Canaries in the Mineshaft
Abu Muqawama – “LTC John Nagl to retire”
Thomas P.M. Barnett – “Flunk the SysAdmin, lose the Leviathan”
The Washington Monthly -“The Army’s Other Crisis: Why the best and brightest young officers are leaving”
I enjoyed reading and was impressed by LTC John Nagl’s Learning How To Eat Soup With A Knife and I heartily recommend it. I have no doubt that he has been given a better offer – probably a much better offer financially and one more in line with his demonstrated abilities – than rolling the dice and sticking with a career in the “up or out” U.S. Army. I’m also certain that Col. Nagl will be contributing to the war of ideas long after he ceases to be a uniformed part of the war and that Nagl probably made the best decision possible for himself and his family. Anyone who believes that a post-Iraq U.S. Army won’t restructure itself by downsizing it’s most talented warfighters in favor of career desk jockeys simply wasn’t paying attention during the 1990’s.
As the links demonstrate, Nagl is merely the well-known face of an ominous trend. When an institution – be it military, educational, corporate, civic, religious – reaches a point where it is merely a farm team that regularly sends it’s best and it’s brightest elsewhere then it is an institution on it’s way out. There is something worse than “breaking the Army”; broken armies get rebuilt because restoring them to health is a national priority. No, the real danger for the U.S. military is an Army that “embraces mediocrity” because if mediocrity becomes entrenched it will not be removed by anything shy of a near-total housecleaning of the general officers. Can you see America’s “no-accountability” Boomer elite doing that ? Or even recognizing if it needed to be done?
I can’t.
ADDENDUM:
Fabius Maximus -“Recommended reading: transforming the Army, the hard way” and “The Army is losing good people. That is only a symptom of a more serious problem.”
Intel Dump -“John Nagl has left the building”
SWJ Blog – “Nagl to Leave Army”
Kings of War – “High-Profile Officer Nagl to Leave Army, Join Think Tank”
Münzenberg:
January 17th, 2008 at 6:36 am
Not much has changed. I was in the Australian Army for five years and it was the same deal. The whole historical pattern can be summed up by Achilles, who was angry with the archetype of useless leadership Agamemnon, where he stated: “Equal fate befalls the negligent and the valiant fighter; equal honor goes to the worthless and the virtuous.”
I’ve always thought that a culling of the top ranks wouldn’t work. The old boy social networks of senior officers permeate over military-political-legal and social networks, and their power is infused with other high up decision makers. Perhaps a bottom up approach might work, like what the samurai did in Japan when their leaders were corrupt and incompetent. So they left them and become Ronin (with the most famous of Ronin being Musashi). Or, alternatively, they just stick it out and weather the storm, like the infantry officer and poet Siegfried Sassoon who was going to leave the slaughter and incompetence of world war one but stuck it out to look after his troops.
Moon:
January 17th, 2008 at 7:00 pm
Not paying attention in the 1990s? How about the 1970s? Same deal went down there, too.
Moon:
January 17th, 2008 at 7:02 pm
Not paying attention in the 1990s? How about the 1970s? Same deal went down then, too.
The Army is losing good people. That is only a symptom of a more serious problem. « Fabius Maximus:
January 18th, 2008 at 12:29 am
[…] only the surface of a serious problem. Zenpundit digs to find a more serious issue in his post Canaries in the mineshaft: Nagl is merely the well-known face of an ominous trend. When an institution – be it military, […]
zen:
January 18th, 2008 at 2:30 am
Hi Munzberg
You have quite the teutonic handle for Down Under :O) Also, great quotation!
"I’ve always thought that a culling of the top ranks wouldn’t work. The old boy social networks of senior officers permeate over military-political-legal and social networks, and their power is infused with other high up decision makers"
The U.S. did overcome the old-boy network on one occasion. Army Chief of Staff George C. Marshall swept away the severely antiquated senior officers corps at the start of WWII and brought up his forward-thinking proteges Ike, Patton, Bradley and the junior officers who were the products of his earlier "Benning Revolution". Unique circumstances though, to say the least.
Hi Moon,
Yeah, you’re right, it happened during the ’70’s too but it overlapped with the rocky transition from conscription to AVF which had professionalization as the goal ( though that really didn’t start bearing fruit until the early 80’s).
Fabius Maximus:
January 18th, 2008 at 5:28 am
Lots of posts out there about Nagl’s resignation, but yours is the only one that goes to the heart of the problem. "When an institution – be it military, educational, corporate, civic, religious – reaches a point where it is merely a farm team that regularly sends it’s best and it’s brightest elsewhere then it is an institution on it’s way out."
There is another level, which I discuss in the blognote you reference above: the Army has known about this problem for a decade or two (I include links to some major studies), and done little about it. That indicates a serious structural problem.
Eddie:
January 18th, 2008 at 5:33 am
Some serious culling in general needs to take place. The public hanging of Rumsfeld, Feith, Bush, Franks, Casey and a few others would be a nice start for the role they played in ravaging the Army worse than Al-Qaeda could ever hope for.But that’s fantasy… in reality, perhaps the best thing we can reasonably do now is hope that Bob Gates could remain the SECDEF beyond Jan. 09 in order to allow the measures he’s created with the top brass (who seemingly get "it", more and more) time. Real reforms like the type that Vandergriff proposes are a pipe dream unless you have a president with the balls (and the mandate) to go after the the rotting troika of retired brass serving on defense contractor boards, pork obsessed congressmen and self-serving brass who specialize in covering their ass in the office while avoiding the battlefield.
Eddie:
January 18th, 2008 at 5:38 am
You & Fabius astutely realize the Army’s role as the Montreal Expos (circa the 1990’s) of the public/private/hybrid sectors. Though given the propensity in the Army nowadays to think throwing money at the problem (the officers, the Iraqi sheiks, the defense contractors) without considering other forms of action will work, perhaps they’re something even more contemptible. I like the WAMO’s take because it hits on the NCO’s as well… that’s getting to be a serious problem too, especially as they rob Peter to pay Paul in approving so many officer packages from the NCO ranks.