Shortest, but Most Important SWJ Post to Date

Dear arifAA:

The promotion and advancement of Dave Petraeus will be a fine tribute to Robert Gates.

Reduction of the number of flag/general officers by half and holding upper age to that of Petraeus would be the real achievement.

Putting prosecutors in charge of the IG's would be another.

Reform is not anti-military, I don't find that; but, using it for patronage and to fill lacking national leadership positions is to me an affront to its character.

OK Bill, granted on the smokestack industries analogy for the Beltway.

Gates has only been in 18 months, how fast can one man sweep away 60 years of entrenched interests? Lotta money on the table here, let's remember.

What he did do was fire incompetents and people who have decided they will make their own foreign policy, the President (and hence the voters) be damned.

And he made sure that Petreaus, instead of being sidelined to NATO like the institution wanted to do, to punish him for success, instead got CENTCOM. And he bought Petreaus back to sit on the promotion boards to make sure that the younger talent didn't get pushed out but promoted. In WW II this happened a lot faster, but it did happen.

In point of fact we should get rid of the Pentagon and push whatever staff expertise it has to the Regional Commanders - who report directly to SECDEF and then POTUS anyway.

Yes we have a massive bureaucracy at the top, almost resembling the Soviet Command Economy. But it requires Congress to sweep that away.

Good luck on that one. The closest this Congress would be to doing that would be abolishing the military altogether, which in their fondest dreams would make a better world.

Now that's low level political propaganda, not what SWJ posted.

Peace out

Suggest we all consider not opting to low level political propaganda. Historically each party has the capability to staff an administration with very competent national security leadership. Each is equally capable of placing in the NSC, DoD and State a cabal of criminally incompetents. For some one party will improve the quality of your equipment all the while your family is going into foreclosure at home. It takes a great deal of thought to decide.

Gates for all his acclaim has not altered the national security line, has not convinced our allies to invest more, has not shaken up an IG organization that sleeps like the MAGTAG repairman while things in his shop are carried away. We are still operating as heavily armed knights in a land of highly mobile sarasins. Our national security is more likely to be financially destroyed long before our smart weapons influence anything.

In general, we have in our National Security elite the best that could be surfaced from the old Bell System, American automobile industry and other sclerotic organization which outside of the Beltway, I95 corridors and our archipelago of bases have either adapted or disappeared from more capable competitors.

It is time for a change.

As good as SECDEF Gates is (and I was at West Point on TDY when he gave his very famous speech in April) , I would be astonished if he was asked to stay on for more than a day (to transfer all the strategic nuclear codes and procedures) if Senator Obama should be elected. If Senator McCain is elected, it is not only strategically sensible but very politically useful for him to stay on as it satiates a critical constituency.

If I were advising the Democrats:
1) To not change him out would strongly reinforce the perception that the Democrats have no one with Defense gravitas. It would make very useful fodder for the 2010 mid-terms on behalf of the Republicans.

2) It would be perceived in the rest of the world that despite the election of a different party, there is no real change a' comin' with regard to Iraq. Empty election rhetoric.

3) When a party wins the Presidency, it has the right and obligation to put its own people in the key positions.

Absolutely. And he's a quiet, modest guy from all accounts.

You know, if one of the candidates were to take that as a public position, he'd swing the military vote, and probably a lot of voters not serving but concerned with the fate of the nation.

Could not concur more,

The example set by Secretary Gates in being willing to recognize things for what they are and dealing with them accordingly has been most fruitful in requiring the same of those who work for him.

Here, here! Sec. Gates has done a good job and got rid of the controversy that surrounded Sec. Rumsfeld who also had done well up to the end of his tenure. Sec. Gates needs to stay the course until the end of the Bush administration, keep continuity for the sake of the troops!