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Reflective Belts and General Officer Billets
by Mike Few
In critiquing the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, junior officers and enlisted personnel often cite the overuse of reflective belts and other restrictive bureaucratic personnel policies implemented on forward operating bases in country. While this can be construed as soldiers and marines complaining, it might be a valid measure to determine the correlation of top-down, bureaucratic and centralized operations in modern warfare.
For instance, instead of complaining about reflective belts, measure the amount of general officers billets in any given theatre. This number (along with associated higher headquarters, staff, and resources) will provide the analyst with a measure of the military means of the strategy. In Iraq and Afghanistan, we have spent a lot of money and resources to achieve our goals.
When we start look at ways, the approach to how to solve the problem, one must acknowledge that the ways are driven by the means.
In other conflicts, the military footprint was much smaller. In some cases, we had less military advisors than we currently have general officers and reflective belt policies in theatre.
Before we try to transcend COIN, FID, SFA, and IW and move towards strategy, we may want to confront our structure problems.
If we want to start moving towards a more indirect approach, then start by minimizing the higher level staff not telling platoons and companies to work with the locals and local security forces. The boys on the ground figured that out a long time before the think tanks in DC.
This post is another way to visualize the concept of Less is Often More.
(1 vote)
About the Author
Michael Few is a retired military officer who served multiple combat tours to Iraq including the Thunder Runs and The Surge, and he currently serves as the editor of Small Wars Journal. He is a graduate of the United States Military Academy and studied small wars at the Defense Analysis Department at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, CA
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Original content is published under a Creative Commons License per our Terms of Use.
Comments
I have to second that sentiment. The senior leaders are the heart of the problem, through and through. In any organization this is true. When looking at an ate up battalion, for example, the first question should be "how bad are the officers?" If that still doesn't explain everything, then ask how bad are the NCO's. Then, and only then, do you ask if Joe is ate up.
Seeing the results of two different organizations operating in the same AO, one after the other, having dramatically different results one has to ask why. It wasn't the equipment,neither was it Mission, Enemy, Time, Terrain, Troops, nor the Civilians that were the variable. It was the officers realizing that they could use the troops and equipment differently in the same METT-TC conditions. Key difference? The Officers. All the Joes and NCOs in both organizations passed pre-deployment training swimmingly and could shoot and move to standard. But how the leaders imagined their purpose and understood their environment was the key.
On the issue of reflective belts and relfective-belt-esque micromanagement I will say my opinion has shifted. At first I was that PL and jr staff officer moaning about the CSM not having a real job. Then, I came to believe that it was more about avoiding accountability and responsibility. The micromanagement wasn't a symptom of a runaway bureaucracy trying to do too much and mucking things up, it was a symptom of a careerist bureaucracy controlling variables that impact NCOERs and OERs. Personally, I would sooner follow a leader that rewarded risk and proficiency than one who rewarded lack of deficiency. I won't say I'm one that says garrison Army doesn't belong in the field. Discipline is more applicable in the field than garrison in many ways. Discipline is not the issue.
I will leave this point with a real-world example. A single Soldier in a support company failed to catch a maintenance mistake when prepping his weapon, causing a misfire at the gate that injured him enough to go home. The injured Soldier happened to be on the same PB resupply convoy that the CSM was catching a ride on. Result: a land-owning maneuver unit was banned from taking .50 cals on patrol for 6 mo. after that. The 15-6 didn't take 6 mo. Instead of doing corrective training based on the 15-6, the solution was to ban a weapon system from the maneuver Soldiers that had never had a problem. I am certain the leadership that made that call believed their call ensured that will never happen again. But at what cost? And what is the message to the junior NCOs and Officers that mind set sends?
Leaders. The Alpha and the Omega of American wars. Because god knows it's not the bodies, steel, or rubber that we have a deficit of.
