{"id":2566,"date":"2008-01-17T04:49:51","date_gmt":"2008-01-17T04:49:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/zenpundit.com\/?p=2566"},"modified":"2008-01-18T02:19:10","modified_gmt":"2008-01-18T02:19:10","slug":"canaries-in-the-mineshaft","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/?p=2566","title":{"rendered":"Canaries in the Mineshaft"},"content":{"rendered":"

Abu Muqawama<\/a><\/strong> – “LTC John Nagl to retire<\/a>”<\/p>\n

Thomas P.M. Barnett<\/a><\/strong> – “Flunk the SysAdmin, lose the Leviathan<\/a>”<\/p>\n

The Washington Monthly<\/a><\/em><\/strong>\u00a0-“The Army’s Other Crisis: Why the best and brightest young officers are leaving<\/a>”<\/p>\n

I enjoyed reading and was impressed <\/a>by LTC John\u00a0Nagl’s<\/strong>\u00a0Learning How To Eat Soup With A Knife<\/em><\/strong> <\/a>and I heartily recommend it. I have no doubt that he has been given a better offer – probably a much better offer\u00a0financially and\u00a0one more in line with his demonstrated abilities\u00a0– than rolling the dice and sticking with a career in the “up or out” U.S. Army.\u00a0 I’m also certain that Col. Nagl will be contributing to the war of ideas long after he ceases to be a uniformed\u00a0part of the war and that\u00a0Nagl 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.<\/p>\n

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\u00a0get 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?<\/p>\n

I can’t.<\/p>\n

ADDENDUM:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Fabius Maximus<\/a><\/strong> -“Recommended reading: transforming the Army, the hard\u00a0way<\/a>” and “The Army is losing good people. That is only a symptom of a more serious\u00a0problem.<\/a>”<\/p>\n

Intel Dump<\/a><\/strong> -“John Nagl has left the building<\/a>”<\/p>\n

SWJ Blog<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0– “Nagl to Leave Army<\/a>”<\/p>\n

Kings of War<\/strong> <\/a>– “High-Profile Officer Nagl to Leave Army, Join Think\u00a0Tank<\/a>”<\/p>\n

Neptunus Lex<\/a><\/strong> -“Brain drain?<\/a>”<\/p>\n

Armchair Generalist<\/strong> <\/a>– “Nagl Leaving the Army<\/a>“<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Abu Muqawama – “LTC John Nagl to retire” Thomas P.M. Barnett – “Flunk the SysAdmin, lose the Leviathan” The Washington Monthly\u00a0-“The Army’s Other Crisis: Why the best and brightest young officers are leaving” I enjoyed reading and was impressed by LTC John\u00a0Nagl’s\u00a0Learning How To Eat Soup With A Knife and I heartily recommend it. I […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[360,361,350,304,424,39,340],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2566","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-21st-century","category-america","category-army","category-defense","category-john-nagl","category-military","category-military-reform"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2566","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2566"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2566\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2566"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2566"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2566"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}