Army officer here, currently a Captain in the Army Reserve. Most of what this guy says is spot-on but there's one big thing that he missed. Perhaps this does not apply in the Air Force but I suspect that it does:
Senior leaders in big organizations like our military have an unfortunate unwritten mandate to /create/ things: policies, organizations, rules, procedures, etc. This mandate is enforced by the officer evaluation system which demands quantitive measures of performance, eg. "Implemented XYZ policy and achieved 98% compliance rate across Battalion's 510 Soldiers".
It sounds like a good idea to that leader and to the rater and senior rater who evaluate him but in actuality, it creates a shitstorm of busywork for his subordinates and over time, it becomes impossible to get anything meaningful done because of the never-ending load of mandatory upper-leadership-directed tasks and training requirements.
It's a huge fucking mess. Every time I go into somewhere like an Army hospital and I see something posted about the Commander's new policy on electricity usage or whatever, I immediately think "bullet point on this guy's OER". Seriously, people are making careers out of this bullshit. The Army is a never-ending stream of computer-based training requirements. Our Soldiers spend weeks of every year in front of web browsers, trying to complete some horribly broken Flash-based interactive training that "teaches" them safe driving, STD prevention, social engineering awareness, etc. It's all crap and you know that some Colonel got a star for spending $2MM to implement them.
If you want to improve military efficiency and increase troop morale, start rewarding people for eliminating programs.
I would love to have a bullet point on my OER:
* Successfully eliminated five outdated computer security training programs, saving the Army $15MM/year in program costs and 750,000 hours of Soldier training time.
Former USAF officer here, and what you said absolutely applies to the Air Force. It trickles down to the enlisted ranks too. I think right around the time I got out (2010) there was a big push to cut back on useless training AF-wide but I don't think it really worked out. Too much bureaucracy and micromanagement.
He didn't really miss that though. If the military were to ameliorate bullet points 1, 2 and 3 from his list, then your issue would be resolved as well. It's all part of the same perverse incentive generating machine that is administration in the military.
Just as a matter of full disclosure... USMC Officer, though things are probably much different now. (I went through PLC when there was still a Berlin wall.)
1. Private security firms are apparently taking over huge swathes of the not-actually-being-shot-at roles. Are those "soldiers" required to do the same policy busy work?
2. US Armed forces (incl reserve) is nearly 3m. Is that simply too big?
3. I thought the patten quote earlier solved this one - no policy or training DVD tells you what to do, it's telling you how.
OK, I'll do my best here. Obviously, these are my opinions and not official answers.
1. It's not only private security firms; the military uses private contractors for all sorts of tasks and they are subject to just as much administrative overhead.
That said, the ending of major operations in Iraq and Afghanistan has led to a significant downsizing of the military. During the height of the Iraq surge (2007), gates at bases back home were all manned by private security because the Military Police were all deployed downrange. Same thing with dining facilities and a million other support functions. Now that we're downsizing, we've pulled our troops back home and Soldiers are once again serving our food, guarding our gates and fixing our vehicles. This is a Good Thing, in my opinion.
2. I don't think so. From a civilian's perspective, that number may seem huge. Just how many people do you need firing guns, anyway, right? The truth is that a huge percentage of those forces work in support functions: repairing equipment, delivering food and fuel, maintaining communications systems, etc. For every door kicker, there's at least a few (if not dozens of???) Soldiers who support him.
The nature of global threats continue to evolve but the importance of deterrence remains the same. For better or for worse, this country has amazing resources and if we didn't protect it, another bully on the block is going to make a grab for it.
3. If only that quote solved it for us. Sadly, we've moved far beyond the kinetic Army of Patton's day into a zero-defect organization where any problem is automatically deemed unacceptable and must be fixed.
Simple: these are functions that a field army must perform during a major combat operation. (examples: Battle of the Bulge, 2003 Invasion of Iraq, Desert Storm, etc.).
You can't use civilian contractors to fix vehicles alongside of the road under enemy fire. This dangerous work has to be done by Soldiers. These Soldiers need to be trained in their jobs to perform well in combat and these peacetime functions are the best training we can provide here at home.