From Bill M.'s Dec 11, 8:28 PM comment below:
"At least after inital stumbles in World War II and Korea, the focus was on promoting warriors that could take the fight to the enemy. That is what was lost. The tangible change happened shortly after the Cold War, as we entered a series of deployments (to) Bosnia, Kosovo, Haiti, Somalia, etc.; where the primary objective was to avioid casualties and incidents, not accomplish the mission."
From Andrew Bacevich's "Policing Utopia: The Military Imperatives of Globalization," major section heading entitled "The Clinton Doctrine:" http://www.comw.org/pda/14dec/fulltext/99bacevich.html
"The Clinton Doctrine: "... avoid casualties, hold collateral damage to a minimum, use military action to compel or persuade ... Secretary Albright: "We are talking about using military force but we are not talking about war, she snapped, "I think that is an important distinction."
Should we, in considering the garrison mind-set, etc., take this into consideration, to wit: That, post-the Cold War, the military's purpose came to be perceived as -- not so much to fight and win our nations wars (see Sec. Albright above) -- but to perform constabulary duties in support of globalization?
Having been a defense contractor in the intel world---bottomline---if we are asked to move forward to COPs and lower we go---armed and alot of times we are unarmed.
The problem with the experience side---yes if one is an SME then you have the experience due to years of working specific problems and having the deployments---but the real field experience depicts a large number of times Army personnel do not want to even listen to that experience when it offerred so one learns to refrain from offerring. If you are a SME with the Marines---a total out of body experience as they treat the SME with respect and include them at almost every turn and listen to them.
I always respond to the infighting about contractors in a combat environment--as my answer---IF the military had the manpower and manpower with a big M then you would not be seeing defense contractors in the combat zones---BUT the military does not have the manpower or if they do they do not want to extend the overseas tours to make up for the personnel shortages---have never seen a fully manned by MTOE deployed BCT/RCT.
Fully man the deployed units and you need less contractors--but then again alot of the defense contracting positions do not even exist any more in the military.
It's worth noting that this structural issue has particular relevance in Afghanistan due to the unique constraints on logistic support there. It seems fairly evident that in a landlocked theater where virtually all supply has to transit through problematic areas such as Pakistan and Uzbekistan there's a huge incentive to reduce the footprint and do as much as possible with as little as possible. It does not seem that this incentive is being followed, though.
At least one structural "way" needs, badly, to be addressed and that's the proliferation of civilian contractors. I get the argument that it's supposed to be cheaper in the long run, but there's a definite impact on the ability of troops to perform missions and I think the cost is probably worth it (if that argument is even actually true). Some contractors won't leave the large camps to come to COPs and FOBs to work on systems--send 'em home. Some contractors get the relationship backward and think we're there for them--send 'em home. All contractors have a vested interest in retaining their SME status and do not share expertise with Soldiers, who want to learn to handle their own problems--especially when those problems *will* occur in the field where there are no contractors around to help--send 'em home.
Whether contractors leave the big base to go to smaller bases or not is most likely determined by what their employers tell them to do. If the employer says go to the little base, they go. If they say don't go, they don't. What the employer says is determined by what the contract says. The contracts are negotiated with the gov and should cover what is needed and what is not. If the contractor doesn't abide by the contract, that is one thing. If the contract doesn't cover all that is required, that is another.
In the small piece of the contractor world I'm familiar with, the primary question asked is "How can we help you guys?" I suppose some get the relationship backwards but if that causes a commander to get cross with a contractor, that changes rather quickly.
That all contractors have a vested interest in keeping their secrets is a bit over the top. Welders, pilots, mechanics, haz-mat specialists, laundry supervisors etc etc etc don't possess some secret body of knowledge they refuse to share with the soldiers. They have some common job skills and the military has decided to use them instead of soldiers. There are some programs that are sort of experimental and may or may not be successful and widely adopted. It makes sense to use contractors for those kinds of things. If it doesn't work, the contract is ended and the contractors lose their jobs and find something else to do. Training up soldiers for those kinds of things wouldn't be as sensible.
