Rethinking American Defense Strategy

Like many of you, I'm just now catching my breath from the election, the holidays and the inauguration. Unlike many of you, I had a wedding and a trip to Mexico thrown in, so I am just now getting back to the sport of blogging.

With the new administration taking office, one of the biggest challenges will be dealing with the state of the US defense establishment. My friend Lorelei Kelly's excellent piece, " Can the Pentagon Do Hope and Change" brings up more than a few excellent points, especially in the realm of smart spending of our tax dollars.

My issue is somewhat different. My issue with the status of American defense is not with the need for new generation fighter/interceptors (questionable) or naval gunfire support platforms (where are my battleships?). It is this: "What is the proper role of senior military and civilian leaders in dealing with armed conflicts?"

I came up through the Army starting as a buck private. From that level, you can pick out the good officers from the bad. The good ones cared about the soldiers--they weren't easy but you knew you were in good hands. The bad ones put on a show--they acted as if they cared, but their main motivation was a better assignment, the coolest badges, and the highest medals. They put on a show for their senior officers, but the soldiers and sergeants saw through them in a heartbeat. And so did the good senior leaders.

I was lucky. As a new lieutenant, I was in an airborne military police battalion at Fort Bragg, North Carolina. There, I had one of the greatest commanders of my life, Lieutenant Colonel Mike Sullivan. A soldier's soldier, he had started out as an enlisted Marine, became an Army officer, and served two tours in Vietnam. His combat record as a rifle platoon leader in Vietnam, along with the hundreds of parachute jumps he had, made him a legend in the Military Police Corps. He led by example and he was never afraid to tell his bosses when something was terminally f**ked up.

His soldiers literally worshiped him.

The senior leadership of the US military, both uniformed and civilian, need to be like Mike Sullivan. They need to learn to tell the White House and the NSC when something cannot be done, and not just respond with a "hooah" and "we can do it!" That is their job and their Constitutional responsibility. Giving good advice to the President is telling him that there are times when the military instrument of national power is not the right way to deal with a crisis. And to tell the President when, as we used to say, "there is not enough peanut butter for the bread"--when we do not have enough men, guns, tanks and planes to do the job. This gives the White House the ability to make sound judgments at the strategic level.

When it comes to national defense, the White House needs to do one important thing. They need to do some honest to God strategic planning. They need to ask themselves, what contingencies exist for the use of force, and what can we do to prevent them from happening? And if the use of force is the only way to defend our allies and uphold our commitments, they need to do the one thing the previous administration never did.

Give a clear mission with a desired end-state, with achievable objectives in line with the will of the American People.

That is Military Planning 101. And it is what our leaders get paid to do.

Comments

[thebigbike]

The pacifist Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) has a guiding principle that the best military officers have always instinctively known: Speak truth to power..... The present conflicts have raised the presence of the junior officers who are in the field in symbiosis with their men and women getting their boots dirty. I have hopes that their truth telling will affect the military's understanding of its capabilities and limitations, and that honesty will inform the reporting to the civilian authorities. Hey I can hope, can't I???

[Robert Mackey - Huffpost Blogger]

thanks for your thoughtful comments. The point is that senior military officers owe it to the country to no be "yes men" but to tell the civilian leadership honestly what their opinions are. That did not happen in 2002 and we ended up over our collective heads in Iraq.