It seems to me that the root of the US militaey's problems is that it's a giant peacetime military. Until WWII the US military was small in peacetime so that when there was a war promotions based on real performance eventually overwhelmed the peacetime leadership. It's impractical for the US to have a tiny military, but reducing it by 2/3 should be doable if anyone has the political means.
Sorry, but that's just not the case anymore. There's a lot more to weapons systems now than simply figuring out which end to point at the thing you want to hurt. Even getting a straight-leg infanteer up to speed takes more than a couple of weeks these days, and that doesn't begin to account for any of the more sophisticated tools that need trained operators and maintainers. There are some trades (MOCs) you can populate relatively quickly, but there are a whole big bunch of them that take years in peacetime (though you could break some of them down into smaller specialties and fast-track it to months at the expense of having people who know the whole system in wartime). It stopped being about getting a horde of young men to walk slowly and bravely into machine gun fire a long time ago.
This may be true, but we don't need to outspend the rest of the world on defense in "peace" time. I'd also argue that we're very good at building insanely difficult to use systems. Perhaps if getting users up to speed with weapon systems were a design priority this wouldn't be true. After all, everywhere else but the military tech gets more powerful and simpler to use.
> After all, everywhere else but the military tech gets more powerful and simpler to use.
And more disposable. If your modern whiz-bang gizmo dies in the field on civvy street, that may mean a trip to the store. Even those things that can be repaired or worked around are beyond the knowledge and capabilities of most owners/users these days. If it happens on the battlefield, you're dead if you're relying on things you don't understand and can't at least jury-rig to work when they go bing. And no, you can't reschedule. And along with the training you need to make it work, you'd damned well better have the conditioning that allows you to use the training when your own personal ass is on the line. If you are to have a military at all these days, it pretty much has to be a standing military (regular plus reserves). Ad hoc forces are cannon fodder and little more.
That's already happening. We're thinning down rapidly and we're doing it in a smart way. Attrition by the stupid. Do cocaine at a club on the weekend? You're gone. DWI? See ya. Fail body fat standards continually or fail to pass the physical fitness test? You're on your way out. Keep only the best.
That's a start, but it only gets rid of the stupid people.
It leaves the people who are great at checking things off on a list. As long as they stay out of trouble, they might muddle along for decades, until finally retiring as an O-6.
Glad to see a bunch of military folks commenting here. Inculcating a culture of innovation within the service is something I am passionate about, to counter the reality of what this prescient author writes about.
I am part of an organization launching what we call the Defense Entrepreneurs Forum, co-sponsored by the Booth School of Business at UofChicago. Its a TEDx/Startup weekend type event featuring junior warfighters from across the services coming together with civilian entrepreneurs to create new national security and defense solutions. National security in the 21st century will be defined by we in the Innovation generation create through collaborative efforts, breaking the antiquated models of the industrial era.
Patton once said "Never tell people how to do things. Tell them what to do and they will surprise you with their ingenuity." If the author's third point is an accurate representation of reality in the Air Force, I wonder how the armed forces went so far to the other extreme since WW2.
Because the United States won World War II, and because it outclassed every opponent it fought after World War II.
Winning has a very bad effect on innovation. In contrast, it's when you lose that the old doctrines get discredited and innovation has a chance to take hold.
Patton was essentially describing the famous German system of Auftragstaktik (mission tactics), in which junior officers are given an objective and permitted the freedom to decide how to accomplish that objective.
The Prussians developed mission tactics and the modern general staff because they were so shocked by their defeat at the hands of Napoleon. It took Napoleon just three weeks to march into Berlin, winning every battle along the way. Three weeks? Frederick the Great had held out for five years! Clearly, something was very wrong with the Prussian army -- so they figured it out and fixed it.
In the late twentieth century, the Israelis have been the foremost practitioners of German-style mission tactics. And it's because they faced the same situation than the Germans faced, but worse -- surrounded by enemies, and outnumbered. They cannot win on numerical superiority, so they must win on the superiority of their military leadership.