In any event, if a contractor won't share expertise with soldiers, there is either a faulty contract or a commander who isn't doing their job.
Perhaps my experience is colored by being a Signal NCO. The contractors I work with definitely do have little secrets that they hold onto, and do not spend time with me or my Joes to pass that stuff on. If we want the same issue fixed in the future we either suss it out for ourselves, or call them back.
I've asked to see contracts--they aren't ever available, leaving us to take their word for what's in them.
Even all of that aside, there are more of them than there are of us--that should be a signal to someone. In the future an Infantry Battalion will consist of 300 civilian contractors and a platoon of 11Bs to provide them security.
Robert White:
Somebody in uniform should have been backing you up. I know that is easy to say but I also know that program managements normally worry a whole lot about what the officers in charge think.
Agree that this thing is getting a bit out of hand.
An interesting thing is all the foreign nationals doing military tasks for us; as if the US military is recruiting auxiliaries like the Romans did. Instead of Baleric slingers, we have Ugandan perimeter guards.
The commercialization of war should be setting off massive alarm bells. No matter how much each individual contractor, whether former or retired military, protests to have only the interests of the nation in his heart, the reality is that the private sector is driven by creating and filling niches. In a system where the military, in the officer ranks, is a collection of people who don't aspire to go do anything else with their lives, the military-industrial complex has never been stronger or more dysfunctional. The whole thing has become a game played by adults who won't grow up.
The new term and warfighting function "mission command" replaces C2 and theoretically relies on mission orders and greater subordinate initiative. That would indicate that generals (if not the Command Sergeant Major) do recognize that subordinates are adults that:
* should be given more responsibility
* won't always be able to communicate for instructions
* must be able to react based on commander's intent when mission execution inevitably does not go as planned.
On the other hand, if you look at Vietnam casualties in detail by year, you would find that accidents in some single years accounted for death rates equaling a decade of Afghanistan combat deaths. When troops return to the states, suicide and accidents can take more lives from individual units than a year of combat did. So not so sure we should completely discount measures taken to ensure Soldier safety.
What I find ironic is that the same leadership that would either micromanage safety on the FOB at one extreme, or decry safety as unnecessary from the opposite standpoint, would both then send subordinates out into known minefields riddled with IEDs.
Given the above and that IEDs are the biggest killer on the battlefield in these wars, and therefore won't disappear from future wars, I might partially disagree with Bill M when he says:
"We needed more men and women hitting the streets (saturation patrolling) and less C2 structure. Our revolution in military affairs (RMA) has led to the creation of large inefficient staffs and HQs to manage the large volume of digital data our force now generates. Maybe we need to relook the RMA entirely?"
For instance, following OIF I, if we had used more heavy armor as mobile OPs dispersed throughout Baghdad and other areas, the dismounted patrols would have been fewer, or at least in sight of overwatching armor. With fewer FOBs, you have fewer reflector belts.
Second, local security sensors are not really RMA. But if, for instance, a GCV or M1A2 tank had a telescoping sensor on their turrets, the mobile OP could look out much farther than most dismounted patrols would venture in open terrain. Aerostats can see even farther as can the larger sensor towers located on FOBs and COPs.
Small UAS like Raven and Puma, tactical Shadow UAS, and larger Predator/Reaper/Gray Eagle UAS also ensure local security, and make open movement by insurgents, and monitoring the pattern of daily life a more persistent activity. Patrols pass through an area only briefly...and then purposely avoid the same area in subsequent patrols due to honesty traces. How is that logical or valuable, yet it is essential if you try to do it all with dismounted patrolling alone.
Move Forward:
Do they? Those two items you cite have been tenets of US doctrine for years. They've been given lip service and diligently ignored by most senior folks for most of that time. We'll see if they're serious this time...
The CSMs are doing what they think they're supposed to do. If what they are doing is wrong -- and IMO it is; badly so -- then the folks that nominally tell them what to do are wrong. Ponder that.
