The Army’s Next Enemy? Peace. By LTG David W. Barno (USA Ret.), Washington Post
The Army is emerging from 13 years of war, battle-tested but weary. It is under pressure from budget cuts, the return of nearly the entire force to domestic bases, and a nation wary of deploying land power after two long conflicts. Yet perhaps the most important challenge facing the Army is not about finances, logistics or public opinion, but about culture — its own.
A conflict looms between the Army’s wartime ethos of individual initiative and the bureaucratic malaise that peacetime brings. The Army is about to make an abrupt shift: from a sizable, well-resourced, forward-deployed, combat-focused force to a much smaller, austerely funded, home-stationed service. Training and preparation for war will take the place of actually waging it. The Army is moving from 13 straight years of playing in the Super Bowl to an indefinite number of seasons scrimmaging with itself…
Comments
Training and being prepared for the next war is what being a professional officer or NCO is about. There is more than enough things to focus on, to include achieving and sustaining readiness with reduced resources to keep these folks occupied.
Yes, the challenges will be different than the last 13 years, but they will be no less critical to the nation. Oftentimes, the hard work is dull, boring, and bureaucratic, but thats what separates a a professional force from a rabble.
And for sure different factions in the Army are pushing different memes for funding or ideology. Big expeditionary COIN via a Republic like ours has not worked and drones and mil-mil training can be oversold so we are at an impasse only policy and the American people can solve. The fight has begun and we are seeing the civilian counterreactions occurring.
That's a fair point, he doesn't do that in the article, it is mostly about frustration with barracks rules. But do you buy the premise altogether? Didn't 'milocracy' and bureaucracy rule the day in our campaigns, especially NATO and Afghanistan? It was half peacetime, half war institutionally. And the Army is understandably confused about its role with Hollywood and the Administration adding to the confusion: our guys everywhere, dark matter warriors, policing the dark areas of the globe, keeping the world safe. I don't even know what's real and what is being sold to a civilian like me anymore. I respect the military, I just don't know what is real or who to trust. But your point is a fair one. His article is about the dreariness of a certain kind of mindless paper pushing. The title is really messed up though. It trivializes war.
I thought complacency and a certain 'peacetime' attitude of dragging out things did affect our forever global war-on-terror campaigns on some level? At any rate, regretting peace seems to be a negative outcome of the professional all volunteer Army, doesn't it? And thus the fetishization of the sexy Special Forces raiding as the face of it all. Too bad. Your normcore qualities are your best feature.