> Clearly, something was very wrong with the Prussian army -- so they figured it out and fixed it.
For more than a century the secret weapon of the Prussian (and then German) military was the General Staff. Whereas other powers started planning once war was declared, the Germans had plans for _everything_ in their drawers: Want to attack Austria tomorrow? Just tell me whether we can assume France and Russia are neutral or not, and the time of the year you want the campaign, and I tell you which drawer to get the plans from.
The birth of the modern university system happened around the same time after Prussia's defeat at Napoleon's hands.
> the Germans had plans for _everything_ in their drawers
We (the US) learned to do the same thing, even to the extreme of War Plan Red, the plan to fight the UK and its colonies, beginning 1927 and updated through 1939. It broke down into sub-plans, one for the UK itself and one for each major colony, including War Plan Crimson, the plan to invade Canada.
Did we imagine we'd have to actually fight the Brits? No, not really; we were just being prepared.
You must have a different definition of "outclassed" to me. If you define it as "if we all stand up in a line and shoot at each other in some kind of suicidal "straight up fight", who does better?", then yes, I can see why you'd say that.
I would say that the NVA categorically outclassed their opponents. On paper, they had all the disadvantages. Outgunned, outnumbered, less well-equipped (well, during the early days of the M16 rifle they were far better equipped since the the NVA had rifles that actually worked - just how "classy" is an army that gives its infantry rifles that don't work and then wastes time denying the problem?), the list goes on and on.
"they won the PR battle though."
And indeed, the actual battle to occupy the south.
There are two ways to win a war. Kill everyone on the other side, or make them want to stop enough to do what you want. The NVA wanted the US to leave, and to occupy the south. They got what they wanted. Of course after the US pulled out; that was what the NVA wanted. They certainly didn't look outclassed as they rolled into Saigon and took over.
Harry Yeide. Fighting Patton: George S. Patton Jr. Through the Eyes of His Enemies
Patton was also a keen student of translated German military literature, such as the World War I memoirs of Hans von Seeckt, the chief of staff of the German 11th Army, and Adolf von Schell’s Battle Leadership. According to military historian Harry Yeide, Patton’s style of commanding comes close to the German concept of Auftragstaktik, or mission-type orders: In German, whereas ein Befehl is a direct order, eine Direktive, a directive, is something broader and less detailed, where the commander states what he wants to achieve but leaves it up to his men how to go about it.
“Never tell people how to do things. Tell them what to do and they will surprise you with their ingenuity,” runs a famous Patton quote. On meddling generals, he noted, “The tactics belong to battalion commanders. If generals knew less tactics, they would interfereless.”
Militaries are like any large bureaucracy--they stagnate in the absence of competition. It's been a long time since the US military got its ass kicked.
Poking around on his blog, I really liked this post: http://www.jqpublic-blog.com/?p=106 (describing the military budget, without some of the shrill hysterics that often accompanies the subject).
I work at a large, non-military government entity. We're in the middle of making some big changes that when complete will save taxpayers a significant chunk of change, and improve the efficiency of a number of things.
I feel like I should be proud of being involved in such a thing -- I'm confident that we will succeed. But I have this lingering doubt as well. Streamlining administration will save money, but it will also introduce the situation that the writer's unit faced -- centralized administration.
Its been my experience that more often than not senior leadership is uniquely unqualified to make effective decisions at a tactical level. Executives are supposed to drive vision, not fiddle with minutiae, right? Compounding this is the idea of taking authority away from the folks down the line -- where is the new generation of leaders going to come from?
His first comment applies to about any organization. I remember working at companies which used various different scales and never saw anyone get below a "B" equivalent grade.
When everyone is great who do you get to fix the problems that are obviously there?
>>Being an expert operator is job enough for anyone all by itself. Having the additional duty of being self-financier, administrative support specialist, training manager, and supply coordinator is enough to stretch most individuals beyond capability limits.
Sounds like working at a startup... except you're making decisions that take or save lives.