I suggest that in both cases you're intimating a jarring lack of tactical and technical competence. That, rather than either viewpoint, should be the issue.
Carry that thought forward and get to Mike Few's strategic plane. Why even send forces to an area where IEDs, notoriously difficult to counter (as they were in Korea and Viet Nam as well as in Iraq and Afghanistan) are the opponent's weapon of last resort. I suggest that is not strategically or technically competent and that it will force poor tactical competence. Fighting the other guy on his turf according to his rules is always a poor strategic choice.
Armor has a place as do Dismounted Patrols. The use of both or either in situations similar to Afghanistan, Iraq or viet Nam is of questionable value. Armor offends civilians, it scares and intimidates them (it also provides iconic targets but that's another thread...), thus it often does as much or more harm than good -- plus it tears up streets and buildings if not very carefully employed. Dismounted patrols do not intimidate and they can favorably sway a populace but they rarely do because most US units are not adequately trained and we will almost never have snough speakers of any language other than English. Not to mention that those patrols, not being native to the area will always miss many clues and nuances.
Neither Armor or Patrols are particularly effective at what they are nominally supposed to be doing. All this is a hangover from the Colonial era -- that left us over 50 years ago. It's okay to be slow to adapt but this is becoming borderline ridiculous.
Ken said: The CSMs are doing what they think they're supposed to do. If what they are doing is wrong -- and IMO it is; badly so -- then the folks that nominally tell them what to do are wrong.
I've seen my Vietnam era father-in-law in action, and doubt he was overly concerned with reflector belts. However, that probably means his bosses weren't either. That may indicate why Vietnam accident rates were so high. Servicemembers are risk-takers, and at that age all young men think they are invulnerable. Sometimes some boundaries are required and as zacchaeus describes, runners do get hit by vehicles.
Also, I wonder why CSM become branch-immaterial like Generals. Seems like a waste of knowledge, especially considering how long they will serve as CSM. If they were more involved in areas they have expertise, they would not be looking for minutia.
Ken said I suggest that in both cases you're intimating a jarring lack of tactical and technical competence. That, rather than either viewpoint, should be the issue.
I'm actually implying that there is a reason why "RMA" tools such as UAS, manned aeroscouts, aerostats, and sensor towers exist. By the same token small and large line charges, mine dogs, MRAP/M-ATV/JLTV, bangolo torpedoes of yesteryear, mine plows and rollers, etc. all exist for a reason.
Even NVGs that would theoretically make us a more effective night patrol force are of limited use since they offer fewer visual cues of IEDs. They could prove more valuable if we could risk more OPs out all night. If larger armored vehicles that are already elevated also had telescoping sensors, troops could see for multiple kilometers. For lighter infantry, what if we put a fighting position with partially-filled HESCO and overhead cover on a PLS flatrack and placed it in an area with clear observation and fields of fire? If some of these "RMA" tools could substitute for night patrols and see threats more persistently during the day, they would seem like preferable no-brainers. Instead, many write them off as overly complex, or ahistorical undesirables.
Ken said Carry that thought forward and get to Mike Few's strategic plane. Why even send forces to an area where IEDs, notoriously difficult to counter (as they were in Korea and Viet Nam as well as in Iraq and Afghanistan) are the opponent's weapon of last resort. I suggest that is not strategically or technically competent and that it will force poor tactical competence. Fighting the other guy on his turf according to his rules is always a poor strategic choice.
The military does not decide where it is employed or why. It may not even decide how it is employed. There appears to be ample evidence that surging troops is not harmful and appears to help. If you were running a business, you would certainly evaluate the evidence and make that conclusion, even if other factors contributed such as in Iraq. Surges cost more, but preclude sanctuaries and offer the prospect of more rapidly trained and emplaced host nation forces if done right. If that shortens the war, then it makes sense money-wise. Five years X $100 billion is less costly than 10 years X an average 70 billion.
