalty to subordinates and not how to kiss their bosses fourth point of contact. It might make a career more difficult, but it will only change if you stay in. Our Soldiers deserve no less.
The balance of the study and the resulting report is not about officer retention; it is about making the current and near-future officer corps better (in the editors' opinion), or at least different. Officer retention, in my opinion, has only a tenuous relationship to immediate rewards. When the Menu of Incentives came out for company grade officers, I do not know of a single one of my peers who decided to stay in based solely on the incentives. Those officers who had already decided to move to the civilian sector still left the military, and those who had already decided to stay in took advantage of the money or the civilian masters program.
I agree that increasing the education opportunities for officers will greatly expand the intellectual base of the military, as will filling JIIM billets earlier in an officer's career. The question is: "what is the right balance?" If we look at the US Army only, there are X number of position in deployable units (highest priority in my opinion). Then add the positions required in garrison support units, TRADOC, recruiting, and all of the other organizations that keep one the world's largest bureaucracies operating on a day-to-day basis. Then account for the time to send officers to civilian schools and joint assignments, and you come up with a reasonably accurate number of officers required. Unfortunately every year group of officers for the past decade has started short of its goal and only grows smaller after the initial active service obligation ends.
It is absolutely true that company grade officers, especially platoon leaders and company commanders in maneuver units (including units like artillery batteries that are tasked with a pure-maneuver mission), would greatly benefit from expanded education in liberal arts, communication skills, cultural and anthropological awareness, and the like. But where is the time? If I did not have a well grounded education in the tactical and technical requirements of gunnery, I would have been an abject failure as a platoon leader and battery commander in an artillery unit, even though I deployed as a pure maneuver unit, established a COP, and owned battle space.
Perhaps it is time to develop a new branch of service: The Stability and Reconstruction Force. If we could reduce the federal tax code to an eight page document understandable to someone with a 12th grade education, I know where we could get the manpower and budget to do it.
Robert Jones couldn't have summed it up better. I've see too many officers who look out after "their men" instead of making their boss happy above all things and they are pretty frustrated at their current stage of their careers. While others who make their bosses happy are promoted below the zone.
That sends a clear message to my peers- company grade officers. Surely, it is a fine line but when you look at empirical data, one has to decide which behavior model to choose to be successful.
Educational opportunities are undoubtedly great, but they are not the primary decision factors for some company grade officers getting out.
Personally, I'm all for increased and more flexible educational opportunities for officers. But in many regards, that's kind of like saying that pigs would be better looking if they wore lipstick.
When we broke the stranglehold that the academies had on the production of officers we went a long way to expanding the gene pool of our incoming officers; but then the long, slow, darwinian process of the "make your boss happy above all things" senior rater profile driven evaluation and promotion system begins its dirty work.
I suspect if one asked a hundred military leaders to list the top 10 traits that a military officer should possess, "makes his boss happy" would not be in the top three of many. Yet it drives military advancement. Sad.
I would offer that the program suggested here is one of closing the proverbial barn door after ther horses have already left the service and gone on to do other things in fields where there talents are better appreciated.
"Believe in service enough to stay in the service?"
Have you ever been in the service? I love it, I can easily see myself doing 20+ years. But not everyone feels that way. Some feel that 5 years of being with your family 33%-50% of the time is enough of a sacrifice for the public good of the nation. I'm hard pressed to argue against that logic.
I agree with Ryan, CNAS is by any definition left leaning. Not complaining about that, nor did Andrew, I'm merely saying that it is so. Contrary to popular public (and media) perception, there are a lot of left leaning folks or small 'l' liberals in the Armed Forces. Nothing wrong with that, those Forces are a reflection of the society from which they come and its generally conceded that about 30% lean that way.
Andrew's comments on Nagl prefaced a valid question IMO:<blockquote>"...why don't people believe in service enough to stay in the service."</blockquote>The quick answer to this question, of course, is because they want to do something else (or see the handwriting on the wall and know they will be told to do something else...). The long answer is known only to the individual(s) concerned. Regardless, it's a fair question. Rhetorical almost certainly -- but fair...
SWJED, you may be reading too much into Andrew's comments. On the other hand, most think tanks founded in the last couple years are liberal by default.
Notable founders are a couple of current administration appointees. Such a group are by definition liberal. Current officers formerly worked for Brookings, a liberal think tank, and published in HuffPo; and another formerly for Third Way. Third Way!
Look at the paper titled--grandiosely--"National Security." Any paper which seriously claims that "climate change" is or will be a serious aspect of national security, unless the topic of discussion is how eco-terrorists are motivated by it, is certainly not rightist or even centrist.
Or look at some of its "CNAS Scholars." Tom Ricks is a fine historian and well respected by many people I admire, but lets his vehement liberalism taint much of his work--I felt it ruined Fiasco and sadly renders much of his blog almost unreadable. Andrew Exum voted for Gore in 2000, and hell, enough said--although I am a frequent visitor of his blog as well.
Not to say that being liberal throws your switch one way or the other logically, or NECESSARILY taints your work. But Andrew may not be factually wrong about CNAS. If that was in fact his point.