Well, what he is likely referring to is the fact that the Air Force has majorly cut and consolidated support fields in the past decade. There used to be finance personnel at every base to help you if you had any problems with your regular pay or travel costs; now that function has been centralized to one center, which is not a horrible idea in itself except that it takes forever to get any paperwork through. Not to mention that if there are any errors, you have to wade back into the mire to try and get it fixed. (I once went on a TDY [temporary duty assignment] for six months and spent the entire time fighting the AF finance machinery over errors in their reimbursement for my travel costs that were not my fault) I would compare it to starting your own company (not that I have done that, bear in mind) and trying to be your own lawyer and advisor for paperwork, taxes, local regulations, whatever. In the military these days, you have to know the intricacies of every rule and regulation inside and out to make sure you don't get screwed.
I wonder if there's a business opportunity there in helping members of the armed services navigate the bureaucracy - for example, bringing in many of the folks who have been made redundant and hiring them out for $x per hour.
I feel like, the whole idea of the military structure is to discourage critical thinking (this is of-course a generalization). It is supposed to make people further down the chain of command pseudo-robots to the people above them. As the people below become more robotic the chain of responsibility shifts UPWARD. So by following orders you push off responsibility to the people above. It's a system in which the more punctual and accurate you are the better. The less thinking you do, the more you will be rewarded. In fact, thinking is dangerous because if you screw up you're on your own.
I kind of disagree with you here, but you are close. The US military encourages critical thinking in all its ranks (something many other nations do not do), but it has to do so while discouraging risky behavior. This is what is so difficult, because unnecessary risks can literally get you and your friends killed. Because of this the US military teaches their officers and soldiers to follow orders but to give it some thought about how it's done. The only career field (that I can think of) where orders are supposed to be followed 'robotically' is the maintenance career field in the Air Force where the Technical Orders (instructions for fixing jets) are the word of God. Most of the time there will be quite a bit of flexibility in an order to encourage critical thinking but discourage risk.
Technical orders are the always the word of God in civil aviatio, too, at least that's my experience.
I can't judge what a military is like, but some big organisations tend to crack down on critical thinking pretty successfully. At least in a military environment I can understand it somehow....
But I suppose without ANY flexibility you would actually drum out the last bit of motivation, right?
I took quite a lot from this - hackers working in large organisations suffer from all of those situations - poor delegation, lack of time for reflection and micromanagement.
Yet given the space we can do amazing things. It seems to me that start-ups are a place where the bad management habits have not yet crept in - and if it is possible to keep them out - as the author hopes, there is a possibility of large and effective organisations
Personally I think dunbars number is a hard limit of human organisations and we shall just have to learn to do with smaller companies - but the lessons still apply
Senior leaders in big organizations like our military have an unfortunate unwritten mandate to /create/ things: policies, organizations, rules, procedures, etc. This mandate is enforced by the officer evaluation system which demands quantitive measures of performance, eg. "Implemented XYZ policy and achieved 98% compliance rate across Battalion's 510 Soldiers".
It sounds like a good idea to that leader and to the rater and senior rater who evaluate him but in actuality, it creates a shitstorm of busywork for his subordinates and over time, it becomes impossible to get anything meaningful done because of the never-ending load of mandatory upper-leadership-directed tasks and training requirements.
It's a huge fucking mess. Every time I go into somewhere like an Army hospital and I see something posted about the Commander's new policy on electricity usage or whatever, I immediately think "bullet point on this guy's OER". Seriously, people are making careers out of this bullshit. The Army is a never-ending stream of computer-based training requirements. Our Soldiers spend weeks of every year in front of web browsers, trying to complete some horribly broken Flash-based interactive training that "teaches" them safe driving, STD prevention, social engineering awareness, etc. It's all crap and you know that some Colonel got a star for spending $2MM to implement them.
If you want to improve military efficiency and increase troop morale, start rewarding people for eliminating programs.
I would love to have a bullet point on my OER:
* Successfully eliminated five outdated computer security training programs, saving the Army $15MM/year in program costs and 750,000 hours of Soldier training time.