If at some point that use of military force restores Iraqi oil production to pre oil-for-food levels it also has value. If the current Arab Spring continues to occupy the attention of despots and eventually hits Iran, the current wars will have been worth it. If a nuclear device with a Pakistan point of origin never goes off, the savings in $ are trillions, and in lives are priceless.
We effectively surround Iran and Pakistani-based terrorists with allies. Our interagency partners can overfly Iran with stealthy UAS, and Afghanistan/Pakistan with normal less-costly UAS which we could not do with strictly a sea presence.
Move Forward:
One should, however, insure that those boundaries are not so tightly set as to foster inhibition.
I'm also of a mind with zacchaeus' Marine Officer. Contrary to what far too many seem to think, it is not the job of the leaders of the Armed Forces to play nursemaid to their minions. That penchant regrettably entails treating ones subordinates like immature children -- and then many wonder why that self fulfilling prophecy is so pervasive. Treat them like adults and jail them if they screw up and many will be amazed at what the kids can and will do.
You're correct on the CSM and the branch immaterial stupidity; that's criminal in its inapplicability -- but it makes the job of the Per wienies easier and it makes Congress think the Army is being 'fair.' Me, I'm still waiting for a war that's fair...
That's easy. They exist to fill a presumed need. My point was and is that greater strategic sense and tactical competence might preclude that 'need.' Using the latest and greatest tools to do a poor job is not one bit smarter than using obsolete tools to do a poor job. For example:
Why are we discussing ways of marginnally improving poor techniques in a type of warfare at which we will never do well and at which we are at a significant disadvantage? Why not figure out how to NOT to have to use that stuff...
Back in my Instructor days, I used to point out to the Armor Officer Advanced Course students that trying to do the expected thing on a dumb route was not a way to achieve surprise and was in fact likely to lead to defeat in detail. I also often noted that the excellence of the M1 tank and its FCS and of the crews in using that system was great -- and measurable -- but that I'd seen more US tanks destroyed as a result of tactical ineptitude than I had by enemy good or better gunnery. Those principles still apply and do so on the operational and strategic levels as well...
The first clause is true with some caveats; the services' tendency to not forcefully object to strategic or operational misuse is part of that problem as is their clinging to obsolete TTP due to risk aversion which ties (deliberately...) policy maker's hand and gives them few options. It may not be militarily sound but is safer career wise to not be too capable or offer too many options... :(
The second clause can be but is not generally correct insofar as tactical efforts go. The more egregious foolish errors of employment in Viet Nam, in Iraq and in Afghanistan were virtually 100% service induced (and service peculiar...).
Better trained forces of more selectively obtained new entrants, Officer and Enlisted, might not produce a need for "surges" and might enable operations other than five to ten year wars -- we do not do those at all well. Attempting to fight opponents who will always be more flexible than we are at the macro level on their terrain using their methods or passé techniques and new kit is simply not smart. We can do better.
I had to laugh when I read the title of your post. It reminded me of my time in ROTC in the early 90s.
We used to PT at 0530 in an urban area. We had 4 or 5 students get hit by cars on indiviual runs. When the senior Marine Officer was asked why he didn't make us wear reflective belts, he responded, "If they are not smart enough to avoid traffic; they are not smart enough to lead Marines."
That probably wouldn't go over too well today...
This is micro-management, not top down strategy, and the difference is important. The GO's and their senior enlisted advisors who focus on this crap are generally incompetent and incapable of developing COIN or war fighting strategies and plans. The stupidity witnessed in OIF on the FOBs would have made a good comedy if it wasn't a symptom of serious problems in the force and especially with its leaders. That is why only a handful of general officers stood out as being competent. There is something wrong with our system, if only a handful of our GOs are tactically to strategically competent. The symptoms included socks stuck in magazine wells (instead of magazines, because apparently the soldiers were not trained well enough to actually have bullets mated with their weapon), reflective belts for those on perimeter patrol (because hey, its just another day in garrison), 10 mph speed limits enforced by MPs who never left the FOB, to include giving tickets to guys rehearsing for a raid with their vehicles in a designated training/rehearsal area.
However the good news is Iraq and Afghanistan are abberrations, and it unlikely we could have removed Saddam with less force, to the contrary we had a dangerously small force for the mission due to Rumfield's hubris. Sometimes mass is needed, but that mass needs to be organized and focused on the mission. Instead we had a huge mass pinned down by our bureaucracy on FOBs. We needed more men and women hitting the streets (saturation patrolling) and less C2 structure. Our revolution in military affairs (RMA) has led to the creation of large inefficient staffs and HQs to manage the large volume of digital data our force now generates. Maybe we need to relook the RMA entirely?
BillM
Steve jobs argued that effective top-down required micromanagement. See iPhone iPad.
Mintzberg argued bureaucracies by nature micromanage. This is what is called centralization.
So, how can you implement a bottom up, indirect strategy in that environment?
MikeF,
Do we need a decentralized strategy? How does that work exactly? We need a "strategy", and how it is implemented is based on regional dynamics within each commander's area of responsibility, but they better be striving towards accomplishing one over all strategy or we're lost.
I think we need to stay away from the term indirect strategy, it leads us down the same rat hole the "through, by and with" mantra drags us into. We confuse "a" way (indirect) as the way, and sometimes confuse indirect as being a strategy. I'll simplify this, because COIN often involves more than defeating an insurgency, but if the military objective is to defeat a particular guerrilla organization, then you don't defeat it indirectly, you defeat it by creating certain effects against that group that destroy it or compel it to move towards a peace arrangement. The most important part of the strategy is determining what those effects are, and then determine the best means to accomplish them whether direct or indirect. We can already that many of our indirect approaches have failed, because they weren't tied to a strategy.
Bill M,
This is a very valid point, and one that I don't know the answer to. Going back to your earlier question, Maybe we need to relook the RMA entirely?
I was thinking about this yesterday. Every year, we typically give our extra canned goods to food banks around Christmas that deliver them to families in need of some extra food. I suppose it makes us feel good to help out others with sharing our excess, doing goodwill, doing our duty, etc. On the one hand, it feels like we're doing the right thing; however, I recently read a report that argued that everyone needs to stop giving canned goods to these charity organizations because the process is inefficient (actually cost more to run than it helps) and one is better off giving money directly to aid organizations that routinely distribute aid to the poor and homeless.
Kinda makes you think huh?
Bill M.,
This information may be elsewhere, but I wonder what your rough vintage is as far as military service? I ask because the stock answers we get to this sort of discourse on incompetence is that either we don't get it, or it has always been this way. Some of the esteemed seniors I talk to (who left at the O-5 to O-6 ranks) argue that it has not "always been this way." They see a significant degradation in the quality of senior level leadership in the military today. What do you see from your perspective? How has this changed and when? What were the drivers? I don't believe that it is solely due to digital data, but I think that is part of the picture.
Personally, I think it has all become a game for the institutional leadership. They don't necessarily think that it has become a game, but war has been trivialized to the point of serving personal, bureaucratic, and domestic political interests. The lack of seriousness, from the reflective belts to the bloated staffs to the failed policies, makes one feel that so much of our last decade has been a petty waste of tremendous sacrifices and resources. There are a lot of very jaded people in the middle ranks because of this.
A parting thought. Does Goldwater-Nichols have a large role to play in this? By removing the services farther from the business of warfighting, did we make the outlook of the leadership more, not less parochial, in some ways? Does this explain some of the out-of-touch policies?
Peter,
I retired from active duty last year and began my service in the late 70s. Maybe to some extent there has always been the perception of of incompetence in the military. It was clear after reading "Army at Dawn" that our Army wasn't competent when it entered WWII, and the troubles we had when we first went into the Korean conflict are well known. War is probably the most complex endeavor man engages in, so mistakes by all sides are common, but I am making reference to something different. At least after initial stumbles in WWII and Korea, the focus was on promoting warriors that would take the fight to the enemy and win. That is what is lost.
The tangible change happened shortly after the Cold War ended, and we entered a series of deployments Bosnia, Kosovo, Haiti, Somalia, etc. where the primary objective was to avoid casualties and incidents, not accomplish the mission. This translated into training also, our training was watered down considerably due to safety restrictions. Warriors were frowned on, while weak bureaucrats who implemented extremely silly rules that were focused on one thing, avoiding casualties and incidents (such as the ever present General Order #1), because incidents were career killers. If we ever engage in a real war, I'm not sure how many officers we'll have to bring back on active duty to conduct all the 15-6 investigations everytime someone gets killed.
Our officers know they'll get promoted to O5/O6 if they play it safe, but those are not the type of officers we need protecting our nation. Ken said technology was only part of the problem, which is true, but I think it may be greater than some assume. Why practice good infantry tactics if our technology allows us to own the sky? All we have to do is call for air strikes and express remorse about collateral damage, and then express dismay on why the people we're supposed to be helping are turning against us. Not to mention the micromanagement that our new technology enables.
The 90s was also a pivot due to the peace dividend, which was a rapid downsizing of the force. Many officers were forced out, and people learned to lay low hoping their number wouldn't be called. Again dynamic leaders and trainers were frowned upon in the "new" army. Unfortunately we may experience aunoter rapid downsizing, so will we keep those junior leaders who risks and learned, or keep those who on paper didn't make any mistakes, but at the same time couldn't lead a squad of privates to the mess hall?
I'm just scratching the surface, but the problems were very real. If we don't learn the right lessons when we transitioned from the Cold War to a peacetime Army (really after DESERT STORM), we may end up repeating them again.
Peter J. Munson:
I'm sure Bill M. can and will answer for himself but your post hit several of my pet rocks...
In order it has in my fairly long life always been this way (to an extent); we do get it and, perhaps of an age with your departed seniors or even greater, it has indeed gotten progressively worse in my estimation during my 45 years of Federal service, military and civilian. At the time of my military retirement (1977) a distinct trend starting post WW II was gaining downslope impetus due to increased information availability, a strong trend, fostered by Congress (or, more correctly, a bunch of Congressional staffers...) toward centralization and effciency (forgetting that while centralization generally provides greater efficiencies, it also generally harms effectiveness...) and, more damaging IMO, toward a personnel sys tem that was "fair" as Congress saw it and which used "objective criteria" for personnel actions. Laudable goals in all cases but which got woefully if not wilfully overdone.
By the time of my civilian retirement in 1995, the culture of go-along, get-along and micromanagement for fun and profit were embedded attributes. According to those still serving with whom I speak regularly, it has gotten still worse.
You second paragraph is quite accurate.
Goldwater-Nichols did indeed play a large role, IMO not so much in removing the services as in politicizing the CinCs -- and creating large Staffs for them, Staffs that must have things to do. Add in a dysfuntional WW I (no typo) based personnel system, the penchant of Congress to support inane contracts to provide jobs and a deeply flawed emphasis on 'standards' (Flight standards are necessary as are the checklists; tactical competence does not lend itself to any 'standard' other then success in combat or to checklists...) plus a number of well intentioned but unduly intrusive statutes and we have a system that is enroute to mediocrity.
We just need to get back to the basics, significantly improve out initial entry training, Officer and Enlisted (the Marines do a better job of that than do the other services; all need improvement), get the armed forces out of politics -- and diplomacy...
I'm not particularly optimistic any of that will happen lacking a major existential crisis...
Oh, on the we just don't get it issue, I've been told that in public by a number of FlagOs over the years -- I've also been assured by many of them in private that I do in fact get it but that the system is virtually impervious to change and that any public acknowledgement of error is verboten...
double post